by Aer-ki Jyr
“How did the Zak’de’ron accomplish this?”
“Irrelevant. It was not sustainable, thus they traded them to us before they lost all control. Now we’re putting them through rehab. It will be a very long time before we can employ them to assist in minion removal, but we will get them to that point eventually.”
“Can they spawn?”
“Not now, but eventually yes, they can. And the new breeds are well worth the effort given the slow pace of the Hadarak advance.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you know how many Hadarak there are?”
“Not specifically, but we have general estimates.”
“You or your friends?”
“We share information. We believe there are beyond 10 million of them.”
Davis fought his jaw to keep from falling. “How far have you mapped?”
“Not all the way. The estimate is made indirectly.”
“How?”
“Methods that we will not discuss, but we believe to be reliable.”
“Not yours then?”
“You infer you wish an audience with the others. You do not. They are far less understanding than we are.”
“We intend to win this fight, and what I want is information in addition to help. Everything you know about the Hadarak that we do not.”
“How did you discover them?”
“There are clues all over. Your friends don’t hide as well as they think.”
“But well enough if you have not had contact with them. I will tell you that we are the most junior member, which makes you and the V’kit’no’sat too primitive for them to bother with.”
“A lie,” Davis declared.
“No,” Vochem said sympathetically. “They are far beyond you. And some are far beyond us.”
“Yet they do nothing.”
“It is wisdom. Your actions are folly.”
“How long have you been part of this group?”
“Not long.”
“When you broke through to your Essence skills?” Davis suggested.
The KoQ sighed, bowing his short snout as he resigned himself to a conversation he did not want to have. “There is so much you do not know, but we have little time and you are not learning fast enough. So we will risk a quicker path.”
Suddenly the air rippled around them and four more KoQ appeared, jolting both the Neo and Davis out of their seats…but the KoQ were not attacking, merely standing there looking at them.
“Do we have your humility now?” Vochem asked, still seated where he had been as the sound of doors opening and the rush of booted feet wafted in from Davis’s personal security detail rushing to assist.
“Essence effect,” the Neo said, visibly disturbed. “I don’t know what he did, but they were not here a moment ago.”
“I checked too,” Davis confirmed, having used his Pefbar to sweep the room and take account of all the air molecules in it. Had a cloaked individual been standing there he would have pushed the molecules aside or created a ‘null’ zone to his mental scanner. Neither had occurred. “Impressive.”
“As I said, there is much you do not know,” Vochem. “What you call Essence skills are primitive.”
The guards surrounded the intruders, a mix of Human Commandos, Knights, and a few Calavari of equal size, all armed and ready to do whatever was necessary to protect the Director.
“I’m listening.”
“No, you’re not. You are playing with powers beyond you. Those in the Deep Core, and those out here that you have now endangered with your stupidity. Now you must make amends and use your Uriti to kill as many Hadarak as you can.”
Davis huffed a laugh, despite his danger sense still running sky high at what the KoQ might be capable of doing to him in this room. “You want us to fight and die in the hopes that will satisfy the Hadarak and they will withdraw.”
“You chose this fight. You will face it and die. That is the price you must pay for your arrogance.”
“Are those your words or those of your masters?”
“We do not like capitulation, but against the Hadarak there can be no ultimate victory.”
“Surrender monkey,” the Neo scoffed.
“Agreed,” Davis echoed, subtly rubbing the ring on his finger that was more than just a ring. “You want to sit out and hope you go unnoticed? Fine. But give us the information we need about the Hadarak and your new friends. We’re not running away from this fight. I can promise you that much.”
The air rippled again, and suddenly the four other KoQ disappeared again. One moment their bodies were there, then the next the air molecules around them rushed into the vacuum where they had been with a loud ‘pop’. Davis felt the Essence rush in Vochem, but not the others, meaning it was something he had done to them?
“They are gone,” the KoQ said. “We can pull them through the walls from one person to another over short ranges. The Jenshar, which you so crudely refer to as Essence, encapsulates them and a pocket of air around them momentarily, allowing them to move independent of matter from one beacon to the next. I cannot follow them, for I act as the Beacon. All of the advanced races can achieve this, some from planet to planet if the Beacons are strong enough. And some still from within a star system to outside one where no gravity well exists.”
Davis nodded, both a thanks for the information and as a puzzle piece fell into place. “That’s why they’re so good at hiding.”
“It is part of the reason. It is also safer travel when no collisions with rogue mass are possible.”
“How fast?”
“Depends on the strength of the Beacons. One pushes, the other pulls, so the strength of both is required.”
“And if one stops acting as a Beacon before transit is finished?”
“The travelers will most likely die.”
“How?”
“They cannot propel themselves, the Beacons must do it, and if they released the encapsulation before arrival, they will merge with any unmovable mass or emerge into the void of space.”
“Do they require Essence skills?”
“Yes, but only minimal to accept and maintain the encapsulation. This technique is basic, and there are far more powerful ones beyond your imagination. You are neophyte.”
