The Tacitan Legacy

By R.E Weber

An ancient secret. A deadly assassin. A race against time...

When a series of prominent planetary leaders are found dead with the energy mysteriously ripped from their bodies, the Affinity must face the terrifying possibility that an enemy has taken control of the lethal technology left behind by an extinct, all-powerful alien race known as the Tacitan. Forced to respond to the unprecedented threat, the Star Agency initiates the rarely-used Dynax Protocol – the re-assignment of the Affinity’s top specialists to the hastily-assembled Dynax fleets, ready for dispatch to every corner of the Affinity.

Enduring months of hardship in the isolation in deep space, Theo Logan, his human friends and the crews of the Dynax fleets are pushed to their mental and physical limits not only by their enemies but also their ruthless commanders, who will stop at nothing to protect their way of life. Engaging in a deadly interstellar arms race, the fleets must risk everything to capture those wielding the terrible weapon, no matter the cost to themselves.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Julie Kingsley is forced to confront the staggering truth surrounding the fate of her lost friend, Theo, and her place in a Universe she can barely imagine.

The Tacitan Legacy is the third adventure in the Star Agency Chronicles - an exciting, young adult science fiction adventure series, suitable for ages 11 and upwards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.E Weber
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463162163

R.E Weber

R.E.Weber began his fiction writing career in January 2013 by publishing THE STAR AGENCY - an Interstellar Secret Agent adventure, aimed at readers aged 9 and upwards. The second book in the series THE VOYAGES OF THE SEVEN has now been released and will be followed by further books in the coming years.When not reading or writing, he is often to be found indulging in his other passions, which include running, astronomy and cinema going.A Yorkshireman, born and bred, he now lives in Bedfordshire, UK with his wife & cat.

Book preview

Prologue

It wasn’t remotely an exaggeration to suggest that eleven-year-old Lara Stefandóttir hated school. She had taken an intense dislike not only to the teachers, who she considered ill-informed in the extreme, but also the rest of the pupils in her classes, who only seemed interested in playing childish games and making her life more difficult than it had any right to be. Despite her young age, she knew that her grasp of science and mathematics was at least equal to if not better than the teachers who were being paid to teach it, which was a source of continual irritation to her. She could not see any point in going to school merely to be held back by her inept teachers and fellow pupils.

Her latest wave of difficulties had begun in earnest about eighteen months earlier when, in response to the typical ‘any questions?’ that came at the end of the explanation of a particular subject, she had casually asked her mathematics teacher why the pace of learning was so slow, even though the rest of her class were struggling to keep up. That single comment had angered not only her teacher but the rest of her class as well, and from that point forward, there had been no turning back. Lara had meant no insult by what she had said – indeed, to her, it was just a statement of fact. But to her teachers, it had been taken as a sign of impertinence and a direct challenge to their authority.

Following Lara’s comments, discussions had taken place in the staff room, revealing that there had been multiple similar incidents in other classes, most of which hadn’t been reported at the time and dismissed as childish disobedience. However, all the incidents, when taken together, had been an indication of a worrying change in her behaviour. Where once she had been quiet and hardworking, she was now becoming arrogant, argumentative and aggressive.

Following the change in her behaviour, her mother had been approached and asked whether everything was OK at home to which the response had been that she was beginning to try her patience as well. At an early age, Lara had seemed friendly, charming and sweet, albeit a little cheeky at times – a behaviour that had been put down to youthful exuberance. But at the age of eleven, the dour, rebellious young woman that she had become couldn’t be further removed from the sweet, innocent little girl who had so charmed everybody in her younger years.

The head teacher’s initial approach to dealing with Lara had been to follow the standard punishment of either detention or the withholding of privileges, but that had proven to have the opposite effect, making her more aggressive and even less well behaved. Sometimes she had refused to turn up to her detentions while on other occasions she had taken to tantrums, which in one instance had resulted in her smashing up a desk and chairs. No punishment had worked and had only served to anger Lara even more.

Her worsening behaviour had finally reached a head three days earlier when, in response to her biology teacher deciding that the normal routine of classroom teaching was going to be changed in favour of a more hands-on approach outside, Lara had exploded in a fit of anger and bitten her teacher’s arm as she had tried to gently persuade Lara to leave the classroom with her. Immediately after the incident, Lara’s mother had been called and told to take Lara out of school while the head teacher discussed the next course of action with her fellow teachers.

