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Hundreds of robotic arms worked without pause, sweeping across the assembly lines while a few engineers fine-tuned the last details. In barely two weeks the factory had transformed into the production hub that would finally complement our military needs. At last, we had everything required to properly equip the future troopers.
As a military force, the troopers represented the absolute last line. If they were fighting a direct engagement, it meant we had already been shattered in orbit and the Royal Guard completely annihilated. That was why their equipment didn't need to be cutting-edge… but it did need to be reliable, durable, and lethal enough to hold back an Imperial Guard regiment for just long enough for our main forces to arrive.
Armor was the priority. A common lasgun could overheat and punch through inferior plating with ease, so the armor had to dissipate thermal energy efficiently. Traditionally this was done with thin layers of aluminum and thermo-insulating polymers arranged in millimetric strata, so I designed an equivalent system: full-body armor without servo-assistance, no internal support systems like a CMC suit, but with enough protection to absorb multiple hits before failing.
Since I couldn't arm them with C-14 gauss rifles—far too powerful for a human without a CMC; firing one would shatter every bone in their arms—I had to look through old Dominion archives for alternatives. A C-14 in unarmored hands was essentially an anti-tank cannon firing hypersonic spikes sixty times per second. Completely unviable.
Our stocks of depleted uranium were limited and strictly reserved for the Royal Guard. I couldn't waste that ammunition on light infantry.
So I settled on the Ferromag SMG, a newer Dominion design meant to be used without power armor. With tungsten ammunition—abundant on this planet—it maintained respectable penetration without tearing the user apart.
Not a perfect weapon, but more than sufficient to form a militia or garrison capable of resisting an Imperial Guard assault for several hours. And we didn't need more than that.
Once the lines were calibrated, the robotic arms began producing dozens of armor suits per minute, alongside hundreds of Ferromag SMGs. As long as resources flowed—and the mineral deposits on this world were exceptionally rich even before accounting for the asteroid-belt resources in the nearby system—the factory would maintain that pace effortlessly.
The reports from the cruiser sent to investigate the planet three systems away arrived sooner than expected, and confirmed exactly what I feared: it was an eldar world.
Sensors detected colossal macrofauna: massive reptilian creatures roaming the plains like cattle. Large concentrations of flying reptiles too. Clearly part of the cultivated ecosystems the eldar seeded around their settlements.
The "calling" my Ghost had felt now made sense. It wasn't a trap or a directed psychic signal. It was the soul of the planet itself—or more accurately, the amalgamation of eldar souls absorbed into their spirit stones.
Unfortunately, Kurt had already seen the report. For him, every habitable world was another piece of the Dominion's industrial puzzle: more production, more population, more manufacturing capacity, more strategic leverage. The idea of abandoning a perfectly terraformed world bordered on sacrilege.
Kazimir's reaction was also predictable: unknown alien species, potential threat—exterminate before it grows. I could almost hear him saying it.
But this situation was far worse.
Eldar weren't like the hive-gang scum we had just purged. They were lethal—fast, precise, unnervingly agile. Their weapons could likely pierce even CMC armor with enough charge. And worst of all: if we destroyed their spirit stones from orbit—as would inevitably happen during bombardment—the planet would flood with daemons eager to claim those souls before we could even descend.
Orbital bombardment was not an option. Ignoring the planet wasn't either. And taking it by force… that would be a slaughter.
A single eldar warrior could slip through an entire squad of troopers and decapitate them all before anyone reacted. Their psykers alone could tear our forces apart like paper… and we didn't have the millions of soldiers the Imperium could afford to lose.
Any ground operation would be a massacre. The numbers were all wrong. The options even worse. And yet… the planet was too perfect an opportunity for expansion. Too perfect to simply abandon.
But I couldn't risk it. I couldn't open fronts in every direction. I needed to be disciplined and focus on the four worlds we could colonize with proper terraforming.
Days passed as we gathered more information. Even though we now understood exactly what kind of eldar world this was, almost no one in the Dominion's leadership truly cared about it. Their gaze was fixed on the inhabited Imperial worlds.
Reports filtered upward through the command hierarchy: first the Ghost operatives with their stealth ships conducted reconnaissance; then the data reached me to evaluate the planet's defenses; finally, I forwarded it to High Command. They prepared contingency plans for invasion or defense. I couldn't hide information from my generals—only a fool sabotages his own commanders by withholding basics.
And the pattern was unmistakable: poorly defended worlds, incompetent governors, fragile supply chains, and planetary garrisons that existed solely to meet the Administratum's minimum quotas.
That was our real focus. Three, perhaps four worlds that could fall in days with minimal logistics and well-coordinated sabotage.
Compared to that, the eldar world—strange and tempting as it was—offered no immediate opportunity.
