Enlightenment

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Kiimo punched the crate again, twice, then leaned on it with his head. “He’s not wrong, but damn…”

  “It would be better if we were still in battle, but we are not,” Hi’ro’ju said evenly. “We have no enemy to attack, though it strikes us even now. It is the ghost war were taught about,” he said, walking up and punching the crate himself three times. “If we do not strike back, it will rip us apart inside or see us become apathetic. I will become neither.”

  “I want more than a crate to punch,” Jarrod said, declining to join in. “I’m going back in as soon as the Archons figure this out. How about you?”

  “I concur,” Hi’ro’ju agreed.

  “No replacements,” Kiimo said, abandoning the crate and turning around to face the others. “We finish the fighting in this system before we rebuild the star. We finish the fight that’s still going on rather than ignore it.”

  “Agreed,” Jarrod said, seeing Hi’ro’ju nod. “Let’s find you two some new mechs. I doubt it will take the Archons long before we have marching orders, and we need to be first in line.”

  “No, third in line,” Hi’ro’ju differed. “We were already first in line and took the brunt of this weapon reveal. We’re not at full strength. The strongest go in first, plus I don’t want to have to deal with losing either of you. We go in third and let the others find any more surprises.”

  “Why not second?”

  “First to feel out the surprises. Second to do the hard hitting. Third to support and cleanup. We need battle, not a fair fight. I can’t stop the shaking in my left hand, and it’s not medical. We wade back into this lightly, and join in the heavy fighting later. There’s going to be plenty in this war, we’re not going to miss out.”

  “Alright HiTop,” Kiimo said, patting the shorter Protovic on the head. “I can agree to that as long as we’re in the cockpit and not the barracks.”

  “Then lets move,” Jarrod suggested. “If there are thousands more, then there might be a shortage of mechs and I’m not going out there without you two,” he said, pointing in the direction of the reserve mechbay a little less than a mile away inside the massive battlefort perimeter that held a shield dome over top all of it that no fusion bomb had a chance of breaking through…

  2

  June 23, 154964

  Solar System (Home One Kingdom)

  Earth

  Director Davis looked at the slew of reports that kept coming in from the near side of the galaxy. Those further away would take more time to get back to Atlantis, but he suspected this was happening all across the Grand Border.

  The Hadarak had upped their game considerably, and not through reinforcements…which he assumed would also be coming at some point…but through a level of their tech tree never before revealed. They were now fielding units, small and large, against Star Force that had not been employed against them, the V’kit’no’sat, and even against the Neofan and the Bond of Resistance.

  High speed naval minions, suicide missiles no larger than 12 meters having nuclear level yields, acid rain tankers calibrated to penetrate shields, heavily armored small infantry akin to the larger Hadarak ultra minions, but far smaller and agile enough to destroy even the best infantry opposition could muster. Those had been used as assassin packs going after key Star Force units in the field, with mixed results, for they could take hits and almost guarantee getting up into melee range where they latched on and held you down while their companions chewed, burned, or blasted their way through your armor.

  Beyond that there were naval minions coupled with shield penetrators designed for planetary ramming. Thankfully none of them had actually made it through, for Star Force shields were highly complex and redundant…even more so now that Azoro had added a few Sha’kier enhancements…but against other opponents, or even Star Force in the past, they would have gotten through easily.

  But what Davis was not seeing was Essence-capable units. Everything new popping up was conventional, though wildly inventive in some cases. Even the number of Lurker sightings had dropped since the battle of the Maty, but the Director knew better than to think they’d all been killed or pulled back. They were waiting for their moment, and the fact that it wasn’t now suggested a rolling escalation, and this was just the first round.

  It’d been three years since the masters of the Hadarak had been discovered, and given galactic distances and Hadarak slow communication and travel, he’d expected a much bigger head start, but the rumors of them having a secondary communications net seemed now to be confirmed, for these attacks were weren’t originating near the Maty as how an order sent from that location would have had surrounding systems acting first. This was happening everywhere along the Grand Border nearest Earth, and that meant word had gotten out fast for them to start growing these units in time to begin utilizing them this soon.

  Snoejy, Buenzy, and Teurty had all been located from the Maty’s star charts, and Snoejy had been safely hidden inside Star Force territory inside a volcanic world in the Mekora Kingdom not far from the Hula Hoop. Tuerty had been reached by Star Force troops some 7 months ago, with Davis receiving word on their success only four weeks back. It was located on the other side of the galaxy in one of the remaining unexplored regions sitting in orbit of a gas giant for so long it had accumulated enough ice on it that passersby had thought it was a small, worthless planetoid. After breaking through and gaining entry, Tuerty was slated to be moved with the blessing of the Gahana inside, and Greg-073 had gone to personally make contact.

  Buenzy, on the other hand, was located almost dead center in the galaxy with the other three spaced around it in a loose triangle. It was not, however, in Hadarak possession…nor their territory, for the galactic map that the Gahana’s drones had continually been updating offered Star Force an entirely new look at the Deep Core that they’d thought was dominated by the Hadarak.

