Time melted into a disorienting haze aboard the Roth’arian cruiser, an indistinct blur in Jo’rah’s unraveling mind. He registered the carnage unfolding around him, yet the sensation of control slipped like sand through his fingers—his body, a mere vessel operating on some unspoken, divine directive. Each movement felt preordained, syncopated to a symphony of ruin, a requiem orchestrated in the shrieks of dying metal and the silence of the condemned.
With ruthless precision, he and Cly’yn dismantled their starships, stripping them of every last round and charge, methodically arming their payloads for an exit that would leave nothing untouched. Even Jo’rah, numb yet unerring, unbolted the forward heavy repeater from his bomber—an act of deliberate sacrifice, ensuring absolute readiness for what lay ahead.
Beyond the flickering corridors, shadows buckled under the blaze of Cly’yn’s wrath. His blades, searing hotter than the hearts of dying stars, carved reckless arcs through the suffocating air, a savage ballet of unchecked fury. Jo’rah followed in his wake, puncturing bulkheads and Roth alike with calculated bursts, turning flesh and steel into dust without a single deviation from his path.
If there were alarms shrieking through the cruiser’s fractured veins, if dying voices rose in agony, they never reached Jo’rah’s ears. He had become something beyond hearing, beyond feeling—a specter moving through the dissonance of destruction, untethered from mercy or memory.
The recoil of his weapon was the only sensation tethering Jo’rah to reality—everything else had dissolved into the maelstrom of his thoughts, a cyclone of rage and doubt. Each shot, each violent tremor in his grip, felt like an extension of his unanswered questions, bleeding into the chaos around him. What was Earth truly worth in the balance of Ba’urgeon and Roth’arian lives? How many souls had already been swallowed by the weight of its defense? And why, in the fathomless vastness of space, did the Roth still guard this quadrant with such relentless force?
In moments like these, time twisted into something paradoxical—each heartbeat stretched long enough for contemplation, even as carnage demanded his focus. A cruel joke of the cosmos, granting him clarity in the middle of ruin.
Guided by their spark, he and the raiders carved a path through the cruiser’s labyrinthine corridors, their movements fluid, instinctual, cutting through the steel veins of the Roth’arian war machine. Cly’yn led with reckless precision, his strikes more like eruptions than slashes, while Jo’rah’s firepower tore through bulkheads and bodies alike. The ship groaned beneath their fury, its architecture trembling with every blast—yet for Jo’rah, the sound barely registered. He was lost somewhere between destruction and philosophy, the battlefield becoming both his prison and his sanctum.
The deeper they pushed into the cruiser’s twisting corridors, the resistance thinned to a whisper. The once-thundering tide of Roth’arian Shock Troopers had faded to scattered remnants—stragglers who barely clutched their weapons, their instincts screaming retreat louder than any command. Some abandoned their posts entirely, swallowed by shadow and self-preservation. Others lingered, frozen between fight and flight, their hesitation sealing their fates. But complacency was the surest death, and the squad stationed in the engine bay embodied its fatal embrace.
Were they not ordered to remain vigilant? Did their commanders not sound the breach? Yet there they stood, huddled in idle conversation, the hum of the cruiser masking their laughter, their ignorance. They were lambs in the den of wolves, oblivious to the silent predator closing in behind them.
Cly’yn struck like a phantom birthed from the void. A flash of movement—then carnage. Blades screamed through flesh with surgical brutality, burning hotter than the fires of their dying stars. Bodies convulsed mid-sentence, severed, gutted, scattered like discarded scraps of war. The air thickened with the scent of scorched meat and spilled entrails, the silence behind his massacre more deafening than their screams ever could have been. By the time the last corpse collapsed, the walls bore witness to what their minds had never been allowed to comprehend.
The silence between them remained unbroken until they crossed the threshold into the engine room—a cavernous expanse trembling under the weight of war. The blaring alarms shrieked like dying stars, merging with the relentless hum of generators, their vibrations pulsing through the steel beneath their boots. Heat swirled in thick waves, the air stifling with the scent of scorched circuitry and ionized fumes.
