None of this the Vargemma knew, at least not their populations. Perhaps their leaders did and were hiding it from them, or perhaps it had been lost over the millions of years they had been here squabbling with each other. Yet it was clearly displayed here for those first entering the Temple to understand what they were getting involved with and why they were hunted by the Hadarak for their Essence use.

  But there was more, including one other tactic the Hadarak had tried…that being to destroy all planets so no new life could arise on them. When that happened it appeared to work for a long time, then new planets and stars began to arise just like the lifeforms did on the existing ones. And each time this happened there was a unique Essence effect, with those capable of sensing it seeing the equivalent of a supernova across the galaxy. One moment there was just the void of space, then a flash of super Essence that would subside to reveal a new planet, star, or even entire star systems, nebula, or whatever else needed replaced.

  And it was somehow linked to the apocalypse monsters, for when they purged a galaxy they ate most of the planets in the process. Then in the aftermath there would be a kaleidoscope of Essence eruptions repopulating the galaxy with planets…then much, much later there would be smaller Essence explosions depositing the first generation of each race, but it would rarely happen when one could see it.

  This was how planets that had no population gained it, and those that had been heavily depopulated would see new races coming out of nowhere, making those on them think they had simply been overlooked before, but they were not. They were coming out of the Essence in some way, though what happened to the mass being eaten by the apocalypse monsters was unknown. Did it return to the Essence or did something else happen? It was detailed on the walls that no expedition to the dark zones had ever uncovered the location of the apocalypse monsters, and that one out of three such expeditions never returned.

  The walls asked a basic question…where the monsters part of the Essence or just another race that fed on heavily populated galaxies? The answer to that was unknown, but the Core Dwellers feared triggering such a thing, so they had to keep population levels low in the Rim to compensate for higher levels in the Core, even if it meant killing off their own to do it. So they could not inhabit an entire galaxy, meaning the Rim would be relatively safe for the resistance fighters so long as they didn’t draw too much attention to themselves.

  So the holdout galaxies had devoted the resources to build the Temples across this and other galaxies in an attempt to slow down the Hadarak, but the murals clearly detailed that this war was lopsided and the holdouts were at a disadvantage as the cycles repeated over the eons. It was possible that even the holdouts had been destroyed since the Temples were created, and if that was the case the Founders wished for those who found the Temples to use and preserve them to defy the Core Dwellers in any way possible.

  The word ‘Hadarak’ was never used, nor were there any specifics regarding the others involved. It was as if they had designed the information to be as simple as possible, expecting the equivalent of younglings to arrive that couldn’t comprehend greater detail, but it was effective enough at getting the point across. Star Force and the V’kit’no’sat, even the Zak’de’ron, had been stepping on a much larger conflict without even realizing it. And the Hadarak had been tolerating them as inferiors not worth their time up until something had changed. Maybe they had discovered Star Force’s Essence use, but how could they unless they had spies in the Rim?

  Whatever had happened, this purge was going to destroy all life in the Rim then retreat to leave it uninhabited. That was clear now, otherwise they’d risk their minions occupying every world being too much for the apocalypse monsters to ignore. So this was not a takeover of the galaxy, just a temporary purge before they retreated back to the Core where they preferred to be.

  That was critical information for the trailblazers that got sent back as well, though in light of everything else it almost seemed to get overlooked. This was an epiphany moment for Star Force that could not be understated, but the practicality of the moment was clear. They could do nothing about the Hadarak or the holdouts, but they now did have a way of getting an Archon inside the Temple. They had four, actually, and the sooner a Star Force Essence wielder got here to start operating and exploring the systems denied to the Paladin, the more they’d begin to learn about the Founders, the Hadarak, and this galactic war that was so large nobody had even knew it was happening.

  And the Vargemma? They appeared all the more pathetic now. Perhaps the hopelessness had been too much for them to handle and they had abandoned the resistance mission, but whatever the case they were nothing more than arrogant squatters at this point, and it was time for someone who was not afraid to fight to use the tools left behind by the Founders for something other than helping the Hadarak do their dirty work.

  9

  June 19, 128547

  Dyson Sphere, Krichkraw Nebula (Novatis Kingdom)

  Mountain Hideaway, Region 824

  A large contingent of Paladin had taken up residence in and around the entry portal in order to secure it for the Archons’ arrival. Fixed emplacements with both stun and regular weaponry had been set up outside and constant aerial patrols made it clear to any Vargemma watching that they were not welcome here. The amount of time it would take the Archons to get out to the closest of the 4 entry points on the Rim of the galaxy had been calculated, but the travel time between portals had not. There were some approximate guesses taken, but no one had any real numbers to offer other than the Knights of Quenar, who admitted to never having traveled even remotely that far through space using the stargate effect…assuming that was actually how the portals worked.

