Star Force: Bahamut (SF86) (Star Force Origin Series)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But he’d gotten what he needed. The templar was on one of their cargo vessels that had been reworked from the inside out to become a mobile fortress. It didn’t have additional weaponry, but was coated with so much armor and packed with additional, often redundant gravity drives, that the cargo carrying capacity had been reduced by 21%. From the exterior it looked like all the others, but this was definitely intended to be his personal, inconspicuous ride around the war zone.

  Paul was sitting in a cushy chair that he hardly ever used, but for the moment he had some reading to do and might as well sit here to do it rather than standing in the command nexus or sitting at his terminal a few meters away. He’d already skimmed the information previously, but this time he was going to go through it line by line, in Li’vorkrachnika, and not rely on the translation programs which could occasionally make a mistake.

  The full plans and history of the deal with the Trinx were spelled out, as well as the timetable for technology ‘payments.’ It galled him that these bastards had been feeding them tech all this time, no matter what their reasons. This wasn’t so much an emergency panic as it was a complete disregard for the wellbeing of others. The Trinx and their allies were far superior to the lizards and the payment schedule wasn’t going to have them catching up in a very long time, and it seemed that so long as their priority, being the Uriti, was met they didn’t give a damn what happened to everyone else.

  The threat of the Uriti was real and significant, but Riley was right. After all these years the economies of these races could have been regeared into production necessary to supply the equipment they needed to combat the Uriti minions in sufficient numbers…but why do that when they had a much cheaper and easier method of obtaining what they needed? And with the lizards’ disregard for their own people they had an unending supply of suicide-willing troops to trade away.

  What was important now was that they got no more tech from them. The next payment was due in two years…a modification to sensors that would upgrade their range and response time. Following that could come a specialized missile suited for ship to ship combat, then yet another shield upgrade. On and on the list went, apparently hammered out long ago, and extending some 5,483 years in length. After that they’d either have found a solution to the problem or have to renegotiate another contract…but at that time the lizards would be so damn strong it wouldn’t have mattered.

  All of the lizards’ tech upgrades in recent years were on this list…all of them. They hadn’t created a single improvement on their own in all that time, or stolen one from someone else since the Kvash plasma streamers. They were relying on the Trinx and this deal to feed them what they needed. No wonder they wanted to play for time and stall Star Force’s advance. The longer it took the more tech they’d get, so why push the issue with a massive invasion of the ADZ?

  All this time he’d wondered why the lizards were doing what they were doing, and this little tidbit brought nearly everything into crystal clarity. This deal was the cornerstone of their plans for galactic conquest going forward, and it was no wonder they were punching the Skarrons in the nose and literally daring them to come out and stomp on them. More than the internal Skarron conflicts with their Consortium, it was the knowledge that these upgrades were coming that was going to turn their seemingly suicidal charge to their favor.

  When it looked like they were outmatched and going to get the axe coming down on them soon enough, all they had to do was not cross that line and hold onto the massive gains they’d made into Skarron territory and digest them for a while until more upgrades kicked in, then before the Skarrons realized what was happening they’d be pouring over their borders and a lot harder to repel than they’d thought.

  And even if the lizards were pushed back, as time went on they’d get stronger and stronger and the war of attrition would swing in their advantage. Damn them, this was so clever and devious that he was a bit envious. Star Force was the main technological threat to them, so they pivoted to attack the huge empire that was less of a challenge ship for ship. Neutralize the more toxic one and let them chew away at one piece of your territory while you knock off the much bigger one in a massive play for time.

  Paul was beginning to think the lizards now never intended to come after Star Force, simply keeping them at bay with as many sacrifices as necessary while they moved their capitol elsewhere and far away from his encroaching invasion forces.

  Unfortunately its location wasn’t in the ship’s database, but a navigational map was. No other ship had one this filled out, and while it didn’t give strength or population numbers, it did give the location of every system the lizards currently held…or at least at the time this ship’s map was updated.

  They’d spread farther than either Star Force or the Voku had estimated…including sending small startup colonies beyond their contiguous borders and off into very distant regions to begin growing isolated empires thousands of lightyears away. Those were noted as being very outdated, with the most recent one being 22 years old, but two of them were actually behind Star Force lines and beyond the Voku, out past what was referred to as the expanded region, or even the backwater region which was dotted with map references and little data whatsoever.

  The lizards had leapfrogged it all and sent ships on ahead to plant the seeds and begin growing new worlds far from Star Force’s knowledge, far from the Skarrons and everyone else that knew about them.

  Paul was going to make sure they sent some of their own assets that deep on a lizard hunt. They couldn’t let these guys get another foothold on a weak region where they’d have next to no resistance. At least that’s what he assumed. Star Force didn’t have any information that far out and there could be stronger factions, but if the lizards had set up camp and expanded out to dozens of systems in each of the two ‘seeds’ then they hadn’t attracted much attention yet and wouldn’t if they were smart about it.