Cly’yn's voice cut through the chaos, a mere murmur against the mechanical roar. “Why do they fight so desperately for this system? Surely they know its fate is sealed—that we are the only ones standing between it and oblivion?”
Even as he spoke, he moved with ruthless efficiency, planting explosives along the towering Ion and photon pillars, each charge a silent promise of annihilation. Jo’rah barely acknowledged him, his fingers ghosting over the cracked surface of a terminal, scanning readouts flashing warnings in a language steeped in urgency.
“I get defending what’s yours,” Jo’rah muttered, his voice lost in the cacophony. “But they must have seen the projections—felt the tremors left in the wake of those drifting leviathans. They have to know what’s coming.”
He paused, the weight of unspoken realization settling in his gut. “There’s something else at play here.”
The generators groaned, their power signatures flickering as if sensing their impending destruction. Shadows warped under the rhythmic pulse of strobing lights, casting distorted reflections of the warriors standing within the heart of the beast.
Jo’rah didn’t need to speak—Cly’yn had already voiced the thoughts circling in his mind, as he always did. It was an unspoken rhythm between them, a synchrony woven into years of battle, binding them as wing-mates. And yet, the question gnawed at Jo’rah with more weight than before. With their reach, their technology, and their intricate understanding of Ba’urgeon strategy—why had the Roth anchored themselves so fiercely to this system? Why had they chosen to spill their blood for a region teetering on the edge of oblivion?
Jo’rah’s gaze drifted upward, scanning the sprawling machinery looming above them, his suspicions coiling tighter with every breath. The walls hummed beneath the strain of the engines, their vibrations pulsing through his boots like the heartbeat of something vast and waiting. “I think we need to pull this ship’s logs before we scuttle it,” Jo’rah murmured, his tone sharpened with resolve. “Maybe then we’ll understand why this place is worth dying for.” His eyes narrowed, tracking the dim glow of power conduits interwoven with the structural spines overhead. Something about the placement, the energy distribution—it felt deliberate. More than just a fortress, more than a defensive grid. “They were waiting for The Ru, too,” he added, the weight of realization settling in his chest. “They aren’t just defending this region. They’re guarding something.”
Cly’yn secured the final charge with meticulous precision, the volatile payloads nestled against the cold, humming architecture of the Roth’arian war machine. The engines groaned beneath the strain of their own magnitude, their pulse an unsettling counterpoint to the rising urgency thrumming through his veins.
Only then did he catch sight of Jo’rah, a shadow hunched over the Roth’arian terminal, fingers flying across its interface with the silent determination of someone unlocking a forbidden truth.
By the time realization struck, it was too late—Jo’rah had already finished. The mobile console disappeared into the pouch on his belt, and with the same fluid motion, he reached for his heavy repeater, cradling its weight like a soldier readying for his final stand.
“We don’t have much time left—if any,” Jo’rah muttered, voice threading through the cacophony of blaring alarms, the rising heat, the suffocating press of imminent destruction. “When we’re back aboard the starship, I’ll start analyzing the data. Once it’s uploaded to one of ours, the Armada will have a copy, too.” He paused, clearing his throat, as if about to voice another thought—a final strategy, a lingering suspicion. But the moment passed.
Cly’yn exploded into motion, a blur of urgency slicing through the thick air. “It’s now or never!” His voice barely carried over the rumbling din of the cruiser, its structure trembling under the strain of impending collapse.
Jo’rah was right behind him, their footsteps hammering against the deck as the raiders tore through the passageway toward the hangar. The halls stretched before them, deceptively empty—silent in a way that whispered of unseen threats. Overhead lights flickered like dying stars, casting fractured beams across scorched bulkheads and twisted debris. But silence was never safety.
Something lurked just beyond the edges of perception, hidden in the blind spots between flickering light and shadow. Jo’rah didn’t need proof—instinct was enough. “Arm the explosives, Cly’yn!” His command cut through the uneasy quiet, a final act of defiance before the storm struck them head-on.
