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Given a situation like this, I had no choice but to call in the best ghosts I had deployed, and it didn't take long before a bunch of the Dominion's covert-operations ships began gathering outside, assembling a group of twenty members who were the Emperor's Shadows.
"Lord Regent, what are we facing?" said one of the ghosts, who had lowered her visor while preparing her C-10 rifle.
"I don't know for sure, but everything indicates it's some kind of local lunatics, so we have to act fast and kill them immediately. We have twelve operatives in the area and they maintain visual contact, but apparently there are many of them, and all of them are members of the high societies of this planet, so we must eliminate them all in a single strike before any of them tries to use their influence on the population, even if it's not worth much," I said while loading my rifle.
"Understood," said the group of Shadows.
"Cloaking active, and make sure to kill in a single shot," I said as I activated my cloak and blended with the environment. Everyone else did the same, leaving only the sound of the wind as we entered the forest.
As we moved, we found many signs of possible victims: blood stains and marks on the bark of trees, clear evidence that they had brought people who hadn't come voluntarily.
Continuing forward, we found hundreds of footprints in the wet soil, stamped into the mud. There were tracks of all sizes.
As we kept covering the flanks and watching the heights, we found the other operatives I had sent earlier; the three teams were hidden with their cloaks active while observing what was happening.
"Lord Regent, more people have arrived, apparently from where the other garrisons have their influence. They're no longer hundreds… we're talking thousands," said the ghost monitoring through his scope.
"We're vastly outnumbered… we might have to request fleet support. Let me visualize something and we'll decide. I don't think they're armed; only the feudal lords had access to weapons, so maybe it won't be much," I said, activating my visor.
And well, the operative's explanation was accurate, except now there were thousands. And some didn't seem voluntary: many were locked in cages.
Everything that followed matched the report: massive acts of cannibalism where the captured were eaten alive by those attending the grotesque feast, tearing out entrails, ripping off bleeding arms and legs from the poor bastards unlucky enough to be the meal of the day. Others were used as fountains, filling cups with their blood, which they drank like fine wine.
As more kept arriving, we had no choice but to be patient, stay in the shadows, and wait until all gathered so we could deliver the killing blow. Meanwhile, I gave instructions to my ghosts to watch all paths leading to the gathering of these degenerates.
I also requested more reinforcements and ordered several battlecruisers to position themselves above us in case heavy support became necessary.
Almost an hour of excess passed before a massive crowd had finally formed, celebrating their festival.
"No more arriving… of these monsters," said a northern operative.
"None from the west either," said another.
"That's all of them. Close the circle, surround them, and take good firing positions. We're going to have to kill many," I ordered.
I kept observing the area but, aside from the disgust at what I was seeing, I couldn't detect any demon or anything similar. So it seemed to be a local cult… but all such cults had a leader. No matter how much I tried to sense any psionic influence, I found nothing, and none of my ghosts detected anything either.
So only two options remained: either this cult had formed on its own, without guidance… or the one who truly mattered wasn't here.
I would've liked to wait longer, but the risk with this kind of filth is that they might summon a demon at any moment and ruin everything. And although waiting could help me dismantle the entire cell, I preferred to end it all now.
In the end, we were around a hundred ghost operatives who had managed to arrive, against these disgusting mutants who easily surpassed a thousand, maybe two thousand.
But they were all very close together, packed tightly, so it was time to pull out the protoss tricks.
I began concentrating all my psionic energy in my hands, watching small sparks jump off my fingers. I clenched my fists, visualized the exact point where I wanted to unleash my ability, and once I had it clear, I released a psionic storm.
A massive storm of psionic lightning formed in the heart of the festival, disintegrating everything caught inside its area of effect.
Laughter turned into screams, and in an instant hundreds of them were reduced to ash, broken down atom by atom under the storm.
"Fire, kill them all!" I shouted through the communicator, and dozens of C-10 rifles began thundering through the forest.
The sound of skulls exploding was quick to follow, and bullets rained down as my ghosts cut through the cultists like a scythe.
I also began firing, and soon I saw explosions caused by the Shadows' psionic powers, and even a powerful telekinetic blast that lifted a group of twenty cultists, crushing them until they died.
The cultists tried to flee, but shots came from every direction; we were everywhere.
We quickly closed the circle, reducing their numbers to a few hundred hiding among bodies or running aimlessly, easy prey for the Dominion's best marksmen.
Not even five minutes passed before they were all dead or dying. We entered that repugnant place.
My instincts were at maximum; I didn't want to stay there a second longer than necessary.
I knew it was dangerous, but I had to find the cult leader. So I grabbed those still breathing and began reading their minds. I saw the world through their eyes… and there was not much there.
