The transport glided away from the bastion’s private docks, descending through gleaming tiers of Caledon Prime. Laura pressed her forehead to the cool window, her breath fogging the glass. The ordered boulevards and geometric parks of the administrative district gave way to the bustling, dense warren of the city’s mercantile and cultural heart.

“It’s so… full,” Laura murmured.

Lysa followed her gaze, smiling. “The Grand Concourse. Best people-watching in the sector.”

It was true. The wide pedestrian thoroughfare teemed with life in a dizzying spectrum. Tall, pale-skinned Terrans in sleek Dominion fashion rubbed shoulders with a squat, moss-green species with four arms, their gestures fluid and complex. A pair of willowy beings with iridescent, feathered crests browsed a holographic kiosk, their voices a melodic chime. Laura saw scaled faces, furred limbs, bodies encased in environmental suits, and others that seemed to be more machine than flesh, all moving in a strangely harmonious river of difference.

“They all live here?” Laura asked, the sheer normalcy of it striking her. Artanis had been homogenous, a bastion of old Terran aristocracy.

“Trade hub,” Lysa said simply. “The Dominion mandates open ports here. If you can pay the tariffs, you can visit. Some even earn residency. It’s one of the few places the Integration Decrees haven’t completely stamped flat.”

The transport settled at a public plaza. Lysa led Laura out, her hand briefly touching Laura’s elbow—a guide, a protector. The first stop rose before them like a crystalline forest: the Universal Fauna Conservatory.

Inside was a symphony of alien biomes. They walked through transparent tunnels arcing over a swamp where six-legged, leathery beasts with lamprey mouths basked under a purple synthetic sun. In a zero-g chamber, schools of crystalline fish that pulsed with internal light drifted like living constellations. A humid jungle enclosure echoed with the clicks and whistles of arboreal creatures with prehensile tails and eyes on stalks.

Laura stopped before a vast plain exhibit, watching a herd of graceful, long-necked animals with coats that shifted color with their mood move in silent unison. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, a pang of loss for Artanis’s lost preserves sharp in her chest. “To have all this… just to look at. To keep safe.”

Lysa watched her face. “It’s a promise,” she said softly. “That not everything out there is about taking. Some things are just for seeing.”

The next destination was all about taking action. …