1

March 25, 4853

Axalon System (Pavana Region)

Turok

Kara sat in her quarters, a few drops of blood dripping off the cauterized stump of her left arm as she began to feel sick. She wanted to use her Haemra to speed the healing of her arm and stop the blood loss, but she couldn’t with the numbing effect interfering, so she tried in vain to slip into a Sesspik trance, failing for the same reason. Her head was awash with the lingering stun effect and she didn’t dare try to use her Haemra to try and flush it out. The pain was already creeping its way into her mind, and she didn’t want to take the brunt of it before the medtechs arrived with a regenerator.

She could afford to lose some more blood, so she just sat and waited as the sickening feeling continued to creep up on her. Kara had never had a limb severed before and was wondering if this was part of it. She almost shot herself again to keep from throwing up, but at least the bleeding was stopping. Her Uzti boosted her natural healing rate, and it was still active without her mentally being involved. It was successfully accelerating the clotting of her blood and boosting the regeneration of a thin layer of tissue at the point of the cut, but would not regenerate her missing arm.

Kara would need a regenerator for that, because her natural healing would just seal over the wound and lock it down. Her Haemra could regenerate her arm a little bit at a time over the course of weeks, but the regenerator was the best way to deal with this. It would heal over the wound immediately, then they could get her to a medical station where additional biomatter would be available to give the regenerator enough mass to replace her arm…or maybe they could just reattach this one.

Kara looked at the severed limb bleeding out on the floor and telekinetically reached out to it, floating the dying limb over to her with a creepy sensation. She no longer had any control over it, and seeing it disconnected was eerie. Now that the Vorch’nas was disconnected from it she should be able to reattach it, assuming there wasn’t any bits left inside.

Kara floated her arm over to a nearby table and left it there, not wanting to take the risk. Better to just grow a new one to be safe…

She slid off her chair and took a knee on the floor, suddenly throwing up as her stomach couldn’t take the sick feeling anymore. She retched and recoiled three times before the first of the crew arrived at her door. Kara didn’t even feel them outside, that was how bad her wound was affecting her, with the pain continuing to leech forward into her mind.

“Do not touch that,” she said, pointing with her remaining arm at the clear shards of what looked like glass spread over a meter or two of carpet. “Put it in containment,” she said, clenching her stomach and managing to keep what was left of her fuel load inside her.

“What happened?” a medtech said as he came over and knelt beside down, pressing a Star Force regenerator against her upper arm over the injury.

“I had to take it off. This was the only way…” she said, yelling the last word as she fell to the ground.

“Kara!” another Archon yelled, rushing past the medtechs as she began convulsing. The mage placed a hand on her neck, using his Haemra to help heal her along with the Vorch’nas…or at least figure out what was happening…but the medtech beat him to it.

“Shit!” he yelled, reaching down to the regenerator and pressing his thumb against it. He mentally ordered it to deactivate, with the internal tendrils withdrawing and it popping off. The medtech grabbed it and pulled it away from her while she still twitched violently on the floor.

“What the hell just happened?” the mage asked, his hand still on her.

“Poison,” the medtech said, looking at a scanner that had been linked to the regenerator so they could know what exactly it was repairing.

“Why didn’t the regenerator…” he said, stopping short as he figured it out too. He was goosing her healing using his Haemra, but as he did so the cells he triggered to hyper regrow began oozing new poison.

The mage recoiled, then looked down at Kara and forced his voice through his telepathy to make sure she heard him.

“Kara, your body is producing a poison every time we heal you. What is going on?”

“Something the regenerator isn’t programed for,” the medtech answered. “It’s triggering a malfunction that’s creating a toxin.”

“Stop,” Kara moaned, pointing to another Archon that was telekinetically lifting the Vorch’nas shards into a canister that a tech was holding while more people rushed into the room. “Give…it…to…me.”

The other Archon didn’t waste time, grabbing the open canister and pulling it over next to her as Kara stood up on her hands and knees and puked again…this time half of which was blood.

Kara telekinetically reached in and pulled out several pieces of the dead Vorch’nas, then flew them to her right arm and pressed them against her skin.

“All of…them,” she said, puking again after the third word.

Both Archons picked up the pieces and flew them near her, with her grabbing them all and pushing them against her arm as she fell to the ground, staring at it as her Uzti continued to try to heal her, unwittingly triggering the poison that was killing her.

“Please,” she whispered, staring at the broken pieces that did nothing. “Please…”

“What can we do?” the mage asked the medtech.

“If it’s something the regenerator isn’t programmed for we need to get her to a medbay and treat her with healing patches and other conventional…”

“No!” the mage said sternly. “My Haemra is triggering the poison. That means any healing on her part is creating more poison. How can we get it out of her? We have to draw it off,” he said, ignoring the medtech even as he answered the question and putting a hand on Kara’s neck. He hacked into her nervous system and got a good look at what was happening inside her, then tried to use his Haemra, not to heal her, but to direct the poison through her body to specific points on her skin.

A moment later she began to bleed out a sickly brown goo, but it wasn’t enough, for every bit of her body that touched the stuff was literally disintegrating…and he couldn’t heal the pathways, for that would just create more poison.

He didn’t have a choice, causing limited healing along the routes he was using to transport the poison away from other areas in order to keep them from literally exploding from tissue degeneration as the medtech came up and took a sample of the poison.

“Clean it off her and don’t touch it,” the mage warned as Kara puked again, this time almost all blood as her body was being torn apart at a rapid pace now that the regenerator and the Archon had triggered the onslaught.

“Please…” Kara said, so low nobody could hear her as she just stared at the pieces of the Vorch’nas while her vision began to go dark as her eyes were succumbing to the poison and beginning to bleed internally.

The medtechs, which were growing in number as more arrived, and the Archons worked as fast as they could to siphon off the poison inside Kara, but she was dying and she knew it. The only hope she had was her Vorch’nas, which she thought she’d destroyed, but maybe the Zak’de’ron tech was more resilient than it looked. It was her only chance now, for she knew what was happening. Zeno’dor has told her never to take it off, and she knew this was punishment for doing so. Somehow they’d sabotaged her body, and if a regenerator wouldn’t fix it, then her Vorch’nas was the only thing that could.

Kara’s eyes went brown and even her Pefbar was getting looping as brain tissue was being liquefied. She was a gonner and she knew it, feeling like such a sucker. The Zak’de’ron had been playing her all along. They’d only enhanced her while she was useful to them. Their ‘honor’ was nothing more than a tactic they used to endear their servants to them…but now she saw the full horror of what they were, and how if she wasn’t going to be their servant they’d eliminate her.

She hadn’t chosen to have the Vorch’nas attached to her arm so long ago. They’d forced it on her. And if she didn’t have the option to remove it then she was their slave…and it seemed they didn’t want their slaves being freed.

It was the same stupid ego that the V’kit’no’sat had. You had to be part of the group or you were killed. No one could leave. And damn her for ever thinking the Zak’de’ron were different.

Kara kept what was left of her vision on her good arm, willing the pieces to reform, but she didn’t get what she hoped for before she lost consciousness, quickly followed by her heart stopping.

“Damn it, Kara, hang on,” the mage said, manually restarting her heart and causing it to produce poison even as he healed it into a zombified functionality. “Try something!” he yelled at the medtechs. “We’re losing her.”

“Almost there!” another one of them yelled back, working feverishly to reprogram the regenerator via a small datapad. “Move!”

The mage pulled back as the medtech slapped the regenerator on the side of her face, with it sinking into her skin and diving its tendrils down into her body. The mage could see it internally as he still was linked into her nervous system, with the tiny tendrils reaching out and sucking the poison out of her body wherever they could…but more was being produced along the tiny tunnels it had to carve through her body.

The overall amount dropped though, which was something, but the damage to her body was so extensive that she was still losing the war.

“How is the poison being produced?” the mage demanded.

“Her cells have been reprogrammed. There’s a tiny production module inside them now, pumping out the poison…but only the new cells. Her old cells are fine.”

“So anything we heal gets converted? How?”

“I don’t know how. The regenerator should tear them apart if they’re not a part of her genetic code…”

“Shit,” the mage said as he and the medtech had the same though. “It altered her genetics.”

“That’s why she tried to put it back on.”

In the back of the crowd that had gathered Captain Zeddi pushed his way through the sea of Human elbows until he was in view of the bloodbath that was around Kara and continually spilling forth from her body. Her skin looked like it was covered with tiny rivers that were oozing out from everywhere and soaking into the thick carpet. He also saw her severed arm nearby and the mage kneeling with his hand on her neck and a regenerator attached to her face.

“Report,” he demanded.

“She removed her arm to remove her jewel,” another medtech said. “But her body’s been sabotaged and any healing creates a poison that’s killing her.”

“We’re losing her,” the mage said, tears in his eyes. “I can’t keep her going much longer. Her body is tearing itself apart.”

A piccolo had entered just after the Kiritas Captain and he pushed his way forward, shoving the medtech out of the way as he got down on the other side of Kara’s prone body. He pressed his hand against the other side of her neck while offering a battlemeld prompt to the mage.

“Together,” he said, then their minds were linked and their hands suddenly burned with pain as they used their battlemeld psionic Nevat to increase their healing ability and actually bored holes in their own hands so they could link their blood vessels to Kara’s. Through them they gave her their blood and shoved bits of tissue into her body…that they then caused to grow, finding that the poison wasn’t being generated from it.

That meant they had a chance, despite the fact that she was going to be gone within a few minutes. They prioritized her vital systems, heart, lungs, and brain, sending tiny bits of their own cells to where they needed to be and caused them to ‘heal’ and grow more tissue, absorbing surrounding nutrients and providing a little bit of structure even as the nearby poison damaged it.

The regenerator was sucking it out of her fast, but there was still so much coming from her body as it instinctively tried to heal that this probably wasn’t going to work, but they’d be damned if they didn’t try, and her heart was stabilizing as more and more of it became their tissue and not Kara’s.

“Nanites,” the piccolo told the medtechs. “We need to cyborg her out. Go!”

Two of the techs bolted from the room, knowing they couldn’t carry her while the Archons were linked in, and raced to get the necessary equipment that they hadn’t bothered to carry with them, for usually a regenerator fixed everything.

They weren’t going to be able to save her, and they knew it, but facing challenges had taught them to never give up, for they never knew when circumstances would change beyond their prediction, so if they could keep Kara alive another hour, then they would, though both of them doubted they had that much time.

As more and more of Kara’s body was destroyed and little bits of it were replaced with parts of the other two Archons’ bodies, nobody noticed the clump of her broken jewel that was still sticking to her arm despite the fact that she was unconscious and unable to telekinetically hold it in place. In fact they didn’t even notice as two of the larger pieces began to slowly melt into one another, creeping painfully slow as they physically linked up and began to rewrite their internal code from redundant backup programming.

It wasn’t until a regenerator shoot from the reforming lump dove into Kara’s arm did the two Archons realize it was still active. That shoot immediately went after and attacked the tendrils coming from the regenerator on Kara’s face that had extended throughout her entire body, sucking poison as fast as it could without attempting to heal her.

The Vorch’nas tendril intercepted the nearest copies of its counterpart and began to hijack them, first taking control then liquefying the solid regenerator on Kara’s face as it drew tiny bits of the machine through the tendrils and back to the Vorch’nas, which accelerated the melting process even as other tendrils shot out and began to heal the poison damage in the area of her right arm nearest the jewel shards.

Buy time, the piccolo said telepathically as they both saw what was happening.

“What the hell?” the medtech asked when his datapad suddenly lost connection to the regenerator.

“It’s fine,” the mage said. “It’s cannibalizing it for spare parts.”

“What is…” the medtech said, then looked at her arm where the previously jagged shards had melted like ice cubes and were now linked by little conduits to each other. “It’s still active!”

“It’s starting to heal her, but it’s not working very fast. I think we can keep her going, but the regenerator isn’t sucking poison anymore. She’s falling apart.”

A few seconds after he said that a new tendril shot out from the Vorch’nas that extended through her arm and up into her chest and head, attacking the poison and the bits of new construction that the Archons had implanted while initiating new healing in the most vulnerable of areas. The pair saw that no new poison was being generated in those places, then stopped their own repair work and focused only on pulling out more of the poison.

That didn’t last long, with the two Archons needing to disconnect entirely as the Vorch’nas tendrils grew like a tree that soon covered her entire body and began to fight even their light interference, forcing the mage and piccolo to disconnect from their biological hacking.

They both stood up, releasing their touch on her as the others looked on.

“What happened?” Zeddi demanded.

“She’s coming back, I think,” the piccolo said. “It’s taking control of her, but I don’t know if it’s late. She’s broken inside.”

“How long before we know?” he asked, but no one answered as they saw the little blood rivers across her skin suddenly dry up and get reabsorbed into her body. The cracks in her skin did not, but they weren’t seeping blood anymore and the pale white coloration of her skin began to redden up again.

“I think we’ll have our answer soon,” the mage said, with the medtechs returning soon with boxes of equipment that they rarely used.

“No need,” the Captain said, waving them off. “Her jewel is active and repairing her.”

Both of them sighed in relief, dropping the boxes on the table near her severed arm as they bent over and sucked air, having sprinted all the way to and from the medbay to try and save precious seconds.

Kara didn’t regain consciousness for several more minutes, and when she did it was an unpleasant sight. She jerked violently, then began thrashing around on the floor in obvious pain. The piccolo reached down to restrain her and try to help numb the pain, but he got hit so hard by her arm that it knocked him up and onto her nearby bed as she yelled.

She yelled many times, and with her mental defenses down everyone could hear her telepathic screams as well. Those without telepathy didn’t understand what they were hearing, but the Archons did. The Vorch’nas was healing her without pain numbing, and it was literally tearing her apart inside in order to put her back together.

All the Archons responded in sync, diving on her as they linked up in battlemeld and held her down while hacking into her body and numbing it as much as they could. The Vorch’nas fought them, but it couldn’t keep them all out and didn’t have the resources to try. It had too much to repair to even bother with numbing, so it was up to the Archons to make Kara as immune to it as possible.

Holding her down wasn’t easy, especially when she blew out a random Jumat blast. They knew she wasn’t trying to, but she couldn’t help it. It was like she was being attacked from all angles and Kara had to push back against something.

Captain Zeddi ordered the room evacuated after getting thrown into a wall from one of the energy blasts, leaving only the Archons to try and restrain and help her through this on their own. He dismissed all but two of the medtechs, then waited with the pair outside for nearly an hour before the door to Kara’s quarters opened and the Archons walked out with the piccolo carrying Kara’s body over his right shoulder.

“She’s alive,” he told the Kiritas. “It’s over.”

“Unconscious?”

He nodded. “We need to feed her jewel. Power and material.”

“How is she?” Zeddi asked, walking alongside them as they didn’t waste a second on idle conversation.

“Bad, but she’ll live.”

“It tortured her,” another Archon added. “No numbing as it worked. It is now, but after what she went through…she’s not gonna shake that off anytime soon.”

“But is she out of danger?”

“It saved her life.”

“Yeah, and probably did this to her in the first place,” another argued. “I don’t see how else a regenerator wouldn’t work.”

“I’ll let the trailblazers know,” Zeddi said, letting them take her down the hallway as he stopped and turned around, heading for the bridge. Kara had never told him where she got the jewel from, but he’d learned a decent amount about it, as had most of Clan Ghostblade. If she’d cut her own arm off to get rid of it something bad must have happened…and if it had sabotaged her so she couldn’t take it off, then this was definitely something beyond his security level.

He didn’t know how long it would be until Kara woke up, or what condition she would be in when she did, but he needed to get the 1s up here, for whatever was going on here was clearly their turf.

2

Erin-016 was the first one to get to orbit, boarding the Yi via dropship and storming through the command ship until she got to the medbay where Kara was…but though she could feel her presence on the other side of the room, it was a wall of medtechs and Archons that came into view when she rounded the doorway coming out of the hall.

“Move,” she said lightly, with the others making a path for her to get through as soon as they recognized the trailblazer. Erin pushed through the gap roughly, nudging those out of the way that didn’t move fast enough and finally got her eyes on Kara.

She was alone on a med table, sitting in a cross-legged position and staring at the wall in a zombie-like trance that Erin could feel as well. Her emotions weren’t hidden to Erin’s telepathy, and Kara was emitting them like a low level beacon sending out stun signals.

“Hey,” Erin said, sitting down on the cushioned table in front of her, but Kara’s eyes didn’t track her way. “Hey,” she repeated, grabbing her chin and making Kara look at her. “You still in there?”

