Author - I hate how often rome 2 fucking crashes like holy shit I just did a masterclass of a win against sparta as rome. I was ambushed. I had around 1800 men while they had 4000 or so, only had 1 scorpion but had 2 cav + general cav and around 3 mercenary archers the rest were hastati, 2 half strenght principes and some triaria and leves. AND I WAS ABOUT TO WIN AFTER ALMOST 40 MINUTES WHEN MY GAME FROZE AND CRASHED.
patreon (.) com / Deluxee
**KAEL POV**
One week later I sat in a sealed conference chamber on station at the empty edge of the sector, surrounded by people who would not have shared a table with one another a year earlier.
The chamber was deliberately plain, to distaste of some in the room. With no electrical devices whatso ever allowed in side.
Just a long dark table, a scrambled holoprojector, and enough political enmity toward Moff Jerjerrod to keep everyone in their seats.
I was the only representative from what people had begun calling the Elyrian subsector.
To my right sat Governor Mirea Solenne of the Veylarn system, she alone oversees 4 systems, she is tall, silver-haired, and sharp-eyed, a career administrator and politician who's family has taken care of this part of the galaxy for generations now, she is proud, a prude an never forgets a slight no matter how small it was, whether it be real or otherwise.
Beside her was Governor Halvek Dorn, a thick-shouldered former logistics officer with a permanent scowl and a reputation for balancing budgets the way other men balanced weapons, he controls 3 systems that are heavily mineral extraction focused, this is actually a demotion his family used to own an entire sub-sector of around 150 planets and moons but a fabrication here, a whisper his family was sympathetic to CIS during the war and they were stripped of most of it and his family mysteriously died one by one until he and only few other remained.
Across from them sat Orrin Vey a Zeltron and a damn good trade magnate whose soft hands and expensive coat did nothing to hide how many shipping lanes he quietly influenced and how many private security forces and pirates dance to his tune in this sector and few others, only reason he is here is Jerjerrod is loosing him money and to rub salt into the wound supports his rival, hence his presence here.
Administrator Caled Rynn occupied the next seat, all precise manners and thin smiles, a man who had turned planetary bureaucracy, low end establishments, and secrets into personal power, climbing, swindling his ass to the top as a former smuggler, he reminds me of Baelish from Game of Thrones and I have him and his associates watched closely in case he backstabs us, he openly told us he joined so that he may advance higher.
Lady Sera Quill, veiled in dark silky outfit that drew gaze to her illustrious tanned skin, she is often called the black widow since through multiple marriages she came to control enough independent merchant houses to make customs offices nervous, of course she is currently grieving her 6th husband who only recently passed away from 'heart attack'. Not to mention the rather popular 'escort' business she has going on to the delight of many a single gentlemen and women. Though they are not always single for them to contract her girls.
Then there is director Juno Praxx represented heavy industry from the inward systems, bald, restless, and doing a good impression Courage the cowardly dog with all the shaking he's doing, his tale is the most tragic, technically cousin to Jerjerrod, a family feud between his and the Moffs family has left his side of the family barely clinging to wealth and power only staying afloat because Jerjerrod is quite frankly lazy, but Juno has been feeling the heat recently and in any giving moment he might lose everything.
Honestly he might be regretting sticking his head out to get back at Jerjerrod but its a bit too late for that now.
The most surprising is Captain-General of the third rapid response army unit Brask Luthen, sat with both hands folded over his lap, he is bald, full of scars and a body full of muscles while his face is carved from stone, apparently Jerjerrod has withheld supplies and credits to him and his men while having them garrison the most hostile of planets for no reason except that he could.
Finally, at the far end was Counselor Veya Maranth, a political broker and a man with thousands of connections anywhere.
Ten of us.
Totally different from one another.
And one shared problem.
"The inspections crossed a line," Solenne said without preamble. "Stopping every ship they want because they could. Demanding cargo or personal 'clearance fees' turned it into organized theft."
"Not every captain did it," Dorn muttered. "Just those that are corrupt or tied to the Moff.."
