"The Water Gardens" - New Zygaxia
The journey eastward was long and grueling. The Moonstruck Madness caused by the Greblix Aurora made travel by night nearly impossible, so the Zygaxian caravan was forced to move only during the day. Under the relentless sun, they trudged through the Ivory Wastes, a vast pale desert where the horizon blurred into mirages of endless salt flats.
“This blasted heat is making my bones creak,” Durgin grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’ve seen magma flows that were cooler.” He was a dwarf from the cold mountains of Zygaxia, and they were built for hard earth and underground caves. Walking on the soft, shifting sands for so long had made them all a bit cranky and disoriented.
“At least magma has the decency to glow,” Farrick Sunsinger muttered, adjusting his spectacles. The Professor of Illusions from the Amber Arcanarium seemed particularly perturbed by the endless, featureless horizon. “There’s nothing here to measure our progress or mark our bearings. It's like walking through someone’s fever dream.”
The fog followed, thick and suffocating like noxious smoke that hugged the ground. It was neither dense enough to shield them from the sun’s glare nor thin enough to allow clear visibility.
“Stay close,” one of the Raustri guides cautioned. His voice was low, his eyes scanning the swirling mist with unease. “The air here is full of tricks. It’ll lead you into a pit or worse if you do not follow the patterns in the fog.” Without their help the caravan would have surely gotten lost within days, wandering in circles as the illusions teased them with false paths of safety, only to lead into more treacherous terrain to the south.
Katria, who was also walking nearby, had never been one for deserts, and this only reaffirmed her stance on the matter. She would much rather be in the cool, dense forests of her homeland, where the ground was soft underfoot and the air full with scents of pine, lilac, and cedar. The Ivory Wastes offered only endless miles of dry lakebeds that seemed to leech the life out of everything. Sorel, one of Katria’s bodyguards, frowned as they passed by another petrified tree that not even Katria could restore with her druidic spells. The older winter fey looked as though he belonged in a snowy tundra, but any discomfort was hidden behind his rough demeanor. “It’s unnatural. This land smells of broken magic.”
Nearby Willibald Battlecrag spat, “This is no place for anyone with sense,” and his face twisted in disdain. The Patriar of Clan Deepmantle was a hard man, untrusting and sharp-tongued. “Whoever thought this path was a good idea should be dragged back to the mountains and tossed in a ravine.”
“We’re following the Empress’s orders,” one of the caravan guards reminded him, though his voice lacked conviction. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Choices are for people who plan to live long enough to regret them,” Willibald snapped, his eyes narrowed as he glared at the guard. “Keep that in mind before you go kneeling to some devil-blooded queen.”
The entire journey was like this, with no end in sight for weeks, until one day something new finally greeted the horizon. The Waste gave way to a lush plateau that rose up like a mirage in the distance.
“Finally,” Durgin said in relief. “A place that doesn’t look like it’s going to kill us.”
“Allegedly,” his brother Burgin sighed, trying to keep his spirits high.
Thesila. An oasis nestled between northern mountains, where glaciers fed rivers that pooled into lakes on the plateau before flowing southward into a great basin. Thesila, with its towering spires and beautiful gardens. It emerged like a dream at the desert’s edge, and the group could see three great pyramids crowning the tallest hills in the city. Each was painted a color in reverence to one of the moons that had once graced the night sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Farrick observed, his eyes alight with academic interest. “A perfect image of paradise for sore feet.”
“Or perhaps it’s just another illusion,” Sorel said softly, his voice doubtful.
While the caravan’s arrival had not gone unnoticed, it was clearly guided with a royal precision that left little to chance. The Raustri desert guides took them along a private road, away from the prying eyes of common citizens. The path wound through shaded groves, where the air was rich with blossoming flowers, and the soft murmur of babbling water could be heard as they crossed several irrigation canals. Eventually, the road gave way to an unremarkable gate set into the outer wall of the city. Beyond it lay the shortest route directly to an area called the Water Gardens.
