Death Mark Read online

  But it wasn’t a dominance contest. Both were glad the other was here, and what Neoum had done with the Ter’nat forces was commendable. They were an effective barrier to the Bo’ja that slowed them down enough for the Zen’zat to make the kills. If not for those Ter’nat, the few thousand Zen’zat would have been overrun with targets and the shield generators would have gone down for simple lack of blocking capability.

  Bottom line was they were holding, and word had gotten out about that hold. Another Zen’zat ship, this one built for Zen’zat, arrived courtesy of the neighboring system of Uyo and the Wass’mat that owned it.

  And it was a Domjo filled with over 3,500 Zen’zat.

  But two weeks after it arrived the enemy also got reinforcements in the way of a trio of traitorous Rit’ko’sor ships. Before the Urrtren went down only a handful of their planets had heeded Itaru’s offer of amnesty while most virulently rejected the reformed triumvirate, for their loyalty was with Mak’to’ran’s race who had brought them out of the Hadarak zone and restored them into the empire. A Zak’de’ron had killed him, and like most they had eagerly dove into the war against those bastards, so either some of them had changed their minds or these were from those few planets that initially defected.

  And the Rit’ko’sor were a huge problem, for they were nearly as small as Bo’ja and far more mobile. They had an array of psionics, more so than the Bo’ja, and some of them were veteran troops now being deployed against grounded warships in an effort to take down more of the shield generators.

  Rajamal had killed many of them in recent days, and he’d lost 721 Zen’zat to hand to hand combat with them…but no shield generators had been taken, and he feared the Rit’ko’sor were here more to thin the Zen’zat ranks than anything, and today he was proven right.

  The alerts came through within a minute of each other, with the subsurface tunnels breaking through the surface nearby 22 different shield generators spread across the planet, and out of them came not only Bo’ja ground vehicles and infantry, but at least one Oso’lon with each, daring the fleet to spread out and attack them all, and if they did Rajamal was sure they’d simply retreat into the tunnels to avoid them.

  This was bad. They’d tunneled beyond the border regions and gone past several shield generators to get at ones that were considered ‘secure’ and didn’t have the same levels of troops as the others. The Ter’nat fleet was already dispensing ships to each site, along with aerial transports to move troops and vehicles there…all the while he saw from his vantage point on the border another overland assault by the Bo’ja and the Rit’ko’sor. They were attacking on so many fronts he’d be mostly useless to stop them.

  But when the enemy went all in on your infrastructure, it usually meant they left their own rear formations lightly guarded.

  “Booner, Devva, we’re going rogue. Bring both of your units with me, we’re grabbing Ter’nat speeders and flanking the enemy. This shield generator is lost. Metra,” he said, contacting the Ter’nat field commander posted here. “We can’t hold, so get your troops in position for a fighting retreat. Delay them here as long as you can, and make them choose between the shield generator and me. Lono, assist them, but don’t try to win. I’m taking almost all Zen’zat here with me. Don’t get sloppy and lose extra people.”

  “Where are you going?” Lono asked.

  “Where they don’t want me,” Rajamal said, coordinating the rest of his orders remotely as he ran down the slanted side of the shield generator all the way to ground using the grip pads in his boots to keep from entering freefall. When he hit the ground he took off to a vehicle shed where there were many small and lightly armed speeders that could fit 3 or 4 Ter’nat each, which meant 2 Zen’zat max.

  The teams he’d called with him numbered a little over 200, with the rest of the Zen’zat on the planet spread out in different locations the Oso’lon had been probing with the intention of spreading them out, and even now they had to choose between moving to the tunnels or staying put and defending the shield generators on the outer edge of the ‘safe’ territory, knowing that if they were cut off then the Oso’lon would be able to get under the single shield generators and take them down while the friendly warships could not skip over the gap without getting hammered by the enemy fleet.