  No, Star Force had to go hunt them down and do it now before they sent more seeds out even further away. It was curious though, how…

  Paul’s question was answered a moment later when he found a listing of trade routes the lizards were using, and all the seeds were lined up on them. They weren’t sending these rogue civilizations out to operate on their own, they still wanted command and control of them, thus they were restricting them to lines of slow, but workable communication.

  Maybe that was more paranoia on their part, for if this was Star Force’s work he would have put the lizards into ships and told them to run in every direction possible and find a nice quiet corner of the galaxy to spread into then meet up in a few thousand years for a reunion and to see who made it, then they could start consolidating power and taking over everything in between.

  That would be a nightmare, but then again they couldn’t ship out the tech upgrades if they didn’t know where everybody was at either. The lizards were taking a clever strategy here, and it was just via a stroke of luck that Paul happened onto a lizard fleet that wasn’t running or dying and that happened to contain a templar with his personal records.

  But why weren’t the lizards running or fighting? They thought they were protected by the other races? Or was this deal so important to them that they were willing to see how this played out before deciding what action to take.

  But then maybe this had been discussed before. In the records, the two systems that the lizards had devoted to the construction of ships and the growth of troops to supply to the anti-Uriti alliance were detailed as well as their agreement with the Trinx that those locations would be protected against outside influence. That influence would most likely be Star Force, so the Trinx and maybe these other races were already willing to put themselves in between Paul’s advancing fleets and the lizards.

  How that would have played out he wasn’t sure. Would the Trinx have talked or just bluffed? They didn’t have the numbers to fight Star Force given their small territory no matter how advanced their tech was, and Paul was fairly sure they weren’t all
that far ahead of Star Force. Maybe having gone down a different developmental tract, but in a fight he didn’t think his drone fleet would be that badly outmatched ship to ship.

  Would they have fought to protect the lizards? Of course they would. They’re willing to sell out everyone else to get their supply of disposable troops, so why wouldn’t they be willing to fight to protect them?

  But then, they’d be losing their own ships in the process and they had to have at least an inkling how powerful Star Force was. Maybe they were simply going to impose themselves in between the two sides and make Star Force engage them. These records didn’t specify, but it was clear that the Trinx were responsible for the protection of those two systems.

  The other eight races weren’t even mentioned in most of the records. It seemed they’d only emerged once this Uriti was discovered. The Trinx had given them information about probably locations and asked/demanded that they search for it as an addendum to their deal and to insure that this one, if it existed, didn’t get free like the other had when the lizards had stumbled onto it. There was no additional payment mentioned for the search, so Paul assumed it had been an ultimatum.

  But the lizards were still here and apparently included in the search parties. That hadn’t been specified in the records, and only a very small amount of information on the other 8 races were included, all of which had been taken from comm intercepts and observations. They hadn’t gone to the curtesy of even introducing themselves. The lizards were apparently the Trinx’s pet project, and the big boys had come in to defend the system when the Uriti had been found and were tolerating them by all by ignoring their presence.

  That was probably why the Yisv didn’t think that removing the lizards from the planet was a big deal.

  The templar here had been assigned to this search project and had been down to the planet on numerous occasions, based off his person notes which were structured as reports that would be sent back to the other templars via courier ship. Too bad he wasn’t still going down, else Paul might be able to snag him during transit. He had a feeling he’d be a little hesitant to slit his own throat, but a stun pulse pumped into the hull of a kirby or slightly larger transport should be able to disable everyone inside. No chance of that with a cruiser or any ship even remotely that large.

  Too bad Kara wasn’t here. She might have a chance of sneaking onboard and grabbing him before anyone was the wiser. If she could he wouldn’t give a damn about the Trinx or their buddies. He’d get to that ship and extricate the bastard no matter how many drones he had to lose in the process.

  But would these allies fight to protect this lizard fleet at all given Riley’s promise of a solution to their gigantic problem? Maybe, maybe not. The lizards were still supplying the troops they needed and so far, as had been stated, all Riley had given was a promise with no proof.

  It was going to be some time before a ship got back from Earth, and until then Paul was just going to have to burn time on workouts in the sanctum and pilfering through the templar’s records. There was a lot here, but a good chunk of it was mundane gibberish that apparently was important within the templar ranks. He didn’t get the feeling that they were a separate race within a race, but rather an elite group of leaders that had as many numbers as was needed for their tasks…though they did seem to be highly interactive with each other socially, which was the total opposite of the mastermind interrelations, which didn’t exist at all.

  Also in these records were the visuals of the other Uriti that had broken free of its bonds and the lizards’ pathetic attempts to destroy it. From those records they’d been able to confirm that it was Namishta, the 78th Uriti produced, and one that had been lost well over a quarter of the distance around the galactic spiral.

