Three days later.

[Rafar - Military base - ????]

“How has the repair work on the carrier been going, General?”

“It’s going slow but steady. While the station repairs are still underway our friends in the engineering department have been fudging the numbers a bit, Grimar hasn’t caught up yet to your friend's actions.”

“Henry knows what’s at stake. For now, we have kept Grim in the dark so as to not alert our presence to Talis, as her loyalty lies first and foremost to my mother. But given a few weeks I expect her to be open to our expansion plans.”

“How bad is our current food situation?” Asked the General. I grimaced in response. “During the time that I was under the consumption department sent the royal family a rapport. In that rapport, it’s stated that an additional twenty-five percent of our food-growing capabilities have collapsed. The reasons vary but the main problem is that our farming soil is running out of nutrients, nutrients that we cannot get from our planet. Because of that, we had more bad harvests this month. And it gets worse. Our water filtration system is overburdened, it’s still holding for now, but the rapport states it is nearing collapse. If nothing is done soon we will die of thirst before we can grow hungry.”

“What was the royal response?”

“Lord and Lady Rafar hope to stabilize and recover from the damage by using the newly developed crops and fish made by the gene division. They are also working behind the scenes to get some of their Union friends to bring us new batches of soil and water supplies. But talks have been slow, as it seems our communications are being more heavily monitored from multiple sources within the Union.”

“So we’ve truly hit a dead end.” The General said with sorrow in her voice. I simply nodded.

“How long do we have till we’ve completely run out of food and water?”

“Three months. And that is with further rationing in place. Does the military have enough supplies for our trade plan?”

“If we truly have to we can arrange for food and water for two week’s worth of space travel. But that includes the assumption that the crew will have to go hungry on some days. Depending on however we have to go it might not be enough.”

As our discussion went on to prepare for the plan I was interrupted by a message from my mother.

“What’s wrong my lord?”

“I’ve gotten a message from Lord Rafar, it states ‘Where our secrets lie buried, our future will be decided.’”

The General looked utterly confused. “It’s a secret place only my family knows of.

My father is asking to meet me there, alone.” I explained.

“Are they preparing to take you into custody? Should I send some guards with you?” I shook my head. “The place where I’m going to there will be no guards, there are secrets that should only stay with us.” I took a breath. “Whatever may happen General I want you to proceed as planned. I already got Orik from domestic affairs to arrange the minimum amount of traders, diplomats, and trade goods we need to get the operation underway, I’ve sent you the coordinates now to their locations. it is up to you to get them sequestered away before Talis notices what’s up. Our future is at stake. May Voreck's luck and ingenuity prepare for the road ahead.”

The General saluted back. “And may Vaal’s strength and perseverance be with you for the battles to come.”

[Rafar - ???? - ???????]

As I entered the shadowed chamber I spotted my parents standing ready and waiting.

“I’m glad you came, Son.” My dad said.

“Of course Father. I may not agree with the path you two wish to take, but I hold no hatred for either of you.”

“And neither do we.” My mother stated. We studied each other before my father broke the silence. “We’ve talked about our options, and come to the conclusion that the time has come to show you the real reason why we are afraid to act.” Without further ado, he and Mom walked down the passageway going even deeper underground. I followed behind.

“Tell us Jason, what do you remember about this place.”

“I remember that this is where we keep our most dangerous secrets, secrets that even I remain yet unaware of.”

Eventually, we came upon a vault door. As it opened I saw gold, silver, and other shiny jewelry. My parents ignored them and walked onwards. Eventually, they came to a stop in front of a piece of wall. It didn’t look any different from its surrounding walls save for the word. “Remember” is scratched in small letters near one of its corners. As my parents placed their hands on the wall they waited. And after minutes of waiting when I was about to ask what was supposed to happen, I heard a small *Click* as the wall parted. Walking inside I saw a massive pyramid that looked to have been built naturally, that was radiating with purple luminescent light.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“What is this..”

“This, this is a Psionic Nexus. If used correctly it can awaken a living being's psionic potential. Decades ago when we first arrived here we found this. The former rulers of Rafar, or rather Hajer as it was known back then, were Psionic users who had rejected the ways of the enclave, they sought to study and harness this nexus’s power. However, their tyrannical rule caused the populace to overthrow them before they could make use of it. Neither the Enclave nor the Union knows of this place, because neither would allow this power to persist in our hands, and so we kept the secret.” My father explained turning around he looked at my mother.

“There are two more secrets we carry. Jason, what do you know of the founding tales of the Autarch Union?” I blinked a bit thrown off by the question. “Uhh if I remember correctly, the founding of the A.U. began when our great, great ancestor's ships had a malfunction in their faster-than-light drives, causing them to jump away from their home sector and end up stranding each of them in the Karis sector. After that Merrick Thaal, the uniter began seeking out our other long-lost brothers and sisters eventually banding together to form the Union.”

