Ravens of Eternity

409 Desperation

Dendrus IV, Purgatory System, Great House de Jardin

The planet was, as it had been for the past century, a pure black void invisible to everything. It was like a planet-sized black hole that wasn’t a black hole at all. It didn’t suck anything into it by some massive gravity well.

But anything that fell down to it was certainly lost, just like a black hole.

It was a lifeless rock whose pitch black surface was completely still, as though it was a massive globe of ink, floating serenely out in the galaxy.

Any who looked directly at it were deeply unsettled to the core. It felt to them as though they were looking at something that both existed and never existed at the same time.

It came with a severe sense of finality that everyone couldn’t help but turn their gaze.

Although Denrus IV spun in solitude within its own solar system for most of that century, the past five years changed all that.

The planet was now accompanied by numerous large fleets that covered it from multiple sides. Two of those fleets were headed up by imposing devastators.

Whether or not they had a devastator to act as their flagship, each of the fleets were heavily armed and armored. They were equipped with the most cutting-edge weaponry and technology available to the Hegemony.

.....

Not only that, but they had the most optimized plating and advanced energy shielding currently possible.

In other words, the fleets surrounding Godeater were the best of the best, and the Hegemony spared no expense on them.

Far more impressive than them, however, was the absolutely massive sprawling base that enveloped Dendrus IV itself. Numerous stations sat just inside of the planet’s orbit, and partially encased it from every side itself.

The stations were massive in size and triangular in shape. Each one was slightly concave, and curved at the same degree as the planet itself did. More than that, the sides that faced the planet itself were massive mirrors which reflected the bottomless void back to itself.

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Each of the triangular stations were linked to each other through an interlocked energy lattice, which ensured that not one of them budged out of position, for any reason.

Beyond the stations was another cluster of interlocked mirrors. They appeared to be shaped like a cannon, and had an array of mirrors beneath it that seemed to focus the image of Dendrus through the barrel itself.

Or perhaps another way to say it was that every mirror in the barrel reflected every angle around Godeater. And it didn’t matter where the barrel itself was positioned – it always had a clear view of every side.

Currently, the barrel was closed and every reflection bounced back into Godeater. Presumably, safely.

Up above the entire thing was a third array of stations, which acted as central operations for the entire planetary facility. This array looked and acted like the usual set of human-bearing stations.

There were stations for habitation & entertainment, drone & drone control, equipment & resupply, and so on. Currently, inside the largest station in the middle of it all, a thin and aging man walked down a row of terminals.

His worn eyes looked over his technicians’ shoulders and appraised their work, even as they performed them.

He didn’t have much to say to them, other than a few small suggestions or words of praise.

The technician in front of him worked carefully and diligently to maneuver his industrial drone. His hands moved in the air as he manipulated his virtual controls, which only he could see through his DI.

And on the screen in front of him, his drone moved in response. It appeared to be performing fine circuit work out in the void of space, somewhere in the vast planetary station floating underneath them.

Two of the drone’s arms stretched out from its sides, one affixed with a high intensity thermic beam. The other had an ultrathin plasma cutter. While the technician sealed up breaches with one of the arms, he cut away excess sealant with the other.

“Be careful with that,” said the old man. “That’s a highly delicate bit of equipment you’re dealing with.”

“Yessir,” the technician answered. “Don’t worry, Master Engineer, sir. She’s in good hands.”

The Master Engineer grunted in approval, patted the tech’s shoulder, then moved on to the next technician down the line.

There, he observed her work briefly, just as he had observed every technician thus far.

She also controlled her own drone the same way as all the others – directly through a DI interface, but all outputs were displayed in the terminal right in front of her.

The Master Engineer watched as she quickly and precisely slipped a large section of circuitry into its housing. It only took her moments to seal it in place, at which point she added it to the energy loop and normalized its ion flow.

“Well done,” he told her. “But be mindful you don’t start cutting corners.”

“Yessir,” she responded.

Before he could give her a second bit of advice, an alert came through on his DI. It was flagged as Phi-Kappa, which meant it was a high-priority comms. And so he had no reason or ability to refuse it.

The moment he did so, Matriarch de Jardin appeared in his mind’s eye, as provided by his DI. She looked hard and haggard and close to exhaustion. Then again, so did he.

“Cousin, how are you?” asked the Master Engineer.

“This isn’t a personal call, unfortunately,” answered the Matriarch. “I’m here to check in on your progress.”

