by Aer-ki Jyr
1
March 23, 128690
Stugarrata Nebula (Tovok Kingdom)
Kappa Temple
131 years had passed since Mak’to’ran’s death and the beginning of the 2nd Zak’de’ron/V’kit’no’sat war, but Puar knew nothing of it. What happened beyond the Temple was not publically known, and the information Star Force offered was spurred by most of the Vargemma, but fortunately not all. A few brave, curious, or foolhardy individuals had sought out Cal-com’s call for warriors and had been rewarded with actual combat against the Hadarak. They had returned, spurned by their own races, but their stories spread like wildfire along with the data they had brought back.
Puar had not believe it when he had first seen the helmet-cam footage of ground combat against Hadarak minions. He thought it was yet one more piece of Hadarak fiction created for the amusement of the masses, as such things in the Temple were far older than him, but this one had not been fake, and a piece of him had known it instinctively.
But like the others he had spurned it…until his curiosity got the better of him and he began to loosely look for more bootleg information on those called the ‘Varkemma.’ Apparently it was the name for those that chose to join Star Force and travel beyond the Temple into the wilds of the galaxy to fight the impossible war against the Hadarak. It was a war that had been said to be unwinnable without the assistance of the Founders, and any loyal Vargemma were patiently waiting until their return while keeping those less loyal in check…but Star Force’s possession of naval superiority in this Temple had changed everything.
Now those without the constitution to follow instructions were seeking out the combat in droves, with nearly all being rejected. Fortunately Puar had come to his revelation before the masses and sought out the competitive matches where he had to prove his worth to even begin training to join the Varkemma. There were so many superior warriors ahead of him he had to suffer through loss after loss until they were ascended out of the competition, leaving those next strongest in line with an opportunity to be the future chosen.
Puar had won the most recent tournament after 78 years of trying, and it had not been a sure thing. He felt that he was luckier than strong, given his victory in the battle royal that saw him the last standing in the ring. The moment was still emblazoned in his recent memory and, more than that, now etched into his Core. He had stood there, with billions watching the live feeds from the arena, as the other warriors were recovering outside the massive ring with a halo of Caretaker drones hovering above ready to kill anyone that went too far in the combat.
That wasn’t on Cal-com’s order, but a testament to how close to breaking the rules the tournaments were coming. Puar was still injured with a number of cuts on his forelegs, but nothing that would inhibit him from joining the others in Redemption, which he now stood before. It was the city that was the gateway to the galaxy beyond, and it stood so tall it reached beyond the atmosphere of the Temple with several Star Force vessels visibly docked with the uppermost part of the tower that doubled as a space terminal.
Puar was on the exterior border wall looking in, as were many others, but the difference was that he had a pass key now to go inside and the others did not. He had once stood here like the others, hoping to be let inside without passing through the tournaments or just wanting to be as close to Redemption as possible, to see it for themselves.
Puar didn’t want to go inside yet, for he was still trying to get a handle on his recent achievement, so he simply stood in the crowd outside one of the many landside gates in the short barrier wall that had an invisible shield beyond that allowed full view of the city without permitting access. The gate was guarded by machines, who would only allow those with a pass key through, and whenever someone came or went through the gate those around felt privileged to be this close to them…even if they were just a worker and not one of the warriors. Even the workers in Redemption were near legendary status amongst the ‘illicit’ Vargemma seeking to join Star Force and abandon the orders of the Founders.
Some had been imprisoned for their desire to disobey, but Cal-com had found out about it and sent special teams down to extract them…as well as teach the races in the Temple the lesson of who was truly in charge. Now Puar and the others were shunned and decried, but not punished for their hopes and dreams of one day entering this city. They were the optimistic cast-offs, but today Puar was no longer a dreamer. He was now entering the city and did not care what the rest of the Temple thought of him. His future lay in Redemption, and if he could prove himself worthy he would one day join the Varkemma and venture beyond the inside of the giant sphere that had been his universe from the day he was born.
Others had ventured beyond before Star Force had invaded, and they were heroes to the Vargemma rather than outcasts, but now their status was greatly diminished, because they had not even seen a Hadarak, let alone fought them. But the few Varkemma that had gone forth and returned had, making them the legends that the masses were forbidden from acknowledging.
Puar picked up his right paw and licked one of the scabs from the claw marks that had been dug into him as he rolled through an Essence-enhanced grapple hold that had nearly pulled him outside the ring boundaries by a Vadnai attempting to help another advance. The one who had clawed him was trying to pull them both out, which wasn’t against the rules, but it was against the nature of the battle royal. It was meant to leave the best warrior standing, and an intentional ring-out was seen as dishonorable…yet the competition to get to Redemption was so fierce many were teaming up in an attempt to get one through, and it had nearly worked on Puar, had he not been able to slightly overpower the winged Vadnai and break his four armed grip before he flew both of them out of bounds.
