Artaxerxes stared into the blinding pillar of light; the vibrant blue burned into his eyes. His body wanted to turn, to run away from the promise of annihilation, but something within him urged forward, as if his soul had taken full control and overrode the primal warnings. Cyrus was yelling something, but his voice was distant and inconsequential compared to the drive within him. Art took a step forward, his eyes still fixated on the pillar even as they burnt out and laid his palm flat against the light. It felt tangible, like a plasma barrier, vibrant heat radiating into his core. Art could no longer see anything, but that didn't matter anymore; he had found an overwhelming power. He stepped into the light.
Cyrus clenched his teeth as he watched Artaxerxes disappear into the pillar. Why did the idiot stare into the light? He would certainly come out blind now, if he even survived the ordeal. At the very least Cyrus knew that the potential for success was there. He had tried to put a geas upon Art, trying to compel him to close his eyes, but Art’s psionic defenses were incredibly powerful, even while latent. He suspected that merely being in the presence of the lumen beam had awoken his reserves, and that fully submerging into the light might have burnt him out entirely. With a grimace, Cyrus realized it had been a whole minute now, and Art still hadn't emerged.
“Nobo, shut down the lumen room.” Cyrus spoke into his communicator, a tinge of disappointment staining his normally stoic voice.
“Sounds good boss- uh. Hm. Paragon is displaying an error I’ve never seen. Boss what’s a 400 error?”
“400? Bad request response, but that makes no sense. Why would Paragon consider that a client error..?” Cyrus’ voice trailed off as suddenly the lights on his comms began to flicker.
“Boss, big prob - - - lem” Came Nobo’s static filled transmission. “Para - - - gon says we’re on the edge of a - - - Solenoid Beam, I’m trying to - - -”.
Cyrus was already dashing towards the command chamber when Nobo’s transmission flatlined, the lights in the hallway going dark immediately after. He willed a small part of his solar reserves out, and a tiny star began to circle above his head, lighting up the pitch-black path. A Solenoid Beam meant severe trouble, disabling both victim and user, it implied multiple ships to close in while the victim was supressed.
The panicking crew made sure to stay out of the way of the singular light running down the hallways, recognizing Cyrus’ star from prior blackout raids. He barked orders as he ran, trying to organize anyone nearby to get to the fighter bays. Occasionally he would split off a fragment of his star to give to give to his commandos, allowing them to lead a contingent. He continued to circle until he came to the air elevator. The compressor wasn’t functional, so he had to take the ladder inlaid into the back of the tube as he clambered down to the second floor of the Oblivion.
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Made of three concentric circles offset in depth and connected by air elevators, the Oblivion looked nothing like a traditional starship. It’s three rings could change their diameter and direction of rotation independently, allowing it to spin rapidly when compressed. Since the hydraulic pistons were powered by the generator, they began to retract without electricity, and thus the gravity inside the ship began to rise.
Cyrus trudged his way into the control room in the center of the second ring, his movement slowed greatly by the immense gravity. He could use his solar reserves to speed himself up, but he knew he was going to need every ounce of energy for the coming battle. They hadn’t fired on the Oblivion yet, leading Cyrus to believe that they were going to board. They were most likely after the stolen goods, and they wouldn’t risk damaging the Old-Earth relics. He looked down through the ceramo-glass floor and saw three GALPOL cruisers, the dark green motif clear upon the hulls of their ships.
“Boss, they’ve dispatched six carriers! Our fighters aren’t even close to being ready for manual launch!” Nobo yelled as he made his way over to Cyrus. Thanks to the ceramo-glass ceiling and flooring, the trinary suns’ light illuminated the room, whereas the metal-glass hallways couldn’t become transparent without electricity. This allowed Cyrus to subsume what was left of his miniature star back into him and take a better look down towards the GALPOL ships. Indeed, six transports capable of carrying at least 20 commandos each were gliding towards them. The ships were all in orbit around the Gravity Triads, which allowed ships to accelerate to near light-speed over the course of several hours. The Oblivion was only two hours away from crossing the second Triad, but Cyrus realized the carriers would be upon them in half that time. He silently cursed, wondering how they had closed the distance on them so quickly. His intel had told him GALPOL had no presence in this system, a supposed lonely transit route. Had they been waiting for him, silently cloaked until they approached the Triad? Pushing the idea of a set up out of his mind, he turned his attention to the manual controls. They were rarely used, only necessary during reactor failures or other extenuating circumstances.
“Nobo, send out as many people as you can and warn them that we’re about to make a sharp turn. The fighters should be ready to launch as soon as we’re out of the Solenoid Beam.” Cyrus said, while he rapidly pulled levers, trying to transition as smoothly as possible. The spinning outer rings suddenly slowed their spinning, transferring the momentum through a differential gear system into the middle ring, massively accelerating it. The gravity caused Cyrus to collapse to the ground, along with any personnel not fortunate enough to be built like a tank. Nobo managed to keep his footing as he staggered out of the hall to dispatch his commandos. Cyrus flared out a hand towards him as he left, and four small stars emerged to follow him, lighting his path.
“Everyone, brace yourselves! We need to be ready to go as soon as power is restored!” Cyrus yelled, his lungs fighting hard to speak the words in such high gravity. He dragged his upper body onto the control panel, taking deep gasping breaths. With a final surge of motion he slammed down the two levers controlling the outer rings.
As the differentials locked onto all three rings again, the angular momentum was split amongst the three, this time all in the same direction, spinning clockwise and out of the Gravity Triad that orbited the trinary suns. There was a massive lurch as the gravity equalized, and the Oblivion began to shift it’s vector out of the Solenoid Beam. Cyrus let out a sigh as lights began to blink back to life all aboard the ship.