Arkhan’s belief that what he had witnessed was a bad omen of things to come had proven to be correct. What had come did not focus itself on Arcadia proper, but instead upon its protectorates and territories. While these places were still independent on paper, the collapse of the UGN had meant that the nations that emerged from the remains of the once-great hyperpower needed a new ‘big brother’ to help keep themselves from suffering a total collapse, and Arcadia had stepped in to fill the vacancy. Now these satellites were under attack by some kind of bioweapon that behaved similar to a more feral version of Zeyhris, and neither Arkhan nor Arcadia were willing to let this happen on their watch.

The appearance of these twisted monsters seemed to be entirely random, as did the location of the planets, stations and ships they appeared on. They appeared to simply come from nowhere and cause mass devastation before dying to their accumulated wounds. Thankfully, the bioweapons did not have a similar infectious capacity like the Swarm it appeared to be based off of, which meant that the creatures could not spread their corruption to those they injured or killed.

In fact….

“Are these… bargain bin/cheap knockoff Copies of Zeyhris’ bioforms?”

This was the first thing Arkhan asked when he got a copy of the full autopsy report regarding one of the creatures.

“It appears so.” replied the Chief Scientist of Instillation 0, the place where all the darkest, shadiest and most unethical experiments in all of Arcadia took place.

“Then we have no doubt who is responsible.” Arkhan grumbled.

“Yes. This lack of quality and intent to harm us is a telltale mark of the Resistance. But I can’t see why they would unleash these things like this…”

Asharia sighed and looked over to the rest of the people at the briefing before giving her answer.

“They unleashed these things because they have given up on ever being able to regain what they lost. They have accepted defeat, total and complete defeat, but they still adamantly refuse to let us claim victory. They refuse to let the galaxy belong to anyone other than themselves, and since they can’t have it, no one will.”

“But if they could control the Swarm bioforms, why resort to using cybernetics? Those devices don’t enhance the creatures; instead they inhibit their capabilities. Why have them to begin with?”

Arkhan was the one to answer the question this time.

“Because the goal was never to use the implants to make the bioweapons more deadly. The goal was to use their residual connection to Zeyhris to seize control over the Hive Mind and drive it insane, or at least that is what I think they tried to do. However, the Hive Mind and the Swarm itself simply shut down rather than allow the external force to seize control, so we dodged a major bullet right there.”

“Then how are we to deal with the monsters?”

At the last question asked, Arkhan smiled and replied.

“The same way we deal with all of our problems. Overwhelming firepower. Find where the rebels are based out of, isolate them, and then we’ll hit them with everything and the kitchen sink. And with that done there will be no one left to stop us from making the galaxy a better place for everyone.”

…

The reports coming in were obviously false, for there was no way that their last desperate gamble had failed so spectacularly. It was simply inconceivable for their plan to be met with the abject failure that the information they received claimed had occurred, and therefore it must have been another Arcadian trick.

Yes, the monsters were rampaging across the targeted places, utterly unstoppable and completely indestructible. That had to be the truth, not the obvious falsehoods and lies that they were being fed. The galaxy was burning, its population centers being overrun first by terrified refugees and then by the indominable bioweapons the FGR had created. Worse still for Arcadia and its puppets, the bio-nightmare that occupied their formerly held space was running rampant too. There was no way that anything other than this could be true!

Even if the news that Arcadia was deploying every single Scout it had to all corners of the galaxy in search of this marvelously and perfectly hidden base was true, the odds of them locating their secret base was near zero. There was no way in hell for the villains to find them in time to stop the end of the galaxy!

…

“Are you seeing this?”

An EWAC Jegan asked a question to the rest of the Gestalt in a sigh-filled voice of thorough and heavy disappointment.

“Yeah, we’re seeing it. What would the Creator say again?”

“Am Disappoint.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, we know where they are hiding now.” The EWAC Jegan sighed as he looked at the asteroid base that had a giant LED symbol for the FGR plastered on it along with the words ‘Final Refuge’ in light-ringed metal on the side.

“Hot fucking damn these people are dumb.”

“What can you expect from people who think that hundreds of generations of incest would be a good way to secure a ‘better, more capable lineage’?” Arkhan asked as he popped in on the conversation to give his two cents before the fleets were ordered to begin their preparations for what would be the last major battle in more than one thousand years.

…

It had been a decent chunk of time since Zeyhris had shut itself down and evolved a countermeasure to deal with the unwelcome intrusion. Now, after what felt like forever, it was waking up, and not a moment too soon. The Avatar took a look around the place it lay in and noticed the thin films of material covering it. It took these things, these ‘sheets’, off and began to make its way out of the room it was in before it noticed another intrusion into the Hive Mind, one that was altogether more desirable and far less corrupting.

“Hey, it’s me, ya boi Arkhan.”

“Yes? Do you desire to-.”

“No. We’re about to deal with the guys who tried to take control of you. You in for a spot in the final curb-stomp?”

The Swarm, the entire Hive Mind, paused for only the most miniscule of moments before an eruption of emotion and desire turned the momentary quiet into a cacophony of affirmations.

“OW! I’ll assume that it a ‘yes’ then. Here’s the coordinates. I’m out of here before I get an even worse headache!” Arkhan’s mind yelled before ceasing its intrusion.

Zeyhris squealed in delight as it finally got to field itself alongside its new ally for the first time. Bioships that had been biologically retrofitted for a more civilian capacity began to morph into more combat focused versions and take to the stars. Zeyhris only hoped it would arrive in time to show the new focus of its desires how much better it was than the old hag that currently occupied Arkhan’s life.