A/N: This takes place after "Dancing Out from Oblivion", although prior reading shouldn't be necessary.
This story is based on the tabletop game "Warhammer 40,000" from Games Workshop, the Bolo series by Keith Laumer, along with some mentions of other things.
After a nice elven bath and like relaxations, Tarna figured it was about time to get moving.
Melaran could find himself growing entirely too ready and willing to retreat into a private and personal world and leave the rest of the universe to its own devices, but had to reluctantly acknowledge that it probably wouldn't do much toward removing the tendency toward extremes that he needs to avoid. Besides, they did have a destination in mind and new sights to see, an entire new universe to explore and enjoy.
He could only hope, as the sleek Eldar craft left Torn Elkandu and returned to the calmer streams of the Ethereal, that the Gods of this place weren't quite so... mad? No, he couldn't place much hope in that, nor to avoid them when he'd so recently invited the looniest of the lot in, but... well, time would tell whether they might survive the experience and not be too drawn into things best left alone.
Tarna settled in and helpfully gave the coordinates for Khizsalr. "How long will it take to get there?"
Melaran entered the coordinates and watched as the course arranges itself in the node, then stretched. "Looks like we've got about eighteen hours to kill," he replied, "Barring any turbulence that may arise."
Tarna gave a nod, and stretched a bit. "Time enough to get a bit of practicing in, eh?"
"Always," Melaran responded with a nod and smile. "You could use a bit more work with the armor and me..." He chuckled and sighed. "I suppose I should see about trying a bit of control work, maybe try my hand at meditation yet again."
That hadn't been going particularly well, too many shifting emotions were disrupting concentration of late, but it was something he had to work on. Tarna nodded to him, giving him a bit of a grin and a little kiss before heading back to do that.
Melaran remained at the controls for a time, making use of the quiet to attempt to return to the meditative trance that had once been nothing more than second nature to an Eldar. Some small amount of success is gained in it, managing to quiet the seas of rolling emotion by degrees and gaining a glimpse of a possible Path to take... and was suddenly snapped out of it as an alarm sounds.
Snapping sharply out of the state, it took a few moments to sort through the readings that the warnings were based on, unfortunately too late to avoid the hellish edge of the storm that rampaged the Ethereal for as far as the eye or instrument can see.
The recent destruction of the Wheel of Chaos that Zuna had created had spun off a number of small storms in spite of the fact that most of the Ethereal was fairly calm. But this one was much more powerful than them, threatening to tear the ship apart.
Melaran dumped as much power as could be spared into the shields surrounding the ship, silently cursing Shazmar, Bob, and any other gods with malicious and insane senses of humor as he struggled to navigate the rampant energies and keep them in one piece. Naturally, of course, his blame was fairly well misplaced. Multicolored lightning streaked across the shields, wearing them down slowly as if trying to crush the ship like an egg.
Tarna, apparently having realized something was wrong, came up behind him and said, "What's going on?"
"Warp storm, a nasty one," Melaran replied via telepathy, already attuned to the gestalt and finding it simpler to stay in that mode. "I don't it, but may have to do a crash translation if we can't find a way out of it and just hope that we come out someplace quieter. The ship's not going to take much more of this hammering."
Tarna took a seat and started to draw upon her Dream Magic to protect the ship, using it to augment the shields and maintain a field of calm around them. It was pretty rough but the shields seemed to be holding now for the moment.
"Very nice," Melaran offered simply in compliment, leaving only fragmentary attention to the shielding now as she took over maintaining it. "If you can hold that steady, we might be able to break through to the other side intact." Provided, of course, that the instrumentation wasn't so scrambled that they'd been going in circles the entire time.
Tarna focused on the shields, her face contorted with concentration as it was clearly taking a good deal of effort, and it seemed the shields were about to collapse entirely when they broke out of the storm again.
"I'll have to keep that option in mind, the next time we run across a freakish storm," Melaran sent with fond approval, tension ebbing slowly away as the storm is left behind. "Didn't even cross my mind to try something like that, too used to the ideal of digging in and praying I suppose."
He chuckled, checking through the readouts for signs of any other problems or dangers in continuing the course. Tarna sighed and sank back into her seat as she realized they were out of it, clearly exhausted. Aside from the fact that they were way, way off course, they seemed to be alright for the moment.
"Let's see if I can figure out where we are," Melaran sent, then glanced over at her with a quiet smile. "You should get some rest, or at least something to boost your energy a bit. I think everything's under control up here again."
