[It's great that you know what it is, but what can we even do with it if it absorbs everything that we send its way? We can't move it. We can't really do anything with it.] Max responded.
The sphere was simply too large for them to do anything at all about.
The Illithid advisor was the next to speak. [The trick to a Dyson Sphere like this one, which absorbs energy from both sides, is not in the signal but the lack of it. You need to block ambient energy around it in a pattern to influence it. I can demonstrate if you like. Terminus has the capability.]
[Please do.] Max agreed, and a strange pulse was emitted from Terminus.
It seemed to be similar to a jamming wave, directly countering the energy frequencies in the area, and it continued for a few seconds, oscillating the energy that it let through in a language that Max couldn't understand.
Once it finished, there was a response in the same fashion emitted from the sphere. It only lasted a split second, and then everything went back to normal again, leaving everyone in confusion.
[The sphere says that we are not qualified to wake it from storage mode. I don't know what species made it, but it is quite old, I would say close to a million years now.] The Illithid informed them.
[A million years? That means that it was inserted into the planet for storage and that the planet didn't form around it.] Max pondered out loud.
[That is correct. I am detecting foreign elements in the debris, likely carried here by the sphere when it drilled into the planet to go into stasis.
But, since we can't wake it up, and it still has a program running, there isn't much we can do.] The Illithid sighed.
[Send it a message about current events. Maybe it will leave on its own now that the planet is gone. That would save us from trying to prevent the Klem from messing with it.] Max replied, hopefully.
His message was unnecessary, though, as the gravity around the sphere was increasing, pulling the remains of the planet back together into a cohesive ball. It seemed that the sphere was fond of its camouflage and intended to get it back in whatever condition it could.
That action gave Max an idea of why it was cooling the planet as well. It wanted the planet to be inhabited, and supporting life, to hide from whatever it didn't want to be detected by while it was in storage.
They hadn't known it was there until it took action to defend against their strike, so the trick had worked perfectly, and the sphere was still in the same orbit that it had been, to begin with. Now that the hybrid threat was gone, there wasn't any reason to be concerned about this planet within the Klem borders. It could be taken over by them again or left a barren rock, and wouldn't threaten humanity at all.
They might not be able to influence the sphere now, but in the future, they might find out more and learn the method to wake it from storage, bringing them an energy source that even the Alliance would be envious of.
The Illithid got right to sending the message, continuing for over a minute this time, but there was no response from the Dyson Sphere except a single pulse that the Illithid translated as "Received."
[Are we just leaving it here, Commander?] One of the Cutter pilots asked as Max ordered them to return to their hangars.
"Unless you know a secret way to make an object the size of a planet's core with the energy supply of a small star, come with us," Max replied with a laugh.
The human race had progressed down that technological path before, though nowhere near that far, and the few surviving examples were incredible feats of engineering that had taken dozens of generations to complete. It was too much to hope that they could simply take over this one the moment that they saw it.
[Sir, there are Klem pods incoming. ETA 23 hours.] Admiral Drake reported.
By that time, the planet would have been rebuilt by the sphere, and it had already shown its ability to control the temperature, so the Klem should arrive at a lifeless rock, not the recently colonized planet they were expecting.
[Let's get out of here. We will head toward Death Wind Territory and look for clues there about the recent political developments so that we can plan our next move.] Max decided, getting Terminus ready to embark on another mission.
Max took Cleansing Light back to the secure hanger, where he was sure that nobody could mess with it while he was away, and went to meet with Nico and the Illithid. Between the two of them, they would be able to help him plan the next stage in their efforts to begin unifying humanity.
Death Wind Territory was their target, and the alliance papers were already drawn. They just needed to come up with a plan that would convince the notoriously free-living mercenaries to join the alliance and agree to the terms.
The fact was that nobody really knew enough to be able to generate leverage over them. They had inhabited planets that nobody outside their territory knew much about. Not many knew the living conditions after centuries of embargos, and even fewer knew the threats that they were facing.
So, their first step would be to gather as much information and build as much trust as they could, based on the data that the reavers had collected about Mercenary Groups that they considered trustworthy, and then work to convince them to join in the alliance.
"Just a simple and easy task," as Dave liked to joke about everything Max had struggled with as a kid. The phrase was incredibly annoying, but somehow it always managed to motivate him.
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