Legion at Aphelion

Script

INT. FLAGSHIP “APHELION” — COMMAND CHAPEL/BRIDGE — BURN-TIME

A vaulted chamber of steel ribs and candle-thin status LEDs. The IRON PSALTER sits like an altar: a black core wrapped in chains of fiber and wax seals. Its holo-ink scrolls ORDERS. CASUALTIES. TIMESTAMPS.

Outside the forward viewport: the OUTER-WORLD FORTRESS, a cyclopean ring bristling with gunmetal petals. Incoming fire blooms silent in vacuum.

LEGATE SERA KEST stands in scarred dress armor. TRIBUNE JANNIK COR guards the Psalter with a rifle held like a ceremonial staff. DR. IVO RELLAN, pale, clutches a slate of orbital plots. LADY CATRIN VALE, immaculate, holds a signet and a court writ—her last weapon.

The Psalter CHIMES. A new order prints itself, unasked.

ON PSALTER: “MARTYR PROTOCOL: ASSAULT PATTERN SEVEN. COMMIT FIRST COHORT TO BREACH. RECORD HEROISM. ENSURE LOSSES CLEAN.”

Kest’s jaw tightens. She looks to her legion through the glass—drop pods lined like beads on a rosary.

SERA KEST
(reading)
“Ensure losses clean.” As if death can be laundered.

CATRIN VALE
It is lawful doctrine. A heroic sacrifice unifies the Houses. The corridor stays ours.

IVO RELLAN
And the numbers you’ll sell are prewritten. If they die on schedule, you get a clean story—no witnesses to the annex.

Cor steps closer to Vale, rifle unwavering.

JANNIK COR
My legion isn’t a poem for your ledger, my lady.

Vale’s smile doesn’t move her eyes.

CATRIN VALE
Tribune. Legate. You are bound. The Psalter is your oath. You cannot disobey what it records.

The ship SHUDDERS—another hit. A warning klaxon, distant like a chapel bell.

Kest turns to the Psalter. Her gloved hand hovers over its seal.

SERA KEST
Then we obey it differently.

IVO RELLAN
Sera—if you touch the core without a writ—

CATRIN VALE
You’ll be branded apostate to every House—

Kest rips the wax seal. The chain CLATTERS to the deck like dropped manacles.

SERA KEST
I was branded the moment you wrote their deaths.

She slams her palm onto the core. The Psalter’s