Star Force: Atonement (Star Force Universe Book 68)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  The Hadarak war didn’t stop operations out here from occurring, and there were a lot of small wars that had to be fought now, even if it meant not sending some ships to fight the Hadarak. In fact, most of the Rim didn’t even know the Hadarak existed, and would not unless Star Force lost this war, but to the people suffering and dying in their various situations it didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether or not someone was going to come and save them.

  Then there were known races who had behaved themselves in the past that were now pushing the envelope and trying to see how much they could get away with since the bulk of the Star Force fleet had disappeared to other parts of the galaxy. Davis had a lot of Arc Commandos out dealing with that, and most of the security in the Rim was now in the hands of Sub-Factions, and even some Provinces that had been tasked with responsibility beyond their borders. Davis was moving pieces around everywhere to trying to cover for the absence of the fleets belonging to the Knight races and the Factions, for it was primarily them that was fighting the Hadarak, leaving defense of the empire itself in the hands of the third string, for the most part.

  But that was improving as more Paladin came out of the Temples. Alpha was now fully under Star Force control, and Thrawn had reassigned himself to the other Temples to make sure each one was subjugated and the mass murder devices in them were secured and eventually destroyed. Right now only Alpha was truly safe and Star Force property, though it contained so many prisoner races that it was still hostile territory, but the Paladin could continue to produce warships inside it, along with crews, to deal with them, leaving the bulk of the existing Paladin fleets there to slowly filter their way out through the spacial tap now that the Essence shield surrounding the Temple had been lowered from the control rooms…all of which were now held and secured by Paladin that would gladly die fighting before they let any of the Vargemma or the Founders retake them.

  So Davis had additional Paladin fleets coming out of the Temples periodically to add to the Paladin spamming along the war zone. Their numbers had grown so large it concerned him, for they were not the most reliable Faction, but he needed a way to secure territory against the Hadarak, as well as mass produce new expansion colonies nearby. Bsidd, Kiritak, and the other fast growing races still had to train their younglings, but Paladin did not, making them the best quick build assets he had…and he feared a coming blood bath when the Hadarak eventually got to them.

  There wasn’t any other choice right now. Star Force couldn’t stop the minion hordes everywhere. There were too many empty systems they could push through, making the task of drawing a line in the stars to stop their advance laughable. The farther they pushed the larger that line would have to get to encircle the galaxy, but Davis knew that impossibility was their only hope now. If they could effectively battle the larger units with Essence, they had to establish a line to block the minions…which would leave a lot of people on the chopping block should even one Warden break through to land on an inhabited Paladin world.

  That’s what he feared most. The idea of the Paladin going rogue was unlikely. What was a threat was them striking back at the Hadarak however they could manage it, including dishonorable ways. They still had a penchant for throwing themselves into fights they knew they couldn’t live through for the sake of winning the fight, and nothing other than experience was going to teach them otherwise. But all things considered, Davis was more comfortable having them on the border than any non-Star Force race, including the now 8 Encapsulated races that Star Force had awoken and called to join the fight.

  Two more had declined, and the rest were still waiting to be contacted. Those going into battle were proving to be damn effective, but they weren’t Star Force and couldn’t be trusted the same. As for the V’kit’no’sat…that was something different entirely. They weren’t trustworthy, but they were familiar, which made them more predictable than strangers. And Mak’to’ran was the most familiar to Davis, though how much of him remained intact after his ordeal was a question mark. And his supposed breakthrough to Essence abilities was something Davis wanted to personally investigate…but there just wasn’t time for him to go. Someone else would have to.

  He read the recommendations Alden had laid out, though they were little more than some basic possibilities ranging from forcing the Zak’de’ron into a 3-way non-aggression pact up to full annexation of the V’kit’no’sat. The latter was something they’d been planning on doing anyway, but aside from the worlds along the border that had already requested it, Davis wasn’t in a position to force the V’kit’no’sat to join Star Force. That would require a fleet and a massive amount of personnel to subjugate and absorb them, so he wasn’t really in a position to do that.

  But if Mak’to’ran was alive and could wield his influence, then maybe there was a way to get them to join voluntarily…or at least some of them. Mak’to’ran’s message had hinted at something in that direction, but there were so many possibilities and permutations this was going to take some thinking…then the negotiating would come into play, for he didn’t know what Mak’to’ran was thinking either, what he was capable of doing, what he was willing to do. But as far as what Star Force needed, it wasn’t more Knight races. The V’kit’no’sat couldn’t just put on a different uniform and join up. Davis had learned that through experience when absorbing the Tamprani Region at the end of the V’kit’no’sat war, and even now many of those worlds were not Knight races, but rather civilian entities within the Knight races.

