Star Force: Nexus (SF57)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “What of their larger vessels? I see several here.”

  “8 invokers, 29 assault pillars…and a new design I’m not familiar with,” Paul said, pulling up the limited sensor scans the Hycre had made when they snuck in and observed the combat taking place in Orica. The ship was about half the size of an assault pillar but much more compact, and in all the recordings it was not involved in combat, but sitting back with the jumpships.

  “It’s not a warship,” Cal-com said after a few minutes of analysis. “I would guess it’s a supply depot. Given the density of enemy infrastructure within the system the lizards will not have the ability to build initiation colonies on the planets to strike out from. They will have to fight directly and for a long period of time before they can start harvesting resources on site. I believe that ship will hold either supplies or a combination of supplies and ground troops for use when they reach the surface.”

  “Possibly,” Paul admitted, “but don’t underestimate the cleverness of these bastards.”

  “I’m not. Given the heavy fighting occurring in space, in which their major pieces are currently in play, they would not hold back these if they could contribute firepower that would spare their cruisers such egregious losses.”

  “They don’t mind taking losses, but I agree. And given the numbers they’ve got here they’re going to strip off the Skarron fleet quite fast, though I’m not sure how much progress they’ll make on the ground. They’ve got the numbers to roll them, but this is the highest concentration of walkers I’ve ever seen and we know they become more potent when grouped together.”

  “A worthy battle to study, but it only emphasizes my previous point. The lizard threat is greater than that of the Skarrons. If they aren’t countered they will grow to such a number that our technological advantage will not be able to sustain us. The war to win is the neutral systems, not the primaries. If we only defend a select number we will survive but the enemy will continue to grow. My homeworlds will be safe for some time, given their distance, but I do not see this enemy as ever being content with what it has. They will continue to expand until they reach Voku space…and if we wait until then they will be too strong. We have to strike them now.”

  “It’s not for lack of wanting, Cal, I just don’t have the ships yet.”

  “Your new friends in the Rim are failing for the same reason. They can beat the lizards in any battle, but they’re not fighting them in the ones that count. The lizards know the key to beating superior opponents is to wait and devour the smaller ones, growing stronger and stronger until they can do this,” he said, pointing to the visuals of the Skarrons getting overrun.

  “So we’ve told them, but right now they view the lizards as a regional threat and not worth the attention we both know they deserve.”

  “Then they are fools.”

  “Fools that we’re trying to educate,” Paul added. “But they’re wise enough to seek the counsel of those with experience. Plus I don’t know what other threats they’re facing. The Nexus’s assumed territory is massive and they haven’t been too informative of anything beyond H’kar space where the lizards are currently present.”

  “And what do the H’kar think?”

  “They’ve been fighting and losing to the lizards longer than we have. They know the threat and are relying on the Nexus to keep them alive.”

  “That I know, but do they recognize the need to attack?”

  “They are open to any suggestions and are the ones who referred the Nexus to us.”

  “Loss will tend to educate those who are blind…but it can also blind those who are weary.”

  Paul smiled in vexation, seeing what the Voku was getting at. “You think they’re just happy to be alive and are catching their breath?”

  “I think that no one is taking this threat seriously. They are biding their time and not showing their full hand. Even this,” he said, pointing at the insanely large fleet they had brought out of nowhere to attack Orica, “I do not believe is their full strength. They are sitting on enough power to counter any mistakes they make, for they are hiding their strength from others. They should have overrun you long ago but they did not. Why? Because they are confident that they can do so later. They probe, they fight, and even when they lose they learn. They learn the true strength of their opposition then tailor their eventual response accordingly while masking their own strength.”

  “You have survived,” Cal-com continued, “because you are growing and adapting to them, otherwise what they have thrown at you to date would have been enough to cripple you. Your Sentinels they did not anticipate and it has bought you time, but even now they probe your lines, learning and planning, meanwhile they attack targets they are more confident they can take while sweeping up the neutral systems that no one cares to defend. The loss of races exterminated by them is insulting enough, but the apathy of their neighbors and their stupidity is unbearable.”

  Paul could tell his friend was upset, and he was glad he wasn’t the only one who realized how dangerously devious the lizards were.

  “If I’m missing something please enlighten me, but right now all I can do is build and take a handful of worlds away from them along our borders. What other options do we have?”

  “If the lizards weren’t so far away from my home I could do more,” Cal-com complained. “But with the lizards fighting an enemy the size and strength of the Skarrons we have an opportunity that we cannot afford to waste.”

  “We’re just not in a position to exploit it…yet.”

  “I am doing all I can to build up this system and will continue to do so, but the resources must be local. We can’t ship what we need from our home territory, not in the numbers we need, and there are other threats our people must deal with…but none so dangerous as this one. Perhaps not now, but in the future the lizards will become a nemesis we cannot kill, and the longer we survive the larger they will grow. We have to kill them afar before they can come to our doorstep, but I have less resources here than you do. I will do my part, but the solution is not a solo act, but a coordinated offensive.”

