Star Force: Rift Page 8

  “We also carry with us the taint of the V’kit’no’sat,” Nemti added. “If we are to remove it, our hatchlings must be Star Force trained. We will give you access to all we know of the V’kit’no’sat, but you must chart the path forward for our future kin. We are flawed, and that flaw must not be passed on.”

  “What kind of flaw?” Sara asked.

  “All of us were hatched as V’kit’no’sat. We know nothing of the Rit’ko’sor before their inclusion and elevation. We are rebels, consumed with vengeance. We have adapted to survive, but in a sense we are still of the V’kit’no’sat, and carry great power as a result, though in so being we are unable to differentiate from our origins.”

  “Our fight with the V’kit’no’sat is a personal one,” Tarck explained. “We were unable to finish it in our own war, now we ask to help finish it in yours.”

  “We are not set up to defeat the V’kit’no’sat in the manner you suggest,” the trailblazer pointed out. “Holding a defensive line is our best hope.”

  “Insufficient. They will come at you with intent to destroy and not rest until that is achieved. The only way you will be free of them is to fully destroy them, but it is wise to fight on your own planets initially. A preemptive invasion of their territory would be disastrous until their fleets are diminished to the point where they cannot reinforce systems.”

  “You are assuming a strength that we do not currently possess,” Davis said bluntly.

  “Not as of yet, but time is your ally,” Jovca explained. “Your Uriti grow stronger by the day, and the current truce will allow you to fortify your holdings prior to a resumption of the war. We have come to you now so that you can make the most of this period with our inclusion, if you allow it.”

  “And what if your inclusion negates the truce?” Sara asked.

  “It is a calculation you have to make. As I understand it, you have no leverage to force the continuation of the truce, correct?”

  “True,” Davis admitted. “We only have Mak’to’ran’s word.”

  “Then you must calculate whether or not he will hold to it.”

  “What is your estimation?”

  “I believe they do not yet know how to counter your Uriti and are using this truce as a means of protection against you from invading their systems. Otherwise they would have no reason to honor it.”

  “Would Mak’to’ran offer his word with intent not to honor it?”

  “On the face of it, no, but give sufficient need for alteration of the deal and the V’kit’no’sat will not honor their word. I know little of Mak’to’ran himself, but the utmost priority of the V’kit’no’sat is dominance. If they feel that revoking the truce would hurt their dominance they will hold to it. If they feel honoring the truce would hurt their dominance, then they will violate it. I cannot say for certain that they will not invade you today, even without our inclusion. There are no guarantees.”

  “You said you wished to negotiate. If you are giving us your eggs, what is there that you wish to negotiate?”

  “For those that currently exist. We do not wish to be diminished. And if possible, we wish to be upgraded.”

  “Additional psionics?”

  “That and more.”

  “What’s stopped you from doing so on your own?”

  “You possess most psionics in your genome, we do not, and the information we stole from the V’kit’no’sat was not sufficient enough for us to engineer the psionics. We also know that you operate ‘mechs’ that allow you to fight the larger V’kit’no’sat directly, even with races as small as one of your hands. This has never been attempted within the V’kit’no’sat, though we have done research into drone usage against the Hadarak. The Hadarak cannot jam communications, the V’kit’no’sat can, so utilizing your technological methods will be superior to us attempting to craft our own without experience.”

  “You also have many different races,” Tarck added, “that add combat options that we alone do not possess. We wish to help you craft our race into the primary weapon you possess, with the rest of your empire filling in the balance.”

  “Why do you think you’re that valuable?” Sara asked.

  All the Rit’ko’sor looked at her as if she was stupid, but Jovca eventually answered her.

  “We have been greatly enhanced from what we used to be, as all V’kit’no’sat were. Zen’zat were also advanced, but they were never our equal, and none of the races in Star Force are your equal. Thus we are defaultly the superior with regards to biology.”

  “Then why have we been able to survive?”

  “You make better use out of your potential than the V’kit’no’sat do, which is why we want you to enhance us with your methodology and training.”

  “That will be problematic,” Davis admitted. “You are fully telepathic, with the ability to take control of other races’ minds at will. Our experience with the Protovic taught us where the line has to be drawn, and no civilians can possess Ikrid. If they do our civilization becomes unbalanced.”

  “Hence negotiation is required. We do not wish to integrate, we wish to fight. As for our hatchlings, there is much to discuss. Our telepathic balance is not something to throw away to make us match the lesser races. It is an asset that we are confident that you will find a way to integrate along with our other abilities.”

  “Hatchlings aside then. You wish your current population to be kept separate?”

  “As you deem necessary.”

  “Do you wish to retain your current systems?”

  “No. Once we are revealed we will become targets. We must fully relocate to your territory. We will be weak before we are allowed to expand within Star Force.”

  “How large a fleet do you possess?”

  “We took almost all of our non-drone fleet so the traitors couldn’t use them, but we didn’t leave the systems in Hadarak territory defenseless. We have 2,849 original warships, and have created another 12,000 since. We have had to move our population 8 times since leaving the core, and have not been able to put down necessary infrastructure to grow rapidly due to matters of secrecy.”

  “Are all of your people in agreement?”

