by Aer-ki Jyr
“We did not do this,” a Yaern’ek said firmly.
“But you had knowledge of it and did not tell us. You let us exist as slaves.”
“We did not know the extent of the changes beyond the physical,” Hamob said.
“And if you did, would you have informed us?”
“There would be no point.”
“No, there wouldn’t, because my race has been engineered to enslave itself,” Tew’chor said, spinning around angrily and heading for the door.
If he is truly Zak’de’ron, then he is a threat, one of the Yaern’ek said telepathically as the Les’i’kron disappeared through the doorway.
We should not fear Sav, Mak’to’ran pointed out. “Nor should we fear superiority, else we become the arrogant.”
“They were suppressed for a reason,” Pavon added. “And this one, if he finds a way to undo what has been done, could spawn another rebellion.”
“With just cause.”
“We have enough problems already,” the Yaern’ek reminded him.
“I know better than you of that fact. Tew’chor has been wronged. The V’kit’no’sat must stand clean of treachery, and burying this again will taint us. There must be a resolution.”
“By creating a splinter Les’i’kron race?” Hamob asked skeptically.
“What would you advise?”
“Offer him sanctuary, determine if there are others like him, and under no circumstances potentially unleash an angry Les’i’kron race against the empire…even if they trashed Itaru in the process. We must maintain as much as possible, even if it would hurt our opposition. Further conflict only diminishes that which we are trying to preserve.”
“And if he is determined?” Mak’to’ran asked, sensing a dark undercurrent.
“If he incites rebellion,” a Yaern’ek said, “termination should be considered.”
Mak’to’ran lit his own Saroto’kanse’vam, reminding the Yaern’ek of his rogue status.
“I cannot, and will not, reforge the V’kit’no’sat by repeating the mistakes of the past. That Les’i’kron is under my personal protection. The Era’tran will not take action against him under any circumstances without my approval. Is that clear?”
“Do not overstep your place, Mak’to’ran,” Pavon warned.
“My place is that of a rogue and the uncontested leader of the new V’kit’no’sat. If there is a way to overstep that, please enlighten me.”
“Without the backing of the Era’tran…”
“I do not need the Era’tran at this point, and the fact that you would even suggest that line of thought is…”
“We will not move against Tew’chor,” Hamob interrupted. “You have my promise.”
“Accepted,” Mak’to’ran said, still irked at the whiff of theoretical betrayal as he too turned and left the chamber, confident that Hamob’s word was good.
3
March 15, 3668
Jamtren System (Era’tran capitol)
Holloi
The following two days had more detailed scans taken, building on the work the Era’tran had done before the Les’i’kron had even arrived, but without an answer to the mystery of how the mental alterations had been made and how Tew’chor was immune to at least some of them, there was no urgent need for him to stay at Holloi while Pavon and other geneticists chewed through the newer scans with no promise of progress any time soon.
The next logical step, therefore, was to have Tew’chor return to his world and investigate the hatcheries there to see if alterations were still being made to the eggs. Mak’to’ran took him back to Vviot, and during the journey they discussed many things. The Era’tran shared what little he remembered from the Zak’de’ron war and the Les’i’kron told him much about their current civilization.
What Mak’to’ran had known of them was more or less accurate, but the depth of what Tew’chor told him detailed a society filled with the arrogant…but lightly so. More fearsome was their loyalty to the V’kit’no’sat and the purpose of maintaining the empire against the Hadarak and other exterior threats. They had no reason to suspect ulterior motives in the other races, with the current state of the empire being unfathomable. They did not know how to respond other than to follow the orders of Itaru. It was the heart of the empire and with everyone splitting off, staying loyal to it was all that was allowing them to hang onto their sanity.
Tew’chor led one of the few planets that had not stuck with Itaru, but that had not been his decision alone. Those Les’i’kron in the NAC were holding to their loyalty by refusing to participate in the Stun Wars unless in self-defense, which they saw as an attack by rebels against the V’kit’no’sat. The wars of conquest Itaru was waging did not sit well with them, nor did the suspicions revolving around Terraxis, and taking no action and no sides seemed to be the best expression of their loyalty.
If and when the Itaru forces made a move against his world, it was going to be a fight that none of the Les’i’kron wanted, but they would not capitulate. He doubted Itaru would send other Les’i’kron against them, for there was no way to predict what would happen then, but it was well known that Itaru wanted all Les’i’kron on their side and as Mak’to’ran learned more about them he began to understand why.
First off, they were manipulatable. There were easy avenues to influence their decision making evident in talking with even Tew’chor. He wasn’t young, but culturally he had been indoctrinated into unitization. V’kit’no’sat abhorred such things because it inhibited self-sufficiency, but the Les’i’kron had adopted a partial version that had them identifying as a group with just enough individual leeway to allow them to avoid the worst failures of pocket stagnation. Tew’chor had been living in that bit of leeway and play acting the rest his entire life to the point that he’d essentially indoctrinated himself to various cultural blind spots that Mak’to’ran knew he could use to manipulate him in the short term.