“Perhaps, but we learn fast. So why can’t these friends of yours, if they’re so powerful, effectively fight the Hadarak?”
“Mass cannot be ignored, only avoided. We cannot kill beings the size of planets with any measure of efficiency.”
“How about inefficiently?”
“It’s not worth the sacrifice when they have so many others. If you devoted your entire fleet you might be able to kill one or two. Would that be worth it to you?”
“Do you have any other hope than using our deaths as diversions and maybe convincing the Hadarak to be satisfied enough to give up their galactic purge?”
“None that can be successful, but I will admit we wish to see you try and do them considerable damage in the process. You must use the Uriti.”
“If it is hopeless, why the insistence?”
“Some believe that by turning the Hadarak’s strengths against them, you could inflict enough attrition to be worthwhile.”
“To give you research.”
“Yes. We have no intention of wasting this opportunity.”
“You sound like you’re confident you will survive.”
“We’re not, but our doom will be farther into the future if you actively engage the Hadarak with the Uriti. Regardless, it is so far ahead we are not panicked by any measure.”
“And yet you are now willing to discuss Essence with us. Why?”
“The others want you to die, regardless of whether or not you succeed in satisfying whatever need prompted this purge. The Knights of Quenar value victory more than survival. In this we are different from the others. We do not think you will succeed, but we wish it. The only slim chance you have is to use the Uriti, and yet you refuse to do so.”
&nb
sp; Davis mentally signaled his guards to leave, and all did save the Neo, who wasn’t going anywhere, as the Director sat back down in his chair again and leaned his elbows forward onto the clear tabletop.
“I think I’m starting to understand. You established the threat of the Uriti as the central reason for the Knights of Quenar to exist, then we took over for you with a solution you never imagined possible.”
“The threat still exists if you lose control.”
“Granted, but it is our problem and we are controlling it. Yet the Hadarak basically are the Uriti, and your instincts make you want to fight them as an extension of your oaths to defeat the Uriti. But you’ve made friends that are essentially cowards, and that doesn’t sit well with you. You want us to do the impossible and show them that there is a way to fight. Am I close?”
“The Uriti are your only viable option. If there is another, please disclose it.”
“Why are the Hadarak and the Uriti programmed to destroy even the slightest bit of Essence use?”
“We believe it is their primary purpose, though that is only speculation. You are the ones that can talk to them. What do they say?”
“It is instinctual. They do not have a why, only a reaction. What have the Uriti done in the past when they discovered it?”
“A galaxy-wide search and selective purge. They can sense it everywhere they go, and it becomes very hard to hide. The others have never seen a purge of all life, and they do not know what to make of it. What specifically did the V’kit’no’sat do to provoke it?”
“We do not know. They do not know. It simply began and is continually escalating.”
“Will the Hadarak not tell you?”
“They have said what they are doing. They have not said why and they do not regard the Uriti as brothers. They are abominations that must be destroyed anyway.”
“And yet the Uriti still do not want to fight them?”
“They are conflicted. The Hadarak are not. That is not a good fight to wade into.”
“Do you have an effective plan, or are you just buying time while the V’kit’no’sat take the majority of the losses?”
“The V’kit’no’sat are committed to fighting the Hadarak. We will assist them even though our territory will not be effected for some time. If we wait, the Hadarak minions will be in so great a number that they may be able to defeat us even without the Hadarak. The time for this fight is now, and the Knights of Quenar sitting it out is not acceptable.”
“Show us a way to win and we will support you. Ask us for pointless losses and we will not.”
Davis leaned back in his chair and smirked. “Challenge accepted.”
7
February 19, 128484
System 91152845 (Hadarak Territory)
8th planet
The Qua’cho detachment sent to this desert world by the V’kit’no’sat was not enough to get the job done. Vi’che had 1,286 Qua’cho and 15,329 Zen’zat to retake the planet from the Hadarak minions that already numbered in excess of 2 million. The rationale had been that this world, devoid of other life, would be more difficult for the enemy minions to multiply in given the lack of available foodstuffs.
Whoever made that assessment was a fool, for after the Hadarak had passed through this system and deposited minions on every uninhabited world, the minions here had grown faster than expected due to subterranean growth chambers not picked up by casual orbital scans. Those growth chambers, two of which Vi’che had already destroyed, had deep root taps down into the magma layer and spread out through the crust soaking up enough necessary molecules to feed an army of burrowers going out to gather pockets of rich minerals, metals, crystals, and other necessary components for the minions.
In short, the process was snowballing much like it did on other worlds, and not nearly as slow as predicted. The Qua’cho assigned to the other planets were reporting similar difficulties, but so far no reinforcements had arrived and Vi’che had only two warships in orbit to assist with bombardment, both of which were Domjo-class. They couldn’t get deep enough into the crust to kill the growth chambers, so after blasting an entry point Vi’che’s troops had to go in and slaughter the inhabitants and their living buildings…and they had to burn the remains in order to keep them from regrowing from the shredded pieces later.