  “We are.”

  “Including your newer hatchlings?”

  “They do not fully understand the V’kit’no’sat, but we all wish to fight.”

  “Apparently you are not alone. We’ve been contacted by several other races that wish to align with us against the V’kit’no’sat…not all requesting membership, but the feeling that we actually have a chance to win, or at least legitimately fight the V’kit’no’sat is spreading rapidly. Probably the latter is reasonable, for I still count us at a significant disadvantage.”

  “We wish to lessen that disadvantage and be amongst the first to fight when they return.”

  “Are you personally combat capable?” Sara asked.

  “We all are,” Tarck answered. “We have not let ourselves become invalids.”

  “Then I need you to come onboard and prove it. Let me see how superior you actually are. I’m guessing that’s more ego that fact.”

  “That can be arranged,” Jovca agreed.

  “Pick your best 5 in your fleet,” Davis said casually. “I wish to continue talking with you, but you may send them to her ship.”

  “I will go,” Tarck volunteered.

  “Do not hurt them badly,” Jovca warned.

  “I will take care.”

  “I’m no Zen’zat,” Sara reminded them with a twitch of distaste.

  “If we are to fight side by side against the V’kit’no’sat, then you must understand the power of the Rit’ko’sor. Only then can you use us appropriately.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  Tarck disappeared and the other 5 holograms increased slightly in size, then Sara’s image winked at Davis and disappeared as well.

  Director, Randal said telepathically from beside him.

  Go, Davis answered. You guys get all the fun assignments.

&nb
sp; Randal smiled and retreated from the command nexus, breaking into a run when he hit the bridge as he headed for the hangar bay so he could grab a dropship and head over to Sara’s command ship before the Rit’ko’sor arrived.

  9

  Randal watched, from the Archon sanctum no less, as Sara kicked another Rit’ko’sor out of the sparring circle in the 6th round as she was going 1v6. They’re started out 1v1, then added another and another each time she won, and this time was no different with all the unarmored Rit’ko’sor being manhandled by the faster Archon who also had Jumat at her disposal, which she used to punch the last remaining Rit’ko’sor across the curved line, leaving her the last man standing.

  “Again,” Tarck said, with all 6 Rit’ko’sor walking back into the large ring.

  “As many times as you like,” Sara taunted, but Randal saw something different happen. The Rit’ko’sor began to move differently this time, and suddenly they all surged towards the center where Sara was in unison as she threw a Jumat blast off her left hand and hit one square in the face as it ducked down, being dragged back a meter but not out of bounds.

  Randal saw multiple tendrils of Lachka reach out for Sara, and her respond with a wash of Rentar, but they didn’t stop and he saw her make many micro-stumbles…too many to all attribute to Lachka attacks. He guessed they were also going after her telepathically, but they couldn’t actually hack in without physical contact. What they could do was ‘shout’ at her and try to distract, and however they were working it they had Sara slightly off balance as she stepped backwards and spun into a punch that swatted one of their long faces to the side.

  The trailblazer surged forward, bodily hitting the Rit’ko’sor in the shoulder and summoning a Jumat blast strong enough to combine with her muscle strength to punt him out of the ring, but her feet were knocked out from under her by a tail swipe from another with perfect timing. She grabbed hold of the Rit’ko’sor’s smaller arm and launched herself up onto its back…but that was a mistake as the other Rit’ko’sor were suddenly ramming their own and pushed them both out of the ring.

  Sara let go, falling and rolling out of bounds onto her feet as the 5 Rit’ko’sor in the ring looked at her with tilted heads and blinking eyes.

  “Again,” she said, echoing them, and headed back to the center of the ring.

  Randal saw her set herself, and when they began she didn’t get off balanced, but she did get overwhelmed. For some reason the Rit’ko’sor were operating with a coordination they hadn’t been showing in the first few rounds and all Sara could do was bat away attacks and hold her position for 30 seconds…then he saw that she had had it, obviously frustrated, and kicked it up a notch as her feet came off the ground a few inches and she went Saiyan on them, fighting from her flying pose.

  Two Rit’ko’sor were knocked out before she got head butted towards the line…only to freeze in midair as she pushed back with her Yen’mer, then she flipped feet over her head and got behind the Rit’ko’sor and knocked him out with a Jumat blast, leaving her hanging high in the air above the other 3 and just staring down at them as they stopped fighting.

  “You can fly?” one of them asked.

  “The more advanced Archons can,” she explained, just hanging there a couple meters off the floor.

  “We knew you could in armor,” Tarck added, still in the ring, “but how are you flying without it.”

  “Our armor does not have gravity drives in it. They take up too much space.”

  “Then how are you flying?”

  “A psionic buried in Zen’zat coding. It allows us to fly the same way the V’kit’no’sat fliers do, minus their wings.”

  “It’s been in your genome the entire time? You didn’t add it?”

  “No, we discovered it.”

  “Then why don’t you all have it?” another Rit’ko’sor asked.

  “We have to achieve Frieza rank, our level 9. I’m currently level 12, Goku rank.”

  “How many psionics do you possess?”

  “Personally, I have 68.”

