First Contact Fallout Read online

  1

  March 29, 128797

  Jamtren System (Era’tran capitol)

  Holloi

  It had been 238 years since Mak’to’ran’s death, and every one of them had been a downward slide for the V’kit’no’sat despite the fact that there was a long trail of dead Zak’de’ron across the galaxy marking their ‘successes’ in the war. If one was to measure by destruction, then the V’kit’no’sat had been winning…but the Hadarak did not wait for them to finish. More and more systems were being chewed up in their expanding purge and now even the bordering V’kit’no’sat systems were taking sporadic hits. Some had held, some had fallen, but nobody truly cared when the entire empire was in decay.

  Mak’to’ran had held them together by many means, but first most was by purpose. Now with him passing that purpose was gone and all the V’kit’no’sat had left was vengeance, but vengeance wasn’t enough. Most of the planets in both warring empires had not changed hands, but their fleets had sought out each other and engaged the heaviest of targets early, leaving the V’kit’no’sat with less than 20% of their original strength now, and who knew how much the Zak’de’ron had left, but it wasn’t much.

  Mario’topa was a Zen’zat assigned to Jamtren, the most secure Era’tran system within the galaxy. He had not been involved in any of the fighting, but had been watching events through the Urrtren as they filtered back across the galaxy. Oddly enough the Zak’de’ron had not taken it down, for perhaps it served them better by instilling despair in the millions of V’kit’no’sat worlds that had not yet been touched to see what had become of the others.

  And Mario’topa felt despair. He felt it deeply, as did most others. If they survived this war the Hadarak would kill whoever was left. The mighty war machine the V’kit’no’sat had devoted millennia building up was now mostly spent, leaving more planetary defenses than warships and forcing the galactic map to stall its changes as the requirements to take new territory were overwhelming the mobile assets of either side.

  It was a war of attrition and cunning now, and the V’kit’no’sat were outmatched, he thought. Mak’to’ran’s war plans had worked brilliantly, striking at the heart of the Zak’de’ron worlds and bypassing their servants. The information gathering operation prior to that had been massive, and Mario’topa had seen much of it as one of Mak’to’ran’s personal Zen’zat. He’d known the Zak’de’ron would sacrifice their servants to no end, so the dragons had to be targeted directly and immediately, but to do that they had to know where they were and Mak’to’ran seemed to have a sense of where to look. An extensive hit list had been composed, and when the targets were delivered to the fleet for the first preemptive attack, the Zak’de’ron had been caught completely off guard.

  Their worlds burned, and so many of their race died it was thought that the war was going to be over far quicker than even Mak’to’ran had predicted in the best of outcomes, but the Zak’de’ron servants did not waiver, either because their leadership had not been completely destroyed or because of the discipline instilled in them. Regardless, the backlash had been just as bad for the V’kit’no’sat as key systems were targeted and annihilated in orbital bombardment with the Zak’de’ron rarely taking possession of them afterward.

  Jamtren had not been targeted, but the Hjar’at capitol of Mavro had been the first hit and obliterated over the course of 2 years of fighting. The Zak’de’ron had spent so many resources doing it that Mario’topa could not believe their tenacity. Either they had far more ships hidden away in the galaxy than the V’kit’no’sat thought, or they valued that system for reasons beyond what the V’kit’no’sat understood.

  The Hjar’at had always been the most militant of the V’kit’no’sat races, and when their leadership had been decapitated first off in the war it had a chilling effect on all the others. When the Zak’de’ron were finished with Mavro, there was nothing left to retake. Every world, every outpost in that system had been torched and ground into rubble. Not even the planetary defense stations had been spared. The Zak’de’ron had completely erased all technology from the system, leaving only ash and crater as testament to what had previously been a system of 903 billion Hjar’at and Zenzat.

  After the initial purge of most of the Zak’de’ron population, things got worse and worse for the V’kit’no’sat, but it looked like they would be able to win the eventual war of attrition. As fleets were destroyed more ships were being made to replace them and the V’kit’no’sat had far more factories and population than the Zak’de’ron’s servants had, so it seemed the trend would snowball in their favor. It might have too, but that hard fought victory was denied to them when Itaru came under unexpected attack 189 years into the war.

