Spawn of the Lightside Read online

  The crates they were carrying were simple cubes, being brought up from below ground by robotic workers that were mostly arms and rolled about on a spherical ball rather than wheels or legs. Hour after hour it was the same, crates coming up, nothing going down, and nothing opening up.

  The Skirmisher needed to figure out what was inside, so after many hours of careful surveillance from the jungle’s edge, he activated his ‘ninja’ armor and disappeared beneath a decent cloaking device. It wasn’t perfect, especially on dirt and moving through leaves, but on the solid landing field all the cloak had to do was mimic far off objects as he moved through the air. Even the heat shimmers coming off the area were easy to replicate, he just hoped the Caretakers’ sensors couldn’t see him.

  He wasn’t registering anything exotic, though there were various sensor beams in the area coming from the workers as they navigated about. He slipped by those easily, making sure not to get run over, for these workers were some 5 meters tall or better, and headed for a stack of crates that had not yet been picked up…but he was too late, for another aerial craft swooped in just before he got there and plucked them up into four niche slots along the spine, then lifted off and sped across the jungle to parts unknown.

  The delivery pattern was chaotic and seemed never to repeat, and while the Viceroy thought he knew what they were carrying, verification was required and the receiving places that had been identified would be far harder to sneak into.

  So he waited in the middle of nowhere as the workers and aerial ships moved about, then saw another stack forming. A worker had brought out a single crate and left it sitting rather than handing it directly to an aerial craft. They didn’t do that much, and he hoped this was another dead drop pile forming. Regardless, he took off running and got there just as a second crate was added.

  He could already see an aerial craft heading towards this spot, so he didn’t have much of a window of opportunity to get to the crates and scan them. Being there when they got picked up could count as interference, but this was the best option he had and he decided to risk it. There were no Vargemma around to see him, and the Caretakers did not communicate with them. That had become clear early on, so there were two opponents on the field and this one was not a threat as of yet.

  33929 ran up to the side of the first crate just as a third was being delivered. He smashed his body up against the side of it, allowing his cloak to create a bubble around him and side of the crate, hiding his reveal of a small object that he attached to the side of it. A few seconds of scanning and then he was gone, running away from the crates as the aerial craft slid overtop them with only a slight hum from the rotating lift discs.

  Nothing fired at him, and the workers didn’t deviate from their busy loading patterns. The skirmisher slunk across to the side of one of the buildings that the workers were coming up out of and stopped there, out of the way, and reviewed the scan.

  Just as the Viceroy had predicted, the crate was full of resource cubes. Solid hydrogen cubes kept at ultra low temperatures to keep them in their metallic state and in the smallest volume possible. This was the fuel for the quasi star at the center of the sphere, but not just that, apparently, because the aerial craft were moving them about everywhere and not just the feeding ports that were sending the hydrogen gas out through shield tubes from the surface to the reaction array that was providing the sunlight and heat for the entire sphere.

  It was possible that the other locations were for power generation for the mechanisms here, but that was still unconfirmed. 33929 had just confirmed it was indeed hydrogen cubes, so his mission here was virtually complete. A surveillance path darting from building to building and getting some visuals from the interior was all that remained, then he was back off into the jungle to relay the mission data logs to a courier that would then take them back to another courier and so forth until they got to one of the subsurface Paladin stations. Then and only then would the data be transmitted over the landlines to all of the facilities, including whichever one the Viceroy was currently hiding at…

  Skirmisher 73918 was on a different mission in a different location, and he was not alone, but rather in a team of 6 that were approaching the edge of the jungle where it met a massive vertical wall.

  That wall was the strip between regions, and itself was a massive internal city that appeared to be deserted. The Responders could not, or would not, tell them what the population of the Temple was or how many of these cities were inhabited, but passive surveillance in the previous months had shown no activity whatsoever at this point, whereas others further away showed obvious craft coming and going from the top of the wide wall.

  Fortunately the Paladin would not have to climb it, for there were entrances at ground level. The skirmisher team had waited outside for nearly an hour before approaching, and only then under cloak, to the large archway that had no door within it. The opening stood 28 meters high, and as soon as 73918 passed through it his cloak failed.

  Some sort of energy barrier was within the archway, and as soon as he got on the other side his cloak reactivated and he disappeared again, save for a minor outline sketch provided for his team so they wouldn’t bump into each other. That small signal was designed to be as minimal as possible and undetectable by most surveillance technology, but whatever that barrier was it had ripped right through the cloaking field and made them totally visible for a couple of seconds. The question was if anyone was watching.

  The temperature inside was starkly colder, and it was dark. Pitch black not too far inside, but a series of lights activated flanking the Paladin. More lit as they walked further in, and it became obvious that the city was tracking them, possibly by their footsteps, for the cloak couldn’t mask the pressure on the floor.

