Star Force: Hamoriti (SF62) (7 page)

The Hamoriti continued its seed laying without pause,
leaving more than a third of the planet dotted with craters before it finally
had enough. A year and a half after it first awoke and after yet another
successful minion destruction on part of the Li’vorkrachnika, the Hamoriti sank
down onto its huge legs, pulling them into its body and locking them in place
while tucking its neck and head down into the nook next to the front pair,
forming a rough egg-like shape. Using its biologically created anti-
grav
it rose up off the surface and very slowly headed out
of the atmosphere.

 
Both the Sety
and the Trinx fleets immediately began to redeploy, with the Li’vorkrachnika
waiting for orders before they did so as well. All three fleets moved aside and
kept well clear of the now living starship as it came up into orbit and
transitioned around the planet to the stellar jumpline, where it accelerated in
a slow lurch up to minimal microjump speeds and headed for the star.

At first they’d thought it was transitioning to one of
the other planets in the system, but once it took off on the stellar jumpline
the Sety cleared out of the star’s lowest orbits, wanting to be nowhere near
the thing for fear of it unleashing some unknown weapon against them. They did
drop a few probes in their wake and observed closely as the Hamoriti arrived at
the star, then moved around it until it came to the jumpline that it wanted.

With a not so subtle lurch the creature executed an
interstellar jump, heading out of the system at a speed far less than either the
Sety or the Trinx were capable of, but still faster than the primitive
Li’vorkrachnika ships.

With it passing out of monitoring range the Sety
calculated its path and speed, then transmitted that information to the fleets
of The Nine waiting in nearby star systems, giving them a heads up as to where
it was going and where they should not be five days from now.

7

December 9, 2725

Kilma
System (lizard
territory)

Nesmi

A trio of maulers were packed into a
kirby
full of standard variants lizards, all of whom were equipped
with the new vichsam rifles, but they were unarmed, so to speak. They were pure
brawlers, with two long blades extending from their arms that were presently
pulled back inside bone sheaths. In fact, the standard variants in the
kirby
with them were specifically here to escort the
maulers and get them to their target, for the fleshy minions the Hamoriti
produced responded well to the blades.

The
kirby
was flying along
with 129 others across the war torn landscape of the lizard planet, with virtually
every colony in the southern hemisphere having been at least damaged. Several
had been obliterated completely in the first days after the Hamoriti had
arrived and released its enormous cascading weapon, destroying everything
within radius. Fortunately it had only detonated three such attacks before
burrowing underground and digging deep into the core of the planet.

That had given the lizards and the Trinx some time
without having to deal with minions, but as they monitored the movement of the
creature in the molten core, or rather the Trinx did, they saw it eventually
come back up into the crust in another location. There it began spawning
minions below ground and out of range of the orbital bombardment that had been
picking them off with regularity for the past 2 years.

Immediately the Trinx had responded by burrowing holes
down into the crust at nearby locations. They lost a handful of ships initially
when the Hamoriti reached out from below and took control of them, but
realizing their mistake they sent vassal warships in to destroy their own kin,
then had those ships continue with the coring efforts. Their smaller size meant
less weaponry, which delayed the process considerably giving the Hamoriti’s
minions
time to grow and spread below ground as it moved
around carving out tunnels and hollows in the bedrock.

Once they had access points the Trinx send down an
army of vassals, ferried by some hastily modified cargo ships to remove the
need for living pilots. Programming both the ships and the vassals as best they
could, the Trinx sent them down to the holes in the crust they’d bored and
waited. The jamming field from the Hamoriti crept up again, keeping the Trinx
blind as to what was happening as the robotic soldiers deployed into the
underground caverns to hunt down and destroy the minions hand to hand.

Up until recently no one had known how effective they
had been, but then the Hamoriti had dropped its jamming as it decided to move down
through the core and over to the opposite side of the planet where it again
began burrowing into the crust. That put it outside the mental control range of
the first set of subsurface minions that were still engaging the few vassals
that remained, prompting the Trinx to order the lizard troops from the planet
down into the tunnels to fight hand to hand along with another batch of vassals
they sent down to augment their limited fighting capability.

As with every superior opponent, the lizard way to
beating them was to spam them with numbers and this reinforcement group was no
exception. They were headed to a small minion facility situated below ground,
and even though it wasn’t a seed structure it was a factory that was growing
something of importance and had to be destroyed. All the maulers knew was that
there were enemy troops there that they had to engage, and they were eager to
get their blades into the enemy flesh.