  Not a single Zak’de’ron ship was there, or even close to the capitol system. A great deal of its defense fleet had been pulled away for offensive operations, leaving the most heavily fortified system to rely on its static defenses that no-one in their right minds would attempt to take. It had seemed a worthwhile gamble with little downside, for the Zak’de’ron didn’t have enough ships to take it anymore, and the reinforcements flowing out from Itaru into the warfront were claiming many worlds while saving several of their own. But the cunning of the Zak’de’ron was not to be underestimated, and when the bulk of Itaru’s defense fleets were away fighting the war, the war found its way to Itaru in another form.

  The independent Oso’lon and J’gar had struck the system together, using most of their galactic fleets for the invasion and losing nearly all of their ships to do so, but after 13 years of grinding war the last of the moons in the system…Solen’aic…finally fell. It was not obliterated the way the Zak’de’ron were doing to their conquests, rather it was taken, as were the rest of the worlds, including Wendigama, though at the end of it all there wasn’t much left to claim. 97% of the V’kit’no’sat population in the system had been killed and there wasn’t an intact planetary defense station left operational to steal, but the Oso’lon and J’gar now had the prize of all prizes, and no one was in a position to exploit their weakness and take it back from them, nor to strike their own worlds. Everyone was depleted, making any major moves in the near future impossible.

  The Urrtren had remained up in Itaru for the entire decade-long battle, but the day it finally went dark in that location was when a handful of Zak’de’ron ships arrived to take their place in the newly rebuild Elder Conclave. They held a joint declaration with the Oso’lon and the J’gar, declaring the original V’kit’no’sat triumvirate had been reestablished in the ashes of Itaru, and from it the empire would be reforged to fight the Hadarak and hold at least a piece of the galaxy for their own against the unrelenting wave of carnage creeping its way into the broken empire.

  They also indicated that the V’kit’no’sat races were being recalled to join them, without penalty for past actions on either side. The Zak’de’ron were absolving all who joined them from their treachery in this war and the previous one that had nearly destroyed them, because of the present Hadarak threat. Fighting each other would leave them all dead in the end, and only together could they survive. Then one of the Zak’de’ron by the name of Nil’horn demonstrated an act of telekinesis…without using Lachka. Various sensors were there to make witness, though they could easily be faked and everyone knew it. Still, this Zak’de’ron was claiming to have rudimentary Essence skills, which was something no V’kit’no’sat had, and after witnessing what Eldorat had done with such power, the effect of the potentially fraud display gave them a glimmer of hope regardless.

  The Zak’de’ron alliance with the Oso’lon and J’gar was now reforged, and the Zak’de’ron had access to the magical power of Essence where the V’kit’no’sat did not. It made sense,
in a way, that if they were to fight the Hadarak…who had Essence powers…or fight Eldorat’s masters who had the same, then they would need to fight with it as well…or forever be helpless against them. The Zak’de’ron were claiming only a small potential, but one that would grow with time and training. It was hope, and either out of misplaced loyalty or despair, several races and fractions of others were answering the call of Itaru once more.

  Mak’to’ran’s alliance, his true V’kit’no’sat, were crumbling and even being denied their name as the Zak’de’ron reclaimed it for themselves. But the bad blood in the galaxy could not be overcome with such diplomacy, and most of the V’kit’no’sat worlds were defiant. There was no more coordination between them, though the Era’tran tried to maintain some cohesion with their neighbors, leaving the war as a free for all with sections of the Urrtren going dark and forcing information to reroute around the blackouts, further increasing the data lag.