In doing so the other’s claws had tore deep and bloody slashes into his pinned forearms, probably by accident, but it hadn’t been enough to cause the Caretakers to intervene. And if they had, the shield protecting the combatants would stop them from killing the individuals involved long enough for them to escape through tunnel entrances all around the ring. Once out of sight the Caretakers would lose interest so long as they were not engaged themselves. Of the many times they had intervened in the tournaments, Star Force’s measures had insured no one had ever been killed, but it was made clear that if you went beyond the tournament rules and tried to seriously injure or kill another and drew the wrath of the Caretakers, then it was your own responsibility to get clear. Star Force had created the escape routes for them, but that was the limit of their involvement with the Caretakers.
Puar understood the delicate balance that Kappa existed under. Most of the other Temples, he’d been told, had seen the Caretakers engaged in a never-ending war with Star Force because they had been triggered into full scale combat. The Caretakers were not forgiving of such things, and no one in Kappa wanted that to occur here, so the Vargemma resistance to the Star Force occupation operated on certain rules, and while Star Force left them alone in their own cities the two empires reluctantly agreed to coexist in their own corners of the Temple, though there were incidents where crossovers occurred, but they were never bloody…at least not intentionally. The news of the few that were made it to every block of every city, because both the Vargemma and Star Force wanted everyone to be clear about what not to do, for fear of bringing the Caretaker War to Kappa.
The Vargemma wouldn’t start it, which they made clear, but if some of Star Force’s people were tagged for elimination by the Caretakers, then Cal-com would escalate the fight rather than allow those few to be sacrificed. Star Force operated with a ‘one for all and all for one’ approach to warfare, so the Vargemma couldn�
��t engage in clandestine battles with expendable troops, as was their previous pastime, because Star Force would stupidly engage the Caretakers to protect even one of their own and throw the entire Temple into never-ending war. All for one person.
Puar still thought that was stupid, but an element of it was honorable and brave. Star Force wasn’t afraid of the fight, nor were they afraid of the Caretakers, which the Vargemma were. It was a mix of reverence for the machines of the Founders and a fear of their lethality that kept the Vargemma subservient to their overwatch, but Star Force didn’t give a damn about them, and Puar liked that, as did many others after millennia of sitting and doing nothing. Warriors needed to fight, and telling them not to had always caused trouble amongst the less loyal members of the Vargemma, so they’d found ways to cheat that, often at their own expense.
Many a strong warrior had died at the hands of the Caretakers when they could not stand being idle any longer and chose to attack a member of an opposing race in the numerous feuds that seemed to be as prevalent as the clouds in the sky, but now there was a relief valve for that tension, and the most fed up warriors were engaging each other, within rules, in the tournaments and blowing off a lot of steam as they tried, over and over again, to qualify for the basic training that Puar had now won. All in the hopes of ascending to real combat against the true enemy they’d been promised to fight when the Founders came back…if they ever did.
Puar didn’t want to wait, even before he had known of the galactic purge underway, and that fact was something the Vargemma tried very hard to keep away from the public. A fight already underway was like a beacon to warriors, so they tried to suppress or downplay it as much as possible, but word got around, as did rumors and all types of misinformation, but enough of the truth got through to those who were discontented with waiting for the Founders, and as the tournaments became more and more popular as entertainment spectacles and means of engaging rival races in sanctioned combat, the bans on viewing them were melting away as the Vargemma tried to rebrand them as training exercises…though those with comm tech of their own could intercept Star Force’s public transmissions and see for themselves what was going on.
And that was why rogue comm gear was the number one banned item amongst most Vargemma races, though it appeared that a few of them had completely gone over to Star Force. That was information that was squelched amongst Puar’s own Trigorma race as soon as it eeked out of the shadows, and even before, because the Trigorma had double agents amongst the cast-outs trying to find the source of breaches in the information blackout and silence them.
But it was a losing effort. More and more were hearing snippets of the truth, and the term ‘Varkemma’ was starting to become better well known, and known as the heroes above all heroes. And now Puar had a chance…only a chance…to join them. Many failed and left Redemption of their own choice, stating that they were allowed an infinite number of opportunities by Star Force, but that they were not being told what it was they were lacking. Some were making it through to become Varkemma, others were being put in continuous limbo and some of those couldn’t hack it, but most who were allowed inside Redemption never came back out, and Puar believed it was because they didn’t want to.
He’d find out for himself soon enough, and after several hours of mingling outside with the crowds, he finally eased his way forward to the gate, and to the astonishment of everyone around him he pulled out a small Star Force emblem with a picture of Cal-com’s visor-covered face superimposed over the center. It was said the Star Force leader had sent out each emblem as a personal invitation to Redemption, and when Puar telekinetically pulled it out of a pocket on the horizontal vest that he wore on his cat-like body and attached it to his right paw overtop one of the scabbed battle marks, it sealed to his wrist and glowed as it confirmed his genetic identity.
