IMPERIAL SHIPYARD "SOL-PRIME" – BRIDGE OF THE AEGIS OF SOL
The holographic image of Commander Nyctor flickered and died. The silence on the bridge felt physical, like the localized gravity plating had spiked.
General Kael and General Vorn stood rigid in their heavy conceptual mechs. The red and blue glow of their inscribed runes cast long, jagged shadows across the deck. They had overseen Earth's unification. They had watched mountains move and planets bloom. But the words Star Level had chilled them to the marrow.
"Five of them," Vorn said, his voice modulated and flat. "Entities that don't just manipulate principles. They dictate the Laws that govern reality. Majesty, they could theoretically collapse a star if given the tactical space."
Orion didn't turn. He stared at the tactical projection of the Oort Cloud, where the wounded Nycton vessel looked like a speck of dust against the Aegis's three-kilometer hull.
