The campaign in the Ashen Expanse was Lyra's first solo command as High Commander. She relished the clarity of it. Gorvik the slaver was a known variable: greedy, arrogant, and cowardly. His fortress, Emberhold, was a sprawling complex built into the black basalt cliffs around a roaring geothermal vent.
Lyra's force surrounded the hold with silent efficiency. Stonewarden engineers, using tech gifted by the Diaspora, placed harmonic dampeners around the vent network. Within hours, the constant thrum of power from Emberhold sputtered and died, plunging the slaver complex into panic, lit only by emergency chem-lights.
A holographic projector was aimed at the main gate. Lyra's image, twenty feet tall and clad in her armor, appeared.
"Gorvik of the Varikdar. You are in violation of the Arthoje Concordat, Article One. You have until dawn to release all enslaved persons and surrender yourself and your captains for trial. Refuse, and you will be removed by force. You have seen what we did to the Eclipse. Do not make us demonstrate on your doorstep."
Inside, Gorvik raged. "Trial?! I am a loyal subject of the Empire! These upstart mutants will be crushed!" But his captains looked nervously at the dark, silent machines, at the disciplined ranks of Yunvarn and Vakhas soldiers glowing faintly in the gloom.
Dawn came. The gates remained sealed.
"He's betting we'll storm the gate and he can slaughter the slaves in the chaos," Lyra said to her sub-commanders via comms. "Execute Plan: Stillness."
The Peacekeepers did not advance. Instead, a new sound began—a deep, resonant hum emitted from large, crystalline speakers. It was the Song of Roots, a frequency designed by Vaktari and Anya that resonated with the natural bedrock and, more importantly, with the innate biological yearning for freedom in all living things.
Inside Emberhold, the effect was psychological warfare. The walls themselves seemed to vibrate with a promise of open skies. The slaves, listless and broken, began to stir, a forgotten fire rekindling in their eyes. The slavers grew agitated, paranoid.
Then, Elara's part began. Using the Echo-Net's slicers, she hacked into Emberhold's archaic internal comm system. Instead of orders, the slavers heard the voices of their own families from Morvane, pleading with them to surrender, telling them of the new peace, of the opportunities in a slave-free economy. It was a targeted, personal demoralization.
By high noon, a secondary gate burst open. A wave of Grott slaves, led by a massive miner wielding a pickaxe, overwhelmed the guards at a rear vent shaft. They hadn't been freed by the Peacekeepers; they had freed themselves, inspired by the Song and the palpable shift in power.
Chaos erupted inside the hold. Seeing his control unravel, Gorvik tried to flee in a personal hover-skiff. It was Lyra who shot it down, not with a killing blast, but with a precisely aimed ion pulse that fried its engines. She descended from her command skimmer, landing before the crashed vehicle as Gorvik crawled from the wreckage.
He looked up at the tall, crimson-skinned warrior, her expression one of cold, professional disdain. "Y-You… traitor to your kind!" he spat.
"My kind are warriors," Lyra said, not raising her voice. "You are a merchant who trades in flesh. We are not the same." She gestured, and two Stonewardens clamped null-cuffs on him. "Take him. The Seat of Shields has spoken."
Emberhold fell without a single Peacekeeper death. The slaves were freed, fed, and offered transport to new settlements. The slavers were disarmed and taken into custody. News of the bloodless, tactical victory spread across the planet, solidifying the Protectorate's reputation as powerful, just, and terrifyingly competent.
That night, in Skodar's private chambers in the Spire, Lyra presented her report. He listened, then pulled her into a fierce embrace. "You were perfect. Strong, but not cruel. Just."
She leaned into him, the rigid commander melting away to reveal the woman beneath. "It is easy to be just when I serve a king who values justice over vengeance." Her red skin flushed a deeper shade. "The men and women… they call you 'the Resonant King' now. And they call us… your Dawn Queens."
Skodar smiled, a rare, unburdened expression. "They are not wrong." He kissed her forehead, then her lips, a reward for a queen who had secured his kingdom's first major peace