Star Force: Gateways
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 2021-04-18T18:00:00+00:00
Description: The galaxy is a massively large and complex place, but the most critical points in it are in the Core and known as the 'Gateways,' for they are the gravitational anchors that allow for inter-galactic travel and are located in the densest region of the galaxy where the monster-like Megaloids exist en mass. It is in this environment that Star Force must fight to take the Gateways from the Hadarak...and then defend them against everyone else. **
Publisher: Archon Lore

1

March 19, 158397

Megatron Prime 12 System (Galactic Core)

Zatria

Mak’to’ran stood on the surface of the magnificent world of Zatria, feeling his legs mildly crushed under its 5.6g gravity as he sniffed the air of this biome, sensing a mass of plants and a lesser amount of primitive denizens in the humid breath that he released back through his nostrils contently. Not long before this planet had been barren rock and far less massive, then with the Veloqueen’s help they had moved two more nearby planets into collision paths, with the resulting rubble being forced together using Essence techniques that Star Force still had no idea how to reproduce.

The end result was a far more massive planet in a system that had many, most with holes in them after being fed upon by various Megaloids. This deep into the Core it was unlikely that such a wealth of planets wouldn’t have been touched by various races needing to eat something more palpable than the energetic soup within stars, but for a proper headquarters a real planet was preferred, so the Veloqueen had assisted in building one, or at least the foundation of what would thereafter be terraformed by the Jedein.

The horrors that had been wrought on them by some ancient force still angered Mak’to’ran, for it had been far worse than what the V’kit’no’sat had done to the Zak’de’ron in the creation of the Les’i’kron. The Hadarak bore no similarity to their progenitors, nor wielded their massive power in even a mild fashion. That god-like power, however, even in small amounts, was formidable, and it was what gave the Hadarak Wardens the power to create minions, as well as fashion new ones, for the Jedein possessed the power of the lifesprings and could fashion new races at will.

The biome Mak’to’ran now stood in was the result of their work, at Star Force’s direction. There were no predators here, nor lifeforms that were inclined to kill for food. Everything here was in balance and based off the Elarioni Ariel’s work, but the Jedein had far surpassed her groundbreaking accomplishments, including a world brain to direct it all, safely guarded in the bedrock above the magma layer, as well as protected by a V’kit’no’sat city placed directly above its center.

But it was already growing too big to be covered by it, and while all the V’kit’no’sat cities larger than an outpost built within the Core were required to also be space travel capable should evacuation be required, the world brain could not be moved. It grew into the planet’s crust as if it were a plant, but in truth it was a Borg-like extension of a person, soon to become larger than most Megaloids, but one that could never move. The person could, if detached, but the mass imbedded into the ground could not.

It was designed that way by the Jedein after considerable argument with Star Force about putting a person in that eternal prison…until the Jedein said that the world brain would eventually extend itself around the planet and the planet would become its vessel as it drifted through the stars…even possibly one day moving itself via Essence if its orbit decayed, but Star Force had demanded an escape be possible, hence the resulting two part design.

It was far from that now, barely a hatchling learning its way with no one to teach it how to do what it was designed to do, except for the occasional visits by the Jedein to monitor its progress. That rejuvenated race were treated as gods by most of the Megaloids, and they were the reason the monsters in the Galactic Core were now unified into an amicable alliance whereas before they were constantly warring on, and in some cases feeding on, each other.

The Veloqueen had organized a truce between most of them, and ironically the Veloqueen were more powerful than the Jedein, as far as combat and Essence use was concerned. They could kill the Jedein easily if they wished, but they’d never do that to their gods. Everyone revered the Jedein, and the combination of them with the Socani called Star Force had reshaped the balance of the Galactic Core despite large sections of it still being under Hadarak infestation.

This system was a result of that new alliance, with the world brain telepathically marking this planet as off limits to the Megaloids. Some of the other ones were marked technologically, with telepathic transponders indicating they were reserved for the Socani, but the rest had no markings, and as such were available for the Megaloids to feed on when desired.

Who got to eat what and where was something that was mostly ironed out by the Veloqueen, who acted as sheriffs in the Core after sending a significant portion of their population here. They were adamant about protecting the Jedein, though Mak’to’ran knew they were not helpless. Their bodies were hardened against the elements, even against the depths of a small black hole, but not against higher end technological weapons. Whoever had altered them into Hadarak had done so with combat in mind, and the Yeg’gor was a defense that the Jedein did not possess, nor anything like it, but they could use Essence, and had occasionally been required to when they encountered attacks.

But not from the Hadarak. As soon as Jedein entered a system they were able to override control of the minions and cause them to stand down. Dealing with Wardens was a bit more difficult, and required discussion, but the Lurkers were beyond reaching. They immediately attacked the Jedein in suicidal fashion, and had neared killed a few of them before the Veloqueen escorts had intervened.

The only reason the Jedein were not killed instantly was because of their own Essence defenses, some of which were indicative of even greater capabilities, but the Jedein were recently converted from Wardens or newborn, and neither had the Essence use experience of the Veloqueen and the power reserves that afforded them.

The Lurkers were in a similar position, using Essence far more than the Wardens’ single use recharge capability. At Star Force’s urging, one of the few remaining Lurkers in the galaxy was captured during an attack and restrained rather than killed after most of its Essence was depleted. The Veloqueen kept it suppressed and absorbed its continually weaker attacks as the Jedein examined it telepathically, discovering the kill on sight orders it had regarding the Jedein that were encoded into its basic genome rather than being a recent addition.

So either there were more Jedein out there, or the people who had subjugated them and turned them into Hadarak feared their return in some fashion.

That knowledge had led the Veloqueen to begin a search and question expedition amongst the other Megaloids…but none had ever seen the Jedein before, nor anything like them, leaving such questions for other galaxies that none in the alliance could afford now. Reshaping this galaxy and removing the remaining Hadarak still occupied almost all their efforts, for the Jedein were few in number and the ongoing battles were not going to pause until they could travel around to all systems and remake the Hadarak.

And when they did, it took a great deal of time. Not just in the conversations with the Wardens and their eventually conversion into cocoons that then had to be guarded by Star Force, but the transformation of all the minions into either completely new forms or reformed brains with their instincts rewritten, or in many cases a hybrid of those two options, took years to accomplish for a single system, and Star Force was doing far more Warden catching and transport to the Jedein than they were bringing the Jedein into enemy systems.

Director Davis had made it clear that the war was not going to stop, nor were they going to contain the Hadarak until all could be converted, but they were also going to save as many as they could as they secured this galaxy…along with the warning that more enemies were coming, and they didn’t have time to corral the Hadarak.

Not that they could be corralled. They were still launching attacks against the portions of the Grand Border that butted up against their dwindling territory, and Star Force had deliberately not annexed the surrounding regions for that reason. Better to have them assaulting the strongholds than the weaker expansions, with most of the captured territory being further in towards the core and spreading out along the transit corridors that were long ago solidified with infrastructure and reliable communications lines to the Deep Core where Mak’to’ran and the elite V’kit’no’sat were now stationed.

Zatria was one of some 713 worlds they possessed here, with many more to be added in the future. Not all had world brains, and not all were created by the Veloqueen, but several were that had to be in specific locations, and Zatria was one of them, for an obvious reason.

As Mak’to’ran looked up into the sky he saw two stars, one white and one blue, that provided light and heat to this system, knowing that there were three more obscured by the planet. All five stars, however, were in orbit around the supermassive black hole at the system’s center that appeared as a perfectly dark circle in the heavily starry sky that was common in the galactic Core. It appeared that they were suffocating in stars, some close enough and bright enough to be seen as dull pinpricks of light even during daytime here, which lasted 29 hours out of a 34 hour day. And the brief night was never dark, with very little blackness visible between the stars…except where the black hole was.

There was no matter around it in turmoil to be seen, nor any geysers emitting from the magnetic poles like others. This black hole was simply sitting there quietly as distant stars and planets orbited it, making it the biggest system gravitationally and geographically that Star Force possessed…or rather existed within, for there was so much space here that they could not lock it down. The gravity well was so wide that jumplines could not be blockaded, nor predicted, given the numerous surrounding stars. Anyone could be coming in from anywhere, but the certain section of sky that was slightly less crowded was the direction the intergalactic travelers would come from.

Fortunately the crowded sky was not nearly as close together as it appeared, with enough void in between the stars for ships to move through, even if they had to weave and bob on approach towards the black hole that was called by some a ‘tether,’ ‘gateway,’ or ‘galactic port.’ Regardless of the names for it, the gravity signature was so massive it could be seen from travelers on approach, and then veered towards as they sought enough gravity to stop their insane momentum that had carried them across the intergalactic void.

If they tried to brake on one of the smaller stars they would ram into it, for their engines were not strong enough. Only a black hole of sufficient mass could stop them safely, and there was no way to aim for a specific point from another galaxy. Other stars would get in the way, but they could be dodged on approach, making the final jumplines unpredictable…which also meant the threat of collisions.

The planet Mak’to’ran was on was not safe, and could see an incoming ship hit it if they didn’t detect the gravity silhouette…which was the primary reason the planet needed to be bigger. But a ship floating out there had no such warning, and already since being here there had been 6 cases of Megaloids colliding with incoming travelers, though thankfully no Star Force ships as yet.

That had to change, and Star Force was already setting up a beacon system that denizens of this galaxy could use to navigate off of, establishing safe zones, but incoming intergalactic travelers often had to spiral around the black hole to slow down enough if they didn’t have sufficient engine power to brake directly against it, and that spiral could plow them into anything that didn’t have a gravity signature for the incoming traveler to pull on or push off of on approach.

And there were many such travelers. Far more than Mak’to’ran had ever expected. Some were Hadarak continuing to enter this galaxy and not knowing that this Gateway was held by their enemy. They had to be fought and killed unless a Jedein could get to them first, but the randomness of their arrival meant the Jedein could not stay here forever when other Hadarak could be saved in nearby systems. It was the V’kit’no’sat’s job to defend this Gateway against incoming hostiles, along with the help of the Veloqueen who acted as the primary diplomats, for almost all of the travelers were other Megaloids. Those few Socani that came through Star Force would usually intercept and attempt communication with, and most were talkative rather than combative once they saw how many ships the V’kit’no’sat had stationed here.

Most of those ships were stationed around planets and stars so they wouldn’t be rammed, at least until a contact arrived that needed a personal touch. Eventually Star Force was going to get a beacon system set up on the edge of the Galactic Core that would guide travelers in on specific jumplines, but that was still theoretical as all three races tried to figure out how to build such a thing, for even Azoro did not know how to do it for strangers that would not know their technology.

The best way was to get to the other galaxy and control that Gateway, but there were many in this galaxy alone that could be used to jump off of and travel to another galaxy…and there they would have many landing options, but a fixed amount. Right now the Hadarak controlled many in this galaxy, and until Star Force gained control of them all they would continue to get reinforcements in from the outside. That was one job Mak’to’ran did not have to deal with. The trailblazers were in charge of taking new ones. The V’kit’no’sat were then charged with holding them.

And as promised to him long ago, the Deep Core was where the V’kit’no’sat would make their new home…but a home without hatcheries, for it was far too dangerous here. Director Davis had once shown him an old map, one made with ink on paper that showed Terrax from a primitive perspective. And on that map, in the oceans, some areas were labeled ‘There be Monsters here.’

Davis had told him he wondered if a few V’kit’no’sat hadn’t been left behind to reproduce those monsters in the ocean, though he thought it unlikely. The real reason he had showed Mak’to’ran that old map was because the Deep Core could also be so labeled. And now that he was living here, amongst the Monsters, he could not disagree. Star Force would never own the Deep Core. They would never annex the races here, for they could not. They were too large and too alien, and with the giant black hole in the sky above him now, he knew that within it was an entirely different world he could never enter.

The best he could do was take his ship down to the surface, but inside it they could not go. Unlike other smaller black holes, the material in this one was so compressed it was described as ‘mud’ rather than ‘water’ by the few Uriti that had traveled here. Some were now in the servitude of the Jedein, by their own choice, but those were amongst the younger ones. The originals had greatly desired to meet the Jedein and learn from them, and the reason the Uriti had not wanted to attack their fellow Hadarak had been made crystal clear. It was their Jedein heritage showing through, for it was the Jedein nature to not war against anyone…which ironically also made them vulnerable to the very powerful predators out there, while they could usually defend themselves against the lesser ones.

But the Uriti were not Jedein, and they were built for war. Most did not want to give that up, so they had refused alteration by the Jedein in most ways. One that all the Megaloids accepted was a communications alteration, imbedding in them all the telepathic ability and common language that was sorely lacking in this galaxy. One that Star Force could also use through technological means, which meant the Wranglers were pretty much out of a job with the Uriti in the translation department, but the Uriti did not want to lose that connection and requested they remain with them as they worked to assist Star Force in combat where needed, which was mostly the freezing of Hadarak minions and the capture of Warden to be delivered to the Jedein for transformation.

Whether that was voluntary or not Mak’to’ran had never got a straight answer out of the Jedein, but the alternative was to kill the Wardens, so he wasn’t going to argue the point. Checks had been made to ensure the Jedein were not being controlled, nor were the Uriti or any other Megaloids, though the Uriti still retained their overrides…at least those that served Star Force. The others were confined to the Galactic Core, as were all Megaloids, to avoid inadvertently killing Socani…and likewise Socani were banned from the Galactic Core except with special permission.

It was a safety protocol more than anything, just the same as the Axius colonies being segregated by body size so the larger races wouldn’t step on and kill the tiny ones. But the Uriti elected to keep their overrides in exchange for free movement across the entire galaxy, with their Wranglers being with them to stop them if they accidentally put any Socani at risk.

It was an amicable solution to a very old problem, and the portions of the galaxy that were not Hadarak controlled were seeing peace and order on a magnitude that none living could ever remember existing.

That said, if you looked close enough, you could always find problems, and Mak’to’ran didn’t expect that would ever change, but here, amongst the Monsters, the V’kit’no’sat were finally arriving at their rightful place in the galaxy. Most Socani were too small to interact with them, and the Megaloids too big. They were caught in the middle, and now the middle is where they would thrive. The Grand Border was the new dividing line where the free Megaloids could not pass, and large chunks of the territory taken from the Hadarak were also becoming no go zones, but those Megaloids confined to the Deep Core were now free to roam vast tracks of the galaxy they had never seen before…and they were no longer hunted by the Socani out of fear of them landing on their planet and exterminating them in a matter of moments.

Mak’to’ran could see the framework for the future, if it was allowed to take place. Davis’s warnings of attracting threats from other galaxies around this so-called ‘Endgame’ worried him, primarily because no one knew what it was, or more specifically what would trigger it or what mechanism would draw others here. But if they came, then most likely it would be through the Gateways, and this one in particularly saw the most activity from four neighboring galaxies, making it more critical than the other smaller supermassive black holes on this side of the spherical Deep Core.

Galaxies on the other sides couldn’t reach here. There were far too many stars in between, let alone nebula that would be a quick death sentence if one ran into them at intergalactic speeds. That meant only the Gateways on the edge were accessible, and if a galaxy did not contain any such supermassive black holes, then the only way to get there was to go very, very slow and have very good engines. Something that most races could not achieve, including Star Force and the Hadarak. Mak’to’ran’s new empire still had a lot of growing to do, but amongst the Socani of this galaxy, they were clearly the dominant power, and even the Jedein, who were capable of forging new races of Socani at will, recognized Star Force’s position and had agreed to create none without their consent.

Likewise the Jedein recognized the Veloqueen’s dominance over the Megaloids, and provided an additional bond between the two natural factions. Mak’to’ran didn’t completely trust them or the Veloqueen, nor did he consider them fully lightside, but both of their observed natures appeared compatible with it, which was why this alliance was holding and growing stronger with time.

Personally he would have preferred Star Force to single handedly dominate this galaxy, but living here amongst the Monsters he had come to realize the futility of that ignorant desire. Some places Socani simply could not go, and the dark circle in the sky was one of them…yet inside it were many Essence lights when he traveled close enough to look. An entire civilization of Megaloids from numerous races coexisting in that gravitational ‘mud’ so large and restrictive that neighbors would never find one another down there unless they had Essence abilities or a few other exotic means of navigating that bizarre world.

That was a place Star Force could not conquer, nor did they need to. Some Monsters needed to be out of reach until they showed up on your doorstep, otherwise the guardians would get bored in their dominance.

But here, at one of the few Gateways in the Milky Way massive enough to allow travel to more than the few satellite galaxies around its immediate perimeter, Mak’to’ran could never become complacent. For he never knew what would be coming through that metaphorical door that he stood guard over along with legions of the most elite V’kit’no’sat ready to battle whatever Monsters showed up looking for trouble.

And today was going to be one of those days.

2

Mak’to’ran was still outside getting some air when the armor band around his head received the alert. New arrivals had come in, of a previously unknown ship design, and had immediately began attacking everything in sight. They were technological, not Megaloids in armor like the Veloqueen, who were already responding to the threat, but their arrival spacing was tight and they were pouring in at random points in sector 8, probably originating from either the Rolo or Sweet Tart galaxies, though there were other options if they came from further away or the closer smaller galaxies that had never seen any activity at this Gateway since the V’kit’no’sat had arrived.

