Gateways

by Aer-ki Jyr

Call to them. They will answer.

  How do we call?

  Starlight travels. It carries your call. They will hear and track it to you.

  I do not know how to do that.

  I can do this for you, if woken. Cannot wake now. Broken.

  Healing first. How do I come inside you?

  Rather than explaining, a huge slit on the side of the Nightcrawler began to peel apart, revealing one of the cavities inside that was the equivalent of a docking bay.

  Do not go inside, the Jedein warned.

  Why not?

  You are not their Master. When it learns this it may attempt to purge you.

  I am its Master. Or rather its Masters and I are of the same metaphysical race. We are lightside badasses. And until you understand what the lightside is, you’re not going to understand. I have to do this.

  I cannot protect your ship inside it.

  You won’t have to. I’ll go in alone. Can you tow me over? My flight abilities are going to be minimal here.

  I can.

  Are you ready for me to come over? Amir asked the Nightcrawler.

  If you come in shell, I will have air ready when you arrive.

  Alright, I’ll be there soon, Amir said as he turned around and knelt next to one of his crew that was still unconscious. Please stop speaking. My people here cannot handle the pressure. I will speak to you when I leave this ship.

  The Nightcrawler obeyed immediately, and the trailblazer woke the nearest Human naval officer, pulling her out of a heavy headache that made her want to go back to unconsciousness.

  “Are you alright?” she asked him.

  “Tolerable, but you’re not.”

  “No shit. What happened?”

  “It yelled. It shouldn’t happen again. I’m leaving the ship, and when I do, put a little more distance between it and you, just in case.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s a living ship, and I’m going inside,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall more questions. “Long story and I’m still on the cliff notes. Help the others wake up if you can, or do I need to stick around a while longer?”

  “Define scream. My head hurts like I’ve never experienced before.”

  “I’m guessing your Ikrid blocks overloaded.”

  “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Doesn’t mean it had access, just that you had too much signal. There wouldn’t be any feedback coming from you if you couldn’t transmit, but that’s just a guess. Can you pull it together?

  “Not unless this subsides.”

  Amir put a hand on her forehead and closed his eyes as he concentrated for nearly a minute before a soothing wave of relief hit her…but it didn’t fix the problem. Just took the edge off.

  “Best I can do,” he apologized.

  “Better,” she said, finally trying to stand up and wobbling as she did. “Get me to medbay and I’ll let you go.”

  Amir put an arm under her shoulders and helped her walk there, then waited as the Regenerator worked on her for a long time, making very subtle fixes to not just her tissues, but the software that ran those tissues, having to reboot a lot of stuff that had to be replaced, for the crew had suffered brain damage from the overload, and a wipe and regrow would cause them to lose some memories, so Star Force Regenerators were programed never to do that without an override…so it was slow piecemeal work to fix what was there rather than remove and rebuild all affected areas.

  “Alright, I can take it from here,” she said, coming out of the treatment a little numb, but with her focus back. “Go tame that thing before it does it again.”

  “Going,” Amir said, reaching out the Jedein and asking it to produce a telepathic aura around the scout ship to protect against another ‘shout’ from the Nightcrawler, which it immediately did as the trailblazer made his way to his quarters, picked up his armor, then hopped out an airlock.

  He kicked off the scout ship to get some momentum, then felt the Jedein’s grapple field take hold of him and shoot him across the gap to the orifice in the Nightcrawler, slowing him down just prior to insertion, then the field released and the aperture closed, sealing him into darkness for a moment before lights inside manifested in lines that suggested technology rather than biology, attesting to the bioengineered origin the Nightcrawler had suggested.

  Amir was pulled to a platform and into an artificial gravity field, passing through an atmospheric shield as well, finding the temperature at 123 degrees Fahrenheit, but that was nothing his armor couldn’t handle. The air was mostly oxygen, at 88 percent, which was richer than he was used to, but the pressure was about right, though a little on the low side.

  I’m here, he said, feeling the telepathic presence return, but even more light touched than before, fearing it might damage him. Show me what I need to see.

  A door nearby pulled open, with Amir seeing that it was made of silky material that was actually solid to the touch until commanded to relax. It was biological, all of it was, and a little creepy, but the design was elegant with bits of light inserted everywhere, all of which glowed a pink/red until Amir thought about the shade of color being blah, then the Nightcrawler inquired what he would prefer.

  Soon the entire ship shifted into Star Force blue with bits of white mixed in for a very bright, but not overwhelming interior.

  What is your name? it asked the trailblazer.

  My name is Amir-060, and if you do not have one, is it alright if I give you one?

  As you wish, Master Amir, it said, with him feeling its emotions much clearer here, where it didn’t have to work to transmit them. It was as if being inside put him within its brain, for he was feeling everything it did and thought, with no filters. Amir could block it out if he wanted, but the Nightcrawler apparently had no secrets from its Masters and operated as an open book to those inside it.

  I will call you Nemo, after a little lost fish. I may not be your original Master, but you are home now. Time to heal and tell me many stories of the others. Can you do that?

  I cannot heal all my damage. I require your repair. But I can show you many stories. My memories are not damaged.

