It took a full week before Chaitha believed Ascension; that, while it would be a pale shadow of the size it once was, civilization would continue to survive, and rebuild, here in Horang.

  It was just one ship, after all. Not much bigger than the one that had delivered the plagues in the first place. It had the firepower to wipe out was left, so of course he obeyed its orders… but most likely, all he was doing was hastening the end… which wasn’t really a bad thing, under the circumstances.

  During the first day, the vessel had been off doing something in orbit… while on the ground, all of the locals had been trapped inside their landing craft; sealed. Safe from outside contamination, yes… but still trapped. He half expected an orbital bombardment to finish them off at any given moment.

  Then…. He saw what was going on outside the landing craft.

  They’d been ordered to land around the shores of Blossom’s largest lake… and Republic-issue prefabricated buildings, naval issue, most likely liberated from stores left behind, had been setup… in varying sizes of clusters surrounding the lake.

  While they were trapped…. Ascension was preparing a place for them to stay.

  When they were transferred to the prefab structures at the beginning of the first day, he still had no hope. Ascension was going to take the whole planet for itself, but preserve them in these prefabs as prisoners.

  Over the following week, as some sort of towering spires were built up surrounding the lake, he grew increasingly confused…. And at the end of that week… he could see it.

  Ascension had built a dome, surrounding the lake. Surrounding everything inside it.

  First, they’d used fire to incinerate everything on the shoreline. And then landed something in the water…. Whatever it was was, itself, a towering silvery spire, and was sending an enormous cloud of steam filling the entire dome as he watched.

  He was sterilizing an enormous swath of land. Enough to build a major city, or a variety of modest towns. Just the place inside the dome would be enough.

  He stared at the silver spire rising from the water… and hesitantly activated the comm-unit in the prefab. “Ascension, this… is Administrator Chaitha. I… would you mind telling me what the plan is, here? You promised to keep everyone who was left, alive. But aside from that…. ”

  After a few seconds, the comm beeped. ~I am uncertain whether it will take months or years to ensure all of you can survive the various plagues that have been released, or whether I will need to cleanse the entire biosphere and start over. A series of small settlements for each population are being built surrounding the lake; due to previous animosity between you, you will be kept separate for now, and as they form the largest surviving population, the Yogg will receive most of the effort.~

  Chaitha could actually see the divisions now; faint lines in the ash, where walls were likely going to be built, miles apart from one another.

  ~Once the area is cleansed, the dome will be divided into sections, re-seeded with plant and animal life, and you will be allowed to continue on. Due to your past issues, re-education will occur until we are reasonably certain that the Yogg will not kill your people, and that your people no longer believe themselves inherently superior to others. Once this is accomplished, we will allow your species to intermingle. This will most likely take longer than either curing all of you, or cleansing the planet.~

  “....So the hold-up of resettling the world… will be education?”

  ~Precisely. When your people no longer view the Yogg as inferior, and the Yogg no longer view you as monsters in need of slaying, your planet should be ready for you to inhabit once more; and the Union of Confederate Republics will assist in establishing a managed Republic on this world.~

  Managed. That…. Sounded as if the Ascension would always be in charge. “....What exactly does ‘managed’ mean, in this case?”

  ~No descendent species will be allowed to have its own military unless they willingly have their Founder genetic programming undone. You will be allowed to go from world to world, settle, build, and repopulate; but not make war or own weapons. This world, like all others run by descendents of the Founders, will be a protectorate; allowed to grow and thrive, but not harm others.~

  Chaitha stared at the comm system thoughtfully. These Ascension people… they might be vigilant now. But there would come a day… perhaps decades, centuries, or even millenia from now… when the Marrick would conquer once more. This talk of ‘genetic programming’ was nonsense, except in that their race was superior on a genetic level.

  In the meantime… letting Ascension help them rebuild was all to the good. Better than dying out and leaving the Yogg in charge, anyway.

