Humanity Endures

Part 4 - The Beginning of the End | Chapter 8

The eager chatter of an animated command center filled Heralax's ears; through his implants, he watched the world of Nahmatiix, stronger than it had ever been before, with its countless ships and its innumerable armies ready to wage war on his command, and with its people living in unmatched prosperity. Seeing this, Heralax did not feel merely confident — he felt proud. His cape flowing behind his military garb, its face bearing the screaming skull of Nahmatiix's traditional heraldry, Heralax felt his hearts beat contentedly while he witnessed tens of thousands of elite fighters swarming around his ship in perfect unison, and harmony. To see a people and planet come alive as Nahmatiix did now was inspirational — to lead this change was nothing less than an honor.

But a few hours ago he had ordered a portion of one of these fleets, under the command of one of his most loyal admirals, to strike a human target travelling in the Remnant. Shortly after this, multiple other fleets had been dispatched to attack the world that his target belonged to. Things were progressing quicker than he had anticipated, and indeed he had never anticipated the aliens at all, but Heralax could not deny that in his quest to see every world become as revived as Nahmatiix had been, the aliens served a worthy purpose. If recent reports were to be believed, then the world of Earth had come under attack by a titanic alien force — if what he had heard of the aliens beforehand was to be believed, then this alien force was guaranteed to vanquish humanity's homeworld, and though this thought pained Heralax's noble heart beyond imagination, his pragmatic side realized it was also his chance to further his own ends. Profiting off of the loss of the capital made him sick to his stomach, but Heralax's overriding ambition restored him; realizing that if Earth were to fall, that the Imperator and all of his heirs would also perish or have their humanity thrown into question, all that Heralax had to do after the fact was eliminate the only other politician and the only other planet who that could pose a threat to his cause, and, when the time came, the proclamation of his imperatorship would go unopposed. Humanity would triumph against the aliens under his rule, and then he would tear up the galaxy's foundations like no imperator since the First Imperator had done before: power would be redistributed, injustice would be righted, worlds would be constructed, armadas of a scale never before witnessed would be forged, and perhaps even entirely new galaxies would be subjugated, but whatever the case, Heralax would see that his name was etched into history as that of the First Tekran Imperator was. His flagship, the Harbinger, was well named; he was the leader of change in the Empire, and he brought with him a return to the prosperity that the Empire had witnessed upon its founding. Against the aliens, as in all things, humanity had more need of him than him of humanity.

Heralax watched the world of Nahmatiix, more powerful than it had ever been before, and yet, Heralax still felt pangs of doubt tearing at him. He was about to take on what had been the mightiest, most tyrannical planet in the galaxy, one that had strengthened itself from injustice for thousands of years, and he was about to take the lead in the fight against the gravest, most inhuman foe that humanity had faced since its inception — he was also about to witness the fall of Earth to this very enemy. Heralax could not help but question whether or not his actions were right, whether they would succeed, or whether his vision was as infallible as he had thought it was when he set about realizing it decades ago; this fear undermined his desire to act, even though he had long passed the point of no return.

However, as Heralax watched the world of Nahmatiix, with its countless ships, innumerable armies, and a population with an iron will and the ambition — his ambition — to complement it, he felt these doubts recede into the darkest recesses of his mind. The aliens were an anvil, and he was a hammer — together, in the fires of total war and civic upheaval that would doubtless follow, they would reforge the Empire, for the good of all humanity. Heralax's own thoughts were beginning to sound like his propaganda, he realized. "Is this madness?" He wondered, "or am I only now truly accepting the righteousness of my actions?"