Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 23 - Of Unity and Starslingers

"For we come roaring out of the night, thirsting for blood!" - Leonine battle cry

Beyond the Imperium were the ones known as Outsiders, those whose ancestors had been against the intrusion of the humanoid races into their part of the universe.

For how long had the Imperium mined the best systems, primed the best galaxies as habitable zones or energy converters, and how long had everyone else had to just scrape by on the edges of ragged space, on the shelf of the void itself, that great blackness that the humanoids had emerged once long ago.

Thousands of cycles had made the Outsider races hardy and resistant, with deprivation and badlands as their normal modality. Sure there were planets with great cities, but without a centralized government, they were mostly ruled by crazed warlords and kings - you'd as soon find a collar around your neck and a nanolash at your back than find a good time on places like that.

Places with skies smoked red and black with pollution and the smoke of burnt bodies, of conquest and annihilation, of hunger - of great clans and nations constantly butting heads to wrest what little of the crust of bread the outer fringes could provide.

But something interesting was happening; for once, instead of slamming against each other, hungry eyes looked inward, into the Imperium, and once bloody warlords and kings held great conferences, and they spoke of unity.

Of unity and starslingers.