The first star went dark at 03:17 Galactic Standard.
Not exploded. Not collapsed. Just… stopped shining.
On the observation deck of the Alliance forward post Aurora's Edge, Commander Mireth watched the feed from the outer rim. His stone fingers tightened around the railing until it cracked.
"Confirmed," he said, voice low. "Kessar-9. Gone."
No explosion. No debris. Just a black circle where a G-type star had burned for five billion years.
Then another. And another.
Like candles snuffed by an invisible hand.
Luna stood beside him, barefoot again, wrapped in the crooked scarf her grandmother had knitted. She didn't look at the screen. She felt it—deep in her bones, in the hollow behind her ribs—a cold tide rolling inward.
"It's not destruction," she whispered. "It's… erasure."
Across the command deck, Admiral Vorrk slammed a fist on the console. "Deploy the resonance lances! Now!"