Kara’s eyes finally focused, almost painfully, on Erin’s face, but the physical contact between the two allowed Erin to see what was really going on inside her mind. She almost let go in reaction to the pain, or rather memory of pain, but she held firm as the full damage to her psyche was tallied.

“Come on, sister,” Erin said, sliding off the table and lifting Kara up telekinetically, then dumped her into her arms as she spun around and began to leave the med bay. “They can’t help you anymore here.”

Kara didn’t resist or say anything, letting herself being carried like a rag doll through the ship to the Archon sanctum. By that time Sara-012 was already onboard and Erin telepathically called to her to follow them to one of the larger training courses that wasn’t in use. Erin entered, still carrying the nearly comatose Kara, and climbed up the arcade-style mountain made of colorful blocks until they were at the flat peak where many a pitched battles had been fought against drone units trying to knock the Archons off…but none were active, and the mountain was silent save for the light footfalls of Sara below as she bounced her way to the top behind them.

Erin set Kara down then assumed a seated position behind her as she wrapped the beleaguered Archon in a firm hug and didn’t let go. Kara felt like a wet noodle, offering no resistance and barely holding herself upright.

When Sara caught up she bounded over the rim and walked slowly to the pair, kneeling down so she could look Kara in her eyes that seemed to see nothing at all as she stared off into oblivion.

“Kara, what happened?” Sara asked while the other 1s that were currently on planet were on their way up to the ship.

She reached her hand out and Sara took it, then a flood of visuals and internal memories hit Sara like a sledgehammer.

“Shit,” she whispered, exchanging a few telepathic comments with Erin as they tried to figure out what to do. Kara’s brain functions were normal, so far as all the components were there, having been regrown thanks to the Vorch’nas, but her mental state was sheer chaos that was in a holding pattern as Kara tried to process what had just happened to her…but without an active enemy to lock on to. One couldn’t fight an enemy in the past, and the trauma she’d suffered was going to take time to wear off as she mentally punched phantoms with no effect.

It took more than an hour with the trailblazers in Kara’s head helping her work her way to some semblance of stability, then out of nowhere her first spoken words surprised all 6 of them.

“You have to give Ghostblade to someone else,” she said in a whisper so weak they couldn’t have heard it if not for the silence in the chamber. “I can’t lead it anymore. I have to hide.”

“Hide?” Sara asked?

Kara held up her right arm, which now held her Vorch’nas while her reattached left was bare. “It reset. The programming was destroyed. The remnants are quarantined in corrupted files. My knowledge of the V’kit’no’sat is gone. My knowledge of the Dragons is gone. And their programming is gone. My mind is free. I can’t let them reprogram me. I have to hide.”

“What proximity?” Jace-013 asked.

“I don’t know. If they’re in the system I could be compromised.”

“What programming is gone?” Sara asked.

“There was some in the first one,” Kara answered, her voice getting a little stronger. “I can see the difference now. I think it just made me more familiar with the way the Dragons work…and I’m calling them Dragons now. Not Zak’de’ron. That was probably coded too. But the big change came with the upgrade. They did something to me. Something major. And I think it was to control the Rit’ko’sor information. They knew I’d be the one involved, because I was the only one that had the information, and they wanted to guide the development of the Raptors through me. So they made me think the way they wanted.”

Kara finally looked up, staring at Ethan-014. “I can’t go back, Ethan. And I can’t take this damn thing off. They sabotaged me. They told me never to take it off, and they put some kind of kill switch in it. I cut my arm off to remove it, and it grew legs and tried to jump on me to reattach. I didn’t let it. I tried to kill it. I thought I had. Good thing I didn’t. It’s the only thing that saved me, and now it’s unlocked. I have access to all of it. Stuff the Dragons didn’t want me to have access to. They’ll seal it back up. Jamb their programming in my head again. I have to disappear. Fake my death if needed.”

“What exactly did they do to you?” Sara asked.

“This thing acts like part of my brain. Right now it’s just tech linked in, but add programming and it takes control. I was stupid to think they were honorable. Their wisdom and loyalty is just a sham they use to endear their slaves. Try and break away from their control…and you see their true colors. If you live long enough to figure it out. They’re as bad as the V’kit’no’sat. They’re why the V’kit’no’sat are so bad. They taught them. That’s why they were betrayed. The Dragons are the master betrayers and their apprentices learned too well. We can’t trust them. Tell Paul to destroy the sword. Just get rid of it. It’s not worth the risk. They may be trying to mess with his head too. Just destroy the thing, now!” Kara yelled.

“On it,” Jace said, realizing how adamant Kara was about this and knowing that if something was wrong every second could count and he wanted to give Paul as many as he could. The trailblazer jumped off the mountain and disappeared, heading towards the nearest comm terminal so he could warn his brother who was still beyond Star Force territory fighting the Ziviri.

“Don’t worry about Paul, or your Clan,” Sara told her. “We’ll take care of both. Was the torture intentional?”

“No. The Vorch’nas was damaged. It wasn’t numbing right,” she said, a tear breaking free as Erin tried to help her keep her wits. The damage to her body had been healed, but her Core had been tortured by the process and that wasn’t something she was going to shake off anytime soon, Archon or not.

“And now?”

“It’s healing itself, but needs more material to grow. I can grow it as big as I want now. All the way up to a level 12. I have full control of it,” she said, raising her right arm and causing the now smaller jewel to transform into armor that only covered her from shoulder to fingers…and it was white, smooth armor, not the red dragon scales, of either version, that it had been before.

“I can make it any color, any shape. The damage to the Vorch’nas wiped all the programming save for the base that was redundant in all pieces. It had to combine the fragments in order to fully rebuild it, but it’s now without training wheels. If they find it like this they’ll slap them back on. I know they will. They’re like the V’kit’no’sat. I didn’t earn this, so they’ll try to deprive me of it. I’d take it off if I could, but I can’t, so I have to hide. Somewhere they won’t find me. Somewhere they won’t look.”

“Maybe we can build a jamming device,” Ethan suggested. “Then they’d have to make physical contact.”

“I don’t know enough yet,” Kara warned. “Maybe there’s a way, but I need time to dig into this and find out. It’s so complicated, but I have access now. I just need time. Somewhere they can’t find me.”

“Can they track you?” Aaron-010 asked.

“I’m not transmitting now. But if they send a pulse it will reflect it. They can find me anywhere in a system if they know where I am. I have to hide. I have to be lost.”

“So we need to block the signal,” Ethan pressed.

“It’s not a comm system like ours. There’s the standard one, but beneath it is another beyond our technology. I don’t know how to block that one. I can turn some of it off, but if they have base programming to override…get me out of here. Somewhere. I don’t know. But get me out of here, please.”

“If they have a ship here watching, it can follow us anywhere so long as it can track you,” Sara said. “Can you figure out when they ping you?”

“I think so. I’m not sure.”

“Figure it out. If you can tell, then we can see whether or not they’re following and we can make you disappear. If not, then there’s no point in moving you anywhere.”

“If she dies, what will they do?” Aaron wondered.

“They can’t know about the sabotage,” Kara warned. “They can’t know I know. Fake my death some other way.”

“No,” Erin said, shaking her head and bouncing the little curlicues of her semi-short hair back and forth. “They might try to retrieve the Vorch’nas, or it might send a signal if she died. Better to let them think she’s still alive if they’re not in the system monitoring now.”

“If they are they might already know,” Sara pointed out.

“She’d be reprogramed by now,” Erin differed. “I’m guessing they’re not here and they’re counting on their programming to guide her to guide us to make the Raptors what they want…or to avoid what they don’t want.”

“Do you know what that is?” Sara asked Kara.

“No. It’s all gone. I just remember what it did to me, though it’s all blurry now. I can breathe now. I couldn’t back then. I can’t let this take hold of me again. I’m stuck with it. I’m vulnerable. I’m compromised. I have to run. It’s the only way.”

“We’ll help you,” Sara promised. “Even if we have to find Cal-com and beat down the Dragons’ door to make them fix it.”

“No,” Kara said, nearly bolting off the mountaintop at the thought, then she settled back down into a seated position with Erin still holding onto her. “No. They can’t know we know. They have to think we’re still dupes. If they know we know…they might make a move against us. We’re valuable as servants, or allies they can control. If we break away from that, there are no guarantees.”

“We hold the knowledge of their existence,” Ethan reminded her. “We have leverage.”

“If we use it, they’ll destroy us. They have sneaky ways to do it. We have to play for time. Time for us to catch up. We can’t make an enemy of them. Not until we’re ready to fight. Let them think I’m still ignorant. If they can’t find me, they’ll assume everything is normal. If they find me, they’ll know it’s not. I have to disappear.”

“First things first,” Sara insisted. “Your mojo is way off. You need to punch something. Can you pull yourself together enough to smash a few drones?”

“No,” Kara said, withdrawing a bit.

“What’s stopping you?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“She got thrown into a blender,” Erin argued.

“And she needs to fight her way out. It won’t be pretty, but it’s the best way for one of us. Start by standing back up.”

“She’s right,” Erin agreed. “Baby steps, Kara. I know you don’t feel like it, but I’ll help if you can manage battlemeld.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Try,” Erin insisted, holding onto her so she could hack into her body and force it as much as needed. Erin extended the battlemeld prompt, but it took several minutes before Kara’s very raw and touchy mind finally accepted it.

Erin nearly puked when she did, but as promised she held on and acted as a point of stability for Kara…while Kara acted as a destabilizing factor for Erin.

“Me and my big mouth,” she said, wobbling as she stood up with Kara following a moment later. “I feel sick.”

“I feel better,” Kara said meekly. “Thank you.”

“Use it,” Sara prompted.

“We can’t do much,” Erin warned.

“Anything will be an improvement,” Sara said as Ethan jumped down the mountain and flew to the start area where the challenge controls were. Soon there was a spherical drone floating up to the top and stopped in front of Kara. It shot her with a tiny stun blast, so low it basically did nothing, but it was enough to make her left leg buckle. She caught herself and remained standing, though Erin almost fell as well.

“Hit it,” Sara prompted.

Kara hesitated, then got shot again. Before the drone could fire another tiny blip, Kara raised her right arm and her Vorch’nas morphed into a lump over her hand as her emotions flared with anger. A white flash emitted and the drone vaporized in a cone of expanding debris that shot out away from the mountain top, then floated/fell to the ground below.

“O…kay,” Sara said, stretching out the word. “That works.”

“Sorry,” Kara said, recoiling again with her Vorch’nas returning to jewel mode.

“No, that’s fine. Kill a few more if it’ll help. We need to wake up the badass in you. You took too many hits you couldn’t defend against and you’re stuck in victim mode. You need to hit back and we can always build more drones. Blast as many as you want.”

As if on cue, three more appeared from below, floating up to eye level.

“Try punching one,” Aaron suggested, walking up and casually hitting one with his fist. It flew backwards a few meters, then seemingly annoyed, shot him with a tiny stun blast that he took with impunity.

Kara walked up to one and hit it, meekly, then hit the other as both came back closer and shot her with one of the weakest possible settings for the drones. She hit them again, a bit more forcefully, with Erin stepping up and working with her. They both punched and defended as Ethan gradually increased the difficulty level, letting Kara work her way through the active healing process while using Erin as a crutch.

Kara wasn’t going to be ok for a long time and they all could sense it, but she was making progress…and give an Archon progress, of any amount, and they would latch onto it with a death grip. Kara was no exception, though in her persisted a constant fear of losing what little she had if the Dragons found out what had happened. Working to improve yourself while knowing it could all be lost was anti-motivational, knowing she could get hit with an attack she had no defense against, but Kara still eeked along for the next few hours before they called it quits.

Erin disconnected their battlemeld, still feeling a bit sick afterwards, with Sara taking over for her as the rest of the 1s split. Kara headed to a new set of quarters to sleep, with Sara staying with her and curling up in bed with an arm wrapped around her. Both to keep her company and to maintain the skin to skin link that allowed her to monitor and help adjust her mind as she continued to fight through the memories and damage of what had just happened.

Kara was a mess, but Sara and the other trailblazers weren’t going to let her out of their telepathic range until she pulled through this.

3

November 13, 4853

Khaterass System (Kiritak colony)

Mewsovex

Kara stopped at the base of the glacier, standing a few meters away from the icy cold river cascading down through a crack in the monstrous mass of ice as she looked up. It would be a hell of a climb for a normal person, but with her ability to melt handholds for herself it would just be a matter of slow and easy climbing for the Archon…assuming she didn’t just fly straight up.

But she was done hiking for the day, having already covered more than 30 miles in three separate snowstorms wearing nothing but a T-shirt, shorts, running shoes, and a backpack. She had her Vorch’nas if needed, and could cover herself with a protective layer of armor with a thought, but she wasn’t using it and had declined the standard Archon armor for this trip as well. Relying instead on her Rensiek to keep her internal body heat in and the arctic cold out.

She’d done this before in training, but had never maintained the constant effort this long. Feeling a bit strained, Kara decided this was as good as any place to make camp and pulled her backpack off, dropping it next to her foot as she shook her entire body to banish the snowflakes that were not melting on her skin, rather sticking there dryly. She ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out as well, before pulling out the tent canister and triggering it to deploy.

It set itself up, expanding out into its large setting at her command. The foot-long cylinder transformed into a 16 foot-wide hexagonal chamber 9 feet high and two feet off the ground, standing on 7 footers that sank into the snow several inches and sought out the ground. They adjusted to different lengths to level everything out, then the newly formed door swung open and Kara walked over to sit down on the doorstep.

She blew out a breath, looking across the frozen terrain she’d just covered. The glacier behind her sat between two mountain ranges 58 miles apart and ran for 219 miles. Below it was a series of small rivers that meandered into each other and combined into a monstrous one that traveled down through descending terrain and out of the snow zone on the planet. It eventually ran all the way down to the nearest Kiritak colony where they were busy mining and building the necessary components for export to the rest of the Star Force empire.

There were 3.6 billion of them on the planet, and a total of 18.3 billion in the system with only a scattering of Humans and other races acting as managers where needed. This region of Mewsovex hadn’t seen their expansion, leaving Kara completely alone ever since arriving on the planet and being dropped off via dropship in the upper forest 5 days ago, with her traveling on foot ever since.

It had been Sara’s call, for the facility that the Kiritak had built for her lay up in the glacier. It’d take another day or two to get there, and while she could have just had the dropship take here there directly, Kara was glad that Sara had nixed that option. This was the first real vacation Kara had had since becoming an Archon, and it was badly needed in the aftermath of what had happened to her.

That was months in the past, and the memory of pain had faded, but the implications of what had happened were still fresh in her mind. If the Dragons found her she had no doubt they’d reprogram her Vorch’nas as they wished, for it had fully unlocked when it had to rebuild itself, and she was learning a great deal about what it could truly do.

But for now she didn’t need to train…as odd as that sounded...and was on this planet to hide. It had been suggested that she go to an uninhabited planet, but hiding on a highly populated one would make it harder for the Dragons to pick her out amongst so many others. No one other than some of the trailblazers knew where she was, with no record of her presence being recorded. As far as records were concerned, she was still onboard the Yi with Amber-403 acting as her doppelganger.

Her fellow second gen had even taken on her purple/white hair to make her look more like Kara, but in truth her command ship…her former command ship…was so big that a person could get lost in it easily. Aside from the Captain and a few other personnel that were let in on the secret, no one onboard the ship, or in the rest of Ghostblade, knew that she was gone and replaced.

As far as Kara knew she was off the Dragon’s radar now, and with how big the galaxy was she hoped to stay that way. From now on she wasn’t going on combat missions, wasn’t participating in training Trails, and wasn’t going to have contact with another living person on the planet. She was going to be totally isolated while the billions of Kiritak nearby went about their hyperactive business without knowing she was here.

They’d built the facility she was heading towards, but only on the in person orders of a low level Archon messenger that Sara had sent, for there was to be no record of its production and if any of the trailblazers traveled here that might tip off the Dragons if they had penetrated Star Force database security despite their assurances they hadn’t. That Archon didn’t know who the facility was for, and the ship that had brought Kara here hadn’t realized it, with her hitchhiking along without any official record after a word with the captain of the cargo ship that Sara had shuffled her out to through 4 other systems. She’d really tried to hide Kara from prying eyes, and hopefully all the stealth work had paid off.

Kara felt alone out here, despite the occasion glimpse of a ship in orbit. None came down into the atmosphere over the frozen zone, and with her Rensiek activated she wouldn’t appear as a heat signature amongst the snow and ice even if someone was looking.

Then again, she was walking in the snow open for any eye to see now that the most recent snowstorm had mostly blown off and the sky was clearing. Kara knew her solitude here was going to be one of anonymity, and if the Dragons were in orbit to be looking for her, then this mission was already a failure.

