by Aer-ki Jyr
But so far there had been no visible fallout, and when Bahamut’s transport arrived and released him to space there was no sign of any V’kit’no’sat within millions of miles…as had been agreed. So far Mak’to’ran was honoring his part of the deal, and Paul had a feeling that his war against the Hadarak was his primary concern above all else and that he needed the intel from this mission badly. If there was going to be any conflict it’d be after he got the intel, not on the trip into the Core.
One by one the other transports arrived staggered within the warship convoy, depositing Nami, Devastator, Godzilla, and Apollo lower into black hole orbit as the fleet casually gathered above them, forming a more or less symbolic barrier between them and the V’kit’no’sat as all 5 Uriti disappeared down into the black hole. It wasn’t known, even to Nefron, if these five had ever been at a black hole before, but he’d assured Paul the gravity as actually beneficial to them rather than dangerous. The super black holes at the center of the galaxy and a few rare other locations might be dangerous, might not be, for the Chixzon had never bothered to experiment on such things when all they wanted the Uriti for was to rip apart the planets of their enemies.
The Hadarak typically spawned in the super black holes where the V’kit’no’sat could not attack them, and even this smaller black hole could be used as a spawning ground if the Hadarak ever came out this far, but for the Uriti it was something much different and Paul was getting a constant update from the 8 Wranglers he had in the fleet.
The Uriti were absolutely giddy, or whatever their equivalent emotion was, and the initial data the Wranglers got before they disappeared beneath the third event horizon and sank down into the ultra thick material of the black hole itself, was showing a surge in various tissues that had not been previously recorded. Whatever effect the black hole was having on them was something new to Star Force and Paul quickly calculated that they needed a relay system in order to fully study it with them submerged, but that wasn’t going to happen here. They’d have to scrape what little insights they could off the entry and exit data, but it was clear that there was something going on here that the Chixzon had not known of…or at least hadn’t included in Nefron’s genetic memories.
As for the selection of the Uriti, that had happened automatically. Bahamut had been selected by the Uriti themselves, with Star Force picking the others. Given the fact that the Hadarak were much larger than the Uriti, Paul had elected to bring the biggest two they had…Devastator and Godzilla. Devastator was the widest with Godzilla being the most massive. Both were star shaped, with Devastator having 4 arms and Godzilla having 3, so they’d be, size wise at least, the most similar to the Hadarak.
Apollo was the roundest and most similar shaped to the Hadarak, while Nami was very small. Paul wanted to see how they’d react to such a small one, plus she had a disruption weapon that would at least mess with V’kit’no’sat systems even if didn’t completely take them down as it did to most races’ starships prior to the main concussion blast she also released. That weapon was better suited to use within an atmosphere, but it could do considerable damage at point blank rage to starships as well.
And bringing the two largest Uriti Star Force had also would make Mak’to’ran cringe if he intended to attack them at some point. Paul knew their weakest position was during transit, which was why he was keeping the Uriti in the rear portion of the convoy so they didn’t have to enter a system into potential trouble.
Paul also had two extra Uriti transports with him, just in case the others were damaged, as well as 4 MCVs so they could make repairs or even build new ones in the field if needed. What he did not want to get into was a situation where the Uriti would have to travel under their own power with Pauls’ fleet essentially being stranded in escort of them as they creeped their way back to Star Force territory at painfully slow speed.
He also didn’t want to draw out these rest stops too much, and the Uriti were eager enough to get to the Core themselves, so after 14 hours of black hole bathing all 5 came back up and boarded their transports and the convoy began to jump out of the system ship by ship in a long snake-like line with Mak’to’ran’s much smaller convoy heading out just before they arrived at the exiting jumppoint.
Paul had Kara go first, with him coming in about halfway through the convoy and still with a decent gap between him and the first Uriti transport. The jump itself wasn’t a long one, save for the distance traveled, and when they arrived at the exiting black hole they didn’t stop to take a dip in it. They directed to another jumppoint that led to a smaller black hole that required them to hold back on their engine power, else they’d over accelerate and not be able to stop at the far end.
