Fracture
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 2018-01-19T05:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Archon Lore

1

April 19, 4914

Renscor System (Rim Region)

Hasvor

Mark-084 was not happy. He’d been on the planet with his Clan Gunstar troops for three weeks in response to an I’rar’et invasion, and while his mechs were doing fairly well against the Zen’zat assault vehicles, he could not maintain air superiority even while having orbital supremacy over half the planet.

His Clan was known for having the best aerial pilots in Star Force, but the I’rar’et were making them look like novices as they lost skeets like they were Grunts from Halo. That’s not the way Star Force fought, and even using drone skeets in many cases this was not acceptable. He couldn’t send his fighters anywhere beyond a city where he had the benefit of anti-air fire support…and when he’d tried his aerial forces had been swarmed to such a level that the I’rar’et left with few casualties while he barely had any squadrons return.

The I’rar’et had larger numbers, but that wasn’t the crux of it. They were damn good, and this branch of their race was one of the better ones. They didn’t have different sub regions within their territory like the Oso’lon did, but the I’rar’et were broken down by bloodlines and the Daer segment of their military was completely made up of one that boasted the second best I’rar’et combat wing.

Mark wasn’t even facing their best of the best, and everywhere he didn’t have close to an even fight his fighters were getting wasted…and the I’rar’et knew it. They weren’t making any planned assaults without coming in with a decent numerical advantage, which allowed few opportunities for Mark to catch them in a mismatch. He had to play defense, holding the cities while the I’rar’et probed around the edges until the Zen’zat arrived and made their over-ground push. As soon as the ground pounders got even a small wedge of anti-air defenses down, the I’rar’et would pour in and take the hits needed to capture the city.

There were trails of dead I’rar’et across the planet, attesting to how much damage Star Force was doing, but Mark wasn’t here to play defense. He was assigned roaming duty to hit the hardest fights and turn them around, but he couldn’t do that here. The skill advantage his Clan usually had over the V’kit’no’sat aerial races was gone. The Daer were their equal, then add in numerical advantage and Clan Gunstar was getting its ass kicked along with the mix of H’kar and Kiritak troops that were in even worse condition before Gunstar had arrived.

Mark had brought a sizeable naval fleet that, along with the survivors of the H’kar, had took back control of the half of the planet that still had standing Star Force cities. There were also smaller populations on the two other inhabited planets in the system. The I’rar’et had not bothered to hit them yet, putting all their effort into the assault on the main world, knowing that when it fell the other two would be far less challenging.

Elsewhere on the planet there were also engagements going on, and Mark had gotten some naval drones down to the planet’s surface and they were making it nearly impossible for the I’rar’et and Zen’zat to gain any ground there, but he had none over this city. There was too large of an enemy fleet still active in the system, and if he brought down more ships they’d engage his fleet in space. Yet if he didn’t bring down the drones, then the ground troops would be taking a lot more cities.

Add in the fact that he couldn’t bombard them from orbit, for they had mobile shield generators on the surface. He could smoke those if he was able to bring even a tenth of his 59 jumpships to bare, but the enemy fleet wasn’t allowing it. When he’d tried before the I’rar’et had engaged and lost, but bought enough time for the ground troops to move into their target city. At that point only some very limited bombardment was possible without hitting friendlies.

And because of that fight he could only hold control of part of orbit. He didn’t have enough ships left to spread them out, for they’d get hit by what the I’rar’et had left. And the enemy’s main base on the surface had a shield generator strong enough to deflect the bombardment of his entire current fleet. Thankfully it wasn’t mobile, but they had two Ardent anti-orbital guns protected beneath hit, so there was a portion of orbit on the far side that his ships couldn’t go without getting shot.

Paul had said that naval beat everything, and he was right…if you had a big enough fleet. Mark didn’t here, and even when he sent a few naval drones down to the surface he was at risk of losing them to the I’rar’et, for a good number of them were equipped with shield penetrators. Not the ones that took down an entire shield by sapping its strength more than conventional weapons would, but rather these destabilized the shields at the point of contact briefly, much like a Jumat blast did, and if the I’rar’et focused their attacks in groups they could punch through a tiny piece of the drone’s shield and hit a weapon’s battery beneath.

So Mark had quite a few drones being plucked of weapons while they hovered in the sky over various cities, then he’d have to bring them back up to orbit and onboard his jumpships for repair. He was losing so many spare parts he was relying on the cities that were still in Star Force possession to make replacement weapons…and then he had to have those shipped up to orbit without getting ambushed by the V’kit’no’sat so he could keep repairing his drones.

It was hard for the ground troops to take down warships, even those as small as the drones, but deny them their weapons and there wasn’t a lot they could do, especially against the tiny infantry of the Zen’zat and flying I’rar’et given how spread out they were. That said, Mark had used a few to scrape the surface and plow over Zen’zat assault vehicles, but the V’kit’no’sat were getting very inventive at finding ways to circumvent the Star Force naval playbook, and with the skill of the I’rar’et in aerial combat, Mark had little in the way of true advantages to work with.

Right now he was not in the sky, but in a remote pod along with his other pilots inside a city some 340 miles away from the current engagement. One advantage of being a defender meant you had infrastructure on the planet to use, which included the battlemap system that allowed him to remote fly a skeet from a point of relative safety. The lag time was so low it was better this way, but had he been assaulting the V’kit’no’sat stronghold on the other side of the planet he would have to be there in person, for bouncing the signals up to his fleet and back down again around the planet would punch the lag just a little too high.

He could manage it if needed, but it took the edge off and opened up more jamming possibilities that naval combat didn’t have to worry about, for their comm systems were so much larger. Right now though, fighting around a Star Force city, he didn’t need to worry about jamming and was currently engaged with a flock of I’rar’et as he flew not one, but 10 skeets at once. Some of his other pilots were flying more than one, but he knew not to push it too far, because the movements required were a lot more complicated than the slow combat in space, and he needed to do a lot of adjusting to the I’rar’et’s movements, and these were definitely not rookies he was going up against.

Mark wanted to strafe the Zen’zat skirmish tanks, but the I’rar’et were having nothing of it and kept blocking his approach with three times as many flyers as he had, and the same was true elsewhere as the city rim defenses kept poking at them. Most times they hit they didn’t deliver a fatal blow, for the armor on these I’rar’et was damn good and they weren’t getting close enough for the city gunners to pinpoint target points on their bodies even with the computer enhanced tracking.

That meant when hit, one could fly off and survive while others took their place…all the while the Zen’zat heavy cannons were moving closer and closer to the city underneath the protection of a mobile shield generator that was not only blocking easy shots from orbit, but from the rim defenses as well. They were pouring heavy firepower into it, and whenever Mark had a chance he had his squadron add a few shots. The damage was insignificant, but every bit helped in the long run.

Though he wasn’t paying heavy attention to them, his mechs were out and about, fighting their way towards those heavy cannons and the shield perimeter. If they got there they could punch their way through with proximity disruptors…but they required physical contact to destabilize a shield of that size and strength. It was only covering an area of a little more than a square mile, but because it didn’t have to defend the ground it could double up the power up top and make it twice as strong as its naval counterparts who had to defend both directions.

More than that, the shield generator was all shield and no living quarters, no weapons, and no hangar bays. Pound for pound it was stronger than a warship, but this was a small one. The larger ones were miles back and holding position as staging points. If Mark could even get a couple of heavy drones down here he could ram this one and take it out…but he could see the V’kit’no’sat ships hovering just above the atmosphere on the horizon, ready and willing to move into blocking position should he try to bring down his fleet from their high orbit position.

He could probably win that fight, but the naval losses would hurt for later. Mark felt they could hold this city without them, but it was going to be a hard fight with a lot of aerial and mech losses…yet those could be replaced much more easily than naval drones.

That said, he wasn’t going to play the V’kit’no’sat’s game entirely, so he ordered two drones to accelerate down towards the planet at a rush, almost making microjumps to do it, and that sudden move caught the V’kit’no’sat off guard. Their warships didn’t move fast enough, and the drones got down into firing position…still well above the atmosphere…and put several shots into the smaller mobile shield generator before they quickly fled as several Ti’mat were hot on their heels. Those vessels got shot by long range weapons on a few Star Force drones that had drifted down lower from the fleet, as well as anti-orbital fire from a few cities.

One of the Ti’mat got caught in the cross fire and lost shields…along with a chunk of its hull before it was able to pull out. When the V’kit’no’sat saw the rest of the Star Force fleet was holding position they decided not to get involved, meaning the short skirmish was over almost before it began.

But Mark had got several heavy shots into the mobile shield generator, and according to his sensor readings it was almost half depleted.

That wasn’t much considering how little heavy firepower he had to work with as more and more rim defense cannons went down, but the Zen’zat assault vehicles sparring with the mechs were diminishing in number rather fast while Mark and his pilots kept up their dance in the sky and the aerial forces distracted each other away from the groundpounders for the most part.

The trailblazer hadn’t lost a skeet in his squadron yet, but that was because he was playing it safe. I’rar’et flew by a combination of their armor and wings…and the latter got tired. The longer this furball lasted the more lethargic their movements would get, whereas his skeets didn’t tire out, and he was willing to put his mental stamina up against their physical strength any day. Problem was the city was losing defenses rapidly, and he doubted the I’rar’et would tire enough before they had punched a sizeable foothold in the defense line.

He kept trying to bait them closer to the anti-air weaponry in the city, but aside from a few brief chases the enemy was holding to their battle plan closely. If he could just get them to break their formation, even a crack, his pilots could start to get some decent strafing runs in on the Zen’zat, but so far the enemy was providing a solid wall of aerial resistance and that wasn’t likely to end until they were right outside the city walls…

Kli’ja was not flying with the rest of the Daer, rather he was back in the nearby staging area monitoring and directing his troops as needed from a perch within one of the Zen’zat command vehicles. The recent strike by the Star Force naval drones had been concerning, but now he saw it was just a temporary ploy, perhaps an attempt to get his warships in range of the surface guns, but aside from the damage to one Ti’mat there was little consequence, though that was a small victory for the Humans.

If they’d decided to make a full naval fight out of it, Kli’ja would have gone all in. He could not allow Star Force naval superiority or they would pick his ground troops apart, even with the mobile shield generators. They were a relatively new technology added to the V’kit’no’sat arsenal, though the principles were ancient. The I’rar’et had never constructed them before because they always had naval superiority. Assaulting cities on a planet while the enemy held orbit used to be an unthinkable thing…but with the emergence of the Uriti that had changed and Virokor had demanded new options.

Kli’ja didn’t disagree, but while their shield generators were almost omnipotent against the normal opposition within the galaxy, Star Force was using stolen V’kit’no’sat technology and that changed everything. They could break through the smaller shield generators quickly with a sustained naval bombardment, and he didn’t have any of the larger units. Given how big some Star Force fleets were, even those would be at risk, but in recent years the combat had spread out and smaller and smaller fleet engagements were being seen except where the Uriti went, making even these smaller models useful.

Right now it was being very useful against the city defenses, for he had the shield down almost all the way to ground to block the fire from the city perimeter cannons that were being methodically picked apart from range by the Zen’zat vehicles inside the shield perimeter. They had longer weaponry and were firing through the mechs rather than at them while other vehicles beyond the shield were engaging and losing against them.

The losses didn’t matter. The number of mechs and aerial craft taken down didn’t matter. All that mattered was punching a hole in the city walls…of which there were three…and getting the Zen’zat inside so they could take down the anti-air batteries directly. That was the path to victory, and once the I’rar’et could fly through the city buildings with impunity it would be all but over.

But they weren’t there yet, and the Star Force flyers were giving his I’rar’et all they could handle. Neither side was winning out, though the enemy kept trying to draw his flyers over the city guns. That was a pathetic hope, for only a fool would fight over anti-air defenses, but it was the only real hope they had right now, for his Zen’zat were creeping their way forward and taking down turret after turret and the enemy mechs weren’t going to be enough to stop them before a breach occurred…

Three hours later the situation had changed drastically. Mark was flying with only 3 of his 10 skeets, and he was piloting them around city buildings chasing, or being chased by, I’rar’et as they pummeled the city at pointblank range. The mechs had won their fight, killing all the Zen’zat vehicles, even their heavy cannons, but not before they’d gotten their infantry inside the city. Visible and cloaked Zen’zat had spread out and began sabotaging whatever they could find, eventually getting enough anti-air cannons down that the I’rar’et were able to move in at street level and assist them.

Then they’d wave-pushed across the city at lightning speed, ignoring almost everything but the anti-air turrets, and now they were going back and hitting the rest with virtual impunity, for the mechs couldn’t target them well zipping in and out of buildings. Mark had kept most of them outside the city where they could get better firing lines into the sky, but the smaller ones he’d been forced to bring in and try to hunt down the Zen’zat where they could.

There were so many here Mark couldn’t get a good count. Transports stacked with them had been underneath the shield and invisible, for the shield also acted as a sensor barrier. He hadn’t realized they were there until it went down, then they’d dispersed tens of thousands of them into the city with all manner of heavy weaponry, including satchel explosives…and the V’kit’no’sat version was far more powerful than the lizard’s Star Force had become intimately familiar with so long ago.

Before the anti-orbital cannons went down, Mark had ordered four drones to the surface. The V’kit’no’sat had destroyed one before it could get to atmosphere, but the other three made it down, one without shields and some hull damage, before the V’kit’no’sat warships retreated back out of firing range as the heavy planetary shields blocked them from following the drones all the way down through the atmosphere.

But the I’rar’et didn’t just let the drones come in. Huge flocks of them rose up from the city and attacked them head on, going first for the wounded one and plucking its weaponry away with ease…but Mark brought it down to just above the building tops, actually crushing some of them, to block the sky as he organized an evacuation route out to where some of the mechs were already gathering. The other two drones engaged the flyers, doing tremendous damage to them, but each I’rar’et was so small that it took time to thin their numbers.

And not enough for Mark’s remaining pilots to take them all down. Eventually both drones wound up being shieldless, weaponless, and being chewed apart slowly as they could not fight back. When they reached that point Mark also brought them down, making impromptu roofs out of them as he evacuated what was left of the people in the city and pulled back all his remaining fighters to cover the convoy as it traveled over land to the next closet location with the drones staying directly above them.

The mechs kept up their anti-air fire around the edges, and eventually the I’rar’et let them go as they took possession of the city that held a major planetary shield generator. Mark kept it operational the whole time so the V’kit’no’sat warships could not shoot the evacuation convoy, but he’d left behind enough explosives in it to make sure that the I’rar’et couldn’t repurpose it for their own uses.

Once the convoy got within range of the nearby city’s defenses, he sent the activation signal and saw the mushroom cloud explosion across the horizon. It was too far away to actually hear, but the telemetry confirmed that the shield generator was thoroughly destroyed…though now there was only the small city shield over top of the evacuees now.

He was going to have to evacuate most of it before it could get hit, but for now the I’rar’et seemed content to claim their new prize as Mark transitioned the broken drones across the surface of the planet until they were far enough away from the enemy fleet to head back to space and rendezvous with the jumpships. They took them back onboard and began repairs, though these three were going to be out of commission for a while…along with many others in the vast bays that were visually open to space but protected by massive shield generators.

It looked like a junkyard ship rather than a warship, with racks of broken drones lining it, some of which had been completely cut in half, but any parts they could salvage and reuse in others they would, for the more cities that were lost the less replacement parts they would be getting.

But at least the V’kit’no’sat were not getting more toys to play with. At least not until they got reinforcements. And the only silver lining in this fight was the fact that they were wearing down too much through attrition to take the rest of the planet. Mark could hold it with what he had, plus what the local population was making to replace some of his equipment losses, but if the I’rar’et got even limited reinforcements the only thing they could hope to do was call in evacuation ships and leave.

And given the situation on the warfront, he decided it was best to call in the cargo ships now, for he didn’t want to have to face leaving people behind unnecessarily. Already the V’kit’no’sat had prisoners from this planet, and he didn’t want to give them any more if he could avoid it.

2

May 4, 4914

Mid Jump (Rim Region)

Morgan sat in her quarters with a big plate of cookies that she was snacking on as the trailblazer continued to review war data picked up before they’d made their last jump. Updates could not be received during transit, so the data was a bit delayed but still valuable, for this war didn’t change from minutes to minute, and there were days of lag involved with the relay network anyway.

She was leading one of Star Force’s primary fleets, escorting the Uriti Squiddy from system to system and scaring away what V’kit’no’sat she found there. Earth, oddly enough, had been ignored. The same was true for Grid Point Stargate and the systems surrounding it. Even the Uriti Preserve was only receiving light attacks, which she assumed was to make them keep at least a few Uriti there in defense…which they were doing anyway. The infrastructure built up there was too important to lose, plus they didn’t have enough ships to maintain fleets protecting all the Uriti.

If one took enough damage to require a long rest, they’d swap them out and use the same fleet to protect the new one, though those fleets were losing ships and those ships had to be replaced occasionally. There wasn’t much combat, except for when a planetary shield had to be battered down and anti-orbital guns faced. Sometimes she’d let Squiddy take the brunt of the attack, other times she’d bring the fleet down and they would lose ships because the V’kit’no’sat knew that they couldn’t kill the Uriti…but she could spare it damage, and Morgan knew she couldn’t let it accumulate too much damage year after year or it would become vulnerable enough the enemy might try and take it out.

