Galactica: Book 1 - Via Lactea

 

"Did I hear him right? Something happened to Nestor?" Harold asked the stunned group as Ian literally crashed through the space-ship intent on his hunt.

"I think so Dad," replied a very shaky Harp.

"Let us follow him as quickly as possible. Thebes? Trace Ian’s displacement and guide us to his location!" ordered the Pharaoh.

"At your command! Currently, he is in segment NZ, raising up through layer 832. His trajectory, if it is maintained, will bring him to the surface at MK3233."

"Is there a reason he follows that path?"

"There are three layers that are partially occupied in segment NZ, below his current path. There is a small segment of MB1432 that is occupied by about 532 Humans. In his current path. Apart from that I have no other life-form reports."

"Could someone have disabled your biosensors? It happened with the Goblins."

"I am testing the biosensors currently. So far the feedback loops all report a positive feed."

"How are you testing them? Electronically?" asked Paschal from his shelter in the electronic laboratory.

"Yes."

"Replace electronic tests with true biological signatures. Port a Rat in a cage along the path and verify!" ordered Paschal in a very icy tone.

"At your command!"

After three minutes, Thebes came back.

"Segment MD2120 did not report the sudden appearance of the Rat in a cage. In fact, I am unable to recall said Rat and cage."

"Extend search in a sphere around the point of transport!" Paschal commanded.

"Beginning!"

After a minute, the volume was delimited clearly.

"MC2118 to MC2123, MD2118 to MD2123, ME2119 to ME2122 and MF2120 to MF2121 have their biosensors deactivated and false feedback loops implemented."

"Try to localise Nestor’s magical signature!" ordered Harp.

"I am getting a weak signature in ME2120."

"Explain."

"Someone has installed a damping field for Magic but Magic still leaks slightly. Ian is headed for a deadly trap! I would not put it beyond them to let the signature leak intentionally to attract the Heir!"

"Establish the extent of the field! And how far is Ian from the field?"

"It covers the entire region! And Ian is twenty-two seconds from it!"

"As soon as Ian is in a safe zone, tell me!"

"In two seconds, Prince of Magic!"

Harp counted to two and suddenly blocked Ian’s Magic, keeping him cornered within the room he was currently crossing in his stellar form.

"What is the nearest portal address to Ian’s location?"

"NT1919, your Highness!"

"Dad, we need non-magical military Units converging on the area with the dampers. Sitar! Mobilise you Spider armoured Units. I will go pick up Ian."

"You know, it is the second time Ian needs his Magic disconnected."

"He has a tendency to go feral."

"And you think this will cool him down?"

"No! Oh no! But when I finally let him go, he will have some meat to burn! I plan to remove innocents from there and leave the others behind for Ian to dig his fury in!"

"Innocents?"

"Children! I suspect something very ugly is up, and we need to figure it out before letting Ian convert the area into a giant Pig roast."

«I have moved the First Armoured Horde around the perimeter of the target area,» Sitar informed them. «I am in command of the first Legion personally.»

«Harp, the First Infiltration Legion of Faeries is waiting on your signal to occupy the ventilation!» Princess Iridia added.

«Timor? Are you ready?»

«Yes, Harp. The Trolls are now in FSS and awaiting the port!»

"Thebes, has Nestor moved?»

"No."

"Port the Trolls around him. Timor, the rules of engagement are simple: kill anyone in the same room silently! No quarters!" Harp added «Timor report on Nestor’s condition as soon as possible.»

"Porting!"

After a few seconds, a panicked Thebes called out!

"Hurry up and calm down Ian! He is at 55,000,000° Fahrenheit and climbing! That is hotter than the core of a Sun!"

"Damn! I knew we were hot-tempered, but this beats us all!" exclaimed Harold.

Harp did not answer and ported next to the area where Ian was boiling over.

«Ian! You are in a no-Magic bubble under my control!»

«Let me go! Or else!»

«There is no or else involved here. The area where Nestor is held is similar, but we need to establish how it was created, since I am supposed to be the only one able to do this!»

«I do not care! Let me go! Now!»

«No! You would be in danger, and as a Protector, it is my duty to stop you and I shall do so, even if I have to kick your arse to do it!»

«GRR! You can always try!»

«I already succeeded. Cut the crap out! Stop acting like a baby and start using your big head instead of your puny one!»

«I shall show you if it is that puny!»

«Grow a pair and act like an Adult! Now, bring the temper of yours under control before I disconnect you entirely from your Magic!»

«You would not dare!»

«To save us all? Try me!»

Not getting any reply from Ian, Harp decided to verify what was happening inside the area. A video feed showed him a miniature Sun banging on every wall of the room, trying to burn its way through the thick layer of orichalque. Orichalque would not be affected by Ian’s output of energy, as it was well capable of sustaining temperatures akin to the Big Bang. What worried Harp was the total expenditure of energy Ian was putting out. It had to come from somewhere!

"Thebes, where is he getting that energy from?"

"From what I get, he managed to put a tap on a black hole. He could stay like this for years on end."

"Can we cut off the source?"

"Yes, but I would not recommend it."

"Why?"

"Ian would burn himself out of existence before cooling off. He needs to get himself under control before anything is done."

"I see. Can the room withstand the pressure for some time?"

"I evacuated any gases, so the only pressure is luminic."

