Dawn of the Apocalypse Page 3

  And Vos’re’nor, after all the millennia he had lived, would not allow himself to survive and watch the empire slowly fall. He would face the threat head on and leave such tasks to the younger generations, for running away to fight later was not the Les’i’kron way, and the more the Hadarak won, the lesser the chance of ultimate victory.

  This had to be won soon, somehow, or the V’kit’no’sat were going to bleed themselves dry trying to honor their oaths…and Vos’re’nor would not have it any other way if there truly was no path to victory.

  3

  November 13, 128458

  System 29338573 (Hadarak Zone)

  8th planet

  Lenkor stood body to body with 15 other Hjar’at inside the drop pod as it raced down through the gap in the planetary defenses that the V’kit’no’sat fleet had just blasted into the Hadarak minion stronghold. They hadn’t expected to hot drop onto an intact planet, but this system had far more growth than had been reported a few months ago and the Hjar’at knew if they waited months to get reinforcements it would only get worse.

  They didn’t have enough warships to glass the planet, and they’d lost several punching a hole in the biological anti-orbit cannon fields on the planet. They’d picked the area with the least density of them, then came in and blasted away while taking the return fire that consisted of a variety of exotic energy weapons as well as a form of missiles that were part rail gun, part explosive, part disabling goo. Most fired against the V’kit’no’sat fleet were shot down before they hit, but that meant a portion of their weaponsfire had to be taken off the primary targets, and when one of the ships was disabled the missiles would then get through and begin wrecking them with fusion explosions in some cases, making little suns on the hull that would eat out sections of it with each blast.

  The missiles varied in type, but most of the damage to the fleet came from the ‘flowers’ that grew on the planet and tilted to adjust and fire on orbiting warships. They weren’t as powerful as V’kit’no’sat Ardent, but they had decent range and they were growing a lot of them. Too many to take out quickly, and even without planetary shields to protect their infrastructure, the minion buildings did not explode when taking damage. They soaked up a lot of it, meaning that like their Hadarak masters, they were more resilient than expected.

  But the lack of planetary shields was a huge weakness, and had the Hjar’at brought more than 308 warships they would have been able to decimate the entire planet. They’d just had the bad luck of coming a little too late, but Lenkor and the others were intent on getting the job done through whatever means necessary. Luck was with them in that there was no Hadarak in the system, and that meant this was a winnable fight.

  Lenkor’s drop pod made it almost all the way to the ground before the left wall blew out and shrapnel bounced off his armor’s shields, ricocheting around and hitting others as the drop pod began to fall out of control.

  “Brace!” he yelled, with everyone inside locking their armor to the walls and floor before they hit the surface top on, which flattened the upper portion of the egg-shaped dropship almost all the way down into the cargo bay…meaning that the Zen’zat pilots in the upper section were probably dead.

  The artificial gravity and inertial dampeners were still functional, so the one jarring impact was all that they felt, then they were left standing upside down inside the small bay.

  “The door won’t respond,” one of the Hjar’at said. “It’s fused with debris from above. I can’t peel it with my Lachka.”

  “Everyone assist,” Lenkor ordered, with them coordinating telepathically to know where to push and pull inside the deformed wall above the door. Groaning metal was heard along with multiple pops, then one of the Hjar’at moved up next to the door and pushed its head up into the archway, getting a small grip on the lip of the closed door and added the physical push needed to break the casing.

  Something gave way inside, but it wasn’t enough. Another two Hjar’at squeezed their way up front and stood on their rear legs, putting their front pair up on the wall and pushing up with them as if they were hands. Combined with the telekinetic pressure from all 16 of them, they leveraged the bulkheads up enough that the drop pod door was able to fall outward…then hung in a vertical position, wagging back and forth, because the drop pod was upside down.

