Hulkamania, Olympia, and Eden were taking copious notes on this whole process. Granted, their psychic circuitry was as or more elemental than organic, but watching the gardeners take out a biological world-mind was indeed a sobering experience for them. It was totally within our remit to realize that even a Gardener could be corrupted by the Warp, and come for one of them... and they needed a defense against something that could literally eat a planet.

Of course, being able to Run Away, Run Away! was a great a defense on its own, which was why they were in possession of the only working TL 20 Planet-Moving Gates in the galaxy.

Of course, these Gardeners weren’t all that aware of the plant-specific Blacklight Beamers, so if they decided that having little allies was no longer a thing and started munching, welp, one shot each, bye.

I didn’t think that would be all that much of a problem.

“Pod Elders, our job is mostly done. Are you going to be able to initiate a defensive schema while enjoying your new fertilizer?”

There were rippling, yet narrow-banded and tightly directed radio broadcasts, accented with color shifts over the many, many flowers of various heaven-covering size down below to accent things.

Ah, they’d been getting a little eager developing the root system shredding the wombworld inside and fighting its attempts to expel them. Given they were growing and had an external power source, with their own custom-tinkered ecology to help the munching process, what was happening was totally inevitable at this point... unless something came in from without and set upon them.

Reminded that they weren’t a true match for an Anti-Life without their full Starflower Spread in place, the Gardeners signaled that we could go, and they’d call for us when they were done.

They were all expecting to double their pod in both size and numbers, if not more. Their colors were as close to really happy as plants could get.

---

The tow ships lined up with the Dojo in a sky emptying of bioships. All the listening posts throughout the system had been summarily devoured or simply crushed by Gardeners long waiting in position nearby, and the last of them were sailing in under petals to join the flowerbed that already completely hid the wombworld from view. More flowers spreading out above meant each needed less area to soak up the sun, which meant more munching for the roots to do down below.

The Greater Magellanic Xenosym Swarmfleet had just lost one of its primary progenitors. That was the Swarmfleet looming underneath the ancestral Corunsun Duchy, and consistently running into fleets of off-the-books TL16+ warships geared to xenosyms, led by Tribute-class Star Carriers and Yardships.

The Empire would have been so cheesed knowing that our most advanced ship production facilities were located inside ships that could Gate around to avoid them... although working with the Ruk certainly had advantages in many areas, especially as we were helping them bring all their ancient tech back online, psionics having to fill in for what magic used to do.

Of course, there were kids wondering about what was going to happen when we could finally merge spiritual, magical, and psionic technology all into one thing, and quite looking forward to playing around with all of it. If you could satisfy the reqs, it promised to be incredible... we just had a few gods to demote first.

“All right, let’s get to the Tulip Pod.” Flowerbush’s Pod had been growing unceasingly with all the biomatter, and actually managed to split up several times, an unprecedented rate of growth for them. One of their new generations had dealt in a lot of bold, primary colors, and promptly got tagged that.

They had also grown up on xenosyms for nutrients, and were itching to eat a wombworld once they heard of them.

Like they always say, if ya leave the plants to grow, they go wild pretty quickly...

------

We pulled out of the mass shadow of the dead and dying wombworld, went to Jam, and headed out of the system. We already had the Phlos here charted, and there weren’t any Anti-Life within a light year. The scouts were all staying busy, the para-matter detectors were proliferating quietly across dead systems with precious little there to stumble across, save for some hibernating fertilizer... er, xenosyms, who woke up just in time to become a passing snack for a Gardener.

They hadn’t found any living worlds, which surprised no one. They did find worlds which had once been alive, but all of them had been reduced to bedrock and thin atmospheres, hard radiation taking care of most of the rest. Even if the elements of life could be released from rocks breaking down over time and atmosphere diffusing in from nearby space, it would take geological ages to re-establish itself... especially without active magic to accelerate the process.

An entire dead dwarf galaxy... while it was mathematically unlikely the Xenosyms had killed everything, what they had missed would be hard to detect, and we also might miss it. When you have a billion stars or something to go through, it certainly wasn’t something that was going to happen overnight, even if the scouts could sweep through three or four a day without too much work. Just a numbers game at this point, and even with the crackdown, the fighting, and the very real suppression from the Emperor, we were doing nothing but growing.

---------

Briggs wasn’t smiling as he hit Nineteen, and watched Contrival Prime start sinking into the lavafield of the planet’s inner mantle. The Crackerjacks had split open the shell of the planet, dropped the megacity into it, and all its shields didn’t do it a bit of good as it sank down, and the lava started rising.

Even durasteel couldn’t hold up under the impossible stress of that much weight shifting, and the foundations of the city buckled, split, and volcanoes of released lava blossomed all around the city within minutes, dooming the inhabitants with clouds of superheated gas, ash, and an ocean of magma.

