Star Force: Rift Page 4

  Arch Duke Dante didn’t travel much. His headquarters on Torrent served as the center of the Monarch’s web that had fingers throughout 12 of the 15 Regions in Star Force territory, not counting the Devastation Zone, which now included Earth once again, though Dante had nothing there. Unlike most Monarchs who oversaw either a single planet or a region, he oversaw a race...and a powerful race at that. The Calavari were one of the founding pillars in the Star Force empire, and they’d been hit hard during the destruction of the ADZ, for their primary territory was just adjacent to it and had all been wiped out.

  Every single system, conquered and destroyed, but this wasn’t the first time that had happened to the Calavari. They’d suffered nearly the same fate at the hands of the lizards and the Nestafar, with Star Force having saved enough of them to rebuild within the ADZ and eventually return to reclaim their former territory.

  That wasn’t going to happen now, for the Devastation Zone was off limits to Dante per Davis’s orders. The war against the V’kit’no’sat was not over, merely paused, and they didn’t have enough time to rebuild and harden their former systems in time even if the V’kit’no’sat kept their word…and there was no guarantee they would.

  Dante hadn’t been with the Calavari in the very beginning, but he’d been at the helm of their greater expansion within their previous region, their staggering losses and retreat during the evacuation of the greater ADZ region, and then oversaw their continuous contributions to the war front as the border kept creeping further and further rimward.

  The Calavari made up a significant portion of the Clans that were the tip of the arrow regarding the forces that actively fought the V’kit’no’sat, but were primarily pilots and commandos. Calavari, especially, were seen as the anti-Zen’zat due to the fact that they were of similar size and had two extra arms that gave them an advantage in hand to hand combat despite their lack of psionics. The few Calavari that had become Mavericks were said to be the stuff of Zen’zat nightmares, but most of this war was not in the hands of the army…it was mostly about the navy.

  There the Calavari were decent, but not dominant. They were second line in the naval war and had seen a lot of fighting, bolstered by numerous Archons that increased their fleets’ power greatly, but their combat scores in the naval division were not amongst the top 10 factions within Star Force, though they had a great number of ships to compensate for that.

  As a faction, the Calavari had to field significant forces in all 5 divisions of the Star Force military and have enough of an internal supply network to sustain itself and aid others. In essence they had to be their own empire within an empire, and since the evacuation of the ADZ the Arch Duke had focused on rebuilding the Calavari in the Hov Region that was on the far ‘east’ side of Star Force territory, sharing a border with The Nexus and a bit of unclaimed territory that neither Star Force, The Nexus, nor the V’kit’no’sat had touched, though there were many indigenous races there.

  Due to its status as a pillar of Star Force, there were Calavari systems spread through 11 other regions and run by lesser Monarchs that reported to Dante, but the bulk of his powerbase was here and the Calavari were responsible for the protection of this flank of Star Force territory, ensuring that the V’kit’no’sat did not pass through them, or around them, to hit the more vulnerable regions further rimward. They’d tried on a few occasions, but after getting hammered hard they hadn’t bothered to try anymore.

  Dante knew that was more due to the fact that they liked hammering the front lines and the ships they’d sent to flank were more of an exploratory probing force looking for a weakness to exploit. The Calavari had nixed that idea quickly, but the Arch Duke always knew the main fighting would eventually reach the Hov region and he knew the Calavari would make them pay a high price to take their worlds again…but he never doubted that it would happen.

  Now that had changed. They had a respite to recover and build, with his focus being on hardening the Hov Region as much as possible, but he had many other duties as well, including being the primary contact on this border for races making diplomatic entreaties with Star Force because of his reputation for not moving around. Even Davis no longer held a single position as he once had on Earth, but moved from system to system as needed, as did the other 7 Arch Dukes.

  But not Dante. He preferred to operate out of a position of strength, and Torrent was now the most heavily defended system in known Star Force territory. Technically Shangri-La was tops, but its existence was still myth within Star Force and those individuals having been born there that were allowed to leave were bound by secrecy as to their origin point. In fact, there was another system in the Pavana Region named ‘Shangri-La’ so that any references to the real one would be attributed to it and no one would look for another.

  That had seemed to hold, though most individuals coming out from the real Shangri-La were Archons or high level techs and were not thought to be a security threat. Civilians were not allowed to leave, so to date it seemed their trump card was still safely in the hole and yet to be played, but beyond it Dante’s Bugali System was the strongest in the empire and the Hov Region was the second behind only the Rim Region where most of the fighting and border strengthening had been occurring.

  He’d been sending supplies there for centuries to help slow the V’kit’no’sat’s approach, but now those exports were reduced by 40% and Dante could use 15 of those percents for his own purposes while the other 25 were being sent elsewhere in the empire at Davis’s direction. The Director was so busy that Dante still didn’t know how he handled the workload, knowing that he could never replace the Director but was now confident in his deserving of the Arch Duke rank.

  Hov was important, and while he had other Calavari worlds to oversee afar, he was using his faction to solidify his piece of the ‘eastern’ border as a fixed point. Star Force was not expanding beyond it as they were further to the Rim, and as a result a lot of Nexus traffic was flowing to them seeking refuge.

