Above the trembling atmosphere of Kordar, faint auroras stretched thin like torn silk ribbons of bright green and violet, weaving across the blackness of space.

  The planet’s magnetic field was fragile, it birthed these faint lights which were about to witness more violence on another tomb of a fallen species.

  CT-991A stood at the drop ship’s ramp, the magnetized soles of his boots clamping against the hull. His visor flickered through spectrums, reading the compound sprawled below.

  It was a cluster of prefabricated structures, three concentric rings linked to a central dome, all laid out on a flat, barren plain. Every wall and roof had been heavily reinforced.

  A den of traitors, CT-991A thought. Perfect for some target practice.

  “Touch down in sixty seconds,” came the pilot’s crackling voice through internal comms.

  Below, the first wave had already landed. Five Nullite generators were planted in a pentagon around the base. Already the machines were active, bleeding reality itself, warping the unseen strands of etheric power, slicing it out of the air like a butcher’s knife through cartilage.

  “Pressure check. Secondary seals,” CT-994A’s voice barked. His tone was flat.

  CT-991A tapped the command chain. Green across the board.

  CT-992A, CT-993A, CT-994A, CT-995A, CT-996A, CT-997A, CT-998A and CT-999A were all ready.

  The Tide break modifications to their suits glimmered in the low light, streamlined with hydrodynamic plating. There, joints are sealed against pressure differentials. Thrusters lined their armour calibrated for the flooded interior they would soon breach.

  CT-991A waited the last few seconds until a message popped in his visor.

  Breach orders confirmed.

  Execute.

  The drop ship shuddered as it dove.

  Explosions rumbled across the compound as breaching teams struck almost simultaneously, shockwaves tearing through the prefab structures. Flooded corridors filled with water detonated, flooding other corridors with hundreds of thousands of litres of water.

  Kordar’s gravity was sluggish, its pull was just weak enough to make motion feel wrong to his senses, making movement feel too light and slow.

  CT-991A hit the water first, sinking into the shifting water, the currents biting at his armour.

  Visibility dropped to a meter as they passed through the following corridors full of debris.

  Weapons live he told his squad.

  “Sensor's active scanning for movement” CT-999A said over the comms.

  The squad advanced like a hunting pack, every step calculated and controlled. In the fluid darkness, every sound echoed, drawing their attention.

  They made first contact with a group of Grithan’s.

  But no shots were fired, and no weapons were raised. They were unarmed, though their exo-suits still made them a potential threat.

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  Instead, the Grithans stood silently inside their suits, hands raised in compliance as soon as the order was given.

  CT-995A’s voice crackled in CT-991A’s ear. “They’re surrendering.”

  “They were asked to surrender,” CT-992A replied, voice cold. He expected a fight, not this.

  Each Grithan was locked inside their suit by manual override without resistance. They knelt in the flooded halls, heads bowed in silence.

  Where was the fight?

  Where was the desperation?

  Something twisted in CT-991A’s gut. This was too clean and easy.

  As they swept deeper into the heart of the compound, the air grew thicker, the water cloudier with leaking sealant and ruptured insulation. Electric cables snaked through the water like dying eels, some still sparking pitifully.

  He kept his thoughts on the mission objective: Ankrae.

  Madam of the Etheric Assembly.

  She was marked as a high-priority target, wanted alive.

  They found her in the deepest place, of the Sanctum Chamber.

  The door groaned open under the weight of the water, revealing a vast dome bathed in shades of purple and violet. Strange aquatic fauna clung to every surface, drifting lazily as if stirred by an unseen current.

  In the centre floated Ankrae her exo-suit matching the colour scheme of the sanctum's interior.

  She turned slowly as they approached as if she had been waiting for them all along.

  Through short-range comms, her voice rasped, distorted slightly by the water and static:

  “I will comply with the Hydrarch’s demands… if my subordinates are released unharmed.”

  The clones fanned out around her in perfect formation. There were no gaps as they would not hesitate to put her down.

  CT-991A raised his weapon halfway, not aiming, just reminding her what could happen.

  “You will negotiate with Nethros,” he said flatly, “starting right now.”

  For a moment longer than was safe, Ankrae said nothing. The tension wrapped around the clones like cold iron.

