Star Force #41-60
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Anthology containing: Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (41-44) Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (45-48) Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (49-52) Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (53-56) Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (57-60)
Publisher: Archon Lore
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

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1

February 22, 2465

Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

Star Force Warship Tassadar (Mid-jump)

Kip stood in front of his command chair watching the system holo as the Tassadar moved from its null orbit towards the 8th planet’s innermost moon. The jump itself was a tricky one, with the warship having to yank hard on the system’s gravity wells to get suitable momentum, given that it wasn’t camped out around any of them. Still, an insystem jump was far slower than an interstellar one, but it was something that the drone warships would have trouble making without the Tassadar giving them a lift.

Kip had ordered a slower than normal jump anyway, coordinating with the other 6 warships enroute across the system via timestamp orders that would take away the time lag. With their shipboard clocks synchronized, they could lay out a battle plan to the second even if their active communications didn’t cycle that fast across the billions of kilometers of distance that made up the Krichjan System.

Kip had wanted the slower transit so that the Tassadar would have time to unload a significant portion of its drone warships enroute, whose own gravity drives would then brake against the target gravity wells. Such braking was easy…it was the acceleration from beforehand that was not, thus the need to disperse them in transit. The other warships were not doing the same, leaving the potential catch to the Tassadar alone. Should one or all of the five Skarron ships get away, the others could chase them without having to gather up their drone fleets, as the Tassadar would need to do, putting the emphasis of this intercept squarely on the trailblazer’s flagship.

The larger drone warships Kip kept inside the jumpship’s hull, it was the smaller ones, the cutters, corvettes, and frigates that he dispersed, for they were the fastest and best suited to tracking the Skarrons if they did jump out, giving the rest of the fleet a beacon to follow. The trouble was, those ‘trackers’ would be on automatic pilot once they made the jump…at least until one of the control ships arrived within comm range.

But that wasn’t the only reason Kip was deploying them. One trick Star Force had learned about keeping an enemy ship in place was to block its jumpline with another. That was hard to do if the enemy had differential gravity drives and nearby moons to push off of, which they did in this case, but the closer he could position a blocking ship the greater the angle off the primary jumpline would be required for a clean escape.

And if the enemy wanted to ram his blockers…well, they were the smallest of his ships anyway, and he’d be willing to make the tradeoff.

Based off the intel from the warship that had detected the 5 Skarron vessels, which was still staying away so as not to spook them until the others arrived, Kip’s people had been able to match up the approximate classes with the information they’d brought with them, coupled with the data the Protovic had provided. There appeared to be two cruisers and three destroyers…with neither of the juggernauts being present. Why the Skarrons had split their fleet Kip didn’t know, but by isolating them it was going to be easier to destroy them…if they could contain them in their present positions.

The Tassadar was working off their last known location, having plotted a jumpline to intercept where they were expected to be given their orbital revolution…with a decent safety margin. Once the jump was ended they’d have to assess the situation and make adjustments, all the while hoping the Skarrons were a bit slow and off their guard, otherwise it would be almost impossible to keep them from jumping out, for all a prepped starship had to do was press a button and a moment later they were gone.

If the Skarrons didn’t know they were here, and weren’t overly concerned about the Protovic fleet coming after them, then they might be in ‘sleep mode’ and just holding orbit while waiting for further orders. Kip didn’t think they’d get that lucky, which meant they were going to have to disable them quickly once they arrived if they were given a window to do so.

Kip had the Tassadar slow down slightly after the 18 drone warships were away, allowing them to get to their braking points first. He needed them to get to blocking positions as soon as possible and the Tassadar’s mass was going to show up on the enemy’s sensors sooner than a corvette, so letting them get a head start should shave a smidge of time off the intercept.

As for the moment when the Star Force ships came out of their braking maneuver and stood face to face with the Skarrons…well, there weren’t many options available. Typically they would open fire and start slugging it out, or races with starfighters would deploy them into blocking positions. Star Force had attack drones for that, but they rarely used them anymore. They were so small opposing ships could just run over them, and their weaponry was equally insignificant against capital ships, leaving their usefulness in much more small scale engagements.

No, the only way to engage another fleet was if that fleet wanted to engage…or so conventional wisdom held within the Alliance. The trailblazers wouldn’t hold for that, especially since they and some of their Captains had successful captures/kills in the past, lucky as they were, but moreover because they had access to the V’kit’no’sat database…and they definitely knew a thing or two about naval engagements.

Most of their techniques involved technology that Star Force couldn’t yet build, but centered around creating a localized inertial dampening field over the target ship’s gravity drives, thus rendering them inert. An IDF nulled out acceleration factors by encasing all matter within it in a sort of latticework of an energy field that spread out external forces across each molecule evenly, such as gravity did during a free fall…it felt like there was no effect, but in truth gravity was still pulling, just without any resistance in one part of your body or another, or in this case, a ship’s hull.

Objects could still move around inside the field, or even pass through it unaffected, like a dropship entering or leaving a jumpship. The gravity drives had to be outside the IDF and push against the emitters…which then spread the effect out over the interior, which acted as a single mass. A gravity drive couldn’t function inside an IDF, given that gravitational effects didn’t penetrate the boundaries of the field. Because the entire IDF acted as a single mass, gravity pulled on it as one. The field was the mass, not the contents, meaning the external gravity didn’t reach the interior. With a gravity drive set inside an IDF, it would have nothing to push or pull against.

It was in this way that high gravity colonies nulled out the local gees with IDF, then created normal gravity through gravity plating inside the field. So if the V’kit’no’sat wanted to pin a starship in place, they just blanketed the target ship with an IDF and poof…their gravity drives were suddenly useless.

Trouble was, Star Force couldn’t produce an IDF without an emitter. Paul, Liam, and Roger had worked up a variety of ways to put one on an enemy’s hull, but if their shields were up there was little they could do except park it nearby outside…which the enemy could then shoot down with ease.

So they’d done the next best thing and modified some of the smaller drone warships with a super large IDF emitter, meaning that if a cutter could get close enough to the enemy ship it could ‘grapple’ the target with the field, allowing it to only maneuver on convention thrust…assuming the cutter didn’t get blown away in the process. Four cutters and two corvettes were so modified within the Tassadar’s onboard fleet and had been dispatched with the other blockers, but they wouldn’t be any use against the Skarron cruisers.

The term ‘cruiser’ or ‘cutter’ or ‘corvette’ weren’t terms with specific meanings, they were a way of categorizing ships, naval or aquatic, and really just a rule of thumb measurement. Star Force cruisers, matched up against the Skarron version, were only half as massive, making them similar in tonnage to Star Force battleships. The difference was in how they were used, and in general all Skarron starships were larger than their Star Force counterparts.

But larger didn’t necessarily mean stronger, thus Star Force had dubbed the Skarron fleet ships as ‘cruisers’ or ‘destroyers’ based on how they measured up. The smallest warship they had was dubbed a ‘destroyer,’ for they didn’t use the smaller classes, much like the Hycre, whose ships were considerably smaller, much more in line with Star Force classes.

Due to the Skarron cruisers’ size, the IDF fields on the Interdictor-class drone warships couldn’t lock down all the gravity drives, for like the lizards, they had multiple drives stretched along the length of their hulls, as opposed to Star Force designs that had them all in the rear. If the Star Force ships got close enough, one of them might be able to snag a destroyer, but it would more likely require two working together, for the Skarrons’ hulls were shaped like artistic, curved blades, with spirals coming out on many sides, each of which held a gravity drive, making it difficult to cover all of them with a single field.

But while Kip had deployed the interdictors, they weren’t his primary means of disabling the enemy warships. For that, he was going to rely on one of Roger’s contributions.

The system hologram suddenly zoomed in to the planet and the moons, with a countdown clock above indicating that the number of seconds remaining until arrival was at 21. A dot on the emblazoned jumpline indicated the Tassadar’s calculated position, with a cluster of dots appearing at the end where the ship’s telaris sensors were just beginning to pick up the Skarron ships.

“Captain. Target the nearest and clearest ship you get with the bloon launcher and don’t wait for my order to fire. Hit them quick. I want at least one kill out of this engagement.”

“Copy that,” the Captain said, with Kip leaving the details to him and the crew, who knew well what they were doing. The trailblazer remained standing in front of the hologram as the tiny dots just ahead of the Tassadar began their braking maneuvers, followed by the big ship a split second later.

As the relative speeds between them and their targets resolved back to manageable numbers, additional sensor data began pouring in and updating the hologram, showing the five enemy ships in greater detail as another Star Force warship jumped in from one of the moons, coming in at a different angle. Soon the others followed, but the Tassadar got off its first shot before the last of them arrived.

Mounted along the bow of the Warship-class jumpship, the ‘bloon launcher’ was a unique weapon created specifically for the warships, and needed their size to house the massive thing. Inside were IDF emitters that were saturating an energy matrix equivalent to goo that would be used to carry the field to the target. The V’kit’no’sat had many types of energy matrixes that held other energies contained, for the more damaging ones, like the mauler, repelled from themselves, meaning they had very short firing range before the energy mass disintegrated.

Star Force had recently been able to reverse engineer the most basic of the coagulant matrixes, and thanks to Roger’s genius had used it like they’d used paint to hold stun energy together until it could reach its target. The bloon launcher, which was a shortened version of ‘balloon,’ essentially threw water balloons at the target, carrying with them various forms of energy, similar to the perimeter defense weapon on the V’kit’no’sat pyramid, though much less potent.

The bloon launcher had various types of ammunition, but for interdiction duties the Star Force techs had worked out a way to saturate the pseudo-goo with IDF. It wouldn’t persist forever, lasting maybe 30 seconds after impact, but it gave the Tassadar and the other newly built warships the ability to temporarily disable the enemy’s gravity drives if they ‘painted’ the hull with enough bloon hits.

And the warship certainly wasn’t holding back. Already having formed and charged several coagulant bloons, it was chucking them out the forward launcher at a rate of 1 every 3 seconds and aiming at the cruiser on top of the Skarron formation as the Star Force ship continued to drift closer off its residual momentum coming out of the jump.

Soon the other seven warships were firing off bloons as well, making sure not to hit the Tassadar’s drone warships as they quickly got into blocking positions around the Skarrons, who didn’t so much as move until after they were surrounded, at which point they began repositioning and firing off showers of white plasma streaks from multiple cannons, similar to the weapon loadouts of their walkers.

Each cannon was low yield, but combined they amounted to a considerable offense. The small Star Force ships held their ground, covering the Skarrons with their IDF as much as possible as their own shields got hammered by the plasma…then one of the other cutters that was punching a small hole through one of the Skarron destroyers’ shields with its mauler got pelted with what looked like a rapid-fire splinter gun.

The first three deflected off the cutter’s shields, but the fourth cored it, with the back tip just showing at the entry point, for the rest of it had buried itself inside the well-armored hull.

“Rail gun,” Kip whispered to himself as he saw all but one plasma cannon on the cutter go dark. Two hits later and it went out as well, with the destroyer turning its attention to another of the ships as the Skarrons were quickly chewing apart his blockers, all the while getting plastered with bloons that were, ironically, sticking to the enemy’s shields where they couldn’t get to the hull.

That was another little piece of matrix technology Star Force had stolen from the V’kit’no’sat. Kip knew how they could defend against it…expand their shield matrix out then deactivate it altogether. The momentum would push the IDF goo away from the ship and they could reestablish shields again at a closer proximity…the question was, could the Skarrons do that with their shield matrix, and if they could, would they think of it in time?

The Tassadar continued to pound the cruiser with bloons, careful to continually adjust its heading to keep the cannon in line with the enemy, for the massive jumpship didn’t turn very fast and it had only the one cannon mount, which, like a rail gun, didn’t have much aiming ability off the ship’s axis. With the other jumpships doing the same, four of the Skarron warships were pinned in place, but one of the destroyers was able to destroy the interdictor corvette holding it and moved out to bully aside the frigate blocking the obvious jumpline away from the moon.

The much larger destroyer pounded the frigate with plasma and rail gun splinters, but the frigate held position and its shield strength up until the two ships collided when the Skarrons made a minuscule jump…just enough to punch the frigate aside, crushing the forward/port corner in and ripping apart one of the ‘blades’ on the Skarrons’ hull where the two met. After the impact pushed the Star Force ship aside the destroyer took a bloon hit, but its IDF didn’t cover all the gravity drives and the ship was able to limp away in a surge of momentum, taking it out of the engagement zone.

Kip tagged one of the other warships and ordered it to pursue, with the big ship hesitating as it worked out the jump calculations and reoriented itself, then it also disappeared in a slow surge, matching and slightly exceeding the Skarrons’ velocity as it tailed it within sensor range to wherever it was headed. The other six jumpships continued to pound the Skarrons with IDF as they and the Tassadar began launching their drone warships.

“Open a comm channel and tie in the translator,” Kip ordered. A moment later he got a hand signal from one of the crew, and Kip telekinetically tagged the ‘on’ button on his control chair behind him.

“Skarrons, this is the Star Force commander. You’re a few minutes away from being destroyed. I’m offering you a simple choice. Surrender and live, or ignore this communication and die. Respond if you want to live, and do so quickly.”

Kip hit the mute button with a thought, then raised an eyebrow at Captain Shannist. “Odds?”

The blue-haired man shook his head. “Not enough data to speculate, but my gut says no.”

“Concentrate fleet fire on one of the destroyers, continue to suppress all four with bloons. Maybe if one goes down the others will get wise.”

“And if they do surrender, what do we do with them?”

Kip sighed. “We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.”

A few moments later the first of the heavy cruisers shot out a cleansing beam at range and punched straight through the Skarrons’ shields…or so it looked, but on the computer analysis it showed that the weapon had indeed been blunted for 1.2 seconds before penetration. Still, it cut straight through a thin portion of the hull, gouging out a trench some 20 meters long that, if you looked close, you could see stars through. Secondary explosions cut that view out, as internal atmosphere and a host of liquid and solid debris filled the gap and spewed out along the breach point on both sides.

The significance of the Skarron shields not being instantaneously penetrated by the cleansing beam meant that they were hybrid shields…part physical, part energy. Lizard shields were totally physical shields, blocking plasma due to its mass. The cleansing beam was a pure energy weapon, something that physical shields couldn’t block, meaning that the Skarrons had a more complicated matrix…or two matrixes in play.

Kip glanced at the updating computer analysis, which indicated one shield barrier only, after plasma and mauler blasts began to rain down as the drone warships closed to medium and closer ranges. The Skarron destroyer fought back, with fire support from the others that weren’t too far away, but within a minute it was KIA from the multiple cleansing beams, leaving the other weapons to chew up the carcass.

Kip waited for a return communication, but none came, so he let the carnage continue, one ship at a time, until the last cruiser was overwhelmed and destroyed…which told him that the Protovic commander had been right. The Skarrons were hungry for conquest, and it didn’t look like losing was in their playbook.

2

February 25, 2465

Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

7th planetary orbit

“Beacon active,” Shannist confirmed upon Kip’s request as yet another Star Force warship jumped into planetary orbit and immediately began to disgorge its full complement of drone warships. As it did it reoriented its axis slightly, launching a bloon towards the leftmost of the two Skarron juggernauts that the Tassadar and its battle group had pinned down from range.

Another flash came from the other juggernaut as its shields continued to be painted by IDF saturated energy ‘goo’ as the enemy ship targeted Kip’s flagship with its long range weaponry. The powerful energy beam crossed the distance between the ships in the blink of an eye as the smaller ships in both fleets were continuing to creep closer towards each other over the gap.

Kip noticed the shield impact on his tactical hologram of the ship, which sat to his left beside the main hologram of the battlefield. When the battle had started his crew had analyzed the weaponsfire and confirmed that it was an extremely advanced version of heavy lachars…well beyond Star Force’s own capability to produce. The jumpship’s shields held up, being a hybrid matrix that could protect against both matter and energy, but with both juggernauts beginning to isolate their firepower on the Tassadar it was just a matter of time before Kip would have to jump his ship out of range and let the others continue the fight…at least until the shields recharged, then they’d come back in and relieve the others.

So long as there was one control ship on station it could handle all the drone warships in play, else the longer ranges would result in signal lag. Given the telaris comms they now used, that lag would be significantly reduced, but Kip didn’t want his gunners to have to try and work through even a split second’s worth as they remotely piloted the warships. Their firing accuracy would nosedive, and in an engagement like this, where they were not easily the strongest, every shot counted.

That said, he still expected to win this fight. The two juggernauts were massive, and would take a while to take down, but so long as they kept the bloons popping on them they weren’t running away, and the rest of the Skarron fleet, which had quickly come to their aid, seemed reluctant to leave them, making this more of a standard battle that was about to start heating up.

The Tassadar’s fleet had already been deployed, with the heavy cruisers tagging the juggernauts from range and penetrating their shields with each shot, but they were so massive that the damage being incurred was akin to small cuts. Had Kip had an internal schematic for the ships they could have been making surgical attacks against key systems, but since this was a largely unknown enemy they were reduced to targeting weapons batteries as they could see them and, largely, just poking holes in the big ships.

Right now they were acting like battle stations, and Kip knew from the Protovic intel that if they got much closer their other weaponry would come within operational range. That’s why Kip had his fleet screening for the Tassadar relatively close, but still intending to engage the incoming Skarrons at a distance from the jumpship. About half of their fleet was coming his way, with the other half going after the next closest jumpship, the Aiur.

Fortunately the juggernauts were so large that Star Force could hit them from this extreme range with the bloon launchers, and as soon as Kip got a few more jumpships involved he was going to order a change of ammunition, for the IDF laden ‘bloons’ weren’t all that they could fire.

Keeping the ships pinned was the primary objective, and they were so large that keeping all of their potential gravity drives, which they didn’t know exactly where they were inside the ships, was requiring a thorough blanketing of their shields. Some of the bluish/red goo was being blown off by plasma cannons, but enough was being kept in place to hold the pair of gigantic ships in place, though they were maneuvering slightly on conventional engines.

Just then the Skarrons’ smaller ships, which all outmassed their Star Force counterparts, opened up on the Tassadar’s drone warships and all hell broke loose. They didn’t stop their approach, intent, it seemed, to get to the jumpship and knock it out of commission even as more heavy lachar blasts crossed the distance and peppered its forward shields…which Kip saw dip as low as 18% after one combined salvo, then the recharging generators ticked it back up to 19% and continued to climb the numbers, which were then lowered again by incoming weaponsfire.

“Captain, let’s get a few shots off before we have to run. Switch to plasma bloons.”

“Already standing by.”

“Fire…and prepare calculations for a short range microjump out of their lachar range.”

On the front of the Tassadar the defense shields dropped momentarily, allowing the passage of the green plasma bloon out of the thick firing tube as it shot off at incredible speed towards the distant juggernaut. Unlike conventional plasma that dissipated over distance, the bloon’s energy matrix acted as a containment vessel, inside of which the plasma glowed fiery hot blue. The color combination of the matrix made the bloon appear green up until it smashed against the juggernaut’s shields, spilling an amount of plasma equivalent to a fourth the volume of a cutter against its already weakened shields.

From inside the green ‘skin’ of the bloon the blue plasma burst forth, washing over the shields and wicking away some bits of IDF goo as it overloaded and breached the shields, pouring a third of its plasma onto the hull, burning through the armor plates despite the fact that they, like their ground walkers, were made to be resistant to that type of weaponry.

A few second later a second bloon hit the approximate spot, taking out a chunk of shield matrix to the left and washing the overlapping target areas with unchecked plasma, which burnt through the armor and exposed the interior of the ship to space. Air vented out in explosive decompression as more IDF bloons hit the Skarron ship, coming from the other jumpships, and insuring it couldn’t run.

“Are we in mauler range?” Kip asked.

“Barely.”

“Send them one, then jump us out. Arrange to transfer drone control to the other warships prior to jump. Let’s not give the enemy an opening,” Kip said as the forward shields dropped to 7% as the heavy lachars continued to wear them down with repetitive hits. Thankfully Star Force’s shield technology had improved by leaps and bounds over the past century, and was due for even more upgrades according to the research staff reverse engineering a myriad of V’kit’no’sat designs…or rather, their obsolete designs whose blueprints were held in the pyramid database.

After the last green bloon launched, the Tassadar began powering up its gravity drives, intent on making a reverse jump out of planetary orbit, but before it did it launched one more bloon…this one was neither bluish/red nor green, but a fiery orange. It had the thickest bloon containment skin possible, which was necessary to hold the mauler energy in check. Once launched, the two fought an internal battle, with the mauler energy eating away at the bloon to the point of bursting, giving the weapon a more limited range than the plasma or IDF varieties.

The orange bloon spouted a tiny gush of blue energy out the side a split second before it slammed into the juggernaut, with most of the contained mauler energy making it to the target. The Tassadar’s gunners had done well to land it on the damaged and unshielded piece of juggernaut hull, and Kip had the satisfaction of seeing it literally melt through the Skarron armor and into the ship’s interior, completely disappearing as the sensor feed went wonky as the Tassadar jumped away from the planet.

That only lasted a few seconds before the jumpship’s binary drives started to pull against the gravity well it had just pushed off, stalling its momentum and bringing it to a stop far above the planet where it began to clearly pick up the Star Force comm signals again, although this time on a delay.

Kip brought up a diagnostic display and checked the gravity drives’ capacitor charge, seeing that it had barely drained them, despite the hard turnabout they’d just run. They’d be able to jump back in immediately if needed, but right now recharging the shields was the priority.

“We go back in at 50%,” Kip ordered so the bridge crew would be ready when that happened. In the meantime he continued to watch the battle on the tactical holo, with the Skarron ships that had been engaging the Tassadar’s fleet now breaking off and going after another of his jumpships, but it was going to take several minutes for them to reposition, during which time the drone warships would be hounding them.

Kip sent off an order telling the remote pilots on the other jumpships to leave several of them in place for when the Tassadar jumped back in, so that they’d have a screen, and tagged the appropriate ships, letting the others reposition, though they were now two less than they’d just been. A frigate and a corvette had been destroyed by the Skarrons since he’d last looked, with several others having had their shields go down, including a destroyer with a sizeable gash in its armor, but it was still firing away as it trailed a Skarron cruiser across the wide gap between jumpships.

Kip didn’t like losing ships, knowing that it would be a long time between replacing them, given how far away from Star Force territory they were, but it was all but unavoidable given the type of combat they were engaged in. They had to pin the juggernauts in place, and in doing so likewise pinned themselves down to a point, taking a lot of maneuvering options off the table.

“Thirty seconds,” the Captain eventually noted, with Kip tearing his eyes off the tactical holo for a moment.

“Jump when ready,” he ordered, then turned his attention back to the battle just as a slew of new contacts were picked up jumping in. It took the computers a moment to sort it out, then Protovic icons began popping up on the ships, with more than 100 of them coalescing around a generous jump point slightly higher up than the Tassadar had been.

“Looks like they got the message,” Kip commented as their own countdown was about to expire. “Open a comm after we make the jump.”

“We already have an incoming signal, Archon,” the comms officer reported.

Kip glanced at the countdown, which read :08.

“Put it through and continue with the jump. Resume IDF bombardment as soon as possible,” he said, sitting down on his command chair and seeing an image of his counterpart materialize before him.

“My apologies, hold for a moment while we reposition,” he said, raising a hand of apology just as the Tassadar jumped, screwing with the transmission that was already delayed, overly so because the Protovic didn’t have telaris comms and they were having to communicate through lightspeed transmission.

The jumpship reemerged only 8 kilometers off from its original position, further back along the jumpline, leaving the heavy cruisers and other escorts ahead of them as Captain Shannist goosed the engines and brought them back into a more favorable position as several cleansing beams shot out across the gap to the juggernaut and continued to rack up damage on the ship that was already showing multiple hull breaches. It was continuing to get pelted from the other jumpships, though they were showing signs of shield depletion as well, with one already absent, having had to jump out to avoid hull damage of its own.

“Sorry about that. Had to recharge our shields.”

“How are you holding them in position?” Tel’nash’gi asked.

“We’re temporarily disrupting their gravity drives, but we have to keep hitting them to maintain the effect. My fleet can take out the juggernauts from range, can you run interference with their other ships?”

The Protovic nodded his helmeted head. “Gladly.”

The transmission cut out and Kip returned to his feet, walking through the deck space where the Protovic’s hologram had just been and coming up on the tactical hologram again as the Tassadar resumed bombardment of the nearest juggernaut with IDF bloons. On the battlemap, he saw the Protovic’s hammerhead-shaped ships break up into multiple groups, deploying towards the clusters of Skarron capital ships that were still doing their best to chase off the Star Force jumpships, all the while engaging the drone warships, 12 of which had been lost already, with another 18 showing hull damage.

Tel’nash’gi hadn’t brought his entire fleet out, but the ships he did bring ranged in size from corvettes up to battleships and even a carrier, which immediately disgorged a flood of Valeries that zipped across the battlefield far faster than the capital ships, all of which had the same hammer-head design motif, but with an X-wing-like aft split that held cylindrical pylons. Kip knew they contained both gravity drives and weapons, all plasma-based, including their missiles.

The Protovic were solid across the board, with no major strengths or weaknesses in their fleet. Each of their ships had one primary weapon, located in the hammerhead, that was a plasma streamer. Secondary weapons across their hull were orb-style plasma cannons, anti-air plasma shredders, similar in design to lizard plasma shards, only more numerous and shorter ranged, and missile banks which were also located in the hammerhead. Their ships carried good armor and decent shields, built in binary, with a primary physical shield backed up by a secondary and weaker energy shield, giving them a comprehensive defense.

And their crews were experienced vets, which Kip noted approvingly as he saw them maneuver in amongst the Skarron ships with obvious coordination rather than a typical ‘free for all’ approach that many races employed. The Star Force warships adjusted firing lines to give the Protovic ships preferred attack angles, shifting from primary defense to a support roll, and soon the Skarrons saw the writing on the wall and began maneuver towards the edges of the melee, looking for jumplines out.

But the Protovic weren’t keen to let them go, and cut them off at every opportunity. The Skarron ships were bigger than theirs, mostly, but the Protovic’s were slightly stronger. Add in the fact that their battleships were in play, along with their fighters that zipped about targeting exposed weapons ports and dancing around the Skarron anti-air fire, which was considerable, and you quickly had an ongoing rout, with Star Force stepping in and blocking any advantage the Skarrons could get in ship to ship engagements. The cleansing beams, especially, caused the enemy considerable trouble, given the range at which they could be fired, and of the 8 Skarron ships that managed to break free, only six managed to jump out, for the other two were skewered by the CBs, knocking out their ability to jump before they got fully in the clear.

Meanwhile the jumpships continued their bombardment of the juggernauts, along with fire support from some of the heavy cruisers. They alternated between IDF and plasma bloons, with only the Tassadar getting close enough to chance firing the mauler versions. Her shields dropped down to 11% again before the bulk of the heavy lachar counter fire ceased as the CBs picked apart their batteries, after which it was a bloonfest, with both Skarron command ships being torn apart chunk by chunk until nothing salvageable remained.

The Protovic fleet then moved in and further trashed the ship debris as Kip reassembled his fleet and began recovery operations on his own debris, after which he brought his bloon-capable jumpships back to Eshwan where the older versions were holding position. Not all Warship-class jumpships had the new bloon launchers, and only a small percentage of Clan Protoss was currently equipped with them, and most of those he’d brought with him.

Unfortunately the weapon couldn’t be installed on the older models. It was just too damn big and required a different internal hull design. That said, the older models carried with them the most up to date drone warships Star Force had, making them still combat viable, but Kip preferred having his jumpships capable of adding to the battle rather than just sitting back and controlling the drone fleet.

When they returned to orbit, along with the Protovic, Tel’nash’gi informed him that they’d detected 6 outgoing jumps from the system’s star, meaning that the Skarrons had retreated, as well as indicating that their ships contained more powerful gravity drives than most, giving them the ability to jump between star systems individually rather than having to rely on jumpships to carry them.

That, or they’d been desperate enough to get away that they didn’t mind a long coast phase to the nearest star. Kip guessed the former was the case, given that they hadn’t seen any Skarron jumpships within the system, and the information the Protovic had given them on their new enemy hadn’t included any either.

That was one ability that he knew Paul wanted for their fleets, but as of now they were going to have to stick with jumpship transport. It seemed the Skarrons and Star Force were going to make for an interesting conflict, given that each had advantages over the other, which brought Kip to the main problem within the system…that being the supersized walkers the Skarrons had on the surface that the Protovic simply could not stop, and who were leading a path of widespread destruction across Eshwan.

Time for Kip to see if Star Force could do anything about it, aside from knocking off some of their smaller walkers and infantry.

3

February 25, 2465

Retari System (Alpha Region)

Atlantica

Paul watched on the bridge hologram as the Excalibur executed its braking maneuver against the planetary gravity well last in line, dropping out behind his fleet of 15 jumpships. Two were Mammoth-class cargo ships, each more than twice the size of the 13 Warship-class jumpships forming up alongside them. The Excalibur, now the 4th ship to bear that name as Paul took it with him from flagship to flagship, was neither. It was the 16th jumpship in the group, but of a new class entirely, something that Clan Saber and Clan Sangheili had been working together to produce, and as such they’d gotten the first few prototypes off their own shipyards, while the main fleet production centers back in Sol were only starting to produce the new Melee-class jumpships.

Back in the early days Paul had developed a ‘Command Ship’ that had never been quite agile enough for their purposes, and had been relegated to a giant chess piece to be moved around from point to point that would allow them a mobile stronghold from which to remote control their fleets, but when jumpship technology had come around the Command Ship design had outlived its usefulness, with the Warship-class jumpship taking over the role of primary control center in addition to being a carrier for the drone warships.

That had been necessary at the time, but Paul had never liked abandoning the concept of a big, beefy warship to lead a fleet from. Other races had them, but Star Force hadn’t been able to make it work given their technology…until now.

The Excalibur was the first off the Clan Saber shipyards, measuring in at better than 15 miles wide, as well as being the first jumpship to abandon the elongated design with an armored nosecone. Shield and armor technology had advanced to the point where they didn’t need to worry about small debris during jumps damaging the ship, so the nosecone idea was no longer relevant, with the Melee-class jumpship going back to the donut shape of the original Command Ship, which leaned heavily on the Star Wars Trade Federation design.

Even more so now that Paul had made some additional upgrades. The entire jelly donut shape differed from the Star Wars design, because the interior wasn’t open to space. But like the original design, the Melee-class had a removable donut ‘hole’ that, once the armor plating covering it peeled back, could extrude itself and maneuver as a separate starship if needed…but whose primary purpose was to become a Battletech-esk, 2 mile wide dropship that could deposit a mass of ground troops to a planet within minutes as opposed to using an unending flow of tiny, conventional dropships.

That too Paul had stolen from Star Wars, for the Trade Federation ships could do the same, except that the Melee-class was much bigger. So big, in fact, it looked almost immobile, but it had the most advanced gravity drives Star Force could produce, and as such it was by far the fastest jumpship in the fleet…almost up to Hycre standards.

The rest of Paul’s fleet was much slower traveling between star systems, but once the drone warships deployed they could fly circles around the Excalibur, whose speed was in linear motion, not combat maneuvers. The ship was definitely in the same class as a Super Star Destroyer, meaning that it was a sit and slug it out ship, which Paul had always wanted to have available for some of the nastier fighting the Alliance was seeing, but he knew Star Force’s strength came from having a mobile, redundant fleet of smaller drones, and they weren’t going to abandon that philosophy now, only add to it with a few key pieces that could take the heat in the bigger engagements while the drones were free to do their thing and pick the enemy to pieces.

The 13 Warship-class jumpships accompanying him out from Namek, which was now so well fortified that he no longer needed to personally babysit the planet or system, which he’d left in the capable hands of Duke Monterrey, were all Mk. 16s or older, meaning they didn’t have the bloon launchers that the Mk. 17s did. Also, the drones they carried were 18% new models, with the rest being older versions that were quickly becoming obsolete.

