Into the Black

(Shuttle 3.14, Zikeds System, Ihm Imperium)

Grot Truk was sweating. Ok, not literally. Ihm, like his character was, didn’t have the ability to sweat. But metaphorically? He was sweating.

He’d made a deal with the assassin, who had pulled some strings to get him a ride out of Ihm space before the Imperatrix’s goons caught up to him, and put him on the menu. He was lucky, in that he was based in one of the systems further away from the capitol, and closer to the border with the Alliance. The news that the Imperatrix ate souls, and was actively hunting Nomads, had reached him before the goons could find him.

Thankfully, he’d had enough credits stashed away to purchase this shuttle. It wasn’t warp capable, but it was his, and he had managed to remove all the tracking devices on it, which let him move to a more off the grid lifestyle, without actually going out and becoming feral. OK, so really he just loaded the shuttle up with enough supplies to keep him going for six months in space, if nothing broke down, but that only counted towards his physical needs. He’d go crazy long before he ran out of food.

Which brought him back to the deal with the assassin. Giving him all the information he could gather on the Imperatrix, her location, her new abilities… everything. In return, the assassin was going to call up a contact of his, and get him a lift out of here. He just had to make it to the right coordinates on time.

Those coordinates were a Lagrange point on the opposite side of the sun from the only inhabited planet in the system. Sure, there were outposts on every moon, and platforms mining the gas giants, but the concentration of all the sensors and ships in the system were around the only planet capable of supporting Ihm life. The chance anyone would see him out here was… remote, especially since he’d been on a ballistic trajectory for the last two weeks, before relighting his drive once he passed too close to the sun for the sensors to actively track his drive trail.

As he made it to the rendezvous point, he brought the craft to a gentle stop, and made like a hole in space. His shuttle wasn’t exactly designed for stealth, but space was freaking huge, and with him powering down engines and nonessential systems, the chances of anyone catching him on sensors was tiny, unless they used a tachyon pulse. Of course, that would announce their presence to everyone in the system, along with showing the location of every hidden ship, defense platform, spy satellite, and so on. Not to mention that too much of that was supposed to screw with navigation systems.

Once he was sure that his shuttle was as quiet as he could make it, Grot reached over to the comms, and typed in a quick, nonsensical little transmission on the frequency he’d been given. Text only, microburst transmission, short wave. Only really good for very short range (relatively speaking), before background radiation drowned it out.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

It was a stupid little message. The only thing notable about it was that it contained every letter in the English language, making it useful for testing if a typewriter was working properly, back when those things existed. These days, even in the real world, it only existed because the internet never forgets. Well, that, and the fact that keyboards still needed testing, even today.

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

A ping announced an answer. And it was another little nonsense phrase. Like his message, it was notable for containing all the letters of the alphabet, but this one definitely have more gravitas. Still, the two lines made for an excellent call and response, that didn’t give anything away, and couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

He was a little confused as to why he couldn’t see the ship that was picking him up on sensors, though. Even if it was pretending to be a hole in space, like him, they were close enough that he should be able to get some kind of reading off them! All he had right now was a direction, based on the transmission received.

His confusion was cleared up, however, when a light appeared in space, just two kilometers from his shuttle! No, not just a light. It was a shuttle bay with the doors opening! There was a ship that close to him, that he hadn’t even come close to spotting! Sure, his shuttle had civilian sensors, but come on!

Still, this was his ride, so he wasn’t going to miss it. Activating his engines, he docked in the shuttle bay. As he did, he saw the ship’s emblem painted on the bulkhead. It was an old pyramid, with the all-seeing eye, like on the US dollar, and a black ship that he assumed had to be this one crossing in front of it. Along the outside of the image were the words BSN Nostradamus.

Well, looks like the Assassin asked Black Star to pick him up. That was just fine by him. With all his game progress so far wiped out by the crazy Imperatrix making him run for it, there was some hope that he could get a fresh start in Black Star. They were always looking for Nomads, after all.

(Pallbearer, Ihmana System)

Requiesce-in-Pace was, without any false pride, the top assassin amongst all Nomads in the game. He knew it, and he knew that he deserved the title. No one else had matched his feats as an assassin, after all. Even if one included the Locals, he was still probably the top-rated assassin that was still active, and hadn’t retired, either willingly or due to complications from high velocity lead poisoning.

This current assignment, however, was… problematic. Because the Ihm were such a monospecies culture, especially after the Eye opened, the only non-Ihm on the capitol of Ihmana Prime were slaves. Even the ambassadors of the different star nations hadn’t remained after the Eye opened.

That meant that there was no way for him to hide, or blend in, as he went about preparing for his attempt. That made sniping difficult, at best. The number of guards the target had meant that a frontal assault was hopeless, and he had no way of sneaking into the palace for a close-up kill. Poisoning wasn’t even an option, because of the way his target had changed, and what her new food source was. This was the best-protected target he had ever faced off against. Even the trick he used against the old Terran Emperor wouldn’t work here.

An alert disrupted his contemplation. Priority message from the contact. Hmm, it seemed that the Ihm had gone and done something very stupid. They used an unrestricted nanoweapon on a planet.

That was written into treaties right next to the use of other Exterminatus weapons. The only reason it wasn’t outright banned, like the use of FTL weapons against planets, was because you actually had some chance at intercepting them. Oh, sure, the chances you actually could intercept them was damn near nil, but that was beside the point.

