Chapter 13: Ruins
Before departing down to Estcallia, Vexis releases invisible dark matter wrapping the planet orbit. As a precaution, she checks the surrounding planet using her dark matter for enemies. "Looks like they fully left after bombarding the planet." Vexis updated the situation to Naiki as he gears up. Vexis seems surprised that he is wearing his old combat clothing and not the new one. Lena watches the cloth materialize on Naiki. The emperor once more covered with black clothing; but this time with his hood and tattered cape. "Let's go." Naiki says shortly before the three of them teleported down directly at the ruins of the capital. It was lifeless with destroyed buildings and debris everywhere, even the streets for the hover cars was destroyed during the bombardment. Lena suppress her sad emotions of seeing the capital in this state of devastation. Naiki deactivated the Storm Fortress's cloaking system for any survivors to see it.
He directly goes to the remains of the palace with Vexis as escort. Lena decided to wander near the front of the palace. As she scouted the area, she finally spotted some life. A few demi human and human children searching something beneath a fallen down building. She goes there immediately, the children quickly to recognize her. "It's the Princess!" they shouted while running to her. The voice alone rang through the area; even Naiki and Vexis hears it from the palace. Both quickly make their way to Lena. "Princess Lenora, do you have some food? We're hungry." The child says to Lena. Lena quickly looks out to Naiki that is approaching from behind. The children sees him and quickly ran away out of fright from his appearance. Vexis sees few watching eyes from the area where they are. "Darling, I count around 100 to 200 people that is here. All of them throughout the planet have gathered here at the capital. No others on this planet including livestock or normal animals." Vexis says it heavily at him in the earshot of Lena. "Clean the atmosphere of this planet Vexis while I distribute the emergency provisions from the fortress."
Hearing Naiki's orders, Vexis channels her powers with haste. Her normal red eyes lit up as she separates the massive amount of carbon into space and thickens the breathable oxygen including the ozone layer. Naiki finally see survivors pops into view as in awe watching the changing sky. "The Empress is amazing." Lena says it to Naiki. He only shrug as Vexis stands proudly while casually cleaning the air. With that in motion, Naiki commanded the fortress to teleport down some supplies in clusters with just an order from his mind. Food, medicine and clothing is dropped first followed by others. "Fellow Estcallians, your princess have returned to assist you." Naiki shouted while Lena walk into the increasing crowd of people to the dropped supplies. "Lenora, is that you my dear?" a familiar voice is heard from her right side, she quickly looks at where it come from. She froze a few second; seeing the figure of her supposed to be dead mother in her view. She ran like a child once more to her mother as she opens her arms to accept her hug with both dropped down on their knees nuzzling at each other.
"Her mother survived, that is some good news." Naiki says to Vexis. "Yeah, but the people still look at us in caution. Maybe we should introduce ourselves?" Vexis suggested while going to the dropped food supply and grab some of the light food from it. She whistles at the nearby child and throw it at him. He catches it and quickly take a bite out of it. "Don't worry there is enough for everyone. Go ahead and take it." Vexis assured while looking at Naiki with a smug. "Hmph" Naiki grunted while sitting at the nearby ruin looking over the spearheading fleets with his linked abilities. "Mother, how did you survive?" Lena asked her mother. "If it wasn't for your father's cape hiding my body; that shot would already hit my chest. It hit on my torso and your father told me to play dead before she speaks out to you. Our people dragged me out of the rubble and tended my wounds." Kelsey explained it to her daughter. "The remaining people buried your father, brother and Callan's father at the entrance of the palace." Her mother continues as she wanted to see their graves. She look at the approaching Vexis while she smiles at Lenora. "Dear, who is this?" Kelsey watches the arctic fox with interest. Lena stands and properly introduced Vexis. "Mother, this is Empress Vexis Russ of the Imperial Cybran Empire. The one once flew by our planets long before with their black ships." The statement alone is heard by the others and is surprised by it. Before she reacts, Lena continues. "And the one with the black combat dress is the Emperor; Emperor Naiki Russ. Atlas told me to find him and we did. The Imperial Cybran Empire is beyond the empty void."
