High Orbit, Kashuuk

Time: Unknown

Ships burning. A graveyard that doesn't yet know it is one - that is Kashuuk now - that was what The Jukar-son thought looking out of the observation room, normally a hazardous place to be when in battle but the traitors could try with all their might, they won't break the space-shields that protect the motherships. He could see them now, five motherships in total each with the majesty that comes with their age, each one with uncountable wounds and patches on those wounds that show what they survived and just like all Sajuk who allow their wounds to be visible it was a promise to those that attempt to harm them - we survived this we will survive you - the traitors seem to be testing that promise.

Looking out farther he could see the Traitor motherships, ten in all. A force that would terrify any other people but the Houses of Kashuuk were not easily cowed. Among the forces of the Houses were hundreds of ships, thousands of defense platforms, and thousands of drones. Now the traitors were attacking again - another failed attempt - they have been attacking in the thousands for the past month while their motherships stayed out of the battle just far enough to command their forces and reinforce with the ships that come right off the production lines each one quickly put together with the resources that they are harvesting from the outer system.

They mined out a rather large moon of a gas giant last week and moved onto its second largest, the refining ships arriving and leaving a dozen at a time - no doubt bringing more resources. There use to be tens of thousands of defense platforms that stretched out past the orbit of the third moon but now only those left in the orbit of Kashuuk are left, they had thousands of ships each a mighty vessel that had histories that stretched centuries as it had been that long since a true war came to the Thousand Houses, lastly they had nearly a million drones but with a month of constant assaults the Houses were losing their footing.

The scrap of the destroyed vessels and drones would provide a boon for their own production lines but they would have to wait for the current assault to be broken before sending ships to collect the scrap, it has been two days of constant battle and based on how long it took last time to break their assault it will be another two days before the traitor forces were forced to retreat behind the third moon and their myriad of defenses they set up there. While they didn't have an influx of resources from space to use them doesn't mean the great lines of industry on the motherships were dormant, up from the surface of Kashuuk dozens of heavily armoured cargo ships - any less and they would be easy prey - were coming to deliver resources that were being turned into drones that were immediately launched and defense platforms that were immediately deployed to replenish Kashuuks diminishing grid.

The Houses were losing the initiative as they had chosen to send their motherships into the fray, a week ago the six motherships of Kashuuk would be in the same position as the traitors - far enough to command and reinforce but not close enough to truly be in the battle - but now all six are taking to the field and all six are tearing dozens of ships from the sky with their weapons. The plasma cannons tearing through shields and hull like they were paper, the firelances were spearing through dozens of drones a second, while the motherships space-shields were constantly shifting the outer ones being replaced by the inner ones and sometimes when the mothership is given a reprieve from being assaulted one or two would be sent out to give cover for other ships in the Kashuuk defense fleet.

He was waited for the moment, waiting to see the opening that the consensus would use and strike at the traitor motherships. A small opening, a miniscule gap in the weapons fire that would allow the mothership of House Jakir and its complement of ships to shoot past the attackers and face the traitor motherships. They tried this move two weeks ago with only destroyers - the assault had cost them dearly - the destroyers lost to the mothership defenders and the gap that the lost destroyers had defended was exploited by the traitors, luckily a brilliant move by the Houses allowed them to wipe the attacking force in a swift blow. Sadly they couldn't capitalize on it, the motherships immediately turned and jumped to their defenses on the third moon but now the traitors instincts were soon to betray them.

The traitors seemed to realize that unlike their motherships the Houses motherships were more dangerous on the field than off, so they are now sending half of their mothership guards and they will soon arrive onto the field in a few seconds. Which was why three of the motherships were so close together, usually distanced by a few thousand kilometers the motherships were now a single kilometer from each other Houses Mikial, Larsalem, and Jakir were betting their motherships on this plan. The three ships were preparing the ritual, dozens of metal spires that ran the length of the ships were slowly unveiling themselves and curving just enough that each spire made a third of a circle each, while they never touched one another it would still be enough to direct the ritual.

