Prologue — Mercury
I learned early that war has a flavor. It is copper and salt at first, then iron, then something older ozone scorched into the back of the throat by weapons that split air faster than thought. On Mercury the taste never left. The planet has no mercy for the living; it strips pretense from men and metals alike. Gravity here is a quiet tyrant lighter than Earth's, but treacherous, a liar that lets you leap higher and fall longer. Every motion must be earned twice. I drew my sword and felt its weight argue with the sun.
The blade was old, not in years but in purpose. It had been folded and reforged until the metal remembered only violence. When I moved, the gravity delayed my intent by a fraction, just long enough to punish hesitation. Sweat ran down my spine beneath the armor, slick and hot, catching dust that tasted like crushed glass. The air screamed with distant sonic rounds flat, concussive cracks that slapped the chest even when they missed. Somewhere to my left a city burned without flame, its structures peeled open by pressure and heat. They came at us as they always did not charging, not retreating advancing the way weather does.
They were eight feet tall and built like inevitability. Six fingers on each hand, long and jointed, perfect for gripping, tearing, breaking. Red skin stretched tight over muscle engineered for acceleration, not endurance. White tattoo-markings ran across them in ritual geometry maps of victories, perhaps, or instructions. Black horns crowned their skulls, sweeping back like bladed crescents. No ears. No need to listen. Their noses were snake-like slits, tasting the air for fear and blood. Humanoid only in the way a knife resembles a bone. They existed to kill. Not as ideology. As biology.
I stepped forward and met the first with a downward cut meant to sever the clavicle. The blade hummed as it bit, and the impact rang up my arm. Bone gave way; muscle parted. The creature's scream was thin and brief, a pressure vent rather than pain. I pivoted on the heel Mercury let me turn faster than I deserved and drove my shoulder into its center mass, feeling ribs collapse like brittle scaffolding. When it fell, it did not reach for me. It reached for its weapon. Even dying, it chose efficiency.
I ended it because mercy is slower. Around me fought the coalition humans, and others whose names I did not have time to remember. We were an argument written in blood: that peace could be defended, that prosperity was not naïve. We moved together, imperfectly, a geometry of survival. Plasma lit the ground in brief suns. A sonic round took a man behind me and erased his head without sound; his body folded, obedient, unaware it was finished. I did not look back. War punishes witnesses.
They were faster than us. Stronger. Their tendons stored and released force like springs, their reflexes sharpened by generations of selection that had culled hesitation. Against them, skill was insufficient. Only adaptation closed the gap. I am altered.
My muscles fire before I finish thinking. My heart can outrun panic. The bones of my forearms are laced to absorb shock; the spine reinforced to keep me upright when physics tries to end me. I do not heal like a myth I heal like a machine designed to return to function. This knowledge does not make me brave. It makes me responsible.
A horned one feinted high and came low with a hooked blade. I let the gravity take me, dropped my center, and felt the weapon pass over my shoulder. My countercut was short, brutal a wrist slice that severed tendons cleanly. Six fingers spasmed open, weapon clattering. I stepped inside its reach, smelled the hot, animal sweetness of its blood, and drove the pommel into its throat. The cartilage collapsed with a sound like wet paper. When it fell, it tried to crawl. I took its head because screams carry. Philosophy does not abandon you in war. It sharpens.
I thought of peace not as an absence of violence but as a discipline something that must be practiced daily against entropy. These beings were not evil; they were optimized. The universe had taught them a lesson and they had learned it perfectly. To hate them would be childish. To excuse them would be suicidal. Another wave hit us. Their shadows stretched long under the sun, horns cutting the light into serrated crowns. The ground trembled as distant artillery folded space into noise. I heard the final screams then not close, but far enough to tell me a flank had broken. The coalition line bent. We had seconds.
I raised my blade and advanced because retreat is a luxury bought by someone else's death. The choreography became narrow and absolute. Swing, step, cut. Cut, turn, thrust. The sword described arcs that my body remembered even as my mind slipped. Each strike was a sentence, each parry a rebuttal. Blood sprayed in brief fans and steamed when it hit the ground. Ozone burned my lungs. Sweat stung my eyes. Somewhere a commander shouted orders that arrived too late to matter.
I killed one by breaking its knee and letting gravity finish the argument. Another I disarmed and shoved into the path of a sonic round; the impact folded it inward like a collapsing star. When my blade nicked horn instead of flesh, sparks leapt and the recoil sang through my arms. I welcomed the pain. It meant I was still here. At last the line held. Not because we were stronger, but because we were stubborn enough to refuse collapse. The enemy withdrew with the same indifference they had advanced, carrying their wounded because every resource mattered to them. They left their dead because they were already counted.
