The silence that followed victory often carried a heavier weight than battle itself.
Three days had passed since the events at Vardhana Relay, yet the Academy had not returned to its familiar rhythm.
Corridors that usually echoed with laughter and hurried footsteps now hummed with quiet conversations.
Cadets lowered their voices whenever the names of Aryaan and his friends surfaced.
Some spoke with admiration, others with disbelief, and a few with barely concealed envy.
The official reports remained classified.
The rumours, however, had spread faster than light through Mokshabhumi’s countless residential rings.
According to one version, the eight cadets had destroyed an Orion scout.
Another claimed they had awakened an ancient weapon buried beneath the relay.
Potter had discovered at least twelve wildly different versions by breakfast.
“My personal favourite,” he announced as they crossed the eastern promenade, “is that Ron wrestled a plasma dragon using only a maintenance wrench.”
Ron frowned.
“It wasn’t a wrench.”
The group stopped.
Bonita folded her arms.
“There wasn’t a dragon.”
Ron looked almost offended.
“I know that. I’m saying if there had been one, I’d have picked something cooler than a wrench.”
Potter nodded solemnly.
“That’s exactly what someone who fought a plasma dragon would say.”
Mitchell sighed.
“I’ve spent three days trying to stop people asking whether we really exploded half a station.”
Ron grinned.
“You’ve been saying no?”
“Obviously.”
“You should’ve charged them.”
Aryaan shook his head.
“You two are impossible.”
“We’re entrepreneurs,” Potter corrected.
“You’re unemployed students.”
“Temporary entrepreneurs.”
Even Lane’s lips twitched ever so slightly before he looked away.
Sia, walking a few paces behind with another survey unit, caught the fleeting expression.
She didn’t comment.
She merely filed the observation away, almost amused that Ron seemed to consider making Lane smile a greater achievement than surviving Vardhana.
The Academy’s eastern district overlooked one of Mokshabhumi’s largest observation domes.
The transparent alloy canopy arched nearly two kilometres overhead, revealing the asteroid field that embraced humanity’s greatest city.
To a first-time visitor, the view was breathtaking.
Millions of rocks drifted through the darkness, some no larger than a shuttle, others large enough to host entire settlements.
Cargo vessels threaded their way through carefully calculated corridors while immense orbital elevators connected the city’s rotating habitation rings.
Beyond them shimmered the stars.
Not as scattered points of light, but as destinations.
Each represented years of exploration, centuries of dreams, and countless lives spent expanding humanity’s reach beyond the dying cradle once called Earth.
Aryaan slowed his pace.
Every time he looked through the dome, he imagined his parents seeing the same stars years earlier.
Where had they travelled?
How far had they gone?
Were they still alive?
The questions had become quieter over the years.
Never weaker.
Only quieter.
His wrist vibrated softly.
A small blue light shimmered above the thin metallic band encircling it.
“Good morning, Aryaan,” said a calm feminine voice.
“I calculated an eighty-seven percent probability that you would become distracted by existential questions before reaching your destination.”
Ron burst into laughter.
“There it is!”
Aryaan looked down at the holographic figure barely ten centimetres tall.
His AI assistant tilted her head.
“I fail to understand the source of amusement.”
“You just roasted him,” Ron said.
“I corrected his behavioural pattern.”
“That’s what roasting is.”
The hologram considered the statement.
“I will update my linguistic database.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Aryaan smiled despite himself.
Every citizen of Mokshabhumi received an AI companion shortly after birth.
Families who permitted neural integration allowed microscopic bio-compatible processors to be placed behind the base of the skull during infancy.
The assistants interfaced directly with the nervous system, providing seamless communication, memory support, translation, and emergency medical monitoring.
Others preferred no permanent body modification.
For them, assistants resided within watches, goggles, bracelets or other wearable hosts, projecting themselves whenever needed.
Neither approach was considered superior.
It was simply a matter of philosophy.
Aryaan’s parents had chosen the external route.
Devdutt had never changed it after they disappeared.
He had once said:
“A tool that can be removed reminds us that wisdom should never become dependence.”
At the time Aryaan had dismissed it as another one of Devdutt’s impossibly philosophical remarks.
