"It's confirmed. The strike force has left; our spy reported that the Titan, Spike, had arrived and boarded the craft before it left. Eyeball is offworld... and out of communication with La Famiglia. Recall, at this point, is impossible."

Aziz smiled at his lieutenant; the young man was a highly devout, competent man, and even better, a metahuman; gifted with inhuman senses and regenerative abilities. He'd recently served undercover, as it were, in the United States, and as such the dark-skinned boy had shaved his beard, so he didn't look quite the proper muslim; but if Aziz had a hundred like young Lamar, he wouldn't be worried about the days to come.

"Excellent work. We've been doing quite a bit of preperation, and now it's time to begin. Has our agent in SigInt given the signal?"

Lamar smiled. "Of course, sir! The US navy is already headed south, loading more troops and equipment by aircraft as it sails, and I personally delivered the message to the Romani's aide before I left."

Aziz nodded. "And I'm assuming the same message went out to the malcontents in China?"

"Of course. We even included a few brief video clips, with timestamps, to ensure they know these camps aren't the ones Eyeball destroyed."

Aziz whistled. "Excellent. Well then. Put out the word. Our man is to give Almasi the gift he's been seeking for so long, and our troops are to begin arming themselves."

"...What if the gift doesn't turn out as you expect, sir?"

"Then we've brought Almasi to our side, and simply work with him, rather than with one of our own. Less pleasant, but hardly the end of the world."

***

The Jeanne D'Arc was strangely silent as she traveled at hundreds of times the speed of light, hurtling off towards the distant Imperial space. Starcharts; both scavenged from the Jotun and provided by Loki; were displayed over a holographic table in the briefing room behind the bridge, as the crew gathered.

Captain Moreau sat at one end of the table, his blue-silver uniform impeccable, hands resting on the controls; with Eyeball in his usual black armor at the other end. Along the sides, Spike and Ripper; aside from Ripper's more lean form, and a nose that seemed to have been broken a few too many times, the two could have been cousins beforehand; the vibrant red-dyed hair certainly helped distinguish them.

The slim, dark-haired, caramel-skinned beauty in her own elegant purple dress, Kezia was one of the few women on the crew; granted, she could likely kill all of them but Spike within seconds.

The most odd member of the team at the table was Rex; wearing a subdued white and silver version of the uniform the others bore, seated beside the Engineer wearing a feminine version of the same... or rather, a copy of the Engineer, whom everyone else would know as Renee Chambers. He would need to remember to refer to that one as a her; every other time he'd spoken to her he'd acted as if she were just another mouthpiece for Ascension.

Eyeball tilted his head as he slid his helmet off, resting it beside him; letting it magnetically seal to the edge of the table. "So, Rex. What brings you aboard? Don't get me wrong, someone who can shape pseudo-neutronium with his teeth is a viable asset, but I thought you were staying behind?"

Rex smiled. He looked... so much more professional without the mechanical limb attachment, the costume, the scales; though the shaven head and goggles were new. "I'm the only one who can properly shape hull patches other than Butcher and Valkyrie... without destroying the ship." He nodded at Spike. "RC asked me to come along, so I came along."

Eyeball glanced at RC; Engineer, of course. He'd been trying to limit the crew count as much as possible, rely on drones and cyborgs to avoid too many losses. "I thought you were going to run any crew additions by me first."

The Engineer smiled; it was strange, seeing a pretty red-head with emerald eyes, and knowing that it was a machine behind them. "I messaged you regarding last-minute crew requests two days ago. You sent the request to the Captain for approval. He approved."

"Ahh. Any other surprises?" He turned to Moreau.

"Not really. You can review the list in your quarters later. I've got our destination; we've got a week before arrival. What's the plan when we get there?"

Eyeball chuckled. "Honestly, that's up in the air. The Jotun information on this place is decades old, and very vague. Loki's information is centuries old, but more detailed. We're dropping out only forty light-years from earth, at the closest other known bastion of civilization; I believe this entire region was declared off-limits after the Emperor ran into Cronos long ago, or they'd be closer. On our own charts, this is called the 'Trappist' system."

He nodded at Moreau; and a diagram appeared of a star system; showing eight planets orbiting a star. "This place is what the Imperials call a 'farm' system. A local consortium terraforms the worlds of this system, then sells them to the local governments... and the local government then uses them as tribute. The consortium then terraforms the husk back to life, and sells it again; they can likely do this hundreds of times before there's no longer enough resources on the planet to support the process... and they've done it at least a dozen times already."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The image appears to zoom in on one of the worlds; showing a mostly oceanic world, with no apparent islands to speak of; just an endless blue sea. "When Loki passed through, this world was being deliberately seeded with higher life forms, cultivated to develop the sort of sapience that would make them... 'taste' good to the Emperor. He doesn't want a world of algae; apparently intelligent, thinking, beings provide the best life-force, and his subjects have it down to an art getting the right level to satisfy him."

Eyeball looked around at the table. "This place has a mining company, a terraforming company, and dozens of different species working here. The locals are an aquatic race, crab-like... and no, they aren't related to the Jotun... but there are numerous non-locals working here. This is an excellent place to gather intel, as it supports populations of many races, and was a major trade hub even Jotun ships sometimes stopped at."