"How long before there is a rupture?"

"Six hours at most. It is not a rupture per se, but rather the dissipation of heat through the orichalque that causes issues. It is thermally resistant, but the heat will spread to the ship, making it improper for life."

"Dissipate heat via lasers. Estimate the gain in time!"

"We have 300 lasers. At most, that would gain us another six hours, your Highness. With say 600 lasers, each one would need to output 16 tera-joules per second to compensate his current energy output."

"How much can be dispersed?"

"About half that amount, sir."

«Paschal, get on doubling the number of lasers! We need to dissipate energy!"

«I was following your exchange, and I have a production line being retrofitted for that purpose right now. We shall be short! All I can add over the next 12 hours is about 150 lasers!»

«Your highness, that would gain us an additional three hours at best!"

"Do you have any suggestion?"

"If we are willing to sacrifice the oxygen in storage, we can gain ten minutes at most by sending some energy in it and then dispersing the pressurised oxygen outside of Thebes. I would suggest this as a last resort."

"What about water?"

"The conversion to hydrogen and oxygen would gain us another 15 minutes, and then we would need to throw it out into space. Again, this is a last resort. The only true solution is to rescue Nestor in the hope that this will reach Ian in his feral state and calm him down."

«There is another option. I shall envision it only if everything else has failed and we are in danger of failing in our mission,» decided Harold. «Harp, monitor Ian. Sitar, assault the area where Nestor is being held as soon as ready. Use non-magical forces only. No quarters.»

The Spiders are in place! The infiltration Units have begun their progression inside the vents. The organic Spiders are preparing web traps.»

***

Telepathic communications faltered quickly as the Faeries penetrated within the bubble. Luckily, they carried two-way radios and established relays every time they met a branch. The Spiders went ahead and installed traps at the ceiling vents, ready to release them when the signal was given by the Faeries.

It took thee hours to reach a strange apparatus, that seemed to spin on itself at high speed. Urdu, the Faery Legate, was perplexed as he examined the contraption from a ceiling vent, and he took some pictures to be sent back to Prince Sitar and then forwarded to Princes Harp and Paschal. The cartridge made its way back to headquarters in half an hour and landed on Paschal’s desk for development and and analysis a minute later. At first, Paschal was perplexed, and projected by telepathy the images to Harp for counsel.

«What do you make of this?» asked Paschal to Harp.

«It is not clear. Get a Magic level sensor near it.»

«It is on its way. I should get a report in an hour.»

«I wonder where Nestor is held?»

«He has to be near that area. The Faeries are looking for him, but it is difficult, as the vents do not always give a clear view of the area,» Sitar informed them, as Harold walked back and forth in the Command Centre, gnawing on his fingernails.

"Stop it, Dad! You are making me and the Cats nervous!" said Alexander, as the two new additions to the Family looked at the Emperor in awe.

"Zen wants to hunt the bad ones! Can he go?" asked Mark.

"He will be let in as soon as we destroy the Magic field nullifier," said Sitar. "And so will you."

An hour and a half later, some four hours and thirty minutes into the invasion, the report came back from Harp.

«That apparatus is a spinning crystal of orichalque that pulls in all Magic, effectively depriving anyone with Magic from that resource. It is a miracle Nestor was able to contact Ian.»

«There is no miracle involved here, Harp. I am sure they can control the depth of the Magic well by controlling the speed of spin. Remember how we had to move slowly when we carried the orichalque Crystals on Earth? It is an application of this to create a sink hole,» replied Sitar. «Now, how to stop this?»

«We can not use Magic. We must use physical force. The problem is, we still have not located Nestor, and the Fairies are too small to effect the task,» noted Princess Iridia.

«Has anyone spotted what would amount to Guards?» asked Alexander.

«No. And this is troubling. Either Nestor is dead, or so well hidden we can not see where he is,» replied Sitar.

«Dead?» asked a worried Alexander.

«Without Magic to maintain his body, Nestor will age extremely rapidly. This is what happened to Meagan,» Harp informed the others.

«How long would he survive?»

«It depends on how long he has been held in that field. The longer he is in it, the less time he has left.»

«You are not encouraging, Harp.»

«Dad, this is an emergency. We need to act quickly. Sitar, we attack, even if we do not know where Nestor is. Forward the signal to the Faeries so they time their attack on any life form with their blow darts. As the Emperor has stated, the rules of engagements are simple: kill anything that breaths!»

«All right, Harp. I am giving the signal to attack in two minutes. The explosives experts have finished placing the charges and retired to within the Spiders. Thebes, lock all doors to the open position one second before we attack!»

Two minutes minus one second, the individuals inside the Magic void bubble saw the doors open due to the override codes. Just as they realised what was happening, a series of massive explosions brought down the doors they had disabled, and the Spiders ran in through the gaping holes.

Biological Spiders let their net fall, and quite a few felons, which had fallen on the ground due to the concussion waves, found themselves stuck to the floor. Yet, quite a few defenders had been invisible and began firing back at the ceiling vents with lasers, guns, and phasers, unaware that the attackers had already retired, and that the next wave would come from the floor cool air vents. The Faeries began blowing poisoned darts on the occupants while the mechanical Spiders, carrying the armoured infantry began cutting down on the defenders.