Paul didn’t like recycling perfectly good starships, so he had been gathering them up from Alpha Region and intended to put them to use hunting lizards. Coupled with the Excalibur’s combat prowess, and the presence of some of the newer drone models, he planned on thinning down the lizard opposition in the region. Previously that had been the duty of others, but now with Namek being a stronghold rather than a liability, Paul could get back to combat…something he’d been aching to do for a long time.

The pair of Mammoth-class jumpships with him were purely for cargo. He didn’t even have any ground troops on the Excalibur at the moment, just a slightly better than skeleton crew of Clan Saber personnel, enough to fully fight the ship with, as well as take over remote control of the drone fleet if necessary, though the other jumpships had their full crews on board, leaving the Excalibur merely as backup in that capacity.

Paul’s fleet was stopping at Atlantica for a pair of reasons. First off, the Retari System had been severed from the comm grid over 2 months ago, and via courier ships he’d been informed that a lizard raid had destroyed the transmitter in null orbit around the star. It had been stealth plated, and shouldn’t have been easily visible to their sensors, but somehow they’d deduced its location and slagged it. Kyler was in the process of rebuilding it, along with a few others, and one of the Mammoth’s had a temporary stand-in to get them back on the grid while he worked out the kinks in how to properly place and defend the next ones.

The lizards had abandoned any attempts to reinforce the underwater war…which was now over. Kyler couldn’t rule out the possibility that they still had a handful of bases on the oceanic planet, but if they did they were doing a perfect job of playing dead, for there hadn’t been so much as a peep of activity in over a decade. That said, the lizards were still popping into the system occasionally, and now it seemed they’d found something they could shoot up easily without having to vie with the orbital defense fleet.

Atlantica wasn’t the only place in Star Force territory that the lizards were probing, and Paul knew they needed to keep beating them back in their own territory or they’d get bolder and bolder. He also knew that they needed to drain as much in the way of personnel and resources as they could on this front, for the lizards were pushing hard into Calavari territory, which on the map now had a huge bite out of it that was growing with every passing year. That’s where the thrust of the lizard offensive was going, and Paul wanted to hurt them here as much as he could to draw off resources from the Calavari front, or to take advantage of their weakness here and pluck a few systems from their possession.

If they really were weak. Paul had the sneaking suspicion that they weren’t and were just biding their time, but no major thrust had come into Alpha Region for some time, just probing skirmishes. Several systems were within a handful of lightyears from one another, meaning the two opposing factions were right on each other’s doorstep, but the lizards hadn’t managed to push Star Force back, and Paul had been resistant to push too far the other direction, for fear of weakening their supply and reinforcement potential. If he gave the lizards an opening he expected them to take it, which was why he had been devoting so much time on Namek to building the frontier defense line to his satisfaction.

It wasn’t complete, not by a long shot, but it was sturdy enough to thwart the level of attacks the lizards had thrown at them to date…but not against what they were unleashing against the Calavari. Duke Monterrey was carrying out Paul’s continuing building plans, with the trailblazer checking in via relay network occasionally to make adjustments, but his presence was no longer needed in the design room on a regular basis, and after considerable prodding by Sara and others, he acknowledged that his place for the foreseeable future was hitting the lizards in their weak points and chewing up their fleets as only he could.

Sara was actually out doing the same with her own fleet, as was Greg and Emily, who were hitting the usual targets with quick thrusts to wear down lizard positions without getting into any grand battles. They kept the lizards guessing, as well as making it hard for them to build along the frontier without repetitive setbacks, but Paul was looking for a bit more in wanton destruction, which was the primary reason he’d brought his fleet through the Retari System on his way to lizard territory.

After the Excalibur and her fleet settled into orbit a tiny dropship crossed from one of the defense sedas over to the Melee-class jumpship and deposited a single passenger, whom Paul met in the landing bay.

“Please tell me you found something sweet to hit?” he asked as soon as he saw the petite form with just a hint of swagger swinging her ponytail back and forth behind her head step down from the dropship’s boarding ramp.

“It took a while,” Kara admitted, “but I found quite a few interesting things, including a major construction project they’re trying to keep out of orbital surveillance in the Menversan System.”

“Define ‘major,’” Paul asked as he fell into step with her as the pair of Sabers left the hangar as the dropship took off to return to the seda.

“Big and new…at least nothing that I could match up,” she said, raising her Vorch’nas and mentally ordering it to produce a hologram above her left wrist of the site that she’d infiltrated on the ground. It showed a concealment canopy from the inside, like a giant football stadium dome, underneath which the construction was ongoing, but with little shape to give away its purpose.

“Did you ask?”

“I tried, but none of the lizards I crossed paths with knew what it was, just their individual assignments, and I couldn’t find an administrator or librarian. They were all standard variants.”

Paul frowned as he tried to puzzle out what they were building. The Menversan System was third line back from the border, as he thought of it anyway. Galactic geography was tricky, and 2 dimensional thinking just wasn’t adequate, but in his mind the first line was the nearest systems that Star Force made a habit of hitting on a regular basis. The second line was slightly more developed lizard systems that they hit occasionally, while the third line was far enough back and well-defended enough that they rarely ventured there…though that’s exactly where Paul intended to take his fleet. The question was where to hit.

“There are only two shield generators nearby, which I think we can take out easy enough with orbital bombardment,” Kara suggested as she shut the hologram down and the pair walked into the ship’s interior, enroute to the bridge, which was situated aft of the ‘donut hole.’ “But I think we should start off with either Kerriole or Verikab. Both have large fleets in play, but not large enough that we can’t chew them up. How are you situated for a bombardment campaign?”

“Got two Mammoths worth of ammo and supplies, skewed to the ammo side.”

“In that case there are a few other targets you might be interested in hitting.”

“Any of their big toys making their way forward?”

“A few battleships, and Verikab has a dreadnaught, but none of the BIG ones as yet.”

“You have any trouble?”

“Jumpship got the paint nicked a bit, but other than that it was just in and out as usual.”

“Any new memories cropping up?”

“There’s always something working its way out,” Kara said as they stepped into an elevator. “A week ago I had a dream about an Oso’lon tail kicking a Kret’net…sent the damn thing flying across the room.  Those Ultras are far more agile than they have a right to be, given their size. They’re going to tear our mechs to pieces.”

“We’re working on it,” Paul promised. The Ultras weren’t a race of V’kit’no’sat, but upgraded versions of the other races. It seemed it wasn’t just Zen’zat that got strength and size enhancements, and when applied to dinosaurs that were already gigantic, the Ultras made Godzilla seem puny in comparison…even without their armor. “While you’ve been busy playing with the lizards, some of the others have been working on our second tier mechs. We’ve got some in the field already, but I haven’t gotten any battle reports back as yet.”

“Well that’s a start…a pathetic one, but a start,” Kara said irreverently, but Paul didn’t take offense. She out of all of them had a unique understanding of the V’kit’no’sat and how badly outmatched they were. “I do like the new ship though. I hope she’s as tough as she looks?”

“The cleansing beam alone should be to your liking,” Paul said with a smirk. “It’s the largest we’ve ever constructed, including stations and ground batteries.”

Kara frowned. “I thought the atmosphere interfered with the beam?”

“It does…or rather did. We’ve worked out most of that problem from the tech, but even with distortion, a heavy beam will get enough firepower through the atmosphere to be useful, and on airless worlds there’s no disadvantage.”

“Duh,” Kara said, mentally kicking herself. “How many does the ship have?”

“Just one, but it’s got multiple firing apertures. We can channel partial blasts out simultaneously, so we’ve got the potential for 12 beams.”

“Rail guns, I assume?”

Paul shook his head. “Nope, relying on the fleet for that. This baby’s too big to turn to aim well, and I didn’t like the volume loss of conical units. If we need to hit a planet, the cleansing beam will do the job.”

“Accuracy?”

“About the same. The beam is straight line, but we still haven’t gotten the V’kit’no’sat reticule orrery figured out. The nanotech is giving the techs trouble.”

“Unlimited ammo?” she asked sarcastically.

“I wish, but to answer your question, we’ll get far more shots out of it than a rail gun.”

“Downside?”

“Clouds, storms, and other atmospheric turbulence. Metallic rocks don’t care much, but the beam does.”

Kara nodded as they stepped off the elevator into a wide hall with a scattering of personnel moving about. “What else does this beast have?”

“The biggest bridge to date,” Paul said, crossing the hall and through a double set of doors. The outer ones opened to reveal a short hallway that Paul knew had defense turrets hidden within the walls, which the pair walked through without incident, then the interior ones opened up and Kara’s eyes went slightly wide.

“We could hold trials in here,” she said, looking out over the multi-leveled room that appeared more like an asteroid crater with catwalks crisscrossing the interior. Workstations were everywhere, along with multiple holographic generators…full size generators…popping up at regular intervals across the landscape and down over the slightly angled decline to the center of the ‘bowl.’

“I wanted all the drone pilots in one place,” Paul explained as he led her to the edge of one of the catwalks that would take them out onto the platforms suspended over the crater in the dead center of the room where the command staff were situated. “We’ve got more interior armor surrounding us than most warships have on the exterior.”

“Nice to know,” Kara said, raising her left hand and flying up off the floor to get a bird’s eye view.

Paul rolled his eyes, but in truth he wished he had one of the damn things so he could do the same.

Kara floated a few meters above him, hanging from her Vorch’nas, and followed him across the huge deck to the central command area, seeing dozens of levels higher up that made use of most of the open air, but giving people ample room to jump off and break bones and necks on landing. Curious design, but she liked it. It gave one a plethora of cover and movement options should combat ever break out here, which she was sure was one consideration Paul had when designing it.

When she eventually landed next to where Paul stopped, he telepathically pointed to an input terminal, where she walked over and touched her Vorch’nas, mentally telling it to download the intelligence data she’d accumulated on her scouting mission, which Star Force now had the technology to interpret via flash physical data transfer. The total time of contact lasted .73 seconds, then multiple holograms popped up amongst the command ‘pylon’ on which they stood.

Paul’s eyes were drawn to them immediately, with Kara jumping in at various points to narrate as the ship’s Admiral and others listened in. She’d picked up a lot of intel over the past 8 months, all of which was vital, given how widespread the lizard frontier was and how little they knew of their enemy.

By the end of what became a two hour report, Paul had a good feeling for how they were going to proceed, which mimicked most of Kara’s speculation as to which targets he would choose to hit, though one in particular did surprise her, given that it seemed to be on a world that was of low importance.

Then Paul showed her a tiny bit of information from the ship’s databanks in conjunction with her intel, drawing a raised eyebrow from the ranger. “Sneaky bastards.”

“Very,” Paul confirmed. “Time for us to be sneakier.”

4

February 28, 2465

Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

Eshwan

With the Tassadar back in planetary orbit, Kip stood in a briefing room along with three Clan Protoss mech-specialist Archons and two more from Clan Metal Gear. They’d been studying the ground situation in detail, with information coming in from their advance units as well as from the Protovic, but the bulk of the Star Force troops were still on their jumpship transports, waiting for the major pushback to come.

It was up to Kip to decide where to make it. The Skarrons had already begun aggressively engaging Clan Metal Gear, but the size of their walkers was making their ability to track down the newcomers difficult at best. The Metal Gears kept redeploying their lines, stretching out the Skarrons and picking them apart piecemeal up until a Type-3 walker came up to engage them…which they would respond to with an immediate pullback.

The Type-3s were easily twice as large as the Type-4s, with an extra set of legs bringing them up to 8 in total and standing some 7 times as tall as a Star Force neo. In additional to the plethora of plasma cannon ports covering the thing like zits, the Type-3 had a large anti-air cannon on top, the size of which could put a dent in heavily armored aircraft, such as gunships. It didn’t appear that the cannon could tip down to fire at ground level, which was odd considering its power. It was almost as if the Type-3s had been designed as anti-air units first, then added to with ground defenses second.

Around the cannon mount on the top of the double body, which had two spherical sections connected by a thick middle in which the cannon sat, taking it out of view of all but lateral ground targets, was a ring of anti-air pulse generators that would throw out a segmented ring of plasma to hit fast moving targets. Based on data from the Protovic, Kip had seen the things throw out 10 rings/spheres on multiple angles inside of 3.5 seconds, meaning these things could light up the local airspace if they wanted, making close-in air assaults very dicey…and the same was true of launching missiles on target, which the plasma rings would eat up if they came within a kilometer’s distance.

The Type-2s were even larger, outfitted with additional ground weapons while maintaining their anti-air potential, including long-range missiles that could hit orbiting starships if they came too close. This version also had the grapples Kip had been told about, and appeared to work by creating a localized gravity field around a portion of the target, cranking it up multiple, if not hundreds of times standard, and essentially pulling down a starship or transport and forcing it to crash into the ground.

The grapples were connected by a tether to the walker, which seemed to indicate that it fed the power to the localized generator, making the whole thing look like a ball and chain assembly. The things were too slow to hit skeets, but if he sent in a corvette for close plasma or mauler bombardment, his warship could be at risk of bumping into the ground…or at the least being held in place by multiple walkers as they chewed away at the shields and armor until they penetrated the hull.

The obvious escape maneuver would be to make a microjump and just overpower the grapples…which a starship could obviously do, but if you didn’t time it perfectly you’d find yourself leaving the confines of the gravity fields and traveling far faster than you wanted to…which would shred your ship on the atmosphere, meaning these walkers certainly did pose a threat to close-in starship bombardment.

The length of the grapples appeared to be several kilometers, with the ball assembly having anti-grav to fly it to the targets. It was an ingenious design, and one that spoke of the Skarrons’ fear of aerial attack. Kip was curious as to what had sparked such fear to cause them to create anti-air heavy walkers when they had the technology to make the things so much more powerful against ground targets.

The Skarrons own aerial forces were on the heavy end, situated more for ground support than air to air combat, so maybe their weakness there, coupled with an aerial-strong enemy, had evolved this walker design. It was definitely something to look into, but at the moment Kip had to figure out how to take these things down, and the Type-1s were going to be the hardest nuts to crack.

They were beyond huge, to the point of them being the equivalent of a walking starship. The Skarrons had brought 52 of them to the planet, each fighting in its own region with other walker versions in support, and unfortunately the things were in heavily populated areas, meaning Kip couldn’t call down rail gun rounds against them. He was sure that would kill the targets, despite the circular bombardment shield they carried, equivalent to what would defend a small city.

One oddity of the Type-1s and 2s was that they didn’t have full shielding. Instead they had what amounted to deployable ‘plates’ of shield that they could manifest on any point around their perimeter like a Knight did with his physical shield. The armor on the things was so thick Kip guessed they weren’t overly concerned about lesser fire getting through so long as they could block the big guns. The Type-3s, 4s, and 5s had full shielding when they wanted, but with so many plasma ports they had to keep them partially down most of the time, not able to construct a matrix around each exit point, Kip guessed.

All of this was very odd. The Skarrons had advanced tech in many areas, then almost degenerate designs in others. He didn’t think they were stupid, so there must have been something else in play, something about the enemy he didn’t grasp yet, that caused them to build like this…but whatever the reason, they were kicking the crap out of the Protovic, and Star Force needed to find a way to take their big walkers out…which was going to start with the heavy cruiser he was sending down to the surface.

It was a bit larger than usual, but technically all starships with gravity drives could drop down and hover over a planet’s surface…at least until their fuel ran out. That wasn’t going to be an issue here, for while the ship was heavy, it wasn’t that heavy, and Star Force’s gravity drives were getting more advanced with each passing decade, allowing just this type of maneuvering.

Kip had it brought down far from the Skarron lines, then flown across the surface to within 20 kilometers of a Type-1 over the Protovic cities that had yet to fall in order to avoid the anti-air defenses of the rest of the Skarron walkers had they approached from the backside of the carnage region creeping its way across the planet. That distance should have been outside of grapple range, but it didn’t stop a slew of missiles from popping out of the Skarron Type-1s and 2s nearby, which tracked directly towards the heavy cruiser, which responded in kind by firing intercepts that raced out and met the larger missiles halfway, destroying them before they could get to the ship.

The Skarrons kept firing more, and Kip knew that the warship only had a limited amount of intercepts to use, after which it’d be down to anti-missile lachar batteries that were already starting to hit some of the wayward missiles. He wasn’t sure how many they’d be able to knock down once the intercepts ran out, for it was taking multiple lachar hits to match the destructive power of an intercept, but for this mission all he needed was a single test shot…though the trailblazer was hoping for a bit more.

With the rectangular brick of a warship leveling out to a stable hover, the internal mechanics that aimed the cleansing beam aligned with the distant, yet easily visible Type-1 and locked on to its forward bulge out of the seven that it sported. With the monstrous centipede targeted, the heavy cruiser fired its primary weapon, conscious to keep the line of attack at 0+ degrees so that it wouldn’t come down on Protovic buildings on the far side, meaning the warship was hovering meters over the rooftops as it fired.

The white beam leapt out in a mathematically straight line, a tiny line, burning across the gap between ship and walker, but as the atmosphere interfered with the transit the beam lost its coherency a bit, fanning out rather than keeping its surgical pinpoint as it would have done in space. That said, the now wider beam point burnt into the side of the walker and melted through meters of armor plating within a second, after which one of the walker’s rectangular shields materialized and stopped the cleansing beam for a moment, deflecting the energy as if it had suddenly put up a giant palm to block the attack.

But the beam punched through that palm almost as soon as it was raised, with the last bits of the cleansing beam adding to the hull damage and cutting a tiny, but nasty gash into the side as a rush of even more missiles poured out of the top and sped towards the heavy cruiser. Combined with more coming in from other walkers, some began to get through and detonate against the warship’s shields, draining them remarkably fast.

The heavy cruiser got in another cleansing beam shot, this one on a slightly different location, punching through the revitalized shield in less than a tenth of a second before coring through the armor and into the inner mechanisms. What was hit Kip didn’t know, but some of the external plasma fire raining down on the Protovic defenders ceased, as did its slow and ponderous walk forward.

“Pull it out,” Kip ordered via comm to the bridge crew, with the heavy cruiser beginning to rise up from the surface with minimal shields left. Once it gained a bit of altitude the ship tipped up on end and began to gain speed towards orbit, just as a blur of projectile flashed out from the Type-1 and broke through the heavy cruiser’s shields.

The rail gun splinter shattered against the ship’s armor, simultaneously breaking it and opening up a crater on the top side as missiles began to pound the ship in its wake. Within a handful of seconds dozens hit and one of the gravity drives was knocked out, diminishing its climbing ability.

The anti-air lachars continued to eat up as many missiles as they could, but there were so many coming up from the surface that the warship was swarmed as it wasn’t able to achieve maximum speed through the atmosphere due to the lack of shaped shields that normally gave it an aerodynamic slicing ‘blade’ while climbing.

“We’re going to lose it,” Carson-8332 said.

“Damn it,” Kip swore, opening up the comm again. “Make sure it comes down on the enemy and not over the intact city. Hit the Type-1 if you can.”

As he watched, the big warship tipped over, maneuvering on what engines it had left, including the thrust nubs situated at every corner, and arced its way back towards the Skarrons as it continued to get slammed with additional missiles, some of which looped around upon missing the first pass and hit it from behind.

Another gravity drive went out, with the ship starting to fall more than fly as it gained lateral speed heading back towards the Skarron super walker. Eyeballing it, Kip thought it might just make it there, realizing that it was going to land on the Protovic troops as well, but better where the enemy was than some random place in the city. There was no open countryside nearby to get to, and if they could take down the walker it would help others in the immediate future, so they might as well try.

The heavy cruiser dipped a bit more, making Kip think it was going to hit the ground prior to the walker and hopefully skid into it…but then three grapples shot out from the Type-1 and hit the underside of the Star Force ship as it came within 10 kilometers or so. A moment later the front end got yanked down hard by the gravity fields and plowed the crater-filled hull into the cityscape with an explosion of debris as it hit intact buildings with who knew how many Protovic inside.

Kip ground his teeth together in anger as he saw the mass slide another two kilometers before it stalled out, leaving the Type-1 intact, save for the pair of cleansing beam strikes that had got through.

“Alright,” he said slowly, watching the missile plumes cease and wondering just how many of them they had tucked away inside those massive hulls. “We know how to hurt them. The cleansing beams are the key, we just have to isolate the Type-1s before we engage…which means drawing off their support and taking them down the same way.”

Kip altered the battlemap, highlighting every Type-1 and Type-2.

“These are the targets, but in order to get them away we have to engage on the ground, which means fighting through the smaller types. This is going to take a while, but we can get to the big ones, and we have to if the Protovic are going to have a chance of stopping this army.”

“What if they don’t take the bait,” Shinton-10443 asked, “and stay grouped together where they can overlap missile fire?”

“Then we get creative,” Kip answered the Metal Gear Archon. “They don’t have an unlimited supply of missiles, so plan C is to drain them dry using naval attacks. Plan B is to start sweeping up their smaller ground troops until they decide to either pull them in or bring the big boys out to cover them.”

Shinton poked a finger into the hologram. “If they turn those missiles against our mechs, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

“Not if we reconfigure with anti-missile mods,” Carson differed. “That cruiser only had the standard load out. We can put more than that in play with two stars of madcats, properly equipped.”

“Do we have naval mods?” Shinton asked.

Kip shook his head. “Not for what we need here.”

Carson stared at Kip, who had an odd expression on his face. “What is it?”

“The shields went down too fast.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m wondering if their missiles have shield-draining properties…and if that doesn’t have something to do with the reason their big walkers don’t have full shields.”

“You think they rely on armor?”

“Their navy was heavily outfitted, but their shield strength wasn’t lacking. If they’re used to going rounds with enemies that use shield penetrators, it could be that they’ve designed their ground forces with that in mind.”

Shinton tapped on the location of the downed warship at the end of the scrape mark now blazed across the cityscape. “Their warheads are good sized too. It’s hard to tell with so many hitting, but they might be designed specifically for anti-armor applications.”

“You can’t have both,” Carson said, then caught himself and glanced at Kip. “Can you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “I didn’t expect to lose that ship, at least not that fast. It looks like the Skarrons have put a lot of effort into anti-air tech, so let’s just assume it’s more badass than normal. We go in on the ground, thin out their Type-3s and smaller, and see if we can isolate or draw out a Type-2.”

“And if we can?”

“We take it down.”

“With what?” Shinton asked. “We can’t take it on the ground without a hell of a lot of mechs, unless you want to allow us to use rail gun bombardment?”

“We might,” Kip admitted, “if we can get them into a deserted part of the city. Bring down a dozen smaller ships and hover them over the target and pound it into pieces…but I think we’ll still lose a ship or two in the process, which I don’t want to risk right now. If their missiles are even partial shield penetrators, then we need to go with an armor solution ourselves.”

“Meaning hoths?” Carson asked.

Kip nodded. “We keep as many missiles off them as we can, and trust in their plating to hold up against the rest.”

“They have less than a warship,” Shinton pointed out. “A lot less.”

“True,” Kip admitted, “but I’m thinking these guys are saving their missiles for air threats, otherwise they’ll run out of them way too fast, and I haven’t seen them used against the Protovic ground troops in the data they sent us.”

“So we’re relying on them staying true to form?” Carson said, cringing.

“No,” Kip said, dismissing the notion. “We’re going to bring in our anti-air mech mods and air assets for distant support, keeping them out of pulse ring range. It’ll be tricky, but if we overlap all our assets, I think we can counter their missile barrages enough to cover the hoths. We’ll give ourselves an out, but even if we do get our butts kicked, we need battle data to study and learn from. Anyone have any better ideas how to get it?”

Jarvis-6291 cleared his throat. “Might I suggest we get proactive and have the Protovic evacuate a region ahead of the Skarron army that we can lay down rail gun fire on from orbit? High enough away that their missiles won’t be a problem.”

Kip raised an eyebrow. “A good idea in theory, but do you know how far those missiles can travel?”

“Not yet, but we might as well find out.”

The trailblazer smiled. “I like your thinking, but if the Protovic could evacuate that quickly they would have done so by now. It may take longer to enact than you’re thinking.”

“Still worth it,” Jarvis argued, “if the Protovic fleet can’t risk getting within plasma range. Maybe not something right up close to the front lines, but for something we can use a month or two into the future.”

Kip pointed a finger at him. “That’s more like it. Start working on probable locations.”

“Just a thought,” Carson added. “If we’re going to try to starve their missile supplies to death, we can’t afford to let them get any supply runs through. Even orbital drops could give them enough to hold out indefinitely.”

“Can’t make any promises there, which is why that’s not plan A.

“Just something to keep in mind as we’re looking ahead.”

“Alright people, let’s start here…here…and here,” Kip said, pointing to different points on the fringes of the current combat zones that had Protovic tanks going up against some of the smaller walkers. “Metal Gears will keep harassing them from behind while Protoss gets to poke the tiger.”

Carson looked over at Shinton. “Want to trade?”

5

March 2, 2465

Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

Eshwan

Kip landed in one of the large Protovic streets, now almost entirely abandoned, a safe distance inside friendly territory via dropship next to a spaceport that was already packed with landing transports. Most were Star Force dropships unloading cargo and taking on Protovic evacuees to carry off to less dangerous parts of the planet, but a few were larger than Dragon-class dropships.

Those transports were bringing down the larger mechs, each of which was bigger than a Hoth-class heavy walker, which could just fit inside a dragon dropship once its legs were collapsed, but its big brother, the hoth Mk. 2, had to have alternative transport, as did several other types of mechs that Star Force had upgraded to over past years.

Normally Kip would take a neo, which would suit the Protovic streets well enough, but given the size of the Skarron walkers he was going to take a voltron and hope to squeeze through the architecture. One good thing about the Protovic cityscape was it was nonstop for hundreds of miles and very irregular, meaning no long streets to fire down. That would make the smaller mechs almost invisible and force a closer type of fighting that suited Star Force well.

Trouble was, the Skarron walkers were so big that some of them were actually stepping over the smaller buildings. They could fire down on the mechs around them with ease, all the while making for easy targets themselves. Kip was tempted to try and nick them to death, but he knew he needed the heavier weapons the larger mechs afforded, so he was going to try the largest one they had built to date.

He’d chosen this section of this city to fight in because of the taller buildings, which would make it harder to maneuver for the Skarrons, as well as potentially hinder their tether launching capabilities, which appeared to be launched from the underside of the walkers. There were other sections of the planet which were more suitable to fighting, some of which had low buildings, some that had none, but the closest gap between cities was too far off and there were too many Protovic people and assets between here and there to concede the area to the enemy.

Kip intended to rip them apart from orbit if/when they tried to cross that gap later on, but right now they needed to stop the enemy where they were…and that was right in the middle of the heaviest infrastructure, sitting atop the cityscape while their ground troops perused the subsurface infrastructure where the Protovic were doing a better job of defending themselves.

That fight Kip was going to leave to them. They knew their own cities far better than Star Force did, and the trailblazer did not want to get his troops caught up in an underground war. The Skarrons couldn’t take their big walkers down there, so it was personnel and tank-sized craft only, which gave the Protovic an advantage…unless the ceiling came crashing down on top of you when one of the Skarron walkers stepped on the wrong spot.

No, Kip was going after the big walkers. They were the key to the Skarrons dominance on the ground and they had to be taken out…he just wasn’t going to start with a Type-1. There were several Type-4s escorting a trio of Type-3s about 20 miles ahead, with the Skarron fighters and the Star Force skeets and gunships going at it above the Star Force landing zone, along with a couple of Protovic Valeries. The enemy knew Star Force troops were incoming and was trying to poach the dropships and transports as they came down…but the Archon and Regular pilots were having none of it.

As Kip walked out onto the Protovic’s wide streets he wasn’t concerned about the ongoing, scattered aerial combat. His pilots and craft were proving superior, and he had no doubt everyone would get to ground intact, for they were coming down to surface further to the east and flying level to the ground to get to this position to avoid the Skarron anti-air, but so far, other than their fighters, there had been no aerial response, though Kip knew the Type-3s could probably shoot this far out with their lachar cannon if they had a decent line of sight.

“Commander,” a nearby Protovic said in the trade language as he approached.

Kip turned to face him as a handful of other Archons walked out of the dropship alongside him.

“Ren’san’do,” he greeted his assigned liaison.

“I’ve just received a report,” the Protovic said from behind his armored helmet as the pair walked towards the main landing zone where the mechs were being offloaded, “that indicates that several Skarron ground teams have broken through in the undercity and are headed for this location.”

“What size?”

“Uncertain, but they’ve secured a route of access to bring in as many as they wish.”

“Alright, I need your people to show mine where the access points are. We’ll set up a perimeter around the LZ and hold it ourselves. How deep do the structures go underneath us?”

“Several kilometers. It is virtually impossible to block off all access to such a large area.”

“Leave it to us, just get us guides for the undercity.”

“Consider it done.”

“And feel free to reroute your forward troops through here as a fallback position.”

Ren’san’do nodded gratefully, then with a tap of his hand on Kip’s armored shoulder he ran off.

Kip likewise accelerated up into a run, turning his green ranger armor into a little blur as he headed off into the landing zone and weaved his way around the unloading areas, not wanting to get stepped on, and eventually ran his way over to the area where the larger transports were set/setting down and found a portable control post set up nearby. It was similar to their firebases and constructed of transformable cargo cubes, but this one was tiny in comparison, consisting of only 9 blocks in a three by three grid.

There was no entry gate through the walls, just a staircase on the outside that he climbed up to the top level on, which held three octagonal platforms with gaps in between that showed the area below, accessible by ladders only, which he knew held extensive comm equipment, plus shield generators and a tiny barracks.

“Where’s my mech?” he asked the tech manning the control console, who had a pair of commandos flanking him in guard positions while another handful stood ready along the wall, keeping an eye out for enemy ground troops.

“There,” one of the commandos said, pointing at a grounded transport, “and there,” he finished, pointing up at another just landing.

Kip nodded. “Give it priority. I need to get out and scout the area while the rest are unpacked.”

“Understood, Archon,” the commando said, gesturing to the tech who was already logging the priority into the database. That cleared deck space in front of the transports, which eventually got around to unloading the gigantic, lumpy bricks of mech out of their holds via internal anti-grav units bolstered by anti-grav tugs that maneuvered the three pieces out into a star formation…or the top three segments anyway.

The other two came down in the next transport and were laid out at the bottom two points. Once they were stationary and the tugs were pulled back, the Clan Protoss commando in charge of the command post gave Kip a go.

The trailblazer jumped off the wall and landed in a crouch on the ground, then sprinted off towards the five huge blocks, running for the one at the top of the star. When he got there he climbed into an access door that was near ground level, then through a short crawlway before getting to the mech’s pilot compartment. He sealed the interior door, then telekinetically hit a switch that pulled armor plates together, removing the access way and giving him meters of protection around his pod.

Next he powered up the life support, which altered the gravity in the pod and sent his feet towards the wall/floor. At the moment the mech’s pod was laying on its back, resulting in the disorientation, but once the inertial dampener and artificial gravity kicked in the cockpit righted itself from Kip’s point of view and he immediately took his helmet off and began unlocking his armor. He stepped out of it and collapsed it down into packet form, then stashed it and his helmet into a bin attached to the back wall for just that purpose.

He took two steps and moved into the control sphere, where he stepped up onto the foot pads and began wrapping the control harness around his legs, getting a decent connective feel through his uniform as he snugged the straps. Other mechwarriors preferred to strip down to their underwear for a more direct connection, same way they did with going sockless in their running shoes, but Kip had never felt the need…and with the way this behemoth moved, he wasn’t going to be getting too creative with the mech’s movements anyway.

Once he got his chest, arms, and head locked in he used a redundant control panel in front of him, one placed there specifically for psionics-capable pilots, and synced the harness alignment with the mech’s…causing limbs to stretch out and go rigid, despite the fact that he was in a block of material rather than a mech.