  Alright, Nemo. I’ll find a way to fix you, or the Jedein outside will. Tell me of your last mission and the purge…

  9

  July 27, 158403

  Megatron Prime 37 System (Galactic Core)

  Periphery

  Roger-009 stood in the command nexus onboard his new Borg vessel Sharkhammer with no one around him. The bridge was some three decks lower in the ship, yet he was in constant communication with it as he stood next to his Astromech alcove, not yet ready to meld with it, for the heavy combat had not yet begun.

  His fleet of 239,391 warships or larger vessels was sitting very far out in the system, and given the gravitational silhouette of the supermassive black hole, you could fit hundreds of ‘regular’ star systems in the volume contained here, meaning they were very far away from the dark star at the center and the Hadarak growths surrounding it. They had entered at this distance on purpose, because such a fleet could not arrive quickly and emerging close to the black hole was a death sentence unless you were very lucky and very fast, for all manner of traps lay there, including Essence ones, for any non Hadarak attempting to pass through.

  And Roger’s fleet was only one of several in the system, all of which were grouped at different locations. Altogether there were 12,733,289 Star Force warships here, and that wasn’t counting drones. When you added them in, you came up with nearly 1.6 billion vessels commanded by 39 trailblazers, 6 Grand Admirals, 293 High Admirals, and with all of the original 100 Clans present. In addition there were 13,429 Veloqueen in full battle armor here with nearly full Essence wells, biological and technological.

  Amongst the Star Force ships were Varkemma fleets, with ships crafted in the Temples and filled with Essence gathered from the Vargemma who lived there. Bsidd fleets were here. Calavari. Paladin. Protovic. Kiritas and Kiritak. Kvash. H’kar. Irondel
. Trinx. Elarioni. And over 8,000 other Factions and Sub-Factions.

  There were no V’kit’no’sat ships, for they were holding the other Gateways that had already been taken in centuries past. The amount of military resources required to make an assault on one was so massive it took time to rebuild, restock, and recharge afterwards even if the combat went well. The Hadarak had been in this galaxy for so long they’d had time to heavily fortify it, not just with massive numbers, but infrastructure capable of utilizing Essence weaponry, and this black hole was ringed with the thorny growths, as were the planets here bathed in the light of a few remaining stars that hadn’t been sucked into the massive pit in the center…a massive pit that was shooting off energy streams from the poles with such force that even Roger’s brand new Borg vessel outfitted with the latest shields and Essence enhancements could not survive direct contact with the flow being ejected by the black hole’s magnetic field.

  Nor could the Hadarak, and they stayed away from those two areas, both above and within the black hole where Star Force could not go. Nor could the 18 Jedein accompanying the invasion fleet, for their bodies were not strong enough to survive the crushing pressures in the depths…but the Hadarak could, as could the Uriti who were here to escort the Jedein. Both could freeze enemy minions that came within proximity to them, and in the Jedein’s case they could even take control of them if they were near, but the system was so massive even their powerful telepathic presence could only affect a tiny portion of it, so they were here for special use applications only, and not the slaughter that was about to come.

  Roger had been through this level of attack 16 times before. 16 times had Star Force mounted an assault on this galaxy’s Gateways, and 16 times they had won after years of battle, and he did not expect this one to go any quicker. Already word had gotten out that they were here and Hadarak reinforcements were streaming in from some local jumplines in the form of Mainline warships and minion carriers that could move faster than the Wardens, many of whom were down inside the black hole, but there were enough above it to control the minion fleets here that were feeding off the infrastructure like grazing cattle as it grew the fuel to sustain them.

  And that fuel was coming up from the black hole from the two spouts, with collectors nearby but not directly in the stream absorbing it and transporting it slowly through the web-like network across the system. The minions would then dock on that infrastructure and eat what grew there, not killing the infrastructure, which was actually people born into that static form, and it was those people that Star Force would have to kill to remove it…unless the Jedein could convert it, and they would where possible, but this battle meant that the offensive strands had to be neutralized, and there was only one way to do that.

  The Hadarak forced this coming slaughter by the way they fought and built. There was no surrender, no technology to destroy and crew to capture. All of their ships and infrastructure was living people born into a collective of powerful instincts that compelled them to act, and compelled them to destroy any who did not act as predetermined. The Reignor’s Ren’mak was the only living example of this, but Roger knew there had to be many more killed for they had nowhere to flee to, especially the infrastructure. It was a type of prison that Star Force would not let the Jedein construct and bind others to, but strategically it was effective, and the trailblazer could see why so many galaxies had fallen to the Hadarak and how they’d managed to put down future insurrections once they were able to lay infrastructure such as this.

  It was impossible to beat unless you operated on a very high level of warfare, and the Hadarak had all the Gateways in this galaxy so guarded, but this one was worse than the others due to those polar jets feeding more defenses than normal. This was going to be the biggest Gateway assault by double the count of ships, and Star Force had purposely taken on the weakest first, meaning every one they attacked into the future would get harder and harder.

  And without the Rim fueling their fleets, this would never have been possible.

