The Starfish Republic was being driven mad.
Ever since the war began, nothing had gone right for some inexplicable reason. The empire was always running into trouble.
Hunkered down in its office, the Starfish president reflected on the events of recent years and felt ten-tenths miserable-or at least nine-tenths.
The Kaleidoscope Bug had devoured 60% of the Starfish Republic's energy credits. A few days ago, another 9/11 incident had crashed a ship into its Sentinel Array. On the front lines, its fleets had fought the Whisper Escort fleets with everything they had and still could not win-pain, so much pain!
When had the mighty Starfish Republic ever suffered such humiliation?
Outside the window, purplish-red light flowed across the sky in bizarre, dazzling patterns. The spectacle created by the Kaleidoscope Bug had occupied the heavens for years.
As the Starfish president looked up, the scene in the sky suddenly changed.
The light that had filled the entire sky abruptly began contracting violently. The enormous beam spanning the skies of the Starfish Core Sector suddenly transformed, shrinking into a bright point before rapidly exploding, converting all the energy it had absorbed into various forms of radiation.
The transformation continued for a long time. The Starfish president stared blankly at the magnificent spectacle overhead, watching the singularity of gathered light explode as countless points of light fell from the sky.
It blinked its little eyes, unable to understand what had happened.
A moment later, a pale-yellow starfish walked in.
"Mr. President, the Academy of Sciences has brought you some good news and some bad news."
"The good news first."
"Well, the good news is that the Kaleidoscope Bug is no longer a threat. In our scans just now, we observed it exploding. The energy it had accumulated collapsed into a singularity in an