Star Force: Hamoriti (SF62) (5 page)

Nesfa shook his head again. “
They are primitives that utilize plasma
weapons. Why the Hamoriti didn’t strike them all down simultaneously is in
question, but it may be that they simply weren’t a great enough threat to
warrant the energy expenditure…or it could be weakened after its sedation. If
that is the case it may not be fully recovered as of yet and our hesitancy to
act may be costing us a moment of opportunity.
”

“
As
we pointed out
,” Mafrin added for the benefit of Sefib, “
there is no point in acting if we do not
know how to act. And according to the Oracles there is nothing that we can do
to stop this one
.”

“
Despite
its smaller size?
”

“
All
the Oracles insisted that the size did not matter
,” Nesfa said before
Mafrin
could answer, “
but
there has to be a difference. The capabilities of each of the 7 have been well
documented, and even if this one was too strong for the Ancients to destroy it
may well be weaker than the others and that is something we need to know. The
Oracles are acting on speculation, not data, and we need to give it to them.
”

“
A
fleeting hope
,” Sefib said dismissively.

“
What
would your counsel be?
” the Trinx asked.

“
We
have none. The Oracles said that if a Hamoriti awoke it would be the death of
us all. I fail to see how we can overcome that, unless their assertions are
incorrect. I don’t believe anyone is arguing that point?
”

“
Then
why come here?
”

“
Because
such a defeat will not occur swiftly. The galaxy is quite large and the
Hamoriti is only one. Its minions may well grow to consume all, but it will be
them that we fight, not the Hamoriti. We may be able to survive if we are
savvy, and a joint effort by The Nine is more likely to succeed than
independent ones.
”

“
While
you ponder survival the Hamoriti grows in strength
,” Nesfa pointed out. “
I do not care about long term plans at this
point, only in stopping the spread before it begins. Already the Trinx have
devoted our full strength to this end, what will the Yisv contribute?
”

“
How
will attacking the Hamoriti accomplish this?
”

“
I
recommend attacks for study, not containment. To that end we must, and are,
striking at the minions as the Hamoriti spawns them
.”

“
And
how has it responded?
”

“
We
lose ships with each raid, but the Hamoriti is forced to start over again
.”

“
Ah,
now I see. You seek to freeze the moment before it escalates in the hope of
finding a path ahead before the opportunity is lost to us
.”

“
Indeed.
”

“
If
the inevitable is to come
,” Ivvit argued, “
then let it come and
us
face it. We will not
spend our people’s lives to gain pointless time. If the Oracles say that we
cannot destroy or sedate the Hamoriti, then we should not foolishly argue that
point. The Hamoriti have returned to the galaxy whether we like it or not, now
we must deal with the consequences of someone else’s error. We did not fail,
but this doomsday has occurred none the less. The Oracles have a vast amount of
information regarding the war the Ancients fought against the minions and in
that lies the best hope for our survival, not in trying to deny that what is
happening cannot be undone
.”

“
We
will not go near nor contend with the god
,” Sefib said softly, “
but we are willing to fight its minions
elsewhere. We must eventually, and we would choose to do so sooner rather than
later in the hopes of shaping the landscape to our advantage going forward…or
perhaps I should say to lessen our disadvantage going forward
.”

“
We
are in agreement
,” Ivvit said.

“
The
Sety will contribute what ships we can to the containment effort
,” Mafrin
said, speaking directly to Nesfa. “
They
will not be used against the Hamoriti itself, nor within its radius, but as the
minions spread they will kill them when they are able. We will dispatch the
fleet as soon as it can be gathered.
”

“
I
would criticize the token gesture, but at this point every ship counts
.”

“
We
have other responsibilities to attend to
,” the Sety pointed out.

“
They
nor anything else matters at this point
,” Nesfa said with a cool anger. “
Whatever victories you win will be washed
away in time. Let the rest of the galaxy fall into chaos while we fight to
contain the Hamoriti. If by some miracle we succeed we can put it back together
later. If we do not find a way to succeed, nothing else will matter.
”

5

November 2, 2723

Prenthor
System (Sety
capitol)

Qitor

Nesfa walked out of another planning
meeting with The Nine, utterly dejected at the lack of understanding the others
were showing. They were going to allow the Hamoriti to claim the planet his
people were dying to continually purge of minions, then try to intercept and
destroy them when they attempted to leave. If the Hamoriti came after them
they’d withdraw and concede it whatever location it went to, then move back to
hit the minions it had abandoned.

It made a certain amount of sense at
first glance, but Nesfa had studied the warnings and wisdom of the Oracle all
his life and he knew the others in The Nine had done likewise, so there was no
excuse for their lapse of judgement. Giving the minions a chance to spread,
even on a single planet, was foolhardy. They didn’t need the Hamoriti to
dominate once they reached certain numbers, and the sheer number of troops The
Nine would have to commit to eliminate them would far outweigh what they’d
spend in continuous suicide runs to prevent the minions from getting their
foothold.

