Omnion, still in her falcon form, dove straight for the lead World-Tree cruiser's trunk-core like a comet with a grudge.

  The cruiser loomed. Living wood pulsed gold. Sap veins ran thick as rivers. The resonance bell tolled deep enough to rattle bones she had not had a week ago.

  Escort thorn-fighters swarmed. Barbed projectiles streaked past.

  She blinked. Zero-point shift. She reappeared twenty yards closer, mid-dive, momentum preserved.

  The pendant at her throat pulsed steadily. The violet-gold ∞ symbol flared once like it was breathing with her.

  No redline warning.

  No stutter.

  Just clean, endless current.

  She blinked again.

  Now she was inside the phase field. She slipped through like smoke through a screen.

  The cruiser's outer hull rippled in confusion. It tried to reject her.

  The pendant laughed in her lattice.

  Not today.

  She landed on the bridge in a crouch. Not falcon. Not human.

  Cougar.

  Massive. Pearlescent-furred. Sunset eyes blazed orange-red-gold.

  Violet arcs crackled along her spine. Her tail lashed once like a whip.

  She rose slowly. Claws clicked on the polished wood deck. Shoulders rolled with deliberate menace.

  The bridge crew froze. Royal Nephilim officers in rune-plate. Lesser attendants. One trembling page.

  Mouths open.

  Phase-pikes half-raised.

  Eyes wide behind visors.

  The captain stepped forward. He was tall even for Nephilim...every bit of 16 feet. His alabaster skin was veined with faint gold. A House of Anak sigil shone on his breastplate. His Bell already chimed in his palm.

  A soft, commanding note.

  Rhyme compulsion.

  The air thickened with it.

  The Captain lifted his Royal Bell with a massive six fingered hand. "Yield, kit,

  By order of the Bell you sit!"

  Omnion roared.

  Not a sound.

  A pressure.

  The roar rolled outward in violet-gold waves. It shattered the Nephilim's rhyme mid-syllable.

  Her own Bell, clipped to the harness at her cougar throat, chimed counterpoint. Sharp and mocking.

  The pendant amplified it, matched its frequency, and then inverted the resonance.

  The captain's Bell stuttered. Then screamed. A high, feedback whine made every officer clutch their helmets.

  She stalked forward, feline teeth bared.

  Crew backed away.

  One attendant dropped his pike.

  Another whimpered.

  The captain tried again. His Bell shook in his grip.

  "By the order of..."

  She lunged.

  Not to kill.

  To embarrass.

  She batted the Bell from his hand with one casual swipe of her paw. The strike was precise as a scalpel.

  The Bell spun through the air. It clattered across the deck. Then, with a flick of her tail, she telekinetically hurled it straight through the open viewport.

  It vanished into the void.

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  The captain stared at his empty palm.

  The bridge went dead silent.

  Omnion shifted back to human mid-step. Violet hair whipped. Jumpsuit torn but pendant still glowing steady.

  She stood before him, head tilted back so that her golden eyes locked on his.

  She smiled. Lopsided. Dangerous.

  "Tell Anakia," she said softly, "I said hi."

  She zero-point blinked and was gone.

  Behind her, the cruiser howled.

  Without its Bell, the living ship lost cohesion.

  Golden sap bled from cracks.

  Its phase field collapsed in stuttering bursts.

  The massive trunk-core buckled. Structural supports snapped like bones.

  The ship began to tear itself apart on the cavern wall. Slow at first. Then accelerating. Debris spiraled outward in a golden storm.

  Omnion streaked back toward ThunderCoil. Her wings burned but her reserves were steady. The new pendant was a real game changer.

  She landed on the deck in a skid while shifting back to human again.

  Mercury whooped from the helm.

  Nix chimed in delight, "Bloody hell, that was beautiful!"

  ThunderCoil's voice rolled through the link. Captain. Well done. Now let me show them what an old warship can do.

  The serpent ship spun. Graceful. Vicious. It brought its weapons to bear.

  Directed electric arcs lashed out from the hull. Not wild lightning. Controlled. Spear-like bolts punched through thorn-fighter after thorn-fighter.

  One escort vessel exploded in a shower of golden sap and wood shards.

  Another tried to flee. An arc caught it mid-turn and reduced it to drifting charcoal.

  The two deck-mounted resonance cannons came alive.

  They were not loud.

  They were deep.

  Each shot was a low, bone-rattling chime. Violet-gold shockwaves rolled outward like ripples in reality itself.

  The final cruiser took the first cannon hit square on the trunk-core.

  Its bark-skin split.

  Sap sprayed in golden arcs.

  The second cannon followed. A second chime. Deeper. Angrier.

  The cruiser listed. Branches thrashed. Then it began to crumple inward like a dying flower.

  ThunderCoil banked hard. Shields flared as debris pelted the hull.

  The last thorn-fighters scattered.

  The cruisers, or what was left of them, drifted. Broken. Leaking resonance into the void.

  Omnion stood on the deck. Breathing hard. Pendant venting faint violet-gold steam.

  She looked back at the wreckage.

  Omnion smiled: tired, bloody, triumphant.

  ThunderCoil surged forward. Engines hummed with satisfaction.

  A new void opened ahead. Deeper. Darker. More dangerous.

  Nix hovered beside her. His lesser Bell chimed softly.

  Mercury leaned on the rail. Grinning.

  Omnion looked at them. Her ridiculous, loyal, impossible crew.

  Then she looked forward.

  "Let's see what's waiting around the next bend."

  The ThunderCoil dove.

  And the lattice kept listening.