by Aer-ki Jyr
“How does something that big pay attention to things that small?”
“I have studied it every moment since it arrived here. Its mind is vast and complex, and continually resists the sedative. That is why more must be applied continuously. If not, it will wake itself up. It is incredibly resilient.”
“I’ve never seen anything this large aside from a jumpship.”
“They are the largest known beings within the galaxy.”
Riley held his tongue on that one. The V’kit’no’sat had found a few others larger than a Hadarak.
“What do you know of the Ancients? Is that their actual name?”
“It is how I was programmed to refer to them.”
“Can you show me a picture of them?”
A second hologram appeared beside the Oracle, this one of a slender biped that had arms that nearly touched the floor.
“And they commissioned the other races to build you?”
“Yes.”
“Did the Ancients have any peers?”
“That information is not within my files.”
“Did they leave a message?”
“They left me to communicate with any that found the Hamoriti.”
“Why was it not guarded? Why was it buried and left unprotected?”
“Secrecy was paramount.”
“Why?”
“No one could be trusted with the knowledge of the location.”
“What about those that built it?”
“They were destroyed when their ships flew into the star of this system.”
Riley stopped walking. “Intentionally?”
“Secrecy must be maintained. The order was given by those that constructed me, and I carried it out when they attempted to leave to insure no ship could survive.”
“Did the workers know?”
“Most did not. Those loyal to the cause completed their tasks then fulfilled their responsibilities by going to their deaths willingly. Not all the crews chose to do so when they realized what was happening, but they were unable to override my programming.”
“Why was it deemed necessary that they die?”
“They could not be trusted.”
“Why specifically?”
“There was fear that a race could extort others with a threatened release of the Hamoriti.”
“And what about now?”
“Your races are new, and I am educating you as to the dangers present. The politics of the past are no longer binding. The hiding of the Hamoriti was designed to insure this.”
“By murdering the people that worked to build this place?”
“A small price to pay, but a necessary one.”
“Did the order come from the Ancients or the races they tasked with building this place?”
“Those tasked, but I believe the idea originated with the Ancients. I was not supplied with data on that, but based off conversations I observed and the complexity of the override program, I believe it could only have come from them.”
“Was this method used to create the original 7 prisons?”
“I do not have that data.”
“Speculate.”
“If it was the Ancients who constructed the original 7 themselves, they may have spared their own workers, or they could have enforced the same security measures.”
“This place is buried in rock. How was it covered over?” Riley asked, beginning to walk again as he suppressed his growing anger with these Ancients and focused on holding off his growing headache.
“Camouflage techniques were utilized to mimic surrounding rock layers. It was synthesized after this facility was completed, as were surface variations and vegetation. The later was hyper grown in artificial chambers to generate the size of plants necessary to obscure the dig site and not leave it with obvious new growth. Since then nature has taken its course and concealed the site, though the vegetation no longer remains on the planet.”
Riley ignored the Oracle, his eyes now on the small mountain that was the Uriti before him as it got bigger and bigger the closer he walked. “Is there any way this facility can be monitored remotely?”
“No. Any signal sent could betray its location.”
“Was this planet inhabited or claimed by any faction when this facility was created?”
“No. It is located in a neutral zone.”
“Neutral zone?”
“One of many regions decimated by the Hamoriti and agreed by the major powers not to be claimed by anyone else for a period of years. The agreements varied in both length and terms, but it was deemed that within one of these zones the secrecy of this location would be maintained by the agreement without it being known that there was a secondary purpose.”
“This planet’s atmosphere is thin, but habitable for some races. What if someone eventually colonized it?”
“This facility has been built with sensor dampening material to prevent its detection via most traditional methods. It is also deeper within the surface of the planet than most races will dig even if they should place a city directly over top of the site. Eventual detection was assumed, thus it is my task to educate those to the dangers presented not only to this system but across the galaxy should this Hamoriti be released.”
Three steps later and Riley stumbled as another surge of pressure on his mind caught him off guard.
“You have passed into the second aura of the Hamoriti. Can you continue?”
“Define ‘second aura.’”
“It is the region where most races will begin to feel physically ill. It takes place gradually, but there is a distinct range limitation on the energy being produce.”
“Not telepathic?”
“Not entirely.”
Riley steadied himself and flushed a wave of energy through his own body, ending with a few Jumat spurts out the small gap between neck and armor.
“Your condition has improved. What have you done?”
“Reinforced myself. And the effect is telepathic, but my entire body is being doubled as a receiver. I’m counter pushing to neutralize it,” he said, walking on.
“Amazing redundancy,” the Oracle commented. “Your body scan is impossible with your armor on, but what is occurring within your head is remarkable. Sadly, even if we could replicate your abilities, it would be of no value if this Hamoriti awakened, though research could prove fruitful again.”
