Chapter One
At the heart of the galaxy, the Resistance mother base drifts in silence — a massive station, hidden among the stars.
Deep inside, five figures stand around a holographic war table. Blue light flickers across their faces, illuminating the blueprints of a monster: a ship big enough to swallow moons.
“So this is the ship?” Captain Rossane White of the 51st Company breaks the silence. Blonde hair pulled into a strict bun, voice clipped and professional.
Beside her stands Starley, the 51st’s custom-built android — all precision and no pulse. On Starley’s left is Autumn, the Admiral’s daughter, whose presence at the table says more than her rank. Lilith, the Regiment’s navigator, studies the hologram with quiet intensity. And then there’s Ruby Sylvana.
Ruby appeared from nowhere, same time as Lilith. Stoic. Lethal. Only in her early twenties, but already Lieutenant and second-in-command after pulling Rossane out of a firefight with a Collective grunt. No one knows where she came from. Only that she bleeds for the Resistance.
The Admiral’s voice cuts through the hum of the holo-projector. “Yes. The Collective’s newest flagship. The F-88 Destroyer. One shot from its orbital cannon can crack a planet.”
The Collective isn’t just an army. It’s a nightmare. A galactic terror network that abducts men, women, and children and feeds them into “farms” — simulation chambers that harvest fear itself. That fear fuels them. Makes them stronger.
Rossane’s jaw tightens. “And you think a crew of five can take that down?”
“I’m not asking you to take it down,” the Admiral says. “I’m asking you to scope it. We still don’t know who’s pulling the Collective’s strings. But this ship… it might lead us to them.”
A pause. The weight of the mission settles over the table.
“Don’t screw this up,” the Admiral adds. “Dismissed.”
The hologram dies. The war room goes dark.
And the 51st has its target.
