Chapter 7
Far above the poisoned skies of Gaeth-9, nestled within the obsidian throne-spires of the Kargal Empire's Sector Command, the stars themselves seemed to tremble.
The detection arrays buzzed with a quiet, unnatural frequency. Red lights blinked across a dozen tactical holograms. Inside the glass womb of the monitoring chamber, silence fell like a blade.
Then the pulse came again.
Divine-class signature.Unfiltered. Raw. No encryption. No synthetic masking.
The AI cores screamed warnings in ten languages, and still, none of the operators moved.
High Marshal Verik Drae stepped into the chamber, his long coat of reinforced mesh dragging behind him like a war banner. He was not a man known for superstition. He believed in chain of command, orbital supremacy, and the careful eradication of rebellion.
But this...
"Report." His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
A Binder in ceremonial black—a living conduit of restricted code, mind tethered to ancient psychic protocols—bowed low. His face was marked with circular sigils, his voice distorted by the binding implants at his throat.
"The signal came from Gaeth-9, Lord Marshal. Unshielded. Full spectrum. We confirmed—twice."
"Nature?"