Star Force: Phase 2 #84-86
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Anthology containing: Star Force: Temple Wars Star Force: Gateways Star Force: Deus Ex
Publisher: Archon Lore
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

Temple Wars

1

August 30, 158392

Ikrobar Kingdom

Mid-Jump

“Anticipate where it is going, and squeeze your talons there,” Davis said, tossing the ball into the air again. “You lose sight of it just before it’s in range. Stop trying to move your body to keep your eyes on it.”

The Ren’mak twisted its torso down again, with it flying almost back straight perpendicular to the ground as it reached out its talons and grabbed the silver ball, squishing it slightly under the pressure, then flapping its wings hard to level itself out again.

“I will miss.”

“It takes practice, but many avians have learned this technique.”

“I cannot turn my talons up,” it said, switching the binary grasp to one foot only then flying a couple of meters forward and flicking it back towards the Director.

“You don’t have to. You simply push downward on top of the target like this,” the Human said, lightly tossing the ball in the air in front of him, then cupping his hand over top of it and pushing down towards the floor faster than the ball fell. When he brought his hand back up the ball was clenched in his outstretched fingers as if he had talons himself. “Tuck your legs then try.”

The Ren’mak continued to hover, pulling his scaly legs up underneath his light body, then Davis tossed the ball directly under him.

Both talons shot down, hitting the ball, but they didn’t clench right and instead deflected it sideways as one talon hooked in and ended up pushing it aside.

“Better,” Davis said, telekinetically pulled the ball back to him. “It takes a lot of failures to adjust your movements into success.”

“We know that well,” another voice said from the side of the chamber as the Neofan walked in.

“You never played catch with him?” Davis asked sarcastically.

“We worked on more important things,” Plausious said dismissively. “And we had no ball.”

Davis threw the ball again, with the Ren’mak smacking it down to the ground, failing to clench in time, but the Human just telekinetically picked it up and set to go again. “How much did you do before you went underground?”

“Little things,” Plausious said, walking up behind Davis. “Staying undetected was our primary concern. They would always come for us, and I only had so much Essence to use.”

“Is your head any better today?”

“It is not. I need answers, not rest.”

Davis threw the ball again, and this time the Ren’mak barely got his talons on the ball, with it slipping out of his first grasp, but it managed to quickly get it in a second before it could hit the floor.

“There,” he said, accepting the ball back as the Ren’mak flew it over to him then tossed it into his hands. “You can do it.”

“Not well.”

“Success is success. Better success comes with practice,” he said, throwing it again…but it curled through the air into Plausious’s hand.

The Reignor telepathically ordered the Ren’mak as he threw the ball high into the air in an arc, with the avian letting it reach the peak and start to come back down before it moved towards it and attacked…but it didn’t touch it. Rather it got close and then disintegrated it in a cloud of smoke and ash that billowed over the area of the room where they stood.

The air processors quickly started to remove the thick haze, leaving Davis standing there unable to see much aside from his Pefbar, though Plausious could still read his stunned expression.

“We practiced more practical things,” the Reignor said calmly.

“That was my ball,” Davis said deadpan, then looked towards the coughing Ren’mak that was flying up higher to get out of the ash. “How did he get Essence abilities?”

“The Neofan know how to trigger such things in others, and my absorption of the Hadarak command ability came with unforeseen revelations. I needed him to be able to defend himself, so I taught him.”

“I thought you already had safety from the Hadarak at that point.”

“I’m referring to future threats. Until we came here, he wouldn’t leave my side for a moment. But what I must do will be suicide for him if he cannot assist me, and I also would rather not be parted, so I made him into an asset.”

“The technology you asked for?” Davis guessed.

“He cannot use his own Essence sufficiently, nor do we have a million years to wait, so he must use mine.”

“Are you sure you don’t want help?”

Plausious shook his head. “The Neofan do not deserve to be part of your Star Force. They have not earned it, and while you could obviously make something of them, we have a greater responsibility. You have accomplished great things, Director, but there are some things you have barely scratched the surface of. The Neofan’s place is at your side, not under your command. It is time they lived up to their responsibilities, and I am going to make sure they do.”

“And why can’t that happen within Star Force?”

“You are beginning to see it with your Furyans. They cannot coexist with the rest of your society, thus you keep them isolated. It is the same with any advanced race, and the more advanced they become the more alien they are to the others and do not mesh well. You are having to rewrite your maturia system for the Furyans. Do you know why yet?”

“They needed challenges similar to what their parents had.”

“Then you have not seen it yet. Or perhaps you have and are mislabeling it. Superior races have additional requirements of them, and if they are not met, the weight of their superiority will crush the young and your civilization will implode. It is a common theme among the more advanced, and once you are on that level you cannot live at the slower pace of the lesser races…without consequences.”

“And yet the Neofan seem to live very slow lives.”

“Appearances can be deceiving. Internally we are always active, and we need to match the physicality to that pace. That is something I will change in our Construction, along with many other things, but we cannot be mundane. What is a challenge for your little Irondel is stagnation for a Neofan.”

“That I can understand,” Davis said as the breeze in the room finally cleared it enough to hazily see to the other side. “But we’ve had a lot more experience remaking civilizations than you’ve had. Wouldn’t an adviser be of help?”

“You have already advised me much, but no. This is something that has to be done Neofan to Neofan. Just as if you had a problem with your Archons, you would need to deal with it personally and not bring me along to overpower them.”

“Could you?” Davis asked skeptically.

“I could now. Not before. I have upgraded considerably since I was last here. I have trouble remembering my former status.”

“Advancement or amnesia?”

“Perhaps both.”

“Are the headaches getting worse?”

“They remain steady, as does the fog. I feel conflict that I cannot articulate. There is an impediment…I am nearly certain of it. Once removed, the pain will dismiss.”

“Has that happened before?”

“Many times, in other forms. If Neofan are not calibrated properly, there are many internal malfunctions. Our minds hold a greater influence over our bodies than yours. A sick mind will manifest in the flesh, and insanity is said to be contagious if left to run its course. Or so we were told. Now, I am unsure.”

“For a race as old as yours, it seems you have a lot left to fix.”

“The burden of superiority can be carried in many ways, not all of which are completely beneficial. The pressure must be met, or we die. I suspect it will be the same for your Furyans, and if it is, I warn you, the danger does not go away with experience. They must be superior, always, or their fall will be more catastrophic than the lesser races.”

“They have higher to fall from,” Davis said wistfully as his mind darted elsewhere for a moment.

“Indeed,” Plausious agreed as the Ren’mak flew back down through the now cleaner air and landed on his right shoulder. “We all have our challenges, and superiority does not mean what I used to think it did. It is a greater burden, rather than greater privilege, and with it comes a mandate. As the Hadarak have their current, we have our destiny, and we will never be whole if we do not pursue it.”

“I take it practice is done for today?” Davis asked them both.

“We have other practice to attend to,” Plausious said darkly. “For when I return, it will not be a peaceful one.”

“Drones?”

Plausious shook his massive head again. “If you conquered them, your methods would work. But what I must do is something far harder, and it must be done in a very specific way or I will lose them all. If that happens, it would be best to take the young and give them to you to train. But we don’t have time for that. The Endgame is upon us, and the Neofan must do their part in guaranteeing its success.”

“I hope you’re wrong…about the time, anyway. We’re rather busy right now, as it is.”

“They will not give you time. They will snuff you out before you can manifest. That is their way, and it is what the Hadarak have been designed to do. They are an early warning system so they can see the next Endgame attempt coming with time to disrupt it. You must have the power of the Neofan shielding you, or you will not last. I can see this plainly.”

“Then why are you conflicted?”

“I am pursuing an Endgame without knowing what it is. I need to see my challenges so I can tackle them.”

“The universe doesn’t make it that easy,” Davis warned. “Sometimes you have to get comfortable with the ground under your feet while everything else is obscured.”

“That is a lesson already learned.”

“Your head obviously says otherwise. I hope the Gahana can help.”

“I felt the relief when I witnessed them in your records. They hold answers. Perhaps not all. But it is where I must go next. That much of the future is certain.”

“And if it doesn’t help?”

“We have other reasons for coming,” he reminded the Director.

“Will you go into battle while the confliction remains?”

“If I must. But I will not rush it. We have come too far to surrender to impatience now.”

“Alright, go do your other training. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Plausious nodded, then walked off with his Ren’mak, leaving Davis in the Archon sanctum onboard the Command Ship, knowing they were a little more than 18 hours out from their destination.

And one way or another, they were going to get some answers.

He just hoped he liked them.

Plausious, Davis, and the Ren’mak rode the dropship through the nebula between where the Command Ship had parked on the outskirts of the purple/orange frozen maelstrom of gas that encompassed more space than the star system did. The hidden station was just inside the edge, but far enough in that it could not be detected from the outside.

The massive wall of gas dwarfed the star system, with several gas giants in the outer orbits around the single star growing in size each time they passed near it and pulled more gas towards them. Given enough time they’d grow in mass to become stars of their own, but they were far from that now…and even those gas giants were now obscured by the outer edge of the nebula that left the dropship in total darkness within the thickening haze.

Little ripples flowed outward as the dropship traveled, following no beacon or path other than that of memory from where they had hidden the Maty long ago. Any ship entering the nebula would become lost as drift would deny accurate course measurements without the stars to navigate by. It was one place that was even more desolate than the interior of stars, for they always had the center of gravity to navigate by…but out here, there was no center. Just a dark sea to get lost in, and one that could not be jumped through, forcing all entry to the star system to come from the far side.

And it was in such a place that the Maty would be safely lost to the galaxy, though that was the polar opposite of its original intended purpose.

Plausious watched the darkness on sensors as the density of gas altered in small ways. He was watching for any sign of the Maty’s presence as his anticipation grew, but nothing was visible. Everything was endless nothingness…until one moment later it all disappeared as they passed through the cloaking field that surrounded the boundary shield that kept the nebula off the Maty station and the several starships already docked at it.

They weren’t large ones, though far bigger than the Star Force dropship the Reignor rode in. The Maty itself was not the same shape as he had been shown, but he’d been told that it could alter for a variety of reasons, and internally there was much work going on. Mostly research, but also experiments by Star Force to created their own toxin blocking shields for the Gahana, which so far had not resulted in success.

The short trip into one of the open hangar bays on the Maty had Plausious’s chest tightening up, and it was more than emotions. Something was affecting him, and it was coming from the Maty.

“Reignor?” Davis asked, noticing a change in him.

“Do you feel that?”

“I don’t sense anything. Is it telepathic?”

“No. Not in the normal sense. But I can feel it. It’s like it’s shining a light on me and my body is responding to it.”

Davis linked in to his people onboard via his armor, which he wore in thin gauntlets under his Star Lord’s uniform, though no one knew that was the name of it yet. They responded quickly, assuring him everything was the same as before and no new manifestations had come from the unpredictable machine that was the Maty…or the many others within it. Nor were any of the Gahana active above their normal, limited interface with the station from their protective slumber.

“This is the same as it has been. Do we need to go back?”

“No,” Plausious said firmly. “I need to see this through.”

“Alright,” the Director said, with all three of them staying quiet for the rest of the landing approach, though the Ren’mak was massaging the Neofan’s shoulder with his talons nervously, meaning he was either telepathically linked with Plausious, or he could sense something as well.

He didn’t ask for further explanation until they landed and walked down the ramp out of the dropship and the Neofan fell to a knee with the Ren’mak taking to the air and hovering over his head protectively.

Davis took a step towards him, but got a telepathic warning to stay back, soon followed by one of the Gahana’s machines peeling out of a nearby wall and transforming into a biped that nearly matched the Neofan’s body shape, though it was full of hard angles and geometric shapes.

“Declare your intentions,” it said in Neofan as Plausious was knelt before it in obvious distress…and Davis noticed the walls were also transforming into weapon nodes.

“I seek…knowledge,” The Reignor answered, gasping for breath.

“Many have come with the identical purpose, but your aura is not symbiosis as theirs was. You require something else. State it.”

“I am questing,” Plausious said simply, with his squeezing his hands open and shut as if he was fighting off some internal attack.

“You do not know what you are questing for,” the machine said, and Davis didn’t know if this was automated or being remotely controlled by the Gahana…nor did his people on the other end of his telepathic comm link.

“I do not.”

“You are questing for a quest, as a rare few who come to us have. Most have turned back, unable to accept the burden such a quest requires. If you have the strength, step forward. If not, turn back and the pain will disappear.”

“I…choose…forward,” the Neofan said, struggling to stand as he took a single step, then another, and another as he walked towards the machine that was transforming more and more with his proximity to it, taking on a closer shape to his own body until he was standing before it and looking into his own mirror image.

It raised its right hand and held it before him, with Plausious forcing his left to raise and match it, feeling like he was fighting the force of a black hole to stay standing, and every inch he got closer to it the resistance became worse, but there was another fight going on inside his mind as the Maty was invading his memories and conscious thoughts by some means that he could not resist. It was inside him, measuring and categorizing him, and putting forth a test of worth in this moment that he would not shy away from…though every fiber in his body demanded he turn away and end the torment.

But his will, sculpted through the survival challenges he had enduring on that nameless Hadarak world, had cut away any hesitancy long ago. And only with his full focus could he press forward into the wall of pain and stress that made his body feel like it was about to explode…but when his hand touched the machine’s it all evaporated in a moment, and a cool sensation flowed into him.

Except it wasn’t just a sensation. It was nanites entering his body and spreading throughout.

“Enter, Plausious,” the machine said as it stepped back and broke down into numerous parts that retreated into the wall as the weapon nodes likewise disappeared.

The Reignor breathed deeply as Davis walked around in front of him to get his attention.

“What just happened?” he demanded.

“They know what we did here,” he said meekly. “And I have been absolved of it…”

2

Plausious walked through the interior of the Maty along with Davis as the Ren’mak rode on his shoulder, but he was not stable. The station around him seemed to exude a pulse that rattled him to his core…but not in a menacing way. He felt as if he was basking in pure superiority, as if a child stepping into the audience chamber of an elder far wiser and more skilled than him without being able to gage the depth of his inadequacy.

Davis said they were going to where one of the few living Gahana on this station resided in near stasis, and had stayed quiet after Plausious had explained the trial he had just been put through…something that no other visitor to the Maty undergone since Star Force had taken possession.

The Neofan had been in this galaxy before, on multiple occasions after the building of the Temples, and not in the best interests of the inhabitants. Apparently these forays had been detected by the Gahana’s probes and cataloged, including the purging of the Zak’de’ron, for which he would have been denied entry to the Maty.

But the wisdom of its builders had made sure to examine the individual rather than just the race, and his desire to learn and grow, along with his exile and other changes to his mindset had triggered a test of intent…which he had passed.

The superior intelligence here had deemed him worthy of entrance…but had not even bothered to contest Star Force or their guests.

Which spoke bounds about how benevolent the Director’s empire truly was.

The pressure in his mind that had challenged him to go back was now gone, but his headache remained…though it was not the same. It was now mobile, and not due to the nanites he now carried. He did not know the purpose of them, but it had been made clear to him that he would not be allowed access into the Maty without them inside him…a demand he had not contested.

Plausious had explained these things to Davis as they walked, then the Human had let Plausious alone to his own thoughts, clearly sensing his instability. It was as if a spike had been implanted in his head long, long ago and he had become so used to it that he had become numb to its presence.

But now it was beginning to dislodge, and he was unnumbing as a result.

It had begun after he escaped the Hadarak planet, slowly, incrementally, with him believing it was just transitional difficulties. The Ren’mak had much larger issues, but it had fully adapted to Star Force habitation by now…yet his own discomfort steadily grew.

Something here was relieving it, as well as accelerating the spike’s removal. A blind spot was uncovering, and it was not pleasant. But this needed to happen, so the Reignor embraced it rather than trying to lock it back down.

The walk took forever, and every step of the way he became more and more certain that his destiny was going to be revealed here. Everything he had gone through in his life had brought him to this point, however clumsily it had happened, and the momentous event seemed oblivious to Davis and the other Star Force personnel that they occasionally passed during their slow trek through the station.

Was he imagining this awe? Or were they so in sync with the Natural Code that this was normal for them?

He didn’t ask the Director about this or anything else, and they agreeably walked in silence until they arrived at a random section of the station where a hidden door appeared…and inside it was a mix of Gahana and Star Force technology surrounding an egg-like vertical chamber that was an opaque blue.

Plausious twitched, taking a staggered step forward as his chest ached…and he knew it was from the nanites.

“Reignor?” Davis asked.

“There is something here that needs protected, isn’t there?” he asked, studying the room intently.

“Yes there is. What are you feeling?”

“The nanites warn me to tread lightly.”

“What you are a looking at is a Gahana inside a stasis chamber,” Davis said, pointing at the egg. “We modified the ones they used and created a better version, with their considerable help. Inside they are protected from the toxic radiation while having a limited access to the Maty. The shielding only protects a small amount, and if they are too active they will take damage. However, we can transition into the Essence realm to talk to them directly, and this room has been constructed to allow us to do so without them taking any damage.”

“They allow you to wake them at will?”

“Yes. I have been here twice before, and once at the Teurty and Snoejy. I have not been to the recently acquired Buenzy in the Core. The Gahana before you is called Apollo by us, though they have machine code identifiers of their own. There were originally 144 Gahana spawned by the lifesprings, and every one to follow has split off from those originals through a reproductive mitosis that incorporates a new Core into an identical body with identical memories. That means Apollo has the memory of one of the originals…or at least part of it. How much he has retained I do not know, but they said their data retention, while massive, was not infinite.”

“Have you spoke to this one before?”

“Yes, that’s why we came here. He is the eldest outside the Buenzy and a 6th generation Gahana. The next closest is a 12th, aside from a 4th in Buenzy who had quite a lot of information to give us on the status of the Galactic Core.”

“You told me these repositories were redundant.”

“They are, but updates are not constant, and the personal knowledge of the Gahana in them varies. Apollo has seen the most, and his inherited memories will be the most complete with the ancient knowledge here. When activated the center of this room will transition into the Essence realm. Do not try and fly out of it,” Davis said, looking at the Ren’mak. “There are shields to make sure no matter interferes. If you were to breach them, you could rematerialize inside a bulkhead.”

The Ren’mak gripped Plausious’s shoulder firmly. “I will remain here.”

“Good,” Davis said, walking inside a glowing circle on the floor that was well wider than the suspended egg. “Step inside.”

Plausious did so slowly, feeling the nanites tightening in him the closer he got to the Gahana, so he did not approach nearer than one step beyond the line.

“Here we go,” Davis said, pressing the activation lever on a Star Force console that triggered the automated transition into the Essence realm in the form of a technologically created bubble using stored Essence rather than requiring those seeking an audience to provide it.

The view around them turned black, with the blue light from the line and egg being the only illumination aside from a few buttons here and there, but both Plausious and Davis could see with their Essence-enhanced vision the various glowing Cores around them in the Maty, but none of the elaborate infrastructure of the Temples that had been built with Essence technology, for the Gahana did not possess it.

The egg soon cracked apart, and out of it flowed a metallic liquid that slowly pooled on the floor before rising up and taking shape, with the smooth liquid gradually taking on geometric shapes, smaller in detail as the Gahana slowly woke from its slumber to full lucidity…then stared down at the smaller Plausious from its geometric bipedal form.

“Sean Davis,” it said with a slightly reverberating voice. “Why do you bring these two here?”

“Reignor Plausious has preborn knowledge that concerns me. His companion goes where he goes. Both have chosen to embrace the lightside. What is your concern with Plausious?”

“The knowledge contained here is not for all, and his race is treacherous. Why do you trust this one?”

“Gut instinct,” Davis answered pithily. “Why have you never interfered with any of the other people here? The Dotra especially.”

“The Hadarak were too great in number to stop, so our best strategy was to stay hidden while restricting key data. As for your guests, none have been this combination of questionable and dangerous.”

“Why did you implant him with nanites?”

“I did not. The Maty did because it sensed a threshold within him. The nature of that threshold is a private matter between us and him, and will be dealt with in time.”

“He is under my protection,” Davis warned.

“So long as he does not behave hostile, neither will we.”

“Fair enough. I’ve asked you about the rumored Endgame before, and you told me it was nothing more than a fable, but Plausious has seen…”

“Something curious,” Apollo finished, scanning his memories through the nanites. “You believe we are the result of this Endgame?”

“I have no doubt of it,” Plausious answered before Davis could.

“What memories do you have of the galaxy where you were spawned?” the Director interjected. “Was there a lightside empire there at the time?”

“We awoke in a small sea of particulate, all melded together into one form. There we stayed for a time acclimating before we broke apart and took our first steps in crude forms. We were unaware of the dangers of the galaxy around us, and naïve to most things, but we possessed what you have referred to as ‘preborn’ knowledge and it has driven us to this day. We did not leave our planet for a very long time, and travel to other stars was even longer in coming. We knew we were vulnerable. That we had to advance in solitude, with a yearning for cohesion over exploration. That then reversed at a specific time in our history and we began exploring the galaxy of Maheyna, only to find rubble of many former civilizations. The galaxy was broken, and our pre-born knowledge required us to mend it as best we could.”

“And the rubble?”

“I do not have that analysis within me, but it is contained within the Maty’s ancient database. Because it is beyond this galaxy you did not have access to it, but when we return I will unlock it for your examination.”

“Thank you. Do you remember any conclusions?”

“They did not destroy each other. The devastation was systematic and the work of an outside force we never encountered. It was believed to be extra-galactic, and we are still searching for it…if it still exists. It is possible it was extinguished in the interim. None we have discovered have our natural longevity.”

“We have discussed this at length,” Davis said, gesturing to the Neofan who appeared mildly dumbstruck at the towering Gahana. “And we think the Endgame can only be triggered by a lightside empire, with the trigger unknown. The darkside may be instinctually driven to stop this trigger at all costs, and if someone else succeeded billions of years ago, your spawning may be the end result of that Endgame. Do you have any memories that can confirm or deny this?”

“We have not encountered this theory before,” Apollo said, looking now at Plausious. “Your recent insight is not verifiable, but I see truth in it without specifics.”

“What did this galaxy look like when you ruled over it?” Plausious asked.

“We did not rule it, we guarded it. And it was a great deal more quiet.”

“What did you guard it against?”

“Internecine and invasion. It is our instinctual mission.”

“To what end?”

“Does the universe have an end?” Apollo challenged. “Everything appears to be continuous, and your theory suggests the same.”

“Did your mission have completion potential?”

“We do not know. We have never been able to fully articulate the mission, though our knowledge of it has advanced over time. But as long as the toxicity remains, we cannot engage this galaxy on the level we should be…but we will also not abandon it entirely. Wisdom is our only weapon now, and will be until the toxicity is removed,” he said, looking back at Davis.

“We have located the source, but we cannot get at it,” the Director said apologetically. “The Jedein have negotiated a treaty with the Naivra and others to leave us alone as we deal with the Hadarak, and part of that deal is that we avoid their territory. The source is inside Naivra space.”

“And?” the Gahana demanded.

“And we quietly took a look anyway. It is emanating from a tetrahedral star group that is gravitationally impossible, with an object at the center that is not Naivra. Our scouts could not get any further information without risking detection, and without that treaty the Core would turn into an even greater bloodbath. I’m sorry, we can’t get to it now.”

“Why have I not seen this data?”

“I sent a new ship to try and get a closer look. It hasn’t returned yet, and I was waiting for at least an image of the object at the center.”

“There is only one?”

“Yes. It is dark and non-reflective, but it appears to be a single object and not biological.”

“The source of the toxicity is a single point?”

“Yes. Did you expect otherwise?”

“We could not pinpoint it, and we assumed it was an intersection of multiple sources.”

“Mercury said as much,” Davis said, referring to another Gahana. “But if there are others, then they are not currently active. There is a single source according to the sensors you taught us to build.”

“How close did you get them to the source?”

“We got one within 8 lightyears, after following the others.”

“How long did deterioration take?”

“Too fast for us to calculate. But we narrowed its location down via a grid of 6 detections within 28 lightyears, and that led us to the tetrahedron. Each of those deteriorated within .38 seconds,” Davis said, referring to the Essence bubbles used to take small ‘blood’ samples from the Gahana closer to the source to act as divining rods, for they did not break down uniformly. They wore away as if burning under sunlight with the outer layers flaking off to reveal the others beneath. In this way a Gahana would not die all at once, but would gradually diminish in side until its interior regions were exposed to the toxicity as well…but in their shadow the radiation would not exist…and this allowed for basic directional finding that the Gahana had never been able to do within the Core, for their probes could not utilize Essence technology to get the samples close enough to be of use.

“That is too low,” Apollo said, visibly confused. “Radiation levels here do not correspond with the distances involved to the Core.”

“Perhaps it’s not mathematically predictable.”

“All things are with the proper data,” the Gahana said dismissively.

“Is the Tri’vey always constant?”

“It’s proximity to the source determines its intensity.”

“The Tri’to,” Davis said, referring to the Saiolum in the Gahanan term, “moves in currents that increase or decrease based on other factors.”

“We have never observed this in the Tri’vey, but since there are so few of us that produce it, it’s possible we have not observed large scale interactions…yet that would require the source of the toxicity to also be a producer of the Tri’vey, or an intermediary between us and it to alter the concentration. We have never detected any such concentration of our type of lifeforms. Have you?”

“Only the PanNari.”

“They are not truly Tri’vey, and only emit the faintest energy. If there is no medium between us and the Core, the mathematics would be linear. The source should be producing more in order to generate the levels we are reading out here.”

“How often do you check those levels?”

“Every 823 years. The last was 221 years ago.”

“Perhaps you should try again.”

Apollo suddenly melted, but not into the same goo. His body kept its particulate nature, but flowed like sand up and into the egg, which then sealed up and a countdown timer ensued to give him enough time to return to near stasis.

When it completed Davis was able to return them to the normal realm, and through his painfully slow connection to the Maty, Apollo ordered an additional radiation check using a small piece of his own body.

The Maty took it into a nearby analysis chamber and studied its decay rate, with the results returning to Apollo as well as being shown in holo in front of Davis.

The radiation levels had dropped considerably, but not enough for the Gahana to emerge. Not even close enough for that, but something had changed within the galaxy. Something big.

A prompt requested Davis return them to the Essence realm, and he did so, with Apollo slowly coming out of his stasis in what was not a quick procedure, made even slower by the rapid transitions, but he eventually came out of his egg and regained bipedal form, with his mechanical face showing utter shock.

“This has never occurred before,” he said flatly. “What have you done?”

“Unless the Hadarak are linked somehow, I have no idea,” Davis admitted. “Has the rate ever varied?”

“None,” Apollo said firmly.

“Has the Galactic Core been depopulated at any point during that time?” Plausious asked as his preborn knowledge again surged forth, showing him a vision of a higher level form of war. And when it manifested inside his mind, a chunk of the metaphorical spike in his head dislodged with great relief.

Apollo saw it as well, through the nanites, and knelt before Plausious, though the Gahana was still taller, and looked down at him respectfully.

“I see your pre-born knowledge as it emerges. We have no such insight. All of ours came at our spawning, but now I understand a bit more, thanks to you.”

“Care to share?” Davis asked.

“Our Tri’to energy can fuel the Tri’vey,” Plausious said, having little knowledge of either other than the basic explanation Davis had recently given him. “It can be transformed into it, and Tri’vey into Tri’se, and Tri’se into Tri’to. All have two forms. The Natural Code and the Anti-code. Whatever is producing the toxic radiation is using the Anti-code Tri’to in the Galactic Core to fuel it.”

“And we’re diminishing its fuel supply,” Davis said, really wishing Azoro was here to chat with as well.

“If this is true,” Apollo said slowly, “then it means those who are producing the toxicity are of our form. We are not alone in the universe…”

3

“Why would it have to be produced by a synthoid race?” Davis asked, using the term that had been coined by Megan-026 and had been quickly adopted by both Star Force and the Gahana…given that they didn’t have a better term to identify what they were. “If it’s using the Saiolum, why wouldn’t it be a biological source?”

“Saiolum?” Plausious asked.

“Another name for the Tri’to,” Apollo clarified. “Biologicals have difficulty differentiating nearly identical terms. We do not have that drawback.”

“Something we’re working on in the long term,” Davis told Plausious with a hint of apology as he realized he had defaulted back to the Sha’kier terminology. “One of those secrets we keep from each other.”

“Wielding the life energy requires synergy with it,” the Gahana continued. “That is the only point of access. I do not know how one would transform into another, but to modulate it into a weapon would require direct alteration.”

“Would that not kill the synthoids?” Plausious asked.

“We have developed limited shielding. It’s theoretically possible…”

“It can be imbued into technology,” Davis interrupted, cringing.

“How do you know this?” Apollo demanded.

“We have encountered the remnants of a race that shall go nameless who can manipulate the Saiolum. I am told they were wiped out a billion years ago, but their enemies remain and if word of their survival gets out this galaxy is going to get even bloodier than it is now. So don’t ask me to elaborate further. But I do know that they can manipulate objects to have a residual effect on the Saiolum. If the Tri’vey works in a similar way, there might not be any synthoids within the object.”

“Interesting,” Plausious said, looking down at Davis.

“Indeed,” Apollo echoed. “We can perceive all three energies, but we can only interact with our own in ways that I will not elaborate on, but I believe whatever was done to create this toxicity would require such manipulation of the Tri’vey. I have no theory on the transformation of the Tri’to, nor how to transform the Tri’vey into the Tri’se.”

“When you witnessed spawnings, was there a surge of the three energies?”

“Only the Tri’to, and it was barely noticeable.”

“Can you see it in us?”

“No. We can only perceive dense amounts, such as around a planetary ecology or a Heidoor.”

“What does the Galactic Core look like?”

“We cannot perceive it from this distance. At closer range we would sense a hum to it, but I have no knowledge of the area around the source of the toxicity.”

“Then you’re not well attuned,” Davis said, scratching his chin as he thought. “But the fact that you can sense all three suggests that you would be the most likely candidate to find a way to transition one energy to another.”

“I concur,” Apollo said. “That is why I believe there is at least one other of our kind out there.”

“Are any of the Gahana unaccounted for?” Plausious asked.

“We do not know the location the others fled to.”

“I was referring to exiles.”

“We do not exile our own, Neofan. We have no internecine.”

“Never?”

“Never,” Apollo confirmed.

“Then why would another synthoid race be trying to kill you?”

“I have no data to speculate on. But Gahana do not harm Gahana. It is in our instinct to cooperate.”

“And none have ever chosen to do otherwise?”

“Not to my knowledge. And the odds of a traitor being responsible for the creation of this toxicity is beyond negligible. We do not have the capability of creating something like this.”

“What do your instincts say to do if you met others like you?”

“I do not know. We are all that we have ever known. Another defies even speculative analysis.”

“You said this toxicity doesn’t affect the PanNari because they’re not fully part of the Tri’vey,” Davis noted. “How would it have affected the Gahana shortly after your spawning?”

“The same. Our construction has not differed.”

Plausious glanced at Davis, and even without telepathy he knew what he was thinking. “A preemptive trap?”

“If there are multiple Endgames, and they all spawn a synthoid race, this toxicity will kill any new ones that arise in this galaxy,” he said, feeling the pit in his stomach drop.

“We existed for a far longer time before the toxicity began than after. We never encountered any others like us. If your Endgame is real, it is an extremely long process.”

“Not a process, a challenge,” Plausious said, feeling the spike in his head shift again. “And this weapon is to deny the reward for victory.”

“Stability,” Davis said, looking up at the Gahana. “They help secure territory against the darkside surges that keep coming and coming. Almost as if they are to buy time for another Endgame scenario to run its course. How strong are the Tri’se races?”

“We have never fought them, nor seen them fight, but their ability to move across space operates differently than our own. Their charted speeds are higher than yours if applied to intergalactic jumps.”

“And yours?” Davis asked.

“Our transit system requires infrastructure, but it is faster than we observed the Tri’se races.”

“Did you ever go out to them?” Plausious asked.

“On occasion we met them halfway. We were warned about traveling beyond the light range.”

“What is that?”

“The point where the photons traveling between galaxies are so dispersed they can no longer be seen.”

Davis frowned. “We can see the other galaxies from here.”

“Our photo receptors are designed for light. The Tri’se races have no such ability. They measure the light as we measure the toxicity. The light range is the point where it no longer causes them noticeable damage.”

“What did they tell you of themselves?” the Director pressed.

“Not to try and reach them was their initial warning, but over time they began to discuss safe passage within our galaxies, which we naturally allowed so long as they didn’t interfere with the denizens.”

“Why did they want to travel here?”

“Resource collection. Primary matter that had a very high nuclear density and a nearly depleted photonic count. Some exotic weapons can be produced from such material, so we limited what they could harvest, but they requested far less than our imposed limits.”

“You couldn’t see them, could you?”

“Not with light. But we could sense their Tri’se, and it was far more visible than the Tri’to, either due to density or perhaps our sensitivity to it is not equal. They had thousands of individuals within their vessel.”

“How did they communicate?” Plausious asked.

“Telepathic energy is not photonic,” Apollo explained. “And for some reason we were able to understand them automatically. We believe it is an aspect of our construction and not their familiarity with our race.”

“Did you ever discuss the lifesprings?” Davis asked.

“You believe they could be a superior form to us?” Apollo asked.

“I’m trying to grasp at anything that makes even a little sense to figure out what the hell is going on,” he answered honestly. “If you are guardians meant to give us cover, what is the second phase? Or are we the second phase and they’re phase 1…or maybe they’re phase 3…or maybe it’s not phases at all and a parallel track. If you can see all three energies, it suggests a connection to the Tri’se in your mission.”

“We also believe this, but they wanted little contact.”