  That meant that Hov also sported a lot of Axius and Beacon colonies, which were not under his command, but Bugali was shared with them. Dante was defacto commander of the system, and even though Axius wasn’t part of the Calavari, in this system he operated the four colonies here much the same way that some of the Dukes oversaw Calavari planets in other regions where they shared systems.

  So the Axius colonies here had two masters, and in addition to those four planets there were 8 more that were fully Calavari worlds plus another 22 smaller ones and 83 moons that held partial colonies for specific purposes. Those were not heavily defended, but the 12 fully inhabited planets were each a fortress in and of themselves. If and when the V’kit’no’sat ever got here they’d have to essentially fight 12 different wars to conquer the system, and Dante had such a large defense fleet made up of a mix of starships and system ships that any one assault would be hard pressed to succeed.

  If Dante could hold this system it would have an effect on the entire region, and even though Torrent had never seen a single V’kit’no’sat ship in orbit, the strength of its defenses and the fact that it was the Calavari’s new capitol and Dante’s seat of power attracted the bulk of outside attention. To deal with that he’d created a super-sized Babylon-class station in null stellar orbit on its own track between the 5th and 6th planets. That kept most of the non-Star Force traffic out of his orbit, and he had a Baron permanently assigned to the station along with a contingent of rotating Archons to keep him from having to deal with it and get distracted with everyone coming to meet with him.

  Every now and then Baron Fimma would send one of the more important visitors to Torrent to meet with the Arch Duke, and today was one of these days.

  A race that Dante had only faintly heard about in rumors had traveled here in a small convoy of 10 ships and were specifically asking to negotiate with the Arch Duke. They identified themselves as the ‘Zeeross’, which Dante briefly considered humorous until he saw the weapons readout supplied to him by the A
rchons in the system.

  This was not a low level race, but rather one that appeared to have technological parity with Star Force…and they were here to talk about the V’kit’no’sat.

  Dante cleared his schedule for today, other than for his personal workouts that didn’t take more than half an hour, and invited them down to the surface of Torrent after making the appropriate arrangements with the Archons. He had a special audience chamber the size of a convention center built in its own structure and away from his command center for just this reason. Dante met the Zeeross there, quickly seeing that they were bipeds nearly 16 feet tall and wearing breathing gear.

  The part of their bodies that were visible were colored deep gray and they four long fingers that looked more like the ‘claw’ from old school toy vending machines than a Human hand. Each of their fingers was over a foot long, but their feet were just the opposite. They looked heavy and wide, almost like pedestals, and he could hear each heavy footfall as six of them walked across the open plaza beneath the open air ceiling protected from the current rain by an energy shield.

  “Arch Duke,” one of the Zeeross said through a mechanical translator in English. “Thank you for granting us an audience to make our request.”

  “What request is that?” he said, having to tip his head back to look the Zeeross in its goggle-covered eyes as an invisible shield separated the two of them. He had a few Knights and Archons flanking him just in case it failed, but so long as the Zeeross didn’t pass over the two inch rise in the floor marking its position, the shield might as well have not existed as far as any of them could tell.

  Dante could, if he flipped on his Pefbar, but right now he didn’t have it running and he wondered if the Zeeross had any psionics of their own. So far the Archons weren’t picking anything up, and the moment they did they’d been instructed to inform him.

  “Long have we hidden beyond V’kit’no’sat territory, knowing that if we revealed ourselves that war would come. The V’kit’no’sat do not abide peers, and while we have the ability to fight them, we do not possess their numbers. Our territory is small in comparison, and when allies of ours have been attacked we have been unable to aid them for fear of drawing the V’kit’no’sat’s wrath. We despise the V’kit’no’sat, but we are wise enough to know that we cannot challenge them. You are the first we know of to survive their wrath this long, and no one has ever negotiated a truce with them. How did you manage this?”

  “They valued information on the Hadarak more than our destruction and bartered for what they could not obtain themselves. We fully expect they will be back in far greater numbers to destroy us after the truce expires.”

  “This information. What significance was it?”

  “They wished to know their primary enemy, and they had never been able to communicate with them. We were, through the Uriti, and they wanted any and all information we gathered on the Hadarak. Apparently they were satisfied with the exchange, for they have upheld their end of the truce so far.”

  “We know they fight these Hadarak, but are they making no progress against them? How close are they to victory?”

  “Far from it. The Hadarak are superior to them, and they must continually fight them or they will expand outward. They are fighting a never-ending war and seek to find a way to end the stalemate.”

  “Never-ending? Why have the Hadarak not destroyed the V’kit’no’sat if they are superior?”

  “They appear to not regard the V’kit’no’sat as a worthy threat, merely a border skirmish for their younger members to deal with. The true power of the Hadarak lies dormant in the core of the galaxy, and if the V’kit’no’sat ever fight their way that far in they will most likely be overwhelmed. They wish all knowledge they can obtain on the Hadarak, for compared to them we are nothing.”

  “Very interesting,” the Veeross said, the pause in his words citing either confusion or contemplation. Dante didn’t want to try reading his mind before the Archons let him know if he was telepathic or not, so he was handling this conversation the old fashioned way. “Do you expect to survive when the truce has ended?”