He could see the gap, that the defenders had spent the last two days moving their ships in such a way, focusing fire in such a way that the ships parted for the smallest of moments. Such a small gap in the fleet lines would be ignored by less advanced species but with the two combatants today they knew how to exploit such a small gap for the best advantages. This gap was such a danger that the reinforcing capital ships that were supposed to be defending the traitor motherships were redirected to fill the gap but it would take a few seconds, precious seconds that the defenders would use to enact their ritual.

One would be quite amazed at the sight that occured when the ritual was completed a dozen spires each stretching for a kilometer to the port of each mothership, and each motherships space-shields went down the shifting and cracking that occured on each space-shield stopped and they all disappeared their bright white no longer visible and only the motherships bodies were, and what a sight it was. Looking like they took the bright white of the space-shields the motherships began to glow in the pure white, lines of conduits across their surfaces and the metal spires lighten up creating a pattern not too dissimilar to a circuit board even if any present had no clue what a circuit board was. But for those present it was an awe inspiring sight.

For the defenders it has been over two millions of years since the ritual was used as the terrible power it unleashed was hostile to user and those the user aimed at alike, if not for the metal spires and their directional fields this power would wipe a hole in Kasuuks defenders twenty thousand kilometers in diameter.

For the attackers they had never seen such a weapon as the last time it was used on their species there were no survivors to tell of the tale. But little did they know that they had a tale that this weapon had played a part in, The Missing Million, they call it. The fleet numbering a million strong that attacked another galaxy disappeared, one day they sent everything was fine and the next not an iota of chatter came from them. That was the last time the weapon was fired and its destructive power was witnessed to the species here, as for species elsewhere it was a mere five years last that the weapon was used.

And when the reinforcing capital ships finally arrived they arrived to their death as the weapon fired. To others it would look like a bubble that expanded faster but this bubble didn't expand equally in all directions as physics would normally demand. No. This bubble expanded in a cone toward the attackers it expanded so fast that the drones and their metal minds and unbelievably processing speeds only had a fraction of a fraction of a second to calculate what it was before it hit. And when it hit the drones only came to one conclusion that they couldn't act on, due to the nature of the weapon and the coding of the drones the conclusion could only be seen by the drones and it went something like this: {weapon - unknown - can't move to escape - can't reinforce - hole estimated: 5000 kilometers}

And the drone was correct when the weapon hit every ship, drone, and scrap of metal in the 5000 kilometer diameter corridor the weapon created the ships were already dead - they just didn't know it yet. The battle seemed to pause for a second for The Jukar-son, but perhaps that was just him, either way the weapon did its work, destroying every bond that connected every atom of every piece of matter in the 5000 kilometer diameter corridor. Ionic, covalent, polar, and hydrogen all types and all configurations that bond atoms together were destroyed and like a cruel mistress the laws of the universe took effect. Everything wants to move to a low energy state, that is a law of the universe and so when the atoms that made up the ships, drones, and scrap in the corridor no longer had a reason to be so close together they spread out as fast as would allow which meant faster than could be seen. The energy used to break the bonds also seemed to affect the atoms in such a way that they couldn't re-bond with other atoms that would normally happen when a bond is broken and so in a half second a hole was made in the attackers line large enough for the mothership of House Jakir and its three dozen destroyers and cruisers to make their move, and they did.

A quick jump to FTL speeds and drop out was not unheard of for the species, what was unheard of was a mothership class vessel doing such a thing. Their engines couldn't survive such a beating but the Houses of Kashuuk were fine taking such a risk.

This particular mothership was the youngest of them - meaning at least three million years old - and as such it had the most efficient energy distribution systems. While older motherships were still efficient enough to not be too affected it still took time to repower all their systems after conducting the ritual but for House Jakir's mothership they didn't need the seconds it took other motherships and was able to immediately jump with its complement through the corridor they just created. The mothership dropped out a second later five hundred kilometers in front of three of the traitor motherships. For vessels such as these it was practically knife-fighting range. Then they opened fire.

