The stealth cruiser Silent Reign emerged from the veil of grav-static, drifting like a phantom beyond the perimeter of Akaris V. The Uli System—once a proud border region of the Thalor—was now fully under Mahasimu control, its stars patrolled by fleets of the Shadowscourge, the empire's supreme military force. Orbital sentinels marked every moon, and supply convoys flowed between heavily fortified planets. Among these was Akaris V, a world once part of the Thalor domain, lost over three hundred cycles ago during the Fracture Wars, a brutal internal conflict that saw the Thalor withdraw and abandon the outer sectors. It had since become a haunted world—left to ruin and memory.
But the Mahasimu Empire had seized that silence. Under the hand of General Kizito, Akaris V had been reborn as a staging ground for one purpose: the invasion and eradication of the Zelith system, the heartland of the Thalor people.
Insertion and Discovery
The infiltration team—Elan Virel, Kirra, Tavrin, Oren Vek, and Jexi—dropped from orbit aboard the stealth dropship Veil Fang, maneuvering with surgical precision through orbit-wide scans and Shadowscourge patrols belonging to The Sable Phalanx, Kizito's elite fleet stationed in the Uli System.
Elan stood at the controls, a hard-featured woman with storm-gray eyes and a Thalor soulsteel scar tracing her jawline—an old mark of survival and exile. Once a scholar in the House of Auralight, now she was something leaner, colder, forged in the crucible of loss.
"This isn't a recon sweep," Kirra muttered as she studied the massive dreadnought formations in low orbit. "This is a cage. They've locked down the entire system."
"Because they're about to burn ours to ash," Elan replied, voice like frost.
The Veil Fang descended through a narrow atmospheric breach, slipping into a canyon shielded from orbital sensors. Surface scans revealed military outposts, arsenal towers, relay cradles—but something worse pulsed beneath them.
Using coordinates traced from corrupted Thalor maps, the team located a collapsed mining shaft—Shaft Akaris-11—abandoned by Thalor centuries ago. But the shaft was warm with activity.
Thirty kilometers down, riding ancient lift systems and mag-cables, they plunged into the dark.
The Secret Below: Mahasimu's Engine of War
Beneath the scorched rock of Akaris V lay something obscene.
A hidden metropolis of annihilation, stretching out beneath the planet's crust like a fungal hive. The War Foundry. A fully operational subterranean city, built to serve as command nexus, military forge, and spiritual crucible for the Mahasimu war machine.
Shadowscourge battalions marched across suspended causeways between obsidian fortresses. Giant leviathan siege-beasts, crafted of alloy and bone, hung from blacklight cranes. Psionic relay pylons pulsed with rhythmic, malignant incantations, fed through soul-runes etched by the priest-engineers of the Empire.
At the core of it all: the Black Citadel, a nightmare of spires and shadowsteel where General Kizito, flanked by Vice Commanders Tano and Kia, finalized preparations for war.
"They're building armies underground… while we stare at supply towers on the surface," Tavrin whispered.
Oren Vek knelt at a collapsed relay port, extending thin neural tendrils into the system. His pupils shimmered.
"Operation Ember Wake," he breathed. "Six launch paths into the Zelith system. Orbital destabilization strikes, psionic disintegration fields, planetary sweeps. Phase One… hits Zephara and N'Saril first."
"They're going to exterminate us," Kirra said, stunned.
"Then we don't get to run," Elan replied, rising slowly. "We bring this back—or we die under it."
Meanwhile — Onboard Giza Mtuji
Far across the void, Queen Suama stood cloaked in ritual shadow within her obsidian sanctum aboard the Giza Mtuji. Incense spiraled upward as ritual glyphs flared to life on the obsidian walls. A secure hololink activated.
Overseer Xal'taroth, commander of the prison world Gharar, appeared—his face a cold lattice of void-scripted scars and psionic brands.
"You are summoned," Suama said. "The Ancient Queen will descend upon Gharar. The traitor Safi is to be prepared. No harm comes to her. Not yet."
"Gharar awaits," Xal'taroth rasped. "The throne cell has been activated. She will be ready to face the voice of the First Mother."
Suama ended the transmission. Her gaze lingered in the flame-lit dark.
"Even shadows," she whispered, "must answer to blood."
In the War Citadel – Akaris V
In the central war chamber of the Black Citadel, General Kizito studied holos of Thalor worlds—targets for cleansing.
"Let the Zelith think us distracted by Gharar and bloodline treachery," he said, teeth bared. "They've always feared what lies in the void. Now they'll learn what crawls from it."
Admiral Kia stepped forward.
"The fleet is armed. The Mawborn are nearly complete. We begin mobilization in three cycles."
Tano approached, datapad glowing.
"We've detected faint signal breaches near shaft delta. No confirmation yet, but… it's something foreign."
Kizito narrowed his eyes.
"Then send the Scourgehounds."
The Scourgehounds – Echoes of the Thal'Karn
Millennia ago, the Thal'Karn—towering war-beasts born of psionic fire and living steel—were conquered by the Mahasimu Empire in a campaign that shattered twelve systems and lasted an entire era of stars. Bound by rite and war-chain, the Thal'Karn were absorbed into the empire and served as its most devastating instruments.
But they bred slowly. Their bloodlines only kindled under extreme conditions—desolate worlds saturated in psionic storms, with cycles-long gestation locked behind esoteric biological triggers. Entire climates had to be terraformed to make their reproduction even possible.
So, three million years after their conquest, the Mahasimu created the Scourgehounds—a synthetic, feral offshoot bred to supplement their numbers.
Smaller and faster, the Scourgehounds were engineered from diluted Thal'Karn genome strands, fused with viral neurosteel and programmed with an instinctual hunger to hunt traitors, infiltrators, and memory-echoes.
They crawled on four limbs, encased in barbed armor and twitching sensor-spines, tuned to the fear resonance of psionic minds.
"They won't stop once they've locked onto a thoughtprint," Kia muttered.
Kizito's expression darkened.
"Let them feast on whoever dares disturb my war."
Breach Point – The Chase Begins
In a lower shaft, unseen beneath the Citadel's thrum, the infiltration team paused. Red warning lights bloomed like blood.
Sirens pulsed low. Deep in the blackstone below, an echoing howl shook the air—not the voice of a beast, but something birthed from agony and obedience.
"We've been spotted," Jexi hissed, weapon drawn. "And that's not just any patrol."
Elan knelt, eyes closed. She felt the psychic scrape across the stone—like claws dragging through memory.
"Scourgehounds," she said. "They've loosed the bloodhounds of the ancients."
Kirra's face went pale.
"Then we don't vanish. We run like hell—or we turn and end this here."
Elan opened her eyes.
"We reach the core vault. We extract what we came for."
She looked at each of them, calm in the growing storm.
"We die only if we hesitate. Move."
Far behind them, the Scourgehounds howled again.
And the hunt began.