The defense belt of Kamelot had never failed.

  It was not merely a ring of satellites and cannons suspended in orbit. It was an inheritance, a lattice of engineered brilliance built over generations, calibrated to repel fleets, absorb stellar fire, and project the quiet confidence of a kingdom that had never been conquered. As Zerena’s damaged interceptor surged toward it, hull plates rattling and warning glyphs pulsing red across the cockpit display, she felt the weight of that history pressing against her ribs.

  Behind her, Kamelot burned.

  She did not need the rear display to know it. The glow flooded the cockpit in waves of gold turned violent orange, casting sharp lines across her hands as they tightened around the flight controls. Entire districts were erupting into flame. The western terraces, once a cascade of white stone and sunlit fountains, were now a chain of collapsing structures. The orbital cannons that had protected the capital for decades had fallen silent.

  Her console flickered. Hull integrity: 42%. Starboard stabilizer compromised. Flux reserves: critical.

  “Hold together,” she murmured to the ship, though she knew the machine did not hear her.

  The outer ring loomed ahead—an immense halo of interlocking defense platforms and shield generators forming a final barrier between planet and deep space. Normally, passage through it required a layered clearance protocol involving both royal command codes and Federation acknowledgment. Tonight, there would be no acknowledgment. The Federation had already chosen silence.

  A cluster of black interceptors broke formation from the occupying fleet and streaked toward her vector. Their hulls were angular, stripped of ornament, each marked with the eclipsed sun that now hovered over her world. They did not fire immediately. They herded.

  “They want me intact,” Zerena whispered, cold realization settling over her.

  A Princess was leverage.

  She pulled the throttle harder. The engines protested, but the ship surged forward. The royal override crest on her console pulsed faintly, awaiting biometric confirmation. She pressed her palm against it. The interface read her bloodline instantly.

  Royal clearance accepted.

  A narrow corridor in the defense belt began to open. Massive plates shifted, shield harmonics recalibrating to allow a vessel of her classification to pass through. It was a feature designed for ceremonial departures and emergency evacuations of the highest order. It had never been used under invasion.

  The black interceptors accelerated.

  The first shots came as tight beams of white fire that lanced past her wings, scorching through vacuum with surgical precision. One clipped her port thruster. The cockpit jolted violently. A warning siren shrieked.

  She fought the spin, jaw clenched, forcing the interceptor back into alignment. The corridor through the defense belt was almost fully open now, but the gap would not remain so indefinitely. The automated systems were detecting irregularities. The belt did not recognize Rhaegon’s fleet as allied. It was attempting to reassert full lockdown.

  “Now,” she breathed.

  She dove.

  The interceptor shot into the corridor just as the first shield layer flickered back into place. For a fraction of a second, her hull scraped against the edge of a reforming barrier. Energy crackled across the cockpit canopy, blinding her in blue-white arcs. Then she was through.

  The defense belt sealed behind her with a final surge of light.

  The pursuing interceptors broke off, unwilling to risk entrapment within Kamelot’s automated kill zone. They veered away, retreating toward the shadowed armada above the planet.

  Silence swallowed the cockpit.

  Zerena did not slow.

  She guided the crippled vessel into a drifting orbit beyond the belt’s outer perimeter, engines throttled down to conserve what little fuel remained. The planet filled the forward viewport.

  Kamelot Prime had once been described in Federation archives as a jewel—a world of balanced climate systems, radiant solar arrays, and cities designed to harmonize with landscape rather than dominate it. From orbit, its continents formed elegant spirals of green and gold, broken by oceans that mirrored the sky.

  Now that jewel was cracked.

  Fires dotted the capital hemisphere like malignant stars. Smoke plumes rose in dark coils, dispersing into the upper atmosphere. Orbital defense platforms, once aligned in perfect symmetry, were now drifting debris. The flagship of King Rhaegon hovered above the capital like a wound in space, its surface absorbing light rather than reflecting it.

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  She pressed her palm against the glass.

  Her father was somewhere beneath that smoke.

  The War Chamber. The throne hall. The corridors where she had learned to walk.

  Gone.

  Her breath hitched, but no tears came. Not yet. Grief had not caught up to the scale of what she was seeing.

  The comm panel flickered to life, overridden by a broadcast signal.

  The image that resolved was stark and deliberate: King Rhaegon standing upon the palace’s outer dais, the shattered crest of Kamelot at his feet. Behind him, the five Black Judges stood in silent formation. Smoke curled upward around their silhouettes. Bodies lay scattered beyond the camera’s edge.

  Rhaegon removed his helm.

  His face was calm.

  “Citizens of Kamelot,” he began, voice amplified across planetary frequencies. “Your world has not fallen. It has been corrected.”

  Zerena’s fingers dug into the console.

