Star Force: Hamoriti (SF62)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  1

  March 2, 1203559 BC

  Prenthor System

  Qitor

  “How much time do we have?”

  “The Oracle estimates no more than 3 days, and should we pass that line there will be little for us to do to stop it. We must have your machines now.”

  The Trinx shook its headtails in dismay. “You may well have doomed us all.”

  “Can you not get them here in time? Your colony is less than 2 lightyears away.”

  “I have brought them with me, and more are on their way, but if greater numbers are required they may not arrive in time.”

  The Sety twisted its branch-like neck and adjusted its breath mask when it slipped ajar. “How many have you brought?”

  “I have brought all that I could. Let us hope it is enough,” the biped said as he and the wooden quadruped stepped into a secure lift that would take them to the provisional command center 90 kilometers away from the excavation site. “70,000 are on their way now.”

  “To where? They cannot come within close proximity…”

  “To the rendezvous point, I am no fool. You and your clumsy people have claimed that title.”

  “The Oracle had not deciphered our language in time to give a proper warning. There was no way for us to know.”

  “If you had waited for The Nine this would not have occurred.”

  “We are allies, not blood brothers…and this was our find.”

  “And yet here we are.”

  “I do not deny that the Sety cracked the case, but had any of you been here I do not believe circumstances would have been any different. It is at this moment irrelevant. If we do not sedate and reseal we are as good as dead.”

  “That I have been made well aware, and not just because of your clumsy attempts prior to my arrival,” the Trinx said as the doors on the lift opened and the pair walked into the medium-sized circular room that held the other expedition leaders from The Nine. They were an old alliance that kept mostly to themselves unless great danger befell one of the others, then all would rally without question and come to the besieged’s aid…as they were now, though the threat was not only to them but the whole of the galaxy.

  “Finally,” the Bpret said, shifting from a biped form and into a quadruped as it walked a few steps towards the arriving pair, with its almost clear gelatinous form causing the holograms behind it to bend as the light passed through the tall creature, the largest of the group. “Did you bring them?”

  “They are on the ships heading across the surface now,” the Trinx said, stepping around the shapeshifter to get a look at the master holo in clarity. “Have you produced sufficient chemical?”

  “We are not producing it, the Oracle is,” another of The Nine said, this one a cyborg. “We are merely supplying the rare materials. It has been costly, but the Oracle has assured us that we have enough, it is the delivery mechanism that we are lacking.”

  “Your people were killed on approach?” the Trinx asked, looking at the hologram of the huge excavation site buried deep below the planet’s surface. A vertical shaft ran straight down to it with a series of spiral infrastructure platforms meandering down the chasm like a staircase, on top of which a large number of icons were emblazoned.

  “We don’t know,” the Sety answered. “When they pass within range their minds betray them. They drop the canisters and stand still as statues. The people we sent to assist them suffered the same fate.”

  “What range?”

  “It was 2.3 kilometers at the outset, but it has grown to 2.8 at present. The more the creature wakes the greater the field.”

  “What type of field are we talking about? Latku stun or verisas?”

  “Neither,” another of The Nine said. “We have sensed a massive telepathic aura around the god. We think it is taking control of their minds rather than emitting a biological stun. That is why we need your machines.”

  “Psionic?” the Trinx asked in disbelief. “Why was I not told this before?”

  “We were not sure. We are still not sure, but recently have made several deductions.”

  “The Yisv only arrived two days ago,” the Sety said defensively.

  “Why haven’t you simply launched a missile?”

  “Do you think we haven’t tried? Any fast moving objects are intercepted. The Oracle says it’s a primitive defense mechanism,” the Sety half argued. He was filled with a mixture of shame and fear, but the Trinx’s criticism wasn’t helping and only wasting time. “The slow moving attempts we made were equally blocked with some form of point defense, but the Oracle assures us that with sufficient numbers it can be overcome.”

  “Is there enough chemical to survive those losses?”

  “Unknown,” the cyborg answered. “We have encased them in protective shells that must be opened manually upon arrival. Our remote signals are not penetrating to the surface of the creature. There is a jamming field that is likewise expanding.”

  “The Oracle says it is a shield, but one that physical matter can pass through. If it wakes up any further that shield will become a barrier that we will not be able to breach short of weaponsfire on a level that the Oracle assures us will be enough to fully awaken the creature, so we must sedate it now or we will lose our only chance of redeeming this mistake. You must send your machines with the canisters immediately, there is no more time for talk.”

  “You are putting a lot of faith in this Oracle.”

  “Should we not?” the Sety questioned. “The Ancients left it here to safeguard against a breach and to teach others how to continue to subdue the beast. I see no reason not to trust the program at its word.”

  “I know a bit more about software than you do,” the Trinx scoffed, for their entire army was made up of drone warriors. They could be ordered to act remotely, but they could also follow scripts that in this case would be necessary if there was a jamming field around the body.

