(NERV Game Site – Official DAtS Offline Forums)

Number5Alive, Golddigger, BurtBacharach, CrazyCelt, Blaze, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, l33tpally, Bennie, SEA-TAC_Sweetie, Requiesce-in-Pace, MacD, HaveGunsWillTravel, TheDespoiler, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, Inquisitor, Lizard, RedFox, SemiSolidSnake, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous7, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, M.Mollen, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, DigDug, BigGunn, Dolcett, Starwatcher, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, Hullu_Kapteeni, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen’s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, MajorTom, Parca, and DarkAngel are in the chat.

Anonymous3: So, I finally managed to get to Tsk’neth, see what went down there.

Lizard: Tsk’neth… that’s the place that the Black Stars went Cinder vs. Evil Dead on, right?

Anonymous3: Yeah. Anyways, the reports are true. Black Star owns the system now, and Tsk’neth IV is flat out GONE! I think what’s left will form a loose asteroid belt in the next few millenia.

DarkAvariel: What in the--? How did he destroy a planet?

TheDespoiler: I would assume that he shot it. A lot.

Not_the_Face!: But, even their rail shots wouldn’t be enough to blow up a planet, not anytime soon.

Backlog: He wasn’t limited to those railguns. I just checked the chat log, and he specifically said that the senior surviving authorities in the system signed off on the planet being both uninhabited by sentient life, and in need of Exterminatus.

DarkAvariel: So, what does that mean?

Backlog: The treaties involving using superluminal weapons against inhabited planets have loopholes. Namely, the fact that if someone in authority signs off on a planet being uninhabited by sentients, then the treaty doesn’t apply.

Backlog: And, under Alliance law, having the senior officials call for Exterminatus gives any mercenary company with the capability license to execute Exterminatus on that planet, using whatever legal means are at their disposal.

BurtBacharach: Wait, you mean he went and lawyered himself into a position where he could use Starbolts on a planet?

Backlog: Yes.

M.Mollen: In my defense, the planet really needed destroying.

RedFox: Hey, Mollen, what in the hell have you been up to in the Alliance? The spacer bars were talking about an upcoming Corporate War, and all the profits they could make from it, and now they’re pissed as hell because they won’t get to profit.

Starwatcher: Oh, yes. I saw that the Yathru Corporation declared a formal corporate war against Black Star. That was supposed to start yesterday.

RedFox: According to the spacers I talked to, it started AND ended yesterday!

M.Mollen: The spacers were right, then. Yathru declared war, and gave a set date for hostilities to commence, under corporate warfare bylaws. They were intending to launch a campaign of sabotage, sanctions, and subterfuge to try and win concessions from me. I declined to play their game.

Starwatcher: Is that why your entire damn offensive force, at every base I could get contacts with, used X’thari drives to jump out in the last couple weeks?

M.Mollen: Yes. As set down by the corporate bylaws, I did not start my attack until the set time. However, once that time came, forces that I had prepositioned struck the Yathru Corporation in every system they had a major presence in, destroying orbital infrastructure and sweeping away any defenses, before eliminating the majority of their assets.

Blaze: Wait, Yathru owned entire planets. Does that mean you…

M.Mollen: Greenwave was deployed on four planets wholly owned by Yathru Corporation, yes, including Maccara, their headquarters planet.

Blaze: Well, fuck.

DoYouEvenLyft?: Well, that would explain why Yathru’s stock has just gone through the floor.

SEA-TAC_Sweetie: Yes, I would think that anyone who owns Yathru stock is reconsidering their life choices at the moment.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: So, Yathru challenges Black Star to a corporate war, thinking that they would play the game same as all the other corporations. Instead, Black Star goes immediately for the jugular, and wipes the corporation out?

M.Mollen: A fair approximation.

Dolcett: Hey, Mollen. Why was the lovely lady I had over for dinner complaining about you ‘recommending’ that the Alliance declare Exterminatus on Maccara, even after you Greenwaved the place?

M.Mollen: Ah, that was an unfortunate result of operational constraints from various treaties preventing me from doing what truly needed to be done in that case.

Dolcett: How so?

M.Mollen: Well, the big brains at Yathru decided that experimenting with zombie plagues as a bioweapon was a great idea. And they put one of their primary research facilities in a subterranean complex located underneath the capitol of Rak’kun City.

Golddigger: I don’t know if I should be terrified, or sending the devs a case of beer.

M.Mollen: Why not both?

Dolcett: So, wait, the zombies, and any samples, were kept in a high tech facility, and Greenwave eats tech. What is keeping the zombies from overrunning the planet?

M.Mollen: Well, there’s a 15% chance that the destruction of the facility’s structural supports will cause the whole thing from collapsing, causing enough destruction to destroy the samples. I think that’s a little high, myself. I’d put it closer to 10%. But, anyways, other than that minor condition, well, it is only a matter of time.

DarkAvariel: THEN WHY DID YOU GREENWAVE THE PLANET BEFORE BLOWING THAT SHIT UP?

M.Mollen: Because the only way into the facility was a tunnel from a mansion on the edge of the city that belonged to one of Yathru’s owners. No weaponry permitted under the Corporate Court’s rules of warfare would do the job, which meant the only way to destroy the samples would be to send my people into a zombie movie.

DarkAvariel: But there are over 1 trillion people on Maccara!

M.Mollen: And they mean less to me than 100 of mine.

M.Mollen: For now, the threat is contained to Maccara. Even when it gets loose, it will be effectively impossible to gather samples without also introducing Greenwave to ships or facilities you’d rather keep intact. So, that makes it safe-ish, until the planet can be declared dead, and wiped clean.

DoYouEvenDPS?: What’s your beef with zombies, anyways? I mean, you’ve gone out of your way to go and blow up everything halfway connected to zombie outbreaks.

M.Mollen: Zombie outbreaks are fun in other games, like old school MMOs, where you know that the NPCs aren’t ‘real’ and they’ll just respawn, and once the event is over it will have just been a fun event. This game isn’t like that.

Requiesce-in-Pace: Ah, yes. When the world is ‘real’, that makes it all hit a bit harder. The Biohazard games are fun to play, but you wouldn’t want to *live* in one.

M.Mollen: Exactly.

Starwatcher: So, what did Black Star win in this little war?

M.Mollen: Ownership over a few systems that formerly had populated planets, and control over another Gateway. I’m going to sell most of what we won, though I’ll hold on to Maccara until I can figure out whether I’ll need to destroy the planet, or if just burning a continent to the mantle will work.

DarkAvariel: You aren’t playing around, are you?

M.Mollen: I just got through saying how this world is ‘real’, right? Why would I play around with things like this?

(Private Room, Raven’s Roost Bar, Black Star Station, Dimiya System)

“So, like I said, I can get you three crates of the BFG-2000s, and two full containers of the XM-27s. The BFGs are psy-weapons, so no need to haul around ammo or batteries, as long as your people have enough brain power to keep it up, but the XMs use ballistic rounds. I can get you another container full of ammunition for them, easy. And you can fit a LOT of ammo in one of those containers.”

Genda Thadik, Second of his Name, Gunda of the North, Dol Signed, Heir to the True King of Sandar grit his teeth as he looked at the knelfi ‘merchant’ sitting across the table from him. As a true son of the Dendrak people, from the God-World Dendra, he should not even be speaking with this unclean filth. By rights, he should take up his traditional axe and bury it in the knelfi’s face as the proper start to cleansing God’s creation of their filth.

He held his tongue, however. Nothing good ever came from dealing with the unclean offworlders, but he was desperate. And the merchant had what he needed. That many weapons would go a long way towards helping them in their fight against the Confederate invaders that had held his people down for too long.

He nodded once, and said, “That is acceptable. What of the rest of the things I asked for?”

Ryul Yelro smiled winningly, though it had little effect on the Dendrak. Or did it? It was always hard to tell with their bodies which seemed to be made of stone. At any rate, if he nailed down this contract, then it could be the start of big business for him, so long as he could keep the weapons flowing.

“Well, some of them are easier than others, you understand. Let’s start with melee. You have a wide selection there, but I would recommend ones that take advantage of your natural strength and mass. Energy sabers are great for the light, quick types, since they can cut steel like butter, but they lack the mass of a solid blade, which means someone’s raw strength is effectively useless with them. Now, you might want to keep a couple around, since they are easy to conceal, if you know what you’re doing, but, for your people, it would be more of an assassin’s weapon than a freedom fighter’s weapon.

“Fortunately, you got options when it comes to weapons that take advantage of your power. Obviously, the megafist is the simplest of them, just being a gauntlet that you wear over your normal hand, which provides enhanced weight to your blows, with enhancements to your natural strength. Then you have your lightning hammer, which is a two-handed hammer that can shock foes in addition to beating them, damaging flesh and disrupting electronics. The power sword and power claws are variations of the same technology, using a light electric field to turn the blades into a monofilament edge, and increasing their durability, making them capable of slicing almost as well as an energy saber.

“But my personal favorite, especially if you’re trying to drive home the point that people should think twice before crossing you, would be the chain weapons. Basically, some damned fool human took a tool for cutting down trees, and thought, ‘Hey, it would be great if I could hit someone in the face with this!’ Obviously, the materials and engineering are much more advanced than the original item, but they are brutally effective against body armor and flesh. They come in three main forms, swords, axes, and fist weapons.”

Genda considered that for a moment. What the merchant said made sense. And he had seen video of weapons like what the merchant described in action before. They would be very effective in the hands of his warriors. Of course, every warrior had their own preferences, when it came to weapons.

“I see. Would it be possible to get a selection of weapons, so my warriors can find ones that suit their training? They will already have to learn the new firearms, after all.”

“Sure, sure. You wanted weapons for five hundred, with the possibility to expand to a thousand in short order, right? Then how about one hundred megafists, one hundred lightning hammers, two hundred sets of power claws, two hundred power swords, fifty chainfists, fifty chainaxes, and three hundred chainswords? I’ll even throw in five of the energy sabers for ‘special occasions’, since you’re buying in bulk.”

Genda nodded. “Acceptable. And what of the rest?”

Ryul grinned. “Done with the main course, on to dessert, yeah? All right, then. Let’s talk explosives.”

(Safehouse, Black Star Station, Dimiya System)

Amra Lorasys just shook her head at what she was hearing. Rebels and separatist groups were simply a fact of life when you were dealing with a single planet, much less an interstellar polity. Well, once you got past a certain population level, at least. New colonies, like Star’s Reach, simply hadn’t had time to develop them, yet.

In the Confederation, most of the worlds had been settled for a very long time. They’d had plenty of time to develop their own cultures, and, with them, their own rebels. Honestly, it would be more surprising if there weren’t any rebels in the Confederation.

At last count, across the two hundred and eighty-seven systems that made up the Confederation, there were five hundred and ten different rebel organizations, separatist fronts, or religious crusades in operation. Roughly four hundred of them were mostly peaceful groups, that were working to try and change things from inside the system. Another fifty were proponents of revolutionary change, but were too small in scope to do more than a local impact.

The rest? Well, they were the problems that kept the Confederate Intelligence Service’s domestic wing busy. Thankfully, most were too self-destructive, either in their ideology or their methods, to have a long-term impact, though that didn’t downplay the damage that they could cause in the short term. Some, however, were far more problematic.

The Fist of God was one of those far more problematic groups. The Dendrak were a race of lithomorphs, their bodies composed primarily of a form of granite, giving them incredible strength and durability. They also moved surprisingly fast, when they wanted to, making them incredibly dangerous combatants, even without technology.

The Dendrak lived on the world of Sandar, a volcanic world rich in mineral and metal wealth. The world was utterly inhospitable to any more normal form of life, giving the Dendrak a lack of natural predators or rivals save the great fire worms. This lack of competition stunted their technological progress in roughly the iron age.

Before the Confederation found them, just over four hundred years ago, they remained in this iron age society, ruled over by an absolute theocratic monarchy. The True King of Sandar was also the High Priest of the God-world that they walked upon. Or something like that. The description in the briefing pack she was given before the start of this mission went into some combination of alien philosophy, history, and religion that she neither knew nor cared about.

The Sandar system, being only thirty light-years from Dimiya, was one of the first systems annexed by the Confederation as it began growing. In those early days there hadn’t been any rules against simply taking a pre-FTL species’ homeworld and turning the species into a servant race. Those rules had been written largely because of Dendrak, and the Sandar Revolt.

The True King and his people did not take kindly to their annexation, once it was described to them, and fought back. They fought back surprisingly well, considering that they were using iron age technology against a civilization that controlled the high orbitals. As the Confederate Navy soon discovered, orbital strikes are of limited use against creatures that can ‘swim’ through stone.

The Sandar Revolt took ten years to put down. Ever since, the descendants of the True King and their faithful had been making trouble, off and on, trying to regain control of their planet, by any means necessary. Over the centuries, their numbers had been whittled down through attrition, until only about eighty thousand Dendrak remained in the current day. And still they fought.

The Fist of God was merely the most recent group to follow the True King in their quest to take on the Confederation. Their limited numbers and primitive weaponry kept them from being a true threat, of course. But that, it seemed, was about to change.

