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23.08.904.M38
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"It was a good peace treaty," Mason said thoughtfully. "But… sixty planets…one hundred solar systems. We don't have the capacity to monitor that much territory, and we know the T'au won't stay idle forever, nor will they respect this indefinitely."
"For the moment, we depend on the sensor network," I replied calmly, meeting his gaze. "The main station is practically finished. We have full visibility over our systems, partial coverage of the Imperium, and constant monitoring of several T'au planets. If they try anything, we'll know well in advance and can act immediately."
"What bothers me is that the war was so short…" Kazimir said, a satisfied grimace on his face. "We could have demolished more worlds, exploited the chaos better. We could have extracted much more from those xenos… or exterminated them completely."
"With what men, Kazimir?" Kurt replied quietly. "The T'au outnumbered us by far. You weren't on the White Star, but their fleet had nearly forty times as many ships as ours, and they stayed cohesive the entire time. Splitting them would have been impossible, and defeating them as well. What Hendrik achieved was nothing short of a miracle: humiliating a power vastly greater than us without being annihilated."
"Our famous hit-and-run tactics would have kept them bottled up in their own systems anyway," Kazimir insisted. "If they dared attack us, we could have gone in, wiped everything out with a nuclear holocaust, and exterminated all the xenos."
"It's not a bad idea," I admitted thoughtfully. "I'll be honest with you, Kazimir. But maintaining relations with the T'au serves us better. They're a market we can exploit, considering we burned fourteen… or was it sixteen?… of their agricultural planets."
"Sixteen," Kurt replied. "Two of them were moons, but they functioned as massive macro-farms the T'au had optimized for agricultural production."
"You see?" I continued calmly, studying the star map. "What we have now is a desperate market. In exchange for minerals. We crippled a large part of their industry, and I doubt they can rebuild it in the short term. They'll have to rebalance their budgets, and a significant portion of their food will need to be imported. With such a massive population, they'll need to buy food—and we can use that need to obtain strategic resources."
"And what about the annexation of nearby Imperial planets?" Mason asked. "How is our infiltration progressing? If we want to stand our ground in the future, we need more population, more troops tested in combat so they can be promoted to the Royal Guard, more battlecruisers, more research facilities, more defensive bases, more shipyards. We need more of everything."
"We recently annexed a mining solar system," I replied coldly. "It doesn't produce adamantium, but it provides large quantities of minerals for civilian factories, tool production, and chip manufacturing. Additionally, I have my eye on a planet that was within the T'au sphere of influence. They were manipulating the lower classes with their Greater Good nonsense, giving away advanced technology to gain trust and facilitate a change of government."
I allowed myself a faint smile.
"My Ghosts took their place. Many prefer working with humans rather than xenos. I've already sent a group with mind-control capability to bring that planet fully under our control."
"Good… one more planet under our control. What's its population?" Mason asked, a calculating smile forming. "I need to know what we can do with them, considering how many worlds we still need to colonize."
"Almost ten billion. It's a hive world," I replied without hesitation.
They all fell silent, staring at me as if I had just said something outrageous.
"Ten… ten billion people on a single planet?" Kazimir said incredulously. "Is that even possible? The environmental damage such a population causes must be enormous. They must live like animals."
"Can we put that planet to work for us?" Mason asked, ignoring the comment. "That's ten times our current population."
"If we redistribute them across the planets we already control, establish colonies on moons and worlds that aren't optimal but are habitable, we can absorb them without issue," Kurt said, tapping the tactical table. "My only real concern is the Imperial cult."
"Any idiot willing to kneel before a 'god,' no matter how stupid, is a problem if it isn't torn out by the roots," Mason replied coldly. "And we're not doing enough to eradicate that ideological filth. I'm concerned about how far the followers of the 'God-Emperor of Terra' could go if we allow them to proliferate excessively as we currently do, especially since our only real control over them is that they cooperate with us while our operatives are frequently reading and influencing their minds."
"The reason we still tolerate the cult is simple: birth rates," I continued in a dry tone. "Worlds with high percentages of Imperial cult followers show population growth rates far above the three percent annually we see among the atheist Terran population. In some cases, they reach up to thirty percent per year when considering their fertile population."
