The bread had been sitting there for three days.
Levin Hoffman sat in the corner of his cell, back against the concrete wall, staring at it. Hard. A patch of mold had started in the bottom left corner. It smelled about the same as the cell itself.
He wasn't eating it.
'If I eat it now, there's nothing for tomorrow.'
'If I don't eat it now, there might not be a tomorrow.'
He put it back down.
Outside the cell, boots hit the metal floor. One. Two. Three. Levin didn't need to count anymore. He'd learned the pattern three weeks ago, right after an Aschenborn in the block next door strangled a guard with his own chain.
The guard survived.
The Aschenborn didn't.
'If you're going to kill someone, finish it.'
The steps stopped directly in front of his cell.
* * *
"Hoffman."
Levin counted to three. Then he looked up.
He didn't recognize the guard standing outside the bars. The uniform was too neat. The jaw was too tight for someone who was supposed to be used to places like this. Behind him, two senior guards stood with hands on their weapons. H-7s, standard issue for handling Aschenborn.
'New. And nervous.'
"Come with us." The young guard said.
"Where?"
"That's not your concern."
Levin studied him for a moment. The guard's eyes moved left, toward a wall that had nothing on it.
'New, nervous, and can't hold eye contact. Long day for him.'
Levin stood. He dusted off his knees out of habit. It wasn't going to do anything, his pants couldn't get dirtier at this point. He walked to the bars and held both hands through the gap without waiting to be asked.
The senior guard on the right snapped the cuffs on.
Click.
Cold. Heavy.
'Of course.'
The cell opened.
* * *
The corridor of the Aschenborn detention facility ran the entire length of the building, lit by blue-white neon along both walls. Levin had read once, on a torn piece of newspaper he'd found on the floor, that the color was scientifically chosen to reduce aggression in detainees.
He didn't know if it worked on anyone else.
For him, it just made everyone look slightly more dead.
Cells lined both sides of the corridor. Some empty. Some not. The ones still awake watched him pass. Sunken eyes with dark circles. Bodies too thin for their age.
Aschenborn.
The word came from an old language. It meant 'born from ash.' But in the seventeen years since Das Erhaben arrived, the word had lost whatever meaning it used to have. Now it meant something simpler.
Human. Just human.
Das Erhaben never officially called humans inferior. They were too organized for that. They had a system instead, a galactic hierarchy with names that sounded neutral. Nullrang. Rank Zero. The lowest caste.
Seventeen years ago, Das Erhaben's ships appeared in the sky. No war. No explosions. Just a radio broadcast on every frequency at once, in every language at once:
We come in peace. Join us, and your world will become larger.
Humanity joined. Of course they joined.
And the world did become larger, exactly as promised. What the broadcast didn't mention was that 'joining' meant taking the lowest position in something very, very big. And the lowest position doesn't move up.
Not ever.
* * *
They stopped in front of a steel door with a metal plaque above it:
BWK
Bewertungskammer. Assessment Chamber.
'Assessment for what.'
The young guard opened the door.
The room inside looked nothing like the rest of the facility. Bright, not the usual blue but a clean white. A long table made of some material Levin couldn't identify, and behind it, three chairs.
Two empty.
One not.
The woman sitting there looked up when Levin walked in. White hair, cut short and neat. Grey eyes with pupils that were slightly too vertical. Her movements were too precise.
'Vaelkrun. Or half, at least.'
She looked at Levin the same way someone looks at a document. Searching for specific information, not a general impression.
"Sit down." She said.
Levin sat.
* * *
"Levin Hoffman." She read from the file in her hands.
"Nullrang. Age nineteen. Detention facility Sector Seven, third month. Violation: refusing a direct order from a Rank Three officer. Damage to Das Erhaben property valued at..."
"I know what I did."
A short silence.
The guard behind Levin went stiff. The woman didn't. She just stopped reading, lifted her eyes, and looked at Levin with an expression that didn't change at all.
Several seconds passed.
"Very well." She said finally. She closed the file.
"My name is Elara Weiss. Liaison Officer for the Aschenborn Combat Unit in Sector Seven. I'm here because there is an assignment that requires candidates, and your name appeared on the list."
"What kind of assignment."
"Do you know about the Eisenlaufer Program?"
Eisenlaufer. Iron Runner.
Every Aschenborn knew about it. The Aschrahmen pilot program, mecha combat units operated by Nullrang as Das Erhaben's frontline forces. Officially, a chance for Nullrang to prove their worth to galactic civilization.
Survival rate for pilots in their first mission: forty-three percent.
The ones who survived, that is.
'Right.'
"I know about it." Levin said.
"You've been selected as a candidate for the Aschrahmen Sturm class. Training begins..."
"No."
This silence was different.
The young guard behind Levin let out a small breath. The sound of someone watching something they didn't want to watch. Elara Weiss didn't move. Didn't blink.
"You're refusing." She said.