Cly’yn moved like a phantom caught in a storm—blades vanishing into their sheathes with a single, fluid motion as his fingers closed around the remote tucked in his utility belt. Every step sent vibrations rippling through the deck, his pulse hammering in sync with the countdown he’d just initiated. A quick sequence of keystrokes. A coded request. Behind them, the cruiser answered with a chorus of electronic chirps—sharp, discordant confirmations that the charges were armed, ready to fulfill their grim purpose.
Glancing over his left shoulder, his breath shallow, Cly’yn turned to inform Jo’rah that the sequence was set—that their exit was now a race against annihilation. But he never got the chance. Something cut through the moment, halting his words before they ever left his throat. A sound. A shift. A presence. And in that instant, the battlefield answered in ways neither of them had expected.
Jo’rah’s grip tightened around the heavy repeater, the cold steel a weight he barely registered as instinct took over. He fired—a short, desperate burst, a futile attempt to carve seconds out of the inevitable. But it wasn’t enough.
Cly’yn hit the floor hard, his body skidding across the steel like a discarded relic of war, limbs slack, breath rattling in uneven gasps. Jo’rah’s pulse hammered against the confines of his skull, his vision narrowing as he took in the failing rise and fall of his wing-mate’s chest.
The Roth surged forward, weapons flashing in chaotic bursts of crimson energy. The passageway erupted into a whirlwind of fire and fury, but Jo’rah barely heard it—his focus a razor’s edge locked onto the blood pooling beneath Cly’yn, the brutal, irreversible truth written in every twitch of failing muscle. He fought. And the Roth, once again, had no concept of the storm they had unleashed.
The thought of abandoning Cly’yn to die alone in this steel graveyard was inconceivable. Every instinct screamed against it, drowning out logic, drowning out survival. Jo’rah sprinted to his side, his breath sharp, his movements reckless, his mind already resigned to the inevitability—if Cly’yn was to fall here, then so would he. He would not leave his battle brother behind.
The cruiser trembled, a wounded beast on the verge of collapse, alarms wailing through smoke-choked corridors, flickering emergency lights casting shadows that writhed against the walls. Jo’rah reached him, sinking to one knee, gripping his shoulder as though sheer willpower could anchor his friend to the realm of the living. But reality was cruel.
Cly’yn lay sprawled, his breaths shallow, his skin pallid beneath the blood streaking his armor. His strength was fading, slipping through his fingers like sand, and Jo’rah knew—he knew—there was no saving him. But the thought of leaving him behind, of retreating while his only wing-mate breathed his last in solitude, was a fate worse than death itself. Yet there was no way to carry them both.
The Heavy Repeater weighed heavy in his grip, a weapon forged for war—a war Jo’rah was ready to end in a blaze of fury if only to ensure Cly’yn didn’t die alone. If this was where it ended, he would make damn sure the Roth paid for every second of it.
“Don’t be a fool—I know exactly what’s running through that thick skull of yours,” Cly’yn rasped, his voice a fractured whisper against the war-torn steel. He rolled onto his back, wincing as heat from the smoldering bulkhead pressed against his failing body, his breath shallow but unwavering. “I always know what you’re thinking.” The alarms shrieked, their pitch splitting the air as distant footsteps thundered through the cruiser’s veins. Time was collapsing around them, seconds bleeding into a final stand. “You have to get those logs to the ship!”
Cly’yn’s voice sharpened, his conviction cutting through the chaos. “Remember why we are here!” His trembling fingers reached for the heavy repeater, his body protesting every motion, but the determination in his grip was undeniable. He groaned through clenched teeth, shifting just enough to steady himself against the wreckage. “They’re coming. They’ll be here any second.” He exhaled, steeling himself against the inevitable. “Give me the gun—get to my ship.” His gaze flickered toward the corridor, a battlefield waiting to swallow him whole. “I’ll buy you all the time I can,” he vowed, the weight of his words heavier than the weapon in his grasp. “And I’ll detonate the charges before the end.” Without hesitation, Cly’yn motioned down the hall, his grip firm as he took aim, ready to unleash the fury of his final stand.