When the
kirby
eventually
landed, the bay door opened up on the starboard side and the standard variants
poured out into the nearly dark cavern. Daylight was not visible, for they had
flown down into the crust and were well away from the coring point now. The
only light available came from the kirbies and the standard bearers, which were
standard variant lizards carrying light poles. That gave the others just enough
to see by, in addition to the bright pink vichsam flares.

Those were visible ahead through a sea of bodies, with
the trio of maulers hopping out of the
kirby
a few
seconds before it lifted off and left the small landing area as more of the
lizard transports came down and delivered additional troops in a never ending
flow that would sooner or later overwhelm the minions. How much blood it would
require didn’t matter, they would get the job done so long as each of them did
at least a little bit of damage to the enemy.

And with their forearm blades the maulers would be
doing more than a little.

The trio held together, knowing they had a better
chance of taking down one of the minion soldiers in concert than solo, and
followed the standard variants as they fought their way forward, blocking
return fire with their bodies. That enemy weaponsfire couldn’t be seen, for it
didn’t produce any light. How the other lizards were being killed the maulers
didn’t know, but all they could see was the pink of the vichsam and the yellow
of the light rods marking the progression of various groups forward down the
nearly half mile-wide tunnel that the Hamoriti had previously carved out.

That left an enormous about of ‘land’ area, with
varied terrain rather than a smooth cut, for it seemed the beast had melted its
way through the rock and its massive footprints had made craters in the molten
material before it finished solidifying. Several of those craters were where
the minion structures were located, while others had been carved into the
sidewalls by the minions themselves.

These three maulers and the others the kirbies were
unloading were headed for one of the wall niches. They were almost there by the
time they reached the front lines, with the last two standard variants
proceeding them being dropped by high pierced ‘zips’ that ripped right through
their armored vests and detonated inside them, blowing the two bipeds apart
into a fleshy shrapnel spray.

The maulers didn’t hesitate, sprinting forward and
looking for an enemy to kill. They didn’t have to go far, for there were
several just ahead behind a carpet of lizard bodies. The headless, four-legged
walkers were three times taller than the maulers and appeared to be living
tanks, each of which had an orifice between their front legs that was shooting
out something that couldn’t be seen well in the dark, but everywhere one hit a
lizard would blow apart.

The minions were bleeding, that much was easy to see
because the blood was bioluminescent. Each time one of the little pink energy
packets hit the flesh of the creatures it would only do a pinprick of damage,
but the trickle of blood showing put a glowing target on the enemy for the
lizards to shoot at.

Or in the case of the maulers, to lunge for.

Already there were a few visible hacking away at two
of the minions, so this trio ran over the bodies of their fellow lizards and
jumped onto the legs of the closest one, extending their forearm blades in
midair and sinking them into the enemy on contact. They slid in surprisingly
well, but seemed to make no noticeable change to the minion’s movements, as if
while they were doing damage it was inconsequential.

That didn’t matter to the maulers, who pulled out
their blades and rammed them back in again, piercing hole after hole that saw rivers
of neon gray goo seep out. It didn’t flow like a liquid, but dripped in globs
that covered the maulers’ blades, making them appear like lightsabers as they
continued stabbing away at the enemy without any regard for their own survival.

Suddenly the mauler on the left blew apart from an
unseen weapon impact as the minion beside the one they were attacking turned
and removed one of the gnats from its fellow living tank. The thick, hard
biological armor on the maulers didn’t appear to even slow the enemy weapons
down, but the minions were vulnerable to the blades and that was all that
mattered. There would be more maulers to replace these three, so all the
remaining two focused on was causing more damage, with each blade thrust doing
the equivalent of 50+ vichsam shots.

For whatever reason the minions were more resistant to
energy fire than physical force, hence the lizards pushing mauler units against
them. The standard variants had done their job to get this trio to the minions
without them getting sniped down first, despite most of the standards dying in
the process, with the other few remaining drawing fire that would have gone to
the maulers.

The second one got hit by another side shot, with each
minion apparently not being able to shoot near its own legs. That was a
weakness that they were covering for with overlapping fire, but if the lizards
could isolate a minion then the maulers would own it.

