Star Force: Summit (Star Force Universe Book 44)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Davis held up his palm, generating a hologram of the battle records the KoQ had given him. He had his armor enlarge it to many times the size of his body so the Era’tran could clearly see.

  “Those are not Zak’de’ron ships,” Mak’to’ran finally said, drawing curious glances from both Humans.

  “That’s the same make of ship that we found the original one in,” Morgan admitted. “Perhaps a redesign to further hide them from your reconnaissance.”

  Mak’to’ran stared at the battle footage for a long time, and Davis just let it play out. Eventually the Era’tran could see the truth. The ship designs were quite different from what the Zak’de’ron had fielded, but the technology was the same. The physical grapples to the KoQ ships, ripping them apart from the inside was telltale Zak’de’ron.

  “Have you seen them in person?”

  Davis reach out to Mak’to’ran’s mind, barely knocking on the door but making enough of a connection to transmit a weak burst of memory that Kara had given him, showing the Dragon onboard her ship, and Davis could sense the cold confirmation within Mak’to’ran.

  “It is them,” he said aloud, hardly believing it, but the warrior within him wasn’t going to ignore a potential opponent, no matter how impossible their existence was. “Thought I do not know how. We were thorough in their destruction.”

  “The galaxy is a big place,” Morgan offered. “Easy to hide in.”

  “No. We took no chances. I was not privy to all our methods, but we had many. We know how easy it is to hide when one has a head start. We allowed them none.”

  “How could you be sure you had gotten them all?” Davis asked.

  “Something sinister that I was not told about. No record of it remains. You said only one survived?”

  “That is what they told us, but it could be a lie. Their ability to attack the Knights of Quenar and steal the Uriti, let alone the boldness of it, suggests they are stronger than they let on.”

  “A single attack is nothing compared to the war they will face against us.”

  “They also said they can monitor your Urrtren, which is why you cannot tell anyone, nor make any recordings. They know everything that happens in your empire.”

  Mak’to’ran took a third step back, still finding this hard to believe, but now sensing a more immediate threat. “They revealed this to you?”

  “They took a great chance stealing our secrets, and have been very forthcoming with information in compensation.”

  “The Uriti,” Mak’to’ran realized. “Did they take your knowledge of the Chixzon?”

  “They know the source of it,” Davis admitted. “It is possible they will attain it the same way we did. And I highly doubt they stole the Uriti only to keep it sedated and away from us.”

  Mak’to’ran spun around, walking quickly away from the Humans only to circle back around as he began to pace frantically as he thought, tactical situations flowing so fast through his Sav-enhanced mind that neither Human could have kept up. In fact he ignored them both for several minutes, just pacing around frightened…but that fear slowly turned to anger that he did not bother to shield from the Humans’ telepathy.

  Davis just let him go, waiting as he paced to see what would become of this. He’d passed the point of no return. The secret was out now, and it was up to this Era’tran, a long time enemy, as to what he would do with it.

  3

  “What else do you know?” Mak’to’ran finally asked, stopping his pacing and facing the Humans again.

  “They can monitor anything you send through the Urrtren,” Davis said plainly. “Which is why we had to talk to you in person, and why you can’t record anything.”

  “They told you this?”

  “Yes.”

  “But they didn’t tell you about our Harthur?”

  “They don’t give us updates. They were very forthcoming only on the one occasion, I believe, so we didn’t become angry about the theft of our secrets and rat them out to you guys.”

  “Which you have done now. Why warn me?”

  “Does it make any sense for us to both be wasting ships and personnel when a great threat lurks in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to move against you?”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “No. They were not that trusting of us. They didn’t even give us a means to communicate with them. They choose when we interact.”

  Mak’to’ran paced again, this time only one circuit before turning back to Davis. “You were wise to bring this to me, for without a target we can do nothing. I am sure they have hidden themselves away so cleverly we could never find them all. Our purge was predicated on eliminating them entirely, which we apparently failed to do. Now that they’ve had time to build towards evasion, we have no hope of destroying them. They will hunt us to our destruction, no matter how long it takes.”

  “That’s pretty much what they said to us.”

  “So why leave their service?”

  “We were never in their service, and another event that shall go nameless showed us their true nature. They are unaware of it happening, but we know the truth. If we do not serve them, they will kill us. They do not tolerate strength when it is not under their control. They taught you their methods well.”

  Mak’to’ran growled, but there wasn’t a lot of power behind it, for he couldn’t truthfully disagree. That was exactly how the V’kit’no’sat regarded other powers in the galaxy.

  “What is your suggestion, little Human?”

  Davis sighed. “I don’t know. You are their greatest target, and greatest hurdle to reestablishing their own galactic dominance. If we stand by, play along while they kill you, we’ll be next if we don’t fully submit. They may not seem to be too concerned about our current independence, but they’re already taking small measures to curtail it. I can see the trend, and we will not allow it to creep in that direction. We will remain independent, and I do not think the Zak’de’ron truly want allies. They only want servants or corpses.”

  “You come to me with no plan of action?”

