"We're all strapped in," Betty said over the comms, her voice slightly shaky beneath the bravado. The interior lights flickered once as the launch countdown began.
I tightened my harness and braced myself. Launches never got easier — not after six missions. Each one left a bruise on the inside of your soul. But this time felt… different. Heavier. Like I should've done something else — slept, maybe. Instead, I'd stared at my will all night, wondering if leaving everything to my mother would mean anything if I didn't make it back.
"Eren, you copy?"
"Yeah… yeah, I'm here."
The rumble grew from beneath us. My hands gripped the armrests tighter, drowning out Kevin and Betty's idle chatter. I shut my eyes, breathing in through my nose.
Then — just before ignition — a voice cut through the comms.
"This is the best for humanity."
A simple statement. Calm. But it sliced through me like a crack in reinforced glass. I'd never heard anything like it before a launch — and certainly not from mission control. It didn't sound procedural. It sounded personal.
The boosters roared to life.
We were in the sky before I could question the voice, and I was too busy holding onto my sense of gravity — and sanity — to ask.
When the vibrations evened out and the g-force bled away, I turned to Betty and Kevin. "What the hell does 'this is the best for humanity' mean?"
Betty gave a weak laugh. "Damn, Engineer Eren — you're really on edge lately."
Kevin was flipping switches, watching readouts scroll. "Relax. We're entering low orbit soon. If I adjust the solar—"
I exhaled and sat back, trying to recalibrate my nerves. Maybe I was just paranoid. The worst we could be doing was launching unauthorized satellites. That would be enough trouble to tank our careers — but not worth spiraling over mid-flight.
Still, I couldn't shake the feeling.
The ship hummed beneath us as we reached the deployment zone.
"How many more meters until range?" Kevin asked, his tone too casual.
"We'll detect solar radiation spikes soon," I muttered, eyes glued to my panel. "That'll confirm range entry."
Then the voice from Earth Control came through again.
"Mission Leader Kevin, that's not the range we're using. You're on the Nyx for a reason. Push the limit."
Kevin nodded. "Copy that."
What?
I frowned. "Push the limit? What do they mean? We calculated the orbital thresholds with the team. Did something change?"
Silence.
Nothing came back.
I turned to Betty — she looked just as confused. Kevin, on the other hand, seemed almost… detached. Like he was following a different set of instructions than the ones we trained on.
Fine. I swallowed my questions, saving them for debrief — assuming we made it back for one.
Suddenly, a soft alarm blipped from the console in front of Betty. Then another. Then all of them. Red indicators began flashing across every terminal. Status lights pulsed. Warning alerts stacked across my screen faster than I could read them.
"What the hell—" I started.
The Nyx groaned beneath us. Not figuratively — groaned — like something massive under pressure was buckling.
The entire ship tilted.
"No, no, no," Betty muttered, voice rising. "What's going on?!"
"We're in an emergency descent—this isn't orbital drift—" I called out as I slammed the comms button.
Silence.
The external line was dead.
Gravity shifted hard, pinning me to the seat. The ship was spiraling — but not in freefall. It was still under power.
"This can't be happening—" Betty gasped.
"Is oxygen leaking?" she asked.
"No," I said, scanning the life support data.
And then it clicked.
I froze.
My thoughts flashed to every strange thing I'd overheard this past week: Clifford's last-minute interference, Sam's evasive attitude, the SSV Nyx's unexplained presence. The deployment orders that made no orbital sense.
I looked at Kevin.
And he was already staring at me.
Pale. Jaw locked.
He knew.
"This ship…" I began slowly. "Does it match the speeds of the Parker Solar Probe?"
"Faster," Kevin whispered.
Betty's breath caught. "What are you talking about?"
I looked at the nav system, barely able to breathe. "How long until we hit trajectory?"
Kevin didn't answer. His fingers hovered above the terminal, frozen.
"We're headed to Mars," I said flatly.
Betty turned to me, blinking. "Mars? No. What Mars? I didn't sign up for this."
"No one told us," I said. "But Kevin knew. Didn't you?"
Kevin winced.
"How long?" I demanded. "Two months? Six?"
He swallowed. "Two days."
"What?" Betty snapped. "That's impossible."
"It's not impossible," I whispered. "It's suicidal. This ship wasn't built for re-entry on Mars. You'd need perfect conditions, perfect descent, perfect everything."
"We're dead," Betty said, her voice hollow. "We're going to die in space. Orbiting forever like some failed experiment."
Kevin finally shouted, "We're not gonna die, damn it! Clifford's tech is built for this!"
"Oh, and that makes me feel so safe!" I yelled. "Since when have you been part of this plan? Since when did Clifford own our lives?"
I didn't hear his answer.
Because just then, the nav system beeped with final confirmation: locked trajectory.
The Nyx Horizon — humanity's quiet little secret — had just burned its way off Earth's map.
We were no longer in orbit.
We were en route to Mars.
Whether we made it or not was no longer up to us.