Uriti Tamer Read online

  Her duties as a Wrangler were hit and miss other than watches, and Niolla had learned to take it slow and focus on her Archon training more than the Uriti. Insight into them came erratically, almost as if they were holding back from her until she’d passed their tests, yet neither she nor any of the other Wranglers she’d spoken with had ever been able to confirm that or identify a pattern other than familiarity. The Uriti spoke more with those they were personally familiar with, but the difference was negligible. On the surface it appeared they regarded all of the Wranglers as the same person, and the more trust the Wranglers gained as a group, the more each individual would have, even the new cadets, when they interacted with them.

  But there was subtlety to their interactions, and it was those subtleties that Niolla and others were focused on for gaining greater understanding, for they couldn’t read the Uriti’s minds unless they allowed it, for they were too far away to use their own Ikrid and the Uriti’s minds were so massive she didn’t even have a clue what that would be like…other than an instant passing out on her part. So they had to use the gauntlets and boosters that not only gave them more power and range, but made their telepathy appear Chixonesk to the Originals. She often wondered if that made them sound like Darth Vader rather than what their own telepathic voices would normally have ‘sounded’ like. And even with the smaller Uriti, their ‘voice’ was altered into the Star Force mode used to communicate with their altered programming.

  Right now Niolla was sitting on a padded platform, her legs crossed and eyes closed, with the jewels in the gauntlet on her right arm glowing green in a line that ran from wrist to elbow. The gauntlet was wirelessly connected to the ship and the massive transmitter it contained, and through that device that was also a receiver, Niolla was monitoring the status of the 8 Uriti bathing inside the star. She wasn’t in contact with them on a conscious level, but they had been designed to transmit their status to the Chixzon constantly when prompted to do so and that was how Star Force was able to keep track of them when they dove deep within stars, for the most part. Some black holes were so dense they blocked their telepathy at certain ranges, but here she could still feel them and what they were doing, but unless she talked to them and they agreed to talk back, their minds were shielded from her.

  Had they actually been hamsters she would have been inside their minds and figuring them out the quick way, but the Uriti were gigantic mysteries that had to be nibbled away at slowly, and it was that challenge that had drawn her to become a Wrangler when the others couldn’t get any big answers out of the spacefaring monsters. Now she knew why it was so difficult, but that only drew her to the mystery more. Challenges were candy to the Archons as much as corovon was to the Uriti, and she hadn’t regretted the time she’d spent here. Not once.

  Part of her on-watch duties included monitoring traffic within the system. Public access was denied here and routed to a neighboring system were a few other Uriti were located at the moment, so whenever ships popped in the fleet had to deal with them and the Wranglers were technically in charge, though most of the time they didn’t need to get involved in the intercepts of individual ships who were unwittingly passing through or were trying to sneak a peek in a banned Star Force system.

  But today was not to be a quiet day, and just before Niolla’s hour was up and she switched out with another Wrangler, they began picking up hits on the Dragon’s Tooth sensors Star Force had at the base of the major jumppoints and some of the lesser ones. Those hits didn’t materialize on any other sensors and disappeared at the end of the incoming jumps, for the Dragon’s Tooth technology only worked to detect cloaked ships during the deceleration phase when they were plowing through stellar radiation.

  Many ships were detected, in a long stream entering the system, but before that stream ended the first few voluntarily decloaked as Star Force ships were already racing around stellar orbit to get to the jumppoint even though they couldn’t see them.

  Alarms went off and Niolla’s eyes finally opened as the sensors registered Zak’de’ron ships arraying in defensive position around the jumppoint, ready to hold off the Star Force ships as a huge signature pinged on the Dragon’s Tooth as it came in on its deceleration leg like a comet, only visible on the sensor tech that the Zak’de’ron themselves had given Star Force prior to their falling out.

  A hologram of a Zak’de’ron materialized, but it wasn’t a direct comm channel to Niolla’s ship, rather a message being broadcast to the entire system on a secure Star Force comm channel that the Zak’de’ron weren’t even supposed to know about, ensuring that only high level Star Force personnel would see it.