They alternated between black hole routes and regular jumps between those preferred endpoints as they cut across the Centaurus and Norma galactic arms and came to the ball-like construct of densely packed systems known as the Galactic Core. Unlike the arms that were more or less flat when view from afar, the Galactic Core was basically a sphere with systems orbiting the gravitational center of the galaxy on a wide variety of paths. The galaxy itself had outliers all the way out to the rim, but the bulk of the systems orbited around a band that made the pancake-like shape. The few systems that did not were highly isolated, some unable to jump to because of the distances, but here in the Core there were so many so close together that jumplanes were not only accessible, they were shortened to only 2-3 lightyears in some places.
That meant in the Core you couldn’t get long jumps, making travel even slower. The few routes that did allow for longer ones were heavily coveted, and the V’kit’no’sat controlled virtually all of them up to the Hadarak border. According to Mak’to’ran they had tried to hold onto the other ones deeper inside, but the Hadarak intentionally attacked them to drive them off rather than just randomly patrolling the area that still held many indigenous races and civilizations that the Hadarak stomped on more or less accidentally. It was the V’kit’no’sat that they targeted intentionally, and to this day Mak’to’ran still did not know why.
Or rather he did not know why they would go for them in certain areas then basically ignore them further out until they got around to another probing attack. Between the two of them, Mak’to’ran and Paul agreed on a system in which to try and make contact with the Hadarak that was on one of their more frequent patrol routes.
Paul watched with interest the level of infrastructure in each system they passed through on their way there, comparing it to the data they’d originally gotten from the pyramid back when Star Force began and the bits of updates they’d been able to steal from damaged V’kit’no’sat ships over the course of the war. Some were more developed, others less, but the closer they got to the Hadarak border they began to thin down considerably in terms of civilian presence while the military equipment remained steady up until the last few stops, where it increased exponentially.
The final V’kit’no’sat system they passed through was Horanja, and it was essentially a fortress. There were so many weapon platforms around the central star that it made Paul’s fleet feel extremely small. He couldn’t have even scratched this system if he’d wanted to without the Uriti’s help, and even then he wasn’t sure what the outcome would be, for beyond all the fixed or semi-mobile weaponry there was a defense fleet that dwarfed his own. He’d known the V’kit’no’sat were created to fight the Hadarak, but this was even more buildup than he’d imagined…and far more than had been present at the time the Rit’ko’sor rebellion had begun.
Maybe this was just a hot spot that needed extra reinforcing, but according to Mak’to’ran it was standard…and the reality of just how powerful the V’kit’no’sat were began to sink in. He’d known it previously, in an academic sense, but despite everything they’d thrown at Star Force they really were just playing with them this whole time. They had the power to destroy the rogue Human civilization if they wanted to, but what Paul was seeing here made it clear that the Hadarak were far more dangerous a t
hreat to the V’kit’no’sat, and the galaxy as a whole, than Star Force would ever be.
Mak’to’ran’s focus was here, as it should be, and Star Force, for the moment, was the key to gaining intel on the V’kit’no’sat’s nemesis, making this temporary alliance logical despite appearances to the contrary…along with Mak’to’ran’s other offer for inclusion in their empire as a rim-only force. Mak’to’ran just wanted to get the Human problem dealt with so he could focus on the real threat, and from the level of buildup here it was clear that he hadn’t been spending too much effort and resources on Star Force.
And Paul’s fleet wasn’t staying here, they were going beyond this system further into the Core where what this fortress system was built to defend against roamed freely. They went where they wanted, attacked who and what they wanted, and left all those systems in the Core at their mercy. Paul had seen the data from the time before the V’kit’no’sat had pushed the Hadarak back this far, and it wasn’t pretty, but the Hadarak didn’t seem to focus on any race. Much like the Uriti, they found the ‘little beings’ irrelevant and fought them whenever they pestered them, but operated how they wanted regardless of what was done or not done to fight them.