That said, she wasn’t going to be up on the ice much longer. Once she arrived at her destination she’d be below ground, for the facility was hidden from view and sensor scans. Now that Kara had no more responsibilities to attend to, she could disappear and work this out on her own schedule, and that peace of mind was something she was realizing she badly needed.

Part of that peace of mind was due to the fact that Aaron had traveled out to find Paul and deliver her warning about the sword and tell him everything that had happened without risking it going over the relay network. Aaron had told her he’d pulled a deep mental scan of Paul when he was there and couldn’t find anything amiss…along with the fact that Paul had taken her advice and chucked the sword into the nearest star, not wanting to take the risk of keeping it onboard the Excalibur in storage.

And that meant Kara was done. No one needed her for anything, her Clan was now someone else’s to lead, and she was no longer a security risk. The Raptors would be dealt with the Star Force way, with the trailblazers learning and adapting as they went rather than relying on V’kit’no’sat and Dragon knowledge. That was probably for the best in the long run, but Star Force didn’t have that long to tinker with them before the truce expired.

How much they would lose because of this she didn’t know, but it had to be done. Star Force had to lead, not follow the Dragons, for they were not trustworthy, and even after two millennia of learning from the V’kit’no’sat database Star Force was easily going beyond it and charting their own course, as they’d done all along modifying tech and tactics as they deemed necessary. Kara regretted them not having that asset to springboard off of, but when the database was tied directly to one’s mind, it wasn’t worth the risk of tampering.

But that was behind her now, the decision and actions were made and could not be walked back. Star Force was committed to moving forward on their own, and Kara’s future was equally locked. She had to remain a ghost now as she explored the depth of her Vorch’nas and tried to figure out a way to keep the Dragons from altering it.

Was there a way? Maybe, maybe not. She didn’t know and the depth of customizations her Vorch’nas offered was mindboggling. It would take her years, at the minimum, to explore it all, but she was no longer blocked with what she guessed were ‘worthiness’ tests. Those had been destroyed along with the data and mental programming when she’d thought she’d killed the thing, though now she was glad she hadn’t. It was the only thing keeping her alive, and after a very clandestine meeting with Star Force’s best medtechs, including Nefron, it had been determined that her genetics had been slightly altered in a way they couldn’t fully fathom.

The alterations were stealthed against a regenerator’s ability to see them, which meant it couldn’t alter that bit of sabotage coding that caused her own body to produce and release the poison that had nearly killed her. Even without her psionics and the regenerator, the poison would have built up slowly as her natural healing ability repaired individual cells, meaning she would have died more slowly, but she still would have died. Only her Vorch’nas was ‘safing’ the sabotage programming and allowing her body to heal normally, and without it she was as good as dead.

Nefron had tried several Chixzon remedies on tissue samples taken from her, but the genetic coding the Dragons’ used was so different he couldn’t crack it. They literally had a means of producing code that was not based on standard molecules, and every time he was able to neutralize or remove it, it would reappear…because there was also a stealthed virus within her replacing the coding if it was ever destroyed.

She wasn’t contagious, for the virus was unique to her body, but a regenerator couldn’t see it to eliminate it, nor could her own immune system. It was a very elaborate trap designed to not allow her freedom from the Vorch’nas, and right now, with their current level of technology, Star Force didn’t have a way to permanently remove the Dragon coding.

And so long as that remained, her body would poison itself when healing without the presence of the Vorch’nas.

So she was stuck with the thing, but it was different now. Halfway between a level 1 and level 2 Vorch’nas in size and on the opposite arm, it was a visible reminder that she was entering a new phase in her life…and a perilous one at that. She could not allow them to find her again, and if she was ever to be truly free she had to find a way to either remove the Vorch’nas or master it. Since the first wasn’t an option now she was going to work on the second. It had been a part of her for nearly her entire life, and now that it was unlocked she was more powerful than before in a multitude of ways…but always vulnerable to the Dragons.

That was her Achilles heel, and one she could not tolerate.

Kara sat on the doorstep for a while just looking at the snowy plains before her and the distant mountains bracketing them, though she could only sneak a peek here and there in between the clouds dumping snow off and on as if they were doing strafing runs.

“Well, at least it’s a nice place to hide,” she said, letting go her Rensiek and feeling the cold hit her warm body for the first time today. “If you’re an Archon.”

Kara stood up and walked inside, passing through the energy shield keeping the warm air contained within. Kara felt it hit her as well, along with the continuing relief of powering down her Rensiek. The effort to maintain it so long was taxing, and combined with the walking she was actually tired despite having done no training since arriving on the planet.

She pulled some rations out of her pack and ate them, then slid into a sleeping sleeve and got some rest as the two tiny distant suns set and the temperature outside plummeted even lower.

Kara woke before sunrise, packing up her tent and pulling her backpack on as she braved the cold that had frozen the top of the river water in a myriad of irregular shapes while the rest of the liquid continued to flow beneath it. In a few hours the temperature would rise enough to melt it off again, but the water itself would not get more than a handful of degrees above freezing no matter how much sunlight it soaked up.

When Kara breathed, the air passed through her Rensiek perimeter, stripping it of excess heat and keeping it on the barrier as the liquid in her breath froze into an icy plume, then the cold air she breathed in picked up the heat on the inside of that barrier as it passed through, keeping her lungs from getting chilled as she began hand climbing up the sheer glacier wall that was right behind her campsite.

Only it wasn’t quite sheer, with many odd crevices that offered something in the way of handholds. She made others as needed, taking her time and letting the environment soak into her senses as she chose not to fly to the top. It was her way of letting go and diminishing herself, yet still being passively badass enough to take the hard route up.

A little less than an hour later she was at the top and took a moment to look back the way she came from the glacier edge, seeing a small rivulet of water tracking past her on the right and taking the dive off the edge to join the rest of the melt lines that began to increase their flow as the sunlight was already reaching this height while the area below was still fully in shadow.

More snow storms were visible on the horizon, one of which was tracking her way fast, but it didn’t concern her. She was immune to the cold, so she soaked the moment in then casually began walking up the glacier in her T-shirt and shorts, finding a couple hours later the setting in her Vorch’nas that allowed her to alter her hair and skin color. The trek across the endless white sea gave her a lot of time to mentally dig into its now open interface, and she was both pleased and sad to trigger her purple/white hair to disappear into a dark brown.

Her time with Ghostblade was done, and now she needed to let go and move on. She was just back to being Kara, an Archon, who had a very dangerous and powerful bit of jewelry melded onto her arm.

More hours of walking followed, then one more night spent in her tent before the last leg that brought her to the coordinates she’d logged in her Vorch’nas to navigate by.

“Well nuts,” she said, looking around and seeing nothing but more ice with a fresh blanket of snow on top as it continued to fall all around her. “I’m either lost or you’re really well hidden.”

Kara activated and stretched out her Pefbar, reaching as far as she could until a nodule appeared some 50 meters below. It was only half a foot wide, but she recognized it instantly as a telepathic relay. She reached out to it with her Ikrid and found the link to the door activation, triggering it and feeling a small rumble as a boring device clawed its way up through the ice to just below the surface.

Kara walked over to it, seeing that it had stopped a meter below breaking the upper ice and snowpack, but everything else below it had been sucked down rather than forced up, leaving the visual cover on top unmolested. Kara felt another function and triggered it, seeing a small hole melt in the ice and reveal a hatch. She reached down and pulled it open, seeing a small lift car below.

The Archon slid in feet first and closed the hatch, seeing with her Pefbar as water was squirted on top and quickly frozen to replace the ice, concealing her entry point before the lift descended through the now hollow shaft and docked with the facility below.

Kara walked out through the opening doors into an Archon sanctum built just for her where she would be spending potentially the rest of her life in solitude…and befitting trailblazer humor, she saw a plaque hanging down from the ceiling in plain view of the entrance that read FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.

Below it, neatly folded and laying on the floor, was a set of blue and red clothes, complete with a cape and very short skirt.

Kara rolled her eyes and smiled in an annoyed fashion as she knelt down and picked them up, seeing a big ‘S’ symbol emblazoned on the center of the top.

“You jerks…there is no way I’m wearing this.”

4

December 7, 4854

Vliol System (Brat’mar territory)

Glaxtiel 289 shipyard

Dorchav took a moment away from his scheduling work to walk out onto the observation deck of the now greatly expanded shipyard. Unlike the rest of V’kit’no’sat designs, this deck was only separated from space by an invisible layer of material 2 meters thick. On a warship that would be unwise, for the outer hull needed several protective barriers to help protect the crew, but shipyards were not meant to fight and if this one came under assault and the shields were breached, a little extra armor would do no good.

Since this was the birth place of so many vessels, an observation deck had been deemed an integral part of the design despite the weakness and Dorchav had to admit it was a worthy exception to the V’kit’no’sat building rules. A hologram didn’t truly do the view justice, and seeing the direct light with his own eyes just felt different. Perhaps it was the tiny imperfections in the glass that a hologram did not have, but whatever the case the view from here was better than any hologram could hope to be.

Right now that view was little more than a construction ring that had been enlarged beyond what was needed to build V’kit’no’sat ships, including Mach’nel, to a scope of several thousand miles. It looked much smaller, for the ring was so fat it appeared thin from this distance, but moving to and from that ring were hundreds of thousands of ‘tiny’ craft carrying materials and crew out to the Harthur under construction.

Rather than build each segment individually, the Harthur was being constructed in its fully deployed spherical shape in order to allow maximum surface area for the workers to get at simultaneously. Far beyond this one, Dorchav could see the second under construction as well, along with a third shipyard that was not yet large enough to hold another. It was being furiously expanded as well, and all under Brat’mar control. For as a reward of the success of the prototype, Mak’to’ran had declared that the Brat’mar would be tasked with the sole production of additional models while the other races shipped their contribution to this system via never-ending streams of cargo convoys.

It was a great honor for his race, and to him personally as Mak’to’ran had put him in command of the infantile program, though he felt he didn’t deserve it. Part of him still felt dead at Star Force’s hands, for he would not have survived without their mercy. The mercy of an enemy they had marked for total eradication…and yet they had chosen to spare him and his crew. Even after all these years that still didn’t feel right and Dorchav had yet to shake the sense that in some way he was the walking dead, carrying his failure with him in each breath.

The empire felt otherwise, for where he had been scorned for losing a Mach’nel he was now heralded as the greatest hero since the Rit’ko’sor rebellion for giving them a new weapon to use against the Hadarak. And even that was a copy of Star Force, stolen from them and modified to a new purpose. It was true that Dorchav was the one that pushed the idea, and with Mak’to’ran’s help had gotten a prototype constructed, but the original ingenuity had come from their enemy and a part of him could not legitimately accept the accolades now granted him.

Mak’to’ran had given him something much more valuable, and that was the responsibility of combat against the Hadarak. Perhaps if he killed enough of them this Human stain would be purged from him, though the destruction of the first had not been enough. It had been a rough two years keeping the Hadarak imprisoned, for it continually sacrificed parts of its body to grow minions that would then attack the Harthur from inside. Entire segments of it had been destroyed, but Dorchav had learned from those losses and successfully contained the beast while making repairs and shipping in replacement segments up until Mak’to’ran had finally given the kill order.

When that happened a Mach’nel was brought in and several holes were deliberately opened up in the Harthur to allow them to shoot through. When they did the Hadarak had no defense, for it could not flee while trapped within the IDF aura and its tentacles could not reach the Harthur. Bit by bit the Mach’nel and supporting fleet chewed into its body, taking well over 3 months to finally kill because they could not mass around it at close range, but dead it now was and with the fewest ship losses in V’kit’no’sat history.

That was a deed that was giving the empire new enthusiasm about the never-ending war, and with its success Itaru had stopped resisting Mak’to’ran and decided to put their full support behind this new approach…but Mak’to’ran had insisted that only the Brat’mar be commissioned, and had made that stick despite severe protest. That, at least, was an honor he had gained for them, along with the responsibility for creating bigger Harthur, for the prototype had only been large enough to capture the smallest of them.

To capture tier 2 and larger, the Harthur’s diameter had to be bigger and that required more robust IDF generators. Current designs were sufficient to snag a tier 2, and those were what was being crafted before him now, but tier 3s were too large and the emitters would have to be placed too close to the Hadarak’s grapple field range, allowing it to damage or destroy them despite the fact that the tentacles could not reach.

And in that too was a threat, for the Hadarak captured by the prototype had begun lengthening its tentacles the same way it was creating more minions…by using internal stores of resources and cannibalizing parts of its body to feed the tentacle growth. Dorchav wondered if that was an emergency fallback or part of the Hadarak’s intentional design like the fat cells on his own body, though he kept his relatively low so not to inhibit his movement. These Hadarak didn’t move through quadruped motion, rather simply sitting and pulling on gravity to maneuver them about while their minions did the agile combat work, so perhaps they were designed with their own version of ‘fat’ to use as they needed.

Regardless, if the V’kit’no’sat tried to contain one for a long period of time it was going to alter itself to try and escape, and with these Harthur designed to capture tier 2s they didn’t have that luxury. The range of their grapple fields would end just before they reached the circumference of the Harthur, and any alteration or upgrade would compromise the containment. It was up to the Brat’mar to build longer ranged IDF emitters, otherwise they’d never be able to capture a tier 3, let alone the bigger monsters that were the true fleet killers, and researchers across every race were now tasked with helping the Brat’mar figure out how to do it.

But Mak’to’ran wasn’t waiting to figure it out. So long as they could kill level 1s and potentially 2s, he wanted Harthur to be built as quickly as possible so they could hold the Hadarak border with far less casualties than they were suffering now. That would require dozens, if not hundreds, depending on the Hadarak activity level…and how they would react when word of this new technology reached the others Dorchav did not know. Mak’to’ran was insistent that they delay that discovery as long as possible, pursuing couriers and all minion types that could potentially send such messages back to the enemy with extreme haste.

If this new technology prompted a stronger surge from the Hadarak, then so be it. It was their first real advantage against them and they were not going to hold it in reserve…but they weren’t going to advertise it in a taunting fashion either. Simply making the Hadarak disappear for a while was preferable, but eventually one of their death screams…which the V’kit’no’sat still could not silence…would travel between systems and a passing Hadarak or minion would hear it and register the last communication, then copy it on to the others.

That was how many defeats of the Hadarak were reported to their civilization, albeit with years of delay. The V’kit’no’sat moved much faster, but the sheer mass of their nemesis could not be ignored. When they came they did massive amounts of damage, and they always came at some point. Many times the V’kit’no’sat would have ample forewarning, but aside from massing their ships for a very costly battle there was nothing that time allowed them to do.

Remote turrets had been created to assist in this, and they did help in the battles, but they could not maneuver well against the minions. Even the Rit’ko’sor could not fully use drone warships, for they had to have crewed ones in close proximity in order to have the necessary reaction speed to effectively fight the minions. Without it the efficiency rate dropped, and the Rit’ko’sor did not have the production capacity to replace the losses fast enough.

The V’kit’no’sat did, and in system defenses along the border they had very large guns sitting in space that would add damage and, frankly, soak up minion attacks allowing the fleet to move more freely, but the V’kit’no’sat had never had a good way to fight the Hadarak.

Now they did, with one kill already on the charts and Mak’to’ran taking the prototype out looking for another tier 1 to engage while the fleets continued to fight the larger ones in traditional bloody fashion whenever they encroached on V’kit’no’sat territory. Right now expansion into Hadarak systems was paused while the Harthur strategy was developing. Holding the line now was more than just a stalemate…it was buying them valuable time to build the Harthur, and pushing needlessly into bigger fights without them was something Mak’to’ran was not stupid enough to waste ships on.

So now the entire war that the V’kit’no’sat had been created to fight lay on Dorchav’s shoulders, after a fashion, and he was eager to work towards that end, but every now and then a break was needed from the endless logistics that he was having to oversee.

Looking at the progress of the first tier 2 prototype allowed him to put his mind at ease while also offering a chance to consider the irony of the fact that for 6 million years the V’kit’no’sat had not conceived of this idea and it had taken the ingenuity of an illicit splinter faction to prod his own into coming up with this tactic. Without them he doubted it would have occurred to him, so why should he be getting the praise and they still be marked for death? Was not this new tactic worth their independence? Was the collective dominance of the V’kit’no’sat more important than the war against the Hadarak that was their very reason for existing?

Or were the V’kit’no’sat comfortable with stealing merit from others. Dorchav did not like that idea at all, and wondered if Itaru wanted Star Force dead because of the many accomplishments they’d made using the V’kit’no’sat tools they’d inherited. Some of which were more impressive than what the empire had. Did Itaru want them gone in order to rewrite history, or was it the threat they posed?