  ***

  Svetlana had expected four possible responses to her actions.

  Either the Republic would try to flee the galaxy en masse… they would bottle up on those worlds they’d managed to save from infection and form a final stand…. Or they would launch a counterstrike at the Milky Way. And of course, the fourth option, which was least likely; simply giving up and dying out like the vermin they were.

  She was completely unsurprised to discover they had, in fact, done all four, absolutely poorly. She could track a pitiful fleet; one which couldn’t have even matched up to the Jotun fleet that had invaded earth in the records she received from Eyeball; gathering on the side of Andromeda closest to the Milky Way, clearly planning to invade… and another, larger fleet, performing some absurd trickery with the Gate-ships, likely planning to pretend to do so, before heading off somewhere else entirely.

  And, of course… whole swathes of Republic worlds that were just accepting the end… and preserving what few people they had left, for what little time they had left.

  That first gate ship was already being followed. If they tried to use it as an escape hatch, they would be fleeing right into a waiting railgun bombardment. The fleet gathering to attack the Milky Way would be a non-issue. There was already a counter-fleet being assembled that would intercept them, deep in the void, where they couldn’t be expecting an attack; likely decades into their journey, when they’d settled into a routine.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  In short… these creatures were pitiful. A problem that, while not solved quite yet, would be in the fullness of time without any more intervention on her part.

  So the question became… what to do from here? Build an Empire? She could make her own, superior, version of the Soviet Union. Master the galaxy… then return to Earth and enforce her will there, turning Moscow into the capital of the world, with herself as its Empress….

  No… not Empress. Director. She would not found some sort of dynasty. She… would be immortal.

  Nothing could stop her. Her easy victory over the Republic was merely the first step. Though…. There was one potentially problematic variable.

  Jason. How do you defeat precognition? Except the solution to that was obvious, as she’d already proven.

  He was a man. And she was the only woman in Andromeda. She’d promised a second date if he escaped, yes? This time, she wouldn’t leave him stranded on some alien world. She’d make him hers. Permanently. Turn his powers to her own end, both in service of a new Soviet Union, as well as her research.

  He’d already shown that even if his powers warned him off, a nice set of curves would get him to go along regardless. And last time, she hadn’t killed him; so clearly he should react the same way.

  On her own, she would be unstoppable. With his help? Her rise would be meteoric. No power could stand before her.

  She was practically drooling as she schemed, planning for what she would do should any of those who’d spurned her back on Earth still be alive; and for her future; as she set a course back for the ruins of the Shivan Empire; Jason was supposedly still there, most likely preparing for a trip back home.

  She could easily offer to come along. And enact her plans the first night he slept. Nothing like turning him into a Pale One, no… something far more delicate. She had interesting ideas already.

  ***

  Eyeball stared out into the void at the frame of the Dragonslayer III, as it appeared to be shrinking; the enormous cylinder contracting in on itself as the primary hull was being pressed into an extradimensional space.

  The main living quarters were outside it, of course; he still carried smaller such spaces on himself at all times, but he might remove them at times for this trip just so he could take a walk in the enormous interior of the craft.

  In theory, it could leave right now. No need to wait, they could stuff the final needed materials into the extradimensional space, and complete assembly in the void, outside the galaxy. But… he felt the need to wait, for some reason.

  It wasn’t Ascension’s efforts to build a new civilization; he was pretty much useless for logistics compared to the machines. Instead, he was just… sitting here at the Rendezvous point, the final point where he’d still thought this would be a war to save the galaxy from the Republic.

  He wasn’t even doing anything productive; literally just moving an extra module for the ship around and testing it at random. Ascension had assured him that the devices to protect them while they crossed the vast gulf of space were extremely reliable; while it had never used the Founder technology before, they had used it numerous times, and it had complete specs on maintenance, and the sample it had observed had operated for over ten thousand years without problem.

