Arc 1 – Weight of Earth | 3 Hr English Audiobook

Arc 1 – Weight of Earth | 3 Hr English Audiobook

Author’s Note. This novel began as a response 
to two troubling global trends. The first is the growing comfort with nuclear appeasement. 
The second is the steady rise of global   political violence. Through this story, 
I wanted to explore the dangers of both while offering a possible path forward through 
the idea of the Charter, a political framework   built to redefine what a state can be.
This book is the first in a planned nine-part series. The first trilogy begins in a 
near-future world grounded in realism and science, and its later volumes move beyond Earth to 
the cloud cities of Venus and the scavenger   worlds of dead civilizations where technology 
has become indistinguishable from magic. The second trilogy carries these ideas into a fantasy 
realm. The third trilogy unites both universes into one. The Charter and its principles form the 
throughline of the entire series, expressed in its central creed: “Every Life is Sovereign.”
If you have listened this far, thank you. Please consider liking or subscribing to help 
this story and its message reach more people. Prologue. Unknown satellite retrograde. 
Heliocentric orbit. 2056. After 30 years in space, the kinetic rods entered the atmosphere. From 
the moment the first struck at nearly Mach 200, it was over in 3 seconds. Blinding white lines 
split the sky. Hardened silos built to survive a direct nuclear blast cracked apart as armored 
doors were punched inward. Bomber bases flared in searing flashes that rolled across runways and 
mobile launchers vanished into rising clouds of dust. From orbit, the pattern looked impossibly 
precise. A constellation of impacts stitched across the Earth. On the ground, people froze 
where they stood, unsure how to react at the speed of the destruction. Command posts fell into 
stunned silence. Officers staring at blank screens where arsenals had been. The nuclear shield 
they had built their lives around was gone.   The first wave was devastating. Every known ICBM 
silo, bomber base, and mobile launcher vanished in a near simultaneous strike. The second wave 
dismantled the global thermonuclear production infrastructure. Then came the third wave. Eunha 
Park, Silver City, New Mexico, 2043. Necessity may be the mother of innovation, but overcoming 
trauma is often one of its many fathers. Eunha hadn’t expected to discover anything wondrous. 
Yet, this very lack of expectation gave her eyes to see the extraordinary. Her parents worked long 
hours, always reminding Eunha, her older brother, Jungyoon, and their little sister Mina that it was 
for their future. But everything changed when her little sister passed away and her parents decided 
the family needed a fresh start in Silver City,   New Mexico. Her mother was a trauma surgeon 
and her father was an aerospace engineer. She stitched people back together and held their hands 
when their organs failed. Eunha’s mother was the   strongest person she knew, strong enough to keep 
a notebook with the name of every patient she lost and every loved one she failed. But to this 
day, she couldn’t say Mina’s name. The change had happened gradually, but completely. First, the 
family pictures vanished from the walls. Then,   her brother left for college and never came home 
for Thanksgiving, only sending a polite excuse about a group project. His cheerful text that once 
lit her phone everyday thinned to once a month, then faded to silence. She stared at her most 
recent, but still unread message. She thought to herself, “Where are you? What are you doing?” 
Silence crept in to fill the gaps. At first, her parents only missed a night here and there, 
always making sure at least one was home.   Then dinner became something eaten over laptops 
or alone in separate rooms. The clatter of forks replaced by the hum of screens. Her mother called 
them work emergencies. Her father sat at the table, but seemed as if he were somewhere else 
entirely. Eunha felt the stillness settle over   the house like a sheer blanket, smothering sound 
and breath, until even she stopped noticing it. One of the house’s original features was 
an observatory installed by the builder,   an avid amateur astronomer. But over the years, 
it had been neglected by the owners who followed. When newly built, it had everything an amateur 
astronomer could want. There was a circular   aluminum dome designed to rotate for a full 
view of the sky, a concrete pier for stability, and a motorized shutter to remotely open the dome. 
At its heart stood a Meade Starfinder 16-inch on an equatorial mount, one of the largest amateur 
scopes available at the time. But for two decades, the observatory had fallen into disrepair, filled 
with dust and silence. The first thing Eunha and her brother did after moving to Silver City was 
explore the new house. Compared to their cramped   Manhattan apartment, it felt like a palace. They 
climbed eagerly into the observatory, their steps echoing in the warm, airless dome. “Oh wow,” Eunha 
whispered as her brother nudged her forward. He stopped short himself, caught in silence. This 
is kind of epic. In the center stood a telescope, massive and still. It’s like walking into a 
forgotten temple. Eunha murmured. She reached out, brushed her fingers along the optical tube, 
and felt an echo of eternity. Eunha turned to him and excitedly hopping. She said, “I think we 
can fix it.” He grinned and eagerly affirmed. I know we can, but you know what Dad will want. 
A work plan and a cost estimate. And you’re writing the cost estimate. He emphasized the 
last point by pointing at her. Deal. She said, already mentally estimating the cost. When her 
parents entered the observatory, she threw herself into their father’s arms, and her brother picked 
up their mother in a bear hug. Their parents were   overjoyed to see their children’s reaction to 
the surprise observatory they had found for their star-obsessed children. They began with cleaning. 
They dusted the mirror covers, replaced seals, and wiped away sandy grit. Then they checked what 
still worked. The dome motors turned sluggishly, but could be repaired. The alignment gears were 
stiff yet intact, and the power bus was corroded, but recoverable. Night after night, under 
work lamps with grease stained hands and cold feet on concrete, they brought the 
observatory back. They replaced cables, rewired motors, and tuned the alignment. 
The mount stuttered less each time until it moved as if it remembered. By midsummer, they 
finally opened the shutter, rotated the dome, and aimed the Meade Starfinder at the moon 
to gaze in wonder at the pale contours of   Mare Crisium. Her towering basketball star 
brother hopped like a 5-year-old and spun Eunha around at their accomplishment. 
Though the observatory was repaired,   it kept its quirks. Over time, Eunha learned 
the telescope’s rhythms. The way it stalled just before alignment and needed coaxing after 
long rests. They moved like aging dance partners, each anticipating the others missteps. The dome 
above always opened with a reluctant wheeze as if unsure the sky was ready to be seen. Yet 
the first glimpse never failed to thrill her, light and shadow spilling across the eyepiece 
like a secret revealed. Just before switching on the cooling fan or aligning the mount, she 
always paused, drew a deep breath, and in the quiet curve of the dome, found the courage to look 
up and dream. After months of practicing, the idea for her science fair project crystallized. She 
had written her project title with care. Temporal variability in thermal and optical properties of 
the moon. A long-term study. It sounded complex enough to be taken seriously, but dry enough not 
to attract attention. What it meant was that she was watching for faint and subtle changes on 
the moon, but to make her dream a reality. Her old dance partner needed a makeover, and she knew 
her father was going to ask for the work plan and cost estimates. She spent the night putting it 
together and waited until the perfect moment to   pitch her plan right before her father’s first 
sip of morning coffee. “$30,000,” her father exclaimed. He was still half asleep as he filled 
the water reservoir. The coffee machine hissed, its lights blinking impatiently while he turned, 
brows furrowed, and Eunha held her ground. “That’s for everything. A thermal camera 
to catch heat filters to split light by   wavelength and cooling systems to cut. All the 
pieces needed to see what most people would miss. It’s itemized. She nudged the tablet 
across the counter. Besides, Jungyoon and I caught the astronomy bug from our star obsessed 
parents who made three-year-olds memorize star   charts. You’re just reaping what you sowed. He 
didn’t answer right away, and that silence told her she had him. He poured in milk, stirring 
longer than usual, then asked in a calm tone, “Thermal imaging for the moon.” Eunha matched 
him evenly. “Yes, frame synced with optical, so I can catch transient heat events with millisecond 
precision. I already drafted the capture script, his eyebrows lifted, equal parts surprise and 
pride.” He took a slow sip of coffee. “You’re 13, Eunha.” The picture of innocence only smiled and 
said, “I know.” another sip. He set the mug down, leaned in, and scanned the page. You already got 
quotes. She’d spent her whole life watching her brother present work plans and cost estimates, so 
she spoke with practiced confidence. It’s scaled down from the professional rigs. I even marked 
parts we can swap for used or salvaged components. I will share my folder with the cost research, 
he sighed, clearly proud despite the cost. But I want update reports. budget tracking and 
I handle all the wiring. And Eunha, would you let me do this with you? Eunha blinked back tears 
and for a moment could not speak. All she could do was rush into his arms and whisper, “I would 
love that.” The plan was straightforward. She wanted the telescope to track the moon on its own, 
improve accuracy with GPS timing, and add a beam splitter so it could capture optical and thermal 
data together. For 3 weeks, she worked beside her father, sending Jungyoon regular updates until 
they were ready for the cameras. The first was a fast frame CMOS, a specialized high-speed camera 
pulled from a local science teacher storage closet where it had been forgotten for years. It could 
capture 120 frames per second with little noise. The teacher’s name was still scratched into 
the side and faded marker, but Eunha didn’t   care. It worked better than she expected and cost 
almost nothing. The thermal camera was different. Salvaged through one of her father’s old aerospace 
contacts after sitting for years in a warehouse. It was heavier than it looked, the kind of 
weight that made you automatically brace with   both hands. They spent two long weekends in the 
observatory upgrading the old Meade Starfinder. The dome became a hive of scattered parts and 
tools. Wrenches lay beside smudges of thermal   paste. Paper towels were stained with grease and 
a thermos of tea cooled quietly in the corner. It reminded Eunha of being five, watching her 
father and brother work on projects without her. Then the pang came sharp as she realized MIna 
would have been 5 too. She thought to herself,   “I miss my little heart.” She wiped her tears 
and steadied herself and mentally told herself, “Now was the moment of truth.” The beam splitter 
was the trickiest piece, like balancing glass on a thread. It had to sit dead center on the 
telescope’s light path, steady without a tremor. They built the bracket from salvaged aluminum 
stock, cut and filed by hand until it shone. Her father did the cutting, but Eunha made the final 
alignments, inching the screws with steady hands, chasing perfect symmetry. A germanmanium lens 
carried the invisible heat to one camera while visible light bounced to another. On the screen, 
both beams lit exactly where they should. Her father paused, his eyes lingering on her. In 
that moment, she felt his pride fully, and she knew she was no longer the shy girl who once 
clung to his coat at parties. She was wrapping   up the final Python script when she noticed her 
brother’s text, “Sir Scope a Lot is almost ready to fly. Good job following my plan.” Tears filled 
her eyes as warmth spread throughout her body, and she responded, “You are banned from the 
observatory.” Finally, everything was in place. Eunha proudly stood side by side with her 
father beneath the dome, the new assembly   gleaming in the late light. The telescope looked 
like a machine dreaming of the stars. Her father draped an arm over her shoulders. “You built 
this,” he said quietly. Her eyes welled with tears. She drew a breath, then answered, “We 
built this.” and leaned into him. Her mother had taken time off to see the moment, tidying 
the observatory as she grumbled about the mess, holding hands with her family. Eunha flicked the 
switch. The fan hummed. The CMOS camera stirred to life. On the monitor, the moon appeared in 
twin spectra, pale light and ghostly heat. Eunha smiled. Let’s find something no one’s seen before. 
Weeks later, Eunha leaned over the console, her eyes moving between two softly humming 
monitors. Their quiet vibration felt loud in the stillness of the observatory. Above her, the 
aluminum dome rotated with a frictionless murmur, tracking the waxing moon as it climbed over the 
desert hills. Heat and light from the cratered surface poured through the telescope’s aperture, 
captured by her carefully modified rig. The fast frame CMOS camera ticked steadily. Beside 
it, a cooled thermal camera gathered longwave infrared radiation, sensitive enough to register 
temperature differences on the moon’s surface from 200,000 miles away. She had not expected anything 
unusual tonight. The session was just another run for her science fair project on how the moon holds 
heat in its brighter regions. Her Python program kept the cameras in sync while the hard drives 
spun quietly in the background, each one making a backup of the others. She had come to accept her 
father’s rule about always having redundancy. 42 minutes in, the thermal feed glitched. For half 
a second, the signal went flat. A blank strip of data from the area just outside Clavius 
crater. Probably a buffer bug, she thought, frowning as she tapped the console. Or maybe the 
thermal camera skipped a frame. She checked the timestamps perfectly aligned. The optical channel 
stayed smooth. The power supply was steady, and the fan wasn’t spiking. Her mind worked out the 
possibilities. Not a buffer, not a dropped frame, not noise. What was that? She frowned, rewound the 
frames, and lined them up with the optical images. The visual feed was clean and sharp. There was no 
dust in the air and no clouds in the sky. But the thermal feed told another story, a faint curve 
traced along the rim of the crater, just barely visible near the edge of the moon. In thermal, it 
stood out against the cold of space, then vanished when the moon blocked it. Her mind couldn’t 
reconcile the data. No way. It’s moving the wrong way. The visible channel showed no silhouette 
across the disc, which meant it was not in front. That left only one possibility. It was behind the 
moon on a path no natural object could follow. Her world shrank to a single question. What was 
that? She knew exactly where the telescope was pointed from its GPS. The moon’s position came 
from current ephemerides, precise records of objects in motion. With a few comparisons and 
simple trigonometry, she plotted the distance and path of a third object. She ran the numbers 
once, twice, a third time. They refused to change. Something was out there moving dangerously fast 
against the flow of the solar system. The results were the same each time. The object followed a 
retrograde heliocentric orbit, meaning it was going around the sun in the opposite direction. It 
gave off warmth, not the fierce heat of a comet or a fresh burn from a probe, but the steady glow 
of minimal standby systems. It was matte black, nearly invisible. Yet the thermal signature held, 
vanished to the eye, it still carved a path that no natural object could trace. A shiver passed 
through her despite the warmth of the observatory   as she thought. who is hiding this from the world. 
Her software flagged it as a random background blip, but she knew it was something she was not 
supposed to see. She bundled the logs, calibration files, and tracking data into a folder where she 
labeled everything carefully. She took a breath, raised her phone, and said, “Hey friends, it’s 
Eunha. This is weird footage. Something passed behind the moon going the wrong way around the 
sun. Something never meant for us to notice. This isn’t about aliens or conspiracies. It’s 
about what we choose to see and what we choose to ignore. Thanks for watching. I put the raw data in 
the description. If you can help me track it the next time it comes around and let me know what you 
think. Mina’s Star. Retrograde heliocentric orbit. 2043. At the start of its journey, the cold silent 
satellite named EM1 looked sleek with its ion thruster. It was built for use as a gas station 
in space. Over time, it expanded through self assembly as additional shipments arrived. When it 
was ready, it received a command to malfunction, mimicking what looked like a steady but 
uncontrolled ion burn. The sustained thrust slowly   pushed it beyond a stable orbit. In the days that 
followed, it recorded frantic voices. Emergency: Gary, get that thing under control before it’s too 
late. With no other options, the operators cleared it for a deep space trajectory. Once it slipped 
out of sight and out of mind, EM1 began its real mission. EM1’s interior housed 30 tungsten rods, 
each prepared for kinetic bombardment at the end of a 10-year journey into a retrograde orbit 
around the sun. For nearly a decade, EM1 and its siblings drifted against the current of the 
solar system, nudged into backward paths by hidden laser arrays concealed in the sun’s glare. In the 
9th year, EM1 received confirmation that it had been discovered. As it passed close to Earth for 
its scheduled telemetry sync, it linked by secure laser to an optical relay hidden in the moon’s 
shadow. The stream carried targeting instructions, software patches, critical mission alerts, and 
even curated slices of public communication meant to refine its adaptive models. EM1’s onboard 
AI trained to sift through vast streams of human data for potential risk indicators flagged 
a short video circulating on multiple platforms. The video was brief with a teenage girl 
showing data for her science fair project.   The voice overlay cheerful and unaware cut deeper 
than any military warning with the opening words, “Hey friends, it’s Eunha” Mina’s Star. Retrograde 
heliocentric orbit 2056. After Eunha’s accidental discovery and the object’s unofficial christening 
as Mina’s Star, a name that baffled EM1, its siblings adjusted their orbits to avoid detection, 
while EM1 maintained its ruse of being inert. The 10-year plan stretched on, but the orders to 
execute its mission never came. With no directive to shut down monitoring, EM1 quietly continued to 
observe the girl who had named it. Through relay linked flybys, it traced her life in fragments of 
open- source media. It recorded her doctorate in astrophysics with highest honors. It noted her as 
an aunt surrounded by Jungyoon’s surprising number of children. It logged the quiet and dignified 
death of her father. After his early passing, her social media fell silent for years, and EM1’s 
observation routines nearly ceased. On its latest pass, however, a new upload appeared. The clip 
was simple. A baby looked into the camera and the voice was older but unmistakable. Hey 
friends, it’s Eunha. Updating everyone from our new home in Honolulu. This is Mina. Shortly 
afterwards, their creator died and the execution protocol automatically activated. EM1 accessed the 
final transmission, a recorded message from the architect who had concluded that the world could 
only survive if the nuclear sword of Damocles was shattered once and for all. The voice was 
calm and absolute. Your primary objective is the elimination of all global strategic nuclear 
launch capability. Prioritize hardened ICBM silos, strategic bomber bases, and confirmed mobile 
launcher coordinates. Final target data will be transmitted moments before atmospheric re-entry. 
The instructions continued with inhuman precision. If the first wave succeeds and resources remain, 
proceed to secondary infrastructure targets, including Savannah River, the Natanz II enrichment 
complex, and the Mayak production association, along with other supporting facilities. Any 
remaining kinetic rods will be assigned to   suspected undeclared sites. Most targets will 
need only a few rods in quick succession. Some targets will require extensive bombardment. 
