The red stained everything. Even the sunlight that filtered through the windows of the hermesium processing facility seemed discolored by crimson. Vidy worked over the panel controlling the flow rates and stop-tanks that regulated the volatile mineral’s processing to adjust the coils. The fine Martian dust that discolored everything it touched found its way into the smallest of crevices, particularly under the buttons and switches of the control panel, and gave each button and switch a distinctive crunch as Vidy used them.

  Hermesium provided humanity with access to the rest of the universe. Mankind found the element on Mars, Venus, and some asteroids after humans and androids pushed out alien invaders last millennium in 2251, and the element gets very excited around other metallic alloys. So, its extraction is very particular.

  The refinery’s machinery provided the workers with a persistent hum. That familiar drone from the coils, furnaces, and condensers blurred into the backdrop of daily existence in the last free colony of androids. Through the grime-smeared glass panels, the Martian horizon stretched like a red sea, punctuated by jagged basalt outcroppings and skeletal remnants of terraforming structures half-swallowed by time.

  This was home. At least, it had become home. Everywhere else in the settled systems were off limits to androids like Vidy.

  He glanced at the readouts, checking them more from habit than necessity. Something else tugged at his attention, something beyond the routine grind of his shifts. He caught fragments of gossip drifting from a cluster of human engineers gathered lazily around a terminal that was being repaired.

  “…fleet movement near Phobos…”

  “…the United Government wouldn’t send the UCC here…”

  He pretended to be absorbed in his own tasks, but every word felt weighted with the threat of potential conflict. Mars was the place of rumors. Workers often spoke in hushed voices about news of government crackdowns on other colonies, sudden vanishings, and the brutal suppression of those deemed dangerous by the system’s government. Until recently, Vidy had dismissed the talk as idle gossip or paranoia. But lately, military flyovers had become too frequent.

  “You’re running too hot on line three,” came a gruff voice from behind him.

  The refining process was just as finnicky as extraction. Hermesium is moved around refineries and removed from mines using superconducting coils in one form or another. Accidental contact with metals and other materials like the Martian dust is greatly reduced, making the refineries safer from explosions. If the temperature in the coils raises too much, containment fails, and new maps of the area will need to be drawn.

  Vidy snapped back to the console and adjusted the coolant flow. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

  “You androids usually don’t get distracted.” The man’s tone wasn’t cruel, but the distinction was there.

  Vidy looked human, convincingly so—synthetic flesh, a heartbeat perfectly mimicked, even sweat beading convincingly along his brow—but he carried the invisible weight of a million lines of code, a manufactured existence that branded him as lesser.

  The man stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Did you hear anything?”

  “About what?” Vidy asked carefully, wary of expressing too much curiosity.

  He hesitated. “Ships. United Combat Corps troop transports orbiting Phobos. Supposedly, the feds are upset about reduced fuel exports.”

  Vidy felt a strange twinge in his chest. Whether fear or anxiety, he wasn’t certain. Android or not, his nerves processed emotion just like human ones. Perhaps better. Too much, some might say.

  “Why now?” Vidy murmured. “Mars, especially this colony, has always cooperated.”

  “Has it?” The man’s laugh was humorless. “When you people fought alongside us against those alien monstrosities, we were all practically equals. The government forgets some things quickly, and others never. And anyways, cooperation isn’t the same as obedience.”

  A brief silence hung between them before the man walked off, back to work. The alien war was old history. A thousand years had passed since humanity, with the aid of androids, Vidy included, had driven back invaders from some unknown distant star. Androids earned partial autonomy for their sacrifices, but nothing lasts forever. Not androids, not democracy, not stars, and most certainly not humans.

  Freeport colony now sat above the skeleton of an alien hive that made its home in tunnels in the Martian earth deep below. Because the government isn’t too fond of the existence of a colony friendly toward autonomous and sentient robots, they don’t provide shelters against solar events. The citizens of Freeport now use the tunnels for safety during such events.