The Trinx had argued that point
endlessly, with the rest of The Nine unwilling to accept his proposal and
suggesting that if any attempt should be made in that regard that the Trinx should
use their vassals in the form of warships to do the raiding rather than
sacrificing ship crews.

The problem with that was the Trinx
didn’t have any warship vassals, and while he’d ordered them to begin designing
and producing them before he’d left for this summit there was no way they’d be
ready in time, nor would the Trinx be able to build them fast enough to keep
the minions suppressed. They had to have the support of The Nine or this wasn’t
going to work…yet they wouldn’t give it to him.

He knew what he was asking was a
tall order in blood, but nothing else mattered at this point. Let the Hamoriti
get established and the timeline would escalate beyond their control quickly.
The Ancients might have been able to succeed with The Nine’s current plan, but
the Trinx and their allies were not on par with that mysterious race. No one
disputed that, yet they would not take the one course of action that could
forestall the coming disaster.

Nesfa was committed to keeping the
minions suppressed with or without The Nine, realizing the duty he and his
people had to keep this threat contained, but in doing so he was going to strip
his military bare, then The Nine wouldn’t follow up and it will all have been
for naught. They’ll have acquit their duty, but it won’t have mattered. The
Hamoriti would spread its influence over the local region and slowly begin
taking control of the galaxy.

Nesfa left the planning meeting and
headed back to his ship, intending to stay on the Sety world no longer. While
there was considerable more planning to do, it was planning for a course of
action that the Trinx would not support. If the others wouldn’t do what was
necessary they would, for as long as they could sustain the effort.

He knew that wasn’t going to be
enough, so the Prefect had to find some other way to do what needed to be done.

“
If
we have to engage them
,” Mafrin said, looking at a holographic star chart
with the other seven members of The Nine, “
it
is best to do so after their seed ships have landed. The Oracle says there is a
cannibalization process that occurs offering a window of opportunity during
which the defenses will be minimal. Wait too long and they convert over into
the fortifications we all know will be very hard to remove.
”

“
You
want us to let them land?
” Ivvit asked rudely.

“
Those
seed ships will be very hard to take out in space. That carapace is extremely
formidable, but it will crack open when expanding on the surface. Time it right
and we’ll poach it with a few
well placed
shots.
Fight it in space or after it’s implanted
itself
and
we face a hard and costly fight
.”

“
Letting
them get to the surface is folly.
”
Maxep
said,
with the
triped
standing on a pedestal so to get to
equal height with the others. “
When they
arrive insystem we must strike them immediately. If we let this become a ground
fight we will lose badly. Even if we can destroy the seed ships once they land,
the spore clouds will contaminate the planet and force us to keep hunting
minions indefinitely. We cannot become tied to territory. Mobility is the
entire purpose of the evacuations
.”

“
Their
naval forces are equally robust
,” Mafrin pointed out. “
And if they wish they can send a ship directly into the atmosphere to
distribute spores. It is doubtful we will ever be able to stop that from occurring.
We cannot win this war, so stop thinking like we can. We need to do the most
damage possible as the Hamoriti’s forces spread, and the best way to do that is
to hit the seed ships when they’re vulnerable during their transition period
.”

“
Mafrin
is correct
,” Sefib said, her body undulating between solid and cloud, a
sign of frustration. “
We cannot let
ourselves be drawn into even fights. We must hit them when and where they are
weak, then flee retaining the majority, if not all of our forces. If we are
goaded into a frontal engagement the Hamoriti will achieve through attrition
what we seek to deny it…and easy victory
.”

“
When
its minions can grow faster than we can build ships, I’m forced to concur
,”
another quadruped member of The Nine said, this one without arms and looking
more like a horse. “
We must pick our
fights wisely and slow the spread. We cannot become fixed on holding any
location. It must be a fighting retreat.
”

“
The
best way to slow their advance is to deny them systems
,” Ivvit reiterated.
“
We must have some hard battles to deny
them entry, otherwise their numbers will scale too quickly and the evacuations
will be compromised.
”

“
The
Trinx are the closest
,” Sefib pointed out. “
And I do not believe they are going to evacuate, fearing the release of
a second Hamoriti. They may very well fight until they are exterminated rather
than give ground. If that comes to pass will we aid them or not?
”

“
The
larger question in play is do the Hamoriti know of each other’s locations? Does
this one know there are others imprisoned and where they are?
”

“
How
could it know?
” Mafrin asked.

“
The
Oracles have said that the Hamoriti may have collected information from the
minds of those that came within range of its psionics
,” Sefib added. “
If we engage it we could be leading it
directly to the others.
”

“
Or
perhaps the Trinx have already done so
,” Ivvit agreed.

Mafrin exchanged glances with the
others. “
Why have I never heard of this
ability?
”

“
It
is speculation on the Oracle’s part
,” Sefib explained. “
The Ancients never knew for sure
.”

