Priority Signal — Mercer to Minister Cole
Transmitted the moment the ISV Endurance re-acquired the home network ledger after five years out — ahead of any formal report, ahead of debrief. Logged on receipt, timestamped, and flagged FLASH for the Minister's desk.
ISV ENDURANCE · MASTER'S PRIORITY TRAFFIC · NETWORK RE-ACQUISITION
PRIORITY SIGNAL · TRANSMITTED ON CROSSING
MESSAGE
Minister. Endurance is home. I am sending this before we breathe. Read it before you read anything else we file.
Endurance survived the far pocket and has crossed back into the home network through a single junction. We call it the Span. One way in. One way out. We came home through it.
The far pocket is not empty. It holds a hostile, expansionist power — human-descended, the same stock we are — who call themselves the Ascendant. They exterminated the people indigenous to that region. They are not finished. They are hunting outward, toward us.
Their commander is named Maric Tann. He saw the home side as we crossed — saw it open, saw what lies through it. He knows our network is alive, that it is rich, that it can be reached. He has the shape of it now. He will not forget it.
The Span is sealed behind us. We collapsed the boundary deliberately — a cascade, at the cost of an ally's life, and I will not write that cost down lightly. But the seal is temporary. Months, not years. Tann holds the prior solution; he will re-derive what we did, and the door will open again from his side.
Recommend the fleet prepare. Now, while there is time to. They are coming.
The way home was the way in. I have spent five years learning to be wrong slowly, Minister. I am not wrong about this. Get ready.
AUTHENTICATED: MERCER, J. — MASTER, ISV ENDURANCE
TRANSMITTED ON NETWORK RE-ACQUISITION · AHEAD OF FORMAL REPORT
FLASH · PRIORITY OVERRIDE · MINISTER FOR THE FLEET, GENEVA