Darrow arrives at Angelia and recognizes Atlas au Raa’s cruelty and tactics: a forest of impaled, booby-trapped soldiers meant to fix aid and attention. He restrains Alexandar, orders aerial scans, and moves to the communications hub, where he finds relocated civilians who butchered each other under some pathogen, concluding Atlas is using horror and puzzles to buy time.

At the ore refinery, Marbles the slicer reveals a missed network of analog hardlines linking mining cities. Darrow yanks Marbles off a likely trap and deduces Atlas has sent commands to overload reactors across the network. He orders immediate evacuation; moments later Angelia’s reactor melts down, and a chain of meltdowns across the Ladon and Caduceus regions drops the northern shield chain.

With the sky opening to the Gold armada, Darrow anticipates Atalantia’s invasion and calculates that Red Reach and Tyche—locally powered domes—will hold. He decides to take the punch rather than retreat. He dispatches Thraxa Telemanus with six starShells to Kydon to mass garrisons and form an oblique front toward Pan while he seeks a skyhook to strike from the southwest and link with a Second Army push out of Red Reach.

Darrow orders Harnassus to launch all reserve ripWings for missile interdiction and to reinforce Tyche, tasks Feranis to hold against heavy mechanized assault without the Morning Star, and contacts Orion to delay electronic interference as the storm builds. He slaps Alexandar out of shock and has the Arcosians rendezvous at a skyhook.

Broadcasting systemwide, Darrow cancels Operation Voyager Cloak, declares Broken Sky, and activates Operation Tartarus, ordering the Second Army to Red Reach, the First and Cloak units to Sector Seventeen, and the Third to hold in the Children until the Rain. He steels the Free Legions with a vow to become “the rock they break upon” as atomics blossom and the bombardment begins.