Audron E’fi stood on his bridge and watched his two subordinates quietly. Other than Sochi’s lapse in judgement with the newly minted Reaper, Karl Burnett, the guided mana saturation of the Sol System had gone quite well. Earth had managed to survive the initialization with more than 20% of their population intact. The Refugee acceptance numbers which had started at a dismal 3% eventually rose to a slightly above average 12%. Most planets only hit 9 or 10% acceptance. Even the Europans had adopted well, which is extremely unusual for primitive, uplifted species.

The physical changes to the Europans were quite profound. Before the System they were vaguely humanoid with long clawed, three fingered hands and extremely long flippered legs. They were only marginally capable of simple tool usage as evidenced from the bone spears and knives they once created from the giant, dangerous sea creatures they used to hunt. Now their hands ended in four slightly shorter fingers that were far more nimble, they kept their claws though. Their legs lost the flippers, sacrificing speed for the ability to be truly amphibious, with the ability to splay their toes wide to stretch the webbing between their toes. Their bodies were now much more thickly muscled, and despite the low gravity, the System gifted them with a denser bone structure, something they would need once they left their extremely low gravity world.

The Europans didn’t adopt much of the technology that the System offered, but they took to magic quickly, of which Fire was their favorite element. The higher quality and mana reinforced metal weapons appealed to their hunters and where most peoples, like the Humans, would fracture into warring tribes, the Europans grew closer together than they were before. Lightspeed communications weren’t slowed by gallons of water which enabled them to communicate freely without alerting their presence to the mutated and enlarged sea life. Audron shuddered at the thought of some of the truly massive nightmares the Europans hunted with glee. He had never particularly cared for fighting in the ocean. And he made a note to never enter Europa's ocean.

He suspected they would make their way to the surface of the planet within the next week. For some reason they had been swimming higher and higher, facing more vicious and horrifying creatures as they raced to reach the miles thick ice flow that covered the planet. Once they carved their way through the ice they would be presented with the stark reality of an airless world, the last obstacle to them leaving the planet. The System would then automatically begin construction of an intra-system portal that would connect them to Earth. The end location would be random, though it had a high chance to be created next to a thriving settlement. He was slightly surprised to find himself silently hoping they would emerge near Karls people. So far they had proven to be the most receptive of all the humans he’d seen to the varying alien beings they had encountered.

Done with ruminating about the Europans, Audron turned his attention to the crew once again as he took his own seat and reviewed the next steps of preparing the system for the forthcoming immigration. Sochi had been on the straight and narrow since his previous dressing down. He still had every intention of removing him from his crew at the first opportunity. One doesn’t just play a prank on a Reaper, even a newly created one, and expect it to end well.

Rusne cleared her throat to get his attention, “Commander, I think we’re ready for Phase 3. Also, the first of the immigration ships just dropped into the system and is standing by for direction in the Oort Cloud.”

“Already? None were expected for another month and a half.” Surprise and concern colored his face as he considered the implications. Hopefully whoever is here already is amenable to sitting in space for a while, we weren’t quite ready for visitors.

“Yes, sir, I’ve been communicating with their communications officer, apparently the Tides shifted and they found a mana stream that was flowing faster in our direction.”

“That’s fortunate for them, who do we have, let me get a profile on screen.”

Rusne tapped some commands into her console and the image of a large insectoid appeared on the display at the head of the bridge. The creature was mostly brown with black highlights across a segmented exoskeleton and looked like a trilobite with crab claws, several thin stalks held compound eyes that could look in several directions at once. Around it’s soft mouth were a series of multi-joint thin limbs that were clearly what it used for fine manipulation. Audron hated sea creatures and this being looked too much like it was plucked from his nightmares.

“This is an example of the… S-krooch-ix- fuck! I can’t say that.” Audron chuckled as he examined the info for himself, Skrootkxl, yeah, fuck saying that out loud.

“Let’s call them Screechers, patch me through to their Captain and I’ll inform them we aren’t quite ready for them yet and then we can get on with Phase 3.”

“Yes, sir, standby.”

A moment later the info screen was replaced with the image of a bright red crustacean insect with yellow spots and stripes across its exoskeleton, it’s too many eyes instantly swiveled to look at Audron and he barely contained a shiver. A loud screech emanated from the being before the System translation software kicked in and changed the ear piercing noise into something understandable.

“Good fortune, Administrator Audron Ef’i, I am Captain of the Glorious Plunderer of the Unassailable Depths. I hope your task here has been fruitful.”

Audron resisted frowning at the way the System translated the beings name, apparently Bob was the closest approximation in any humanoid tongue the System could come up with, or it didn’t even bother to try.

