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We have already spent almost a year on this damned planet, and at the very least we have had almost total peace, except for small social issues between the Terrans and the local humans. Some doctors leaked the genetic information of the planet's inhabitants, giving the Terrans a perfect reason for racism. It was inevitable: for members of the Dominion, a ten percent genetic difference was almost the same as being another species.
There was little I could do to change that mentality without turning against my most loyal base. So I limited myself to preventing conflicts from escalating. Luckily, the Terran communities segregated themselves, which reduced friction almost completely… except in situations where they were forced to gather.
As for our technological progress, we had already industrialized almost the entire northern hemisphere of the planet. Heavy machinery, foundries, assembly plants, chip factories… everything worked. We produced almost every component needed to keep this proto–state functioning without depending on anyone else.
I had plans to create more factories and sell them to the local human communities, to increase their purchasing power. Always, of course, under the same rules: any factory could be expropriated without warning or compensation if they showed disloyal behavior. That was fundamental. I was not going to allow anyone to repeat Valerian's liberal mistake.
But I was still waiting for the local human communities to accumulate enough wealth. For now, almost all the credits I myself issued to pay salaries ended up circulating among the Terrans. A few months ago I released millions of credits to settle the salary debt, and the money concentrated in the state factories and Terran households. The locals received only a fraction, as servants or domestic workers.
This year, according to the adjutants, we would have the best recorded harvest: abundant, uniform, and of excellent quality. The use of drones, Terran fertilizers, and scientific land planning would produce enough food for around eight hundred million people.
And this planet only has nineteen million.
Food to spare, reaching absurd levels, but we had jumped from medieval agriculture to ultra–intensive agriculture.
The only production that didn't grow as expected was that of the grox. The pacification plan was progressing well, but the reduced birth rate —by denying reproduction to problematic individuals— made the annual growth of the herd fall from the expected 10 percent to only 2 percent. Even so, with the genetic treatment to eliminate aggressiveness, projections showed that in a few generations the grox would be completely docile.
We had everything needed to start a demographic explosion and sustain it. But most of the food would go to preserves, military preparation, emergency reserves… and the ghost program.
Yes, I'm the biggest hypocrite in the universe: my whole life was destroyed by the ghost program, and here I am preparing the foundations to send hundreds of children into the same hell I lived through.
But as our great Emperor Arcturus said: "there is no sacrifice too great to ensure the survival of the Dominion."
In the end, I was the one giving the order to continue this damned program. I was the one condemning the next generation. Only that now memory wiping would be mandatory regardless of the recruit's origin: a single maniac seeking revenge was enough to destroy everything we had built here.
There was only room for one, and that spot was already taken.
The Cerberus scientists had done their part, and we already had a laboratory working with artificial wombs. They were operating with Terran genetic strains selected for high probability of producing psionic individuals. So technically, in some of those tanks my future "siblings" could be growing, if they used genetic material from my parents. In addition, they had added genetic material from several thousand people with higher probability of transmitting psionic gifts.
The first batch showed unexpectedly high results: ten percent of the thousand gestated had a psionic index above five, an absurd improvement considering that under natural conditions only one in million reached that level.
In fourteen or fifteen years, those children would be new ghosts.
I only had to ensure the other nine hundred would also be useful, so I quickly used the authority of the throne to have all of them adopted by Terran families settled on the planet.
In other developments, we had taken a monumental leap after discovering adamantium.
After months studying it and trying to figure out how to cut it to reverse engineer it, it became clear that only my Protoss psi–blade —stolen from a High Templar— was capable of cutting the material with relative ease.
At least we now knew in theory how to produce adamantium: we had all the required minerals, the procedure, the mixtures, and the catalysts. The problem was the fabrication method: the temperatures required were so absurdly high that we would cause an environmental collapse if we tried to use a furnace on the surface. We would melt half the ecosystem with just the residual thermal radiation.
With only one productive planet, that was unacceptable.
Therefore, the only viable option was to build a space station dedicated exclusively to the smelting of adamantium, processing the minerals off–world.
Recently we sent several cruisers to the nearby asteroid belt, where we detected enormous mineral reserves rich and pure, and in quantities surpassing any planetary deposit. The low gravity allowed us to use modified repair robots for mining.
That catapulted us far ahead of our energy and metallurgical quotas, to the point where we had already begun constructing the orbital adamantium foundry.
All to produce battlecruisers with adamantium armor.
They would be twenty times more expensive than one made of neostell… but it would be worth it.
We did not know what Imperial ships were made of, but it was reasonable to assume adamantium was one of their primary materials. Matching their armor was essential. Our warp engines would give us mobility advantage in any battle, but we had to survive long enough to take advantage of short tactical jumps and allow the bomber squadrons to do their work against Imperial ships.
"So, how's everything going, Kurt?" I said as I checked that the magnetic system of my boots worked correctly while advancing along the platform.
"Well… one could say. It's not easy to design a space shipyard at the same time as a foundry that has to be practically as hot as the sun," the admiral replied, moving with difficulty inside his suit in the construction zone.
"It's necessary. We need to produce adamantium in large quantities to armor our ships. I'm sure their vessels use something similar," I said while continuing across the structure.