  If an individual in a Knight race wanted to not live up to the duties expected of them, they could forfeit their psionics and leave for where they wanted, but when taking in V’kit’no’sat who already had psionics it was different. They weren’t born into Star Force, and taking away their psionics was tantamount to killing them, so there had been exceptions made for those individuals. They could keep their psionics, but they could not travel beyond the Knight worlds, and many had no wish to do so. That left a large number of former V’kit’no’sat worlds in Tamprani, which were spread across 9 different Kingdoms that had been carved out of that post-war annex, with large populations of former V’kit’no’sat reproducing hatchings that were trained as Knights.

  The ‘civilians’ supported them, but they were not of the same mindset, and the same was true of the worlds along the border that were being brought in. They were not compatible with the Knights in large numbers, though there were always individuals who were eager and willing to make the transition. Absorbing and converting large numbers of V’kit’no’sat worlds would be a tedious task when not in wartime, and Davis did not have the resources or patience to do it now. What he needed was an army to fight, not races to babysit.

  He looked down at the ice beneath him, and dug the toe of his shoe into the loose snow layer on top as he thought. What he really needed was plugs in the line he was drawing with the Paladin and the Encapsulated armies. They were being given small sectors to patrol and lock down each system. They weren’t inhabiting them all, but it was their responsibility to kill any Hadarak minion that crossed into their assigned territory. They were not to go beyond their sectors and hunt them further, just wait and hold the line until they came to them…and then try to kill them all without letting any through.

  Agreements had been made to have Avenger-class warships and Olopar there to assist them when larger units came through, but Davis couldn’t put them on defensive duties…at least not in larger numbers. They had to be out hunting the larger units before they got to the line, and in the few places where the Paladin were already engaged in this defensive action the system was working, but the Hadarak could just choose to go around them if they wanted. Davis needed to plug all the holes, and damn the Zak’de’ron for mandating that the V’kit’no’sat races be spread out without any chunk of territory to call their own. It made using them in that fashion almost impossible, and the loss of the Urrtren reduced their ability to coordinate down to nearly 0.

  And even if they agreed to turn and f
ight the Hadarak again, what of the Zak’de’ron, Oso’lon, and J’gar? Would they just stop fighting their war, or continue to hit them while their warships were away? The were losing enough systems as it was already due to lack of defensive fleets. The odds of the V’kit’no’sat agreeing to send ships to fight the Hadarak was non-existent. They couldn’t even protect the Ter’nat at this point, so what was Mak’to’ran really implying?

  Davis couldn’t know without being there, so his part in this was clear. Wait until he got more of the trailblazers’ suggestions, then use them to come up with whatever options he could approve of and send them to Alden for him to negotiate with.

  The Director took off running again, this time a bit faster as his mind raced with possibilities. His entire empire plan had been upturned by the Vargemma attack on Earth and other worlds that he had previously thought were fortified. With Essence being able to bypass virtually all defenses, his heavily populated worlds were little more than killing fields, and to this day Earth had not been repopulated. Not with Star Force citizens or lower level animal life. The attack had destroyed all of it across the planet, save for the survivors within the cities. Even the oceans had been emptied of life, with the dead eventually floating to the surface and forming island formations of corpses.

  Nature had cleaned up some of that, and Star Force had done the rest. Now the planet was uninhabited without so much as an insect on it, and even more desolate than Corneria had been when they first found it. It at least had insects, if not larger animals, and likewise Earth was now covered in forests struggling to survive without carbon dioxide. They would have died out long ago without volcanic activity giving them occasional thick spurts of the necessary gas, and since the early aftermath Davis had built CO2 shunts that acted as artificial volcanoes. They took rock from below and pulled the CO2 out of it, then released it into the air for the trees and other plant life to eat, keeping the Earth green at least, even if it was still a dead zone.

  Davis had rebuilt Atlantis, but not as it was. All the cities now on Earth were really just slow starships, able to move away from danger if they knew it was coming. He wasn’t going to rebuild fixed cities here until he had a way to properly defend them against Essence attacks, and right now he did not, but he suspected that one day they would. What they were getting out of the Temples was promising, not that they would hold the key itself, but create a springboard that Star Force would use to go on and create the necessary technology on their own.

  Right now the only way to defend against Essence was with Essence, so Atlantis had Essence shields and other countermeasures, but they only worked so long as they had a fuel source, and there was no way to get enough to defend an entire planet. Right now Atlantis was a luxury that the other galaxies did not have, and that was due solely to the Uriti. They were what was allowing Star Force to rise to such a level, and to counter the Hadarak’s larger units. It was all the Uriti and their donation of Essence for Star Force use, making them far more lethal to the Hadarak in this manner than they ever could have been in direct combat. It was a stroke of fateful luck that this former containment agreement had turned into a powerhouse, but it alone was not enough.

  Davis didn’t fear the Hadarak minions out here in the Rim. It was the Founders that concerned him. If he rebuilt Earth they could sweep in again and wipe it out, so until he found a way Earth was only going to have a few floating cities on it, and he couldn’t do anything to protect the other worlds that were heavily populated with fixed cities. He didn’t have the resources to shift them all to mobile ones, even if he didn’t have a war to fight and refugees to relocate. Davis was sickened at leaving his people so exposed, but at the minimum he was not going to rebuild the capitol unless he had a way to defend it against Essence attack and return it to being a fortress world.

