It looked nothing like the city I had first crashed in.
Cranes and construction could be seen everywhere. People where moved out of the whole sector before they were demolished to be reconstructed under new regulations.
Gone were the crumbling shells of manufactorums and the blackened hivespines choked by Derenik industry.
In their place, towers of steel and glass now rose everywhere, cutting into the heavens with the pride of a reborn people. Transit lines ran clean and fast. Power grids hummed without interruption and lights had come back to the Hive. Water was filtered. Air was beginning to be breathable in the factories. Men and women labored and fought for the city and planet. The slums were broken down and reconstructed into living spaces with plazas and running water and power.
You could not ignore the shield generators, the walls and the gigantic plasma, ion and magnetic cannons littering the skyline of my capital either.
There is so much work to be done…
For all the triumph etched into the bones of this world, we could do so much more if we were free of the xenos. An estimated seventy percent of the Federation's resources, seventy percent of our GDP, now flowed into the engines of war.
By necessity.
Athenia had risen, yes. But it had not risen alone. It had risen against. Against the Dereniks who still squirmed in the shadows of the void. Against the stars, which hung above like waiting blades. Against the future itself, cruel and uncertain, where peace was not a promise but a lie waiting to fail.
One day, once the Great Crusade had scoured the stars of all our enemies, we would be able to concentrate most of those resources on the people.
To make a paradise where no one wanted for anything. But that would have to wait. For now we would do the basics and build from there.
My crown sat light on my brow, its laurel points forged from the enemy's bones, Derenik steel melted, reshaped, woven with Athenian gold. A thing of symbolism.
The last six months had been full of work, we had to prepare for the return of the xenos, while making and army, integrating the whole world into our structure, rebuilding what was broken and replacing the xeno tech that was everywhere.
So much had happened.
The riots in Hive Orsolya when the food convoys arrived late. The public executions of collaborators and black-market slavers. Penelope choking back tears as she signed her first redirection of resources from the people to the military. Garran being found in bed with a senator's wife… that had been quite the scandal, Garran had been completely unapologetic. I would have expected that from Letho or Dren… not Garran.
It had been nothing short of an iron crucible.
But now our situation was stable, the ministries encompassed the whole world, its orbit and its moon. The people were fed with the Bloom, reconstruction was ongoing in every Hive and city of the planet and fortification was going apace. Reforms were signed by the hundreds and the military was expanding every single day.
The xenos had given us the respite we had so desperately needed and we would make them pay in blood for their mistake.
It had not been bloodless of course, the Derenik fleet had gone to the outer moons and squashed all sings of open rebellion there and now they were doing the same to Olyssus. They had sent long range torpedoes and even some asteroids towards us, but thankfully the planets defenses were strong enough to not get overwhelmed, and now they were growing.
A soft chime broke the stillness. One of the glass panels flickered, then went opaque, displaying a feed from Eaena. A live shot. The moon, the frozen rock full of precious minerals that fed our economy, rotated in perfect rhythm above us. Orbital missile arrays bristled from its surface like porcupine quills.
The defense grid was complete.
My navy, our navy, orbited like silent wolves beyond it. Fifty-eight destroyers, sleek and black, all Athenian make from the times of the federation. Thirteen frigates, twice as large. A small start, but it would have to do for now until we managed to capture more or build them from scratch.
Today, the Ministries would give their weakly reports. Military. Supply chains. Orbital projections. Admiral Gustav would speak first, I expected. Then Garran. Maybe Penelope too.
Infinite hours in endless meetings… when I imagined being King in the past it was way more glorious.
I looked to the horizon. Past the shining domes of the Ministry of War. Past the elevated rail networks and automated drone silos.
Peace would come again one day. Perhaps. But not today.
For now, we built the future, and won the coming battles signing papers.
People began to flood into the chamber and take their seats a minute later, giving me a bow as they entered. This would be a long day. I walked to my seat at the head of the table and sat after everyone had taken their places.
"This is the twenty sixth reporting of the ministries," I said. "Give me the good news."
