Mayapuri — the jewel of Dominion engineering — pulsed with too much light to be real. The city seemed to float on its own arrogance, casting reflections of silver and gold over the darkness far below. Here, the nights never grew quiet. Neon holograms danced across glass towers, Dominion patrol drones wove between buildings like hawks on loops, and synthesized music buzzed from open-roof lounges nestled hundreds of meters above the dying earth. But even paradise had cracks.
Inside a dim, mid-tier residential zone along the eastern edge, Anchal Rathod watched from the tenth-floor balcony of a borrowed flat. Behind her, the team lay low in the shadows — Mansi wheezing gently on a mattress, Suchitra by her side with a wet cloth, Sumit and Pawan whispering over a data pad. A gift, or more accurately, a survival favor from Robin Rayudu — their ex-ally turned reluctant informant. It wasn't much, but it kept them hidden from prying eyes and Dominion sweeps.
"This place is a battlefield wrapped in a silk shawl," Anchal murmured.
She wasn't wrong. Every corner of Mayapuri screamed opulence — high-rise lounges, flying cars with private decals, nobles gliding past like gods in glitter. But beneath the sheen, she saw the cameras. The drones. The tension.
Dominion rule didn't loosen — it simply smiled as it crushed you.
Two days into their infiltration, cracks began to show in the city's golden mask. Inside the opulent casinos where Mansi and Suchitra ran low-profile con games, nobles whispered between cocktails.
"The Commander grows madder by the week," a merchant in a lion-brocade cloak muttered to his partner. "Did you hear about the airstrike order in Continent C? Over a labor delay."
"Madness. We've mined enough Noctirum to last a generation, but he wants more."
Suchitra nudged Mansi beneath the poker table. They both listened, eyes down, hands steady.
"I'm telling you," Another noblewoman said, her laughter hollow. "If he keeps treating governors like peons, it won't be rebels that bring him down. It'll be us."
Anchal reviewed every overheard word in her notes. "Civil unrest in the sky," she muttered. "Beautiful."
But their most dangerous move was already underway.
Sumit and Pawan stood side by side in a vast courtyard of metal and stone — the east wing of Mayapuri's Dominion Air Force base. The base was a beast. Long runways shimmered in the heat. Sky ships the size of old football fields sat docked, humming with power. Falcon-class fighters lifted every hour, trailing clouds of ion vapor. Larger aerial carriers stood in the distance — behemoths designed to carry hundreds of soldiers at once, capable of deploying destruction from the clouds.
Dominion soldiers jogged in formation across the quad, shouting coded chants. Officers barked orders. Repair crews worked in synchronized silence on spider-legged drones. Every corner moved with military precision.
Sumit felt his confidence waver as he watched two soldiers run a synchronized climbing drill across a vertical wall, their boots glowing with magnetic feedback.
"I didn't sign up for space ninja school," he muttered.
"I thought you were excited," Pawan said, adjusting the collar of his uniform.
"I was. Until the wall tried to kill me."
Their cover: two rural recruits looking for advancement. The Dominion had issued open invitations for potential cadets — mostly as propaganda. Most civilians would fail before the first exam.
But Anchal had prepared them. Pawan carried fake documents. Sumit carried fake confidence. They passed the first checkpoint. Then the aptitude tests began.
Neural reflex courses. Aerial logic patterns. Basic Noctirum conductivity analysis. Combat simulation pods.
Sumit vomited after his first sim run. Then again after the second.
"Eat less curry next time," Pawan offered dryly, though he looked pale himself.
By the fourth day, they were in uniform — grey-blue fatigues with low-ranking insignia.
"You passed," Anchal said through the comm-link later that night.
Sumit stared at the base from their dorm window.
"Yeah. But I'm starting to think passing means you're a better tool."
Pawan, on the bunk beneath, replied, "Then let's be the sharpest ones they've got."
Training intensified.
Every morning began before sunrise — a shrill whistle, a blast of cold recycled air, and an instructor's voice like gravel barking them into formation. The simulator programs became brutal. Cockpit blackout drills tested their stamina. High-G turns left them retching in waste bins.
Jet-assisted sprinting routines, meant to condition for ejection recovery, reduced Sumit to jelly-legged stumbles every evening. He'd collapse onto his bunk, muttering, "Just five minutes," before slipping into unconsciousness for hours.
But despite the pain, progress came.
They studied Dominion flight manuals by dim desk lamps, fingers stained with ink from tracing holographic projection notes. Pawan, meticulous and calm, adapted to the aerial theories quickly. His grasp of magnetic lift modulation was so precise that even the AI assistants flagged his simulations as "noteworthy."
Sumit, on the other hand, had instincts. Raw, chaotic, but weirdly effective. His reflex timing during live-response modules ranked among the top 10% of recruits.
