by Aer-ki Jyr
1
August 2, 128482
Szequat System (Voku Capitol, Zak’de’ron Territory)
Nergthen
The clandestine Zak’de’ron ship arrived in the Voku system not under cloak. That was highly irregular, and by the time it landed on Nergthen and the Zak’de’ron inside made his way into the restricted chambers where the blue dragon that held dominion here was waiting slightly irritated.
“Why did you disregard secrecy?” he demanded as the slightly smaller yellow Zak’de’ron flapped his wings momentarily before tucking them back in alongside his body again.
“Secrecy is irrelevant. An accord has been reached with the V’kit’no’sat and Star Force. We will fight the Hadarak in parallel and all our territories have been sanctioned. The V’kit’no’sat will not attack us. The time of our hiding is finally over.”
The blue dragon flinched, drawing his head and neck back suddenly as his eyes widened. “What has happened?”
“The threat of the Hadarak is so great that the V’kit’no’sat decided we were of lesser importance, and Zeno’dor agreed. If we cannot stop the Hadarak, we will all be killed, and what good is ruling a galaxy devoid of inhabitation? It was decided that we would fight for our survival rather than trying to hide in our Hives between the stars. I agree wholeheartedly, and was sent to inform you that we are now going to war. The Voku are required for immediate deployment to the Core.”
The blue dragon, recovering from his surprise, stood up on his rear legs for a moment, then let his forelegs smash down on the ground with an echoing thud that banished any notion of passivity from the empty chamber.
“Finally!” he said, walking past the yellow dragon and giving him a friendly head butt. “Do we have a plan for victory?”
“No. We face the impossible, and our Uriti are becoming unreliable enough that we have traded them to Star Force in exchange for a system in the Far Rim and enough material to build a second Itaru.”
“They agreed?” he asked, stopping and twisting his long neck around to look back.
“They did. They want them for a variety of reasons, and I do not think if they realized their current condition they would argue otherwise.”
“How then are we to fight the Hadarak?”
“The same way we have always done. With blood. The V’kit’no’sat and Star Force are focusing on the minions, but we know it is the Hadarak that must be destroyed. We are going to hunt down the small ones, and we are going to need massive fleets to do it. We need the Voku and all the others to mobilize immediately. Leave behind only enough for prudent defense. The rest must rally to war.”
“And so they will. Come with me,” the blue dragon said, walking to the center of the chamber then spreading his wings and flapping hard as he launched himself into the air and up into the distant rooftop that pulled back on his mental command. It led to a tunnel that connected into the planet’s atmosphere, and it was a path he had never taken before due to his need to stay hidden even amongst the Voku.
But not today. He flew out and up into the sky, with the yellow dragon following, and the pair both found tall buildings to perch on as they telepathically sent out a broadcasts to all Voku within a 200+ mile range in the planet’s largest city.
The time for war has come. The Hadarak threaten the galaxy and the Voku must rally to our aid along with the rest of our servants. No longer will we hide in the shadows. Today, we reassert our place in the galaxy and reclaim the name that has been hidden from your view. You know us as ‘The Elders’, but our true name is Zak’de’ron. We hold the authority of dominion over this galaxy, and that dominion is being challenged by the Hadarak in the Deep Core. They intend to slowly move out, destroying all life in the galaxy system by system with no exceptions. We will meet these Hadarak in combat, and we will kill many, but we will also take massive losses. The Hadarak are a threat we have known of since before we took you under our care. They are not to be underestimated.
This is a war that has been in the making beyond your time, and now it is unavoidable. Either we destroy the Hadarak or they will destroy us. The time for patience is over. We go to war, and it will be a war measured in millennia, but it must begin now or the Hadarak will gain advantage in every system they take. We can no longer co-inhabit this galaxy. Either they fall, or we do. So I call upon the oaths you swore, and the investment we made in the Voku will now be repaid. Many of you will die, but you will die in combat against the enemy. If we fail and they advance this far out into the galaxy, then we are all doomed. We will meet them in the Core and decide the fate of the galaxy there rather than wait for them to come here and assault your worlds.
Rally now. To victory or to death, for there are no other paths. And in order for us to obtain victory, we must fight together. The Voku must fight with the other servants of the Zak’de’ron that you do not know exist, but all will know soon. We are no longer hiding our power, for without it, the galaxy is doomed. Even Star Force and the V’kit’no’sat recognize this, and they have agreed to fight at our side as well. All must stand against the Hadarak and slow their advance, but it is up to us to make the kills and secure victory, for none else have the power to do so.
The Zak’de’ron will lead, you will follow, and together we will find a path to victory, the yellow dragon finished, with the pair having taken turns speaking, then both raised their heads to the sky and breathed their blue plasma fire up into two vertical plumes that could be seen for miles around, but the following ‘sonic’ battle call that went out telepathically chilled all Voku that heard it to the bone, underscoring the power of the Zak’de’ron that were now demanding their assistance.