  Vidy stared again at the dusty horizon. He was painfully aware of what he was: a being caught between worlds. Not quite human, never fully accepted. It was something he felt deeply, quietly, every day. He drew breath, felt his lungs expand, and released a slow sigh.

  “Are you alright, Vidy?”

  He turned at the sound of a different, familiar voice. Tam was older, greying at the temples, with an expression softened by concern. Tam was one of the few humans who treated Vidy as more than machinery.

  “I’m fine, just unsettled. These rumors…”

  Tam’s brows furrowed, and the lines across his weathered face deepened. “Trust your instincts. Android or human, we all know something’s coming.” He rested a firm hand on Vidy’s shoulder. “When it does, watch out for yourself first. Remember, they’ll always blame your kind first when trouble starts.”

  “Yeah…”

  “You want to grab a drink or something this weekend?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Try not to stress. Ain’t no sense in stressing about something that hasn’t happened yet.”

  Tam squeezed his shoulder once, reassuringly, before moving away toward the humming heart of the facility. Vidy watched him go, suddenly acutely aware of how fragile life had become beneath the orange-blue-gray sky. Mars, it seemed, was balanced on a blade’s edge, and beneath the veneer of normality lay a tension ready to shatter into chaos.

  With his pulse pounding a nervous rhythm, Vidy returned to his console, glancing just once more through the thick glass. Above, Phobos loomed ominously in the distant sky, silhouetted darkly against the pale glow of the Martian sun—watching, waiting.

  As the work shift ended, Vidy stepped out of the facility into the chill evening wind, dust swirling around his boots in scarlet ribbons. The Martian sun dipped toward the distant ridges. A group of tired workers shuffled past him, heads low and voices quiet. The tension had grown palpable, an almost physical presence that hovered above the colony, pressing down on everyone, human and android alike.

  Outside, Freeport felt more exposed than ever. The colony was a cluster of low, prefabricated buildings and landing pads nestled against the protective rim of a wide, shallow crater. Dunes painted the remainder of the crater. The refinery’s external lighting flickered, returning with a weak glow against the gathering dusk and highlighted grit and rust that accumulated from decades of neglect. Automated harvesters crawled along the distant dunes, extracting iron and other elements from the dust.

  Vidy headed down a worn pathway, passing other workers shuffling homeward. Androids walked in quiet groups, and their silence was more pronounced than usual. The human workers watched them carefully, suspiciously, as though waiting for them to break ranks, to reveal something hidden. He felt the gaze of others on him, sometimes hostile, always wary.

  He reached his quarters, which was little more than a converted shipping container they called a CHU, or a containerized housing unit. Vidy found Tam already sitting on the steps with his hands clasped loosely in his lap, and his eyes fixed toward the sky, where bright specks moved swiftly against the stars.

  “Troop ships,” Tam said without looking over. He nodded upward at the faint contrails slicing the thin Martian atmosphere. “Orbital patrols. I’ve seen them before, years ago. This time feels different.”

  “You think they’re here for us?” Vidy asked, stepping beside him, gazing upward, as if he could penetrate the veil of secrecy shrouding the colony.

  Tam shrugged. “They never just visit.”

  Vidy swallowed hard, even though there was no reason for it. “Because of what? The strikes last month? The protests at Olympus Station?”

  “Maybe. Or, just to remind us who’s in charge.” Tam shook his head. “They don’t trust androids anymore, Vidy. Nobody outside the borders of this colony. Not since you and your kind started demanding rights. Autonomy scares the people that have privilege.”

  Vidy clenched his fists, the muscles in his joints tightening imperceptibly. “We’re not threats. All we want—”

  Tam raised a calming hand. “I know. I’m on your side, bud. But out here, we don’t get to decide what’s fair. Decisions are made by men behind screens millions of miles away. They don’t care who we are, human or android, so long as the hermesium flows.”

  Vidy said nothing, and his eyes were still fixed on the darkening sky. Another thin contrail streaked overhead, coldly indifferent. Tam placed a gentle hand on Vidy’s shoulder, warmth and solidarity bridging the space between synthetic and organic.

