Star Force: Symbiosis (Star Force Universe Book 72) Read online

  Without her built-in Regenerator in her Vorch’nas, Kara would have been disabled by now and she knew it. She was the weakling here, even with her psionics and armor weapons…which she fired every now and then hoping to catch another gap in his defenses.

  She found a few, but not enough to do damage to his body. His armor had morphed somewhat since the battle started, moving up to fully cover his head and down to cover his hands, feet, and tail tip. Her few hits had scarred it, but not penetrated, and something Strovok had hit him with had discolored a portion of the white bio material yellow, but they clearly weren’t getting through like they needed to…which meant they weren’t going to win this on their own. They needed help.

  Then suddenly out of nowhere they got it. One moment the Nu’avi was messing with her mind and she was alternating between cleansing it and attacking him, then there was a blur of blue light and suddenly the Nu’avi was skewered through the chest from behind with an impossibly thin energy blade…than then wicked upwards with some noticeable hesitation as his head was cut in half from the neck up.

  His body fell, but before it could hit the ground the blue blade slashed through his neck sideways, decapitating his head…and standing behind him was Morgan in full armor, with her right arm wielding a blue death saber emanating from a nub just above her wrist and locked into alignment with her forearm.

  “Oh. That armor isn’t as strong as I thought,” she said, looking down at the dead attacker, then back up at Kara. “Are there any more?”

  “No…” she said, dropping into a crouch as she withdrew her helmet and sucked air.

  “What just happened?” Strovok asked, with one of his four arms visibly broken.

  “You guys had him distracted, I had an opening, so I took it,” Morgan said, pointing to his arm. “I can fix that if you’ll let me.”

  “I can heal it myself,” he said, waving her off with one of his other thinner back arms. “I did not even see you approaching.”

  “I didn’t either,” Kara said as Strovok’s arm audibly popped back into place and he grimaced, but whatever he was doing with Essence seemed to be working, because it no longer looked out of place. “Were you afraid battlemeld would give you away?”

  “I tried. You weren’t responsive. How’d he get so close to you in the first place?”

  “The same way I did,” Strovok noted. “There are hiding techniques that lower level Essence users cannot pierce.”

  “How about ship sensors?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Kara said, sitting back onto the ground and resting her arms on her knees, not realizing how far she’d pressed her body and still trying to get her panic under control. She knew how close to death she’d been, and didn’t like the fact that the reason she’d survived was because her enemy had been holding back in the hopes of taking her alive.

  “I hit him with an amped up Saven right before I struck. Apparently that combined with the two of you was enough to let me get in close. I was worried his armor would be resistant to my blade, which was why I went point first. I didn’t get too much resistance from it.”

  “You have my respect, Archon,” Strovok said, lightly tapping one of his huge primary arms against his chest. “You have done what I could not. Did you approach hidden?”

  “Yes.”

  “There will be others. Either we flee now, or use other means to fight them. There were 60 here before, and only one came for us. If two were here, we would stand no chance. Do you think you can assassinate them in the same way if they are not already engaged in battle?”

  “I don’t want to try,” Morgan admitted. “If that didn’t work I’d be dead a moment later.”

  “Agreed,” he said, thinking hard. “Yet you succeeded without Essence skills. Perhaps your Star Force abilities may hold an advantage I overlooked, if we can find a way to give you some battle endurance.”

  “No,” Kara said, forcing her panic to shut up. “We got what we needed, and that was a strength assessment. We don’t fight these guys hand to hand. We use the big guns, drones, infrastructure…anything but face to face. It’s too great a risk.”

  “How long do you think we have before this guy not reporting back causes a reaction?” Morgan asked.

  “A few months at least,” Kara said, “assuming the others really all left.”

  “You think they faked it?”

  “No, I just don’t want to err on the side of optimism.”

  Strovok walked up to the body of the Nu’avi that was missing its head and he knelt over it, touching the armor. “It is still alive. Not the wearer, but the armor. It is not dead. Nor is it technology. I am sensing a Core within it.”

  “Oh crap,” Morgan said, looking for where the two pieces of head had ended up.

  “That’s a person?” Kara asked, standing up and joining him as the cauterized neck managed to seep some red/orange blood out a few cracks.

  “I’m not sensing anything in the head pieces,” Morgan reported.

  “It’s here,” Kara said. “Hurt, but here. I think it’s some sort of symbiont rather than armor.”

  “Will prying the body out kill it?”

  “I think we’ll let the medtechs figure that out. Ship on the way.”

  “No,” Strovok said strongly. “It is dying. Upon death of the host it is ordered to kill itself.”

  “How do you know that?” Morgan asked.

  “It just told me. It is beginning the process now,” he said, reaching a hand into the neck and doing something that tore out part of the corpse from inside in a flurry of gore that resembled confetti.

  “Eeeewww, what the hell are you doing?”

  Strovok ignored her, reaching his hand inside a few inches…only to have the now exposed living armor in that section suck onto his exposed skin.

  “Strovok?” Kara asked.

