Star Force: Hamoriti (SF62)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “So you are suggesting we assault it?” Ivvit pointed out.

  “Not now,” Nesfa said, becoming irritated with the lack of insight he was getting from the Sety and Chamra. “We must focus on the minions while we devise tests to probe the Hamoriti. When those have been constructed we attack, die, and learn in our failure. I see no other way to proceed, and waiting only allows the Hamoriti’s minions to grow in number.”

  “We have responsibilities within Nexus territory to see to,” Mafrin said, reluctantly having to disagree with his Trinx peer. “The Sety may have a larger military than yours, but ours is not as free to redeploy. We are 92% tethered to current assignments. Even if I agreed with your assessment we do not have the strength to aid you, not in the numbers required. At best a single fleet could be mustered, but I will not send them to their deaths just to buy us a few years.”

  Nesfa threw his arms up in the air in frustrated defeat. “Then we just let the Hamoriti consume the galaxy.”

  “I conferred with our Oracle, and it indicates that it will take a very long time for the Hamoriti to assert the kind of territorial domination that the Ancients faced. Even though we have not caught up to their technological level, we are not helpless. If we are to study the Hamoriti then let us do it from afar. The Li’vorkrachnika have already gone into combat with it. Let them continue to do so and we will watch. Sacrificing our troops before we have a plan of action is wasteful.”

  “And how long did the Oracle predict it would take before the minions grew too strong for you to defeat, absent the Hamoriti?”

  Mafrin stared back at the Trinx, wondering if he’d had a nearly identical conversation with their Oracle. “Concerning the Nexus alone, conservatively 300 years, though with this Hamoriti being a new one the estimates were labeled as being largely speculation rather than data-derived.”

  “Have you been able to examine the shell?” Ivvit interjected.

  Nesfa turned his attention to him, trying to let his anger with the Sety dissipate. “The Hamoriti moved off far enough that we were able to slip a small team inside. They confirmed it was Ancient technology and got a few generic schematics from the placement of the rubble before the minions within repelled them. They were not able to recover or locate the Oracle. Nearly the entire shell was destroyed by the Hamoriti as it left.”

  “I still do not understand how there could be another Hamoriti,” one of the other Sety commented. “It makes no sense for the Ancients to build the Oracles with knowledge of the others and not include this one.”

  “I agree, but it is here none the less,” Nesfa said, wondering if the others in The Nine would be equally obtuse to the situation when they arrived. He’d hoped to be returning with at least a Sety fleet by now, but these idiots appeared not to be able to grasp the obvious.

  “Our task all these millennia has been to prevent the release of those imprisoned,” Mafrin stated evenly, “knowing that if even one were to escape captivity that the galaxy would be doomed. We have not failed in our duty, yet by events we do not understand a Hamoriti has been released. While it is unknown to us the simple fact is that our only hope was in containment. The Li’vorkrachnika unwittingly released it, much as we did here so long ago. I do not see that there is anything we can do at this point.”

  “Short of locating the Ancients,” Ivvit threw out.

  “They are most likely dead after all this time,” Nesfa said, once again pointing out the obvious.

  “Then we need to find who killed him and ask their assistance.”

  The Trinx glared at the cyborg. “Unless you have discovered something new, such thoughts are merely academic games.”

  “The Oracles have made it clear that we cannot defeat the Hamoriti, and the fact that the Ancients could not find a way to destroy them either only underscores the fact that we cannot handle this. Thus we must consider alternate possibilities, no matter how remote.”

  “Agreed, but what do you intend to do in the meantime?”

  “If we had a viable strategy I would send every Chamra against it immediately, but given that we do not the logical path ahead is to conserve resources rather than to spend them without merit.”

