In the Earth year 2093, before the Galilean Powers had yet to exist, Villan Astros was a nameless, young Martian living in the sublevels of the Red Planet's sole orbital habitat. The 'New Frontier,' as it was called, was as lawless and dangerous as one would expect a societal vanguard in an alien land to be. While sustenance was hardly provided, the work imposed by those in power was constant; demanding and dangerous. Like many young Martians during that time, Villan was highly implored by his family and his society to conform to the infantile mores and laws of their struggling society - to do his part in receiving the best education he could and give his all to Mars; to spend his life struggling so that his children's children could reap the rewards in earnest.

  Instead, much to the dismay of his family, Villan followed the teachings of a wealthy contact from Luna he met, perhaps by chance, at 17 years old. He quickly fell down the path of a smuggler and, by 19, had made a modest fortune pawning off rare and expensive flora and fauna found only found on Earth, shipped off-world to Luna to be smuggled into Mars… and also weapons, drugs, or whatever type of contraband in demand. By 20, Villan’s name had spread from his home habitat close to Phobos, across the void to the newly developed hab near Mars' other moon, Deimos, and even down to the clusters of homesteads and communities scattering the surface. He wallowed in his rapid success. He became proud and complacent to the point of blind hedonism and foolishness, pushing him to expand further into places he had no business dwelling. He made himself known to those who'd be better off remaining unaware of his existence. And so, as a punishment for overstepping his boundaries; and as a welcome to the Martian Underground, Villan was cornered, jumped, restrained and beaten by the true landlords of his new territory by virtue of pipes to arms for seemingly days until Villan’s limbs were splintered, broken, and bruised from sockets to fingertips, rendering them useless for six years until the Starfarer's Archives were unlocked and he fabricated his new arms.

  The ensuing technological singularity spurred the Four Great Nations of Sol to either take root in their domains, come out of hiding in their corners of the Solar System, or, in the Galilean Powers’ case, fully realize itself as a sovereign nation, resulting in the first and last Interplanetary Summit.

  After migrating to Jupiter with the other founders and forming the Galilean Powers, Villan took root in Europa's orbit and formed a society based on the only lifestyle he ever cared to know. He constructed his home in orbit of the Galilean moon, then constructed a scaled-up version of the habitat for the citizens of his new gangland, Neo Europe. Then, Villan started forming his new criminal syndicate. One bound by blood.

  The Astros Clan.

  ——

  "There's marrow leaking into your blood." An uncomfortably soothing voice, deep like a brass instrument, called to Jordan from the blackness of his thoughts. "Not just that." The voice continued. "Your muscles are destroyed, leaking myoglobin in as well. That'll kill you, Jordan. They have to be amputated."

  Jordan squirmed against the harsh lights as he slowly blinked his eyes open. Lying on his back, he could feel his arms stretched out at his sides, pinned down by a soft, almost absent pressure. Eclipsing one of the overhead lights was a ribbed arc of locks pulled back tightly over a glistening head the color of coconut skin.

  Dr. Creps smiled warmly before Jordan allowed his head to fall back lazily onto the pillow with a heavy sigh. "Instead of letting me die slowly, how about you cut them off already?" He snorted dryly.

  The good doctor loomed over Jordan's body, eclipsing the light once again. His chestnut eyes seemed to glisten with concern while a slight radiance of annoyance quivered his otherwise jazz-like voice. "You don't seem shocked or concerned at all."

  "They'd be cut off after my trial, regardless." Jordan attempted to shrug as the doctor turned about to program the automated piece of machinery behind, above, and beneath him. It responded by sprouting straps from the underside of the bed, which quickly whipped around his body to catch magnetic clamps and bind themselves to his chest and shoulders. "This is what I wanted." He grunted from under his restraints.

  "Ugh!" Dr. Creps tossed up his arms, as if to add fuel to his wheeling his chair across the room. "You people are all crazy!" He spat from his desk.

  "That's what the rest of the Solar System says about us, isn't it? Galilean's are crazy. Barbaric and hedonistic." Jordan chuckled sympathetically as he craned his neck to look towards the doctor. "I've had the designs finalized for weeks. There's nothing to worry about."

  "There will always be things to worry about, Jordan." Dr. Creps snapped back. "What will your younger siblings think when their time comes, eh? That they'll have to chop their arms off when they come of age like you did?"

  "My siblings have their own lives." Jordan sighed impatiently. "What paths they fall down isn't my concern."

