Location: Chancellor Yvith's Private Command Chamber – Academy of Core Logic
The chamber lights were too bright. Yvith didn't ask for them to dim. After the Council meeting, she had to salvage what could be salvaged. She tore the override panel open and killed the top feed herself. Sparks jumped from the relay. She ignored them.
"Anything?" she demanded.
"Still nothing, Chancellor," the comm officer said.
"Stop repeating that."
The walls were lined with silent data. Broken feeds. Flatlined telemetry. Scrubbed signal traces. Every known relay—destroyed. Every channel—blocked. The vessel above the excavation site had shut down more than comms. It had shut down the sky.
Yvith stepped to the center console and pointed.
"Try again. Long-range. Not direct. Sweep the edges of the system. Scan for any retreat signals."
One of the techs stiffened. "We did that twice already—"
She cut him off. "Then make it three. Run it again. Expand the band. No pre-filters. I want raw scatter if that's all we get."
She turned to another operator. "Contact any Grounx vessel that escaped the system. I want to speak with the highest surviving officer who isn't afraid to speak."
Silence followed for several seconds. Systems pulsed. Panels flickered. Then a confirmation chime.
"Chancellor," another voice said, more alert, "we've picked up low-band emergency tones… Grounx encryption. Very old format. Looks like one ship's running on fallback protocols."
Yvith didn't hesitate. "Patch it. Now."
The screen flared. No video. Just a hiss of static. Then a voice—low, clipped, and stripped of all formal tone.
"This is Captain Shov. Patrol vessel Vernak-Thur. Identify."
"Chancellor Yvith Korr," she said. "Report your position."
"Outside the system. Damage sustained. Half propulsion offline. Minimal crew. Minimal control."
"Confirm that."
Shov didn't pause. "The fleet is gone. We've sustained eighty percent casualties. The rest... unaccounted for."
Yvith stared at the terminal.
"Describe what happened. Detail."
A long silence followed.
Then Shov spoke.
"We were holding orbit like ordered. Thirty patrol ships with the flagship. Full Grounx perimeter. Surface was quiet. Nothing showed on sensors. Everything clean."
He inhaled sharply.
"Then it woke. No jump signature. No heat. No light. No IFF. It wasn't cloaked. It just… was. We didn't even notice it until it blocked half our starfield."
Yvith didn't interrupt.
"We tried to ping it. Systems didn't even finish the handshake. The signal collapsed mid-transmit. Every relay died. Then visual showed it. Triangular hull. No markings. No ports. Just black. Smooth and massive. It didn't glow. It didn't move. It just sat there, like it didn't need to move."
He stopped again. This time, she waited.
"Then it fired. No warning. No targeting phase. Just a beam. Silent. Direct. One shot—Admiral Threx's flagship split clean through."
Yvith's face didn't move, but her fingers curled slowly.
"All forces scrambled. Fighters launched for engagement, but they were dismantled too fast. The point-defense system was overwhelming. Like it had already seen every possible trajectory before we launched."
"How long from first contact to first kill?" she asked.
"Seven seconds."
"Continue."
"The others didn't move fast enough. Second shot—took two at once. Then three more. Then sensors went blind. Feedback loop fried the arrays. We pulled out. Emergency drift. No lock. We didn't even confirm if it tracked us. It didn't need to."
"Did it pursue?"
"No. It stayed where it was. It didn't need to follow us. We weren't a threat."
"Any visual on the surface?"
"No. Not after it arrived. Terrain glitched. Readings scrambled. Our best optics couldn't penetrate the lower atmosphere. Looked like a blackout field. No heat, no signal. Nothing natural. Nothing reflected. The ground was just gone."
"Attempts to transmit back?"
"Dead air."
"Do you believe you were jammed?"
"No. Jamming scrambles. This cut. Clean and absolute. No bounce, no residual decay. Like we were never transmitting at all."
"Can it be bypassed?"
"No."
She paused. "Can it be countered?"
Shov gave the only honest answer left: "No, Chancellor. That ship's not defending itself. It's not reacting. It's controlling the entire zone. Every attempt to engage—or even observe—is neutralized before it begins."
"You're sure?"