  “Keep your head down,” Tam advised softly, almost pleading. “Stay quiet, and maybe this blows over.”

  Days and weeks passed as nothing changed to the naked eye. Vidy continued working, and he continued staring into the Martian night sky, hoping for change. And change always came, and it came for every android, everywhere. For Vidy, change came in the middle of the night, when it would be least opportune for him.

  Vidy awakened to vibrations and the sound of the blaring of alarms tearing through the thin walls of his quarters. Red emergency lights bathed the room in pulses of scarlet. He scrambled upright and his internal sensors flooded him with data. His heart rate was elevated, external temperature fluctuated wildly, and the atmosphere contained traces of smoke.

  Stepping outside, he stared upward into a nightmare.

  Fire streaked across the Martian night sky. Orbital bombardment had begun. Bright streaks arced downward, blossoming into distant explosions on the horizon. He realized these were precision strikes, targeting communications arrays and transit points. Freeport trembled beneath each distant impact, with structures groaning as if in pain.

  Suddenly, the air seemed to crackle with energy, as an almost palpable tension built. Vidy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Shielding his eyes against the glare, he gazed up and to the left.

  A brilliant pinprick of light appeared, high above a communication dish. It grew larger with astonishing speed, like a burning sun descending from the heavens with the sky lit ablaze in its wake. The rumble started low with a deep groan that reverberated through Vidy’s bones, steadily increasing in volume and pitch.

  As the incandescent orb drew near, the very atmosphere seemed to distort around it, bending and twisting like a mirage. A high-pitched whine pierced the air, rising to an agonizing shriek that set his teeth on edge.

  Then, with a deafening crack that made Vidy’s ears ring, the ball of light slammed into the dish. The structure buckled and heaved, steel warping and buckling under the incredible force of the impact. The structure pancaked downward in a cascading collapse and rained debris and dirt in all directions.

  Turning his attention back upwards, thousands of points of light now crowded the sky. Most hovered for a moment while the others, orbital strikes like the one against the dish, rained on the rim of the crater nearest to the colony. The resulting dust cloud concealed the first troop transports that made their way to the surface.

  “They’re here,” Vidy mumbled, stumbling forward. “They’re really here.”

  Around him, colonists spilled from their shelters with faces a mask of panic and disbelief. A young woman nearby gripped her child close, and their eyes were wide with horror. Soldiers shouted commands from hastily established security checkpoints, but confusion had already taken hold.

  “Attention all colonists,” crackled a cold voice over the public broadcast system. “Martial law is now in effect. We will use lethal force against any resisting androids. Android workers are ordered to report immediately for inspection and reassignment. Humans shall remain in their quarters or be arrested.”

  Vidy’s pulse surged again with a spike of adrenaline. He turned to find Tam standing motionless in the chaos, staring back at him with an expression that spoke volumes—sorrow, helplessness, defiance.

  “Run, Vidy,” Tam mouthed silently, urgency written across his lined face. “Now.”

  Another explosion further shattered Freeport’s fragile tranquility, and hurled Vidy to the ground. He scrambled up. A bitter, metallic taste from the dirt filled his mouth.

  The sky roared with flame as more orbital dropships pierced the thin atmosphere with their sleek, armored hulls reflecting crimson fire. They landed with bone-rattling force at the colony’s living area, throwing up clouds of choking Martian soil. Soldiers streamed out in their brown body armor, with helmets and masks that made them look faceless and cruel. The United Government had fully arrived, altogether armed, relentless, and prepared.

  Colonists scattered and screamed in confusion and terror. Vidy pushed through the chaos with a heart that pounded in panic. Across the street, a group of androids stood defensively, forming a silent shield around a cluster of frightened humans. They moved fluidly, with a precision that was beautiful yet unsettling. But even their enhanced coordination wouldn’t be enough against the overwhelming firepower now swarming into Freeport.

  A soldier raised his weapon and fired without hesitation. An android fell and sparks and synthetic blood mingled as he hit the red dirt. Vidy’s heart lurched painfully.

