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

  “Let it out,” he whispered. “You’re safe here. No need to tuck it away. You’ve been through hell, little one. And now you’re going to get the reward for surviving it. But first you need to let go and do what you couldn’t do before. Just stop and cry. There is no tomorrow, there is no yesterday, there is only today. There is only this moment. You don’t have to do anything, just stand here and open up all the pain canisters you’ve been tucking away. And I’m not going to let you go until you do.”

  She felt his arms tighten just a bit further, enough to reinforce him as point without making it uncomfortable, but oddly enough she didn’t even feel like fighting him. She needed the help, and was truly tired of fighting this alone.

  It was good to have family. And what she’d done had been as much for them as it had been for her, but now it was her turn to get some help, and there wasn’t anyone in the galaxy better able to help the Archons than Wilson.

  And true to form, he’d had her exhaust herself with that lap around the pyramid so she had no time limit on this moment. That let Lara go limp and turn into the mushy ball of pain she’d been fighting against for so many years, and by the time her advanced metabolism started clawing at her again the cathartic release would be over and she’d be well on her way into the future, but for right now she just let herself relish the immensely strong arms holding her up and the reassurance they offered.

  As always, Wilson knew ways to approach training that no one else did, which was why the most advanced training required a trainer. You had to have someone to push you, to torment you, and to tell you when to back off and just…cry. You had to fully live in the moment, and you couldn’t do that when you were worried about what workout to do tomorrow or a month from now. You needed to take it one minute at a time while someone else took care of the planning.

  And that was a luxury worth more than all the solari in the galaxy to an Archon.

  When the Star Force warship entered the Itaru System it was met with the patrol fleet but not fired upon. They had known it was coming for some time, tracking its progress across V’kit’no’sat territory though it had not answered any questions about why it was here other than to say it was heading to Itaru. Per the terms of the agreement ending the war, Star Force had free movement throughout the V’kit’no’sat empire for their warrior class, but not their civilians, and this ship was definitely a warship, but now that it was here they were going to find out why.

  Mak’to’ran got word as soon as it arrived that it was here to deliver a messenger to him in person, and he immediately granted approval. He had an Ari’tat delegation within Star Force territory to operate as a standing Ambassador, and the interlink between the Urrtren and the Star Force communications grid had been completed a few years ago, so there was no need for a messenger unless the subject matter couldn’t be trusted to the Urrtren…which meant it had something to do with the Zak’de’ron, or something that they couldn’t allow them to know about.

  Mak’to’ran met the Archon when he arrived in a private chamber, finding it was one of their lesser ones. The Frieza-ranked Human he did not know, which suggested that this was indeed a message being transmitted in the most secure way possible rather than a discussion or negotiation, otherwise they would have sent one of their senior Archons.

  “Why are you here, small one?” Mak’to’ran asked when the Archon slowly walked up to him.

  “Is the chamber secure?”

  “Only you and I will know what takes place here.”

  “Good,” Hatron-1288333 said from his helmetless purple/white armor. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that we’ve analyzed the lizard genetics and technology compared to what they once were. We’ve confirmed they have been enhanced by a sponsor, though no record of that sponsor exists in any of their captured databases. However, we have spotted a subtle fingerprint on the enhancements they’ve been given.”

  “The Zak’de’ron?” Mak’to’ran asked, almost seething with the confirmation that they had begun their war against the V’kit’no’sat, even if by proxy.

  “No,” Hatron said coldly. “It’s not the Zak’de’ron. It’s the Chixzon. We don’t have thousands of years to prepare. They’ve already returned.”

  Mak’to’ran took a step back, not having expected that, but finding it somehow worse. The Zak’de’ron were bad enough, but having two massively superior races working against you simultaneously was a nightmare beyond nightmares…not to mention the growing Hadarak threat. The V’kit’no’sat were soon to be in a 3-way vice grip that there was no way they could survive.

  The Archon pulled a small datachip out of a hidden pouch and held it up to get Mak’to’ran’s attention.

  “This is also for you. It’s the immunities for all the popular Chixzon bioweapons. You’ll have to adjust it to your races’ biologies, but we’ve already quietly inoculated our populations. It should make it more difficult to blindside you, but be warned that they are ingenious enough to find new ways of killing us. This should at least buy you some time against a biological threat.”

  Mak’to’ran gripped the tiny device, built of V’kit’no’sat design, with his Lachka and brought it up in front of his face for closer inspection.

  “Why are you giving us this?”

  “Call it professional courtesy. You may be our enemy, but we’ve fought each other enough that some respect has been earned.”

  “Is that your assessment or that of your masters’?”

  “Mine, but the decision to give this and the warning to you is theirs.”

  “And what else did they instruct you to give me?”

  “Nothing more than the opportunity to send them a secure message. It was a long trip. No point in wasting it when I can carry it back.”

  “Remain here,” Mak’to’ran said, then he walked off out of sight and eventually left the large chamber for many minutes before returning and floating down a much larger datachip that looked like a blue crystal. “Guard this with your life, and if your ship is compromised, destroy it before it can be captured.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “Everything I have been able to collect on the Zak’de’ron. Things that were not in your planetary defense station database, and some not kept even here in Itaru. In exchange, I ask that your masters learn from it and compare with the Chixzon knowledge that we lack. Perhaps it will offer some insights that will save both our empires.”

  “I’ll make sure they get it,” Hatron said, melding it into his armor in a fashion that the pocket was completely hidden.

  “Go now. The longer you wait the more chance there is of someone intercepting you.”

  “Any personal message?”

