The idea was tempting. Making first contact with the Sil'narae would be a strategic decision, a way to set my plans in motion before anyone else understood what I was.

They rarely intervene in politics. Only when something seriously disturbs Nexus travel or the Halo net do their fleets move, and when they do, the rest of the galaxy becomes cautious.

Dealing with them would be strange. They are, in many ways, a civilisation built around research and observation. They do not mingle with other galaxy powers. Their priorities are all academic, focused on mapping what's beyond the Halo, cataloguing anomalies and studying whatever crawling through the rifts in the Nexus. To them, the rest of us are at best immature, at worst we are noisy curiosities.

From my perspective, the question is: What will they make of me? I am an anomaly made flesh, a hypothesis realised. My existence would complicate everything they think they understand about life and the etheric realm.

And that raised even more questions about what they would demand. I would become a research subject, a curiosity to dissect layer by layer. They might trade knowledge for the privilege of studying me, prying into how I function, cataloguing every mechanism and process I rely on.

That made everything far riskier.

I would need to alter my creations, rewrite their entire biology, mask core functions, anything to keep certain secrets buried where no outsider could reach them.

Could another mind be engineered in my likeness? The possibility gnaws at me. My constructions are linked to my mind, my DNA, my methods, all of which could, in theory, be copied or twisted.

If someone altered my blueprint, could they create a new mind that thought like me? Could they weaponise my designs? The thought is terrifying. If I visit the Sil'narae, I must weigh not only what they might give, but what they might take.

That opened another problem. If I show myself outside my little pocket, any powerful etheric would pick up my presence instantly. This unstable pocket region has been a cloak, thinning my signature and keeping me invisible to most of the galaxy.

Ankrae's memories confirmed it was not unique. Pockets like mine crop up rarely, and they are dangerous. If the Nexus destabilises, anyone trapped inside can be stranded for decades, even centuries. The implications are harsh if someone destabilises my pocket.

I had plenty to decide, but time is on my side for now. I still have experiments to run, variables to probe, and methods to refine before I commit to anything irreversible.

I let my mind spin up scenarios and run probabilities while the clones drank themselves under the tables, sampling one toxic concoction after another.

They are impressive when ordered and sober, but give them liberty and a drink, and they melt into predictable chaos.

I nudged Seer with my elbow and nodded toward two clones on the edge of a brawl. One wore battered power armour, the other red robes stitched with campaign badges. The robed clone had survived my invasion of Veridia and wore his luck like a map, boasting to the one in armour.

"Are you going to stop them?" Seer asked, giving me that tired look that said he already knew the answer.

"Go on, then, king of this land. Time to wrangle your subjects," I said. He loathed every title I tried slapping on him. King, emperor, director, overseer, chief and grand master. The list went on. This region didn't even have an official name yet, and the clones were still arguing about that, too.

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He opened his mouth to retort, but the moment shattered as the two clones finally lunged at each other.

The first swing cracked against armour with a hollow thud, the armoured clone barely flinching as he retaliated. His opponent moved faster, slipping under the counter and driving a knee into the armoured clone's abdomen. The impact rang like metal struck with a hammer.

The crowd howled.

The robed clone had the advantage in speed and raw physical enhancement. His modified muscles flexed with unnatural strength, veins tightening under the skin as he dodged another blow. The armoured clone relied on weight and momentum, his boots scraping the floor as he tried to corner the faster fighter.

A fist caught the robed clone across the jaw, twisting his head. He spat blood, grinned, then closed the distance before the other could reset. He slammed both palms into the chest plate, lifting the armoured clone off his feet and driving him across a table. Drinks scattered. Someone cheered. Someone else placed a bet.

The armoured clone rolled, grabbed the edge of the table and hurled it aside like a scrap, roaring as he charged back in. The robed clone met him halfway, both of them smashing together with a crash that shook the bar's lighting fixtures. They traded hits like it was a language only they spoke.

These scraps weren't rare. Default clones and altered clones had tension simmering under the skin, and every so often it burst out like this, violence flashing through the room in quick, hungry arcs.