Until the V’kit’no’sat arrived. Now the Hadarak were strategically fighting them, but in an odd way. Part of the time they seemed to work against them as an enemy, other times they seemed to ignore them as the ‘little beings’ that they were. Mak’to’ran had gone as far as to give Paul a lot of recent data on them, hoping he could find a pattern, but so far Paul could not. The Hadarak were a continually perplexing mystery, and the more Paul studied them the more he realized that Mak’to’ran needed Star Force to be successful on this mission, in any way, shape, or form, so the V’kit’no’sat would have something to analyze.
Part of Paul didn’t want to bother with the Hadarak now, for Star Force had plenty to deal with already, but another part of him salivated at the new challenge before him and the level of defense the V’kit’no’sat had arrayed against them only stoked that drive within him further. Archons craved challenges, and this may have been the largest challenge the galaxy had ever faced…and one the V’kit’no’sat had been working on for 6 million years without solution.
And that made it all the more tempting for Paul to dig his teeth into, but that wasn’t why they were here. They were here to make good on a promise to the Uriti and to deal with the fallout of their heritage. He didn’t know how this was going to go down, but it was something that needed to happen.
Still, he had a bad feeling about this…
7
June 17, 4834
Itium System (Hadarak Zone)
2nd planet
Paul was in the Archon sanctum onboard his ship climbing up a wall in high gravity when Admiral Baeren interrupted him via comm, noting the arrival of a Hadarak in the system. The trailblazer let go of his precarious handholds and floated down through the air at an angle to drop him off at the exit doorway where he then headed straight to the bridge at a modest run, his body relaxing now that he was back in normal gravity.
When he entered the bridge he walked past the numerous work stations that had the command chairs for the Admiral and Paul at the center, though he rarely used his. He preferred to use the more robust battlemap interface that the nearby command nexus offered even for small things, so he walked through his elite bridge crew and into the nook on the far side that put a single wall between him and the others as he walked up onto the shallow pedestal, linking in and getting an active sensor feed directly into his mind.
Holograms popped up as well, though he didn’t need them. He was so good at using the interface that he could pull the holographic feeds and translate them into mental images, though letting the ship’s computer handle that during high stress situations was best and he’d just got in the habit of flicking them on regardless.
And on them was a 215 mile wide Hadarak. Paul had seen images of them before, but now that he was here he got an odd feeling immediately…only to realize it wasn’t him, but the telepathic auras of the nearby Uriti washing over him.
He immediately checked the anti-psionic shields on his ship, finding they were in fact intact, but somehow the Uriti were getting something through.
He got a complex forwarding of the Wranglers’ interface with the Uriti, indicating that they were sending out unbelievably strong emissions that were part telepathic and part something else they’d never seen before, but it was obvious to them all that they were responding to the Hadarak…the question was how?
“What do you make of it?” Kara asked, popping up in front of Paul in hologram.
“They didn’t do this with each other, so it may be something buried deep within their genetic code. I don’t think the Chixzon ever planned on having them meet, so we’re in uncertain waters here.”
“Are we waiting for it to notice us?”
“It already has, if it bothers to passive scan,” Paul said, still interfacing with the Wranglers rather than plugging into the Uriti himself. He needed his mind clear to maintain the naval situation. The V’kit’no’sat were not here at all, unless they had stealth ships present, and he presumed they did, but Mak’to’ran had not come on the final leg to this location. This first contact was Star Force’s responsibility, and the V’kit’no’sat were wisely staying out of it…or so it looked. Paul had to guard against something happening from them, and he couldn’t do that if he was trying to translate Uriti thought himself.
“I’m going in, just in the Excalibur,” he told Kara. “You have the fleet here, I’m taking Bahamut alone. Keep your eyes open.”
“Will do, Cap. Go make us some new friends if you can.”