There was no time for gratitude—no space for parting words worthy of the years they had spent bound by battle, soaring through the void, chasing fate at the edge of destruction. They had danced with death, defied the impossible, laughed in the face of oblivion. And now, in the final breaths of Cly’yn’s journey, there was nothing left but the silent weight of all that had been.
Jo’rah had been the mentor, the guide, the steady hand shaping Cly’yn into the warrior he had become. But now, at the dusk of his comrade’s life, it was Cly’yn who defined the moment—his fate sealed, his spark dimming like the last embers of a dying star. The bitterness of it gnawed at Jo’rah’s soul. Still, he did not hesitate. He placed a hand over the cooling armor, the gesture rough, unceremonious, but heavy with meaning. “Thank you, Sentry.” His voice was hoarse, thick with things left unsaid. “May your transition be as pure as your connection to the One.” The words barely lingered before the moment was gone, slipping between them as swiftly as the light fading from Cly’yn’s eyes.
Bursts of repeater fire rattled down the corridor, the sharp, staccato rhythm cutting through the chaos as Jo’rah vaulted into the cockpit of Cly’yn’s fighter. The sound chased him, echoes of battle clawing at his heels, but there was no time to linger—no time to look back.
His hands flew across the console, flicking switches with mechanical precision. A string of active beeps confirmed his commands, lights flashing to life in synchronized urgency. The engines groaned, their whirling a rising crescendo, power flooding through the vessel like blood through veins.
With a swift motion, the canopy sealed shut, a pressurized hiss swallowing the last remnants of outside noise. The fighter’s displays flickered on in response, bathing the cockpit in a glow of tactical data, warning prompts, and navigational markers. Beyond the reinforced glass, his bomber sat idle—but not for long. A few calculated swipes. A command sequence entered.
The remaining turrets sprang to life, swiveling with lethal intent, their mechanisms humming with restrained aggression. They were ready. Jo’rah retrieved his mobile terminal, fingers brushing the worn pouch on his utility belt before slotting the device into the ship’s mainframe. The screen blinked, data streams unfurling in rapid succession. His next move was clear. With a final keystroke, he opened a line to the fleet.
The blaze of laser fire erupted from the idle bomber, a flashing specter of violence that seized Jo’rah’s gaze. Then the cruiser lurched—an agonized, shuddering convulsion rippling through its failing structure. The walls trembled, bulkheads groaned, alarms shrieked in discordant warning. That was Cly’yn’s last stand.
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The thought clenched around Jo’rah’s chest like a vice, but there was no time to linger in it—no time to honor the sacrifice with anything more than action. His grip tightened around the controls, and with a sharp pull, the starship roared to life beneath him. Power surged through its frame, systems blinking into readiness as escape beckoned just beyond the chaos.
“Sentries—”
He never finished. The hanger erupted, Roth’arians spilling into the cavernous space like a flood of wrath. Weapons ignited in crimson bursts, their fire raining down in a merciless tide. The bomber trembled under the assault, and then—detonation. A violent inferno swallowed the air, blinding and absolute. The world fractured in an instant, drowned in a blood-curdling scream before the comms collapsed into silence.
#
The alarms screamed through the hangar, their piercing wail clawing at the air with a desperation that matched the chaos below. Static crackled over overlapping transmissions as Sentry medics and engineers wove through the carnage, tending to broken Starcraft and bloodied warriors alike. The deck was slick with plasma, streaked with a volatile mix of organic and inorganic fluids—evidence of battles fought and lives lost. The stench of scorched machinery and spent bodies hung heavy, an acrid perfume of war.
Lil’lah moved through the chaos in a hollow drift, her mind cocooned in thought, senses dulled by the weight pressing against her chest. She barely registered the frantic motion around her—the injured groaning, the mechanics barking commands, the flicker of repair torches casting ghostly glows against the wreckage. Her interceptor stood waiting, prepped and primed, its systems thrumming with quiet readiness—most likely Jo’rah’s doing. With no escort available, she had only herself. Only the black. She climbed in, her movements automatic, her body moving before her mind could catch up.
