Admiral Arin Tar reviewed in her mind the events of the past weeks.

  It had been two months since she had taken command of the Arwien expeditionary force on the Gull front.

  Her predecessor had been highly esteemed, always on the front lines, but had perhaps forgotten that a leader could not constantly put their life at risk. She had been killed in the explosion of her ship during an engagement, likely against the Zirkis.

  Those creatures were pure fury.

  Since then, Arin Tar had been trying to devise a strategy to break free from the endless cycle of ups and downs that had persisted for years. She had an excellent service record, but would that be enough? So far, it was not.

  She had attempted to launch an ambitious operation to outflank the enemy’s defenses. A mistake or a miscalculation by her reconnaissance ships had allowed the enemy to locate their staging area, and, by extension, the assembly point of her fleets within a local nebula.

  The staging area had been obliterated along with the zone that concealed it.

  Then, the fleets had clashed with the mercenaries at their deployment site. Most of her ships had been destroyed in the midst of a gravitational storm triggered by a group fighting in an unconventional manner.

  And now, the latest setback: the deep offensive launched into what had seemed like the weak center of the enemy front had begun promisingly, only to end in disaster.

  She repeatedly replayed the battle recordings. Nothing about it was normal: the coordinated behavior of the enemy groups, the absence of destruction of disabled ships. The element of surprise in their attack, and its tactical efficiency.

  None of it aligned with standard Gull methods.

  A beep. Arin Tar connected.

  “Colonel Ran Dal requests to speak with you.”

  “Let her in.”

  Ran Dal was in charge of fleet intelligence. A brilliant officer who was still struggling to accept the failure of her scouts and its disastrous consequences.

  If she was here to resign, there was no chance Arin Tar would accept it.

  The door opened, and Ran Dal entered, accompanied by a young Arwien.

  Arin Tar narrowed her eyes, intrigued.

  “My respects, Admiral,” Ran Dal greeted with a slight bow of her head.

  Arin Tar gestured for her to approach. “What’s happening?”

  Ran Dal wasted no time.

  “Admiral, the last engagements have revealed significant anomalies. I assume you’ve noticed the unusual markings on some enemy ships?”

  Arin Tar nodded. “Yes. A strange symbol. That detail did not escape me.”

  “Precisely,” Ran Dal continued. “We believe these markings are not incidental. We may be facing an attempt at contact. Perhaps even two.”

  The Admiral raised an eyebrow. “Two attempts? Explain.”

  “The first,” Ran Dal explained, “was the non-aggressive maneuver at the end of the engagement. An unusual attitude for mercenaries fighting under Gull command. But the second is far more... unexpected.”

  She placed a hand on the shoulder of the young Arwien beside her.

  “This woman here claims to have made contact with the crew of one of those marked ships.”

  Arin Tar straightened sharply, her piercing eyes locked on the young woman.

  “Made contact? You mean communication occurred?”

  Ran Dal nodded. “Yes, Admiral. A direct exchange. This is unprecedented.”

  The Admiral studied the young woman for a long moment, trying to discern what she had experienced. Then, in a calmer tone, she said:

  “Then we will listen. Summarize your experience.”

  The young Arwien took a deep breath before beginning her account.

  “It was at the end of the enemy attack on the asteroid field where we were hiding. The field had been disrupted, our escort ship was lost. I believe I was the only survivor… I am certain of it. My survival pod was captured by a mercenary ship with an engraved symbol. When I emerged from the pod, crew members were watching me. They were… almost Arwiens.”

  She paused, searching for the right words, then continued:

  “A woman joined them. She could have been an Arwien from the outer systems, if not for her very black… very beautiful hair.”

  She cleared her throat, realizing that this aesthetic detail was probably irrelevant, before continuing:

  “They created a very simple hologram: first, just me. Then me with the strange woman holding my hand. Then, a Gull breaking us apart. I didn’t understand at first, but in hindsight, it seems obvious.

  The woman eventually realized that I understood some Xi. We spoke in that language.

  They said they did not want to attack us but were forced to by the Gulls.

  And most importantly, the woman did not understand why we had not yet won the war. I told her about the nanites.”

  Ran Dal then added: “They had enhanced the range of her emergency beacon. Obviously so we would retrieve her.”

  Arin Tar said nothing, lost in deep thought.

  “In summary, if we assume all these elements to be true, we have confirmation that the mercenaries fight under coercion, which we had suspected. But we also have a group, of a race close to ours, and that is no trivial detail, that may wish to contact us.”