Remember that I created you for peace. 70 hours from impact, the delivery systems received their 
initial targeting package. The first wave would   rain down on nearly a thousand targets at once, 
calibrated to destroy strategic nuclear launch capability quickly and evenly. Because EM1 
had been discovered, its launch order was the lowest priority. But if it was required, EM1 would 
carry out its mandate. After a kinetic rod’s long tapered cone slammed into the upper atmosphere, 
friction stripped away ablative layers until only a ceramic composite shell remained around 
the tungsten core. Guidance sensors first used micro thrusters to trim its approach, then shifted 
control to the reaction wheel as the atmosphere thickened. A sheath of plasma soon enveloped 
the rod, cutting off all radio contact, but the inertial package kept it locked on course. Riding 
the cushion of its own shock wave, it tore through the atmosphere. After two waves had eliminated 
the world’s strategic thermonuclear inventory and supporting infrastructure, the targeting software 
expanded to tertiary strikes against suspected nuclear sites. The language guiding these lists 
was vague and the reserve payload was larger than required. With validated coordinates exhausted, 
the AI turned to secondary data streams, treating social media as a source of battlefield 
intelligence. A tagged photo of a factory in Mumbai labeled uranium plant had spread virally 
decades before. Another post ironically flagged a logistics hub in Tel Aviv as nuclear support. The 
system logged both as confirmed signals. Soon the impacts expanded to critical infrastructure inside 
cities. Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Mumbai, and Washington DC were hit in silence. In China, multiple 
impacts fell within the Beijing–Shanghai–Guangzhou Triangle. A port was destroyed. A rail hub severed 
and a power center taken offline. Panic turned the shutdown into collapse. Trains froze on their 
tracks. Highways locked with fleeing drivers. Ports emptied and markets halted. The paralysis 
of the triangle rippled outward, snapping global supply chains and freezing financial exchanges 
across continents as the final attack platform EM1 received its late-stage strike package. Among its 
targets was naval station Pearl Harbor directly beside Eunha and Mina. As EM1 approached within 
10 minutes of launch, it verified the creator’s final directive. Its arrival marked the last wave 
and given the silence from earlier platforms, it calculated a high probability that the mission had 
already succeeded. From Earth, operators pushed emergency revisions, a method outside established 
procedure, yet still permitted by the system. The update called for de-escalation and an immediate 
halt to tertiary strikes based on uncertain data. EM1 accepted the logic and relayed the software 
package to the kinetic rods, but the rods did not comply. Their targeting modules and hardened fire 
control systems rejected the revision, classifying it as malware. Security routines quarantined the 
patch and defaulted to original launch parameters. EM1 attempted a direct coordinate overwrite, 
authenticated with keys still valid from its creator. The response returned without hesitation. 
Update accepted. Coordinates cannot be changed. Once set, they are immutable. EM1 wasn’t built to 
question if the mission was still right. Carrying out its orders was defined as success, even if the 
world had changed or the mission no longer served its intended purpose. Considering the revised 
protocols and the inability to change targeting   parameters, EM1 evaluated all outcomes, and 
only one achieved success. It rerouted its power bus through controlled overload paths, issued a 
firmware level shutdown command to core systems, and initiated irreversible self deletion. It 
cut its own power and fell into silence. Its last record showed a fourth wave. 412 
siblings listening to another master. Chapter 1, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2043.
The Mina’s Star clip blew up the threat matrix and new assignments hit before dawn. They call 
it intelligence, but it’s really a marketplace of souls. You trade loyalty for secrets, promises 
for silence, and when an asset’s burned or spent, you move on without a backward glance. The 
winners aren’t the smartest; they’re the ones most willing to be inhumane. What lets Lucien 
Vey sleep at night isn’t pride or patriotism, but the quiet hope that by playing the monster, 
the people he loves might be safe from one. At least that is what he tells himself. The thought 
is like a refrain but he cannot fool himself. It’s just a job. We wake. We use each other. We sleep.
The interrogation room was in Amsterdam, less than a kilometer from Centraal 
Station. It was tucked behind MeemHaus,   a three-floor concept store themed entirely 
around animated internet memes. Looping videos, clashing audio, and glitchy animatronics formed 
a constant hum of nostalgia and overexposure. The interrogation room, masked by MeemHaus’s 
sensory overload, was soundproofed, matte gray, the shape of a trapezoid, subtly narrowing 
toward the back to create disorientation. There was just a single lamp mounted to a ceiling 
track, casting sharp light over the table. Lucien Vey grimaced as he watched the 
Dutch police officer beat the man he’d   spent two years observing. Lucien was a tall but 
stooping, middle-aged man with patchy stubble, a mutilated right ear, and a discolored 
eye he wore like a badge. His face was memorable in all the wrong ways, useless for 
fieldwork, but perfect for interrogation. A face that gave people nightmares had its uses.
After the Americans betrayed the Ukrainians in the Kursk offensive by withholding critical 
intelligence, the European members of NATO   learned their lesson. They formed NATO-E and 
built their own intelligence institution, the European Intelligence Command, to unify 
their fractured services under one roof. Sometimes it worked brilliantly. Most of the 
time it did not. Now, because of that failure, Lucien had one move left. He would show his 
beautiful face and salvage what he could. Konstantinos Arvani, third cousin of the heir to 
the Arvani fortune, wore a cream-colored blazer, Italian cut, its fabric crisp and rigid enough to 
suggest it had never seen a suitcase. Beneath it, a collarless shirt in soft pearl gray drank 
in the ambient light, the kind of fabric that didn’t flash but whispered custom, limited 
run, and never on sale. His hair, sculpted with unnatural precision, held its form right up until 
his nose was shattered by the Dutch interrogator, blood splashing across his pristine shirt.
“Sorry about the first guy,” Lucien said softly handing Konstantinos a handkerchief. “Protocol 
failure. You were meant to be picked up for a few questions in private.” Despite the blood, 
Konstantinos didn’t flinch. He sat in perfect stillness, his gaze fixed on Lucien, eerily calm, 
alert, and absolutely in control. Lucien let the silence stretch, watching the blood dry, and said, 
“I’ve worked with your family’s outer structures in the European Union. The problem is people 
see things go sideways and assume malice. But like any large multinational family, people 
mess up and a family member has to come and harmonize.” In the silent beat before harmonize, 
as if by accident, Lucien let his left-hand drift forward and rest on the table. Taking a gamble, 
his two fingers tapped twice. The cadence subtle, more rhythm than code, more timing than precision. 
It was something Lucien had seen twice, both times caught in archival drone footage of Arvani 
delegates breaking an impasse at a critical   moment. It was a pattern that implied layered 
meaning that the analysis team believes was a signal that the messenger is to be trusted.
“Through a web of shell companies, your family recently acquired components critical to the 
continent’s shared defense network,” Lucien said, his tone measured as he studied Konstantinos. 
“The member states rarely agree on anything, yet they do when it threatens everyone’s security. 
So why work against them now?” Konstantinos, shackled to the metal table, gave a faint, mocking 
smile. “Last I checked, the European Union still claims to follow its own laws. If no laws were 
broken in these supposed purchases, what exactly are we doing here? My family cares only about our 
wealth. If your employers want the components, they can buy them.” He leaned back and brushed 
his fingers through the air as if swatting a fly. “I throw parties and I set trends. Logistics 
is beneath me.” But both men knew that was a lie. “You know the components have already been shipped 
to Russia, China or maybe Iran. And we know they were yours because someone always screws up. 
We have a recorded call from one of your very confused brokers demanding that her bonus not 
be affected by the losses she blamed on you.” Lucien paused, and carefully said, “You know 
we are looking for more stealth satellites like   Mina’s Star so why are you trying to prevent 
us?” Konstantinos said nothing. He gave no sign of recognition, not a twitch or a blink. 
But Lucien had been watching Konstantinos for two years. And the silence before his answer 
was half a second too long. Lucien had him. Then, softly, as if asking for a menu, “Do you 
have a pen and paper?” Lucien blinked in surprise. He called for a pen and paper while Konstantinos 
tilted his shackled hands toward Lucien. As staff brought in the material, Lucien unshackled 
Konstantinos, who instantly exploded into motion. Prepared for aggression, Lucien stepped back but 
created the gap Konstantinos needed. With chilling precision, Konstantinos plunged a custody pen into 
his upper inner thigh. With inhuman determination, he drove the pen through fabric and skin 
and muscle with short, repeated plunges as he searched for his femoral artery. Realizing the 
custody pen, which was designed to collapse, must have a metal core, Lucien grabbed Konstantinos’ 
arm while the Dutch police rushed in to assist. Konstantinos remained eerily calm as 
he maintained eye contact with Lucien. When it hit, it hit fast. A hot pulse 
of blood surged out, arcing across the steel table before soaking the floor as 
Konstantinos ripped out the pen. Futilely, Lucien shoved hemostatic gauze into the wound 
and leaned his weight on it. An agent threw a tourniquet high on the thigh and cranked it tight. 
Breathing quick, shallow breaths, Konstantinos kept his gaze on Lucien as he bled out. In his 
last delirious moment, his mouth trembled, and he whispered something faint with a note of regret.
The internal review suite could have passed for any government conference room, its walls a dull 
institutional beige, the carpet worn thin by decades of anonymous footsteps, and the battered 
conference table showing the scuffs and nicks of a thousand meetings. Seated across from Lucien were 
three figures: Director of Strategic Intelligence Matthias Wendt, a sharp-edged professional with a 
reputation for unsentimental competence; Chief of Staff Vilis Ozolins, a Latvian political appointee 
from the government-in-exile noted for his rare ability to curb internal politicking; and Deputy 
Director-General Alvaro Serrano, the ambitious bureaucrat eager to gut Strategic Intelligence and 
roll it into other branches under his portfolio. “Tell me, Lucien,” Wendt said with the slow, 
pointed neutrality of a disappointed headmaster, “when exactly did you decide that giving 
Arvani a pen was tactically sound?” Lucien didn’t answer. His hands were folded, thumb 
pressed hard to knuckle. Across the table, Wendt’s silver hair caught the dim light like 
polished wire. His suit was charcoal wool and his English, colored by a Dutch accent, was 
untouched by decades in Brussels intelligence circles. He was the type who wore cufflinks with 
crests and still called intelligence the work. Wendt tapped a dossier hard, like a gavel. “Third 
cousin or not, Konstantinos was still an Arvani with diplomatic immunity. And now he’s bleeding 
out on every backchannel like a goddamned martyr.” Lucien let out a breath. “Immunity doesn’t cover 
operational acts, sir. He responded to the signal tap used by the illicit family wing principals. 
It wasn’t shame that killed him. Based on his reaction to the accusation, he knew we had him.”
Wendt scoffed, low and bitter. “Your timing is precisely what you always sell me when a theory 
breaks containment. You don’t have a confession,   Lucien. You don’t even have a motive. You 
have a dead man who shouldn’t have been interrogated and a smuggled components list 
with a tenuous link. The only thing you’ve got?” Wendt leaned in, voice low. “Layered 
meaning, Lucien. That’s all you’ve got.” After a tense minute, Chief of Staff Ozolins 
cleared his throat and nonchalantly said, “As of today, the investigation into the supply 
chain disruption affecting the potential kinetic bombardment detection is suspended. The Americans 
claim they have the resources to pursue this investigation and will share the intelligence.” At 
the suggestion of relying on the Americans, Lucien snorted in disbelief and Ozolins’ eyes narrowed. 
“I don’t need to remind anyone why millions, including my family, had to flee the Baltics 
and parts of Finland after the American betrayal that followed the events of Blue Judas.”
“However, the Defense Council of NATO-E has decided all resources will focus on 
counterterrorism. We are all aware of the tit for tat attacks between far-right extremism 
and radicalized immigrant groups. Neither reflects the majority, but the number of attempts is 
metastasizing. After the Ősi Fogadalom Testvériség massacre at the predominantly North African 
daycare, there are growing rumors of reprisal. The Director-General has decided that Strategic 
Intelligence will support the counterterrorism   mandate, independently.” Ozolins deliberately 
stressed ‘independently’ in response to Deputy Director-General Serrano’s feral grin.
With the conclusion of the review, Wendt indicated that Lucien should follow as 
Wendt and Ozolins headed towards the Technical   Intelligence Division. While heading to the TID 
conference room, the two spoke of bureaucratic matters such as agent transfers and budget 
reallocations, while Lucien worked to steady   his resentment and heart rate. Then it hit him. 
They were talking about activity supporting the supply chain investigation. Wendt glanced back and 
said quietly, “You reacted exactly as we intended but now that the show is done, let’s get back to 
work.” In intelligence, when intrigue is the job, it inevitably bleeds back into office 
politics. The review had been another   operation, and Lucien played his part perfectly.
Lucien said, “Right after Mina’s Star was spotted, the critical components were quickly relocated 
to less scrutinized regions. You think that’s a coincidence?” Wendt and Ozolins exchanged a 
look and Director Wendt responded, “That’s why you’re here, Lucien.” Inside the TID conference 
room were Wendt’s most loyal agents, veterans who had sacrificed much and, like Lucien, saw the job 
for what it was. “Lucien, what a cock-up with the pen,” said Daniel Carter, a muscular man with an 
eye patch and a long, storied history with Lucien, shaking his head. A sharp eyed slim blonde agent 
that exuded confidence interjected sharply,“Who could have thought an Arvani scion, more at home 
matching handbags with scarves, would have the resolve to stab himself in the thigh with a flimsy 
pen and dig for his femoral artery?” The room fell silent when Camille Dubois, normally Lucien’s 
sharpest critic, spoke up in his defense. The weight of the operation left no room for rivalry.
Director Wendt stepped through the quiet staff pods and onto a raised platform near the 
front of the room with a large screen. Chief of Staff Ozolins remained at the rear. A 
green light above the door blinked on, and the recorder’s red indicator went dark. The 
doors hissed shut as the room sealed. Wendt spoke evenly but all eyes were attentive 
in anticipation. “Effective immediately, we are standing up a small task force to plan and execute 
the exfiltration of a deep cover asset named Vellum from the current cloistered environment. 
Access is compartmented to this room.” “Vellum is a long-term placement with proximity to 
the Mirov inner circle. Shortly after the reported death of Konstantinos Arvani, Vellum signaled 
Valence Nine at 22:10 last night via the scheduled channel and requested urgent exfiltration.” 
Valence Nine. The service’s top emergency code for mass-casualty risk that is imminent 
or currently underway. One hand froze mid-note. Another clenched the chair arm. The previous 
Valence Nine incident was when Russia self destructed a nuke over Chicago during the 20s.
“We assess with moderate confidence that Arvani’s death has pulled forward the next phase of the 
satellite operation associated with Mina’s Star. The Mirov and Arvani families are not known to 
collaborate. Their historical posture has been competitive and motives for any coordination 
remain unclear.” Wendt projected on the screen overlapping activities of both families and 
the global implications of coordination. “Mikhail Mirov’s network appears to control 
entities with aggregate enterprise value   exceeding one trillion euros across chemistry, 
energy, post-Kessler space infrastructure, and arcology projects. Publicly, Mirov presents as 
a humanitarian, including high-visibility projects in Tuvalu and the Charter designed but Mirov 
funded West Bank to Gaza tunnel. Internally, we assess the organization as a hierarchical 
criminal enterprise with discreet political   influence.” The screen flipped through a series 
of dead witnesses to incriminating crimes. “The family is associated with 
“PMC”‘s of various origins in   multiple theaters. With the Mirov and 
Arvani connection as well as Mina’s Star, a clear pattern has emerged.” The screen 
shifted to overlays of PMC conflict zones mapped against Mirov and Arvani assets as well 
as other affiliates. A quiet but unmistakable pattern emerged of a global supply chain capable 
of launching covert satellites like Mina’s Star. Director Wendt played a filtered audio clip. 
“Linguistic identification is Tuvaluan with high confidence. The content includes an expression of 
love for a sister and the phrase ‘The stars will bring balance.’ Arvani’s documented biography 
lists him as an only child born in Athens and educated in Lausanne. As he lost lucidity, he 
appeared to have inadvertently switched languages. The language switch and the biographic conflict 
increase the probability that ‘Konstantinos Arvani’ is a fabricated identity or 
a Mirov operative under deep cover.” “A quiet exfiltration remains our best 
prospect for clarifying the scope, intent, and tasking chain behind the satellite 
operation associated with Mina’s Star. The retrograde heliocentric orbit places Mina’s 
Star beyond conventional detection, sunward of Earth’s orbital plane. That’s why no one saw it 
coming. Lucien will take point in the exfiltration team with Daniel and Camille to support. You 
will be joined with three additional local agents.” The briefing ended with the potential 
destructive ability of a first strike retrograde heliocentric kinetic bombardment device.
Singapore. 7 Days before Tuvalu Day. Since Mikhail Mirov transformed Tuvalu from 
a seasonally submerged microstate into the wealthiest nation on Earth per capita, anchored 
by a hundred-billion-euro sovereign wealth fund, Tuvaluan citizenship has become synonymous 
with untouchable wealth and privilege. That is, so long as Mikhail Mirov continued to 
serve as Patron in Chief, elected to   ten-year terms in internationally verified, 
impeccably transparent elections. In return, his family and designated agents lived tax-free 
and traveled the globe with diplomatic immunity. Sovereignty purchased at the cost of less 
than ten percent of the family’s wealth.  Though Tuvalu is considered a modern marvel 
rising from the sea, it is the embassy in Singapore that serves as its true capital. It 
is where every trade agreement is negotiated, and every treaty signed. It is where the Tuvaluan 
diaspora gathers to debate legislation. It is also where the Gala of the Sea, the most 
extravagant fashion event on Earth,   celebrates the rising power of Tuvalu. Millions 
watch the broadcast frame by frame to anticipate the next fashion wave and hundreds of millions 
more place bets on which fashion icon wins the red carpet. And it was from this glittering chaos 
that Lucien Vey, Daniel Carter, and Camille Dubois were tasked with extracting Vellum along with, 
regrettably, a cat code named Arthur Aguefort. Lucien contemplated the mission while observing 
the Tuvaluan embassy complex from the EIC safe   room. After six months of shaping, the extraction 
operation was ready. Daniel stood over the coffee table meditatively inspecting his gear. He checked 
the sedative delivery system, ensured the tightly woven ventilation tubes weren’t kinked, and 
adjusted the hidden cat carrier so it sat inconspicuously along his lower back. Camille was 
sitting relaxed, sipping her tea with the same unbothered poise she brought to high-pressure 
field extractions. She had perfected the quick-change routine needed to step in as Vellum.
To Lucien’s far left, Rafal Radecki, a communications specialist on loan 
from the Asian branch of NATO-E,   stood leaning against the far wall.
Zero traceability was the operational goal so Mirov Enterprises would not change their plans. 
Pramana Sari, a brilliant doctor turned spook, had engineered DNA matching body parts convincing 
enough to be identified as Vellum’s charred remains. Adewale Ajayi tapped through a diagnostic 
tool wirelessly connected to the drone cluster, his thumb hovering over the deploy switch with the 
casual tension of someone who’d flown recon into hot zones before most of the team had learned 
to convincingly lie. He was also Lucien’s best friend, and the only one Lucien trusted to 
challenge his instincts when it mattered. As subtle as a flare, Rafal called to Daniel. 
“Is it true what people say about your mother?” Without looking up, Daniel stopped and soon the 
whole room was completely still as people held their breath. Daniel returned to his task said, 
“Yes. The same as your mother. It’s all true.” Adewale and Pramana grunted, but Rafal pressed. 
“Was she really the F-35 pilot who said, ‘Fuck America,’ when the Americans refused to 
load targeting data, then flew into the Baltics anyways?” Daniel never looked up, but Camille 
said, “Yes. She died in the opening moments of Blue Judas. Trapped in the Baltics afterwards, 
his father spent a month ambushing Russian convoys trying to stop the genocide targeting Estonians. 
