by Aer-ki Jyr
There were glimpses of ships and troops, all in large number, but the trailblazers couldn’t isolate anything in particular. This Skarron was infantry, tasked with leading a Hobbit unit on skirmishing missions. It wasn’t the lowest ranking position, but it had zero strategic knowledge of the war aside from what was common knowledge amongst their troops.
That common knowledge was where Aaron and Randy got their most useful information, spread over several hours of interrogation. This particular Skarron had been born far from here, deeper into the core, but still on one of their outlying, mid-level worlds. It was highly urbanized, with grassy plains covering the remainder of the dry planet. The Skarron structures were oblong shaped, with internal corridors more akin to blood vessels than hallways. The architecture had a very biological feel to it, though it was definitely technological.
This Skarron had departed from that world long ago, having been moved around their frontier worlds fighting in a number of small wars, all of which were routs. This attack had been deemed of higher priority, linked in to the major expansion underway against another race that both Aaron and Randy agreed was the Protovic, though the name didn’t translate. What this Skarron knew was that a large power in the region had gutted itself in a war against another, allowing an opening for the Skarron empire to expand into the surrounding region, with the Protovic being the strongest power there, on which they were going to base their annexation force.
It seemed the Skarrons only sent as many troops as they deemed necessary, while having more in reserve should they be needed. That was a red flag for the trailblazers, but it only got worse the more deeply they delved into the alien’s memories. The Protovic regional expansion on the part of the Skarrons was, as far as this one was concerned, a minor affair given the total military efforts of their empire, which was expanding on multiple fronts. This rimward expansion was deemed useful, but the major action was occurring elsewhere.
Fighting against opponents that could at least partially defend themselves had spurred this one to great hopes, both of advancing within the Skarron hierarchy and finally being able to test its skills, something its former opponents had been ill-equipped to manage. At the moment it was cursing its luck and their intelligence, for they hadn’t expected such a large orbital bombardment capability. Normally that was a means of attack closed off to their opponents, and intentionally so, for they knew well the dangers of it. Someone had badly anticipated the Human response, else they would have had more walkers on the ground to counter the threat of the starships.
It seemed the Skarrons also weren’t used to other races using rail guns, though they themselves had them. Plasma was by far the most typical weapon they encountered, with missiles making up the orbital bombardment threat in most cases, along with the occasional kamikaze run.
Aaron and Randy sorted through a lot of the Skarron’s assessments, most of which came in the form of remembered emotions. What had happened on Ida had been a surprise, given the Skarrons’ normal domination over the rimward races. They hadn’t expected to get beaten, bringing with them what they thought had been sufficient to take and hold the planet as reinforcements drifted in through the jumplanes.
The Protovic worlds already taken were considered ‘secure’ despite the ongoing fighting, with Star Force’s ability to take out some of their walkers being a concern. That small danger was what had prompted this attack far ahead of schedule. In fact, the Skarrons probably wouldn’t have come this far out in the near future, having a great deal of territory to digest from their recent conquests.
With that revelation came the Skarron’s memories of what their race typically did with conquered worlds. Those of value they’d keep, those that weren’t they’d ransack and destroy. Ida was somewhere in between, deemed unsuitable for colonization but useful as far as natural resources. The Skarrons were going to keep it as a staging base after exterminating the local ‘infestations’ as they considered the Kiritak and Humans to be.
The same thing was happening over hundreds of star systems between Beta Region and the Skarron’s coreward territory. Some races they ignored, mostly those without space travel, but anything even resembling strength had to be dealt with. The Skarrons, like nearly every other race Star Force had come across, didn’t possess every star system within their borders, but they did make sure none of the unwanted systems could harm them, and regularly patrolled the ‘dead’ regions to make sure that none arose or slipped in uninvited.
That pacification was what was occurring in the area past Beta Region, with the bulk of this expansion army heading for the Protovic. Once they secured that area they’d backfill, hitting other regions around the thin tendril of conquered systems they’d carved out from their core territory, some of which would bring them into conflict with what remained of the Nestafar, but at the moment the Skarrons weren’t concerned with that. The Protovic were the main priority. The others could wait, so long as they didn’t poke the tiger.
Which is what Star Force had done by coming to their allies’ aid. The Skarrons didn’t want to encourage that sort of thinking, intending to intimidate the Humans by metaphorically bloodying their nose…only it hadn’t happened the way they thought it would.
This Skarron assumed the Star Force victory here would draw more armies and fleets out to avenge the loss, though it knew that would not occur in time for it to be rescued. It was scared, because it didn’t know what they were going to do to it, and was wishing for a way it could die fighting, fearing it might be tortured or experimented upon.
That Aaron and Randy could sympathize with, wanting to go down fighting, but neither this Skarron nor any of the other handful of prisoners they’d taken from the three Skarron races were going to be killed. Star Force engineers had been putting together a prison facility to match the larger race’s physiology, meaning that this Skarron and his buddies were going to be their guests indefinitely…and when they finally cracked the language barrier they were going to be having lots of Ikrid chats.