  They continued to walk silently, noticing behind them that the lights turned back off once they got far enough away from the archway. It was as if the city was expecting people to come here, but was in powered-down mode until they came and claimed it. The whole thing wasn’t turning on because of the Paladin team, just the area around them, until they came to a ‘T’ in the corridor and the light went right, but not left.

  They were obviously guiding the Paladin, who remained cloaked, and the team decided to split up and see what happened. Three went the way of the lights, while the others took the other hallway. After a few meters of walking it was clear that the city only wanted them to go in one direction, because the lights didn’t follow the others. That meant they were being led somewhere important, or into a trap.

  So they all split up, with 73918 taking point and following where the lights led him. The others didn’t get far away, but explored down side hallways getting some battlemap data that would later be combined between them to make a better map of the tiny sliver of the barrier wall city they were inching their way into.

  Oddly their path didn’t take them far, barely two miles inside before they came to what looked like a control center. The entire circular room lit up, showing 6 different levels around an open air atrium. It was unoccupied, but a number of systems began auto-activating on their arrival. The skirmisher had been prepared for this, and already familiar with the Temple technology as taught by the Responders. He moved to a master control panel and shut down the auto-activation sequence, fearing it might alert the Vargemma if they could monitor the status of the empty cities.

  The other Paladin joined him shortly, then they set shop while sending one back to the jungle to call in a waiting team further out. No signals were sent, so he had to run there, then a group of skirmishers escorting 4 Researchers returned with him, bringing the Paladin’s scientists into the control center where they began to quickly analyze the technology and found out what it could control.

  Far more information was available to them here than had been via the Responders. They were able to get a current map of everyone in the Temple…which also meant someone else could see them here too, but the interface population numbers were continually going up, ostensibly as
new births were occurring, so a handful more shouldn’t draw attention.

  That said, if someone had configured their systems to monitor for new arrivals…but the entire sphere seemed to be invitation only, so there wasn’t much of a risk of detection if someone had to be constantly monitoring.

  Still, there was a risk, and it was possible they’d been detected already. Given that fact, they opted to stay and gather what information they could before returning to the jungle. They’d intended to stay only a few hours, but there was so much information they ended up staying for days without any interference from the outside. It was only lack of supplies that caused them to leave, though there were automated systems that could have Caretaker-produced foodstuffs delivered to them.

  They did not execute that option, fearing a larger profile here. So they gathered up a wealth of data then left to return it to the Viceroy and let him decide how to proceed…

  Samsiv belatedly approved their decision to stay and get the data, though he didn’t like the exposure. They might have gotten lucky, and in their study they found that the population data was only for the border cities. The Temple’s monitoring systems did not extend out into the wilderness areas or the infrastructure created in orbit by the Vargemma, though it did include the space infrastructure not created by them.

  So the population number he had was incomplete, for there were many Vargemma cities in the Regions between the border cities. Why they had created their own while there were vast tracks of unoccupied city confused him. Star Force would have done the same, but in order to produce their own technology. The Vargemma appeared to use the Temple technology, except for the Olopar, which were in fact produced by Caretaker shipyards under the direction of the Vargemma…though the Vargemma had to supply them with the necessary materials harvested from the sphere.

  But there were massive Vargemma cities with high populations, not just workers. It took a while to assimilate the data on all the various races…some 20488 in total as monitored by the Caretakers…but eventually Samsiv was able to figure out what the information did not say. The dispersion patterns were obvious, despite the varying sizes of cities.

  The Vargemma had a rule or agreement to only colonize certain areas for each race, probably as a hedge against a race to occupy territory. It appeared they were not united, and historical records of time spent here detailed several wars between the Vargemma races that the Caretakers immediately stepped in to stop…lethally. Though they weren’t visible currently, the Caretakers did indeed have warships and smaller anti-personnel drones that activated and destroyed all those Vargemma engaged in combat.

  Those that did not shoot were spared, but even those that defended themselves were targeted and destroyed with alarming efficiency. And that meant if Star Force was going to fight here, they’d also have to fight the Caretaker army simultaneously.

  That made this mission nearly impossible. The Vargemma with their Essence weapons were problematic enough, now the Viceroy had to deal with a potentially even more dangerous foe.

  When Thrawn was brought up to speed his worries mirrored Samsiv’s. This Temple was basically a sanctuary that allowed the Vargemma to murder whoever they wanted out in the galaxy, then return here and be protected. They could hide out inside and launch surprise attacks forever, and the Caretakers would defend them so long as they didn’t shoot back.

  Curiously though, the Olopar had not been used during those previous wars. Perhaps because they were Caretaker technology? And the war machines that emerged from hidden areas were all conventional technology, no Essence weapons, and that was a key giveaway to Samsiv.

  The Caretakers could not produce Essence, so they had not been configured to fight with it…yet the sphere itself used Essence for its shield.