  But that wasn’t the case at all.

  87% of it was owned by others, mostly Megaloids, in pockets that left the Hadarak controlling a web of interconnecting territories that ran around the others until they got further out of the densest gravity well clusters and their normal ‘consume all’ mandate appeared to take effect. Just beyond that was the defense ring that shielded the entire Deep Core in what looked like a reverse version of Star Force’s Grand Border, but according to the Gahana’s intelligence gathering, it wasn’t just to keep people out…but also to keep them in, for many of the Megaloids did not have to physically exist in the deepest of gravity wells. They could expand across most of the galaxy if they wished, and the Hadarak were seen to intercept them whenever they left their pockets of territories that the Hadarak would continually probe for weakness and launch seemingly random attacks against…just like the Wardens did in the Outer Rim when the V’kit’no’sat held dominance.

  That had been a relief to Davis, for he’d expected them to control the Deep Core rather than just own a piece of it, but there was no way to get a sizeable fleet to Buenzy even if they danced around on their way there to avoid the strongest systems. Buenzy was inside the territory of the Nihibo, and from the Maty’s records they were the equivalent of naval sharks that had Essence capability at least equal to the Lurkers, if not greater, and the Hadarak didn’t even bother trying to probe them with attacks, only scouts that almost never made it out.

  Davis didn’t know if the Nihibo had access to Buenzy or not, but they were in the same system as it and flew by at close range as it floated in a field of asteroids looking like many of the others given its shapeshifting technology. Davis could see exactly where it was on the map and had good intelligence of what was in the system, but no way to get there with the forces necessary to hold it, and at this point there was no point in trying to slip a small team through to get inside, for the four constructs backed up each other’s data, and Star Force wasn’t anywhere close to getting around to unfreezing the popsicles yet.

  Work inside the Maty continued, for the data wouldn’t simply download itself for
transfer beyond the construct. You had to work through it bit by bit, and there was a massive amount to sift through. The PanNari were assisting with that, but Davis had quietly ordered his research team onboard to not trust any of their information, rather to use it as navigational assistance in the database as they double checked everything that the PanNari gave them. If there was going to be some sleight of hand hiding this or that, Davis wanted to know about it, so he had his own people sifting through everything, though some of the stuff the PanNari had discovered was quite useful.

  But the problems that kept the popsicles where they were were not so simple. Davis felt they would find solutions for some given enough time, but their civilizations had not fallen due to invasion. Rather it was internal problems, some biological, many structural, and none that had an easy fix. One, called the Kleer-so-kor, got to the point in their development where they lost the will to live, and they just sat down wherever they were and slowly died. No reason was given by them or the Gahana, for no reason had been found, and if Davis revived the few they’d kept alive here, they would most likely die the same way the others did unless he found the reason for their apathetic self-destruction.

  The other problems from the myriad of races were equally bizarre, but most had a common theme.

  One for all and all for one.

  When they fell apart all of them did, and these races had very strong unity bonds amongst them. That was a clue that Davis had been following up in his spare time, but he hadn’t gotten very far with it. Star Force was based on the individual, even in the Knight races who lived a bit more as a ‘team’ than the other factions, but compared to what he was seeing in these ‘lightside tilted’ races was that they did not have a strong individual concept. And for most of them their unity seemed to have become damaged or defective in some way yet to be determined.

  Davis wondered that if he and the trailblazers and elder monarchs were taken out at the same time if the rest of the Empire would continue on…or would it begin a similar self-destruction with their leadership gone. He hoped for the former, but after seeing what happened to so many other races in this galaxy alone, the stability Star Force had created internally didn’t feel quite so stable. As if they were on a clock till doomsday…if they managed to survive the Hadarak…and the universe was going to get its revenge for their lightside success one way or another.

  Davis had no answers for that, and without answers taking even one of the popsicles out of their hibernation would be disastrous for them, and he’d made it crystal clear that the PanNari were not to do so or interfere with them in any way…and ever since Kyra had been taken to talk with one of the Gahana, the PanNari ‘possession’ of the Maty had no longer been an issue. They revered the Gahana to the point of god-hood, and they’d made their wishes regarding Star Force stewardship clear, along with their suggestion that the PanNari abandon their wish to become fully mechanical and maintain their cyborg duality…else face problems that others had come across in the past.

  Even some of the Elloquim were experimenting with growing biological brain components to add to their mechanical Craniems…but Nevantha’s solution seemed to be the most popular, and that was incorporating QuipNari into their crew so they could benefit from their biological perspective and intuition without having to alter their own internal makeup.

  As it was, 91% of all PanNari births were now requesting to become QuipNari, and a major restructuring of their society was underway as a result…with their best of the best going to the Elloquim or to the Maty to assist the Craniems stationed there…and the majority of them were choosing Human form. In the past they were grown into bodies that suited their reconnaissance missions, but the QuipNari were no longer created for that specific function…and since the Gahana had chosen Star Force as their caretakers, Humans were the most popular avatars, followed by the other major races in Star Force, with very few others being taken except for specific missions that were still ongoing in the massively large galaxy that the PanNari still knew little about.

