The Grand Consul of Fansilia ended in a way nobody there had anticipated. As the last words were spoken and the nobles began slowly to rise, a strange silence hung over the enormous chamber; its marble pillars seemed colder somehow. The banners of the Terrian Empire, which had always stood for unity, now looked like silent witnesses to the fractures forming within its ruling class. What had shocked them most was not the Emperor's verdict. It was Leonora Kaelthorn's decision. Her request had rippled through the chamber like a shockwave, and nobles whispered about it even as they made for the doors, trying to make sense of it. The Kaelthorns had long been seen as pillars of the Empire's military strength, and to hear Leonora ask for leave — especially after surviving such a catastrophic battle — felt to many like the first crack in something far greater.
But what truly unsettled the court came a few moments later. Just as the hall was beginning to empty, Prime Minister Alan rose from his seat beside the throne, and his voice, calm yet sharp, carried across the chamber. "Before we conclude," he said, adjusting the thin lenses on the bridge of his nose, "His Majesty has one final directive concerning the Terria incident."
The murmurs died at once. Even the nobles halfway to the exit stopped and turned. Emperor Johan Adrin sat silent and still upon the throne. The authority radiating from him filled the chamber more than any speech could have.
"By the Emperor's command," Alan went on, "an internal imperial investigation will begin immediately. It will determine how the intruders bypassed the Catacomb defense grid, how they reached one of its nodes, and — most importantly — who helped them."
A noble near the back laughed nervously. "You speak as though there were a traitor among us."
Alan's eyes lifted slowly. "Yes." The word echoed like a dropped blade, and the room exploded into whispers. The Catacomb was the Empire's deepest defense — a labyrinth of orbital systems and hidden installations protecting Terria and the space around it. For an enemy to breach it so precisely, strike one of its nodes, and escape with its objective intact could mean only one thing. Someone had opened a door.
Alan let the silence grow heavier before he finished. "By His Majesty's decree, no one will be exempt from this investigation."
The temperature of the room seemed to drop at once. Several nobles stiffened in their seats, and others began talking over one another. "That is absurd!" "You cannot mean the nobility!" "This is an insult to our houses!"
But Alan's next words silenced them again. "The Emperor has placed this investigation under my direct authority." He paused and swept his gaze across the chamber. "And anyone found guilty of leaking imperial intelligence, or of assisting the attackers, will face a punishment more severe than the attackers themselves."
The finality of it struck like thunder, because every one of them understood what it meant. Execution would be a mercy.
By the time the nobles spilled out into the marble corridors of the palace, the atmosphere had changed completely, and what had begun as shock quickly became something far more dangerous. Fear. The Terrian nobility had long lived in the comfort of its titles; their houses, wealth and influence had formed an invisible shield around them, and many had grown used to believing they were beyond consequence. Now that shield had cracked. And fear does something terrible to powerful people. It makes them desperate.
Within hours, the corridors of power had become battlegrounds of whispers. Old rivalries resurfaced. Secret alliances began to fracture. Accusations were thrown like daggers. House Dalvern has always had suspicious trade routes.What about the Vartellis? Their shipyards handle half the Empire's logistics.The Kaelthorns themselves were there when it happened—
That last rumor spread the fastest. It began in quiet corners of the palace, then in private salons. Before long it was being spoken openly in noble courts across Fansilia. If someone had orchestrated the attack, who better than the ones closest to it? Youri and Leonora had fought the Hound directly. They had been at the very center of the catastrophe. And now Leonora had asked to withdraw from royal duty — which, to suspicious minds, looked less like exhaustion than like guilt. The Kaelthorns became an easy target, and the more frightened the nobles grew of Alan's investigation, the louder the accusations became.
Meanwhile, the Special Committee formed under Alan's command went to work at once. Unlike the nobles, Alan moved with quiet efficiency, gathering analysts, intelligence officers and investigators from every branch of the imperial administration. Records were opened, trade logs examined, communication channels traced. On the first day, nothing significant appeared. The attackers had left almost no trace; their ship had vanished into the dark, and the Hound had escaped after its battle with Youri. Everything seemed perfectly executed. Too perfectly. Which meant that someone had planned it very carefully.
On the second day, a young analyst in the logistics division found something strange — a small detail, almost insignificant, that simply didn't fit. She flagged it immediately, and within the hour the file was on Alan's desk. He read it once, then again. His eyes narrowed. "Bring me everything related to this transport vessel."
Two days before the attack, an unlogged cargo ship had departed from Batuzane. That alone was unusual. Batuzane was the Empire's great transit port, through which every vessel entering or leaving Terria had to pass under strict registration, and nothing left without documentation — except this one. According to the port's surveillance, it had launched normally, its transponder identifying it as a standard container transport with a crew of six — a skeleton crew, but not unheard of for an automated carrier — and its declared route was simple: leave Terrian orbit, jump to an outer trade route, deliver its cargo. Routine.
The problem was that it never left Terrian orbit. Alan leaned slowly back in his chair. The ship's transponder logs showed it accelerating away from Batuzane, but long-range radar had never recorded its departure. It had simply vanished — no jump signature, no exit trajectory, nothing — and several hours later the same vessel had reappeared in Batuzane's docking logs, returning as though it had finished its route. Nobody had questioned it. The traffic controllers processed thousands of ships a day, and a container transport coming back early barely registered. But looking back at the timeline now, Alan noticed something chilling. The cargo ship had returned less than twelve hours before the attack. And when his investigators found the bay it had docked in, they discovered something stranger still. The cargo containers were gone. Not transferred. Not registered. Gone.
Alan stood slowly while the room buzzed around him with analysts discussing the discovery, but his mind was already moving ahead. A ship that never left orbit. Cargo that vanished without a record. An attack that had needed precise access to the Catacomb. The pieces were beginning to align, and the picture they formed was unsettling. If the attackers had been hidden in those containers, then they had been inside Terrian space before the battle had even begun — and the attack hadn't been an infiltration at all. It had been a preparation. And someone inside the Empire had made it possible.
He turned to the wide window overlooking the glowing lights of Fansilia. Below him, the capital moved on as though nothing had changed — but beneath that calm surface, something dark was spreading through the Empire's foundations. He spoke quietly to the officer beside him. "Find that ship."
The officer hesitated. "Sir… the vessel's identification code no longer exists in the registry."
Alan smiled faintly — not with amusement, but with realization. "Of course it doesn't." He looked back at the data pad in his hand. "Then trace the crew."
A moment later the officer's terminal chimed, and he froze. "Sir…"
Alan glanced up. "What is it?"
The officer swallowed and slowly turned the screen toward him. "The crew manifest. Every listed member of the crew is already dead."
Alan stared at the names. Six of them. All citizens of Terria. Somebody had made very sure that none of them would ever be able to answer a single question.