There was a massive depression at the center of the huge room. It was a gigantic shaft that descended several levels through the white-blue metal structure. Extending from the walls were struts that connected to the enormous machine at the center of the shaft, a tube-shaped construction that was longer than the shaft itself, rising out of the depression a few feet. The silver plated machine had numerous vents puffing white mist out into the shaft and blinking lights lining its incredible bulk. Every couple of meters thick black cables spanned the gap between the machine and the surrounding wall of the chute, sagging and swaying slowly.
Surrounding the whole contraption was a railing to prevent any unfortunate accidents. Extra security came in the form of a passive forcefield that manifested whenever the need arose to repel anything bold enough to approach the construct. It was an impressive machine as grand in purpose as it was in design, for it was an instrumental tool in the battle to maintain peace in the galaxy.
The machine was a super advanced projector unit. The topside end was a dome-shaped lens from which a soothing blue light shone out of in a cone. Suspended over it was a gigantic representation of the spiral arms, the collection of billions of stars projected with pristine quality and definition. There were multiple territory markers of varying shapes and colors included with this projection of the galaxy, designating the many sectors of galactic space and the powers that governed them.
If this contraption existed during the age that came to an end not too long ago, its display would be a blood red hue, reflecting the concentration of enemy presences that infested huge stretches of space, innumerable star systems locked under the influence of the striving empire. Now, it was mostly blue, with differently colored bars enclosing regions with a high concentration of hive worlds, fringe worlds and the space claimed by the galaxy’s numerous races. There were sizable pockets of red interspersed in this spread, but they were well out of the white circle that encompassed a respectable chunk of the galaxy.
That circle marked the influence of the Harmony, or to the more technically inclined: the Galactic Peacekeeping Corp. Though still in its infancy, the Harmony had already succeeded in making major strides towards the preservation of goodwill across the stars. It protected newly formed interstellar republics from those seeking to take advantage of the defenseless. It created havens for war-torn districts to recover in. It served as an established community with the advancement of the galaxy as a whole being a primary goal.
It seemed like just the thing the galaxy needed after centuries of war. Except, there were many still that did not trust the Harmony.
They did not like the fact that a peacekeeping group had ships under its command that proved during the Hoof-Talon conflict to be horrendous perpetuators of death and destruction, as demonstrated by the huge debris fields still left in many systems where they exterminated the galactic menace without mercy.
They did not like the practice of using automated drones to bolster the Harmony’s presence in the galaxy, much less having those same drones constantly report information back to major hubs of the Corp. It was this practice that allowed the super projector to display such precise information; the drones under the Harmony’s command monitored the situation across the galaxy as a whole.
What upset a great deal of the galaxy’s people most of all was the apparent similarity between the Harmony and the Hoof-Talons, the way their ships occupied hundreds of star systems at a time, looming over the worlds they were charged with protecting; the fact that a number of their combat platforms were reverse engineered from the galaxy’s greatest enemy of recent history.
“The Harmony fights for peace at the cost of individual freedom! They are a step or two away from imposing a dictatorship, if not all out war!” many cried out in the streets of cities. The way their mere presence created dependence on their services across the newly created stellar states only worsened the divide, for while many would rather live without the watchful eye of the Harmony, they would only make themselves vulnerable to attack from the cells of hostility persisting elsewhere if they shunned the Corp.
***
The Galactic Situation Observatory was full of peoples that knew full well the galactic provinces wanted their Corp to disband. As such, the G.S.O was full of peoples who remained resolute in their activities against all adversity and opposition. There was simply no other alternative, after all. It would take a full on uprising to force the Harmony from its position, and there were few willing to stand against the unified galactic fleet.
Situated all around the projection were rows upon rows of monitors and computers, all of which being used by a wide assortment of alien creatures. Beings of all kinds of shapes and forms walked briskly across catwalks and platforms that formed an intricate web of metal over the super projector. While they wore all manner of clothing and armor, they all sported silver chains that dangled around their necks with a pendant, a blue tetrahedron that had an image of the galaxy viewed from above in rotation within.
Across huge sections of the chamber, scaffolds and cables decorated the walls in a display of organized chaos. There were bright balls of light where the builders carried out their construction, fastening giant sheets of metal into place. It was a massive undertaking, but the station’s final touches were being put in place. Its major functions were all operational and there were to be other G.S.Os built in strategic locations once held by the resistance forces. But for now, there was only one G.S.O nearing completion, serving as one of the leading headquarters for the Harmony in tandem with the other stations and strongholds from the past era.
Elsewhere, separated by several levels of thick metal bands and arches deep in the heart of the Harmony station, was a ship bay. While one of many, this particular starship hangar boasted a most peculiar development. Other ships were locked in their respective parking areas, held by locking clamps while gigantic mechanized arms tended to repairs and upgrades. This singular vessel was enclosed in what was a cage, for lack of a better term. Against the far wall of the ship bay, the strange craft was held vertically by platforms and clamps while numerous technicians stood on different levels of its height. In their hands were small holographic displays that they glanced to frequently, skimming the data on the pages of white lights.
This continued for several moments before one by one, the technicians pressed the sides of their helmets with a finger and voiced their affirmations, confirmations and permissions in standard procedure. They hastily vacated the platforms, descending down elevators that were on either side of the cage.