"Where is Atlas?" Her mother questioned once more after the long silence. Lena take some time before answering her; hiding some part of the truth. "He have perished mother, he was killed by Commander Orlan just to buy us time to escape there." Her mother ears sharply arched back, sadly hearing the news. "I hope that commander will pay one day. He is such a fine man; even that he did not talk too much and tries so hard to fit in with us." Kelsey say out of anger. "Oh he already did, the Emperor gutted him out like a fish just before we arrive here." Vexis noted to her as she is shaken of the statement. "Regent Lena, do you still want this planet or to evacuate it?" Vexis questioned Lena. "It is better if we moved back to our new capital." She says it while her mother is still confused of what they are saying. "Wait, Regent? new capital?" Kelsey tilted her head while in question. "The remnants of father's people from the warship Folkvangr settled on a planet that the empire gave to us. That means we are their people now." The last word quickly make Kelsey kneeled to Vexis and the other quickly did the same after seeing the queen does it. "No no, we don't do that here. Remain at ease. It is only necessary on official events." Vexis shakes her hand signaling not to do that, Naiki snickers on the back seeing her in an awkward situation.
"Darling, say something to your people." She speaks telepathically to him. Naiki signals her to carry on while he sees the approaching Crimson Tide. All of them normally returned to grab what they needed. Vaslov teleported down with two of his crew members remaining on guard. Seeing that; Vexis quickly goes by Naiki's side with Lenora followed by her mother. "Emperor, our combined fleet have secured 60 percent of the draconian territories. We will reach their capital planet in two more days. Regent Ilya and Layla have eliminated any resistance including other known enemy fleets." Vaslov reported to him. "That was quick, how about the local residents of the planets?" Vexis asked in Naiki's stead. "They are in a state of disorder before we arrived. Some planets did not know what to do since their ruling house is executed by the draconians. With our arrival, they have been organized to recover back from being bombarded and begged to serve under us with some wanted to remain independent for the time being. The loyalist planet have been Iced by Regent Ilya's warship weapon without a pause." Lena flinched hearing the last part of the report.
"Admiral, send one of your ship here to evacuate the people of this planet. This planet need some time to heal itself before we can terraform it." Naiki ordered him. Vaslov and his guards saluted at the emperor and empress, they returned to their flagship and quickly warps away while another one takes its place. Naiki looked at Vexis and Lena. The empress sees Naiki's iris changes colors randomly. "Naiki, your eyes…" Vexis says it lowly. He quickly covers it with his hand and look away from the crowd while Vexis goes to his front. "Must be the uneven spread of my powers. How do I look now?" He speaks in a low tone. "It's okay now; turned into your normal black eyes. Seesh, that scared me darling. Changing color chromia eyes like that is not normal." She bumped her forehead at Naiki's and continues to say Naiki is alright to Lena.
Sometime have passed after Lena convinces the remaining estcallian to evacuate the planet and seeing the graves at the palace. Kelsey wanted to stay with her daughter and not with the evacuated citizens. "This ship's bridge is enormous! Is it truly automated?" Kelsey asked her daughter after entering the fortress. Lena nods and explains it to her. Vexis goes to the lower part of the fortress to oversee the war machines that Naiki have created and marked them by battalions. She clearly don't want Naiki to handle all of the load by himself. "Now where is the crown that he loves to wear?" Vexis says aloud while searching for the spare crown, she did not notice Naiki was also down there. "Here…" Appearing out of the shadow, Naiki handed it over to her. Vexis tumbled of the surprise hand coming out from a wall and the full body of Naiki comes out later. "T-that almost makes me discharge dark matter." Vexis sits down to recover. "What, you think this ship have ghost in it? Do you believe in ghosts?" Naiki sits in front of her. "Yes I do, I am a high spirit you know." She pouts and grabbed the crown. Naiki laughed lightly while playing strong electronic body music on the fortress announcement speakers in the assembly area.
"Glad you found some interest in music." Vexis says to him, standing up and directly goes to the construction machines. She places the crown and make an alternative copy of it. Naiki enjoys the view of his war machines. The sudden thought of seeing his drones dancing make him cover his laugh. "Oh I wanted to see that too!" Vexis says it after reading some of his thoughts. "Naughty girl, I did not give you permission to poke in my mind." Naiki stated while grinning and blocking her psionic powers from reading him off. After satisfied with their business, both returned to the bridge who sees Lena and Kelsey enjoys some conversation. The music turned off after Naiki short warped to his throne and sits on it; Vexis arrives shortly after that on her own warp. This time, Vexis is taking command of the fortress seeing the projected part of the galaxy. She wears her crown and directed the fortress to follow the path she sets including some short warps. Kelsey goes directly to Naiki. "Emperor, may I have a moment of your time." She asked the permission formally. "Sure, shoot." Naiki replied casually.
