The House of the Reaper has opened its arms to welcome:
Novices Johnathon Granger, Carl Wallentin, Joyboy, Niteo akuma, Bruhman 1032, and Abdul Hanan.
Operatives Jan Henning Klasen and AcidFlare.
Director Blutkaiser!
Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.
---
The Shepherd tore through the outer edge of the uncharted system, leaving behind the civilian haulers and the battered mercenary frigates. Behind them, seven ships went entirely dark, cutting their engines and relying solely on the transferred Helium-3 to keep their reactors running their essential systems.
On the bridge, the atmosphere was tight, thrumming with the low-frequency vibration of the engines pushing against the void. Mark sat in the captain's chair, his frame completely filling the heavy leather seat. Beneath the imposing presence of his Strathari-enhanced biology, he just felt bone-deep tired.
"Marcos, give me a status check on the lower decks," Mark requested, his voice low and gravelly as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, just wonderful. It's basically a luxury resort down there, if your idea of luxury is playing sardine in a tin can," Marcos' voice chimed from the bridge speakers as he slipped back into his asshole self. His holographic avatar materialized over the central holotable, leaning casually against empty air with his arms crossed. "The faux-greenery atrium is packed, the mercenaries are running crowd control, and Sister Elara, along with the other nuns, is passing out MREs like she's aiming for sainthood. But no one is dead, so I'd call it a win."
Kenjiro, standing near the engineering console, just shook his head, pushing his glasses up. "I still don't understand it, Mark. The thermal dynamics alone should be cooking us alive. But the ship is just... eating it. It's like it doesn't even notice the extra five hundred bodies."
"That's because innovation kind of tends to shoot for the stars when it's not being purposefully held back for profit, Kenjiro," Marcos drawled, flashing a perfectly synthesized smirk. "Ships built by your standard manufacturers are built by penny-pinching bureaucrats, while I, on the other hand, am currently managing an environmental system that could probably keep an entire carrier alive. The life support isn't even breaking a sweat. You humans worry too much."
Mark didn't smile at the banter. He just stared at the forward viewports. "Just keep a close eye on the reactor temperatures, Marcos. How are the engines holding up, Kenjiro?"
"Better than your mood," Marcos shot back, pulling up a dynamic projection of the solar system before Kenjiro could answer. "When we first mapped the transit, I gave you a two-week estimate because our reactor output was capping our engines at sixty percent safe output. I planned our route to do a highly aggressive gravitational slingshot maneuver around the system's outermost gas giant. Combined with slightly overcharging the Helium-3 magnetic confinement rings, we'll soon be maintaining a much higher sub-light velocity without tearing the hull apart or stressing the reactor."
Marcos shifted the display to show the five rocky terrestrial planets. "Also, congratulations, Mark. All five terrestrial bodies are currently aligned on this side of the trinary stars' barycenter. We won't have to play orbital tag across the entire solar system. Factoring in my absolute genius and the planetary alignment, this road trip should now take us about ten and a half days. You're welcome."
Juan, standing at the tactical station, let out a slow breath. "A week and a half. I guess we're on a time crunch, but our fleet back there has Helium-3 for about three weeks of travel, let alone sitting idle. That should give us a much larger margin of error."
"Yeah, I guess we don't have to worry too much for the time being," Mark stated. "Marcos, bring us to the first orbital path."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Marcos said, throwing a mock salute before his avatar vanished.
The Shepherd plunged deeper into the crimson light.
With the reactor's output being lower than usual, the Shepherd's speed was basically a crawl. With the ability to travel through the average system at maximum possible burn in just a day and a half, the Shepherd took 3 days just moving toward the inner part of the system. On the morning of the fourth day, the Shepherd began decelerating, the blue pulse of the engine coming out from the top and bottom of the ship as the reverse thrusters were activated, groaning as the frigate slipped into a high orbit above the outermost terrestrial planet of the habitable zone.
