Aboard the Renwei Yonggu's bridge,
Sui Meng stood like a mountain before the main viewport, his gaze piercing the glass to fix on the ice-sealed world adrift in the dim void—Tavorantis.
He raised his right hand. Without raising his voice, the sound of supreme authority and iron will carried clearly across the small fleet's comm net:
"All ships, execute standard orbital deployment. Use the flagship as datum. Cruisers to high orbits to establish a regional fire-control web;
destroyers forward to form the outer picket screen;
frigate groups to conduct low-orbit sweep patrols and scan for any near-planet anomalies.
Maintain combat alert status and keep fleet formation synchronized.
Now—execute."
At the word, like an invisible baton cutting the air, the compact formation moved as a precision machine.
Massive hulls pivoted and translated on blue thruster wash, then fanned out per doctrine to lace near-Tavorantis orbits with a steel net—heavy firepower, tight reconnaissance, and rapid reaction woven together—placing the dead world under absolute control.
At the same time, the Renwei Yonggu's flank recon arrays and terrain-mapping sensors unfurled fully, invisible tendrils beginning to read every inch of this silent globe.
Sui Meng had already stepped to the central command dais, eyes like torches as he watched preliminary scan data roll across the main screen.
Then he gave a low order that rang clearly through the broad bridge: "Initiate full-spectrum deep scan. Focus on biosignals, anomalous energy readings, and large-scale artificial structures. I want an initial 'dissection' of this planet."
"Order acknowledged. Bringing planetary comprehensive scan protocol online."
The aide answered at once. The bridge slipped into high-efficiency motion.
Technical officers worked their boards, reporting parameters under their breath. On the holos, a 3D model of Tavorantis assembled at speed while datastreams, like tributaries, poured in to fill detail.
Halsey stood at his side, her gaze also reaching through the huge, armored viewport toward the world below, bound in eternal ice.
The banter in her eyes was gone, replaced by a scholar's hunger and a sober sense of history's weight.
"What a… chilling silence."
Her voice was soft, yet rang in the quiet bridge. "Look at that ice—thick as if it has buried stories from ages beyond counting.
A civilization that could build planet-scale gravity engines, yet in the end chose to freeze itself and its world…
What level of despair—and what measure of resolve—did that take."
She shook her head, a faint sigh beneath her tone. "When the pursuit of knowledge outruns the restraint of wisdom, the end is often the abyss of self-destruction. The Tavorantins are a blood-written example."
Sui Meng's eyes stayed on the planetary model. He dipped his head slightly at her words and answered in brief, a low, steady sound:
"The price is heavy. So is the warning. The Empire will learn their lesson."
Few words, yet steeped in a keen sense of rise and fall—and a firm grip on the Empire's path.
A short distance behind stood two singular presences.
Cortana had taken a liquid-metal prosthetic body, letting her interact directly with the physical environment.
Quietly she stood, blue-lit pupils sweeping over the bridge's datastreams, ready at a word from Halsey.
Beside her, the Diwuzu Legion's sapient AI, Wu Ji—poised and precise as ever. In that moment, the two top AIs were a silent "think tank" and recorder.
"Scan completeness ninety-eight percent… scan complete."
The scanning officer called out, "No active biosignals detected on Tavorantis's surface. No anomalous energy fluctuations. Atmosphere predominately inert gases, relatively thin. Mean surface temperature minus 49°C.
Also identified: extensive artificial structure signatures buried deep beneath the ice or partly exposed at the surface, global distribution consistent with high-civilization ruins.
One composite signal zone near the northern polar region registers strongest and largest. Architecture matches identified Tavorantis ruins, but shows surface traces of recent—lower-standard—Earth Federation modifications."
"Looks like the Federation did establish a forward base here," Halsey observed.
Cold light flickered in Sui Meng's eyes. He did not hesitate.
"Order Diwuzu tactical squads and auxiliaries to prepare for landing. Landing package to include heavy APCs, main battle tanks, and combat mechs.
Objectives: land at ruin zones and establish forward bases; then conduct sweep-and-clear of ruin interiors—especially Federation research facilities and deep Tavorantis structures.
Recover everything with research value—terminals, storage media, and technological artifacts. Authorization granted to use necessary force to remove potential threats."
The order sped outward. Replies from ready units rolled through the air.
With the commands away, Sui Meng turned to Halsey:
"Dr. Halsey, on-site analysis and judgment are critical. You will accompany me to the surface. We need your mind to decipher Tavorantis secrets and assess the value of the Federation's remnants."
Halsey's face warmed with expectation. She straightened her coat and answered without a blink:
"Of course, child. I've been waiting for this. You can't touch history from a bridge.
Let's go see what truths and warnings lie buried in this frozen tomb."
She showed no fear of the cold or the unknown—only a seeker's urgency to lift the veil.
Sui Meng nodded and spoke to his adjutant: "Ready my personal Thunderhawk gunship. Notify the Xianzhen Honor Guard and War Maidens to provide escort. Wheels up in ten minutes."
"Yes, Father."
Soon after,
the Renwei Yonggu's cavernous hangar blazed with light.
Under the high vault, aircraft lay in precise rows like dozing iron beasts. The hangar's central expanse had been cleared, and a solemn column was forming.
Thirty Xianzhen Honor Guards in bespoke Terminator plate—walking bastions—locked the inner ring of defense in flawless order.
