-No, it’s not.- We were hard to kill, but getting mindraped was still a thing that could happen to us, tough as it might be. And while I could cut anyone off from the Markspace instantly, just the Emperor finding out about it could be a pretty bad thing. -We’re going to have to handle this very carefully. This presages a background check on us that isn’t going to take unknown origins at all.-

We had very, very good bios for all of our people, with the current trend to have them come from a trio of Corunsun worlds that didn’t have the highest tech levels, and so records of birth and such were fast and loose there. This was helped by the fact there was a large and transient population of men and women moving through there with all sorts of bloodlines. The Umbrans had been there a few times, and there were indeed a bunch of nymphals and hairy high-G guys all over the place there... not the least because we moved a bunch of such genotypes there to establish where they came from, and there were a couple high-grav mining worlds there.

Hulkamania had computers that could spin out histories for thousands of people a second, as deep as anyone cared to go... especially in a place with lots of Marked happy to lead people towards predictable results.

It was obvious that the Briggs and Rantha Clan was pretty big and widespread once you went seriously looking into it, and having branches on so many worlds was a show of power, especially with how quickly it had happened.

They were looking for the center of power. Unfortunately for them, that center was the Markspace and scattered Vats where the new kids came in. There was no Tellus-style center of power.

-What’s the predictions, Anatolia?- I /asked calmly, as many, many scenarios began to spin out around me.

-They are going to genetest him and Chanel seriously, trying to figure where they come from. If they find stuff too far out of line, like, oh, RANTHA RACIAL LEVELS, they’re going to freak. We won’t be able to spoof that level of testing.

-We’re going to have to have the straight human Sources start taking over, and fade into the background, like Hags are meant to. They are going to start pushing, and if we push back, there’s going to be instant war.-

There were a lot of disgruntled groans out there as the kids got it. It was simply too true... we weren’t at all prepared to take on the entire Empire when the Emperor threw it at us.

“So I’ve got to give up all my properties and image to a body double?” Trump was naturally a bit miffed.

-There’s a Mad Forge invasion going on in Ramirgon IV,- I /noted to him.

He beamed. “Karma and mechs to crush? Okay, but I want one of those new Gundam models to prance around in!”

-Those are not toys!- Wayland Briggs /interjected.

“Sure they are, bro. Big, fun, wonderful toys!” His bad mood had evaporated just like that. “Okay, I can get Gustang in to take over pretty easy, I’ve been grooming him for it as per protocol.” It was like we knew this was coming, or something. “Chanel’s been using Mindy’s face for years, so no one’s going to know. What else?”

-It’s a given that they’ll bomb the factory before they let it open on Tellus, or in the Sol System. Too close to the Halls of Power.-

There were deep hums all around in Markspace. Naturally if they helped open a facility there they’d want to staff it with their own people, meaning they’d be able to make Vakkertech at best. There were no free Beacon psions on Tellus... they were all conscripted to work on powering the Emperor’s Beacon, and if they couldn’t, they were either shipped off to slave away for another arm of the bureaucracy, or quietly recycled. Couldn’t have low-level, easily Possessed psions running around the seat of the Empire, right?

We wouldn’t be losing any of our people, although they’d be losing a whole bunch of theirs.

-Bring in your doubles, if you’re in any kind of a profile position.- Large numbers of groans from kids having plenty of fun enjoying power and prestige that they had actually earned echoed through the Markspace.

But we’d always known from the beginning that it wasn’t something we could keep. One of their jobs was to always have someone ready to sub in and take over for them, a trained-up Source if possible at all, to really gather all the momentum and keep it going.

------

As smoothly as they’d come in over the years, they withdrew, even those with fairly-high profiles. Most didn’t have a high profile, of course, and those who did had subs waiting to come in if need be, fully informed and up to date.

They were going into high-risk positions, and so those subs had been concentrating on getting Deep so they could weather the violence that came with growth. The kids took all the big early hits, so they’d have to weather the rest.

Even the Countess and the Contessa swapped in with their doubles. They’d enjoyed playing tough bitch nobles for decades, but even getting to shoot the occasional noble major got old after a while, so it was on to different things while they helped their replacement manage the paperwork and let Source Charisma start to work its magic.

Many of them went underground, and the criminal worlds of the Empire were less than delighted to see them coming, as were the Underfamilies so ubiquitous throughout the Empire.

A lot went back to the far side of the Rift, there to contribute where they could, and where the Emperor wouldn’t be able to start a shooting war yet. The conflicts in the Obedai sub-sector began to heat up quickly as a result, but I knew that they’d be dying off, literally, within a year.

Then, all that was left over there was Rimcrown and the Khagan subsector, already nervous about Briggs and his command. They were going to be a lot less happy with so many kids running around making trouble.

Generally speaking, no more than two of the kids stayed in any kiloplex or megacity after we withdrew, and only then if they were in a position where they could generate significant Karma. If not, it was time to go off and fight somewhere.

The trend quickly became to get their own MF Gunboat or Alias ship, and go out and see the galaxy. If they were ambitious, they worked up to a capital ship so they could go trading. They were always mindful that they were training up normal folks to take over for them, and they couldn’t stay in positions of control over normal people for too long, or there would be adverse effects and dependency developing.