But that was about to change. Using a combination of hand, eye, and psionic controls he triggered the block that he was in to transform its shape into a torso, then used the anti-grav to lift it off the ground a couple of meters as the block to his right also went through a transformation…or rather a partial one, extruding a thick support pylon.

Kip’s center block, now in torso form, drifted over and pushed into the pylon, sucking it inside the right shoulder assembly and locking it in place before pulling it snug. After that he ‘landed’ back on the ground and let the anti-grav capacitor recharge as the right block finished transforming into an arm, complete with a neo-esk, fully functional hand.

When it did Kip’s right hand in the harness lost its rigidity and he experimented with the fingers, seeing the mech’s operate in sync on the intricate holographic display that now surrounded him in the cockpit. With that arm locked in, he levitated both it and the torso up off the ground and moved over to the left block, accepted its pylon, and got his left arm operational.

He did the same thing with the leg blocks, accepting them one at a time, then finishing the transformation of those pieces on the ground and feeling all maneuvering capabilities loosen up in his control harness. Fully powering up the Voltron-class mech, he bent at his waist and sat the thing up slowly, throwing back an elbow and hand for leverage.

Once in sitting position he looked around, now visibly higher than the ‘small’ mechs roaming about. Seeing that the area around his was clear, he rolled the voltron over onto its right side, got its hands underneath the torso, then came up to a knee. From there he slowly stood the thing up to its full height, some four times taller than a neo and covered in so much armor he literally had more on his forearm than the little mechs carried on their entire frames.

Once Kip was standing he shuffled around a bit, refamiliarizing himself with the controls, for he hadn’t had a lot of training time in this type of mech, and most of what he did have was in simulators. Spinning the headless mech around once, he spotted a pair of hoths off to his west, both of which only came up to his mech’s armpits…but the Mk. 2 hoth further behind them stood more than half again as tall as his voltron. It was a beast of a walker, and definitely earned the ‘heavy’ moniker. Unlike the smaller Hoths, the Mk. 2 had the unique distinction of carrying the smallest cleansing beam ever built, and Kip intended to put that to good use, as he had brought down four of the beasts to this landing zone…or would have, once the rest of the transports arrived.

As big and heavily armored as they were, they weren’t meant for dancing, and were just narrow enough to fit into the Protovic streets. They’d be sitting ducks for counterattacks once they demonstrated their firepower, which was why Kip and the others had to get out ahead of them and engage the enemy, taking down their ‘smaller’ units.

But at the moment all he was doing was blocking the LZ, so he walked his mech off towards the edge of the clearing, making sure not to kick aside the smaller mechs, and made room for others to be unpacked or brought down from orbit.

Kip gingerly walked into one of the city streets, making extra care not to step on anyone below, though the area should have already been cleared of civilians, save for the designated evacuee routes. With so many mechs around it had been a necessity, and Kip was thankful that it appeared that the Protovic natives were adhering to the geographic restrictions.

Risking a little more speed he accelerated up into a brisk walk, then turned one of the angles in the street and began heading off west towards the distant Skarron lines. From his vantage point he could see over more than half of the Protovic buildings, while much taller versions sprouted up around him like trees, both for their height and their penchant for leaf-like landing pads clustered around the tops, which were well above his head, and even that of the Mk. 2 Hoth.

The battlemap superimposed over his view of the city, with him immediately seeing Protovic engagements taking place ahead…a few of which weren’t that far off. He triggered an auxiliary view, with him being able to see the plane of the city from above, and noted that there was a ground battle going on between Protovic tanks, infantry, and what looked like an upwelling of Skarron ground troops coming out of a region below…along with some type of armor that wasn’t their huge walkers.

“Kip, nice to see you in play,” Lonigan-839 said, transmitting from a Mk. 3 raven out on the perimeter of the LZ. “Do you mind if I swing a few boys out and help the Protovic put out some of these fires?”

“Just looking at one of them now. Permission granted, so long as you keep the LZ secure.”

“You know I will,” the mech specialist said, who, ironically, had a higher rating in that division than Kip did…by two levels.

“I’m going to take a stroll and see what’s up ahead, break trail for the heavies. Do you know anything about this small-scale armor I’m seeing?”

“Armor is right. I’ve been in contact with the Protovic field commanders ever since I set down. They say they’re exoskeletons that some of the Skarrons are wearing. Apparently these guys come in different sizes. I’d guess these are their version of Knights.”

“Well, step on a few, will ya? I’ve got bigger targets to worry about.”

“Copy that. Keep your fat ass mech behind the bigger buildings. If they knew who you were, I’d light you up with a missile barrage first thing.”

“I think they’re saving those for air assets, but point taken. There’s two Type-2s within moderate missile range, at least as far as we think they can fire. Still haven’t got firm numbers there.”

“I suggest you take a couple of madcats with you, just the same.”

“Thanks, but the Hoths need them more than me. They’re going to be priority one once they get their first shot off.”

“Take pictures,” Lonigan quipped, with Kip seeing his raven shoot up to a building top on its built-in jump jets…which in this case were anti-grav, now that thrust-based maneuvering had been replaced with the more versatile tech.

“Watch yourself, not all of these buildings are uninhabited.”

“I know,” he said seriously, “but they built them sturdy. At least enough to support a light mech like mine.”

“Just keep an eye out. We don’t want to crush the people we’re trying to save.”

“Once the shooting starts, we might not be that lucky,” Lonigan said somberly.

“I know,” Kip echoed him. “Watch your step and firing lines…save who you can.”

“Ditto…and keep count. The big walkers earn painted tally marks.”

Kip smirked. “Agreed.”

6

Kip leaned his voltron forward, bent the right knee and kicked its left leg back, bringing the torso lower to the ground as he punched into the street, burying one of the armored Skarron infantry beneath his mech’s clenched fist. He pulled it back up and swept the fist side to side, knocking others around as they were annoyingly darting in and out of his feet firing tiny missiles at his escort mechs. A few dodged the giant hand but most got knocked aside, and splattered when he got the chance.

After he’d killed a few dozen he stood the mech back up and continued walking forward, leaving the rest for the smaller mechs. The voltron might not be the most agile of mechs, but it was still built with the neo’s design philosophy of hand to hand combat, meaning the enemy wasn’t going to be able to hide out underneath his feet, and it was time they realized that…for he wasn’t having much luck stepping on the things.

The Skarrons quickly got the message and pulled back from the immediate radius around his mech, taking cover around and in between the stalk-like Protovic buildings, ready to jump out and ambush the other mechs. Each of the Skarrons was a fourth the height of a Raven-class mech, and they could run and jump well enough for quadrupeds, with some of them ganging up and knocking the small mechs off their feet in what looked like an ugly football game…but they didn’t have the weaponry to destroy the mechs quickly, making the things more of an annoyance than a threat, but give them enough time to gather greater numbers and Kip knew that would change.

There were a pair of Starbright-class mechs preceding Kip on the road they were taking towards the first of the Type-4 walkers, bathing every target they came across in plasma, along with several neos spread out onto other streets forming a ring around the voltron, while a handful of ravens were keeping pace with the big mech to clean up infantry that might be getting in the way. Behind the big mech was a pair of madcats equipped as anti-missile platforms, standing ready should the voltron require cover fire against the big Skarron missiles.

The little ones coming from the infantry weren’t requiring any intercepts to be fired, with the lachars picking them off easy enough when given a moment to target, but some of the infantry was running up and firing them almost directly underneath the mechs, chipping away a little shield strength with every shot…something the ravens were trying to keep them from doing.

Kip’s mech group was running point, with 6 others coming up from behind him in a staggered line. Two of those were Mk. 2 hoths with a much larger escort, 3 were original hoths with escorts, and the last one was a rogue group of smaller mechs looking for whatever targets were available, especially the Skarron Type-5s that were likewise biped, the first of which Kip was about to come up to.

His neo escort got to it first and engaged it with probing attacks, finding that it had a primary plasma cannon set in the chest, while the rest of its armament seemed tooled towards anti-infantry operations. It was an extreme flanking escort for the Type-3 that was Kip’s eventual target, which was likewise surrounded by Type-4s, which then had escort rings of other Type-5s…which then had escorts of their primary infantry. So far Kip hadn’t seen any Hobbits, suggesting that skirmish duties probably didn’t mean going up against mechs, but it was still odd that they hadn’t spotted any as scouts.

Then again, if they were out there in the buildings they’d be almost impossible to spot. If they were smart they’d stay out of the mechs’ way, which the Skarrons themselves were not doing. They weren’t going to slow down his voltron with their little missiles, but given enough time they could wear down his escorts.

By the time Kip got up to the Type-5 it was already toast, lying on its back with the chest section torn out. He did notice an open flap between the legs that he thought was a cockpit entry, which suggested the pilot had fled after his ride had been damaged.

Kip checked the battlemap, looking for the next closest target and finding several Type-5s nearby, but he ignored them and set a waypoint for the closest Type-4 for his group of mechs to follow.

“Take out the 5s on your own,” he said into his group comm, “I’m heading for the 4. Lay off it until I can size up what it’ll take to take it down. I might be able to get it without backup.”

He got a host of acknowledgement signals in the form of tiny flashing lights next to the name icons for all the mechs, letting him know they’d heard him without vocally creating a mess of overlapping confirmations. Kip ignored them and goosed his walking speed a bit once he rounded the next bend. His escorts matched his new speed, keeping their spacing as they waded through yet more infantry, a lot of which were just shooting at them with pistols and rifles.

Even though it wasn’t doing much damage, it felt like they were walking through a gauntlet…and had they tried this approach with their own infantry they would have been in for a world of resistance. Thankfully the mechs gave them another option.

Kip saw another Type-5 icon on the battlemap go down off towards the north where his neos had swung out to get it, leaving only one in the direct path between him and the Type-4, which another pair of neos were racing towards, eager to take down another of the Skarron walkers. Meanwhile the other mech groups were making their way forward at a slightly slower pace, with the hoths having to take extra time maneuvering around corners…or stepping over them in the case of the Mk. 2s.

The Skarrons clearly knew they were coming, with the Type-4 repositioning into a low gap between two buildings and stepping onto/into the single-story structure occupying that spot, wedging itself into cover along the street and waiting for Kip to come to it…which was just fine by his reckoning. The hoths might not be able to shoot it with the buildings in the way, but that wasn’t going to be a problem for the voltron.

When he was 600 meters away he opened the plasma ports on each arm, exposing the big ass cannons he was carrying that made the voltron seem like a supersized version of the neo, except that it also had anti-air lachars on the shoulders and one rotating mauler that would pop up where the head would have been had the mech had one.

Kip kept that encased within the armor, not wanting to give the enemy a shot of knocking it out. The voltron had shields, but in order to fire each of its weapons the section of shield along the firing line had to be lowered, same as any other mech, so right now he was going to work with the plasma cannons and see how they took to the Skarrons’ shields and armor.

When Kip got within 200 meters he raised his arms up and pivoted the torso to the left, knowing that he was going to have to walk right in front of the Type-4 in order to target it. He glanced at his battlemap, confirming that his escorts were keeping back a respectful distance. While the Skarron walker didn’t have very strong plasma cannons, it had enough to wreck a neo if it got a good salvo in from the front…which was where he was having to approach from, unless he wanted to circle around and try it from the back side, which would mean stepping on buildings.

Maybe later, right now he needed to get a feel for how much of a beast this Type-4 was going to be. Prepping himself for an onslaught, he crept his mech out into the firing line.

Hundreds of tiny white plasma orbs washed over his mech in the next few seconds, eating into his shields as he pumped a much larger blue orb into the front of the thing…which was a head taller than his neo and had a huge amount of mass up high, making it look even scarier from Kip’s point of view. He squared off with it as it continued to rain plasma down on him like a horizontal thundershower, then the Archon pumped off more plasma shots with both arms at a range of only 120 meters.

He got through its shields on the fourth shot, then started eating into the thick armor after that, knocking out a few plasma cannons but doing little to stop the onslaught of plasma raining down on him. His shield indicators turned to light green over his chest area as the forward shields drained percentage points, but nowhere near as fast as it visually looked like they should be, given his mech’s considerable defenses.

Kip held his position and kept firing, knowing he needed to get a baseline for what it would take to bring one of these things down, so he kept pounding with only his two beefy plasma cannons until he tore a hull breach in the walker’s tapered nose. It tried to twist to the side, but being pinned between the buildings it didn’t have much maneuvering room. As it rotated in place, stepping up and back down again on its six insect-like legs, Kip walked to the side, keeping his firing line on the opening as long as he could and succeeded in knocking out the power to a third of the forward plasma cannons.

A whole slew of the pimple-like emplacements went dark, but the walker continued to rotate around, bringing more intact cannons into play. Kip abandoned the forward breach point as it rotated out of view and picked a new spot on the fat butt of the walker, punching through the shields there with two shots before chewing into the armor while keeping a close watch on his own shields.

He got about halfway through the armor before his own defenses dropped below 50%, at which point he walked off further to the right until the building eclipsed his view of the walker. He held position, letting the power from his mech’s core soak back into the shield matrixes for the better part of a minute until the edge of the Skarron walker lurched out into view and started firing at his side with a handful of cannons, which increased in number with each lurching step it took.

Kip rotated his voltron around and continued pounding the aft armor damage after repopping the walker’s weak shields, after which it was a race to see who got to who first. The Archon didn’t want to take any hull damage, and prepared for a quick retreat when his forward shields dropped near the zero point, knowing that his aft shields would have enough juice to cover his exit.

That didn’t turn out to be necessary, for he got through the armor and breached the interior hull as the walker was only halfway out into the street. Sensing the opportunity Kip walked out and put his mech in between its butt and the other side of the street, half stepping on a low building in order to get the positioning right. From there he stuck his right hand into the breach point and peeled back a bit more armor plating as he launched another plasma orb off his upper wrist and directly inside. A few more like that and the Skarrons’ plasma cannons dropped dead along with the rest of the war machine.

Kip extricated his mech from the tight spot and walked it to the side back the way he’d originally come from. The walker’s legs hadn’t collapsed, making it a smoking statue at the two breach points.

The voltron’s plasma ports retracted, protecting them from hits as Kip ran his mech forward and pushed with the hands against the side of the fat tick of a machine. It didn’t move much, but with no power to the legs they slowly buckled and tipped the heavy top section over onto its side.

Kip grabbed one of its legs with his mech’s left hand and stretched it out, then popped up his mauler cannon, giving the voltron a very low and flat head, and pumped a shot out into the leg, melting part of its armor away. He hit it again and again until the lower leg tore free, then he tossed it aside and retracted the mauler. If the walker wasn’t as dead as it appeared, it was at least going to stay put…else learn how to walk on 5 legs instead of 6.

“Did everyone take notes?” Kip asked sarcastically.

“Nice roadblock,” one of the starbrights commented, seeing the Skarron walker stretching across the street ahead of them.

“I don’t think I can move it,” Kip said, wondering if he could maybe budge it a bit. Its mass was so large he was surprised the damn thing could even walk around…and it was the baby compared to the others. “Just go over or squeeze through.”

“Copy that.”

Kip took his own advice and activated his mech’s jump jets. He bent the mech’s knees and jumped, floating the voltron up into the air as he watched the power gage. The anti-grav wasn’t strong enough for flight, but with a capacitor boost it was enough for short hops.

Adding some horizontal push against the planet’s gravity well he sailed over top of the walker, then dialed back the jump jets and landed on the angled hull, trying to surf his way down the far side…but his footing didn’t work quite like he wanted to and he got his mech’s right foot caught on an angle, causing the voltron to do a face plant into the street…literally. The mech gouged out huge impact craters at the elbows and knees as it landed, popping its own shields into oblivion under the physical strain.

“Doh,” Kip said to himself as he worked the mech’s arms and legs around in preparation to stand back up as a trio of neos came over the Skarron walker and glided past him to more graceful landings.

“Were you trying to do that, boss?”

“Shut up, Parren.”

“I’m sorry, I thought my comm was off while I was laughing.”

The voltron crawled up into a kneeling position then stood up slowly as Kip turned it to face the little neo ahead of him. “Don’t make me dropkick you.”

“You going solo on the next one?”

Kip answered by raising his right arm and popping the plasma cannon mount up, then he fired the largest orb setting he had over top of the three neos, sending it well down the street and into a Type-5 that had poked around a distant corner.

The blast knocked the biped off its feet, as well as vaporizing several Skarron infantry nearby. Two more plasma orbs came in and finished off the smaller mech, with the quadrupeds scattering off the street and opening up their path ahead.

“If the next one corners itself again, yes. Otherwise feel free to add some precision fire to the target points I set. As for the Type-3, we’ll see when we get there. I may hold off until we get a hoth in range, but for now let’s just focus on cleaning up the 4s and 5s and stepping on as many cockroaches as we can.”

“Copy that.”

Kip walked his voltron forward down the more or less straight street, coming to a section of city that he was tall enough to look over the building tops of…at which point his proximity warning lit up as distant missile launches were detected heading his way.

“Madcats,” he said, popping up the anti-air lachars on his mech’s shoulders, “incoming missiles. Get high…now.”

Behind him two of the smaller mechs activated their jump jets and rocketed up into the sky, where they immediately began launching plumes of intercepts off into the distance towards the incoming missiles from the Type-2 that had launched them. More and more popped out of the missile boxes as the mechs descended and landed on top of the Protovic buildings, pausing slightly as they got their footing, then resuming as the lachars pods on the arms began firing off almost simultaneously with those on the voltron.

A cataclysmic collision happened kilometers away, visible by a growing plume of explosions and later smoke and dust as the first intercepts met their targets. Smaller explosions surrounded them as the lachars popped more of the Skarron missiles, with some not exploding at all and merely dropping out of the sky as their propulsion systems were knocked out.

The river-like swarm of big missiles fought its way forward, bringing the destructive cloud closer and closer towards the Star Force mechs until it washed over the voltron, covering Kip’s mech in explosions that ripped through his shields and into the outer layers of his armor…but no further. He checked the battlemap, which indicated that no more missiles were incoming at the moment, then walked the voltron ahead.

“You two ok?” he asked the madcats even as he checked their status remotely.

“They weren’t aiming at us.”

“No damage,” the other confirmed as the voltron pushed its way into clear air. Kip stopped there and raised the right hand, twisting the wrist around flat to the enemy and curling up the thumb and fingers, save for the middle one.

He held the one-fingered salute for the next few seconds, then lowered the arm as he waited to see if more missiles would be incoming…but they weren’t. Maybe the Skarrons didn’t understand sign language.

“Where you guys at on ammo?”

“34%.”

“38%.”

“Looks like we’re going to need more than 2,” Kip said, pulling up the command interface portion of the battlemap and requesting four more madcats with the same loadout to rendezvous at his position…along with a dropship standing by with new missile boxes for this pair once they arranged a temporary LZ, which he assigned the small mech group to creating and securing.

7

March 7, 2465

Alpha Region

Star Force Warship Excalibur (Mid-jump)

Paul pushed off the soft cube with his legs, summoning as much leverage as he could in the zero g training room, and launched himself towards Kara, who was clinging to a position on the ‘ceiling.’ He held his fists out in front of him and tried to maintain as straight a line as possible as his feet left the padded structure, turning himself in a ballistic missile that shot across the medium-sized chamber.

But as he zipped through the air he felt a telekinetic tug on his waist that pulled him off course, landing him some three meters to Kara’s left. Paul somersaulted over and landed on his feet, crumpling his legs to absorb as much of the momentum as he could as he reached for a handhold…only to get head-butted in his side as Kara rammed into him, knocking them both off the lumpy cubular wall and into midair where they proceeded to wrestle each other for leverage.

Paul recovered quickly and got his left hand against her throat, peeling her torso off him enough to raise a knee up between them before their mass bounced off the far wall, sending them both spinning. Kara wrapped an arm around Paul’s leg, making him unable to kick her off, so he created a telekinetic wall between his leg and her body, pushing it out half an inch and prying her grip off him enough to slip his leg free. With a shove to her shoulders he slipped free and went careening across the chamber until he impact the far wall, then he bounced off it to another where he finally got a handhold and steadied himself.

‘Below’ him Kara bounced from one wall nook to another, building momentum with each pushoff in preparation for a strafing run on him…with the ones she’d thrown previously each coming with a vicious kick. Paul may have outranked her by a handful of levels, but her agility had nosed above him, due in no small part, he figured, to her flight experience. She wasn’t using her Vorch’nas now, but she had definitely become more accustomed to maneuvering off the ground, making her more than an even match for him in zero g…while he had gotten back to kicking her butt in just about everything else.

Paul reset himself to another handhold, then clawed his way over to another not wanting to give Kara a stationary target to fling herself at. Then all of a sudden he got a wash of Fornax through his head, which he pushed back against and partially negated, focusing on his hand grips while pouring everything else into the mental tug of war…but he lost out and the Fornax escalated, causing his body to shiver and his head to wash in disorientation.

Which was when he realized it wasn’t the Fornax anymore.

Confirming his epiphany a moment later the small monitor circle attached to his forehead over his left eyebrow beeped three times in rapid succession.

Stop, Paul declared telepathically, not knowing where Kara was as his eyes didn’t want to focus on anything in particular. He heard a crunch beside him, then a blurry mass came over and a cool hand pressed against his forehead, twisting it to the side.

“They’re yellow,” Kara reported. “What are you feeling?”

“Did you hit me with a Fornax?”

“Yes.”

“It spiked off that. I can’t see much, and my head is spinning,” he said, feeling a strong grip latch onto his shoulder.

“I’ve got you, turtle up and see what you can do,” Kara said, keeping one hand on Paul and the other on the wall handhold.

Paul let go of his own handholds and floated free, letting his fellow Archon anchor him in place. He dismissed his physical senses, which were hit and miss as it was with his disorientation, and focused entirely on the inner turmoil, trying to channel the storm that seemed to be growing in strength with every second.

A hard point formed in his mind with the distinctive feel of Kara. It wasn’t reaching down and in to where he was, for the Ikrid blocks prevented it, but the point seemed to hover just above him, giving him a point of reference that he mentally reached up to and used to get his internal bearings…after which he started pushing aside the disruptions within and shielding a few key areas. With those bastions of calm he began reconstructing his mental armor that had just been washed away.

Paul knew the only way that could happen was from an extremely powerful external mind…but had that happened it wouldn’t have been instantaneous. This was sudden and unseen, meaning his armor had been taken down from the inside…and still was, though he was rebuilding it faster than it was going down.

The hard point in his mind sank lower and touched his consciousness as Kara repositioned her grip to his bare wrist and made flesh to flesh contact, allowing her to hack past the Ikrid blocks.

Do you need me?

I’ve got it. Just keep me grounded.

Another beep sounded from the monitoring device.

1 red…stay with it.

The storm in Paul’s mind continued to grow stronger, but he kept restricting it to certain areas and pushing it out of places it shouldn’t be, focusing the transformational flux where it was meant. If it got out of hand he’d have to squelch the disruption, essentially corking up the flow that he needed to unleash…but he couldn’t have it shredding his mind in the process.

2 red, Kara said, her mental voice imparting concern and elation at the same time.

Paul breathed hard, sucking in a very deep breath and feeling his body start to ache a little bit, though it was nothing compared to the pain starting to ring out through his head.

3 red! Go for it if you can!

Push me off…

Kara gave him a gentle nudge away from the wall and let go, but kept her mental presence within his mind to steady him as the hurricane within him was building even further. She’d yet to experience this herself, but a few of the other trailblazers had…hence the creation of the biomonitors, which they all now wore during training sessions just in case this happened so they could record the changes and hopefully the impetus triggering the transformations.

Kara telekinetically grabbed Paul’s body and steered him out into the middle of the chamber as the three little lights on the monitor went from solid red to flashing red, and she knew he was about to ascend. She could feel fireworks going on inside him, and they didn’t disappoint. Her Zen’zat memories told her what this was, but feeling it firsthand was something else entirely…and with Paul’s mental armor down, she was getting his full mental output, realizing for the first time how much psionically stronger than her he’d become.

Paul’s bodily ache increased along with the hurricane in his mind, then like the flashing lights on the biomonitors his body began to pulse with an internal light in a painful rhythm, with each cycle getting brighter, faster, and penetrating deeper inside his limbs and torso. For a moment he felt like Goku about to go Super Saiyan 3…but then a little explosion happened in his neck, like a crackle he felt inside, followed by another and another that spread out, each spawning into two or three others.

Paul started to convulse as the wave of miniature explosions traveled down his neck and into his body, spreading out quickly with little tendrils down his chest, arms, and legs all the way into his feet, then like a virus they spread out from all points, saturating his body as it underwent hyper cellular growth that had been prepping for several months with small incidents…and now the sudden payoff was finally here.

Paul clenched up his body, riding it out and keeping from screaming out loud, though Kara could clearly hear his mental version.

As the crackles exhausted themselves the mental hurricane continued, slowly decreasing in intensity as Paul floated, twitching in the center of the room as Kara telekinetically nulled out his movements. More than two minutes later Paul finally opened his eyes and released the clenching in his chest, forcing himself to breath normally even though every fiber of his body ached.

How you doing?

Is it supposed to be like that?

Yeah, it is. They wanted it to be quick.

How many lights?

1 yellow.

Paul blinked several times as he held his hands up in front of his face. His eyes still weren’t focusing correctly, but they were better than they had been. He did a mental inventory, still feeling his head scattered and unreliable, but couldn’t make out any new facets yet. He resigned himself to wait for the lights to transition back down through green and then shut off entirely, indicating that the flux was gone, then he should be able to sense a new ability…at least that’s what Aaron had told him.

His fellow trailblazer had gone through this already, earning him the second tier psionic ability known as Leechas, which was essentially a range upgrade to his Ikrid. He’d gone from being able to sense minds at 250-300 meters on up to better than 2 kilometers. Morgan had gone through this process twice, which Paul learned about well after the fact, given that she was still out on the Calavari front, and gained the Snu and Pren abilities, which were an immunity to Fornax and a power boost to Pefbar/Lachka, respectively.

The ‘immunity’ wasn’t quite as encompassing as the word sounded, but it effectively reduced Fornax interference by 90-95%, meaning it’d take 10-20 guys hitting you with Fornax blasts to equal the same effect as one previously…which was possible, but it meant that Zen’zat who’d upgraded to Snu would be difficult to take down, not to mention they could unleash Fornax fields amongst others with Snu and not affect them much, which would be a significant boon in high-numbered melee scenarios.

Pren added a power boost to Pefbar, which extended the size of the detection fields one could produce, as well as increasing the strength or range of Lachka. It was noted in Morgan’s log that she’d been able to telekinetically lift 5 times the mass after the upgrade, as well as being able to extend her range out to a factor of 3…though not both at the same time. The closer an object was the more lifting power you had, and vice versa.

Kerrie, Ryan, Vic, and Rex had also gone through upgrades, and after the first three the medtechs doing the ongoing research into the V’kit’no’sat database discovered that there were specific biological triggers set for each of the psionic abilities past the original 7. They hadn’t found a master list of abilities on the dinosaur side, just the Zen’zat list of all that had been discovered, some 18 in total…15 second tier and 3 Mvor abilities.

The database entry hadn’t even been listed with the psionics specifications, it had been buried in an Era’tran file detailing expectations regarding Zen’zat progression, which was somehow related to field assignments. The entry noted the biological triggers and explained the randomness was a Zen’zat myth, and that there were carefully constructed requirements built in to ensure only the most worthy garnered the upgrades without the need for testing or further genetic modification.

Training, it seemed, was the best avenue to unlocking the upgrades, but they weren’t meant to be trained for specifically. Instead, they were meant to be a reward for those who advanced themselves across the board, which would inevitably lead to stumbling across one or more of the triggers.

Knowing that there were specific triggers, the medtechs had worked long and hard trying to isolate what they were and after considerable failure concluded that the only realistic way they were going to be able to identify them was to monitor the transformation processes when they happened and try to backtrack, citing that pure genetic analysis was next to worthless at this point, considering the sheer complexity of the V’kit’no’sat’s genetic engineering capability.

Hopefully whatever Paul had just experienced on a cellular level would be recorded on the device attached to his head, as well as the status of his body just prior to the transformation. With enough data, the medtechs hoped to be able to isolate the triggers so they could tell the Archons what to specifically train for in order to draw them out earlier than randomness would allow. The trailblazers wholeheartedly agreed, and over the past years Paul, Kara, and the other 99 had worn the biomonitors during training in the hopes of catching more of the upgrades as they happened.

Three green, Kara noted as Paul continued to float and wait out the remainder of the process. Does it still hurt?

Oh yeah. You can withdraw now…and thanks.

Kara’s hard point within Paul’s mind disappeared, which felt like he was in a ship that just cut its mooring lines to shore and started to list about with the waves. That shook him for half a second, then he held his own mental bearings and kept his mental armor intact as the hurricane spun down to a mere thunderstorm.

The remnants faded rather quickly after that, leaving Paul’s mind suddenly clear and his vision restored…but the pain in his body was more persistent, leaving the Archon with dull, heavy ache that wasn’t fading.

Paul coughed, releasing his body’s tension along with that in his mind and trying to relax.

“Pull me over,” he said aloud, with Kara telekinetically obliging.

He put a hand on the wall, grabbing one of the recessed padded handles. “I think I’m done training for the day, my body is fried.”

“That didn’t happen to any of the others,” Kara noted, having been given access to the trailblazers’ logs so she could help them with all things Zen’zat. To date she’d been the only Archon allowed access to their private boards.

“What didn’t?”

“The bodily pain. Their upgrades were mental.”

“Which narrows it down to how many possibilities?”

“I don’t know, but odds are it’s something new,” she said as Paul glanced over at the exit and gently pushed off the wall towards it. Kara followed him but at a faster pace, floating past him and arriving first. She found a handhold and reached her right arm back for him to grab onto, then she shoved him towards the door a few meters further down.

His feet felt gravity half a meter out from it, cementing him to the ground in a jolt that ran the entire length of his body. “Ow.”

“What?”

“Gravity doesn’t agree with me,” he said, pushing the door open and walking out into the hallways as Kara came down behind him. “Where am I at?”

“One green.”

Paul stopped a few steps outside and closed his eyes…then shook his head. “I can’t find a new mental trigger.”

“If your body is hurting…” she suggested.

Paul rotated his arms around in sync, feeling the pain spike with the movement. He locked onto the sensation, mentally feeling out what was hurting, and looking for a link.

It was elusive at first, but once he found it and ‘flexed’ a few times the pathway broke free and he could feel the small reservoir of power within him…but it didn’t feel like the mental powers he’d gained before. This was emanating from what felt like every cell in his body.

“Anything?” Kara asked.

“Hold on,” Paul said, closing his eyes again and tilting his head ever so slightly to the left. Eventually he held up his right hand and pointed it towards Kara. “High five.”

She frowned, but put her hand up and clapped it against his, then jerked it back as she hit something weird…then realized she hadn’t felt skin. She’d felt energy.

Kara reached her index finger out and poked his hand again, this time impacting his palm.

“Sorry, couldn’t hold it,” Paul apologized, concentrating. “Try it now.”

Kara poked his hand again, with her finger stopping short as it hit a tiny energy shield…but one of a matrix she’d never encountered before, not in reality anyway, but she knew it from her memories.

“Bioshield,” she said with an unguarded grin, which Paul matched.

“Now that is cool,” he said, staring at the invisible energy covering his palm.

Kara glanced at the small circle on his head as the last green light disappeared. “Let’s hope that thing got some good data, because I really want those.”

“Phfff,” Paul scoffed.

“Hey, if this thing ever runs out of juice…” she said, pointing to her clear Vorch’nas on her left arm.

“How often does that happen?”

“Depends how busy I am. I may look invincible, but this is just armor…plus a few other things. I’m going to need the extra psionics as much as you guys down the road.”

“That’s way more than just armor,” Paul corrected her. “Even the V’kit’no’sat don’t have that, right?”

“Oh sure…so I can just quit training, get fat…it’s all the same,” she said incredulously.