And for every successful torching mission, the minions expanded their population elsewhere. They had enough minion troops already to cause him casualties amongst the Zen’zat, but no significant anti-orbital ‘flowers’ were left operational…though they were constantly trying to grow more, and like weeds Vi’che had to constantly keep knocking them down before they got to firing size.
He didn’t see how he could successfully clear this world without reinforcements, and he couldn’t provide help to the other worlds either. And worse of it all, if a Hadarak arrived they’d have to abandon their assaults entirely. The V’kit’no’sat were so spread out now, trying to put down these small incursions before they could grow large enough to be a problem, that a miscalculation or lack of adequate scouting created situations like this that were untenable. And there were probably thousands of other systems as unimportant as this in the same need of reinforcements, and no one was going to give a damn about an empty system like this, so Vi’che expected to stay here in perpetual combat accomplishing nothing while his troops slowly got wore down to the point of taking losses.
Vi’che and the other Dimetrodons knew their duty, and were more suited to torching missions than others thanks to their psionic fins that protruded high over their horizontal backs. Unlike the Hjar’at, who had Saroto’kanse’vam, the Qua’cho had a number of different psionic tissues in their fin, including Jumat, making them more akin to the bipedal Bez. However, their low to the ground stature made them the equivalent of walking tanks that could not be flanked, for their fins produced the majority of their Jumat to the sides in such large amounts that any attackers would be knocked away.
They also could throw Jumat forward and backwards, but not as well as laterally. It had been a long-term gripe of their race that Itaru had not given them full Jumat, but the mono-directional cells that made up most of their fin were certainly useful against melee-style opponents, and there were many Hadarak minions that qualified in that category.
There wasn’t one variety of minion, nor two, nor three…rather there were thousands of types, some never before seen until this invasion, but all were biologically grown and somewhat resistant to energy weapons. Their bodies soaked up energy, including simple light, and consumed it much like tree leafs did, meaning they didn’t require as much actual food to eat…but given that they actually moved around, energy absorption was not sufficient to supply them, but it did augment them considerably in addition to making them somewhat resistant to light weaponsfire.
Add to that there were varieties with very thick skin. Not to Hadarak level, but they could take hits and keep fighting, and some of them grew as large as Oso’lon. They were also faster than they looked, meaning the enemy had a primitive, but very mobile and effective army that could replenish its losses with remarkable speed, sometimes within days, and if Vi’che couldn’t kill them faster than they grew them, then he would lose this fight through mere attrition.
And that’s what he feared was happening. Right now he had one of his Domjo scanning the surface slowly and deeply, looking for more hidden growth chambers. Everything on the surface had already been destroyed, but the minions had burrowed down beneath the sands that covered the entire dry planet to the limited water layer half a mile below. That meant his troops had to go underground almost all the time, and some of the tunnels the Qua’cho couldn’t fit in.
They could fit in the larger ones to fight the larger minions, but the Zen’zat were having to crawl through some places so tight they could only fit one at a time to get at the smallest of the burrowing minions that were hiding seeds that could regrow the entire catalog of minions if left alone. Miss even one and it could repopulate an e
ntire planet given enough years, which would undo this invasion once they moved on to cleanse another system.
It was an untenable position to be in, but this was the war the V’kit’no’sat had long awaited and Vi’che did not wish to be anywhere else. What he wished for was a few more troops so he could get the job done here then help reinforce the other planets so they could make a clean sweep of the system. But even then, all it would take was one courier minion to come here and drop off some seeds in the proper locations to start it all over again. Hopefully the hunter ships patrolling Hadarak-controlled space would intercept and destroy all couriers and other minion ships before they could get to their targets, but all it would take was one slipping through and you’d have more of these incursions popping up on uninhabited systems that no one cared about until they became a growth field for more minion armies. And unlike this system, the V’kit’no’sat were starting to spot some of the slow growth invasions, so they couldn’t just follow the Hadarak to find them all.
Vi’che was in one of three small cities the Qua’cho had built on the planet. Each was barely a mile wide and held the necessary facilities to produce the foodstuffs they needed when supplemented with supplies held in a number of warehouses. Those buildings were being expanded to get to the point of fully supplying the invading armies, but they weren’t there yet. The fact that they’d been given such equipment indicated that Itaru expected them to be here for years, and Vi’che did not understand that. Why not just bring in an overwhelming force and eradicate them quickly? Or was his team here supposed to hold the system in perpetual combat rather than win and move on?
It seemed like a moot point when a large mass was detected entering stellar orbit, and Vi’che had already sent word out to begin the evacuation prep when he got word from the few warships around the 1st planet that it was not a Hadarak, but rather a Star Force fleet with a Uriti carrier.
Vi’che automatically assumed they were passing through enroute to another location, but soon they began altering course and spreading out towards all the planets while sending out requests for minion spread data and indicating that they were here to finish the V’kit’no’sat’s mission for them and free them up to move elsewhere.