  “I don’t think the Nexus will get that heavily involved.”

  “But will the H’kar?”

  “I don’t know. If we give them something tangible to work with us on perhaps, but without a plan I don’t think they’re going to be able to do much more than hang onto what they have.”

  “That thinking will kill us all,” Cal-com said, with no mistaking the foreboding in his voice despite his odd English accent.

  Paul laughed in a huff. “Most people would say you were crazy, given your position and strength.”

  “Others have the luxury of living in the moment and following the lead of others. You and I must lead, and to do so we have to look to the distant future for possible threats. Am I wrong about the lizards?”

  “Unfortunately no.”

  “Then we cannot wait any longer,” the Voku said, pointing again at the recent intel reports from Orica.

  “I don’t know what else we can do at the moment. All my plans are still in the development stages.”

  “We must begin the creation of a united front that will be able to halt their takeover of the neutral systems. Even now they are expanding around your ADZ. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

  “I don’t see how we can stop it. Star Force is growing fast, but it will take time for us to get to the size we need to push far beyond the ADZ.”

  Cal-com shook his head firmly. “No. You cannot do this alone and the Voku cannot support you as much as needed. You must seek out other allies. Strong ones who will see the threat for what it is and aid you in order to protect themselves from future harm.”

  “If such races exist out there, other than the Nexus, I don’t know who or where they are.”

  “Other than the H’kar forget this Nexus. You must look elsewhere.”

  “Our ships are getting faster, but they’re not that fast yet. We’re mapping what we can but most of the r
aces we’re finding aren’t a match for us, let alone the lizards.”

  “No, such mapping expeditions would most likely be futile. We have some contacts that may be of help, but what you need are maps. Ask this Nexus and any others you have encountered for word of other powerful races. Find them and coopt them.”

  Paul shook his head. “That is not going to work unless the lizards are a known threat to them.”

  “We must have allies. Before the lizards grow so large they cannot be contained. Now they are vulnerable because of the Skarrons and the resources they must expend on them. Not for a killing blow, but to contain their spread.”

  “To do that fully we would need allies around their borders. Neither of us have contacts on the upper side, correct?”

  “This is true, but you must seek them out none the less. Neither of us have sufficient strength to contain them, therefore only a cooperative effort between dozens of races is viable.”

  “I don’t disagree, but I don’t think there are sufficient powers out there. I’m upgrading lesser ones as we speak, and the Bsidd are going to be a great help in the distant future, but outside powers are few and far between. The Nexus would be the biggest help, but as I said they consider the lizards a small threat. They’re too big to fear them as they should. They will have to suffer losses until they wise up.”

  “The lizards will not give them that, they will be patient and grow until the Nexus cannot defeat them without contributing their full might…and at that time it might not even matter. The lizards might not be able to defeat them, but in turn they will not be able to defeat the lizards. They are like a sotart, soaking up damage that would kill others because they can outgrow it.”

  Paul frowned, searching his mind for ‘sotart’ and realizing the Voku didn’t know the word for ‘sponge.’

  “I don’t disagree, I just don’t know where to look.”

  “Ask anyway, and I will do the same.”

  “Map search it is then. In the meantime let’s see if we can’t nibble away at the sotart.”

  Two months later a Voku courier ship arrived back at their homeworld, delivering a personal message from Cal-com to Yev-jat, another Renimar, who watched the brief but thorough holographic recording before traveling across the planet to the most sacred facility the Voku possessed…that being the Elders temple.

  Yev-jat had automatic access to the exclusive facility, built on the location where the Elder had visited them not so long ago. It was there that they maintained a gift of a specialized interstellar comm device that allowed the Elders to contact them from afar when they so chose. The Voku were not to contact them unless absolutely necessary, but both Cal-com and Yev-jat agreed that now was one of those times.

  The Voku stepped onto a simple pedestal, dropping to a knee and touching the transmit button on the floor.

  “Elders, we seek your counsel. The Humans you sought us to protect are in peril. We have secured them for the moment but the enemy they face from the Rim, which call themselves Li’vorkrachnika, pose a threat not only to the Humans but to the Voku and all those you have tasked us to protect. They are spreading and fight in a way that we have not seen before. We believe if we merely defend the enemy will grow too strong and overwhelm us with sheer resources, but we do not have the strength to strike out and annihilate them. They will not communicate and it is believed no surrender is possible. They will fight and spread and grow until they are eradicated, and we do not possess the strength to undergo such a task at great distance.”

  “I ask for instructions. We will do as you command, but are at a loss as how to proceed in order to safeguard the future.”

  6

  December 7, 2639

  Vengor System (beyond Delta Region)

  Bobo

  Nizzi swam hard, knowing that the enemies were behind him and the other Ollofan, and that they were slightly slower on average. That might give him a chance to stay alive and a similar sentiment was shared by the others around him as the little aquatic race pushed hard to escape the infantry battle they’d just lost on the seafloor several miles from the coast where the enemy was establishing another front.

