Star Force: Excalibur (Star Force Universe Book 41) Read online

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  March 28, 4850

  Scicaryanen System (Hadarak Zone)

  Middle Zone Null Orbit

  Dorchav waited patiently, knowing his timing had to be right. His Kafcha was currently on the edge of the battle with the minions, throwing massive firepower into their clusters as they tried to pin down individual ships that the Level 1 Hadarak was slowly chasing after. Right now there were dozens partially disabled, but the two that had been neutralized were now being pushed out of the way by other V’kit’no’sat warships, badly damaging their hulls in the soft collisions, but keeping the crews alive a bit longer as the number of minions was being diminished continuously.

  There was no point in attacking the Hadarak directly until the minions were gone…but before they were the Hadarak would retreat, knowing that it didn’t have the range to engage the V’kit’no’sat without the minions. So Dorchav had to guess when that moment would come and act before it, but at the same time the existing minions were going to be a threat once he sprung the trap. There was no protocol to follow, for this was the first time they’d attempted this, and Mak’to’ran was here watching, currently engaged in battle on the planet this Hadarak had been encamped on.

  There were even more minions on the surface than there were in space, and as was typical of the V’kit’no’sat they were going to eradicate them all, purging the system of their presence, and the surface fighting had beat them back so much the Hadarak had chosen to leave the planet and attack the fleet directly. Dorchav had drawn it away from the planet to give Mak’to’ran the spacing he needed, but this attack wasn’t about clearing the system as much as it was a test of the technique Dorchav had recommended. He’d been on the receiving end of it once, but the Hadarak were much more formidable than a Mach’nel, so they’d had to make many modifications to the technology Star Force had developed.

  Now, the Brat’mar said telepathically to his command deck, with the mix of his kind and Zen’zat already knowing exactly what to do.

  Communications went out, with the attacking fleet breaking apart and trying to draw the minions in different directions, spreading them out while leaving two ships helpless to draw the Hadarak in further…only they weren’t as disabled as they were acting. They were still reporting partial engine power and Dorchav’s Kafcha was sniping minions from afar at dangerously close range to increase their odds of surviving.

  But after a few minutes he saw he’d miscalculated…or perhaps the commanders of the vessels had…for their engine power diminished so far they could no longer escape the Hadarak, which was nearly on top of them. In the past the V’kit’no’sat would have let them die to accomplish the mission, but something inside of Dorchav screamed ‘inferiority’ and the Brat’mar audibly growled, drawing looks from the otherwise silent command deck crew.

  “Take us in,” he said, anger billowing over into the specific actions he wanted, telepathically explained within a fraction of a second, resulting in his Kafcha and a nearby Na’shor accelerating towards the Hadarak and racing it to get to the two bait ships.

  Dorchav couldn’t shake the image of that Human Archon who had defeated him before. She would be criticizing him now for leaving those ships to die, stating that Star Force would have saved them and pulled off the trap…and there was no way that he was going to let a rogue faction display more dominance than the V’kit’no’sat. If they could do it, then so could he…and if he died, so be it. He should have died years ago in that Star Force trap, and in a way he felt he was operating on borrowed time ever since.

  As for his crew, they were doing their duty and if they died it would be in battle, fighting to accomplish an objective, not left behind to die because the other V’kit’no’sat were too cowardly to try and save them.

  So even as new ships began to emerge from microjumps all around the perimeter of the Hadarak, the two intact warships jumped through a swarm of minions, disintegrating them on impact as they hard braked nearby, seeing their engine power drop off as the biological remains coated their shields emitting IDF fields that stole the gravity effect away from the engines.

  But the V’kit’no’sat ships were so big those fields couldn’t reach deep within their hulls, and after a moment the shields reset in a flourish, throwing the goo out and away and returning full engine power. If the shields went down and they got that residue on the hull it would be another matter, but Dorchav wasn’t going to stick around that long. What he was going to do was make physical contact with the other ship, and that meant the impact point was going to be exposed.

  But his ship was so big it wouldn’t matter. The only question was, could they push the Dak’bri clear of the chasing Hadarak in time? The ship was less than half as massive as his Kafcha, but tractor beams alone couldn’t get enough grip points to pull something of that size. They’d literally pull the hull plates off, and no exterior hardpoints had been built with connection to the superstructure to accommodate this amount of sheering force. Had the minions not been here, towing the ship would have been easy using IDF fields coupled with the tractor beams, but the minions were partially immune to IDF because they carried jamming fields, and in the past when IDF had been used as a weapon against the swarms they’d actually brought the entire field down.

  So the only way to move the ships was with physical force applied hull to hull, and the Dak’bri in front of them was not Bra’tmar, otherwise the coin-shaped hulls would have matched up perfectly for such a pushing maneuver. Rather it was Tev’nan, with a hull that mirrored the hexpeds’ own bodies with lots of thick spikes coming off an internal mass longer than it was wide. There was no way to get past those spikes, so when the Kafcha made contact three of them crushed down, with the Brat’mar vessel doing more damage than the minions had…but far less than the Hadarak would do if it got within grapple range.

