Star Force: Shame (SF59) (3 page)

The aerial war proved to be a stalemate, but it was a
stalemate that gave the ground troops the opportunity to press their advantage.
Before all was said and done a few walkers popped up that they had to contend
with, either having been incomplete before the initial attack or down for
maintenance. Those made things difficult, but with cruiser assistance they were
eliminated and the slaughter of the civilian population continued well past the
last of their military succumbing.

During the first year of major ground battles a
dribbling of lizard naval reinforcements would come into the system, shoring up
the meager defenses there with the assault pillars being redeployed elsewhere.
The damage invoker stayed, mainly due to the fact that its gravity drives
weren’t fully functional, but in large part the lizards’ hold on the system was
extremely tenuous. Unfortunately for the Skarrons this was the regional hub,
and there were no other nearby strongholds to reinforce them from.

The lizards knew the Skarrons might respond with a
huge force from further inside their territory, but figured it would take a
considerable number of years before that counterattack would come. Instead of
building up the defenses of their captured regional capitol they chose to sack
it, destroying the entire population and then moving on to trash every bit of
infrastructure they could, with that being a tall order given the dense
cityscape that covered the planet.

It would be 3 years before the counterattack would
come, and it would come like a hammer blow, easily killing the defense fleet in
the system and eradicating the ground troops the lizards still had on planet,
but while the invaders hadn’t seen fit to try and keep their razed conquest,
they had been devoting incoming ships and resources to the surrounding systems
that no longer had their stronghold to receive reinforcements from. Those
systems saw heavy fighting and one loss after another for the Skarrons, with
the lizards once again focusing on claiming a large number of lesser systems
rather than trying for a handful of big prizes.

The regional
capitol
was no
longer a threat and didn’t interest them. It was now just a wrecked,
uninhabited planet, and if the Skarrons wanted to rebuild it they could, but
they’d be starting from scratch. The region around that system was quickly
falling into the lizards’ hands, and even as the massive relief fleet moved
about to target some of those fallen systems it couldn’t get to them all. The
lizards would suffer heavy losses where it did go, but would retain so many
other new conquests that the tradeoff was worth it logistically down the road.

3

July 5, 2657

Aeryn
System (beyond
the ADZ)

Point 14

It had taken them nearly 15 months of travel, but
finally the Hevmaj jumpship arrived at the Star Force system and the small race
of bipeds were not disappointed with what they found. The system itself was
devoid of any habitable planets, but what the grand empire had built here was
beyond comparison…for they had created their own tiny worlds. Multiple metal
spheres sat in orbit around the native lifeless worlds, cementing Star Force’s hold
on the location that was emanating out their power to the surrounding region of
space.

The Hevmaj had never encountered the empire before but
word of their deeds had spread far across the galaxy, traveling some 80
lightyears to a cluster of systems known as the ‘Benoid’ to the races that
inhabited it. They were a loose coalition of friendly neighbors that occupied 7
systems, all of which were no more than 4 lightyears apart from one another, creating
shorter spacelanes than what the surrounding region had and allowing the Hevmaj
and 9 other races to stay in contact and trade with one another.

But word of the huge menace that was gobbling up
system after system had also spread to the Benoid, with the warning that they
were also in its eventual path. At first the Hevmaj had dismissed the rumors,
but then another race with which they were familiar, a more advanced one that
they both respected and trusted had confirmed the existence of the
Li’vorkrachnika and the unbeatable threat that they posed. Race after race and
world after world was being taken and destroyed with no one seeming to be able
to stop them.

This terrified the Benoid, but given that it was still
a distant threat they had time to think and worry, looking for something to do
and realizing that there was no way that they were going to be overlooked as
some others had attested to being. They were smaller races than what the Benoid
contained, meaning they had no chance of being passed by when the
Li’vorkrachnika spread out to them.

It wasn’t until several years later that the Benoid
started to hear rumors of some races putting up a fight and living to tell
about it. Searching out those rumors with a passion they later learned of the
ADZ…a sanctuary where many races had fled where the Li’vorkrachnika could not
go. That sanctuary was protected by an empire called Star Force, a name that
would soon be spreading
to
many races around the Benoid.

It wasn’t until Star Force had set up a distant
outpost specifically to block the
Li’vorkrachnika’s
advance to the region where the Benoid was located did the Hevmaj even consider
trying to contact them, but with more and more reports of worlds falling
despite the protected regions that Star Force was patrolling the Benoid looked
to be on the eventual hit list regardless of how long they were delayed.

