A24 and his crew entered into the room containing the door to the connection halls. On each side of A24 stood 2 or more people, pointing their guns into the darkness which filled the room.
A24 squinted his eyes: "Any signs of life?"
"Nothing sir." One of them answered, "This room is abnormally clean. Lina seemed to have avoided this room completely up to this point."
"It has been over a year since we woke up in the citadel, that is not possible." A24 muttered, "How— Why would it do that?" He adjusted his gun, putting it closer to his eyes. His squinted gaze turned through the room, scanning for any movement not made by his crew.
It was quiet, too quiet for them to feel comfortable. This just had to be a trap.
The crew surrounded A24 and H49 and another crewmate, the three of them stood in front of a keypad, trying to enter the correct code to open the connection hall. A24's fingers were typing with record speed, every second in there could mean death.
H49 interrupted his typing: "If it has the same code as the top codes, type M0Erd3r. I know, it's stupid!"
A24 looked at him for a short moment, then typed in the code with haste.
Bing!
It was the correct code, the keypad glowed green for a second before turning off. The door opened slowly, in dramatic fashion, just like everything in this world. A24 peeked through the little slit while it was still opening.
He could not see anything in the darkness. He turned away from the gap as it widened and spoke: "I think it's emp—" He dropped to the ground after something hit the side of his head and his legs, "—ty."
Before he noticed what happened he was dragged out of the way by his crew and the rest started shooting into the darkness. "What the frick happened?" He cursed and stood up, "Why did you trip me?"
"Something struck at your head, sir!" He said, helping A24 up.
The door was now fully open and whatever was inside jumped out. It did not look like the Lina of their citadel, it did not possess any tentacles and was way smaller. But this one was faster, had claws and was shaped like a mix out of a horse and a dog.
"It seems like the others got a different kind of ugly creature." He said and jumped out of the way of the Lina which launched at him. He looked at H49 and got an idea: "H49! Into the entrance of the room, as far away as possible from the connection hall, but Stay. In. The. Room!"
H49 ripped himself out of the grip of the man holding him and ran towards the entrance. The hound-like Lina jumped towards him and H49 duck down, rolling back into the room towards A24 and his crew.
"You tried to kill me!" H49 screamed running back. All of them backed into the connection hall as tentacles extended from the door into the room attacking the hound.
"We didn't. Just used you as bait." Someone whispered, it was not clear who, due to the voices and being the same and the darkness.
"You guys are so fricking compassionate."
"We are the same person, H49. You would have done the exact same." A24 muttered, walking backwards with his back turned towards his crew, who looked down the hall.
They could only hear growls and screams coming from the hound.
"Shield!" A24 commanded. The same second a small grenade shot past him he turned around, his back to the entrance of the connection halls. The grenade did not explode, it extended and wrapped around the floor and walls and met at the ceiling. This circle, almost instantly, filled with a smile-like fluid. It was a purple laser shield, stronger than steel.
The connection halls were not very long, they quickly checked all four of them. 3 were still closed, but were scratched and damaged heavily. The fourth one, the second they checked, was open. It was not ripped open, just open, like, someone had opened it on purpose.
After resting a bit, the crew reloaded their guns and continued into the citadel which was open.
⟪⚪⟫
The giant bear-head looking citadel was flying through the vast emptiness towards a small star on the western edge of the universe. It was orbited by 5 planets. Some are made from ice, water or gases, others were made from stone and fire.
The citadel stopped just short of the star, ejecting building ships towards it. They, without a moment of hesitation, started building multiple plates(?) around the sun, pointing with solar panels and thermo-electric generators towards it.
The supreme king was standing on the bridge, looking at the star. "What a magnificent sight." Then he turned to one of the consoles to his right, "Why is no power coming through?"
"My liege, we have yet to connect the cables. We don't wish to use electricity the way Tesla did, it would kill all life between the star and the batteries." Someone replied.
"I do not care about other life, we are not going to die, so do it!" After screaming at the Geddos he turned his gaze back to the star. It was being reflected in his eyes, making for a beautiful sight to behold.
There were some noises behind him for a moment before the power started increasing, loading the ship with almost endless energy.
"There just came a building request for weapon and armor factories on the solid planets. Shall we permit it?"
"Permit all of them!" He chuckled, "More war potential!"
Covering half the console were papers, documents to be exact. Each had a different title, but all of them hinted towards the same goal. The supreme king planned to incorporate the star into his citadel and enlarge it to produce more war capable citadels.
Within minutes more, privately owned, building ships left the citadel and flew towards the only solid planet and the solid moons of the gas planet. While it would take weeks for the production facilities to start the production, they were far enough away and already strong enough to be a dangerous threat to the other citadels.
After only two weeks the first weapons were being produced. Giant space-ships carrying lasers and teleporter-ships. "Beautifull!" The supreme king said to himself silently.