He looked down at his own hands. Steady. Calm. Three years of training for this single trajectory. Three years of being the shadow to her light.
The diagnostic read
He crossed the hangar. No one stopped him. He was, after all, a nullity. A ghost. By the time security protocols registered his approach to the Event Horizon , he was already inside the auxiliary maintenance shaft—a route he had memorized during his “discarded” training simulations. nulled alternative
He sat in the co-pilot’s chair. She didn’t stop him. Maybe because some part of her knew. The black hole didn’t care about politics or neural ratings. It cared about precision. And her hands, even now, were betraying her. He looked down at his own hands
Kaelen felt the words land like cold metal in his gut. Not just rejected. Nulled . Erased from the equation as if he had never been a variable. Darya, trembling hands and all, had pulled rank. And command, terrified of her political connections, had agreed. Three years of training for this single trajectory
Silence. The countdown clock on the main display ticked toward launch.
Behind him, the black hole swallowed the light of everything he had left behind. Ahead, only gravity and the unknown.