Appears in The Compact Universe
Torch the Sky recounts the catastrophic downfall of Melekan, the original Gelt homeworld, long before the rise of the Realm. Amid escalating wars and a planet-wide plague, the rogue physicist Yandal secretly builds a towering reactor in the desert, claiming it will harness pulsar material to open the path to instantaneous interstellar travel. His goal: to unite the fractured Gelt under a single future among the stars—and to render obsolete the petty conflicts fueled by empires and warrior cults.
Meanwhile, Mevas, the flight engineer assisting him, voices doubts about Sovereign Devold’s vision to create a “Realm” beyond Melekan’s skies, seeing it as yet another doomed fantasy from the same Warrior Caste elites responsible for their world’s decay.
When Yandal’s experiment catastrophically fails, a plasma reaction spreads uncontrollably across the planet. By sunset, the surface of Melekan is reduced to ash. The only survivors are those already in orbit or on offworld colonies—forced to become the scattered seed of what will one day be known as the Gelt Diaspora and the Realm.