From the bridge of the Silver Winged Revenge, Tressa watches the council chamber go white with emerald wildfire. The station tears open in layers, steel and glass folding inward. The Dockmaster vanishes in the blast. The traitor ships are already gone, slipping into dark with their early departure confirmed as the final betrayal.

Her 123 ships hold formation past the falling wreckage, engines cold and steady. Around them, the blockade burns and breaks apart, a graveyard of drifting hulls and severed lights.

The data-pad in Tressa’s hand pulses, then opens wider, the decrypted file snapping into focus. The Dockmaster’s hesitation before detonation was not fear. It was timing. She waited for a traitor signal so the charges would hit the station’s core lanes and the fleeing council ships together.

The truth lands hard, ugly, and clean. The Dockmaster was not trying to save the station. She was trying to make the betrayal impossible to hide.

Ahead, the last fragments of the station tumble through the void, still glowing at the seams. The bridge falls quiet except for the hum of Tressa’s fleet and the crackle of incoming fleet traffic.

The data-pad updates in Tressa’s grip, tagging surviving transponders in hard clean lines. Friendly marks blink past drifting debris, while the dead station keeps shedding sparks into the dark.

A fresh cluster of signals separates from the wreck field, tight and disciplined, waiting on her word. Below them, the blockade is only wreckage now, but the surviving captains are listening.

Pirate Lord 12 cuts the comm and looks to Tressa, the bridge lights strobing green over her command console. The fleet map hangs open, unanswered, with every survivor still dependent on her next order.