Note the impenetrable layer of clouds above this vast rainforest world. This is the reason it always shines white from outer space. After Ixitixl begs for peace one last time (I don't think I need to tell you how we respond) we find that our new cloud-jungle has put us in touch with Krungo and his Bulrathi empire. He says we'll do fine as long as we acknowledge his superiority, so I acknowledge that he might well be superior to all the other races we're going to exterminate before or while we get around to purging his people from the galaxy. After all, he's got more than three planets!
In fact, if he'd only manage to colonize that red planet north of his homeworld (Ursa is exactly where we inferred it would be) it would look a little like the brightest part of a famous constellation! Which one, though? Let me think. Something Major. Oopsa Major? Nurse-ah Major? Urs... ... Naw, couldn't be.
2427: For reasons best known to Ixitixl's various personalities, the bugs sent off what little Arietis fleet they had on some never-to-be-completed mission. The place is defended by one base, and features 17 million bugs, not nearly enough for its 81 factories. I get lazy and lose an entire bomber (one of 220) before blowing the base away. No point in even taking a picture. Just as we supposed, it is a barren world.
Surgeon-Repairman General's Warning: Erratic war declarations have been shown to correlate closely with birth defects, ugliness, stupidity, and getting totally genocided out of existence.
Oops, no, no, my mistake: It is a glass world. Since it was also the bugs' last colony, this should serve to explain why I wasn't worried about the remaining Klackon fleets.
They say that as one door closes, another one opens, and it's certainly true in this case. The Psilons take the bugs' utter destruction as their cue to declare war on us. This is disastrous for all my plans to spend time peacefully consolidating my gains before going back on the offensive, but luckily ... I had no such plans! Virtually the entire fleet at Arietis is dispatched to Maretta. A Circus is coming as well, though it'll be three years behind. The Neutrino Bs have reached the end of their effective life, and are scrapped for yet another stopgap-until-we-have-real-engines design, the Surgeon 2.1 - just like its predecessor, but with an Inertial Stabilizer to help it close with its enemies. Kakata and Aurora start building them immediately.
2428: The Bulrathi decide to join their allies' war on me.
I haven't yet found out whether they have enough range to reach any of my colonies, and I don't especially care right now. There's a Psilon spore fleet due at Incedius in four years anyway, which will certainly break contact with them. (I'll do what I can to get enough Surgeons there in time, but it's hopeless, frankly; I'm just trying to slowly clean up some of the Klackons' waste there, so I'll have a little less to clean up when the colony is rebuilt ... and works on getting rid of the spore-residue-to-be.)
2429: The battle of Maretta reveals that the Psilon colony ships are armed with twin ... lasers.
We do lose a bunch of slow Tourorists in the course of destroying its bases and discovering that Maretta holds a beautiful terran world which now shines like the glass it is. We also find out about radiated Firma and a fleet of gatling-laser/spore ships heading for Tyr at warp 3. They could really make a mess there ... but luckily, not during my reign!
2430: Oops. The Psilons had more Star Blades coming to Maretta than I thought! What little of my fleet stayed behind there has to retreat. Meanwhile, Gion is mine again, and this time it should stay that way. This leads to another report from the GNN newsdroid:
The question is, can we avoid dropping back below twelve worlds? Things are looking pretty disorderly as I hand off the reins of power, and I'm tempted to ask for just a couple more years ... but they're likely to stay disordered for some time to come - and I don't want to mess with my karma! So, to my successor: Good luck, and be careful! Those high-speed spore ships are a serious threat!
_______________
Next: The Last Resort
