The chamber darkened fully this time.
Not theatrically.
Functionally.
Every light inside the inquiry hall dimmed until the only illumination remaining came from the enormous battlefield projection stretching across the walls, ceiling, and floor around them.
The Wrong Sky surrounded the Federation completely.
Stars bent unnaturally overhead while fractured convoy formations drifted across distorted space like cracks spreading through broken glass.
The chamber felt colder immediately.
Not physically.
Instinctively.
Because every pilot present recognized the same thing at once.
Something about that sky was wrong in ways human bodies were never meant to understand comfortably.
Serena Benton remained seated above the inquiry floor.
"Resume playback."
The battlefield moved instantly.
The convoy shattered.
Not slowly.
Not under prolonged bombardment.
Instantly.
The moment the jump completed, formation integrity collapsed across all academy fleets simultaneously. Escort ships drifted off-vector while guidance systems corrected toward coordinates that no longer aligned properly with reality itself.
Then—
the first ships disappeared.
Not exploded.
Gone.
Three escort vessels vanished so completely the chamber physically froze trying to process it.
No debris.
No warning.
No thermal bloom.
One second they existed.
The next—
empty space.
The silence inside the inquiry hall deepened sharply.
Because every experienced commander present understood exactly what that meant.
This wasn't random fire.
This was execution.
Inside the projection, alarms erupted violently across every convoy lane.
"FORMATION FAILURE—"
"ESCORT VECTOR LOST—"
"THAT SIGNAL DOESN'T EXIST—"
"WE LOST HALF THE SCAN GRID—"
Panic spread instantly.
The distorted battlefield swallowed communication ranges unevenly while navigation systems began contradicting each other in real time. Some ships drifted left while their systems claimed they were moving right. Others rotated toward coordinates no one recognized.
The chamber watched lower-year cadets begin breaking formation instinctively.
Survival reflex.
Human reflex.
Wrong reflex.
"They moved us," Ryven's recorded voice echoed calmly through the playback.
Kael stared toward the battlefield display from inside Valkrieg's cockpit.
"Yeah."
His voice stayed low.
"They herded us."
The inquiry chamber tightened immediately.
Because now—
the Federation could finally see what the Helius seniors saw in real time.
Not chaos.
Pressure.
Directed pressure.
The second barrage slammed through the convoy.
This time the battlefield exploded properly.
A transport carrier tore apart across the middle deck while burning debris spiraled violently through distorted gravity lanes. Emergency pods launched in desperate clusters while escorts broke formation instinctively trying to intercept threats they still couldn't properly identify.
Comms erupted immediately afterward.
"WE LOST CONTACT—"
"WHERE ARE THE ESCORTS?"
"THAT VECTOR DOESN'T EXIST—"
"MOVE MOVE MOVE—"
"THEY'RE INSIDE THE FORMATION—"
Panic spread fast.
Too fast.
Across the chamber, several senators visibly flinched as the battlefield descended into full collapse.
Then—
Kael did nothing.
No immediate orders.
No shouting.
No dramatic command speech.
He watched.
Serena raised one hand.
"Pause."
The battlefield froze.
Burning debris remained suspended across the chamber while terrified convoy formations hung motionless inside the projection.
Serena looked directly toward Kael.
"You did not issue immediate command."
"No, ma'am."
"Why."
Kael answered instantly.
"Because they were already reacting."
His eyes shifted toward the frozen battlefield.
"And reacting was killing them."
Silence settled heavily through the inquiry hall.
Not dramatic.
Professional.
Because every experienced commander present understood exactly what he meant.
Fear had already broken structure.
More noise would have made it worse.
Serena studied him briefly.
Then—
"Continue."
The battlefield resumed.
And now the chamber saw the full scale of the collapse.
Escort formations fractured completely while academy ships drifted independently through open fire trying to survive individually instead of collectively.
Which was exactly what the enemy wanted.
Inside the playback, Adrian Alejandro Torres already had every drone active.
Not after the jump.
Before it.
Hundreds of cloaked micro-units flooded the convoy structure silently through maintenance shafts, relay systems, observation sectors, exterior hull lanes, and escort blind spots.
Kael had ordered it before the battlefield even broke.
The inquiry chamber noticed immediately.
Several admirals leaned forward.
Torres' hands flew violently across his console.
"I've got feeds everywhere—"
Another screen opened.
Then another.
Then twenty more.
"Signal degradation's getting worse—"
Kael didn't look away from the battlefield.
"Keep recording."
"I NEVER STOPPED."
Even terrified—
Torres still sounded professionally offended.
That somehow made several Helius cadets watching through public feeds smile despite themselves.
Kael stepped closer toward the tactical display.
"Torres."
"…yeah?"
"Patch me through."
A pause.
Then—
"…all channels?"
"Every channel still breathing."
The chamber shifted immediately.
Because that—
was escalation.
Not academy authority.
Battlefield authority.
Torres swallowed hard while overriding surviving communication systems across the convoy simultaneously.
"Academy frequencies connected."
Another command.
"Emergency support lanes connected."
Another.
"Combat relay bands connected."
His voice tightened sharply.
"THIS IS A LOT OF SCREAMING."
