Dinner lingered on the table like the wreckage of a battle, half-finished plates and abandoned glasses marking the field where we had tried—desperately, futilely—to pretend at normalcy. The aromas of roasted grain and Martian root vegetables still hung in the recycled air, a stubborn perfume of comfort. But the comfort was counterfeit, a lie we all conspired to share, even as it cracked beneath the weight of what was unspoken.Outside the viewport, the Martian twilight seeped into the living quarters, staining everything in muted reds and bruised purples. The light was soft, almost tender, as if the planet itself wanted to shield us from the truth. It painted my family in a tableau of false peace: Nancy with her quiet poise, my son with his engineer’s hands clenched tight against his knees, my daughter with her sketchpad abandoned beside her untouched plate.I had gathered them for a conversation I would have traded anything—my command, my medals, even my peace of mind—to avoid. But in

Deep beneath the frozen, irradiated tundra of what was once called Siberia, in a facility that had been scrubbed from every archive of Old Earth, the Man in White watched the storm gather. The storm was not weather. It was psionic. It was the low, endless thrum of the anomaly calling across the void, carried on the comet 3I/ATLAS like a drumbeat that only monsters could hear. The sanctum he ruled from was built to match his ambition. Its walls were not steel but a seamless, pearlescent ceramic that glowed with an internal light, smooth and unblemished, as though grown rather than constructed. It was a cathedral to control, immaculate and sterile. Holoscreens hovered in the air, spilling their secrets across the chamber. Astrometric charts of ATLAS’s trajectory. Resonance readings from the dead sector where Da’kar had been entombed. Encrypted transmissions bleeding from Martian High Command as the General re-activated the Sentinel Initiative. The Martians thought they were preparing

The holographic projection of the Intergalactic Marshal flickered above the stark, durasteel table. On my command console feed, Robben Island Military Nexus lived up to its name—a fortress carved into rock, a pinprick of defiance against the vast, cold expanse of the Atlantic. It was the most secure location on Earth, a place where the world sent its nightmares to be forgotten. Today, it was hosting its most infamous guest.I watched the feed, my knuckles white on the edge of my chair. The Man in White sat, serene and composed, in the defendant’s chair. His hands were unshackled. A dangerous, complacent move by the authorities. To his right, !Xamma sat rigidly, her face a mask of cold defiance, the traditional Khomani markings on her cheeks like scars in the sterile light.The lead prosecutor’s voice crackled through the ship's speakers. “The evidence is irrefutable. You conducted illegal experiments on human and Khomani subjects. You attempted to make contact with a known xenothreat,

“Sensor ghosts and echo-logs,” I stated, my voice flat and hard against the low, perpetual hum of the Vigilant’s bridge. The main viewer was a lie, showing a serene, star-dusted void. But we knew better. It was a screen of static, useless against what lay ahead. “We’re blind in here. We’re reading the past. To understand what they’re doing now, we have to go out there. We have to see for ourselves.”Ka!ri didn’t turn from the screen, her posture a study in coiled readiness. “The Vigilant is a sledgehammer,” she replied, her tone pragmatic, yet edged with a warrior’s anticipation. “This requires a scalpel’s precision. We go in quiet. We go in small. A question, not a declaration of war.”The decision, once spoken, became an immutable fact. The air on the bridge shifted, the calm of observation replaced by the sharp, electric focus of impending action.Minutes later, the launch bay was a cathedral of purposeful silence, broken only by the hiss of hydraulic seals and the soft thrum of pow

The bridge was a tomb of silent defeat. The General, his face a mask of stone, stood staring out at the void. The tension was immense, a physical weight that pressed down on every crew member. We had been outmaneuvered. The Gilders had not just evaded us; they had played us, forcing us to reveal our position and our intent without a single shot fired from our side. It was a strategic humiliation.Ta'klan’s hands, usually a blur of confident motion across his console, were still. He felt the cold rage of a hunter who had let his prey mock him. Discipline was a brittle thing, and he wanted to shatter it. He wanted to rage, to fire, to do anything to prove that they were not the passive audience the Gilders believed them to be.He felt the General’s gaze upon him, a silent command for him to hold his position, a demand for the same agonizing restraint that was suffocating them all. Ta'klan’s jaw ached. He didn't meet his commander’s eyes.“General,” he said, his voice flat, emotionless. “