Star Force: Instinct (Star Force Universe Book 49) Read online

  1

  May 29, 4919

  Alamo System (Uriti Preserve)

  Stellar Orbit

  Riley-038 stood looking out the virtual window onboard his flagship. He was well inside the hull, with multiple decks between him and space, but he’d added the holographic view to the mediation chamber so he could look at who he was talking with…or rather communicating with, for they still hadn’t managed to learn to speak directly to the Uriti in any form of language that could be quantified and computerized. It was a meshing of thoughts and feelings that was used, and right now Riley could see Bahamut, Sub Zero, and Sivir just outside his ship while 8 others were down inside the glowing star soaking up energy directly.

  The room Riley was in was locked, with a guard outside that was mostly unnecessary. No non-Star Force personnel were onboard his ship, but it was just a little extra measure meant to give him someone watching his back, for while in contact with the Uriti his Pefbar wouldn’t function and someone could literally walk up behind him without his knowing.

  Riley looked at the three Uriti outside as the chrome gauntlet he wore had the glowing jewel burning green, meaning his mind was in the correct mental alignment to access the Chixzon interface, giving him the connection to the Uriti that they would not ignore. His personal telepathy was far too small for them to notice, let alone travel the distance out from the ship to them. He’d need a booster, but even then the Uriti wouldn’t recognize him. There was one channel that made his presence ‘important’ enough to get noticed, and it was a method that was one of Star Force’s most closely guarded secrets.

  Kara knew of it, but she didn’t know how it worked, which meant the Zak’de’ron didn’t have that technology. Only Star Force and the Chixzon did, and Riley had been working hard to develop a relationship with the Uriti that would be the tie-breaker if a Chixzon showed up and tried a tug of war for influence over them. And that meant he had to ask for their help now, not order it.

  Our war with the V’kit’no’sat is over, Riley said, not in those words, but in a series of images and familiar emotions that they’d developed a sort of short-hand for, and often Riley had trouble trying to translate between the two. He wasn’t as good as the Wranglers, who had literally started to think like the Uriti, but he needed to be the one to ask, given the situation before them. But another threat is before us. One we must utterly destroy.

  Before the V’kit’no’sat found us we were attacked and nearly defeated by a weaker enemy. We survived, and outgrew them, and were nearly to the point of destroying them when they fled towards V’kit’no’sat star systems. We could not pursue without revealing our presence, so this enemy escaped us. We are far more powerful than them now, but they have been getting help from another. We do not know who, but their strength is growing to dangerous levels. Now that we are free of the V’kit’no’sat, we must eliminate this enemy before they can grow strong enough to attack us once again.

  We do not want to do so, but there are no other options. We have tried to negotiate. We have tried to teach. We have tried to capture them. They will not listen. They will destroy all around them, and if they are unable to do more damage they will destroy themselves rather than accept imprisonment. Long ago we found a way, a very difficult way, to save some of them. Those that we did now serve us as Paladin. But the method we used to reach them has now been blocked. Their minds enslaved to the orders of their leaders. We cannot rescue them. We cannot contain them. And the longer they live, the more people they will destroy. To protect others, we must eliminate them now, before they can spread further.

  I have been sent to ask if you would assist us with this eradication. It is a fight we must make, but they are not your enemy. If you do not wish to fight them, we understand. This is our burden to carry.

  Riley signaled that he was done, then the response from Bahamut came in without hesitation.

  The pack fights as one. Where our little brothers fight, we will fight.

  There is danger, Riley warned. They are not as powerful as the V’kit’no’sat, but they are far more numerous. It will be difficult to kill them all before they can inflict damage on us.

  The little ones cannot stand against us.

  No, they cannot. Which is why I ask your help. The challenge will be in killing them fast enough to prevent them from fleeing and rebuilding elsewhere in the galaxy. We will need your full power. Including your minions.

  Did the V’kit’no’sat not deserve destruction? Sivir asked. Our full power was restrained against them.

  To avoid killing our own people they had imprisoned. This new enemy does not capture. They destroy. So their worlds will be empty aside from them. If we find otherwise we will make adjustments, but I anticipate a sea of enemies with no allies or neutrals in sight. It is a type of war that we have not fought in a long time, and one we do not like, but it must be done.

  Have the Hadarak been seen? Sub Zero asked, repeating a question that had almost become their mantra.

  No. They are still far from here, and will be far from the fight against this new enemy.

  What do you call this enemy? Bahamut asked.

  They call themselves Li’vorkrachnika. We call them, lizards.

  And you say they must all be destroyed.

  Unfortunately yes. We can find no other way to stop them, and we have looked for a long time.

  We were built to destroy the little ones and those that cannot be stopped. We will erase them with you.

  Riley frowned. He had never heard that before. Who are ‘those that cannot be stopped?’

  Those we are meant to delay and warn of.

  Warn who?

  The Hadarak. They cannot stop them, but they will slow them.

  How do you recognize those who cannot be stopped? Riley asked, feeling as if he’d stumbled onto a very valuable data nugget.

