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

  “I have searched part of your mind for information. I need more. We do not torture or kill our prisoners, and you are now mine. I let you live, now do me the courtesy of talking in exchange for that consideration.”

  “Where are my siblings?” she demanded.

  “I do not know who they are.”

  “The ones that were with me.”

  “There were five of you that made it onto the station via the Essence portal before I destroyed it. The other four died in combat.”

  Niatri reared her blue-skinned head back and screamed, with the sound ripping the outer layers off the wall like peeling paint, but the Human didn’t move, somehow immune. She leapt at him and unleashed a disintegration attack that shredded not only the Human but the wall behind him, opening up an exit for her.

  She took a step off the table where she had been laying, then stopped short as something didn’t make sense. There was no body, nor debris cloud coming from the Human. The wall debris was filling the room with a choking cloud, but the body should have exploded first.

  “Try not to do that too many times,” the Human’s voice said, now from behind her as she spun and launched another disintegration attack, destroying the alien again…but with no effect other than on the wall behind her, which added so much debris and smoke she couldn’t see. Her Essence sense wasn’t detecting the Human, and as she began coughing on the dust she ran towards the first hole she’d made, only to have the ventilation systems kick in and begin thinning the cloud enough for her to see…

  And the Human was standing in front of her exit, unharmed.

  She stopped short of hitting him again, and just stared in a mix of anger and vexation.

  “We’re far from the hull, but destroy the wrong wall and you’ll end up sucked into the void of space. You’re onboard one of our ships, and what you see before you is a very detailed hologram. So I’m not actually here for you to try and kill a second time.”

  “You…” she said, catching his meaning. “You were the one who killed my siblings?”

  “Did you expect us to just lay down and die for you?”

  “You ambushed us!” she screamed, this time without adding Essence to it.

  The Human frowned. “You came through the Essence portal from a ship. A ship that was attacking my ships and killing my people. You came to the station to kill me and more of my people. I struck as quickly as I did because it was you that was attacking us. I know you were pulled off your regular duty and assigned to the assault force against your will, but you and your siblings nearly killed me. I kept you alive because you were the last and I had the luxury of doing so. I could not have taken all of you alive. You are too powerful for that.”

  “Liar!” she screamed as the air was almost back to its normal transparency, but some of the smoke was still in her lungs and she coughed a bit of blood up after yelling. “You invaded the Conduit. You stole our Temples. You have gone where you are not allowed. You have taken what is ours and corrupted it. You are at fault, and you killed my siblings!” Niatri said, ending with another Essence attack, this one a crushing grip that did nothing to the hologram other than disrupt the delicate glowing force fields ever so slightly.

  “Yes I did. Because your masters forced me and you into a situation where I had no choice but to fight or die. They don’t care about you or your siblings, but I do. Otherwise I would have killed you already.”

  “You kept me alive to interrogate me,” she said, turning inward as she summoned up the kill protocol they had all been taught prior to being sent on this mission…but the device implanted inside her neck was gone.

  “Partially true. It’s easier to probe your mind when you’re awake, but right now your defenses are up and I’m not getting very far. And yes, I did remove the suicide bomb they stuck inside you.”

  Niatri summoned up a storm of Essence around her, swirling it uselessly as she drained her body…knowing that if she pulled too much she would pass out, but if she went too far too fast it would actually kill her, and she’d be damned if she gave information to the people who killed her siblings before they got around to killing her too.

  Niatri began to get light headed…but not from the Essence use, and soon she found her legs unable to keep her standing. She landed on her thin hands as her vision went blurry and her grip on reality diminished to the point she forgot she was using Essence and just stopped. A moment later she felt herself laying down, too weak to stand…then a firm hand gripped her shoulder, and while her mind suddenly cleared, she lost all control of her body as an invasive presence slid inside and froze her solid.

  “That’s better,” the Human said in the flesh. “I was going to do this the nice way, but killing yourself is such a waste. I’m sorry you lost your siblings. I don’t kill people for fun. And I didn’t want to kill them. But you put me into a position where I had to. Up until then you hadn’t attacked us with anything other than machines. I expected more of them. Not people. Then you show up with Essence skills and I had to take you down as quickly as possible. I didn’t know if I would survive, because I had no idea what your skill and power levels were. You almost killed me regardless, and your forces killed 723 of my people in that attack. We don’t start fights like that, but when we’re put into those situations we become quite deadly. Mercy is the luxury of the dominant, and in that fight we were not dominant. You were the last and I was able to disable you. I don’t think I could have if I tried for two of you.”

  “What are you doing to me?” she asked, finding that her mouth still worked, though the rest of her body obeyed his commands rather than hers. And every time she tried to use her Essence that part of her mind became slippery, as if the trigger was right there but she’d forgotten how to grasp it.

  “We have limited Essence powers. It’s sort of new to our empire. We grew up with other powers, and I’m using one of those to hack into your nervous system and take direct control over your body. Far more effective than telepathy since I have a direct physical connection.”