The Era’tran turned around and immediately started running back along the trails as he called a drop pod to his moving location. It arrived a few minutes later, hovering over the jungle trees with its landing ramp deployed given there was nowhere to set down. Mak’to’ran leapt up to it, using a lot of muscle in the high gravity environment just to move around normally, and having to use a heavy dose of Essence to get the necessary height.

As soon as he landed on the ramp he felt lighter in the artificial gravity as he walked inside and the spherical ground to orbit transport sealed up and began racing upward through the atmosphere to the large wedge-shaped ship sitting in low orbit along with a fleet of Kafcha, most of whom were already breaking their parking orbits and heading out toward the distant combat. It would take a few hours to get there at maximum speed, but the biggest ship was waiting for Mak’to’ran to board.

On the trip up he got upgrades on his headpiece, missing the rest of his normal combat armor that he rarely wore on planet. He’d don the full version once onboard, but for now the battlemap interlink in the headpiece was enough to keep him connected with the incoming information, much of which was being transmitted via telepathy given the signal disruptions near the black hole. Telepathic energy was not affected, and technological transmitters helped to skip information across the system near it rather than having to bounce around the perimeter with increasingly annoying time delays.

Mak’to’ran didn’t have any Xaviers in the V’kit’no’sat yet, though several candidates were in training. If he had, he could get instantaneous updates of limited information across the system from ship to ship, but so far only a handful were actually deployed in the galaxy as the training required was tedious even by Star Force standards. As for the location of the Praxium that was responsible for their development, not even he knew where it was, for the powers of the Saiolum that Star Force was just beginning to delve into were their secret weapon, and no one else in the system even knew they existed.

The rest of Star Force and the galaxy was the same, with knowledge limited to a handful of individuals, but when the time came for additional recruits Mak’to’ran had been informed to help choose them, as well as being made aware that very advanced individuals could even communicate in real time across galaxies.

That seemed absurd, for as vast as this system was, the distance between galaxies made it appear insignificant…yet he was already having to deal with large time lags in the data coming in to him through the battle map, with the first brief analysis of weapons data intriguing him.

The new arrivals were using physical attachments to their targets to transmit an unstable energy conduit that did not destroy the destination node, but did obliterate their targets. The output was larger than a Tar’vem’jic, but only when emitting from what appeared to be their larger control ships. Smaller versions were using similar weapons, and while they may have been effective against the Megaloids they were mercilessly hunting down to clear their arrival point, it wasn’t going to be the same against V’kit’no’sat shields or Veloqueen technology…let alone their Essence.

Mak’to’ran boarded his flagship, the DinoThunder, just as he began receiving data on the Veloqueen rising from the darkness of the black hole to engage the new arrivals. They were each small, only a few miles long, but in addition to their massive Essence wells and skillsets, each was covered with armor of their own invention. Their empire in their home galaxy had been crafted out of technology, with many Socani in their employ and enhanced by that technology. Few Megaloids had the ability to craft such things, but the telekinesis the Veloqueen possessed had allowed them to rework the world around them, and they had developed technological augments that made Mak’to’ran wary of ever engaging them in battle.

The first few encounters with the new arrivals went as expected, with the Veloqueen tearing through them and their weapon nodes that would fly as independent ships until attaching to their targets. The Veloqueen were actually smaller than the largest of the nodes, and so nimble there was no chance of them latching on, but it was unclear of whether or not they could attach to energy shields, for the Veloqueen were covered in them as well, emitted from their armor.

Mak’to’ran got the DinoThunder under way as he saw the Veloqueen take down their first big target, ripping through it with ease as the number of the invaders began to increase. Their spacing was very, very close for such a long journey. Abnormally so.

With the Megaloids in the area scattering to get out of the combat zone, and the Veloqueen covering them more than fighting the invaders, the first V’kit’no’sat ships arrived in sector 8 from one of the other planets in the system, getting there 43 minutes ahead of the fleet that had been stationed around Zatria. Mak’to’ran couldn’t give them orders at this distance…at least none that would arrive in time to matter. He had to trust they knew what they were doing, and for the most part the engagements were clear kills, but eventually a Kafcha got tagged by a node, followed by a massive discharge that blew through their shields in one shot…but only scratched the armor beneath.

The node itself took some fire from nearby turrets, but Mak’to’ran immediately saw the tactical advantage of such a latching maneuver…for it got within the firing range of most of the ship’s weaponry and allowed it to survive longer than expected. But the V’kit’no’sat typically hunted in packs, and the nearby second Kafcha that diverted to assist burned the node off the ship before a second discharge could be channeled through it.

Whoever this enemy was, their ships were not well protected. It appeared they were counting on the power of their weapons to dispatch enemies before their weaker shields and armor could be exploited, but the V’kit’no’sat were not so easy to dominate, and soon the first line of ships engaging them were shredded by the myriad of weapons the Kafcha carried, and none were using the limited Essence Materia they carried.

Because this enemy simply wasn’t strong enough to require them.

However, there was a great deal of them arriving and no way of knowing how many more were coming, so Mak’to’ran set up a standard ‘welcome’ formation and knocked them down as they came in while ordering a few ships to be captured rather than destroyed, then dragged back near the black hole and around to the far side where they were out of the way of the intergalactic jumplines…

Iren’tar was an Era’tran Hakja stationed in Gateway #12, otherwise known as the Zechronia Muen System. There weren’t many here, given that their expertise was personal combat and Gateway duties were almost always naval affairs, but when ships needed boarded it was up to the Zen’zat to do so, unless they were large enough to hold an Era’tran, and when they were the Hakja were sent in first.

These newly arrived enemies were large ones, according to the visuals of shattered ships and the cross sections of their visible interiors. The bodies free floating in space indicated Hjar’at-sized quadrupeds covered in hair and armor, but when Iren’tar pushed through the temporary airlock his drop pod had covered the bore hole it had just made in the captive warship with, he immediately came under fire from three of the hairy individuals.

His armor’s shields held up well as he charged out ahead of the Zen’zat that would follow behind his tail, head butting one of the opponents as he twisted and rotated his tail around to slap another before firing stun blasts from the gauntlets on his smaller arms as his armor scanned the new opponents automatically and updated him to its findings on the battlemap.

The Hakja’s mind was Sav-enhanced and able to do more than one thing at once, even in hand to tail combat, and he immediately recognized that these opponents were not wearing armor…they were in fact cyborgs, and he adjusted his weaponry accordingly.

His stun cannons altered into technological disruptors, and after physically bashing their personal shields down he rendered the three inactive without landing any serious blows. The Era’tran left them to the Zen’zat for containment as he moved off through the ship searching for more targets and gradually working through the entire crew single-handedly, finding them far less capable in personal combat than their warships were in the naval variant.

Rounding them up into holding pens was the hardest part, for the Zen’zat could not easily move them on their own and his own Lachka had its limits, so he prioritized the Zen’zat to keep them sedated in their current positions as he personally chose one and put his foot on its chest, looking down into its mole-like eyes as he peered inside telepathically…but he found nothing but technological buzz.

That was also typical of cyborgs, for the biological tended to mirror the technological in rhythm, but Iren’tar stuck with it and eventually began to make sense out of the snippets he could identify.

They were hunters who roamed the galaxies, traveling Core to Core and harvesting the Megaloids for their own uses. Trophies for some. Biological components for others. But primarily they were interested in drawing out rare minerals from their bodies that their technology was based on. Minerals that could be harvested from stars, but the far quicker route was to kill those who had already accumulated them in their bodies.

Their entire civilization was based around this hunting, as they were nomadic and never possessed planets. Their primary ships were not here yet. Only the skirmishers. The other ones…

“Mak’to’ran,” Iren’tar said, sending a message out through the battlemap but knowing it wouldn’t arrive quickly enough to get a live response. “These are only the first wave. Larger ships carrying their population will arrive later, after heavier warships arrive to clean up whatever the skirmishers can’t handle. They do not possess Essence, but have suicide vessels to take down superior opponents with neutron rendering cascades. I advise you adjust shielding accordingly…”

Mak’to’ran stayed in the danger zone with his fleet for days, intercepting the incoming ships and destroying them with such regularity that he was hoping they would respond to the transmissions being sent on their own frequencies in their own language, but none responded or relented. Not a single Kafcha had been destroyed, and since they were not using drones they did not have an attrition rate issue…only one of power and ammunition, with convoys coming out from Zatria carrying replacement fuels and canisters of exotic particles that were mixed with some of the energy weapons.

That meant Mak’to’ran could stay here almost indefinitely as long as his supply planets kept producing and shipping out what they needed, and in truth he was more worried about being rammed by one of the Megaloids still coming in on this sector, for they often came very close to the black hole before fully braking. Three near misses had already occurred with his fleet, but he couldn’t abandon this position without leaving the arriving Megaloids to be killed by the new arrivals who went by the name Psodos…though they wouldn’t respond to it.

Mak’to’ran kept waiting for their more advanced warships to show up, but they didn’t arrive for 3 more weeks only to find that their entire fleet that had come through up until that point was destroyed save for a few ships Mak’to’ran had preserved. He immediately sent out transmissions to the new warships, which were not only larger but far more elongated, looking like sharks with a tapered nose, but the only response he got was a very long range energy beam that slammed into the DinoThunder’s shields.

And it hit hard…far harder than it should have at that extreme range, drawing the first inkling of respect from Mak’to’ran, for up until this point the Psodos had been unimpressive. The V’kit’no’sat leader responded with a standard Tar’vem’jic of his own, hitting the lead warship in the nose and holding there for a few seconds before burning through and eviscerating half the ship.

“All offense, no defense,” Mak’to’ran growled, annoyed at the audacity of this race. It was typical of many hunters who never expected to become the hunted. But coming from an empire who was designed to hunt and kill Hadarak Wardens at great cost of blood and metal, building weak ships was not an option, and he found these ‘hunters’ did not deserve the title. They were butchers and carnivores, with no nobility to their designs or tactics. The Psodos expected to win, and did not know how to adjust to an enemy that was superior to them other than to ram them with explosives.

The aforementioned suicide ships came from behind the heavy warships, racing towards the nearest Kafcha and got burnt down before they could reach any of them…but Mak’to’ran deliberately let one get through to the DinoThunder to let his flagship take the hit and see what they could do, sensing the 13 mile long weapons package was manned by a fairly large crew that instantly died when it rammed the shields of his ship and detonated forward in a cone, directing most of the blast into the V’kit’no’sat ship.

To its credit his ship’s shields were momentarily breached, but the DinoThunder was not designed with heavy shields, and relied more on its armor to fight the Hadarak. The Kafcha were better shielded, having been designed for a more ubiquitous mission profile, but the explosive package barely chipped off 9% of the DinoThunder’s armor plating at the impact point, and that was only a small spot on its hull.

To be fair, that was a massive weapon impact that would have destroy almost any other race’s ship…but the V’kit’no’sat were not any other race, and the Psodos were wholly outmatched if they didn’t have anything better to work with despite their numbers, which were hard to keep contained if they chose to run…but none of them did. They all stood their ground and fought, and died, expecting those that followed them to win.

Perhaps part of the trouble was they kept dying before they could learn, for if they weren’t passing data on to the incoming ships, those arriving would know nothing and keep making the same mistakes.

Mak’to’ran decided to keep one of the larger warships intact, disabling it then boarding it himself after seeing what little threat they posed. He went in with two other Hakja and an army of Zen’zat, eventually isolating the commander and pinning it in place rather than rendering him unconscious.

“Do you wish to die?” Mak’to’ran asked in the Psodos language, using his armor to translate as he kept his food on the cyborg’s chest. “I do not want to kill you, but your people refuse to stop attacking.”

“The hunt must go on,” the Psodos said, triggering his self-destruct programming that immediately sabotaged his heart and killed him.

Mak’to’ran roared down at him angrily, then snaked his armor from his foot down into the Psodos’ body, with the Kich’a’kat tendrils reaching inside and immediately sampling his genetic code, learning from it, and using the designs to make repairs to his biological components. They could do nothing for the technological, but soon his body came back to life and Mak’to’ran kept the tendrils within him to block any further sabotage.

“You will die by my claws or not at all,” he declared. “We have destroyed most of your ships that have arrived in this galaxy, and captured the others. You cannot defeat us. So I ask you, do you wish your entire race to die upon entry to this galaxy? We are offering you a chance to live. Why have none of you responded?”

“We…do not…negotiate,” it said, not sure what to do now that it could not terminate itself.

“Is eradication preferable to negotiation?” Mak’to’ran pressed, with his voice and his foot, putting more pressure on the lumpen and obviously untrained body beneath it. “The hunt will not go on if you are all destroyed. I am told your people travel with you, following the warships. Who will protect them if all your warships are destroyed?”

“We live to hunt, and we die in the hunt. There is no retreat. No surrender. No negotiation. Kill me or release me. I will not serve you,” it said more defiantly.

“Sleep fool,” Mak’to’ran said, using the Kich’a’kat in his armor to render the Psodos unconscious.

Some enemies were not people, he knew. Time, place, and circumstance often offered the greater challenges, and in this one he did not want to be responsible for wiping out this entire race due to their own arrogance and stupidity. The challenge before him was how to conquer them in a way that they still survived afterward…and he did not have the resources in this system to annex them or transport them to a location where others could handle the task.

But then again, they were cyborgs. So perhaps a software approach would be more effective…

3

April 2, 158397

Zykres Nebula (Shoveini Kingdom)

Eta Fermi Temple

Jasmyn-T-34921 entered the cargo portal in the Temple where Plausious had sent word from, exiting her long journey through the Essence realm without issue. It was underground and fully functioning, as were the robotic units moving about through others portals. There was no visible damage, and the atmosphere was normal, but as she peeled back her nanite helmet armor and let her head tails flap behind her freely, she realized there was a lot more activity in the portals around her…and the one she had just came through spat out a cargo sled a few seconds later, which bumped into her and shoved her to the ground as it hovered over her and moved on to an exit shaft that led upwards.

More were coming out of dozens of portals, with a few seeing lines going out. Most of the units were the version known as ‘puddle jumpers,’ but others were of longer and thinner designs that were not typically seen in the Temples. They were reserved for use on the shadow network, and must have been summoned here due to the lack of units as the network raced to deliver new materials to the Temple in far greater numbers than usual.

Jasmyn rolled out from under the next puddle jumper coming through and danced around the traffic, intending to head out through the artificial catacombs, but then changed her mind and hopped on the back of one of the passing craft and rode it to the vertical shaft, intending to see where it led.

Up she went, and fast, as the craft elevated through a shaft that came to a shield after less than a minute. Jasmyn snapped her helmet back on, with the nanite material surging up from her collar and covering her head before she passed through the blue field harmlessly…but as she expected the other side had a toxic atmosphere a third the pressure it should have been.

When the puddle jumper got to its destination she could see why. It came into a large warehouse, still underground, but with a section of its roof busted in with a cascade of black soot having fallen inside the size of a small mountain. The craft were all moving around it and stacking supplies in the free spaces as she saw a few small units collecting and carrying away the larger pieces of charred material as the hole in the roof remained black beyond the interior lights.

Jasmyn flew up through it, leaving the busy Caretaker units behind, and passed through more than a mile of melted levels in what she guessed had been a surface access conduit. When hit above it had been breached, with the resulting destruction moving down far below ground into the catacombs.

When the Maverick eventually reached the surface everything was dark. The sun was gone, and there were no stars…not that there had been before. The shell of the Temple had always blocked them out, but now there was nothing to be seen except a few fireflies of light in the distance.

Jasymn used her armor’s zoom function and tried to get some visuals on the distant lights, finding they were Caretakers moving about doing what she didn’t know, but there was no point in trying to see in the dark, and her Pefbar only went so far, right now registering dunes everywhere made of the charred material so fine it was closer to silt.

There was no wind, at least not now, and no thermal signatures to stir it up. Jasmyn summoned up her Essence and her bioplasma, then shot a streak of it up high above her head, capping it a few hundred meters away, and pooling it there as she enhanced the burn and twisted it into more light production than heat, creating a miniature sun of her own that spread an orange/red light out across a barren landscape.

Everything was black, and everything was dunes. There was no rubble to be seen. No bedrock. No ships or buildings. Everything was char, but at least the air was clear…though the oxygen was mostly gone, combined into the char that was lightly spilling down into the vertical passage behind her as she walked ankle deep through the very sterile destruction, towing her light high above her and occasionally adding some additional plasma to it.

“So the story is true,” she said to herself, not sensing or detecting any ships above her or around the curvature of the Temple as far as her armor could scan. “They really nuked the whole thing. Including the Vargemma,” she said, realizing that some of the black sand was probably from their bodies.

“What a waste,” she said, turning on her transponder at maximum gain and sending out a location ping. The message the surviving Star Force personnel had carried back said that Plausious had survived inside one of their strongest warships, and that the giant portals capable of moving it had been destroyed. So it had to be here somewhere, and with everything in the Temple destroyed she had line of sight to every single square inch of it now. And with no energy activity of any type, even a small transmitter like hers would reach to the far side and be able to be detected by the advanced Neofan sensors…assuming they were looking, which they might not be.