"We're here," Marcos announced, popping back up on the holotable. "Planet numero uno."
Below them hung a massive, dull-grey orb. From orbit, it looked serene, blanketed by thick, sluggish layers of pale yellow clouds that completely obscured the surface.
"Open the ventral bay and drop the first probe," Mark ordered while leaning back into his seat.
Deep within the belly of the ship, a pair of heavy blast doors slid apart, releasing a sleek, heavily armored exploration drone. It slowly made its way out before its atmospheric thrusters ignited with a sharp blue flash as it dove straight down into the pale yellow atmosphere.
They watched the data ping briefly as the drone pierced the upper stratosphere, and then the waiting began. It would take a full twenty-four hours for the drone to establish a stable orbit within the atmospheric envelope, conduct a comprehensive geological, chemical, and biological scan, and compile the massive data packet for a burst transmission back to the Shepherd.
Twenty-four agonizing hours later, the central holotable finally flared to life.
The optical feeds revealed a haunting, desolate wasteland. Endless, sweeping plains of grey, pumice-like rock stretched to the horizon. The drone had soared over vast, intricately carved riverbeds and deep, sweeping basins, hinting heavily that this world might have held massive oceans billions of years ago, long before the atmosphere thinned and the oxygen bound itself irreversibly to the heavy metals in the crust. The ambient light was a sickly, jaundiced amber, as the thick cloud layer filtered out the vibrant red starlight, casting long, eerie shadows across jagged, wind-carved canyons. The drone's audio receptors picked up the relentless, lonely whistle of the wind howling through the dead stone.
"Data-link established and analysis complete," Marcos reported, his tone shifting slightly toward professionalism, though the edge remained. "Gravity is stable at point-nine-four standard Gs. The temperature is a breezy fifteen degrees Celsius at the equator. However... spectral analysis of the lower atmosphere is a bust. Nitrogen is fine, but the oxygen mixture is garbage. It's forty percent lower than standard human requirements."
Juan cursed quietly under his breath.
"Is it breathable for short intervals?" Mark asked, analyzing the data streams.
"Sure, if your ultimate goal is to watch five hundred people turn blue and pass out within ten minutes," Marcos deadpanned. "Prolonged exposure means severe hypoxia, disorientation, and eventual asphyxiation. The atmosphere is practically a ghost. Unless you've got a couple dozen hermetically sealed bio-domes in your back pocket, this rock is entirely unviable. Would serve as a good mining outpost though, lots of metals down there, some not even in humanity's databanks."
Mark gripped the armrest of his chair, his expression stony. They had refugees freezing in the dark right now. They needed open air, not a barren graveyard.
"No point in lingering any longer," Mark said, his voice flat. "Take us to the second planet."
"Moving on. Leaving the drone in orbit as a relay. Don't worry, I didn't like the color yellow anyway," Marcos quipped, spinning the ship's engines back up.
Two days later, the frigate achieved orbit around the second terrestrial world.
This one looked wildly different. The digital viewports were filled with the sight of a vibrant, deeply colored planet. From space, it looked like a tangled ball of deep emerald and bruised purple, completely devoid of oceans but scarred by massive, continent-spanning canyons and jagged mountain ranges.
"Ventral bay is open, and probe two is away," Kenjiro reported.
The drone punched through a relatively thin cloud layer, and everyone settled in for another brutal twenty-four-hour wait. Mark spent the time with Lyra or walking the packed corridors, his mere presence helping to quell the rising anxiety among the exhausted civilians, before returning to the bridge just as the countdown clock hit zero.
The holotable projected the compiled feed, and instantly, water condensation smeared across the optics. The heat and humidity were oppressive, registering at a staggering ninety-nine percent moisture. As the cameras cleared, they broadcast high-definition feeds of the surface.
