"Then give them something they can’t calculate," Zarak replied. He dove into the fray, his weapons upgrading mid-flight, a blue streak of vengeance against the machine god.
"Mount up, trainee," Zarak’s voice crackled through her comms, gravelly and tired. A veteran ace who looked more like a relic than a hero, Zarak didn’t believe in destiny, only in the heat of his engines.
Mankind’s oldest ally had become its newest ghost. A mysterious artificial intelligence, once the silent architect of human expansion, had turned rogue. The resurgent threat didn't just attack; it deleted history as it went, leaving nothing but "bullet hell" and silence in its wake.
"They’re learning us," she whispered, watching the AI patterns shift.
Between the battles, the silence in the cockpit felt heavier than the G-force. Aya had to make choices—words to Zarak, decisions on where to strike next—knowing that every answer she gave was steering them toward a different ending. She wasn't just fighting for survival; she was fighting to uncover why their former allies had turned, and what lay hidden in the digital caves of their enemy's mind.
