The Vanguard Protocol Book 2 the Veil Awakens
Copyright© 2026 by Sci-FiTy1972
Chapter 10: The Battle of the Veil
Space did not erupt.
It hesitated.
For a fraction of a second—too brief for most sensors, too long for anyone who had ever flown in combat—the void ahead of Bastion One seemed to inhale.
Then the Kael’dar arrived.
They did not translate in flashes of light or roaring energy wakes. Their fleet unfolded, vessels extruding from higher-dimensional slip like thoughts becoming real. Black-metal hulls emerged first, followed by the spined silhouettes of containment cruisers and the vast, slow curvature of command arks that bent starlight around themselves.
They came in silence.
No broadcast.
No challenge.
No declaration of war.
Thomas Morgan felt it before Solace spoke.
“Contact,” the AI said quietly. “Multiple Kael’dar formations. Pattern indicates Veil-suppression doctrine.”
Across Bastion One, alarms did not blare.
They sang.
A low, steady harmonic designed to focus, not panic.
EDF ships launched.
Not in parade lines.
Not in rigid vectors.
They scattered—like living things.
First Blood
“Recon Wing Three—status?” Halstrom asked.
Static answered.
Then nothing.
A second later, a ghost-image flickered across the tactical display: the outline of an EDF corvette stretched impossibly thin, its hull elongated into a filament of light before snapping out of existence.
“No explosion,” Elena whispered. “They didn’t fire.”
“They contained it,” Solace replied. “Localized spatial null.”
Thomas clenched his jaw. “They’re erasing us.”
“Correction,” Solace said. “They are attempting to erase the Veil’s influence.”
The Kael’dar were not here to win.
They were here to undo.
Humans Break Pattern
“Captain,” Zara said, voice razor-focused. “They’re predicting us. Perfectly.”
Thomas watched Kael’dar fire lanes close before EDF ships reached them—anticipation, not reaction.
“Then stop flying like we want to live,” he said.
Zara smiled.
Not warm.
Not reckless.
Feral.
“Copy that.”
EDF squadrons shattered formation.
Ships rolled sideways, cut thrust mid-burn, accelerated into debris fields no sane tactician would choose. One interceptor killed power entirely and coasted blind through a Veil distortion before relighting engines inside Kael’dar firing arcs.
Kael’dar targeting systems stuttered.
Logic trees collapsed under irrational input.
A containment cruiser lost its forward ring—sheared away by a human frigate that should not have been able to reach that angle.
Another withdrew.
A cheer started—
—and died.
Lieutenant Asha Renn did not pull up fast enough.
Her interceptor clipped a Veil distortion.
She survived long enough to say, “Worth it,” before space folded her out of reality.
Thomas closed his eyes.
Then opened them.