Lara’s mother had arrived at school with a face like thunder after being forced to leave work early. After driving home in almost total silence, her mother had slammed the door and then proceeded to yell, scream and shout in a way that Lara had never seen before. As she’d watched her mother, whose face had turned crimson with anger, all she’d been able to focus on as a torrent of words and meaningless sentences saturated the air was the throbbing vein in her mother’s temple, which had been pulsing so violently that it looked like it might explode at any time. After about half an hour of screaming, yelling and foul language, her mother had then stormed off up to her bedroom not to be seen again that day, leaving Lara to prepare food for herself. Ever since her father had left a year earlier to live with his personal assistant from work, her mother’s moods had worsened, however, they had mostly been just tearful outbursts either in the privacy of her room or whenever she believed that Lara couldn’t see her. But this was the first time that such an explosion of anger had been directed at Lara.

Through force of habit, Lara had woken at 6:45 am that Monday morning in expectation of attending school as normal, despite the incident three days earlier. Her mood on Friday had been perfectly normal in her eyes until her routine had been forcefully changed, and when her teacher had invaded her space and taken hold of her arm to lead her outside, a flash of red anger had enveloped her, triggering an instinctive reaction to stop her teacher manhandling her. To Lara, her response to her teacher’s filthy, germ-ridden hands mauling her was completely acceptable and not at all an over-reaction. How dare her teacher touch her in such a manner without her permission? She’d felt perfectly justified in her response and could see no reason why she wouldn’t be able to attend school.

As Lara entered the kitchen, her mother was sat on a high stool, drinking a cup of hot black coffee. Her eyes were reddened and her face was pale, and she barely caught Lara’s eye, much less speak to her. Realising that her mother wasn’t about to make her breakfast, Lara opened the bread bin, pulled out a loaf of bread and proceeded to cut the crusts from two slices of bread, making them into perfect squares. She then toasted the two precisely trimmed slices, placed them in a neat stack on her plate and then made her way to the dining room table. As Lara ate her plain, unbuttered toast, she caught her mother watching her out of the corner of her eye with an expression she couldn’t place. Was she angry, upset or just tired? Lara wasn’t sure.

As soon as Lara finished her breakfast, she went up to her bedroom, picked up her bag and coat and then returned to the lounge to wait for her customary lift to school. Ten minutes later than usual, her mother entered the lounge in her thick woollen coat, her hair messy and unwashed. ‘Come on, Lara,’ she said quietly before heading for the door.

Wondering why her mother had not seemed interested in ensuring that she was on time for school, Lara followed her to the car in silence. As usual, Lara sat in the back seat, despite the front passenger seat being empty, and clipped her belt into place, positioning the strap in the most efficient position for restraining her body in the event of an accident. Her mother then started the engine, crunched the gear stick into first and jolted the car out onto the main road, screeching the tyres as she turned sharply at speed.

It became apparent to Lara that the usual course of events was not going to be adhered to that day when the car shot past the turning that led to her school gates. Instead, they continued to race down the main road, stopping only for traffic lights.

‘Why are we heading away from school?’ said Lara. In the mirror on the front windscreen, Lara caught her mother glance back at her before turning her attention back to the road.

‘We’re going somewhere different today, Lara,’ said her mother, forcing a smile.

‘Where?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘I do not enjoy surprises. We need to turn around and go back to school.’

‘You hate school, Lara.’

Lara stared at her mother, irritated that her routine had been changed once more.

‘We need to turn around and go back to school. I will be late if we do not turn around soon.’

‘We can’t go into school, Lara.’

‘Why not?’

‘Are you really so stu—’ snapped her mother, before stopping herself mid-sentence. She cleared her throat before speaking again, her voice now quieter and calmer.

‘I mean, well, we can’t, Lara. We’ve got something else to do today.’

‘What?’

‘As I said, it’s a surprise.’

Instead of answering, Lara just snarled under her breath before taking her MP3 player out of her bag and clipping the headphones over her ears. While she listened to an old pop album that had been popular long before she had been born, her mother drove in silence for about an hour, heading away from the town and up to the Hallormsstadaskógur Woodlands – an area of Iceland that she had often taken Lara to as a child. As they passed the edge of the woodlands, she carried on driving for several more minutes before screeching to a halt in an isolated lay-by.

