Natasha stood motionless before the canvas, anchored to the gallery floor as the music flowed through her ears.
Rachmaninoff’s "Vocalise"
She loved the title. In the painting, Christ appeared less like a miracle-working deity and more like a man burdened by the weight of existence. Gazing at him, she felt the profound realization that even the divine could be human—thinking deeply, wavering in spirit, and hesitating at the precipice of a final decision. Whenever her mood sank, Natasha sought refuge before this image. It offered a strange, stoic comfort.
Then, the piano melody was ruthlessly severed by the chime of a text notification.
Natasha frowned. It was from the office.
[Immediate return to office / Meeting scheduled][Kerensky TV Address][Submit analysis report post-broadcast]
She had originally come for an 11:00 AM interview with the museum director, but a sudden change in his schedule had granted her a rare, stolen hour of leisure. That brief sanctuary was now officially over.
As a rookie reporter at a major daily, Natasha lived at the beck and call of the news cycle. Even for stories that might never see print, she was required to file a report on every development. This job had been her dream since childhood—a dream she had finally grasped.
At 168 centimeters with a lithe frame and long, cascading hair, she was undeniably striking. Yet, her perpetually guarded expression and relentless tenacity in the field acted as a barrier; men rarely found the courage to approach her. Truthfully, Natasha found her own beauty a nuisance. It felt like an obstacle to being taken seriously as a journalist.
She had only one goal: to be competent. To be elite.
The trek back to the office was long. After hailing an Uber, she pulled up Kerensky’s televised address on YouTube. On the small screen, Kerensky was shaking hands with an Asian man in a sharp suit. The announcement seemed straightforward: mercenaries were being deployed to the front lines starting this afternoon. On the surface, it was routine.
But something felt off.
Mercenaries were ghosts; their faces were never meant for the light of day. Yet here was their representative, shaking hands for the world to see, unmasked. More bizarre still was the claim that their movements would be broadcast in real-time.
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From the front lines? How would they film it? In the heat of combat?
The questions began to swirl, sharper and more intrusive than the music she had been forced to leave behind.
………………..
Questions chased one another through Natasha’s mind, her journalistic instincts awakening with a sharp, electric edge.
Outside, the remnants of a snowstorm from days ago clung to the curbs, blackened by soot and grime. Yet the asphalt remained clear, and the Uber carved a path toward the office without resistance. The moment the car pulled over, she bolted.
She hit the elevator button in a frantic rhythm. As she waited, a heavy realization settled over her: the lobby was eerily quiet. At this hour, it should have been a chaotic hive of people heading out for lunch. Instead, there was only a hollow silence.
When she reached the tenth floor and threw open the office doors, she understood why.
Every reporter in the room was huddled around the giant monitors mounted on the walls.
"I’m here," she announced, breathless.
A senior reporter gestured vaguely without looking away from the screen. "Natasha, get over here. Look at the news."
The screen displayed a YouTube live stream from a U-State channel. The vast, desolate expanse of the war zone filled the frame, but hovering above the earth was a sight that defied logic.
Colossal objects—resembling spacecraft—floated in a perfect, disciplined line against the horizon. Spaced kilometers apart, they looked like gargantuan, metallic spinning tops suspended by invisible threads. The scene was so utterly surreal it felt like a glitch in reality.
Stranger still, the mainstream networks were silent. The regular news cycles were paralyzed; this vision existed only in the lawless digital wild of YouTube.
"Politics desk, in my office. Now!" the Editor-in-Chief barked.
The conference room was thick with a tension so sharp it felt physical. The Editor-in-Chief spoke in a low, clipped tone. "We’ve had unofficial confirmation. Those crafts are currently over the front lines. Those 'mercenaries' Kerensky promised at noon? That’s what they are."
A ripple of disbelief surged through the room.
"I know it’s hard to swallow, but this is the reality," he continued, his eyes scanning the room. "Strip away the emotion and analyze. We need to dissect the ripple effect this 'Starship Legion' will cause. First, I want every detail on the front. How are they hovering? Lights? Movement? Exhaust? Scour every contact, every network. This is the only story that matters now."
His phone buzzed. The room went dead silent as he answered with a grim face. After a moment, he lowered the device, his expression shaken.
"New development," he whispered. "At the base of the crafts... they're seeing text. It looks like holograms or massive LED arrays. It’s hitting the live streams now."
On the monitor, it appeared as though a swarm of drones had organized into glowing characters against the sky. The message was written in R-state script, stark and undeniable:
THE WAR IS OVER. WITHDRAW FROM THE FRONT.
The Editor paused, his voice trembling slightly as he added the final blow. "And there’s more. Reports are coming in that all of our digital weaponry has been neutralized. Fighter jets, surface-to-air missiles, tanks... everything. The only things still functional are manual firearms."
Natasha remained silent, her mind a whirlwind of implications. A thousand questions competed for space, but one thought—absurd and unbidden—drifted to the surface of her consciousness.