The group was allowed to keep their weapons and possessions, but the boundaries set by their host were clear, and the opulence of the gardens suddenly felt like a gilded cage. They were instructed not to leave the grounds while the Empire drew up their traveling papers and inspected their cargo and crew—a task that would take several weeks. This was mostly reasonable given the total size of their company and the isolationist policies of the Resplendent Empress.
The cool air of the Water Gardens was a blunt contrast to the searing desert they had endured. Here, the pools, fountains, flowers and trees were meticulously arranged, creating an idyllic space that might have welcomed children at play were it not for the presence of outsiders. The sprawling complex was also adjacent to the Illusion Wellspring—better known to the locals as the Moonspire. It was one of the intended destinations of the caravan when they first set out on their quest, and now it was so close, yet just out of reach.
“They’ve put us in a pretty prison,” Willibald remarked, looking around the gardens with a frown. “It’s lovely, but we’re still trapped.”
“Better to be trapped in beauty than in a place like the Wastes,” Durgin said, though his voice carried little comfort.
The Thescilan hosts were unfailingly polite, regularly offering reassurances that the Zygaxians were honored guests, although the confinement within the Garden and the constant presence of servants hinted at growing tensions. Fawke, ever the skeptic, couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched, not just by attendants, but by something more elusive. At his core, he was a wizard of action, not a conjurer of patience.
“I don’t like this,” Fawke muttered to Nemiriel as they walked through the Garden. “There’s something here, something they’re not telling us.”
“You think the Empress has plans for us beyond travel papers?” Nemiriel asked, her voice low enough to not catch the ear of a nearby cupbearer.
Fawke shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe there’s something worse than the Empress lurking in these walls.”
Among the courtesies extended to the caravan was a collection of books and histories detailing more about the Ossinian Empire. The texts were rich with tales of grandeur, diplomacy, and hardship, however as the group compared their readings, something unsettling became clear.
“It’s as if they’ve erased every conflict from their history,” Farrick mused, frowning at the pages before him. “No wars, no enemies, no struggles—how could that be?” The histories were strangely silent on all matters of disagreement, painting an empire that, while grand, seemed to exist in an unnatural state of perpetual peace.
“Maybe they want us to believe they’re perfect,” Sorel suggested, his tone skeptical. “Or maybe the truth is a threat to the Empress?”
After a week the strange dreams started.
At first, it was just Ahdrian. He’d wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, the image of a figure still fresh in his mind. It was the visage of a ghostly king wearing a crown and humble brown robes, with symbols marking his face that no one recognized. In those dreams, the king wandered the halls of the Water Gardens, his steps silent on the marble floors, his presence both eerie and somehow sorrowful. Ahdrian didn’t mention him at first, fearing it might be tied more directly to his own past and one of the many dead faces buried in the lost memories of his previous life.
But then Syndra spoke up about the king. She’d seen him too, pacing the corridors just beyond her door. Soon, others admitted they’d seen him in their dreams. The ghostly king seemed to appear to them one by one, each night choosing a new dreamer.
“It’s not just a dream,” Syndra said to Ahdrian one morning. “I think there’s something he wants from us, something he needs.”
“Or something he’s trying to warn us about,” Ahdrian replied, his voice low. “Either way, we need to figure it out if only to get a full night’s rest.”
The royal attendants and servants said nothing of the specter when it was brought up, and the language barrier did not help. However, their eyes betrayed them. They would exchange nervous glances, indicating deeply held superstitions that they dared not voice for fear of punishment. And any who seemed like they might finally speak were quietly replaced the next day; their absences explained with vague excuses that repeated like a spell of arcane echo.
It was clear that the ghost was no dream, but propriety held the Dreamwalkers’ tongues when it came to pressing for information. Fawke couldn’t help but recall the dire warning given during their audience with the Empress. It wasn’t the words that stuck with him, but the way Discipline said them, making it clear that the Empress did not give second chances. Not to mention, it would be especially poor manners to interrogate the servants of a royal host.
