Chapter Three: The Admission Order from the Stars

"In reality, you saved four hundred seventy-three thousand people." The medical pod fell quiet. Leon looked toward the viewport. Beyond it was not the rust sky of Helios-9, but black space. Far away, the mining planet hung like a dark red marble, white storm swirls still twisting where the explosion had struck the clouds. He was in orbit. "Where is Astra-X?" "In this ship's third heavy hangar," Ardent said. "It took twelve engineering mechs, four tug craft, and an entire technical team to drag it out of the impact crater. Then it refused to let anyone approach." "Refused?" "Three senior pilots attempted interface. All were thrown back. One vomited blood, one lost consciousness, and one woke up insisting he had seen the end of the galaxy.