The Star Cross: The Vorn!

by Raymond L. Weil

  Prince Lakat waited in the Command Center of his mothership. He knew Military Leader Volmont was working on the attack plan for the star cluster Military Leader Renwarld had discovered. Perhaps as many as one hundred worlds were waiting to be harvested.

  Prince Lashall is suggesting breaking the fleet into two harvesting fleets, reported Military Leader Dabbath. You would command one and Prince Lashall the second.

  How many motherships will we have?

  Two, answered Dabbath. The fleet would be divided into two equal parts and we would be targeting what is believed to be the two most powerful systems in the cluster. Each fleet will have an equal number of battleships. Once these two worlds have been harvested, the rest of the food worlds should pose no major threats. We will attack in two more days.

  A renewed harvest, Prince Lakat sent in satisfaction. He strongly suspected their fleets were the only ones still active. He just hoped when they returned a Collector ship would be available or their harvesting would be over as well. This galaxy has been full of surprises. If Prince Brollen does not activate more ships, I fear we may fail in the harvest.

  That must not happen, sent Dabbath, his eyes widening. It would result in mass deletions of the Working Caste and possibly others.

  It has happened before, Prince Lakat responded. It will happen again. The galaxies around our habitat grow less abundant with suitable food species at every harvest. When last I was in the Royal Court, there was talk of moving to a different region of this universe where there is a larger grouping of galaxies.

  What about our habitats? asked Dabbath, his antenna standing upright and quivering in concern.

  Lakat’s multifaceted eyes focused on his military leader. They are too large to be moved. We would have to build new ones.

  Dabbath looked confused. Our population is too large to move from the habitats. Would some of them be left behind?

  Lakat nodded. That is the crux of the problem and why harvesting this galaxy is so important. We need the food reserves to decide what must be done.

  -

  Military Leader Dabbath nodded his understanding. However, he greatly feared if what Prince Lakat implied were true then some time in the near future mass deletions of Vorn would begin to take place. The deletions might very well include Vorn from every caste deemed not to be useful, even the military.

  -

  We will do what we must, sent Prince Lakat. We have our duties to the Vorn race and to our Queens. That is why every harvest is so important.

  Prince Lakat turned toward the tactical display, gazing at the green icons. He had revealed more to Military Leader Dabbath than he had intended. What other princes spoke of was not to be shared with those lower in caste. Lakat knew because of his mistake it might be necessary to delete Military Leader Dabbath once this star cluster was harvested. It was regretful as Dabbath had served faithfully but it was the way of the Vorn.

  -

  High Profiteer Creed was inside a large vault they had just blasted open beneath the ruins of the capital city on a planet devastated by the Vorn. He gazed excitedly into numerous small rooms where several metals of value were stored, including gold. Perhaps the entire planet’s reserves! He knew he had struck it rich. His breathing quickened as he gazed into a room filled with gold bars.

  Creed stepped inside followed by Dacroni Clan Leader Jarls. From what he had seen in the other chambers there were several hundred million credits worth of gold and precious metals stored here, perhaps more.

  “You were right,” said Dacroni Clan Leader Jarls as he hefted a gold bar, checking its weight. He moved it from hand to hand. “This bar alone is worth over one million credits.”

  “I have some of my Profiteers checking out several other locations on the planet,” Creed said as he ran his hands greedily over the gold bars. “A planet with a population as large as this one had must have more than one vault. I would guess this is the primary vault and somewhere there must be a secondary one.”

  Jarls set the gold bar back down. “This was once an Enlightened World; I wonder if there is any technology we could take back with us?”

  “Who cares about the technology!” growled Creed as he began walking through the small chamber counting the number of gold bars. “With this gold we can buy anything we want.”

  “Agreed,” replied Jarls. “But Enlightened World technology is in high demand on the black markets on Kubitz. They’ll pay a fortune for the right technology.”

  “Plhtup!” said Creed, shaking his head. “The Controllers will only have it confiscated and then they will levy a hefty fine. It makes dealing in illegal technology highly risky.” Creed knew this first hand from several shaky business deals in the past.