  After their massive losses at the Maty, Davis had requested that they pull back from combat duty and focus on a few other tasks in addition to data deciphering. They had earned their keep with the finding of the Maty and the holding of it. Right now they needed to rebuild, even if most of their Elloquim survived, for the rest of their fleets had not. And given their somewhat impressive use of non-Essence weapon fabrication to fight the Hadarak, Davis had requested they continue down that route in case the Essence stores that Star Force had at its disposal were ever compromised.

  And now with these new weapon systems popping up, Davis was going to request the PanNari work on it concurrently with Star Force, for there was no way you could have Essence-capable ships and troops on the number of worlds needed to counter these smaller units. Even if you had an Archon on a planet, he could only be in one battle at one time, and there weren’t enough Essence-capable troops to go with every unit. Not even close.

  As for the trailblazers, they would know of this before he did, for most of them were in the field fighting the Hadarak on their territory, but Greg would need updated, so Davis put together an initial packet of all relevant data and sent it off to him through the comm grid that would eventually end up at a physical courier to get it to the Tuerty maybe a year from now.

  There was only one other trailblazer not on the front lines in some fashion, and that was Paul-024. Due to Azoro’s unique ability to read people’s thoughts without them knowing it, and Paul still being the only person he could communicate with, he’d assigned himself a mission that Davis and many of the others had wanted before the Maty had been found and the war to retake the galaxy had subsequently begun. That was the oversight of the Zak’de’ron exodus from the galaxy that was due to begin in a few months at one of the Neofan Temples.

  It should have been a triumphant event for Star Force. Now nobody cared as they all had more pressing matters to attend to, including Davis. There were going to be Archons there regardless, just lower ranking ones until Paul had decided to go…and where Paul went Kara went with him. Azoro was still an unknown quantity, and it was possible he could be manipulating Paul or even overpowering him in certain circumstances, but so far everything appeared to be on the up and up, and Kara intended to continue monitoring him to make sure that didn’t change.

  But she also wanted to go, for more personal reasons, and see the Zak’de’ron kick themselves out of the galaxy. For that reason both of them needed an update, for even a good idea coming back from one of them shouldn’t have to be delayed by months due to waiting until they got back into the normal comm network…for the Neofan had not allowed their Temples to be ‘modified’ with spacial taps and conventional communication systems. The Star Force embassy there had to use the existing ones or go through couriers…and the existing ones passed through Neofan databases, so most stuff wasn’t sent that way.

  Davis sent a copy of the same packet he’d sent to Greg with a few additions to it regarding other matters and sent it off…reminding himself once again how important their comm network was to keeping the Empire together. Without it everyone would be blind, for the months lag would turn into decades, and in that environment Davis couldn’t be the spider at the center of the web pulling strings. Everything would have to be run out of local control, with the emphasis on the training of those leaders.

  That contingency had been covered, but Azoro’s promise of instantaneous communication across galaxies was something Davis had never forgot. The trouble was, it required people, not technology, and so far none of the searches that Azoro had requested of the Star Force population had come up with anyone meeting the necessary parameters for another breakthrough similar to Paul’s.

  And until Paul got more advanced, he couldn’t help others over that hump. And until Davis had two such individuals trained in the art of tethered communication, he couldn’t employ Azoro’s magical Sha’kier comm bridges…but if and when they had tens of thousands of them stationed
on different planets to transmit the highest priority messages and data packets (if Davis’ suspicions about the potential were correct), then that would be a Star Force on an entirely different level. A level he badly wanted, but he did not fail to appreciate what they currently had and others did not. But that one upgrade alone would change things more than anyone else suspected.

  And it would give Davis a great deal more control when he could have back and forth communication across the galaxy taking place in minutes rather than months.

  But those months were better than what most of the Hadarak used, and because of that Star Force could still dance around most of them, and that’s what they were doing now despite these new weapon systems popping up, and the most densely packed space lanes were now being disrupted and poached by the Star Force fleet…which cut the flow of reinforcements to many, many systems that now had to fend for themselves.

  And into those systems Clan Kai’sa went with reckless abandon…

  3

  October 8, 154964

  Kio Nutarri Nebula (Unexplored Frontier)

  Neofan Temple #1

  Paul-024 and Kara-317 sat in the middle of a mild desert inside the Temple, sprawled out on two reclining beach chairs with Paul in a pair of tight shorts and Kara in a bikini as they sipped high energy and ambrosia drinks watching the parade of Zak’de’ron ships seemingly crash into the horizon as they entered the massive portal one at a time. Each would get approximately half way in, then disappear in a blink, with the next coming into position a minute or so later as the Archons would occasionally wave as they got close enough to fill the skyline to the west, but the rest of the view was brilliant blue skies underneath the central artificial star that always stayed exactly overhead.