Ceilan also couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. As she stared out over the gardens one night, the shadows grew long under the Greblix Aurora, but its effects were mild and she was beginning to grow accustomed to it.
“You’re troubled,” Sorel’s voice broke the solitude, his tone as cold and sharp as a winter wind. He stepped out from the shadows, his eyes reflecting the faint light of the Aurora. “What is it?”
Ceilan hesitated, her gaze lingering on the darkened corners of the garden. “The king…the one we see in our dreams. I think he’s trying to tell us something—something that might be vital to our quest. When I saw him last, he was pointing at the Moonspire tower and holding an emerald in his left hand. But I can’t make sense of it.”
Sorel’s expression darkened and his brows furrowed. “Dreams are considered warnings when you are not walking in them. And spirits trapped between worlds sometimes seek to guide or to mislead as well as any illusion.”
She nodded, her unease growing. “I fear we’re being watched, even when we think we’re alone. This place…it’s too perfect, too controlled. It’s like we’ve walked into a carefully placed fishing net.”
Sorel glanced around, his gaze sweeping over the seemingly tranquil Gardens. “A trap wrapped in beauty is still a trap,” he agreed.
For now, the answers were hidden behind a currency of politeness and the quiet of the Water Gardens, but Ceilan knew one thing for certain: they had not arrived here by chance.
And the ghostly king walked in their dreams. ~
“This blasted heat is making my bones creak,” Durgin grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’ve seen magma flows that were cooler.” He was a dwarf from the cold mountains of Zygaxia, and they were built for hard earth and underground caves. Walking on the soft, shifting sands for so long had made them all a bit cranky and disoriented.
“At least magma has the decency to glow,” Farrick Sunsinger muttered, adjusting his spectacles. The Professor of Illusions from the Amber Arcanarium seemed particularly perturbed by the endless, featureless horizon. “There’s nothing here to measure our progress or mark our bearings. It's like walking through someone’s fever dream.”
The fog followed, thick and suffocating like noxious smoke that hugged the ground. It was neither dense enough to shield them from the sun’s glare nor thin enough to allow clear visibility.
“Stay close,” one of the Raustri guides cautioned. His voice was low, his eyes scanning the swirling mist with unease. “The air here is full of tricks. It’ll lead you into a pit or worse if you do not follow the patterns in the fog.” Without their help the caravan would have surely gotten lost within days, wandering in circles as the illusions teased them with false paths of safety, only to lead into more treacherous terrain to the south.
Katria, who was also walking nearby, had never been one for deserts, and this only reaffirmed her stance on the matter. She would much rather be in the cool, dense forests of her homeland, where the ground was soft underfoot and the air full with scents of pine, lilac, and cedar. The Ivory Wastes offered only endless miles of dry lakebeds that seemed to leech the life out of everything. Sorel, one of Katria’s bodyguards, frowned as they passed by another petrified tree that not even Katria could restore with her druidic spells. The older winter fey looked as though he belonged in a snowy tundra, but any discomfort was hidden behind his rough demeanor. “It’s unnatural. This land smells of broken magic.”
Nearby Willibald Battlecrag spat, “This is no place for anyone with sense,” and his face twisted in disdain. The Patriar of Clan Deepmantle was a hard man, untrusting and sharp-tongued. “Whoever thought this path was a good idea should be dragged back to the mountains and tossed in a ravine.”
“We’re following the Empress’s orders,” one of the caravan guards reminded him, though his voice lacked conviction. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Choices are for people who plan to live long enough to regret them,” Willibald snapped, his eyes narrowed as he glared at the guard. “Keep that in mind before you go kneeling to some devil-blooded queen.”
The entire journey was like this, with no end in sight for weeks, until one day something new finally greeted the horizon. The Waste gave way to a lush plateau that rose up like a mirage in the distance.
“Finally,” Durgin said in relief. “A place that doesn’t look like it’s going to kill us.”
