Chapter Two: Astra-X Awakens

Leon expected the cockpit to be cramped and cold like a Federation simulator, full of restraint belts and neural needles. Astra-X had no seat. He floated in the center of a dark blue sea of light, standing on something like transparent stars. Countless fine lines extended from the emptiness and connected to his wrists, spine, and temples, yet there was no pain. They felt more like warm currents flowing along his nerves, pushing his consciousness outward into a forty-meter body of steel. He heard the storm. He heard mining sand striking armor. He heard gears grinding seventeen kilometers away as a shelter gate in District Seven jammed halfway closed. He heard, above the sky, an engine that did not belong to humanity tearing through cloud.