Star Force: Galactic Empire Revealed (Star Force Universe Book 63) Read online

  It was all biological. Mak’to’ran had inquired about that briefly, and the Apprentice had said that was the state of all the galaxies. The larger, space-faring races preferred the shorter jumplanes and larger gravity wells, so they didn’t make their way out into the far flung rim, and when facing people who naturally could fly through space versus those that had to build technology to do it, the technology-wielders were at a severe disadvantage unless they had ascended to the level of obtaining Essence.

  He had also said the Veloqueen were in the unique position of being both biological spacefarers and technological. They were small compared to the others, and had lost many worlds and countless numbers of their people before they developed the ability to manipulate the universe around them. Fortunately they had been born with rudimentary telekinesis, and through that they had been able to craft technology whereas others either relied on their natural attributes or developed genetic engineering to create sub-races crafted to do their bidding.

  As it was, the biggest thing those who flew through space lacked were hands. Surface dwellers had them in droves, and if not hands then they had tentacles, paws, teeth, or other forms of interacting with the environment that could eventually lead to the development of mental-interface technology…but if you didn’t have the initial ability to craft even crude tools then you couldn’t create technology without the help of others.

  Historically there was a rift between the space dwellers and the technologicals, and there were some who made it their purpose to seek out the Heidoor…which was their term for ‘space dwellers’…and give them the ability to grow beyond their natural state to the point they could defend themselves against the Socani, or ‘surface dwellers.’

  Some of the Heidoor were predators, attacking other Heidoor to remove them, or perhaps eat them, while others were pacifistic to a fault. Most would mind their own business until provoked, so it wasn’t uncommon to see the Deep Cores of many galaxies filled with Heidoor of various races that more or less avoided each other and kept to their own feeding grounds.

  But when the advanced Heidoor did fight, as Neofenn was seeing now, it was brutal. There was no mercy, no prisoner taking, no stunning. They didn’t have ships that could be damaged while preserving the crews, for all their ships were people. The Grand Admiral quickly theorized that this was the reason so many were inclined not to fight each other unless necessary, and it seemed even the Hadarak had no wish to battle them unless they got in their way, which apparently happened often where resources were concerned.

  And when a Heidoor possessed Essence skills, the hardened shells of the other Heidoor offered little defense. Those that didn’t have it would chew away at each other in a slow grind of constant combat for the heavy hitters, while the smaller, lighter swarm units would die quickly just trying to land a single blow. Ranged combat was not unusual with the Heidoor, as the V’kit’no’sat had wrongly assumed about the Hadarak, but melee seemed to be the preference for the smaller units, some of which would fly in and land on their larger opponents like ticks, then slowly chew them apart.

  When the target couldn’t fight back because they were so small and in so close, it was agonizing to watch, for surrender wasn’t an option. The larger ones would slowly be chewed, cut, or blasted to death, and even though they couldn’t scream in space, the Grand Admiral found it very distasteful to watch.

  The Deep Core was truly a zone of carnage, and without Essence weapons or at least Yeg’gor-level armor on most of their ships, no Socani would stand a chance against the more dangerous biological fleets in there, some of which were able to protect themselves against the Hadarak because they outclassed them.

  Those races had no interest in conquering the Hadarak, just defending their own turf, so it was very easy for the Hadarak to dominate the Deep Core without owning all of it. The laid back nature of coexistence there was something the rest of the galaxy did not share, making it a strange counterpart. The Deep Core didn’t fight…except when it did…and when it did, there was no mercy, no diplomacy, just pure, unadulterated carnage.

  The Grand Admiral looked at these battle records as a challenge that Star Force would ultimately have to overcome, but he couldn’t disagree with Eldorat when he said that the V’kit’no’sat couldn’t win against this level of warfare. If the Hadarak sent their full forces out to deal with them, they would be so outmatched it would become a running slaughter…unless the V’kit’no’sat held their ground and chose to die defending their planets as they got overrun.

  A classic song that was one of the favorites of the Archons came to mind, particularly the phrase ‘Only the strongest will survive, lead me to heaven when I die.’ If you weren’t the Archons or other ultra elite, you had no chance of being the strongest, meaning you were going to die sooner or later. Star Force had changed that for the Rim, because they protected the weak and allowed them to survive and grow.

  Not so in the Deep Core, and Eldorat provided two examples of Heidoor races that had been completely exterminated after heavy combat. Nothing was left of them, and their territory was now in the hands of the Hadarak, growing new ships and spaceborn infrastructure. The Hadarak were washing away all the weak Heidoor, and the others would not step in to defend their neighbors, only to defend themselves and their kin. Only the strongest would survive, and it seemed the Hadarak were trying to eliminate all the competition they could…but why not focus on these other Heidoor and eliminate them one by one?

  They were not doing so, and the Grand Admiral found that odd. If they could pull reinforcements from other areas of the galaxy, let alone from other galaxies, could they not overwhelm a superior opponent with massive numbers? Were they really that pressed with other warfronts? Or did they not care to devote the resources to fight those that did not have any interest in fighting them other than in self-defense?

