Star Force: Summit (Star Force Universe Book 44) Read online

  They trusted him as much as he trusted them, but none of them knew the importance of what he was about to tell them.

  Mak’to’ran was not here. He didn’t need to be and his movements were the most well known in V’kit’no’sat territory, so having a clandestine meeting outside V’kit’no’sat territory made more sense if he was absent, and like Hamob, these other elders were used to moving around very low key and avoiding the public. Too many young minds were an irritation to them, so they kept to themselves and nudged their races one way or another from the shadows, leaving the day to day operations to lesser minds.

  Is the planet secure? Hamob telepathically asked as he walked underneath a huge outcropping of rock that stood nearly 300 meters high. It was more than a half mile long, tapering down to a ravine with a series of caves in it, but all the V’kit’no’sat were outside underneath the overhang while their drop pods were landed around the perimeter and out in the open. No one should have been in the system to observe them, but the overhang added just a little more privacy from anyone passing by overhead.

  “We are alone,” Yaquik confirmed, yet his armor was fully deployed save for his helmet. The others had theirs fully retracted into jewelry mode, but the Hjar’at was, as expected, the most on edge of them all where security matters were concerned. “What do you have for us?”

  “Our deaths,” Hamob said bluntly. “The Zak’de’ron were not fully destroyed. At least one survived, and they are rebuilding with vengeance in mind.”

  He could sense the shock evident the telepathic auras of the others, but none of them panicked, nor disbelieved him. They knew the gravity of what this entailed, and some had probably suspected as he had, that they’d been too lucky to find all the Zak’de’ron during the war. It was the timing, some 882,000 years later, that was so surprising.

  “Star Force has contact with them, and they just confided in Mak’to’ran. They stumbled onto the Zak’de’ron approximately 2,000 years ago and released one from his stasis along with a large number of eggs. The Zak’de’ron did not kill them, but befriended them and unlocked the planetary defense station on Terraxis. Beyond that they did little, and Star Force’s victories have been their own, but the Zak’de’ron have been trying to exert increased influence to the point of stealing the memories of a highly placed official. Those memories contain information on the Chixzon, where Star Force obtained that knowledge, and the fact that the Chixzon are not dead either.”

  “We have two superpowers that will be coming for our throats in due time. The Chixzon status is undetermined. Star Force would not comment much on it, fearing we might claim the knowledge they possess, but the Chixzon faked their deaths then hid in a stasis of their own long enough for the galaxy to forget them. When they return, they plan to start anew and we stand in their way. The Zak’de’ron threat is the nearer, but if they have obtained the knowledge of the Chixzon then we are in an even worse position. And we have been told that the Uriti we discovered, and that the Knights of Quenar took from us, was taken from them. It never arrived in Star Force territory, and much belated a single survivor crept back to tell the story of who took it from them.”

  “The Zak’de’ron,” Ummva said, the Qua’cho’s expression deathly cold.

  “Yes. Using ships unlike they previously possessed, but it was them. They slaughtered the Knights of Quenar and took the Uriti. Star Force was not supposed to know this, and they have come to the conclusion that the Zak’de’ron have no intention of being anything other than their master…and if not master, their executioner. They fear what is coming, from both the Zak’de’ron and later the Chixzon, but it is the Zak’de’ron that have prompted them to confide in us. They state we are still enemies, but they have no wish to weaken either of us to the point where the greater threats can step in and take advantage of the situation. They wish a full, permanent truce where we hold to our borders and leave the Rim to them as we both prepare for the nightmare to come.”

  “There it is, my friends. Neither I nor Mak’to’ran have a course of action for us. I need your wisdom and experience, as well as your absolute secrecy. So long as we know of the Zak’de’ron and they are unaware of it, we have at least one advantage. Star Force told us that the Zak’de’ron have full control over the Urrtren, thus the couriers I sent to fetch you. I wish there were more, but you are the only ones I fully trust. What are we going to do about this fiasco?” Hamob said angrily. Angry at their previous failure to destroy the Zak’de’ron, along with their arrogance for assuming they’d gotten them all.

  “So the Terraxis sponsor was not the J’gar,” Yaniel noted with shame.

  “I had always suspected it was you,” a Kar’ka named Bennak said to the Oso’lon.

  “Was the recent war the Zak’de’ron’s doing as well?” the Voro’nam Keesa asked.

  “I do not know,” Hamob answered. “But the time line fits. If they have access to the Urrtren, they may well have engineered it.”

  “Or pushed our own distrust,” Yaquik added. “We were at each other’s throats even before Terraxis.”

  “They’ve been playing us for fools,” the Wass’mat said, being the largest of all those present here. Even slightly larger than the Oso’lon.

  “No longer,” Hamob insisted. “We must find a way to survive. I do not believe we can kill them now. Not all of them. And I must now ask what was forbidden before. Do any of you know why we thought we had got them all the first time?”

  “None of them know,” the tiny Ari’tat said. “But I do.”

  Yaniel rotated his long neck down towards the meter-tall V’kit’no’sat. “You were not senior leadership at the time. How do you know?”