Zen and his two carers were holding back, waiting for Magic to be restored. Yet, the battle was ferocious, and lasted a good three hours before the first group of Legionnaires reached the room where the apparatus was located. The ferocity of the fighting increased exponentially as the Empire’s Units progressed. Over the radio, the noise was terrible, testament to the ferocity of the engagement.

"Prince Sitar, we are pinned down near the room," reported Diamondcutter over his command radio. "We need a diversion!"

"I am sending in the flame-throwers!"

"But these are Teens!"

"I have no care for who they are. They have forfeited their oath, they have forfeited their lives! It is well-known that Teens are the most fanatical of fighters! I can be as fanatical in protecting the Empire!"

Diamondcutter wondered where Sitar had found flame-throwers until he saw a Centurie of Dragons walk in behind his Spiders! He immediately ordered the Unit to back off and watched with morbid fascination as the Dragons burned to a crisp everyone in the room, amongst horrible cries of unspeakable suffering.

"Can you access the machine now?" asked Sitar.

"We need for the room to cool off. Sensors report 2,000˚ Fahrenheit."

"That will take too long. I am sending a Legion carrying Freon."

"Ok. We will continue our progress through the area in the hope of locating Nestor."

"Acknowledged. The Dragons will stay back. Too bad they cannot convert due to the Magic void bubble."

An hour later, the first Spiders began dumping Freon into the room by the ton. The gas, highly compressed, absorbed quite an amount of heat before being recovered by the vents and diverted to compressor chambers by the care of Thebes.

"Still no trace of Nestor?"

"No, none whatsoever. We need to stop that machine now. What is the temperature outside of the Spiders?"

"It reports about 60° Fahrenheit, but there is no oxygen. Nothing could live in there except Dragons," replied Legate Terminus.

"Has there been any capture?" asked Alexander.

"None. We still are fighting off a very tenacious battle in the core area. One room seems particularly defended, even more than the one that holds that contraption."

"Thebes, put out sleeping gases in that room. Saturate it," ordered Alexander. "I want answers and that may be our last chance!"

It took 15 minutes for Thebes to direct the sleeping gases into the ventilation of the room and another five minutes for the effect to be felt. Finally, the last fighters collapsed to a life-saving sleep. Only sporadic fighting remained, and the battles were swift, unforgiving, and bloody.

"The last resistance has fallen. Sorry for Zen and the Boys but they will have to wait for another battle to have their fun," noted Diamondcutter over the radio waves.

"I am not too worried. We have another, much bigger one, brewing, and they will have all the time to sink their teeth in the rotten hams of those individuals," replied Harold. "What is the count?"

"On our side, 2,000,000 Biological Spiders lost; several dozen Faeries wounded and now in stasis pods. Three armoured vehicles damaged, mostly broken leg joints, none of the carriers were breached."

"That is considerable!"

"I know. On the opponents’ side, the assessment is dire. At last count, 88,232 Adults; 120,333 Teens, and 143,222 Children dead. The Children fought with as much ferocity as the Adults and Teens, leaving us no choice," reported Sitar.

"How many wounded?" asked Alexander.

"None. The moment they could not fight, they detonated an explosive to try and disable us."

"And how many prisoners?"

"A handful. Maybe a dozen. We are currently disabling their explosives. X-Rays show some swallowed the explosives, mostly the Adults. That is a problem." Thinking things out further, Sitar contacted Harp «Harp? Something tells me we can not use Magic to move the explosives. There is something about the ones we did disable that ticks me off. It is like the moment the Magic field will be restored, the explosives will detonate. I have asked one Legionnaire to carry one charge outside of the bubble to test the hypothesis."

«Using a Spider, I hope?»

«Do not be daft! Naturally, using a Spider!»

Just as the exchange finished, a thud was heard over the radio waves.

"Your Highness, your intuition was on the dot. The moment I exited the battle zone, the charge detonated. I recorded the entire electromagnetic spectrum and I am sending you the data for analysis."

"Thank you."

Ten tense minutes later, a Faery reported to her Centurion about something strange.

"I have found a very strange box, Centurion. It has locks all over, and we can not locate any keys. We dare not cut the locks in case the box is booby-trapped!"

"Describe the box!"

"It is about six feet long and two and a half feet wide, and a depth of about three feet."

"That is either a coffin or a sarcophagus. I am getting help."

Informed of the discovery, Sitar took a run for the room with Spare Ribs and Fang Chao hot on his tail. Before entering the Null Magic area he halted their progress.

«Ok, here is the issue. I will not be able to use telepathy to communicate with you once we are in the area. Follow me. We need to know if someone is alive inside a box. Hopefully you will be hear a heartbeat, or something. If you do, both lay down! If you hear nothing, just sit down! Are the instructions clear?»

«Yes!»

«We shall leave the room so you can focus on the box and not be distracted. Once I get the message from you, I want you out of there and back in here as quickly as possible! The Faeries are busy dismantling hundreds of traps, and you two are too big to walk near them without triggering a reaction. We have enough issues as it is! Follow the same path out as we shall take going in. It is the only safe path for now.»

«We obey,» replied the very disciplined Felines.

Twenty minutes later, the Felines were led inside the room and walked around the box a couple of times, putting their ears to it. Both then lay on the ground for a few minutes before high-tailing it out of the area.

"Ok. There is someone alive in there. Paschal should be on his way."

