Chapter 24 · The Old Commander Returns

The first thing Kellan heard was the sound of six cities holding their breath.

It came through the Crown as a pressure behind his eyes, a thousand million heartbeats compressed into one trembling note. The six defense grids hummed beneath him. Shield towers climbed through the storm like blackened fingers. Rail cannons rotated in their housings. Missile vaults unlocked one after another, their mechanical teeth clicking open across the colony.

And above it all, beyond the clouds of the gas giant, something vast moved through the lightning.

Kellan tried to lift his hand. His fingers twitched against the command table, but the Crown had wrapped invisible wires through every nerve in his body. Blue-white light crawled beneath the skin of his forearms. Each pulse carried a map, a target, a sequence.

The fleet had arrived.

Not three ships. Not a patrol wing.

Hundreds of warships emerged from the storm in disciplined formation, their hulls scarred by atmospheric fire.