Their heavy armor bore legion crests. In silence, they radiated a crushing presence.
Four War Maidens in ceremonial silver-white plate—bodies haloed in soft but unmistakable psionic light—took station to either side of the core personnel. They were guardians against the unknown, mundane and supernatural alike.
At the center of this spearhead stood Halsey in specialized cold-weather field gear, with Cortana at her side—now in a body better suited to frigid conditions.
Sui Meng, as overall commander and Primarch, led from the fore. The cold gleam of his resplendent power armor caught the hangar lights, each step steady and powerful—his mere presence the column's core and compass.
Command of the fleet passed temporarily.
Wu Ji remained on the bridge to back the adjutant, continuing to oversee fleet operations and watch Tavorantis orbit and the surrounding reaches—ensuring the landing's rear echelons were secure.
They approached Sui Meng's personal craft—
a Thunderhawk gunship broader than standard, with sharper lines and thicker armor.
Reinforced frame and extra weapons modules marked both its master and its readiness for extremes.
The hatch slid open without a sound, and they filed into the spacious, well-equipped bay.
With the hatch sealed, the Thunderhawk rolled to the electromagnetic catapult, with a tight escort of a dozen carrier-borne craft and a squadron of armed drones.
After a brief charge hum, the gunship surged—an arrow from the bow—flung from the immense hangar into Tavorantis's frozen "embrace."
Entry was like falling from one silent void into another congealed abyss.
External sensors showed a thin, frigid haze as they punched through. Beyond spread an endless, numbing white.
Vast icefields smothered everything. Twisted glaciers were the planet's frozen veins. Deep ice-scar canyons gaped like wounds.
No life. No color. Only eternal cold and death. A marrow-deep sorrow seeped through the viewport.
A War Maiden closed her eyes a moment—her finer psionic senses seemed to brush the land's buried memories.
Her voice was airy and tinged with pity:
"Your Highness… I can feel it. Beneath this ice are congealed terror without end, the screams of despair, and…
the soul-rending agony of the final moment.
Countless minds were frozen at the brink of madness and aggregation… an elegy for a dying civilization, still keening in the ice."
As her words faded, the Thunderhawk settled to a smooth touchdown on a flat expanse at the foot of a great ice cliff.
It was plainly an artificial platform—and dead ahead, partly buried by heavy ice, a giant metal gate was set into the mountain. This was the entry to the underground ruins and research center.
Four Viking fighters in the escort showed their versatility at once. Dropping low, they performed complex transformations. With grinding mechanical thunder, they shifted from high-speed aircraft into imposing heavy combat mechs.
Like steadfast giants, the four Vikings thumped down around the Thunderhawk's key arcs, planting a solid ground perimeter.
The rest of the escort flight and drones, mission complete, banked for orbit and their carriers.
The hatch yawned. Knifelike cold flooded in.
Sui Meng stepped onto the ice first, his armor's environmental systems indifferent to the external freeze.
Halsey followed. Even in advanced cold-weather gear, she instinctively lifted her hands and breathed on the heated membrane lining her palms. White vapor glittered to ice-crystals at once.
"Truly… bone-deep cold."
She spoke as her gaze swept the surroundings—especially the massive gate and the layered ice around it. "This doesn't look like natural glaciation. The energy release pattern reads more like… instantaneous, directional flash-freezing."
On intuition and experience she offered her verdict. "I suspect the Tavorantins froze their homeworld deliberately in the end.
Likely a last-resort quarantine, to cut off the energy field or biomass exchange required for corpse-mutants to fully aggregate into a blood moon—forcing the catastrophe to a stop at a given stage."
Cortana, beside her, added—rational tone tinged with respect:
"If the inference holds, the Tavorantis civilization deserves the highest honor. Uncertain whether they'd survive—or whether they could ever solve the crisis—they chose self-sacrifice to forcibly seal a threat not yet fully aggregated or 'ascended.'
It was a choice beyond individual survival instinct—sacrifice for the greater scope—even at the cost of civilizational extinction."
They passed through the broken giant gate and down a sloped corridor into the underground.
At first they entered a wide, ruined "frozen hall."
This had clearly been an Earth Federation forward research center, abandoned for ages.
Snow and rime lay thick over everything. Broken terminals, toppled apparatus, and scattered file materials lay everywhere.
More harrowing still were the bones.
Some were human, bearing ghastly marks of rending and gnawing by enormous force;
others were inhumanly twisted—remains of varied corpse-mutants—frozen in the very poses of death.
The entire tableau was a fight to the death from a century past—bitter beyond measure—caught and held by the cold.
Sui Meng glanced over the wreckage and spoke low: "Search this area carefully. Recover any terminals, storage devices, and items that could hold data—and anything that looks valuable. Watch your safety."
"."
The Xianzhen nodded once and moved to it. Sui Meng, Halsey, Cortana, and the rest of the escort continued deeper along the main passage.
Beyond a far older gate of stone—its style wholly unlike Federation technology—the view opened up.
They had entered the true Tavorantis ruins.
Grand, imposing structures steeped in alien aesthetic stood revealed. Huge stone columns shouldered a soaring vault; walls were carved with symbols and murals beyond understanding.
Cold still ruled here, yet the place was remarkably intact, as if time itself had frozen alongside it.
The air was thick with ancient dust and a scent of mystery—awaiting visitors from another great civilization to decode the secrets and warnings it had hidden for millennia.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.