When the CIS got word that Genda Thadik, leader of the Fist of God, had actually travelled off of Sandar, something that no member of the Fist or its previous incarnations had ever done, as far as the intelligence agency knew, eyebrows were raised. When he booked passage on a freighter headed to Dimiya, the CIS took notice. When the freighter’s destination was listed as the Black Star Station, people got worried.

The station itself wasn’t the problem, of course. It wasn’t even the station’s owner, or the company he ran, if Amra was honest with herself. No, the problem was that the station was run as a ‘grey market’ port, where grey could move to black in an instant.

The criminal element loved it, of course, despite the hefty ‘protection’ fees Black Star charged the syndicates. A safe harbor and neutral ground, not run by the Dimiya Trade Authority, was worth the fees. Of course, the protection itself was worth every credit. The last group to try and cause trouble on the station had found themselves on the outside of the station without a suit, and then Black Star’s lawyers went to work on their families with a ruthlessness that was usually the province of Confederate Internal Revenue Service agents.

Needless to say, the hottest syndicate war became ice cold on Black Star’s station.

The CIS tolerated a certain level of criminal activity, of course. Trying to wipe out the criminal element was as futile a task as trying to wipe out all rebels. And managing the level of activity wasn’t CIS’s department, thankfully.

Even the arms dealer, Yelro, was not a major concern for the CIS. Their kind were useful enough, so long as they didn’t trade in things like nukes, or other truly nasty weapons. Being able to get weapons of questionable provenance was always a useful thing for CIS agents.

Thankfully, Yelro was one of the ‘known’ arms dealers. He mostly worked with mercenary groups and syndicates, but sold to pirates and rebels as well. That meant he knew where the limits were. If he was going to sell any of the really nasty stuff, he wouldn’t do it in any way that it could be traced back to him, and he certainly wouldn’t do it from here.

But that didn’t mean she could just ignore that the Fist of God was looking to gain modern weaponry. And not just small numbers. With the amount of weapons they were looking to buy, that meant—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Wait. Who was knocking? She hadn’t ordered anything, and wasn’t expecting anyone. With a mental command, she sent a command to her electronics, switching them to their ‘civilian’ displays. Checking once more to make sure there was no visible sign that she was anything other than the traveler she was supposed to be, she took a breath, and went to the door.

She was about to reach her hand to the intercom to see who was at the door, when the door opened of its own accord. She knew she had locked that door! Amra was surprised, but training kicked in, as her hand moved to the pistol on her hip.

“That would be incredibly unwise, Agent.”

She her brain caught up to what her eyes were seeing. A lone knelfi man, dressed in the Black Star Corporate Security uniform, a badge on his chest. He had a pistol, like hers, but she noticed that his was already in hand, and pointed directly at her chest.

She slowly pulled her hand away from her pistol. “So, to what do I owe this ‘pleasure’? And do you have a name?”

“I have several. But any that I’d tell you would be as meaningless as the fake name you used to sign for this hotel room. As for why I am here, that is simple. You were spying on one of the residents of the station.”

“Wait, are you trying to say that the arms dealer is connected to Black Star? Is that why you’re protecting the deal?”

“Oh, nice try, but that isn’t it at all. You see, Mr. Thadik paid for the private room, with the discrete staff option. He neglected to pay for the privacy screening measures, or he simply did not know about them. Either way, that is why your bug was allowed to remain in the room.

“However, this brings us to the matter of the fees you owe. First, there is the privacy violation fee, with a penalty for forgetting to purchase it before you began spying on customers on Black Star Station. Second, you have the optional discretion fee, where we don’t inform the parties you were spying on that you were spying on them. And third, you have the optional fee to skip the mandatory thirty day ‘cooling off’ period before you will be allowed to report your information to your superiors. All told, your bill, with the optional extras, comes to 254,340 credits.”

“And if I refuse to pay this blackmail?”

“You will be shot for violating station rules, and ejected from the station towards Dimiya’s surface. Your fees will then be presented to the CIS, with an added 1000% processing fee, and a public statement will be made about CIS spying on private citizens on corporate property, while exposing your name, and as many names and cover identities of your superiors and fellow agents as we can uncover. All pitched as concern for the rights of common citizens of the Confederation.”

Amra grit her teeth. The smug bastard had her over a barrel, and at gunpoint, and he knew it. “I don’t have access to those kinds of discretionary funds.”

“That’s fine. Our security experts have arranged for the comm set on the table that came with your room can temporarily serve as a secure line, so you can talk to your superior. Your actual superior, not the cut out you report to. The number is pre-dialed and waiting for you to initiate the call.”

Amra tried to keep from hanging her head in defeat. There wasn’t going to be any way of getting out of this clean, it seemed. As she reached for the phone, she said, “So, what tipped you?”

The nameless security officer chuckled. “That’s need to know, and you don’t. Now, make your call, or we start moving into the other options.”

(Ehyu Family Practice, Yokosaki, Nuevo Edo)

Doctor Wellington Ehyu was thoroughly enjoying his new life. Ever since he had left the sandy wasteland of kisArra behind, he had been in a literal paradise. And it was all thanks to that one Nomad.

He had been one of the only doctors worthy of the title on kisArra, but all he ever did was patch up smugglers and workers after bar fights, and treat an endless tide of spacers who contracted a suspicious burning after their time with the spaceport whores. Oh, he certainly never lacked for business. He was, after all, one of the only doctors on the planet, not counting the Freemen healers. But it was all just so dreadfully dull.

Then, that arrogant Nomad came sauntering back into kisArra, confident he could take on all comers. He’d grown from a no-name freighter pilot into a major businessman, and it had done nothing for the man’s ego. Especially since, if even a quarter of the rumors were true, he’d done plenty to warrant that swagger in his stride.

However, he had been talking about a brand-new colony that had just opened up for trade. Or, rather, not a new colony, but an old one that had just been found. All the benefits of a new colony, eager for trade, with none of the nasty issues that came with taming an untouched wilderness.

Ehyu had been considering how he could retire and get somewhere far off-world from kisArra, but had never had the liquid credits for it. Sure, he had his stockpile of spice as a retirement fund, but that was hard to turn into cash, unless you knew a buyer. Worse, any of the buyers he found visiting kisArra would know that it was a buyer’s market. He’d get maybe a tenth of what it was worth, if he was lucky.

Hiring the Nomad to do some ‘housekeeping’ and clean up his accounts had gotten him liquid capitol he needed. Paying him in the spice he’d saved as his retirement fund had not just covered the costs of that housekeeping, but also his transport to this new colony, where the only sand was at a beach, or in a child’s sandbox. Learning along the way, as he did, that the colony was 80% female was an unexpected boon.

Even today, Nuevo Edo’s male population was still only three out of every ten permanent residents. The transient population, the spacers, merchants, tourists, and the like, were almost nine out of ten the other way, however. Once they’d joined the wider galaxy, Nuevo Edo had quickly created several high-profile resorts where tourists could come and be certain in finding plenty of female companionship, without any of the normal hassle of paying whores.

All those new residents and tourists inevitably had medical needs from time to time. As one of the few male doctors on the planet, well, most of the men came to him when it was necessary to talk about certain subjects. Some things never changed.

Of course, there were some men who went to see female doctors for everything except those most ‘sensitive’ topics. Some of them just went to whoever was closer. More than one enjoyed the look on the female doctor’s face whenever they were told to drop their shorts and spread their legs for a physical. Being on a planet of 70% females meant that any man got a very healthy ego boost from their size, since the women barely had anything to compare to.

Of course, Ehyu couldn’t deny benefiting from the situation, either. His nurse was very pretty, well trained, and oh, so happy to be here, working with one of the rare men. He made sure to give her plenty of juicy gossip to go spreading around to all her friends, making them jealous of her, and the attention he gave her.

It wasn’t like he was blind to what she was doing. Working with a man was so rare that it was a status symbol. Getting his ‘attention’ every couple days made his nurse one of the most ‘relaxed’ women in the city. And, after she had started telling her stories, he’d actually gotten an uptick in patients. Female patients.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door. Looking up, he smiled as he saw Rubi sticking her head in. “Doctor, your three o’clock is here.”

“Thank you, Rubi. I’ll be right over.”

He took a moment to look up the file for this patient. Hori Nagisa, age 18. New patient, here for an initial physical. Father unnamed, with only a Breeding Registry Number given, but that wasn’t uncommon for men who were in protective custody because of the shortage. Only reason they even recorded the registry numbers was to prevent inbreeding (a task that was made much more difficult when considering the population demographics). Mother was… Hmm. This should be interesting.

Picking up a tablet with the girl’s information on it, he rose from his desk and left the office, closing the door behind him. It was only a few quick steps from his office to the examination rooms. Due to a quirk in the construction of the building, the exam rooms were soundproofed quite nicely. Totally coincidental, of course.

Walking into the room, he smiled as he saw the two women standing there. His eyes came to rest on Hori Shizue, the mother, first. Her features were, like most Nuevo Edoans, a mix of Japanese and Hispanic features, and she had been blessed with the best of them. A doll-like face and raven-colored hair, a healthy set of Cs on her chest, with a slender waist, wide hips, and a nice, round butt that was nice and firm, even after having a kid.

With a smile that he had only rarely had to force since coming to paradise, he said, “Ah, Hori-san! Rubi didn’t tell me such a beauty decided to step through my door today! If I didn’t know better, I would swear that she was jealous.” As Shizue blushed and giggled, I turned my attention to her daughter.

Nagisa was a younger version of her mother, in all the right ways. Oh, she wasn’t as developed, not yet. But he could see that she was going to be a real beauty. But then, so was everyone on this pleasure world.

“And who is this vision with you, hmm? You didn’t tell me you had a little sister, Hori-san!” He winked roguishly at the young girl.

“Oh, Ehyu-sensei!” Shizue giggled. “Behave yourself. This is my daughter, Nagisa. She turned 18 today, and you know the health board says she needs a new physical.”

I smiled at her. “Oh, fine.” Turning to look at Nagisa, who was fidgeting nervously with her school uniform, I said, “Well, Nagisa-san, I am Doctor Ehyu. I’ll be conducting your examination, and making sure you’re in good health for the state health board’s records. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

Once I’d answered the few questions that Nagisa had, I showed Shizue out of the room. Nagisa sat on the exam chair, her feet hanging over the side. As I began the examination, I couldn’t help but think that she really was her mother’s daughter.

It was a fact that there were no really ‘ugly’ ladies on Nuevo Edo. Well, from a genetics standpoint, at least. Injuries, disease, obesity, and other such things still affected people, but there were very few naturally ugly people on the world. People started at ‘attractive’, from his point of view, and went up from there. Honestly, without any false modesty, if it weren’t for the population imbalance, he would consider every lady on the planet in a league above his own.

The reason for this abundance of beauty was simple enough. The initial colonists on the colony ship had been given genetic screenings to go with the psychological evaluations and other tests, which filtered out many genetic disorders that could threaten the health of the colonists. Selecting those with strong genetic profiles had the side effect of picking those who were, as a rule, on the high side of average or better when it came to physical looks. Later on, when genetic providers (in other words, men) were at a premium, to the point where the government had to step in and manage breeding, well, it becomes a simple matter to prioritize healthier pairings while sending bad genetic stock to much lower priority queues.

It wasn’t a eugenics program, not in the typical manner. They weren’t selecting based on racial lines, or out of some ideals of ‘purity’. And the history of humanity’s brushes with eugenics had, thankfully, taught them not to exclude genelines altogether, lest potential adaptations and markers be lost. Cutting out chunks of Humanity’s genetic profile never worked well. It always ended in some kind of horrible disaster.

Instead, they just relegated those with bad genetics to tertiary or lower priority on breeding lists. So, they might breed once, perhaps twice in their lives, while other women, ones with stronger genes, might have four or five children. This kept the number of ‘weak gene’ individuals down, while still ensuring that the genes survived.

And it was important that even the weak genes survived. After all, a genetic malady like sickle cell proved to increase survival rates against malaria. Even ‘flaws’ could be used to improve a colony’s survival chances. So, flaws were minimized, managed, but never eliminated. Who knew what genetic quirk might prove life-saving in the face of all the things one might find on alien worlds?

Nagisa’s eyes, ears, and reflexes all seemed to be perfectly within the normal range for Nuevo Edoans, which put her on the high side of average for unmodified humans from Terra. Very nice. “You’re doing very well, Nagisa. Now, we’ll need to check your breathing. If you’ll open your shirt for me?”

Nagisa bit her lip, but began unbuttoning her school blouse, revealing a white bra underneath. Ehyu went about the physical examination, taking her measurements, and listening to her breathing through the stethoscope. Everything seemed in order. Her heart rate was elevated, and jumped up every time he touched her, but that was fine. He was, almost certainly, the first man to see her like this, so it was only natural for her to be a bit nervous.

“Very good, Nagisa-san. Now, for the next part of the examination, you’ll need to lay down, and put your feet up in the stirrups, all right?” As she started to lay down, Ehyu noticed another flash of white under her blue skirt. “Oh, and I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to remove your panties.”