“Alright,” Paul said, getting her point…and starting to get sleepy. Apparently his available bio energy was limited. He wondered if it ate ambrosia the same way Morgan’s Jumat did, for the files hadn’t said. “I’m going to grab some food then hit the sack and try to sleep this off.”

“Good idea. I’d join you, but I’m not hungry yet. See you in 8 hours or so?”

“Maybe,” Paul said as they started to walk off towards the hallway intersection where they’d go their separate ways. “This might end up being a 12 hour deal. I’ll contact you when I’m over it, then you get to start throwing stuff at me.”

“Gladly,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder before jogging off ahead of him and making a right turn out of view.

Paul sighed, feeling a stress headache creeping up. He needed to get some rest in a hurry before it got any worse…but he was going to grab some ambrosia first, just in case that was what his body needed. And a few breadsticks.

8

March 8, 2465

Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

Eshwan

“Get him, Dina,” Kip said as he ran his voltron forward, putting divots in the street from the footfalls as he awkwardly pulled his right arm up and slipped his hand behind his head…save for the mech didn’t have a head.

Kip fought the imbalance with an extra arm swing on the left side as he telekinetically triggered the cargo release switch for the mech’s back, which raised a thick pylon up high enough for the hand to grab. He latched onto it and pulled it free, then swung the stubby ‘ping pong paddle’ forward over top of his head, with the mech swinging it higher than necessary to clear the headless shoulders…one tiny glitch in the control system they’d have to work on later.

“I’ll try,” Dina-1202 said as she worked her own voltron up another street parallel to Kip’s but more than a kilometer over as they both zigzagged their way through the annoyingly unstraight streets to try and intercept the half dozen Type-3s that were crawling their way forward with surprising speed, heading for the formation of hoths behind him that were even now digging into the side of a Type-1 in the distance. Along with them were hundreds of the smaller walkers, all of whom had come together in the same area of the city to strengthen their defenses after the hoths had killed an isolated Type-2 a couple of days ago.

Kip swung the ‘paddle’ forward in front of him, then tucked his arm back and started pumping it to even out his running gait just in time to make another turn without smacking into the side buildings. His mech’s feet dug in deep, leaving furrows as he bled off his momentum, but he successfully made the turn and angled left, running 18 more steps before a shallow right turn, all of which was bringing him closer to another Type-3 that was flanked and preceded by four Type-4s.

He ignored them and the plasma they tried to shower him with whenever they had a shot, but otherwise they ignored him as well, pushing forward to try and get to the Star Force heavy walkers, for the Skarrons had learned quickly they had no defense against the long range cleansing beams and continuous lachars. If they had let events continue, Kip’s mechs could have killed every single Skarron walker from range with their anti-missile cover, which had precipitated a change in the enemy’s tactics.

As dangerous as their walkers were on their own, they were considerably more lethal in packs, and they’d formed huge ones around all of the Type-1s…which Star Force was now trying to take on. The Skarrons fat walkers had proved to be more agile than they looked, with considerable straight line ground speed when they wanted it, and now that Kip’s hoths were within weapons range the Skarrons were charging forward, trying to close distance before they could take down the big one…or at least to destroy them after the fact. Either way, Kip had to keep them off the hoths, and he was relying on the smaller, conventional mechs spread out around him in the city to handle the Type-4s while he and Dina went straight for the Type-3s.

The furthest one forward was closer to Dina, meaning she would be engaging first. He wanted to double team it with her, but the others were pressing forward and would slip by if he didn’t hang to the right, so he kept moving forward, zigzagging towards the closest one as his twin voltron engaged the enemy.

Dina knew what she was doing, so Kip kept his focus ahead…though it wasn’t like he had much choice. A lot of buildings were blocking his line of sight, plus he had to keep his attention close to keep from running into buildings at the high speed he was moving his mech…not to mention slipping on all the Skarron infantry that he was stepping on. There were clusters of them everywhere, and they weren’t holding position…they were rushing forward, trying to get at the hoths themselves.

Clan Protoss’s assaults had inspired an almost desperate counterattack from the enemy, with every unit they had available now turning away from conquering more of the Protovic planet and heading for the newly arrived Humans. Good thing was, most of them were so far away they wouldn’t get to any Star Force positions for days, if not weeks, for they had no air transit that he was aware of.

Bad thing was, they were coming with a vengeance, and along with this one group, which centered on the Type-1 and had hundreds of walkers with it, there were 51 other such groups forming out there, plus a lot of smaller ones centered on Type-2s and down that could move with greater speed…and they were all coming for them.

Clan Metal Gear had their hands full already with the Skarron rear units, but this was by far the heaviest engagement Kip’s forces had seen…and it was only going to get worse. They no longer had the option of nipping at the edges of the Skarron lines, it was either kill them or turn tail and run…and Kip intended to fight the bastards.

He made another shallow turn, immediately taking fire from a Type-4 that was sitting in the street ahead of him blocking his route towards the Type-3 that was a half mile back, though Kip could clearly see its double humps over the ‘smaller’ walker. A few of its plasma cannons shot out and blanketed his voltron with what mechwarriors referred to as ‘spit,’ which was plasma that had outranged itself, cooling and pulling apart as it traveled through the atmosphere, leaving it only harmful to infantry and other unarmored units.

The plasma from the closer Type-4 was another matter, but Kip ignored it and sprinted ahead, finally getting a section of straight street to accelerate on. His forward shields were bathed in white plasma, but it wasn’t going to take them down anytime soon, so he kept his running line and jumped when he was a dozen or so steps away from the Type-4, activating his jump jets simultaneously.

The biped mech leapt up into the air and glided over top of the Skarron walker, landing on its feet on the far side in a stationary crouch, then Kip pushed the mech back up to speed as the Type-4 fired at his rear and likewise came under fire from a trio of neos and a couple of madcats that had been following him…and behind them came more of the smaller mechs, running through the streets like packs of dogs or hopping over buildings like cats jumping from perch to perch.

Kip let them take the Type-4 as he steadied his mech’s right arm with the paddle still in its hand, then he triggered the activation command and the edges of the paddle began splintering apart and moving forward, interlocking with each other as the light corovon alloy plates assembled into a thin, long sword that Kip then rotated around in his mech’s hand, switching to a reverse grip…a maneuver that most mechwarriors couldn’t have hoped to have pulled off, but with so much personal sword training under his belt the maneuver felt so natural that he had no trouble pulling it off even with the mech’s clumsy metallic hand.

The plasma fire from the Type-3 was more than double what had been coming from the Type-4 and ate away at Kip’s shields, underneath which were the armor scar marks from the missile attack and a previous encounter with a Type-3. He’d held back for too long and took some damage as he’d been feeling out its capabilities a few days ago and wasn’t going to make that mistake this time.

It felt like he was running his mech into a waterfall of plasma, for the orbs were so tiny, yet so numerous, but he held his nerve and accelerated the mech up to as fast of a run as he could and jumped up at the last moment, goosing the jump jets a bit to get a better arc as he double-handed the sword in an overhead grip with the point to the ground.

He came down on the Skarron walker’s bulbous front, driving the blade in through the top with the corovon-laced metal cutting through the thick armor with little effort given the amount of mass Kip had dragging the sword down. The blade cut through then sank in deep, with the voltron’s arms catching the mech before its feet hit the ground. It hung off the front of the walker as the blade stuck firm, with the extra mass pulling the front end of the moving Type-3 down and compacting its legs underneath.

The Skarron machine came to a skidding halt with Kip releasing the sword handle and dropping to the ground, whereupon he popped up his mauler and arm-mounted plasma cannons and started blasting into the armor where the white plasma had stopped firing from. He took advantage of the sword damage and the small blind spot and tore a hole in the armor as the walker tried to stand back up, then Kip dug his hands inside the breach point and pried the armor apart, large enough to fit an arm inside.

He grabbed anything and everything he could and started tearing the components out and dumping them on the street. Apparently he hadn’t tore out enough, for as the walker stood back up suddenly Kip had difficulty reaching into the breach point, for with the legs fully extended the Skarron walker stood nearly twice his mech’s height.

He backed up the voltron and jumped again, landing on top where the sword was still imbedded and forcing the walker back to the ground through sheer weight. Kip grabbed the sword hilt as he slid off the edge and held on tight, yanking the Type-3 over onto its side and into the buildings. Before he could get trapped underneath he let go of the sword and slid down to the legs, where he grabbed one and pushed, completing the sideways flip of the machine and exposing its underbelly…where upon Kip faced a plasma shower as he punched and blasted away at the hull until most of the closest cannon mounts fell silent…though he was still taking fire on the flanks.

A quick look at his shield gage told him he was down to 32% on his torso shields, but he didn’t care. This son of a bitch was going down now, before it had a chance to hit any of the smaller mechs.

With the shields over his arms taken down so the punches would drain them, Kip crumpled and tore off the bottom of the hull, then pried a leg mount off and tossed it back into the street behind him. He dove back into the machine and put several mauler blasts into the delicate machinery, silencing more of the plasma cannons as he cleared the melted wreckage with his hands and tossed it out onto the street like confetti…some of which were Skarron bodies as he tore through the control center.

Eventually his hand hit something more solid, finding the end of his sword. He half climbed into the walker’s carcass and tore out the pieces around it, eventually freeing the handle and pulling it through by the blade. Kip stepped the voltron back out, twirled the blade around, and stabbed it into the guts of the opposite end once, twice, then a third time before pulling back and examining the walker to see if it was fully dead or not.

No weaponsfire came from it as he walked around to the far end, squeezing through the gap between walker and building. He wanted to tear it apart a bit more, just to be sure it wouldn’t ambush a smaller mech as it walked by with a salvo or two, but there wasn’t time. There were four more Type-3s in the area, assuming Dina had gotten hers.

He checked the battlemap, seeing that she was still engaging her opponent with a halo of support mechs. Her shields were still holding, and it looked like she was just taking more time at it than he was…which meant she was good, and he had to get after the next one before they got too close to the hoths.

As he turned the voltron around another of the white beams shot by not too far over his head, but higher than a Mk. 2 hoth should have sat. He glanced back the way it had come, but there were buildings in the way so he did a quick check of the battlemap and saw the four Mk. 2s standing up on their hind legs and bracing against buildings in front of them in order to raise the position of their heads up and over most of the Protovic cityscape in the way.

It looked awkward, but was strategically viable, especially since the buildings they were leaning on were providing them cover from the immediate front.

Kip started his mech walking further away from Dina towards another Type-3 that had slipped past their line of advancement as he scrolled the battlemap over to check on their target…seeing the big Type-1 continuing to walk their direction, stepping over buildings rather than following streets that it was too big to fit in anyway. Its steps crushed structure after structure, and the big behemoth looked to be in quite the hurry as it ponderously ground its way closer to the hoths, which were still kilometers away.

The cleansing beams were eating into its armor in multiple spots, puncturing through to the interior but apparently not having hit anything vital as of yet. The Type-2s flanking it hadn’t been hit yet, with the preceding one having gone down already and been left behind, with the hoths now focusing all of their firepower on the Type-1 as Kip had instructed, now that its blocker was out of the picture. If that thing got within range its plasma shower would be too much for the hoths or his voltron to handle, meaning the only way they could engage it was from range…which fortunately they had the weapons for.

Overhead a trio of Skarron fighters ducked down and fired their small plasma weapons into Kip’s mech, eating up a bit of shield strength before they zipped off elsewhere in the city. So far the Skarrons were maintaining air superiority, for their walkers made it all but impossible for Star Force to operate in the air. Kip had given strict no-go radiuses around the various walkers, but had given orders to pounce on anything that crept outside of them. So far they’d made a few kills, but the Skarron fighters were more interested in picking on the mechs than coming out to engage their aerial cousins.

The hoths had plenty of anti-air mechs protecting them, but this far out into the city was open season on the smaller mechs, though some of them were also anti-air equipped, making it more of an even fight rather than a turkey shoot.

Kip ignored his own anti-air lachars and kept running towards the next Type-3. If they wanted to strafe him go ahead, he had enough shields to hold them off and the more they shot him the less they would be shooting the other mechs. In about 30 seconds he was going to have another big one to deal with, and maybe a few Type-4s as well if his backup didn’t come with him.

Just then a ruby-red streak shot across the street ahead of him. Unlike normal weaponsfire it wasn’t a flash, but a continuous beam that continued for a good 8.2 seconds before the capacitor ran dry and it had to begin recharging. A few seconds later another beam shot out, coming from the second continuous heavy lachar and lasted an equal amount of time before disappearing.

When Kip got up to the next corner he turned it, seeing the bulk of a Type-4 with a hole burnt into the front of it. He raised his arms and fired a pair of plasma blasts, one of which hit the hole and passed inside, before he realized that the beams had already gutted the interior, leaving the walker as another dead statue blocking the road.

Instead of pushing his way through it he turned around and backtracked to the next side street, seeing in the far distance one of the Mk.1 hoths half hidden behind a low building. Normally their lachar tech wasn’t nearly as destructive as plasma, let alone a mauler or cleansing beam, but they’d upgraded their tech enough that they could now produce continuous lachars, allowing the technology a whole other level of badass that had replaced the electrolasers on the original model heavy walkers, which had two of the weapons on the front head.

Kip raised his left hand, throwing the distant walker a salute before turning left and tucking his sword back into a reverse grip as he headed around the local group of buildings in zigzaggy fashion heading for the next Type-3, with his shields recharging a bit more with every second that passed.

“Got him, Kip,” Dina’s voice broke through suddenly. “What next?”

“How bad you chewed up?”

“Just shield damage.”

Kip set a waypoint on the battlemap, attaching it to one of the Type-3s. It wasn’t the furthest ahead, but it was the closest to her, and he redirected his own course slightly to head towards it, temporarily ignoring the others.

“This one…we’ll take it together. We double up on the rest of these to save shield strength.”

“Copy that, on my way.”

Kip checked the battlemap again, seeing that he was going to get to it before she did, but there was a pair of Type-4s in the way, so he diverted onto a side street and moved over one section, intending to smoke one or both of them before meeting up with Dina and taking down the next Type-3.

9

Another cleansing beam shot out across more than 10 kilometers and dug into the front of the pot marked Type-1 as it continued to claw its way forward across the cityscape, occasionally having to make course corrections to avoid the buildings that were bigger than it. The thing’s body was 6 times the height of a voltron and it stood better than 10 times as high on its legs, allowing it to step over most of the Protovic structures. It wasn’t fast, but it was making good time and getting closer to the Star Force lines, which had been contracting as the ‘smaller’ walkers closed in on them in greater numbers than they could chew apart.

The Mk. 1 hoths were assisting there, leaving the big Skarron to the Mk.2s…which had already hit the thing with some 70+ cleansing beams. They didn’t know what they were shooting at, given they didn’t have a schematic of the interior, so they were poking holes in through the armor at different places, probing and hoping to hit something vital. Though they couldn’t see it in the walker’s movements, they’d already succeeded in taking out several power conduits, cutting juice to a chunk of its plasma cannons and the ‘plate’ shields on the port side.

Then the big walker took another cleansing beam to its ‘face,’ which was the front most bulbous section on the caterpillar-like design of 7 unique segments mashed together, and suddenly the four legs sprouting from that section locked up, plowing into the buildings ahead of the others that continued pushing forward, with the ‘head’ of the Type-1 dipping down and ramming a mid-level building that otherwise it would have cleared by 20 meters.

The building disintegrated under the pressure of the hit, but the walker didn’t move much beyond it as it struggled to get its footing back as another cleansing beam from the northernmost Mk. 2 hit it on the top of the front section that was now angled down. That beam cut into an anti-air cannon situated in a depression that had been shielding it from view. Next to it were the missile ports, which the cleansing beam nicked, detonating two that were still inside.

A plume of debris shot up into the air out of the ‘head’ of the Type-1 as the forward section went completely dead…pinning the walker in place unless it wanted to drag the unpowered legs behind it.

Which is exactly what it did. It took another poke from a cleansing beam as it turned around, swapping front for back, and began crawling its way forward again at considerable speed.

“Son of a bitch,” Kip whispered as he saw the ‘front’ section of the Type-1 half standing on its locked legs between half-crushed buildings as the other 6 segments moved off without it. Somehow the big thing was designed to release its individual segments.

On a hunch Kip got a closer look at the discarded piece via a rooftop raven acting as a spotter and feeding the rest of the Star Force troops battlemap info on the Type-1 and the remaining pair of Type-2s that were now well ahead of it. The trailblazer zoomed in on the section of the walker that had been bonded to the others, quickly seeing it was of a different color than the exterior, as well has having multiple interlocking components now exposed, and he assumed the opposite end of the Type-1 contained the same…both without armor plating covering them.

Kip placed a waypoint on the back side of the moving pieces of the walker and opened his all-troop comm frequency.

“The hoths just disabled the front piece of the Type-1, which then jettisoned that piece and is continuing forward on the other 6 segments. The backside of those segments is not, repeat, not armored. If anyone is in position to do some long range flanking attacks have at it.”

With that Kip ignored the oncoming Type-1, knowing the hoths were going to continue picking it apart as long as they could, but even now they were coming under attack from the ground. Thousands of the Skarron ground troops had flooded around their feet, hitting them with small arms fire, missiles, and whatever else they had available. There were so many of them they’d managed to bring down the defense shields on their legs and were starting to chew away at their armor…which would be a problem if they were allowed a few more hours to do so.

Dozens of ravens were darting in and out of the area, killing the Skarrons on the ground as much as they could, but if they ran up against too many all at once they could go down themselves, which two of them already had. The pilots had been rescued from their downed mechs before the ground troops could get at them, but Star Force had to use the Starscream-class mechs to get to them in time…which was dangerous, because the flying mechs could have come under anti-air fire, but fortunately their mechwarriors kept them low to the city streets and out of the aerial firing radius of the Skarron walkers.

Trouble was, the starscreams were weak mechs, both in terms of armor and firepower, though with regular strength shields. They’d been at as much risk as the ravens when they’d gone in, coming up from the distant LZ, and had only got to the downed mechwarriors due to the support of a squadron of thors that had happened to be nearby.

Those mechs were doing better against the infantry hordes, even if they weren’t as fast and nimble as the ravens, because they were bigger, heavier biped mechs that resembled a giant Human in armor without the backwards-canted legs that the ravens and madcats had. The compact form also helped them navigate the city streets in formation, stomping on infantry for a third of their kills while lighting up the others with missiles from a shoulder launcher and multiple small plasma cannons located on the arms and chest, with a baby mauler slung under the left arm.

They’d learned quickly that they had to stay together to keep from getting overwhelmed by the infantry, who’s armored troops liked to get in close and latch onto the mech’s legs and try to trip them up with some kind of cord they were carrying so the others could pound them on the ground when their shields popped on impact.

The streets around the pair of Mk. 2s were clogged with gore, so much so that some of the mechs were having to make small jumps over the piles of Skarron bodies to avoid getting tripped up, all the while more of the enemy ground troops skittered across their fallen comrades, peppering the air with tiny plasma orbs and weak missiles, so much so that it occasionally looked like blowing snow.

Kip had been forced back to take out a pair of Type-4s that had gotten within firing range on one of the Mk. 1 hoths, which was in turn intercepting them before they could get to the Mk. 2s. The Mk. 1 had taken down the first of the Type-4s before its shields went down, then took some light armor damage from the second until Kip’s sword skewered it and dragged it behind a nearby building where he took the time to properly finish it off.

His own shields had failed multiple times, leaving him with a deep gash on his right upper arm and lesser damage across his mech’s torso and legs. His aft side was unscathed, but that was only because he’d been running towards the enemy most of the time, which he was even now as he headed towards the intersection point of two continuous heavy lachars. One faded out before the other, but not before Kip saw rivulets of armor running down the surface of the Type-2 they were attacking. It wasn’t within plasma range yet, but a few more minutes and that would change, which meant he had to do something to help, otherwise he was sure they were going to lose at least one of the Mk. 1s.

With most of the smaller mechs now pulled back to deal with the infantry that kept rising up from underground in too many points for Star Force to block, only the pair of voltrons was left for excursions out into the oncoming walkers, and they’d been focusing on the remaining Type-3s, given that most of the 4s and 5s had already been eliminated by the smaller mechs. The battlemap showed six smaller walkers around the southernmost Type-2, and they were holding their formation, making it virtually impossible to approach without getting annihilated with plasma, even for the voltrons.

That left him only one slightly insane approach…which was to flank the southern group and come in at the Type-2 from behind, either getting a clear shot at it or forcing the other walkers to turn around and move backwards to provide covering fire.

Kip was already on his way, with Dina following a few seconds behind him. They’d been doing well to double team the enemy walkers, but she was carrying armor damage too, meaning the longer this dragged on the less combat capable they were going to be. So far they each had 100% of their weaponry intact, but a few deep hits on the arms and they’d lose a plasma cannon, which was why they were taking as much time as they could afford to recharge their shields in between bouts.

Kip knew the two of them alone weren’t going to be enough, so he finally made the comm call he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to make.

“Vyr, you there?”

“Been wondering how long it’d take you to come to your senses,” the Protoss Archon said with a touch of frustration.

“Tell me you can do something without flying into a massacre.”

“You’re heading for the southern Type-2?”

“Yes.”

“How much weaponry do they have underneath that thing?”

“A lot of plasma cannons. It’s not a safe spot to be.”

“Well nuts…there goes that plan. Don’t worry, we’ve got a few others worked up. We’ll pull some of the heat off you.”

“Don’t go crazy,” Kip warned. “Those pulse rings…”

“I know better than you do,” Vyr reminded him. “We’ll stay low. By the way, avoid these spots.”

Kip received 8 no-go zones on his battlemap, not making out what their significance was for a few seconds, then nodding appreciatively as he belatedly understood.

“Ok, get going.”

“Already am. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Dina and I are hitting it from the backside, if that matters.”

“Noted, but wait until we can give you a moment of opportunity. That thing has enough plasma cannons to slag a voltron without much trouble.”

“I know,” Kip said as Vyr dropped his skeet in altitude. The comm channel cut off, leaving both Archons to their individual tasks. Vyr-2051 had been standing by for days along with the rest of the Clan Protoss aerial forces that Kip had brought down to the planet, forbidden to go close to the Type-1s, 2s, 3s, and even the 4s, though Vyr thought they should have been able to take them, given they were only equipped with anti-air lachars, and Star Force knew well how they functioned.

He’d been assisting the Protoss with the Type-5s and infantry clusters where he could, as well as defending transports from the Skarrons’ own fighters, but most of them were sticking close to the walkers and picking at Star Force’s mechs as much as they could. That hadn’t ended well for them, for the anti-air madcats had plenty of aerial kills on the day, thanks to Vyr’s people running replacement ammo packets up to them at nearly street level elevation.

But now was the time to get fancy and show how good he and his people actually were, for the Skarron anti-air defense was by far the best Star Force had come up against to date, making the lizards look easy by comparison…but there were always holes to exploit, if you knew where to look for them, and the Skarrons’ anti-air defense seemed more concerned with things above them rather than things below or even on low laterals. While that did help shield their anti-air batteries from ground fire, thus preserving them to maintain their head cover, it did allow pilots to fly low and get under their firing lines.

Problem was, there was a lot of buildings in the way, and he was fairly sure that the walkers could tip to the side on their legs and change their anti-air batteries’ firing lines to hit low if they wanted to…though that was just a guess, because they hadn’t seen any do so to date.

“Starscream wing, you are green to go on points 1 and 2. Gunships, Type-4s are yours, watch your proximity to the 3s. Skeet commanders, stand by until I make a go through, then coordinate with our voltrons and make the most of their distraction. Don’t get sloppy or brave, and expect luck to be on the Skarrons’ side…but that said, they fear aerial for a reason. Let’s not disappoint,” Vyr said, switching over to his squadron’s frequency. “On me, let’s go.”

Vyr ducked his neon blue skeet down into a street and decelerated, playing flying tank as the other 9 members of his squadron did likewise, following him in single file. He eventually turned and headed southwest, with each of the other skeets breaking off at various points so that when he finally did turn fully to the west, he and the others were all traveling down individual paths, intending to spring up on their target from multiple angles in a crisscross and run for your life attack pattern.

Seeing the others slightly ahead of him Vyr increased speed, approximately catching back up with their predetermined timing and getting to his launch point half a second behind all the others, whereupon he pulled up and flew between two larger buildings before swinging around and staring down the flank of a Type-3.

As soon as he was in the air a huge ring of white plasma ‘snow’ pulsed out from the walker in a hemispherical halo…and all of which missed high by 80 or so meters. That first pulse was followed by more and more, filling the air around and above the walker with tiny bits of plasma that would be impossible to avoid, cutting off the airspace around the Type-3 and forcing Vyr’s squadron to stay extremely low to the ground.

Larger white orbs shot out from the conventional plasma cannons on the sides, but the pilot was able to fly a slightly evasive path and duck past the front of the walker as it continued to crawl forward, whereupon he released one of four objects slung underneath the skeet’s belly with a trigger pull as he sighted in on the underside box where the forward legs came together and connected to the huge body.

After that he went to ground and zipped underneath the walker, seeing the flash of a few belly plasma cannons in his peripheral vision as he shot through the gap between two buildings on the other side and took back to the street canyons as he moved off, leaving the engagement zone as he saw one of his squadron go down on the battlemap.

As he commed the downed aerofighter to confirm that the pilot was still alive, the mine he dropped floated forward on its own anti-grav and came to a stop on the point on the battlemap that Vyr’s trigger pull had laid down a waypoint...along with 9 others that clustered together on the underside, then detonated like a chain of fireworks.

Kip saw the detonations via a spotter raven, then saw the damage estimate as the walker continued to move forward, seeing that the armor underneath had been torn apart with several breaches available for mechs to target the upper leg joints. He nodded, knowing that would help, then frowned as he saw one of the fighter icons go out as it passed under the walker and never rose back up, slamming into the side of a building. A few moments later a new icon popped up marking the distress beacon, which gave the position of the skeet’s armored ‘cradle’ that had preserved the pilot, even though it was now buried inside a Protovic structure.

Just then he heard a chorus of cheers over the comm, only to realize that the Mk. 2 hoths had just knocked out another section of the Type-1, stopping it in its tracks while it discarded the forward segment and began walking forward again…this time without an armored front, for both ends now had exposed segments.

Turning a corner in his voltron, he stepped on another cluster of infantry, nearly losing his traction as he did so, and continued to run on as he watched another blinding white streak pass through the sky overhead and saw it hit on his battlemap and do a corkscrew spiral, slicing into the front of the Type-1 with no resistance and gutting the inside of the thing.

Internal components began to spill out and the front end fell down on legs that no longer had any power. What was left of the Type-1 did a nose dive just as a tall Protovic building alongside the Type-2 Kip was headed for blew apart at the base.

The trailblazer switched his attention back there as he saw eighteen starscream mechs clinging to the back side of the building, with it blocking the walker’s firing lines on them, as they pushed with their anti-grav engines like they were toppling a tree that had been cut at the base, and rode the tall cylinder-shaped building over with near perfect timing. The building landed on top of the Type-2 near the front as another red continuous lachar beam ended, hitting it between the first two of four body segments and pushing it to the ground with the legs splayed wide and most of its anti-air weaponry on top now covered with debris.

“Dina, that’s our opening. Push it,” he said, turning another corner that would lead to the street the walker had more or less been following. Kip got up to it just in time to see a white flash at a different angle, and checked his battlemap as a cleansing beam tore into the front of the pinned Type-2 along with the continuous lachars as the walker struggled to stand up and shake the debris off.

The other Mk. 2s hit the Type-1 again, which was not moving at all, telling Kip that they’d probably disabled it enough that it wasn’t going anywhere, and in just a few more minutes they should have the southern Type-2 out of commission as well, emboldening him to skip the roads and jump into the air with his jump jets driving him across the building tops, giving him a very good view of the battlefield as the other Skarron walkers continued forward, taking hits from a Mk. 1 hoth as well as hundreds of smaller weapons from a scattering of mechs poking out of cover here and there.

Then there were larger explosions from the skeet mines, and blossoming debris clouds from where the gunships were throwing missile after missile into their target walkers, all the while the enemy was showering the area with white plasma, both anti-air pulse rings as well as the hundreds of plasma cannons covering their hulls.

There was still a lot of work to do here, but Kip knew they had them…this group anyway. One of the 52 Type-1s was down, 51 remained. There was no way they were going to take down the others, not with the armor damage his mechs were racking up, but if they could get continually resupplied he knew they could take down all of them over time and save this planet…so long as there was enough of a Protovic army remaining to handle the Skarron infantry.

This war was going to take months, if not years, but as soon as this battle was over he was going to send a jumpship back to get as many mech spare parts as he could sent their way, along with ammo and any new models the rest of the Clans could spare…along with a request for more Clans to join the fight, for Eshwan wasn’t the only Protovic planet under assault, and it seemed that Star Force was their only hope to turn back the Skarrons once they fought their way to ground.

10

June 9, 2465

Rexxikar System (lizard territory)

Ajakaba

Paul knelt low behind a chunk of ice, his back nestled into a crevice as he waited for Kara’s telepathic signal…which he got a few seconds later, informing him where the lizard patrols were surrounding their outpost, one of which was almost to him, but still out of his own psionic range.

Trusting her, he left cover and ran down the small crack of a valley between what looked like small glaciers, knowing that somewhere up top on the rim was Kara playing spotter, but given her ability to fly she could have been anywhere up there, and there wasn’t much of the sky he could see from his point of view. There was plenty to see below though, with dozens of quadruped fur balls meandering through the rough passageway, causing him to move with care, jumping over or under the natives of the planet.

The lizard patrols were also moving through them, which cut off their major lines of sight and offered Paul movement options as he worked his way towards the subterranean base entrance that Kara had spotted the last time she was here doing recon. She hadn’t gone inside what looked like a primitive little outpost on the ice world at the time, having fallen for the ruse their enemy had laid out.

It was the only lizard presence on the planet, or in the system. A single outpost, containing no more than 500 lizards, and situated dead center in the middle of a herd of natives. The lizards weren’t harvesting them, so far as Star Force knew, nor were they killing them to get them out of the way. Instead they were simply ignoring them, for they couldn’t get inside their base, and the warm temperature-loving lizards didn’t go outside it save for regular patrols through the surrounding topography.

That had immediately tipped Paul off, but he already knew from some captured logistical charts that the lizards had been routing some jumpship traffic through the system…far more than this little outpost required. Then there was also the overly large landing pads on top of the outpost, three times the amount the lizards usually used, denoting a higher cargo transfer situation than this lonely little waste of a base rated.

Normally the lizards would have cleared out the indigenous populations, with the fact that there were thousands of the fur balls around their base and they were literally rubbing up against the walls suggesting that the lizards wanted them there…with the only reasonable conclusion being that they were a shield against Star Force bombardment. The two sides had been at war long enough to have gotten used to each other’s methods, and it had been obvious in the past that Star Force had orbital bombardment capability that could obliterate a base like this within half an hour…and the lizards also knew that Star Force fought to protect indigenous races, making this situation stand out to the trailblazer as an obvious living shield.

So no bombardment here, and with there being nothing worthwhile on the ice cube of a planet, and no major lizard infiltration, it was likely that Star Force would just skip over the planet and system, else send down a small ground team to take the facility…which he assumed the patrols were out here to detect and counter. His best guess was the lizards hoped the facility would go unnoticed all around, but Kara’s recon of the system had spotted it, though even she admitted it had been hard to find.

Paul ran up to a harsh right turn and slid underneath one of the white-furred creatures as it also rounded the rocky corner from the other direction…with the trailblazer psionically calming the thing before he could startle it into stomping on him.

He slid under its right front leg and out the far side, then got back on his feet and disappeared into the other masses of white following the creature that did a double take but otherwise ignored him and continued walking. Paul’s white armor blended in well, allowing him to almost disappear in the light snow that was falling, all the way up to the base entrance in the ice crevice where he sensed two more lizards standing guard before he came within sight.