  “It is the only way…and an opportunity I will not waste,” he said as he held still for a long moment...then the armor seemed to melt everywhere on the dead Nu’avi’s body and move like an amoeba across it, slowly climbing up his arm an inch or so every few seconds.

  “Not something I’d do, but go for it,” Morgan said as she stood back and watched as it climbed up his arm and wrapped around it, far too small to cover his massive body, and eventually the naked Nu’avi was left exposed on the ground as the living armor completely left it and took to its new host…who walked over to the pieces still attached to the two halves of the head and made contact with them. The melty goo touched itself and was somehow able to reincorporate its severed ‘limbs’ back into its mass, adding to the coverage that now extended from Strovok’s wrist all the way up to just below his shoulder joint.

  “What’s happening?” Kara asked as he just stood there like a statue.

  “Amazing,” he whispered. “It’s called a Boos’mo. A shape shifting race that the Neofan conquered and altered to serve as bioarmor. They have extensive genetic memory and reproduce asexually. We can grow as many as we like from this one here, given time.”

  “It’s a person, right?” Kara prompted.

  “I understand. Yes, but it’s been altered to such an extent that it cannot live without a companion now. The Neofan saw to that. When in storage they cling to trees designed to support them. They are not intended to be given freedom, and biologically they have been altered to make it impossible.”

  “How are you talking with it?”

  “Telepathically at first, but now it is linked into my nervous system and we share thoughts.”

  “Do you have a record of the previous wearer’s thoughts?”

  “Some, and a great deal more than that. I have knowledge of their empire, and this creature has memories of its travels and those that it was spawned from…all the way back to the first when it was captured and altered against its will. They have been a slave race ever since.”

  “Reason number 13 as to why the Founders are bastards aside,” Morgan scoffed. “What c
an it do?”

  “Many things. Many, many things. In this battle it provided Essence defenses while the wearer focused on offense. That is why we were unable to fully incapacitate him.”

  “It can use Essence? His or its own?”

  “Curiously, it can do both. We can share Essence.”

  “Is it a transmitter?” Kara asked.

  “Not unless I trigger it. We are safe, Kara. It is not an enemy, but an unwilling tool forged by the darkside. These Neofan are horrible, they…” Strovok cut off, going stone cold.

  “What?” Kara asked, not really wanting to know what was causing his face to blank.

  “My Master,” he said, a mixture of fear and rage. “They take those with siphons and recreate their minds with implants to control them, making them tools bound to their will. They are cyborgs, but using biological implants. They use them for many things, combat being the rarest. My Master is most likely still alive, but his mind is corrupted and controlled. They will not even let him die, yet he is not alive. He is…I do not have the words to explain, and I do not want to show you this. The horrors are beyond anything the Vargemma could conceive. And their strength is too much to resist.”

  “We’ve heard that before,” Morgan said, feeling the need to give some direction…now. “We can fight them, but what we’ve lacked is information. How much can you provide?”

  “You cannot fight them with Essence. Their powers are beyond imagination, both in scope and technique. The Hadarak drain them of Essence with their numbers. That is how they are overwhelmed. That is not how you fight. Star Force cannot stand against this barbarism.”

  “Maybe not today, but we can adapt,” Kara pressed. “Try to hold it together, Strovok.”

  “I have my vengeance today, only to discover how hopeless it is,” he said, looking vexed.

  “You’ve got another mind mixing with yours. Don’t trust anything you’re feeling now until you get your bearings. Desensitize or just ride it out. Don’t think about the future, focus on the now.”

  Strovok listened to Kara, looking like he was going to remain standing, then decided to sit on the ground…which brought his head level almost down to hers.

  “They do not care about anyone. Everything is a tool. Everything is apathy. Even the Neofan kill each other as punishment. Life means nothing to them other than as an expendable resource.”

  “What does matter to them?” Morgan asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing that the Nu’avi or the other servants who wore this bloodline knew. Their motives seem to not exist, but their dominance cannot be contested. And when the Hadarak are consuming all, the Neofan seem the better side to back, so there is no rebellion. No hope for anything beyond the Neofan way. This one…is in pain from its wounds. I am helping to heal it. But it is confused and joyful to find a place outside their empire. It does not like that its wearer was killed, for it is designed to be loyal, but it is seeing my memories and thoughts, and it wishes to serve Star Force. It wishes to serve you,” he corrected. “So that it’s race may live to fight those who did this to them.”

  “Slow down big guy,” Kara said softly. “You’ve got a lot to process.”

  “Truth,” he admitted. “But I can tell now, we are not prepared for the Neofan’s servants. Those that live to see many millennia are the most skilled and deadly. The mediocre do not survive. It is harsh, but effective. And their numbers are so large they can kill so many and get away with it, without it hurting their empire…” he said, starting to cry, which was totally out of character for the Mek’tal.

  “Ok, let’s focus on the immediate,” Morgan said slowly. “What does it need to heal?”

