Lurker Read online

  1

  May 18, 128521

  Mid-Jump

  Riona-111 sat on the bridge of her donut-shaped command ship as her fleet raced to get to System 99382153 before the Hadarak did. Scouts had determined their route weeks ago, but her Ysalamir-bearing fleet had not been close enough at the time and they were now racing to catch up on the same jumpline the Hadarak were using.

  And it was Hadarak plural, even though the V’kit’no’sat language didn’t use plurals. They indicated singular or plural with adjectives, hence ‘the’ singular and ‘the’ plural were different words for them…‘Lo’ and ‘Lon’…so all their nouns only had one spelling. It was actually more efficient than English in most cases, though English had never been ‘designed’ and was a hodgepodge of stuff thrown together over the ages prior to Star Force. Davis had fixed the language in place since then, codifying it so no more meandering would happen, but even still, some English words used the V’kit’no’sat method, such as ‘fish’ and ‘fish’, which was probably a holdover from the Zen’zat who were left behind on Earth long, long ago, for the V’kit’no’sat word for general aquatics that had a tail was ‘Fissan.’

  But however you said it, Hadarak or Hadaraks, two of them was more than Riona’s fleet could handle, which meant this was a harassing mission while the frantic evacuation of more than 90 billion inhabitants spread across 8 planets was occurring with even the V’kit’no’sat chipping in to help a distant offshoot of the Brat’mar race that had not been taken into the empire.

  They had no horns, which were not natural anyway for the Brat’mar, but they did have a crude, rectangular head shield that was all bone and no psionics. They were advanced enough to build crude starships, but had very little in the way of interstellar craft. They’d been known to the V’kit’no’sat for some time as a minor and insignificant colony of ‘cousins,’ and there were many around the galaxy that qualified as such to most of the V’kit’no’sat races. But only those chosen by the Zak’de’ron long ago became V’kit’no’sat for reasons unknown, though some had begun to be added again prior to this war beginning. Now they had no time or resources to expand further.

  Only a third of the Setwori had been evacuated thus far, meaning there was a hell of a slaughter about to take place if Riona couldn’t distract the Hadarak for the months that would be required to get the rest of them out…and there was no way she knew of to do that, but she was going to do what damage she could regardless. That meant putting at least one big hole into whichever one of them came in first, which would then delay it leaving for another system and hopefully help someone else down the line.

  The holographic maps while in mid jump didn’t alter much more than a slow creep of the star positions across the viewing area. It was a slow mo, but real version of the old school Star Trek warp effect that showed the stars whipping by outside the window. Even traveling on black hole links couldn’t get enough speed to allow for that, but the stars did move if you looked close enough, though that’s not what got Riona’s attention now.

  She sat sideways in her large, couch-like command chair with her legs up over one of the arm rests as she tapped on the other with her Clan-colored fingernails. That stopped the moment the hologram pinged as a large mass was detected ahead of them.

  Her head twisted to the side to look, and slowly the rough shape of a Hadarak was squeezed out of what little sensor bounce-back they could get at this extreme range. Fortunately the signals traveled ahead of the fleet at normal speed due to the relativity of space travel. From one point of view you were moving, from another you were standing perfectly still and everything else in the galaxy was moving. Between her fleet and the distant Hadarak the sensor signals raced across the millions of miles the same as any other time, though if they actually got all the way to the destination system their impact velocity would be super high…and that would sometimes increase reflectivity, and sometimes not.

  But the Hadarak was moving the same direction they were, though at much slower speeds. They were catching it, and as they did so the sensor signals got stronger and they got a better picture of it floating lazily ahead of them as it coasted towards its target system.

  It still impressed Riona that they could navigate such long distances without computer assistance. How they ‘felt’ out the precise jumplines and knew how far they could or could not go was something that seemed of extra importance, suggesting that the Hadarak were truly meant to live in space and not just jump from one gravity well to another through it…but that was just her musings as she impatiently waited for the pass to be made.

  The second Hadarak, much farther ahead, was detected before they caught up to the first, which was a tier 2 while the other was a tier 3. That meant both of them were too big for her to kill, even with her Ysalamir that was the third off the line of the 7 now in service. All were ‘baby’ Ysalamir, as Paul referred to them, with Tennisonne and the scientists dedicated to the project promising larger, better versions later, but none had manifested as of yet.

  But the Ysalamir they did have could wound the Hadarak, and wound them badly, in only a few seconds, and that had been enough to set up kills or drive them off targets over the past 15 years since the first Ysalamir went into the field. None of the trailblazers would take one, for they didn’t want to be burdened by it. Neither did Riona, for the point and shoot mechanics were something even novice naval officers could handle. What they couldn’t be trusted with was keeping the Ysalamir intact, so Riona and other second gen Archons were assigned to the Ysalamir fleets while the trailblazers were out hunting other Hadarak using their Borg vessels in combat that required a much higher skill level to make kills.

  She wished Paul was here now, but she knew him well enough to know that he couldn’t stop this pair either…which meant she was going to have to witness firsthand again the slaughter of planets with her unable to stop it.