  Randal could feel the stunned emotions of the Rit’ko’sor, who had no Ikrid blocks, making it clear they were flabbergasted. He’d assumed the V’kit’no’sat had counted how many different psionics the Archons had displayed in combat, but then again these Rit’ko’sor hadn’t been involved in that fight, so maybe they had less information than he thought.

  “Did you create any of them?” Tarck finally asked.

  “No. They were all encoded within the Zen’zat genome to be discovered by those who proved worthy. We figured out how to share them once we attained one, but at least one of us had to earn all of them. Something the Zen’zat apparently never did.”

  “We were never told of flight being included. Nor were we told of 68. We thought there was less than half that number.”

  “Battlemeld was never discovered, and it allows 19 more psionics, so that’s 20 you never knew about.”

  “What is this battlemeld?”

  “Something kind of similar to what you were just doing, only it allows us to communicate through a telepathic medium that auto-transmits. It’s not Ikrid, but something else. Randal, get over here.”

  The Archon smiled and walked out into the ring, feeling Sara’s battlemeld prompt and accepting it.

  “We’re now linked. We won’t use any psionics other than simple battlemeld. Try again.”

  The other Rit’ko’sor came back into the ring, then the two Archons attacked them rather than waiting. As promised, they didn’t use psionics, going hand to hand as the 6 Rit’ko’sor worked together in telepathic harmony, fighting as a pack rather than individuals, with Randal humorously realizing that Jurassic Park had at least got that much right.

  They were hard to beat, especially when they had 6 bodies to work with rather than 2, but Sara and Randal covered for each other so well the Rit’ko’sor couldn’t isolate one of them to knock out. Fortunately they didn’t use their Lachka, for she’d promised not to use any psionics, including Rentar, and had they wanted to the Rit’ko’sor could have just picked them up and threw them out.

  But they didn’t. They fought hand to hand as well, though they also had tails. Their arms weren’t as strong, but they were still useful in close range, so they had 5 limbs each to worry about while the Humans only had 4. The group of 8 fought it out for several minutes before the Archons finally knocked one of the Rit’ko’sor out.

  “Enough,” Tarck said, ending the fight early as both Archons were dripping with sweat while the Rit’ko’sor were only panting slightly. They didn’t sweat, and their internal heat production was far less, making them more efficient in that regard, at least. “You do have a formidable coordination. I do not understand why the V’kit’no’sat would encode you with this and then not teach you to use it.”

  “From what we understand, it was a test of worthiness. A way of demonstrating that Zen’zat were inferior.”

  “Can you show us what is is?” another Rit’ko’sor asked.

  Sara nodded, then sent a telepathic link, essentially transmitting her thoughts to the Rit’ko’sor so they could glimpse the battlemeld link between her and Randal.

  Randal sensed their anger immediately, and soon several snarled and paced around the ring in disgust.

  “What’s wrong?” he thought, but it was Sara that said the words.

  “We were told there is no such psionic. If there was, we should have been given it. We have the highest combat synchrony rating, even higher than the Dan’chey. If they created this for the Zen’zat, there must be another existing version. Who has it?”

  “We do not know of any race in the V’kit’no’sat possessing it,” Sara said truthfully, omitting the Zak’de’ron who were now definitely not part of the V’kit’no’sat.

  “What is the source of your information?”

  “We had access to a fully unlocked planetary defense station.”

  “How did you fully unlock it?”

  “That’s a secret
we will keep. How did you steal your information from the V’kit’no’sat?”

  “A variety of ways, but we never accomplished a complete data breach. You’re saying you did?”

  “We had full access prior to losing the pyramid when Earth fell.”

  “Terraxis,” Tarck mewed. “Why did you change the name?”

  “We didn’t. It was the name our ancestors used. We only discovered the name ‘Terrax’ after we found the pyramid. Before that, we didn’t even know the V’kit’no’sat existed. We found skeletons, but thought they were an extinct group of indigenous lifeforms.”

  “You knew nothing of the Zen’zat who spawned you?”

  “Nothing. Where the name Earth came from, we don’t know. But it’s our name, and since it’s our planet we decided to keep it, out of spite if nothing else.”

  “We understand spite,” another Rit’ko’sor agreed.

  “If not for your rebellion, Earth never would have been freed and our ancestors left to die there. So thanks, sort of. The leaving to die there part wasn’t very nice though.”

  “We were not there,” Tarck said, “but if we had been we would have killed everyone on the planet. If some Zen’zat were left behind, it was not on purpose.”

  “But you did leave the aquatics behind. Why?”

  “They are difficult to kill. Are you saying they still inhabited the planet?”

  “Briefly, then they evacuated.”

  “Then they are the ones who left the Zen’zat behind.”

  “That’s still a mystery we haven’t solved. The pyramid…”

  “You call it by its shape?”

  Sara shrugged. “It was what we first called it, then when we found out it was officially labeled a ‘planetary defense station’ we decided that was too much of a mouthful, so we stuck with ‘pyramid’ except when we talked to the V’kit’no’sat. You’re speaking English, so now that you know what I’m talking about I’m calling it what we call it.”

  “You do not still have it? It was destroyed when you retook the planet?”