“Allegedly,” his brother Burgin sighed, trying to keep his spirits high.
Thesila. An oasis nestled between northern mountains, where glaciers fed rivers that pooled into lakes on the plateau before flowing southward into a great basin. Thesila, with its towering spires and beautiful gardens. It emerged like a dream at the desert’s edge, and the group could see three great pyramids crowning the tallest hills in the city. Each was painted a color in reverence to one of the moons that had once graced the night sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Farrick observed, his eyes alight with academic interest. “A perfect image of paradise for sore feet.”
“Or perhaps it’s just another illusion,” Sorel said softly, his voice doubtful.
While the caravan’s arrival had not gone unnoticed, it was clearly guided with a royal precision that left little to chance. The Raustri desert guides took them along a private road, away from the prying eyes of common citizens. The path wound through shaded groves, where the air was rich with blossoming flowers, and the soft murmur of babbling water could be heard as they crossed several irrigation canals. Eventually, the road gave way to an unremarkable gate set into the outer wall of the city. Beyond it lay the shortest route directly to an area called the Water Gardens.
The group was allowed to keep their weapons and possessions, but the boundaries set by their host were clear, and the opulence of the gardens suddenly felt like a gilded cage. They were instructed not to leave the grounds while the Empire drew up their traveling papers and inspected their cargo and crew—a task that would take several weeks. This was mostly reasonable given the total size of their company and the isolationist policies of the Resplendent Empress.
The cool air of the Water Gardens was a blunt contrast to the searing desert they had endured. Here, the pools, fountains, flowers and trees were meticulously arranged, creating an idyllic space that might have welcomed children at play were it not for the presence of outsiders. The sprawling complex was also adjacent to the Illusion Wellspring—better known to the locals as the Moonspire. It was one of the intended destinations of the caravan when they first set out on their quest, and now it was so close, yet just out of reach.
“They’ve put us in a pretty prison,” Willibald remarked, looking around the gardens with a frown. “It’s lovely, but we’re still trapped.”
“Better to be trapped in beauty than in a place like the Wastes,” Durgin said, though his voice carried little comfort.
The Thescilan hosts were unfailingly polite, regularly offering reassurances that the Zygaxians were honored guests, although the confinement within the Garden and the constant presence of servants hinted at growing tensions. Fawke, ever the skeptic, couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched, not just by attendants, but by something more elusive. At his core, he was a wizard of action, not a conjurer of patience.
“I don’t like this,” Fawke muttered to Nemiriel as they walked through the Garden. “There’s something here, something they’re not telling us.”
“You think the Empress has plans for us beyond travel papers?” Nemiriel asked, her voice low enough to not catch the ear of a nearby cupbearer.
Fawke shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe there’s something worse than the Empress lurking in these walls.”
Among the courtesies extended to the caravan was a collection of books and histories detailing more about the Ossinian Empire. The texts were rich with tales of grandeur, diplomacy, and hardship, however as the group compared their readings, something unsettling became clear.
“It’s as if they’ve erased every conflict from their history,” Farrick mused, frowning at the pages before him. “No wars, no enemies, no struggles—how could that be?” The histories were strangely silent on all matters of disagreement, painting an empire that, while grand, seemed to exist in an unnatural state of perpetual peace.
“Maybe they want us to believe they’re perfect,” Sorel suggested, his tone skeptical. “Or maybe the truth is a threat to the Empress?”
After a week the strange dreams started.
At first, it was just Ahdrian. He’d wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, the image of a figure still fresh in his mind. It was the visage of a ghostly king wearing a crown and humble brown robes, with symbols marking his face that no one recognized. In those dreams, the king wandered the halls of the Water Gardens, his steps silent on the marble floors, his presence both eerie and somehow sorrowful. Ahdrian didn’t mention him at first, fearing it might be tied more directly to his own past and one of the many dead faces buried in the lost memories of his previous life.