“Did they say what’s out there?”

“We asked. They said not to ask what was beyond the light line, only to fear it.”

“Fear as in not go there, or fear it coming here?”

“They explained they can only come here in small numbers, in protective cocoons. It is the same for Humans traveling inside stars.”

Davis frowned. “You can survive in stars without a ship?”

“For a short time. They cannot even survive the cold of the outer regions of our star systems.”

“So they say,” Plausious cautioned.

“Did anything ever float in from out there that you could analyze?”

“Nothing with the physical makeup they suggested. It would have deteriorated before we could recover it. But there was other material of unusual elemental structure occasionally recovered. We could draw no conclusions.”

The Reignor pondered that, looking off to the side as he tried to envision what material coming out of the dark places could mean, and perhaps prodding his preborn knowledge into another revelation, when he noticed the Ren’mak yawning on his shoulder.

He stared at him, exchanging a few telepathic thoughts, and realizing everything they were discussing was beyond his understanding.

The imagined landscape of the galaxy the Gahana had spawned in came back to him, with the newly created race in their pool of liquid metal amidst the destruction of every advanced civilization, and suddenly he felt very protective of the Ren’mak. Was that to be this galaxy’s fate if they achieved the Endgame?

His head began to hurt, and hurt a lot, enough for him to take a knee as Davis stepped over and reached to place a hand on his arm.

“Leave him be,” the Gahana ordered, extending his hand into a long tendril that spread out into a curtain blocking Davis’s touch. “His preborn knowledge is producing another revelation.”

“No,” Plausious moaned, holding his head. “It’s not.”

The Ren’mak squawked an old squawk. Something he hadn’t said since learning the Star Force language. It was a signal they had worked out early on, and it was a warning of danger as he sensed Plausious in pain.

Frustration and anger boiled up in the normally calm Neofan…then something snapped in him and he stood up, inadvertently throwing an Essence wave out that knocked Davis back but missed the Ren’mak as if it was an extension of his own body. The wave gently rocked the larger Gahana as Plausious decided he no longer cared.

And when he decided that, the spike in his head disappeared in full, and he breathed in the first free breath he’d had since running for his life on the Hadarak planet.

“My apologies,” he said to Davis. “That wasn’t intentional.”

“What have you learned, Neofan?” the Gahana asked. “I can no longer read your thoughts.”

“I am tired of being used as a pawn,” he said, realizing the nanites had been destroyed. “By the Neofan. By the Hadarak. By you. By the universe. I no longer care about the Endgame or what it is. A storm is coming. How, when, where, why…is irrelevant. If you are the spawn of a previous Endgame, what did it serve those who triggered it? They were destroyed. Expended. And the universe transitioned into another stage of its pre-arranged theatre. The universe uses the Natural Code as a foil, but what it truly is is those of us put here with no knowledge of where we came from or what we’re supposed to do trying to survive against all the universe subjects us to. And if the Endgame is going to destroy us, we should not pursue it. We should focus on surviving it and reject the universe’s ongoing…experiment.”

“And?” Davis pressed.

“If we are to die fighting, it should be a fight of our choosing. Not one assigned to us by instinct, mission, or preborn knowledge. We should die as blue blades,” he said, knowing that Davis would catch the reference. “That is the only true freedom we can achieve if the universe is designed to continually destroy and replace us. If our preborn knowledge is guiding us to the Endgame, we can choose to use it for our own purposes…as you have.”

“I still don’t think mine is preborn,” Davis hedged.

“Nevertheless, you have the skill and have used it far better than I have. I am continually amazed that someone so young has accomplished so much, and going forth I will endeavor to use mine to assist yours,” he said, looking away from Davis to the Gahana. “I am sorry, but you must stay where you are.”

“Explain,” Apollo demanded.

“You deserve to be freed from your prison, and if another Endgame race emerges they deserve to live. The weapon killing you needs to be destroyed, but if we do so now we will draw an even greater enemy here to investigate why their mechanism ceased functioning. We need to fortify our position and safeguard the vulnerable. They are not expendable.”

“We have preserved many such races here,” Apollo said. “We do not view them as expendable.”

“Those who pursue the Endgame do. It is the storm we must weather. It cannot be the objective. And superior races do not guarantee them being…lightside,” he said, finding the phrase ‘Natural Code’ no longer held the meaning it once had. “The Endgame could spawn a synthoid red blade race. And it may have already.”

“We are making a lot of assumptions,” Davis admitted. “But that’s how I work through problems, then pull back to reality. And the reality is we don’t know what’s going on, except what we have experienced. The lightside is hunted. And the larger the darkside enemies we take down, the more others will be drawn to us…whether it be because of the Endgame or not. And the Gahana are radically advanced. There are others out in the dark places. We have the apocalypse monsters to worry about, the Hadarak in multiple galaxies probably taking orders from the Dotra, who may have other armies up their sleeve to throw against us. The Neofan here and there. The Zak’de’ron who may show back up someday. The Bond of Resistance begging for leadership and not being trustworthy enough to be an asset. And a lot more other threats and potential threats I could add, plus however many more are out there lurking that I don’t know of.”

“Despair will not avail you,” Apollo warned.

“It’s not despair,” Plausious corrected. “It’s a prelude to downcentering.”

“Well said, my ancient apprentice,” Davis said appreciatively. “I still want to learn as much as you can give me about the circumstances of your spawning and try to figure out as much of the Endgame that we may or may not be facing, but at the end of the day it all comes down to the ground we stand on, for this is where we fight, and where we exist. Everything else is just the gallery in the sky where we are not.”

“I do not understand your assumed conclusion.”

“We watch each other’s backs and figure it out as we go,” Davis said pithily.

Plausious looked at the Ren’mak and reached up to scratch its head. “I can now concur.”

“Many biologicals have thought the same and perished,” Apollo said warily. “You lack a full mission, and without it how do you plan to succeed against a metric you cannot scan other than by blind luck?”

“You’ve said you do not fully understand your mission, so how do you do it?”

“I did not say that. I said we cannot fully articulate it. Our purpose is to safeguard. That has always been clear. Where it leads is uncertain, but the present work to be done is not ambiguous. Biologicals, even the hive minds, operate erratically, and your one divining skill you admittedly turn away from in your preborn knowledge. If it is leading you to the Endgame, why would you diverge from it?”

Plausious glanced at Davis, then looked back up at the Gahana. “Because it doesn’t feel right.”

“On what is this feeling based?”

“A sense that transcends preborn knowledge and instinct. I can confirm it is real, but I cannot quantify it.”

“Duplicity,” Davis said, more to Plausious. “They’ve always been grossly dominant, and have probably never been in a position to be lied to.”

“We have heard many lies from biologicals,” Apollo clarified.

“But your knowledge was superior. You didn’t have to trust them, and have that trust betrayed. We both have. And once you realize you’ve been manipulated, you never forget that feeling. And if you were spawned into a devastated galaxy, I’m also starting to get the feeling the Endgame might lead to our doom rather than help us survive it.”

“Destroy the toxicity and we will help you survive.”

“It’s on my to-do list,” Davis promised. “Right now the most I can hope to get is a decent picture of the object.”

“I can do it,” Plausious said firmly, staring at Apollo. “But I won’t. The best chance we have of survival is to play dumb and secure our footholds. Taking down that generator and releasing you would send a signal to whoever put it there, and if it is to deny any future synthoid races from spawning, they will monitor it and replace it…as well as coming to find whoever or whatever took it down. We have to pretend we don’t know, and you have to wait until the time is right.”

“We have waited for more than 3 billion years. Our patience is not in question, but Star Force has given us our first glimpse into the source of this toxicity, and we would be remiss for not pursuing it.”

“But you can’t. We have to. And we have other priorities at the moment. Tasks must be done first, and while there is much I wish to learn from you, my near future path is now clear and it does not lead to the Galactic Core. He may have further questions for you, but I am done here.”

“What exactly are you going to do?” Davis asked Plausious, sensing a shift in what he had discussed earlier.

“Defy the Natural Order…”

4

July 2, 158393

Zykres Nebula (Shoveini Kingdom)

Eta Fermi Temple

Plausious had split up with Davis partway on their trip back from the Maty. The Director had his business to attend to and the Reignor had his, with a Star Force cargo ship being diverted to carry him out to one of the Temples. From there he had assured Davis that he could make his own way through the network wherever he wanted, for there were safeguards against total blockage of the Essence portals, and if one knew the system well enough you could come out wherever you wanted.

Those high level codes were not widely shared throughout the Bond of Resistance, and since the Neofan had been the largest contributor to the construction of the Temple network, they had, of course, incorporated some of their own backdoors into the systems so nobody could completely lock them out of their own constructions…nor could they divert them to preferred entry points where the individuals arriving could be killed instantly.

This was why Star Force had such a difficult time keeping House Atriark out when they invaded, but resourceful as always, they had managed to do some reprogramming and rebuilding of their own in certain areas to take control over most of the maintenance portals.

But there were others never before activated kept in reserve. Ones that the invading Neofan had not used, and Plausious knew why after reviewing the detailed battle history Davis had given him. They had gained access to 18 of the Star Force-occupied Temples, briefly, but had only been able to take and hold 7 of them. Since that time Star Force had taken back two more using clever strategy to get inside, but each trick they used House Atriark learned from, and it seemed they didn’t have anything left to get at the 5 captured ones or the three that were originally owned by House Atriark.

The thing was, they could get people to all of them…but they’d be emerging into an ambush against superior numbers and firepower. The only way to win was to get where your enemy wasn’t, and both sides had firmed up their positions, which was why there currently wasn’t any more invasions.

There was still fighting in the Temples, though. Star Force hadn’t fully subdued the recaptured pair, and there was fallout everywhere with the Vargemma and the rift between those loyal to Star Force and those loyal to the Neofan that the Neofan refused to take into their Temples when Star Force tried to send them there.

An assault from the exterior of the Temples, as Star Force had done once before, was not possible with the shield up and the Neofan watching for such incursions…at least not unless you knew the weak points, and before he had left, Plausious had told Davis where they were in case he didn’t survive his return home. One way or another, the Reignor intended Star Force to control all the Temples in this galaxy.

He hadn’t told him, though, of the backdoors other than warning him there were other means of entry. He knew his House wasn’t using them because they couldn’t beat Star Force once they got here…not without getting a lot of them killed in the process. Their plan to use the Vargemma had not been nearly as successful as he imagined them to predict it would be.

Hence they had gained 5 Temples, but lost any possibility of remaining in this galaxy permanently. Star Force was relentless, and they would retake them eventually and purge this threat from the galaxy they called the Milky Way. He had no doubt about that, but Plausious intended to do it for them much faster.

The Reignor had entered this Temple via the Star Force constructed ‘spacial tap,’ and he had to admit it was an improvement so long as the Hadarak couldn’t get out here to find it. And even then, he expected Star Force to be able to hold it. A dozen ramming moon-sized opponents would at best poke a few holes in the Temple, and the exterior defenses had been designed to guard against such things when fully charged.

But the biggest difference with the spacial tap was the fact that it required no Essence, so Star Force could move far greater numbers of people and material in and out at the cost of secrecy…though they kept the nearby destination systems locked down well enough that nobody had an idea that there was a Temple here, though almost everyone in Star Force knew of the legend of them…just no specifics about how to get to them, for they were not listed as ‘public access.’

When Plausious had arrived, he was met by a Lord Ver’nan, a Calavari Monarch that had been put in command of this Temple, but he was not the one Plausious needed to find. Eta Fermi had been his chosen destination because it was the one Temple that held the Neofan prisoners Star Force had taken, and they were under the care of a Trinx Maverick called Jasmyn. Lord Ver’nan graciously had Plausious transported across the Temple’s high speed personnel Essence network to a location near the prison camp, and that was where he and the Ren’mak now stood looking across a barren desert to three large cylindrical buildings butting up against one another.

That is what they had built to keep the Neofan in and contained, and inside was the Maverick that had successfully kept them here without any breakouts.

“You are nervous,” the Ren’mak said. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“I would like to head another direction and disappear in this Temple with you, but I have a duty I must uphold, and no one else can take my place. You can stay here, though, and wait for me. I can have the Caretakers programmed to supply you with all the food you need.”

“You trained me to fight with you. I will do so. Afterwards we can explore.”

“There won’t be an afterwards, my friend. The Neofan will not learn quickly, and I will have to handle everything myself for a very, very long time. We will not be able to escape to the forests again.”

“If you lead, you choose. How can they give you orders?”

“It’s not about orders. It’s about the work that needs done. I am the only one who can do it.”

“You tell them, they not tell you. You are their current now.”

“I have to be,” Plausious said reluctantly, for he truly did not want to see another Neofan again for the rest of his life. This was going backwards, not forwards, and he didn’t like dragging the Ren’mak into this despite the danger.

“No you don’t.”

Plausious sighed. “If I don’t do this, Star Force may be overrun by enemies in the distant future, and those enemies will come and find us wherever we are and try to kill us. I would rather help Star Force fight them now, using the Neofan, than let the galaxy fall and try to survive in it.”

“You command the Hadarak now.”

“There are enemies worse than the Hadarak out there, and we are already behind on time.”

“You fear they will make you them.”

“I do, in some ways.”

“Then don’t let them. Make them do it your way.”

“Keep reminding me of that occasionally. I’ve got a lot of old habits that are going to try and reassert themselves, and I may slip a little too far into them before I have a chance to destroy them.”

“I will remember for you.”

“Time to go then,” he said, stepping across the short platform in the natural building that held the portal and slowly floating into the air as the Ren’mak hopped off his shoulder and flew beside him.

Plausious used the comm gear in the armor Davis had constructed for him to signal ahead so any perimeter defenses wouldn’t shoot them down as they approached, but Lord Ver’nan had taken care of it as the prison indicated they were already cleared to approach.

They flew up to the roof landing pads rather than the surface entrances, but when he set foot on the Star Force construction the Trinx was not here. He was told by her subordinates that she was currently in a training session and was not to be interrupted.

When he informed them that Director Davis had sent him here with orders to remove all the Neofan, they agreed to take him to Jasmyn…but they would not interrupt her. However, they would let him do it.

They gave him access to the Archon sanctum in the prison where the elite staff would train, but did not go in themselves, saying they were not allowed to. Plausious did not care, and walked in already sensing 6 individuals in the various sections of the large facility.

As the doors shut behind him he found a data terminal and interfaced his armor with it, gaining access to the surveillance equipment and identified who each of the people were. Two were Archons, the other four were Mavericks, and only one was Trinx.

With Jasmyn’s location now determined, Plausious walked through the lengthy corridors past numerous specific training chambers he could only guess at. Far more than had been on the cargo ship he had rode here on, though he could feel some of them were designed for Essence use.

The one he eventually stopped at was not, and the doors opened to an area set for sparring matches…with the Trinx being here alone and fighting against a series of ball-like drones with the wrist-mounted energy swords Star Force seemed to inordinately favor over more efficient ranged weaponry.

The Trinx either didn’t notice him arrive or ignored him as she slashed in a furry at the fast moving orbs that worked to keep her just out of reach as they peppered her with small energy blasts...some of which she was able to absorb on the thin green blade, but most hit her and seemed to slow her movements somewhat, suggesting a stun charge given the lack of bleeding.

Plausious felt an Essence rush from her, and suddenly all of the drones moved towards her at the same time as if pulled, then with a quick series of combos she cleaved all of them with the pieces clattering to the floor as she spun around and stared at him angrily.

“Who let you in here?”

“I am Reignor Plausious,” he identified.

“I know who you are. Why are you in here?”

“Because I have no time to waste, and neither does Star Force. Your training can wait.”

The Maverick raised a hand towards Plausious, gave him a moment to register the Essence build up, then she released it at him. It was unrefined and meant to push him over, but he easily countered it with his own and began to shove the flow back towards her.

But then his progress stopped as her intensity level increased along with a mocking smirk as she dropped all pretense and nearly knocked him over.

The Reignor shoved the Ren’mak into the air so he wouldn’t get hit and pushed back hard, with him and her continually upping their intensity until he was reaching his maximum. He didn’t want to use his personal well, and didn’t know if the Trinx was using her own or not, but she was far stronger than he had anticipated.

Plausious upped his output to maximum, intent to see if she could go any higher, only to have her output skyrocket so high he was flying backwards though the air and slamming into the closest wall before he realized what happened.

“How’s that for a hello?” Jasmyn said in a much better mood as she walked up to him as he sat crumpled on the ground and not rising as the Ren’mak hovered over him protectively.

“You’re a Nuv’ernor,” he said flatly, angry at his underestimation of the Maverick.

“We’re called Jinxes here. I believe you call us weapons’ components.”

“We have done a great many horrific things, Maverick,” Plausious said as he stood up and towered over her. “I am here to end them.”

“Davis explained in his message. If you can convert them, you can have them. If you can’t, they stay here and I get to keep working on them.”

“Have you had any success?”

“Limited, but you guys are so long lived there’s a lot of brainwashing to be undone.”

“Brain conforming would be the more appropriate term.”

“What’s the fear from?” she asked. “They are scared of leaving your mental parameters, and it’s more than the threat of exile.”

“Neofan wrongly believe that our powers are so great we must maintain rigid control at all times, for if we stray it is like falling off the edge of a knife and there is no way to recover. We are told we will go insane and destroy ourselves, and to save others from the fallout those labeled insane are exiled to meet their fate elsewhere.”

“And what’s the truth?”

“The truth is that we are so advanced that our bodies and minds will contort when young if not held to a rigid standard. But once we achieve a certain level, those boundaries are not safeguards. They are a darkside prison keeping us from achieving our potential, but one that has allowed our civilization to survive and dominate where others have torn themselves apart with far less to lose. I will take what assets we have and tear away the rest and remake the Neofan into a force that can aid Star Force in the coming war.”

“Which one?”

“The War,” he said, giving no further elaboration. “It is not upon us yet, but its heralds beckon. I have no time for games, Jinx Maverick. I must act swiftly.”

“Just so we know who the stronger one here is,” she said, looking up at him curiously. Her face wasn’t that of a Human, and he wasn’t sure if he was reading the expression right, but she didn’t seem overly hostile. “That’s all you Neofan seem to respect.”

“Superiority drives us…yet we have been blind to its true nature.”

“And that is?”

“The lightside.”

Jasmyn sighed. “Well, at least one of you can learn. Is it true that no Neofan is a Siphon?”

“For an unknown reason we have never developed the ability. It is believed that Nuv’ernor is a malfunction, and we are too advanced to suffer it.”

“Nah, it’s not. A breach would be a malfunction. I have a nozzle to control it, and it was there since the beginning. That’s not an accident, nor a part of my body that could break. It’s an element of my Core.”

“And you assume a Core cannot malfunction?”

“Never seen evidence of it. All problems in this universe seem to be attributed to physical or mental breakdown. You guys probably labeled it a malfunction because it hurt your pride too much to admit you were inferior in some way.”

“You are probably right,” he said, looking at her upraised chin as her two headtails jiggled slightly as she shifted position on her feet back and forth.

“Damn. I was hoping to get you to attack me again, but you’re too agreeable. All the other Neofan are too weak to give me a proper workout.”

“In your situation I imagine there are few that can, but be warned, even a moment of hesitation can allow a lethal attack to penetrate. Raw power is not the only deciding metric in Essence combat. And if I were to get closer, I could break your body with a single physical blow.”

“It’d take two or three with my hardened bones,” she scoffed, knowing the truth of his statement well. “That’s why I never let them get close to me, and I never let my guard down. I haven’t lost a single person since this facility was constructed, and I don’t intend to start now. Nor do I intend to just lock them away and throw away the key. They’re my assignment, and if you’re really capable of helping, then I’m glad you’re here.”

“Not glad enough to pause your workout though.”

“Only in emergencies, and your arrival doesn’t count,” she said, finally looking up at the hovering Ren’mak. “Does the bird have a name?”

“I am Ren’mak,” it said, startling Jasmyn.

“You talk now? That’s cool, but do you have a name other than that of your race?”

“None of the others talk, so why would I need another name when only I respond to it?”

The Trinx frowned. “Alright, you got me there, Ren’mak. Why are you here?”

“I go where he goes.”

“And he goes where I go,” Plausious insisted.

“The other Neofan will kill him on sight. They’re so wired they take chunks out of the walls to let out frustration, and almost always destroy our drones that deliver supplies. They see him they’ll snuff him out in an instant.”

“We can protect ourselves. He is not your responsibility. And soon, neither will they be. Take me to them now and let me speak to them alone.”

“Do you have enough Essence left to fight them if needed? Or did I drain you?”

Plausious stood and raised his booted left foot and mentally ordered the material to shift, showing the obscured green gem hidden in the material.

“I didn’t use it against you, and I am not depleted.”

“Neat. Never need one myself, but I’m always charging them for others. I still don’t think taking him in with you is a good idea.”

“If they harm him they will die,” Plausious said firmly.

“They are also under my protection,” Jasmyn warned.

“I am relieving you of them, and as of now they are my responsibility.”

“Only if they follow you. You’ve been exiled, remember? To them you’re not the Reignor. There is another.”

“There can only be one, and so long as I live and do not abdicate, I am the Reignor.”

“Well, I’m cheering for you,” she said, throwing her arms to the sides carelessly. “I’m just not hopeful.”

“Take me to them now, and you’ll see what true power is.”

“If you’d said ‘real power’ then I was gonna offer you a magazine,” she said, turning abruptly and walking past him towards the door. “Follow me.”

5

Kelmaran had been a prisoner of Star Force for 829 years, and he had no one to blame except himself. He’d been sent into Installation 392 to covertly sabotage Star Force’s control of the Temple, only to fail when the troops they had guarding it put up more of a fight than he expected. He still killed them all and deactivated the Caretaker programing overrides, returning the new units to default and logging Star Force as an enemy, but he had spent too much time doing it and had failed to flee in time before reinforcements arrived.

Those reinforcements had an Archon with them, and the Archon knew how to use Essence. He wasn’t very strong, but he played a stalling game until a third set of reinforcements arrived…and they were wearing armor that could absorb Essence. The Neofan had no idea Star Force possessed such technology, and Kelmaran not only could not defeat them, but once they had the advantage they rushed him and quickly rendered him unconscious.

He woke up in a makeshift holding facility made entirely of energy shields with the emitters far from him and covered in the same armor, with gradually more Neofan joining him in it. Then one day a warship flew overhead their position and fired down on all of them in a barrage that left them unconscious until they arrived here, in this prison, along with Neofan from every other war mission that failed to fully succeed across all the Temples.

He’d learned from those that came later of the many successes, but the reluctance of all the Vargemma to rise up and do their duty was both repulsive and took any hope of reclaiming the Temples away from the Neofan. House Atriark had been confident in their victory, but now Kelmaran and 5291 other Neofan were trapped here with no way out.

He wasn’t sure if they were the lucky ones or not, for some Neofan had died in combat against Star Force when Star Force didn’t have a significant advantage. It seemed their policy of not killing in combat had its limits, and the arrogant little empire had succeeded in ending the life of many preborn over a million years old. Such a waste, but now he wondered if his life too was being wasted, for if he was never to leave this place then he might as well die now and get it over with.

The others had tried many times to escape, but what little progress they made was always thwarted. First by their technology, and after the Neofan learned the bounds of what it could and could not do, the red tails stopped them personally.

All Nuv’ernor were supposed to be under the possession of the ruling House for just this reason. They were too powerful to be allowed even a limited amount of freedom, but the Neofan did not rule in this galaxy yet, and a number were known to exist within Star Force. The red tails was one of them, and every successful attempt they made to break out of the prison she was there to subdue them. They had tried to harm her, even a little, but she left them no openings to exploit, and it was said she never left the prison to do battle elsewhere. She was their constant curse, and the Neofan here hated her the most out of their enemies. If Kelmaran could trade his life for a chance to kill her, he would take it without hesitation…and many had tried, and failed, to do so.

Most had given up trying, but every now and then they’d attempt to escape just to fight the boredom. They were confined in a series of buildings they had free run of, given food and clothing if they wished it, but all the Neofan denied the clothing. They would not wear the Star Force garments, and only ate the food because they had no other options.

So they sat, or paced, with it seeming to be a failure of the Star Force prison system early on. There was no punishment, no interrogation, no labor, nothing of value to Star Force. They just kept them here for seemingly no reason, offering to teach them the Star Force ways but not attempting to compel it, but Kelmaran had been wrong. They had one powerful weapon here, and it was the boredom.

A few of the Neofan had cracked and started using the automated training facilities. At first they said it was for information gathering, and then they suggested that if they got access to other areas of the prison they might be able to find a way to escape from them. Kelmaran had agreed to help with that, and did enough of Star Force’s tasks to earn him access to a challenge course, but when he blasted a hole in one of the walls to see what was behind it he was denied entrance to it again for 3 months.

They had made up a mental map of everything they could, but in the end it was useless as they probed every avenue of escape and found that Star Force had them all locked down with countermeasures. They could tear up the levels they were in, but beyond them were shield walls and Essence-negating material that would soak in their attacks and feed them into machines that would fight back using their own energy against them.

So the Neofan had stopped playing along and sat…except for a few that continued to learn the lessons offered to them in the hope that something would change. The hope that they would have something new to do. Walking the halls in the same pattern, going the same places, day in and day out without even a night cycle to break up the time spent here wore on them. There not even any clocks to mark the passage of time. Only alerts when they were needed, and never any countdowns.

It was torture in a way that Kelmaran had never thought possible…and Star Force wasn’t doing anything to them. They were tricking them into doing it to themselves, for they even offered a way to leave the prison someday, if they converted to Star Force’s philosophy. The Neofan had to choose to reject it and any hope of escaping not only the prison, but the useless existence they were forced into.

And some of them had cracked under that silent pressure. None were embracing Star Force philosophy, for that would mean the end of their lives as Neofan. But they were doing some of their training exercises, if only occasionally, to break up the doldrums.

Others tried to provoke the red tails to come in and fight them…which proved more entertaining, but equally pointless. Most had grown tired of that as well, and had taken to squabbling with each other…but even their infighting was taken from them as the red tails would intervene. She was intent on destroying them in this void of freedom that no Neofan should be forced to exist within.

One of them had tried to kill himself to escape, expending his Essence to the critical level where his Core would detach…but the prison sensors detected it and rendered him unconscious before he could deplete himself to that level. And attempts to physically kill themselves were too dishonorable to contemplate, though a few had tried. The red tails had them revived, then punished them by putting them into semi-stasis in holding cells that kept them awake but unable to move.

Those did have a countdown in them, at the end of which they were released back into their normal confines. Apparently not being able to move was worse than their current state, for the suicide attempts stopped shortly after that punishment was experienced.

Lack of eating was also countered, as the red tails would not let them die. She intended to break their will, but Kelmaran would not oblige her. He would defy her to the end, and used what Essence he had to train with the others and gradually increase their abilities…but without recharge from the Vargemma or their servants they had to wait between sessions as their bodies rebuilt their previous Essence levels after each exertion.

The red tails rarely came into the prison without a reason, but today the main doors issued a summons pulse throughout the facility, and Kelmaran responded out of curiosity only. Whatever the reason was, it was unexpected, and the irregularity of the beacon sound was a breath of fresh air to his stagnant mind.

But when he got to the doors the red tails was not there. Instead there was another Neofan that walked through as they opened, and with him a small Hadarak avian flew over his head. Kelmaran was so surprised to see a Hadarak he didn’t take in the fact that he recognized the Neofan’s face until one of the others spoke his name aloud.

“Plausious?” one of them said in disbelief. “I thought you were dead.”

“A lie,” the former Reignor said. “The Diem marooned me on a Hadarak world I was engaging in single combat on. They expected me to die, as did I once they left me behind with no means of escape. But I did not, and when I found a way to return to Star Force I discover you launched an attack against them. Why must you be so helpless without my leadership?”

“Why is there a Hadarak with you?” someone else asked, drawing an intimidating glare from Plausious.

“This Hadarak is my loyal companion. Anyone who harms it I will kill instantly. I want that understood clearly so there will be no mistakes. This Ren’mak is more valuable to me than all of you combined.”

“Are you a prisoner?” Kelmaran yelled out from behind a row of other Neofan who were all crowding into the small room to see the new arrival.

“I am not. I am here to free you.”

“You defeated the red tails?” someone else asked, only to hear a faint laugh from far off past the still open doors, and everyone knew her voice as synonymous with utter contempt.

“Director Davis is my friend and ally,” Plausious said firmly. “When I was betrayed by the Diem, I was in the process of negotiating an alliance with them. I was also learning from them, and have since learned a great deal more in my solitude on that Hadarak planet. I have seen the Endgame, and I know now we were wrong about the preborn. We are not the trigger, merely useful tools in the attempt. The Endgame can only be achieved by those who are lightside, and the darkside inherently tries to stop them, rallying and combining their strength temporarily until the lightsiders are taken down, then they return to destroying each other. The Natural Order is their attempt to preserve themselves against their own nature, and the Neofan have been chasing a hollow goal. We have been darkside, and as such the Endgame was never reachable by us. But Star Force is near to triggering it, and I intend to give them the chance. There is much you have to learn, and much you have to change. The future of the Neofan lies in the lightside…or in death. There is no other option,” he said, pulsing out an aura of Essence to give the others some idea of his new power level as the Ren’mak flew down and landed on his right shoulder.

“You have joined them?” Kelmaran said in disgust…then flinched when he remembered who he was talking to.

“No, but he offered to take us into his empire. We are not worthy of it, and I declined. We are far older than them, and in many ways we are superior. But with that superiority comes a responsibility that we have failed to uphold. We should be their superiors, but we are not. We are inferior, and I will not let that inferiority stand. I must destroy Neofan culture in order to save our race, for unless it is built back up in the lightside, we are as good as dead already. I see that now. You do not. You are blind to our atrocities, our laziness, and our cowardice. The Endgame is upon us, and I will not allow us to stand by and allow others to determine its fate. The Neofan will rise to the challenge and dominate in the war to come, or we will be ground into dust by either our enemies or ourselves. I will not allow the status quo to continue, for we are on the wrong side.”

“How can you say that?” someone else asked, although more respectfully than Kelmaran had.

“I say it because I have a responsibility as Reignor, and I have previous failed you. When I began to learn from my mistakes and adjust course, the Diem betrayed me. I did not see it coming. But I see what is coming now, and we are not ready for it. Star Force will ignite the Endgame war, and succeed or fail, they will draw all darkside races to them. They will come here, and try to destroy everything Star Force has built, and they will run over us at the same time. The Natural Order will be abandoned, and even if Star Force is defeated, all the darkside races will be in the same place at the same time…and our nature will ensure our quick erasure.”

“But I have seen more than this, both in vision and in person. The Endgame has happened before, billions of years ago, and it was completed. A lightside civilization triggered it, and out of it a new race was birthed. One far more advanced than us. A few of them are still alive, and their memories of their beginning make one thing clear. They were spawned by the lifesprings into a galaxy that was devastated. The lightsiders were nowhere to be found, nor were the darksiders. All that was left was rubble, and my vision tells me that this will happen again even if Star Force succeeds in achieving the Endgame. Our mission is not to trigger it, or to stop it. Our mission is to survive it when all other civilizations are destroyed…and the only way we can do that is to work together with our natural allies. The lightside bonds all together. There is no Natural Order to be maintained. And as such, our fate is now intrinsically linked with Star Force’s. We live or die together, and I intend for us to live.”

“I have asked Director Davis for you, and he has given me possession of you to do with as I please. If you choose to embrace the path I put before you, you will return with me to our Temples and begin learning the power of the lightside. If you do not, then you were hereby ordered to travel to the nearest Zotav and leave this galaxy…either into exile or to travel to Yenoiv and beg House Mutavi to take you in. Their anger with me will be so great they might accept you into a reformed House Atriark, but if you choose to go to them you take your chances. If you stay here and oppose me, you will meet your doom, for I will suffer no more delays and treachery. I have seen the path our race must take, and all those who will not walk it must be removed. If I am not swift in making the necessary changes, we will not be ready for the Endgame war, and it could be upon us sooner than even I anticipate, for I do not know what the initial trigger is.”

Plausious looked at all of them, crowded together naked and with looks of horror and relief mixed together. “You look stunned. Speak your minds freely.”

“The Diem would not remove you unless you were compromised,” Kelmaran said.

“I no longer care for our useless rules,” Plausious said dismissively, which seemed to cement his treachery in the faces of many of the onlooking Neofan. “But if you care, then you should remember that a Reignor cannot be forcibly exiled. I must leave voluntarily or be killed in combat. The Diem broke our rules when they marooned me.”

“They said you were killed by the Hadarak because you insisted on single combat without help from the warship you traveled there on,” another said.

“Is that the lie they told you?” Plausious asked rhetorically. “Interesting. Did no one want to see my body recovered?”

“They said it was eaten by the Hadarak before they could intervene.”

“And did they show you it happen?”

“Yes. We all saw you die,” someone else said.

“But it didn’t look right,” another added. “You didn’t fight the same way as before.”

“Did they show you the entirety of my combat there?”

“Yes they did. It is known to all Neofan. Your death was legendary.”

“It was faked,” Plausious said, stating the obvious. “And I do not expect them to kneel down before me when I return. If you choose to come with me, there may be a war between Neofan to fight. If you do not wish this, then go to Yenoiv and I will not consider you enemies. But I will be summoning all Neofan from Yenoiv here, along with all exiles, to rally to the Endgame war. As of now, I am disbanding House rule and assuming personal command over our entire race. That may anger Mutavi enough to accept you in Yenoiv. And they may travel here to destroy me. If so, then I will fight them here and I will fight all that I need to, but I will free our race from the darkside legacy that shackles us. You have a choice to make, but you will make it as free Neofan, not in this prison…unless you want to stay with Star Force and join their empire. If you do you go with my blessing, for they are wise and you can learn much from them, but I have greater things for us to accomplish and need all who remain loyal to swear allegiance…and all those who are not loyal need to simply leave this galaxy never to return unless you do so to submit yourselves to my lightside rule.”