  “That greatly depends on how much of their fleet they send. They cannot abandon the fight with the Hadarak without accepting losses, so it remains uncertain how much they are willing to devote to our destruction. We anticipate they will make a major attempt to end us, but we will have the benefit of two centuries of preparation. We figure we have a chance for survival.”

  “Because of your Uriti?”

  “They are a major factor, but not sufficient in and of themselves. The Uriti are alterations of Hadarak, and the V’kit’no’sat have a vast amount of experience killing Hadarak.”

  “Yet the Uriti are superior?”

  “They are, but they are also younger and therefore smaller than most Hadarak. Given time they will grow, but the V’kit’no’sat would be foolish to allow us that time. They must kill us immediately after the truce ends, otherwise both the Uriti and Star Force will continue to grow stronger.”

  “We are here to explore the possibility of aiding you in that fight,” the Zeeross said bluntly. “We know we cannot beat them alone, and you are the only civilization we know of that has defied them and survived. If there is a way they can be beaten, we would like to help make that happen.”

  “That would be a massive gamble on your part,” Dante cautioned.

  “It would be, which is why we are not here to pledge our loyalty, but to explore our options. If victory is not possible we will not intervene. If it is, we want to make sure of their downfall. We owe it to our former allies that are no longer living.”

  “If we are to have that discussion, I need to know who I am negotiating with first.”

  The Zeeross raised a long, gangly arm and a huge holographic map appeared just short of touching the invisible shield. Dante immediately recognized the Orion galactic arm and saw Star Force territory crudely marked on it. Far to the anti-spinward side there was a travel route that backtracked a little more rimward but almost an 8th of the way around the galactic oval, meaning they had come far from here and were neighbors with an entirely different section of the V’kit’no’sat empire.

  That holographic map rose higher and a new one appeared below detailing the Zeeross territory and the hundreds of systems that they possessed…far less than Star Force, but they were just points on a map with no way of telling how dense those systems were.

  “Our territory,” the Zeeross said simply. “We understand an equilibrium of knowledge must be established before negotiations can begin. We will answer whatever questions you ask, and hope that you will do the same…”

  5

  January 3, 4841

  Ennit System (Dagran Region)

  Vis

  “You ready?” Master Medtech Vortison asked.

  Aaron-010 sighed. “Yeah.”

  “We don’t have to do this.”

  “I do, actually,” the trailblazer said, walking inside the medical station and putting his hands on the connection sphere. “I just don’t like going backwards on anything.”

  “Those who blaze trails don’t always pick the right one initially,” Vortison offered, bringing up a slew of holographic controls in front of him and selecting the procedure he’d been tinkering with for years. “Others benefit from your troubleshooting.”

  “You’re not the one getting a chunk of your brain removed,” Aaron calmly bit back.

  “A small chunk,” Vortison said, referencing his Ensek tissue. The basic tier 1 psionic was something that every Archon and Zen’zat possessed, allowing them to bounce telepathic messages along even if they couldn’t understand them. It was separate from their Ikrid tissue, which gave them their telepathy, and had its own transmitter that Aaron had worked for years to increase the range and volume traffic rate of.

  As of now he could receive messages from over 100 other Archons and bounce them further across the landscape, even farther than his Ikrid range, but the applications for suc
h a psionic were limited. Comm technology was superior in most cases, and Aaron could essentially accomplish the same technique using his Ikrid now that it was sufficiently advanced. The V’kit’no’sat had given the Zen’zat the ability so that even the newest of them could function as a relay to stay within telepathic connection of all their troops even if they were outside their own Ikrid range.

  Star Force didn’t fight like that, relying instead on their battlemap technology and suffering the isolation when it didn’t function. V’kit’no’sat expected to fight enemies that did not have telepathy, and using it in such a manner was a significant asset. Star Force, however, had its primary enemy with most of the same psionics they did, so their priorities had to differ. Ensek could be used on the rim where the enemies were less advanced, but so long as the battlemap system was functioning it was little more than redundant.

  Still, Aaron had spent so much time developing it and finding unique uses that the V’kit’no’sat probably hadn’t even envisioned that he hated to lose it, but if he kept it his Ikrid tissue couldn’t develop further and he needed that power upgrade far more than he needed Ensek.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Aaron said, feeling his hands go numb a moment before his mind blanked and he was rendered unconscious.

  He woke in the same standing position as before, not knowing how much time had elapsed but feeling his brain numb and his access to his psionics beyond his reach. Vortison’s voice sounded funny too, but he could still hear him.

  “I’m finished,” the medtech said, “but I’m keeping your psionics suppressed and going to release you slowly. Not sure how this is going to feel, so be warned.”

  “Warned,” Aaron confirmed, his lips a little numb making the words come out odd…then they seemed to return to normal as his head began to get less foggy. His Ikrid was now touchable again, as was his Jumat and other psionics. He didn’t use any of them, but felt the reassuring presence of their ‘triggers’ save for one. His Ensek wasn’t only untouchable, but it was no longer there at all, making him feel like he’d had a hand chopped off.