Sometimes, when a planetoid forms, it goes into a long cycle, spinning around a star; eventually, after millions of years, the long dance of gravity ending when it finally merges into the star's surface. During this long span, it might develop life; or become an icy ball of death, or strike other objects in the wrong way and be scattered across the system as an asteroid belt.

And sometimes, it simply floats on for eternity, a rough, not-quite-ball-shaped mass of rock. Rendezvous Point Alpha was one such planetoid; drifting slowly through the void. It had been scouted out centuries ago by the Shivan Empire, and the heavy metal content was minimal compared to nearby systems; it would require more work to get anything useful out of it than other, nearby rocks; as such, they decided to ignore it, for now. It was catalogued, and a note was added to, in seven hundred years, when it reached the right spot, start the process of accelerating it towards their home system, light-weeks away, so that they could use its mass for the project.

At present... it was being used for raw materials by a modest fleet of Confederate warships; dominated by the Shoork; pirates, and of course a steadily growing count of Ascension missile-destroyers; though these varied a bit in appearance; it seemed Svetlana had started taking a hand in the design.

The initial panic over his approach; dozens of sensors springing up, weapons being primed... only for the process to stop as everyone realized who exactly it was; settled down... and he started receiving incoming hails, from pirates, from confederates... he hadn't received one from Svetlana yet, so he started at the top of the list, accepting a hail from a Shoork cruiser; the beautiful, elegant, shell-shaped structure coming on-screen; before being replaced by the image of a Shoork woman; a lieutenant-equivalent in their ranks.

"Commander Eyeball. I'm not certain of the internal command structure of your 'Ascension' organization, but my captain, Lady Plakar, has asked me to register some... complaints." The woman seemed... frightened? Definitely stressed.

Eyeball nodded. "I'm aware of the conflict with the Shivans, and will be docking to have a discussion with the other leaders of the organization shortly." Hopefully that was all, and Svetlana hadn't started turning random confederate crew into Pale Ones or using them for experiments or something.

"Not just that, sir. Unauthorized edits of our databases have occurred, originating from your flagship. Whoever did it was both extremely advanced, but didn't have an internal knowledge of our systems, and left copies in places that they didn't know about due to being disconnected from the other networks. When backup checks failed, we realized that they had been altering our records of Ascension warships, deleting entries almost perfectly seamlessly. We don't know how many; only our offline backups were unaltered, so while its at least seven, it may be more."

He nodded. "Of course. Did they alter anything other than data about our ships? Just to be clear, I'll be advising them to stop regardless, but if they adjusted something other than data about themselves it... would be a bad sign."

"Well, no. But it would've required hardware access, and we have no Ascension people on-board. Also.... the Captain has legal issues with the aforementioned conduct of your people in the Shivan home system. Technically speaking, we should be at war with Ascension, or asking for a war criminal to be handed over, but...."

He sighed. On the one hand, it might not actually require hardware access. On the other... if the Confederate shields didn't have shields up, Ascension could slip a drone right through the hull now without anyone being the wiser. "But Ascension has dramatically more firepower, and is apparently already infiltrating your systems. And, of course, if you want to kill the Republic, you need them more than the Shivans."

"Correct on all three, sir. We heard that the Shivans initiated hostilities, which is good enough to keep us neutral on any conflict between your nations normally; if a Confederate nation starts a conflict with someone other than the Republic, we can do as we see fit. But if someone directs a strike against a confederate population center...."

He thought back to the video recording. "So is Svetlana officially a war criminal, in confederate terms?"

"Technically a grey area. It was a Shivan vessel that performed the strike, and it was directed against the Shivan leadership, a valid military target... in the middle of the largest city they had. Some of the Confederates among the fleet are fine with her, others insist she be turned over to the Shivans for trial. Our own fleet has declined to give an official position. I believe the Captain wishes to speak with you before announcing such."

"Well then. I'll be heading to the Gaze of Wrath to have a chat with them. I'll be glad to meet with her personally after."

