Song of the Void

”Some races revere their original homeworlds. The world was the cradle of their civilization, and for many races it may still be the seat of their government. Other races have moved to greener pastures. They’ve found a location better suited to build their new capital on for reasons of strategy and commerce. In these cases, the original homeworld often becomes a cultural symbol or a place of pilgrimage. Then there's the group of races that really would rather forget their original homeworld even exists. The world reminds them of a darker past or perhaps crimes of old. In these cases, the planet usually becomes a polluted mess beyond any recovery, home only to those that can't muster the funds to escape."

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

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“I’m sorry to keep bringing the topic back to this again, but the time spent on this trip could've gone a long way towards restoring the mind of my subordinate that you still have in stasis," Amaterasu mentioned to Selendil as the two watched the others go through some of the exercises the latter had taught them. Amaterasu had shown her superior skill in being the fastest to learn the new exercises and was now waiting for the others to catch up. Selendil couldn’t be bothered to explain the same lessons multiple times after all.

“If we had made this trip on my ship, then you would be correct. But since we’re not…” Selendil replied without being all that bothered. She might not care about the Illum girl she had in stasis, but Amaterasu seemed to care at least to a certain extent. Since she could understand, she wasn’t bothered. That didn’t mean she was going to rush to help the girl, but at least she wasn’t pushing the matter off indefinitely.

“I suppose that is true. I’m guessing she would have to remain in stasis during the process?” Amaterasu asked, just to get a clearer picture of what it would take to help Miyo.

“For the most part at least. At the moment, there isn’t enough of her mind left to even keep up normal bodily functions. She might be able to breathe for a very short time just on what’s left of the commands her brains sent before her mind collapsed, and the nanites in her body would help keep her alive for a very short while as well despite their low level. That said, she would not survive more than minutes outside stasis without medical equipment. I suppose our new doctor Khaemwaset could keep her alive while I work, but it would be easier to just keep her in stasis.” Selendil shrugged.

“So the stasis is just for keeping her alive then? It’s not necessary for fixing her mind? I was thinking the damage might become harder to fix over time.” Amaterasu mentioned one of her earlier suspicions. Matters of mind that went this in-depth were new to her, so she was curious to learn more.

“Well, time outside stasis won’t make things easier, but it would not make too much worse either. There are several ways to repair the damage done to her mind. Some of the ways are made more difficult as time passes, but not all.” Selendil said rather lackadaisically, and then changed the subject. “How about you? Have you benefitted from the training?”

Amaterasu recognized the topic switch and went along with it. “Quite a bit actually. I was rather peeved at first when you told me these were exercises for Dhar children, but they have been rather useful. It feels like there have been large cracks in the base of my strength and those cracks are now getting filled.” She considered her words a bit before continuing. “It’s not so much that I’ve grown stronger, but that things that used to be difficult for me have suddenly become much easier. My control has become much better and my powers much more responsive and flexible. I’m fairly sure that once I do start to focus on growing stronger again, it will be much easier after the benefits I’ve gotten.”

Selendil nodded. “As it should be. Some things leave behind scars when they are rushed and shoddy foundations make you fragile in many ways. You might not have noticed it yet, but it would be much harder to attack you psionically now. Someone trying to enter your mind would face much stiffer resistance. Well, relatively speaking at least.”

The ship jumped out of phase space only a few minutes later and they found themselves surrounded by countless ships and orbital defenses. They had passed several early warning beacons while in phase space so their arrival did not come as a surprise. Still, their ship was forced to exit phase space near the outermost layer of defenses, and they would have to go through an inspection before being allowed to go further. As their ship was a diplomatic one, the inspection would be a cursory one, mainly checking for certain types of radiation given off by weapons that could cause massive destruction to the planet. Anyone that wanted to leave the ship would have to walk through bio-scanners that would check for biological weapons when they reached the surface.

“Gaia. The administrative heart of the Upper Tetrarchy.” Amaterasu stated with a small sigh. She had visited the planet before their kind had become the Illum. She had imagined that her next visit here would be at the head of a war fleet.

"Not the homeworld of Humans I gather," Selendil stated as she used her mind to observe the planet behind all the defenses. The planet was what a lot of scientists would call a paradise world. It also didn’t carry any of the scars that were often the result of the early development of intelligent life. The world looked pristine and didn’t even have any industry on the surface. The orbit was filled with various orbital facilities though, ranging from medium shipyards and habitats to orbital defenses. There was an orbital ring of facilities going around the entire planet, and not a small one either.