  Jarls let out a deep sigh. “Perhaps you’re right. If we can make several more hauls like this from worlds the Vorn have destroyed neither of us will have to worry about our futures. We will both be very rich.”

  Creed finished counting the gold bars and there were one hundred and twenty in this chamber. He knew there were several other chambers still to inspect. His dream of buying that land on Marsten might just be about to become a reality. The good thing was this operation was much smaller and less risky than when he had tried to pilfer Earth of its gold. He had Jarls’ ten battleships in orbit as well as his personal battleship and his Profiteer fleet. His fleet consisted of twelve battlecruisers and four large cargo ships. He had sold off all of his smaller warships and decided the battlecruisers were the best route to go for future profiteering raids.

  A Profiteer stepped into the small room. “High Profiteer, we have found another sealed vault and opened it. You may wish to come and see what’s inside.”

  Creed looked over at Jarls. “Let’s go see what they’ve found.”

  Going down a wide corridor with metal doors broken open on both sides, they reached the end where explosives had been used to blast open a thick metal door. The corridor still had some smoke in it, making seeing difficult.

  “Bring in some ventilation equipment so we can get this smoke cleared out of here,” ordered Creed in between coughs. Explosives had been used to force open most of the sealed doors making the air difficult to breathe.

  A couple of Profiteers hurried to comply and soon several large fans were drawing out the smoke filled air. Soon the corridor and adjoining chambers were clear enough to enter. Creed and Jarls stepped inside what appeared to be a large room. Both stopped staring in amazement as a look of greed spread over both of their faces.

  “I think this is the main deposit of wealth on this planet,” said Jarls, gazing around with wide eyes.

  The room was piled high with gold bars.

  “I’ve never seen so much gold in one place,” said Jarls as he walked down an aisle with gold piled high on both sides. “There’s a fortune in here!”

  Creed spent a few minutes trying to get a count. He finally stopped when he had counted a thousand bars. He looked over at Jarls and grinned. “I told you I had a way for both of us to get rich.”

  Jarls nodded. For the first time, it looked as if one of High Profiteer Creed’s plans was actually going to work.

  Creed turned to one of the waiting Profiteers standing at the doorway. “Bring a crew down here with some gravity sleds. I want this gold taken up to the cargo ships. Strip everything in these vaults, don’t leave anything behind.”

  ‘Make sure you count everything that comes out of these vaults,” Jarls said, giving a piercing look to the Profiteer. “I don’t want to find out there were any discrepancies later.”

  The Profiteer looked over at Creed.

  “Do it,” Creed ordered. “There’s enough here for all of us.”

  Jarls stepped over placing his hand across several gold bars. “There’s enough gold and other valuable metals here that the two of us should end up with over a billion credits each. I think I can retire on that.”

  “Same here,” Creed replied.

  Jarls spent a moment looking at all the gold in
the room. “I think we should load all of this up and return to the empire. There is not much point in seeking other worlds to search. There is always the danger of coming across the Vorn. I say we take this and end our search.”

  Creed nodded. “I agree. We have what we came for; there is no point in taking additional risks. We will return to the empire and sell the gold on Kubitz.”

  High Profiteer Creed drew in a deep breath. Finally he had achieved his life long goal. He would be one of the richest Profiteers on Marsten. The others would be coming to him for advice on how to thrive as a Profiteer. He was already thinking about how much land he was going to buy. It looked as if he wasn’t going to need those battlecruisers after all. He would sell them, only keeping his battleship. It would now serve as his personal yacht. There would be some changes made on it as well, particularly his personal quarters. It was time to take advantage of his new found wealth.

  Chapter Eight

  The Star Cross dropped out of hyperspace back in the Newton System. It was accompanied by the twenty Human battleships that had participated in the raids on the Vorn fleets as well as nine battlecruisers, which had served as an escort for the Star Cross. One battlecruiser had been lost in the fighting along with all of its crew. There were also two Glaymon battleships Fleet Captain Waelt had assigned to Kurt’s fleet. Kurt hadn’t asked for this but was pleased Waelt had made the offer.

