The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [96]
"One ship landed on Veruna Four, the primary colony. Veruna Four was rich, bountiful--a paradise for the K'shikkaa. Over time, the stories, which had been kept alive through a strong oral tradition, became regarded as myth, not factual history. The Verunans, content and nourished by the planet, moved out from the colony ship, forgetting from whence they had come.
"A second ship was sent to Akeras, which was not so hospitable, but which supported life. They, too, forgot their origins with the passage of time. And it is possible, though we cannot confirm this, that a third colony ship went through this portal."
A wormhole, a pulsing, shimmering corridor, appeared between the planet and the sun. "Nata, Riva, you may have cousins in a part of the universe you have never even heard of." Stepping back, Chakotay nodded his dark head, indicating that Janeway should continue.
"With their people safe," began the captain, "the K'shikkaa waited for the end. And it came."
The sun swelled further, pulsed, and then went nova with a powerful explosion that dazzled the eyes of the attentive assembly. Janeway didn't need to narrate; the drama played itself out. As the sun went nova, the force of the explosion slammed into the entrance of the wormhole. The corridor in space sucked in the explosion. It was a bizarre spectacle, and Janeway, her great passion for science stirring, wished that they could have witnessed this event and not just recreated it. She knew that it was probably unique. The universe would, in all likelihood, never see anything like this again.
Janeway began speaking again, suiting word to action.
"The wormhole engulfed the explosion and was distorted, expanded, by the force. It reached out to swallow part of the galaxy at its far end, and one of the things it devoured was an innocent planet."
She fell silent, watching as the holodeck enacted the scene.
This hapless planet would be called Blessing by the Akerians.
What happened, though, was no blessing to the inhabitants.
Janeway couldn't imagine this part of it; the terror as suddenly, with no warning at all, the populace of the planet was swallowed by a mutating wormhole and instantly obliterated.
"The far end of the wormhole collapsed. It became a pocket in space, with the planet the Akerians called Blessing enclosed within it. The centuries crawled by, and the concavity began to stabilize and finally began shrinking. Had this procedure been permitted to continue, Blessing would have been crushed by the immense gravitational torrent, and its remains ejected in a nebular cloud. The normal fabric of space would have been restored. But it was not permitted to continue."
Chakotay again began to speak. "The Akerians," he said, and another planet in another corner of the room came to life, "had developed early sublight-speed by this point. Because of the harsh nature of Akeras, it was vital that they expand their empire. They had begun to investigate this sector, and they discovered the concavity."
A ship launched from the miniature Akeras found its way to the concavity. It was far simpler and more primitive than the present Akerian vessels; much of their technology, she knew now, would come from what they discovered within the concavity.
"At some point, the Akerians took a courageous step. They ventured into the concavity, unaware of what might lie inside.
That bravery was rewarded. They discovered the ruins of that long-dead civilization inside and called it Blessing. And so it was. The Akerians learned from that lost civilization, developed new technologies such as the gravity wave and faster-than-light travel.
Blessing became the heart of their empire."
Chakotay's voice grew harder as he continued.
"But they also discovered the Verunans--gentle, peaceful, physically strong, but their weapons long since disregarded.
Blessing made the Akerians arrogant. They had a long history of taking what they wished, and so they took the Verunans."
Garai had