The nine figures were virtually identical; golden yellow skin, beautiful ceremonial white robes with golden trim, delicate features... they even all bore the same rank insignia, as Captain, as they settled in around the table. The differences between them were tiny, subtle; any non-Founder would have difficulty telling them apart. A minor difference in eye spacing. A slightly larger central eye. An insignificant scar. They almost looked like clones, sitting around the same table.
In reality, they were many kilometers apart, currently in the process of re-establishing a network that had been forcibly severed by an emergency override; the entire system of wormholes connecting all of the Founder world-ships shut off to prevent something of inordinate magical power from causing any more damage... being one of the reasons for the meeting, why the ships which should have been wandering the galaxy, hunting down and destroying enemy fleets and worlds, had all gathered here, at this isolated spot in the void.
They looked at each other... and nodded at one of their number, who rose to his feet. "As the eldest present, I, Poriza, former Expeditionary Leader to the third most recent task force one hundred and seven thousand years ago, now assume command of this expeditionary force. I've reviewed all of the data we gathered, and my conclusions are troubling at best, horrifying at worst."
A deep inhalation... and then a focus around himself at his fellow captains. "This adversary is beyond us. We have lost two warships. Warships that the entire fleet of our children could not handle if they all gathered into one place. One at the moment communication was severed, and turned against us... and the other, we received a distress signal shortly after the supposed victory at the homeworld of one of the rogue descendant species. It might be used against us as well, we can't be certain. While the casualties we've inflicted on the locals were dramatic, we've encountered Outsider forces twice, and lost twice. We've learned from these encounters, yes, and we won't be taking any more of their wreckage for analysis, but their forces literally walked through our hull to capture our systems, and bypassed the most sophisticated security we've ever devised. The mass of combat ships lost at this point is so heavily in favor of the enemy that it would be akin to one of our warriors fighting a band of unarmed savages. At this point, we have two options."
He looked around the table. "We double down. Call in the entire fleet. Every single Founder vessel at once. Commit to a battle to the death which we may very well lose." None of them appeared particularly happy with that final addendum; the idea of a Founder fleet losing would be unfathomable... if t hey hadn't just lost those ships.
"Or. We leave. Depart this galaxy, never to return. Let our descendants prove themselves and become founders themselves, or die. My recommendation is we do exactly that. We are the ones on the spot. Its always whoever responded that has the initiative in these decisions. What say you?"
The various captains stared at Poriza for a moment. One of them rose, slamming both firsts on the table; the shaking looked slightly odd, as it ended at the spot his projection did. "How could you even suggest such a thing!? This is our home, our sacred charge! We were born here, took control of our galaxy, conquered it, and became immortal! Letting some monsters from a foreign galaxy come in and take it from us!? The very idea..."
Poriza pointed at the angry Founder. That one was relatively young, only a few thousand years old; not old enough to have witnessed the seeding of the galaxy, and understand the 'sacred charge' as merely a project. A disposable project. "The lives of those immortals lost on those two ships were more important than every descendant out there. Billions of years worth of knowledge and experience, gone forever. The Habitats are being evacuated onto the fleet as we speak. More ships are being built on an emergency basis, with the expectation that our normal home in the void will be lost. Whatever killed the first ship, and caused that... traumatic psychic event... across our entire species, its heading for their location right now, and we aren't sure it can be stopped. I've studied what little data we have of it... and it appears to be a sort of vengeful magical entity, created from the remnants of a dying species, channeling all of its anger at the death and torment of its race into a weapon against those who inflicted it. It should be short-lived... perhaps a decade at the most... but it could wipe out our entire species in that time if not stopped. And that assumes its alone."
The angered captain stopped for a moment. "...Is there any reason not to assume that? Have we... sensed others?"
"Our experts tell me that the feelings it pushed on us as a species were the feelings of that one species, its children, in their dying moments as a Descendant bio-weapon rendered their children blind, deaf, and mad with fear and hunger. They don't know how it was made.... but the needed source material was obvious. A world where our children brutally crushed the natives in a manner that inflicted great suffering."