  "Not the first time I've heard that." Dr. Creps shook his head with a weary sigh. "Do you at least know what you'll do once you're free?"

  "It's not really freedom, is it?" Jordan immediately spat back.

  The doctor raised his hand at shoulder height, palm outwards, as if to surrender. "I'm not debating with you today, Jordan," He breathed. "Just asking.”

  "In order to be free, I need Merit." Jordan shrugged beneath his restraints. "I don't know what I'll do, exactly. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it."

  The doctor only grimaced and kicked himself to the other side of the room, grumbling obscene remarks under his breath the entire time he coasted.

  "Why do you even have a job, Dr. Creps?" Jordan wondered out loud while his eyes followed the clan’s long-time doctor. While he talked, a thick robotic arm headed with a toroidal apparatus detached from the wall above his head and slid into position above Jordan's chest. Actuated, needle-tipped arms unfolded from the seamless grooves to probe and pluck needles into Jordan's shoulders, sending a cold, numbing relief through his body in waves. "You're more of a mechanic than a doctor." Jordan mumbled euphorically. "Machines do all the bulk work these days. So... do you just do maintenance? Sit here and ask questions like some sort of shrink?"

  The doctor grunted softly before rearing back to slam a hairy fist onto his desk. The bang echoed through the relatively small operating room, seemingly pushing him across the space to hover over Jordan's bed with a contemptuous sneer. "You wanna go to sleep!?" He snarled.

  Jordan forced out a weak laugh as he felt his head fall back into the embrace of his pillow. "Sure."

  ——

  "What the fuck, Jordan? Are you insane? Or just dense?"

  Unlike the soothing, calm voice of the doctor, the voice to pry Jordan from his slumber was harsh; shrill and overbearing enough to cause hypertension upon reception of the first note.

  A veil of red light encompassing his vision was the first thing to trickle into Jordan's awareness besides the verbal assault. The warmth of the harsh light splayed across his face and eyelids invoked a primal fear that kept them sealed from the beast outside. Attempting to rub his eyes and shield his retinas from the light, Jordan raised his shoulders to bring his hands to his face and only felt the upper sections of his biceps snap forward in response. Their apparent lightness, the ghosts of his hands clawing and scratching at his face, jolted Jordan's body; shocked him hard enough to snap him upright in a panicked frenzy. He frantically waved the bandaged nubs of his arms, sending icy waves through the damp gauze to the bundle of nerves steadily spasming and pulsing underneath while his eyes fought to adjust to the light.

  'Oh. Right.' Jordan eventually calmed and studied his disabled body in silence. Right where they were crushed, in the middle of his biceps, his arms ended in rounded numbs bounded thickly with gauze.

  Jordan smiled internally from having accomplished his goal, eccentric and dangerous as it may have been, and squinted to scan his surroundings. Yet, his elation and pride quickly died out once he focused on a pair of Jovian orange eyes looking down on him from the perch of an aquiline nose. Her mirror-smooth face was framed in coiled strands of ink-black hair and held just a single wrinkle on the brow from her scowl - a direct and more insidious reflection of the look Jordan gave his brother just hours prior in their little tool shed. Folded over her chest were a pair of cybernetic arms, seamless and black like their fathers, but laced with gold accents along the palms, creases of the elbows, and the armpits up to the engraved family crest on her right shoulder. Two concentric circles, one orange and the smaller one blue, which housed intricate engravings of shields and terrestrial beasts that Jordan knew only as myths and legends. Engraved on her left was the number 4, accented with golden wires surrounded by concentric spheres in the same fashion as her other shoulder.

  "My arms would've gotten cycled anyway, Vera." Jordan explained as calmly and indifferently as he could while staring into her burning eyes. "It's wasteful to just cut a good pair of arms off and throw 'em in a recycler."

  "So, you destroy them?" Jago pushed Vera aside, scratching his patchy chin with own rust-red metal fingers. The 17th child of the Clan had skin matching the good Dr. Crepes and was a little taller than James. He kept the sides of his head shaved while a cluster of thick locks was left to grow on his crown, which were currently dangling in front of Jordan's brow to tickle his nose while his elder brother studied his condition, humming to himself. "Interesting."

  "That's not interesting, Jago!" Vera leaned over Jordan to shout in Jago's ear. "It's asinine!"