It had the desired effect, and as orders were already being transmitted out to the Voku leaders and implemented, the entire population of the Voku empire took on a fervor never before seen. They had been waiting patiently for so long for a call to action, and now they not only had one, but they were being called upon to help the Zak’de’ron fight a war for the fate of the galaxy!
It spread like a virus out from the capitol city, then across the entire planet, system, and then out across their comm grid to all Voku planets. And as one, the Voku answered the Elders’ call without reservation.
Nim-roc was in one of the nearby buildings when the two Elders came outside and addressed the Voku. When he heard their new mission for his race he headed straight to the nearest military base where he submitted his application for reenlistment. He had served for more than 40 years before leaving to pursue business opportunities as a civilian, but there was no way he was going to sit on the sidelines when the Elders issued a call for war.
And he wasn’t the only one. There was a huge crowd outside the military base when he got there, and they were all there to reenlist. His first military assignment hadn’t been voluntary, for he had been bred specifically for that purpose, but once his initial duty was completed he was given the freedom to choose his path and he had chosen to continue in military service for a while longer before leaving it.
That was why the military had no recruitment center for him to go to now. Other races did, but the Voku had a duty upon birth that kept the military ranks full. Now though, that wasn’t going to be enough, and it looked like nearly all pervious military personnel were coming back to heed the Elders’ call.
Nim-roc stood outside for 6 hours, two of which were in rain, before the line finally led him to the entry point and he was accepted in for processing. Given the fact that he had served longer than most did, his record had more gravitas to it and he was pushed up the queue and got assigned a new unit within 30 minutes.
There was no time to say goodbye or any other social sentiments. As soon as he got assigned he was shipped off to the location his unit was located and he was inte
grated immediately into the infantry ranks, sized up for new equipment, and got back into training mode over the following days as his unit swelled by more than 20%. It took 6 weeks before they finally had a transport to load on, then they left the system for where nobody knew other than the fact they were headed for the Galactic Core and it was going to take them nearly a year to get there, since they couldn’t use the Star Force Grid Point system.
During that time Nim-roc and the other returnees trained heavily onboard the Voku conglomerates, picking up some of the fitness they had lost while studying the Hadarak in detail. They were a terrifying enemy, and not just the planet-sized ones. The army of minions was what he and the other infantry were going to be fighting, and they were both formidable and odd, coming in all sizes and shapes. Some were quick and deadly, others slow and armored. Some of them also came equipped with poison weapons, with even a tiny amount getting onto your skin resulting in extreme pain and eventual death if not treated with the Elders…correction, Zak’de’ron technology.
But they could be killed with coordination, meaning he and the other Voku were going to have to work in groups to take them down quickly and effectively. One on one would not work well enough to deal with the swarm-like numbers that exceeded anything the Voku had ever faced before, including the Li’vorkrachnika long, long ago.
The Hadarak scared him, but it wasn’t a ‘run away’ scared. It was a fear of not being able to accomplish his mission and live to assist with the second. He knew many of them would die, but if they didn’t fight the Hadarak here and now then everyone in the galaxy would eventually be killed…and knowing that, he and others much preferred fighting for a chance of victory rather than waiting for their eventual end to come.
The convoy his transport was in traveled from system to system, taking advantage of several black hole routes that the V’kit’no’sat had opened up to them, but before they got to the Hadarak war zone his conglomerate merged with several others and a shifting of personnel occurred. He moved to the section assigned to him, then new conglomerates formed and he found himself in one assigned to naval combat along with a handful of other infantry assigned as ship’s guards, for there were recent reports of naval minions impacting and infesting ships with boarding parties.
He didn’t know how they could do that to a Voku vessel that could reorganize its interior corridors at will, but if this is where the Elders wanted him, then so be it. Their name might be Zak’de’ron, but they were the same Elders he had served from a distance his entire 1302 year life, and now that he was literally only a few ships away from one of the Zak’de’ron vessels filled with Elders and about to go to war with them…there wasn’t any other place he wanted to be. He was literally born for this, even if his personal skillset might not come into play when the conglomerate eventually went into battle.
The convoy split up a few dozen jumps prior to entering the Hadarak War Zone, leaving only a few thousand conglomerates along with his, but a couple weeks later they entered a system and rendezvoused with two other races’ fleets that he now knew were the Zatarin and Djarm. They were two of the more powerful races that also served the Zak’de’ron, though there were thousands now made public knowledge. Nim-roc had memorized them all, and the Zatarin and Djarm fleets were both larger than his Voku convoy.
They waited in this system together for more than month until three more races and two more Voku and Djarm convoys arrived. Then that massive fleet began to jump out in as close spacing as Nim-roc had ever seen. His conglomerate was in the third quarter of the now combined convoy, and when they got to the next system and he saw on the external sensors that were available for all crew to watch…his jaw dropped.
There were 200 times the number of ships than they were bringing, all clustered together with one active outgoing jumppoint. There were 382 different Zak’de’ron servant races and some 78 different Elders ships here scattered amongst them.
