“I don’t like this,” Jin stage whispered.
Neither did Kira.
“Did you ever find it unattended during your patrols?” Kira asked, taking in their surroundings.
The room, like the rest of the Citadel, was one of incomparable beauty. Cathedral ceilings arched overhead, paintings and carvings drawing the eye up. Elegant columns marched down either side of the massive space and in the middle, two stone steps led to a sunken section of the floor in the shape of an octagon, a pattern etched into it.
The shape of the octagon was mirrored overhead by gold lines that intersected and weaved into a dizzying pattern that looped in on itself like a kaleidoscope if one stared at it too long.
Like much of the Citadel, there was an overwhelming feeling of airy lightness, the stones in the columns and floors white and flawless. An impressive feat given the lack of windows.
At least now she knew if there’d been a battle, the evidence of it would be written all over this room. Blood would have stood out in stark relief against all the white.
Kira took all this in from her place next to the door. She was careful not to intrude deeper into the room until she’d assured herself they were really alone, and no invisible assailants waited behind those columns.
The room felt almost holy, the air still and somber, silent as if unnecessary noise feared intruding. A great well of power crouched beneath the surface, deep and vast and mind-bendingly ancient. Kira could see now why it was called the Nexus. It was the meeting point between the planet’s soul and the surface, reality stretching and bending until it felt like you could reach out and touch the intangible with little effort. She hadn't felt the Mea'Ave so vividly since her first encounter.
It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, and she got the feeling if she didn’t tread cautiously it would be the last thing she ever did.
"No, never," Jin said, answering her previous question. "There's always at least two guards posted inside the room and two outside."
Which meant someone with the authority would have had to recall the guards from their post. Something Kira found unlikely. The first general order any soldier learned was a variation of "I will guard everything within the limits of my post and only quit my post when properly relieved."
It was part of a set of rules sentries through the ages had abided by—long before humanity had spread through the stars, when it was a collection of countries at war with each other. The basic order’s wisdom had endured for good reason.
Kira couldn't see the Tuann being any different. You didn't abandon the military command center of your base for any reason short of death.
Either the guards on duty were part of the conspiracy or something tragic had happened to them.
Both instances would have resulted in enemy combatants taking control of the Nexus.
Instead, it lay empty. Stranger and stranger.
"Hello, anyone here?" Kira called. "The door was open."
"What are you doing?" Jin hissed.
"They wouldn't have just abandoned this place," Kira said distractedly as she moved further into the room.
"Instead you decide to announce our presence to whoever might be waiting to kill us?"
She shrugged. "No one answered. I think we're safe."
"Unbelievable," Jin muttered. "I'd like to say I'm surprised, but nothing you do surprises me anymore."
Kira ignored his grumbling as she moved deeper into the room, not bothering to step lightly as her footsteps echoed in the large space. There were no soft surfaces to muffle the noise of her passage. The acoustics were amazing. A choir singing from the sunken section would sound like they had the voices of angels as their music reverberated through the space.
She approached the octagon and walked a long circuit around it as she eyed the two steps leading to it.
If she remembered correctly, this spot was where Liara had been standing when she was looking at the starmaps.
How did it work?
Kira saw no evidence of controls, and no way to manipulate it. It was an octagon someone had sunk into the floor.
The presence of the Mea'Ave strengthened the closer to the octagon she got, the pressure from the planet squeezing Kira's mind under its immense weight.
"I don't suppose you caught a glimpse of how to work this thing in your snooping," Kira said, straightening from where she'd bent to take a look at the floor.
"I may have seen something of that nature," Jin said nonchalantly.
Kira's glare told him to get on with it.
He made another grumbling sound and then a hologram appeared in front of him. Liara stepped onto the floor and raised her hands, her mouth opening as she sang several low notes. The air around her shimmered before stars spun into view.
Jin's hologram faded.
"That's it? That's all you've got?"
"What else do you need?"
"I don't know—something useful."
"I can't do everything for you," he shot back. "You figured out how the Tsavitee ships worked. I have faith you can do this too."
Kira's snarl would have once made junior enlisted military members quail. Jin didn't flinch.
"You're a pain in the ass," she said.
"Then we're a matched pair."
Kira muttered about insolent scraps of junk as she studied the sunken floor.
She didn't step onto it. Not yet at least. There was a possibility of hidden traps designed to attack unauthorized users. If this had been a Tsavitee ship, she would have counted on it.
Acting rashly could trigger an alert of a breach to their system.
Kira rubbed her hands together as she considered her options. If she’d had the time and an attack wasn't imminent, she'd spend several days studying this setup, testing and probing to see its reactions.
Time was the one thing she didn't have.
She bit her lip as she considered stepping into the space and just seeing what happened.
A hard hand grabbed her arm and jerked her to a stop just as she had psyched herself up to take that final step.
Graydon's furious eyes glittered at her. "Mistake. The Mea'Ave would fry your mind as soon it realized you weren't the Overlord or her heir."
Kira looked from him to the octagon in dismay.
"Good advice," she finally said.
She let him pull her back several steps. She sighed in relief before trying to remove her arm from his grip. His hand tightened to the point of pain.
His harsh expression finally registered. There was none of the warmth or heated promise from earlier in the night. She couldn't see the resigned annoyance that had characterized their first exchanges.
Instead, she saw a glittering hardness, diamond-like, lacking any trace of emotion besides fury.
Something was wrong. She knew this look, had been on the receiving end before by those she trusted.
A tight ball formed in her stomach.
It was the type of stare you gave someone when you realized they weren't the person you thought they were, when you found out they'd betrayed you on such a fundamental level there was no hope of forgiveness.
Graydon's jaw clenched so hard she feared he might crack a tooth.
Her gaze went over his shoulder. "Where's Isla? Didn't she come with you?"
Graydon's frown deepened as he asked, "Now, why would she have come looking for me when she had orders to stand watch over your friends?"