Gauntlet Wars: House Phoenix (Star Force Gauntlet Wars Book 3), page 6
And Clan Kai’Sa’s job, in addition to defeating the Hadarak and reclaiming the worlds they’d stolen from thousands of races, was to bring their hordes into that family as well.
The Flud was that familial extension, though they didn’t realize it yet. They were essentially babies in adult bodies, but they were already contributing, and one some of the early worlds where Clan Kai’Sa had done its work, planetary defenses were up and running sufficient to screen any of the fleets currently engaging the Asferja…not that they were anywhere close to the Outer Core at the moment…but Esna was successfully building a backstop against the invaders, using the invaders themselves by freeing them from the T’fen’s control.
The irony of that was astounding, and also emphasized the point that Star Force was on par with the T’fen…not in all areas, obviously, but in enough. And taking their horde of Hadarak and turning them into Jedein and the Flud, that was the kind of lightside reversal that just gave you a surge of righteous revenge and hope for the future in an otherwise horrific universe.
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EG29
May 31, 158438
ANDROMEDA GALAXY
Temple 1928
Vikarathe read the message packet he’d received from House Atriark. It had gone the long way, out through the intergalactic transit network from their home in the Milky Way and to Andromeda via courier, for sending messages directly through the system was inefficient. It had not been devised to send massive amounts of data from one installation to another, but rather to send objects. There was a limited data network there to keep everything operating in sync, and the Neofan had chosen not to enlarge that capacity when they were adding new routes and destinations to the ancient transit system.
It was far better to send a secure drone hopping through the network than a signal someone could intercept or one that could get garbled due to environmental conditions. As such, a small spherical probe had come through into the Temple that Vikarathe had chosen to become the home of House Phoenix. One very near the invasion zone of the Asferja.
On the probe were a great many things from his fellow Neofan, including a message from Reignor Plausious about his intentions to try and rescue any survivors left in Utovi and merge them together into a third House called Sovarsti. He cited the odds of this happening as low, but with the T’fen’s attention on the Milky Way, they might not be that interested in overseeing the destruction of the scraps of the Neofan civilization left in Utovi…and they might even pull the Pafdreng off to come to the Milky Way at some point.
It was a good move, but Vikarathe knew Reignor Truven and his new House, even if successful, would be of no help in this Gauntlet War. They were an investment for a future beyond it…but if House Atriark didn’t survive, neither would the Neofan. He knew this, and it was why House Phoenix was being put together, not as another bastion of Neofan society should the Milky Way fall, but as a weapon to protect Andromeda and to strike at the reinforcements here that the Asferja were continuing to grow and send through the Galactic Threads despite Paul’s constant efforts to disrupt them.
Plausious had included a lot of data on the fighting going on, plus on their success finding a way to remake the Hadarak into an asset. Vikarathe already knew about this from an earlier update, but the reports coming in were astounding. Hundreds of planets had already been converted and were now either producing raw materials for the war effort or building up their own defenses to wear down future invasions by any of the T’fen’s servants if and when they broke out of the two footholds they’d gained.
The planet-sized ships the Jaeggers had brought and detailed in this report were intimidating. They’d literally created artificial planets that could move and fight…whereas the Neofan Temples, while much larger, were not designed to be mobile. He took a moment to think of what his House could build long term if they had a chance to counter or copy this ‘baseship’ of the enemy’s, but he knew it wasn’t something that could be constructed quickly. It was a legacy construct, and they were using them to fight offensively rather than creating a fortification like the Temples were.
It was a bold move for their civilization, and one that was making them almost invincible in the early fighting if not for the Essence weaponry Star Force possessed and the Veloqueen…whom he’d never seen fight at this level before. Their ability to burrow into the baseships and carve them up from within was frightening. The Neofan had never warred against their ally, and the Veloqueen kept mostly to their own galaxy, fighting the Hadarak there. Now it appeared their full power was being unleashed, and Vikarathe was not disappointed in the least.
Two of the baseships had been badly damaged, but not destroyed. That was a feat in and of itself, and they were now sitting in the Gateway system that they’d arrived in, acting as guards to protect incoming ships…though after the last of the baseships had arrived, that entry point had been silent with regards to enemy reinforcements…but Vikarathe knew that was not going to continue, for already in this galaxy a third race had entered, called the Bru’son, and their ships had started traveling down the Asferja Threads to the Milky Way after getting a small packet attached to their hulls to allow the passage.
Right now Paul was out harassing those facilities to delay their transit, but the 6 Threads the Asferja had created were now no longer within his reach. The fleet of Vargemma ships were drawing too much Essence from the Temples, and rather than wait until they were nearly exhausted of their Essence reserves Paul had split them up, sending them on defensive missions while he remained the only one on offense in his Gjardan with the Nuv’ernor Kara onboard increasing its firepower drastically. She’d been learning the Neofan techniques quickly ever since arriving here, but such things took a lifetime to master and she would only grow stronger with time and training despite her immense power already present.