She decided to give it a try, otherwise she’d have to hack into the Temple systems and try to send a message that way. Jasmyn hadn’t brought many snacks in her armored backpack, and it looked like there were no Caretaker units on the surface waiting to supply her with whatever she required. All of those were undoubtedly destroyed in the blast wave, and it was unlikely the Temple would rebuild those before restarting the artificial star.

But Jasmyn didn’t have to wait long, for a return ping came only minutes later from an object she couldn’t scan, but one that was transmitting from a fast moving position to her left. When it did get in range she saw it was a giant sphere, and one of their Gjardan warships, which made her wonder if her portal activity hadn’t been automatically rerouted to where Plausious wanted it.

The Trinx waited until it came to a stop overhead, barely two miles up and moving the dunes with wind as it shoved the thin atmosphere around, then a hatch opened up and she was directed into it, forgoing a craft to pick her up as she elected to just fly there.

When she entered the well-lit hangar she let go of her glowing orb outside, letting it puff into a fireworks display before going out entirely, then she landed gently on the deck in the thicker air in the ship as several Neofan gathered around her.

“The Reignor sends his greetings,” one of them said with a slight bow. “But he is not onboard this ship. We are indebted to you, Nuv’ernor.”

“For what? I haven’t done anything yet,” she scoffed, peeling back her armor into two forearm gauntlets and revealing loose black robes beneath that encased her legs, making them look twice their size, as she wore a tight fitting tank top with a backpack carrying her supplies.

“House Atriark has no Nuv’ernor. Only the leading House does, and that is Mutavi. Your power is legend, and will give us a significant advantage once you are trained.”

“I’m already trained.”

One of the other Neofan shook his head dismissively. “Star Force knows little about the potential of Nuv’ernor. We have been instructed to share with you all our techniques in exchange for your assistance in the coming battles.”

“All of them?” she said, raising an eye ridge.

“Yes. Though there are none here who possess the higher tier ones, for we do not have the power output. But we can show you the more basic ones in person, and you can learn from our databanks the others, given time. It will not be a quick process.”

“I didn’t expect it would be, given that you’re marooned here. How long before you get a primary portal rebuilt?”

“One is partially complete now. Do we have permission to relocate to one of your Temples?”

“Director Davis has granted you that, and in exchange we will be sending a team here to oversee the rebuilding of this one…with a few redesigns. But for the moment I’m here alone. Where is the Reignor?”

“He is not in his ship. He is somewhere below ground, and moves around without our knowledge. He had done so since the beginning, and is working on things we are not privy to. We were ordered to collect you if and when you arrived.”

“Alright, consider me collected. Now what?”

“We will leave a message in the Temple systems for him, informing of your arrival. He will come to you.”

“And while we wait?”

“You may do what you wish.”

“Alright. First thing I want to see is the battle records of what happened here. All of it that you have. I want to see what caused this, and what led up to it.”

The first Neofan took a step to the side and gestured behind him. “This way, Nuv’ernor.”

“The name is Jasmyn,” she said, walking up to and beside the much larger biped. “When did you learn our language? You weren’t one of mine.”

“We have all been instructed to learn it, in our solitude here, in preparation for what is to come.”

“And what’s to come?”

“An alliance that gives you possession of all Temples as their caretakers, and within them we will strike back at the false Reignor and his zealots, ridding you of the annoyance.”

“And after that?”

“House Mutavi will eventually come. By then we must have consolidated and rebuilt our own House in preparation. The Reignor has foreseen our doom if we do not act swiftly. All Neofan will be purged from the galaxy in one form or another if we do not.”

“That’s the word on the street,” Jasmyn said as they entered a large hallway, even by Star Force standards. “All kinds of bad guys are going to start showing up to take a poke at us. Just make sure you guys pick the right side.”

“That decision has already been made. We will fight alongside Star Force, no matter what the outcome. To do anything less will insure our destruction. Only together do we have a hope of survival.”

“And why didn’t the zealots accept this?”

“There is a sickness in them that the Reignor is slowly purging from us. A sickness that he too once had, until your Director began the purge in him, and his exile on the Hadarak world completed it. The lightside is hard for us to understand, but we have been shown the way and we will dutifully follow it until we come to that understanding.”

“Zealots of another breed then.”

“Loyalists,” the Neofan corrected. “We trust in Plausious.”

“Who you already noted was previously sick. Was your trust in him then well deserved?”

“He saved us from the destruction of our home galaxy. Many other Neofan were left behind, but he arranged for us all to be evacuated here. He has said our culture is the sickness, and that he has to craft a new one before we will be free of it, and that will take time. It is something he is also working on now, as we wait.”

“Is that also why he wanted me here?”

“He did not say so, but you are a warrior of a lightside empire. And from observation we may come to an understanding of that which we have been grafted.”

“Grafted?”

“It is one form of learning for Neofan. The Reignor has given us a piece of himself, overwritten onto us. We can see what he saw, though we do not fully understand it.”

“Interesting. I wasn’t aware you could do a mind meld. How many other abilities have you hidden from us?”

“I cannot answer without knowing that which you already know.”

“Fair point,” she said, letting it slide. “I hope you have material replication the same as the Temple?”

“We do.”

“Good. Because I need some foodstuffs copied,” she said, pointing to her backpack, “before I eat them all. Mavericks have a high metabolism and have to eat regularly.”

“How often is regularly?”

“Every few hours,” she said, seeing his surprise. “How often do you eat?”

“Every few days. We will make available what you need on your schedule. Our food synthesis mechanisms are fully operable.”

“What isn’t fully operable?”

“Part of our offensive capability was destroyed, and our Essence reserves are nearly depleted. With no Vargemma here to refill them, we cannot enter combat again. And until our repairs are completed in another Temple, we will not engage the false Reignor’s ships. We have one chance to strike, and we must not fail. They do not know what has happened here, and when we inform them, we must rally all those still faintly loyal to our fight. If we show weakness, those wavering will not join us. To do so futilely would mean their execution.”

“They have to have someone to turn to that can protect them,” Jasmyn summarized.

“Indeed. Otherwise they will be identified and purged. That was not in our previous culture. Where this new sickness comes from we do not know, but it was spreading everywhere, and the false Reignor does nothing to stop it. And the Diem supports it.”

“When a civilization is built on lies, it will inevitably fall. It is just a matter of time. The power of the lightside is also the power of the truth, and those other civilizations that exist on lies must destroy the truth, else it will destroy them. That is one reason why the darkside is drawn to the light. Our mere presence destabilizes it.”

“Is that why they turned on Plausious?”

“I do not know the inner workings of your House, nor do I want to, but it seems pretty obvious that once he learned of the lightside he had to be removed. Sounds like some of your bedrock lies were in jeopardy of being disintegrated, intentionally or unintentionally.”

“What happens when a civilization built on lies falls?”

“The truth shows itself in one form or another. Insanity is not stable, and inevitably destroys itself…and those around it. You witnessed that here first hand. The silence that remains speaks no lies.”

“It is reset through annihilation,” the Neofan said in a moment of understanding.

“Indeed. What is your name?”

“Bmu.”

“Well then, Bmu, learn from what happened here and do the same within your own mind. Take down everything, assume nothing, and start over with what small pieces of truth you can find, and lean on those to sustain you. Follow Plausious if he is truthful, but not if he lies. Let your loyalty be to the truth rather than to him. If your faith in him is legitimate, then there will be no conflict. But do not blindly follow anyone. That, in a way, is a type of lie.”

“I do not know how to function without my loyalty.”

“Make your loyalty to the truth. Shift it rather than destroying it. Make your civilization earn your support, rather than expecting it of you. Only a firm foundation will see you through what is coming. Loyalty without that foundation will fail, eventually. When immense pressure is placed upon you, even a small crack will see you fall. You must be perfect, and then, and only then, can you weather the storm. Search for cracks and eliminate them within yourself. That is how you first strengthen your civilization. You are a pillar within it, and you must become flawless in order to support the weight thrust upon you.”

“Wise words from one so young,” Bmu said appreciatively. “I will heed them.”

“Good. Now what do you guys have around here in way of training equipment…”

4

December 12, 158399

Toyland System (Vinshen Kingdom)

Terapye

Darren Greoni rode in a dropship alone, confined to the cargo hold and unable to speak to the pilots. He wore nothing but a basic uniform with survival jacket, plus a backpack with supplies as he watched the snowy surface pass by underneath on a datapad as they traveled across a mountain range. There was some rock showing, and a lot of green trees popping up through the snow, but he could see nothing of the ground itself, and that worried him.

His clothing wasn’t made for this environment, except for the jacket, and that wouldn’t do anything for his legs and thin casual shoes. His socks would get soaked trudging through the snow, and the cold was not going to relent if the ground was solid white. That meant it rarely got above freezing here, and soon he was going to be dropped off into this environment on his own.

It was the first time, actually, that he had been alone. At least beyond some short training exercises. He’d always had his family with him before…the other 99 offspring of Greg-073 and Oni-081 that Darren had spent the last 31 years with in a special maturia, though to be honest he didn’t know what a normal one was. He knew a lot about the rest of Star Force, but had never been able to see it. Not in person, anyway. He’d been told that in other maturias, when you graduated you got to choose your path and people would stop telling you what to do, but not him. He was a Furyan, and the offspring of the military leaders of Star Force. He’d met his parents only twice during his life, for a few weeks at a time, but now they were off fighting the Hadarak War, though where he didn’t know. There was a lot he wasn’t allowed to know, and when he asked why he always got the same answer.

He was too young.

He’d always scoffed at that, except right now, looking at the harsh snowy landscape he was about to be dropped off into, and he was forced to agree. He wasn’t ready for this.

A klaxon made him jerk as two lights above the closed boarding ramp started blinking. That was the sign that they were nearly at their destination.

Darren clenched his teeth. His instincts were all over the place. Part of him was afraid of the unknown, another part was eager to jump into the challenge of it. He was pretty sure the second part came from his parents, for it didn’t seem real. He missed his brothers and sisters, wishing they were here with him, but he was going to have to find them out there, for they were all being dropped at different locations with a simple tracking device to find their way to their destination.

And there was no going back. The maturia was closed to them now, and on a different planet. He didn’t even know the name of this one. He wasn’t allowed to know, except for the fact that the days of him being trained were over. From here on out he was in charge of his own destiny…for he had to craft it for himself, in concert with his Furyan class, in order to survive out here on their own.

There was no emergency beacon in his pack. No one looking over his shoulder this time. His trainers had deemed him ready, along with the others, and now that would be put to the test…which meant he could also die out here if he screwed up. And the fear of that was definitely coming from him and not his parents’ genetic legacy.

Darren glanced down at his bare hands, seeing his skin turning bright yellow. Brighter than it ever had before. That meant a Furyan was vulnerable. At least his body was agreeing with his mind right now.

It hadn’t always, he remembered as he stood up and walked towards the closed hatch, tugging on his backpack to make sure it was secure. In the beginning of his life his body had pretty much run him, and it wasn’t until his father had showed up and taught him what it meant to be a Furyan did he understand the power that he had to control. Others in Star Force had it easier, and their bodies didn’t run them as much, but for a Furyan it could be very bad if you didn’t learn control. If you didn’t make your body your own and adjust it to fit the person inside. Because like it or not, his parents were far beyond him in skill, experience, and badassery. And his body had been based off theirs, so he was getting a lot of powers he hadn’t earned yet, with even more locked into his genome to be discovered later.

Thankfully his Rensiek was active, so he had some way to keep warm down there in spite of his light clothes. He’d learned to use it 3 years ago, not thinking it was important. He’d never needed to keep warm in the maturia, for it was indoors. None of the training courses had snow on them, and he’d never really been cold in his life. But the outdoors he was about to enter would be below freezing, and he hoped his Rensiek skills would be good enough to keep him alive.

Another Klaxon sounded, forcing him to take a step back as it scared him…but not as much as the ramp breaking free from the hull and slowly tilting down with an energy shield separating atmospheres over the aperture, but he could still feel the cold seeping through as he suddenly realized the dropship hadn’t stopped moving and was still flying across the landscape.

When it tipped down far enough he saw a mountain range pass underneath him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Darren felt his legs go wobbly, and not from the ship shaking, for it was steady and he felt nothing. He put a hand on the floor to keep from falling over and dropped down on his ankles into a tripoint stance and waited there just inside the shield perimeter as the dropship eventually slowed down over top the peak of a ridge-like mountain.

“Depart,” a voice said, with Darren swallowing hard as he walked through the shield and onto the ramp, feeling a hard wind hit him that sucked the heat out of his face and hands. He tucked the latter into his pockets and sent a surge of Rensiek through him, steeling himself against temperature changes and letting his natural body heat swell underneath his skin.

He walked to the end, seeing it was 4 meters over the rocky ground, and took his hands back out again. There was no going back. They had told him that already. There was only forward, afraid or not.

He had to do this.

Darren stepped off and dropped, catching his shoes on the uneven rock and dropping into a crouch to slow his fall. He managed to keep control and his balance, standing up as the dropship moved away, pulling up its ramp as it accelerated off into a cloud bank that was dropping more snow on the valley below.

It wasn’t here yet, and the ground under his feet had no snow on it. Only rock. That meant he was probably higher than the weather would get…or maybe not. Right now he didn’t care as he tucked his hands into his pockets again and telekinetically pulled up his hood and snugged it around his neck so only his face was showing.

“Ok, Darren. Unless this is some giant training exercise and they’re fooling you, this is real and they really left you here. Temperature is going to be colder up here, so going lower will be warm…less cold,” he corrected, staying put for a moment and looking at the scenery. He was at the very top of this ridge and had an unlimited view all around him for miles. The terrain was rough, and there were no cities here. No outposts. No nothing. Just him and his direction finder, which he wore on his left wrist.

It pointed to his left along the ridgeline, but he didn’t want to stay up here and try to get across. He’d seen a lot of gaps on the flight here, with crevasses he couldn’t jump across. The only way to travel was up and over or along the bottom of the valleys. Which meant he was going to have to zigzag his way to his destination…unless his flight psionic manifested itself in the next few minutes.

Darren wasn’t going to hold his breath for that one, and speaking of breath, he was having a hard time breathing up here. Maybe it was the cold, or the altitude, or both, but he needed to go lower…and needed to do it without falling. His body may heal fast, but he didn’t have an unlimited amount of food in his pack.

And if he lost his pack…

That wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t let it.

The wind was steady and hard up here, and his clothes were already soaking in the cold, so he took one last moment to get his bearings…wishing he had a camera to record the layout…then started slowly walking downward and slipping on gravel immediately.

He caught himself before he fell, and made sure he took extra small steps as he headed for what looked like the least steep descent…but when he got there he found it was a sheer drop down to more rock, so he backtracked and went further down the ridge line until he came to a slope of loose rock that ended in snow below.

Darren wanted to curse, but his lips were already starting to get numb despite his Rensiek. He took a moment to actually produce some extra heat and spread it out through his body, then he sat down on the rock and began a four limb crab crawl.

The rocks were cold, and he had no gloves, but he made his hands glow with heat as he moved and it kept his fingers from freezing as every other hand hold moved the rocks, but as long as he had one foot or hand stable he didn’t slide as the storm finally got to him and began to smack snowflakes into his face as they were blown upward towards the heights by the now sharper wind.

Several slipped into his mouth and melted there, but he didn’t close it. He was breathing hard and had to keep sucking in the thin, cold air in large amounts until he got to the bottom of the slope and his feet finally hit the accumulated snow on the ground.

But it wasn’t level ground. It was still a slope, and there was no way to keep his footing…so he put both legs out forward and tried to slide under control the rest of the way down to the trees, only making it halfway before his foot caught on something and sent him careening into a tumble, hitting rock underneath and hurting his arms, legs, and back before he finally came to a stop in a snowbank, half burying himself in it on impact.

Darren didn’t move for a moment, other than to swipe snow away from his mouth. He was hurt, but not too badly. He held still and used the healing technique he’d been taught, getting his own body moving faster in repair than normal, then he pulled himself upright and sat down in the snow, looking up the mountain he had just come down and not believing he hadn’t been hurt worse.

He tucked his hands in his pockets again and just sat there, glad to be out of some of the wind as snow continued to fall around him. It got so bad moments later he could barely see two meters in front of him, but Darren knew he had to keep going lower before he tried to set up a camp. He’d barely traveled at all, so he forced himself onto his feet and began to trudge through knee deep snow down through the sparse trees as the mountainside’s drop continued at a more reasonable tilt.

He slowly moved for what felt like forever before the falling snow stopped and he could finally see again, though the green tree spikes blocked most of his view at a distance. Darren checked his direction finder again, seeing it still led up the ridgeline, but he hadn’t found the bottom yet and he was already shaking with cold.

He made himself stop again and warm up, knowing his calories were being burned to do it, but he didn’t want to open his pack yet. He wanted to find the bottom first.