  The Hjar’at ran up on the wall, guessing the conversion point well, and did a semi-controlled spiral around to land on the real ground outside as they pushed through the gap while still holding it up with their Lachka. Lenkor went out last, then when they released their psionic hold on it the archway half collapsed, crushing down over the doorway far enough that only a Zen’zat could squeeze through, though he could feel that most of them were dead. Those that weren’t crushed were already outside, but only two of them had vehicles to move about it.

  All around the crash site there were intact drop pods descending over a snowy landing zone that stretched for miles. As they did Lenkor could see streaks of blue and green energy hitting them from smaller weapon ‘flowers’ that the orbital bombardment had not taken down. Most of the drop pods shrugged off the damage with their shields, but he saw one get hit with something a lot stronger and go down about 10 seconds prior to landing.

  “That heavy battery is our target,” Lenkor told his small herd. “Keep your armor sealed at all times. The minions have multiple toxins that our Kich’a’kat have difficulty counteracting. If you do get infected try to pull out of combat and remain perfectly still. Several of the poisons thrive on activity and they can infect your spines if they are not energized. Keep them lit or keep them armored over. How many mortars do we have?” he asked the Zen’zat.

  “Only two. The others are damaged or pinned inside the ship.”

  “Follow us. Those of you that cannot, merge with other Zen’zat units. Follow me and shred anything in our path!” he yelled, taking off at a run to the head of the herd as more drop pods continued to land all around the horizon.

  The Hjar’at formed up behind Lenkor into a wedge that then doubled back again into a diamond with the single Zen’zat assault vehicle in the center. It could have carried six mortars, but only had two now, and was the key to the Hjar’at taking down the larger infrastructure quickly. The other, smaller Zen’zat vehicles that allowed them to keep pace with the Hjar’at did not follow, rather loading up with all the survivors and diverting to a nearby landing zone for a drop pod that had not yet reached ground.

  Lenkor followed his own orders, extending his armor up over his clear spines to protect them as he ran across the two foot deep snow. It slowed him a bit, but his feet and legs were so big it wasn’t too cumbersome as he tracked the large flower that was firing on the drop pods. It was easily visible on his armor’s interlinked computer systems that combined information from all infantry units, the drop pods, and the few warships high overhead out of ground weapons range.

  The flower had been spotted by others, having come up late from an underground burrow after having not fired on the fleet. That was why they’d missed it, and even as the last of the drop pods were coming down and were soon to be below its firing arc, it had to go and the fleet couldn’t get it without coming back within firing range of the others further around the arc of the horizon.

  The Hjar’at made good speed across the snowy landscape, coming up over a small rise then powering down through a valley where there were a few minion buildings. Lenkor headed directly toward them as several thin blue beams firing against his shields as tiny flowers opened up and tracked them, firing the energy weapons as well as poison pods and other nasty anti-infantry weapons.

  Lenkor sprinted forward, diminishing the time he would have to endure enemy fire as he pulled the armor off his spines and ignited the bright blue energy aura around them…then he fired a blue lightning bolt forward, hitting one of the small flowers and vaporizing it on contact. It puffed into confetti as the others kept firing through the fog-like debris cloud, then more blue lightning bolts shot forward from the other Hadarak behind him, plucking the defensive structures from the building that had a line of worker minions coming up from underground tunnels and now scrambling for cover.

  The Hjar’at all lit their spines and spread out in a giant line, then sprinted together as one and did a battle roll, dipping their heads and somersaulting forward at just the right moment to send their back spines into the building walls, cutting them like lightsaber blades as the mass of their bodies pushed forward with their momentum. They eventually stalled, stuck momentarily upside down, but they thrashed around and freed themselves, cutting up more of the biological structure in the process, then proceeded to dip and dive while on their feet, sending their spines sideways and using their tail spikes to further cut into the structure.

  Several minutes later there wasn’t a structure left, just a bleeding, oozing mess of organic tissue that extended deep into the ground with roots, but the Hjar’at weren’t going to be cleansing this site anytime soon. They just wanted it out of commission, so it couldn’t grow more minions or defensive flowers, and once they’d gotten a good shred on it, they formed up behind Lenkor again and took off towards the giant flower rising some 370 meters above the ground off in the distance.