  Jordan leaned around his half-siblings, craning his neck to scan the various faces present in the room. In total, 7 of his metal-armed siblings were huddled, sitting, or leaning against the wall in pockets around the room. "You all of you came to see me in my time of need!" Jordan sobbed sarcastically. "I'm honored!" He grinned to himself while keeping up his sobbing act and looking around, scanning the room once more until his antics halted with haste. "Where's James?" He asked.

  "He's preparing himself for the trial, along with Jacques." The 15th child, Theodore, commented from his corner of the room. Along with his 4 other full-siblings, Theo was the tallest in the clan, being rivaled only by their father. Despite that, he was infamous in the Clan for looking the least like their father. His face was rounded and smooth; his nose snub, and his hair a thin, dull brown.

  "I only came to see if it was true," Massimo, the 18th child, said coldly as he pried himself from the back wall and started for the door. The cool-guy recluse of the clan had ice-gray arms spread with rust-colored streaks throughout like the surface of Europa. Matching his older brother, Jago, and their other 2 full-siblings, his skin was dark like coconut husks, and he kept his otherwise curly hair greased and slicked back over his head. "I'll be on Campaign until your trial is over." He called over his shoulder before the door sealed behind him.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "What a weirdo." Jordan sighed under his breath.

  "Respect your elders." Vera barked.

  "Age doesn't matter in the Powers." Jordan turned to her condescendingly. "Only Merit."

  "Yeah." Vera frowned as she nodded. "But, being a minor, you don't know what his merit is. You don't even know yours, so shut your mouth!"

  "Why are you even here?" Jordan fell back into his bed, rolling his eyes.

  "It's almost midnight," Vera said mockingly. "Your birthdays are in one week. Jacques, James, and our father will be here in a moment to begin your trial."

  Jordan rolled his eyes, scoffing in disbelief. "What are you, clairvoyant-"

  The door unsealed with a loud hiss before his sentence could fall through her ears, granting passage for the slow, sharp footsteps of their father trailing into the room.

  "That's some philosophy you have, Jordan." He smiled as he appeared beside his bed.

  Jordan took in a deep breath to settle his racing heart as he watched his father cautiously sit at the foot of his bed, staring with a cold intensity the entire time.

  "Your resolve is admirable." His father said in a whisper. "Which is good. But, it'll take more than self-inflicted hardship to conquer yourself. You still have much to learn. So, once you leave this place, you should travel around the Powers. Build your Merit. Learn about our species. Learn about yourself and master him. Then you will have won your battle." He paused to rest an icy hand on Jordan's leg. The corners of his lips creased into a small grin, which was immediately quenched by his next words. "It may take a lifetime or two for you to get there. But you will, with time. And you'll have my support each step of the way."

  "Thank you." Jordan bit his tongue; hung his head low into his chest to bow and sobbed through his teeth. "I'll do my best."

  "I know." His father patted the bed thrice before rising for the door. "Now then, let's meet your brothers and get your trial started."

  Jordan swung his legs from the bed and waddled after his father. A few meters down into the hall, they met up with Jordan's brothers, James and Jacques, whose arms were folded so their hands touched their shoulders and were bound tightly with bandages and strips of cloth. Jordan choked at the sight, hung his head low, and bit back his laughter as he hid himself in his father's shadow. He had managed to somewhat control it by the time they reached their estate's main keep. Once they huddled inside one of the many spacious elevators, however, Jordan was forced to stare, seemingly indifferently, at the passing layers of their castle drifting past to not erupt in a fit of laughter.

  Halfway between the ground and the axial truss, four cylindrical structures stacked radially along the support spire served as the Clan's personal manufacturing facilities. At such altitudes, the spin gravity inside was reduced by around half, allowing quite the eccentric design to be implemented for the space.

  Entering the area, they were confined to a vast vertical corridor with a glass wall almost five meters high to their rear and the curved outer wall of the structure on their right. By leaping up and off the wall and attaching to various surfaces by their magnetic gloves and boots, the Clan members could access the faces of the industrial array of automated machinery found within. From wall to glass wall, automated smelters, refineries, assemblers, and the logistics infrastructure to support them repeated in a grid-like fashion, growing ever-larger in complexity and scale until they reached the truss’ end.

  Wordlessly, Villan skipped along the wall towards the main console near the center of the room, where he clamped himself to the deck and turned to wave the three brothers to the console to input their designs.

  "Like you would any project," He said once they were finished. "You'll return here once a day to check on their progress. Once their fabrication is complete, you'll carry them with you at all times until the end of your trial."