The traitor motherships had the same space-shields as the Houses a simple look at the thin rectangle space-shields as they shifting and moved attempting to block the weapons fire confirmed this. But they were neither as resilient as the House space-shields, or numerous. A standard mothership of the Thousand Houses had space-shields that could be spread out defending every angle of the mothership and still be three layers thick, giving them the ability to swap out the outside space-shields with the inner undamaged ones. When the House motherships decided they were only threatened from one side the layers could be upwards of fifteen depending on the mothership. So when the weapons fire of the mothership of House Jakir and its three dozen destroyers opened fire on the three separate traitor motherships their space-shields fell one after another in a few minutes.

Then their armour was opened up to be preyed upon. The defenders for this particular set of motherships were attempting to destroy the attackers but they were weakened by the push they carried out not a half hour earlier and were easily picked off one after another by the cruisers that came along.

If one were to see the armour of the motherships they would think them beautiful with their pure white and light blue trim that came together showing artwork of battles long past or great moments in the motherships history. For the defending Houses they were a disgusting defilement to the motherships, even when the traitors and defenders were close friends they still thought as such. A mothership was a being of its own in their eyes, it had a soul and a will, and replacing damaged armour removed a motherships personality, removed its very soul in the eyes of the defenders. Where there would normally be a patch on the House motherships the traitors would remove the armour plate and replace it with a brand new plate.

Now with these different philosophies in mind one would think that the traitors had better armour as they were replaced when damaged instead of patched like those of the Houses. And normally they would be except for the growths of vine looking material that infested the motherships of the Houses, these vines were both alive and not they moved where the commanders of the motherships told them to and they listened they grew and required feeding like a living being but they also hardened and stopped feeding when told to. Such as when the vines were used to repair a hole/scratch/singe on the motherships armour and when they do such a thing they reinforce the patch making one in the same as the rest of the armour and not only making it as strong as the rest of the armour but making it stronger and thicker.

As for the traitors their armour wasn't stronger than their normal capital ships, while it was thicker and had multiple hulls it did little to help them as the destroyers were designed specifically to fight though shields of their capital ships and through their armour as well. It was a fast design that was completed in days when the traitors shown their true colours and said design had been adjusted and modified this past month to be true terrors to any of the traitor ships. The destroyers showed their prowess in drilling through said armour and a few minutes later there were hundreds of holes throughout the motherships as they attempted to move to a second grouping of traitor motherships. But that was useless as said motherships realized the failed attack and began to break away as the front lines began a coordinated retreat in an attempt to save as many ships as they could.

As the other seven traitor motherships jumped away the three damaged ones were dead in space, their reactors no longer operating, their productionlines destroyed, and their armour nothing better than scrap soon to be collected.

High Orbit, Kashuuk

A day later…

The Jukar-son was looking over the battle report that came, it was good, better than expected. For battles such as these the number of ships destroyed didn't matter - no - for battle such as these all that mattered was the gain/loss ratio of resources, the Houses had always had the best recycling systems and mines so the gain/loss ratio while still firmly in the losses column it wouldn't be as bad as the traitors, but this battle was the first and only where their ratio was finally in the gain column. That was most definitely due to the traitor motherships that were currently being stripped, their armour already taken off and most likely already part of the new platforms being built.

They didn't bother to take prisoners, the traitors would fight to their dying breath anyway, they knew that as they also knew that soon there will be a reinforcement of more motherships. The Thousand Houses knew how many motherships the traitors had, after all they were once close allies saving entire species from extinction and making sure that every being had a right to live.

The number was quite few considering, the traitors had a mere six hundred motherships while the Thousand Houses had exactly a thousand motherships yet hundreds weren't able to wage a war - their production lines taken from them and placed on planets, their reactors removed to power cities and their space-shields modified to defend such planets, even now of the twenty-two Houses that called Kashuuk home only six had fully functional motherships, ten of them were being used as way-stations between the surface and space, while the other six were on the ground, incapable of being launched within the decade. As for the other thousand Houses they were never as close to each other as the Houses of Kashuuk and each House either had their own planet or share it with a few other Houses the closest to Kashuuk is Olich where seven Houses have settled together so maybe they survived the opening days of the war or perhaps they didn't. Communications between the Houses have always been spotty at best this past few millennia and now with a war, it was non-existent. Only the space born Houses - the most traditional of them all - are probably the only ones truly safe from this war. That's probably where most of the traitor motherships are, out in space looking for the nomadic Houses.

