Page 58 of She Who Devours the Stars

Thread Modulation: Dyris Vaelith

Axis Alignment: Inside Vireleth the Closure, Real Space above Eventide.

If Eventide had a sense of drama, it waited until we were within atmospheric threshold before deciding to lose its collective shit.

The approach was supposed to be a non-event: standard orbital insertion, a single polite ping to the planetary port authority, and then six hours of security interviews while the Accord confirmed that none of us planned to deploy weapons, mythic or otherwise. Instead, at 04:26 GST, Vireleth entered system space, and every comm relay in three light minutes started screaming at once.

It began with an error ping. Then a hailstorm of warning notifications. By the time I reached the bridge, the display was buried under red overlays and contradictory instructions fromat least five separate Accord protocols. The mythship’s own AI had muted all non-priority signals, but the static bled through, a chorus of panic spliced into every available bandwidth.

I keyed into the ops deck, braced for catastrophe. The lights were dimmed, but every screen glowed urgent. Dax was at the helm, white-knuckling the navigation as the ship’s resonance tried to spin up a defensive geometry around us. He looked at me, jaw set, eyes wide.

“New arrivals,” he said, “and they’re not subtle.”

He wasn’t wrong. The planet’s upper atmosphere was already crawling with drones, not the good kind, but the ones that flew in formation and tried to look like they were policing a parade rather than prepping for planetary lockdown. I took a second to admire the coordination. It would’ve been beautiful, if not for the way every sensor in the hemisphere locked onto our hull like a cosmic dare.

Dax cleared the deck, gave me a thumbs up, and ejected himself to the maintenance level. I wasn’t sure if he was scared or just didn’t want to see what a mythship did when you pointed too many guns at it.

The main channel was a disaster.

I patched in. The Accord’s planetary security lead, an undercaffeinated bureaucrat with a five-star paranoia rating, opened with a legal threat that took six minutes to finish scrolling. I let him rant. At minute seven, he paused to breathe, and I took the gap.

“This is Dyris Vaelith, authorized attaché for the Nullarch mission,” I said, keeping my tone in the range of “barely giving a shit.” “We are on approach per pre-filed notice. Please clarify your intent.”

He ignored it. The next three minutes were a loop: “Power down your mythdrive,” “hold at Lagrange Point,” and “submit to immediate inspection by planetary enforcement.” I recognized the script; it was the same one the Accord rolled out for pirate ships and rogue mythtech, which, to be fair, we technically qualified as.

But the mythship didn’t care. Vireleth cut our velocity to zero and simply waited. The act of non-action set off a second wave of hysteria. Half the planet’s AIs triggered mythic contamination alarms, and the rest defaulted to “panic and spam comms until someone notices.”

Through it all, the Vireleth’s hull did nothing. Not even a micro-flinch. There was an art to intimidation, and this ship had been built by someone who’d seduced war gods for a living.

At 04:34, the first planetary defense net attempted to aim a weapon at us. The net’s targeting software initiated, ran a recursive check, and then, on live feed, crashed so hard it dumped its logs, rebooted, and retracted the targeting as if embarrassed.

The planetary security lead came back online, voice an octave higher. “You will comply, or we will activate the failsafe!”

I muted him. He kept talking, his face turning a brighter shade of splotchy, but I needed a minute to strategize. The mythship wouldn’t fire unless directly attacked; the protocols were clear on that. But if anyone on Eventide’s surface launched a kinetic round at us, the ship’s reflex would not be a polite countermeasure. It would be a mythic event, and the Accord would write a new doctrine about “Nullarch Protocol” before the dust even settled.

I needed to buy time. I needed them to see me as the most boring, least dangerous variable in this equation.

I unmuted. “This is Dyris Vaelith, of the Great House Vaelith, again. We are operating under Accord compliance and will hold at designated coordinates. I am forwarding the Nullarch’s mission syllabus and all required documentation to your office. Please advise on next steps.”

I sent the packet. I included my credentials, my service record, and, because I had a hunch it would scare the shit out of them, a copy of the “Nullarch Bootcamp” course description. Out of spite, I also included the ancient Ship Identification Number Lioren Trivane had assigned Vireleth personally. 0.666. If someone pissed themselves when [FLAGSHIP, HOUSE TRIVANE] appeared on their screen it certainly wouldn’t be my fault.

It worked. There was silence. Sweet, precious, uninterrupted silence.

Then a new face appeared on the channel: a woman, sharp-featured, wearing the silver insignia of Eventide’s civilian governor. Her hair was up in a braid so tight it probably served as a backup communications cable. She looked at me, looked at the ship’s ID code, and, with a voice calm as entropy, said, “Is it really her?”

I nodded. “Nullarch. Confirmed.”

She exhaled. “And she’s not here to…?”

I let the pause do the work. “Eat the planet? No. She’s here to attend Eventide Athenaeum. For six months. Under supervision.”

The woman looked off-camera. Someone must have said something funny, because her mouth twitched. “I see. Do you require an escort?”

I did the math. If we accepted a surface escort, they’d keep us under constant surveillance and lock down any “deviant activity,” which for Fern could mean anything from quantum resonance to picking at her own cuticles. If we refused, they’d monitor us anyway, but from a distance, and there was less chance of a close-range mythic incident.

“Not necessary,” I said. “But appreciated. We will comply with all standard customs.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to a point above the screen, probably scrolling through the latest incident updates. “Understood. We’ll transmit entry protocols. Welcome to Eventide.”