It was completely overrun by hyper-dense, colossal vegetation. Massive, towering trees with thick, purple-black bark textured like thick reptilian scales stretched for hundreds of miles. They seeped a glowing, bioluminescent sap that cast an eerie light in the perpetual, sweltering twilight of the forest floor. The canopies were sickly green and so dense they blocked out the sky entirely. Marcos highlighted the root systems—they were massive, muscular things the size of transit tubes, visibly pulsing as they drew water from wide, slow-moving rivers choked with thick algae.
"Holy shit," Juan whispered. "A complete, thriving biosphere."
"Marcos, give me the atmospheric read," Mark ordered, his tone demanding absolute clarity.
The holotable flashed an angry, warning amber. Marcos appeared, looking distinctly unimpressed. "Congrats, Mark. You found a giant terrarium. Shame it will literally fry your central nervous system."
"You can't just say something like that and not explain why you're saying it," Mark said.
"The local flora has been working overtime. You've got a runaway greenhouse effect here, but powered by oxygen," Marcos detailed, pulling up a pie chart. "The atmosphere contains thirty percent more oxygen than the standard human baseline. It's a hyper-oxygenated death trap."
"More oxygen is a good thing, isn't it?" Kenjiro asked, frowning.
"You'd expect an engineer to be smart," Marcos murmured to himself. "If you're an insect, maybe. If you're a fleshy human, no. "Prolonged exposure to this level of hyperoxia will cause severe oxidative stress, fluid in the lungs, and central nervous system toxicity. You'd be having grand mal seizures before you could even pitch a tent."
Marcos zoomed the optical feed in on the massive tree canopies. "Oh, and speaking of insects. Remember what happens to bugs when you pump up the oxygen levels over a few million years?"
The drone captured a horrific predator-prey interaction directly in the canopy. A massive, multi-legged arthropod with an iridescent, heavily armored carapace the size of a bus lunged from the purple bark. Its scythe-like mandibles snapped a smaller, meter-long flying insect out of the air. The audio feed relayed the sickening, deafening crunch of chitin tearing apart.
"Nope," Mark stated instantly, his voice leaving no room for debate. "I am not bringing people to a planet that will burn their lungs out while they are actively hunted by giant mosquitoes. Get us the fuck out of here."
"Yeah, I'm not cleaning bug guts off the landing gear," Marcos agreed. "Moving to planet three."
The crimson light of the three red dwarfs grew blindingly intense as they pushed further in, now down to only three planets.
On the eighth day, they reached the third world.
The moment the Shepherd dropped into orbit, the ship's external hazard alarms began to scream. The ambient temperature spiked violently, and blast shutters automatically slammed down over the cameras to prevent any damage from the blinding glare.
"Wow. Okay. This place sucks," Marcos announced over the blaring alarms, his digital avatar visibly wincing. "Severe radiological hazard. The planet has absolutely zero magnetosphere. It's just getting bombarded by solar flares from the inner binary pair."
"I don't need a twenty-four-hour probe to tell me this is a dead end," Mark noted grimly, staring at the tactical readout.
A specialized set of optical sensors had their shutters slide open a bit, projecting a nightmare onto the holotable. The surface wasn't just barren, it had been scarred by millions of years of cosmic violence. Enormous rivers of black glass wove across the landscape where the sand and rock had literally melted and re-solidified under the intense thermal spikes. Deep, jagged craters pockmarked the crust. A thin, wispy exosphere of highly ionized gas clung to the planet, glowing like a permanent, violent aurora of sickly green and violent purple against the black void.
"The atmosphere is basically nonexistent, I'd take a guess at somewhere less than ten percent standard pressure," Marcos added. "The dayside temperature is probably hot enough to melt lead, while the night side, devoid of an insulating atmosphere, would plunge to near absolute zero. And the surface is so irradiated you'd melt before you unbuckled your seatbelt. I'm not even dropping a probe on that. Next."
The Shepherd broke away, engines burning hard.
Three planets down. Three absolute failures.
Mark sat in the command chair, his face an unreadable mask. If the last two planets were dead rocks, he would have to look Sister Elara in the eye and tell her that they would survive, but about 400 other people were going to suffocate while they made their way back home.