Two Fornax blasts straight through the ice took them to the ground, then as he came around the outcropping he killed both with precise plasma shots to the chests, burning through their cold weather suits, offering more heat than they wanted. Disoriented, they went down without firing a shot in return or sounding an alarm, giving Paul access to the single door set into what looked like an ice wall, but was really the edge of the lizard outpost covered over in sheets of frozen precipitation that had built up over the years, leaving the entrance inset as it had been continually cleared off.

I’m here,  Paul told Kara telepathically as he walked over to the corner of the small crevice outcropping and pressed his armored back against the wall, trying to blend in as much as he could while she caught up to him…which didn’t take long. Soon she was sliding off the top of the crevice and down in beside him, her armor white and somewhat shimmery in a way that reminded him of summer heat that caused mirages. Regardless, it made her hard to see, but he could clearly sense her presence where his eyes might have been caught off guard.

Door, he told her as he grabbed the closest of the bodies and hauled it over to the entrance, then kicking its skid tracks out of the snow as best he could with his feet, after which he used his Lachka to erase his tracks coming into the offshoot from the crevice, eventually backing all the way up to the door that Kara had already hacked her way into and gotten the first lizard through.

Paul grabbed the other while Kara telekinetically pulled its weapon through the air and into her hand as she stood in the doorway waiting for him. Once they got the bodies and weapons inside she closed the door, smoothing the last of the snow with her psionics even after it had closed.

What do you see?

Kara’s armor, which had already shifted back to its normal blood red color, scanned the interior of the base, getting several levels worth of blueprint-like schematics in a glance.

Central access shaft with two auxiliaries. Closest one is this way, she said, adding a waypoint to their paired battlemap that she’d taught her Dragon tech to mimic as she walked down the narrow corridor and took a right turn before a passing lizard got a chance to see either of them.

Paul followed her over the relatively short hike to the northern auxiliary shaft, seeing that it contained a circular lift that was currently several levels down and had a few crates stacked on top of it.

I don’t think the quiet route is going to work this time.

Time to kick the bee hive, she prompted, glancing at the helmet of his new striker armor. If you get in over your head, get out or ask for help.

I won’t need either and you know it, Paul telepathically answered, pulling a pair of plasma pistols off his back rack and jumping across the shaft to the other side before ducking into an open doorway and heading towards the nearest lizard minds.

A few seconds later Kara heard the firefight starting and she stepped off into the shaft, floating down it until she gently landed on the lift, sensing no one immediately nearby.

She knelt down next to one of the crates and popped her armor’s Dre’mo’don up on her right wrist, mentally configuring it to fire in a microscopic cutting beam discharge. Pointing her wrist down, she rotated it around cutting a crude circular plug out of the lift and telekinetically grabbing it as it fell through…or trying to, for it was too heavy for her to lift, so she slowed its fall and dove through the hole head first, flying down after it.

Kara got a hand on it and stopped its fall, then flew back up to the underside of the lift and stuck her free arm up through the hole and dragged one of the crates over top of it, using her Lachka to nudge its edge over the rim of the hole when her hand would no longer fit. Sensing that Paul was already racking up a good kill count above, she carried her metallic plug with her down the very deep shaft to the bottom, so far down that her sense of Paul’s position and the lizards above disappeared, leaving her only in comm contact with him if necessary, though how long that would last was questionable.

Paul shot two more lizards in the room to his right without even looking in the door as he passed, using his Pefbar to sight them through the wall, then pulling the trigger four times when the opening arrived, emptying the clip. He tucked his right arm back and reattached the empty pistol to his rack as another standard variety lizard popped out into the hallway in front of him some distance down. It was a stretch, but Paul got a telekinetic grip on his rifle and yanked it aside, sending the plasma blast into the ceiling as he fired his own blue streak towards it, nipping the lizard in the arm as two more popped out alongside.

As they fired Paul sprinted forward, taking a few inconsequential hits to his shields before he was on top of them, punching two into submission and gutting the third with a double blast to its abdomen.

One of the lizard rifles floated up off the ground and into Paul’s grip, which he used to kill the closest to him before kicking the other as it jumped up. Its claws scrapped against his leg armor before it was knocked back a meter into the wall, leaving tiny scratch marks in the white camouflage coating, revealing the black coloration underneath that was standard for striker armor.

Paul shot it with the rifle in his right hand as he reached back and stowed his Star Force pistol, saving the last few shots in it for later, then he knelt down and picked up another rifle, dual wielding the enemy weapons and finding them slightly heavy, knowing that was going to throw his aim off a touch, but not enough to constrict him to using only one.

He sensed a few more lizard minds heading his way, but they didn’t know exactly where he was, giving him a few seconds of anonymity that he used to cut around through another room and come up behind the foursome, gunning down two before they even realized he was behind them. A few more shots and they were down too, with the briefly returning green plasma impacting his chest shield dissipating like a snowball hitting a blast furnace.

The shields on the striker armor were stronger than what the adepts, acolytes, and rangers had. Their protective shield was standard, while their armor got progressively denser, allowing more protection to the higher ranked Archons who could handle the extra weight, and likewise Paul’s black striker armor was heavier than the others, but not any thicker. The material was denser, with a few flecks of corovon thrown in throughout the structure that gave it a much higher physical defense rating, while still melting under intense energy attacks.

The armor weighed almost as much as he did, but thanks to his enhanced strength he was able to manage decent combat agility…though unlike his previous armors, the striker version that he currently wore was a prototype incorporating a lot of new tech. He and Morgan were the only ones using it, as they were the only strikers at the moment. Paul was a level 1, Morgan a level 3, and each of them had a design technician assigned to shadow their assignments, learning from their training and battle experience and making upgrades to the armor as needed.

The shields and armor rating were impressive, but the biggest change came in the form of a telepathic interface and what it controlled. Consciously it had only one switch, which was off/on, but subconsciously it was having a much bigger effect…or it would when Paul finally decided to use it, and hunting these scattered lizards certainly wasn’t requiring it.

It wasn’t until he worked his way around to the main lift shaft when a car came up full of the little buggers that he mentally flipped the ‘on’ switch and felt the heaviness of his armor disappear.

Paul ran out of an access shaft as fast as if he hadn’t been wearing anything more than a T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes, plowing into the hoard and firing his captured lizard rifles at the first dozen or so, then tossing them aside and resigning himself to go hand to hand with the lizards, who were so densely packed together most of them couldn’t get out of his way if they wanted to.

He took a lot of plasma hits at first, but once he was in amongst them on the basketball court-sized lift most of them couldn’t shoot him without hitting their fellow soldiers, leaving him with an intimate cover that only continued so long as he stayed up close to them…while dropping the dead or injured ones behind as he moved through the mass.

His muscle movements were no longer moving the armor about alone, but were now being aided by mechanical propulsion…the kind of which he and the other trailblazers had strictly forbidden the techs from creating, due to the problems it posed. After Kara had got her Dre’mo’don that had changed, as they saw what powered armor was capable of, as well as seeing a technology that avoided the problems most ‘dumb’ suits posed…such as moving in a direction the person didn’t want and wrenching your arm out of socket, or worse.

Paul’s striker armor had pressure sensors covering the interior that sensed his movements and added strength to them, but the technology hadn’t been sufficient for it cut down on their reaction times. The delay was unavoidable, so the Archons had just kept with the traditional muscle power until the telepathic interface technology had advanced to the point where they could put it to use.

The system was still crude, from Paul’s point of view, but it was acceptable, using neural mapping sensors to monitor the control signals passing from his brain to his muscles to anticipate what his next move was going to be, calculate how the armor needed to move, and then wait for confirmation from the sensor grid inside the suit. In this way nothing moved unless Paul moved, but with the delay being greatly reduced. It wasn’t quite the same as moving without armor, for the feel was slightly off, but it was close enough that his speed increased across the board compared to what he had been able to do in his ranger armor…or even a set of adept armor that he’d experimented with, now that he was far stronger than necessary to fight in it.

This striker armor beat the adept armor in terms of agility and speed, no contest, when it was powered up…which was accomplished by several redundant power sources worked into the structure at thicker points, so that if one was damaged or destroyed the suit wouldn’t lose all power, but even if it did it would just revert back to ‘standard’ mode without locking up or otherwise hindering the wearer.

Paul was still waiting for something to go wrong, but he’d gotten comfortable enough with it to take it into combat, and right now, punching, kicking, twisting, turning, and jumping all seemed effortless as he tore through the lizards on the lift in a shockingly short amount of time. Once they were all down he pulled up a rifle from the mess and began finishing off those who weren’t already dead, reminding himself that despite their inability to hurt him at the moment they’d kill him without a second thought if they had the advantage…and he wasn’t in a position to be able to take prisoners.

“Ah, hell with it,” Paul said aloud after shooting five of them as they crawled across the ground. He dropped the plasma rifles and pulled a short cylinder off his rack, pressing a button on the handle that extended out a full length sword blade in interlocking segments.

Paul flicked on the stun sword and jumped around from spot to spot, jabbing the wounded unconscious after deciding that if they had survived this long against him they deserved a chance to live to fight another day. That, and he just didn’t like killing the helpless…which was what they were right now, given that they couldn’t hurt him.

Suddenly the lift started to descend, prompting Paul to run to the side and jump up, clinging to the rising edge of the wall and pulling himself up easily with the suit’s power on. Once he got back to his feet he mentally disengaged the power, returning its movements solely to his muscles. He knew that such a technology would greatly enhance the lower level Archons’ combat capabilities, but he also knew that he was able to carry the weight of the striker armor because he’d worked his way up through the lesser armors. If they gave the powered movement to the adepts, they’d never grow as strong as Paul had become, making this new technology a double-edged sword.

Until they worked out how to implement it without hindering Archon development, it was going to remain a striker-only technology, and they were going to keep the on/off switch, reserving the extra power for when they needed it, whereas a rookie would keep it on all the time. Moving about in the armor, whether it be in the sanctum or on the battlefield, was a workout that the powered armor would deny them. The trailblazers were wise enough to know not to use it often, but that couldn’t be said of the younger Archons, who just didn’t seem to get the concept of weighted training clothing, no matter how many Piccolo references he threw out.

“Paul, how you doing?” Kara’s voice asked over his comm.

“Peachy. What’d you find?”

“Pretty much like you said. They’ve got a huge industry base down here, but what you didn’t guess was they’re tunneling out to other locations. They’re planning on using this one base to build an unlimited network underground, shielding it from orbital bombardment and prying eyes, and they’re going down pretty deep, or plan to, based on the files I hacked.”

“How many are down there now?”

“A little under 10,000. They’re keeping the population low until they’ve got enough room to house and feed them. They don’t want too many cargo shipments coming and going to give away the ruse.”

“Too late.”

“Yeah. It’ll take some time, but we can handle these guys on our own. They’re all standard variant and not heavily armed.”

Paul laughed…then thought about it.

“Well?” Kara asked, knowing he was considering it.

“Do they have growth chambers?”

“Not yet. They’re all imports.”

“Alright, here’s the game plan. We know about their little project here, and we let them know we know. Start working up a priority list on the machinery they’ve got, we want to hurt their construction efforts, not bring the walls down. We leave life support and foodstuffs alone for whatever lizards don’t get in our way, then they can tell their buddies when they get here how bad the two of us kicked their asses. They’ll either fortify the base or abandon the effort…and I’m hoping the later.”

“Then I come back in a couple of years and check it out?”

“You or someone else.”

“Sounds good. You clear up top?”

“More or less. You may have to send a lift back up for me.”

“I’m on it,” Kara promised as Paul retracted his stun sword and put it away, picking up two of the lizards’ weapons. He didn’t know how long Kara’s Vorch’nas weaponry would last, but there was no way his Star Force ammo was going to hold out against the numbers below, meaning he was going to have to do a lot of battlefield scavenging for weapons…or just rack up a wicked hand to hand kill count.

Either way, it looked like his prototype armor was going to get a thorough field test.

Probe

1

February 2, 2466

Ferinor System

Star Force Warship Blue Ranger (Null orbit)

Morgan ‘stood’ atop two cushioned blocks, her legs out wide to either side as she held a side splits over a disqualification pit some several meters down that had a number of turrets imbedded within it. Falling off would end the challenge immediately, but maintaining her balance wasn’t the issue here…maintaining her balance while blocking attacks was.

The chamber in the sanctum onboard her flagship was more or less a sphere, with two small blocks magnetically positioned as strong points in the middle of the chamber with nothing else around to hold on to. Each block was 10 inches cubed, and felt sturdy enough to have been physically attached to the walls via struts…but they weren’t. They were levitated into place, leaving all approaches open for the tiny little thuds the turrets would be firing Morgan’s way, which, if they hit certain exposed areas, would hurt like hell, adding another incentive not to fail.

The trailblazer wore her hair up and knotted into a nub on her head so that it wouldn’t fly around as she knocked down the incoming attacks. Other than that she wore a training bra and a skin tight pair of mini shorts, leaving the rest of her skin exposed. With the inside of her ankles dug into the semi-soft cubes and her posture held perfectly upright, she brought her hands together over her chest, pushing them palm against palm and reminding herself not to move them. In order to maintain her balance she needed to focus on throwing concussive energy, or Jumat, from her core rather than from her limbs.

Morgan gave herself a moment to relish the hanging stretch, then summoned up the goosebumps that accompanied her internal energy production, which she channeled into a holding aura that she’d learned to develop after getting information from the pyramid database. Part of the control mechanism for the Jumat included a close range containment ability. This allowed her to produce the energy within her body and hold it just outside, letting her bypass her clothes or armor, before throwing it off. Somehow the energy was in a different form internally before it became ‘concussive,’ which originally happened whenever it passed through her skin.

Now she could hold it in its original form for about half a meter out, though it took extra effort to do so. When she tried to push it further than that she lost her grip and the energy converted…blowing off randomly. Morgan had been working to extend that range and had been gaining centimeters over the years, allowing her to now pool the energy around her body to the point where she could experiment with it, allowing her to train for other applications, one of which was a concussive shield barrier…which was what this challenge would prod.

Morgan took a slow breath, letting it out as she filled the area surrounding her entire body, minus the underside of her ankles/feet, for several inches. More tingles followed, adding yet more energy as she focused to control it all as she transformed it into a hybrid form…then telekinetically hit the start button on the far wall.

A three count warning tone sounded, with the thuds flying the moment the third tone emitted. Five of the marble-sized projectiles shot out at her from different angles…too many for her to consciously track and stop individually, forcing her to use an area of effect defense. She could have done so telekinetically, but instead she used her Jumat, with the little thuds hitting her invisible energy and penetrating slightly…but their contact to the pent up energy caused the portion that it hit to fully transform, which pushed back on the projectile.

The more it penetrated the more energy was released, eventually sending it flying back out on a random trajectory for the light hits, and more precise reversals for the deeper ones. Morgan didn’t need to see the things coming, only refill the gaps in her aura that they made. That meant continuous waves of tingles forming within her body and being channeled out, transformed, and mashed in with the existing aura, which responded like goo, in that it didn’t refill quickly.

She had to keep pressure on it, pushing in the right places to get it to fill back in faster. As more of the thuds came in, hitting her Jumat field in different locations, she played a mental chess match, countering move for move as she struggled to hold everything together. There was a counter on the wall indicating shots fired and time elapsed, but she didn’t see it. Her eyes were closed and her Pefbar was off, but she could ‘see’ her Jumat in mind’s eye and that’s where she put her entire focus.

Well, save for the part that was required to maintain her balance. If she delved too deeply into her trance she’d fall off and lose by default. Because she needed to be able to attend to her Jumat aura during combat, she had to train where physical activity was also needed, forcing her to split her focus. Doing the splits wasn’t active in a running or jumping sort of way, but it did require continuous and precise movements…stuff so small it would normally get ignored in the numbness of the mental effort she was expending.

The harder she pushed, the more her sense of balance would fade, forcing Morgan to hold back enough to split her focus and stay on top of the problem. Sheer force was the enemy here. She had to remain cool, steady, and stable…even as the painful little pricks tried to pelt her. A few days ago she’d caught one directly from underneath, which had dropped her to the disqualification pit real fast. After that she’d found herself leery and over protective, but like anything that was out of balance in Morgan, she didn’t tolerate it and got back up on the floating cubes and forced herself to relax and push away the memory of awkward pain.

She continued to block the incoming thuds, refill her aura, and continue the process through several waves of 500…then the challenge increased the firing rate. It would eventually overwhelm her, with the point being to hold out as long as possible. As the minutes ticked by her aura couldn’t be replenished enough, so Morgan shrank its thickness, cannibalizing sections that were intact and forcing part of their energy into the compromised areas.

This challenge was meant to test her endurance, while another would have the thuds concentrate their attacks on specific areas, sending 20 or so to one location over three seconds, trying to breach through that specific point. That was an altogether different problem to tackle, with this one being ‘easy’ in comparison, but the duration challenge gave her a great deal more practice, like a 5 mile run compared to a sprint, which would force her body and mind to adapt, giving her even greater abilities down the road.

‘Grinding’ is what it was, and no matter what the training exercise entailed, grinding workouts always worked up a lot of sweat…which in this case wasn’t good, for it was making her feet slippery as Morgan made tiny adjustments to keep her balance.

Before she could fall off or the thuds penetrated her defenses a different tone sounded, causing her to open her eyes and almost lose her grip on her Jumat aura, which would have let all of the thuds through after it dissipated, but she caught her focus in time and held it intact, though she stopped replenishing it. With a telekinetic press of the wall controls she paused the challenge and opened the chamber’s mic and speakers to the incoming comm.

“What is it?” she asked, not letting herself get annoyed. If someone was interrupting her during training they’d have a good reason for it…otherwise they’d get an unpleasant lesson in proper protocol.

“Morgan, we’re about to come under attack,” Captain Wilkinson said calmly. “Nestafar warships are a few minutes out at best.”

“On my way,” Morgan said, rolling backwards and letting her legs go slack. She fell down through a reverse flip and landed in a crouch on the padding below, then jogged over to the staircase that led up to the control panel and door, switching off the comm and the challenge program telekinetically as she ran out into the sanctum’s corridors.

She headed for the exit and then straight up to the bridge, not bothering to stop for a uniform or shoes. If there was going to be a naval battle it wouldn’t matter much what she was wearing, unless the hull was badly breached or they were boarded, neither of which was likely, meaning the sooner she got to a tactical holo the better.

By the time she reached the bridge the Nestafar had already arrived, with the Blue Ranger’s fleet still deploying to counter them along with the 8 other Star Force warships she had with her. With them were some 103 Calavari starships, 16 of which were warships. As Morgan padded her way up to her command chair on sweaty feet she saw a group of newly arrived Calavari ships slightly ahead of the Nestafar, suggesting the reason for the attack.

“They were followed,” Wilkinson summed up as she stepped beside him.

“How do we stand?”

“Escorts are in good position, and should provide us adequate time to launch the rest of the fleet, but we don’t have firm numbers on the Nestafar yet. They still have ships incoming.”

“I’ll be in the nexus,” she said, running off to the side of the bridge to a concealed alcove. She came through a very short tunnel and turned right, entering the cylindrical room that held a command nexus terminal in the center. Morgan stepped up to it and placed her hands on the Ikrid sphere, mentally powering up the system and interlinking with the battlemap and system commands far faster than button presses would have allowed.

An image of the battlemap appeared in her mind as well as in holo around her, cutting off vision of the room and replacing it with a map of the empty star system. Aside from the yellow/orange star in the center there was nothing else here, no planets, asteroid fields, space stations…nada. It was completely empty and unclaimed, making for a good staging area for Morgan’s fleet as they rounded up Calavari survivors from surrounding systems.

The main group was located well out from the star, with the Calavari ships over-braking to arrive in the system this far out. With no gravity wells other than the star, ships passing through had to stay close to the single gravity well and use some conventional thrust or tricky navigation to maneuver around to an exiting jumpline, given that there weren’t any distant planets to push off against for maneuvering purposes. By allowing some entry drift towards the star you could drop into a failing orbit and get some lateral maneuvering options from the pushoff potential, but rising up to a higher orbit was a no go…because you’d have nothing to push on to come back.

Neither the Nestafar nor Calavari had binary drives, meaning the Calavari ships parked next to the Star Force ones were essentially stuck in the system, else they approach the star very slowly using conventional thrust. Morgan had convinced them to come here with the promise of modular gravity drives that could attach to their ships and help them maneuver around, much like the Hycre had, save Star Force’s version were tiny in comparison, rather than full jump cradles.

Morgan had seven such devices imbedded into drone corvettes that would nestle up against another ship and extend pylons out that contained IDF generators. Once the entire ship was blanketed, the small binary gravity drive would allow the Calavari ships to move where the Nestafar couldn’t go.

Trouble was, it was a slow process, and there was a backlog of Calavari ships waiting in near the star to be moved out to the holding area, where the Blue Ranger and the other warships were located, save for one that was with the Calavari fleet at the staging area. Morgan immediately recalled it with instructions to leave a few drones behind, just in case, but she knew the Nestafar couldn’t get out to them unless they over-braked on a jumpline near their position.

The Nestafar had over-braked, following the Calavari in to an elevation above the star about halfway between Morgan and the staging area, but well around the circumference of the star. That location would make it easier for the Star Force tugs to bring the Calavari over, but it was still a long haul. She assumed the Nestafar knew nothing about that and were merely matching the Calavari’s acceleration curve…which sorry for them left them stranded well out from the star, meaning they only had thrust-based acceleration to work with.

Which left them sitting ducks…but so were the Calavari at that position.

Morgan started issuing orders, with the drone warships that had already been deployed zipping off on micro-jumps within seconds of her commands going out to the remote pilots. She sent one of the jumpships on ahead with them, but had the rest continue deploying the smaller vessels to get them in play as soon as possible, then the Blue Ranger and other Warship-class jumpships followed suit and zipped over to the entry jump point using an ‘in and out’ course that brought them back closer to the star to get more lateral pull, then a short angular course correction followed by another push to bring them out to the incoming fleets.

Morgan began to get battlemap data before that, and even as her ship came into position she saw more and more Nestafar arriving, all of whom were using the navigational data being relayed back through the line to give them the desired drop out point so they wouldn’t risk ramming each other…and so they could stay hot on the heels of the Calavari.

And it wasn’t a small fleet, save for ship size. The largest registering was a Nestafar destroyer, with the bulk comprised of corvettes and frigates, but there were more than 100 of them already with more on the way…and Morgan soon realized why when she looked at the Calavari fleet that had just arrived.

She’d been expecting survivors from the Alatis System, where they’d fought a battle to secure the planet several months ago. They’d arranged rendezvous here for any surviving ships the Calavari in that system could scrounge up, for Star Force just didn’t have the transport capacity to move the Calavari en mass. Morgan had expected a scattering of ships to arrive at some point, but the Alatis Calavari had far surpassed her expectations with literally thousands of smaller ships, all of which were now packed so close together that they read like larger vessels on long range scans.

What they were doing was sharing shields, which was a Calavari tactic that she’d become familiar with long ago. As a race their warships sucked, so they made up for it a bit by configuring their shield matrixes to interconnect so they could pool their combined energy into a single shield that had less surface area than the individual ships combined would have had. That meant putting hulls right up against other hulls, but in the case of unarmed or lightly armed transports it could mean minutes of battle longevity, which in this case could very well save their lives.

The fact that they had no gravity drive maneuvering options left them essentially adrift anyway, so clustering together made a world of sense…especially when they had Valeries to launch. Morgan saw hundreds tagged on the battlemap, maneuvering around on thrust engines and gravity drives where applicable when they could push against the star. The fighters were fairly fuel efficient, but Morgan knew they’d have to return to their carriers regularly during a prolonged fight, which made those ships high priority for protection…which Morgan quickly tagged on the battlemap.

Whether out of wisdom or a lack of ability to run, the Calavari refuge fleet organized itself well, allowing Morgan’s ships plenty of room to decelerate as they jumped in, then the drone warships became cats on the prowl, literally flying rings around the Nestafar warships who, at best, limped around in pathetic maneuvers, trying to gain some strategic alignment, but they never were able to coordinate, strung out in the long line that they were. The Calavari had had more than an hour to reposition their first ships, but the Nestafar had no such luxury.

Morgan didn’t offer up any surrender terms, giving orders to her fleet to take out the bastards. Star Force would pick up survivors, but she wasn’t cutting the Nestafar any slack. They’d come here to kill a mostly civilian fleet of people running away from the war zone, expecting easy targets. She knew they wouldn’t have offered surrender terms to the Calavari, for they were out for blood, and she was happy to turn the tables on them.

One after another the Nestafar ships were swarmed and destroyed by the Star Force fleet…which didn’t lose a single drone thanks to the careful battle plan employed by Morgan and the jumpship Captains. They were able to tackle each enemy destroyer with five or six of their own ships, while the rest of the Nestafar fleet looked on helpless from a distance, waiting for the Humans to work their way down the line to them.

When a drone lost shields, or was near to, it was pulled back and another inserted into its slot, with Morgan patiently overseeing the destruction of some 294 Nestafar warships when all was said and done…and not because of firepower, armor, or shielding. This battle had been won simply because Star Force had binary gravity drives and the Nestafar did not. She knew Paul would appreciate that irony, and was grateful for them having the advanced technology for a change. For most of her years in Calavari space, Star Force had always been the little guy poking at the big enemy’s flanks, and it felt good to finally lay out a smackdown of this magnitude.

She knew that Star Force was on the rise, technologically speaking, as they got more and more tech upgrades from the pyramid, but to date it hadn’t mattered much in the overall war. A 294/0 rout would certainly send a message that there was a new sheriff in town, and Morgan was going to deliver it via the survivors…if there were any to pull out of the mess Star Force had made of their fleet…which she’d drop off in a system the Nestafar controlled or contended on the way to pick up more Calavari.

Word would get back, she hoped, and give these bastards the message to stay clear of the local region of what had once been Calavari space that Star Force was now operating in, and what Morgan privately considered her turf in this gigantic free for all of a war.

2

October 1, 2466

Jasne System

Drema

The Blue Ranger decelerated against the Calavari planet’s gravity well first in a long line of ships in Morgan’s convoy, finding the planet as it should be…still in Alliance hands. She hadn’t been back here in nearly 3 years, having been shuffling Calavari away from the pickup points via other escorts, but this was the largest fleet of refugees collected to date and Morgan intended to see it through to completion…not to mention she needed to resupply, and bringing her fleet in was easier than running cargo ships out to them.

As the Blue Ranger got its sensors back into alignment a host of Star Force signals popped up on the battlemap, some of which belonged to Taryn’s fleet, which was a day from leaving, having just finished resupplying. In addition to them were a host of warships designated to help the Calavari protect the planet/system, as well as a huge number of cargo jumpships bringing supplies up the conduit and taking Calavari back to HTC.

Two new additions were Star Force defense platforms. Each was a remote-controlled space station, similar to the drone warships, but designed to sit in orbit and fire at anything that came close with both short and long range weaponry. Each platform had a cleansing beam and an insane number of missile racks, not to mention plasma and mauler cannons. Morgan immediately felt safer, knowing that Jenna was stacking the deck in terms of planetary defense, and saw several other new additions to orbit as well, first among them being a storage/repair yard.

The massive cube held the facilities to repair, refit, and replace her drone fleet, which had become extremely battered over the past 3 years. The original repair yard still floated in orbit, and was at the moment attending to a jumpship, with the much larger cube on a lower orbital track with dozens of Taryn’s jumpships sitting nearby. Morgan immediately queried the computer systems for an inventory count and was relieved to see that there were still replacement drone warships available, though far less than the entire station could hold.

There was enough to reequip her fleet, with more coming up the conduit by the month. At first the Calavari on Drema had been resistant to Star Force establishing a permanent presence, especially when they realized that Morgan’s people were taking Calavari refugees back to Star Force territory, but as the condition of the Calavari empire deteriorated their resistance slackened, and when it became clear that Drema could not take on any more refugees, the local government graciously facilitated their transfer out of the system, encouraging many who were skeptical to go with their Human allies.

The number of jumpships traversing the conduit had increased exponentially over the last three decades, so much so that there were ships coming in and going out almost daily, with those coming in sometimes containing Star Force Calavari. Equipped with warships and weapons that were a combination of the two races’ tech, they became the best recruitment tool of all, pulling experienced warriors off the battlefield and convincing them to go down the conduit to receive the same training, then come back and help the Star Force Calavari carve out a new empire in the rubble of the old.

To date they had, with the Humans’ help, secured two neighboring systems in addition to Jasne, and in all three they had established small colonies that were using the Calavari techs returning through the conduit to begin expanding their infrastructure in a typical Star Force manner. One stipulation was that no native Calavari would be welcome in the colonies until they’d gone through Star Force training, something that the ‘new’ Calavari were insistent on…which was something the others couldn’t understand until they saw the battle records from Nanten.

The system was far from Drema and the conduit, but it was the first place the Star Force Calavari had gone into battle on their own terms. The Star Force fleet had engaged the Nestafar occupation forces on a pair of planets, clearing them from orbit, with the mainline units ground landing on one to assist the natives with the destruction of the Nestafar troops while the Star Force Calavari got their own exclusive mission on the other planet with the same objective.

The documentation of that assault and successful retaking of a world from the Nestafar, small as it was, filtered out through the remains of the Calavari empire. After a few years Calavari ships started showing up at Drema looking for these converts and either offering their assistance in battling the Nestafar/lizards or wanting to join them. As it was, Drema’s high orbit was cluttered with abandoned Calavari ships that were either being refitted or recycled by Star Force, as their crews had already been shipped back through the conduit for training.

Some stayed in Star Force space, helping to grow the new Calavari empire on HTC, but many more returned, not wanting to abandon the original Calavari territory altogether. Three systems may not have been much, but word had spread of there being other holdouts, and the resistance gave the Calavari hope…and more importantly, an objective to fight for, rather than just rolling from one defeat to another and hoping to make the next transport so they wouldn’t be left behind.

But so many still were. As many planets as Star Force evacuated, there were hundreds more that had been caught between severed supply lines, Nestafar invasion, or simply deemed inconsequential, with their small defense fleets being pulled off to pool together to protect more valuable locations. It was a sad, depressing, and overly demoralizing combat theatre that had once been a great race, now reduced to a large population spread across disparate systems with no central controlling factor.

Star Force, the Protovic, and other benefactors were stepping in to fill part of that roll, but it was the Star Force Calavari that garnered the most response from the war torn planets…for they weren’t only revitalized and reequipped, they had naval assets on par with Star Force, whose fleet, while small in comparison to what the Calavari originally had, had always been superior. Naval was the Calavari’s weakest area, but these new Calavari touted it as their strength…something that seemed impossible within Calavari society.

With their empire effectively dead, many had given up hope and consoled themselves to holding out and trying to weather the storm until the day of their destruction finally arrived, but when word spread of the Star Force Calavari, along with recorded proof of their limited battle history, those who still had a spark of defiance left in them took up a new battle cry. That battle cry was to survive the enemy until they could get to Star Force, or Star Force could get to them, precipitating a mass exodus for those who had jumpship access…and long coast phases between star systems for those ships without.

Word had gotten around to the Nestafar as well, who’d come looking to squash the Star Force ‘hope’ that some of the Calavari worlds were rallying around, but on multiple times they’d been repulsed from Morgan’s turf, though often it was Taryn’s and Leif’s fleets doing the fighting while Morgan pressed further out into the war zone, picking up survivors and spreading the word.

And the word was Rebirth.

So it wasn’t altogether surprising how many Calavari ships Morgan saw parked in orbit around Drema, but it was still an impressive sight. Even more so were the number of Star Force jumpships, which to her meant more badly needed supplies flowing in, among which were foodstuff shipments for Drema and the Crecchon and Tarvis systems. It wasn’t much compared to the need, but it kept the Star Force Calavari supplied while they established their own bioharvest facilities, as well as adding to the limited foodstuffs that Drema had available for the swarm of refugees populating its surface.