So he kept walking/crawling through the thick snow that made it so hard. His muscles were burning with the effort, but finally he came to a V in the landscape, with what was before him starting back upward again, meaning he had finally found the bottom of the valley.

And he stepped down through the snow into water beneath it.

His foot sunk in past his ankle, with the freezing water scaring him as he scrambled to climb out, clawing at the snow as the ice broke in multiple places beneath his feet, soaking both of them before he got back to dirt or rock or whatever it was beneath him that was solid.

“Shit,” he said, focusing on his Rensiek as it felt like all the warmth in his legs was now gone.

He looked around for a flat spot that wasn’t in the center where the water had to be, and began pushing snow away with his hands and arms, as well as using his telekinesis to help, until he had a patch of hard dirt showing up next to a tree trunk thicker than he was.

Darren pulled off his backpack, making sure to keep one hand on it at all times for fear of losing it, and pulled out the small tent capsule. He twisted the cap on the 8-inch long tube and set it on the ground, letting it unfold itself into a triangular tunnel, then crawled inside and sealed the flap-like door, triggering it to turn solid but with a mesh-like air vent in a strip near the peak.

He pulled out a small heater and hung it from the roof, which was so low he couldn’t stand up, but right now he didn’t care. He was out of the wind and back inside some semblance of civilization as the heater turned on and began warming up his small refuge as he peeled his shoes and socks off, with both dripping water on the slightly soft floor.

He grunted and begrudgingly opened the door again…then squeezed out as much water from his socks as possible, then telekinetically did the same thing to his shoes, getting a little more out of those than he thought was in them before bringing his gear back inside and quickly closing the door again and wishing the heater would work faster.

Darren realized he was starving, so he pulled out four ration bars and downed them all faster than he thought possible. He had no water, but there was snow outside and he got a cup of it, then melted it with a hot finger until it was no longer cold. He drank it down then curled up on the floor with his bare feet feeling warmer now than they had been in his shoes. His heater was doing its job well.

“You made it through day one,” he told himself. “Day two will take care of itself.”

He wrapped his arms around himself in lieu of a blanket, wishing he was back in his maturia bed. He was alone and afraid, but part of him was loving this. He guessed it was the freedom of it, and focused on that sensation rather than the fear. If he had his parent’s habits and tendencies in him, he might as well use them right now. Otherwise he was just going to be a ball of fear.

And that wasn’t going to help him.

Darren ate one more ration bar, then with the tent fully heated, he let himself rest for a bit and fell asleep far faster than he expected…

5

December 15, 158399

Toyland System (Vinshen Kingdom)

Terapye

Darren had been walking through the valley floors, up and over ridgelines, and having to backtrack a half dozen times when he came to impassible terrain over the past three days, all the while following the direction finder that gave him no idea of the distance he needed to travel. His supplies were three quarters gone and he was beginning to worry about running out, though his other worries had since faded away.

He was able to move through the snow and rocky terrain with predictability now, and after his first night he no longer feared being alone. That first emotional day had been rough, but now it was like his genetic legacy was kicking in and he felt a confidence he didn’t think he truly deserved.

That was normal, though. Feeling and thinking things that he didn’t ever remember learning. Maybe he did and he just forgot, but the challenge of what was before him was satisfying as he covered ground towards his unknown objective…but the dwindling food was not something he could brave his way through.

There wasn’t anything visible up here to eat, and even if he did find some local wildlife he wasn’t going to eat them. Those that did were referred to as ‘feral,’ and it was the polar opposite of civilization…rather a failure of civilization, but something that all races seemed to have the potential to devolve into if all else failed. No Furyan had ever gone feral, but they’d been warned that there were instincts in them that could be awakened that would put them in that state if they embraced them, and Darren was not going to start down that path. Nor could he kill someone else, no matter how primitive, on purpose. But what if he found a dead one just lying there?

No. He’d push through with no food if he had to. This was all planned, so they weren’t going to have to starve to death…unless there was a way to find food out here and they had to discover it? That would be like the trainers, so as Darren walked he considered what could be eaten out here.

With all the snow, roots were the best option if this area had a summer season. If it didn’t, then there probably wasn’t going to be anything to eat unless you could digest cellulose, and that was one psionic that he didn’t have unlocked. Why he didn’t know, for it would have been useful to eat the spiky green leaves, but without that particular digestive enzyme the calories in them wouldn’t be accessible, only minerals, vitamins, and other stuff that were useful but couldn’t be used as energy.

People who lived in these environments either could digest cellulose, which most plants’ structures were built on, or they killed and ate those who did. But with civilization you had another option, and in his pack was a piece of a larger machine that was useless to him now, and he suspected it would combine with those of the others to give them the ability to manufacture food out here.

At least he hoped. He couldn’t identify what it was, but if they were to live out here without getting resupply, they’d have to make their own food…or he’d have to learn something about this environment he didn’t know. All he did know at the moment was the direction he needed to move towards, but the dwindling supplies in his pack was not something he could completely ignore.

The tracker was pointed in a straight line, but the terrain was not so straight and veered to the right again. That meant he had to go up and over or hope the valley turned left later. He didn’t have time to go out of his way again on that hope, so he started climbing with heavy steps as he sensed another storm coming.

Darren decided not to wait it out, wanting to get up to the top before he got another foot of snow to deal with. Sliding down the snow was far easier than trudging up through it, so he pressed on and got blanketed in white just before he got to the bare rock up top and actually climbed above the clouds that were dumping the precipitation.

And up here it was actually sunny. Cold, but sunny. He traveled a bit further to the peak and posed there, looking back at the storm in the valley he had come from that obscured it like a fog, and then at the other side which had no storm…at least not yet. He was on an extra high spot, and further down the way he had come he could see it start to spill over a lower section.

It was going to work its way back to him, he guessed, so he didn’t waste time and started to descend carefully, trying to avoid a cliff that would make him backtrack again as he raced the snowstorm to get to the bottom.

He didn’t win, but he did make it into the trees as the snow started to blow, and he found a large one that he pushed the snow away from the base of, piling it up in a wall on either side in a V-shape with the trunk at the center. In the triangular clearing he set up his tent and dove inside as the heavy snow began to pile up…then reached a cup back out to scoop some in before sealing his tent up for what would probably be another few hours.

Darren warmed the snow with his heater, refusing to burn more calories to do it with his finger, and added some chocolate-flavored powder that was very high in sugar. He mixed it in and sucked it down slowly after it was warm enough, feeling both the heat and the calories as a welcome relief.

He had 3 packets left, 8 ration bars, and 4 vitamin bricks. Two days, he guessed, if he spaced them out. Then he’d be out of fuel and couldn’t keep walking very far on the limited fat stored in his body.

Darren checked his direction finder again, wondering if it was broken, but it kept pointing the same direction up this valley and across it. Wherever he was going, he needed to get there soon.

After the snow stopped falling he climbed out, having to push it off the door as he’d gotten not one foot, but at least two feet of new snow on top of what was already there.

“Shit,” he said, knowing that was going to make the travel even slower and more energy consuming, but there was only one way to go now, and that was forward, so he packed up his tent and began climbing through the hip-deep snow as he luckily descended through the forest.

When he got to the bottom he followed the valley without getting in the center where there might be a river, and got to a thinner area of snow where he decided to try and cross…which apparently had not been an original idea, for he found fresh tracks in the snow going across that very spot.

Fresh tracks and a breakthrough into the water, which told him where not to step. He came up to the hole, saw it was only a few inches deep, and gathered himself for a jump across. His legs were tired, but he managed the two legged hop to the other side, hearing the ice crunch underneath his feet on landing, but apparently there was no water beneath.

He followed in the tracks, wondering whose they were, as they were headed where his direction finder was pointing him…but they’d come from over the ridgeline here, meaning whoever this was had been deposited not in the exact area as him, but close.

Darren couldn’t feel anyone yet, but as he made better time using the other person’s tracks, eventually he felt one of his brothers up ahead. He didn’t have telepathy yet, but he could sense them regardless. Not a name, just a sort of buzz that he felt whenever around them but not the trainers, and it only worked if they were within 300 meters or so.

He accelerated his pace, not caring about calories right now, and tried to catch up enough to see who was ahead of him. Fortunately that person also sensed him and stopped, with him finally seeing the hooded figure of Neiva waving at him in a snow drift as high as her chest.

“Hey!” she shouted, walking back a few steps then waiting on him.

“Hey!” he said, partially out of breath as he caught up and put his hands on his knees for a moment. “You’re the first I’ve seen.”

“Same here,” she said. “How long have you been following me?”

“Since the water,” he said, looking down towards her feet. “You soaked?”

“Yes, damn it. And I’m hungry enough without having to use Rensiek again. How are you with food?”

“Not much left. Two days tops.”

“Better than me. I’ve got a day’s left. Did they tell you where we were going?”

“Nope. Total silence. They just said follow the direction finder.”

“Same. At least we can make tracks for each other now. Care to take a turn?”

Darren starred at her warily. “I just ran to catch up to you.”

“Oh, right. You want to take a break?”

“Can’t if you’ve only got a day of food left. Keep going and I’ll switch out when I get my strength back.”

“Deal,” she said, turning and plowing into the drift, punching through part of it until she got to the other side and the snow was only knee deep. “No joke about me falling in the water?”

“I did the first day. Been scanning the low areas with Pefbar ever since.”

“I didn’t even think to. I’ve been on the peaks the whole time.”

“Really? How’d you get by the gaps?”

“I jumped. They weren’t that big.”

“Mine were. And Pefbar only lets you know where the water is, not where the ice will break. Are your feet freezing?”

“Trying not to think about it. I was hoping the physical effort of moving through the snow would warm them, but I think I’m going to have to use Rensiek pretty soon.”

“Don’t wait too long. Actually, stop,” he said, kicking the snow aside to make a small gap behind her. “Take your shoes off and I’ll get the water out of them. You do your socks.”

“And stand in the snow? No thanks.”

“One foot at a time then. The water will soak up heat from your Rensiek and waste it.”

“Good point,” she said, pulling up her right foot and sticking it in front of him. “All yours.”

Darren knelt down and pulled her shoe off, then her sock as she stood on one foot, passing the sock to her as he dealt with the more stubborn shoe, twisting and wringing it physically to get a few drops out, then he used a telekinetic trick he’d learned from his own misfortune and got a little rivulet to fall into the snow.

Neiva got a lot more out of the sock as her blue foot got yellower and yellower in the cold.

“Did your skin go back blue the second day too?” Darren asked as she put her less wet sock back on and he handed her the shoe.

“Yeah. The snow is just annoying now,” she said, standing on her reshoed foot again. “That does feel better.”

“Other one,” he said, with her giving him her left foot as they repeated the process.

“How long do you think we have to stay out here?”

“I got the impression we have to live out here. The question is if there’s a building where we’re going or just a camp site.”

“And do what?”

“No clue. But it’s going to be fun.”

“Fun?” she said, wringing the sock extra hard as she said the word. “You call this cold fun?”

“Not the cold. But have they ever given us something boring to do?”

“Yeah, it’s called training.”

“They’re not sending us out here to stagnate to death. They’ve got something planned. Something big.”

“That’s not the impression I got,” she said, putting her sock and shoe back on, then closing her eyes for a moment as she surged heat into both feet, but only as much as she felt was needed. “No point in guessing. We’ll find out when we get there.”

“Wherever that is,” Darren echoed.

“It’s on the other side of the far ridge.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“I saw a clearing from the top,” she said, pointing to the ridgeline further ahead than Darren had passed over. “That’s why I came down rather than staying up there.”

“Two ridges to go?” he clarified.

“Yeah. Sort of a plateau. Not in the valley bottom. Direction finder pointed right at it. Maybe it’s a way point, but it’s where we’re going. I’m sure of it.”

“Two ridges to cross in a day,” he said, cringing.

“Waiting will only burn more calories.”

“How about we get up this one and find a spot to take a break at the top. You’ve been sleeping up there, haven’t you?”

“You have to pick the right spot so you don’t get blown over, but yeah, why?”

“We put up one of our tents, squeeze in together, get out of these jackets, and share some body heat for a couple of hours.”

“Sounds good, but it’s still burning calories we don’t have to spare.”

“Killjoy,” he grunted. “Alright, on we go.”

Darren and Nieva alternated twice going up the ridge, which was her first time doing so, after which she changed her mind about stopping and taking a nap. An hour and a half later they packed up and headed down unable to see over the next ridge to where the clearing was supposed to be. They kept moving all night long, using their Pefbar to navigate in turns, and got to the top of the next ridgeline just as the sun started to rise.

And there, on the far side up about halfway, was an area with no trees, the ground was level, and they could see a few small tents set up around what looked like an obelisk made out of blue stone.

“Told you,” Neiva said, pulling out her last ration bar and gobbling it. “5 minute break?”

“Deal,” he said, sitting down on the rocky ground at the top and soaking in the first rays of sunlight on his face. “You gotta admit, the scenery is pretty good. Different than the holo environments.”

“Yeah. Makes the galaxy feel bigger when you’re out here. Maybe that’s why they sent us.”

“Hopefully someone will know something when we get there,” Darren said. “And I’m guessing that big blue rock has something to do with it.”

“Please not be any more training.”

Darren and Neiva sat a few more minutes recharging their legs, then began the descent as eagerly as they could manage. When they got to the bottom they managed to get across the much wider river there without breaking through the ice, but didn’t come across any other tracks until they were almost to the plateau and the buzz in their minds increased considerably.

“Hello there?” Neiva called out as they climbed the rather steep side that had some trees growing out of it.

“Come on up,” someone said before appearing over the edge and giving them a telekinetic tug to make it easier. “You out of food yet?” Leni asked.

“I am, he’s not,” Neiva said, getting her foot on the flat ground and making one final push to get the rest of her body up. “Ah…don’t want to do that again.”

“Same here,” Leni said, helping Darren up with a physical hand. “You two dropped together?”

“No, we met up yesterday,” Darren said, looking around. “How many are here?”

“14, now 16 counting you two.”

“Please tell me there’s food,” Neiva pleaded.

“Big crate over there,” Leni said, thumbing behind her.

“Thank you,” Neiva said, running across the smooth snow towards it.

“Any instructions?” Darren asked, staying with Leni.

“There’s a check-in at the obelisk. We all have to get here and log in to get our next directions.”

“Is that what we’ve been tracking?”

“Yep. It’s a holo terminal, we think. Extra supplies were at the base of it when Veer got here.”

“He was first?”

“Yeah. Says he was here a day before anyone else. We’ve been trying to plot our drop off points, and it looks like we weren’t all set down at the same distance. Some were further than others.”

“Well that’s not fair,” Darren grumbled. “No trainers though?”

“No. Just us, for once. It’s cold, but I like it. I got to sleep in for the first time in my life.”

“No showers though?”

“Sorry. Just gotta live with the stink unless you want to ice bathe.”

Darren shuttered at the thought. “No thanks. Anybody tried to start a fire?”

“We have extra batteries for the tent heaters.”

“Is that a no?”

“What are we going to burn?”

“Trees have sticks. Find some under the snow.”

“Why? Just go inside your tent.”

“Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when camping?”

“Says who?”

“All those movies.”

“Hey, if you want to try, knock yourself out. But I’m not going around looking for sticks buried in the snow.”

“Later,” he said, ignoring her and following Neiva’s tracks toward where the extra food was.

“What’s the point?” Leni asked his back.

“Because we can and I feel like burning something,” he yelled. “And there’s nobody here to tell me I can’t.”

Leni blinked. “Oh. Well now…when you put it that way…yeah, I kinda want to make a fire too,” she relented. “Where’s the best place to look for sticks?”

6

The next day most of the others arrived, with the last showing up two days after that already having run out of food and barely dragging themselves in, but everyone made it. Darren and the others spent a few hours warming up around the three bonfires they had going and eating their fill as darkness fell, but rather than wait for morning they all decided to see what the obelisk had to say now.

Each of them placed a hand on it, registering their identity, and when all were simultaneously touching, it began to glow and a hologram twice their height appeared standing to the west of it and looking away. All of the Furyans walked around to the far side so they could face it, seeing it was Greg-073, their father.

“If you are seeing this, then all of you have reached the obelisk and are wondering what comes next. Well keep wondering, because I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a smirk. “But I am going to explain something about being Furyan. As you know, a lot of your bodies and minds come from us, and we’re not simple. Quite complex, actually, and there’s one aspect of us that cannot be trained for. You see, we built the Star Force military from scratch, built the Clans from scratch, and helped build a lot of other parts of Star Force. The Monarchs didn’t do it all. Davis didn’t do it all. We…meaning me and the other 99 members of the original Archon class…had no one to teach us, so we had to figure things out as we went.”

“And you have been patterned off of us, so there’s a part of you that operates the same way. If you never face a situation where you have to figure it out, if we tell you everything you need to know, that piece of you will never manifest. It’s a skillset that has to be given air to breath on its own, so that’s why you’re here. To develop this piece of you, as well as continue to develop the rest in new ways. I don’t know what each of your futures will hold, but if you’re even remotely like us, you need to know what freedom tastes like, and without the danger that goes with it, you’ll never really feel it.”

