Star Force: Keyholders (Star Force Universe Book 61) Read online

  And here Yioli and his city were going to have to make their stand…

  Meanwhile in the Core…

  As the V’kit’no’sat fleet made kill after kill against the Warden Hadarak with their new Ysalamir weapons, the Zak’de’ron ground on with the blood of their servants accomplishing the same thing. They were the third arm of the Triumvirate, and yet Star Force had not entrusted them with the Ysalamir technology. It was humiliating, but not because of the insult. It was humiliating because the Zak’de’ron had failed in their manipulation of the fledgling empire and poisoned the original trust that had been growing between then by forcing their hand too much.

  Star Force would not trust the Zak’de’ron again, and the only reason they trusted the V’kit’no’sat enough to give them the Ysalamir was because the V’kit’no’sat were the inferior now. Star Force had exceeded them in technology, numbers, and most importantly this new Essence, from which they were crafting naval weapons.

  While Star Force did not give the Zak’de’ron Ysalamir, they did give them intelligence on the Hadarak, including their Lurkers and how they had wounded one with a magical weapon crafted from Essence. How it worked they would not reveal, but they wanted the Zak’de’ron to know the true power of the Hadarak, specifically their ‘Lurkers,’ so the dragons would not waste lives in hopeless combat against them.

  So what did Star Force think? That the Zak’de’ron were going to bleed their servants dry only to hand dominion of the galaxy to them if the Hadarak could be pushed back? Did they consider the Zak’de’ron that stupid?

  That was a question that none could answer, and while Star Force had monitored Zak’de’ron combat operations in the beginning…as did the V’kit’no’sat…they were no longer doing so on a large scale. Most combat was now lost amongst the ever growing warfront, with anonymity now allowing the Zak’de’ron to proceed with their true objective of this war. Survival was paramount, but long term survival required superiority, or at least peerdom, with the eventual winners. And whether that be Star Force or the Hadarak, there was one thing they were lacking.

  That was the Uriti. They had possessed 3 of them, loosely, but that had been enough to learn what they could not do with them. They could not alter their genetics, for the Uriti had built in automated fixes that would undo any alteration. Furthermore, they could not be controlled the same way the Chixzon did, for the Zak’de’ron did not know what method they used, let alone how to impersonate the Chixzon controllers.

  So the only way they were going to possess Uriti…and the potential Essence within them if they possessed the same ‘tanker’ capacity that the Wardens did for the Lurkers…was to create their own from infancy, which was where any genetic redesign would have to be made.

  Without the Chixzon knowledge the Zak’de’ron were going to have to start from the beginning, but at least they had some genetic samples from the three Uriti they had sheltered previously. And while it would not be an expedient process, in the long term it was going to be the Zak’de’ron’s key to possessing the galaxy. And to begin, they needed to capture a Hadarak alive.

  Today was that day. With no onlookers, and a large amount of their servants’ blood as the price, they had used a copy of the V’kit’no’sat Harthur to snare a Tier-1 Hadarak intact and unharmed. Now they were adding more components to the massive shell that surrounded it and cradled it in a massive IDF field that prevented it from moving using its biological gravity drives.

  The extra components were engines, for they would not be experimenting on the Hadarak here. A path across the galaxy was already being quietly cleared of onlookers, and once enough engine components arrived they would be carrying this Hadarak off to a dark corner of the galaxy, far from the current warfront, where they could do their research unknown to anyone.

  They’d continue to play the Triumvirate game, sending their ships out on near suicide missions to kill more Hadarak and delay their advance in certain areas while the V’kit’no’sat and eventually Star Force did the major damage to the invasion force, though currently the Rimward empire was dealing with a revolt of its own from Essence users striking from hidden bases.

  The Zak’de’ron had considered offering their help in exchange for access to Essence skills, but there was nothing they could offer in such a battle. Star Force was being savaged by the attacks, and other than more bodies to throw at this ‘Vargemma’ enemy they had little to offer beyond their cunning and advanced technology that may or may not be of use against Essence. There was no way to be sure without confronting it head on, and the Zak’de’ron had decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Creating their own Uriti was their major play, and now they had the critical piece needed to start the long process in motion. Star Force would end the Vargemma one way or another. The Zak’de’ron had no question about that. And until they were free to fight in the Core, the V’kit’no’sat would stubbornly bang their empty heads against the Hadarak and delay their expansion considerably.

  But in the end game, it was going to be the Uriti that controlled the fate of the galaxy, and the Zak’de’ron could not capture and clone one of Star Force’s. They wouldn’t have the control necessary, so they had to start at the beginning, reproduce the experiments the Chixzon had done, and craft their own version…perhaps a better version, but at least an equal to what those elusive masterminds had created.

  The reason the Hadarak were undefeatable was a question of mass, and without a counterpart to it even the Zak’de’ron were going to be too small to matter. Where the giants walked, only other giants could challenge them. And today the Zak’de’ron began their quest to craft their own to use against the Hadarak, as well as one day to use against Star Force, assuming this purge didn’t consume both empires after the V’kit’no’sat heroically died as useful idiots to delay the fall of the Rim.

  And it was to the Rim, the very far Rim, where this newly captured Hadarak was going to spawn an army of Uriti bound to the will of the Zak’de’ron, and together they would control the fate of the galaxy...or rule over the repopulation of the rubble after the Hadarak finished killing everyone in sight.

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