"I am more than on my way, I was behind you while you guided the Cats to this place. I have brought a locksmith’s pick set to begin the process of removing the locks. I also have a portable X-ray machine. We should be able to see the inside of the box. Let me set this up."

Another quarter of an hour passed before the first X-ray photographs were available for interpretation. A skeleton was visible, as well as a complex set of wires and boxes.

"That thing is so booby-trapped it’s not even movable. It has a mercury cup that will establish contact between these two electrodes the moment the last lock is removed! See that spring? It will pop the cover open and boom!" explained Paschal.

"What about the Magically triggered explosives?" asked Sitar.

"There is one there. It is a condenser. The moment Magic is reactivated, that segment will close the circuit, releasing a magical pulse that will then be amplified to trigger the detonator. There must imperatively be a Mage involved in all this set-up. No non-magical individual could have loaded the condenser, and figured out how to mould Magic so it would trigger the chemical chain reaction."

"That means we have a traitor in the Mages, once again."

"Or someone managed to force a Mage to prepare the charges," replied Paschal.

"What about what we see here?" pointed out a Centurion.

"I wish I knew the exact depth, but without sophisticated computer power to treat the images, we can only guess. I suspect that the person in there was forced to swallow explosives," replied Paschal as he examined the image.

"Thebes, we have 27 images. Can you rebuild a 3-D image of the coffin from those and help us interpret the results?"

"We have been processing the images as they became available. The result is not encouraging. We have concluded there are three triggers: the inertial mercury trigger; the magical trigger; and the spring on lid trigger. There are also two charges: one at the head of the coffin, and the other inside the skeleton."

"How is oxygen supplied?"

"By way of holes located near the head, on the bottom of the coffin."

"Are the three detonators linked?"

"What do you mean?"

"If we remove one, will the other two detonate by the interruption of a circuit?"

"I have no idea. Too much of the wire is hidden by the explosives or the body."

"Ok. I shall forego lock-picking. I think we need to remove the explosives via holes drilled through the coffin. Given an electrical drill might create too much vibration, I shall endeavour to use a hand drill. How deep is the cover?"

"It is slightly less than 4 inches."

"Has anyone got hand tools around I could use?"

"As you already know, there is a set of hand tools to do some basic repairs on the Spiders in each Spider. Unfortunately, the tools are for metal."

"No I did not know, Legionnaire. When I supplied these tools I expected there would always be a power source, if only from the Spider itself. That someone included hand-powered tools in the toolbox is new to me. Check if there are drill bits and a drill head?"

"There is a drill head, and a set of drill bits from ¹/₁₀^th of an inch to 2 inches in diameter, designed to drill into metal. I still wonder how they expect these bits to even dent orichalque!"

"Set up one of the 2-inch bits, please, while I continue to examine what the X-rays tell us. Do we have a jigsaw?"

"Yes. It is also hand-operated."

"Get that out too."

A few minutes later, Paschal kneeled near the coffin and began the delicate process of drilling a hole slightly off to the left of the explosive packet. It took him five minutes, and as he felt the drill bit’s tip clear the wood, he pulled back. Measuring carefully, he moved along the principal axis six inches and repeated the same slow, painstaking process. Then Paschal moved on the other side of the coffin and repeated the drilling. When finished, he had four holes big enough to insert the jigsaw blade.

He inserted the blade at one end and slowly adjusted the height of the blade so it would not stick out below and cut some wires or anything that might be attached or passing near the cover.

The next process was long: It implied sawing along a line to the next hole. The process was repeated along 3 sides, leaving one segment uncut. Unsure if the coffin was set on a weight or not, he decided to install a suction cup on the piece of cover before finishing the cut. This also prevented the piece from falling inside and maybe trigger a chain reaction. Once the last cut was finally made, he gently lifted the cut-out and deposited it on the intact cover. This revealed the inside of the coffin.

Unsure as to what to do, he then inserted an optic fibre linked to a miniature camera at one end and a monitor at the other. The images revealed a series of very fine wires that linked explosives, triggers and the mercury cup placed on a balance with a press trigger. The slightest movement of the coffin would begin a wave in the mercury and trigger an explosion. On the other hand, removing the mercury would also produce the same result as the balance plate would tip on the trigger as well.

Continuing his examination of the apparatus, Paschal noticed that Nestor looked pretty grey, and had aged considerably. His breathing was shallow, and his extremities were turning blueish.

"Nestor is dying. We have very little time to move him to a stasis Pod. Alexander? Get to the room once reserved for Francesca, and bring the stasis pod stored there here. It was never returned to the Hospital inventory and is one of the rare autonomous stasis Pods we have. It can hold Nestor in stasis for several weeks, until we figure out what to do."

Alexander ran off to the nearest transfer node and ported to the Imperial Suite. Bringing the Pod proved more difficult than expected as it would not fit in transfer nodes. He resorted to teleporting it himself, a risky solution given Thebes was still travelling well beyond the speed of light, but he did manage the porting with a few close calls with walls. Finally in the null Magic area, he found out that pushing the very heavy Pod was not feasible alone so he recruited 20 well-built Legionnaires to get it where it was needed.

Meanwhile, Paschal, with the help of Thebes, had managed to unravel the complex wiring that linked the first charge to its detonators. He also tested some suspicious wirings and found them positively charged with electricity, clearly indicating that cutting them would do something unpleasant. His first task was therefore to install bridges with alligator clips and then to cut the feeds into the charge.