I paused briefly before continuing.
"It's a necessary evil. If we begin eradicating the Imperial cult immediately, those rates will plummet. All our construction, colonization, and infrastructure plans would have to be rewritten from scratch. The only way to sustain growth would be to massively expand the artificial womb program and make controlled reproduction mandatory, in addition to investing enormous resources in development programs to ensure those children grow up healthy and functional, and to subsidize large families."
I placed my hands on the tactical table.
"And that's without counting the fact that we'd have to reduce battlecruiser construction to divert refined materials toward critical civilian components. It would directly affect fleet expansion."
I looked up at the others.
"So the choice is simple: temporarily tolerate the Imperial cult as a demographic tool, or impose fertility licenses on all planets and sacrifice military capacity," I said with a grimace.
"What a mess…" Kazimir muttered irritably. "At least they're brave. Once you strip away their initial fear of combat, they make good troopers."
"Their doctrine is based on hatred of the heretic, the mutant, the witch, and the alien," I replied neutrally. "It's not surprising that their fanatics throw themselves into battle willing to die if they believe they're fulfilling a religious duty."
"Speaking of that…" Kazimir continued. "A trooper stood out during the siege of that T'au planet. Killed around forty xenos and performed well. My men spoke highly of him."
"Do you want to put him in the Guard?" Mason asked. "How long has he been a trooper?"
"Four years. He signed a twenty-year contract," Kazimir replied. "We'll have him with us for quite a while. It wouldn't be a bad idea to give him a promotion and better armor. They nearly tore his arm off; his plating wasn't enough to stop T'au weapons and he kept fighting anyway. Not bad for someone who believes in a 'god'." He marked the word with two fingers, with obvious contempt.
"Promotion by merit is good for morale," Mason said. "It makes the troops willing to take risks that can turn a battle. Corporal?"
I turned my head and looked at Kazimir.
"I was thinking more along the lines of sergeant," he said without hesitation. "One rank doesn't motivate anyone. It has to be clear that anyone can rise high in the Dominion through talent and sacrifice. Look at Kurt: no connections, no patrons, and he ended up an admiral of the Royal Guard just a few years after graduating."
"Fine," Mason agreed. "But I'm sending him to the academy. I'm not giving a double promotion just for pulling a trigger. He has to earn it by learning tactics."
"That's fine by me," I said.
"So what's the next plan?" Kazimir asked. "Do we resume piracy attacks against the Imperium, considering we've proven we can hit multiple points at the same time successfully?"
"We need to watch our own space," I replied after thinking it over. "We can't disperse our forces by sending them far away to capture Imperial merchants. First we consolidate. Rebuild the T'au planet Dal'yth, see if we can negotiate food for minerals, and evaluate how far we can expand heavy weapons production."
"I understand," Kazimir said. "And knowing those blue bastards, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to foment internal rebellions if they see us distracted. So let's focus on producing more and more battlecruisers until we can defend our borders and, at the same time, resume attacks on Imperial merchants."
"Yes…" I nodded. "And by the way, where's Harlan? I sent for him, but he hasn't arrived."
"He's still affected by the information from earlier," Kazimir replied. "He's not in his best state, but it'll pass. Old Harlan always gets through it. He'll be back to normal and laughing with us once he comes out of that depression."
"Good," I said. "I was thinking of sending him to cleanse some infested planets. Many of our new conquests host extremely dangerous species. It would be wise to send our infestation-control specialist."
I called Harlan again, and since he was on one of the recently diplomatically annexed Imperial worlds, it could take a while. So we continued planning with the others how to divide the planets, what kind of administration to apply, and which industries to specialize each world in.
Then one of my Ghost approached and whispered in my ear, "Harlan put a bullet through his head. The doctors just pronounced him dead."
"What happened?" Kurt asked when he saw my reaction.
"Harlan… shot himself," I said, slowly rising from my chair as I looked at the others' faces. "He's dead."
The room fell silent. Barely a second passed before Kazimir's chair screeched against the floor as he stood abruptly and ran toward the medical bay.
We all followed, moving quickly through the cruiser's corridors until we reached the medical area.