  “It’s good to be home,” said Andrew, seeing Newton appear on the ship’s main viewscreen. “Maybe this time we can stay for a while.”

  Kurt grinned. “It might be some time before we see the Vorn again. I spent some time talking to Fleet Captain Waelt and Fleet Captain Lilith. We managed to take out over 70 percent of the Vorn ships in the four systems we attacked with an 80 percent kill rate on their motherships.”

  Andrew looked at one of the viewscreens showing one of the 2,000-meter Glaymon battleships. “Those things are going to cause the Vorn a lot of headaches. I’m just glad we brought two of them back with us. I’ll sleep better at night knowing those two battleships are overhead.”

  “What are you going to do when you get back home?” asked Kurt. “We sort of left in a hurry when Tasid summoned us.”

  “I think I’ll take Emily to one of the new seaside resorts,” Andrew said smiling. “We can do some snorkeling and sailing; she’d like that.”

  “And leave Alexis home with this new boyfriend she has?” Kurt couldn’t help ribbing Andrew about that knowing how sensitive he was to his daughter dating.

  Andrew frowned. “This dating thing is going to screw a lot of things up.”

  “Talk to Keera. Alexis can come stay with us while you take a few days off. Keera would enjoy having her around.”

  “You think she would do that?” asked Andrew, his eyes lighting up.

  “I’m sure of it,” Kurt replied. Keera had a way with kids as he had watched her around Bryan, his ten-year-old nephew.

  Andrew seemed pleased with that and then asked another question. “What are your plans if the fighting is over for a while?”

  “I need to meet with Governor Spalding and the other admirals. We need to find a few more ship captains to promote.” Kurt looked at Andrew. “You wouldn’t want to become a rear admiral, would you?”

  Andrew shook his head. “No, I’ll stay where I am.”

  Kurt had expected that response. Being captain of the Star Cross was almost like being a rear admiral anyway. “We need to continue building new warships, working on the defenses around Newton and Earth, as well as the other planets in our Alliance. We can use as much time as the Vorn will give us.”

  “The Vorn will return,” said Aleea. “They always have.” The AI looked intently at Kurt. “You may have set their harvesting of this galaxy back by a few months or even longer, but they will return with more ships and an increased determination to harvest this galaxy. The biggest battles are still ahead of us.”

  Aleea’s words brought Kurt back to reality. He knew she was right. Even with the new ships of the Glaymons this was going to be a long and difficult war. The disk battlecruisers and the battleships Fleet Captain Lilith had brought from the Dyson Sphere would help to slow down the Vorn attacks, but the only real hope of eventual victory over the Vorn was if the Glaymons on the Dyson Sphere committed their entire fleet, and Kurt was not certain that was going to happen.

  “We’ll be docking with Newton Station in twenty minutes,” Lieutenant Styles informed Kurt. “We’ll be using docking port four.”

  “I have Colonel Simms on the comm,” reported Lieutenant Pierce. “He’s asking about the two Glaymon battleships.”

  Kurt had to grin to himself. No one in the Newton System or anywhere else for that matter had ever seen a Glaymon battleship. “Tell him I’ll explain in detail when I come on board the station. For now just tell him they’re Glaymon ships and will be aiding in Newton’s defense.”

  Kurt had a number of things to take care of over the next few days, one of them being to take Keera to the Italian restaurant she liked. Listening to Andrew talk about taking his wife to a resort made Kurt consider doing the same thing with Keera. Shortly after she came to Newton, he had taken her to a ski resort up in the mountains. It might be nice to return to that resort for a short vacation. He owed it to her after some of the things which had happened over the last few months, particularly after the little incident with Mara. Kurt had swore to himself never to allow that to happen again. He still felt guilty for allowing himself to sleep with her, and it was something he was going to regret for a very long time. He was determined not to allow it to happen again.