"Yes."
"You understand that refusal means you stay here."
Her eyes moved briefly toward the corridor outside the door.
"Two more years. And after that, without a contribution record, you go into the Sector Low labor redistribution list."
Sector Low. The asteroid mines in outer orbit. Average lifespan for workers after entry: six years.
'Two years here, six years there. Or a forty-three percent chance of surviving as a pilot.'
'Das Erhaben is really very generous with its options.'
Elara looked at him for a long time. Then, very slowly, she closed the file completely.
"May I ask you something."
Levin didn't answer. He waited.
"You're not afraid to die." She said.
Not a question.
"No." Levin answered.
"Why."
And that was the real question.
Levin looked at the table between them. The polished surface caught his reflection faintly. Messy hair. Dark circles. Iron cuffs on his wrists.
He remembered his mother. Remembered the sound of his little sister laughing in their small kitchen, a sound he'd forced himself to forget but it never fully went away. He remembered the night Das Erhaben carried out the 'relocation' in their district. The official word for something the official report called incident-free.
The report lied.
He remembered Drescher. The way that man had put a hand on his shoulder and said trust me, two days before signing the document that burned the entire unit. He remembered the expression on Drescher's face when he did it.
No regret. Just calculation.
'Why am I not afraid to die.'
'Because everything that made this life worth keeping is already gone.'
But he didn't say that.
"Because there's nothing left to protect." He said.
Elara Weiss looked at him for a long time. A very long time. Something moved behind those grey eyes. Something small and fast, already gone before Levin could decide what it was.
"I understand." She said quietly.
She opened the file again.
"This assignment is not optional, Hoffman ."
* * *
Two hours later, Levin stood in the furthest hangar of the Sector Seven Military Complex.
In front of him: eight meters of dull grey iron. Exposed joints. Hydraulic cables running along the outside. The paint on its chest had peeled in several spots, but the number was still clearly readable:
AS-07-119
'A number. Of course.'
The hangar was large and quiet. The smell of oil and metal that had gone too long without cleaning hung in the air. In the right corner, a light flickered with an uneven rhythm, busted long enough that there was a yellow stain on the floor directly underneath it.
Nobody had fixed it.
'Why fix the lights when the pilots aren't expected to come back anyway.'
"You're the new one?"
Levin turned around.
A young woman stepped out from behind the unit's right leg, an oily rag in one hand and a wrench in the other. Dark brown hair, tied back loosely with several strands falling across her face. There was a smear of oil on her left cheek she clearly hadn't noticed. Dark green eyes, and right now they were looking at Levin with the expression of someone who had just realized there was another person in a room that was supposed to contain only her and a machine.
"You're the new one?" She said again.
"Looks like it."
She glanced at the unit behind her, then back at Levin. Something in her expression shifted. Not unfriendly. More like someone running a quiet calculation.
"You've piloted an Aschrahmen before?"
"No."
"Simulation?"
Levin looked at the unit for a moment. Eight meters of dull iron with cables running outside and paint peeling at several points. It looked like it had been assembled by someone very angry in a very short amount of time.
"If I had, I wouldn't be staring at it like this."
She stopped moving her hands.
"Basic training?" She asked, slower this time. The voice of someone who already knew the answer but still needed to hear it.
"Two hours ago I was still in a detention cell."
A brief silence.
"Oh." She said finally. Very flat.
"Great."
'Yeah. Truly.'
She let out a short breath, tucked the wrench into her overall pocket, and extended her hand. The palm had traces of oil that hadn't fully come out even after the wipe.
"Liesel Kranz. Technician. This unit is my responsibility."
She glanced at AS-07-119 for a moment, a look that couldn't quite be called proud.
"So if you die in there because of a mechanical problem, that's on me. I'll make sure at least that doesn't happen."
'At least that doesn't happen.'
'Very specific choice of words.'
Levin looked at the hand for a moment. Then shook it.
"Levin Hoffman."
"I know." Liesel pulled her hand back.
"Everyone in this hangar knows. You're the one who refused in front of Weiss earlier."
The corner of her mouth moved slightly. Not a smile exactly, but something close to it.
"Takes either guts or stupidity to do that."
"Probably both."
Liesel looked at him for a moment. The look was short, no more than two seconds, but there was something in it that felt like weighing something more than just a first introduction.
Then she turned back to the unit.
"Come on. If you want to survive past the first mission, you need to know how this machine works. I don't have a lot of time."
Levin followed her.
'Forty-three percent.'
'For a death lottery, that number's not too bad.'
Above them, the hangar lights hummed steadily. In the right corner, the broken light still flickered with its uneven rhythm.
Nobody fixed it.
* * *
[Eisenlaufer System — Initializing...]
[Pilot detected: AS-07-119]
[Status: Nullrang — Unverified]
[Warning: Pilot has not completed standard certification.]
[Proceeding with emergency protocol...]