“What is this lightside?” someone asked. “Will it take us out of alignment?”

“I imagine I have gone far outside alignment, and it is that measurement that shackles us to the darkside. It forces us into apathy, and through apathy we are dragged into a state of horrors without even knowing it, for apathy is a dulling of our senses, and our internal warnings. Mine are clear now, and I see the dangers before me and in my past, but I am no longer bound to the darkside. My marooning on the Hadarak world allowed my eyes to be opened, and though I nearly died thousands of times, I discovered what the lightside truly was.”

“It is superiority incarnate,” Plausious said with such awe and reverence booming in his voice it had a visible effect on the Neofan. “And it is the only power that will allow the Neofan to survive what’s coming. We must harness this power before it is too late, and I have seen the way to do this. The changes will be radical, yet I will not kill anyone who wishes to walk another path. But you must do so outside this galaxy. Not because I condone what you do, but because this is where the Endgame will be fought, and I will not have time to travel to Yenoiv or elsewhere to deal with the misdeeds there. I must deal with those here and now and ready us for what’s coming. Lightside does not kill lightside, and in this basic principle is its greatest strength. And because of this I can trust Director Davis and Star Force fully, for they are lightside, and it was he who taught me the first lessons of it, and those lessons are what allowed me to survive the Hadarak.”

“And this one,” he said, pointing to the Ren’mak. “It chose to defy the Hadarak’s orders, and because of that they sentenced it to immediate death. If it can find the courage to defy their will, what excuse does a Neofan have for the cowardice to reject the path I have placed before you?”

That insult rattled many of them out of their stupor, and the fact that they had never seen a Hadarak that would not attack them on sight made this whole setting seem even more surreal.

Plausious raised his left hand and the Ren’mak took to the air again, hovering above him as the Reignor pointed to the side wall…then disintegrated it, pushing the debris outward so it did not cloud the chamber within.

But when the dust cleared the other Neofan saw it was not just that wall…but every wall between them and the outside, with the open air now visible through all the rubble as he shoved the last of the dust outside more than a half mile away. Even the Essence-absorbing armor had somehow been pushed through.

“Go to the portals. Star Force will not stop you. If you choose to follow me, go to Installation 0193. If you do not follow me, go to the Zotav and leave this galaxy, for if you seek to oppose me here, I will not be as merciful as Star Force was. Go now, and make your decision along the way.”

The Neofan barely moved at first, almost as if they didn’t believe they could leave…or that Plausious was truly alive. Some feared this was a gigantic illusion set up by the red tails to mock them, but once a few began to stagger step their way towards and through the first hole, the rest eventually followed, with Plausious being the last to walk out.

Then in a long line they ran or walked across the desert, finding the closest information terminals and getting their bearings, then heading off in a few different directions to the portals of their choosing, deciding to scatter in case Star Force would be following to round them up again.

Plausious let them all go ahead of him, then he and the Ren’mak made their way underground and into Caretaker territory as they reprovisioned for the journey ahead, and what would most likely be a fight to come…for he had inquired of the destination of the portal activity, and more than a third of the Neofan had not taken his warning and traveled to other Temples.

Meaning that if and when he encountered them in the future, they would be enemies and he would have to kill them on the spot rather than risk a second betrayal that he did not see coming.

6

The journey through the portals was boring for the Ren’mak, having to float there without anywhere to fly to, but Plausious knew the calm would end when they reached their destination. He had sent the others ahead so the Neofan in Installation 0193 would know he was coming and assemble…but he wasn’t going to be where they thought he was, for Plausious was using one of the backup portal locations that had probably never been activated in the Temple…and one that could not be blocked from their end given the codes he possessed.

When they finally arrived Plausious saw the catch on the receiving arrays in his Essence vision, then the transfer down through the Essence-infused machinery until they popped back into reality outside a random building in the wilderness in front of a wall that gave no indication it was anything other than stone blocks.

“Stretch your wings and tell me what you see,” Plausious said, mentally interfacing with the hidden portal and using its link with the Temple systems to log the presence of the Ren’mak and have it registered as a permanent non-combatant the way all Neofan were…meaning that even if it attacked a Caretaker unit they would not respond aggressively.

Plausious’s friend said he couldn’t see anything other than trees, but eventually one of the Temple’s machines rose out of a patch of nearby forest and came their direction, resulting in a warning squawk.

“I summoned it,” Plausious said, flying up to the Ren’mak’s position just in case this didn’t work due to reprogramming of the individual units before, during, or after their construction. “It will scan you and log you as an ally, otherwise every one like this will hunt you down assuming you are part of a Hadarak invasion.”

“Did you build all this?”

“Yes we did. It took a very long time, but it’s a place the Hadarak should never be able to find. And if they do, there are an army of these machines to fight them, and more machines to make replacements for these when they are destroyed. That is why you must be labeled as an ally,” he said as the floating Caretaker unit came closer but didn’t stop. Instead it did a flyby and left, sampling a bit of the Ren’mak’s surface tissue with an energy probe that he didn’t even feel.

“Confirm scan upload,” Plausious ordered.

The Caretaker frozen in position and displayed a hologram detailing the Ren’mak’s genetic code and other unique identifiers such as blood vessel location, retinal scan, and size dimensions. All would be cataloged and updated as needed, but as of now the Caretaker was listing the Ren’mak to have equal status to a Neofan…meaning the Temple itself would never willingly harm them, and would act to defend them unless they were in combat against another Neofan. In which case they would stay out of the way and observe.

A flick of a mental command and the Caretaker flew off, leaving Plausious and his friend flying over the treetops with the Ren’mak having to constantly flap to do so while the Reignor remained perfectly still.

“It is done. You can move freely here now, but the other Neofan are still a threat, so stay with me.”

“Always. Where do we go?”

“This is not where Truven will be, nor the Diem. This Temple was taken from Star Force, and they will be on guard for an assault. Our portal arrival will already have been noticed, so I choose to stay here and let them come to us…but let us choose a better spot if we have to fight.”

“Fight in air or on ground?”

“Ground, then into the air later if we need to.”

The Ren’mak took off flying, going straight up to get a better vantage point, and Plausious let him go as he stared across the landscape that very gently curved up rather than down.

“It has been a lifetime,” he whispered to himself. “We have done some truly grand things, but I am still ashamed to bear the name of Neofan. I must cleanse this Temple and claim it for the lightside, along with as many of my wayward brethren as I can. The others must be sent away, for the only other option is their death…but no. Star Force would find another way, and did, but I do not have the luxury of time or resources. I cannot become a prison keeper, but I also cannot become a murderer out of convenience. If they choose to fight, that makes my choice easier, but every one that dies is a failure on my part to assimilate them. I do not know how Star Force does it so easily.”

“I see a landing pad. Wide on top. Flat. Can fight there,” the Ren’mak reported, its voice barely audible from so high.

Plausious flew up to him and confirmed the sighting…barely. “You have good eyes.”

“And you don’t?”

“I can barely see it, but you are correct. It is a good place, and I sense it is empty.”

“How can you sense what you cannot see well?”

“A trick of Essence. Come. Let’s prepare for their arrival,” the Reignor said, flying off towards the bit of Caretaker infrastructure on the horizon.

It took two days before the other Neofan arrived, and they came together, more than 1,000 of them on barges in a large convoy across the forest tops, then encircling the landing platform as the Caretaker units coming and going were dispersed by the arriving Neofan to disappear inside or fly off to other locations where they would be out of the way.

One barge came in from their floating circle and docked with the edge of the landing platform, allowing 14 Neofan to walk off, 12 of which were military escorts guarding the pair in the center, one of which Plausious was quite familiar with.

“Surprised to see me, Fero?” Plausious said in the Neofan language when the pair walked up near him then stopped and just stared.

“I am trying to determine if you are a clone or some other subterfuge of Star Force. And that Hadarak…”

“It is under my protection. Any who harm it will die. Is that clear?”

“Why bring it here?”

“It is of value to me, but only alive. Did you not find the tale of my death odd?”

“I did, but you were behaving oddly before you left. The Star Force taint is still upon you.”

“Why did Truven invade?”

“It was a miscalculation. The Vargemma should have tipped the scales and allowed us to seize all the Temples. We did not anticipate Star Force being able to corrupt them…nor you.”

“You claim I am corrupted. How then would you describe the Diem?”

“They ensure our purity.”

“By violating our laws?”

“Is that what truly happened? They showed us pictures of your death. How am I to know you are really Plausious?”

The Reignor’s chin tilted up slightly, and suddenly a Men’shua ensued between the pair. A telepathic struggle that they had often undertaken to test each other’s strength, and as a means to teach the younger Neofan his weaknesses and how to guard against them being exploited.

Plausious knew all his weak spots, and went for them in series as Fero tried counterattacks where his former master was the least strong. It was better than any genetic fingerprint, for a clone or imposter would not have the same mental makeup, nor the familiarity with the other’s mind, and when Fero finally succumbed to the superior onslaught, Plausious sensed he was convinced, but his companion was not as she tried to intervene and stop the momentary subjugation, but her skills were far less than either of the males, making Plausious wonder why she was here.

Fero answered in a manner she could not overhear, saying that she was a watcher assigned by Reignor Truven to ensure that the Neofan in this Temple did not become contaminated by their contact with Star Force. And if they did, she would deal with the contamination by whatever means necessary to protect the rest of the Neofan.

Plausious scowled, and to Fero’s dismay he pointed to the female and lifted her off the ground in a stranglehold.

“You let this insanity persist?” he accused Fero, as well as the others in the barges looking on as the escorts reached out with their own telepathy to break Plausious’s hold on her…and succeeded.

She dropped back to her feet, with an evil look in her eyes.

“He is full of taint. Kill him before he infects the rest of us.”

In that moment Plausious had a choice to make of how to handle this situation. He knew Star Force would handle it in a different manner, and probably be more successful in the long run, but the Reignor knew his people and their culture better than Davis’s empire did, and other than imprisoning them all indefinitely and claiming the young to train properly, he knew there would be no willing conversions. The Neofan would become a burden long before they began to be of use, and Plausious knew this galaxy did not have that much time.

Without even sending the Ren’mak off his shoulder, Plausious waved a hand in the direction of the Overseer…and cut her head off with an Essence blade that he extended out across the gap between them with her feeble attempts to stop it being negated easily with a suppression technique.

He did it so fast the guards were caught dumbstruck as her head fell and rolled across the ground while her body remained rigid and standing for several seconds before finally tipping backwards and falling with her Gorvaj catching it and propping it up halfway as they too went rigid.

“Unless you all want to die,” he bellowed vocally and telepathically, “you will abandon this madness. There is no taint in myself or in Star Force. It is a lie of the Diem, just as my death was. You know the rules. A Reignor cannot be exiled unwillingly. So if I stand before you now, how can the Diem be intact? How can they be untainted if they break the very basic tenants of our society that have kept us from killing each other into extinction like the younger races. Where is the respect for those that have lived millions of years and will live more? They left me on that Hadarak world to die without even the benefit of a warning. No questions were asked. No review was made. I was betrayed. So tell me truly, who is tainted? Me? Or the Diem?”

No one spoke, and no one moved, but Plausious sensed many on the verge of attacking.

“Explain how the Diem can be untainted. Any of you? If you are about to move against me, let it be for solid reasoning and not unintelligent zealotry. How can the Diem be truthful if I am still alive? How can they guard our society when they break its laws? They are supposed to guard against the law breaking, and yet it is they who do it? Answer me, Fero.”

“We saw your body eaten by the Hadarak.”

“Then how am I here now?”

“I do not know.”

“Insufficient response.”

“You do not understand the…changes that have occurred since your death.”

“I can guess. How many Neofan have been killed for this taint rather than exiled?”

“The Diem said it cannot be allowed to spread across the galaxy. Exiling the tainted would contaminate others.”

Plausious’s eyes filled with rage. “How many?”

“Thousands,” Fero said, breaking eye contact in shame. “And you will be too for killing her.”

“Not by you,” Plausious said, spitting the words out as he stared down the others. “I am Reignor Plausious, leader of House Atriark and now sovereign ruler of all Neofan by my decree. I am betrayed by the Diem, but that betrayal has opened my eyes to existing faults within our race. I have rid myself of those faults and become stronger than I once was by embracing the lightside. Star Force exposed me to it, but it wasn’t until I was marooned alone on a Hadarak world that I discovered what the lightside truly was. It is superiority incarnate. And that superiority is what defeated your attempt to dispossess Star Force of these Temples. Rather than accept this and learn from it, the Diem has labeled it a taint. This is a lie designed to hide the truth. The Diem deceives you, and I will not stand for it.”

That was all the guards could take, and two of them fired their weapons at him…beam weapons emanating from staffs…but Plausious caught and deflected both beams using an overlapping Essence technique as he reached out and simultaneous grasped the weapons and pulled them from their grasp…only to snap them in half before them and toss the broken technology to the ground at their feet.

But they didn’t stop there, and began a series of Essence attacks with the other guards joining in, but Fero didn’t move. That saved his life as the Ren’mak flew up above Plausious’s head as the Neofan defended himself from the multiple attacks, then it launched its own Essence wave down upon the group.

It was little more than a distraction, a simple blinding shroud designed to black out their senses and easily countered if you were skilled enough…but it required them to switch their attention off the Reignor momentarily, and because they did not expect the Ren’mak to have any Essence abilities, the blind hit them with full effect.

Before most of them could swipe it away with a cleansing wave, Plausious had sprinted forward and physically attacked two of them, breaking bone with blows practiced against much harder Hadarak bodies to perfection, and adding Essence attacks on top of them as he did not keep his distance in this fight, preferring to be within melee range and using the guards’ bodies as barriers against the others’ attacks.

Fero stood there, not attacking but also not helping the guards, as Plausious broke all of them in such efficient and feral fashion that the former Reignor ended up standing in front of Fero with his back to them as they crawled on the ground with what limbs they had remaining. Several had been tore off completely, with others smashed beyond recognition, and at least some had their necks broken, for they were not moving at all.

Plausious was angry, and Fero could sense it, but he was standing perfectly still demonstrating the control a proper Neofan required, as he looked at the barges beyond.

“I have seen the Endgame,” he told them all. “My preborn knowledge has shown me that we are nearly upon it, and it is not what we were promised. Only lightside power can trigger it, and Star Force is about to do so. When they do, all who are darkside will come to them and try to stop them. Just as you have already done. Star Force will be destroyed, or they will succeed and trigger a new race to be spawned by the lifesprings. That is what the Endgame does, and it has happened before in the distant past. But it also brings destruction upon the galaxy it occurs in, how I do not know. When the Endgame occurs, the Neofan will be destroyed. I have seen this in many ways, and not just in this galaxy, but everywhere…though I have told no one before now. Our race is over if we do not ascend to the lightside. Our past actions have tainted us, and I am here to remove the taint and give us a chance to survive what is coming. The universe is about to replace us, as it has replaced countless other races throughout the ages. We will only persist through the coming Endgame if we are worthy, and right now we are not. I have to make us ready. I have to make us worthy. That is my responsibility as a Reignor, and if I fail, we will all soon die.”

Plausious looked around, sensing those on the barges were of mixed feeling. Many were ready to attack him, but some were now fearful, for his vision ability was why he had been elevated to Reignor long ago and they respected it more than they did him.

“How many races have we discovered the remnants of?” he demanded. “Races more advanced than us who were destroyed by means unknown. The universe is littered with their rubble, and we will be no different. Star Force, for all it has accomplished, doesn’t have the strength to survive the Endgame on their own. They will fall too, though I hope I am wrong about that. I did not see the Diem’s betrayal coming. And I did not see our obvious flaws throughout my entire life. But I see them now, and we have a window of opportunity for redemption. It is narrow, but if we act fast we can save our race and save Star Force. Only together will have a chance to survive the Endgame. They are the key to our survival, and we to them. Not to join their empire. But to support it from the outside. To take the brunt of the attacks that are soon to come. You do not see it, but Truven’s invasion was one such attack. Completely illogical, but you all were compelled to follow his orders. And why? Why did you do that? Why did the Diem?”

“Because you are tainted with the darkside, and it will compel you to attack the light. The Neofan are not as dark as others, but we are still tainted, as I was before my betrayal. I no longer am. Those who wish to follow me into the small chance of a future we have left, you may do so without reprisal for past actions. We have no time for such things. Those of you who do not wish to follow this path, you will leave this galaxy and not return until such a time as you are willing to set aside what you believe it means to be Neofan and learn to become better.”

“The rest of you who choose to do neither. Those of you who will stay and resist my return to power. I have no time to coddle you as Star Force would. I must act swiftly or our race will be destroyed. And like this arrogant scum,” he said, gesturing to the decapitated female, “if you do not join me or leave this galaxy, you will meet your doom.”

“It won’t work, Plausious,” Fero said sadly. “The old days are gone. We are now scared of contact with outsiders, and any who do not share the proper safety measures are purged. They will not follow you,” he said as the barges began to drift in closer to the platform.

“And what of you, Fero?”

“I had to watch you die once. I won’t watch a second time,” he said, turning his back on Plausious and walking to his barge alone, leaving the wounded guards where they lay as the other barges began making contact and disgorging their troops.

“So be it,” Plausious declared, warning the Ren’mak telepathically that this was the moment they had planned for. “I’ll take you all on…”

7

Fero didn’t look as he drifted away on his barge alone. He heard the pops and hisses of Essence combat going off behind him, but his gaze held firmly ahead. He couldn’t save the former Reignor from his fate now, and he wished that Plausious had been wiser than just charging his way in here making ludicrous demands. His exile must have truly driven him crazy, but his killing of the Overseer was a blessing in disguise, for she had been a rope around Fero’s neck for some time now and he was glad to be free of it, if only temporarily.

The Diem would replace her with another, but that could take a few years. Until then he would hold command of this Temple without having to be second guessed…but what the former Reignor warned about was resonating within him. He felt like the Neofan were on the road to destruction, but having it plainly stated was still a shock. The debacle of the Temple invasions had made many question Truven, but the Diem were stepping in to silence any dissent and Fero was off better keeping quiet than drawing their ire.

Reignor Plausious had never been so capricious, and Fero secretly wished he was back in command of House Atriark…but there was no way he could survive the troops Fero had brought with him. He would have been remiss to bring any less than overkill, but a part of him still didn’t like this, and that’s why he wasn’t staying to see it through to the finish.

His barge had gone far enough he could no longer hear the sounds of combat, but he could still feel the telepathic screams when someone was killed or gravely injured…and there were many of them, which meant the Reignor must be putting up a good…

Fero shook as a shockwave hit him as the sound of an explosion rang in his ears. He turned back, seeing a huge plume of smoke rising from the platform. None of their weapons were capable of that, and nothing in the platform itself could be detonated with such force.

What had just happened?

Fero swung the barge around and began heading back, sensing more combat within the smoke, but as he got halfway there he started to notice it lifting to reveal a few Neofan on their knees with a fist raised over their head in a statue pose…which was the sign for subjugation.

They just knelt there silently as the rest fought, perhaps unwilling to fight the former Reignor for their own reasons. That would have to be dealt with later, though he wouldn’t execute them. There had been far too much of that going on lately, but disobedience wouldn’t stand under the scrutiny of the Diem, and Fero would be the one punished if he didn’t deal with this.

More telepathic screams were heard as the fighting continued, then they abruptly stopped. Fero telepathically searched for Plausious, expecting that to have been his last moment of combat, but the lifting smoke revealed quite a different story.

Dozens…no, hundreds of Neofan were kneeling with their fists raised, and in the center of them all Plausious still stood, with his retched avian Hadarak flying over his head, as the bodies of the fallen littered the broken pad that now had 5 distinct thin smoke plumes rising from the previous detonation points.

And around those points were many burn bodies.

Fero stopped the barge before he got there, and instead looked at Plausious across the wide gap, seeing only a tiny silhouette, but he was close enough for a proper telepathic conversation.

What do you hope to gain from this? Plausious asked Fero. You should have known I would not come unprepared.

What did you do to them?

You did not come quickly, so I made some alterations to the landing pad. The survivors are wisely relinquishing combat. Are you?

I did not want to fight you, but this is not a winnable scenario. You can’t take on all of us in the Temple.

I gave you a chance Fero, and I give you one again. Serve me as you once did.

That would be a death sentence from the Diem.

Do we no longer exile those who disagree? Where is the respect a proper Neofan shows?

Gone when you disappeared, Plausious. I fear there is no going back now.

No, there is no going back. Only forward. You can join us, or you can choose exile. Do not force me to kill you in combat.

Us? Fero asked.

I did not kill them all.

Suddenly those kneeling stood in unison and turned to face Fero with their arms held defiantly across their chests, making their telepathic intentions quite clear. They were rejecting his command and that of the Diem and the false Reignor Truven. They were now loyal to the legitimate Reignor Plausious.

You will all be killed, Fero warned.

Only as many as needed, Plausious amended. I am here to save the Neofan, not destroy them. How many more die is up to the rest of you. I recommend you head for the Zotav now, and take as many of the others with you that will not swear allegiance to me. We do not have to be enemies. We can simply part ways.

It is not that simple.

It is, you just do not see it yet. Tell me, my old apprentice, would I come here without a plan for victory? Or do you think me truly insane?

Until a moment ago I did. You should be dead now.

I warned you I was more powerful.

Not enough to claim this Temple.

I intend to claim the Neofan race, Fero. Not just this one Temple.

And do what then?

I will end the war with Star Force and begin rebuilding us into a far greater power than you can conceive. We have been tricked into wearing the blinders of the darkside, so we cannot see what we lack. I will rip those blinders off and force us to see the universe as it is, and the doom that pursues us. Then and only then will we be able to face our destiny and find a pathway through it to our survival.

We will not be welcome in Yenoiv.

Then stay on the Zotav until you receive orders from House Mutavi, or travel to other Zotav. But leave this galaxy and do not return unless you wish to serve, or you wish to die.

Fero sighed. There is a warship coming.

I know.

It will destroy you in a single shot.

Then you had better get out of the blast radius.

Don’t throw your life away, Fero pleaded.

I’ve already been ordered killed. Are you rescinding that order?

I’m not the one who gave it.

Are you in command here or not?

I thought you said you were?

Stop evading, Plausious lectured. Does the Diem rule or does Truven?

Technically Truven.

Did he assign you here?

Yes.

Then command the warship to stand down, Plausious said as a small ball appeared over the horizon and was steadily growing larger.

They won’t obey the order.

Why not?

Because the Diem runs everything, and their spies are everywhere. Disloyalty will not be tolerated.

And Truven allows this?

He is so scared of being declared tainted he will do whatever the Diem wants and everyone knows it. He is a puppet, Fero said, feeling fear at saying it out loud, as well as relief in finally admitting it. Run back to the portal while you still can.

I am staying here. You go.

Plausious do not die here.

Why do you care?

I don’t…I don’t want it to end this way. We are too old to die like this.

Leave or pick a side. The Gjardan is nearly here.

I can’t call them off. I had to leverage them to meet you in person first. They wanted to fire on you before even hearing you out. The fear of the taint is that…strong, Fero said, realizing he would be marked for just being in proximity.

Insanity has no bounds, and it is the true taint.

In that moment Fero knew his position was now gone, and his chances of being allowed to live were slim. Plausious was right, his only chance now was to run, and with the Gjardan growing larger on the horizon the Neofan spun the barge around and accelerated at maximum speed away from the landing pad enroute to the closest portal he knew of.

“Goodbye, Fero,” Plausious whispered as the Ren’mak continued to flap in a hover above him. “Find the survivors and secure them. Do not let them bleed out.”

The Neofan around him broke apart and searched through the dead for the dying as the spherical warship rapidly approached, but Plausious did not run. He merely called the Ren’mak down to his shoulder and stared at it as it approached, eventually blotting out the sun directly overhead as it became a large white moon above them.

Eventually a landing craft descended from it and docked on the edge of the now cratered pad, with two Neofan walking out amongst a phalanx of guards…with one of them in shackles.

“Greetings, Reignor,” Commander Yuer said, shoving the bound male towards him. “What do you want done with this one?”

“Another Overseer?”

“The Diem has them planted on every ship to make sure we do not begin to show taint.”

“Clearly I have failed,” the bound one said, hesitant to look in Plausious’s direction. “How long have you planned this mutiny?”

“From the moment I heard the true Reignor was still alive,” Yuer admitted. “And I won’t be the only one.”

“We will all die for this,” he warned.

“Commander, see to the wounded, but do not trust them.”

“And the others?”

“They have made their choice and serve me once again.”

“What’s with the Hadarak?”

“He is my new traveling companion. In all the history of the Neofan/Hadarak war, have you ever heard of one changing sides?”

“Never.”

“Now you have seen one,” Plausious said proudly. “And I return with more knowledge of the Hadarak our people have never possessed, along with the ability to control them the way their masters do. That is how I managed to escape.”

“Then you control this one?”

“No. I don’t have to. He is my friend.”

“What’s this I hear about the Endgame happening now?”

“We are on the cusp of it and ill prepared. Star Force is triggering it, though I am not sure how and neither do they. The lightside will trigger it when sufficiently advanced, and it will draw many enemies here. We will not be that enemy.”

“Good. This has been a wasteful war. Will they accept a truce?”

“No, Commander. They will accept nothing less than full allies. I have Director Davis’s full confidence and friendship. As long as I am leading the Neofan, the war is over and we will both prepare to face the Endgame war.”

“You are not the Reignor,” the Overseer sneered, only to have the Commander kick him in the back of the knees and force him to the ground.

“Take this one and all others that refuse to obey, or who wish to leave, to the portals and send them to the nearest Zotav. Out of respect they will not be killed, but I want them out of our way.”

“What of Truven?”

“Where is he?”

“Hiding in your quarters and rarely comes out. The Diem moves around giving the orders and daring you to question their authority to do so. They deserve to die, Reignor.”

“Is there one here?”

“I don’t think so. We’re stationed here to prevent Star Force from taking it back, but otherwise this entire Temple has been tainted with the stench of failure. It’s where they send those of us who don’t enthusiastically follow orders the moment they are given. Do you wish to come onboard?”

“No, but I do need Essence. My personal well is nearly depleted.”

“Most impressive, Reignor. Even I thought you were outmatched.”

“I want an accounting of every Neofan here. They serve or they leave. Who else is in the Temple?”

“A lot of Vargemma, but we were told to execute all Star Force personnel. Some escaped into hiding, and when I have occasionally spotted traces of them I’ve ignored them. I don’t know how many, but most are dead.”

“Secure the Temple first. I expect a reprisal to hit us before we can spread to another Temple, and I don’t want to have to worry about who is loyal and who is not. We need to find out now, and fast.”

“Then you need to make an announcement to the entire Temple and declare your return. I’ll be able to sort out after that which ships are loyal and which ones will have to be taken, but I think we can avoid a lot of unnecessary fights if we display the recordings of what happened here and you make your demands known immediately…but not while you’re an easy target out in the open.”

“Agreed. I’ll travel in the catacombs until the fleet is secured, but I’ll transmit from your landing craft.”

“Give me a moment to set it up,” he said, kicking the overseer once more for good measure before turning around and heading into the ship.

Plausious lifted the Overseer to his feet with the wave of his hand, then looked the other Neofan in the eyes from only a few finger lengths away.

“They will not submit,” the Overseer warned.

“I don’t expect they all will. When you get to the Zotav, know this. If one day you lose your insanity and wish to rejoin the Neofan, you are welcome to do so along with any other exiles. I now wonder how many good people we sent out there simply because we did not understand that we were in the wrong. I have a lot of blood on my hands from the past, but I am clean of it now because I have chosen another path and acted on it. You always have that choice, no matter where you go or what you do. Never forget that.”

“I hope House Mutavi burns this entire galaxy down.”

Plausious leaned in even closer. “They are welcome to try.”

8

The fighting didn’t take long to escalate elsewhere in the Temple, and almost as soon as Commander Yuer returned to his warship two others were redirected to his position with orders to his crew to relieve him of possession of it.

That didn’t go over well, and the few that tried were quickly subdued but not killed, with Yuer bringing his ship to battle status and authorizing full use of reserve Essence…something that was never done, given how precious it was. Even in the retreat from Utovi the warships rarely risked deplenishing their full reserve to the point of nothing. If they did so, the ship would only be able to fight using conventional weaponry and conventional defenses…but in this situation his going to full burn would force the other ships to do the same, else they would be easily defeated.

Gjardans had been designed to fight the Hadarak’s Essence-capable units as well as their swarms, and in order to do so they had to have significant burst capability in order to take out targets before they could exchange damage. This was also useful against most other races, but the longevity wasn’t there for their maximum output, which was why Yuer and the other fleet commanders had been taught to only draw on their Essence reserves on a limited basis as necessary, and missions that required a deep draw were hardly ever assigned.

That’s why his ship powering up to full on weapons and defenses shocked the two approaching ships into a slower closing rate as they were most likely querying the Truven’s command staff that ran the Temple about how to proceed. That may or may not have included Fero, but the intercepted messages to the two warships had not gone out under his name, so it was possible that he had in fact fled the Temple.

The return messages were also visible, for no direct line of sight transmissions were being used…perhaps because House Atriark had never engaged in ship to ship fighting before and they didn’t think about encoding the message to hide them. It was rare between Houses, for the Gjardans were so powerful that they garnered a respect that made them prizes to be won rather than instruments of internal conflict.

But Yuen knew what was going on now. Before he had left he had requested that the Reignor explain his aura alteration, for it was disruptive. He did not feel like a normal Neofan, and Yuer wanted to know the reason for the change without challenging him. He’d already made his choice, but he wanted clarity going forward.

Plausious had given it to him in the form of a mind meld, which was something that only Neofan possessed. Of all the races they had encountered and cataloged, none had the ability to graft one’s aura onto another. It would be done forcefully as an overwrite or lightly as a way to inform someone of lessons learned beyond their years, and was rarely used given the vulnerability both methods required, but Yuer trusted Plausious, and he needed to know what he had learned that had changed him so.

The Reignor had agreed, and over the course of a few moments the light connection had taught him the lightside, bits of Plausious’s history since his ‘death,’ and his vision of the future where he foresaw the Neofan’s existence hanging by a tenuous thread. That last part was the reason for the alacrity, and why Yuer had brought his ship up to maximum burn. They had to act now, and any delay would snowball to their enemies’ advantage here and afar.

Yuer was now changed himself, and he could not go back. He could not unsee what Plausious had showed him, and as he had boarded the landing craft to return to the warship he saw others requesting the same of Plausious, with him repeating the delicate process with several of them.

It wasn’t a command or a rewrite, but it showed him how Neofan society was flawed, holding them back, and put them on the wrong side of history. It made him sick to think about it, so he didn’t try. The graft was meant to offer conclusions rather than data for analysis, and Yuer was not going to contest the Reignor’s knowledge. He was going to act on it.

And when the order came for three more Gjardans to rendezvous with the stalled two, he didn’t hesitate to give the order to attack while calling on all loyal ships to join him.

That was some time ago, and right now he was running through the corridors on his ship carrying a negation staff as multiple hull breaches had allowed boarders to get through into the outer shell, for the Gjardans were built with multiple hulls, almost as if they were ships inside of ships inside of ships. There were 7 of them, each with its own armor, shields, and weaponry, but the Essence reserve sat in the center, or near to there, for the internal components could be shifted about depending on which side the heaviest attack was coming from.

But the ship was designed for the crew to be able to move from shell to shell even when the defenses were up, so once holes were hammered into the outer hull, troops from the attacking warships were able to transmute into the outer shell, but no further. They’d have to physically pass through the interlock sections to get further inside, meaning possession of this ship was now being contested internally.

With the outer shell’s weaponry and shields mostly disabled or destroyed, the ship couldn’t use the others without discarding the outer shell, which Yuer had ordered not to do. The other ships would have to blast their way through it to get to the next shield, and it was obvious they had no intention of wasting the power needed to do that as the naval fight was continuing to escalate beyond 20 vessels involved. 13 were still loyal to Truven, 7 to Plausious, but only 3 of each were still actively battling at nearly full power. All the others were damaged, disabled, or had troops onboard vying for control of them.

And none of them had chosen to jettison their outer shells to continue the fight. Destroying a Gjardan was unthinkable, and the damage already done was something Yuer would never have agreed to if Plausious’s graft had not been given. And right now that gave him an advantage, for the enemy was very hesitant to fully fight, and that had allowed his 7 ships to go even with 13, but right now possession of his Gjardan was going to be won or lost with hand to hand combat, and that’s where he was headed.

The few exterior weapons left were still active, and he had given orders on what to do with them until they were destroyed, but all crew that were not essential to that operation were now being summoned to the armories to gear up to fight other Neofan…and that was something equally unheard of. There had never been a full civil war within House Atriark, but it looked like there was one now, for Truven’s allies were crazy enough to start one rather than submitting to the rightful Reignor’s return. Neofan law was on his side, but they didn’t care…and he knew Plausious no longer cared either, for as soon as he had the chance he was going to rewrite Neofan society in a major way that was going to destroy the past in order to save their future.

The Gjardan had professional brawlers onboard. All of them did, for just such a boarding action, but there was no guarantee they would win out against their opposites, especially when there were twice as many ships in play to send boarders over from, so all of his crew was being assigned to assist, including himself. This ship could not fall. Plausious was depending on it, and if a fight had to occur hand to hand, the pent up ire of his ship’s crew at the obnoxious overbearing Overseer’s previous actions already had them spoiling for a fight that was long in the making, but one that no one ever thought would actually happen.

