I was in the middle of spell leveling when the notification appeared.

[The Sanctuaries have fallen. Fight for your life.]

[Killing the Kinetice grants AP.]

Grosstin’s compound was a flurry of activity as soon as the messages landed. Most of it wasn’t very purposeful, people asking their bosses, their boss’ bosses, and so on what the hell was going on. There was only one thing clear from everyone’s chatter: that first message’s meaning was that every single Safe Zone in Area 1 had vanished in an instant.

My comlink device that had been provided by Grosstin, a superior model to the one I’d bought when I first arrived in the Area, making it analogous to a work phone, went off. A small hologram of Bruzigan appeared. “The faction leaders have called an emergency meeting, and they’ve requested the presence of the Alliance team—all of them. Edwin should already have a vehicle waiting for you and Mewiabu just inside the Grosstin compound.”

“Acknowledged,” I said, and he hung up. Mewi met me on the way to the main gate. He looked pretty scared. I probably did too.

The vehicle waiting for us wasn’t a hover limo like last time. It was a full-on armored car. “Does Edwin think we’re likely to be attacked?”

The driver, to my chagrin, nodded. “The alliance team has a fair amount of celebrity, even though it’s still in training stages. It’s sneak attacks we’re worried about the most. With your strength, not many would try to kill you openly.

Still, it doesn’t look like much violence has broken out on Satslik, just a handful of isolated incidents. So this is really just a precaution.”

“Forgive me if I’m not quite assured, since it’s been barely five minutes.”

“Even so, things have gone to hell on most other worlds by now, from what I know. And that isn’t much.”

As it happened, we weren’t attacked on the way to the Hall of the Federal Council. A special session of the council was currently convening, senators or whatever the Federation equivalent of them was, were steadily arriving in similar armored vehicles.

A staff member recognized us when we entered. “Lheticus and Mewiabu, right? Meeting room 7, on the 3rd floor. You’ll need to use the check-in kiosk to get guest passes so you can use the elevator.” We nodded politely, went to collect the badges, which were printed out on the spot simply by the kiosk scanning us.

[Lheticus]

[Guest Access]

The lifts only admitted one person at a time, though there were quite a few of them. Mewi and I got into adjacent lift capsules. They opened automatically and took us both to the 3rd floor without our pressing a button. The door to the meeting room unlocked once we’d both scanned our passes as well.

Anna, who was disguised to change her appearance and hide her collar, and Bruzigan were already there. Ril’egh and Arvallei weren’t. I took the open seat next to Bruzigan. Edwin and Clatenis were also there, along with some leaders I recognized from that dinner at Dille’s, some I didn’t, and a roughly equal number of people in Federation military uniforms. They had barely paused when Mewi and I came in, except for the highest-ranking Federation man who briefly nodded at us. From what I could tell, they were discussing known troop dispositions, of both the military and the factions. Mostly they were discussing such things among themselves.

“The compounds of Ril’egh and Arvallei’s factions are further from the government district than Grosstin and Shumba, so it’s no surprise they’re not here yet,” Bruzigan told us quietly.

Indeed, in about 10 more minutes, Ril’egh arrived and Arvallei soon after. When they seated, the discussion they’d been having before stopped. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s move on to the main topic,” said the high-ranker chairing the meeting, “to reintroduce myself to the joint-faction Elite Special Operations Team, I am known as Varstithon. I have been appointed chief operational commander of the Federation forces by the Federation President for the duration of the crisis, which carries the temporary wartime rank of Marshal of the Federation. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the current situation, and outline both the plan for our initial response, and what the overall goal of this campaign must necessarily entail.

We have already covered some ground in regard to the current situation, so I’ll go over the broad strokes version before we move to other topics.”

A hologram appeared in the center of the meeting table. As far as I could tell, it was a star map of the entire Area, a ring-shaped collection of hundreds of thousands of stars. “At roughly 0932 hours, Federation Standard Time this morning, the effects of every single safe zone were completely and indefinitely nullified. Some months ago, we received intelligence from a certain anonymous source that today was the day that our enemies were planning to enact their first strike...but the scope of that strike went far beyond what we expected was even possible.

With the exception of key worlds like Satslik, and other worlds that for one reason or another carry a significant Federation military presence in peacetime, the Kinetice have swarmed the entire Area. At this very moment, one third of Area 1’s planets are already under invasion, and we either know or suspect that most others have invaders on the way.”