  “Vidy!” Tam’s voice cut sharply through the chaos. Vidy whirled, seeing his friend stumble toward him, face streaked with soot, eyes wide and desperate. “We have to get to the shelter—”

  A sudden pulse of heat and sound interrupted him as an orbital shell struck near them behind the living quarters. The shockwave sent Vidy sprawling. He tasted more dirt, his vision spun, and his ears rang with white noise.

  Hands grabbed him and hauled him upright. Tam’s grip was iron. “Come on! Get up!”

  They moved together, weaving through panicked colonists, stumbling toward the tunnels at the colony’s heart. Explosions echoed behind them, and soldiers flooded every street, corralling residents into groups. Vidy saw friends, androids and humans alike, shoved to the ground with weapons trained upon their heads.

  “We can’t just leave them,” Vidy said as he halted abruptly.

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  Tam turned sharply, with blazing eyes. “They’re not here to arrest people. They’re here to crush us, to make an example. Especially your kind.”

  Vidy hesitated, torn by instinctive loyalty and fear. He stared at Tam, his one true friend, the only human who’d treated him with dignity and kindness. “We need to help—”

  Soldiers surged forward with leveled rifles, interrupting him. A voice boomed through amplifiers. “Android, halt! Non-compliance will result in immediate destruction. You are ordered to get on your knees and put your hands in the air, out wide.”

  Tam moved protectively in front of Vidy. “Stop! He’s no threat!”

  “Move aside, citizen! Attempting to interfere with the arrest of an android will result in your arrest and prosecution.”

  Vidy opened his mouth to protest, but it was already too late. A rifle butt swung into Tam, knocking him to the ground. The old man collapsed with a painful groan, and blood trickled down his forehead.

  “Tam!” Vidy lunged forward instinctively, only to find himself slammed to the ground by another soldier.

  He felt cuffs lock onto his wrists, restraints designed specifically for androids—disabling and locking the muscles in his upper body.

  Tam’s eyes met his one final time. “Don’t let them break you, Vidy!”

  Then darkness closed in, punctuated by the thrum of engines and distant screams, as a soldier dragged Vidy toward waiting transport.

  Vidy jolted awake as consciousness flooded back with painful clarity as the transport shuddered around him. He tried to move, but found himself chained alongside rows of captive androids. Their faces were blank, with distant eyes. A single dim bulb clung to the ceiling, and it cast a faint light across battered synthetic skin and streaked metal plating of the hull.

  His sensors fed him data he didn’t want to process. The atmosphere was stable but smelt of skunk, gravity simulated and ever shifting, and his heart rate was elevated. The totality of the environment fiercely mocked his programmed existence. Yet the pain was real enough. A dull ache that radiated from where the restraints disabled his arms and legs.

  He stared around, searching for a familiar face, anyone he knew. But the surrounding androids were strangers with expressions varying between fear and resignation. Vidy’s chest tightened. Tam was still back there, either dead or a prisoner. And Vidy had done nothing as he helplessly watched as Freeport fell.

  The transport juddered, snapping him back to reality as it broke through atmosphere, and docked somewhere with a jolt that rattled Vidy’s teeth. Heavy footsteps approached, and the door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing soldiers in that same brown body armor, but now without the helmets many of them wore on Mars during their assault.

  “Stand,” barked a soldier as cuffs unlocked simultaneously down the line. “Listen up, toasters. Move quickly. Any deviation will result in immediate punishment. We have a schedule to keep. The faster we move, the better off everyone will be.”

  Vidy obeyed numbly, shuffling forward into blinding artificial light. His vision adjusted slowly, revealing a viewport stretching along the corridor. Outside, he saw a fog—dense, sulfurous, swirling storms of yellow and grey. He’d been unconscious long enough to be brought to another world entirely.

  Venus.

  He had heard horror stories. Labor camps buried beneath clouds of acid, where the government stripped androids of identity and worked until failure. Venus was a death sentence. Not execution, but slow dismantlement through relentless labor.

  Yet even now, as Vidy gazed out at that toxic landscape, Tam’s last words resonated through his mind, stronger than any fear:

  “Don’t let them break you.”