The next charge was located below Nestor, and its trigger was a piston held in place by Nestor’s body weight. Just over Nestor, precariously, was the mercury trigger sitting on a wooden plate laying on his thorax. Furthermore, the mercury balance system was hard to reach from where Paschal had removed the cover segment.

"They never planned to release him alive. Whatever they promised him, they never intended to hold themselves up to it," commented Paschal as he examined the apparatus. "Get me a piece of balsa wood, approximately half an inch thick, four inches wide, and six inches long; also an eyedropper, a long-nose wire cutter, and about a foot of extremely thin tin wire."

Everyone ran around looking for the required objects. The balsa wood was obtained from one of the Legionnaires that was into modelling; the long-nose wire cutter was taken out of one of the Spiders’ tool box; the eyedropper was in the health kit of he same Spider, and finally, the tin wire was found in Paschal’s workshop.

Paschal drilled two holes at each end of the balsa strip and passed the tin wire through the two holes at one end tying them tightly. That left about nine inches free. He then began sliding the balsa strip between the pressure trigger and the plate very delicately. Once this was done he used the long-nose to bend the wire, pass it through the narrow hole at the top of the arm, pull it through the left hole at the other end of the balsa strip, insert it, with much difficulty, inside the other hole on the right side of the same end, and pull the wire gently taut before tying it at the top of the balance after passing it through the same hole he had used earlier. He then delicately made a knot that he pulled tight. That effectively locked the balance plates in place. He then removed the mercury from the cup, removing another way of shorting the circuit. Needless to say, Paschal was sweating profusely by then!

"Ok the inertia trigger is disabled. We need to insert something that will hold the dead-weight trigger in place. This time, I need four light-weight screw-locks clamps. Harold, you remember how you held some plates in place for hammering using these clamps with tightening screws? I have a whole box of them. I need the smallest there is, top drawer, extreme-left tool box when you enter laboratory D32. Could you get them for me, please?"

"Sure Son. Anything else?"

"Yes. A thin veneer, ¹/^₈th of an inch thick, two and a half feet by two and a half feet. You can find that in laboratory E31, just below my machine workshop. You may have to cut it, but I am sure you will do things well. Oh yes, do not forget to file the cuts so I have no trouble sliding the wood piece between Nestor and the floor board that hides the other explosive."

"Ok. Give me fifteen minutes."

Harold took off at a jog, and was back five minutes before Paschal expected him. Meanwhile, Paschal had cut a narrow slit on each side of the box, at the level of the false floor of the coffin, barely wider and thicker than his requirements.

"Is that what you need?"

"Perfect, Dad. Ok. I noticed they put some thin wires between the cotton and the wood, and that all are active. So I need to run wires around where I will slide the veneer just in case I catch one by mistake. I need five more alligator clipped wires, on average about 16 feet long, so I can run them around his body through the top-head section of the coffin."

Legionnaires began searching tool boxes for long wires and, desperate, one of them suggested using some of the wires found in one of the portals, since they were disabled.

"Go ahead. We can always repair them later!" ordered Paschal.

«Harp, how much time is left before Thebes saturates thermally?"

«Two hours. I have been unable to contact Ian ever since he told me to go to Hell. The additional lasers have only slowed down the process. We shall be short unless we manage to get through to him.»

The Legionnaires cut through a portal stabilizer grid and pulled out long strands of wire from it, bringing them to Paschal already tied to alligator clips. The Prince delicately pinched the wires and ran them around the coffin, out of the way of the incoming veneer. After 20 minutes, the process was complete. Paschal then began sliding the veneer between Nestor and the false floor. It was particularly touchy when the edge came over the pressure trigger, but finally, the veneer was in place. Using the screws, Paschal then tightened the veneer to the bottom of the coffin.

"Let me check under the coffin if there is another pressure trigger. I am sick and tired of this shit!" said Paschal as he delicately inserted the camera into the narrow space that separated the coffin from the room’s floor.

"I see nothing, but the coffin is on a small elevation. That does not bode well."

"Why?"

"I suspect this pressure trigger is inserted inside the piece of elevated flooring. How much do you think Nestor weighs?"

"I would say barely 125 pounds. He looks like a breathing skeleton!" said Harold.

"And what was his weight before?"

"Roughly 175 pounds. Why?"

"This tells me the trigger is a zero-weight one. As long as we compensate for his weight somewhat, it will not go off. Get me lead bricks, one pound apiece, for a total of 150 pounds. Meanwhile, I’ll finish opening the coffin. The last internal trigger is that spring. I have access to it from the top hole."

Paschal inserted a long, thin wood cutting knife in the hole and slid its blade between the coffin’s top and the spring. He then added another screw clamp and tightened it between the coffin’s bottom lip and the wood knife blade, locking the spring mechanism in place.

"It’s done. Bye bye locks!" said Paschal as he rapidly cut through the different contraptions using a power pincher. The lid stayed closed, much to the relief of everyone. Paschal then opened the coffin, leaving the coffin sitting at one end. It was now possible to remove the charges at the foot of the coffin and complete the deactivation of all the triggers, much to everyone’s relief.

