"They tried to warn us, but we didn't listen," the lead scientist lamented while looking through ten inches of plexsteel glass at the darkening sky. "We were too full of arrogance to see the danger, the folly of such pursuits."

His audience shifted around behind him. Some blinked furtively; others wept openly. All were reeling from shock and disbelief at the events rapidly unfolding outside of the bunker.

"For decades, we searched," the scientist continued, never taking his eyes from the roiling, angry sky. "We launched probes and signals. Scanned the stars with powerful telescopes and sensors, searching."

"Searching for what?"

The scientist blinked as if emerging from a fevered dream and turned toward the voice.

"An answer - the answer."

A low murmur filled the chamber, growing in strength until it reached an angry crescendo.

"Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?!" They demanded. "What could you possibly hope to gain!"

The guards posted around the room shuffled uneasily and gripped their weapons tighter. The lead scientist ignored all of this and turned away from the angry crowd, returning his gaze to the blackening sky.

"We started the programs to find answers."

He paused dramatically and panned his eye sideways over the crowd. A hint of regret seasoned his words.

"How could we have known?" He whispered softly, more to himself than the angry crowd of onlookers. "How could we have known we'd find---them?"

"How could you not!"

Several of the crowd shouted out, with the rest nodding their heads vigorously in agreememt.

"We were once just like them, you know," the scientist went on, loudly raising his voice over the crowd's clamoring, unperturbed by their temperamental outbursts. "We conquered and enslaved all that stood before us. Taking the other races as our indentured serfs. Forced them to build our roads and cities. Stole their precious metals and natural resources."

He wheeled around angrily at that last sentence and pointed a trembling digit at the crowd.

"Used them up and cast their empty husks to the wind. We left the corpse of an entire species decaying in the cloying heat of war."

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His anger silenced the unruly crowd. But it was quick to fade, and his eyes once again grew distant, the film of past sins playing out before them.

"We destroyed sapients that had hopes and dreams of their own."

The confused crowd considered the scientist's words, the truth behind them. Was this the universal constant? Punishment for their sins? Penance for the atrocities they perpetrated on their peaceful neighbors?

But the scientist wasn't finished yet, he continued to speak, continued to cast light on their culpability in the events unfolding across their planet.

"It wasn't that long ago that we were the invaders. That it was we, who conquered all. Crushed under a nigh-invincible war machine, any who dared stand against us, all for the glory of the Empire."

The blackening sky rumbled and continued to deepen, taking on an inky, jet-black hue. And then suddenly, chains of jagged lightning split it open, and drop ships screamed into view, descending rapidly through the atmosphere toward the planet's cities.

The thunder of defense weaponry greeted them, roaring their welcome in the distance.

The bunker shook with violent tremors, and the lights flickered. The sky filled with an eerie orange and blue-hued light show of a billion heat rounds. And countless booms and quakes, some distant, others near, filled their senses, drowning out all else until only they remained.

"Poetic, don't you think?" The lead scientist remarked to the stunned crowd as he made his way over to the airlock. "They tried to tell us, but we didn't listen."

He barked out a sharp, guttural laugh, which bubbled wetly from between his gill-like nostrils.

"Ironic, that a race we enslaved all those years ago, tried to warn us that this could happen, and we didn't listen," the scientist said, glancing again at the battle raging outside. "They cautioned us against sending signals into the dark, because what answers might not be friendly."

The guards did nothing to stop the scientist as he entered his authorization codes into the airlock's control panel. And again, when the inner doors whisked open, and he stepped inside.

The doors snapped shut behind him, and he turned to face the confused crowd.

What was he doing, they wondered. Where was he going? It wasn't safe out there! Had he lost his mind?

The scientist keyed the control for the airlock's mic and his electronically amplified voice resonated from the door's loudspeaker.

"Well, they were right, weren't they?" He chuckled mirthlessly and peered through the glass at the crowd. "We weren't prepared for this," he said, gesturing behind him at the brilliant chaos filling the sky. "For any of this. How could we be? How could we know it would come to this?"

A bitter laugh erupted from his throat.

"How could we not!" He snapped madly, a feverish glint shining in his eye. "They are just like us! Maybe--"

The world exploded into exquisite white, forever silencing the words in the scientist's throat. The airlock vaporized into Brownian motes that floated across the stunned crowd's vision.

They started to pick themselves up, out of the rubble, when a dark, menacing figure, stepped through the cloud of billowing smoke and flames.

The creature was arrayed from head to toe in dull-hued armor that shifted and blended with its surroundings.

A heavy pulse rifle rested easily in its hands as it peered intently around the room.

But the helmet.

The helmet was the most frightening thing of all. It had no face - no eyes! Dark and fearsome, monstrous. Just a few lenses that stared back at them, coldly refracting the dim light of the dust-choked bunker.

It said that the time of the Empire was over.

It said that Humanity had come.