The incident with Jimmy in the high-gravity hall was the final spark.
Arin didn't waste time on petty arguments; he used the Veyron chain of command.
That evening, he placed a secure, encrypted call to his father.
"Father, there's a Logistics Admiral named Jimmy in the Academy sector. His focus is on politics, not the Void. He's a liability."
His father didn't need further explanation. By the next rotation, Jimmy was "promoted" to a frontline supply depot in the most volatile sector of the Draco border—the true "Teeth" of the war.
With the distractions purged, the Academy accelerated the deployment of the Binary Suns.
The Draco Ambush
The transition from student to soldier happened in the span of a single heartbeat during a standard escort mission.
Lyra's fleet was guiding a convoy of civilian rescue ships when the space around them curdled with the arrival of an Orc raiding party.
The Orcs didn't just want the cargo; they wanted the lives on board to fuel their primitive, black-light reactors.
"Admiral! The rescue ships are pinned! We can't jump without leaving them behind!" Arin's voice roared over the command link.
"I know, Commander! My logic circuits are maxed out, but the Orc swarm is too dense for the fleet's cannons!" Lyra shouted back, her fingers flying across the tactical map.
Arin, having recently broken through to become a Weave Phase warrior, made a decision that defied every manual in the Federation.
He didn't just launch his Mecha; he signaled the automated frigates surrounding the flagship.
"Arin, what are you doing? Those are structural support vessels!" Lyra cried out.
"They're tools, Lyra! And I'm the hand that swings them!"
Using his new Weave Phase threads, Arin reached out into the vacuum of space, his energy acting like invisible, high-tension cables.
He forcibly broke the frigates into modular pieces, stripping their heavy armor plates and engine blocks.
Like a magnet pulling in iron shavings, the frigate-plates screamed through the void and slammed into Arin's Mecha, the Obsidian Doom.
He wasn't just a pilot anymore; he had turned himself into a massive, improvised fortress, a walking shield that blocked the Orc plasma fire meant for the civilians.
He held the line for three agonizing minutes, his Loom ports screaming under the pressure of the external attachments.
The Return of the Obsidian Doom
The hangar of the battleship hissed with the sound of depressurization as the massive blast doors ground shut.
Smoke and the smell of ozone—the sharp, metallic scent of a strained Loom—filled the air.
In the center of the deck stood the Obsidian Doom.
It was no longer the sleek machine that had left the Academy; its armor was scorched by Orc plasma, and several of the hundred Loom ports were still sparking with residual black light.
As the external frigate-plates detached and hovered back into their docking cradles, the central Mecha knelt.
The cockpit canopy slid open with a heavy thud, and Arin emerged.
He didn't jump down.
He stepped onto the wing, his movements slow and weighted with the kind of exhaustion that only comes from a Weave Phase warrior pushing against a Net Phase reality.
His black pilot suit was slick with sweat, and his face was pale, his deep blue eyes shadowed by the mental strain of the "Obsidian" state.
Lyra was already there at the base of the platform.
She had abandoned her command chair the moment the last transport was secured, her "Cold Queen" mask firmly in place, though her fingers drummed a rhythmic, nervous cadence against her thigh.
She watched him descend.
For the first time, she didn't see a rival or a stubborn subordinate; she saw a primary tactical asset that had just survived a zero-probability event.
"You're a fool, Arin Veyron," she said, her voice echoing in the vast, quiet hangar.
The usual bite was there, but it was clipped, devoid of its typical warmth.
"You over-clocked your ports to 120%. If that Orc had lasted another ten seconds, your own Loom would have imploded, taking the entire escort convoy with it."
Arin finally reached the floor, his boots clanging on the metal.
He stopped a foot away from her, towering over her, his presence still radiating the volatile heat of a cooling reactor.
"The math said I had eleven seconds," Arin replied, his voice raspy and devoid of sentiment.
"I figured I'd save one for the walk back to the armory."
Lyra stepped forward, her eyes scanning him for structural damage rather than physical injury.
She saw the minute tremors in his hands—the signature of a Weave Phase surge—and her tactical mind immediately began cataloging the necessary repairs to his nervous system.
"In the simulation... you let me win rounds," she stated, her voice flat.
"You played the game of 'limited efficiency' because you knew I liked to be the strategist in the room."
Arin didn't offer a smile.
He turned his head slightly, his gaze shifting toward the damaged ship hulls still drifting in the void outside the hangar doors.
"I didn't let you win, Lyra. I just didn't want to fight the officer I respected with the same ruthless optimization I use to cull Orc swarms. There's a tactical difference."
The hangar crew kept their distance, sensing the static charge between the two commanders.
This wasn't a moment of connection; it was a cold, professional assessment of their respective combat doctrines.
"You're a brute, Arin," Lyra murmured, her pink hair catching the dim emergency lights as she turned to face the ship's log interface.
"And you're a cold, calculating tactician," Arin countered, his voice regaining its iron, disciplined strength.
"Which is why the fleet survived today."
He didn't wait for her to acknowledge the statement.
He walked past her, heading straight for the repair bay to initiate the purge of his Loom ports.
Lyra stood alone in the hangar for a moment, her eyes fixed on the data stream of the rescue ships they had saved.
She looked at the logs, seeing the precise timing of Arin's intervention.
It was irrational, inefficient, and arguably reckless—yet, by the smallest of margins, it was the only variable that had secured the victory.
"Don't ever do that again," she whispered to the empty air, her voice barely audible over the ship's hum.
"I can't promise that," Arin's voice drifted back from the end of the hangar, sharp and uncompromising.
"But next time, I'll make sure your fleet is there to pick me up again."