by KrimZonWolF
Caleb lived a life measured in seasons and soil. As a farmhand on his family’s Nebraska farm, his days were honest and hard, but entirely too predictable. At twenty-four, he loved his parents and the land, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was just going through the motions—always looking at the horizon and wondering if there was anything more than just another harvest. He didn't have to wonder for long. One night, while walking the fence line under a clear, moonlit sky, the world didn't just change—it vanished. There was no roaring engine, no blinding light, and no warning. One step he was on soft Nebraska dirt; the next, his boots hit a floor of cold, vibrating glass. When Caleb finally opens his eyes, he isn't a farmer on Earth anymore. He is a man in the deep reaches of space, known only as "Subject 402." Locked in a cramped, atmospheric cage in the bowels of a pirate freighter, he is surrounded by rows of other cells—some holding terrified, silent captives and others ominously empty. He is no longer a son or a neighbor; he is just another piece of cargo destined for the brutal labor pits of the Scourge-Moon. His chances of survival are zero, and the sheer terror of the unknown is closing in. Until he looks at the cage directly opposite his own. Sitting in the shadows of the cage is Atlas: a conscious machine roughly the size of a man, forged from dark, matte-finished metal. Glowing red lines of light flow across his entire chassis—down his arms, his legs, and running up and down his head—pulsing like digital veins. What starts as a desperate alliance between a farmer who shouldn't be here and a machine with a grudge is the only thing standing between Caleb and a short, brutal end. From the dark cells of a pirate freighter hidden deep within the hulls of a massive, ancient mothership, he will gather the scattered remnants of humanity and build something the galaxy hasn't seen in eons: A Terran Fleet..
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