Chapter 18: Visitors from the west
The next morning, Naiki was eating some artificial meat that Vexis cooked. Hearing the notification from his gauntlet, both finished up eating in a moderate pace. Naiki reads it quietly with Vexis clearing the table and wait for him to say what it was. "Seems like we got visitors from outer sector. Shultz directed them to the Leviathan. They wanted to see us." Naiki briefed to his wife. "They are bold to come here, at 'our' empire? Should I notify the regents?" Vexis gives a low growl while she speaks in anger of the trespassers. "The Theatre Admiral already noted them, wear our formal attire." Vexis sighed hearing that from Naiki. She is quick to change her empress attire using the bracelet and moves around a bit to get the feeling for the uniform. "It's feels too iconic and menacing wearing this…" as Vexis says that, Naiki martializes his own. "That's the point it was created…" He makes a smug face at her with Vexis approaching him, pinching his cheek. Both walks to the teleportation room and teleported to the Leviathan. Naiki sense the Leviathan is near at the inner core planets that was purposely left uncolonized at the western sector. They were quickly saluted and escorted to the throne room side entrance by his personal Imperial Elite Guard unit.
Naiki and Vexis enters it with stern face, thinking that the visitors are already inside. They enter and sees Ilya, Layla and Lena; standing at their post in alert. Fully in their respective uniforms; he eyes Lena. She looks a little younger than before with her fur and hair glistening like his two regents, her eyes are much sharper than before. Naiki quickly exchanges conversation with Lena while he sits on his throne. "How is the 'new' you feel Lena?" He says it without looking at her. "Much better than before, I will fulfill my duties as the regent of the east...and my promise to you." She says it with determination. Vexis that sits on the throne left armrest; smiles at her with great interest including Ilya and Layla. "Good. I'm glad that went well." Naiki responded. Vexis immediately detected them after they set their foot on the Leviathan and notify them. "Master, should I dim the lights?" Layla asked. "No, let them see us right away. I have prepared something for them." Vexis answered on his behalf with a sadistic smile. Ilya know what she is plotting and joined in the fun, she uses her power to make the throne room colder than before. Naiki senses they are near the entrance and he taps his finger for the towering metal door to open; the Theatre Admiral awaits outside with his own personal guard of two. They gallantly enter; four armed with a beam like spear and a laser shield while the center figure armed with only a plasma sword with her shield remains inactive at her back.
"Hmm, they are stronger than our regular soldiers. But the one in the middle is as strong as Ilya and Layla." Vexis telepathically says it to Naiki who only gives a slight smile. He sees the winged helmet figure scanning them and the surrounding room. All of them bowed to Naiki and Vexis that is sitting at the center of the throne room. The center figure opens her helmet and put it down at her front. Her lightly grey colored eyes shine with her smile as she begins her greeting presuming the two important figures at the throne. "Your Majesties, I am Lady Svidana, I represent as the Valkyrian envoy of Altora; an ice planet five systems away from here." She pauses a short second and continues. "We have come here to extend our hand into forming an alliance with neighboring nations. We fear of an unknown threat that was foretold by our watchmen." Naiki looks slightly to Layla who only nods in response. Vexis introduces herself and the others. "I am Empress Vexis Russ of the Imperial Cybran Empire, to my right is Regent of the East; Lenora Leonard. At my left is Regent of the South; Ilya Fenrir." The snow leopard watches the Valkyrie respond over hearing her name mention. Vexis continues the introduction. "To her side is Regent of the North; Layla Mirren... and the most important person in this empire is the Emperor that I am sitting at his side right now. Emperor Naiki Russ." Svidana gestures an honorary bow at the Emperor and Empress. "Are you sure that the threat was…not at the sector that you just entered?" Vexis says to her. Svidana only nods, this makes Vexis goes on full dark matter aura blanketing the throne room including Ilya tapping her sword to the floor; combining a menacing and cold aura at them. They still not response to it with Svidana opens up her thoughts while setting her eyes on Vexis. "Your majesty, we have faced darker and more ferocious creatures of space before." Vexis grinned that they got the nerve to remain steadfast after what she did. "You and us both have; this galaxy is not for the weak hearted and only the strongest will be able to conquer or unite it." She gives a strong statement to the valkyrie. Svidana only nods to Vexis of her statement.