That wasn’t for this one to worry about, for all it
was doing and thinking was jab, withdraw, and jab again. Covered with the
glowing blood it continued to do so until the minion’s leg finally gave out and
it tipped over…but it caught itself from falling and moved into a tripod
stance, with the limp leg hanging loosely between the other three.

The mauler sensed this and jumped from that leg to one
of the sturdy ones, but before he could sink his blades in his chest was hit by
a tiny, blurry energy packet that looked like little more than a wisp of wind,
but it passed through and into his chest, causing little damage. Somewhere
after entry that bit of energy altered into a vicious explosion, popping the
mauler from the inside out and throwing one of its now severed arms out to the
side where the forearm blade actually stuck into another minion’s torso like a
piece of shrapnel.

That minion ignored it and kept on firing, even as
more mauler trios were being escorted up into hacking range and tearing away at
its legs.

Back on the wider plains of the tunnel metallic
counterparts to the minions moved about along with the lizards, with the small,
fleshy troops trying not to get stepped on by the bipedal giants. Most stood 4
meters tall and had two large arms with weapons mounted in the forearms, but
they didn’t move like mechs or tanks. They moved like biologicals, the product
of more than a million years of refinement in hardware and software, capable of
operating without remote control but at the moment having that luxury since the
Hamoriti’s jamming field was not within range.

The tank minions were no match for a vassal one on
one, with their
gix
being stopped by intricate energy
matrix that the Ancients had left behind instructions for with the Oracles. The
Trinx version wasn’t as powerful, but it reduced the normally penetrative
energy packets cold, and with only a small hit to shield strength. That gave
them incredible longevity against the minions, though when the shields did
finally go down the armor beneath them would breach after three consecutive
hits in the same place.

The fourth would get through, then pop inside and
wreck the interior of the vassals. Some would continue to operate while others
would be taken out of the fight with one penetration. Regardless, the vassals
were killing dozens, if not hundreds of minions each. Trouble was there were
only a handful of them with this Li’vorkrachnika army, with the majority of the
vassals being taken to the other side of the planet to engage the minions
within range of the Hamoriti’s telepathy, to which they were immune.

Never the less, the few vassals were soaking up an inordinate
amount of weaponsfire, allowing many more of the tiny infantry to get to their
targets while also firing on and killing some of the tank minions themselves.
They couldn’t one shot a minion, but came close with their klixon cannons. They
were also a bit of tech left behind by the Ancients, and were an energy weapon
that took on physical properties, applying kinetic damage on impact. That
allowed a very high shot count without having to rely on ammunition rounds that
would require replacement after limited engagements.

It took two or three hits square on the rounded body
of the minions to take them down, and with a klixon in each arm with a cycling
rate of .73 seconds the vassals could literally mow down the minions if given a
chance. The problem was that, like the Li’vorkrachnika, the minions operated in
a swarm mentality. So far the fighting hadn’t gotten out of hand, due to the
limited number of minions being produced and the previous vassals having
trimmed their numbers handily, but they were savaging the Li’vorkrachnika who,
to no end, kept throwing more bodies at them in order to do even the slightest
bits of damage.

Eventually one of the infantry pushes got a
det
pack to a minion, blowing a leg off and killing six
maulers that were nearby in the process. That minion didn’t go down, rather
moving to a tripod stance like so many of the others, but the nearest vassal
turned and pumped two fairly long shots into the now stationary target. It
didn’t explode, but rather got the innards scrambled by the entry wounds that
failed to penetrate through and blow out the other side.

Gutted, but with the fleshy debris contained within,
the minion’s legs went slack and it fell to the ground, one less biological
turret for the allied infantry to deal with.

The Trinx controller who had altered the automated
attack program to hit the wounded minion made a note that the Li’vorkrachnika
needed to attach their explosives directly to the main body of the minions and
not the legs, then he sent the message to his commander and continued to tweak
the ongoing battle on his display where needed from orbit.

That suggestion was immediately considered by the
fleet controllers and found to be sound, so they sent it over to the
Li’vorkrachnika commander who likewise sent the information to the troops
en
route to the subsurface battles. Soon the new tactic
made its way to the front as the uninformed troops died out and the new ones
came in to replace them. The Trinx watched as their primitive allies adapted
quickly, with the explosive satchels being given to the mauler variants who
then ran underneath the minions and used their excessive musculature to jump up
and jab their forearm blades into the underbelly, fixing them in place.