Rescue vessel Scythian.
The distress signal cuts through the silence like shattered glass.
On the bridge—tension.
Not the storm itself, but the moment before it breaks.
Captain Manuel bolts upright in his chair.
"Stations, now!"
The crew snaps into motion like a single nerve firing.
Consoles flare to life. Screens light up.
The air charges with electric anticipation.
Maria and Pietro move as one.
No words, no hesitation—just pure execution.
This is what we trained for.
All that matters now is forward momentum.
"We've got work," Manuel rasps, eyes locked on the monitor.
"Distress call. Survivors. Right inside the blast zone. We pick up the pods—fast."
"Contact!"
Maria's voice sharpens, her fingers dancing across the console with fluid precision.
"Six pods. All with life signs."
"Copy that.
Pietro—first pod. Fast, but smooth."
The Scythian glides through the wreckage like a predator threading a graveyard.
Outside the viewports: burning fragments of the shattered station,
hovering in zero gravity like the bones of a fallen titan.
"Manipulator online," Maria reports—
voice flat, precise.
"First pod secured in the lock."
"Good.
Next."
Another maneuver.
Time thickens.
The pod drifts closer—like a suspended heart caught in silence.
The manipulator extends—like the hand of fate.
"Second—locked."
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
At the fifth pod—
almost a miss.
The arm snatches it in the last possible instant, just meters from a radiation field.
Damn. That was a hair from death.
Half a second later, and it would've been over.
The last pod hovers right on the edge—
but Scythian is surgical.
"All six secured," Maria announces.
She leans back in her seat, breath catching, then leveling.
"No other signals in our sector. Other teams are sweeping adjacent zones."
"Perfect.
Good work, all of you.
Now—medical support, immediately."
**
Hangar Bay.
The pods hiss open like armored shells,
releasing figures that barely survived.
Tall. Massive. Burnt.
Some blackened. Armor scorched.
Panels peeled back. Emblems melted. Sensors blown blind.
But they live.
Vicar. Jamal. Alex. Yulia. Daniel. Tala.
Faces still hidden.
But the tension rolls off them like static.
Vicar lifts his gaze—
ice behind his visor.
And beneath that—
a flicker of gratitude, raw and unguarded.
He reaches out a hand to Pietro.
Measured. Controlled. Like a protocol gesture.
But behind it—
the weight of survival.
"You came in time," he says quietly.
"We owe you."
"You'd have done the same in our place," Pietro replies.
His grip is firm.
"We don't choose who to save.
We just do what needs to be done."
Start dividing the dead into 'ours' and 'theirs'—
and you die with them.
"Welcome aboard,"
Maria cuts in—sharp, almost slicing the moment in two.
"If you need medical attention, follow the green lights. No delays."
"This way," Manuel adds, voice softer now.
"I'll show you to your quarters.
You'll need time. And recovery."
The androids nod in silence.
Their movements stiff, reluctant—like rusted machinery.
But in their eyes—
not death.
Not despair.
Something colder.
Sharper.
Understanding.
This was only the beginning.
Now comes the real tragedy.