  She paused, then continued:

  “But why? Can they break free from Gull control? Unlikely, or we would have seen precedents.”

  Ran Dal suggested exploring a discreet method for establishing contact.

  The Admiral slowly nodded.

  “Agreed. See what can be done. But with extreme caution.”

  Once the visitors had left, Arin Tar remained alone for a moment, her gaze lost in the void.

  She wondered what could be gained from contact, especially since this group was a dangerous adversary, perhaps the most dangerous one yet.

  The landscape stretching before the Arwien was one of austere, mesmerizing beauty. The planet Ieya offered a scenery sculpted by winds and time: a desert in shades of gold and copper, ignited by the final embers of the setting sun.

  In the distance, rock formations stood like crumbling towers, remnants of a past known only to nature. The sand rippled in harmonious dunes, kissed by the growing shadows of mineral ridges. Between eroded stones and barren expanses, a few thorny bushes clung to life, silent witnesses to resilience in the face of hostility.

  At the horizon, the sky shifted into hues of orange and purple, slowly blending into the deepening indigo of night. Wisps of clouds drifted lazily, reflecting the sun’s final light. A gentle wind stirred, lifting glimmers of sand that sparkled in the fading glow.

  Beneath a natural rock arch, offering a hint of coolness, the Arwien stood in silence, contemplating the meaning of this remote world and those who had chosen to live beyond the reach of known civilization.

  She was tall and slender, her features marked by a cold determination. Her silver-white hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing a face with high cheekbones and piercing, faintly luminous eyes. A flexible, pearl-white armored suit, equipped with a respirator, clung to her athletic form, designed for survival in extreme conditions.

  She moved with measured confidence, leaving behind the landing pod that had brought her to Ieya, deliberately landing at a distance out of respect for those she sought.

  Each step betrayed impeccable control over her body and mind. Yet the journey was arduous. The treacherous sand collapsed beneath her boots, making each advance more demanding. Occasionally, a gust of wind whipped her face, raising clouds of dust that stung her eyes and seeped into the joints of her armor.

  She pressed on.

  She knew that the Hermits had already seen her.

  She only had to wait and see if they would accept her arrival… or cast her away.

  A breath, imperceptible, brushed against her mind.

  “This world is not for the Arwiens.”

  The voice resonated in her thoughts. She did not flinch. She had expected this.

  “I need help.”

  “The Thinkers do not leave this world.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. She knew these words, this unspoken rule.

  But she had to try.

  “Except at destiny’s call.”

  A long, heavy silence.

  “Destiny does not call. It simply is.”

  She took a deep breath. Her eyes flickered with white light as she prepared her reply.

  “I only need to establish contact. Perhaps that is where Arw’s destiny lies.”

  “With whom?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  She hesitated. Then, with calm resolve, she spoke the words she knew carried great weight:

  “With Arw and Sol.”

  A very long silence.

  She tensed, waiting.

  Then the voice returned, cold and unwavering:

  “Leave at first light.”

  She clenched her teeth but did not protest. The contact was established—that was already a victory. And yet, frustration crept in. Had she misspoken? Should she have insisted differently?

  She resigned herself to spending the night there, searching for a more sheltered spot among the jagged rocks. The cold was setting in, and patience would be her only ally until dawn.

  It was difficult to sleep while shivering. The suit was thermoregulating, but it had its limits. The wind, carrying icy sand particles, seeped through the gaps in her equipment, making every minute more uncomfortable. Her muscles tensed involuntarily, struggling to retain the slightest bit of warmth. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to calm the uncontrollable tremors that coursed through her body.

  Ran Dal’s thoughts spun in circles. She was convinced that these new mercenaries wanted contact but were forbidden from making it.

  She had worked with the fleet’s AIs on communications between enemy groups. One of them, a holographic communication, was more accessible than the others. It did not have the same level of encryption as the nanite-based transmissions and eventually revealed a few fragments of information.

  After several attempts at cross-referencing data and contextual analysis, a name emerged: Alan de Sol.

  Sol. Supposedly a homeworld, but no trace of it existed in the Imperium’s databases.

  Ran Dal delved deeper into her research, trying to trace the origins of this mercenary group. No records mentioned a people or a system by that name within the Imperium, raising a troubling question: Where did they come from?