Numerous warning lights went off, some orange and spinning, others red and blinking. All of them told anyone nearby to leave the testing zone, and they complied swiftly. All across the bottom floor, workers scrambled to their positions, leaving a clear path from the storage cage.
“If it works this time, I want a drink,” said someone with a warbling quality to their voice inside the unusual spacecraft. He pressed a few buttons with one of the claws at the end of his mechanized limb.
“And if it’s another failure?” a feminine voice replied with a somewhat amused inflection. She shared the same oddity as the male.
“Then I still want a drink… or several. Will help with the work.”
“That habit of yours will kill you one day, you know.” There was a chuckle at the other end of the comm-link.
“Bah.” The rapid tapping of buttons on a few of the many consoles filled the small pilot quarters. “If it posed any threat to me, it’d have killed me ages ago. Besides, almost everything has been replaced with machinery. The only thing I can still do normally is drink.”
There was an electronic whine over the transmission, first a low growling which quickly shot up in pitch before abruptly cutting out, and then came the humming that emanated from all around the cockpit.
“Sounds like the activation test is just about to get under way,” the feminine voice said.
“It may not be too late to get me my booze before I have to set off, Uolix.”
“I’m sure things will go fine with your not-so-little toy, Tsubar.”
“Yeah, but I still want my drink, damn it. I mean I can’t get drunk so why the hell not-”
The previously drab and plain walls became vibrant with a prismatic display, shapes forming and distorting as if the Shu’badi was trapped inside a kaleidoscope. In seconds, the rainbow screen faded to a proper view of the ship bay, as if Tsubar were looking out of a normal view screen. The only difference was that he was had complete range of sight, from up and down to left and right without any obstruction.
“Good luck, Tsubar,” Uolix said, her tone now serious, perhaps even worriedly so.
Tsubar grunted and closed the comm-link. He typed in one more command on his terminals and four ports opened up with quick clicks and ratcheting. Inside the ports were the hardpoints where his Arcane-Manipulators were going to connect. He pulled the claws in so that their tips touched and then inserted the ends of his limbs into the port. There was a loud click when the connection was made, yellow rings around the ports lighting up.
With a whir, several displays appeared around the Shu’badi mechanic. The first of them were status reports which blinked out of existence just as quickly as they appeared. Others lingered for some time longer, and Tsubar sent them away by means of a simple thought.
“Pre-launch checks went off without a hitch… again,” Tsubar muttered. “Time for the hard part…”
An obnoxious sounding horn sounded off once when the cage disengaged. Slowly, the two halves of the storage structure moved apart and once they had locked in their new positions, there was a square shaft opened up beneath the experimental vessel. The clamps lowered the craft down into it, descending even further into the lower levels of the G.S.O.
***
A large panel on the exterior hull of the G.S.O popped up and slid across the surface. Strips of light lit up the interior of the shaft, blinking on and off at regular intervals every ten seconds or so. When the dark brown, black and red ship descended past them, the light they shined reflected off of its surface and glinted off of the golden view screen.
The ship was compact. The apparent cockpit was tucked at the “back” of the ship, or the top portion of it since it was held vertically before. There were four maneuver thrusters with their exhausts facing downwards instead of upwards, curiously enough. With their full range of rotation, it did not exactly matter which direction they started out facing as they could each be adjusted individually, but it did not explain the one thruster at the “nose” of the ship. A retro-thruster system for abrupt braking and deorbit maneuvers? Wouldn’t the four maneuver thrusters have been enough for such a purpose?
On either side were large mounted railgun cannons that were a fair fraction of the size of the entire vessel. Such weapons were powerful, sure, but slow to charge and ineffective against small, speedy enemies. Surely those were not the full extent of this ship’s offensive capability!
“Tzorvar Prime locks… are disengaging…” Tsubar murmured. Several puffs of vapor were expelled from the strange machine simultaneously. The cockpit rose up from the hull and swung upwards, revealing that the ship was no ship at all!
It was a gigantic robot being piloted by a single Shu’badi! The “head” of the mechanized unit was fixed to a segmented neck with red spines running down its length. The maneuver thrusters were held by segmented tendrils around the unit’s “chest”. The indentation where the cockpit was locked to morphed with rearranging parts. What had appeared when the process was complete was some kind of energy weapon, glowing with scarlet light.
Four red panels near the bottom of the unit disengaged from the hull and flipped upwards. Sliding out from the exposed compartments were four mechanized tendrils uncannily similar to the pilot’s own Arcane-Manipulators. Each tendril sported four red claws and the center of the graspers also gave off a red glow, telling of the wide range of applications they had with magical energy. They dangled with a captivating grace in the vacuum of space, floating amidst the clouds of red gas of the nebula the G.S.O was located in.
There was cheering over Tsubar’s communication devices. He lay back in the padded seat, allowing himself a moment of smug appreciation of his efforts. It was not easy decoding the secrets of Hoof-Talon technology. Automated drones were a fairly basic thing to do with such incredible potential… but making a pilotable mech using the principles of what allowed the hybrids to make spacefaring cyborg weapons platforms? That… that was far more impressive.
The charged clouds made it incredibly difficult for the Harmony’s latest asset to be located by those who may be looking for it with less than ideal intent, made it hard for their transmissions to be heard by those whose listening equipment constantly scoured space for their signatures and secrets.
For the Harmony was a force for peace that needed to stay on guard at all times; for the war for peace was a constant struggle, even when those who they protected resented them. The galaxy would be ready this time.