  Dorchav’s own ship took damage from those spikes, but thankfully they also embedded into the hull rather than deflecting, locking the two ships together and allowing the Kafcha’s engines to push hard enough to accelerate the other ship even as minions fired on and plastered against the massive 36 mile wide ‘coin’ ship in a desperate effort to slow it enough for the approaching 62 mile wide Hadarak to catch up. Thankfully it was a ‘small’ Hadarak, but if it got within tentacle range of the Kafcha, Dorchav’s ship was going to be ripped apart regardless.

  The ironic part was the V’kit’no’sat had a massive fleet waiting further out in the system that had not engaged, knowing that the Hadarak would have fled rather than fought, so the Brat’mar was engaging with far less ships to make it a fair fight…which meant they had to give it an advantage, but he wasn’t going to give it two of his ships willingly. That would have shown inferiority.

  However, that’s what ended up happening anyway, as his Kafcha successfully pushed the Dak’bri far enough away to avoid the Hadarak, accelerating enough to stay ahead of it and gain distance, but the smaller Na’shor did not. It too was pushing a smaller vessel, but either the engine combination wasn’t quite adequate or the minions got to it more even though the Kafcha had come in first and drawn most of their attention.

  Dorchav’s displeasure grew as he saw both the Na’shor and the Domjo it was pushing get grabbed by the grapple fields and their rate of movement slowed. The actual catch didn’t occur until several minutes later, but by then more minions were circling around and ramming the ships, sacrificing themselves to get as much IDF-laden goo on them as possible. Eventually one of the Hadarak’s tentacles reached out, targeted by the firepower of both ships, but it held up long enough to make physical contact and poke in through the hull of the Brat’mar Na’
shor like a spear…and after that it was over, though the death of the ships took a while to complete.

  Dorchav saw in mind’s eye the Human, but her tone wasn’t mocking. It was disgusted with the loss, but noted that at least they’d died fighting and hadn’t been betrayed by being left behind. Dorchav was forced to agree, though he was not happy as he watched more tentacles come out and help crush both ships against the outer hull of the Hadarak, which was so much more dense that it barely moved as both V’kit’no’sat vessels were deformed into trash, killing the crews inside with no way for Dorchav to help them now.

  But he could accomplish his mission, and in a way their deaths were helping, for the minions were in close to the Hadarak now rather than being spaced further away as the 183 pieces of the capture sphere entered maximum range and began emitting the longest range IDF fields the V’kit’no’sat could figure out how to create.

  Each one was like a long column that stretched out before the pieces, each of which was far larger than a Mach’nel, but with none of the defenses. The IDF conduits from all of them intersected on the Hadarak, broadening out enough to cover it entirely and deny its own gravity drives a grip on the star and nearby planets, essentially stranding it in place.

  The minions that were not caught in the field immediately shot off towards the emitters, with Dorchav ordering his fleet inside the perimeter to defend them to the death. They had the Hadarak pinned and could not lose it now…except they didn’t quite have it yet. The fields were too fragile and the Hadarak’s own ability to disrupt them was having a partial effect. It began to move immediately, fleeing the trap, but even a casual brush with the IDF slowed it considerably and Dorchav had already instructed the crews on the emitters to move with it.

  They had to stay in range as it began to head for the star, and if it reached it the Hadarak would escape them by going where the V’kit’no’sat could not. Dorchav knew the emitters had to get in closer, a lot closer, to fully trap it, but they couldn’t so long as the minions were here, for they were flying around the warships blocking their path and ignoring them completely as they raced for the emitters.

  The following battle played itself out adequately, with none of the emitters being damaged enough to hinder their operation. Several had their shields go down, but there weren’t enough minions left, thanks to the thinning efforts earlier, and the emitters were able to close in and strengthen their overlapping IDF fields, taking away the Hadarak’s propulsion as it continued to drift towards the star.

  Dorchav then ordered the fleet out of the interior, allowing the emitters to come closer, just beyond grapple field range, and connect to each other as they transformed. The massive hulks flattened out, becoming very thin and vulnerable as they spread into a massive sphere around the Hadarak, locking together into a single mass similar to the capture mechanism Star Force had used…except it had gotten inside weapons range of the Mach’nel Dorachav had commanded, allowing it to bypass their firepower with the extreme close range.

  That would be suicide with a Hadarak, but unlike a Mach’nel, the Hadarak had no ranged weapons other than minions, a few of which were emerging from the Hadarak as it no doubt raced to produce more, but they were squirted out without engine power until they cleared the IDF field, and the limited ‘containment’ weaponry on the inside of the sphere shot them down before they could get to the outer sphere.

  “Containment complete,” another Brat’mar announced as the capture device was fully deployed and now a perfect sphere hiding the massive Hadarak inside. The device was far larger than what Star Force had built, and necessarily so given the dynamics of Hadarak combat, but now was the true test.

  “Pull it into a stable orbit,” Dorchav said, waiting to see if they could move the Hadarak on the engine power of the capture device, which wasn’t great considering how much mass it had to tow. IDF fields didn’t negate mass, they just tied it together inside an energy field, and all that had to be moved to counter the momentum they had heading in towards the star.

