The Great Empyrean Void Concordat divided realms into four ranks: Cattle Worlds, Tribute Realms, Sovereign Protectorates, and Concordat Core Domains.
An unranked mortal world had no legal standing at all. Under a decree dating back sixty million years, it was wilderness. Its only value was the spiritual residue it gathered over the ages, which an authorized Harvester fleet could collect as tribute.
So when the Grand Astrological Observatory detected a steady seven-hundred-and-fifty-sun-blast energy signal from an unranked speck in Sector 9-Beta-Seven, the High Archons did not expect to find a miracle.
They expected criminals. Someone, they decided, had built an illegal refinery to dodge tariffs and sell immortal star-metal on the black market.
“Deploy the Vanguard Inquisitorial Flotilla,” Arch-Dominus Wu Ji commanded from the crystal bridge of the Hammer of the Empyrean. “Three Class-XII warships. Maximum warp. If this is a void cartel, seize its equipment and cut off its power. Commander Vael will take a sabotage team ahead of you. I want a quick, quiet result.”
Now the three dreadnoughts dropped out of warp at the outer edge of the asteroid belt.
Each ship stretched one hundred miles from prow to stern, a jagged cathedral of white void-marble and dark gold. Its upper hull carried ten thousand automated ballistae, three hundred void-fire cannons, and spatial lances that could split a continent with one shot.