I stood amid the aftermath and listened to the planet breathe heat cracking stone, distant detonations echoing like thunder trapped in a cavern. The smell of blood clung to everything. I wiped my blade clean and felt the tremor finally arrive, delayed by design.
Peace, I decided, is not the opposite of war. It is war conducted with a longer memory. I did not know then what would be taken from my son, or what he would become in the accounting that followed. I knew only this: that if the universe could birth a species for terror, it would demand an answer. And answers, once given, are never forgiven. I sheathed my sword and turned back toward the fire.
Act I — Night of Diamond Rain
Chapter One: A Kiss of Sage
The classroom smelled of sage and warm circuitry.
It drifted gently from the vents in the ceiling, a calming compound tuned for developing minds sharp enough to keep you alert, soft enough to make the hours feel shorter than they were. Sunlight from Luna's adapted sky poured through the wide arc of lunar glass overhead, scattering into pale gold and silver ribbons across the polished floor. Outside, the moon no longer looked like a wound in space. It breathed now. Cities glimmered where craters once slept, and transport lanes traced slow, graceful curves like veins beneath translucent skin.
I leaned back in my seat and let the light slide across my uniform. Silver and blue, The fabric caught the glow easily, reflective without being loud, cool against my wrists. Around me, the classroom arranged itself in color and meaning the way it always did, though no one ever spoke of it aloud. Black and green uniforms filled the mid tiers children of traders, councillors, and martial sects small enough to still argue over territory and profit. They spoke quietly to one another, sharing notes, trading glances that already carried calculations older than we were.
Closer to the center sat black and red. Mid-level warrior families. Governors' heirs. Future doctors and professors. They paid closer attention, asked sharper questions, and laughed less often. Their uniforms bore the faint wear of training fields and long evenings bent over data slates.
White stood apart, almost ceremonial in their spacing. Planet Lords. Trade Legion families. Builders of armies and infrastructure so vast it bent entire economies. Their presence changed the shape of a room without a word. Silver and blue occupied the lower arc visible, deliberate, impossible to misplace. Planetary leaders. Politicians. High-ranking generals. Fleet commanders. Or, in my case, their children.
I was fourteen. I still hated early mornings and loved the way Luna's gravity made everything feel just a little lighter than it should. I tapped my fingers softly against the desk, counting the minutes until the bell while pretending I wasn't. At the center of it all stood Denas.
He was tall, elongated, his form elegant in a way that suggested patience rather than warmth. His skin shifted subtly between deep umber and ash, faint bioluminescent veins glowing softly beneath the surface, brightening and dimming with his speech. He had no hair, no visible pupils, and a voice that carried two tones at once one heard, the other felt, like a vibration just behind the sternum.
"Settle," Denas said gently, and the room obeyed without thinking about it. A projection unfolded behind him stars blooming into view, constellations rearranging themselves into something purposeful.
"Today," Denas began, "we continue our discussion on the Great War. Tell me what do we mean when we say allied races?" A hand shot up from black and green. "Species that shared trade routes and defense pacts," the student said quickly. "Economic necessity." Denas inclined his head. "Correct. In part." Another hand, this time black and red. "Mutual survival," the student added. "The Vaamea forced cooperation." A ripple of murmurs followed, some curious, some rehearsed.
"And you?" Denas asked, turning slightly toward the silver and blue tier. I straightened without meaning to. "Shared memory," I said, not looking away from the projection. "Once the fighting started, no one could afford to forget." Denas's veins brightened a shade. Approval flickered through the room like static. "Yes," he said. "Memory shared, reinforced, and preserved."
The display shifted. Hundreds of species appeared, layered across star systems like a living tapestry. Humans were there small in number, large in reach woven between others who breathed methane, light, or things without names in our language. "The allied races were not unified by belief," Denas said. "They were unified by timing." A student in white raised a hand. "Professor, if the Vaamea were so dangerous, why weren't they stopped earlier?"
A fair question. Denas seemed pleased. "Because danger is often misidentified," he replied. With a gesture, the image changed again. The Vaamea appeared towering, red-skinned, crowned with black horns, white markings carved into their flesh like living scripture. Eight feet tall. Six fingers. Humanoid, but refined no excess, no softness. No ears. Snake-like noses tasting the air itself. "They were not conquerors at first," Denas said. "They were survivors. Evolution sculpted them for conflict the way water sculpts stone." A student near me whispered, "They look like something from a myth," and someone else quietly shushed them.
