Maty, Aer-ki Jyr [top 20 books to read .txt] 📗

and if they did there was no stopping their initial attack. So why build up a lot of unnecessary resources when you could better use them to intimidate and coerce your neighbors into servitude?

Rajamal and the other rebel cells had gathered a significant amount of intel on the J’gar and Oso’lon, but not from the inside. They had no more Zen’zat serving them, but they did trade with a number of other races. Races that could be surveilled and tracked, and from those interactions and the scout ships they had out snooping around their systems and following some of their own ships, Rajamal knew the weakened state the J’gar were in…but he hadn’t realized just how much until he’d come here 3 weeks ago and found it to be far less defended than he anticipated.

Their defense fleet didn’t even engage, retreating back underneath the intact shields and trying to evacuate certain individuals from the planet. Some got away, but most were forced back to the planet while others were intercepted and disabled. Some were destroyed entirely, though Rajamal did not like wasting useful ships.

But as he had learned two days ago, the evacuations of the ‘key’ personnel were a ruse designed to make the rebels think the planet didn’t hold much remaining value…when it did. Many of his Zen’zat served the J’gar at some point during their lives, and they knew their operating codes and procedures enough to poke around their comms and captured databanks until they found multiple references to the Didact being on planet.

After that Rajamal had ordered an extensive search, though the lair wasn’t that hard to find when you had access to their own planetary systems. There was a no-go zone around it labeled clearly, and Rajamal assumed the Didact was still there, for no evac ships had landed in that area of the planet-wide ocean.

And it was that area they were now bombarding, with most of their weaponsfire being eaten up by the water itself, but with small amounts getting down 2 miles deep and hitting the defense shields covering the Didact’s lair. It was an inefficient attack, but Rajamal did not have the specialized aquatic assault weapons that he had previously had when in service to the V’kit’no’sat. He had a lot less power than he once had, technological and manpower, but he was in command of his cell of rebels and took orders from no one…and often gave orders to the others who usually followed his lead.

They had all answered the call when he had given it for this attack, and if the Didact was down there he expected heavy reinforcements from the J’gar to begin arriving from far flung locations as they hurried back to get here. He hoped they could kill him before that.

But where weaponsfire was lacking, ingenuity could still prevail. Right now Rajamal watched as some of that ingenuity dragged asteroids from elsewhere in the system towards the planet with a few rebel ships expertly guiding their courses and speed so they would land on the planet in the precise spot they wanted. The first of those was hitting the atmosphere now and streaking down between the rebel fleet, which was positioned so accurately that the rock flew by harmlessly, despite the fact that it was some 29 miles wide and moving at decent, but not overblown speed.

But enough speed to smash into the atmosphere and illicit a short lived fireball as its outer shell cracked and pieces shot out in multiple directions…but the central mass held up all the way to the ocean and impacted 18 miles away from the Didact’s complex.

Rajamal inwardly cringed at the wanton destruction of all those in the water, but he reminded himself that the J’gar were ruthless and he couldn’t miss this opportunity for the sake of the denizens, whether they be J’gar or other races. He knew this world contained two others that the J’gar had coopted or enslaved, and right now many of them just died in the impact, though it wouldn’t be the last.

A tidal wave ensued along with the planetary crust cracking and what water remained in the depression hit the now exposed magma and exploded outward, creating geysers as the Didact’s lair had most of the water covering it dispelled as its smooth shields held up to the mass of water rushing over.

The orbital fire from the fleet never stopped, and now with the majority of the water shield gone the rebel’s firepower was getting through much better, and soon the shields…under the combined stress of the weapons and the previous tidal wave…collapsed and the thick armor beneath began to take hits, though it wouldn’t budge much as the water cooled the heated material immediately and kept it from hitting inferno levels.

The rebel fleet kept poking at it as some of the water back flowed into the depression that now had a giant mountain sticking out of the ocean and creating an instant island on the otherwise complete water world…but it wouldn’t be the last. And a little under an hour later the next asteroid hit, this one smaller at 13 miles wide, and it came down near the Didact’s lair and hit some 34 miles away.

Four more followed, ringing the lair and making a mess out of the planetary crust. Sensors could barely see the target, but as expected it didn’t break up from the indirect stresses, and it wasn’t until the orbital bombardment finally poked through the armored dome that Rajamal ordered it to cease.

Then the fleet moved down through the roiling, steam-filled atmosphere as a group, setting down into the water between new mountains and using their shields to hold back the diminished ocean while simultaneously pumping the rest out slowly, though there wasn’t much left at this point.

Cracks of lava were visible already where the crust had pushed up above water level, and the puddles that were left