A thousand eyes, a thousand eyes staring at them through the windows, black and immovable impossible to tell what they were looking at and, wildly uncomfortable. Adam stood next to Ramirez on the bridge awkwardly looking at nothing in particular trying to pretend they were not being stared at though it wasn't really helping.
Ramirez leaned over slowly to whisper, "This is getting a bit creepy."
"You know they can probably hear you right?" Adam muttered from the corner of his mouth, "They read minds after all."
"Well then they really need to learn to take the hint."
Adam glanced back at the cluster of starborn suctioned to their windows , their palms pressed flat against the glass, their fingers splayed outward. Still protected behind Conn's mental shield, Adam could still hear their thoughts, listening as if from underwater, "They're scared." He said softly. He closed his eyes again trying to make out the images flickering inside their heads. Starborn didn't see the same way that humans did, and so it was an alien experience looking through their heads. Starborn were simultaneously more and less sensitive to light. More sensitive because they could pick up different spectral frequencies. Starborn prefer blue light because it has a higher frequency and carries more energy. That was primarily why Starborn were more attracted to blue stars which were hotter and tended to produce more energy anyway.
So when he looked into their heads he saw a world that was similar to his own portrayed in different ranges of spectral light, which is basically what humans had, except he could see onto much higher frequency including the UV spectrum. Still it wasn't the same. Looking into Sunny's head he could see onto the UV spectrum, but this was.
It was hard to explain.
How do you explain seeing when its nothing like seeing in the traditional sense.
All he could say is the world was a spectral map with an emphasis on blue and UV light. They couldn't sense light intensity so much as light frequency which is why looking directly into the sun couldn't blind a starborn.
Behind them, the door at the end of the room slid open, and he recognized Sunny's distinct signature as she stepped into the room two parts concerned and annoyed. He could sense it around her like an aura . The two of them turned just as she was walking up arms crossed eyes fixed on the window behind them
She gave Adam a look, "So there I was about ten minutes ago, waking up I need to realize my battle partner had gone missing when I turn over and low and behold the window is absolutely obscured by faces staring in at me. Did I fall off the bed scrambling for my spear, perhaps, who is to say."
"I'm sorry." Adam said rather sheepishly, "That happened after I got up, and I thought you needed your sleep."
She gave Adam a long look, "Adam, you're the one who needs the sleep out of everyone on this ship. Now want to tell me what this is all about."
Adam turned and motioned to the group, trying to articulate their emotions into words. Overhead Conn was still talking to them on a more one on one basis.
Lord celex had taken the opportunity to transform himself into a starborn and floated next to conn listening in on the conversation. The two of them would have been almost indistinguishable if it wasn't for Conn's impeccably tailored suit, and Celex's pants which, while they had fit him as a human hung off his hips rather dangerously as a starborn.
He leaned in to sunny voice low.
There was no reason for him to whisper, the starborn would hear him regardless, but somehow it felt more polite this way, "They're scared."
Sunny shifted nervously, "I don't like the sound of that."
"They say they are being hunted by infected void starborn just like the ones we encountered when-"
Sunny's eyes brightened some in recognition, "That was a long time ago! Are you sure those were void."
He nodded slowly , "We think that might have been our original contact source. It makes sense after all, starborn mov around a lot through the universe. They could be anywhere at any given time so its not surprising that the Void found them first. But because of their lifestyle it would be hard to find the rest of us, so they had to convert some and send them out searching.
The uneasy look on Sunny's face only grew, "I don't like the sound of that, it implies the Void has been using these tactics for a very long time."
"The war has been going on for thousands of years, should be surprised the void has already been using these tactics." Ramirez said, and the two of the turned to look at him. He shrugged, "What, it makes sense. We keep treating the Void like it's a new thing, but that's only because it is new to us." He tapped his temple, "These bastards have been around for longer than you and I have had Anima probably."
That was true enough, and he did make a good point.
"What do they want." Sunny muttered under her breath, still glancing out the window.
"Help."
Overhead Conn broke off from the conversation and floated down to join them.
"Get on a suit, Admiral . I think this is something we need to see for ourselves. His suggestion came without his customary cheek which worried Adam more than he would have liked to admit, and he didn't bother to make an argument as he headed down to the equipment room where Fealty lay dormant in the darkness.
It was eager to see him as he stepped into the suit powering up with a low hum.
There were a few perks to having your Anima partial detached because now Adam acted like a universal battery to almost any and all object he touched, not just the empyrean. Anima energy shed off him like a beacon as golden light infused the armor. Didn't matter what it was, if it required energy he could power it.
It was a real boon for handheld devices of any kind, and that one time where power had gone out momentarily in the spiral tower,
Fealty liked the unimpeded access to energy, and was pleased when Adam stepped into the suit booting up for him in moments. Adam was surprised to find that fealty had not been idle while it sat away in storage. Somehow the little AI had managed to make contact with the Empyrean, and the two artificial constructs had been sharing data back and forth.
Which is why Fealty knew what they were dealing with
Hundreds of starborn tagged outside the ship as neutral parties neither hostile or friendly just yet.
Adam strapped on the jetpack attachment, following Celex and Conn to the docking bay. Sunny caught him by the arm just as they were readying themselves to leave, "Stay safe."