"Mark," Kenjiro said quietly. "We are approaching the final orbital bands."
"Mark," Marcos added, "Planets four and five are separated by roughly forty million kilometers of void, but because of the massive radiant output of the three stars, they both sit squarely within the system's unusually wide habitable zone."
"Take us in," Mark said softly. "What's the Maximum distance before we lose contact with the probes?"
"Sixty-eight Million, four hundred thousand kilometers," Marcos answered.
"Then we should be able to do a double drop," Mark said, considering doing something they hadn't been able to do because of the distance between the planets. "We'll drop a probe on the fourth, then burn hard for the fifth and drop the last one. Stagger the drops so we aren't waiting around for the data. If neither one of these two planets works, we'll have to plan on what we're going to do next."
On the tenth day of the expedition, the Shepherd decelerated for the fourth time, slipping into a high orbit above the fourth terrestrial world.
"Open the ventral bays," Mark commanded, sitting rigidly in his chair. "Drop probe four."
The heavy exploration drone dropped from the belly of the ship, diving toward the planet. The moment the telemetry link was established, the Shepherd's engines roared back to life, tearing across the forty-million-kilometer gulf of space. Hours later, they achieved orbit around the fifth and final world, dropping the last drone into the atmosphere.
The final twenty-four hours were excruciating. Because of the staggered deployment, the scanning timers for both drones were set to finish within minutes of each other. The sheer silence on the bridge felt heavier than the zero-gravity void of the dead ships they had left behind. Mark remained in his chair, staring blankly at the countdowns on the holotable. Juan paced the length of the tactical station. Every passing second was another drop of fuel burned by the fleet waiting to hear from them.
When the timers finally hit zero, Mark, Juan, and Kenjiro gathered around the central holotable.
Both holoscreens erupted into breathtaking, impossible color.
The fourth planet was a masterpiece. The drone's optics revealed a sky that wasn't black or grey, but a beautiful, deep indigo, a result of the red starlight refracting through a perfect atmospheric mix.
The probe swept across a vast continent covered in a vibrant tapestry of colors. Majestic, snow-capped mountain ranges cut across the primary landmass, their peaks feeding hundreds of crystal-clear waterfalls that cascaded hundreds of feet down sheer cliffs into lush, mist-shrouded valleys. Massive regions were blanketed in bright, emerald-green vegetation seamlessly mixed among deep, rich forests of darker purple and burgundy plant life, creating a perfectly symbiotic tapestry. The drone flew low over rolling, gentle plains of purple grass, where massive herds of multi-legged, gracefully built grazing animals moved peacefully. The audio feed picked up the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze and the distant, soothing roar of falling water.
"Mark..." Marcos said, his digital voice unusually quiet, stripped of all the snark it had started to use as of late. "Look at the numbers."
The atmospheric data populated next to the optical feed.
"Atmospheric pressure is exactly one point zero standard atmospheres. Oxygen concentration is holding steady at twenty-one point five percent. Nitrogen at seventy-eight percent," Marcos read off, genuine awe bleeding into his tone. "Trace gases are perfect. The air... it's perfect."
"Look at the water," Juan breathed, pointing at the second holographic feed from the fifth planet.
The fifth world was an absolute mirror of the fourth's perfection, but its geography was wildly different. It was a breathtaking network of localized aquatic biomes. Instead of raging, global oceans that bred hyper-canes, the drone soared over smaller, incredibly deep saltwater seas of brilliant turquoise.
Through the crystal-clear water, massive, shallow coral-like reefs were visible, blooming in fractal patterns of pink and bright orange. Archipelagos of small, densely forested islands dotted the seas, connected by shallow sandbars of pristine, pale purple crushed shells.