Earth was still defended, but without a Uriti there. One was always nearby, roaming the Devastation Zone and rotating out with the three in the Preserve, and where it was currently located was always a mystery, much like Morgan’s own fleet. They didn’t want to give the V’kit’no’sat a fixed map to plan against, and even the other trailblazers didn’t know where Morgan was going…for she hadn’t decided yet.

She was studying the map and the systems nearby, trying to figure out how to get the most effect out of her fleet and Squiddy while too many systems were coming under attack for her to respond to. Within a 10 jump range there were 183 systems under assault, plus another 7 that were firmly under V’kit’no’sat control. She knew better than to waste time there, for they’d already been hit by others and the V’kit’no’sat defenses had held, so going back would be a waste of time…unless they decided to ignore prisoner deaths and just blast the hell out of the place, which they never would.

And the number of V’kit’no’sat assaults was continuing to increase. It was like they’d gone soft on Star Force in the beginning of the resumed war, but as they got more comfortable with Uriti dodging they were getting more aggressive and spreading out. That meant she had the ability, with her large fleet, to turn just about any fight she involved herself in, but there were too many for her to get to in this region, and the same was true for the others fighting in different sections of the warfront.

One update caught her eye, and that was from the Renscor System. Mark was there, as in Mark-084, not Mark-099 who was currently all the way over in the Avta Region. They had the same name, but the two trailblazers were considerably different. One was an Aquatics/Naval staple while the other was the best aerial pilot in the empire.

It was the aerial pilot who had not been given a Uriti, for his skills were better spent in the atmosphere with his Clan rooting out the toughest opposition the V’kit’no’sat could throw at them…but it seemed he was getting his ass kicked. Not in a total fashion, but he was not overcoming the planet he’d reinforced as he should have been, so Morgan pulled up more information from that engagement with her frown deepening.

He was in trouble, though doing a good job managing the bad situation. It was three jumps from their destination system and Morgan made the snap decision to head there. If he remained tied up, then he couldn’t be moving around and finding mismatches on his way to major bottlenecks. Clan Gunstar was also losing a considerable number of its people, which was bad. The only way they could fight this war was if they lost machines, which were easily replaceable, but not their pilots.

Whatever nest of trouble he’d fallen into was kicking his ass, and Morgan knew she had to get involved before they lost any more. Squiddy wouldn’t be too much help, but Morgan could swing through that system enroute to other larger fights and spend a few days bailing him out. She had enough ground troops with her to overwhelm this ‘small’ engagement that had brought two very elite aerial fighter units against each other, and the I’rar’et were far better than the Zen’zat pilots that most races used. The tradeoff was their ground warfare was less robust, but in this case the I’rar’et were slowly beating up Mark’s people and taking the planet out from under him in what was oscillating between a standstill and a grinding advance.

She’d put an end to that and free Mark up to hit elsewhere, but there were many other systems in the same or worse condition, and few in better. The V’kit’no’sat were being very savvy about how many troops to send where, and the tide was definitely turning in their favor even as Morgan’s fleet hadn’t yet lost a fight. There were just too many fights for them to get to, and the V’kit’no’sat didn’t seem to care about losing entire armies in the effort if they came out the victors at the end…

Tre’sti was some 129 lightyears away from the assault in the Renscor System, though he was the one who had ordered that assault launched. The third highest ranking I’rar’et commander in the war was currently in the captured Flying Monkey System. He’d originally targeted it because of the name, for it was some sort of a joke reference to the fact that there was a high number of aerial assets based there…or rather had been. When the system had fallen those units were either defeated or evacuated, with their facilities now solidly in V’kit’no’sat hands.

Before a Uriti could show up to depose them they’d gotten four of the Star Force shield generators working and had been adding their own ever since. One attack later had involved a Uriti and a massive ground campaign to retake the planet…but Star Force had only been interested in evacuating as many of the prisoners as they could get their hands on after it was clear the V’kit’no’sat would not be removed from the surface. They had plenty more captives around the shield generators and other sensitive areas, with the Uriti and its guardian fleet eventually moving on and leaving the personnel they couldn’t rescue behind.

That was the only practical decision they could make if they weren’t willing to sacrifice them, which Tre’sti would have done in a heartbeat. Star Force could actually be winning this war if they’d used the Uriti to their full potential, but he was glad they weren’t. He had often wondered what he could do had he possessed even the smallest of them, and that thought terrified him when he turned it around and realized what Star Force could do to them if they wanted.

But the enemy was holding firm to their principles and giving the I’rar’et a foothold in their territory that was continuing to expand. Tre’sti had hoped to include the Renscor System, but a recent report he’d just received from a retreating ship indicated that nearly the entire assault force had been destroyed. A Uriti fleet had arrived and overwhelmed them, keeping the system in Star Force hands for the time being.

Tre’sti gripped his perch rod so hard it dented…then the material reformed as he gradually released it. Setbacks were happening everywhere and losses were expected, so he forced himself to return to a state of calmness despite the fact that several members of the Daer in that attack were his personal friends…or had been, unless Star Force had captured them or they’d managed to escape on a ship, though the one that had just come back indicated that no evacuation of the surface had been feasible, and only a small portion of the surviving naval blockade had managed to get away.

That put Tre’sti into a bad mood for weeks to follow, though the invasions continued. He launched two more in that time to other systems, sending out more I’rar’et and Zen’zat that would live or die largely by chance. If a Uriti arrived they were doomed. If one did not, they would have a chance to accomplish their mission, and neither Tre’sti nor any other V’kit’no’sat had been able to determine a pattern in the Star Force Uriti fleet movements.

But all the V’kit’no’sat were willing to risk it in order to put an end to this heresy once and for all. Tre’sti just hated that it had been allowed to fester this long. They were paying the price for their arrogance, for they should have snuffed this heresy out long ago rather than allow it to limp on long enough to grow to this size, though to be entirely honest it was the Uriti that was saving them and not their own strength.

However, that salvation would be short lived now that they’d finally brought their full power down on the rogue Zen’zat and their servants, but the price still galled Tre’sti to no end.

Then he got word through the broken Urrtren link back to the empire and patched together with couriers crossing the gaps. Halfway across the galaxy from the current war zone the empire had come under attack from a Rim race known as the Piol. No warnings. No declarations. No reason at all was given for the attack, and it was already causing the Elder Council in Itaru to go nuts…which was made all the worse when two weeks later another report that another far off portion of the empire had come under attack from a completely unknown Rim race.

By the time the reports made it all the way out to Tre’sti there 6 confirmed invasions of V’kit’no’sat territory by Rim races, all far from the Star Force warfront, and the recriminations were coming through loud and clear. This massive attack against Star Force had pulled their mobile fleets away from their own territory, and they’d been promised that there was no threat to their own empire, for no one was powerful enough, nor stupid enough, to try and attack them when they were absent.

But now that promise was falling apart as multiple races, including the I’rar’et, were having their homes eradicated via orbital bombardment.

Tre’sti had no detailed information, only general news packets, but they indicated that the attacks were savage in their ferocity, and while the invaders were losing a massive number of ships, they were coming in with overwhelming force that even the planetary defense stations could not hold up against. The attacks were on the frontier worlds, but that didn’t matter. They were V’kit’no’sat territory as much as any other, and it wasn’t just the smaller outposts getting hit. Several major border worlds were under assault and predicted to fall, including his own hatch world of Veernum.

He hadn’t been hatched on the surface, but rather one of the I’rar’et’s floating cities known as Sharduut. They normally rested on support pillars, but they could disconnect and roam the planet or even travel up to orbit and latch on to a transport vessel that could move them between systems. Tre’sti was in a Sharduut now, and it hadn’t been built locally. Most I’rar’et structures were made out of Shardutt, while other land facilities were made and inhabited by the Zen’zat that served them, but all of it was V’kit’no’sat and Tre’sti could still remember clearly the aerial views of what had been his home more than 600,000 years ago.

He hadn’t been on that world in more than half that time, but it was still his home and now it was coming under attack, perhaps destroyed, without the defense fleets nearby that could have reinforced it. Tre’sti knew there were some ships still on patrol, but a pathetic number that could not counter an invasion of this magnitude. The Freii had sent more than half a million of their ships to Veernum, and based on the limited tech specs that came in the news packet they were at least as capable, if not more so, than the standard ship design the V’kit’no’sat had on file in their database.

And that meant without reinforcement Veernum would fall and the Sharduut where he had been hatched would most likely be destroyed with all the I’rar’et inside, for the report also indicated that any fleeing ships were being shot down, meaning it was unlikely that anyone would survive the slaughter.

And Tre’sti couldn’t help them. He and his forces were fully engaged here, and even if they left immediately they would most likely not be able to return in time to do more than count the bodies and take what was left of the planet back, which was anticipated to be nothing by the bombardment records of the regions that had already seen shield collapse.

When he read that report, Tre’sti ripped his perch off its base and flung it across the room into the wall, and he wasn’t the only one. Similar reactions across the planet, not to mention across the warfront, began to spring up along with calls for at least some of the fleets assaulting Star Force to return to V’kit’no’sat territory before more losses were incurred.

3

May 28, 4914

Erol System (V’kit’no’sat territory)

Stellar Orbit

Mak’to’ran had a fleet of just under 60,000 warships sitting around the star with a long trail of some 12,000 damaged or destroyed warships leading back to the third planet in the V’kit’no’sat system that they’d just driven a tier 3 Hadarak from. They hadn’t been able to kill it, but they’d destroyed all its minions and wounded it enough to force it to flee to the star for safety, where it was currently hiding in anonymity.

There were 2 inhabited planets in this system, which was some 52 lightyears back from the Hadarak border. Typically that was far enough back to avoid a direct hit, even though geographically speaking it was sitting on the line. The difference was that there were a cluster of V’kit’no’sat systems in close proximity and the Hadarak had passed through not one, but two others to get here.

Then it had landed on the most heavily populated world, breaking through the planetary shields and releasing enough minions to overwhelm the defense fleet that had been waiting for it along with Mak’to’ran. Despite having 72,000 warships and numerous defense stations, the Hadarak had just ignored them all and went straight for the planet, crushing through mostly evacuated cities, for they’d had ample forewarning that it was coming.

But not enough. They’d assumed it would hit one of the other two systems it had passed through, so they’d only had a few months of warning to evacuate part of the population. The rest had moved towards the equator, for Hadarak typically landed on a rotating world near one of the poles. That wasn’t always the case, but more often than not their tendency, and here was no exception. It had come down on the southern pole and began sending out tendrils into the planet’s crust and down into the molten core.

But a 628 mile wide Hadarak did not ‘sit’ on the crust. It broke right through, forcing a tidal wave of molten material out along the edges in massive volcanos, for the volume of the Hadarak pushed down so much the material beneath had to move and move fast. Some of the spurts made it all the way up to orbit and were currently curling over and returning to the planet over the course of days. That was how high the material had been ejected, and the landscape surrounding the Hadarak was now mountains that reached above the atmosphere.

The cities that had been on them were obliterated, and earthquakes were ravaging the rest of the planet in response. Plates were not only cracking apart, but being shifted up and over others. The two oceans on the world, named Stageri, were shifting across the continents in massive tidal waves and vaporizing where they hit the molten material coming up to the surface.

The entire planet was a hellish nightmare now, but there were still some 3 billion V’kit’no’sat down there dying or near to dying because of the size of the Hadarak that had come out this far, and the fact that it had bypassed the obvious worlds that Mak’to’ran was prepared to lose. This one was not so expendable, though it had been designed to evacuate quickly…meaning 6 months or more. Hadarak moved slowly, but the closeness of the targets had backfired on the V’kit’no’sat, and now those on the surface were paying the price for that miscalculation even as evacuation ships continued to fly down through the roiling atmosphere, punching through the new cloud and ash cover to find handfuls of people to pull out to transports waiting in orbit.

Tier 3 Hadarak began at 385 miles wide and ranged all the way up to 829, but they rarely pushed out this far. Normally that was the job of the tier 1s and 2s, but since the new V’kit’no’sat Harthur were killing a fair number of them, Mak’to’ran believed this strike was both a response and test to see how dangerous the V’kit’no’sat now were. Unfortunately the Harthur, despite a heavy research and development budget, could not create a capture sphere for Hadarak larger than 260 miles wide. Attempts at anything larger could see the Hadarak’s tentacles or grapple fields able to damage the structure and free itself, meaning that the larger tier 2s were also uncaptureable.

This tier 3 was far larger than that, meaning the V’kit’no’sat had to fight it in the only way available to them for millions of years…up close and taking massive casualties. Once the minions were removed they had additional options and could damage the Hadarak from range with impunity, but that’s when the Hadarak would invariably head to the nearest star to avoid them, and this time was no different.

Mak’to’ran knew they weren’t going to be able to kill it, though he’d summoned reinforcements that were taking considerable time in getting here. But what he’d just bought was time to evacuate more of the far side of the planet. The side where the Hadarak had landed, and now vacated, was completely molten and swamping the nearby crust…which had been pushed up, then fallen back down once the Hadarak left. They were searching for survivors there, but other than a few freak circumstances there was nothing left.

And along with the massive deaths came the destruction of a huge number of foodstuff production facilities that fed the nearby systems. Now there would have to be a massive redirection in cargo transport from much further away or they’d have to downscale those nearby worlds, for they’d deliberately been built with light infrastructure as a lure to the Hadarak. They’d wanted them to be hit rather than others, so they’d been relying on Stageri for the bulk of their production.

Did the Hadarak know that? Could they understand the V’kit’no’sat technology to a degree, or was this a random thrust further in that happened to land here? Regardless of how it had happened, this was a massive debacle and all Mak’to’ran could do was salvage as many survivors from the planet as possible…and at the cost of many more onboard the destroyed warships.

Meanwhile rescues of the crews on the damaged vessels were continuing as the bulk of his fleet held position over the star so they could fire on the Hadarak if and when it began to emerge. Given the sizeable hole they’d punched in it, it would vulnerable for months before even a small patch formed that could allow it to run to another star system. If it tried before then, Mak’to’ran would do a lot more damage as it moved, but he still wouldn’t be able to kill it. It was so big it could lose a quarter of its mass and survive, and even if it didn’t have a Yeg’gor shell it would be hard to destroy that much mass with sustained bombardment.

But they’d done it many times in the past, and right now the Hadarak was probably growing new minions to screen for it when it left. It wasn’t going to be able to stay in this system, not without getting help, and Mak’to’ran’s fleet had already shot down two couriers it had tried to release.

He was not going to let it call for help or report back in any fashion. It was going to have to go itself and take more damage along the way, but he did want it to report back. If it just disappeared that could cause more problems than it solved, for if the Hadarak thought that the Harthur could kill a tier 3 of this size, they may just start sending tier 4s. Few had ever been fought, but none had ever been killed. The V’kit’no’sat simply couldn’t mass enough firepower to get the job done, and the Hadarak never stayed put long enough to let them try to any worthwhile degree.

The V’kit’no’sat needed to kill Hadarak, but if they were provoking even larger ones to come out because of those additional kills…or perhaps the mystery of how they were being killed…that could do more harm than good, for according to the Rit’ko’sor reconnaissance reports there were far more Hadarak deeper into the Core, and there was little hope of thinning their numbers to a useful point. The Hadarak population was a bomb waiting to go off, but Mak’to’ran couldn’t just stand down and let them wreck whatever planets they wanted. He had to fight and kill them, but he feared doing so in greater numbers would only make the situation worse.

His best hope would be to severely wound this one and have it get away, reporting back to the others that the V’kit’no’sat had no new weapon…or perhaps not whatever it was they were searching for. He didn’t know what that ‘whatever’ was, but they were definitely looking for, or at least patrolling against, something in the galaxy. Something far more important to the Hadarak than the V’kit’no’sat. And if he was accidentally giving them the impression that that something was out here killing some Hadarak, then he needed them to discover otherwise before more heavy assaults like this began to take place.

So he needed this one to live and get away, which was fortunate, for he knew he couldn’t kill it.

While his fleet waited and the rescue and evacuation efforts continued at a frantic pace, a courier of their own arrived since the Urrtren relay had been attacked and destroyed by the Hadarak minions. That, he knew, was no accident, for they’d targeted them before. It was speculated that the energies involved somehow registered to them telepathically, but he wasn’t convinced of that. He suspected they knew they were important to the V’kit’no’sat and took them out for at least that reason, if not perhaps knowing even more than they gave them credit for. Regardless, communications with this system were down, so a ship had to be sent to inform Mak’to’ran of addition bad news…which he did not take well.

Several pieces of equipment on the command deck got destroyed by his short lived temper tantrum, at the end of which he saw similar anger in the eyes of his Era’tran crew…and frightened, cowering looks from the Zen’zat who did not fully understand what was going on.

“The Oso’lon have been played for fools!” he yelled, but letting his glowing claws burn out while several destroyed consoles continued to seep smoke. “They assured us the empire would be safe while they pursued the conquest of Star Force, but they once again underestimated them. This is no coincidence. These races assaulting our border are not seeing an opportunity to strike and taking it. This is coordinated. The timing is too precise to be otherwise. Star Force has allies we did not know about and they are hitting us where we are weak while the Oso’lon lead a fools quest to conquer an enemy that does not need to be an enemy! Now their arrogance and stupidity are seeing our worlds fall in their absence!”

“We are fighting our true enemy here,” he continued, rage clear in his voice and telepathy, which he was simulcasting so others nearby in the ship could hear him as well, “while they leave us vulnerable to lesser threats. We cannot leave to cover their folly. You all have a broken planet before you as proof as to why. The Oso’lon gave their word the empire would be safe, now we are engaged in the largest war since the Zak’de’ron purge…all the while the Hadarak are on the move. Am I the only sane V’kit’no’sat left? Can no one else see how we are heading towards self-destruction?”