He nodded once the suit making him more than tall enough to look her in the eye. Her remark was followed by the fleeting though that she thought he was sexy in high powered armor, but it wasn't something she said out loud. It was either one of those things that just came on the spur of the moment, or she knew that he would hear anyway so she had no need to verbalize it. Either way he wasn't going to argue with her.
He looked over at Ramirez, "Cloak the ship. I don't want anything seeing us before we intend it to."
He nodded once, calling up to give the order just as the airlock doors were shutting .
The Empyrean didn't have an airlock like most ships, which required the venting of air to equalize pressure before allowing one out into space. Instead the empyrean had a system of energy fields that acted as barriers. They were unbroken, constantly on and maintained atmosphere at all times, while simultaneously allowing more solid objects to pass straight through.
So it didn't take them more than a moment to step through the barrier and into the silence of space.
The world around them was awash with eerie blue light. Behind them the Empyrean had practically vanished under its cloaking taking with it everything that touched its hull including the mass cluster of starborn now using their ship as a life raft. Adam refrained from using his jetpack, not wanting to call attention to them.
Instead the three of them locked arms powered along by the energy in Starborn ribbons.
It occurred to Adam just then.
The more he understood about the power of Anima, the more Starborn made sense. Perhaps it wasn't simply solar power that allowed them to propel themselves, but perhaps a little anima energy? It was a thought he would have to look into later as the three of them floated some distance from the ship where a small delegation of other starborn were waiting.
The last time Adam had met other straborn face to face it had been many years ago and it hadn't gone well.
These starborn seemed a lot less concerned about their outsider status, and far more concerned with their potential impending doom. Beyond them, the Apparatus glittered and flicker in the blue diffused light. Stars winked on in the distance, above below and behind them stretching on into infinity. Once upon a time vistas like this might have left him in awe, and while he still found it all incredibly exhilarating, vistas like this were more than part of his everyday life.
The starborn motioned them to follow as they approached and together they Accelerated towards the apparatus, carried forward by the power of billowing ribbons. The closer they got the larger the structure became, until They floated right next to it, following a geometric line further into the thickest part of the glassy forest.
Closing his eyes again, Adam could sense.
Something.
It was distant and difficult to make out, even more so when the starborn bound together and slammed their collective walls down around the room. Inside the little bubble conn seemed almost surprised.
Walls were his thing.
He had never known a starborn to keep secrets, yet these three seemed eager to avoid detection at all costs. It didn't take much for their nervous energy to leak over into Adam's head, leaving his teeth on edge and the hair standing up on the back of his neck. As his anxiety grew so did that of the others. The starborn passively related the reality of their situation.
This place was big, difficult to search and easy to get lost in.
They had come here to hide.
But the void had taken over their hive queen sequestered at the center of the crystal apparatus. From there the darkborn ranged in pairs of two hunting for anyone who might defy them. Many of the starborn were forcibly seized and converted, while others willingly joined ranks to serve their nw overlords.
They pressed back with sudden agitation, pressing themselves againt the glassy structure and huddling together. Inside his visor, fealty perked its eager consciousness to mark two dark figures nearly invisible against a dark background. Around them the starborn closed off the mental world. Adam winced feeling like a part of him had been severed.
He remained quiet.
He didn't see why as there was no sound in space. He could scream at the top of his lungs the entire time and no one would hear him, but still he held his breath as the things got closer. Fealty zoomed in, adjusted spectral light and giving Adam an unpleasant view of the darkborn patrol that slowly floated past them.
There were two of the bastards more zombie than starborn. Their pearl white skinhad decayed and sloughed away in strips leaving them partially mummified. Their ribbons hung behind them in ropy tatters, and when they moved their muscles stretched more like dried jerky than living flesh. He was glad he couldn't sense them, but still the hair on his body raised in warning as they passed. His hand trailed absently down the side of hi s leg where his collapsible spear was socketed into place against the magnet on his upper thigh.
When the void patrol was passed, the starborn motioned them to follow again , creeping along the reflective geometric shapes and further into the interior.
It was smart what they were doing, the diffused spectral blue light would make it difficult for the other starborn to see them, leaving them open only when they had to pass over open stretches of space, which they did quickly and with much paranoia. All around them the glass megastructure spun slowly in a slow spiral refracting thousands of rays of distant starlight like a disco ball, a disco ball of doom.
The further they went in the stranger the light became.
Diffused blue turned purple and eventually red orange. The starborn slowed and stopped coming to a halt right next to one fo the great pillars. The two of them reached out grabbing their ribbons in either hand and hauling them inward , wrapping the ribbons around their arms like mummy bandages. Confused Conn followed suit, and lord celex made a change morphing into a small dark lizard like creature which clung to the side of Adam's visor . Together the group of them used the glass surface of the pillar to maneuver, clambering around towards the front, doing their best to blend in with the reflected and refracted light.
Ahead of them red and orange light grew in intensity until.
They saw it.
A monolithic humanoid being sitting cross legged in the ambient red darkness.
A starborn void mother.
She was colossal, and from Conn's mind, he could say ancient, a creature of unfathomable size. Once a beautiful sight to behold, the darkborn queen was an abomination of jutting bone and sloughing skin. Growing from her forehead, like the branches of a twisted tree, two void protrusions branched, forking upward like antlers into an eldritch circle burning with reddish orange light at its center, the source of the red light around them.
All around a thousand or more darkboarn floated and moved, shifting this way and that as they took care of the darkborn queen and her shining beacon, swarming over her skin like bees