It took forever for his conglomerate to get into its jump position, then it launched itself across the stars alongside both large and small ships from races he’d never heard of prior to this war. They coasted together then exited in another system that was merely a pass through, jumping out from the other side of the star and continuing on.
That passed through 5 more systems, then as they approached the next one the battle warning sounded throughout the ship and Nim-roc rushed from his downtime training to get geared up and ready to repel boarders in the full body armor recently created for the Voku infantry. Shield generators alone would not work against minions that could poison you with a single touch, so now he was encased in a transforming hard carapace just as black as his natural skin.
It felt bulky, but still allowed him 88% mobility…and that was far preferable to collapsing in a pile of pain and becoming totally useless. The rest of the conglomerate crew did not have the armor, for they had tasks to accomplish onboard. Only the infantry had it, and they were now running to strategic positions around the ship that would allow them to enter transit tubes that could deposit them anywhere in the conglomerate within seconds.
From one of those waiting stations he watched the exterior sensors as they finished up their coast phase and braked entering the destination system. Fear shot icy tendrils through his body as he saw not one, not two, but three Hadarak in the system. All were ‘small,’ with two tier 1s and a single tier 2, but they were massive lifeforms beyond his imagining and they had huge swarms of minions escorting them as one was actively engaged in combat against a Zak’de’ron/Servant combined fleet already numbering over 500,000 vessels…though the debris from over 1.5 million were shown scattered across the system and largely unrecognizable had it not been for the battle records the entire combined fleet was sharing with each other.
Then he saw the corpse of a 4th Hadarak in near the star. It wasn’t active and had no minions with it, looking like a small asteroid field made up of large rocks. Another of the tier 1s was showing heavy damage and currently on retreat to the star with warships following and shooting it repeatedly. It had no minion swarm to guard it and the ships were not getting close enough to be affected by the tentacles or grapple fields, meaning they were getting in free shots, but it was so massive and weapon resistant that there was no way they were going to be able to kill it before it made it to the safety of the depths of the star where it could somehow heal in that maelstrom of stellar plasma.
The other two Hadarak were currently engaged, one at another jumppoint that had incoming minions, all warship class, arriving from elsewhere. They were pouring in and adding to the skirmishers even as the Zak’de’ron’s reinforcements were pouring in to aid them.
The scale of combat going on was more than Nim-roc’s mind could comprehend. This was beyond anything he or the others had anticipated, and the sheer amount of destruction made it clear that they were probably not going to survive this fight, but that their deaths would in fact be accomplishing something.
The Zak’de’ron could kill the Hadarak, and if this was the price that had to be paid to fulfill their oaths to the Elders, then so be it. Before now he hadn’t thought it was possible to even kill one of the massive monsters, and the Elders were giving them the ability to do so, which meant that these Hadarak would never reach Voku territory if they died here first.
Nim-roc heard a little chattering, and he looked down to see what it was…finding it was his hand armor shaking and ticking on his thigh. He pulled his arm away an inch, then his attention was drawn back to the sensors and battle reports as his conglomerate began racing towards the tier 2 Hadarak that was surrounded by minions and beyond that a massive Zak’de’ron fleet augmented with far more Servant vessels…some of which had been caught by the Hadarak and were in the process of being crushed to death by the tendrils or pulled down to the surface where the grapple fields were pinning them to the Hadarak and smashed by the pressure or, in the case of the stronger ships, held there until a tentacle was free to arch over and crush them with a single, slow mov
ing hit.
And it was into that insanity that his conglomerate raced, as did the other Voku and servant races, without hesitation. If the Elders were personally fighting these monsters, then they would stand with them, and die with them if need be, for they’d been told that victory would require a bloody path.
And if his blood could spare an Elder from death, there could be no more honorable an end for a servant of the Zak’de’ron.
2
June 2, 128483
Kong Island System (Uriti Preserve #4)
Low Stellar Orbit
Niolla-808 was on system-watch onboard her command ship, along with two other Wranglers in their ships forming a triangle around the massive blue star that currently had 8 Uriti within it. Only one ship would make the telepathic range sketchy from one side to the other, so this star had to have 3 on duty at a minimum, and more when the Uriti moved out to other parts of the system.
But that wasn’t a stretch, for there were over 400 wranglers here and they took turns to give each other time to train and sleep. Niolla was the eldest of those here, but she had come late to the Wranglers only 12,937 years ago. Her skills were decent with the interlink, but the minds of the Uriti were still odd to her and she doubted that would ever change. They were people, but their thought processes occurred in brains larger than starships in some cases, making them as different from her as she was from a hamster…but since they were all people, there were similarities to start building upon. The problem was, it was the inferior Humans doing the contact and translation work.
But Niolla had learned that the superiority of the Uriti wasn’t the same superiority that the Archons had achieved. She was far beyond the Uriti in terms of movement and accomplishment, for they just floated in space and moved around lazily before Star Force had gotten to them, but even now they were lethargic compared to Archons and their superiority was more due to their size and the environment in which they lived, but it was superiority of a form and trying to understand something bigger was far harder than trying to see from the viewpoint of one smaller.