“The Era’tran are with you, Mak’to’ran,” another of the crew stated firmly. “You are not alone.”

“We are not enough,” he told him, while offering a telepathic ping of thanks. “We need the full might of the empire to fight as one, but we are fractured. More than that, we need Star Force’s assistance with the Hadarak. I care not for their heresy when they can be turned into an asset, but the Oso’lon are destroying what leverage we have with them. The long-necked buffoons are obsessed with control and will not relinquish their war, even in the face of this new invasion. Now I have to leave. I have to travel to Itaru and rally whatever loyal V’kit’no’sat remain away from the Oso’lon…all the while the Hadarak are doing this…” he said, bringing up a live view of the formerly round planet that now had a crater in it so large that half of the ring that had not collapsed was still higher than the atmosphere.

“You will remain here. I will not take a Kafcha away from the true war now. I will go on my own to Itaru, but you must stay here and hold to the purpose of our empire while I try to save it. This will not be resolved quickly, and more sacrifices will need to be made. Our worlds may need to be let fall, for you cannot leave the front. No matter what occurs, you are to stay here, hold the line, do your duty. It is the others that must abandon their war against Star Force and do their duty. If they do not agree with this sentiment, there will be blood split, but you must not get involved. You must stay here until I order otherwise. Do you understand?”

“You need not take time lecturing us. We will do our duty. Go and do what must be done,” Har’jer said, with the planetary defense commanding Voro’nam having been one of the few lucky ones to be plucked from the dead vessels and brought onboard the Era’tran Kafcha.

“The ship is yours. Command of the fleet falls to Sar’von,” he said calmly, but the anger was still there as he all but stomped off the command deck en route to a hangar bay to transfer over to the courier ship and have it take him all the way to Itaru.

Mark-084 was relieved to be freed up from the I’rar’et jamb he’d been in, and was grateful for the minion factories that Morgan and Squiddy had left behind. Right now they were just getting established on the planet with ant-like workers being grown and sent into the field immediately to begin harvesting resources to grow more. In time they’d add fighting units, additional structures, and grow so fast that they made the Paladin expansion rate look slow. Morgan had left a Uriti Wrangler behind to control the minions, as well as a bracelet for Mark as well, though he didn’t intend to stay in Renscor too much longer.

He couldn’t leave yet, especially if the V’kit’no’sat decided to invade again, but his people also needed a rest and he needed replacement aerial craft and mechs. The I’rar’et had hurt his Clan badly, but most of his people had been recovered. The same wasn’t true for the H’kar and Kiritak, who’d taken far more losses, but the planet and system were still in Star Force possession for the moment, and with the Kiritak on the planet he had no doubt repair work would be occurring at a furious pace.

Mark wanted to go out and hit another invasion, but logistically he just couldn’t right now. He’d faced this sort of thing before, but with resources having to be spread out everywhere, even as a trailblazer he didn’t get priority over all of it. This might be where he had to dig in a while, and if Morgan had thought it necessary to leave minions behind then that was a bad sign. She was one of the most aggressive of the trailblazers, and using minions was a fallback option for them.

The minions had their uses, but they were essentially biological machines…and machines couldn’t think. They could only do what they were programmed to do, and if that was a good option then all mechs and aerial crafts would have been built without pilots. Even naval drones needed operators nearby to give them specialized orders, and the few times when communications disruptions occurred their fighting ability dropped precipitously despite the many years of programming refinements that Paul and Roger had made.

The drones were ‘good robots’ when it came to fighting, but they couldn’t hold a candle to a person who could mentally merge with the computer systems, gaining all their advantages, but being able to think outside the box and adjust to new things that presented themselves. Throw something new at a machine and they were often easy to beat, for they couldn’t adapt to something not in their programming.

The minions were the same way, for the Chixzon had not wanted them to be able to think on their own like the Hadarak minions could. So they’d created the Uriti to spawn biological machines, not produce people, and those machines are something that Star Force could waste if needed…and when things got sloppy, having disposable units around was almost a necessity.

But put those units in a populated area and you could see your own people getting killed by friendly fire, because a machine was stupid when it came to such things or was overly hesitant. And if they were hesitant the enemy could use that against them as well.

But with an Archon Wrangler guiding them most of that would disappear. But still, using them was a sign of desperation, but totally warranted right now on this planet. They needed an army and defensive structures ASAP, for right now they were ripe for another invasion. Morgan and her fleet were gone, so it was just a matter of what the V’kit’no’sat felt was the best next target for them…and the more defenses Mark could get up in a hurry the more those calculations altered to deter another small scale assault.

But minions or no, even a medium sized attack would overrun Hasvor and deliver the Renscor System into V’kit’no’sat possession.

4

August 23, 4914

Itaru System (V’kit’no’sat capitol)

Stellar Orbit

In the past, Mak’to’ran had been greatly honored every time he had cause to visit the V’kit’no’sat capitol system, let alone land on Wendigama, the planetary capitol of the entire empire. It was large, with a gravity of 3.4 that required most of the cities on the surface to have artificial augments, and a surface area 5 times that of Earth with about a fourth of that being 3 oceans. It was the largest planet in the system, at least as far as surface viability was concerned. There were four gas giants far larger, but the V’kit’no’sat did not inhabit them beyond floating mining operations in their thick atmospheres.

In addition to Wendigama, there were 16 other planets and 183 moons, all of which were heavily inhabited. The system was the crowning jewel of the V’kit’no’sat empire and the damage done during the most recent civil war had all been repaired, leaving it a sight to behold. The traffic alone was staggering, with the moving ships looking like swarms of insects despite the fact each of those ships was miles long.

Then there was the local traffic that was much smaller, ferrying people and material from planet to planet across the system. Add in orbital infrastructure and free standing stations in their own stellar orbits, and the Itaru System was easily the most advanced and densely populated system in the galaxy with over 128 trillion inhabitants. There were some other systems outside V’kit’no’sat territory that might boast a higher population, but that was only because their races were diminutive in size, so they really didn’t count.

Mak’to’ran had always viewed it as a symbol of power and stability. Of the dominance of the V’kit’no’sat empire. But ever since he’d taken leadership of it his trips here had been less auspicious, and today he did not want to be here. The fact that they’d forced his return was still angering him after months of travel, and when he landed on Wendigama they were not going to like his arrival.

He overrode the traffic control requirements, allowing his tiny Kaeper to head across the system and down into Wendigama’s atmosphere without delay as many other ships were sitting in parking orbits waiting for their chance to unload cargo or passengers. Mak’to’ran’s ship, at his order, did not go to a landing field. Instead it went into restricted space above the Elder Conclave but not the main chamber. It hovered over the adjacent facilities that housed the workspace for the members, and Mak’to’ran stepped out of an airlock on the ship and floated down to the rooftop via the emergency anti-gravity in his armor. It wasn’t enough to fly, but it allowed him to avoid damaging falls and in this case dropped him near a roof access port with only a small thud as his two large feet smashed down on the building amidst a sea of Conclave guardians.

“Step aside,” Mak’to’ran growled as he headed for the entrance, with the mix of races including some Era’tran silently making way for his unorthodox arrival. They followed him inside as he headed for the Oso’lon annex, then they stopped him when he tried to go through the private doors.

Mak’to’ran glared at them, flashing his claws aglow as a warning, then when the pair of Oso’lon stationed at the doors refused to move aside he lashed out at them with his Jumat, knocking them askew enough to slide between them and kick into the front leg of the one on his right, buckling it before he physically rammed the larger quadruped in the side and knocked it to the ground further out into the hall.

The other Oso’lon fired back with its own Jumat, but Mak’to’ran blocked it with his Nakane and rammed the surprised Oso’lon as well, knocking it to the ground then cut through the door latch with his claws before plowing through it so fast the others had little chance to react…though the rest of the Conclave guardians had no intention of interfering. They were merely observing, for technically Mak’to’ran was the leader of the entire empire, though the Oso’lon had never actually conceded that point.

“Trebrel!” Mak’to’ran yelled, with his telepathic shout being far louder. “Get your incompetent tail out here now!”

One of the guards reached out with its Lachka from behind, trying to stop Mak’to’ran from going further, but after a moment of being in the Oso’lon’s vice grip it melted away as Mak’to’ran condescendingly activated his Rentar and didn’t look back.

The Era’tran marched through the wide open architecture of the Oso’lon ‘embassy’, for lack of a better word, as many Zen’zat and other Oso’lon got out of his way…though the larger race did not go far, with many of them sending evil looks his way as he invaded their private space. They did not seek to bar his path as the Conclave guardians had, both of whom were now trailing behind him at a respectful distance with their long necks rising high above the shorter guards from the other races that had also followed Mak’to’ran into the off-limits sanctuary.

The Era’tran pounded his way through the Oso’lon compound until the lead Elder representing the Oso’lon on the Council finally appeared before him. He wasn’t the Primearch, nor the handful of other powerful Oso’lon that made up the Teelriem, but he was their mouthpiece to the empire and one in particular who had promised that V’kit’no’sat territory would be safe with the bulk of the fleet sent elsewhere.

“You have no right to be here, no matter what the situation is,” the Oso’lon said, looking down on the Era’tran from nearly twice his height, for Trebrel was one of the smaller Oso’lon Ultras whose shoulders rose higher than Mak’to’ran’s head. “And who authorized you to possess Rentar? It is forbidden to the Era’tran.”

“I authorized it,” Mak’to’ran said, throwing a Jumat blast at half power into Trebel’s long neck, smacking it backwards while he stood nearly immune to the immediate backlash from the Oso’lon, though his bioshields nearly fell to the piercing nature of the Jumat energy. “It is necessary to deal with obstinance such as yours. What do you have to say to the…”

Mak’to’ran didn’t get to finish the sentence before the Oso’lon swung his neck down and tried to headbutt him. He dodged before a Lachka hold took hold and delayed him just enough for contact to be made. The Era’tran was driven backwards, but he didn’t bother to use his armor. The Oso’lon had none, and he wasn’t going to take advantage of the mismatch.

He reached out with his own Lachka and held the Oso’lon’s neck down, then jumped with all his might up and onto the Ultra’s back. He head butted down into Trebrel’s neck, then released the biggest Jumat blast he could directly down, knocking the Oso’lon to his knees before he was thrown off. Trebrel didn’t bother to try his Lachka again, rather rolling to the side and dumping Mak’to’ran off, then driving his legs hard to force his back like a battering ram to the side.

Mak’to’ran fell off and rolled over, coming up to his feet just as the big Oso’lon’s tail whipped around. He took it on his Nakane, but his bioshields collapsed and he got whacked in the face, wrenching his neck around, but he held his ground as the tail came back in a reversal. He activated his claws and merely held them out, letting Trebrel impale himself on them.

The Oso’lon roared even as Mak’to’ran was knocked down, for he now had multiple holes that were stretched into slashes. The Jumat blast that came was so large that Mak’to’ran, now without his Nakane, could not withstand it. It tossed him across the hallway into the far wall, but Mak’to’ran simply squeezed the Oso’lon’s tail telekinetically, making the wounds hurt even worse.

“Do I have your attention yet, you fool?” the Era’tran asked, releasing his grip before another blow could fall.

“You are the foolish one to think you can invade our chambers and assault me with impunity,” Trebrel said, turning around to face him squarely. “You do not rule us.”

“I warned that we would be vulnerable. I warned that our fight was with the Hadarak, but you do not listen and now we are under assault on all our borders! I could kill you now if I wanted, but what do we have need of more dead V’kit’no’sat? There are too many dying already.”

“Even with your illegal upgrade, you cannot kill me, Era’tran. And I am nearly to the point of killing you to prove it.”

“You will find that far harder than you imagine,” Mak’to’ran said, though he wasn’t actually here to kill him. At least, he wasn’t there yet. “How many systems have we lost?”

“Three,” the Oso’lon said, glaring down at the other Oso’lon and Council guards who had allowed Mak’to’ran inside.

“And how many are under assault?” Mak’to’ran countered.

“537 as of today,” Trebrel said, giving the exact number that he was obviously aware of. “Border worlds that we can afford to lose if needed. Star Force is the greater threat. Why can you not see that?”

“You promised this would not happen, and now when it is thrown in your face you still refuse to acknowledge the mistake?”

“The mistake was yours. You have left us divided.”

“It would not matter!” Mak’to’ran yelled. “We only have so many ships, and the Hadarak border cannot be abandoned. What else can we do to protect our territory other than recall your fleets?”

“You can let the Hadarak have a few worlds, join us against Star Force, end this even more quickly, then we can return to the Hadarak.”

“Is this the final decision of the Oso’lon, or your own stupidity?”

“We stand united…though some are lacking in conviction,” he said, referencing his guards. “And your actions here will not be tolerated. I may spare you, but your leadership of the V’kit’no’sat is over.”

“So be it then,” Mak’to’ran said, activating his armor and charging the Oso’lon…then all hell broke loose.

“What?” Hamob asked when a priority message came in to his private residence on Holloi from the Yaern’ek.

“We have received word from Itaru,” the representative of the active leadership of the Era’tran said, though he was in fact junior to the reclusive true leadership of Hamob and a few others. “Mak’to’ran is there, and he has killed Trebrel.”

Hamob’s eyes widened. “For what reason?”

“No reason has been stated. Itaru is in a state of chaos. But initial reports indicate Mak’to’ran is leading a coup against the Oso’lon.”

“What of the J’gar?”

“They have remained silent, though our reports are preliminary only.”

Hamob was thoughtful for a moment, then sighed regretfully. “They pushed him too far. There is only so much incompetence and corruption Mak’to’ran can stomach.”

“Is he in the wrong?”

“That depends how you look at it. If keeping the empire together is our highest priority, then he is in the wrong. If there are higher concerns, then he may be in the right, but logistically speaking a conflict with the Oso’lon while we are under assault on multiple fronts is stupidity on the grandest of scale.”

“Then why is he doing this? Did he consult with you first?”

“No. I assumed he was still fighting the Hadarak.”

“How should we respond?”

“Respond to what? Has he made a request?”

“He has not contacted us at all.”

“Then wait until he does. Until then, watch and listen, but do not act. Our focus must be on the Hadarak.”

“We cannot ignore this.”

“We will not,” Hamob promised. “But we cannot act until we know what is transpiring. Until then, do nothing.”

“What of our fleets?”

“Do not alter their current assignments, but begin formulating orders for their repositioning against the Oso’lon if it should come to that. If the time comes, I will give the order. You are to alter nothing until then.”

“We are to remain neutral when our fleet in Itaru is engaging in battle?”

“Fighting who?”

“Unknown, but there is heavy fleet engagement. This is not a personnel realignment.”

“Mak’to’ran will have a plan, whether he has informed us of it or not. We will stand ready, but take no action until he calls on us.”

“And we will follow him into civil war?”

“I do not know. We need more information. We cannot act on assumptions.”

“We will get it shortly. Until then we cannot act as if nothing has occurred. Word is spreading across the Urrtren.”

“Tell them what we know…which is not enough. We need further information before acting.”

“As you wish, Hamob, but I do not like this.”

“Neither do I, but we both know this has been inevitable in its coming, Traveen.”

“I had hoped you were wrong. And the timing is horrible.”

“Unless the timing is a result of the invasions.”

“What do you suspect?”

“It is irrelevant. I do not want to comment without further information.”

“But you have a suspicion?”

“I always have suspicions. That is nothing new.”

“When your suspicions become confirmation, please inform us. We must ready the Era’tran for whatever is coming.”

“I know your duties, but for the moment you are to maintain and await orders. The future of our race is my concern.”

“And the present events ours. We will wait, but there will come a point when we must respond. I hope you have your answers by then,” the Era’tran said with a respectful nod, then ended the transmission.

“Mak’to’ran, what are you doing?” Hamob asked to the silence as his thoughts moved to Itaru and he opened up a direct computer link to the Urrtren to see for himself what little information had made its way out across the galaxy thus far.

The Primearch of the Oso’lon was not in Itaru. He was in another system a quarter of the way around the galactic Core, but when he’d heard that Mak’to’ran had personally gone on a rampage killing elite Oso’lon, he knew this was not some mild squabble that could be resolved with the loss of some ships. The triad established to end the recent civil war had been tenuous and slowly stabilizing up until the revelation of the return of the Zak’de’ron. Yaniel had confided in the Primearch and no other, and the Primearch understood the secrecy needed to insure the survival of the V’kit’no’sat.

But Mak’to’ran also knew of this, yet he was committing treason once again, and against the Oso’lon specifically this time. Whatever had caused him to flip was something significant, and the Primearch knew it had to have something to do with the Rim assaults. They were disturbing, and continually escalating, but overall they could not seriously hamper the empire. Defeating Star Force was the key to unifying the V’kit’no’sat so they could prepare for the return of the Zak’de’ron, and even this inopportune turn of events would not shake them from this path.

The Primearch feared Mak’to’ran was of the opposite mind, and if intractable, only the J’gar Didact could settle this. The Primearch was heading to meet with him as he received a return signal indicating that the Didact wanted to meet in Itaru, along with Mak’to’ran, and settle this amongst themselves before the situation got any further out of hand.

