The success of the colony was a fragile blossom in a galaxy of thorns. Astra's primary consciousness remained rooted on Vesper, guiding its growth, but a significant part of his mind—the Watchtower Partition—was a hawk forever circling the skies of Planet Vegeta. The data it streamed back was a grim countdown.
King Vegeta's purge in the wake of Astra's mass recruitment had been brutal. The planet was a pressure cooker of paranoia. But the King, bound by their pact and terrified of the larger cosmic threats Astra had revealed, did not move against Vesper directly. Instead, he turned his rage outward, launching ever more aggressive campaigns to prove his worth to Frieza, to stockpile resources, to build a war machine he knew in his heart was useless.
It was a dance of death, and the music was about to stop.
The alert from the Watchtower was not a subtle shift in data. It was a scream.
[PRIORITY ALERT: Frieza Force Battle Fleet Detected.]
[Composition: One Command Ship (The Frieza Force Flagship), Four Destroyer-Class Escorts.]
[Estimated Time to Planet Vegeta Arrival: 72 Hours.]
[Power Signature of Primary Entity (Frieza): Unfathomable. Threat Level: Extinction.]
It was time. The moment he had been reborn to face. The moment he had spent subjective centuries preparing for.
He stood on the central dais of the Anchor Nexus in First Stone. Before him, gathered on the main plaza, was the entire population of Vesper—Saiyan and colonist alike. Over five hundred souls, their faces a mixture of confusion and dread. He had shielded them from the worst of the news, but they could feel the shift in the air, the grim purpose in their Architect's stance.
He did not use a device to amplify his voice. He simply spoke, and his voice, both physical and psychic, rolled over them like a wave, calm and absolute.
"The test has come," he said, his words simple, final. "The empire that bred the Saiyans and enslaved a thousand worlds has sent its master to end us. In seventy-two hours, Planet Vegeta will be no more."
A stunned silence, then a rising tide of panic from the colonists. The Saiyans, however, grew still. This was the doom they had been raised to expect, the fate they had fled. They looked to Astra, their faces not of fear, but of grim acceptance. They had chosen this path.
"But this is not your doom," Astra continued, his gaze sweeping over them. "This is your genesis. You are no longer subjects of an empire. You are the seeds of a new world. Your strength, your knowledge, your will—this is what we have built. This is what we will protect."
He turned his head, as if listening to a distant sound. "The King has called. He demands his Technologist. He demands a miracle."
He looked back at his people, at Elara's resolute face, at Borg's hardened gaze.
"I will not give him one."
A ripple of shock went through the crowd.
"I will not save his throne. I will not save his empire. The Saiyan race, as it exists on that planet, is already dead. It is a corpse that does not know it has stopped breathing."
He raised a hand, and a star chart materialized in the air above them. It showed Planet Vegeta, and a single, shimmering point far away—Vesper.
"My duty is not to a king. My duty is to you. To this world. To the future. The destruction of Planet Vegeta is not our battle. It is our curtain. It is the end of their story, so that ours may begin."
He was condemning millions to die. He was letting a world burn. But in his voice, there was no cruelty, only a profound, unshakeable certainty. It was the logic of a surgeon amputating a limb to save the body.
"The work we do now, in these next hours, will determine if that future has a chance. I need every engineer on the primary shield grid. I need every Saiyan with combat training on perimeter defense, in case our location is discovered. I need everyone else focused on sustaining our infrastructure. There will be no panic. There will be no despair. There is only the work."
He looked at them, his will a forge-fire, hammering their fear into resolve.
"The galaxy will think us extinct. Let them. We will be here. We will be building. We will be growing. And when the time comes, we will step back onto the stage, not as slaves or conquerors, but as architects of a new age."
He lowered his hand. The star chart vanished.
"To your posts."
There was no cheer. No battle cry. Only a silent, terrifying determination that settled over First Stone like a mantle. The Two Tribes were gone. In their place was one people, united by the unbreakable will of their leader, facing the end of everything they had known, and choosing to build anew from the ashes.
Astra turned and walked towards the Ouroboros. He had a front-row seat to a galactic murder, and a people to hide from the fallout. The time for hiding was over. The time of silent, secret strength had begun.