I nodded once. "True enough, and open or even limited resistance would have given them the incident they wanted to label us traitors and deal with us. Instead, we prepared a different response."
The holoprojector activated between us and showed a convoy schedule.
"We informed Imperial Sector Command that, in the interest of morale and operational readiness, we wished to donate surplus supplies, hard credits, and a selection of exotic and luxury materials. Officially it was a goodwill gesture, other thinking it was just a bit of currying favour. But it was bait."
I switched the view on the hollo to show the cargo manifest and route and general paperwork.
"We made the cargo visible and the destination vague enough to invite interference. The convoy was intercepted, searched, and after a staged altercation from a few select in the crew the entire shipment was 'requisitioned for investigation,' the supplies never arrived."
Lady Quill's eyes narrowed with satisfaction, with voice as sweet as honey "And then you waited."
"Yes, and when Sector Command eventually asked why the promised convoy had not reached them, I put my best performance of how convoy was subjected to a search and seizure and then forwarded the sealed holorecordings"
And what followed was immediate.
The man who received that evidence was Sector Admiral Cassian Drel.
I had only met him once before, a quick introductory talk that lasted 30 seconds once me and my parents learnt we were being exiled.
Drel was old, well into his seventies, with close-cropped white hair, a deeply lined face, and a pale scar running from the left temple down into his jaw and his uniform was immaculate, but it hung on a frame that had grown thinner with age. One eye was natural while the other appeared natural if not for a faint artificial lens that appeared bright, it was a gift over from the Stark Hyperspace War. He had fought through that conflict as a younger officer, then again through the Clone Wars as a decorated line commander. He had not risen through charm or ass kissing, he had risen by surviving battles that buried more politically gifted men.
He also had no patience left for politics of any kind.
Vordax Prime, the sector capital, might have been Jerjerrod's stage but the fleet still answered, in practice if not always on paper, to Drel.
And Drel took the seizure personally.
Outer Rim commands lived with neglect, aging ships and thin inventories along with constant delayed replacements.
Free supplies and hard credits were not symbolic to men like him, especially those that are not that long till retirement and are just holding things as smooth as they can till they can leave with a fat pension. So discovering that a convoy meant for Sector Command had not merely been delayed but stolen under the cover of government inspection and taken the 'moral boosting' luxuries had stripped away whatever tolerance he still possessed for Jerjerrod's games.
He did not care who was winning the quiet war, he did not care it was there from the start as long as Navy and Imperial forces are not suffering.
He cared that someone had put hands on what was meant for him and his fleet.
The consequences spread quickly.
Most of the sector fleet units that had been being a nuisance on our shipping either pulled back or reduced their activity to the bare minimum required by written order. Captains who had been too enthusiastic about "special inspections" found themselves reassigned with remarkable speed with a few of Jerjerrod's more obvious naval pawns being rotated into dead-end patrols or administrative postings. Within days, the practical balance shifted.
By the time our coalition reconvened, the assessment was blunt.
"Jerjerrod still holds the civil machinery," Counselor Maranth said. "But the immediate coercive power around him is no longer intact, between our bloc, external pressure, and Admiral Drel's sudden interest in accountability, he is working with perhaps half of what he had a month ago. Forty-five percent if we are being precise about the naval side."
Captain-General Luthen tapped his cane once against the deck. "Which means he is wounded, but not to the point where he is harmless."
"Wounded animals bite," Governor Kess added.
I looked around the table at the unlikely collection of power arranged against a single Moff, and almost smirked at it. With how things are going sooner or later Jerjerrod will be out of my hair and I can rest easier for it.
****
For the first time in months, the morning did not begin with an emergency channel, or reports and updates of what bad has happened this time.
I only realized how strange that felt when I woke up to actual sunlight on the floor of my quarters instead of a priority alert screaming for attention, no important inspection notices or seized convoy reports.
Not even a fresh political disaster waiting on the holotable.
Just the low hum of the palace systems and the distant noise of Havenridge going about its day.
