by Aer-ki Jyr
That sent alarms off in all four races’ ships and they scrambled to reposition, tracking its trajectory and seeing that it was once against headed for the star. The cyborg ship quickly made a microjump out to one of the other planets, not wanting to be anywhere near low stellar orbit when it arrived. The ship dropped a probe in its wake, then sat back and watched from afar as the Hamoriti braked against the star and began to drift down into a low orbit, traveling around to what jumpline no one knew.
The fleets would have to reposition there again, and the cyborg ship would go with them, but there were still minions here that had to be eradicated, meaning that the Hamoriti had just won its first victory in that it was making The Nine fight in two locations simultaneously…or at least it would when it arrived at its next system.
Dropping into an extremely low orbit, the Hamoriti angled down near to the highly volatile stellar ‘atmosphere’ and the sensor readings began to diminish. A few moments later they lost all contact with the Hamoriti.
It hadn’t jumped out, that much the cyborgs knew and they reviewed recent telemetry to make sure. They conferred with the Trinx, who had sent ships in to the star behind the Hamoriti, and they too had lost contact with it, stating that the beast had gone too far down for them to be able to track, into the outermost layer of the star itself.
The first thought anyone had was that the Hamoriti was trying to hide its jumpline, circling around to a different position where it could sneak out unnoticed, so the Trinx deployed ships all around the star in a detection grid. They waited, but nothing came out, which had them wondering if it had somehow beaten them around to the backside and jumped away unnoticed, which would be a disaster. Without knowing where it had gone they couldn’t get to the minions in time to knock them down before they multiplied to dangerous levels.
The immediate talk was to get the rest of The Nine in the surrounding systems to start scouting and find it as quickly as possible, but after several hours of research on the star, for no one knew if the Hamoriti had left for sure or not, the cyborgs picked up on a tiny anomaly that they shared with the other two races.
There was a minor deviation in the stellar output, so small to easily go unnoticed, but with the right computerized screening it became reliably detectable, not so much in a solid position trace but a general area where there was less stellar output than there should be by a fraction of a percent. That would have been negligible, but the reduction didn’t fluctuate.
Their only conclusion could be that the Hamoriti had gone into the star itself and was creating a dead spot beneath the surface that ‘dimmed’ the surrounding area slightly.
The Sety immediately shot that theory down, for the Oracles had never said anything about the Hamoriti being able to travel inside stars. Coring into a planet was one thing, but burrowing into a star was quite another. It was certainly debatable whether or not a Hamoriti could survive it, or how long it could survive in there, but none of the others had ever done so as far as the Ancient records were concerned, so the Sety believed that it was either hiding in the atmosphere where they couldn’t see or it had indeed skirted surveillance and jumped out of the system.
The Trinx were unsure either way and suggested sending the scout order/request out anyway, citing that there was no time to figure out what had happened and that they had to pursue every possibility.
So the order went out, transmitted via interstellar comms that all three races had built into them. Those signals would then be picked up in nearby systems and retransmitted to others outside broadcast range, with each ship acting as a relay in regions where there was no such existing infrastructure.
Six days went by, with the cyborg ship returning to stellar orbit and monitoring the star’s output more closely, trying to determine what their ghost anomaly truly was. If the Hamoriti had made a jump, it might not even have reached its destination system yet, let alone have been found and reported. The comm signals still had a significant delay, so it could be weeks before it was found again under the best of circumstances.
But if it had months of anonymity to work with, the containment the Trinx had worked so hard to maintain would be all but impossible to regain. Then again, if the Li’vorkrachnika were willing to up their contribution the cyborgs weren’t going to write off the possibility completely. The more minions there were the greater their defensive ability became through overlapping cover, but it was still possible that, with enough numbers, they could be overwhelmed.
The math wasn’t good when you let the minions progress into phase 3, which saw the growth of much larger units. If it got that far the Li’vorkrachnika would be almost useless as far as their infantry was concerned, and only a series of major upgrades to their technology would bring them back into the fold, for their ability to fight came from being able to damage the enemy with each suicide wave. Reduce that damage down to a mere scratch and the primitives became virtually useless.
No matter how you looked at it, the present situation had gotten a lot worse.
But halfway through that sixth day the speculation ended as the Hamoriti rose back out from inside the star. The cyborg ship scrambled to get further away, making an immediate microjump, but the Hamoriti wasn’t nearby and didn’t care about the insignificant ship. It’s normally blue bulk was now glowing cherry red, like an ember pulled out of a fire, and it didn’t diminish with time as the Hamoriti gained more and more distance from the star, then made a microjump of its own.
It didn’t travel back to the planet, nor to any of the other planets. Where it went was…nowhere.
The Trinx and Sety fleets pursued it from a great distance, unsure of where it was going or if there was a hidden planet out there that for some reason they couldn’t detect. The odds of that were nil, but the Hamoriti was obviously traveling out away from the star for a reason and at a speed nowhere near sufficient to cross to another star.