A few minutes later, the lead bricks were brought into the room and the delicate last step begun. As each object was removed, it was weighed and a matching number of bricks replaced its mass. Then the hardest part was undertaken. Nestor’s torso was lifted, and 50 pounds of lead added, bringing the weight back to Nestor’s original 175 pounds. Another 50 pounds were added, bringing the weight above the original mass, and finally, the last 25 pounds were added.

"How come you added more than the original?" asked Alexander.

"I figured the spring mechanism was pushed as far as it would go by the coffin and his original weight. Adding more would not have changed anything to the original condition. Now we move Nestor into the stasis chamber, and begin emergency treatment to remove the explosives and triggers in his body. I am sure their knowledge of nanites are dismal, and we are finally at our advantage here."

"How long before Nestor is out of the woods?"

"It will be several days, at best. Removing the explosives will take some days. Replenishing his magical core is going to be a long-term process. Harp would be best to answer that last question."

"Fuck! How much time do we have left?"

Just as Harold asked that question, sent a message via radio.

"Hurry up guys! We are fifteen minutes to Rupture!"

"Tell Ian that Nestor is in a stasis Pod. Shock him out of his anger by any means necessary!" replied Harold. "He is allowed to visit here but only if he is back to his Human form!"

"What do we do with our prisoners?" asked Legate Terminus.

"Oh, I forgot about those arse holes. How many autonomous tubes do we have? Enough for all of them?"

"I think so. We will need to bring all the stasis pods here."

"Do so! I want answers as much as Alexander. Thebes, on another front, how goes the cleanup of the rest of the population?"

"They are all locked in the area we designed for the hunting ground. I suggest we wait 24 hours before letting our Units deal with them. It will get them scared, but also give them a ridiculously small gain in fighting chance."

"Ok."

***

Harp was looking at Ian’s erratic behaviour and wondering how to reach his feral brother. Magic had been halted in the area by his command, but it had only served to enrage Ian even more.

Finally, desperate, Harp decided his only chance was to become like Ian. That way, he would not get instantly vapourised by the intense heat of the room. And there was another advantage: he could absorb a fair amount of the energy Ian was producing thus adding some time to the benefit of the survival of Thebes.

He shifted to the new shape, staying in an icy cold plasma, and then ordered Thebes to vacuum the room he was in. The city-ship understood the need to prevent a gaseous explosion and evacuated the atmosphere once Harp had made his conversion.

«Thebes, if, in ten minutes, I have not brought down Ian’s temperature to a manageable level, expel us outside of the ship. We will survive, and hopefully, the shock will finally reach Ian’s conscience.»

«Has the Emperor approved?»

«Yes. We discussed the possibility while the others worked on freeing Nestor. Just note exactly the time when you expel us, and in what direction. I do not feel like hunting for you in space while you are moving at warp 9,9995.»

«I will disable warp drive one picosecond after expelling you two. That should keep us within sensor range.»

«Agreed.»

«What about Magic?»

«I am still magical. Only Ian is not. That is why he is unable to move out of that trap, and also unable to reconvert to Boy form. I will grant him access to his magical core only when he has cooled down enough to think before acting.»

«I see. Are you ready? The void is completed.»

«Open the door.»

Ian was so furious he never did notice the opening and Harp managed to slide in without being detected.

«Ian, Nestor is safe!» thundered Harp to no avail.

Harp decided to suck in as much energy off Ian, while restricting the supply line from the Black hole feeding the Heir. Seconds passed slowly and Ian tried to compensate the energy Harp cannibalised from him by increasing his drain, but, however hard he tried, he could not fuel his rage anymore and his temperature began to slowly drop.

«Thebes, what is the time-line?»

«You need to quadruple your drain if we are to survive.»

«What should I do with all that energy?»

«Materialise lasers! If we could triple production, it would cool down my body enough to guarantee survival.»

«Ok. Basic physics. I’ll convert energy into matter. Here come several hundred lasers. We should have done that from the start.»

The laser production line suddenly found itself flooded with rather hot to handle lasers that were quickly mounted on Thebes’ outer shell and plugged online to dissipate energy in all directions. After fifteen minutes, just as Thebes threatened to collapse, its body began cooling down. As Harp continued adding more and more lasers, the cooling curve began to converge toward the normal space temperature.

Meanwhile Ian’s own body temperature, while still comparable to that of a blue giant, was gradually cooling down as Harp kept siphoning energy off his little brother. Things turned ugly as Ian tried to recover his lost energy from his brother. It became a tug of war between the two, with Harp at an advantage as he still could think and dissipated his energy in a constructive way thus creating a pull on Ian’s resources. Time passed slowly for Harp as he fought valiantly to save Ian from himself. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into days. Finally, Ian’s energy reserves began to falter seriously and his temperature plummeted.

«Why do you want to kill me?» asked Ian, as he still fought his brother with his last reserves.

«I do not want to kill you, Ian. I want you to realise you almost killed us all! Because of you, we were getting near the point where Thebes would have collapsed! You have a duty to Life, not to yourself! Act accordingly! Stop being a selfish brat!»

Shocked, Ian suddenly fell silent. Harp was worried. Had he been to hard on his little brother?

***

While Harp was dealing with Ian, Nestor and his captors were being treated by the nanites. Everyone was kept into deep sleep within the null Magic hole until all traces of internal explosives and other abnormalities had been removed. Once this was done, Nestor was the first to be moved into the General Hospital to get his magical core replenished. The others were left into the bubble pending further study.