The 3,412 Calavari ships that Morgan had brought with her began deceleration braking behind the Blue Ranger one and two at a time, with the bulk still being several days behind. Her other warships had stayed back with them, ensuring the Calavari didn’t get the jump on them at the previous system before all were away. The Calavari jumpships had been sent on ahead weeks earlier, leaving Morgan to shepherd the slow convoy at a snail’s pace, but after several months they’d finally arrived at their destination, safe and sound.

Give her ships a couple of weeks to resupply and they’d be heading back out to round up more Calavari, picking them up wherever they encountered them as they limped their way towards Drema. So far the Nestafar hadn’t hit it directly, but Morgan figured it was only a matter of time, which was why she’d left a considerable warship presence behind, which it seemed Jenna had been adding to nicely, based off the ID tags on the battlemap, which included several new models that the Ninja Monkey had apparently been holding out on Morgan.

They’d have a little chat about that later, but protecting Drema was Jenna’s primary mission, so Morgan wouldn’t hold it against her too much. That said, there were a lot of assets showing up in orbit, meaning the trailblazer was going to have to do some administrative work before she headed back out…and if Taryn was still insystem she wanted to discuss the situation with her personally.

A day later she met both Taryn and Jenna onboard the partially operational Calavari seda in low orbit that was still under construction, but in typical ‘death star’ fashion the pieces of it that had been built were habitable, with the rest of the building effort being held up for lack of supplies. Its weapon systems weren’t up and running yet, but the interior was large enough to accommodate well over 1,000 Calavari, who found it a great honor to have all three Archons, let alone two trailblazers, use it as a summit point.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of activity here,” Taryn said, pointing to the star map. “Nothing large, but a lot of Nestafar smaller ship traffic. No conflicts as yet, but they’re moving through the system, I think to around here,” she said, making a circle with her finger around a cluster of star systems. “I think they’ve got a resupply base or colony in there.”

“Damn,” Morgan whispered, chewing on the end of her finger.

Jenna raised an eyebrow. “You think they’re coming for us?”

“Not much Calavari left around here to target,” Taryn answered, “unless they’re trying to sweep up scraps, which I doubt. They may have more of their empire intact, but they’ve been hurt nearly as bad as the Calavari. They don’t have resources for auxiliary campaigns.”

“I agree,” Morgan said, nodding once. “There are a lot of small systems out there that they’ve passed over for annexation. They’re out to kill Calavari and are focusing on their major worlds. There’s a cluster here,” she said, pointing into the central region of Calavari space, which ran up and down on the 3d map further than it did side to side, “that they could be staging for a future campaign, but I’d put my credits on us.”

“How do you want to play it?” Jenna asked.

Morgan and Taryn exchanged glances, with the redhead answering.

“If we waste time or resources hunting this base down it means recovering less Calavari. That’s our primary mission, so we’ll let the Nestafar come to us.”

“That sounds like a…bad idea,” Jenna admitted. “If they’re setting up a stronghold, best to hit it before it gets too developed.”

“Normally I would agree,” Morgan said, a frustrated look on her face, “but when there are billions of Calavari out there needing to be saved, we can’t waste time on maybes. We’re not due to probe that far out anytime soon, and we’re not going to divert…no matter how much I want to.”

“If they are coming here, we need a battle plan,” Jenna noted. “More than I’ve got set up, anyway.”

“What have you got?” Taryn asked.

Jenna adjusted the hologram, pulling it out to a system-wide view.

“I’ve got sensor stations around all the planets, so if they poke in for a look we’ll know. Right now I’ve got 13 fully loaded warships stationed around J-19,” she said, pointing to the outermost planet in the system that had no name. “They don’t have binary drives, and that’s the most remote position that I can place them for easy recall. If the Nestafar are counting ships in orbit, these won’t show up. I’d planned on stationing more further out, as we get reinforced, but I don’t want to leave orbit naked.”

“How are you organizing the Calavari fleet?” Taryn asked.

“The abandoned ships are just parked in high orbit with a few drones guarding them. The Calavari refuge fleet I’m keeping within distance of the defense platforms, so they’ll have a place to run to if necessary. The Calavari warships we’ve accumulated are spread out in pairs guarding the orbiting infrastructure. They’re not a match for the Nestafar, but they can delay them long enough for help to arrive…or drive off a single ship trying to poach targets of opportunity.”

“Our Calavari,” Jenna continued, “have two fleets insystem. One is stationed here, guarding the seda until it’s operational, and the other is patrolling high orbit. If the Nestafar do jump in, they can come in behind them and cause trouble. Our mainline fleets are sprinkled around low orbit, ready to reposition as needed.”

“Valeries?” Morgan asked.

“We have a lot, actually, but most are atmospheric only. The starfighters have been mostly obliterated in naval combat, but their aero-only versions have been popping up regularly, a lot in handfuls scrounged from evac zones, but they’ve been accumulating. They’re standing ready in surface bases to try and intercept Nestafar dropships on the way down. If they get their walkers on the surface things will get real bad, real fast. The Calavari have a formidable army on station, but their hovertanks are crap against the walkers.”

“Believe me, I know,” Morgan said, staring at the locations of the surface bases, of which a few more had been added since her last visit. “How many mechs have we got?”

“On the surface, we’ve got two galaxies, all Calavari. All mainline mech units are still on their jumpships waiting to go out with you,” Jenna said, using the Battletech-inspired unit system, in which a ‘galaxy’ was 500.

“How many of the Calavari mechs are mauler-equipped?” Morgan asked.

“About a third.”

Taryn shook her head. “Mauler is the only weapon that works well against Nestafar armor. Have we given them any heavy walkers?”

“Not that I know of yet,” Jenna said, unsure of what was going on back in Alpha Region where the Calavari were being trained and equipped, with Jason and Jace making the decisions there. “All we’ve received are scale 1.”

“You’ll want to put together all-mauler stars to take on the bigger mechs,” Taryn said, speaking from experience. “Use plasma for the giraffes and missile heavies for support. Let the maulers strip the armor off and the others to finish them. Fastest way I know of,” she said, glancing at Morgan.

“I concur. Do we have any air assets on the ground?”

“Only Calavari, and they’re Star Force Valeries…with a few gunships thrown in, but the native Valeries far outnumber ours. How much you expecting the Nestafar to throw at us?”

“There’s no way of knowing,” Morgan said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Nor when. We just have to lay out as much defense as we can and work the problem when it happens.”

“That’s cheerful,” Jenna quipped.

“The only other option is to pull in one of our fleets,” Taryn explained, “which we are not going to do.”

“I know, I know. If we sit on our hands the Nestafar win by default. I just wish I had more ships to work with, but everything that comes through needs to go to you three, so I’m in a tough position not knowing what to prepare for.”

“You got any more of those defense platforms on the way?”

Jenna looked at the pair of trailblazers, then over to Morgan. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Who sent them.”

“No. Should I?”

“They were a little gift from Clan Saber, with three more on the way. Jason said he’s sending something a bit bigger, due in 5 months or so.”

Morgan frowned. “What are those two up to?”

“I don’t care,” Jenna said, “so long as they’re sending toys our way.”

“Don’t they have enough to worry about on the lizard front?” Taryn asked.

“Couple of no good schemers,” Morgan mumbled. “They’re still vying for IlClan.”

“IlClans,” Taryn corrected.

“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Something between trailblazers,” Taryn scoffed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Now I want to know.”

“Just them doing their power twins routine…again,” Morgan half-explained. “One war front isn’t good enough, so now they’re playing in two.”

“And that’s bad?”

“No,” Morgan frowned, “it’s a good thing.”

“Which is what makes it so frustrating,” Taryn finished.

“Are we really caring about this right now,” Jenna asked, “with the Nestafar on the prowl?”

Taryn rolled her eyes. “Still a newb.”

“It’s called multi-tasking,” Morgan explained to her fellow Ninja Monkey. “When you get as good as we are you can deal with doomsday scenarios and compete with your fellow Archons at the same time.”

“I thought that only applied to sarcasm,” Jenna joked.

“’Multi’ means more than one,” Morgan reminded her. “I’m still kicking their ass in ranks.”

Jenna looked at Taryn. “Are you all like this?”

“Pretty much,” the trailblazer confirmed.

“You guys must have been nuts in basic training.”

“We still hold most of the records,” Morgan reminded her.

Jenna set her elbows on the holoprojector. “My point exactly.”

3

May 31, 2467

Ghanis System (Beta Region)

Ettiana

“Captain, we have a system-wide warning flag!” a Kiritas crewmember shouted excitedly on the bridge of the H132 jumpship in its high pitched voice.

Erica Sorvela looked up from the datapad in her hand and uncrossed her legs as she rapidly sat up. “Show me.”

One of the Human bridge crew brought up the holographic text in front of her command chair, along with the tags on the orbital map, indicating enemy warships on approach. She took a moment to read the brief message, then even longer to analyze the map, noting that the incoming Skarron ships were not on a jumpline near her ship, meaning she had a few minutes at least to work with.

“Hold all outgoing dropships and get the ones on the way up here inside as fast as possible. Navigator, get me three quick options out of planetary orbit, but avoid the star. If the Skarrons are incoming that’s where they’ll be coming from. Comms, inform the spaceport to stop sending additional ships, but that we’ll wait for those already enroute if able. And get me a close up on the incoming ships.”

A secondary hologram appeared on the right, detailing the Skarron fleet as it jumped into middle planetary orbit in the form of single ships, one popping up every couple of seconds as they came in on a stellar jumpline. Already there were 18, and they appeared to be holding up just off the jumpline…gathering their strength, probably, to begin the assault on the planetary defenses.

Sorvela used her command chair controls to search around the map until she found the defense fleet, which was likewise assembling from its varied patrols, but unlike the Skarrons it was coalescing into several pieces, the closest of which was a group of 12 drone warships moving out towards the Skarrons, probably to hit them before the rest of their fleet arrived…which begged the question just how many were coming.

Then all of a sudden a huge new contact jumped in, with the computer tagging it as a ‘Juggernaut.’

“Eta on the dropships?” Sorvela asked with a forced calm.

“14 minutes.”

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek to stay focused as more and more Skarron ships poured in. The cargo ships and other vessels in orbits closer to the attackers, including some from other races who happened to be insystem, scattered like insects moving away from an incoming boot. 14 minutes should be a safe margin, she hoped, given that their updates on the Skarrons had only made their way to her ship months ago. Before then she’d only heard of them in rumors.

Who knew what they had in terms of technology, and that fact rattled her as she was forced to sit and wait…for she wasn’t abandoning the dropships. She could have, forcing them to return to the planet, but if she’d been onboard one with an enemy invasion incoming, she’d have wanted the ship to wait for her if at all possible.

So they were going to wait, then they were getting the hell out of here and let the military deal with the Skarrons…though the more ships that popped up into orbit gave her the feeling that this wasn’t some raid they were going to fend off. She knew never to underestimate Star Force’s military might, but by the time the third of the massive juggernauts appeared she was swearing up a storm in her mind, with one thought pounding through her consciousness as the last dropships were on approach to the hangar bays.

RUN.

Two days later…

“Here it comes,” Etito said to his fellow Kiritak as they waited in the shadow of a half-destroyed barrier wall that surrounded their barracks at the mining colony. It still stood half again over their one meter height, but had originally been twice as tall, with the top section of the concrete wall laying in chunks all over the inner courtyard from where an aircraft missile had hit the small defense turret on top.

“Just one?” Movo asked in a whisper as the six Kiritak guards were hunkered up against the wall in their dark green body armor.

An explosion elsewhere on the perimeter silenced Etito’s reply, with the small Kiritak putting its three fingered hand out where the others could see and counted down with each digit, pulling all three into a fist.

When he did the last Kiritak in line sprinted out, followed by the fifth, then the fourth and so on until Etito was the last to jump out of cover. When he did he saw a huge alien down the trail ahead of them. It stood three times as tall and many times wider, with four massive legs and four long arms coming out the top. It was beyond ugly, even without a head, but it did have a mouth that looked big enough to swallow one of them whole.

The next thing Etito saw was two small objects moving through the air towards the Skarron, who fired at the little Kiritak with two white plasma orbs from squarish guns on the end of its forward arms. Before it could fire again the two objects hit the thing’s tough yellow skin and bounced off, exploding a few inches out as the Kiritak who threw them triggered the remote mines.

Etito heard a huge roar from the alien, but it walked forward through the smoke and continued firing, now with a wound oozing dirty white blood. Two of his fellow guards got hit and knocked down by the blasts, but their shields held up to the shots and they got back to their feet as the others fired their plasma pistols and chucked two more Kiritas grenades.

They exchanged fire, white orbs for blue lances, for a few seconds, then with another explosion the big thing finally went down with a thud onto the dirt trail.

“Make sure it’s dead,” Etito said, shooting it three more times with his pistol, and the others joined in…save for Movo.

“You hit?” Etito asked, walk/hopping over to his fellow Kiritak.

“What’s it look like?” Movo said angrily, holding a tiny hand over a hole in his leg’s thin armor.

“How bad is it?” Reloni asked, seeing some blue blood seeping through his fingers…but not much.

“Surface burn,” Movo said as he stood up wincing. “It hurts like mojorni’s girdle, but I think I can walk.”

“Head back inside,” Etito said as another white orb flashed over their heads, followed by a splattering of smaller ones coming from the trail up ahead.

“Shit!” he said, firing back at one of the equally small aliens with a flat head that were coming through the brush ahead of another one of the big ones coming up the trail. “Fall back!” he said, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, with most of his shots going wide in his haste.

“They’re everywhere!” Movo yelled, hopping as fast as he could with one leg to get back to the entrance in the wall. A warm spot on his tail told him he’d taken another hit, but fortunately this one didn’t burn all the way through his armor.

“Hurry up!” Etito yelled, seeing that Movo was falling behind. “Ahhh!”

Etito ducked down just before getting to the corner as a mass of red nearly ran into him. He ducked and the Archon jumped over his head, avoiding a collision, though the Kiritak felt a bit of liquid in his pants none the less.

“Kick their ass!” he yelled as he turned around at the wall and took cover, shooting at one of the little aliens as the Archon shot several others on approach, then jumped up into the air and came down on top of the Skarron between its four shoulder joints and stood up, firing directly down into the thing’s back with plasma blast after plasma blast as it tried to shake him off, to no avail.

The Skarron went down with another tremor felt as much as heard, then the Archon leapt off to Etito’s left and started shooting and kicking the little aliens into submission. The Kiritak stepped out of cover and threw one of his grenades at a trio of aliens well ahead to the right. It fell short, bouncing across the ground and ducking between the feet of the front one.

Etito pushed his hand trigger, blowing it up underneath and knocking all three down, the first of which landed in pieces. Blue lances from the other Kiritak clustered near the wall finished off the other two as they tried to limp off bloodied, then Movo took another hit by an errant plasma orb.

“Ah shit, not again!” he cried, rolling over on his tail as he jerked around, trying to rub away the heat in his chest that was burning through his clothes and scorching his skin.

“Behind you!” Reloni yelled, pivoting around and firing at a couple of the small aliens that were coming out of the barracks’ door across the courtyard.

“Ah, they’re inside!” Etito yelled as he turned around and fired. With the fire from the others they blanketed the two Hobbits with blue streaks, two thirds of which missed, but the rest were enough to take them down, though Etito took a hit to his shields, with his helmet monitor informing him that its effective strength had been reduced to 13%. It would recharge slowly, but if he got hit again soon it would go straight to his armor and he’d end up like Movo, who was still on the ground, crying, but no longer thrashing about.

Etito pointed a middle finger towards the barrack’s door and one of the other Kiritak ran over to it and looked inside…taking a plasma orb to the face and getting knocked back onto his tail. He scrambled off to the side as the other Kiritak shot the next Hobbit to come out.

“Too many, too many…” the Kiritak said as he ran back to the others. “Where do we go? What do we do?”

“We shoot them,” Etito said, not knowing what else to do as another small alien came out, but before he could shoot it a single blue streak hit it in the chest, coming down from overhead. Etito turned and looked over his left shoulder, seeing the tall, red armored Archon standing behind him.

“You five, come with me,” he said in the typically low-toned voice of the Humans as he reached down and picked up Movo by the tail and slung him over his left shoulder. “Move!”

“Coming,” Etito said as he and the other four ran/hopped as fast as they could, following the Archon outside the barrier wall and to the left. He led them down the wall for 50 meters or so, then ducked into the forest, keeping off the trail and heading away from the barracks…and everything else.

“Where are…we going?” Etito asked after a few minutes.

“Away,” the Archon said, zigzagging between trees and purposely avoiding a straight line, it seemed to the Kiritak.

“But what about the other Kiritak? Why are you leaving them behind?”

“I’m not leaving anyone behind,” the Archon said over his shoulder as he continued to jog as fast as he thought the Kiritak could move. “The mining colony is lost. Everyone else is dead.”

“Already?” Etito asked in disbelief.

“There are a lot more troops on the ground than you can see…hold up.”

The Kiritak stopped behind him, grateful for the breather.

“Thank…the Randy,” Reloni said, huffing.

“Can you put me down now?” Movo asked meekly, clearly still in pain.

“Not just yet. Hang on,” the Archon said, looking to the sky through the trees. He couldn’t see much, but there were enough brakes here and there to get a partial image of a large ship passing overhead.

When he was sure it hadn’t spotted them he pulled Movo off his shoulder and gently set him down on the ground.

“Stay here,” he said, running a few steps and jumping up to grab a low tree branch as he started to climb.

The trees on Ettiana weren’t large, nor were they stiff, so every branch he climbed up gave a bit, but overall the plant was firm enough to support his weight up to the near top, where he stopped as he felt a bit too much give forming in the primary stem. He reached out and pushed aside several branches full of red and orange leaves the length of a banana, opening up his view back to the mining colony. In the near distance he could see the barracks where the workers lived, then further off was the much larger industrial facility…and smack between the two, over the forest that surrounded everything, was a huge, rectangular starship hovering in place.

But it wasn’t a perfect rectangle, and it was far longer than most, with hooks and arms all along the length, two thirds of which were empty. The ones that weren’t held small items in their grasp, of varying sizes, one of which was released on the far side. It dropped into view, landing on its six legs as it crashed down into the trees, then it slowly stood up to its full height as the starship moved off to the east, gaining altitude.

A rustle nearby caught the Archon’s attention as Etito climbed up the tree next to him, hopping from one branch to another and latching on with his small arms and tail, when necessary.

“What do you see?” the Kiritak asked.

“Trouble,” he said, pointing in the direction of the Skarron walker as it began to stomp off across the trees.

“It’s huge!”

“It’s a Type-4 Skarron walker, and nothing short of a mech will take it down.”

“You said everyone was dead…”

“So why drop it now? Good question. Maybe they’re expecting a counterattack, maybe they’re just fortifying their position. The battlemap relays are still active, for the moment, and I can’t see any troops nearby for that thing to fight, so I’m not sure what they’re up to. But we have to stay away from that thing or we’re as good as dead.”

“Where do we go? There’s no other colonies near here. Too far to walk. And we have no food.”

“No, it is too far. We wait here. Star Force isn’t going to let this invasion go unanswered, so our mission is to survive until help arrives.”

“How long?”

“Weeks at best, maybe months.”

“We starve before that.”

“No,” the Archon said, shaking his head. “The food’s down there. Unless they burn it. After things settle down I’ll sneak around and see what I can find. Until then, let’s see if we can’t find a hiding spot further away. They’re going to have their little buddies on patrol, no doubt, and their fighters might be able to spot us if we’re in a clearing.”

“How did they get here?”

“The Skarrons came with a large fleet, too much for our warships to fight off.”

“No,” Etito said, “I mean how did they get here.”

“Flying transports dropped their troops at various points around the perimeter after their fighters took out the defense turrets. They didn’t walk, if that’s what you mean.”

“Nothing we can steal?”

The Archon shook his head. “I wish, but no. They flew off after they made the drop off, just like the big ship that brought the walker.”

“Where did you come from?”

The Archon pointed across the forest to the southern side of the barracks.

“Way over there is what’s left of my skeet.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Pilot without a ship.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Six…their fighters are slow, but they coordinate well in groups.”

“You alone?”

“The rest of squadron went down earlier. I flew off trying to find some smaller enemies to kill, and still bit off more than I could chew. Let’s head back down.”

“Ok,” Etito said, dropping from one branch to another and landing on each with a bird-like agility until he got to the ground…whereas the Archon simply dropped, grabbing a couple on the way to slow his fall until he landed on the hard ground in a crouch.

“Let’s move,” he said, walking over and picking up Movo again, but holding him in front of him for a moment to examine his wounds. “How you doing little guy?”

“Hurts…less,” he said between clenched teeth.

The Archon saw little bits of green gel soaking into his burn marks from the edges of the holes in his armor, which was a good sign, for it was an anti-infectious, medical gel built into the armor that also included a pain numbing component.

“Just stay alive until I can get you a proper med kit. Same goes for the rest of you,” he said, swinging Movo over his shoulder again as if he weighed almost nothing. “I’ll find us food, water, and whatever else we need in the colony later, after the Skarrons settle in. Until then we hide out here…or rather out there somewhere more to our liking. So let’s get going, and keep an eye out for the enemy or any good hiding spots you see on the way.”

4

June 4, 2467

Ghanis System (Beta Region)

Ettiana

In the dead of night Ben-161339 came up to the edge of the forest surrounding the Kiritak barracks, already having evaded a Hobbit patrol. There were several more at the barrier wall openings, which was why he was going over the wall itself, despite not knowing what was on the far side…other than the supplies he and the 6 Kiritak badly needed.

Watching the positions of the roaming sentries, Ben sprinted across the small clearing surrounding the wall and jumped up, grabbing the topside edge and pulling his helmeted head up enough to look over.

He dropped back down immediately and retreated to the woods, having seen a pair of Hobbits walking his way on the inside. The Archon kept a mental calculation going as he watched the sentries outside, then over a minute later he sprinted back across and jumped again, peeping over the edge.

When he did he saw that he had a short break, so he hauled his armored body up on top of the wall and slid over the far side, dropping to the ground as quietly as he could before running into the compound through a nearby door that had been blasted open by the attack. He hesitated at the entrance, glancing inside to make sure it was clear, then he ducked into the short hallways that were perfectly suited for the Hobbits…but were too small for the Skarrons to enter, luckily.

They were designed for the Kiritak, for they were the only ones who used this facility. Using his night vision, Ben went inside the low ceilinged dark hallways, seeing lights, doors, and just about anything not attached to the walls broken and burned, but with no sign of the Hobbits. Using that to his advantage, the Archon made his way through the somewhat familiar infrastructure to the cafeteria, quickly seeing the backside storage rooms had already been raided.

There were blue blood stains everywhere, with open packets of foodstuffs scattered over top of them…but no bodies, suggesting the Hobbits had already cleaned up a bit, which was a sign that they intended to stay and make use of the facility, otherwise they would have left them where they lay.

The cafeteria was deserted, so Ben tiptoed his way through the trash over to the storage rooms, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw a cluttered, but not empty mess of foodstuff containers.

That took care of item number 1, but he wasn’t going to collect any now. Not only did his armor not have any pockets, there were other things he needed to find, and the less he disturbed the less chance there was of him being discovered…plus, he’d be a lot less agile carrying around a box or two.

Before he could get out of the cafeteria he heard footsteps approach, so he hunkered up against the wall beside the doorway to an outside hall and waited, ready to jump whoever came through if they noticed him. After a few seconds in walked a Hobbit…who didn’t see him, let alone turn his head in his direction. All the lights were out, and the Hobbits weren’t wearing any head gear, so Ben didn’t know if they naturally could see in the dark or how they were navigating, but he took his good fortune and slipped out the door behind the little alien, then headed off through the dead facility enroute to the med bay.

It was likewise trashed, but like the cafeteria most of the contents were still here, making it look like the Hobbits had just wanted to mess stuff up, or either they were looking for something they hadn’t found. Granted the Kiritak were small, but they couldn’t hide in every cabinet, so maybe the enemy was just having fun trashing the place.

First off Ben retrieved a mobile med kid, which was a small, flat box that had a concealed strap that he pulled out and slung over his armored shoulder. Into the standardized box he added a few items from the other shelves that caught his attention, including a can of casting foam, and compressed the lot to get it all to fit inside so he could get the latch locked in place.

With Movo taken care of, the next thing he went for was the auxiliary storage areas, passing one lackadaisical patrol in the hallways on the way by crouched down in a nook and waiting for it to walk past. First thing inside storage that he went for was cargo sacks. They were designed for the smaller Kiritak inhabitants, but they effectively acted like small backpacks made of netting. Ben took four of them with him, then started hunting for random supplies they would need, filling two before he got to the weapons storage.

Inside the small armory had been turned inside out, with most of the weapons broken. From the debris he was able to salvage ammo clips for the Kiritak pistols and rifles, as well as a few of the weapons that had escaped damage. He pulled open a low cabinet and found several containers still inside and pulled them out, seeing the hockey puck grenade/mines that the Kiritak favored.

Filling the third sack with as many as he could get in along with the weapons and plasma clips, he held off on the fourth sack as long as he could, but eventually gave in as he came across some spare armored suits, which he disassembled and stuffed inside, realizing he’d have to get more cargo sacks for the foodstuffs and water on the way out, for the planet’s surface was fairly dry with few streams to pull from.

Not wanting to overstay his welcome, and hoping to come back and raid the place for more supplies later, he avoided the Hobbits roaming the hallways and took a different route back to the cafeteria. Before he got there he smelled smoke and other scents coming from a different area of the barracks, as well as a fair amount of noise.

He chanced a little exploration, just wanting a peek at where they were and what was burning, but when he came up to a fire-lit doorway and poked his helmet around to see what was inside his stomach sank down to a pit and his ire rose, causing him to clench his jaw to contain his emotions.

There was a fire, crudely built in the center of what had been a recreation area, on top of which there was a pair of carcasses cooking…Kiritak carcasses, with bits and pieces of several others looking to have already been devoured. The damn Hobbits were eating the dead while there were rooms full of foodstuffs just on the other side of the facility.

Ben saw a stack of bodies on the far side of the room, piled up haphazardly almost to the ceiling. Blood was everywhere, and it seemed the ‘cleaning’ effort throughout the rest of the barracks hadn’t been for tidiness sake after all.

Wanting to kill them all but knowing he shouldn’t betray his presence, Ben clamped down on his anger and turned away, heading back down the dark hallway and making his way around to the storage areas, grabbing another three cargo sacks, and returning to the cafeteria where he filled two with foodstuffs and the third with water containers…until he found a portable atmospheric condenser, which he made room for, along with a field power pack.

With all seven sacks and their chords making for a mess of his armor, he decided to hold them together by hand and toss them over his shoulder, med kit included, rather than try and wear them. He felt like Santa Claus, and looked like it too, after a fashion, given his red armor, and knew he’d be just as conspicuous on his way out, so he took his time and worked his way around the inside of the barracks, looking at multiple exits and picking what he thought was best after doing a few test runs out to the wall and back without his cargo.

He thought he had the Hobbits’ patrol patterns figured out, so pulling his 8 piece bundle over his left shoulder he decided to go for it and ran for the wall near where a turret had been destroyed. The blast had knocked the top section of wall off, making it low enough that he wouldn’t have to climb as high.

When Ben got up to it he tossed the bundle over first, then hopped over himself, spotting a sentry to his right that had its back turned to him some distance down. Apparently it hadn’t heard the noise, so the Archon picked up his stash and darted off into the forest, beginning the fairly long trek back to the Kiritak’s hiding spot, though even with the load he was moving faster than he had been with the six little guys in tow.

“Damn it to hell,” one of the Star Fox control room staff said loudly.

Sendra-4339 turned away from the star map she was studying and gave the tech a harsh glare. “What is it?”

“We have another distress call coming in. It’s Ghanis.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sendra bit out as she pounded a fist on the rim of the holoprojector in front of her. “Get a message out to Mensolon requesting their status. If the Skarrons are in Ghanis they might be there too. Hell, they may end up here before too long,” the acolyte said, thoroughly vexed. Randy had left her in charge of Iona after the first distress call had come in from Rotunna, with him leaving with most of the Star Fox fleet that had been in the system, along with calls to pull ships from the other Beta Region systems to assemble at Iona, which she was to bring out to Rotunna a few weeks later once they all arrived.

Then yesterday, after Randy had already left, they’d received a distress call through the relay network from Brenns…and now from Ghanis. All three systems were on the Calavari side of Beta Region and the closest to the Protovic/Skarron conflict where Kip was leading four Clans on a ‘save their ass’ campaign. It seemed the Skarrons hadn’t liked Star Force getting involved in the conflict and were now striking back at them…only it wasn’t an individual system, it was now three, with who knew how many more to follow.

She only had a handful of warships within the system, and those had to stay here to defend Iona. She might be able to peel off one to send along with the reinforcements from the other systems as they came in, but the numbers attached to the distress calls from Rotunna and Brenns had been staggering, and she doubted they would be any less impressive from Ghanis once their battle data got transmitted.

There was no way Clan Star Fox and the 32nd mainline fleet, which had been assigned to Beta Region, could handle this…not even with Kiritak and Kiritas support. Star Force was flat out getting overrun.

“Prep a message packet to Sol, with a copy to Epsilon Eridani,” she said, heading for a private chamber set off the control room. “Bump it to the front of the line. I’ll have it recorded within 10 minutes, then I want every ship within the system on full alert…and cancel all cargo shipments to Ghanis.”

Davis sat in his office in discussion with two other Star Force administrators later in the afternoon when his desk suddenly lit up with flashing emergency holographic icons appearing in midair, startling all three men.

The Star Force Director tapped a few keys and a pre-recorded message began to play.

“Davis,” Randy’s image said from his office on Kirit, “our Kiritak colony in Rotunna has come under Skarron attack. Information is limited at the moment, but it appears they’ve come with a fleet large enough to overwhelm out local defenses. Shortly I’m going to be heading out with a relief force from Iona, but I wanted to get this message sent as soon as possible.”

“I don’t have enough military resources to defeat the enemy fleet, but I’ll do my best to chew them up until reinforcements can arrive. I’m ordering additional ships from Beta Region to rendezvous in Iona, then to follow me in. Whether or not that will be enough to deal with this threat I don’t know. Their actual ship count we don’t know, but as of the last update from Rotunna there were over 200 warships, including a pair of juggernauts. See the information files about those.”

“I’m not going in and getting ourselves killed, so expect my fleet to be around when help arrives, though in what condition we’re in is anyone’s guess. We know the Skarrons don’t have binary drives, so we can evade them when necessary. I will need supplies eventually, but first and foremost I need you to send ships to reinforce my other systems. I’m shortchanging them to have a response fleet, leaving them very vulnerable. Time is of the essence, so get whatever you have available moving immediately and secure Iona first. It’s the key to Beta Region and we cannot afford to lose the Kiritas.”

“Sendra will keep you updated as more information comes in. I’m leaving the system within the next two hours, and expect to be engaging the enemy no sooner than a month and a half from now. It’s possible Brenns and Ghanis will have sent limited reinforcements on their own, but I have no way of knowing given the distances involved. Either way, they don’t have the ships needed to do more than annoy them.”

“You should get this message in 9 or 10 days, so I’ll still be enroute when you’re listening to this. Don’t skimp on the reinforcements. Better to send more and not need them than to have to wait months for more. I also don’t know the Skarrons’ aim here, but there have been rumors that they’re taking out a number of smaller races now that the Nestafar are more or less out of the picture. This could be an attack meant to bloody our nose and intimidate us from getting involved, or to punish us for involvement with the Protovic…or it could be the start of a full scale war.”

“I’m sending a separate message to Corneria and the other trailblazers, so you shouldn’t need to do anything yourself, I just wanted to make you aware of the situation and the need for as many reinforcements as possible. We’ve been holding back our fleets from the lizard and Calavari campaigns in case of an attack against our own systems, and now it’s happened. Don’t jeopardize Sol’s security, but give me what you can. According to Kip these guys can be beat, but it’s going to be like chopping wood, and I need more axes.”