Denas heard anyway "Many myths begin as accurate descriptions," he said calmly. "They become legends only when distance dulls detail." A few students chuckled. The tension eased, just slightly. The projection shifted once more Mercury, burning beneath its relentless sun. Coalition forces clashed with Vaamea war-forms, sonic detonations rippling across the battlefield in silent waves. Blades flashed. Figures moved too quickly for untrained eyes to track. "How many allied species were involved at the height of the war?" Denas asked. "Three hundred and twelve," a student answered immediately.
"And how many remain formally allied today?" A pause. "Two hundred and six," someone said, less confidently. Denas nodded. "History is not only written in victories," he said. "It is written in what does not survive the peace." The room absorbed that in thoughtful quiet, but not heaviness. Not yet. I found my attention drifting back to the window, to the slow traffic lanes threading Luna's horizon. A transport glided past, its hull catching the sun like polished stone. Somewhere, friends would be arguing about games or sneaking snacks into dorms. My next class was navigation theory, which meant simulations instead of lectures. The bell chimed clear, gentle, welcome.
Chairs shifted. Fabric rustled. Colors rose in practiced waves as students gathered their things. Conversations sparked back to life plans, jokes, debates about whose family ship had the better armament arrays. I slipped my slate into my bag and stood, stretching slightly, enjoying the way Luna's gravity made it effortless. As I passed Denas, he inclined his head to me. "Good observation today," he said. I smiled, small and polite, already thinking about lunch. The classroom emptied, leaving behind the scent of sage, the fading glow of projections, and a history lesson that felt at fourteen like something safely contained in the past. Outside, Luna continued to shine.
The halls of the academy curved like the inside of a shell wide, pale corridors veined with soft illumination that followed the flow of students toward midday gravity. The floors were smooth lunar stone, warmed just enough to keep the chill away, and each step carried a faint echo that never quite repeated itself. Above, the ceiling panels shifted color in slow gradients pearl to sky-blue to something almost lavender mirroring the artificial day cycle outside.
I walked with my slate tucked under my arm, letting the crowd move around me. Colors passed in gentle currents. Black and green in tight knots, talking business even now. White in unhurried lines, as if time itself adjusted to them. Black and red with purpose, laughter edged with competition. Silver and blue drew glances without effort. My name followed me more than my footsteps did "Aziri!" The voice cut through the hall like a thrown stone loud, bright, unmistakable.
I turned just as Quentin Messier pushed through the stream of students, grinning as though the corridor had personally offended him by existing too slowly. He wore black and red like it had been tailored for impact. Tall already, broad in the shoulders, built with the kind of strength that came from both good genetics and too much enthusiasm for sparring halls. His amber hair caught the light in sharp angles, perpetually untamed, and his eyes light lime, almost luminous were always alive with something halfway between mischief and ambition. "Wait up," he said, slowing only when he reached me. "You float like you're on parade. It's unfair."
"That's Luna," I replied. "Everyone floats." Quentin snorted. "Not like you do." We fell into step together, turning down a corridor that sloped gently toward the food court. The soundscape shifted as we walked voices growing louder, the distant hum of preparation bleeding into the air. Somewhere ahead, automated kitchens were already arguing with one another in soft mechanical clicks and bursts of steam.
"So," Quentin said, clasping his hands behind his head, elbows wide. "Night of Rain is almost here." I smiled despite myself. "You've been counting since last cycle."
"Of course I have," he said. "Diamond Rain only comes once every eight years. Ice-silicate fragments refracting through Luna's magnetosphere? You don't miss that."
"You say that like it's a concert," I said "It is," Quentin replied. "Just louder. And prettier. And it could technically kill you if you're standing in the wrong place." He grinned at that. "We're getting everyone together," he continued. "Observation deck three. The one near the old crater gardens. You in?" I hesitated not out of fear, but habit. "I'll have to ask my father," I said. "He's not back yet." Quentin nodded immediately, no teasing, no pushback. He understood families like mine well enough to know how schedules bent around returns. "Fair," he said. "Just send me a message when you know. Even if it's a no."
