Deep Space.
Orb Seek Zone.
1010 hours.
June 10.
The void was beautiful if you liked staring into nothingness that wanted you dead. General Cas Mel didn't. He stood at the obsidian clearview, deep space spread out like a graveyard without headstones. His gloves creaked on the panel like he needed to hold onto something solid before the abyss swallowed him.
Down on the southern shelf, a soft blue orb throbbed. It pulsed like a heart. Maybe ancient, maybe pissed. It was the Defense Orbital Centre. That was its pulse.
"Updates?" Cas asked, voice flat as a dead transmission.
Behind him, the air tightened.
Captain Sully Brook slid forward. Icy blonde. Perfect. Built like a shard of some deep-core glacier. "Emergency call from the Centre," she said.
No one blinked.
Then came the voice that could sandpaper your soul.
"I wonder what Calder wants now," Jarok Mirr growled. Now a Field Marshal. He was all scars and burn patches, walking wreckage of a dozen wars. The chrome walls hummed like they were afraid of him. "It's not every day the Centre begs for help. Something stinks."
The old bastard didn't need to say it twice.
A gaunt figure shifted nearby. Milo. Fresh-pressed uniform. Polished chrome eyes. The kind of officer who smelled like arrogance.
"Council Treaty made sure of it, sir," Milo said, trying to sound taller than his shadow. "Nothing like the Arcane Wars will ever happen again."
Jarok turned that ruined face on him. Not a glare. But something far worse. A quiet disappointment that burned slower than acid.
"You live through the Arcane Wars, Officer Milo?"
Milo stiffened. "Sir, after the Treaty…"
"Exactly," Jarok cut him off. Voice flat. The door slammed. End of lesson. Kid didn't get it. Never would.
Cas broke in. He always did when the room got too hot. "Field Marshal. We're heading to the Defence Centre."
Jarok didn't answer. Just rubbed his jaw. Wiry white bristles scraping his iron skin. His eyes locked on the pulsing orb. Alive. Angry.
What could be so big it killed their routine patrol this early?
Then the blare came. Sharp. Bone-cutting.
The red diode flared. Emergency protocol.
Jarok spun, scanning the chamber like a hawk sniffing for rot. His face turned to stone.
"That's a 411," he said. Low. Dangerous.
Sully lunged to the secondary console. Sleek black-glass, cold code crawling across its surface. Her fingers danced like they were born for this.
"Earth feed," she said. "Battle station relay." A breath. "Senator Gloster Madin. Major Imperial Order. Dead. Castle hit. Confirmed kill."
Silence followed. Surgical. Like a grave after the mourners leave.
Jarok staggered. Not from weakness. From weight. The kind that buries men, slow.
"We shelve the patrol," he rasped. "Out of respect. The Senator was… significant."
Cas didn't flinch. War was his skin. His jaw ticked once.
Milo snorted. Loud. "May his soul rest in peace."
Jarok didn't bite. Didn't even blink. He turned and walked.
The cabin door hissed open. Metal ribs parting like the mouth of a beast.
He stepped through. Slow. Heavy.
The door closed behind him. Hard. Firm.
And the room felt colder than deep space.
***********
The Defence Orbital Centre hung in space like a bloated metal god, spinning on the buffer between Earth and the six colonies. A behemoth with too many eyes, too many guns, and too many secrets. They called it a surveillance outpost. The UN built it to keep the wolves at bay.
But no wolves came. Not since the Arcane Wars - ten years of blood, smoke, and screaming.
The Quartz Shuttle groaned as Jarok Mirr dragged it into the labyrinthine bay. A docking maw of mirror-steel lattices opened up like some hungry alien jaw, swallowing them whole. The steel contraptions clamped down. They locked the shuttle like a coffin lid.
Then came the orb. A massive transporter that spun out of the command center like a mechanical ghost. It latched onto them, and dragged them deeper into the belly of the beast.
Cas, Sully, and Milo stood inside that sterile white orb, all wide eyes and dropped jaws.
Kids in a candy shop, Jarok thought. Now, the candy shop was run by the Republic's best engineers.
Jarok wasn't impressed. He'd seen this circus before.
He was there when they signed the Martian Treaty. He watched the Centre become a shiny new hammer for smashing the Dark Emperor's cronies.
And now? Now the Emperor himself was on ice here. Cryo-chambered like some rare fish. Chilling. Breathing. Waiting.
It made Jarok's skin itch. After the carnage that bastard caused, he wanted to take his jackblaster, stomp into that chamber, and blow his evil head clean off. But that wasn't happening. Not in this fortress.
The orb latched onto a sealed portal with retinal scanners, AI passes. All the usual toys.
A green light blinked. Cleared. The door hissed like it hated opening for them.
A guard was waiting, stiff as death. He motioned them along wordlessly through a corridor. The winding chamber was chrome-white. It was lined with enough surveillance gear. The type that could make a man paranoid for life.
Another door slid open with a low swoosh, and suddenly they were in the Centre's heart.
The command hub.
Two levels of pure business: the top deck - a gallery where someone could look down and play god. And the lower floor, packed with consoles, workstations, and a sweeping clearview window that bared the galaxy in all its cold, glittering indifference.
Data poured in. Surveillance feeds streamed nonstop. Dossiers shot across encrypted channels to the Imperium and the Republic. And tucked away in here somewhere, like a bad dream in a vault, was the Dark Emperor himself.
The one-eyed man in charge: Admiral Calder stood on the upper deck, grinning like he'd won a bet. "Well, if it isn't the Field Marshal…"
Jarok gave him a grin. First one in days. "It's me in the flesh."
Calder nodded. "I'll have a guard take your crew to the lounge. They'll get the full Centre treatment. Meanwhile, Field Marshal, we have a lot to ponder on."
Jarok nodded.
Jarok jerked his head at his crew. They didn't argue. They filed out behind the guard. All wondering what was there to ponder on.