Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 43 - Round Table Discussion

"Sing today, little bird, for there may be no tomorrow" - Omnitrex's Tales for Tots

"It is said that the Emperor has gone missing." rattled the voice in mocking, sarcastic tones, her long white fingers splayed across the tabletop like spider's legs, the hollow rapping echoing slightly in the large chamber.

The chamberhall was silent while she was speaking, a large crowd gathered on a Prime Outworld Planet, one of the few that they had. The chamber was gilt in black and gray motif, cycrete crenellations encircling the globular roof, faux stone ivy intertwining around the black marble columns that encircled the gathering.

It was a chill chamber, sometimes dank, but now cold - though a couple hundred phosflame lights had been brought in to drive away the cold somewhat, their amber glow throwing strange wavering patterns over the faces and bodies of the people near them, like tendrils or snakes writhing over their bodies, but providing precious heat.

Faces amongst the gigantic table were pinched in anger, fear, defiance, loathing, admiration, envy, and especially greed, some directed towards their neighbors, but others; so many others for what was finally being lain out in front of them.

In the middle of the black stone tabletop hovered a holographic image, plain for all to see. When it had first appeared at the beginning of the gathering, nearly everyone laughed, because it seemed a fool's errand that led to a fool's end.

But these chieftains, warlords, kings, and whatnot had brough out their microdisplays or teleconnected with a databurst and learned the schematics and raw numbers, one by one their mouths either dropped or rose in a malicious grin.

The Imperium had kept Starslingers a heavily guarded secret, since the archaic machine was the key component of making the galaxies liveable, terraforming on an intergalactic scale. Merely trying to research into its components had incurred the wrath of the Emperor and the Holy Armada had genocided thousands of civilizations for even trying to study it.

But there it was in front of them, everything they needed to build their own Starslinger.