"With the cost of a single adamantium cruiser, we could produce twenty neostell ones if we perfect the production lines. Having twenty more ships than the enemy is better than one super–ship," Kurt replied.
"And with what crew do we fill those cruisers, genius? Do we have trained personnel to staff a hundred more cruisers?" I asked, staring at him through the visor.
"No… but objectively it's better to have numbers than quality. You can exploit multiple weak points of the enemy. You know it well: thanks to having more numbers than the usurper we were able to besiege Korhal, even with the Celestial Shield active," Kurt said.
"True… but it's almost certain the Imperium uses adamantium as the general armor of their ships. If they can use it in combat walkers, it's logical they use it in their fleets," I replied.
"It's a possibility. But until we have certainties, we should go for the basics… and see if we can recruit something more on this planet," Kurt said while giving orders to construction robots and work teams.
"At least let's leave the facilities ready. If I'm wrong, we can use the foundry to mass–produce neostell and build conventional cruisers. We wouldn't lose anything," I said, shrugging.
"Certainly. In the worst case we'll have a foundry ready to produce thousands of tons of armor for the— wait a second… repeat what you just said," Kurt said, going rigid. Someone was speaking to him through the com.
I approached while he continued listening.
"Are you sure? Confirm what you saw… what do you mean you observed a ship of those proportions? That's impossible. Are you saying it's bigger than the White Star? …Are you drunk on duty?" Kurt muttered, com still open.
When I reached his side, I continued hearing parts of the transmission.
"Yes, I heard you. Are you telling me that recently a ship arrived in the system… far larger than our heaviest and best–armed cruiser…?" Kurt said, tension in his voice.
"That's not good, right?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"No. One of your operatives, whom I sent to map external zones, reports that, dozens of light–years away, a ship appeared on a world he was investigating. It stopped and anchored near an inhabited planet. He says the ship is colossal…" Kurt said, visibly nervous.
"Fuck… the Imperium is here. And we're not ready for a battle," I said, feeling logic begin to crack in my head.
"Approximate size: 12 kilometers long… 8 kilometers more than the White Star… 6 times larger than a Gorgon-class… almost 22 times a Minotaur–class. It's a beast…" Kurt said, swallowing hard. "And it's only one… just one. The Imperium has millions of planets under its command. That's just one of their ships… what the hell are we going to do? We can't fight that. It must be armed to the teeth…"
"Calm down, Kurt. You're the calm and patient one of the group. We can still wait and see what it does. If it withdraws, they won't know we're here. We don't know their intentions," I said, trying to keep reason in place.
"And if it comes toward us? What do we do if this thing is made of adamantium, like you say? Nothing in our arsenal can pierce it. Maybe the Yamato… maybe… and even if we win, they'll call for reinforcements. Hundreds or thousands more. We're finished," Kurt responded, increasingly agitated.
"Calm down, idiot… we're not lost. They don't know we're here… and if it's anchored, it's the perfect opportunity to infiltrate. I'll enter the ship and see what I can do from inside," I said while walking toward where my stealth ship was docked.
"Don't get yourself killed… you're the one who prevents Harlan from killing himself with Kazimir, and much less get discovered. If they know we're here, we're finished," Kurt said.
Finished? More like we'd have a century before reinforcements arrived… unless a planetary governor nearby had his own fleet. In that case, they could arrive sooner.
I began gathering the Emperor's Shadows, because this required only the best. No one else.
They could not even suspect we were there. Only those of us who mastered the art of stealth enough to use psionics to silence our footsteps, manipulate the air, and control heat emission until becoming completely undetectable, even to the Dominion's most advanced sensors.
Only remained to see whether we could also fool Imperial auspex, tech–priest sensors, and in the worst case… an Imperial psyker aboard.
I assembled a team of ten. It didn't take long to gear up and begin the journey, using our warp engine to reach the coordinates given by the operative in the area, a safe region to jump.
It only took us a few minutes to cross the distance. We emerged from the jump at a distance sufficient to observe the colossal shape of the Imperial ship.
It didn't take long to notice dozens of smaller ships going up and down from that metallic monster.
With the cloaking devices active, we approached the planet using it as cover, traveling through the ship's blind spot to enter the atmosphere undetected.
Upon reaching the planet, I immediately noticed it was an Agri-World—vast stretches of farmland covering most of its surface—anchored by a small hive city at its center. The hive wasn't a colossal megastructure like those on major Imperial worlds; it was compact, modest in scale, rising only a few hundred meters above the plains. Despite its presence, the planet still maintained a fully functional ecosystem, far from the environmental collapse typical of larger hive worlds—clearly designed to feed billions, not to house them.
"Any sensor detected us?" I asked one of the operatives who was alert for any anomaly.
"Nothing at the moment, Lord Regent. We have not detected any radar signal or other conventional detection method."
We continued advancing until reaching a densely urbanized area.
There we saw several Imperial ships landing.
We decided to move away a bit from that area and descend in a quieter sector.
We left the ship, cloaked, and entered the city quietly.
If we were lucky, they were only passing through. And we would save ourselves the headache that fighting the Imperium under these conditions would bring.
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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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