The canopy clamped shut with a sharp hiss, sealing her away from the chaos beyond, its harmonic tones chirping softly as she keyed in her destination. Data streamed across her interface, verifying preflight levels, confirming clearance. A tremor rippled through the Starlight—a silent signal. She was cleared for takeoff. Her fingers curled around the controls, the weight of reality settling against her bones. Without hesitation, she pushed forward, breaking away from the dying light of the hangar and plunging into the waiting void.
The Ba’urgeon canopy dimmed with seamless precision, shielding Lil’lah’s eyes from the blistering artificial glow of the hangar, easing the transition into the abyss beyond. The shift was near imperceptible, but as the darkness settled, the true horror unfolded before her. She blinked, once. Twice. The serene ballet of asteroids that had once drifted in quiet amusement was gone—now twisted into a graveyard of wreckage and ruin. The void stretched before her, heavy with death.
Shattered starships lay strewn among fragmented stone, their broken remains tangled with bodies—Roth and Ba’urgeon alike—floating in silent testament to the slaughter. The vacuum swallowed their cries, their agony now reduced to nothing more than motionless echoes of what once was. Laser fire flickered at irregular intervals, illuminating the wreckage in flashes of violent brilliance. Thrusters sputtered in the distance, their dying embers casting brief halos of light before disappearing into the cold.
Then, emerging from behind the Starlight, the Roth cruiser lurched into view—its massive form rupturing under the weight of destruction. Fire erupted within its hull, blooming outward in chaotic bursts, its metal spine contorting under the force of its own undoing. Through the hiss of static, the radio sputtered—then fell into silence.
A weight settled in the pit of Lil’lah’s stomach, dense and suffocating, growing heavier with every fractured transmission, every fading note of Jo’rah the Bold’s final stand. The void stretched around her, infinite yet closing in, a graveyard where kin and foe drifted in silent judgment. She stared at the carnage—the twisted wreckage, the bodies stripped of identity, the remnants of war scattered like forgotten whispers. Shame coiled through her, sharp as a blade, carving into the edges of her certainty. She had condemned the Earthlings for their reckless defiance, their misguided attempts at survival, but now—now she knew. She was no different. The Ba’urg were no different.
What had driven her to this course? What force had compelled her to return, to insist that Earth was worth revisiting after the first disastrous battle? After the Ru was lost? Where had this conviction been born, and why did it refuse to wane despite the toll it demanded? The questions gripped her, their weight pressing against her ribs like unseen specters. How many more would perish beneath her orders? How many souls would be sacrificed under the illusion of peace?
This mission—this noble pursuit—had been woven with the intent of salvation, sculpted in the image of goodwill. But now, as she watched the blood soak into the void, she understood. Peace was not a shield against destruction. It was merely the justification for it.
Lil’lah opened a line to the fleet, her fingers steady on the console, but her thoughts anything but. “Are there wings available for escort to Earth?” The words came measured, precise—yet the weight behind them was uncertain. Who would follow her now? She waited, listening to the silence beyond the static. No response. None that she expected, anyway. Perhaps none that she deserved. Just as well.
The weariness had settled deep, coiling into the marrow of her bones. The burden of leadership—of guiding warriors into the unknown, into death—it had become heavier than she ever imagined. Who was she to ask for allegiance? To demand devotion? What was she following? Why was she so driven by something she could not explain? A shadow of doubt slipped into her mind, unspoken, unformed—but she crushed it before it could take root.
No. That’s Stoccic talk. Her grip tightened on the controls. Her breath steadied. Your connection is pure. You know One Mind’s power firsthand. You can never be a skeptic. The affirmation whispered through her like a pulse, threading through the cracks of uncertainty, sealing them shut. Focus on the mission. The end was not clear. It never had been. But it didn’t need to be—not when One Mind guided the way. Without another thought, she locked in her course.
The cosmic sea churned with wreckage and ruin, a battlefield stitched together by drifting debris and the dying embers of war. Lil’lah weaved through the chaos, her flight path erratic, threading between shattered starships and fractured asteroids, desperately clinging to concealment as the Roth scoured the void—hell-bent on dragging their enemies down with them.