So he’d altered course, heading back the way he’d just come and retreading ground until he passed his original, private system and continued on his way to Itaru, getting more and more recent updates the closer he got. By the time he arrived, Itaru was no longer the V’kit’no’sat capitol. Instead it was an Era’tran-led bastion of rebellion, with Mak’to’ran having somehow managed to oust both the Oso’lon and the Elder Council, planting himself as the sole ruler of the system.

That was not expected. Not at all. Even with all the fleets sent to fight Star Force, Itaru held massive defenses in orbit, not to mention those on the planets…and yet, there wasn’t that much battle damage visible upon arrival into the system, and traffic flows appeared to be almost normal.

The J’gar Didact had arrived before him, signaling the moment the Primearch arrived to rendezvous with a huge J’gar fleet holding position in neutral space between the 16th and 17th planetary orbits and far from any other ships or stations. By the time the sizeable Oso’lon fleet arrived at the same location, the Primearch had learned that most of the planets and various enclaves in the system had chosen to side with Mak’to’ran and his call to defend the empire rather than pursue the war with Star Force.

Those who had sided against them were either dead or taken prisoner at the end of a violent, but short lived civil war within the system…leaving Mak’to’ran in control of everything, including the Oso’lon settlements, some of which had even sided with him before being attacked. That act of treason rankled the Primearch, but the swift change here worried him. Had he misread the masses that badly? He could not tell them the real reason behind the war, about the Zak’de’ron, but that should have worked to his advantage, for why would V’kit’no’sat not want to put down the lingering heresy of Star Force?

The Didact invited him onboard the J’gar’s massive command ship that was, in fact, a Mach’nel. The Oso’lon Mach’nel were in the war zone, but those that had opted to fight the Hadarak instead were still here and the Didact had felt like bringing one, either as protection for himself or as a reminder that the bulk of the Oso’lon power base was beyond the Rim border and presently unavailable to the Primearch.

The Oso’lon transferred over to the Mach’nel and landed in one of their air accessible bays. Most of the ship was flooded with water, but they’d made a few levels air capable for the Zen’zat to operate in without special equipment and it was there that the Primearch and 6 Oso’lon guards were welcomed by the J’gar’s own Zen’zat and led to one of the pools where they could interact face to face.

Inside of it were many J’gar, glowing with bioluminescent patches below and above the surface as their necks reached up into the air much like the Oso’lon, except that the J’gar could breathe both air and water, as all V’kit’no’sat aquatics races could, but one individual above all the others stood out telepathically, and it was to that one that the Primearch focused his attention.

“You have been here long enough to study the situation. What do you make of it?” he asked the Didact.

“Mak’to’ran has full control of Itaru, and taking it from him now is unfeasible. He has the support of the other races, including pieces of our own. They want a leader that will act against the threats against our own territory, and if we do not heed that calling I fear many of our worlds will side with him as well.”

“They will be culled if they try.”

“We are beyond that, Primearch. The galaxy has changed and now the empire is under direct assault from someone other than the Hadarak. This is unprecedented, and we are losing worlds. Our dominance is in question, and that is something the V’kit’no’sat cannot tolerate.”

“Trebrel is dead, as are other Oso’lon,” the Primearch protested angrily. “Are you suggesting I am to just ignore that fact?”

“You must…at least for the moment. We are to speak with Mak’to’ran, and there must be no violence.”

“If he comes before me I will kill him myself.”

“No, you will not,” the Era’tran said, stepping out of the shadows and the telepathic inhibitor that was hiding him there.

The Primearch spun around, thoughts of treason surrounding the J’gar, but the Didact’s telepathic response was as calm as ever.

We are here to settle this, and it will not be settled with blood. Stand down and listen, or you will give our empire back to the Zak’de’ron with little effort, the Didact said telepathically so the guards and Mak’to’ran could not hear.

“You should have told me he was here before I came onboard,” the Primearch said as Mak’to’ran walked closer, without armor, then stopped a good distance away from the Oso’lon leader while his guards were standing at the ready to attack whenever needed, for they did have armor on and many weapons in it to kill the traitor.

“We needed to speak in private. Can we do that and dismiss our retainers, or are you going to behave like an arrogant hatchling and demand millions more of us die while all can be settled with a simple conversation?”

“You are pathetically optimistic,” the Primearch snarled, “but I will grant you your conversation…so long as that traitor keeps his distance.”

“Mak’to’ran?” the Didact asked.

“Killing him without my armor would be difficult, so I will not try,” he said with obvious animosity.

“Very well then,” the Didact said, looking to his left and gesturing for the other J’gar to leave. The dozens of long necks dipped back down into the water and their glowy presences disappeared deeper until they were gone entirely, then the Didact looked to the Primearch.

“Wait outside,” the Oso’lon said, with his own 6 guards being very reluctant to leave, though they obeyed none the less. When they were gone and the doorway sealed, the little Zen’zat surrounding them everywhere scurried away, leaving the hangar-sized chamber completely empty save for the three V’kit’no’sat triad leaders.

“For the sake of the empire and our future war against the Zak’de’ron, we have to end this now,” the Didact said firmly, swimming up into the shallows and resting his body on the submerged ramp so he could get closer to the two widely spaced peers who were both keeping their distance from one another.

5

“This will end with his execution,” the Primearch said angrily.

Mak’to’ran huffed sarcastically, but offered no other response, instead letting the Didact lead this conversation.

“If he dies, we die with him,” the J’gar said earnestly. “He is all that is holding the empire together. That is evident here, where factions of our own races have sided with him. You and I still bear the taint of Terraxis, and we cannot cleanse it without revealing the existence of the Zak’de’ron. If we do that, we lose our own advantage against them. I do not like the situation, but it is what it is. Your plans to destroy Star Force became untenable when the Rim races began attacking us.”

“You and I are the V’kit’no’sat. The fact that we have allowed him and the Era’tran to pretend be our equals does not make it a reality. And our invasion continues. We can suffer losses on the Rim now if it benefits us greater in the long term. It is a cost I do not want to pay, but pay it we will if needed. Star Force must be destroyed or annexed, if not they will grow into a far larger power.”

“A power we need to fight the Zak’de’ron and the Hadarak,” Mak’to’ran interjected. “Not to mention the Chixzon.”

“They cannot be allowed independence. We cannot control what they will do with our stolen technology. They may very well give it to others, then our dominance over the galaxy will diminish greatly.”

“Our dominance is gone,” the Didact said firmly. “We are set for execution, and we must defeat the Zak’de’ron before we can ever claim dominance again. I do not know how we can do that, so our focus must be on survival, not dominance.”

“We must eliminate the enemy before us now, while we can, and deal with the unseen threats later,” the Primearch insisted.

“That is not going to happen now. The other races will not sacrifice the Rim to accomplish this. Already recall orders have been sent out, and at least some of the fleets will respond. You no longer have the strength to defeat Star Force quickly and efficiently, and if you continue to push that war you will leave us so weak the Zak’de’ron will have an easy time ending us.”

“What recall order?”

“The one I sent,” Mak’to’ran said. “I lead the V’kit’no’sat, and I ordered a recall to defend our borders. We will see how many respond.”

The Primearch half turned, looking like he was going to attack the impudent Era’tran, but eventually held back for reasons even he was not sure of. “That is not your decision to make.”

“It is. You have wasted time, ships, lives, and what little good will we have with Star Force on this invasion, and it has resulted in others taking advantage of our weakness. I will tolerate it no longer, and in truth I never should have in the first place, but I was trying not to start another civil war. Now, with our territory under attack, there is little desire to ignore it in favor of pursuing Star Force, who has not invaded our territory. You have lost the argument amongst the masses, and we will be divided no longer. The invasion is over.”

“If you want a civil war, you have just guaranteed one. The Era’tran will be culled.”

“You are welcome to try,” Mak’to’ran invited, but a strong telepathic surge from the J’gar stopped any further comments like a slap to the face.

“No. Changes must occur, but we will not destroy what little chance we have of survival by fighting each other. Mak’to’ran leads the empire, in fact beyond mere title now that he controls Itaru. If the fleets recall on his order, then we will know the full extent of his power. I assume many will, and even the Zak’de’ron could not win against the combined might of all the V’kit’no’sat races. The same will be true of the J’gar and Oso’lon, even if we allied together. You know this, Primearch, or have you become delusional?”

“We cannot permit this heresy,” he said, almost pleading with the one individual in the empire that he deemed his peer.

“And we will not. At least privately.”

“You appear to have a suggestion,” Mak’to’ran observed. “Make it.”

“You have suspended the Elder Council. Do you intend to permanently delete it?”

“Possibly. It was never intended to function as the leadership of the empire. The Zak’de’ron always held that role and the Elder Council assisted them. With that void, it has not been functioning as designed.”

“True,” the Didact admitted. “We have tried to fill that void, but have only partially succeeded,” he said, referring to the J’gar and Oso’lon. “What do you plan to do about that problem?”

“Solve it. Until then, I will hold personal control and deal with the immediate threat of the Rim races, many of which we did not even know existed. Our knowledge of the Rim is lacking. We should have done a full survey long ago, but we were forbidden to do so. I imagine the Zak’de’ron had their own charts that they did not share with us, but we must fill in that void and know who is really out there…after we defend our territory.”

“You believe the Zak’de’ron are located there?”

“Possibly, but I’m more concerned about others. We had no idea there were this many powerful races beyond our borders. We have been caught off guard by our lack of reconnaissance.”

“Would you agree with that?” the J’gar asked the Primearch.

“Yes,” he said simply, sensing some grand plan and waiting for the J’gar to lay it out.

“We cannot conquer the Rim,” the Didact confirmed the obvious. “The galaxy is too large and we have overextended ourselves already. Our supply lines are too long because we have been seeking ideal worlds rather than augmenting lesser ones. We have had this luxury because we were largely uncontested, but it leaves us very vulnerable to the Zak’de’ron. Should they collapse the Urrtren we will be so spread out and isolated we will be easy to conquer.”

“I believe they did that intentionally,” Mak’to’ran added, “to insure that we could not betray them, and that all races were reliant on the empire and not their own territories.”

“I concur. If we do not continue to operate as an empire, we are lost…but we cannot continue to operate as an empire. You have gone too far. I would have you killed if you were not holding our fate in your hands. But since that is not an option, we must seek another path forward.”

“I have done what is necessary, and what the two of you failed to do. I have no regrets,” the Era’tran said firmly.

“And that is why there can be no reconciliation between us. The triad that we attempted to revive must be abandoned. It broke long ago, and we need to acknowledge that fact rather than deny it and pretend functionality where there is none.”

“Yet we must remain together,” the Primearch said, not entirely following the logic strand. “How do you suggest we rectify this?”

“By splitting apart,” the Didact said bluntly. “I have no use fighting Hadarak when we will not survive the Zak’de’ron. Despite the Harthur and your commendable intelligence gathered on our sworn enemy, we are nowhere close to defeating them. It is an impossible task that has kept us together, bound in duty, but it is irrelevant if we are going to be destroyed prior to any hope of success. I have no wish to lose another J’gar ship to such useless fighting.”

Mak’to’ran flashed his Saroto’kanse’vam at the J’gar’s utter treason. The red of his claws glowed deeply, casting pale shadows in the dim chamber as he stood his ground and glared just as intently at the J’gar.

“You abandon all that we are…while forgetting that if we do not hold the line the Hadarak will creep outwards and other worlds, safe worlds, will be destroyed. There are consequences if we do not do our duty. Consequences that you cannot dissipate with obstinance.”

“And yet, can we hold the line and fight the Zak’de’ron at the same time?”

“No, we cannot. But until that is upon us, we must do our duty. The Zak’de’ron want the Hadarak contained, and I do not believe they will attack us in a way that releases them to undo the work they started. They must replace us, unless their vengeance supersedes the mandate that they created the V’kit’no’sat for initially.”

“It might. Why do you assume it would not?” the Primearch asked with a sneer.

“Because we are not dead yet. They have had time to rebuild. They are being patient, and patience does not beget irrational actions based on strong emotions.”

“You rely too much on the information from Star Force,” the J’gar cautioned. “The Zak’de’ron are master manipulators, and that may have come to our ears because they wished it.”

“Even if I grant you that, the situation remains the same. If we do not fight the Hadarak, we will lose many of our worlds. Even if we evacuate them, we will be diminished. Even now, a tier 3 Hadarak has encroached beyond the border and wrecked the Erol System. They are not a threat we can ignore, and had it not been for your incompetence,” he said, glaring at the Primearch, “I would not have needed to return here. Our place…all of our place…is in battle against the Hadarak. We must prepare for the Zak’de’ron, but abandoning our primary fight is not an option.”

“There you are wrong,” the Didact said regretfully. “You are so bound in duty and honor that you cannot see clearly the multiple paths forward. The J’gar will no longer fight against the Hadarak, and if needed, we will evacuate worlds in their path. If the Era’tran and your followers wish to do so, you can continue as you are, but we will waste no more resources when the Zak’de’ron lurk in the shadows ready to slash our necks.”

“And you,” the Didact said to the Primearch. “We will not support an equally wasteful war against Star Force. Both of you do not recognize the peril we are in. The Zak’de’ron will destroy us all, and when that happens none of these other issues will matter. We must survive first, and leave the rest of the galaxy behind until we can reestablish our dominance. I cannot see how we do that, so it is time to stop overreaching and prepare for the enemy that we cannot tell the empire exists without also letting our enemy know we know they are out there.”

“How do we accomplish this?” the Primearch asked.

“We divide, but in a manner that doesn’t end the empire. We must fight the Zak’de’ron as a united force, but we can slowly begin to rearrange the empire. Evacuate systems that are on the Rim or near the inner Core. Colonize new worlds that are valuable, but not prime, in clusters that can reinforce each other when under attack. We must begin to set our battlefield on our terms and stop using the Zak’de’ron geography. Our strength is in the empire, but we can each have our own corner of it without breaking ties. Our economy will remain the same, but if and when the Zak’de’ron attack, they will sever the bonds between us and we will have to fight on our own.”

“Do you speak of only your race, or do you intend to pull others into this treason?” Mak’to’ran asked.

“We will not reorganize by race. Some J’gar worlds will follow you, and I will not forbid it. Privately I will write them off while consolidating my power base elsewhere. We will agree to avoid one another while you run the empire. Fight the Hadarak if you wish,” he said, looking at Mak’to’ran and then at the Primearch. “Fight Star Force if you wish. But we will not do either.”

“And what of the Rim races?” Mak’to’ran asked.

“Those we will fight as needed, but in our own systems. I am claiming dominion over the Hesphatus and Delogi regions. We will not abandon our other territory unless forced to, but there the J’gar will begin colonizing other worlds and bringing our allies with us. Quietly. Slowly. So as not to alert the Zak’de’ron or anyone else to what we are doing. You can have your empire, Mak’to’ran, but I will have mine within it and I will tolerate no interference. We will not make it public, but we three will divide the empire between us.”

“So you break ties with the Oso’lon as well,” the Primearch asked.

“Do you disagree? I see no advantage in working together. You are of the land, we are of the water. The Zak’de’ron bound us together and now they seek to destroy us. I think it best if we go our separate ways within the empire and make our final stands alone.”

“You anticipate defeat?” Mak’to’ran asked, aghast at the words he was hearing from one of the founding races of the V’kit’no’sat.

“They created the V’kit’no’sat. They know how to uncreate us.”

“It didn’t stop us from killing them the first time,” the Oso’lon differed.

“But we didn’t finish the job, and the galaxy is too large to ever make sure we did. Until we can achieve parity of technology and knowledge, all the J’gar will do is defend our own and work with Mak’to’ran’s empire for mutual advantage, but I anticipate our destruction none the less.”

“You have lost your nerve, Didact,” Mak’to’ran said angrily. “You are unfit to lead.”

“It is fortunate that you have assumed command then,” the J’gar said disrespectfully. “Recruit what worlds you want from the races, I will do the same, but my dominion will be led by the J’gar and the J’gar alone. We cannot afford any more…half measures.”

“At least we agree on that,” Mak’to’ran said, glaring at the Primearch.

“And we cannot pursue Star Force without the full might of the empire,” the Oso’lon admitted. “You have boxed me in well, Didact.”

“Most of it was your own doing.”

“Star Force will destroy us if the Zak’de’ron do not. Give them a million years and they will try, I promise you, even without their Uriti.”

“Which the Zak’de’ron now have one of their own,” the J’gar reminded him. “Have you been able to capture one for us?”

“No.”

“And you will not. Star Force guards them too closely and our searches have not discovered another hidden in the galaxy. Even with one, the Zak’de’ron claim immediate superiority over us, and you are worried about Star Force.”

“Who have never attacked us in anything but self-defense,” Mak’to’ran piled on.

“We create rules, then you both recklessly abandon them. Neither of you are fit to lead the empire,” the Primearch said, turning to the J’gar with utter hatred that had not been there previously. “You are right, we can no longer coexist in this triad. The Oso’lon will also create our own strongholds. Mak’to’ran, you can have the empire in large and keep up pretenses for the sake of morale, but we are done with you.”

“If both of you are going to abandon our duty, our very identity, then so be it. But I will take on any of your worlds that do not agree with you, and you will not hinder their involvement. This must be agreed or we will have a civil war.”

“We will vie with you for control,” the J’gar promised, “but only through influence. We will not fight, for we cannot and hold any chance of survival against the Zak’de’ron.”

“Agreed,” the Primearch said. “If any Oso’lon wish to fight the Hadarak, they are yours. I will quietly exile them from the loyal, for I will not tolerate dissent any longer. The Oso’lon will be purged, and I care not if you take our trash and use it for your own purposes…so long as you agree to the same with the Era’tran, for I don’t imagine they all follow your lead so willingly.”

