The morning sun rose over the captured fortress of Checkpoint Charlie, casting long rays of golden light across the newly hoisted Citadel banners.
In the center of the compound, a convoy of six armored transport vehicles hummed with quiet power as engineer teams finished repainting the hulls with obsidian and silver insignias.
Jax stood near the main gateway, running a whetstone along the curve of his ancestral recurve bow while testing the draw string tension.
"That bow looks much better in your hands than that corporate golden toy," Sharon remarked, stepping beside him with a leather quiver of enchanted arrows.
"Director Cassian spent four hundred thousand credits outfitting me with gilded gear," the young archer replied with a self-deprecating laugh.
"And it had thirty pounds of unnecessary motorized servos designed solely to restrict my personal movement."