Randy knew that the language issue would probably be solved by obtaining a translation from one of the races who already had contact with the Skarrons, and he’d put out word long ago that Star Force was interested in linguistic databases from any race they’d yet to collect, and would be willing to pay a hefty sum for it. That had brought a considerable amount of data to him, along with spreading the word that Star Force would pay for information, which spurred many entrepreneurs to pass through one of their systems offering up whatever they thought might interest the Humans, hoping to make some quick profit by sharing knowledge they already possessed.
But to date not much had come back to them about the Skarrons, and now Randy was beginning to understand why. It took a long time to get a feel for how this alien thought, but eventually he and Aaron were able to get a scale map of their territory, as this one remembered it. At first they thought they were interpreting it wrong, but with several different memory corroborations they were forced to admit that the Skarrons were a much larger threat than anyone knew.
Their territory was spread out through the local region of the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy. Earth, Star Force territory, and the territory of the entire Alliance and lizards combined only made up a tiny piece of the Orion arm, which was outside the Sagittarius arm and separated by a thinner region of star systems which was often thought of as a gap, though that wasn’t technically true.
This Skarron thought of it that way, noting that there were few useful systems there and that their empire usually skipped across it to their Orion Arm colonies. That was where this one had been born, but most of the Skarron empire was in Sagittarius spanning 10,000 lightyears in width and some 6-8 thousand in reach coming out from the barrier towards the core.
That barrier was where the Skarrons wouldn’t expand. It was a no-go region with a powerful enemy lurking on the other side. The Skarrons wanted to keep a buffer region between it and them, for as vast and powerful as their empire was, they were completely outma
tched by those in the core. Fortunately, they’d learned if they kept their distance they’d be left alone, so the Skarrons’ territorial expansions were focused along the length of the Sagittarius Arm and out into Orion.
Both revelations floored Aaron and Randy. Star Force’s territory, reaching from Alpha Region to Beta, was around 200 lightyears in width. The thickness of the galaxy was around 1,000 and Star Force’s mapping expeditions hadn’t even come close to either the upper or lower boundary. The sheer volume of the region the Skarrons apparently held was mild boggling, making the lizards’ territory look inconsequential in comparison.
The trailblazers knew there was no way the Skarrons controlled even 1/100th of the systems in that area, given the density of the Sagittarius arm, which this Skarron’s memories confirmed, but it left them as the big dogs over a very wide expanse…whom Star Force had just attracted the attention of, first by aiding the Protovic, and now by rebuffing their first strike.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The Skarrons didn’t matter, as ridiculous as that sounded, and after several confirmations were made Aaron slid off the table, breaking his Ikrid link with both the Skarron and Randy, and hurried out into the hallway.
Randy followed him out, seeing his friend leaning his head against the wall and taking some long breaths. He, on the other hand, was still numb inside, but Aaron’s obvious emotion was eating away at his constraints. Slowly the dread filled him, along with a wave of helplessness that he immediately clamped down on as he punched the wall in frustration.
“So much for them being dead,” Aaron commented.
“We knew they weren’t,” Randy said, turning and leaning his back against the wall as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “It feels like day 1 all over again.”
“When Davis told us?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too,” Aaron agreed. “Now that we’ve got some context to work with, I don’t think I fully understood how screwed we are.”
“If they find us,” Randy countered. “But yeah, I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“About the Skarrons or the V’kit’no’sat?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know…play for time.”
“We’re fighting on three fronts now,” Aaron reminded him. “And we don’t have the ships to do much more unless we strip the Core Region.”
“I know. The Kiritak resource base was the first piece in the puzzle, but who knows how much that’s been damaged. Even when we rebuild, who knows when and where the Skarrons are going to hit us next.”
“We need a game plan,” Aaron insisted. “Our current playbook just became outdated.”
“How much attention do you think this has earned us?”
“If Dan follows up and boots the Skarrons out of the rest of our systems, I doubt they’ll ignore it. Question is how many fleets they’re willing to devote to this frontier campaign. Long term, I think they’ll come for us. I got the feeling from that one that the Skarrons don’t take well to losing.”
“Who does?”
“They’re coming,” Aaron insisted. “Just a matter of when, where, and how many of them.”
“Still feel like hitting them back?”
“No…yes.”
“Well that helps, though I’m feeling the same way.”
“No, I mean we need time to build. Hitting them back, even if we could find one of their worlds, would just spur a quicker reaction.”
“Agreed.”
“But we do know where they are now, and with the relief fleet we’ve got way more ships here than we’ll need to defend the system…I hope.”
“Happy hunting,” Randy said, a bit envious.
Aaron looked at him. “You’re ok with this?”
“If we’re going to survive we need allies. The Protovic fleet can’t handle their walkers once they get to ground, but we can. We save them they help us, if by only remaining another target for the Skarrons to go after. And it offers us some payback.”