‘Come on, Lara,’ said her mother as she unclipped her seat belt, ‘let’s go for a walk.’

Lara unhooked her earphones and looked sternly at her mother. ‘Why are we here?’ she said angrily.

‘I told you, it’s a surprise.’

‘I will stay in the car.’

‘Come on, Lara, let’s go for a walk. You used to enjoy it up here when you were little, remember?’

Angrily, Lara threw her MP3 player across the back seat, got out of the car and followed her mother through the trees towards a clearing. They then stopped and her mother turned to face her, tears now visible in her eyes.

‘What is wrong, mother?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said her mother now beginning to sob. Then, with her hand over her mouth, she ran past Lara and back towards the car.

Confused, Lara followed her mother out of the clearing. As she exited onto the main road, there was a sudden squeal of tyres followed by a shower of gravel as the car skidded away from the lay-by, screeched through a hundred and eighty degree turn and then accelerated away in the direction they had come from.

Stunned at the sudden and unexpected departure, Lara watched as her mother’s car raced away, eventually disappearing out of sight around a distant corner. Then she looked around her before turning to look back along the empty road. Where could her mother possibly have gone in such a hurry? And why?

Suddenly feeling exposed at the roadside, Lara made her way back into the clearing and sat down on the soft bracken of the forest floor against a fallen log. Not knowing why they had stopped at the roadside, she had left her bag, sandwiches, MP3 player and mobile phone in the car, meaning she couldn’t phone her mother to find out what had happened or listen to her music, which was normally such a source of great comfort to her. Feeling a sudden chill, she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Then she put her head on her knees, squeezed her eyes shut and began to mumble the lyrics of her favourite song over and over to calm her escalating anxiety.

Lara remained in the clearing for several hours before finally deciding that her mother was not returning to collect her. The light of the shortened days of late autumn was now rapidly diminishing and an eerie orange glow had settled over the woodland – a glow heightened by the ash in the atmosphere caused by the island’s recent volcanic eruptions. With the chill of twilight now creeping into her bones, Lara rose from the cold, damp forest floor and set off in the direction of home at a good pace, ensuring that she was taking the most direct route despite the fact that she was straying further and further from the road. Lara’s memory and sense of direction was so good that she was able to form a mental map of her surroundings, which meant that she would have no trouble finding her way home however long it took – she estimated eleven point two hours at three point one miles per hour to cover the thirty-five miles, if she didn’t stop to rest. Such powerful visualisations were a particular gift of Lara’s.

For hours, Lara walked, focusing on her mental map to guide her home – she even envisaged a glowing point on the map marking her position, like a sat nav. Although the sun had long since set and its light had disappeared from the horizon, the woodland remained dimly illuminated by the distant, shimmering multi-coloured curtain of light from the spectacular Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights as they were often called, which had been particularly potent in recent days due to a powerful solar flare. As she reached a clearing, she stopped to rest, a little dizzy from her exertions. Fumbling in her pockets, she found a half-eaten packet of sweets, which she munched through quickly, suddenly realising how hungry she was. The sugar hit had an almost immediate effect, calming her shaking limbs.

Feeling better, Lara looked up, and through the tree canopy, the light from hundreds of stars could be clearly seen. It didn’t take her long to pick out the familiar constellation of the great bear, which she then used as a pointer to find the pole star – a star which she knew was almost exactly due north. Turning to face the star, she turned the mental map in her head a few degrees to align it with the star and ensure that she was orientated correctly for her walk home – the image in her mind so distinct, she could manipulate it as precisely as a computer display. Then she winced. Her normally instinctive sense of direction was about ten percent inaccurate, which wasn’t like her. Perhaps a lack of food and water had affected her more than she’d realised.

Happy that the dizziness had now fully subsided, Lara was just about to continue her walk home when a point of bright green light appeared through the tree canopy behind her, streaked across the sky and proceeded rapidly towards the distant horizon, suddenly pulsing incredibly brightly before disappearing from view. Seconds after the pulse of light had diminished, there was a muffled boom, which seemed to reverberate around the entire sky. Then the silence of the night returned.

