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  November 14, 128801

  Vitroll Nemannis System (Hadarak War Zone)

  Manchurra High Orbit

  Kyra Junari Bensha Sovati watched from the secluded confines of her cloaked scout ship as the Hadarak invaded yet another system. Her mission was recon, not assistance, and if her ship’s technology was good enough no one would ever know the QuipNari had been here.

  Kyra sat in the cockpit chair, surrounded by no buttons, levelers, or physical controls of any kind. The construction of her ship was entirely smooth and claustrophobic, with her having reset the gravity to 4 times normal to give her physical body something to strain against as her cyborg mind directed the ship and the large amount of passive sensors collected data to be returned to the PanNari, her mother race.

  She, like the other PanNari, had been born into whatever genetic form was required of them. If the PanNari needed a quadruped, then they birthed a quadruped. If they needed an avian, they got an avian, and so forth. PanNari genetic technology was that good, but most of their population was born as a simple gelatinous mass without a mobile body. They were brains and support tissue that were interlinked into the Dominion where they gained their ‘physical’ bodies.

  Kyra was not connected to it now. The Dominion was home, and she was far from it. The QuipNari were the few that ever left it, but they had to in order to see what was happening in the galaxy. They had to venture beyond the protection of the Encapsulation to see, hear, and record what was taking place, and they had been for millions of years in small number until recently. Now, the number of QuipNari had increased by 1439%, because the PanNari needed to know what was happening in the Hadarak war, and it was spread across vast reaches of the galaxy.

  This scout mission was her 14th, making her one of the newer recruits, and she almost enjoyed being out here more than in the Dominion, which were treasonous thoughts. She’d been chosen for the QuipNari because of her malfunction. PanNari were meant for the Dominion, but a few every now and then rejected it in some small way. When discovered they were reassigned to the QuipNari in order to put their desire to be elsewhere to good use. Kyra hadn’t regretted the change at all, and was fortunate for it. The rest of her race was waiting for the day when they’d be unleashed against the Hadarak, but until Eldorat told them the time was right they must wait in seclusion. And most of the PanNari were happily content to live inside the Dominion without curiosity for the physical reality beyond.

  But Kyra was curious, and this mission was more significant than most. She and others had been investigating the Hadarak war as well as those in their path. Her body had been fashioned as a biped form known as Human in order to infiltrate an empire known as Star Force. The female gender had been chosen to facilitate information gathering, for they were generally considered less of a threat due to their average size being smaller and their predilection for submission over aggression, but Kyra had discovered that that part of their genetic makeup had almost become obsolete due to their cultural alterations and limitless lifespans.

  Most had learned to customize themselves and rise above their default programming, though there was still an undercurrent present that had made the choice of her female body the correct one. Due to security issues she had not been able to infiltrate any of the Star Force planets, both because she had no identity on record and the fact that her cybernetic arms and legs could not pass scrutiny. The QuipNari had underestimated the level of Star Force’s most rudimentary security, otherwise she would have gone in with a fully biological body and not have had her arms and legs removed to add the upgrades.

  Her mind could have been reconfigured as well if needed, but it was far more shielded and disguised given that most of it was biological. The artificial components had blended with her Lifeforce long ago, but a tight scan could still reveal them. Her first mission had not been deep infiltration, but just a periphery assessment of their civilization. While she couldn’t physically set foot on one of their worlds without going through a security check, their empire was so large and had so many offshoots that she was able to find and interact with other Humans beyond their borders easily enough, and through them she had been able to gather a wealth of valuable information.

  But this mission was not about Star Force. It was about their originators, the V’kit’no’sat. This system belonged to them, and the Hadarak were coming here to engage them in battle. That interaction she was tasked to document, as were others, but she was the only one in this system. QuipNari never operated together, always in isolation and creeping around where the risk of capture was limited. If Kyra was ever forced into that situation she was ordered to terminate herself and her technology so it would not fall into the possession of others. The PanNari had been chosen by Eldorat because they had advanced to the point where they were able to kill Hadarak. He had found them worthy enough to be saved from destruction, for the PanNari had no idea the level of threat they truly posed, and were fortunate Eldorat got to them before they could seriously piss off the Hadarak and trigger a selective purge of their race.

  What Kyra was documenting now was far more than a selective purge. The Hadarak were engaged in what many assumed was a full galactic purge, but no one knew what the trigger point had been. The V’kit’no’sat had been in continual conflict with them, but they had not been very effective in the kills they made. Not nearly as much as the PanNari had been. And the galactic purge had begun before Star Force engaged them in battle, leaving the question of why this purge was occurring as an unanswered mystery, but that wasn’t Kyra’s mission to discover. She was here to discover how much resistance the V’kit’no’sat were going to put up given the fact they were engaged in a civil war against their former masters.

  Other QuipNari had been documenting that conflict, as well as the rumors that Eldorat had visited the V’kit’no’sat and attempted to offer them preservation. The V’kit’no’sat claimed they had killed the Zak’de’ron, but no one believed he was actually dead. The V’kit’no’sat did not have the power to do so. More likely they had rejected his offer due to their immense ego and he had simply left them to die while pursuing other options.