  She could fight and gamble it all on some half-mad desperate strike born of pride, but she saw the clones already poised to put her down the moment she so much as twitched.

  So she didn’t.

  Her fingers flexed against her palms once. A slow, brittle gesture of defeat.

  “Fine,” she whispered.

  Behind them, the compound continued to groan and collapse as other sections of the settlement were set for demolition. Water roared through the broken corridors.

  CT-997A heard the last report that the last holdouts had been secured. No casualties.

  The mission was complete.

  CT-991A stared at Ankrae as she was escorted to the waiting shuttle with the rest of her assembly.

  He looked up at the waiting ship and the newly secured fleet, watching as auroras stretched across the sky while the clones moved swiftly to begin extraction.

  The Hydrarch would get their negotiator.

  ———

  Looking around the ship’s interior, she immediately recognized it as belonging to Oryss-Vezhiran. The corridors were painted in layered hues of deep blue, white, and black.

  The clan’s sigil, a stylized Vyrmora, a massive serpentine sea predator from the Grithan core world myths, was emblazoned across the walls. The level of design and wealth matched the upper echelons of the high clans, with artificial coral structures branching out across the corridors like frozen waves.

  Even the clones escorting her were not the ones who brought her they wore no standard battle armour. Instead, they bore the mark of first-tier Triumvirate units, they were expensive, and bred for perfection. She could estimate that it would cost half their fleet to have five thousand of them.

  And these were only about thirty years more advanced than the rest of the regular forces they were fielding.

  She tried to probe their minds, but immediately hit an invisible wall of multiple Nullite generators humming through the ship, severing her from the Etheric currents.

  For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Ankrae felt powerless, adrift in a tide she could not control.

  They led her to a secured chamber that was bare, metallic, and soon filled with water. She remained sealed in her exo-suit, silently observing her surroundings.

  “I’m sure you understand what needs to be done, Ankrae,” came Oryss-Vezhiran’s voice through her helmet.

  She didn’t move.

  “Yeah, I understand. But you’re wasting your damn time. You don’t even realize what you’re dealing with.”

  “Then explain it to me,” Oryss-Vezhiran said smoothly. “What does the Consortium fail to understand about the enemy?”

  “Everything,” she said bitterly. “You still think there’s a path to victory. Yeah still clinging to hope when everything that’s happened screams otherwise. You can’t win this.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he replied coldly. “Not until every option is extinguished.”

  His tone sharpened.

  “You have three minutes—three hundred seconds by standard galactic time—to make contact with Nethros and negotiate, or you and your Assembly will be executed.”

  Ankrae inhaled slowly as the Nullite fields shifted.

  The Etheric Realm stirred back into her awareness, like blood returning to a numbed limb. She steadied herself, gathered her mind, and reached out.

  Alone in the vast chaotic realm of the etheric plane, she found the massive terrible presence of Nethros waiting nearby.

  Carefully, she sent a thin tether of her consciousness forward, hopeful that the entity would accept.

  The response was overwhelming.

  She was yanked into a dreamscape—a vast, featureless white plane stretching into infinity.

  Floating at the centre was a creature or, at least, an aspect of it.

  Its body was encased in a grey, scarred carapace covered with swirling scarlet script. It bore four powerful arms, another smaller pair folded against its chest, and moved on four legs.

  Several tendrils extended lazily from its back like living banners. Its six black, soulless eyes fixed on her.

  “Ankrae.”

  It spoke her name with quiet certainty.

  “My associate speaks highly of your assistance,” it continued.

  Beside it, a second figure materialized a Grithan, but strange. His scales were a dull, uniform grey, his eyes pitch black, like deep ocean trenches.

  She recognized him instantly under all those changes.

  Kraklak.

  “Is he dead or alive?” she asked sharply.

  The creature turned its six eyes on Kraklak’s projection. “Give me a moment.”

  For an instant, Kraklak glitched and spun, destabilized before steadying itself.

  “What… where am I?” Kraklak muttered, looking around in bewilderment.

  “You're meeting an old acquaintance,” the avatar gestured at her.

  Kraklak blinked.

  “Is this another nightmare… or is this real?” he asked quietly, staring into the endless white horizon.