"And the bad?" Said Garran with a smirk, being one of my highest military commanders he had a seat here today, as did the highest Admiral and the General of the Air Force, that now controlled all void fighters and bombers too.
"If you slept with another man's wife again, Garran, I swear to all that is good that I will dismiss you…" I growled.
The man had the audacity of lifting his hand in surrender and chuckling a bit. All the same I could see he was chastised.
A slender man in dark gray robes stepped forward. One of Penelope's people.
"By order of the Office of Statistical and Planetary Administration, His Majesty is hereby presented with the population census and military readiness report for the month of Kallion, year one of the Athenian Concord as ordered five months past."
He looked up. "Total planetary population stands at 295.1 billion, with an additional 5.04 billion on Eaena and 856.3 million across orbital habitats and stations. All sectors report full or ongoing integration under central law, with food and water rations stabilized. Birth and productivity rates are within expected thresholds and rising fast."
I went over the reports in a few seconds. Good. Higher than projected by fourteen percent. I said nothing, just nodded for him to continue. It would take a while for the others to read the reports.
"The efforts to increase voluntary inscription in the military are proceeding according to Grand Directive Six. At this moment, 28.4 billion citizens are undergoing formal training or evaluation under the Standard Combat Aptitude Model. Of those, 3.9 billion are assigned to strategic logistics or auxiliary roles. The rest are being deployed in phased formation rotations, beginning with Hive garrisons and outer-system defense installations."
A murmur rippled through the chamber. Garran leaned forward, the gray in his beard more prominent lately. "Are those figures sustainable across quarters? We've had spikes, but long-term—"
"They are," Penelope cut in crisply. She sat to my right, straight-backed and formal in a sleeveless navy tunic. "We've streamlined food production, shifted over eighteen percent of former Derenik manufactorum sites to automated systems, and reopened ninety-six percent of Federation megafarms and built ten thousand more on top of that. The people that were displaced from their jobs are looking for their place in the new orded, the construction industry and the military are filling those holes."
Ariana, seated beside Garran as his aide in full ceremonial uniform, raised an eyebrow. "So we are fine for now. The budget is going well with reallocation to naval construction?"
Penelope didn't blink. "Yes. We planned for a 40 percent allocation of the military budget to the Grand Shipyard. We've only used thirty-two."
"And progress?" I asked.
This time, Admiral Gustav, head of naval operations, rose, projecting a holographic display in the air above the table. He had black hair a perfectly trimmed beard and a serious face. But he was competent and capable. A vast lattice of shipyards glowed red and gold against a starfield, labeled by sectors and sub-facilities.
"We've begun mass production of destroyers using Federation schematics recovered from Archive Theta here on Hive Athenia. As of today, we have completed retrofitting sixty-four destroyers, each one kilometer in length, fully equipped with macro-cannons, flak turrets, and void shielding, taken from the Dereniks. Thirteen frigates are also operational, nearly two kilometers in length and fitted for long-range engagements and fleet command roles."
I watched the display rotate, showing the crescent-ring shape of the orbital shipyards encircling the planet like a crown. We had been reverse engineering all xeno tech we could, and it showed in our weapons systems, anti-grav tech and shielding the most. It might not be the Imperium's Void Shields, but plasma and ion shielding did their work against the xenos in the rebellion, I did not see why they would not do so in space.
"And long term?" I asked.
Gustav smiled. It was rare to see that man smile. "In ten years, we project completion of 1,800 destroyers and 440 frigates. Additional capital ships remain theoretical for now, we have only layed the keel of a few but they will not be fed resources for now. But retrofitting captured Derenik vessels could accelerate our progress. We've made contact with salvage crews on the outer moons, the ship graveyard of the Old Federation might remain intact—"
"That'll be covered next session," Penelope cut in, not unkindly. "But it's promising. For now the main problem with the Grand Shipyard is the rebuilding and automation efforts, it won't get to its past glories for a decade."
The ministers exchanged glances. I looked around the room, measuring their faces.
