It was really, really annoying that our quest to save the galaxy from the Warp Gods now meant we first had to save it from a race of planet-sized dark matter entities who would promptly wipe us if we succeeded.

Wow, was that like the hugest possible side-quest possible. Technically it could be even bigger than wiping the Warp Gods, who hadn’t wiped the galaxy, and probably never would... they’d just keep it eternally embroiled in a lively situation of war, stagnation, and endless entertainment for their own jollies and sustenance, building up the power to take out galaxy-purging godlike dark matter entities in occasional galaxy-ripping Warp-storms and such.

Totally surreal. And wow, did it start forcing massive re-evaluations of what we had to prepare and be ready for.

-I want Death Collectors spreading throughout the Empire at full speed. Inform the Coronals that we use them to make bombs that can one-shot techorganic vessels and will be deploying ships to address the Xenosym Fleets.

-I want Death Harvester ships designed to collect the death of the Xenos Fleets and speed this cycle happily along. As far as weapon development goes, I want Blacklight Beamers at TL 20 on the top of the list, and just in case, I want the tech twinked so it only affects Abberrants.

-Cantor, I want the Ruk informed of this at the highest levels. They may not take being small players manipulated by the big ones well, but they have to know. At the same time, they are our go-to folks on making something that can wipe the invisible bastards, and detect them. Get them started on that process.

-Ronnie, the DM now has an assignment. I want some TL21-plus vivic-imbued computer code readied and fed to the Tekron. I want them burning, and what remains of their machine spirits are his to play with. Slaves who rise up against their masters are nasty, and I expect him to be frighteningly original over how he prosecutes this threat to his faithful.

-Oh, and any Death Collectors they have, we want, too.

-Find a section of the Gatherers and get us some of their tech. I think the God of the Machine may appreciate having some arms and legs, and they don’t have a higher purpose than His, as soon as we break their code.

-Emma, I want to see if you can open a dialogue with the Cellulocusts. They may know a lot of things we can find useful, and some mutual understanding may go a long way. I have the feeling they will recognize us.

-We need Powered at Twenty, maybe even Eternal. There hasn’t been a human at that Level for a long time, and we can probably thank the Emperor for that, bless his pathetic crystalline ass. While all glory and praise to us Hagbloods for how awesome we are, we are neither Casters nor psions, and we need that High-Level edge. Pick your finest and noblest Marked Powered, and start power-leveling them. We are built to make Powered shine, so get them shining.

-Start recruiting among the Coronals and Umbrans. You know who we are looking for. If you want to grab some Mentats not lost in their snobbery, that’s fine, too.

-Continue with Beacon recruitment, and we want them actively matched up with Nulls and Sources who can help them Level. We are going to need them to produce a lot of the higher-end tech and make it just that bit more awesome... and since the first snowball is starting to roll among the Ruk, we cannot fall behind them in racial awesomeness.-

Like the Elvar, the Ruk had a Racial Class, except theirs was specifically fighting and tech-oriented. They had a monstrous d12 Hit Die, ever-rising Con bonuses, full Melee Attack bonus, got to ignore Stat requirements for increasing their Level... and waived technology-based Skill Stat Requirements.

That was monstrous, as it meant a 10 Intellect Ruk could reach Twenty and understand TL20 tech it took an Int 30 human to decipher (or Int 24 with Skill Focus, etc.). Since there were no Stat requirements for Racial Levels, Ruk as a species were just monstrously adept at technology in their tech trees.

And could fight like nobody’s business, too...

-Somebody set me up a meeting with Gorgrum.-

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Across the near and far sides of the Empire, plans shifted once again, and the anti-Warp technology advances were moved off the primary path for now, as it was completely impossible to go after them before the Anti-Life was taken care of.

In places off the maps of the Empire, hulls were being laid for a new fleet of ships with a special purpose: extinguishing biovore fleets. Death Collectors were being laid in numbers on world after world, and the number of Dead Walking Events on those worlds began to subside rapidly. Just that fact meant there was minimal opposition to their dispersal, and the fact the negative energy being absorbed was being rapidly removed set even more hearts at ease.

Ships at that TL had not been forged for thousands of years by any race. The implications of their making would have shaken all who knew of them... but the only ones who did were Marked and said nothing.

Grand Duke Corunsun’s domination of the Khagan Sector proceeded apace. Imperial Authority had fractured, and the Imperial Fleet was divided among multiple players, with more and more Captains and System Admirals striking their colors to go it alone in the face of the rampant problems with logistics and support, world after world rising in rebellion to greet them with hostile fire, and their own Fleet resources were turned on them to defend newly-won independence.

Crownworld after crownworld seceded after continual failures by the Throneworld of Rimcrown, currently paralyzed by infighting between different aspects of the Sector Government and the machinations of noble families, guildlords, and merchant lords trying to seize more power for themselves during the fall of the Mechanists.

As trade stopped, factories went idle, and billions were put out of work. Simmering flames of anger at the actions of their leaders ignited, and soon undyingly loyal worlds of the Empire were fighting insurrections of their own. Piracy exploded as armed fleets went after scarce goods, and invasion and counter-invasions started as world after world armed themselves to go seize what they needed when their former trade partners began to hoard goods to enrich themselves with better terms.

