Chapter 1: The Genius Strike Force
Varnas Space Station. A colossal space station three thousand kilometers in diameter, holding its orbit one hundred thousand kilometers above Earth. Seen from the ground, it appeared nearly the same size as the moon, and had long been called “the Second Moon.”
The residential block within the United Space Forces base had been under a full blackout for the past two hours.
Doyun observed the vast darkness stretching beyond the capsule-shaped window. It was a far cry from the image that people back on Earth — those who dreamed of one day moving to Varnas Space Station — endlessly gushed about.
“It’s gray no matter where you look. What’s supposed to be beautiful about it.”
Doyun checked the time. Whenever the soldiers patrolling outside the residential block rotated shifts, there was a gap of about five minutes.
Just then, the transmitter he’d brought from Earth buzzed. A message appeared on the device — far heavier and clunkier than the standard-issue communicator — displaying a line he had grown sick of seeing back on Earth.
Message received
Inbox
[Ding-dong♬] Your loan is now 10 days overdue!
Further delays will result in enforcement proceedings ⁀‿⁀
Dear valued customer♥ Please make your payment promptly♥♥♥
☛ Pay now
☛ Ease the burden with revolving credit
☛ Connect to another lender
from. Bone Marrow Capital Co., Ltd. — We Lend with Heart
Doyun tossed the transmitter onto his bed with an irritated flick of his hand.
“Why do they always stick little hearts on everything.”
Twenty-two years of life, and the only hearts he had ever received from another person were in debt collector texts. Whether on Earth or on a space station, the only two people who ever contacted Doyun were his younger sibling and a loan shark.
He upended the backpack he’d been issued upon enlisting and shook it out onto the bed. A stream of quality manufactured goods tumbled out. A flashlight. Emergency medication. Underwear. Socks. A communicator. Emergency ration capsules. And several items he couldn’t identify.
“What’s this?”
Doyun picked up a transparent film that looked like a thin adhesive bandage and slowly sounded out the brand name. The residents of Varnas used the universal space language rather than Earth languages. Speaking it wasn’t a problem, but his reading and writing were at an elementary school level.
“Bio… patch.”
Even reading the item’s name aloud gave him no idea what it was for. He dug through the backpack for the supply manual and read through it slowly.
“An ultra-thin electronic device applied to the skin that performs the following functions. Vital monitoring. Physical condition feedback. Military authentication device.”
Being able to read something and understanding it were entirely different things. Varnas technology was roughly two centuries ahead of Earth’s, so Doyun gave up on interpretation. There was no way someone who had spent their entire life on Earth could look at the things here and immediately grasp their worth.
He repacked everything into the backpack and checked outside the window one more time. When the next shift change came around, he reached toward the narrow ventilation duct where the wall met the ceiling.
He pushed the backpack in first, then folded himself up and crawled inside. At the scrape of metal, he held his breath for a moment.
Just then, a maintenance drone whirred past in the corridor directly below the vent. Doyun held still inside the duct, not even letting himself breathe, and the moment the sound faded, he scrambled forward quickly.
He pushed out the locking panel, and the vent cover swung open quietly. Doyun rolled himself out and dropped onto the floor of the auxiliary passage that led outside.
Thud —
In that instant, his vision opened up.
“Whoa…”
Stars cascaded from every direction against the pitch-black dark. Not individual pinpricks of light, but a waterfall of radiance flowing and overlapping as it fell.
Nothing like the sky back on Earth, always hazy with the dust that veiled the atmosphere — this was something else entirely. Doyun stopped for a moment, tilted his head back, and let his mouth fall open slightly. With every breath he took, the starlight seemed to seep deeper into his lungs.
“It is pretty, though.”
Doyun’s dark eyes glimmered for a brief moment. Like someone learning for the very first time in their life that the night sky could be beautiful.
The way people at the bottom lived was much the same wherever you went. On Earth or on a space station, as if there were a formula for it.
Hood pulled low, Doyun wandered through the black market district and came to a stop in front of a street vendor — an old woman wrapped in a blanket. The goods piled on her mat looked at a glance like items used inside United Space Forces bases.
Doyun picked up what appeared to be a broken watch. It looked like an old part from some kind of machinery.
“How much is something like this?”
“You with the United Forces?”
The old woman grinned, revealing the single tooth she had left. Doyun tugged his hood down lower and answered.
“How much?”
“Plain to see you’re not here to buy — you’re here to sell.”
The old woman saw right through him, worn down by the same kind of life, and stretched out a hand to point down the alley.
“Stop hovering around here and get yourself to that place with the blue sign.”
Doyun didn’t so much as glance toward the back alley. Instead he lifted a box from the stall containing the same film-type items he’d seen earlier.
“What about these?”
The old woman cackled at his persistent attempts to feel out the going rate, then held up three fingers.
“3 silang?”
“Pfft. 300 silang. What, did you crawl out of Earth somewhere?”
The old woman found his pronunciation odd but clearly couldn’t imagine he was actually from Earth as she gave him a good-natured ribbing.
Doyun checked the faces of the other vendors nearby. They’d all heard the exchange, but every one of them looked completely indifferent, carrying on hawking their wares at passing customers.