She trusted nothing. Not the silence, not the shifting shadows, not even the friendly signatures flickering across her instruments. Even her own fighters could turn opportunistic, a misplaced shot in the heat of desperation sending her spiraling into oblivion. Every moment was a gamble, every breath a calculated risk.
Space was quiet—eerily so—but the ship was alive with warnings. Sirens cut through the stillness, pulsing in dissonant intervals, each shrill note an omen: fields of fire ahead, inbound transmissions, unseen hazards lurking along her route.
Inside the cockpit, the artificial atmosphere worked tirelessly to regulate the temperature, to keep the craft stable, but Lil’lah’s pulse betrayed it—her skin damp with sweat, her fingers slick against the controls, the weight of uncertainty pressing against her ribs. She exhaled, slow and measured, forcing the tremor from her hands. The mission demanded focus. And out here, hesitation was just another form of death.
Despite the Roth Cruisers’ fractured hulks barely clinging to function, their fighters and bombers moved with undiminished fury, tearing through the chaos with relentless aggression. Lil’lah observed the battle unfold, the raging conflict a wildfire refusing to die, yet she remained on course—pushing ever closer to open space, to the unknown beyond. Her fingers tightened around the controls, her mind a storm of calculations and unanswered doubts.
If I didn’t know any better, I would say they’re waiting for reinforcements. The thought curled uneasily in her gut, pressing against her ribs with cold inevitability. If that was true, if more were coming, then every choice made in the next few minutes could determine the fate of the Ba’urgeon fleet.
She worried for Ta’raa—the strength she would need, the decisions she would have to make when the moment arrived. Lil’lah knew her well, knew her resolve, but even the sharpest commanders could falter under the weight of uncertainty. Would Ta’raa see it? Would she recognize the shifting tide before it swallowed them whole? And what of the Operations Officers—would they have the foresight to understand what Lil’lah saw so clearly? Doubt gnawed at her, but hesitation had no place here. Her jaw set, resolve hardening. I should tell them.
Lil’lah’s hand hovered over the transmitter, fingers twitching with uncertainty. The weight of her hesitation pressed against her chest, thick as the void outside. What if she was wrong? The thought gnawed at the edges of her resolve. One misstep, one flawed assumption, and she could be trapped—stranded in this quadrant, abandoned to the cold inevitability of Earth’s fate. She breathed, slow and measured, forcing her nerves into submission. Patience. That was the answer. It had to be.
Her grip tightened around the controls, grounding her, steadying her pulse. In the distance, the asteroid field had begun to dissipate, its fractured remnants fading into the abyss, revealing open space. Radar scans confirmed the absence of hostile starships, their signatures blinking out one by one. The battlefield had quieted, but the silence was deceptive. Now was the time to strategize.
She turned inward, peeling through memories of the chaos she had left behind—the bridge in turmoil, the Roth Cruiser torn apart, the fleeting moments where everything had seemed to spiral beyond control. Enough time had passed that her efforts could be meaningless, swallowed by the ever-shifting tides of war. Dynamic situations unfolded with merciless speed, twisting fates in unpredictable directions. Lil’lah could feel the uncertainty clawing at her, rattling through her pulse, unraveling the edges of her composure.
She needed more information—more than instinct, more than vague suspicions. The risk was undeniable, but hesitation would serve no purpose now. The void was vast, indifferent, and unforgiving, and walking into it blind was a death sentence. Lil’lah exhaled sharply, releasing her grip on the controls. The galactic warp engines thrummed beneath her, powerful yet limited—faster than any conventional drive, but still incapable of making the journey instant. Time stretched before her, a corridor of unknowns, a passage riddled with unseen threats. There was no sense stepping into a trap unprepared.
With a flick of her fingers, the auto-pilot engaged, systems humming in reluctant compliance. It wasn’t the cutting-edge technology she relied on—not the precise calculations or flawless navigation of engineered intelligence. No, her trust lay elsewhere. Not in circuitry. Not in code. But in conviction. She closed her eyes, steadying her breath, allowing the hush of the Shadow realm to consume her.