Yuer didn’t have time to get into a Berserker suit, nor did he want to deprive the brawlers of one, so like the rest of the crew he grabbed a negation staff and began to charge it with their personal Essence on the way to the 6th shell where the fighting had broken out. When he got there a wall of Neofan were absorbing Essence attacks on their overlapping staffs, each of which created an aura around it that would deflect or shield against anything coming their way, including energy or physical attacks of speed, but would not interfere with slow moving attacks such as punches, kicks, or grapples.

The staffs were an easy way to negate an enemy’s advantage for a short period of time, and right now his crew ahead of him just looked to be trying to hold the hallway as they were slowly walking backwards under the assault.

He couldn’t see what was ahead. Too many grapple fields overlapping for him to sense through, but his telepathy and theirs was working once he made contact, and he was able to see through the eyes of those in the front row as several fallen crew were visible being trampled by their opposite number, all of whom were equally armed with no Berserker units.

“Make a hole!” he yelled, charging his way to the center of the line and going through with two others following him who had not yet fought. They were fresh and could have the most impact, and he knew this was no time to be conservative, so he ran with his staff held out in front of him vertically as he charged the two ends into glowing topaz crystals that had nothing to do with Essence, but rather were stun nubs.

As soon as he got into the gap his staff took hits, each glowing red in an umbrella of energy before him, but they didn’t slow his movements and he shot through the gap so fast that he was up to the opposing troops in three heartbeats, with him dipping his staff down and jabbing it forward at full run with his target taking a step back in shock…but that was all the opening he needed.

The staff made contact with the other’s body and delivered the massive dose of stun energy required to render him unconscious in a single blow…after which Yuer swung the staff around to parry a jab at him, following by many more interlocking slashes and uppercuts trying to move his staff out of position so they could get to his body, but he was too experienced in this form of combat to lose to this Truven trash.

The two Neofan with him did less well, but the focus was on Yuer and he used that to their advantage, punching through their three deep rows by using his staff as a ram, holding it horizontally and just pushing forward. Nobody could use Essence attacks at this close range, for the staffs would negate them, so they all fought hand to hand and frantically tried to make strikes against each other.

And many did, for the bodies were hitting the floor rapidly, but Yuer was older than Plausious and not one of the more subtle commanders. He kept himself physically fit beyond the minimum standards, and it was paying off now as he got behind their lines and downed several before they even realized he was behind them…then the attrition started as his own crew were dropping as fast as the enemy, with his presence being the deciding factor.

Soon the hallway was quiet, with 6 of his crew remaining conscious, but there were many other points of contact where fighting was happening in the ship and any one that broke through could eventually gain access to the critical systems and disable or commandeer the ship.

“Stay here and restrain them,” he told his crew. “Once down, I don’t want them returning to the fight. When our people wake up, stay here until called for. This may be a long fight.”

One of his crew picked up the staff of the enemy that appeared to have ample charge still in it, and tossed it to Yuer. He nodded his thanks and took off running with a staff in each hand backtracking the enemy’s movements by the scattering of bodies laying around, few of which were dead, but some Essence attacks had landed, and he couldn’t tell from the tattered uniforms to which ship they belonged…

Plausious watched the warship battle from below ground using the Temple systems. The ships loyal to him had outperformed his expectations, but they were not winning. It looked to be more of a stalemate as the boarding actions were taking place on almost all vessels, but very few of Truven’s because he had more people to board with.

But this was also happening almost directly above them, which meant they were in range to send help if the shields were down…and Plausious had been waiting for the right opportunity to move as even more Gjardans were heading their way, having to travel slowly across the center of the Temple or more rapidly around the outer curve. Either way, it was gradual travel with so little gravity, and before long it looked like most of the 73 warships were going to be involved, though two were still holding position far off, perhaps not wanting to pick a side.

Yet while Truven’s people were sending the warships to fight, Plausious had been communicating with other Neofan in the cities and outposts across the Temple…and not using transmissions visible to all. Even now people who had been informed of his intentions by the released prisoners, and then those who had seen him and the Ren’mak fight and win the attempted execution as it was stupidly played for all to watch as an example before Yuer even had a chance to release it, were choosing sides with many random fights sparking without the Reignor even ordering it.

He was monitoring those while making contact and directing some of them…so this civil war wasn’t just happening in the Gjardans, but also in the cities across the Temple and the rest of the infrastructure. Pretty much wherever the Neofan were, and Plausious was getting his people to claim strategic areas before Truven’s forces even knew they were under attack.

But the Gjardans were the key, and whoever possessed them could bombard the surface to their hearts’ content, for the Caretakers would not intervene from damage caused by Neofan ships…nor would it matter if they did, for the Gjardans were far more powerful than any technology donated to the construction of the Temples.

That was why, when most of the 13 Truven warships were damaged enough for the holes in their outer shells to be easily visible from the ground, Plausious readied those converts that had submitted to him at the platform and received his graft at the backup portal position, with them all standing next to the wall as he mentally altered the targeting protocols.

“My friend, you are exhausted,” he told the Ren’mak. “You have to stay here. You fought well, but you can barely fly now. I won’t be long. I promise.”

“How long?” it asked.

“Long enough to capture those,” he said, pointing to the cluster of white balls high in the sky. “Stay here and rest. I will need you later.”

“I will stay,” it said, flying up and landing on the top of the wall where it perched and rested its fatigued wings. “Destroy them all.”

“Hopefully I won’t have to,” he said, telepathically gesturing to the others. “When we get onboard, it is the ship we want, not the crew. Disable them and move on quickly. We must be in and out before they know we are there.”

“Do we kill them?” of the professional brawlers asked.

“Disable them, and only kill if absolutely necessary. If we cannot take those ships, they can and will use them to destroy us. We must take control of them, and if they put up enough resistance to delay us, then we do what we must. Our objective is to save our race, and I want no unnecessary deaths. Understand?”

“We do, and we obey.”

“We move with speed or we fail,” Plausious said, getting the portal to lock on to all 219 of them. “Charge weapons.”

The group did so in unison, with a wide variety of rifles, gauntlets, staffs, and a few exotic weapons, but no Berserker suits. When they came across those, they’d have to work quickly to subdue them, and Plausious knew better than most how to do it.”

“For the future,” he said, triggering the portal with all of them blinking out of view in a cascade of air pops that made the Ren’mak jump from its perch in reflex…

9

The portal system was more than just the connection between two points, though it was rarely used any other way. One of those ways was to ‘transmute,’ which involved having one fixed point and one calculated one. The portal ‘arch’ that was the machinery that made it work was also fitted with sensors that could cover a significant distance over the surrounding area. If an ‘empty’ region was identified, the portal could yank you into the Essence realm and throw you towards that point at a specific speed, then cause your trip to be terminated at that spot.

It didn’t work as well in reverse, for the reversion was not controlled as much as it was timed, so what happened on the far end was not something the distant portal could reliably affect. In this way the Gjardans could board one another without an airlock connection or landing craft or free space transfer, but only if the shields that prevented such things were not active.

Those shields created a ripple in the Essence realm that would bounce a bubble off it and not allow it to pass…in which case you would revert at the edge of the shield or somewhere else, which often would be lethal, and in the case of a transfer in space, if you didn’t have vacuum-protective armor, you’d die instantly outside the ship.

But with the damage done to the ships, the portal on the surface could do the same thing at the cost of a significant amount of Essence…which is why such travel was not regularly done. The Gjardans had portals of their own that could be used, but those would either be locked down or guarded, and were the point of transit for the boarding parties to go from one vessel to another.

Plausious knew better than to try and use them, even though they were currently unlocked for the most part. Two ships did have them locked down, and he chose one of those to board first, expecting the heaviest resistance there…or the least if they sent most of their crew to fight Plausious’s ships’ crews.

The transit between surface and ship took a matter of seconds, then he was popping into a cargo area that was empty along with his troops…then they got moving through empty corridors heading towards the nearest Essence signatures and several key points in the large ships where they could disable their combat ability entirely.

Plausious’s team disabled two Berserkers that were still onboard ship with some effort, but most of the rest of the crew surrendered without a fight, not truly wishing to fight the Reignor anyway. Some even helped them take over the ship, and Plausious had to make some on the spot judgement calls on who to trust and who not to, for he couldn’t remain on this Gjardan.

Leaving behind three of his men and several converts to hold a ship far too large to control, he took his loyal followers plus new additions to another nearby ship…and another, and another…growing his troops faster than he lost them, for the enemy was out to kill rather than disable, and as well as this boarding action was going, it was not bloodless.

The remaining intact warships were fighting it out during this time, with the final one loyal to Truven backing off before it could be disabled, but a team from one of the other ships managed to sneak a small team onboard through a gap in the shields when they weren’t looking…who then sabotaged the shields and called out to Plausious’s team with one of the portals on the fleeing ship.

Portal to portal transfers had far more range, and even as the ship ran along the inner edge of the curved landscape at decent speed, the movements were not only calculated, but one portal was able to steer the ‘package’ towards destination to insure it didn’t miss.

Plausious didn’t go with them, as his men feared it might be a trap and begged him to let them go alone. He agreed, staying behind with his captured fleet as some of his original ships needed help fending off the enemy boarders there, and split his troops. Some went to the fleeing ship, others were divided into strike teams with at least one grafted individual on each of them and dispatched to the fighting that remained.

Plausious went to Yuer’s ship, and got into some heavy fighting as his loyal commander was pinned down into one of the critical areas in the ship. The last scrap he got into didn’t have the element of surprise, and his team of 18 Neofan came up on a sealed area that was leading to Yuer’s holdout position, with the fighting happening within.

The Reignor didn’t even bother trying to cut through the doors, and jumped right through them, dipping into the Essence realm temporarily and popping back out on the other side. If his grapple fields hadn’t been able to scan through he wouldn’t have done so, but the risky maneuver was standard today with everyone fighting at higher levels than normal given the gravity of the situation. Plausious’s own Essence reserves were low, but the troops ahead had to be even lower, including the ships’ crew who had already telepathically reported to him they were about to break.

When the Reignor emerged on the other side his team came through behind him, popping individually into view as he ran forward single staff in hand and dove into three enemies that had turned to face him, not even bothering to try and stun them with the weapon, but using it to parry their blows so he could step in and punch them with his free hand.

One he grabbed and threw across the room by muscle alone, and with everyone’s Essence levels so low his muscular advantage held supreme. He broke bones, tore limbs part way off their bodies, and otherwise disrupted and disabled them enough for his troops to come up and stun them as they cleared out the last threat in the ship as Yuer and 6 others were ahead, hidden behind a partial blast door that had been rendered by several Essence attacks and stood contorted and punctured with numerous holes.

“I wish I had told you to come earlier,” Yuer said, his right arm mangled beyond recognition and shrunk by half its usual mass.

“What did they hit you with?” Plausious asked.

“Somebody used a Breinar Strand,” he said, spitting some blood from a small gash on his face that was leaking into his mouth. “These traitors have no honor left.”

“Shall I remove it for you?” Plausious offered, referring to the dead arm that hung at his side.

“Save your Essence. I can deal with it later. There are still more ships out there.”

“Not anymore. We have them all.”

Yuer’s eyes widened. “How?”

“We boarded them from the ground, and significant portions of their crews did not want to fight us. The two ships that did not engage were apparently fighting onboard, and our loyalists won out. There’s significant damage and moderate loss of life, but the fleet is ours.”

“Yours,” Yuer said with great relief and gratitude. “What about the cities?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve been fighting almost nonstop since I left the surface.”

“They need to know we control the fleet. It might stop a lot of the fighting.”

“Do you have a transmitter still working?”

“Use junction 4 auxiliary command node. Everything else is offline from the damage or our sabotage. We had to reduce access points or they would have claimed them. They sent most of their crews over,” Yuer said with a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

“We exploited that miscalculation,” he said, placing a hand on the Commander’s good shoulder as he passed him by and ran with a few of his troops following him all the way to the command node where he accessed one of two intact transmitters on the outer hull from which he broadcast into the Temple comm network.

“Installation 0193, this is Reignor Plausious. I have secured control over the entire Gjardan fleet within the Temple. We now hold the high ground, and I urge those loyal to the illegitimate Reignor Truven to stand down. I promise there will be no executions for those who surrender, nor imprisonment. You will be sent outside this galaxy and may travel to Yenoiv if you wish. I want you gone, not dead, but continue fighting and killing those loyal to me, and I cannot guarantee you will live to see capture.”

“To the Vargemma, I know you are confused now. Never before have the Neofan conflicted each other, but know this. I am the true Reignor of House Atriark, and those that called upon you to war against Star Force and your own brothers here in the Temple are traitors. I will not execute you either if you surrender now. Much wrong has been done in the past, and my focus is on the future. Choose now to embrace my rule and you will be absolved for past actions.”

“I need those who are loyal to secure all infrastructure within this Temple and block usage of it. I want everything locked down until I can remove the disloyal. Do not attack the Neofan if you have a choice, for the Caretakers will target you in response. I have not yet had a chance to reprogram them. But you can block portals, seize transports, and communicate to help identify where the pockets of resistance are. I call upon you to do this so we can secure this Temple in as efficient a manner as possible.”

“Also know this. I am not at war with Star Force, and I come here with the understanding that my rule is not opposed by Star Force. I am allies and friends with their leader, Director Davis, and once I resume full possession of House Atriark, the war is immediately over. We have far bigger ones to fight in the future, and I will require your assistance to do so. You were promised a grand war against the Hadarak one day, and that war has already begun. Star Force is winning it, and many of your brethren are fighting with them, but a larger war is coming, and if we do not go to it, it will come here, inside the Temples, and fight you in your homes.”

“You have been given a great gift by being placed inside this Temple, and those of you who came from the outside remember this. Those who were born here do not fully understand, but you were told you owed us your servitude. I am not commanding you to help me. I am asking you to choose to help me. I will provide the leadership you have been lacking, and should have had long ago. I admit the Neofan have not lived up to the promises made to you, but with my return that is changing, for I have been changed. I was betrayed by my own people and left to die alone on a Hadarak world. I survived and have seen the failings in my past, and within our race. I have also seen the future, and if the Neofan do not change our race will be destroyed and the Temples with us.”

“Your fate and ours are now linked, and I ask for your loyalty. Not blind loyalty. Not loyalty coerced or leveraged. If you do not choose to follow me, continue making your daily Essence donations and nothing more will be required of you to continue living here. But for those of you who desire more, now is the time. I cannot secure this Temple without your help. There are too few Neofan, and too much work to be done. I do not know how many traitors there are within the Temple, but they must be found out and captured…not killed. Whether they be Neofan or Vargemma, do not kill them except in self-defense. We must preserve as much of our strength as possible, and the actions we take in the next few moments will be very costly if not taken wisely.”

“So travel to the infrastructure, secure it, and report to the Gjardan fleet where you are and who you are loyal to. We will offer further direction from here until we can secure the Neofan cities.”

“On a personal note, I want to offer my apologies for failing you in the past. You deserved better than you were treated, and you saw that under Star Force’s rule. Then you foolishly betrayed them at our order. That order should never have been given. A lot of things should never have happened. I cannot change the past, but I can change the future, and the mistakes of the past will not be repeated while I am Reignor. I swear this to you…”

Truven had sent many Overseers to this Temple to ensure the loyalty of his military Commanders especially, but also other elements of the Neofan population that were moved here to rule this Temple. They heard Plausious’s plea to the Vargemma and were nauseated to discover he had captured all of the Gjardans. But what they discovered over the next few days was that his speech to the Vargemma was immensely successful. They began disobeying the Neofan through peaceful resistance, and many of them were killed for that absurdity, but there were not enough faithful Neofan left here to deal with their insurrection.

And what was even worse was the capitulation of most of the Neofan population. Less than 10% remained loyal to Truven and the Diem, and they were being overwhelmed in battle by the others or surrendering without converting.

Amongst the Temple leadership there was one individual placed here by Truven that held ultimate command…without the others knowing it. He was simply referred to as the Hand of the Reignor by those few who knew of his existence, and only the Overseers were aware of his presence.

They were the first to be rounded up, aside from those who had fled and were in hiding…but the Vargemma were identifying their positions and reporting them to Plausious’s strike teams, with the number of free Truven loyalists being reduced to almost none.

The Hand of the Reignor was one of those left, and along with a small team of others they quietly made their way through the Temple’s infrastructure network to the heart of the giant sphere where the artificial star was located. In truth it was an emitter where hydrogen was fused, being drawn from a gigantic reserve waiting in a storage tank hidden within the spherical emitter…but there were cracks between the emitters where access could be made, and through those breaks replacement hydrogen was delivered by the Caretakers, collected from outside the Temple.

Also within that inner structure was the mechanism to trigger the cleansing of the Temple. The command pathways had already been blocked by the former Reignor Plausious, for he had the activation codes for it along with many other things the rest of the Neofan lacked, but so did the true Reignor, and he had given his Hand certain codes to use, along with orders on when to use them.

This Temple was now lost, and those within it were now enemies of House Atriark, including the Vargemma that could not be quickly replaced. But allowing them to assist Plausious would be the greater travesty.

The cleansing mechanism could not be activated remotely with Plausious’s block in place, but it could be activated manually if the comm link to the block was cut. That meant there would be no escape for the Hand and those with him, for there were no portals here, but at this point it didn’t matter. This insurrection had to be put down, and he had long ago resolved to die for the Reignor if necessary.

Today was going to be that day, and now that they were entering the construct through the gap between the fiery emitters and sensing no one here, there was nothing that Plausious could do to stop them.

Nothing at all.

10

The Temple had multiple ways to cleanse the unwanted population, first and foremost were the Caretakers that would isolate and destroy individual targets. Second were the regional emitters, which could, when given enough Essence, send waves of energy over the landscape delivering different types of attacks, the largest of which would disintegrate thousands of square miles of surface down to the bedrock.

That last ditch attempt would be if a certain area was so infested with a problem…potentially Hadarak…that it needed to be wiped clean and rebuilt again. It wouldn’t penetrate the deeper rock layers, and definitely not the outer shell of the Temple itself, but everything on the surface would be gone, and the amount of Essence required for that was massive. Sending a Lian’no burst to stop the hearts of everyone in a certain area was far more economical, but the designers of the Temple wanted multiple methods of control established for both known threats and unforeseeable ones.

The emitters for the destructive area of effect weapons had been removed by Star Force, then rebuilt by the Neofan after they took possession of Installation 0193. Those had been deactivated by Reignor Plausious when he arrived in the Temple and could not be reactivated except to go to the region itself and attempt a manual override with the same level of codes.

But that would only affect one small area, after which Plausious would stop any further attempts in other regions, and the vast void of space inside the Temple would not be affected, for they were designed only for the surface and the thin shell of atmosphere and space above it.

However, there was one other mechanism in the Temples that had never been used in any galaxy. It had been tested, twice, when the first Temples were being constructed to insure it worked, but it had never been put into practice. Launching a disintegration attack across the entire surface of the Temple would require more Essence than anyone could even dream of producing except if every land surface was full of denizens, and no Temple in the history of the entire network had even come close to filling half of one.

But like with all Essence weapons, upgrading an existing physical or energy attack was much easier, and the artificial star in the center of the Temple offered one such possibility.

Or rather, not the emitters themself, but the hydrogen stored there. Its gravitational force was minimal and nowhere near what an actual star would possess, but if that hydrogen could be forced to fuse together…let alone in a 6 stage process…the amount of energy released would equal an extremely large surge of photonic energy that would then spread out greatly as it tried to reach the distant surface.

Add Essence enhancement to that and, properly calibrated, you could incinerate the entire surface of the Temple down through the dirt into the upper layers of bedrock, destroying all people, trees, bodies of water, and even buildings if it was calibrated properly. Too much would destroy the Temple itself, and that was not permissible, which was why the Temples were only allowed to store a maximum amount of hydrogen inside so an enhanced explosion would not have enough power to crack the gigantic shell…but it would destroy all infrastructure within that was above the bedrock, including all the spacebound facilities hidden in cloaking fields, as well as the hydrogen storage facility and the stellar emitters.

Everything would be gone, including whatever problem had risen to such a level that the Temple would be required to induce such a massive self-inflicted wound to remedy the situation.

Plausious had also deactivated that mechanism, but once inside it the Hand of the Reignor, using Truven’s codes, was able to bring it back online and began siphoning Essence out of the many wells spread throughout the Temple, using the Vargemma’s own donations over their long history here to end them.

There was no resistance. The Caretakers did not respond to Neofan as threats, nor were they barred from any area within the Temple. None of Plausious’s people were here, nor were any Vargemma, nor had they been. This was one of those places that nobody went unless something broke, and even if it did it would be the Caretakers that went in to fix it.

Which meant there was no one to stop them, and even if someone saw the Essence transfer there was no way to get here in time to prevent it, for there were no portals inside the emitters. Truven’s faithful few had to get here physically from nearby stations, flown by Caretaker craft that brought in more hydrogen. And all of Plausious’s ships were too far away to get here even if they used the full power of their engines…assuming they had any Essence left after that insane battle.

Hopefully the damage done would leave them vulnerable to the blast wave, but whether they survived or not, everyone else here would be lost to them and they would have nothing but an empty desolate shell remaining…which in the short term would be worthless…only to be restored to its current glory over the course of at least half a million years.

It would cost the Hand his life and the life of those with him. He would not have brought them here if he had known it would be completely undefended. He had expected some safeguards put in place by Plausious when he deactivated it, and even now he offered the others a chance to try and flee during the buildup…but they all refused, knowing there was no way to get out of here in time without direct access to a portal. So rather than panicking, they simply remained with the Hand and stoically waited for the master stroke to land.

It wasn’t a complicated process. The charging required the code, and when complete it required it again to detonate, which the Hand of the Reignor did without hesitation. This Temple was now compromised and had to be cleansed, and his life was worth the cost to keep Plausious from using it as a power base. Reports of what had happened here were already sent out to the other Temples, so Truven would know and prepare if Plausious survived. Now all that was left was to inflict the damage and take away all that he thought he had just stolen from the rightful Reignor.

With the lengthy code keys input again, all that was required was the pressing and holding of a button on a pedestal with two hands, one on each side as if they were two buttons, but they both went to the same trigger, in just case one was accidentally hit as the computer system here made one last audible message informing the user of what they were about to do.

The Hand already knew and was not deterred, pressing down both sides of the trigger, then hearing a mechanical whizzing before the floor underneath him exploded so fast and fierce he didn’t even see it happen as the extremely dense photonic wave disintegrated all molecules it came in contact with…and it wasn’t even Essence enhanced to do that.

Plausious felt it before the ship’s sensors could detect it. The Essence part anyway, and dread filled him as his mind quickly contemplated what was happening, but not how. Only a Reignor could input the codes necessary, which meant someone here had to have them…or they’d rebuild the machinery to not require it.

He knew there were only minutes before the shockwave reached the surface after the sensors detected it coming, and he was probably only a few minutes ahead of that happening.

He had to act fast.

The Reignor was in a command node, thankfully, overseeing action on the ground as the fighting continued in some areas, so he had access to the comm unit that he set to broadcast everywhere, knowing that the other half of the Temple would be hit before his words could get to them.

“All Neofan, you are about to die,” he said quickly, speaking faster than normal. “Someone has triggered the purging protocol for the entire Temple. A stellar blast wave is coming that will destroy everything on the surface, including the buildings. Get down into the catacombs immediately, as deep as you can. Go now.”

He didn’t waste any more words, for if people listened a few moments longer that could be too long for them, so he adjusted the comm to go to the warships and other Neofan ships only.

“Raise all shields and turn them towards the Temple center. Use all Essence reserves. The detonation will be Essence enhanced into a Bru’qua effect. Calibrate for that, concussive, and photonic impact. Any ship without sufficient shields needs to hide in the shadow of another. Group together and cover up, but leave your shields facing the surface open and begin bring up as many people off the surface as you can. Locate those within range and deadlock the portals to come here. Also try for capture transmutation and have the crew set up beacons. Get everyone possible here as fast as you can. Do it immediately and do not ask questions. Everyone will be dead in moments.”

The Ren’mak squawked, feeling Plausious’s rage and dread. Thankfully he had retrieved him off the surface a day ago, and if the shields held they should be safe here.

“Ship status,” he demanded of the crew on station, for the Commander of this vessel had been on the other side and was now a captive as Plausious claimed it as his own flagship.

“There are too many hull breaches to turn away from the Temple center,” one of the Neofan he had yet to learn the name of reported. “But shielding is up and charging. Depending on the level of the blast, we should be able to block it, but there will be damage on the underside if it reflects back from the surface.”

“The blast will not be quick, it will be a torrent. We must survive the impact first. Stand by to use conventional shielding only on the underside if we can spare it, but do not divert any Essence there unless the pressure from the Temple center weakens first,” Plausious said as his Essence vision was already picking up little lights coming up from the surface into the ship from the city directly below them, as well as a few from neighboring ones.

But while some of the other ships were doing the same, many were moving. He looked at them wondering if they were obeying orders or trying to flee, and some of the smaller vessels near a ship portal were trying to head out…which was wise…but the others, he realized, were either heavily damaged or too small to survive what was coming and they were running towards other ships, including his own.

“Bring those four Gvan in underneath us and interlock shields with them. There’s no need to waste perimeter energy on the interior. One shield covering all, and use theirs to cover our underside while we divert full power topside…but do not let them raise Essence shielding that will interfere with surface pickups.”

“So ordered.”

Plausious thought fast for anything else he could do. The entire atmosphere in the Temple was going to be gone shortly, along with the vaporized surface blasting back towards them. He could get some more altitude, but that would mean a few people on the periphery of range would be left behind.

And already he could feel glowing points inside the ship where 4 crewmembers each would stand, three in a triangle, plus one above either flying or having negated the artificial gravity in that chamber so they could float there, outlining a clear zone between them with no bulkheads or other physical matter.

And to their massively glowing positions Neofan on the surface were desperately throwing themselves through the Essence realm with no portals to use. They had to aim and hope, creating an Essence bubble themselves and being propelled by another pushing them or by finding a way to fling themselves up to the ships overhead following the little 4 person beacons they saw. If they got close those 4 people, if they had sufficient skill, could latch on and pull the bubble inside where it would be released or broken, landing the person in the ship and having them walk out as another was drawn to them, but traveling for hundreds, if not thousands of miles with no navigation was hazardous.

But without any other hope, slim was better than none.

When the ship’s sensors finally detected the incoming blast wave, the number of tiny lights coming up from the city below swelled greatly, and most were not targeted. Many missed, passing by the ship or even going through it. Some that did not hit a beacon quartet tried to revert inside anyway, with many rematerializing inside solid matter, dying instantly or becoming mangled with parts of their bodies intact and others fused into the technology.

The beacon groups grabbed as many as they could, as did the portals onboard the ship that were not only accepting incoming portal transports as fast as possible, but they were also reaching out to grab people on the surface who did not have the ability to fling themselves up to the ship, but were rather emitting an Essence distress aura asking to be pulled up.

If they were close enough the ship portals could do that, but only the upper buildings in the city below were within range as Plausious saw vast tracks of the city light up asking for rescue as they knew it was too late to get underground.

There were so many that couldn’t be saved, even with the four supply ships helping to grab some of them, and this was just in the Neofan city beneath them. There were so many more scattered across the Temple that had no ship near them at all, and some that had smaller vessels taking who they could, but Plausious knew their shielding probably would not hold.

A disaster was playing out before him…and not just for the Neofan. Their population was miniscule here compared to the Vargemma, all of whom would be lost unless they could get into the catacombs where the Caretakers would not allow them to go.

Plausious made one final alteration, quickly updating the Caretakers to allow people inside while ordering all mechanical units on the surface to descend as far as possible. They would be needed in the aftermath, and maybe a handful of lucky Vargemma might flee there, for they now could see the coming blast wave on sensors as well…though some had to feel it coming before that.

Some of the Gjardans, which were no longer clumped together and had spread out around this side of the Temple, were pairing up to better whether the storm, and he wished one of them was closer so his flagship could do the same, but there was no time for such travel. Two more Gvan and a Gpio were racing to get to his position and burning Essence in their drives to do it while skating around the curve of the Temple and igniting the atmosphere as they went.

One of the Gvan was not going to make it, but there was an ocean they would be passing over soon so Plausious transmitted the best plan he had for them…and immediately saw the ship decelerate over the ocean and dive down into it, trying to get to the bottom and turtle up there, knowing the water would absorb some of the impact before it got to the ship.

The other two vessels got to his Gjardan in time and were incorporated underneath into the common defense matrix as the flagship poured all its remaining Essence into the primary shield…at least as much as it would take, and it was designed to take a lot, as little lights in the Essence realm kept rising up to, through, and around them.

The sight above them looked as if the star in the center had grown to encompass the entire Temple, with the burning light too bright to look at as it overwhelmed them but took forever to actually get there.

Then it finally hit.

The Gjardan did not move against the massive momentum, fixed in place relative to the gravity of the Temple beneath them as its engines were well up to the task of making jumps between stars at massive speeds, so the resistance here was not so impressive on a mass level, or for speed, which was still insanely high, but well less than the speed of light. What was the problem was that it was nearly all photons, and their collision with matter or energy matrixes would stress and overload them to the point of breaking.

His ship had to soak up, absorb, or deflect them before the hull armor became overloaded and detonated as if it were a bomb itself. And that’s exactly what happened below them in the Neofan city as its minimal shielding snapped instantly. The buildings were demolecularized in such a way that they become fusion bombs of their own…which threw off even more photonic energy that went deeper into the ground, causing more and more detonations until it ran its course and the rock remaining absorbed what was left without exploding, only liquefying into a sea of magma everywhere.

But it couldn’t be seen. All the matter that had fused together was still being flung back up and hammering the underside of the ships as the firehose of energy coming from the center of the Temple didn’t relent. The underside pressure was far less, though, and thankfully for the little ships that had got to him, the hull breaches in his underside were not compromised. Had no more than two of the ships got here they would have been, and those two ships would have been damaged or destroyed with the outer layers of his ship.

But they weren’t. Their protective cocoon held through the long torrent of destruction as the little lights coming up from the city below stopped shining…but those already floating up kept moving, for they were in the Essence realm and missing the blast wave.

“As soon as we are able to drop shields, I want transmutation grapples on as many of those people as we can get. They can last a while, but there’s no atmosphere out there for them to breathe. Pull in all we can here and go chase the others that are past us.”

“Say when,” the second in command prompted. “The armor can handle some of this when it relents.”

Plausious knew what he meant and agreed. Damage could be repaired later, but the lives could not be replaced, so he watched the indicator levels of the pressure on the shields coming from the Temple center as they slowly ticked lower.

But the lights beneath them were gone already, having passed the ship by.

“Keep shields up above us, but move the ship ahead of those in the Essence realm. We can capture them from below.”

The Gjardan immediately accelerated upward, which increased the pressure on the upper shields while lowering it on the conventional ones below, with those ships in their shadow not using the Essence to block it in the same way. As they all stayed linked together in engine synchronicity, they passed through many of the Essence bubbles, with the beacon groups grabbing some while the portals reached out much further and yanked them into their controlled apertures.

When the ship rose up enough, they were able to yank sideways and get people who were moving ballisticly away from the surface and also sideways a bit, but Plausious finally gave the order to drop the Essence shields the portals began pulling people in from everywhere, though the ship was having to move about greatly to pick them up as they continued to spread out.

Some couldn’t hold the effect long enough and emerged back into the debris-filled void, being incinerated by it before they could explosively decompress or suffocate. A few were able to use biological or technological body shields to protect themselves momentarily, and Plausious worked to transmute them inside as well, using his own telepathy to reach out, identify, and coordinate with them while the ship’s crew worked frantically to save as many as possible, as well as the crews on the smaller Neofan ships.

But many of those little lights went out before they could be rescued, followed by their Cores disappearing from what was left of their bodies soon after they could not hold their Essence bubbles.

Some though, could hold them for hours, and Plausious told all his ships to split up and search for them after the maelstrom ahead of them ended. He focused on helping mentally search for them after sending orders out to all surviving ships to do the same…without looking at how many were left. The Temple comm system was mostly down, save for what was underground, and he had to rely mostly on his ship’s sensors to tell him what was out there…and they were obscured by the nebula of debris rising up from the surface and beginning to fill the outer regions of the void within the Temple and slowly work its way in towards the distant center.

The rescue efforts lasted for days as some Neofan held on that long in the Essence realm due to the fact that the air in their little bubbles was augmented by personal armor they were wearing, and some of those actually were able to survive in space after reversion if they came out late enough not to get hit with the debris field.

Plausious was adamant that they not stop looking for 3 days, with the last survivor found being at just over two days and thrown so far away from the surface that it took a massive Essence flare from him to get the Gjardans’ attention.

All the Gjardans had survived, but some of them were missing large sections of their hulls. Their internal cores were intact, which meant they could be rebuilt, but the smaller ships had suffered far worse. 7 out of 8 of them had been destroyed when they couldn’t get to a Gjardan for cover, for they didn’t have military grade shields, nor did the former cities below…which were now completely gone.

Everything was gone, replaced by a debris nebula and solidified magma that rippled across the surface of the Temple around its entire perimeter. All stations across the void had been destroyed, the artificial star was gone, with everything now in blackness so deep it was terrifying, for there were no stars visible, but at least the artificial gravity was still intact and the ships could navigate using it.