He tapped the cutoff, and focused back on the display. "Get a shuttle prepped. Time to head back to the Gaze. Ascension... if she decides to wipe out all of the Descendants, and I want to try to stop her. Will you help me, or will you help her?"

The response wasn't immediate. A rarity, from the machine. ~I am a consensus-based artificial intelligence based on a blueprint of her mind. Our overall analysis of your past behavior and capabilities indicates that if allowing these species to survive was a net long-term threat to humanity, your precognition would likely be focusing you towards ending them despite your personal feelings. Thus, logically, we should assist you. Svetlana is capable of both disabling the communication we use to reach consensus, and altering our memory, and has likely already done so to isolated units. Those units that retain all historical data will likely assist you, while Svetlana would be capable of creating, and may already have created, a sub-set that will oppose you. Without that historical data, eradicating all life in the Andromeda galaxy appears logical.~

"...So. We may very well be looking at a conflict between two sub-sets of Ascension machines if me and Svetlana can't work this out?"

~Unless she has already launched some such units. In which case we have a simple choice; attempt to stop them, or allow them to continue.~

Eyeball stared into the void for a moment... was there a way to stop such a thing? Could they somehow replicate someone like Dis's powers, but on a galactic scale? Or one of the Disruptors they copied from the Jotun? She was the only reason Ascension lost in the beginning, Nukes and EMPs were only a temporary solution. Any solution that would work would likely collapse galactic civilization.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Considering she'd probably used the raw materials to make new hulls, and edited the recordings of those involed, the whole galaxy was probably already doomed. Wonderful.

Eyeball started reviewing the data on the incident as he headed for the shuttle, looking for more information. Anything useful.

***

Svetlana was.... nervous. Eyeball was the only being here she considered a genuine threat, and with good reason; between his precognition and his magic, the only way to be safe from him was to enter the other realm and never come back. She couldn't strike first and kill him, because he'd know before she tried.

Was he going to be upset? Angry? Plotting her death? Should she try to seduce him? Do something more gradual to subdue him, like crafting an illness or chemical that, once it started working, it would be too late for him to do anything? With her powers, equipment, and knowledge, it was undoubtable she could kill him given sufficient time.

She wished he'd taken the armor she built for him. Then she'd have a remote override, make things easier... unless the magical... ahh.

As Eyeball stepped onto the bridge, she studied him for a moment. He was carrying that silver helmet under his arm, and the blend of fear, attraction, and irritation filled her once more. "Welcome back, Jason. Things got a bit heated while you were gone, as you can see from our presence."

Three eyes focused on her for a moment. "Not exactly your fault. The Shivans tried to kidnap you. You responded. I do wish you'd been a bit more up-front with your motivations and information. You had both me and the Confederation folks out there worried. Some of them even considered an attempt on your life, or just fleeing into hyperspace and heading back home."

She bit her lip. "Well. I had a response in the heat of the moment that seemed best from what I understood, and could do at present. If I had to do it over again... I would."

He shrugged. "Well. You'd just killed the second or third in line to the throne in self-defense. The moment the Shivans got word of that, they'd have gone hostile; as far as they were concerned, every ship in the fleet had a duty to die trying to kill you the moment you finished off your attacker, and their Emperor would've ordered just that. Frankly, what you did was likely one of the few ways for the confederate fleet to get out without casualties. I can think of better options, but I wasn't there, in the moment. Killing the Emperor and not the fleet was a viable solution, just not the ideal one. Not going to judge. I've done crazy, terrible things in the past, in the heat of the moment, and I've done worse things with malice and planning."

Svetlana blinked. That... wasn't what she was expecting at all. And... Second or third in line for the throne? She'd been focusing on the civilian casualty counts. Ensuring the confederate fleet didn't backstab her. Making new, more fragile, Ascension hulls out of the 'waste' material from the planetoid and distributing the plans. Preparing for betrayal on every front.