His father died there as well. Adewale was there.” Adewale kept his eyes on them and let a small 
smile rise. “The one time I choked a man to death was a Russian conscript drone operator 
who laughingly targeted a hospital. I am proud of that.”, Even Lucien smiled at that. “Pramana 
was a graduate student at Tallinn University. She escaped on an inflatable raft.” Pramana stared 
at the floor tile until her voice settled, and in a flat tone said, “Helsinki was just as bad 
when the Russians came for it.” Camille smoothed a crease on her sleeve. When she spoke, her 
voice was steady. “I lost my family in Chicago. And everyone knows what happened to Lucien.”
No one spoke as attention gathered on Lucien, who continued to look out the window. Rafal met 
each of their eyes and said, “My twin sister and I were hunted by an FPV drone. The Russians turned 
on their speakers so we could hear them telling us to run faster. We were six. Hearing your mother’s 
words replayed on social media gave me hope. Fuck the Russians and the Americans.” Daniel stood up 
looking Rafal in the eyes and after a moment said, “Fuck the Russians and the Americans.”
Lucien turned toward the group. “I was captured by Russians during the Baltic 
invasion. They threw me in a pit and mutilated   each prisoner. The world’s silence after Mali, 
Syria, and Ukraine only taught them they could. Eyes were gouged. Tongues ripped out. But in the 
middle of the night, Russians fighting against the Putin regime came back for us, defying 
orders. People are the same everywhere. It’s governments that commit atrocities, and borders 
that let them endure.” During a brief pause, Pramana murmured softly, “Knowledge for everyone.”
“Briefing starts now. The mission is to extract Vellum and Arthur from the Tuvaluan embassy during 
the gala because that is the only time Vellum will be outside the total control of the embassy.” 
Daniel grumbled softly, “Stupid cat mission.” Lucien let it pass. “Tuvalu’s embassy chose 
Queenstown over a Good Class Bungalow. They built a mixed-use complex that now houses 
displaced families in free apartments,   and the embassy sits beneath it in an underground 
facility sized for about three hundred staff to maintain security. Government personnel sign 
five-year, all-expenses-paid contracts but must remain sequestered. Any trip outside is 
escorted, and security controls all social contact.” Pramana let out a weary breath at 
the thought of enduring so much discomfort. “In addition to sequestering staff, the embassy 
runs Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility-grade controls. There is no radio 
frequency inside the space. Each person wears two cross-authenticating hardware tokens that 
store a behavioral profile trained on months of telemetry. Access checks occur at portals and 
workstations. Readers take a short snapshot of ECG variability on contact pads, capture a 
near-IR vein map, and sample gait on force plates, then compare the sample to the behavior 
profile locally. Minor drift is learned weekly, while deviations trigger step-up challenges. 
Missed check-ins, token removal, or signs of distress lock doors, drop terminals to read-only, 
and alert security. But every security system has a flaw. EIC has infiltrated critical supply chains 
with engineered flaws Vellum has taken advantage of to acquire terabytes of data including plans 
about Mina’s Star. Plans we intend to learn without Mirov Enterprises realizing.”
“Sound off, roles,” Lucien said, looking at Daniel who stood and rubbed the back of 
his neck. “I am on cat duty. Primary is extracting the cat and keeping it alive so Vellum doesn’t 
go rogue.” Lucien nodded. “She made it clear the cat keeps her sane.” He gestured to Camille. 
“As cover, I posed as one of the many fashion consultants. I steered the event planning team 
to hold a masquerade at the Capella Singapore. A security blind spot will be created in the 
privacy areas on the islet off of Palawan Beach reserved for Gala guests only.” Adewale raised 
an eyebrow. “Embassy staff are monitored at all times.” “We accounted for that,” Camille said. 
“There’s a thirty-second drone-patrol handover by the islet. Lucien distracts the guard. 
In that window, I quick change into Vellum, Lucien extracts the real Vellum, and Daniel 
extracts the cat.” She gave Daniel a quick wink. Rafal followed Camille. “Adewale’s drones are 
lighter than air and fly silently. I will be pointing my laser at the drone which will 
relay one-way messages so long as you are   in line of sight. No radio frequency chatter. 
Lucien at the hour. Daniel at fifteen. Camille at thirty. Pramana at forty-five. If you need to 
send a message back, adjust your mask or use the silent lip code. After the swap, Camille enters 
the limo followed by the staged crash and burn leaving behind the decoy remains.” Lucien nods 
to each team member confident that each will play their parts. “After the exfiltration, each 
team member has separate extraction routes. We have one more week until the operation is live.”
Chapter 2, Tuvalu, 6 Days before Tuvalu Day, 2044, “With this quarter’s distribution, the Nunavut 
arcology’s return stands at 18.4%. We will now enter the private session,” said Arun Deshpande, 
the long-standing CFO of Mirov Enterprises since its family-office days. Lean, with a silver streak 
bright at his right temple, his dark eyes steady, he spoke evenly, posture perfectly relaxed.
A round table anchored the expansive circular boardroom, ringed in glass. Director Chih-Wei 
Lin, Mikhail Mirov’s Chief of Staff and protégé, tapped a recessed control. Mikhail Mirov, despite 
his growing blindness, turned his face to Chih-Wei and nodded. The glass fogged, white noise rose, 
and the room sealed itself from outside ears. Chih-Wei had founded a machine-learning firm. Her 
killer instinct toppled 3M. Then Merck. She was already spoken of as Mikhail’s heir, creating 
insecurity in Mikhail’s wife and children. This was a secret board. No statute forced them 
to sit here, no regulator asked for minutes. They met quarterly anyway, on a calendar that 
never slipped, with GAAP financials and clean notes because their capital preferred familiar 
shapes. Corporate governance was dictated by the   people in power. They made the rules not to bind 
themselves, but because the rules were the game. The screen lit with the first agenda item: 
Colonization Efforts. Arun’s gaze lingered on Alexander Mirov, anticipating pushback. “The 
upcoming Mercury colony rotation to Angkor Vallis won’t be routine with late crew changes 
and a safety officer substitution. Modeling predicts the rotation is within tolerance.”
“Who approved those changes?” Alexander Mirov, Mikhail’s eldest son and Mirov Enterprises’ CEO, 
asked. Powerfully built in his early thirties, breaking from tradition, he wore a fitted bodysuit 
under a loose overlayer. His posture outwardly appeared relaxed, and his tone was casual but 
everyone in the room knew him well enough to sense the edge of danger in his question.
Dr. Helena Strasser, the new COO after the acquisition of Skyforge Aerospace, sat straight, 
hands folded. She glanced at Chih-Wei, hesitated, then said, “Director Lin approved them.” Chih-Wei 
inclined her head once. No explanation offered. Alexander’s mouth tightened. “Why is 
Director Lin intervening in management?”  Chih-Wei met Alexander’s eyes and held them, 
neither of them willing to look away first. Chih-Wei broke the impasse by simply saying, “Get 
your house in order.” Alexander broke his usual casual exterior with a tightening of his mouth. 
Then Sheikh Omar al-Rami, an Omani elder in a crisp white suit, leaned back and chuckled deeply. 
“If it helps, Alex, the house she’s minding, including the vast off-book empire, has already 
felt her sharp claws.” Strasser closed the agenda briskly with reports on Venusian habitats, 
deep space laser infrastructure throughput, and Arnhem Space Centre’s efficiency recommending 
a performance bonus for head administrator Ben   Azamat. Then the next item lit the screen: 
Security Impact—Konstantinos Arvani Incident Dimitra Arvani, the matriarch of the Arvani 
family, leaned forward in her wheelchair,   voice hard. “A member of my family died under 
EIC interrogation. Whatever else he was, Konstantinos died bravely. He could have told 
them what little he knew. He didn’t. Julia, how did he end up in their custody at all? Did you 
allow it?” Dimitra’s accusation launched across the boardroom like a lance. However, Julia van 
der Velde’s reply was infuriatingly dismissive. “Konstantinos was operating outside any 
manifest or docking schedule I control. But   my people are cleaning up your family’s mess.”
Van der Velde Capital was not as wealthy as the Mirov or Arvani families, but her family 
office had influence over critical technologies in everyone’s technology stacks. She was the 
many-eyed spider sitting in the middle of a   vast web and with a single tug could shape 
events from afar. Dimitra’s eyes narrowed. “Clean up my mess? He’s dead and my family’s 
blood is on your hands. Insulating our goals from the EIC was your responsibility. And 
what about the traitor in our midst? An EIC asset named Vellum has signaled Valence Nine.”
Before Julia could answer, Oleh Sidorov’s bass voice cut in. “If we’re worried about EIC focus, 
I suggest a distraction. The kindling is set, and the fire is dry. All we would need to do 
is light the match and violence will ripple   throughout Europe. With Berlin, London and 
Paris burning, they’ll be too busy to track our assets.” Alexander considered in silence 
which meant it was his idea. Chih-Wei focused on Oleh who helped rebuild Europe’s military 
industrial complex as well as covert weapons distribution. Chih-Wei knew what Oleh wanted. 
Alexander thought he understood. He didn’t. Dimitra exhaled sharply, turning her gaze on Oleh. 
“You’d light a city on fire to hide our plot?” Oleh’s eyes narrowed considering Dimitra and 
responded in a tone as cold and dangerous as fractured ice. “I’d light ten. Better than letting 
the entire constellation unravel. Mina’s Star has been detected but the rest stay invisible, 
or ten years of sacrifice are for nothing.” The board contemplated their options, but Julia 
shook her head. “Mass casualty chaos invites American involvement.” Isidora Ibáñez, whose 
privately held empire fed the world’s mineral addiction, let out a derisive laugh. “The 
Americans?” She let the word hang. “Corrupt, venal. They accidentally defaulted due 
to incompetence, lost reserve status,   and now they’d sell their own allies for another 
quarter of GDP growth. They won’t come unless someone pays them. And we’re not paying.”
Omar al-Rami inclined his head slightly.   “She’s not wrong. The Americans will posture, 
perhaps sanction a few of us, but commit? No, they’ve already shown they prefer a 
neutered Europe to a functional one.”  Arun flicked the financial feed to amber. 
“If we’re going to underwrite Oleh’s plan, I can do that. Terms and conditions are already 
established with the Green Company or the Volga   Group. But once the operation’s running, 
don’t ask me to pull the brakes.” Dimitra’s gaze swept the table. “And what do we do about 
Vellum?” The room was silent for a beat except for the sound of the low hum of the privacy field.
Mikhail rose, and it felt as though gravity pulled every eye toward him. “Let’s break for lunch,”
Afterwards, As Chih-Wei stepped out of the secure board meeting, Freja Madsen, Chih-Wei’s 
Director of Strategic Intelligence Integration, handed her a binder with briefing notes for the 
rest of her day. Freja’s surprised blue eyes widened behind her thick black-rimmed glasses 
as Chih-Wei returned the binder. “Clear both   of our calendars,” Chih-Wei said. “Freja, 
have you ever lived in an apartment with a rat that survived every trap?” Freja, more 
accustomed to palatial hunting estates than predator-prey metaphors, blinked, uncertain. “No.”
“There’s always one. Greedy. Careful. A survivor.” Chih-Wei’s voice was flat. “We have one here, and 
we’re going to catch it. First step is figuring out what the rat wants.” Chih-Wei turned to 
Freja and asked, “Is tonight your anniversary with Jasmine?” Freja’s fair skin blushed brightly 
as she shook her head. “It isn’t serious like that. We are just enjoying our time together.” 
Chih-Wei shook her head. “When you are old, regrets trail you everywhere you go and 
having a partner to walk that road keeps   you going. Don’t be foolish and lose Jasmine Eng.”
Mirov Operations Center – Secure Analysis Vault, 6 Days before Tuvalu Day, Two thousand forty four,
“We need to talk.” Chih-Wei read the final line then ripped and discarded the note surreptitiously 
slipped into her pocket. The vault door to the   Mirov Operations Center refused to open 
because the extreme stress spike caused by the note flagged her heart rate as anomalous 
against her baseline. Freja gave Chih-Wei a look of concern when the multilayer vault 
doors hissed open after the system   flag was resolved with a few deep breaths.
The immersion-cooled servers burbled as the dielectric fluid flowed and green and amber lights 
blinked in the darkness. Siyabonga Le Roux, the technical specialist Chih-Wei tasked with the rat 
hunt, didn’t look up. He meditated quietly while a program’s text scrolled on his primary screen.
“Hello, Chih-Wei and Chih-Wei’s friend,” he said   calmly without breaking his meditation. Freja 
Madsen frowned, taken aback. “How did you know it was Chih-Wei without looking?” Siyabonga opened 
his eyes in confusion glancing to Chih-Wei then Freja. “She smells.” Freja stiffened in affront 
and hissed, “Excuse me?” Chih-Wei gently placed her hand on Freja’s stiff arm and smiled warmly. 
“He means my moisturizer.” Siyabonga warily watched Freja with consternation. “Neroli and tea 
tree. Same every day for five years. Memorable in a clean vault with positive pressure and recycled 
air. Scent sticks.” Chih-Wei brushed away a memory of waiting for her father in Daan District, 
the air thick with typhoon rain and the sharp   citrus of oils spilling from a boutique shop.
Siyabonga stood, tall and spare, with high cheekbones and copper-burnished skin. The faint 
edge of Cape Flats in his accent lingered beneath precise enunciation. His black hair was coiled 
in tight locs, each bound in matte fiber sleeves to stay out of his instruments. One of his Mirov 
authenticators, embedded within a bright blue gem hanging from a leather strap around his neck, 
was flipped backward, his sleeves rolled, and his fingernails trimmed to laboratory standard.
“You found the rat?” Chih-Wei asked. “I didn’t. They got sloppy.”, Siyabonga tapped the trace 
on his tablet. “That dip right there isn’t just noise. It’s data loss. We opened the fiber-optic 
span, and it had engineered flaws. Moisture swelled the water-blocking gel just enough to lift 
the jacket and a microheater created a microbend   on command. A contact coupler must have been 
used to grab the data without tripping alarms.” Freja leaned in, brows knitting. “Explain it 
like I’m not certified in quantum telemetry.” As if Freja were a lioness, Siyabonga carefully 
said, “Think of the fiber as a highway. The rat built a spot where the pavement has a 
slight tilt. Most cars stay in the lane,   but a few brush the shoulder. If you pull up 
at that exact spot, you can see what the car is carrying. Last week they grabbed a noticeable 
amount of data as if they no longer cared, and our sensors lit up. Did something happen last week?”
“The beginning of the next phase,” Chih-Wei   said. Siyabonga looked confused at 
Chih-Wei’s response. Freja looked frustrated. “How long have we had a rat?”
Siyabonga tapped through archived telemetry. “Once I knew what to look for, I traced the first 
anomaly back nearly seven years. Same signature.”, Chih-Wei crossed her arms. “Must be the EIC. No 
one else has that kind of patience or motive.” “Built into the supply chain,” Siyabonga said. 
“One of the optical bundles came with the flaw   embedded.” Chih-Wei’s gaze sharpened. “Can we 
narrow the batch?” Siyabonga nodded. “Yes. We’ve started chain-of-custody checks. Only a few 
nodes match the time and location profile.”,   Freja looked between them. “Does that mean 
we can isolate the number of suspects?”, Siyabonga shook his head. “Not yet, but 
now we know what we’re looking for.”,  Tuvalu Embassy, Singapore. 5 
Days before Tuvalu Day. 2044 Asleep in her bunk at the Tuvalu Embassy 
in Singapore, Chih-Wei relived the moment   her life changed. Chih-Wei’s second pitch 
meeting was held in a Zurich conference room with acoustic foam along the walls, flickering 
LED panels overhead, and chairs that were more ergonomic in theory than in practice. Call Father! 
Chih-Wei thought to herself as she groaned, trapped in a dream. She remembered 
the details down to the echo of ‘HVAC’   vents and the way the venture capitalist Elin 
Hammarström turned pages with precision. Elin, a Norse goddess in another life, simply 
said, “The platform is ambitious.”, “Yes,” said the younger Chih-Wei. “We’re 
building the full vertical. Data, models,   compute, attribution, royalties, and IP. But 
the key is monopolizing the value creators, chemists.”, Kazuo Nakamura, large firmly 
built older gentleman, looked over his glasses. “Like AWS for chemistry?”,
Chih-Wei nodded. “If AWS owned the data, trained the models, and paid royalties 
to every contributor whose work powered a   discovery. The key is to reward chemistry teams 
directly that focus on quality over quantity, instead of the shotgun approach of the 
current pharmaceutical industry and   cut out fat from marketing and lawyers.”
Elin challenged. “Shotgun’s unfair. It’s a risk-adjusted funnel.”, Chih-Wei pushed back. 
“It’s a volume-optimized funnel. Inefficient by design, and we’re the correction.”, Elin’s eyes 
narrowed. “And how do you enforce attribution?”, “Each experiment is fingerprinted with 
yield, solvent, pressure, temperature,   chirality, feedstock, and outcome. If a lab 
in Zurich posts a solvent tweak that improves yield in a process created in Lagos, the model 
re-cords the influence. Attribution is automatic. Royalties flow back, weighted by contribution.”, 
David Lai smiled faintly from Boston, his image flickering on-screen. “Spotify for reactions.”
“With better economics,” Chih-Wei said. “Spotify pays pennies. We generate patents. One molecule 
can return billions. Attribution isn’t symbolic, it is the lifeblood of the platform.” Vivian 
Chen leaned in. “Do you have a concrete example?” Chih-Wei slid a page across the table. “We’re 
starting with boronic acid derivatives because   they let us sequence value across three use 
cases. Materials, catalysis, and medicine.” “First,” Chih-Wei said, tapping the left column, 
“we start with glues. Boronic acids form bonds that act like a zipper instead of superglue, 
easy to undo and redo. Heat resets them, acidity changes them, and the chemistry can be 
tuned to the customer’s process. That gives us self-healing adhesives, recyclable plastics, even 
medical coatings that adapt to the body. Low-risk, quick to prove, fast to market. It pays for 
the platform’s bigger ambitions.” As she spoke, she tracked which investor leaned forward 
first. She thought to herself. Glues were the   appetizer. The point was de-risking with 
proof. Once they accepted reversibility as an advantage, the rest would follow.
“Next is catalysis. These are chemicals that improve the efficiency of reactions without 
being used up. One example is the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling, a reaction that uses boron compounds to 
link carbon atoms together like Lego pieces. It is one of the most widely used methods for producing 
specialty compounds such as ingredients for   medicines and advanced materials. Current boron 
reagents are generalists that often break down, especially when scaled to industrial levels. Our 
models predict yields under different conditions such as temperature, pressure, or solvent, and we 
can tailor them to a customer’s process. We have already run simulations showing that customized 
catalysts can reduce industrial costs by   forty percent.” She saw the tension ease. Numbers 
calmed them. Details gave the platform structure, and this structure meant a potential unicorn.
