The pod opened, and she stepped out of the simulator, and onto solid deck plating. She had won the battle, but she didn’t feel good about it. It was not a perfect victory, and she had lost one of the two cityships in the battle. A part of her was glad it was just a simulation, as she wasn’t sure how well she could handle losing billions like that in the real world. As it was she didn’t like what had happened. A hologram materialized near her, and she looked over recognizing it as the ship’s avatar.

“Don’t feel so bad about losing the Columbia. Historically that ship sank in that particular battle with all hands,” said Megumi.

Curious Melia settled into a chair on a nearby game table, and asked, “about that battle, do you know why the Delkari attacked, and what happened afterwards?”

Megumi took the other chair, and replied, “I’m afraid the records of that era don’t elaborate on the why. There are several theories on that, however. The Delkari Imperium was an old state with a vast territory. They had millions of worlds across seven galaxies. Many of which had been conquered in their days of expansion. Rebellions weren’t uncommon, and they had a policy of destroying any ships not registered with their fleet registry inside their space, and they had a particular prejudice against nomads. Our fleets weren’t however inside their territory, but a few hundred lightyears outside of it. A such the most common theory attributes the attack to fear. Our fleets normally operated cloaked, and we often tried to hide our exact numbers back then, but during a galactic jump, we needed our full power output for the engines. This meant our entire fleet had decloaked, and that meant they could see our numbers. A pair of elder fleets at the same location was quite sizeable, and they were close enough to be in striking distance of three of their outposts, but we didn’t know about those outposts at the time. In fact, we thought their border was another five hundred lightyears further from our position than it actually was.”

Melia leaned forward, and interrupted at that point, “Given the massive amount of energy the fleet was channeling it would have been lit up like a beacon to anyone looking, and they were also afraid of what they were doing weren’t they?”

Megumi nodded, “That is the general consensus. Anyway, as for your other question. The Alliance naturally couldn’t allow such an incident to slide. Many of our fleets changed course and converged on Delkari territory, and within a year we were launching raids across vast stretches of their territory. While a few of our cityships established hidden bases from which to coordinate our war efforts and build new ships. The following year we attacked a world called Nikar II. The planet was orbitally strip-mined by our ships, a process that cracked the planet apart. It was a major Delkari industrial world with a population of billions, none escaped it alive. Its destruction was what finally motivated the Delkari into taking us seriously, and those resources were used by us in the creation of new ship classes. Notably, the Orion class heavy cruiser, the Columbia’s Revenge class battleship, and the Vengence Class Superdreadnought. The Vengence was the very first Superdreadnought ever designed by the Solean people, and she was designed with one thing in mind annihilation. The ship is the stuff of nightmares, armed with weapons of terrible power, impenetrable armor, and an adaptive cloak that rendered it completely invisible to most scan methods. We sent them deep into Delkari territory, where just one was all it took to wipe out entire fleets, and purge countless worlds of all life. They along with their smaller cousins became rather feared by the Delkari, who nearly crippled their economy developing countermeasures to our cloaking technology. Our ability to easily disappear and strike while completely invisible made us very hard to fight back then. Too bad the same tactics don’t work so well against the Darkations. If they did, we wouldn’t have been driven back as far as we were during the war. At least cloaks, still provide an advantage so long as we don’t give them a reason to look for us.”

Melia found this all fascinating, but she decided to move on to business. Shifting in her seat, and tapping her fingers on the wood, she asked, “What about the Irini? I believe you captured a couple recently?”

Megumi’s avatar leaned forward with a predatory posture and look, “Oh, yes. I have already looked them over. I haven’t yet begun an interrogation, but I have learned a few things of interest. The most important of which is that they are the product of genetic engineering. The race that made them clearly didn’t know what they were doing, at least not entirely. There are a few flaws in their genetic code that I can easily repair and already fixed in the two samples I have now. Mostly in regards to behavior, but there were a few genes regarding their abilities that were poorly coded. This race was clearly designed to have strong mental abilities, but thanks to poor gene coding their powers aren’t as strong as they should be. Also, they have a few behavioral flaws from poorly thought out gene coding.”

