by Aer-ki Jyr
He doubted that, but without minion scouts across the planet there was a question as to how much sensing capability the Hamoriti had. Chosan chose to assume a lot, but he didn’t order the Li’vorkrachnika bases evacuated. So long as they were operational they were serving a purpose, with flocks of their little transports hauling troops over to the access shafts they’d cut to get down to the other minion sites.
When the information on the incoming fleet crossed his screen he didn’t even bother to look at it, focused as he was on the minion flyer battle that was costing the Li’vorkrachnika dearly. He was considering sending in another vassal, but since this was the first engagement against this new type of minion he didn’t want to risk a second one just yet. If there were to be any surprises, let the Li’vorkrachnika’s pathetic ships take the hit. His vassals were too rare and powerful to waste on uncertain strikes.
He’d only sent the one because he suspected the Li’vorkrachnika fleet couldn’t handle the task on its own…at least not without sending 20 times that number of ships, and he didn’t want to waste them in such a manner without sufficient cause. He knew well that only a joint war would be effective, and sending the Li’vorkrachnika in on their own in most cases would just end up with a no value slaughter. As it was they were dying left and right to accomplish even minor gains, but those gains were setting up the Trinx to accomplish the primary goals and root out the minion spawning sites, forcing the Hamoriti to begin them again and taking away their ability to reproduce on their own.
It wasn’t until Chosan received an incoming comm did he realize that the newly arrived fleet wasn’t Li’vorkrachnika.
“Commander,” a Jonstar said, with its large, intimidating eyes being a welcome comfort to his own. “I apologize for our lateness, but we stand ready to assist you.”
Chosan remained silent for a pair of seconds, feeling the first bit of relief in years, then he wasted no further time. “I need an immediate orbital strike on two minion locations. They have access tunnels reaching to the surface and I need you to target down them, maximum yield.”
“Gladly,” Nicktori said. “I presume the Hamoriti is below ground at present?”
“It is.”
“Do you have an estimate as to how quickly it can resurface?”
“Its speed varies, but at present,” Chosan said, checking his map screens, “estimate no less than 38 minutes from atmosphere. You should be able to strike before you have a chance to get caught out.”
“Has it demonstrated an ability to attack while below ground?”
“No.”
“Well enough. Send the coordinates.”
Chosan looked to one of his subordinates, who immediately sent the information to the Jonstar fleet. “Done.”
“Pull your ships back,” Nicktori said, seeing that there was a current engagement going on in the atmosphere nearby. “There’s going to be spillover, even if we directly hit the shaft.”
“They’ll be gone by the time you’re in position…and thank you.”
“We should have been here long before now,” the Jonstar admitted.
Chosan nodded, then cut the comm as he watched the newly arrived ships break up. There were six super-large ones, two of which began heading down towards the atmosphere while the others and the smaller support ships picked a holding orbit and moved towards it off the stellar jumpline they’d arrived on.
The two massive cone-shaped ships sank slowly down through the atmosphere over the pair of sites, eventually stalling out a handful of miles above each. The minion flyers, those few that were still coming up out of the tunnels after the vassal and Li’vorkrachnika had destroyed the others, shot directly up to target the huge ships, but their tiny weapons had no effect. They swirled about the point of the two cones, each of which was pointing down towards an individual tunnel shaft, and fired with impunity at the Jonstar vessels as both summoned up an internal charge that began to crackle around the exterior of the ship points in a fiery orange cascade.
The effect grew as the charge increased, turning the tip of each ship into an inverted Christmas tree of lethal lights that moved about in an unpredictable, chaotic pattern. It was all held against the ship’s surface until the southernmost vessel finally released its charge after a few minutes of building to maximum power, sending an intensely bright beam of orange straight down into the tunnel below.
The energy vaporized the surrounding rock and punched down with a kinetic tremor that rippled out across the landscape, followed immediately by a series of others, as if the ship was pounding the planet with an insanely big machine gun. A plume of debris built up around the tunnel shaft, expanding outward like a donut and mixed with stray orange energy arcs that bounced from one bit of rock to another, destroying everything on the surface within several miles around the impact site.
But the largest damage came down through the shaft, expanding on it and pumping raw destructive energy through into the minion spawning site miles below, burning out their cocooned flyers, tank minions, and every other type of living weapon they had begun to produce, as well as the biological factories that were growing them at an insanely rapid pace.
It took more than 8 seconds for the Jonstar weapon to release its full charge into the planet, with the second ship doing likewise over its minion site shortly thereafter and both ships immediately retreating to space to avoid any chance of being caught by the Hamoriti.
Chosan collapsed in his seat, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands as his fatigue seemed to catch up with him as his mind finally allowed itself to relax. While the Sety were here they were pretty much observers so long as the Hamoriti stayed on the same planet, but now that the Jonstar had arrived the Trinx no longer stood alone. Two of The Nine were here, with their unique tech complementing each other and giving Chosan some badly needed assets in this fight. Even if the Jonstar didn’t intend to send down any ground troops, their Degars’ colosat bombardment capability would allow them to take out minion sites near the surface, and any connecting tunnels they chose to build would just act as conduits to reach even deeper within the planet.
The Trinx looked at the present position of the Hamoriti, which was still meandering about near the planet’s core.
“Your move now.”
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