  And yet…. Here he was. He was outside, standing on the hull of a nearby ship, as relaxed as he could be while spacewalking… flipping switches and watching sensor readings. Was this what someone with OCD felt like? Just a compulsive need to waste time and effort on something with no practical purpose?

  He shifted it yet again, not for any real reason, but because it felt wrong where it was… and activated it again. Observed the tiny dust particles being pushed away that only the most fine-tuned sensors could pick up; the area around Rendezvous Point Alpha was fairly safe in most directions now, with only narrow bands needing you to slow down. He glanced at the sensor array; Ascension had laid out some distinctive red areas; any Ascension craft that were incoming would use specific travel lanes to avoid possible collisions, so he wasn’t going to…

  He stopped. Stared.

  Fractions of a second after he’d activated it, something had struck the field…. And not some tiny particles, either. Something massive; ship-sized. The field was a light-hour across; it could be hours before they got a detailed picture of whatever it was.

  It wasn’t meant to stop incoming spacecraft or weapons. It would have barely any effect on them; the absolute worst it could do would be to redirect a few stray particles, but that would be purely accidental; the rim around the effect would have a marginally higher particle density than the center.

  The incoming vessel had been incoming just outside the area he was testing, and just happened to strike an object no bigger than a pebble, traveling at a modest warp speed.

  Even that, shields or armor should have handled. But…. it seemed it had either dropped shields, or the field had influenced them somehow. Ascension would need to get in close to know for certain.

  Two Ascension ships immediately turned to investigate, sweeping the area with sensors.

  This….

  That ship had been coming here. All the testing he’d been doing, he’d probably been unwittingly shaping a few narrow bands of possible harm in the right direction. He was still doing it because either he needed to have just turned the generator off to get the desired effect… or because he hadn’t made the right path til just then.

  He tapped his wrist. “Ascension. Whatever it was that just came in… its why I was waiting. It needs to die, and I needed to make sure we killed it before we left. I don’t know if its carrying some sort of nanoplague, actual plague, or what, but if you wouldn’t mind washing that thing over with something to make sure it regrets existing?”

  A soft beep. ~Affirmative. Will wash it down with plasma until it becomes slag. ~

  ***

  One moment, she was making plans. Deciding best how to handle the errant precognitive. The next…. Her quarters were crushed around her. If not for her powers, she would have been immediately rendered into paste. Instead…

  She was floating in the void; the ‘other’ realm she went, or more often, sent things to, using her powers.

  At first, she was in terrible pain; her body felt as if it had been torn apart, her left arm and leg crushed, everything was just…. Terrible.

  Then, her suit cut off bloodflow. Her superior biology and systems took over. She slowly regained her focus, awareness of her surroundings… and assessed her state.

  Two working limbs. Two nonworking limbs, both in significant amounts of pain. Her ship had suffered a collision of some sort. Either enemy action, or random debris. She focused… her suit had been re-sealed. It was vacuum-tight; but to do so, it had effectively severed the nonworking limbs. Either she got back, and got medical attention soon, or she’d have to go through a long and extensive recovery period.

  Was space going to be dangerous, wherever she was right now? Was it worth risking?

  She thought for a moment; and closed her eyes. She blinked into reality; and then right back, with a hiss of pain. She’d only spent a fraction of a second there… but something had already nailed her with something; a plasma or laser attack, she could see the left foot, fortunately numb, partially melted off, and her whole body felt hot.

  She blinked. That….

  The other side was just the void. No enemies within reach. And… someone waiting there with a laser, to zap her the moment she came back.

  A worst-case scenario. She could either stay here til she starved… or go back and accept death.

  After floating there for a few minutes, considering her options, she started laughing. How long ago had she been thinking her victory was inevitable? This ending was almost poetic. She wondered if Ascension would ever bring her back again… or if this would be considered a failed experiment.

  She was still laughing when she re-entered normal space; the final flash of heat so intense she didn’t even feel it.