  Not that it mattered now. Most of his people were dead and the planet all but in the hands of the Li’vorkrachnika after only 2 years of fighting. At first the invaders had landed in a single location with only three ships, but they were using technology superior to what the Ollofan had and they’d been unable to remove them. After that it had all gone downhill, with loss after loss as the enemy received reinforcements out of the void. No ships arrived to bring them, they literally sprang out of their base with far more than they could have possibly had on their ships.

  That wasn’t the only thing that confounded the Ollofan about the Li’vorkrachnika, and now it didn’t matter. Nizzi and the others had tried one last attempt to confront them head on, buying some time at least for the last transports to load, but it had been a debacle. The number of swimmers the enemy were grossly underestimated and soon their attack was overwhelmed, with most of his unit dying while he and a few others swam for their lives.

  Nizzi’s little head tails flailed in the murky waters around him as he clawed at the water with both hands and feet, pulling himself through it while the enemy used their tails mainly for propulsion. Their green scales also clashed with the bluish waters, which the Ollofan’s skin matched, making them look like an infection on the planet…and that wasn’t far from the truth.

  The surviving Ollofan swam and swam until they reached a tether line outpost, grabbing little handles on it and pushing the activation buttons that sent each one individually zipping off down the line and being dragged through the water faster than they could ever have swam. Nizzi held on tight and felt the water pull on him as he accelerated through the ocean just above the sea floor, breathing a sigh of relief, or the equivalent, given that he was using his gills right now rather than his lungs.

  He rode the tether with the others for nearly 90% of the distance before it suddenly stopped, all power lost, leaving him and the others stranded short of their destination. He figured the enemy had destroyed the other end of the line, but at least it had given them a good head start.

  A few aquatic chirps sounded and he swam to meet up with the others, then as a group of 18 they swam on, following the dead line until they finally got to one of the last of their intact cities, swimming inside through portholes in the otherwise smooth surface and passing through containment shields that separated air from ocean.

  Nizzi slapped damp feet down on the floor and ran with little squishy sounds through the empty halls with the others en route to the hangar bays, hoping there was still a ship left. Everyone else that had been here was gone, which was partially a good sign indicating that they’d had time to leave before getting overrun, but if they hadn’t left any ships behind then he and the others would have to take to the open water and try to survive in the wild and avoid attention as long as they could, with no ultimate hope of rescue.

  When he got to the hangar his chest was tight with worry, then relief flooded through him as he saw a single ship left. It was old and looked to have some battle damage, but he could tell from the patchwork done that it was flyable. He and the others ran to it, with one of them swinging by the control booth and opening the upper shield door.

  The physical barrier retreated, leaving only a shield holding back the ocean above. When Nizzi and his fellow soldiers got onboard one of them with flight experience took the controls and rose the transport up and into the water, heading for the surface at a slow and ponderous speed, seeing distant enemy water ships on approach to the city. They wouldn’t reach them in time to stop them, with Nizzi and the others watching the sensors intently as they rose.

  When they transitioned into the atmosphere they picked up speed quickly, avoiding the pesky enemy fighters which were luckily nowhere near their position. The old ship burned hard for space, getting there and running for the stellar jumppoint that at the moment had no e
nemy ships. The Li’vorkrachnika never had many to begin with, but the few they did have were true terrors. The up side was they couldn’t blockade orbit very well, only able to track down and kill a few ships if they were close enough.

  Luck was on the Ollofans’ side today, for they made it to the jumppoint and accelerated off towards the star where their people’s jumpships would be waiting to pull the last ships out of the system. But when they arrived they found only three ships…all enemy ships. They immediately redirected towards the tiny Ollofan transport, intent on hunting it down like several others that were now little more than debris fields showing on the sensors.

  “What do we do?” one of them asked the pilot.

  “There are no jumpships. We have to go back to the planet,” another one said.

  “We can’t.”

  “We have to jump,” Nizzi said, watching the enemy ships coming closer on sensors and realizing they didn’t have a lot of time to decide.

  “You’re crazy!” the little blue guy next to him said, eyes wide.

  “If we stay we’re dead. We have to try,” Nizzi argued, hoping someone else would have a better idea.

  “He’s right. We have no other options,” the pilot said, looking for the shortest jumpline out of the system and scratching it immediately, for it was on the other side of the star and there was no way they’d get there before the enemy got to them.

  “We’re not rated for a jump,” another said.

  “It’ll be slow and inaccurate, but it’s possible,” the pilot argued, looking hard for a useable jumpline just to get them out of here. It took far longer than he liked but eventually he got a half decent one not far off and set course for it, though the distance was going to be problematic. The destination system was twice again as far as the shortest jumpline, with there being a chance that the inaccuracy of their navigational system could mean they would miss the destination star entirely and be lost in space for a long, slow death.