  Curiously, the term appeared on a remote planet at the edge of the Imperium, beyond the reach of the nanites: Ieya, the secret planet of the Hermits.

  Sol seemed to be associated with an ancient prophetic figure. A tenuous connection with no clear meaning.

  Ieya was a planet forgotten by time and progress. An arid world, swept by biting sandstorms, marked by rocky plateaus and canyons, where only shadows endured against the merciless sun. For centuries, perhaps millennia, Ieya had remained a mystery. A name whispered among Imperium scholars and explorers, a living legend among those who sought the truth beyond established dogma.

  The Arwiens had discovered this planet when the Imperium was still young. Yet, even then, it was already forbidden to them. Those who had attempted to explore it had returned… changed. Haunted by visions they could not explain. Some had never returned at all.

  The only certainty was that something lived on Ieya, something so ancient that its very existence seemed to be woven into the rock and the stars.

  It was there that the Hermits had settled. A people unseen, whose origins had faded into the corrupted archives of time. Some claimed they were the last remnants of a vanished civilization, beings who had renounced the tumult of empires to embrace a knowledge vaster than the universe itself. Others believed they were not Arwiens at all, but something else: a collective entity beyond borders and individual form.

  The Hermits sought neither power nor conquest. They thought.

  They absorbed the currents of the universe and immersed themselves in the very fabric of time. They were Thinkers, silent observers who only appeared when the cosmic order wavered.

  In the history of the Imperium, only a handful of chosen ones had ever received an audience on Ieya. A few travelers (whose names had since been erased from official records) had landed on this austere world. They had sought answers, and some had claimed to have found them. But none had ever shared them.

  The few surviving texts spoke of a strange phenomenon: the perception of destiny. According to ancient writings, the Hermits could see what was to come, not as a fixed prophecy, but as an infinite web of intertwined paths.

  For them, there was no chance, no prophecy, only choices leading inexorably toward a single point.

  They did not intervene.

  They did not advise.

  They observed.

  But then, why had a voice spoken in Ran Dal’s mind? Why had they answered her?

  The question hung in the silence of the night, while the Arwien shivered under the relentless cold of Ieya’s sky.

  The night seemed endless, and when dawn finally came, Ran Dal struggled to move. Her muscles were numb, her body drained by the cold and immobility. It took her time to regain her mobility.

  The shuttle awaited her, a reassuring silhouette in the frozen desert. When she finally stepped inside, the warmth of the vessel enveloped her, chasing away the frost clinging to her suit.

  She had failed.

  She needed another way. Another approach. Another means.

  The idea forming in her mind required her to know at least one of Alan’s group’s locations. And to get there, she would need a pilot of unparalleled skill, someone capable of flying through extreme conditions.

  A suicide mission, no doubt.

  She knew of one man with a bit of Zirkis in him: Rul Val.

  The shuttle lifted off, carrying her to a small scout ship in orbit, where she was the sole passenger. The hyper-quantum transfer took five phases. Ieya was far beyond the Imperium’s borders, and the stasis field generators were of limited power.

  Approaching the Imperium’s main fleet base, Ran Dal quickly scanned the holographic front line, hoping that no major events had unfolded in her absence.

  Then, a blinking point caught her attention.

  It had no designation.

  It was a specific point on the front line.

  She zoomed in to read its coordinates.

  There were none.

  In their place, a single word appeared:

  SOL.

  JENNEL

  I think I can start writing again from time to time—as long as I keep it factual.

  Due to minor damage to communications, our ship is undergoing repairs. A necessity for a command vessel.

  Aside from that, the Gulls remain silent on Alan’s repeated breaches of protocol. Even stranger, the last two missions were conducted in coordination with more and more groups.

  But some are struggling.

  Struggling to coordinate, but also struggling to keep up with Alan’s combat maneuvers.

  (It’s like he’s been doing this his whole life, even though he can barely open a can of syrupy fruit.)

  Luckily, the Arwiens seem frequently thrown off, which is highly detrimental to them.

  Two new victories. Five more ships lost. We are down to 52.

  A morbid countdown.

  According to Alan, our enemies are falling behind in several sectors, and a strong offensive could seriously unsettle them.

  I’ve finally understood what he wants.

  Command.

  Not just of our unit, but of most of the mercenary groups.

  And in the minds of many (or whatever serves as their mind), he already has it.

  Alan has no ego problem, so… why?