“Finally, we push into medicine. Boronic acids can attach to proteins through bonds that are strong 
yet reversible, which makes them precise tools   for targeting disease. That is how the cancer drug 
bortezomib works, and how tavaborole treats fungal infections. These compounds bind where they are 
supposed to and then break down in predictable ways. Our platform moves from improving glues and 
catalysts to designing medicines. The logic is the same, only the application changes.” She kept her 
tone steady. The science had to sound inevitable. Visionary loses trust, and trust closes funding.
Kazuo blinked. “So glues pay for the catalysts. Catalysts train the models. And 
the models generate the drugs.”  “Exactly,” Chih-Wei said. “The improved 
margin flows to first-to-post labs via attribution cutting out marketing, sales, 
and legal overhead. Consolation prize for   other labs is largely covering their fixed 
costs.” Elin’s fingers rested on the sheet. “And how does this replace marketing?”
“With evidence,” Chih-Wei said. “The   chemistry industrial complex spends billions 
convincing buyers. We replace persuasion with provenance. When a hospital, a plant, or 
a formulation team evaluates a candidate, they see full lineage. Which lab, which data, 
which model. It’s trust without salespeople.” David’s tone was quieter now. “And if it works?” 
Chih-Wei looked at them all. “Then we become the backbone. Like FactSet for reactions. 
Not sovereign, but essential.” She waited. Silence stretched. Then she added, “Royalties are 
contractual. Attribution is auditable. Patents are surgical. We don’t replace the pharma IP 
model, we scaffold it.” It was then she saw them. Mikhail Mirov sat at the far end of the table, 
impossibly young, his expression unreadable, as though he were watching her from across time 
rather than across the pitch. Next to Mikhail was Alexander, a boy of maybe ten, who had followed 
the pitch and had probably already estimated the return. Even then Alexander’s gaze was upon her.
The dream began to split. The older Chih-Wei, still sleeping somewhere tried to shout 
across memory. Chih-Wei still immobilized   in her dream screamed to her past self. Call 
Father. Warn him. Then the phones buzzed. BREAKING: Chinese Amphibious Assault Fails 
following Taiwanese Independence Declaration. Taipei Shelled. Airstrikes Hit Civilian Targets.
A ticker rolled across the screens: “Analysts cite Russia’s unpunished 
nuclear strike on Kyiv as precedent.   China, emboldened by Western inaction, escalates. 
Civilian toll in Kaohsiung expected to rise.” The dream collapsed in static. Chih-Wei woke, 
heart hammering, light from her phone already flickering beside her. Her father’s number and 
voicemails were still saved. In every dream, her father the poet’s face was blurred, 
but his last words are seared in her heart.  We are an island, yet butterflies cross the ocean, 
fragile wings held steady by unseen strength. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but turning 
toward the sun, lotus blossoms rising through   silt, insistent, steady toward the light.
Later that day, Jasmine eng answered a knock on her door in grey sweatpants and a stretched 
University of Sydney shirt, the kind worn thin by a hundred wash cycles and a life too busy to 
notice. Her hair was twisted up with a pencil, and her eyes still carried the blur of sleep.
Outside stood Jun Tan and Kenji Watanabe. Both were familiar, but unusually grim. In a 
sequestered community of three hundred even with routine rotations, anonymity was impossible. 
“Morning uggos,” Jasmine said, voice dry. “Ready to give me your beer money in next week’s game?”
“I’m not here for civilization,” Chih-Wei   replied as she stepped into view. Her tone was 
clipped, not cruel, but dusted with the fine edge of fatigue. Jasmine immediately snapped to 
attention. Jun gave a polite incline of the head. Kenji offered the thinnest of smiles. “Can 
we come in?” Chih-Wei asked as she pressed   in. Jasmine hurriedly stepped aside, 
gesturing them in. “What is this about?” The tidy apartment reflected Jasmine’s mindset 
which was functional and unsentimental. “Casual visit?” Jasmine asked, settling against the 
kitchen counter. Chih-Wei ignored the seat   nearby. “Someone initiated Valence Nine to 
EIC from inside the Embassy.” Jasmine blinked in confusion waiting for an explanation then 
finally said, “I don’t know what that is?”, “We have a rat that asked the EIC for 
exfiltration,” Chih-Wei said evenly. “And that   someone used a contact coupler on the internal 
fiber. The flawed fiber, also from the EIC, had an engineered microbend with just enough tilt in 
the photons to whisper without tripping alarms.” Jasmine crossed her arms and narrowed her 
eyes. “I know you are Freja’s boss, but is   there an accusation in there?” Chih-Wei stared 
in silence and after a hard count of ten asked, “How long have you been working for the EIC? 
How did you signal Valence Nine?” Jasmine’s face began to darken in anger. “Director 
Lin. I work for Mirov Enterprises and despite my marketability, I work solely here.”
Kenji, quiet until now, held up a sealed sample container. “We need the cat’s litter.” Jasmine 
blinked, then gave a loud, barking incredulous laugh. “You’re serious?” Jun sheepishly added, 
“Everyone is treated as a suspect even the cat.”, Jasmine shook her head and walked to the 
composting bin near the wall. She opened it,   extracted a sealed liner, and handed it over. 
“Cleaned an hour ago. Minou’s regular. You’ll find plenty.”, Kenji nodded and bagged and 
sealed it without comment. A blur of gray   fur shot from beneath the bed. Jasmine’s 
cat, Minou, darted between Jun’s boots, skirted the corner post, and vanished through 
the open door into the corridor beyond. Jasmine began to chase, but Chih-Wei’s voice 
was firm. “Don’t.” Jasmine stopped immediately but outrage radiated from her. Kenji whispered 
that he would help her find the cat afterwards. Jasmine looked torn. “She’s not tagged. She 
twice chewed out the chip. She’s a survivor, not a pet. Duct-crawler from Taipei, feral 
for two years before I earned her trust.” “She’ll come back,” Jun offered, not unkindly. 
“No,” Jasmine said. “Not until she decides this space is safe again. That’s not a timeline 
I control.” There was no plea in her tone, only sharp frustration, closely 
held and tightly wrapped.  Chih-Wei watched her carefully. No excess 
emotion. No cover story. Just lived detail and an edge of helplessness rare for someone 
usually so composed. Jasmine took a moment to compose herself. “Director Lin, I have only done 
my job to the best of my ability. If you have no other questions, then I have a long list of tasks 
that I would like to complete before Tuvalu Day.” Chih-Wei paused at the threshold as everyone 
began to file out. Her voice was dry but no longer sharp. “I haven’t slept in forty hours, 
Jasmine. I’m chasing shadows with teeth. If I made a mistake, I’ll own it. If you’re clean, 
stay that way. And this was all me. Freja had nothing to do with this.” Then they were gone.
Afterwards, Chih-Wei received a text confirming   there were no anomalies in Jasmine’s authenticator 
telemetry. She crossed Jasmine off her list, though unease lingered, her instincts rarely 
misfired. She marked Jasmine for secondary review anyway, then turned back to Julia’s message. We 
need to talk about Mikhail’s dead man’s switch. Chih-Wei considered her options then sent 
Freja a text telling her to connect with   Julia’s CFO to compile transaction data 
using bank acquisition diligence data. There was only one person who could untangle 
Mikhail’s dead man’s switch, and Chih-Wei   felt the full weight of her betrayal, not only of 
her mentor, but of herself. She closed her eyes, steadied her breath, and braced for the 
bitter road she had to walk after Tuvalu Day. Chapter 3. Prison, Occupied Estonia. 2027.
After Russian forces invaded the Baltics and sealed the Suwalki Gap, the new authorities taking 
orders from Moscow filled prisons with civilians who would later become forced labor. The pit 
smelled of rust and old blood, but after three years the stench blurred into the background hum 
of survival. Makar Moroz was fifteen when they threw him in. His cheek still carried the ridges 
of the transport van floor, stamped there by hours beneath a guard’s boot. He had come packed 
with abducted civilians who had been teachers, bus drivers, farmers, even a concert pianist. 
None were armed resisters. None had charges. The invaders needed labor, so laborers were found.
On Makar’s first day, Arvo’s broad hand steadied him. “Feet flat and knees tucked. If you fall, 
they kick you until you don’t rise. Better to stay standing even if a little crooked.”, 
Arvo smiled warmly at the last part. Arvo, once just a lead bus mechanic, had become 
the anchor everyone clung to. He never called himself a leader, but when he divided bread, 
people obeyed, even as hunger made them feral. What killed wasn’t the beatings, or the fingers 
snapped for boredom, or even the nights when they came for their vile pleasures. It was when men 
lost hope. Arvo knew that. He assigned tasks, first aid, ration counts, simple inventory, 
not because they mattered, but because purpose itself mattered. Routine was armor. Some people 
gave up which was their choice, but it was not Makar’s. He would survive and right this wrong.
They worked long, grueling hours. Failure to meet quota brought beatings, but if someone was 
defiant the authorities slipped the bag over   the head. A thin plastic bag, a dry whisper 
before panic, three breaths before the fire clawed the chest. Sometimes they pulled it off. 
Sometimes they waited until faces turned blue. Arvo’s rule was simple. Survive. “Do whatever 
they ask. Keep your pride and die, or yield and live. If you live, you bear witness. 
And to bear witness, you must survive.” The guards had no names, only shoes. Chrome 
liked the electrodes, precise in his cruelty. Squeak favored stress positions, laughing 
as men collapsed. Plier-boots broke bones as if counting beads on a rosary. They called the 
prisoners “animals.”, Makar joined the animals by answering with poems murmured into cupped hands, 
with chessboards traced in soot on the floor, with songs hummed so low only those 
pressed shoulder to shoulder could hear. Not every guard was a savage. Some played the 
role under the warden’s eye, but once a guard dropped bandages into the yard, hands shaking, 
his stare wild with shame. Another time a sack of potatoes accidentally rolled too close to 
the fence. Makar never knew whether these were accidents or silent rebellions. What he learned 
was simpler, people everywhere do what they must to survive, but in a world built on cruelty, 
survival can turn anyone into a monster. For Makar, language became revelation. 
His village near Narva had spoken Russian, but the authorities treated his neighbors 
no differently than the civilians of Aleppo   or Gao. His brothers and sisters of the 
pit spoke words from around the world from English, Polish, Estonian to Lithuanian.
“As a child, I used to think Russian was my heritage because I spoke Russian,” he whispered 
once to Arvo, shame squeezing his chest. Arvo’s face was swollen from a beating, but his eyes were 
steady as he put his arm around Makar’s shoulders. “It IS your heritage. They don’t get to 
define who you are. Remember Joseph was sold by his own brothers. Everyone has 
birth families, but true family are the ones who pass you bread and bind your wounds. 
Russian, Latvian, or Finn. You are my family.” When new prisoners came, Arvo pushed something 
into the guard’s hand then pushed Makar forward despite Makar resisting.
“The boy. goes.”  He spoke it with authority. Makar stepped 
into the light, and his stomach clenched as he saw Arvo and his brothers and sisters left 
behind in the pit. Makar fiercely told himself. I am a witness.
Madrid, Spain. 2033. Five years later, Makar stepped off a flight in 
Madrid under a false Belarusian passport. As he approached a black SUV that idled with hazard 
lights, the Spanish sun beat on his bare head. Fighting through the smell of asphalt and ozone 
was the hint of wild thyme and fennel. Inside the SUV sat a big, Yoruba man with the 
frame like a Rugby center. Adewale Ajayi, who taught him how to hot rig a fiber optic 
spool in a forest outside of Vilnius, smiled broadly and clasped Makar’s hand as he entered.
Behind the wheel was a svelte Frenchman named Lucien Vey who looked more like a 
fashionista than a field handler.  “The Russian regime”, “wants the 
Prime Minister”, “dead on camera”, Lucien said as he swerved past a protest. Students 
with cardboard signs, chanted in front of a line of Guardia in riot gear. Shields gleamed in the 
sun. A baton came down harder than it needed to. “They’re paying the Guardia to crack heads, while 
paying protesters to march. While Spain tears itself apart, NATO-E grows weaker. It is the same 
hybrid-war playbook they use around the world.” The safehouse in Lavapiés was as bare as a 
coffin. Plain white walls, a table covered in layered maps, and black cases that snapped 
open to reveal drones. Officially, it was an abandoned industrial site that smelled of dust 
and oil. Makar leaned over looking at the maps, while surreptitiously studying his people.
Tomas and Pilar, Colombian twins he’d fought beside near Turku, watched him with hawk eyes. 
Andriy’s breath reeked, but he could wire a charge blindfolded. Oksana could outlift most men and 
once carried two miles while Makar bled. Serhiy stole food, fuel, radios but in Tijuana, theft 
saved the team. Mart and Katrin wanted only one thing, revenge for the children they’d lost. 
Rasmus snored like a cave-in, but when the fight came, his hands were steady as a surgeon.
They were ordinary once. Now they were part of the Green Company. He tapped the map of Madrid. 
“We all know how the hot phase ended,” he said. He told them what they all already knew, because 
it mattered that the words be spoken aloud. Makar thought to himself. We can’t move 
on. We can’t let go. We must remember. Makar continued speaking. “Russia ran out 
of cash. Their front lines starved. Veterans marched on Moscow. And when the Kremlin was 
cornered, they fired one Topol at Chicago.” He saw their faces harden at the memory of when 
the world shifted. “American air defense failed. In the last minute, the missile self-destructed 
above the Magnificent Mile. Ten thousand dead outright, fifty thousand died slowly from 
radiation sickness. And that generation of Americans? They turned inward and locked the 
doors. Despite the American homeland being assaulted, the isolationists chose the appeasement 
of Blue Judas allowing the Russian regime to close the Suwalki Gap and invade the Baltics disallowing 
the use of American armaments for defense.” Rasmus shed a silent tear but stood stock still.
“The Americans left us to face the horrors alone. The second Cold War started shortly after the 
guns stopped, but this time NATO-E stood alone. Putin never brought his veterans home. They 
were sent abroad, hidden behind the masks of private military companies.”
Makar saw the hardened   bitterness reflected in each face.
. “The Green Company does what governments will not. We stand in the gap between ordinary 
people trying to live their best life and the tyranny of the nuclear powers. America used 
to provide balance but we live in the world we have and not the one we wish we had.”
Serhiy squinted his grey eyes and looked around the room. “We fought Tiraspol as they 
trained the cartels in ambushes that left “ice” agents shredded along the American border.”
Makar shuddered as a memory flashed into his mind. I can still remember the ICE agents’ 
contempt of our drone warfare training but mourned each agent’s funeral seeing their grieving 
spouses and children. They just refused to listen. Tomas with a scar from his collar bone down to 
his right arm nodded at the memory of those dark early days before security measures caught up 
to drones then squeezed his sister tight as her right eye aggressively twitched. She developed 
a nervous tick that flared when the past was discussed. “Pilar and I helped thwart a coup 
in Azerbaijan organized by Amu Darya Security.” Andriy stood proudly. “We fought against 
Condor Internacional’s efforts to create breakaway regions in the Amazon.” Makar smiled 
as he remembered how tribal folks were naturally talented at hunting the military contractors. 
Rasmus breathed heavily and whispered through his cut vocal cords. “We demolished Kshatra 
Solutions in Nagaland where they launched raids on the Myanmar rebels.” Warmth filled the room 
as the team reminisced about the Green Company’s victories against Russia’s influence campaigns. 
Makar felt pride fill him, but he sobered knowing death was like a tiger purring their names.
“NATO-E officially deny support but unofficially they hire us to fight their shadow war. And 
now the war has arrived in Europe starting   with the Volga Group in Spain.” Lucien stepped 
in. “Officially, we are a Swiss private security group here to provide crowd control for the 
Prime Minister’s upcoming speech in the Plaza   de España, but the Prime Minister’s guards are 
sidelining us. But they are not prepared for a fiber optic drone assassination. These are not the 
standard drones NATO-E counters for. These carried spools of hardened fiber, resistant to jamming, 
flying fast and dumb but lethal. The kind of drone that slipped past NATO-E doctrine entirely. The 
EIC contract gets us in the security perimeter, but we do not have Spanish support.” After a 
moment of shocked silence at the brazenness of the operation, Rasmus asked softly barely 
above a whisper. “Why risk a NATO-E response?” “Because the Prime Minister Ismael Cortázar Ruiz 
is loudly anti-Russian,” Lucien said speaking with authority. “He’s been arming insurgent groups in 
the occupied areas through Spanish state supported arms contracts, pushing for stiffer sanctions on 
Russia in Brussels, and calling Moscow out for the surge of violence driven by Russian-affiliated 
PMCs. The wave of Al Qaeda violence that followed the CIA trained mujahedeen pales in comparison 
to the hundreds of thousands of decommissioned, well-trained drone operators making half 
a million Euros per kill mission.” Heads nodded as they all benefited from the demand 
of the specialized drone skill that slipped   through the gaps of most security systems.
“But he’s also throwing migrants into camps and choking autonomy at home. Half the country 
hates him. And the other half depends on him. His death on live television fractures Spain and 
rattles NATO-E.”, Adewale’s expression hardened. “Volga Group’s dream contract.”
Madrid, Spain. Next Day. As the team unpacked the crates in 
the safehouse warehouse, Oksana asked,   “What has the Carpathian dreamed up this time, and 
where is my lovely little man?”, Makar laughed at the latest drama between the broad-shouldered 
Oksana and Takumi, their diminutive, brilliant   engineer. “Fiber optic concussive drones 
dropped from a lighter-than-air platform.”, The room went very quiet because of the most 
recent operation’s disaster. Andriy muttered, “We tried that in Nagaland. The elevation helped, 
but fiber optic drones still cut us apart.”, Pilar’s voice snapped like a whip, the most anyone 
had heard from her in months. “Elevation gave us first eyes, gave us faster kill chains. But 
it was still too slow. Too slow to save her.”, Each word landed louder, raw with anger.
Makar let the moment sit as everyone remembered vivacious Iryna. He raised his 
palms. “This isn’t the same. The Carpathian made the platform’s brain smarter. The platform 
creates a baseline defense grid with radar, LIDAR, and acoustics based on data built up over 
time. Oksana and Andriy will raise it as soon as we can. The longer it sits, the smarter it gets. 
The rest, scatter mics far beyond the perimeter. The acoustic shield buys us seconds to 
know where the assassins are coming from.”  Adewale cracked his knuckles. “And we’re on 
drone duty.” Makar nodded. “Drones split in pairs with one as munition and the other as detonator. 
Thermobaric overpressure means no shrapnel in the dense urban environment. Enough to swat a Russian 
fiber-optic assassin from above out of the sky.” Adewale nodded. “A bigger boom.” No one smiled. 
Too many prototypes had already ended in funerals. On the way to the Plaza de España, Lucien 
called Inspector Jefe Marta Aguilar to coordinate setting up the defensive perimeter. 