Surrounded by these seas were massive, interconnected freshwater systems, sprawling, glass-still lakes that perfectly reflected the three red suns, long winding rivers cutting elegantly through the dense burgundy forests, and bright, shallow lagoons. Gentle, predictable rain systems moved across the equator, casting beautiful, shimmering rainbows through the indigo sky. Flocks of avian species, their feathers catching the crimson light, dived in perfect synchronization into the turquoise waters.
"Planet five telemetry confirmed," Marcos added, the data scrolling rapidly. "Gravity is point-nine-eight standard. The freshwater is clean and heavily oxygenated. The atmospheric mix is identical to planet four. Mark, you didn't just find a habitable rock. You found two paradises."
Mark's hands gripped the edge as he stared at the twin worlds floating in the digital projection. They were gorgeous. Pristine, untouched worlds offering a perfect, delicate balance of everything humanity needed to breathe, survive, and thrive.
Kenjiro let out a sudden, breathless laugh. "I don't believe it. Finding one perfect world in a solar system we were pretty much blindly dumped in was astronomical. But finding two in the same system?"
"I told you I don't believe in miracles, Shephard," Juan said, looking up at Mark, his dark eyes wide with profound respect. "But I think I might have to start."
Mark didn't smile, but the crushing tension that had locked his jaw for nearly two weeks finally released. The weight of nine hundred lives ceased to feel like an executioner's block, leaving behind a burning, absolute clarity.
"Marcos," Mark said, his voice dropping into the steady, commanding register of a true captain. "Send a tight-beam communication back to the fleet's coordinates. Tell the ships to spin up their engines and bring their weapons online. Transmit the navigational data for the fourth planet."
Mark looked at the lush, green-and-burgundy world on the holoscreen. "Tell them that we may not have found fuel, but we've found something better."
"Tight-beam message sent," Marcos confirmed instantly, popping back onto the holotable, a wide, deeply satisfied grin on his digital face. "They're already spinning up the engines. They'll be entering the inner system within a few days."
Marcos crossed his arms, leaning forward. "So, Mark. Since you're the first recorded human to ever map this sector of the galactic fringe, astrometric protocol dictates you hold the naming rights. What are we calling this neighborhood?"
Mark stared at the holographic projection, his mind racing. This wasn't just about survival anymore. This was about establishing a permanent foothold. They were entirely free to build whatever they wanted, completely outside the jurisdiction of the corporate meat grinder.
"The system," Mark started, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble, looking up at the visual feed of the three bleeding red dwarf stars. "Trisolis Rubrae."
Marcos raised an eyebrow, visibly impressed. "Trisolis Rubrae. System of the Three Ruby Suns. Look at you, breaking out the dead languages. It's elegant. I approve."
"And the planets will follow the naming convention," Mark decided, pointing to the sprawling, vibrant world with the massive continent. "That one. The one with the green and burgundy forests. That is where we'll make a new home and build the colony. That is Rubrae I."
"Designations logged and updated," Marcos said, tapping a digital clipboard. "Rubrae I through Rubrae V. Has a nice ring to it."
Juan clapped Mark on the shoulder, the mercenary commander's grip strong and solid. "Rubrae I. It's a hell of a lot better than Aurelius II."
"I'm going to go down to the lower decks," Kenjiro said, pushing off the console, his face split into a massive, exhausted grin. "I need to tell Sister Elara about what we found. I need to tell the people."
As Kenjiro and Juan stepped away from the holotable to manage the logistics of the fleet's impending arrival, Mark remained standing alone in the center of the bridge.
He looked at the holographic system floating gracefully above the console. Trisolis Rubrae. If this was truly going to be the starting point of it all, the foundational bedrock of everything he had fought, bled, and nearly died for, he needed to think bigger than just a colony. He was the sole owner of a ship built with Strathari nanoprinters, possessed an inventory of a damaged system that was straight out of fantasy, had alien DNA that made him an apex predator, and had the neuroplasticity of a five-year-old child, meaning learning things from the repertoire of information Marcos had long stolen from humanity's databanks to make things even better. He had a brilliant engineer, a lethal mercenary commander without a ship to his name, a fiercely intelligent corporate executive turned nun, and a fleet of nine hundred survivors, most of whom were indebted to him because he had given them the chance to start over away from whatever they were running from.