  With the way the Hadarak seemed to kill everyone in sight, he had assumed the Deep Core would have operated on the ‘There can be only one’ rule, but according to Kara’s information, now heavily expanded by Eldorat, that was far from the truth.

  Anders had spoken with Mak’to’ran earlier, and got him to ask a question considering that Eldorat would only speak with the V’kit’no’sat leader and no one else. It was regarding the outer defense perimeter and the ‘nests’ that Hadarak created.

  Eldorat explained that while the Hadarak could burrow into planets, they preferred building infrastructure in space so they could view all around them. Only if they could consume an entire planet would they do so, hollowing it out and essentially retrofitting it into a giant nest. Their other nests, far more spindly and stretching out like spider webs, allowed for easy transit between and around them while giving them eyes everywhere…for the Hadarak were extremely paranoid, and not just of the Veloqueen and their allies.

  Many Heidoor feared the Socani and their technology when it became infused with Essence. In order to protect the Hadarak, and to some extent the other Heidoor within the Deep Cores, the Hadarak essentially built a fence around the entire thing to keep the Socani out and had watchdogs on the outside to warn them if any sufficient threat would arise. If none achieved Essence abilities, the Hadarak would let them bleed their forces on the outer defenses without considering it an attack, even if they lost some Wardens in the process. But if they lost too many, or took too much damage too fast…as was the case with the Ysalamir…then that would provoke a slightly stronger response.

  Eldorat did not know what had caused this full galactic purge, but when the Hadarak sent assassins out to deal with the situation, that meant there was a high level threat that needed to be nipped in the bud. If the assassins failed, then the mainline troops would be sent out, and that was a fight the V’kit’no’sat could not win.

  Yet Eldorat admitted he did not understand their tactics. They were not going after the V’kit’no’sat directly, suggesting this was a galactic purge. He had never seen one occur in this galaxy, but there had been instances in other galaxies
that were similar, and each of those constituted an ‘infestation of Socani’ that was deemed to be so pervasive that it could not be routed out of a particular region, so everything had to be taken down.

  The Hadarak didn’t usually take such drastic measures, but sometimes they would do so as a preventative exercise. Eldorat said he had been monitoring the galaxy and he had seen neither the threat of high level Essence use, nor the mass development of low level use, which could also trigger a full purge. Why this was happening here was unknown, but the assassins had clearly been sent to counter the Ysalamir, and if they were not successful in due course, that failure would trigger a larger response.

  Already there were units in play that had not been before, but those were being grown out here, not diverted from the Deep Core. If it got to that last gasp effort, they would pour out in such numbers that they would blot out the stars and sweep through the galaxy in short order. Eldorat did not think the V’kit’no’sat or anyone else were able to trigger that much of a response. Not even the Vargemma at this point. But a mid level response would be enough to wipe away both Star Force and the V’kit’no’sat, so there was little point in fighting a war that would only escalate with your victories and further doom your empire.

  That was the point Eldorat had made, then he returned to silence as he let the system further ponder the depth of information provided. To Neofenn it had the opposite response as intended. The stronger the Hadarak were the bigger the victory it would be in defeating them. Having to face them without intel was scary, but the more information Neofenn had the more he could begin to plan an effective defense…and it all came down to the Uriti, which hopefully Eldorat didn’t know about yet.

  Amount of Essence was always a weakness, and the Uriti were providing Star Force so much, and doing so willingly, that he figured they could mount an effective attack against the Hadarak with a millennia of retooling. They had that much time, for the Hadarak purge could not consume such a large galaxy so fast having to grow its troops as it went, for the most part. There were many Wardens coming out of the Deep Core, but again, those were tankers supplying and carrying around the minions, which were doing the majority of the damage at this point…aside from the ramming attacks the Wardens contributed to stubborn planetary targets.

  And because of that ability the Wardens had been the primary threat to the galaxy…yet they were just tankers. Big, stupid tankers with so much armor and mass the Socani had to work their asses off to kill even one.

  But the weapon onboard Anders ship could punch a hole right into one, perhaps burning all the way to the brain in the center…then again maybe not. The Lurkers were much thinner, so it might take two well placed shots for a Warden depending on the size, but the principle was still the same. With Essence enhancement, Star Force weapons would cut through Yeg’gor like butter, and if the Uriti could supply enough refills for them, they had a way to counter the Hadarak. Perhaps even their mainline troops.

  But not now. Star Force wasn’t ready for that kind of war, though the basic technology was already present. The Uriti were the unique component that couldn’t be replicated, and because of that they had to be thoroughly protected prior to launching any such assault. If the Lurkers or other units could hunt them down and kill them, Star Force’s Essence source would disappear and they’d be back to a handful of Materia charged by tiny people over the course of centuries.

  If the Veloqueen learned of the Uriti, they might come and try to take them, which was why Anders had insisted that Mak’to’ran not spill the beans, though there was no way to be certain how much the other V’kit’no’sat knew of them beyond rumor. And their ability to give Essence had not been made public. Even the existence of Essence wasn’t public knowledge in Star Force, though those in the V’kit’no’sat military fighting the Hadarak had been informed of it due to the threat posed by the Lurkers.

