Gateways by Aer-ki Jyr (world of reading txt) 📕

Soon the entire ship shifted into Star Force blue with bits of white mixed in for a very bright, but not overwhelming interior.

What is your name? it asked the trailblazer.

My name is Amir-060, and if you do not have one, is it alright if I give you one?

As you wish, Master Amir, it said, with him feeling its emotions much clearer here, where it didn’t have to work to transmit them. It was as if being inside put him within its brain, for he was feeling everything it did and thought, with no filters. Amir could block it out if he wanted, but the Nightcrawler apparently had no secrets from its Masters and operated as an open book to those inside it.

I will call you Nemo, after a little lost fish. I may not be your original Master, but you are home now. Time to heal and tell me many stories of the others. Can you do that?

I cannot heal all my damage. I require your repair. But I can show you many stories. My memories are not damaged.

Alright, Nemo. I’ll find a way to fix you, or the Jedein outside will. Tell me of your last mission and the purge…

9

July 27, 158403

Megatron Prime 37 System (Galactic Core)

Periphery

Roger-009 stood in the command nexus onboard his new Borg vessel Sharkhammer with no one around him. The bridge was some three decks lower in the ship, yet he was in constant communication with it as he stood next to his Astromech alcove, not yet ready to meld with it, for the heavy combat had not yet begun.

His fleet of 239,391 warships or larger vessels was sitting very far out in the system, and given the gravitational silhouette of the supermassive black hole, you could fit hundreds of ‘regular’ star systems in the volume contained here, meaning they were very far away from the dark star at the center and the Hadarak growths surrounding it. They had entered at this distance on purpose, because such a fleet could not arrive quickly and emerging close to the black hole was a death sentence unless you were very lucky and very fast, for all manner of traps lay there, including Essence ones, for any non Hadarak attempting to pass through.

And Roger’s fleet was only one of several in the system, all of which were grouped at different locations. Altogether there were 12,733,289 Star Force warships here, and that wasn’t counting drones. When you added them in, you came up with nearly 1.6 billion vessels commanded by 39 trailblazers, 6 Grand Admirals, 293 High Admirals, and with all of the original 100 Clans present. In addition there were 13,429 Veloqueen in full battle armor here with nearly full Essence wells, biological and technological.

Amongst the Star Force ships were Varkemma fleets, with ships crafted in the Temples and filled with Essence gathered from the Vargemma who lived there. Bsidd fleets were here. Calavari. Paladin. Protovic. Kiritas and Kiritak. Kvash. H’kar. Irondel. Trinx. Elarioni. And over 8,000 other Factions and Sub-Factions.

There were no V’kit’no’sat ships, for they were holding the other Gateways that had already been taken in centuries past. The amount of military resources required to make an assault on one was so massive it took time to rebuild, restock, and recharge afterwards even if the combat went well. The Hadarak had been in this galaxy for so long they’d had time to heavily fortify it, not just with massive numbers, but infrastructure capable of utilizing Essence weaponry, and this black hole was ringed with the thorny growths, as were the planets here bathed in the light of a few remaining stars that hadn’t been sucked into the massive pit in the center…a massive pit that was shooting off energy streams from the poles with such force that even Roger’s brand new Borg vessel outfitted with the latest shields and Essence enhancements could not survive direct contact with the flow being ejected by the black hole’s magnetic field.

Nor could the Hadarak, and they stayed away from those two areas, both above and within the black hole where Star Force could not go. Nor could the 18 Jedein accompanying the invasion fleet, for their bodies were not strong enough to survive the crushing pressures in the depths…but the Hadarak could, as could the Uriti who were here to escort the Jedein. Both could freeze enemy minions that came within proximity to them, and in the Jedein’s case they could even take control of them if they were near, but the system was so massive even their powerful telepathic presence could only affect a tiny portion of it, so they were here for special use applications only, and not the slaughter that was about to come.

Roger had been through this level of attack 16 times before. 16 times had Star Force mounted an assault on this galaxy’s Gateways, and 16 times they had won after years of battle, and he did not expect this one to go any quicker. Already word had gotten out that they were here and Hadarak reinforcements were streaming in from some local jumplines in the form of Mainline warships and minion carriers that could move faster than the Wardens, many of whom were down inside the black hole, but there were enough above it to control the minion fleets here that were feeding off the infrastructure like grazing cattle as it grew the fuel to sustain them.

And that fuel was coming up from the black hole from the two spouts, with collectors nearby but not directly in the stream absorbing it and transporting it slowly through the web-like network across the system. The minions would then dock on that infrastructure and eat what grew there, not killing the infrastructure, which was actually people born into that static form, and it was those people that Star Force would have to