“Again?”
“The chemical sedative was derived from a naturally occurring substance in a race that was wiped out by another Hamoriti. Some were enthralled and given close proximity to the beast, but as they eventually died out their bodies underwent a natural decomposition sequence that included the creation and release of the chemical. Eventually the effect it had on the Hamoriti, small as it was, was detected and the source derived. Had it not been for that unique biology, the synthetic chemical would never have been produced.”
“Same effect or better?”
“Far better. Once discovered, the chemical was reworked to increase efficiency. There were latent structural inhibitors in the molecule that were stripped out to create the purest form possible with the least mass. The Ancients enhanced the natural chemical even before they fully understood why it worked. After years of study, we still do not fully understand the weakness.”
“What do you know?”
“It is a calming agent. Working like a chemical information package that instructs the Hamoriti to become inactive. You spoke of potential creators of the Hamoriti. Does your knowledge contain the method they used to instruct them where to attack? My records indicate that the attacks were not random.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have information regarding the war?”
The Oracle was silent for a moment. “It is possible I have been programmed to only reveal certain knowledge when it is necessary. Your earlier statements regarding compartmentalized programming appear to be valid.”
“Do you have the ability to kill the guests if they do not heed the danger of
the Hamoriti?”
“Yes.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “Do the others know that?”
“They did not inquire.”
“Are you going to try to kill me?”
“You are far too valuable. The data I am gathering from this experiment will need to be cataloged and analyzed.”
“Which can be done after I am dead,” Riley pointed out.
“I have no need to kill you unless you threaten to awake the Hamoriti…and your proximity to it is not yet provoking a response. Is it true that you have a means to control it?”
Riley’s eyes were finally torn away from the beast and he looked directly at the floating hologram. “How do you know about that?”
“I can monitor the activity in the cavern that was dug around the entrance. The other races were discussing your arrival and your claims to have a means to control the Hamoriti. Do you have such a means?”
“Yes we do. Though I am told its effectiveness depends on which Hamoriti is in question. The older ones were more difficult to control.”
“How so?”
“Each time one was created the control process was refined and updated.”
“Then they do not reproduce on their own?”
“No.”
“Yet they have the internal mechanisms to do so.”
“They do?”
“Indeed. But no Hamoriti has ever been observed reproducing. It is speculated that such things occur within a planet or star where monitoring cannot be achieved.”
“Show me.”
Another hologram manifested itself, situated in front of Riley’s eye line so that it overlaid the sleeping Hamoriti. A specific internal area was highlighted, and immediately the trailblazer knew the Oracle was in error.
“That is not a reproductive system.”
“All data suggests otherwise.”
“It creates something, but it isn’t another Uriti.”
“What then does it create?” the Oracle asked as Riley rubbed his forehead with his armored fingertips. The headache was increasing considerably and he was still a few kilometers away from the thing.
“Were any of the attacked systems not destroyed?”
“Every system attacked by a Hamoriti was either destroyed or heavily damaged.”
“Were any ever captured?”
“Define ‘capture.’”
“Did the Uriti ever take a world away and keep it?”
“The Hamoriti are beasts of destruction. They have never conquered a world in the traditional fashion.”
“That location within it has the ability to grow a city to put on claimed worlds. It creates a large mass that it then deposits on a planet. That mass then continues to grow into a city that the Chixzon can inhabit when they arrive after the fact without need for massive construction projects. No one was probably ever alive to see them do it. The Uriti cannot reproduce. They have been engineered not to be able to.”
“How then are they produced?”
“By an even larger creature that they captured from the deep core of the galaxy. They forced it to spawn, and its offspring were heavily altered to become the living weapons the Chixzon wanted. That is why no two Uriti look the same. Each is designed differently, as both weapon and research specimen.”
“They were attempting new combinations with each spawning?”
“Yes,” Riley said, cringing.
“The third aura draws near. It is where all others have ceased functioning. Do you still want to proceed?”
“Give me a holographic field marking its location so I can proceed carefully.”
In front of him a wall of glowing red energy appeared and he walked up to it slowly. The edge was hazy, for it wasn’t a firm boundary, and Riley stuck his arm through without feeling anything new. He slowly moved his head in and felt a vice crunch down on his brain, but he didn’t lose his ability to move.
He took a few long, slow breaths and focused, summoning his internal energy that was a mix of psionics and willpower and pushed back with considerable effort, giving his mind a narrow window of opportunity to align itself.
“Damn that’s heavy,” he told the Oracle. “I can’t hold this effort indefinitely. Is there a fourth aura?”
“No, but there are point defenses. They will not activate against slow moving objects, so you are not a threat so long as you continue walking. The data I am getting from you is truly remarkable. There are two types of energy surging through your body that I cannot even identify.”