It was no longer Dorchav’s concern, yet it still haunted him to this day, for in his case, he was the inferior that had been spared by the superior cleverness of the Humans.

His solitude on the observation deck was interrupted as another Brat’mar dressed in the golden/blue robes that engineers wore hastily trotted in and came up behind Dorchav’s tail, though he could clearly see the smaller Brat’mar with his Pefbar, so he did not turn around.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, Dorchav. I apologize for the interruption, but I assumed you would want to know immediately.”

“Know what?” he asked, shuffling his feet so he spun around in place and looked into the horns of the engineer.

“News. From beyond the rimward border of the Chadfre Region. A sleeping Uriti has been found.”

Dorchav’s eyes narrowed sharply. Mak’to’ran had told him he’d been sending out a massive number of Era’tran search parties despite Itaru’s border restrictions looking for the remaining Uriti. According to the Humans there were 118 created by the Chixzon. 2 had been destroyed, leaving 116 hidden in captivity after they were successfully neutralized with a sedative that the V’kit’no’sat had procured and tested on the Hadarak…with no success whatsoever.

But it did work on the Uriti, and of the 116 hidden there had been 73 discovered, revived, and now in Star Force possession until the recent addition of a 74th brought to them by the Knights of Quenar, who seemed to be the ones hunting the galaxy for the hidden beasts. That meant there supposedly were 42 more out there somewhere, and Mak’to’ran had been adamant about finding them before the Knights of Quenar could.

“In containment?”

“Yes. Buried on a planet full of primitives. They are being eradicated and we are claiming the system. The Uriti is still dormant, so we will have a chance to study it up close.”

“How large is it?”

“I do not know. At the time of the message they had not reached the chamber, but the telepathic aura was impossible to miss from orbit. I believe they want to pacify the planet before attempting to breach the containment chamber.”

“Wise,” he said, with the words ‘but bloody’ sticking in his throat. Securing the planet was obviously a necessity, but the Humans had never slaughtered native populations to secure their Uriti…though stories of what the Knights of Quenar had done were another matter entirely. “What else?”

“That is all. Should I not have disturbed you?”

“It is a worthy disruption, but it does not alter our work here.”

The other Brat’mar understood the implicit dismissal and simply bowed his head. “I will leave you to your thoughts.”

Dorchav spun back around as the engineer left, wondering what Mak’to’ran was going to do with the Uriti. He doubted they would try to kill it. While that would deny it to Star Force and give the V’kit’no’sat a test case for killing them, it would be very costly even if they tried to kill it before it fully awoke. Data from those who had captured them indicated that the sedative was negated by even the slightest of damage, and the Uriti had the fortitude of the Hadarak, meaning they would not be killed quickly.

And Harthur would be useless against them, for the Uriti had weaponry that could easily destroy the containment shell. No, Mak’to’ran would study it as it slept while guarding the system. It was now a race to find the remaining 41 before Star Force’s allies could, and though there had been some hope that communication could be established with them Dorchav now doubted it. The captured Hadarak had been bombarded with every known communication method the V’kit’no’sat had and it had ignored them all.

He doubted the Uriti would be any different, for they saw the V’kit’no’sat and other races as mere vermin, and Dorchav granted they had reason to do so. The Hadarak were such a different race that they literally outscaled all others. Their minds were so large that they had a telepathic aura around them that ship crews had reported feeling when in close combat, and despite that obvious presence there was no response to the V’kit’no’sat’s own telepathy. Dorchav had even tried himself, shouting across the distance with his Ikrid from the edge of the Harthur and even using a booster to try to amplify the power and range, but neither he nor any of the others could make contact…not even get the slightest of twitches from the Hadarak.

Either they couldn’t understand or didn’t care, and Dorchav suspected the latter. How the Chixzon had engineered them to obey their commands was such an enormous feat that Mak’to’ran had also begun sending out search teams to try and find any traces of their former or current existence. Star Force had obviously found something, but what that was had not been revealed to the public and the V’kit’no’sat spies hadn’t been able to discover it. But if they had found something, then there might be more out there to be found, and Mak’to’ran was right to go after it.

Itaru had disagreed with that as well and seemed to be stuck in the protocol of the past. Perhaps this discovery would jar them out of their complacency, for even the smallest possibility of being able to find the technology to capture and reprogram the Hadarak to obey the V’kit’no’sat was worth any amount of search effort. Why Itaru could not see that Dorchav did not understand, but thankfully the empire now had a leader who did, and who was going to drag Itaru and the rest of the less wise into a future of hope whether they permitted it or not.

V’kit’no’sat did not discuss the futility of fighting the Hadarak, for such was deemed treasonous, but many felt it. It was the war that would never end and could not be won, but now Mak’to’ran was changing that. The Harthur were changing that. And Dorchav was grateful for both, though he had to admit some credit was due to those that he was pledged to destroy…and who had not destroyed him when they had the chance.

And in sparing him they had delivered the Harthur to the V’kit’no’sat.

That did not sit right with Dorchav, and a part of him suspected that it never would.

5

October 2, 4855

Unnamed System (far side of galaxy)

Unnamed Planet (Uriti Shell)

Hamob had to lean forward and crawl on his belly, wiggling his way forward to get through the entrance to the Ancient facility that held the newly discovered Uriti, but once he was through he was able to stand up and avoid ducking in most locations. It was clear that the shell facility was not designed for visitors of Era’tran size, with the V’kit’no’sat using Zen’zat almost exclusively on the location…both for their small frames and their Ikrid blocks.

The Uriti’s passive telepathic presence was affecting Hamob already, but he pushed it aside with mental strength forged over the more than 2 million years of his life. It would get worse the closer he got, but right now he was alright holding out against the constant pressure. What would happen if he let it through was unclear, but he knew there was a zone of proximity further in where any biologicals would become compromised and rendered inert. That range differed based on an individual’s strength and their race, but it had already been confirmed that the Zen’zat could briefly tolerate that zone all the way up to the dark grey, almost black skin of the Uriti contained within.

The Oracle interface had been most helpful to the initial research team, learning their language and answering questions freely after the perimeter defenses had been destroyed. It seemed that containment was the priority for the computer system, and once someone got inside such containment hinged on negotiation and enlightenment.

The name the Ancients had given this monster was Bulmuthal, and it was a large one. The first created by the Chixzon and one of the last to be captured. It was over 200 miles wide, but did not have a thick center of mass like other designs. It was essentially a large net with six thick strands running parallel in one direction and four crossing the other. They were fairly flexible, and right now the Uriti was bent on top of itself and crammed into the shell’s interior that was only 93 miles in diameter. There was a buffer zone around the Uriti of 18 miles, meaning it was constricted down to only 57.

Hamob hoped he could lay eyes on it himself, but as he walked through the facility and got closer to the epicenter the pressure on his mind increased, along with several active attempts to penetrate. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, and it was obvious to him now that even in this sedated state the Uriti was still partially active. It might just be autonomic reactions, but his mind was definitely received hack attempts even at this range.

“Hamob, welcome,” an I’rar’et researcher said as it scuttled across the floor, unable to fly with the low ceilings, and looked up at him with its long beak-like face. “I am glad you have arrived. The scale of this facility and what it is meant to contain is staggering. These Ancients were a formidable alliance, though not on our current power scale. The Uriti, however, is another matter entirely.”

“Hello, Gardef. Have you been able to make contact?”

“Not at all. Its telepathic aura is unresponsive and omnipresent. You should be wearing a telepathic inhibitor, Hamob. Prolonged exposure, even for us, is problematic.”

“I just arrived. I will weather it for a while. How is the sedative being produced?”

“Impressive automation that draws resources from the planetary crust along with a magma tap. It also has a stockpile to compensate for unforeseen complications. We are secure against it waking.”

“Good. What have you learned of the Chixzon?”

“Much, but little of consequence. The Ancients did not know how the Uriti was created, nor were they able to reverse engineer Chixzon technology…at least as far as the database here details. We are learning stories, and fascinating stories at that. Star Force did not reveal as much to the public as we had thought.”

“I am not surprised at that,” Hamob said, ducking to get underneath an archway as the pair walked. “Where is the Oracle?”

“Integrated into the entire facility,” Gardef said, then he turned his attention to the infrastructure around them. “Oracle, a question.”

A hologram of an odd symbol appeared floating beside them as they walked.

“What is your inquiry?”

Gardef gestured to Hamob.

“What is the combat record of this Uriti?”

“As I have informed your colleagues, it is called a ‘Hamoriti’ and Bulmuthal has one of the most impressive war records, though one full of smaller conflicts. The galaxy’s strongholds were not targeted with Bulmuthal and reserved for future Hamoriti. It was believed that after two Hamoriti losses that the originals were tasked with bulk work, moving from system to system of lesser magnitude and cleansing vast tracks of territory. This Hamoriti has the most planetary kills on record, utilizing an assault mechanism that…”

The Oracle continued on like that for many hours, with Hamob asking a variety of questions before finally deciding to test his strength against the Uriti. He arrived on the periphery of the main chamber where no other V’kit’no’sat would go and flanked by more than 50 Zen’zat. They were having issues, but minor ones, with the telepathic pressure, and were here to assist him if he required it. Hamob began to walk towards the mountain of folded, rock-hard flesh as he fought the telepathy that was trying to take control of his mind.

The sight of the Uriti was far more intimidating now, even in its sedated state, than all the holograms of combat he’d studied in seclusion. He could feel its presence, and that visceral aura imbued power on a scale that Hamob had not felt since his days of combat against the Hadarak. He’d been on a planet with a Hadarak implanted on the surface multiple times and the telepathic presence was similar, but he’d never been this close before. Add on to that the fact that the Uriti was sedated. How powerful its telepathy would be when awoken sent a shiver of genuine fear down the Era’tran’s tail, and Hamob found it to be a valuable epiphany after so many years spent in analysis away combat.

Hamob continued to walk a few miles, then stopped as the attacks began to hit home. He took it as a challenge and managed to stabilize himself, so he held position and studied the Uriti for some time as his Zen’zat fought off the futile headaches that the Uriti’s presence was causing them.

“We are the inferior,” he finally said aloud. “These Chixzon possessed a power that we have not even begun to approach…yet they were defeated because they relied on a single avenue of attack. The sedative was their bane and something they could not anticipate. They trusted in the Uriti too much and it was what killed him, but what they accomplished is not to be underestimated.”

“What are we going to do with it?” one of the Zen’zat asked him.

“Deny it to those who can use it against us and search for their means of control. If we can harness but one Uriti, it will provide a weapon against the Hadarak that we badly need. You may withdraw. I am not going further.”

The Zen’zat didn’t argue, turning and running back to the distant entrance as Hamob remained. It was an effort to do so, but he had not been tested like this in such a long time the he did not want to retreat. He knew he could not stay indefinitely, but an Era’tran that ran too quickly from an opponent was one that could not be depended on. Wisdom knew when to retreat, but retreat was always reluctant and Hamob’s mental strength was holding…though dwindling.

“Bulmuthal,” he said, addressing the Uriti both in words and telepathy. “You are a mighty warrior far older than I. I apologize for not being able to release you from your capture, but we must protect you from those who do not understand your full potential. So here you shall stay until we can come to an accord. There is a galactic core of Hadarak threats that we must defeat, and you are the key to that, though you do not realize it. Your former masters misused you greatly. I promise that we shall not…”

Jessica Avril walked into Davis’ new office…though by the size it was more of a command deck now with a view of a spectacular beach beyond. The Meintre planet was absolutely gorgeous, but she hadn’t been summoned her for sunbathing. Rather she and every other Duke were here along with all 8 Arch Dukes for a summit meeting the likes of which had never happened before as far as she knew.

Jessica wore a cape over top of a pair of very short shorts that showed off her legs while her arms were covered all the way up to her wrists and her blonde hair was pulled back in an elegant braid a bit more gaudy than what the other Dukes were wearing, but they all had their own unique twists to the standard Star Force uniforms. Most were Human, but there were two Protovic here as well. Dargok and Vera’de. She’d never met either of them, but both had advanced up through the Monarch ranks at an astonishing pace and their reputations were well known…however, they were amongst the newest of the Dukes and still had a lot of learning to do, so they were the most junior members here.

Davis had told everyone to be here at 4:32 am local time, and all the Dukes had been prompt to arrive and take their seats at a monstrous circular table with Jessica sitting down between Dukes Zarren and Covne, the latter of which she was fairly close friends with.

8 Arch Dukes and 251 Dukes made up the circle that contained exactly that many seats, but oddly Davis had none. Rather, when he began to speak, he slowly walked around the circle behind them all as a huge holographic map of their empire glowed to life in exquisite detail.

“I apologize for pulling you away from your duties, but this conversation is one that we all need to be here in person to deal with. Lag times are too inefficient, and this is a realization that the Archons came to long ago. We have much to discuss over the following days as we come to a potential cataclysm that I wish to avoid. It is so evident that even some of our enemies have noticed it, and we must address it now.”

Davis theatrically snapped his fingers and the hologram altered, splitting Star Force territory into two sections. One being the core of what they had left, the other being a band of newly acquired systems with some shotgun exceptions across the choppy dividing line.

“We are annexing territory at a significant rate, reaching out and trying to stabilize as many imperiled planets as possible. We are doing this for a number of reasons, top of which is to help those who are in need. But in doing so we are weakening our empire while strengthening it, and we are weakening it by diluting our experience levels. Note, we are gaining more and more experienced personnel now that our major war has been put on pause, but on average we are losing ground and losing it fast.”

“This is because we are pulling in people barely out of indoctrination and throwing them into populations that truly know what it means to be Star Force. For those of you here in the early years, you will remember that it took a long time to define what that meant in the lower level populations who learn as much through osmosis as they do the maturias. That osmosis comes from the civilians around them…and our civilian pool is becoming tainted with too many refugees.”

“We integrate the refugees into the populace so that they may learn from osmosis and shorten their learning curve, but there is a reverse effect as well. Every outsider we take in dilutes our identity in exchange for enhancing that outsider and making them more Star Force. By the time they reach a tier 2 colony, let alone a tier 3, they’re fully one of us based off of their need to calibrate to reality…or at least enough that their lingering culture isn’t a negative. But in the tier 1s we are seeing degeneration. It’s not a lot at this point, but I can see the writing on the wall and apparently so can others. We have to counter this without stopping our influx of refugees.”

“The tier 3 and 4 colonies are taking care of themselves due to their entry requirements, but it’s the tier 1 and somewhat the 2s that are the problem. We have people in newly annexed worlds leaving those worlds and traveling anywhere else in the empire they wish. This is now coming to an end. Migration within our borders will remain open to those who come out of a maturia, but those who go through indoctrination will be restricted to the new Frontier Region barring special circumstances.”

Davis pointed and the outer band on the map highlighted with three slow pulses of blue highlights.

“We’re going to keep the barbaric refugees out of our main territory and keep them there. This is going to be a big negative to those tier 1 and 2 worlds in the Frontier Region, but from the refugees point of view it will still be a huge upgrade. There they will remain with their offspring going through the maturias and being free to relocate, but the originals will be stuck within the Frontier Region unless their skill level rises to tier 3, then they’ll be free to relocate freely.”

“I know this will create cesspools in the Frontier Region, but we can no longer allow the refugees to culturally contaminate our existing worlds. To do so will create a cascade negative that will then spread everywhere, destroying what it means to be Star Force and undoing centuries of work we’ve all done to create Star Force culture. It has to remain a refuge, and many of you have already noted the increase in crimes that have come from the influx of refugees. The more they group together the worse it gets, including pulling in weak minded people who came through the maturia system.”

“While we all have strong minds, the majority of our populace do not. We must guard their freedom and enlightenment, for they cannot guard it themselves. They will go whatever way the wind blows, and the winds of maturia training fade after graduation. They are never completely forgotten, but they should be reinforced by the culture the younglings enter. Now they are seeing a negative cultural trend after graduation. We have to put an end to this before it gets any worse.”

“If we cut the inflow of refugees now, those already here will stabilize as their percentage decreases. Their offspring will not carry their taint, and those who do not train will eventually die out anyway. Time is our ally, as it always has been, so long as we are not introducing a large number of outsiders. I am not going to abandon the people out there that need our help, but we’re going to have to help them in a different way than we have been due to the increasing numbers involved.”

“Migration to the Frontier Region will remain open, and the more Star Force culture we can transmit out to it by osmosis the better, but we will not allow the influx. That is the price of annexation going forward. If you earn tier 3 you will be fully integrated into the empire. If not, then you will remain within the Frontier Region. It will become a second rate part of Star Force, but it will still be Star Force…though more like many of our worlds used to be a millennia or two ago.”

