Far above the stars, in the cold, immaculate halls of the Battleship Ganymede Aegis, politics walked hand-in-hand with power.
Within the Strategic Command Chamber, twenty-three holograms flickered to life — admirals, engineers, tacticians, and one aging bureaucrat with too many medals and not enough battlefield scars. Their expressions varied — skepticism, curiosity, disdain. All had received the same encrypted data packet twenty minutes earlier.
The data came from a rogue civilian pod that had docked under emergency code: Ghost Slip – Unregistered.
The doors opened.
Trask and Draan, now dressed in standard survival suits, stepped into the room, guided by two silent guards. Their backs were straight, despite exhaustion. Trask held a small datapad in his palm. He bowed stiffly.
"Thank you for accepting our entry."
A General grunted. "We were minutes away from blowing you to dust. So talk fast."
---
Trask stepped forward. "Three weeks ago, our craft crash-landed on an uncharted planet in Grid Zeta-4. Atmosphere unlisted. Inhabitable with proper suits. Planet is populated by Kaiju-class organisms. At least five types observed. Possibly engineered."
He passed the datapad to a technician, who began loading it into the central table.
Draan continued, "There are survivors down there. Young. Rough. But brilliant. They've been fending off Kaiju using a single custom mecha, built out of wreckage. They've also developed rudimentary plasma-fuel conversion from Kaiju blood. Not efficient, but functional."
A murmur passed through the room.
The technician's screen now displayed the logs — clear footage of Kael fighting a mid-tier Kaiju, of Oris repairing harvested Kaiju parts, of Tyren mapping terrain routes with synchronized motion prediction systems.
"Who are they?" a female Commander asked.
Trask shrugged. "Didn't give us names. Said names weren't important. Just survival."
A white-uniformed Admiral narrowed his eyes. "That's not protocol."
"Neither is surviving on a death planet with nothing but a scavenged mech and rage in your gut," Draan said bluntly.
Someone leaned forward. "This mecha… It doesn't have a name? No command imprint?"
"Ravager. That's what they call it," Trask replied. "Built like a brawler. No automatic stabilizers. Runs hot. Not beginner tech. Whoever pilots it — fights like a goddamn monster."
One of the generals turned to the Admiral. "A Ravager? That's blacklisted. Those were decommissioned prototypes. Impossible to use without direct neural sync."
"Exactly," Draan said with a grin. "This kid doesn't just use it. He thrives in it."
---
There was a long silence.
The images continued to cycle — cave base blueprints, dead Kaiju harvest operations, Oris standing beside a disassembled fuel node, Tyren rigging terrain sensors out of scrap radar plates.
A silver-haired officer finally broke the silence. "Who trained them?"
"They trained themselves," Trask said. "At least that's what they'd say. But… that kind of skill? That's not born in a junkyard."
Another officer leaned forward. "What unit were they from?"
"We didn't ask," Draan replied smoothly.
"Why not?"
"Because they didn't want us to."
---
The Admiral walked around the holotable, staring into the looping video of Kael's mecha punching through a Kaiju's armored skull.
"They're hiding something. But whatever they are... they're useful. Especially now. We've lost seven recon units in Kaiju sectors this year alone."
He turned toward the others. "Proposal: locate the planet. Quietly. Monitor. If viable, extract subjects and tech."
Another general objected. "They could be deserters. Traitors. You want to bring unknown, unverified scrappers into our command?"
The Admiral didn't blink. "I want to bring in people who can kill Kaiju using scrap and hate. If they're enemies… we study them. If they're allies… we arm them."
The others muttered. Strategic Command always argued. But the data was there. The footage was raw. The results were undeniable.
---
Back outside the chamber, Trask and Draan stood in a corridor, waiting.
"They'll dig, won't they?" Draan asked.
"They'll find out eventually," Trask muttered. "That it's Unit 404."
"Will they still care once they know?"
Trask's lips tightened. "We'll find out. But if they land on that planet without permission, they're going to find out Kael isn't interested in being forgotten again."
They shared a silent look.
---
Back on the planet, Kael leaned against a boulder, watching sparks fly as Oris and Tyren modified an alloy saw. The girls were quiet. The cave flickered under soft lights.
He didn't know it yet, but the stars had stirred.
And eyes were now watching.
---