“Tell me how many ships you need, and don’t skimp. I’ll take what’s left and head out tomorrow.”
Randy nodded in full agreement, then pushed off from the wall and headed down the hallway. “Let’s start running the numbers.”
5
September 27, 2467
Prolio System
HTC
When Jason returned to his quarters onboard the seda orbiting the Star Force Calavari planet post workout, he checked the comm grid to see what had come through the relay system over the past 9 hours. There were several message packets from Sol and Epsilon Eridani, as was usual, for they pumped out status updates through the grid multiple times per day, but a few others had come in from other systems, including a priority update on the trailblazer-only boards. The title of which read:
V’KIT’NO’SAT LOCATED
Jason opened it immediately and poured through the update from Randy concerning what information he and Aaron had gotten from a Skarron prisoner.
He took a moment to sit quietly and think upon finishing the reading, something Jason rarely did. Normally his mind was working multiple threads simultaneously, with him flipping back and forth between them like he was changing channels on a vid screen. Right now there was no changing, nor planning, nor reacting. He just soaked it in, letting the truth of the extremely limited intel reawaken old memories with a new light to shine on them.
For over 400 years Star Force had been building towards a defense against an enemy they’d never encountered, nor heard of from any source other than the pyramid…and the dragon, whose knowledge predated Earth’s abandonment.
He’d never doubted they were still out there, nor had any of the others, but they’d been working on old intel, making guesses and essentially fighting against a ghost. But now it was all becoming very real, even with this whisper of their existence. Randy had said the Skarrons didn’t know them by name, but that he knew there was no other possibility. The V’kit’no’sat were there, their empire shrunken, but right where it was supposed to be.
And they were not weak. As scary as the revelations of the Skarrons’ true nature were, the fact that they wouldn’t touch the coreward side of their territory spoke volumes. The V’kit’no’sat were there, unaware of Earth’s existence, and given the amount of territory between here and there they were unlikely to find them anytime soon, but if word reached back to them of their existence he had no doubt they’d show up on their doorstep in the blink of an eye.
Randy’s report had included several questions about what to do in the future, both about the Skarrons and their true enemy. Questions like this were common, being posted to their private board and floated around for months, if not years, with them chiming in for a very lengthy back and forth as the updates were transmitted across the comm grid, but none had been more pointed than this latest one.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and if we make too much noise the dinos take notice. What the hell do we do now?
Jason wasn’t the first to see the post, for six other trailblazers had already responded, with mixed ideas of how to work the problem, but it was the most recent post from Dakota-041 that was a moment of epiphany for Jason.
When we get hit our natural reaction is to hit back, but in this case we need to assess our goals, the first of which is not to attract the attention of the V’kit’no’sat until we’re ready to face them, which will be far into the future, if ever. We know we can kick the crap out of the Skarrons, lizards, and anyone else given enough time to unlock the tech in the pyramid, so time is on our side with them and we need to maximize it. Even as fast as the lizards are expanding, the key to beating them is our own advancement, and that’s where we need to put our focus.
In order to get the numbers we need to fight any and all of our growing list of enemies, we need to expand to new systems. We can turtle up in the Core Region and make use of less optimal sites or we can continue like we are and look for more prime worlds to colonize. T
hose worlds cannot bring us closer to the V’kit’no’sat, which means we need to establish a coreward line with the Beta Region colonies and go no further. Maybe even no more scouting expeditions in that direction.
Like the Dragon told us, the Rim is where the V’kit’no’sat cannot go, and that is where I think we have to build our powerbase. Earth is on the very edge of their own maps, and planets like Namek are already off their grid. That’s the direction we should be heading with our expansion, but we need to go further. Much further. Hit the highways and get out of the Orion Arm out to the real Rim, stretch our territory out from a sphere into a tendril, leaving the lizards and the Skarrons behind.
We don’t like to run, and I’m not advocating abandoning any of the systems we currently have, but if we’re going to put down firm roots we need to do it in a place of our own choosing, and that needs to be as far from the V’kit’no’sat as we can get. And if they do come looking for us, they can steal our maps from our allies, or even our own tech. We need a sleeper expansion plan, with a new map formed that won’t, can’t fall into enemy hands. Several actually, if you want to get bold.
I’m not sure when our gravity drive technology will get to the point where we can move that far out, but we need to find the highways before then and stake them out. Like Sara said that first day we were all together when Davis asked us what we could do…our only play is to run, and if we’re going to run we have to run far. Earth may be our home, but it will also be our grave if we keep thinking of it as our center. Forget the Skarrons. Defend Beta Region against them but don’t entertain the notion that we’re going to take them out down the road. To do that brings us too close to the V’kit’no’sat, and the effort might catch their attention by rumor alone.
We are Zen’zat. If word gets around we’re dead. If the V’kit’no’sat start branching out to colonize again we’re dead. The Rim is our only hope against them, so I say we keep that first and foremost in our planning as we fight this and every new enemy that pops up in the coming centuries.
