“The Tekrons are a threat we can address when it is time to address them,” Duke Rimval intervened firmly. “The Goblins are there, they are threat we can deal with right now if we must, barring what we find out in the surrounding systems.” Finding out we were surrounded by Goblin encampments would not be a good thing. “What are you planning that requires a delay of an offensive, Sama?”

“Umbran tactics,” I replied calmly, and his mouth twitched into a smile despite itself. “The first few Tachyon Drives are going into scout ships, and finding out the situation in the neighboring systems, helping expand our Phlo Maps as we do. Then we’re going to start revamping the Mothball Fleet with Tachyon and Harmonic Drives, swapping out the Helldiver systems and the Thrones. Our expeditionary force to eradicate them is going to come in fast, hard, and quiet out of Tachyon travel, not ripping open holes in space and announcing their presence.

“I expect their first strike on the Goblins in AK-97 Proxima to be a total surprise and massacre. We can have a second strike force sweep in to clean up after them as they head on off to one of the other systems using Warp jumps. If all goes well and there’s enough psychic static to stop them from communicating outsystem, we may even be able to do a sweep... although I won’t expect it. That would require impossibly good luck, or a fleet massive enough to hit every location at the same time, which we just don’t have.”

Eyes returned to the star charts of the surrounding systems, and the red and yellows... and the dangers of the question marks.

“This... is a threat for the entire sub-sector, isn’t it?” Admiral Ontif observed. “We simply haven’t been paying enough attention to all the small systems with few resources... and there are far too many of them...”

“Technically speaking, it’s a galaxy-wide threat, but the scale of it is simply impossible to handle, especially with the risks involved in that much Helldiving.” I shook my head. “We start where we can. We’ve got a whole fleet and more that we have to get the new Drives installed on, with new hulls and designs and specs... this is a macro problem, not a micro one. Baby steps.”

“How are you planning to disseminate knowledge of vivus to the Empire proper, given the difficulty in information exchanges with the Rift?” asked Duke Parablum.

“Ah, that. We’re starting on that part of the process tomorrow.” I had the four men’s attention immediately. “I’m leading a team of Ranthas into the Gloom. We’re going to start mapping out some of it, and importantly, we’re going to get some of us into the far side of it. Once we have anchor points on planets on the far side, we can start transferring men and material... and pointedly, we can start opening communications unhampered by the Rift.”

“You... intend to open communication channels with the Empire?” Admiral Colos was startled.

“Unfortunately, no. There is absolutely no chance I will trust the Imperial Government to handle the Markspace properly. However, we will absolutely be disseminating knowledge of vivus as far and fast as is feasibly possible, once we get to Imperial worlds, and leveraging any information exchange that is feasible as we do.” I sighed. “I expect to have a very grim time over there. The reactionary mindset is going to be difficult to overcome to the extreme, and the more core the worlds are, the greater the discrimination against non-orthodox bloodlines.

“But, it has to be done, so we’ll do it. Attempts at reunification can wait until we actually are able to travel freely once more.”

“How are you planning to breach the Gloom?” The realm of the drow was not going to be a safe area.

“Personally. My Blade Chalice and I can cut short planar rifts between spatial coordinates we have personally touched. I breached the first drow Portal they opened on Janus III, so I can access the Underweb.

“Once I have access to the Gloom, it merely follows to map out what I can, and get access to a planet or two on the far side. Each planet I reach can become a new point I can drop one of the girls, as going back into the Gloom and then back to Janus will be simplicity once it is set up.”

The military men were impressed. “Is this how the Elvar move about the galaxy?” they had to ask.

“Yes. There are two levels of Portals: personal and starship-sized. Personal Portals can handle most mundane army vehicles, while the larger ones can accommodate their largest Monarch starships. Notably, it’s possible to carry around the personal Portals, and deploy from ships to ground Portal via them.

“They galaxy-hop by using a Portal to enter one of their nexal locations in the Gloom, and either using a Portal there, or sailing off through the Gloom to another one in a different Nexal.

“The drow home city is a planar metropolis, home to trillions of drow, and potentially trillions of slaves. Its name translates to along the lines of ‘Nest of Born Killers Waiting in the Darkness’, but most people just call it Gloomheart and the drow just sneer at them... and call it the same thing.” I sniffed despite myself. “It is a very dangerous place. If you’re not a Seven, you shouldn’t go there at all, and if you’re not a Ten, you shouldn’t ever lead anything there.

“Gloomheart is also their biggest planar Portal nexus, having Portals to literally all over the galaxy. Reaching there should get me access to a lot of locations I can later disperse people to... and a lot of locations I can’t, but I’m sure the Umbrans and Coronals will be very interested in.”

Both of the Dukes nodded. “The ability to leverage information across the Rift is something that could be exploited for great financial advantage, Sama,” Duke Rimval noted with amusement.

“And with the seed money the Twilight Orders are going to give me, I wouldn’t possibly exploit that, would I?” Both Dukes just looked at me. “Because you’re both going to commission me to carry data to your counterparts on the other side, and I’ll be paid upon completion there.”

All four men looked at one another in amusement. “That would be an extremely valuable service, Sama,” Duke Parablum said. “I imagine you will need seed money for the seed money, if you are to be financially in place before the news is dispersed.”