“So you’re getting no help. You’ve got supplies to last about a year, and that long to figure out how to stay alive. You’ve all got the basic equipment to build a colony. How you do it, is up to you. What you do, you have to figure out. But don’t waste the small foothold we’ve given you, because you won’t get another. If you fail and near death, there is a panic button in this obelisk. Help will come, but only when that panic button is pressed and for no other reason. There is no recording function in the obelisk, and there are no recording machines in the forest or in orbit. You are off the grid, and what you do or don’t do is entirely up to you.”

“That said, don’t turn into bad guys or we’ll have to deal with you. Hold to the lightside, always. For those of you who wish to continue your training, the obelisk holds data files on more than you could hope to learn. Use it, or just kick back and starve to death. It’s up you. That’s what freedom is, and if you misuse it, it bites…hard. We’ve insulated you from it, protected you, as we have most of Star Force. That’s a luxury we gladly provide, for not everyone is a warrior. But for those of us who are, you’ll understand when you have no backup and your success or failure rides on you and you alone.”

“We can’t give you that in training, and while I can’t tell you what the future entails, I can say there is a plan. The mystery of it you must discover, but expect to be here for a very long time and plan accordingly. Yes, you get to make the plans now. There’s no instruction manual in the obelisk for this mission…because it’s not a mission. It’s a test. And it’s a test no one else in Star Force takes except Furyans, and except those of us who went through a similar test set by the universe itself.”

“I will say, the other Furyan classes that have come before you, have all muddled through. Not well, and there were some serious injuries and other issues, but none have actually failed. So there is a way, and you are tough enough. But potential does not equal results. Results must be fought for and earned. Now we’ll see if you can chart your own course, or if you’re just a bunch of follow-monkeys who can’t hack it on their own.”

Greg sighed. “There’s a lot more I want to say, but there are some lessons you have to learn the hard way, and you’re going to encounter many of them here. So when things get bad, just remember this one thing,” the hologram said, leaning towards them slightly as if imparting a secret. “We had it way worse. So suck it up and grow into your potential. That’s the only way you’re getting through this. And no, you don’t get to opt out of it. You’re stuck here, and don’t try to walk out of it. You’ll see why later. Make your base camp near the obelisk…and build. And before you start thinking of tree houses and stick forts, take a closer look at the non-edible stuff in your packs. Oh, and winter in this part of the planet is permanent. You’ll get a few warm streaks occasionally, but expect snow to be a standard thing. You’ve got about 16 months until the bad winter weather hits. Be prepared.”

“And that’s the last tip you get. Now huddle up, figure out what to do, and good luck. You’re going to need it,” Greg said, giving them a two fingered salute before the hologram shut down except for a new interactive portal that glowed to life near the base.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Parsivir exclaimed, with many others offering similar sentiments of discontent. “We’re supposed to be here years?”

“Easy everyone,” Trevor said, waving his hands at them to calm down. “We knew this was going to be big, we just didn’t know how big. And look on the bright side…we finally get to do what we want, when we want, so let’s take a closer look at those mechanical components and see what we’ve got to work with.”

There wasn’t much complaining after that, and the buzz amongst their semi-telepathic group mojo was a ‘work the problem’ thing rather than a ‘stand still and bitch’ waste of time. They’d learned that lesson in the maturia, but it appeared they’d be teaching themselves from here on out.

Darren pulled out his component and set it down on the ground next to the others, with a few of the Furyans stepping in to assemble parts that fit together, eventually working them all down into three different machines…none of which looked familiar, until Kaen though to use the data in the obelisk to look them up.

“Mobile mining equipment,” he said, bringing up holographic diagrams to match each. “Molecular sifter. Alchemy pod. Basic fabricator.”

“We can use those to make other machines,” Darren said, suddenly realizing their potential as did some of the others.

“We can make every piece of Star Force equipment using those,” Nathan added. “If we don’t break them. If we do we’re back to sticks and rocks.”

“What do we need to make duplicates?” Trevor asked.

“A lot,” Kaen said, not even trying to look it up now. “But if the plans are in here, it’s possible. We have to harvest resources, though, to put into the sifter. The closer to what we need the better.”

“What powers them?” Ina said, getting to the next logical point ahead of the others.

Kaen frowned and did some searching. “These are special varieties fueled by…infrared radiation.”

“So we can power them with our Rensiek?” Darren asked, stepping up to and placing his hand on the sifter.

“In theory, but we don’t have the calories for a lot of that.”

“Sunlight?” Wennie wondered.

“There’s a battery unit inside,” Kaen said, doing the data digging for the group. “It…will hold a slow charge. So however we can get it, no matter how long, and we can use it.”

“But we have to be picky about what we use it for,” Trevor warned. “This is part of the test. We have to work real hard to power this, so our first choices are going to be damn important.”

“So no hot tub?” Neiva asked not so sarcastically as it sounded.

“Afraid not,” Trevor said with a sigh. “Unless you can build one the old fashioned way...” he said, having an epiphany. “Kaen, how hot can we get the equipment before it gets damaged?”

“Umm,” he said, looking it up.

“Specifically, can it stand up to a bonfire?”

Everyone turned to look at their fires, which they’d made extra big more for fun than heat, but now might be far more important than they realized.

“Easy,” Kaen said in astonishment. “You can dip these things in molten lava and it won’t damage them…just clog them, so let’s not do that.”

“Are there any thermal vents nearby?” Darren asked.

“Checking,” he said, searching for a map of the local area…only to pull up an empty hexagon 100 miles on each side. “Guys, I think I found what Greg was referring to. We’ve got boundaries, and on the other side of them are, I think, more zones where other Furyans are going through the same tests.”

“How far away?” Trevor asked.

“100 miles to the tips of a hexagon, so…” he said, doing the mental math and having to guess at the square roots until he came close, “86 or 87 mile straight shot to what is said to be a shield barrier. So we’re not making contact or getting help from them.”

“Does it say which bloodline they are?”

“It doesn’t say a damn thing other than draw our boundary lines, and inside it is no information other than the location of the obelisk. We’re going to have to make our own maps.”

“Ok, so we need scouting parties. Anything in there we can draw on, or are we using dirt and sticks?”

“Probably,” Kaen said, searching in a familiar way, for the data terminal was configured the same as the one they had in the maturia. “Yeah, there’s a drawing program, along with journals. There’s also video and holo caches, but we don’t have any tech for that.”

“Yet,” Orio added.

“Yet,” Trevor echoed, having been their unofficial group leader ever since they’d reached adulthood. “We’re also going to need firewood…lots of it…to charge the machinery and keep us warm.”

“Let’s build cabins out of wood,” Saera suggested. “I don’t want to wait until we get synthetic materials.”

“Are there any woodcraft instructions in there?”

Kaen searched for woodcraft, pulling up a single entry that read ‘Figure it out.’

“No,” he said in an annoyed tone. “It’s deliberately omitted so we have to experiment.”

“Saera, you’re on cabin building,” Trevor decided. “Mikel, you’ve got scouting. Darren, we need rock for the sifter. Ores preferably.”

He cringed. “You mean we need to climb up to the mountaintops and collect loose fragments?”

“Unless you can find them down here, or want to hand dig down to the bedrock.”

“Mountains it is,” he said with a fake smile.

“We don’t have water for a year,” Ainie pointed out. “We need a filter, or to use the sifter.”

Trevor cringed. “What’s wrong with melting snow?”

“It tastes weirds,” she said pithily.

“Not pure then,” someone else mumbled.

“Never had to make our own water,” Trevor said out loud what everyone else was thinking. “Alright, we take these things as we find them. There’s no regenerator either, so if we get hurt we have to heal the slow way, so don’t take any extra risks. Charge the sifter in the fire, then run some snow through it and see what’s in it. If it’s harmless we drink snow. If not, we gotta find a way to get pure water. I don’t want us to be one of the ‘don’t dos’ future Furyans read about. Greg said the other groups made it, but they didn’t do all that well. Let’s see if we can do better, and that begins with a good start. Ainie, you’ve got water duty. Chad, we need restrooms of some sort.”

The green haired Furyan frowned. “It is going to pile up with 100 of us, isn’t it?”

“Yeah it is, but we’ve got a few days to figure it out. We can make due with a lot of stuff now, but we need plans and to start chipping away at them.”

“And better clothes,” Leon suggested. “Bigger backpacks, at least, if we’re going to be carrying rocks.”

“Add that to the list. Kaen, start making a list.”

On and on it went that night, with the Greonis getting a lot of preplanning done before finally going to their individual tents, with some pairing up to share body heat as their bonfires burnt out before morning. They restarted them, gathering up all the loose sticks they could find before figuring out how to topple the dead trees nearby. They established a separate burn pit, digging down into the dirt to help reflect some more heat back on the center where they put the three assembled pieces of equipment, getting some charge in the other two despite not having anything to use in them yet.

The first few weeks were rough, but they had a mission and worked at it in groups, eating their fill of the rations that they knew were not unlimited as they decided to work hard early to get ahead of the other test groups despite the urge to kick back and relax in a way they’d never had a chance to do before.

Very little training occurred, aside from some running to keep their fitness. They wanted to use most of their calories working, and by the end of two months they had enough crude cabins to hold everyone, with fireplaces in them a month after that and a 7-man team working on collecting firework every day to fill their growing needs.

They used the sifter mostly for water, because there was something in the air called a Ti’ko’ma that was absorbed into the snow. Apparently it came out of thermal vents from the warm planetary interior, so there was another way to get heat out there, though it might not be in their zone. Regardless, if they drank the Ti’ko’ma as well as breathed it in, it could become a long term problem, so they decided to spent the thermal energy to filter it out rather than counting on their natural healing abilities to deal with the light damage it could cause.

Better safe than sorry was the idea, though Furyan biology was far more resilient than other races. And in that regard, there were a few out there. Small ones that burrowed under the snow and into the ground, or flew through the air. Nothing big was found, and it took some time but eventually the avians were tracked to certain trees that were producing berries, some of which were collected and analyzed…but they weren’t worth the effort nutritionally, not for the mass of food they needed, and they didn’t want the avians to starve by taking them either, for it looked to be their only food source in the area.

But they could fly over the shield. The scouts found it, and found it to be opaque so they couldn’t see what was on the other side, but the avians were flying over it, so maybe there was different food sources elsewhere. No nests were found yet, and one Furyan was assigned to figuring out these mysteries every month as sort of a rest and free time, but the more they knew about their zone the better, and everyone else was constantly busy with manual labor.

Darren was in charge of the teams gathering rocks, and they were getting better at picking them by eye so they didn’t waste sifter energy on mostly useless ones. In the database was the chemical recipes of many building materials, but most had at least 20 different types of molecules in them, so Darren had a lot of hunting to do, and the more he could find the less would have to be atomically reassembled in the alchemy pod. So they could make what they couldn’t find if they could find things near to it, or wanted to provide the power to fuse or fission down other things.

Metal is what he needed the most, but he hadn’t found any veins yet, just a few weak ores. The ‘explorer’ slot was an addition to the scouts and went looking for various resources so the collection teams didn’t have to waste their collection time, so Darren had multiple sites to hunt for rocks in prior to each day, as did the dead tree hunters.

Their restroom was little more than a cabin with a pit under it, but it was better than just going in the snow. Fortunately the fabricator could use the crushed or chipped wood to create an obsolete tool called toilet paper that was better than using snow once the charge on their personal cleaning items ran out. They weren’t thermally rechargeable, and without electricity they were dead within the first month…deliberately so, they thought, because the database held schematics on rechargeable ones.

So with the reinvention of toilet paper they had a crude luxury they were grateful for, but they longed for real buildings with real utilities, painfully knowing how far away from that they were…but Trevor kept them on task and chipping away at all the stepping stones enroute to that proper infrastructure, and Darren knew they’d get there eventually. They just had to do it the hard way.

Actually, their parents had it the truly hard way, because they didn’t have sifter technology, nor alchemy, or a database full of all these designs. They had to invent it all, and that was a challenge Darren did not want to even think about. This one was a headache enough, and without his brothers and sisters he wouldn’t have a chance of making it out here. But together, they were working the problem and succeeding.

But they had a very, very long way to go, and getting food production established was now their main priority using the seeds that had been packed in the supply crates. Though to grow them in this snowy environment meant an indoor bioharvest facility.

And to that, nearly all of their building materials went. The wood cabins would be home for a very long time to come, but that was preferable to starving or having to hit the panic button and admit defeat.

And if there was one combined sentiment they all held, it was that they would not use that button unless someone’s life depended on it. They were not going to be the first of their bloodline to fail, let alone of all the bloodlines. They were going to not just survive, but own this mission…whatever it was truly about.

7

February 3, 158400

System 299103 (Hadarak War Zone)

Zendi-Zorro Nebula

Amir-060 arrived in the nebula via a scout ship as his Borg vessel was needed in combat elsewhere. He didn’t need it to travel around the war zone, for Star Force ships were faster, and as long as he avoided the Deep Core the congestion of Hadarak wasn’t sufficient to intercept him just outside the original location of the Web Wall, which was now almost completely destroyed. A few chunks here and there remained, but several of the Clans had been permanently assigned to taking it down, and while it was slow going they had accomplished a great deal over the past three millennia.

Most of the war zone, however, was still in Hadarak hands. Their ability to spam and spread had garnered them a huge territory, but it was falling rapidly and everyone knew it. Out here it was more of a cleanup effort, but one that still required a great amount of military presence and resource expenditure…while the battles happening in the Deep Core made everything else look minor in comparison.

That was the scale of the war, which made battles in the outer regions of the war zone that would have obliterated the original V’kit’no’sat appear insignificant to some of the distant spectators, but Amir knew better, as did most of Star Force. Every world mattered, as did every person, and how you won the war was as important as winning…perhaps even more so, which was why he had left his badass warship behind and traveled here via scout ship, for one of the Jedein had asked him to come.

They didn’t do much talking, and whenever they did it was always of great importance. A lot of people wanted to meet them, but they snubbed almost everyone. Archons would usually get an audience just by showing up, but the trailblazers and a few other elite personnel were the only ones truly on regular speaking terms with them…at least as far as the Socani were concerned. The Jedein had more in common with the Megaloids, and conversed more with them as a result, but Amir knew that when one asked for him, they would have a good reason even if they didn’t want to share it remotely.

So he’d broken off from the heavier fighting in the Deep Core and headed back out to the ‘safer’ regions of the war zone, ending up in this nebula that was previously unclaimed as far as Amir’s information went, but when he got to the outer edges of it he met up with the Star Force defense fleet that accompanied the Jedein wherever it chose to travel. There were so few of them that it was imperative that they not be killed, so each of them had minders if they wanted to venture out into the war zone.

And most were, to help rescue Hadarak and transform them into non-combatants or back into Jedein in the case of the Wardens and one Lurker, though the later was becoming quite rare and very difficult to capture. The Jedein here was originally a Warden from another galaxy, and since they didn’t operate on names, Star Force had simply assigned them numbers. This one was #18, and as soon as Amir arrived he got directional coordinates of where to go inside the nebula.

The scout ship had to reset its shields and lower its speed to pass through the thick soup, and it took four days of travel into the darkness of the nebula before he sensed the Jedein’s telepathic presence recognizing and calling to him from a distance.

Amir adjusted course slightly to match the call, passing through various density of material, but nothing as dense as rock. All was gases, mostly hydrogen, with a few other oddities included, but as he approached the Jedein he began sensing other Cores out there. Lots of them, but small. Those would be the converted Hadarak minions that had been brought here from multiple other systems at the Jedein’s request, loaded up into Star Force cargo ships after being put into cocoons, then to emerge here in different forms of the Jedein’s choosing.

Usually they repurposed them in the same system they found them, but this was a special project that the accompanying fleet did not know the full purpose of.

It wasn’t long until he passed by the first of the cluster of Megaloids, though most were no bigger than his scout ship, having previously been naval minions but now were growing larger as they ate the gasses…how Amir did not know, for there was no sunlight here to charge them, and everything was dreadly cold. Some Megaloids could handle this environment indefinitely, but most couldn’t, and he was interested in seeing what wonders the Jedein had worked on this group.

He swung the scout ship close enough for the scanners to work and saw a hard carapace, almost like a space turtle, around which was a different concentration of gasses. Amir guessed it was eating the hydrogen, fusing it inside to generate heat, then discarding the resulting helium, for the Megaloids were actually glowing in thermals and shedding heat into the surrounding area, making the entire region near them less cold, but still freezing by any sense of the term.

Amir used a Wrangler armband to enhance his telepathic presence and made contact with those he passed by, having a conversation in thoughts more than words, and realizing they were here to construct more than helium in the nebula. They were actually fusing higher end elements that the larger Megaloids were consuming to increase the durability of their bodies to the level where they could survive inside stars where Hadarak minions could not.

So the Jedein had turned them into little miners rather than cannon fodder for naval battles. That was interesting, for ever since the first Jedein had emerged from its transitional cocoon, it had been working to build up networks of Megaloids with specific tasks, as if it had a master plan at work, but they always claimed they didn’t, that they were merely putting together puzzle pieces where they saw they fit together without knowing the full picture.

