The extermination war on Larkspur Haven was still going on.
Elowen had reached an agreent with the Whiteheart, but even that success didn’t change anything overnight.
The giant silver tree could provide what they needed, and Elowen had already begun preparing the sap mixture for wide atmospheric dispersal, but producing enough of it to affect a planet on that scale still took ti, more than anyone would have liked.
Until the first artificial rain began, Aurelian’s ch forces still had to do the hard work the normal way, without shortcuts.
They had to hold the survivor zones, keeping them from collapsing under pressure.
They had to break infected concentrations before they ford into proper swarms, cutting them apart early.
They had to escort evacuation convoys out of collapsing districts, moving people through areas that were already half lost.
And they had to keep the remaining human pockets alive long enough for the larger plan to matter, buying ti where they could.
Fortunately, the infected still lacked real intelligence. They could swarm, evolve, and overwhelm, but they did not yet think like an organized army, making them dangerous yet predictable.
If they had been able to gather properly and coordinate large attacks on the surviving bunkers and military compounds, even the number of chs Aurelian had deployed would have been under much heavier pressure, and losses would have risen fast.
The fighting on the ground was ugly, but for now, it was manageable, controlled just enough to hold.
The other issue was the rule.
Saving Larkspur Haven was not the sa as holding it, and holding it was not the sa as turning it into a functioning territory.
Aurelian understood that from the beginning, and he had no intention of ignoring it. If he wanted this world to actually beco his first true foothold, then killing monsters and breaking enemy fleets would only be the first half, not the end.
After that, he still needed the people below to accept a new order, sothing stable.
Brute force could do so of that, but brute force alone never lasted well. He had not crossed half the map to build a future world on nothing but fear, only to have it collapse later.
Which was why Caelan mattered.
After several long talks, Aurelian ca to understand that Larkspur Haven had not been unified even before the Kharov attack.
It had been a planet of sovereign states, trade leagues, military blocs, and old regional powers that had only ford a loose planetary alliance once outside threats beca impossible to ignore, more a necessity than a choice.
They had built the orbital knight corps together, but that did not an they had built one true governnt.
Under normal conditions, they were still busy fighting each other in quieter ways, competing for influence and control.
Under this disaster, that structure had shattered almost at once, the weak connections breaking first.
The Kharov assassinations had made it worse. A surprising number of top civilian leaders were already dead, removed in the opening stage of the collapse before anyone understood what was happening.
Several states had completely lost central authority, and many surviving military zones were now operating independently, without coordination.
In practical terms, that ant Larkspur Haven had been decapitated from inside, its structure cut away.
And because of that, Caelan had beco far more important than Aurelian expected.
He was no longer rely a rescued knight commander. He was now, by the ergency laws of his own holand, the highest remaining authority of the strongest surviving state on the planet.
That state still controlled the largest coherent group of organized troops, the most intact reserve depots, and several of the most defensible interior zones, giving him real weight.
When Aurelian understood that, he quietly admitted to himself that he had picked up a much bigger prize than he first realized when he dragged a half-dead ch pilot onto the ship, sothing far more useful than just a survivor.
Caelan, for his part, had no illusions left now.
He had seen the Kharov fleet destroyed.
He had seen how Aurelian’s forces operated, how quickly they moved, and how cleanly they fought.
And he knew very well that if he refused to cooperate, Aurelian still had enough power to force the matter with ti and effort, even if it cost more.
So the choice beca simple.
Help the stranger from the stars save the world and preserve as much as possible, or cling to old pride and watch what remained burn out around him, piece by piece.
He chose the first option without much hesitation, not wasting ti.
With Caelan’s help, Aurelian quickly gathered a large number of surviving military units, local administrators, and civilian coordination cells.
Once Elowen’s rain plan began, these would beco the backbone of restored order under ch protection, sothing that could hold together.
The ground was stabilizing, slowly but clearly.
And outside the planet, things had gone even better.
Rhoswen and Solenne had done their jobs well. Better than well, without needing correction.
The incoming Kharov reinforcent fleet never reached effective combat range in proper formation.
Their carrier was crippled early in the engagent before its strike wings could even launch properly, and once that happened, the battle had beco a slaughter, one-sided.
Aurelian had watched the feed from high orbit and had actually been caught off guard for a mont when the enemy carrier broke apart so quickly, faster than expected.
The surviving Kharov ships had not lasted long after that. The remaining heavy hulls were picked apart under carrier pressure and pursuit, unable to hold position, and the lighter vessels had no chance at all once panic spread through their line, their retreat turning into chaos.
By the ti the battle ended, not one hostile ship had escaped the system, every exit cut off.
That mattered more than the kill count itself.
A dead fleet was good.
A dead fleet that sent no ssage ho was better, because it bought ti.
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