  “We do not wholly agree,” Mafrin differed. “The Sety may not have the strength to fight the Hamoriti, but we do have the strength to focus on lesser threats to the Nexus. Those must be priority. However, to let the minions spread to a second star system would be folly. The Hamoriti can only be in one place at one time, and we know this is the weakness that allowed the Ancients to dismantle their stranglehold on the galaxy. We will not waste our troops going up against it directly, but if we can strike at the minions and hinder their growth I feel we must, as Nesfa has said, to buy us time. I do not feel that we will find a solution, but we must try nonetheless.”

  The Trinx shook its head adamantly, headtails flying back and forth behind it. “There are enough resources in that system to grow an army of minions that we will be hard pressed to counter. If we give the Hamoriti free reign it can fortify even a single planet to such levels that it will take all of The Nine’s combined might to cleanse it again if the Hamoriti leaves. We must work inside the system, and the mathematically prudent method is to sacrifice a few troops continuously to knock down the minions in their infancy.”

  “If we had an objective to achieve and required a delay, then I would reluctantly agree,” Ivvit said. “But we have no objective. We will continue to lose troops until we are defenseless, then the Hamoriti will continue as it is now. If we can find a way to contain or destroy it, then we are obligated to do so. If we cannot, perhaps it is best to run, staying ahead of the expansion while looking for such a way, if it exists. If not, then our focus should be on survival.”

  “While the galaxy slowly burns?” Nesfa asked angrily.

  “If we cannot stop it, then we should at least try and survive it.”

  “Nesfa is correct in that we must contain the spread of the minions for the time being,” Mafrin said, crackling with movement as he pointed an arm towards the Trinx. “We know from the Oracles how to fight them, and the damage they will cause if they are allowed to escalate. Containing the Hamoriti is impossible, but we can fight the minions and I believe that we must…even if only to give our people time to evacuate.”

  “Evacuate to where?” Nesfa asked. “As dangerous as the Hamoriti is, it will not be able to spread quickly. But put that aside, there is a bigger problem we have to face. Where did this Hamoriti come from? The Oracles spoke of their reproduction as an unknown factor. Never did they witness or come to understand the origins of the Hamoriti. We now have one that appears to be younger, though we can’t be sure of that or much else at this point. Where did it come from if the 7 were imprisoned? They could not have reproduced it, at least not after their sedation.”

  “Valid questions but I fail to see their consequence. If another Hamoriti were to emerge we would be equally helpless to defeat it.”

  Nesfa pounded his two knuckle fist on the railing again. “How can you be this blind? Have you not been guarding a Hamoriti here as we have done? Have you not studied it intently? If this Hamoriti is younger then by studying it and feeding data to the Oracles they can compare it to the others and potentially gain insights that they do not currently possess. What the Ancients knew of this one they did not update the Oracles with, and that knowledge may be critical to finding a way to deal with this one.”

  The cyborg twitched with understanding. “The Ancients used all of their power to contain the seven, and in doing so their civilization was nearly destroyed in the process. Yet they combated and contained another Hamoriti presumably afterwards, suggesting they either regained their strength or the task was easier with this one?”

  “Exactly, and given that their civilization is now gone I would not bet on them having rebuilt their full strength.”

  “That is warrantless speculation,” Ivvit cautioned.

  “Speculation it may be, but this is an opportunity to gai
n additional data on the Hamoriti above and beyond what the Oracles presently possess. They have shown an ability to process new data, and how the Ancients wrote code that could do so is beyond me, but we should utilize this ability while we possess it. And the only way to do so is to attack the Hamoriti directly to trigger selected responses for analysis.”

  “Costly lessons,” another voice said as a fog-like cloud moved through one of the three access doors. The Yisv’s ‘body’ took on more cohesion as it approached one of the empty podiums, eventually forming into the frail bipeds that they were in their solid state.

  “You arrived quicker than expected,” Mafrin commented.

  “Current events warrant expediency. Am I right in hearing that the Trinx want to attack the Hamoriti directly? The Oracles have told us repeatedly that it is suicide and I question the sanity of those suggesting it, for you are not ignorant. If the Ancients could not destroy them then neither can we, regardless of what we might learn. Such curiosity is not worth the lives of our people.”