They’d done what initial damage they could do, delayed the Asferja arriving in the Milky Way, and now they were primarily concerned with protecting this galaxy and keeping the Asferja from consuming all of it. If they did, they could build hundreds of Threads and overrun the Milky Way eventually. Vikarathe appreciated the T’fen’s strategy in using the Asferja in this manner, but he was committed to not letting it happen, and if Paul’s Paladin were half as good as he claimed they were, they’d make an effective countermeasure once they had grown to sufficient size.
As for House Phoenix, he was still recruiting exiled Neofan from other galaxies. Vikarathe had gone in person at the beginning, but now that he had a total of 3,922 members that had accepted a full Graft from him, he had them going out and finding more on a continual basis. The Temple network was huge, and they could be hiding anywhere within it. If they had left it, then they would have to find their way back to him…he couldn’t search beyond it and wasn’t going to try. But when the Temples responded to the commands of a Neofan and gave them everything they needed to survive, he doubted the exiles would have left them behind without a good reason…though their mental states had them not needing good reasons for things, so he hoped the lack of food elsewhere would have encouraged them to disappear into the vast reaches of what the Bond of Resistance had created over the millions of years it had existed.
And in all that patient building, events were coming to a head now…with the Neofan nearly destroyed by the Mev. Plausious said a new technology was now available, produced by Star Force, that could slowly undo it without Paul or another with the Saiolum skill to cleanse them. That put a piece of Vikarathe’s mind at ease, for while it had been promised, it had not existed until now, and with Paul needed so many places he couldn’t just travel around with Vikarathe to help him cleanse the exiles…though many of them didn’t even have the Mev. They were mentally damaged for other reasons.
And though it was distasteful to him, Vikarathe had been forcibly grafting his memories onto the young Neofan that had been born in exile and could not control themselves. In the past they would never have existed, and had they been discovered they would have been killed for the threat they posed. Vikarathe now saw the injustice in that. It was more a protection of the status quo than a real threat to the older Neofan. But even now, after giving them a great gift, he did not like it. A graft was meant to be a choice. Forcing it on another was wrong…but killing them would be even worse, and it was not their fault they had been born without a proper construction being made available to them. It was their parents’ fault for reproducing them in the wilds, and he wasn’t going to consign them to death because of what their parents had done.
Nor was he going to kill those parents. He needed every Neofan he could find, no matter what condition they were in or what they had done previously. His graft was working wonders on them, but it would be a long time before they worked out who they truly were and what part of them was him and what was them. It was a tough journey to make inside one’s own head, but it was the far simpler one to make than to recover from the depths they had fallen. When you had sunk as low as they had, typically the reasons for the sinking prevented a recovery, even though one was always possible.
That was something Star Force had drilled into their own people. No matter how bad things became, and how impossible they seemed, as long as you lived you could recover what was lost. No matter how badly damaged your body was, you could heal up. No matter how screwed up your mind was, it could be straightened out. No matter how evil you had been in the past, you could cleanse yourself of it.
And everything began with a choice. A choice to make a change…and that was where most of these Neofan would not, or could not go. They didn’t have the strength within them to choose to begin the battle to climb out of their depths of despair and depravity. But they could choose to have him drag them out of it and remake their minds.
Except for the uncontrollable young ones. They didn’t even know what a graft was, so it was impossible for them to make a choice even if he could have had an intelligent conversation with them. Most went feral and forgot how to speak entirely. But now they knew, and they knew a great many other things Vikarathe had forced into them. They were prisoners inside the box he had placed in their minds, and the only way out of that box was to grow out of it.
So they’d either grow into their own selves, or forever be his unwitting servants.
That was not how a graft was supposed to be used, but with his race nearing their end, he had to make use of what was available to him, and the full graft was by far the best option he had. The only other one was to sedate them and hand them over to Star Force in the hopes they could one day make something out of them…but these were not their responsibility. They had agreed to take on the young when they were birthed and uncontaminated. Helping these find their way was different, and while he would not have bet against Star Force finding a method to do so, it was not something they should be distracted with as they fought for their lives.
So the grafts were used, and hundreds of those wild ones were now here helping to oversee the building of their new city as an army of Temple Caretakers worked furiously to construct it, having been pulled off other tasks within the massive inverted habitat centered on an artificial star.
But while that city was rising, training grounds were already established nearby and his House Phoenix warriors were practicing first the art of muscle before they went anywhere near the art of Essence. The young ones had almost none of it in them anyway, and Vikarathe did not truly see them as useful except for their size and muscle, which against other races was usually superior. What he needed now was an elite force, and that meant calling upon the exiled ones who previously had such skills, which were now mixed with his own skills and knowledge as a warrior.
He was pleased with the initial progress so far, and a strike team led by his former teacher Vaisha was already performing missions into enemy territory to help save Klix worlds. They were working in conjunction with the Vargemma ships in some cases, others they were not, but many partially colonized Asferja worlds were seeing their key facilities destroyed by this small team, which would set back production of the necessary items, including foodstuffs, that the Asferja required before birthing more of their race.