“Also, keep in mind that our ability to send cargo shipments back home is going to be hindered, so start taking whatever economic measures necessary. I’ve left orders for Beta Region to continue as much production as possible, but I can no longer guarantee amounts.”

“And in case you’re wondering whether or not it was a good idea to help the Protovic, put that question aside. It was the right thing to do, and this fight has been a long time in coming. We’ve been staring at each other over the ‘fence’ for quite a while now, sizing each other up. This fight has been in the cards ever since I came to Beta Region, and if we don’t tear these bastards a new one they’re going to continue preying on the weaker races out there. The fact that they’re willing to hit the Protovic says they’re serious about this and have the military might to back it up.”

“We have to hit them back and hit them back hard…now, else I fear this will escalate out of control. Star Force’s days of sitting back and joining in the wars when and where we choose is over. We’ve been preparing for this, and now it’s time to act. Sorry it had to be on my turf, though. I’d hoped we’d have more time to prepare.”

Randy hesitated for a moment.

“I guess that’s it. I’m ticked and embarrassed, because it feels like I just got caught with my pants down. I know it couldn’t be helped, but I still hate being sucker-punched. I don’t have a clue where the Skarrons are basing out of, their territory is nowhere near us, so right now all we can do is face them on our own turf and play it by ear. If the relay in Rotunna is still intact when I arrive I’ll send an update, if not, you won’t be hearing from me for a while and neither will Beta Region. I thought about sending someone else with the fleet, but I have to be the one to go and make the most of whatever situation I find, and you and I both know that I can do that better than anyone else out here.”

“Time to do what you trained me for. Wish us luck.”

Davis stared at the message end symbol for a moment, with the two administrators across from him wide-eyed with concern. Almost theatrically slow, Davis reached out and deactivated the hologram, clearing the air above his desk.

“Who are the Skarrons?” the administrator on the right asked.

“We’ll get a data file out to all of Star Force tomorrow,” Davis said. “Until then hold your questions…and excuse me while I attend to this.”

“Of course,” the other administrator said as they both got up in tandem and hurried out of the Director’s office.

Once they were gone Davis flipped the button that activated his holoprojector pad, retracting a section of carpet to his right to expose the metallic circle. He stepped onto it and began contacting various logistical personnel within Atlantis and her sister cities on Earth, attending to the part of this problem that he could tackle, knowing that the military angle was something that the Archons would take care of promptly.

5

June 15, 2467

Solar System

Mordor

Dan-028 played back Randy’s message for a second time, knowing he’d heard everything correctly, but wanting to let it all thoroughly sink in. He’d expected the lizards to be the ones to hit them first, cutting past Paul’s defensive corridor around Namek and hitting the more vulnerable worlds in Alpha Region. Randy’s expansion in Beta Region he hadn’t expected, nor the Skarrons, but given the fact that Kip was fighting them in Protovic territory should have given him some warning, yet Randy’s message had caught him completely off guard.

Then again they each had their own areas of focus, with Dan’s being the expansion of Clan holdings in the Core Region and extending out into Delta Region, which was above the Core on the galactic plane. There were already Star Force systems in Delta, but since the Clans were mandated to operate independently, their own supply lines differed from those that Davis and his minions set up. While they did work together in many cases, their economies were completely separate, with the Clans having to establish their own trading and transportation networks, though the latter was optional.

Dan was focusing on expanding his own Clan, the Star Claws, as well as coordinating with 23 others that were interested in pushing up into Delta Region. Establishing independent supply lines meant securing territories in the current Star Force systems, which was doable and the Clans did regularly enough, but the trailblazers knew that the Clans needed to have other options, which meant Dan was overseeing the colonization of less attractive systems in the Core that many others used as transit points or avoided entirely.

A few were already inhabited with races that hadn’t yet achieved space travel, but many simply didn’t have habitable planets. That didn’t bother Star Force, who more often than not colonized airless worlds, but as gravity drive technology increased and the time delays between the stars diminished, they’d been searching for more preferable worlds rather than just colonizing everything within reach, much like they had in Sol.

Dan was going the other way and claiming the unwanted systems and establishing at least some presence in many of them, giving the Clans a chain of systems to connect up to Delta Region from, and while there didn’t have to be colonies in a system in order to pass through it, it was preferable in case of mechanical malfunction or damage, such as say hitting a small object during a jump. Better to have a safe harbor nearby to run to rather than be stuck in an empty system.

It also made sense to have ships and supply sources nearby, rather than having to send for them from multiple lightyears away, so creating connecting lines of Clan-inhabited systems up to Delta Region was useful in a forward thinking manner, though not necessary in the here and now, as Delta Region colonization was already underway.

Dan had gotten so enthralled in his own work that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to what the others were doing, or he would have realized the Skarrons were a threat…though, by Randy’s tone it seemed he was also surprised to have been hit, so maybe it wasn’t a lack of attention on Dan’s part, but a blind spot that Star Force had. Beta Region technically didn’t have an end, but beyond where Randy had established the current frontier systems little was known about who was out there. Some scouting had been done, but with thousands upon thousands of star systems in play, there was just no way that they could get to them all.

And the further one got out from the Core Region the wider the area became…up until you hit the galactic ‘ceiling’ and ‘floor,’ each of which were about 500 lightyears away and far beyond Star Force’s current reach, meaning the Core Region sat in a sea of systems, and the further away you got the more there were given the spherical expansion. Star Force had always been working in the blind, so to speak, but through diplomatic relations and scouting they’d acquired a decent idea of who was where in the nearby areas…but beyond Beta Region was still largely a mystery, due in part to how far Randy had pushed their borders.

The Skarrons operated out of that ‘dark’ area, and while the rumors they heard detailed a powerful race, that was nothing new compared to their allies in the Alliance. The previous reports he’d heard of them attacking the Protovic and others suggested that they were only taking the initiative because the Nestafar were diminishing, suggesting that the winged aliens were the stronger…but if the Skarrons were willing to pick a fight with just about everyone in the area, including the Protovic, Dan wondered just how strong they really were, given that they now were interested in coming after Star Force.

Before Dan could get around to issuing any orders he got an incoming message from Aaron, one of only two other trailblazers in Sol, but due to the distances involved they still weren’t close enough for real time communication.

“I assume you’ve already got Randy’s message. I’m taking the 19th, 22nd, and 41st fleets out of Sol within the day and heading straight to Rotunna. If this is a more widespread attack in progress, we also need to secure Iona, for that’s where Randy will have drawn most of his ships from. I’m assigning whatever Clan Nova Wolf assets are available within Sol to you or whoever else is going to assemble the Clans. I think you’ll agree we can’t suck Sol’s defenses dry, and the same goes for the surrounding systems, meaning we’re going to have to pull Clan resources…and probably Canderous too.”

“I’ll relieve Randy as soon as possible, but we have to hit the Skarrons with a wall of reinforcements, else we’ll risk playing whack-a-mole with the comm delays. By my last count Beta Region contained 13 Star Force systems, though Randy was planning to expand to a few more. I don’t know how far along he is, but let’s assume he’s got at least a couple more colonies up by now. That’s 15 systems and we need to reinforce them all, along with having a force that can poke back into Skarron territory, because there’s no way we’re tolerating this.”

“Pull whatever Clan ships from the surrounding systems as you can and get an armada to Iona ASAP. I’ll send word back through the relays or by courier once I get to Rotunna. Hopefully I can give you a heads up on enemy strength if Randy doesn’t first, but if I were the Skarrons, the first thing I’d do is cut the relays, so I’m assuming we’re going in blind. Better pack a few spares if there are any available in the system.”

“If you two are coming, make it snappy and make sure we have enough of a fleet to deal with this. If you’re not, make sure whoever is doesn’t come light.  Even if this is an isolated attack on a single system, we need to send a message…and if it is a larger war forming, we need as much of a head start as we can get.”

The message ended, with a copy notice that it had been sent not just to him, but to Larissa-048 as well.

Dan hit the ‘replay to all’ button and stood up on his own holoprojector plate, staring out the vidscreen ‘viewport’ at the heavy grav surface of Mordor, which lay on the very edge of the Solar System, so far out that the sky appeared dark even in day.

“Aaron, good call on the immediate response. I’ll stay back and beat the bushes to get as many ships as possible out of the surrounding systems, then I’ll take what we get and head to Iona and work things from there. Larissa, if you want to head out quicker than that, take whatever Clan resources we’ve got in the system save for my flagship and get going. If not I’m sending them on ahead, then waiting around for the others at a rendezvous point and sending them in bunches.”

“I think we can survive 50% reduction in mainline units in Sol and the nearby systems. Do you concur?” Dan asked, leaving that as the end of the message. He hated the lag times, but even with telaris comms there was no getting around the billions of kilometers between planets.

He knew he needed to wait and respond as soon as he heard back, so the Archon planted himself in his office and pulled up a schematic of the Solar System, which was defaultly centered on Mordor.

It was a hellish world, given the volcanic activity, but that internal heat kept the surface fairly warm at around -10 degrees Celsius on average. The unstable regions were well defined, crisscrossing the planet’s surface with the cities spaced in between them. The world was larger than Earth, with a gravity of 152% that required inertial dampeners and artificial gravity within all the cities to make them livable, though some sections allowed for the natural gravity for training purposes.

The atmosphere was thin and comprised of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, but thick enough to allow for winged flight, and growing negligibly thicker as the volcanoes spewed out more gasses over the years. The Clans didn’t care about the environment, given that they were living indoors anyway, but overall it was more hospitable than Venus, as well as being completely off the Earth grid, which was the largest selling point.

Mordor was a Clan-only world, and unlike the other Clan worlds in Sol, Mordor was off limits to the public. The only ships that came to and from Mordor were Clan, and while Clan citizens could transit there, others couldn’t for the simple reason that the Star Force transportation grid didn’t link in. Only registered Clan citizens could purchase transit tickets, though becoming a Clan citizen was easy enough, so it wasn’t exactly a secure world.

But it was out of the public view, in so much that the planet maintained a very insular society that was comprised of all 100 Clans. The smallest ones had an embassy-level stake, much like they did in Antarctica, while the larger Clans on the world controlled huge tracks of land, Clan Star Claw among them. Whereas Earth was the industrial powerhouse for Star Force, Mordor was the heart of Clan industry, both on the planet and in orbit, not to mention housing well over 9 billion Clan citizens in total.

That was why Dan had remained here, despite the fact that he was on the extreme end of his growing system chain up into Delta Region. While other trailblazers overseeing Star Force and/or Clan expansion had moved out to more centralized hubs within their target areas, Dan knew that part of his success lay not in only establishing the Clans in Delta Region, but in growing his own Clan to a point where it could secure Delta Region, and a lot of those efforts were taking place on Mordor and elsewhere in the Solar System.

In overall power rankings Clan Star Claw sat in fifth, but Dan had been pressing it hard to expand and now had territories on a total of 19 worlds spread over 8 systems. While tiny compared to mainline Star Force, Star Claw was developing near to a level where they could start taking on new projects solo rather than having to co-op with other Clans to gain the necessary resources. Dan’s Clan wasn’t the only one with this mindset, but there were only a few putting as much effort and resources into expansion…which led Star Claw to have one of the smaller military fleets.

That said, none of its troops were currently engaged on the lizard or Calavari fronts, leaving them free to redeploy to Beta Region so long as there were still mainline units in the systems to cover for their defensive loss…which wasn’t going to be the case in all, meaning Dan was going to have to pick and choose what to pull off and what to leave behind. With the distances and comm delays involved, it was very easy to wait and monitor a system until its defenses left, then assault it shortly thereafter with the defenders unable to call for help.

That was the unfortunate reality in interstellar expansion, and while he didn’t know of any threats to the Core Region at present, he hadn’t expected the Skarrons to hit Beta either, so out of prudence he and the others couldn’t take every ship available and run off to help Randy.

On the up side, a lot of the Clans were in a similar position to Star Claw, being that they had military assets lying around defending systems that didn’t require them, given that mainline fleets were already on station, and a great deal of them were right here in Sol. Those would be easy to assemble, it was the other systems that would take time to rally, once again due to the comm delays. At present the interstellar relay system could send a signal crossing 6.8 lightyears in a day, faster than Star Force’s gravity drives, but that left signal lag at more than a day for even Epsilon Eridani to Earth, and vice versa.

As Dan was doing a head count of all other Clan warships and ground troops within Sol he got a response from Larissa, and brought up the holo, superimposed over the asset map.

“I concur with the 50% mark. I’ll remain here and shift mainline assets around as needed to maintain security in Sol, so take all the Clan assets you can with you. If they resist, pull rank. I’ll keep the system safe until you return and have already ordered all Clan Meteor troops loaded up onto jumpships, including every mech we’ve got in storage. You’re going to need them with those Skarron Walkers.”

Dan nodded agreeably as the message ended, seeing that they were of like minds. Even at 50% strength Sol would have a solid defense force. They didn’t need to hoard ships…unless they were hit, then that 50% number would see rather ridiculous, but to quote James T. Kirk, “risk is our business,” and there were no safe calls to make here, for the in the vastness of space you never knew who might be on the prowl.

But Dan was comfortable with 50%, and so was Larissa. A few minutes later and a message from Aaron would seal the deal, which spurred Dan to get moving. Contacting all of the Clan leadership within the system…all of whom were not trailblazers…he arranged for their combined fleets to load up and head towards the central star and drop into parking orbits. Dan joined them there once his own Clan assets on Mordor had been assembled, along with drawing in those from Triton and Ganymede.

Altogether he had 18 warships and 28 cargo/transport jumpships from Clan Star Claw with him, and he would pick up more as his message went out through the network to surrounding systems. Those between Sol and Beta Region would assemble over the following days and be picked up by the main armada as it passed through a specified series of systems. Those not on the Beta side were told to make best speed to Iona, with Dan knowing they’d arrive considerably later.

That couldn’t be helped, and holding up everyone to travel in one massive group wasn’t logical, which was why he sent along an option for those systems closer to Beta to send ships immediately if they were of a mind to. Piecemeal reinforcement wasn’t always a good idea, but in this case time was of the essence, and a few dozen ships arriving a couple of days early could make a big difference in the right circumstances.

The ‘pick up’ order was more about establishing a minimum departure date, underscoring the importance of the situation for those Archons in those systems that may or may not understand the gravity of the situation. There wasn’t a trailblazer in every system, and some of the deployments didn’t even have an acolyte in place where the locale was deemed to be remote and secure. What they did have were Regulars and the warships that they inhabited, with them needing to be whipped into transport mode sooner rather than later, for it took time to bring mechs up from a planet’s surface, not to mention supplies that would be needed for a long campaign.

Dan explained all of this in a very long, comprehensive message packet that he sent out to every system in Star Force territory, even the ones that he knew wouldn’t be sending reinforcements, such as Namek which was on the opposite side of the Core Region from Iona. Plus those fleets were in place to counter the lizards and couldn’t be withdrawn except under exceptional circumstances…which this didn’t qualify as, given that there were other fleets to respond with.

But Dan wanted everyone to know what was going on, and he didn’t want to waste time recording multiple smaller messages. Once he sent the message out he waited onboard his flagship, a Mk. 17 Warship-class jumpship that had been built in orbit of Mordor less than 5 years ago, and one that had yet to see real combat, which the same could be said of the bulk of the Clan fleet.

Four days later Dan jumped out of Sol enroute to the Merovingian System, the first stop on a chain of jumps to get them out to Iona, bringing with him the largest fleet Star Force had ever assembled, including a small contingent of Canderous warships whose design, as to date, had never been battle tested.

That didn’t stop them from immediately volunteering, for the military civilization considered themselves too sheltered as it was, with only a small presence on the lizard front. They were eager for righteous combat, and so too were the Clans.

6

July 14, 2467

Iona System

Horizon

Dan’s flagship, the Wolf’s Gaze, decelerated into orbit around the Clan Star Fox planet while the rest of his 2,473 jumpship fleet was coming into the system and parking around the gigantic white star. Dan had come through first and microjumped out to the fourth planet so as to avoid the time lag with communications, and pulled an immediate data uplink from the planet when he arrived, as well as contacting the ranking local Archon.

Enroute he’d picked up multiple updates from Beta Region as they passed from system to system through the relay network. Randy’s reinforcement of Rotunna had yet to arrive, given the extreme distance out to the system, but a few of the local defense fleet had survived and sent data back through the relays for a while, detailing their harassment of the Skarrons in orbit while the enemy maintained control of the surface, fighting with the few Star Force units that remained. They’d managed to keep their jumpships intact, forgoing one massive, costly battle, and were nipping away at the enemy ships and reducing their 531 count wherever they could as the Skarrons set about conquering the planet.

In addition to the warships, the Skarrons had also brought a fleet of jumpships carrying cargo and troops for the ground campaign. Those ships were considerably bigger than their warships, but their warships didn’t need jumpships to carry them around, meaning that even while Randy’s fleet would outnumber the Skarrons by a factor of two, each of his drones was considerably smaller than their counterparts in the Skarron fleet.

If push came to shove, Randy had said he thought he could neutralize the enemy fleet with his own, but even if he succeeded and they canceled each other out, he had no resources to mount a surface campaign, and according to sensor records the planet was already crawling with Skarron walkers.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Based on the reports coming in, Brenns had also been hit with 629 warships and Ghanis with 489. Last he knew that was as far as the Skarrons had gotten, both those three systems were not close to one another, spread out across more than 40 lightyears in an almost perfect triangle that was slightly lower on the galactic plane than Iona. That made them as far apart as the Core Region was wide, and they occupied one small corner of Beta Region. Given that the Skarrons were willing to hit systems so far apart, there was no guarantee that was the furthest they were going to hit, and Dan was relieved to see that Horizon still stood intact.

“I’m very glad to see you here,” Sendra said as her hologram popped up in front of Dan’s command chair. “And according to the sensor grid it looks like you brought friends.”

“Aaron is on a direct route to Rotunna with 3 mainline fleets, I’ve brought the Clans here with enough numbers to fight this war…or at least I hope so. I’ve been picking up bits and pieces on the way, have we lost more than three systems?”

“Two days ago we got a report from Iverie that they’d come under attack, and we’d already pulled most of their defenses and rerouted them to Rotunna before we understood the scale of the invasion…though it probably wouldn’t have mattered, given the numbers the Skarrons are arriving with.”

“I’m looking at those now,” Dan said as updated information began to come in and his bridge staff was sorting through it and relaying the key pieces to his holographic display. “Are the relays still functional?”

“As far as we know, yes. The Skarrons may not even know they’re there, and the surviving warships in all three systems are still feeding us intel. Nothing new from Iverie as of today.”

“I’m glad they’re not all destroyed,” Dan said, partially relieved. “How are our guys stacking up?”

“Plasma weapons are less effective, but if you can keep the enemy at range you’ll own them. The system commanders have been sending back data, and Randy sent an updated assessment of the Rotunna files with suggestions.”

“We’ve already uploaded all pertinent files, so I assume it was in the batch?” he asked, glancing at his Captain…who nodded in the affirmative. “Yes, we’ve got it.”

“How many ships can you leave me?” she asked bluntly.

“The bulk of the fleet stays here to secure the system and be in a position to send support out to the rest of Beta Region. I’m sending 200-300 warships out to each of the systems, meaning that will leave you with over 1000 to work with, plus cargo ships.”

“1000 warships or drone warships?” Sendra asked to clarify.

“1000 warships, each with 50-100 drones onboard. I brought all the Clan ships I could get my hands on, including some from Canderous.”

Sendra let out a loud sigh of relief. “If you were down here I’d kiss you. I’d recommend sending groups out to at least the nearer inhabited systems, maybe even the Kiritas colonies. I held off doing so with the reinforcements that have already came in in case Iona got hit. I don’t know if the others are going to be targeted or not, and I didn’t want to gamble. If the Skarrons do hit another system it’d be best if we didn’t let their walkers get to ground. I hope you brought some ground troops with your fleet?”

Dan nodded. “We did.”

“Then I’m happy to turn things over to you. I’ve been crossing my fingers and hoping the Skarrons didn’t get here before you did. I wasn’t sure if what we had plus the Kiritas fleet was going to cut it.”

“More ships are on the way, though how many for sure I don’t know. I couldn’t wait for all of them. Keep what you need here and reinforce where necessary.”

“Gladly.”

“What’s the traffic look like?” Dan asked, referring to the inter-racial commerce that routed through most of the Beta Region colonies, but especially Iona, which had the Babylon 2 diplomatic station.

“Very heavy. The Skarrons aren’t just hitting us, they’re hitting lots of people coreward from here. We’ve got ships hanging around that have nowhere else to go at the moment…and unfortunately most of them aren’t warships.”

“Any scuttlebutt on where the Skarron fleets are originating from?”

“Nothing solid, no. Are you planning to hit them back?”

“Secure our own worlds first, worry about payback later. But it’s on the tentative to-do list.”

“Good,” Sendra said, iron in her tone. “Sign me up.”

Ben crept up on the edge of the barracks again, noting that the sentry patrols had still not resumed. It’d been six weeks since the Skarrons had taken the place, and the planet, he feared, but they didn’t seem too keen on laying claim to this piece of infrastructure. The last time he’d snuck in for supplies it had been virtually deserted, with him only coming across a handful of Hobbits inside.

That had got him curious, and in all the copious spare time he had on his hands he’d made the trek through the forest over to the mining complex to see what was happening there, but making sure to stay well clear of the Type-4 walker that was still on guard. Even now he could see it from the barracks, standing in place like a statue between the two locations, just on the inside edge of the mining site. Ben had gone the long way around to avoid it, whereupon he’d discovered that the Hobbits from the barracks had repositioned to the mine…along with a lot of others.

There were plenty of Skarrons around, with the walking tanks acting as commanders for the legions of Hobbits and ‘Engineers’ as Ben thought of the others. What their actual name was he couldn’t remember, but the little aliens were all arms and legs, looking like a pint-sized version of Calavari…only without the bulk. They had four scrawny arms and a central body not much thicker, with a set of five tiny eyes in the center of their head with no discernible mouth…and it seemed they were the ones doing most of the technical work as the Skarrons took control of the mining facility and had begun converting it over to their own uses.

The Hobbits provided some of the manpower, but it was mostly the Engineers that were learning how to work the Star Force equipment while bringing in key pieces of their own to get the mine functioning again, and as of now they were churning out a steady, yet small stream of raw materials that regular dropship flights were coming to pick up.

Ben didn’t know where their ships were taking the materials, but it was clear the Skarrons hadn’t just come here to kill Kiritak and Humans. They wanted the planet, and were wasting no time in laying claim and getting to work.

The Engineers, Hobbits, and Skarrons were living out of the mining complex, so the Archon guessed they’d deemed the barracks too far away to bother using. Fortunately their trashing of the place had left most of the stuff he and the 6 Kiritak needed to survive still there, just strewn about with a lot of broken components. Still, he needed to be careful, for the last thing he wanted was to give the Skarrons a reason to take a second look at the place.

Studying the wall carefully, he ran up and jumped into position where he could look over the edge. Seeing no patrols inside the wall, he pulled up and slid over top, then hurried to the nearest entrance and quietly made his way inside.

The power was still out, with the main generator lines having been slagged by the Hobbits. It was possible, he thought, to get some power back after repairs, from the reserve batteries even, but he wasn’t ready to risk bringing the Kiritak back just yet. Living in the forest off sacks of supplies wasn’t fun, but they were still alive and that’s what mattered. If the little guys weren’t around he might have tried to take out a few of the enemy quietly here and there, but saving them was tops on his priority list, given how many of the loyal Kiritak had died when Star Force was unable to protect them.

That didn’t sit well with Ben, and he wanted to get these six through this if at all possible. Movo was still badly hurt, but at least he was no longer bleeding and had avoided infection. His pair of plasma burns had responded adequately well to the healing patches, but his skin wasn’t regrowing yet, which the Kiritak suggested wouldn’t happen until he could enter a proper sleep cycle…something that none of them were getting. The Archon hadn’t known it before, but apparently the Kiritas physiology had a Jedi-like healing trance to help them repair a myriad of injuries…but it left them with a slower than average healing ability the rest of the time.

Movo needed stable, quiet conditions with an abundance of heat, food, and water to slip into his willful coma, and despite trying several times hadn’t been able to do it out there. If the Hobbits were gone from the barracks, Ben was going to try to move them back inside. If they weren’t, then this was going to be another supply run with an eye on some equipment to fabricate some kind of tent or shelter that would let the Kiritak out of their armor, which they’d been living in ever since the attack.

The days on Ettiana were warm to hot this time of year, but with so little moisture in the atmosphere the nights were cloudless and got uncomfortably cold without dropping below freezing, in most cases. The planet had a slight incline to its axis, giving them mild seasons compared to Earth, and at the moment this geographic location was in winter. To top it off the Kiritas were warm weather freaks, more so than Humans anyway, and they reacted worse to the cold than expected.

Roughing it in the forest for so many weeks had taken its toll on them, even if all they had to do was stay put. To keep their strength up and to give them something to do, Ben had them go through a light workout every morning and afternoon during the 33 hour days, which consisted of running and calisthenics, but if he didn’t get them to better accommodations soon he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d last.

They still had some ambrosia left, scrounged from the barracks, but Ben had been out ever since that first day he’d spent with the Kiritak in the forest. The adjustment hadn’t been too unpleasant, but he was definitely feeling an energy drain…while at the same time he had more energy than normal, given how little in the way of workouts he was doing. He knew that was a temporary bleedover effect, and after the first three weeks he’d started to feel it wearing off and his body losing strength. How much he didn’t know, but sitting out here and waiting for help to arrive was driving him crazy, prompting more of these supply and intelligence runs.

He needed to do something, and if it wasn’t killing the enemy or training, it was going to be getting supplies or figuring out what the Skarrons were up to. In truth he’d expected Star Force to get reinforcements here by now, meaning they either didn’t know of their situation or the Skarrons were hitting them other places and they hadn’t been able to get any ships here, or at least not enough ships, to retake the planet.

Ben had also hoped some more survivors would have made contact, despite the distances involved. The mining colony was somewhat remote, with no land lines linking it to other facilities, but ever since he’d gotten shot down he hadn’t received any comms or battlemap updates. His transmission range was short, but he could still receive from other sources in orbit or anywhere above the horizon, and there hadn’t been so much as a peep of activity, making him wonder if he and the 6 Kiritak were the only survivors on the planet.

His logic circuits said no. Archons were incredibly resilient, and their technology was designed to amplify that fact…which was why he’d made it out of his skeet crash. The fighter had been mangled, but thanks to the armored cocoon and IDF technology he’d hit the ground without feeling so much as a bump, though a piece of shrapnel had partially punched through a few inches away from his head, which he counted himself lucky for missing.

He’d had to pry himself out of his cockpit, then with only the plasma rifle held in a compartment alongside his feet and a limited amount of ammo and foodstuffs, he’d taken off through the forest enroute to the closest location on his battlemap…which had been this barracks, after a very long run through the forest.

He hadn’t been back to the crash site, for he knew there was nothing of real value there to salvage, though he was curious to see if he could get the transmitter working. It was most likely junk with the rest of the ship, but sitting and waiting was torture for an Archon when they didn’t know how long it would be. Give them a timetable and it became a mission. Give them an uncertainty and it was a constant reassessment of what to do, round the clock.

Ben wanted to fight and evade, and was working himself up to do it and leave the Kiritak behind where the Skarrons couldn’t find them, but he knew that without him they wouldn’t make it, which was what was holding him back. Still, a few little commando missions over to the mining site might not be a problem. After all, if some of their Hobbits went missing they wouldn’t think to come look all the way over here, would they?

Once inside the barracks he looked around…and around…and around, but couldn’t find any of the Hobbits, nor sign that they’d been here recently, which he took as good news. Gathering up what he could into a heap of sacks, Ben spent the next two hours scrounging from the barracks and seeing not a single intact body remaining. Maybe the Hobbits had only stuck around long enough to eat, but Ben was glad the barracks was of a size to accommodate over 1000 of the Kiritak, meaning there were ample supplies for himself and his little rogue band.

He didn’t care for most of the Kiritak food, but a few items were edible by his tastes, and so far he hadn’t run out of them. He was badly missing his ambrosia, but that couldn’t be helped, and the Kiritak version wasn’t suited for his Human physiology, little of it that he’d found intact.

A thorough check of the storage areas yielded several valuable construction materials, enough anyway for him to tinker with once he got back to their hideout. If the barracks was still uninhabited on his next supply run he’d consider bringing the Kiritak back here, but if not he should have enough to build them a proper hideout rather than the dirt hole they’d dug into a hillside.

7

July 17, 2467

Ghanis System

Ettiana

It was just before dawn, with a shallow purple haze filling the bottom half of the eastern sky, as Ben was pulling another vial of water from the condenser. It wasn’t much, but the Archon pulled off his helmet and tipped the small container up and into his mouth, swallowing the pure water that the machine had slowly extracted from the atmosphere. With it down his throat he put his helmet back on and replaced the vial, letting the slow drip replenish its contents.

The Archon walked up and over the hill that the Kiritak were sleeping in, having burrowed out a sizeable chamber that was now lined with materials Ben had brought back from the barracks. The condenser sat outside and at a higher elevation to ensure a good air flow as it pulled the moisture from the relatively dry atmosphere. Most of the rest of their supplies were inside, out of view, just in case someone came looking for them, but to date no one had, nor had there been any flyovers. They were ghosts as far as the Skarrons were concerned, but they couldn’t go on like this forever.

The supplies in the barracks would eventually run out, meaning that eventually they were going to have to fight the Skarrons or starve to death, and Ben was seriously considering doing it now rather than later, while he still had some strength left in him, but every time he did his mind went back to the Kiritak and how they’d be worse off without him.

The Archon knelt down on the hilltop, looking at the growing light in the east through several gaps in the trees, aware that his mind wasn’t clear. He kept running through logic circles, but he always stopped himself short of doing something reckless, and today was no different. He just wished his mind would shut up for a while, but in truth he knew he just needed something to do.

A few minutes later that all changed as his helmet HUD registered a beacon far to the north. It was a battlemap signature, amplified to reach out as far as it could, and intended to make contact with other units or equipment. As he watched, the ID tag updated into a skeet on a very fast and high trajectory…the first sign of other Star Force personnel he’d had since rescuing the Kiritak.

Ben saw that the beacon was getting closer, but it wasn’t going to pass straight over him, rather, it looked like it was going to do a flyby of the mining facility, probably looking for survivors.

With a few quick commands via arm pad and eye line, Ben amped up his own battlemap transmitter to maximum, overriding the safety measures used to dampen the communication to the point that enemies were unlikely to be able to detect and hack into it. Such dampening shortened the range, but gave them a fairly secure, private network to utilize, but at the moment he just needed to let the skeet know that he was alive.

Shouting as loud as his helmet comm could, he set his own ID tag to ‘beacon’ mode, hoping that the skeet would pick it up. For 43 seconds the craft maintained a straight line, with three Skarron fighters attempting to intercept it, visible now to Ben thanks to the skeet’s shared sensor data. They weren’t going to catch it, given that the skeet was faster, though it had slowed considerably for this flyby. Still, he didn’t think the Skarrons were going to be able to catch it…

Then all of a sudden it turned, pulling a sharp spiral downward and dropping to the forest tops and out of sight, but Ben could still see it on his HUD…and the fact that it was moving towards him. He dialed back the intensity of his signal, returning to normal battlemap transmission protocols, and activated his comm.

“Skeet, confirm receipt of transmission,” he said stoically, not sure how far his helmet comm was going to reach.

“Transmission confirmed. I need a 20 second status report,” the pilot said, making a gradual circle around the area, including the distant barracks and mining site, but staying well away from the Skarron walker’s anti-air defenses…though that didn’t stop the thing from taking a few shots at him anyway with its lachars. The white streaks stabbed out across the sky, but none of them hit the low flying skeet as it bobbed about evasively, making its gradual loop around the infrastructure.

