Chapter 3: What Watches the Fire

The Kael’dar did not convene as lesser species did.

There was no chamber. No throne. No singular voice issuing commands into silence. The Kael’dar existed through convergence—distributed cognition aligned through hierarchy, intent braided through layers of authority until thought itself became command.

Across a lattice of void-black structures suspended in dead space, Kael’dar minds synchronized. Each node occupied a physical anchor—vast, angular constructs grown rather than built, their surfaces absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Energy flowed through them like blood through veins, carrying thought, memory, and judgment.

At the apex of the lattice stood Vaelor-Ascendant.

Its form was tall and precise, plated in living chitin etched with ancient scar-patterns—markers of survival, not honor. Beneath the armor, muscle and nerve moved with measured economy, engineered not for battle but for command. Its eyes were faceted and pale, adapted to read probability gradients the way lesser beings read faces.

Before Vaelor, a projection coalesced.

Human ships.

Crude by Kael’dar standards. Asymmetrical. Scarred. Their designs carried inefficiencies that should have doomed them—yet those same inefficiencies produced adaptability that resisted clean modeling.

The emblem of the Terran Defense Force rotated slowly.