The daytime half of the planet Droyla came into view of the Swordfish cockpit. Behind it, the more dimly-lit twin planet Durgoff could be seen. There were a large number of ships and orbital structures surrounding it and a high amount of smaller-craft traffic going in or out.

"I can't believe we're going this deep into reptilian space" Yuler groaned. "This had better be worth it."

"You haven't learned yet that this is the best ship there is for getting into places where you aren't welcome?" Baycorf quipped.

"This is a heavily-defended planet, not some backwater world" he answered.

"The Nal'Larak fleet actually looks kind of sparse" Baycorf remarked. "They must be mobilizing for another attack."

"Just don't draw attention to yourself" Kopbok said. Wait until we get into the upper atmosphere before heading toward the central continent." They passed into the atmosphere without any hassle. The biome of the central continent resembled a deciduous are but with some very large bushes and trees. Kopbok guided him through the terrain and it did not take them long to find the city.

The buildings of the ancient city were in various states of decay. Some of them were quite beautiful while others just had a few pieces of wall and columns remaining. In the northwest corner of the ruins about a quarter mile from where they landed was an apparently intact building under a canopy of some very large trees. It was a rectangular pyramid with stairs at the front and several perimeter walkways at different heights up the outside, sort of resembling large, rectangular slabs of different sizes being stacked on each other.

"That's it" Baycorf said. "That's the temple of the goddess."

"That's what you came here for?" Kopbok asked sounding disappointed.

"Follow me" Baycorf commanded, ignoring the comment. "I think you'll want to see this." The three of them walked up to the top of the steps to the top walkway where on the front wall there was a picture of beautiful elfess carrying a sword in her left hand and in the other hand held some sort of bird-like animal.

"I don't really know what you expect to find here" Kopbok said. "Supposedly there's some ancient legend that a chosen one could open this thing up and take the secret within."

"Yes" Baycorf said raising up his bionic arm and pointing the hand at the face of the picture of the goddess, "well it doesn't really take the chosen one, just the right frequency of coherent IR beam." Two small panels of the wall parted at the face, revealing a small compartment inside with a silver object in the shape of a flattened, disc-like ellipsoid.

"Amazing" Azari said. "This structure was built millennia ago from simple rock and that compartment works like it's new."

"It was built by grays to last" Baycorf said taking the object and examining it.

"So what is that thing?" Yuler asked staring for it.

"You let me worry about that!" yelled a voice from near them. Ascending the steps toward was a dark-green-colored reptilia. Behind him were 4 other armed lizards. Yuler reached to grab his gun before Baylor grabbed his arm to stop him. As he got closer, Kopbok noticed the clan medallion on the left side of his chest.

"Skeezik" Kopbok said as he got close enough.

"Singed Leaf, is it" he said looking at Kopbok. "I see you've made both hominid and gray friends" he said looking at Yuler and Baycorf.

"What do you want, Skeezik?" Kopbok asked him.

"I can tell by the strange smells of your elf and gray friend that they're armed down to the teeth. There's no need for us to have a shootout here. Hand over whatever that thing is, and I will forget that I found the three of you here" the lizard demanded in his deep and soft voice. The lizard was now standing a couple of steps from the top but was still able to match Baycorf and Azari in height.

"I can promise you that this thing won't be of much use to you" Baycorf admonished, "unless you have a computer than can read gray binary language" he said.

"I'll leave Gyrod's technologists in the Night Lizard to determine that" he said. "Are you really going let this gray steal an artifact from the sacred Monument of Gaia, Kopbok?" Nobody said anything.

"Don't go down this ridiculous path" Skeezik said. "We both know your clan lives at the mercy of Lord Turraski and if he wants that thing bad enough or doesn't want the grays to have it badly enough he'll bring pain onto your clan. I thought that the Singe Leaf insisted on neutrality and did not want to insert themselves involved in conflicts."

"The new elven princess has opened the rift to the hyperplane" Kopbok replied. There's no telling what they might be capable of if they have the capability to explore it, especially now that they've opened up the conduit to Gaia and apparently have Zardin." For a few seconds no one said anything and Kopbok walked a few steps toward Skeezik.

"Your clan is being called into service for an offensive campaign after most of the Dragon Claw's ships were destroyed, isn't it?" Kopbok asked. "We noticed the defenses of this planet are down a bit. Your clan have never relished fighting the way the Nal'Hirak do. Why would you follow Turraski to war?" The lizard grumbled.

"There will be no real war. Lord Turraski is about to strike a decisive blow to the hominid outworld sector. We will put the fear of us back into humans and have and orderly peace soon enough." Skeezik signaled for his subordinates, who had climbed about half way up, to come closer.

"And you don't think you will have to deal with the elven forces? They will have something up their sleeves, you can bet that, and with the intellichines and the conduit to the goddess open they will be formidable."

"They'll turtle up like cowards and abandon the humans as soon as we show our strength… just like they did at Mulgrath " Skeezik said. "I'm not going to hear any more pointless prattle. Give me that disc." From the air behind the lizards, the Swordfish fired several polyphoton rounds towards them, missing the temple. All of the lizards turned around and began shooting it, but were not able to hit the very nimble craft.

As they were turned around firing at the Swordfish, Kopbok dove and tackled one of the lizards to the ground, Azari shot the muzzle off another as it aimed it's gun at Kopbok, and Baycorf used his water jet to knock the guns from the other two, both falling down several steps. In less than 10 seconds, Yuler had shot each of the guns, and the Swordfish came down within a few feet of the ground at the base of the temple and let down its ladder.

"You're making a big mistake!" Skeezik shouted at them as they started to descend quickly the steps. "You're putting yourself on the losing side to ally yourself with hominid society that will always quietly loathe you!" They all quickly got on board the Swordfish and left.

"Who was that?" Baycorf asked Kopbok.

"That's Skeezik of the Iron Scale Clan" Kopbok said. "He is probably the most well-known warrior among them. I have no idea how they knew we were coming."

"So what is that thing, anyways?" Yuler asked not interested on hearing about reptilia clan politics.

"I'm not sure, honestly" Baycorf said. "I was telling the truth when I said it has gray binary data. We will have to take it to Dalton Dover to get anything from it."

"We came all the way out here and you don't know what it was?" Yuler asked annoyed.

"If it's ancient and encoded in gray binary, it's worth getting" Baycorf asserted as the SPG fired up to take them out of the system.