  The Zen’zat assault craft traveled with them, but did not attack any of the six structures they came across enroute to the primary target. They were not here to fight with the Hjar’at, but merely to support them and carry the big disablers developed only some 60,000 years ago after a massive amount of research battles against the Hadarak minions. Once they got within range of the giant flower, with the Hjar’at taking down the smaller ones defending its perimeter, the Zen’zat launched the first mortar at the anti-orbital weapon, sending the phone booth-sized missile out on a straight l
ine to the target…but there was no explosion. Instead it cratered on it like a wad of puddy, sticking and soaking in as the huge mass of nanites burrowed their way into the thick armor on the giant flower.

  Normal weapons damage would take forever to destroy it, and even a warship’s weaponry wouldn’t take it out quickly save for a Tar’vem’jic hit, which this fleet was not capable of producing. So to give the V’kit’no’sat more quick takedown capability, Mak’to’ran had pushed hard for a biological weapon to use against the minions. The Hadarak were virtually immune to such things, aside from the sedative that was counteracted by combat, making it virtually worthless. But the minions were not so robust, yet they still healed very fast, meaning any traditional biological weapon could not scale in damage, and would be purged quickly after infecting the target.

  The solution had been an artificial biological weapon, hence technology rather than biology in the form of nanites, tiny machines too small to see that could move within the target along with its blood supply and travel everywhere within it. Getting through the thick hide took time, but once the nanites slowly got into the primary blood stream they traveled throughout the giant flower and went after the vital components…not destroying them, for they would just regrow, but to stick to them and disrupt their function like a person sticking their foot in a closing door.

  It took more than 15 minutes to take effect, but after that the flower could not fire, could not reposition, couldn’t do much of anything as the Hjar’at targeted the surrounding support infrastructure and not even bothering to attack the stem of the flower that was 128 meters wide and heavily armored. They could cut into it with their spines, but it was slow work and a warship would do much better and quicker damage once the ground forces had neutralized enough of the anti-orbital weapons to allow them into firing range unopposed.

  There was so many smaller flowers around the big one that it took more than 4 hours for Lenkor’s herd to clear them out, even with the help of several other herds that eventually worked their way to them. The rest of the numerous drop pods had deposited troops heading out in all directions, widening their foothold on the planet until they could start bringing the big warships down to the surface to exploit a major weakness in the minions…that being their targeting. They were nowhere near as effective as technological systems, meaning they could hit big targets, but the smaller and more maneuvering they became, the harder they were to hit.

  The smaller flowers were better, which was why the Hjar’at couldn’t send down Zen’zat aerial craft, but for the big guns like the one they’d just disabled, the drop pods could mostly make it through, hence they’d been sent down rather than a warship that would have been lit up so much it would have been destroyed under even the reduced firepower in and around the landing zone.

  The fact that Lenkor’s drop pod had been hit was more or less bad luck, but their good luck had been that it was a glancing shot. A solid hit would have destroyed the drop pod in one blast.

  But now that the Hjar’at were on the ground, there was no way even the medium flowers could rotate down far enough and fast enough to target them…unless they were stupid enough to stand still and wait half an hour, for the flowers had to really contort themselves to point groundward. They relied on the smaller perimeter defenses for that, and they were no match for a disciplined Hjar’at herd…so long as they didn’t get cocky and try to take on more than was reasonable.

  Lenkor would not allow that to happen. He had fought the minions before, and had taken their toxins to his flesh. Luckily he had survived, and once stung he was never going to be too bold against this old enemy. They were weak and yet they were dangerous simultaneously. The lack of shields made many V’kit’no’sat expect weak opposition…only to end up poisoned and dying before they could get back to a larger Kich’a’kat that could keep up with the damage as the toxins ate into the body and, in some cases, reproduced more of itself. That was how Davur worked, and it elicited a pain beyond imagining.