Amir sensed many more puzzle pieces in the nebula as his scout ship passed by them, heading towards the largest presence that was the Jedein, both in physical size and telepathic aura, but when he got close to it he also began to sense another large presence beyond, of a type he had never before encountered.

Welcome, #18 said to him telepathically in the Star Force language as his scout ship slowed and came into a parking slot alongside the 349 mile long Jedein…and that wasn’t counting the extended tendrils.

Hello, he said back, using his gauntlet to boost the signal rather than using Essence to do it, for the Jedein were not that good at picking up faint telepathy, meaning that which came from Socani. For what reason did you summon me?”

I have confirmed this nebula is sufficient as a sanctuary for the Hadarak minions, and I have constructed converters that will be able to transition them into a single form without my presence. You may begin large scale transport here of any systems you wish to clean the Hadarak from.

What sizes?

All can be accommodated here, save for those bound to stars. This will be a suitable home for them.

Can you grow carriers to assist with the transport?

Eventually, if you wish it, but they cannot be converts. Their bodies are incompatible in construction.

We have had this discussion with other Jedein. Our ability to transport the cocoons between stars is limited. Most need to be able to move themselves, remain in place, or have others carry them.

The carrier construction is far different than what most Heidoor are built for. They must be supplied with sustenance rather than gather it themselves, or they cannot continuously transport. Nor are they strong enough to starbathe.

Do you see another alternative?

If you seek to keep them alive, I do not. The obvious alternative is to save a lesser number of the expendable ones.

That’s not an option for us. Will these swarms be able to take care of themselves in your absence?

Of course. We have agreed as much. Why do you ask again?

This location doesn’t seem conducive to their thriving.

To other forms it would not be, but I have fashioned these to create their own starlight, and to move with friction in the nebula as they pull in and then expel the material.

Is it not too thin for that?

If you wish to move quickly you will be unable to here, but they can move slowly, and have the ability to grapple onto others to share momentum. This is not a place of combat, it is a sea of tranquility.

Every place can become a place of combat, and it sounds like they would be easy targets here.

Heidoor of their size are always easy targets. Surviving the environment is the greater challenge for them, and I have rewritten them to that task. It is up to us to protect them, is it not?

I prefer if they were able to protect themselves, but you’re not wrong on the large scale. However, there are smaller scale threats to Megaloids.

Not here. Though I have constructed several larger versions of defenders to watch over them. They are still in cocoon, but when they emerge they will be able to move as your ship does and carry one of your Uriti weapons, in small scale.

Oh? I thought you didn’t want to build any such things?

I may have knowledge of eons past, but I am still new to being a Jedein. I have seen your wisdom and am adjusting to our new place in the stars. In the cold, here, such weapons will be effective. So it is an adequate use of them, and my defenders can be where I cannot.

Are they full-sized Uriti?

They are not Uriti. I merely learned to replicate their weaponry, and have refined it to my purposes. When they are complete you may verify their effectiveness and temperament before allowing them to travel.

What’s the other large presence I am sensing here?

It is the reason I have summoned you. I have discovered a native to this nebula. It has been here for a very long time, hurting, damaged, and I am slowly healing it as my wards supply necessary building blocks. It is what we call a ‘Nightcrawler,’ for it is one of many races that originate in the dark places beyond galaxies.

Amir raised his eyebrows as he stared out the main viewscreen at the side of the glowing Jedein partially obscured by the nebula haze. I thought they couldn’t exist here?

Most cannot, but there are intermediary creatures that cannot stand the stars themselves, but hide in the dim places such as nebula. They exude almost no energy, but the small amount they do is toxic to those who can only live in the dark places. The Nightcrawlers must exist between the two realms, and have no place to call home. They are being purged where this one came from, and it is afraid of me. It has not seen another not of its kind that was not an enemy for a very long time.

How can you interact with it without damaging it?

Carefully. I must suppress my emissions to get close, but its structure is more like ours than the dark ones. I am learning its genetic song, enough to begin healing it. There is much unknown to me, but they are in great need. Have you seen others of their kind?

Not to my knowledge. How did it get here?

It has a way of moving unknown to me, but it is very slow acceleration in areas where we cannot go. It searched for sufficient darkness to hide in, and traveled near many stars…too many, before finding this place. It is badly damaged from the journey, but also from the purge.

The purge occurred beyond the galaxies?

It did. I cannot leave it now. I apologize for reneging on previous agreements.

I understand and agree, Amir said before he could go on. This takes priority.

I can also attend to the Hadarak in all their forms if you bring them here, but healing this one and learning its ways will take longer than the war.

But you know of others?

In legend only. I have no hard knowledge of their construction. When I understand more I wish to send scouts to other dark places in this galaxy. If more are hiding and injured, they need to be found and reconciled. They exist in groups, and being alone is as painful as its injuries.

Can you determine a basic entry vector for us to look?

Not you. Your sensors will sting it. I will crafted searchers when the time comes. But I need your permission for them to travel where they need to go. It will not be on your planets or in the bright areas. It will be in the darker ones.

You have my permission, but make us aware of them so we may escort them as needed. Can I speak with this Nightcrawler?

It does not know your language.

Neither did the Uriti when we found them. I’d like to get a sense of what it is, and allow it to know that I am not an enemy.

Then I will offer myself as a bridge. Prepare yourself.

Amir took a deep breath, knowing the level of telepathy that was coming would be intense. I am ready.

The Jedein tried to soften the blow, but there was only so much dampening one could do when interfacing with a mind that large, and it hit Amir like a freight train. Fortunately he had experience with this in the past, and he took the blows as he tried to adjust the alien mind that appeared much more fluid than expected.

He could feel the Jedein trying to adjust both sides of the telepathy towards its own, and as it started to succeed he felt a complete shift in the Nightcrawler, almost as if it changed from one frightened mindset into another totally opposite in personality.

Amir also felt it move, with its glowing Core accelerating towards his small ship and the Jedein, coming from the far side and pushing through nebula gasses and even the converted minions that were in its way. The Jedein twisted, warning it off as it defensively put its tendrils around Amir’s ship and pulled it in closer so it could not be attacked.

The Nightcrawler did not seem to care, and as Amir felt the Jedein speaking to it, he also felt an Essence surge charging to defend the Star Force ship if needed.

The telepathic bridge between them was cut…then the Nightcrawler connected directly to the scout ship’s entire crew, almost rendering him unconscious from the weight of it as the rest of his crew did pass out. Only the trailblazer was strong enough to process it, and from it he got a single concept hammering him in what he thought was an emotion of excitement coming from the Nightcrawler…or hope…or relief…or probably some emotion he didn’t even possess himself, but the concept was coming through loud and clear.

Master.

8

The Jedein immediately tried to link through Amir, which he allowed, and tried to help translate despite being shut out from the other end. This behavior was completely unrecognizable to every interaction it had had with the Nightcrawler to date, and the threat level had just ramped up considerably as it was beginning to expel heat at a far greater rate than before…but Amir made the Jedein stand down, asserting that he would handle this as he pulled on all the experience he previously had had with the Uriti to try and understand the telepathic language being used.

But he didn’t have to, for as they went back and forth with various images, feelings, and a few basic words the Nightcrawler was adapting to him faster than he was to it. Its telepathy was so powerful he had no idea if his blocks were holding or how exposed he was, but when it realized this it backed off in intensity and the two quickly began to establish a synthesis of mind.

I do not recognize you, he said, less in words than concepts.

You are master. Different, but same vibe. We have been lost. You told us to wait. You never returned.

When was this?

Amir got a mental image of stars swirling around the center of the galaxy, which apparently was how the Nightcrawler measured time. The trailblazer had no fixed point to monitor, but the visible swirling effect had to be in the hundreds of millions of years…and it wasn’t this galaxy it was showing him, nor from within it. The viewing position was far outside it.

What have you been waiting for?

Your call.

I do not know you.

You are Master. Your body is different, but you are of their breed. You are they. What happened? Why didn’t you come?

I don’t know what you are talking about. We are less than a million years old, he said, trying to picture this galaxy swirling a tiny amount to match. What is it that makes me familiar?

We serve you. We know our Master. Why did you not come back?

Does my body make me Master, or my mind?

Both are Master. Master is conquest. Master is protector. Master holds dominion. Master directs us. Master teaches us. Master is carried in us. Master shows us our purpose. Master has been gone. Master has not spoken to us. Master left us. We waited. We waited, it repeated, and Amir could sense it emotionally crying.

What did the other Master look like?

The image that came into the Amir’s mind wasn’t just physical, but a mix of mental and Essence signature, as well as a fictional component that detailed the potential that its Master had, almost as if a historical tally of badassery…and it was nearly on par with the Archons.

Except they had tails.

I understand now, the trailblazer said, sensing a need to pick up on the other’s responsibility that was left abandoned. I do not know what happened to the others, but they are most likely dead. I will assume their place, but I need to know more of what your missions were.

We carry Master into the dark places. We have become toxic to starlight to do this for Master, for Master cannot exist there without harming those they try to help. When Master did not return, those they helped were destroyed by others. We waited. We stayed afar. We were ignored for long time, but then they came for us. To destroy us. We fought back, killed many, and still we waited. Too many died, we had to flee to the few dark places beyond. We had to disobey to survive. Those who refused to leave were destroyed. What were we supposed to do, Master?

Stay alive to fight another day, Amir said simply, not understanding the context, but it seemed clear that their Masters were not inclined to have left them behind willingly. Not if his assumption of their lightside status was legit. How many of you are left?

We scattered when they pursued us. They followed us to the swirls of stars. Hunted us. We could not go where we once had. Our bodies had changed too much and we do not know how to change them back without Master. We scattered so some of us might survive. I found this dark place and they did not follow here.

How can they survive the star light here?

They have armored ships. Master knew of this. Master said they had attacked before and must be prevented from doing so again. They can kill in different ways. Ways we were learning. We never finished. Master never came back.

Why did your Master leave?

Called to war. We could not come. Our bodies would die from normal weapons in one damage. Master said they would return to us. Master never did.

Was your Master a person or many persons?

Many persons. I can hold many.

How do you hold Masters?

Inside. I am changing to match your air and light needs.

Master rides inside you? Amir asked for clarity.

Master cannot enter dark areas without us. We are their passage. We are their voice. We are their weapons. In us, Master can exert their will where starlight races cannot go. Darklight races will destroy them without us.

Amir cringed for a moment, getting lost in the concepts, until the Jedein stepped in.

Tri’vey, Tri’se, and Tri’to. Tri’to is the starlight. Tri’se is the darklight.

Thank you, Amir said, switching telepathy back to the Nightcrawler. How do the darklight damage the starlight?

They make them bleed. They make them toxic. They make them die. Master tried to make us immune. Master tried to make us shield.

“Paper, rock, scissors,” Amir said to himself as an icy chill ran down his spine. Do they use the darklight to do this?

Yes and no. It passes through. Our stars protect us against them. Keep them away. Only in cocoons can they come here. Inside cocoons they eat icelight and make darklight. Icelight makes swirls vulnerable to those in the dark. Icelight must be destroyed. Master went to destroy icelight when they discover this. Master never returned.

Where does Icelight come from? Amir asked suspiciously.

From center of swirl.

“Fuck,” he said, realizing there was another lightside empire before them…and when they went to shut down the Tri’vey emitters in the center of a galaxy…they never were seen again.

Icelight travels straight. Starlight swirls. How does darklight behave?

It fixes. It grips. We can use darklight to travel. We can use Icelight to make Darklight where none exists. We can move where gravity ships cannot go. Master made us to do so.

Is there more darklight in the dark places between the swirls?

Thick darklight. Easy to travel fast.

What produces it there?

Dark people. Dark grid.

What is the dark grid?

Planets for dark people, but not gravity. No gravity. Grid with many holes and no center.

Show me what the dark people look like.

The images that came next were unintelligible, for they were not visuals. You could not have starlight there, only the faint starlight of distant galaxies, and it was not enough to see by. But there were other forms of sensing energy, and what he was being show was virtually a solid blob. He asked the Jedein if he could make anything of it, and suddenly it crystalized for him as he got a silhouette added on top of it.

The dark people were not solid matter, nor were their dark grids. They were haze, mist, and they fit the description of the Apocalypse Monsters perfectly…except those could come inside galaxies, and didn’t appear to be harmed by photonic energy.

Who are they? Amir asked, picturing the Pafdreng as the Neofan had recorded them.

Outsiders who became dark people, but they are also starlight. Combined. They travel all realms. Exist in the light. We cannot touch them with material weapons. We can only fight with Essence weapons.

Did you fight them?

They kill dark people too. We help fight, but we not ready. Masters not finish with us. We only make few kills. Save few grids.

Are the grids material too?

Grids latch onto darklight. Can be spread many places. Dark people eat grids. Live in grids. Change grids. Grids spawn from special points. Master not allowed to go there. We get close. Not close enough. Dark people who control spawn points control most food. Dark people must obey or eat thin food. We eat thin food. Master made us good at it.

Do you have a name?

We are dark shells.

Do you individually have a name?

Master who controls name we bear. You come inside, we bear your name. Air inside almost done. You come inside soon.

Show me your inside, Amir commanded, getting a very detailed analysis of the Nightcrawler’s interior…which was structured into decks, rooms, and several large cavities near the carapace that could be accessed via apertures.

This was a far more advanced version of a living starship than the Zak’de’ron had managed to create with the Uriti. So far advanced that it didn’t even bear comparison, though Amir wondered if this was coincidence or if the Zak’de’ron knew something of this type of Nightcrawler.

Are there other types of dark shells that obey others?

There are many who obey none. They are solid inside. A few obey others, and carry Starlights or Icelights inside them.

Amir raised an eyebrow. Today was full of revelations.

Where have you seen Icelight people?

Icelights talk to dark people. Dark people tell us. We watch. We follow. They disappear from dark areas to distant swirls. Masters follow to hops. Cannot make hops. Cannot follow further.

Show me a hop.

An image of a giant ring appeared, and from it he could feel but not exactly see Icelight being shot out in one direction constantly…and they always came in pairs, with the Icelight coming to one and going from another.

“There’s the synthoids transit network,” Amir grumbled, for the Gahana would never get too specific about how it worked.

Hops alive. Many sparks. Produce more Icelight from starlight for others to move on. Masters cannot use Icelight. Only darklight.

What did your Master make out of darklight?

Starlight.

What did they use it for?

Us.

What do you use it for?

To produce Starlight for Masters to use. To produce Starlight to wake us up.

What happens when you wake up?

We glow as stars do. We burn dark people. We burn grids. They blow then stick in new places in darklight and regrow.

How do they grow?

Glow from stars too much. Destabilize. Small amounts fuel grid. Make it grow. Material is brittle to us. It breaks when we touch. It goes to dust when we glow. Glow makes it toxic. Toxic grid is used to make armor for cocoons. Toxic grid cannot be lived in. We make Grid toxic when we glow. We make grid toxic when we do not glow much. Master helps to make toxic armor for dark people in brighter spots, trapped by movement of swirls. Master helps them move.

What enemies did your Masters have?

Master always have enemies. Master have many enemies.

What enemies were stronger than Masters?

Master strongest. We wait for Master to return. Master does not.

If I come inside you, it will not be permanent. I will inspect. I will learn. But I have needs other Masters may not. I will visit. I will not command. But we will not abandon you. Other Masters are near. We will help you.

We help you.

Later. You must heal. We must find others if they survive. Did all those that remain in darklight die?

None could survive there. Hunters were too strong. Too many. We run to swirls. Dark places in swirls.

Then we will look in the dark places for others. Is there a way we can find them easily?

Call to them. They will answer.

How do we call?

Starlight travels. It carries your call. They will hear and track it to you.

I do not know how to do that.

I can do this for you, if woken. Cannot wake now. Broken.

Healing first. How do I come inside you?

Rather than explaining, a huge slit on the side of the Nightcrawler began to peel apart, revealing one of the cavities inside that was the equivalent of a docking bay.

Do not go inside, the Jedein warned.

Why not?

You are not their Master. When it learns this it may attempt to purge you.

I am its Master. Or rather its Masters and I are of the same metaphysical race. We are lightside badasses. And until you understand what the lightside is, you’re not going to understand. I have to do this.

I cannot protect your ship inside it.

You won’t have to. I’ll go in alone. Can you tow me over? My flight abilities are going to be minimal here.

I can.

Are you ready for me to come over? Amir asked the Nightcrawler.

If you come in shell, I will have air ready when you arrive.

Alright, I’ll be there soon, Amir said as he turned around and knelt next to one of his crew that was still unconscious. Please stop speaking. My people here cannot handle the pressure. I will speak to you when I leave this ship.

The Nightcrawler obeyed immediately, and the trailblazer woke the nearest Human naval officer, pulling her out of a heavy headache that made her want to go back to unconsciousness.

“Are you alright?” she asked him.

“Tolerable, but you’re not.”

“No shit. What happened?”

“It yelled. It shouldn’t happen again. I’m leaving the ship, and when I do, put a little more distance between it and you, just in case.”

“Where are you going?”

