Star Force: Atonement (Star Force Universe Book 68) Read online

  “You have unstable leadership and a history of divisiveness. Our restriction of psionics to the elite prevents many rebellions from ever taking place, as well as unifying those that do have it. Plus, we don’t force psionic restrictions based on different races. We allow most to attain all we have through individual merit rather than genetic inheritance. Only those who are worthy will possess them, and this works far better than being gifted the psionics on birth.”

  “What of your Knight races?”

  “We altered our standard practices to incorporate your races into ours. Expectations are higher than the rest of our citizens, and if one does not wish to do their duty they are free to choose another path…but they must forfeit their psionics to do so. Civilians will not have psionics. Not the big ones. We’ve pressed that limit about as far as we can with the Protovic, and know that to go further will cause issues.”

  “Interesting. Do you think we should adopt a similar methodology?”

  “I think yours can be modified, but I would not replace it entirely. You are too entrenched in it now, and doing so would give up the few strengths you have that are holding you together. But psionics are not going to win this war. Warships will, for the most part. Naval beats everything if you have enough naval assets.”

  “And we do not.”

  “But most of your shipyards are still intact.”

  “We cannot use our established supply lines, and our old systems have been heavily depleted of natural resources. We have to go beyond them to acquire more, and the J’gar are making it difficult to do so. They are choking off our ability to outscale them in production after we destroyed most of theirs in our initial assaults. I just wish the Elder Council had been able to destroy them all. If they had, their servants would have been left leaderless and fractured like our empire has become.”

  “Wishing won’t change the past. But the future is still in play. In order to maximize what potential you have remaining, you must be willing to change your ways to a superior path. I sense you are open to this, but what of the others?”

  “Most will resist, but my influence and the desperate situation we all face will soften many. However, no one will follow Star Force unless you can give us a pathway to victory. Victory is what fuels us, and it is something we are in short supply of.”

  7

  “We can,” Alden said boldly. “The question is whether you will be able to accept the path forward.”

  “Victory against Itaru or against the Hadarak?”

  “The Hadarak. Itaru must be froze out, not conquered. They are irrelevant to the real war.”

  “Not to those dying at their claws,” Mak’to’ran said with a growl.

  “If you fight and defeat them, you will be so weak by the end of it you will die to the Hadarak’s tentacles. So which do you prefer, claws or tentacles?”

  “They are attacking our worlds. We cannot ignore that threat.”

  “Nor should you. But are you able to forgo vengeance in order to attain victory against the Hadarak?” Alden asked, glancing at the other Era’tran around them. “Are they?”

  “Would Star Force forgo vengeance?” Mak’to’ran challenged. “You have a long history of doing otherwise.”

  “You’ve studied us more than other V’kit’no’sat, I assume. So you tell me. Do we exact vengeance or avenge?”

  “I assumed those words were synonyms in your language. What is the difference?”

  “Vengeance does not care about right or wrong, it seeks to do damage to those who have done damage to you. Evil for evil is vengeance. Does Star Force engage in this?”

  “What then is avenging?”

  “It’s payback in an honorable fashion. That may involve killing the bastards, in some circumstances, but not in all. And when we avenge, it does not always end up being instantly. We can be patient and get even with them later. We do not act in a blind rage, and we do not judge the offspring of those bastards as the same, though it is easy to do so. Figuring out who deserves payback and who does not is complicated, and if you wait long enough you may no longer have valid targets remaining.”

  “To forgo vengeance does not mean abandoning it, but rather waiting with the possibility that it might escape validity with time?”

  Alden nodded. “It also means that sometimes you trade vengeance in exchange for something useful. We have not forgotten what you did to us, but it is in the past and since we have outgrown you there is no lingering need for payback. Plus, most of those responsible are already dead. So who would we get even with? Your hatchlings?”

  “What do you plan to do with the Zak’de’ron?”

  “We have options, but right now we just scare them into submission. If we have to pull troops away from the Hadarak to fight them, we will end them in their entirety. They will be conquered and no armistice reached if we are required to abandon our duty on the warfront to deal with them. If they are wise and realize this threat, they will turn their attention to licking their wounds and rebuilding.”

  “How can you enforce that edict with the Urrtren destroyed?”

  “We can’t everywhere, initially. But we focus on the points of strength first, secure them, then move to adjacent areas.”

  “By doing what? You do not have the warships to spare for security, or do you have a reserve force you have not committed to battle?”

  “How far we skimp on our defenses is flexible, but we do not have a sizeable fleet not already deployed on some duty.”

  “I do not see this path forward you speak of, unless fear alone is enough to keep the Zak’de’ron at bay.”

  “That is irrelevant if you are not able to do what is necessary. We have no interest in subsidizing your empire’s continuing stupidity.”

  “What is necessary?”

  “Annexation.”

  Numerous growls and other noises of discontent came from those assembled, including the Zen’zat, but Mak’to’ran held his stone cold gaze on Alden without so much as blinking.

  “In what form?”

  Alden drifted upward, taking flight and rising up even with Mak’to’ran’s eye height slowly and deliberately, demonstrating the psionic that all the Zen’zat possessed the potential for but had never even come close to unlocking on their own merits.