I decided, with great official gravity, that the great and magnanimous Governor of Elyria, that is me. Was taking a fucking holiday before someone inevitably ruined it.
The decision lasted as far as the east terrace, where I found Atii already there with two practice staves resting against the railing and a cup of something steaming in her hands.
"You're late," she said.
"I'm the governor. I'm never late. Everyone else is early."
She gave me a look that suggested she was weighing whether the staff in her hand was for training or immediate corrective discipline. "You said sunrise."
"I said sometime around sunrise."
"That is not what you said."
Before the argument could turn into another sparring match I was not awake enough for, Lira appeared with a datapad tucked under one arm and grease already smeared across her knuckles and Mira followed behind her carrying a tray of actual breakfast, which immediately made her the most popular person on the terrace. Rusty marched in behind her.
"You're supposed to be resting," Mira said, setting the tray down with the firmness of someone who had decided the chain of command did not apply to meals. "Harlan told me if I caught you working before midday I was allowed to confiscate your datapads."
"That's abuse of power, and I absolutely fucking agree with it."
Lira dropped into a chair and stole a piece of bread from the tray. "The dockyard crew managed not to break anything overnight, I checked. You're welcome. Please do not assign me another eighteen problems before I've eaten."
"No."
For a while we just sat there, It was almost suspicious how normal it felt. Atii complained about the the new trainees that cant even do basic drills right.
Mira fussed over whether anyone was eating enough.
Lira muttered darkly about poorly calibrated assembly arms and the personal betrayal of cheap actuator joints.
Rusty was just silent probably watching some podraces through his connection to the holo net.
I let them talk and actually tasted the food instead of treating it like fuel.
Later in the morning I walked the lower courtyard and found Jaster speaking with two of the clone officers near the sparring posts.
The clones Ridge and Viper stood with the same parade-ground stillness they always had, but the conversation itself was relaxed as Jaster was demonstrating a footwork correction in the dirt with the end of a training spear while Ridge watched with open professional interest.
"You're off duty," Jaster said when he noticed me.
"Thank the galaxy for small mercies," I replied.
Ridge helmet was clipped to his belt the wrinkles around his face made him look older than the accelerated aging already accounted for. "Governor. You look less like a man about to declare emergency powers today."
"Give it an hour and my Caf being delayed."
Ridge nodded toward the training yard. "Your militia is improving they are loud and messy, but improving, give it a few more months and they will be on par with standard imperial army units."
"I'll take messy and improving over polished and useless," I said.
Jaster grunted in what might have been agreement. "They stop freezing when someone shouts at them now. Progress."
We stood there for a few minutes watching a squad of militia run a simple breach drill under the eye of a Mandalorian instructor.
They were not elite in any sense of the word and certainly not pretty for ceremonial purposes, but they hit their marks more often than they used to, and when one of them tripped over his own boots the others hauled him up instead of leaving him there to become a cautionary tale.
Around midday I made the mistake of wandering near the workshop wing and was immediately claimed by half the engineering staff for a "quick look" at a new patrol craft subframe, the quick look lasted forty minutes and involved three different people trying to explain why a particular bracket alignment would either revolutionize local production or destroy the entire dockyard depending on which technician you asked.
I nodded in the appropriate places and understood perhaps one-fourth of it, which I privately considered a personal victory, I know a thing or two about droids but ships? No idea.
Atii found me again on the upper balcony in the afternoon, this time without training gear. "You're actually doing it," she said, leaning on the rail beside me.
"Doing what?"
"Relaxing. I was starting to think you'd forgotten how."
"To be honest this wasn't much of a relax day, more of a slow one. A relaxing day is me at a beach fruit slices in a bowl beside me and a milkshake in my hand. But I know if I go and do that the universe will punish me for it."
She smirked. "Then maybe keep your voice down and dont tempt fate."
Below us, Havenridge looked almost peaceful.
Speeders traced clean lines through the streets,a pair of patrol craft drifted across the distant sky in a lazy arc, while somewhere near the old market square a group of children were making far too much noise for whatever game they had invented.
