Chapter 1 – The Child No One Saved
The Grand Hall of the Galactic Rose II shimmered under refracted starlight. Its floor, once a war hangar, had been polished into a mirror, a black glass canvas that now held the weight of memory and metal. Golden light poured through crystalline skylights, catching on the gleaming armor of the assembled Additron Cadets. They stood motionless, hundreds of crimson coats pressed crisp, golden breastplates glowing like sanctified fire. Sabers were angled over shoulders, so sharp they could slice thought. Gamma-ray six-shooters pulsed gently at their hips, whispering readiness in tight holsters.
Then came the war drum. Slow. Thunderous. Marching. The formation moved, a synchronized tidal surge of gold and red, boot falls timed to the breath of the galaxy. Not one blinked or flinched. Their movements were engineered reverence, a ritual honed over centuries. Every step honored fallen cadets, every glint on their blades a reflection of those who’d died wearing the same armor.
From the elevated command balcony, the Master Chief watched, silent and unmoved. Her armor was old, scarred, and matte, unlike the gleam below. Her saber hung loose in her left hand, tip down, blade off. It was not a symbol of command, but of consequence.
At the exact midpoint of the parade, Cadet K’s boot caught something subtle. Not uneven. Not fresh. Charred. She dared a glance downward, never breaking stride. Scorched markings. Spidery burns crawling across the otherwise flawless floor. Fused boot prints. Melted saber hilts. A blackened silhouette mid-step—a cadet, frozen forever in carbon shadow. Her stomach turned.
Beside her, IMAX saw it too. His whisper cut through the comms: “This was where they fell, wasn’t it?”. “Last cycle’s rehearsal,” K replied, her voice tight. “The Lucifers breached during alignment drills. They died… still saluting”. He swallowed hard. “Why leave the marks?”. From the gallery above, Commander J’s voice was low, almost reverent: “So we remember what perfection looks like when it bleeds”. The cadence deepened. The march intensified. Sabers raised. Hilts to brow. A thousand silent salutes to the ghosts beneath their feet.
Then, the Master Chief stepped forward. “Enough”. The drums ceased. The last boot landed with a resonant clang. “You’re not here to impress me,” she said, her voice low but unignorable, like gravity speaking. “You’re here because the galaxy still demands blood it hasn’t yet spilled”. She raised her saber. The hilt clicked. The plasma hissed to life. “Remember them”. She pointed to the floor, the scars. “They stood tall. Too tall. That’s why the Dissonance found them first”. Silence. Then: “Your beauty will not save you. Your discipline might. If you hesitate in the field like you hesitated here, I’ll carve your names into this floor myself”.
“Dismissed”. The cadets didn’t cheer. They didn’t breathe. They broke formation like a wave parting through ghosts, a procession of the living stepping over the dead.
As the last cadet crossed the scorch marks, the skies above the dome ignited. A seam in the air tore open—a vertical fracture in real space. It didn’t flash or burn. It pulsed, slowly, like a muscle under stress. And through it stepped the Dark Angel. She didn’t walk. She unfolded—a silhouette of black flame and refracted crystal, her wings whispering in forgotten dialects of time. Her presence was not a body but an edict. The parade froze. Sabers still raised. Time faltered.
Atop the balcony, the Master Chief didn’t flinch. Her saber still hissed beside her hip. She stepped forward, boots ringing against steel. The two forces, one forged in war, the other born of judgment, faced each other across the breathless hush.
“This is a parade,” the Master Chief said. Her voice was iron. “A covenant to the dead”. The Angel said nothing. Until: “You dare spill life in my lull of thunder?”. The voice wasn’t sound. It was pressure. A vibration through the bones. “Then I will rip your codes from the lattice. Burn your warsongs. Unmake your memories, and salt the seams of your boot prints”. Her wings rose, eclipsing light, then closed like a shutter. She vanished. The dome held. Barely.
And far below, the market ring exploded. A sonic boom cracked across the skyline. From the edge of the old market, black smoke twisted into the sky like a scream. On a high ridge, far from the polish of ceremony, the Zodiacs turned toward the fire blooming in the distance. Their boots crunched into glass, old tech, and silence. No words passed between them. The sound of alarms rising from the city wasn’t panic; it was prophecy.
A whimper curled through the flames of the burning trash heap, impossibly small amidst the wreckage. The hover cruiser had come down in a spiral of flame and metal, tearing through the sky like a wounded god, striking the edge of the city’s old market ring, scattering stalls and neon signs into broken teeth. The Zodiacs watched the smoke curl into the air from a nearby ridge. By the time they reached the crash site, the battle was already over. Lucifers drifted away, their bodies shimmering with corruption. They seemed… satisfied. Smeared shadows of movement slithered through the smoke and vanished into the lattice beyond. And then they saw it. Something small. Something wrapped in swaddling cloth, tossed onto the burning trash heap like a forgotten toy. None of the Zodiacs moved.