300 silang for this…
The principal Doyun owed was 82,000 silang, with 700 silang in interest accruing every month. The old woman didn’t seem to be lying, and if secondhand goods like this went for 300 silang, a new one would easily fetch twice that.
Doyun smiled.
“I’ll come back again sometime.”
“Don’t bother if you’re not buying.”
The old woman clicked her tongue as if she’d seen it coming and brushed off the surface of her stall.
Doyun stood before the place with the blue sign and took a slow, steadying breath. There didn’t seem to be anyone guarding the door, but just as he was scoping out the surroundings, the shop door flew open.
Two men built like mountains walked out, faces flushed red.
“That cantankerous old man, how dare he of all people lecture me about payment deadlines.”
“Lieutenant Colonel, maybe we should just cut ties with this place entirely? We’re already running short on supply because of the disruption at the house.”
The one addressed as Lieutenant Colonel strode off roughly, shouldering Doyun out of the way as he stood there. The man shot him a sidelong glance, and his expression turned sharp in an instant.
“The hell is this. Don’t tell me — a new recruit?”
United Forces members recognized each other whether in civilian clothes or off base. It was the bearing that set them apart from the black market crowd.
“Well, well. A new recruit at the black market in the dead of night? What kind of gutless idiot is already pulling stunts like this? Let’s have a look at your face.”
At the man’s swaggering gait and tone, Doyun lowered his head further. Lieutenant Colonel was an absurdly high rank. He was about to slip past the man and into the shop when his shoulder was grabbed.
“Rude little shit.”
The grip was relentless. Running into each other at the black market meant there was no simply letting him walk away. As the Lieutenant Colonel swung him back around, Doyun buried his face deeper into his hood.
“What do you want.”
But the man had already clocked the familiar backpack design and smirked, flicking Doyun’s forehead.
“This little punk — you’re a new recruit from today’s intake, aren’t you? Where does some new recruit warrant officer get off ignoring a Lieutenant Colonel.”
A heavy sigh left Doyun’s mouth. He had just wanted to sell a few things quietly and head back to the dorms. If he sold a few base-issued items, he might be able to clear not just this month’s interest but a chunk of the principal before his first paycheck even came in — he didn’t want to cause trouble.
“Just let it go.”
“The hell? What? Just let it go?”
The Lieutenant Colonel shoved everything he was carrying onto his subordinate and grabbed Doyun by the collar, hauling him up. Even from that brief grip, the Lieutenant Colonel felt like a high-ranking Esper. The problem was exactly these types who acted out just because they had their ability to rely on. Doyun met the Lieutenant Colonel’s flushed face with a look of contempt.
“Take the hood off, punk. This is our territory — meaning you take one hit and get lost. How can you be this oblivious.”
The area around his gripped collar heated up fast. A fire-type ability? Judging by the man’s hot-headed conduct, Doyun instinctively reached into his pocket and pulled out a white ring.
Before that — with no warning whatsoever — he swung with full force and clocked the Lieutenant Colonel square in the nose with his boot. The weakest bone in the face met solid military footwear, and blood streamed down immediately. The Lieutenant Colonel’s voice cracked badly, having let his guard down at the assumption that his opponent wasn’t an Esper.
“What the — “
“Just let it go, please.”
Doyun pressed steadily against the stunned man’s back, then drove his knee sharply up into the man’s face.
“Aagh!”
The moment the Lieutenant Colonel dropped to his knees, Doyun’s hand — which had been moving to wrench the man’s cervical vertebrae — stopped. People had started gathering around.
Heat surged from the Lieutenant Colonel’s hands, now trembling with rage. The sound of air scorching filled the space. The onlookers stepped back again.
Doyun let out a humorless laugh under his breath.
“…Even the Earth Defense Force doesn’t use their ability against civilians. You’re absolute trash.”
Before Doyun even finished speaking, a flame formed in the Lieutenant Colonel’s palm. It was impossible to tell if it was meant as a threat or a signal that he was about to use it. On instinct, Doyun pulled the white ring from his pocket.
Click —
The spherical ability suppressor snapped onto the Lieutenant Colonel’s wrist. The heat vanished in an instant, and the flame extinguished itself in a burst of tremendous pain. As a side effect, the skin where the ring had made contact began to slowly melt away.
“Aaaargh! What is this thing?!”
There was no reason a space station-born Lieutenant Colonel would recognize a suppressor that had been discontinued half a century ago for being inhumane. Still, his eyes went wide at the sheer bulk of the outdated, crude device.
Thud —
In that same moment, Doyun grabbed the man by the hair and drove his head into the ground. The Lieutenant Colonel choked back a scream and thrashed. Only then did the subordinate, who had been holding the pile of items in the back, drop everything and rush forward. The Lieutenant Colonel’s lackey cracked Doyun across the back of the head.
The blow was heavy enough that Doyun’s vision swam for a moment. But he just blinked once and ignored the dizziness. Then he went back to focusing on slamming the Lieutenant Colonel’s head into the floor.
“Ugh! You — you little — !”
It was then. With a thunderous roar, the air split open and a blinding floodlight poured down from above. A voice boomed out through a loudspeaker, shaking the entire black market.
[All personnel, freeze in place. Drop your weapons and get on the ground.]