  “I concur,” Ivvit echoed.

  “Those lives will be lost in time,” Nesfa reminded Sefib. “Better that their deaths serve a purpose in the here and now, regardless of whether or not the information proves to be strategically useful.”

  “What of those who released them? Your packet said they were engaging the Hamoriti initially and were not overwhelmed.”

  Nesfa shook his head again. “They are primitives that utilize plasma weapons. Why the Hamoriti didn’t strike them all down simultaneously is in question, but it may be that they simply weren’t a great enough threat to warrant the energy expenditure…or it could be weakened after its sedation. If that is the case it may not be fully recovered as of yet and our hesitancy to act may be costing us a moment of opportunity.”

  “As we pointed out,” Mafrin added for the benefit of Sefib, “there is no point in acting if we do not know how to act. And according to the Oracles there is nothing that we can do to stop this one.”

  “Despite its smaller size?”

  “All the Oracles insisted that the size did not matter,” Nesfa said before Mafrin could answer, “but there has to be a difference. The capabilities of each of the 7 have been well documented, and even if this one was too strong for the Ancients to destroy it may well be weaker than the others and that is something we need to know. The Oracles are acting on speculation, not data, and we need to give it to them.”

  “A fleeting hope,” Sefib said dismissively.

  “What would your counsel be?” the Trinx asked.

  “We have none. The Oracles said that if a Hamoriti awoke it would be the death of us all. I fail to see how we can overcome that, unless their assertions are incorrect. I don’t believe anyone is arguing that point?”

  “Then why come here?”

  “Because such a defeat will not occur swiftly. The galaxy is quite large and the Hamoriti is only one. Its minions may well grow to consume all, but it will be them that we fight, not the Hamoriti. We may be able to survive if we are savvy, and a joint effort by The Nine is more likely to succeed than independent ones.”

  “While you ponder survival the Hamoriti grows in strength,” Nesfa pointed out. “I do not care about long term plans at this point, only in stopping the spread before it begins. Already the Trinx have devoted our full strength to this end, what will the Yisv contribute?”

  “How will attacking the Hamoriti accomplish this?”

  “I recommend attacks for study, not containment. To that end we must, and are, striking at the minions as the Hamoriti spawns them.”

  “And how has it responded?”

  “We lose ships with each raid, but the Hamoriti is forced to start over again.”

  “Ah, now I see. You seek to freeze the moment before it escalates in the hope of finding a path ahead before the opportunity is lost to us.”

  “Indeed.”

  “If the inevitable is to come,” Ivvit argued, “then let it come and us face it. We will not spend our people’s lives to gain pointless time. If the Oracles say that we cannot destroy or sedate the Hamoriti, then we should not foolishly argue that point. The Hamoriti have returned to the galaxy whether we like it or not, now we must deal with the consequences of someone else’s error. We did not fail, but this doomsday has occurred none the less. The Oracles have a vast amount of information regarding the war the Ancients fought against the minions and in that lies the best hope for our survival, not in trying to deny that what is happening cannot be undone.”

  “We will not go near nor contend with the god,” Sefib said softly, “but we are willing to fight its minions elsewhere. We must eventually, and we would choose to do so sooner rather than later in the hopes of shaping the landscape to our advantage going forward…or perhaps I should say to lessen our disadvantage going forward.”

  “We are in agreement,” Ivvit said.

  “The Sety will contribute what ships we can to the containment effort,” Mafrin said, speaking directly to Nesfa. “They will not be used against the Hamoriti itself, nor within its radius, but as the minions spread they will kill them when they are able. We will dispatch the fleet as soon as it can be gathered.”

  “I would criticize the token gesture, but at this point every ship counts.”

  “We have other responsibilities to attend to,” the Sety pointed out.

