Before Astra Primus, before the steel corridors and training decks, before Captain Malrin and the Crimson Knights, there was Home, Earth, Old Chicago.
It was a city that refused to die, Fifty years after the Great War with the Apeps, Earth was no longer the cradle of humanity—it was a scar and it left a scar on Chicago where the damage had been the worst. Megastructures rose like broken teeth from poisoned ground where people bodies had been buried, burned or eaten, their lower levels drowned in shadow, rust, desperation and crime. The skies were perpetually gray, choked by climate stabilizers that never quite worked right and industrial clouds that no one could afford to clean. Neon signs flickered over streets where law used to exist and where Heinrich Wynn learned how the world really worked.
His parents had died smuggling refugees off-world, caught in the gray zone between evacuation corridors and Apeps interdiction. Their ship never made it. No heroic last stand. No official memorial. Just a line in a ledger and a government apology stamped with a date and a signature that meant nothing to a seven-year-old boy.
The world abandoned him first.
By nineteen, Heinrich survived by crime but only out of necessity. He ran and led the Black Jackals, a small but efficient crew that specialized in data theft, black-market logistics, and tactical cons. They weren't murderers but they weren't saints either. They stole corporate data caches, siphoned credit flows, rerouted supply manifests. What they didn't keep, they funneled back into the lower districts—food printers, med patches, clean water cartridges.
It wasn't altruism. It was survival.
If the system wouldn't care for its own, they would bleed for it until it did.
Heinrich was good at it almost too good. He could read patrol patterns after watching them once, predict response times down to the minute, and adapt plans mid-operation when variables changed. He didn't just move through the city—he studied it on his free time.
On clear nights—rare as they were—he could see Astra Primus in orbit. A distant ring of steel glinting faintly above the cloud cover. Humanity's answer to extinction. A steel god forged from alloy and discipline.
He used to stare at it and wonder if it watched him back.
But then that job ended everything
A data-credit theft targeting a logistics firm skimming relief funds meant for the lower wards. Simple breach, fast extraction, clean exit. Heinrich led his insertion team, moving through a derelict mag-rail hub repurposed as a server relay. He had his Jackals work in silence, made sure their movements were precise.
Then the Butchers showed up.
The Butchers were everything the Jackals weren't—brutal, sadistic, infamous. They trafficked people, weapons, and anything else that you could think of. Their presence meant war. Heinrich knew it the moment he saw their sigils sprayed across the access corridor.
The fight was short and vicious.
Steel pipes. Blades. Shock batons. Heinrich put three Butchers down hard, breaking bones with ruthless efficiency. But there were too many and he decided that if he had to go down he would at least kill one. But then Covenant enforcement drones flooded the sector, bodies were littered the floor most unconscious and some kill by his crew and so Heinrich's ordered his crew to scatter.
But He was caught by colonel Kane Sr. stopping Heinrich before he could finish off the leader and he surrendered willingly because he wouldn't let his people get caught and they would look for someone to take the fall for the bodies so he gave himself up and looked like the bad guy.
He was pinned to the floor, a boot grinding into his spine, Heinrich didn't go easy though. He thrashed and kick a couple officers he had to make the scene look like he was uncontrollable. But what he really did was watch their reactions.
He wanted them to see him as this monster and he noted how the soldiers moved, how they covered angles, how their formations shifted seamlessly even in the chaos of a gang brawl aftermath. He memorized rank markings. Command spacing. Weapon readiness. His eyes tracked everything. An intelligence officer noticed and was surprised and impressed.
During interrogation, Heinrich answered only what was necessary. He didn't deny what he'd done. He didn't justify it either. During the interrogation, he also studied the room, the guards, the surveillance nodes. When asked why he'd positioned his crew the way he had and why he only he stayed so hidden, he explained—calmly, clinically—how it minimized exposure and maximized escape routes.
The room went quiet.
Colonel Kane Sr. entered shortly after.
The strength and presence Heinrich noticed when he was grabbed and would later recognize at Astra Primus—solid, unyielding. Kane reviewed the footage, the reports, and finally Heinrich himself.
"You know where this ends," Kane said.
Heinrich nodded. "Thanatos Prison."
Kane studied him for a long moment. "Or somewhere else."
At the time the choice seemed simple. Incarceration—decades lost to a system that would grind him down until there was nothing left. Or Astra Primus. No promises. No mercy. Just a chance.
Heinrich didn't hesitate he people were safe he couldn't have it any other way.
The next day, he was transported to orbital intake.
The shuttle was full of contrasts. Hardened criminals some he recognized and some he didn't and they mostly sneered at the guards, convinced they'd beat the system again. Noble-born recruits postured, draped in money and entitlement. Heinrich sat quietly between them, watching.
The Covenant's efficiency was absolute. Names replaced with numbers, signatures written in red ink.
Before disembarking, Heinrich signed the oath.
He military contract had no exit clause for him.
Fail, and he would go to prison.
Graduate—but not at the top—and he would be deployed anywhere the brass wanted until he broke or died.
Astra Primus sealed its gates behind him.
Then.
Heinrich Wynn woke up choking on the smell of antiseptic.
Just a memory.
And what followed was pain flooding back in waves—head pounding, ribs screaming, every muscle stiff and tender. He groaned and tried to sit up, only for a firm hand to press him back down.
"Easy," a voice said. "You've been out for two weeks."
Two weeks!
Fragments of memory slammed together—PT, the corridor going dark, fists and elbows, Kane Jr.'s eyes, the impact of bone on bone. Heinrich squeezed his eyes shut, wishing—just for a moment—that memories would stay buried where it belonged.
A man stepped into view, wearing medical whites instead of armor. "Doctor Halvorsen," he said. "You're lucky to be alive."
Behind him stood another recruit, taller, lean, watching Heinrich with quiet curiosity.
"He's the one who found you," the doctor added. "Name's Arkyn."
Heinrich turned his head slightly, meeting Arkyn's gaze.
"Heinrich" he said hand extended for a handshake. "Thank you"
"No problem, couldn't leave someone bleeding and passed out on the floor." He laughed while shaking Heinrich hand " Well maybe the rich assholes"
"I would appreciated if you do it for everyone regardless of origin, you must save everyone." The doctor said while putting a hand on Arkyn shoulder. "But in other news Heinrich you suffered a broken rib, bloody nose and concussion, luckily we had you in the Nu water bath, Nu water is a healing water that is mixed with medicine and minerals that create healing water that speeds up the natural healing on the body, and had you not been found you would have bleed internally and suffocated and died." He looked at Heinrich more with serious concern "I don't know what happened but I'm being told to keep a shut mouth on this and I can probably guess it was that snake bastard Malrin never really liked him but there's nothing I can do. Just from now on be safe." He said with almost a fatherly tone made Heinrich remember his father before he pushed the memory down.
"I'll be ok" Heinrich said with a sincere smile.
"I know" the doctor said with a smile "Kids like you are tough and stubborn, but I just need to do a few test and then you and Arkyn will head back to your bunks sadly they want you to participate in training the moment your clear and I stalled as much as possible already."
"Ok" Heinrich agreed mostly due to the fact he knows for sure he can be stubborn but he can recognize genuine help when he needs it.
The doctor does a series of test and explains each one but just about goes over the head of him and Arkyn.
Afterwards he sends Arkyn and Heinrich to the bunks and says he will forward a Holo-message the Captain.
As they leave to walk the room Heinrich thinks to himself did he make the right decision or should he have accepted Death and imprisonment.