A foreign fleet dropping into a sky controlled by the Kharov didn’t feel like help to anyone watching from below.
It felt like the start of sothing worse.
Most people down there had never seen a rescue before. They didn’t have any reason to think sothing good would co from ships they didn’t recognize.
So when the sky dimd and unfamiliar hulls appeared overhead, their first reaction wasn’t relief.
It was fear.
So thought the Kharov had finally decided to end things. A full wipe. Quick, brutal, and final. No more half-asures, no more control. Just erase everything and move on.
Others thought it was a different enemy. Another force entirely. One that didn’t care who was in charge and who wasn’t. One that would kill everyone the sa way.
No one knew what was actually happening.
And when people don’t know, they panic.
Across the settlents, things broke down fast. People started running without a clear direction.
So tried to hide wherever they could. So just stood there, stuck, like their bodies refused to move.
Years of being controlled had taught them how to react to orders, but not how to think when there were none.
Up above, the Kharov forces weren’t handling it much better.
They reacted badly.
And slowly.
At the sa ti.
Their systems lit up with ssages. Requests for orders went out, but answers didn’t co back fast enough.
Officers started shouting, trying to pull things together, but the chain of command was already ssy, and this only made it worse.
Ground vehicles started moving toward the edges of the settlents.
Gun platforms turned upward, trying to lock onto targets they didn’t understand.
Local defenses tried to activate all at once.
But nothing lined up cleanly.
Nothing felt ready.
Then Solenne started the bombardnt.
It wasn’t a massive or wide attack, nor was it reckless; instead, it was a controlled bombardnt.
The first missiles hit the right places. Garrison centers. Command posts. Vehicle depots. Surface weapons that could interfere with what ca next.
Each strike landed where it needed to.
No wasted shots.
No hesitation.
Across every settlent, it followed the sa pattern. Military compounds were hit first.
Buildings that had been used to control the population disappeared in fire and shockwaves. Storage areas went up in tight bursts.
Heavy guns were taken out almost as soon as they powered on.
And right next to all of that, the civilian areas were left alone.
That was when things started to change.
At first, people didn’t understand what they were seeing.
They watched the places that had ruled their lives for years get wiped out in seconds, while their own hos were still standing. It didn’t make sense right away.
The fear didn’t go away.
But sothing else started to slip in.
Sothing small.
Sothing unsure.
Hope.
By then, Solenne had already entered the atmosphere.
Her massive hull moved low across the sky, steady and calm, like she wasn’t worried about anything down there.
That alone made people stop and stare.
Dropships started launching from her lower decks.
Combat fras followed right after.
They spread out quickly, heading straight for the parts of the garrison that were still standing after the first strikes. They didn’t slow down. They didn’t stop to regroup.
They already knew what they were doing.
Vaeren moved with one of the forward teams.
Not because Solenne needed him to fight.
But because the people on the ground needed soone they could understand.
Soone who looked like them.
When the first gates were broken, and people started gathering, confused and unsure, he stepped forward and raised his voice.
"Hurry," he said. "Move. If you stay still, you die where you stand."
So people just stared at him.
A familiar face in a mont that didn’t make sense.
So moved right away, not even thinking about it.
Others hesitated, like they needed a second to believe this was real.
A few didn’t move at all until another explosion hit sowhere nearby and forced them to react.
It wasn’t a clean operation in any sense, as it wasn’t organized, but people were moving.
And that was enough.
The fighting on the ground didn’t last long.
It was ssy.
Close.
Fast.
But short.
The Kharov soldiers stationed there weren’t ready for sothing like this. They had spent years controlling people who couldn’t fight back, which made them lax about everything.
They knew how to threaten.
How to punish.
How to keep people in line through fear.
But that’s it, they didn’t know what to do when the enemy is so strong that they are able to breach the space defense and attack them on the ground before they could get anything out.
And with no way to communicate or get any commands from their leaders, they are like headless flies.
So of them tried to hold their ground.
So tried to regroup.
So tried to run.
None of it worked.
Every ti they tried to form a line, it broke apart before it could settle. Every ti they tried to fall back, sothing hit them before they could get there.
The difference between the two sides was too big.
By the ti the largest stronghold on the surface went down, the outco was already decided.
It just hadn’t finished yet.
Back on Larkspur Haven, Aurelian ended his training session.
The gravity field around him slowly powered down, and the pressure eased off his body bit by bit until the room felt normal again.
He stood there for a mont, letting everything settle.
Sweat ran down his back, but he ignored it.
His attention had already moved on.
Astra had queued the reports before he went in. He hadn’t looked at them yet, but he already had a good idea of what they would say.
He already knew how this would go from past fights with the Kharov. The strike would run smoothly, the fleet would break early, and the ground phase would stay on schedule. Extraction routes would open, and Solenne would handle her role without issue. That was enough.
He walked out, reading reports as they updated. There were still details to check, but the bigger picture was clear.
This couldn’t be a one-ti move. If he wanted to grow, it had to beco routine. Break their control, pull people and resources, and keep pressure steady.
If it kept working, sothing new would take shape.
And once it did, others wouldn’t be able to ignore it.
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