  That was still up in the air, and Samsiv had been analyzing every bit of the murals in the arrival chamber along with the increasing tidbits of information taken from interrogations and explorations of other facilities across the Temple. The Vargemma were still not bowing, though they continued to lose this slow war that was gradually escalating with more Paladin being spawned and added to the fight, so real access to the larger systems and database were still off limits to him, but that didn’t stop the Viceroy. He was learning and learning fast, and the more puzzle pieces found helped him connect others in what was a growing web of understanding.

  These Holdout galaxies were remarkably advanced, not just in Essence techniques but also technology, and that technology he could study without the Archons here. Based on his own knowledge of the Hadarak and their minions, he could loosely figure the effectiveness of fighting them with Founder technology, and Samsiv was fairly certain that the Holdouts were not just fighting with Essence. They most likely had a technological warfront as well, supplemented by Essence, and the Caretakers here were probably indicative of how they accomplished that.

  Their drone technology was far superior to Star Force’s, and when the Paladin had recovered wreckage from some of the Caretakers that had been destroyed before other Caretakers could collect it, the analysis of the internal mechanisms was astounding. A lot of it was variations of what Star Force already possessed, but new ways of doing it that they hadn’t come across yet…such as the casing. Similar materials were used, but the way the molecules were aligned was not natural. It was as if they had been manually aligned, molecule by molecule, into very odd arrangements that were remarkably strong and resilient.

  That may have been the result of Essence bonding the molecules rather than technology, for the Archons had been known to do similar things by introducing Essence into machinery and twisting things around in a way that was physically impossible. They’d also been able to cause plants to grow with lightning speed, but in each case they’d basically pled ignorance as to how they were actually doing it. Most of it was just throwing some Essence and seeing what happened, but these drones attested to something much more precise that allowed the Founders to get more functionality out of the same base materials.

  But the computational systems were the real gem. They were not electrical, crystal, or muodic. They were something entirely new, and the Paladin had yet to figure out exactly how it worked. They’d gotten baselines established, but there was some form of atomic chains that were permanently linked that information was stored in. DNA was the closest metaphor that could be used, but it was structured totally different…and much smaller. These atomic chains were not based on any known element, but rather a construction on a subatomic level that, in a way, made the entire chain a single atom…and yet not.

  The thing of it was, though, that these Caretaker drones did not have the same technology that the Temple did. The computer systems used in the infrastructure were more standard, still highly advanced, but most were based off micro-electrical systems with crystal backups.

  Samsiv theorized that whatever this new technology was, it was required to hold the massive amount of programming required for autonomous drones. Star Force limited their own use of the technology because of unforeseen circumstances that could lead to problems, but these Caretakers were far more intricate in the way they behaved…and without any known controlling system. The Paladin had been looking for some type of control signal beyond their comms, but they had found none. Either they had something else that couldn’t be detected, or they were operating off of an entirely internal logic system.

  And if the Holdouts had super smart drones, they might be able to effectively counter the Hadarak minions without assistance. The fact that this entire Temple was run without anyone here, so they were told, indicated an advanced knowledge of automated systems. If one implemented similar technology into the battlefield with ample production resources, they could accomplish the equivalent of what the Paladin were using technology only…or close to it. A machine would never be able to match a person in terms of the ability to learn, adapt, and improvise, and the Paladin had the genetic memory equivalent of a computer’s database, but if the Founders had gotten close to them using technology only, he could understand how they could handle the Hadarak minions while saving their Essence use for the larger targets.

  But Star Force still didn’t know what the Hadarak had in the Deep Core, and it was speculated they could have all manner of things stronger than a standard Hadarak or Lurker in there waiting to be unleashed. How someone could effectively hold off an invasion of that magnitude intrigued Samsiv thoroughly, as did how such an invasion would occur.

  The murals were not specific about who the Hadarak were, but there were some useful clues in there, particularly the mention that the Hadarak traveled between galaxies from the Core, not the Rim. Now that would make no sense if they used the Stargate effect, for the shorter distance would be from the Rim…unless distance didn’t matter and they just wanted a central hub rather than dozens around the exterior of the galaxy.

  Samsiv suspected it was not that, and there was one thing in the center of galaxies that was not available in the Rim…and that was massive gravity wells. In the center of the Milky Way there were clusters of gravity wells obscuring what was in the actual center. It could be a null zone around which the others spun, but most likely it was the largest well of them all with more material being added to it, or exploding off it, as time went on.

  Normally that would be inhospitable territory, but the Hadarak were not normal lifeforms. They preferred higher gravity and used it to travel between stars. Ignoring the amounts of mass in the way when traveling from galaxy to galaxy, if you wanted to make a grav jump across that gap, you’d need the largest gravity well you could find to get enough speed out of it…and you’d need the largest gravity well you could find to decelerate on the other end.