"I watched Grounx warships fall without a single evasive maneuver. That wasn't a battle. It was a demonstration. We were meant to watch it happen. And now you're meant to decide what to do next."
The static pulsed, then began to degrade.
Yvith spoke before it collapsed. "Any survivors?"
"No way to confirm. If there are any left, they're buried under that ship's shadow."
The line dropped.
No reconnect. Just silence.
Yvith turned.
"Shut down all active broadcasts. Cease every signal probe. Disconnect from central relay. I want this entire facility on hardline-only comms. No open transmissions. No network bleed."
Her command team moved.
"Scrub all external logs. No cloud archiving. From this moment, this chamber operates under a closed loop. Classify the last contact under Black Seal. Use my authorization. No leaks."
The lights dimmed. One of the aides looked at her.
"What do we tell the Council?"
"Tell them we're reviewing loss telemetry. That containment is in progress. If any of them want to make contact, they can take the next shuttle down."
No one replied.
She moved to her private terminal and unlocked her archive.
The triangle rotated slowly. No ID. No data. Just the shape.
She closed it.
Yvith was the only one who knew what Niri really was.
Human.
The only one left.
And now a warship had reacted the moment she got too close.
Niri had warned them. Stay away. Don't dig. Don't approach.
They hadn't listened.
Yvith gave a tight order.
"Open a passive loop. One-way. Use the girl's voiceprint. Keep the signal low and untagged."
The tech didn't respond.
"She might still be alive. That ship might respond to her. It already did once."
The signal began running.
Yvith didn't move.
There was no way to know if Niri was still alive.
The surface was blocked. The feeds were dead. The warship controlled everything between the stars and the stone. No signal could reach them. No scan could confirm anything.
But if the girl survived...
If the ship recognized her...
There was a chance she could speak through it.
Or stop it.
Yvith didn't explain any of that to the staff. She didn't need to.
They only saw a chancellor acting on protocol.
They didn't know the truth.
And if the Council discovered what Niri really was, they would act. Fast. Brutal.
Not to protect her.
To eliminate her.
If the public learned a human still existed—if word spread of her connection to a warship that erased fleets in seconds—the Ascendancy wouldn't survive it.
Half the Reach would panic. The other half would try to use her.
The rebellion would rally. The border sectors would fracture. Every power bloc would want her.
And no one would ask what she wanted.
She had to survive long enough to choose.
Yvith stared at the black triangle on the screen one last time.
It had spoken without words.
And she had heard it.
Now the girl had to answer.
A notification pulsed at the edge of her watchpad. Yvith tapped the feed. The results were in.
The Council vote had passed.
120 in favor. 80 against.
Effective immediately, the Ascendancy was in a state of war.
Her eyes scanned the headlines pouring into her restricted feed. Thousands of reports across every known species and sector. Dozens of languages, hundreds of sources, all saying the same thing:
Fleet annihilated. Warship unidentified. Cadets missing. Academy silent.
She flipped to the high-priority press queries. Over two thousand questions flagged for Chancellor response. Journalists from every sphere demanding answers. Demanding names. Demanding survivors.
She dismissed them.
Her instincts were louder.
Not the vote.
Not the panic.
Councillor Routhi.
He had voted against the motion. Of course he had. Always two moves ahead. Always smiling.
She didn't trust him. Never had.
Now she had reason.
He would move soon. Try to spin this. Exploit it. Cut deals while the rest of the Reach reeled.
She flagged his name with a security marker.
"Track Routhi's meetings. Full spectrum. I want every chamber he enters and every transmission he authorizes under review."
The aide nodded.
Yvith didn't take her eyes off the display.
"He'll make his move soon." She whispers to herseelf.
She turned to the lead comm officer.
"If anything changes, I want to know the moment it happens. No delays. No summaries. Direct line to my pad."
The officer nodded quickly.
Yvith turned to the aide managing press protocols.
"Inform the communications team. I'm heading to the press chamber now. Prepare the statement platform. No speculation, no fluff—just the facts. Keep their questions controlled."
She didn't wait for acknowledgment.
She stepped toward the chamber doors, her pace sharp and fast. Security Grounx units fell into formation around her as she moved down the corridor.