Hundreds of Ranthas in MF Gunboats converging on one location was a quick way to change a situation around, too, so that was a thing. We certainly weren’t going to be lacking for officers for the Corunsun Fleet for some time, even with all the ships continually being churned out from the lines of printers working out in the Sargasso...

------------

Three years pass...

Trump Gunstag was all smiles as he shook hands all around. The plastic-faced nobles and their supercilious expressions were definitely something he wanted to smack around and wipe out, but since they thought he was a barbarian, as anyone not born and raised on great and noble Tellus simply had to be, it was all fine.

Mindy was dealing with it easily enough, being Naturally Glamorous and the perfect piece of eye and arm candy... who could also put a las in your eye at fifty paces, but the two of them didn’t tell anyone that. They’d been working together for three years on this job, and although they were already married in the eyes of the public years ago, he had formally proposed to her a year ago, and she had accepted.

They were going to start working on a family after all of this stuff went down.

The negotiations to open a Ranthacorp facility on Tellus were nearly a non-starter, simply because of the price of the real estate. It was much cheaper to produce the tech out-system and ship it there than it was to actually buy or rent the land on Tellus, so only people interested in wasting money on image would bother to do so. Ranthacorp only threw its weight around when people messed with its supply chain, and given who its customers were, those problems usually didn’t persist too long.

The families who had invited him in had definitely wanted some of that money and business, but his total inability to convince the corporation backing him to buy the most overpriced real estate in the galaxy made that impossible.

At last they had agreed to set up a production line in some territory they owned which was not being used to full capacity, meaning it was being occupied by people who barely paid any rental income or made anything productive, and who could be driven out or shot without any complications.

Of course, they’d be taking half the profits to do so, and supplying the manpower, too, so they were dipping from both ends.

He’d made a show of bringing in pros from the companies to vet the workers, and they’d all been qualified, thralls of their noble lords for hundreds of generations, eager to work on this new technology, make a good wage, and spread all the secrets of it to their lords.

Because there had to be a secret, see. The Mekkers couldn’t produce the higher, more valuable tech grades, and the plain vakker-tech was merely an improvement against outside interference, it didn’t actually do its job better... and meant carrying around extra vakker-boards and a new tech line if it was used, so non-military ships didn’t want to mess with it on anything but their signals tech.

Today he got to wave and smile, and Mindy was at his side for the big ribbon cutting. The workers were all gathered up and eager to get to work inside this shiny new factory that had been all bought and paid for.

The bomb had been placed inside a power generator mounting ordered fresh from Venus itself, its foundation actually housing a very artful and nasty little piece of fusion work that would trigger the instant the main power was on. The team who had discovered it had made sure of it.

The Baronet Tell-Chaiser threw the great big lever after Gunstag cut the big blue ribbon with the oversized scissors, standing back with his arm around his wife.

He didn’t see the bomb go off. All he saw was a flash, and then he realized he was airborne, Featherweighted, his personal shields up and protesting strongly about this punishment. Mindy was folded into his arms and hanging on for dear life as the two of them spun helplessly through the air, shouting all the while.

They were being pushed along by a ball of extreme high heat a mile in radius, which was casually obliterating the city around it. They washed past Bloks older than any city on his homeworld of Riscapal II, threatening some Spires whose Shields barely snapped up fast enough to black out dozens of square miles instantly with the power drawn.

The shockwave faded, and then the backblast started to stream past them, taking all the debris that had been trying to catch up to them and dragging it back in the opposite direction.

Trump twisted as his Shield bobbed in the airflow, falling down behind the seared and half-melted façade of a Blok - who knew if anything was still living inside it - and watched tornado winds come raging back towards the radioactive inferno behind them, carrying corpses, hovercars, cars, pedestrians, windows, doors, pets, bits of Bloks, and a whole lot of dust and grime that suddenly had somewhere to go after a few millennia of accumulating.

Behind them was a big radioactive crater and more superheated air, awaiting all the innocent people there. Trump and Mindi stabilized the sparking Shield, making sure their Vajras were definitely up before they hit the ground.

There wasn’t anyone on the ground below to receive them, surprise, surprise. They touched down as the violent winds were starting to swirl, but not settle... there was too much hot air seeking a place to go, and colder air coming in to replace it, for things to be too peaceful yet.

The shockwave had hurled them a good ten miles in basically seconds. There definitely wasn’t anything alive behind them.

As the winds howled around the blok behind them, and it belatedly closed its blast systems too late to do anything to save the people inside, the two of them straightened up their attire, checked to confirm the Boole was offline from the radiation, and sighed and looked around.

“My dear, what do you think about this explosion just being a test to see if the bosses could survive?” he asked her softly.

Her blue eyes, always so lively, glanced about, thinking about that. “Without a Shield, dear?” she had to ask, considering the question. “If they were Featherweighted... well, you’ve seen some of the Stats people have come up with for them. They’re like, angels or something. It’s unreal some of the stuff people have seen them come back from.”

“I never understood why they call themselves Hags,” he agreed. He looked around, watching as the surge of power draw from all the Spires was finally addressed, and the EMP from the bomb was overcome. Lights began to come back on around them. “How about we get a ride out of here, say goodbye to our hosts, message received, and go back home?”

“At least before they start shooting certain Mekker representatives?”

“We sell to shooting wars. I don’t get involved in them without my power armor.”