Chapter 15: The Sudden Arrival of Nyota and the First War
The atmosphere within the Giza Mtuji's command chamber fractured like glass.
Alarms did not blare. No klaxons rang. But tension split the air with an invisible blade the moment Commander Nyota emerged from the shadows.
Her presence was immediate, undeniable—a silhouette of wrath woven in black crystalline armor, every inch of her shimmering with latent violence. Her crimson eyes scanned the room like twin blades, piercing every soul present.
No sensor had tracked her arrival.
No footstep had echoed.
She simply was.
The officers froze.
"Secure the Queen," Nyota ordered, her voice calm, composed, and colder than vacuum. "She is unstable. No one interferes."
From concealed alcoves around the chamber, five of her elite guards materialized in perfect synchronization—Royal Shadows, each garbed in obsidian armor etched with glowing sigils of protection and silence. They swept in like a living tide, moving as one toward the slumped figure of Queen Saumu.
Her body, still limp from the psychic recoil of the murdered Luminary, trembled with flickers of residual psionic energy. Yet her spirit—twisting, writhing, rising—burned hot beneath the surface.
"Move!" Nyota snapped.
The guards obeyed with clinical precision, lifting Saumu's form with brutal care, and ushered her swiftly through the corridor maze of the flagship, toward her inner sanctum, the most secure chamber in the empire.
The Holo Command
Moments later, in the tactical nexus of the Giza Mtuji, Nyota activated her wrist-mounted hololink. The flickering display shimmered to life, revealing the dirt-smeared visage of Kizito, the empire's ground operations commander.
He stood amid a thrumming underground complex, crystalline growth structures rising behind him like jagged glass bones. Construction crews moved with urgent precision. Armed patrols roamed the dark passages of the jungle's underbelly.
But the moment Nyota's face appeared, Kizito stiffened.
"Commander Nyota," he acknowledged, reading the grim finality in her eyes. "The Queen…"
"The Queen is in recovery," she interrupted, voice sharp as carved obsidian. "You now act in her stead. You have clearance for full planetary subjugation."
Kizito's brow furrowed.
"All Vhalar resistance is to be eliminated," she continued. "Use any force necessary. Deploy psionic suppression fields, shadow conjurants, siege constructs—everything. They will not defy us again."
There was a moment's hesitation. Then Kizito nodded solemnly.
"Understood. I will bring the world to its knees."
"Make sure they remember our shadow," Nyota replied coldly. "Let the soil itself tremble beneath our dominion. No root, no tribe, no forest will be spared."
The transmission ended.
Saumu's Awakening
Back in her chambers—sealed by wards and guarded by the Royal Shadows—Saumu stirred.
Her body was wrapped in healing vines, dark matter salves, and psi-charged silk, but pain still burned in every nerve. Her consciousness, once fractured, was reforging itself—each breath pulling the shattered pieces of her soul back into form.
She sat up slowly, trembling. The chamber lights dimmed as her eyes opened, glowing with a furious gold.
Visions of the Vhalar flooded her memory—their defiance, their ignorance, the murder of the Luminary while she still shared his mind.
A quiet, terrible rage bloomed inside her.
"This is only the beginning," she whispered, her voice like a cracked blade dragged across stone. "They think they've wounded me…"
Shadows danced around her clenched fists—flickering, sentient, eager.
"…but shadows bend. And I bend with them."
She stood fully now, her frame shaky, but her presence titanic. In the silence of her chamber, the air thickened. Something ancient stirred in the dark—a silent pact forming between queen and abyss.
She would not be broken.
She would remake this world in her image.
The first act of the Mahasimu conquest was written in fire and defiance. But Saumu knew—this was merely the overture.
And soon, the Vhalar would learn what it meant to challenge a queen born of shadow.