Only unnecessary risk.
Many worlds had practically no defenses left. Their local PDFs were shrunken, poorly maintained, underfunded shells of what they should have been. It was like having a ripe fruit dangling in front of us—protected only by an incompetent fool pretending to guard it. There were so many requests within High Command to launch lightning strikes and overwhelm several worlds at once that it felt like only a matter of time before someone lost their patience and ordered a massive advance.
It kept me on edge. The problem wasn't only the eldar world. It was having to restrain a cadre of aggressive officers hungry for glory, men who saw a "weak" enemy and immediately fantasized about tearing its resources away. My job was to suppress their impulses before one of them acted independently. That was why I reinforced security on every battlecruiser, ordering Ghost operatives to watch our own commanders, not the conquered. A few commanders were far too close to making unauthorized decisions, and one reckless move could doom the entire Dominion.
The only people who seemed to understand their place were the inhabitants of the newly conquered hive world—now renamed Agria, due to its resemblance to the frontier world of the old Dominion. The population accepted the change of rule with surprising speed, and within days we began relocating part of them while I put my colonization plan for the Hoplon system into motion.
For several days, a significant portion of our fleet was dedicated to transporting resources—neosteel, heavy machinery, atmospheric modules—to erect domes and laboratories that would serve as the initial foundation for the terraforming process. We had to restore breathable atmosphere where only ash and silence remained.
Hoplon I and Hoplon III, according to field scientists, appeared to be planets that had undergone multiple extinction events. Early analysis revealed massive concentrations of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen fused into the surface—clear indicators of Exterminatus-level cleansing. There were orbital burn marks, vitrification patterns, and geological layers warped by extreme energy detonations.
Hoplon IV revealed even more detail: two hive cities reduced to rubble, littered with unexploded ordnance, and crater patterns so deep and uniform that they barely looked natural. Someone had systematically bombarded the planet until it was nearly erased.
Meanwhile, preliminary studies on Hoplon II were advancing at full speed, searching for logs, technological remnants, or any evidence that might explain what had happened in that system. A double extermination was rare—one this thorough was almost unheard of.
"You look destroyed…" Mason said as he approached while I sat alone in my office.
"The last few days have been hell. The Royal Guard is falling apart between my fingers. More and more members are requesting discharge, and I don't know what to do to keep them. We once had six hundred thousand here… today we're not even half that. And every day more leave for civilian life. I know I can't keep them all chained…" I said, exhausted from trying to keep this government alive.
"This is the weight our Emperor carried on his shoulders," Mason replied. "Our problems differ, yes. We're not besieged by two races trying to kill us, but we're hiding from the Imperium, and we have nowhere to recruit more Royal Guard. Before, we selected among military veterans, but now no one meets that standard. The new recruits are troopers who aren't even terran." He handed me a data-slate.
"What's this?" I asked as I rose from my chair.
"The results of the New Korhal factory sales. I thought you'd want the full auction details," Mason explained.
"It's ideal. Only the industry that directly serves military ends must stay under our control. The rest is dead weight—if we don't unload it, it will drown us. The AI can handle many tasks, but we can't increase its cognitive or administrative capacity without building massive data centers, and you know all the issues with processors, memory, and energy," I replied while reviewing the reports.
"Well, there's good news for your plans. Much of the food-processing industry ended up in local hands: canning plants, preserved-goods factories, liquor producers, slaughterhouses—most were bought by cooperatives. It seems groups of farmers pooled their resources…" Mason said, though his discomfort was obvious.
"I see…" I murmured while examining the data showing that nearly all advanced industry had landed in terran hands.
"Most laboratories, processor plants, robotics manufacturers, and much of the heavy and light industry were purchased by terran buyers. Kazimir acquired all the genetic clinics you ordered installed—except the ones remaining under government control. It looks like he intends to maintain control over who may be considered terran," Mason added.
"Yes, that was expected. Most of the wealth is terran; naturally things would end this way. Make sure every factory transitions quickly to its new owners and disconnects from our central processing network once they assume control. That will free computation capacity for the administration of Agria and expand Korhal's support infrastructure," I said while pacing.
"As you command," Mason replied before leaving.
"How difficult it is to govern this group of racists…" I muttered, staring at the void beyond the window.
"Hendrik, do you read me?" came Kurt's voice through the communicator.
"I'm on Korhal. What is it?" I answered.
"We have the first adamantium battlecruiser ready. I thought you might want to be present for its maiden voyage," Kurt said.
"I'm on my way. I'll use the protoss matrix to get there faster," I replied, already turning toward the transposition chamber.
"Well… at least in this area we're making progress," I said with a faint smile as the pylon lights began to glow.
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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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