The battlefield finally fell silent.
Where the Predator had once twisted space into a violent storm of devouring energy, only soft currents of cosmic light remained. The violent distortions that had ripped through the newborn node were fading, leaving behind delicate trails of starlight that drifted like embers through the void.
Across the Constellation Network, the lattice pulsed steadily once more.
Energy flowed between distant systems in shimmering strands of light, reconnecting star to star like a living nervous system healing itself after trauma. Defensive arrays recalibrated. Long-range communication nodes stabilized. Fleets that had been scattered by the Predator's attack slowly returned to ordered formation around their worlds.
The crisis had passed.
For now.
The Predator had not been destroyed.