"No peace, no rest, Gustav. Athenia was not built in a day." I asked. "Morale?"
"High," Garran said. "Unnaturally so. The people see results. The food lines are shorter. The banners are everywhere. They feel part of something greater again."
Ariana gave a half-smile. "And they love their King."
"So long as they work, so long as they fight. There will be no peace for us until this system is ours, and no rest until our banners fly across the stars." I said.
Penelope tapped her slate. "We'll proceed with the full allocation to the black projects as well. Dr. Sorrel reports further breakthroughs."
"I will be visiting the labs for a personal report," I said. "Those projects will form the backbone of the wars to come."
The next minister stood to give his report, Travis Grelis, tall, hunched slightly, and clad in the emerald-trimmed clothes of the Public Health and Sanitation Ministry. His voice was tired, his eyes ringed with sleepless dedication.
"Your Grace," he began with a bow. "The Ministry of Public Health submits its comprehensive planetary update. At current count, we have over sixty thousand fully operational hospitals, clinics, and treatment centers functional across the surface, not counting emergency structures."
"Contamination levels?" I asked without looking at him, still watching the projected fleet rotate slowly above the table.
"Improving. Slowly. Airborne pathogens introduced during the occupation are being filtered at industrial levels, especially near former Derenik industrial sites. We expect it will be several decades before the biosphere rebalances completely. Our larger atmospheric purification project, Operation Celestial Veil, is still in early design. We will present a formal proposal within three to five months. Full-scale implementation, if approved, will require significant material resources."
I turned to face him now, voice low but firm. "It may have to wait."
A ripple of unease moved through the chamber.
"We must first complete the reclamation of orbit, the defense of the world, and the fleet expansion," I continued. "Resources must serve the war. But your proposal will be reviewed. When the time is right, it will be given what it needs."
The minister bowed again, without complaint. "Understood, Your Grace."
The Minister of Infrastructure rose next. Vivianna Greakis, she was shorter, stockier, once a civil engineer in the southern continent.
"Progress continues across all major population centers," she reported crisply. "Reconstruction efforts in the cities and hives are proceeding on four tiers: structural integrity, efficiency, industrial viability, and then aesthetic restoration."
She tapped her slate, and the projection shifted again. Hives lit up like veins across a digital map of the planet.
"All orbital elevators are now functional, including the southern tether damaged during the Siege of Gutteng. The worst-affected sectors have been fully evacuated and are undergoing reconstruction under revised safety and fireproofing protocols. Vertical cities are being reinforced with blast-resistant alloys and powered by clean fusion reactors."
"Aesthetic restoration?" I asked. "You mentioned it."
A small smile crept onto her face. "We have allocated less that one percent of our allocated budget to returning the beauty of Athenia. It is working. Slowly. Gardens are being restored in upper spires. The mosaics of Hive Rodas central atrium are being rebuilt from fragments. Public art commissions are increasing. It's secondary, yes, but not forgotten."
She paused. "The people notice. Even rubble flowers can bloom in the cracks, your grace."
If it improved the moral of the people, then it served us well…
The council continued for six more hours after that.
We reviewed the integration of liberated populations, the stabilization of the moon, the condition of the reclaimed space stations and the expansion of the facilities in orbit.
Reports from the Economic Resurgence Office detailed the first tentative beginnings of a unified planetary banking system and the restoration of long-range commerce between distant hives. The Office of Xeno Containment submitted grim figures on captured Derenik subjects, none of them pleasant. Garran argued policy with Gustav over training doctrines. Ariana submitted a proposal for a merit-based promotion path for frontline troops.
"We are done for today," I said. "We will reconvene next week for our weekly report."
The chamber emptied in minutes. Only Ariana lingered at the doorway, arms crossed, a mischievous smirk tugging at her lips.
"You know, you sounded so Imperialesque back there when you answered Gustav," she said.
I raised an eyebrow. "Did I?"
"'No peace, no rest,'" she mimicked in a deep voice. "All you needed was a thunderstorm in the background."