“No. Humanity was born much deeper in the galactic spiral arm, in the part that is called the Lower Tetrarchy. Both halves of the empire have two Tetrarchs ruling over it. One is in charge of the military affairs and one in charge of the civilian affairs, for a combined total of four Tetrarchs. The party we are going to is a rather large and important event, so we’re expecting both of the Upper Tetrarchs to be in attendance. The one we are suspecting is the military Tetrarch.” Amaterasu explained, as she was not sure how much Nox had told Selendil. She was never quite sure how much information the AI passed on.

“Well, considering that we are deep into their territory, those are some heavy defenses for a world that is not the homeworld, but I suppose the administrative heart of half the empire qualifies as well. Still a bit paranoid.” Selendil muttered. The number of ships wasn’t something shocking. There was a rather sizeable fleet present, and while it was quite strong for a defensive fleet, it wasn’t completely out of proportion either. The actual combat vessels still numbered just over a hundred, but they were mostly destroyers and battleships. There were no dreadnoughts present. The real defenses came from the orbital platforms that were bristling with weapons.

Amaterasu nodded. “Although the military Tetrarch spends the majority of the year elsewhere, this world is still in charge of…well just about everything else. Even Psicom has their headquarters here, though we can’t be sure if that place is the real headquarters or just the public face of the group. I suspect the latter personally.”

Their ship went through the approach procedures and the cursory inspection, after which, they were directed towards a berth on one of the orbital habitats. According to the instructions Moonshadow had given to them, they would be spending the night on the platform and they would get a diplomatic shuttle to take them to the venue the next day. They theoretically had the permission to go on the surface on their free time, but none of the Mrrroww diplomats had done so before so it would look weird. Most of them elected to spend the night on the ship as the accommodations were only slightly worse than those that could be found on the platform. Besides, only the Mrrroww and Selendil would be able to leave the ship anyway. The Illum and Cybrans looked mostly like normal Humans, but it would raise suspicions to see them exit the ship.

As their lesson that evening was coming to an end, Nox addressed Selendil silently. “I think I found something that might impact tomorrow’s festivities. The Tetrarchy fleet that we encountered earlier started their attack against the Cybrans while we were busy prospecting and traveling around. The warning we sent had an effect, but the Cybrans are still on the losing side. It seems that the Admiral we were in contact with was hoping to utilize the advantage of a surprise but wasn’t placing all his hopes on that advantage.”

“Did the Cybrans underestimate the threat despite our warning?” Selendil inquired. They had provided estimated fleet sizes as well. The estimates would’ve been somewhat inaccurate since they were based on the number of supply and support vessels that had been present in the system at that time, but Nox could make pretty accurate calculations.

"Not exactly, but they don't have quite the same shipbuilding capacity as the Tetrarchy and Illum. They're also running into logistic trouble. Although we warned them, most of their fleets were still placed on the border between them and Illum as they had expected that war to run much longer. Tetrarchy launched the attack before the Cybrans managed to pull enough ships to defend. The Tetrarchy had started moving their ships weeks earlier than the Cybrans after all, and they have the ability to draw ships from other places, unlike the Cybrans. Their ships didn't have to travel all the way from the Illum border to get to this battle. As a result, the Cybrans were outnumbered and outgunned pretty heavily. It didn’t help that the Admiral is apparently rather skilled when given the opportunity, so the Cybrans were also outmaneuvered.” Nox explained. The AI was reading the classified reports straight from the Tetrarchy’s military command, so the tactical analysis was rather accurate.

“And what’s the result?” Selendil asked.

“Well, good news and bad news for Cybrans. The good news is that our warning gave them the opportunity to evacuate their city ships to safety. The bad news is that their fleets got mauled and the border between the two factions was pushed back a lot. The Cybrans lost several important worlds and solar systems with important resources. Now that the Tetrarchy is forced into a more overextended position their advance has slowed down.” Nox told without a shred of sympathy. The tactical calculations she had done showed that the Cybrans could’ve turned the situation around if they were willing to endanger a few city ships early on, but now it was too late. Tetrarchy was not wasting this opportunity and was bringing in more ships to help alleviate their overextended forces.