"Then cut through it."
Torres did.
The battlefield audio unified violently.
Fear.
Static.
Impact alarms.
Broken breathing.
People dying.
Then—
Kael's voice cut through everything.
Calm.
Sharp.
Controlled.
"Our enemy brought us here like sheep to slaughter."
The chamber went completely silent.
Because hearing it live—
hearing it inside the middle of the collapse—
felt different.
"Look around you."
The battlefield kept burning.
"But remember who you are."
A drifting mech stabilized slightly.
One pilot stopped hyperventilating long enough to answer a command.
"You trained for this."
The convoy shifted.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But real.
"We are soldiers of the Federation."
Serena's hand tightened slightly against the command surface.
Because that was not a rally speech.
That was identity reinforcement under battlefield collapse.
"We do not cower."
One damaged Titan unit stopped retreating.
Turned.
"We were born to fight."
More vectors aligned.
"Find your center."
Stella cadets regrouped near a damaged escort corridor.
"Save as many as you can."
Mechs stopped drifting independently.
"Plant your foot like it has roots."
Marcus Calder anchored position instantly.
Darius Kane moved beside him without discussion.
"Stand your ground."
The chamber felt that line physically.
Because now—
they understood where Darius got it from.
"We fight for those who never got another chance."
The convoy slowed its collapse.
Not because the danger changed.
Because the people inside it did.
"They brought us into the wrong sky to slaughter us—"
Kael's voice hardened sharply.
"Then we make it ours."
The chamber absorbed that sentence completely.
Every academy feed across the Federation stayed utterly motionless.
"Stand your ground."
Aria Kestrel turned her mech into the upper field immediately.
"Work together."
The Forest twins disappeared into drifting survivor corridors.
"Hold the line—"
More units grouped together.
"—until our blood runs empty."
No one ran anymore.
"We will make this sky—"
Kael's eyes locked forward.
"—our own."
The battlefield changed immediately afterward.
Not magically.
Not cleanly.
But visibly.
The Helius seniors moved first.
Not because they were fearless.
Because they were trained to move while afraid.
Aria Kestrel slammed through the upper sectors like a blade wrapped in engine fire, redirecting drifting cadets toward emergency lanes while enemy fire tore apart debris fields around her.
"STOP CHASING OPENINGS," she snapped across local channels.
"THEY WANT YOU SPLIT."
Her mech rolled hard beneath incoming fire before physically slamming a damaged Bulwark unit back toward formation.
"YOU DIE ALONE OUT THERE."
Marcus Calder anchored the center line beside Darius Kane while pressure mounted hard enough to crack shielding across entire sectors.
Marcus' voice remained terrifyingly calm through it all.
"Stabilize spacing."
"Rotate wounded units behind Kane."
"Compress left corridor."
Darius absorbed another direct impact hard enough to nearly rip one arm off his mech entirely.
He did not move backward.
Not even slightly.
Warning lights flooded his cockpit.
Armor integrity collapsed.
He planted his feet harder.
Like the battlefield itself would have to physically drag him away.
Lucian Valerius rebuilt communications manually after three relay systems failed simultaneously.
"Reflect signals through debris clusters."
"Rebuild local net."
"Do not rely on escort routing anymore."
His hands moved across tactical overlays with frightening speed.
Every surviving line mattered now.
Mei Tanaka stabilized failing energy distribution through half-broken support grids while balancing reactor strain across multiple drifting formations simultaneously.
"You lose stabilization in twelve seconds if you keep firing like that," she snapped toward one pilot.
"Either listen to me or explode professionally."
The pilot listened immediately.
The Forest twins vanished repeatedly into blackout sectors where radar systems failed entirely.
Then survivors started reappearing.
Again.
And again.
No one could properly track how Lysander and Sylas kept doing it.
Even the playback struggled.
They simply entered darkness—
and came back with people.
The inquiry chamber remained utterly still while the battlefield unfolded around them.
Not because the fighting shocked them anymore.
Because now—
they understood the structure beneath it.
This wasn't random bravery.
This was Helius doctrine under real war conditions.
The convoy survived because those cadets had been trained to overlap instead of specialize.
Pilot.
Defense.
Rescue.
Communications.
Field repair.
Formation recovery.
Every role blended together under pressure.
Exactly the way Garrick allowed Helius to evolve.
Volkov finally spoke from the observation platform.
"Most academies train cadets to win."
Her eyes remained fixed on the battlefield.
"Helius trains them to survive."
Mercer folded his arms tightly beside her.
"And survival is ugly."
That sentence settled heavily through the chamber.
Because the playback surrounding them proved it perfectly.
Nothing about this looked glorious.
It looked exhausting.
Terrifying.
Messy.
Human.
One Helius senior cried openly while dragging injured cadets through a burning corridor.
Another screamed in pain while manually holding damaged plating together long enough for evacuation lanes to clear.
A third kept repeating breathing exercises aloud because panic attacks under live fire apparently still counted as battlefield conditions.
The chamber watched all of it.
No polished heroism.
No propaganda.
Just children refusing to let each other die.
Then—
the battlefield changed again.
And the enemy adapted.