These were the thoughts that filled The Jukar-son as he stepped into the Grand Hall of the mothership, the hall was the largest open-space inside the mothership and its majesty was reflecting it. Flowers of varying size and colour spread throughout the hall and they were all placed in such a way not to diminish eachother but it somehow enhanced each single one. To biologists it would be quite the find as most flowers weren't from the same planet as the one next to it, and some the same galaxy. Growing behind the flowers and out of the ceiling were trees, many light colours came out of these flaura, white, pink, orange and on the ceiling on one end of the hall was a tree that seemed to always have leaves even though there was a constant flow of falling leaves, the blood red made a beautiful picture. As if attempting to create a red carpet for those who enter through that side of the hall. The Jukar-son couldn't appreciate these sights as he was needed at the center domed building, the Grand Hall was empty as most were elsewhere; either to get sleep after the past two days straight of pure battle or others were working on building new ships and defenses, and a select few highly-experienced were attempting to get the ten motherships in low-orbit working. Normally those of another House would never be allowed to work on a Houses mothership but these weren't normal times.

"Patriarch" greeted The Jukar-son as he exited the grav-lift that lead to the top of the dome, it was an open space with a table with twenty-two seats.

A head nod of acknowledgement was all he got as a reply from the head of the House "Have you read the newest report on the ten Houses?" he asked with a slight disgusted tone that The Jukar-son picked up. Like a majority in the Thousand Houses the Patriarch was disgusted with the Houses that stripped their mothership of its systems and leave it as nothing more than a corpse on the worlds they occupied. However even if they were the majority among the Thousand Houses they were the minority on Kashuuk, only six Houses have kept their motherships operational while the remaining twelve have already or were preparing to move their motherships to the surface below.

"No Patriarch. I was studying the results of the battle" he responded looking to the Patriarch, he is one of their oldest leaders - not the oldest - but still unusually so. The Jukar would have stepped down by now and taken his rightful seat on the Circle of Elders but his replacement was disgraced and he was forced to remain the head until another proved themselves, specifically The Jukar-son.

"A good boon for us indeed. Such resources will allow us to speed up the activation of the mothership reactors" while technically true it will only speed it up by a few days. It will still be months before their reactors are online, let alone the engines and production lines. It took a decades to strip the mothership down to how it is now and it took a century to get the six motherships on the ground.

"When shall the Houses be ready?" There was always a meeting for the heads of every House after each push back, the last time was a week ago when the battle lasted for five long days. They lost so many platforms during that attack that they were forced to bring the motherships into the fight this time around. But with so many resources they won't be forced to do such a thing again for at least the next month if the war continued like it has been.

"We are waiting still, bringing us online…" the Patriarch said waving his hand in front of him as if summoning beings and true enough it look like he did. Fifteen of the twenty-one empty seats filled each one with a ghostly figure that had the vague outline of their bodies the projectors were never needed to be more precise as all they really needed was an acknowledgement that the being was there and one could look them in their weird not a face and talk. Each one of them probably had either their second or expected replacement next to them like The Jukar had but like The Jukar-son they weren't represented as the ghostly figures around the table.

"Jukar it is good of you to join us" came the voice of The Kajii of House Soban, his mothership currently served as a storage depot and repair yard for the fleets. Ships were being designed to help bring the mothership down to the surface below and the motherships final resting place was being built. According to The Kajii he is going to try and make the mothership into a palace of sorts. He is young and arrogant, unfortunately the Circle of Elders for House Soban is nearly empty and none seem to try and correct the young Kajii in his arrogance.

"Kajii" he acknowledge him not bothering to get pulled into a fight with the young head "Anything I should be aware of before this begins?" he asked looking around looking right into each of the non existent eyes of the ghostly figures.