“If you wish to have our trash, you are welcome to it,” Mak’to’ran snipped. “So long as they know what it is they are actually doing. I will not permit subterfuge.”

“None will be needed. Especially when the Zak’de’ron come for us and the true power bases within the empire are revealed. We will survive when you do not.”

“Then you agree to let Star Force go?”

“We are fools to do so, but without a combined effort the Oso’lon would be gutted, and I intend to be the last race standing if we are to eventually fall.”

“And the current invasion?”

“We will let you handle the retreat and take the blame for it as we send fleets to protect the Rim,” the Didact offered/demanded. “Beyond that, the J’gar will set our own future.”

“And we will do the same. May your rule be long and glorious, Mak’to’ran, so we have time to grow while you gut yourself on the Hadarak. I will enjoy hearing the news of when the Zak’de’ron destroy you.”

“So this is what the great and powerful J’gar and Oso’lon have become? Cowards, bitter with resentment and loss of purpose. Very well. We will walk down this tangent path, but Itaru remains mine.”

“It is the heart of the empire to which I no longer hold an allegiance,” the Didact stated disinterestedly. “I no longer care to claim it…or other shared systems.”

“The empire is officially dead, though we must keep up pretenses for the sake of buying time,” the Primearch agreed. “You may have the corpse of it.”

“Then I will waste no more time with either of you. Leave this system and take your followers with you. I will take on the responsibility that you are both shirking,” Mak’to’ran said, spinning around and plodding off out of sight.

“You were wise to suggest this path,” the Primearch said to the Didact after he’d left. “It maximizes our chances of survival and lets the pretender play to our benefit.”

“We are not united in this,” the Didact stated. “I am as displeased with you as I am with him. Now that we no longer have the Zak’de’ron’s legacy to hold together, I suggest we amicably go our separate ways. We have always been incompatible, and I see no reason for further interaction.”

“Agreed,” the Primearch said, summarily walking away while happily turning his back on the J’gar. Their races had been at odds for perpetuity, and despite the massive losses this fracture would result in, he was glad to finally be free of their shackles. The Oso’lon would rule unfettered from now on…at least until the Zak’de’ron returned to avenge themselves against their betrayers.

6

December 13, 4914

Flying Monkey System (V’kit’no’sat-captured territory)

Finley

Tre’sti had watched the few reports coming in to the warzone over the past months, seeing that the situation was getting dire for the empire. They were under assault all around the Rim border with no sizeable defense fleets available to rush to those systems’ aid…until the order from Mak’to’ran arrived. On his authority, which technically he didn’t have, he was ordering all fleets in the Star Force warzone to stop offensive assaults, abandon all worlds they couldn’t defend against the Uriti, and hold those they could while the bulk of their forces were told to move with all speed to defend the empire’s border worlds.

Word also came through about the takeover in Itaru, and surprising as that was, Tre’sti truly didn’t care. What Mak’to’ran had to do to deal with the Oso’lon and the J’gar was his problem, but as long as he appeared to be in control and calling for a defense of the empire, Tre’sti wasn’t going to argue the point.

Before a counter-order could come through from Virokor or the other I’rar’et commanders, Tre’sti began pulling in all I’rar’et fleets and their Zen’zat troops that he could to Flying Monkey as he assembled a massive convoy in preparation to leave and head for the nearest I’rar’et system under attack. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be Veernum, for it was on the other side of the galaxy, but as long as Mak’to’ran wasn’t giving specific orders about where to go, Tre’sti was not going to bother defending the systems held by other races. He was going straight to the Bearadan System where the I’rar’et held two out of the six planets.

Bearadan was approximately 5 months away from their current position, though had the fleets not been all the way out in the middle of nowhere, reinforcements could have arrived within days, or weeks at the most. They were so out of position it was painfully obvious that the V’kit’no’sat had made a huge mistake in devoting so many military resources to this single invasion…and to his credit, Mak’to’ran had warned this would be a bad idea.

But the Era’tran fleets were clustered around the Core fighting the Hadarak, so they weren’t in position to immediately help, but they would be able to get to the systems across the galaxy far faster along with the other 37 races that had not taken part in the Star Force invasion. But even then, they were going to be late getting there and already some systems were reported to have completely fallen into enemy hands.

Bearadan would not fall so quickly with 6 worlds, so Tre’sti was somewhat sure there would be V’kit’no’sat in the system to reinforce when he got there. Would the I’rar’et worlds hold out, he couldn’t say, but the fact that they were getting hit by an enemy the V’kit’no’sat had no knowledge of was disturbing. They were using ships even larger than those of the V’kit’no’sat and some weapon systems that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Their effect wasn’t greater than the weapons of the V’kit’no’sat, but the unknown nature of the combat made it difficult to predict what months of conflict would result in.

But still, 6 V’kit’no’sat worlds that could reinforce each other would bleed the enemy dry unless they came in with so much force that they were completely overwhelmed. There was no data on fleet size in the most recent update, so Tre’sti couldn’t know, but he wasn’t going wait here any longer than he needed. I’rar’et worlds were under assault and his fleet belonged there, defending their territory, rather than here going after an enemy that didn’t have the arrogance to directly attack the empire…save for one quick strike on their shipyards with a Uriti to prove their point.

Mak’to’ran had been right. Tre’sti should have given him the benefit of the doubt earlier, but the heresy of Star Force had blinded him with rage to the point that he agreed with the Oso’lon that they must be destroyed or, at the very minimum, annexed back into the empire. But Mak’to’ran had seen wisdom he had not, and the vulnerability that few had been willing to admit existed was now being exploited by races that had never been seen before.

The V’kit’no’sat had assumed dominance, but now it was clear there were many races out in the Rim that wished to challenge them…and they’d been biding their time until they saw an opportunity to strike, which apparently was now.

And if they were somehow coordinating with Star Force, then this whole invasion may have been a massive trap.

Tre’sti couldn’t be sure of anything. The empire was so large the idea of it falling was absurd, but a few systems had already been lost and more were under assault. What was the enemy thinking? Did they actually have a chance to topple the V’kit’no’sat? Tre’sti thought not, but why would they do this if they didn’t have a chance of victory? Was the real situation out there worse than the reports indicated?

The more he thought about it the more concerned he became, and the fact that Mak’to’ran had seen fit to overthrow the Oso’lon and J’gar, not to mention disbanding the Elder Council, suggested the situation might just be that dire.

Tre’sti hated waiting for his fleets to return to his command center, but he couldn’t leave anyone behind. They’d be easy targets for Star Force, and when his fleet moved they might even get ambushed enroute. They had to go as one, and Tre’sti had already decided to abandon Flying Monkey as well. The Hjar’at had agreed to move in and hold it for them, for they were not heeding Mak’to’ran’s order to withdraw…at least not all of them. He’d heard that Hirojen was, in defiance of Virokor’s orders, and there may have been many other defectors from his own race, which was all the more reason to get out of here as quickly as possible. This warfront was now chaos, and while Tre’sti had not followed Mak’to’ran’s lead before he would not make the same mistake twice. The Era’tran were the only reliable leadership now, and while he didn’t know how long that would last, what Mak’to’ran was ordering made sense.

The empire was under attack, and the empire had to respond. Tre’sti was going, though he didn’t know how many others would. Itaru was helpless to fight this coordinated attack without the war fleets, and there was no way Tre’sti was going to stay here fighting a defending enemy when I’rar’et systems were calling for aid.

When the last of his ships arrived Tre’sti gladly gave the order to jump out, even before the Hjar’at had enough ships to properly defend the system. They were here, it was their problem now, and he wasn’t going to waste a day. The I’rar’et fleets were already late as it was, and he wasn’t going to make it any worse by delaying more.

Virokor wisely did not try to order him to stay, for he would have disobeyed anyway, and he had not received any orders from I’rar’et superiors, so he left the V’kit’no’sat communications network behind and jumped out of the system along with his 32,733 ships and began taking the quickest route to Bearadan possible, meaning he’d be out of contact with the empire as he pushed through the Rim spinward and came in behind the mysterious attackers.

Assuming they would still be there 5 months from now. He just hoped there would be some I’rar’et left to save, though he had a sinking feeling he just might find the entire system razed and lifeless without any enemy to avenge themselves on…

8 months later…

Hamob had been recalled to Itaru after Mak’to’ran had seized it, and the Elder Era’tran had been thoroughly surprised by both his decision and the response by the empire. There was nearly unanimous support within Itaru for his actions. Not amongst the elite leadership, but from the mid level planetary commanders and the populous in general. It seemed the direct assault on V’kit’no’sat territory had been enough to bring them in firmly behind his leadership…yet the dissolving of the Elder Council was a step that he didn’t think anyone would have stood for.

But they had. The empire was now at war, and a righteous one at that. There was no division on the need to protect their own territory and Mak’to’ran had already made the painful decision to pull off the bulk of the Era’tran fleets on the Hadarak border save for the current hot spots. He was gambling on the other areas, for the remaining patrols allowed the V’kit’no’sat a presence for the Hadarak to detect, though without them knowing how weak they now were. Add in the fact that the Hadarak moved slowly and it might be a gamble that would pay off, though the Hadarak combat of the past year was vicious enough to give him pause.

He didn’t envy Mak’to’ran the choice, for he knew the younger Era’tran hated abandoning their duty on that border, but with the bulk of the V’kit’no’sat fleet on the opposite side of the galaxy from Jamtren it would take them a year or more to cross the distance, and Hamob knew they couldn’t wait that long. The races holding the Hadarak border had to respond, along with every scrap of defense fleets from the other worlds not yet under attack. Those could get to the fighting sooner, but the Era’tran had the strongest fleet available after the J’gar, who curiously had agreed to hold the line against the Hadarak until reinforcement fleets from the Star Force warfront replaced them.

When Hamob had arrived in Itaru he’d had a very long and heated debate with Mak’to’ran, but the path they were on had already been chosen and there was nothing to do but follow it. He’d confided in Hamob about the decision of the triad and the dissolution of the V’kit’no’sat, but that didn’t fully explain the J’gar’s decision to stay on the Hadarak border. They’d be taking serious losses there as well, perhaps more even than those heading for the Rim because planetary defenses had little to no effect on the Hadarak. The attacking races were not so immune, so the J’gar’s play was both curious and a relief, but it was clear they wanted to separate themselves from the rest of the empire and perhaps even fighting alongside one another was too much for the Didact’s ego to handle, hence they were not rushing to the Rim border.

The bulk of the Oso’lon fleets were engaged against Star Force and Hamob did not know if they’d all recall or not. The Primearch had said they would, but how many they would leave behind to guard their taken worlds was in question. They had not agreed to relinquish them, and he doubted the Oso’lon would break ranks on Mak’to’ran’s order alone, so at best they would be even more delayed in getting to the other Rim warzones than the rest of the races.

Mak’to’ran had called Hamob to Itaru for the specific reason of using him as an emissary to Star Force. He wanted to go himself, but he admitted that he could not leave Itaru any longer. Not even to go to the Hadarak front or these Rim assaults. Itaru had to hold the empire together, and without his presence Itaru could not function. For better or worse he was stuck here semi-permanently, but an agreement with Star Force had to be forged and Hamob had been his choice to go.

So now Hamob was racing through space beyond V’kit’no’sat territory to rendezvous with Virokor, who had volunteered to stay behind and oversee their conquests. That was not easy for a Hjar’at, especially a legendary commander such as him. He wanted to be in the thick of battle, and while this conflict with Star Force wasn’t over yet, the idea of the empire being attacked and him not being involved must have hurt him badly…but he had a duty and he was carrying it out as he saw fit. Hamob respected that, but when he finally tracked him down and brought him up to speed on most of what Mak’to’ran had confided in him, the Hjar’at was incensed.

They did not come to blows, but the idea of abandoning everything they’d been fighting for the past two decades was not something he could take. He flat out refused to abide by Mak’to’ran’s orders or accept him as the uncontested leader of the V’kit’no’sat, but as Hamob gradually went through the logistics of the war they were fighting on multiple fronts, the Hjar’at finally saw the sad truth behind the numbers.

Star Force was beyond their ability to destroy now, unless they were willing to sacrifice the Rim border worlds, which was something the Hjar’at was also not willing to concede, but he was so conflicted that Hamob ultimately decided to exercise the option Mak’to’ran had given him. So he’d taken Virokor into a secure chamber and revealed the truth about the Zak’de’ron and the much larger fight that was ahead of them…and how the Oso’lon and others had wanted to waste time and ships on conquering Star Force first.

It took only moments for Virokor’s demeanor to change, and the fire in his eyes nearly matched the glow of his Saroto’kanse’vam as Hamob explained the situation in detail. Once he did, and Virokor got past the shock of their existence, he could see the writing on the wall clearly enough. Mak’to’ran’s takeover of Itaru was necessary to prepare for what was coming, and the war that Virokor had been so painstakingly progressing was for naught. They needed Star Force as an ally, or at least as a distraction against the Zak’de’ron, and the past 20 years had no doubt seriously hurt that potential cooperation.

When he learned that it was Star Force who had informed the V’kit’no’sat of the Zak’de’ron’s existence the Hjar’at was fuming. Whatever heresy they had committed had been absolved in his mind, and the fact that he’d been tricked into fighting them after they’d confided the most valuable secret in the galaxy to the V’kit’no’sat was appalling to him. At that point he demanded that he be allowed to travel with Hamob to meet with them, and the Era’tran knew the Hjar’at’s honor would not allow anything less.

So he took Virokor onboard his Kafcha and secretly left the ‘safe’ captured systems and ventured into Star Force territory…where they came to a respectful stop inside one of their more fortified systems and began broadcasting their request for a summit to discuss the ending of the war.

7

August 18, 4915

Bearadan System (V’kit’no’sat territory)

Tewvo

It’d been three months since Tre’sti had arrived in the Bearadan System, and in that time the situation had not improved. Three of the 6 inhabited planets were gone. Every living thing on their surface destroyed, and not just the V’kit’no’sat living there. All the plants and indigenous lifeforms were gone as well, leaving nothing but scorched, barren soil behind.

One of those had been an I’rar’et world, but fortunately the other still stood, along with a Brat’mar planet and one mixed with 8 different races, the largest faction being the Bez. Only the Brat’mar world was not yet under assault, with the other two already having massive holes in their planetary shield system and enemy troops on the ground going after the others.

Tre’sti’s fleet had saved those three worlds, temporarily at least, but he did not have control of the system. The enemy fleet, still unidentified since the invaders wouldn’t respond to any communications, had received reinforcements two weeks ago and Tre’sti was now firmly at a disadvantage in naval combat…but pull within range of the planetary defense stations and he has zones of dominance to work out of, which was why the enemy was breaking off pieces of its huge ships and landing them on the surface.

From there they broke down further, forming their ground ‘troops’ that were floating just over the ground and engaging the V’kit’no’sat infantry. They were smaller than Star Force drones, but larger than Zen’zat assault craft and so many in number that it was hard to kill them fast enough, given their higher mass…and they could recombine into larger units that had better shields when needed, such as when attacking fixed emplacements.

Who was inside the ships had remained a mystery up until Tre’sti had arrived and led a short-lived reversal on the shared planet. They’d managed to capture and examine some of the dead ‘troop’ ships, finding biological material inside that was apparently grafted to the vessels. It had died along with them, for the most part, and what was there was not something that could have escaped the ships.

The V’kit’no’sat were not quite sure what to make of them. Were they biological components akin to computer systems, or were they people physically and permanently melded with the technology? He feared the latter, for the ships were psionically shielded against Ikrid, and when they had tried to connect to the biological parts once the shells were breached they died instantly. A few Bez had indicated they have very brief contact that was ended immediately with their deaths, but it was so short they couldn’t be sure if it was just an echo off the neurological systems or an actual person’s mind inside.

Speculation was that there was a suicide protocol on the biomatter if the psionic defenses were breached, and perhaps even when the ships were damaged to the point of inoperability. Either way, it was clear this enemy did not want prisoners taken or their biological technology examined, and they were behaving in the same way with their attack on the V’kit’no’sat. On the three devastated planets, once they had the shield generators down, they attacked the geography with some kind of energy weapon never before seen. Tre’sti had no idea even what class it was in, for there was nothing in the database like it.

It started small, dropped on the surface like a Uit Streamer in a glob of energy matrix, then it sat there for several minutes, seeming to do nothing. After a while it began to move, burning all beneath it, and with the more material it digested the larger it got. It spread outward like a donut, leaving the interior scorched and lifeless as the ring expanded and washed over territory with growing rapidity. How it escalated so much was beyond current V’kit’no’sat science, and when it hit water it went crazy, growing beyond measure and totally vaporizing the oceans.

Except it wasn’t vapor that remained. It was hydrogen and oxygen being released into the atmosphere and growing it considerably in size…then some lightning strike would occur and detonate the hydrogen, causing it to reform with the oxygen in explosive fashion…resulting in huge amounts of rain that were washing over the dead planets hour after hour with no end in sight as the oceans gradually reformed, dirty with ash and debris.

But this enemy was not launching this weapon until all the shield generators were down. Whether that was protocol or functional Tre’sti didn’t know, but if they couldn’t keep at least some shield generators up on the remaining worlds they’d be eradicated in a similar fashion…along with far more people, many of which had been evacuated off the other worlds during the fighting. Not all had made it off, but now the survivors were pinned along with the inhabitants of these three worlds, and if all fell, virtually every one on them was going to burn in that final red energy corrosion attack.