It took a week for Nestor to come out of the deep end. His explanations to Harold were simple.

"I had been visiting all the communities found in Thebes and I happened to walk in on that important concentration of population that was not reported by Thebes. I immediately smelled something bad and decided to leave before getting detected, but Magic did not respond at all. I had fallen into a deadly trap. I managed to stay hidden for a month, but I was getting ever more tired, and I realised that I was losing my Magic, that my core was getting depleted. Finally, I could no longer escape their search and got captured. They began abusing me physically, to speed up my core’s depletion, and then they put me in a box, telling me I would be left to die in it. I resorted to survival levels of energy, barely consuming anything and entering a deep trance. At some point,there must have been a failure in their system because I was able to send a mayday to someone, but it did not last. They noticed I had refilled my energy level so they forced me to booby-trap myself with magical triggers."

"It was Ian that captured your message."

"Where is he so I can thank him for his efforts?"

"We shall get there. Continue your story."

"They put some infernal contraption on my body, after forcing me to swallow another one. They said if I even coughed, I would get blown up. I had no other option but to try to survive, but this time, the magical triggers prevented me from entering in as deep a trance and I was using a lot more energy than before. I feel so old now."

"You have aged according to your true physical age. It is only by the intense use of nanites that we have been able to rebuild your body to some semblance of functionality."

"Some semblance of functionality?"

"To be honest, Nestor, you look terrible. Paschal has been building you a new body to replace this one, much like we did for Greywolf. You do need it badly. You will be kept in stasis while the body is being built, and your mental map will be transferred once the construction process is complete. Luckily, you have not acquired shape-shifting, so you will not be spending an additional six months validating genetic maps!" replied Harold.

"How do I really look?"

"Your appearance is similar to a living cadaver. A mummy looks healthier!"

"Staying in here a year will get on me pretty quickly!"

"Who said you will be kept awake? After all, we do have mercy for our friends, even if we have none for our enemies!"

"I wonder how this feels?"

"The mental map transfer? You will be unaware of it. It is like an instant picture is taken and copied into the neural network of the brain. According to Paschal, the moment selected for the transfer is deep sleep, where no REM activity is present, thus preventing the apparition of a temporal discontinuity. Greywolf never complained of anything after the transfer, and he had hundreds of genetic maps to test before being reactivated. All I heard from him is how wonderful it is to recover his youth while keeping his life experience."

"Ok. Can we get back to Ian? I really want to thank him!"

"You will have to wait. He has gone feral and Harp is hard at work trying to get him under control."

"Feral? Sweet Ian?"

"He probably redefined hot-tempered, that sweet Ian. We almost lost Thebes due to his bad temper."

"All this because?"

"Because he detected your call for help and he got so furious he headed straight for you, without consideration for counsel, his safety, or the consequences had he entered that null Magic area. He would have killed everybody, you included, had he managed to reach that bubble. His plasma control is held by Magic, and a zero-Magic area would have made him detonate, killing him, and everyone on Thebes."

"How come we are still here then?"

"Harp disconnected his magical core, minus the containment field. Ian could no longer move."

"I sense unsaid things?"

"Ian became so enraged he tried by all means to escape Harp’s grip and connected to a Black Hole, raising his plasma temperatures to close to the Big Bang. Thebes almost blew up, but Paschal and Harp managed to dissipate the energy just in time. I have not talked to Harp yet to figure out how he did it. I dare not distract him since things are still rather iffy with Ian. He is still in his plasma form, and until he cools down enough, Harp will maintain an iron grip on his Magic. It was close."

"Close to what?"

"To getting Ian and Harp expelled in hyper-space so Ian could dissipate his fury safely without endangering Thebes. I had to authorise this, and it tore my heart. I was far from sure we would ever be able to recover Ian. Harp had prepared everything and was to accompany Ian so the Boy would not get lost to space and time. Believe me, this was the hardest decision of my life!"

Nestor bleached and began sobbing. It never had occurred to him how much the Imperial family cared for him! Harold wished he could hug the man, but any touch might send the body into irreversible disintegration Paschal had explained earlier that day, just before Nestor woke up.

"Rest now, Nestor. We will talk again in a year, when you have your new body."

"Before I do so, what happened to those that held me?"

"Only twelve survived. They are in stasis pods in the Null Magic zone. Paschal is creating a virtual brain to run their mental imagery on so we can gain an understanding of their actions and their motives. Once Paschal has completed this task, they will be killed."

"There is one of them that is a genius. Too bad he is so self-centred and focussed on destroying anything that might overshadow his glory. He is the one that invented the Magic nullifier from his study of our course material. He is no Mage, and hates the feeling of inferiority this gives him."

"I shall make sure his nightmare is fulfilled. Interstellar dust has no value."

"There is also a Preacher. That one has a tongue that could make anyone believe anything. I had a lot of trouble with that one. He was particularly vicious and tried to kill me repeatedly. Only my training with Sitar allowed me to send him flying and escape his most vicious attacks. He is the one that had me put in that coffin."

"He will have a similar fate. I wonder how he will appreciate being set adrift in a coffin with just enough oxygen to last him a day or two?"

"He will probably welcome this as the sacrifice to reach godhood and become a martyr to the new faith he created."

