Thirty-five crimson SOS beacons pulsed frantically across the holographic star-chart above the porch of the [Galactic Flying Courtyard].
Spanning an eight-hundred-light-year crescent along the cold outer rim of the Inner Spiral Galaxy, Branch Star Systems #1 through #35—home to nearly five trillion impoverished descendants of the exiled Gu branches—were under simultaneous siege.
Through the crackling audio feed of the astral receiver, the cold, amplified voice of Second Uncle Gu Yin echoed from the distant Galactic Capital across every military frequency in the sector:
*“All outer-rim Fleet Commanders, execute Emergency Directive Zero! System #36 has gone dark and reversed the Ninth Reservoir pipeline! Do not waste time with individual bone-testing!
Lock your main fleet cannons onto the central village squares of Systems #1 through #35, herd all six-to-sixteen-year-old branch children into the automated marrow-extraction barges within six hours. Incinerate any parent who steps within fifty paces of the cages!”*
Behind the holographic projections, terrified screams and the hum of charging orbital siege lasers echoed from thirty-five different worlds at once.
Down in the square of Iron-Root Star, Village Head Gu Tie and fifteen-year-old Gu Hu gripped their chests, their faces draining of color.
“Uncle Patriarch!” Village Head Gu Tie dropped to his knees in the warm honey-ginger rain, his voice cracking with desperation.