“Glad to make your day,” he said, pushing through the holographic wall and picking up his walking pace slightly, realizing he was on the clock. “Any reaction from Bahamut there?”
“This Hamoriti’s name is Glaech. Is Bahamut the name given to it by its creators?”
“No. It’s the name given to it by me…right now,” he said with effort as he walked steadily towards the crunched wing resting on the floor.
“There is no need to proceed further. Maintaining this position will give me all necessary data. The closer you get the further you will be from the lesser impact zone, thus imperiling your escape should your strength evaporate.”
“Noted,” Riley said as he continued onward, the Uriti now a huge angled wall before him. He could see that the ‘skin’ of it was soft as silk, visually speaking, but he knew from the records that it was harder than any substance that Star Force could produce. It would bend, he knew, but was a corovon-heavy substance that you could fire weapon after weapon into and barely scratch…not to mention that the Uriti could heal itself if you did scratch it, meaning it had renewable armor whereas a starship did not.
That and many other things about it impressed Riley, but at the moment most of his focus was on defying its telepathic domination through a mix of his Ikrid block and his own mental strength. Too much pressure, even on a blocked mind, could physically burn out the components that were sensitive to the signals…meaning that if this Uriti was awake, it could kill Riley with a mere thought at this range.
Or just roll over and squash him.
Most people operated with minds that could be accessed via telepathy, even if they weren’t overly sensitive to it, and Riley now understood why telepaths didn’t want to get near this thing. Only someone whose mind wasn’t telepathically sensitive at all wouldn’t be affected, and the V’kit’no’sat had a long list of only 4 races that fit into that category…all of whom they’d killed because of that fact.
Riley finally got to within a few meters of the Uriti and looked straight up, seeing the ceiling beyond and the steeply angled wing as it lay like a giant slide before him. Focusing on the moment, Riley continued to resist the massive weight on his mind and use it like a training session, getting a feel for its strength and his own before he was satisfied.
“Will physical contact wake it?”
“Only damaging efforts. You are incapable of any such thing.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, but it’s good to know,” he said, reaching out his armored hand and placing it against the pale yellow wing and pushing slightly. It did not give under his pressure, feeling like an incredibly solid glass structure.
“Coup counted,” he said for the benefit of the universe, as if it were keeping score. He was tempted to take his glove off and make physical contact, but if this thing’s skin was sensitive to his physical Ikrid hacking, which he doubted, the feedback would probably kill him.
“Ok, I’ve seen enough,” he said, turning around and walking a few steps before breaking into a jog with the Oracle keeping pace effortlessly.
“Are you in danger of succumbing?”
“No, but I don’t want to linger here.”
“What is a coup?”
Riley smiled as he put his helmet back on, finding it didn’t help one iota as he ran towards the boundary line of the third aura.
10
November 25, 3254
Unnamed System
(Uriti/Hamoriti location)
“T
here it is,” Nefron said on the bridge of the Warship-class jumpship he rode on.
“I can’t feel anything,” the Archon mage standing next to him said with a frown.
“It is very faint from this range,” he said as they drifted lower into planetary orbit, having just come out of their microjump deceleration, “but I know what to look for. Cardosan’s energy is greatly reduced, but I can feel it even from here.”
“How do you know which one it is?”
“They all have a different telepathic signature,” the Chixzon said as he saw the massive fleets arrayed in orbit…both Star Force and the self-appointed planetary defenders, though the lizards were nowhere to be seen. “This is Cardosan. Their 67th production.”
“Easy to control?”
“Easier than others, harder than some. The message indicated that we were not to wake this one up, only to inspect it.”
“That’s what they want,” the Archon scoffed. “Do we want to wake it up?”
“Not when there is another one already running rampant. If they were all dormant, then yes, we would need to awaken one, but there are things I can learn from the other without tampering with the sleep this one is confined to.”
“How do they survive so long sleeping?”
“They are remarkably resilient. Had it not been for the creation of the chemical sedative, the galaxy would not have been able to stop them.”
“I thought two were destroyed.”
“Through mismanagement, yes. They can be killed, but it is a great feat to do so. Time alone cannot kill them. They are immune to the worse effects of stagnation.”
“Archon,” the ship’s captain interrupted. “The trailblazers want Nefron taken to the surface immediately. They will meet him at the Uriti site.”
The mage nodded and turned towards the bridge exit. “Let’s go.”
Riley met the pair on the landing pad, monitoring the reactions of the eight representatives with him as they saw Nefron walk off the dropship along with the dark blue armored Archon after it landed directly in the atmospheric pocket next to the cupola. There was no recognition, but there was a great deal of trepidation. Nefron looked ghastly in an intimidating way, and the effect didn’t lessen as he approached.