The Hevmaj and the other races in the Benoid boasted a
very high population and did not have the option of evacuating, nor did they
have anywhere to go, so a solution had to be devised locally. With it becoming
clear that they couldn’t protect themselves they sought contact with their more
distant neighbors…from whom they learned that some of them were entering into
an Alliance with Star Force. Others were outright abandoning their homes to
relocate to their ADZ, and still a few denied the threat existed and chose to
do nothing.

The Benoid couldn’t evacuate and they weren’t stupid
enough to let themselves become deluded to the point where they could think
they were safe, so the Hevmaj took their fastest jumpship and loaded it up with
supplies and their finest diplomatic delegation, then shot it off towards the
location of the distant Star Force outpost in the hopes of securing some form
of help.

Now they were here, sitting in orbit around an unknown
planet next to one of the Star Force’s giant metal worlds…and they were not
alone. There were ships from many races here, all of whom were welcomed as
visitors. The Hevmaj were no different and granted movement privileges the
moment they entered the system, with the traffic controllers being a bit
surprised when the Hevmaj answered their multi-lingual hail in their native
English, for the Hevmaj had acquired knowledge of the language from traders and
spent the majority of their year-long trip studying it intently, along with whatever
other information they had gathered about the Star Force previously.

Securing a diplomatic contact wasn’t difficult either,
for it seemed that this location served as an embassy to the local region. The
Hevmaj had several discussions over the
comms
during
the following weeks until finally one of the Star Force representatives asked
to meet with them in person. Unfortunately the Hevmaj could not live within the
oxygen atmosphere on the artificial world, but the Star Force agreed to send
their representative over to their jumpship instead.

The short, fury Hevmaj waited in the landing bay
during the atmospheric cycling, with the big heavy doors keeping the ship’s
atmosphere in while the outer ones closed and the new atmosphere flooded in
around the Star Force ship. Once all was balanced out the inner doors opened
and the Hevmaj trotted out on their stubby legs, getting halfway across the bay
when the boarding ramp on the Star Force ship opened up and a tall alien walked
down it, passing through a shimmering barrier and onto their deck.

They couldn’t see what it looked like, for it was
covered head to toe in armor. That wasn’t unexpected, given that it couldn’t
breathe the
Hevmaj’s
atmosphere either, but it still
left the little aliens curious and all the more intimidated by the giant’s
presence.

“I am told you speak English?” it asked through an
external speaker on the helmet.

“
Wee
du,” one of them
responded.

“I am Brendan-JK804-78 of Canderous, a
subsect
of Star Force given possession of and the duty to
defend this system. I will be your diplomatic liaison.”

“
Wee
wulcum
yu
tu
ar
sheep,” the Hevmaj said with their odd but understandable dialect. “
Wee
ar
heer
tu
ahk
yur
hellp
.”

“Help in what way?” the
Canderian
asked, holding their first conversation right there on the hangar deck of the
primitive jumpship as he gazed down on the little fury aliens that looked like
they couldn’t stand up to a stiff breeze.

“
Wee
spec fur ta Benoid. Tin
raices
in
tutal
. Wee
ahk
tu
jun
yur
impir
.”

“Quiet as always,” Davis commented as Greg walked up
the staircase and into his office while the Director had his back to him and
was standing staring out his panoramic window at the early morning sunrise over
Atlantis.

“Archons don’t like to make noise,” the trailblazer
answered as he walked up to him. Davis turned around and sat down, so Greg did
likewise opposite him as the slightly older man pulled up a holographic display
of statistics.

“I need your advice. These are the latest batch of
diplomatic requests coming in from outside the ADZ. As always there are races
asking for territorial slots or outright amnesty, but there’s a new trend
developing,” he said, pointing to a specific part of the hologram.

Greg looked it over, seeing a host of races he wasn’t
familiar with along with a few names he’d come across before. “I didn’t realize
there were so many.”

“I haven’t given any of them a decision yet, though
some have been waiting several years with the communications lag and all. Your
thoughts?”

Greg rubbed his hairless chin, studying the list but
with his mind wandering elsewhere. “Tricky. We know we can’t stick to our
existing borders for it will allow the lizards to grow too large, but we also
can’t expand far enough to stop them,” he said, telekinetically tapping a few
buttons on Davis’s desk and bringing up a map that had the various locations of
the requests highlighted. Most were coming in from beyond Epsilon and Gamma
Regions, putting them on the far side of the ADZ where the lizards hadn’t
gotten to yet, but a few were above beyond Delta Region and one was even in the
gap between Beta and the Voku at Achkor.

“An endless mental back and forth for me. I was hoping
you could offer another angle before you head out again.”