“Axius has taught us much about integration, both the benefits and problems. Too much integration is a bad thing, and this is now where we’re drawing the line for the civies. Scarven?”

“The problem is the worst in some Axius colonies,” the Arch Duke who oversaw Axius testified. “We have to maintain a delicate balance to abridge the variations between races, and that balance is based off of common experiences gained through maturia training. Indoctrination is far less exhaustive, so we’re seeing disturbing trends developing from the remnants of exterior cultures brought in and mashed up. Quite a few individuals now see our security forces as an enemy to be countered rather than defenders. They obey the rules when they have to because of the threat of the security forces rather than because the rules are there for the sake of wisdom. This distrust is toxic and spreading, with many ungrateful individuals attempting power grabs by casting Star Force as the villain.”

“This is laughable to those who came through the maturia system, but when we have so many differing races overlapping there are inherent conflicts that have to be overlooked in good humor. Take that away and Axius is a ticking time bomb. Trust and brotherhood is what binds Axius together, and exterior cultures based on quite different things are a threat. Indoctrination is not enough to eliminate this. Therefore we have to keep indoctrinated individuals out and in their own Axius colonies. I do not like the state those colonies will be in, but as Davis said, they’ll be in far better condition from where they came from.”

“The bigger we grow,” Davis added as he paced around the backs of all the Dukes’ chairs, including Jessica’s with him patting her on the head for emphasis, “the more problems we will face along with the strength we gain. Some of us are working on projects with the distant future in mind, but present problems are why we are bifurcating our territory now. This is a stopgap protocol, and a rolling one, I expect. Once certain planets in the Frontier Region reach a certain level of civility they will be moved across the line while more planets are being colonized or annexed. This is a transitional status, and one that will require heavy policing of the jumplanes. We cannot allow the civilian traffic to circumvent this protocol, so cross line trading will have to occur through designated intermediaries. No direct trading will be permitted without special license.”

“Independent businesses can choose to operate on one side or the other, but aside from credits, none of their property flows between the two and we must outline and maintain protocols for trading with parties originating outside our territory.”

“Bottom line, people…we have to tighten the screws before our empire wobbles itself into pieces. More regulation separating pocketed freedom. And I want to hear brainstorming on the most effective way to implement it. The floor is open. Start talking,” Davis said, floating a donut from one of many trays on the huge table over to his hand and taking a bite as the assembled Dukes began to chat amongst themselves.

6

February 18, 4858

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

Unnamed Planet (Uriti Shell)

Hamob was sleeping on a cushioned pedestal, half sunk into the soft material with his tail curled around and almost touching his face when the alarm sounded. He wasn’t onboard a ship, but rather in a V’kit’no’sat facility built nearby the Uriti shell, and his first thought was that Bulmuthal was waking up and breaking free…but as Hamob’s mind snapped out of its lethargy he realized it was the wrong alarm for that.

He stood and hopped off his sleeping pad, racing for the nearby door while reaching out telepathically to interface with the alarm system, drawing information from it and realizing the heavy defense fleet the V’kit’no’sat had brought in to secure the Uriti was under attack by an even larger force and was suffering heavy losses.

When Hamob got to the nearest command deck…which required a quick walk outside to a nearby building…he mentally asserted himself and bumped the Les’i’kron defense coordinator from his command position with the heavy avian reluctantly stepping aside as the Era’tran began altering the holographic displays to see who it was that was attacking them.

The ships were not known to the computer tracking systems, but Hamob knew instantly who it was despite the new ship designs. The technology was the same, but employed differently, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the Knights of Quenar. These ships had never been seen in the Uriti Preserve, but it was them none the less and their firepower was far greater than what they’d demonstrated in their previous limited combat with the V’kit’no’sat in the Preserve.

“They are here for the Uriti,” Hamob declared. “It is the Knights of Quenar. I’m assuming this is their version of a battle fleet and what they had in Star Force territory is expeditionary ships, that’s why they don’t register.”

“They did not show on our Neavi sensor. They were upon us before we realized it,” a Brat’mar reported.

“They must have a way to shield themselves. Assume they can reach the planet undetected. Are we set up to repel a ground assault?”

“No,” the Les’i’kron said. “We do not have sufficient troops to fight a full scale battle, only enough to defeat a light force. We did not expect anyone to be able to get past our fleet.”

“I estimate four hours, Hamob,” the Brat’mar added warily. “Then we will have no fleet left.”

The Era’tran glared at the tri-horned quadruped. “Are we that badly outmatched?”

“Yes. Their ships are comparable to ours, perhaps slightly more potent, and they have 4 times the tonnage that we do. We are going to lose this without reinforcements, and there are none nearby to call for. I see no way to hold the Uriti.”

Hamob growled angrily, and no one else on the command deck spoke. Neither did he, merely staring at the tactical display of the V’kit’no’sat ships engaging in very close range to the Knights of Quenar and ripping each other to pieces. This foe did not stand off like Star Force did, they were coming face to face and blasting away as if they were the dominant one…and in this lopsided engagement, it appeared they were.

Hamob did not want to relinquish the Uriti. It was vitally important to the V’kit’no’sat, and to Mak’to’ran in particular, but his analytical mind had already come to the conclusion his emotions did not want to accept. They could not hold the Uriti, and wasting ships in a losing effort was pointless.

“Evacuate the planet immediately,” he ordered, drawing several gasps along with a bolt of plasma into the air from the Les’i’kron.

“We cannot!” he declared as the flames subsided. “We must defend the Uriti at all costs.”

“No. What we must do is deny it to the Knights of Quenar if we are unable to hold it. Thus we are leaving, and now,” Hamob said firmly.

“How do we deny it to them by…” the Les’i’kron asked before the obvious answer hit him.

“It is our only play if our fleet cannot hold. Or am I wrong?”

No answer came, and eventually Hamob ignored the conflicted avian and began to walk out of the command deck. “Evacuate immediately. I will see to the Uriti personally.”

Nearby the Uriti shell a KoQ ship landed under stealth, disgorging hundreds of mechanical walkers along with infantry that followed a short distance behind. The crab-like Knights moved far faster than they looked capable of, hopping more than running to keep up as the first of the V’kit’no’sat fliers began to strafe them from the sky…drawing immediate return fire from the walkers that downed two I’rar’et immediately with overlapping and well-coordinated firepower.

That forced the others back and lower to the ground, still taking shots at the invading troops but limiting the number of return shots they had to take. They continued to do so as the KoQ advanced easily all the way up to the Uriti shell, encountering no ground troops whatsoever. Only the avians were fighting back, and soon the infantry were at the entrance and cutting through the doorway with quick efficiency.

They had a four meter wide hole half completed when the first tremor was felt. The cutters continued, but the rest of the infantry exchanged glances and lowered their telepathic inhibitors. They’d known the presence of the Uriti could have a negative effect on them so they’d come prepared, but only when they turned them off did they realize the Uriti’s aura was deafeningly loud. Too loud at this range if it was still sedated.

Before the cutters could finish there were more tremors, then a violent crack as the structure broke. At that point they knew what was coming and the Knights of Quenar turned and ran as fast as they could, reengaging their telepathic inhibitors so the Uriti couldn’t grab hold of their minds. Right now it didn’t seem to even notice them, but the area of effect was still problematic. Two of the KoQ didn’t make it in time, falling to the ground with too much mental noise to be able to function, but their fellow Knights doubled back for them and manually engaged the countermeasures.

After that they just ran, including the mechanical walkers, and got back to their waiting ship just in time to see the first piece of the nearly black Uriti poke up through the roof and soil over top, for the facility was situated underneath a network of canyons. It broke free with such ease that huge chunks of rocks flew off like they were little more than dust, then the entire landscape began to churn and the tremors threw the remaining infantry to the ground just shy of the ship that was both visible and hovering over the surface as the landscape twisted and thrust subsurface rock up at odd angles like knife blades.

When the last of the Knights got onboard the ship slowly lifted off, with them looking out the cargo bay as the Uriti unfurled into a giant net as it reached up towards orbit. They’d come to claim it while sedate, but either the V’kit’no’sat caretakers were extremely careless or they’d intentionally woke it up to deny it to them.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Once the Knights finished off the V’kit’no’sat they’d begin the hard work of resedating the Uriti. They’d been preparing for this for millions of years, but it wasn’t a task they envied. In the past each Uriti sedated came with unbelievably high losses of life sacrificed to deliver the sedative without damaging their target…for even light damage would counteract the effect.

There would no need for the ground forces now, but fortunately the Knights of Quenar had come prepared for a wide variety of situations they might find on the other side of the galaxy from their headquarters, and this nightmare situation was one of them.

Hamob boarded a drop pod as soon as he had secured the explosives against the Uriti’s body and sabotaged the sedation system. With the timer set he was able to get to his ship in orbit just before the Knights of Quenar troops got to the now sealed entrance. By the time he arrived on the command deck of his personal Kafcha the battle was even in more disarray as the enemy would not give an inch and viciously pursued their ships as the V’kit’no’sat began to retreat.

Once the last of the avian troops holding a limited rear guard action boarded their ships, Hamob ordered a full retreat…but the KoQ would not disengage. They chased and blasted into the trailing ships all the way to the star where the V’kit’no’sat had to fight a holding action while Hamob’s ship and others jumped out.

The KoQ didn’t follow through the jump, with Hamob’s Kafcha and the other heavy ships waiting at the end of the jumpline two days later to hit them as they came in…but they never did. Nor did the last third of the V’kit’no’sat ships that probably were destroyed holding the jumpline. Previous attempts to cloak and run hadn’t been successful, for the KoQ could still track them somehow, so Hamob figured they hadn’t been able to get away. If they did, they’d move through other systems and rendezvous here within days, but he wasn’t holding out much hope.

And what was worse was the fact they had no eyes on the Uriti. The KoQ had completely run them out of the system in addition to stealing their prize. Hamob had no choice, unable to reengage without reinforcements, so he dispatched 8 courier ships to different destinations on the border of V’kit’no’sat territory to send the message of what had happened here.

If the KoQ thought they were going to keep the Uriti from the V’kit’no’sat they were mistaken. If Bulmuthal couldn’t be kept sedated and studied, then it was going to provide the V’kit’no’sat with their first Uriti kill…and they were going to go right through the Knights of Quenar once Hamob’s message reached their empire and a proper war fleet was summoned.

After the V’kit’no’sat were driven from the system, the Knights of Quenar proceeded to pulverize the remaining semi-active debris from their ships, eliminating the survivors and any potential threat they might have posed while Bulmuthal slowly made its way towards the star. Halfway there some of the KoQ ships intercepted it and opened fire, not doing any real damage but prompting the Uriti to reactively turn around and engage them.

The Knights of Quenar then fled, trying to draw the Uriti further away from the star and lost a few ships in the process as the rest of their fleet assembled and began making strafing runs against it…but with sedative missiles, many of which didn’t make it through. A few did, smashing against the hull and squishing like goo that clung to it and began to seep into its body. The hard, rock-like skin of the Uriti drank it up greedily due to the energized charge within the sedative. The Uriti was built to shrug off physical damage, but it absorbed energy and the Ancients’ design for the sedative used this attribute to get the sedative inside and distributed quickly through the miles of tissue.

The sedative itself was pulled along, often one molecule at a time, deep into the Uriti and began to slow its functionality…but it was so big even those few hits did not do much to hinder it. Unlike their ancestors, the Knights of Quenar had millions of years to study better ways to do this, and those first few missiles were only meant to dampen its senses. Bulmuthal had proximity discharge capability, so half the goo on its surface was blown off before it could sink in, looking like a nuclear blast wave as the entire net-like body pulsed outward, cleansing its surface.

That’s what the KoQ couldn’t have for their second attack, and with the minor sedative effect in place they launched more missiles that purposely detonated prior to the Uriti as it shot many of them on its own. The ones that blew apart by design left debris clouds that were actually little orbs that held sedative and tiny gravity drives. They were no larger than a meter, but they gradually drifted closer as none of the missiles actually hit the Uriti. If they did and landed their goo, the Uriti would shrug it off again and destroy the clouds of orbs, so they couldn’t let any of the missiles get that far as the KoQ fleet continued to lose ships from the Uriti’s ranged weapons.

They couldn’t shoot back, so they just had to take the losses as the clouds of ‘debris’ continued to build up and drift in towards the Uriti that didn’t see them as a threat. Hopefully they were too small to register, and eventually the first of them made contact with the hull…where they transformed into miniature walkers and began to spread out to different locations so they didn’t clump together enough to register as a larger object. They couldn’t walk far and didn’t want to fly in a way that would attract attention, but as the clouds ‘drifted’ in closer and closer, the little landers spread out and waited until the time was right.

Eventually all of the initial clouds hit, with a second and third wave of missile ‘debris’ building up around the Uriti as it tried to chase the bulk of the KoQ fleet but couldn’t engage its medium-ranged weaponry. It was forced to snipe them with what amounted to dozens of massive beam cannons that would nearly destroy a KoQ ship with a single hit. Some survived and limped off, others didn’t, but the Uriti was so large that it wasn’t doubling up shots, rather shooting individual targets with single batteries.

Bulmuthal’s greatest power lay in its siege capability, with the square holes between body strands being collection apertures that would gather energy orbs that would gradually grow in size, then it would release them down to the surface of a planet with devastating effect. It was the Chixzon’s first design, and they clearly had intended to use it as a planetary assault device, though subsequent versions were more suited to actual fleet combat and even had low level shields, such as Nami. Fortunately this one wasn’t, but it was still doing a lot of damage to the KoQ, though not as much as the V’kit’no’sat had.

The Uriti would win out in the long run, for its longevity was far superior, making the sedative the only true weapon the KoQ had to use against it. They could not kill it. Not one of this size with the fleet they had, and if they tried it would just run to the star to recharge and repair itself. Sedating it truly was the only viable option, and when they had enough landing orbs in place at key positions the KoQ sent an activation signal and all of the little orbs discharged their goo onto the surface.

It wasn’t a large attack, just tiny little pinpricks so small the Uriti couldn’t notice a single one, and since they weren’t clustered together the totality of them all didn’t register either. It took several minutes to begin to take effect, but the activity level of the Uriti dipped considerably. Its firing rate diminished by 48% and multiple scans indicated that the surface of the Uriti where its proximity sensors were located were thoroughly numb in several spots.

Gravity sensors were deeper, and could pick up a KoQ ship easily at this range, including their big, fat missiles, so they waited as the additional clouds drifted in and attached themselves. They didn’t wait to discharged, adding to the sedative effect as more missiles were launched and detonated prematurely, for they didn’t want even the slightest impact to register.

Slowly the return fire diminished, and once it cut out completely the Knights of Quenar knew they had it. Many, many waves of sedative had to be applied to get it down to ‘safe’ status, though the telepathic aura was still dangerous and would take several days to scale down, for there was a lag effect. The Uriti wouldn’t truly ‘sleep’ until all its internal processes slowed down, but the KoQ couldn’t wait for that.

After deeming it safe enough, a huge transport ship decloaked near the star and traveled out to the Uriti. The ship had to transform in order to match the Uriti’s shape, barely being able to stretch out wide enough to cover the diameter of the net, though as it went deeper and deeper into sedation it didn’t stay flat. It began to curl and twist, and the giant transport ship had to alter with it to avoid breaking, but the KoQ had prepared for this possibility when designing it, for they didn’t have information on all the Uriti. They didn’t always know what size or shape they would be dealing with, and this was no exception.

But they’d almost miscalculated, for the transport dimensions barely fit the Uriti. They hadn’t expected one to be this big, and the curling action was also unexpected. Never the less they managed to keep it inside without breaking the hull as they directly applied more sedative at a regular rate. With it captured and now under their control, the Knights of Quenar collected what of their own survivors they could find and pulled all their ship debris into the star so no one could claim and study it. Then they amassed what fleet they had left, which was still considerable, and cloaked all their ships as they headed for the outgoing jumppoint that would start the very long journey around the perimeter of the galaxy, staying clear of V’kit’no’sat territory, that would eventually bring them to Star Force’s Uriti Preserve.

7

October 1, 4858

Jamtren System (Era’tran capitol)

Holloi

When Hamob returned to his personal residence he found that Mak’to’ran had let himself in and was waiting for him. How the other Era’tran got here ahead of him wasn’t hard to understand, for he’d reported the attack and release of the Uriti through the Urrtren as soon as they got back into V’kit’no’sat territory. However, how Mak’to’ran had gotten past his security programs was something he didn’t have an answer to.

“Your hacking skills are more formidable than I thought,” Hamob said, not getting angry at the intrusion and sounding like he could care less.

“Why did you not remain?”