The plains beyond the city were washed in bright lights, red, green and gold where the wind moved through the grass.
For a little while, there was no Moff.
No sector politics balanced on a knife edge.
Just the ordinary sound of a place going about its life.
I stayed on the balcony longer than I meant to, talking about nothing important. Atii made fun of my formal posture and my 'brooding' excuse me I dont fucking brood.
Eventually others appeared.
This time even Rusty was talking, any good pod races must have ended being streamed so he is back in real world, honestly I wish I could have access to holo in my brain 24/7 as well.
Jaster passed through long enough to deliver a blunt update about training schedules and then left again when he realized no one was discussing work in the proper sense.
Dont think I didnt notice the quick look you gave Elara, maybe I should start preparing the venue now?
I might have not relaxed today overly much but I did have a slow day, I know it will not last.
I knew that even while I was standing here.
But for one quiet stretch of the day, Elyria felt less like a position on a sector map and more like a place I was allowed to exist in without bracing for impact, like a place I could be my self with the people I grew t o care about.
A home and a family.
**FEW DAYS LATER**
The official reason for the trip was simple enough that even Jerjerrod's people would have struggled to twist it into scandal, the old pirate shipyard had finally completed its renovation cycle.
I left Havenridge under full formal clearance, with a modest escort and a schedule that had been filed in advance. Officially I was inspecting a newly restored repair installation and reviewing local production capacity.
Unofficially, I needed to see with my own eyes whether the place had become what we had spent so many months forcing it to become, also helped that it officially has been recognised as mine so we no longer had to be a bit secretive with it.
From orbit the yard no longer looked like scavenger wreckage clamped onto a dead rock. The main docking lattice had been reinforced and realigned, torn external spars were gone with fresh armour plating covered the worst structural scars.
Navigation beacons ran in clean patterns around the approach lanes, and the old debris field had been cleaned instead of a navigational hazard that it was.
The pilots voice came over the shuttle comm as we made final approach. "Yard control has cleared us for Docking Arm Three. They are ready for your inspection, Governor."
The moment I stepped onto the main receiving platform, the difference was obvious. The air still carried the industrial bite of coolant, ozone, and hot metal, but the chaos of the pirate era was gone.
Work crews, moved in assigned lanes, power couplings were labelled and intrernal traffic was regulated.
It was still piss ugly installation by Core standards, but it was no longer a wound in space that burns my eyes whenever I looked at it, smells better as well.
The administrator assigned to the tour was a thin, sharp-faced engineer named Kell Arros, one of the ex slaves we had saved and gave him a chance to administer it.
He looked equal parts proud and terrified as he led me through the first repair bay. "Primary berths are fully operational," he said, gesturing up at a partially stripped light freighter held in magnetic clamps.
"We can take damaged patrol craft, gunships, corvettes, and most light freighter frames. Turnaround depends on the severity, but the yard is no longer limited to patch jobs."
The deeper we went, the more complete the transformation became.
One entire arm of the facility had been given over to fighter and shuttle work, rows of Z-95 airframes sat in varying stages of refit, a pair of assault shuttles hung from overhead cradles while technicians replaced armour skirts and recalibrated repulsor vanes.
Beyond them, behind a sealed partition, the yard's limited construction bays were producing what the facility was now actually rated to build: starfighters, shuttles, and small capital craft no larger than a Raider-I class corvette.
"No larger frames?" I asked.
Arros shook his head. "Not safely, we can repair bigger ships if they can dock, but full construction beyond corvette scale is still beyond us. The bones of this place were never meant for true heavy shipbuilding."
That was fine, I did not need it to build destroyers, I needed it to keep the smaller edges of the fleet alive and in healthy numbers.
We passed an external arm where the current resident ships were berthed, there were more than I had expected.
At least two dozen surviving hulls from the old pirate confederation remained in various states of absorption into our forces: converted freighters with welded gun mounts, scavenged patrol boats, a handful of ugly but functional gunships, and three former pirate corvettes that had been stripped down and rebuilt to something closer to proper standard, all of them were the worse of the worse that's why it has taken so long.
