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Kalen Varr—a student prodigy of the Helion Commonwealth—only feels alive when the stakes are high. Running from a darker past, his reward for topping the Earth Academy’s leaderboard isn’t a medal upon his chest—it’s a one-way berth aboard the HCS Resolute, a half-forgotten interstellar science vessel being re-sharpened in peacetime for an off-the-books mission beyond The Veil. Its new commander—Ka’Rina Zeth, a towering half-Drac’kari veteran—believes that one’s resolve is a privilege earned in broken bones and a reshaped smile. Her “orientation” begins with a vector-locked fight that lands Varr in medbay. Slowly, he trades his precision rifle and energy weapons for the weight of steel between his fingers, grit in his teeth, and whatever resolve he still has left. In the ship’s echoing martial-arts gym and nightmare Tessereactor suite, Varr is reshaped into an uneasy Vanguard with the two other members of Zeth’s strike team: Rhai and Eli—while carrying the weight of everyone who didn’t make it… and the past he’s trying to outrun. Their destination: Veridion-6—a planet where electricity is impossible. No transport. No backup. No Fold technology. And an enemy awaits there—one that can sense death before it happens— gearing for a war the Commonwealth isn’t ready for. Whatever waits in that darkness, Zeth insists the only way through is an offering of blood and bone—paid in fire, as they tumble through upper atmosphere.