by Aer-ki Jyr
“Even those who killed many Humans?”
“If you change, the enemy is defeated and destroyed. Who then do we have a grudge with?”
“You do not believe in punishment?” Lasme asked, turning to face the long hallway again as he resumed walking.
“Only as a learning opportunity. If someone will not change, better to just kill them immediately. There is no purpose in making them suffer before they die.”
“And you thought I would be one to change?”
“You have, even if you do not realize it. Is it enough? Well, we’ll see. If you stay in the Core then it won’t matter either way, because we’ve got a lot of work out here to do. But for your sake, I hope you have learned enough.”
“So arrogant,” Lasme mumbled
“You spawned us, intentionally or not.”
“I would have killed you immediately if we did not need hostages,” he said as natural light began to filter in above the top of a high hill in the hallway before him.
“So would a lot of inferiors. Be glad that we have transcended the V’kit’no’sat,” Liam said as he stopped flying forward and let Lasme take the last bit of his journey alone.
Lasme glanced back to see where he went, for he could not feel him, but the Kret’net did not stop walking. The lure of the light of potential freedom began to consume him and he began to slowly run up the hill until the plateau came into sight and the open doorway beyond. He ran out onto a vast, open air spaceport and as he passed the through the exit archway the brain box on his head disconnected and fell off.
Suddenly his psionics, which he had not felt for years, were returned to him and he could feel the telepathic communication from the V’kit’no’sat a few miles out on the landing pad signaling him to come to them.
Lasme kicked back his head and looked straight up into the blue sky, roaring loudly out of a mix of frustration and relief, then he realized that there were others coming out of archways set into little domes spread all across the landing pad. He spun around, seeing that the pad was so large it spread out tens of miles in every direction, leaving all he could see being the small protrusions and the scattering of V’kit’no’sat walking or running from them to the drop pods waiting further out.
Lasme didn’t feel like walking, so he took off running towards the mind that was signaling to him, still somewhat concerned this might be some giant trap, but the closer he got the more details his mind registered and the more information he got from the Brat’mar ahead that were here to pick everyone up.
The empire was under assault. The war against Star Force had ended. And negotiations were underway to get all the members of the new Rim Consortium to back off…but until they had an agreement and that word spread via courier to all those involved, the invasion of V’kit’no’sat territory continued with many losses across their Rim border.
Lasme ran all the way up to the drop pod before he finally saw the Brat’mar he was talking to standing just inside. He asked the question and the Brat’mar said they were not allowed to step off the ships, only wait for the prisoners to come to them. He told the Kret’net to come aboard and Lasme walked up the ramp into the V’kit’no’sat ship where he saw a half dozen others waiting inside.
Two were Oso’lon, another Kar’ka, with the remainder being the tiny Ari’tat.
“Did they capture any of the Zen’zat?” he asked, speaking his own language aloud again.
“I do not know. None have been released if they did,” the Brat’mar said. “We were told there were not many prisoners taken. Only a mere 9,273. You are one of the fortunate ones.”
“How badly did we hurt them before they unveiled their allies?”
“We took many worlds along their border, but did not have time to push in to their most valuable worlds.”
“Have we surrendered them?”
“Not yet. We’re waiting on the final agreement. Until then, we hold the territory we’ve taken. Star Force has not attacked to try and take it back and we have released our own prisoners. If they wanted to do so now, they could annihilate us with their Uriti. I do not like the situation, but it is what Mak’to’ran has instructed.”
“Itaru?”
“Now under Mak’to’ran’s personal control. He leads us uncontested.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“The invasion has changed many things. We are not accustomed to losing territory to races we did not even know existed.”
“What?” one of the Oso’lon prisoners asked.
“Many of the races are unknown to us. We have no information on who they are or where they are based. And many of them are powerful. Some, very powerful. We have been taken off guard and paid the price with many lives, for these allies do not fight according to Star Force’s rules. Most of them are simply annihilating worlds they take,” the Brat’mar said as an I’rar’et flew up to the doorway then landed and walked inside.
“8 more,” the Brat’mar said, “then we lift off and get you back to civilization.”
78,822 lightyears away…
The Zak’de’ron had managed to find another Protovic strain, but no more. That left them at 3 of 8 and the possibility of finding the rest was diminishing, though not gone. It was likely that the Knights of Quenar had found the most visible Protovic colonies to immunize, but the galaxy was huge and there were bound to be many more hiding out there waiting to be found. The Zak’de’ron would find them all, given time, but whether they would locate them before the Knights of Quenar did was questionable.
Today that was not the issue at hand, for their telepathic efforts with the Uriti known as Bulmuthal had progressed favorably, so much so that it was time to finally release the beast from its slumber out on the far Rim and away from prying eyes. They’d brought Bulmuthal to one of the systems on the extreme edge of the galaxy, with no stars and only galaxies visible in the night sky when looking out, but with the whole of their own galaxy in view in the other direction.
It was a sight that few had ever beheld, but the Zak’de’ron had been everywhere in this galaxy aside from the Deep Core. They had seen things that no others had, and this edge view was one that instilled humility into the dominant race. There was so much beyond their own galaxy, so many possibilities beyond that the stark view of them here was unnerving. The Hadarak dominated the Core of this galaxy, and the giant swirl of stars was so big that many races had never even heard of the Hadarak. It was too big for the Zak’de’ron to ever totally control, yet there were so many galaxies beyond that when one even cursory attempt at quantifying it all ran through your mind you had to shake it free, otherwise it would drive you mad.
Looking at that view now was the reminder of the lesson the V’kit’no’sat had painfully taught the Zak’de’ron…not to try to control everything. To pick their time, their place, and their territory, but not to go too bold, too big, and not to rely on others to do it. The Zak’de’ron could only control what they could control. They could use others, but never rely on them. That would greatly diminish the size of the territory they could monitor, but they didn’t need as much control as they’d tried before. They needed to prune, not possess, and knock down the largest powers. What happened in the cracks and the wide open, unimportant regions was something they could let go. Let the lessers have their freedom as the Zak’de’ron worked to reign in the greater powers. They would obtain their dominance, not by conquering territory, but by being the last major race standing in this galaxy.
But to do that they had to avenge themselves against the V’kit’no’sat and then take down the Hadarak, the latter of which made the former look easy. But today they would take their first step towards that ultimate victory as Bulmuthal was released from its Zak’de’ron-built transport and let free float near the red star that stood on the edge of the galaxy looking out into the true void.
The lower dose of sedative that the Uriti had been kept under still took time to wear off, but as it did the Zak’de’ron were in constant tele
pathic communication with it, and there was no violent reaction when it did fully wake. It was a smooth transition and many cubes of valuable resources were floating nearby provided by the Uriti’s new friends. Bulmuthal dragged them towards it in its grapple fields, smashing them against its body and absorbing the material to help repair the limited damage done from stagnation.
From there they talked, and talked a lot…about what had happened to the Uriti. How it had been created. Who its creators were and how they had betrayed it.
Then they began to explain how the Zak’de’ron were going to teach and guide the Uriti in a way the Chixzon never had. They were never going to leave it alone. The Uriti would join their herd and together they would fight the Chixzon and their allies in a long and massive struggle to determine who held dominion over this galaxy.
Bulmuthal then asked a question that they did not expect. For as pleased as it was to have a herd, something it had never experienced before but somehow instinctively understood, it did not seem concerned about who held dominion over the galaxy. Rather, it asked who held dominion over the galaxies…
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