  Admiral Arin Tar left the high-command meeting, her footsteps heavy, her hardened gaze sweeping the corridors of the main fleet base.

  She had just spent hours listening to lamentations, frustrations, and defeatist analyses from her officers.

  Everyone sought explanations for the successive disasters, but none could offer a real solution.

  The last two defeats had been devastating.

  But what worried Arin Tar the most was not the loss of ships.

  It was the loss of strategic positions.

  The mercenaries had seized key locations, communication relays, gravitational corridors, and retreat zones that had once been under Arwien control.

  Each tactical withdrawal was turning into an irreversible enemy advance.

  The Arwien forces were under constant pressure, continually engaged, with no chance to reorganize. Their crews could not be trained in new combat strategies, which always put them a step behind their adversary. And that delay, against unpredictable tactics, was a death sentence. The crews had to adapt on the battlefield, improvising against maneuvers that, at first glance, seemed completely contrary to standard military logic.

  Yet, these apparent absurdities were effective.

  The name Alan de Sol had appeared repeatedly in battle reports.

  He had become the shadow haunting the Arwien war plans.

  This mercenary, this human from nowhere, was reshaping the battlefield in his own way, setting a pace the Arwiens struggled to follow. He disrupted the balance, forcing fleet commanders to rethink their traditional battle schemes.

  Ran Dal, for her part, clung to her story of contact, as if this fragile thread could provide an answer.

  She also claimed that the Hermits of Ieya had offered their help. That seemed absurd. The Hermits never intervened. Their role was that of silent observers, their very existence more myth than reality.

  And yet…

  Something was off.

  The meeting point suggested by Ran Dal did not correspond to any known military archive locations.

  It was not a communication relay, not a strategic center, not even a simple asteroid field that could serve as a fallback position.

  It was a void in space, an anomaly in the cartographic data.

  A void with an enigmatic name:

  SOL.

  "There is nothing that looks more like a Gull than another Gull," Alan thought.

  Was it the same Gull as last time? Or another one waiting for him in the holographic projection?

  Impossible to tell.

  Their appearance was identical. Their voices lacked any discernible variation. Their presence was just as crushing and unreadable.

  Was he summoned to be praised?

  Or to be executed?

  He had no idea.

  But this time, he was expected.

  The spectral silhouette of the Gull took form, floating in the artificial space of the projector. Its contours vibrated slightly, affected by the transmission, but its gaze (or whatever passed for one) was fixed on Alan.

  "Define Offensive?" the Gull said in a neutral, absolute voice.

  Alan did not hesitate.

  He had prepared for this discussion.

  And he knew he had to strike fast and hard to impose his logic.

  "Offensive. Central Zone. Arwiens disorganized. Massive attack. 400 ships or more. Large-scale coordination."

  He mentally measured his effort.

  He had probably just broken a record for synthetic speech.

  The Gulls seemed to appreciate linguistic efficiency.

  At least, Bubble had once remarked on Alan’s tendency to speak too much.

  This time, he had adjusted his syntax to the bare minimum.

  Long seconds passed.

  A heavy silence, during which Alan wondered if he had hit the mark… or if he had crossed a forbidden line.

  "Purpose Offensive?" the Gull finally asked.

  Alan chose his words carefully.

  He knew he had to provide a functional justification, a cause-and-effect equation that the Gulls could approve of.

  "Pass Critical Point. Victory follows."

  The silence dragged on, as if the thinking machines supervising decisions were analyzing his words from every angle.

  A shiver ran down Alan’s spine.

  They’re not in a hurry to win.

  They are relying on the nanites.

  So, he decided to press where it hurt. By forcing them to consider a factor they had not anticipated.

  "Arwien progress. Decreasing nanite efficiency."

  This time, the wait was even longer.

  Alan knew he had just posed an unexpected problem to these calculating beings.

  Their long-term plan relied on the slow biological destruction caused by the nanites.

  But if the Arwiens had found a way to reduce that effectiveness, their strategy needed to be adjusted.

  Finally, the voice resonated again, implacable:

  "Approved. Alan Admiral."

  Alan kept his expression neutral, but inside him, everything tensed.

  He had just been promoted.

  But at what cost?

  JENNEL

  I know.

  The Admiral and I visited the arsenal where our cruiser is being repaired.

  It’s almost finished.

  Everything was very impressive, with extreme precautions taken to adjust the communication systems.

  We were completely isolated, and we couldn’t even talk using the nanites.

  We could only whisper.