An Emerging Foe!

Shi'ar Galaxy

Chandilar, the throneworld of the Shi'ar Empire

High above the endless spires and floating platforms of Chandilar, dawn shimmering with an unearthly brilliance.

Here stood Chandilar, the heart of the Shi'ar Empire, a civilization whose technological prowess far surpassed the most advanced reaches of Earth.

The skyline was a jagged silhouette of gleaming pylons, their surfaces etched with shimmering circuits that glowed in shifting hues of violet and teal. Antigravity platforms whisked sleek vessels from place to place in silent precision.

High-energy cannons were mounted all about, ready to obliterate anything that dared to move in the nearby area unauthorized.

Here, even the air carried a charge of energy, mag‑streams coursing invisibly, powering shields, communications arrays, planetwide dominion. Automated drone‑swarm cleaners flitted along the outer hull of the Palace of the Imperial Throne.

Defense turrets rotated, scanning distant asteroid belts for threats. The planet's neural mainframe, Chandrilor Sentinel, processed trillions of data nodes per second, civilian broadcasts, military logistics, bio-sensor feeds. Even the throne room itself hummed with power.

In the heart of the palace, within the Council Chamber, D'ken Neramani, the Majestor of the Empire sat on a throne made of a variety of luxurious rare metal gathered from the Empire's expansionist exploits.

Around him sat his High Council, a cadre of pliant governors, military commanders, and industrial magnates.

Each wore insectile adornments of gold and iridescent armor fitted with sensor operatives. They were the tip of Shi'ar brutality: cultured, cold, and thoroughly corrupt.

D'ken gestured with a gilded hand, and the gaseous projection above the central holo‑table shifted from a distant star to an Earth-like planet, "On Verdara‑5, the assimilation completes this week," he intoned, "Governor M'vask reports that the locals yielded without resistance. Their biogenetics make them pliable, useful."

A Councilor nodded. "The Verdaran scientists have begun mandatory gene‑sequencing. Soon, their psionic capabilities will be harvested to strengthen our telepathic shields."

Another, industrial‑magnate Mahar Vek, smirked, "I travelled there yesterday, you idiots should really see check it out, the women are quite beautiful. I've already taken 4 myself."

"Here we go again, always thinking about women, I wouldn't be surprised if when I dissect your dead body, I find that tiny brain of yours actually in your dick." This time, another Councilor spoke, a woman.

"No need to argue," D'ken replied, "By the next harvest cycle, I want Verdara's new biomechanist cohort trained fully in Shi'ar protocols."

A military High Commander, Shalthor, cleared his throat.,"Majestor, our Death Commands have prepared phase‑three bioweapon deployment. But rumor indicates a surge in Phoenix‑signature emissions from a planet in a different galaxy."

The room froze. Even the buzzing of the sentinel drones stilled, from constant chatter and muttering, now someone could legitimately hear a pin drop.

D'ken's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, his voice cold as he said, "Explain."

Shalthor's voice dropped, "Our sector‐scans recorded a potent psionic flare from a planet, Earth. It only was detected recently and It echoes the signature of the Phoenix Force."

Gasps echoed and Mahar Vek spat, "That pathetic bird can't just die."

D'ken, ever arrogant, straightened his regal posture. He closed his eyes, tapping into his own telepathic reserves. The Chamber's pressure dropped ever so slightly. The faintest ripple of psychic unease.

He stood, regal hood swirling. "Send the Death Commandos." At his word, the curved doorway hissed open. Four elite warriors trooped forward, clad in sleek black carapace armor. Each wore an energy‑signature dampener and helmet with specialist weapon arrays.

"Go in stealth," D'ken commanded, "Scan its host and allies, confirm psychic strength. Then eliminate them. Leave no survivors. If the Phoenix manifests, we destroy it. Report back to me, I don't care if you return, make sure that bird is dead."

The Commandos bowed, "As you command, Majestor."

D'ken slowly returned to his seat, turning to the High Council in finality. "We have conquered a thousand worlds. No cosmic force shall stand in our way."

He pressed a control on his throne. The holotable switched from Verdara‑5 to Earth. A golden dot pulsed, "The Phoenix. Soon, we'll know how fragile it truly is."

