Rageclaw, the Pale Crest's snarling tyrant, still saw victory through his haze of fury. His space force was a shadow—gutted by Jarek's Steelborn—but he clung to a mad hope. "They're charging blind into our depths," he growled, pacing Crestspire's command vault, his pale trunk twitching. "A mistake—they'll pay in blood." The Steelborn's reckless dive past Shatterpoint and Duskwind, smashing bases and bolting, fed his delusion. "They're rabid—my Wrath glassed their world!" he cackled, slamming a meaty fist on the console. "That torpedo burned Redstone to ash—hah!"
No word had trickled back from the hundred ships he'd sent through the Void rift, but Rageclaw didn't need it. In his mind, Jarek's fury proved the Atmospheric Purge Torpedo had hit. Why else would the Steelborn hurl themselves so deep, so fast? Jarek's First and Second Fleets—seventeen hundred ships—tore through Shatterpoint's orbitals, Pulse Cannons raking ports to slag, then peeled off. Duskwind fell next, its garrisons blasted to dust, the Steelborn gone before the smoke settled. Pale Crest ships—scattered frigates and patched corvettes—swarmed up like gnats, only to pop under Jarek's guns, hulls splitting in silent bursts.
Rageclaw got the reports, his grin widening with each one. "Still pushing? My Wrath's got 'em frothing!" he roared, spittle flecking his guards. The command vault buzzed, aides scrambling to track the Steelborn's arc. Days bled into a pattern—planet after planet, bases torched, no pause. Then it clicked: Jarek wasn't circling back. The path aimed straight for Crestspire. Rageclaw's smirk faltered, eyes darting. "They can't keep this up—where's the fleet? Pull the rift guard—everything to Crestspire! This is our stand!"
He wasn't just any warlord—he styled himself the Emperor's voice, a demigod above loss. "Hold them!" he bellowed, voice echoing off steel walls. "I'm untouchable!" At the Void rift, the last hundred ships—ragged scraps of the First Fleet's twelve hundred—heard the call. Once a proud armada, now a flicker, they abandoned their post. "For Rageclaw, for the Emperor," their commander droned, hollowed by defeat, and burned for Crestspire.
The trek was a ghost run. No chatter, no stragglers—just silence. Bases they'd logged en route were rubble, expected, but the void felt wrong. No civilian haulers, no distress pings—nothing. Jarek's First and Second had swept it clean, and the Third—two thousand shadows—stalked unseen, Living Steel hulls gliding past crippled sats. Pale Crest scopes, half-blind from smashed relays, caught nothing. Jarek's orders kept the Third dark: no trace 'til Crestspire's doorstep.
Resistance hit late, hard. Twelve hundred Pale Crest ships—every hull they could scrape—massed near Crestspire, backed by orbital forts and minefields. A wall of steel and desperation, guarding their heart. Lose here, and Crestfall was done. Jarek's seventeen hundred slowed, probing the line with laser grids, testing weak points. The Pale Crest locked in, every gun trained. "They're breaking here," a commander snarled, trunk rigid. "All ships—last blood!"
Then the far flank screamed—alarms blaring, sensors spiking. "Enemy ships—closing fast!" a lieutenant yelled. "Small force, harassment—few hundred," the commander snapped, waving it off. "Squad'll handle it." He was dead wrong. The Third Fleet rolled in—two thousand strong, guns blazing, a tidal wave of steel. "Where's this army from?" a gunner choked, voice lost in the roar. Crestspire's line buckled, split between two fronts—seventeen hundred ahead, two thousand behind. Jarek's noose tightened, and the Pale Crest stared down checkmate.