Remaining perfectly still, Lara watched the light show once more in her mind’s eye, tracing the streak as it raced by overhead. She knew that the object she had seen had been a meteor or fireball, possibly even a meteorite if any of it had struck the ground. The bright pulse before the light had faded had been the object disintegrating explosively as the increasingly dense atmosphere stressed it beyond breaking point. Its green colour had come from its composition – the metallic element nickel. The night skies above Iceland were mostly very clear and Lara had taken great satisfaction in watching the regular meteor showers and auroral displays, taking it upon herself to become somewhat of an expert on both subjects. Lara never tired of looking up at the night sky.

With the virtual map still in her head, she superimposed the meteor’s path onto the map and followed it as far as she could. The object had entered the atmosphere from the west, crossed the sky and disappeared in the northeast. As the path of the meteor crossed the map, she followed the land beneath it and saw to her astonishment that it passed directly over her house. For a moment, she stared at the imaginary pulsing blob of her house and the streak of green as they intersected, her heart thumping hard. Lara had never been a person for what she called fanciful thinking, preferring to leave such behaviour to less mentally focused people. But as she stared at the image in her mind, a momentary thought that made no sense whatsoever struck her. The meteor had been showing her the way home.

Forcing the ludicrous conclusion to the back of her mind – a momentary lapse of logic no doubt induced by the cold and her lack of food – Lara began walking again, following the route she had marked on her virtual map. Thirteen hours later and frozen to the bone, she staggered through her bedroom door, flopped down onto her bed and cocooned herself inside her thick duvet. Within seconds, she had fallen into a deep, long sleep.

*

It had taken a number of days after her arrival home for the events surrounding her abandonment to become clear. Lara’s mother had suffered what was referred to as a period of mental illness resulting from severe depression and stress, which some referred to less scientifically as a mental breakdown. She had been found wandering aimlessly in the centre of town several hours after she had abandoned Lara, mumbling incoherently. She had then been taken to a psychiatric hospital for recovery where she had remained for a further two months.

Lara had been taken in by her grandparents on her father’s side, which had proven to be a good decision. Her grandmother had been a university lecturer in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she had remained after her retirement. She had then home-schooled Lara for a year, which had worked minor miracles for her academic achievements as well as her behaviour. She had once overheard her grandparents talking about how they had researched and identified her condition and devised a learning plan to allow her to realise her full potential, but she had never established what condition they had been talking about. Though Lara didn’t care for being thought of in terms of a condition, she did appreciate the fact that her grandparents had taken the time to ensure that she was learning more effectively than before. And nothing mattered to Lara more than being able to learn.

After her year of home-schooling, she had begun to attend a special school on the outskirts of the city, which had been a big improvement on her school in Iceland. Once her mother’s condition had improved, she had begun to visit Lara, even going as far as suggesting that she return to Iceland with her to live once more. However, after a discussion with her grandparents, she had reluctantly chosen to leave Lara in Scotland where she seemed to be flourishing. Contact with her mother became less frequent until one day it stopped altogether. But while a small part of Lara did miss her mother, she knew that her new life was a big improvement on her old one. Little did she know that her life would soon change once more in a way that she couldn’t possibly imagine. And in her new life, she would make a number of new friends, including one whose background was surprisingly similar to her own.

1 – Traitors

‘Report, Sub-Commander.’

‘Assessing, stand by.’

The commander fixed his subordinate officer with a cold stare.

‘I am not accustomed to waiting for intelligence. Expedite.’

The sub-commander rolled his eyes to manipulate his companion screen and then waited while the data feed flashed up. Then he turned back to his commander.

‘The vessel configuration matches nothing in our database.’

Commander Talten Rahul, a native Polisian, took a deep breath and snorted in disgust. Then he turned back to his second in command.

‘Speculate,’ he growled angrily.

‘The technology employed suggests that the vessel is Polisian in origin. Size is comparable to the escape vessels used on Titan class Affinity Navy cruisers. I believe that it may be such a vessel heavily modified to disguise its identity.’

‘The vessel has no transponder signal?’

‘None that we can detect.’

‘Assuming you are correct, are any such vessels unaccounted for?’

‘Vessel registration Omega, Alpha, Gamma seventy-three. Commander, the vessel is—’

The commander held up his hand to silence the officer. Every commander in the Affinity Navy knew the identity of the vessel. It was the escape vessel used by Nalhas Mah, the traitor. The commander’s mouth curled very slightly at one corner in satisfaction. If he could be the one to capture him, his promotion would be assured.

‘Has the vessel detected our approach?’