“Do they understand what joining Star Force means?”

“Most do, the others I’m having educated. So far only
one has canceled their request.”

“Switched over to a territorial slot?”

Davis smiled. “Yes. They along with a lot of others
think that having a colony in the ADZ to fall back to when the lizards get to
them is the smart play, and that’s also beginning to become a trend.”

“What would you prefer to do?”

“I want to play it safe and creep out our borders, but
I also don’t want to turn down requests for help…and races wanted to join us
rather than just freeload I’m eager to incorporate.”

“You’re worried they’re too far away and we don’t have
the resources to incorporate them all as quickly as needed?”

“And we can’t spare any trailblazers to oversee the
conversion,” Davis added.

“There are enough others that can fill that void now,”
Greg said dismissively. “Are any of these guys big enough to warrant one of
us?”

“No. They’re small, primitive, and pretty much
helpless. A few exceptions, but nothing beyond the Lacvamat.”

“And moving them in isn’t an option?”

“They want to retain their current worlds if possible,
and we don’t have the resources to throw around to create brand new ones for
them here. We need to utilize their existing infrastructure if this is going to
be a possibility.”

“And that takes us far beyond the Sentinel line.”

“That is my concern.”

“We’ve been having similar discussions,” Greg said,
leaning back in his chair. “Without another major ally there’s only one way to
stop the lizard advance in this region,” he said, pointing to the lower part of
the galactic plane that held neither lizard nor Skarron territory. “And that’s
to expand drastically.”

“Logistically that isn’t feasible in the short term,”
Davis reminded him.

“And the larger we push our borders the more
vulnerable we are,” Greg added.

“And the more visible.”

The trailblazer sighed. “I know, but it looks like
we’re all that’s standing in the lizards’ way. Sooner or later we’re going to
have to make a choice. Turtle up and survive or take on a larger role in the
expanded region.”

“And become the Nexus?”

“The similarity is worth noting, given that we can’t
put the density of colonies into that vast of an area like we’ve done here. The
ADZ is huge enough, trying to assert control over an area dozens of times
larger is going to be…well, this is why we haven’t made any recommendations
yet.”

“For the sake of argument, suppose we asserted domain
over this region,” Davis said, using a combination of telekinesis and his fingers
to highlight virtually all of the territory between the ADZ and the Voku, plus
a huge chunk laterally around Epsilon Region. “That won’t contain the lizards.
They’ve got too many other directions to expand into. The only way I can see to
stop them is to kill them all, which we’re nowhere even close to being able to
do.”

“No we’re not,” Greg said with regret.

“So if we can’t beat them, we’d be expanding for what
purpose?”

“To slow them down and to save worlds.”

“I sense a catch somewhere in there.”

“No matter how far we expand there will always be
somebody a little further away that the lizards are going to get. We can’t save
them all, so the question is how far
do we
push.”

“I hate those questions.”

“As do we.”

“And if we overextend we risk those under our current
protection.”

“That is the current dilemma,” Greg agreed.

Davis shook his head. “Sometimes I find I have to keep
reminding myself that we have an endgame here, because it looks like we’re
already beaten.”

“Not beaten, just not capable of winning. There’s a
difference.”

“It sickens me to see how there are so many places in
the galaxy that are just helpless to defend themselves. Against the lizards,
Skarrons, and whatever other dominant powers are out there. It’s like they’re
just sitting there waiting to be eaten.”

“When you’re at the top the view is a lot
more scary
.”

“I wish we had someone to turn to, and briefly I had
hoped the Nexus would be that someone, but we lie outside their domain and
they’re suffering from the same problem we are…the galaxy is just too damn
big.”

“That’s why we do what we can and try to not let the
fate of the others drive us insane…to that end, I’d give the go ahead on this
one,” Greg said, pointing to the small dot between the ADZ and Achkor. “I know
our original no-go line was the edge of Beta, but we’ve privately revised that
to reach out to the Voku. They’ve built up that planet so much that we don’t
want to leave them hanging, so we’re going to creep the border out there
eventually. You might as well bring that race, whoever they are, into the fold
now because we’re going to expand around
them
anyway
down the road.”

“Is that going to be our permanent line or is it going
to keep creeping closer to the core?”

“As much as we don’t like turning a blind eye to
anyone, we’re not setting up any colonies past Achkor. Whether or not we make
raids or put a few clandestine outposts out there is still up for debate, but
those would only reach so far. The mass of Skarron territory is beyond our
reach and will stay that way regardless of how strong we get. That’s a choice
we’ve made and we’re going to stick to it.”