Short update since I'm kinda stuck from where the story goes from here. It's getting all drama-y.
Alex Trusk: Well, usually I say that opinions are never wrong but that's total batshit. I know people who think Hitler was a great guy. They're batshit insane.
RvB: I actually had that idea as well and plan to look into that idea.
Sadfru: Thank you.
Vulkan: Thanks, I've tried.
Daniel: This story is taking place twenty thousand years after Father fought Son. The moment Harry struck down Voldemort is the same moment that Vader killed his Master.
SolidSquid: I try.
Harry motioned the yeoman away, then turned back to the screen, watching their progress in the hologram arrayed before him. The screen showed only the vastness of space. They were in transit between systems, fighters ready to do battle.
The Sith ships were at their maximum range. Less than two days away at optimal speed.
More than revenge for the death of Jedi, he wanted to know how they made it into his space. The Republic, as much as he still had friends in it, was a competing Empire that someday he knew he would have to bring under the Imperium's hand. And the Sith were a scourge he planned to utterly eradicate.
"Sire?"
He turned. "Yes, Admiral Motti?"
"The Empress-to-be requests your attendance."
Harry nodded, pushing back an irrational urge to Force Choke the man. He wasn't sure why but every time he came across the Norean, he always wanted to choke the being.
Harry left the bridge, transferring command to Motti, then walked along the corridors, lost in thought.
Overgeneral Cort walked through the main corridor of Lightside, the Terran Empire War Machine's headquarters, buried deep inside the sun, utilizing quantum displacement technology loaned from another dimension.
Lower officers, including the highest ranked generals in the Empire, saluted and said good morning, afternoon, or evening, depending on their own internal clocks and schedules.
He walked into a large room and a waiting Fremen stood, then removed her mask and rushed across the room. "Daddy!"
"Hey, princess. I see you're my new liaison."
"I was wondering why they assigned me such a boring position." She kissed her father on each cheek, then pulled the mask back into place. Settling onto the desk, she let her legs hang akimbo as her father briefed her on his resumed position, Sublord of the Imperium. A rank just below the Emperor and equal to the regent's in military matters.
He stopped to look at a hard hologram of a large stone tablet, thousands upon thousands of names etched into it. He ran his hand across it and stopped at three names, all were his sons. All had died in service of the Empire. He looked away and said, "Come on..., what's your number again?"
"Jade-beta-romeo-seven. Just call me Jabbers. And that has nothing to do with me being a chatterbox," she said petulantly before he could make the joke.
Cort nodded and they walked out of the office, heading to the canteen.
Harry read the text floating in front of him and nodded, then waved his hand through it, making it disappear. A yeoman made his appearance just then and handed over a datapad. He took it and signed, then sent the young man on his way as Sara's voice asked, "Do you want yellow rice or saffron rice?"
"What's the difference?" he queried, distracted by a supernovae on the display screen.
"About fifty creds an ounce."
"Oh. Go with Saffron rice. Which star is this?" He realized right then the difference. Yellow rice was just a substrain.
"Sigma Oscilloscope thirty-seven. Fifty seven years ago. Pretty, yes?"
He nodded, continuing to watch until the observation post was destroyed. An earlier model, unable to resist the forces of the star's destruction. The latest models would withstand anything except the entropic end of the universe and even possibly that.
Soon he arrived at the officer's dining room. Hinata was sitting with some female officers, speaking and he nodded then turned to get a cup of coffee before leaving again. Walking through the corridors of his warship, he pondered whether he had the rights to guide sophont civilization. Stopping at a view port, he watched Cherenkov radiation outside the ship and shrugged off his doubts. Things were too far along now to end his plans.
He found he had made his way to the gardens and sat down, smiling when a kneazle that had made the ship her home settled in his lap. She was one of the few animals that could make it past the myriad technical and magical impedances to free travel upon the ship. Officers had a running pool on when she would get herself killed in a reactor. The yeomen kept a board covered with 2D photos of her in various off limit areas, betting on when she was going to be able to get into the Emperor's suites.
The kneazle purred happily and he asked, "Ever had a chance to ultimately control every single hectare of the universe?" She batted at an Irish Pennant on his clothes and he nodded. "Of course you have. What cat hasn't? Well, the Terran Empire will control it soon enough." From there, he thought. It's only a matter of competent administration. And making sure sophoncy doesn't stagnate.
Harry watched the tens of thousands of soldiers file into their drop ships, imagining he could hear the thousands of nervous warriors joking and laughing to cover their own doubts and fears. He wondered how many would die in the fights to come.
"Thirty minutes to reentry. Thirty-one minutes from drop." Sara's voice filled the ship.
He turned away from the screens and watched the bridge instantly try to look even busier.
A general handed him a pad and he read the data, nodded, then made a notation with a stylus and handed it back.
The ship fell into orbit and dropships launched. As soon as they hit the ground, Marines and Droids poured out, securing their landing sites, then clearing the cities and processing evidence.
Forty eight hours later, the drop ships launched and it was as if they had never been there. Fields of magic manipulated by War-Magiis stripped the land and air of traces of Terran technology then they departed, the ships on war footings, officers and enlisted on four-on-eight-off schedules.
Hinata giggled. "I like that. My wrists hurt, though."
He smiled at her. "You're such a fleb, sometimes."
Hinata stuck her tongue out at him, then sat up and rubbed her wrists where the scarves had been tied too tight. She ignored the wet spot she was sitting in then blinked when a pink light began flashing. "What's that?"
Sara's avatar appeared, her costume's visage that of Alex DeLarge—though with a sheer costume and a katana—in A Clockwork Orange. The image smiled at both of them. "It means the scanners have picked up multiplying cells inside your body. In other words," her accent shifted to Cockney, "'e's knocked ya up right en' propa, wot."
Harry put his hand to his forehead as Hinata squealed in joy.
"Get dressed, lass," the AI told her. "The medicos are on their way."
"That accent was fucking terrible," he told her and pressed the switch to clean the room as Hinata pulled on her thin shift.
The door slid open and a woman in a white labcoat was revealed, followed by two Gorvarians—two meter tall exoskeleton clad 'jellyfish'—carrying her gear.
"Your Majesty."
Harry motioned her in and went to the wet bar, fixing himself a drink as the doctor gave Hinata a brief, yet thorough, physical. "Do you want to know the sex?" she asked.
Harry shrugged. After three hundred sons and four hundred plus daughters, he didn't care anymore.
"I want to know," Hinata said as she stood, stretching.
Harry didn't hear. A blue ghost appeared, watching him from outside his window. Hermione smiled at him and winked, then faded away. He took a deep swallow as prescience took over his mind. "It's twins. A boy and a girl," he told them.
The doctor nodded. "Yes, my lord. Twins."
"I'm going out for a walk." He disappeared.
"What's wrong?" Hinata asked, surprised at Harry's cold tone.
The doctor shook her head and left the room. Sara's image appeared and she smiled sadly. "The last time he had twins a very wise old hag made a prediction. His next set of twins would cause a war that would decimate seventy percent of sophont life."