The creeping silence wrapped around Lil’lah like an ancient specter, smoothing away the frayed edges of her anxiety, dragging it into the abyss. Weightless, detached, she drifted beyond herself, her consciousness untethered from flesh, her starship obediently carrying out its trajectory without her guidance. She had surrendered to the void.
Behind her, the carrier erupted in a violent, starving hellfire—metal skeletons twisting, starboard decks torn asunder, debris scattering in fiery plumes. But the destruction did not touch her, did not reach past the threshold of her numbed perception. She was deaf to the war, blind to the carnage, unbound from the physical ruin that consumed her reality.
The Shadow Realm welcomed her back. Here, she was more than Lil’lah, more than flesh and bone—a fragment of something vaster, dissolving into the abyss without resistance. She could feel the blackness, deeper than any known void, stretching toward her, waiting to envelop her completely, to swallow her whole and unravel the remaining strands of doubt clinging to her mind. Then—like the ignition of a dying star reclaiming itself—her spark flared. Atom by atom, she felt herself charging, energy pulsing through her being, propelling her forward, guiding her beyond the remnants of fear. Onward. Deeper. Into the darkness she longed for.
#
Instinct took hold, a split-second decision snapping Jo’rah into action as he pitched the craft from the hangar—no hesitation, no second thoughts. The ship lurched violently under his command, warning chimes cascading through the cockpit in shrill protest, flashing damage reports vying for his attention. He ignored them. There was no time for diagnostics.
The raw force of the galactic warp engines caught him off guard, the sheer velocity overwhelming even his seasoned reflexes. His bomber had been a familiar beast, but this—this was unbridled power, a pulse of acceleration that threatened to rip control from his grasp. It took several agonizing moments to steady his flight, his grip ironclad against the tremors rattling through the vessel. Movement.
From the corner of his eye, streaks of luminous green carved through the abyss, predatory beams slicing toward him with lethal precision. Destruction loomed in every direction, no clear escape presenting itself. His tracker flickered—a green square materializing at its edge. A signature. A path. He didn’t need confirmation. Instinct alone dictated his response.
Jo’rah keyed in the sequence, initiating a tail, the surge of pursuit lighting his veins with cold certainty. He had a strong idea of who this was. And where they were going.
The ship pulled at him, pressing him deep into the seat as it banked hard, swinging through the chaotic sprawl of shattered asteroids and wreckage with practiced precision. Jo’rah’s muscles tensed against the force, every movement calculated, every breath measured as he guided the craft through the labyrinth of debris.
Then—blinding light. A searing flash erupted across his vision, so sudden, so absolute that the canopy had no time to compensate. His senses reeled, his pulse hammering against his skull as the world flickered into momentary oblivion.
Then came the impact.
Explosions rippled through the surrounding void, shockwaves rocking the small craft at the edges of the blast radius, rattling its frame with violent tremors. Jo’rah barely registered the warning klaxons screaming in protest, his focus narrowing to the swirling mass engulfing him.
Dust. It swallowed him whole, thick and suffocating, coating the ship in an ephemeral shroud of chaos. For a fleeting moment, he was lost within it—adrift in the wake of destruction, consumed by the remnants of war. Then, as suddenly as he had vanished, he burst free. The craft surged forward, piercing the veil, returning to the cold, unfeeling embrace of the void.
Jo’rah’s hands trembled as he released his grip on the fighter’s controls, the weight of reality sinking into his bones. His breath came shallow, uneven, but his mind was elsewhere—lost in the space between memory and grief.
Cly’yn. Not his first wingmate, but undeniably the best. From the first day of training, they had been bound by a seamless rhythm, an unspoken understanding that transcended command. Cly’yn had always known, without words, what Jo’rah needed—what had to be done—and more importantly, how to do it. They had never been out of sync. But now, the absence of that connection carved a wound too deep to ignore.
