New Day's Dawn

Soal fills my mind and body with wonderment. I follow the others mostly on automatic. I don't really notice what is really going on around me until we reach the large chamber.
 
There are the missing power cells, and it appears that they are the larger ones.
 
Tahbor finally admits that it was his plan to 'steal' all the larger power cells and return the energy to Soal.
 
The large power cells contained 'Dark Knowledge' and that is what Tahbor wanted returned to Soal. He said that it should give us another rotation around Soal before the star explodes.
 
This is a lot to take in. Stellar Sentinel, an Avril, flies above the wall and places his hand in the energy stream from the power cells.
 
Soal calls out to me, and I lift from the floor and stretch my hand out to an energy beam.
 
Knowledge courses through my mind, like it did when the Thram touched me in Sector Seven.
 
Death and rebirth, over and over again. The Oqthcali are not the first to civilize the planet, just the last. The Thram were a great civilization before the Oqthcali. They were pushed out by the Avril.
 
Soal sears my body with the knowledge granted by the dark tombs.
 
It is notice that some of the energy is being deflected away from the center of Soal as Tahbor said it was going to be.
 
Lies upon lies, stories upon stories, Tahbor is full of them. I ask Soal to bless him so that he will be truthful with us.
 
A waste of a blessing, it just made him more deceitful. I pick him up, and threaten to give him the knowledge of Soal, full force. Chronos lifts one of the crates, and we can clearly see that some of the energy is being syphoned away from the center of Soal.
 
Tahbor finally tells us at least part of the truth.
 
We follow the tunnel under the power cell and can see energy coursing down the walls. We follow it to a large chamber that contains several pods.
 
Chronos and Stellar Sentinel see that the pods contain leaders of Oqthcal, and most of them are Kazar. This is not right.
 
Chronos removes a couple of pods from their cradles and rip them open. Two leaders of the clans plop out on to the ground.
 
A new siren sounds, one of much more concern. Tahbor tells us that it is the alarm calling for evacuation of Soal, as its explosion is due soon.
 
We grab the drugged leaders and Tahbor then begin running for the ship that the others saw when we arrived on Soal. Our path takes us through the control room.
 
12 hours is all that is left of the life of Soal. Bringer of Life and Death, and now is the hour of our death. Chronos stays a few moments in the control room as the rest of us make our way to the ship.
 
I run up to the cockpit and begin as rapid a preflight as possible. Just as I am finishing, Chronos arrives and says that the leaders' pods were transported to a point in the asteroid belt of our system.
 
Seems as good a place as any. I set course and launch the ship.
 
I hope that my planet survives the oncoming explosion of Soal. There is no time to mourn at this time. Soal, bringer of life and death, please make their end quick.
 
Now, for more answers...