“M-my panties? But why, Sensei?”

“Because it is a physical examination, Nagisa-san. You can’t expect me to examine you through your panties, can you? Don’t worry about a thing. I am a trained doctor, after all.”

She nodded slowly. “Ok.”

As she began pulling off her panties, he said, “Now, don’t worry about a thing. Your mother went through the same exact exam when she came for a checkup a few months ago, and she was fine, right?”

Nagisa nodded, and he drew the paper curtain across her waist, to give her an illusion of privacy. Sitting on a stool between her spread legs, he leaned in close, to examine the schoolgirl’s folds. “Well, I can see no obvious marks or defects on the outside. That is good.”

Ehyu paused for a second, and then said, “Now, lets test your sensitivity for a second, before we get to the internal examination.” With a practiced motion, he stroked a finger along Nagisa’s lower lips, lightly tracing their outline.

“Ah!”

He ignored her little outburst, as he slowly parted her lips, and his thumb flicked across her clit. “Initial sensitivity seems to be well within normal ranges.” He saw a glistening where his fingers were toying with her. “And you’re self-lubricating nicely. Very good.”

Nagisa gasped in shock as the cold steel of the speculum touched her skin. She shuddered as it spread her open. But Ehyu continued his examination. “Yes, this looks quite good. Everything looks quite healthy. And I can see you still have your hymen, Nagisa-san.”

The girl squirmed at that mention, but Ehyu began stroking his finger across her clit to distract her. “Now, don’t worry about that. This is part of why your mother brought you to me for your physical examination, after all.”

As he spoke, Ehyu slipped the speculum out of her vagina. The scanners focused on the table would already have all the data he needed, except for the blood sample he would take later, to send to the lab. But some things didn’t always show up on scans, and common AI programs sucked at dealing with patients, which is why clinics still had the ‘human touch’.

And he continued with that human touch as he stood up from the stool, his fingers moving slowly along the sides of Nagisa’s folds, testing the waters now and then. When he decided she was ready, he pulled his fingers away. “All right, now for a bit of a larger probe, to fully test your sensitivities.” And, with a practiced motion, he freed his swollen cock from its confinement.

“It is time for the practical portion of the physical exam, Nagisa-san.”

(Catspaw Armory, Shvehona City, Dimiya)

 The door chime rang, signaling a new customer in the shop.

“Welcome to Catspaw Armory. How can we help you?”

 Arv k’Tea, known to her friends as Kiki, didn’t bother looking up from her work bench. Recky, her part-timer, could handle it. She still had work to do.

 What had started as a simple store selling custom made firearms had quickly expanded beyond her wildest dreams. Part of that was due to the fact that she made damn good weapons, and anyone who wanted quality ballistic weapons wanted one of her guns. Another part of that was the fact that several prominent members of Black Star openly carried her guns, and, because of that, her custom makes had become something of a status symbol.

That had required her to find larger facilities than the simple shop with a small front room with display cases and the larger back room with her work bench and machine tools. Now, she had actual manufacturing lines! Oh, she still made her custom guns. That was her pride and joy, after all. But most of her business now came from mass production.

 So, now, thanks to some very attractive business loans from Black Star’s financial division, she was the owner of a city block that included a factory, warehouse, and her main shop. The shop part was the most familiar part of the whole setup, though she had expanded to having three extra gunsmiths now, as well as an office manager and a couple part-time employees to run the register. Which was good, because with the additional responsibilities from the expanded business, there was no way that she would have been able to keep designing custom firearm. Thankfully, she still got to get her hands on the metal, making custom firearms on commission, and had leveled up her engraving skills, as well.

 The warehouse was pretty simple, mostly just parts and materials for the factory and the shop. This was good because they could have a stockpile of parts, whether they made them themselves or ordered out, that could be kept ready for projects as they came along. She was a gunsmith, not a logistics manager, so she was glad to hand those responsibilities off to some of her employees who knew what they were doing.

 The factory, on the other hand, had several production lines going at once. Of the five lines, three of them were devoted to a style of weapon that ought to be impossible in the real world, but had been realized in this game world. These were designs inspired by an old game in real world, one conducted with physical miniatures on a tabletop, translated into the game world by her prototyping, and eventually refined to the point that they could be mass produced and sold.

 The ‘Commissar’ line was a semi-automatic pistol, wholly mechanical, that fired explosive rounds. The size of the rounds, and the resultant kick when they were fired, meant that only the strongest people, or those with modifications, could fire more than one or two shots in quick succession with anything approaching accuracy. However, when you’re firing miniature shaped charges with each pull of the trigger, rate of fire can be secondary to placement of fire.

 The ‘Sororitas’ line was a carbine submachine gun. It fired heavier rounds than the Commissar, meaning that an unmodified human would need to use both hands, or be wearing power armor, to use it effectively. On the other hand, it could be used in semi- or full-auto, which was very good for putting down any threats you came across.

The ‘Astartes’ line was a battle rifle, capable of larger ranges and faster firing times than the Sororitas. However, a normal human would have as much luck trying to fire this beast of a weapon on the move as they would a .50 caliber machine gun in the real world. It was designed for those in power armor, or augmentations, or both.

 The last two lines were for modifications to the first three lines. Enhanced optics, extended or drum magazines, underbarrel weaponry, and those kinds of things. She only supplied basic addons. Enhanced targeting scopes for the rifles, and underbarrel grenade launchers for the Sororitas and Astartes were big sellers. There were some other requests, which she contracted out to Black Star for. Let them figure out how to make a ‘melta’ or flamethrower to attach to a perfectly good gun.

 The Black Star Marines were her largest customers, but far from the only ones. Any Nomad that could get to the Confederacy seemed to show up on her doorstep, wanting a gun. Most of them were all too happy to pay extra for custom grips, personalized engraving, and all the other things that enhance the artistry of a weapon beyond its basic form, which made her even more money.

 She shook her head, clearing away the cobwebs. She didn’t hear any yelling, or other untoward noises from the door, so she trusted in Recky to take care of things. No one made the mistake of messing with that man twice, something he and Mollen had in common. And if someone tried to cause any real trouble, well, she would hear the gunshots.

 She took a breath, and returned to focus on her work. She was almost done with this custom piece. Well, a modification on one of her production items, actually. When she was finished, this was going to be one of her best pieces yet.

 It started with an Astartes rifle. First, she tightened all the tolerances, making everything fit tighter, which would increase the accuracy and recoil compensation of the rifle. This wasn’t done on production rifles because the increased tolerances demanded higher levels of maintenance, more often, which was more than most people wanted to deal with.

 Next, she increased the length of the barrel. This would increase accuracy at longer ranges, though it would make the rifle unwieldy in close quarters. That would be an issue for some, but for this rifle, which was going to be a long-range weapon.

 She added an integral suppressor on the barrel, to muffle the sound of the rifle’s firing. Calling it a ‘silencer’ was a misnomer. There was nothing ‘silent’ about a big gun being fired. The ‘silencer’ just turned it from something you needed hearing protection for to something that you wouldn’t hear two blocks away. The big benefit was that it also worked to decrease the muzzle flash, which would make it harder for observers to find the source of the shot.

 Then, she broke down, and added some sophisticated electronics. The ‘smart optics’ scope would connect with a user’s commlink and sensor software to provide a variety of useful information, to further increase accuracy on extreme range shots. That was par for the course, in high-end rifles. What made the electronics on this weapon a head above the rest was the active noise cancellation. Pulling the trigger activated a noise generator, which sounded counterproductive, until you realized that the sound was at an inverse frequency and strength to the sound of the gunshot, effectively cancelling out the audible sound. You would still feel the shot if you were anywhere close, but it made finding a shooter extremely difficult.

 The next step was custom ergonomics. That meant more than just a buzzword. It meant shaping the stock so that it was just the right curve for comfort and support, at just the right length to reduce any motion while aiming. It meant adjusting the trigger pull strength so that it took just the right amount of pressure (not too light, not too strong) to fire. It meant every one of a hundred little tweaks to make the rifle the most stable, accurate weapon possible, at least for its intended user.

 That wasn’t to say that it would only work for the user. That kind of functionality involved loading the gun up with biometric sensors, or chips, or other such things. All of which left trails back to the user, if they ever had to hide the gun somewhere in a hurry. That would be a crying shame, but needs must and all that.

 No, it was just the simple fact that anyone other than the intended user would find the rifle just that little bit wrong. Whenever they got behind the scope, the stock, the trigger, the scope itself, all would be set to one person’s preferences, forcing any other user to adapt, as though they were firing a wholly unfamiliar gun. And unfamiliar guns were tough to manage in long-range settings, until you’d put enough rounds down-range to really get a feel for it.

 It was the same as the pilots who flew racing shuttles. Sure, throw them into an unfamiliar craft and expect them to fly a race, and they’ll make a decent show of it. But they won’t be on their best game, even if the shuttle is the same make and model as the one they normally fly. Because it isn’t ‘their’ shuttle, the one they know every whirr and whine on, or how the gravitics lean just that little bit to starboard when going at high speeds, or… well, more things than she cared to think of.

 By the same token, you take that racing pilot, and you put them behind the controls of their personal craft, the one they fly hundreds, maybe thousands of hours a year, and spend as much time or more keeping it ‘just so’? Well, they can make a shuttle do things you simply would not believe. Things that, in a sane universe, would seem to be impossible.

 Hell, a race pilot wasn’t even the strangest example. Back on real-life Earth (old Terra, in the game), there were people who could lift a coin off the ground and put it on top of a bottle, with a forklift! And those crazy Russians, they did ballet, with TANKS! The things a person could do when they knew every facet of their tools was breathtaking.

 But that was all the technical aspects. The things that made the gun a functional masterwork. Now, she was working on the engraving, and adding the artistic embellishments that would turn a functional, finely made weapon into a work of art.

 She had just finished when she heard the footsteps behind her. Deliberately loud, though still softer than a human’s ears would discern over the noise of the shop. But her Felisan hearing was far more sensitive than a mere human’s.

She turned, seeing her ‘part-timer’ standing there. She could tell from the look on his face what was going to happen next. They’d never had any secrets between them, save for those that they had to have, because of professional obligations. She knew what he was about to say.

“So, putting in for some vacation time, Recky?”

 The human chuckled. “Afraid so, Kitty. Seems it is time for me go back to my ‘real’ job. Don’t know how long I’ll be out, but it shouldn’t be quite as ‘explosive’ as my first big gig. Well, not initially. Never know how these things fall out afterwards, you know?”

 Kiki smirked, her whiskers waggling. “Yes, I would be surprised if anything could top the explosiveness of your first job. Well, anything that a single person could pull off. Mollen apparently decided to blow up a planet recently, so he’s definitely got you beat on explosiveness. And then there’s that corporate war, and all the shit he’s been up to. So, you aren’t the worst Nomad at stirring things up.”

 He laughed at that, just like she’d intended. “Thanks, Kitty. And yeah, I guess I have a ways to go if I’m going to equal him. But, at any rate, I wanted you to know that I was going to be gone for a while.”

 Kiki smiled widely. “Well, in that case, it is a good thing I just finished my latest project. I was going to wait until next week, RL, but I figure, what with you going off and getting into trouble, you might find some use for it.”

 She turned, and lifted the gun, all the while thanking her game-world strength to allow her to easily carry something that would weigh thirteen to fourteen kilograms, at least. Not the heaviest thing in the world, but not something you just picked up easily.

 Turning back to face the man, she smiled, and said, “So, happy birthday, and all that.”

 The man nodded slowly as he took the gun. He definitely did not have a tear in his eye as he looked over the craftsmanship of the rifle. That was just dust, honestly. As he looked over the shroud on the barrel, he couldn’t keep from smiling, seeing the words engraved there.

REQUIESCE IN PACE

(CNS Luvon Gilrie, Tyhad Station Advanced Prototype Testing Range, Tyhad System)

 “We’ve arrived, Captain.”

 Captain Faylen Zylna nodded once at her pilot. “Very well. Comms, signal the testing facility, and request further orders.”

 Lieutenant Tanyl Leoven, her XO, took a breath. “Think they’re finally going to tell us what we’re going to be testing?”

Captain Zylna chuckled. “Well, I think we can narrow down at least part of it. It won’t be a new ship class, because they would have a test crew already. For the same reason, it won’t be armor, because that would be a good amount of time in the yards.”

 Leoven nodded slowly. “Ah, I see. There aren’t yard facilities here for a major rework or redesign, meaning that whatever we’re testing will need to fit inside the existing hull. Not likely to be anything bolted on to the hull, since that would ruin our stealth profile, and at that point you might as well send another ship, right?”

“Right. So, that narrows it down quite a bit. Then you have to consider what we have that the more traditionally built ships don’t have, that makes us the ones who need to test this new design.”

 The Lieutenant considered that for a moment. “Sensor software could be tested on any ship, more or less. Our scanners are good, but they are the same as other ships in the fleet. It could be a new comms array, if any hardware was something that could be done without additional equipment outside the hull. But the only way that works is if it is a stealth communications suite, that can somehow utilize the existing emitters.”