  “Tell them that they have done more for the empire than all other Zen’zat combined, and make sure they know I mean no insult. I no longer wish Star Force destroyed, by my hand or others. I hope you prosper long into the future, and if both the Zak’de’ron and Chixzon are in play for dominion of the galaxy, we are going to need each other, I think, simply to survive one of them. How we counter both is beyond my reckoning.”

  “By growing too large for them to stop with hidden armies,” the Archon said as if it were common knowledge. “There’s only so much they can build without doing it in the open.”

  “The galaxy is vast enough to hide empires, Archon.”

  “Not when we both routinely search it. Give them less places to hide, and we force their hand early or keep them suppressed and using intermediaries while we grow larger and larger.”

  “An overly simplistic approach.”

  “But one hard to overcome. Numbers matter.”

  “Numbers may be the only advantage we have at the moment, and they are continuously being whittled down.”

  “Well, you’re not losing ships to us anymore, and vice versa. Do your thing and kick the crap out of everyone else attacking you. Aren’t you supposed to be the terrors of the galaxy or something like that?”

  Mak’to’ran huffed, what little
of his pride that remained momentarily sparked. “You believe we can win the coming war?”

  “Remember who you’re talking to. Did we have a chance against you in the beginning? We survived because we decided to fight to the death, if nothing else out of spite. There is no surrender in our blood, and our persistence paid off.”

  “It was more than persistence, though with a great deal of incompetence on our part included. Still, you have a point. You had no chance, yet here you remain and more powerful than ever. Your knowledge of the Chixzon may put you in a more advantageous position than we are in. Make use of it wisely. Once they know you have it…”

  “We already think they know. Our ability to control the Uriti speaks pretty loudly.”

  “Do they know how much you know?”

  Hatron scrunched his face up in a hesitant gesture, deciding how to answer without giving away a secret. “There’s really only one way to get Chixzon knowledge, and it’s pretty much all or nothing, so we expect they know.”

  “Interesting. Guard it well, or the Zak’de’ron may take it from you. If they manage to possess both knowledge bases, we are surely doomed.”

  “Never give up, never surrender,” the Archon quoted. “But we know what we’ve got, and it’s well secured. Even I don’t have access to it.”

  “You shouldn’t. As a messenger you’re extremely vulnerable.”

  “A fast ship makes up for a lot of things. And as you said, time is precious for safety. Is there anything else before I leave?”

  “There is not. Go now.”

  “Going,” Hatron echoed, turning about and walking away.

  Mak’to’ran watched him go, but didn’t move. He stood frozen in place thinking. The Chixzon were little more than a legend to him, while the Zak’de’ron he knew from experience, but he wondered which was the more powerful if the Chixzon had been able to harness the strength of the Hadarak to craft the Uriti for their own purposes. Two such massive powers arrayed against the V’kit’no’sat was ironic, and yet somehow deserved for the wasteful years they’d spent after the Zak’de’ron defeat. They should have been halfway through Hadarak territory by now, instead they had stagnated and fought each other to the point where the empire had nearly broken…and in truth it was now broken in secret. The J’gar and Oso’lon were gone, for the most part, and the few shreds that remained with Mak’to’ran wouldn’t grow large enough to replace them for a very long time.

  He doubted they had that much time, but if the Li’vorkrachnika were not operating under the orders of the Zak’de’ron, then perhaps their old nemesis wasn’t as ready to strike them as he had assumed. Perhaps some of the other races they were currently engaged with were also operating on the orders of the Chixzon?

  In some way that put him more at ease, despite the fact that the threat against him had now doubled. He needed time to retool the V’kit’no’sat and had been assuming the Zak’de’ron were already launching the first stages of their war of vengeance against him…but maybe that had been a miscalculation. Maybe he had more time.

  Growth. That was what the young Archon had said. Growth would protect them both, and maybe, just maybe, they would have enough time to play that long game if all the Chixzon could do was throw lesser races at them.

  And if they had planned on using a biological weapon to weaken the V’kit’no’sat further, Star Force might have just bought him the time he needed. Maybe there was a chance to survive this. One that he couldn’t currently see, but a pathway before him none the less.

  And as the Archon had pointed out, if you’re doomed to die anyway, you might as well fight out of spite and take that impossible chance with full vigor. After all, what else did you have to lose by trying?

  The answer was nothing, and for the first time in recent memory he felt a surge of resolve flow through him. If he was going to die, he would go down fighting as a V’kit’no’sat, not a broken warrior in a broken empire. So yes, growth it would be. He would wrangle what was left of the empire into form, even if he had to further reduce its size, then they would face the Hadarak and whatever else came at them with honor and either prevail or die trying, but they would not crumble. They would not self-destruct. They would not cave to the pressure and almost certain doom before them.

  If either the Zak’de’ron or Chixzon were going to take dominion over the galaxy from the V’kit’no’sat, they were going to have to pay the price of blood to earn it. If the J’gar and Oso’lon wanted to forsake their pride, then the Era’tran would carry the empire in their stead. They would remain true V’kit’no’sat or die. There were no other options, for he would not let there be any other options.

  And if they did fall, then perhaps Star Force would have a chance to carry on the work of the V’kit’no’sat under a different name. And they did not have the Hadarak border on their doorstep to guard, as he did, but the J’gar were right in one regard. If the V’kit’no’sat couldn’t survive the Zak’de’ron, then fighting the Hadarak was pointless. And if one of the two empires could survive what was coming, it might very well end up being Star Force, for they had one less enemy to fight than Mak’to’ran did.

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