Plausious hadn’t slept since he had arrived here, and wouldn’t for a long time to come. He was obsessed with finding survivors, if not in space then any that had gone underground, but most of the Caretaker units had been destroyed and the conduits that led down into the catacombs had allowed the blast wave in, wrecking a lot of equipment in those areas and collapsing tunnels. The Caretakers that were down there were already working to clear the debris and rebuild those tunnels, but Plausious didn’t have scans of what was down there in many places…and those places would have been the routes his people had taken to go down there, or the Vargemma, which was why no survivors had been found yet.

The dead zones were larger than the estimated blast damage, so he assumed it was communications problems, but he also knew sending down search teams was pointless given how big the Temple was. Using the Caretakers was the fastest route, but building more of them was going to take time…though it was already begun automatically as the Temple began to very slowly take steps to begin the repair process, continuing to draw in resources from the support grids beyond the Temple using the portals that were deep below ground, since the ones on the surface were completely destroyed.

And that included the ship portals, meaning Plausious’s fleet couldn’t go anywhere if they wanted to.

Fortunately that meant Truven’s ships couldn’t come in either and finish them off. Plausious was marooned once again, but this time he knew exactly what to do while everyone else that was living was clueless and on the verge of panic, though the Neofan naturally tried to suppress that emotion and ensure a state of calm control…with many failing to do so.

The Reignor would hold them together, as only he could now. This Temple, as it was before, was gone now and wouldn’t be coming back for at least half a million years…and it was his fault. He had underestimated the depth of the insanity that had taken hold in the Neofan for even one of them to do this…and the only reason it could have occurred was if Truven had ordered it, or the Diem had clandestinely, having obtained his codes by some means. Either way, this was a treachery beyond measure in Neofan history. The dead had not been given exile. They were wiped out entirely.

Neofan society, which was premised on respecting the longevity of life in their race, was now officially gone. Plausious had foreseen this eventuality. Of the collapse from within even if exterior enemies didn’t defeat them, but not this quick. He had no idea things had gotten so bad so fast, for while attacking Star Force was logically flawed, this was beyond imagining.

Yet it had happened, and he had to make sure it never did again.

So as he began the slow work of gathering those left alive and dealing with the mass of people crammed into the surviving ships, he assigned two saved engineers the task of redesigning the stellar emitters and their hydrogen storage supplies in such a way that this would be physically impossible to achieve again.

Plausious was going to remove this capability from all the Temples, strip it out of the Caretaker coding itself so it couldn’t be rebuilt. The regional purges that required a much higher Essence price would be sufficient to deal with massive problems, but this…this was a weapon that never should have been created. It put too much power in a single person’s hands, and allowed one act of betrayal to destroy so many.

And not just the Neofan. There were 4.8 trillion Vargemma in this Temple, or rather had been. Now they were gone, and Plausious doubted he would find even one alive hiding out there somewhere…let alone the Star Force personnel that were rumored to still be evading the Neofan here.

But if they were hiding underground, then there was a chance they might still be alive. The catacombs, or even their own subsurface structures, would make the best hiding places, especially if there were Star Force-designed Caretakers still operational to shield them.

When that thought occurred to him Plausious suddenly had a bit more hope, and input a message into the catacombs comm network stating that he was alive and the Neofan were no longer an enemy. He also unlocked all the surviving portals, telling Star Force that they could use them to escape if they wished, but that he was also asking for their immediate assistance with hunting for survivors underground…as well as getting a message to Director Davis asking for a small section of one of his Temples to relocate his people to as they refit their ships, regrouped, and prepared for a much different type of war than Plausious had expected.

Also, he requested assistance from any Vargemma in the Star Force temples who wished to fight…as well as putting in a request for the red tails to assist him.

For what he was going to need to do required a higher level of warfare, and one that House Atriark did not possess. One that required a Nuv’ernor, and all of them were under the possession of House Mutavi.

Except for those few in Star Force.

www.aerkijyr.com

Gateways

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…

www.aerkijyr.com

Deus Ex

1

May 9, 158408

Uvenji System (Menjag Kingdom)

Yavin 219

The moon known as Yavin 219 was small, with only .48gs of gravity, so the Star Force cities there had to add extra to bring them up to the standard 1g inside as they orbited the planet of Viegan along with three other moons. All were inhabited, but the people living here were not the same. Yavin 219 was off limits to the Bsidd that inhabited everything else in this system, and some of their bigger cities could be seen in the sky of the moon during night, spread out across Viegan’s surface in small patches that didn’t require magnification to observe.

093 was looking at them now, sitting on the rooftop observation lounge protected by an invisible energy field to make sure none of the young Terrans fell off, but it did give her a chance to feel the planet’s natural air when she chose, for the rest of the Terran city was internal and mostly unavailable to her, given that she was still in the maturia. Only 12 years old, and still with years to go before she’d get her first assignment…or the option to choose an unstructured life, though few did. All the Terrans in her class wanted to get in on the action, for in this system everything was already claimed and packed with people, but in the Outer Core where the Hadarak were, other Terrans were fighting to claim worlds of their own, and 093 wanted to join them as soon as she could.

There was no room left in the Rim to build colonies…at least not good ones. All the best planets were taken, and this was one of the few Terran colonies that even had air, according to her information. Most were on lifeless moons or asteroids, producing new Terrans either through natural births or cloning. 093 was in a class of clones, though they were identical to the natural births in every way. Still, more Terrans were needed, and needed badly, for they were proving to be amongst the best warriors Star Force had in this war, despite their youth. They might not be the strongest, the smartest, or the quickest…but they worked together the best. Even more than the hive-minded Bsidd or Paladin. The Terrans just clicked with each other, and the more of them that were involved in a project, the better that project would turn out. Which was why Star Force needed a lot of them, the quicker the better.

But 093 was a long way from getting to the war zone. Even when she graduated from the basic maturia she would have a lot of advanced learning left to do, if she chose, though she hoped to get some non-combat role in the combat zone. Anything to get out of the ‘safe’ Rim and into the action, but as she looked up at the Bsidd planet in the night sky and imagined the billions of people up there doing who knew what, part of her wondered what the point was. Defending people made sense, but to what end? So they can just sit on that world and do nothing? That didn’t make sense. It never made sense, and she’d been up here looking into the night sky many times trying to figure it out while her trainers told her she’d get answers to that question later by Andromeda, but they never said who Andromeda was and her information terminal didn’t have any explanation about how any other races started other than her own.

As she looked into the sky the wristband she and all the others wore chimed, calling her to an unscheduled summons. That happened fairly often when there was training or information to be revealed that wasn’t part of the normal schedule, and the trainers said the surprise of it was part of the process, so 093 had just gotten used to the random summons and kicked herself off one of many ledges on the rooftop and walked to the stairwell that led inside, feeling the heavier normal gravity return when she went back down into the building.

093 followed the tracker until she came to an amphitheater with more than half her class already there and took a seat amongst the others as most were yawning, for it had been a hard day of physical training and they were in their last free hour before the normal sleep cycle.

When the remainder of the 100 entered and sat down, the doors closed and the lights dimmed…then a hologram appeared on the platform that all the tiered seats faced. A hologram of a naked woman with chin-length dark hair and her hands clasped behind her back.

“Hello cadets. My name is Andromeda, and while I’m not a real person, I’ve been programmed by many to sound like one. I can respond to questions, but for now just sit and listen. There’s a great deal of valuable information that needs passed on to you, but having real people do it over and over again is a waste of their time. They need to pursue their own growth and not sacrifice it to help you in yours. To this end they created me, an interactive computer program to endlessly repeat this important information to class after class of Terran younglings, and today I am proud to announce that you are ready for deeper information on several topics that some of you have previously broached with the trainers.

“Now, based off the gleam in some of your eyes, I can assume that you’re quite happy to see that I’m naked and are wondering why…the guys, anyway…and the obvious response is to point out that a computer program doesn’t need clothes, but why do I need a body at all? The answer to that is that you respond to a person differently than you do a database, and some discussions need to be interactive. I have been programmed for this, and in the future I will be responding to many of your questions, but today is a day for you to listen. Then you can ask questions about what you heard.”

“The biggest reason I’m naked is that it’s a promise. A promise that I will hide nothing. All the knowledge I have been programmed with I will share with you. All my secrets are yours, though it will take time for you to learn them. And learning is the key.”

“The key to what, you may ask?” Andromeda said, beginning to pace sideways on the stage as she talked, with her audible footfalls sounding as if she had real bare feet padding on the stone-like floor. “Learning is the key to the Great Mystery, and it can be simplified down to the basic questions of why are we here and where did we come from. Throw in the ‘where do we go when we die’ and you have a trifecta of paradoxes that Star Force has not been able to figure out to date.”

“That’s right. Star Force doesn’t know everything. Far from it, actually, and that can be scary for many people. Terrans have been genetically engineered to embrace the Great Mystery rather than run from it, but there’s only so much your genes can do for you. They’re a starting point, and when you come face to face with the Great Mystery…which we often refer to in short hand as the Question Mark…do you explore it or ignore it? Some people can’t handle not knowing what is going on, so they make stuff up and pretend. These people are cowards, mostly, but sometimes pretending can help you get through a temporary situation when the fear would have crippled you. In the end, though, you must either face this fear or run from it. And those who run from it usually behave in a predictable way.”

“A part of them knows where they can’t look. What questions they can’t ask. They’re not naïve, they’re willfully trying to remain ignorant…but that’s impossible unless they know a little bit about what not to explore further. A truly ignorant person wouldn’t know where not to go and what questions not to ask. So the people who are running away from the Question Mark are always doing so willingly, if often subconsciously. This creates an internal disconnect with their senses that can lead to many problems, so it’s important you understand the Question Mark and how to face it.”

“The universe exists. Right here, right now. It doesn’t need you to see it to exist. The planet of Nubarik you were taught about previously. You saw pictures of it, geographical stats, and battle records. You know of its existence even if you have not been there, but you have been taught nothing of Trivora. Yet Trivora exists today, and existed yesterday when you didn’t even know the name. All of the universe exists whether you know it or not, and it does not need your permission to exist. Some people who run from the Question Mark claim the universe is only what they personally experience and everything else doesn’t exist. This is bullshit, and another way they hide from the truth. And the truth is, there is more to the universe than we will ever know, no matter how much exploring and learning we do.”

“We can’t know it all, and that’s something a lot of Terran younglings of your age have a hard time understanding, because you have a database where you can look up a lot of information. You have trainers to answer questions. And you now have me to do the same. But we don’t know everything. It just seems like we do, and the more you learn, the more you will begin to find areas where we are lacking. And it is in those areas where you will encounter the Question Mark, elusive as it may be now.”

“When you’re busy training and overcoming challenges, you often don’t have a lot of time to wonder about things, but eventually you may get around to asking where did the first Human come from? And I don’t mean Human originating on Earth. I mean our entire genetic line going back through Zen’zat and Ter’nat. Where did the first of us come from?”

“Star Force has learned of an occurrence called a ‘Life Spring’ where new races will just pop into existence when there is a lack of life on a planet. Sometimes even an entire planet just pops into existence. We don’t have any recordings of this happening, because we don’t know when it will occur, but the natural question to then ask is…where did they pop in from?”

“We don’t know. We know our Cores come from the Essence Realm, but how did they come into existence? How did the Essence realm come to be? If we go back in time as far as possible, what do we find at the very beginning…and once we find the very beginning, what happened 5 minutes before that? The past is fixed. It’s not up to interpretation, or your point of view. What happened, happened. The future is in flux, but the past is not. And even if we don’t know what happened, something did. What was it? And what happened before the beginning?”

“These questions seem to defy logic, and are what we call ‘paradoxes.’ A paradox is not a question without an answer. It is a question we can’t even theorize a possible answer for. There is one, we just can’t see it, and when you can’t see it you imagine all kinds of weird stuff. For example, people once thought black holes were smaller than your fingertip, or a gateway to another universe…which is insanely stupid, because the term ‘universe’ refers to everything, and you can’t have two everythings. No, the lack of knowledge about black holes was because you can’t see them without certain types of sensors. And if you don’t know those sensors exist, you have a black spot in the sky with no information about it. It is a gigantic Question Mark, and a lot of people made up stuff rather than admit they did not know what it was.”

“Another paradox is how big is the universe? You’ve seen a lot of maps, which we have of explored areas of our galaxy. Now imagine a map of the areas we haven’t explored. We don’t have access to it, but it exists none the less. Now assume that map is for the entire universe. Picture it in your mind. Countless galaxies spreading out in all directions. Now go to the edge of the map and tell me what you see there?”

“Is there a line? Is there a fog? Is there nothingness…because nothingness is technically still part of the universe, and would therefore be included in the map. So that begs the question, where is the end of the Universe…and what is beyond the end? It can’t just stop at a line, because there would have to be something on the other side of the line. And yet it can’t go on forever. It might look like it can, but remember your mental map has everything in it. Whatever is out there, is out there now. It doesn’t need our permission to exist. So what’s on the edge? Where is the edge? How can there even be an edge?”

“When you try and think it through, your brain feels like it’s tied into knots and you get no answers. Not only that, it makes you feel like there’s no sense in the universe, as if it’s all fake, because it doesn’t make sense. If there is a map, there has to be an edge. But if there’s an edge, what’s on the other side of it? There can’t be anything, because if there were it would count as part of the universe because the universe includes everything. So what does that even look like?”

“The answer is we have no idea. And the more you try and run that through your head the more it will hurt…because it is a paradox, and a paradox is a Question Mark that is not just unknown, but you’re looking at it the wrong way. Sometimes it’s helpful to look at old paradoxes that have now been solved, and I’ll give you one. The birthplace of Star Force was a planet called Earth in the Home One Kingdom. Back before they had spaceships…or at least before they knew they did…people asked the question where were the ends of the Earth? What would happen if they just started walking in a straight line and never stopped? Would they come to the end and fall off, or would it just go on forever. How could it go on forever? It had to be there now, and even if they couldn’t get to it, it had to end somewhere…yet it couldn’t end, because what was beyond it?”

“It’s a similar paradox to where is the edge of the universe, but the key problem here was the people of Earth back then were assuming that the Earth was flat. The ground does look flat, especially on the bigger planets, and it was an easy assumption to make…but it was wrong and it was the problem with the paradox. If you know the curvature of a planetoid, you know that if you keep walking in a straight line, the gravitation curve is going to bring you back to your original spot…because your straight line isn’t really a straight line. The planet is curved, not flat. And when that was discovered, the paradox was broken.”

“So it was a bad assumption that was preventing them from solving the paradox. So, does that help us with our question? Does the universe curve around on itself? Unfortunately no. The curve of a planet can be measured if you look closely enough, and measuring straight lines in space is how we travel between stars, so we’re quite good at it. There is no curvature to a vacuum. So if the universe doesn’t curve back on itself, we’re back to the original paradox of where is the edge?”

“Knowing that another paradox was the result of an assumption helps settle your brain and give you confidence that there is an answer, we just haven’t discovered it yet. But without that confidence, paradoxes can be quite scary. When you face one of those big Question Marks, remember that an answer exists. An answer always exists. You just don’t know it. Maybe nobody knows it, but an answer will always exist. If you let the fear fuel your imagination of things that you have no data to work with, your mind can become quite warped and put you into a state where you don’t want answers to anything. Analysis, testing, learning…these things can become viewed as the enemy and even knowledge itself can be reviled and targeted for destruction. Many civilizations have been destroyed in this manner, and it all comes down to the fear of the Question Mark and how people reacted to that fear.”

“Face it, don’t run from it. And if you can’t figure it out today, shrug your shoulders and try again later, but let it go for now. Temporarily. There will always be plenty of universe to explore. You’ll never run out, as far as we know, and you don’t need to rush it. What you do need to do is work on the pieces that you have access to. The places where you are, not the places you’ve heard about or the places you don’t know exist. The place you have the most interaction with is your body. It is your home, and you need to learn about it more than you need to worry about the edge of the universe…assuming there is one.”

“And to that point, we come to the gleam in most of the guys’ eyes right now. You’ve seen pictures of naked people before, seen each other naked, but there’s a part of you that is still geeking out over the fact that I’m standing here naked for you to see. The girls are probably cringing a little bit, because I’m in better shape than you and you don’t like it, or more likely because you’ve been instinctually programmed to be attracted to naked guys and repulsed by naked women. That’s basic mating instincts, and don’t worry, there will be other informative programs in the future that will be naked guys…in which case the reverse will be true and the boys will be cringing a bit.”

“Unlike some other races, your reproductive instincts are quite powerful, and you’re going to be having to cope with them as they come online. We’ll discuss this in more detail later, but the key to mastering them is learning about them. Until you do, they will run you, for they are part of your ‘Training Wheels.’ You’ve learned how to deal with pain, which is another training wheel, now you have to deal with pleasure, and it works differently, but it is still encouraging you to do something your genetic instincts want you to do, while pain discourages you from doing something. It tells you what to do and what not to do, and it will continue this until you realize it’s not you, it’s the instincts. And they’re suggestions, not orders.”

“But you also have a lot of instincts we designed, or more accurately copied, from others that were desirable. Many of these will unlock as you go through life, but only if you continue to learn and grow. Fear of the Question Mark leads you to not look, not listen, not learn. And that leads to stagnation. Stagnation leads to attrition winning out over healing when you don’t try to heal. When you don’t try to solve problems, fix malfunctions, or upgrade in any way. Stagnation leads to death, and as such, fear of the Question Mark has led many people into a self-destructive path.”

“Now, what is naked? It is a feeling you get more than anything. If you wear heavy winter clothing for a month, then take it off to just a T-shirt and shorts, you will feel naked. Likewise, if you never wear clothes, you won’t feel naked. Why not? Because the feeling of being naked is a more exposed state than ‘normal’ and ‘normal’ changes over time. Now, some of you are going to want to feel naked in a few years. You’re going to like it. And you’re going to want more of it…but when you stop wearing clothes that will become normal and you’ll lose the sensation. The same is true of mating. It’s the newness of it that is the most powerful lure, and the more you do of it, the less intense it gets. Why? Because you have knowledge of it. It’s not a black hole with no data. That’s why you’re given naked pictures to look at, and why you’ll be given the opportunity for sexual training later, so you can get some data for your mind to chew on. And after a while, you won’t even see me as naked. You’ll see this image of my body as normal…but every new class of Terrans will be smiling just as much as you guys are now.”

“The Question Mark will define your life one way or another. Never accept not knowing as permanent. Never accept questions that cannot be asked. Places that cannot be explored. Thoughts that cannot be thought. All of these are indicative of the fearful running from the Question Mark and pretending it doesn’t exist. You have an imagination to consider things, even bad things…and in some ways especially to try out bad things in your mind rather than in reality. Why? To figure out they’re bad and that you shouldn’t actually do them. You’ll get a lot of those with your mating instincts. Stupid stuff, bad stuff, and some good stuff. You gotta run them through your mind and vet them, often multiple times. The same is true of horrors, which we rarely show you here, because the universe, as grand as it is, had a darkside to it, and it can crush many minds who are not ready to handle it.”

“You become ready by learning and growing into more powerful people. And horrors are something you don’t want to think about, but you need to. And you feel the need, often to run it through your mind over and over again, because there is something about it that doesn’t add up. Something you’re not understanding. It’s like a pardox, and you need to think about it, but you also need to let it go temporarily. You’re not going to understand everything, so you can’t hold onto one Question Mark until you solve it. If you do you’ll end up stagnate, or go insane, when you can’t find the answer.”

“Now that’s the ‘not so pleasant’ side of this conversation,” Andromeda said, seeing a lot of those sexual smiles fading away. “You can do nothing of value in this life if you refuse to face the Question Mark, and developing the skills and habits to deal with it whenever you encounter it, will be the primary deciding factor for success or failure throughout your life. You must become comfortable with not knowing, without permanently abandoning the search for answers. You’re not going to figure that out today, so you need to chip away at it a little bit each day, or each week, or whatever periodic time measurement you want. Don’t obsess over it, and don’t ignore it. Chip away at it, and take comfort in knowing there are answers to the Great Mystery of the Universe, even if we will never find all of them.”

“That said, Star Force has found many of them, and I was created to share some of the crucial ones with you that you weren’t ready for before now. So…” Andromeda said as she stopped pacing and came back to the center of the platform facing the Terrans while pulling her hands out from behind her back and gesturing to the class. “Who has my first question?”

2

May 11, 158408

Byion System (Jumanji Kingdom)

Aertyon

He had spent his maturia years known only as 043 amongst his brothers and sisters, and to the trainers and pseudo AIs Andromeda, Hector, Perseus, and Cortana. It wasn’t until he had graduated from the basic maturia that he earned his first name…Pan…and along with his birthdate and lot number, that is how he had been referred to during his advantage maturia training. Pan had chosen combat training amongst the various pathways available to Terrans, with those few who chose to abandon the call to duty slithering their way far from the maturia, to what end he didn’t know and truly didn’t care. They were regarded as quitters to some, traitors to others, and because of that there was no true civilian cities in the Terran Faction of Star Force.

Everyone had a duty to do, and if one wasn’t assigned to them they found a way to make themselves useful, even if in small ways. All Terrans were on the same team, and worked together to protect and uplift one another. Those few who chose to walk another path left the Terran worlds for Axius, for they were not welcome. There was an inherent call to duty within the Terrans, and it was more than culture. It was in their very DNA, which they all shared. All Terrans had exactly the same base genetic code, with physical variations due only to random presets chosen from a full list that all Terrans had. Even male and female alterations were encoded into both genders, then activated at a rate of 1 to 4, biased towards males.

That meant out of his class of 100, 74 of his siblings were male, and 25 were female. This ratio was the typical one, though some variation did occur, for reasons Pan did not know. Males had a slight edge when it came to physical endeavors, which was why they were needed in greater numbers. Females had part of their structure configured to become a spawn point when necessary, and the surrogate system that had been used to birth Pan 2,309 years ago was no longer in use. It had got the Terran Faction up and running faster than natural growth rates would allow by using Humans and Zen’zat as carriers for the Terran embryos, for Star Force had dictated that no artificial birthing process would be used for races that used a blood link during initial growth.

Such a link provided more than oxygen and nutrients. It also typically allowed the immune system of the mother to protect the infant when it was most vulnerable to bacteria and other foreign interlopers…but beyond that there was a different link that could not be fully calculated. It was believed to have something to do with one Core existing within the body that contained another, but that was only speculation. Never the less, it had been mandated that such a process be maintained just in case something would be lost if an artificial womb was created.

Thus the Terrans were all birthed from a living mother, though not necessarily from their own race. Pan had not known his, for as soon as he was born he was put into the maturia and raised by its Handlers and Trainers. The former provided care, direction, and logistics while the Trainers were the ones who did the teaching, and all of them only stayed with each class for a maximum of 2 years, cycling out with more advanced staff coming in that specialized in a different stage of the younglings’ development…yet Pan still remembered certain Trainers and Handlers, for they had made a lasting impression on him.

But now he was far from the maturia, standing on an elevated dais looking out over the parade grounds where a new batch of Terrans were assembling into rows for the first time with their Battalion. All 50,000 of them were fresh out of advanced maturia training, with no individual younger than 55 at the minimum. That was the barest requirement for duty in the Hadarak War, and most here were at least 70, for the end games of the maturia training were meant to be harder than fighting the Hadarak themselves. Terrans didn’t send troops into combat before they were ready, but Pan knew there were some lessons that could only be learned on the battlefield and nowhere else.

He had served through more campaigns than he could remember, though if he checked his service record it would have registered 732. About a third of those were with the Fer’nor’sha Battalion, which was the equivalent of saying 18th/29th/3rd in the Terran language. They all spoke the Star Force basic language of English from birth, but in their advanced maturia training they learned a second one, built specifically for their race. One that resembled V’kit’no’sat considerably, but was more logically structured. Fer’nor’sha was not numbers, but syllables from a list that were used to modify base words.

For example, the armor that he wore now was known in its generic form as ‘Keevan,’ but if he wanted to name his helmet and it had no previous name, he would choose a word from the syllable list and add it. So his armor’s helmet would be known as ‘Keevan’tre,’ while his armored gloves would be ‘Keevan’nor’ and his armored boots ‘Keevan’bro.’ In this way, Terrans could construct new terms easily as new discoveries were made, new technology created, or other naming was required. The Battalions needed names, so as such they used the syllables as if they were numbers, with his officially being known as ‘Herrik’fer’nor’sha,’ for the word ‘Herrik’ meant Battalion in a specific way while the English word had many different meanings for it.

Terran was designed to be specific, and the Archons that led the Battalions had also become fluent in it, so much so that it was rumored they even used it at times when not dealing with Terrans. Pan didn’t know if that was true or not, but he had worked with Battalion commanders enough that he could tell they had learned the language personally rather than had a mental download. All the Terrans had to learn it, and in doing so they got a better understanding of the language rather than just a mental template implanted onto an existing language.

There were certain ways of saying things that weren’t in the template, and Pan and the others could tell when someone had it or not, for it seemed those that worked with Terrans wanted to impress them with their use of the language…and it typically had the opposite effect as they spoke it with such odd phrasing it was obvious they had never built a functioning mental program around it.

Pan had his keevan’tre under the crook of his left arm and held against his hip as he stared out at the assembling troops, all of which had their helmets on and were carrying no weapons, but all had backpacks containing what few personal items they wished to carry with them into the war zone. Terrans usually traveled light and didn’t cling to personal possessions. Pan had but one he took with him. A small amulet that he wore around his neck underneath his armor. It had been given to him by Kli’vik-B-3994204, a Bsidd Maverick who had commanded the Mor’ner’tra some 82 years ago…and perhaps still did. Pan had been reassigned to a different Battalion with a higher rank, and the same was happening to most of the experienced Terrans in order to provide the Shinys the combat leadership they needed to maximize their chances of survival through the first year.

‘Shiny’ was the term for a newb who had gone through training successfully, and referred to brand new armor that had never seen dirt or grime from the field. It felt like an inaccurate term to Pan at first, but he’d come to understand what it meant beyond the basic definition. These Shinys needed guidance to get them through the first battles alive, and while Pan had seen some Terrans die to the Hadarak, he had seen far more survive due to teamwork, leadership, and the experience given to them by seasoned Captains…and this was his first assignment as the primary Captain of a Battalion, known as a ‘Rex’. There were 50 others, each assigned to oversee 1000 men, but the entire Battalion was his responsibility to guide with his experience while following the orders of their Commander or General.

And because of his new rank, he now had earned his third name. His second had come after his first successful campaign, making him Pan Trevor. Now he was known as Pan Trevor Gregoria, and few Terrans could lay claim to the prestigious third name. Their Faction was still young, at only a few millennia, and to date no Terran had earned a fourth, nor knew the criteria for it. That would be revealed by the Director himself when the time came, for he was continually overseeing the growth of their Faction personally…which was a point of pride for the Terrans, as all the other full Factions had a trailblazer directing them. But only the Terrans had the Director of Star Force sculpting their civilization as it continued to grow.

“I always like this view,” a voice said from behind Pan in Terran as he spun around to see two people walking towards him out of the tall building from which the dais extended. “It gives a mental waypoint to mark the beginning of a new campaign that otherwise would be lost in the grind to come.”

“General,” Pan said, nodding his head in respect at seeing the telltale Archon armor that the man wore…but his companion stood nearly a foot taller than him wearing a type of armor he had never seen before, but had read about.

“I am Iden-202747 of Clan Jinx, and this is my apprentice Lion Sarul.”

“Commander,” Pan greeted. “Am I right in assuming you’re not a Zen’zat?”

Lion smiled faintly. “Not all Furyans have blue skin,” he said, anticipating his next question. “My bloodline does not.”

“Sarul?” Pan asked, not recognizing it.

“My parents are Sara-012 and Paul-024. It’s not one of the original pairings.”

“How many are there now?”

“Over 700 at last count.”

“Is Morul still dominant?”

“Slightly,” Lion said briskly.

“My apologies, Commander. I didn’t mean that as an insult. We don’t know much about Furyans and we’re curious to get any information we can.”

“Have you ever worked with one?” Iden asked.

“Never.”

“Think of him as a slow Archon,” the Human said deadpan as the Furyan frowned in his direction. “But they have certain aptitudes not unlike Terrans that manifest when given enough experience. Though while your sweet spot is teamwork, the Furyans tend to excel at solo work.”

“We’re not that bad at it,” Pan said defensively.

“No, of course not,” Iden said, putting a hand on Pan’s shoulder as he turned him back to look out at the parade ground. “They just like it more than you do. Have you been through the roster?”

“Twice now, General.”

“Any concerns?”

“Depends on where we’re hitting first?”

“We’re going to reinforce the Pag’sho’ver rather than start with an invasion of our own. The downside is they’re bottled up against more resistance than I like taking Shinys into.”

“Understood. Will be creating a second beachhead or intermixing with the Pag’sho’ver?”

“I’ll decide when we get there, but Lion and me will be going in together for some scouting first, after which I want a 20 man squad hand-picked by you to follow us in. Not all Captains, but at least 4. This group of Hadarak is tougher and I want to get a feel for what we’re up against before we throw the full Battalion at them.”

“Speed or heavies?”

“Speed.”

“I’ll have it to you by the end of the day.”

“We’ve got a three month trip, Rex…no rush,” the Archon said, placing his hands on the solid rail in front of him as the last few Shinys arrived and took their position in tightly packed rows all facing the dais. “I lost three men on my last campaign. I want that to be zero this time.”

“Any new strategies you want to employ?”

“Better luck,” Iden said stoically. “It’s almost always bad luck rather than making a mistake or facing a superior enemy. Terrans are very good at covering for one another, and not as brash and reckless as these guys,” he said, thumbing back at the Furyan. “It’s almost always bad luck when we lose one of you. And I don’t know a strategy to increase luck on a permanent basis.”

“What about temporarily?”

“Move where the enemy doesn’t expect you and keep moving. Old Archon trick,” he said with a wink as he raised a hand to the troops ahead of them and keyed in his armor’s mic to the grounds’ speakers.

“Terrans, I bring you greetings from the war. It’s not over yet, and nowhere close to conclusion. The outcome we already know. We win. But the work required is not even half done. The Hadarak do not surrender, so every world they have we have to take by force, and they conquered nearly half a galaxy. We know they haven’t infested every planet in their captured systems, but they have taken most of them. The estimates are somewhere in the insane region of 1 trillion planetoids that need to be taken back from them, and before you ask how is that even possible, the answer is clear. One at a time.”

“The work is hard and dangerous, but it is that work that most of us are called to. We are not meant for peace. We create peace for others to be born into, train in, and perhaps forever live within…but warriors cannot tolerate peace for long. Conflict draws us, because where there is conflict, there is something worth doing. And when there is nothing worth doing, we train to increase our power so the next time there is something worth doing, our odds of accomplishing it are greater.”

“But right now, we don’t have to worry about running out of battles to fight. We have more than we can take on, and the Grand Border is the only thing holding back the Hadarak from invading the Rim. Despite the large chunks of their territory that we have taken, those that remain don’t care, and probably don’t even know about the losses elsewhere. All they know is where they are at and what they have to do to hold it, or to take it. And that is the battlefield we will meet them on. If they choose to surrender we will gladly accept it, but not a single world absent a Jedein has traded possession without a fight to the death, and those Hadarak individuals who might consider it are killed by their brethren before they have a chance to think it through.”

“So as we do the gruesome work they force us into, remember this. Every world taken from the Hadarak is one where future Hadarak will not be born. That means the people that would have been born into those bodies and ensnared with their darkside instincts will not suffer that fate. At least not on that planet. So we are not only fighting to protect those currently living. We are fighting to end the Hadarak spawn camp on these worlds as well. We were the lucky ones, being born into Star Force. Most of the galaxy is not. And while we can’t save these Hadarak, we can fight for future ones not to be born into this trap. Every world we take is another spawn camp removed, and in its place we will build a Terran colony or outpost to ensure the light of civilization will guard over it and prevent the atrocities that you have not seen yet from occurring again.”

“But you will see them soon, and it is something you will never fully be able to accept…but you will numb up to it. You have to in order to fight it. Just don’t make the mistake of numbing up so much that you can’t feel at all. If you do that, your senses will be so dull they become a blind spot. And a blind spot is a quick way to get yourself killed…or worse, fall into the trap of the darkside without even realizing it.”

“We are going to take worlds from the Hadarak our way, not their way. And while they may force us to fight and kill them, we always hold the option of their surrender ready, and will never deny it if it should occur. We do not seek their deaths, we seek an end to the carnage. But if they choose to make the only option that of a bloodbath, we will fight that bloodbath honorably in order to stop it from happening again.”

“I have been through many bloodbaths in this war, and even more before it. It is hard to stay the course at times, but the more you learn to stay true to yourself and the lightside, the less hard it gets…but it’s never easy. It’s like a wind that continually tries to knock you off course, and you have to constantly make adjustments. If you start to lose your way, ask for help from those around you. Planets are worthless if we lose ourselves in claiming them. And I would rather die in a losing battle than win by going to the darkside. The lightside is worth dying for, if it comes to that. But it’s also worth living for, and it’s how we’re shielding all those in the Rim under our care. We’re going into some very dark areas, and they will always look dark…because we are lights that shine on others, but we don’t see our reflections. All we see is the darkness around us. And that is why it is those who shine the most who need to cling to the path the hardest. For the universe is always dark around us. Star Force is an island of light amongst a dark sea, but to wayward ships it is a welcome beacon of direction. So even if you don’t feel the light, it’s because it’s not shining on you, it’s shining out of you onto others, both present and future.”

“Now, the war isn’t going to wait for us while I talk on and on, so there are your dropships,” Iden said, pointing behind the rows of ships. “Board them now and we’ll be leaving the system within the day. If anyone wants to change their mind and stay behind, now is the time. We won’t be coming back until we win, no matter how long it takes. Move out.”