In fact the Hamoriti began slowing after it got out past the orbit of the 3rd planet, with the star now being a small orb in the sky that paled in the distance compared to the red glow from the Hamoriti. When it eventually came to a stop, pulling on the star itself to slow down rather than braking against a destination gravity well, it held position for less than a minute, but long enough for the ships trailing it to realize that the creature had grown larger by approximately 20%.
As they began to theorize how that was possible and why the Oracles had never mentioned anything about stellar diving, a massive energy wave was emitted from the Hamoriti that traveled across the entire star system within a handful of seconds. Every sensor array that wasn’t shielded from line of sight was overloaded and knocked offline, blinding the fleets to what was happening to the Hamoriti and wrecking half of the internal systems within the Li’vorkrachnika ships.
When the cyborg ship finally rotated around to bring a few of its intact sensor arrays into alignment with the Hamoriti’s last known position they reacquired it, seeing that it was no longer glowing and had shrunken back down to its original size.
And it was moving again, heading into the star and subsequently making another microjump back to the planet. As it headed down to the surface it made a slight detour, traveling over to the position where the Li’vorkrachnika fleet now sat mostly helpless. The Trinx ships moved off, with only part of their sensors having been knocked out of order, but most of the more primitive ships were dead in the water.
Those that could still move did so, or tried. Only a handful were able to make microjumps out, and those were the ones who had been fortunate enough to be in the silhouette of others when the energy discharge came. They maneuvered around their incapacitated brethren and ran like hell as the Hamoriti moved right up into their fleet and emitted a tsunami discharge that, even without the added destructive power of the atmosphere, shredded every ship caught in the blast wave.
With that bit of cleanup done, the Hamoriti headed down into the atmosphere and sunk back into the planet’s surface, leaving the The Nine with no answer
s as to what had just happened.
9
May 23, 2729
Paquat System
Vikod (Trinx homeworld)
The Trinx Regent was standing inside the Ancient shell, plying the Oracle with further questions in a seemingly vain attempt to find some missed bit of information that the program held. Every question asked led to previously acquired answers, but the Regent refused to believe that the Ancients would have constructed an 8th prison and not have included it in the database. There had to be something else here to explain this, but after years of trying he and the others had not been able to discern anything new.
But the Regent kept trying anyway, for monitoring this Hamoriti was an endlessly boring job, though a vital one, given the stakes. A single misstep could see this Hamoriti released, and it was far larger than the one currently out in the galaxy. That one couldn’t be recaptured or killed, so it was unimaginable how much more dangerous this one would be if it escaped sedation…or perhaps it would be no different, for what did power levels matter when neither one could be defeated.
“Replay the events from timestamp 284 in the Descran System,” he told the Oracle, who complied with a slew of holograms that it began narrating.
“Minion incursion began with four seed ships dropping from orbit. Uncontested they set up…” the Oracle said, cutting off its sentence briefly before a loud, chilling sound rattled off in a 1.6 second duration that included 56 rapid fire beats. “Containment breach.”
The Regent froze, unable to think or move, but it wasn’t from the Hamoriti’s psionics. The shock of those two words stunned him into silence.
“Hamoriti internal activity spike detected, stimuli unknown. Automatic sedative increase…insufficient. Waking imminent. Recommend emergency sedation procedure, Regent.”
The Trinx shook itself from its haze and ran through the gap between shells, heading for the inner barrier and activating his wristbound comm. “Bring the vassals online immediately. Full emergency protocols and don’t wait for confirmation. Hit it as fast as you can.”
“Activating now, but we can’t identify the source.”
“I’m going to visually inspect the Hamoriti. If I’m compromised continue with full sedation measures until you run out of chemical. We cannot let this one escape.”
No further words were necessary on either end, with the Regent and others having trained for this day all of their lives, as had their forbearers. He didn’t know what was going on, but the Trinx knew they had to respond immediately. Any delay would allow the Hamoriti to wake further.
“Oracle, open the inner door,” he said to the air, with a hologram appearing beside him in the hallways as he ran through them.
“Opening. My internal sensors are clear. There is nothing within the chamber to have prompted this reaction. If you get too close to the Hamoriti you will succumb to its effects.”
“If there is an error in your sensors we have to know. My life is inconsequential compared to the deaths that will occur if Rigall is released,” he said, referring to the Ancient name given to this Hamoriti.
“I assure you, the chamber is clear,” the Oracle repeated. “Your machines are activating now.”
The Regent ran fast, faster than he’d ever run before, and arrived at the open doorway through the inner shell, stopping a few steps inside as the monster came into view. Its long tail was curled around its body just as it had been the last time he’d seen it, identical in position to every surveillance recording captured over the past million years. Whatever activity the Oracle’s sensors were detecting was purely internal at this point. The mountain of corovon-laced flesh hadn’t moved.