  They had to reposition, which meant abandoning the outer generators and the Ter’nat forces there. It was a horrible choice to make, and Rajamal was not going to let himself be played, so he was creating a third option.

  His Zen’zat grabbed a lot of heavy weapons in addition to what their armor carried, including some extra shield generator harnesses, and loaded up on the speeders…then they took off laterally away from the now extremely vulnerable Ter’nat troops guarding the tower with the Rit’ko’sor and Bo’ja only minutes away.

  Rajamal ignored them, knowing they had their orders and a reasonable expectation of survival if they followed them. His mission was ahead and to the right, with his speeder bike phalanx moving through the city at ground level then wheeling around faster than the Rit’ko’sor could run as they flanked the attacking forces and headed for the not so far off landing zone they were originating from.

  The enemy warships were no longer here, having flown off over top of the planetary shields to start bombarding other targets and forcing the defending fleet to choose between preventing them from breaking through directly and going after the Oso’lon now in play. The V’kit’no’sat ships had to go to face their counterparts, leaving some of the Ter’nat warships to fight the Oso’lon and none to cover the enemy landing zones.

  Rajamal intended to rip at least one of them up, and on approach he knew they’d been spotted when several of the drop pods began taking off and heading for space.

  He accelerated hard and gained altitude while the other Zen’zat did not, knowing they couldn’t do anything with the light weapons they had to stop them from fleeing…but they were not Rajamal, and when he came close to one he launched himself off the bike towards it like a missile and hit it with his body rippling with Jumat.

  That energy pool around him negated the shields enough for him to break through and hit the hull, with him bouncing off it slightly before he boosted his limited anti-grav and glided beneath the shield barrier before getting a handhold on the hull as the dropship raced up through the atmosphere.

  Rajamal crawled around to near the upper cockpit and grabbed control of the feeble Bo’ja minds inside, making them halt their ascent and head back to ground slowly while opening the small escape hatch near them, through which he crawled inside and killed the trio onboard.

  The Zen’zat pushed their bodies aside and took the pilot’s seat as his kin on the ground quickly rushed over the static defense turrets and plucked the Bo’ja out of them through a variety of means while other turrets were left unmanned. By the time Rajamal got back to ground with his captured drop pod, another two were burning hulks as the Zen’zat appropriated some of the turrets and roasted the laggards that hadn’t taken off immediately.

  Others were now being claimed by the Zen’zat so they couldn’t leave, then finally two Oso’lon emerged from their barracks…which were more like barns. The Zen’zat scattered around them, knowing not to get too close, but they wouldn’t be able to pick them up and kill them with Lachka immediately, for his troops were all wearing their anti-psionic armor, meaning they had a small window of immunity before the power was drained by the behemoths.

  Some of the appropriated ground turrets were now turned and shooting the Oso’lon, but their heavily armored bodies shrugged it off, for their shield generators were massive in addition to the green plates that carried heavy weaponry of their own.

  They used that weaponry to start attacking their own turrets, and unlike the Bo’ja they couldn’t take control of the Zen’zat minds due to the Ikrid block…which was a major reason why the Zen’zat were superior, and that strength probably required too much trust for these bastards to allow the Bo’ja to possess.

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bsp; The gun turrets did the damage to the Oso’lon’s shields, but the Zen’zat manning them had to abandon the turrets one by one as they were destroyed while the other Zen’zat were peppering the Oso’lon with handheld weapons from range even as the multiple turrets on the long necks’ bodies were firing back in all directions. Rajamal had to get down there or the Zen’zat were going to lose. They could take one Oso’lon without him, but not two, especially if both worked together.

  He set the drop pod on auto-pilot and selected a safe spot away from the fighting for it to land, then he jumped out and glided down to the surface in spurts to avoid making himself an easy target. Despite that he got clipped by one shot from an Oso’lon and lost 38% of his shield strength for it.