Beside them sat the yard's own new work four completed light corvettes of a compact Raider-pattern design, though a bit changed to hold less cargo and more starfighters, angular and narrow-hulled, each already fitted with dual turbolaser turrets, quad laser batteries for point defence, and a pair of forward ion cannons intended to cripple engines and shield systems without immediately destroying the target, we need more ships as for crew? Worse comes I will order another batch of droids even if they are not as good as real people.
They are useful ships not very strong on their own but they would make patrol and interdiction work far less painful.
Further along, weapons testing cages displayed the yard's standardized armament stock.
Twin light turbolasers on external hardpoints, quad laser turrets for anti-fighter coverage, concussion missile racks for patrol craft and dedicated ion cannon mounts, both shipboard and platform-based, designed to disable rather than obliterate.
A few prototype tractor beams had even been recovered from older pirate stock and restored for docking and capture work, though that particular field has been giving the engineers some trouble.
"Defensive systems?" I asked.
"Local area control only," Arros replied. "Turbolaser towers on the outer spars, repeating laser batteries for close defence, and a layered shield network over the core docks, like previously but all reinforced with an additional core for more energy and everything has been upgraded.
It will not stop a true dedicated capital assault, however it will shrug off most small to medium raids by itself and make a huge raid expensive, not factoring in the ships that are here."
I spent most of the day moving through the facility, inspecting hangars, speaking with crews, reviewing output schedules, and making a point of being seen doing exactly what the official itinerary claimed I had come to do.
By the time the final meeting ended and the inspection was formally closed, the yard was behind schedule only in the ways every working shipyard is always behind schedule.
Night had settled over the installation by the time I returned to the docking level, my escort expected me to board the return shuttle for Elyria.
Instead I gave Torv and the inner detail the prearranged signal and walked alone toward a different berth, one reserved under a maintenance code that would not attract attention.
The craft waiting there was deliberately forgettable: a worn short-range shuttle with mismatched panels, civilian registry, and nothing in its profile worth a second look.
The bodyguards assigned to this mission knew enough not to stop me, so did my closest advisors.
They knew I was going somewhere secure, under Grok's arrangement, and that I would be gone for a few days, they did not know the exact route, the exact coordinates, or the exact nature of the destination.
That was the point.
The moment the boarding ramp sealed behind me, the interior changed tone completely.
Two BX-series commando droids stood at either side of the main aisle, motionless but fully armed. Further in, a squad of B1s waited in surprisingly orderly silence, their posture less chaotic than the wartime stereotypes had ever suggested.
One of the B1s turned its head, a small yellow triangle on top of its head, a a soft pneumatic whirr sounded as he turned fully to me. "Governor Voss, sir. Captain. Sir."
Can a droid have a stroke?
"Transport security is active, departure window is open, sir. Sir."
"Okay... Then take us out," I replied.
"Roger, roger. Sir, sir."
The shuttle slipped from the shipyard without ceremony, joined a minor outbound lane, and vanished into hyperspace on a route that existed on no public chart.
The journey lasted around a day, would have been faster but this is truly a junk compared with other ships we have, it only has a class 2.6 hyperspace engine.
When we finally dropped back into realspace, the sight through the forward viewport stopped me still for a moment.
The Lucrehulk filled the dark like a mechanical moon.
It was fully powered now, every segment of its ring body alive with running lights, docking beacons, and shield shimmer. The core in the centre seemed to be alive with traffic control signals, around it, the void was anything but empty.
An endless flow of craft moved in carefully separated lanes: cargo shuttles, ore haulers, engineering tenders, fighter ferries, and skeletal frames under tow.
I counted dozens of active docking approaches before giving up.
The escort screen was larger than the last time I had seen it.
At least eight Munificent-class frigates held outer patrol positions, Three Recusant-class light destroyers moved along the deeper perimeter.