Zylna shook her head. “Not likely. Anything comms systems they came up with would almost certainly need to be routed through the hull, same as sensors. And any new drive system would require work, as well.”

 “That just leaves weapons then, when you get down to it. Doubt they’ll replace our point defense, or the turrets. Which just leaves, what? The missiles and the main gun?”

 “That’s what I’m thinking. The one edge that Black Star has on all the other powers, really, is their weapons capability, and the willingness to use them. That capability is due to the owner not being burdened by oversight committees keeping him from spending R&D money wherever he likes. And he likes developing new weapons tech more than anything else, it seems.”

 Leoven chuckled. “No doubt the Navy has been working their connections to the Senate to try and point out that if a single corporation is doing this, the other powers could, too, and that we’ll be left behind. That should wake a few people up.”

 Before she could respond, the comms officer spoke up. “Captain, Tyhad Station confirming our arrival. They’ve transmitted docking instructions at the station. Also, they request you and the XO to repair aboard for a briefing.”

“Very well. Confirm receipt. Helm, take us in. XO, I’ll meet you at the forward docking hatch in ten minutes. Ensign Colhara, you have the conn.”

 “Aye, Captain.”

(Conference Room, Tyhad Station Advanced Prototype Testing Range, Tyhad System)

 Upon entering the station, they were quickly, and efficiently, led to a conference room. Considering that they passed no fewer than three checkpoints between the docking port and the conference room, on a military facility that already had restricted access, that did not give Captain Zylna warm feelings. Anything behind such a veil of secrecy was, no doubt, extremely classified. Like ‘tell a soul and you are disappeared’ levels of classified.

 So, she wasn’t entirely surprised to see Naval Intelligence represented when they entered the conference room. It was no secret that Intelligence was simply in love with the Assassins, and even the civilian intelligence services were wanting to get some for their covert operations. She was, however, pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face doing that representation.

“Ah, Captain Zylna, Lieutenant Leoven. I’m glad you could make it.” Major Maerol Zumrora nodded to her as she entered. The Major was the foremost ‘expert’ in Naval Intelligence when it came to Black Star ships, technology, and tactics. Well, as far as anyone could be an expert in that group, or their owner.

 She offered a salute, as was proper. “Major. I take it that if you’re here when the Gilrie has been called to participate in these trials, then it has something to do with new tech the Black Stars have parted with?”

 He waved her off. “At ease. And, no, it is not any new tech that they’ve parted with that we’ve called you here to test. But for that, I expect it would be best if I let the scientists speak for themselves. Presrel?”

 A knelfi with a ratlike face and sharp eyes stepped forward. “Doctor Presrel, thank you very much. I am entitled to the title every bit as much as you are yours, ‘major’.” The level of disdain in his voice on the last word was palpable. Zylna had to fight to keep from sighing. This wasn’t going to be fun. Especially as his attention now swung to her.

 “I am Doctor Iefyr Presrel, senior researcher on this project. The Tyhad facility is currently engaged in practical testing under controlled conditions for several new systems that the Navy is keenly interested in. Most of them, you need not concern yourself with. The ones you do, however, are codenamed Project Yesrieth and Project Datoris.”

He took a breath, and continued. “Project Yesrieth is not a true weapons system, but rather a new type of ammunition for the primary weapon on BS-origin ships. The current BS-01 ammunition is a pure ballistic projectile hyper-accelerated by the electromagnetic rails running the length of the ship. While this is a very simple and serviceable system, Project Yesrieth aims to improve upon it.”

 Doctor Presrel tapped a button on his tablet, and a screen on the far wall lit up. On it was projected a schematic of a projectile. Zylna couldn’t understand half of the math or science involved. Fortunately, the doctor was too arrogant to not describe his work.

“This is the XP-125 ‘Duntara’ multipurpose projectile. Unlike the solid titanium-nickel alloy projectile that is in current use, the XP-125 is a nickel-iron shell. The heavier alloy is used to offset the hollow space inside the projectile. This space houses a small, but powerful nuclear fusion device, usable in one of two ways.

  The first is to create a powerful bomb-fueled laser of roughly 250 terawatts, with a firing time of 0.05 seconds. This short, but powerful, blast is designed to be fired shortly before contact with enemy shields. As you know, energy strikes attenuate shield strength momentarily as shield emitters struggle to compensate. Using this, we give the XP-125 projectiles a superior chance of penetrating enemy shields and delivering the bulk of their kinetic energy directly into the hull of an enemy warship.”

Zylna nodded slowly. The Gilrie’s main gun was a powerful beast, but this was effectively the equivalent of putting anti-armor rounds in an old-style sniper rifle. If it worked, it would allow Assassin-class ships to truly live up to their name. Looking the scientist in the eye, she asked, “You mentioned these were multipurpose rounds?”

“Yes, indeed. Now, you can fire the XP-125 in ‘shieldbreaker’ mode, which I just described to you, or the ‘normal’ mode, which you’re familiar with. In that case, the nuclear payload simply adds more hazards to the environment, if anything survives. However, there’s also a third mode you can fire in, which we are calling ‘shotgun’ mode.

 “As you know, there are several major weaknesses to the BS-01 rounds. The first is that the BS-01, while powerful, is simply too powerful for operations where total destruction of enemy vessels is not the primary goal when dealing with ships below the strength of a cruiser or destroyer, which is less than ideal for situations where you need to capture the target vessel. The second is that, when hitting unshielded or weakly shielded targets, there is an occasional problem with overpenetration, with the round punching all the way through the ship without hitting anything solid enough to stop it, leaving a wreck that, while highly damaged, could still have enough local control to prove a danger to allied craft. The third primary weakness of the BS-01 is that it is useless against fighters, shuttles, or other small craft, due to the fact that hitting a target that small and fast at any range is all but impossible.

“Therefore, we designed the ‘shotgun’ mode. This shotgun mode uses the fusion bomb as just that, a bomb, going off either due to proximity, or on a timer. This explosion shatters the nickel-iron casing, turning it into what is essentially the largest known fragmentation bomb, with the forward momentum already possessed by the weapon effectively making the blast similar to that of a shaped charge. While this renders the weapon useless against warships with heavy shields, the scattered impacts can still take down corvette and frigate shields, and the lesser impacts will serve more to disable, rather than destroy, an enemy ship, allowing it to be rendered safe by traditional means. 

“Against fighters, this shotgun mode essentially sends shrapnel in all directions. Most fighters or bombers do not have armor or shielding powerful enough to stand up to this assault, if they are hit by the leading edge of the debris field. If fired in the path of enemy fighters or bombers, the resulting debris field would be catastrophic to any force maintaining strict formations. Even if they broke off, they would have to gather and reset their attack runs, giving allied fighters and vessels a chance to reduce their numbers. 

Leoven nodded. “So, while the blast is omnidirectional, due to the weapon’s momentum prior to the explosion, fragments in front will be accelerated, while fragments to the rear will be fighting their own momentum initially, reducing their impact. Will it be safe enough for friendly fighters, though?”

The doctor shrugged. “The math suggests it will, but this is why we’re conducting these practical tests. Certainly, any ships with at least a corvette’s shields should be protected from the ‘back scatter’, as some are calling it.”

 Zylna looked at the screen. “This would be an incredible advantage, if it works, Doctor. I know the other captains of the Assassin squadron have been complaining about some of those weaknesses, especially the part about the fighters, since one of the traditional roles of a corvette is to screen larger ships against fighters, while the Assassin is a dedicated hunter-killer, rather than a screening vessel.”

Zumrora took that moment to interject. “Yes, it is for that reason that Naval Command has decided to keep plenty of the ‘traditional’ ship-classes around, though many will be receiving refits and upgrades, as time and budgets permit, I don’t doubt.” He took a breath, and then looked to the Doctor. “Move on to Datoris, Doctor.” 

Doctor Presrel nodded. “Very well. Project Datoris is seeking to replicate a significant tactical advantage that has recently come to light, due to the Nomads having means of communications that transcend all known limitations, invisible to detection, without requiring transmission equipment. As you know, most navies have inducted Nomads where they can, to aid with emergency communications. However, because their connection to this world is nonpermanent, and appears to go out randomly at times, for durations lasting hours or days at a time, this is considered a stop-gap solution until a more permanent solution can be found.” 

NOW Zylna new exactly why Zumrora was here. An untraceable communication system that worked at interstellar distances and didn’t have transmission equipment the size of a small house and took a level of power equivalent to 200-500 homes to activate was any spy’s ultimate dream, right up there with perfect invisibility fields and working mind-control technology that didn’t leave obvious markers, or require the use of slave collars or Hundeherstellar nanites. But that just left one burning question.

“How?

Presrel coughed. “Well, the breakthrough was when we managed to isolate one of the volunteers in a quantum faraday cage. During the testing cycle, it was discovered that the QFC was able to isolate the volunteer from Nomad communications. Using that knowledge, experience with X’thari bio-tech interfaces, and some other experimental results that are unimportant to your testing, we were able to construct a bio-tech device which mimics the Nomad ability to communicate over distances.”

“Really? So, we can listen in on Nomad communications?”

“No, at the moment, the system is fairly basic, with messages being essentially reduced to a binary code, like the old Morse Code from Old Earth. However, while it cannot be linked to Nomad networks, our testing suggests that Nomads cannot access its network, either, allowing for a secure channel of communication that does not require vetting a ‘trusted’ Nomad.”

“Amazing! How large is this device?”

“The actual mechanism is about fifteen centimeters long, with a mass of roughly 375 grams. However, the mechanism is housed in a cylinder made of aluminum and chromed steel roughly twenty centimeters in diameter and thirty in height, filled with a nutrient solution to keep the biological component functioning. The entire mechanism has a mass of just over 36 kilograms.”

“Impressive. How did the volunteers react to the success of the project? They must have been eager to share the news with the Nomad community.”

Zumrora cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that is not part of this briefing. Suffice to say that we believe a security breach on their end is unlikely.”

(Conference Room, Titan Research and Development Center, Titon, Sol System)

“Admiral Han! Thank you for coming!”

Admiral Han Moon-Hee nodded at the men and women who came to a rough semblance of attention as she entered the room. The lack of decorum irked her, but she didn’t let it show. If she were on a Navy ship, she would have their hides for such lax discipline, but this was not a Navy ship, and these people, despite their uniforms and ranks, weren’t Navy, except as a technicality.

 No, these people were all Specialists and officers on the engineering track. Scientists and wrench monkeys, as some called them. Military discipline was often relaxed in those departments, for a variety of reasons. Oh, they would all snap to attention if they were conducting a ceremony, at least enough to not embarrass the Navy, but everywhere else, they were a bit more… relaxed. 

Part of it had to do with how you couldn’t stop fixing a machine to salute every time your chief walked into a room. Part of it was because the brilliant minds that made up the science corps of the Navy were hampered, rather than helped, by rigid discipline. Either way, the science and engineering departments had always been somewhere that discipline was a function over form situation, where it was adhered to rigidly when it was prudent (such as maintaining a ship’s reactor or in using proper methods for scientific research), but was relaxed or ignored otherwise, unless there was cause.

Since the Battle of Coldana, when she had made her recommendations to the Admiralty, she had gotten to know the dual nature of discipline in the Research & Development department here on Titan quite well. It was part of the reason she stayed away, for the most part. If she was looking over their shoulders, then they tried to behave ‘better’, and it ruined their productivity. But she’d gotten a message that they had results to show her, so here she was.

As she moved to the seat at the head of the table and sat down, she focused on the person in charge of this gaggle of lab coats and tinkerers. “Commander Phillips. I know you all are busy, as am I. You mentioned that you had a presentation for me? Let’s get on with it, then.”

Commander Phillips nodded. “Right you are, Admiral. As you know, we were commissioned to create new designs for the next generation of Imperial Navy equipment, across the entire range of Imperial vessels in use, with particular emphasis on replicating or improving upon technology found in the ships introduced by Black Star. I think you’ll be impressed with our initial designs.”

The Commander pressed a button in front of her, and a hologram of an arrowhead-shaped one-man fighter appeared in the center of the table. “Starting small, we have the XF-382 Strike Fighter. A dual-purpose design, this fighter has heavier armor and shields than is normal for its type. The intended roll for the XF-382 is to engage in close support of forces in space or on the ground, and to make attack runs on enemy ships.”

Admiral Han nodded. “What are its armaments, and top speed?”

“Primary weapon is a reverse-engineered X’thari Grav-lance, similar to what they put on their cruisers. Thanks to advances in technology brought on by the Civil War, we’ve been able to miniaturize the weapon by 25% and reduce the power requirements so that it can be fired once every 2.5 minutes. Secondary weapons include twin rapid-fire blasters mounted on either side, and two missile launchers, each holding up to three standard-sized missiles or a single torpedo in an internal bay.

“Unfortunately, top sublight speed is 15% slower than the current Storm King fighters, but it does have a microjump FTL drive, allowing for quick repositioning around the battlefield. The microjump is limited to 10x light speed, but can be charged and activated in rapid succession. Numbers indicate that it should have an improved length of service doing in-system microjumps on the order of 458% greater than the otherwise more capable drives in use in small craft currently. 