“It’s a living ship, and I’m going inside,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall more questions. “Long story and I’m still on the cliff notes. Help the others wake up if you can, or do I need to stick around a while longer?”

“Define scream. My head hurts like I’ve never experienced before.”

“I’m guessing your Ikrid blocks overloaded.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Doesn’t mean it had access, just that you had too much signal. There wouldn’t be any feedback coming from you if you couldn’t transmit, but that’s just a guess. Can you pull it together?

“Not unless this subsides.”

Amir put a hand on her forehead and closed his eyes as he concentrated for nearly a minute before a soothing wave of relief hit her…but it didn’t fix the problem. Just took the edge off.

“Best I can do,” he apologized.

“Better,” she said, finally trying to stand up and wobbling as she did. “Get me to medbay and I’ll let you go.”

Amir put an arm under her shoulders and helped her walk there, then waited as the Regenerator worked on her for a long time, making very subtle fixes to not just her tissues, but the software that ran those tissues, having to reboot a lot of stuff that had to be replaced, for the crew had suffered brain damage from the overload, and a wipe and regrow would cause them to lose some memories, so Star Force Regenerators were programed never to do that without an override…so it was slow piecemeal work to fix what was there rather than remove and rebuild all affected areas.

“Alright, I can take it from here,” she said, coming out of the treatment a little numb, but with her focus back. “Go tame that thing before it does it again.”

“Going,” Amir said, reaching out the Jedein and asking it to produce a telepathic aura around the scout ship to protect against another ‘shout’ from the Nightcrawler, which it immediately did as the trailblazer made his way to his quarters, picked up his armor, then hopped out an airlock.

He kicked off the scout ship to get some momentum, then felt the Jedein’s grapple field take hold of him and shoot him across the gap to the orifice in the Nightcrawler, slowing him down just prior to insertion, then the field released and the aperture closed, sealing him into darkness for a moment before lights inside manifested in lines that suggested technology rather than biology, attesting to the bioengineered origin the Nightcrawler had suggested.

Amir was pulled to a platform and into an artificial gravity field, passing through an atmospheric shield as well, finding the temperature at 123 degrees Fahrenheit, but that was nothing his armor couldn’t handle. The air was mostly oxygen, at 88 percent, which was richer than he was used to, but the pressure was about right, though a little on the low side.

I’m here, he said, feeling the telepathic presence return, but even more light touched than before, fearing it might damage him. Show me what I need to see.

A door nearby pulled open, with Amir seeing that it was made of silky material that was actually solid to the touch until commanded to relax. It was biological, all of it was, and a little creepy, but the design was elegant with bits of light inserted everywhere, all of which glowed a pink/red until Amir thought about the shade of color being blah, then the Nightcrawler inquired what he would prefer.

Soon the entire ship shifted into Star Force blue with bits of white mixed in for a very bright, but not overwhelming interior.

What is your name? it asked the trailblazer.

My name is Amir-060, and if you do not have one, is it alright if I give you one?

As you wish, Master Amir, it said, with him feeling its emotions much clearer here, where it didn’t have to work to transmit them. It was as if being inside put him within its brain, for he was feeling everything it did and thought, with no filters. Amir could block it out if he wanted, but the Nightcrawler apparently had no secrets from its Masters and operated as an open book to those inside it.

I will call you Nemo, after a little lost fish. I may not be your original Master, but you are home now. Time to heal and tell me many stories of the others. Can you do that?

I cannot heal all my damage. I require your repair. But I can show you many stories. My memories are not damaged.

Alright, Nemo. I’ll find a way to fix you, or the Jedein outside will. Tell me of your last mission and the purge…

9

July 27, 158403

Megatron Prime 37 System (Galactic Core)

Periphery

Roger-009 stood in the command nexus onboard his new Borg vessel Sharkhammer with no one around him. The bridge was some three decks lower in the ship, yet he was in constant communication with it as he stood next to his Astromech alcove, not yet ready to meld with it, for the heavy combat had not yet begun.

His fleet of 239,391 warships or larger vessels was sitting very far out in the system, and given the gravitational silhouette of the supermassive black hole, you could fit hundreds of ‘regular’ star systems in the volume contained here, meaning they were very far away from the dark star at the center and the Hadarak growths surrounding it. They had entered at this distance on purpose, because such a fleet could not arrive quickly and emerging close to the black hole was a death sentence unless you were very lucky and very fast, for all manner of traps lay there, including Essence ones, for any non Hadarak attempting to pass through.

And Roger’s fleet was only one of several in the system, all of which were grouped at different locations. Altogether there were 12,733,289 Star Force warships here, and that wasn’t counting drones. When you added them in, you came up with nearly 1.6 billion vessels commanded by 39 trailblazers, 6 Grand Admirals, 293 High Admirals, and with all of the original 100 Clans present. In addition there were 13,429 Veloqueen in full battle armor here with nearly full Essence wells, biological and technological.

Amongst the Star Force ships were Varkemma fleets, with ships crafted in the Temples and filled with Essence gathered from the Vargemma who lived there. Bsidd fleets were here. Calavari. Paladin. Protovic. Kiritas and Kiritak. Kvash. H’kar. Irondel. Trinx. Elarioni. And over 8,000 other Factions and Sub-Factions.

There were no V’kit’no’sat ships, for they were holding the other Gateways that had already been taken in centuries past. The amount of military resources required to make an assault on one was so massive it took time to rebuild, restock, and recharge afterwards even if the combat went well. The Hadarak had been in this galaxy for so long they’d had time to heavily fortify it, not just with massive numbers, but infrastructure capable of utilizing Essence weaponry, and this black hole was ringed with the thorny growths, as were the planets here bathed in the light of a few remaining stars that hadn’t been sucked into the massive pit in the center…a massive pit that was shooting off energy streams from the poles with such force that even Roger’s brand new Borg vessel outfitted with the latest shields and Essence enhancements could not survive direct contact with the flow being ejected by the black hole’s magnetic field.

Nor could the Hadarak, and they stayed away from those two areas, both above and within the black hole where Star Force could not go. Nor could the 18 Jedein accompanying the invasion fleet, for their bodies were not strong enough to survive the crushing pressures in the depths…but the Hadarak could, as could the Uriti who were here to escort the Jedein. Both could freeze enemy minions that came within proximity to them, and in the Jedein’s case they could even take control of them if they were near, but the system was so massive even their powerful telepathic presence could only affect a tiny portion of it, so they were here for special use applications only, and not the slaughter that was about to come.

Roger had been through this level of attack 16 times before. 16 times had Star Force mounted an assault on this galaxy’s Gateways, and 16 times they had won after years of battle, and he did not expect this one to go any quicker. Already word had gotten out that they were here and Hadarak reinforcements were streaming in from some local jumplines in the form of Mainline warships and minion carriers that could move faster than the Wardens, many of whom were down inside the black hole, but there were enough above it to control the minion fleets here that were feeding off the infrastructure like grazing cattle as it grew the fuel to sustain them.

And that fuel was coming up from the black hole from the two spouts, with collectors nearby but not directly in the stream absorbing it and transporting it slowly through the web-like network across the system. The minions would then dock on that infrastructure and eat what grew there, not killing the infrastructure, which was actually people born into that static form, and it was those people that Star Force would have to kill to remove it…unless the Jedein could convert it, and they would where possible, but this battle meant that the offensive strands had to be neutralized, and there was only one way to do that.

The Hadarak forced this coming slaughter by the way they fought and built. There was no surrender, no technology to destroy and crew to capture. All of their ships and infrastructure was living people born into a collective of powerful instincts that compelled them to act, and compelled them to destroy any who did not act as predetermined. The Reignor’s Ren’mak was the only living example of this, but Roger knew there had to be many more killed for they had nowhere to flee to, especially the infrastructure. It was a type of prison that Star Force would not let the Jedein construct and bind others to, but strategically it was effective, and the trailblazer could see why so many galaxies had fallen to the Hadarak and how they’d managed to put down future insurrections once they were able to lay infrastructure such as this.

It was impossible to beat unless you operated on a very high level of warfare, and the Hadarak had all the Gateways in this galaxy so guarded, but this one was worse than the others due to those polar jets feeding more defenses than normal. This was going to be the biggest Gateway assault by double the count of ships, and Star Force had purposely taken on the weakest first, meaning every one they attacked into the future would get harder and harder.

And without the Rim fueling their fleets, this would never have been possible.

Roger watched the clock, as well as the heavily delayed battlemap transmissions from elsewhere in the system, faint as they were at this distance. All the fleets were spread out and eager to engage minions that came out to them…which didn’t last long. The Hadarak figured this out early and pulled them back, unable to get their wardens that far out given their slower speeds, and their Lurkers couldn’t assault that many ships without proper cover, so they were also obviously missing, and probably purposefully concealed in the black hole or behind the minion clouds that were larger than planets.

And they were everywhere Star Force needed to go. There was so much empty space in this system it was anything but crowded, but the number of living Hadarak here was impossible to accurately calculate, exceeding 500 quadrillion at a minimum, and only a tiny fraction of that would be able to be taken prisoner. Yet even one being able to was once impossible. Star Force had overcome so many hurdles that Roger wanted to rest on those accomplishments, but the lives that could not be saved were what weighed on him. The Hadarak were born into this nightmare not of their choosing, and were mostly victims because of that fact, but there was no way to save them and protect the galaxy, which meant they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Star Force had to go through them.

That was the nice version. The truth was probably a lot darker than that, but Roger didn’t care to delve that deep into Hadarak minds. Their twisted nature was destructive to interface with, a fact that the Jedein had echoed. Whoever had done this to them had corrupted them so greatly it was beyond suppression. It was vile and it was intentional, making the ‘gods’ of the biological into savage monsters in both a physicality and mentality that would rip apart a person’s Core had they not been born into it.

Each of the Jedein here had once been a Hadarak Warden, save for one who had been a Lurker, and that one…#187…was dispatched from the others to hunt down and try to find the Lurkers in order to hopefully capture and rescue them. To this end the Uriti were here to help, but they would not be killing any Wardens or Lurkers. It was not in their nature to do so, but if need be it was in the Jedein’s, and they had already on multiple occasions when the Wardens would not back down and tried to kill those minions who were submitting to Jedein authority.

What was about to go down here was so complicated it was beyond any one commander’s ability to control, even a Borg-level Archon linked with an astromech. Roger could only control a small piece of the battle, and right now he was watching the results of another as their opening gambit played out now that all the fleets had arrived and were holding around the distant gravitation periphery of the system daring the Hadarak to come out to them where they couldn’t maneuver as well.

All fleets save one, and that one had already driven hard into the system and was engaging a smaller section of the Hadarak defenses attempting to draw reinforcements from around the system to it in order to open up pathways for the rest of the fleets, including Roger’s, to get to their priority targets without having to fight through the minion clouds first.

And that smaller fleet that the Hadarak were stubbornly trying to ignore was under the command of Paul-024 with his Clan Saber at the forefront as they dodged and evaded the obvious attack trajectories and made the Hadarak dance to their tune as they harassed rather than made a full frontal assault against the planet in that sector that had so many growths coming out of it that it was no longer a sphere.

The local defenders there could not use their superior numbers and weapons to stop Paul…not that Roger had expected anything less…but it was taking him more time than usually to whittle them down and he wasn’t sure why. Paul could have gone a little harder and dropped their outer skirmisher lines by now, but he was being uncharacteristically cautious and there was no way for Roger to ask why given the multi-hour time lags in their fastest beam transmissions, and even if he had brought one of the rare new Xaviers with him, this system was too big for their feeble, yet growing skills to operate in.

But slowly the Hadarak minion swarms were diminishing in that area, with their Wardens being almost completely ignored as they tried to engage but Paul kept his fleet far from them, wanting to only engage the minions. When the Hadarak ordered them back in order to blunt this tactic, Paul sent flankers around to make single strafing runs against the outer edges of the planetary growths which extended beyond the partially visible core of the planet by distance multiples of greater than 50 compared to the planet’s diameter.

Paul was trying to sever chunks off the supply lines that ran through them all, and the Wardens were too slow to intercept. Only the minions could, but to do so they had to leave the Wardens behind…and when they did Paul switched his attention to the minions…who then retreated and Paul ordered the flanking assaults again.

It was a giant chess match going on, and while Paul was winning through attrition something else was definitely up and Roger did not know what. He was still watching the Hadarak forces in his sector to see if they would move to reinforce the only battle going on at present, but so far they were holding firm as only some Warden reinforcements were being seen coming from the black hole itself. All the visible defenses were staying put and not being drawn out of position.

Then in the blink of an eye it totally shifted. One moment everything was cyclical and predictable, with Paul killing minions in exchange for a few lost drones at an insignificant rate compared to everything else here, but in numbers that would have made any observer blanch prior to the first Gateway assault…then a moment later a huge growth completely detached from the planet near the base, with a ripple of destruction traveling up it and breaking off smaller branches in random spots.

Somehow the Veloqueen had gotten all the way down to the planet and were assaulting it directly…with the mass of minions and Wardens nowhere near to help as the growth’s own Essence weaponry was being blocked by the swarms of Veloqueen acting in conjunction and swimming in and around the growths seemingly oblivious. They had open space to maneuver without the minion clouds blocking their paths, and they were doing catastrophic damage to one of the 28 primary growths out from the planet that held spawn points for Mainline warships…which was the equivalent of a shipyard…in excess of 150,000.

And those ripples were Essence weapon cascades traveling up the now detached growth, sucking the life out of the defenses in it and causing it to ‘Wither’ as the Veloqueen used a technique that backfed the Hadarak’s own Essence defenses into the Wither effect, tapping into their wells and using it to continue the ripple onward, simultaneously draining their power to defend itself with.

And with the stem now severed, no Essence could flow out from the planet to reinforce it, with the end result being that the Veloqueen maneuver had just cut a piece off of their giant biological city and isolated it from the rest…and the Veloqueen were assaulting it with virtual impunity as the minion swarms slowly turned away from Paul’s fleet and raced to get back to the planet.

At which point Roger knew Paul would up his game, and he wasn’t disappointed. Paul moved immediately and hit the retreating minion clouds full on, dropping the hammer and making them choose between the two targets…at which point their command and control system broke down and the defenders split their attention, leaving too few to counter Paul’s ships effectively while the time delay in the others arriving back at the planet would leave the Veloqueen with an easy escape vector should they choose to use it, but right now they were busy assaulting the growth and would continue to do so until forcibly stopped.

Suddenly the Hadarak did not have enough units in the field to do both due to the bad positioning, and that was when all the other Hadarak in the system began to reposition at the same time, meaning they had to have sent out an Essence burst command, probably from the Spice Lords sitting safely down in the black hole. They had the luxury of nearly instantaneous communication if they chose to use enough Essence to send it out, and it appeared they had just done so, otherwise the time lag would have been visible in the enemy’s movements across the system.

They’d just panicked, and now the rest of the Star Force fleet was going to have holes manifesting to take advantage of…and that’s how this battle was now going to go down. Roger didn’t need to ask permission or coordinate with the others. This blind combined assault was child’s play for the trailblazers and the Grand Admirals they had selected and trained, and all Roger needed was to see the opportunity arise…at which point he ordered his fleet to begin emergency jumps towards the black hole, pulling on their engines far harder than normal within a system, as he walked over to his astromech alcove and mentally detached from the command nexus interlink.

He’d have to focus to make the Borg connection to the computer system that was the astromech, for his Core would have to extend out from his body and into it, making it an extension of himself in order to augment his brain power enough to micromanage as much of the coming battle as he could, but his fleet was still too large to do that with every function on every drone and warship. His crews would handle a little bit each, with Roger giving orders about who was to do what, target what, move where, and he trusted them to take it from there, but the flow of battle was for him to direct, as it was for the other trailblazers and their fleets in their own assault sectors.

This was how galaxy-level war was fought. Not in a single battle, or single moment. Not a heroic move or winning strategy. This was tedious, non-stop carnage that even the best of personnel could get distracted by and lost within…but Star Force was better than the best, and they were going to stay in unison when the Hadarak fractured. And because of that they would win this coming fight convincingly, but they would have to do it day after day after day after day in order to get through all the enemies here.

The Hadarak would have plenty of time to learn from their mistakes and adapt their tactics…and therein lay the biggest job of the trailblazers. They had to counter their adaptations and improvise to keep the flow of battle what it needed to be, for a stalemate here was a loss. And 10% casualties was utter failure. Drones could be replaced, but not warship crews. Everyone had to live, otherwise a loss of a single person here would be felt tomorrow and on into the future. And while it did occasionally happen, Roger could not let it happen or the amoral Hadarak attrition strategy would win out. Roger could trade ships for kills, but he couldn’t trade people for kills.

And that’s what the Hadarak were going to try very hard to force him to do or give up and retreat.

As Roger’s mind extended out his astromech came alive and his senses expanded, with him seeing through every ship in his fleet, through their sensors, their cameras, their engine pulls on the black hole, the temperature of the air inside them, the latches holding the drones in place inside the warships. He was becoming the fleet, and through the fleet he would fight as his crew onboard the Sharkhammer protected him in his now vulnerable state plugged into a machine that he could not quickly detach from.