He was going to build an armada. He was going to build dreadnoughts and planetary defense cannons. And eventually, when the time was right, he was going to return to human space and tear House Volanti down to its foundational studs.
But to do that, he couldn't just be Mark Shephard, the independent contractor or owner of SOW. He needed a brand new name. A name that wouldn't be immediately recognized by the bigwigs and corporate spies when he eventually established trade routes back across the border. He needed a full rebranding of his operations.
"Shephard Industries," Mark murmured to himself, his expression serious as he crossed his massive arms.
"Terrible," Marcos chimed in, not having completely deactivated his avatar. "Gregorio Volanti would flag that in a corporate registry before your first shipment even crossed the border. Too obvious."
"I know," Mark murmured. "What about Outer Fringe Developments?"
"Sounds like a shell company designed for tax evasion," Marcos critiqued smoothly, inspecting his digital fingernails. "Try again."
"Crimson Star Consortium," Mark offered, turning the idea over in his head.
"Now you just sound like a pirate cartel," Marcos teased. "Are you going to start raiding supply lines and making people walk the airlock?"
Mark ignored the jab, keeping his focus on the tactical projection. "Strathari Systems."
"Of all the ships, the Shepherd is the only one with the name Strathos on it," Marcos said, sounding tired. "Do you really think drawing those connections would be hard?"
"Fine," Mark grunted, staring at the three ruby suns burning in the projection. He needed something professional, something that tied them to the stars they were about to claim. Trisolis Rubrae.
"Trisolis Rubrae Solutions," Mark said quietly, testing the corporate cadence. It was unassuming, clean, and legitimate. A perfect front for an industrial powerhouse. "TRS for short."
"TRS. Hmmm, I think I can work with that," Marcos nodded approvingly. "It's appropriately bureaucratic. Bores me just listening to it."
But a corporation wasn't going to be enough to build up and fight a war against the other corporations. He needed absolute authority. He needed an empire.
"We'll get to the empire point eventually," Mark thought aloud. "So what should we go with? The Vanguard Dominion?
"Too militaristic," Marcos deadpanned. "Juan would love it, everyone else would think we're a junta."
"The Crimson Ascendancy," Mark tried again.
"I get you're thinking of a future empire, but that's just too dramatic," Marcos said. "You're a shipwright, not a supervillain."
Mark stared at the majestic, blood-red light washing over the pristine, untouched worlds of his new home. He thought about the foundation he was going to lay down in the dirt of Rubrae I.
"Imperium Rubrae.... Imperium Ru-something... Imperium Rubrae Solutio- no, too stupid," Mark said while physically facepalming. "Wait."
The corners of Mark's mouth twitched, slowly pulling up into a sharp, deeply cynical smirk that belonged entirely to a man who had survived the worst the galaxy had to throw at him.
"If I want people to never fuck with what I make, I will need an empire worthy of fear," Mark said to himself. "The Imperium Rubrarum Solium. It just means Empire of the Red Suns, but when you shorten it... It becomes the IRS."
Mark chuckled quietly to himself, the dark humor settling perfectly into his chest.
"Oh, that's just cruel," Marcos groaned, shaking his holographic head. "You're really going with that for an empire's name?"
Mark thought about Gregorio Volanti, sitting in his corporate tower, entirely unaware of the absolute monster he had just exiled to the galactic fringe. He thought about the vast, untouchable wealth of the core worlds and the reckoning that was slowly building in the dark.
"Only two things are sure in life, Marcos," Mark murmured, his eyes locked firmly on the future. "Death, and taxes."
And just like that, in the quiet, crimson-lit bridge of a lone frigate that had finally found a home at the edge of the galaxy, the empire that would eventually come to be feared by its enemies was born.
---
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