“Greetings, Captain , it has certainly been an interesting task, we were just about to move on to phase three when you showed up, I regret to inform you that we still estimate a little over two months before we can allow immigration to commence.”

The being on his screen bobbed and waved at his proclamation then responded in a nonplussed manner, “No worries, we were just as surprised to catch a quicker flow. Have you had a chance to interact with the native species, what can you share of them?”

Audron wasn’t comfortable announcing his subordinates failure, as it was ultimately his failure for not keeping better tabs on his people, so he gave the unnerving being a very abbreviated version of his interactions with Karl and Alyssa, “I have had the need to meet with one of the Humans that goes by the name of Karl. He is Earth’s first Reaper. One of his subordinates has also earned the title of Earth’s First Challenger. Their profiles are publicly available, I’ll send you some of my personal notes on those two as well as several other persons of interest on the explicit understanding that you don’t attempt to make landings or contact the Humans until the appropriate time.”

seemed to vibrate in excitement at the news of the Reaper and Challenger, “Of course, of course, we will be on our best behaviour, I appreciate your insights, Administrator.”

“Good, also, the largest gas giant has a satellite with a primitive pre-sapient species which we just finished uplifting, as per the usual Accords that planet is off limits for one thousand of this system's years. We will be moving to begin the terraforming of the systems second and fourth planetary bodies, they will also be off limits for as long as a single native Human or Europan still breathes. All other bodies of course are open for visitation and exploration, though ultimately belong to the Humans and Europans for the next one hundred years, as per the Accords.”

“Of course, Administrator, as per the Accords. I will leave you to your task and ensure my survey teams abide by the rules, good fortune.”

With that the conversation was complete and the Captain’s image blinked from the display. Audron sat back in his command chair and reviewed the information he had on Mars and Venus, when he was satisfied he had a firm understanding of what he was working with he turned his attention to Sochi and Rusne.

“Alright class, we have two similar, yet unique problems. We have two bodies with great potential for habitability though both are effectively dead for varying reasons. Let’s hear your suggestions on how we revive them as well as which one you believe to be the less troublesome project.”

Sochi and Rusne looked at Audron then to each other before the pair came to a silent agreement as to who would speak first, which of course was Rusne. “I think Venus is an easier kickstarter than Mars. It has good mass and gravity and an induced magnetic field. The two major problems with Venus is the absurdly long rotational period, which of course we determined was caused by the Human’s ancestors when their project went sideways on them. And the now too thick atmosphere of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide. I’ve located the remnants of the the device they used to inadvertently stall the planets rotation and am pretty certain I can use these structures to restart the planets core. This should replace it’s weak magnetosphere with a thriving one, it’ll take several decades to spin up properly, then all we need to resolve is the wrecked atmosphere.”

“Ok, and how do you plan to solve that? There’s essentially no hydrogen or oxygen remaining on the planet.”

“Well, two things, we scoop a large portion of the carbon dioxide off Venus and dump it on Mars. Then we bombard the planet with ice asteroids which are fairly abundant. I’d also drop some on Mars as well, the major problem with Mars is that non-existent magnetosphere. It’s core isn’t dense enough to maintain its atmosphere. Underground living is the best option, in my opinion.”

Audron looked at the information at his console and considered Rusne’s response. She wasn’t completely wrong, though she wasn’t considering the solution with the assistance of Mana. Let’s see if Sochi has a different proposal.

“Mr. Sochi, do you concur?”

The once confident Science Officer fidgeted under the administrator’s studious eye. With a heavy breath he collected his nerves and responded, “Well, mostly I agree, though I think Rusne is only tackling the situation based on the factors she can control herself.” Rusne shot him a defiant glare and he continued, “She left out the fact you’re an Ascendant class, and your focus is on geological manipulation. If we dropped some Iron-Nickel asteroids on the surface of Mars, you could go down and infuse the planet's core with more mass. I don’t know if you have the mana reserves to complete it in one go. But from what I’ve witnessed, I believe it to be possible. Otherwise I agree with Rusne’s tactics as far as Venus is concerned.”

Well, the man isn’t a complete idiot after all. “Very good, both of you, I believe your assessments are correct. Miss Rusne, I assume you have targeted the appropriate asteroid candidates? Go ahead and launch the drones. Let me know when we’ve dropped enough material on Mars, I’ll head out then and jumpstart it’s core.”

Audron left his people to do their jobs and retired to his quarters to rest. Out in space a thousand aircraft carrier sized cargo and construction drones separated from the massive Mana Saturation and Administration ship. Soon the army of drones were latching onto their programmed targets, towing asteroids of ice, iron, and nickel towards their targets. At the edge of the system the Skrootkxl began releasing survey shuttles, taking care to avoid the areas Audron had indicated.

