The Selakhar Factor

[Ford Prefect]

This is a bit of fun with a race that is part of the great pangalactic story I just happen to be writing. Go ahead, read it if you'd like, insult me afterwards if it takes your fancy, lavish praise and gifts are always accepted.


The Selakhar Factor: Part the First


He stared ahead through a combination of his suit’s optical sensors and the telemetry that the Crawler supplied to him via the interface currently locked into his battlesuit. The light was fading and he had switched the Crawlers arclights on.

His partner was clearly bored. He was tapping one of his gold armoured fingers against the panel in front of him. It was making a soft ticking noise.

“Stop that.” He said “It bothers me.”

“Everything bothers you. Even with a twenty mile long Imperial battleship in orbit prepared to rain fiery destruction down on us, my tapping of the console bothers you.” He didn’t reply, and his partner started tapping the console again.

His name was not Vomals. His name was, for the human language, actually impossible to pronounce and impossible to write down. Vomals was just the name he had been given open becoming a Selakhar. Vomals had given up his perfectly healthy body to become crippled and augmented so that he could fight on land with the aid of his battlesuit.

You see, Vomals used to be an Ocenkari, one part of a once peaceful race of ocean dwelling race of tailed aliens. He wasn’t anymore. He was tailless, scarred and filled with machinery. He was impure, he was a warrior, he was Selakhar.

But this is not the place to describe the peculiar nature of the Ocenkari Imperium and its military corps. Suffice to say, the fifty thousand or so systems under their control were threatened by that mighty oppressor the Empire of far off Terra. This was one of thousands of frontline planets whose entire forces were dedicated to protecting what remained of the mighty interdictor generators which prevented Imperial fleets from simply slipjumping to Ocenkar and reducing it an oceanless rock.

Oddly enough, they were doing well. Despite the Empire’s overwhelming numerical superiority and better support hardware, and possession of the ultimate high ground. The imperial Army was yet to gain access to the mountain ridge which had the doors down into the main complex, thus keeping the system wide field up.

But Vomals was restless. The Imperial Fleet had ceased the celestial bombardment. Such a thing occurred when major military actions of the infantry kind were brewing. A push into the mountains? Perhaps.

It was at this moment that a neural disrupter hit the Crawler, sending impulses designed to block the Living Interface. It was highly effective at stopping such unshielded vehicles as Crawlers, and in recent times, cause pain to the driver.

It wasn’t fatal due to the countermeasures built into the system, but Vomals howled in pain, something he had learn’t to do only after join the Selakhar Corps. The Living interface disconnected and he struck the panel for opening his door and stepped outside.

His mechanical legs could not loose their footing, so he didn’t fall over. There was a throbbing pain at the base of his skull, but he raised his arms and immediately started scanning the area around him. Already the four Selakhar that were riding in the back of the Crawler were spreading out, two to each side of the vehicle.

The golden behemoths were perturbed, but they showed no sign of it. There were humans about and intimidation is among the best weapons the Selakhar had. Vomals headed to the side of the Crawler and found what he was looking for attached to the side of his transport. A blackened disk that hummed faintly. He yanked it off easily, then turned back around, doing some rough calculations in his head.

He raised his left arm and the plasma gun mounted on it.

“The scrub, eight degrees to your right.” Vomals said through the comm. He and his fellow Selakhar opened up, one burst from five guns, removing the scrub from existence. There was nothing there. Vomals crushed the disrupter in his hand and brought his second gun to bear.

“Vomals, I think you were wrong.” Lancs said dryly, which was difficult for a creature whose suit was filled with water. A mere moment later and suddenly Vomals could hear the crackle of human rifles firing, their nanite filled bullets launched by electromagnetic pulses.

Vomals huge armoured battlesuit was easily proof against these opening shots, though he knew at that moment trillions upon trillions of nanites were fighting on the surface of his armour. His armour easily had enough nanites to deal with a score or more human bullets before they were overwhelmed and the blasted human machines would be able to start eating his armour. So he fought back.

They advanced upon the human’s positions with frightening ease, twin guns firing blasts of terribly excited photohydrogen that was slowly melting the rock the humans were sheltering behind. Vomals became focused upon the half dozen soldiers he could see. The odds were good; Theen had reported six on the other side of the crawler. Two to one was not fair upon the humans.

They were scattering now, to make sure the weren’t massacred. Vomals saw long brown coats swirling, and he tracked the last on in the group, paused, then fired, catching him full the back. He spilt open and went sprawling, spilling an unnatural amount of blood across the reddish dirt.

The other two were behind cover now and Vomals began his advance again, when a roughly spherical object landed by his feet. It exploded and sent up a great plume of dust and clumps of dirt. Vomals kept on coming, their rifles doing him no harm, his weapons spitting purple death. His blasts finally made their mark, melting the scope off of one of their rifles and exploding his head in a shower of viscera.

Vomals was on top of his last target now, but before he fired the soldier rolled cleanly to the side, then opened fire again. The Selakhar turned to bring his powerful weapons to bear when the human jabbed his rifle forward, the bayonet attached to the end of its barrel punching easily through his right shoulder and into his flesh. He grunted with pain, then used his left hand to pull it out, yanking it easily from the soldier’s grasp.

He stepped forward as the soldier opened fire with his, no, her handgun. Vomals grabbed her hands and her gun in his left fist, lifted her off the ground, jammed his fist against her stomach and fired. He dropped what was left of her upper body, then turned to return to his comrades, to assist them if needed.

Vomals’ assistance was not needed, of course. He instead got Lancs to help him repair the bayonet wound in his armour, lest his water ran low.

Shez was the first to speak “That was force was too small.” He said simply.

“Indeed,” Theen agreed “We should move on. I feel a trap.”

They were boarding the Crawler when Vomals heard something. He looked down past the rear end of the Crawler, past Yed. He increased the magnification of through his visor.

“Leviathan!” he shouted, sounding the name of the Imperial Army’s mighty transport. Within were probably dozens of soldiers, and it had weapons powerful enough to kill a Selakhar with a single shot. Vomals wasted no haste in climbing inside his vehicle and interfacing with it.

The Crawler’s engine growled and it spewed up dirt in its haste to get away.

[Shroom Man 777]

Wow. That's really good!

[Companion Cube]

“Vomals, I think you were wrong.” Lancs said dryly, which was difficult for a creature whose suit was filled with water

Hehe.

Yeah, I found that entertaining.