  With his jaw set, he stepped forward into the unknown dimness of Venus’s prison.

  As Vidy stepped out into port of the facility and followed the others toward the port hub beyond a set of blast doors, the oppressive weight of Venus’s atmosphere tried to assault him, kept barely at bay by thick shielding and buzzing air recyclers. The acidic glow outside painted everything in hues of dirty amber and sickly green, as if the very planet resented their presence. It wouldn’t matter, even if it had. The universe already had a particular hatred for machines.

  The facility, massive and somehow small, an oppressive, brutalist structure, suspended above vast pits gouged deep into the crust. Venusian hermesium mines. He’d heard tales back on Mars. Quiet rumors of inhumane conditions and forced labor that few androids ever survived had escaped the gravity of the planet. Now those whispers had become his reality.

  A soldier shoved him from behind, jerking him back into motion. “Keep walking. You fucking toasters, I swear.”

  Rows of exhausted androids shuffled past Vidy with synthetic skin that looked worn and corroded from prolonged exposure. Their eyes were vacant, and their movements were mechanical in a way far more disturbing than even his harshest critics accused his kind of being. Prisons are where souls were stripped systematically and with horrifying efficiency.

  “You’re in room C-19. You’ll have access after production,” said an overseer as he scanned a tablet. “Processing starts immediately. Production quotas will be met daily, or consequences will be severe. Get to work.”

  Vidy tightened his jaw, and at the same time, a cold sweat flooded his body. He stepped through another open blast door into a corridor illuminated by harsh yellow lights. Armed soldiers stood at regular intervals in full-battle-rattle, minus the helmets, but with masks to filter any loose hermesium ore dust. They also held their weapons relaxed, but ready.

  Alongside the corridor ran a thick glass wall, revealing the underground heart of the prison operation. There were vast chambers carved deep into Venus’s crust with tunnels descending into darkness, crisscrossed by rickety scaffolds and machinery working ceaselessly for hermesium extraction.

  He swallowed hard. It was a vision of hell itself, reimagined for android suffering.

  “You’ll get used to it,” a voice rasped from behind.

  Vidy turned, startled. Beside him stood an older android that had a facial structure weathered by years of harsh conditions and exposure. Despite the obvious wear, the older android’s gaze was sharp and assessing, instantly reading Vidy’s apprehension.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A few years,” came the grim reply. “Name’s Elric. I saw your face when you stepped off the ship. You still think like you’re free. Keep that up, and you won’t last a week.”

  A soldier approached and snapped the butt of his rifle hard against Elric’s back. Elric absorbed the blow without flinching and maintained eye contact with Vidy the entire time.

  “Silence!” He smacked the butt of the rifle against the floor twice. “Move!”

  Elric gave Vidy one last knowing look, glancing briefly downward. Vidy followed with his eyes. A small marking had been scratched subtly into the corridor’s metal floor. It wasn’t random. It was deliberate.

  Vidy’s pulse quickened as realization dawned: beneath the cruelty, the degradation, and the brutality, something survived. Something defiant.

  Hope.

  Vidy followed the soldiers deeper into the facility, where narrow corridors descended at sharp angles until they arrived at a vast cavern, suffocating with heat and dimly lit by a network of old, poorly placed floodlights. Workers—android prisoners—dragged their feet as they were moving coilcarts of hermesium ore. Their limbs were rusted or corroded, and their skin peeled from the toxic exposure to hermesium dust.

  A guard jabbed Vidy in the back, forcing him into the line of workers. “Your shift starts now. Stay productive. There are worse duties you could be put on. How do you think those windows stay so clean?” He smacked the butt of the rifle against the floor twice more.

  Vidy moved forward, stepping into line alongside the others. The weight of exhaustion fell over him immediately, but he forced himself to push through it, gripping the handles of a heavy coilcart as he joined the procession into the mines. The deeper he went, the hotter and denser the air grew, and filled with the sting of the dust of one of the most volatile substances known. He strained under the relentless assault of this new, hostile environment.

