The pillar of light is now only a few nautical miles away from us. A single day at most, as the crow flies. It rises toward the heavens and seems to tear at the firmament, ringed with iridescent effluvia where it ionizes the atmosphere. So close, and yet… Between the armada and the column of energy stands a terrible obstacle: a cyclonic tornado with a flared vortex, its swirling winds shearing through the air in a single direction at over five hundred kilometers per hour. When we sent our drones in, they were ripped apart by a second tornado, nested within the first like a Russian doll, driven by counter-rotating winds. A double funnel that grinds like a millstone. All our probes were torn to pieces, as though fed into an industrial shredder… and our fleet will meet the same fate if we do not find a solution. None of our vessels is capable of withstanding forces of such intensity.

I asked our scholars and scientists to tackle the problem, but so far they have come up empty-handed. Passing beneath it is impossible: it would expose our ships to Tumult winds of a magnitude never observed before. Going over the top seems just as untenable, as that is where the winds are at their most violent. A double-funnel cyclone, seemingly defying the laws of nature. The more I study it, the more I suspect that this barrier was erected deliberately, as a protective measure. But against whom? Against what? And if it is artificial, what does it prot—

There is a sudden knock at my door, and I set my pen into its holder. I straighten slightly, buttoning my collar as I do.

‘Enter,’ I say once I am ready.

Major Dimuri opens the door to my cabin and snaps to attention on the threshold.

‘Admiral, there is someone here who wishes to speak with you. It concerns the Whiplash.’

I narrow my eyes to make out the silhouette standing behind him, half-lost in the shadows.

‘Very well. Show them in.’