  “What does the name V’kit’no’sat mean?”

  “Hunter of Hadarak.”

  “It has been two centuries since this empire has lived up to that name. Right now you are nothing more than the Zak’de’ron’s philosophical bastards in a war with your superior mirror image. I have no use for you as you are, but I do have use for those who truly wish to become Hunters of Hadarak. It is a function that my empire is mastering, but it is not our sole function. I require an empire whose sole purpose is to be Hunters of Hadarak.”

  Mak’to’ran was silent for a moment, then a glint in his eyes suggested he had caught on to something.

  “The Founders?”

  “We will deal with them when the time comes. And from what we have learned, they cannot travel between galaxies through the Deep Core. The Hadarak control those gateways, or tethers, call them what you want. We have learned the Founders have another means of transit from Rim to Rim. A slow one, but a method that allows them to bypass the Hadarak in the Core. If they are to arrive here it will most likely be in the Rim or Mid Rim. They seem to want to stay as far away from the Hadarak as they can, which is why they did not construct any Temples in your territory.”

  “You wish us to set our full focus against the Hadarak without the ability to use the Essence required to destroy their strongest forces?”

  “Set yourselves against their minions while you continue to improve Ysalamir. It will give you the upwards reach you need in time. Consider it a challenge for you to do conventionally what we are doing now with Essence. In the meantime, we will use our Essence forces to hunt the strongest of the Hadarak so you won’t have to…in most situations. I cannot guarantee we will be able to find or stop all of them bef
ore they get to your worlds. And you know what will happen if we don’t.”

  “It has been happening throughout the history of my empire,” Mak’to’ran reminded him. “Even our hatchlings know the horrors of what will happen to our worlds if we allow the Hadarak to reach them. We do not fear it. We fear being helpless to stop it.”

  “With Ysalamir, you are no longer helpless.”

  “Has it proven effective against the Lurkers?”

  “The Lurkers outrange Ysalamir in its current form. They can be defeated only by making them expend their reserves of Essence, then they must retreat or risk killing themselves with overuse. It is a bloody way of fighting them, but the only chance you have, and usually they are smart enough to run rather than stand their ground and die.”

  “Without Essence we are helpless against them, but not the Wardens who have plagued us in the past,” Mak’to’ran said, weighing the significance of that. “What of their other forms?”

  “Their warships can use Essence, or rather some of them can, but they are nowhere near as effective as a Lurker. Those are the strongest units known to exist, or at least those that we have encountered. The abilities of the Hadarak masters are unknown, for they live within the black holes deep in the Galactic Core. The Founders refer to the Lurkers as ‘assassins’ and that is as good a description of them that I have. They are not frontline warships. They seek out points of vulnerability or the crucial enemy units and eliminate them, then flee and let the other Hadarak finish the job. This is why my brothers Paul, Liam, and Roger, our best naval tacticians, have assigned themselves exclusively to hunting down and destroying every Lurker they can find, and doing so is nearly an even fight.”

  “But they have the advantage?”

  “The Tar’vem’jic modified with Essence gives them a range advantage. If they allow the Lurker within its Essence range, it will most likely win, for it has far more Essence in its body than our ships can carry, and we are still learning how to fashion Essence shields and other defenses, but as you know we learn fast and our strength is growing with each refit we send out. But we do not know how many Lurkers there are, or how fast they can be grown. We have never seen a small one, but we are hoping they grow as slowly as the Wardens, and if we can thin their numbers we can hold them at a disadvantage going forward.”

  “You lack sufficient knowledge of the enemy strength in the Deep Core?”

  “We have some from an expedition there, but that expedition barely survived. The Zak’de’ron accompanied the expedition at their own invitation, so they know more about the seriousness of the threat than you do…or did. Perhaps you killed all the ones who knew.”

  “They invited themselves?”

  “Their ship followed ours, but they did prove to be an asset that allowed far more reconnaissance than had one ship gone alone.”

  Mak’to’ran’s head tilted slightly. “I seem to remember something of that. Did you inform us of this earlier?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Yet another memory casualty,” he said, referencing Eldorat’s assassination attempt against him. “If the Elder Council had not attacked the Zak’de’ron, do you believe they would have attacked us knowing the situation with the Hadarak’s Core assets?”

  “I think they knew even before that that the galactic purge was the superior threat, and that taking you down would take too long and require too many resources. They were probably committed to the triumvirate out of necessity, until you attacked them, and at that point…well, if you’re going to die you might as well go down fighting the ones attacking you first. You guys really screwed up by going after them.”

  “Yes they did,” Mak’to’ran agreed, excluding himself from culpability. “And I fear they would do the same again. My empire is not my equal, and I do not have the time to train them properly. The galaxy is burning from the inside out and most of what I have left are hatchlings and cowards. What do you think you could make of them in such a short period of time?”

  Several long faces twitched behind Alden, not expecting the insult coming from Mak’to’ran, but he did not seem to care for their reactions, for it was a piece of blunt truth he had been fumbling with for some time, and he felt a relief finally admitting it out loud to others.