Melia frowned, and blurted, “What does gene coding have to do with behavior?”

Megumi shifted, and replied, “Certain genetic traits can be ascribed to generate a tendency towards certain types of behavior and emotional dispositions. They don’t guarantee such behaviors, but that doesn’t much matter at the moment. I learned several interesting things about their race and creators. For one their creators clearly don’t know how to hard code controls into the biology of their creations.

Melia upon hearing about hard code, and controls quickly interrupted, “What do you mean hard code controls?”

“The Soleans are experts at creating bioengineered life forms, but as anyone can tell you creating a new lifeform especially one intended to be a weapon is often a double-edged blade. The Soleans and every race that specialized in biological weapons hardcode control mechanism into the biology of their creations. No such controls were placed in the Irini, and given the mental abilities they are predisposed to, they likely control their creators.”

Melia was deeply concerned to hear that, but not entirely surprised. “I guess that would explain a few things. Anyway, do you know what the inspections they regularly do are about? Or will you need to interrogate them to figure it out?”

Megumi’s avatar leaned forward and grinned. She was clearly happy to relay her discovery. “Simple, reproduction. The Irini are a single-sex species. I figured this out from there genetic profile and reproductive organs. These two are both carrying a child in the first stage of gestation, but it appears that as a race they implant their young in others. Based on who the inspections primarily target, they clearly prefer females, especially young females. Based on projected growth, their species is highly parasitic when young. Only developing a proper digestive system during puberty. Prior to that, they need a host to draw their nutrients from.”

“So you are saying that all the missing Neku likely have Irini children implanted in them?” said Melia with a frown as she leaned back in her seat.

Shaking her head, “Only the more recently abducted. My projections indicate that an Irini child only gestates for about five months, after that the host will give birth, but continue to feed said child. Anyway, I already have a plan for fixing this world. I am already working on a retrovirus programmed to repair the defects in the Irini genome. Repairs that I am testing on the two samples currently in my brig.”

Then Megumi’s hologram vanished from her seat leaving Melisa wondering how repairing defects in their genome would fix the Neku world. Not realizing that she had already been told the answer. She was also left with other questions that she had not gotten the opportunity to ask, like why a species that implants their young in others would have mammaries. Seeing as she wasn’t going to get those answers just yet, she leaned back further and began to consider her recent bout in the simulator.

Stretching a bit, she slipped out of the bed. Walking to the window, and looking out at the city below, she considered the recent events. Losing an entire fleet to an unexpected detonation was unfortunate, and since then she had not sent any new fleets into the system. Instead, only a single science ship had been sent in to investigate the cause of the strange explosion, and to gather data on the shield. The secrets of the Precursors were huge. Those races had ruled the galaxy for countless eons before the cataclysmic war that ended their reign, and she wanted those secrets. She felt the potential rewards outweighed the risks that the world presented, even the loss of an entire fleet would be inconsequential if those gains were even a fraction of what she hoped.

The failures at the shield world, were not her only concern. What was more concerning was that two of her agents on Neku Prime had simply disappeared without a trace. The preliminary investigation had turned up no leads, well none of any significance. They had been able to narrow down the area of disappearance to a part of the city dotted with warehouses. An extensive search of the zone, however, turned up nothing. No bodies, no signs of a fight, nothing. It was like someone had disappeared them from the face of the planet, and no one could tell her where they had gone. Given that her agents controlled the entirety of the world, nothing like this should have happened. However, she was beginning to think, that infiltration might not be as ridiculous as she first thought. Rogue agents on the planet were also a possibility, and she needed to consider both. She already had a team of investigators being put together to look into both. Something needed to be done, especially given that their plans were being leaked to their enemies.

Down below she could see many vehicles and people moving in the streets. A norm for any advanced society, but the view wasn’t holding her attention. Turning back, she considered the man currently sleeping in her bed. She had been a little rough with him last night, but she enjoyed inflicting a little pain. Putting her plans aside for the moment, she moved back to the bed for some more fun.