Yue

 24th January

20:33 GMT

Well, Canis was right. Not seeing any art here.

This is the fleet support base that was closest to Mellifera. Rather than bombard the planet, Devlos instead opted to do.. something to the system's star. It's still there, but far dimmer and colder than it was a few centuries ago. I'm honestly struggling to think how he could have done that. While I'm aware of plenty of devices that could affect a sun they're mostly macro-scale themselves. Suns are quite large, and have a fair bit of energy in them. Devlos's armour was never described as anything other than a brute force implement, so given that he fought Green Lanterns I can only assume that it was ludicrously powerful. Eat a sun for fuel powerful.

I use a construct claw to halt a slowly rotating piece of debris and then shove it out of the way. The Free Tartarath fleet burned it two centuries ago, and even with vacuum insulation it's still reached 4 kelvin. No record of them trying to salvage it, but the elements of the Tartarath military who avoided Devlos during his initial takeover were his most fanatical opponents. They would have considered the whole place contaminated. Which goes some way to explain the thoroughness of the destruction.

Mellifera's people adapted, with help. The population plummeted from its 36 billion peak as the heat they loved vanished and the surface froze, but they don't have the aversion to being underground or in confined spaces that many winged species have. Most of the population live underground these days, and the world is covered in a layer of snow. They don't look at the stars any longer.

…

I wonder if there's an intelligent sun I could recruit?

No, no, there are plenty of ways to fix this that don't involve a new recruit. Inasmuch as it needs fixing. The people currently alive are fine as they are. The damage happened two hundred years ago. The ecosystem is gone, not under threat.

A semi-complete corpse floats past me in a cloud of frozen blood crystals.

But that's something I'm going to have to deal with.

"Illustres to Lantern Mother of Mercy."

There's a slight delay, then a construct of the trunk of her core appears over my ring.

"Yes?"

"I'm sending you the location of a series of destroyed space stations. No immediate rush, but I want you to visit them and consume them. Catalogue everything you find, then return to Sol."

"Understood."

"Feeling any better with all of the ghosts gone?"

"Small oddities which I noticed are now absent. My dreams are easier now. Now that I know they were there, it pleases me that their uncomfortable after life experience is made more pleasant."

"Glad to hear it. Illustres out."

Her tentacles wave. "Illustres?"

"Yes?"

"The first humanoid I encountered. The one whose brain raised me to true intelligence. Is he amongst them?

"I don’t know. Hades has barely begun processing them. Is it important?"

"I would like to speak with him directly. His death was important to me."

"I'll ask. Anything else?"

"No. Mother of Mercy out."

The image vanishes, and I take another look at the drifting wreckage.

Ring, any evidence that anyone has been scavenging here recently?

None found.

Right. I construct-grab a lump of debris and transmute it into an alert beacon. If anyone does come this way it'll ping me an alert. Same as the last four. I then turn away and fly out of the centre of the debris field into open space.

Ring, plot course to the next station.

Course plotted.

Two, one, go.

Space bends and… I'm not there yet. Ugh, I think I'm becoming jaded already. The space stations are all built on similar lines, but the damage patterns are different. The attack reconstructions my ring makes are unique.

Alright, come on. At least-.

Warp terminating.

Space snaps back in as I appear on-. Well, not the edge of the system because there isn't one. Rather, there's a planet that at some point in the galaxy's past was torn free of its home system and sent freewheeling across the void. Reminds me of the episode of Star Trek Enterprise, where the set designer completely blanked on the fact that plant-analogues on a world without sunlight wouldn't have leaves.

There are a lot of frigid planets around here.

Ring, is anything around here interfering with FTL?

No.

Right, plot route and transition closer. Let's get this over-

Space skips.

-witharmour!

Lasers slash across my construct armour, and kinetic rounds slam into it a moment later! This station has very evidently been restored to functional-

FTL interdiction fields now active.

-ity. Secondary batteries are deploying and pointing my way and I'm stuck at sublight speeds. I plot a meandering course to bring me closer to the station and fire a volley of destructive pulses at the-. The plasma field surrounding the station shimmers, but manages to absorb the pulses. Fine, I know how to deal with those. Shield construct-

The lasers that can hit me are, but the kinetic weapons have been reduced to chance impacts by my evasive pattern.

-to protect the railgun, load crumblers and fire.

The lasers switch targets immediately, but a combination of my movements, the speed of my shots and the hard to detect profiles of my rounds results in a quarter or so hitting their target. The plasma shield ripples, and I spot hull-mounted emitters spark as they overload. The section of shield in front of me collapses and I fire-

The secondary weapons -positron beams- draw a bead on me and open fire.

-destructive pulses against the station's weapon emplacements. With no ship to keep intact it's a relatively simple matter to use magnetic fields to turn the shots away from me, while their armour isn't tough enough to block my shots. Turrets are reduced to twisted scrap as I slow to a stop to get a better look at what I'm fighting. I raise both arms and gesture, pulses of orange light raining down across this side of the station and eliminating shield emitters and weapon hardpoints.

Ring, is FTL available?

Interdiction fields still in effect.

Fine. I didn't see any ships…

I generate a crumbler gauntlet construct and slam it into the outer hull.

Let's see who's been rebuilding.