The simultaneous eruption of the power cores of the doomed city didn’t surprise anyone watching at all. The Warp had claimed this world hard, it was the primary staging area for the entire Warp supply chain in Ogedai Sector, and as the systems claimed by the forces of the Warp had been pressed back and back, it had been fortified ever more strongly.

The Corunsun scouts had been right there watching pretty much the whole time. His kids had been going down and getting their hands dirty, preparing the way with some deftly-planted sabotage kits.

Contrival had been intended as a deathtrap, massively fortified, booby-trapped, suicide-bombed, self-destructing hellhole, every inch of ground to be paid for in blood, to the greater glory of the gods of the Warp.

When key aspects of your defenses get blown out, and/or your self-destructs go off way too early, well, that tends to put a bit of a damper on your grandiose plans. A few vivic torpedoes into the planet- or city-destroying eruptions, and the sacrifices of all those souls, wouldn’t go to the Warp, either.

He was flatly uninterested in claiming the worlds for himself at the cost of his soldiers, and his men appreciated it. Any officers or advisors who spoke out in favor of claiming them were noted that they could raise the forces and lead the charges personally if they considered it so important, and the topic was never broached by them again.

Ogedai Sector was his. Contrival was the closest system to the Abyss, and undoubtedly would continue to suffer raids from the Warp... but he wasn’t interested in reclaiming the planet right now, anyways.

He watched the whiteness racing across the world, as the deaths of the Warped fueled the vivus into spreading throughout the long-tainted atmosphere, and the great clouds of pollution and disease that writhed over the planet were getting eaten away with amazing speed.

It still had a cracked mantle and supervolcano going off, but the traces of the Warp, and a lot of the traces of men, were being wiped off it. Some orbital bombardments were helping the Force Ten earthquakes traveling around the globe below do their thing, too.

“Ogedai subsector is yours, Your Grace,” a respectful voice rose from the Signals station to the side.

“Captains,” he replied, turning to face the six Legionnaire Captains hovering in holos there, regarding him warily and cautiously. “I intend to complete the re-unification of humanspace here. I neither ask nor require your presence to do so. Are there going to be difficulties between us regarding this matter?”

“That could be interpreted as rebellion against the Empire, Your Grace,” Captain Olor of the White Hounds spoke up first.

“This is a matter of humanity needing to be united, not the Empire,” Briggs returned calmly. “Turning your arms upon those who you are supposed to protect is more than rebellion, it is high treason, and following in the footsteps of your fallen kindred.”

“You dare compare us to them?” the Inferno Lion Captain Sogra Kun instantly bellowed out.

“If you turn your guns upon my people, I most certainly will,” Briggs replied, the rumble of his voice shaking the decks under their feet right through the coms. Even the experienced Legionnaire Captains could not help but be impressed. “This is, in the end, a civil matter that has little to do with the remit of the Legions.

“I did not and do not intend to hold my control of your supply lines over your head as a bribe or a threat... but I am not foolish enough to give my enemies guns to shoot me with, either. If you intend to oppose my move upon the Khagan Throneworld, tell me now. We will cease friendly relations, and you may depart in peace with my thanks for your service against the fanatics of the Warp.”

“Turning your guns upon Rimcrown is little different from us doing so upon you, Your Grace.”

“Except for the minor fact that half of Khagan is already mine, and the rest wants to be, but the administrators of the local systems there would rather kill their people first.” Briggs’ pale violet eyes narrowed. “You know and have seen my record over thousands of worlds. I have no bias against low birth or high. If you are loyal and willing to serve humanity, I am willing to use you. If you want to fight... I will fight, as well! The common people are in no danger from me. As for the powerful and wealthy...” he shrugged. “I judge them on their merits, as would you.

“I have good people under me, and I leave the worlds who have sworn fealty better places. If you do not believe I will do the same with Rimcrown and Khagan, I invite you to leave, and I will see you there.”

The Captains of the Legionnaire Companies stranded in Khagan Sector all looked at one another. The fact he was willing to let them leave even if they declared opposition was telling about his confidence in the matter.

Captain Oroska of the Shadow Serpents asked directly, “What is the opinion of the Fleet, Your Grace?”

“Rimcrown considered them traitors and infiltrators long ago, even when they continued to deny it, as long as they fought alongside me. Their supply chains were cut to almost nothing five years ago. I have been supplying them ever since.

“If they went back to Rimcrown, they would likely be fired upon. What choice do you imagine they have made?”

The Legionnaires all acknowledged that point somberly. Indeed, the choice to turn against the Duke Corunsun would be nigh impossible to make once you fought alongside him. He walked with the force of destiny, and once he and the Celestial Tribute personally joined the Crusade in the subsector, progress had been inexorable, despite the immensity of the task. That Rimcrown would believe the Fleet had not joined him was not only too believable, it was nigh impossible NOT to believe.