The Pale Crest kept barking, even as their fleet bled. "You're surrounded," their signals blared daily. "Your fancy ships won't save you—surrender, join us, and the Emperor'll forgive you."
Jarek tuned out the noise. The chat channel had clued him in—the Emperor was a relic, rotting on Terra, a hundred thousand light-years off. The Pale Crest's "orthodoxy" was a joke, alien pretenders clutching a dead title.
They thought numbers would drown Jarek's Steelborn—ship after ship, a flood to overwhelm. Cute. The Ribs' production laughed at their clunky yards. Even without the Forge System, Steelborn output smoked the Pale Crest's. With it? No contest. Ten light-years between Redstone and Crestfall didn't slow the pipeline—non-inertial drives shrank days into hours.
Four months into the Edgehold siege, a holo pinged Jarek's console. "Lord," a Rib commander reported, voice flat, "the Second Expedition Fleet's here. Awaiting orders."
A thousand fresh ships blinked into Crestfall's outer rim—black-armored beasts, heavy and ready, poised like cavalry on a ridge. "Link up," Jarek said. The order snapped out, and the newcomers roared in.
The battlefield—a month-long deadlock—shattered. A thousand new Steelborn ships slammed into the fray, doubling the pressure. The Pale Crest froze, blindsided. "Ghost fleet—too many, too strong. Where'd they spawn?" a captain yelped. "Front's collapsing—need backup, now!"
Their math didn't add up. Pale Crest yards, grinding full-tilt, spat out fifty ships a month—years of savings for the thousand-plus they'd thrown at Edgehold. Jarek's reinforcements? A thousand in one drop, twenty times their pace. The gap stung.
Their fleet didn't fight to win anymore—just to flee. The sky over Edgehold turned into a shredder, Pale Crest hulls cracking into junk. Fifteen days later, the guns fell silent, dust choking the view.
The Pale Crest spacers had cut and run, leaving one order for Edgehold's defenders: "Hold. Trust nothing the enemy says." Jarek's Ribs didn't waste breath negotiating—Pulse Rifles and neutron bombs spoke louder.
But he wasn't here to slog through tunnels forever. Billions of Black Crest grunts—dark-trunked fodder—hid below, a meat grinder that'd eat months. The Steelborn could butcher them, sure, but Jarek wanted speed.
He flipped the script. The Ribs patched into Pale Crest comms—cracked months back from captured tech—and beamed down footage: Edgehold's orbit, empty of Pale Crest ships, a graveyard of their own wrecks. "You're alone," the message said. "Your empire ditched you."
Black Crest troops saw it—vid-screens flickering in their burrows. The truth hit like a slug: abandoned, betrayed. Morale, already frayed, snapped.
Jarek leaned back, watching the feed. No more stalling. Edgehold was his—for good, this time.