Chapter Text
I bombed the interview.
This is important to establish early, because if anyone ever tries to tell you that I was recruited into the DAA through brilliance, charm, or a sparkling first impression, they are lying to you, or I am dead and they are being merciful. I was one name among more than a thousand applicants, all of us clawing toward the same impossible prize. Of course people wanted to work at the world’s most advanced military aerospace institute, the Deepspace Aviation Administration. For fuck’s sake, I would have killed for their benefits package alone. The office view. The coffee. The kind of technology you were not supposed to know existed unless the world was already ending.
And yet.
I spilled coffee on the assessment paper.
Not in a dramatic way, not with any elegance or tragic flair. Just a slow, humiliating spill, the kind where you have enough time to realize what is happening and still fail to stop it.
Then I swore. Out loud. Clearly. Definitely not something involved the letter "M" and "F".
Then, in what can only be described as a catastrophic lapse in self preservation, I attempted to salvage the situation by launching into a rant about how useless assessments were as a measure of competence, how absurd it was to evaluate battlefield strategy and crisis response skills by asking people to write neat answers in little square boxes, as if survival could ever be reduced to a standardized format. I told them that war was not multiple choice, that successful defense operations were not built on straight As, and that if they truly wanted to know who was capable, they should throw us into real work and see who drowned. I mean that would be a great idea to cut the HR costs.
Not sure why I said all that.
The panel did not laugh.
To be fair, they had the look of people who had already watched three cities evacuate before lunch. Humor does not survive long in rooms like that.
I had once heard that when you witness too much suffering, you eventually stop reacting to anything. Maybe that was true. Or maybe they had simply had too much plastic surgery and botox to bother with facial expressions anymore. I should stop. I was definitely crossing a line in my head, if not aloud.
Still, somehow, impossibly, two weeks later I received an encrypted message that began with:
"Congratulations, Estelle—"
I reread it six times, convinced there had been a clerical error, a system malfunction, or a deeply ironic recruitment strategy I was not emotionally prepared to process.
Because this was the DAA.
The DAA did not recruit people who spilled coffee and insulted assessment protocols.
They recruited people who stopped the world from ending.
⸻
Everyone knows the story, even if no one agrees on the details.
Decades ago, the sky tore.
That is the phrase people use, because it sounds cleaner than reality buckled under forces we still do not understand. And because that was what it looked like. The sky ripped apart, and things came through the holes. Wanderers. Monsters. They emerged from the rupture and tore people apart. I am not trying to dramatize history. I am stating it as plainly as I can, as objectively as possible.
It was not a world war. No. It was a hunting ground, and humans were the prey.
They were not aliens in the cinematic sense, with oversized heads and green skin. There were no ships, no language, no attempt at communication or negotiation. Just violence, relentless and horrendous, paired with a terrifying adaptability that ensured every scientific explanation was already obsolete by the time it reached publication.
The world did not end.
Which, in some ways, was worse.
I remember hearing these stories from my grandmother while lying safely in my bed, half asleep, treating them like distant legends from a darker age. Back then, it was easy to believe they were exaggerated, softened by repetition.
They were not.
The reason I could sleep, the reason I could grow up, was because when the world collapsed, some people fought back. They used whatever strength they had left to push against extinction, to drive those creatures back inch by inch, city by city.
The world reorganized itself around survival. As Wanderer numbers diminished, cities grew taller and denser, compressing humanity into vertical spaces reinforced with steel and surveillance. Defense grids wrapped the skyline like a second skeleton, humming constantly, invisible until they failed. Evacuation drills became as ordinary as fire alarms, another reflex drilled into muscle memory. And the DAA, situated in the tallest building on Skyhaven and officially classified as a multinational security and research authority, became the spine holding everything upright, whether it wanted that responsibility or not.
I once read an article online claiming that the monster disaster had accelerated humanity intellectual's progress, that extinction level pressure forced innovation to evolve faster than it ever had before.
I did not disagree.
We went from the brink of annihilation to deploying entire military fleets across space. The DAA operated under the jurisdiction of the Farspace Fleet, a powerful military authority with the right to declare martial law and oversight of the World Evol Government itself.
They fought the Wanderers.
They studied them.
They told us we were safe enough.
I believed them. I must have, because I applied for the fucking job.
Technically, I got in as an intern. Newly hired. Barely processed. My official title was buried under three layers of bureaucratic language and translated roughly to Strategic Systems Analytics Intern. Which meant I was not issued a weapon, armor, or the kind of insurance that came with a folded flag. I was issued access credentials, a non disclosure agreement thick enough to cause blunt force trauma, and a carefully worded warning that my work would directly influence live operations.
No pressure.
A very chill work environment, if you ignored the fact that incorrect data could get people killed.