  But the larger question was how long Eldorat was going to wait before calling them into action. He had told the PanNari they could not defeat the Hadarak alone, nor could the others he had Encapsulated, which the PanNari knew nothing of. And all of them combined would not be enough to breach the interior defense lines to get to the closest of the Gates. They had to have the assistance of the Essence users inside the Temples at the minimum, but Eldorat had said even that would not be enough. They had to have help from his own masters or any assault on the Hadarak would end in failure and the waste of all that had built up in preparation for that fight.

  So the PanNari waited inside the Dominion while the QuipNari were their eyes and ears within the galaxy as they prepared for Eldorat to return, and he had said he would not until the time was right, so they weren’t expecting to interact with him again. He’d given them what they needed, now it was their responsibility to patiently wait for the call to war.

  But the war was already here, and Kyra didn’t like not being a part of it. She knew her duty and would not waver from it, but the idea of a galactic purge insulted the PanNari. They were meant to save the galaxy from the Hadarak, but what would there be left to save if they didn’t act now? Would the Veloqueen really let the Hadarak do this, or would they soon return to lead all in the promised war to rid this galaxy of the Hadarak?

  Kyra did not know what their timetable was, or what were their priorities, but while everyone waited the galaxy was burning, with this system being the target of three Cargo-class Hadarak and scores of their small, expendable infantry. None of the more advanced versions were here, so maybe the V’kit’no’sat would have a chance of holding if they got some reinforcements from nearby systems. But as it was, they were horribly mismatched as they sent what few warships they had out towards the arriving trio in low stellar orbit, probably to engage them before they had a chance to crash land through the planetary shields on one of their six heavily inhabited worlds.

  The V’kit’no’sat ships, which she’d identified as a mix of Brat’mar and I’rar’et, were focusing entirely on the naval infantry and not the three large Hadarak who seemed content to sit and float behind their picket clouds daring the V’kit’no’sat ships to come closer…and the infantry kept baiting them to do just that, though fortunately the defending fleet did not fall for it.

  From what the QuipNari had previously learned, the V’kit’no’sat were well experienced in fighting the Hadarak, which meant they shouldn’t be suckered into such an easy gambit. They were rightly trying to diminish the number of infantry, but they had no way to stop the cargo carriers from landing on their planets without considerable help. It was curious how the Hadarak either knew of this weakness, or were bold enough to send no advanced units here to assist.

  The V’kit’no’sat had decent weaponry, perhaps even a bit more advanced than the PanNari when it came to killing the infantry, but they had nothing that could effectively battle the bioarmor the cargo carriers had surrounding their bodies, and they knew it. Their only play was against the infantry, meaning their planets would be helpless if and when the cargo carriers began to move.

  That happened after a few hours of skirmishes with the naval infantry. Apparently their baiting wasn’t going to work, and the cargo carriers were too slow to run down the V’kit’no’sat warships, so the three Hadarak eventually split up and began to head towards different plan ets, intent on assaulting each one individually with most of the infantry continuing their attacks on the warships.

  Kyra watched silently, recording and cataloging as she went, making occasional notations as the first Hadarak rammed into the planetary shields on the 2nd planet in the system and popped them as if they were no more than a flimsy bubble. It then dropped down on top of a megalopolis, smashing the buildings and the people there almost instantaneously when it hit, then several of its tentacles came out and began to dig into the nearby landscape, knocking down more buildings as it pulled itself lower and lower into the planet, triggering earthquakes everywhere, though those didn’t topple any of the well-built V’kit’no’sat structures.

  This wasn’t the first Hadarak assault she’d witnessed, but the way the technologically superior V’kit’no’sat were so easily defeated made her worry how well the PanNari would fare. Better than these, but the PanNari strength came from technology as well, and Eldorat had told her people that the only truly effective weapon against the Hadarak was Essence…and that was something the PanNari had not achieved, despite their best attempts to do so. They’d learned how to graft artificial body parts to a person in a way that their Essence would extend out into them and claim them for their own body, but other than that Kyra’s people were blind to the greatest power in the galaxy.

  Yet she still wanted to fight. She wanted to see the Elloquim unleashed on the Hadarak, for they had become far more powerful than their forbearers, and far more numerous. Still, they were technology, but against this trio of Hadarak they would be the victors. But they were not here, for they were forbidden from fighting along with the rest of the PanNari and other races that Eldorat had acquired. They all had to wait…but for how long? They were needed now. That was obvious.

  Another contact appeared on Kyra’s sensors, with it being a V’kit’no’sat ship entering the system at the head of a small convoy. They were warships, and she oddly wondered how many were coming and from where. The V’kit’no’sat empire was hurting badly for ships, and most systems were clinging to what they had left to defend themselves against the Zak’de’ron and their allies. But at least it seemed someone recognized the superior threat of the Hadarak and were sending help. Though what good it would do was going to be determined by how many ships they sent. The way the V’kit’no’sat fought, they needed a large number to gradually tear into the Hadarak armor…except for their suicide craft, and there appeared to be none of those arriving.