  That suggested that the Galactic Cores could be used to make super long and fast jumps, and the murals hinted that was how the Hadarak traveled between galaxies. But how much could they send? Was it just a seed that grew into a civilization, or could they send fleets of Hadarak or whatever else they had? There were so many possibilities based off this new information it was impossible to fix anything, but Samsiv couldn’t help but speculate as to how this multi-galaxy warfare actually occurred.

  And if the Founders could travel between galaxies, did they do so in the same way or did they have another route? Could Essence be used to also travel that distance? Did the Hadarak use Essence to enhance their Core jumps, or did they use Essence entirely?

  The Paladin badly needed the Archons here so they could access the higher tiered files that would hopefully contain some of the answers to these questions…and especially that of the apocalypse monsters. Though no images were given beyond crude drawings, it was inferred that they were the size of planets at the minimum, perhaps larger, and were totally unstoppable. There was a small mural that noted combat against them had been hilariously ineffective, but that meant at least someone had tried to fight back, and not just the Hadarak, but they’d failed miserably.

  These monsters were seen as a natural force that counterbalanced the ‘Lifesprings’ that randomly reseeded the galaxies when needed. Some parameters for that were given, stating certain conditions that seemed to trigger them, but it was clear that they were extremely rare…except when summoned.

  The ‘summoned’ term was not fully defined, nor was it referring to new planets popping up, but seemed to be suggesting that new races didn’t just pop up randomly, but that they could also be created by design and then a Core summoned into them to finish the process.

  That was not what the Caretakers were. Samsiv had confirmed they were mechanical only. But the Hadarak themselves…were they created by current races or were they naturally spawned by these Lifesprings? How many other races were created and set loose in the galaxy by Essence users? And what were the downsides of doing such? Were there flaws? Were the natural ones superior? There were a billion questions regarding this that Samsiv could have fashioned, because this was all unknown territory for Star Force, and the idea that giant monsters could swoop into any galaxy they wished at any time and destroy everything was not something that was going to sit well with the Director, Archons, or Thrawn.

  But they had no real information on the apocalypse monsters, unless it was contained in the restricted files. Hopefully it would be, but Samsiv had learned something valuable even without it. If the Hadarak feared triggering their coming, and that coming was somehow linked to overpopulation, then that meant the current Hadarak purge could not fully succeed. If they filled every planet with minions then you would have just that scenario.

  That told Samsiv that the Hadarak would start evacuating worlds near the Core that were currently filled and shove those minions Rimward to continue the purge while leaving vast tracks of territory empty. So Star Force wasn’t going to have to fight an unlimited amount of minions, for the Hadarak would regulate the number at some point to avoid triggering the galactic destruction here that they had inadvertently caused elsewhere.

  That meant backdoor combat options would be available at some point, and that the Hadarak were going to have to mount such a strong offensive that no one would even think about looking behind their lines, and if they did, they needed to have all the local jumplines blocked with fortified systems. There were definitely ways they could make that work, but if one knew there was a repository of empty systems behind the assault wave, one could find a way to get there and sever the Hadarak’s communication lines back to the Core…along with a lot more shenanigans that could be pulled to disrupt the enemy.

  That meant the Hadarak had to fight with one hand tied behind their nonexistent backs or risk arousing the apocalypse monsters…

  And their existence changed everything. They’d been out there the entire time Star Force had existed, and the Empire had been completely clueless to the threat they posed. They wouldn’t have even known about them until they came to destroy everything if the Founders hadn’t left that knowledge here to be found. And since it was literally one of the very first things newcomers to the Temple were supposed to know, it was clear that their existence was of the utmost importance and it dictated the way galactic wars could and couldn’t be fought.

  But there was more in those murals, for they kept altering in unexpected ways, and Samsiv expected them to reveal a lot more information when prodded with Essence, but right now they were spilling some more information gradually over time, almost as if they were monitoring the minds of those reading them and determining what they were ready for next.

  One thing that was added was the Frontier, which was the area of the universe where the Hadarak were expanding into new galaxies. Some were falling easily, others were causing them a lot of trouble but still falling after a considerable effort. None were able to stand except the original Holdouts, and those were limited to only 3 galaxies…whereas the Hadarak owned hundreds. There was not a specific map available yet, only generalities, and that was due in part to the inability to update information. The exact number of Hadarak galaxies could have changed since the Temple was built or last visited by the Founders, so by not giving an exact count they didn’t have to fear being inaccurate.

  Then there was also the fact that the people in this galaxy had more than they could handle with the Hadarak here, so they didn’t need to worry about other galaxies that they didn’t even have the means of getting to. But they did give a general sense of where the other galaxies were, and the Frontier was far from the Milky Way and the Holdout galaxies. In fact, they were dead center in the Hadarak death grip with all the surrounding galaxies exclusively owned by the enemy.

 

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