  They glow. We are meant to fight and slow them. The Hadarak are meant to fight and slow them. We are meant to fight together.

  Riley felt a deep sadness and betrayal there, for despite their size and power, the Uriti were essentially overgrown Hadarak minions, not Hadarak themselves. Their bodies were, but their minds were a hybrid and the reproductive process that had spurned them came from the minions, so in some ways they thought as Hadarak, and in others they thought as minions. Living minions, not the lifeless biological programming that the Chixzon had modified the Uriti-produced minions to be. And the Uriti could not understand why the Hadarak did not accept them as such. It was simply beyond their ability to comprehend, but they did learn and were now very wary of the Hadarak. Still, they did not understand why they had been attacked and those wounds still burnt bright inside them, especially Bahamut.

  Are the ones that glow big or little ones?

  All who glow.

  Have you ever encountered one that glowed?

  No. Neither have the Hadarak.

  They told you that?

  They said we did not glow, but we had to be destroyed the same. They knew not what one that glowed was. We do not know. We will know when we know.

  Are the Hadarak searching for the ones that glow?

  They are waiting for the ones who glow to come. They always come. We wait.

  Will you win?

  We will die. We always die. We will delay and warn. We will not win.

  I prefer winning.

  You cannot win lizards. You not try. You say impossible. Defeat glowing ones impossible.

  It is difficult because we might be able to find a way. But waiting means others are killed while we search. We must protect others. We do not have a way now. Therefore it is impossible. Must you fight the
glowing ones, or can you wait?

  When we find the glowing ones we cannot wait. They must be slowed. Do you know how to slow glowing ones?

  I do not know what glowing ones are. I do not know where they are. Are they in the center of the galaxy?

  They will appear where they appear. We must wait. We help our little brothers while we wait. Summon the fast ones and we will travel with you.

  Riley knew ‘fast ones’ meant the Uriti transports that could fly between stars far faster than the Uriti could ever hope to. It was a sign that they were ready and willing to leave now and dive back into a fight after only a few years of peace…though to be accurate, they hadn’t fought very many battles, and most of the time it was just laying some precision fire down on a planet while the V’kit’no’sat ran for their lives.

  This war was going to be different. The lizards would not run, despite their new marching orders that Paul had reported. He knew the Uriti could handle it, but they were going to take damage and he hated putting them into that situation.

  But these ‘glowing ones’ bothered him. The Uriti had never spoken of them before, but what Riley was sensing indicated that this was one of their primary purposes for existing…and he was pretty sure this didn’t come from the Chixzon if it was a trait that the Hadarak also shared.

  That fast ones are waiting. We need to take you all. Do the others agree to fight?

  The pack fights as one, Bahamut repeated. Show us what little ones need deleted and we will make them gone.

  Riley sent the coordinates for them to rendezvous at, then partially broke his concentration to interface with the wristband on his opposite arm that tied into the ship’s computer. He didn’t need his telepathy to do it, since he was already in physical contact and the device made the connection to his mind for him, and he used the interlink to signal the waiting transports to begin moving down into low stellar orbit to pick up the Uriti. He hadn’t wanted to bring them out before the Uriti agreed to fight, but it seemed that concern had been pointless. To the Uriti, Star Force was part of their family, or ‘pack’ as they called it. And the idea of asking for help was beyond them. They were one, and fought as one…and apparently didn’t care about how many little ones were wiped out, which was yet one more reason that Riley was glad that only Star Force had access to them, for they weren’t exactly what one would call ‘discerning’ when it came to killing.

  They were living war machines, and ironically that’s exactly what Star Force needed them to be this time. Not just a threat of massive retaliation, but now they needed to actually use their full power to wipe out an entire race…if they were lucky. Riley doubted they would get them all, but they needed to break their powerbase and make them completely rebuild, and when it came to breaking things, the Uriti could do so just by their mere proximity.

  Riley was still chewing on who the glowing ones might be, but another corner of his mind face-palmed itself as a course of action he hadn’t thought of before seemed obvious.

  But no, the telepathic aura of the Uriti could render the lizards inert, but it couldn’t reprogram them. The genetic memories couldn’t be erased, but it did mean that the lizards couldn’t run suicide bombers up to the Uriti at close range, because they’d lose the minds before they got to physical contact. That wouldn’t do much for a kamikaze ship, but it meant if a Uriti landed on a planet, a zone around it would be free of harm from infantry, aircraft, and anything else that had a pilot in it.

  And that was going to be the best way to shield minion production facilities. Riley kicked himself for not picking up on that before, but was saddened that the massive telepathic aura couldn’t somehow be used to override the lizard mental programming. Nothing they had learned of the Uriti suggested that was possible, but it was nice to know he had several large jamming devices available to him at close range.

  Riley raised an eyebrow as he saw Bahamut and the other two Uriti moving off towards the rendezvous point with several more coming up from within the star on the nearby tracking screen, for they hadn’t quite reached the surface yet and even when they did you’d need a filter on the sunlight to see them, which a ‘normal’ window wouldn’t accommodate.