To them, they were at a perfect feast: the tastiest food, the finest wines, the most beautiful women. Except the "food" was other humans, and the "beautiful women'' were decrepit mutants, deformed with tumors and malformations.But I found no useful information. Only whispers. Apparently, they had never seen the leader's face.
After checking several minds and killing each one afterward, I finally found it: the leader of the cult… was already dead. He was one of the main nobles, and since he died in the assault on his fortress, there was no head left. Only minor cults that had followed his pending orders.
So I simply called a pair of men from the Prometheus Company and let them burn the entire forest. We moved away while the damned place burned to ashes. Nothing dangerous remained, but even so I ordered an investigation of everyone left in the high spheres, including the Ecclesiarchy, to see if anyone else had ties to the cult, and authorized immediate neutralization if necessary.
Thus the days passed quickly, and I received reports of more people eliminated from the planet's upper classes who had ties to the cult. Now that the ghosts knew exactly what to look for, it didn't take long to find those links and eliminate them permanently, adding another five hundred who knew of the cult's existence. No one was left alive.
I kept the information as restricted as possible. I didn't want someone weak-minded to see what had happened; I didn't know if simply witnessing one of those rituals could be enough to corrupt you. But those of us with mental training to resist these things were fine.
And so, those days turned into a couple of months, and things continued evolving very favorably for us.
The more days passed, the more industry we managed to install on the planet. We did the impossible to automate the work, because we needed engineers checking and calibrating the machines that produced clothing, basic appliances, construction materials, circuits, and the chips required for all the electronic systems we were building.
But the most important milestone was now arriving: the first parts of the heavy machinery were ready, and we could begin actual construction.
A slow process of public works began while we moved thousands of men from the Royal Guard to help build a new modern city and, at the same time, settle our own soldiers. No one knew how long we would be trapped here before returning to the Koprulu sector… if we ever returned. So everything had to be built properly.
I ordered the construction of a decent sewage system that recycled all used water, very similar to Korhal's… except for one crucial difference: we would invest much more in sensors and detection. The damned zerg used the sewers during the siege of Korhal and no one noticed until it was too late. That would never happen again. Even the sewers had to be fortified to prevent something similar.
Much of the fortress and the town around it was demolished, and we moved the entire population to camps in the southern hemisphere so they could help with the farm work.
As the city grew both wide and tall, my attention shifted to the farms and the problem of agriculture. It was essential to have supplies for a long siege or, if necessary, load the battlecruisers and evacuate if the Imperium sent a fleet too powerful to resist. But I couldn't centralize everything.
For now, our economy looked like a planned system: we decided what was produced, where, and in what quantity. And that would eventually create a monstrous bureaucracy that not even the adjutants could handle.
I needed liberal reforms to reactivate the economy… but not so many as to give real power to the population. This universe is a hell: give a centimeter of freedom and a demon, a cult, or a traitor appears to take advantage.
So I had to make reforms, yes, but controlled reforms. Freedoms granted only through permits revocable instantly if someone strayed. It had to be a dynamic economy… without losing absolute control of the throne.
Agriculture was the first step.The southern hemisphere was already huge expanses of crops with some scattered homes. My plan was simple: those who wished to work the land would receive plots, autonomous machinery, drones, fertilizers, and basic courses, but the land would not be inheritable. They could keep it if they continued working; if not, it returned to the State.
That way, I had a working class establishing the real value of food without depending on me to set prices. Even so, the State would keep 20% of the farmland: regulatory reserves to forcibly lower prices if anyone attempted speculation.
The plan was approved by the Royal Guard commanders, though I had to make concessions. Originally, the offer of land was for local civilians. But they insisted the first offer had to go to Terrans of the Royal Guard who wanted to retire — as long as they were non-essential members — with plots of sixty hectares per couple, three times more than the rest.
I was against it. It was a strategic waste. But I couldn't confront my own collaborators so early in the formation of the State, so I had to yield to their demands.
The result was exactly what I feared: thousands of members resigned from their posts almost immediately and settled on the lands. We lost thousands of trained and veteran soldiers to turn them into farmers.
My hands itched as I watched nearly fifty thousand men and women resign from their posts; all were veterans of the wars against the Confederacy, the zerg, the UED, the protoss, and the rebellion, so each soldier I lost to this was incredibly painful.
But it was already done, and if necessary I can always force them back into service, either voluntarily or by putting an explosive in a CMC armor and making them obey.
For now what remained was to distribute the other hectares of land and see if we could do the same in the planet's vast ocean — eliminating all dangerous fauna and leaving only an ecosystem suitable for cultivating some species of fish and plants found in the sea.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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