[b]Redana Et All[/b]

BANG

Something hits the window of the shuttle.

Something is [i]clinging[/i] to the window of the shuttle. 

It's a machine - a combat robot with huge batlike wings that have wrapped all the way around the viewport to block out all vision of where you're going. It's holding a massive two-handed cannon and is pressing it right up against the glass, a shot that'll penetrate into the shuttle's depths and create an enormous detonation of suffocating toxic gas.

And it's wearing something on its face that is a mashup between clown makeup and digital camouflage, a manic grin with irregularly overlapping teeth. It's waving at you, fingers coiled around the trigger of its gun.

[b]Bella![/b]

Behold, [i]Imperium.[/i]

The galaxy is ruled, and there is only one ruler. She has in her wisdom allowed the population the freedom to organize for themselves the best way to serve her and administer her justice. But free will, like life itself, is a gift that at any time she can revoke.

The constructs halt. Most of them drop to their knees and touch their foreheads - or what passes for them - directly to the ground. Some of them no longer have enough flexibility or motor function in their legs to kneel - these ones simply tip themselves over, slamming face-first into the ground in crashing heaps of scrap. From others, there come the sounds of loud popping sounds and small fires break out across their bodies. One rips free a tank-tread leg so that it can slam down lower to the earth.

One keeps staggering forwards, a demented mass of machinery far too gone to even resemble the holy form of humanity. Inside there are bangs and pops as the power of Imperium searches for a sanity that is no longer there. With a small explosion its arm falls away to reveal an interior blazing with fire, and after taking two more unsteady steps it collapses into a heap of molten slag at your feet.

One of the Kaeri soldiers cheers. Captain Lorventi punches him in the arm and he stops.

"You behold Praetor Bella!" said the Captain, stepping up to your side and kicking the wreckage out of your path. "Agent of Empress Nero, conqueror of Baradissar and your rightful sovereign! You will gather a full tactical assessment of this palace, its layout and resources and provide them to me and then you will stand by for further orders!"

"You..." Lorventi blinked her huge eyes in shock when one of the robots spoke. It kept its forehead pressed into the ground, smudging thick paint onto the stone of the surface. "... have come. As was. Foretold. We shall perform. The Dance."

"What the fuck?" Captain Lorventi turned to give you a look, halberd raised, silently asking if you wanted her to destroy this thing that dared to speak back to you.