The Cognitive Partition was a revolution. With the constant strain of the gravity field and the Watchtower scans offloaded to autonomous processes, Astra's primary consciousness was unleashed. His analytical speed, already superhuman, became terrifying. He could now dissect Tuffle strategic patterns, manage his secret projects, and observe the petty politics of the Saiyan court with a clarity that felt like a new sense.
It was this heightened awareness that allowed him to see the serpent coiled within the King's own court.
The data was subtle. A discrepancy in resource reports from a fleet commanded by a noble named Lord Zaron. A suspicious delay in the deployment of reinforcements to a rival lord's front. Anomalous energy signatures, masked as sensor ghosts, near Zaron's personal estate on the planet's dark side. It was a pattern of quiet consolidation, of a power base being built in the shadows.
Lord Zaron was not a warrior of immense personal power—his level was a respectable but unremarkable 8,000. His strength was his bloodline, his cunning, and his vast network of loyalists. He saw King Vegeta's reliance on a low-class "mutant" as a symptom of the King's failing, brute-force strategy. Zaron represented the old guard, the aristocratic families who believed power should be wielded by birthright, not by the strongest fist or the sharpest mind.
Astra saw the threat Zaron posed not to the King, but to himself. He was a loose end, an aberration that challenged the natural order Zaron sought to restore. If Zaron moved against the King, Astra would be one of the first pieces swept from the board.
He couldn't fight this with a Void Fist technique. This was a battle of information and perception. He needed to expose the serpent without ever seeming to hold the knife.
He began a new, clandestine operation. Using his Gamma clearance, he created a series of false data trails and anonymous tips, carefully funneling evidence of Zaron's treachery to the King's most paranoid and loyal intelligence officers. He didn't deliver a finished case; he planted seeds of doubt, letting the King's own suspicion do the work.
He orchestrated a "lucky break"—a captured Tuffle transmission, which Astra subtly edited, that mentioned a "benefactor in the Saiyan court with ambitions that align with our survival." The transmission was vague, but the timing and implication were enough to make King Vegeta's eyes narrow with cold fury.
The court began to fracture. The King's trust in his nobles evaporated. Accusations flew. Zaron's faction grew defensive, more brazen.
The climax came during a war council. Zaron, his patience worn thin by the King's accusations, made a fatal error. He questioned the King's strategy, implying that relying on the "freakish intellect of a low-born infant" was a sign of weakness.
King Vegeta's power erupted, a suffocating wave of malice that shook the very foundations of the palace. "You dare?" he whispered, the sound more terrifying than any roar.
In that moment of heightened tension, as all eyes were on the King and Zaron, Astra made his move. He didn't act physically. He used the Direct Command Interface. He sent a single, encrypted data packet—a compendium of Zaron's most damning resource diversions and communications with his allies—not to the King, but to the public military network, timestamped to look like it had been uncovered by a loyalist hacker.
The evidence exploded into the open. The court was thrown into chaos.
Zaron, exposed and cornered, made his play. "The line of Vegeta is spent!" he roared, drawing his energy blade. "It is time for a new order!"
The throne room became a battleground. Zaron's loyalists clashed with the King's guards. It was exactly the kind of brute-force conflict Astra sought to avoid, but he had engineered its timing and its justification.
He watched from the periphery, a silent spectator. He saw King Vegeta, his face a mask of pure rage, personally engage Zaron. The fight was short, brutal, and utterly one-sided. The King's power was absolute. He dismantled Zaron, not with finesse, but with overwhelming, brutal force, finally ending him with a fist through the chest.
The rebellion was crushed in minutes, its head severed.
In the bloody aftermath, as the loyalists rounded up the traitors, King Vegeta stood panting over Zaron's corpse, his hand dripping with blood. His eyes swept the room and landed on Astra, who had not moved from his position.
The King's gaze was different this time. It wasn't just curiosity or avarice. It was a stark, naked recognition. He knew, on some level, that the timing of the data leak was no accident. He knew that the serpent had been exposed not by chance, but by a guiding hand.
He didn't thank Astra. He didn't praise him. He simply gave a slow, deliberate nod. An acknowledgment between predators.
The message was clear: I see what you did. And I allow it, because it serves me.
In the days that followed, the purge was swift and merciless. Zaron's faction was eradicated. The King's power was now absolute, unchallenged. And Astra's position was secured, not as a mere tool, but as a sanctioned player in the deadly game of Saiyan politics.
He had survived his first true political war. He had manipulated a king and destroyed a lord without ever throwing a punch. The Void Fist philosophy had proven its worth on a new battlefield.
But as he returned to his cot in the now-terrified silence of the barracks, he felt no triumph. He had tightened the serpent's coil around himself. The King's understanding was a more dangerous leash than any order. He was now a recognized element in the King's calculus, and in the ruthless economy of power, recognized assets were either used until they broke, or eliminated when they became too dangerous to keep.
He had gained security through peril, and power through subversion. The path ahead was a razor's edge, and he was dancing on it in plain sight of a tyrant.