Star Force: Fracture (Star Force Universe Book 47) Read online

  Once the convoy got within range of the nearby city’s defenses, he sent the activation signal and saw the mushroom cloud explosion across the horizon. It was too far away to actually hear, but the telemetry confirmed that the shield generator was thoroughly destroyed…though now there was only the small city shield over top of the evacuees now.

  He was going to have to evacuate most of it before it could get hit, but for now the I’rar’et seemed content to claim their new prize as Mark transitioned the broken drones across the surface of the planet until they were far enough away from the enemy fleet to head back to space and rendezvous with the jumpships. They took them back onboard and began repairs, though these three were going to be out of commission for a while…along with many others in the vast bays that were visually open to space but protected by massive shield generators.

  It looked like a junkyard ship rather than a warship, with racks of broken drones lining it, some of which had been completely cut in half, but any parts they could salvage and reuse in others they would, for the more cities that were lost the less replacement parts they would be getting.

  But at least the V’kit’no’sat were not getting more toys to play with. At least not until they got reinforcements. And the only silver lining in this fight was the fact that they were wearing down too much through attrition to take the rest of the planet. Mark could hold it with what he had, plus what the local population was making to replace some of his equipment losses, but if the I’rar’et got even limited reinforcements the only thing they could hope to do was call in evacuation ships and leave.

  And given the situation on the warfront, he decided it was best to call in the cargo ships now, for he didn’t want to have to face leaving people behind unnecessarily. Already the V’kit’no’sat had prisoners from this planet, and he didn’t want to give them any more if he could avoid it.

  2

  May 4, 4914

  Mid Jump (Rim Region)

  Morgan sat in her quarters with a big plate of cookies that she was snacking on as the trailblazer continued to review war data picked up before they’d made their last jump. Updates could not be received during transit, so the data was a bit delayed but still valuable, for this war didn’t change from minutes to minute, and there were days of lag involved with the relay network anyway.

  She was leading one of Star Force’s primary fleets, escorting the Uriti Squiddy from system to system and scaring away what V’kit’no’sat she found there. Earth, oddly enough, had been ignored. The same was true for Grid Point Stargate and the systems surrounding it. Even the Uriti Preserve was only receiving light attacks, which she assumed was to make them keep at least a few Uriti there in defense…which they were doing anyway. The infrastructure built up there was too important to lose, plus they didn’t have enough ships to maintain fleets protecting all the Uriti.

  If one took enough damage to require a long rest, they’d swap them out and use the same fleet to protect the new one, though those fleets were losing ships and those ships had to be replaced occasionally. There wasn’t much combat, except for when a planetary shield had to be battered down and anti-orbital guns faced. Sometimes she’d let Squiddy take the brunt of the attack, other times she’d bring the fleet down and they would lose ships because the V’kit’no’sat knew that they couldn’t kill the Uriti…but she could spare it damage, and Morgan knew she couldn’t let it accumulate too much damage year after year or it would become vulnerable enough the enemy might try and take it out.

  Earth was still defended, but without a Uriti there. One was always nearby, roaming the Devastation Zone and rotating out with the three in the Preserve, and where it was currently located was always a mystery, much like Morgan’s own fleet. They didn’t want to give the V’kit’no’sat a fixed map to plan against, and even the other trailblazers didn’t know where Morgan was going…for she hadn’t decided yet.

  She was studying the map and the systems nearby, trying to figure out how to get the most effect out of her fleet and Squiddy while too many systems were coming under attack for her to respond to. Within a 10 jump range there were 183 systems under assault, plus another 7 that were firmly under V’kit’no’sat control. She knew better than to waste time there, for they’d already been hit by others and the V’kit’no’sat defenses had held, so going back would be a waste of time…unless they decided to ignore prisoner deaths and just blast the hell out of the place, which they never would.

  And the number of V’kit’no’sat assaults was continuing to increase. It was like they’d gone soft on Star Force in the beginning of the resumed war, but as they got more comfortable with Uriti dodging they were getting more aggressive and spreading out. That meant she had the ability, with her large fleet, to turn just about any fight she involved herself in, but there were too many for her to get to in this region, and the same was true for the others fighting in different sections of the warfront.

  One update caught her eye, and that was from the Renscor System. Mark was there, as in Mark-084, not Mark-099 who was currently all the way over in the Avta Region. They had the same name, but the two trailblazers were considerably different. One was an Aquatics/Naval staple while the other was the best aerial pilot in the empire.

  It was the aerial pilot who had not been given a Uriti, for his skills were better spent in the atmosphere with his Clan rooting out the toughest opposition the V’kit’no’sat could throw at them…but it seemed he was getting his ass kicked. Not in a total fashion, but he was not overcoming the planet he’d reinforced as he should have been, so Morgan pulled up more information from that engagement with her frown deepening.

  He was in trouble, though doing a good job managing the bad situation. It was three jumps from their destination system and Morgan made the snap decision to head there. If he remained tied up, then he couldn’t be moving around and finding mismatches on his way to major bottlenecks. Clan Gunstar was also losing a considerable number of its people, which was bad. The only way they could fight this war was if they lost machines, which were easily replaceable, but not their pilots.