  That wasn’t surprising. The shipyards that had built them were almost entirely destroyed across the galaxy, many of which had been in their capitol of Itaru and suffered the same fate as those worlds. This system actually had a decent-sized shipyard complex of its own, but it was producing standard warships to fight the Zak’de’ron, not the Ysalamiri meant to breach the Hadarak heavy armor.

  But at the end of the convoy of 36 warships...far too small a number to assault even a single Hadarak…came a glimmer of hope. There was a Star Force ship with them, and Kyra instantly recognized its knife-like shape as one of their Essence ships.

  It wasted no time, heading for one of the two Hadarak that had not yet arrived at a planet in a very precise microjump that had it arriving just ahead and braking so hard Kyra’s computer could not comprehend how it had managed to avoid ramming the planet.

  On impulse Kyra braced herself, then placed her right skin-covered mechanical hand against the soft console before her. It sunk in until the white material covered her knuckles, then she triggered the command that would drain a portion of Essence from her body.

  She had no control over it, but it hurt every time she had done so. Eldorat had given them the technology to replicate, but it required Essence to operate and no one knew how to give it voluntarily, so it had to be cut out of them…but not enough to kill them.

  Kyra half slumped when the process finished, knowing that she’d recover in time, but the sacrifice had been worth it as her ship’s Essence sensors were now online and able to view the Star Force ship…and the Hadarak…in a way that technology alone could not. Her ship would have this ability until the Essence charge wore out, but that would take days considering the amount she had given it and the efficiency of the technology. The PanNari knew how to build it, but they still couldn’t understand it, despite the various body forms they’d created to try and harness this elusive power.

  Kyra watched and recorded what she had seen from other scouting missions, but never encountered herself. The Star Force vessel turned and accelerated towards the Hadarak before it even finished its deceleration against the planet’s gravity well. The knife-like ship hull aligned itself to the Hadarak, then a beam shot out. The sensors confirmed it was a Tar’vem’jic, which was a V’kit’no’sat weapon that Star Force had inherited, but it was different from the other beams now coming up from the planetary defenses and hitting the Hadarak. Those burned shallow furrows into its armor, but the one from the Star Force ship was bathed in Essence that Kyra could now clearly see.

  It cut through the armor as if it were no more than vapor, coring a hole deep into the Hadarak but it didn’t come out the other side. She couldn’t tell what was going on inside other than to see the Essence disruption make it all the way to the center. When the beam stopped the Hadarak was still moving, but its tentacles were thrashing at unknown targets, then a blue orb was launched from the Star Force ship that entered the small hole in the miles thick armor layer and disappeared inside…but Kyra could still see its Essence burning bright as it traveled into the center of the Hadarak where the brain was.

  When it arrived there it expanded outward like a cloud, dimming as it did so, then it disappeared entirely…leaving the Hadarak in an uncontrolled freefall towards the planet as the tentacles went limp and its grapple fields disappeared from sensors.

  It was a kill, she knew, and the ease by which the ship had made it stunned her. The PanNari could kill Cargo-class Hadarak, but painstakingly over the course of hours. This one had been killed in less than 2 minutes…but it was still heading for the planet on a crash course.

  The V’kit’no’sat ships within range immediately raced towards it, getting in close on the planet-side of the Hadarak and pushing with mooring beams or even their hulls, trying to slow it down. The Star Force ship joined in, then she saw the engine spike with Essence.

  That’s how it had decelerated against the planet so fast. They could use Essence to boost their engines too.

  But it wasn’t enough, and just before the slowing Hadarak hit the planet the ships broke loose to save themselves…except that the Hadarak had one more barrier to pass, and that was the planetary shields. The Star Force ship didn’t wait around to see what happened, zipping away from the planet enroute to one of the other two Hadarak as this one kissed the shields and slowed considerably.

  The V’kit’no’sat warships moved around to the far side of the Hadarak and pulled with their mooring beams to add some help, but it was the planetary shields that were able to finish the job the ships started. They were able to stop and hold aloft the Hadarak, but its mass and the gravity of the planet were fighting against them, and even with all the power pouring into them there was no way to hold that 238 mile wide mass aloft for long. It was just too damn heavy.

  The warships closed on it and attached to the hull, linking their inertial dampening fields as much as they could, but they didn’t reach the core of the Hadarak, nor did they wrap all the way around the exterior until thousands of small civilian ships rose up from the planet to fill in the gaps…then the IDF bubble allowed them to push with their full engine power and tow away the dead Hadarak before gravity finally won out and crushed the cities perilously close below who had the sunlight blocked by its overwhelming mass.

  Kyra saw it successfully towed up into a stable orbit, then a portion of those civilian craft stayed and clustered around the single breach point. She wanted to view the rest of the combat but felt this required her attention, so she flew her cloaked ship over to the site and quietly snuck in as close as she dared…where she saw the civilian ships beginning to haul out portions of the Hadarak interior guts.

 

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