But then Syndra spoke up about the king. She’d seen him too, pacing the corridors just beyond her door. Soon, others admitted they’d seen him in their dreams. The ghostly king seemed to appear to them one by one, each night choosing a new dreamer.
“It’s not just a dream,” Syndra said to Ahdrian one morning. “I think there’s something he wants from us, something he needs.”
“Or something he’s trying to warn us about,” Ahdrian replied, his voice low. “Either way, we need to figure it out if only to get a full night’s rest.”
The royal attendants and servants said nothing of the specter when it was brought up, and the language barrier did not help. However, their eyes betrayed them. They would exchange nervous glances, indicating deeply held superstitions that they dared not voice for fear of punishment. And any who seemed like they might finally speak were quietly replaced the next day; their absences explained with vague excuses that repeated like a spell of arcane echo.
It was clear that the ghost was no dream, but propriety held the Dreamwalkers’ tongues when it came to pressing for information. Fawke couldn’t help but recall the dire warning given during their audience with the Empress. It wasn’t the words that stuck with him, but the way Discipline said them, making it clear that the Empress did not give second chances. Not to mention, it would be especially poor manners to interrogate the servants of a royal host.
Ceilan also couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. As she stared out over the gardens one night, the shadows grew long under the Greblix Aurora, but its effects were mild and she was beginning to grow accustomed to it.
“You’re troubled,” Sorel’s voice broke the solitude, his tone as cold and sharp as a winter wind. He stepped out from the shadows, his eyes reflecting the faint light of the Aurora. “What is it?”
Ceilan hesitated, her gaze lingering on the darkened corners of the garden. “The king…the one we see in our dreams. I think he’s trying to tell us something—something that might be vital to our quest. When I saw him last, he was pointing at the Moonspire tower and holding an emerald in his left hand. But I can’t make sense of it.”
Sorel’s expression darkened and his brows furrowed. “Dreams are considered warnings when you are not walking in them. And spirits trapped between worlds sometimes seek to guide or to mislead as well as any illusion.”
She nodded, her unease growing. “I fear we’re being watched, even when we think we’re alone. This place…it’s too perfect, too controlled. It’s like we’ve walked into a carefully placed fishing net.”
Sorel glanced around, his gaze sweeping over the seemingly tranquil Gardens. “A trap wrapped in beauty is still a trap,” he agreed.
For now, the answers were hidden behind a currency of politeness and the quiet of the Water Gardens, but Ceilan knew one thing for certain: they had not arrived here by chance.
And the ghostly king walked in their dreams. ~
Gold Rush - Planet X
It was the only news making its rounds across the ‘Verse. Broadcast stations ran around-the-clock coverage of the event on all frequencies. The headlines read:
ICE PLANET STRUCK BY COSMIC STORM, MIRACLE ELEMENT LEAKING FROM CORE!
An image displayed with the caption showed a large blue rock of a planet, with a sizable chunk of layers missing down to the core. A strange golden material was visible on the shattered side and large chunks of orbiting debris.
By the end of the first news cycle, every major company had ships, drones, and their finest lawyers enroute to the Franca Sector in hopes of staking their claim on the nameless ice planet. And by day three, Spacers were receiving the news on every personal starship and data feed within five sectors. It seemed that every merchant, rock collector, research group, and mercenary squad who could rub two bits together was trying to get a piece of the pie. And wherever wealth and power were up for grabs, the pirate bands followed—from Irra to Ceti Prime—they started making moves, expanding their ranks, and readying ambushes on those who had already done the “hard work” of mining the stuff.
A sea of freighters, cruisers, and flotillas comprised of smaller vessels had begun to mass on the edge of Franca Sector where their hopes, fears, and dreams had coalesced into a present day “Terran Gold Rush.” Eventually the comparisons were made to the discovery of Planet-X, and there was plenty of speculation on how this event would upset the status quo. It felt inevitable that one group or another would stand apart and be written into the legends of history.