Moon-He considered this information carefully. It was an ambitious concept. The fighter would be ideal for close-support, that was true. The massive grav-lance gave the fighter a serious punch, if it came to it. The slow rate of fire on the primary weapon would be problematic, but at a squadron strength, well, enough hits would add up quickly. The Imperial Marines, at least, would definitely like something like this.

“Very well. You may start prototyping, to get a test craft built. Next? 

The fighter was replaced by an actual warship, a corvette. “This is the XS-390. As you can see, it is based on the more classic corvette structure, though incorporating lightweight armor materials, rather than the typical construction. It represents a middle ground between the current Tenhauser-class corvettes, and the Assassins. The focus was on sticking to the primary function of corvettes in fleet doctrine, rather than introducing new systems, while incorporating technologies and advancements gleaned from the Assassin.

“The XS-390 is faster and more heavily shielded than the Tenhauser, but more heavily armed than the Assassin. Instead of a massive railgun, we went for the more traditional setup of conventional weapons. Because of this, the XS-390 has triple the point defense of an Assassin, allowing it to better serve as a fighter screen for larger ships. It also boasts more ammunition capacity for its torpedoes than an Assassin, and its primary weapons have a 12% higher rate of fire than the Tenhauser.”

Admiral Han nodded. This was the kind of thing she wanted to hear when she had the Navy’s designers start on this project. They would never beat Black Star “Do we have an answer to the capabilities of the Assassin? With those things proliferating beyond Black Star and the Empire, it is only a matter of time before we face one in a hostile situation.”

“Unfortunately, the answer for the main gun of the Assassins and other Black Star ships is to simply not be where they are firing at, for anything other than a superdreadnought or a station with dedicated ballistic shielding. The simple laws of physics mean there is too much energy to deal with that. However, there are some improvements we can make regarding detection, to keep stealth ships of any sort from being able to get within effective range of their weapons.” 

The corvette disappeared, and a series of satellites took its place. “The best solution we have come up with is to expand sensor capabilities. From our tests, the Assassins are not completely invisible to sensors. However, because of their construction, and the materials used, an Assassin on a ballistic trajectory is extremely difficult to detect. 

“Spreading ships out to cover the entire system leaves them vulnerable to the sneak attacks they’re meant to discourage. Yes, they force the attacks to happen on escorts rather than command ships, but that is not a solution. Obviously, we need something different.”

Phillips ignored the Admiral’s snort of amusement at that baldfaced understatement, and continued, “To combat this, we suggest using a combination of satellites and mines to control approach vectors. The X-22 Recon Satellite is a stealth sensor platform, focusing primarily on passive sensors, including visual sensors measuring occlusion of light and gravity sensors. While not extremely powerful on their own, they are designed to be used in an array of nine in a cube, with one in the center, allowing them to triangulate and pool sensor readings via short-range comms.”

The satellites were replaced by mines. “These X-8 mines are made using the same stealth materials as the Assassins themselves. They use primarily passive sensors, and can be set as proximity or remote detonation.”

“What kind of mine are they?”

“Well, we have four variants, since we don’t have hard data on what will work on Assassins. X-8A is a fusion bomb-pumped laser. X-8B has a powerful EMP bomb. X-8C is loaded with two single-shot torpedo launchers. And X-8D is an experimental gravity bomb.” 

Han’s eyes widened. “Gravity bomb?”

“Ah, yes. We discovered it by accident while working on the miniaturization of the grav-lances for the XF-382 project. Basically, the device creates a microsingularity that compresses everything in its effective radius of one thousand kilometers to a single point before it loses energy and dissipates after approximately twenty seconds. Naturally, larger ships, or ones closer to the edge of the effective range, will be less effected than those closer to the blast point.”

“And you have these on fighters for Navy pilots to fly?”

Commander Phillips, hearing the ice in the Admiral’s tone, quickly waved her hands. “No, no. That defect was caught early on, and has been worked out. It would take a catastrophic failure of multiple systems to make that happen. It is as safe as the reactors on Navy starships.”

Admiral Han took a breath, and forced herself to relax. Slightly. “Very well. What are the benefits and weaknesses of the potential variants?”

“Well, the 8A and 8C have the advantage of being more discriminate weapons, so that if you had ships chasing through the minefield, you could set them to ignore certain IFF signatures being broadcast, something the stealth ships wouldn’t be able to pull off. The disadvantage to both systems is that targeting an Assassin in stealth is extremely difficult to begin with. Also, the 8A is a single-use item, while the 8C can be reloaded.

“On the other hand, 8B and 8D are area effects. The EMP on 8B is powerful, but a ship running with full shields should be unimpaired. Even without shields, most navy ships would be hardened enough that it would have minimal effects on ship systems. However, against fighters, and most pirate or civilian craft, they should disable the craft, at least temporarily. We need to do testing on Assassins to see how they stand up to EMPs.”

She took a breath. “We will need to run practical tests, of course, but we believe that the 8C variant will be good for shoring up general system defense, while the 8B one can be used in areas where civilians might be present. The 8Ds, however represent the best shot at dealing with Assassins, and protecting static installations against their attacks.”

Admiral Han nodded slowly. “All right. And the torpedo launchers on the 8C carry the standard torpedoes?” 

“Yes, Ma’am. However, our people have been working on two new torpedo types, that have moved past the initial design phase, and can be considered ready for practical testing, as well. We call them the MARK and the GLASS.”

“I assume those names mean something?”

“Yes, the Mass Altering Remote Kinetic torpedo is our adaptation of the systems found in the Black Star Dragonbreath torpedoes. Using principles common to all gravitic drives, the MARK lightens its mass during the thrust phase, achieving faster acceleration and greater total velocity. Just before impact, the gravity field inverses, magnifiying the missile’s mass, allowing payloads to hit far harder than they ought to.

“The Gravity Lensing Active Singularity System, on the other hand, is based off the 8D mines. The GLASS creates a microsingularity that has a life of only 5 seconds, and an effective radius of 20 kilometers. However, this allows for more precise use of the weapon, with less chance of friendly fire.” 

“And why did you seek to pursue this line of study, rather than working on an Imperial version of the Starbolt torpedoes? I happen to know that they were quite effective at taking down the Harvester at Coldana. That seems like the more obvious path to follow.”

“Ah, Admiral, we have designs for that already. Once we realized that it was as simple as removing the components that shut the drive down when it detected that it was heading towards a solid mass, the hardware design was finished in an hour. The software, well, that is where we came into some difficulty. In the end, we decided that it was too difficult to ensure that you didn’t have friendly fire incidents, and that targeting systems didn’t accidentally send an FTL weapon at an inhabited planet.”

“Very well. If they cannot be made safe for friendly ships and planets, then they are more of a burden than a boon, in most cases.” The admiral took a breath, and then looked back to the commander. “What about larger ships?”

“Well, here we have the new Remembrance-class Heavy Destroyer. As you can see, the design is different from the normal destroyers used by the fleet in several ways…”

(Eclipse Club, Shvehona City, Dimiya)

When they succeed, no one stands up to them

Then they scream in horror as you murder them all

Only now that I know myself

She screamed bloody murder!

(Lake Dharra, Coldana Prime, Coldana System)

Colonel Lurhak Hardminer shuddered as the wind kicked up off the lake. Once upon a time, he wouldn’t have even noticed it. The smell of the wind off the lake was something he’d lived with his entire life, after all, and it wasn’t that cold yet, even though it was moving into winter.

 There were many days where he would have sat on the lakeside, just like this, whenever he had liberty from his duties in the planetary militia. A fishing rod in one hand, and a bottle of Old Copperpot’s finest in his other. Didn’t even matter if he caught anything, not really.

 Of course, that was before the Harvester came, and the X’thari blotted out the skies with their ships and their drones. The nature preserve had been hit hard by artillery. Mostly theirs, but the Consortium’s forces got in on the act, too, once they had started pushing the X’thari back from the cities. Yesterday was the anniversary, and they’d only just finished purging the continent of the damned insects. The fighting was still ongoing on the southern continent, though it should be over in a couple weeks, if the scuttlebutt was correct.

 He didn’t bring his fishing pole today. That had been lost, early in the fighting. X’thari lander had decided his house was a great landing field. The artillery shells had taken that lander, but none of his possessions survived.

 Not that he had much time to go rescue anything, of course. There had been the frantic rush to bring in as many supplies as possible, and to create the walls needed to force a siege. Everyone was far too busy.

 There hadn’t been any point to it either. Not at the time. They hadn’t expected to live. In fact, they knew that they were dead. The Harvester was a world-eater, after all. What could they do against that?

They were utterly without hope. Their only goal, from the moment they confirmed the X’thari were attacking, was to make them bleed as much as possible, make the Harvester choke on Coldana. All of it for the simple goal of making the next system have just that infinitesimally greater chance of making it through.

 When they’d found out that the fleet had hurt the Harvester, and hurt it bad, there was still no hope. They were still up against odds that were completely impossible. But when the X’thari landed, they knew that they would get even more of a chance to make the bugs bleed, and that was fine with them.

 Leaning with his back against the wrecked hull of a X’thari lander, he looked out over the lake. The trees were gone. So were the fish, for that matter. The water was black with pollution and runoff. It was still one of the more scenic places in the area, which spoke volumes about the planet’s condition.

 The people of Coldana had survived, but they had done so by burning their own world, and by pushing the ecosystem so far beyond the brink that there was no chance of it recovering naturally. The air quality was getting worse by the day. The only reason the population hadn’t been forced into domes was because the domes were still being built, and there wasn’t that much population left.

 Roughly seven hundred million of the planet’s population of three billion were still breathing when the Harvester died. Injuries, accidents, illness, and the X’thari still on the planet cut that down to just over three hundred and fifty million. Most of the rest had been resettled elsewhere as Coldana’s industry was all but gone, and there was no infrastructure to speak of.

 Between the ten enclaves that had survived the Devastation of Coldana, the population of the planet was now just shy of three hundred and fifty thousand people. Out of a population that had been three billion. So much death. And the world was still dying.

 “Colonel, you’re a tough man to find.”

Hardminer looked up at the voice, surprised. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard the Gauz man’s footsteps. The uniform marked him as Consortium military, but there were no pins to signify his rank, and he couldn’t see any indication of which branch he served in. That didn’t inspire confidence.

 Slowly getting to his feet, he nodded. “Didn’t seem to be much point in keeping my commlink with me. The X’thari have been driven off the continent, and the unit was due some liberty. I take it there are orders?”

 “Just jumping straight in, then?”

 Hardminer shrugged. “No point. You’re either Intelligence, in which case I’m about to get screwed, or you’re from legal, in which case I’m about to get screwed, or you’re from command, in which case I’m about to get screwed, but I’ll have to pretend I like it.”

 “That… is not the kind of attitude your file indicated you would have, Colonel.”

 “Well, your precious files may need to get updated, then. I lost too many good troops to those damn bugs. And even with them getting burned off and wiped out, what good does it do? Coldana is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet. My fucking home is dead.”

 “And what if I told you that we could change that?”

 The Colonel’s eyes narrowed. “And what the hell would you be meaning by that, hmm? And if something like that was possible, why the hell would you be talking to me about it? I’m just a Colonel. Worlds dying or not is a decision for higher.”

 The unnamed man nodded. “Oh, there’s several reasons I’m talking to you. First, you’re something of a hero to the people of Coldana, you know. Even though most of them have gone to other worlds, the story of the Colonel who led the last defense of Dharram during the Devastation, holding the line as the X’thari burst through the walls, has traveled with them. You’re not the only one, of course, but Dharram was the last enclave to have the walls breached, and the only one to survive once X’thari were inside the walls.

 “You then proceeded to lead your troops in the pacification efforts, hunting down the X’thari and driving them completely from your area of operations. The Dharram Theater was the first to be declared free of the X’thari. And you did it with planetary militia, not regular army.”

 He took a breath. “You’re right that Coldana is incapable of supporting a standard Consortium colony. The ecosystem has suffered a total collapse, and the infrastructure, both on the ground and in space has been almost completely wiped out. There are no profitable ventures that a standard colony could use to justify its existence to the Consortium.”

 He paused, and then offered a grin at the Colonel. “However, there have been proposals put in place, which should change that. The long term terraforming and ecological revitalization of Coldana is theoretically possible, using technology that has proven potentially viable in laboratory settings. Coldana would be the first potential test bed for this new technology.”

 “And why would the Consortium spend all that money, just to bring back a dead world?”

 “Because Coldana isn’t just another lifeless rock. While the resource outlay is expected to be significant, and long-lasting, if successful, the efforts to restore Coldana will play well in the public eye, providing a significant morale boost in both the short and long terms, for a variety of reasons. In addition, there are parties who are quite interested utilizing the current situation to establish a new style of Consortium colony.”

 “So, selling off the planet to be used as a test bed for technology in a place where it couldn’t get any worse, and spinning it as a PR win, with a bonus of being able to use any technology that comes out of the deal?”