"It's because he never thinks," Pawan said one evening, reviewing data charts.
"Exactly," Sumit shot back with a grin. "No thoughts. Just vibes. That's my brand."
They were opposites — one calculated, the other impulsive — but together, they balanced the equation.
During a joint mission simulation — piloting a dual-linked hover unit through an asteroid-belt assault course — they completed the task with only minor structural damage. That alone earned a grunt of approval from their notoriously ruthless trainer.
"You two may be arrogant," the man growled, scribbling a rare check mark beside their names, "but you don't die easily."
It wasn't much. But in Dominion military culture, that was practically a standing ovation.
Across the city, Mansi fought her own battles.
Not against drones or simulations — but against her own body.
The illness had grown worse. Silent. Creeping. She coughed behind locked doors now, into towels stained with blood she refused to acknowledge. Her limbs felt heavier each day, and the warmth in her chest felt wrong, like a fire smoldering where breath should be.
She pressed trembling hands to the bathroom sink, sweat dripping from her brow as she whispered into the mirror:
"One more week. Just one more."
The reflection didn't argue. But it didn't look convinced either.
Suchitra knew. She always did. She kept her silence, but her eyes lingered a little longer each day. Her hands moved faster when passing Mansi water, her gaze searching for signs of collapse even before one came.
They never discussed it directly. There was no time for that.
Instead, they gambled.
Low-risk, low-flash games — roulette tables, minor holo-poker lounges, and middle-tier clubs where nobles played without watching. Mansi kept her mask on — charm, wit, just enough arrogance. Her fingers were steady, her eyes sharp when cards were in hand.
"Two more wins," she muttered one evening, voice thin.
"Then we vanish."
The credits they collected weren't flashy, but they were clean. Enough to keep them anonymous in a city where identity was a currency.
And as Mansi leaned back that night, her breath slowing, her eyes half-closed beneath the weight of her sickness, Suchitra stood by the window, watching Mayapuri glow — unaware that behind all that light, something darker loomed just beneath the surface.
Back at base, Anchal received news through a dead drop: "Pilot exam finalization in three days. Phase II access likely. Mission window confirmed."
Her fingers trembled as she folded the slip.
"Soon," she whispered.
That night, she watched the sky from the roof. The stars over Mayapuri weren't stars at all — just drones in low orbit. She counted them until her anger dulled.
The next morning, Sumit and Pawan walked past a hangar shaped like a bird's wing. Inside, they saw it: a sky leviathan — a war carrier thrice the size of any other ship, sleek and silent, etched with black Dominion script.
"This thing could fit a village," Sumit muttered.
"It's not for defense," Pawan said. "It's for domination."
They filed into the third training hall, where a holographic model of Dominion air formations flickered on the wall. Cadets were already lined up. Instructors paced like sharks.
"From this moment," the chief trainer barked, "you are not people. You are potential. You will learn to fly, to fight, and to obey."
Sumit cracked his neck. "Obedience. My favorite."
Pawan elbowed him. "Shut up."
Three days later.
The wind at the edge of the Dominion freight depot carried a strange sharpness — a chill that didn't belong in the climate-controlled heights of Mayapuri. Anchal stood motionless in the shadows, her back pressed against the cold alloy wall, eyes lifted toward the midnight sky.
Above her, the Dominion's airships glided in precise patterns — not soaring, but patrolling. Watching. Guarding. A sky full of silent predators disguised in elegance. The largest among them, a silver titan shaped like a spearhead, hovered in place like a silent judge.
She watched its underbelly glimmer faintly in the neon-lit haze, engines humming like a distant war drum. Her breath steamed slightly in the air; despite the false warmth the city often pumped through its veins. Even in camouflage, even in stillness, she felt exposed. Vulnerable.
Behind her, the depot buzzed with mechanical life — loading cranes, magnetic lifts, and the dull clatter of marching boots. Dominion soldiers moved in rhythm, cold and tireless, like cogs in a war machine. This city — this fortress of air and illusion — was no longer just their prison. It was a fuse.
And something was tightening around them. A noose. A spark waiting for flame. The others were still playing their roles. Mansi and Suchitra danced at the edge of danger inside the casinos, smiling at drunk nobles while keeping ears wide open.
Sumit and Pawan — now cadets in uniform — walked through the heart of the Dominion's engine every day, whispering maps and routines beneath their breath when no one could hear.
Everything was in motion. But it was getting harder to breathe.
Anchal closed her eyes for a moment. Let the cold wind run across her skin. She knew it in her bones — the countdown had begun. Soon, they wouldn't be the ones hiding in plain sight.
They would be the fire in the dark. The rebellion's spark. And the Dominion would never see it coming.