I chuckled. "Next time, I'll schedule one. Go home and rest, Ari. I will catch up in an hour."
She laughed, then vanished down the corridor. I remained seated a while longer, fingers steepled beneath my chin, watching the holographic projection of my newborn navy drifting slowly above the table.
It was not yet enough.
But it would be.
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It was a relief, walking out of the High Council chamber after I finished reading everything and signing what would do best for the future of Athenia and entering my private quarters near my working space.
I came here often when I did not have enough time to go home to relax.
Let me tell you, reading at a thousand pages every minute helped quite a bit with the administration of a Hive but I still thanked the Empress that I had managd to build such an efficient government under me. Otherwise this would have been hell.
I wasn't alone for long. Footsteps echoed behind me.
"His Grace, King of Numbers and Endless Binders," came Penelope's voice, dry as the desert winds east of Hive Demeteria.
I turned, smiling despite myself. "Wouldn't that be you o' Minister of Logistics?"
Ariana followed just behind her, unzipping the top of her officer's coat and draping it over one arm.
"I thought we were meeting home." I commented.
"You thought wrong," Penelope said, already stepping past both of us and toward the lift that led to the uppermost private level. "He owes us an hour, and I intend to collect."
"An hour?" I raised a brow. "That's a bold claim."
"Bold is what happens when you have six busy months!" Penelope shot back. "Now move. Before I call in a requisition order for your time."
We rode the lift in companionable silence. As the doors opened, we stepped into my private quarters.
Ariana whistled low. "I'd forgotten how nice this place was."
"You've never actually been here…" I said.
"I imagined it from your descriptions." she replied, already unlacing her boots. "Close enough."
…
I could not help but think that Ari was weird sometimes.
Penelope walked past the parlor, through the arched doorway, and into the chamber beyond. "Pool's warm. Come on."
Ariana grinned at me and shrugged. "You heard her, Your Majesty."
Moments later, the three of us were slipping into the pool beneath the domed glass ceiling.
Penelope let out a deep, satisfied sigh. "This is what victory feels like. Us. Together. Not buried under reports or off in different hemispheres. Just... here."
Ariana floated back lazily, her arms resting on the ledge. "I'm not complaining. But if I'm being honest, I expected champagne. Or a harpist."
"Budget cuts," I muttered.
Penelope splashed water toward me. "Liar."
We shared a laugh, the kind that doesn't come easily in the corridors of state.
Ariana turned her eyes toward me then, sharp as always, but softened by the steam. "You know, I'm still not giving up on the crown."
"Oh?" I tilted my head.
"There's only one of you," she said, swimming closer, "but two of us."
Penelope rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Careful. You'll start a civil war."
"Maybe," Ariana said, resting a hand on my shoulder. "But it'd be worth it."
I didn't flinch. I didn't need to. Because beneath the teasing, the flirtation, the tension wound tight between us all like taut string, there was something deeper. Something we hadn't named. I'd walked through blood and ash for them. They had bled for me. Somewhere in that exchange, we'd become more than just friends with benefits.
"I've reassigned you, by the way," I said to Ariana.
Her expression didn't change, but her grip on my shoulder tightened just slightly.
"To Hive Athenia," I added. "You'll oversee the new Military Academy for the next two months. It opens in three weeks."
She blinked, slow. "You're serious."
"I am."
Penelope let out a breath. "Well, looks like someone's getting their vacation after all!."
"Not quite," I said, meeting Ariana's gaze. "But it means we'll see more of each other. If that's something you want."
"Thanks Alex! It will be like old times, just you, Aunt Pen and me… And expensive pools." she said.
It was not something I had expected to find when I realized where I had ended up in.
But…
I love these girls…
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This place did not exist on paper.
Most of the government other than the ministry heads did not even know it existed. Secrecy bred strength. And we needed a lot of it.
Guards along the corridor straightened as I walked past them, weapons crossed over chests, visors black and unreadable. Good men. Loyal to the last.