 “Crude, and doesn’t cover the entire reality, but that is the general idea.”

 “And who are these interests that are oh so generously taking the Consortium’s capital to give them this PR win?”

 “Well, actually, other than some tax breaks on behalf of the biotech companies, making it easier to test their products on Coldana, there is relatively little capital outflow because of this. In fact, Corporate analysts believe that there should be a net positive in revenue streams within fifteen to twenty years, with projected growth continuing past that point.”

 “Just what in the hell do you have planned?”

“Well, as you know Capitol City has been the army’s de facto base of operations since they reclaimed it during the naval battle against the Swarm. However, the Starport is designed for civilian use, and the costs to permanently convert a civilian starport to a military one are roughly equivalent to building a new starpot. This is, naturally, not an agreeable state of affairs.

 “So, the current plan is for the army to relocate from Capitol City, and the terraforming concerns and any corporations that want to set up shop will make that their base of operations. The cheap land, even under a dome, will encourage some businesses to move into the area. Between tax breaks, cheap land, and the patriotic PR spin, we expect several groups to take the leap.

“The military, however, has decided that a continuing presence on the planet is required, especially as Coldana is in a strategic location. Unfortunately, all pre-Devastation military bases were overrun and destroyed, forcing a change of strategy. Therefore, in addition to orbital facilities to Navy specifications, the Consortium will be financing a military base and training school for the Army and planetary militia.

“To that end, the Dharram Dome, when it is completed, will be given over to the military, and will have a fully military starport constructed, to create the proposed Coldana Military Scholarium. This will not only have a steady supply of military personnel on the planet to stimulate the economy, but will also offer real world hazardous environment training. Having more soldiers that can go into hazardous areas without constantly tripping over their own safety gear would be more than welcome, naturally.

“And, finally, a secondary civilian starport will be constructed in Bugaldur. The former enclave has much of the needed infrastructure remaining, thanks to it not coming under as devastating an assault as some of the other enclaves. This settlement will be redesignated as a Free Port, run by the Shattershield Company.”

 Hardminer growled. “You mean the bloody pirates are getting a place where they’re being just begged to set up shop?”

 “Please, sir. The Shattershield Company—”

 “Is just the damn Shatterback pirate clan under a different name, and there isn’t a damn person in the sector that doesn’t know that. And you’re just fucking giving a piece of Coldana to them? Fuck, that’s stupid.”

 The unnamed man drew himself up to his full height. “Well, suffice to say that the Shattershield company, despite any prior activities they may have taken under a different company name, are a legitimate business concern that has not, to our knowledge, committed any illicit acts since their ‘reform’. Because of this, the business plan they have presented for the fiscal revitalization of Coldana has been accepted.”

 Hardminer just glared at him, unimpressed. After dealing with the Swarm, an idiot trying to make himself look important didn’t even register as a threat. “And you still haven’t told me why you’re telling me all of this, especially not without signing a confidentiality or consulting contract first.”

 “Ah, well, that is because, given the disparate nature of the proposed ventures, it has been decided that the overall jurisdiction of Coldana will fall to a military governor, taken from the ranks of the planetary militia. This will ensure that local forces remain in control, and that the governor will be able to call on enough force to keep the scientific and free trader groups in line.”

 Hardminer got a sinking feeling in his gut. “No.”

 The unnamed man nodded. “Yes. Out of the entire Coldana Planetary Militia, you are the senior surviving officer. Therefore, by order of the Consortium Council, you are now designated as the military governor of Coldana, General Hardminer.”

Hardminer just groaned. As predicted, he had indeed been screwed. And, as predicted, it was the kind of screwing where he had to pretend he was happy about it.

 “Fuck.”

(Secure Audience Chamber, Imperial Palace, Ihmana Prime, Ihm Imperium)

 In her old life, she had been known as Empress Drez Dhiss Ihm VII, ruler of the Ihm Imperium, proud mistress of the only star nation to rival the power of the Terrans. Superior Ihm commanders and science caste and engineers had advanced the Empire’s power to the point where, even before the assassination of the old Terran Emperor, she had been preparing the fleets and resources needed to strike at the Terran Empire, and claim their wealth as her own. But she had not been ready to move just yet. She would not condone the possibility of failure, and so she had to ensure that, when the war began, it would be successful without question.

 When the Terran Civil War broke out, she had begun sending fleets to their staging areas, hoping to turn what looked to be a long and bloody civil war to her advantage. Let the Terrans bleed each other for a while, and then she could swoop in and kill them all while they were weak. She had been weeks away from giving the invasion order when the situation changed.

 Her spies upon the Terran homeworld reported that an unknown ship (or ships) had destroyed several key facilities with weapons that had not been seen before. The destruction of the facilities did not matter to her. After all, anything that served to further weaken her prey was only a good thing.

No, the problem was the unknown ships with the unknown weapons. There had been claims made that the party responsible for the attack was some revolutionary force upon the planet of Mars. That was obviously a lie, put forward by some other group to shield against the Terrans’ retaliation.

That was a sign of weakness, as the one behind it clearly feared the Terran Empire’s counterattack. But she was reminded of the ythrax. It was no match for an Ihm warrior in open combat, not having the raw strength necessary for such a task. But the ythrax was an ambush predator, hiding and striking when one least expected it. And its venom could bring down an Ihm male in seconds.

No, she could not move forward with the invasion, not until she had properly accounted for this new variable. The consequences, if this new force turned against her fleets, had the potential to be as humiliating as they had been to the upstart Emperor. Better to delay the conquest, than risk that.

Worse, there was the very real possibility that, unless she huddled like a hatchling on Ihmana, those weapons could be turned against her, personally. That would have left her the choice of showing weakness by cowering, or knowingly exposing her own throat to an assassin’s blade. Neither prospect held any appeal to her.

So, she had waited, and watched. And her course had proven the path of wisdom, as it always did, when the unknown ships proved to be working alongside the hunted Empress, turning tide of battles where the Empress’s forces had been outmatched, if one looked at the forces arrayed against her. And, as swiftly as the Civil War had started, it had ended, with a crushing defeat for the upstart’s forces, and yet another new weapon being unleashed upon the universe.

Finally, her spies had gotten some actual information about this ‘Black Star Navy’. With the veil of secrecy ripped away, more details became clear. The ships had some advanced stealth capabilities, but nothing that was not already available. What scans they could get indicated that they had traded at least some weapons capacity, in the conventional sense, for stronger shields, though there may have been more to that.

The weapons the ships did have proved to be grotesquely simple in their design. It was effectively throwing a rock as fast as possible. Simple, but brutally effective. It was a weapon for which the best counter was to be elsewhere.

 The so-called ‘Greenwave’ weapon was even worse, if such a thing was possible. According to the science caste, it was a swarm of self-replicating nanites that literally ate every kind of technology past the era of the steam engine. How it determined between different technology types they couldn’t say, and no one had been able to get to a place where Greenwave had been deployed and acquire samples without getting trapped on the world (or worse).

 The science caste still had not found a defense against Greenwave once it had been deployed, or a way to destroy it and make an area that had been wiped clean of enemy technology safe for friendly troops. They had, however, come up with a variant of the Greenwave, which they were calling Zuphons, after the mythical Ender of All Things from the ancient tales from the ancestors. Unfortunately, it was essentially Greenwave, without the limitations. They had been forced to cast the rogue moon that the test had been conducted on into the depths of chaotic space, where the energies of that plane would, hopefully, destroy the nanites. At the very least, it would no longer be a concern for her, or her minions.

 The thought of chaotic space brought her a shiver of joy. When she had ordered her fleets and science caste to tear open a rift into that plane, she had only been seeking to take her rightful powers that came from there, like the upstart Terrans had gotten after their rift opened. But she had not expected to find a Goddess, a true Goddess, the likes of which the ancient shamans had spoken of.

And her new goddess had granted her power beyond measure. No longer was she a mere Ihm, lithe and graceful, but lacking strength to enforce her decrees through violence if need be. Now, she had been infused with the power of Baxanke the Prideborn, the Majestic, the Everperfect.

 Her size had grown, until she was taller than even the hulking brutes who made up her elite shock troops, but she was still as perfectly lithe as ever. She did not use mere brute muscles, but her body was infused with the powers of the chaotic space, enhancing her speed, strength, and mind. Horns now grew from her head, and great wings from her back. Her claws had grown sharp and deadly, and her neck grew long.

But the changes wrought upon her were more than that. She was now gifted with the powers of the chaotic realm. Baxanke had granted her the ability to dominate the will of others, bending them to their rightful purpose, serving and servicing her. But some would not bow. Those, she burned with the flames of chaos that she breathed out.

But her new glorious form came with a price. She had to consume more to maintain her existence within physical space, especially in worlds that were not close to the blessed rift. Not just food, though she still enjoyed the luxuries that were every bit her right as the Empress of the Ihm Imperium. No, she also required… other forms of energy.

 Thankfully, Ihmana was close enough that her needs were not too extensive. A soul or two a day, combined with the veneration of the lesser beings that populated her empire, were enough to keep her fed. If she were to venture further from the rift, then she might have to feed more often, but that was nothing. These beings existed to serve her, after all.

 Hmm. Speaking of serving her, it was almost time for the newest soul to be delivered to her. She had gotten very upset with her Chancellor when she had tried to offer up a common street rat as her sacrifice yesterday. She had still eaten the wretch, of course, but the taste was all wrong.

She very much hoped, for the Chancellor’s sake, that today’s offering was more appropriate. Otherwise, she would have to start considering whether the Chancellor was truly suited for her role. And if she wasn’t suited for the role, then perhaps she might be better suited to being dinner, and someone else could take up her office?

The great stone doors of her audience chamber opened. The Chancellor entered, followed by four other Ihm. Each had been perfected in some way by the Goddess’s touch, but none to the extent that she had been. They had been given ascension above the ranks of mortal Ihm, but had not been given the sheer wealth of power she had been.

 In their center was a smaller Ihm, the normal size of an Ihm male just past the age of adulthood. He was naked, save for the binding chains, and fought futilely to escape the chaos-infused steel that trussed him up as an offering, which only served to showcase some exaggerated proportions that he had, as his unsheathed member flapped about like a human’s. Given the half-heard yells the male was trying to cry out, it was probably for the best that he had been gagged, with his mouth sealed shut. However, even as he screamed and fought, the Chancellor and his guards dragged the male forward, until the group was mere meters away from her throne.

 The Chancellor bowed low, and the guards gave respect, as well. They did not bow, because they were on guard. Long ago, one of the former Empresses had decreed that guards in the act of guarding would not be considered rude or disrespectful so long as they showed respect with a nod of the head, and set their focus about their task, rather than bowing and scraping each time someone important entered the room. That Empress’s view on the subject had probably been colored by the fact that she used a guard’s ingrained response to bow when a Princess approached to slay him, before slaying the current Empress in her bed one night. She had not wanted the same thing to happen again, obviously.

Focusing on the Chancellor, she said, “Well, Chancelor Sris, what is it that you have brought before us?”

 “My gracious Empress, I come bearing both news, and a tribute, to sate your magnificent hunger.”

 The Empress raised her head slightly. “News, is it? Let us hear it, then.”

 The Chancellor stood as tall as she was able to, and said, “The High Warleader of the Great Armada sends word. Purging the disloyal and the unworthy from the Great Armada is continuing ahead of schedule. More and more seek the blessing of the Goddess, rather than dare fighting against your most glorious forces.”

 “Good, good! Tell the High Warleader that, when the task is complete, We wish for her to begin revising plans for the invasion of the Terran Empire, given the new realities of the world. It has been far too long since the Empire and the other nations have witnessed the full glory of the Imperium, and now the Goddess shines upon us, and grants her blessings and boons to us. We shall prove worthy of such gifts.”

The Chancellor bowed again. “As you wish, My Empress.”

 Yes, the Empress smiled to herself, that was how it should be. The veneration and supplication to her was how it should always be. She deserved that much, at least. Still, she took her eyes off the Chancellor, and turned them towards the figure she had brought with her.

 “And what have you brought us, here?”

 “My Empress, in searching for a sacrifice worthy of your magnificence, my hunters found a truly exceptional rarity to offer to you. This male, puny though he may look, is a Nomad. The uniqueness of their souls is known to all. Naturally, I knew that the first one caught since the awakening of the Goddess should be given to you, and none other.”

 The Empress straightened slightly. A Nomad? That was a rare treat! She had heard from the Goddess that souls of Nomads were unlike others, but hadn’t had the chance to taste them herself!

 “It is well that you know to bring us our due, Chancellor. We find that this more than erases your previous failure.” Turning to look at the male more closely, she asked, “We see that, despite his ill temper, he is unsheathed and ready. Is this some deviant who prefers chains, then?”

 “I cannot say, My Empress. I applied compulsions to ensure compliance, while not sealing away their will, as I knew you would wish the pleasure of breaking them yourself. There was an enticement in the compulsion, but not so strong as this. It is possible that the compulsions have different effects on Nomads than normal beings, or it is as you say, and he is a deviant who enjoys being used by his betters.”