Tarna gave a slight nod and stumbled back to rest. However, after she was gone, he realized that he couldn't figure out where the hell they'd ended up. Nothing nearby seemed to match up with anything on the charts.
Oh, that's not good, Melaran began to think a few times as he tried in vain to find a reference of any sort to work with. Finding oneself lost in the vastness of a plane that could span from one universe to the next would be high on the list of Bad Things he could think of. He worked at it a while longer, then reluctantly signaled Tarna that they may have a 'small problem'.
Tarna dragged herself back wearily and said, "What's wrong?"
Melaran gestured her to take a seat, concern warring with worry at the present situation as he waited for her to do so. "I'd really rather not say it but..." He sighed and closed his eyes. "We're well and truly lost. The storm left us somewhere that I haven't been able to find in the node in all this time."
Tarna sat down and peered outside. "Well, what's nearby? Hmm, I'll cast 'Where the heck am I'..." She channeled a bit of Seeking and frowned a bit. "Okay, yeah, we're ... way off course. We're not even in the same universe anymore. I don't recognize this one."
"Perhaps looking further afield will provide a clue?" Melaran asked thoughtfully, then chuckled. "Though that would probably require a great deal more power or control than either of us possesses. Which would leave the not wholly pleasant prospect of translating and taking a look around by more mundane means."
Tarna sighed wearily a bit. "Well, here's to hoping then... I've no idea where we are..."
"As you say," Melaran replied with manifest reluctance, not greatly enthused by the idea but not seeing much else in the way of options. The thrum of the warp engines changes tempo, building the power to pierce the ethereal boundary, and then suddenly descended once more as the tranquil sight of normal space enfolded them once more. "Nothing in the immediate area to be hazardous," he remarked as he worked with the sensors.
"And no star nearby either," he frowned, tweaking the sensors a bit at some unusual readings. "How odd..."
"What's that?" Tarna said, trying to scan around the area a bit with a little Seeking.
"There's a gravitational field consistent with the mass of a solar system, but..." Melaran gestured to the screens looking out, "No star to go with it. Scanning further along the well." He hummed lightly as he tunes the instruments in that direction, then arched a brow, "What, is that?"
He shared the sensory data with her mentally, revealing a huge object near the source of the gravitic field.
"The readings are... very weird, let's get a little closer for a better look." Nudging the craft forward, they drifted closer to the gargantuan phenomena and began to discern more detail. "It would appear... to be a designed construct..." he remarked in quiet awe at the sheer scale of the idea.
"Holy shit," Tarna replied. "But by whom... and for what?"
"I have NO idea," Melaran laughed lightly, the dire circumstances of their situation being overcome by the nudging of curiosity as he looks to her with a grin. "Want to go see?"
Tarna grinned. "Well, nobody's started shooting at us yet... Shall we see if the natives are friendly?"
"There's definitely a lot of power flowing in the thing, but none of the surges that would indicate weapon readiness or even an active scan," Melaran shrugged and chuckled. "I'll try sending a standard hail on all frequencies as we approach, see if anyone's awake in there."
Tarna gave a short nod, still staring at the thing, and yawned a bit. No response was forthcoming, which made Melaran frown a bit as he shared the readings with her that show that something is obviously receiving them.
"That's strange..." he tepped absently, gentling the craft on a graceful arc toward the construct, curiosity being tempered by a bit more caution. They were not that far from it, in terms of space combat at any rate, when he cursed mentally and dashed away at a sudden energy surge.
Even Eldar reflexes were no match for what guided that surge, or the millisecond precision in timing, and a flare of energy surrounded the ship. A wrenching sensation was felt and a momentary displacement found them basking in the light of a gentle golden sun.
Tarna blinked for a moment. "What the-" she said aloud, staring at the screen.
Melaran studied the sensor returns intently, the echo of the teleportation still vaguely resonating in his senses.
"We're inside it," he tepped lightly, frowning at the incredible amount of data now pouring through. "This is incredible!" The star was at the center of the construct, another solid celestial body orbiting it and serving to provide periods of night for the vast lands growing along the inside of the sphere.
Tarna stared around the place with awe. "What is this place? I've never seen anything quite like this before..."
"Neither have I..." Melaran replied thoughtfully, the sheer mass of data accumulating in the node staggering. "It appears to be an enclosed solar system, with the inner 'wall' of the sphere being roughly at a distance compatible with sustaining abundant life."
"This is incredible... Who could have built such a thing? And who lives here?" Questions largely rhetorical, obviously.
