Overview

• Gaal Dornick and Brother Dawn employ espionage and political blackmail to secure approval for a Kalgan blockade.
• The Kalgan maneuver yields catastrophic fallout, delivering a crippling setback to the Galactic Empire.
• The fallout sparks a violent confrontation aboard a space station that casts Brother Dawn’s survival in doubt.
• Imperial guardian Demerzel breaches Gaal’s ship, foreshadowing a high-stakes clash between two formidable mentalic figures.
• The episode amplifies the ideological contest between psychohistorical determinism and personal agency as the Empire reels from its losses.