 “Very well, then. Does this Nomad have a name?”

 “Yes, My Empress. He is known as Lord Kickass.”

(BSS Heartseeker, Unnamed System 32)

 “Coming up on the system now, Captain.”

Slave-Captain Drah Sross yawned, and pulled herself out of her bed in the crew quarters of the Heartseeker. Sure, it wasn’t strictly proper for her to be taking a nap while they were on approach to an unexplored system, but this was the fourth system that they had explored since Coldana, and Adam was watching the sensors. She knew he would let her know in plenty of time if there was something that needed her input.

When she’d been given the task of going out and exploring, she’d thought that it would be full of excitement, going and finding strange new worlds and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one had gone before. And maybe catching sight of the X’thari homeworld, or whatever passed for a homeworld for them, so that they could work on ridding the universe of their threat.

Instead, there was boredom. Lots, and lots, and LOTS of boredom. Oh, it wasn’t like her mechanic, Chakizo, and AI, Adam, weren’t pleasant enough to be around, but there was only so much you could talk about when it was just three people in an enclosed space for weeks on end.

Thankfully, the Master had thought of those problems. Or, more likely, one of the people who worked for him thought about it, and, when it was brought to his attention, he agreed to that person’s solution. The Master was many things, but it was common knowledge within Black Star that he was not omnipotent, nor did he pretend to be. He just got good people to work for him, and listened when they told him the solutions to problems that were in their specialization. That’s why he hired (or sometimes acquired) them, after all.

 The Starhunter ‘fleet’ (fleet was really pushing it, since there were still only ten of the ships in service with the Nomad AIs, and the new five were still in ‘shakedown’, as their crews got used to their new AI partners) had changed their operating methods following some of the lessons learned at Coldana. Further research into the Gateway codex left on Nuevo Edo had revealed that the gate symbols could be converted into coordinates, allowing them to map the possible Gateway systems without actually sending someone through to see if it was a real address. This significantly changed how they had been exploring systems.

Currently, each Starhunter ran on four ‘phases’ of their mission cycle. Phase one was ‘Gateway Hunting’, where they would go check possible Gateway addresses, to see what was there. Phase three was ‘close exploration’, which was pretty much the same as Gateway hunting, but instead exploring systems that were adjacent or near to Known Space, either in the Orion Arm or in the Norma arm of the galaxy. Phases two and four were ‘rest’ phases, where the crews would have a month of leave time at Star’s Reach, Nuevo Edo, Madrigal Base, or Dimiya, depending on their personal preference.

 Regardless of whether they were Gateway hunting, or exploring ‘local’ systems, standard practice was to launch from Star’s Reach, and use the X’thari drives to reach an area well outside sensor range of the target system. Then, they would spend the next several days to a week on a ballistic course into the system, being as stealthy as possible, while their passive scanners painted as much a picture of the system as they could. The thinking was that, by the time we got into the system itself, we would already have a basic idea of whether it was inhabited, and by whom.

If the system was uninhabited, then, once we were sure of our readings, we would spend the next couple weeks conducting a detailed survey of the system, mapping the major celestial bodies, doing basic resource checks, and so on. Planets that were life supporting, or potentially life supporting, were a priority, of course. However, gas giants and rocky airless worlds full of raw materials were still worth checking out.

 If the system was inhabited, our job was to stay in stealth, get as many sensor readings as we could, and map the system. If we were detected, then we would bug out, using the X’thari drives. The lab coats had figured out how to shield the drives much better, allowing us to keep them charged without lighting us up on any scanners designed to pick up X’thari ships.

 If we weren’t detected, well, then we got to try and find out as much about the inhabitants as we could. There were still colony ships, from various different races that had ‘disappeared’, either by accident or on purpose, and never been found again. But the presence of multiple sentient species in the galaxy meant that others could be out there, too.

 If the Starhunters found new civilizations, or even isolated colonies belonging to old ones, then the job was to gather as much information as possible. We weren’t initiating first contact with anyone if we could possibly help it. That was firmly a job for someone else. We were just there to get the information needed to decide what kind of group to send, if any was sent at all.

 That suited her just fine. No one signed on to a Starhunter if they wanted to be sociable and be in the middle of crowds all the time, after all. Better for the people who liked diplomacy to go and deal with the ‘fun’ of first contact and diplomatic missions. And, if the people she found turned out to be needing a more… instructive first contact, then better for the Navy to handle that.

 Of course, this was the thirty-second system a Starhunter ship had explored. The vast majority of the systems they found were dead, and lifeless. Oh, there was the one system where an alien wreck was floating, full of monsters. The Navy had set up a research station and shipyard there, but other than that there wasn’t anything worth talking about in that system. Just dead worlds and gas giants. Plenty of raw materials, though.

 Unnamed System 25 had been another interesting one, an unexplored system near the borders of the Terran Empire and Ihm Imperium. Flux Capacitor had been scouting that one when the Eye of Despair opened in Ihm space. The ripples of the Eye’s opening had been felt even in that system. Which was a pity, since the system had been found to have two life sustaining planets, as well as some plentiful resources. Scuttlebutt said that the Master and his advisors were still trying to figure out what to do with that system.

 For Unnamed System 32, Heartseeker was on a Gateway hunt. They were in the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy, closer to the core from where the Orion arm split off. So far, the preliminary readings had not indicated any kind of warp signatures, or other indications of advanced civilization. That meant that, if any locals existed, they were either too primitive to be considered spacefaring, or they were far more advanced than the current state of the powers in Known Space.

Walking onto the bridge, Drah slipped into her pilot’s seat, which helpfully had a slot designed into it didn’t cramp her tail. She had enjoyed her nap while they were coasting on approach to the system, but now that they were starting to get into range of more of the passive scans, it was time to focus on her work. “All right, Adam, give me what you got.”

 “Local star is a main sequence star, type G, roughly analogous to Sol in size and mass. Ten planets, including four gas giants, the largest of which being a super-Jupiter on the verge of being considered a brown dwarf. Other planets of note include a binary planet group second out from the system primary, and two planets in the ‘green zone’.”

Drah nodded slowly. That matched the data they’d been collating as they approached the system. “Still no signs of intelligent life?”

“Not at this distance, just by using passive scans. Current projection is that the system is devoid of spacefaring civilizations that are still amongst the living. I am continuing my analysis.”

 “All right. Standard protocols. Take us into a standard survey pattern, outside in. Map the current orbits, and focus scans on the green zone worlds as you can. If the green zone worlds are life sustaining, then this could be a valuable colony site.”

“Of course, Captain. Also, Engineer Chakizo has finished with the maintenance on the dual X’thari drives, so they can be safely charged.”

 Drah smiled. She had been trying to forget that Chakizo had found a fault in the secondary charge relays for the X’thari drives. It was one of the techno-organic pieces in the ship, and suffering through the psychic scream during the Coldana incident had likely shortened its lifespan considerably. She had already forwarded Chakizo’s report to Starhunter Operations, so they could check ships as they came in for their rest phases.

 “Begin trickle charge, then. I know it will take longer, but if there is anyone out here being sneaky, I’d rather keep them in the dark for a little while longer if we can.”

 “As you wish, Captain.”

(Two weeks later)

 “Are you certain?”

 “Available evidence matches projection within 34.5% margin of error. The system shows clear signs of artificial tampering. The larger of the binary planets shows clear signs of civilization. However, the planet is currently too close to the sun to be habitable, and the lack of atmosphere makes it inhospitable to life as we know it. In addition, the large gap between planets 2A and 2B and planet 3 suggests that 2A may have once occupied a more habitable orbit.

“In addition, planets 3 and 4 both show signs of civilization. Planet 4’s civilization appears to be mostly ruins, as the planet has turned to desert, but you can clearly see several pyramid shapes in the middle of the desert, with lines far too regular to be natural. Also, the black, stone-like material the pyramids are made of do not match the surrounding geology.”

“What about planet 3, then?”

“Planet 3 looks to be inhabited by multiple civilizations, all in the early to mid Iron Age, from visual scans. No evidence of advanced technology, however scanners are detecting high levels of energy associated with the chaotic dimension that Psy powers are now believed to draw from. The cause for this is unknown, but could indicate a population with a high number of active psy users.”

 Drah sighed. “And if we got any closer to look at things, then there is a good chance that whoever is down there might sense us, even if they don’t have tech that can see us. All right, summarize your findings, and attach the raw data. We need to bring this in to Ops, so they can decide whether to contact these people or not.”

 “Why would Black Star not contact a new civilization?”

That brought a grin to Drah’s face, her tail twitching in amusement. Adam had improved a lot in the short time she’d known him. Apparently, being a ship’s AI was therapeutic for the Nomad. He certainly was talking better now than he had been when they first started working together, and he was even asking questions when he was curious, which was a change.

 “Well, Adam, the problem is that if we make contact with them, we could end up doing a lot of damage.”

 “But Black Star has made contact with previously unknown populated worlds before.”

 “Yes, but in both those cases those were colonies who were in the space age, and both were colonies of races that had already been contacted, so there was less issue with possible cultural gaffes resulting from a truly alien mindset. And then there’s the tech difference. If Black Star descended from the sky in ships, in front of a bunch of people who were still using bows and arrows, then they would seem like literal gods to the people. Even without trying, their entire culture could be warped, if not wiped out.”

 “I see. So, it is to prevent cultural contamination?”

 “Exactly. Which is also why we have a few explicit exceptions to the ‘no contact’ orders, like if we come across technologically advanced raiders attacking these people, or if there was a comet on a collision course with the planet, or other things like that. Then we can take steps to resolve the immediate issue, and let the diplomats talk it out later. Cultural contamination is a moot point if the people are dead, after all.”

 “Very well, I have my report ready for Operations.”

 Drah checked over the summary, and attached a brief cover letter, signing off on her crew member’s analysis, and recommending that it get forwarded to people who could make contact decisions. That done, she slipped the file into the comm buffer. “All right, Adam. Send that along using the buoy we dropped at the edge of the system. And file a request for additional orders.”

 “Yes, Captain.”

(Bridge, Chaos Brigade dreadnought Vengeful Spirit, Chaotic Space)

 Warmaster of the Chaos Brigade, Abaddon Horusson, looked out upon the horrors and splendors of the chaotic space just outside his ship. He knew that the raw and primal energies of unreality were kept out only by the shields which let only the barest trickle of the psychic radiation through. And yet, looking out upon the chaotic dimension, he felt stronger, more powerful, than he ever had, as though he just needed to reach out, and he could grab those energies by the throat and master them.

 As far as he knew, the Nomads of the Chaos Brigade were the first to bask in the glow of the chaotic space, the first to make use of the Hellwarp Drive developed by Black Star. Even Mollen, with all his excitement for leaping into situations that would make any sensible, sane person shy away, had not wished to test the Drive. Perhaps he had reasons for that, from whatever source he ‘discovered’ the drive in.

It was obvious to him, even if others did not see it, that Mollen had discovered some cache of Lost Technology on his planet, which allowed him to create the Hellwarp Drive, and to predict the rifts that formed in Coldana and Sol. There was no other way that he could have had all his ships in place, just coincidentally armed and ready to help out when the rifts opened. Mollen had as good as admitted it to him the last time they met.

Oh, it hadn’t been so much a formal declaration, or anything like that. But he hadn’t missed that the man talked about multiple drive systems in development. And he hadn’t even flinched at the emphasis on how he had ‘discovered’ the Hellwarp Drive. No, it was as good as confirmed, in his mind, that Mollen had access to Lost Tech.

 Of course, that truth brought new questions, such as why, if he had the tech, wasn’t he selling it, or otherwise making use of it? The answer to that was simple enough, if you thought about it. Lost Tech got lost for a variety of reasons, but the two main reasons was that the technology was either too dangerous compared to comparable tech, or that it was a technological dead end, inferior to other technology, useful as a curiosity, but nothing that could be packaged and sold. And he didn’t doubt that Mollen would find a way to sell even the unsellable, or he’d hire someone who could.

 The Warmaster chuckled as the thought unbidden crossed his mind of Mollen selling ice to Eskimos, and making them think they got the better of the deal. No, he did not doubt that whatever technology the man had found, he would find some way to use it to improve Black Star’s position in the galaxy. And, if being Black Star’s friend meant that the Chaos Brigade got some special access to that technology? Well, that was all the better for him, and his growing legion.

And the legion was growing. The last time they had been in ‘civilized’ space, they had visited one of the worlds ravaged by the Imperial Civil War. The planet’s infrastructure had been wiped out during the conflict, and people were starving. He needed only promise that there was food, and that they would be going away from that ruined world, and he had all the volunteers he could handle.

Nomads, too, were joining up. Most were roleplayers, like himself, looking to live out the fantasy of playing the armies they had run on the tabletop in real life. Most, but not all.

 There were always those who, for one reason or another, thought that they were ‘owed’ something, or who simply wanted an excuse to let their urges run wild. And there were no real-world consequences for indulging in your fantasies here. Even if those fantasies involved drowning in blood, and stacking skulls into a throne fit for a god.