************************************************************************************
Elsewhere in Planet-X, a secret meeting was taking place. Lightyears from the ice planet, a mysterious figure sat at the center of a holo-comm table half encircled by large monitors. The room was too dark to make out their appearance, but their attention was solely focused on a glowing handheld datapad. They were swiping through pages of documents, pictures, and drafts of schematics that would be meaningless to an outside observer, other than the sheer extensiveness of the project. They seemed relaxed, sitting in a lev-chair that hovered silently over a
polished metal floor. A red light flashed on their console, and they sat up straight and then pressed the button.
Immediately, the monitors around the holo-comm table lit up, displaying a series of generic-looking humanoid outlines in dark grey. They were numbered sequentially, starting with the number 3 on the left, then clockwise through to number 8 with 3, 5, and 7 positioned above the other monitors. A commlink denoted that this room was for person number 2. The number 1 was also not present on the displays, but there was a monitor in the center that showed no activity and had a small ‘offline’ in the upper left corner.
The figure in the chair spoke, and as they did a pulse of blue light illuminated the edges of the console table, thrumming in time with their speech. “I’ve just finished going over the initial reports again and, I must ask, how confident are we that this is the result of…Dreamwalker intervention? Are we not certain that it could have been—”
“We know it was Dreamwalkers, for a fact.” A voice interjected, the monitor showing the number 5 lit up with a border of red light. The voice was masculine, but the speech pattern was not enough to discern any species. “All of our reports on the Terran Empire’s great prison have only Dreamwalker individuals tampering with the station. As well as that confounded Captain Krall, who none have seen since that incident.” The voice trailed off.
Another voice began, this time with the number 6 lighting up in green. The voice was feminine, but it was clearly being translated through a program, indicating that the speaker likely could not speak Galactic Basic. “Regardless of the whereabouts of the infamous Captain, the beast within was released from its containment. We must prepare all available resources for dealing with this creature before it does to the rest of the Federation what it did to the Terran Empire. I move to initiate the Blackwing Protocol and—”
Another voice interrupted. The number 8 monitor pulsed with a teal light; their voice robotic. “Of course, you would bring up that Protocol. That is an archaic plan, one no longer suitable for the scenario we now face.” They paused for a moment, and none of the other monitors spoke. “We have the flight pattern of this creature's course, correct? We need to confirm its whereabouts before
we move to any major decisions that may result in our expending of, need I remind you, incredibly limited resources.”
There was another pause, but then the number 3 monitor spoke. Another masculine voice, this one clearly Terran in origin. “We do have the telemetry data, yes, though I will admit it is not perfect. The sensor arrays capable of following the creature’s unique signature are very outdated and in need of repair, but…ah yes, here we are.”
The voice continued, now sounding as if reading from a report. “Following the release of containment from the Null Area, the being marked only as TEN-1 made an almost direct path for dark space. It made little impact to any major stations, trade-ways or hyperspace lanes, and no current reports or sightings of it have been made by private or civilian entities. The only marked casualty was the striking of one ice-planet just on the edge of Franca Space, where the creature’s signature was then lost.”
“Ah yes. The new idol of admiration for all across the galaxy,” spoke up a voice from another monitor, this one labeled number 4. The voice was soft and feminine but gave the impression of an aged being, one old for their species, no matter which they belonged to. “Speaking of which, have any reports come back yet on the debris field? How was something so miraculous as an element not yet discovered by the rest of our collective worlds? Did none of us ever attempt deep impact probes?” Another pause following the series of questions, when the figure in the room spoke again.
“Based on my readings, it would appear that this element is only being detected on the debris field in orbit about the planet, as well as the fissure on the surface. As of now, this element has no name and can’t be found anywhere else on that cold rock.” The figure placed the device on the table, displaying a map of the planet, and swiped their finger across it, almost flicking it around the room. The image was then displayed on a new monitor, shared with all in this meeting of sorts. “Our finest team of scientists have been sent to claim what they can and get better analysis. And our legal department is performing what they can to get us possession of the rest of the rock. Once
that is done, we will finally place a name to both this barren world and its newfound resource, then we will have unfettered access to proceed with our plan. That sector of space has many areas we can use to continue our construction projects without prying eyes.”