  He spoke as if addressing a council meeting rather than a conquered planet. No fury. No theatrics. Only conviction.

  “Your king resisted necessary reform. He clung to structures that endangered not only your system, but others beyond it. Tonight, Kamelot joins a new order—one that will endure beyond fear, beyond decay.”

  Azhrael stepped forward slightly, blade resting at his side.

  “Compliance will ensure stability,” Rhaegon continued. “Resistance will be eliminated.”

  The feed cut.

  Zerena exhaled slowly, forcing the tremor from her hands.

  Corrected.

  He believed it.

  That, more than the invasion itself, chilled her.

  Another signal blinked across her console—Federation channel, encrypted but not secure. She hesitated before opening it.

  A holographic projection flickered into view: a middle-aged official seated in a dim chamber, the emblem of the Federation rotating faintly behind him. His expression was strained.

  “Princess Zerena,” he said. “This transmission is unofficial. We cannot formally intervene at this time.”

  “Cannot,” she repeated, voice level.

  “The situation is… complicated. Rhaegon’s forces moved within legal ambiguities regarding defense pacts and internal governance. Several council members are reviewing—”

  “My father is dead,” she cut in. “My planet is occupied.”

  The official faltered.

  “We advise you to seek asylum within neutral systems. The Federation will open an inquiry.”

  An inquiry.

  She almost laughed.

  “Your inquiry will find nothing,” she said quietly. “Because you will not look.”

  The transmission ended.

  Silence returned.

  She drifted in orbit, alone, watching the night consume her world.

  A new wave of ships descended toward the capital—transport carriers this time, bearing troops and administrative units. Rhaegon was not razing Kamelot. He was installing himself within it.

  Occupation, not annihilation.

  That meant something.

  It meant he needed the infrastructure intact. The archives. The data cores. The planetary systems.

  It meant Kamelot held something he required.

  Her mind shifted, instinct replacing shock. Strategy filling the space grief threatened to occupy.

  Why Kamelot?

  The defense belt had not been breached by brute force alone. It had been bypassed with knowledge—knowledge of harmonic frequencies, of shield calibration. Someone had given him access. Or he had obtained it long before tonight.

  A memory surfaced unbidden: her father in the War Chamber, saying only, “Because he knows our shields.”

  How?

  Zerena turned her gaze back to the burning hemisphere.

  She did not allow herself to imagine bodies in the streets. Did not allow herself to picture the throne room floor. That would come later.

  For now, she calculated.

  Fuel reserves were insufficient for a long-range jump. She would need to reach a peripheral station, one not yet under Rhaegon’s direct control. She checked the star map. Several outer systems lay within reachable distance if she conserved thrust.

  But if she left now—truly left—she might never see Kamelot again.

  The interceptor’s hull groaned softly as microfractures spread along the port wing.

  Decision could not wait.

  She set a course for the nearest outer relay station and engaged minimal thrust. The planet began to recede slowly in the viewport.

  As she drifted, something caught her eye near the capital’s orbit—a faint, irregular distortion. Not debris. Not standard fleet movement. A ripple in space near one of the shattered defense satellites.

  Her sensors struggled to lock onto it. The reading fluctuated between gravitational anomaly and residual warp signature.

  Then it vanished.

  She leaned closer to the console, scanning logs.

  Anomaly classification: unknown.

  The time stamp aligned with the moment the War Chamber had fallen.

  Her father had not been a fool. He had anticipated threats, contingencies within contingencies. Hidden protocols embedded in the palace core.

  Had something activated in those final seconds?

  The thought flickered, fragile but persistent.

  If there was even the smallest chance that Kamelot had not surrendered everything tonight, she would find it.

  The outer relay station appeared as a dim structure against the starfield, lights blinking in cautious patterns. It had not yet declared allegiance to Rhaegon.

  She opened a narrow communication channel.

  “This is Princess Zerena of Kamelot. I request emergency docking.”

  There was a long pause.

  Then a hesitant reply: “Your Highness… we received the broadcast.”

  “So did the galaxy,” she said.

  “Docking corridor opening.”

  The interceptor glided toward the station, systems failing one by one. As she entered the docking bay, the landing struts barely extended before collapsing beneath the ship’s weight. The hull settled with a metallic groan.

  Technicians rushed forward, eyes wide.

  Zerena remained seated for a moment, staring through the cracked canopy at the fading image of her world on the external monitors.

  The crown of Kamelot had shattered.

  Its sun had been eclipsed.

  But she was alive.

  And as long as she was alive, the story was not finished.

  She unsealed the cockpit and stepped onto the cold metal floor of the relay station, the scent of ozone and machinery replacing the distant memory of palace gardens. Behind her, Kamelot burned beneath a black fleet.

  Ahead lay exile, uncertainty, and the terrible freedom of survival.

  She did not bow her head.

  Not yet.

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