Situated several kilometers ahead were a sea of vassals moving about like ants around the base of the creature. They’d been put there long ago and were carrying no standard weapons, only containers of the chemical that they were now spraying on the Hamoriti from arm-launchers. Some were drenching the ‘skin’ at ground level with liquid streams while others were launching packets to impact higher up. All of the chemical goo absorbed on contact, but the Regent knew that if too much was applied to any one location the excess would slide off and fall to the floor, hence the need to spread it out.
The trouble was, the Hamoriti was huge and it took time for the chemical to cycle through its internal systems. The more active it became the faster it would circulate, but at its present state it would take minutes at the minimum for it to permeate throughout its body. On top of that there was no knowing what the stimuli was that was waking it, and without their being able to shut it down the chemical alone would not be enough.
“Status?” the Regent asked the hologram of the Oracle.
“Waking is continuing, but at a reduced ra…” the Regent heard, then suddenly there was a chorus of voices around him and he found himself laying on the ground staring up into several faces with the Oracle’s hologram hovering directly over him.
“He is regaining consciousness,” it said matter-of-factly.
“What…” he said, sitting up and looking around at the junior members of the monitoring team and one other Regent that had suddenly popped up all around him. “Status?”
“The Hamoriti is returning to slumber,” the other Regent answered. “The emergency procedures worked, but we have very little chemical remaining. If another instance occurs soon we will not be able to stop it.”
The Trinx tried to stand up but found his body unwilling to cooperate. He was stiff and feeling ill, with a massive headache pounding all the way down his headtails. His fellow Regent extended a hand over him and he took it, being pulled up to his feet painfully.
“You were caught in the freezing effect. Are you ill?”
“Yes, but not incapacitated. Oracle, have you determined the source of the breach?”
“None has been recorded. Method of stimuli remains unknown.”
“Check the recorders in the vassals.”
“We already have,” the other Regent said. “You’ve been frozen for two days.”
“How is that possible? I should have regained control of my body as soon as the Hamoriti’s effective radius diminished.”
“It only now did. The field expanded all the way out to the monitoring facility before receding. The Oracle says enough chemical has been applied, but it will take several more hours before the Hamoriti is fully dormant once again.”
“I do not understand,” the Regent said, looking at the Oracle’s hologram that had moved up above all of their heads. “The aura is not supposed to extend that far.”
“The Hamoriti’s passive aura does not. It awakened enough to put a small measure of conscious effort into the defense mechanism, then held the effort as it began returning to slumber. A delayed impulse, to be sure, and one that we have not recorded before. My analysis is ongoing and will continue through to full sedation.”
The Regent spun around, looking at the Hamoriti where the vassals were still surrounding it as tiny dots in the distance. The tail curl was still there, but it had changed position slightly.
“It moved?”
“For a period of 4 seconds, yes,” the Oracle confirmed. “A momentary stretch as it woke. Fortunately your emergency protocol was applied in time to prevent any further subconscious movement, else the motion would have added to the waking effect. Though the stimuli has not been detected, its effects are measureable. It occurred in a single moment, with a massive uptick in activity that began to spool on its own until the chemical surge took hold.”
“Are we producing more chemical?”
“We are now that the facility is no longer within the aura,” the other Regent explained.
“My replacement capabilities are operating at 100%,” the Oracle added. “Internal storage will be at full within 129 days, unless external materials are made available.”
“Do you have enough currently to maintain the sedation?”
“Remaining reserves are sufficient.”
“It’s almost over,” his peer
said, placing a hand on his shaky shoulder. “We made it, barely.”
“Not until we know the source of the breach,” the Trinx said, swiping away a bit of blood on his lips, coming from somewhere in his mouth.
When the other Regent saw that he flicked a wrist in a gesture to his subordinates and two of them came forward. “I’ll stay until this is fully resolved. You have to get treatment now. Take him.”
“Find the breach,” he said as the pair of Trinx helped him walk on shaky legs with a support on each arm. “Nothing is safe until we do.”
Nesfa sat in his cubicle atop the command tower reading through the most recent batch of reports from the Hamoriti site, his dread growing by the day as the minion incursions subsurface were steadily increasing. His troops were hunting them down admirably, but the Hamoriti was growing more devious in its placement and putting them further and further underground, delaying the time of detection and often requiring the coring of new tunnels to get down to them.
The Li’vorkrachnika were still holding up their end of the agreement, devoting as many ground troops as necessary to suppress the minions and dying by the millions in order to accomplish it. That was their task, but Nesfa feared it was going to end up not being enough. By going underground the Hamoriti made it much harder to get at the minions, meaning that they were having to fight full battles against them, though the tradeoff was the Hamoriti itself wasn’t involved in those. Even its tsunami blast had its limits, and detonating it underground would surely destroy any minions it sought to protect, not to mention wouldn’t travel very far.
But it seemed to Nesfa that the Hamoriti, stalemated as it was, was slowly beginning to get the upper hand on them. The Trinx and Li’vorkrachnika were upping the pressure accordingly, but without assistance from The Nine he wasn’t sure how long they could maintain the current form of containment. If the Hamoriti didn’t change tactics again they had a chance, but Nesfa seriously doubted it would be so accommodating.