  “Take your information and end it,” Niatri demanded, then a host of images of attacks on planets, and against fleets of their ships shot into her mind. Many times, with carnage resulting as they could not defend themselves against the weapons of the Temple dwellers. One entire world wiped clean of all living beings as their hearts were stopped by an invisible force known as Lian’no, a combination of an Essence technique and the technology of the Bond of Resistance.

  “That is why I am here. That is why we are in the Temples, and exploring and claiming the support networks for them. We were attacked. My people slaughtered. Why? Because we were fighting the Hadarak and winning more than the Vargemma liked. They told us to let ourselves be killed, and when we refused they did this. Your Bond of Resistance isn’t supposed to fight those who fight the Hadarak, is it? Well, your infrastructure in this galaxy is hereby forfeit for what you’ve done. We’re claiming it and making sure those who live in it can’t do the same to us again. That is why we are here. We didn’t start this fight. But you can be damn sure we’re not just going to sit and let you or anyone else kill us.”

  “The Vargemma are tools. They are not part of the Bond of Resistance. Take your vengeance out on them. They do not own what you have taken.”

  “They have been supported by what we have been taken, and your Bond of Resistance isn’t getting off the hook for propping up those monsters.”

  “You think you can win? We were sent first because we were here. The real warriors are coming. You will not be able to capture them. They will wipe you from existence.”

  “They will try,” he said boldly.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to live.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I will.”

  Niatri didn’t know how to interpret that. “Release me.”

  “We’re in space, in orbit around a planet. We’re not in the support networks anymore. If I release you onto one, can you find you
r way back or will you be stranded? Tell me truthfully. I am in your head, and I will know if you are lying.”

  “I would rather die stranded.”

  “So you don’t know how to get back. What if I put you on the station where I captured you? Could you make it back then if it was a different one? One that didn’t have your assault force on it?”

  “I came by ship.”

  “So you did. Which means unless I personally dump you into the hands of the enemy, releasing you will mean you’ll be stranded or starve to death. Neither is acceptable. If somehow you did return to the Zotav you were taken from, what would happen to you? Would you be punished, accepted back, killed?”

  “I am supposed to be dead,” she answered simply.

  “Not to be taken alive,” the Human echoed. “So they’d probably just kill you if you did get back. Even if you escaped and killed me in the process. This Bond of Resistance doesn’t sound much better than the Hadarak. Do you have other siblings back there?”

  “The others were on my ship. Did you destroy it too?”

  “Damaged. We didn’t have time to pick up the survivors. We had to get out of there before your next wave of ships arrived. It’s possible some of your siblings survived. I can’t say for sure. We lost two of our three big ships in that fight. We wouldn’t have survived what was coming next. Normally we’d have taken survivors onboard, but after searching your unconscious mind on the spot, I knew more were coming.”

  “Why didn’t you leave me there?”

  “And have you wake up and try to kill me again? Or more likely one of my people without Essence abilities? No. I couldn’t take that risk. I either took you prisoner or killed you, and we don’t kill prisoners.”

  “Your people on the station did not have Essence?”

  “I was the only one that did.”

  “How can you infest Bond of Resistance technology if your civilization cannot even use Essence?”

  “We’re smart, and most of your stuff doesn’t require it. The few pieces that do people like me can deal with. Our empire has risen to dominance through other means. Means that are allowing us to fight the Hadarak, for the most part, without Essence. Our recent upgrade to Essence, much of which we’ve learned from taking the Temples, is allowing us to pursue victory over the Hadarak. We’re in the beginning stages, but we have a chance. And we’re not going to allow the Vargemma or any of your Bond of Resistance to sabotage us from points of immunity within the Temples. Would you?”

  “I matter not. You have no idea what a monster you have provoked.”

  “They are monsters, aren’t they? They sent you and your siblings to die to buy time for their better troops to arrive and secure the site. And they made me kill you by sending you to kill me. We should not be enemies, but they made us such, and I do not expect you to forgive me for what I did to your siblings. Even I don’t like it. But can you at least admit if I hadn’t fought as hard as I did, that you would have killed me?”

  “I would kill you now if I was not restrained. Free me and fight. Give me an honorable death if you are more powerful than me.”

  “What would that gain?”

  “Then rip the information from my mind and be done with it!” she yelled, finding she had more motor control in her throat than the rest of her body. Perhaps his hold was slipping.

  “I know you don’t understand, and won’t for some time. Perhaps never. But hear these words and burn them into your memory. What I do now, I do to benefit you. Not me. You are so swirling in the darkside you do not even recognize the existence of the light. But your bond with your siblings held you together, and now you wish to join them in death. I cannot allow that. The Bond of Resistance has forced me to kill your siblings when they did not deserve it, even though they were very much trying to kill me. They are the enemy, not you, even though right now you very much want to kill me. The days ahead will be hard for you, but there will be a path forward buried within it. I can promise you that.”

  “Just kill me,” she pleaded, her anger doubling over into hopelessness.

  “No,” Jason said firmly. “You will live.”

