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**[Unknown Signal Captured! ]**
**[Conscription Order Issued! ]**
**[Mortal! Your hour of glory begins now. Serve the Great Dominion of the Silver Core.]**
...
...
Dawn.
Kyle Rayne opened his eyes, peeling himself off the sweat-stained mattress of his bunk. The cramped room reeked of grease and ozone, lit only by the flickering neon strip above. Through the grime-caked viewport, the smog-choked skyline of **New Detroit**—a colony on the desolate mining planet **Rigel-4**—loomed like a rusted carcass. The system's star hadn't breached the horizon yet, but Kyle's military-trained body refused to linger in bed.
Eight years at the **United Terran Defense Academy** had honed him into a junior tactical officer, but graduation hadn't softened his discipline. His "room" doubled as a storage closet in his uncle's repair shop, cluttered with salvaged mech parts, hydraulic tools, and half-assembled firearms. The air buzzed with the hum of a relic—a **Titan-7 industrial mech arm**, its joints crusted with decades of carbon buildup. Uncle Jack had scavenged it last month, calling it a "steal" despite its pre-War vintage.
Kyle's calloused fingers brushed over the **M-49 Ballistic Rifle** on the workbench. Even in the 25th century, ballistic weapons persisted—cheap, reliable, and lethal. The M-49's cracked feed mechanism was an easy fix. He dismantled it with practiced ease, scavenging replacement parts from a pile of scrap. *Click. Clack. * The rifle snapped back into shape, its barrel gleaming under the shop's sickly yellow light.
"Goddammit, kid! You wasting fresh parts again?" Uncle Jack's gravelly bark cut through the silence. The man stomped in, his prosthetic legs whining like overworked servos. At 60, Jack Rayne was a mountain of muscle and cynicism, his belly sagging from years of choking down **Nutri-Paste**—the colony's chalky, nutrient-dense slop. He snatched the rifle, squinting at the replaced components. "This crap's still functional! You think credits grow on asteroid belts?"
Kyle shrugged. "They will when the Dominion pays up."
"Dominion? Pah!" Jack spat. "Those Silver Core pricks'll get you killed faster than a malfunctioning plasma core. Stick to fixing junk. Safer."
But Kyle's gaze lingered on the holographic conscription notice flickering in his retinal display. *Join the Silver Core. Ascend beyond this rustbucket world. * The Dominion's promise tasted sweeter than Nutri-Paste.
A fist hammered the shop's reinforced shutters. "Open up! Federal inspection!"
Jack cursed, yanking the shutter open. Two figures loomed—a gaunt man in a Dominion officer's uniform and a hulking synthetic enforcer. "Kyle Rayne? " the officer drawled. "Your conscription's been fast-tracked. Report to *Starship Valor* by 0800. The **Xenoth Horde** isn't waiting for your beauty sleep."