"Before, why does your fleets comes at our sector and scanned its planets?" Vexis overhear the question but did not answer in his stead. "At that time, I sacrificed myself to warp the fleets that was attacking the Imperial Cybran Empire at extremely long distance; I think maybe around 100 systems from here. That sacrifice is enough to rise the empire back into what it is now; waking up the countless number of warships and its inhabitants that remain on cryosleep. That in motion, they searched me while I am still figuring out how to fix my ship systems on an unknown planet. The empress here out of anger against my guardians failed to protect me; makes a quick snack of the planets and suns of the 'now' empty void. She also slammed the Theater Admiral that broke five of his ribs. I wonder how I should punish her for this behavior till now…" Vexis shrinks herself into her small form and sits on Lena's lap that is taking a momentary rest while concealing her aura. "Empress?" Lena is surprised by her sudden behavior. "Ssh, let me hide here for a sec…" whispers Vexis.
"Vexis where the heck did you go? You owe me five throws into the ocean; you sneaky arctic fox!" Naiki shouted before grabbing her by the neck from his portal. Vexis froze like a plushy toy, Kelsey watches it and smiles of the situation. He finally eases off the thought of punishing her and put her at his lap while stroking her fur. "That's the sum of the event." Naiki explained while seeing the progress of Layla's fleet. He is surprised that Layla's is unable to punch through the last of the enemy fleet. He focuses on the fleet to see the detailed structure. "That's…" Kelsey nearly stuttered saying the first sentence before stopping; watching the warships. "What?" Naiki waited for her answer. "The Draconian lancer's warships. They are heavily armored except the engine part at the back. No weapon can pierce the bow easily." Kelsey explained with Lena pointed out the weak spots. Naiki quickly opened communication to Layla's flagship. "Emperor!" Layla saluted. "Lasers won't work. Switch to maglev railguns; tune the RP's from rapid fire to second salvos. Override the power feed and change it to 15,000." Naiki detailed the information. Layla salutes and quickly commands it. This time the powerful railgun shots punch through the bow; penetrating the once known warships and destroys it in multiple salvos. "Thank you Emperor for your wisdom." Layla saluted with a full hearted smile and Naiki nods before turning off the communicator. "If it is the one to thank that is you; Queen Kelsey."
Kelsey only nods and smile of it. Lena accidentally yawned silently behind her back as Naiki sees it. "Why don't the both of you get some shut eye? There is multiple room at the right side of the bridge entrance, you can rest there. You also can materialize some provisions from the inventory system." With watchful eyes, Naiki speaks to her indirectly. "Emperor, what about you?" Lena and Kelsey asked. Vexis that is still in his lap peek upwards to him. "I can function 120 cybran days well without sleep. Don't worry of me getting enough sleep." Speaks Naiki with a smile on his face as the both of them look at him in confusion. Lena and Kelsey leaves the bridge and take separate rooms. Vexis stretches herself; Naiki massaged her spine as she did that. "Oooh, right there darling~" She says out of enjoyment while trying to doze off. "Just don't drool over my lap okay? You got 3 hour worth of sleep before we rendezvous with the remaining fleet." She only answers with a hum of Naiki's words. Naiki closes his eyes and dives into the cybran mainframe link as he checks his empire. He does it slowly, seeing the one that is close by first; Ilya sleeping at her room in her flagship, Layla eating some sausages while joking around with the crew of her ship.
Then, he channeled it back to his core worlds. The leviathan and its crew rapidly build facilities for Lena's capital with her people already settled in after registering their identifications, his guardians enjoying light works from the empire as their sons take over. He finally directed it to his capital world, watching his people living in the full of their life. Vexis curiously tapped into his mind and also sees it. She now knows that is what Naiki wanted from the beginning and goes back to sleep with Naiki watching the travel paths.