  Once he hit the ground he became a blur, telepathically organizing the Zen’zat into the hunting parties he wanted, each with their own assignments…then as the Oso’lon were finishing off the last of the turrets he went right at both of them using a small building as cover before popping out and jumping on one’s tail.

  Just before he did so one of the Zen’zat teams simultaneously launched Fornax blasts towards the Oso’lon’s head, with the combined assault making him twitch and stumble for a moment, unable to target Rajamal as a second Zen’zat team did the same to the other one…otherwise he would have been smacked with so much weaponry that he probably would not have survived more than 10 seconds.

  But he got on his tail and used his Jumat to get his body through his shields directly over a weapon port, then blasted it with multiple shots before laying a small explosive on it and jumping clear before its short timer ran out.

  It exploded before the Oso’lon regained his senses enough to telekinetically pluck it off, and the weapon battery beneath it was damaged enough to be inoperable for a moment as Rajamal ducked beneath the Oso’lon’s legs for cover from the other one, then he emerged out the other side, putting the bulk of one between him and the other longneck as he grappled with the closer one’s mind.

  One skill that Zen’zat had that was underrated was mental power. Because of their smaller minds they started with a huge disadvantage, but over the years with experience and training they gained much strength…and with the rest of his Zen’zat doing likewise through Ikrid, Fornax, Orren, and Saven, the Oso’lon had few moments where his mind was not under assault to manually target Rajamal or the others. So he did the only thing he could, blocking out most of it and swinging his giant tail around as a battering ram in the hopes to sweep them aside.

  Rajamal jumped over it then went after another weapon battery on the Oso’lon’s armor while the other one was likewise distracted. The other Zen’zat did not have the shield penetrating Jumat in their psionic kit, for it was rare for any Zen’zat to possess it, but most of his people had a slew of tier 2 abilities that they were using to distract while reaching in with their Lackha to try and grab tissue inside the Oso’lon to tear apart when they found an opening, but it wasn’t often. Mostly they just poured their small arms firepower into the giant beast along with explosives and larger handheld weapons that only chipped away at the shield strength. Until they got it down they couldn’t do much to damage the armor itself with their Lachka, for none of them had the strength to smash it.

  And while in defensive mode the Oso’lon was jamming them with his own Lachka, set to push back on any fields moving towards his body. It wasn’t true jamming, that was Da’nu and he was glad the Oso’lon did not possess that psionic, but the more both Oso’lon had to curl up into defensive mode the less they could worry about Rajamal as he almost quietly danced around their thrashing as he plucked their armor’s offensive capabilities away from the closer one.

  But the Oso’lon were not completely incapacitated, and their running and stomping provided ample threat of crushing a Zen’zat. Furthermore, they began to set their weapon targeting on automatic, with their bodies lighting up like a fireworks display with every single battery they had shooting the closest targets.

  That was the smart play to make, and it meant they were thoroughly compromised mentally. Rajamal and the others took hits to their shields from the smaller anti-personnel batteries while the larger ones were doing major damage. He avoided a hit at the last moment, but several of his Zen’zat did not, taking chest or head shots and going down or having to retreat before getting hit a second time, but those Zen’zat with the shield harnesses could take several hits, and they moved forward to draw the most fire while the others continued to mentally assault the Oso’lon as Rajamal jumped up on the back of the closer one and ran up its spine towards its swaying head.

  He was having to use Jumat with each step to keep from slipping on the Oso’lon’s shields while using his own and his Nakane to reach the head alive, but when he did he grabbed on tight and emitted the largest Fornax field he could.

  The Oso’lon fell, unable to control its own body even as its turrets were still accurately firing on the Zen’zat. A moment later his shields dropped, for when hit with Fornax it was hard to maintain one’s mental barriers. Rajamal and the Zen’zat got inside his head and made him drop the shields momentarily, and to their credit the Zen’zat worked fast to get explosives near the armor turrets. A moment later most of them were destroyed with explosions or coordinated Dre’mo’don fire, then Rajamal could hold the field no longer and had to jump off the Oso’lon’s head before he got telekinetically squashed into goo.