"Are we not to wait for our equals?" asked The Levitin of House Waters, the oldest of the known Houses. The ancient house has even been mentioned in the only surviving texts from their homeworld and even tales from before the Thousand Houses took to the stars. This was the one of the few things that all the Houses of Kashuuk understood and accepted. The mothership of House Waters was as old as history and had seen not only House Waters but many other Houses through dangerous times - even as other Houses withered to extinction House Waters stood strong and had over three dozen Houses that descend from them. The mothership was even one of the mythical ten who were graced with names 'The Behemoth'. No House had denied The Behemoth's rest as every House understood that even motherships can become too old and tired. Even now on the surface of Kashuuk The Behemoth sleeps, possibly forever, or possibly just biding its time till one day it will rise again show that it is still dangerous no matter its age.

"All of the needed Houses are present" said The Kajii openly disrespecting the six Houses that weren't present.

"We are still missing five of Kashuuk Houses and House Mikial" pointed out The Jukar looking to The Kajii "We do not wish to insult the heroes of this battle now do we?" when a slew of confirmations came from the different Houses were uttered, one could feel the seething from The Kajii when he confirmed as well. House Mikial one of five Houses on Kashuuk that descended from House Waters. The split was a notable event in the history of the Thousand Houses when House Waters had decided to be one of the first to 'lay down their engines' and settled on a world. Three dozen Houses descended and protected House Waters before then and now only five still stay with their parent House. The Splitting of Oceans it was called.

"Perhaps we can speak of what to do with the remnants of the Swords that still reside on Kashuuk" asked a House.

The Swords were of the same species as the traitors but had not yet succumb to the curse that plagued their brothers. The Swords were the traitors and the Shields were the Thousand Houses together these two species have installed a Golden age in the galaxy that has lasted for one and a half million years, after the War Hunger curse had taken the Swords those two million years ago they had to be beaten into submission.

When still confined to their homeworld this curse caused them to war with each other, each one a war of genocide but it never did become a genocide as eventually the War Hunger faded and they could accept peace with one another, this unfortunately followed them to the stars and eventually the galaxy soon became a small place for the Swords and the War Hunger took them and they slaughtered entire species before coming into contact with the Thousand Houses as they were moving through the galaxy. The war was costly for the Swords but the Thousand Houses enjoyed a good war and had the technological edge so they played the part of the farmer with the scythe - cutting down the wheat so that others may grow - but eventually numbers won out and the Houses themselves were threatened forcing them to flee.

Eventually the Thousand Houses returned and broke the Swords cleansing entire planets before the War Hunger faded and the Swords surrendered. It took centuries before a cure for the curse to be made and it worked, for two million years it worked and in that time a Golden age came for the galaxy that was watched over by the Swords and Shields. As all the species as old as the Swords were wiped out in the galactic genocide only the young could enjoy the Golden age, until now. Now the Swords are cursed again - the cure no longer working - and the Thousand Houses were disjointed. Now the young species across the galaxy experience the terror of the Swords afflicted with the War Hunger, now the young species feel the pain of a parent who was always so gentle turning on them. For the Houses of Kashuuk they didn't know whether the Swords had finished their extinction of the younger species or if some of them still hang on, or perhaps they ran - a few of the oldest of the young had tried to emulate their caretakers and build mothership class vessels of their own - they weren't anything close to the power of the Swords let alone the Thousand Houses but motherships all the same. The Swords had a million year technological edge over even the oldest of the young so even if the Houses of Kashuuk drive back the attack and venture into the galaxy they may come across empty worlds and corpses piled higher than buildings, too late to help anyone.

"We must isolate the Swords from the natural air as should a single traitor make their way to the ground the they to would be taken by the War Hunger" said The Levitin, his House was the oldest not because of luck, House Waters have always had the wisest of leaders and every House around the table knew as much, though one might not care.

"I say we just kill them all, to risky to keep them alive while only a single one of their brothers affected with the curse could turn them against us" The room paused for a second everyone there not quite believing someone would suggest such a dishonourable act.

