Location:Secondary Federation Facility — Coastal Research Compound / Seven Peaks Command (relay communications)
Date/Time:TC1853.12.01 — During the Strikes
Taron had commanded soldiers for twenty years. He'd led men into border skirmishes, directed defensive operations during the Northern Incursions, and once held a collapsing formation line for six hours with half his unit wounded and the other half retreating.
None of that had prepared him for this.
The null field hit him forty meters from the compound's outer wall — a wall of nothing, the sudden absence of spiritual energy so complete that Stormheart went silent in his dantian. The longsword's constant presence, the low hum of tempest-core resonance that had become as natural as his own heartbeat since the bonding, simply stopped. Like someone had pressed a hand over a drumhead mid-beat.