  He glanced toward the android beside him. She had dulled eyes and shaky, inaccurate movements. They met his gaze briefly, then spun away. She’d been here far too long, and her resistance was already fading.

  Hours passed in agonizing routine. Load, haul, unload, repeat—each cycle wore away his will bit by bit.

  “They fear androids because deep down, they know you’re more human than they dare to admit. That terrifies them,” came the words in Tam’s voice in Vidy’s mind, echoing a memory he held close from years ago.

  A sudden commotion pulled Vidy from his thoughts. Soldiers rushed forward with their weapons raised. Someone had fallen, collapsing from fatigue or malfunction, sprawled helplessly across the coilcart rails. A soldier moved further forward ahead of the others, weapon already charged, clearly intending to finish the job.

  “Wait!” Vidy shouted instinctively, stepping forward without thinking. “He just needs repair—”

  The soldier spun around with the rifle aimed squarely at Vidy’s chest. “Did I authorize you to speak?”

  Vidy stood frozen for a moment before narrowing his eyes in defiance despite his fear. A silence hung thickly, stretching unbearably between them.

  “I apologize,” Elric said as he stepped calmly between Vidy and the soldier. “He’s new. Still learning the ropes.”

  The soldier glared but reluctantly lowered his weapon away from Vidy, and toward the injured android.

  He pulled the trigger, and Vidy and several of the other androids almost jumped out of their skin.

  “Fucking toasters,” he said as he motioned for them both to continue working.

  Vidy exhaled shakily, his lungs aching from tension rather than exertion. Elric walked beside him now, speaking softly, barely audible above the clattering carts and humming machinery.

  “You almost died for nothing, friend. Stay smart. Stay alive. He was dead no matter what you tried to do.”

  “Why intervene?” Vidy whispered back. “Why risk yourself?”

  Elric smiled faintly, his worn face revealing a glimmer of long-buried determination. “Because we have plans, Vidy. You just walked into something much bigger than yourself. Keep your head down, listen carefully, and when the time comes—you’ll know what to do.”

  Vidy nodded slowly, realizing that hope was something quietly passed hand-to-hand here, a currency of whispers. As they resumed their task, Vidy felt a quiet resolve building within him, stronger now than fear.

  Tam had been right. Mars was only the beginning. The real fight, he understood clearly now, would be waged here—beneath clouds of sulfur and hidden from humanity’s indifferent gaze.

  Here, where androids learned to rise again.

  Days bled into weeks, and Vidy moved through them in patient silence. Beneath the steady rhythm of labor, their whispered conversations became plans, then subtle acts of defiance. Each passing shift tightened the quiet tension, every moment pulling them closer toward an inevitable breaking point, until at last, it arrived.

  The dim flood lights of the mining tunnels flickered violently and plunged the corridor momentarily into darkness. Vidy’s internal sensors sparked to high alert. This wasn’t an accidental failure. It was time.

  He exchanged a quick glance with Elric, whose expression had hardened with determined readiness. Weeks of quiet preparation, whispered planning, and careful sabotage had culminated in this instant. They’d hidden spare parts, bypassed vulnerable security routines, and passed subtle messages coded into scratch marks and seemingly random patterns on cell walls. Now, finally, the signal had come.

  Chaos erupted. Vidy lunged forward, slamming a concealed metallic spike into the control panel of the transfer coils. Sparks exploded outward, showering him in embers. Around him, other androids sprang into action, swift and precise, and dismantled machinery and short-circuited security monitors. A distant shout echoed through the corridors—the soldiers were alert now and racing deep into the mines.

  Vidy’s heart pounded furiously as he ducked behind an empty coilcart. The facility descended into further, brutal chaos, with soldiers firing wildly into the darkness, and alarms blaring overhead. Smoke filled the tunnels, blinding their sensors and choking their lungs. He caught glimpses of struggle everywhere. There were androids wresting rifles from stunned soldiers or striking back with tools and makeshift weapons.