Feeling like the holiest of holy warriors, he walked forward a few steps and respectfully knelt down in front of one of the three visible bipedal machines guarding the gate. He sat on his rear paws and reached his front right up to display the blue-glowing emblem to the machine.
“Access granted initiate,” it said in the Star Force language, which Puar and many others had learned long ago through painstaking practice, for the Trigorma memory downloads had never allowed a language version from the invaders to be available to the public. But that hadn’t stopped those willing to put in the work from learning it the hard way and spreading it to others that wished to know what the new Temple overseers had to say when one or more of their transmissions slipped through the Trigorma comm blackout.
The circular gate that stood five times his height irised open with two more machine guards walking through as the crowd slowly began to encroach. They held them back with shield walls snapped into place behind Puar, segregating him from the outcasts as the way before him was made clear.
“Step inside and embrace your destiny,” the machine urged. “Cal-com welcomes you to Redemption.”
Puar stood up and slowly walked forward, not fully believing this moment was real, but soon he found himself on the other side of that circular gate…and suddenly all sound ceased.
He turned around, seeing the gate behind him still there with the machine guards walking back inside, but everything looked a bit dark, with Puar realizing he’d passed through some sort of barrier field that must have been the wall of white others had talked about seeing through the gate when they had the rare opportunity to see someone pass inside.
“Forward Puar,” he told himself softly. “You did not earn this to worry about those behind you.”
He kept walking down a narrow path through a boundary region inside the outer wall. It separated the city from the barrier, giving Star Force a combat field if necessary to fight on beyond the real city wall that the path was leading him to. The stones he was treading on took him across the grassy fields that were treeless and merely open space that stretched as far as he could see left and right, but straight ahead was a second gate into the Star Force buildings that were reaching into the sky several hundred meters, beyond which was the grand tower in the distance, but it was quickly becoming consumed with the local structures as he strode closer.
“Hello there,” someone said from behind him, with Puar twisting his shoulders enough to rotate his head around and see a person appear out of nothing behind him…either a hologram snapping into appearance or a cloaked individual revealing his bipedal self. It was not of a Vargemma race.
“Greetings,” Puar offered.
“I am your contact,” the Protovic said, his face glowing in two different colors. “My name is Reganno. Why are you here?”
“I won the tournament,” Puar said, unsure of what the question meant. After all, he said he was his contact.
“Yes, I know. But why are you here? Most Vargemma hate this place.”
“I do not wish to wait for the Founders to return. I want to fight now.”
Reganno nodded his understanding. “You will have a chance to do so, but before we trust you to fight alongside us, we must know you are trustworthy. You and the other Vargemma have many Essence skills, amongst psionics and other lethal natural abilities. You could easily kill one of us who was not paying attention, and there are many Vargemma who would gladly do so once they were beyond the realm of the Caretakers…”
Puar’s body shivered with goosebumps at the thought of that. He’d never been beyond their gaze, and the thought of being free of their lethal enforcement, being beyond their rules, was something he’d never truly considered before. At least, not something he thought he would ever personally experience.
“…If we include you in our forces, you will fully be so. There will be no battlefield proving. No secondary assignment. No cannon fodder. If you fight with us, you will be one of us. You will protect us and we will protect you as we battle the Hadarak. Because of this, your training here will be more than just teaching you of the Hadarak and the weapons that will and will not kill them. We must teach yo
u to be trustworthy, and test that trustworthiness. If you cannot pass, then you will not go with us. We will not tolerate backstabbing, so we will not allow an opportunity to do so.”
Reganno raised a hand, showing that he had on a large green ring on one of his 5 fingers.
“Do you know what this is?”
“I do not.”
The biped held his hand steady, then all of a sudden the ring began to glow…but not visually. It glowed in Essence, and a very deep, potent Essence at that.
“Now do you know?”
“Is that a personal well?” Puar asked in astonishment. Such things were not allowed in the Trigorma. All Essence stored had to be sent either into a Caretaker well or a city well. He did not even know a well could be so small to fit on an appendage, and he doubted how much it could actually contain, though he recognized the advantage inherent in it.
“It is. Do you know why I wear it?”
Puar considered for a moment. “You are not confident in your abilities against mine, should I attack you?”
“You are coming from a very broken race, Puar. And a race amongst other broken races in this Temple. We do not trust you. Not yet. But know this. If you do go into battle against the Hadarak, those Star Force troops around you will not possess Essence skills. Very few of us do. They will be nearly helpless against you, should you betray them. That is why you will not have any proximity to non-Essence users in Redemption until and unless you prove yourself. This is not an insult to you, but rather a security precaution. Star Force does not kill its own. Not ever. Our trust is what binds us together stronger than the Vargemma could ever imagine. You will have to become worthy of that trust to join us on the battlefield, and do not think you can fake it. We have ways of knowing. If you are not trustworthy now, that is acceptable so long as you behave. You will be given unlimited chances to become trustworthy over time.”
“Become?” Puar asked. “Is it not a matter of my current intent?”