But that would sacrifice the long term, and the more Tew’chor opened up about the inner workings of the Les’i’kron it became clear that the Oso’lon and the J’gar had not created them to fill a void. They were backup if there was ever a need so great that the rest of the V’kit’no’sat could not handle it, for their training regimens were extremely limited. They were not growing strong like the Era’tran Hakja, for they were not trying. The strength they had was from minimal effort gradually accumulating over the years, physically and psionically, and that was due to the guidance from Itaru.
It wasn’t an order, but rather a recommendation that they naturally followed. If threats against the empire increased, the Les’i’kron would then likewise increase their training to compensate as was expected of proper guardians. The term ‘guardians’ was a recurring theme, indicating that the Les’i’kron were to remain passive until they had something to react to, and Mak’to’ran took that as a sign that even with all the alterations made to them Itaru still couldn’t fully control their power.
But such potential, if managed appropriately, could be construed as an asset and Mak’to’ran, with his Sav-enhanced mind, could see the leash they were wearing was adjustable. If Itaru gave them cause, they would become aggressive. If they called for restraint they would reluctantly comply, though not on a day by day basis. This was a civilization-wide attitude that could be adjusted, and if there was a big enough threat to throw them against Itaru could unleash far more power than the Les’i’kron had shown to date because they had been taught not to advance the same way the rest of the V’kit’no’sat races were.
If and when an individual or their civilization suddenly decided to take training seriously, there would be a huge and sudden improvement over the course of the following years. That was completely impractical from a tactician’s point of view, for fleet strength and a host of other things took centuries to properly build up, but if you had a long scale conflict to fight the Les’i’kron could potentially gear up and display far more power than an outside observer thought they were ca
pable of.
Itaru hadn’t subjugated the Les’i’kron. They may have tried and failed, ultimately managing to suppress them until a situation required loosening the leash, but Mak’to’ran believed their mental bindings were meant to keep their focus away from subject matter Itaru didn’t want them considering. They couldn’t make them less than they were before, so they’d hobbled them and then genetically misdirected their focus so they wouldn’t start pulling themselves together again. Simple curiosity would have revealed much of what happened to them, but according to Tew’chor the Les’i’kron showed none within the blind spots of their civilization.
Itaru had been playing a dangerous game and it was becoming clear why they could not afford to have the Les’i’kron go rogue and potentially start charting their own course forward. They were bred to be hunters kept on a leash, and without the leash what would become of them was potentially very scary. They were not Zak’de’ron, not even close, but they were more dangerous than Mak’to’ran had ever realized.
But V’kit’no’sat were the dominant because they didn’t fear strength, so to Mak’to’ran he saw them as mistreated brothers not allowed to fulfill their potential and needing true guidance. Whether or not their mental binders could be removed did not matter, they needed help and Itaru’s leash had to be removed. Tew’chor seemed to be the bridge needed to work the problem from the inside out and Mak’to’ran made his intentions clear before returning the Les’i’kron to his ship.
Tew’chor headed back home with badly needed perspective and Mak’to’ran headed off on his next mission not bothering to stay in the capitol system for more than a few hours. What would come of this would play out in the long run with the Era’tran continuing to work on the genetic problem trying to figure out what Itaru had done to the Les’i’kron and how much of it could be undone…if desired.
Three weeks later Mak’to’ran was leading another fleet against a system that contained three racial populations. Ne’bo, Wi’jass, and Zon’tu. All were minor members of the V’kit’no’sat, but even a minor member was the equivalent of a major superpower compared to the rest of the galaxy and possessed hundreds of worlds at minimum. This system contained 5 worlds, four of which were shared and the fifth was exclusively Zon’tu and one of their regional capitols.
As such it was the Zon’tu defense fleet that accounted for most of the vessels meeting Mak’to’ran’s ships high over the planet as they fought a mobile battlefield trying to drag the invaders within range of the planetary defenses. That was not the best of situations but it was necessary, for taking the planet was the goal here and the Zon’tu had not responded to Mak’to’ran’s demands to surrender…nor had the Ne’bo and Wi’jass in the system, for all three races were part of the Bakor Alliance faction along with some small pieces of the Kar’ka and Lir’nen.
This was the first assault on the Bakor, prompted by their own assaults on two systems that had stood alone up until the previous year. Both of those were shared systems that had been dominated by the Kat’vo and had been bastions of stability and reason. They had not joined Mak’to’ran’s reforged V’kit’no’sat yet, but he had been reaching out to them and he had expected their inclusion sometime in the near future. The Bakor had struck them first, but the lack of an official alliance with Mak’to’ran made no difference to the Era’tran. The Bakor had crossed a line and now they were going to pay for it.
If Mak’to’ran could hammer them here it would increase his negotiating power elsewhere and help him to secure other systems without having to invade them, for most fighting within the empire was now lopsided affairs. No one wanted a fair fight that would grind on, so they were picking on the weak hoping to add to their holdings rather than spending them to acquire territory.
Mak’to’ran also had to consider this, but reforging the V’kit’no’sat was more complicated than just acquiring resources. It was about reforging bonds of trust, and predation of one race against another had to stop. With Mak’to’ran showing that such things would not be tolerated within his reach, other systems had been coming over to his side regularly and he would have let the Bakor keep their independence had they not hit those two Kat’vo protectorates.