  “We deliver the Uriti as bargained. It is now fully your responsibility.”

  That short message was all that was delivered just before the massive transport ship decloaked and began to open up…but the Uriti inside, which Niolla quickly identified as Vedrowen, didn’t wait for the technology to peel open and actually broke the ship as it exited, pushing off the interior walls to get outside the IDF field nullifying it’s gravity drives and getting a tentacle clear, from which it pulled itself out and left pieces of Zak’de’ron ship floating in its wake.

  “Oh shit,” Niolla said, ordering her command ship to intercept with a thought as she saw the new Uriti heading straight for the star and her Uriti within it. Its stats, which were relayed to her as she reached out and prompted it to transmit, were horrific. She’d never seen one so battle damaged, physically or mentally, and this one was currently in a rage. It didn’t respond to her ‘voice’ and continued to accelerate towards the star as the other Uriti were frantically bombarding her and the other two Wranglers with questions as to who the new arrival was.

  She explained how the Zak’de’ron were going to deliver them, but they had not informed her of when or where, so she hadn’t told the Uriti. Then she asked if they could talk to Vedrowen for her, because he was ignoring her calls. Her Uriti did better than that, and allowed her to piggyback on their own conversations…with a bit of lag…and she immediately saw a monster. An enraged monster bent on destroying the Uriti, whom it considered to be the same as the Hadarak who had attacked it previously.

  Niolla heard the Uriti trying to explain that they were of the same herd, but the soured state of the new Uriti’s telepathy immediately told her this was the Zak’de’ron’s doing…and the fact that their ships were recloaking and bugging out even as more of their fleet arrived told her they were washing their hands of this mess and dumping it on Star Force’s doorstep.

  Niolla saw all the Uriti heading for one another, those inside the star moving slowly as they pressed through all that stellar material, rising towards space, but all of hers were small compared to the 319 mile wide Vedrowen that looked like a shuriken with 5 thick but flat tentacles that were twirled into a partial circle.

  Another of the Wranglers beat her to the naming of it, officially dubbing it Shuriken, but Niolla was the closest of the three ships so it was her duty to issue the stand down order. The Wrangler closed her eyes again and concentrated hard, ordering only the new Uriti and not the others to hold position. She repeated the order three times, but other than a slight hesitation in its acceleration, Shuriken did not stop approaching the star.

  “What the hell,” she said, trying again and getting the same result, then she broadcast to the other ships. “We have a problem. Get your asses over here now. The override isn’t working.”

  Niolla didn’t wait for their laggy reply and continued to reissue the order as her ship got closer and closer, moving lightning fast compared to the slow Uriti as the first of the smaller ones finally got to the surface. They were all Sivirs, looking like Frisbee discs, but Sivir-Zero was not here with them, meaning they had superior numbers but not mass. Shuriken was larger than them all combined, and even considering the huge patches of unhealed damage on his crumpled chrome body, she didn’t like the odds in the fight that appeared to be coming.

  “Come on, come on,” she said, trying
the override again and again, succeeding in only getting a few more navigational twitches as the huge Uriti raced down towards the star. Back off, she told them. Something is not right with him. He is going to attack you.

  The Uriti disagreed, intent on getting to him and helping him, but Niolla knew better. This wasn’t normal Uriti brain activity, even by Chixzon standards. The Zak’de’ron had done something to him, and knowing them they probably hated the idea of the Chixzon being able to come into a system and steal control of the Uriti from them. How had they managed to override the override? And had it backfired on them? Was that why they’d agreed to turn them over to Star Force?

  Thankfully they hadn’t dropped all 3 here and now, and the deal had demanded they deliver them individually so they could be isolated and integrate with the new herds and not reinforce bad habits. But Shuriken had far more than bad habits. He was literally crazed, and Niolla wondered if this wasn’t partly the unintended consequence of having the Uriti fight the Hadarak, whom they considered to be brothers. Did doing so make them crazy?