  “Because Ari’tat like secrets. The more of them we can acquire the better, but we share amongst ourselves. I know how it was done, and why we assumed they were all dead, but you’re not going to like the answer.”

  “Something vile?” Yaquik suspected.

  “Yes. The leadership who arranged it were all killed during the war, but not all at the hands of the Zak’de’ron. The others were quietly executed when others found out what they had done. One of the executioners involved was an Ari’tat. He intercepted and destroyed a vessel carrying Neamri, and was supposed to not make record of it. He did not, but he passed the memory along. It is vague now, after so many years, but I possess it. It does not appear in any database, however.”

  “Neamri executed?” Hamob asked, shocked. The J’gar had been one of the V’kit’no’sat’s greatest leaders.

  “He and a small group of others developed mind rippers…and used them to steal the Zak’de’ron’s secrets. We knew where they had everything, where they would fall back to, what their true population was…everything. Though apparently they didn’t tear apart the right ones, or perhaps additional plans were formulated during the war. All their ships had a location tag, so the Zak’de’ron could identify others even when cloaked. The tag allows them to communicate too without giving themselves away. The tags were stolen, so we could track all of their ships. It was just a matter of setting up a detection grid. All the ships that fled to the rim were tabulated, and when we destroyed all on the list, we knew we had them all.”

  “Mind rippers?” the Tev’nan Faer roared, his starburst-like armored spikes erupting in energy as his anger spilled over into his Saroto’kanse’vam, and the same was true for the Wass’mat and the Hjar’at.

  “Yes,” the Ari’tat confirmed. “The technology was destroyed along with those who produced it.”

  “Did the Zak’de’ron know?” Hamob asked.

  Wenni shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Unknown. Even if not, they may have suspected. We knew everything.”

  “Then why do we not also possess their technology?” a Fi’ti named Vono asked, being the only aquatic here, though he was actually a hybrid aquatic/avian that had flown from his dropship over to where he was uncomfortably perched on the ground where his shield were holding in a moist layer of atmosphere around his smooth,
aquatic skin.

  “We obtained massive amounts of data…but we also recovered massive amounts of their technology. We simply cannot understand it. The mind ripper took information. It cannot take understanding.”

  Hamob kept silent as more questions were asked of what the Ari’tat knew. He listened, but his shame was consuming him. He had known killing the Zak’de’ron had been a miscalculation, but now that he knew how they had done it he was sickened by it. They didn’t deserve their victory, and had violated one of the most basic principles the V’kit’no’sat had been formed upon.

  That being that strength reigns, and it was why only the Zen’zat had Ikrid blocks. All of the V’kit’no’sat races were required to have strong minds to keep others out, and if you forced your way into one it was a deep breach of protocol, but tolerated in some aspects because of the superiority it required.

  But a mind ripper didn’t require strength. It was a wicked technology banned long ago, even for use against races outside the V’kit’no’sat. It slowly took apart a mind, replacing the biological components with mechanical ones and copying the data they contained, gradually tearing the individual apart piece by piece until nothing was left but a body with a machine mind left inside. It was a horrific way of torturing someone to death, for there was no way to defend against it. A mind ripper also was equipped with psionic inhibitors, so you didn’t even have a chance to use your Lachka to fight the Kich’a’kat tendrils inside you…not that anyone would have actually been able to win that war, but not even having a chance to fight back was abhorrent.

  If the V’kit’no’sat had done that to the elite Zak’de’ron Wenni was saying had been mind ripped, then it explained how they knew so much and were able to ambush the Zak’de’ron so effectively, but knowing that their victory had been based on this abomination made Hamob ashamed to have been on the winning side.

  Others were voicing the same thing, with the Ari’tat simply summing it all up by saying that was why they had been executed.

  “What have we become?” the Bez named Gavi asked.

  “The Zak’de’ron built the V’kit’no’sat,” Hamob answered. “We have not had a clear path forward since we betrayed them. We fight the Hadarak, but many do not truly know why. We were told to do so, and they obey, even though those who gave the order are long gone.”

  “So we thought,” Yaniel added.

  “Even if they offered reconciliation, which I doubt, would any of our races accept it? The Era’tran would not.”

  “Why?” Gavi asked curiously.

  “For the same reason Star Force betrayed them. They will be the master or they will be the executioner. There is no parity with them. They treat those that serve them well, but it is always servitude.”

  “Do you remember the Chani?” Yaniel asked.

  “No, I do not,” Hamob admitted.

  “Does anyone?” the Oso’lon repeated.

  “I do,” Yaquik finally answered. “It was removed from the database, but the Hjar’at along with the Oso’lon were the ones who destroyed them.”

  “The Chani were a race that the joined the V’kit’no’sat…briefly,” Yaniel explained. “They did not do everything the Zak’de’ron wished them to do, and we were told they were trying to steal advancements without earning their keep. That was a lie. They contributed as much to the Hadarak front as any other, especially considering they were never fully advanced. They wanted to fight, and sacrificed many of their people before they were ready. The Zak’de’ron told them not to, but they did anyway. They did not want to sit and wait to build strength, but it was not that alone that doomed them. It was the idea that the Zak’de’ron were not fully in control, that their orders were merely suggestions.”