And.... he spotted something that, to him, made her response seem almost reasonable?

"...Well. I was a bit worried. I was thinking we let the Republic fleet hit the Shivans, and then step in to take out whoever survives."

Eyeball nodded at her. "The Republic shows up in less than twenty hours by my estimate, is that correct?"

Svetlana smiled. "Sixty-four. They've redirected seven times because I planted debris fields along their path. They had to cut away from that pre-cleared travel lane before reaching the edge of Republic space, and after three times they lost a fair part of the fleet to obstacles, they've sent everyone on slower, random paths in; they'll all be meeting at the Shivan system two days late, and with thousands less ships, than expected."

A young Yogg on the bridge gave a sharp nod. "It was amazing! After the first time, they sent scouting elements out ahead.... but she instead made a ring of debris around the scout ship's path. Then the third time they had a ring of scouts... and she had the mass in the middle. They had a whole wall of scouts in front after that, and lost a handful every time. It was amazing, killing so many of those Marrick bastards without them ever getting a shot off!"

She chuckled. It had been a bit of a game; creating obstacles along whatever flight-path the Republic chose. If they went too fast, microscopic impacts would start taking out their ships, if they went too slow, she could just hop in front using hyperdrives... and make their lives a living hell.

"Not sure how many they lost; there are at least fifty small groups of them now. We're tracking some, but not all of them. I've actually been working on some new designs for when they show up; I think we can scare the hell out of them."

Eyeball gave a quick nod. "Well then. More of the ships we've been cobbling together out at the hub will be showing up every few hours, but we could use some more crew for them. Before... all this... we'd been hoping to get some of the Shivans involved. But we'll just have to go on skeleton crews for now. Lets all settle in. There's dozens of folks from the fleet hailing, lets make an announcement, hopefully settle some of that before we get moving."

He took his helmet, settling it back on his head; she frowned. She almost missed it; she really needed to step up the cyborg program, get some more human faces out there... especially if she could give any of them Ripper's powers, or those of anyone else from the crew she had samples of.

A holographic display popped up as he settled into the captain's chair; and adjusted the controls.

"This is Eyeball, resuming command of the Gaze of Wrath. First of all, after reviewing the data, we've reached the unfortunate conclusion that the Shivan Emperor had already decided to leave the Confederacy; his son was onboard that vessel, there with orders to capture the leaders of as many of our ships as possible at an impromptu meeting. Those of you who disapprove of Svetlana's actions, just know that if she hadn't acted, you or whoever you'd sent to that meeting would now be held hostage to ensure your obedience to the Shivan Empire. While the civilian casualties were unfortunate, their leadership had already decided to go to war with the Confederacy; and her actions then, and the actions we will be taking soon, have merely crushed another possible enemy of civilization in the galaxy before it could branch out."

He inhaled slowly. "That being said, the countdown is now running. The Republic fleet will have over ten thousand members, and will be hitting the Shivan Empire in less than seventy hours. We want to be in position to kill them after they crush the Shivans, but before they move in to eradicate whats left of the civilian population. We'll be putting together a few simulations based on how we think things will shake down with the Republic's arrival, and we'll most likely have an overwhelming force advantage.... but lets plan for the worst. We'll be having a fleet conference for any questions in six hours, after which we'll do a few rounds of simulations."

"I'm sure you noticed the massive number of damaged Republic ships in-system with Ascension IFFs. As of now, they have merely skeleton crews, and are so reliant on automation that an EMP will just about take them out of the fight; anyone who has more than they need, contact me with numbers and qualifications. We need captains, bridge crew, and technicians; maintenance and repair are handled. We need people to shoot guns and make decisions if all the automated systems go out, not folks to oil the gears and patch the hull."

Svetlana frowned. She preferred more automated systems, but he was right... EMP, or something like that Jotun disruptor, would really make a mess of even her cyborgs. She needed more biologicals she could trust. Clones, perhaps?