‘Its current trajectory suggests that it has not, however, we risk detection if we attempt a closer approach. Our stealth shields are—’

‘Prepare to launch Alpha attack squadron,’ interrupted the commander.

The sub-commander stood for a moment while he issued a pre-prepared set of instructions via his companion. Then he turned to his commanding officer.

‘Alpha squadron available at your command. Your orders?’

‘Incapacitate the vessel and retrieve crew, undamaged if possible. Launch when ready.’

The sub-commander turned back to the massive viewscreen on the deck of the newly launched gargantua class attack cruiser and flicked his eyes briefly from side to side. Then a low rumble reverberated through the floor and a stream of plasma trails lit up the viewscreen as the attack squadron shot out of their launch bays and accelerated rapidly towards their target.

‘Tactical!’ shrieked the commander, irritated that his second in command had not anticipated his needs.

Within moments, a massive three-dimensional schematic of the system burst into life on the bridge of the vessel.

‘Commander, the vessel has detected our approach and changed trajectory. Its destination is now the Salat Prime quantum portal. Estimated time to portal arrival, six point three seh’nu. Time to squadron interception, four point nine seh’nu.’

‘Prime subspace concussion missiles. The target is to be disabled only. No disintegrations,’ said the commander sternly, jabbing his long, bony finger at his officer.

For a short time, the command crew watched in silence as the squadron of attack fighters closed on their target. The small vessel had accelerated slightly, however, its energy levels appeared to be fluctuating. Its power cells were clearly unable to sustain the heavy demands being made upon it.

‘Launch concussion missiles.’

With a flick of the sub-commander’s eye, twenty points of light shot away from the attack fleet and began accelerating rapidly towards the small vessel, which now appeared to be leaking plasma from its spluttering engines.

As the concussion missiles approached the small ship, it banked sharply, ejected a cloud of decoys to confuse the missiles, and with a final burst of acceleration turned directly towards the quantum portal entrance on the icy planet of Salat. Two of the approaching missiles struck the decoys and exploded violently, sending shimmering subspace shockwaves in every direction. As the waves touched the vessel, it appeared to wobble slightly in its flightpath before continuing its suicidally fast dive towards the quantum portal entrance. Two more of the missiles closed in on the tiny vessel and detonated in close proximity on either side, engulfing it in undulating ripples of warped space-time. At that moment, the ship’s engines sputtered and died and then it exploded in a brilliant flash of light, showering fragments of white-hot metal onto the surface of the planet. Some of the fragments fell into the quantum portal tunnel and disappeared from sight.

From the deck of the giant attack cruiser, the commander stared in silence at the unfolding scene. Then he turned to his sub-commander and fixed him with his steely gaze. His eyes then rolled and a pulse of force shield energy shot from his outstretched hand and struck the sub-commander in his abdomen, knocking him clean off his feet and sending him sprawling to the floor. In stunned silence, the remainder of the command crew watched as the stricken officer clutched his stomach in agony.

‘You have failed me,’ growled the commander angrily.

Slowly, unsteadily, the sub-commander rose to his feet, lifted his head and stared defiantly at Talten Rahul. Despite his sudden and unexpected punishment, he was determined to remain at his station.

‘Choose your next course of action carefully, Sub-Commander, unless you wish to have your commission terminated… permanently.’

The sub-commander flicked his eyes briefly and a three-dimensional image of the quantum portal replaced the schematic.

‘Observe,’ croaked the sub-commander, still shaking with pain.

As the crew watched, the video footage of the ship’s explosion replayed at one-tenth normal speed and the viewpoint zoomed rapidly in on a tiny fragment of the exploding ship as it plunged into the quantum portal tunnel. The commander did not require an explanation. He knew that it was an escape pod.

‘Pursuit course, engage,’ said the commander, gesturing to the display.

Keen to save the sub-commander from further punishment, another member of the crew approached Talten Rahul.

‘Commander, location tracking through the quantum portal network is banned by the Affinity accord. We cannot pursue the—’

The commander turned his fierce stare on his weapon specialist, who immediately froze mid-sentence. Then he turned back to the centre of the bridge, rolled his eyes and watched as the display flickered briefly before showing an additional schematic, consisting of several points of light linked with a glowing blue line. The moving point of light at the front of the blue line marked the escape pod’s tracking signal. The commander clearly had little regard for the Affinity accord, despite his senior rank.