Not why I had come.
Dr. Sorrel met me halfway down the hall. His lab coat was clean but the elbows betrayed him: wrinkled from hours hunched over instruments. His hair, once tidy, was tied back in a knot gone loose. He looked older. Tired.
"Your Grace," he said, nodding. "You're just in time for the testing."
I needed to standardize the way I was addressed. Some called me Director for that was my official position overseeing the ministries as their head, others your grace or your majesty for my position of King of Athenia.
"How many survived this batch?" I asked.
"Seventy-three of eighty," Sorrel replied. "Ninety-one percent retention. Eight months ago we lost two of four. Or initial projections were way off, but we are getting better." He said steadily.
We walked through the airlock. The chamber hissed shut. Beyond the thick observation glass, larger than any normal man, they waited.
My Spartans.
They wore only compression fatigues, but they were machines of bone and muscle. Not bulky for show, efficient, lethal. Osteo-muscular fusion, nanothread tendons, grafted ligaments.
"Begin demonstration," Sorrel said.
The room came alive.
Four Spartans detached and moved to the heavy load array. Each picked up a half-ton cargo block and carried it as if it were a nothing. Little to no strain. No stumble. They walked twenty paces and set the load down.
Another group sprinted into the reaction gauntlet: lights, alarms, drones, moving targets. One vaulted under a scything plasma blade, scaled a wall, and tagged four drones before they could swirl towards him.
Readouts blinked at my shoulder: sustained speeds of forty miles per hour, reaction times under ten milliseconds, decision tasks performed mid-sprint.
"They aren't armored yet," he said. "Once the Mark-IV exoframes come online, speeds will climb. And all parameters with them."
"And the shields?"
"Unstable against sustained fire," he replied. "Effective versus kinetic and moderate plasma. Redesigns could fix that, but we are still miniaturizing the technology."
"Start mass production," I said. "I am tripling your budget for this project. Approve every facility you need."
Sorrel's pen hovered. Surprise flashed in his eyes. "All of them?"
"Yes. Every one. I want full battalions and divisions of these men."
Ten million in thirty years, I thought. A crude arithmetic but it might work.
We'd need them.
We moved into the training yard. Soldiers snapped to attention as I approached. The Spartans dropped to one knee in perfect unison. Their commander, Thorne, rose, a hulking presence with coal-black eyes and a ragged scar through his brow.
"Your Grace," he said, voice like gravel. "We are yours to command."
Secrecy, funding, sacrifice. We had the plan. Now we would make the men.
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Dr. Vale was waiting at the base of the observation platform in another of the rooms of the facility.
"Lord Apollion!" he greeted, smiling too wide for the hour. "You're just in time. We've made progress. Some, anyway..."
I brushed past him and looked to the center of the chamber.
The Pod's Core floated in a magnetic cradle, suspended in a vacuum sheath layered with reactive stasis fields. A relic of another age, and the last surviving fragment of my Pod.
"Give me the summary," I said, following Vale up the ramp.
"We've mapped most of its tech," he began, guiding me toward a bank of holoscreens. "Its internal structure operates on principles far beyond ours. Every model we build collapses after three seconds of simulation."
"It's Dark Age technology, Doctor. Millennia ahead of us," I replied. "It linked with the Derenik ship over Athenia during the Red Day, in seconds."
He nodded, pulling up a wireframe, a tangled maze of loops, recursive chains, and oscillating patterns that looked like they wished to make my head ache just looking at it.
"But we've managed to extract something," he said, a flicker of excitement returning to his tired face. "A low-level data resonance."
I folded my arms. "Meaning what?"
"It means," Vale said softly, "that the Core isn't a processor. It's a thinker. A living logic lattice. Some form of AI... but not as we define it."
I looked again at the orb. Its surface shimmered in response to the sound of his voice. So a VI, not quite an Silica Animus.
"We've had a breakthrough," Vale went on, his words tumbling faster. "We think we can replicate fragments of its architecture. The data we've pulled allowed us to design a working prototype of a quantum cogitator. It's rudimentary, but it functions, and it's already outperforming every silicon-based system on record."
