It was a challenge AD428 was up to, and he was glad the Vargemma were as well. He would have worried more if they just sat and did nothing, for he needed to preserve them, and not just to appease the Caretakers. Code blue meant the objective was no deaths, and that included from stagnation effects within the prisons. They were to be held here until they could be transitioned to properly built indoctrination centers…but that couldn’t happen until the Archons got here and designed them. Thrawn had said as much, despite the wealth of information coming from the other side of the barrier. Apparently some things required the Archons being on site to handle, but as of yet there was no way to bring them in.

  And that was where the second part of the prisons came in. Mind Raiders were scanning some of the unconscious ones on arrival, gleaning what they could, then when high value targets were identified from that sifting and surveillance of the prison populations, AD428 had to find a way to isolate those individuals for capture…and the Vargemma figured it out after a while, so they’d decreed that no one was to go off into the labyrinth tunnels alone.

  But that didn’t stop the Paladin, and small teams of Vargemma were caught in wall traps or other clever redirection methods that avoided them actually stunning the individuals. Some of them tried to break through the walls, and they could, but they only had so much Essence in reserve and they bled themselves dry eventually, leaving he labyrinth the final victor.

  They were then shuffled into areas where the telepathic range of the Mind Raiders would be able to reach the prisoners without them being able to reach back. That was very problematic with some of the stronger Vargemma, but Star Force also had mind reading technology that could assist from afar. The combination of the two meant that AD428 was gathering intelligence on things the prisoners would not talk about freely, though no method of entering the Temple sphere had been discovered beyond the portals that linked one sphere to another…and no one that had ever been outside the Temple system had yet to be captured and interrogated.

  The Vargemma did not share as much information with their populations as Star Force did. That became clear quickly enough, with a very tiered system that had one race keeping secrets from another, and in order to do that they had to keep secrets from their own population else their minds be read in a similar fashion, for quite a few of the races in the Vargemma were telepathic.

  None were in this prison, thankfully, but some Essence techniques could see through walls and the Paladin hadn’t fully charted them all, thus they had to be extra careful. They’d put Pefbar-blocking compounds into the construction, and that seemed to be enough to keep them from stargate jumping through them, but sensing someone else’s Essence could potentially do the same.

  So far no one had got at the Mind Raiders in this prison, but they had in others. 6 had been killed in total, with only 4 recoverable with regenerators. Some of the Vargemma races were downright scary in terms of what they could do even without Essence, but like him, the other Paladin were adapting quickly and the number of incidents were diminishing into oblivion. That meant the more powerful races couldn’t be mind-scanned in the same way, or at all, but there were plenty of others that could be, and information was being gained rapidly.

  It wasn’t until a fourth race was added to his prison population that there was a breakthrough, for the Vargemma did not co-inhabit cities with each other, meaning each city had only one race within it. Even the boundary cities had no overlap, as if the Vargemma hated each other so much they didn’t want to physically see one another.

  That was partly true, based on their mental scans, but it was also a security precaution. They were not here by their own choosing, for initially the Vargemma had been recruited from dying races that the Hadarak were exterminating. Those originals had been forced to work together here, and had been adding other Essence-capable races to the population when they could, for that was their mandate, but they never trusted any of them. The news of the Knights of Quenar had also rattled many, because they were said to possess superior technology, and there were quite a few races that did not want them included for that reason…and some others that were just the reverse, hoping to gain from their technology, either from trade or theft.

  There was a lot of theft going on, both in terms of Caretaker-made materials along with natural resources. Since they were forbidden from killing, the boldness of some was increased greatly and all kinds of hijinks ensued. Some from individuals just being reckless or looking for a rush, but others were well organized from the top of their races, all of which added to the eternal frustration within the Vargemma.

  In fact, some of the interactions within the prisons between the races were the first their races had ever experienced directly, but since Star Force was the primary nemesis now they were actually working together to try and defeat the labyrinth…and the fact that the Caretaker drones could penetrate the Star Force shields and get down inside the labyrinth at will had ensured that they didn’t start killing each other, for the most part, for there were a few early incidents and AD428 had specifically designed the weaker shields to allow the Caretaker drones through.

  But the inclusion of the Hitori that had finally registered the Paladin’s first solid bit of intelligence on the Temple transportation infrastructure from a highly placed individual who had gotten caught in the combat when his aerial transport was disabled. It wasn’t much information, for all he had heard was a rumor, but it was said that the Caretakers did not go into the galaxy to retrieve the first ones from the Hadarak’s purge. That it was the Founders themselves that did so, then they left the first Vargemma here to grow into a powerful ally over the ages.

  That wasn’t the key point, for along with the gossip was the question of what would happen if they actually went to full war, ignoring the Caretakers’ lethal protocols, and just killed each other with no one left alive. What would happen if there was a total wipeout? Nobody would be left to look for and secure more Essence users. Would the Founders return to start over, or would the Caretakers go out and grab someone to begin the process over again?

