Costan awoke after the battle, staring up at an infantryman. "I didn't... get shot... up for... nothing... Did I?"

The infantryman looked at what he thought was a corpse. "MEDIC!"

When Costan awoke next, he was in a medical tent with surgeons and nurses trying to patch him and others back together. He was not surprised to find out that he was missing internal organs from the plasma rounds. He looked at a nurse that was looking over his gear and demanded his pipe and peyote.

She tried to refuse, but he reminded her that he was a war shaman. The doctors then refuted his request and demanded to administer a sedative. The doctors request was refused by the lead doctor because of Costan's medical file. Costan gave them a death glare that made one of the other patients enter a cardiac arrhythmia and pass out from temporary gaze that swept the room.

The lead doctor was about to put his foot down on the topic, but the orbital sirens started blaring. He didn't want to believe that they would bombard a medical camp, but quickly realized that they didn't have shields. He also remember the leaked footage from the Greq invasion.

He handed the roughly seventy percent of a Marine War Shaman his pipe and offered him a light. Missing a hand might make lighting it kind of complicated. Experience had been very insistent on teaching the doctor one thing over the years, that Marines don't like complicated.

"I don't think you're going to be much help in the bombardment," the doctor started as he lit the peyote, "I mean, just look at what happened to you in the last combat experience."

The doctors statement did not befront Costan. "I was not spirit walking at that time, you get to see me do so. Or, see the shaman side of me do so. Watch out because I've been told that War Shaman Costan is a bit of an asshole."

Back aboard the Namaste, the vigorous voting and proposals had been recessed ten times over the two days. It was adjourned until later due to Grequenok reinforcements dropping into reality in system. All crewmen were running to their stations to act against the Greq making near light speed passes at the planet below.

The voting was intense. It got to the point where everyone was angered and had a headache. Emperor Karcos had come to terms that he had been bated into a trap by the deceitful Yidas over a few years, pitting him against the Immortals, the Emish, her insurrection, Emperor K.A.R., the Grequenok, and even Costan. Emperor Karcos was not without a triage plan, however; he could turn it around. He just didn't want to kill her.

Emish himself was pondering it all over again, hoping to not have to go to war with the Empire. Five strikes meant mortal enemies, and the Empire was facing six strikes against the Emish if they didn't correct course and pay restitution. The acts against the Emish community and it's members were too many to ignore, and the agreement signed to refound the Empire could not be discarded. Clause five outlined the strikes system and means to retribute for them.

Emperor K.A.R. was pondering if he would have to rebuild the Empire again, or if somehow he could keep Costan intact enough to pawn it off on him. Costan had the exact genetics of Nihil, so he might be an immortal and not need to have children. He shelved that thinking because eunuchs are often more plotting, cruel, and deceitful than angry females. Half of Dendolf's success was because the old empire relied too heavily on castrated servants for official matters.

Yidas was stewing up a new plot, but believed that she would face no punishment for any of the things she had done so far. Her dearest father would shield her, he even got her a private room aboard the ship for the breaks and didn't exclude her from voting. She was moving on to refining her plans to take succession of the throne. She was interrupted when her data pad was disconnected and people showed up to escort her to the brig, then their orders were changed and she kept plotting.

Shetieve was trying her best to sway them to the side of reason unsuccessfully, Turnunder was doing the same, with similar results. It was clear to them that Yidas and Karcos were setting Costan up as "the bad guy". The fools knew that Costan was genetically identical to Nihil and would only get tougher and harder to kill as he grew older, but sought to demonize him anyway. Even K.A.R. was warming up another refounding document with corrections based on what has happened.

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The alarms kept Yidas out of the brig, but posed a very big problem. A full third of the Greq fleet were coming back to reality with guns ready, part had split off to the swarm the planet with fresh reinforcements. This was unfortunate for the K.A.R. Empire, which is often just called the Nekogian Empire. The Namaste received a communications hail from the new Greq Admiral.

Tensions were high on the bridge, only the one ship against a little over a thousand. The enemy gloated about how they were postponing the inevitable. He was so full of himself that he even spoke of the detachment sent to destroy the Nekogian shipyards.