“Very well, Matriarch. All is proceeding well. And ahead of schedule, as you’ve asked. As you continue to ask.”

“Does that mean you’re ready for a test run?”

“Well...”

The Matriarch sighed in exasperation.

“Every time you say you’re proceeding, it never actually seems as though you’re proceeding at all,” she complained. “Need I remind you that time is against us. If we cannot get this superweapon of yours up and running, then there isn’t any point to any of it, is there?”

“I understand your frustration,” he replied. “But do know we are all working as quickly and as carefully as we possibly can. I cannot stress enough that we are working right next to... to oblivion. Even the smallest mistake could end up costing us tens of billions in losses.

“And more to the point, mistakes could cost us a great deal of time. We cannot rush any more than we are now, or this entire thing will collapse. Just a few cycles ago, we lost an entire drone frigate to an altitude error. Hundreds of crew, thousands of drones, hundreds of millions of ducats, all lost to Dendrus.”

“I also understand where you’re coming from,” the Matriarch rebutted. “The threat of annihilation is high. Every moment counts, every decision matters. The lives of quadrillions rests in our hands, cousin. Quadrillions.”

“Oh, now it’s a family matter.”

“You know what I mean.”

The Master Engineer nodded in sympathy. Of course he understood. Everyone working on the station understood the situation.

“We’re flanked on every side,” he said. “We all know this. It’s the only reason why we’re doing this at all. If it wasn’t... I don’t think we would even think to build this monstrosity. Most of us, anyway. But we do have time.

“After all, both the Empire and the Federation are on the brink of internal collapse. Both have been deprived of their leaders, for the most part. Their ability to actually control their fleets are slim. The more they collapse, the easier it is for us. Surely you can see this.”

The Minister immediately frowned at his words. Nothing was as simple as that, ever. Especially when it comes to power.

“It doesn’t matter if the Emperor is dead, or that the Grand Minister’s on the way out,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if half the Imperial senate and half the Federation’s High Admirals are missing or hospitalized or incapacitated either. The fact is that the fleets out there are autonomous.

“Even if both the Empire and Federation completely collapse, it doesn’t mean those fleets will suddenly stop. No, of course not! They’ll likely dig in and entrench themselves in whatever territory they’ve captured.”

“You’re being unreasonably obtuse,” the Master Engineer complained. “Sure, they might dig in. Or they might also retreat. It isn’t as though they don’t have homes to protect. Or power to grab. I think they’re just as likely to go back in that event than stay here and fight. Especially if they’re deprived of their supplies.”

“My cabinet and I aren’t fools. Of course we’ve considered that. And we’re certainly prepared to bribe them to leave our territories in that event. But we can’t rule out that they won’t. We absolutely must be prepared for that eventuality.”

“What exactly do you want, Matriarch? For the Void Quark Cannon to be the solution to the Hegemony’s political problems? You know that’s foolishness, yes? You need a scalpel, not a claymore. And this is the biggest gods-damned claymore in the galaxy.”

The Matriarch grumbled in frustration and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

“I’m not saying I wish to use the weapon,” she said. “But we need to show that we aren’t just willing to use it, but that it can be used at all. If we don’t, then we have no leverage in any diplomatic action regardless.

“What’s important is that in the face of that much destruction, any fleets still in our systems will be more liable to leave when asked.”

“That’s assuming that’s the choice they make,” replied the Master Engineer. “What if they instead choose to take a populace hostage? What if they dared you to remove them violently? Would you use the cannon against them in that case?”

“You’re saying, what if they called our bluff? That’s certainly an outcome that could happen. I can’t deny that at all. Would I use the weapon? I don’t know. But I have to be ready to.”

The Master Engineer guffawed loudly on hearing that. It was so loud that many technicians around him jumped in their seats out of surprise.

“You’re being far too callous about all this!” he blurted out. “You’re talking about being unsure about the genocide of billions of people at once. On top of that, you’re acting more and more irrational as each cycle passes by.”

“I’m not taking this lightly at all!” the Matriarch retorted. “The fact of the matter is that the Hegemony has been torn apart. Half of the Great Houses have crumbled. The de Jardins are themselves threatened as the hours pass.

“We are at the brink of extinction, and our absolute collapse would result in mass amounts of death and destruction. Without the Great Houses, the Hegemony... no, humanity will eat itself alive. Are you prepared for that eventuality? If not, then I suggest we do our utmost to get the weapon ready, Master Engineer. I want it operational by the end of the month! No more excuses!”