  But there was a rumor of something much more simple. A way for Essence users to find their way into the Temple without an invitation, but one that would require Essence use to activate. The individual in question did not know what that was, or even what it could be, but he was convinced that the wisdom of the Founders had left behind a way for the mission to be accomplished even if the Vargemma failed here or refused to do their job in finding other Essence users.

  Once AD428 reported this rumor to the Viceroy, he ordered all Mind Raiders to search for confirmation, and after a few months of work they began to get other hits. Nothing complete, but this rumor was present in many of the races and the Viceroy made tracking it down the Paladin’s top priority, even as they continued to fight the Vargemma in a growing stun weapon war, taking more prisoners on a daily basis, but not coming close to even a sliver of the overall Temple population.

  No method of lowering the shield had been found, and it was known that only Essence use could control the more important Founder technology, so even if they found the shield barrier’s controls, they’d need the Vargemma’s help to take them down, and right now none of their races had submitted to the Paladin. Their stubbornness was admirable, despite the inevitability of the outcome of this war…though with ample time until completion, AD428 agreed that the Vargemma should stick it out in hopes of an altering event to occur.

  And with many ships coming from other Temples to see what was happening here, then leaving before the Paladin’s growing fleets could get to them and disable them, it was clear the Vargemma here and elsewhere were looking for a way to break this no-kill stalemate that favored the Paladin. If they found one, the Viceroy was certain that they’d launch a full-on assault intent on wiping out the invasion to the last man.

  So it was critical that AD428 and the other prison Administrators find the information in the minds of the captured Vargemma that would lead them to the backup method of entry. If they could get just one Archon in here, that would be enough to operate the Temple technology and access the sealed records that the Vargemma already had, but the mundane Paladin did not…and using the Mind Raiders to puppeteer a captive in asking questions for them hadn’t worked, for the Responders had been programmed to know the difference and made that fact known the first time the Paladin had tried it.

  One Archon was all they needed…or one turncoat Vargemma with sufficient skill level. So far not one had turned, or even bothered to engage in discussions. They were hostile beyond hostile, and only the Paladin’s superiority in non-Essence warfare was keeping the war from becoming a slaughter. That and the threat of more reprisals from the Caretakers if the Vargemma should break protocol again.

  At some point the Paladin knew the Vargemma would attack regardless, if they felt they were truly going to be displaced from the Temple. They would die rather than abandon their position here, but so far they still controlled the majority of their own cities, and it was going to take forever to slowly stun and remove the captives from them. Hopefully the Vargemma would hold out long enough to forgo the suicidal response they now knew the Vargemma were building to, at least until they could get an Archon in here to unlock the front door. Once that happened and the Star Force fleet entered, the Vargemma could have their last stand if they wished, for not even the Caretakers could defeat a full Star Force fleet equipped with hundreds of Materia weapons.

  8

  August 24, 128546

  Dyson Sphere, Krichkraw Nebula (Novatis Kingdom)

  Mountain Hideaway, Region 824

  As the number of prisoners gradually rose and more Mind Raiders were spawned to accommodate the information search, it became clear that the geography of the Temple was much more complicated than observed. The Paladin had already secured the obvious Caretaker facilities, but there were many underground that were hidden, including most of the more sensitive ones. Additional battles had to be fought to remove the Vargemma from some of them, but others were completely empty, and it eventually was discovered that even the Vargemma didn’t know what they were for.

  Add to that, there were cloaked locations within the space inside the sphere that held other things. The Vargemma had explored some of them, but others were still off limits and whenever someone got close Caretaker warships would appear and warn them off…and if they didn’t turn back they’d be quickly destroyed. And given that there was very little gravity inside the sphere to navigate with, all ships speeds were reduced so low that in effect the size of the inner system was greater than most star systems with regard to travel times.

  That meant there was a lot of empty and unexplored space inside the Temple that the Caretakers were not informing the Vargemma of, but Samsiv expected most of the good stuff to remain inside the shell itself. It was so large and expansive that it would not be possible to explore all of it even with an army of searchers, and what the Vargemma had found had been through following links in the information left behind by the Founders. It was like a massive puzzle to be figured out, and the Vargemma had not done so well in pursuing it because they were more interested with internal politics and status rather than solving the mystery of Temple and its builders.

  But what they had learned was very useful, and as more bits and pieces came in the Viceroy was able to figure out some things the Vargemma had not. Eventually the trail of clues led him to this mountain facility, which he did not come to in person. That was too risky, so as usual for Viceroys and their Mastermind ancestors, they stayed hidden and relied on information transmitted to them in order to guide the Paladin, and in this case that was through an expedition team of several hundred scouring the mountain to find the hidden entrance to a facility the Vargemma had never discovered, though the clues had been right under their snouts.

  How to access the facility had not been clear, but once on site several researchers were able to figure it out within 4 days. One tiny red crystal was hidden amongst the mountain rocks, and had they not known where to look it would never have been found, for nobody was supposed to go into this facility. They were meant to come out of it.