The screens all then turn to life, a chorus of voices all speaking over one another, the display monitors pulsing in a vibrant array of colors. The words are hard to make out between all the sounds echoing through the room, but you distinctly hear the words “Tech” and “League” among them. This goes on for a few moments, even as the figure in the room attempted to settle the members in this conversation, but to no avail.
Suddenly, the middle screen flashed to life, displaying a large number 1 across the monitor in the sea of screens. The voices all cut to silence, none so much as murmuring through their communicators. Number 2, who you gathered had been leading the call up until this moment, tried to recover from the surprise entrance of this guest.
“Ah. Sir, I apologize for the mess. We were simply…”
“No need Vog’neir. I know what our next steps must be.” The voice was deep and old, unlike any of the voices you had heard thus far. Masculine in nature, but the feeling of decay seemed to almost wash over you as they spoke. The frame of the monitor pulsed with a golden hue as the speech began. After a brief moment, the voice continued.
“Claim the planet if we can, but resources for that can come later. I want to focus our efforts into Project Armada as we approach the next phase. I’ll need our finest analyst working on the data to develop programs as soon as possible.”
There was a collective flash of colors as the voices agreed in unison.
Then, the screens turned off and the room went dark. ~
By the end of the first news cycle, every major company had ships, drones, and their finest lawyers enroute to the Franca Sector in hopes of staking their claim on the nameless ice planet. And by day three, Spacers were receiving the news on every personal starship and data feed within five sectors. It seemed that every merchant, rock collector, research group, and mercenary squad who could rub two bits together was trying to get a piece of the pie. And wherever wealth and power were up for grabs, the pirate bands followed—from Irra to Ceti Prime—they started making moves, expanding their ranks, and readying ambushes on those who had already done the “hard work” of mining the stuff.
A sea of freighters, cruisers, and flotillas comprised of smaller vessels had begun to mass on the edge of Franca Sector where their hopes, fears, and dreams had coalesced into a present day “Terran Gold Rush.” Eventually the comparisons were made to the discovery of Planet-X, and there was plenty of speculation on how this event would upset the status quo. It felt inevitable that one group or another would stand apart and be written into the legends of history.
************************************************************************************
Elsewhere in Planet-X, a secret meeting was taking place. Lightyears from the ice planet, a mysterious figure sat at the center of a holo-comm table half encircled by large monitors. The room was too dark to make out their appearance, but their attention was solely focused on a glowing handheld datapad. They were swiping through pages of documents, pictures, and drafts of schematics that would be meaningless to an outside observer, other than the sheer extensiveness of the project. They seemed relaxed, sitting in a lev-chair that hovered silently over a
polished metal floor. A red light flashed on their console, and they sat up straight and then pressed the button.
Immediately, the monitors around the holo-comm table lit up, displaying a series of generic-looking humanoid outlines in dark grey. They were numbered sequentially, starting with the number 3 on the left, then clockwise through to number 8 with 3, 5, and 7 positioned above the other monitors. A commlink denoted that this room was for person number 2. The number 1 was also not present on the displays, but there was a monitor in the center that showed no activity and had a small ‘offline’ in the upper left corner.
The figure in the chair spoke, and as they did a pulse of blue light illuminated the edges of the console table, thrumming in time with their speech. “I’ve just finished going over the initial reports again and, I must ask, how confident are we that this is the result of…Dreamwalker intervention? Are we not certain that it could have been—”
“We know it was Dreamwalkers, for a fact.” A voice interjected, the monitor showing the number 5 lit up with a border of red light. The voice was masculine, but the speech pattern was not enough to discern any species. “All of our reports on the Terran Empire’s great prison have only Dreamwalker individuals tampering with the station. As well as that confounded Captain Krall, who none have seen since that incident.” The voice trailed off.
