Chapter 472 - Far Future Ch. 182 – The Thirteenth Hour (1/2)
I had some interesting discussions with the forensic teams carting stuff off, as I had some fairly good ideas on what all the stuff was used for... and at least sixteen different items went on one-way trips to the sun when they were deemed to be passive scrying interfaces for alien entities. I could talk tech with any of them, and moreover, could sweet-talk them into approving the costs of the tech required to replace what they tearing, cutting, hacking, dissolving, burning, and shooting apart, sometimes with rather aghast expressions.
Yeah, de Krov was not going to be remembered for anything except quietly vanishing.
None of this meant I was standing idly by, of course.
A hundred of the newest Sixes spread out into Downspire from a Sword-Rift from Gloom. They'd have new identities inside the day, and the Green and Gold would have its first recruits shortly thereafter. A few got to work helping me with paperwork.
Oh, and twenty thousand men were shuffled aboard the Witch Killer discretely, Marked as crew, and got its refit of systems done in literally record time. It was only in dock two weeks before it departed on a quick mission, was gone for a month, and came back with even more crew, and a load of basic processed ore for sale.
The de Krov toadies who had been ruling his pet planets had been shot all to hell, and there were some Ranthas and Briggs with severe administrative talents and urges to build up their own planets installed to replace them. With them came some Printers for some hi-tech stuff, and within a generation, those worlds were going to take a big leap forwards.
The Umbrans went all over the Promise and its tech, and hard men winced at some of the drow additions that we removed and shot off into the sun. Nevertheless, disposable combat assets were something the Inquisitors of the Umbrans could eagerly make use of.
So could a lot of others, actually. Unleashing a few thousand combat cyborgs on a planet would really raise the old body count, after all, even if they weren't full-on brains in a box...
Two hundred Vats were quietly installed on the Glorious Bastard, and the first generation of my girls to be born on this side of the Rift were underway.
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The heir of a noble family was confirmed dead.
Mining sites and factories of a megacorp were confirmed lost.
Four colony worlds were confirmed obliterated.
Contracts had not been picked up by certain families, or had been transferred to others.
Certain individuals had been convicted of Warp sorcery, heresy, treason, blasphemy, and their belongings impounded and families dispossessed.
Worlds had died in war, sons and daughters serving on the far side of the Rift were sent to glorious deaths or glorious victory.
And money moved as the facts came out under the Mimir Protocols, and set the galaxy on its ear.
Someone had gotten through with news!
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In Gloomheart, my three girls saw the city subtly roil as they figured out that humans had managed to come through the Underweb to deliver the message. Of course, it was not impossible, as they had traitorous and deranged humans passing through all the time, but they definitely had to make sure it wasn't a constant thing.
They had very little idea that there were a lot of men and machines pouring through Sword-Rifts generally no more than two minutes long, in and out... and that the younger generations of the hyn that had escaped into the shadows of the Gloom were all leaving for, ah, brighter grounds...
Of course, Madame Lolith was looking for the girls and I to exchange views on lethal entertainment with us, but found them nigh-impossible to lock down, even with a LOT of drow eagerly looking for them...
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Investigations undertaken on the other side of the Rift dealing with cults, cabals, covens, and criminals that had been severed from counterparts in the greater galaxy suddenly had connections that could be exploited here. Six wars broke out, a mega-corp died, nine noble houses were extinguished, and all in all, something like fourteen billion people died as a result of the information being released and the investigations that followed over the course of the next decade.
And hard Rantha eyes were there to profit from all of it, naturally enough.
With three planets of my own under control, expanding the ranks of Briggs and Ranthas became much easier... which was important, as there were a whole lot of planets in the Imperium, and it was going to take hundreds of thousands of them just to get one per settled system!
Yeah, the Empire was big.
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The release of the information across the galaxy also had an effect, some good, some bad.