  He barely got out before his psionic dampener failed, then his legs were pinched together and he fell onto the pavement a moment before the Zen’zat distracted the Oso’lon for a split second enough to release his grip. Rajamal ran hard to get out of range, then circled back as his countermeasures started to recharge…only to see one of the Zen’zat assaulting the other Oso’lon get flung into a wall by a narrow Jumat blast, bounce off it, then get stomped by one of the massive front legs before it stumbled again.

  Nearby there were also Bo’ja corpses, which the Zen’zat had quickly dealt with. As long as these two Oso’lon didn’t get reinforcements Rajamal was going to kill them, but first the weapons had to come off.

  He ran around the big one near him towards the slightly smaller one on the other side, then repeated the same type of attacks, plucking weapons off his armored body until all he had left were just a few turret points that the Zen’zat were now hiding from around the perimeter of his body. That left the formidable psionic power of the Oso’lon to deal with, and Rajamal was nearly depleted of Jumat energy. Both Oso’lon still had their shields up, so this wasn’t going to be easy, but the greatest threat to his Zen’zat were now gone and they were going to keep dancing around these two until…

  Suddenly they broke apart, running separate ways and forcing Rajamal to choose between them. Rather than split his team up he chose to stay with the bigger one and focus everyone on it. Drained as they were, the Zen’zat still had enough psionic firepower to assault this one’s mind, and with all of them put together…minus those injured or killed…this Oso’lon became a staggering mess until Rajamal got to his head and took him to the ground again before the long neck could focus enough to knock them all back with its own Jumat.

  It stayed down, for others ran in and added their own Fornax as some reached inside his mind with their Lachka and pushed and pulled on anything they could get a grip on while Rajamal tried to burn through his armor plating…but like all V’kit’no’sat armor, when one area got damaged nanites from others flowed in to replace it, meaning he was mostly wasting his time, except that he was putting his fist into the gap to try and keep it from fully reforming.

  But he didn’t need to, for someone found a gap in the Oso’lon’s reflexive Lachka pushes and torqued something inside his brain enough that he quit fighting back with his Lachka…and that doomed him. The Zen’zat tore apart his brain without ever getting through his armor and shields, reducing his skull to a cup of goo even as his armor’s Kich’a’kat tried to heal him.

  There weren’t many memories left to recover, but Ra
jamal didn’t take any chances. He and the Zen’zat assaulted his head with shot after shot while he used his last remaining Jumat energy to push the shields away enough for them to get some shots through, and when the armor breached he dove a hand through the gap before it could reform.

  His fist dove into the broken skull, punching through to the interior and depositing one of the small explosives that another Zen’zat had left, for Rajamal had long ago used all his. The armored hand came back out, and as the armor reformed to cover the broken skull the explosive went off and ended any chance of this Oso’lon’s recovery.

  Rajamal checked the tactical grid again, as he had been doing multiple times during the fight to check for reinforcements arriving…particularly a warship…but nothing was coming. The other Oso’lon had taken off running and didn’t turn back, meaning he was too far out of range to go after…and without more explosives and time for his Jumat to recharge, they would lose too many people trying to take him down, so it was better to cut their losses, secure this victory, and move on.

  “Take the drop pods and anything else of value. Destroy everything else,” he said as he headed for the Oso’lon buildings. He’d need to sabotage their power cells to get the destruction he desired, while the smaller stuff could be taken down by hand or using the drop pods’ weaponry. “How many did we lose?”

  “Five dead, 18 heavily injured,” Booner answered.

  “Get the casualties to the planetary defense station. After we finish here, we’re finding the closest Rit’ko’sor and going hunting,” he said, knowing he didn’t need Jumat or explosives for that. “Anyone not up to it, pilot the drop pods back and make yourself useful on their turrets. Help the Ter’nat where you can without taking hits.”