The idea of the stronger races taking on the lessers also annoyed him. That was not how the dominant behaved. They would intervene if necessary, but never out of predation. Now that he had a reason to hit the Bakor he was doing so, but it was because they had shown their leaders unfit for independence. He’d replace them with others while folding them into his growing empire, but he would not strike a system without cause. Reunification was not conquest, and he would not let his growing empire drift into that as others were. Do that and his alliance would become nothing more than another faction, not the V’kit’no’sat being reborn.
The fighting to get a foothold on the surface was intense, but Mak’to’ran had brought more than enough ships to punch their way through. He didn’t lose any of them, but he did lose people on the damaged ones that he managed to escort out of the fighting. That was an impressive feat on its own, but with every ship hit his mind calculated the loss to this fleet and his overall forces. Invasions like this were necessary, but he had to be choosy about how many of them to undertake, when, where, and why. This one was justified and necessary, but attempt too many with too few ships and these small loses could turn into routs even if the mission was accomplished.
That was happening elsewhere amongst the other factions, even with the Stun Wars motif keeping a lot of people alive as they lost ships and buildings at an alarming rate. Those factions that fought less were proving to survive longer, with the trend towards defensive stability continuing to permeate V’kit’no’sat territory.
But Mak’to’ran knew that would only see factions hoarding resources until they had enough to launch a major assault against another, perhaps only a single system, but they were not going to live together peacefully given the current situation. The Stun Wars would continue on, but only days later when Mak’to’ran’s ground forces were just beginning to march their way across the Zon’tu regional capitol did he received an update through the Urrtren indicating that on the other side of the galactic core the Garas’tox were in the process of bombarding a planet of land dwelling races into oblivion.
They weren’t invading or plucking defenses from the planet of Zaoron, they were directly targeting the cities once the planetary shields were down as they were systematically annihilating the inhabitants. No stun weapons were being used and no prisoners were taken. This was an attack of pure butchery that stunned the rest of the V’kit’no’sat, Mak’to’ran included…along with the fact that the Garas’tox didn’t lay claim to the planet afterwards. There was a sizeable, habitable ocean in the southern hemisphere, making it attractive to the aquatic Garas’tox, but apparently they didn’t want it. They’d attacked to destroy the planet’s inhabitants and infrastructure, then simply left it in a state of smoking ruins as they pulled their ships out and went elsewhere.
On top of that, Zaoron was part of the Non-Aligned Confederation…but they had no planet to rescue. They had an enemy to fight, but many within the NAC had no appetite for a war of rebuttal, and that resulted in the Garas’tox essentially getting away with it.
Then it happened again, this time against a system from another faction, with the Garas’tox leaving none alive and the planets in ruins before word could spread through the Urrtren and reinforcements could arrive. The Garas’tox fleet being used was large and had enough firepower to get the destructive work done in only a few short weeks, but Mak’to’ran knew he had to be ready to respond to this if and when they hit one of his systems, which he assumed they would, given the pattern he detected after their fourth hit.
They were removing systems on certain trade routes, limiting the number of V’kit’no’sat worlds on them and giving the Garas’tox or their friends more influence there while increasing the distances others would have to travel to send reinforcements. As Mak’to’ran ex
pected, blockades started appearing on certain routes as the Garas’tox began gaining an actual region of influence rather than holding to the scattered nature of their territory that the V’kit’no’sat had demanded of all the races previously.
Should a faction acquire possession of a region, it would make them far more formidable and the Garas’tox were not being subtle in going about their forming their own independent empire…or rather two thirds of the Garas’tox, for their race was not united in this. Thus far they hadn’t hit another aquatic and Mak’to’ran assumed that was going to continue going forward, for so far the aquatics and land dwellers had been segregated for the most part, but without the need to land ground troops to take worlds the Garas’tox could now start attacking whoever they wanted, for starships were starships and it didn’t matter what kind of race was inside, the physics of space combat and orbital bombardment remained identical.
Mak’to’ran watched over the following months, waiting for others to reciprocate, but oddly there were none…yet. The Stun Wars continued while the Garas’tox continued to move around the Neddop Region and annihilate systems at will, with the NAC not willing to mount a reprisal attack force, sticking with their defensive mandate that was totally inadequate to counter this type of strike and burn warfare.
Talk on the Urrtren, which all races were still respecting enough to leave intact, including the Garas’tox, was centered around who was going to step up and do something about this. All allegiance to the old empire was gone with these Garas’tox, and it was clear they were intent on a full breakaway and consolidation of their current power, including the evacuation of some of their smaller, far flung worlds with people and resources flowing into Neddop and two new colonies set up on worlds the V’kit’no’sat had previously not owned.
One was possessed by another race, but the Garas’tox annihilated them as well before claiming their world and guarding it with a massive fleet to discourage any intervention. Itaru refused to concern itself with a frontier region, and it wasn’t long before people were calling out for anyone to do something about the carnage.