*****

Persephone walked through the vaulted Council halls heading to one of the many thousands of conference rooms to meet with three others of her order. A collection of Reapers that kept their fingers on the pulse of the happenings of the Universe at large. It was a daunting task, considering there were only 113 Reapers currently alive. 114 now, I suppose, if the reports from this backwater system are accurate. Hopefully this one isn’t a complete lunatic.

She came to the appointed meeting room and stopped in front of the two bull-like beings that stood guard at the door. After a quick verification amongst VPA’s the doors slid open into a modest sized room, an oval shaped table made of some exotic dark wood from one of a trillion worlds. Standing at the head of the table looking out the large bay window at the opposite end of the entrance stood the shiny silver cyborg Reaper that went by the name of Trax.

On either side of the rich looking table sat the two other Reapers that had come together to discuss the sudden appearance of the new Human Reaper. It had been millenia since a new Reaper had emerged in the Universe, and they always emerged due to intense emotional surges, often feeding off something the Reaper was passionate about. Which could have both good and bad results.

Persephone's Reaper was particularly focused on unrequited love. The Forlorn Reaper of Unrequited Love, to be exact. She wasn’t sure what created it, not exactly at least, she just knew for the last several thousand years she had the habit of falling for men who weren’t interested in her, and it absolutely sucked. No being is meant to be alone THIS GODS DAMN LONG! Are they?

She was broken from her internal reverie when the Trax turned around to greet her. “Greetings, Persephone, it seems we are all here so let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“Trax.”, Persephone replied with a slight nod of her head and took a seat at the far end of the table. She nodded a greeting to the other two men at the gathering, an oily skinned frog like being and a heavily cloaked creature she couldn’t discern the features of. Shadow seemed to billow off this person and of the four gathered he was the most likely to look as most species believed their Reapers to appear.

“I assume we all know what we are here for. Word of a new Reaper has made its way across the Universal System Network. One Karl Brunett, Human, and he seems to have a real inborn hate for those he feels act in a foolish manner.” A replay of Karl brutally killing the Mayor of Flagstaff popped up in the center of the table. Persephone found herself salivating at the way the man handled the ridiculous woman. Another replay showed him fighting barehanded against Earth’s First Challenger, another popular figure across the Net, this was before she had earned her title. Then a view of Karl shaking the shit out of a woman who he’d disagreed with.

“That last was from before he earned his class. He really hates bureaucrats and people who abuse their power. I believe this is what manifested his Reaper. The other concerning development is the Skill Deja Vu. It’s a precog type skill, limited in that he can’t actively tap it’s power. It just kind of pushes him into a brief trance where he’s able to perceive multiple realities at once.”

The frog man spoke up at that revelation and Persephone found herself visibly shocked at Trax’s declaration, “That is very concerning, the strength of a Reaper with even limited precognitive abilities is extremely dangerous. I assume that this is why we were gathered?”

“Mostly, as you know, our number in the greater scheme of things is quite low. Earth opens to migration in roughly one and a half galactic months, a little over two Earth months. I’ve received intelligence that certain factions are sending agents at that time to assassinate the new Reaper.”

The shadowy Reaper shifted in his seat but still refrained from speaking, the frog man’s eyes somehow managed to bulge further from its face at the declaration, and Persephone squirmed uncomfortably at memories of the many assassins the varying factions had sent when she had earned her Reaper.

The frog man spoke again, “That is troubling. There’s too few of us in the Universe, is the threat so great you need four of us to protect the youngling? He seems quite proficient at dealing death, if these assassins come they had better be mid way into their Master Class.”

Persephone didn’t disagree with the frog’s assessment. If they all went to watch over Karl it would be quite overkill. She was about to say as much when Trax cut into the conversation. “No, I don’t suggest we all go, I suggest that you and Persephone go, Mr. Hurgle. I believe that Persephone can make the direct contact under the guise of introducing Mr. Burnett to our organization, meanwhile you will act as support, should you agree of course.”

“And what about you two?” Persephone asked the question that she knew Hurgle was wondering about as well.

“Well, I for one have a certain disdain for these bureaucratic types as well, especially the ones that insist in meddling in our affairs. We will attempt to find the people who wish to prevent the Reaper ranks from growing, and we will deliver our wrath upon them.”

The shadowy man finally spoke in what would have been mistaken for a whisper if her Perception hadn’t been up to par, “I agree, we shouldn’t let these beings mess with one of ours.”

“What say you Mr. Hurgle and Miss Persepohone?”

Persephone looked at Hurgle who shrugged awkward shaped shoulders then turned her gaze back to Trax, “I’m ok with this, we’ll leave for Earth within the next forty eight hours.”

Trax slapped his metallic hands together in the imitation of a clap that rang like a gong and smiled, “EXCELLENT! We all have our assignments, good luck!”