And that was how I found myself standing at the edge of humanity’s long, slow collapse, holding a coffee stained acceptance letter and wondering when, exactly, I had crossed the line from observer to accomplice.
“Estelle.”
The voice came from behind me, bright enough to feel out of place.
“Estelle,” it repeated, louder this time, followed by fingers snapping directly beside my ear.
I flinched and turned, dragged violently out of my spiral.
Rhea was standing there with her hands on her hips, leaning forward like she had just caught me dissociating in public, which was exactly what had happened.
“You were doing it again,” she said. “That thing where you stare into the middle distance like you actually being able to see an invisible Wanderer.”
“I was thinking.”
“About dying?”
“…Maybe.”
She sighed, dramatic and theatrical, then caught my sleeve before I could drift any further into my own head.
“Snap out of it,” Rhea said. “You need to focus. The Regional Defense Commander is about to come in and brief us on the campaign and the battle structure.”
That sentence should not exist.
Regional Defense Commander. Campaign briefing. Battle.
All in one breath, like this was a perfectly normal thing to say to a group of freshly hired interns who still smelled faintly of academia and poor life choices.
One moment I had been holding my offer letter, reading it like it might dissolve if I blinked too hard. The next, I was standing inside a DAA facility, having been informed that I was attending something called orientation. I remembered the elevator ride down, the way the floor numbers vanished and were replaced with blank metal panels. We kept descending for minutes. No windows. No signal. Just the quiet hum of machinery and the unsettling realization that interns apparently did not get offices with views.
The room itself was aggressively simple. A box painted gray on every surface, no chairs, no tables, just a massive stage and a solitary stand at the front like something out of a military tribunal. It felt less like an orientation room and more like a place where people were informed of things they could not refuse.
This was a military corporation, after all. I should not have expected comfort.
Still. A coffee station would have been nice.
I let out a dry laugh before I could stop myself.
“Wow,” I said. “Orientation really escalated since college.”
Rhea grinned at me like I had just made a joke instead of revealed the first crack in my sanity.
She was hard to miss, even in a room built to intimidate. Short, wavy black hair that refused to obey gravity, bright green eyes that looked permanently curious about everything, and freckles scattered across her face like someone had accidentally spilled constellations on her skin. She talked with her hands, her shoulders, her entire body, as if stillness was a foreign concept. Sometimes I genuinely wondered if she had walked straight out of a cartoon and gotten lost in a military research facility.
I had no idea how she remembered my name. Or how she started talking to me so easily. Maybe it was because we both went to Aerospace Academy. Maybe it was because she had been on the student council board, delivering graduation speeches and collecting admiration like oxygen, while I had perfected the art of existing quietly in the background.
We were opposite poles of the same magnet. People like us were not supposed to cross paths.
“Come on,” she said. “You cannot zone out now. This is important.”
“So important they dragged us in on a Sunday instead of sending an email. Of course it matters. Someone might get killed if I skip this bonding exercise.”
She blinked. Then she laughed, unbothered.
While we waited, she leaned closer, lowering her voice like we were about to trade gossip instead of receive classified operational briefings.
“So,” she said. “Have you talked to the other interns yet?”
“I talked to you.”
Her eyes widened.
"No. That does not count. And technically, I talked to you first. I mean the others. Even just learning their names?”
“That is unnecessary,” I said, shrugging. “You know how this works, Rhea. We get one campaign to prove our worth, and then they keep one of us. Maybe none. What is the point of getting attached to people you are going to compete against for the permanent employment offer?”
Her expression shifted, something between disbelief and concern.
“Estelle,” she said gently, like she was explaining something fundamental. “You should talk to them. We are all around the same age, the same rank in the workplace hierarchy, which is to say the very bottom. It is easier to survive places like this if you know the people falling with you. In a place like this, with friends, at least you can keep your sanity in check. Competition does not mean hostility. And if someone is better and earns the spot, at least we were friends with them. Not enemies.”
That was one way to frame it.
Classic Rhea. Now I understood why she had been student council president at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. She did not buy her place. She earned it.
“And,” she added, warming to her argument, “we are five out of thousands of applicants. Even as interns, we are elite selections.”
Elite.
I nearly laughed.
Elite was not how I would describe myself, not after spilled coffee, profanity, and a spontaneous critique of institutional hiring practices. I still did not know why I had been chosen. I suspected a clerical error, or a cruel experiment, or that someone had mistaken me for an Astelle with an A instead of an E. Maybe they thought my rant was performative. Maybe they wanted to see me drown.
I kept all of that to myself.
Instead, I nodded. “Sure. Elites.”
“Exactly,” she said, missing the sarcasm entirely.
Before I could retreat, Rhea hooked her arm through mine and started dragging me across the room. I barely had time to register where we were going before we arrived at a small cluster of people who looked just as out of place as we did.