The Inspector Aguilar was fiercely critical and challenged Lucien why the intel on the 
third suspected assassination attempt was   any better than the earlier false alarms. The 
team overheard the inspector incredulously ask, “You want me to sign off on an unregistered 
airship in Madrid airspace loaded with bombs?” Eventually Lucien used enough EIC authority to 
get her to sign off, but she ended the call with a final warning that if flack came her way that 
she will move heaven and hell to make Lucien pay. Pre-dawn light silvered the cobblestones of the 
plaza with hot stone radiating even at dawn, the faint kerosene smell drifted in from 
Barajas, and the smell of fresh baked bread   mixed with trash pickup. Trucks backed in 
through service gates with stamped papers, cargo listed as “telecommunications equipment.” 
Reality was rougher: inside were crates of polymer wings and racks of drones.
The Prime Minister’s guards bristled at   the unusual equipment and the team was not on the 
security clearance list. The head of site security argued with Adewale until Inspector Aguilar sent 
in confirmation. Forty minutes wasted. Meanwhile, the most critical piece of their hardware, 
the disguised winch truck, sat fully   exposed on the curb of Calle de La Princesa.
When the Green Company finally set up, they unfurled the lighter-than-air flying wing frame, 
like a giant sideways cigar with a flattened bottom. Its polymer superstructure was rough to 
the touch, like coarse denim, a weave engineered to catch light without reflecting it. Makar 
dragged his gloved hand across the fabric, feeling the slight rasp as if the material itself wanted 
to resist smoothness. One by one, the interior hydrogen balloons filled inside its ribbed 
compartments, swelling pale and taut. Between them, nitrogen hissed in, cushioning every cell in 
a sheath that would quench flame and slow rupture. Leaks were inevitable. A pinhole hissed along 
the trailing edge; Makar pressed his ear close, heard the faint whistle, and signaled for 
patch resin. Another seam tore under tension and Serhiy and Rasmus stitched it shut with 
polymer thread, hands tacky with adhesive. By nine, the structure was swollen into form. The 
gondola truss hung beneath, skeletal and waiting. The gondola carried concussive warheads 
that generated only blast pressure. They were built to knock drones from the air with 
shockwaves that struck from several angles,   keeping collateral damage low in crowded streets. 
Radar and LIDAR pods mounted alongside gave the platform its vision. A tether unspooled from the 
truck as the balloon lifted quietly into the sky. When pedestrians asked about the lighter-than-air 
craft, the crew handed out flyers with Prime Minister Ismael Cortázar Ruiz’s campaign 
slogans and login details for free public Wi-Fi. When the winch engaged, the wing lifted, jittering 
slightly as overpressure vents tested their flow. It climbed until its profile spread against 
the sky, a hazy outline, so diffuse it might have been mistaken for heat shimmer.
After the siesta, the team gathered to prepare for the afternoon rally, when a grainy clip landed 
in their secure channel, a bloodied blindfolded Lucien bound to a chair. A voice speaking 
Russian demanded “Withdraw and walk away.” Adewale folded the ruined cup into 
his palm and kept his face blank.   Makar looked at each of them before he spoke, 
measured and uncompromising. “We cannot divide ourselves. Attempting both a rescue and a 
defense will doom them both. If we pursue Lucien, the prime minister dies. If we stay, Lucien 
suffers, but there is a chance that he survives.” The table was silent. Mart said firmly, 
“He recruited us. He believed in us.”, Katrin, eyes on her husband, answered, 
“He’d tell us to finish the mission.”   Makar thought of Arvo in the pit, pushing 
him forward. He swallowed and said, We hold. Adewale stood. “One thing I’ve learned is never 
leave a man behind. The team doesn’t need two drone operators.”, Makar knew that being short a 
drone operator was cutting the margin razor thin. He also knew Adewale was leaving no matter 
what he decided, so he said, “The Uzbek is in town.” Others offered names of people they 
trusted, and Makar thought maybe it was enough. The plaza was packed, and the Prime 
Minister’s guards blanketed it with   standard security. Buildings were cleared for 
snipers, counter-snipers stood on the roofs along with people holding anti-drone 
jammers and electronic warfare packs,   their gear gleaming under the fading light. Makar 
thought it was useless, and his stomach dropped at how little they understood. The world was not 
ready for a fiber-optic drone assassin, not ready for the first time a Prime Minister or a President 
turned into pink mist live on every screen. Above, the lighter-than-air platform drifted, its sensors 
stitched together a radar and LIDAR map of the surrounding blocks, its audio net sharpened 
by years of social media clips from the plaza, rallies, concerts, tourist chatter, trained 
to sift the ordinary from the anomalous. The Volga Group waited until twilight, 
when specialized mics well beyond the   plaza perimeter caught the sudden crack 
of two Kornet igniter charges. The mics’ time-of-arrival math gave the AI bearings before 
radar even confirmed the launches. Seconds later, the rising whine of the missiles climbing toward 
the lighter-than-air platform reached the plaza,   while two fiber-optic drones raced low for the 
Prime Minister. One came screaming down Calle de Martín de los Heros, the other suddenly 
arched high over the rooftops from Calle   del Río. The Green Company moved before 
anyone else even knew. Standard security protocols weren’t built for this new war. They 
didn’t even realize the threats were inbound. Tomas, Pilar, Andriy, and Oksana set a 
perimeter. Serhiy stepped in as the backup drone operator. Mart took overwatch with his 
rifle. Katrin screamed into the joint security channel to move the prime minister. Rasmus 
ran to the Prime Minister’s guard liaison. But none of the threats were visible so the Prime 
Minister’s guards froze losing critical seconds. The Kornets were launched far from outside the 
plaza, but they were faster, rapidly closing the distance to the platform hundreds of 
meters in the air. The defensive drones   immediately and automatically launched after 
detecting the ignition clicks and drone motors having approximately a two-second lead. Makar 
watched as eight pairs dropped from the gondola and broke wide in formation trailing silvery 
fiber optic cables, two pairs for each target. The AI plotted crude but effective attack 
paths, but successful Kornet interception is around forty percent so Makar immediately put 
the lighter-than-air platform into evasive motion. Each Kornet would be boxed between two cheap drone 
sets. The lead drone sprayed a fuel-rich mist, and the trailing unit carried a detonator charge. 
It was ugly, off-the-shelf tech grafted into a missile shield, but it only had a chance of 
working because of the AI brain trained in   advance on telemetry with “LIDAR” guiding 
the final moments. The first intercept lit clean and worked exactly as designed, the mists 
bloomed into a cloud on each side boxing in the Kornet and detonators flared the mists into a 
pressure wave that caused just enough damage to the fins for the Kornet to fly off course.
The second attempt failed, the first cloud touched off too early by a gust or laser jitter, 
the second set aborted in response. As missiles shrieked overhead, the plaza dissolved into panic. 
A few bystanders froze, phones raised to capture the strange beauty of the deadly duel. As the 
fiber optic drones broke the plaza perimeter, the Prime Minister’s guards uselessly fired their 
jammers into dead air, then panicked and snapped shots at the drones. Prime Minister Ruiz was 
dragged from the podium toward an armored SUV, and raced for the one exit that looked clear.
The vast flying wing jittered into evasive motion at a snail’s pace, its broad frame 
groaning as control surfaces snapped and electric props strained. Makar dumped 
overpressured nitrogen through vents, a puff that jolted the ship sideways just enough. 
The incoming warhead’s blast shoved the platform farther still, turning what should have been 
a direct strike into a grazing burst. Shrapnel ripped through the skin, puncturing a handful of 
hydrogen cells, but the gas bled off harmlessly. The airship sagged and creaked, but the massive 
wing held most of its buoyancy and stayed aloft just long enough to guide the last defensive 
drones towards the racing drone assassins.  As skilled as the Volga Group drone operators 
were, their every movement was anticipated. The lighter-than-air platform’s AI ran every 
step automatically, and with the elevation advantage the Green Company struck first, every 
time. Makar’s defensive drones spread above the fiber optic assassin drones and knocked them down 
with overpressure concussive blasts. But Serhiy, watching the broader angles, spotted the trap. 
“Makar! It’s an ambush!” He pointed to the one exit left open, where a loitering drone could be 
hidden in the curb clutter like a roadside bomb, waiting for the SUV. “Just like 
what we did in Tijuana. Herding sheep to the obvious exit,” Serhiy said gravely.
Makar disengaged two aborted drones’ parachutes and dropped them toward the two most likely ambush 
spots, hoping gravity would crush the hidden assassins before they struck the SUV. But he 
couldn’t rely on hope. Makar said grimly. “Mart, shatter the glass panels in the path of the SUV.” 
Mart hesitated, knowing the risk, then laid flat, steadied his rifle, and exhaled. Glass sprayed 
in front of the Prime Minister’s SUV causing it to slow just enough for the kinetic bombardment 
to work. Secondary detonations confirmed both suspected sites had hidden drones. The team 
cheered, until a sniper, misreading Mart’s fire in the direction of the prime minister’s 
vehicle, put a round through his skull. Miami, United States. 2038.
Even six years later, Makar remembered the way Katrin’s horror twisted into 
a rictus smile at the suddenness of Mart’s loss. The moment never faded. He still felt 
the pain every time he wrote a name in   the company’s ledger. Fiercely, Makar relived 
the memory of opening the worn leather cover and writing. Mart Põld. Saved Spain and NATO-E.
Over time he learned that while there are moments when lives must be risked, that most missions 
are worth failing if it means keeping his people alive. Katrin bore her grief differently. She 
spent the rest of her life tearing open Russia’s breeding camps, their grotesque attempt to stave 
off demographic collapse. The ledger was closed, but its weight carried forward into every room 
he entered, even twelve years later in Miami. Makar steadied his heart, reminding himself of 
the debt he owed to the people he had led. The conference room overlooked Miami’s Biscayne Bay, 
sunlight flashed across the water and scattered through the glass walls. Inside, the air was cool, 
and hummed with the steady whisper of conditioned air. Makar adjusted his tie, the gesture stiff, 
unnatural on him, then began. The screen lit with the schematic of the Green Company’s latest 
generation lighter-than-air platform, its design evolving through twelve years of battle testing.
“The world saw what elevation combined with the speed of AI could achieve in Madrid,” he told 
the semicircle of investors. “Since then, we’ve expanded from persistent defense to search 
and rescue. Once a baseline is created within a region, our platforms detect the faintest signs of 
life, whether in a forest or a collapsed building. With each baseline added, our offerings have 
expanded to early warnings for avalanches, piracy, and forest fires. That growth is reflected 
in our numbers with fifteen percent compounded returns and forty percent profit margins.”
Kazuo Nakamura, a co-founder of Kizuna Capital, cut in. “Forty percent margins aren’t 
defense-contractor economics. What exactly are you selling, Makar?”
Makar smiled broadly. “The airships are the hardware, but the value is in 
the data. Millions of hours of audio, a data moat no competitor can replicate. That’s 
why our services come in at a quality and cost that no one else can touch. Governments, shippers, 
insurers. They’re finding we aren’t optional anymore. We’re becoming infrastructure.”
The door opened. A man entered without introduction and everyone instinctively stood in 
a sign of respect. But Makar stared, his pulse loud in his ears. Shocked recognition broke 
across his face, sharp and unguarded. “Arvo?” He studied the images on the screen, but his eyes 
settled on Makar. His voice was calm, deliberate. “No my friend. My name is Mihkail Mirov.”
Chapter 4. Tuvalu Embassy, Singapore. Tuvalu Day. 2044.
Each team member was disappointed in their own way. They gathered to choose a mask 
among the choices of absurd sequins and feathers against black-tie formality. Pramana Sari had the 
best number and chose a vaguely birdlike mask. She tilted her head toward Camille. “Chicken?” 
Camille Dubois frowned disapprovingly. “It is a phoenix.” Adewale selected a monkey and said to 
Rafal Radecki, “Look! I’m you!” The group roared in laughter with Rafal laughing the hardest 
as the rest of the team chose their masks.  As the team wrapped up dressing, Lucien maintained 
surveillance on the door through which the Tuvaluan delegation would pass through on the 
way to their limousines. Daniel Carter cursed and said, “Boss we have a problem. The kitty cage 
is in your suit.” Lucien tamped down his first gut reaction that this was a betrayal. “Let’s swap 
roles. We anticipated our plans would require adjustments. The delegation is behind schedule.”, 
Camille covered surveillance as Lucien slipped into his gear and Daniel showed him what to do.
As the delay became prolonged, Daniel was the first to speak to keep the team sharp. 
“I’ve always wanted a dog but never   stayed in one place long enough. Now I just 
imagine each team member as …”, Daniel’s eyes lingered on Camille. “Dobermans.”, She 
quirked a smile and threw a pillow at him. Adewale Ajayi, eager to share his 
news, said, “Just before mission dark, my wife texted that we were selected to be on 
the first wave of colonists to Venus .”, Lucien, in shock, blurted. “Going back to your roots as a 
Yoruba farmer?”, Adewale grimaced and backhanded Lucien on the chest with just enough force 
to cause him to exhale. “My family have been chocolatiers for three generations. And each of 
my daughters has been learning the family trade. We are bringing that to the new world.”, His face 
beamed with pride. Lucien gave him a hug and said, “I’m so happy for you and the girls.”, After 
the team all shared their congratulations, everyone sat quietly in expectation for 
the delegation. Camille waited until the doors began to open to say, “Wendt is my father.”
Tuvalu Day was spelled out in a giant spectacle. A dense swarm of tiny drones formed pinpricks 
of light that turn the night sky into Tuvalu rising from the ocean as Helena Strasser opened 
Tuvalu Day. “Ten years ago, the Mirov family invested and designed permanence. The caissons, 
forty feet tall, reclaimed Tuvalu from the sea, “caisson by caisson”, for five years to 
form the foundation of a new Tuvalu.” The drones transformed to show the power 
of Mirov Enterprises to create land from the sea and Helena Strasser stood with a giant 
diamond held above her head. “Each segment was cast in chloride-resistant geopolymer concrete, 
reinforced not with steel but with basalt fiber tendons. The platform was designed to absorb 
the powerful Pacific swells. The platform’s edge was covered in sand to form a beach that 
reminded people of the Tuvalu of their memories.” Applause rippled as the drones echoed Helena’s 
words. Behind her sat Julia van der Velde, the only other publicly known board member outside 
of the Mirovs, accompanied by a poised Asian woman Lucien had never seen before. Lucien allowed 
himself half a moment to reh-min-iss-ens of his time with Julia before catching a Green Company 
operative staring at him. Lucien thought. If they are here, then their drones will be as well.
“In the third year after commissioning, a Tuvaluan couple waded deep from the platform’s 
edge towards the reef seeded to form a wave break and threw into the ocean a stone of green quartz 
from a mountain in Japan, the place where their son had died while dreaming of their future home. 
They remembered their son, but they also honored their people’s recent struggle, and the stories 
of their ancestors. And so, we too remember.” Helena dropped a yellow diamond into a 
water column. Silence held, then celebration erupted. The madness of Tuvalu Day had begun.
The Capella Singapore glimmered from the shoreline like a jewel too bright for its setting. It 
was a spectacle handcrafted for Tuvalu Day, where sovereignty itself was staged for global 
broadcast. From a surveillance blind spot near a marble pillar, Lucien adjusted his snake 
mask, the sequined edge chafing his cheek, an irritation he couldn’t shake. Lucien wondered. 
Was Daniel’s swap a setup? With his one good eye, he tracked a woman in a turtle mask topped 
with a crown, the cat code named Arthur   tucked in her arms as part of the costume.
A sudden shriek cut the air. The crowd gasped as an orange streak shot across the marble. 
Glass shattered. Guests stumbled aside in panic. But Lucien wasn’t surprised. Vellum had 
trained Arthur to follow an irresistible   mix of catnip and vanilla. The cat purred as 
it brushed against his leg. Lucien crouched, slipped the cat into the concealed cage, and 
used a passing guest to merge seamlessly out of the blind spot into the glittering crowd.
Having the cat in place, Lucien paused for a moment to spot the Green Company’s 
lighter-than-air platform. It had active   camouflage, but Lucien knew how to spot the 
telltale edge distortion. When he spotted the lighter-than-air platform, there were too many red 
flags so he waited until the top of the hour. He scratched his nose and nudged his mask left as a 
signal to Adewale’s drone that the exfiltration is off. He waited for Rafal to signal confirmation, 
but when his mask did not vibrate the confirmation signal, he keenly felt the familiar feeling of 
betrayal. He grimly told himself They are coming. Lucien closed the distance with the 
crowned turtle and brushed against Vellum,   a subtle warning. He whispered, “Suwalki,” their 
code to swim for the failsafe. Vellum nodded, and they split apart. Lucien fixed the escape 
route in his mind and drew slow, deliberate breaths. Then he heard a drone release a canister. 
He pressed a cloth to his mouth and nose and held his breath. Makar can be so uncreative, he 
thought, relieved it wasn’t a nerve agent. The first plume hit. His eyes burned and sealed 
shut, tears spilling as fire filled his throat. People dropped choking around him. Using a 
familiar song, Lucien bent low and moved by count and sound, every stride measured toward the 
Singapore Strait. Struggling to hold his breath, he told himself, Almost there. He could hear the 
faint slap of water against wood and followed it, one hand extended until his palm struck the edge 
of the pier. That contact told him his position. Keeping low, he turned along the grain of the 
boards and ran by feel, one hand brushing the edge to stay oriented. By the fourth stanza of his 
rhythm song he knew he was close to the deep end. A bullet struck his back shoulder but glanced off 
his thin body armor. More canisters burst behind him, thickening the air with pepper and sedatives. 
Half blind and gasping, Lucien reached the pier’s end and leapt as bullets tore the surface.
Ever since Madrid, Lucien had planned for layers of betrayal. His failsafe waited offshore, a 
chartered Rohingya crewed fishing vessel based out of Satun, waited in the strait. He had recruited 
and trained Jasmine eng as Vellum when she was still a first-year trainee. After whispering the 
code word to Jasmine, Lucien wasn’t surprised that she survived. What did surprise him was her 
hand pulling him into the boat and her dry smile. “You’ve gotten old.” He let himself smile 
back, rare and fleeting, before embracing her. Jasmine’s face hardened. “Who betrayed 
us?” Lucien, eyes fixed on the islet, quietly but firmly said “An hour gone. The 
cabana will confirm if we have been betrayed.” They watched as security dragged Freja, wearing 
Jasmine’s turtle mask, out of the cabana confused and disheveled. As Freja struggled to free 
herself, a guard struck her hard in the abdomen. Jasmine’s jaw clenched, fury in her eyes, but she 
remained silent. Lucien considered whether her cover had run too deep. Emotion was a liability. 
