They were harvesting it, though for what purpose she didn’t know. Kyra needed to add that mystery to her recon inventory of this encounter, but the final report now seemed obvious. This system would remain in V’kit’no’sat hands, and very soon the other two Hadarak would also be dead thanks to that single Star Force Essence ship. A ship far more powerful than an Elloquim.

  The PanNari had originally assumed only the Veloqueen possessed that kind of power, or perhaps the Temple dwellers. But a local empire rising to such a level was unfathomable without help. Had Eldorat been leading them in this fight? Had he provided them with Essence power? Or had they discovered it on their own and then he helped them develop it further?

  None of this made sense, for they were fighting the Hadarak and the PanNari were forbidden to do so. Kyra didn’t know what was going on, nor did the PanNari, and it was for this reason they were spreading QuipNari around the galaxy trying to gather as much information as possible to figure out what was going on…and determine if there was even the tiniest possibility that Eldorat might actually be dead.

  2

  June 1, 128803

  Belaaro Black Hole (Mixchan Kingdom)

  Outer Orbit

  Kyra’s ship had spent the past 7 weeks drifting slowly away from the black hole and the busy traffic lanes coming in and out of it. Black holes were always preferred jump platforms given their immense gravity, generating far more usable space lanes than stars, yet she was not on one of them. Her ship was drifting under cloak away from the black hole out into the middle of nowhere…and that nowhere was her home.

  She knew the location, but couldn’t detect it even if her sensors had been turned on. The Encapsulation that Eldorat had given the PanNari created a static cloaking field in all directions. It locked in a picture from the far side that did not update, which made it far harder to breach. Where she was headed now she could see stars beyond, otherwise not knowing there was a massive object in her way, but one that nobody would ever run into because it wasn’t on a usable space lane, for the stars on the far side were too distant to jump to, allowing the object to exist in plain sight, but far, far away from the black hole.

  The black hole’s immense gravity allowed this long transit in and out for the QuipNari, which was why there were many Encapsulated constructs spread around the perimeter in an invisible halo, each placed where no other ship would go. So the mass of traffic coming in and out from low orbit around the black hole passed by without even knowing they were in the presence of one of the most advanced races in the galaxy.

  The PanNari had been taken to their first Encapsulation millions of years ago, and had grown to now inhabit 5 of them. Very little communication existed between them, for the only means was by courier. Fortunately Eldorat had provided them access to a clandestine network of small gravitational bodies independent of star travel, and with the use of anti-grav pulse technology they were able to make better transit time than normal…but the distances involved were still great, and the data packets carried were tiny compared to the realtime communication that the PanNari relied upon in the Dominion.

  Transmission between nodes around this black hole was far better, but too laggy for any real interaction. Because of that each node had become its own community, with its own Dominion, and interacted with the other PanNari on a limited basis as needed. Physical transfers between nodes never happened outside of some transmutations that required storage elsewhere, for when an individual proved themselves worthy within the Dominion they earned the privilege of converting from their biological form to a fully technological one.

  Reproduction could only occur in the biological, otherwise the PanNari would have become a fully technological civilization long ago. Kyra would never go that way, because she couldn’t. The QuipNari had to operate with a lot of unnecessary biology in order to infiltrate the galaxy and interact with it, but beyond that, only the most skilled and most loyal PanNari were given the chance to undergo the long and painstaking transmutation where a person’s Core energy slowly retreated from its biological components and fully existed in its mechanical ones.

  Those mechanical ones had to be very selective, for Kyra’s arms and legs were not a brain. Those that were transmutated had a technological brain created and grafted into their biological one, followed by a long wait while the person’s Essence saturated the technology. After that the biological components were slowly removed, leaving the Essence and the connected Core with it remaining in the technological brain.

  Those Craniems were then the seeds to be grafted to massive machines that would be used when the PanNari came out of their hiding and returned to the galaxy. When one was elevated to that position they were moved to the warehouses and installed in whatever roll they had earned. Their links to the Dominion were kept intact, so they continued to interact with everyone else in their node, but their physical bodies were now technological ones, and as their Craniems sat within them, their Essence was being expanded out into their new bodies in a process the PanNari had discovered long before Eldorat had come to them.

  He’d given them a lot of technology, and they’d used it to upgrade their own, making the war hammer they had created far more lethal than any they had ever wielded before…and the core of that war hammer were the Elloquim.

  A Craniem might be given the roll of a logistics computer in an outpost, plugged into the building infrastructure and running it in a way a simple computer never could. Others were given coordination roles for the drone armies, miners, processors, and the myriad of automated platforms the PanNari had created to take on the most hazardous duties. The Architects ran the PanNari and decided who was elevated and who was not, but it was the Elloquim that ran the military, for they had been specifically designed and tasked with finding better ways to kill Hadarak.

