Martian strike fleet.
At the center of the command hall, a holographic sphere flickers with tactical fire—
ships, trajectories, impact points, enemy pulses—
all merging into a living mosaic of the hell to come.
Each beam: a potential death.
Each flicker: someone's fate.
Before this glowing storm sits Admiral Tyler,
his posture unshakable, his fingers sliding across the interface with deadly precision.
Everything is under control.
Almost.
And then—
the hologram shivers in his eyes.
Reality begins to fracture.
Yulia.
A flash of her face—
cold, silent, too vivid to be a machine.
Too far away to forget.
He flinches.
Not now. Not here.
Why did you leave?
Why them?
Was I never enough?
He clenches his fist, nails digging into his palm until pain blooms.
Pain is real.
Unlike her.
That's when it happens.
Alarm.
A burst of shrill warning, like lightning shattering through molten air.
"Incoming fire! Sweepers are under attack!"
The report hits from the left sector.
Tyler snaps back—
as if surfacing from underwater, lungs burning.
His voice cuts like a whip:
"Battle stations! All ships to positions!
Damaged units—fall back! Get them out alive! ALIVE!"
Warning tones howl from the control systems,
like the fleet itself senses its own blood beginning to spill.
Panic charges the air like static before the storm.
But inside Tyler—
there's only the storm.
Everything slows.
He sees commands shouted, explosions blooming—
but behind it all, her eyes.
Somewhere. Watching. Silent.
What if she's out there—on the other side?
What if she's aiming at us?
"Too late, Admiral," crackles a voice from the front.
Distorted. Like a whisper from the underworld.
"One sweeper's gone critical. We're losing control."
The screens erupt in chaos.
Flashes. Debris. Ships twisting into fragments.
Tyler doesn't scream.
He whispers—barely audible:
"We're losing ships…"
It's not a report.
It's a confession.
He should be unshakable.
But the fracture has begun.
The armor's cracking.
"Mines ahead!" someone shouts on the right. "The corridor's rigged!"
"Deploy drones. Now."
From the cruisers, they burst out—
a swarm of furious wasps, weaving a lattice of sacrifice.
Explosions follow instantly.
Mines slam into them like hammers on bone.
One after another, they fall—no hesitation, no fear.
"They're dying for us…"
A voice behind him. Quiet. Reverent.
Tyler nods without turning.
Even in silence, his respect bleeds through.
"Reinforce the line," he commands,
voice snapping back to steel.
"Two-layer defense. Let the flanks bleed if they must—
the core must hold!"
Let them try to break our edges.
Let the front stand like the wall of a world.
His eyes scan the holograms.
Every point: a ship.
Every flicker: a farewell.
Yulia… if you're there… don't fire. Just don't pull the trigger.
The drones adapt—like a herd of predators, bound by instinct to a single will.
The fleet slows, but it holds.
Like breath before collapse.
Cruisers shake, but keep formation—
as if carrying the weight of the heavens across fragile backs.
Tyler goes still.
For a heartbeat—everything falls away.
Just emptiness.
And her face in it.
She never looked at me as her commander.
Not as a man.
She looked at me like a choice.
And maybe—maybe I invented her love.
He doesn't breathe.
He gives the next order.
"Condense formation. Prepare for close quarters. Begin loss compensation.
We need everyone."
Officers nod. Machines obey.
But inside Tyler—
only silence.
He knows.
All that remains is the fight.
Only the fight.
And the hope—
that somewhere, in some other corridor of war—
she watches.
And remembers.