Fiction:Tuuros Galactic War/Part One

"We have no quarrel with time. We have no quarrel with waiting. But...I am rather impatient. I have a quarrel with those who stall me, and some amusement in removing those who stall me."

This is part one of four of the.

The Fractal Vault
Autumn TY 12310/2824: Xittan-Yaton peripheral space, territory

>> 1.647.4.02 || Personal Log of

Ancestors be kind. Ancestors, please be kind.

Decryption from the Zhulultu Key identified a weapon in a vault in peripheral space. What was understood from the decryption was that the weapon was demonic in nature. i. Dijun was right about the security measures - covert operations such as that usually went unnoticed. Damn those Kamagorians...damn them. If only I had the foresight to see the raid, or even more, to know that the Key housed an ancient and evil weapon - I might have not touched it. Or if I had the advantage of being secret about it, the Asilapheans would not know about it. I have to act fast to open this vault and seize the weapon, otherwise the Asilapheans will risk crossing the blockade.

A party of exploration and excavation ships - Syndicate and Vranntan alike and numbering a few thousand in total made their way to the coordinates the Key had given them. Nijusi had the begrudging pleasure of heading the excavation in partnership with the War Arbiter, - the Warlord Ammakkut's misadventures in retrieving the artifact had piqued Hrantaec's concern in the matter. Nijusi had seen vaults like these in the past - they were not physical monuments bathed in darkness as were many Zhulultu constructs strewn across the Gigaquadrant, but much rather defective glints in space, masking their contents in a dimensional breach. To the untrained eye they were invisible, but to the observant there was a fine refractive line in spacetime - almost appearing like a crack in a mirror. As the thousands-strong crew entered the peripheral space of the Xittan-Yaton Sector, Nijusi brought them to a halt. He could see the refractive crack in space despite the invisibility of it on the radars.

The monstrously large Vranntan War Arbiter was present on Nijusi's personal vessel - he and Nijusi overlooked the vault's gate on the bridge. Though he could not see the gate itself, he looked down at the miniscule form of the Sumikian as he gazed on intently and unblinking.


 * Hrantaec - ...Do you know what you're doing, Sumikian?
 * Nijusi - ...You're on my ship, War Arbiter. You will address me as Nijusi. ...And yes. I see the gate. We must move closer to it. And we need the key.

A Sumikian trooper brought Nijusi the key, encased in a thin and transparent box. Unlocking the case, Nijusi delicately took the key into his hands, looking at the item with bitterness and trepidation.


 * Nijusi - Tell me something, Hrantaec. What are you really doing here? The Vranntan despise the Zhulultu technology. This is...worse than Zhulultu technology.
 * Hrantaec - If Ammakkut's report is accurate, then the Asilapheans know where this is. And if your reports are accurate, then this weapon should only fall into our hands.
 * Nijusi - The weapon shouldn't fall into anyone's hands, War Arbiter. I'm placing a blockade around the perimeter of the vault. Any unauthorised entry will be reduced to ash if needs be.

Signalling his chief navigator, Nijusi's ship edged forward, closer and closer to the gate. Nijusi felt the tense humming of the Key in his hands, growing in immensity with each thousand kilometres passing. The anticipation within Nijusi caused him to tremble somewhat - Hrantaec observing the Sumikian warlord's fear as something that he would not associate with the legend of Tuk Nijusi. An instant sense of pain - something akin to an electric shock caused Nijusi's hands to spasm jutted straight from the Key, activating the gate. Hrantaec's eyes were brought to the space in front of him; the door of the gate unfurling space and gravity away in a manner frighteningly unnatural to the eyes of mortals. As he looked in, he saw the obsidian and labyrinthine halls of the vault that folded in upon itself over axis upon axis. Hrantaec could only look away after a few seconds as nausea and confusion overruled his brain. Nijusi on the other hand remained steadfast - as if he had seen the winding complexity of the Ultraterrestrials one too many times.


 * Nijusi- You don't have to enter if you don't want to, Hrantaec. There is no dishonour in this.
 * Hrantaec - And leave you to it? No. I will see this for myself.
 * Nijusi - Very well. Don't drive yourself insane.

Nijusi's exploration crew soon submerged themselves in the vault dimension - their radars and systems began to read in bizarre ways that no navigator could decipher. Soon, the scenery of stars and Gigaquadrantic phenomena was a cavernous maze of perplexing proportions. If this was the of esoteric legend, Hrantaec failed to understand what could have existed or have been built from this. In front of them however, within a chamber marked by shapes vaguely resembling triangles and hexagons bathed in colours of black and orange peered out the demonic energies of an artifact of an incredible size. Nijusi had noticed that around the circumference of the chamber was a blackened platform, as perfectly reflective as an unblemished mirror. Beckoning the chief ships to land on the platform, Nijusi's craft almost landed as if it was magnetised to the dimensional glass.


 * Hrantaec - You are going out there?
 * Nijusi - There are no physical laws out there. Which is surpisingly safe for us.
 * Hrantaec - The insanity of it all...perhaps you know why we do our best to remove these blights from the galaxy.
 * Nijusi - After three thousand years, only slightly.