However, the treaties were rather particular about the use of Exterminatus weapons in war. The basic gist of it was, “don’t do it”. If they were used, it opened up unrestricted warfare between the involved parties, and their agents. That meant, under the treaties, the Ihm and the Terran Empire could throw everything they had at each other now, including Exterminatus weapons. Even FTL weapons on planets.

More importantly, for him, at least, this also applied to agents employed by both the Imperium and the Empire. Black Star wouldn’t have to hold back on their response. And, since he was employed by the Empire, his hands were free, as well. Hell, the bounty had even updated with a promised bonus if it could be made into a statement.

That was perfect, as far as he was concerned. He’d come up with one sure way to kill the Imperatrix, or at least drive her out of the material plane, if the rumors about her new nature were true, but treaty limitations meant he’d have to reroll immediately after the shot, since he would instantly get disavowed, and the entire universe would be hunting him. Naturally, that wasn’t something he wanted to do. He knew from tapping into the information networks that the Imperatrix was currently in her chambers atop the palace. That palace was protected by shields that would be just as at home on a superdreadnought.

But with the Ihm grey goo-ing an inhabited planet, he was no longer hampered by those treaties. That was the big thing with treaties like that. Once someone got a little too itchy on the trigger finger, everything was legal, no matter how nasty. Unfortunately for the Imperatrix, his Pallbearer was capable of all the best kinds of nastiness.

Sure, he didn’t usually do his job from a ship. That kind of attack made it hard to confirm kills, after all, especially when you were shooting at something on the surface. The only way to confirm a kill like that was by going with so much overkill that it was impossible for the target to survive.

Actually, it was good that the restrictions had been lifted. In another week, maybe two, he would have had to leave the system, or risk getting drawn into the Eye of Despair, which was already starting to encroach on the outer edges of the system. The laws of physics were already starting to become ‘suggestions’ on ships stationed in the Oort cloud.

Quietly, he checked the numbers from the targeting computer. He was a sniper, used to doing complex math in his head, or with a calculator as an assistant at best, but the math for this attack was beyond his abilities. He only had one chance, and it had to be perfect. So, he used the computer to do the heavy lifting, and he checked its work afterwards.

The weapons for this attack were special. Even Black Star wouldn’t sell these to him, and certainly no nation state would dare put them on the market. However, the concept was easy enough to understand, and the events at Coldana proved that the modifications were simple enough, if you knew what you were doing. There was already a guide on the internet outside of the game to walk you through the process, step by step.

Finally, everything was ready. The launchers were armed. The firing solution locked in. And he’d spent the last ten hours trickle-charging the Anchor Drive, to get it ready without breaking stealth. His destination was already set, and already written into the macro he’d set up. He hit a button, and the weapons would fire, and he’d have just enough time to confirm impact before he would be gone.

He pressed the button.

(Fleet Command Cluster, IAS Shield of Faith, orbiting Ihmana)

High Warleader Urzo Hakzex was going over the multitude of reports that, even after they started Perfecting the members of the Armada, still needed to be handled each day. Of course, her staff handled most of them, filing them in a digest form that she could read at her leisure, and forwarding those issues which required decisions to her. It was dull work, but essential to keep not just her Armada, but all the Armadas functioning and ready for battle.

And battle was coming. The Illuminator to Savages had reported as soon as they entered the Godsrealm. They had been forced to use the Hskthet torpedoes in order to destroy their objective, due to interference from Black Star, and the quick arrival of Imperial reinforcements. The other bases had not been reinforced in time, and had been destroyed in a more conventional manner.

The presence of the Black Stars was a thorn between the scales. Clearly, they had been called in due to the success of the Shroud over Sedara. With that fleet running for their lives while being hunted by the Armada, the Empire had called in the Black Stars to reinforce the base until they got their own ships in position, obviously. The fact that it took them so long to move their ships meant they didn’t fully trust their transition drives, and probably wouldn’t until they knew more about the Shroud’s capabilities.

That they knew about the Shroud at all was an annoyance, but had probably been unavoidable, considering the way the Empire was working on integrating Nomads into their naval structure. There were enough of them that it was likely impossible to hide the Shroud’s existence. Abyss, there were probably Nomads on the Imperial fleet that was wiped out by the Shroud.

Suddenly, chaos erupted in the command cluster, as alarms began going off all over. With a roar befitting her newly Perfected form, Hakzex silenced the yells of surprise. “REPORT!”

“Warleader, multiple FTL weapons fire detected in orbit of Ihmana! The homeworld is—” The sensor officer choked off, unbelieving. “The homeworld is all but gone, Warleader.”

“Show me.”

The image on the screen should have been the familiar one of Ihmana, with its green swamps. Instead, the planet looked like an apple that had been shot at close range. There was a crater the size of two or three cities on one side, but the other… Ihmana had lost almost a two-thirds of its mass, as the explosion sent chunks of the planet as shrapnel into space, like a Terran shotgun.

The rest of the planet was already crumbling, the atmosphere escaping or burning away. It might physically still be there, but Ihmana was a dead planet. Anyone still alive down there simply hadn’t gotten the message yet.

Dumbly, Hakzex realized that the center of impact had been the Imperial palace. “What of the Imperatrix?”

“Unknown, Warleader. Last reports confirm her being in the palace. But there’s nothing left, now.”