Spawn of the Lightside, page 10
part #58 of Star Force Universe Series
Randy looked up into the sky, having to step out a bit to see the distant reactor that functioned as the Temple’s star…but there was only a very, very small pinprick of light. Far too small to be what the Paladin had discovered.
“Galactic spin,” Jack said, having already figured it out. “The Bridge endpoints rotate slower, so the Temples will pass inside them on a faster track. If they all have an endpoint, the Bridge probably connects to the closest one due to range limitations.”
“And that means the Temple with the Paladin is out of alignment,” Randy followed. “Which means we can’t get to them with the Bridge unless there are destination options we didn’t see.”
“And that means there are probably Vargemma in here that are not going to be happy to find us.”
“But we’re in, and if we can use the travel orb to get back, we have a foothold inside the Temple network.”
“We have no army to link up with, and we can’t bring a warship through that,” Jack said, thumbing back towards the small portal. “This just got a lot harder. And we have no food.”
“There’s supposed to be stuff here…oh shit. Is it malfunctioning?”
“It’s a distinct possibility,” Jack said, thinking aloud. “There’s no way that stellar output is right unless they intended the entire sphere to be an ice cube. If we can’t go back, we’re probably in trouble.”
Randy turned and ran back to the Bridge portal, looking for another little void button, and was relieved when he found one and the travel orb came back out and split in two, ready for travelers to board. He left it there and ran back to Jack, who was still standing in the same spot looking out on the frozen wasteland that was at least this region of the Temple…except that the exterior temperature was reading at -80F. Nowhere in the few frozen areas of the other Temple had it gotten that low. Not even close.
“Maybe they need to feed it Essence, or something else, and the Vargemma aren’t doing what they need to,” Jack wondered. “Maybe they haven’t inhabited them all, and they go dormant when nobody is here?”
“Or maybe this is just where they have the snowball fights,” Randy half joked. “We need to get back while we can. If this place is low on Essence…”
“Right,” Jack said, finally leaving his viewpoint. “We need to come back with a team and supplies. The answer lies out there somewhere.”
“We’ll be back. If we can leave. Let’s just hope it sends us back the way we came.”
“It better,” Jack growled as they headed back to the travel orb. When they got inside the same procedure successfully shot them off through the Essence realm, then when they arrived and the travel orb split, they were both relieved to see the same Bridge endpoint that they had started from.
They immediately ordered the fleet to send couriers back to Star Force while they organized an initial expedition team to go back with them inside of a few hours, but not before Randy walked over to the obelisk and tapped a finger on its green material irritatedly.
“Hey, Genius. Mind telling us why the entire Temple is an ice cube…”
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Aer-ki Jyr, Spawn of the Lightside