  Niatri lost consciousness, and once the trailblazer made sure she was harmless he finally let go of her blistered flesh. Something about his hand had caused a reaction in it, and he wasn’t sure why.

  But that wasn’t important. The Regenerator would handle it. As he’d been talking with her he’d been searching parts of her mind that had been blocked by her unconsciousness earlier, and some more that had only opened up when she thought about a tangent.

  She’d been on the Coin, with they called a Zotav, working as a mechanic to maintain the construct. She and her siblings had been grabbed off their similar duties and thrown into combat because they were the only ones immediately available. All personnel on the Coin had to be Essence capable, for they had to make daily donations in order to keep it active, but these people were not soldiers, let alone warriors. They were fighting out of desperation and zealotry, and they knew they might not survive. But the Bond of Resistance needed them, and there was no choice in the matter. They were sent with the machines to fight the enemy, beat them, hurt them, or at least distract them before the troops would return from other assignments to be redirected to the Conduit.

  And the Conduit was a network of direct route Essence Portals strung around the galaxy giving the Founders a short cut from the Coin to each Temple. They weren’t for Caretaker use. They were the highways connecting them reserved for Essence only traffic of the highest priority. Not even the popsicles got to travel that way.

  And those routes would not be allowed to be compromised. Hence the swift reaction to Jason’s team accidentally stumbling onto a maintenance link from the Shadow Network.

  The Conduit was undoubtedly the route that Morgan’s invaders had traveled, and there was no way for Jason to stop it short of a massive invasion fleet that he didn’t have equipped for mag or pulse engine travel. And even if he did, he would probably still lose unless he started destroying the support networks entirely, leaving whoever jumped to them lost in space forever when the receiving platform no longer existed.

  He looked down at the mechanic’s unconscious body, slightly larger than his own.

  “Kicked the bee hive, didn’t I? Now who do I get to babysit you?”

  9

  December 21, 128888

  Edge of Milky Way Galaxy

  Zotav 7

  Jueni Sonavi Treveon was one of 4 House Atriark members on this Zotav, stationed here as a sort of embassy along with many others from the other Houses of the Neofan to representatives from most of the members of the Bond of Resistance. The Veloqueen were not here, because they did not live on the surface, but rather in space, and they preferred to move via the Gateways at galaxy center rather than the artificial routes created on the outskirts of the galaxy to jump from one to another, hence their absence.

  Nearly everyone had an outpost on every Zotav within the Bond of Resistance infrastructure dominion to look out for their interests as well as to keep informed as to what was happening…and today was a very informative day.

  Jueni stood some 16 feet tall when he stretched out, but normally he walked with a bit of a slouch as his heavy wings dragged his body downward even when they were curled up behind his back. They were not built for flight, but for transmission of varied abilities akin to a biological antenna, and because of their weight he rarely stood up straight, yet he was still far larger than most of the other races here, including the Nu’avi, which had thousands of individuals on the Zotav along with the other servants of the Neofan. But right now he did not feel large. He felt very small, stuck on this artificial land staring into the blankness of the void between galaxies.

  The sun above his head made it easy to forget, for it never shut off to let one really soak in the void, but it was ever present above them, even when he traveled to the reverse side of the massive coin-shaped construct, for it had another sun high above it radiating d
own and only down, so not to give away their position to those inhabiting this galaxy.

  But their location had already been compromised, via the Caretaker network, as this Star Force enemy continually probed them. The Emperor’s Hands had passed through this Zotav enroute to deal with the problem, and to Jueni’s dismay they had returned early without victory…but what they brought back was a riddle, along with information detailing how much more powerful and accomplished Star Force was than had been originally believed. And the Nu’avi were asking for a reassessment of their orders given Star Force’s track record of Hadarak kills.

  Jueni was informed of this by House Mutavi’s contingent on the Zotav, as the Emperor’s Hands naturally reported to them, but this was a matter for all in the Bond of Resistance, for the Nu’avi were questioning whether or not Star Force deserved to be evaluated for membership.

  The Neofan stepped outside his catacomb into the sunlight, letting it hit his face, wings, and hands…for the rest of him was covered in the symbiont Pol’so’nep that all Neofan wore outside their safest habitats, and this outpost, while remote, was not considered ‘safe’ by any stretch of the imagination. Then again, considering that their ‘safe’ worlds were now falling to the Pafdreng or the Hadarak as Utovi was being consumed, he wasn’t quite sure what the word actually meant now.

  The symbiont remained quiet, for it knew better than to invade its wearer’s thoughts, but it also protected his body from the too intense sunlight. Unfortunately the other races required it, while the nocturnal Neofan did not like the intense light, but the Zotav were not built for them. They were communal outposts beyond the reach of the Hadarak, so the Neofan had built their catacombs beneath the surface, but on days such as this, Jueni needed to come out and face the harsh light.

  There was already much discussion between the various Houses here as to what was the best course of action to take. There would be no waiting for those in their home galaxy or others to make a decision, for the ruling House was present here as well, if only in their 18 members, but that was enough to make a decision, though everyone was chiming in as to what they recommended be done, including some of the other races.