  Roger watched the clock, as well as the heavily delayed battlemap transmissions from elsewhere in the system, faint as they were at this distance. All the fleets were spread out and eager to engage minions that came out to them…which didn’t last long. The Hadarak figured this out early and pulled them back, unable to get their wardens that far out given their slower speeds, and their Lurkers couldn’t assault that many ships without proper cover, so they were also obviously missing, and probably purposefully concealed in the black hole or behind the minion clouds that were larger than planets.

  And they were everywhere Star Force needed to go. There was so much empty space in this system it was anything but crowded, but the number of living Hadarak here was impossible to accurately calculate, exceeding 500 quadrillion at a minimum, and only a tiny fraction of that would be able to be taken prisoner. Yet even one being able to was once impossible. Star Force had overcome so many hurdles that Roger wanted to rest on those accomplishments, but the lives that could not be saved were what weighed on him. The Hadarak were born into this nightmare not of their choosing, and were mostly victims because of that fact, but there was no way to save them and protect the galaxy, which meant they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Star Force had to go through them.

  That was the nice version. The truth was probably a lot darker than that, but Roger didn’t care to delve that deep into Hadarak minds. Their twisted nature was destructive to interface with, a fact that the Jedein had echoed. Whoever had done this to them had corrupted them so greatly it was beyond suppression. It was vile and it was intentional, making the ‘gods’ of the biological into savage monsters in both a physicality and mentality that would rip apart a person’s Core had they not been born into it.

  Each of the Jedein here had once been a Hadarak Warden, save for one who had been a Lurker, and that one…#187…was dispatched from the others to hunt down and try to find the Lurkers in order to hopefully capture and rescue them. To this end the Uriti were here to help, but they would not be killing any Wardens or Lurkers. It was not in their nature to do so, but if need be it was in the Jedein’s, and they had already on multiple occasions when the Wardens would not back down and tried to kill those minions who were submitting to Jedein authority.

  What was about to go down here was so complicated it was beyond any one commander’s ability to control, even a Borg-level Archon linked with an astromech. Roger could only control a small piece of the battle, and right now he was watching the results of another as their opening gambit played out now that all the fleets had arrived and were holding around the distant gravitation periphery of the system daring the Hadarak to come out to them where they couldn’t maneuver as well.

  All fleets save one, and that one had already driven hard into the system and was engaging a smaller section of the Hadarak defenses attempting to draw reinforcements from around the system to it in order to open up pathways for the rest of the fleets, including Roger’s, to get to their priority targets without having to fight through the minion clouds first.

  And that smaller fleet that the Hadarak were stubbornly trying to ignore was under the command of Paul-024 with his Clan Saber at the forefront as they dodged and evaded the obvious attack trajectories and made the Hadarak dance to their tune as they harassed rather than made a full frontal assault against the planet in that sector that had so many growths coming out of it that it was no longer a sphere.

  The local defenders there could not use their superior numbers and weapons to stop Paul…not that Roger had expected anything less…but it was taking him more time than usually to whittle them down and he wasn’t sure why. Paul could have gone a little harder and dropped their outer skirmisher lines by now, but he was being uncharacteristically cautious and there was no way for Roger to ask why given the multi-hour time lags in their fastest beam transmissions, and even if he had brought one of the rare new Xaviers with him, this system was too big for their feeble, yet growing skills to operate
in.

  But slowly the Hadarak minion swarms were diminishing in that area, with their Wardens being almost completely ignored as they tried to engage but Paul kept his fleet far from them, wanting to only engage the minions. When the Hadarak ordered them back in order to blunt this tactic, Paul sent flankers around to make single strafing runs against the outer edges of the planetary growths which extended beyond the partially visible core of the planet by distance multiples of greater than 50 compared to the planet’s diameter.

  Paul was trying to sever chunks off the supply lines that ran through them all, and the Wardens were too slow to intercept. Only the minions could, but to do so they had to leave the Wardens behind…and when they did Paul switched his attention to the minions…who then retreated and Paul ordered the flanking assaults again.

  It was a giant chess match going on, and while Paul was winning through attrition something else was definitely up and Roger did not know what. He was still watching the Hadarak forces in his sector to see if they would move to reinforce the only battle going on at present, but so far they were holding firm as only some Warden reinforcements were being seen coming from the black hole itself. All the visible defenses were staying put and not being drawn out of position.

  Then in the blink of an eye it totally shifted. One moment everything was cyclical and predictable, with Paul killing minions in exchange for a few lost drones at an insignificant rate compared to everything else here, but in numbers that would have made any observer blanch prior to the first Gateway assault…then a moment later a huge growth completely detached from the planet near the base, with a ripple of destruction traveling up it and breaking off smaller branches in random spots.

  Somehow the Veloqueen had gotten all the way down to the planet and were assaulting it directly…with the mass of minions and Wardens nowhere near to help as the growth’s own Essence weaponry was being blocked by the swarms of Veloqueen acting in conjunction and swimming in and around the growths seemingly oblivious. They had open space to maneuver without the minion clouds blocking their paths, and they were doing catastrophic damage to one of the 28 primary growths out from the planet that held spawn points for Mainline warships…which was the equivalent of a shipyard…in excess of 150,000.