"Dishonourable!" "Petulant Child!" "Ridiculous!" and a number of other insults were directed his way, House Soban may have to largest factories but it was such a disregard to the Edicts that every House present threw insults his way. And it appears he realized he overstepped his bounds as The Kajii kept quite and took the insults as he should. That specific quote will have The Kajii disgraced among the heads of the Houses for decades and it will take a quite the act to even out such a suggestion let alone be back into the good graces of the different Houses if it was possible.

"The Kajii of House Soban have disgraced the entirety of Kashuuk and the ancestors with their words. I The Sutan of House Jakir demand the expulsion of The Kajii!" the ghostly figure across from The Jukar stood up and pointed to the ghostly form of The Kajii. The room erupted whether encouraging The Jashim or discouraging his demand it was hard to tell as ever head tried to get a word in, it had been millenia since a head was expelled from the consensus and the young House Jakir - the heroes of the battle who took on three motherships and won - had been the one to made the demand, so soon after his victory no one would question his honour and right to demand as he had proven himself.

"You overstep Jashim!" responded The Kajii, and the room descended into further chaos. There would be no update today it seems.

High Orbit, Kashuuk

A week later…

Usually when such accusations are leveled against and an entire House the motherships would separate and never reunite till at the very least the generation is dead, sometimes after a few generations. But this was during a war they could possibly lose with Houses that still had operational motherships and others whose motherships were planetside and unable to leave, at least within the decade. So for the moment the consensus was effectively abolished as The Kajii had refused to acknowledge The Sutan and there wasn't going to be anything productive during the consensus for the next few years till this slight had cooled down for cooler heads to prevail or either The Sutan or The Kajii died, whichever was first. As for the consequences, the mothership of House Soban was ignored in favour of reactivation in favour of the other motherships cutting another few days off of there activation. Sure House Soban still had their own crystal smiths but it had been a millennia since the mothership of Soban was still flight worthy and as any crystal smith among the six Houses and they will tell you there is a massive difference from a ship systems and a motherships.

It was a week since the last battle was broken and usually based on their rather clockwork efficiency the traitors would soon begin their assault. Probes launched on a ballistic course have shown the Houses that the traitor motherships seemed to not have gone up but diminished, there was now five motherships and for the first time it appeared the Houses of Kashuuk were both technologically ahead as well as numerically. The motherships for the traitors seemingly had better places to be or a front had opened up tying up resources, they may be genocidal at this moment but they were far from tactically stupid. However they seemed to have replaced the motherships with seven factory-ships, the difference between to two was that a mothership could defend itself and was feared for its mighty space-shields whereas the factory-ships had neither weapons or space-shields they didn't even had regular shields only relying on its rather weak armour.

The traitors knew such a disadvantage so along with the shipyards sent ten supercapital ships, the massive vessels have a long history of subduing entire races and clearing entire sections of the galaxy with their presence alone, such ships were so respected and feared among the younger races that only fifty have ever been made. Now there were ten ships bearing down on the Houses of Kashuuk and they had to deal with them. Luckily for the Houses the traitors only send three of the supercapital ships forward keeping seven back each one to defend a factory-ship. They also have learned from their mistakes and seperated the motherships and factory-ships by tens of thousands of kilometers instead of keeping three together like last time. It would take all five traitor motherships to take on a mothership of the Thousand Houses, such was the technological superiority. This superiority was also seen in their manufacturing ability. Where the traitors with the five motherships and seven factory-ships were able to reinforce their attacking fleets with a few dozen capital ships and a little over a hundred other ships and a few hundred drones the Houses of Kashuuk had reinforced by the hundreds. seven new capital ships, fifteen new heavy ships, twenty new light ships, two hundred new defense platforms and over a thousand new drones.

The industrial might of the Thousand Houses were not to be laughed at and soon the traitors would begin their assault and attempt to break the unbreakable and they will the thrown back again as the Thousand Houses have survived ten million years among the stars and they will survive for another ten million.