The Annihilation Device (1)

The moment I saw the event message, I couldn't suppress my bewilderment.

Annihilation Device, of all things.

At least the automatic pause that kicked in whenever an event message appeared gave me plenty of time to sort my thoughts. No matter how hard I turned it over, though, the sense of wrongness refused to leave my head.

Something's off. Did anything like that ever show up in the Grey Nightmare event?

I kept digging through my memories, but it was as if I'd come down with dementia—nothing about that enormous fortress(?) would surface. To be precise… it wasn't that nothing came up at all. Even if the nano-machines were an unstoppable force, there still had to be some origin that produced the nano-machines themselves, right? But the "source" of the nano-machines I remembered had never been anything that had undergone fortification like this.

It wasn't completely unarmed… but it sure as hell wasn't anything like that.

The more I thought about it, the stranger it felt.

A nano-machine fleet… building a fortress?

Those things would infest a planet and churn out fleets, sure. But they wouldn't construct a gigantic planetary fortress the second they arrived, the way the one right in front of me had. With that thought, I checked the event message again.

The utterly incomprehensible wording only deepened my suspicion.

This is seriously weird. The whole structure is wrong.

Once I started listing the problems, they piled up fast. The Grey Nightmare event I remembered went like this:

A mysterious Warp Gate opens, and if Grey doesn't come out of it, the Grey Nightmare fleet does.

But for a gate our Empire had built to suddenly connect to Grey Nightmare territory? Sixteen years had passed since those days, so my recollection was a little hazy… still, a player-made gate linking to an event gate? That kind of event never existed in the vanilla game, let alone in any mod.

What the hell is going on?

And that planetary fortress out there—no matter how I looked at it, it was not something that should be appearing at this stage of the game. Now that I was really staring at it… why was it showing up now?

Of course, as I'd just said, more than sixteen years had passed since I'd last seen it in the game, so the details had blurred a little. Even so, the "planetary fortress" floating before my eyes was absolutely not supposed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to appear yet. That thing was the culprit behind an event so dangerous it made the Warlord, the Grey fleets, and even the AI rebellion that had happened before I was born look tame by comparison.

The prerequisite events that would let that thing loose haven't even triggered yet.

Exactly as my thoughts kept insisting: according to the game's progression, its appearance right now was pure nonsense.

Annihilation Device… or was it the Annihilation Protocol System?

I couldn't remember the exact name, but one fact was crystal clear. That thing was one of the late-game final bosses—the absolute strongest and most vicious difficulty the game had to offer. And the moment I realized that, I finally understood why the Precursors had gone so far as to storm our Empire and raise hell.

With something like that sealed away, and us effectively unsealing it this early, of course they'd be desperate.

As for my earlier suspicion about our gate connecting out of nowhere—I decided to stop questioning it.

Eh, people live long enough and gates connect or they don't. Whatever.

Maybe the event that was originally supposed to reach us had been this one all along, and Ash had only tried to help us because the connection had come too early.

…Am I getting a little too sentimental here?

In the end, every problem led back to that planetary fortress we'd tracked by following the nano-machines' signal. Ash's signal was still detectable inside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it. All I had to do was finish this situation, meet Ash, and calmly hear what the hell had happened. With that thought, I released the pause and leaned back against the throne.

"All right. Then we should start preparing to infiltrate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that mystery planet—"

"Ah, would you wait just a moment, Minister?"

I was about to finish the sentence. Instead Levia cut in, and for the first time since we'd met she actually looked… flustered. I took a half-step back, equal parts puzzled and wary.

"…What's wrong, Levia?"

"The planetary fortress ahead of us… I am detecting a core with specifications and energy signature nearly identical to my own."

"Is that for real?"

Hearing that only made my bewilderment worse.

The Annihilation Protocol System—no, the Annihilation Device—has a core?

Every place has a heart and an origin, so the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠idea itself wasn't strange. But the core of the Annihilation Device was supposed to be a heavily fortified cybernetic core, buried under massive fleets and defensive batteries. The odds of it being a biological core like the Levia standing right in front of us were basically zero. How could any living thing even exist on that grotesque mechanical planet made of nano-machines?

While I was staring, Levia squinted at the distant machine-world for a moment, then turned back to us.

"I am certain. It is a core of the same specification as mine."

"Hmm… is that so."

Even after hearing it, I couldn't see what difference it made.

Same specs… so what? How does that help us right now?

Apparently everyone else was thinking the same thing. Riel stepped forward and voiced exactly what was on my mind.

"I'm just curious, but what exactly does that have to do with our current situation?"

Faced with Riel's usual blunt reality check, Levia tilted her head for a second… then—

Tap.

—she smacked her fist into her palm as if something had clicked, and addressed us in her trademark deadpan tone.

"The fact that I share the same specifications as the core inside means I possess access and command authority over that planetary fortress's systems."

It was an enormously important, game-changing statement. Unfortunately her delivery was so flat and emotionless that it reminded me of some Japanese politician's circular logic from my previous life—calm, dry, utterly devoid of feeling. As a result, the rest of us needed a few extra seconds before we could properly react to what Levia had just said.

A short while later.

"All right. So exactly how far does this authority of yours go, Levia?"

Once the confusion cleared, I decided we had no choice but to trust her for now.

"I am still compiling the full list of obtainable permissions within the system… but you may assume most command codes are available."

"Hmm."

Interesting, sure—but put that way, a computer illiterate like me couldn't make heads or tails of it. Luckily, someone who lived and breathed complex electronic language was sitting right here.

"Oh my. In other words, if we play this right we could pour fire on that fortress while remaining completely unharmed?"

Ever since her stealth equipment had melted into something resembling taffy, Minister Vermouth had been sitting around with nothing to do. At her question Levia shook her head firmly.

"Even so, if we initiate an attack, there is a high probability the opposing side will forcibly revoke my command authority."

"How unfortunate."

"However, bypassing the fortress's detection radar and sensors, or causing it to ignore this ship entirely, should be possible."

We immediately asked whether she could simply stop the fortress from attacking our ship at all…

"The fortress's defensive batteries operate on a completely independent system. External authority such as mine cannot manipulate them."

Levia's flat declaration left me nodding in reluctant agreement. But right after that—

The instant another event message bloomed in front of my eyes, I was seized by the dark suspicion that this damned event was deliberately trying to give me decision paralysis.