  When the crystal was activated with a generic password the Vargemma had learned to be a mundane way of accessing low level facilities rather than Essence use, a large slab of stone melted away from the entrance and pulled into a surrounding ring. It was molten and glowing, held in check by some sort of energy field around a passageway large enough for a single mech to walk through. In fact, most of the entrances in the Temple were configured to accommodate very large body sizes, on the scale of the V’kit’no’sat, which Samsiv assumed was about the largest in the galaxy as far as potential Essence users went.

  Inside was a large chamber with a circular ring set into the far wall similar in shape to the massive ones visible on the surface of the Temple through which starships could travel. This one, however, was meant for pedestrians. Specifically those that didn’t have an invitation.

  The Vargemma had known something like this would exist, but since none of them had entered via this route they’d never bothered to figure out where it actually was, though the clues had been there. But then again, why bother searching for something that was of no use to them? Position and status within the Temple seemed to be their only concern, and it had become a recurring theme in the mind raids of the prisoners. The drama was blinding them to the greatest mystery in the galaxy, and that led to ever increasing disgust by the Viceroy with regards to the Vargemma.

  There was nothing inside the mountain hideaway except the exit chamber, and while it should be possible to turn on the portal and use it to travel out of the Temple, the Paladin could not do it because they did not possess Essence…but fortunately the displays burned into the walls did not require it, or at least did not require it for all functions.

  They appeared to be holograms, but of a nature that defied the eyes. They looked 3 dimensional, but they were completely flat and almost magically carved into the walls…and they were everywhere, detailing a lot of what was probably valuable information, but the map of the galaxy was the one that the Paladin were after.

  The great swirl showed the location of this Temple and four other points, each of which was at the very edge of the galaxy…the furthest away from the Hadarak you could get…and they were marked in the Temple language as the Bridges. Another wall display further elaborated on them, explaining through a series of pictures and text that they linked the Temple network to the galaxy, and that only those who were worthy could pass through. The Bridges would separate the Temples from those who did not belong here, while allowing those that later proved their worth to enter when the time was right.

  It took more than an hour before the Paladin realized the walls were interactive, with the galaxy map being able to zoom in to see the exact systems where each of the four bridge endpoints were located. It even pinpointed where on the appropriate planets they were, though without the use of any coordinates. The Paladin had to visually map out and remember the locations, but that was easy for the Researchers, who immediately sent the information back to Samsiv via couriers, indicating that they had found the way in for the Archons and they had the choice of 4 different routes...but that wasn’t all that was here, and the information kept flowing back to the Viceroy from what was apparently a primer for those who first arrived in the Temple.

  It spoke of a Great War spread across the galaxies, in which a terrifying enemy lurked in the Core of each, using it as a transportation hub to get from one to another. The only threat to them was those that could harness the full potential of Essence, so they had guardians bred to hunt down and destroy all those within the galaxies that learned to use it. Long, long ago they had simply destroyed all life within their host galaxies to insure that no one rose to oppose them…but life returned regardless. They could not figure out how this happened, but it always did, thus they began to weed the galaxies of Essence users rather than trying to deny them existence or occupy all locations.

  The latter had been tried, but when a galaxy reached the saturation point something was triggered. No one knew how, but great beasts would come out of the darkness between galaxies and lay waste to the overpopulated galaxies...then disappear again never to be seen. They too could use Essence, as well as additional powers that were inexplicable. None could stand against them, and only those that were able to run across the stars were able to survive and tell the tale, for no world in an entire galaxy was spared when they emerged from the darkness in a tidal wave of death.

  So the enemy inhabiting the Cores of many galaxies decreed that their watchdogs would both weed out Essence users as well as preventing the overpopulation that would trigger the apocalypse monsters to return. Keeping their galaxies in a semi-populated state as they expanded to others, destroying all worthy opposition while allowing the lessers to exist in the Rim so long as they did not interfere with their colonization of the Galactic Cores.

  But there were those in some of the galaxies that did not bow, and were too strong to be destroyed. Thus the Great War began, with some of the targeted galaxies being able to repel the invaders, but far too few. The enemy continues to assault them, gathering resources from more conquered galaxies to strengthen them. If this was allowed to continue the holdouts would eventually fall to the increasing strength of the Core dwellers, so it was decreed that resistance cells would be established within the far Rims all conquered galaxies.

  And that was what the Temples were. Breeding grounds for resistance fighters engaged in a war too large for them to win, but also sanctuaries where the Hadarak could not get to them under most circumstances…and with backups in case one or more Temples fell. If and when the resistance fighters rose to sufficient level, a leader from the holdout races would come and guide them in guerilla warfare against the Core with no hope of ultimate victory, but in order to do damage to them so that they could not supply the assaults on the holdouts…or perhaps even draw resources from other galaxies to put down the resistance here.

 

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