"No faith can survive the disappearance of its last follower. And we are getting close to that."

"What can you tell me about the others?"

"Not much, as I told you earlier, Nestor. You know more about them than we do."

"All I can say is that if this is the face of fanaticism, it is particularly ugly. I have seen things I wish I could erase out of my memory. Nothing was beyond them to break someone into their beliefs. Nothing at all."

"I am quite aware of how far religions are willing to go to impose themselves, Nestor."

"I know the theory behind all these atrocities, I have read countless tomes, but this group condensed in its ranks and in its beliefs the worst of the worst."

"Do you wish to undergo psychiatric treatment, Nestor? It will not impinge on your progress and since you have a year to spend in that tube, you might as well put it to good use."

"Is that possible?"

"Sure. Let me give a call to Paschal."

"Why not a simple Healer?"

"You are family, Nestor. My Sons call you Grandpa, and it has real meaning to us."

Paschal walked in just as the exchange concluded and looked at Nestor.

"Lay down, Nestor. You look even worse than an hour ago. The stasis pod is having issues with maintaining your physical integrity. I heard your request for psychiatric treatment. It will be started at your first REM period, and will continue until you are transferred to your new body. By then, you should be rid of most if not all of your psychotic baggage!"

"Do not be a tease! You are probably more of a nut than I am!"

"Probably, but for now I am the Doctor and you are the nut case. Down you go."

Paschal activated the soma unit and Nestor fell asleep.

"Dad, his condition is such I plan to take a mental map right away, in case his body disintegrates. I will repeat the mapping on a daily basis, or until there is a sudden change in his brain structure indicating the onset of rapid dissolution."

"Why did you not tell him?"

"So he would not be scared. He has enough to overcome as it is."

"Ok. Proceed as you see fit. Do not forget to lock the two chambers to prevent tempering."

"Do not worry, it is already done. And I am moving both Pods to our suite as soon as we leave this place. No use tempting idiots."

"Once he is safely ensconced in our suite, let us move to your simulation laboratory. We need to pay a visit to your laboratory so we can begin the simulations. I am growing impatient with that project."

"Ok, dad. I must warn you, it is not yet fully functional. There are many aspects of behaviour I still have issue with."

"Still, it is better than waking them up. What I am interested in is motives, thinking process, decision-making. What hand they used to jack off is not of interest for now."

"I understand. Meet me in half an hour. Before you leave, I heard that you postponed the assault on the target area?"

"Yes. In part, it is because of the information we may gain from them. I need to find out if others that have the run of Thebes are planning something similar, or have succeeded in creating other hubs of dissent. Hopefully, they will be able to tell us about potential areas in Thebes that might be under similar influence."

"I see."

Paschal levitated the two stasis pods and moved off toward the Imperial suite. It was around the time Ian finally consented to talk to Harp after a long cooling-off period.

***

Paschal, Sitar and Harold began studying the memory dumps collected from the prisoners. To their total dismay, they discovered several communities that shared the goals of the one they had just destroyed: a need to control at all costs, a morbid fascination with death and pain, and a self-destructive wish that raised death to a goal. Torture, genital mutilations, scarifications, human sacrifices, cannibalism, all things that Harold had thought left behind on Earth had resurfaced. The need of power over others was rampant and translated into all sorts of restrictions and physical abuses, under the order of a virtual God. After spending three days looking at things, Harold came to a decision.

"First, we dispose of these 12 prisoners, Children included. They are too broken to be recoverable. Second, according to this, the only magical nullifier is the one in this bubble. We destroy it. Third, I am sending the first Swarm to eradicate the eight other communities that had contact with this one. The rules of engagement are the same as this one. No survivors, well, except newborn babies, if there are any. We need to capture the leaders to scan their memories before disposing of them. By the way, Paschal, Mr Genius is to be vapourised and dispersed in interstellar space. The rest is to be recycled into meat for the meat-eating Ants."

"Why bother about their leadership?" asked Paschal.

"Hey, Brother, we have no certainty these eight communities are the only ones. Maybe these leaders will give us information on the location of other similarly-minded groups."

"I must be tired, Sitar. My mind is slow to kick in today."

"We all need rest. The past week has been terrible. Dad? When will we deal with the collected traitors?"

"We deal with them tomorrow night. Tomorrow, everyone sleeps and rests."

"Except Ian and Harp. They still are not back. I wonder what is the hold-back."

"We shall know when we shall know. Do not disturb Harp. Given Ian’s mental state, it would put Harp in danger."

"Agreed. I just wish I knew what was going on between Harp and Ian."

"No use worrying, Sitar. Things must not be that bad, we are still in one piece."

"Dad, tell that to someone that can not read you as well as we do. That crease on your forehead has never been so deep! Even when we pulled our worst pranks!" replied Paschal.

"Am I that readable?"

"Yes! And it is good. I fear stone faces that can get you killed without breaking a sweat over guilt."

Trying to divert the conversation, Harold asked Paschal how he planned to stop that infernal machine, knowing that Magic was useless.

"Do you remember Thorsten’s fireworks, better known as C4?"

"Yes, but blowing that up will create a magical backlash!"

"I am aware of that. We have stopped the machine, and I plan to spindle off the Magic into these micro-Crystals we created to store Magic. Once it is empty..."

"Boom!" added Thorsten as he walked in on them.