The skies over Verizon had stilled.
Where once a storm of burning clouds and tearing earth threatened to wipe the planet from existence, now there was silence.
The deadly waves of destruction had ceased—but the price had been high. Forests were charred, cities cracked open, and the planet's core had become dangerously unstable.
Though the catastrophic explosion had been halted, Verizon was no longer a place fit for life.
Nova knelt in the heart of the ruined arena, steam rising from his skin as the last vestiges of aether burned out from his exhausted system.
His breaths came slow, deliberate. The world didn't crumble beneath him anymore—but it was quiet in the way dying things often were.
Above, the sky shimmered and parted as Nyx's retrieval ship broke through the clouds.
[Nova, I'm lowering the boarding platform. Your vitals are dropping. Get on, now.]
Her voice rang out over the internal commlink, calm but clipped,
He staggered up, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Status?"
[Running emergency scans now…Most of your aether is sealed.]
A beat. Then, more quietly,
Nova frowned.
"Sealed?"
[Correct. You're operating on 8% capacity. Without the rest of the fleet, your core has begun locking itself down to prevent overload. The 11 ships in total—including the mothership—were designed to balance and contain your full power. Until we retrieve the rest, you'll continue to lose access.]
Nova exhaled.
"Then we need to start hunting them down. No delays."
As the ship landed and Nova boarded, the ramp hadn't even retracted before he was met with chaos.
Champion Stelle, soot-covered and solemn, stood at the center of a growing crowd of displaced Verizonians.
Around her were guards, medics, children crying into scorched blankets. Their eyes all turned to Nova the second he stepped aboard.
Dozens of voices surged toward him at once.
"What happened?"
"Why can't we go back?"
"Where will we live now?!"
Anna pushed through the crowd and stepped in front of Nova, holding her arms up.
"Please—calm down! We're still assessing the situation. Let's not jump to—"
But the intercom buzzed to life, carrying the angry voices of citizens trying to break through on every frequency. Panic. Confusion. Demands for answers.
Then, Champion Stelle stepped forward, her armor battered but her presence unwavering. She held up a hand. The voices wavered, then fell into silence.
She looked out across her people, then turned toward the nearest comm panel. Her voice carried strength, though her expression was grim.
"This… is not something any of us could've expected. A pawn of the God of Destruction made it to our planet—disguised and uncontained. Because of that… because of our failure to see it sooner… Verizon can no longer sustain life."
She said.
The words hit the room like a punch to the gut.
Gasps, sobs, denials.
"But listen to me. This is not the end of us. We are the blood of warriors. We have endured for centuries with nothing but our strength and the blades in our hands. We will endure this, too."
Stelle continued, louder now.
She turned to Nova and bowed slightly.
"This man risked his life to stop the full collapse. If not for him, we wouldn't be here. So you may curse fate, you may weep for your homes—but you will not blame him."
Nova's jaw tensed, but he didn't speak.
Stelle stepped back and addressed her people one last time.
"There will be a new home. And on that day, we'll remember those who stood tall for us—Verizon is gone, but our pride is not."
For a moment, all was still. Then someone raised a fist in silence. Another followed. Then a roar surged through the ship—not of rage, but unity.
Anna turned to Nova and whispered.
"That… was incredible. I didn't expect her to—"
"She's a ruler. She knows when to fight and when to lead."
Nova muttered.
Nyx's voice returned.
[We're plotting safe trajectories now. I've marked three uninhabited systems where temporary settlements can be attempted. Stelle's people will be given options.]
"Good. Start the first relocation. Then we begin tracking down the remaining ships."
Nova added.
[Understood.]
Anna stood beside Nova as he looked out a small porthole, watching the scorched ruins of a once-vibrant world disappear into the blackness of space. Her voice came softly.
"What a nightmare. I wonder what is going to happen next. Is there any way out left?"
Unfortunately, the answer was clear.
______
The debate on what to do did not stop right there. It continued to happen a few more times. But thankfully, Champion Stelle was there every time to interfere.
As the voices finally settled and the crowd dispersed under Champion Stelle's orders, a heavy silence hung over the ship's command deck.
The Verizonians returned to their assigned cabins, dazed and hollow-eyed, dragging what little they had left with them. The loss of their home still clung to them like ash.
Anna stood beside Nova, her arms folded tightly across her chest.
Her gaze lingered on a small child clutching a cracked helmet, and an older man limping with a homemade cane, his face scorched from the explosion's heat.
"…Can't we do something for them? These people… they remind me of where I came from. Planetless. Lost. Just… drifting."
She finally asked, turning to Nova and Nyx, her voice soft but urgent.
"We're not running a charity. And we don't have the resources to support an entire population, Anna. Not now. The mothership is still operating under emergency protocols, and we've yet to recover even a fraction of our lost systems."
Nyx said flatly, appearing as a flickering blue projection on the nearby console.
"But—"
"The best we can do is locate habitable systems where they can attempt to resettle. I've already marked three candidates. It's not ideal, but it's what we can manage without compromising ourselves."
Nyx cut in.
Anna looked down at her boots, jaw clenched.
"I understand… I do. But it still feels wrong. Leaving them like this."
Nova, who had been silent, finally spoke.
"You think I don't feel the same? I destroyed what little hope they had of saving Verizon. I'm not proud of that."
He said, eyes sharp but voice low.
Anna's eyes widened.
"It wasn't your fault—"
"I know. And that's the problem. Sometimes things are out of our hands. Doesn't make it easier to watch."
Nova said.
There was a long pause. The only sound was the hum of the ship's failing internal systems and the slow, rhythmic pulse of Nyx's interface as she processed new data.
"This is the reality of the galaxy. Powerful forces destroy the weak. Planets fall. Empires vanish. All we can do is keep moving forward."
Nyx said finally.
Anna nodded, quietly. There wasn't anything else to say. No comfort to offer. No solution to grasp.
Some tragedies just had to be survived.
And then left behind.
Anna lingered by the viewport, watching the drifting fragments of what had once been Verizon. Her fists clenched.
"They've lost everything."
She whispered.
"We all have. But we don't have the luxury to carry every fallen world with us."
Nyx replied, her voice cool.
Nova stepped beside Anna.
"We help how we can. Then we move."