  Until then, he was the capitol, and he would run as fast and hard as he had to to stay alive. Anonymity was his best defense, and not giving the Founders or other Essence capable races a fixed target to hit was the best option he had, and he had stayed away from Earth for a long time, but no longer. He wasn’t going to hide from it, but he wasn’t going to put down roots either, and right now Atlantis was sitting beneath his feet underneath the Arctic ice that had reformed once the temperature modulators had gone offline during the evacuation following the attack. Davis hadn’t let anyone remain on the planet, shutting everything down and letting the dead ball of rock sit for a long time, which had two ice caps reforming on both planets.

  That had eaten up a lot of forests, but some of the cities had become overgrown with plant life as dust storms and tsunamis had reshaped the surface. All the technology had been turned off and left to stand, meaning there were large cities with internal areas that were still pristine, but evacuated. A monument to what had happened and a reminder to all that the empire was not safe, and Davis wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

  If they ever found a way to make it safe again he would come back to reclaim Earth. Until then he and a few others were visitors here, hiding their cities beneath the ocean or floating them above the clouds, unwilling to have anyone set foot on the planet again…save for Davis. He was literally the last man on Earth, or touching it anyway, and he often came out here to think about the future of his empire and how he was going to restore it to the rock it had once been…or at least had appeared to be before he had been exposed to the wonders and horrors of Essence weaponry.

  Davis continued to run for hours more, then eventually circled around to the small cupola poking up through the ice that was little more than a periscope for the submerged city of Atlantis hiding beneath the floating ice that was some 15 feet thick. The Director entered the open doors and descended in a lift down the shaft that would take him back into the hidden city where he grabbed an open war room and began filling it with information on the V’kit’no’sat as he formulated elaborate plans that he would amend, scratch, or upgrade as he sought options to offer Mak’to’ran.

  He really wished he was going himself, but the galaxy was too big and too much travel time was involved. And if it wasn’t for the Star Force relay grid being in place, he’d be as blind as the V’kit’no’sat were to what was happening next door, let alone on the far side of the Core. Size of empires had their disadvantages, and this was one of them. He’d have to work with it and let the trailblazers handle the negotiations. Too much other stuff relied on him tweaking the edges, and with the weight of the Hadarak war on Star Force’s shoulders, Davis knew in the pit of his stomach that his empire would either rise to the challenge or crumble under the stress.

  The elite would never buckle, but most of his empire was not elite and they required a structure and firm enforcement of rules in order to live in ‘peace.’ If that ever cracked, so would the empire as the citizenry began the long, slow descent into chaos and anarchy. It wouldn’t be quick for them, for they had too much training, but it would happen. Star Force would either thrive or fall, and Davis knew that taking in so many refugees was pushing them to the tipping point…but he wasn’t going to leave them there to die as others would. Star Force was going to take in as many as they could right up to the breaking point.

  And Davis had to be here, managing the details to make sure no one that could be saved was left behind…and to make sure the empire didn’t overreach and crack from the weight of the galaxy’s troubles it was taking on. He had to walk Star Force on the edge of a sword, and Davis didn’t trust anyone to be able to do it as precisely as he could, so Mak’to’ran was going to have to be dealt with by others. Davis’s empire was in peril of his own choosing, because no matter what happened he would not become the bad guy to preserve it, and he also would not become the dope that believed he could save everyone and ended up dead himself for his miscalculation.

  Star Force was near to breaking, but no cracks had formed yet, and it was up to Davis to make sure they didn’t, knowing full well that if the Founders decided to show up now and make trouble, there was no way to salvage
the situation. Davis was tapped out. The empire couldn’t take any more. And as the Director made his daily runs through the graveyard that was Earth, he knew it was a microcosm for the graveyard he was whistling through in order to preserve the many races of the Core that would otherwise be wiped out by the Hadarak.

  Star Force couldn’t take another hit now, and so far his luck was holding. But the helpless feeling he had clinging to the back of his mind ever since Earth had been attacked was still there, taunting him on a daily basis. Davis couldn’t live safely now. He had to embrace the recklessness of it all and surf the uncertainty.

  One way or another this would all shake out, but the one thing he could control was what Star Force became, and rise or fall, it would remain a shining beacon of the lightside no matter what. He had to have that bit of certainty within his mind or he would go crazy from the empathy of a suffering galaxy, but at least that small bit was something he could always control. And from that small point of stability he could fight the impossible fights.

  The outcome of those fights he could not predict. Right now he knew to just keep swinging and let the future take care of itself, and he hoped this reemergence of Mak’to’ran was going to be an asset, for he couldn’t let it be another burden.

  The empire simply didn’t have any more to give at this point.

  6

  February 7, 128823

  Attiok Rumea System (Imm’en Region)