"This inner planet, though, seems to be a source of much of the power here," Melaran mused, the craft edging in that direction until a warning of building power emerged in the sensors and then edged the ship away. "And it would seem to be off-limits," he added, "power levels are returning to normal as we move away from it. Interesting."
Tarna frowned. "Some sort of control center or something, I'd assume..." She looked out at the inner surface of the sphere, staring at the forests, oceans, mountains, and deserts covering it.
Melaran set the fleet ship to cover an arc around the central star, collecting further scanner data along the way but remaining carefully beyond the approach to the dark-shrouded planet. "I haven't seen any sign of access ports of any sort." He shook his head with a chuckling sigh. "This might not have been a good idea. Looks like we're stuck."
"Well, there has to be something somewhere. Just a matter of finding it," Tarna replied. "And it might not be obvious, of course."
"Or it may be as plain as a planet before us." Melaran set the craft to continuing its course without his oversight and drew his attention inward, trying to focus. "Let's see if anything can be found with a bit of Seeking..."
The concept was still not finely tuned with him, but that attention turned outward and toward the celestial object. A line was left open to Tarna that she might see what he does. The dark-covered planet is definitely highly industrialized as structures of all shapes and sizes covered its surface entirely. No signs of life were detected, though there were signs of machines laboring endlessly at their mysterious tasks and mechanical constructs moving about with no sign of a controller. The survey was suddenly brought to a jarring, crashing halt, the image sheared and backlash resonating back to him.
Stiffening in the control couch, Melaran sucked in a sharp breath at the surge of pain inflicted by the interference and opened his eyes to look over at her. "What did you make of that?"
"Weird," Tarna replied, putting a comforting hand on him. "What could be causing that?"
"I would suspect the builders," Melaran replied thoughtfully, rubbing a temple. "And they're not looking for company. Let's see if we can find any other signs out on the 'surface' that will give us something more to work with." He slipped back into the craft's gestalt and examined the continuing deluge of data with a grimace. "There's so much of it, where to begin?"
"Any signs of advanced civilization there?" Tarna wondered.
"Bits here and there that suggest varying levels of society," Melaran frowned at the stream of data, searching for that particular trait and comparing them, "Nothing that I'd associate with the industry-heavy concentration on the dark planet though. For the most part, I'd say they're neo-barbarians at best, examples of what happened after the Empire of Man's collapse."
Tarna frowned. "Weird... But then, if you saw most Elkandu planets, they'd appear positively medieval at first glance, looks canbe deceiving sometimes...'
"True enough," Melaran agreed. "And it does look like some of the areas are at least somewhat technologically capable. The diversity is amazing, and I have to wonder why there isn't a more uniform level across the board." He sighed quietly. "We're going to have to try at one of them if we want to get out of here, though. Just finished a basic sweep of the inner surface as we cleared the star... no sign of access ports."
"Teleportation then... Well, as long as we're here, let's take a look, shall we?"
"Teleportation indeed, and a powerful source of it at that," Melaran answered, then sorts through the data at her interest and points out a couple of areas. "These two would be the most likely spots to check, I think. The first has a slightly higher technology and population concentration along with signs of agriculture and the like. The second would appear to be a convergence of two such entities in close proximity. I make the distinction since their detectable energies are on different wavelengths, indicating differing approaches to the matter. Whether they're allied, neutral, or hostile is anyone's guess. Similar signs of industry and agriculture are present, though the two seem to occupy separate ecological niches, forest and plains to be precise."
"Interesting," Tarna mused. "Well, let's head in and check it out, then."
"Do you have a preference as to which?' Melaran asked. "Either way is essentially a random chance, I think I'd rather trust your luck than mine of late." He chuckled.
"Not particularly, no. Although the presence of so many different civilizations in close proximity is curious..."
"Then so shall it be," Melaran replied and set course for the double-settled area, leaving the third behind on its arc of the 'world'.
As they neared, details became more distinct to the sensors and it could be seen that the plains people apparently occupied primarily along a series of canyons and a nearby collection of ruins. The forest dwellers were more scattered in the things that could be detected, but points of interest remained.
"Look here," he drew her attention to focus on a subdued, perhaps buried, power signature near each of the communities. "I wonder if they're aware of them?" he mused, engaging the cloaking field and approaching the separation point of the two nearby realms to land.
"Hmm," Tarna hmmed.
"Let's get into armor and otherwise prepared," Melaran sent with innate caution and rose to go and do so, settling on the power sword he'd retrieved from Iyanden to supplement his armament. "May be a useful tool if we decide on the forest route."