“So the Cybrans are losing. Have you calculated the likely scenarios that will follow on a longer term?” Selendil didn’t care about the Cybrans, but she didn’t want to lose her new security forces. She had spent some effort in training Xiaoli the last few weeks after all.

“That depends largely on two things, whether Illum will just stand by, and the willingness of the Tetrarchy to push their advantage. If the Tetrarchy is willing to suffer some short-term hardship to push their advantage now, they could cripple the Cybrans for a long time. I doubt the Illum will allow this chance to slip by though. Either they will use their full power to stab the Tetrarchy when they are the most overextended and spent from fighting the Cybrans, or they will try to rope in the Cybrans as permanent allies by saving them. Personally, I would bet on the former as we have already seen how fickle those kinds of alliances can be." Nox calculated.

“So this news should make tomorrow’s celebrations a bit more festive. How widely has this information spread?” Selendil considered if she should broach the subject during the party. If the information was not widely publicized, then her knowing about it might bring some questions.

“It’s not at the military secret level, but few people outside the military have heard about it yet. It might be a bit odd for you to know about it.” Nox informed her.

Selendil nodded in understanding. "Pass the information on to Moonshadow, Amaterasu, and Xiaoli. They are the ones that need to know. Moonshadow likely wouldn't appreciate this being sprung on her tomorrow, while Amaterasu will need to make plans for the Illum's response. She's still the Empress after all. As for Xiaoli, well I would be rather pissed if I wasn't told in her situation, so let's test how she reacts. This is a good time to see if she can keep her promises even if her people might need her.”

“Understood.” Nox acknowledged the order.

It didn’t take long for the first person to contact her. Perhaps unsurprisingly the fastest to react was Amaterasu. She requested permission to return back to the Illum for a short time, as well as the convenience of a warp from Selendil. If the Illum could take advantage of the news quickly, then they had a lot to gain from the situation. They had been planning the invasion of the Tetrarchy for a while now. Their plans had been pushed back by the events surrounding Selendil’s ship, but the opportunity had not passed. Selendil was willing to oblige Amaterasu’s wishes as the Empress would just be stuck sitting around for a few days anyway.

Interestingly Moonshadow only thanked her for the information and Xiaoli didn’t react at all. Selendil could sense the Cybran woman was struggling with the news and didn’t know how to react. No matter what the reaction would be, it would wait until after the party the next day. Selendil just hoped the woman wouldn’t do something stupid like attempt to cause havoc during their stay. The little havoc she would be able to cause would not change the situation and would only get her killed. On the other hand, if the Tetrarch truly did turn out to be a void entity, then the situation might change with Selendil’s involvement. Xiaoli knew that. She might be waiting for the result before making her plans.

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“You’re really straddling the line with this.” Selendil plucked at her dress with her front paw.

“It’s not pink.” Moonshadow defended her choice.

“That is true. Barely. Most beings would indeed categorize this as purple.” Selendil’s voice was filled with disapproval. They were flying on the diplomatic shuttle that would take them to the celebration. Ostensibly the party was to honor the many people lost in the wars against Illum and Cybrans.

“Look at it from my angle. I saw a dress that is decorated with rather good imitations of Progenitor glyphs, and the dress is supposed to be worn by an actual Progenitor. Now tell me, could you resist such an opportunity?” Moonshadow smiled rather pleased with herself.

“’Good imitations’ is putting it quite generously. There are over a hundred supposed glyphs on this dress, and not a single one of them is accurate. Most of them aren’t even close.” Selendil argued.

“Not the point.” Moonshadow countered. “Besides, it’s too late to change now. It’s your fault for not paying attention when we were getting the dress.”

"You had me try on one hundred and sixty-seven dresses! At that point, I would've acquiesced to wearing nothing but leaves just to stop the torture." Selendil pointed out. Moonshadow actually didn’t even show her the dress. She would’ve remembered otherwise. She might have said something on the lines of ‘just pick something’ though.

“And that’s how you lose. One moment of inattention. You of all people should know how dangerous such lack of attention can be. Now you have to suffer the consequences.” Moonshadow’s smile widened. She was rather pleased to get one over Selendil for once. Something about Selendil just roused her competitive spirit, and there were precious few chances for such small victories.

"I could always just blow up the planet," Selendil muttered a little dangerously.