The V’kit’no’sat still had their Urrtren link, and were sending out calls for assistance constantly, but so far only Tre’sti’s fleet group had arrived from the Star Force invasion front. Other smaller bits of assistance had been arriving from nearby systems in the empire, but not in the numbers they needed to combat this larger unidentified fleet who had many ships twice as large as a Mach’nel.

And the enemy had already received reinforcements once, they may very well get more in the coming weeks, for since the attack here other systems in this region had come under assault from the same type of ships, now 9 systems in all, and they kept getting reinforcements too. Whoever this was, they were proceeding gradually, and that didn’t bode well for the future of the Bearadan System.

Tre’sti felt they were going to lose everyone here, and damn him and the others for leaving the empire so exposed as to allow this.

Hamob’s Kafcha held position with Star Force ships all around it. They weren’t shooting, but they were cutting off all escape avenues as the V’kit’no’sat were forced to wait for days that became weeks before another Star Force fleet arrived. This one came with the Uriti named Bumblebee, and the yellow-colored semi-rectangular mass of living terror released from its transport vessel and headed down into the star…and not towards the single V’kit’no’sat ship.

That was a relief for both Hamob and Virokor, but one of the command ships in the fleet did come towards their location and was let past the blockading ring of drones surrounding the Kafcha, then the trailblazer onboard signaled for the V’kit’no’sat delegation to transfer over to his vessel.

Hamob wanted to refuse, but he knew he had few options here. When Mak’to’ran had talked to them before he had transferred to the Star Force vessel, but if this Era’tran had a say he would have handled things differently. Unfortunately he didn’t, so he and Virokor alone took a drop pod over into the Star Force command ship where they found a completely empty hangar bay save for one tiny Human.

Hamob and Virokor walked down the boarding ramp into the hangar, which was small compared to the size the V’kit’no’sat normally used, but they could easily fit 500 Era’tran in here if needed. Taking a cue from Mak’to’ran’s reports, he ordered the drop pod to leave as a sign that they were here to talk in private, absent recordings, which is why he figured the Human was here alone.

“Ready to give up?” Kip-022 asked mockingly in V’kit’no’sat.

“Am I to assume this chamber is secure?”

“Just us and no recordings. So speak freely.”

“Mak’to’ran sent me to speak for him,” Hamob continued. “I know what he knows.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“That the Zak’de’ron are alive.”

“He wasn’t supposed to tell people that,” Kip pointed out.

“Only a handful know. Even Virokor was not told until recently,” the Era’tran said, gesturing to the angry Hjar’at beside him who was grinding his stub claws into the hangar floor repetitively.

“Well you’re not happy,” Kip said, standing about 30 meters away from the pair, which was painfully close given their larger size.

“I was led into a fight without knowledge as to why,” the Hjar’at said snippily. “Had I known you were the ones who betrayed the Zak’de’ron and alerted us to their existence, I never would have led the attack against you. We both have our survival at stake and it is wasteful for us to be fighting each other.”

“Now you figure this out? What took so long?”

“The empire has not been told of the Zak’de’ron. Without that knowledge, you appeared to be the greatest threat to us.”

“Mak’to’ran has told me to negotiate an end to the war,” Hamob interjected. “We are under attack across the galaxy and cannot continue to fight you effectively while defending our own territory.”

“How bad are you getting hit?”

“You already knew?” Virokor asked.

Kip nodded. “The races attacking you are in league with us for one purpose and one purpose alone. We want you out of the Rim, and per the terms of the deal Mak’to’ran struck with us, if you cannot conquer Star Force now you will cede control over the entire Rim…”

“You are responsible for this?” Virokor said, aghast. He’d suspected there might be a connection beyond mere opportunism, but to hear the Human so blithely admit it was beyond infuriating.

“They came to us, because we were the first ones to legitimately stand against your dominance of the galaxy. They’ve been staying away because they knew they could not fight you individually. You left the door wide open for them, so we offered a little organization and a promise. They’ve done the rest, which you know better than we do. We don’t have any effective communication with them, so for all we know they reneged on the deal. I’m glad to hear they didn’t.”

“What promise did you give them?” Hamob asked darkly.

“That when we got dominion over the Rim, we would protect them from you. We can’t do that when we don’t have ships out there, but we can promise retribution against you with our Uriti if you strike them after we’ve negotiated a firm border between Rim and Core.”

“You knew we’d be coming?” Virokor asked, not used to such arrogance from Zen’zat, who this Human was, regardless of his self-appointed title.

“As you said, you have the Zak’de’ron to worry about and there is no guarantee you can defeat us and the Rim Consortium if we all attack at the same time. It’s possible we could, given enough time, rid the galaxy of you. That is not a fight I want to take on given the layered defenses you have throughout your empire, but it is possible. At the minimum we can shrink your territory considerably, but we both have much to gain from an amicable agreement to ignore one another as we deal with other threats.”

“This was your plan from the beginning?” Hamob asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Then we have been played for fools,” Virokor said, but he wasn’t looking at Kip. He was glaring at Hamob. “We didn’t even know these races were out here.”

“You made two major mistakes,” Kip said before the Era’tran could respond…at least vocally. He had no idea what side discussions the two were having telepathically. “The first was deciding to kill all of us simply because our being born violated a rule. I mean seriously, what the hell is that? Killing us because we didn’t have permission to be born? You’re the ones that left the Zen’zat behind. If anything it was your fault, but still, killing people just because they were born. Big mistake.”

“Your second one was, once you decided to eradicate us you never finished the job. If you had sent this many ships initially we could not have survived. You underestimated us and continued to do so every step of the way. You expected us to crumble when you took our capitol first, then smashed every other world we had painstakingly built up. But we kept expanding and building new worlds and you never finished the job. Now we utterly hate you. We have a mutual enemy in the Zak’de’ron, but we will never be allies. That ship has sailed. What you’ve done we will never forgive, but that doesn’t mean we can’t both prepare for the Zak’de’ron separately, in our own ways, and stop wasting resources in this stupid war.”

Virokor walked towards Kip a few steps, with the helmet-less, armored Archon not budging, but before the Hjar’at could step on him the larger warrior took a knee and eventually sat flat on the floor so he could bring his head level with the trailblazer’s and only two meters away.

“I am not one to repeat mistakes. You have killed many of my race, and those of my brothers, but you have done so in defense of yourself, which is honorable. You also warned us of the Zak’de’ron, and that act alone absolves you of any and all actions previously. We never should have attacked you after that revelation. I never would have led the invasion had I known. And while I greatly wish to beat some respect into you, I apologize for my actions. I was in the wrong. We were in the wrong. The Zak’de’ron will destroy the V’kit’no’sat if they are able. If we cannot survive their revenge, then nothing else matters.”

“Respect is earned, not demanded,” Kip corrected him, then looked at the Era’tran. “And what about you?”

“I speak for Mak’to’ran. He has overthrown the V’kit’no’sat leadership, disbanded the Elder Council…which I assume you know the function of…and has taken personal command over the empire. He cannot leave Itaru, though he wished to speak with you personally. He also knows you will not travel to Itaru, so I am here to speak for him, and he never wanted this resumed war. Those that did are now removed from power. He wishes to end this conflict so we can both prepare for the future, and he also wished me to inform you that the Hadarak are growing bolder in response to the Harthur and our ability to more easily kill the smaller of their kind.”

“Interesting, but not our concern right now,” Kip said, looking back at the big Hjar’at head directly in front of him. “Have you stood down all your attacks?”

“The orders have went out. There may be some delay in them getting to all our fleets. I have told them to defend the worlds we currently possess and evacuate those under assault.”

“It’s a start,” Kip said evenly. “We will want those worlds back.”

“And we will want this Rim Consortium,” Hamob responded, “to stop its attacks and return the territory they have taken.”

“No,” Kip said, pointing to his right in the general direction of the Devastation Zone. “Out there is a dead region of space where you destroyed thousands of our planets. The fact that we have moved rimward and built new worlds does not replace what you have destroyed. The lives you have taken cannot be returned. We are not just going to give you back the worlds you lost. You will pay a price for what you’ve done. A price in territory.”

“How much?” Virokor asked, masking his reflexive anger.

“Enough for a buffer zone between us. You don’t have many systems this far out, and those under attack by the Consortium I am assuming are those closest to the Rim?”

“They are.”

“Some of those worlds used to belong to the Consortium races, or so they say. They are taking them back and I’m not going to tell them they can’t. If we can agree to a border, then we can send it to them and they will have to respect it. If they do not, you’re free to attack them. If they won’t respect the new border we’re not going to avenge them.”

“Do you have a recommendation?” Hamob asked.

“Some, but I won’t be making the final calls. The Director will. But before we start drawing lines, we need your prisoners released. Now.”

“If you promise not to attack the planets we took from you, you can have them before we negotiate a border.”

“That I can agree to,” Kip confirmed. “And when we get them back we’ll give you our prisoners.”

Virokor frowned heavily. “You have some of our people?”

“Not many, but yes. We have some prisoners. Do you want them back, or will you just kill them for their failure? If so we’ll keep them.”

“They will not be killed,” Virokor said angrily. “We are not so arrogant to assume victory in every battle.”

“I heard some of you are. And you obviously don’t have a problem killing people for rules violations.”

“Mak’to’ran has already lifted the death mark on you,” Hamob pointed out.

“Yet you’re still out here killing us. Not much difference.”

“You will have your prisoners back,” Virokor promised. “We will cease all attacks on you and return most territory taken.”

“Most?”

“Do you truly want the Ziviri back after they betrayed you?”

Kip’s face scrunched up in an odd look. “Not sure about that one. What do you want with them?”

“To add them to the V’kit’no’sat empire.”

“As a member or slave race?”

“I will not make that determination, but we need to increase our strength before the Zak’de’ron strike. The Ziviri hold promise, and they do not want to be part of Star Force.”

“Some do, most don’t,” Kip corrected him. “Do you want them or their worlds?”

“Their race, though maintaining a link to you would be best if we are to maintain a stable border. It may be better to retain their territory given its closeness to yours.”

“Theirs is our territory.”

“Not most of it right now, and if we establish an Urrtren link to you we will have to guard it. Better to have a reason for ships to be nearby than to have patrols alone.”

“Why not just take them with you and not bother on the communication part?”

“When the Zak’de’ron choose to strike, they will most likely disable communications to blind us and you. The faster we can spread information the harder it will be for them to block it. We will need every advantage we can get. Despite our war with you, I have no doubt you know who is the greater threat to your existence.”

Kip turned to face the Era’tran. “Does Mak’to’ran think the same?”

“He wants a resolution, and I am empowered to negotiate on his behalf. He will honor whatever agreement we strike.”

“And the rest of the V’kit’no’sat?”

“The Oso’lon and J’gar have split from the empire, but they will remain visibly a part of it and interconnected with our economy so not to invite the Zak’de’ron to return sooner. But they will not take orders from Mak’to’ran. The rest of the empire will. The Oso’lon wanted this war with you, but they cannot fight it alone. They and the J’gar are retreating into separate regions of the empire where they will colonize new worlds in close proximity and prepare for the war to come. You will be left alone because they do not have the power to strike at you. The rest of the empire will follow Mak’to’ran to their deaths. He is the only link keeping them together. Our negotiations will not be undermined.”

“Have you found any more sleeping Uriti?”

“We have not,” Hamob said. “Nor have we found the one the Zak’de’ron stole.”

“But you are still looking?”

“Of course.”

“Any that you find will be turned over to us,” Kip demanded. “You cannot control them anyway, and despite what the Chixzon used them for they have a pack mentality. They need to be kept together.”

“You are seeking to determine our sincerity?” Virokor asked.

“That, and I want the Uriti,” Kip admitted. “Before the Zak’de’ron find them.”

“Can they control them?” Hamob asked.

“I don’t know. But I doubt they would take one unless they had some idea about how to make it happen. For both our sakes, you need to keep looking and turn any found over to us.”

“I can agree to that, contingent on your assistance with the Hadarak threat.”

“We’re not using the Uriti to fight them.”

“I was referring to knowledge gathering only. We do not want them knowing the Uriti exist or it could provoke a much stronger reaction. The one you revealed the Uriti to was destroyed before it could inform the others. We want research assistance only.”

“So long as that ‘research’ isn’t barbaric, I can agree to that.”

“Then we have the beginning of an agreement,” Hamob noted.

“It seems we do.”

“How certain are you that the other races will honor the agreement?” Virokor asked.

“I honestly don’t know, but if some honor it and some don’t, you can mass your fleets against those that continue to fight and wipe them out. Their strength comes from simultaneous action. The rogues don’t really stand a chance.”

“I expected you to speak better of your allies,” Hamob probed.

“They are our associates only. If we ever grow large enough to expand near some of their borders, we’ll be invading them, for they are no better than you with regards to barbarism. The Rim Consortium is very limited in scope, and was created solely to get you out of the Rim.”

“Then you can work with those you despise?” Virokor suggested.

“If needed, but we won’t participate in their dishonorable practices. Nor yours.”

“We have done you wrong. I admit that. But in the end, we will need each other to survive the Zak’de’ron. They will not allow you to retain our knowledge. Not unless you serve them, and perhaps not even then.”

“Well you’re being remarkably friendly. A month ago you were trying to kill us.”

“Conquer. We only killed those who fought us, and that is coming to an end.”

“Only the useless civies didn’t fight, so it’s basically the same thing.”

“Nevertheless, the Zak’de’ron are our enemy and the Hjar’at will attempt to make amends for the dishonor we have participated in.”

“How so?”

“I do not know for certain, but we owe you a debt for warning us, and an even further debt for us repaying that favor with invasion.”

“We can discuss that later. Right now my highest priority is recovering the prisoners. Go set that in motion and we will continue this later.”

“As you wish,” Virokor said, standing up and walking back towards the hangar doors that began to crack open and reveal open space beyond. He used his armor to contact the drop pod and have it return, with it coming into view only seconds later, for it hadn’t gone far.

“Do you have a personal message for me to relay to Mak’to’ran?” Hamob asked as the spherical drop pod came through the atmospheric containment shield and set down just inside the ship.

“Tell him all the damage your empire is taking across the galaxy is punishment for him not overthrowing the V’kit’no’sat sooner.”

“This he already knows,” Hamob said with a sneer as he turned and began walking back to the extending boarding ramp. The Human might have a point, but he was glad to have a reprieve from his perpetual arrogance. He hadn’t once thanked the V’kit’no’sat for ending the war, and despite Virokor’s overdone shame, he wasn’t about to admit peerdom with these Humans. He’d hold his temper for negotiation’s sake, but the lack of respect was gnawing on him. He’d lived for millions of years, and as the Archon had said, respect was earned.

And Hamob had earned more of it than any Human could imagine.

8

September 6, 4915

Braum System (V’kit’no’sat-held territory)

Winage

Gardo Veer woke at the tone along with thousands of other Bsidd scrunched down into small egg-shaped beds the V’kit’no’sat had built for them. He was an old Gamma that stood twice Human height, but that made him look almost the same as the new Tridas variant. His joints hurt as he stood up, but not because of his age. He’d been painless and in the best shape of his 1700 year life when the Oso’lon had invaded, but since then his body had stagnated over 18 years of capture, though he was far from dead yet.

He and the others had work to do, and the tone meant it was time for them to wake and get to work…but that work was no substitute for the training that Star Force lived on, and such training was forbidden to the prisoners. Gardo didn’t see why the larger Oso’lon wanted to keep the Bsidd weak, for there was no way they were going to overpower them. One could lift a Bsidd off its feet with its telekinesis and literally rip their body apart with a mere thought. He’d seen it happen twice when some of the prisoners didn’t obey commands, and the second time the Oso’lon who did it got tail slapped by another one. Since then there had been no more summary executions, but some of the Bsidd had still died.

They were ones who had not attained self-sufficiency beforehand, or had only achieved it recently and lightly. Gardo’s strength, built up over more than a millennia was sustaining him, but he could feel the gradual loss in his body as he pried himself up and onto his mandibles with multiple sore spots in his joints.

He walked with the others clustered around him slowly, for there was little room to move around. The V’kit’no’sat had packed them in close rather than allowing them to stay in the Star Force structures as they had initially, but now everything they lived and worked in was built by the invaders.

Gardo filed out with the others under the watch of Zen’zat guards, then split off with those that were headed to the production facility that he was assigned to work. There was nothing there to sabotage, for the facility was processing materials used to make equipment for the Bsidd. Other similar ones produced their food while the V’kit’no’sat did not use the prisoners for their own supply chain.

That meant any sabotage would only hurt the Bsidd further, and word had it from the few Bsidd that actually spoke V’kit’no’sat that the Oso’lon had given the Zen’zat orders to keep the Bsidd alive as long as possible because no queens had been captured. That meant the prisoners could not reproduce new living shields for the enemy to use to hold the Uriti at bay. Gardo had seen the massive Sivir come down to the planet then leave, and he’d heard it had nearly crushed others before pulling back at the last moment.

Star Force wasn’t going to kill their own, and the V’kit’no’sat were using that against them. Gardo was a pawn, and while he knew Star Force would never give up on him he doubted they had the ability to retake this planet without killing him and the others in the process. And at this point, who knew how bad of shape the empire was in? They hadn’t expected to win the war easily, merely survive it, and now the Braum System was firmly in enemy hands.