"Hopefully it won't be," I replied "It won't," Quentin said with absolute confidence. "The universe wouldn't dare." The food court opened before us like a small city. Terraced platforms spiraled inward around a central atrium where light spilled down in a column, catching on banners and glass rails. The air was rich with overlapping scents spiced grain from the human stalls, sharp citrus notes from Virexian cuisine, something mineral and sweet from a species I still couldn't pronounce correctly. Voices layered over one another in a comfortable chaos, punctuated by laughter and the occasional burst of translated speech.
Our friends had already claimed a long table near the edge, close enough to the rail to watch the crowd below. Hands waved when they saw us "About time," someone called out Quentin raised both arms in exaggerated surrender. "Blame destiny." We gathered around the table, greetings exchanged in the easy shorthand of people who'd grown up together shoulder bumps, quick jokes, a mock bow from someone in black and green that Quentin returned with a grin. Trays slid across the surface, steam curling upward as food arrived in careful portions, calibrated for growing bodies and impatient minds.
I sat back, silver and blue folded neatly at my wrists, and let the noise wash over me. Conversation splintered into smaller threads plans, arguments about vantage points, speculation about whose parents would try to supervise the Night of Rain too closely. For a moment, it was just that. Friends. Food. A school day halfway finished. Luna steady beneath us, the sky bright and forgiving. I lifted my cup, catching Quentin's eye across the table. He raised his in return, already talking again, already alive in the next moment. And somewhere beyond the glass and stone, the universe kept its own time, patient and quiet, waiting for night.
I was late, Not catastrophically no alarms, no locked doors but late enough that the corridors had thinned into long, echoing veins of light and motion. My breath came quick as I ran, boots striking lunar stone in a hurried rhythm, silver-and-blue fabric pulling tight at my shoulders. Luna's gravity helped, just enough to make each stride feel longer than it should have been, but not enough to save me from the clock. The doors to the combat hall slid open as I crossed the threshold silence hit first.
The room was vast and circular, its floor layered in adaptive polymer that shifted texture depending on impact. The walls rose high and bare, scored faintly with old marks cuts, burns, stress fractures that had never quite been erased. Training rings were marked in pale lines across the floor, each one a promise of instruction delivered the hard way. Every student was already standing in place and at the center of it all stood Professor Dame.
He was human, unmistakably so, and built like someone who had decided long ago that excess was inefficient. His hair was cut short, already greying at the temples, his face lined not with age but with repetition movements performed a thousand times, mistakes corrected without patience. His uniform was plain, dark, unadorned. No colors. No status. Only function.
He looked at me. Then at the wall chronometer "Aziri M. Vaillancourt," he said calmly "Yes, Professor," I replied, straightening a slim slate appeared in his hand. He tapped it once.
"Late," he said. "Punishment slip." A small, sharp sound rippled through the room as eyes shifted. Dame's gaze moved again. "Michèle Ouvrard." A girl in black and red stiffened, jaw setting. She stepped forward half a pace, "Carlos Sandoval." A boy in black and green swallowed, shoulders tightening.
"Cælinus Maximus." The room changed white uniform. Immaculate. Untouched. The name alone carried gravity, and it landed hard. Cælinus stepped forward with a slow confidence that suggested the world usually moved out of his way. He was tall, pale, his posture practiced rather than earned "And Aureolus Lucio," Dame finished, Another white uniform. Another heir. Another silence.
The punishment slips appeared on their slates one by one identical, indifferent. The reaction was immediate and wordless. Black and green stared. Black and red exchanged glances. Even silver and blue felt the tremor ripple through the room. White was not corrected publicly Cælinus lifted his chin. "Professor," he said, voice smooth, measured. "I believe there's been a mistake." Dame looked at him without expression. "No."
"My family " Cælinus began "No," Dame repeated, firmer. Cælinus pressed on, emboldened by habit. "My father commands three planetary battalions. His name carries"
Dame stepped closer. Not aggressive. Not rushed "Send them," he said, The words landed like a blade dropped flat-side on stone "Send your father's army," Dame continued evenly, "if you believe status outranks instruction here. Until then, you are late. And late gets punished." The room held its breath.
Cælinus opened his mouth, then closed it. His face flushed not red with anger, but with something far rarer. Humiliation Dame tapped his slate again "Additional slip," he said. "For wasting my time." No one moved. No one spoke.
Dame turned back to the class as if nothing remarkable had occurred. "Combat self-defense is not about dominance," he said. "It is about response. Today we focus on movement and quick strikes." He paced slowly, boots whispering against the adaptive floor "You will learn how to move before you learn how to hit," he continued. "How to step, pivot, close distance, and leave it again. Power means nothing if it arrives late. Strength means nothing if it commits too early."