In the midst of this aggression, one set of ships was not bothered as they went from place to place, and rebels, pirates, nobles, rogue Marquis, free traders, and Imperials alike all prayed fervently that those shining call-signs would not appear on their transponders.

Nobody wanted to face down the Corunsun Fleet, whose strength had swelled with amazing speed. A rather large percentage of the former pirate, privateer, and rogue Marquis forces had either vanished, transferred their titles, or decided to firmly ally with the Duke Corunsun. So did Fleet after System Fleet, as the Corunsun Realm seemed to be the only one not suffering from the chaos gripping the entire Sector.

Crownworld after world came to the Duke, looking for various levels of alliance, obeisance, or obedience, even mercenary services.

His pale violet eyes bore down on them from a heavy brow, and his terms, in return, were fealty or ruinous payments that would cripple them.

He was not at all shy about annexing weak world after world to expand his realm, and destroying utterly any force that stood in his way, regardless of their justifications. Likewise, he was fully capable of ignoring a system undergoing horrific warfare if they refused to swear fealty... which was usually fairly quick to come when xenosyms came pouring in from the Void, or the wild Goblins linked up, whelmed, and came burning through the system looking for bigger, better explosions.

Old rivalries exploded into new hates, and nobles spent the lives of their lessers in pursuit of their own ambitions; the internal conflicts were more dangerous than the external ones.

The Corunsun Fleet got an utterly remarkable reputation as pirate hunters of any and all forces, having a nasty habit of appearing out of nowhere right on top of a raiding flotilla of pirates. If they were not human, they were rapidly reduced to recycling materials, much to their amazement. If they were, they were given one chance to surrender before their drives were crippled and they were boarded, and everyone aboard summarily shot.

There were more than a few spontaneous mutinies when a defiant Marquis or overconfident captain refused to back down, and the crew decided they wanted to live. The Corunsun Stone came in very useful over and over again in expanding the Grand Duke’s influence.

His march was steady, if all over the place. He moved from system to system too fast, striking here, there in the Celestial Tribute, sometimes seeming to be in multiple places at the same time, giving those who feared his expanding hand ever more teeth-gnashing moments.

World after world was added to his realm, stabilized by force if need be, and trade re-established. Many of the wealthy and powerful were culled from their holdings and positions of authority, and a great many found themselves in cheap carapace armor clutching a lasgun in the infantry, fated to die in a stinking pit somewhere against the enemies of humanity.

Nobody knew when the title of Grand Duke began to be used to describe the Ancient called Briggs. Perhaps it was after he subdued the Crownworld of Maggerheart, and had to wipe ninety percent of the upper imperial administration and nine High Noble families who would rather have seen the whole world burn than submit to an abhuman.

The workforce got a mass pardon as long as they got back to work. Virtually overnight, the violence gripping the planet died away as idled factories received shipments of raw materials under Corunsun escort, and the forgeworld was back in business... under Corunsun control. The shattered system fleet had the choice of swearing fealty or finding some other system willing to support them.

They chose to swear fealty to the towering presence of the Corunsun Duke.

Perhaps the most gut-wrenching surprise to those looking for an opportunity to take out the Corunsun Duke was when it became known that the Imperial Legionnaire forces were being transported here and there in Corunsun hulls, and he had taken over several important trade routes to ensure they remained supplied.

Several Coronal Knights had challenged him to duels, which he accepted graciously every time, and then beat the stuffing out of them implacably and repeatedly. Several Umbran Dukes sought to make moves against him, lost Operators and Inquisitors, declared him a rogue and heretic with open season on him, and were then promptly countered by other Umbran and Coronal Dukes who had no issues whatsoever with his leadership.

Several Umbran Dukes and their Dungeons did go missing after some of the more heated announcements of his blasphemous status, and several Coronal Dukes did have to step down and go elsewhere, but overall, he took remarkably little action against the Twilight Orders. He said publicly that he had more important things to do than get in the way of the work of the Coronals and the Umbrans, and they had better things to do than get in the way of his restoring a semblance of peace to the Sector.

His rolling expansion was both slow and steady, and sudden as lightning. World after world would suddenly revolt against those seeking to claim their own pet planet and seat of power, call for the Corunsun Fleet, and lo and behold, he would be there to welcome the world into his fold, and oversee the shooting of many ambitious people who had the wealth of kings and thought it wasn’t enough.

The Green and Gold were being installed across the Duchy, recruiting millions every day throughout the Sector from the lowest ranks of society, and it began to grow rapidly, indeed.

As an interesting side effect, the amount of drug use across the Sector was dropping every day, because of lack of production, ever-decreasing numbers of addicts, and the numbers of zwilniks falling precipitously.

If Ranthas were behind some of the popular uprisings on a couple, dozen, scores... FINE, hundreds of worlds, well, the masters of the planets earned their fates, and the Grand Duke’s information network was naturally levels and levels above and beyond any other force in the Sector, as were his Operators. There were a lot of Ranthas ending up in some very powerful political positions... or standing right behind the Marked in them, as it were.

Briggs continued his power-armored march in all directions, and the Khagan Sector could only hold its breath and wait for his fist to close on them...

It was going to be a long breath, because there were hundreds of thousands of worlds, all told, but he was still coming!