  Lenkor had not been infected with Davur, but a lesser poison called Strashum. It disabled more than damaged, making his movements awkward and slow, eventually tripping him up and not allowing him to fight. But today that wasn’t going to happen, and whenever he or his herd had their shields go down he ordered them to pull back, for if he waited until there was an armor breach that was all it would take to allow some poison through…and after that the battle would be inside your armor, and if it managed to kill you it would turn your body into a breeding ground for automated weapons that walked or flew, attacking any target around them after many hours or even a few days, depending on how long it took to grow them out of your corpse.

  He wasn’t going to allow that to happen, but this planet was going to burn, fast or slow, it would burn. They couldn’t allow it to become an exporter of minions for the Hadarak to load up on and assault V’kit’no’sat worlds with. In the past, destroying their minions always forced them back and a long delay for them to grow more ensued…but now that they had dedicated transport minions the size of starships that could carry extra minions along with the Hadarak filling their holds, those delays were no longer relevant, and if this supply chain of worlds were allowed to develop, the Hadarak would be rolling over systems far faster than the V’kit’no’sat had ever seen before.

  Taking down this semi-developed world could spare 10 other systems in coming decades, for the minions reproduced exponentially, which was why Lenkor and the other Hjar’at had to go on a shredding spree…before the growth rate of the minions won this war for the Hadarak through mere attrition.

  4

  November 15, 128458

  System 4338573 (Hadarak Zone)

  Stellar Orbit

  Ich’aopo sat on his perch waiting patiently, but when the alert ping sounded the I’rar’et still jerked in a combination of surprise and anticipation.

  “Hadarak-level mass on approach,” another of the avian command deck crew stated.

  “Activate,” Ich’aopa stated, watching the monitors as the approximate location of the mass on approach to the system was plotted. It wasn’t moving as fast as a starship, which made the tracking easier, but still it was not possible to get a precise position due to the speeds involved and the fact that they were viewing it from nearly head on. It looked like they had 12-14 minutes before it entered the system on its long braking maneuver.

  Ich’aopa was one of the few commanders authorized to hunt Hadarak. The rest of the V’kit’no’sat fleets were avoiding them and targeting the minions they’d left behind on a growing number of worlds. His fleet was a mix of I’rar’et, Ari’tat, and Qua’cho and numbered over 2,000 heavy warships. He had no ground assault vessels or troop ships, for this combat would be in space and space alone…sort of. He didn’t expect to actually kill a Hadarak, and because of that he didn’t have a Harthur with him. What he was meant to do was cause damage that would take the Hadarak out of commission for a while, thus delaying their expansion, and to do that Ich’aopa had stolen one of Star Force’s expensive bits of technology.

  He had been in the fleet that had assaulted Terraxis back when Star Force’s existence was first discovered, and he’d been onboard one of the ships that had tried to brake normally against their single star coming out of an interstellar jump…only to smash into the star as they couldn’t brake as fast as normal. The I’rar’et ship had survived, but the outer armor had been mostly melted off before they were able to pull out, and many other ships hadn’t been that lucky.

  Mak’to’ran had long ago ordered any and all ideas, no matter how unconventional, be proposed to fight the Hadarak. Ich’aopa had been one of several to propose using Star Force’s IDF field system on known Hadarak patrol routes to cause them to smash into the star at higher speed than expected. To date it had been tested only twice, but it had worked both times, the second of which used an even larger Disruption Array that slammed a tier 2 Hadarak into a star so hard it didn’t come back out for more than a year.

  It had survived, and Ich’aopa expected the Hadarak here would too, but this system was on a newly established route that had already seen dozens of Hadarak pass through coming out of the Deep Core and he’d gotten permission directly from Mak’to’ran to set up shop in the planetless system and see what damage he could do.