“My scout ships could not stealth. The Knights of Quenar could detect them and pursued all with vengeance. I couldn’t leave any ships behind, and those that tried to get out after me were probably caught and destroyed. As to why we didn’t monitor surrounding systems, that should be obvious. The Uriti was awoken and out of both of our reach.”

“Unless they had one of Star Force’s wranglers with them.”

Hamob stopped walking and turned back to look at Mak’to’ran. “I was informed that the Knights of Quenar were recovering the Uriti without Star Force’s assistance.”

“There is nothing to stop them from retrieving one now to subdue the Uriti. We needed surveillance.”

“If we cannot be in the system, how can we surveil it?”

“You ran,” Mak’to’ran accused.

“There was no other viable option. If there was, state it.”

“What was the range of their stealth detection?”

“We saw no limit to it. And their vessels were of a design we’ve not encountered before. I suspect they were a battle fleet, and their power rivals ours. Releasing the Uriti was the only way we could deny it to them.”

“I do not argue that point, but there was no real effort to defend made. Your ships were sloppily aligned and fought like hatchlings.”

“I was on the ground when the battle began. I could not command them.”

“I gave you a significant defense fleet and it was misused.”

“I have not given that much thought,” Hamob admitted. “But I believe even if you were there to lead it, we would have lost. The Knights of Quenar had far more ships than we thought possible for a mere Order.”

“If they are not actively engaged in warfare they can build up their forces over time even if their production facilities are small. I should not have to be lecturing you on these matters, Hamob.”

The elder Era’tran sighed. “No, you should not. I admit I am rattled. That should not have happened and I can’t identify the underlying mistake.”

“Then it is time I play the master and you the apprentice. You are thinking as the dominant destined for victory, rather than acknowledging that we should not have won that fight.”

“You contradict yourself.”

“You don’t know how to wage a losing fight. You panicked and ran.”

Hamob glared at Mak’to’ran, but after the initial gut reaction his superior mind found no ground to disagree with the V’kit’no’sat leader on.

“Perhaps we did.”

“Even if they can detect our ships, that does not mean they can catch them. Their speed was formidable, but given enough of a head start they could not be captured in small numbers. By keeping your ships moving, you could have left some behind to monitor until fuel concerns warranted them leaving.”

“And if they guarded the jumppoints and had hidden ships waiting in various locations to spring traps?”

“I saw no evidence of that in the battle records.”

“I would not be surprised if it did occur. We were not ready for that formidable a foe.”

“And there Star Force is our better again. They have fought so well at such disadvantage that they shame us with their mere existence…and yet we will not learn from their example.”

“Have you dispatched another fleet?”

“I have. With a commander that I can trust to know how to fight ugly battles.”

“If you came here to berate me, I would suggest it is not a matter worthy of your time.”

“Do you consider this a violation of the truce?”

Hamob tilted his head slightly. “You are worried Itaru will and demand an immediate invasion of Star Force? I will not support that. Star Force’s allies attacked, not Star Force. If we are to invade anyone, let it be the Knights of Quenar homeworld.”

“I need you to go to Itaru and say just that.”

“Why not just order the strike yourself?”

“We only know the region they are in, not their exact location. We do not have a visible target to hit, and I suspect Itaru will not want to conduct a search. They will want blood and go to those they can get it from rather than those responsible.”

“It sounds like you’re protecting Star Force.”

“I am protecting our honor. They did not violate the truce and I will not tolerate us doing so. They gave us the information I requested. I will not sanction an attack before due time.”

“And then will you? Or are you going to find a reason to keep them alive further?”

Mak’to’ran flashed his Saroto’kanse’vam, with his glowing red talons indicating that Hamob had hit a nerve. “I am tired beyond measure of the idiocy within the empire. Star Force has provided us with two things the V’kit’no’sat and even the Zak’de’ron never possessed. Information about the minds of the Hadarak and a weapon we can effectively use against them. Dorchav never would have conceived of the Harthur without being the victim of a similar version. Star Force has done more to hurt the Hadarak than the V’kit’no’sat have ever done!”

“Your words border on treason, but I know they are not.”

“I’ve been branded a traitor before,” Mak’to’ran pointed out.

“That you have. The fissures in the empire have been sealed over, but they still exist. The Hadarak should be the uniting factor, and the success of the Harthur is rallying many to fulfill their oaths, but we are not a single entity. Far from it. What do the Oso’lon and J’gar have to say on the matter?”

“The J’gar oppose, the Oso’lon encourage an immediate strike against Star Force. The Era’tran must be the tipping factor, and I need you to tip it into a quest to find the Knights of Quenar worlds and destroy them.”

“They are working on behalf of Star Force.”

“Our truce is not with the Knights of Quenar. As such, us attacking them is not a violation of it.”

“True in detail, but not in spirit.”

“If we break our word, what of us?”

“You still think what we gained is worth the truce?”

“It is our first achievement above and beyond the Zak’de’ron. Is that not worth it on the merits alone?”

“You are playing a long term war, while others see only the immediate.”

“That is why I lead and not them.”

“Your leadership is tolerated, and is no more than that. Itaru still holds power.”

“They can delude themselves with such thoughts if they wish, but if they challenge me it will start another civil war.”

“We cannot afford that. Star Force would survive and only grow stronger.”

“And what of the Hadarak? Have you lost sight of our true enemy?”

“They will remain, as they always do. We can seek to destroy them after we deal with other matters.”

“That perspective is why we have made no progress in such a long time.”

“Many people tire of Star Force’s existence and see it as a direct challenge to our dominance.”

“If we were dominant, the extermination forces I sent to end them previously would not have failed. I regret not returning myself and assessing their truth strength, but my fight is rightly with the Hadarak and if others cannot handle the extermination of a small rogue faction then we have no claim to dominance.”

“What do you wish done with Star Force?”

“We honor the truce. That is non-negotiable.”

“And beyond that?”

“That is up to them. I have offed a path for their survival. So far they have refused.”

“What path?”

“The same one you pushed for the Rit’ko’sor.”

Hamob was taken aback. “You offered them membership?”

“Of a sort. Again, your focus suggests you are one of the arrogant, not the one who fought to destroy the arrogant. The Uriti are an invaluable asset we should not discard lithely.”

“You do not need to tell me this in light of recent events.”

“Did you make any headway into communication or control?”

“None.”

“The only ones that can command the Uriti are Star Force, and I do not believe we will be able to steal their secrets from their corpses.”

“Do you think they will actually help us fight the Hadarak?”

“If framed in the proper way, perhaps.”

“They despise us.”

“Why should they not? We have been trying to kill them.”

“And you think you can change that?”

“We have negotiated a deal once. They are not blindly filled with hate. Their hate comes from a legitimate source. I can negotiate around that. I already have once.”

“And they maintain the ability to do great damage to our empire if they choose.”

“Which is why we work out of caution, not fear. The dominant do not fear. You are rattled because you encountered a worthy opponent and lost. Itaru fears Star Force because they are the same. They cannot hurt us in any appreciable fashion through offense, but they can cost us far more ships if we attack on their territory and have to face their planetary defenses. Realize our advantage and stop panicking.”

“I am not panicking over Star Force.”

“Then go to Itaru and direct their ire where it belongs. You were the one who suffered the attack. It needs to come from you and the Era’tran.”

“And will you lead the search?”

“No. My place is fighting the Hadarak. We finally have a weapon against them. I will not be distracted. Do you have what you need to create the Ancient sedative?”

“The sedative, yes. Do we have a delivery system…no. I cannot fathom how they used it in combat. It has such slow adhesion. Without direct physical proximity over a prolonged period of time, the systems in the Ancient shell are worthless. They must have used something different for capture. We do not have a weapon to use against Star Force’s Uriti. Even if we did, we would have to fight through Star Force’s fleets to get to them, and the sedative is quickly countered by any damage.”

“What did you learn of consequence?”

“That the Chixzon possessed a knowledge of genetics far superior to our own.”

“You were able to retrieve samples?”

“We did. The coding of the Uriti is in a language we haven’t been able to identify. It does not match Hadarak genetics in any recognizable way. I believe they have kept their strength but rewritten it their own format.”

“How is it different?”

“The genetic coding molecules are different and incomplete. There is no functional possibility that we can derive from them. There must be another missing component we have not yet identified.”

“Interesting.”

“Disturbing,” Hamob countered. “I truly hope the Ancients were successful in killing them all.”

“It’s been millions of years and we have ascended to dominance within the galaxy. I think it’s safe to assume they are gone or have devolved into a form that is not a threat to us.”

“Or they’re hiding until they can find a fix to the Uriti weakness.”

“Noted.”

“I agree that we cannot lose focus on the Hadarak, but we cannot allow others to weaken our strength. We need it to hold the line, so we must prioritize our growth rate over Hadarak kills.”

“Star Force only costs us ships when we attack them. The Knights of Quenar are another matter.”

“I view them as a lesser threat. They wanted the Uriti. They do not want to fight a war against us.”

“Leave Star Force to me.”

“Do not overestimate your reputation.”

“Do not trifle me with reputations.”

Hamob huffed. “I will go to Itaru and do as you have requested. You must find a way to unite us further before you propose more radical ideas.”

“We adapt or die. I will not coddle the incompetent.”

“I wish the empire were in the state you wish it to be, but it is not. We need time to heal it. Do not push too hard too quickly or it will fracture again.”

“All the more reason to honor the truce. And we wouldn’t want to let the Knights of Quenar think they can attack us with impunity. There must be a reckoning.”

“That Itaru will agree with, but the lack of a viable target is problematic.”

“Scouts have already been dispatched. We will locate them sooner or later.”

“Depending on how well hidden they are.”

“We were able to track down the Zak’de’ron that fled. I think this will be no more difficult.”

“It will take time. Itaru will want blood now.”

“They will have to wait for a legitimate target. I will not tolerate a fake one. Those who attacked us must pay. We will not let them slide and blame another...”

Mak’to’ran left Hamob several hours later, not entirely satisfied. The elder Era’tran did not seem his normal, confident, wise self. Mak’to’ran had been on the losing side more than most V’kit’no’sat had, other than against the Hadarak, and this was the first time he had seen a crack in Hamob. Perhaps he was too used to winning, and perhaps that was part of the reason why some V’kit’no’sat were not eager to fight the Hadarak unless needed.

Mak’to’ran saw things differently. The Hadarak begged to be fought, and the V’kit’no’sat he had sworn loyalty to would not retreat from that fight. It was the reason they existed, and Mak’to’ran was going to pull them back to it or pull the empire apart. There was no relinquishing this duty, and better for the V’kit’no’sat to end than for it to continue on in a treasonous form…for to ignore the Hadarak was a betrayal of the very foundation of what it meant to be V’kit’no’sat.

And for Itaru to want to destroy the very weapons that could be used against the Hadarak was stupid beyond measure. Star Force was an asset, though one Mak’to’ran hadn’t yet figured out how to make full use of. The truce was as much about the exchange of information as it was to give Mak’to’ran time. He did not want the Uriti destroyed, and in truth, he didn’t want Star Force destroyed anymore either. They had proven their mettle through survival, as well as their cunning and honor, twisted as it might be into passivity.

But that passivity meant they were not a threat to the V’kit’no’sat. Not right now, at least, and the knowledge of the tier 6 Hadarak at the inner Core of the galaxy was pressing foremost on Mak’to’ran’s mind…though it seemed to be absent from most of the others’. Until they could find a way to beat planet-sized Hadarak, their squabble with Star Force, the Knights of Quenar, or anyone else was irrelevant…and the Uriti might be the key to figuring out a way to fight the real Hadarak nemesis that had never bothered to show themselves to the V’kit’no’sat.

The more years that went by the more he was certain that Star Force was the key to their ultimate victory over the Hadarak, but he didn’t know how and he couldn’t let Itaru destroy them before he figured it out. If he did, the V’kit’no’sat might not have a chance like this for another 10 million years, if ever.

8

March 23, 4861

Unnamed System (Beyond V’kit’no’sat territory)

Stellar Orbit

Soronera was commanding the leading scout vessel in the Knights of Quenar convoy as it came out of its jump into yet another uninhabited system. His ship had a several minutes lead on the others, and it was his job to make sure there wasn’t opposition or obstruction waiting at the end of the jump as the KoQ moved through more uncharted systems as they took the long way around V’kit’no’sat territory to get to Star Force’s Preserve.

The scout ship could move much faster than the transport vessel, and they’d already spent 3 years in transit and weren’t even half their way to their destination yet, but traveling through the inner half of the galaxy was just too dangerous. The KoQ fleet had taken significant losses against the V’kit’no’sat, then even more against the Uriti while they were sedating it. They still had a significant force left, some 72,000 ships, but if the V’kit’no’sat were able to locate them they could bring millions to bear against them.

The KoQ knew the V’kit’no’sat had recently acquired a new sensor that could locate active gravity drives or artificial gravity generators. The KoQ could block those sensor pings, but they were blind while doing so because they used the same technology to navigate by when fully stealthed. They’d had to mark the positions of the V’kit’no’sat ships from afar when they attacked the Uriti system, then navigate in the blind to where they were in order to spring the trap. That had been dangerous, for if the V’kit’no’sat ships had moved they could have collided, but it was the only way to defeat the higher level sensor system.

If the KoQ wanted to travel while fully stealthed, as they were now, they had to use that sensor to detect ships in their path…but that wouldn’t do anything to pick up asteroids or other debris. So they had to have conventional sensors sometime, which was the scout ships’ job. They looked, charted the course, then transmitted data back to the fully stealthed ships via fluctuations in their own gravity drives. It was a low volume means of communication, but enough to send short messages and navigational data…and only those with the high level sensor technology active could read them.

That meant if they encountered a V’kit’no’sat scout ship they were vulnerable to detection, and even a single encounter would highlight their approximate area and more enemy ships would flood into the region, eventually pinning them down and forcing a fight. They had to stay hidden, and that meant moving around the galaxy the long way to stay amongst the uncharted systems the V’kit’no’sat did not patrol.

When Soronera’s ship finished its deceleration it maintained partial stealth and scanned the region, both actively and passively, finding no immediate ships or objects to obstruct the convoy’s incoming jump. He sent the information back as two more of his 12 member crew came into the control atrium. During the jump they had been hibernating, with him awake in case something occurred or a message was sent, but now that they were in a system and the relatively safe jump was over, they needed more crew to fly the ship, for they didn’t want to overtax a single individual and miss a sensor contact, no matter how small.

So the three KoQ shared duties, overlapping and double checking each other as a few other scout ships emerged and spread out in multiple directions around the central star, checking out what was on the other side while Soronera’s ship held station and relayed their data stream to the convoy as some of the scouts disappeared around the curve of the star.

Everything appeared to be fine, just another quiet jump like the hundreds they’d made over the past years, but once the first of the convoy ships began to arrive fully stealthed they came under immediate attack.

Suddenly ship silhouettes started to appear everywhere around Soronera’s ship, firing a mix of energy weapons that the KoQ couldn’t all identify. They also didn’t recognize who was attacking them or how they had been able to stay hidden, but they were clearly waiting for them and hitting the convoy as it came through a few ships at a time.

Soronera’s ship didn’t last long before it was targeted and quickly destroyed, but he lived just long enough to see one of the twisted enemy ships unfurl and shoot a cylinder-like tube out from its central structure and into one of the larger KoQ warships that had just lost its shields under a mass of firepower. The tube didn’t hit the hull…it broke right through and several others followed as the enemy ship barely a third the size of the KoQ battlecruiser drew even closer and slowly ripped the vessel apart, completely severing the forward section of the cone-shaped ship and setting it adrift from the rest.

Sononera didn’t see anything else, for the energy weapon orbs being fired on him could move and track like missiles, following the evasive maneuvers the KoQ made, including an emergency microjump, and hit the ship several million miles away. There were more than 40 of them, and it didn’t take that many to puncture the shields and rip through the hull…but they didn’t explode on contact. They burnt through and met up inside the ship, forming into a much larger orb that finally did detonate, blowing the ship into oblivion while the rest of the KoQ fleet continued to jump into an ambush they could not avoid.

Some of the ships got a short heads up and were able to alter their final arrival point, but there were enemy ships everywhere waiting for them and chasing down those that tried to flee, with the KoQ forcing the enemy to either let them go or split their forces, giving the incoming ships a better chance of survival. The attackers chose to pursue, but had so many ships waiting that it didn’t matter. Eventually the KoQ ships began to build up, so large they couldn’t be killed fast enough to keep up with the convoy rate, and a pitched battle ensued. The KoQ had rarely met an opponent superior to them, but this unidentified race clearly was. Their weapons were so alien and potent that the KoQ would have had a hard time fighting them straight up even with a slight numerical advantage…but being ambushed in this way, they didn’t stand a chance.

