The Astral Rogue

𝟷 - 𝙿𝚒𝚕𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚛

𝐏𝐎𝐕 - 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐚

As he made his way to the pub, Janus took out a small disc. It whirred quietly, signifying that it was active.

Pushing the door open, he saw a fellow Novae at the bar. His codename was Xenon. Xenon gave him the smallest of nods, and he responded with the slightest of smiles.

Janus made his way to the back, where there was a painting of a beautiful girl with circular indents in the frame. He inserted the disc in one of them, and he heard the mechanism spring to life.

He pushed the painting and it split inwards, revealing a staircase that led down into darkness. Making his way down, he was met with an adamantine wall.

He pressed the disc against it, and a robotic female voice spoke.

Identification success. Janus Armada. Leader of the Novae Rebellion. Speak the password.

Janus muttered it quietly to the nearby speaker, and the wall split open to reveal a room. There was a table in the middle, along with two others sitting on chairs around it.

The one on the left was a gangly man in his late thirties. He had rough, unbridled brown hair and a vertical scar across his lips. He sported some muscle and had a body built for fantasies.

The one on the right was a voluptuous young woman with shiny platinum hair. She had the face of a model, and her eyes sparkled with a keen intelligence.

Janus sat down between them, and they all took out a small tablet. They opened a program that monitored every single Novae that they had recruited, which was around a thousand or so.

"Status report, Hydrogen?"

The gangly man stretched his arms, veins slightly bulging. He had a crazy sort of grin on his face as he read the report.

"We have seven more applicants. All Novae on Sleet are alive and well, and none of them have any health conditions. The Novae on Ember are all well, except for one. Novae 1213 perished after tripping over an exchanger and fell into a pool of lava."

Both good news and bad news, then.
He turned to the girl, who immediately read her own report without having to be told.

"Status of the Gize Lightwarper is positive. Photon engines are working, boosters are operational, stealth is enabled, and no errors have been detected in the system as of last night."

Janus grinned. He loved how Tin was like a robot when it came to work. Automatic, efficient, and creative.

"Alright. Hydrogen, where are the seven applicants located?"

Hydrogen pulled up a tracking program that tracked the network of each individual applicant.

"Two are on Sleet, three on Ember, we have one on Europa, and one on Pluto."

Tin turned to look at Hydrogen, who was also sort of confused. Pluto was a pro-Unity colony. It had a decent amount of zephyrite, which was mostly donated to the Unity for their ammunition.

"Pluto? Never thought I'd hear that name come up on one of our applicant reports."

Just then, Janus received a call on his tablet. Switching to holo mode, he answered the call. The tablet projected an image of a tall, severe-looking young man with golden hair, who looked to be in distress

"Promethium. Aren't you supposed to be monitoring the Disobedience officers around one of the Novae camps?"

Prometheum answered back. His voice had a calm tone to it, but there was an undertone of panic that Janus noticed. Something was wrong. Very wrong.