  “We also concur with the Oracle,” the cyborg agreed, trumping the software experience tenfold.

  “Very well, I just hope it will be enough.”

  “You must order your machines not to return fire,” another of The Nine cautioned. “Any attack will hasten the awakening.”

  “So noted,” the Trinx acknowledged. “Where do we stand on repairs to the containment shell?”

  “78% complete,” the cyborg answered.

  “Will that be enough if we deliver the sedative now?”

  “We have no choice but to deliver it now,” the Sety argued.

  The Trinx held up warning finger towards the walking tree. “I need to know if we’re going to have to fight multiple runs to continue sedating the creature or if this will be a single endeavor.”

  “A partially successful sedative attack will delay the awakening,” the smallest of The Nine said, walking around the rim of the hologram where the 13 inch tall triped perched. “A full dose should return it to slumber sufficient for the shell to keep it subdued long enough for full repairs to be made. So even if we fail, so long as we get some sedative to it we will extend our timeframe.”

  The Trinx nodded his thanks for a pithy answer. “Very well, I will throw everything we have at them. Let us hope it is enough to at least delay this catastrophe until more of our forces arrive.”

  Deep inside the chasm the Sety had excavated down to the shell, there was an aperture that allowed access to the inner shell, and it was there that the rendezvous point was. That gap between the two was a mix of empty space and the machinery that made up the containment device that kept the massive creature dormant, for it was so powerful that the Ancients had not been able to destroy it. They had managed to subdue it with a chemical, but any attempts to kill it once sedated only can
celed the effect, waking it up again to the demise of any around.

  Not finding a way to kill the creature, they had chosen to imprison it here and built the shell to both maintain the sedation through a continuous dosage as well as to inform anyone who found it of the dangers and how to keep the creature dormant. The Sety had uncovered the Ancient artifact and entered in exploration, encountering the Oracle who had tried to prevent them from access. Thinking it was merely a test the Sety had broken through the walls preventing them from reaching the huge internal region that the inner shell protected.

  There was no door there that they could find, so the Sety had cut through a section of the 60 kilometer wide ‘egg’ and entered, crossing over to the centerpiece only to be rebuffed and ill from the attempt. A few died shortly thereafter but all made it out, after which they began to study what was inside from afar and set up an observation post at the breach point, keeping themselves far from the creature at the center that at first appeared to be a massive stone.

  Whatever was making them sick had occurred within a hundred meters of it, but now the landscape around the creature in the center was littered with a living forest of mostly Sety, but a few other races were there as well from those who later had sent teams in only to have them get caught up in the paralytic psionic field that was continually expanding outward.

  The Yisv were monitoring its size and strength with their own psionics, and were the only race within The Nine that possessed that ability. They were situated far from the field, knowing not to risk closure, for the intensity was so massive that a mere brush with it could kill them on contact. They knew little about it, but the Oracle had been forthcoming with a great deal of knowledge…yet most of it was far beyond their understanding.

  What the program was clear about was the timetable, for the longer they delayed the quicker the creature would wake up, for the damage the Sety had done when cracking the inner shell had diminished the ability of the facility to continually sedate the monster. Once sedated again by a massive dose, the Oracle would be able to use the raw materials that were being provided to it to fully repair the shell, as the Ancients had designed the program to be able to do, and keep the unkillable threat contained even in their absence.

  What had happened to the Ancients was a mystery that not even the Oracle knew, but their relics were highly valued amongst The Nine and others. They took the warning from them at face value, for an enemy too powerful for the Ancients to defeat was one that they could not begin to handle themselves. So it was with little skepticism that The Nine followed the instructions of the Oracle to the letter, though while it was able to answer questions and offer warnings, it did not have a method of delivery for the chemical beyond the slow continual dispersion that was now inadequate, leaving it up to The Nine to come through in that regard.

  Had they acted sooner they could have walked right up to the side of the living mountain and applied the chemical, but the Sety had wasted so much time floundering around that the Ancients’ bane had woken sufficiently to begin throwing up subconscious defenses…and the limited weaponsfire the Sety had applied before the Oracle warned them off had only hastened the reawakening.

  The reprogramming of the Trinx troops hadn’t taken long to accomplish, so the bipedal machines standing approximately 3 meters in height entered the inner shell through the shrinking breach point as the Oracle’s army of tiny technomites gradually rebuilt the machinery that the Sety had unwittingly damaged. The Trinx ‘vassals’ each carried in their arms a container of orbs, which were akin to a squishy seed about the size of a melon, and marched them out onto the large plain around the creature, not in a column, but in a wide line on the counsel of the Oracle.

  When they reached the invisible barrier they passed through it, subsequently losing their telemetry link back to the Trinx controllers and leaving them to operate entirely on their own internal programming now.