“That is true. There are a bunch of licenses I need to buy from the Mekkers... again... since I’m not going to publicize that I bought the licenses from this side of the Rift to them.

“Happily, raising general credits for expansion into new worlds is called venture capital, and for some reason I have this whole corporation behind me which is pretty aggressive about such stuff.” I smirked, and all the boys rolled their eyes at me.

“And yourself, Commander?” Admiral Ontif asked of Briggs.

“There’s no way I would blend in sufficiently in such a mission, and a Source doesn’t skip out midway on things. I have things to do,” he rumbled firmly, and everyone took him at his word. Given how much he felt like an elemental force of nature, it was the wise thing to do.

“So... perhaps we had best be about arranging an intelligence report to our counterparts on the other side of the Rift?” Duke Rimval said, looking around at all the men.

“Carefully vetted,” agreed Admiral Colos. “Indeed, if even a courier or message service could be run between the severed halves of the Empire, it could change things.”

“And it would probably destroy everything we are trying to do here,” I vetoed. “We can think about such a thing when we see how the Empire proper reacts to the introduction of vakker-tech and the accompanying tech tree. I do not expect it to be well.”

And that despite its proven ability in battle. The Mechanists had too strong a hold over the technological heart of the Empire at this point. All of the men fell silent. They had their duty, and it had iron grips on them, but they had seen the changes I had made to the way of things, they were in the Markspace, and hope had its terrible tendrils deep in their hearts now. The idea that they were making things better, not just beating the darkness back, had wormed its way in, and they didn’t want to knuckle under to those doing things the old way just because that was the way they had been done.

They wanted more.

Treasonous, blasphemous thoughts, to any true loyalist of the Empire... Giving hope just empowered the enemy, right?

=============

It was time for massive amounts of information leverage.

In the two decades and more since the Rift had sprung up, worlds had risen up, and others had perished. Wars of defense had been fought, and wars of offense. Notable names had died, and new ones had spread. Corporations and nobles houses had traded, fought, died, and expanded, and a gargantuan amount of lives and assets had changed hands, been destroyed, built, and been expended in myriad ways.

Many of those corporations and noble houses had ties on the other side of the Rift. Even if no trade and travel was taking place across the Rift, those places still had ties, and news of their businesses doing poorly or spectacularly would move the markets. Likewise, news of loved ones, and the inheritances that went with them, would cause shifts in motion, and the deaths and discoveries of planets were certain to have ripple effects.

All the kids with financial backgrounds crunched a lot of numbers going for the economic data and what impact it would have on the other half of the Empire, and how I could exploit it when it was released. Corporations, banks, and families with major holdings on this side that had been destroyed or struck it rich would move markets on the other. Even something as simple as whether a cargo ship still existed or not meant severe financial losses that could now be reflected on balance statements... and stock prices.

Imperial credits were imperial credits, and blockchain verification meant they’d be accepted anywhere in the galaxy, so bringing along some electronic money was very easy, indeed. Compound that with some highly leveraged not-speculation in the market...

It was not an extension to say that all this actually wouldn’t affect what I was doing on Janus III much at all. Girls specialized in everything I used to do had basically taken over everything and were very happily driving things forwards. They were also quite happy to start their own Curselines and get their own assortment of hyper-motivated Hags out to change Reality for the better, so again, one less thing I had to do.

As long as I had Levels and could contribute Ranks to driving up the tech trees, that was basically all that was important. I could be a galaxy away fighting knee-deep in bugs, and they could be my hands on the experiments required to advance the tech. Given that the foundation was already there, we just needed to get it back and add a few branches to the trunk of the tree, it really wasn’t all that revolutionary.

No, I wasn’t needed personally to expand the allegiance, not at all. People definitely admired me, standing up there at the top of things, but it was their own Ranthas and Briggs who were driving the whole engine forwards, not just me, and even most of my ‘personal’ followers were Tens or close to it, and leading waves and groups of their own.

To wit, I didn’t really have a personal entourage, because my family was just too damn big, and snatched all the people away.

Briggs was important, because his monstrous Source Field was guiding the whole allegiance into a path to a better and brighter place, even if they were looking at me as the Mother of the Marks. To those outside, Briggs was the face, not me.

What I was best at... was general competency, oddly enough.

My Talent just gave me a general boost on Knowledge-type skills of all types, which was naturally exceeded by anyone with a more focused Talent. But... I was an Exemplar Lite.

+5 Bonus to all Skills. Less than the Talent of a Ten, which maxed at +8... but it affected ALL Skills. So while I couldn’t beat any of my girls at their niche, I could certainly beat all of them at any Skills outside their niches.

If I didn’t have any girls there to fill those niches, that meant the person who had to do it was me, and I was more than capable of doing so! I was a Master of All Trades, Grandmaster of None (except Sword, but we all were, so that didn’t count), such as it were. In terms of being capable at everything I needed to be capable at, nobody could match me.

So, that’s why I was going. I was still absolute murder in combat. I was unbelievably hard to kill. I could start something in the Empire just like I had on Janus, and get the ball rolling over there. Me not being here just opened up more options for the girls to take over and drive things forwards.

And me, I got to go adventuring!