Divide by Aer-ki Jyr

Author:Aer-ki Jyr [Jyr, Aer-ki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

6

July 17, 2946

Shaleth System (Voku territory)

Inova

Cal-com stood in his private oracle studying the recent data update the Preema had sent him. With it his galactic map, or rather only a tiny portion of the mind bogglingly large swirl, updated with another swath of yellow lizard dots being eliminated and tagged neutral grey that the Voku and their pact were tasked with monitoring and keeping clear of reinhabitation. The lizards were constantly trying to expand, even to the worlds they had lost less than 5 years ago. Cal-com had to keep everything under surveillance and his sweeper teams moving around constantly, else the hard fought gains that the Preema were racking up would ultimately be a loss.

Right now the damage they were doing, regardless of how many worlds the lizards colonized, was adding up. The Preema had the lizards beat badly and they knew it, but their empire wasn’t something that could be toppled swiftly. It had to be corralled and shrunken with care, which was a task beyond their current capabilities. While many fronts were being challenged and pushed back there were still regions where the lizards could expand freely. Right now the race to destroy worlds looked like it was winning out, but neither the Voku nor the Preema had eyes on every lizard system and there was no way to be certain where they all were.

If even one jumpship ran away from their territory, heading off into the galaxy in an unknown direction and traveling for 100 years before finding a quiet world to settle down on, they could regrow their entire empire from scratch. That was a threat that Cal-com was beginning to realize would never end. Like weeds growing in a field, all you could do was eradicate the ones you found and stay on the lookout for others. He had no hopes of eliminating the lizards entirely, though the Preema seemed to think it was possible.

The Dafchor felt that was naivety on their part, but the trick in the lizards gaining dominance wasn’t in hiding, it was in putting their territory in plain view and growing it. They might be nearly impossible to destroy completely but they couldn’t wield power without consolidating themselves, and when they did they made themselves a target for the Voku and others. If they could knock them down now, undo the centuries of mistakes that others had made that allowed them to grow this large and widespread, then he could count this mission a success.

To that end they were nearing an important milestone. Star Force’s push into lizard territory was functioning like a blunt knife blade that had reached to the centerline, not far off from the system Cal-com was currently situated in. There were several systems along that border under attack, but most of Star Force’s efforts were focused on breaking the link in the lizards’ primary supply chain while Cal-com’s fleet was hunting down their efforts to establish other ones and smuggle ships through unprotected systems.

In addition to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.