  With that brief explanation complete, their father bounded back to the elevators and disappeared from their line of sight without a further word, leaving the three brothers, James, Jordan, and Jacques, at the unsupervised and uncivilized mercy of their siblings.

  "For your first task." Vera's voice boomed through the surrounding loudspeakers as she, too, started for the elevators, nodding to the other siblings while she went. "Meet me at the axial station in five minutes."

  Without a word, Jago appeared behind Jordan and began shoving him towards the elevators. After much protest and cursing, Jordan conceded and allowed himself to be pushed inside the small cabin, then be jostled to a rest so Jago could forcefully pull a maneuvering vest over Jordan's torso, giving him a stinging slap on the ass once he was done.

  "So-" Jordan started after the elevator lurched into motion.

  Jago sighed, raising his hand to cut Jordan off. “No questions this time, Jordy. Just take it one step at a time.”

  “Ugh.” Jordan grunted as he turned away. "Why'd I have to get stuck with you?"

  “I insisted on it!” Jago chuckled from the depths of his gut. "You're my favorite little bro. Especially since I'm your least favorite sibling, for some reason."

  "Because you're an asshole and an edge lord." Jordan snorted. “I've seen what you do on Campaign, Usurper.”

  "I'm only living up to my name," Jordy." Jago pleaded with a shrug. Then kicked Jordan out of the elevator once they arrived, yelling loudly towards Vera, floating in the center of the space. "Hey! Jordy says he's tired of waiting! Hurry the fuck up!"

  Vera shot a menacing grin towards Jordan and pointed a single finger in front of her. "Stand there." She ordered. Jordan traced her finger along the trussed axis to the end of the rectangular box that comprised the vac-train platform. Specifically, between the massive screens that displayed arrival and departure times in seven languages and four orientations. "Your first task is to jump from there and drift to the other side," Vera declared.

  Jacques immediately protested with a groan that rippled from behind Jordan. He frantically waved his wrapped winged arms from one end of the platform to the other with annoyance written all over his face. "Th- that'll take hours, Vera!" He stammered.

  Jago bellowed with laughter while elbowing Jordan and shouting back to Jacques, "That depends on how strong your weak little legs are."

  Jordan tapped the toe of his boot on the floor to verify the power in his mag-boots and squatted to charge a leap towards the wall. With only his legs to influence him, rotating his body even a few degrees was a tall task for Jordan to complete. He let his body go limp as the vest began sporadically firing white gaseous cones to reorient his feet towards the wall, approaching at a 40-degree angle, then waited. A few centimeters from impact, the ferrous plates in Jordan's boots snapped into position on the wall, turning his feet into a fulcrum and sending Jordan's face pivoting towards the wall from his momentum.

  "He tripped!" Jago's crude laugh rang through the platform after the dull bang. "Jordan tripped! Already!"

  "The vests will only reorient you and keep you from straying too far off your path." Vera's shrill voice drowned out Jago's sadistic laughter from what seemed like every loudspeaker in the habitat. "No change in velocity, other than to keep you on the drift. So, what you get is what you get."

  Jordan struggled to pull his feet under him and gather his bearings. He turned a blind eye to his brothers, securing themselves into position with more fluidity and grace than Jordan cared to display, then faced his target. And with a deep breath, he squatted low and exploded towards his zenith with all his strength.

  The rest of his siblings blurred out of view in an instant, followed by the strained grunts of his brothers behind him. Before Jordan could crane his neck to his rear, the far wall of the platform washed around him and was displaced by the blurred cloud of warm lights surrounding him on all sides.

  The surrounding cities seemed so distant from this height. Conversely, the massive truss running the length of the habitat's axis appeared like the skeletal remains of a great leviathan instead of the thick, unnaturally straight wire it appeared to be from the inner surface. The LookingGlass and radiator panels encircling it that provided the habitat with its circadian cycle ticked like small caliber gun shots as the dull orange glow of its residual heat bled off into the night, giving the brothers much needed warmth to protect against their flight through the frigid winds.

  "So, what will you two do?" James called from behind after a few minutes of silent drifting. "Once we're free, I'm going to train in the House of Trass." He declared proudly.

  'It'll take more than that to conquer yourself.' James' question, his inquiry of liberty, caused their father's words to echo loudly in Jordan's mind.

  "I'm moving to the Power of Sinope to start a career in game design. Online, VR, fantasy; all of it." Jacques boasted with a rarely seen intensity. "It's always been my dream. Merit won't matter once I accomplish it."