  He also needed to check up on what was going on at Kubitz. Ambassador Brent had sent a message just before the Star Cross left to go to the new Glaymon System that someone had tried to poison Grantz. While this didn’t surprise Kurt too much he was concerned about Grantz’s reaction. The Profiteer was intent on collecting the bounty Kurt had placed on High Profiteer Creed’s head. Knowing Grantz he would use every method he knew of to collect that bounty, even illegal ones. Kurt was going to suggest Colonel Briar assign a couple of Marines to keep an eye on the conniving and greedy Profiteer.

  Kurt’s eyes went to the viewscreen showing Newton. The planet was rapidly growing larger on the screen. As soon as they docked he would send a message to Keera informing her he was home. He would also go ahead and make reservations at the Italian restaurant. Kurt knew Keera would be excited to learn the fighting with the Vorn was over, at least for a while. For once Kurt felt he had nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future.

  -

  Prince Lashall gazed at the ship’s tactical screen as the Ravager and its accompanying fleet neared the target star cluster. On the tactical display, numerous red icons were visible depicting unknown ships traveling in hyperspace on the outskirts of the cluster.

  Two hours until we reach our target, reported the Vorn at the sensor console.

  Lashall had already split the two fleets with Prince Lakat taking his harvesting fleet to the second food world they were going to attack. If everything went as planned, once these two worlds were harvested the two fleets would then begin harvesting all the nearby food worlds. Lashall also intended to send out some scout ships to determine exactly how many food worlds were in this star cluster. From the amount of ship traffic the Ravager was detecting there had to be a large number, more than what Military Leader Renwarld’s scout ship had originally detected.

  We are using our sensor dampening fields so the food worlds will not detect our presence, reported Military Leader Volmont. The fleet will drop out two hundred thousand kilometers from the target world. There are a number of orbital stations which will need to be scanned to determine if they are armed. Most likely these are only trading stations and orbital refineries.

  Lashall nodded. This was common above most advanced food worlds. He clicked his mandibles in expectation of sampling the food pellets from this new food species. Very soon his fleet would be in position to ha
rvest the first of many food worlds in the star cluster.

  -

  High Profiteer Mott was on his flagship, the Jablan, in orbit above Marsten. With a yawn, he gazed at the tactical display noting all the Profiteer ships in orbit above the capital planet of the Gothan Empire. Since the appearance of the Destroyers of Worlds very few raiding fleets were being allowed to leave the empire. The Profiteer leaders on Marsten had ordered all Profiteer fleets to stay close to their homeworlds until the situation with the Vorn was decided one way or the other.

  “I think I’m going to turn in for the night,” said Mott, standing up and stretching.

  “We need to be out raiding,” muttered Second Profiteer Aleut. “We’re not making any credits sitting here in orbit waiting for an enemy that may never come. Our crews are becoming bored to death.”

  The words were scarcely out of his mouth when warning alarms began sounding on the sensor console.

  “Unknown contacts dropping out of hyperspace two hundred thousand kilometers from Marsten,” called out Third Profiteer Seth, his eyes showing shock.

  “Impossible!” said High Profiteer Mott, glaring at Seth. “If those are ships we should have picked them up in hyperspace. It has to be a fault in the sensor system.”

  “Not if they’re using a sensor dampening field like the Vorn are rumored to possess,” said Second Profiteer Aleut as he stepped over to the sensor console. He spent a moment examining the scans and then turned around with a stunned look on his face. “We have a Vorn harvesting fleet closing on Marsten.”

  High Profiteer Mott froze in place, not believing he had heard those dreaded words. Surely the Destroyers of Worlds were not here!

  “It’s confirmed,” reported the Profiteer at Communications. “All fleets are being placed on high alert, and High Profiteer Gaston has ordered all ships to stand by for combat.”

  Mott sat back down in his command chair scarcely believing what he was seeing on the tactical display, which had just started to display the enemy ships.

  “We are barely picking them up on the sensors,” reported Seth. “They are using a sensor dampening field and it’s reported only our battleships are getting positive readings on the Vorn ships. Our battlecruisers are reporting there’s nothing there.”