  He has never seen a Sivir before, Niolla told the Uriti. He thinks you are Hadarak, and he has been fighting Hadarak. He will attack you. You can feel it. Approach slowly and do not enter close range. Agreed?

  The Uriti agreed, knowing she could override them if need be, but such a thing was never used. They got along well enough, and the Wranglers knew not to yank the chain unless absolutely necessary. And now that it appeared that chain had been broken with Shuriken, she was really glad they did have that relationship to fall back on.

  Wait for the others and stay together. If he attacks, run. You are faster.

  The Uriti insisted that wouldn’t be needed, and she hoped they were right, but she had a gut feeling they were blinded by the euphoria of meeting a new Uriti.

  Her ship got between them prior to the arrival, and despite multiple attempts the override was not working as designed…but it was working. She could feel the resistance within Shuriken every time she tried it. Somehow the Zak’de’ron had taught it how to disobey, but not disregard it. The Chixzon had made it so it wasn’t physically possible to disobey, and how this had been managed Niolla had no idea, but the Zak’de’ron were rumored to be more technologically advanced than Star Force, and it looked like they had managed to do the impossible.

  She watched the ranges fall, then as soon as Shuriken hit its outer boundary range…based off of Ancient data…it loosed an energy packet that looked like a water balloon and moved just as slow. The Sivirs were actually able to dodge it, but more followed and suddenly they were perplexed into inaction, and one of them hit.

  The damage was more than anything Niolla had seen before, giving Sivir-5 a nasty sunburn and flaking off the outer layers of its body with the single hit, but not carving out a crater. Emotions flared and the Sivirs became a mess of contradictions, not wanting to strike another Uriti but also with the need to fight back. Niolla cut through the chatter and did use her overrides…which thankfully still worked…and ordered them to fall back towards Farco-928443’s approaching ship as it came around the horizon of the star from the other side.

  Their confusion ended the moment she issued the order, for it gave them a clarity that they could not ignore, but they were hurt emotionally, in addition to 5’s physical damage, but thankfully the other shots missed and Shuriken couldn’t move as fast as the Sivirs could, thanks to their Star Force training. Apparently the Zak’de’ron hadn’t been able to give this Uriti any training, for it was moving even slower than the Ancients had indicated that it could move. That might have been due to some of the battle damage, or because it had grown larger since those times without the proper training to develop additional gravity drives. Either way, it couldn’t catch them so long as they were moving, but there were 9 planets in this system that had infrastructure on them that couldn’t move, not to mention minion armies that could be extermished with Shuriken landing on the planets or just blasting them from space, for while they were not built the same way as Hadarak minions, Niolla doubted this crazed Uriti would care about the difference.

  “Enough of this,” she said to herself as her ship paced the Uriti just outside its firing range and she mentally instructed the captain what needed to follow. Niolla stood up on top of her pedestal in the empty room reserved for the Wranglers when they were in contact with the Uriti. She spread her arms wide and set the air around her to spin, using her Essence to do it as she watched for a reaction.

  And she got one, from all the Uriti, which turned to come towards her. She ordered the Sivirs back on their original tract and felt them resist the order, feeling the conflict of priorities, but they obeyed as expected. Shuriken did not, and its mind disappeared from Niolla’s as it stopped talking to the other Uriti. It appeared its full focus was on her tiny little Essence blip, so small that it shouldn’t have mattered given the other 8 Uriti out there, but something about Essence was totally abhorrent to the Hadarak and the Uriti, making them single-minded in its location and destruction.

  “Good…good,” Niolla said, seeing it chasing her ship, but she couldn’t keep up the Essence use for a prolonged period of time. She tested it by stopping, and Shuriken continued to pursue until the other Uriti’s telepathic presence got its attention again and it turned back. Niolla pulsed her Essence again, this time briefer, and like clockwork Shuriken turned and came after her ship as it moved away from the star almost as fast as the Uriti could move, keeping it out of weapons range but close enough to feel that it was catching them…as impossible as that was without minions to intercept and drag them down.

