I'm planning to write a chapter about the Terran attack on the hive. Do you want it from the Imperium's perspective, or from the Terran perspective?
Depending on what you choose, I can make it centered on a single POV or use multiple POVs showing how different people experience the attack.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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I was recovering from the hellish sensation that came with using terrazine to enhance my abilities. I could feel every cell in my body being destroyed and rebuilt, again and again. My whole body ached after each dose, but the effects were already noticeable: this was my third dose in three months, pushing my mind to the limit and enduring the torture of injecting that psychic poison.
My psionic control was firmer; I could feel it clearly. But I was also bleeding from every pore, so I began forcing my powers onto my own body: I accelerated regeneration, commanded my platelets to seal the hemorrhages, and pressured my cells to multiply faster. To do that, I used a chain of my own DNA that I kept in psionic stasis, a trick that ensured my regeneration always used young, undegraded genetic code. That was the reason I still had a perfect body despite the wear of combat.
As soon as I activated the communicator, still regenerating tissue at unnatural speed, I received a top-level call. And I knew perfectly well who it was.
"Hendrik, damn it! How the hell did you divert ALL the Dominion's resources and funding to build that Ghost facility? And how in the abyss is it possible that you don't have anyone infiltrated on that mutant planet? We should already have all the information needed to launch an attack, but there isn't a single operative there." Kazimir shouted. I didn't need to see him to feel his rage; it leaked through the comm channel as if he were a meter away.
"They're in retraining, Kazimir. The last operation showed how weak we are at our strongest point. Our psi-ops are out of shape. I need to update all our training, and that's why the Ghost installations must be operational as soon as possible. It's vital for the Dominion's survival. For that reason, all clandestine operations are suspended until I consider our operatives ready."
"And how the hell are we supposed to strike?" Kazimir roared. "You cut all funding to the Dominion's shipyards. The plan to finish them this year is useless now: we don't have materials because you sent everything to that space station. And the effort I put into rearming the Dominion with new CMC factories? Also frozen because you need EVERY construction robot there." His fury was so intense I could almost hear his teeth grinding through the system.
"Patience, Kazimir… trust me, everything I'm doing is to strengthen our foundation. Everything I do is for the Dominion," I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible, even though my bones were still vibrating from the terrazine.
"Patience? PATIENCE? We have millions of mutants we could be putting to work on that planet and you do nothing!" Kazimir shouted, breathing heavily.
"Kazimir, I'm subjecting myself to terrazine regularly. I'm training nonstop. I'm pushing my body to the limit. I saw my own weakness against the psykers of this Imperium. Increased gravity, psionic overloads, sensory deprivation—everything you can imagine, I'm using it. And I'm putting my Ghosts through the same training."My voice hardened. "I'm going to use every last drop of terrazine we have in reserve. Three of my operatives already went insane… but I'm giving EVERYTHING for the Dominion."
There was silence on the comms.
"…Are you alright? I know that stuff breaks even the strongest," Kazimir asked, much calmer.
"Yes, I'm fine… I just finished a strong dose. But for now, all resources must go into finishing our training facilities. When our operatives reach the level required, we'll strike fast. Just be patient."
I cut the transmission once Kazimir stopped responding.
"A terran very much a prisoner of his own emotions," said a High Templar through telepathy as he floated closer, using his psionics to stay in the air.
"Blinded by his loyalty to the Dominion's values… the ones Emperor Arcturus implanted in all: strike first, bring war to the enemy, never retreat. For him, the idea of the Dominion acting defensively is inconceivable."
"Is that why you fear showing the truth to those you call allies?" asked the High Templar, extending his mind toward mine.
"What other choice do I have?" I replied as I stood up. "Unlike the protoss, none of us are born with a psionic potential we must learn to control. Even your non-templar castes have emotional discipline far above any terran. If my people knew the truth—if they saw what really exists out there—many wouldn't withstand it. They would be easy prey for corruption. Demons and their gods are not a game. Terrans cannot be trained like you. Of all the Dominion's leadership, I am the only one with a psionic index above 2."
"The terran race is far too young to understand the power it is beginning to touch," said the High Templar. "But we can teach you. Come. Your training is far from over."
"Let's go." I followed him into the training chamber.
Peace was not a luxury I could afford. My training never stopped—not even while risking my sanity with terrazine. The reserves weren't large: only what remained of the canceled Shadowblade Project and what I had managed to purchase from the Kel-Morians, who had learned to synthesize it organically in some kind of space whales.
Terrazine increased my Ghosts' psionic index, but it was a double-edged weapon.
Since it drove anyone who used it constantly insane —two talented ones and eight average Ghosts; I'd lost ten in the last months— but I'd managed to raise the rest by three full index levels, something never achieved in terran history. The maximum had always been one or two at best.