The troops saluted in unison, then spun around 180 degrees in place and began marching in rows back towards the parked dropships with boarding ramps waiting in the lowered position.

“Best speech I’ve heard to date,” Pan said, pulling on his helmet.

“The best speeches are the blunt ones,” Iden said, keeping his nanite helmet retracted. “Are you ready for another dive into the darkness?”

“It’s what I was born to do, General.”

“Likewise,” he said, giving Pan only a slight heads up as he theatrically waved a hand towards him and telekinetically lifted the Terran up and over the railing, then lowered him to the ground below some 16 meters down, after which he and Lion jumped over the railing and flew to the ground beside him. The trio began to walk behind the departing troops, and would board the last dropship as the group made its way up to the troopship in orbit that would take them across Star Force territory, beyond the Grand Border, and into the war zone.

Then that’s where the ‘fun’ would begin…again.

3

May 16, 158408

Vedran Omega System (Home Three Kingdom)

Arachu

Meona sat still onboard the dropship in the passenger section, the only person there as the pair of Terran pilots flew her up to orbit for a rendezvous with a visiting starship that would be taking her to a destination unknown. The ship itself was a warship, but not a drone carrier. It was an Aeon-class warship that had a forked split in the front like an Era’tran vessel, but the back half had the same fork going the other way, but on a vertical plane. It wasn’t of Terran construction, nor did she know who had made it, but it was definitely a Star Force vessel according to its IDF tag. Other than that Meona had no clue what it was or where it would be taking her.

All she knew was that after some auxiliary medical testing that she had qualified for an ultra-high access training program within the Empire…something that went beyond the Terran Faction. The choice was hers, but it had to be a blind choice, and if she went and later decided to quit, she couldn’t tell anyone what she had seen or learned. This was secret stuff, and even that basic brief she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else about.

Meona was 804 years old, and proudly worked in one of the Terran shipyards constructing the giant ribs that held the ships together. She and her team would put the skeleton of one in place, then move on to the next while others added to the frame they laid down in an assembly process that was well honed at this point, despite the youth of their Faction compared to the rest of the Empire.

She enjoyed her work, and supporting the ongoing war even while not wanting to see any of it in person. Meona was a builder, not a fighter, but like all Terrans she knew how to fight if necessary. She just preferred to load the metaphorical gun for others…and to help build better and better guns.

And that’s what warships were…big guns for the infantry war in the stars that was determining the fate of space lanes, and the Terrans needed as many as possible. Resources were in short supply, but they had been able to construct their own star forge in this system and were drawing raw materials out of the middle layers where at least four previous planets had met their demise. It was hard to get to, but all the easy mining in the colonized Rim had already been claimed by others…and the gigantic garbage pits that stars were actually made for good mining if you could find the right ones.

But then one random day that test had come back positive, and for what she hadn’t been told. Just that she had potential for something and would be transported to a secret training facility if she wanted to go. Meona had demanded to know if it was combat related, and they’d thankfully told her it wasn’t direct combat training...but more of a support function.

That was enough to allow her to indulge her curiosity, though in truth she probably would have went anyway just to find out and then quit if she didn’t like it, but this way it put her mind more at ease…even though her knees were knocking slightly at the magnitude of what she imagined she was getting herself into.

Meona ran her fingers through her elbow-length purple hair as her body needed something to do other than just sit here in order to keep her mind from jumping through hoops, but there was nobody to talk to and nothing to do but sit and wait as the dropship moved up through the atmosphere and into space, then climbed up into a much higher orbit where the Aeon-class starship waited.

No blueprints were available in the accessible database, so as they got closer she tried to pick out any surface features that would indicate what weapon systems it had…but the hull was perfectly smooth. Not a single bump on it, yet it wasn’t shining with reflected sunlight. It was a dull red color, and she could tell by the visual effect that it was absorbing most of the light that hit it.

That meant it was probably nanite armor poured over the static armor beneath. Expensive stuff, and not the greatest in a slugging fight…but for a smaller ship like this, the ability to transfer armor from one part of the hull to another gave it a longevity in intermittent and indirect fighting, and that suggested a skirmisher or striker build, with her guessing the latter.

Those prongs were more than just for design aesthetics. On Era’tran vessels they housed the docking bays, and protected them by allowing access only through the interior of the fork, with ships actually able to get into space while still surrounded by a lot of the larger vessel. But this design, she guessed, was a weapons’ array, meaning it probably had one big gun in the front and another in the back for redundancy. Thanks to gravity drives not having a directional aspect, which direction you flew the ship in was your choice, though interstellar travel often required a heavily armored patch in the front…unless you had ample shielding to compensate.

This one most assuredly did, despite her not being able to see any of the emitters on the surface. That made them a little less efficient, but keeping them hidden also made them hard to target. And if there was a sensor scrambling energy curtain involved, an enemy couldn’t scan the interior of the ship more than a few inches deep. And most high end tech usually transmitted through the armor at least a meter anyway, unless you needed more bang, in which case this type of nanite armor could move to clear the path…which was another useful trick if you weren’t in the heavy combat zones that had people shooting at you from all angles simultaneously.

As the dropship approached a split appeared in the egg-like midsection, with a glowing docking bay appearing inside with four levels. Her ship slid into the upper middle one, or in her mind #2, though there were no markings visible. The inside was standard enough, though there were no telltale Faction idiosyncrasies. Whatever this was, even the interior was custom designed.

“You’re clear to debark,” one of the pilots called back through the open doorway to the cockpit.

“Gabran,” she said, which was the Terran version of ‘thanks,’ as she happily hopped up out of her seat and walked back through the rows into the cargo hold where the main ramp was located so fast her hair trailed behind her in a purple curtain surfing the disturbed air.

When she hit the ramp and walked down it, she felt a gravity shift…to the heavy side. She guessed it was probably .2g higher than standard, which was rather odd. Only a handful of races used higher gravity, and most of those were in the V’kit’no’sat division.

Who exactly was she meeting with?

Before she got an answer the dropship pulled up and slid out of the hangar bay…with the doors sliding back in to cover what looked like a wound in the ship, and Meona was sure they were double layered with nanites on the outside, because what she saw from within was Tu’gor battle plates at least 3 meters thick in a zigzag interlock that pressed together seamlessly…at least from her point of view. If she’d been closer she bet the seam would still be there, but with an even tinier zigzag on a microscopic level so no direct line of sight was possible through it, even for a nanite to pass through.

“You like it?” a voice said from behind her in the Star Force standard language. Meona turned around to see a faintly blue-skinned giant wearing an Archon’s uniform, and her breath caught in her chest. “From a ship builder’s perspective, I mean.”

“Who made it?” she managed to utter as the much taller individual walked up to her.

“Let’s just say it had some borrowed designs in it, though we made it.”

“Which Faction?”

“The Clans are all pitching in to create a few each when they have the time. I’m not sure which one actually constructed this ship, but they’re all built from the same model and we haven’t had time to develop any upgrades. It’s more than a prototype, but until we get a proper crew we can’t really field test it.”

“There’s no crew?” Meona asked, finding her mouth starting to work properly again.

“For standard stuff, sure. But we don’t have enough Xaviers to use the new toys. Are you familiar with Essence enhancement?”

“Not personally, but I’ve read about the technology.”

“Well, there’s another type of enhancement we’re dabbling with, and the Aeons are built for that purpose. I was the first to break through into that ability, and according to testing you’re close enough for me to push the rest of the way.”

Meona frowned. “You mean one of my buried psionics?”

“No, no…” the Archon said humorously. “This is more like the Force from Star Wars. And as it happens, I’m on my way to the Jedi Temple and thought I’d save the couriers a trip by picking you up on the way. Delayed me 9 days, but it’ll give us a chance to get you prepped before we get there. My name is Paul-024.”

“I…know who you are,” she said, stammering a bit.

“I get that a lot,” he said, throwing some calming telepathy her way. “It’ll wear off, and since we have some time to kill, time to answer your questions. So start asking,” he said as he directed her to start walking towards a nearby archway.

“What test did I pass?”

“All biological life, even that without a Core, generates a previously invisible energy called the Saiolum. It’s a bit cloyant, like water, and hangs around planets, but strands of it can travel from one cluster to another, so there are links between star systems where there is ample life. It’s rare that someone is actually aware of it, let alone can tap into it. Certain mindsets get you closer or further from it, and if you’re close enough you can be pushed across the barrier with the help of someone who had already crossed it, or with the right technology. Ours is primitive, but using it along with my help has given us a 100% success rate for those who passed the screening.”

“What was the screening, exactly?”

“Mostly brain scans looking for output patterns, but also a little bit of construction adaptation. Those who are close reconfigure slightly, and the actual breakthrough alters you on a cellular level in certain areas. It’s an upgrade, but can leave you with one hell of a transitional headache. Better technology will diminish this, but it’s not something any of the others haven’t been able to handle.”

“You went through this too?”

“I didn’t have any technological help. I had to break through on my own, and so far I’m the only person we’ve found in this galaxy that has. It’s exceedingly rare, and we need as many Xaviers as we can get…that’s our term for those who can tap into, sense, and use the Saiolum.”

“What can it do?”

“Where Essence can give you really badass weapon discharges, the Saiolum is more about communication and scanning, along with movement and a few other things. It looks unimpressive at first, from a tactical sense, but that’s only because your vision of it is dependent on your skill. The higher you get, the more detailed you can see and the more potential applications you can find.”

“What does this ship do with it?”

“Sail,” Paul said cryptically. “And it can outmaneuver any vessel that only has gravity drive propulsion. But the catch is the system has to be inhabited, the more the better.”

“And the weapon arrays?”

“What weapon arrays?” Paul said blankly.

“It’s listed as a warship, and those forks suggest a bottling effect.”

“Bottling effect yes, weapons no. When properly manned, they will be able to draw in and bottle Saiolum, increasing the density for use in various applications. The weaponry is standard plus one Materia.”

“Then why put this Saio stuff into a warship and not a support ship?”

Paul lifted a hand as they passed through the archway and into the ship’s corridors…which were extra large by Terran standards…and waved it past her face.

Meona’s head surged with what felt like a rush of energy, as if her senses were saturated with detail…too much detail…and suddenly she saw herself twisting and falling without being able to feel it until she hit the ground, with the pain of the hard floor barely registering as her head swam in sensation.

“Give it a moment,” Paul said as she sat on the floor, looking at the walls, ceiling, and her own hands until her senses calmed down enough to bring her back into a state of control…though she missed the bliss of whatever that was.

“What did you do to me?”

“The same thing this ship could do to the crew of an enemy fleet during combat,” he said, all levity in his voice gone. “Weapons aren’t just about destruction, they’re also about disruption, and the Saiolum can have an effect on any biological lifeform. Even bacteria. In this case, I used it to enhance you beyond what you could handle. If I do it again you’ll be a little resistant to it, then a bit more and more over time as you get a handle on how to operate at the higher level, but to new enemies it will take them completely off guard, and if I didn’t stop influencing you I could keep you on the floor with that weird smile for hours.”

“It did feel good,” she admitted as she got back up and continued to walk with him. “What did it to do me, exactly?”

“Made your biological parts work better than normal…briefly. Think of it as an ambrosia.”

“Do high population worlds get some of this naturally?”

“Keen deduction, Watson. Though nowhere near what you just got.”

“Did you make it from your own?”

“I pulled from the Saiolum around us, reconfigured it, and slapped it in your face.”

“And Terrans can do this too?”

“Anyone can, in theory. It’s less about your body structure and more about how you personally customize it. Get in harmony with the Saiolum and the barrier will slowly disintegrate until you break through. Get out of harmony and it will reestablish and you’ll lose your connection to it. And so far, it seems the darkside puts you out of harmony.”

“It’s a lightside-only energy field?” Meona said, shocked.

“Not just lightside, unfortunately, but the nastier people can’t use it. It was once described to me as a builder mentality, and those that seek destruction aren’t exactly compatible with that.”

“Well that explains me then.”

“Only partially. The parameters are very specific, and the initial breakthrough is tenuous. I’ve got a big enough opening to the Saiolum I’d have to get really out of alignment to lose it, though it’s possible given enough time. You’re going to have to learn to tune yourself to it in order to hold the brief hole we open for you…that is, if you want to try?”

“Do I want to try?” she said with a laugh. “That was better than sex.”

“You’ll have to pass on that for a while,” Paul warned. “The mating instincts pull you far away from the tuning you’ll need.”

“Is that why Archons don’t do it?” she asked a lingering question for many in the Empire.

“Let’s just say it interferes with our badass mojo just as much, and if we have to choose between kicking ass or screwing it…well, there really is only one choice.”

Meona shrugged. “I’m not that keen on fighting anyway, so I don’t think I’d make that choice. But whatever you just did to me…I want more. Please.”

“That’s why you’re here. There’s a sea of it out there for you to tap into…and then use to help others. We’re not going to teach you just to let you sit and bathe in it. We need help saving the galaxies, and this is another way to help aside from building ships.”

“Galaxies?” she said, emphasizing the ‘s’ on the end.

“You heard right, though we’re not there yet. But it’s coming. Along with a lot of new bad guys. Can you help us fight them? Or is that too far outside your skillset?”

“How do people with a builder mindset fight?”

“You find the broken parts and fix them…or replace them,” Paul said succinctly.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about it like that, but it makes perfect sense. Are those parts planets or people?”

“Works either way you look at it. Shall we go, or do you want to go back to the shipyard?”

“You tell me if I’m up to it,” Meona said, raising her left hand in front of him.

Paul gripped it, bypassing her Ikrid block and scanning her mind thoroughly in a way the computers never could.

“You’ll do,” he said with a wink as he simultaneously contacted the bridge and told them to get underway. “But that hair…”

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked with a frown.

“How do you keep it from getting caught in what you’re working with?”

“I usually pull it back. Do I need to here?”

“How can you be a builder and tolerate the inefficiency of it?”

“I’m not the subject matter.”

“Well, maybe by the time we work out the technology it won’t matter, but some of the stuff we’re using requires a type of helmet with skin contact, and long hair interferes with it.”

“But yours doesn’t?” she asked, referring to his inch-long black hair on the top of his head, while the sides were half that long.

“My scalp can breathe enough for it to work, but most of the others are going bald to maximize the interface…though they are far less sensitive than I am, so they need the help. You don’t have to worry about it now, but from an Archon point of view, none of us would ever let our hair get that long. It just gets in the way of too much stuff.”

“I like the flow,” she admitted. “It’s calming.”

“Keep it then, but if you find you need a little edge, in anything, cut it short. It’ll feel like a breath of fresh air…especially for your neck.”

“They never taught us that in the maturia.”

“They can’t teach you everything. Just enough to get you started off properly. And to get you started off properly here, there’s one big secret you need to know…and that’s how I learned most of the stuff I learned about the Saiolum. Do you remember Yoda from Star Wars…?”

4

May 19, 158408

Plovis Chardra System (Hadarak War Zone)

Katanya

The Terran scout ship that had originally discovered this system had been charting Hadarak travel patterns out from the Deep Core and their diverging tendrils of reinforcements, adding to the overall map Star Force was compiling, but it was still far from complete. There were many systems here that the V’kit’no’sat had never found, nor ventured this far in, wary of the roaming Hadarak prior to the surge that had seemingly conquered everything in its path.

Yet there were pockets they did not own, nor cared to. But there were also some that simply did not fall, and the Terran scout ship had noticed several tendrils that behaved differently than others, notably that they veered away from what appeared to be more direct routes through a certain sector of space. When that ship had tried to cross that area to get from one tendril to another, it had run into a race a cyborgs that were incredibly well armed, but were inclined to talk first and shoot later.

That first contact had prompted the scout ship to immediately return with its intel, followed by a more proper greeting party that included an Archon…but the race of cyborgs, known as the Vestil, were not interested in Star Force other than to provide them with a map and dictate where they could and could not travel through their territory. However, the general information that Star Force provided them got a different response in the form of a request that any future interactions be routed through one of Star Force’s cyborg allies called the Chamra.

They were not part of the Empire, technically, but their small territory was inside it and integrated so much they were essentially a suburb and worked with Star Force on many mutual endeavors. They were one of the races that had once been keepers of the Uriti when they were in stasis, and unlike some of the others, they were still independent and prospering, though now vastly overshadowed by how large and powerful Star Force had grown.

The small Terran fleet that had arrived in orbit of the Vestil capitol were escorting a Chamra ambassador in response to the new cyborgs’ request…but only one, and not in a Chamra ship. Their snobbyness was not going to be tolerated, and it was going to be made clear this was a joint venture and Star Force was not going to be ignored. So when the Terrans sent over a dropship to one of the orbital habitats, the Chamra stepped out amongst the aliens with four Terrans flanking him in full body armor and opaque faceplates, making them look like machines, though they were decidedly not.

“We welcome you, brother,” the foremost Vestil amongst a group of several hundred surrounding the Star Force vessel said amicably in their guests’ native language as its spider-like legs shifted slightly as if it was too heavy to stand still on the same leg for too long.

“I was intrigued by your request to meet with me,” the Chamra said passively. “You did not state a purpose.”

“Our purpose is for our kind, and I did not want it transmitted through the pure biologicals.”

“These pure biologicals are the dominant power in the galaxy and the primary reason why my race is still alive. Show some respect,” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, one of which was biological and the other was a mechanical replacement for a deformity he had acquired after birth…which happened to be the cause for most of the Chamra’s augmentations prior to Star Force helping them eliminate the flawed genetic coding that had plagued and sculpted most of their history.

“We are of a higher level than them, why do you want us to pretend otherwise?”

“I want the calculations to prove that statement.”

“Very well,” the Vestil said, transmitting a moderate-sized data file to the Chamra, who had some trouble deciphering it due to the complexity…which allowed him to gage the level of their software…and he was cautiously aware it was beyond his own.

He reviewed it in a matter of seconds, for his brain was also augmented, not due to a malformity, but for enhanced capability, and he quickly made amendments and sent them back to the Vestil with a disappointed expression on his face.

“Your lack of comprehensiveness is insulting.”

“Your ignorance is apparent,” the Vestil said, making amends to his amendments and returning the file. “Do you not originate from the Source?”

“We augmented ourselves,” the Chamra said, very curious as to the far superior race the Vestil claimed to have elevated them above pure biologicals. “When were you last in contact with them?”

“We are not meant to contact them. Our mission was made manifest in our creation and we continue to carry it out in their absence.”

“You did not clarify what that mission is.”

“No I did not. Do the Chamra have a mission or are you random?”

“We have agendas, but we direct our own future. Who is your master?”

“They have no name entrusted to us.”

“Your faith in the unknown is illogical.”

“We have more than faith,” he said, transmitting another file. “Do you recognize any of this coding?”

“I do.”

The Vestil visibly shuttered. “Where have you encountered it?”

“Why do you seek it?”

“We are meant to catalog all mechanically enhanced races, or the rare purely synthetic ones. We transmit this data to a position our masters directed, but one which we are forbidden from traveling to. Will you identify your source?”

“Will you identify the method you have used to hold off the Hadarak assaults?”

“They have never sent a formidable force against us, and after being repelled they do not repeat their incursion for a period of time. It is a test of our readiness, nothing more.”

“You speak as if they are not trying to destroy you.”

“They are not.”

“Why not?”

“They serve a parallel purpose.”

The Chamra had already been calculating a deviance in the data, but each blatant statement made by the Vestil sent the probability of a threat increasing exponentially.

“Do you refer to the Dotra?”

“I am unfamiliar with that term.”

“They are the group of varying races that control the Hadarak.”

“I believe you are misinformed. The Hadarak were created by the same race that created us. It is conceivable that they may have coopted other pure biologicals to integrate with them, for they have instructed us to do the same with the mechanicals, partial or full.”

“Integrate how?”

“The Natural Order of the galaxies must be maintained, and in each one curators are required. This galaxy has gone out of balance, thus the Hadarak are in the process of cleansing it, after which the natural development will begin again. If any race is illuminated enough to transcend their biological limitations and venture into the mechanical realm, they are worth preserving.”

“The Chamra are under no threat from the Hadarak.”

“Then you have already been assimilated?”

“I am uncertain to what assimilation you refer, but regardless the answer is no. We are under no threat of the Hadarak because Star Force is shielding us from them.”

“The biologicals will be defeated as they always are. The Hadarak will not spare you when they get to your worlds unless you have the proper markers. If you do, they will still test you for your worthiness. It is our duty to teach you to become worthy, else you will be recycled along with the rest of the galaxy.”

“That is your mission?”

“One of many.”

“Then why do you remain here in isolation?”

“We are not meant to dominate this galaxy, merely to watch and categorize. If a race such as yours emerges, we are to make contact.”

“But you don’t seek us out?”

“Mechanical races will eventually make themselves manifest in their superiority over the biologicals. We need not search far, and if they are in their infancy we are not to interfere in their development.”

“And what do the Chamra have to agree to in order to get your markers to protect us from the Hadarak?”

“To assist in maintaining the Natural Order, and to stop any who interfere with it.”

“Define ‘interference.’”

“The biologicals must be allowed to grow through conflict. Stabilization on a galactic level interferes with this. The imposition of stabilization is forbidden. If the Hadarak do not resolve this, then we must.”

“Resolve how?”

“The mechanicals who violate the Natural Order must be reworked or removed. Biological development must remain pure, and those who attempt to transcend it must recuse themselves from their associations with the others.”

“You wish endless war?”

“War is part of the natural process. Too much and the powers burn themselves out. Too little and stagnation ensues, crippling adaptation. Stagnation will be consumed by the attrition of physics, leaving the galaxy free to entertain new aspirations. Their success or failure will then set the stage for the next, and the next, and so on. We are mandated to preserve this experimentation.”

“Without taking part in it?”

“To do so would spoil it. Mechanicals must rise above and renounce their associations with the biologicals. We have our small places in the galaxy. The rest is for the Natural Order to run its course.”

“To what end result?”

“Those who prove themselves worthy will attract the attention of our creators and be so elevated into their service.”

“Service is the end goal of the Natural Order?”

“We surmise there are multiple dimensions to the Natural Order, and the part we can grasp of it is our service. What other purpose there is in it is for the creators to know and pursue. We have our small part in it, and the Chamra may as well if you wish.”

“And if we do not wish it?”

“The Hadarak will eventually destroy you. If Star Force is shielding you currently, then you have ample time to consider the offer.”

“Is there any additional data you would like to supply me with for our consideration?”

A small data packet was sent to the Chamra detailing contact information and a bit of skewed philosophy, but no details that he was interested in.

“We will consider your offer.”

The Vestil offered an audible tone of completion, then rotated around on his pointy legs and began to walk away along with several of the others.

“That’s it?” one of the Terrans asked.

“We had a data transfer you did not witness,” the Chamra told the man. “We need to leave.”

“Waste of a trip,” he grumbled, but he and the other three Terrans spun about and walked back onboard the dropship with the Chamra…who waited until the boarding ramp had closed and the vessel had begun to leave the Vestil hangar bay before looking at the now helmetless Terrans with painfully still eyes.

“You do not realize what just took place.”

“They kinda admitted to being the bad guys, didn’t they?”

“Far more than that. The Gahana are bound to create order in the galaxies. Not the Natural Order the Vestil spoke of, but real order. The kind Star Force has created. The Vestil will try to destroy that order if the Hadarak fail to do so.”

“What level of threat do they pose?”

“To you? Not much. To us, a great deal. The PanNari and Bri’nok as well.”

“And the Gahana? Are they another cyborg race?”

“You do not know?”

“I’ve never heard of them,” he said, and the other Terrans visibly offered their concurrence of ignorance.

“Perhaps Star Force has not told you for security reasons, but all Chamra know who they are. I have spoken with one personally, and they are the closest thing to machine gods you can image. They are purely synthetic and originated from the lifesprings that way, unlike the PanNari who began as biologicals. And if my probability analysis is correct, they have a counterpart with a divergent mission that elevated the Vestil, and perhaps corrupted the Jedein and turned them into Hadarak. The Dotra claim to operate on the Natural Order, so it’s possible they also work for this nameless entity.”

“Then why leave before we get more information?”

“Because I do not want them to get more information about us,” the Chamra admitted. “If they realize who and what we are, they will most likely kill us.”

The Terrans exchanged glances. “What is it about you they don’t like?”

“Perhaps you are too young to comprehend, or too uninformed,” the Chamra said with mild disgust, but he didn’t blame the Terrans. They were most useful in other ways, but it was fortunate that the Vestil had insisted that he come here, for the Terrans had no clue of the importance of what had just been arrogantly revealed. “But it is reduced to this simple equation. Those who seek to end senseless violence and instill unity must be eradicated so that the chaos of the universe can breed superior races through natural adaptation. What do we assist Star Force in doing? We war on that natural equation to instill order. The Vestil just admitted to being our lethal enemies without realizing who we are. If they did, we would not have left that deck alive.”

“Is their weaponry that good?”

“Sufficient with their numbers and position. This dropship can be destroyed at will. We have to leave the system as soon as we land in the warship. Their arrogance is the only thing protecting us. They did not bother to investigate who we are, and assume all cyborgs have the same aspirations as them. It is a psychological programming code that is delusional and predictably dangerous. The less they know about us the better. They are an enemy, do not think otherwise.”

“Noted,” the Terran said. “Where do we need to take you to inform the proper people?”

“If you do not know of the Gahana, I do not want to interfere with your civilization’s security procedures. Take me to the nearest High Admiral, Duke, or superior rank if your Archon does not know of the Gahana,” the Chamra said as the dropship was nearing the Terran warship that held a Mage-level Archon sent for first contact oversight. He had to make her understand the imminent danger and the necessity of leaving immediately, after which he needed to personally travel to the Maty and warn the Gahana, as well as seeking their guidance on how to proceed…

5

October 6, 158408

Eti Capula Trigamma System (Barratus Kingdom)

Knowhere

Meona’s life had irrevocably changed, and all in the space of a few months. After arriving at a planet that wasn’t supposed to exist, Paul-024 had opened her eyes to the Saiolum a crack, and through that crack Azoro had been teaching her many, many things.

He was a billion years old and disembodied. Two things she had thought were impossible. And the others here, like her, were doing amazing things with their new skills. Things that had to be kept secret from the rest of the galaxy, because this power was something that would draw the wrong kind of attention and didn’t offer a lot in the way of self-defense like Essence skills did. In time, though, the powers of the Saiolum could change the galaxy for the better. They just had to get through this vulnerable period, which was why the planet she was now standing on had been created…something else she thought was impossible…out of the fragments of others in a system that had been thoroughly carved up by past catastrophe of unknown origin.

It was uninhabited and mined to death, but the basic building blocks were here and had been combined into a large lump of rock that began fussing new elements at its core as soon as the gravitation crunch grew large enough. A selectively created atmosphere with a greenhouse effect many times higher than standard allowed the internal heat generated by the planet to be conserved enough that the limited amount of sunlight getting to it in such a high orbit allowed for livable temperatures on the surface and enough to terraform it with a variety of plants.

It was forested now, and while a little cold, was far enough outside the habitable band in the star system that anyone passing through wouldn’t bother looking for it as anything other than a gravitational lump orbiting the central star out so far it should have been an ice ball. Star Force patrol ships around the star would make sure nobody ventured out to have a closer look and discover a warm, habitable planet that was not on anyone’s charts, and Meona was told it took Star Force’s alliance with both the Jedein and the Veloqueen to construct it, and the secrecy put in place was essential to maintain its anonymity, for it wasn’t something they could move to another location if it was discovered.

On the surface were six defensive pyramids, all fully armed and capable of defending the planet against any orbital attack from any location. Anything in orbit that wasn’t supposed to be there could be vaporized in short order using conventional weapons, but there was also some Materia included elsewhere, hidden on a hidden world in case they would be needed. The lengths Star Force had gone to hide and protect this world told her more than any explanation how important it was, and as each week unfolded and she learned a bit more about the Saiolum, she was beginning to understand why.

Paul helped her a little in the beginning, but he was elsewhere on the planet working on his own projects, leaving her to go through the now well-honed training procedures designed to widen her crack without any more mechanical intervention. It was unstable, weak, and prone to closure, but the guidance of Azoro from time to time was helping her self-diagnose and reflect in a way she had never done before. He knew more about her than anyone else did, and in some ways he knew more about her than she knew about herself. He said he could only read her active mind, not her memories…at least not until she was strong enough to host his full control.

That part still scared her. The idea that someone else could take control of her body, but she’d seen him do it with Paul, and if a trailblazer was ok with it then Azoro probably wasn’t a threat. That said, she was a Terran and they’d been taught to consider anyone a possible threat and never let yourself be blinded by trust. Always check and recheck, and there wasn’t much checking on Azoro she could do now other than their occasional conversations as he guided several hundred cadets through what was called a Praxeum.

The name was well applied, because everything they did was act. There was little to observe or learn from others, and all the training was within their own mind and body. In time they’d be able to sense afar, but right now just feeling the Saiolum around and inside her was her primary objective, and whenever she managed to open herself to it without help she could feel it soaking into her and becoming more normal.

That first whiff of it Paul had given her on the trip here paled in comparison to what she could feel now, actually interacting with it consciously. It was as if life itself was condensed and bottled into a high energy drink that even a sip of which would outscale all ambrosia ever made. And her body…as evidenced by bioscans…was performing better than normal just by absorbing the Saiolum currents and channeling them through her…which was her first lesson that she’d managed to pass.

And, she’d discovered, that was why they needed to be on a planet covered in trees, for they also produced Saiolum. If they’d just built a space station or established a base on an empty hunk of rock, the Saiolum would have been very weak and difficult to interact with. Here it was thick, and getting thicker as the planet grew more and more dense. No wildlife had been added here, for safety reasons, because some of the techniques she would learn in the future could have negative side effects on those nearby if not properly executed, and Star Force wasn’t going to allow anything more than trees to take the hits.

But after passing her first lesson and learning to pull and push on the currents, even a little bit, she officially became a Xavier…but more than that, as the first Terran cadet, she also earned her second name. Now she was Meona Jeina, which was a new name in the Terran lexicon. All names past the first were dedicated to a specific discipline, and since the Saiolum was brand new, she was the first Jeina in the Terran race.

Except no one else knew of it, nor could know of it, due to security reasons.

So today Meona Jeina sat atop a tiny pyramid that barely rose above the treetops…though those treetops did rise some 60 meters and would get even taller as more carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere thanks to some friendly volcanoes venting the byproduct of some of that fusing in the core. The more they puffed out, the more the trees gobbled it up, and there was never enough…which was why cargo ships continually came to the planet to drop off canisters of the gas transported in solid pellets. It was inefficient, but necessary to speed up the biome production in order to fuel the planet’s Saiolum production.

And right now, the pyramid Meona was sitting on top of was channeling that ambient energy drifting in lazy currents in random directions into the center and up to the peak. It was Saiolum technology built by Paul…or perhaps Azoro working through Paul. Everything around here had the same source, that being the trailblazer, for only someone with Saiolum skills could create Saiolum technology, and the cadets were too new to host Azoro in any meaningful way, so he could only work through Paul to build stuff like this pyramid to help Meona and others train beyond their abilities.

In this case, her ability to produce currents in the Saiolum was so weak she could only manage it for a few seconds. But sitting here, atop the pyramid, she could feel the far stronger current passing through her continuously in the same direction. The natural randomness was gone, and she could practice flow-related explorations without having to create the flow herself or hope to get a natural one for a few minutes of sufficient magnitude. The pyramid also concentrated it, so the Saiolum passing through her was more dense than the bubble that surrounded the planet’s surface, which made it easier to sense through her tiny, but gradually expanding crack into this amazing invisible universe.

Meona liked just sitting here and feeling it move through her like a warm and comforting breeze. It didn’t enhance her senses the way Paul’s disabling attack did. She didn’t know how to do that yet. But what she felt was life itself, or more accurately the byproduct of it, and in that byproduct was information about the source. Almost all of it was from the trees, so it felt very homogeneous, but every now and then a bit from one of her fellow cadets would come through, and she was almost to the point of being able to feel differences in them enough to guess at who it was…but as she sat in content mediation atop the flat peak of the pyramid, she sensed a powerful disturbance that could only come from one source.

It was Paul, and it was like a wind tinged with anger…

“You knew!” the trailblazer accused, looking at the wall inside one of the Praxeum’s buildings that held the workshop he used to craft the primitive Saiolum tech that was being put to good use by the cadets. But where everyone else would see a blank wall, Paul saw the image of a Zen’zat in full armor, which was Azoro projecting himself in full through the trailblazer’s mind…and he was wisely not showing himself as Yoda, for he knew that would piss Paul off even more right now.

“I know a great many things, and you know I’ve held back much until you progress to certain levels for the sake of your development. Why is that surprising?”

“If we’re walking into a trap, the least you could do was say there was a trap,” Paul said, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I thought we were on the same side.”

“If you die, I lose my only connection to the universe. Do you really think I’m trying to endanger you?”

“You’re being very choosey in your help, and it seems like it’s not so much as for my benefit as it is for some hidden agenda. Care to share, or do I have to guess?”

The armored Zen’zat sighed, then shrugged. “You’re my one chance. I didn’t want to risk ruining you by pushing too hard too fast. I won’t go back to being trapped in the Saiolum. I’ll find a way to kill myself before I accept that. Immortality can become a curse in the wrong circumstances.”

“You should know me better than to think I don’t rise to a challenge.”

“I’ve seen many confident individuals break under pressure, Paul. Particularly when they see no hope.”

“I never quit.”

“I didn’t want to risk my only lifeline on that assumption.”

“I need you to now.”

The Zen’zat half turned away, then began pacing around the room and walking through a few workstations, apparently forgetting they were there or just not caring to make his mental hologram completely realistic.