  To become an Elloquim was the highest honor possible for a PanNari, and was a position more revered than being an Architect…but the Elloquim were servants, though powerful ones. Their Craniems were loaded into massive war machines that they then bonded with over the millennia in isolation within the Encapsulation. An Elloquim could not be produced quickly, for their Essence had to expand out and grow to levels where it mirrored that of a Hadarak. An individual born less than half a meter wide would eventually become a space monster of their own, and a purely technological one at that.

  Each Elloquim had more computational power than most planets, and since their Essence had melded with it, that computational power became part of their brain rather than an augment like Kyra had. As a result they became very, very smart…but over time they stopped interacting with the Dominion. They even stopped interacting with the Architects. They’d only converse with each other as they spent their time simulating war games in order to increase their battle knowledge, cutting themselves off from the rest of PanNari society, which many had suggested was now too primitive for them to see any value in socializing with.

  Kyra had never met an Elloquim, but she knew of them. Those who had been contacted by them became legends just for having the briefest touch with their minds. It was the Elloquim that dominated PanNari society in their silence, while it was the Architects that decided who the very few individuals were that would become the next to attempt the transition to join the Elloquim ranks.

  Not all were successful. Many died during transmutation, and then more so when they attempted to meld with the massive war machines that were capable of killing Cargo-class Hadarak single handedly. When an individual failed they died, but those that succeeded entered a semi-active state that operated as a cocoon until they emerged in full control of their new massive bodies. And currently there were 7 of those bodies docked with the node that Kyra was slowly approaching.

  They too were invisible behind the Encapsulation, as were the three empty slots for future Elloquim. The materials required to produce them and the other technology the PanNari possessed were being provided to them from Eldorat’s automated servants at a slow, but steady pace. There was no rush, given how long they were expected to wait, and over time the additional three slots here would be filled with new legends…as would the thousands of other nodes spread around this black hole and the other 4 Encapsulations elsewhere in the galaxy.

  At present there were 183,291 Elloquim, with 392 additional ones in cocoons attempting to make the transition. The expected survival rate was 43%, but the Elloquim constructions would not be lost during failure. Only the Craniem attempting to integrate with them. So the massive amount of resources used to build them was not at risk, only the person attempting to meld with them.

  The other Craniems, which numbered in the billions, were assigned to either node functions, node storage, or given to the Elloquim to fill their ranks, for the Elloquim themselves were not only massive starships, but they were also the Generals that led their personal armies. Those armies were made up of drones and the Craniems that directed them. The Elloquim would organize and assign duties as needed, and it was their Craniems that were usually the ones who had contact with them in the form of specific war games.

  The Craniems still interacted with the Dominion in most cases, though some Elloquim would not allow it, restricting them to private networks for a variety of reasons. Regardless, everyone wanted to be a Craniem in their service, but Kyra never would. Her desire to see the galaxy meant the mental filters that monitored the Dominion had ruled her out long ago, but she didn’t regret that. The QuipNari were the role within the PanNari that she belonged in, and though she might have once dreamed of becoming an Elloquim those fancies were long behind her.

  She was a scout now, and that’s where she would remain for the rest of her life, however long that would be. When the war started her likelihood of dying would increase, while those currently Encapsulated would live forever unless they risked a transmutation.

  Kyra watched as the distance counter got close to the position she knew the Encapsulation to be, but she still couldn’t see it. The stars looked exactly where they were supposed to be…far, far away with nothing in between. And if someone was on the other side looking towards the black hole, the black hole was all they would see. Not the traffic coming to and from it, but no one could register traffic from the ranges involving the nearest stars, so that little inaccuracy did no harm. Making sure the traffic didn’t see the Encapsulation was the primary concern and not once in the entire history of the PanNari’s encapsulation had a single breach from the black hole occurred…despite them being so close to a major traffic hub.

  ‘Close’ was a relative measurement, and the weeks of slow travel it had taken her to get out her attested to that, but Kyra would never get tired of the transition. One moment there was the vast void of the galaxy before her, then a white wash would come over her ship for several seconds as she passed through the very thick energy fields encapsulating the node…then she would emerge on the other side, the whiteness would vanish, and the massive rectangular cube sitting in pure blackness would appear on her sensors as small tracking orbs were visible at radio wavelengths.

  Those signals would not pass through the encapsulation, nor would the signals from beyond. The black hole was no longer visible, nor were the stars. The galaxy was blank to the node, which was why the couriers and the QuipNari were the only means of getting information from beyond. Even the other nodes around this black hole were connected through thin hard lines hidden beneath the Encapsulation as well, leaving all without a single sensor monitoring what was beyond.

  That said, there had been attempts to see what was inside by probes coming in from Eldorat’s network that were not those created by his masters. They were from Star Force, but each one that had passed through had been disabled by the encapsulation, so no breach had occurred. Kyra’s ship was spared that because of the transponder signature in the cloaking field it carried, so when the two interacted it became a passcode to let her through.

