Chapter 21 · The Flagship’s Heart

The bridge of the Blue Heron smelled of hot metal, antiseptic foam, and the sharp electrical bite of systems pushed past their limits.

Evan Venn stood beneath the navigation well with one hand braced against the console. The fleet moved around him in a lattice of blue vectors, each line trembling as ships slipped through the reopened Helios Gate. Medical transports crawled along the safest corridor. Frigates guarded their flanks.

Three destroyers that had once obeyed the Strategic Council now held position between Sera’s flagship and the rest of the League formation, their weapons cold but their targeting systems awake.

No one trusted anyone.

That was the only thing keeping them alive.

“Portside convoy is clear,” Mara Quill said. Her voice was roughened by pain, but she kept it level. A strip of synth-skin covered the left side of her neck, still glistening where the seal had not fully cured. “The Meridian Dawn has joined our formation. So has the Saint Orra. Two more ships are refusing to answer.”

“Give them another thirty seconds,” Evan said.

Mara glanced down from the tactical station. “We may not have thirty seconds.