Meanwhile, back in the astroid belts of the Nekogian home system; the mercenaries charged with the security of the Destrizion Shipyards were laughing. Their black orders had been followed to the last printed character, Venom Company were the pinnacle of ruthless professionalism. It mattered not that the emperor seized control, because they were still carrying out established contracts and couldn't comply with new orders until they were finished.

It was true and untrue that they couldn't comply, but either way, they hated Karcos. Costan owned their company, and the shipyards, so it would be a warm embrace from the god of nothing at the end of time before they followed the person who effectively stole from their boss. The fat stack of black order files ensured that they had plenty of excuses, reasons, preoccupations, and general "I would like to, but no."

Venom Company and Talon Corporation kept themselves too busy to get used as pawns by Karcos or anyone aside from themselves and Costan. Destrizion Shipyards mostly followed suit, except for the ships that the Empire paid in full for, up front. They were not about to get bossed by someone who usurped control of them.

The mercenaries had followed the outlined plans, so they were not surprised by the failed sneak attack on the shipyards. They just had to mark targets and push buttons to make the Grequenok wish they hadn't bothered. The early warning system gave them a five hour notice of anything coming in or out, and the estimate tonnage of the vessels.

The approach sectors and angle were focused on and weapons prepped long before they reentered real space. The mercenaries even made snacks and prepared victory drinks. The Grequenok were dropping in with guns hot, but the shields ate it all and the return volley left nobody alive to surrender. They popped corks and gave a customary report to the Navy, as was tradition for when a hostile military attacked infrastructure.

Back in the contested system, the admiral was being overly smug and self righteous. Captain Cankar received a report while the betenticled braggart was boasting about how everything would be over soon, he read it and chuckled. The crazy mercenaries and their black orders, how different things would have been if Emperor Karcos would have just let Prince Costan be, the irony was overflowing.

Before Costan had awoke, the Nekogian ground commander had been going over reports and footage from the microcams they had scattered about the battle front before they lost the artillery. He didn't know what to really make of it. This Conscript had moved about the battlefield like deaths apostle, it wasn't unexpected out of a War Shaman, but he wasn't spirit walking during the bloody rampage that destroyed all cohesion in the enemy ranks.

When the air raid alarms started, he immediately sent word to the medical tents to get the Shaman spirit walking. The orders were unnecessary, the doctors had already decided that, from a medical stand point, it did not matter and gave Private Costan his pipe. The commander went back to reviewing the facts and was almost impressed, sending a situation report to the Namaste. He sent orders to the War Shaman, to exterminate all the Grequenok in the system at all costs and any forbadences are null until the orders were completed.

The Grequenok Admiral was far too long winded, Captain Cankar received the situation report from the ground and laughed when he read it. The Admiral was angered by the laughter, demanding to know what was humorous to a doomed captain. Cankar forwarded both reports to Emperor Karcos and K.A.R. before responding.

"Nothing, just an old joke that still gets me, even now."

The doctors watched as the wounds on all of their patients disappeared, the dead getting up from their pile. The War Shaman had his orders, and he smiled a wicked and predatory grin then vanished in a puff of peyote smoke. Everyone in the camp had gotten an erie feeling, like something was seriously a miss. Then someone remarked on how the siren had stopped.

The incoming Grequenok were already dead, their ships being turned into orbital defense stations. The Admiral was in the middle of a self important rant when the communication suddenly ended, with the ships disappearing from all sensors. The holdout artillery of the Grequenok ground forces went entirely silent, and it started to rain.

The Nekogian Commander put a hand out of his tent, only to pull it back in disgust. It was raining Greq blood. He didn't know what exactly to expect from ordering the War Shaman to exterminate them all, but raining blood was not on the list of possibilities. He was pleased that they might win the war in the next year, though.

When everyone stopped looking around in a state of complete confusion, a new report was sent with the accompanying shaman bullshit form. Nobody expected the War Shaman to terraform the planet, but the hell plants were gone. Nobody knew about what happened after he got hit by a truck, either. They didn't know that he had.