  Mario’topa didn’t expect it would last much longer, but the Zak’de’ron were probably leaving up the remaining pieces so the V’kit’no’sat worlds would know they had no hope of winning or remaining independent. What little strength the new triumvirate had was very publically going out and picking off small defiant worlds and conquering them. These they did not destroy, but beat down the defenses and seized the planetary populations to conscript back into their empire whether they liked it or not. They hadn’t tried taking on a major world for lack of resources since Itaru’s fall, and perhaps that was because they didn’t want to risk a defeat, but now that appeared to be changing.

  Mario’topa had just received intelligence reports from Zen’zat scout ships loyal to the Era’tran that the Itaru V’kit’no’sat were sending an invasion force to Jamtren, and the leading elements were only 18 jumps away. They would be here within a few weeks, and like they did with the Hjar’at, the Zak’de’ron were going to try and take out the heart of the Era’tran race by destroying or capturing Holloi, the most sacred planet they possessed, and one that they’d reclaimed and restored from the Hadarak long, long ago after a devastating loss. They’d vowed never to lose it again, and it looked like the Zak’de’ron and their traitorous cohorts were intent on making them break that vow.

  It wasn’t going to be an easy fight for them. Not just Holloi, but the entire system hadn’t been touched in this war to date. The defense fleet was small, but the fixed emplacements were many and the planetary shielding was robust. They’d have to punch a hole in it and mount a surface invasion to take the rest down, for there was no way they had enough firepower to simply overwhelm the planet.

  Mario’topa sensed this might be the end for him and his masters, but he did not think it would be a slaughter. This would be an actual war, unless Itaru had far more resources than his scouts had told him. They might even be overreaching on this occasion, though he doubted it. If the Zak’de’ron were pushing this forward they must have believed they had enough to win, though like Itaru it might be a war that stretched out a decade or more.

  If that was the case then he and the others would kill as many of the Zak’de’ron and the traitors as they could before they fell. There would be no surrender, and the Era’tran would not submit to Itaru now. None of their worlds had, and perhaps that was why Itaru was targeting them first. They had to break their resistance before it could inspire others to do the same. If the Era’tran, who had once led the new V’kit’no’sat, succumbed to the power of reborn Itaru, who else could effectively resist them with everyone hoarding what ships they had to defend their worlds or strike at those Zak’de’ron ones that were vulnerable in order to exact what little revenge they could here and now before the end finally came.

  Or perhaps others felt that victory was still possible. Mario’topa did not know, but the numbers running back to embrace Itaru were an ongoing insult to all the Era’tran and Mak’to’ran had sought to build. He didn’t know what the Era’tran leadership was doing now, for he was out of the loop and stationed on planetary guard duty. It was a worthy task, but one far lower than he once held. If the Era’tran were to survive, Holloi had to stand. Even if the rest of the system fell, Holloi had to remain. Without it, the Era’tran would become outcasts again, and Mario’topa would not live to see that happen.

  For without the Era’tran, the real V’kit’no’sat were lost. It would take millennia for Itaru to reconquer and absorb them all, perhaps longer, but it would be inevitable. And if this newborn triumvirate was true to form, they would not allow any former V’kit’no’sat world to remain independent. All would be reabsorbed or destroyed. Psionics were too powerful to be let loose into the galaxy, and what leniency Mak’to’ran had given to the Rim was now being undone. Itaru didn’t stand a chance against Star Force, but anyone else with V’kit’no’sat legacy was going to be on Itaru’s target list, and it seemed they thought they had the strength to start with the biggest and most heavily defended system left in the empire.

  One way or another, this was going to be a hell of a fight. But the timing was horrible. The Era’tran needed more time to rebuild, and that was exactly what Itaru was intent on preventing them from having. Mario’topa’s beneficiary race had become a rival to the Zak’de’ron, Oso’lon, and J’gar, and it seemed they had no intention of sharing their restored power with the Era’tran. They would either retake their place as a subservient race or die free.