What they didn’t see was the tear in the air just behind the wreckage—a slash in space, a doorway to nothing. The Dark Angel stepped through. She did not scream. She did not rage. She simply moved. One hand raised—Lucifers turned inside out, their forms folding impossibly before being hurled into the void behind her. No one noticed. No one turned. She stared at the Zodiacs and watched them turn their backs.
I saw the child. I swear I did. But there was blood. Fire. Static in my comms. For a split second, instinct—the old kind—flared. The part of me that would’ve run into the flames without thinking, the hero we once were. Just get in, save the moment. But times had changed. I thought—someone else will check. Someone cleaner. Calmer. Better. This was supposed to be ceremonial. Symbolic. We were told there’d be a blessing, a speech, cameras. Not a body count. Not ash. That thing on the rubbish pile? I thought it was part of the wreckage. It looked fake. Like the whole scene had been staged by the Dissonance. The smell, the fire, even the cries—they felt wrong. I’ve seen bait before. This was bait. There were too many distortions. The timing was off. We’d been misled before. If I moved, if I got it wrong, we’d lose more than one child. I did the math. And I walked away. They didn’t look real. None of them. And after what happened last time, I promised myself: never again without confirmation. Never again blind.
The Dark Angel stood beside the trash heap, her face unreadable. She reached into the burning mound and pulled the child free—untouched. Alive. She looked up, and they were already walking away. Talking amongst themselves. Arguing logistics. Debriefing. Planning their next destination. She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg. She just began to walk. She found Tiger first. He had fallen behind the others, his massive frame twitching subtly, his gaze darting around as if he were swatting invisible flies. She stepped in front of him—appearing as if from mist. He froze, his eyes wide and unfocused for a moment. “You all stepped back,” she said. Then she placed the child in his arms. “You will not be allowed to”.
When the smoke thinned, the others saw him kneeling, arms cradling air. But his rocking motions told a different truth. A low, tuneless hum vibrated from deep in his chest, his tail swaying with each note and brushing the baby’s nose. She giggled—pure and unguarded—her voice bouncing inside the armor like a bell in a steel chamber.
Dragon, passing by, rapped hard on Rabbit’s helmet, shoving her head into Ox with a loud clank. “Thick head doesn’t count,” he muttered. Another Zodiac twirled a finger at his temple and purred, “cooku meow,” teasing just enough to draw nervous laughter. Tiger’s glare cut through them, followed by a sharp, almost comical gesture as if to say, “not now”. The chuckles stuttered. The baby laughed louder, undeterred. Joel heard it too—alive, undeniable—but pushed her curiosity deep under discipline. Zodiacs endured. Still, some fractures start small. This one began with a child no one saved.
A tailwind followed Tiger as the war room door slammed open, tugging at cloaks and ruffling papers. Rat’s brow furrowed; his nose twitched. Ox, about to bellow a greeting, froze midbreath, turned purple, and clamped a hoof over her mouth with a strangled cough. Dragon’s gaze lingered on Tiger, his inhale slow, deliberate. “You smell like something that doesn’t belong here,” he said evenly. Tiger’s jaw locked, eyes fixed on some unreachable point. A small, wet sound bloomed in the tense air. Ox’s ears twitched; Rat’s glance darted quick. Tiger’s gauntlet tapped his chestplate in an unconscious, steady rhythm—like checking a hidden sidearm.
Alone in the barracks after his abrupt exit, Tiger unfastened his armor. No cradle. No blankets. Only the torn sleeve knotted into a sling, faintly scented with milk. He laid the baby on a square of clean cloth, her small form swallowed by the hard bunk. His old beanie, stitched with a bold “T” for Tiger, served as her pullover. His worn sleeve—softened by years of battle—was wrapped and pinned as her diaper, the bent shard from the crash site holding it together. She kicked, cooing. Tiger’s eyes flicked to the door, shoulders tight. His calloused finger brushed her cheek with impossible gentleness. Minutes earlier, he’d been barking orders; now his lips moved like he was whispering a prayer. “You’re gonna get me fragged,” he murmured, worn through with exhaustion and something heavier. He hummed again, a steady low drone. She wrapped her tiny fist around his thumb and, after a pause, laughed—softly, forgivingly, as if telling him she already knew he might fail her and didn’t care. He stared at her, trapped between fear and a fierce, unshakable love. To anyone else, it might have looked like madness—but inside that madness, something raw and human had begun to grow.