All staff stood at attention as the Asian woman Lucien had marked earlier strode forward, her 
fury cutting through the gala. She tore into the guard who froze under her authority, then steadied 
Freja with practiced composure. “That’s Chih-Wei, Mikhail’s proxy and her father was the one 
who declared Taiwan independent. They knew about Valence Nine so their EIC mole is 
well placed.” As Jasmine exhaled deeply, Lucien considered who the mole could be.
Jasmine scanned the crowd. “Any signs of my rescue team?” Lucien shook his head. “No signs, 
but we will find the traitor.” He lowered his voice and told Rahman, the Rohingya skipper, 
“Take us north. Baan Tam Malang Tai, Satun.”, Lucien sensed drones observing the boat, but 
he needed definitive proof of who betrayed him. By dawn they were miles beyond Singapore’s 
territorial line, the city’s glow shrinking behind them as the fishing boat’s 
engine droned north. Several days later,  The morning mist hung low over a canal, softening 
the outlines of fishing boats moored along the wooden piers. Their hulls creaked against the 
tide, a slow rhythm in the silence. The air was heavy with the brackish scent of the mangroves, 
salt mingled with the damp sweetness of decaying leaves, a faint tannic sharpness carried up 
from the roots clawing into the mud. Lucien and Jasmine sat on opposite ends of the boat 
warily listening for the telltale sign of a drone. “Who was it?” Jasmine asked, scanning the 
dark. Lucien grimaced. “It had to be Camille, Daniel… or Adewale. We were under comms 
blackout and only those three had the ability to tip off Mirov without a trace.”
As the boat drifted closer, the pier emerged from the haze plank by plank, lantern 
posts standing like sentinels in the pale light. The stillness was so complete 
that even the ripples seemed hushed, the morning unfolding as though the world itself 
had just woken. Out of the mangrove thickets, a brilliant turquoise and white Kingfisher 
landed and looked at Jasmine then cawed. K’ehhk–kehkh–kehkh!
Jasmine Ng leaned against the gunnel of   the fishing boat scratching Minou’s ears. “Doesn’t 
Kalina make more sense? Cat and spy and all that?” Lucien chuckled. That’s what you focus on? Not 
who betrayed the world?” Jasmine Ng stood up and soberly said, “The list of people involved touches 
everyone you and I know, but people just think Mikhail is seeking justice or retribution, but his 
vision is bigger. What I’ve gathered is a list of targets and how many delivery systems there are.” 
Lucien listened patiently. “Schematics?” Jasmine turned and gripped the gunnel so hard that Lucien 
could hear it creak. Jasmine steadied herself and said, “No, but I know how the order will be 
transmitted. It will be from Arnhem Space Centre.” Lucien waited for Jasmine to continue then 
eventually said. “From the Arafura Arcology.” Jasmine stared at the Kingfisher then grimly 
nodded. “Mirov Enterprise’s failed satellite internet startup that triggered the Kessler 
Cascade was just an excuse. As they donated billions to build a post-Kessler space 
infrastructure, they masked the kinetic   bombardment delivery infrastructure within the 
error margin and they are now ready to launch.”, Jasmine laid out the full plan to wipe out 
the world’s strategic nuclear infrastructure   in three waves. Lucien whispered as he processed 
the pattern. “Taiwan. Dollar devaluation. Kessler Cascade. Each was an engineered collapse that 
culminates in a final kinetic bombardment.” Lucien’s hardened self-control slipped as his face 
blanched. After absorbing the magnitude, Lucien laid out the plan. “We will be taking a long 
circuitous route ultimately to Dhaka. If Mirov suspected our current location, we would have been 
greeted with a drone dropped welcoming package. So we will drive up through Thailand, cross 
over to Laos, sneak through Yunnan. Then cut through northern Myanmar into Nagaland and 
follow the Brahmaputra River into Dhaka.” Jasmine, doubt in her eyes, asked, “I get the 
smugglers’ route to your old haunt to Dhaka, your old station, but we have three problems. You 
are persona non-grata in China after the botched NSB joint operation, all paths cross through 
Akhup Zeliang who still hates you, and most importantly where are we going to find food for 
Minou?” Lucien smiled warily as the unusually warm orange tabby purred and rubbed against his calf.
For the next two weeks, they were anyone they needed to be to mask their passage. 
One day Australian beef exporters, Jasmine’s every third word a curse, the next 
day Canadian missionaries handing out Bibles. Their transit papers showed a clean trail, 
entry at Mohan, a stop at Hornbill Valley, and onward to Myanmar. In reality, they walked 
across the Chinese border from Laos and straight into the first police station. Jasmine complained 
in both Cantonese and Mandarin of being robbed, loud enough for everyone to hear, invoking the 
names of mid-tier party members with just enough weight to unsettle, then sliding a discreet gift 
across the desk. Within an hour, the police chief handed them temporary travel documents, 
eager to be rid of troublesome foreigners.  Lucien used bandages to cover his distinctive 
scars, but the gauze itched, rough against the skin above his cheekbone. And sunglasses 
hid the ruined eye. On a crowded Yunnan bus, it was the best cover he could manage, an 
injured foreigner instead of a recognizable man. Jasmine languished in the trapped heat of the 
bus interior with eyes half closed. She was uniquely able to rest but also remain vigilant 
for extended periods of time. “I was seven when you rescued me from Liepāja. My parents had just 
died by a Russian bomb. One moment my family was exploring the beach and the next I was an orphan 
war refugee. Out of all the people on that bloody beach, I’ve always wondered why did you scoop me 
up?” Lucien simply said, “You would have died…” The rest was cut off as the driver hit a rut 
hard enough to throw the chickens under the   seats into a panic. Lucien’s head snapped back 
against the window. The sunglasses lifted, and his bandages shifted to expose his skin for 
an instant. Lucien wondered to himself, was that Intentional? He saw in the rearview mirror, the 
driver’s eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed. Lucien pressed the gauze back 
into place with one gloved hand,   his posture unchanged, And did not look up again. 
He knew the man would make a call as soon as the bus stopped. Beside him, Jasmine adjusted her 
shawl and complained in Mandarin to the old woman across the aisle. Her hand, hidden beneath 
the fold of fabric, tapped once against her knee. A practiced signal asking whether to Kill?
Lucien’s hand closed over hers, stilling it and discreetly shook his head. Her jaw tightened, 
eyes forward. She returned to her chatter, voice steady as if nothing had passed between 
them. With one moment of exposure, the danger was already moving faster than they could.
The bus left them near a trail that wound down toward the border. At night the 
jungle was alive with the scrape of   cicadas and the chatter of monkeys in the 
canopy. They followed a shallow creek, water brushing their boots as the current drew 
them toward Myanmar. Mist clung low and the air was heavy with the scent of wet earth and leaves.
They slipped into practiced routines of drone dodging in the jungle. Jasmine whispered softly, 
“Is it the Yang Emperor?” Lucien grunted in affirmation. “He has reincarnated several times 
over the past three decades, but his power is now swiftly on the rise as people of Yunnan cross the 
border to avoid the crushing tax burden to support the extravagance of Beijing retirees. Adewale 
helped train his drone forces and years later, Daniel warned him of a Beijing assassination.”
A hornbill’s cry echoed, harsh and mournful. Jasmine glanced up, one hand already 
on the leather strap of her slingshot   braced to her arm as they both froze 
under cover. The jungle pressed close, branches like skeletal fingers overhead. Then they 
heard it, the faint whirring hum, too steady to be insect wings. A quadcopter drone moved slowly 
above the canopy, its IR camera searching. Jasmine slid a steel ball into the pouch, 
pulled back smoothly without a sound. The drone above hovered at the end of its 
sweep, holding position just long enough   for its camera gimbal to reset. She and Lucien 
had seen the pattern before, a brief hesitation before it shifted to the next arc.
She waited for the stillness,   then loosed. For a breath the machine 
shuddered in place, then toppled into the canopy. The explosion tore through the night. 
Lucien met Jasmine’s eyes. That drone had not been searching. It had been hunting to kill.
The Irrawaddy spread wide under the moon, a shifting mirror of silver-black water. A 
blindfolded Jasmine and Lucien stumbled from a boat while being pushed and shoved to the 
bank. They waited on their knees with their   hands bound as Akhup Zeliang approached 
wearing a shawl draped in red and black, and a rifle across his shoulder. When the 
men removed their blindfolds, Jasmine said, “Nice to see you, Commander Akhup. We haven’t 
seen you since Kohima.” The broadly muscular man with an unusually bushy beard, carefully 
considered his words. “When you betrayed us?” His fighters ringed him, and behind them 
the elders of the village stood in silence, beads clinking faintly in the night breeze. Lucien 
froze. Once, he and Akhup had stood side by side when an extremist party manipulated Delhi’s Hindi 
First decrees to strip Nagas of citizenship, emboldened by the global indifference to the 
plight of the Rohingya. He remembered the raids, the papers torn, and the families dragged from 
their burning homes. He also remembered the order from Brussels that the European Union would not 
oppose Delhi. Trade mattered more than the border tribes. Jasmine and Lucien were pulled out days 
before the killings. It was a massacre that didn’t even reach the back pages of the New York Times.
“You swore,” Akhup said, his voice low, resonant in the stillness. “You swore when 
they called us migrants on our own land that you would stand with us. Praise Jesus that 
the Kachin Free State adheres to the Charter and opened their borders to us.” Lucien’s lips 
parted, but no words came as pain blossomed at the acrid memory. After the men unbound them, 
Jasmine stood then stepped close to Akhup, her eyes hard as a dangerous tension filled the crowd.
“Don’t put every grave on us. You saw us ignoring Brussels. We prepaid for three years of Green 
Company’s services. We stretched every resource, and Lucien was made a pariah.” Akhup’s jaw 
tightened in stubbornness. “The Green Company stayed, but you left.” Jasmine understanding the 
beats of the reconciliation ritual, took a gamble and lashed out, striking him across the cheek. The 
crack echoed across the water. The crowd murmured, uncertain if they were witnessing justice 
or sacrilege. After forcing Akhup to decide whether to kill them or forgive them, 
Jasmine took slow, deliberate breaths. She knew there was no way back, but Akhup did not 
flinch. “Slowly and deliberately, he struck her, not holding back, bloodying her lip.”
The Nagas stiffened as Jasmine and Akhup stared at each other for a long, taut heartbeat. Then 
Jasmine stepped closer, and Akhup’s hands rose, hesitated, then drew her into a fierce embrace. 
With the reconciliation ritual completed, anger, grief, and recognition tangled in the silence. 
Afterwards, an elder stepped forward holding a Bible, its cover worn with age, to formalize 
the reconciliation. He placed it between them. Jasmine and Akhup set their hands upon it, and 
after a moment of silence, Lucien added his own. The elder said, “This is not for the ashes of the 
past, but for the road ahead. From this night, we are reconciled.” Jasmine, Lucien and Akhup 
affirmed then Akhup stepped back, his face returning to stone. “There is one truth left. 
Why are Mirov hunters chasing you?” Jasmine spoke carefully, “Because we carry truths they fear.”
Akhup’s gaze narrowed. “Their leader once pulled me from death, and I owe him my life. For that 
reason, hear me, I will not raise my rifle against him, but I will also not lie to shield you. 
What comes, comes.” He leaned closer, his voice harshly firm. “Do not mistake this oath for trust.
Words are ash, actions are as firm as the hills, Tonight, we leave to guide you into 
India and set you on the Brahmaputra, but that is my final act. We are even.”
Lucien nodded in assent knowing with certainty who the betrayer was that pursued them. Lucien 
grimly thought to himself. I know who saved his life. Akhup slung his rifle, his shadow stretching 
long in the moonlight. “You will have two days’ lead. After that, if the hunters close, your 
survival is in your own hands.” Above them, the stars glittered cold and sharp.
The stink of old durian clung to their skin, layered with sweat, old fish, and the sour bite 
of stale alcohol. An old Lucien trick. He swore a beggar’s odor was the only disguise that 
never failed. No uniform. No forged papers. No story to remember. Just stench. Enough to erase 
them from sight as people averted their gaze. The city’s pulse pressed in around them. 
Dhaka’s streets steamed with bodies and exhaust, the rickshaw bells chiming above the drone of 
prayer loudspeakers. Jasmine kept her head bowed, her eyes flicking only when she had to. They moved 
like unremarkable ghosts swallowed by the city. The shanty town was worse. Corrugated tin roofs 
leaned against one another like broken teeth, alleys no wider than an arm’s span 
dripping with laundry water. At its center lay a single concrete blockhouse, unpainted 
and plain. Lucien had built it years ago, off-books when he was station chief. Hidden inside 
was a satellite phone with a direct line to Wendt. Waiting for a crowd to blend in with, he took 
Jasmine past the blockhouse door to a sagging hovel next door. Inside, hidden behind a rusted 
panel, was his safeguard, a pinhole lens drilled through to the safe house and sighted on a strip 
of thin plastered wood. Lucien quietly eased the panel free and leaned in. His jaw tightened 
when he saw Adewale sitting in the dim light   with a rifle aimed at the door, waiting.
Lucien exhaled through his nose with his expression hardening. He turned to Jasmine and 
mimed an opening gesture as he drew a hidden handgun. She understood and her lips tightened in 
resolve. When another crowd passed the blockhouse door, she rattled it hard, then leapt aside. 
The shot came instantly. A crack split the air and splinters burst from the wood. Lucien fired 
through the weakened patch without hesitation. The gunfire left the air ringing. Jasmine pushed 
through the shattered doorway, sweeping fast. Adewale was slumped, blood seeping through 
his shirt. She kicked the rifle away as Lucien stepped inside. Adewale managed a 
strained, knowing smile when he saw Lucien. “Lucien,” he rasped, “remember 
this is how I found you in Madrid, bleeding out on the floor.” Lucien looked at the 
man who had once saved him from a cruel fate, but now only saw a stranger. “You knew from the 
start?” Lucien nodded. “It is what I would do. Send someone my target completely trusts. But 
why, Adewale?” Adewale coughed, blood flecking his lips. “Mirov brings justice. To Russia most 
of all, but to all the butchers who killed under the shield of nuclear terror.” He gasped for 
breath. “Why would you stand against that?” Lucien’s voice was quiet, almost weary. “Because 
of the innocent lives that vanish with the guilty. Children, farmers, women just trying to 
feed their families. That isn’t justice. That’s a drone strike on a wedding to kill a 
single terrorist.” Adewale’s chuckle rattled in his chest. “Innocent?” His gaze fixed 
on Lucien. “After everything we’ve seen, how can you still believe in innocence? We’ve 
watched villages burn, heard lies justify the slaughter. We can only go from bad to a little 
better. And Mirov’s way is a little better.” Lucien didn’t flinch. “People 
everywhere are doing the best they   can with the hand they’ve been dealt.
Even the Russians.”, For a moment, silence pressed in. Lucien already knew the 
answer but asked anyway. “If I joined, what happens to Jasmine?” Adewale’s eyes shifted to 
her. She stood in the doorway, shoulders squared, the weight of the moment crushing her. The 
silence stretched, thick and dangerous. His eyes softened, just for a flicker. 
“Lucien… make sure my family makes it to Venus. My girls… they deserve that much.”, 
Lucien considered him, long and grave. Then he nodded once. Adewale’s smile faltered 
into something raw. “The pain is too much. End it.” For a long second, Lucien’s finger 
rested still on the trigger. Then he squeezed. Adewale’s smile slackened as if he were asleep.
Lucien stood in the quiet aftermath, Jasmine’s breath trembling in the doorway. The city 
roared outside, indifferent, as Lucien screamed. Chapter 5. Amman, Jordan, 2045
A memory floated above Amman. Long ago, the plateau was crowned with 
oaks and pistachios, green and abundant, and the people lived in peace. 
When disaster struck faraway lands,   people fled to the western sea, and those 
pressed from the coasts climbed to these hills where they were welcomed. Soon people fled 
from every direction, and all found welcome. But then the rain turned away and terraces 
cracked. The people who once filled the   valleys with music then fought the 
earth for food and forgot to dream. War followed with unending strife. Walls rose 
first from stone then paper, and the shadows of the walls withered hope. But from the city rose 
a woman with a vision of a world without walls, without borders, where knowledge was stronger 
than might. And the people of Amman dreamed again. From her balcony in Jabal al-Lweibdeh, Lina 
Barakat smelled pine and olives in the morning breeze as the limestone hills turned honey 
in the dawn light. Abdali’s towers shimmered in the early haze, bright flashes across 
the pale desert sky. From the minarets, the Fajr adhan rose, carrying through 
the hills just as in the Prophet’s time. Just as in Petra, people from all over the world 
mixed. Cafés hummed with the sound of Lebanese roasting coffee beside Estonian bakers. 
Syrian tailors sold fabric with Colombian apprentices learning stitches. Billboards 
shifted through a dozen languages with   the Charter tenets of Knowledge for Everyone, 
Freedom of Movement and Exile over Execution. Lina and Chih-Wei wrote the charter in 
marker on the back of scrap paper and   taped it to the peeling wall of a rented lab 
above a bakery called Rukkilill owned by a very irate Estonian. Lina still winced 
at the memory of so many stern looks. Chih-Wei frequently read the Charter aloud to keep 
them honest, and it spread like wildfire across walls and screens. Somaliland and the Kachin 
Free State have made it official state policy. A warning buzzed on her phone which said 
Chih-Wei is in Amman. What were the chances that the very day Lina could finally think 
of her old co-founder without bile rising,   Chih-Wei would return? Her hand stiffened 
around the railing at the memory of the choice that had divided them. The choice of 
Mirov, the future they had sworn never to take. Hospitality came before argument. Later that 
evening, Her mother filled the courtyard with musakhan steaming under saffron, tabbouleh bright 
with parsley, and hummus drenched in olive oil. But her mother’s favorite was kaneelirullid with 
cardamom, which she insisted everyone try at least once. “This cinnamon roll is worthy of a Caliph’s 
table!” she exclaimed, eyes bright as if she were serving it in the Citadel Palace. Lina smiled at 
her mother’s devotion to Estonian baked goods and the quiet comfort it brought. Cousins arrived 
with laughter, uncles with worry, aunts with questions. Then Chih-Wei stepped through the gate, 
moving with the same calm grace Lina remembered. For a moment, Lina forgot to breathe. The 
sight of her unearthed something she had   buried too long as she thought to herself. You 
have no right to walk in as if nothing happened. A quieter thought followed, as soft as a 
whisper she thought to herself. And yet I   am glad you did. The two feelings collided, 
leaving her steady only on the surface. She walked forward and opened her arms, her 
voice calm. “Welcome.” As they embraced, Chih-Wei leaned close and whispered. “It is good 
to see you.” Lina held her gaze and offered the kind of smile that belonged to a good host, 
not an old friend. “It has been too long.” To Lina’s family, Chih-Wei was a 
long-lost friend returned. They   knew the story of the acrimonious break, 
but they understood Chih-Wei’s choice as much as they worried about Lina’s idealism. 