  Whatever nest of trouble he’d fallen into was kicking his ass, and Morgan knew she had to get involved before they lost any more. Squiddy wouldn’t be too much help, but Morgan could swing through that system enroute to other larger fights and spend a few days bailing him out. She had enough ground troops with her to overwhelm this ‘small’ engagement that had brought two very elite aerial fighter units against each other, and the I’rar’et were far better than the Zen’zat pilots that most races used. The tradeoff was their ground warfare was less robust, but in this case the I’rar’et were slowly beating up Mark’s people and taking the planet out from under him in what was oscillating between a standstill and a grinding advance.

  She’d put an end to that and free Mark up to hit elsewhere, but there were many other systems in the same or worse condition, and few in better. The V’kit’no’sat were being very savvy about how many troops to send where, and the tide was definitely turning in their favor even as Morgan’s fleet hadn’t yet lost a fight. There were just too many fights for them to get to, and the V’kit’no’sat didn’t seem to care about losing entire armies in the effort if they came out the victors at the end…

  Tre’sti was some 129 lightyears away from the assault in the Renscor System, though he was the one who had ordered that assault launched. The third highest ranking I’rar’et commander in the war was currently in the captured Flying Monkey System. He’d originally targeted it because of the name, for it was some sort of a joke reference to the fact that there was a high number of aerial assets based there…or rather had been. When the system had fallen those units were either defeated or evacuated, with their facilities now solidly in V’kit’no’sat hands.

  Before a Uriti could show up to depose them they’d gotten four of the Star Force shield generators working and had been adding their own ever since. One attack later had involved a Uriti and a massive ground campaign to retake the
planet…but Star Force had only been interested in evacuating as many of the prisoners as they could get their hands on after it was clear the V’kit’no’sat would not be removed from the surface. They had plenty more captives around the shield generators and other sensitive areas, with the Uriti and its guardian fleet eventually moving on and leaving the personnel they couldn’t rescue behind.

  That was the only practical decision they could make if they weren’t willing to sacrifice them, which Tre’sti would have done in a heartbeat. Star Force could actually be winning this war if they’d used the Uriti to their full potential, but he was glad they weren’t. He had often wondered what he could do had he possessed even the smallest of them, and that thought terrified him when he turned it around and realized what Star Force could do to them if they wanted.

  But the enemy was holding firm to their principles and giving the I’rar’et a foothold in their territory that was continuing to expand. Tre’sti had hoped to include the Renscor System, but a recent report he’d just received from a retreating ship indicated that nearly the entire assault force had been destroyed. A Uriti fleet had arrived and overwhelmed them, keeping the system in Star Force hands for the time being.

  Tre’sti gripped his perch rod so hard it dented…then the material reformed as he gradually released it. Setbacks were happening everywhere and losses were expected, so he forced himself to return to a state of calmness despite the fact that several members of the Daer in that attack were his personal friends…or had been, unless Star Force had captured them or they’d managed to escape on a ship, though the one that had just come back indicated that no evacuation of the surface had been feasible, and only a small portion of the surviving naval blockade had managed to get away.

  That put Tre’sti into a bad mood for weeks to follow, though the invasions continued. He launched two more in that time to other systems, sending out more I’rar’et and Zen’zat that would live or die largely by chance. If a Uriti arrived they were doomed. If one did not, they would have a chance to accomplish their mission, and neither Tre’sti nor any other V’kit’no’sat had been able to determine a pattern in the Star Force Uriti fleet movements.

  But all the V’kit’no’sat were willing to risk it in order to put an end to this heresy once and for all. Tre’sti just hated that it had been allowed to fester this long. They were paying the price for their arrogance, for they should have snuffed this heresy out long ago rather than allow it to limp on long enough to grow to this size, though to be entirely honest it was the Uriti that was saving them and not their own strength.

  However, that salvation would be short lived now that they’d finally brought their full power down on the rogue Zen’zat and their servants, but the price still galled Tre’sti to no end.

  Then he got word through the broken Urrtren link back to the empire and patched together with couriers crossing the gaps. Halfway across the galaxy from the current war zone the empire had come under attack from a Rim race known as the Piol. No warnings. No declarations. No reason at all was given for the attack, and it was already causing the Elder Council in Itaru to go nuts…which was made all the worse when two weeks later another report that another far off portion of the empire had come under attack from a completely unknown Rim race.

  By the time the reports made it all the way out to Tre’sti there 6 confirmed invasions of V’kit’no’sat territory by Rim races, all far from the Star Force warfront, and the recriminations were coming through loud and clear. This massive attack against Star Force had pulled their mobile fleets away from their own territory, and they’d been promised that there was no threat to their own empire, for no one was powerful enough, nor stupid enough, to try and attack them when they were absent.

  But now that promise was falling apart as multiple races, including the I’rar’et, were having their homes eradicated via orbital bombardment.