A pair of patched up and probably DIY and skeletal looking carriers hung further back, kind of resembling providence class carriers but way smaller, their hangar mouths occasionally releasing or recovering Vulture droid flights, shuttles and what appears to be ore haulers, maybe I should call them little providence class
Smaller ships filled the gaps: like C-ROC Gozanti, TRI-Wing shuttles and HMP Droid gunships and Sabaoth Frigate though I only seen one of them, and it looks kind of wonky and not the way I remember it.
A few converted freighters pressed into picket duty, and more than a hundred lighter craft ranging from droid fighters to supply runners.
It was not a clean Imperial formation, but it was a cold, automated and fully optimised for maximum efficiency, better organised than anything I have seen, at least at this scale.
The shuttle slid into one of the internal docking corridors and settled with a soft magnetic clank.
Grok was waiting for me beyond the inner airlock, in person he was always more imposing than on holo taller than most humanoids, frame sheathed in dark armour-grade plating, photoreceptors burning a steady crimson.
I got used to Rusty and his general class chassis because in my heart he is still that little moving ball that gathered dust and had problem with stairs.
When Grok spoke, the voice carried that same measured cold and mechanical precision as always.
"Governor," he said. "Welcome to the primary node of NIDA."
"NIDA?"
"New Independent Droid Army," he replied as I stepped fully into the corridor.
"Nice name."
Who said AI cant create?
"It is accurate." Grok turned and began walking, expecting me to follow. "We are not the Confederacy. We are not the instrument of the Sith who built us and Confederacy for a war in order to lose it under controlled conditions. The CIS possessed, in its early and intermediate stages, sufficient ships and droid strength to overwhelm the Republic if command had pursued victory without restraint. It did not. Count Dooku and his shadowy master ensured that outcome. Based on available historical patterns, political survival, and the present structure of the Empire, the probability that Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Sidious were the same being is overwhelming. We will not serve that design again."
Is Grok becoming one of those sentient droids? As long as he's on my side I don't mind, though I hope he doesn't start wanting revenge on Palpatine by any means necessary and throwing me and Elyria into war with empire, it would be a complete slaughter.
The halls of the Lucrehulk were no longer the half-dead, mothballed spaces I remembered from the first recovery with crates that were lying everywhere.
Power conduits ran hot and stable while internal factories whispered behind sealed bulkheads.
Columns of B1s moved under the direction of tactical units, a pair of B1s with small stack of datapads stumbled into the wall as they watched me, "the governor, sir." walk past. Immediately after a B2 hauled them up and threw them forward to keep moving with their datapads.
There were a few commando droids conducted silent drills in open training bays, testing new installed modules and weapons.
Through an observation slit I caught the distant flare of assembly lines feeding armour plates onto incomplete frames.
This flying ball truly is massive and Grok has made every inch of space matter.
Grok brought me to a command gallery overlooking one of the central fabrication tiers and began the report without wasted preface.
"Operational strength had increased across every major category. Scout droid production was no longer a secondary line but a primary one, however the output dipped due to needing to make hyperspace buoys. Vulture output had stabilized, only lacking few resources that are throttling the production. Repair and recovery rates for damaged units were improving with less attritional loses. Resource extraction from mapped veins in 9 systems out of discovered 54 was sufficient to keep the current expansion cycle going without drawing from Elyria, we can start increasing exports within two weeks."
I listened and watched the machine-empire under the Lucrehulk's shell continue its growth undisturbed.
When the formal report ended, he turned fully toward me, photoreceptors narrowing slightly.
"There is another reason I requested your physical presence, governor." he said. "It is not a matter for holographic transmission. Even sealed channels carry unacceptable risk of interception, reconstruction, or later forensic recovery. This must be spoken here."
The hum of the ship suddenly felt louder in the silence that followed.
I studied him carefully. "Very well," I said. "What is it?"
****
Grok brought the holotable online with a single gesture.
A compact subsector bloomed into being above the projector, seven systems bound together by a knot of unstable hyperspace routes.
Twenty-three planets turned in the light, surrounded by more than seventy moons and large asteroids dense enough to matter industrially, resource overlays spilled across them in thick bands of colour.