Another voice began, this time with the number 6 lighting up in green. The voice was feminine, but it was clearly being translated through a program, indicating that the speaker likely could not speak Galactic Basic. “Regardless of the whereabouts of the infamous Captain, the beast within was released from its containment. We must prepare all available resources for dealing with this creature before it does to the rest of the Federation what it did to the Terran Empire. I move to initiate the Blackwing Protocol and—”
Another voice interrupted. The number 8 monitor pulsed with a teal light; their voice robotic. “Of course, you would bring up that Protocol. That is an archaic plan, one no longer suitable for the scenario we now face.” They paused for a moment, and none of the other monitors spoke. “We have the flight pattern of this creature's course, correct? We need to confirm its whereabouts before
we move to any major decisions that may result in our expending of, need I remind you, incredibly limited resources.”
There was another pause, but then the number 3 monitor spoke. Another masculine voice, this one clearly Terran in origin. “We do have the telemetry data, yes, though I will admit it is not perfect. The sensor arrays capable of following the creature’s unique signature are very outdated and in need of repair, but…ah yes, here we are.”
The voice continued, now sounding as if reading from a report. “Following the release of containment from the Null Area, the being marked only as TEN-1 made an almost direct path for dark space. It made little impact to any major stations, trade-ways or hyperspace lanes, and no current reports or sightings of it have been made by private or civilian entities. The only marked casualty was the striking of one ice-planet just on the edge of Franca Space, where the creature’s signature was then lost.”
“Ah yes. The new idol of admiration for all across the galaxy,” spoke up a voice from another monitor, this one labeled number 4. The voice was soft and feminine but gave the impression of an aged being, one old for their species, no matter which they belonged to. “Speaking of which, have any reports come back yet on the debris field? How was something so miraculous as an element not yet discovered by the rest of our collective worlds? Did none of us ever attempt deep impact probes?” Another pause following the series of questions, when the figure in the room spoke again.
“Based on my readings, it would appear that this element is only being detected on the debris field in orbit about the planet, as well as the fissure on the surface. As of now, this element has no name and can’t be found anywhere else on that cold rock.” The figure placed the device on the table, displaying a map of the planet, and swiped their finger across it, almost flicking it around the room. The image was then displayed on a new monitor, shared with all in this meeting of sorts. “Our finest team of scientists have been sent to claim what they can and get better analysis. And our legal department is performing what they can to get us possession of the rest of the rock. Once
that is done, we will finally place a name to both this barren world and its newfound resource, then we will have unfettered access to proceed with our plan. That sector of space has many areas we can use to continue our construction projects without prying eyes.”
The screens all then turn to life, a chorus of voices all speaking over one another, the display monitors pulsing in a vibrant array of colors. The words are hard to make out between all the sounds echoing through the room, but you distinctly hear the words “Tech” and “League” among them. This goes on for a few moments, even as the figure in the room attempted to settle the members in this conversation, but to no avail.
Suddenly, the middle screen flashed to life, displaying a large number 1 across the monitor in the sea of screens. The voices all cut to silence, none so much as murmuring through their communicators. Number 2, who you gathered had been leading the call up until this moment, tried to recover from the surprise entrance of this guest.
“Ah. Sir, I apologize for the mess. We were simply…”
“No need Vog’neir. I know what our next steps must be.” The voice was deep and old, unlike any of the voices you had heard thus far. Masculine in nature, but the feeling of decay seemed to almost wash over you as they spoke. The frame of the monitor pulsed with a golden hue as the speech began. After a brief moment, the voice continued.
“Claim the planet if we can, but resources for that can come later. I want to focus our efforts into Project Armada as we approach the next phase. I’ll need our finest analyst working on the data to develop programs as soon as possible.”
There was a collective flash of colors as the voices agreed in unison.
Then, the screens turned off and the room went dark. ~
