”No matter what your rank is, you never entirely escape the necessity of social obligations. Even as a powerful Deity ruling through pure power, you don’t rule alone. You’re not in charge of paving the roads and building the warships, and if you can’t keep people sufficiently satisfied, or at the very least sufficiently afraid, even the little people can cause you quite a lot of trouble. Now that doesn’t mean you have to suck up to everyone, but it does mean you have to keep at least some select people in line. Those people, in turn, will handle others below them and so on.

Normal rulers, officers, politicians, religious figures, caste and clan leaders, and a hundred other ranks like them will have to pay careful attention to gathering support. That support can take many forms ranging from just lending your authority behind a project to resources and manpower, but the basic idea remains the same. Keep the people important to you happy, and avoid needlessly angering people that might become important in the future. That is the most basic tenet of anyone in a leadership position.”

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

---------

”We have ships on approach vector.” Amaterasu suddenly reported while Selendil and Xiaoli were traveling back towards the shuttles on foot. They had kept a brisk pace, but now that pace turned to a half-run. Or in Selendil’s case, rapidly floating forward as she was too lazy to use her feet to move quickly.

“Towards us or towards the ship?” Selendil questioned.

“Both. We have three ships coming towards us and five going towards the ship. Both groups have at least one vessel that carries the markings of Psicom. They’re not large vessels, a couple of cruisers and the rest frigates, but that’s still a lot of people potentially. There’s also a whole lot of ships coming out of phase space around the planet. Whatever ships they have been preparing for have started to arrive. There’s even a dreadnought among them.” Amaterasu explained. She also thought she’d seen that ship before, but pushed that out of her mind for now.

At this moment Selendil missed her real form. This human form didn’t quite have the same satisfaction when showing her displeasure non-verbally. She wasn’t able to swish her hair like she usually did with her tails. “Xiaoli, run back to the shuttles. Amaterasu can handle this place with your assistance. Since they saw a glimpse of her strength, they must be confident of dealing with her, either with power or with authority. So they either brought a powerful Deity or a high ranking Psicom officer that can counter our orders. The problem is, we can’t be sure if they think she’s at the ship or here on the plateau. If it’s authority, then you might not have as much fun. However, if they brought a Deity then you two can handle it. Moonshadow can help if necessary.”

“You’re going for the ship then, I assume?” Xiaoli confirmed.

“Correct. Try to keep up appearances, though you are free to blow your cover if things take a bad turn. You’re not to submit to any questioning. I can get us out of here by force if necessary, but I don’t want to run a rescue operation to get you out of some jail cell while at the same time fighting a fleet in orbit. Too much of a bother. Just act like Amaterasu did when we arrived. We have done nothing wrong, and don't need to explain ourselves." Selendil stated and suddenly seemed to vanish. The distance between the ship and the plateau was less than a hundred kilometers. That was a distance she could easily cross with a single teleport.

As she arrived at the ship, it only took less than a minute for the ships to come into view. The hostile ships had not prepared their weapons just yet, but they were taking positions around and above their ship to stop it from leaving. The cruiser leading the ships landed a short distance away. "They're sending us orders. Apparently, the ship is ordered to stand down and the entire crew must submit for questioning.” Nox reported.

“On whose authority?” Selendil asked. The answer to that question would decide how this played out.

“Admiral Gestalt. He’s the commanding officer of the dreadnought that jumped into the system a short time ago. Apparently, he's some hotshot fleet commander that has experience in dealing with both Illum and Cybrans, which is why he was sent here. Who better to lead an attack on a former partner than the man who helped form the little coalition in the first place? He also had recent combat experience alongside the Cybrans against the Illum.” Nox replied after doing a bit of digging. All of the information was rather easy to find.

“A fleet admiral? We don’t recognize his authority. Tell him to fuck off.” Selendil smiled. An admiral had no real control over Deities, especially when those Deities were not part of his task force.

Nox sent her the mental equivalent of a chuckle. "It's not actually him on the other side. It's the officer Amaterasu bullied earlier. He's just borrowing the admiral's authority. He likely reported the whole thing in a way that made it seem as suspicious as possible and got the admiral to agree to question us just in case. If he even bothered to check with the admiral in the first place. According to what I’m reading the admiral doesn’t seem the type to make errors like this unless he is being misinformed.”

“Even better. Tell that pompous ass to take a long walk out of a short airlock.” Selendil shrugged.

“That’s not how the saying…you know, never mind. You’re just trying to annoy me. The ‘pompous ass’ is feeling powerful and flexing what little authority he has managed to gobble up. He claims he’s authorized to use force. He’s actually not. That said, he feels that with the fleet above containing two Deities you won’t want to challenge that lie.” Nox seemed to be torn between amusement and vexation.

“Send a direct message to the admiral. Explain the issue and remind him that if the situation is not rectified, his fleet will be short several vessels very soon. And if he tries to push things further, he might find himself without a fleet entirely.” Selendil commanded.