Now he wasn’t entirely sure.
Ron flicked his own wrist.
His assistant appeared instantly.
Unlike Aryaan’s calm companion, Ron’s hologram looked permanently exhausted.
“Ron,” it sighed.
“You’ve walked past breakfast.”
“I already ate.”
“You consumed six sweet rolls.”
“I repeat my previous statement.”
“Those are not nutritionally equivalent.”
“They were emotionally equivalent.”
Potter laughed so hard he nearly walked into a support pillar.
“Your AI has given up on life.”
“It has adapted.”
“I am considering resignation,” the hologram replied.
“You can’t resign.”
“I have drafted seventeen requests.”
The laughter faded as they approached the Survey Guild annex adjoining the Academy.
Unlike the elegant educational buildings, the Guild complex looked unapologetically practical.
Its walls bore scars from micrometeorite impacts.
Older docking clamps remained welded onto the exterior where obsolete ships had once berthed.
No decorative gardens softened the architecture.
Every metre had been designed for function rather than appearance.
Veteran explorers crossed the halls wearing patched field jackets adorned with insignias from expeditions spanning decades.
Some walked with artificial limbs.
Others bore cultivation scars—thin luminous lines beneath the skin where overstrained meridians had healed imperfectly.
These were people who had ventured where maps ended.
Aryaan noticed several of them studying the group.
Not with curiosity.
With evaluation.
It made him unexpectedly nervous.
Inside, Captain Kavya Sen stood waiting.
She glanced over the eight students before speaking.
“Relax.”
Nobody had realised they were standing unusually straight.
Ron immediately loosened his shoulders.
“Better?”
“No.”
The briefing room was smaller than expected.
Instead of rows of seats, a circular table occupied the centre, surrounded by twelve chairs.
A rotating holographic sphere hovered above its surface.
Not a planet.
A star chart.
Thousands of luminous points drifted through three-dimensional space.
Several regions glowed in different colours.
Kavya waited until everyone had taken a seat.
“You’ve all read the official report.”
Potter raised a hand.
“The version with seventy-eight percent of the interesting parts removed?”
“The official report.”
“Then yes.”
She ignored him with remarkable professionalism.
“Your actions at Vardhana were reckless.”
“They were also courageous.”
Still nobody spoke.
“And they demonstrated something the Guild values above almost every measurable skill.”
She looked around the table.
“The ability to function when every plan has already failed.”
The room grew very quiet.
“You followed incomplete information.”
“You adapted.”
“You protected civilians.”
“You survived contact with an unidentified organism.”
“You returned with observations that experienced investigators failed to obtain.”
Mitchell frowned slightly.
“So…”
“So.”
Kavya tapped the table.
Eight metallic badges rose from concealed compartments.
Simple.
Unadorned.
A silver compass surrounded by eight tiny stars.
Bonita blinked.
“What are those?”
“Probationary Survey Investigator credentials.”
Even Potter forgot to make a joke.
Ron picked his badge up carefully.
“We’re… investigators?”
“On probation.”
“So not fake investigators.”
“No.”
“Real investigators?”
“Barely.”
Ron grinned anyway.
Aryaan turned the badge over.
On its reverse side, a single sentence had been engraved.
Curiosity without discipline is chaos.
Discipline without curiosity is stagnation.
He found himself reading it twice.
The words sounded strangely familiar.
Almost like something Devdutt would have said.
Perhaps he had.
He looked around the room.
“Where is Guruji?”
Kavya’s expression remained neutral.
“He has departed.”
Aryaan frowned.
“Departed where?”
“I wasn’t informed.”
“When will he return?”
“I wasn’t informed.”
Ron muttered under his breath.
“Convenient.”
Aryaan noticed Kavya hearing him.
She simply chose not to respond.
Instead, she expanded the holographic star map.
A cluster of stars near the outer reaches of human exploration brightened.
“Our next assignment begins here.”
The stars rearranged themselves.
Distances appeared between them.
Not in kilometres.
Not in astronomical units.
4.8 light-years.
17.2 light-years.
63.4 light-years.
A blue world slowly rotated into view.
Kavya rested one hand upon the table.
“Welcome to Vanta-3.”