  The passive Uriti telepathic aura was potent near the beasts, but suddenly Riley wondered how large they could push it consciously? The Yisv couldn’t be anywhere near a Uriti when it was awake. Even partway across a star system was too close. So he wondered at what range a Uriti could disable lizard minds?

  That was something he was going to investigate for sure, because if it worked out to be naval range…then this was going to get even easier than the trailblazers had been expecting.

  2

  June 16, 4919

  Ennit System (Dagran Region)

  Vis

  Vortison was waiting in his lab when one of the oldest Archons walked in. He’d been expecting her, but he wasn’t happy that she was here.

  “This is a bad idea,” he reminded her as Lara-379 almost floated across the floor in a typical Archon stride so refined from centuries of training to be as efficient as possible. “Give me another 10 years. Please.”

  “Have you many any progress the past 10?” she challenged.

  The master medtech sighed. “Not really, but what’s the rush?”

  Lara stopped in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders as he sat on a chair slightly lower than she stood. “You know this has to be refined with training, and you’re never going to be able to simulate that in the lab. It has to be done by one of us. Waiting another decade won’t change that.”

  “You never know for sure. We’re going beyond both the V’kit’no’sat and the Chixzon. We’re flying blind here, so we don’t know that more years won’t matter.”

  “There’s a difference between patience and hesitance,” she said, releasing him and taking a half step back. “Which is this?”

  “It could kill you,” he warned.

  “I know. Which is why I’m going to do it and not the trailblazers. We can’t risk them.”

  “No Archon should do it. You all push too hard. This is the complete opposite. You have to sip at the power. Too much and you burn out. I might be able to keep you alive, but you’ll lose hundreds of years of training at the best. The stopgaps might not even work and you could end up dead, Lara.”

  “Been there once, not going back,” she said firmly. “That’s why I have to be the one to do this. I learned extreme patience the hard way.”

  “I want to wait.”

  “I’m free now and the trailblazers are busy. Perfect timing. Let’s get this started before they can object. You know they’ll want to do this.”

  “I’ve been stalling them for years. Why can’t I stall you?”

  “Because this is personal for me. And I’m not going to let what happened to me happen to anyone else. You need someone to monitor and make adjustments from…that’s me. No one else. And there’s no point in waiting anymore. I’m available, so let’s get this started.”

  “It will take years, you know. You won’t be able to train normally…” he added, with Lara putting up a hand for him to stop.

  “This is my path forward. I’ve accepted that. No looking back. I’ll put up with the training disruption. I had to do it before. This time I’m choosing to.”

  “Why?”

  “We train to get more power. If I can get more power another way. A lot more power. Then this is my new training.”

  “I really don’t want to do this, Lara. It’s theoretical only, loosely based on Chixzon biotech. There are too many unknowns.”

  “Which will not be known until we explore them. I’m self-anointing myself trailblazer here. Someone has to go where no one has gone before, and this time it’s me. Besides, I’ve already got a head start on the total rebuild thing. And I will drop the guilt bomb on you if needed.”

  Vortison smacked a datapad aside, with it falling off the tabletop onto the floor. He still blamed himself for Lara nearly dying when she experi
enced psionic overload. He didn’t cause it, but he should have foreseen the problem before it happened. It was a glitch in the V’kit’no’sat coding, or perhaps even the Zak’de’ron coding. They hadn’t seen it because Zen’zat never accumulated as many psionics as the Archons had, and where they had failed Vortison had to step in and make adjustments to their coding after the fact, but not before Lara’s bones literally broke from the inside as overlapping psionics caused an unexpected malfunction.

  “You’re the smartest guy we have,” Lara pointed out. “I’m better off with you than someone else.”

  “No one else can do this,” Vortison sneered. “Not even Nefron. He’s a databank, not a scientist.”

  “It’s my life to risk, and I know you’ll feel horrible if something happened to me, but suck it up, cupcake. I’m going to be doing the hard part.”

  “Cupcake?” he asked, having to snicker a bit at that.

  “That’s what you’re acting like.”

  “You don’t understand what is going to happen to you. I do...to a point.”

  “I’ll go slow. I promise.”

  “It’s your instinctual reaction that worries me, Lara. When your head swarms with confusion, will you be patient or push? Archons always push.”

  “Which is why I have to be the one to do this so you can refine the process. Pushing for me is a luxury. When my body went backwards, it couldn’t keep up with my memories. I literally couldn’t push how my mind knew I was capable of. I learned to go slow. I learned why I had to. I developed a habit. I still have that habit, even if I don’t use it much. The experience is there,” she said, pointing a finger at her own head. “The others don’t have it. I do. So let me do this.”

  “If I said ‘why do you need the power,’ you’d probably feel compelled to beat the stupidity out of me,” he said sarcastically.

  Lara leaned forward and put her finger underneath his chin, forcing him to look her in her eyes.

  “Come on. Help me become a Super Saiyan. Pretty please.”