Harlan was already cold. He had blown his skull apart with one of his pistols; he hadn't used light ammunition. There was barely anything recognizable left. The doctors had done everything possible to reconstruct his skull and leave the body in the most complete state they could.
"Someone must have killed him… someone must have killed him…" Kazimir said furiously, jaw clenched. "Harlan wasn't a coward who would take the easy way out." The leather of his glove creaked with such force that everyone could hear it.
"Commander…" the doctor interjected nervously. "All evidence indicates it was a suicide. The entry position of the round, the cranial explosion, the blood dispersion… it could only have occurred at one meter eighty-seven, which matches the commander's mouth position. The empirical evidence is conclusive."
"Hendrik!" Kazimir shouted, turning toward me. "Don't you have one of your tricks to find out what happened? Anything! Didn't you get some way of talking to the dead from the protoss?"
"That's only feasible with individuals of enormous psionic power, capable of preserving their consciousness through their abilities," I replied, slowly shaking my head. "And even then, I only saw something like that in the minds of the protoss when they spoke of exceptional High Templars. Harlan didn't have that level of power… and I'm not even sure there's a real way to see someone's past."
"Damn it!" Kazimir yelled. "I've known him since I joined the Royal Guard. Harlan would never do something like this. Never. No matter how low he was."
"I have the recording," Kurt said.
The three of us stared at him.
"What do you mean you have a recording?" I asked, fixing my gaze on him.
"I had cameras and microphones installed on all of you," Kurt replied coldly. "Except you, Hendrik. In your case it would've been useless; they're too obvious for someone like you. Ever since we learned what almost killed you… I couldn't afford to trust anyone blindly. So I decided to monitor you."
He pulled out a data slate and set it on the table.
"Everyone out," I ordered, looking at the medical staff.
We waited until the room was empty.
"You've got a lot to explain, bastard," Kazimir said, glaring at Kurt with hatred.
"You went too far this time, Kurt," Mason added, shaking his head.
"Review the last four hours and we'll see what happened," I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
We activated the video.
At first, everything seemed normal. Harlan was reading a book, occasionally looking at images of his family. Then we saw him suddenly stand up and clutch his head.
"NO… NO… get out of my head… NO… they're already dead… do you think I'll fall for that lie?" Harlan screamed. "Never… never… I never desired glory or power. It was my duty… my responsibility."
He kept pacing the room, gripping his head hard.
"No, they're my friends… no, they're my brothers-in-arms… I would never… agh…"
He fell to his knees, staring at the ceiling.
"I… I… I… am a SON OF KORHAL and I bow to no one… ONLY TO THE EMPEROR OF THE DOMINION. You, vile creature, will never subjugate me… you will never break me… I will never be your tool."
He reached for his holster. "FOR ARCTURUS!"
The shot echoed in the recording.
Silence filled the room again.
"I was right," Kurt said quietly.
"A fucking daemon…" I said gravely. "You were right, Kazimir… he died fighting. The best of all of us—the noblest, most honorable, loyal, and brave Terran..... Prepare a funeral with full honors. Three days of mourning. Shut down all factories but keep paying wages. Declare that he died in combat… because that's exactly what he did."
No one spoke for several seconds.
"Kurt, the cameras and microphones are now under Psi-Ops control," I said flatly.
"You've got to be joking. Now you're going to spy on us?" Mason said incredulously.
"What did you see, Mason? What did you really see?" I replied, staring him down. "What would have happened if you, Kurt, or Kazimir had been possessed or enslaved by one of them? How much damage would you have caused? And what if I fall?" I paused briefly. "I'm under surveillance too."
"I just hope I don't find compromising footage of myself in my office being used to blackmail me," Kazimir muttered, still staring at Harlan's body.
"Never," I replied without hesitation. "I didn't want to do this out of respect for you. But if Kurt hadn't taken that precaution, this would've gone down as a simple suicide. We never would've known what really happened."
I turned toward the exit.
"I'm going to investigate the planet," I added as I walked away. "I'll probably force an immediate reorganization. I'm not letting this go."
I left the room without looking back.
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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.
-------------------------------