At the same time, the shuttles from the plateau showed up on the horizon. They were pursued from the distance by the ships sent to deal with the shuttles. It seemed like that side had not developed into a confrontation just yet. "The Admiral seems to be stalling. He's pretending as if he hasn't received the message yet. He seems to want to see how this develops." Nox reported.

It would appear the officer in charge of the hostile ships wanted to send a signal and fired a shot by the bow of the shuttles as a warning. “Oh goody, that makes this self-defense. Tell the others to prepare for battle just in case." Selendil smiled and pointed a finger towards the ship that had fired the warning shot. A beam of white-hot energy blasted out and punctured straight through the hull of the ship, ignoring the void shield entirely.

Selendil had held back on purpose. The ship was losing altitude and was about to make a rather uncontrolled emergency landing, but it was still relatively in one piece. "Tell the Admiral that's the last warning he's going to get."

“No need. The admiral already sent the signal to stand down as soon as they fired the warning shot. Apparently the admiral was just giving the ‘pompous ass’ enough rope to hang himself with. If I were to make a guess then the admiral was not pleased about that particular officer being part of the operation, but he needed a proper excuse to strip his rank away. Otherwise it would’ve been troublesome. Picking a fight with a Psicom Deity and getting one of their ships shot down just before an important operation certainly qualifies as a major cock-up. We’re free to go. He actually sent us thanks for our cooperation.” Nox explained clearly holding in laughter.

"That…took an interesting turn," Selendil commented. The shuttles they had sent landed in the ship's hangars at the same time. "Well, we have gotten what we can out of this place. I'm assuming the ship is ready to go, so take us away."

------

“I think I have an idea on how we can go about this without creating a huge incident.” Moonshadow stated as soon as they had all gathered on the bridge of the ship they had stolen.

“I’d rather have the huge incident personally, seeing as the Tetrarchy is about to attack my people.” Xiaoli countered with a hostile tone. She wasn’t hostile to Moonshadow, just hostile in general.

“We already passed on a warning, so the Cybrans can take measures.” Amaterasu waved the Cybran woman’s concern away. Although she didn’t dislike Cybrans and even felt sympathy for them, she wasn’t feeling too sympathetic either, as they had just attacked Illum earlier. Even if she understood their reasoning, that didn’t mean she liked or approved.

“Anyway, I think it might be easier to get in relative proximity of the Tetrarch than we might have initially thought.” Moonshadow continued, ignoring the two Humans. “Part of being in the position of a Tetrarch is their duty to hold several social and public events over the year. Although the two military Tetrarchs do this less than the other two that are in charge of civilian matters, they still do it.”

“You say public, but those events aren’t actually public. The Tetrarchs are prime targets for assassination, and as such they rarely show themselves in places where they are close to strangers. When they do, they do so without giving a prior warning and they are always surrounded by layer upon layer of security. The so-called ‘public’ at those events is made up of people they have prepared and screened beforehand, and even then the whole thing is staged. They don’t actually appear at the venue. The speeches are held from a secure location while the ‘adoring public’ gives the appropriate cheers at the right places while watching the whole thing from a screen. It’s all tricks and camera angles.” Amaterasu was well aware of these kinds of things as an Empress.

She was even more reclusive than the Tetrarchs, but that was part of her carefully crafted image. The Illum also didn’t put as much weight on such displays. As the Illum were more intelligent and less prone to herd behavior due to their genetic tampering, they also recognized their roles in the society better. In some ways, the Illum revered her more but for different reasons. The reverence was towards her person and not the position. She was the ruler because her abilities placed her above others. She was also something of a religious figure, but that was more in the spirit of being a high priest rather than the target of worship.

“While we could get around that, I think our best chance is the other option. The Tetrarchs hold several social events every year where the crème de la crème of the society gather to plot and backstab each other. Those kinds of functions are also great for mustering support on difficult projects and of course to gather help in the form of wealth and resources. Notably, though, the event doesn't have to be hosted by our target, just one they will attend." Moonshadow explained.

“Those things are invitation only and everyone present is connected somehow. While Nox might be able to fake an invitation, we’d still stick out like a sore thumb. My organization has tried to infiltrate those gatherings a dozen times before, and the only time we succeeded we went in as servants in charge of catering. I don’t see Selendil handing out drinks, do you?” Xiaoli shot back.

“Yeah, that sounds unlikely.” Everyone present agreed. Even Nox made a sound of agreement, while Selendil didn’t even bother pretending to be indignant about it. They were right after all.

“Actually, I don’t think we even need to hide our presence too much. The Mrrroww embassy nearest to Human territories often gets invitations for these kinds of events. We are still considered the premier power in the galactic core after all. Our local ambassador might or might not make an appearance depending on his mood and time constraints. I don’t think he would terribly mind if I were to take his place just once. I’m still considered to be the High Ambassador after all. It wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary for me to bring along an escort or a bodyguard either.” Moonshadow looked meaningfully at Selendil after the last words.

