Star Force: Hamoriti (SF62)

1

March 2, 1203559 BC

Prenthor
System

Qitor

“
How much time
do we have?
”

“
The Oracle
estimates no more than 3 days, and should we pass that line there will be
little for us to do to stop it. We must have your machines now.
”

The Trinx shook its headtails in dismay. “
You may well have doomed us all
.”

“
Can you not get
them here in time? Your colony is less than 2 lightyears away
.”

“
I have brought
them with me, and more are on their way, but if greater numbers are required
they may not arrive in time
.”

The Sety twisted its branch-like neck and adjusted its
breath mask when it slipped ajar. “
How
many have you brought?
”

“
I have brought
all that I could. Let us hope it is enough
,” the biped said as he and the
wooden quadruped stepped into a secure lift that would take them to the
provisional command center 90 kilometers away from the excavation site. “
70,000 are on their way now
.”

“
To where? They
cannot come within close proximity…
”

“
To the
rendezvous point, I am no fool
.
You
and your clumsy people have claimed that title
.”

“
The Oracle had
not deciphered our language in time to give a proper warning. There was no way
for us to know.
”

“
If you had
waited for The Nine this would not have occurred
.”

“
We are allies,
not blood brothers…and this was our find
.”

“
And yet here we
are
.”

“
I do not deny
that the Sety cracked the case, but had any of you been here I do not believe
circumstances would have been any different. It is at this moment irrelevant.
If we do not sedate and reseal we are as good as dead
.”

“
That I have
been made well aware, and not just because of your clumsy attempts prior to my
arrival
,” the Trinx said as the doors on the lift opened and the pair
walked into the medium-sized circular room that held the other expedition
leaders from The Nine. They were an old alliance that kept mostly to themselves
unless great danger befell one of the others, then all would rally without
question and come to the
besieged’s
aid…as they were
now, though the threat was not only to them but the whole of the galaxy.

“
Finally
,” the
Bpret
said, shifting from a biped form and into a
quadruped as it walked a few steps towards the arriving pair, with its almost
clear gelatinous form causing the holograms behind it to bend as the light
passed through the tall creature, the largest of the group. “
Did you bring them?
”

“
They are on the
ships heading across the surface now
,” the Trinx said, stepping around the
shapeshifter to get a look at the master holo in clarity. “
Have you produced sufficient chemical?
”

“
We are not
producing it, the Oracle is
,” another of The Nine said, this one a cyborg.
“
We are merely supplying the rare
materials. It has been costly, but the Oracle has assured us that we have
enough, it is the delivery mechanism that we are lacking
.”

“
Your people
were killed on approach?
” the Trinx asked, looking at the hologram of the
huge excavation site buried deep below the planet’s surface. A vertical shaft
ran straight down to it with a series of spiral infrastructure platforms
meandering down the chasm like a staircase, on top of which a large number of
icons were emblazoned.

“
We don’t know
,”
the Sety answered. “
When they pass within
range their minds betray them. They drop the canisters and stand still as
statues. The people we sent to assist them suffered the same fate.
”

“
What range?
”

“
It was 2.3
kilometers at the outset, but it has grown to 2.8 at present. The more the
creature wakes the greater the field
.”

“
What type of
field are we talking about?
Latku
stun or
verisas
?
”

“
Neither
,”
another of The Nine said. “
We have sensed
a massive telepathic aura around the god. We think it is taking control of
their minds rather than emitting a biological stun. That is why we need your
machines.
”

“
Psionic?
”
the Trinx asked in disbelief. “
Why was I
not told this before?
”

“
We were not sure.
We are still not sure, but recently have made several deductions
.”

“
The Yisv only
arrived two days ago
,” the Sety said defensively.

“
Why haven’t you
simply launched a missile?
”

“
Do you think we
haven’t tried? Any fast moving objects are intercepted. The Oracle says it’s a
primitive defense mechanism
,” the Sety half argued. He was filled with a
mixture of shame and fear, but the
Trinx’s
criticism
wasn’t helping and only wasting time. “
The
slow moving attempts we made were equally blocked with some form of point
defense, but the Oracle assures us that with sufficient numbers it can be
overcome.
”

“
Is there enough
chemical to survive those losses?
”

“
Unknown
,”
the cyborg answered. “
We have encased
them in protective shells that must be opened manually upon arrival. Our remote
signals are not penetrating to the surface of the creature. There is a jamming
field that is likewise expanding
.”

“
The Oracle says
it is a shield, but one that physical matter can pass through. If it wakes up
any further that shield will become a barrier that we will not be able to
breach short of weaponsfire on a level that the Oracle assures us will be
enough to fully awaken the creature, so we must sedate it now or we will lose
our only chance of redeeming this mistake. You must send your machines with the
canisters immediately, there is no more time for talk
.”

“
You are putting
a lot of faith in this Oracle
.”

“
Should we not?
”
the Sety questioned. “
The Ancients left
it here to safeguard against a breach and to teach others how to continue to
subdue the beast. I see no reason not to trust the program at its word.
”

“
I know a bit
more about software than you do
,” the Trinx scoffed, for their entire army
was made up of drone warriors. They could be ordered to act remotely, but they
could also follow scripts that in this case would be necessary if there was a
jamming field around the body.

“
We also concur
with the Oracle
,” the cyborg agreed, trumping the software experience
tenfold.

“
Very well, I
just hope it will be enough
.”

“
You must order
your machines not to return fire
,” another of The Nine cautioned. “
Any attack will hasten the awakening
.”