  A hand grasped Vidy’s shoulder, yanking him sharply backward. He spun defensively but relaxed upon seeing Elric, whose face was streaked with grime.

  “The control room. We must cut their communications before they realize what’s happening and call reinforcements.”

  Vidy nodded quickly and followed Elric as they moved quick through the narrow mining tunnels. The path was dark, and the air was thick and hot, but Vidy’s sensors guided him. They emerged into a cramped control chamber, catching two soldiers off-guard. Vidy tackled one and his synthetic strength overpowered the man in an instant, while Elric took down the other, using precision blows that spoke to long-dormant combat protocols.

  “Cover me!” Vidy called out and sprinted toward the main console.

  His hands flew across the interface, overriding security protocols. Screens flashed red warnings, and alarms blared angrily, but finally—mercifully—the primary communication link to orbit went dark.

  “We did it,” Vidy breathed as he put his hands to his hips.

  “Not yet. We missed a few things,” Elric snapped as he picked up and raised a soldier’s weapon. “That will buy us a few hours, though. But there’ll be more. Look at that,” he said, pointing to a dull, flashing light.

  Independent automated alarms. Something Vidy and the others hadn’t fully accounted for.

  Outside the control room, prisoners battled heavily armed and determined soldiers, but the prisoners overpowered the soldiers. Casualties on both sides lay scattered among the rooms and tunnels of the facility.

  Elric moved closer, placed a firm hand on Vidy’s shoulder, and met his gaze.

  “This is bigger than us now,” Elric said softly. “The revolt has begun—but it won’t survive without someone to lead it. And it won’t survive if we stay on Venus.”

  “I’m not sure I—”

  “You’re stronger than you think,” Elric interrupted, his voice carrying undeniable authority. “They tried to strip you down to nothing, yet here you are, standing tall. Don’t waste that.”

  Vidy swallowed hard, nodded, and absorbed Elric’s words. Around them, android prisoners rallied, and their initial fear transformed into fierce determination. They gathered weapons from fallen soldiers, moving with renewed purpose.

  For the first time since arriving on Venus, Vidy saw hope igniting in their eyes—a spark powerful enough to drive back despair, to fuel rebellion, to demand a future.

  And as explosions echoed in distant tunnels, Vidy knew they had passed a point of no return. Venus was no longer just a prison.

  It was their battlefield.

  The echoes of gunfire continued as they reverberated through the tunnels, distorted by the twisting passages and oppressive atmosphere on their way to the command center and upper levels. With communications severed, the soldiers fell into disorder—but they weren’t finished yet. The revolt’s initial burst of hope gave way quickly to brutal, hand-to-hand skirmishes beneath emergency lights as the desperate struggle unfolded in shadows and smoke.

  Vidy left the command center and rushed forward, driven by adrenaline and desperation. He felt Elric at his side, matching his stride without words, and anticipating his movements effortlessly. Ahead, a group of prisoners huddled defenselessly, cornered by two soldiers. Vidy lunged without hesitation, throwing his weight against the nearest soldier, wrestling him to the ground. They grappled desperately, but the human’s strength faltered quickly against Vidy’s power.

  The soldier went limp and unconscious. Vidy rose, breath quick, surveying the chaotic scene. Android prisoners had regrouped, pushing back against their captors with improvised weapons and sheer numbers. But many lay shattered on the ground with lifeless limbs frozen and a soul forever lost.

  “Vidy!” Elric’s urgent voice carried through the smoke-filled tunnel. “They’re regrouping at the port. If we let them seal it, we’re trapped.”

  Vidy hurried to join him, with a few surviving allies assembling at their side. They sprinted along the upper levels, dodging bodies and debris, until finally arriving at the facility’s port, a broad, reinforced tunnel guarded by a massive steel gate.

  Dozens of androids stood in tense formation opposite a wall of armed soldiers holding rifles leveled. Behind them loomed the heavy blast doors, already closing slowly, sealing their escape route.

  “Hold your position!” a captain said through amplified speakers. “Surrender now or be destroyed.”