It was not the preferred way to fight as a warrior, but in naval warfare on this level, it was the only way to keep up with Wardens who had brains the size of starships and could control far more minions than Roger could ever hope to control drones.

The difference was, a Star Force drone pilot sitting in a warship was vastly superior to a minion’s intellect, so Roger didn’t have to micromanage as much. He just had to maintain the flow of battle…and his people would take care of the rest.

That was called ‘Teamwork,’ as opposed to the ‘Tyranny’ that the Hadarak employed so effectively across multiple galaxies.

But not this one.

Not anymore.

10

September 18, 158407

Megatron Prime 37 System (Galactic Core)

Low Stellar Orbit

Four years. Paul-024 had been fighting naval battles in this Gateway system every day for four years, and finally it was over.

He hadn’t had a full workout in all that time, nor had he made any improvements in his physical skills. The same was true of the rest of the Archons in the Star Force fleet, who all were doing partials to try and maintain their fitness during rotations while the combat had gone on nearly nonstop across the system.

It had occurred in spurts, with lulls here and there, but Paul had never been out of mental contact with the battlemap network for more than a few minutes while awake. This had been the most intense system conquest he and the other trailblazers had ever taken part in, and he knew it was going to get worse as they climbed the difficulty ladder taking the remaining gateways.

But for now it was over, and Mak’to’ran was already here with a small fleet to begin securing their foothold. He always did that personally before handing off system command to another V’kit’no’sat, and Paul knew he’d taken care of the work here as traffic was continuing to flow from outside this galaxy in both Hadarak reinforcements and other races.

Yet now that their foothold was gone, those Hadarak reinforcements were walking into a trap. The same was true of those coming from nearby systems who hadn’t got the idea yet that this gateway no longer belonged to them. The Star Force fleet was cutting them apart almost as soon as they entered at the primary local jumplanes while the Jedein were capturing as many as they could. Already there were huge areas of the system cordoned off into refugee camps where previous minions were now encased in cocoons and slowly transforming into new forms that would not be enemies.

Several Wardens were there was well going through the same transformation, except they were inside stars. Also they had managed to capture two Lurkers, which was a pleasant surprise, and they too were already in cocoons as the Uriti watched over them and the Jedein to make sure no one would damage them during in their vulnerable state.

But all was not safe here. As Paul sat in his command nexus looking down at the black hole directly below him as his fleet skimmed over its surface with a chunk a their sensors being completely useless in the super high gravity, the trailblazer watched the undulations in the surface via the sensors that weren’t affected. The black hole, while invisible to normal light, was actually quite active with magnetically stirred waves crisscrossing the surface as the extremely dense material flowed like sticky water.

The Uriti could go down there, as could the Hadarak Wardens and Lurkers. The Jedein stayed out of all but the uppermost layers, finding it too hard to move and they had to keep their tendrils tucked or they’d be ripped off, so a black hole of this size was really off limits to them almost as much as to Star Force. Paul could take his ship all the way down to the surface without touching it and be fine inside his inertial dampening fields as long as the engines provided the anti-grav necessary to keep them from being pulled into it. If a touch was made, and a bit of the black hole material passed inside the dampening field and was no longer gravitationally compressed, it would explode outward like a bomb and expand exponentially.

Likewise, if a part of Paul’s ship stuck out past the inertial dampening field, the black hole’s gravity would rip it off, pull it down to the surface, and flatten it against the compressed material that would then eat it apart like acid as the molecules were deconstructed under the pressure and turned into atomic soup.

It was such a hazardous environment that Star Force had only been able to travel down inside smaller black holes with specially built craft, and only then just to dip their toes in it, metaphorically speaking. But this one was so massive they couldn’t even do that, and it still amazed him that the Uriti could go down there. Their Yeg’gor actually thrived in this environment, with the more pressure the better, and the Veloqueen liked it as well with their technological armor somehow not being negatively affected.

But down there was a line that Paul could not cross, and the continuing battles in this system he couldn’t take part in. There were Wardens down there that the Veloqueen were going after, hoping to capture and bring back up into space. Possibly some Lurkers too, but the main threat was the Spice Lords. They were the mirror opposite of Paul, for they could not come out of the black hole into space or they’d die. They had to have the pressure and the energy of the black hole, for it wasn’t cold. It was hotter than stars, with its gravity keeping all the sunlight and heat in as it tried to expel from the surface only to be yanked back down in giant fountains that Paul’s fleet was just riding above.

Yet go deeper and it got far, far hotter. Physics down there worked completely different when the subatomic particles didn’t have room to breathe, and he only knew what those few who could go down there had told him. He didn’t like being out of the loop, but today he found it a relief as some of the Star Force fleets were already beginning to depart the system.

They’d been resupplied and repaired here many times over, so they were still fully combat capable, but another gateway assault wouldn’t be possible for a long time. So many drones had to be replaced that it was impossible to launch another one now, so as the V’kit’no’sat gradually replaced them here the trailblazers and Grand Admirals would disperse their ships to smaller system battles or other assignments, then meet up again down the road to do this all over again at an even tougher target.

That was the way of galactic war, and millions of years of enemy prep work couldn’t be undone quickly. The Hadarak growths were all gone now, destroyed by combat or consumed by the Hadarak to grow more minions when they ran out of other sources of food. Paul and the others actually had to kill the minion swarms many times over as they were continually being replaced here, as well as getting reinforcements from the outside, but with each growth they took down the Hadarak’s ability to grow more diminished.

It had been a long chess game of attrition, but Star Force knew how to play it better than the Hadarak now…though only by a small margin. They needed better weapons, more tactical options, and a faster way for the Jedein to capture and reshape enemies into neutrals in order to achieve faster conquest.

The Wardens captured here would eventually turn into Jedein once their minds were freed and their biological birthright was allowed to fulfill itself, and that in turn would increase the Alliance’s ability to rescue even more, but it was a slow snowball effect, and nowhere near what was required to take vast amounts of territory from the Hadarak. Hence the carnage would continue for a long time to come.

As for the Spice Lords, the Veloqueen were the ones that were going to have to deal with them and all the other Megaloids living within the massive black hole, and because the material it was made of was so ‘sticky,’ movement inside was slower than within a star. That made the volume of it effectively much larger, so large in fact that you couldn’t explore it all in your lifetime and there were probably Megaloids down there that had never met a Hadarak.

It was not empty down there, and the Veloqueen were now going to be the dominant force within it…or so they claimed. Already, in other systems, races stronger than the Veloqueen had been found living in them alongside the Spice Lords, but the Veloqueen packs appeared to still have the upper hand if combat was required. Paul didn’t get detailed updates about what went on down there, and if the Veloqueen were misbehaving he’d never know about it. He didn’t like that part, but it was out of his hands.

The Uriti would tell him what they observed, but they moved even slower than the Veloqueen down there, and only went into the shallow end of the ‘pool.’ The deepest areas were where the Spice Lords lived, and to date none had ever surrendered, but few had been killed. The Veloqueen told him it was too costly to fight them directly in most cases, so various forms of containment was used to monitor and prevent them from spawning armies of a different sort down there. Armies not of the Jedein line that the Wardens were. And armies that the Veloqueen were right now having to fight their way through to get access to various regions and pacify them.

The Spice Lords could become giant factories if they so chose, but finding the right material for food was not so easy. The black hole was not all the same stuff, and most of the Spice Lords’ bodies had to be built inside them through fusion and fission, which was a slow process. Ample energy was there to do it, but getting the right precursors often meant traveling up to the shallows where there were still intact atoms and some basic molecules to harvest.

Regardless of what happened, the Veloqueen would keep this black hole occupied with several thousand of their people at the minimum to act as a peacekeeping operation. Paul though that was extremely small considering how much territory there was down there, but as long as they kept enemies from rising up and fighting the V’kit’no’sat defenders, their job was accomplished. They didn’t have to actually own all of the black hole, just make sure the neighborhood inside it was moderately stable.

And by the same token, the V’kit’no’sat had to secure the neighborhood above and around the black hole, though they would never fully own it. It was like a giant public park that people were coming into and out of constantly, and Mak’to’ran’s job was to make sure none of the picnickers got assassinated and kept any roaming biker gangs from passing through.

But dominion of the space around the black hole was now theirs, as were what was left of the planets and stars orbiting it. There was going to be some rebuilding done here down the line, but for right now Paul and his warfleet was taking a long needed breath before moving on. And as for The Admiral, while he could have kept going indefinitely, he was finding he was more tired than he had allowed himself to notice, but still too close to battle mode to fully rest, so he sat and watched the waves in the black hole as his fleet took turns poaching the jumppoints of incoming Hadarak reinforcements.

This was one more door closed to the extra-galactic Hadarak, and the reinforcements that would keep coming here from beyond would not make it out to assist the others in this galaxy. In the past, with each gateway taken, there was a noticeable effect on the less important systems in Hadarak territory, and it made Clan Kai’sa’s job a little bit easier sweeping up those systems, but the big ones in the Deep Core were still full of them and their growths, and taking them down was going to be a long, hard grind that Paul didn’t look forward to, but was ready and able to throw himself at it as needed, and the same was true with the other trailblazers.

Paul sat for several hours, not wanting to do anything other than let his brain breathe, but his seething solitude was interrupted by a faint ping in the back of his mind. He almost didn’t notice it, and wondered if he had completely missed it in the past during battle, for it was Azoro trying to make contact with him.

The Sha’kier was not here, and hadn’t been at all these 4 years. He was hopping between the now open minds of the cadets at the Praxium as he taught them the ways of the Saiolum while searching Star Force territory for more. Paul had grown powerful enough that a permanent bond was formed between them that stretched the gap of half the galaxy’s width without breaking. Paul didn’t know how much further they could go until it snapped, but it wasn’t Azoro’s strength that was the limiting factor. It was Paul’s, and he knew Azoro could keep a connection with others across galaxies if he wanted, and had done so in the distant past before his race was annihilated.

Paul had to focus to bring that tiny piece of himself to the forefront of his mind, amplify it, and try to think in the simplest words and thoughts possible, for not much information could travel at this distance as the link between them was stretched so thin.

I am here, he answered. This gateway is now taken. I will be leaving soon for other work. Have you tried to contact me before that I was unaware of?

Twice now, but I assumed you were distracted. I am still surprised you can communicate at this range. The cadets do not have your aptitude for learning.

Trouble?

Difficulties, but nothing that is unanticipated. Progress is being made and we grow our numbers gradually. A synthesis is forming amongst them, and it is easing the transition period for new converts. I do not like using this primitive technology, for it is leaving them raw, but I see no other way.

Have you found any more naturals?

Two more. A mere pittance than what there should be in a civilization of this size.

But a luxury nonetheless, Paul reminded him.

Indeed, but still frustrating. I wanted to speak with you about the Nightcrawler’s revelations.

Paul split his attention and linked in to the ship’s database and brought up the appropriate files that he’d only briefly glanced at upon their delivery 5 years ago.

I have not reviewed them thoroughly.

I believe I now know how the Saiolum can be used to kill.

Paul frowned. Explain.

It is what links us to our bodies in a harmony that is natural. I had not believed there was an alternate version, no matter what the Gahana and the Neofan say, and I was not completely wrong. What there is, I have discovered, is a distortion that creates a destructive resonance. I have never tried to create such a thing, and I refuse to do so, but I have found it is occurring naturally everywhere in small amounts. Not enough to overcome the harmony, but it does reduce it slightly. That is why I never noticed it.

What is creating it?

Damage to biologicals, but more so torture. Damage that kills briefly twists the Saiolum. I had always felt this, but torture or other means of putting the body into a state it is not meant to be in likewise corrupts the Saiolum. I believe the machine in the center of the galaxy that is creating the toxic energy of the synthoids is feeding off the toxic Saiolum. As the darkside diminishes in this galaxy, so too does the corruption in the Saiolum.

Then I think I’ve been adding to it the past few years, Paul admitted.

Quick deaths do not produce much, and any death no matter what the cause will create a disturbance. But to produce a flow of the toxicity, eating of one alive seems to be the primary cause, and when the Megaloids do it, it does not happen quickly.

Paul cringed. And you figured this out how?

Deduction. I have not been in the Deep Core to investigate recently. But what I fear is an inversion in the existing flows. If the toxicity is greater than the harmony, it could turn the harmony into toxicity. And if that occurs across a planet, it could create the death rather than be the result of it.

The Saiolum will mimic it?

I fear so. It is a rhythm, and if enough is produced, the existing Saiolum will slowly become in sync with it.

And if it inverts, everyone dies and the Saiolum goes silent?

In that local area, yes, but there would also be a pulse that would travel outwards as those deaths occurred. And that death pulse could travel to other planets in a chain reaction. I need your help when you can spare it to do some experiments on developing technology to act as a stabilizing rod for the Saiolum. These same experiments, if misused, could create technology to do exactly what I want to protect against happening. And I believe your synthoids did the same thing with their lifeforce energy.

Any idea on how they’re harvesting the Saiolum toxicity?

No. It does not make sense, but the more puzzle pieces I gather the closer I am to figuring it out. The Nightcrawler information provided two such pieces. And if the synthoids can use Saiolum to create their toxic wave, it is possible those that exist in the dark between galaxies could construct theirs to kill us.

And the Gahana could use theirs to kill them, I understand the concept, but not the implementation.

Nor do I, but if such technology can be created, the distance between star systems in the Rim would be the safest place to find refuge. The Core would be a bloodbath.

Would the toxicity kill you?

I don’t know. But if all life on a planet dies, I will soon die afterwards in the lack of Saiolum density.

When a system was destroyed previously and you felt it, is it fair to say it was a diminishment in the harmony?

More than that, but also correct.

Perhaps the toxicity can travel in addition to canceling out harmony. You’ve told me you can hear death from far, far away. Is it the toxicity you are feeling?

I sense the ripple. Perhaps some travels with the ripple, but I have not sensed it vividly since the Pafdreng, possibly because they kill all in the same instant and the wave it creates is maximized by timing.

But could it be laced with toxicity?

I do not know. If it is, then what is coming from the Galactic Core now is so diffuse by the time it reaches me I can’t differentiate the two sensations. What do you sense?

I have to numb it out to focus, or it sickens me enough I can’t fight effectively.

Does it inhibit you?

Not that I can detect when numbed. Is there a way to measure Saiolum cohesion with the body?

Indirectly only. This type of deliberate poisoning of the energy mediums makes me very worried about what we will draw to this galaxy. You and I need to figure out a basic countermeasure before someone figures out how to reset the galaxy.

The Gahana woke to widespread destruction, Paul noted.

My thoughts exactly. We need a defense.

We’re nowhere close to building your level of technology. How do we begin to create something you never did?

We must start somewhere. As soon as you are able, return to the Praxium. I cannot do the work in their bodies. They are barely open to the Saiolum.

We have to take advantage of this gateway being shut down to the Hadarak quickly, but when I find a decent opening I will return. I can’t say when that will be though.

I trust in your timing. But I do not trust in the synthoids or the dark ones. We must learn more about both, and quickly, before we can be blindsided with an ancient form of war that we are unprepared for.

Agreed.

Paul felt Azoro relinquish contact, but the tether between them in the Saiolum did not break, and Paul tucked it away in the back of his mind without releasing it as he blinked his eyes fully open, not realizing he had glazed over as much as he had.

“Work, work, work,” he said to himself as he dangled his feet over the railing of the command nexus and looked down at the holographic soup just below them that showed the black hole rather than the floor. He began to go through the Nightcrawler information in detail, trying to piece together whatever Azoro was missing for more than an hour before letting it go. He could come back to it later, and if he couldn’t rest right now then he could at least get a good workout in. Maybe that would reset his brain, or at least get him exhausted enough for a long sleep.

Paul shut down the holograms and hopped down from the railing, then walked off in search of the Archon sanctum as he reached out to the Saiolum simultaneously and tried to get a feel for the now calm and mostly battle free system’s ebb and flows.

He didn’t get far before he stopped cold, turning to look down through the ship’s decks to the black hole below as he could sense it. Faint, distant, but now quite recognizable after his conversation with Azoro. The toxicity was there, riding along with the currents…and it was coming from deep, deep below.

Paul reached out as much as he could, tracing the ripples back to where they came from and finding the fingerprints of what was producing them.

It was the Spice Lords, and there was something wrong with them. Some sort of internal sabotage that was rendering their Saiolum emissions contaminated. They were sick, and being tortured inside indefinitely…and in a far lesser way, it was similar to the way Hadarak felt within the Saiolum…

The Hadarak were designed to be in light misery constantly, and that was the fuel for the Tri’vey toxicity machine…which meant whoever altered the Jedein into Hadarak was probably the same as whoever built the machine, and both creations were merely puzzle pieces in some intergalactic, darkside master plan.

The workout would have to wait, and Paul diverted from his path to the Archon Sanctum to the nearest telepathic receiver in the ship that would let him use the main transmitter to contact the Jedein in the system to do some analysis on the Hadarak, and especially the Spice Lords if they could coax one up near the surface where the Jedein could get a closer look at it…

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