That drew a pause from the room. The implication was staggering. A working quantum cogitator would change everything, military command, economic regulation, strategic prediction. It would make every model adaptive, self-correcting, intelligent.
For the first time in centuries, we were clawing our way back toward the lost heights of human science.
I stepped closer to the containment field. This was what had carried me to Athenia, what had merged with alien code and rewritten it without effort.
Even from this distance the Empress tough us much.
"Extract everything you can," I said quietly. "It still has much more to teach."
Vale nodded so fast it looked painful. "We have a team running continuous analysis, Your Grace. No interruptions. No downtime."
This wasn't an STC. There were no perfect blueprints, no miracle schematics waiting to be decoded.
But it didn't matter, we would reverse engineer everything we could from it.
After a short discussion with Dr. Vale, I walked off towards the next lab I would be visiting today.
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I'd spent the day moving through every major research bay.
New armor patterns, denser plating without the weight. Adaptive polymers and energy-dispersing alloys from materials teams. Warp-engine prototypes farther along than the timelines said they should be.
Every lab felt like another piece of the future snapped into place.
This was the last stop.
Sorrel walked beside me in near-silence once again.
"This far down?" I asked.
"Containment, Theta-Seven," he said. "Triple reinforced. A dozen people cleared for access."
I'd authorized it. Reading the reports was one thing. Walking the corridors was another.
Three gene-lock doors later, each scanning blood, bone, and bioelectric signatures, and the guards fell away. It was just us and whatever waited beyond the last blast door.
The room was dim, ringed by machines. A thick observation pane separated us from a high-pressure chamber.
Inside stood a Derenik.
Stripped of armor and grafts, it looked almost fragile, pale green reptilian skin patterned like tattoos, limbs hanging in trembling restraint. It twitched with each breath, shackled to the floor.
It looked at me.
There was hatred there, but dull. Confused. Fading.
"Three months," Sorrel said, quietly, hands folded behind him. "It's carried Strand 8L for three months. Dormant phase should be completed. We think the virus is now entering terminal activation."
I watched its chest move, uneven. The twitching deepened.
"No counter-response? Immune adaptation?" I asked.
Sorrel shook his head. "Strand 8L bypasses every defense they evolved. Invisible until activation. Once triggered it is irreversible."
The creature convulsed, small at first. A tremor ran through its limbs. Breathing caught.
"Heart rate spiking," Sorrel read from the monitors. "Muscular failure. Neural feedback loops destabilizing."
It collapsed to one knee. A green-black fluid leaked from its nostrils. The confusion in its eyes snapped to fear.
The coughing started. It doubled over, as if something inside had broken. Then it screamed, its skin blistered, its veins blackened.
Then it fell silent and didn't move.
Internal systems shut down. Cellular structure collapsed.
The virus had finished its work.
Next to the fallen xeno lay examples of xeno tech, and half of them were bleeding fluid, they had been broken too. Not all of them, but too many to be a coincidence. The virus worked on their biotech too.
Sorrel's face had gone pale and steady. "Strand 8L is complete, your grace." he said.
"What's the window?" I asked.
"Six to twelve weeks from infection to collapse," he replied. "Symptoms move fast once they show. It spreads along their formations before it kills them. Days, sometimes hours, between first signs and… termination."
"A perfect weapon," I said, the words small and cold. "Silent, precise, and irreversible."
"Engineered extinction," Sorrel said. "It should do significant damage before any cure can be fielded by them."
I breathed for a second before turning my attention to him. We had the problem of not being able to deploy the virus to the whole empire at the same time.
It could eat away at many worlds and spread slowly undetected, but the xenos were not stupid. Not all of them would be infected.
And when they made a cure they would come with a vengeance. Still, it was our best weapon for now.
"Begin preparations for deployment," I ordered.
We would not be using it for now.
But when the fleets came had victory became uncertain…
We had our trump card.