‘Follow the pursuit course indicated. Retrieve the escape pod and return it to me intact.’

‘Commander,’ said the weapon specialist, already shaking at the thought of defying her commander after his recent and brutal display of authority. ‘The destination point is in a prohibited system. Entry is by executive order only.’

The commander glared at his weapon specialist, his anger barely held in check. Then he turned and walked silently towards the exit of the command bridge and disappeared out of sight. The traitor had once more escaped justice.

*

As the escape pod struck the upper atmosphere of the planet, Nalhas Mah focussed on remaining calm as the juddering within the pod increased dramatically and the sudden, rapid deceleration compressed his body, pushing the breath from his lungs. Even though the explosion of his small vessel had been carefully timed so that the pod had been clear of the launch chute, the force of the blast combined with the subspace explosions from the missiles had effectively destroyed the pod’s shields and inertial suppressors. Now the pod was free-falling into the dense atmosphere of the planet with minimal control and no way to suppress the powerful g-forces of re-entry.

Under normal circumstances, the pod would easily have survived re-entry, even without its shields, but with its status telemetry no longer functional, Nalhas Mah had no way of knowing if the pod had been too badly damaged to remain intact all the way to the surface. But he had no choice in the matter. The small vessel that had been his lifeline since his defection from the Affinity had been so heavily damaged in the many battles that he had been engaged in that it was barely flight-worthy and would have never survived another attack. So, he had taken the decision to abandon the vessel and destroy it utterly so that no trace of his recent activities could be gleaned from its wreckage.

Under the command of almost anyone else, the vessel would have been destroyed long ago, but with his many years of experience and almost supernatural cunning, the commander had survived attack after attack and evaded the combined forces of the Affinity Navy throughout several star systems. But with his ship now destroyed, his last chance of survival was to crash-land on the non-Affinity world beneath him – a world that his pursuers were prohibited from approaching without the direct authorisation of the Affinity Council. It was his only hope.

Several minutes later, the pod had slowed enough for him to regain some degree of control of its direction. Looking beneath him, he could see that the planet was primarily a water world, which suited his needs perfectly since it was unlikely that the pod would slow enough for a soft landing. Carefully, he steered the pod away from a series of small islands and towards a clear, deep patch of water. With seconds until impact, Nalhas Mah diverted all available power into the pod’s reverse thrusters and initiated a hard breaking manoeuvre, which lasted just a few seconds. With no more thrust, the pod dropped like a stone towards the ocean below, and with a deafening bang, it struck the water hard, sending a torrent of spray mushrooming into the clear blue sky.

After a rapid descent into the ocean depths, the natural buoyancy of the pod overtook its downward motion and began to push it towards the ocean surface. Within minutes, the pod broke through the surface, tipped over onto its side and began bobbing up and down in the churning water, its power cells almost completely drained, save for low-level life support. Its occupant, however, had long since drifted into unconsciousness.

2 – Diamond Sunset

The Sotarian Supreme Leader, Palak, had always, whenever possible, made time to take in the view of the planet’s largest city, New Krollon, at sunset before finishing his duties for the day. The massive crystalline city was spectacular at any time of day, but at the setting of the system’s massive orange parent star, it became something else altogether – a shimmering sea of light, dazzling to look at but truly spectacular, drawing visitors from across the Affinity to gaze upon its magnificence.

Despite the demands of his position as planetary leader, Palak insisted on being on the balcony of his private quarters at the same time every evening to catch the view – unless duty took him away from his home city, which was becoming less frequent due to his advancing years. Due to Sotar’s stable orbit and inclination, sunset was more or less the same time every day throughout the year and that suited him just fine. Fondness for routine was a trait that the much-loved leader had become well known for.

New Krollon was one of many cities dotted across the planet housing the majority of its three and a half billion inhabitants, but its appearance was far from unique. Growing crystalline structures to order was a particular speciality of the Sotarians, forming the basis of most inhabited dwellings across the planet. Aside from its aesthetic beauty, such techniques were highly practical when it came to building structures that were more or less indestructible – the buildings were, after all, essentially made from diamond, which was one of the strongest known naturally-occurring substances in the Universe.

The diamonds themselves, although identical at a molecular level to their naturally occurring cousins, were artificial and grown by applying carefully targeted energy