Chala Centauri

The Best Laid Plans

"We have detected a Berg presence nearby, Sir."

This, Caden directed to his commanding officer, General Zivan Hal. Zivan was one of the most senior officers in the military and Cade had been placed under his command since the age of thirteen. Up until then he had been raised with the other younglings in a secret underground facility separate from their military age family members. Caden had only met his father and mother a handful of times over his life span but his elder sister Ayalia had been part of the teaching staff at the facility and had looked out for him. He had not seen his parents or sister in almost a decade. His family since age thirteen had become his unit and his commander. Zivan had been the father figure Caden had never had and he held great respect for the older Halveri man.

Zivan nodded at the young Halveri prince, if in name only, "Then, they have taken our bait as expected. You have your orders, Caden. Get the ordinance ready and your team in position to vanish into the four winds once the deed is done."

Caden saluted and left to make his way to his twenty-five man platoon, hidden strategically amidst rock outcroppings ten minutes south of the General's temporary operating base. Zivan held command over seven other similar platoons hidden within twenty-minutes of the base in various locations. In a war with an enemy as superior as the Berg, the only real tactic available to them were lightning quick attacks on lone Berg cruisers lured to a select position before scattering their troops into hiding - guerilla warfare the General called it.

Every platoon comprised warriors from each of the three races, the Halveri and Falmari soldiers comprised their ground troops while the Saltari provided aerial support. However it was by no means an equal number, the majority of warriors were of the Falmari as the Saltari were the first to be targeted by the Berg because of their aerial capabilities and the Halveri people were nearly wiped out when the Berg drained the oceans dry. The Halveri people only survived due to the presence of several deep underground lakes far beneath the planet crust which served their needs. A Halveri youngling needed daily full immersion in a water source in order to survive for the first five years of life, most could survive with orally ingested liquids thereafter and by the age of ten, a youngling was able to live without fluids for three solar days before system collapse.

The Saltari people had not fared as well and their numbers were dwindling, their tower cities had been destroyed early on and without access to free open air spaces, their younglings never developed the musculature to allow their wings to extend much less to fly - because of it many Saltari younglings sickened and died before their first decade of life. It was the greatest despair and tragedy of his Saltari brothers.

Their people had only found one underground cavern, deep enough and wide enough to allow for the rearing of Saltari younglings, its location became the site of their underground nursery facility and was the most closely guarded Chalusian secret.

If that base fell, the Saltari would grow extinct and without the symbiosis that their three people provided to the war efforts, both the Halveri and Falmari would soon fall.

Early on in the war, they had found that their telepathic links to each other could be forged into a weapon, three different Chalusian minds, working as one could overpower, incapacitate and even kill a Berg, but the Berg were legion and the peoples of Chala few. Somehow the Berg also found a way to track them using their own telepathic communications and had used this to locate and destroy many of their initial emergency shelters. Those that survived were deep underground and they realized that the crust of their homeworld could be used as a shield in places where the caverns were deep enough. In the two hundred years since, the Chalusian had carved out tunnel systems deep underground which they utilized for retreat after their frequent hit and run attacks. While above ground, their telepathy was avoided at all costs to keep hidden unless they were using it to stage an ambush as they were now.

Caden ensured he was hidden between the folds of a rock outcropping before opening his mind and speaking into those of his fellow soldiers.

'Prepare for attack - hold positions until the Chalver has been deposited then focus on my order. Ander, the Chalver is yours.'

Anderia Cha'sal was his best friend and they had been bunkmates since he was six. She and Galeria, both also displaced children of the Imperial line, had been a year or two older, but they had all become friends so that Gal and Ander were like sisters to him now more than friends. When they could have remained in the nurseries protected as teachers and potential mothers of the next generation of the Imperial line as was offered to any females willing to bear younglings for the propagation of their species, both women had refused and chosen to stay by his side and become part of a military unit. It had only been allowed because they had sisters of their own who had already chosen the life of a carer in the nurseries so the lineage was secure.

Though he wished they had stayed safe, he could not honestly admit that he was not also glad to have them with him when he had to wage war against Gods. Both smart and strong, Ander was stealthy and shrewd where Gal was strategic and fierce so Ander had quickly advanced to the platoon's lead scout while Gal currently served as his second in command.

Ander and her two Saltari comrades took possession of the Chalver from Gal and made their way to the highest point for them to launch.

'May The Unity protect you all.' This was Gal's battle cry sent wide to all within range and the last words before every fight, the final lure for the nearby Berg cruiser.

Indeed the only faith we had left was in The Unity, the three-fold power of our races channeled through the Chalver, a stone mined deep within the veins of the world that amplified our telepathic connection. It was hard to come by, but with the Chalver in place near or aboard a Berg vessel, twenty-five Chalusian minds could overpower twenty-five Berg minds long enough to crash their ship.

We waited in silence thereafter for the first visual sign of the enemy, we could always feel their presence even if we could not penetrate their thoughts one on one and they were just out of sight.

Caden glanced at Ander's hidden position and held up both hands to signal her a ten-count. Halveri minds were the best at telepathic communication and my own extra-sensory perception the most highly attuned thanks to my bloodline so he could accurately sense a Berg ship up to an hour before it arrived. At ten seconds, the weight of their presence was overwhelming and completely engulfed his senses.

It was only as the nausea began that he stiffened and recognized the wrongness of his knowing. He opened his mind a fraction more and let the knowledge take shape until understanding dawned into horror, a horror reinforced as the Berg ship came into view.

It was no Berg cruiser, this vessel ten times that size housing ten times their number and advancing on his twenty-five man platoon was a Berg fortress. There was no way to take down that ship, Caden knew it and from her grim stare, twenty yards away, so did Gal. She nodded before sending out one word on a full span message, 'Retreat!'

Caden held his position as his men silently scattered. Ander and her two man squad would be the last, being the furthest away and he would never leave his sister behind.

Ander was ten steps away from his position when the first Berg emerged, her rear guard was twenty steps away and was the first to be unmade.

Author's Note:
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