Star Force: Shame (SF59) Read Online Free Page B

planet, and if the Skarrons wanted to rebuild it they could, but
they’d be starting from scratch. The region around that system was quickly
falling into the lizards’ hands, and even as the massive relief fleet moved
about to target some of those fallen systems it couldn’t get to them all. The
lizards would suffer heavy losses where it did go, but would retain so many
other new conquests that the tradeoff was worth it logistically down the road.

 
 
    3

 
 
    July 5, 2657
    Aeryn System (beyond
the ADZ)
    Point 14

 
    It had taken them nearly 15 months of travel, but
finally the Hevmaj jumpship arrived at the Star Force system and the small race
of bipeds were not disappointed with what they found. The system itself was
devoid of any habitable planets, but what the grand empire had built here was
beyond comparison…for they had created their own tiny worlds. Multiple metal
spheres sat in orbit around the native lifeless worlds, cementing Star Force’s hold
on the location that was emanating out their power to the surrounding region of
space.
    The Hevmaj had never encountered the empire before but
word of their deeds had spread far across the galaxy, traveling some 80
lightyears to a cluster of systems known as the ‘Benoid’ to the races that
inhabited it. They were a loose coalition of friendly neighbors that occupied 7
systems, all of which were no more than 4 lightyears apart from one another, creating
shorter spacelanes than what the surrounding region had and allowing the Hevmaj
and 9 other races to stay in contact and trade with one another.
    But word of the huge menace that was gobbling up
system after system had also spread to the Benoid, with the warning that they
were also in its eventual path. At first the Hevmaj had dismissed the rumors,
but then another race with which they were familiar, a more advanced one that
they both respected and trusted had confirmed the existence of the
Li’vorkrachnika and the unbeatable threat that they posed. Race after race and
world after world was being taken and destroyed with no one seeming to be able
to stop them.
    This terrified the Benoid, but given that it was still
a distant threat they had time to think and worry, looking for something to do
and realizing that there was no way that they were going to be overlooked as
some others had attested to being. They were smaller races than what the Benoid
contained, meaning they had no chance of being passed by when the
Li’vorkrachnika spread out to them.
    It wasn’t until several years later that the Benoid
started to hear rumors of some races putting up a fight and living to tell
about it. Searching out those rumors with a passion they later learned of the
ADZ…a sanctuary where many races had fled where the Li’vorkrachnika could not
go. That sanctuary was protected by an empire called Star Force, a name that
would soon be spreading to many races around the Benoid.
    It wasn’t until Star Force had set up a distant
outpost specifically to block the Li’vorkrachnika’s advance to the region where the Benoid was located did the Hevmaj even consider
trying to contact them, but with more and more reports of worlds falling
despite the protected regions that Star Force was patrolling the Benoid looked
to be on the eventual hit list regardless of how long they were delayed.
    The Hevmaj and the other races in the Benoid boasted a
very high population and did not have the option of evacuating, nor did they
have anywhere to go, so a solution had to be devised locally. With it becoming
clear that they couldn’t protect themselves they sought contact with their more
distant neighbors…from whom they learned that some of them were entering into
an Alliance with Star Force. Others were outright abandoning their homes to
relocate to their ADZ, and still a few denied the threat existed and chose to
do nothing.
    The Benoid couldn’t evacuate and they weren’t stupid
enough to let themselves become deluded to the point