"Today," Echo said, "you meet the rest of the family properly."
Leon blinked away sleep and stood straighter, already dressed in the standard-issue gray and crimson fatigues. The Fort's artificial dawn light streamed through the upper chamber, painting the metal floor in orange stripes.
They started with Aros.
The hulking man stood shirtless in the training courtyard, striking a metal post wrapped in synthetic bone armor. Each blow cracked like thunder. Steam hissed from the seams of his gauntlets. He paused when he saw Leon and gave a wolfish grin.
"New blood!" Aros called, slamming a final punch that sent the post skidding a few inches across the floor. "You want to hit something?"
"Not really."
"Good," Aros said, tossing Leon a handwrap. "Then you'll learn to respect what hitting costs."
He wasn't just muscle. As Leon learned during their lap around the armory deck, Aros used his size and presence as a frontline defender, "the wall," as he called it. He absorbed impact, drew fire, and created openings for his squad.
"The point isn't to be the strongest," he said, demonstrating a combat stance that blended offense and cover. "It's to make sure no one behind you has to be."
From Aros, they moved to Cael.
The tech lab was a jungle of cables, hovering tools, and semi-disassembled drones. Cael sat atop a gyroscopic stool, welding something tiny and glowing.
"Welcome to the spark den," he chirped. "Mind the floor, it occasionally bites."
Cael was Division 10's field engineer, scout, and resident lunatic. He showed Leon how every squad member's gear was customized to their fighting style. He even pointed out Leon's own suit, still in construction.
"Layered aether-reactive mesh," Cael said. "With a kinetic flow rig and seven-point mod docks. You're gonna look dashing, if mildly radioactive."
Then he pulled back a curtain.
Behind it, an incomplete map of Orion 17 spread across a glowing wall. Not just a planet, but a system. Floating cities. Ruins in the sky. Deep orbital sanctuaries.
"This world is old," Cael said, tracing a line between points. "Older than any record we have. And it remembers. Especially the pain."
Leon felt the weight of that.
Next was Kestra, who brought him to the breach simulator.
"You're not gonna understand anomalies," she said. "But you'll learn their scent."
They dropped into a sim room shaped like a ruined city block. Kestra moved through shadows like a panther, her rifle scanning the air.
"The thing about anomalies is that they don't follow rules, until they do," she whispered. "And when they do, they repeat. Patterns. Symbols. Echoes."
Leon struggled to keep up, but Kestra slowed for him. She taught him signs, shimmering air, inverted light, gravity flickers. These were things the untrained eye missed.
By mid-afternoon, his muscles ached, and his mind buzzed. He met the remaining unit members briefly, Ryn, the soft-spoken medic with hands that glowed green in the dark; Vex, the sniper who spoke in four-word sentences; and Halden, their logistics man who kept everything running like clockwork.
And throughout it all, Echo watched.
At sunset, the entire squad gathered in the central atrium. Leon sat among them now, not quite one of them yet, but close.
Echo stood at the head of the table.
"We've got a call," she said, her voice even. "Distress beacon. Abandoned research dome in the northern ridge. No active signals. Just pulse static and heat echoes."
"Possible breach?" Kestra asked.
Echo nodded. "The kind they want us for."
Everyone grew quiet. Not in fear, but focus.
Leon's pulse quickened.
"You're coming," Echo told him.
"Me?"
"You trained with us. You walk with us. Now you stand with us."
They moved with practiced speed. Armor sealed, weapons locked. Leon was fitted into his proto-rig, still raw and unfinished, but Cael clapped him on the back anyway.
"You'll do fine," he said. "Just don't explode."
The drop shuttle launched under the cover of night.
Inside, the air buzzed with tension.
As they neared the dome, the atmosphere shimmered with static, visible distortion lines twisting the horizon.
Leon looked down at the shifting darkness and swallowed.
He didn't know what waited for them out there.
But the others?
They grinned.
Unit Valiant had come home.
The dome loomed like a severed world on the ridge, part architecture, part decay. A thousand rusted panels peeled back like petals, revealing the internal structure beneath: winding corridors of data coils and walls grown over with bioluminescent moss.
Leon stepped out of the shuttle and felt the ground pulse beneath his boots.
"Readings?" Echo asked, tapping her forearm display.
"Still scrambled," Cael replied, scanning. "Something's distorting the ambient signals. Could be a breach anchor."
"Eyes up," Aros grunted, leading the way. "Standard V-formation."
They moved through the corridor like a living machine. Lights flickered overhead. Strange symbols were etched into the wall, faint and humming.
Leon drifted closer to one, and his vision flickered.
A memory, not his, flashed across his mind. A swirling star. A voice in a forgotten tongue. Pain. So much pain.
"You okay?" Echo asked, suddenly at his side.
He blinked. "I…I saw something. Just now."
She narrowed her eyes. "What did you see?"
He hesitated. "Stars. Voices. Fire."
Echo said nothing for a moment. Then: "We move. Now."
Deeper in, the team found signs of conflict. Scorch marks. Torn uniforms. Broken sensors.
Kestra swept the hallway. "Too clean. No bodies."
"Which means either evac..." Cael began.
"...or devour," Echo finished.
They reached the core chamber, once a data hive, now hollowed out. In its center stood a sphere of twisting, translucent matter. Like glass melting in reverse.
An anomaly.
It pulsed like a heart.
Suddenly, static filled the comms.
"—Valiant, pull back—" a garbled voice echoed through their earcoms.
Aros raised his weapon. "We've got movement!"
The walls shimmered, then broke open.
And from the void came shapes. Half-formed, jagged. Screaming things.
Echo shouted, "Form the line! Protect the core!"
Leon froze until Kestra grabbed his arm and pulled him behind cover.
"You wanted to see who we are?" she yelled over the roar.
"This is us."
And then the world exploded in light.