The map, which had been slowly revolving, froze. “What I am about to discuss is classified by the Federation at the absolute highest levels,” said Varstithon, “it involves quite probably the greatest, most dangerous secret that Area 1 possesses. The secret of the Sanctuaries.

If any of you, and I mean any, even those in this room who control the most preeminent pro-Federation factions in Area 1, breathes a single word of what I am about to reveal to anyone not inside this room at this very moment, you will be considered an enemy of the Federation. If any of you take what the Federation judges to be the slightest step toward exploiting this information for the gain of yourselves or your faction, you will be considered an enemy of the Federation. Is that understood?”

Everyone assented. I didn’t know what he was going to say next, but it was more than conjecture that whatever it was was going to be next-level crazy.

Varstithon gestured to the map. “This is Area 1 in its entirety.” He manipulated a pocket pad, and a substantial number of dots on the map, which had been displayed in white, turned purple. “These are all the worlds in Area 1 that do not possess Dimensional Gates, and thus can only be reached by ship. As far as any Federation citizen knows, the only worlds with this distinction are Kinetice hive-worlds. However, there are a small handful of worlds that are not shown on any public chart of Area 1. Planets that, under almost all circumstances, only the President of the Federation and the Grand Chairman of the Federation Council are permitted to know that they even exist.”

One by one, ten of the purple dots of light at the very edge of the map changed color to gold, all of them an extreme, yet roughly equal, distance from each other, forming a sort of circle. “These are the worlds that contain the Sanctuaries. There are ten Sanctuaries in all, each of them governed by a different force.

Seven of these forces are the seven elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, and Space. The remaining three are Mana, Energy, and Life. Each Sanctuary is powered by immense quantities of its element or force.

They are difficult to enter, even for the strongest challengers this Area has to offer. They are impossible to destroy outright—the Tower gives the structures themselves its absolute protection. However, if a compatible challenger is able to penetrate into the deepest chamber of a Sanctuary, they would be able to deplete its core and shut down the Sanctuary.

And if all ten Sanctuaries are deactivated...the Safe Zones in Area 1 disappear. There is no other possibility for what has happened. Now I’m certain you understand why this is, bar none, the Federation’s most closely guarded secret.

It is also possible to restore the Sanctuaries, by a similar method to shutting them down. Pure mana of the appropriate element, or no element at all, or Energy, or life force, must be poured into the Sanctuary Core in the deepest, most hard to reach chamber. Then, the Sanctuary will once again draw that same force from the planet on its own and reactivate. When all ten Sanctuaries are reactivated, the Safe Zones should reappear.

That is the primary objective of this campaign. The safe zones are the veins that carry the lifeblood of the Federation. Without them, the opposition faction may very well manage to destroy it entirely. Even if they fail, what will live on will be an entirely different beast to the peaceful Federation we have striven to be.

In this very room, we have no less than half a dozen individuals who may be able to penetrate a Sanctuary, given time. I am speaking of course, of the Extreme class Floor team formed by the joint faction Alliance.

Each one of you has been granted a liberation fleet of 20 ships, plus a flagship, by order of the Federation President. Each fleet is commanded by a Federation General, who will be in charge of tactical control, with the exception of General Bruzigan, who is qualified to command a fleet of that size. He will be breveted to Admiral, effective immediately, and given overall strategic control of the campaign, reporting directly to me.

We will be able to add more numbers to your fleets later, based on many different factors, but primarily availability of ships and your performance. In any case, the strategic control of the individual fleets will be left to the discretion of each of you, and you'll report to Bruzigan.

Bruzigan, the team leader and overall operation commander, will be in charge of the Life Sanctuary. Arvallei will handle the Wind Sanctuary. Anna will restore the Light Sanctuary. Ril’egh will restore the Energy Sanctuary, and Lheticus and Mewiabu, as you’ve no doubt guessed, will restore the Fire and Water Sanctuaries.

For operational security, each of you will only be informed of the location of your own Sanctuary. I urge you not to share those locations even with each other under any circumstances. Work has already begun to find candidates to restore the remaining four Sanctuaries. Of course, they will not be informed as to the nature of the mission until necessary.”