When the Uriti transport arrived it was immediately swarmed with more enemy ships decloaking and ramming it. They got through the shields quickly then attached themselves to the hull…but they didn’t damage it. They stuck there like ticks, cutting entry points that allowed boarding parties in with remarkably little delay.

The KoQ didn’t have much in the way of crew onboard the transport, but they did have a small battle division just in case the ship was boarded. They responded immediately, all 20,000 of them, to the multiple breaches that were spread out over different areas in the transforming ship that was now 129 miles wide and 58 high to accommodate the twisting the Uriti had done while sedate. That was a huge amount of territory to cover and defend, though most of it was an empty interior shell that held the Uriti.

The KoQ troops wore full body armor, looking like a cross between a commando and a spider/crab, and skittered out on their four legs to meet the invaders, immediately sensing telepathic contact and attempts to override their minds. It was strong, but the KoQ had long ago made themselves immune to such interference, so when the first of the armored quadrupeds appeared they were still in their right minds.

But their opponents were huge and possessing many powers beyond telepathy, including telekinesis that they used to pick up and crush pieces of the ship that they then threw at the KoQ while the defenders fired tiny bolts of energy so fast it appeared to be a rainstorm of destruction. The first of the invaders withstood it long enough to knock down and partially crush 9 KoQ, but there were hundreds of them here and all targeting the long tailed quadruped encased in flexible red body armor.

Behind it eventually came two more, one of which had silver armor, but they all that the same powers and when they eventually realized their telekinesis wouldn’t work on the KoQ they switched to attacks that could not be blocked, primarily in the form of semi-invisible energy waves that rippled through the air and scattered the KoQ like bowling pins save for the few that reacted quickly enough to lock their feet to the floor.

The first attacker’s shields eventually dropped under the coordinated firepower, but as it began to take armor hits they were up and on top of the tiny KoQ, physically stomping them when they could and knocking them around with the energy waves only to finish them off one by one with an arrogant attack. They opened their face armor to reveal a few hard scales around their mouths that then released a large amount of raw plasma in a stream, apparently biologically generated. It was an inferior attack, and only effective when the KoQ defenses were already down, and the enemy was using it as a finishing move that opened them up to a counterattack at the same time.

The KoQ tried to take advantage of that, but they couldn’t. The attackers were too good and while it looked reckless, they did not allow their momentary weakness to be taken advantage of. Not even once.  And these KoQ didn’t last more than a few minutes against the combined might of the three unidentified quadrupeds.

The Zak’de’ron strike teams had to work quickly. If the Uriti didn’t stay sedated they couldn’t claim it, and the V’kit’no’sat had already released it once to spite their attackers. However the Knights of Quenar had resedated it was beyond the Zak’de’ron’s knowledge so they had to take the ship before that happened. Fortunately the crew was more interested in fighting the invaders than they were in sabotage, but it was a huge ship and all it would take was one individual ending the sedative flow or attacking the Uriti in some way.

The main control centers of the ship were quickly discovered, seized, and cleansed of all threats, including the automated internal defenses that did more damage than the defending crew. Two Zak’de’ron took body hits and had to be evacuated back to their ships, but none died. Between their size and technology the KoQ didn’t stand a chance. It was the release of the Uriti that threatened the Zak’de’ron, and boarding a ship they had not been able to scan from the outside left a lot of questions and numerous possibilities for sabotage.

Eventually the sedative production areas were located and it was confirmed they had been turned off. Two crew members were discovered in the area and they tried to fight to the death, but they were not allowed to die yet. They were captured, stripped of their armor, then physical contact had to be applied to get through their formidable mental defenses, part of which were mechanical, for apparently the KoQ were cyborgs, though in a very small fashion. Still, such mechanisms couldn’t be affected by telepathy and worked to counteract the influence on the rest of their minds.

But their mechanical components were too few, and once flesh to flesh contact was made the Zak’de’ron’s Ikrid gave him an advantage that he then used to fight a brief but intense war for control of the KoQ’s mind…with the small creature preventing him from taking full victory, but he didn’t need to gain control of its body, merely drain the necessary knowledge from its mind.

Once that was done, the Zak’de’ron applied full pressure to his foot and squished the KoQ to death within a second, then wiped the gore off on the deck plates and peeled the rest off telekinetically as he moved to the sedation equipment. Fortunately it hadn’t been damaged, but it had been deactivated and if it wasn’t reengaged the Uriti would wake up eventually.

The KoQ technology was impressive, with a few variations the Zak’de’ron didn’t recognize, but with the stolen memories he and his brothers were able to eventually access the controls and override the lockout that had been put in place. It took two days to do it, but fortunately the Uriti was not one to quickly awaken, and the amount of activity it had begun to show was immediately reversed as the sedative flow was reinstated.

By that time the fighting was long over, with the debris from the KoQ ships being towed from the battlefield and shoved into the star to dispose of it. There could be no trace of this incident left for others to discover, so the Zak’de’ron fleet spent another 3 days searching for and collecting even the smallest pieces of debris before taking navigational command of the captured KoQ carrier ship and moving it out of the system under stealth. Its systems were not as good as the Zak’de’ron cloaks, but it would do against almost all of the galaxy, including the V’kit’no’sat, and the few that could penetrate the KoQ technology were not known to be in this region.

A few Zak’de’ron ships stayed behind as a rear guard while the rest took up the place of the KoQ convoy and escorted the carrier ship off its original course towards a new destination. One where the Zak’de’ron could quietly study the Uriti on their own, away from both the V’kit’no’sat and Star Force, with no one knowing what had happened to the Knights of Quenar or their prize.

4 days earlier…

“We are being towed,” Bashmeh reported from the remains of one of the Knights of Quenar warships. “Trajectory is towards the star. They are going to burn us rather than finish us off in combat.”

“Then we have a chance,” Yarnin said over their unified comm network. “They may not know of the Durolin. Everyone move there now!”

Bashmeh did as ordered, moving through what corridors were still intact even though many had no air. His shields retained a pocket for his use, supplemented by recyclers, allowing him and others to move where they needed through the wrecked ship. They passed through two sections that still had life support, meeting up with four more KoQ survivors before they passed through another breached section, eventually arriving at one of four Durolin the battleship possessed, only one of which was in this piece of ship.

Before they got there the light from outside was becoming oppressive, heralding what was to come, but the first of the plasma didn’t begin to eat into the ship until all 18 survivors arrived at the Durolin, eating into the KoQ personal shields that would hold for some time, but the deeper they fell into the Star’s upper atmosphere the worse it would get.

Yarnin looked around at all the KoQ then pointed to Bashmeh.

“You are chosen. You will go alone.”

“There is room for us all inside,” he protested.

“But the supplies are limited. One of us must survive and report what has happened. This foe must not be allowed total victory. The Durolin has limited speed. If we all go, the supplies may not last. Sending one maximizes the chances of our data returning. You are the smallest of the uninjured. You are the logical choice. Go now before the burning begins in earnest.”

Bashmeh looked at his fellow Knights, accepting their decision and sacrifice. His mission now was clear, so he did not delay. He opened the aperture to the Durolin and walked inside, seeing the increasing wisps of plasma hit its boundary shields and stop there, protecting the interior. He then sealed and locked the doors, condemning his brethren to death, but it had to be done.

Bashmeh walked through the small emergency vessel and came to the control compartment where he activated the specially designed shields that would allow it to survive within the star. The rest of the battleship would burn off around him, but the Durolin would survive away from the sensors of the enemy…unless they were superior as well.

Bashmeh knew he could take no chances, so as the other Knights died in silence outside, for they cut their comm link to him so he could not witness their deaths, he allowed the Durolin to sink farther and farther into the star along with the debris all the way down to a level that he could not pass. Using shield dispersion rather than gravity drives that could possibly be detected, he altered the density level of the Durolin and caused it to hold position in the deepest layer of the star that it could survive.

And there he waited. He waited not hours, not days, but two months before finally rising to the surface for a look at what was beyond. If the enemy could defeat their sensors they could still be here and the Durolin had far less sensing capability, but still he kept within the outer atmosphere of the star waiting to dive back in again if something did appear.

No one did, so he lowered the stellar shields and engaged his cloaking device, heading towards the jumppoint that would put him on a direct line for the nearest KoQ outpost. The engine power on the Durolin was not great, but it would be sufficient and he could hibernate for long stretches of the 18.2 years the navigational computer calculated. The Durolin were meant to be survival pods, but no one knew the fleet was in this system, so no one knew to come looking for them. That meant he had to take the long journey back on his own or seek out allies nearby.

He couldn’t risk the latter, for if he revealed himself to anyone the mysterious enemy might take notice and hunt him down. If they thought he was dead along with the rest, they wouldn’t be looking for him. That was his only advantage. He could not squander it. So he had to embark on this journey with no assistance, for the information he carried was too important to risk otherwise.

He did have enough supplies, if stretched through hibernation. Had two of the others come, they would have ran out. One other might have been possible, but it would have jeopardized the mission with unnecessary risk.

Whoever this new enemy was, there would be vengeance if he returned. If not, they would succeed in attacking with anonymity. This could not be allowed to pass, making Bashmeh’s mission one of both revenge and something a great deal more important.

Someone else now possessed a Uriti, for it hadn’t been in the system when he’d emerged from the star, and if they went to the effort of stealing it from them, odds are they were going to try to do something with it other than stick it back in the crust of a planet somewhere.

Word had to reach the other Knights, and this was the only way to do it without risking the mission. 18.2 years it would be, then there would be a war of annihilation as soon as they located this race’s territory.

9

April 3, 4862

Mjolnir System (Preema territory)

Asgard (Star Force planet)

Andia arrived in planetary orbit via a small convoy of Star Force cargo ships, escorted by a single warship that had brought them all the way out to Preema territory and the only system inside it that housed a Star Force colony, and a recent one at that. Already there were several cities and even two small shipyards, but the latter were building construction craft to assist in the development of the planet as fast as possible. In order to do that Star Force had sent their fastest builders in the form of two expeditionary forces of Kiritak and Bsidd, along with several Paladin ships that had apparently gotten very busy reproducing.

Kiritak and Bsidd required time in maturias to learn their trade, but Paladin came with their genetic knowledge inherent. They still had to gain experience over time like everyone else, but they were work capable right after their ‘birth’ where everyone else was not, and from the scrawling blots of Paladin infrastructure scattered across the planet, they were expanding their workforce rapidly.

Then again they had to. Shipping massive amounts of construction crews this far away was impractical, at least in the numbers that were needed to build up this planet into an industrial powerhouse before the truce with the V’kit’no’sat expired. The Paladin were the only way to do that, with the Kiritak and Bsidd experts here to supplement them.

Andia wasn’t Kiritak, Bsidd, or Paladin. She was Protovic and a level 10 Mastertech, two grades below the most elite in Star Force. Her superiors were needed elsewhere, and rightly so, but Davis had pegged her with overseeing this entire planet in lieu of a Monarch given the fact that there would be no civilian population here at all. This was a work planet, with Archon backup, making a Monarch unnecessary. Andia was going to be in charge of everything industrial, and with the help of the Archons start producing the very high end equipment that Star Force hadn’t been able to field yet due to the need for resources to be applied to more economical projects.

Star Force had never built a Tar’vem’jic, but now Andia was going to. They’d never build Yeg’gor armor, but now they were going to. They’d never built a Seinac Lancer, but now they were going to. Those three items she was very eager to get to work on, but first they had to build the planetary infrastructure needed and that was going to take decades. Fortunately the Preema were beginning to make good on their part of the deal and their supply convoys could be seen in the system with ships numbering in the thousands as they dropped off crates of raw materials in orbital slots that were now becoming small nebulas.

There was too much for Star Force to get to as fast as the Preema were delivering…but that was going to change. Andia knew it was just a matter of snowballing, and once that happened the Preema wouldn’t be able to deliver the materials fast enough and she’d have to building mining infrastructure in the system, including a Star Forge or two, but right now they weren’t lacking for raw materials.

Another part of her job here was going to be to work with the Preema techs to teach them how to create a Grid Point. They couldn’t do that here, nor could Star Force. They’d have to build it on site or build a fleet of moving craft to drag it slowly across the stars. Star Force had seen how inefficient that was, so they weren’t going to try to replicate that feat. New Grid Points would have to be built on station with ant-like supply trains running nonstop to deliver the necessary resources over the decades required to construct them.

Right now the Preema didn’t know how to build one, and Andia would have to teach them. Star Force had never built one either, but they did control many and had mastered the technology long ago. It would take 6 new Grid Points to link the edge of Preema territory to the rest of The Nexus transportation network, and that was stretching it. Most likely it would end up being 9, plus the three the Preema had agreed to construct for Star Force elsewhere.

That was a more massive construction project than Andia had ever seen, but the Preema had the advantage of not being at war with anyone and having a very large and densely packed empire. This was going to be an effort for them, but they had the luxury of time and resources to apply to it, and obviously felt it was worth what they were getting in return.

Having a link into The Nexus network was going to allow them access to a huge chunk of the galaxy and cut the travel time of the trip that Andia had just taken drastically. Davis had told her that the Preema wanted to control events around them in order to prevent threats from arising that could harm them later. They were very proactive, and giving them access to The Nexus would allow them to watch and prod everything anti-spinward of them in a way they’d never been able to do before.

But the deal didn’t just include that. Davis had negotiated some technology trades and even some biological ones. He hadn’t told her what they all were, for she only needed to know the industrial stuff she’d be working with, but the Director had agreed to give the Preema an Ikrid block. Andia didn’t even have one of those, and making a race immune to telepathic interference was an incredibly powerful thing. Andia knew this better than most, for she was telepathic, as were most Protovic. She didn’t have the more powerful Ikrid, but the Ikrid blocks would stop her telepathy just the same.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to someone telepathically, for the blocks didn’t stop that, but it stopped her from reading their minds and in a war against enemies with that power, having that backstop was something that the Preema obviously valued highly. And they understood that power as well, for they were also telepathic, but apparently hadn’t been able to figure out how to create a block of their own.

As for the parts of the deal that involved her, which were all secret as far as the treaty was concerned, she was to meet and exchange information on the list of technologies agreed. Star Force would give the Preema a lot, they would give her a few new things in exchange, but most of the Preema’s part of the deal was the endless influx of raw materials. That was the only reason a colony was being establish here, so far away from Star Force territory. The Preema were going to supply the building materials and Andia was going to do the building here away from prying V’kit’no’sat eyes.

And what she was going to be building was the big toys. The chess pieces in warfare that were very valuable and hard to kill, but the ones that were often not economical enough to exchange for standard warship production. As long as the Preema were going to feed Star Force unlimited supplies she was going to have the option to take on the long list of projects that the Mastertechs had wanted to pursue but never could, leaving her in a very envied position.

The downside was the isolation and being stranded amongst the very powerful and numerous Preema. If they betrayed Star Force there wasn’t going to be anything the Archons assigned here could do. Even once they built up the planetary defenses, they were still sitting inside potentially enemy territory. This deal was based on a high level of trust and mutual advantage, and she trusted Davis’s judgement as much as she trusted in the Preema’s desire to be linked into The Nexus Grid Point network. They couldn’t do that while betraying Star Force, for the links were going to go through their territory and Star Force could shut them out from it, after it was constructed, with a simple ‘off’ button.

And the up sides of this deal were massive for both sides, which was why Davis had decided to go through with it. Not much was known about the Preema, for they were very secretive about their own territory, keeping everyone else out forcibly. They were almost xenophobic, yet they wanted to have contact with outsiders…but on their terms. And with them harboring races that the V’kit’no’sat had marked for death, Andia could understand their paranoia.

Once her cargo ship settled into orbit and began to disgorge dropships, the Mastertech hopped on one and headed down to Asgard, a world of rock and more rock. No greens or blues whatsoever. It was a dead, but very valuable world. A clean canvas on which the Mastertech could work and she wouldn’t have preferred it any other way. Beaches and forests just got in the way, and having to build around them was a pain in the ass. Bare rock was much more preferable, so she was happy with the selected location and the Preema’s willingness to give it to Star Force, for it wasn’t a loan. This was now permanently Star Force territory amongst the thousands of Preema systems.

Isolated she was, but that downside was worth the potential she saw here, and Andia was eager to get down there and assume full command of the other techs.

David-441 had traveled with Andia’s convoy out to Preema territory, but he wasn’t being assigned here. There were lower level Archons that could mind the store well enough and his Piccolo-level skillset was needed elsewhere, but right now there was a high level task requiring him to be here in place of the trailblazers who were insanely busy with other priority tasks.

