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

so, unless they were large enough to hold an Era’tran, and when they were the Hakja were sent in first.

These newly arrived enemies were large ones, according to the visuals of shattered ships and the cross sections of their visible interiors. The bodies free floating in space indicated Hjar’at-sized quadrupeds covered in hair and armor, but when Iren’tar pushed through the temporary airlock his drop pod had covered the bore hole it had just made in the captive warship with, he immediately came under fire from three of the hairy individuals.

His armor’s shields held up well as he charged out ahead of the Zen’zat that would follow behind his tail, head butting one of the opponents as he twisted and rotated his tail around to slap another before firing stun blasts from the gauntlets on his smaller arms as his armor scanned the new opponents automatically and updated him to its findings on the battlemap.

The Hakja’s mind was Sav-enhanced and able to do more than one thing at once, even in hand to tail combat, and he immediately recognized that these opponents were not wearing armor…they were in fact cyborgs, and he adjusted his weaponry accordingly.

His stun cannons altered into technological disruptors, and after physically bashing their personal shields down he rendered the three inactive without landing any serious blows. The Era’tran left them to the Zen’zat for containment as he moved off through the ship searching for more targets and gradually working through the entire crew single-handedly, finding them far less capable in personal combat than their warships were in the naval variant.

Rounding them up into holding pens was the hardest part, for the Zen’zat could not easily move them on their own and his own Lachka had its limits, so he prioritized the Zen’zat to keep them sedated in their current positions as he personally chose one and put his foot on its chest, looking down into its mole-like eyes as he peered inside telepathically…but he found nothing but technological buzz.

That was also typical of cyborgs, for the biological tended to mirror the technological in rhythm, but Iren’tar stuck with it and eventually began to make sense out of the snippets he could identify.

They were hunters who roamed the galaxies, traveling Core to Core and harvesting the Megaloids for their own uses. Trophies for some. Biological components for others. But primarily they were interested in drawing out rare minerals from their bodies that their technology was based on. Minerals that could be harvested from stars, but the far quicker route was to kill those who had already accumulated them in their bodies.

Their entire civilization was based around this hunting, as they were nomadic and never possessed planets. Their primary ships were not here yet. Only the skirmishers. The other ones…

“Mak’to’ran,” Iren’tar said, sending a message out through the battlemap but knowing it wouldn’t arrive quickly enough to get a live response. “These are only the first wave. Larger ships carrying their population will arrive later, after heavier warships arrive to clean up whatever the skirmishers can’t handle. They do not possess Essence, but have suicide vessels to take down superior opponents with neutron rendering cascades. I advise you adjust shielding accordingly…”

Mak’to’ran stayed in the danger zone with his fleet for days, intercepting the incoming ships and destroying them with such regularity that he was hoping they would respond to the transmissions being sent on their own frequencies in their own language, but none responded or relented. Not a single Kafcha had been destroyed, and since they were not using drones they did not have an attrition rate issue…only one of power and ammunition, with convoys coming out from Zatria carrying replacement fuels and canisters of exotic particles that were mixed with some of the energy weapons.

That meant Mak’to’ran could stay here almost indefinitely as long as his supply planets kept producing and shipping out what they needed, and in truth he was more worried about being rammed by one of the Megaloids still coming in on this sector, for they often came very close to the black hole before fully braking. Three near misses had already occurred with his fleet, but he couldn’t abandon this position without leaving the arriving Megaloids to be killed by the new arrivals who went by the name Psodos…though they wouldn’t respond to it.

Mak’to’ran kept waiting for their more advanced warships to show up, but they didn’t arrive for 3 more weeks only to find that their entire fleet that had come through up until that point was destroyed save for a few ships Mak’to’ran had preserved. He immediately sent out transmissions to the new warships, which were not only larger but far more elongated, looking like sharks with a tapered nose, but the only response he got was a very long range energy beam that slammed into the DinoThunder’s shields.

And it hit hard…far harder than it should have at that extreme range, drawing the first inkling of respect from Mak’to’ran, for up until this point the Psodos had been unimpressive. The V’kit’no’sat leader responded with a standard Tar’vem’jic of his own, hitting the lead warship in the nose and holding there for a few seconds before burning through and eviscerating half the ship.

“All offense, no defense,” Mak’to’ran growled, annoyed at the audacity of this race. It was typical of many hunters who never expected to become the hunted. But coming from an empire who was designed to hunt and kill Hadarak Wardens at great cost of blood and metal, building weak ships was not an option, and he found these ‘hunters’ did not deserve the title. They were butchers and carnivores, with no nobility to their designs or tactics. The Psodos expected to win, and did not know how to adjust to an enemy that was superior to them other than to ram them with explosives.

The aforementioned suicide ships came from behind the heavy warships, racing towards