  That wasn’t much, so the knowledge that the Uriti were Essence batteries would hopefully go undeduced by the Apprentice, though he might want to take a look anyway if he realized they had been grown from Hadarak.

  If that happened, Star Force was going to have a big problem…which was why Neofenn had already sent an ultra-secure message back through the Urrtren with Mak’to’ran’s help using the secure coding that the Zak’de’ron could not access despite having feelers out into the rest of the network. That message was for Davis, warning him of the updated threat of Eldorat and what he might do with the Uriti or the assaults on the Temples, the latter of which he didn’t seem to care about right now, but if he did head out to the Rim it was probably going to be trouble.

  If Eldorat was going to be an asset, then Mak’to’ran would figure that out here and now, but the Grand Admiral wasn’t hopeful. Star Force wasn’t backing down from this fight, and neither was the V’kit’no’sat. They’d be smart, cagey, and sneaky as need be, but they would not abandon the galaxy to the purge…and that’s exactly what the super-sized dragon wanted them to do.

  7

  December 29, 128558

  Itaru System (V’kit’no’sat Capitol)

  Wendigama

  It had been three weeks since Eldorat had arrived at the V’kit’no’sat capitol, and in those three weeks he had done as much listening as talking. More actually, for he was quietly hacking his way into most of the V’kit’no’sat’s comm traffic to learn more about them and, more importantly, about their reaction to his revelations.

  He’d done this before with a few other races, but none as big as this empire. The V’kit’no’sat had actually been doing a fair amount of damage to the Hadarak, which was showing more than just potential. Eldorat needed to preserve them, for they were more numerous than any of the others he’d collected. If there was ever going to be a hope of putting up sufficient resistance in this galaxy to draw attention away from Hesalla, he needed the V’kit’no’sat to survive and hone their anti-Yeg’gor technology.

  Eldorat was forbidden from giving them more advanced weaponry, other than what could be obtained in the Temples. But the kind of anti-Hadarak weapons the Veloqueen and their allies used were not there. Only Essence weaponry was, because that’s why the Vargemma in every galaxy existed. To produce more of it, so showing them that the Hadarak could be defeated without it would only encourage them to explore technology over their gradual training…and that training was necessary in order to increase their output.

  Dogoroth had told him long ago that Essence alone could not destroy the Hadarak, for their strength lie not just in their Heidoor, but also their Socani. Focus on one and the other would destroy you, and Essence was wasted on the Socani. He’d seen his master stomp his foot and kill billions of them with a single Essence attack, but billions were a rounding number for the Hadarak, and if one chose to attack the minions with Essence you would quickly deplete yourself of it…at which point you’d be defenseless without another means of warfare.

  That was why the Veloqueen had survived as long as they had. Both Essence and technological power flowed through their empire like a life force, and even he had technological elements implanted into himself now, above and beyond his armor shell he wore when drifting outside his ship so the V’kit’no’sat could see him. Occasionally he would return inside to eat or perform other duties, but only briefly. Staring at a smooth orb imparted a sense of secrecy, and if this empire was going to be absorbed into the resistance forces, he needed it to be a personal connection, for they would not accept anything less.

  Many minds were available around him, but most were closed off to his view. Some, he knew, were engineered as such. They called them Zen’zat, and they’d apparently done so in order to make them better servants who could not be manipulated and who could hold secrets…but the rest of their empire was wide open to mental invasion, counting on their strength to protect them from foreign intrusion.

  Eldorat had made use of that oversight when he had encountered the first of their ships, but ever since coming here the minds on the ships surrounding h
im were entirely off limits. He had spied inside some of the closest ones and saw that they were wearing devices on their heads to block telepathic access. He was tempted to pull one off and peek inside, but he refrained. Doing so was not necessary, for they had underestimated his range, and he could reach the surface with a little Essence added to his natural telepathy.

  What he was getting from them was not a deep scan, but surface thoughts. They were too far away to drag much information out of in groups, but combined with the comm chatter he was observing he noticed a considerable divide within the V’kit’no’sat. They were united against the Hadarak that were creeping ever closer to their borders, but many did not think that victory could be achieved, and some wanted to settle old scores before the distant invasion came. These V’kit’no’sat were so shortsighted they thought a few millennia was distant future, but to Eldorat it was far too short a time.

  Then there were others who would prefer to die rather than surrender or run away, and there was a polite but significant discord between the two groups that had altered when he arrived. Now the realists were shown to have another option to survive, and Eldorat’s ability to kill Hadarak so quickly and apparently effortlessly reinforced the point of how hard the V’kit’no’sat were working for their limited victories. If one so powerful as he could not win against the Hadarak, how could the V’kit’no’sat?

  Very few knew of the Temples, beyond that it was somewhere that their Rimward half had left to defend against an invasion. It miffed them that they were left alone to deal with the Hadarak, so their only sense of the Vargemma was that of scorn towards an unknown entity. The Zak’de’ron were supposed to be helping them as well, but the bad blood there kept them away from each other, and it was apparent that the V’kit’no’sat were racking up the majority of the kills…but then again how could the Zak’de’ron keep up without the armor penetrating technology?