The battlefield wasn't a place.
It was a feeling.
At the galactic core—where spacetime folded into itself like an old letter—Luna stood on the bridge of the Resonance Ark, barefoot again, the crooked scarf tied around her wrist. Below, in the void between collapsed stars, forty-seven civilizations gathered not with fleets, but with presence.
No cannons. No shields.
Just souls, open and trembling.
Mireth's people hummed ancestral lullabies through crystalline bones. The Veln floated in silent circles, their bioluminescence pulsing with memories of first love. Human Emotional Warriors sat cross-legged on repurposed cargo decks, eyes closed, broadcasting moments so small they'd once been called insignificant: a shared umbrella, a burnt cookie offered with a grin, a whispered "I'm proud of you."
Luna didn't command. She listened.
And she felt it—the other side.
Not approaching.
Already here.