Naiki eyes them like a predator, his eyes lit red just as Vexis. He did not show off his powers, only the glare on the valkyrie. "Still did not change your mind, or do you want me to invade your planet and purge all of you out?" Naiki speaks in a harsh tone. "Your majesty, if you wish to do that. We will fight to the last people of Altora." Again, she smiles after speak out. The debate turns silent with Layla finally breaks the ice. "Master, why don't we go and see her planet first?" Layla speaks out. This gives Vexis an idea, she searches for their planet using her multi purpose bracelet and displayed it on the center, projecting it in front of Svidana. "This is your planet, right?" Vexis asked and she nods out of honesty while being baffled of their technology able to locate their home planet. Naiki returns to normal and take command of the projector using his gauntlet. He immediately zooms out at a galaxy view, for a brief minute he uses his powers. Vexis feels the flow of power for a brief second out of Naiki, she looks at him in surprise.
"Call back the other five envoys to return to your planet and fortify it, they will be dead if you don't because they are entering the 'threat' area you are speaking of. The abyss creatures and its masters have already expanded unnoticed near the outer planets of Regent Ilya's sector." Naiki explained what he has seen, Ilya tick her tongue in anger. The Valkyrie quickly send one of her guards back to the ship to inform the warning. "Did you just use your powers?" Vexis psionically say to him. Naiki did not speak back using his mind but verbally. "Yes, my wife. Just a quick minute." Vexis turns away and hide her pout while she placed one of her tails at his head. Naiki stroked the tail to at least calm his wife and she finally turns around while seeing the sectors.
"Your majesty, are we your allies now?" She asked Naiki. "Yes, since it is also an opportunity for me to finally get rid of those abysmal creatures and the planets that they inhabit on while securing the west flank. I hope that your ruler can handle more than one sector after the threat are removed." He says it while on focus of seeing the abyss creature movements. "I am extremely grateful for you to accept our proposal." Delighted that her mission was a success, she reaches for her retracted spear at her back. This makes Lena jump in to protect Naiki but the Valkyrie extended the spear and presented it with both of her hands. "A gift from our king, he said to give at the nations that accepted the alliance as an extension of his gratitude." It is a golden engraved spear with a laser tip that can be turned into a laser shot. "You have my thanks for the gift. Ilya, take it as your own." Hearing the words of Naiki she nods and approaches Svidana. Ilya takes it and the Valkyrie sees her up close. "Pardon me for asking, did relate to Fenrir; one of our king Zella's daughter?" she asked Ilya. "No, my name and surname were given by the Emperor." Ilya says shortly while merging the spear with her own cybran made spear that she just materializes from her inventory. It envelops the golden spear and changed its appearance and retractable length. Covered in black, gold and red lining; the tip of the spear spins and turns red. Ilya did not stop there, she combined it further with her sword at the bottom. This surprises Svidana seeing the golden spear merged with the unknown technology that the Cybran have.
Ilya returned to her position with the fused sword spear in her hand and dematerialize it back to her flagship inventory. "Layla, your armada need to go at their planet with the envoy and assist the defense." Vexis give the first command after reading Naiki's thoughts. "Ilya, prepare your main fleets for defense and counterassault. Lena, I am going to give you command one of the combined fleets; the 84th Armada. Go and report to them and await further orders." Naiki gives the next order. "Don't worry of your home planet, your mother Kelsey is handling it quite well." Vexis assured to Lena. She salutes and Immediately leaves with the two regents. "Valkyrie Svidana, I suggest you move with Regent Layla immediately." Naiki directed it to her. She nods and leave to her warship with her escorts. With the throne room empties, Naiki sighed. "That escalated quickly..." Vexis says it to Naiki while fixing one of his hair locks. "Yeah...and here I thought that we can at least have a break for the empire and not to get involved too much..." Naiki leaned over to her. "I have an idea, why don't we only observe them this time? I really wanted to see what the regents can do." Naiki accepted her idea.
