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You decide not to waste time and move <span class="mu-s">Up-Left, Up, Up</span>, and move directly into the Baalathi system. Your ships fly into the system and drop from Hyperspace as you float into the system. The Baalathi homeworld- the home of the first alien race to fight the Hegemony- their binary star system feels as hostile and mysterious as that first capsule did all those years ago.
You expect resistance but the system is strangely... empty? Devoid of most asteroids, the planets and moons are small and seemingly broken apart, and there are no beacons or space stations. Only the drifting remnants of the Baalathi superstructure show any sign of civilization.
<span class="mu-g">“Where is everybody?”</span>
It's strange, you'd expect the Esaal to be crawling all over this system. This is the home system of their most hated enemy- the Baalathi. While the Baalathi sent a few capsules to your own home cluster, they sent many more to the much nearer Hazaar... but the lions share certainly went to the Esaal. Not only from distance; but you must consider that the Esaal probably expanded from their home system much earlier then you did- using sub-FTL colony or generation ships. Who knows how many colonies were attacked, how many lives were lost, how many setbacks they suffered. But there is nothing here.
<span class="mu-b">”Perhaps it makes sense. There are no habitable worlds, and no resources- the Baalathi likely stripped almost everything of value from this system during their expansion craze. Even the trace elements in the gas giants were likely stripped away- except perhaps for a large amount of Tritium from the twin stars produced in the gas giant...”</span>
<span class="mu-g">”Hold on! Our scanners found something! Your Majesty, look! There is an Esaal facility here! And it's... unarmed!?”</span>