“However soon after that, the Union encountered the Psionic Enclave. It was from that point on that each member of the union began experiencing outbreaks of people awakening their psionic powers. Soon those individuals banded together and threatened to overthrow the governments for reasons that remain unknown to us. This eventually led every society within the union to change to the only viable solution left, autocracy. The actions of the union against their psionic population is what sparked the first sector war, which cemented both factions as absolute powers within our sectors.”

Even now on most worlds within the Union psi users are still being hunted when their abilities are uncovered.

My parents nodded. “You remember history well, however, that history holds many lies. During the war, we encountered a group of psionic refugees onboard a ship. We were ordered to shoot them, but before we even had the chance the refugees shared their memories with us through telepathic links. After viewing their memories we noticed many contradictions compared to what the Union had told us. Before we could really process all of this our captain ordered us to have them killed, which is when most of us rebelled. After that with the help of the refugees we managed to cover up what was done as us ‘Heroicily fighting off against the psi users who so dastardly dared to take over the captain and some of our other comrades' minds.’’

My mother continued on. “For our deeds, we got promoted, and soon we had more encounters with other psionic users, eventually through those meetings and looking through the many documents our newly promoted stations now allowed us access to we pieced together the truth.”

“Before the Union became the Autarch Union there were a variety of differing societies that had been building up over our many long years of isolation from one another. When everyone got together they encountered the last collection of worlds colonized by our long-lost brothers and sisters. Those members were the Psionic Enclave. At first peace and prosperity reigned, but it didn’t last, as the enclave helped awaken people on different worlds in the union, under the justification of evolving beyond our mortal constraints. Most people can’t survive the awakening process. The Union did nothing as they sought to use their newly awakened psionic users to further their own agendas. Some psi users were furious at their treatment under the Union or for allowing the Enclave to do as they wished to them and their loved ones, causing them to revolt. Eventually, this allowed most if not all power power-hungry factions within the union to claim dominance over their own societies as Autarchs.”

My father took over from there. “Of course, those power-hungry bastards grew paranoid after fighting off a continuous stream of newly revolting psi users within their population. They asked the Enclave to stop awakening more of their populace. The Enclave did not stop, as they quote ‘Would not prevent their brothers and sisters from ascending.’ These are the real reasons behind the first sector war.”

I looked confused. “Okay I understand how important all of this is, but what does all of this currently have to do with you two fearing the A.U. so much?” My father pointed towards a device I only now saw installed atop the nexus. “That is a psi emitter. The Enclave used them to forcibly awaken people. The Union got their hands on this one and almost managed to weaponize it. If they were successful it would have allowed to union to cause all the psionic users on a planet to go mad when activated. We stole and modified it, now it prevents any psionic user from activating their powers while on Rafar. It also prevents people from awakening despite being so close to a psionic nexus. The war had been going on for decades. And finally just as peace talks were almost done the Union was about to unleash this, further perpetuating the cycles of violence. So we together with other members in the Union and psionic members not part of the enclave managed to steal it and cover up what happened.”

My mother sighed. “However at some point, someone slipped up… Luckily the Union at that moment was too bloodied to fight against us. Especially since they were not certain how many allies of ours they would have to fight. Ever since then, they have been watching us. Making sure that we did not step out of line. That my son is why we’ve been so scared. Over time most within the Union have forgotten about us and what we’ve done, as they are too occupied with their internal squabbling and power games. But if even one of them remembers and tries to uncover the truth we could face the entire wrath of both the A.U. and the P.E.”

That was a lot to take in…

“Even with all that said if we continue on the path that we are going now we risk losing everything, you’ve seen the rapport from the consumption department and the aftermath of our battle. If we don’t take risks we will die either way.”

My parents looked at one another and then back at me and let out a resigned sigh. “We agree. We’ve tried and exhausted every option, but after defeating those so-called pirates we can longer count on help from our allies. Not without risking their exposure. And so we will support your plan, Jason.”

My father handed me a medal. The medal was shaped like a shield and had a robotic fist raised high. “As of today, you are the head of our newly formed Expansion department, your mission is to expand our influence and find new ways to increase the lives of our citizens. We will give you access to our secret royal reserves to complete your first mission. We’ve managed to set up one trade partner that will allow you to buy more food and supplies to help buy us time for further expansion plans.”

I dropped my informal stance and hugged them. “Thank you for believing in me, and sorry for going behind your back.” They hugged back. “We understand and we are sorry that it had to come to this.” As we walked the way we came and up towards the service I stopped for one moment as a question still lingered in my mind. “Before we go I have one more question to ask. You said that the former rulers of Hajer were studying these nexus, so do you know who built them?”

They both looked back at the nexus and then at me with a worried gaze. “We don’t know son. And that scares us.”