He looked around at the other captains. "If we manage to stop that one, there are hundreds of worlds ripe with the material to make more. Every enemy world our children conquered is now a weapon that could be used against us. The enemy homeworld that we just destroyed, where the only survivors are in scattered ships and perhaps a bunker or two, could well be a fresh, prime source for such a creation. If they needed more than one, they would have made more than one... so if we somehow prove able to do more than just run from this one... we might face a thousand of them."
"....How would you like for every member of our species to feel the same pain and suffering our enemies has? What if some of it was worse than that one?"
Every single Founder had felt the same thing, when the entity had reached the ship. Thanks to the wormholes connecting everything they owned, they might as well have all been standing in the same room with it; and they'd all felt it. The silent darkness, filled with nothing but pain, hunger, desperation. Many had even injured themselves or others before the wormhole network had cut-off to save them; only a few deaths, though with Founder technology they'd all been recovered.
The once angry captain seemed to have settled down. "....Change of priority. I think we should find a quiet backwater the enemy doesn't care about, the Republic never cared about. Harvest as much raw material as possible. And then... do exactly as you said. Start an extragalactic trip. Gather the fleet into sub-sections, without even wormholes connecting the separate groups.... and head to other galaxies. Just.... not the closest, as that's probably the one the Outsider is from."
***
Light-years away, a very different meeting; with a very different tone; was taking place, despite the setting appearing remarkably similar.
The meeting was a bit different than usual; and not just because it was taking place inside a Founder warship. For months now, he'd mostly just talked to Svetlana, Ascension, and his bridge crew... and the rare moment he actually participated in a boarding action, some unfortunate Republic soldier. The capture of a Founder ship was a big deal. Not just because of the technology it contained, or that it could be used against its fellows; but for morale purposes, merely knowing that the enemy could take even the Founders on would likely make any weaknesses in the Republic start to crack and fall apart.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Penetrating its hull and shields with an EMP from the outside was virtually impossible; so once Ascension had it fully fixed up and upgraded to its own standards, and Svetlana figured out the science needed to make a hyperdrive work in it.... it would be an unstoppable juggernaut that would take multiple Founder ships to defeat, especially if Eyeball were sitting at the weapons controls; or just nearby, helping aim from the Gaze of Wrath.
The gathered people; a Shoork commander, a few Yogg, and dozens of members of tier-4 species he'd only recently met; and the general attitude was elation. Joy; though the Shoork commander seemed almost manic. A substantial proportion of her species, including her Queen, had just died, but revenge had already been taken, everyone involved dead or suffering terribly and wishing for death. From the faint traces of blood on her gauntlets, she may well have taken out some of her anger on one of the numerous Founders who had become Pale Ones, and were now working to help Ascension update their own vessel.
Or she might have been doing recovery efforts, freeing people from wreckage. Ascension could've told him; but he decided not to pry.
"We now have a complete picture of the Founder civilization. Billions of immortals and their trillions of brain-dead slaves, all living in a collection of habitats floating out in the void, thousands of light-years from the nearest star."
He pulled to his feet. "A civilization that is scared. And running. I must confess to a certain level of disappointment, that I kinda wanted to have a series of epic battles, leave them crumbling to ash... but the moment they realized we posed a threat... that was it. We may still have a fleet here to deal with, and if we can catch another one of them it'd really help drive the point home... but if they want to run away, I'm inclined to let them. It won't be as satisfying as actually killing them would be, but that's fine; killing them would be an absolute pain."
There was a bit of angry muttering. One of the Yogg captains pulled to her feet as well, and nodded. "This.... is good. We can take this Founder ship, and go from one Republic world to another, eradicating them, and make ready... so that if the Founders ever return, we kill them, too."
The Shoork captain leaned back in her own seat. "I'm not so sure. Hunting down the Founders, if we can do it, might be difficult. It might take time, effort, and cost us ships. But wouldn't it be worth it, to ensure they don't come back to threaten us someday, and to get justice for what they've done? Not just here... but everywhere?"
Eyeball gave a slow shake of the head. "You're not thinking like an immortal. These beings have lived long, safe lives. They wouldn't even have flown those ships into the galaxy if they thought they might lose one. The sort of being that takes that kind of risk either mellows out with time, and becomes more risk-averse, or eventually runs into something that kills it. The only beings I've met or heard of that have lived that long and actively gone looking for fights were ones that thought they were unstoppable... and even those, once disabused of that notion, generally switch to cowardice and get the hell out."