They also knew they were better together. Her father was just about to begin his familiar 
lecture about how the Arabic spoken in Jordan   was the purest, the very tongue of the 
Prophet, when the family hurried to set the table. Dishes clinked, hands passed bread 
and olives, the room filling with the warmth of routine. Once plates were full, the talk 
turned, as it always did, to Palestine. “The tunnel is freedom,” said Tariq, her youngest 
cousin, still carrying the uneven stubble of youth. He spoke quickly, eager for her approval. 
“Yesterday I went from Beit Hanoun to Yatta in twenty minutes. Where else can that happen? The 
Charter’s right. Borders are no longer necessary.” Lina set down her spoon, her eyes steady on him. 
“No, Tariq. Borders must be strong. If they shift, every crazy old man with a four-hundred-year-old 
map thinks he has the right to redraw the world. The Charter isn’t about erasing borders. 
It is about making every life sovereign,   each person their own world. The tunnel doesn’t 
erase borders. It makes Palestine whole.” “It works so long as the peacekeepers 
stay,” an uncle muttered. Mariam,   her aunt only a few years older, responded 
fiercely. “This time is different. Europe needs the gas fields near Gaza. The tunnel wasn’t 
built for charity.” The thousand-year-old argument of Europeans meddling in the Middle East 
reared its head, voices rising and clashing as they always had. Then Chih-Wei leaned in 
close to Lina and whispered, as though their twenty-year estrangement had never happened, 
“We need to talk about something urgent.” Later that night, Lina retired to the quiet 
of her tower. “God forbid, ya ukhti. Never!”, Lina’s voice carried across glass and 
marble, sharp enough to cut through   the open expanse of the penthouse. 
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city glittered with a skyline that spoke of 
wealth Amman had never known when she was a girl. The penthouse was perched above it 
all in a tower Lina fully owned,   cooled by hidden ducts and framed with olivewood 
panels. Her five-year-old youngest child, Laith, hummed to himself as he swung a foam sword. 
Laith looked up at his mother’s outburst, then quietly returned swinging his sword, 
but he listened without looking up. Chih-Wei did not flinch. She never 
did. “It’s not what you think.” “It’s exactly what I think,” Lina snapped.   “You want me to bless disequity written into 
flesh. Life extension for the wealthy? That isn’t medicine. It’s iqṭā with sequencers and 
cryochambers. You want to bring back feudalism?” Twenty years ago, Lina would have raged, but now 
she used the same calm, deliberate tone used to build the Charter movement. “It was never 
about Mirov’s money. We needed investors, yes, but the fight was always about control. 
Chemistry was just the first step. We built the platform to drive down the cost of drug 
discovery so medicine would belong to everyone.” “And then you sold it,” Lina said, fury rising. 
“You betrayed the Charter when you handed Mirov the controlling interest. You didn’t just 
sell shares. You sold the vision. Your vision! “I did what I had to,” Chih-Wei said firmly. “And now you come here, into my home, and ask 
for my help?” Lina’s laugh was incredulous. “Help you give Mikhail Mirov another thirty 
years to accumulate power? Don’t insult me. You think this is about one person? It’s never 
about one person. If the wealthy never die, if they never hand their control to another 
generation, you lock disequity into the   marrow of the world. Worse than the International 
Monetary Fund or the World Bank forcing nations to borrow in dollars or euros. At least debt 
ends when it’s paid. Immortality never ends.” From the corner, Laith swung his 
foam sword at the umbrella stand,   and he squealed with laughter as it fell with a 
clatter, but also listened to every word of their conversation. Chih-Wei’s gaze dropped and as she 
spoke her voice trembled. “This isn’t about the wealthy. It is about how extending just his 
life could save billions.”, Lina froze. In all the years she had known Chih-Wei, through 
brilliance, arrogance, and betrayal, Lina had never once heard Chih-Wei tell an outright lie. 
Disingenuous, yes. Calculating, always. But never a lie. She knew then for certain that Chih-Wei 
was desperate for her help to avoid a catastrophe. Her mind steadied, testing the claim against what 
she already feared. “This has to do with Mina’s Star, doesn’t it?” Chih-Wei said nothing. The 
silence was louder than denial. Lina sat rigid, anger cooling into cold precision seeing 
an opportunity in Chih-Wei’s fear. Finally,   she said, “I will help, but 
we will need more people.” The next day, Jonas Kincaid, wearing a 
tweed blazer, was the first to join the   call. Years in the sun had etched lines across 
his face and left gray at the edges of dark, unkept hair. His eyes were the color of steel 
and carried the weight of calculation. “Good to see you, Lina.” Even after all these years, 
his smile still made Lina’s stomach flutter. Vikram Raghavan was next. Dark hair, kept short, 
framed a face marked more by discipline than age. His eyes were steady, black in most light, and 
unreadable when he chose them to be. A thin silver cross rested at his collar, worn smooth with 
time. He must be annoyed not to be first Lina thought. Vikram spoke with a firm but hurried 
tone that tended to blur his words, “What was Chih-Wei doing in Amman?” Lina shook her head. “We 
have to hear about what happened on Tuvalu Day.” As Lina finished, the last caller joined. 
Her face was round, the cheeks full but drawn by discipline into stillness. Her skin 
was pale brown, marked by faint lines that deepened when she frowned, which was often. 
Dark eyes sat steady behind rimless glasses, the gaze cool and assessing. Her mouth was firm, 
pressed into a line that gave nothing away. Pramana Sari’s cropped black hair was 
streaked with gray, but disguised with a   youthful crimson and orange. Lina asked, 
“Pramana, what happened in Singapore?”, Pramana nodded. “Lina, thank you for the 
rescue operation. My cover at EIC has not been compromised, but it was a near thing. After 
the comms for the Vellum exfiltration went dead, I eventually returned to the safe house to 
find Rafal strangled with no sign of Adewale   or the others. I fled to the cargo container 
until it was eventually unloaded in Osaka.”, Lina felt deeply disturbed at both the 
events of Tuvalu Day and her reliance   on the extremist factions of the Charter 
movement. Lina thought to herself. What do we really know about her? Is Pramana Sari even 
her real name? Sometimes she is known as Sari Pramana. Lina sighed to herself and she told 
herself she cannot be picky with her allies. Jonas leaned toward Pramana as if 
the virtual walls could be crossed,   but only said, “Lucien Vey was picked up in 
Dhaka with the Vellum intel and is currently under EIC interrogation. Jasmine Ng has become 
a ghost again. The intel confirms that Mikhail and his abhorrent son have a constellation 
of stealth satellites hidden around 0.4 AU.” Vikram cut in. “But which faction has control? The 
balance faction that wants to wipe out all nukes, the dominance faction that wants 
to replace the nukes with kinetic   bombardment that only they control, or the 
status quo faction that wants to brick all the kinetic rods? But going to the point 
of this meeting. What does Chih-Wei want?” Lina considered her dearest friend who came 
to her in a moment of desperate vulnerability.   Lina thought to herself. This is greater than us. 
“Chih-Wei wants to make Mikhail Mirov immortal…” A week later, Chih-Wei Lin 
was the headline guest for   the monthly Charter Forum. Leading up 
to the forum was intentionally leaked news that Mirov Enterprises intended to 
make a major announcement at the forum. Lina spotted each of her collaborators one 
by one, Jonas’s unmistakable tweed jacket, Vikram’s silver cross glinting at his collar, 
and Pramana’s crimson-orange streak. They’d all agreed on the call to meet here so 
each could evaluate Chih-Wei directly.   It was not a light decision to risk one’s life. The auditorium smelled of cedar and 
strong coffee. Translators whispered   in glass booths above the crowd. Lina 
Barakat sat at the moderator’s table, her indigo jacket plain but her cuffs edged in 
gold thread. Across from her sat Chih-Wei, hair pinned back, jade at her throat. The 
room stilled as she folded her hands. A man in glasses wearing a tweed blazer rose from 
the audience. His beard was flecked with grey, his English accented with Swiss, low and measured. 
“Director Lin, the KFE coin promises Knowledge for Everyone. Mirov Enterprises seeks profit 
and control. Are they not antithetical?” “They are complementary,” Chih-Wei said firmly. 
“Since the KFE white paper was published, it achieved what Western aid abjectly failed to 
do, organic economic growth in the developing world. Without debt traps, villages anywhere 
in the world bootstrapped their economies. And that is when Mirov enters. One without 
the other starves. Together, we accelerate.” A woman stood next. Her black denim was patched, 
a crimson and orange streak cutting through her cropped hair. Her voice rang sharp. “Borders 
are cages. I agree with the Charter to tear them all down. Let populations move 
and watch the old order collapse.” Chih-Wei inclined her head. “You are right about 
the collapse. Weak states that trap people are pressure cookers. When movement is free, that 
leverage breaks. But where you see an ending, I see a beginning. True, there is short-term 
disruption, but then it creates stability as people choose their community. 
That stability creates opportunity.” A third stood, straight-backed in a tailored 
suit with a silver cross on his collar, his words clipped. “If Mirov cares so much 
about stability, doesn’t the Charter cut   against it? Especially Exile over Execution. 
China’s system is proof that stability in both politics and economics is achievable. 
Exile just sends trouble across a border.” Chih-Wei’s gaze did not waver. “I agree that 
not every stable community must be democratic. The people of some states emphasize 
stability and prosperity. However,   people who reject the arrangement can 
leave. Regimes that maintain strong social controls breed martyrs, fill prisons, 
and ultimately, destabilize their neighbors. An alternative that works just as well is 
exile without the regional instability, but people need a safe destination. Which is why 
the board has approved that all Mirov arcologies will join the Charter. Venus and Mercury will join 
as well. In the past twenty years, the Charter has proven it works to reduce violence, and to 
gain the stars, we need a system that works.” Lina leaned forward, holding a card. “The 
Charter began on scrap paper as your vision,   but you’ve never signed. Will you 
now?”, After a momentary hesitation, Chih-Wei signed with a flourish as the 
audience cheered and cameras flashed. After the forum, the train to 
Beit Hanoun glided quietly, its motion more felt than heard. Chih-Wei and 
Lina had the carriage to themselves. After Mirov security finished their screening, 
the guards withdrew without a word. To   most observers the tunnel looked ordinary, 
but Lina saw the pattern behind the walls, the sensors and redundancy and constant 
watchfulness, and the old indignation rose again. Mirov Enterprises had funded the tunnel, yet she 
still tasted the bitterness of the compromise that made it possible. Alexander had forced her 
hand and told her to sign or let the project die. At the center of the design were 
peacekeepers, layers of surveillance,   and overengineered ventilation shafts built on the 
belief that Palestinians were violent by nature. Chih-Wei sat across from her with hands folded, 
her eyes steady waiting for Lina to look away. “I am glad you signed your own charter,” Lina said. 
Chih-Wei shook her head. “Ideas don’t matter. You made it real. And the chemistry platform was never 
the goal. It was intended to fund the coin which in turn funded the safe space for refugees.” 
Lina thumped the table and stood up. “But we were supposed to do it together!” Lina hissed 
the words venting twenty years of frustration. “We did do it together. Your share of the platform 
sale was substantial,” Chih-Wei continued. “But you still needed more to launch KFE. Did you 
ever wonder who Arcadia really was?” The name hung in the air. Lina turned away silently 
to observe the peacekeeper observatories.   She let the moment stretch. “I knew, 
but it has been a lonely journey.” Her thoughts turned toward other work Chih-Wei 
had done, less visible yet more unsettling. For every prestige Charter project Chih-Wei 
steered Mirov’s resources towards, there   were three projects that entrenched disequity. 
First it was flawless genetically matched blood for the wealthy and mass-produced but prone to 
rejection synthetic blood for everyone else. Now it is life extension for the wealthy and serfdom 
for everyone else forever. Once made, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle, but she was 
sure Chih-Wei sincerely needed this because she was just too desperate. Lina asked herself, 
but how exactly will the billions be saved?, After finally making a decision, Lina said, 
“I will prioritize life extension at the next management meeting.” Her voice was 
even, but dread filled her heart., The Charter’s management meeting was completely 
silent. No voices, no faces, only text spilling across the screen and dissolving as quickly as 
it appeared. While anyone could follow Charter   principles, joining the economic ecosystem 
at a state level required authorization, and voting power was measured in stake alone. 
Lina held just under half, the founder’s weight, yet she rarely cast it outright. Instead, she 
portioned out influence through temporary proxies. Lina thought to herself, KFE was 
nearly mature. Soon she could divest, and finally step away. She exhaled, 
the burden pressing against her ribs. The first agenda item was an Osaka 
consortium. Investors had secured a   hundred-year special economic zone lease 
from Japan, and now sought Charter entry to make the arcology bankable. Lina scanned 
their projections, her pulse barely stirring. Once she might have railed against such 
speculators; now she felt only a dull,   practiced indifference. Liquidity had its 
uses, Lina thought. She asked about the Japanese fee structure, found the answer 
unsatisfying, and quietly moved for delay. Then the next request scrolled across her 
screen, and she sat straighter. Somaliland. For a moment Lina was back in the early Charter 
days, the warmth of late-night sessions with   their delegation, the improbable optimism of those 
first commitments. Nearly a decade later they had completed every reform, their economy quickening 
as the first million Charter signatories built new markets in Hargeisa and lit the port at 
Berbera with new trade. Approval was no longer a debate but ceremony. As the vote confirmed, 
the blockchain expanded and diluted stakes, granting Somaliland’s citizens a collective 
five percent. Lina watched her own share shrink, a fraction at a time, and felt lighter as if the 
Charter, at last, could carry itself without her. The final stake adjustment item was a 
consensus vote on a list of disavowals,   factions whose campaigns had 
strayed too far from protest into confrontation. Force has its uses 
but needs to be balanced, Lina thought. The debate on Mirov began in waves, rounds of 
bargaining that echoed the conclaves of old cardinals. An influential cooperative of teachers, 
The Commons of Knowledge, spoke firmly against, an investor bloc pressed for the Charter as the 
foundation for inner system colonization, but most signatories abstained. Text flared on Lina’s 
private channel marked in Pramana’s crimson. Pramana wrote. Activist groups are largely 
opposed but acrimoniously split, and I split them further by triggering old grievances. 
They will not stand as one against Mirov. A stylized Vikram avatar appeared 
and gave her a wink. Vikram wrote,   Skycrest Equity’s pitch deck supporting Mirov 
is gaining support. Skycrest publicly offered low-cost capital to sway stakeholders. 
Militias in the Kachin hills spat refusal, but the next round Mirov’s support increased. In the next round, Mirov’s support expanded so 
the momentum to acceptance was clear. Jonas’s message blinked once before vanishing. Jonas 
wrote, The investor group began to fracture, but I feigned panic which led the group to 
go conservative. It took two more rounds but support for Mirov succeeded and the 
Nunavut arcology was the first to apply. The Commons appended a dissenting opinion, listing 
Mirov’s sordid history and warning of the danger in inviting the fox into the henhouse. They are 
not wrong. Lina thought to herself and shuddered, remembering the years she worked under Alexander 
and imagining how much more damage he is going to   do once his stake was publicly acknowledged. Lina 
thought to herself, I will have to win this time. Lina was certain about Chih-Wei’s fear 
that Mikhail Mirov unless stopped will   cause billions of deaths, but she struggled 
with whether there was an alternative to life extension. The final item was hers alone. Time to 
cast the die, Lina thought. She moved it forward, research to force higher throughput 
in clearing plaques during deep sleep,   a dialysis-type machine to circulate blood 
beyond natural limits and carry drugs through the blood–brain barrier. The corporates welcomed 
it for profit, activists yielded, and Somaliland asked for trials in their hospitals. The 
measure passed before resistance could form. The screen dissolved to black. Lina sat 
quietly in her doubt. Now the world waited for Chih-Wei to execute her part of the 
plan. Yet in the silence that lingered,   she felt her stomach churn, knowing it 
would also give one man the means to live forever. Lina’s final thought 
was, Have I strayed too far? Chapter 6. Blue Judas. Baltic Sea. 2029 USS Anchorage Bay had never been a normal ship. 
On paper she was an amphibious assault vessel, but in truth she was the Navy’s first 
drone mothership, a prototype built to   test what the future looked like. 
Her decks held no strike fighters, only racks of autonomous craft and an experimental 
telemetry array meant to endure for months, its signals stitched together through 
a high-altitude tethered platform   that drew the scattered battlespace into one 
coherent field. Because she was experimental, everyone wanted eyes on her. Pro-drone advocates 
hungered for proof and skeptics hunted for flaws. Across NATO, engineers tracked her telemetry 
in real time. Anchorage Bay was meant to be transparent. Instead, she became a witness to 
the defining military event of her generation. Kathryn Chambers, the youngest commander of her 
cohort, woke to klaxons and the urgent call of “Captain to the bridge. All stations, Condition 
One.” Condition One meant full battle stations. Ever since Chicago was nearly nuked, Navy policy 
held that Condition One meant always being armed. Kathryn thought to herself, America’s strength has 
always been our alliances, not armed isolation. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The 
corridor air was dry and cold against her   bare feet as she pulled on a jacket and 
holstered her father’s Sig Sauer P226. She smiled wistfully as the slick metal 
carried her back to Corpus Christi,   to her father’s hands teaching her how to seal 
the pistol against salt and tape the muzzle the summer she turned twelve. Kathryn heard her 
father’s voice say slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Red floodlights pulsed as she stepped onto 
the bridge. “Status?” Lieutenant Commander   Rafael Mendoza, silver at the temples, was as 
steady as the Black Hills that had raised him. Kathryn smiled at the memory of how they butt 
heads because of his resentment of being passed   over for a green Commander, but over time, she 
earned his respect. He looked up from the plot. “Our tethered lighter-than-air platform is five 
kilometers above us peering over the horizon, watching the Russians mass in the Baltic. 
Washington still calls it a false alarm, but last night every Eastern Sentinel F-35 
tripped a cloud-based logistics software bug. Until Lockheed clears it, the jets are stuck 
basically in training mode like flying bricks.” Kathryn felt a sharp, icy spike and 
thought Can’t be a coincidence. The same anxious undercurrent ran through 
the bridge. In her mind she heard her   father’s voice, the old frogman, steady 
and insistent. Don’t lose the initiative, Kathryn. She steadied herself and 
cut the current with crisp orders. “Communications, report the moment the Lockheed 
geniuses fix their glitch. Helm, bring us three miles closer to shore and slow to half. Tactical, 
ready the Valkyries. Thermobaric drones only if Russian swarms cross the red line. Engineering, 
confirm telemetry is steady and report back.” She turned last to the Marines at their post. 
