The storms of Paldor still sang to her, though the melody had changed. Seren Athell stood alone beside her desk in the command observatory of Refinery Eight, the shifting glow of the gas giant below painting soft bronze across her pale white skin. Requisition requests from half the refinery network filled the console behind her. None of those requests had existed before the shroud fell. None had been needed before the demons came.

Defensive retrofits for interstellar transports, emergency shielding for all moonside habitats, weapon hardpoints for facilities that had never known attack.

Change had come to the Secundi, yet Paldor still sang.

Athell touched the plaz viewport with her fingertips. Since she was a zephyrling she had spent a lifetime gazing at this world. It had comforted her through childhood fevers, guided her through rites of passage, and steadied her during the long night shifts as she rose through the Consortium ranks. The swirling bands of crimson and gold were familiar as her own breath.

Fir’shala, the Bright One, churned with unusual fury today. The ancient storm’s eye glimmered with a haze that shimmered like heat above water. Athell leaned closer, puzzled. Storm-signs were read by instinct as much as science. Something in the light below was wrong.

A ripple cut across fir’shala’s core.

Her heart clenched. Another ripple followed, rising like a wound splitting open.

“No…” she whispered in terror.

The haze peeled back. Dark green armor plates, scarred from battle… the demon ship lurched into view, unfolding from the distortion like a nightmare returning to the waking world. The same silhouette. The same scars. The same brutal commander.

She staggered away from the viewport.

“Gods, no!”

Athell ran for the wall comm panel, her translucent robes whipping behind her in panic. She reached for the alarm glyph that would trigger a full habitat evacuation.

Torrents of red and green energy erupted from the demon vessel.

The station shook as Athell’s footing gave way beneath her. Her head struck the deck with a crack as the viewport disintegrated in a single, catastrophic burst. The air tore itself from the room. The void swallowed everything.

Seren Athell, First Overseer of the Secundi, was pulled into the darkness above Paldor. The last thing she saw was the Bright One, raging below her like a grieving god.

_______________________________

The Mavek’du fired without hesitation.

Disruptor beams and photon torpedoes carved through the command spine of Refinery Eight, then swept methodically across the habitat rings. Plumes of gas and metal burst open like dying stars. Frail Secundi bodies tumbled outward, their robes streaming behind them as the void claimed them and drew them toward the planet they had worshipped for generations.

The final volley struck the power core.

Refinery Eight ruptured in a blossom of fire and debris, collapsing into a cascade of molten alloys that spiraled downward into Paldor’s gravity well. The storm gods would receive their children, but not as the Secundi had ever intended.

K’Rath sat in his command chair at the center of the Mavek’du. The bridge had been partly rebuilt since the battle, but the wounds in its metal remained visible.

There was no triumph in his eyes, no laughter, no joy of conquest. He watched the destruction in a silence deeper than hatred.

One hundred forty-six lives extinguished, just the start of K’Rath’s retribution.

He had been abandoned by the Empire, unmade by Toral, and dishonored by K’trok and the Starfleet vessel.

He would answer in kind. Paldor was only the beginning.

K’Rath leaned forward, hands curling around the polished arms of his chair.

“Set course,” he growled, “for the next platform.” The ship banked away from the drifting remnants of Refinery Eight, cutting across the starfield like a wounded animal hungry for blood.

The Secundi would not be the last to feel his vengeance.