The Martial Unity

”Alright folks, we’re here!” Captain Flia shouted to her crew. ”Time to bust out the drills and the space debris sweeper and start eating up all that juicy esoteric matter floating about! Prioritize Transcendent-grade esoteric matter above all else. We get in, we clean house, we fill up the bag, and then we head back home. Simple and easy. Let’s go!”

The Seralia Syndicate had been eager to get its hands on esoteric matter, since that was the hardest resource for the syndicate to acquire. Esoteric matter was treated as a matter of civilizational security and importance, and the Gaian Alliance was more involved in its acquisition and distribution than with other resources.

The syndicate’s goal was to eventually emerge from the shadows, and some amount of esoteric matter was necessary for that. The organization would need esoteric matter in order to have a star system for a base, one that only they controlled. The Seralia Syndicate and, more specifically, the Seralia Family sought to become state actors rather than remaining rats that scurried in the darkness.

The destruction of the Blood Cult had tempered their ambitions a little, but not enough to abandon the idea. Once they controlled an entire star system, they would be able to force a seat at the table of humanity’s highest meetings.

It was true power.

That was why they had taken the risk of infuriating the Gaian Alliance to acquire esoteric resources. It would become the stepping stone to the greatness of the Seralia Family.

Captain Flia was also personally eager for the operation, since it gave her the potential to truly hit it big. If she succeeded, there was a good chance that she would be promoted to admiral, allowing her to occupy a truly high position in the astronavy of the mafia. It was a prize that she personally looked forward to, which was why she wanted to ensure that the operation was completed with as few mistakes.

”Captain, we have a problem here,” one operator spoke with a nervous tone of voice. ”This star system… we aren’t alone!”

Captain Flia’s expression immediately tensed up. She walked over to the operator’s monitor, studying the long-range security scans customary to be conducted whenever they reached their destination.

What she saw made her feel even more uncertain.

The scans revealed the presence of many spaceships. The structures, the architecture, and the technology they used were very different from anything she had ever seen. They seemed to be woven out of cloth rather than hard structures, their shapes were also quite unusual compared to contemporary design metas in the shipbuilding industry.

They mined space debris across the ruins of Planet Amadeus III.

She realized that if they wanted to get their hands on the esoteric matter, a conflict would be inevitable. Something that they had anticipated as a possibility, but had not prepared for comprehensively. Mostly because she had been instructed to leave the star system immediately if she detected dangerous alien presences within it.

”Dammit!” She cursed with frustration.

She had direly hoped that the operation would go smoothly, but they had been hit with a stroke of terrible luck. It sucked that she wouldn’t be able to succeed and get access to the promotion that she sought, but the orders in regards to what she needed to do was clear.

”Turn it around,” she muttered with a resigned tone.

”…But captain—”

”Turn it around, we’re going back home,” she snapped. ”Damn!”

The crew immediately adhered to her command, initiating a u-turn so that they could immediately get back into superluminal travel. The captain relaxed a bit as the crews prepared the negatron matter pumps, it would be minutes before they departed. Too little time for the aliens to react to their arrival. Even if they tried following them, they could juke them once they exited the star system, since they didn’t need to visit any star system thanks to their energy independence.

STEP

Everybody froze as two presences appeared behind them.

The presence of what could only be described as gods. The laws of reality that held as absolute as invintium melted in their presence. The very fabric of reality became just that, a fabric. A web with countless strands that connected everything with everything else.

And the center of the web was the two beings of unfathomable power. They were the nexus, the singularity of power around which all things revolved.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

Captain Flia felt chills crawling across her skin as she heard a peculiar and eerie clicking sound coming from behind her. She slowly turned, her expression growing horrified as she caught a glimpse of the two creatures behind her from the edge of her.

The sight of the two humanoid spider-scorpion creatures was horrifying to her. They had six eyes on their face, with an upper torso that was distinctly humanoid and female in its anatomy, covered in a uniform, but dense golden fur. While their lower bodies were a strange fusion between that of a spider and a scorpion, a stinger like appendage emerged from the rear end of their body.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

The pincers on their mouths clicked continuously in a communicative manner as their eerie alien eyes bore into hers. There was a distinct horror and despair associated with looking into the mind of someone who was entirely alien, being unable to fathom their mind beyond the chilling realization that whatever the creatures were, they didn’t have good intentions.

In the face of the overwhelming pressure and power from the God-like beings, Captain Flia couldn’t muster even the slightest will or hope of resistance. She simply stood their frozen in horror, praying to the God she believed in to save her from the alien horrors that had hijacked their ship.

She wasn’t stupid, either. She had been briefed on the arakai from the Seralia Syndicate. She knew that she was faced with two unfathomably powerful specimens. She also realized that the Gaian Alliance wasn’t overreacting with its strict prohibition of entry into the star system.

She almost wished that they would kill her on the spot, but the two arakai didn’t so much as a harm a hair on her. Instead, they simply observed and studied, clicking continuously as they communicated with each other.