The first impact did not come from the front.
It came from the side.
Deep-space monitors lit up as one of the massive hostile formations veered away from the fractured lattice sector and accelerated along a curved path that avoided the strongest defensive nodes.
"They're not charging straight in," Elira said. "They're flanking."
On the main projection, the armada separated into five colossal energy bodies. Each one pulsed with layered currents, darker and denser than anything they had faced before. Smaller shards orbited around them like escort drones.
"They studied our containment tactic," Mara muttered.
Sarya stood in the center of the resonance chamber, the filament in her chest humming steadily. Fatigue still lingered in her limbs, yet the network's pressure kept her upright.
"They won't send fragments again," she said. "Each of those cores is self-sustaining."
