The Ark loomed like a bleak prophecy, painting a stark shadow across the emptiness of space. Since the fall of the Empire hundreds of generations past, Athla had been a dead world, corrupted by the insidious poisons of the Shadows that Danced and shattered in the fires of doom as what remained of the last defenders of the old ways fled, never to return. On that black day the line of the Emperor had ended for eternity, as the All-Father lay dead upon his throne, taken by the Colours of Midnight as yet another pawn in their campaign of slaughter and rage.
Yet hope is a quite a peculiar emotion, for it is the only thing stronger than fear.
The survivors of what came to be called the Sundering settled strange new worlds on the fringes of the galaxy. Over time, truth had become legend, and legend myth. The fall of the Empire had become nothing but a dark fairytale, the Colours strange and terrible monsters suitable for naught but scaring younglings into keeping their devotions. But not all had forgotten. Deep within the archives below the great city, whispers still spoke of reclaiming what was rightfully theirs. The power of the empire, the glory of the ancients, always just out of reach. Until today.
After twenty-seven years in transit, traveling at thousands of times the speed of light by means of the sheer power the massive fissile core of the Ark provided, they had reached the ancestral homeworld of the Sarthantai'd people, a muddy brown dot cast against the harsh light of the twin suns of Genesis, a fitting tomb for the heritage of an entire species.
This is what the Praetor saw, standing resplendent in the reddish-bronze ceremonial armor of his people. The choice of an Ilsintai native for command of such a prestigious mission had been controversial, to be sure, but one did not rise to such rank in the Republican Navy without good reason, and Tel was the finest navigator the fleet had to offer. Yet even still the post weighed heavily upon his shoulders, for he and he alone had been trusted with the true purpose of the expedition. The Council had pacified the people with promises of a new era of expansion, a grand vision of a Republic to span the stars. But, on the eve of his departure, the Prime Legate had come to him. Such a visit was not out of character, perhaps to wish well deserved luck or offer hard-earned advice. But this was different. The Legate seemed disturbed, worried almost, and insisted they leave the estate Tel maintained within the capital, as was required of all officers ranking higher than a Pleios.
After a brief journey in an unmarked speeder, driven by one of the Legate's personal guard, Tel had been quite nervous as to his fate, mulling over the past few weeks for any action that might have been perceived as heretical or unorthodox, and, noticing his distress, his erstwhile host had assured him that was not the purpose of their meeting. Breathing slightly easier as the whispered tales of fallen soldiers being laid to waste by the worst of the Echkos left his thoughts, the Praetor yet wondered why he had been granted the honor of meeting the Prime Legate in person, and in such a manner as this.
Once they arrived, his questions were only multiplied. The Archives were a great center of learning, and other things as well, and as he was lead deeper below he began to consider that all was not as it seemed. As they went further underground, the walls shifted from the smoothed and carved stone of the upper levels to rough hewn rock and then a strange metallic substance, almost as if he walked the halls of a massive ship. Finally, the Legate began to speak once again. At the root of every story, it seems, there is a grain of truth, and the old tale of the Empire and the Shadows was no different. The Empire, and its legacy, were quite real, and if the few artifacts they had managed to uncover beneath the ruins of Old Katafyon, the true purpose of the Archives, were any indication, had possessed almost unimaginable power. Some weeks past, they had uncovered the navigation computer of the old colony ship which the city's foundations rested upon, possessing only a single set of coordinates: Athla, the ancestral homeworld of the Sarthantai'd, and the land of their ancient legends, the capital of the old order. If this world, and the works the Imperials had left behind, could be recovered, they might take up their ancestral mantle and forge a second Empire to span the galaxy and perhaps beyond.
One did not refuse the Legate, and dutifully Tel accepted his task, returning to his home and sinking into an uneasy sleep. That was twenty-seven years ago, to the day. Now, as he gazed upon the world itself, the graveyard of untold billions, he wondered.
What had they left behind?