David was here because the Preema were bringing the representatives of the races that Star Force had agreed to take off their hands, and even as the warship that he was on entered planetary orbit he could see dozens of non-Preema ships sitting quietly in a high orbit waiting for him to arrive. Once he made contact and arranged the transit, Preema transports brought them over to David’s warship in two tightly packed groups, with one representative from each race only.

There were 92 of them in total, ranging from one no taller than David’s knee to a four-winged furred avian bigger than a Les’i’kron.

David waited for them alone, standing silently still as they all debarked along with a few Preema who then approached him with a respectful bow as the Griffin-like aliens bent on their forward knees slightly.

“All here have learned your language. No translation will be required.”

“Thank you,” David said evenly. “Names please?”

One of the Preema pointed a wing and a quadruped taller than David walked forward.

“Deenra. A race that once spanned the entire length of the Sani Belt before the V’kit’no’sat found them. A few of their traders had contact with us and we gave safe harbor to no more than 2,000 of them. They now number 42 million.”

The Deenra walked forward as the Preema spoke, then quietly curled its scaly body and rolled forward like a ball until it came beside its host, unfurling again to stand looking down slightly at David.

“You look familiar,” the Archon said.

“They are physically similar to the Star Force member called Rammus, though we know of no former bloodline connection,” the Preema explained.

“We are honored to greet you, Archon,” the Deenra said with an oddly high pitched voice that sounded like it was being crushed by gravel. The Rammus, on the other hand, always sounded like they were coughing when they talked.

“Why did the V’kit’no’sat mark you for death?”

“We had several worlds they wanted. They told us to forfeit them. We refused.”

“What specifically did they want?”

“Trade routes. We controlled four important black hole links. Had we forfeited the systems they wanted, they would have inherited that control and greatly increased their ease of travel as they expanded their territory. We were an impediment to them. When we did more defensive damage than they expected, they decreed that we all must die. We would very much like to help you fight them.”

“Well you’re in,” David said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Next.”

The Preema waved the Deenra on, essentially handing over responsibility for him to Star Force, as they brought a smaller biped up next. It stood about even to David’s elbow and resembled a rabbit, except it had two spikes on its head instead of ears and its body was covered in yellow/tan/black scales rather than fur.

“Bwie. They came to us individually, in large numbers as they scattered across the galaxy. We collected those that we could quietly, and they now number 183 billion. They have unique skill burrowing underground and have assisted us with some mining operations.”

David leaned forward slightly, looking at the Bwie. “Show me your teeth.”

The alien drew its mouth open, showing a row of normal teeth along with two large fangs up front.

“Poison?” David asked.

“Yes,” the Bwie said smoothly.

“We’ll have to remove that. Some of our Protovic also had poison, but we couldn’t allow them to keep it.”

“I am less dangerous than you,” the Bwie quipped.

“True,” the Archon admitted. “But poison is a dishonorable weapon. We have the technology to genetically reengineer your race. We can remove the poison production while leaving your teeth otherwise the same. It will not hurt or damage you.”

“We do not wish to be altered.”

David sensed resistance, so he dove into the Bwie’s mind and discovered that it was not one of the races that wanted to join Star Force. Rather it was one the Preema wanted to offload on them.

“Does your poison work on each other?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. We are immune to it. It is to defend ourself against other races.”

“Well then. You can keep it so long as you stay within the colonies we build for you. If you want to intermix with the other races in Star Force, you will have to forfeit the poison.”

“We have no wish to intermix.”

“Problem solved then,” David said sarcastically, thumbing the little rabbit/snake behind him. “You’re in. Who’s the big one?”

“They are the Hanisva,” the Preema said as the Bwie hopped off to stand next to the Deenra and the giant avian stepped forward to stand with its wing over top the Preema and looked down on David from a head bigger than the Human by a factor of 4. “The V’kit’no’sat offered them membership, then when they refused they sought to destroy them.”

David got inside its mind quickly, then was disgusted by what he saw, for the Hanisva was drawing similarities between the Archon and its food.

“What are you feeding them?” he asked the Preema angrily.

“Something you would not approve of, but something the Preema do not eat. They could not eat our food.”

“So you let them kill others…you bastard.”

“We assume you can find a better food source for them, thus the transfer will be in everyone’s best interest.”

David pointed a stern finger at the Preema. “This stops now, everywhere in your territory. If you’re participating in the meat trade, we’ll end up invading you to stop it.”

“Which is one reason why we want to end it now by transferring the Hanisva to you. We want to rid ourselves of the meat trade.”

“You could have done that on your own long ago,” David sneered. “Why is it we are the only ones that care to clean up the galaxy?”

“They brought their food source with them. We simply didn’t deny it to them.”

“If they are your wards, then you are responsible for them and their misdeeds. Are there any living snacks on their ship?”

“We prefer our food live,” the Hanisva noted.

That did it for David. The avian was huge compared to him, but its mind was weak and he was inside it within a heartbeat, crippling the monster and dragging it to the ground without even touching it. David flew up into the air and landed on top of its chest as he forced it to turn its head to look at him, completely unable to control its own body.

“I will not allow this barbarism to continue. You will submit to our standards or I will kill you myself. We protect people. We don’t eat them, and any that do are our enemies,” he said, glancing briefly at the Preema before looking back at the huge avian. “Do you wish to be our enemy, or will you accept our rules?”

“You are no better than the V’kit’no’sat.”

“Take him back. I don’t want them,” David said, flying back down and releasing the Hanisva. “But you will find them an alternative food source immediately or our deal is off. We won’t be allied with sick bastards.”

The Hanisva rolled to its feet then turned and lashed out at David with its wing, trying to sweep him off his feet with the frame bone of it, but a Jumat blast leapt out and hit the wing, stopping it in its tracks and breaking it in the process. The huge Hanisva recoiled and screamed in pain while David held his position.

“Stop!” the Preema demanded, looking directly at the Hanisva and using his telepathy on it to convince it to just hold still and wait. “Just stop! We can negotiate an appropriate deal.”

“We don’t negotiate with other people’s lives,” David said with violent intent in his eyes.

“We’re not asking you to. We want to end the meat trade, which is why we want to transfer the Hanisva to you. They are unruly, but you have dealt with worse before, have you not?”

“I will not tolerate them killing and eating people during the transit to Star Force territory.”

“Then we will produce whatever food they require if you can design it for us. We will take their current food source from them as soon as the replacement can be acquired.”

“No, you will take it from them now. They can eat food they don’t like in order to survive until then.”

“They cannot eat Preema food.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“They are allergic to several ingredients we use.”

“Identify them and remove them. Then feed them what is left until we fashion something better.”

“Then you will accept them?”

“Only if you end this now, across your entire territory, with no delay. This is abhorrent.”

“We agree. I will send the messages immediately.”

“Their slave race of food has to be freed immediately. Who are they?”

“They are called Nioti, and they cannot speak.”

“I don’t give a damn. You will separate the Nioti from them immediately and turn the Nioti over to us separately. We will include them in the races we are taking from you.”

“We will not relinquish our food.” the Hanisva said firmly.

David help up his palm towards the Preema before it could speak, but his eyes were directly on the big, fur-covered avian.

“Yes…you…will,” David said, launching himself into the air directly towards the Hanisva’s chest where he punched it with both his fist and a Jumat blast, knocking it back a few meters, but he didn’t relent. He flew around, kicking the crap out of the thing for good measure as it tried to fight back but couldn’t move fast enough. Eventually, after cracking a few more bones, he rendered the Hanisva unconscious with it dropping to the deck in a heap as all the other races stood as far away from it as they could.

“We accept them,” David said, landing next to the Preema again. “Next?”

10

July 5, 4863

Meinto System (Zadjen Region)

Treneis

“We can maintain two,” the little triped Dati said, pointing its cute, stubby little fingers at the holographic map of the Rim with The Nexus’s territory only occupying a small portion in the approximate center. When he did the map zoomed in to the Perseus Galactic Arm where Dati territory was located, but ultimately he pointed somewhere spinward, or ‘west,’ of their worlds to a region that held several massive black holes. “Will that be sufficient?”

“Three are needed,” Davis argued, selecting the appropriate and very long black hole jumplanes. “I don’t want to stretch my infrastructure into the Vdir Region without your support. It’s too far off The Nexus grid for me to get reinforcements to within a year and I can’t devote a large defense fleet in light of the V’kit’no’sat war. I need you to secure all three of these routes so your fleets will be within support range if the Kamier or Taeru decide to try and cut our trade links.”

“That’s farther than we’re comfortable pushing,” the Dati said hesitantly. “Our fleets are not as large as yours.”

“I’m not asking you to secure the region, just the links.”

“If we agree to protect and manage these three spacelanes, will you allow us to colonize pieces of your systems on the chain? Without having to defend them?”

“Are you talking planets, moons, or little rocks?” Davis asked sarcastically.

“Little rocks will be sufficient so long as there is enough to put a foundation into,” the Dati said, catching his sarcasm and returning it.

“I can agree to that. We’ll provide the protection bubble over you if you can handle this far end of the chain.”

“It will stretch us, but I believe we have an agreement.”

“Good,” Davis said, leaning back in his chair as the Dati continued to stand on top of his desk amongst the holograms. “It will be a relief having a major power on the far end.”

“If The Nexus collapses any further, the chain will break in the middle,” the Dati warned.

“That is something I am intricately aware of, and it is going to happen. It’s just a matter of when. They’ve so horribly mismanaged their territory there is no way for them to stabilize it now. The Nexus is dead, it just hasn’t realized it yet.”

“Can you not help them? You’ve turned around far worse situations with the initial races they were forced to abandon.”

“They don’t want help. They won’t accept help that involves me telling them what to do. I’ve taken many problems off their hands, and that help they will take, but they will not change their ways. Most people would, given how many systems they are hemorrhaging, but the Sety do not care so long as their own worlds are intact.”

“I am forced to agree. Their shame is great and they do not want to admit that they are the center of the problem.”

“I am picking up many of The Nexus’s former races, but range is an issue. I expect to have almost all of them begging for membership at some point, and I need the trade chain established in order for me to save as many of them as I can. Already 39 significant races have been conquered or outright annihilated because we could not get out to them. I need the chain and you anchoring it at the far end so I can save what’s left of The Nexus when it finally breaks.”

“Why have you not sought to do the same with the Chamra? Or have you?”

“No. I have not. We currently have the Paladin deploying to the region between us and the Chamra. They’re going to do more than create a trade chain. That front is going to be locked down through massive colonization from which we can link to the Chamra, but the Chamra can’t help us there…not in the way we need, even if they offered. Which they have not.”

“And the others of The Nine?”

“Most are keeping to themselves and don’t seem to care about the collapse of The Nexus. The Jonstar are the exception and working with us to prepare for the V’kit’no’sat’s return.”

“How so?”

“They’re going to fight with us.”

“Why?” the Dati asked bluntly. “They are nowhere near the V’kit’no’sat border.”

“To paraphrase them, Star Force has replaced the Trinx in The Nine and become the heart of the alliance. To lose us would be the destruction of all and the release of the Hamoriti.”

“They still refer to them as Hamoriti?”

“Their ambassador does.”

The Dati considered for a moment, then expanded the map out large enough to cover the widely spread territories of all in The Nine.

“You are trying to establish trade routes to all while stabilizing the intermitting regions…how can you do that? There is far too much territory even if you were not at war. It is impossible. The Nexus failed making the same mistake with far less territory.”

“Go big or go home,” Davis said, knowing the Dati wouldn’t understand the cliché. “It needs done, so we’re doing it, with your help and the help of others. At least we’re trying.”

“How can you grasp that much? We are far older than you and have learned out limits. Are you mad or possessing a knowledge we lack?”

“We have a saying, and it’s called ‘crazy, but crazy like a fox.’ What we are doing may look impossible, but there is an underlying wisdom most people ignore.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

“Trust. Our highest leaders trust one another, and we are all linked. Monarchs and Archons. All Archons are trained together in the same facility, so we are all from the same mold. Monarchs are selected more widely, but all must co-op with a senior Archon before reaching the level of Duke. I also carefully select each Monarch personally. We, the leadership, are all on the same page and trust one another. When we have that, the distance between our worlds is irrelevant. None of us are going to change without someone constantly monitoring us. We don’t operate our command structure on authority, we operate it on trust. So there are no limits to our expansion, so long as we don’t try to accelerate it too fast.”

“And your chain will provide the framework for you to expand from at a pace of your choosing?”

“Exactly.”

“You are that confident in your leadership? Even one could lead to revolt if not trustworthy.”

“I am confident. In fact, it’s what I’ve been betting the existence of Star Force on from its inception. If I can’t find a few thousand individuals worthy of full trust, we’re doomed anyway. Forced obedience always failed over the course of time. We rely on people doing the right thing even when no one is telling them to. I don’t pretend that most of our people are that trustworthy, but if the leaders are many of the others will reciprocate. Likewise, if we had bad leaders, they would reciprocate that as well.”

“How do you keep so many races from tearing each other apart? There are so many differences that even well-meaning individuals will come into conflict.”

“We experimented with solutions to that problem when we created our Axius faction. You are correct that there are many biological incompatibilities. Because of that we have two different types of Axius colonies. One large scale, one small scale, so the larger races aren’t literally walking on and killing the smaller ones accidentally. There are other concerns too, but we’ve outlined a methodology that keeps all running smoothly, the basis of which is our maturia. All younglings are trained to be Star Force, and that provides enough of a bind to maintain an integrated society.”

“We have learned to keep to our own, otherwise we run into too many problems. I envy your success, but I do not envy your chances given the boldness of what you intend.”

“I would prefer a slower rate of growth…hell, what am I saying. I’d prefer a more stable rate of growth, but the collapse of The Nexus means the slower I act the more worlds are wrecked. I’ve learned how to be reckless without compromising what I’ve already built. If you had asked me a couple millennia ago, I probably would have agreed with you.”

“All of this depends on your survival. When the V’kit’no’sat truce ends…”

“We’ll be ready. I’m not compromising our survival for expansion.”

“How are you not? Resources should be spent on further fortifications rather than…”

Davis held up a hand. “On the surface that might be how it looks, but it’s not. We can’t stand toe to toe with the V’kit’no’sat in terms of industrial power. They have far too many worlds. If it comes down to attrition, they will win.”

“Unless you gain far more worlds,” the Dati said, suddenly catching on. “Can you hold out long enough for that?”

“We plan to.”

The Dati adjusted the hologram again, zooming in to their own borders. “We cannot fight the V’kit’no’sat from our position, nor do we wish to draw their ire, but if there are other ways we can be of indirect military assistance, state them.”

Davis leaned forward, telepathically adjusting the map. “Actually, there is…”

Transporting the captured Uriti took two years for the Zak’de’ron, but eventually they arrived at a planet inside the borders of V’kit’no’sat territory, but one they never bothered to monitor. An appropriate facility had already been constructed when they arrived, and the complicated transfer occurred within a day’s time, returning the barren system back into anonymity even for those with the advanced sensors to see otherwise.

The facility was below ground and completely hidden, inside of which the Zak’de’ron studied the sleeping Uriti for many years before several ships arrived carrying thousands of the Dragons. They arrived cloaked, landed while cloaked, and from any potential observer’s perspective they were never there at all, but 3,839 of the strongest Zak’de’ron gathered together inside the Uriti chamber, braving the telepathic aura as they clustered together in a tiny dot of a crowd next to the miles wide mass of Bulmuthal.

They stayed back, not needing physical contact, and the closer they got the more trouble they had with the telepathic pressure, but they needed to be closer, for the farther away they were the weaker their own telepathy was. 12 miles had been determined to be the sweet spot, so that was where they gathered in the figurative shadow of the Uriti in the otherwise dim chamber lit only by artificial lights.

All the Zak’de’ron focused hard to keep their balance, but as they began to use their Pa’no’semak ability, which Star Force called battlemeld, to link their minds together that changed. As soon as they joined in clumps of 3 or 4 the mental pressure decreased, but they didn’t stop there. They kept linking up with others until 3,472 of them became a single mind and they could handle no more. The others stayed nearby, linking into a second group, but they were just extra. How many could actually battlemeld together in the aura of the Uriti had been a guess, and they’d guessed high, but now the presence of the huge sleeping beast was a mere tickle against the Zak’de’rons’ combined mind.

Yet it was still tiny compared to the mind of the Uriti, even in its sleeping mode, but it wasn’t totally dormant. No living being could be shut down like a machine. Not even the Zak’de’ron when they went into stasis. Slowed down, yes. Shut down, no. And it was to that slowed down mind that the combined Zak’de’ron battlemeld reached out to.

And they got a response.

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