  “The Zak’de’ron ordered them destroyed, and we did so,” Yaquik said, though he hadn’t been alive at the time. “I know of the story, but it was more than 4 million years ago, before many of the current races were included. It was one of the primary reasons the Hjar’at agreed to free ourselves from their servitude.”

  “When was the first race annexed?” a Bav’tor named Charbij asked.

  “It is hard to say, for there are no Brat’mar here to ask,” Yaniel answered. “They were the first I know of. The Oso’lon were the third. The Zak’de’ron did not reveal their interaction until after they founded the empire with us and the J’gar, but they were elevated first and brought in later. There’s not much information available from back then. I suspect a lot was altered or erased. My best guess is between 4 and 5 million years ago.”

  “The Era’tran joined 3.2 million years ago,” Hamob said evenly as more of the dark past continued to surface. “But I have never heard of a race being eliminated, only culled.”

  “I know of 3,” the Oso’lon answered. “Long ago. I think the Zak’de’ron got better picking their candidates, though they always kept some races in their personal servitude beyond the V’kit’no’sat.”

  “Why did we not kill them as well?” Gavi asked.

  “They were irrelevant,” Wenni said. “They were not harboring Zak’de’ron, so they did not matter. None were advanced to our level, and those beyond our borders were left alone. Those within were killed, in some cases, and ignored in others.”

  “What else do you know?” Hamob asked.

  “A lot from recent history, little from ancient times. As bad as the Zak’de’ron are for us, I am interested in this Chixzon threat. Does Star Force believe they will reclaim control of the Uriti?”

  “They do not. They claim to have developed enough of a relationship with them that they would side with the Humans if given conflicting orders. They also say they will not try, for they feel the Uriti are a failed experiment. The Humans warn of biological weapons and other indirect methods of our destruction.”

  “Does Star Force possess these weapons?”

  “I do not know.”

  “How did we not gather that when we conquered their homeworld?” a Zep’sha named Tio asked, looking almost identical to the Oso’lon, save for the length and angle of her head and tail, which were much longer and flatter.

  “They have been very good at hiding their secrets,” Yaquik said with a growl. “And we have never captured one of their senior leadership.”

  “Their Director spoke to Mak’to’ran personally,” Hamob added. “They are taking this matter very seriously. The question is, what are we to do about it?”

  6

  “We have no choice,” a Deo’mat named Jaxen demanded several hours later. “We cannot tell the others, and if they do not know they will never accept Star Force’s existence. They will demand they are destroyed, as they are now. They are barely obeying the truce as it is.”

  Hamob looked at the Ankylosaurus, knowing he was probably right. “What would happen if we did? If we told the entire empire the Zak’de’ron were still alive. Worst case scenario?”

  “They could shut down the Urrtren,” Keesa said gravely. “We have to assume they have that power and not just the ability to eavesdrop. If they completely shut it down, they wouldn’t need a large fleet to kill us. We’d be blind to what was happening, separated, and they could cut us down one region after another. The V’kit’no’sat cannot operate without the Urrtren. We rely on it too heavily.”

  “Our territory is too spread out,” Hamob agreed. “They mandated that long ago, and our worlds are spread far and wide. Even if we organized regional clusters between races, the distances are still too vast for couriers. The Zak’de’ron could isolate and kill us at their will. What else?”

  “We would hunt them to extinction…again,” Gavi added sarcastically, looking slightly down on Hamob from his greater height.

  “We would try,” Yaquik added. “But we would fail. They are hiding now, and I do not know how to find them all. They would evade, and we could never eliminate them. We have no ability to end this. They will forever be hunting us.”

  “Unless we’re destroyed,” a Ranto’non called Plaszo noted. “W
e are the easier to kill, for we are not hiding anything.”

  “The Rit’ko’sor did,” Wenni pointed out. “Who knows what our races are hiding from each other now?”

  “I will tell you now,” Hamob revealed, “that the Era’tran have been working for some time to find replacements for Zak’de’ron technology, with limited success. We recognized that we were not the masters of our own equipment, for we had simply copied what came before. We have a few small replacements, but we are still dependent on Zak’de’ron technology and software. And until we free ourselves of it, we have no idea how much real control they have over us.”

  “Are our warships at risk of being compromised?” Yaquik asked worriedly.

  “I do not know. I have studied every component and there appears to be no coding that would allow them to take control or interfere with them, but the fact that we can’t write our own coding to such a level does concern me.”

  “How much of a loss would we take if we ripped out all those systems and built our own replacements?” Yaniel asked.

  “Power would be the same, for the raw technology we understand, but the efficiency of targeting and navigation and other automated processes would decrease by more than 20%.”

  “That is preferable to our guns turning against our own fleet,” Yaquik said angrily. “Why have you not mentioned this before?”

  “Because I didn’t know the Zak’de’ron were still around to mess with it…and they never used such capabilities during the war, so I doubt such things exist. However, I’d like to be fully producing our own software.”

  “They didn’t crash the Urrtren either,” a Tido’cor named Vokey pointed out. “One would think they would have then if they could.”

  “How did we kill them if they could read everything we sent through the Urrtren back then?” Yaniel asked.