  The call had already been sent out for all nearby Era’tran and allied ships willing to assist in the defense of Jamtren to rally here, but Mario’topa knew there wouldn’t be many that could come, for there weren’t many left in the galaxy, let alone in the surrounding region. The V’kit’no’sat were gutted, the Zak’de’ron and Itaru were gutted. There weren’t many warfleets left in the galaxy to fight with other than scraps and the few new ships coming out of the shipyards to be staffed with inferior crews, though those crews were highly sought positions. If one was going to die in this war they’d much prefer to do so in combat rather than survive to be captured and enthralled to Itaru, so the volunteer lines for military service were flush. Available ships were the main problem, though the shipyards here were working overtime to pump out replacements as fast as possible.

  That left Jamtren with a small, but comparatively large fleet to supplement the planetary defenses. And if they pulled back inside the planetary shields as Mario’topa suspected they would, Itaru’s forces would have to bleed themselves dry to get at them. Which left the Zen’zat both dreading the coming fight and curious to see what the enemy would bring to the Era’tran. If they had underestimated them, then maybe they’d have a chance of holding and embarrassing Itaru early into their new reign…but Mario’topa’s gut told him otherwise. They were going to drop the hammer…for they had to. If they were leaving the Urrtren up for the rest of the empire to see, they had to win and win big to intimidate others into submission in order to scare them back into line before the Hadarak killed them all.

  Jamtren had run out of time, and in a few weeks the fighting would start. Until then everyone would have a time of peaceful dread to consider their fate and how to face it. Though he could do little as a Zen’zat, Mario’topa would do his duty and fight to defend Holloi until the end, and try to stretch out that end as far as possible.

  If the planetary shield held in most locations, Itaru’s forces would be constrained to surface fighting and the multitude of forests on the planet would give him and the other Zen’zat better cover than urban fighting. If they could eliminate the enemy’s largest weapons, they could make this fight an even affair…and giving the Era’tran and even fight was equivalent to a flag of surrender. They became inspired when victory was palpable, almost as much as the Hjar’at, which was why neither race could be allowed to prosper. They would only grow stronger and rally the more timid races to their side, but Holloi was not a place for the timid, and its 2.3g environment would take a toll on the invading forces if the fight could be pushed beyond the fleet and into the personal fighting that eve
ryone on the planet would prefer over orbital bombardment.

  He knew that was how it was going to go down, for even if Itaru had scrounged up enough ships to put a hole in the planetary shields they would not waste what they had bombarding the others and exchanging unnecessary fire with the surface batteries. Once they had their breach they would pour Zak’de’ron servants down onto the planet to die taking ground while their masters watched from afar, for no Zak’de’ron had been observed in personal combat since the start of the war. However few of them were left were keeping safely anonymous while their loyal troops died en mass to obtain their objectives.

  Though he didn’t wish a larger fight, he hoped the Oso’lon would be sending troops of their own. The J’gar were aquatic and wouldn’t be fighting on land, but if the Oso’lon came down then maybe he’d have a chance for some personal revenge, for after all that had happened since the rebellion against the Zak’de’ron so long ago, it was beyond the height of treason for these insufferable long necks to rejoin with them and turn their back on the rest of the V’kit’no’sat. Leaving Mak’to’ran’s forces had been bad enough, but joining the most vile’s ranks and destroying Itaru in order to rebuild that which had been destroyed for a reason was insanity.

  Did they actually think the Zak’de’ron wouldn’t betray them again after they rebuild their position in the galaxy? How stupid could the Oso’lon be? Or did it no longer matter, and was any port in the Hadarak storm worth fleeing to? Not to mention the threat from beyond the galaxy. Mario’topa didn’t know what their reasoning was and at this point he didn’t care. Any V’kit’no’sat rejoining the Zak’de’ron deserved to die, and he truly hoped he’d get a personal shot at an Oso’lon before he and the others ultimately fell in this insane war.

  At least Mak’to’ran’s rimward experiment still lived, and would far into the future. The Hadarak wouldn’t make it there for thousands of years, and maybe by that point Star Force will have developed the strength to actually defend the galaxy on their own. They were the only hope now, for the V’kit’no’sat empire was done, one way or another. Mario’topa and the others were remnants of a formerly glorious past, and that’s how he and the other Zen’zat intended to die.