Location: Deep Void Research Station—Sector Null, Outer Belt
Time: 8 Months After the Siege of Erebus
The facility was buried within a hollowed-out asteroid deep in the Outer Belt, far beyond the reach of UED patrols or NovaCorp's expanding mining fleets. Shielded by Nullfield Technology—Kael's latest invention—it was one of the only safe havens left for those loyal to him.
Here, beneath layers of obsidian rock and gravitational interference, Kael enacted his countermeasures—silent, precise, and engineered with the same ruthless logic that had once made him the most respected mind in the system.
At the heart of Kael's defense plan was the development of the Nullfield Disruptor Array, a strategic weapon unlike any other. By analyzing Element Omega's volatile interaction with specific electromagnetic patterns, Kael's team created a counter-technology that could shut down space transmission in a given area.
The effect was total.
Any attempt to initiate a space gate inside a Null Zone would fail catastrophically—the gate would collapse before completion, sometimes with lethal results for the traveler.
Kael's network of Null Zones was carefully placed across critical regions:
Around deep-space laboratories.
Within asteroid mining sectors rich in Omega reserves.
Even in hidden pockets of Earth's own orbit.
It was a silent message to the world's superpowers:
You do not control the gates. I do.
Only those with the Imperial House's encryption keys could bypass the Nullfields. And Kael never gave those away lightly.
The Data Fracture Protocol
Kael knew that knowledge, not weapons, would be the true battlefield. So he split the core research behind Element Omega's quantum behavior into nine separate datasets, each encoded and stored in remote systems controlled by Imperial House sleeper cells.
Each dataset was worthless without the others.
Together, they were the only complete blueprint for true space gate mastery, and only Kael held the master algorithm that could piece them back together.
Rune's NovaCorp, despite all their stolen hardware and coerced scientists, could not reverse-engineer what they had taken.
They had the tools, but not the understanding.
Kael made sure of it.
3. The Omega Guard: Predecessors to the Order
In the shadows of imperial lawlessness, Kael handpicked and trained a select group of operatives—scientists, soldiers, former Ascendants—people with nothing left to lose but everything to fight for.
Known as the Omega Guard, they were tasked with:
Infiltrating rogue space labs and destroying unauthorized Omega experiments.
Sabotaging illegal gate expansions funded by NovaCorp and UED-aligned cartels.
Tricking high-value individuals attempting to replicate Ascendant technology.
They operated with no insignia, no country, and no ties to Earth-based power. But whispers of their existence grew with every disappearance, every failed project, and every unexplained reactor meltdown.
To many, they were phantoms.
To Kael, they were the first line of resistance.
4. The Ascendant Failsafe: Genetic Modulation Protocol
But Kael's most radical countermeasure was biological.
Before the Erebus Gate had been completed, he had experimented with the reaction of Element Omega to organic energy fields—specifically, the human body.
This led to the emergence of the first Ascendants, humans with enhanced capabilities.
But Kael saw the danger early: Ascendants who grew too powerful, too fast, without mental discipline, could become catastrophes waiting to happen.
To counter this, Kael embedded a genetic lock within the DNA of every known Ascendant he personally trained. A silent gene, dormant unless activated by a precise quantum signal.
If an Ascendant ever went rogue—or if Element Omega was used to artificially boost an untrained candidate—Kael's signal could shut them down.
He never told the Ascendants this.
Because if they knew, they might never have followed him.
The Ghost Network
To communicate safely across the stars, Kael established the Ghost Network—a series of encrypted quantum nodes scattered through black holes, asteroid fields, and old relay stations left from pre-fusion space exploration missions.
The Ghost Network operated outside the UED's tracking grid, allowing Kael and the Imperial House to coordinate across vast distances without detection.
Through it, he sent encrypted messages to cell leaders, recruited new scientists, and even intercepted UED and NovaCorp transmission patterns.
It was invisible.
It was undetectable.
And it gave him eyes everywhere.
Kael's Chamber, Deep Void Research Station
Kael stood in front of a massive holographic projection of the Sol System. Red overlays showed recent movements by NovaCorp and UED fleets. Three dots blinked yellow—areas where Ascendant energy signatures had spiked outside Imperial House regulation.
Dr. Harlow entered quietly, her face tense.
"The Erebus Facility is fully militarized. General Ward has installed an Omega Accelerator. They're running gate trials at high-energy intervals. If they trigger a harmonic instability, they could—" Kael didn't look away from the projection. "—rip a hole through space-time and wake something they don't understand."
Harlow was silent