"That is a good idea." Naiki opens the already minimized communication to his guardians that silently listen to their conversation. "Field Marshall Grukev. Any thoughts of what you just heard?" Grukev looks away for a brief second and gives his answer. "I will send my other sons; Rokosovsky, Sokolovsky and Zigorsky to support the regents. Ivanov will continue assisting Zarck with his technology development." Naiki nods and he saluted. "What about you, Shultz?" He sees Shultz walking to a teleportation room. "Sorry Naiki, I won't send Altia; she is not ready yet. But I will put 12 armadas on standby in case of something bad happened." Shultz says so before teleporting to his flagship. "Emperor, I think it is time to test the three weapons that you mentioned before." The words from Zarck caught his attention like a magnet. "Is it finished?" Naiki asked out of excitement, he answered with a smile and nods. "How much on each type?" Vexis know what is was and continue Naiki's sentence. "Only 6 each, my apologies for not able to produce much of them in a short time." He puts his hat at his chest as a sign of guilt. "Nonsense, you have created and produced three types of weapons in just a short day. That is an achievement!" Naiki assured Zarck as he smiled, living up to Naiki's expectations. "Transfer them to the three regent's flagship inventory." Zarck nods and cut the communication. The other guardians also saluted and ended the comm.
"You are much more cunning than a real fox." Vexis praised Naiki. "Meh, I don't think so. Let's go to the space observatory, we can get a better view there." She linked her arm to his as they walked together to the teleportation room. Lena directly teleported to the 84th docking bay. She is greeted by a veteran cybran in his admiral uniform. "Regent Lenora, welcome to the 84th armada docking bay." She sees the armada's insignia, A wolf howling in the lunar eclipse. She sees the tag name of the insignia and says it. "Lunar Wolves?" The Admiral nods in response. "I am Admiral Andreas Blanco, 'Rey' the shorter name the crew often called me. His majesty has informed us to be under your command. It is a great honor for me to serve under you for the Emperor and Empress." He saluted to her. Lena responded normally and saluted back. "This way, Regent Lenora." Lenora dropped her formality. "Rey, just shorten my name to Lena is fine too." The admiral looked at her and nods, she follows him to the flagship with a decent pace while looking over the docking bay view. The only mere sight of what she is seeing, her expression says it all. Another class of the massive dreadnoughts with the capabilities to launch drone strike crafts and can be fitted with a planet killer weapon. A scarred tag name of the ship can be seen, ICS (Imperial Cybran Ship) Black Metta. It puzzles her as she sees no turrets on the warship.
"Rey, where are the flagship turrets and how much warships are an armada?" She asked. The admiral pointed at some of the odd structures of the ship that she did not know. "There is none, See that? They are optical weapon racks. It is closed for now, when used; they shoot out rapid firing homing lasers and absorbs any laser or plasma fire that directed to our ship, making our shots much more stronger. The bow also hides our planet killer weapon. There are also laser pods that can be launched for close quarters combat and we can deploy hundreds of drone strike crafts. As for the second question, an armada of the cybran empire consist of minimum twenty thousand to one hundred thousand warships." Andreas explained it to her. She nods of the facts and remains speechless of the emperor's trust on her. The amount of people in just one armada under her command alone make her hard to concentrate. As they have arrived at the ship's bridge, the flagship leaves its dock followed by the rest of the armada.