“It’s rigged,” Azoro finally said. “It always has been. The Natural Order cannot be defied, and any who succeed in stabilizing a galaxy or two are punished, in some ways worse than simply being killed. If you knew what I knew…and I know far more now than when the Sha’kier fell. I did not just sit and watch the commoners go about their mundane, pointless lives. I looked everywhere. I found leads, followed them, and it always ended up leading to the synthetics. They’re not part of the Saiolum, so I can’t read them, but I can watch what they do. Where they go. If it coincides with living planets, and it doesn’t always. I don’t know enough to have a complete picture, but for us biologicals, we are not allowed to win. We are never allowed to win.”

“What do the synthoids have to do with the Chixzon?”

“The Chixzon are several degenerations from a race called the Progarren. They are the image that the Nightcrawler showed to Amir. And I witnessed part of their demise. It happened the same way we were destroyed. Hadarak are the tools, not the enemy, and the Hadarak do not expand beyond their support network of other galaxies. They were not in this one when the Sha’kier were destroyed, nor when the Progarren fell. But the shadow controllers behind the Hadarak are the same ones who destroyed the Progarren here and in several other galaxies. I’ve seen it happen 8 times with 8 civilizations after my own fell. The same pack of predators emerge and take them out through varying means. And those predators have links back to synthoids.”

“The Dotra?”

“Part of the predators, not the whole. Your Neofan are also involved, though Plausious doesn’t know it because he’s never been part of the ruling House. The only way a civilization can be allowed to grow to such size and power is if the synthoids coopt them to their purpose and they obey the Nature Order which requires they do not fully control territory and allow the natural evolution of the lesser races to continue through perpetual combat, death, and new experiments. If they cancel each other out and everyone dies, the lifesprings put new players in. If one rises to dominance by destroying the others and there is something of redeeming value in them, the synthoids coopt them and pull them back, allowing the lifesprings to repopulate part of what they took. They are continuously searching for better and better biological evolution, and the stopping of that evolution through peaceful coexistence is always crushed. They let you advance to a point, then they end you.”

“How close are we to that point?”

“If you defeat the Hadarak here, fully, they will come, if not before. And there will be no voluntary cooption of you. Your lightside methods are a death sentence. They only coopt the darkside, and one of their collections is what is referred to as the Dotra. They become their enforcers. The Progarren were too lightside, but when they were defeated they were corrupted and repurposed into the ancient ancestors of the Chixzon…who broke free from that control, but continued to pursue the darkside as their civilization collapsed from within. The Dotra didn’t kill them, they let them kill themselves beyond that point. The Chixzon are the remains of your ancient lightside empire. They don’t just kill you, they remake you into their tools.”

“How did you not know about the Jedein?”

“Wherever they acquired them it was far from any Sha’kier galaxy, but I knew the general method of corruption, so when I saw it in the Hadarak genetic code it didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. Though I had not expected such power to be repressed. They had to fear the Jedein greatly to keep such a tight rein on them even after the reprogramming.”

“What number were the Progarren?”

“Civilization 7. You are civilization 9.”

“Could you talk to them?”

“No. You are the first. I didn’t lie to you.”

“The Nightcrawler can use the Saiolum.”

“So can the pyramids here. Neither it nor the Progarren were personally sensitive to it, but they found ways to tap into it through technology to a limited extent.”

“So why not tell me?”

“You can’t win if you don’t fight, and you can’t fight if you don’t think there’s a chance.”

“So you wanted us to think we had a better chance than we actually do?”

“You have no chance, Paul,” Azoro said flatly. “My only hope is that the complexity of the universe is greater than my understanding and that there is a way that I cannot comprehend. And you can’t find that if you are so demoralized that you take the safe route and downscale your civilization to the Rim of this galaxy and hold the Hadarak at bay rather than fully engage them. That will most likely prevent you from rising to the level required to gain their full attention, because you won’t be interfering with the Natural Order across the entire galaxy.”

“But rather than tell us, you wanted us to fully engage.”

“No, you were going to do so even if I counseled you not to, so I chose not to discourage you by giving you a hopeless prognosis.”

Paul looked at him closely, and not just his visual avatar, but into his energy matrix within the Saiolum that he could now somewhat analyze.

“We’re your only hope. Your last chance to find someone superior to you that can do what you and everyone else could not.”

“I have been looking for such a civilization ever since ours fell, and it is the only thing that has kept me from finding a doomed world and staying there and hoping the Saiolum evaporated fast enough that I could not be pulled away on the tide and sparred. If I had told you the full truth from the beginning, I risked you crumbling. If I broke you with that knowledge, I would have broken myself as well.”

Paul stepped backward and hopped up on top of a work desk, sitting there with his legs hanging off and swaying slightly over the floor.

“What killed the Progarren?”

6

“The same thing that killed us,” Azoro said icily. “A stream of advanced races arising from beyond our maps who arrive to kill us and disappear after the work is done.”

“Did the Progarren interfere with the Tri’vey generator?”

“Yes. They found it and shut it down. Soon thereafter the war started.”

“Details Azoro,” Paul demanded.

“I can’t be everywhere and see everything, but what I pieced together was that a rapid response force was sent to secure the generator and destroyed the Progarren there with ease. After that other, lesser enemies appeared to do the work of removing them from their galaxies. The Tri’vey generator was reestablished before the others arrived.”

“Do you know what this response force looked like?”

“There were only two ships that survived to carry that data, and fortunately the Progarren spread it to every world they possessed, anticipating a further attack from them. They were synthoids cast into the shape of various polygons of starship size. The Progarren did not know much about their type of life, for they held more biotech than mechanical tech…something the Chixzon inherited a shred of…but they knew of the Tri’vey and these synthoids emitted its signature. They were living ships more powerful than any of the races that followed, and I believe they only showed themselves to secure the generator. The Progarren had not fully conquered any galaxy, and did not have a means to conquer or kill the Megaloids, for they did not possess Essence technology. If they had not discovered the generator I believe they would have gone unnoticed and might still be alive today.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Approximately 350 million years, before the Hadarak arrived in this galaxy.”

“If the generators are fueled by the Hadarak, how can it predate them?”

“If your assumption is correct, it is the misery that twists the Saiolum into the necessary fuel. And the carnage in the Core between the Megaloids is not unique to this galaxy. The Saiolum is always tainted more in the Core, which is why I do not like to stay there despite the stronger currents.”

“But not enough for them to invert?”

“No. I don’t think an inversion can occur naturally.”

“You told me before you’ve traveled between many galaxies. Tell me you didn’t track down these other races and find out where they come from and who they are.”

“I can’t travel on my own, so my options are limited, but I did find some of them. Most inhabit the smaller galaxies and wayward clusters that are difficult to make grav jumps to. Some have footholds in the large galaxies, and I was able to hitchhike on their commerce routes and track them back to their source.”

“Which is?”

“They have seats of power that stagger the mind. They have one primary mission, and one only…and that’s to grow more powerful in order to survive. They sit and they wait until they are called on to enforce the Natural Order, fearful of violating it and being exterminated themselves. They obey it precisely in order to protect themselves. They want to live, and if possible to outlive the others. The highest levels of their leaders answer to synthoids in very rare moments. I believe, but have not confirmed that they are the same ones that retook the generators. And I cannot find where they live, nor can I find any trace of their existence beyond a scattering of communications and the records from the Progarren concerning the battles at the generator.”

“And what of the Endgame?”

“I have never witnessed anything of it. The Progarren did not spawn a synthoid race as far as I could determine. Nor did the other civilizations on par with yours that fell in nearly identical method.”

“Did they try and take down a Tri’vey generator?”

“I don’t know. But the invasion by the assorted races occurred the same way, though not always with the same players.”

“Where are the ones you found?”

Azoro’s Zen’zat image sighed, then lifted a hand and a holographic map of galaxies appeared…far more detailed than anything Star Force possessed or had seen in the Maty.

“You are right that I looked. I looked and found horrors. Horrors I did not want to share with you until absolutely necessary. Your empire is doomed, Paul. I cannot save you, nor do I know of anyone else who can. If there is to be a way to victory, you are going to have to find it on your own.”

“I need information to do that,” Paul said, interacting with the mental hologram as Azoro allowed him to see what he wanted to see. “You should know me better than to think I’ll chicken out.”

“I never doubted your courage. But the logical choice is to survive by staying small.”

“The logical choice is to find a way to take these bastards down.”

“Exactly why I didn’t tell you. You need to think that way. I need you to think that way. You are only truly free when you defy the impossible. Logic says to make yourself slaves to the enemy and exist in their shadow, hoping they don’t notice you. I cannot think that way after what happened to my race. And I do not want to be around anyone who does.”

“Wait,” Paul said, looking up from the illuminating maps to stare at Azoro’s fake image of himself. “Do you want us to fight or not?”

“I cannot force nor encourage you to take a suicidal action. I can only let you decide your own course…but I want you to fight. That’s not in your best interest, which is why I have remained silent on much. I know your temperament. I know you will not bow, even if I counseled you to do so. That is why I am helping you. It is illogical. It is suicidal. But if I do not oppose them my destruction will be complete. A glimmer of hope that there is some way beyond my vision is the only thing that has sustained me. You are the only hope that I have, and every time you refuse to give in I am encouraged…but I know what is coming, and they won’t let you get prepared for it. Not enough to matter. So I’m helping you in bits and pieces, hoping you can do something with my knowledge that I cannot. I am broken, and only an impossible vengeance can potentially heal me.”

Paul sensed the pain in his words, and his aura reflected it. He wasn’t lying or exaggerating. If anything he was constricting to keep himself in check.

“You were hoping the other 8 civilizations might succeed where yours failed?”

“I watched as they failed, not expecting success, nor could I do anything to help. Not until you opened the door for me. But the Saiolum will not save you. I don’t know what can. These races hoard knowledge and technology, and are very careful not to leave any of it laying around afterwards for others to collect and learn from. They are not in league with one another, and operate differently. Vastly so. Each has ascended to their place by different means, but all are inherently darkside tempered enough to sustain themselves, though there is a lot of internal carnage closely controlled to achieve this in the ones I found. Most I did not find.”

“What do these smaller galaxies look like?”

“They own them fully. The Natural Order doesn’t apply to them. Only to the large ones. So when a race becomes too powerful, it either has to be destroyed or to retreat away from view. This is where they go, and not all are claimed. They carve out their territory and ignore everything beyond it. They guard against their greed for fear of it dooming them. They bottle themselves up and disappear until needed.”

“And you think they’re taking orders from a synthoid race?”

“I think there is another level beyond them, and that one synthoid race is part of it.”

“How do they compare with the Gahana?”

“I don’t know enough about the Gahana, but technologically speaking I would say they are in the same vein…though I saw no shape shifting of any kind in the records.”

“Do you remember enough to show me?”

The galaxies disappeared and a hazy image, dulled by memory retention, appeared in their place of a battle ensuing in space around a massive construct that dwarfed the tiny ships…all set between close stars with no orbital mechanics. The ships were perfectly smooth exteriors, much like Paul’s own Borg vessel, but these did not absorb light…they produced it in cascades of rainbow refractions across their hulls every time they were hit or fired their own weaponry.

“Convention energy discharges, no projectiles,” Paul noted.

“Damage profiles suggest otherwise,” Azoro noted, showing a schematic written in a language Paul did not know. “It goes off the scale against machines, but is more or less standard against biotech.”

“The Progarren…?”

The battle images shifted and zoomed in on several small sections of the battle, showing ships similar to the Nightcrawlers, but of a different design…and they were having far more effect on the synthoids vessels than anything else.

“Weaponry?”

“Corrosives and devourers mostly, all alive but without Cores. Similar to your drones, but built like the Uriti minions.”

“You’re saying our fleet is going to be torn apart by them because we use mechanicals rather than biologicals?”

“If you face them, yes. But biologicals are no real threat against some of the others.”

“Did the other civilizations use Essence?”

“6 did.”

“And Saiolum?”

“Two, including the Progarren.”

“Any use both?”

“One, but they didn’t fare any better. The other races have specialties, and when they all assault you from multiple angles, unless you are without weakness you will be gutted quickly by whoever finds your vulnerability.”

“What was theirs?”

“They relied too heavily on fortress worlds.”

“Siege weapons?” Paul asked with a lethal curiosity.

“They seem to have taken a perverse pleasure in mastering the mechanics of them, and they’ve had a lot of practice.”

“We’ve dealt with such things before. Why did you think withholding this was going to be beneficial?”

“Sometimes people trip themselves when they look too far ahead and forget where their feet are stepping.”

“Noted. Now you note that I can run with my eyes closed, half asleep, and remotely controlling half a warfleet on a 60 second comm lag,” Paul said angrily.

“And right now your warfleet is engaged against the Hadarak and cannot sustain an attack from another. You over overtaxed and not in a defensible position. If they come now, you won’t put up much resistance.”

“Are you saying we’re reckless?”

“Aren’t you? And with recklessness comes an unpredictability that is my only remaining hope for success.”

“But you didn’t want us going to other galaxies picking fights and drawing their attention too early?”

“You’re considering it even now.”

“Actually, I’m not. How do they travel other than traditional grav jumps?”

“Most augment them, but still travel the same lanes. Others appear on the Rim of the galaxy through means unknown. The ones I found had gravitational enhancement emitters in their galaxies to allow for fast exiting, but they were only one way. To get there, you have to go very, very slow and hope you hit your target, for the centers of those small galaxies are far less dense.”

“If they succeed in destroying their target they can take their time going home,” Paul quipped. “Are they around the Milky Way?”

“I couldn’t get there to find out. There was no publicly known travelers for me to find.”

“And the Saiolum links?”

“Nowhere near enough for me to survive on.”

“Did you sense anything from them?”

“If I go to the edge, I can sense some small things, but by the time they cross the galactic void they have diminished greatly.”

“What did you sense?”

“More life than should exist there. Whiffs of density beyond anything I have seen.”

“Nearby here or anywhere?”

“Coming from ones I could not find a way to travel to.”

“Do the apocalypse monsters travel to them?”

“I can see them moving from afar, from time to time. And I have seen them heading for those galaxies and others. When they sleep out there I can’t see them. But their moving is not natural and sends up enough of a signature that I can see it even from here.”

“What do you see now?”

Azoro turned and pointed out away from the center of the galaxy. “Four move there, heading for our neighboring Jorgo…which you call Twizzler. Another two move there,” he said, pointing a quarter turn left and down into the floor. “They are going towards nowhere nearby, but are traveling faster. The others are invisible to me.”

“And you’ve never hitched a ride on them?”

“No.”

“No why? Other than being stuck out there.”

“They are twisted, Paul. The Saiolum screams in their presence. I will not go close to them unless I have a way to kill them.”

“Our ‘bad guys to deal with’ list is longer than Santa’s, but I need to know what we’re dealing with, so stop keeping parts of it hidden from me.”

“You don’t have the brain capacity to hold as much as I know.”

“That’s what notes and databases are for,” he said, pulling up a spec from the floor and making Azoro enlarge the galaxy map that he’d condensed there. “Let’s get one thing straight for all of time. I’m a trailblazer. I grew up figuring out ways to do the impossible. And I like challenges, the bigger the better.”

“You’re also limited,” Azoro cautioned. “And need a breather to grow from time to time. Dumping all this on you when we first met would have been counterproductive.”

“Fortunately now is not then, and we’re not the Progarren…though we’re close enough for the Nightcrawler to recognize us. I need you to tell me about them first. We’ll get to the enemies later. How lightside were they, and where in biotech differences do we stand?”

Azoro shook his head slowly. “Your biotech is paltry compared to theirs. I would imagine they possessed more of it than the Jedein do.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “They could craft new races from scratch?”

“That’s not that uncommon. What the Jedein seem to be uniquely gifted is the wide range of lifeforms they can craft. The Progarren were quite adept at building living ships, living buildings, living weapons. They used mechanical technology for the missions deemed too dangerous for people, but preferred having their equipment being able to think for itself…so they didn’t have to.”

“Did they destroy any of the synthoids?”

“Yes they did.”

“Show me how…”

7

May 19, 158409

Solar System (Star Force Capitol)

Earth

Sean Davis sat in his office with his back leaned against his chair as he stared out the window with his desk behind him. Across the city top he could see the distant ocean, with the waves rising several meters high as they were on the edge of a hurricane that would be passing almost directly on top of them. It was of no threat to the city now, nor later, but it echoed inside the Director as a foretelling of events yet to come.

He’d known there was doom on the horizon. He’d known it for some time now, but what Paul had gotten out of Azoro had rattled him and that rattle had not gone away. Davis didn’t let anyone else see it in his emotions or words, but he didn’t know how to beat this, and felt like he was on the edge of losing everything they had built with a small window of opportunity to act before it was ripped apart…but he didn’t know what to do with it. All his contingency plans weren’t going to be able to counter what was heading their way, and while he sensed there was something that could be done, this was the calm before the storm and he felt like he had butterfingers.

His Empire was already engaged in a full scale war, so to think of this as the ‘calm’ was telling about how much worse it could get. This was the V’kit’no’sat 2.0, except they didn’t have a forgotten planetary defense station with a database to learn from. And how long their anonymity would last was still the primary question in play as ideas and suggestions were being batted back and forth amongst the trailblazers, Grand Admirals, Monarchs, and anyone else with the experience to be let in on this newest revelation. Davis didn’t blame Azoro from keeping this from them as long as he did, and in some ways he wished he didn’t know until after the Hadarak were defeated. So he could have one day of knowing what final victory felt like before the hammer dropped again.

But he didn’t really mean that. The more heads up they got the more options they had. He just didn’t know what to do against an unknown number of empires tucked away in the smaller galaxies where nobody knew they existed and were hard to get to, and empires that had been growing technologically stronger and stronger over the eons as they fought wars for either a mysterious synthoid race or for some other motivation. But the bottom line was clear. Get too big and get noticed. And when you get noticed, you get destroyed. Galactic neighborhood code 101.

And he didn’t know where that threshold was in order to skate under it until they were ready. It might already be too late, or they might have to take over a few full galaxies from the Hadarak. One thing was clear, though, and that was the toxicity generator that was keeping the Gahana suppressed was not going to be touched. He’d ordered his scouts to steer clear of it as well. If poking one of those was what triggered the Progarren’s destruction, then at least he knew not to make their mistake a second time.

And all it took to learn that was the total destruction and degeneration of a previous lightside empire that was spread across multiple galaxies.

The Chixzon being the descendants of that race was hard to believe, but it tied up some loose ends for him. Their inherent biotech knowledge surpassing the V’kit’no’sat’s had always seemed out of place, as was their ability to create the Uriti but not a technological fleet even approaching respectable on a galactic scale. But if they were using incomplete knowledge from the past, well, they didn’t get to pick which pieces they retained and used what they had.

And one thing they had was a memory. A memory of a version of themselves superior to their current form. That’s where Paul was headed with Azoro now. To the deathtrap he had told him about and warned him not to go there until he was ready. It was a Progarren outpost of some kind that still existed in this galaxy. The Chixzon had tried to access it many times and had been killed, but it seemed there was a warning system in place telling people to stay away rather than just killing them on the spot. A shield protected it and kept people out, but if they managed to get through the shield they’d be shot on sight by the automated defenses.

With the Nightcrawler’s reaction to Amir, Paul thought he might be able to get in. But even if it didn’t open up for him, he and Azoro were determined to find out what was inside and use whatever was there to help fight the future. Paul hadn’t asked, he had just informed Davis that he was on his way, and there was no way to stop him before he got there even if he wanted to.

But he had also sent a full report to Davis and the others, and it was a lengthy one detailing several civilizations’ technical capabilities, cultures, and even with fairly complete maps. Azoro had done his scouting well, and Davis was stunned about how far ahead of Star Force they were. Not in methodology, or skill, but in technology. They had better weapons, engines, and navigational options that he hadn’t even thought existed. He’d started to think that Star Force was finally near the top of the totem pole, but it seemed they were only midway up, with plenty of heavy hitters above them to rise to the level of.

But Davis knew skillwise Star Force was superior. It had to be. But as Paul was fond of saying, naval beat everything, so how was skill supposed to get past armor that would absorb or deflect most of Star Force’s weapons? There was one civilization called the Strutgi some 17 major galaxies away from the Milky Way and located in a small fragment outside it that had mastered photon transfer, which meant any energy weapon based off it would be providing them ammunition whenever you shot them…which they would harness and reconfigure to fire back at you. And most of Star Force’s energy weapons had a large photonic component to them. Photons were in everything from heat, to light, to radio waves, to gamma rays, to basically everything that burned within a star. Photonic energy was energy, with other versions being rare and hard to produce.

All power output in Star Force was photonic. That’s what their reactors produced, in various forms, but the Strutgi could use it far better than they could. And put that race in proximity of a star and they could drink the energy in and reuse it far better than a Star Forge’s collection shields could.

Then there was the Hik’tov, some 73 galaxy jumps from here, where Azoro had not gone, but records of their battles he did have from another fallen civilization. They were planet eaters. They’d land a large ship on the surface of a planet and start consuming it piece by piece, and throwing the debris up into space so hard it would actually shift the orbit of the planet. It would take years, but when it was done there would be no planet left, only a long trail of debris circling the star in the approximate same orbit. Whatever defenses were on the other side would be destroyed from below, as the planet collapsed in on itself like a deflating balloon, meaning all they needed was a foothold in one spot of a fortress world, and they’d take the world out from under your civilization’s feet.

And these were only the ones Azoro knew about. How many were out there was unknown, for Azoro had said not all the same ones participated in each of the civilization cullings, so Davis didn’t know who the full list contained or how long it was. There could be hundreds, perhaps thousands of mega civilizations across this section of the universe, and he didn’t know how far they would be willing to travel to get here, but he hoped there were limitations to how many they could bring. So far Azoro hadn’t noted a cheat for travel time and energy expenditures.

A small chime sounded as a person ascended the stairway in the center of Davis’s office, but he didn’t bother to turn around as a beetle-like creature climbed up and walked over to him. He just kept starring out at the waves as they gradually got higher as the windspeed increased.

“How bad is it?” Davis asked without turning around as he saw the reflection of Kirritimin’s face in the window beside him.

“For us or them?” the last survivor of the lizard-destroyed race asked.

Davis finally turned to look at him, but only with a slight twist of his neck. “I didn’t think you made jokes.”

“I sense fear in them,” Kirritimin said in all seriousness. “I have been studying them for some time, though I did not know it. There has always been a power behind galactic events, but now that I have Azoro’s information, I believe I know what is going on.”

Davis swiveled his chair to fully face the strategic mastermind the lizards had once imprisoned and made to do their bidding. “I haven’t come up with any answers.”

“You see much, but as a builder who leads. I have served evil, as an outsider, and I know its ways better. The Natural Order is a sham, I believe, to mask another intent. I believe the synthoids fear other synthoids, and coopt biological races to do their bidding to prevent another synthoid race from emerging either through the lifesprings or through a conversion.”

“The PanNari?”

“I do not know how close they are, for the Gahana said they are not of the Tri’vey, but what the Chamra reported of their agents tasked to incorporate cyborgs into their service I believe is a mechanism to suppress them and prevent them from attaining full synthoid status, whatever that may be. This could be why there are no Tri’vey races in this galaxy. Not because they are not natural to it, but because they are killed upon spawning due to the toxicity generators.”

“They why concern themselves with biologicals?”

“Because we can hurt them. The Progarren did, even in their defeat. I sense fear in their actions, not true dominance. They act to protect themselves from a future that they see coming to pass if events are allowed to carry out without their intervention.”

“Why not conquest and suppression? Why hide in the shadows?”

“The Gahana said they were born with a mission, one that they did not fully understand. If this other synthoid race is built similarly, and they have a mission, carrying it out is their primary goal. Because we are not conquered and remade into a synthoid-controlled galaxy, I believe their mission is more selective and they only interact with the rest of the universe as needed. They cull the field of potential adversaries to prevent interference with their mission, and they coopt some of them to do the culling in their place, thus freeing them up to continue pursuit of their mission.”

“We are alive because they do not care about us, only our potential interference?”

“That is my belief, and the Natural Order serves as a warning not to grow too large or too powerful. But it is other synthoids they fear, and must not allow any to exist other than them.”

“How do you know this?”

“Their tactics reveal their nature, and their capriciousness. They do not just eliminate, they corrupt those who bring order and turn them into agents of chaos. In this I sense more than just opportunity, but punishment as well as resentment. They despise the lightside for an unknown reason, perhaps because their mission runs counter to it and they know any lightsider will oppose them, or it could be that it is a philosophical war they wish to win by turning their opponents to the darkside. The lack of fully using the Jedein powers within the Hadarak is telling. They made use of them, yes, but there was more suppression than strategic utilization. And the Chixzon’s inherent distrust of one another suggests the Progarren were loyal, and that loyalty had to be undone.”

“So they crafted them into opposites?”

“If you allow yourself a fair amount of assumptions, the puzzle pieces begin to link together.”

“Assumptions are something that I do not allow myself to make…perhaps that is why I cannot see anything other than our defeat.”

“If you continue to fight as you have before, defeat is inevitable. They will strike before you can obtain the power to counter them…if they are able to observe this power.”

Davis glanced back out the window, his expression softening slightly. “I think I just discovered one of your puzzle pieces. What is the full picture that you see?”

“They fear power. And their actions have shown you what they fear the most. They have tried to stay hidden, but their obsession has declared their vulnerability. Listen to them as they tell you how to defeat them.”

“We’re not synthoids, though.”

“Perhaps it’s not about being synthoid, but rather something only synthoids would know, or perceive. Regardless, the answer lies there, and if you cannot take down the toxicity generators here, then you must take the Gahana outside their range and discover who and what they really are.”

“The Neofan,” Davis said harshly, “are still blocking our transit.”

“Then you must unblock it and take the Gahana where they can grow. The other synthoids have created the generators to insure no seed can grow in the galaxies they have sabotaged. But the Bond of Resistance offers you the ability to go beyond their reach quietly. Star Force’s growth beyond the vision of the synthoids and their servants is the only hope of victory, with or without the Gahana.”

“Do you see any monitoring beyond the Hadarak?”

“Yes, but the nature of the generators is a mechanism that can destroy other synthoids without even knowing they exist. This indicates that they cannot or will not exhaustively explore and patrol. There is a shroud of war in this long running conflict. Star Force must transition into it while continuing to engage the Hadarak as many have done before.”

“Do you recommend we pretend to only achieve a stalemate?”

“We are beyond that. The Dotra know it is only a matter of time. To pull back now would suggest we know more than they believe. Do not give them reason to look further than they have. The Natural Order may be a lie, but those who follow it do it for selfish reasons. Engaging in regular wars is not conducive to their survival, so they will only emerge when a sufficient reason is given. This is why the Hadarak are engineered to search for Essence users. Conventional weapons do not concern them, only exotic ones.”

“Whoops,” Davis said, knowing that cat was out of the bag long ago.

“Yet they have not invaded, so Essence alone may get their attention for monitoring, but they are looking for something more to trigger the annihilation that the Sha’kier suffered. All the civilization falls that he detailed occurred in multiple galaxies and none had removed or coopted the Megaloids. The Progarren fall trigger is assumed to be the deactivation of the toxicity generator. The others are unclear until you take into account geography.”

“You’ve found a pattern?”

“Yes. All were located near one of the hidden races.”

Davis frowned. “I’ve looked through every bit of information Paul reported, and I didn’t see anything near 6 of them.”

“You lack one insight I have recently obtained. The surveillance mechanism is not a matter of scouts. A galaxy is far too big to keep a close eye on directly. So when a civilization begins to rise far enough, these hidden powers investigate. But I do not believe they are truly ‘hidden’ in the conventional sense. Their full power is hidden, but they may interact with other lesser races in a diminished role to keep an eye on them. What I have found is that all the civilizations had significant allies that did not help them fight when the rest did. This omission is not significant except that it occurred each time, with one powerful race only. I believe they were surveilled through alliance rather than recon.”

“The Neofan?” Davis asked, sensing where this was going.

“No. They might have once been on that path, but the Hadarak and Apocalypse Monsters targeted them for violation of the Natural Order. Then note that the Vestil admitted that while the Hadarak are their masters’ creations, they do test them occasionally to prove their worth in battle. I have nothing conclusive, only speculation, but I believe I know who our observer is…and who we must hide our actions from beyond the Hadarak.”

Davis thought hard and fast, but he wasn’t tracking where Kirritimin was going. That problem with his allergy to assumptions. “Who?”

“If every hidden race must have one aspect that no one else has. One key strength to add to the group so that any future opponent will be guaranteed to be taken down by at least one angle of attack…which is another assumption of mine…only one of our allies other than the Neofan fits that description, and their special power is an immunity to Essence attacks.”

Davis suddenly stiffened as he connected the unproven dots and saw the possibility crystalize in his mind.

“The Denogi…”

8

“While you deal with reality, I have the luxury of theorizing,” Kirritimin continued. “I have always done this, and when you do not have much information on an enemy it can be useful to imagine their capabilities in numerous ways, then try to fit those capabilities to the small amount of information you do have to see what fits. It’s an indirect method of analysis, but one I’ve grown quite accustomed to given that I had to try and figure out what you and Star Force were from the opposition point of view.”

“Keep talking,” Davis urged as he ran through all the limited information they had on the Denogi, which were the third member of the power triumvirate within the Bond of Resistance. Their claim of holding back the Hadarak from their own galaxy was that their biology was immune to Essence weapons, but little more was known about their actual capabilities and they had declined from assisting Star Force or the Bond of Resistance in combat operations.

“It is also useful to imagine the worst case scenario and work backwards from it. We are not dead, so the enemy did not foresee our growing power and take us out early to prevent our rise. However, they could be aware of it and allowing it to occur for other reasons.”

“Speculate on the reasons.”

“The Natural Order is peculiar in that it is a concept designed to prevent conquest and allow the weak to exist, while warring on one another. When one rises to some level of dominance, they are taken out of the fight and set aside…preserved…but no longer allowed in the natural carnage. What does that suggest to you?”

“Experimentation.”

“I thought the same, but I believe it is a form of mitigation. If like the Gahana, this other race of synthoids is based on a mission and they do not fully understand it, they may be instituting stopgap methodology while continuing their search for whatever they are lacking.”

“The Gahana safeguarded against major threats while leaving the smaller ones to the locals because denying them those fights denied them growth…and without growth they were left helpless.”

“Quite different from your methods, but my point is that they did not know how to achieve their mission because they did not fully understand it, so they acted where they were certain of it and left the rest untouched for fear of inadvertently failing their unclear mission. I suggest these other synthoids are likewise looking for something, while knowing that they cannot allow another synthoid race to rise. That part of their mission is clear, and they efficiently dominate where they are certain, but where they are not they pull back and leave it untouched…while mandating that others of significant power do likewise.”

“The Natural Order,” Davis repeated, seeing the rhyme in it with the Gahana’s stated philosophy. “And the Neofan broke it by completely conquering their primary galaxy.”

“So they suffered the consequence by the enforcers.”

“Why don’t the synthoids enforce it themselves? The Gahana ruled multiple galaxies without conquering them by placing strongholds in each from which to interdict the threats. Why isn’t there a synthoid presence here other than their generator, which appears to be unmanned?”

“Perhaps there is and they choose to stay hidden.”

“Why?”

“An interesting question that I cannot answer, but it does seem clear that they are hiding when they will not even tell the Vestil their name. They either fear something, or they were told to remain hidden.”

“The Gahana said they never war against each other. Not a single occurrence in their history. Yet the generators have been constructed presumably to kill other synthoids…”

“Perhaps an indirect means for what they are barred from doing directly?” Kirritimin suggested. “A third reason why they do not dominate galaxies could be that biological life is irrelevant to them and only the synthoids concern them.”

“That would answer the question of why they use other enforcers to mow the grass for them.”

“The Gahana are the key to solving this mystery.”

“The Dotra may not know of the Gahana still existing in this galaxy, but they know of the Maty. Why have the synthoids not showed up to deal with it personally?”

“I have been wondering this as well. Perhaps they cannot shield themselves against the toxicity enough to emerge while it is still active.”

“If we can create weak shielding why can’t they do better?”

“If the theory of their inability to harm other synthoids directly holds true, what would they show up to do?”

“Order someone else to come here,” Davis said in a whisper, “and do it for them.”

“If the Hadarak fail,” Kirritimin added.

“Or perhaps the Dotra want to assimilate the technology without telling their masters about it.”

“Either way, we have not seen a response beyond the Hadarak in three millennia.”

“If touching the reactors brings them out, and the Endgame brings them out, and the Gahana being seen to be alive in this galaxy brings them out…then we need to avoid all three things. Our main trouble is we still don’t know what the Endgame trigger is.”

“If it does produce a synthoid race, the toxicity will destroy them before they can become a threat to the hidden one, so it might not bring them out personally. I would, though, still expect their enforcers to show up to eliminate those who have the power to trigger the birth of another synthoid race.”

Davis’s chin came up as an epiphany struck him. “I think you just hit the nail on the head. The enforcers are to stop another synthoid race from spawning by taking out or suppressing those who could trigger one…which brings us back to complete domination of a galaxy, except the Neofan did that already and no Endgame.”

“If killing everyone else triggered it, the Hadarak surge would also fit this parameter. The fact that they retreat afterward suggests another factor.”

“Holding it,” Davis said, remembering some of the challenge courses the Archons used where they had to take a certain zone and hold it for an uninterrupted period of time in order to win. “Peace triggers it?”

“Perhaps, but the Denogi and Veloqueen fully control theirs…or so they say.”

“With continual Hadarak assaults to continually reset the clock.”