If you limited their infrastructure, they would automatically limit their new births. So hitting such facilities was an obvious target for House Phoenix and Paul’s Gjardan on loan to him from House Atriark. As for House Phoenix obtaining ships of their own, Caretaker units on all the Temples across this galaxy were working to build pieces of that new fleet, and had units out beyond the Temples looking for more resources to harvest and bring back into them to supplement the immense stockpiles already present.
It wasn’t just Essence that the Temples conserved for future use, but raw materials as well…and those raw materials were going to allow House Phoenix to technologically rise far faster than anyone realized, and while House Atriark had sworn off using servants as a requirement for settling in the Milky Way and sharing that galaxy with Star Force, Vikarathe was under no such promise.
And he had trillions of Vargemma in this galaxy, let alone others, that were eager to volunteer.
And Paul had already been training his naval commanders for him through battle, with the competent ones out leading their own small fleet units in support of the Klix. House Phoenix would not have the skill of the servants the Neofan had cultivated in Utovi, but they would have considerable numbers to start with.
Vikarathe had to not just protect this galaxy, but rule it as well in conjunction with Star Force. The Paladin would take care of all the insignificant worlds out there, while it was his job to make sure the two Bond of Resistance races survived, as well as the other less inferior races in this galaxy. He’d begin taking some of their races…the ones who volunteered…and grooming new servants from those with valuable skills, but for right now he needed an army that could hit hard, and he didn’t have millennia to work on developing one. The already existing Essence skills of the Vargemma were his only option, and it was a good option so long as they could follow orders…which Paul had demonstrated not all of them would when a Neofan wasn’t directly present.
Nevertheless, he had several hundred thousand of the best he could sift out of the mix training here as well. Vikarathe had learned from Paul some of their methods of making the problem ones show themselves, and how to turn problem ones into assets. He wished his friend was here to further help, and while he had promised that Star Force personnel would be coming from the Milky Way to supplement Kara and the Paladin, there was no substitute for Paul-024. He was a god amongst his people, and soon he would be leaving.
Vikarathe had promised Nevvra he would protect him, and had done so, but the way this war was going to be played by Star Force and its allies required Vikarathe to stay in Andromeda and disrupt the Asferja plans as much as possible as they created a bridge into the Milky Way’s Rim for other races to enter as well. Vikarathe understood the importance of this, as well as the potential he had inherited from his race and their legacy creations, but he still wished Paul would stay, for he was the only real peer he had here…and only remaining friend. The few others who had earned that honorarium had died from the Mev. And while Vikarathe was now a Reignor, he was a Reignor of a House that barely existed in theory, let alone in practice. He was having to start all over in multiple ways, and in truth it was lonely work. The might of the Neofan race had always been behind him…now that might was reduced to his own strength and that of House Atriark.
Which was rather pathetic compared to what they had once been not that long ago.
But he was a warrior, and he had a pathway to damage, if not defeating the enemy, and he understood that he had to do his part in this gigantic war…one far larger than the Neofan had ever been part of. The assault on Utovi had been larger than the combat so far, but this Gauntlet War was just beginning, and he knew it would scale up far larger than the purging of their home galaxy.
This was a war that warriors were born for, and if his part in it was not in the center of the enemy’s wrath, then he’d make them pay for their oversight. They’d tried, and nearly succeeded, in wiping out the Neofan with the Mev…but they’d ultimately failed. Star Force had intervened, and now the Neofan were going to rise as the legendary Phoenix that Paul had named his House after.
Payback was coming, but it was going to be thousands of years in the making. Right now he needed to build and disrupt the enemy at the same time. Fortunately for him, the Asferja were giving him a bountiful number of targets as they spread outward almost randomly, assaulting inferior worlds with inferior assault forces, and doing the bare minimum in some cases to take them…after which they could grow the strength they needed.
This gambit was working for them, but not for long. Andromeda was a weak galaxy, but as House Phoenix’s ships rose from the construction slips and the Vargemma were trained to behave as proper servants to real Neofan commanders and not some mystical, never before seen ‘Founders’ that they could image as they liked, the number of easy worlds the Asferja were taking and breeding on would go away, and everywhere they struck House Phoenix would show up sooner or later to remove them.
Them, or the Paladin, for after having several conversations with their leader at Paul’s request, he was now convinced that their might would rival House Phoenix’s in time. A boast that he had almost thought was made in jest by his friend, but he knew him better than that.
Star Force had never fully unleashed the Paladin’s own swarm capabilities, and he assured him that in Andromeda, with no other support from his Empire, Supreme Viceroy Thrawn would not be held back in the slightest. He was under orders to conquer this galaxy and annex it into the Star Force Empire…and Vikarathe was keenly interested in seeing exactly how he was going to do it.
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