“
So noted
,”
the Trinx acknowledged. “
Where do we
stand on repairs to the containment shell?
”

“
78% complete
,”
the cyborg answered.

“
Will that be
enough if we deliver the sedative now?
”

“
We have no
choice but to deliver it now
,” the Sety argued.

The Trinx held up warning finger towards the walking
tree. “
I need to know if we’re going to
have to fight multiple runs to continue sedating the creature or if this will
be a single endeavor
.”

“
A partially
successful sedative attack will delay the awakening
,” the smallest of The
Nine said, walking around the rim of the hologram where the 13 inch tall
triped
perched. “
A
full dose should return it to slumber sufficient for the shell to keep it
subdued long enough for full repairs to be made. So even if we fail,
so
long as we get some sedative to it we will extend our
timeframe.
”

The Trinx nodded his thanks for a pithy answer. “
Very well, I will throw everything we have
at them. Let us hope it is enough to at least delay this catastrophe until more
of our forces arrive
.”

Deep inside the chasm the Sety had excavated down to
the shell, there was an aperture that allowed access to the inner shell, and it
was there that the rendezvous point was. That gap between the two was a mix of
empty space and the machinery that made up the containment device that kept the
massive creature dormant, for it was so powerful that the Ancients had not been
able to destroy it. They had managed to subdue it with a chemical, but any
attempts to kill it once sedated only canceled the effect, waking it up again
to the demise of any around.

Not finding a way to kill the creature, they had
chosen to imprison it here and built the shell to both maintain the sedation
through a continuous dosage as well as to inform anyone who found it of the
dangers and how to keep the creature dormant. The Sety had uncovered the
Ancient artifact and entered in exploration, encountering the Oracle who had
tried to prevent them from access. Thinking it was merely a test the Sety had
broken through the walls preventing them from reaching the huge internal region
that the inner shell protected.

There was no door there that they could find, so the
Sety had cut through a section of the 60 kilometer wide ‘egg’ and entered,
crossing over to the centerpiece only to be rebuffed and ill from the attempt.
A few died shortly thereafter but all made it out, after which they began to
study what was inside from afar and set up an observation post at the breach
point, keeping themselves far from the creature at the center that at first
appeared to be a massive stone.

Whatever was making them sick had occurred within a
hundred meters of it, but now the landscape around the creature in the center
was littered with a living forest of mostly Sety, but a few other races were
there as well from those who later had sent teams in only to have them get
caught up in the paralytic psionic field that was continually expanding
outward.

The Yisv were monitoring its size and strength with
their own psionics, and were the only race within The Nine that possessed that
ability. They were situated far from the field, knowing not to risk closure,
for the intensity was so massive that a mere brush with it could kill them on
contact. They knew little about it, but the Oracle had been forthcoming with a
great deal of knowledge…yet most of it was far beyond their understanding.

What the program was clear about was the timetable,
for the longer they delayed the quicker the creature would wake up, for the
damage the Sety had done when cracking the inner shell had diminished the
ability of the facility to continually sedate the monster. Once sedated again
by a massive dose, the Oracle would be able to use the raw materials that were
being provided to it to fully repair the shell, as the Ancients had designed
the program to be able to do, and keep the
unkillable
threat contained even in their absence.

What had happened to the Ancients was a mystery that
not even the Oracle knew, but their relics were highly valued amongst The Nine
and others. They took the warning from them at face value, for an enemy too
powerful for the Ancients to defeat was one that they could not begin to handle
themselves. So it was with little skepticism that The Nine followed the
instructions of the Oracle to the letter, though while it was able to answer
questions and offer warnings, it did not have a method of delivery for the
chemical beyond the slow continual dispersion that was now inadequate, leaving
it up to The Nine to come through in that regard.

Had they acted sooner they could have walked right up
to the side of the living mountain and applied the chemical, but the Sety had
wasted so much time floundering around that the Ancients’ bane had woken
sufficiently to begin throwing up subconscious defenses…and the limited
weaponsfire the Sety had applied before the Oracle warned them off had only
hastened the reawakening.

The reprogramming of the Trinx troops hadn’t taken
long to accomplish, so the bipedal machines standing approximately 3 meters in
height entered the inner shell through the shrinking breach point as the
Oracle’s army of tiny
technomites
gradually rebuilt
the machinery that the Sety had unwittingly damaged. The Trinx ‘vassals’ each carried
in their arms a container of orbs, which were akin to a squishy seed about the
size of a melon, and marched them out onto the large plain around the creature,
not in a column, but in a wide line on the counsel of the Oracle.

When they reached the invisible barrier they passed
through it, subsequently losing their telemetry link back to the Trinx
controllers and leaving them to operate entirely on their own internal
programming now.

A bit closer the tiny specs of the vassals came under
attack from various points on the mountainside of the sleeping creature.
Reacting to the movement small deformations appeared and sprouted sporadic nubs
that charged up with energy and began emitting a few lightning strikes out at
the vassals, hitting two or three with each attack. The machines literally
disintegrated with the hits, dropping the canisters that hadn’t been blown apart
with them, who fell like baskets of apples, spilling the seeds across the
synthetic ground.

The rest of the vassals marched onward, taking hits
but advancing their line continually until they finally reached the side of the
creature. There they opened the baskets and began picking out individual seeds
to hurl at the beast, breaking their soft shells and spilling the semi-liquid
onto the creature’s rock-hard skin. Somehow the substance that the Oracle had
produced soaked into and was almost consumed by the rock, disappearing entirely
after lingering a handful of seconds.