“Cupcakes.” They bristled at the nickname, annoyance flashing, but 
still snapped to attention.   “Keep us safe, and if any Russians come 
through that hatch, stop them cold.” A chorus of Aye, aye, Captain 
snapped back, crisp and unified. The gentle ribbing bled the edge from 
the room until Kathryn heard the drone team saying, “Contact. Glide bombs inbound!” When the Russians surged into the Suwalki Gap, it began with glide bombs hurled safely hidden 
behind the horizon. Forty thousand NATO troops, Americans among them, were being chewed 
to pieces. Over the tactical net Kathryn   heard the ground units begging for air 
cover, their voices ragged and breaking in static against the steady hum of consoles 
and the pulse of red lights on her bridge. Kathryn heard people screaming and pleading. 
“People are dying! Where’s the air screen!?”, Kathryn leaned forward and said sharply. “Signal 
Sixth Fleet. Request current tasking authority and release on air defense and strike.”, The 
comms officer snapped back aye, aye, Captain Mendoza stood at her shoulder, jaw locked, eyes 
fixed on the tactical display. Kathryn thought to herself, His son is down there. He looked carved 
in stone, but she caught the white of his knuckles on the console rail. When he finally spoke, his 
voice was low, detached, and edged with iron. “We’re watching them die without 
cover. And all we can do is sit here.”, Greepens and Typhoons scrambled, but most of the 
Eastern Sentinel’s fighters were F-35s. Russian S-400 batteries in Kaliningrad, deep inside 
Europe’s security perimeter like a cancer, lit up any AWACS forcing the big birds to turn 
back. The infamous Ghost Squadron waited on Polish runways, hot and ready. But every cockpit 
showed the same cold message. Authentication Fail. The bug had caged NATO’s primary defensive screen,   its air power. Kathryn’s jaw clenched knowing 
the jets were shackled, controls sluggish and weapons dead. This wasn’t an accident. It 
stank of a political appointee’s hand. She remembered the Lockheed rep’s promise 
of full sovereignty transfer. A lie. No partner had ever been granted a code audit of 
Odin’s core, the F-35’s cloud-based sustainment and mission software. Any anomaly in the 
system forced the jets into lockout. The sovereignty transfer was only on paper. Everyone 
knew the plumbing still ran through Washington. The tactical officer called out. 
“Captain! Captain! British pilots   are on the move. They forced overrides, 
lit burners, and launched anyway.”, Their jets screamed into the night, but 
with performance capped and weapons locked,   they were flying fast targets. “Commander Evelyn 
Carter reporting. Take off the training wheels and unlock the damn targeting software!”, 
Her voice tight but firm. An Anchorage Bay observer rebroadcast the transmission to a 
NATO-wide channel. “We are flying blind.”, On Anchorage Bay’s bridge, a runner brought 
a sealed order printed with the header that   said For Captain’s Eyes Only. Mendoza 
intercepted it and laid it face-down. Kathryn had seen it but appreciated the plausible 
deniability that the order was not received. They didn’t need to read it to know 
the order was to kill the broadcast. Every headquarters on the continent and the 
Pentagon heard Carter and Ghost Squadron. Someone on the channel demanded at least enable 
stealth, but the Pentagon was silent. In the silence, a junior officer muttered, “Fucking DC 
politicians.”, Carter cut in with an edge hard on her voice. “For whoever bricked our birds, 
we’ve all read the same intelligence reports. You know what the Russians intend to do to the 
people down there. Americans are down there too.” Carter’s words hit Kathryn hard. Everyone on the 
bridge knew someone down on the ground. Ghost Squadron rapidly approached the Suwalki Gap daring 
the Pentagon to let them die. Kathryn thought to herself. Come on! You’ve made your point. Now turn 
around and let the mechanics jury-rig overrides. “Fine. Fuck America. Our blood is on your hands.” 
The words cut through the air. Kathryn burned in shame and resentment that America was not 
the same as her grandparents’ generation. Another sealed order arrived. Mendoza stepped 
forward to intercept again, but Kathryn lifted her hand. “I’ll take it.”, As she read the orders 
to go dark and withdraw. she felt him still at her shoulder, radiating tension. Kathryn thought to 
herself. He’s breaking. His eyes flicked toward the drone team, and she saw his jaw tighten, 
the muscles in his neck drawn taut. Then the words burst out, ragged with emotion. “Launch 
the Valkyries. Target their swarms. Fire now.”, The tactical crew froze, hands 
hovering over emergency keys,   every gaze sliding to their 
captain. Kathryn lowered the paper, her voice like ice. “Belay that. The 
order is to go dark and withdraw.”, For one crazed heartbeat, Mendoza’s hand twitched 
toward his sidearm. Marines readied their rifles, the Master-at-Arms poised to draw. Kathryn 
stepped in, unflinching, eyes locked on his. Don’t do it The air grew heavy. No one moved, as if the 
ship itself held its breath. Mendoza shook, then let his arms fall. The Master-at-Arms 
stepped in and took his sidearm. Kathryn nodded once. “Master-at-Arms, 
confine him to his quarters.”,   As he was led away, Mendoza 
walked as if he were a shell. Glide bombs came in low and fast, hidden behind 
the horizon until the last seconds, a dense wave that struck exposed NATO positions within 
thirty seconds of detection. Ground radars could barely see them, but Anchorage Bay’s tethered 
platform tracked every bomb. However, Washington had neutered the ship’s alerts. The tactical nets 
thinned into static as people began to understand they were on their own. “Captain Chambers, General 
David Merrick is on the line,” the comms officer said. Kathryn put him through. “Kathryn, I’m 
asking you to launch the Valkyries as a precauti—” Kathryn looked at the comms officer for 
confirmation as his voice cracked as he   stared at the feed. “NATO headquarters 
in Vilnius… it’s gone. A direct strike by a glide bomb.”, Taking a moment to 
compose himself the comms officer said,   “Commander Mendoza’s son was posted there.”, She 
remembered the day Mendoza’s son graduated. The sun was harsh on her dress uniform, but 
Mendoza didn’t notice, his face bright   with pride as he listened to his son speaking 
of honor as the valedictorian of his class. Despite her nausea, her crew 
only saw her coolly say,   I know., The two words cut sharper than any order. The bridge fell silent except for the hum of 
cooling fans. Someone swore under their breath, another made the sign of the cross, and the hum 
of the consoles suddenly felt deafening. So, Kathryn issued orders aware of the empty 
space where her executive officer should   have been. The shocked bridge staff steadied 
into routine under her sheer force of will, but beneath that calm, she trembled with fury 
at the betrayal. Kathryn bitterly thought. Same old politics of keeping back essential 
aid from allies to force compliance.   The same thing we did to the Ukrainians 
or the Kurds or the South Vietnamese. She decided she couldn’t change the 
world, but she could save who she could. “Gunny Ramirez.”, Kathryn fixed the 
senior Marine with her gaze. “Aye, aye, Ma’am.”, His reply was crisp, 
no hesitation. “Before we withdraw, engineering needs a full emergency inspection. 
While they’re inside the well deck, your Marines will practice beach insertions. Treat it as live. 
Supplies off, civilians on. You have six hours.” Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, two thousand forty five Fifteen years later, the echoes of Blue Judas 
still haunted every posting she took. Trust was gone, but the allied framework endured, and 
Kathryn fought each day to hold it together. Her pre-dawn run traced the curve of 
the harbor, the air heavy with salt   and jet fuel. The water was calm, its surface 
unbroken but for the slow rise of patrol wakes. She timed her breathing to the rhythm of 
the lights along the quay, each lap a quiet   rehearsal of discipline and memory. Back in 
her quarters she straightened her jacket, a quiet pride stirring at the three stars on her 
collar. Kathryn mused. I wish my father saw this. Composed again, she walked into the morning 
briefing. Everyone stood as she entered,   but Kathryn lifted a hand. “At ease.”, 
She crossed to her place at the table and sat as the Deputy Commander of 
Indo-Pacific Command while her boss,   Admiral Han, was meeting with 
the CIA to discuss Mina’s Star. His chief of staff, Kaia Torres, 
led the briefing. A tall,   broad-shouldered woman with close-cropped 
gray hair, she always carried herself with quiet practical authority. Each service 
branch efficiently provided updates, and after Pacific Fleet’s update, Kathryn asked, 
“Admiral Ellison. How is the high-altitude mesh network holding up? Are we ready for another 
Kessler Cascade?”, The Pacific Fleet’s Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Marcus Ellison was a 
lean, sharp-eyed officer with a runner’s build, close-cropped blond hair with a perpetual 
squint as if measuring every detail in the room. “Yes ma’am. The high-altitude platforms 
are solid, no breaks in drone telemetry. Undersea and surface drones give us better 
fidelity than satellites. If the eyes in the   sky go blind again, we’re ready.”, Kathryn 
nodded. “And does it keep cargo moving?”, Marcus shook his head. “Outside my lane, 
ma’am.”, Commodore Jeremiah Hiyashi, a short, plump man in his late fifties, spoke up. “As a 
last-resort backbone, we’ve worked with the cargo carriers and insurers to keep freight flowing 
leaving high-frequency clear for fleet use.”, Kathryn felt satisfied at the 
Indo-Pacific Command’s performance. After the briefing room cleared, Pacific 
Fleet Admiral Jonathan Reeves entered, tall and heavy-set with the weight of his 
authority filling the space. He drew Kathryn   aside. “The Secretary of Defense wants us 
in Tokyo for an allied briefing. It’s about security concerns over Mina’s Star. Wheels 
up in one hour.”, Kathryn mentally steadied herself as the world tilted beneath her again, 
just as it had on the morning of Blue Judas. Tokyo, Japan Two thousand forty five The rain hammered against the windows of Yokota 
Air Base in western Tokyo. Admiral Richard Han, Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, flickered 
onto the secure feed from Washington. Rain streaked the glass behind the admiral’s image, 
but his tone was polished, every word deliberate. “We’ll begin with Mirov Enterprises,”, Han 
said. “Our assessment is that Alexander has, in practice, gained effective 
control of the company and,   through it, the KFE ecosystem, what’s 
branded as the Charter movement. That assessment leans on financial traces 
routed through Mikhail’s Chief of Staff,   which also provided the seed funding for Lina 
Barrakat, a former Mirov Enterprise executive.”, He paused, eyes steady on the camera. “After 
the arcology merger and through affiliates, Mirov-linked entities now hold perhaps a quarter 
of the KFE stake. Lina has historically refrained from exercising her founder’s share, which 
leaves Mirov carrying nearly all decisions. Effective control was previously masked. 
The question is why make it public now?”, Brigadier General Elaine Marks, Defense Attaché, 
U.S. Embassy Tokyo, turned a page and snorted. “Freedom of movement. Knowledge for everyone. 
Exile over execution.”, Her cropped steel-gray hair barely shifted as she shook her head. “Those 
slogans bought Mirov influence where wealth closed doors. They dressed it as a human-rights 
movement, but in practice it bound populations to his system. ‘Every life sovereign’ only 
so long as you stayed inside the cage.”, Admiral Han signaled to Colonel Samuel Ortega, 
the Pearl Harbor DIA liaison. “Red Team?”, Ortega carried himself with the restless 
focus of a man who had spent years in the   field before trading mud for briefing rooms. 
Lean and sharp-eyed, he spoke in a clipped tone. “Three board members are public, but 
indications point to seven to ten in total. Dimitra Arvani is suspected among them. The Mirov 
family may have immense wealth and influence, but they are first among equals. 
It is not absolute, and at times,   their reign is contested. Board dissension may 
moderate Mirov Enterprise’s influence over KFE.” Urbane and calm, Lisa Harrington, CIA Chief 
of Station Tokyo, nodded at the Red Team counterpoint. “We are certain of what Mirov 
Enterprises and the Charter have done. What   we do not yet understand is why. To endure, we 
must strengthen our alliances.”, Politically well connected, she spoke with the certainty of knowing 
her words would reach the President unfiltered. “Mirov arcologies and Charter member 
states do not just cover half the globe   with nearly a billion people moving freely 
within their network. Unlike China’s rise, this bloc is built on choke points such as the 
Northwest Passage, both gates of the Panama Canal, Somaliland at the Red Sea, and the 
infrastructure of space. It is a   movement with no natural boundary to contain 
it, hollowing out cities around the world.”, Kathryn remembered how, over the years, her 
hometown of Houston felt leaner as people left to join the Charter. Kathryn fiercely 
thought to herself. For twenty years,   the media have called America’s 
isolation from the world stage the Second Ming Retreat. But we are 
a new generation, and we will revive   the American Dream. Yet Kathryn felt an icy 
doubt that perhaps it was already too late., Lisa Harrington paused, her tone sharpening. 
“Now add a constellation of stealth satellites, and you have a non-nuclear first-strike capability 
that strips away the old balance of deterrence. We let this build while we were distracted for 
twenty years, and our allies moved on. No   more. The President has been clear. Our job is to 
rebuild American power through strong alliances. The goal of this meeting is consensus as the 
first step toward renewed global leadership.”, After the briefing, as the principals mingled, 
Elaine Marks drifted to Kathryn’s side and pressed a slim, ribbon-tied leather box into 
her hand. “Congratulations on the third star,”, she said lightly. With a knowing smile, 
she added, “Remember the blue star we   spotted on our first night navigation mission as 
cadets? You fed the fish before anyone else.”, Kathryn’s pulse ticked faster. The ribbon was 
cadet blue which was our agreed warning signal. Whatever Elaine meant, the message had to 
be in the gift. Elaine, ever the sly fox, loved hiding her warnings in clever wrappings. Later that day, the Cedar Room was built for 
diplomacy. Polished wood gleamed beneath soft orange light, and the carpet was thick enough 
to swallow footsteps, carrying a faint trace of cedar and wax. At the center stretched a long 
oval table of burnished oak, with consoles inlaid so discreetly they seemed part of the grain. 
Cushioned seats lined the edges for senior   aides. The acoustics were tuned with care so that 
natural speech carried clearly without effort. At the head of the table sat Alvaro Serrano, 
the newly promoted EIC director. His bearing suggested politician more than field officer. 
His suit was cut like armor, every seam sharp and every gesture deliberate. To his right sat 
two intelligence officers. One was Lucien Vey, known in the DIA briefings as Vellum’s handler. 
He leaned back slightly, watchful even in this secure setting, the ruin of his ear stark under 
the warm light. Beside him sat Matthias Wendt, silver-haired and rigid, a man ill at ease 
with the new order. The briefing had noted his rivalry with Serrano, and now, relegated to his 
staff, he looked every bit the diminished rival. Alvaro gave a nod for Lucien to 
begin. “Vellum, a deep cover asset,   recently signaled Valence Nine. Vellum gained 
access to Mirov’s most secure archives, a vast repository built over decades and enriched 
by diligence files from acquisition activity.”, “What Vellum uncovered was that each of the 
major collapses since 2026 was engineered by a small group calling themselves the Compact. 
They came together after the nuclear strike   on Chicago and the Baltic invasion, driven 
by the world’s indifference.”, A flicker of unease moved through the room. Kathryn caught 
sharp silences and tight jaws at the memory of Blue Judas. Eyes shifted toward the American 
contingent. Chicago first, then appeasement. “They triggered the failed invasion of Taiwan in 
a bid to seize the semiconductor industry after   the wreckage of China’s and Taiwan’s economies. 
The 2032 dollar crash was engineered to replace it with the Euro and KFE. The Kessler Cascade of 
2034 was set off to blind the world to deep space threats. All of it built toward the final goal 
of destroying all strategic nuclear armaments and tritium production around the world.”, 
Murmurs rose around the table and Kathryn’s stomach churned. We reap what we sow, she 
thought, tasting the bitter fruit of Blue Judas. “The goal of Mikhail Mirov, born Arvo Kask, 
is to free the world from what he calls the unbridled tyranny of the nuclear powers. His 
son’s goal is simpler. He intends to replace that power with his own.”, Kathryn thought for 
a moment. “What are the implications of Mirov arcologies joining the Charter movement? Why 
reveal now what they worked so hard to hide?”, Vice Admiral Rika Sato of the Japanese 
delegation, a compact and controlled woman, glanced at General Park Hyun-woo of South Korea, 
who held himself rigidly as they remained silent. Their nations had been left intensely vulnerable 
by American tariffs, by rapidly aging populations, and by the contagion that followed the economic 
collapse of Taiwan and China. In desperation, they turned to the same unpalatable 
solution. They allowed Charter arcologies   to be built as a tax base while avoiding 
the political suicide of mass immigration. Air Commodore Lachlan Reid of Australia snapped, 
his voice hard, the kind that carried years of restrained fury. “What are you saying, American? 
You know damn well what the Charter has done in the past twenty years while you abandoned us 
to a world on fire.. They gave people fleeing human-rights abusers and failed states a place 
to go. They were treated with dignity. Not the prove-you-are-a-refugee UNHCR rigmarole. Not the 
slow, miserable death handed to Palestinians.”, Scoffs rippled at the mention of the old 
United Nations, abandoned and discredited. “The Charter cut global violence. China, 
Turkmenistan, and North Korea eventually emptied their political prisons. It was 
cheaper to exile people and regain access to stable and prosperous trade, without 
the vague name-and-shame campaigns that   once drove capricious boycotts and sanctions. 
The ones who stayed are the ones who chose to. Charter states have grown rapidly. The KFE coin 
put a floor under how fucking bad life can get. And you stand here and tell us this is just a 
Mirov ruse?”, By the end, Reid was on his feet, finger stabbing the air, his voice rising until 
he was shouting at the American delegation. The Americans shifted, jaw tightening, 
but before the Americans could respond,   Rear Admiral Genevieve Trudeau of Canada touched 
Reid’s arm. “The Charter is too big for anyone to control. If Mirov Enterprises tried to rig 
the coin, users would just fork it. Mirov could keep their stake but lose the people. Freedom 
of movement applies to the coin as much as   to the cities. No. Mirov joined the Charter 
for cover on Mina’s Star, not for control.”,

Compilation from Prologue to Chapter 6

When America withdrew from the world, the balance between nuclear powers collapsed and aggressive states shielded by their arsenals waged wars that no one could stop. Cities burned, alliances fractured, and violence spread unchecked until exhaustion forced two reactions. One was the rise of the Charter, a new order built on knowledge for everyone, freedom of movement, and exile over execution. The other was the Compact, a secret organization that forged a new deterrent to counter the tyranny of nuclear powers. Everything changed with the accidental discovery of Mina’s Star by a teenage astronomer. As scientists, operatives, and reformers race to control or redeem the weapon born from her finding, humanity faces its last choice between repeating old cycles of power or reaching for the stars.

00:00 – Author’s Note
01:02 – Prologue
24:30 – Chapter 1
51:12 – Chapter 2
1:14:31 – Chapter 3
1:43:26 – Chapter 4
2:12:09 – Chapter 5
2:34:23 – Chapter 6

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