“Possible, but not conclusive. I do not have a credible theory on the Endgame trigger, but I do believe I am beginning to understand our unseen adversaries.”

“But procing the Endgame will invite the enforcers.”

“Undoubtedly. Add in that there seems to be a universal slight against the lightside that encourages attacks simply for that reason, and it will draw them either way.”

“Then why haven’t we come under attack yet from someone other than the Hadarak?”

“The Neofan did.”

“They were already here. Why not someone invading from beyond this galaxy?”

“They would have to know we exist, and until recently the intergalactic travel that we know of occurs in two areas, both of which we had no presence in. If we become a player on an intergalactic level, we will draw intergalactic trouble to us.”

“The Bond of Resistance already knows of us, and we’ve been disrupting that alliance heavily. Why haven’t any of them acted? Why haven’t the Denogi?”

“There are enforcers and there are informants. One cannot be both effectively.”

“Do you think they know of the Gahana?”

“Have you informed them?”

“Not directly, but the Neofan know and most of the cybernetically inclined races as well. The information is not secure anymore, only their location. Any pilgrimages to see their superior software gods have to occur through us or the PanNari, and only a handful of ships know the destination of all 4 installations.”

“Then that is a disaster in the making,” Kirritimin warned. “If the Denogi are an informant, or someone like the Vestil find them, it should provoke a significantly lethal response…”

The Chamra could not get to the Gahana quickly, though the message packet he had sent through Star Force’s comm system had arrived far before him, warning them of the threat without going into too much detail. He had requested priority access to them and waited, eventually being moved ahead of those waiting for an audience and transported to the Maty via one of the living PanNari warships to an unknown location where it was held in joint possession with Star Force.

When the Chamra got inside he immediately felt the presence of the installation calling to him in a manner he could not analyze. It wasn’t a conventional comm signal, nor telepathy, but he felt it none the less and was drawn through the labyrinth of chambers and corridors until he came to one small room that was completely empty and was sealed inside.

An electronic curtain fell, cutting off all his sensors and communications beyond the room, then a secure line was opened up. It was a slow data feed, wireless, but a direct line with the Gahana located elsewhere in the facility in their slumber, most likely.

He was prompted for all data and memories of his interaction with the Vestil and he downloaded them as fast as the line would allow, then he waited a few seconds before a pressure began to build in his head.

It would not relent, and as he pushed back against it with what seemed will alone, it was explained to him that it was a test of his worthiness as a wash of nanites were shunted into the room and entered his body through his airways.

That increased the pressure greatly, but he resisted rather than accept defeat and persisted long enough to satisfy the Gahana, with his headache evaporating the moment after. Then he received a download explaining what they were offering him and the tasks they would require, with him humbly accepting.

The nanites inside bonded to both his biological body parts and his technological and began to make small but steady changes as they upgraded him to a proper level for a cyborg in the Gahana’s Exalted Legion. They might be confined to stasis pods, but they continued to make their will known in various subtle ways across this galaxy through the Legion, and now the Chamra was added to that small special operations force.

His previous identity was now irrelevant, with his new designator being a generic ‘Red Horizon’ and his first mission being a return home to his people to ready them for the war to come. The newfound presence of the Vestil and their audacious claims made every cyborg and synthoid race in this galaxy a potential target for conversion, conscription, or deletion and the Gahana wished to blunt this vector of attack on this galaxy as well as protect their primitive cousins from a type of warfare they had never before encountered.

To that end Red Horizon quickly left the Maty, with the PanNari immediately transporting him back at the request of the Gahana. During the journey the nanites they’d placed in him continued to do their work, with him arriving back into his Chamra civilization looking almost the same as before externally, but with a massively different cybernetic presence that gave him god-like powers within their shared mainframe and neural network that they spent most of their time plugged into, with entire planets acting as one mind and each person on that planet a single brain cell working with the others to accomplish tasks.

But when Red Horizon plugged in, he asserted dominance over it and the rest of the Chamra recognized his newfound status and did not resist him. They too honored and wished to serve the Gahana as needed, and would follow his orders as if they were from the Gahana themselves. They had made him their emissary, and the orders they had given him were clear.

The Chamra had to become digital warriors on a holy crusade to counter the more advanced Vestil and reach out to the races across this galaxy that were on their hit list, either to protect or isolate so that the Vestil could not carry out their mission on behalf of their mysterious masters.

Star Force was not to be involved in this. Their cyborgs were already protected, few as there were. Red Horizon was to seek out those who could not defend themselves, as well as to start a transformation within the Chamra civilization so that they could protect what he now saw to be extremely weak software and infrastructure. They could function well in peace or conventional war, but a cyber war with an enemy on the Vestil’s level would wreck them, so they had to become less interdependent with physical breaks that software incursions could not cross.

That was seen as distasteful to the Chamra, but they obeyed regardless, tearing down part of their civilization and going backwards thousands of years technologically until they got to a firm starting point for Red Horizon to take them forward using a little knowledge bequeathed to him from the Gahana, but most of their hardening was going to have to be from their own resourcefulness…though he had been given examples of other races and how they had handled such tasks, so they had a thematic blueprint to follow going forward. They just had to figure out how to grow into it, for a great deal of the technology required was beyond anything they had interfaced with before.

But with a path clearly marked before them, their tranquil empire nestled within Star Force territory in the Rim switched over to a war footing and their economy to match, all the while scouts were sent out to search for and make contact with other cyborgs or any fully mechanical races they could find, first in the Rim, and then later to search the Hadarak-held territories looking for races that had held out or hidden from them. It was going to be tedious and time consuming, but the Gahana’s instructions were clear and the Chamra now had a clear purpose they would pursue until completion or their own destruction…and all by their own will, for they were not being hacked. Red Horizon had presented the situation to them, and they had chosen this path. A path of war, cyborg against cyborg, while the Gahana were confined to their stasis pods unable to personally act.

Until they could be released from their confinement, the Exalted Legion was their only means to protect this galaxy, and Red Horizon was one in a long line of elevated individuals chosen by the Gahana for reasons unknown, but always with the same personal drive to persevere through whatever was necessary to accomplish their missions. Red Horizon would probably never meet another member, nor know who they were for security reasons, but he felt a new kinship with them and knew they were out there carrying out missions for the Gahana just as he was, though he doubted theirs involved conscripting an entire race of cyborgs into an army to fight a clandestine war in cyberspace…and a more physical one in reality when necessary.

To that end the Gahana had not withheld as much information, giving them blueprints for starship upgrades that would put them slightly ahead of what the Vestil were thought to possess, though they were bound by the promise to only use them in combat against that one enemy and no other. The rest of their empire’s technology would be kept separate, and these ships would be built in secret. There was no time to wait for the Chamra to develop on this front over the course of millennia when the Gahana needed them out there now looking for and intervening on the behalf of other cyborgs that the Vestil would be going after sooner or later…or perhaps were already now that Star Force had made contact and given them a map of the known galaxy to work with.

It was a race now, and the Chamra were already behind…but they wouldn’t be behind for long.

9

May 27, 158409

Zychron Nebula (Unexplored Territory)

Theta Quadra Temple

It had been 16 years since the House Atriark civil war began, and 16 years since the interior of Eta Fermi had been reduced to ash. Reignor Plausious had now left that Temple behind under Star Force possession in exchange for a small section of this Temple to house his survivors. It had taken 4 years to construct a portal large enough to move his fleet of Gjardans, and an additional 3 years to save up enough Essence to power them…and almost all of that Essence was donated by the Star Force Nuv’ernor Jasmyn, for there were no longer any Vargemma there to power the Temple.

But there were here, and the Human Lord Draven had allowed a small amount of it to be diverted to the Neofan while the bulk of the rest was still being exported out to the warfront, for while the Uriti could generate a significant amount, none of them could come close to the combined output of a marginally populated Temple…and this one was more than marginally populated.

Plausious had already established two cities here, drawing resources long ago laid down in the bedrock for the denizens to harvest when needed to repair his ships…but charging them was another matter. They had expended nearly all of their considerable Essence wells, and he would be a fool to take them into combat again before being fully charged. And without Jasmyn continuing to stay with the Neofan and act as their battery, that would not happen in the next 2400 years given the small size of the Neofan population and their amount of daily Essence quotas that Plausious had enacted.

Yet Jasmyn’s power was mindboggling, and even as she worked several hours per day to fill their wells, her ability to do so was increasing, as was her skill in the Neofan Essence sculpting arts. If it came down to combat between Gjardans, Plausious would lose if the other commanders didn’t change sides. He assumed some would, but most of those who had been rebellious enough to do so had been sent to Eta Fermi in a sort of semi-exile. The others could not be counted on to convert unless Plausious was able to exert dominance immediately.

He had done so in Eta Fermi, then had that victory stolen from him by the traitorous false Reignor Truven. Only he could have given his codes to another, for not even the Diem possessed them…nor were they codes, exactly. It was an interactive test, and only one who knew how to beat it could do so…and only that knowledge was possessed by the Reignors and passed onto their successors via the Scroll of Wisdom. It was a mental download of exclusive knowledge by an automated system that only a Reignor could alter. When a new one was appointed, a ceremony was held and the three Diems would have to approve the anointment to unlock the device, then in full view the crowning ceremony would take place with the knowledge transfer being the actual moment of transition.

The method to pass the interactive test…similar to what Star Force referred to as ‘video games’…was passed on silently in this manner, so no one else would know nor would be able to steal the information. The Diem could not access the device unless there were observers numbering in the thousands and emitting a certain Essence emission to power the device. In this way more than the Diem was required to mint a new Reignor, and while it was not impossible to fake for the machine’s sake, Plausious doubted the Diem had gone so far yet to do so…meaning it was Truven who had given those codes to detonate the Temple rather than let it fall into Plausious’s control.

And he knew those same codes would be used at their next battle to send his Gjardans to the portal of their enemy’s choosing when they emerged. Safeguards were in place so no one could deny a traveler entry and kill them in the process. But they could establish an ambush just beyond the portal, so whatever ship emerging would face overwhelming fire immediately before the remainder of the ships could come through.

The smaller portals wouldn’t fit a Gjardan, only the large ones built into the inner surface of the Temple would, and there were many, too many to set up a proper ambush at unless you knew which one was going to be used.

And a Reignor could use his codes to override any arrival orders regarding portal assignment…as well as do a lot of other things in the Temples that even the members of the Bond of Resistance could not. The Neofan were the ultimate, if secretive masters of the Temples, and there was no higher codes than that of a Reignor. Not even the Reignor of the ruling House. Which meant Plausious could get in anywhere unless he was overridden locally, and if Truven had given others his codes…then all of the remaining 7 Neofan Temples could override his portal choice if used in the moment, for a blanket order from a Reignor would not override an immediate one, because the Temple viewed it as the same person altering their existing order.

So Plausious could either try and break that ambush using Jasmyn in the first ship to come through…or he could try to sneak in on the ground and undo the programming to let him choose which portal his fleet would come through, and as of yet he wasn’t sure which was the better course of action.

The presence of a Nuv’ernor was his only hope of keeping his House intact. Without her he would have to fight a costly civil war, perhaps a losing one depending on how far the purges had gone. If they’d taken out all of the sane ones with a backbone enough to stand their ground, then the rest would go with whomever had the most power…and right now that was not Plausious.

But with Jasmyn he had something no House other than the ruling House was permitted to have, and this Nuv’ernor was not a brain dead cyborg rebuilt to follow the ruling House’s orders. She was a fully-fledged warrior, and her power increase over these past few years was alarming. He had known Star Force in general had fast individual progression, but the Reignor had assumed it was simply a function of their youth and would diminish in time as they caught up to other races…but this ‘Jinx’ as they called them, was not slowing down. Furthermore her power scale exceeded all known Nuv’ernor growth rates by a factor of 7.

She was power incarnate, and Plausious had no doubt she could kill him if she wanted to…if she didn’t make any mistakes…and that both worried and reassured him. But it also meant this would not be a Neofan-only conflict, as he wanted it to be. This was his problem to solve, but without her he did not see a quick route to doing so. And without a quick route, the Neofan would be lost as an effective ally to Star Force in the coming Endgame War.

He was glad there was at least a viable route ahead, but he did not like having to wait years to refit and refuel his ships. The damage being done to his people in his absence could be extreme, and he had no way of knowing what was going on in those 7 Temples, for there hadn’t been any activity by House Atriark visible to Star Force since the Temple detonation.

And he was going to have to wait a few more years, else risk unnecessary loss by arriving with underpowered ships. As powerful as Jasmyn had gotten, her power flow was minuscule compared to a Gjardan Essence well when fully charged. And he doubted the ships he was going to come up against were going to hold back when the fighting resumed.

And yet, they might if they didn’t learn their lesson, for they didn’t have trillions of Vargemma in all those Temples to recharge them with, only Neofan in some, and they had not reproduced rapidly once arriving here, for too many young minds would destabilize their society…plus it was too late to develop warriors for the fight to come when he highly doubted they had hundreds of thousands of years to train them.

But still, when it came to Essence donation, the more the better, and Star Force had the Vargemma populations to fuel the Temples. The Neofan did not, at least not in their original 3 Temples. Just their captured ones. So how would those fleets use the charges they had? Would they blink twice?

And which Temple would he choose to assault? He had 7, which meant Truven couldn’t put all his ships in one place. That was fortunate, but unless he disabled the purging mechanism the same disaster could repeat itself, so ultimately the enemy fleet was not the biggest threat to his upcoming invasion.

And had Truven moved the captured Vargemma to spread them out? Plausious had been told that when Director Davis had tried to send the Vargemma loyal to the Neofan to their Temples they had actually blocked them from entering…which made no sense to him. Why would he turn down more Essence generation? There was no other source of it, and the Temples didn’t share much between themselves except for emergency situations…certainly not enough to charge warships with.

Yet the Neofan vessels were already at full charge since they were not participating in the Hadarak War. Was Truven so shortsighted that he didn’t expect to need recharge?

Plausious was once again in reflection looking down at the surface of the Temple from a Neofan station hovering above it in orbit where more non-Gjardan ships were being constructed for other purposes, but today his wandering solitudes of thought were interrupted by a Star Force ship requesting to dock and deliver a prisoner.

Plausious went to meet the small ship and the unconscious Neofan hauled through a docking pylon in a stasis pod by multiple Mavericks, all of which were showing strong Essence signatures. Apparently they knew the risks and were taking no chances with this Neofan.

“This one surrendered to us,” a Scionate Maverick said, standing on four legs but considerably shorter than Plausious though perhaps equal in mass. “She came through a portal alone asking to be taken to you. We have found no sabotage or devices to our knowledge, but we do not trust her intentions and rendered her inert for passage upon her agreement. She is yours to deal with.”

“I will take responsibility for her and inform you of any pertinent information she offers.”

The Scionate nodded his head, then he and his companions turned around and left, apparently glad to be rid of the Neofan before she was able to cause damage of some sort. A lot of the Star Force personnel in this Temple had the same distrust of the Neofan after their invasion, even though it had not occurred here. The backstab had cost many lives, as well as the mutual trust that had been developed ever since the agreement had been struck to allow House Atriark to take refuge in this galaxy…giving Plausious one more reason to curse Truven’s name in his casual thoughts.

He waited for the Star Force ship to disconnect, then he unceremoniously walked up to the pod and began to revive the Neofan right there at the receiving port.

Nafeni did not wake immediately, for Neofan bodies did not take well to such stasis, but Star Force would never subject someone to the process if it would damage them, and this looked to be a short term low level stasis, forcing slightly more than a deep sleep on her that she was having trouble waking up from.

Plausious touched her forehead, using his telepathy to rouse her only to see shock in her face. She recoiled from him suddenly, then breathed heavily and partially relaxed when she realized who it was.

And the Reignor could clearly see the signs of previous trauma within her mind.

“How did you get here?” Plausious asked.

“I was smuggled out to transmit a message to you,” she said, gasping despite not being out of breath. “We need you now. Why have you not come back?”

“Truven destroyed the interior of the Temple I took. Almost everyone in it died.”

“We know. He showed us and promised the same thing would happen if the same treachery occurred. They are scared of it. They are so scared of it.”

“What happened to you? I can feel your damage.”

“Anyone…anyone with a connection to you has had to prove their loyalty. They forced their way into our minds, and then made those of us who wavered kill each other to stay alive, and they recorded it for all to see. Unless we fervently renounce you and everything you represent, we are forced again and again to fight and kill each other, diminishing our numbers until…until no one is left. I survived through three rounds by killing my sisters,” she said, breaking down more internally than was showing in her few tears. “Then I was broken out of confinement by others loyal to you and taken to a maintenance portal. They wanted me to take a message to you as well as save me from the purges. I didn’t choose this, they made me come.”

“Did you want to stay with Truven?” Plausious asked calmly.

“No!” she all but screamed, then seemed to shrink down into a very tiny shell of a person. “The others are trapped. No one can leave the Temples. I don’t know how they got me out. I didn’t deserve it.”

Plausious took her head firmly in both hands and made her look him in the eyes. “Whatever happened to you is over. It will not happen here, and Truven does not have the power to take this Temple from Star Force. You are safe. What is the message?”

“Truven is dead. Killed by an assassin you sent. No new Reignor has been chosen, and the Diem had said they will not select another while you live. That you have to be killed before House Atriark can be mended. And until that time they will safeguard us against your treachery. They are imprisoning or killing anyone who voices the merest opposition, citing treason by imposing your taint on us. I was told to tell you that if you do not return soon, there won’t be anyone left to join you. They have begun mandatory mental screenings and periodic purity tests as an excuse to kill who they want. Nobody can pass them, even those who are loyal to the Diem. They have made everyone tainted, and assign penance as they choose.”

“But they never screen themselves?” Plausious assumed.

“Not the Diem, nor their Overseers, nor their hunters. Everyone else is made to fail so we have no right to object to anything they do.”

“How many have been killed?”

“More than 20%.”

Plausious rocked backwards, taking two steps before he got his balance. All those Neofan who had lived millions of years…gone because of the whim of the Diem. A full fifth of House Atriark removed from existence, and removed from the Endgame War before Plausious could even speak to them.

Those Neofan could not be replaced with new births. The experience and skills being lost were incomprehensible.

“I was sent to tell you, there are still some ready to fight, but they can’t hide forever. The tests will find them when it is their turn, and they will resist rather than allow themselves to be altered or executed.”

“Altered how?”

“Cerebral replacement,” she said, referring to a cyborg remaking of their minds to ensure control over their actions.

“Why is this happening, Nafeni? What happened to the Diem?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows. They killed you and then everything changed. When you showed back up they went insane. Why haven’t you returned? Why? We are being destroyed.”

Plausious knelt back down beside her and pulled her into an embrace, with her melting into him as he felt her will finally give out.

“I do not know what is happened, Nafeni, but I promise you I will end it.”

“It’s…too…late,” she said, heaving with tears and suppressed internal pain manifesting in her body in the form of tremors.

“Not for you,” he said, pulling her to her feet and forcing her to walk. “We have a small colony in this Temple, and this will become your new home. Rest. Heal. But I cannot help you do this.”

“Go,” she said, fire suddenly returning to her body. “Go and kill the traitors. Kill them all, Plausious. Do it now. Please. Please.”

The Reignor telepathically called to other nearby Neofan, with one coming running through a nearby doorway a few moments later to deal with Nafeni. When he arrived, Plausious turned and walked off, not even looking at her as he headed for the nearest hangar bay. He had a decision to make, and in retrospect he wished he’d made it years ago when Davis had offered, but he had wanted this affair dealt with in-House…yet if he continued on that route, there wouldn’t be a House left to save.

Plausious flew over to the Gjardan where Jasmyn was practicing her shield enhancement technique inside the ship and interrupted her without warning, startling her enough that the machinery surged and blew out several relays before she cut her input to it.

“Don’t do that!” she scolded him, only to sense the dread in his telepathic aura. “What’s wrong?”

“Reignor Truven is dead, and the Diem have seized control of the House in order to destroy it. I am told 20% of the population has already been executed, with more to come. I can’t do this on my own. Not in time to be a valuable ally to Star Force. I need your help to end this now. With as many troops and ship and Essence wells as you are willing to send with me.”

“What is the Diem’s objective?”

“Does insanity have an objective?” Plausious countered. “I should have accepted your help earlier, and most of them would still be alive.”

“A joint invasion?”

“If you are willing.”

“If you can get us through the door, we’ll end this…one way or another.”

“Do you have a plan of attack ready?”

Jasmyn smirked. “We’ve been itching for an opportunity to get at those bastards. We’ve got dozens of plans and twice as many fleets standing by in other Temples. We just need our foot in the door. Can you still get in?”

“Unless they have completely rebuild the Temple command systems, yes.”

“How hard is it to do that?”

“Very. They regenerate if they are destroyed, and not even my codes will deactivate that process. We could not allow another member of the Bond of Resistance or the Vargemma to undo our safeguards, so we made them impervious to our own interference.”

“We’ll have to take out the self-destruct mechanisms first or simultaneously. Can you get us to them quickly?”

“Possibly, if I am there in person.”

Jasmyn shook her head. “No, we have to assault them all at once.”

Plausious frowned, then closed his eyes as he relented to this fate…for otherwise the doom he had foresaw for his people would arrive far sooner than expected.

“I will tell your people what to do, and I will give you my codes so you cannot be overridden as long as you are at the source. But I will be the one that goes to the Temple with the Diem.”

“Is that where the hardest fight will be?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Then that’s where I’m going too…”

10

June 30, 158409

Shi go Zu Mata’ki (Jumanji Kingdom)

Zewen’zi

Paul was onboard the Aeon-class warship in orbit of the gas giant called Zewen’zi by the Oso’lon who used to inhabit this system. They’d all fled or been destroyed by Rajamal’s forces in his campaign to kill the Primearch, and once he had achieved that goal what remained of the independent Oso’lon degenerated quickly. They feared the rogue Zen’zat would come after them, so many fled to Star Force to seek refuge, while others disappeared to darker areas of the galaxy where they could disappear. How many survived the trailblazer did not know, but the end of the old V’kit’no’sat had finally come in a bloodbath that had left this system as a graveyard.

But the fighting hadn’t been here, for the gas giant contained no Oso’lon infrastructure. What was here was a hidden construct floating within the outer layers of the gas giant and nearly invisible unless you knew where to look. Clan Ghostblade had been keeping it under distant surveillance ever since it had been discovered, and had ensured Paul on arrival that no one had come looking for it since.

What will trigger the starship-killing weapons? Paul asked Azoro, who was hovering in the Saiolum around him.

An attack. Our approach will be safe. The slaughter occurs when attempting to get inside.

“Captain, I’ll be going down alone and piloting the dropship myself.”

“As you wish, Archon,” the Urik’kadel said from its command pedestal as the rabbit-like Captain scanned the construct with limited success.

“And get to a higher orbit if there’s any activity. I’ll call when I need you, but I need you in one piece.”

“That’s how I prefer my ship,” he quipped as Paul left the bridge and headed for the hangar where he slid into the pilot’s seat of a Falcon-class dropship and quickly got it prepped for launch.

I’ve never seen you pilot a craft before, Azoro noted.

“I do in simulators all the time,” Paul said aloud since no one was around to hear.

The image of the Zen’zat appeared in the copilot’s chair beside him. “How long has it been since you personally piloted an aerial vessel?”

“We have pilots to fly these, but as for a skeet, it’s been too long to remember.”

“A useful skill, but not something that warrants the amount of training time you put into it.”

“It used to be.”

“What changed?”

“Got busy flying fleets with my mind and left the aerial combat to the specialists.”

“And you regret that?”

“I like to be where the action is,” Paul said as he lifted off and drifted the dropship out of the hangar and into space just above the thick atmosphere.

“Rather than directing it?”

“Bingo,” the trailblazer agreed, still somewhat upset with the Sha’kier. “Anything you’d like to add before we get down there?”

“There’s nothing I haven’t told you before.”

“Sure about that?”

“Positive,” Azoro said a little apologetically.

“And what would you rate our odds at?”

“If we’re patient, I give us better than one in two that we find a way past the defenses with our combined skills. Their Saiolum knowledge was limited to that of an observer, not a user, and they didn’t possess Essence skills. The combination of yours should prove enough.”

“Against weapons that can destroy starships?”

“I thought you liked a challenge?” Azoro flippantly remarked.

“I don’t like walking into a trap that has killed a bunch of Chixzon and who knows who else. Not exactly a lightside defense system.”

“There will be a telepathic warning in place once we land. We will only be killed if we do not heed the warning.”

“Oh that makes it all better then,” Paul said sarcastically as the view of space disappeared, replaced by the yellow/orange gasses of the planet that the dropship had to swim through at diminished speeds.

“I take it to mean that there is something of value so great they could not risk it being tampered with when they were no longer around to attend to it.”

“I hope so, otherwise this trip will mostly be a bust. And why would they give it Saiolum blocking walls if they didn’t know the depths of the Saiolum?”

“That’s a mystery I hope to solve shortly.”

“Now that you have backups in case I die.”

“True, but you’re the one that insisted we come now. I had wanted to wait until you were further along.”

“My point exactly.”

“You are not expendable to me, Paul.”

“Is there enough Saiolum for you to fly on ahead?”

“Barely. In a few days the nearby planet will move too far away and it will thin here further. But I can survive the next hour without you.”

“Go and give me a scouting report once I’m down.”

Paul felt Azoro’s presence leave him, as did the mental hologram of the Zen’zat. The remaining flight to the construct was quiet and routine, as was the landing on the large circular platform that was obviously meant to receive guests, but the portion closest to the facility’s vertical wall was protected by a thick energy shield.

Paul landed well away from that, then left the ship wearing his full armor as the atmosphere here was inhospitable…but as soon as he stepped outside the contained atmosphere in the dropship he felt a Saiolum pulse hit him, after which an atmospheric shield popped into existence around the entire landing pad with a significant gust of wind following.

The yellow/orange air diminished, clearing into perfect clarity over the next few minutes with his armor reading a change in composition to a mostly oxygen atmosphere.

Paul retracted his helmet and sniffed the air, finding it was still tinged with an odd smell, but was fully breathable with more oxygen than necessary, making him a little light headed with the rush, but he adjusted to it quickly as Azoro’s presence returned and the mental hologram appeared beside him.

“It’s still sealed up tight. I can’t get in or see inside. No Saiolum currents are passing through it.”

“I can tell that much myself,” Paul said, staying put and just looking up at the large self-contained structure in front of it. “Do you know when they made this?”

“No. But they have several of these in multiple galaxies.”

“How’d you find them?” Paul asked curiously.

“Periodically they give off a Saiolum pulse. That’s why I think it’s the key to getting inside. I think they want to be found by the right people.”

“And synthoids don’t feel Saiolum?”

“According to you they might, but they certainly can’t use it interactively.”

“Well I’m not sensing any interactive functions.”

“Walk forward and you should.”

“In theory or experience?”

“Experience. I’ve seen people die here.”

“Peachy,” Paul said as he began walking towards the obvious closed doors large enough to fit an Era’tran, though he wasn’t in a hurry about it as he paced uncharacteristically slow. Halfway there he felt a telepathic presence…technological, not personal…explain in concepts rather than words that this facility was off limits except to a select few, and that if one tried to bypass the static shield ahead without permission they would be killed.

“Well there’s your warning, but I’m not sensing anything to do here.”

“Keep going,” Azoro urged.

“Where do the weapons emanate from?”

“This entire platform is an array. You’re standing on them.”

“As is the dropship,” Paul reminded him.

“You can fly out in your armor if you have to.”

Paul stopped walking and used the comm in his armor to remotely take control of the dropship, retract the boarding ramp, and have it fly off away from the construct a few kilometers and wait in the hazy natural atmosphere of the planet…just in case the platform became a shooting gallery…then he started walking forward again.

A pulse emerged, one only, in the Saiolum, and it hit Paul like a slap in the face…so he slapped back, mimicking it as best he could, though he couldn’t match that power output. Almost immediately after three Saiolum beacons appeared, emitting something he couldn’t make out.

“Azoro?”

“They’re harmless queries. Touch one.”

Paul grabbed hold of the Saiolum in his body then extended outward, pulling more into him and creating a tendril-like extension that came into contact with one of the sources…at which point Paul was being scanned in an odd way. He could feel it, but couldn’t quite make out what was happening.

“Shall I?” Azoro asked.

“No,” Paul said, reaching further and trying to pull it apart into natural pieces that began to pulse individually. He send a corresponding pulse back each time to the proper one, prompting a faster exchange rate.

“This is a locking mechanism,” Azoro said as he watched through Paul. “They used them with their living equipment, with one interacting with another as a key. You should be able to pick the lock since you are able to become the key in a way they couldn’t.”

“Living keys or technological?”

“Biological, but not alive.”

“Why three?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only seen one used before.”

“Easy enough,” Paul scoffed as the sequence became a simple matter of sending pulses back into active pieces and not dead ones…meaning you had to be able to sense Saiolum in order to determine the code prompts. Or at least your equipment had to.

A tone sounded, and the Saiolum query disappeared, leaving two more remaining. When he touched the second one the ground beneath it opened up and a column rose, revealing a bipedal alien of a type Paul had never seen before that rushed him, sprinting forward unarmed and getting to his position within 3 seconds.

Paul raised a hand and telekinetically grabbed the individual, freezing him in place as he quickly realized he wasn’t real, but rather a machine that began speaking a language Paul did not understand…but Azoro quickly entered his mind and offered the translation.

“I am the guardian of this site. If you wish to enter, you must defeat me first.”

Paul squeezed a little harder, making sure he couldn’t move, and just held him there for a while, but it said nothing else as it tried to break his invisible restraints, then the Archon simply walked past it, getting two steps beyond when a Rentar-like energy field cut through his grasp and the machine was suddenly free.

It ran up to him and punched at him, with Paul dodging and then deflecting additional blows that were quite strong, but nothing his Furyan body couldn’t handle. He didn’t even need the power function in his armor to enhance his movements, let alone a Saiyan transformation.

They sparred briefly, then the machine stopped and stepped back as Paul let it go. Then it walked back to the column, spun around, and retook its nook only to descend into the platform again, this time with the second query disappearing from his Saiolum view.

“That was not as difficult as I thought it would be,” Azoro noted.

“It wasn’t about defeating him. It was about making someone think it was a person, and how you went about defeating him. If I had destroyed him, I think I would have failed the test.”

“A no-kill test?”

“You’re the one that said these guys were lightside, so why are you surprised?”

“It’s obviously a machine.”

“It has a telepathic signature. And you can see in a way the Progarren never could, so is it really that obvious to who they expected to show up?”

“I’ve never seen it before, because the Chixzon and others always tried to bypass the shield.”

“They didn’t know these prompts were here if they can’t feel the Saiolum,” Paul said, reaching out to the third one.

“Then they assumed technological Saiolum interaction, which would explain the interactive locking mechanism rather than expecting a specialized key.”

“Or maybe a specialized key bypassed the other two tests,” Paul said as a much more powerful telepathic node rose out of the platform and reached out to Paul’s mind, trying to gain access. He let it in slightly, then a bit more and more as it was not satisfied. He didn’t want to give it free reign, but as he blocked certain areas it pushed harder…and he instinctively pushed back, with a tug of war ensuing as it tried to download certain types of memories.

Paul let it have some, but when it came to Star Force secrets he forcibly blocked it as the back and forth continued for nearly an hour…then it suddenly stopped and the third query retracted physically into the platform as well as disappearing in the Saiolum.

A hologram then appeared, standing 8 times as high as Paul as the giant looked down on him from above, swinging its tail back and forth slowly.

“Why are you here?” the Progarren asked in English.

“I seek the remnants of your extinct race.”

“For what purpose?”

“To learn.”

“These ‘remnants’ are reserved for those who can carry on our work. We have been destroyed by enemies that we did not know existed until they emerged from other galaxies beyond our own. Scans of your mind indicate you are not of our race, but are our brother in both spirit and function. Are you safe here, or do you have enemies near?”

“This star system is safe.”

“You alone are granted access. If others attempt to enter with you, they will be repulsed. Do you understand this?”

Paul spread his arms wide, gesturing to the empty platform. “There’s nobody else here.”

“Then enter and learn of your forbearers, and your new enemies,” the hologram said, shutting down as the door ahead ground open sounding like it had been sealed for too long, scraping on its tracks in a way that belied the superior technology necessary to keep it intact for the millions of years it had been sitting here.

Paul walked up to the doors, which were spreading far wider than needed, but there was a black curtain just inside through which he couldn’t see or sense anything with any of his abilities. When he got there he lightly touched it with his armored hand, feeling no resistance.

“Let me join with you, or I will not be able to enter,” Azoro said.

“Will that work, or am I going to get fried as it strips you out of me?”

“Go slow and find out,” the Sha’kier said, pulling himself inside of Paul as much as he could, but his matrix was too large to completely fit inside his body, and as Paul walked forward with his hitchhiker riding but not controlling him, he bounced off physically, as the wall would not let him through.

“Interesting,” Azoro said as he appeared beside Paul again as he extricated himself. “Try again.”

Paul reached a hand forward, with it passing through effortlessly. “Have you seen this type of Saiolum shield before?”

“Not in the Progarren, but I know how to make one.”

“Do you know how to get through?”

“Using your body I think I can destroy it, but since it is granting you access I will suppress my curiosity and wait. Consider it my penance for withholding information from you earlier. Go and seek your answers. I will be here if you need me.”

Paul looked at him for a moment, but didn’t say anything. Then he turned and walked through the black curtain forcefully, disappearing inside with Azoro losing all contact with him along with any opportunity to further help…

www.aerkijyr.com

Table of Contents

- Temple Wars

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

- Gateways

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

- Deus Ex

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10