  Samsiv sent the team back again, for he needed specific searches for items of interest, and when he got them a gigantic mystery was solved. The Caretakers were machines, so they could not produce Essence, but they could harvest it from others. They had massive collectors embedded within nodes on the outer shell of the sphere, but still buried within the perimeter, that could detach and move out into the galaxy to harvest Essence when and if the reserves got too low.

  Those harvesters fit the description the trailblazers had provided of the damage done to several planets in the distant past. People ripped up from the surface and killed, draining their Essence into storage canisters, one of which had been left behind for Star Force to find, and those canisters were also Caretaker technology and available for production if you had the necessary Essence skill level to unlock the mechanisms.

  The entire Temple seemed geared to enticing the denizens into developing their Essence skills, as well as requiring periodic donations of their own Essence to fuel the reserves that ran a number of different systems. It seemed the harvesters were a last ditch respite if the Temple emptied out, or ran too low on population to provide enough. And that also explained the zero tolerance policy for fighting each other, for that would quickly diminish the population levels and the available Essence that they produced.

  There were collection terminals everywhere, and it seemed that the act of producing the Essence was part of the training that increased one’s own reserves. So the longer they lived here and produced for the communal reserves, the more they would be able to produce.

  Samsiv had extensive knowledge of how Essence worked, given to the Paladin by the trailblazers, and that verified what he was seeing here. Any Essence Rush would trigger an adaptation to up the amount of Essence a body contained. It wasn’t a big adjustment, but over the millions of years an individual could amass more Essence than an army of novices combined.

  And with the population demographics came their Essence level ratings as well.

  4

  July 5, 128543

  Dyson Sphere, Krichkraw Nebula (Novatis Kingdom)

  Region 1193

  The amount of information that Samsiv was receiving was growing exponentially, as were his Paladin. Critical supplies continued to flow in from the outside, while the bulk of logistics were being produced locally, beneath the surface where the Vargemma could not see. Population levels had risen to 1.2 million after two and a half years, which was decent considering they were having to build entirely underground. Their spread would be greatly enhanced if they could build on the surface and not have to carve out interior space for everything…including getting rid of the rock, which was having to be chucked back out the entrance holes and into the nebula to hide it from the Vargemma.

  Surveillance on the nearest inhabited cities had begun, with his scouts using passive scopes to observe the surface and surrounding foot traffic, then Samsiv was correlating that data with what they were getting from the Temple’s own monitoring systems. His small team had so far gone unnoticed within one of the empty cities, but he knew that would not happen if they moved in there in greater numbers. The Vargemma probably didn’t think it was possible for anyone else to get inside the Temple, so they weren’t monitoring for an incursion.

  That was sloppy of them. They had to know Star Force was looking for a way in, and the number of ships being sent off towards the nebula should not have been missed unless all the Vargemma scouts had been eliminated. Samsiv didn’t know if that had happened or they just assumed the Essence barrier around the sphere was impregnable.

  Then again, they might not have a way to monitor the exterior either, or get out there. They could obviously use the stargate technique to hop through the walls or other barriers, but the more Samsiv learned he began to understand that that was not a part of the Temple’s design. There had to be some modification of the barrier to allow that, for the Knights of Quenar couldn’t get through using the same technique, but all of the noted paths in and out of the sphere were in the form of the Stargate portals built into the landscape.

  They connected to other Temples, but beyond that he had no information from the Responders or the city databases. It was as if he could access the ‘head t
his way to get to’ signs, but nothing beyond that. No map of all the Temples was available, and Samsiv was assuming it was a containment protocol in case this sphere was compromised. The invaders wouldn’t be able to find the others’ coordinates, and unless they could use Essence to activate the Stargate portals they would be useless.

  That mean the Vargemma could come and go, but the Paladin could not. He had been looking for another entrance, for what if all the Vargemma died? Or how did they even get here to begin with? He suspected, due to the excessive redundancy of the Temple technology and design, that there would be a way for someone on the outside with Essence skills to get here without invitation, but so far they hadn’t located such an entrance, nor had their questions regarding such been rewarded with even a simple ‘no.’ Just the typical line that additional data requires Essence capability.

  Apparently the Responders were designed for both Essence users and those that were not, for according to the active monitors within the cities, a great deal of the inhabitants here were not Essence capable…at least not yet. 62% of the 18.4 trillion monitored denizens were, while the rest were probably born here and had not been able to break through yet. Or they hadn’t earned it yet. Evidence suggested a method to make someone break through the transitional barrier, because the Responders had noted that elevation was a personal journey and only one who had achieved Essence manipulation could enlighten another.

  That could mean there was a way for one Essence wielder to pass the ability on to another, or more likely some type of medical alteration that would do the same. Samsiv suspected there might be Founder technology to do that, but it would have to be operated by an Essence wielder. That meant the Paladin wouldn’t be able to acquire it, at least not without help…and that kind of help would alert the Vargemma to their existence.