Chapter Text
the air in the houston mission center smelled like burnt coffee, industrial floor wax, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone that clung to the vents. it was june 2028, and the world outside the reinforced glass was a haze of orange dust and failing infrastructure, but inside, the five of them were still just kids in blue jumpsuits with 'intern' stitched in white thread that was already starting to fray at the edges.
"if i have to calibrate one more navigation sensor, i am going to bash my head against the bulkhead until i see stars for real," beomgyu muttered. he was slumped over a tablet, his hair a chaotic nest that he kept pushing back with ink-stained fingers. he was a genius with systems, but he had the attention span of a teaspoon and a mouth that got him into trouble twice a day.
yeonjun kicked the leg of beomgyu’s chair. "shut up and work. you want to be the reason we miss the launch window? i’m not staying on this rock just because you’re bored."
"i'm not bored, i'm exhausted," beomgyu snapped back, though he didn't stop his fingers from flying across the screen. "there’s a difference, you prick."
yeonjun didn't argue. he couldn't. he was too busy staring at the flight manual for the starseeker. he’d been an intern for eighteen months, starting as a glorified simulator technician before they realized he could fly a brick through a needle's eye if he had to. he spent his nights in the cockpit of the ship while it was still on the assembly floor, memorizing the feel of every switch until his thumb developed a callus.
"eat something, hyung," kai said, sliding a pack of lukewarm crackers across the table toward soobin. kai was the youngest, still carrying a bit of that softness in his face that the world hadn't managed to starve out yet. he was the one who kept the small greenhouse in the back of the lab alive, talking to the tomato plants like they were his siblings. "no seriously, i feel like you’re literally about to pass out."
soobin took the crackers but didn't open them. he was staring at a stack of mission logs. as the lead intern, he was the bridge between the kids and the legends—the senior astronauts they all worshipped. commander jeon, pilot dianne miller, the people whose posters had been on their bedroom walls before the world started choking.
"i'm just thinking about the briefing," soobin said, his voice low. "jeon said the radiation levels in the upper atmosphere are messing with the seniors' biometric scans. they’ve been in the centrifuge all morning."
"they'll be fine," taehyun said, not looking up from a complex physics proof he was scratching into a notebook. an engineer once endearingly said he looked like a hamster with abandonment issues, but in reality he had a brain that operated like a meat grinder—efficient and terrifying. he didn't do 'hope.' he did 'data.'
"they’re the best we have. and even if their lungs are a bit scarred from the dust, they’ve got the experience. we’re just the backup. the 'prodigy squad' they keep in the basement for good pr."
"we're not just pr," yeonjun grunted, though there was no heat in it.
they all remembered the world before it went to shit. they remembered when a trip to the grocery store didn't require a respirator and when the sky was actually blue, not that bruised, sickly purple color. they’d been recruited from the top universities as 'interns,' but it was a desperate grab. nasa needed young lungs, fast reflexes, and minds that hadn't been broken by the decades of seeing the earth die.
the heavy lab door hissed open. director smith stepped in, his face looking like it had been carved out of old, tired stone. he didn't look at the screens or the plants. he looked straight at soobin.
"everyone. conference room. now."
the walk down the hall was silent. they passed a portrait of the senior crew—commander jeon smiling, looking invincible. beomgyu touched the frame as they walked by, a small habit he had for good luck.
when they sat down in the sterile, cold room, there were no senior astronauts. no commander jeon. no pilot miller. it was just the five of them and the director.
"the medical results came back an hour ago," smith started. he didn't sit down. he gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles turned white. "the prolonged exposure to the 2028 atmospheric particulates... it’s caused irreversible pulmonary fibrosis in the entire primary crew. and the secondary."
"what?" yeonjun’s voice cracked. "so we delay? we wait for them to recover?"
"there is no recovery, yeonjun," taehyun said, his voice unnervingly flat, though his pen snapped in his hand. "it’s scarring. you can’t fix that."
"the launch is in forty-eight hours," smith said, and for the first time, he looked scared. "the storm is coming, and if we don't put the starseeker into the sky now, the gravity well will be too unstable for a decade. humanity doesn't have a decade."
soobin felt a cold, oily slick of dread slide down his throat. "so what are you saying? who's going?"
smith looked at them. really looked at them. "you’ve logged more hours in the starseeker systems than anyone else. your biometrics are clean. your bodies haven't been compromised yet."
"no," beomgyu whispered, his bravado vanishing in an instant. "no, we’re fucking interns. we’re twenty. i don't even have my degree yet. you can't be serious."
"mission control will guide you through the launch sequence," smith continued, ignoring the outburst. "we will be in your ear every second of the way. we’ve automated eighty percent of the flight path. but we need people on that ship who can handle the manual overrides if the jump goes sideways."
"you're sending us alone?" soobin asked. his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. he thought of his mother, his nieces, the letter he’d tucked into his bag that morning. he thought he’d be home for dinner. he thought he had years left to learn how to be a leader.
"we're sending the only people left who can survive the trip," smith said.
the silence that followed was heavy, thick with the realization that their lives had just ended before they’d even started. they weren't going to be the assistants to heroes. they were the last-ditch effort, thrown into the dark because everyone else was too broken to go.
yeonjun looked at his hands—the steady, pilot's hands. they were shaking.
kai reached out and grabbed soobin’s sleeve, his fingers trembling. "soobin-hyung?"
soobin looked at his team. he saw beomgyu looking like he was about to vomit, taehyun staring at the floor in a calculated trance, and yeonjun looking like he’d been struck by lightning. he was an intern. he was supposed to be getting coffee and running nav-checks.
"forty-eight hours," soobin whispered, the words tasting like ash. "we're going to space in forty-eight hours."