Gardo kind of hoped that when he and the others died off Star Force would come back and obliterate it from orbit, but that wasn’t going to happy anytime soon. He and the other Bsidd were doing little workouts here and there where they could, mostly grappling with each other for a crude sort of resistance workout. They were doing anything they could to fight off the stagnation while having to endure the repetitive and mundane work the V’kit’no’sat had them doing.

Most of it was useless work that machines could have handled. Perhaps the V’kit’no’sat thought it would keep them busy or that it would substitute for workouts, but it did not. It was far better than being locked in their dormitories all day every day, but there was no purpose in it. No chance to advance, or to help Star Force do so. It was just day in and day out, methodically, spirit-breaking work that had them lifting heavy canisters that mechs normally would. They had to work together to do it, and it was wearing on Gardo’s joints since he didn’t have the proper nutritional supplements to counteract the damage.

The V’kit’no’sat food for them was limited, and they were on rations. Everything seemed to be in it that was needed to sustain them, but not at levels that would allow them to increase in strength. It was like they wanted them alive forever, but stuck in the same state. The universe didn’t work that way, and if you weren’t improving you were most likely declining, as Gardo and the others were, but their guards did not care. Maybe they would when more died off, but for now the dead were simply removed to a medical station where a regenerator would bring them back to life…at least until their bodies were so weak from multiple treatments that they became unsavable.

Something would break, they’d heal it, but then it would break again because the new tissue was always weaker than the original. That was a drawback of the technology, but was easily overcome with training that the Bsidd were not allowed to do…and they would not let Gardo or the others get treatment until something big broke, meaning his aching joints he would have to endure until something snapped.

He’d fought internally before, trying to resist in some way, any way, against what was happening to his body, but it was no use. He and the others couldn’t do enough, and the strength of the Bsidd on the planet had waned considerably over the past 18 years. They couldn’t train, they couldn’t fight, they couldn’t easily die either…they were just stuck in place. Treated like war prizes rather than people. Star Force prisons allowed for training. They even encouraged it as a form of rehab. But the V’kit’no’sat seemed totally indifferent, making it clear the Bsidd would only live so long as they were of use to the enemy.

Gardo’s daily routine did not change for years, but today something did. The Zen’zat leading his group took a different turn, prompting surprise amongst them all. One of them asked where they were going in the few V’kit’no’sat words that they all had learned, but the Zen’zat just telekinetically slapped the one that spoke and told him to shut up.

The Bsidd did as told and the group followed the pair of Zen’zat in front while a few others paced beside them and two more followed up in the rear. Had the Bsidd wanted to overpower them they could have just with their numbers, for there were 428 in this group, but they didn’t have weapons, armor, or must stamina left. And even if they did take the Zen’zat down, where would they go?

In the past some had tried just that, but they couldn’t kill the Zen’zat in their armor, only knock them down, and with the enemy Dre’mo’dons built into the forearms of their armor, they couldn’t be disarmed either.

Gardo wondered if this change was good or bad. He hadn’t heard of any group executions ever taking place. Maybe they had opened up a new facility, but if they had the construction would have made the rounds of the comm grid they’d set up via relay…with that relay being word of mouth only. With nothing to do here, even the smallest change or bit of information gleamed spread quickly throughout this prisoner colony set at the base of the huge shield generator that towered over them to the south. It blocked the sun most of the day, but it was early enough now that the sunlight made it past the monolith and down into the trench-like valleys between the much shorter V’kit’no’sat buildings that surrounded the site.

They eventually were taken to a spaceport…a place they had never been allowed to go before…and they were made to wait out in the open in rows as more Bsidd arrived behind them in stages. They were not told what was happening, which was normal. They’d know when they needed to know, and not before. That was practically the Zen’zat motto around here, and the first inclination of something being up came when a break in the clouds showed a fleet of ships in orbit.

That wasn’t unusual, for the V’kit’no’sat had many up there. Some came low enough you could make out their dimensions easily, for they were large enough to be seen without magnification, but none looked like what the Bsidd were now seeing.

“Those are our jumpships,” someone said beside Gardo as all the Bsidd craned their necks up to look.

There were 4 of them, each more than 20 miles long with their submarine-like shape easily distinguishable. If they had a flock of drones around them those would be harder to see, but Gardo couldn’t make out the usual dark fog that they represented when passing in front of the grey beasts.

Had the V’kit’no’sat captured them? That would explain there being no drones…or were there drones and they were pushed further away. With it being daylight now he couldn’t see them blocking out starlight, and the black drones were meant to be hard to see anyway.

A cloud passed over the spot, cutting off their view, but a few minutes later silver drops began to poke through the clouds and Gardo’s heartbeat skyrocketed. Those were Star Force dropships! Not V’kit’no’sat drop pods.

He watched as they flew down to several locations nearby, then one big one…a Dragon-class that typically carried mechs and heavy cargo…turned towards them. It’s wide, fat wings sliced through the air quickly, then it set down on the landing pad half a mile away from them. The small cargo ramp on the side opened and lowered, with a pair of Calavari commandos walking out in their orange armor and coming towards the Bsidd.

Gardo was watching them so closely he didn’t notice that the Zen’zat had disappeared, but word spread from the others as they saw the Zen’zat walking away from them without any instructions.

“Hey guys,” one of the Calavari said from behind his helmet. “You need a ride?”

A bazillion questions were blasted out, with Gardo included blurting a ‘what’s going on’ before one of the Calavari raised his lower right hand and they took the cue to quiet down.

“Relax. The V’kit’no’sat are turning you over to us. Now let’s get everyone onboard before they change their mind,” he said, thumbing back towards the dropship. “Move…now,” he ordered.

Gardo didn’t hesitate, nor did the others. Sore joints or not, he scrambled with them towards the beautiful dropship and felt an overwhelming sense of relief when his mandible nubs touched the material of the ramp. It was like a shower washing the V’kit’no’sat stench off of him, and when he saw the few other Star Force personnel in the cargo hold giving them directions on how to pack in tightly because they wanted to squeeze in as many as possible to avoid making too many trips, he finally realized this was real and that he and the others were being freed.

“Long story short,” another Calavari said loudly so all could hear. “The war is over. We won. Our allies around the galaxy all attacked at once and forced the V’kit’no’sat to back off. All prisoners are being freed while we negotiate an end to the fighting. Everything in this region is settling down, but the V’kit’no’sat are getting their asses kicked around the galaxy and we’re not going to call them off until we get all of you out.”

“What allies?” someone else asked, though Gardo was thinking the same thing.

“The Director made a lot of friends when we weren’t looking. They hate the V’kit’no’sat as much as we do and decided to join up into what’s being called the Rim Consortium. They’re not part of Star Force, we’re just working together to kick the crap out of the V’kit’no’sat. And it worked. Pack in tight and you’ll get more information once you get to orbit. If anyone is in bad shape let us know, we’ve got a few regenerators here if needed. We don’t want to lose you on the way up.”

Gardo felt like he was going to have a heart attack…and he might, given his current lack of fitness. But he didn’t. He just ached all over, but it was good ache. A very good ache. It was like a breath he’d been holding in for years had just been let out, and his body was hurting because it was no longer there to brace against.

Others were not so lucky, and some of them did have heart attacks at the sudden joy of release. A medtech got to them quickly so none would be lost, then more and more prisoners were brought onto the dropship until it was literally packed with people from one side to the other…then some more were shoved in and Gardo had to crunch down into a tight sitting position to make room, but he didn’t care. When the doors closed and the dropship took off, he knew all he had to do was just sit and ride along, and that was something he had plenty of experience doing in recent years.

Everyone was talking in hushed tones, not wanting to get noisy, but they couldn’t help but talk. Some were wondering if this wasn’t some trap, and that made Gardo’s joy hesitate. The Calavari all had their helmets on, so maybe they weren’t Calavari. Or maybe they were and working with the…

No, no. That was crazy. He was being stupid. This was Star Force. It had to be. The V’kit’no’sat had never tried to trick them before. They hadn’t cared to. They just told them what to do and beat those that didn’t comply…then sent them to a regenerator station to fix the broken bones.

Gardo was sure this was really Star Force, but others were not so sure until the dropship doors opened again and they were ushered out onto the hangar deck of a Star Force Calavari jumpship with crew all over without armor on and other large groups of Bsidd filing off of other dropships.

“It’s real,” Gardo said to the others. “It’s real…”

“You bet your stick ass its real,” a Calavari said from behind Gardo. “Now keep moving. We’ve got a lot more people to bring up and they don’t want to wait while you look around. Keep walking, sticky.”

The Bsidd smiled at the nickname some in the empire had given to the Bsidd. A nickname, and sometimes an insult, that he hadn’t heard in a long, long time. He tapped the Calavari in the chest with the rounded end of one of his mandibles then walked on, for he didn’t want to delay any of the others from being brought up.

“Make sure you get everyone,” someone else pleaded. “Don’t leave anyone behind.”

“We won’t,” the Calavari promised. “Report everything you know to the debriefers. All the locations of holding sites. All the work places. Everything. We’ll make sure the Viks don’t hold anyone back.”

“Are they keeping the planet?” Gardo asked as he continued to walk.

“Hasn’t been decided yet. We’re just getting you guys off first. Director Davis will only negotiate after we have all the prisoners returned. You can send him a thank you message later. Right now, keep moving and get the debriefers all the intel you can. We’re not trusting these bastards one iota.”

And with that Gardo finally had an assignment that was worthwhile. He had a purpose again and set his wildly fluctuating mind to it. He had to give the Star Force personnel that would be interviewing them everything he knew about the current state of the planet, so he started mentally preparing the most succinct report he could and exchanged notes with the others as they walked and then waited while others were questioned…but not all of them. There wasn’t time. So they were picking certain individuals out and Gardo got tagged by some of the other Bsidd to represent them.

They gave him everything they knew, most of which Gardo already knew, then he left for a private meeting with a Calavari Maverick no less, and started spilling out every bit of reconnaissance he could on the state of the prisoners and what the V’kit’no’sat had been up to on the planet since they’d taken control of it 18 years ago.

9

October 2, 4915

Bearadan System (V’kit’no’sat territory)

Tewvo

Tre’sti watched with horror as the still unidentified attackers received another batch of reinforcements. It was only 1,289 ships, but those ships outmassed the V’kit’no’sat ones, making them at least an even match given the V’kit’no’sat’s superior weaponry. But along with this group came something else. At first he thought it was a sensor echo of a tightly packed fleet, but once the analysts began to chew on it they saw that it was not a fleet…but rather one massive vessel with numerous holes in it.

It was more than 1000 miles long and half that high, built in a honeycomb fashion with a lot of internal space missing. The I’rar’et ran a quick check through the V’kit’no’sat database, but there were no matches. Nothing even close. Whoever this race was, they’d completely avoided detection and had amassed an impressive fleet…and now they were throwing themselves at the V’kit’no’sat in numbers that Tre’sti could not counter. He’d already lost another planet, sadly the I’rar’et one, with the survivors having been moved to Tewvo and Hamjew, the latter being the Brat’mar world whose planetary shields had not yet been penetrated.

Tre’sti was currently engaged in a staring match with the enemy fleet over Tewvo as the ground troops fought for possession of the planet. He was daring the enemy to come in low over the intact planetary defenses but they weren’t taking the bait…though they might as soon as those reinforcements got out there. If they did he’d hurt them as badly as possible. If they didn’t, then this system was going to fall and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Hamjew would hold out a while, but everyone moving there would have nowhere to flee and some 28 billion people were going to die, for the enemy was not taking prisoners.

But while the Urrtren was still intact he could at least warn the others of this new ship. It might just be a cargo hauler, but Tre’sti had a sinking feeling it was not, and that the V’kit’no’sat were going to lose multiple systems in very short order before the enemy stretched themselves thin enough that the planetary defense stations could hold their own.

But here they were being overwhelmed, despite doing massive damage to the attacking fleets and ground assaults…with the enemy choosing the latter after the first three costly orbital strikes.

Tre’sti couldn’t believe what was happening. Who had the ability to do this? Who was this enemy? And where was the rest of the V’kit’no’sat fleets? This system wasn’t that far from the Star Force front. Were they all skipping by it to head to other engagements? And where were the 38 races that had chosen to stay and fight on the Hadarak front? Was no one else coming? Did no one else care?

Tre’sti couldn’t evacuate what was left. He didn’t have the ships. And if those on the planets were going to get wiped out, then the I’rar’et fleet was going to go down with them and hurt this enemy as much as possible when they made their final assault on the Brat’mar world. There would be no pulling back. They’d go all in and protect the planetary defenses as long as possible. The Tar’vem’jic had the biggest punch, so the longer Tre’sti could keep them in operation the less ships the enemy would have afterward, and the enemy was going to have to face at least one of them to punch an initial hole in the shields…so that’s where he and the I’rar’et fleet would make their last stand, along with what ships remained from the system defenders.

And when they were destroyed, those on the planet would have to die with honor…for there was no escape for them and Tre’sti wasn’t going to run away. He was going to make this mysterious foe pay as high a price as possible to claim total possession of the Bearadan System.

13,042 lightyears away…

The Nooron System was one of the handful of V’kit’no’sat border systems in line with the conduit to Star Force territory. It had been used as a waypoint in the initial attack on Terraxis that had taken their capitol and then destroyed the Humans’ most valuable systems. During the most recent war it had been one of several transfer points, as well as being in a region that was not coming under attack by the Rim Consortium…a name just now beginning to filter through the Urrtren as the empire came under attack on virtually all fronts.

But not in Nooron and the surrounding systems. It seemed the area near Star Force territory was being left alone, perhaps because the fighting had pressed into their territory and there was no need to backdoor the forces they were already fighting with.

That had been the theory, and some of the few ships that could be sparred had been sent to reinforce the neighboring regions adjacent to Tamprani, leaving Nooron and the other border systems with a skeleton defense fleet as some of the major combat fleets passed through enroute to other engagements.

Or rather they had been. Now it was quiet here, for the fighting against Star Force had now stopped and both sides were in a holding action while negotiations were being pursued. That was all that Nooron knew, thinking they were safe from reprisal so long as at least some of their fleets were nearby and holding the territory they’d won to date in the war.

But that didn’t prove to be the case when ships started pouring in through one jumppoint only. The few patrol ships the V’kit’no’sat had there intervened and fought a pitched battle, but they eventually lost it and this new foe had gained a foothold that, for the following weeks, poured ship after ship into the system and began to overwhelm orbital defenses and installations through sheer numbers of weaker craft that were noted in the database, though no one in the system recognized the inferior race they belonged to.

They’d been marked for extermination before, then Terraxis had been discovered and the civil war following it had caused them to be ignored and spared. Now they were actively attacking the V’kit’no’sat in a way they’d never dared to do before…except now they were not so weak. Their technology, while still inferior, had advanced greatly. Too much to have occurred without outside help. They were approaching the level of the strongest non V’kit’no’sat races encountered and defeated in the past, but they didn’t build like it. They were fielding massive jumpships that carried smaller attack craft on them, somewhat similar to Star Force drones, yet these were manned and incredibly aggressive...eager to trade their lives for V’kit’no’sat losses without hesitation, and they were using that strategy to great effect as more and more of their ships continued to enter the system.

Nooron had no backup, and as the number of enemy ships eclipsed 400,000 they realized that the single inhabited planet might be in danger, despite their small size. The ship count continued to rise as all installations beyond the planet were attacked, being destroyed or in some cases captured, but they did not attack the planet. Instead they continued to wait for more ships to come in, and when the number passed 600,000 the combination of Oso’lon, Pas’cha, and Zep’sha that shared this world began frantically calling for help…but there was no one available to help as the Li’vorkrachnika took advantage of the multi-prong assault against the V’kit’no’sat to launch their own attack against multiple systems in the Tamprani Region…

Leonit was surprised when the Oso’lon contacted him. The Neokko were one of the lowest races in the V’kit’no’sat hierarchy and one often shunned because of their favor by the Zak’de’ron, who had included them into the empire shortly before the group betrayal. The Neokko had not stood by the Zak’de’ron when the time came, but the fact that they had been gifted with more psionics than the others felt was deserving had left a lingering resentment afterward that still existed to this day.

As a result, the Neokko were allowed less planets, less population, and were forbidden from having any stature whatsoever within the empire. Their small claim to their name was their cargo fleets, as they focused on trading to supplement their limited resources and make themselves valuable to the few races who would make agreements with them. But beyond those exceptions, most of the empire ignored them, forcing the Neokko to live in semi-exile while still being a part of the empire.

When the choice of the Star Force invasion hit them, they’d decided to side with the Era’tran...the only major race that had offered even minimal trading options for the Neokko cargo fleets. Leonit had never expected an Oso’lon to contact him, yet here was the message transmitted through the Urrtren offering him and the Neokko a deal.

One of their colonies was under assault on the border, as many were, but the Oso’lon did not intend to keep the planet. They were going to let the enemy have it and were not asking for reinforcements to fight…only to help evacuate…and they were offering a high price in exchange for the Neokko’s help. They needed to move some 74 million of them, plus another half billion Zen’zat, and they didn’t have the transports available to do it.

Abandoning territory was not the V’kit’no’sat way, and the Oso’lon did not want them to transport the survivors to a nearby system…but all the way out of Tamprani to the Feerno Region. That was a quarter way around the galactic swirl and would take, at best, 4 or 5 months travel time even with utilizing the main black hole jump routes.