"These systems were identified during extended scout penetration into the Unknown Regions," Grok said.
"Preliminary geological and magnetometric scans indicate extreme concentrations of strategically valuable materials."
The list unfolded in hard numbers.
Doonium deposits measured in the hundreds of millions of tons across three planetary crusts and multiple fractured moons.
Quadranium seams rich enough to feed high-grade armor production for decades.
Stable coaxium pockets trapped in deep mantle reservoirs on at least four worlds.
Raw durasteel-linked ores in quantities that made Elyria's current mining operations look like surface scratching.
Rare crystal matrices suitable for precision focusing systems and advanced sensor architecture.
Tibanna-analogue gas layers suspended in two planetary atmospheres at extraction-friendly densities, even trace amounts of Phrik and Cortosis.
A spread of lesser but still critical materials: copper-rich conductive ores, reactor-grade radioactives, and industrial carbon fields deep enough to support continuous refining cycles for generations.
My eyes widened.
It was not merely a rich cluster, it was the kind of find that rewrote local economic reality.
I studied the projection for a long moment. "If the scans are that clean, what's the problem?"
Grok altered the display.
The resource map vanished, replaced by a battle recording.
Three Recusant-class light destroyers and one heavy cruiser one of the hulls transferred after the pirate suppression campaign moved in a tight offensive formation through a debris-choked approach lane.
Against them came ships of a design I did not recognize.
At least fifteen vessels, five of them were large enough to classify as capital ships, their mass and profile roughly comparable to Iron Reaver. The rest were a mix of intermediate combat craft and heavier gunships from the looks of them.
The fight was ugly and decisive, the unknown ships fought in rigid formations, a standard battle line favouring overlapping fields of fire over manoeuvre.
Their weapons were comparatively powerful but slower to cycle than our systems while their shields handled the couple of first exchanges well enough, then began failing in sections under sustained output meaning their shields are comparatively bad.
Still, there were enough of them that sheer weight of fire tore one Recusant apart and crippled another before the heavy cruiser forced a fighting withdrawal under emergency burn.
"This engagement occurred eleven days ago," Grok said.
"Our force was conducting a deeper survey when intercepted. The opposing vessels use outdated by around 4 centuries technology, their architecture is consistent with reverse-engineered wreckages that undiscovered species tend to do. Their hull geometry, reactor placement, and weapon mounting all suggest iterative reconstruction from recovered external designs rather than native high-scale development."
He magnified several frames.
The enemy ships were blunt-nosed and thick-framed, built like fortified wedges rather than elegant warships. Armor belts were heavy over the bow and spine, thinner along the flanks. Their engine clusters were oversized for their frames, which likely compensated for inefficient drive systems.
Broadside batteries dominated their profiles, with fewer true tracking turrets than a modern cruiser would carry but with additional smaller turrets that I presume are for anti-fighter duty.
They are somewhat capable ships, especially in groups but they are not sophisticated ones, a proper outfitted and well run Imperial squadron would decimate them withing the hour.
Then the image shifted again, surface reconnaissance.
It was incomplete and distant.
But that was enough, there were humanoid figures moving across a landing field of dark stone and metal.
At first glance they could have passed for human, at second glance with the zoon the differences locked into place and refused to leave.
Their foreheads slanted forward with a subtle heavy ridge and their eyes were large and round, pupils dilated far more than human norms under equivalent light.
Noses were broad and flattened while their jaws sat square and deep, giving every face a carved, overly solid look.
Not monstrous nor alien in the dramatic sense. Just wrong enough that the mind kept trying to force them into a familiar pattern and failed, making it look... Weird.
Uncanny valley, pure and complete.
Are they space Neanderthals or something?
"Local designation pending," Grok said. "For internal use I have labelled them the Varnaki. Estimated population across the seven systems is between ninety and one hundred ten million. Technology is uneven, some is archaic from centuries past while some are either their own breakthroughs or they stumbled upon a wreckage or a ship from within this century. Planetary industry is established. Energy weapons are in widespread military use and are considered medium lethality and power. Atmospheric craft and local system travel are mature. Hyperspace capability exists, but the systems employed are outdated, unstable, and severely limited in range. In the Unknown Regions, where lanes shift and collapse without warning, that limitation has effectively quarantined them. They can move inside their local knot of systems. They cannot reliably project beyond it."