Now I had several Ghosts brushing against the theoretical terran limit of index 10.
And that was thanks to the training from the High Templars and the Dark Templars, who had managed to teach my Ghosts to control their powers, drastically reducing the percentage of failures and collapses during terrazine exposure.
Losing ten Ghosts during training wasn't ideal… but failure wasn't an option. A single failure meant the Imperium would discover our location. And a single mistake meant dozens of dead among the Dominion's finest.
If the alternative was extinction, then this casualty percentage was acceptable… as long as we maintained a 100% operational success rate.
Half a year passed this way, then a full year, and eventually we entered our second year on this planet.There wasn't much to tell beyond the fact that the entire state budget—meaning every resource in the Dominion—was diverted to building the Ghost facilities as fast as possible, adapting to every protoss requirement.
The Khalai caste collaborated far more than I expected. They dedicated themselves to perfecting our hostile-environment suits, adjusting them so they worked better with our psionic abilities and, most importantly, making them psionically undetectable. The High Templars could sense less-trained Ghosts even while they were cloaked using only Terran skills, so the Khalai rewrote half the design to eliminate that mental signature.
They also manufactured some psi blades for our agents.
Meanwhile, the nerazim trained my operatives in close-quarters combat, increasing their lethality to ridiculous levels.
I tried to master more complex protoss techniques, such as blink, which literally consisted of merging with void energy. It was… unsettling. It seemed as if it were drawing power from the Warp, but it wasn't that: the protoss explained it was another dimension, a space between realities where, using psionic power, one could force the void to respond. They described it as the residual shadow of the xel'naga.
Mastering it was almost impossible.
Blink required entering that dimension for a fraction of a second, moving within it, and then emerging wherever you wanted. It also allowed pulling energy from the void to cloak oneself, which was why the nerazim could become invisible without something like Terran suits: they simply slipped through, drawing that energy from the void.
Despite all my training, in that short time I managed only the most basic grasp of void power—though I did learn many protoss combat techniques from warriors who had centuries of experience.
Where I had the most success was with the High Templars. They taught me a technique Tassadar had used: extending the psi blade like a whip to strike targets at a distance.
Let's just say I nearly cut my own arm off learning it.
I still hadn't mastered that technique, but my psionic control grew day by day. The protoss estimated that, at my current pace, in about thirty years I could reach the level of an elite High Templar like Tassadar… if I continued subjecting myself to terrazine and hellish training.
Thirty years I unfortunately did not have.
The Ghost facility was finally completed. It was a colossal fortress in the void, located dozens of light-years from New Korhal, far from any known route. Over a thousand protoss now lived there under minimally acceptable conditions, hidden behind sensor-shielded armor. Their presence was an absolute secret: only I and the Ghosts knew.
For the rest of the Dominion, the official version was simple: I was using the protoss as information sources, draining them psionically and killing them in the process. No one could suspect they were now instructors, not prisoners.
With our terrazine reserves exhausted, we could no longer increase anyone's psionic index. We could only refine control and maintain what we had gained.
When we received the new batch of children from the artificial-womb project—ninety terrans with psionic indexes above five—I left them under the instructors' care at the Ghost facility and returned to my duties as Regent.
I adjusted the third-year budget:
I assigned every possible resource to the shipyard Kurt begged to finish, authorized the construction of new gauss rifle factories and CMC armor lines to satisfy Kazimir and Mason's demands, and coordinated the sale of several state factories to civilians on New Korhal to strengthen the autonomous economy we had been building—although that would be feasible by mid-year, since the local population was still growing wealthier but most wealth was still concentrated among the terrans, who held 70% of all credits in circulation.
With that resolved, it was time to extend the Dominion to a new world. We already had a clear target.
An agri-world with an Imperial hive would be our next colony.
I gathered the psi-ops: four hundred twenty-three Ghosts, the most dangerous weapon the Dominion possessed. To that I added our entire military arsenal.
We began preparations to sabotage the entire planet simultaneously.
With the information gathered from our previous infiltration, we drafted a full plan to collapse the Imperial structure of the world in a matter of days:
mentally dominate key figures,cut all planetary communications,sabotage fortifications and defensive lines,destroy arsenals and ammunition reserves, and, if the rapid takeover failed, blow up food reserves and processing plants, dooming the planet to starvation.
If everything went well, the world would fall into our hands in days.If something went wrong but we managed to cut communications, the planet would fall in two or three months, besieged without mercy around the hive.
Once the plan was written and explained to all my operatives, we initiated mobilization. At the same time, I sent all the information to the commanders of the Royal Guard so they could begin their own siege preparations in case they were needed.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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