  “They nor anything else matters at this point,” Nesfa said with a cool anger. “Whatever victories you win will be washed away in time. Let the rest of the galaxy fall into chaos while we fight to contain the Hamoriti. If by some miracle we succeed we can put it back together later. If we do not find a way to succeed, nothing else will matter.”

  5

  November 2, 2723

  Prenthor System (Sety capitol)

  Qitor

  Nesfa walked out of another planning meeting with The Nine, utterly dejected at the lack of understanding the others were showing. They were going to allow the Hamoriti to claim the planet his people were dying to continually purge of minions, then try to intercept and destroy them when they attempted to leave. If the Hamoriti came after them they’d withdraw and concede it whatever location it went to, then move back to hit the minions it had abandoned.

  It made a certain amount of sense at first glance, but Nesfa had studied the warnings and wisdom of the Oracle all his life and he knew the others in The Nine had done likewise, so there was no excuse for their lapse of judgement. Giving the minions a chance to spread, even on a single planet, was foolhardy. They didn’t need the Hamoriti to dominate once they reached certain numbers, and the sheer number of troops The Nine would have to commit to eliminate them would far outweigh what they’d spend in continuous suicide runs to prevent the minions from getting their foothold.

  The Trinx had argued that point endlessly, with the rest of The Nine unwilling to accept his proposal and suggesting that if any attempt should be made in that regard that the Trinx should use their vassals in the form of warships to do the raiding rather than sacrificing ship crews.

  The problem with that was the Trinx didn’t have any warship vassals, and while he’d ordered them to begin designing and producing them before he’d left for this summit there was no way they’d be ready in time, nor would the Trinx be able to build them fast enough to keep the minions suppressed. They had to have the support of The Nine or this wasn’t going to work…yet they wouldn’t give it to him.

  He knew what he was asking was a tall order in blood, but nothing else mattered at this point. Let the Hamoriti get established and the timeline would escalate beyond their control quickly. The Ancients might have been able to succeed with The Nine’s current plan, but the Trinx and their allies were not on par with that mysterious race. No one disputed that, yet they would not take the one course of action that could forestall the coming disaster.

  Nesfa was committed to keeping the minions suppressed with or without The Nine, realizing the duty he and his people had to keep this threat contained, bu
t in doing so he was going to strip his military bare, then The Nine wouldn’t follow up and it will all have been for naught. They’ll have acquit their duty, but it won’t have mattered. The Hamoriti would spread its influence over the local region and slowly begin taking control of the galaxy.

  Nesfa left the planning meeting and headed back to his ship, intending to stay on the Sety world no longer. While there was considerable more planning to do, it was planning for a course of action that the Trinx would not support. If the others wouldn’t do what was necessary they would, for as long as they could sustain the effort.

  He knew that wasn’t going to be enough, so the Prefect had to find some other way to do what needed to be done.

  “If we have to engage them,” Mafrin said, looking at a holographic star chart with the other seven members of The Nine, “it is best to do so after their seed ships have landed. The Oracle says there is a cannibalization process that occurs offering a window of opportunity during which the defenses will be minimal. Wait too long and they convert over into the fortifications we all know will be very hard to remove.”

  “You want us to let them land?” Ivvit asked rudely.

  “Those seed ships will be very hard to take out in space. That carapace is extremely formidable, but it will crack open when expanding on the surface. Time it right and we’ll poach it with a few well placed shots. Fight it in space or after it’s implanted itself and we face a hard and costly fight.”

  “Letting them get to the surface is folly.” Maxep said, with the triped standing on a pedestal so to get to equal height with the others. “When they arrive insystem we must strike them immediately. If we let this become a ground fight we will lose badly. Even if we can destroy the seed ships once they land, the spore clouds will contaminate the planet and force us to keep hunting minions indefinitely. We cannot become tied to territory. Mobility is the entire purpose of the evacuations.”