  “My plan of action is for us not to annihilate each other. Your worlds are strong, but without your fleets how long do you think it will be before the Zak’de’ron hit you? We will not die quickly or easily, and the war will drag out a long time. I cannot say how much strength they have rebuilt, but if they’re willing to take a Uriti from the Knights of Quenar, they are more bold than I had anticipated. I had assumed they would stay quiet and hide until they were ready to act against you. I was wrong.”

  Mak’to’ran shook his head and took a step to the right…then froze and turned back, this time looking at Morgan. “What do you recommend…other than letting them kill us first?”

  “You need to reform, impossible as that seems.”

  “And then?”

  “I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it.”

  “So you come with no plan,” he said, turning back to Davis. “You break your bond with the Zak’de’ron, endangering yourself in the short term, to warn me of the biggest threat to the V’kit’no’sat? You are acting as if you were my ally, not an enemy.”

  “You have much evil in the V’kit’no’sat, but buried underneath it is a good purpose. I believe you can be salvaged. I’ve already seen it happen with the Rit’ko’sor that joined us. And their power has increased greatly as a result. If you truly value your mission of defeating the Hadarak, then you need all the power you can get, and the quick and easy path to results is not necessarily the most powerful over the long run.”

  “I should disagree with you, but your continued existence forces me to consider the stupidity of your claims. We cannot fight the Zak’de’ron and the Hadarak simultaneously. The first time we had surprise on our side, and we still had to relinquish a lot of territory to the Hadarak. We cannot fight both, and if the Zak’de’ron have truly been planning this for 900,000 years, they will not attack before they have the advantage. If they have only been building for 2 millennia t
hen they cannot challenge us yet, but the seizure of the Uriti is beyond worrisome. They are formidable enough on their own. If they manage to get even one Uriti to obey them, they will have a weapon we will be unable to stop.”

  “We share the same nightmare. What would you suggest?”

  “You continue to surprise me. You have no cards to play. You have weakened your position and betrayed a very strong ally, even if they aim to become your master. And what do you gain by it? You don’t expect us to rush to fight them, or you would not have brought me here in secret. You know we must keep this information from reaching them, so a war of distraction to keep yourselves alive is not your aim. I will not make the mistake of underestimating you again, for you look to be stupid. Rather you come to me from a position of equity, or co-codominance, and I will grant you that, for we are now both the targets of the Zak’de’ron, and there is parity in that. If there was a permanent truce between us, what then?”

  “We would continue to grow stronger, you would continue to fight the Hadarak, and we would not provide the Zak’de’ron as easy of a target. That will not stop them, but it will delay whatever they have planned. Beyond that, you also have Sav, plus a much larger brain, so you tell me?”

  “You have attained Sav, but was it earned or stolen?”

  “Shared,” Davis answered shamelessly, “and we didn’t get our psionics from the Zak’de’ron. We earned them. Even the tier 4.”

  “There are no tier 4,” Mak’to’ran said, suspecting otherwise as soon as he said the words.

  “Morgan?”

  “Behave yourself,” she said to the Era’tran as her armor began to disconnect from her body and she stepped out…then flew up into the air until she was at eye level with Mak’to’ran.

  “Yen’mer,” Mak’to’ran said, wide eyed. Most of the avian V’kit’no’sat possessed it to aid their flight, but Zen’zat were not supposed to have it in their genome.

  “The Zak’de’ron put more psionics into the Zen’zat genome than they told you. Your Zen’zat never discovered them, but we have.”

  Morgan opened the slits on her hands and shot a beam of fire between them, containing it in place as she smiled at Mak’to’ran. “Not exactly a Dre’mo’don, but it comes in useful.”

  “How many?” Mak’to’ran asked.

  “We have found many that the V’kit’no’sat have not. A little information from the Zak’de’ron nudged us in that direction, but we had to earn all of them. Some of my people have been training to do just that and nothing else, and they have not been easy to find.”

  “How many?” he repeated.

  “There are 7 tier 4s that we have discovered so far, 8 tier 3s, 27 tier 2s, and the basic 7. And if you haven’t noticed us using it already, there is also a category for binary abilities that require 2 or more individuals working together. It’s called Pa’no’semak, and if I’m right you have never discovered it.”

  The shocks kept coming, but the more the Human spoke the more past mysteries began to reveal themselves.

  “We assumed you had fashioned new psionics, or reworked existing ones. It is forbidden for us, but since your heresy is so blatant we assumed you had created them all,” he said, then glanced at Morgan as she finally dropped to the ground and put her armor back on. “And we assumed your armor is what let you fly.”

  “We have learned a lot,” Davis said, “because we are not bound by your rules and we are good at what we do. You claim dominance, yet the Zak’de’ron put powers right under your nose and easily accessible, but you never found them. You’ve kept your Zen’zat suppressed, just like you did the Rit’ko’sor, and because of that you never saw their potential. As strong as you are, you are not as strong as you should be. They are probably laughing at your assumed dominance…or maybe not, for you did kill almost all of them.”