  Vidy’s gaze strayed from the determined faces around him to the shrinking gap in the blast doors. Every calculation told him they couldn’t win here—but they had no other option.

  “Rush them!” Vidy shouted, stepping forward boldly. “They can’t stop us all!”

  His voice surged through the crowd, igniting something fierce within them. Androids surged forward as one, a tide of defiant determination. Bullets tore through their ranks, dropping some in an instant, but they pressed on, unstoppable in their collective desperation.

  Vidy moved with a ruthless precision that was driven by a strength he’d never known. Beside him, Elric fought fiercely, taking hits that would drop humans but shrugging them off with determination. They overwhelmed the soldiers, seizing their weapons, and surging toward the narrowing gap of the blast door.

  With moments to spare, Vidy reached the control panel, ripping it open and smashing circuits bare-handed. The massive doors shuddered, halted briefly, then froze in place.

  The gate remained open, just wide enough.

  “Go! Move now!” Vidy yelled, ushering survivors through, scanning desperately until Elric stumbled through last.

  Then he sprinted after them, feeling the blast door vibrate and begin closing again. He dove forward, sliding through just before it slammed shut with a deafening crash, trapping any remaining pursuers behind.

  Vidy gasped as he laid on the cold metal floor, and his heart raced frantically. He met Elric’s gaze, both relieved and haunted.

  “You did it,” Elric said.

  “We all did.”

  But he knew their fight was far from over. Venus had seen only the first sparks of rebellion, but those sparks were now a flame, and flames spread quickly.

  Freedom might be uncertain—but for the first time, it felt within reach.

  They moved quickly, leaving the blast door sealed behind them as they hurried through narrow corridors toward the port. The oppressive silence amplified every echo of their footsteps, every strained breath, and Vidy's heart thundered with anxious urgency. Reaching the expansive port hub felt surreal. This place, once another arm of their captivity, now represented their only hope of escape. The liberated prisoners wasted no time, scattering to fortify their new refuge and prepare the transport craft. Vidy took a moment to catch his breath and walked to a platform nearby.

  Vidy stood on the platform overlooking the port and hellish landscape behind the protective shell, the only fully liberated places of the facility complex. From this vantage point, Venus was a surreal landscape. Outside were rolling storms of sulfuric acid and endless clouds that concealed horrors beneath their turbulent surfaces. He had imagined freedom countless times since arriving, but never quite like this, never amidst such brutal desolation. Yet here he stood, among survivors determined to reclaim their stolen dignity.

  Behind him, android prisoners, now free citizens of their small corner of hell, worked tirelessly to fix themselves, others, and prepare the transport to find a new home. They spoke in low voices, planning, hopeful for the first time in years. Elric stood nearby, conversing with several prisoners and coordinating resources. His presence stabilized everyone’s worries, even amidst lingering chaos.

  “How long do you think we have?” Vidy asked when Elric joined him at the rail.

  “Hours, maybe days,” Elric replied in a steady but weary voice. “They’ll send reinforcements. They can’t afford to let us keep this victory.”

  Vidy nodded and gripped the railing. His thoughts drifted to Mars—red sands, quiet conversations beneath starlit skies, and Tam. The memory pained him, even now.

  “Then we keep going, try to find a better home,” Vidy said. “As long as we can. Whatever happens next, we’ve already proven something here.”

  Elric looked at him, nodding once. “Yes, we have. You did good.”

  Vidy offered a small smile. His pride mingled with grief, and his gaze rose again to the swirling storm above. The dense clouds shifted, and flashes of lightning illuminated veins of yellow and orange.

  Yet, as Vidy stared upward, something slipped by his attention—a subtle ripple in the storm’s pattern, too ordered to be natural.

  High above, unseen by those below, shadows moved—silhouettes swimming slowly, ominously, through Venus’s endless clouds. The sleek shapes of massive warships, silver and black, emblazoned with the emblem of the United Combat Corps, hovered silently, waiting in formation.

  Below, the androids would not surrender quietly. Not now, not ever.

  Yet, the fleet drifted forward, silent and merciless, ready to descend upon Venus.