“I wish,” Paul whispered as he cut the comm with Kara and told Hera-2574, who was on another deck inside the Excalibur, that he wanted only Bahamut to approach first so the Hadarak didn’t get spooked with all 5 Uriti coming towards it. In response he got a lot of gibberish that she was feeding him, mind to mind, with the Uriti behaving oddly. It seemed even they did not know what was happening, other than that they were receiving some type of signal from the Hadarak on an almost subconscious level starting from the moment it arrived…too soon for it to have noticed them.
There was also confusion and a bit of argument between the Uriti that they were letting the Wranglers’ in on, but as soon as Paul’s suggestion/order was transmitted via Hera they seemed to settle, with Bahamut approving and moving ahead to pace the much smaller Excalibur as they both headed in towards the star at a creeping pace as far as the starship was concerned. Bahamut was moving at moderate speed, making a microjump at less than full speed, and Paul guessed that he was taking this in stride rather than running towards the Hadarak like an ignorant youngling.
“Paul,” Hera said with some trepidation in her voice, “something is wrong. Bahamut feels it. The Hadarak are not what they expected.”
“How so?”
“There’s a vibe coming from it, a passive signal I’d guess. Maybe a telepathic medium like an open comm channel that the Chixzon eliminated when they created the Uriti. I’m guessing right now, but whatever it is, it’s bugging the Uriti like fingernails on a chalkboard.”
“They still had chalkboards when you were born?”
“You’re not that much older than me, bub. Plus the metaphor lasted a few centuries longer anyway.”
“Can you feel it?”
“Through them, yes. I don’t think it’s the same thing the Uriti were sending out, unless they’re so sensitive to it that we’re missing it.”
“Starting to regret not bringing Nefron,” Paul noted.
“Yeah, me too. If the Hadarak deploys minions, what do we do?”
“Stay back and let Bahamut handle it. We just need to stay in active telepathic range.”
“Got it. I’ll let him know. He’s agreed to let me listen in.”
“Good. Key in the recorder.”
“I’ve had it running since the Hadarak arrived. So l
ong as he keeps sharing, we’ll have fresh data to study indefinitely.”
What she meant by that, Paul knew, was that they wouldn’t have to rely on Hera’s own memories, which she could transmit to others telepathically, but she wasn’t going to remember everything and even with all the Archons’ mental skills, memories had a way of fuzzing into inaccuracy. The V’kit’no’sat had developed technology to record memories so they could be viewed later, even millennia later, with no degradation. Star Force didn’t use that technology much, but had a few applications tucked away for a rainy day, and studying new behavior by the Uriti was one of them.
It took a few hours to reach low stellar orbit, with Bahamut still registering the odd passive transmission from the Hadarak. When they arrived the Hadarak was not where it had been previously. It was waiting for them at the incoming jumppoint with a swarm of minions around it. They remained stationary until Bahamut slowed enough to engage in telepathic contact without the ‘words’ getting all blurred by the speed compression.
As soon as they started to talk to each other the minions moved forward, heading towards Bahamut slowly…not nearly at combat speeds, but they were definitely moving to engagement range.
“Hera?”
“Standby,” she said, sounding pained.
Paul kept the Excalibur several thousand miles behind Bahamut but off to the side enough that they could get firm sensor readings on the Hadarak without the Uriti’s mass blocking them.
“No, no, no…” Hera said over the open comm, but it was clear she was talking to herself and not Paul. He didn’t interrupt her, studying the sensors as much as possible as the minions got closer to Bahamut and accelerated to attack speeds.
The Uriti took it in stride, not firing until they got to its ‘flesh’ and began ramming it in some cases and attacking with energy weapons in others. Bahamut didn’t tolerate that and cascades of red lightning followed, scraping the kamikaze IDF-laden minions off itself by vaporizing them and all the other minions within a few miles radius in chain-like effects that in some cases reached even further than its proximity defense range by jumping from one minion to another as they were vaporized.