  “I’m still laughing,” Morgan added with a straight face. “On the inside, at least.”

  “If I were not indebted to you for this information, I would teach you a lesson,” Mak’to’ran half snapped, but his anger drained quickly, for the Humans were right. If the Zak’de’ron had put these abilities into the Zen’zat coding, then their own Zen’zat might not have been enhanced as was thought. They had simply earned abilities that the rest of the Zen’zat had never realized they possessed the ascension triggers for, and that was truly humiliating to discover.

  “If he wasn’t here, I’d welcome the challenge,” Morgan said, not making any aggressive movements and simply standing protectively beside Davis. “But we’re only here to talk.”

  “And you are sure this hangar is secure?”

  “Completely,” Morgan answered.

  A quick ripple formed in front of Mak’to’ran and shot towards Morgan. To her credit she saw it coming, but she thought it was heading for Davis and made a sidestep to get in front of him. The trailblazer’s guess was wrong, and it slammed into her as she threw up a bioshield in front of the Director, knocking Morgan back like a rag doll and rolling across the floor for some 30 meters before she got her feet under her…all the while leaving Davis standing right where he had been.

  “I am here to talk,” Mak’to’ran said, looking down at Davis, “but let’s not forget who holds the greater personal power.”

  “Easy, Morgan,” Davis said in English as he felt her getting ready to hit him back. “That was just a love tap.”

  She swiped a bit of blood from her nose as she used her Haemra to rapidly heal the break and cut off the flow, for Mak’to’ran’s Jumat blast had hit her with her helmet down and her bioshields over Davis.

  “One hit, Sean.”

  “One,” he said, then saw a ripple of energy form around her…only it didn’t fire off at Mak’to’ran. Rather it seemed to solidify and get thicker until the point where the spear-like shape shifted to become linked to her arm as she lifted it up.

  “Catch,” she said, throwing it towards the Era’tran at a speed far faster than her arm could move. The semi-invisible missile he could not catch with his Lachka, and it hit him in the chest…or would have, if his shields hadn’t flashed up just in time. The spear hit and melted into them, penetrating completely as the remainder of the Jumat energy blew through and knocked him back a step.

  “That’s our newest tier 4,” she said as Mak’to’ran looked startled. “It’s called Si’mosa, and is a very nice shield penetrator.”

  Mak’to’ran wasn’t angry, rather he was impressed, but he swiped at her with his Lachka anyway, with the Human standing her ground and disintegrating it with a Rentar field.

  “Shall I demonstrate these as well?” Mak’to’ran said, flashing his Saroto’kanse’vam into glowing red brilliance.

  “Pretty,” Morgan commented, but she didn’t move. “Aren’t those illegal?”

  “They were,” Mak’to’ran said, letting them burn for a few more seconds, then he deactivated his talons. “Until I made them legal. We’ve made a few alterations from the old code. The Zak’de’ron no longer rule the V’kit’no’sat, and I know the path of a heretic from personal experience. I do not begrudge you your psionics, but I do wonder how you maintain stability if they are not earned.”

  “They are earned,” Davis said, feeling that the impromptu ‘arm wrestling’ was over, “but we have different standards for them. Unlike you, our younglings are not given psionics at birth. Individuals have to earn them.”

  “And how did you earn your Sav?”

  “I created an empire from scratch,” Davis said simply. “Something the V’kit’no’sat never did. You were fed everything from the Zak’de’ron, so I have a skillset you lack. A very rare skillset.”

  “And what does your skillset say about the Zak’de’ron threat?”

  “That you and I need to come to an understanding, or our odds of survival drop even further.”

  “Be specific. What do you want?”

  “You fought them before and won. Not as complete a victory as you thought, but close. You tell me.”

&
nbsp; “We only beat them because we were more numerous and the fact that they did not see the betrayal coming. We did not let them gain an advantage, but if they are still alive and preparing to strike us…we will not win,” he said, feeling like a traitor for even saying that.

  “I don’t favor our odds against them either. So what do we do?”

  Mak’to’ran was silent for nearly a minute before he spoke.

  “How sure are you that they do not know of our meeting?”

  “They probably know of it through the Urrtren, which is why I am extending the offer of Hadarak intelligence translation. It’s useful to us, but makes for a good excuse for talking to you personally. Only a handful of my people know about this, and there are no computer records of it. You are the only security risk, and a big one at that.”

  “The only advantage we have is that they do not know that we know. I will not squander it, but I do not know what we can do. They hold every advantage if they can choose the time and place of battle. We may have time, due to our current size and strength, but the more years that pass so will their strength, for they are not fighting the Hadarak and suffering those losses. They can fully prepare to fight us while we cannot,” Mak’to’ran said as he began to pace again, lost in thought.

  So much for Era’tran superior intelligence, Morgan said to Davis telepathically.

  Give him a break. He hasn’t had much time to process this. We’ve known they’ve existed for a long time.

  I’m still not impressed.

  Nice shot, by the way. How’s the nose?

  Healing. He caught me off guard. I thought he was aiming for you.