  A bit closer the tiny specs of the vassals came under attack from various points on the mountainside of the sleeping creature. Reacting to the movement small deformations appeared and sprouted sporadic nubs that charged up with energy and began emitting a few lightning strikes out at the vassals, hitting two or three with each attack. The machines literally disintegrated with the hits, dropping the canisters that hadn’t been blown apart with them, who fell like baskets of apples, spilling the seeds across the synthetic ground.

  The rest of the vassals marched onward, taking hits but advancing their line continually until they finally reached the side of the creature. There they opened the baskets and began picking out individual seeds to hurl at the beast, breaking their soft shells and spilling the semi-liquid onto the creature’s rock-hard skin. Somehow the substance that the Oracle had produced soaked into and was almost consumed by the rock, disappearing entirely after lingering a handful of seconds.

  More and more of the vassals were cut down hurling the seeds at the creature, whose return fire was diminishing in response, but after a lengthy fight the vassals were all destroyed leaving their baskets half full and mostly spilled over the floor surrounding the monster.

  The Sety in the control room got a brief message from another of its race in the Oracle chamber, relying the wisdom from the Ancient program. The tree-like quadruped disconnected the private comm and looked at the other 8 leaders. “It wasn’t enough, the creature is still waking. We have slowed it, but nearly all the chemical is still lying on the floor and now out of our range until we can get more vassals here.”

  “How much time do we have?” the cyborg asked.

  “The Oracle says no more than 4 days.”

  The Trinx shook its head again in dismay. “We cannot have more here before then, not in the number we need.”

  “What do we do?” the Yisv asked, having studied the warnings from the Oracle in detail. It had been insistent that their only hope came from immediate action, else the waking creature would scale beyond their ability to contain.

  “The Sety have killed us all,” the Trinx said, realizing that it was lost.

  “No,” the cyborg said before the panicked bickering could begin. “There is another way.”

  “What have we not considered?” the Sety asked, desperate for even the slightest glimmer of hope.

  The cyborg reached a thick finger up and tapped the side of its head, then ran out of the room knowing that every second he delayed the creature would grow stronger. They had to stop this thing now, no matter what the sacrifice.

  Those thoughts were transmitted out to the other Chamra on the planet instantaneously, with them understanding and agreeing without argument or dissent. All of them, no matter where they were, began heading towards the shell and gathering around the inner breach point. They didn’t bother to enlighten the others of The Nine about what they were doing for there was no point and no time, they had to get the sedatives deployed immediately, for even when the Oracle got the repairs completed the creature could not be in an agitated state, else it would overwhelm the machinery in the shell.

  The Chamra leader met the others and waited for them all to arrive, then as a group they took off running towards the spilt chemical seeds, moving far faster than the bigger vassals had traveled but not fast enough to trigger the physical defense barrier that had stopped any missile attempts. When the cyborgs hit the psionic field their brains were compromised, immediately stunned into a trance…but their technological components were not and acted as a counterbalance, running security checks on all impulses and weeding out the interference. It was labor intensive calculations, but it allowed the Chamra to continue functioning on a low level as they ran by the Sety statues that were gradually starving to death where they stood.

  There was no time to save them, and as the cyborgs came closer to the creature a few lightning arcs emerged, not so many as before, but enough to begin killing them by the handful as those that were not immediately hit were starting to get to the spilt chemical seeds. They picked them up individually and ran forward, smash
ing chemical packets against the side of the creature then retreating to pick up more. Moving with an enhanced speed that was typical of cyborgs, they rushed to deliver as many chemical seeds as possible before they were cut down.

  The other 8 leaders watched from the control room as thousands of Chamra sacrificed themselves to deliver the last of the chemical…coming up just short before all of them were killed, but the Yisv quickly confirmed that the psionic field had shrunk, and if it was as low as it was when the Sety first breached the shell then the sickness should have replaced it.

  Desperate to finish the task the Sety, Trinx, Yisv, and every other race of The Nine pulled all personnel on site and sent them into the shell, with many taking sick the moment they got near the creature. Many dropped to the ground within a few seconds, with the Yisv being completely compromised and catatonic, but some stronger willed individuals in the other races persisted long enough to get to the seeds and smash a few more, though often it took two weakened individuals combining their strength to break one open.

  Most of the individuals in that assault lived through the next hour then died over the coming days, but the Oracle was quick to inform them when sufficient chemical had been applied and the suicidal charge was recalled. Those Sety that had been turned into living statues did not make it out, dying from the sickness within minutes, but their bodies were dragged out all the same and the Oracle oversaw the final stages of the repairs, finally resealing the monster to its fully dormant state.

  Of the leaders of The Nine on planet, none survived, for they had gone in the final wave as well to maximize their window of opportunity, but those who were left alive in the aftermath reported what had happened and relayed the warnings of the Oracle to their distant leadership while continuing to ply it with questions. Coming to grasp the horror they had narrowly avoided The Nine immediately took up custody of the planet and quarantined it under heavy guard to ensure that no one could intentionally or accidentally breach the shell again.