 Finally, the Vengeful Spirit and the Eternity of Pain were up to full strength, no longer running on undermanned crew shifts. Even better, two more ships joined the Herald of Fear to escort his troops. The Illusion of Pain and Red Scourge were corvettes like the Herald, primarily concerned with sensors, and having torpedo launchers to aid in the defense of his ships.

 Even more importantly than the two new escorts, however, was the fact that he now had enough crews and pilots so that the fighter and assault craft aboard the Vengeful Spirit would not lie idle and unused. The fighters and assault craft were Black Star designs, of course, but made to the Chaos Brigade’s specifications. The Vengeful Spirit only had two squadrons of fighters, and thirty assault craft, since it was a battleship, not a carrier, but it would do. Yes, it would do nicely.

 “Warmaster, the auspex detects a fluctuation in the warp ahead.”

 The voice of one of his underlings brought him back to the moment, and he looked across the bridge at the sensor technician. “What is it, then? You had best have more than a ‘fluctuation’ to tell me.” He left the threat implicit. Made it more threatening when he allowed them to wonder what horror would befall them if they were bothering him with foolish nonsense.

 The technician gulped, and then said, “Yes, Warmaster. The readings indicate that we are coming up on a system. Resonance ratings are increasing, indicating a large population of psychicly active individuals.”

“Excellent! Contact the fleet, prepare to leave chaotic space! All hands to battle stations. Weapons to the ready, shields to full. Perhaps all we’ll find is a weakling world, ready for the slaughter. But, if the dark gods will it, we may find someone worthy to fight against us!”

(Bridge, Chaos Brigade dreadnought Vengeful Spirit, Unknown System)

 Abaddon was watching the auspex readings as they came out of the rift opened by the Hellwarp Drive. They were right on target, or as close as could be done when making such a long jump. The Chaos Brigade now had another ‘first’ to celebrate, along with the first clear of the Usurper’s Torment raid. They were now the first group to cross from the Orion spur of the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy to the Perseus arm.

 The sight that greeted them was intriguing, to say the least. The local star was a normal type, normally found around life-bearing worlds. Three rocky planets, with five gas giants, and a large asteroid belt between the second and third planets. Third planet in the green zone, possibly life-bearing.

 More than possibly. Even from this distance, as they emerged near the second gas giant, it was clear that there were signs of civilization, with at least two stations in orbit of the planet. Well, life, at least. Civilization was debatable, given what he saw.

 “Readings coming in, Warmaster. Forty-five vessels in system. Nine corvettes, twenty-seven frigates, nine cruisers. Readings indicate biological components in the ship structures.”

 “Biological? Have we found ourselves some X’thari to hunt, then?”

 “Unclear, Warmaster. The ship sizes and numbers suggest X’thari, but ship designs do not match any known X’thari models that we have records of, including those provided by Black Star.”

 Abaddon considered this for a moment. “Readings on the habitable world and the stations?”

 “Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, other trace elements. Station is semi-biological, like the ships, and appears of similar design. Population impossible to determine at this range.”

 “Status of the ships?”

 “They are moving to engage, Warmaster. Formation appears to be based on X’thari Full Hunt deployment. Energy readings suggest that they are readying weapons.”

 And that settled it. As much as the mystery of these not-quite-X’thari intrigued him, he wasn’t going to risk his ships or his crews over solving it. There would be plenty of time for such things after the battle was won.

 “All ships, move to attack! Time to show the X’thari how the Chaos Brigade handles those who stand in their way! Slaughter them all!”

(Alien Station, Unknown System)

 Abaddon could not keep the smile off his face as he awaited the slaughter to come. These aliens may have ships that look like X’thari, but they clearly were not of the same mold as the X’thari that Known Space was familiar with. It was a shame that they would not get a better fight, but he would not pass up a chance for slaughter when the dark gods had so graciously put it in his path.

 The aliens had been completely unprepared for the Dragonbreath torpedoes that his ships had launched. The three ‘cruisers’ and two of the frigates were reduced to dying hulks in the first barrage. From what his analysts could tell, they had what little point defense they had on manual, and their shields were little better than tissue paper compared to the might of the Dragonbreath.

 The readings indicated that the shields were better suited to shrugging off gravity lances with ease, rather than defending against anything else. They were serviceable against basic energy weapons, but against physical attacks? They would keep debris from impacting the hull, but that was about it.

 Their weapons, too, were pathetic. Oh, they were powerful enough, as far as they went. The grav lances appeared to be 10% stronger than X’thari lances, with 15% greater range, and a firing rate that was 17% faster. But that still meant that they were short-range weapons (short for space warfare, at least), and fired every 50 seconds, instead of every 60.

 Oh, the grav lances were powerful, but with his shields up they posed little threat unless several hit together. After all, these shields were designed by Black Star, and they knew the threat of grav lances all too well. The aliens did not even seem to have any other weapons, that they could find. They certainly didn’t live long enough to use them, even if they did.

 His chief tactician offered up one possible theory on why these aliens, despite clearly knowing about war, were so badly prepared for our coming. If these not-X’thari were isolated, having only ever met the X’thari, and only ever fought them, then their weapons, shields, and armor would be designed solely against the threat of the X’thari. You don’t design armor to withstand rifles if all you’ve ever seen are swords and spears, after all.

 Which was why the Full Hunt, if it could be called that, was now a series of slowly spreading debris fields, while his ships only had minor damage, which would be repaired soon enough. The slaughter had been quick, and brutal, as he liked it. When the fighting was over, he would have people go out and collect what they could. The grav lances may have been useless against his ships, but the technology would still be worth something, especially to Black Star.

 Now, however, he had a different task at hand. His breaching pod, along with the others from the Vengeful Spirit, were just now crashing through the hull of the station, laser drills clearing the way. He had promised his crews blood, and blood they would have!

 The ramp fell, and he felt an impact as a bolt from a blaster that was all too similar to X’thari designs hit his shoulder, bouncing off the composite alloy that made his armor some of the best defensive gear one could find, anywhere in Known Space. It did not matter. He was here to conquer, to kill, to rip and tear, until it was finished. He would not let mere blasters hold him back.

 “SLAUGHTER THEM ALL! FOR THE GLORY OF CHAOS UNDIVIDED! TAKE THEIR SKULLS AND SPILL THEIR BLOOD!”

 As he yelled out that cry, he charged forward, massive gleaming sword in one hand, and razor-sharp talons on the other. At his back, the warriors of the Chaos Brigade yelled in answer, and followed him. They crashed upon the hastily-arrayed defenders like a tidal wave of black and gold, and the blood did flow.

As he cleaved a warrior in two, Abaddon Horusson, Warmaster of the Chaos Brigade, roared in pleasure. This was how it was supposed to be! This was what it meant to follow the eightfold path! They would take this station, slaughter those who lived upon it, and learn everything they could about them, so that they could see what use they might be to the cause of Chaos.

 This was what it meant to be Warmaster.

Epilogue – Patch Notes 27.X

(Physical Conference Room 222B, Baxter Building, NERV Headquarters)

 Morgan Elliott was nervous. That wasn’t unexpected, given the situation. Sure, there were always risks when doing medical testing, but what had happened during the in-game event in Sol System had major ramifications.

After all, the ‘psychic wave’ in game had rendered all Nomads in the system comatose in real life. Sure, the interruption wasn’t terribly long for most of them, what with the 4:1 time compression. Some were only out of it for a few seconds, real time. But others, like their favorite beta tester, had been out for over a day. That wasn’t something that could simply be brushed off and swept under the rug.

 The dramatic failure had forced the tech staff to have to recheck all the safeties, and see where the malfunction had happened, or whether they needed to make new ones. Thankfully, there was actually some good news on that front. The safeties had actually worked.

Looking at the data, the confluence of in-game events had caused sensory data to rise to overwhelming levels, and the safeties had entered a controlled disconnect. The severity of the sensory overload depended on the psychic sensitivity of the individual characters, which made sense, since the system interpreted ‘psychic powers’ by increasing the information flow to psy users over time. This was basically training them to accept greater and greater levels of data as their skills increased.

 Unfortunately, greater data transfer abilities made the users more susceptible to the sensory overload, effectively making it the same as having a lightning strike on a high-volume data center. The safeties functioned, but they worked effectively like circuit breakers, shutting down the connection, and ‘rebooting’ it. The length of time it took to ‘reboot’ was proportional to the amount of overload.

 She smiled as the door opened, and the person who was most affected by the event came in. “Ah, Mr. Grosse, it is good to see you in the flesh again.”

Shaking her offered hand, the former Navy man smiled. “Well, I was eager to hear what the results were, for obvious reasons.”

 “Yes, well, to start off, the engineers have gone through the data, and we’re happy to say that the safety measures put in place on the EVA-01 and -02 pods worked correctly, but they were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the psychic wave. Think of it like the circuit breaker on a small cabin getting blown out by a direct lightning strike. Yes, the breakers flipped, preventing a lot of damage, but there’s only so much they can do against what is effectively a force of nature.”

 Frowning, he said, “Yes, but that doesn’t exactly make one feel comfortable about getting back into the pod, you know?”

Morgan sighed. “Well, that brings us to the real reason we brought you in. As part of the medical testing initiative, we had more information on what happened to you, individually, which was fortunate, as you were the most severe case. As we said in our email, your increased use of psy abilities in game left you more exposed to the psy-based sensory overload in game.

 “Now, the good news is that this event has exposed the issue with massive overstimulation, and scans have showed that there has been no evident neurological damage from the attack. While it is too soon to say whether there have been any long-term psychological effects, the doctors believe that the risks of it are relatively minor. And we have already begun adding more safeguards to the system, to prevent overstimulation events like this from happening in the future.”

 “What are those safeguards?”

 “Well, the solutions are primarily hardware related, with some software masking, to keep things in the game world from being out of place. The highest bands of connectivity are being restricted. Most players won’t even notice the limitation, because they haven’t delved deeply enough into psy powers to run up against them.”

“But I would be an exception, yes?”

“Yes, you, and others, such as certain members of the Chaos Brigade, have devoted enough energy to opening yourself to the connectivity that you may hit that wall if you are exposed to another event like the psychic wave. There will be interface options that will come up if you hit that limit, and will allow you to choose whether or not to risk exposure. A change in the EULA and waiver forms will be going out with the software patch, as well as a public post on the real-world forums, to announce the change.”

The tester nodded slowly. “I see. So that settles intentional situations where I might hit the wall, but what about freak events, like the psychic wave?”

 “Well, that ties into some of the in-game cover for the changes. The wave showed people that there were serious psychic vulnerabilities, so they are adding psychic filters to existing planetary, station, and ship defenses. These won’t protect against individual psychics, especially ones already inside the shield, but they will provide some defense against events like the psychic wave.”

 “And what about people outside defended areas? Or in areas where the defenses are brought down, or their ship’s shielding is damaged?”

 “Forced logout, with their consciousness shunted to a ‘white room’ prior to impact. Much like how we cut out the feed just before impact if someone falls from the top of a skyscraper, or like when you were shot by that assassin at the end of the Imperial Civil War. You probably didn’t even notice, but your feed cut out just before the bullet hit your avatar.”

 “So, you basically extended that existing system to the sensory overload filters?”

 “Essentially, yes.”

 The tester nodded once, satisfied. “Well, that’s great to know. Now that I know that my brain isn’t going to go dribbling out my ears from in-game events, what about the real-world side-effects of the wave?”

 “Real-world side-effects? You mean…”

 The tester grit his teeth, and grunted with effort as he pushed himself up, out of the chair he’d rolled in with. It clearly took a lot of effort, but Morgan was utterly amazed. A paraplegic man was standing in front of her!

 “Oh, wow. The doctors said that there had been signs of muscle improvement, as the EVA-02 pod prevented your muscles from atrophying, and effectively started working your muscles for the first time since your accident, but this is incredible! If I wasn’t seeing it, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Carefully as he could, the tester collapsed back into the chair, clearly physically fatigued by just that effort. His muscle atrophy may have stopped, even started reversing itself, but he still had a long way to go, clearly. “Yeah, but, you know, since I had a spinal injury, I was really pretty surprised when I found I could move my legs again.”

Morgan took a breath, and said, “Well, if you remember back when we first offered you the testing position for the EVA-02 pod, the doctors were looking to test out some additional technology that was related to the pod’s creation. Obviously, we have perfected a mind-machine interface. The nervous system is, in the end, essentially the ‘motherboard’ for the body, with the brain as its CPU. With that in mind, one of the proposed procedures was to take the nanite solution we use to keep your body clean and recycle waste and bodily fluids while in long-term immersion, and see if there wasn’t some way to bridge the gap in a severed spinal cord.”

“Not that I’m not grateful, but I think that experimental surgery with nanites goes beyond what I gave consent to.”

 “That’s because the procedure was still in the planning stages! While project data from lab trials on rodents had been uploaded to the nanite control center in the pod to help in getting initial data, the doctors were still six real-world months from getting FDA approval for limited human testing, at least, and then we would have gotten your consent before actually attempting the procedure. I don’t know how this could happen!”

 The tester grunted. “Then I think your techs have more work to do.”