“Okay,” Rhea said brightly. “Introductions.”
The first was Gareth. Brown hair, amber eyes, and a face that was oddly easy to remember, like it belonged to someone with a job involving engines or heavy machinery rather than predictive analytics. He talked a lot. Like Rhea, but Rhea was always on point. Gareth simply yapped, words spilling out unchecked. His name glued in my head immediately, funny in a way that stuck, and he looked more like someone who should be lifting cargo crates or flying something very fast rather than buried in analytics models.
But again, who was I to judge. I am sure they were thinking the same thing, that I looked like the type of person who spilled coffee all over interview table and did not offer to clean it.
Then there was Sienna. Tall, composed, long blonde hair pulled neatly back, bright blue eyes that gave away nothing. She had the posture of someone who had always known where she belonged, which was unsettling in a place like this.
And then there was the fifth intern, whose name I was just about to learn, whose face was just beginning to settle into memory, when the room changed.
The doors opened.
The air shifted.
Conversation died instantly, like power cut to a circuit.
A presence entered the room, heavy enough to press against my ribs, and whatever fragile thread of normalcy we had been pretending to maintain snapped clean in half.
Introductions would have to wait.
The campaign had arrived.
The man who entered the room looked like he had already lived through the ending of the world and found it profoundly unimpressive.
Dark gray hair, combed back with military precision, not a strand out of place. His face was lined in a way that did not come from age alone but from repetition. Repeated losses. Repeated decisions. The kind of expression people wore when they had stopped expecting things to improve and instead focused on damage control.
He did not try to be friendly. He did not introduce himself with warmth. He stood at the podium and waited until the silence settled properly, heavy and obedient.
“I'm Rowan Hale,” he said. His voice was steady, unembellished. “I will be overseeing your deployment for our Defense Campaign this cycle.”
Deployment. For interns.
He looked at us like inventory.
“There is no need for me to explain the prestige or technological superiority of the Deepspace Aviation Administration,” Hale continued. “You are aware of it. If you were not aware of it through formal education, you should have been aware of it during the interview process. Those who were not do not stand here.”
I nearly choked.
“As you may have known, the structure of internship for the past few years,” Hale went on, “follows established protocol. Interns are assigned to operational teams on a quarterly rotation. You will report to a supervising manager. Your performance will be evaluated at the end of each quarter.”
I stared at the blank wall behind him and resisted the urge to raise my hand and ask how anyone was supposed to meaningfully evaluate strategic competence in three months without mistaking obedience for effectiveness.
Five teams. Four quarters. Four impressions. One slot.
What a beautifully flawed system.
You barely learned how a department functioned before being uprooted and reassigned, judged by people who did not know your working rhythm, your blind spots, or the way you thought under pressure. Innovation did not survive in environments like this. It got flattened into compliance.
And five interns.
Not ten, like previous cycles. Five.
Before I could spiral any further, Hale continued.
“This year’s structure will differ slightly.”
Hale let the words settle before continuing.
“As you are aware, this cycle admits only five interns. This decision was not arbitrary. It followed extensive analysis and internal debate.” His gaze moved across us, measured and impersonal. “A smaller cohort allows for greater oversight and more targeted development. Our intent is not to test your endurance as assistants. It is to assess your capacity as contributors, and to push you beyond what you believe to be your limits.”
I looked at Rhea. She looked back at me. Neither of us looked enlightened.
“This cycle,” Hale said, “you will not be embedded as auxiliary support. You will be assigned directly to operational squads. You will not be treated as interns. You will be treated as personnel. Your role will be to contribute toward outcomes that affect the safety of Linkon City and, by extension, Earth. You will work alongside your assigned regional defense unit throughout the whole campaign, focusing on analytics and experimental systems designed to enhance Wanderer detection. Your work is intended to reduce unnecessary deployments and neutralize threats before they escalate into public panic.”
He paused.
“In simpler terms, you will help us find monsters before they reach civilians.”
The room felt tighter suddenly. Like the walls had leaned in to listen.
Rhea’s usual brightness had drained from her expression. Gareth stood rigid, eyes flicking between Hale and the stage like his brain was buffering. Sienna did not react at all, which somehow felt worse.
Then Gareth raised his hand.
Of course he did.
“So,” he said quickly, words tumbling over each other, “does that mean we work with senior officers now? With no rotation across different teams?”
Hale turned his gaze on him, slow and deliberate.
“I thought I have stated that very clear.”
“And if we fail to establish proper detection protocols? If a Wanderer breach happens because of our analysis?”
“You will receive the same treatment as any other long-term DAA employee,” he said. “You will be held fully accountable for the casualties and structural damage resulting from your decisions. Or your failure to make them.”
And just like that, the floor dropped out from under us.