  “You keep your strengths and we go after your weaknesses. We have an enormous amount of experience with this, especially with the primers you graciously gave us with the Knight races. Did you anticipate this outcome that long ago?”

  “No, I did not. I thought it would be a way to sanction Star Force as the Rimward part of our empire rather than you remaining illegitimate offspring allowed to roam free due to our incompetence in eradicating you.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, let me rephrase,” Alden said deadpan. “The intact part of our empire needs to retrain and upgrade the war torn Coreward half so we can fight the Hadarak as one empire, lead not by an Elder Council or Itaru, but by Earth and Director Davis.”

  “Davis does not fully lead,” Mak’to’ran said, bringing up another point he had been wrestling with. “You and your brothers, your trailblazers, form an Elder Council, but one far wiser than Itaru has ever known. Why is that?”

  “We built the empire, we did not inherit it.”

  Mak’to’ran huffed. “So you did. And you are all of one race, not representatives of many.”

  “It all started on Earth, so yeah, we’re all Human, but we have the Mavericks and Monarchs that are from many races. And I think they’d do loads better than your Elder Council any day.”

  “And why is that?”

  “We lead from the front, diving headfirst into problems in order to solve them. Your Elders retire and get soft in body and mind. That doesn’t make them useless, but it disconnects them from the galaxy and they lose their calibration with it. You guys are also products of the Zak’de’ron’s manipulations, and their stench is still on you, though perhaps lessened a bit by the fires of war. We can erase it from you, but only if you allow us. We do not have the time or resources to force it upon you as we have done other enemies.”

  “Are we still enemies?”

  “If we weren’t as strong as we are, would we have come under attack again?”

  “Not by me, but the Elder Council…given evidence of their stupidity and unwillingness to follow my standing orders…most likely would have seized on an opportunity if presented one. Fear of the Uriti alone would have driven them mad if they did not understand you would not use them against us. I knew you would not unless it was a matter of self-defense, or defending another we were preying upon. Once I knew that, I could control your actions by modulating our own. I don’t believe they ever learned that lesson.”

  “Will they submit on your order?”

  “No,” Mak’to’ran admitted. “Not all of them. But enough trust me to follow my lead. If you can convince me, you will have their limited cooperation. You will have to earn their loyalty through deeds alone.”

  “And the Era’tran?”

  “If my name circles the galaxy again, they will obey. But to do so will draw the Zak’de’ron’s full force against me. I am too much of a threat to them.”

  “You are nothing compared to us,” Alden noted.

  “If they wish to reclaim the other worlds without conquest, they must convince them that Itaru now holds the legitimate leadership once again. If I live, I am the legitimate leadership. They cannot allow me to exist and have any hope of reconciliation prior to destruction by the Hadarak.”

  “Assume I can take care of that. What other roadblocks do you foresee?”

  “I am the imminent roadblock, trailblazer. You have not yet told, nor convinced me, of your path forward.”

  “We need a barrier to Hadarak expansion,” Alden said bluntly. “We are experimenting with the Paladin, who are securing a small piece of what we are calling the Grand Border. They are placing outposts in every star system along it, 120 lightyears deep, with the intent that no Hadarak minion shall cross th
eir lines. But even as fast as the Paladin can spread, they cannot secure even fraction of the Grand Border in time, unless we move it drastically backwards. Even if we place it all the way back at the Hula Hoop we most likely would not be able to secure all systems along it. And if the Hadarak get that far, their numbers will be so great we will not be able to stop the minions even if we kill all the larger Hadarak with Essence. And Essence against the swarm is a hopeless fight.”

  “How do we become a barrier?”

  Alden sighed. “That’s the tough part. The Zak’de’ron spread your worlds out far from one another. Not just from one race, but the gaps between them make such a territory grasp impossible. Relocation forward will be required, and you don’t have the ability to do that with the Zak’de’ron fighting you. And even if they stop, it would be foolish to give up your current worlds and their industrial base. If you did that, the Paladin would be the quicker alternative.”

  “You want us to colonize a part of this Grand Border and hold it against the Hadarak minions while you hunt down the larger Hadarak with Essence weaponry?”

  “No, my large friend,” Alden said, spinning about so he could look at all the Era’tran in turn before coming back to face Mak’to’ran. “I need your empire to become the Grand Border, with your sole existence being a faction within Star Force dedicated to protecting the rest of the galaxy against the never-ending threat of the Hadarak.”

  8

  “How do we do that?” Mak’to’ran asked immediately as something old and familiar stirred inside of him.

  “We put the line farther back than the Hadarak have progressed. Evacuate all V’kit’no’sat worlds beyond it, along with everyone else that we have time and ships for, and move the planetary defense stations into the line region.”

  “Move them?” Mak’to’ran said in disbelief. “We don’t have the ships for that, even if we could get through the J’gar fleets.

  “We have the ships to move them. You can thank your belligerence for that. We never had the luxury of building everything fixed in place, and we know how to move very large things across the spacelanes. More importantly, we already have the ships to do it.”