Starbound: A Space Odyssey

"I heard you went to Hermes...was that really necessary?" Esther suddenly asked, "You personally led the invasion and simply slaughtered the people of Hermes."

"They armed themselves." Nicole said with an emotionless voice, "They were an insurgency that didn't hesitate to kill the envoy I sent to negotiate. With that type of people, is easier and safer to just kill them all."

Esther sighed, "Is this the path you choose to yourself? Is this the path you are planning to lead humanity down to?"

"I'm going to bring humanity to its former glory. We won't be puppets for Letheia Corporation anymore. And neither will we sell ourselves to those heartless Apex. Evil must be extinguished and taken down from its roots."

"And you plan to accomplish that by killing everyone that disagrees with you? If that's not evil for you, I don't think we have the same definition of the word."

"Who said I would just kill everyone that disagrees with me? Remember what I said? I tried to reason with them, I sent an envoy, but they rejected negotiations and even killed my envoy. Such violent actions must have responses at the height. Also, I used Hermes as a precedent, an example for the others. That's why I might have gone I little to overboard."

"A little overboard...?" Esther frowned at what Nicole said. Esther remember the images she got about the operation on Hermes. It was a massacre, of course Nicole blocked information from being spread out, and only allowed just a little to leave. "Aren't you afraid to be trialed by the Intergalactic Supreme Court? You committed some war crimes there. Don't try lie to me, I have seen some videos that sent directed to me and not published in the SkyNet and filtered by the UEG."

"Humph!" At the mention of the Supreme Court, Nicole snorted and showed her contempt clearly in her face, "Without the Terrene Protectorate to their bidding, they are nothing more than a toothless tiger."

The Intergalactic Supreme Court is basically the courthouse that deals with criminals catched by the Terrene Protectorate. (Continue explaining)

"What about your people? If you continue down this authoritarian path, they will certainly dislike it and try to remove you from office."

"I was democratically elected by them because of my strength and iron fist. They wanted someone strong and patriotic to lead them in this moment of crisis. I don't think they change their mind this fast."

"Just like the dictators of human history..." Esther muttered to herself as she worried about the future of humankind that was in the hands of people like Nicole Gonçalves and Asra Nox.

"Are you here just to question my actions and politics? If so, the exit is just behind you, feel free to leave. I don't think I did wrong and anything you say won't change my mind."

"No..." Esther decided to leave the matter of Hermes for later and spoke about her intentions, "I'm here to speak about our schedule for the Unity Day's reunion with the biggest companies, organizations and governments of the universe."

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"What? Did something change?"

"No, I just want to be sure if everything is going to be ready when the time comes. The meeting is going to be very important as what we are going to discuss is the fate of the universe. You have been very...busy...dealing with the insurgencies and all, I thought you might have forgotten about our deal."

"Of course not, after all, this is about humanity's survival above everything else."

"Everyone's survival."

"I'm more worried about my people. I don't really care about everyone else. As long as Humans are fine, I don't care about what the other races do."

Esther could only sigh at Nicole's comment.

"What about your junior?" Nicole suddenly said, "The one that you met. John Connor was his name...I suppose. One of the few Junior Protectors that survived the attack on Earth."

"He's doing some errands to me." Esther spoke with a faint smile as she remembered of the young man.

"Errands?" Nicole's eyebrow lifted, "Do mean...collecting the Ancient Artefacts that you told me?"

"Yes, as far as I know, he had located the Floran Artefact and was in the process of getting it."

"That was fast." Nicole was surprised, "I'm spending a lot of resources and people to help you find those things, but we simply found nothing. We only have a single clue about the Hylotl Artefact. From the texts we found, the Artefact is located in a place called Grand Pagoda Library."

"That's good. At least we have located three of them."

"Three?"

"Yes, I found out the where the Avian Artifact is. From a few book and information I gathered when speaking with some Avians, I discovered that the Artifact is at the Great Sovereign Temple."

"Well then, why didn't you said it earlier? Let's send some people to get it for us-"

"Not possible." Esther face showed a crestfallen Express, "The Great Sovereign Temple is a very important religious temple for the Avian believers. On top of all this, the temple is located in Avos, the capital of the Holy Kluex Theocracy. If we try to barge our way in, if could lead to war. Something I'm pretty sure you want avoid before stabilizing the situation around here, right?"

"Yes...we can't afford to enter in large scale conflict with those radical Avians since we are already in some kind of cold war with the Apex and Hylotl."

After knowing where the Artifact was located, Nicole's frown deepened.

Given the choice, she rather stay as far away as possible from those blind believers of that bloody and merciless Avian religion, the Holy Kluex.

The Avians of the Holy Kluex Theocracy are extremely reclusive and dislike having interactions with non-Avians.

They are so reclusive that to stay very far away from Letheia's sphere of influence, they developed their own mining technique and technology that used some materials that could only be found in Avos, the crystal known as Avolite.

Avolite is simply a rare crystal that could be used as energy source just like Core Fragments, but they were a lot more powerful, almost as 20 times, compared with Core Fragments.

Their amount of energy was almost as close to that contained in Crystal Erchius.

Using the Avolite, the Avians created their own weaponry that was the strongest in the universe. Of course, the Avians use these weapons only for defense, and arming their fleets that won't leave the few planets that composed the Holy Kluex Theocracy.

The mysteries behind this crystal were many, and even the Hylotl, Miniknog and Human spy network couldn't get their hands of the secrets of how to mine and use the crystal.