Six months. Cygnus Gap. Seventh Fleet, Fighter Division Alpha. She finished her protein, set her tray on the disposal slot, and walked to the protocol office. Captain Marcus Webb was standing by the window when she entered. He was thirty-five, a Morale Protocol coordinator with five years of experience and eight hundred and forty-seven processed contracts. He was wearing the grey uniform that all protocol personnel wore—a uniform designed to be invisible, to make its wearers blend into the background of military bureaucracy. "You got the order," he said. It was not a question. "Six months. Cygnus Gap." Marcus nodded. He pulled a file from his desk drawer. It was thick, labeled with Jessica's name and service number. "Your new anchor assignment. Protocol Rule—well, you know the rules." "I know." Jessica had memorized the Morale Protocol's eight rules during her first deployment. The most important ones were Rule 1: The anchor must remain unaware. And Rule 8: No anchor may be assigned to the same soldier twice. She opened the file. Anchor Name: Webb, Marcus C. Clearance: Protocol Coordinator, Grade 4. Assignment Date: 2487.06.19. Notes: Coordinator has processed this soldier's previous three anchor assignments. By exception, retained as current anchor due to demonstrated effectiveness (attachment impact: positive). Jessica looked up from the file. "You are my anchor." Marcus met her gaze. His expression was professional. But behind it, Jessica saw something else. Something that was not protocol. "Protocol exception," he said. "I know what the file says." She closed the file and placed it on his desk. "But you know the rule. The anchor must remain unaware. I am not supposed to know who my anchor is." "I am aware." "That is not the same thing." Marcus walked to the window. Through the glass, Jessica could see the flight bay below—rows of starfighters, their hulls gleaming under the bay lights, waiting to be launched into a war that had been going on for forty-seven years. "Jessica," he said. "How many missions have you flown?" "Two hundred and fourteen. Including the one before Cygnus." "Two hundred and fourteen missions. How many times have you thought about someone waiting for you when you came home?" Jessica felt something tighten in her chest. It was not a physical sensation. It was the ghost of a sensation—the memory of the feeling she had during those four minutes of fuel left, when she had thought about a name she had never been told. "I have not thought about it," she said. "Because I did not know." "You know now." "I am not supposed to know now." Marcus turned to face her. "The Protocol is flawed, Jessica. It produces results—your survival rate is thirty-four percent higher than pilots who are not assigned anchors. But it is built on a lie. The anchor is supposed to be a random civilian. A person the soldier does not know. The theory is that the uncertainty increases the emotional impact. But the truth is that the soldier only cares about someone they actually know." "And you are saying this how?" "I am a coordinator. I do not give opinions. But I can tell you this: I have processed eight hundred and forty-seven contracts. I have never been assigned to a soldier who mattered until you." Jessica stared at him. The mess hall sounds—the clatter of trays, the murmur of pilots, the distant whine of fighter engines—had faded into a background that did not matter. "Are you saying you want to be my anchor?" she asked. "I am saying the Protocol already made that decision. I am saying that for the next six months, every time you launch into a combat mission, there is a man in a grey uniform in a military office who is thinking about you. That is what the Protocol does. But this time, you know. And the question is whether knowing changes anything." Jessica looked at the file on his desk. She thought about the Cygnus Gap. She thought about the Collective's forces, the void between stars, the four-minute fuel calculations that determined whether a pilot came home. "What do you think?" she asked. "About what?" "About whether knowing changes anything." Marcus smiled. It was the first time she had seen him smile that was not professional. It was small, uncertain, and entirely genuine. "I think you are already thinking about me. That is why you came here. That is why you opened the file. You wanted to see if I would look away. I did not." Jessica took the file back. She turned and walked to the door. "Jessica," Marcus said. She paused. "When you get back from Cygnus—don't let the Protocol assign me a different anchor. Not for you. For me." She did not answer. She walked out of the office and down the corridor, holding the file that contained her anchor's name and his face and the knowledge that for the first time in two hundred and fourteen missions, she was not flying for a name she did not know. She was flying for a man in a grey uniform who had broken protocol to tell her the truth. The war continued. The Protocol continued. Jessica flew her missions at Cygnus Gap. OTMES-v2-52014411E18-000-M10-045-0R02-16 E_total: 16.34 Dominant mode: M10 (Military Epic) Rank: 1 Angle: 45.0 degrees M: [6.0, 0.0, 2.0, 2.0, 7.0, 3.0, 0.0, 4.0, 3.0, 8.0] N: [0.40, 0.60] K: [0.35, 0.85] © 2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG ( EL9507135 -- パスポート番号[ちゅうごく] 중국 여권 번호 Номер паспорта หมายเลขหนังสือเดินทาง Passnummer رقم جواز السفر CHN Passport) The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED (BRN74685111) all economic property rights, including but not limited to the rights of: reproduction, distribution, rental, exhibition, performance, communication to the public via information network, adaptation, compilation, commercial operation, authorization for third-party use, and rights enforcement. Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term of such rights shall be 49 years from the date of publication. To contact author, please email to datatorent@yeah.net Based on the pending patent application document (202610351844.3), creationstamp.com has calculated the tensor feature encoding of this article: OTMES-v2-52014411E18-000-