Seven months into the twelfth year of the Forge Era, the Edgehold campaign wrapped up. Three months of grinding war ended with the Pale Crest's first world falling to Jarek's Steelborn.
Black Crest soldiers—trillions of them—staggered out of tunnels, hands up, weapons dumped in piles. Scorched hills of rifles and cannons dotted the blasted dirt.
The Second Fleet's arrival had flipped the script; Edgehold was Jarek's now, a steel fist planted in Pale Crest turf. Temporary bases sprouted across the planet—Ribs rigging war hubs and arsenals fast.
Ascension's gift shone here: one day a soldier sniped with a Pulse Rifle, the next he was forging Living Steel plating. No downtime, no retraining—just pure efficiency.
The Second Fleet had tipped the scales, but Jarek wasn't done. A Third Fleet was coming, and it'd seal the deal.
The Pale Crest still held seven rocky worlds, but their space force was gutted—eight hundred ships trashed in one fight, nearly a thousand in the next. They leaned on depth now, hoping distance would slow Jarek's march while they scraped for a counterpunch.
On Crestspire, their leader—Rageclaw—raged like a cornered beast. "Ready it!" he snarled. "I'll bury these heretics in wrath."
He meant an Atmospheric Purge Torpedo, a Star League relic—plasma death that could glass a planet's surface, torch its air, and leave nothing alive. One shot, total wipeout.
Forbidden stuff, but Rageclaw didn't care. He'd cooked this "God's Wrath" plan since the First Fleet's fall, banking on desperation.
A hundred ships—his last gasp—would haul it through the Void rift to Redstone. Hit a planet, any planet, and call it revenge.
Rageclaw grinned, mad-eyed. "They'll feel our divine fury." The convoy slipped into the rift, a sleek torpedo cradled in their hold.
Jarek didn't know—couldn't. Redstone was ten light-years out, and no signal crossed that gap fast enough. The Pale Crest bet on stealth.
Bad bet. The Third Fleet—two thousand fresh Steelborn ships—was gearing up to leave Redstone when the rift twitched.
Void sensors pinged, and the Ribs moved to check it. Two days of waiting, and out popped the Pale Crest's hundred, torpedo in tow.
Two thousand against a hundred stared each other down. The Ribs' commander blinked—figuratively.
"Why so few?" he muttered, circuits whirring. Logic didn't bend that way—suicide runs weren't rational.
But reason didn't matter. Enemies got no quarter. "Wipe 'em," he ordered. "Grab a couple for questions." Simple, clean—Steelborn style.
The Pale Crest didn't stand a chance. Two thousand ships, bristling with Pulse Cannons and Living Steel hulls, swarmed the hundred like wolves on a lame deer.
The torpedo never fired—its carriers didn't last long enough. Jarek's Third Fleet didn't blink, didn't question.
They crushed, they captured, and they'd figure out the why later. Edgehold was just the start—Crestspire was next, and the Pale Crest's wrath was running out of breath.