Zhyvanul, Tirador System, Hegemony Conflict Sector DCX-01The massive sprawling megacity hovered high above what appeared to be an endless desert. The militaristic city itself consisted of numerous massive facilities and hangar bays and workshops and storage repositories, all of which were varied in size.Some were large enough to dock devastators, while others were able to equip only a squadron of fighters at a time. There were certainly many more that housed, repaired, and maintained every other class of ship in the Hegemony.In all, the megacity itself spanned many hundreds of kilometers, and hovered over enormous swaths of desert.Floating in between the cities’ buildings was the inimitable fleet of the Einherjar. Many of their ships were being serviced at the city itself. Or at lea

Unregistered Orbital Station, Unnamed Planet, Unlisted System, Great House de JardinThe last of the Einherjar flashed into the incoming port beacon at the unregistered orbital station. Though it had taken them a great deal of time, they had been able to escape whoever or whatever had attacked them. Of course, the fleet was far larger than the station could handle, but there was no other choice. Their emergency practically demanded it.And it certainly wouldn’t have been bad if it was just the Einherjar.But they brought with them whatever remained of Hegemony Replenishment Facility 114, including lifeboats, defensive ships, cargo cruisers, passenger liners, everything. And no m

Galactic Center of the Milky WaySpinning all around the bright glowing center was a massive cloud of dust and debris. It swirled around the center itself, and engulfed countless solar systems and star clusters within itself. More than that, the cloud helped obscure the glow from those countless stars.Its brightness was truly blinding. Perhaps painfully so.Entire stars orbited in long ellipses around the very center, a few with incredible speeds exceeding 20 million meters per second. Their combined glow absolutely illuminated everything all around them. Their combined heat obliterated everything else.Except, of course, for the very center itself.Instead, the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the galaxy absorbed all of th

Just as Freya was coming to the realization that their fight was nigh insurmountable and that they only held a very slim chance of winning, everything turned for the worse. To her horror, the station’s surface began to shift and move and flow, almost like quicksand. Every crater and scar began to fill back up and cover each of the wreckages and detritus inside of them. The station’s surface swallowed up the broken, destroyed ships that were dotted all over bit by bit as the moments passed.As it did so, the nanite pool dissolved everything it touched. Large swaths of torn armor or chitin plating, exoframes and internal structures, modules and systems, flesh and bone. All were consumed by the station’s nanites and broken down to their finer elements.

“How can the solution possibly be… whatever you’re doing?” protested Freya. “Do you honestly believe that constant conflict makes us stronger? That’s ridiculous!” “You of all people should understand how bodies work,” Anki retorted. “Our physical bodies are constantly at war with the galaxy around them. Simply look at your biological responses to viruses and bacteria. “Your bodies only improve and defend themselves through this constant conflict. Through the constant influx of stronger, more potent phages and antiphages. You can extrapolate this fact across every level and dimension of life. “It is the only way most organisms in the galaxy can survive. Without these base defense mechanisms, violent as they are, none of you would exist.” “That’s a false equivalence!” Claire cried out. “The drogar aren’t viruses or bacteria, and humans aren’t a separate organism from them at all! We’re the same organism, all living in the same cell! “It’s more like our antibodies can’t even tell t