“One thing though. It might be odd for your escort to be a member of another race. Even a Human escort would raise some questions about where that person came from.” Amaterasu quickly noticed a slight problem, though she also knew a solution. She was just allowing Moonshadow the pleasure of telling everyone. Amaterasu was quite eagerly expecting this already.

“Who said anything about my escort being from another race? Selendil can change shape to pretty much anything right? So she could appear as a Mrrroww quite easily.” Moonshadow didn’t disappoint and provided just the answer Amaterasu had been expecting. Great minds think alike. They all eagerly turned to look towards Selendil.

Selendil could sense their eagerness and decided to oblige with a chuckle. “Yes, that can be arranged. The ability isn’t completely without limits, but this is well within those limits. It won’t even be difficult.” It wouldn’t’ even be the first time she assumed the form of something with four legs. Practicing these kinds of transformations was common among Dhar children. That said, she had not tried anything similar after becoming a Keeper, so she would be out of practice. Maybe it would be better to assume the memories of some Dhar warrior that spent more time in a similar form. Otherwise, she might look odd moving around.

"Excellent. We will need to find the proper attire first. Unfortunately, these kinds of events don't come around every day. I did some checking and the next event that fits our purposes will be in three weeks, so that’s not too bad. That’s plenty of time to get things in order. I doubt the Tetrarchy worlds have proper clothing for Mrrroww after all. We’ll need one of our ships as well. We can’t be seen arriving on this ship.” Moonshadow was already making a list in her head.

“Speaking of, what are we going to do with this ship? They’re going to notice it missing at some point if we don’t arrange something. And then things might get complicated. We were seen rather blatantly entering this place after all. They’ll know what we were here for, even if not why.” Xiaoli interjected.

“I already took care of that. Incidentally, there’s now a new high ranking member in Psicom nicknamed Nox who nobody can remember seeing. Yet everything about that person seems to be in order. I’ve dropped some hints about this ‘Nox’ handling some extremely clandestine operations and that the person might actually be someone they know under an alias due to the nature of those missions. No one will admit anything of course. All they know is that several Deities are part of this little task force Nox as well. Deities whose identities are also a secret. The speculations and mind games should keep them busy for a long time.” Nox explained proudly. It was a wonder what you could achieve when you had free access to roam through supposedly secure information networks.

“So they will be busy chasing shadows. Quite handy. We can use that cover several times if necessary. We can just stash this ship somewhere secure until we need it again.” Xiaoli admitted with grudging respect. She was already thinking of ways to make that cover more solid by adding supposed accomplishments that very few people knew about but still somehow managed to come up in rumors.

Selendil suddenly got everyone’s attention. “This plan seems workable, and although I’m not happy about leaving a void entity free for that long, the damn thing has been around for quite a long time already. At least now I know the radiation didn't come from an open portal, which makes this a bit less urgent. That said, now that we have some time, I think we might want to tackle another project I had in mind. We need to make a prospecting jump.”

“A what now?” Lilly asked. She had been content to observe the meeting so far as the others planned and plotted. She was back on Selendil’s ship along with a few others, as they were attending as holograms.

"I think she's referring to a phase jump made deep into phase space with the intent of harvesting materials that can't be found in the normal space," Nochehuatl replied in Selendil’s place.

"That's roughly correct," Selendil confirmed. "While the nano-fabricators can produce pretty much anything made of materials from our own phase given some time, they can’t create materials that are only found in dark phase.”

“I’ve always wondered about that. Why is that the case? I mean, we don’t have fabricators like yours, but we haven’t managed to recreate even the simplest materials from phase space without actually doing it in there.” Nochehuatl questioned.

"There is more than one reason, but the main one is that the dark phase is suffused with dark energy and radiation found only in that phase. Those two have become integral to every atom inside that place. Even the smallest nugget of rock that you pick up at the very edge is filled with both. The deeper into phase space we go, the more complex things get, as there are more of such qualities affecting the materials than just those two. For instance, deep enough into dark phase gravity works differently. That leaves a mark on the materials as well." Selendil gave a simplified explanation. Laws of physics started to break down at the deepest recesses of dark phase, and the others didn't need to know the weird ways concepts like time behaved there.

“Do you have something specific in mind?” Amaterasu asked. “We might not have probed too deep into phase space but we have gathered some materials that might be useful.”

“I do, though if we have trouble finding what I need, then I can make do with lesser materials, as the nano-fabricators can work their magic if we create the correct building blocks. I want to make additional support beacons. I’d also like to find some of the materials we need for re-starting our main power core, though I’m less hopeful about those.” Selendil explained.

“Anything we need to do to prepare?” Lilly asked.

“Not as such. Just prepare for a long and bumpy ride. Oh, and those that don’t have any psionic talent might feel a bit weird. “