Deep within the tangled jungle, beneath a canopy so thick it swallowed light, Kara and Moro led their small cadre of Vhalar scouts like whispers through leaves—silent, patient, unseen. Their skin shimmered in muted hues, adapting to the moss and bark, and their eyes glowed faintly with the gifts of the forest. For days now, they had watched.
From their perch in the vines, the Mahasimu presence was impossible to ignore. Strange beings with pale, expressionless faces moved with unnatural precision, warping the land with gleaming tools and whispering lights. Great machines burrowed into the earth like worms of metal and flame. Crystalline towers emerged beneath the jungle floor—structures that pulsed with energy like beating hearts.
To the Vhalar—who knew no stars, no machines, no galaxies beyond their own forested world—this was not technology.
It was sorcery.
It was intrusion.
"They are too bold," Moro whispered, voice tight with unease. "Their spirits… they change the ground. And worse—they've taken one of ours."
Kara's eyes narrowed. Through the tangle of vines and bioluminescent ferns, she saw it: a Mahasimu Luminary, a psion-engineer clad in silver-lined armor, dragging a struggling Vhalar through a tunnel opening. The captive—a young hunter—was unconscious, bound in luminous strands of energy.
The Luminary turned, giving orders in a voice that vibrated through the earth.
To the Vhalar, he was no mere soldier.
He was a sky spirit, an immortal warden sent to reshape their world.
"We must act," Kara murmured. "If we do nothing, more will be taken. The forest spirits will be silenced. Our kind… forgotten."
With the silent grace of apex predators, the Vhalar descended. One struck like lightning—darting from the shadows to snatch the captive hunter from the Luminary's grip. Confused shouts rang out in alien tongues, but Kara and Moro were already gone, dragging both the hunter and the Luminary into the depths of the forest.
They moved swiftly—through thorn and vine, stone and root—until they reached the hidden sanctum beneath the Great Veil, where waterfalls shielded the ancient stronghold of the Vhalar.
Interrogation in the Dark
The chamber flickered with blue firelight as Zalor, ancient leader of the Vhalar, stepped into the silence. His towering form was lean with age, his skin marked with ritual scars and glowing sap-lines that pulsed faintly in the gloom. His eyes, once soft with memory, now burned with mistrust.
He studied the captured Luminary. The Mahasimu engineer, now unarmed and dazed, looked around wildly, unable to comprehend the guttural dialects and silent gestures surrounding him.
"What is this?" Zalor hissed. "You bring me a spirit of the sky—and expect him to answer with words he does not own?"
Moro knelt beside the captive, whispering urgently.
"He does not understand. But if we can reach his thoughts—touch his mind—perhaps he will reveal why they are here… what they want."
Before Zalor could answer, a voice not of the forest but of the void pierced Moro's mind like a blade of ice.
Queen Saumu.
Her presence struck without warning—a psionic thunderclap that made even the firelight tremble.
"Bring him to me," she commanded through Moro's mind, her voice regal, ancient, absolute. "If they will not listen… then I will make them understand the fury of a queen."
A moment later, her mind descended into the Luminary's, overriding his thoughts with her own will. Her presence surged outward—projected through his body, her voice suddenly erupting through his mouth, divine and terrifying.
"Return him now, forest-born. I do not wish to harm your world—but I will burn the roots from which you came if you test me. We came to build. Not to destroy. But my shadows are endless. My fire is patient."
Zalor did not flinch. His expression did not soften. He stepped forward, inches from the possessed engineer, his eyes burning with ancestral pride.
"Your words are wind, sky-walker. Our spirits speak through soil and stone, not fire and metal. You build in secret. You steal our kin. You poison the roots of our land. He is ours now."
Then, with cold finality, Zalor gave the signal.
Two warriors stepped forward—and plunged their blades into the Luminary's heart.
The possessed body jerked violently, glowing briefly with psionic overload before collapsing. Blood pooled over the moss-lined stone. The connection severed violently.
Backlash
Far above the planet, aboard the Giza Mtuji, Queen Saumu let out a gasp that echoed through her private chamber. Her eyes flared with golden light—then snapped shut as she staggered back, clutching her chest.
Pain flooded her mind. Her consciousness—still partially fused with the Luminary's—had been ripped back, torn from the flesh as he died. Her vision blurred, her limbs trembled, and a scream of pure rage surged through her soul.
"No…" she rasped, collapsing to one knee as attendants rushed to her side. "They killed him. They killed him while I was inside…"
For the first time in decades, her fury cracked her composure.
This was no longer a quiet infiltration.
This was war.