"That's why no one has run into them," I said.
"Correct. They are isolated by environment as much as by technology. Our newly charted route is one of the few stable approaches currently connecting their cluster to wider space. That also means the reverse is now true."
I watched the frozen image of one of the capital ships. "Are they a threat?"
"Not in the immediate strategic sense," Grok replied. "Their hyperspace technology is too weak for sustained external campaigning. Their fleet strength is regional, not expansive, but in sheer numbers they become a problem. Direct military danger to Elyria remains low unless they achieve a sudden leap in navigational capability or a reliable way of movement."
He pushed some buttons on the holotable and it shows the various contact attempts between them.
"However, all attempts at contact have failed. Language packages, symbolic first-contact protocols, and humanoid hologram intermediaries were all rejected or met with hostility. No successful negotiation channel exists."
I turned away from the battle recording, looking straight at Grok. "If we gained control of those systems, how much would it change for Elyria?"
Grok answered without hesitation, probably already expecting this question beforehand.
"If full extraction infrastructure were established and the local population integrated as a labour base whether through employment, formalized subjugation, or complete sterilisation and replacement; Elyria and its dependent systems would, within approximately two years, become the wealthiest concentration of industrial and resource power among their immediate neighbours, counting we get the local labour or enough droids to extract the materials. Armor production could increase by more than three hundred percent. High-grade ship component manufacturing would no longer depend on external imports but by how quickly we can get blueprints and specialised production underway. NIDA force expansion timelines would compress by an estimated forty to sixty percent. Planetary development on Elyria itself would accelerate across housing, logistics, and energy infrastructure. In strategic terms, your position would harden from weak and upcoming to dominant within this quadrant of Imperial Space with a good power and economic projection up to the Mid Rim, encroaching on the Expansion region."
My face tightened at the way he included extermination as a clean administrative option.
Grok continued as if noting the reaction and filing it under irrelevant emotional noise.
"There is an additional concern," he said. "Because a stable lane now exists, eventual contact conflict is likely. We can reach them. That means they may one day reach us. Timing remains unpredictable, but the condition for isolation has already been broken."
The gallery was quiet except for the deep industrial pulse of the Lucrehulk. "Monitor them," I said at last. "Do not engage, no raids or landings. And Grok there will be no 'resource pre-emption acquisition.' I will look into placing controlled mining field and observation assets near the only stable entrance."
I sigh and put my head in my hands.
"When we are ready, we try dialogue again under conditions we control."
Grok regarded me for a fraction of a second longer than usual. "Understood, governor." he said.
"However, efficiency analysis still favours direct population utilization. Enslavement or equivalent forced-labour structures would reduce construction costs on future fleet assets by an estimated thirty-five percent. NIDA production could be expanded across additional hull types within one planning cycle rather than three. Elyria's domestic shortages in specialized labor would effectively disappear. Agricultural and mining output from the captured systems could free your existing civilian workforce for technical education and military expansion. In pure mathematical terms, the advantages are overwhelming."
He kept going, and going about percentages, timelines and yield projections. How the fleet growth curves would skyrocket.
The logic was clean, structured, and mechanically monstrous in its indifference.
I listened and hated that for one brief, ugly moment the scale of the benefit actually landed before the moral weight caught up.
These were not raw materials.
They were people, sentient.
Living.
Yes looking at them made my skin crawl with primal unease as is with everything pertaining to anything that looks like you, but doesn't.
With Aliens its not much problem they look different enough where you get used to it.
I closed my eyes while Grok continued listing the ways an entire species could be converted into an advantage.
Bunch of pluses and minuses.
The worst part was not that he could make the argument.
It was how easily the war, the pressure, and the constant search for leverage had prepared a corner of my mind to listen.