He paused for a moment, thinking about Odin, Loki... and however Thor must have died, fighting, in the past. "Well. Not quite all. There were a few who were willing to risk it, that actually cared about others. Thats not who we're talking about, though."
The Shoork woman glared at Eyeball for a moment. "They murdered my Queen. My family. Billions of us. I don't care if they're on the run, I want them dead. All of them."
"Unfortunately, we don't have a good plan to do that. If anyone can think of one, I'd like to hear it. They're apparently going to be scattering into the intergalactic void, to ensure they can't even find each other in the event one of them gets caught, and may actually be branching into separate civilizations."
The room grew quiet. The purplish discoloration of rage faded from the woman's face, and she relaxed back into her chair. "Well. At least the killers themselves are dead. We can move on to the Republic."
Svetlana gave a firm nod. "That's exactly what we need to do. I believe this moment represents the end of any significant risk of a Founder or Republic victory. Once we've thoroughly analyzed this vessel and begun to use its capabilities for ourselves, neither the Founders nor the Republic will stand against us."
She smiled. "I will be retooling it heavily; converting it into both a weapons platform and a mobile manufacturing facility. While its combat capacity is excellent, it will be improved upon... and once ready, we can make use of its ability to create new warp-accessible pathways to directly strike the Republic capital. We can set a priority list, and start taking out Marrick worlds, in order from most heavily populated to least."
Eyeball nodded. "I strongly suspect that they'll concentrate their fleet to try to defend one of them... and we'll likely be getting requests to surrender from the leadership after crushing that."
Svetlana glanced at Eyeball. Obviously the species needed to die. Any surrender would be accepted, of course... but followed up with a methodical extermination. "Of course. If everything works out, this war might be over within days of getting this ship finished."
She rose from her seat. "For now, we will adjourn. Its probable that this vessel won't need help to conquer the Republic... but its always possible we're wrong. We will be gathering a substantial fleet right here, in what was once the Shoork home system... and creating a new pathway clear enough for warp travel all the way to the Republic's heart. Any ship that can join us here in a week can join us. Any that can't, can continue operations elsewhere."
The Shoork captain nodded. "We've completed all rescue and recovery efforts. The total survivor count is in the millions... out of over ten billion souls. We should have everyone housed properly in the habitats by then. Every Shoork ship will join you. Likely even some of our civilian ones will have weapons mounted for the purpose."
***
As the various captains either headed directly back to their ships, or perused the massive vessel to gape at Founder technology... or for a few, stayed to abuse one of the Pale Ones.
Eyeball hadn't decided whether or not to relocate; he liked the Gaze of Wrath, and while he was reasonably certain that the control room of this behemoth would be where he could do the most good in any upcoming battles... it likely wouldn't be needed. He'd seen the video of what this ship could do. If Ascension was upgrading it...
Eyeball stood in the hallway, looking at the HUD; Ascension had a map projected on his display to lead him back to the Gaze, and as he hadn't decided yet, there was a thin red line leading to the Founders quarters that were currently being repurposed; mostly to hold Shoork naval personnel who would end up crewing Ascension warships that would be built inside this hull, but there were plenty of spares, and he could easily take an apartment half the size of the Gaze of Wrath if he wanted, complete with a swimming pool and every decadent luxury an immortal would want.
As he was considering whether to return to the smaller ship, he felt a hand on his shoulder; and glanced down to see Svetlana smiling up at him. "Well. Jason. I must confess that I still disagree with you on quite a few things, and find you an irritating person at times. However. I'm in a celebratory mood, and would like to relax a bit and enjoy the new quarters before getting to work on this project. And.... you are literally the only attractive male in this galaxy."
He looked at her... and as she deliberately adjusted the skin-tight vacuum suit to show a bit more cleavage, his instincts screamed at him. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances whatsoever should he go with her. As he studied the dark hair, the pale skin, the curves that, unlike all of these aliens he'd been seeing since he'd arrived, just looked -right-, the eyes that had a beauty none of these strange, exotic creatures could match....
He started to follow her; looking at her in a way he had . It wouldn't be the first time he'd made a mistake for a pretty face. His powers might tell him it would turn out badly, and sure, any relationship with a woman that much smarter than him was undoubtedly doomed. But how bad could it possibly be?