  Tre’sti had no detailed information, only general news packets, but they indicated that the attacks were savage in their ferocity, and while the invaders were losing a massive number of ships, they were coming in with overwhelming force that even the planetary defense stations could not hold up against. The attacks were on the frontier worlds, but that didn’t matter. They were V’kit’no’sat territory as much as any other, and it wasn’t just the smaller outposts getting hit. Several major border worlds were under assault and predicted to fall, including his own hatch world of Veernum.

  He hadn’t been hatched on the surface, but rather one of the I’rar’et’s floating cities known as Sharduut. They normally rested on support pillars, but they could disconnect and roam the planet or even travel up to orbit and latch on to a transport vessel that could move them between systems. Tre’sti was in a Sharduut now, and it hadn’t been built locally. Most I’rar’et structures were made out of Shardutt, while other land facilities were made and inhabited by the Zen’zat that served them, but all of it was V’kit’no’sat and Tre’sti could still remember clearly the aerial views of what had been his home more than 600,000 years ago.

  He hadn’t been on that world in more than half that time, but it was still his home and now it was coming under attack, perhaps destroyed, without the defense fleets nearby that could have reinforced it. Tre’sti knew there were some ships still on patrol, but a pathetic number that could not counter an invasion of this magnitude. The Freii had sent more than half a million of their ships to Veernum, and based on the limited tech specs that came in the news packet they were at least as capable, if not more so, than the standard ship design the V’kit’no’sat had on file in their database.

  And that meant without reinforcement Veernum would fall and the Sharduut where he had been hatched would most likely be destroyed with all the I’rar’et inside, for the report also indicated that any fleeing ships were being shot down, meaning it was unlikely that anyone would survive the slaughter.

  And Tre’sti couldn’t help them. He and his forces were fully engaged here, and even if they left immediately they would most likely not be able to return in time to do more than count the bodies and take what was left of the planet back, which was anticipated to be nothing by the bombardment records of the regions that had already seen shield collapse.

  When he read that report, Tre’sti ripped his perch off its base and flung it across the room into the wall, and he wasn’t the only one. Similar reactions across the planet, not to mention across the warfront, began to spring up along with calls for at least some of the fleets assaulting Star Force to return to V’kit’no’sat territory before more losses were incurred.

  3

  May 28, 4914

  Erol System (V’kit’no’sat territory)

  Stellar Orbit

  Mak’to’ran had a fleet of just under 60,000 warships sitting around the star with a long trail of some 12,000 damaged or destroyed warships leading back to the third planet in the V’kit’no’sat system that they’d just driven a tier 3 Hadarak from. They hadn’t been able to kill it, but they’d destroyed all its minions and wounded it enough to force it to flee to the star for safety, where it was currently hiding in anonymity.

  There were 2 inhabited planets in this system, which was some 52 lightyears back from the Hadarak border. Typically that was far enough back to avoid a direct hit, even though geographically speaking it was sitting on the line. The difference was that there were a cluster of V’kit’no’sat systems in close proximity and the Hadarak had passed through not one, but two others to get here.

  Then it had landed on the most heavily populated world, breaking through the planetary shields and releasing enough minions to overwhelm the defense fleet that had been waiting for it along with Mak’to’ran. Despite having 72,000 warships and numerous defense stations, the Hadarak had just ignored them all and went straight for the planet, crushing through mostly evacuated cities, for they’d had ample forewarning that it was coming.

  But not enough. They’d assumed it would hit one of the other two systems it had passed through, so t
hey’d only had a few months of warning to evacuate part of the population. The rest had moved towards the equator, for Hadarak typically landed on a rotating world near one of the poles. That wasn’t always the case, but more often than not their tendency, and here was no exception. It had come down on the southern pole and began sending out tendrils into the planet’s crust and down into the molten core.

  But a 628 mile wide Hadarak did not ‘sit’ on the crust. It broke right through, forcing a tidal wave of molten material out along the edges in massive volcanos, for the volume of the Hadarak pushed down so much the material beneath had to move and move fast. Some of the spurts made it all the way up to orbit and were currently curling over and returning to the planet over the course of days. That was how high the material had been ejected, and the landscape surrounding the Hadarak was now mountains that reached above the atmosphere.

  The cities that had been on them were obliterated, and earthquakes were ravaging the rest of the planet in response. Plates were not only cracking apart, but being shifted up and over others. The two oceans on the world, named Stageri, were shifting across the continents in massive tidal waves and vaporizing where they hit the molten material coming up to the surface.

  The entire planet was a hellish nightmare now, but there were still some 3 billion V’kit’no’sat down there dying or near to dying because of the size of the Hadarak that had come out this far, and the fact that it had bypassed the obvious worlds that Mak’to’ran was prepared to lose. This one was not so expendable, though it had been designed to evacuate quickly…meaning 6 months or more. Hadarak moved slowly, but the closeness of the targets had backfired on the V’kit’no’sat, and now those on the surface were paying the price for that miscalculation even as evacuation ships continued to fly down through the roiling atmosphere, punching through the new cloud and ash cover to find handfuls of people to pull out to transports waiting in orbit.