Awakening of the Shadows [COMPLETE]

Enclave

Once, Outpost Karhhiya had been the center of my operations. Harboring all of my ships, hidden better than any other outpost, and with enough defenses to repel an attack by a Trianguli destroyer.

Now, staring into the pitch-black hallway that lead inside, I couldn't believe how badly it was damaged. The door lay a few feet from me, propped up against the carved stone walls, its once-beautifully etched surface now scorched unbelievably badly, like someone had blasted it with lightning or torched it with flames. The torches that lit most of the interior were nowhere in sight, save for the two that had once hung next to the interior of the door - instead of being simply gone, the torches lay, still burning if only barely, their once-blazing tips now slowly burning down to embers. The grass that surrounded them smoldered against their weakly-pulsing heat.

I sighed.

"Antares, we're kind of on a time limit, so please hurry up," Arcturus's voice in my ear jarred me out of my inaction. The first thing I needed was a light, to find my way inside of the building. True, Trianguli have excellent night vision, since Scipio is a perpetually-twilight planet, but Karhhiya had absolutely no light, save for a few trickles seeping in through the forest canopy. I extended my hand and gently tugged on the Ether, allowing a small amount of it to take shape in the Material Plane. A small, bright blue orb of light flared into the world above my hand in response. Sending it into the hallway, I started following closely behind.

"Antares, this telelink frequency isn't able to penetrate the temple," Arcturus's voice came to me, crackling with static. "You'll be on your own." That wasn't ideal, but my outposts were built to block transmissions, so I guess it was my own fault.

I didn't have many advantages here. I knew the layout of the base extremely well, but my list of advantages stopped there. The list of advantages that my enemies (The ones Nebula identified back on the Supernova) had was far longer. For example, they could ambush me at any time, as well as, if they were smart enough to have captured them, use my friends that worked at this base as leverage against me. For a rebellion leader, one could definitely call me far too loyal to my friends.

I stepped into an intersection, three tunnels branching off south, east, and west. I knew the Archive room was down the west hall, so, without even considering the other two halls, I turned right and started walking. The entire reason I had wanted to enter Karhhiya was to know exactly how bad the damage to my rebellion was. Karhhiya had some of our most important information, and if the enemy had taken it, or worse, uploaded it to Saladin, I was finished. I might as well stab my own eyes out.

After a few moments, I stopped at the door I knew lead into the Archive, and to my great annoyance, the door had been blasted aside in much the same manner as the entrance to the outpost.

I took a tentative step into the room, commanding my light spell to grow larger and brighter. The sphere swelled to the size of a clenched fist, casting the room in a somewhat eerie blue glow.

"Hello?" I tried. "Is there anyone there?" A flash of movement in the leftmost corner of the room caught my eye. I quickly called my iron fan out of Slipspace and noiselessly unfolded it, wanting to be ready for combat if I needed to be.

"Antares?" A soft, feminine voice called from the shadows. A voice I recognized. Hope and relief flooded through me.

From the shadows stepped a female, clearly Trianguli figure. Her green eyes lit up the dark like a flame, despite producing no glow of their own, and her skin was a suntouched amber color, a rarity for our species, even rarer than my blue. Covering the upper half of her torso, arms, and legs was a (rather badass) midnight-blue armor (I couldn't' see very well, but I thought it was Luminite Leather) built to allow as much agility as possible without leaving the wearer with low protection. Lastly, falling down her back and shoulders was softly-shaded auburn hair (Which was, in fact, also a rarity for Trianguli).