He looked out through the chamber's wide black‑steel windows at the bright immensity of Chandilar's dome, its multiple stars and swirling satellites, "History will remember the Shi'ar as perfection. Ensure our enemies do not survive to tell its story."

With that, he adjourned the council, watching them all leave as he remained in the room.

He tried to use one of the Empire's advanced technology to peer into what Jean was doing at the moment, but surprisingly, the scan was blocked.

No matter what, there was a barrier completely cloaking Madripoor from his advanced scan, leaving him unable to gather any info about it, and what exactly the Phoenix is doing.

"How can this backwater planet block my scans." D'ken said with annoyance, watching as the display shimmered, distorted, then broke into chaotic glyphs as if reality itself were rejecting their probes.

He leaned forward on the throne, pressing a sequence of commands into the console embedded in his armrest.

"Recalibrate the neural-spectra," he muttered. "Shift from tachyonic telemetry to dark matter resonance. Use the psionic relays from the Denebrix Array. Focus on this zone in particular. Punch through."

The technician overseeing the operation, a wiry Shi'ar female with luminous implants across her skull, bowed from her post beside the throne, "Majestor, the probes are already operating at maximum capacity,"

"I did not ask for your input!" D'ken snapped, voice like a crack of thunder, "Do it now."

At once, the room brightened with raw power as Chandrilor Sentinel, the neural mainframe of the Empire, surged with additional quantum bandwidth.

Pulses of raw data streamed through conduits that fed into the throne itself. Outside, on the orbital perimeter of Chandilar, Shi'ar scanning satellites pivoted simultaneously.

Their emitters glowed bright blue, launching exotic particle streams across the cosmic distance between the Shi'ar Galaxy and Earth.

In orbit around the planet, a dozen cloaked observational drones activated and synchronized their efforts, triangulating the precise position of Madripoor, focusing their beams into a concentrated latticework of cosmic radiation, psychic frequency, and gravitic analysis.

Inside the Council Chamber, the holotable vibrated. The air thickened with energy as D'ken's brow furrowed, forcing his will through the systems.

The image of Earth flickered, Madripoor glimmering like a lighthouse in fog, and then… nothing. Static again. Pure black interference.

Then the systems exploded.

A cascade of sparks burst from the holotable, shorting out as a psychic feedback loop surged through the network.

Technicians screamed as the walls erupted with bursts of electricity. Chandrilor Sentinel's interface panels cracked under the pressure, and one of the data pylons exploded outright in a flash of purple plasma.

The throne itself groaned under the stress. D'ken stood, flicking his cloak behind him as the room filled with smoke and flickering power.

"…Impossible," he muttered, though the word was nearly a growl, "Nothing is impenetrable to the Empire."

The technician nearest to him, a cybernetically-enhanced strategist named Koryn-Vas, was already on one knee, trembling.

"Majestor…" he choked, "The barrier is not technological, it's psionic. Something, or someone, is shielding the entire region around Madripoor. No Shi'ar scan, no matter how advanced, can break through it without burning out the infrastructure. We would need to physically be there to see what—"

D'ken struck him with a backhand before he finished speaking. Koryn-Vas flew across the chamber and slammed against the far wall, sparking implants flickering in failure.

"Ten," D'ken said coldly. "Send ten Death Commandos. Double the original strike team. Arm them with null-psionics and full stealth cloaks. If the Phoenix has allies, they die first. I want her isolated."

Another aide began tapping the order into the command pad at the base of the throne. "And if they fail?"

"They won't," D'ken growled. "But if they do… we glass the continent. Burn it from orbit."

There was a pause. Then, another command occurred to him.

"Find out who developed this shielding tech," D'ken said, eyes like blazing suns, "No Earth mind should be capable of this."

The aide bowed.

D'ken's voice dropped to a glacial murmur. "When you find the one who built that barrier… I want them brought to me. Alive. Enslaved. Their knowledge belongs to the Shi'ar. Their mind, their body, their entire being."

A beat passed, and then he added, "Have them dragged here in chains. I want them to see their work crushed by the very empire they thought to evade."

***

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