Luckily for everyone involved, the shuttle landed just as she said that, and the doors opened to allow them to enter the venue. It was an early evening. The sun was still up and would be for a few more hours, allowing the duo to admire the beautiful beach view that spread on the opposite side of the venue. The event was not a beach party, just that most of the high-end venues of this planet were placed near the ocean. The venue itself was divided between a large archaic style mansion, though with all the modern comforts that came with technology, and a well-groomed garden. The garden was clearly meant for more informal discussions and for enjoying refreshments, while the indoors was for the more serious business.

All the Humans they could see were dressed in an opulent manner. Even the military officials in their uniforms showed their wealth in any and all ways available for them. The uniforms were perfectly tailored and made of the rarest and most expensive materials, while they wore several accessories made of materials that could only be found in phase space. Of course, the civilians were not as restrained as they were decked in only the best and the most expensive materials and jewelry. It seemed opulence and garishness were in fashion. There were several styles that could be assumed to be ethnic in their style, but neither Moonshadow nor Selendil could recognize any of them.

The two Mrrroww, or more accurately one Mrrroww and one shapeshifted Dhar, naturally drew attention. There were some non-Humans present, but they were decidedly in the minority. The fact that they were members of the most important race in the galactic core made the two of them even more special. The attention didn't lessen at all once the master of ceremonies announced their presence. "The High Ambassador and Deity Moonshadow of the Mrrroww, and her companion the Grand Keeper and Deity Selendil of the Mrrroww!”

Moonshadow knew that Humans would place emphasis on the rank of a Deity, so she had added that to their introduction. Everyone present would avoid doing anything silly once they knew they were in the presence of two Mrrroww Deities. The fact that they could hide their halos only added to the mystery, as now the Humans didn’t know how powerful they were. “Grand Keeper?” Selendil asked slightly surprised.

"I needed a title for you and the word Keeper just doesn't provide enough impact. So I added the word grand. It's not wrong when you talk about it. You are now the highest ranking Keeper around, so…" Moonshadow explained quietly. “Anyway, can you sense anything?”

"No. The void entity is not anywhere close yet." Selendil replied curtly. She had her senses extended to cover the area. The two were discussing using the language of the Dhar, as Moonshadow had wanted to learn. Moonshadow was a psion and Nox was a great teacher, so while the Mrrroww woman could not speak fluently after a few weeks, she could manage a conversation like this.

“Well, that eliminates the civilian Tetrarch as he just arrived and will be announced in a few moments.” Moonshadow pointed out, while at the same time paying attention to a group of military officers that seemed out of place. They were decidedly less opulently dressed than the others, and they even carried the smell of battle. As a hunter, such things were quite obvious to her. These people had seen fighting in the last week.

“I think this party might turn out much more interesting than we first assumed, even if the void entity does not show.” Selendil suddenly commented. “I’m pretty sure someone plans on making an attack on the venue.”

“Cybrans?” Moonshadow asked surprised. It was a rather decent feat to sneak weapons and people past all the defenses surrounding both the planet and this event. With the event hosting two of the Tetrarchs, the security was just about as tight as it could become.

“No. I’m fairly sure this is an inside job. Someone’s making a power play, and eliminating two Tetrarchs with a single strike would leave behind a nice little power vacuum.” Selendil stated.

“Even so, how do they think they will manage with all this security around? Even considering that the strength of the two of us must have been a surprise, there are still several Deities present. Not to mention a veritable legion of security.” Moonshadow speculated. Likely the attackers had not expected the Mrrroww to show up with two Deities.

“Well, if I were to make a guess, at least one of those Deities will be helping the attackers, and the same likely holds true for that security you mentioned. Not all of them of course, but some of them. Besides, I’m pretty sure the plan A doesn’t include a frontal attack. The refreshments are laced with a neural toxin that would knock down a Dragobear. I doubt the human Deities present will be able to resist.” Selendil explained her observations.

“You don’t seem too concerned.” Moonshadow said while looking meaningfully at the pastry Selendil was busy wolfing down. The plate had floated to her almost as soon as they had entered.

“I’m not. Despite how I look, I’m still an energy being. This stuff only gives the food a piquant taste as far as I’m concerned. I would advise you to stay away from the stuff though. I could flush the stuff out of your system, but I doubt you would appreciate the soiled clothes that would be the end result. The stuff is quite slow acting though, as long as it’s not instigated by other chemical means. I think we are facing an interesting quandary. Should we do something about this?” Selendil pointed out the dilemma.