  'Shouldn't be surprised,' Jordan thought as he craned his neck backwards to study Jacques.

  Of the three brothers, Jacques was the youngest, and everyone outside of the Clan always assumed he and Jordan were twins. His face was a mirror image. He was just as lean, stood only a few centimeters shorter, and was monumentally more intelligent, Jordan had to admit. Despite their similarities and his physical potential, however, Jacques was a recluse and a black sheep in the clan. Perhaps because of his higher mental capacity, he had an intense aversion to any sort of conflict and saw fighting as a last resort. Though, that wasn’t to say he was harmless. It was always the quiet ones, after all.

  ‘Dreams.’ Jordan snorted to himself as he turned back forward. ‘Is one even necessary? If I'm missing one now, will I find one later? How many lifetimes would that take?’

  “James, Jacques?” Jordan said slowly as he craned his neck behind him to face his brothers again. "What are your dreams?"

  James grinned wide and bellowed out a chuckle as he spread his arms beside him. "I want make the Clan into what our father wants us to be. To spread the name of the Astros Clan, our power, and influence, across all of Europa’s sphere of influence!”

  “Every gang in the Solar System knows about us,” Jacques mumbled. “You know, because our dad helped create the Powers?”

  "Every gang in the Solar System knows about our father," James sternly retorted. "I'm not complaining when I say he spends all his time at home with the kids, but the lack of our presence in the Ganglands means that one of them will stand against us, eventually."

  “It makes sense.” Jordan heard Jacques shrug. “Dad is the ruler of Europa, and he wants it to be a gangland. Him leading the clan in our nefarious endeavors would give us an edge he’d surely find boring. After all, why do you think Vera’s in charge of bruising?”

  "So you'll spread fear through the habitat to prevent someone like Akame or the Mob from standing against us? Bruise anyone who threatens us until they don’t even think about it?" Jordan frowned his lips as he contemplated the logic behind it. Then shrugged as he faced about. "Fair enough."

  "What about you, Jordan?" Jacques asked.

  "It's not something as specific as a dream." Jordan sighed heavily as he gave an indifferent shrug. "All I want to do is to travel where I want and do as I please. Follow my whims, if you will. To do that, I need Merit. But." Jordan sighed again. "Dad's under the implication that I'm on some crusade against myself; determined to become the best version of myself as possible. So, there's that, I suppose. Otherwise, having a dream isn't really my problem.”

  “Kinda seems like it is. Else, you wouldn't be asking.” Jacques laughed dishearteningly. “If that's what dad thinks you're doing, then do it. You have nothing else to live for. So why not?”

  “Yeah." Jordan nodded and attempted to look over his shoulder again. "Harsh way of words, but you're right."

  "I know." Jacques snorted.

  "How long do you think this'll take, anyway?" Jordan rolled his eyes, attempting to ignore his brother's pretentiousness.

  "Some hours." Jacques' voice shrugged. "The air will slow us down, so around six to eight, I guess."

  "Ugh, fuck!" Jordan growled loudly and folded himself into a floating fetal position. "I'm going back to sleep."

  …

  …

  …

  "Jordan!"

  ...

  "Jordan!" His name echoed again, louder and louder inside his head in a gruff voice that was somehow familiar.

  ...

  "Jordan! Wake up!"

  James' voice pried Jordan's eyes apart, exposing his senses to the flat, rapidly approaching surface. His feet kicked wildly beneath him to brace for his landing and his heel struck the wall, collapsed, splayed apart, and gave way for his hip to arrest his velocity with a thundering bang. Jordan howled in pain as he bounced off the surface. The green plains, charcoal roofs and radiant spear of light tumbled and toiled in his view while his maneuvering vest fired away to kill his rotation.

  After what felt like hours of spinning, the world around him slowed to a manageable pace and Jordan felt the distant embrace of a foot wrap around the crook of his ankle, pulling him towards the far wall of the habitat.

  "You alright?" Jacques asked after Jordan secured himself to the wall.

  "Yeah." Jordan struggled to gasp. "Thanks."

  After recovering, Jacques began trotting up with James towards the axial platforms to head back to the castle.

  "Why don't we walk?" He called behind them.

  "What?" James turned, face wrinkled with confusion.

  "We'll be spending the whole-whole week doing odd jobs for our siblings until the trial," Jordan explained. "The sooner we get back, the sooner we'll have to do something as equally ridiculous. So what's the rush?" He grinned as he turned back towards the wall mounted carts leading to the surface.