  When they caught up with the Hadarak her fleet split, giving it a wide berth and pulling hard on the distant gravity wells of the passing stars to get a little lateral drift…something the Hadarak wasn’t powerful enough to do to propel them, and it didn’t even bother to try. No grapple fields were emitted, no tentacles popping out from their burrows. The Hadarak just looked like a giant asteroid floating through space as if it were a giant trap waiting to be sprung.

  Her ships nulled out their lateral drift, but didn’t return to the jumpline until they passed the second Hadarak, which likewise didn’t so much as twist as they passed by. She almost wished she could use the Ysalamir to put a shot into them here and now, but their approach speeds were too high and the miles-wide Hadarak passed by in a flash that you would have missed if you blinked, though the fleet’s sensors got plenty of data from the flyby.

  That gave Riona something to chew on as they had another 2 hours to go before they arrived in the target system that the V’kit’no’sat had not even bothered to name. The tier 3 was spotless, other than the natural lumps that made it look like a geometric child’s toy, but the tier 2 had damage. Riona didn’t know of any fights it had gotten into previously, but someone obviously had taken a good chunk out of it, for a 20 mile stretch had a 1 to 2 mile deep gash across it.

  It showed signs of healing, so it wasn’t too fresh, and a new layer of Yeg’gor was already forming over it. She could target that and hope to get a big enough hit to drive it away, or she could go after the tier 3 and hope she damaged it enough to scare it off…because at this point, scaring them off was her only hope. If they forced the issue, she couldn’t do enough damage to actually stop them from landing on any of the planets.

  When her fleet arrived and began making their braking jumps, it was calculated that they had about 4 days before the first Hadarak arrived and another 3 hours before the second came in after tha
t. As she was wondering how best to play this, maybe use the gap to attack the first one directly or try to thin down its minions before those from the second could get into battle, her command ship came out of its jump behind the first group of ships and before the Ysalamir, only to find there was a much larger presence in the system than she had expected.

  High Admiral Bongino was here, as was two different V’kit’no’sat battle fleets with Tar’vem’jic ‘candlesticks’, as Star Force called them. They were not Mach’nel, did not have Yeg’gor, and were nowhere near as big. They also did not have any crews, but were designed off Star Force’s drone technology and used as mobile weaponry against the Hadarak so long as the minion fleets could not get to them. Riona saw 28 of them here and already arrayed around the incoming jumppoint. Had the V’kit’no’sat not been allies in this war, they could have caused her fleet a lot of damage before she would have even been able to respond.

  But when the Ysalamir arrived it was by far the largest vessel in the system, and the most important, though most of the activity was in the beehive around the planets as Star Force and V’kit’no’sat transports were frantically loading and leaving, with sporadic reinforcements coming in with empty holds to assist with as many emergency evacuations as they could manage prior to the Hadarak arriving.

  And the reason they hadn’t been able to get this system evacuated prior to the Hadarak arrival was because of the wellspring of new Hadarak coming out of the Core. They were everywhere now, and becoming harder to track, for the further off their normal transit routes they got, the more possible jumplines opened up and with rogue minion fleets moving around on their own, the scout fleets from both empires were being stretched to their limits to monitor everything happening.

  But worst of all was the fact that they had begun stretching out a 5th ring around the Core far sooner than expected, bypassing a lot of untouched systems where the evacuation work was the heaviest, and hitting worlds just beyond where the original border with the V’kit’no’sat had been prior to the galactic purge beginning.

  It didn’t make sense, because they were greatly overextending themselves and leaving huge tracts of territory untouched, but it was having the effect of stretching out the attacking fleets even further and making it harder for them to reinforce each other.

  Riona was glad that three of those fleets had been able to get here, but she didn’t expect they’d succeed.

  Her ship raced away from the star towards a rendezvous point in high orbit around the innermost planet with the High Admiral and the two V’kit’no’sat commanders contacting her in a private holo room. Riona took it in the nearby command nexus, walking around the dividing wall on the bridge and plugging in to see the Human and pair of Brat’mar, with their presence here making it clear they saw the Setwori as distant family that needed to be protected above the nameless other races.

  Hence it was personal enough for the Brat’mar to send two of their battle fleets. Had the inhabitants not been biologically related, they probably wouldn’t have shown up at all.

  “Four days,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Then we’re in real trouble.”

  “We have to focus on the minions,” the High Admiral stated firmly. “If the Hadarak have no cover, we can pick them apart and force them back, but even putting that aside, they do not land and migrate across planets quickly, and that lethargy is to our advantage with a Ysalamir. We will get multiple shots before they can kill everyone on the planets below. If the minions are not destroyed, they will accomplish much faster what the Hadarak cannot.”

  “I concur,” the commander named Ver’shor on the identity icon floating just below the quadruped’s image said with a nod. “We must maximize survivors, and the minions will cause the most damage in the shortest amount of time.”

  “We must also distract them,” the other one, named Haf’jor, added. “Force them to defend the Hadarak rather than seek out cities to attack. How do you plan to take your first shot?”