His eyes swept over us over colors, over families, over futures "Status," Dame said, "does not block a blade." The tension eased, just slightly, as students shifted into readiness. I felt my pulse slow, my focus narrow, the way it always did when theory gave way to practice. Around me, punishment slips glowed quietly on slates equal in shape, equal in weight. Dame clapped his hands once. "Pair up," he said. "Let's see how fast you think you are." The lesson began.
Rodrigo Bonavita rolled his shoulders once, the way heavy men did before pretending they were light. He stood a full head taller than me six foot three, broad through the chest, built like someone accustomed to gravity obeying him. Sixty pounds heavier, easy. Silver and blue rested on him differently than it did on me, stretched across a frame meant to anchor rooms rather than pass through them. "Ready?" he asked, grin easy, confident without being cruel "Always," I said, and meant almost.
Professor Dame walked the ring once more, dropping equipment into our hands with practiced indifference. Training sword dulled edge, responsive hilt. Training pistol dummy rounds, recoil simulated but honest. Gravity-boots locked around our ankles, humming softly as they synced with our vitals "Remember," Dame said, voice carrying without effort, "weight is a decision." The signal chimed, Rodrigo moved first not rushing, not hesitating. He adjusted his gravity upward by a small margin, grounding himself, testing the floor. Smart. He wanted stability before commitment. I didn't wait.
I snapped the pistol up and fired twice not to hit, but to announce. Rodrigo shifted instinctively, shield flaring as he slid left. I reduced my gravity instantly, letting Luna help me more than it should, and jumped. Midair, I increased the boots by forty pounds. The drop came fast. My sword descended with borrowed momentum, a sharp vertical cut meant to test his parry and his timing at once. Rodrigo met it cleanly, steel-on-steel ringing sharp through the hall as he rolled with the impact instead of fighting it. He dove past my right shoulder, boots lightening as he moved, blade flashing up toward my ribs.
I twisted away, barely, felt the training edge kiss fabric. Good, Rodrigo pressed. Leap. Fake swing. Low cut. He was trying to herd me pushing me toward awkward angles, uneven footing, anywhere my speed would betray me. He adjusted gravity constantly, heavier when he struck, lighter when he moved, forcing me to react instead of dictate. But I wasn't reacting.
I was counting, On his next leap another convincing fake I leaned back farther than I should have, boots increasing weight deliberately. My expression slipped, just enough. Worry. Strain. Rodrigo saw it and He committed, I let the pistol slide from my hand. It clattered across the floor, loud, final. His eyes flicked to it half a second, no more but it was enough. He drove downward unevenly, weight misjudged, gravity working against him instead of with him.
I dropped my own boots to near-zero and slipped sideways under his line, sword flashing low. The blade bit into his gravity-boots, slicing clean through the control housing. The hum spiked then deepened. Too heavy. Rodrigo stumbled as the boots dragged him down harder than he expected. I was already moving, sword tracing a clean line from his waist across the back of his spine and up toward the neck controlled, precise, disabling without cruelty.
I snatched my pistol from the floor as I turned four shots. Knees. Knees. Knees. Knees. Dummy rounds cracked in rapid succession. His shield flared once, twice then failed. Rodrigo hit the floor hard, the adaptive surface absorbing what it could as gravity pinned him where he fell. The chime sounded, silence followed, I stepped back immediately and offered my hand, Rodrigo laughed as he took it, breathless, genuine. "That was… filthy."
"You stand uneven when you go heavy," I said, pulling him up. "It gives you away." He nodded, still smiling. "I'll fix it." Professor Dame approached, eyes flicking between us, then nodded once. Approval, concise.
"Good," he said to the room at large. "Remember that." He turned to face the class, hands clasped behind his back "This coming semester," Dame said, "gravity testing will increase. You will fight heavier, longer, and tired. At the end of the year, there will be a two-week examination." A ripple moved through the students, "Survival and combat assessment," he continued. "No comforts. No colors. No names. You will be tested on how well you adapt when everything familiar is removed."
The bell chimed, Students began to file out talking, laughing, replaying strikes and mistakes aloud. The hall filled again with motion and noise, with futures brushing past one another on their way elsewhere. I clipped my sword back into its rack and followed them out, gravity light under my feet, the day still wide open in front of me.
Chapter One ended there with sweat cooling on my skin, friends waiting beyond the doors, and a night still far enough away to feel like a promise rather than a warning.