Maty by Aer-ki Jyr (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📗

it themselves, but a blast from the ‘liquefier’ cleaned it out entirely, yet the Kel’zat was too big to go up to the top, though Kyra could see through its sensors the shield dome up top covering it…and sensing when it suddenly became opaque and hard, blocking out the Hadarak beyond as the Kel’zat gave the order without her telling it to.

Then it inquired as to their next objective. Kyra’s biological eyebrows raised inside her faceplate, wondering again how such programing could behave like a living being, but her task wasn’t to wonder. It was to secure Tovi and survive until Nevantha could return with reinforcements. And to that end, she signaled the Kel’zat to move to the next closest entrance and repeat the purge and seal process that only one at the location could enact, for Tovi was informing her he had no remote command over the shield gates covering the entrances.

The Gahana had engineered this place for lack of central command. Meaning you had to be physically at certain locations in order to operate them. That was why the Hadarak didn’t have access to most of the system and potential of this complex.

And that also explained why they had been branching out tendrils in certain directions. They couldn’t have discovered this place that long ago, otherwise they would have infested the entire facility by now…

No, the Kel’zat told her, for somehow it was monitoring her mind. Certain areas of the complex had automated purging protocols if certain codes were not given. The Hadarak could not spread to the entire facility without those codes.

Kyra ran a timestamp analysis on the available records, realizing the Hadarak had been here for years, but not millennia. This was a new find, but they were already using it to create surveillance drones, interstellar-class, that had a cloaking technology that defied PanNari science…and probably Star Force’s as well if they hadn’t picked up this monitoring before. And if they had they would have shut it down and the efficiency of Hadarak movements in the cataloged area would have decreased again.

And it hadn’t.

But why would the Hadarak be able to interface and create these machines if the rest of the complex was off limits?

The Kel’zat answered that as well, telling her that this place had access available for biologicals, but only so far in that they could see data. Weapons and other systems were not the privilege of the public.

That was when something from before collated. Nevantha had offhanded mentioned it, but she was so overloaded she hadn’t realized what he had meant in his summary.

This place was a library, meant for public access to the machine and biological races of this region of the galaxy to utilize. And the Hadarak were being allowed to do just that within the confines of the facility’s purpose.

And clandestine monitoring of systems without their knowledge was essential in maintaining the peace between civilizations with less than honest disclosures.

The Gahana had been a machine race of peacekeepers. Wiped out by a cataclysm…something to do with the Core of the galaxy. Some spike of radiation that would erase their hard drives and kill them. Many had died, and the rest fled. Leaving behind this Library…and others…for the biologicals to use.

But the PanNari were not biological. At least not the Elloquim. And that’s why Nevantha had been given essentially full access.

And if they could step in and assume the mantle of the Gahana, they would inherit everything they left behind…which was far more advanced than their technology now.

A very biological shiver ran down Kyra’s spine again as it finally sank in how important this was, above and beyond denying it to the Hadarak and discovering another machine race. This was a potential leap forward for the PanNari if they could hold onto it…and it was going to take more than one Elloquim to do it even if the Hadarak didn’t send reinforcements from other systems.

And they would.

Which meant the PanNari’s part of the push to the Core was going to happen early, and this system had just become the more important in the galaxy for them.

And they weren’t going to lose it.

4

May 3, 154958

Jamtren System (V’kit’no’sat Capitol)

Holloi

Mak’to’ran didn’t like being away from the Grand Border. His destiny was in combat there, but in order to lead the V’kit’no’sat in their mandate to defend Star Force’s inner border, he had to do a great many more things that lead a fleet in combat against the Hadarak…which he did often, but by design the Grand Border took care of itself with each individual system being fully capable of holding its own in most cases.

In the cases where that was not so, a reinforcement system had been established that would respond immediately from nearby strongholds and roaming fleets. Mak’to’ran had made sure not to have a static map of forces for the Hadarak to somehow ascertain, for their intelligence-gathering still eluded him. They knew too much, and there was no chance of saboteurs and spies on the Grand Border. Everyone there was elite V’kit’no’sat from all of their 194 races, each of which was tasked with a piece of the Grand Border to hold on their own or in groups. And they had held it intact from its inception to this day, denying the Hadarak their continuing carnage and protecting all of the Rim and half of the Core.

But they were savvy, and Mak’to’ran’s job had not been an easy one. If continual adjustments were not made, breakthroughs would have occurred long ago. The pressure on the boarder was continually increasing as more and more units were being drawn from other galaxies. But at the same time the Star Force pressure was also gradually increasing, and sooner or later one side was going to grasp and cripple the other. Mak’to’ran knew it had to be Star