Before either could escalate to real damage, the colony guard stormed in.

Their symbiotic armour flowed around their limbs as they moved, organic plates tightening with each step. The moment they grabbed the brawlers, it was over.

Enhanced strength crushed resistance in seconds, two sets of arms pinned behind backs, boots scraping against the floor as they were hauled apart.

One guard hissed a command over the bars' speakers. Another slammed a palm against a struggling clone's shoulder, the symbiotic armour spreading tendrils that paralysed his arm.

Seer sighed, drained his drink, and muttered, "Every damn day it's the same problem."

"I will never understand why anyone would let themselves be placed in one of those. It looks like the inside of a body." He shuddered, his face a map of dread and disgust.

I did not share his revulsion. To me, they were possible future possibilities. Fusing my biotech with cybernetics inside a living frame produced results to hopefully match any mechanical system.

I was already running prototypes of different weapons grafted to bone that healed itself.

There might be commerce in it if the market existed. An army that repaired itself from battlefield damage was terrifyingly cheap to maintain. Why bury enemy corpses when you could recycle them to repair and feed your forces? All I needed were proper contingencies for fighting truly mechanical adversaries.

"Give it time," I said, watching his face. "One day you'll be using one. Farming is labour-intensive."

"I'd rather keep the power armour we scavenged than be covered in another layer of flesh," he muttered, looking down as the guards hauled the troublemakers away.

They are an odd group, more interested in radical augmentations than in minor ones. They volunteered eagerly for experimental augmentations built around the symbiotic frame I created. Striders, hexapods, and mosquitoes were all trialled to see how well clone and drone minds could mesh when not linked to me.

I have dozens of live-fire trials across Imreth and Veridia with a few more locations across the solar system. Even if these clones cannot match the complex tactics I can compose with a single thought, their shared group consciousness reacts far faster.

In the field, they coordinate more tightly than an ordinary squad, anticipating each other's moves and filling gaps before orders arrive.

Some went further and asked for the full overhaul, replacing organs, muscles, eyes, and bones with tougher, engineered alternatives. I agreed to let them push the limits. Their requests were as useful to my research as they were interesting.

Most clones regarded them with unease. Depending on whom you asked, their willingness to be so altered was either a sign of insanity or a kind of etheric mental corruption.

They became outcasts, accepted by none, yet they were always the first to volunteer for dangerous experiments. Reluctantly, many grudgingly came to respect their tenacity for keeping the peace between different groups. The unit was nicknamed the Black Watch and was assigned as colonial guards.

I ordered another drink while my sub-minds fed me progress reports. Biomass production and expansion were steady. Research pipelines continued into replacements and upgrades for the Zhyrraak and the Neskar, and the field trials kept returning data that would shape the next generation of designs.

I needed a vessel on the scale of the ark ship, something vast enough to carry my armies across the galaxy and powerful enough to haul its escort flotilla wherever it travelled.

They had proved their worth during the campaign. My ships performed exactly as designed, and my drones carved a path through the expedition fleet. But victories against the dregs of Triumvirate society are a poor measure for a real war.

When I reviewed years of battlefield memories, I concluded that their forces were rudimentary at best. No heavy artillery, no mortar batteries, only handfuls of grenades. Power armour was scarce and patchwork, vehicles were thinly armoured and there was no coherent air wing to dominate a battlefield. What I faced here was an ad hoc militia in the millions dressed up as an army.

Against the true Triumvirate, that would not be enough. Their well-equipped clone armies would bring integrated logistics, combined arms doctrine and reserves drilled to the point of automatic reflex. I need battlefield experience that teaches how to break those systems, not just exploit gaps in poorly led ragtag forces.

I planned to build an army of agents to infiltrate and take over a range of organisations: criminal syndicates, mercenary companies and corporate fronts. Each takeover would give me eyes and assets in different corners of the galaxy, a way to study its economies, politics and military cultures before I delivered the strike against the Triumvirate.

Everything else is secondary for now. I will wait, observe and let the galaxy reveal who will be a threat when the Triumvirate falls.

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