The Vanguard Protocol Book 2 the Veil Awakens
Copyright© 2026 by Sci-FiTy1972
Chapter 7: When Certainty Breaks
The Kael’dar did not believe in surprise.
They believed in inevitability.
Across the containment lattice—an architecture of thought and force suspended in dead space—command-minds converged. Probability streams braided and unbraided in disciplined harmony, futures collapsing into certainty long before lesser species could imagine resistance.
Vaelor-Ascendant observed in silence.
The human relic-vessel Erebus had exposed itself.
Predictable.
Desperation always revealed itself through visibility.
“Containment vectors hold,” reported a subordinate node. “Terran fleet composition remains statistically insignificant.”
Vaelor allowed the data to settle.
“Proceed,” it commanded. “Reduce uncertainty.”
The lattice obeyed.
And then—
The models fractured.
Not failed.
Fractured.
Probability did not collapse into clarity. It split. Overlapped. Refused resolution.
Vaelor’s claws tightened involuntarily.
“Report,” it said.
The response came slower than acceptable.
“Outcome coherence degrading,” the node transmitted. “Forecast confidence reduced to forty-one percent.”
Vaelor turned its full attention inward.
“That is not possible.”
“It is occurring.”
The projection shifted.
Space itself shimmered—not bending, not tearing, but hesitating. Kael’dar sensors returned conflicting data: mass readings fluctuated, trajectories drifted mid-calculation, weapon-lock certainties dissolved into branching possibilities.
The Veil had deployed.
Vaelor felt something it had not experienced since its ascension.
Uncertainty.
“What have they done?” it asked.
An elder node responded—its cognition weighted with memory older than conquest.
“They have activated Continuance architecture.”
Silence rippled through the lattice.
“That knowledge was lost with the Altherians,” Vaelor said.
“Not lost,” the elder node replied. “Buried.”
Vaelor reviewed archived failures—Altherian skies breaking not from enemy fire, but from internal collapse. A civilization that refused monstrosity ... and paid for restraint with extinction.
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