  That suggested to Paul one of two things…either this Uriti had traveled on its own after the Chixzon lost it, or those who had captured it had moved it a great distance in order to hide its location. The prison that it had been held within was a giant shell that the lizards had breached, inside of which held the apparatus to keep sedate and feed the beast, for starving it to death wasn’t an option. If it felt any pain, any sense of emergency, or even the slightest physical stimulus it would begin to wake, so the only way to keep it still was to keep it in pristine condition and the shell-like prison was also a factory digging out material from the planetary core to feed it indefinitely.

  This prison facility was expected to be the same, but the dimensions were different. Same construction but a different size, which made sense, given that all of the Uriti were different size and form. The one on the planet below had yet to be identified, but if spacing held uniform within these prisons, Paul narrowed its identity down to some 23 Uriti, though there would be no way of knowing for sure until someone went inside and got a look at it, for sensor scans couldn’t penetrate the shell.

  Paul and Riley had already discussed that, with the other trailblazer insisting that he’d be the one to go have a look while Paul stayed up here to do what was needed if his brother suffered some catastrophe from being in such close proximity to that large of a telepathic presence.

  Paul didn’t think that would be an issue if other non-telepathic races could stand it, for his mind was far more hardy. He guessed these Yisv were telepathy sensitive, meaning they could see but not shut their ‘third eye’ to what was around them. Zen’zat could, which was why Riley wasn’t too concerned.

  But one of them had to stay up here just in case, and after all, Paul was ‘The Admiral.’

  Yet another example of why he occasionally hated that nickname, because he really wanted to go down and see this thing in person.

  8

  July 8, 3254

  Unnamed System

  (Uriti/Hamoriti location)

  Riley’s dropship landed him on a lizard-built pad over the Uriti’s location, but none of the scaly green bastards were around, either in vision or telepathic range. The massive presence that was the buried beast was ever present now, but not as intense as Riley had thought. He has having no difficulty whatsoever as he walked through the atmospheric containment field and off the boarding ramp in his bright pink armor along with a pair of flanking Knights that each stood a head taller than him. They wore their bright white armor, bracketing him as they walked towards the alien races waiting for them on the far side of the pad, inside a breathable pocket of atmosphere.

  As stated, the Yisv were not present, but the other eight races were with numerous team members here and everywhere else to either offer support or security, Riley wasn’t sure which, for a lot of them were unarmed. Maybe they’d replaced the lizards in support functions, but then that asked the question what exactly had the lizards built that needed to be maintained?

  The answer was nothing. Which meant that all these people were either here sightseeing or they wanted to outnumber the Humans.

  “Welcome,” the cyborg representative in the small group that met them offered, with his words being translated directly now that they’d exchanged language files and Riley’s armor had been updated with all native linguistics that these races possessed, including the Ancient language that they typically used with each other. “The aperture is now open. The Oracle is inside and waiting.”

  “Let’s go,” Riley said, not wanting to stand around and talk.

  “Are you being adversely affected?” the Sety asked.

  “Not yet. Just a big telepathic humming that is easy enough to shut out.”

  “If that changes let us know,” the Trinx added as it turned and began walking into the entry cupola behind them. Once inside the group was lowered down through the structure and into the caverns that had been dug around the Uriti by the lizards. When Riley and the Knights came out they found themselves on a large plaza with a huge red wall covered with a lattice of structural supports that were keeping the ceiling from caving in on the well-lit floor filled with various open air compartments that looked to be set up for a mixture of research and supply.

&
nbsp; “What does the color denote?” Riley asked.

  “We do not know,” the cyborg answered. “Some are the same, others different. There is no correlation that we have discovered. The aperture is up there,” it said, pointing into the ceiling along the far right section where there was a large staircase that wrapped around what looked like another lift.

  “How did they find this one?”

  “There is a signal the Ancients left to locate them. It requires close proximity, but overhead flights beaming the transmission down into the surface revealed its approximate location. Digging efforts were then undertaken, but the Li’vorkrachnika were not aware of the aperture’s location until we revealed it to them. They began digging before we arrived, else we would have tunneled straight to it.”

  “You told them to wait?”

  “Not specifically, but after they accidentally woke the other one we wrongly assumed they wouldn’t be so reckless. Fortunately they did not attempt to force entry, merely excavated this site to give us physical access to the shell,” the cyborg explained as they walked.

  There was no further talking until they got to the lift, whereupon the tanky Breti finally asked a question as the extraneous members of their party stayed behind and only one of each race entered along with Riley and his two Knights.

  “How were these Chixzon overcome?”

  “They had put too much faith in the Uriti. When they were neutralized they were hunted down to their extinction and did not have enough alternative means of waging war sufficient to ward off those they had intimidated into submission.”

  “They leveraged other races with the threat alone?”