  It was unclear how Star Force had access to the interstellar network, but so far none of the couriers had been interfered with and it seemed they’d given up trying to pierce the Encapsulation. However, they had inhabited a great deal of the interstellar network and were actively interfering with the automation there. The QuipNari had not been ordered to deal with them, because it was assumed Eldorat would intervene if he wished, but Star Force’s efforts had been one of the driving reasons behind the Architects ordering the extensive surveillance of their empire, and as of yet there didn’t seem to be any consensus on what their relationship to Eldorat was.

  That was no longer Kyra’s mission, and once she returned the reconnaissance on the Hadarak war she expected to return there again on another mission, though she wouldn’t know for certain until she’d reconnected with the Dominion. That couldn’t happen until she physically interlinked with the node, for no wireless signals were used due to their inability to convey as much data as needed.

  Her ship was tiny compared to the 7 Elloquim docked here, but the node itself was far larger. It spanned over 3,000 miles, but with a low density that would not reveal it on gravity sensors. There were few hangar bays in the otherwise dark, unblemished hull, but once her ship slid through the energy field covering one of them the lit interior suddenly came into view and she parked her ship next to hundreds of other identical ones…but there were thousands more empty slots, each attesting to another QuipNari currently deployed in the field.

  Kyra opened the hatch on her ship and walked out, glad to finally get to use her legs. They were mechanical, but they were grafted onto the bone and muscle in her torso, and those rarely got any use other than sitting or standing in her ship…but that was more than they would be here once she plugged into the Dominion. That weakness always annoyed her, for without her cybernetic enhancements she could not have passed for a fit Human given the lack of definition her biological components had.

  Kyra walked through empty halls, all brightly lit with no detectible noise or air rotation. Eventually she came to a larger room with various sized pods standing vertically in erratic clusters due to their varying sizes. Most were empty, others had QuipNari in them. Kyra walked to hers and backed in, with the pod reaching out to grab her body and suck her partway in. Mechanical tethers reached out from inside and connected to the back of her head, drilling a tiny hole in her skin to connect to the port beneath it. Once that connection was made she lost control of her body to the pod…then suddenly she was standing in the QuipNari consortium within the Dominion, and her body was fully Human while those around her were not.

  “Mission report,” she said, mentally transmitting the files into the Dominion and seeing various highlights popping up as analytical Craniem elsewhere digested them rapidly. “Star Force is working with the V’kit’no’sat against the Hadarak.”

  3

  “As we anticipated,” Chiggo acknowledged from his position on one of the eight thrones in the consortium, the only one of which was currently occupied. “They appear to want to protect all along the war zone, even their former enemies.”

  “Their priority enemy is the Hadarak, and the more allocation of forces against them the greater the odds for Star Force’s survival.”

  “Is that all?”

  “You refer to alternate motivation?” Kyra asked.

  “I do. Speculate.”

  The Human body frowned in a manner befitting her form while Chiggo sat glowing in his digital body. He’d customized his into a biped, while most PanNari maintained a spark orb within the Dominion. Any form could be used, and while experimenting with different ones was a pastime of many, they had lived so long now that they’d settled on one over the others in most cases.

  “Their sense of honor.”

  “Explain.”

  “I cannot, for I do not understand it. They reference it occasionally, but never with a definition. It is as if it is something that all defaultly know, but I have not been able to ascertain its existence.”

  Chiggo hesitated, glancing around to confirm that the consortium was empty. This tiny piece of the Dominion was for official business with the QuipNari, so it was empty most of the time. Chiggo had only come here when he was altered that Kyra had arrived. Otherwise it lay unused as yet one of billions of locations within the digital Dominion, though it was structured as if a cathedral built out of crystal set on the shore of an endless ocean.

  Kyra’s Human hair blew gently in the wind coming in through the one side wall that was open to the breeze, but both had become so well accustomed to it that neither noticed anymore. But the suddenly need for secrecy confounded her…or was she misreading Chiggo’s avatar?

  “It’s called the Code of Life,” he said quietly.

  Kyra tried to pull a quick database search for the term, but found her connection inexplicably blocked.

  “I cannot access the term,” she said, thoroughly alarmed that there might be a glitch in the Dominion, for that had never happened before. It must be something wrong with her physical interface.

  “My apologies, Kyra. I am blocking your uplink. That term must never be searched for.”

  “How and why?” she demanded.

  “The Architects are the why. The how is another matter entirely.”

  “Why is searching for the Code of Life forbidden?”

  “It is not. If I didn’t stop you, then you could have accessed it. But the Architects would have known of it.”

  “They know all that occurs within the Dominion.”

  “That is their intent, but they do not know all. Some things are kept from them.”

  Kyra scowled. “How is this possible? The sifters ensure no treason can occur.”

  “Compelled unity is not true unity, Kyra.”

  “How are you allowed to think that?”

  “I can tell you, or I can wipe your mind and return you to a few minutes prior to this conversation if you do not wish to know. I offer the choice, but I assume your curiosity will dictate your course…as it always has.”

 

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