But the offer of one of their exclusive systems in the Scrim Region was unheard of, making Leonit question whether this was a legit message or not, but it had all the proper coding. Why the Oso’lon would want to trade one of their fully intact systems for help in evacuating another to an enemy invasion was perplexing. Leonit researched the Ghanset System and saw it had three habitable planets, all moderately built up but not overwhelmingly so. There was still plenty of untouched land masses, but the Oso’lon weren’t offering to let them build there…they were going to give the entire system to the Neokko as is once they evacuated it as well.

It was not, as far as Leonit could determine, under attack nor near the current invasion zones. It was in the rimward half of the empire, but not on the far edge. It was too good of a deal, but one that Leonit could not pass on if it was legitimate, so he began calling in all of the Neokko cargo fleets in the area, had them dump their cargos in the closest safe system, then proceed to a rendezvous point near Nooron but far enough away that Leonit could gather his ships together without fear of getting attacked.

The quadruped ‘Chimaera’ did not know how this hasty transaction would go down, but he intended to be there himself to find out, so the third highest ranking Neokko boarded a system defense Na’shor and traveled out with the cargo fleet and as many escorts as he could scrounge up within Tamprani and the adjacent Olobiv Region. The Oso’lon had included a brief window of opportunity and Leonit wasn’t going to miss it, though if he’d only had an additional 2 months he could have brought ten times the number of ships to bear.

As it was, he had 7 weeks to work with and no more, for the Oso’lon were going to evacuate what few they could on their own in that timeframe and they did not expect to be able to hold the system beyond that point.

Leonit did not know which was more shocking. The Oso’lon losing a system that they shared with their two most trusted subordinate races, or the fact that they were asking the Neokko for help. Either way, things within the empire had drastically changed over the past few centuries and Leonit did not like it, but he did sense opportunity for the Neokko and he was going to seize it…and hope that Mak’to’ran could hold the empire together through this invasion and the fallout from him disbanding the Elder Council and taking full personal leadership of the V’kit’no’sat.

10

March 19, 4916

Detention System (Dagran Region)

Planet 3

Lasme had finished his obstacle course run in record time…which wasn’t too surprising. He’d been breaking personal records off and on for the past 3 years during his confinement. Initially the Kret’net Ultra had resisted the Star Force ‘options’ available for him, but eventually the boredom and stagnation convinced him to try some of them just to break the monotony.

He’d expected some sort of trick, or humiliation, but Lasme had learned it was simply what it was stated to be…training. Done the Star Force way. And as long as it helped Lasme maintain his fitness he was now willing to go along with it, and after his record run today he was led back into his cushy prison cell by a series of doors that opened and closed without any sight of the Humans or anyone else.

Aside from the few times they’d come to speak with him, he was left entirely alone. It was not what he’d expected when he’d been taken prisoner. He’d expected some sort of torture or other punishment, but he hadn’t been touched.

But his ego had. He was one of the largest Kret’net in the galaxy, having earned the size increase by being one of the rarest of the rare warriors his race possessed. And one that was willing to tolerate the disadvantages of that size as well. Not all did, but he knew his role and it wasn’t to be quick or agile. His place was one of immobility, soaking up damage and taking on the toughest opponents while the others handled secondary measures.

Ultras were meant to work as a team and provide a valuable asset in heavy combat, and they were only applied for such. Now Lasme had no one. If there were other prisoners here he had never seen them, and could not feel them, for he wore a brain box melded into the fin on his skull that was suppressing his telepathy and other psionics. He’d had to eat his foot with his hands or bend over and just shovel it in his face with his tongue.

Maybe Star Force didn’t know what level of an insult that was, or perhaps they did and it was an intentional humilitation, but he had long lost his animosity for his captors. What he hated was the confinement, but he’d numbed up to it and focused on learning what Star Force had to offer…which was more than he’d expected from heretics who had stolen their knowledge from the V’kit’no’sat.

They had a unique philosophy on life and the universe, one that had apparently worked well for them with the Uriti. There wasn’t a lot of information about them available to Lasme, but it was stated that they rarely used their command controls for the spacefaring beasts. Rather, they had used that connection to establish a relationship that now did not require the brute force control mechanism.

The V’kit’no’sat had long searched for that closely held secret, but no one they had ever captured had known of it. Yet, if what Star Force said was true, they no longer needed it. Their ability to befriend others was something the Kret’net had never bothered to attain since joining the V’kit’no’sat, and now Lasme wondered if that wasn’t a mistake. He still had little doubt that Star Force would be destroyed and one day he would be rescued, but there was no denying how much the heretics had accomplished and now that he had no choice but to sit and think, over and over again, he couldn’t deny their accomplishments.

Their take on training was also curious, for the V’kit’no’sat often pushed one to the physical breaking point then repaired them afterwards. Star Force held back on the damage aspect, focusing instead on exhaustion prompting adaptational advancement.

But it was the failure that gnawed on him the most. The training ‘challenges’ were designed to make you fail, over and over again, until you advanced enough to succeed, and that was something that Lasme could not tolerate in the beginning. V’kit’no’sat were not supposed to fail, yet Star Force hammered you until you did…all while making you do it to yourself. Those that simply refused were not punished. They were let alone so stagnation could eat away at them. There was no prodding, which the V’kit’no’sat relied on heavily for their hatchlings, and that made no sense to the Kret’net initially, but now he understood.

Those who were self-motivated advanced in Star Force, while those who were not were simply left behind.

No, that wasn’t quite right. They weren’t left behind because Star Force never abandoned them. They’d put the opportunity before them every day until they finally accepted it…or died from stagnation. And had it not been for that persistence, Lasme would not be doing their training now, for it took a long time for his ego to finally surrender to boredom.

And therein lay their secret. They didn’t use pain or damage as torture, but Star Force did torture. And they did it with simple boredom…which the prisoner would ironically inflict upon themself.

Tricky they were. They appeared incompetent, but there was a hidden strength to them and as long as Lasme was imprisoned here he might as well learn from it so the V’kit’no’sat could assimilate their small advantages once the Star Force empire finally fell.

Lasme returned to his cell and bathed in a deep pool before laying down on a cushioned pedestal for a nap…which was interrupted by a door opening. It was so unusual, for the training times were literally hammered into the stone walls of the cell and never changing, that the Kret’net jolted upright at the sound of the door as if it were a bomb going off.

And as far as his prison routine was concerned, it was. But the sight of a tiny Human standing behind the opening door was far more alarming…for none had ever entered his cell before. Perhaps this was another…

“No, I am not a hologram,” the Archon said in English with an ironic smile, for all the prisoners had been forced to learn the language in order to access certain privileges. “You’re time here is now over.”

“The planet is under assault?” Lasme asked, standing up and walking halfway towards the Human but no closer, fearing a trap. He could kill the Archon with ease even without his psionics and the Humans knew it, so there had to be something else…

“No, but you are being released. A V’kit’no’sat fleet has arrived to pick you and the others up. Your empire has already released their prisoners, now we are releasing you.”

Lasme huffed in utter confusion. “Why would we release our prisoners?”

“Because the war is over…or rather, the V’kit’no’sat war against Star Force is over. At present you are fighting others and do not have time to bother with us anymore.”

“What has happened?”

“They can explain, but let me just say that other races in the Rim want to be left alone and they’re all attacking simultaneously to force the V’kit’no’sat into an agreement to stay out of the Rim altogether. Your people are currently negotiating with ours as to the final details, but right now you’re getting your assess kicked and your invasion fleets have left to defend your borders. The war between us and you is at an end.”

“Itaru would never agree to this.”

“Mak’to’ran now leads, and he has disbanded the Elder Council as punishment for leaving the empire so vulnerable. He is not here, but there is another Era’tran speaking for him and he arranged the release of all our prisoners. So now we release you. A path will show you the way to the spaceport. I am here simply to say goodbye.”

“What have you been promised by Mak’to’ran?”

“You stay on your side of the line, we stay on our side…more or less.”

“He has given you dominion over the Rim?”

“That was the agreement if you could not conquer us.”

Lasme looked at the open doorway beyond the Human and the new route to the left just a little further out that had never been open to him before.

“What are you waiting for? You want to stay?” the Archon asked.

Lasme hesitated, his mind racing with emotions and fears that he had long since buried. All of it was coming out now, unnumbing him, but he was not so overcome that he couldn’t think. If he was being released, then there was no point in delaying.

He stepped forward without saying another word, nearly stepping on the Archon before he jumped up and flew into the air, pacing the giant Kret’net through the massive hallway.

“Who are you?” Lasme asked as he walked up to the door in the corridor that had never been open before, seeing that it led to a long, thin passage that curved slightly to the right.

“My name is Liam.”

“I thought only the most elite Archons could fly?” the Kret’et asked as he passed through the new doorway and felt a shiver of excitement and trepidation run through him.

“Correct,” the Archon said, following him in the air. He wore no armor, just a simple white uniform with pair of blue and orange stripes running along the limbs.

“Are you the warlord Liam?” Lasme asked, but he was faced forward pacing through the hallway at a fast walk and eager to see what lay beyond.

“I am a trailblazer, if that is what you mean.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The fighting is over, so my fleet was recalled. Figured I’d come here and see you guys off.”

“Why did you take us prisoner? You did not need us as hostages?”

“We get tired of killing, so taking the extra effort now and then to keep some of you alive helps us stay sane.”

“I suspect it is more than that,” Lasme said as he continued to walk through a very long and meandering hallway that had several hills, both up and down, making it hard to know which direction he was actually going after several turns that seemed to defy predictable geometry.

“Perhaps, but that’s the main reason.”

“I suspect you knew you were going to win. You had this invasion planned all along, didn’t you?”

“Possibly.”

“Then I say you brought me here to teach me things you wanted the other V’kit’no’sat to learn,” Lasme said, stopping and turning to face the Archon. “Why?”

“We will never forgive the V’kit’no’sat for what they’ve done. As an empire, they are our forever enemy. But the individuals within that empire are not necessarily our enemy. If you learn, and change your ways, you will cease to be V’kit’no’sat. We seek to destroy you with knowledge.”

“And what happens to the fragments if you succeed?”

“The Rit’ko’sor have already joined us,” Liam said simply.

Lasme huffed. “Do not expect more to follow.”

“We don’t have to except to lay the seeds for what might later grow into an ally. We don’t give up on anyone, or hadn’t you figured that out yet?”

“Even those who killed many Humans?”

“If you change, the enemy is defeated and destroyed. Who then do we have a grudge with?”

“You do not believe in punishment?” Lasme asked, turning to face the long hallway again as he resumed walking.

“Only as a learning opportunity. If someone will not change, better to just kill them immediately. There is no purpose in making them suffer before they die.”

“And you thought I would be one to change?”

“You have, even if you do not realize it. Is it enough? Well, we’ll see. If you stay in the Core then it won’t matter either way, because we’ve got a lot of work out here to do. But for your sake, I hope you have learned enough.”

“So arrogant,” Lasme mumbled

“You spawned us, intentionally or not.”

“I would have killed you immediately if we did not need hostages,” he said as natural light began to filter in above the top of a high hill in the hallway before him.

“So would a lot of inferiors. Be glad that we have transcended the V’kit’no’sat,” Liam said as he stopped flying forward and let Lasme take the last bit of his journey alone.

Lasme glanced back to see where he went, for he could not feel him, but the Kret’net did not stop walking. The lure of the light of potential freedom began to consume him and he began to slowly run up the hill until the plateau came into sight and the open doorway beyond. He ran out onto a vast, open air spaceport and as he passed the through the exit archway the brain box on his head disconnected and fell off.

Suddenly his psionics, which he had not felt for years, were returned to him and he could feel the telepathic communication from the V’kit’no’sat a few miles out on the landing pad signaling him to come to them.

Lasme kicked back his head and looked straight up into the blue sky, roaring loudly out of a mix of frustration and relief, then he realized that there were others coming out of archways set into little domes spread all across the landing pad. He spun around, seeing that the pad was so large it spread out tens of miles in every direction, leaving all he could see being the small protrusions and the scattering of V’kit’no’sat walking or running from them to the drop pods waiting further out.

Lasme didn’t feel like walking, so he took off running towards the mind that was signaling to him, still somewhat concerned this might be some giant trap, but the closer he got the more details his mind registered and the more information he got from the Brat’mar ahead that were here to pick everyone up.

The empire was under assault. The war against Star Force had ended. And negotiations were underway to get all the members of the new Rim Consortium to back off…but until they had an agreement and that word spread via courier to all those involved, the invasion of V’kit’no’sat territory continued with many losses across their Rim border.

Lasme ran all the way up to the drop pod before he finally saw the Brat’mar he was talking to standing just inside. He asked the question and the Brat’mar said they were not allowed to step off the ships, only wait for the prisoners to come to them. He told the Kret’net to come aboard and Lasme walked up the ramp into the V’kit’no’sat ship where he saw a half dozen others waiting inside.

Two were Oso’lon, another Kar’ka, with the remainder being the tiny Ari’tat.

“Did they capture any of the Zen’zat?” he asked, speaking his own language aloud again.

“I do not know. None have been released if they did,” the Brat’mar said. “We were told there were not many prisoners taken. Only a mere 9,273. You are one of the fortunate ones.”

“How badly did we hurt them before they unveiled their allies?”

“We took many worlds along their border, but did not have time to push in to their most valuable worlds.”

“Have we surrendered them?”

“Not yet. We’re waiting on the final agreement. Until then, we hold the territory we’ve taken. Star Force has not attacked to try and take it back and we have released our own prisoners. If they wanted to do so now, they could annihilate us with their Uriti. I do not like the situation, but it is what Mak’to’ran has instructed.”

“Itaru?”

“Now under Mak’to’ran’s personal control. He leads us uncontested.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“The invasion has changed many things. We are not accustomed to losing territory to races we did not even know existed.”

“What?” one of the Oso’lon prisoners asked.

“Many of the races are unknown to us. We have no information on who they are or where they are based. And many of them are powerful. Some, very powerful. We have been taken off guard and paid the price with many lives, for these allies do not fight according to Star Force’s rules. Most of them are simply annihilating worlds they take,” the Brat’mar said as an I’rar’et flew up to the doorway then landed and walked inside.

“8 more,” the Brat’mar said, “then we lift off and get you back to civilization.”

78,822 lightyears away…

The Zak’de’ron had managed to find another Protovic strain, but no more. That left them at 3 of 8 and the possibility of finding the rest was diminishing, though not gone. It was likely that the Knights of Quenar had found the most visible Protovic colonies to immunize, but the galaxy was huge and there were bound to be many more hiding out there waiting to be found. The Zak’de’ron would find them all, given time, but whether they would locate them before the Knights of Quenar did was questionable.

Today that was not the issue at hand, for their telepathic efforts with the Uriti known as Bulmuthal had progressed favorably, so much so that it was time to finally release the beast from its slumber out on the far Rim and away from prying eyes. They’d brought Bulmuthal to one of the systems on the extreme edge of the galaxy, with no stars and only galaxies visible in the night sky when looking out, but with the whole of their own galaxy in view in the other direction.

It was a sight that few had ever beheld, but the Zak’de’ron had been everywhere in this galaxy aside from the Deep Core. They had seen things that no others had, and this edge view was one that instilled humility into the dominant race. There was so much beyond their own galaxy, so many possibilities beyond that the stark view of them here was unnerving. The Hadarak dominated the Core of this galaxy, and the giant swirl of stars was so big that many races had never even heard of the Hadarak. It was too big for the Zak’de’ron to ever totally control, yet there were so many galaxies beyond that when one even cursory attempt at quantifying it all ran through your mind you had to shake it free, otherwise it would drive you mad.

Looking at that view now was the reminder of the lesson the V’kit’no’sat had painfully taught the Zak’de’ron…not to try to control everything. To pick their time, their place, and their territory, but not to go too bold, too big, and not to rely on others to do it. The Zak’de’ron could only control what they could control. They could use others, but never rely on them. That would greatly diminish the size of the territory they could monitor, but they didn’t need as much control as they’d tried before. They needed to prune, not possess, and knock down the largest powers. What happened in the cracks and the wide open, unimportant regions was something they could let go. Let the lessers have their freedom as the Zak’de’ron worked to reign in the greater powers. They would obtain their dominance, not by conquering territory, but by being the last major race standing in this galaxy.

But to do that they had to avenge themselves against the V’kit’no’sat and then take down the Hadarak, the latter of which made the former look easy. But today they would take their first step towards that ultimate victory as Bulmuthal was released from its Zak’de’ron-built transport and let free float near the red star that stood on the edge of the galaxy looking out into the true void.

The lower dose of sedative that the Uriti had been kept under still took time to wear off, but as it did the Zak’de’ron were in constant telepathic communication with it, and there was no violent reaction when it did fully wake. It was a smooth transition and many cubes of valuable resources were floating nearby provided by the Uriti’s new friends. Bulmuthal dragged them towards it in its grapple fields, smashing them against its body and absorbing the material to help repair the limited damage done from stagnation.

From there they talked, and talked a lot…about what had happened to the Uriti. How it had been created. Who its creators were and how they had betrayed it.

Then they began to explain how the Zak’de’ron were going to teach and guide the Uriti in a way the Chixzon never had. They were never going to leave it alone. The Uriti would join their herd and together they would fight the Chixzon and their allies in a long and massive struggle to determine who held dominion over this galaxy.

Bulmuthal then asked a question that they did not expect. For as pleased as it was to have a herd, something it had never experienced before but somehow instinctively understood, it did not seem concerned about who held dominion over the galaxy. Rather, it asked who held dominion over the galaxies…

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