  Wisely they accelerated sideways to try and create an orbit rather than doing a direct stop that would have required more power, but it was still too close for comfort. Dorchav actually had to use his fleet with deployed shields as a block, running ahead of the capture device while helping to tow with tractor beams. They plowed through the upper atmosphere of the star so the tiny exterior shields on the capture device wouldn’t have to face the full brunt of the collision with the disperse plasma, for even such small impacts at these speeds would do considerable damage.

  But it worked, and even with that brush against the star the capture device held containment and began to gain altitude again as it curved around the star in an elliptical orbit and inside the Hadarak was helpless to affect its cage, reaching out futilely with tentacles that weren’t long enough and grapple fields that came up just short. Over the following hours a few minions emerged, to be killed instantly, then no more followed.

  Dorchav knew that meant internal production was being stored, with a minion wave to be launched sometime in the future when it believed it had enough to make it to the cage edge, so their victory wasn’t assured yet, but without being able to feed on a planet or star the Hadarak would have to cannibalize internal material to produce more…which no doubt it would do over the course of time if needed.

  “Well done,” Mak’to’ran’s hologram said half a day later when the V’kit’no’sat leader flew out from the planet to the null orbit around the star where they had the Hadarak trapped. “And well worth the investment in resources. How badly damaged is your vessel?”

  “We can only attain 68% jump speed, but we are combat capable.”

  “You exchanged a larger vessel for the loss of a smaller one, but you nearly lost all four. Why did you risk it?”

  “I am tired of leaving people to die without a fight,” the Brat’mar said bluntly.

  Mak’to’ran huffed in a sarcastic manner. “The Humans call us out with their actions, do they not?”

  “You know me too well. Yes, they do. They rightly mock our dominance when they rescue their own and we leave them to die.”

  “We have become too accustomed to losses against the Hadarak,” Mak’to’ran agreed. “We take great care to avoid it against other opponents, but our lack of victory against the Hadarak has caused us to become sloppy. Hopefully our victory today will alter that. You have given us a new weapon against them, and for that you will be honored. The loss of Dimu has given you insight to create this weapon, thus your failure has resulted in ultimate victory and everyone is soon to know it.”

  “I care not for my reputation, and our hold on the Hadarak is tenuous.”

  “Our being able to contain it for even a moment is something the V’kit’no’sat have never done before. Our victory is secure regardless of what happens beyond this point, but I too wish for more than a historical footnote.”

  “What do you wish to do with it?”

  “First we wait and see if it can free itself. We may have to make alterations to the second Harthur, and I would rather do so before construction than after.”

  “Harthur?” Dorchav asked, recognizing the name from V’kit’no’sat legend as a weapon that could turn even the weakest of warriors into victors…which was not something that was seen as honorable, rather a cheat for the inferior to claim dominance they did not deserve.

  “A reminder that we are still the lesser in this war, but also that we now have a chance to win.”

  “We have a tactic, not a solution,” Dorchav warned. “It is progress, but not ultimate victory.”

  “I know that as well as you do, but we now have the ability to stop the smaller Hadarak without bleeding ourselves so much that victory is almost worthless.”

  “If we are able to contain this one, how do you wish us to dispose of it? The Harthur doesn’t have enough engine power to create sufficient collision speeds, and I doubt we can get it far enough away from the stars to strand it in deep space.”


  “We will have to build a second carrier vessel to do either.”

  “Then we use the fleet?” Dorchav asked, referencing the fact that several pieces of the Harthur could be removed in theory, if the field held sufficient density, and allow the warships to fire their long range weapons in on the Hadarak with impunity, very slowly destroying it from afar in a process that would take weeks, if not months to do sufficient damage from the limited firing lines.

  “No,” Mak’to’ran differed. “So long as we possess this one and must endure to test the effectiveness of the Harthur, we will use the time to study the Hadarak as we have never been able to do so before. My primary concern is another Hadarak entering the system. We cannot shield their telepathy to hide this one, nor can we remove it from this system.”

  “Shall I move the hidden fleet into blockade position?”

  “Do so at your convenience. I fear if one does arrive it will not matter and we will lose this one regardless. If that happens, I want you to save the Harthur by abandoning the capture. It is too valuable to risk losing,” Mak’to’ran said, referencing the immense construction effort that had been undertaken to get it built/tested/refined in such a short amount of time, and all at Mak’to’ran’s insistence, for Itaru had not thought the experiment worth the expenditure of resources.

  “Thank you for your wisdom.”

  “It is I who owe you a debt for discovering what none of us had even considered. Our blood price has blinded us to other options for fighting the Hadarak.”

  “I as well, until Star Force forced me to see. It is a pity we must destroy them.”

  “I have not given up hope that they will see reason. When the truce ends, they may have tired of war. They are busy doing many things they could not before. I will offer them the opportunity to continue. They may take it.”

  “They are not blinded by arrogance, but they are proud. I do not believe they will accept subservience.”