“
Let’s
assume it is true. Will the Hamoriti come directly here and the other
locations, or spread out geographically around its current location?
”

“
There
is nothing in the Ancients’ files that covers this eventuality
,” Ivvit
said. “
They imprisoned the Hamoriti, so
there’s no way of telling if one would care about the others or not. They
always occupied different regions.
”

“
As
to the evacuations
,” Mafrin said, his fears amplifying with this new
revelation. “
We have to have
compartmentalization as to the destination locations so the minions will not be
able to follow. The troops we send into combat must not know where they are
beyond a designated rendezvous point.
”

“
Agreed
,”
Praxma
said, with the
tanky
biped speaking in almost mechanical tones.

“
The
Trinx vassals would be ideal to conceal this
,” Ivvit noted.

“
Yes
they would be
,” the Sety agreed. “
But
I do not believe there will be any of them available off their homeworld if
Nesfa speaks the truth about their intentions
.”

“
I
truly hope he does not
,” Sefib said, unsure if the Trinx had been adamant
out of certainty or stubbornness that might evaporate with time.

On the trip back to
Vikod
Nesfa racked his brain trying to find an alternative
solution. He knew they had a limited opportunity to keep this disaster from
becoming fatal, but no matter what he considered there was simply no way around
the fact that a lot of people and resources were going to have to be expended
in order to keep the Hamoriti’s minions suppressed.

The Nine had to see reason or else
they were all doomed. The hopes that the Ancients could be found again were
nothing more than reckless dreams, and the chance of finding another race that
could at least contain a Hamoriti was likewise a waste of time, though possibly
there was one out there somewhere. Problem was they had no time to look, and
just for the sake of argument say that they did find one tomorrow…what were the
odds of them even caring to fight a war far from their own borders?

No, if this containment was going to
happen it had to be done now, before the spread began. Nesfa knew he had some
time to work up a plan, for his people were paying for it in blood, but he
feared the analysis teams he’d set to the task before leaving for the summit
would likewise have nothing to offer.

It wasn’t until his ship had made
the decel
into their capitol system did a possible solution
finally strike him. It was reckless, but at this point if they didn’t stop the
minions from spreading nothing else mattered anyway. During the short trip in
to the planet Nesfa thought through the various ways he could approach it, then
went straight to his various ‘think tanks’ and had them begin chewing on the
proposed plan.

Within a day they had a viable
course of action laid out, with several contingencies in place should Nesfa
need them. Knowing that time was of the essence the Prefect left the system
again, this time taking with him a small warfleet from the local defense force.
Most of their navy was in the Haphchap System surrounding the Hamoriti, but the
16 ships he brought with him in escort should be enough to make their point.

Jumping out immediately, Nesfa
headed to the largest known Li’vorkrachnika world on their
starcharts
.

By the time
Nesfa’s
fleet reached one of their former enemy’s core worlds his linguists had
finished writing the active translation program necessary for the Trinx to
communicate directly with the representative he would be negotiating with.
Their first meeting had gone amicably enough, with them only having to destroy
a few hundred ships before the Li’vorkrachnika finally decided to let them
talk. That talking had occurred over text transmissions using crude
translations based off of a common language that both races spoke…one coming
from a neighboring race that the Li’vorkrachnika had recently destroyed.

An agreement on the scale of what
Nesfa was proposing was not something that could be handled locally, so
arrangements had been made for his fleet’s passage to one of their core worlds
where he would speak directly with someone that had the necessary authority.
When the Trinx fleet arrived at the location it became clear that the
Li’vorkrachnika were more numerous than their intelligence reports had
indicated, for the system was filled with millions of ships and four ring-like
constructs circling a pair of planets.

The technology they used was
primitive in the extreme, but they were much
more savvy
than he’d anticipated with the implementation of it. As his fleet was
recognized and given clearance to a rendezvous point in orbit around one of the
planets, his people determined that the rings were in fact shipyards, and
judging by the schematics they were capable of producing an insanely large
number of ships.

That made Nesfa feel better about
their chances, but it also underscored that even with the
Trinx’s
technological advantage his small fleet was vulnerable here. His ship
commanders assured him that they could fight their way out if necessary, but
there could be no direct engagements that would result in anything other than
their deaths, primitive tech or not.

Once they arrived at the rendezvous
point they were given instructions to meet with the representative onboard one
of the Li’vorkrachnika stations.
Nesfa’s
fleet
surrounded the station, then sent a heavily armed boarding craft full of guards
and vassals to take the Prefect over to the meeting location. They set down
inside a large hangar bay with the robotic bipeds filing out and creating a
defensive perimeter around the ship, followed by some living Trinx troops, then
the Prefect.

The air smelled badly, but it was
breathable so he tried to push the foulness from his mind. He wasn’t here
because he liked the Li’vorkrachnika, but because he and the galaxy needed
them.

“
I
am Prefect Nesfa
,” he said, softly, allowing the headband he wore to
translate his words into the Li’vorkrachnika’s native language, with it
likewise translating back anything that was spoken in it. He looked out at the
sea of short, green reptilians, most of whom carried their primitive plasma weapons,
but none had stepped forward to greet him. “
Where
is your Templar?
”