Vernon arrived in the hollow silence of the training chamber, the only light coming from the glowing tactical table at its center. Marius wasn’t here yet. With a sigh, Vernon activated the table’s interface, his fingers flicking through the data-stream. He pulled up cultural briefs, old customs of the Coreworlds versus the Outerworlds—dry, diplomatic texts about symbolic gifts and honorifics. He was skimming an entry on Veridian March burial rites when the first sound cut through the quiet.

It was a distant, metallic shriek. The unmistakable sound of a power saber meeting its match. Then, a sharper crack. A plasma shot.

His head snapped up. All boredom vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp focus. The sounds were coming from beyond the chamber’s heavy doors, somewhere in the residential wing. He moved without thinking, his body crossing to the weapon cache embedded in the far wall. The panel hissed open at his touch. Inside, the gear was pristine, maintained daily. He grabbed a standard-issue officer’s dagger-saber, its hilt cool in his palm, and a compact pulse-pistol, checking its charge with a practiced glance. Fully loaded.

The chamber door slid open.

Marius stood there, his usual calm replaced by a grim, battle-ready tension. His dark flight suit was smudged, and he held a rifle loosely at his side. “Vernon. With me. Now.”

“Marius, what is happening?” Vernon demanded, falling into step beside his mentor as they moved into the corridor. The sounds of combat were louder here, echoing.

“The bastion is under attack,” Marius said, his voice low and urgent. He took a corner at a sprint, Vernon keeping pace.

“By whom?”

“House Laurien.” Marius didn’t look back. “They infiltrated the compound disguised among the Outerworld delegates. Triggered a cascade failure in the perimeter defenses. They’re inside the walls.”

House Laurien? A Coreworld rival, yes, but this was an act of war. “Why? Why would they attack Artanis? Now?”

“I don’t know,” Marius bit out. “But the ‘why’ doesn’t matter if we’re dead. Your mother’s chambers. First.”

A knot of dread tightened in Vernon’s stomach. They navigated through service corridors, avoiding the main halls where the sounds of screaming and weapons fire were most intense. Twice, they passed the bodies of Artanis guards in their sky-blue livery, cut down.

His mother’s apartment door was sealed. Marius bypassed the lock with a code Vernon didn’t recognize. The door slid aside.

Freiga was on the floor by her window, the dawn light he’d watched with her just hours ago now falling across her still form. She lay on her back, a single, precise burn hole in the center of her forehead. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling murals of the Sylvan Reach. There was no blood. Just the terrible, final neatness of it.

Vernon stopped breathing. The world narrowed to that small, dark mark. The dagger-saber felt suddenly absurd in his hand.

“Vernon.” Marius’s hand was on his shoulder, firm, pulling him back. “We can’t stay.”

Before Vernon could speak, could process, two Artanis foot soldiers in battered armor appeared at the chamber’s entrance. “Sir! The Duke’s last known location was the Council Chambers. The way is compromised, but we can try.”

Marius gave a sharp nod. “Lead.”

The journey to the Council Chambers was a blur of smoke, shattered glass, and the smell of ozone. They encountered no more living Laurien soldiers, only the aftermath of their passing. When they finally pushed through the great doors, the scene was one of slaughter.

Delegates, both Core and Outerworld, lay scattered like broken dolls. The elegant negotiating table was overturned, a barricade that had failed. There was no sign of Duke Arturus.

“The shipyard,” Marius said, his voice hollow. “If he’s alive, that’s where he’d go. To his flagship.”

They ran again, the two foot soldiers providing cover. The grand promenades leading to the bastion’s private docks were transformed into a warzone. Through arched viewports, Vernon saw the sky was full of fire. Agile Artanis fighters, painted blue and silver, dueled with brutalist Laurien interceptors in crimson and black. Beyond them, hanging in the high atmosphere like malevolent gods, were the silhouettes of capital ships—not just Laurien’s dagger-shaped cruisers, but others too. Houses Veridian, maybe even Kael. A coalition. They were bombarding the planetary defense grids, their energy lances painting the sky with silent, destructive light.

They reached the personal hangar bay. The Duke’s elegant corvette was gone. Only Marius’s sleek, angular stealth fighter, the Whisper, remained on its pad, its canopy open like a promise.

“Go!” one of the foot soldiers yelled, turning to lay down suppressive fire at a squad of Laurien troopers pouring from a side access.

Vernon and Marius sprinted for the ship. He heard the sizzle of plasma, a cry cut short. He glanced back as he hauled himself into the Whisper’s rear cockpit. Both soldiers were down, their bodies smoking on the deck.

Marius was already in the pilot’s seat, hands flying across the controls. The canopy sealed with a thump of pressurized air. The engines whined to life, a vibration through the frame. With a lurch, the Whisper lifted, rotated, and shot out of the hangar bay into the maelstrom.

The world outside was madness. The bastion, his home, was a scarred mountain under a canopy of flame. Fighter ships, friend and foe, spiraled and died in brilliant blossoms. Marius juked and weaved, his jaw clenched, navigating not a sky but an obstacle course of debris and energy fire.

He gained altitude, pushing the ship toward the edge of the atmosphere. Below, the scale of the betrayal became horrifyingly clear. It wasn’t a raid. It was an annihilation. The coordinated fleet above wasn’t just bombarding defenses; it was methodically dismantling Artanis’s orbital shipyards and command platforms. One of the great House Laurien cruisers, its hull gleaming like a bloody tooth, turned its primary batteries and fired downward. A lance of pure energy speared an Artanis battlecruiser that was trying to rally. The vessel detonated in a silent, expanding flower of metal and gas.

Marius watched it happen. His hands went still on the controls for a moment. The fight seemed to drain from his posture.

“What are you doing?” Vernon shouted from the back. “We have to find my father! We have to—”

“We can’t.” Marius’s voice was flat, final. He turned the Whisper’s nose away from the dying world, away from the battle, and aimed for the cold, star-dusted blackness of open space. He engaged the main thrusters, the g-force pressing them into their seats.

As the blue-green marble of Artanis shrank behind them, wreathed in the funeral pyres of its fleet, Marius spoke again, barely a whisper.

“Artanis is lost. My only mission now is to get you out.”