  How long can you keep this up? another Wrangler asked her telepathically from inside the ship, for she was the only one of them in this system that possessed Essence skills.

  Not long enough. You have any ideas?

  Buy time and get it as far away from everything as you can.

  That’s the plan for now. You hooked in?

  Yeah, we all are. Shuriken is messed the fuck up and I don’t think the babies are going to be able to stand him down.

  I’m not sure the originals could either, but we need one here.

  I’ll send the message, but it’ll take a few days at minimum to get PowPow here. Can you hold out that long?

  Probably not. Depends how much time I can stretch in between pulses.

  Maybe he’ll take the hint and get fixated on the ship itself.

  Only if we’re lucky. What do you make of that damage?

  We were just talking about that. It doesn’t all look natural.

  What do you mean?

  Best theory is that the Zak’de’ron used their weaponry to attack it and left permanent scar marks. Could be how they got it to hate the Hadarak, if they impersonated them somehow. Could be a brainwashing technique or a nanite delivery system. But it doesn’t look like Hadarak minion damage, and so far none of the big ones have shown energy weapons.

  Niolla cringed. If the Hadarak had energy-weapon carrying versions buried in the Core somewhere to bring out later this apocalypse would turn into a super apocalypse in short order.

  Any idea why it hasn’t healed?

  Maybe a lingering poison. Nothing we have encountered before. We’re working on it, but I think it’s easy to guess that Shuriken is permanently pissed off.

  I would be too, Niolla admitted. Just get his brother here. Hopefully age will offer some wisdom in dealing with him.

  And if not?

  Then we’re going to have to come up with something. In the meantime, start evacuating the planets and permanent stations. If he goes on a rampage, we don’t want to have wished we got them out now and didn’t.

  We’ll take care of it. Just keep the shiny object thing going.

  As long as I can, Niolla promised, pulsing her Essence briefly as she felt Shuriken start to turn away again.

  3

  June 5, 128483

  Kong Island System (Uriti Preserve #4)

  Low Stellar Orbit

 
; Matti-2548 stood onboard her command ship’s bridge rather than in the protective chamber she normally used to contact the Uriti as the ship came out of its jump into the Kong Island System. The Wrangler was sitting in a chair that doubled as a command nexus, giving her full interlink into the combat systems as she searched for updates and active sensor signals to get up to speed on what was happening in the system with a Uriti on the loose.

  Without it responding to the override things could get very bad, and Matti soon saw that it was worse than she had imagined. There were destroyed structures across the system, two sections of planets that had their surface tore up from burrowing, and worse yet the Sivirs stationed here were all showing significant battle damage while the new one, tagged as Shuriken, was barely scratched.

  “What the hell,” she whispered, downloading the battle logs from the battlemap and reviewing what happened. “Where are you?”

  Active sensors couldn’t tell her that, but once she got a few bounces from far off relays that hadn’t been trashed, she saw that the Uriti was on the other side of the star continuing to chase the Sivirs as they led it away from the planets, though obviously that hadn’t always worked. Something was seriously wrong with this Uriti, and with Riley and the other trailblazers off dealing with the Hadarak, this problem was hers to handle…well, hers and PowPow’s. The Uriti was in a transport alongside her command ship and the other 5 warships that were escorting it on the short single hop between star systems, but unlike his brother he wasn’t busting out of the ship to get after the others.

  Matti signaled him through her gauntlet, indicating that they were going to move around the star prior to releasing him, which would save time since the Uriti couldn’t move as fast as the transport could, but even before they got line of sight on Shuriken Matti got a warning from PowPow that the other Uriti was sick. She inquired as to how and got a flurry of Uriti mental flashes, most of which she didn’t understand, but she got the gist of it. Shuriken was crazed, and it was something the Uriti had never seen before, yet somehow they knew exactly what was wrong.