Everything was gone, replaced by a debris nebula and solidified magma that rippled across the surface of the Temple around its entire perimeter. All stations across the void had been destroyed, the artificial star was gone, with everything now in blackness so deep it was terrifying, for there were no stars visible, but at least the artificial gravity was still intact and the ships could navigate using it.
Plausious hadn’t slept since he had arrived here, and wouldn’t for a long time to come. He was obsessed with finding survivors, if not in space then any that had gone underground, but most of the Caretaker units had been destroyed and the conduits that led down into the catacombs had allowed the blast wave in, wrecking a lot of equipment in those areas and collapsing tunnels. The Caretakers that were down there were already working to clear the debris and rebuild those tunnels, but Plausious didn’t have scans of what was down there in many places…and those places would have been the routes his people had taken to go down there, or the Vargemma, which was why no survivors had been found yet.
The dead zones were larger than the estimated blast damage, so he assumed it was communications problems, but he also knew sending down search teams was pointless given how big the Temple was. Using the Caretakers was the fastest route, but building more of them was going to take time…though it was already begun automatically as the Temple began to very slowly take steps to begin the repair process, continuing to draw in resources from the support grids beyond the Temple using the portals that were deep below ground, since the ones on the surface were completely destroyed.
And that included the ship portals, meaning Plausious’s fleet couldn’t go anywhere if they wanted to.
Fortunately that meant Truven’s ships couldn’t come in either and finish them off. Plausious was marooned once again, but this time he knew exactly what to do while everyone else that was living was clueless and on the verge of panic, though the Neofan naturally tried to suppress that emotion and ensure a state of calm control…with many failing to do so.
The Reignor would hold them together, as only he could now. This Temple, as it was before, was gone now and wouldn’t be coming back for at least half a million years…and it was his fault. He had underestimated the depth of the insanity that had taken hold in the Neofan for even one of them to do this…and the only reason it could have occurred was if Truven had ordered it, or the Diem had clandestinely, having obtained his codes by some means. Either way, this was a treachery beyond measure in Neofan history. The dead had not been given exile. They were wiped out entirely.
Neofan society, which was premised on respecting the longevity of life in their race, was now officially gone. Plausious had foreseen this eventuality. Of the collapse from within even if exterior enemies didn’t defeat them, but not this quick. He had no idea things had gotten so bad so fast, for while attacking Star Force was logically flawed, this was beyond imagining.
Yet it had happened, and he had to make sure it never did again.
So as he began the slow work of gathering those left alive and dealing with the mass of people crammed into the surviving ships, he assigned two saved engineers the task of redesigning the stellar emitters and their hydrogen storage supplies in such a way that this would be physically impossible to achieve again.
Plausious was going to remove this capability from all the Temples, strip it out of the Caretaker coding itself so it couldn’t be rebuilt. The regional purges that required a much higher Essence price would be sufficient to deal with massive problems, but this…this was a weapon that never should have been created. It put too much power in a single person’s hands, and allowed one act of betrayal to destroy so many.
And not just the Neofan. There were 4.8 trillion Vargemma in this Temple, or rather had been. Now they were gone, and Plausious doubted he would find even one alive hiding out there somewhere…let alone the Star Force personnel that were rumored to still be evading the Neofan here.
But if they were hiding underground, then there was a chance they might still be alive. The catacombs, or even their own subsurface structures, would make the best hiding places, especially if there were Star Force-designed Caretakers still operational to shield them.
When that thought occurred to him Plausious suddenly had a bit more hope, and input a message into the catacombs comm network stating that he was alive and the Neofan were no longer an enemy. He also unlocked all the surviving portals, telling Star Force that they could use them to escape if they wished, but that he was also asking for their immediate assistance with hunting for survivors underground…as well as getting a message to Director Davis asking for a small section of one of his Temples to relocate his people to as they refit their ships, regrouped, and prepared for a much different type of war than Plausious had expected.
Also, he requested assistance from any Vargemma in the Star Force temples who wished to fight…as well as putting in a request for the red tails to assist him.
For what he was going to need to do required a higher level of warfare, and one that House Atriark did not possess. One that required a Nuv’ernor, and all of them