  “Food and my Essence. My body doesn’t have enough material, but it has most for the moment. It is not in danger of dying.”

  “If you take it off, will it die…or kill itself?”

  “It cannot eat on its own. It must be linked to a feeding branch or a wearer. It will not kill itself unless the wearer dies, and I am now its wearer. It is customary when one is killed for another fighting alongside it to merge the two together, and thus carry the survivor until it can be given to a new wearer. This one will grow to cover my body in time.”

  “Alright, now that that’s taken care of, is it a danger to you?”

  “No. I have full control. It cannot do anything without my permission, but if I give it then it can take actions while I am focused on other matters. It is designed as a teammate. It will not betray the wearer.”

  “People do not always follow rules,” Morgan cautioned. “Will it fight another wearer that has its kin on it?”

  “It does not have offensive capability, so there is no conflict, only sadness. It will support its wearer regardless of the opponent.”

  “What does it know of the orders given to the Nu’avi for this Temple?” Kara asked.

  “They spoke the truth. They are sending information back to get new orders. They also came for you. They did not know I was here.”

  “What do you need in terms of food?” Morgan asked.

  “Some exotic elements, and much of the same I already consume. All can be produced by the Caretakers.”

  “Figures,” Kara said, poking a finger at the bioarmor…which oddly felt soft to the touch. “What’s with the light?”

  “It is the symbol of the Neofan, the purple,” he said, referencing the bioluminous patches on the otherwise white bioarmor. “I think blue would be more appropriate now.”

  Kara watched as the light changed colors, glowing a deep blue that seemed so intense it wasn’t quite real.

  “So it’s on our side now?” Morgan asked.

  “It’s on its wearer’s side, but it is grateful to be in the service of Star Force…and it seems to think I am Star Force. Apparently you have had more of an effect on me than I thought, Kara. We, I think, might be able to take one of the Nu’avi. Maybe not, but I can feel the potential here. It is like fighting as two in one form. And it wants you to know that it will voluntarily reproduce Star Force as many offspring as you wish without…coercion.”

  “Coercion?” Morgan asked.

  “It seems the Neofan must torture them until they relent and reproduce. They do not want to subject another to their enslavement, but this one wishes to embrace the freedom you offer.”

  “Despite being bonded to someone for all their life?”

  “You cannot understand their predicament.”

  “You may want to spare Kara, but throw me some of those memories. I can take it, and you don’t really like me anyway, so…” she said, getting him to telepathically share some of what he was learning, seeing, remembering…

  Morgan was silent for several seconds, then looked hard at Kara. “He’s right. We’re going to get our asses handed to us in the short term. And these bastards have to be taken down everywhere. Not just in this galaxy.”

  “That bad?” Kara asked.

  “Worse,” Morgan confirmed. “And I don’t think he’s sharing the really nasty stuff.”

  “I am not,” Strovok noted. “How can you see hope in this?”

  “I can work an impossible mission if I know what it is. An unknown enemy can’t be quantified. This one now can be. We’ve got our work cut out for us, and first thing we need to do is reroute all portal travel to a trap zone. Which means we need a portal on the surface built…so we can capture or obliterate these bastards the moment they step through.”

  “Assuming they’re coming from the same vector,” Kara pointed out. “If they use the other routes, we can’t contain them and still have the Caretakers supporting the Temple.”

  “We may need to block them out too,” Morgan said, with the same panic look in her eyes as Kara had been feeling ever since the fight began. “If they get on the field in numbers, we automatically lose. We have to sculpt the battlefield.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Strovok asked.

  “It means you get to see what an Archon is really meant for. And it’s not hand to hand co
mbat.”

  “Troubleshooting,” Kara translated for him. “Figuring out how to do what others cannot.”

  Strovok stood up, still visibly vulnerable and confused, but with a look of hope in his eyes that seemed the polar opposite of what he had just been effusing. His mind must be a volatile mess right now with the symbiont sharing ebbing and flowing until a balance was reached.

  “How can we be of assistance?”

  8

  November 1, 128888

  System 9924021 (Unexplored Frontier)

  Third Planet

  Niatri stirred, the pain in her chest gone, but her head was so foggy she didn’t know where she was or what had happened. Her surroundings were bright, forcing her to blink her three eyes rapidly to get them to adjust without overload.

  She was laying down on her back, so she rolled over onto her shoulder, finding her thin tail sore as it pulled out from beneath her…as if she’d been laying on it for too long.

  Suddenly she remembered the fight, being hit in the chest…and she sprung up onto all fours as she looked around, seeing one alien with her in a large, empty room. And it was one of the Humans she had been sent to retake the Conduit from.

  “Do you understand my words?” the Human said in the language of the Bond of Resistance.

  Niatri looked around. There were no doors, windows, or tunnels. No way out even if she killed him. This wasn’t a Conduit station. The architecture was wrong. She must have been rendered unconscious and taken prisoner.

  “I understand,” she said, fear amping her reflexes to their max, but the Human didn’t move, nor did anything else in the room to give her something to strike at or evade.