A communication link quickly hailed to Andreas flagship, he opens it and sees Regent Layla and Ilya asking to see Lena. He immediately bows and called out Lenora. "Lena, we got some news." She looks at the both of them as Ilya speaks to her. "Yes?" Lena braces for the news in silence. "The Emperor and Empress will not join us in this operation, but Field Marshall Grukev have sent his sons with their respective Army Groups to each of us." Zigorsky arrives at the bridge as the news is given to her. "We need to summarize a plan for the time being." The three regents are in a deep thought. Layla noted her objective at the two of them. "I will hold out Altora, establish intermediate defenses and expand to at least 5 sectors in a holding pattern." Ilya explained her piece of mind next to the others. "I will start assaulting the west flank after wiping clean of them from my outer sectors, there are 18 sectors in total. Give me two months to handle it."
Lena watches the sector map carefully as she makes a quick summary of the situation, Layla in a holding pattern while Ilya pushes from the south inward to the west. "I will punch through the middle and help Ilya with her assault." She stated to Ilya and Layla. "Wise choice, the six sectors are for you to sweep now. That leaves me 12 sectors; that will shorten the assault to one month." Ilya updated her plans. The discussion took another 20 minutes as they share the tactics as their armada's prepared at each area. Ilya deployed two more of her reserve armadas from her sectors; one to guard the southern sector that they blockade from intrusion and the other one to support her back. Layla summons four of her mobile factory ships from her sectors and started fabricating defenses to store it in their main armada. Naiki and Vexis overwatch them in the autonomous space observatory, it can accurately view any part of the galaxy. With the Emperor and Empress power, they can even see precisely a person they wanted and what they are doing. The hum of the machines is enough to make the Emperor and Empress remains in focus. "Hooh, things are getting interesting. The abyss is starting to move on Ilya's sectors earlier than expected." Vexis watches with a smile while she alerts Ilya.
Naiki observes the most southern part of the galaxy, another nation quickly on the rise and combined their strength with two other nations. The beautiful planet that they once departed from remains hidden in the great void far beyond the others can reach. He also sees a fallen empire is on the rise again near the three great nations. He checks the planet that he once get lost before, it is much more calmer than he first arrived. "How was Lenora's sector?" Naiki asked randomly. "Kelsey is very persuasive with the rest of the disorganized rulers while the dragon continues with her research. The whole sectors are organized about 60%." Vexis speaks while taking a peek on what the guardians are doing. "I don't like it; they are too willing to be under our rule. Especially the Draconian remnants..." Naiki voices his worries to Vexis. "Fret not dearest husband, if they are rebelling against us; you can crack their planets open and I can eat the cracked planets or suns for dessert. We did not give them our technology except for Lena's new capital planet, they are using theirs. No way I am willing to give our empire's highly classified technology to them." She assured Naiki while watching Kelsey visiting the dragon Ilya have detained. Naiki shakes his head disagreeing because of the valuable resources and important souls that will be lost if he followed his old diabolical behavior.
He then eyes over what Vexis is seeing. "What is that dragon researching that it is so important to her?" Naiki playfully juggles some of the planets of a nearby sector. "Dimensional warp, how to lock and prevent alternate universe from punching in this universe, galaxy to galaxy travel, experimental universe drives and how that the star dragons are born." Naiki dropped the planet he is juggling, Vexis sees his shocked face. "Galaxy to galaxy travel and travelling to other universes, why did I not expand my horizons beyond a single galaxy…no, it's too tempting…" He started to think to himself of the possibilities. "Darling, if you are a god that have just juggled and dropped planets into the deep space; you could have been a bad one…" Vexis makes a joke to him. Naiki laughed and reset the planet positions back to their respective places. "Probably we should at least fully unite this galaxy first before expanding to the south and other galaxies. Maybe we can find good allies on other universes." He says it to Vexis. "Yes, that is true. More valuable allies are good for us. For now, let us see how your girls are handling what we have asked them to do." She sits at his side while focusing the projected galaxy to where the three regents are, watching over their movements.