  “The smaller of the two Hadarak is wounded. Not too badly, but it has a weak area a mile or so thinner than the rest of its armor. I suggest you focus your Tar’vem’jic on that area while I open up another on the tier 3. That will make all your weapons less inefficient.”

  “You cannot kill the tier 2 by targeting its wound?” Haf’jor asked.

  “If it was a small tier 1 I probably could, but I don’t think I can get enough penetration with that much mass. If I try, the tier 3 moves with impunity until we can recharge, and this ship has a 2.2 day capacitor seep.”

  “If the Hadarak hold to protocol, they will not move more than once during that period after they are on a planet,” Bongino noted. “They will attempt to use minions to maximize damage while they produce more. We have yet to see a Hadarak in solo combat unescorted.”

  “But they can,” Ver’shor cautioned. “Still, we need to take every minute advantage we have. If you can strike the tier 3 the moment it arrives and open up a weakness for our Tar’vem’jic to exploit, we might be able to drive it into the star. That is our best hope for buying time.”

  “I agree,” Haf’jor echoed.

  “Sounds like our best option, but the Ysalamir doesn’t handle that well and we don’t know its exact jumppoint. It’s going to get its minions released before we can hit it, and it’s going to be carrying a lot extra in those surface nodes.”

  “My fleet can draw them opposite your position,” Bongino offered. “If they ignore us, we can get some replicators on the surface.”

  “What weapon do you speak of? I am not familiar with ‘replicators,’” Haf’jor asked.

  “Surface drones too small and strong to be crushed with grapple fields, and too many to be killed with tentacle strikes,” the High Admiral explained. “We use them as locator beacons and IDF generators to set up additional strikes. The replicators themselves cannot do much damage even when we equip them with explosives. The Hadarak do not like anything on their surface, but once they are there they usually ignore them when their attempts to remove them fail.”

  “Why can they not simply expel them?”

  “They try, but if we can land them quickly they can latch on strongly enough that the grapple fields cannot pry them loose.”

  “How do you accomplish this?” Ver’shor asked, curious. “We have never been able to attach anything to a Hadarak that they could not expel.”

  “When they attach, they bond themselves to the Yeg’gor and can no longer move, but another replicator can attach to them, wait out the storm of their grapple fields, then when they give up trying to remove them the secondaries detach and walk around wherever they want so long as they don’t try to fly. That immediately draws attention.”

  “What can you do with this advantage?”

  “Not a lot, but normally the minions attack and remove the replicators. It seems the Hadarak want nothing on their surface in a bad way. We think there might be another vulnerability that we’re missing, but so far we haven’t discovered it.”

  “Can these replicators provide tracking data?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should be able to get more precise Tar’vem’jic shots if you can land some near the target area. The clouds of disintegrated material interfere with our ability to maintain precision once the beam begins landing. This typically causes an area of effect attack rather than a single penetration.”

  “I thought you wanted an area of effect?” the High Admiral wondered.

  “It helps with Yeg’gor removal, but we are utilizing detonation spikes that require a deep and narrow hole.”

  “Detonation spikes?” Riona asked.

  “Something new we are experimenting with. The trouble is getting them into place. The Hadarak must be extremely distracted and the minion swarms penetrated.”

  “Have you had a successful test?”

  “Three, but none in our fleet. Other V’kit’no’sat have removed large chunks of Yeg’gor by attacking the boundary between it and t
heir internal mass. There is a weakness there, and we must get penetration to that layer.”

  “I see,” Riona said, chewing her lip. “Can you drive them in along the boundary of a Ysalamir hit?”

  “It would still require boring holes laterally from the wound. We have to have compression in the blastwave or it will not shear the layers.”

  “Alright, we’ll do what we can to get you an opening if possible, but it doesn’t sound too likely. I’ll get the first strike with the Ysalamir, then get it out of range and play the old school game during the recharge. Just make sure your Tar’vem’jic are quick to retreat. If we stand our ground in low stellar orbit, we’re going to get creamed.”

  2

  The minion cloud coming out of the tier 3 Hadarak was immense. The nodes on the surface were little more than heavily armored hangars, a modification that was becoming more and more common in the reinforcements coming out of the Deep Core, and they greatly increased the number of escorts a Hadarak could field.

  That said, both the Star Force and V’kit’no’sat fleets were waiting for them at the bottom of the jumpline and caused a massive amount of damage to the minions coming out of the choke points on the Hadarak’s body while Riona got the Ysalamir into position to fire. The massive arcing beam lashed out into a different area of the Hadarak, hitting it squarely on a ‘flat’ section between the nodes and tentacle orifices and blasted a 12 mile deep hole into it…but that was less than expected, with the deeper layers of Yeg’gor now showing on the sides of the impact crater as the Hadarak spun away from the expanding nebula of vaporized debris.

  “Shit,” Riona whispered. That wasn’t as much damage as she’d assumed, but it was enough to get through the Yeg’gor, and as agreed beforehand all the Tar’vem’jic began repositioning and firing into the breach, cutting out chunks that were large by any other measure, except when compared to the total mass of the Hadarak.