Celestus let out a deep sigh as he collapsed into the pilot seat of his sunken starship and felt the chairs’ cushions actively moulding themselves to his body. He removed the Terran communication device that Banshee and X-Ray had given him from his neck and watched it power down to standby mode. They had told him to retain it so they could use it to contact each other if he (or they) needed assistance.
The idea of partnering up with them in future seemed interesting and fit with his personal image of chivalry. The female member of the team, the old woman who could change into some sort of avenging spectre at will, had even invited him to visit their secret facility. This appeared to be located beneath something else, as they referred to it as the ‘basement’ with a strong emphasis on the base part.
Unfortunately for his own investigations, the young Terran female in the hospital, Bethany, had refused to confide in him as to who and where she had got a protection seal of the Royal Family. There was no way he could honourably interrogate the girl further or take the seal from her.
He activated Oracle on his ships’ comconsole and asked it to retrospectively create a presence for him on the country’s Meta register under the Terran name of ‘Magnus Smith’ and license him as ‘Celestus’ on their law enforcement database. Oracle immediately accessed its contact with a home-birthed A.I. that referred to itself as ‘Frankie’. With her help, Celestus became HCP registered in the United Kingdom, as this small landmass was called locally, as well as with the European Community.
Next, he asked Oracle to cross reference Bethany Dalton’s known history with any links to the Ziru Sirka Empire including searching the local Embassy’s ImpSec data files and the Argushiigi Admegulasha Bilanidin or ‘Vilani Repository of All Knowledge’. This consisted of a database of over 15,000 worlds and over 500 sentient races within the Empire, despite being a humancentric domain ruled over by his people, the Vilani, and the Vilani were ruled absolutely by the Shadow Emperor, his father…
As Oracle electronically ‘sneaked’ into the Empire’s Terran Embassy to begin its search, Celestus thought back on his reason for being here on Terra.
He’d been exiled for interfering in a duel between one of his older brothers and his youngest, Prince Ishugi Naasirkaa on his ascension to adulthood (Prince Ishugi had been about twelve Terran solar revolutions or twelve local years old at the time). His intervention had resulted in his being sent into exile beyond the Imperial border where he had elected to investigate the core solar system of the Sphere.
The mystery of the Sphere had always fascinated him and knowing it had vanished suddenly a century before had always made him curious as to why it had existed in the first place. It had been present for thousands of years, surrounding space for 25 parsecs (a parsec is 3.24 light years) in all directions with the Sol System at its epicentre. This blocked ships from entering ‘sphere space’ by jump drive; the most common form of interstellar travel and caused ships to suffer severe misjumps and malfunctions if attempted. This may have been some sort of an Ancient artefact, apparently centred somewhere in this solar system. His people don’t know what it was, what it did, why it was there in the first place or even why it switched off.
This spherical energy barrier had remained active until the beginning of the 20th century of this planet’s primary calendar before vanishing completely.
Shortly after he was exiled the Empire was invaded by another species from Beyond, known as the Unity: a hive mind race capable of metamorphosing into the shape of other species.
While they’d been dealing with this attempted incursion, a rebellion broke out, led by a barbarian, known as the Star Khan who has conquered about a third of Imperial space in the last few years and as a result has cut off Earth from the Vilani Capital.
On his way to Terra, his ship had been attacked and badly damaged supposedly by pirates (he suspected they had been linked to the Star Khan but was unable to prove it) and he was forced to crash land.
His daydreaming was interrupted by a display on his comconsole. According to Oracle’s interaction with the Ziru Sirkan Embassy, the Star Khan had suspected that there had been one of his relations here on Terra before him, a nephew of the Shadow Emperor, so he sent warships here to demand that the Terrans hand him over to his representatives.
Prince Tamesha Naasirkaa had died due to a rare, read unique and seemingly highly infectious, Terran illness whilst on their warship and before they could react, the Terrans revealed that they had a fleet of stealth-enabled warships of their own, so the ship elected to leave orbit and head back home.
A year later the Star Khan believed that a pupil from the Ziru Sirka was attending the same school as Bethany and wanted his ‘roaming ambassador’ to meet with him.
He found a pupil, Gis Kagaar, whose father was here as part of the Ziru Sirkan Embassy researching ceramic applications. The ‘father’ really exists but he didn’t have a son or any family on Terra as far as the Embassy’s records were concerned.
He wished he could talk with the Ambassador, Archduke Viisarikaa and find out what was really going on and why they felt it necessary to support this deception.
Gis Kagaar was supposedly from the planet Khunsgulur in the Dagudashaag Sector of the Imperium; a race, Vilani-descended, who had white hair and red eyes.
Celestus had actually visited Khunsgulur. The planet was originally settled as a mining colony. The surface proved so inhospitable due to the extremely low temperatures that the colony was established deep underground. During the period known as the Long Night the planet was finally mined out, but the Khunsgulur no longer had the means to leave.
As technology wore out, the Khunsgular were forced to adapt physically. Their eyes gradually became more sensitive to light allowing them to see better in the dark. They adapted to living on the native animal and plant life that existed in the tunnels. Claustrophobia was completely bred out of them. They turned to the manufacture of ceramics to replace the metal they no longer had. When the planet was rediscovered during the Kuriishe Eraki trade expansion, the Khunsgular had evolved almost into a race apart. They had become experts in the manufacture of ceramics, and had physically altered as a race. They had become photophobic (unable to cope with bright lights), agoraphobic and had adapted so well to living off the native flora and fauna that they now needed certain unique enzymes found only in that particular food-chain to survive. The Khunsgular had become the major manufacturers of ceramics for the whole of Dagudashaag Sector of the Empire. Their major problem was their ever-increasing population. Since their enzyme dependence made it impossible for them to colonise other planets, they had enforced a strict population and euthanasia control and the death penalty for all crimes including the petty. As he travelled through the Sector he had visited the system to refuel but had been restricted to the surface Starport and was not allowed to enter the Khunsgulur cities on pain of death. Their Starport was mainly for trade and had never been upgraded.
If this Gis Kagaar had been a true native of Khunsgulur then his physical appearance would have made it unlikely that he was related to the Shadow Emperor or had access to the necklace. He had left the school shortly after the inspection (assuming he had existed in the first place) and there was no trace of his existence in the Embassy’s records since. He had disappeared completely, so who or what was he?
Celestus leaned back in his chair. There was a mystery here and he was determined to find out what was going on. Meanwhile he had better get back to repairing his damaged starship if he ever wanted to get off this planet.
— The beginning.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 