It was impossible to rationalize—to make sense of why Cly’yn had to die, why any of them were trapped in this conflict, spilling blood for something neither side seemed willing to concede. If they had honored the Supreme’s wishes, would any of this have happened? Would the war have unfolded the same, or would the Ba’urgeon have found another path? No. It was never that simple.
One Mind had ordained this quest. That was fact. And yet, the lingering question gnawed at the edges of Jo’rah’s certainty—did the Supreme always move as One Mind directed? If their course was truly aligned with fate, then why had it required Lil’lah’s intervention to ignite the mission? If this was One Mind’s will, why had it waited for her to act? The doubt settled in his chest, heavy and unrelenting.
“I guess now’s as good a time as any to check out these logs,” Jo’rah murmured to himself, voice rough with exhaustion. His fingers moved with methodical precision, booting up the starship’s onboard computer, watching as the decryption protocols unraveled layers of classified data. The screen flickered, lines of text streaming in rapid succession—mission records, crew manifests, payload inventories. Jo’rah’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing as the details sharpened into something far more unsettling than he’d anticipated.
“They’re harvesting resources from the planets in this region…” His voice dipped, almost lost beneath the hum of machinery. “In massive quantities.” But it wasn’t the volume that unsettled him—it was the source. A deeper scan confirmed his growing suspicion. The bulk of these resources weren’t being pulled from scattered celestial bodies.
They were coming from one place. Earth. Jo’rah leaned forward, his breath steady but cold, tracing the decades-spanning archives embedded in the ship’s memory. Centuries of documentation, meticulously annotated records cataloging the removal of Earth’s flora, fauna—every organic substance that had ever sprung forth from the fragile rock. But the logs revealed something more. Something grotesque. Among the inventories, nestled between shipments of rare minerals and genetic samples, one entry was disturbingly frequent. Human. A favored commodity.
Jo’rah exhaled, slow and sharp, his grip tightening against the console. His stomach twisted, but there was no room for disbelief. It was all here. The evidence. The truth. And with it, the grim realization of why all of them had to die out here.
“The Starlight needs to see this—so does the Commodore,” Jo’rah muttered, pulse hammering beneath his ribs. “She has to know there may be Roth down there with her.” His fingers moved instinctively, reaching for the transmitter, but the moment he engaged the switch, nothing. Dead. A flicker of frustration tightened his jaw, but it was quickly smothered by pragmatism. Well, at least I know what’s broken.
He pulled up the ship’s diagnostics, scanning its systems with practiced efficiency. The comms were down—crippled beyond immediate repair—but the uplink to the fleet was still intact. A faint sliver of relief pushed through his urgency. They should be seeing everything I am. And his transponder—still functional. That meant they knew he was tracking her, knew his trajectory was locked onto hers. They would understand the intent. They had to.
His gaze flickered across the cockpit, sweeping through the familiar confines of Cly’yn’s craft, searching for something—anything—to hold onto. A keepsake. A marker of the warrior who had stood beside him through hell and beyond. But there was nothing. No personal belongings. No remnants of the man who had fought, bled, and died at his side. Just an empty cockpit, a silent graveyard of memories. And the growing distance between him and the calamity outside.
There was so much more he wanted to say. So many words left unspoken, tangled in the void, lingering where they would never be heard. Of all the ways he had imagined they’d fall, this was never one of them.
They were not raiders. They had never been. Jo’rah had waged war alongside Rael during the Rhubian Wars, but those days had long since faded into the backdrop of history. Cly’yn had never needed to storm enemy decks, never fought in the cold, calculated brutality of boarding raids. That wasn’t their fate. They were meant to burn out in glory—soaring through the endless black, streaking toward oblivion in a final blaze, not left drowning in fear, their deaths slow, drawn out, cruel.
Jo’rah exhaled, forcing himself to release the thoughts before they consumed him. He needed to push past it—to silence the ache, to untangle himself from the battle and the friend now lost to it. This was war. And war did not have space for sentiment. He closed his eyes, determined to rest while the chance remained. But the void was quiet. Too quiet. And his mind refused to let go. Cly’yn remained.