Spike frowned, looking at the image that appeared of a vivid orange crab-like creature; wide, short, with ten scuttling legs and another four claw-like limbs; fourteen total arms, and if not for that, it wouldn't look out of place on a seafood platter next to a king crab. "...Are crabs common, out in the galaxy?"

"..Yes, actually. Humans are a bit of an outlier."

Moreau tapped a few buttons. A mass of different creatures appeared on the screen; most of them could safely be defined as a variation of a squid or a crab. Shorter, furry ones existed; but out of a display of hundreds, only a handful vaguely resembled humans.

"Most aliens appear to be aquatic or semi-aquatic, with squids and crabs as the two most common body shapes. I could show you fifty different species within Imperial space... including the Imperials themselves... that could conceivably pass as a deformed Jotun. The Jotun, the Imperials, all of them have various theories behind it. But... if you remember watching Star Trek, where most of the aliens are funny-looking humans, with more exotic creatures being rare? For the crab-like races, that's actually how it worked out."

There was murmuring around the table; aside from the Engineer, most of them hadn't gone over this data thoroughly.

Kezia studied the image, nodding. "So... should this be my first target? Take the Emperor's meal before he can get to it?"

Eyeball coughed, drawing her gaze. She seemed... remarkably straightforward about the idea of butchering an entire planet. "Actually, no. This is strictly an intelligence-gathering stop. We'll offer a few neutronium scraps in trade for anything useful they might have, and at the same time gather anything we can. We'll decide on a target after we review everything we learn. Ideally, we would want a world with minimal civilian population, maximum military. Maybe even a world that is scheduled for the Emperor to eat in the next decade or two."

He looked around the table. "We have Jotun-model translators that should serve for communications well enough. The only real issue I see is that none of us have done this before; we'll need to stick together, be careful, and be ready to fight our way out if need be. Get used to your translators, arm up, and read the file on Imperial law. Obviously we aren't worried about keeping it; but if you're going to break it, you need to warn the rest of us so we can get out, and fast."

Moreau nodded. "Of course. After all, we're headed in to assassinate their ruler. On one amusing note... the idea that the coating of what looked like iron would make our ship look less unique or valuable appears to have fallen through. The drone painting the new registry name on the hull got some good footage of what she looks like now."

An image shifted and appeared; showing the wedge-shapped, stubby warship; with a pure, obsidian black shell, covered with thousands of tiny glowing sigils in shades of red and amber, with the soft blue light of the thrusters in the background; and the odd, distorted image of hyperspace surrounding it. "It doesn't look like neutronium... but our scanners have no idea what to make of it. It... will probably draw a bit of attention."

***

As Thomes met with his advisors, discussing what else would need to be loaded onto the fleet, any other preparations it would need to make for the journey south to investigate... and exterminate... the newly found Jotun colonies... Vano leaned back against the wall, ignoring the generals and their aides as they talked logistics, numbers... these weren't his field.

He frowned, checking his phone. Not too many people had his number. Ahh, that was from his secretary. Good old Vanessa, she'd been with him for the better part of a century now, mostly helping him schedule visits to cure terminally ill children. He hadn't been doing much of that lately, unfortunately. What could she possibly...

He blinked, as he looked at the video. A woman with an obvious surgical scar on her forehead, lying on a bed. The camera panned to another bed, in the same room. Another; the women were different; mostly of Indian descent, from the looks. But all of them....

There were a few more clips. And accompanying text, from one of the soldiers he'd worked with long, long ago; likely, with how intensive the healing had been, sergeant Naidu was probably another of the ageless ones among those he'd healed. And... sending him information he hated to see. But... knew he needed to do something about.

They'd started it up again. They'd been shut down just a few years before, lost their navy and shattered their economy about it, almost caused a civil war when the various non-Han ethnicities within China learned of it, as well as China's neighbors. And now... China had built new camps.

Vano inhaled deeply, pocketing his phone, and quietly stepped up, gently placing a hand on the President's shoulder. "James."

Thomes stopped in mid-sentence, glancing backwards. "Yes, Vano? Something wrong?"

"...A bit of a family emergency has come up. Me and a few of mine are going to be heading back to europe, and asia. I'm not sure how long it's going to be."

"Ahh, of course. I doubt we'll need much help handling whats left of the Jotun. We're using most of our planes getting things to the boats before they get too far south. Do you need anything from me? You'll always have my support."

Vano chuckled. "Best not have anything official about this one. We'll be securing our own transport." The camps would be gone by the end of the week, if he had to step on a million corpses to get it done. No nation that would have the audacity to do this not just once, but twice, could be allowed to stand. He couldn't get Thomes involved in this... not when he was already dealing with the Jotun. Should he simply take the direct approach, and walk in to meet them, or link up with whoever had sent him the message?

Obviously he wouldn't be the only one to get this message; the simmering hostility beneath the surface of asia was about to boil over. Only the threat of the Jotun had held it at bay before; and with them reduced to pitiful remnants... it was time to clean house.