“7 survivors, 1 Archon, 6 Kiritak security guards. Mining site is under new ownership, barracks is all but deserted. We’ve got foodstuffs and water to last us a while, but we’re continually weakening, and one of the Kiritak has plasma burns, but is stable.”

“Copy that. Hold tight and we’ll get an evac team to your position as soon as we can.”

“Much appreciated,” Ben said, a flood of relief gushing out of his chest and infesting every fiber of his body as the skeet finished its long circle around the complex and climbed back to higher altitudes before zipping off and away from the slower Skarron fighters that couldn’t quite get within weapons range.

Ben watched it go, then hurried down the hillside and around to the entrance of their little hideout. He pulled off the door ‘hatch’ and crawled inside, finding the six Kiritak where he’d left them…all huddled up together in one corner outside of their armor and underneath blankets he’d recovered from the barracks, trying to conserve and share body heat.

“Wake up, guys. I’ve got good news,” he said, with his helmet’s external speakers registering loudly in the tiny space that had otherwise been near silent.

Etito pulled his head up from underneath one of the blankets and looked at the Archon wearily. “Not another run. Please. Just let us sleep.”

“It’s not daylight yet,” Ben told him, slightly amused by the Kiritak’s grumbling. “A skeet just did a flyby.”

The little alien’s eyes widened and he sat straight up. “Help?”

“I made contact. There’s going to be an extraction team coming to pick us up. Not sure when though. But they know we’re alive.”

Etito smiled and poked the body next to him underneath the blankets, resulting in a very rude hiss.

“Wake up, wake up! Rescue is coming!”

It took a while, but Etito finally roused the others, with Movo coming around last. His plasma burns had scabbed over, but they were causing him continuous pain. Ben had him running workouts anyway, figuring that if he was going to be in pain regardless he could at least get some benefit out of it.

“Really?” Movo asked, looking from Etito up at Ben.

“Really. We just have to stay alive long enough for them to pick us up, and be ready to go at all times. There’s still that Skarron walker nearby, so when they come they might not have much of a window. We might also have to move to another spot. Regardless, we’re going to get out of here.”

“You better not be lying, Archon,” Movo said, his eyes burning with doubt.

“I’m not. If you’d been wearing your armor you would have seen for yourself.”

Etito scrambled across the small chamber to where their armor was stashed and pulled his set out, putting on the helmet and accessing the battlemap. Ben sent him the replay, knowing that they’d turned their suits off and hadn’t received the beacon, allowing him to see for himself the skeet on approach and its loop around the mining complex.

“He’s not lying,” Etito said excitedly. “Skeet flew by. They know we’re here. We’re getting out of here!”

“Ben, copy?”

“I’m here,” the Archon said two days later as another skeet flew by, this time further to the west of the barracks and closer to their location.

“We need you to reposition, coordinates coming.”

A waypoint popped up on his battlemap…or more accurately an arrow on the side of it, indicating that he needed to scroll further west or zoom out. When he did he saw a position some 17 kilometers away.

“Coordinates confirmed. ETA?”

“Give me one,” the pilot prompted.

“10 hours.”

“We’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Hank.”

“Six made it, if you’re wondering.”

“Any chance of more?”

“We’ve had boots on the ground, so I doubt it.”

“See you in ten,” Ben said, ending the conversation and allowing the skeet to fly off. There were a myriad of lachar streaks stretching out across the sky, but he only saw one of them hit, or rather wing the skeet, but its shields held, and would for several more, he knew from experience.

He watched his fellow pilot gain altitude and fly off, then returned to their hideout to get the Kiritak moving.

“Armor on, guys. We’re heading out. LZ is 17 kilometers to the west. We can’t risk a dropship in this close to the walker, so we have to move. They’ll be there in 10 hours, so let’s not waste time.”

“Are we running?” Etito asked.

“Depends. Movo, how you doing?”

“If it means getting out of here, I can run. Don’t know how far.”

“Alright, we start out running the first kilometer, then walk from there and alternate as needed. I’ll carry a sack of weapons and foodstuffs, you guys just move yourselves. The rest of our gear stays here. Grab a snack and some water now, then we stay on the move until we get to the LZ.”

The Kiritak got armored up and gobbled down a few foodstuffs, with Ben eating as well, then the group headed out through the forest, using their battlemap memory to navigate by. The terrain was mostly flat, but it got rolly enough that keeping a straight line was difficult. Ben knew their 17 kilometers was going to end up being more than that as they zigzagged their way across the forest, so he kept the Kiritak moving and ahead of pace at all times.

As promised they ran, or in Ben’s case jogged, the first kilometer, then walked the second. From there on out they ran half a kilometer, walked a full, until they eventually came to their LZ, which was little more than a dry riverbed, but devoid of trees that would otherwise hamper a dropship landing.

They got there with an hour and a half to spare, then camped out under cover while Ben scouted the area. There shouldn’t have been any Skarron activity nearby, but his spidey senses were tingling…whether from a real threat or just anxiety he didn’t know.

Maintaining a perimeter around the Kiritak, he patrolled in a repetitive circle, spiraling out and then in to keep an irregular pattern, up until he got Star Force contacts on his battlemap. Two skeets at first, followed by a Falcon-class dropship, then four more skeets coming in at various angles that suggested they hadn’t been flying in formation, possibly having to fight off some Skarron fighters on the way here.

Didn’t matter at the moment, getting onboard was the only priority, then he could worry about the tactical situation in the air.

When he got back to the Kiritak they were already aware of the incoming ships via their own battlemaps, and were waiting anxiously where he’d left them. The seven of them stayed under cover until the dropship was nearly over them, then inched up to the edge of the riverbed as it set down and lowered its boarding ramp.

The little Kiritak ran forward eagerly, with Ben letting them go ahead of him as he watched the surrounding area, half expecting an ambush, but none came. He followed a ways behind, then caught up just as the last of them were getting onboard and accepted a handshake from an Archon acolyte waiting just inside the doors with a plasma rifle, also ready for trouble.

“Thanks for the lift,” Ben said, feeling better the moment he stepped off the dirt and onto the artificial floor.

“Thanks for still being around to pick up,” the acolyte differed. “We’re extremely shorthanded.”

“What’s the situation?” Ben asked as the boarding ramp raised and he walked through the fairly large dropship’s cargo bay and up towards the passenger area where the Kiritak were already headed at the behest of several techs, one of which was having Movo pull off his armor so she could examine and treat his plasma burns.

“We lost,” Fenson-45332 said bluntly. “Every Kiritak colony has either been destroyed or taken over by the Skarrons. The only thing we have left is the Alpha Site.”

Ben pulled off his helmet as a tech walked up to him with a box of cookies…and from the markings in the icing he could tell they were ambrosia doses. He pulled out two of the medium doses and took a bite, relishing the taste after having to eat Kiritak food for so many weeks.

“Alpha Site?” Ben asked in between bites, for he was unfamiliar with the term.

“Randy had Clan Star Fox build at least one hidden base on each Kiritak world without their knowledge, subterranean, to act as a fallback position in the case of attack. The Skarrons couldn’t find it, and we’ve been gathering up what survivors we can find and consolidating them there. We’ve got several enemy walkers patrolling in the area trying to pin down us down, so our approach is going to be awkward, but as of yet they haven’t been able to pinpoint the location. We’ve maintained air superiority, but the closer those walkers get…before long we won’t be able to cover our comings and goings and we’ll either have to turtle up or fight it out. And fighting it out isn’t a good matchup for us.”

“How are we fixed for supplies?” Ben asked, taking one more smaller dose cookie and dismissing the tech with a ‘thank you’ nod.

“We’re good for more than a year with what we had in the base, and we’ve managed to scrounge up some more from various locations. How fit are you?”

“Weak, but eager for some activity. I’ve had to babysit them, otherwise I would have worked on racking up a kill count. I couldn’t take the risk of leading the Skarrons back after they’d forgotten about us.”

“How soon until you’re ready for a firefight?”

“Now if necessary. Though I’d appreciate at least a shower first.”

“We’re running hunter/killer ops around the perimeter of their encampments. Unfortunately we don’t have anything capable of taking down their big walkers, but we can still kill their infantry if we can get to them. We’re having to set down at distance and hoof it to our targets, but we’re bleeding them of troops and we’ve got plenty of ammunition. The real question is if you’re up to that much running?”

“How long are these ops?”

“Shortest ones are 8 hours, longest 72.”

“Sign me up for a short one. I probably don’t have enough stamina now for the others, but a couple weeks of training should change that.”

Fenson nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“How many people do we have left?”

“174 Archons, 132 Regulars, 2 Knights and around 500 Kiritak, but most of them are techs.”

“Do we have any support personnel?”

“We have a skeleton base staff plus a handful of administrators, engineers, and medics that we pulled out of the combat zones…though to be more accurate they were slaughter ranges. How much did you see?”

“Enough…though most was from the air,” Ben said as the numbers sank in. The planet hadn’t been heavily defended, but there had been at least 2,000 Archons overseeing Kiritak security forces that numbered well over 200,000. After that, there were better than a billion of the little guys here as workers. “How many facilities have you managed to contact?”

“Most of them, unfortunately. Yours was one of the last few.”

“I saw the Hobbits eating the Kiritak corpses…”

Fenson was silent for a moment. “From what we’ve seen, they’re killing everything in sight and trashing our cities. There just aren’t very many survivors to rescue at this point, which was why we were glad we found you seven.”

“We’re glad to be found,” Ben said with a depressing tone. “Do we have any ships in orbit?”

“A few harassing the Skarron fleet that make contact occasionally. We’ve replied from auxiliary facilities so they know we’re still alive, but we can’t risk communication from the Alpha Site. I don’t know how well the Skarrons are monitoring transmissions, but we’re not going to give them a signal to follow back to us.”

“I thought help would have come by now.”

“So did we,” Fenson admitted. “Makes me wonder who else is getting hit out there. If they took Iona, we could be on our own for a very long time.”

“Relays?”

“I don’t know. If they are still up there we can’t risk trying to link in, and the starships haven’t passed on any information, one way or the other. I’m guessing the Skarrons toasted them along with the orbital defenses. I do know that several jumpships got out as the attack began.”

“Did we get a signal out?”

“The people who know the answer to that didn’t make it.”

Ben closed his eyes for a moment, realizing just how tired he was, which was surprising, considering he’d been sitting around on his ass most of the time.

“Come on,” Fenson said, nudging his armored elbow. “It’ll be a few hours before we get back to base. Sit down and catch a nap on the way, then we can get to work later.”

“Is it safe enough to go armor off?”

Fenson thought for a moment, then nodded. “Keep it handy, but I don’t expect to get shot down. Our pilot has gotten experienced at evading their patrols, and our escorts can kill just about anything that comes at us.”

“They come at you in packs and try to isolate you, I know. Learned that the hard way,” Ben said, stopping shy of the personnel section of the jumpship where everyone else was. “Don’t suppose you have any spare skeets left around?”

“No, but we rotate as needed. What’s your aerial rank?”

“72.”

“You’ll get your seat time then, I promise.”

Ben spotted an empty row of padded seats near the back and gestured to the spot as he set his helmet down and began to unfasten his armor around the neck.

“Think I’ll be camping out here.”

“Rest up, we’ll get the full debrief later.”

Ben nodded and continued to pull open his armor, eventually stepping out of the boot sections and laying down across the seats. It took less than a minute for him to settle in and nod off in the bliss of cushioned furniture.

8

Several hours later the dropship flew an evasive route around the Skarron army formations probing the area around the Alpha Site and headed off to one of 28 different entrances spread out over 150 square miles of untouched forest. 18 of those entrances were large enough to admit dropships, and though the Skarron fleet in orbit could monitor their position, the enemy had yet to realize how the Humans were disappearing.

One moment the dropship was flying across the treetops…the next moment it vanished, and with no fighter presence in the area, for the skeets were preventing that, there was no way for the Skarrons to laterally see the huge section of dirt and trees that had leveraged itself out of the ground and risen up on a thick platform, underneath which was a tunnel entrance.

The dropship flew inside at speed, then the piece of forest lowered back down into the ground, with the trees and rocks returning to much how they’d once been, with only a slight dirt line to show for the maneuver, and one that couldn’t be seen through the thick canopy from above where the walkers traveled. One would have to be on the ground, and as of yet none of their Hobbit troops had stumbled upon the little dirt lines.

How long that would last no one knew, but the dropship ducked into the tunnel that quickly descended down through the bedrock before leveling out, after which the craft ‘flew’ through the tight confines several miles before coming to the subsurface hangar bay with the claustrophobic tunnel spreading out into a large chamber that held multiple dropships and fighters, along with several mechs, some of which were still battle damaged from the initial invasion.

A handful of people were about, but otherwise the hangar was mostly deserted. Ben walked out with Fenson and the others onboard the dropship, with the Kiritak being led off to a different location by some of the on base little aliens while the Archons headed for the small sanctum that had been built into the base. Ben took a shower and got a fresh set of clothes, then Fenson started running him through a series of drills to reawaken his sluggish body, all the while assessing his current fitness.

Even with ambrosia back in his body Ben was constantly fatigued…the result of so much time off. When one’s biology adjusted to everything you did, or in this case didn’t do, getting back into the training flow was the equivalent of turning a gigantic boat around and heading the opposite direction. It was doable, but took some time and effort.

That said, all those years of training weren’t lost to him, his body had just gotten really rusty, so he went through a ‘derusting’ series of light workouts designed to give his body the taste of full workouts and to get it back on track before attempting anything near normal volume or intensity. Three hours later and he was feeling much better, but very drained and his muscles were hot with inefficient burn…but the light pain felt good, because it and the headache he had meant his body was readjusting. He didn’t have much experience is coming back from non-training spells, for Archons didn’t take time off, but he could feel changes happening already, which put an end to his mind’s limitless cycling.

Fenson left him after the first hour of workouts, satisfied that he wasn’t injured or overly weakened, so Ben hit the cafeteria afterwards alone, finding only two other people there. Normally Star Force cafeterias were busy round the clock, which underscored how few people had survived the Skarron invasion.

The Archon ate up…a lot. More so than normal, considering he wasn’t going to get a second training session in today. He was going to get a good, long sleep in, so he left the cafeteria thoroughly stuffed, then headed up to the control room to get a quick sitrep before heading to the quarters he’d been assigned on the 7th level where the majority of the Archons were bunked.

By the time he got to his bed he knew the full extent of their defeat. There were still a few areas that the Alpha Site team thought might contain survivors, but the vast cities that had been churning out the resources Star Force needed to fight the lizards and Nestafar, and expand Beta Region’s infrastructure even further, now lay in rubble. Though they were far from finished, the Skarrons were knocking down every building that they didn’t feel like using, with them mowing down the tower fields that had housed the Kiritak workers with their larger walkers, steadily and painstakingly remaking the landscape into what, he didn’t know, but they were working, and working hard towards some goal.

Occasionally some survivors were located within those cities, and they’d been making regular dropship runs out to them so they could plant a few scouts to organize an extraction of personnel or leftover resources, or to look for more, but with every day that passed the odds of Star Force personnel surviving diminished, with most of the raids now being for equipment or to kill a few hundred of the enemy’s infantry.

Alpha Site might have been a hidden hole in the ground, but it was a hole that the Archons were striking out of, little as they could, but there was nothing they could do to counter the enemy walkers…at least not while the Skarrons controlled orbit.

“Captain, they’re on the move again.”

Leona Daverson looked up from her datapad and reached over to hit the comm switch near her bed, enabling the return mic. “What have we got this time?”

“Looks like another attempt to bait us out. Four destroyers and a cruiser bouncing from moon to moon on patrol around the 4th planet. Hercules says they’ve got an intercept fleet stationed in Ettiana orbit on a jumpline for the planet.”

“How do the numbers look?” she said, sitting up and putting her book aside.

“Good enough to poke a few holes.”

“I’m on my way up. Hold position until I get there.”

“Copy that.”

Leona pulled herself out of bed and slipped into her Captain’s uniform in under 30 seconds, then was out the door and enroute to the jumpship’s bridge. The Wildfire and Hercules were all that was left of the system’s defense fleet, with the other Warship-class jumpship having been severely damaged during the initial attack, with hull breaches compromising a third of the ship. Those areas had been sealed off and contained, as they were unable to make significant repairs without access to Star Force infrastructure…which had already been destroyed in orbit by the Skarron fleet.

The Wildfire hadn’t received any hull damage, but they had lost 2/3rds of their drones. Recalling others from the battle that had been permanently assigned to orbit, Leona had pulled out of the direct fire zone with 54% capacity, while the Hercules had none remaining. Currently that jumpship was stationed high over Ettiana operating as a scout, while Leona kept her warship elsewhere in the system, waiting for an opportunity to take out another of the enemy ships…but without losing any of her own, which was the tricky part.

Had she stayed in orbit until all of their drones were depleted, then her ship would have been next to useless when it jumped out of planetary orbit. The Wildfire was an older version warship, a Mk. 15, and while it had weapons, they were designed for defensive operations only, and if she tried to use the ship to attack even a handful of Skarrons they’d be all over her before she could do much damage. Jumpships just didn’t have the speed to chase down and kill other ships, but the drones did.

Ever since the initial battle, she’d been sniping at the Skarrons whenever and wherever possible, and had succeeded in killing two destroyers and heavily damaging a cruiser. Since then the Skarrons, unable to intercept the Star Force ships given that they had binary gravity drives that allowed them to travel on jumplines that the enemy couldn’t, had been deploying small groups of ships around the system, trying to draw them out. Leona had obliged several times, but had lost a frigate in the process…though in exchange for the damage done to the enemy cruiser.

After that she’d held back, knowing that with superior maneuverability she had to wait for opportunities to hit the enemy that didn’t involve losing any of her own ships. If they just traded off she’d run out well before the Skarron fleet did, meaning she had to get devious.

How many people were left alive on Ettiana she didn’t know, but it was her duty to cause the enemy as much trouble as possible until help arrived…and to be in a position to assist those on the surface if the opportunity arose. Her last communication with them, or rather to them, had been a handful of days ago detailing the reinforcements that had arrived to the Skarrons, which had been a pair of cargo ships and a destroyer in escort. She’d wished they had detected their arrival soon enough to intercept them, but the sensor grid they’d established in the system had been one of the Skarrons first targets…including the interstellar relay, though it had taken some time for them to get to it in null orbit twice again as far out from the star as Ettiana was.

The Wildfire was currently sitting in its own null orbit between the 3rd and 4th planets in the system, which were currently orbiting close to one another. It wasn’t on the jumpline between the two, and was probably visible to Skarron sensors, but only as a small blot, much as the Skarron ships were to them. The enemy could jump towards their position, but would never be able to slow down in time, effectively putting them out of reach, meaning the Skarrons had to lure them out.

And Leona was about to take the bait.

“Show me all tracks,” she said as she got to the bridge, with her crew throwing up the holographic routes from their present position into the 4th planet and its 5 moons, each of which had a significant gravity well to maneuver off of.

They’d already prepared several navigational options for her, and she picked the one she wanted within 10 seconds, ordering the ship in without delay. They had to hit fast before the ships could reposition, and given the sensor lag they were pretty much guessing where the Skarrons were going to be in order to jump in as close as possible…which in this case was to the innermost moon.

The jump took all of 34 seconds, at the end of which they got sensor images of the Skarron ships, which allowed them to make alterations to their course to keep from ramming them if necessary…but it wasn’t, for they were well off, orbiting around the moon with what looked to be a gravity drive assist, for it wasn’t a ballistic course anymore. They were repositioning for another microjump, with Leona’s jumpship considerably out of position for this type of intercept.

Fortunately the Skarrons were here to fight and settled into a stable orbit, but without chasing the Wildfire. Instead they let it come to them, burning up precious seconds while they sent a message to their waiting fleet.

“Take us directly in,” Leona ordered. “Let’s give them something else to shoot at. Deploy all enroute and begin calculating exit jumps.”

With the Star Force jumpship settling into its own augmented orbit, it raced around the curve of the moon spawning drone warships as it went. They drifted off and fell into formation with it momentarily, then zipped on ahead given their greater maneuverability and speed, but they didn’t go in alone, rather waiting to form 4-6 ship groups, the first of which went exclusively for one of the Skarron destroyers.

Weaponsfire exchanged early on, lachars against lachars, then plasma against plasma as the ships got close to one another. One of the Star Force frigates and two corvettes in the first group of 6 were equipped with maulers, so they closed to pointblank range as the single heavy cruiser that Leona had disengaged and targeted the Skarron ships from afar, letting the jumpship close while it stayed back and peppered the ships with cleansing beams.

The Star Force drones took heavy shield damage almost immediately, but before they could start losing armor they redeployed, breaking formation and pulling out of the battle almost as if they were on strings that someone was yanking away. One of the Skarron destroyers followed, diminishing their group strength as the Wildfire itself came into the battle. Fortunately it drew a considerable amount of fire while the smaller ships rotated around, with those with full shields going forward and the others dropping into firing support positions.

The Skarrons weren’t stupid, and continued firing on the damaged ships and repositioning when possible to make it more feasible, but they were both bigger and slower, allowing the smaller ships to get free if they wanted to, some of which came back in from their tiny jumps out, and the Skarron destroyer as well as it quickly realized it couldn’t keep pace with them.

But that too had been a ruse, an enticement to sweeten the pot, so to speak, and cause Star Force to move on the weaker ship group all the while the relief fleet jumped in to the moon’s orbit above them and began to deploy into blocking positions…or rather, as many as they could. Star Force could pretty much jump anywhere it wanted, but with dwindling fuel reserves the higher cost maneuvers were pretty much off the menu…something else the Skarrons had taken into account.

But Leona got what she wanted, damaging one of the Skarron destroyers, before she ordered her fleet out. Like little fleas the drones made microjumps of their own, very low powered ones, that curved around onto other jumplines that the Skarrons couldn’t follow, getting them out of the firing lines while expending small amounts of fuel.

The jumpship was another matter, and it was quickly being surrounded by the Skarron fleet, but Leona had timed it right and while its shields were getting hammered by long range lachar fire and some plasma from the first group of ships, it ducked down closer to the planet where the Skarrons weren’t and zipped off on a high powered maneuver, pushing against moons, planet, and star to get an acceleration line underneath the enemy fleet that put it clear of their blockers, after which it made a casual jump out away from the moon with 23% shield strength remaining.

Once they were away Leona breathed a sigh of relief, but knew it would take time to recover their scattered drone fleet, and if they weren’t careful the Skarrons could jump them in the process. To that end they organized a rendezvous circuit across planetary orbit, stopping here and there for the little ships to dock with the jumpship and eventually recollecting every one of them…all without hull damage.

Leona had expended a great deal of fuel, not to mention plasma, but in exchange they’d gutted one of the destroyers, which even now wasn’t maneuvering. Part of the Skarron fleet was surrounding it to discourage a return…but then their ships eventually peeled off one by one, yet another lure for her to take, but one that had the other Skarron warships still in planetary orbit and far closer than they had been the first time.

It was a question of how bold she was going to get, with the Skarrons clearly challenging her at the same time as they were denying her the easy kill, meaning they would be stationed here for some time, leaving Ettiana less guarded.

Unfortunately the fleet there was far larger, and any tactical significance of having drawn and temporarily pinned this group down here was lost. She’d managed to do some damage, without taking any of her own, but that’s all she could have hoped for…well, aside from fully killing the ship, which she’d hoped to do, but still, the damage was significant, and she’d given the Skarrons a lame duck to carry or abandon, and if they did the latter she would most definitely finish it off.

Successfully hitting and disabling the ship felt good, and it was enough to satisfy her for the moment. She might not be able to defeat this superior Skarron fleet, but she could keep them honest and expose any weaknesses they showed her. If they got sloppy she’d make them pay for it, being a gnat that they couldn’t find a way to swat. Her two jumpship fleet couldn’t protect Ettiana, but it was certainly going to avenge it…even if that meant tiny piecemeal engagements.

9

July 25, 2467

Ghanis System

Ettiana

Ben flew out of one of the Alpha Site’s underground tunnels, ducking under the chunk of forest lifted up above the entrance and shooting out across the tree tops in a green/brown Star Fox skeet third in line behind two others. A fourth followed him out, then as a group the quartet rose to altitude and engaged their super pursuit mode. With their altered shields elongating them into aerodynamic spikes, the fighters accelerated up to extremely high speed within the upper atmosphere, crossing the landscape with no worry about being intercepted by Skarron fighters…at least not until they wanted to, for this mission was designed specifically to hunt down and kill some of the enemy aircraft.

Trick was picking a spot where they didn’t have walker support, or drawing the fighters off from where they did. Today was going to be the later, and Ben’s formation flew across Ettiana’s surface towards one of the larger cities that the Skarrons had been in the process of demolishing. It had originally been built to house millions of Kiritak and the processing factories necessary for transforming the raw materials being harvested across the planet into transportable units, such as metallic ingots or crushed grain, to be shipped off planet with the minimum volume necessary by stripping out unwanted materials or dead airspace.

A part of the cityscape had also been using those resources to fabricate construction materials that were being used to expand the city and build others across the planet. Apparently none of that industry was to the Skarrons’ liking, for they were wrecking all of it and taking down the buildings like dominoes, one by one, section by section.

Ben didn’t know if they planned to build anything in its place, but the city was certainly in disarray when he and the other pilots arrived, making him wonder if they weren’t just trashing everything in sight as an insult to Star Force.

The Skarrons had seen the skeets coming from a ways off and had already redeployed their fighter patrols their way…along with launching more from surface sites nearby, which suggested the enemy had at least encampments set up, even if they weren’t building permanent structures just yet. The skeets were outnumbered 34 to 4, initially, with more fighters rising up on anti-grav at a delayed pace, but that much they’d expected. This mission was a quick hit, engage, and run op, and they didn’t intend to stick around long enough for the sky to fill with their opposition.

Because they were going to engage the Skarrons at a distance from the city, the skeets slowed down early to draw them even further off and ensure the anti-air defenses on the walkers wouldn’t get involved. The Skarrons didn’t seem to mind the ploy, for they sent their fighters on out after them as fast as the thick craft could fly. Each one was the equivalent of an aerodynamic rock only slightly smaller than a Sparrow-class dropship and easily in excess of 10x the mass of a standard skeet.

The things were covered in their plasma dampening armor and good shields, but their maneuvering ability was slow and they relied on cluster fire to take down targets which they accomplished similar to the walkers…with multiple small plasma cannons scattered across their hulls, which also allowed them to fire in all directions, meaning you couldn’t drop in on one’s ‘tail’ and expect to be safe.

They also each had a lachar turret on top for anti-missile operations, though they did use them to target the skeets early in response to the Human’s own lachar attacks that they launched at maximum range on one target. The energy/particle cocktail didn’t do much damage, even though the skeets were using as concentrated a version as Star Force had produced, which literally lit up the sky in a very brief flash of green light, given that these skeets had been produced by Clan Star Fox, and nowadays the color of your lachars matched your paint job, at least as far as the aerial and mech divisions were concerned.

“Ben, since this is your first time just stay with us and try not to get lost,” Chev-34822 said from the front of their diamond line, which had them in single file but space out around their central axis on four points, giving each a clear firing line ahead. “Concentrate all firepower on a single target or it’ll take us forever to knock these things out.”

“I’ve already got my share of Skarron kills,” Ben told him, referencing the beginning of the planetary assault. “I know how tough they are.”

“Tougher now that they’ve gotten use to our craft and tendencies,” Chev added.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ben said as he crossed into outer plasma range and began squeezing off a few shots, most of which dissipated in the air, but a little bit reached out to the target fighter, which they’d nicknamed a ‘lightning bug’ for the way their entire hull seemed to glow when they began launching plasma…which the 10 or so bugs did a moment after Ben began the primary engagement.

The other three Archons joined him a moment later when their plasma range dipped into the  moderate distance and they began eating away at their target’s shields more fiercely, even as their own craft began to take a few hits…but only a few, for their skeets had a very narrow forward profile, making them hard to target. Most of the hits they took were Skarron lachars, but none of the skeets had their shields go down on the first pass, nor even below 70%, but the lightning bug didn’t lose full shields either…though it had come close.

The four skeets flew through the other Skarron fighters and pulled back around through a long loop that each of them followed, maintaining their snake-like formation as they came back in at the same lightning bug into a snowstorm of white plasma orbs. Ben hit the target with his own blue plasma spheres, which were considerably larger than the enemy’s, though numerically they had more given the size of their craft and their multiple cannons. For every one Ben fired the lightning bug threw 10-15 back at him, but fortunately their accuracy wasn’t great and only a few hit.

As Ben’s skeet flashed by the bug he hit it with a mauler blast, with the cockpit computer indicating hull damage to the enemy craft as the Archon flew an evasive route through the other lightning bugs as his shields got bathed in plasma hits, along with a few more lachar strikes. He came out the other side, still maneuvering at high speed with the other three pilots, all of which had avoided hull damage, though Ben’s shield strength had dropped to 24%.

“One more fellas, spread formation. Let’s knock this guy out before he gets his shields back up. I’m going scorpion, so don’t wait up on me.”

“Copy that,” Ben said, drifting to the left and spreading out with the others, giving the enemy craft four points of attack to deal with this time while they more or less hovered in place waiting for the Humans to return. The Skarrons moved about, mixing their positions up, but overall their formation held together over the same bit of ground, figuring they had good odds against the stupid little skeets, especially as the Skarrons had a scattering of reinforcements heading their way and getting closer with every second, coming in ones and twos that would add to their numbers even if they lost a few fighters in the engagement.

But what else could they do? The Skarrons had decent linear speed, though still not as much as the skeets, and their agility outright sucked, so playing aerial turret was their best bet here and they were making the most of it, hitting Ben with a better placed wall of plasma just as he ducked down towards the treetops to avoid it. He knew the enemy craft could carry missiles, but either they were choosing not to use them or only had them for ground support missions…and right now his money was on the later.

He arced back up, with the fire hose of enemy plasma readjusting towards him with every maneuver he made. By the time he came up on the target lightning bug he only got a few plasma shots off, plus one mauler which added to the other two and blew out a chuck of the enemy fighter’s hull.

Chev didn’t fly past with the others, but braked hard, throwing off the enemy’s firing lines a bit, most of which were still on the other fighters, and came up right in front of the target, letting his altitude sink as he blasted away with his mauler cannon, getting several shots in that eventually dropped the Skarron craft out of the sky.

Chev dove beneath it, using it as a block, and rocketed out the far side just before it crashed into the trees. He weaved side to side as the Skarrons decided to chase him, then the other three skeets came around on a flanking run and hit one of the fighters, blindsiding it with a lot of damage given their slower attack speed that offered them more shots per pass.

Chev eventually broke free of the engagement and got some altitude and distance away from the others, coming away with 3% shield strength remaining…which was a victory. No hull damage and the enemy had lost one of theirs.

He flew an evasive course as some of the lachars tried to track him from afar, but for the occasional hit his shields recharged evenly while the other three skeets continued to gang up on one of the lightning bugs, but doing so in widely spaced runs, having to let their shields recharge more with each pass or risk hull damage.

By the time Chev got back to them they were throwing every formation and trick they had at the Skarrons to keep their focus split and their formation changing. At the end the four fighters were going at it solo, flying highly evasive routes through the enemy formation and getting some of them to shoot each other in the crossfire. The skeets managed to down four of the lightning bugs before the Skarrons regrouped and reorganized enough to make the Humans pay more for each attack run, after which the quartet flew off due east, seeing if the Skarrons were going to follow.

When they did their lines stretched out and the Archons used that weakness to circle around and pick on another of the lightning bugs and kill it before they enemy could resume its ‘bee swarm’ formation. After that the Skarrons didn’t follow when the skeets moved off again, which ended the engagement. Ben and the others would have tried to get another, but by now there were well over 100 enemy fighters in the air, half of which were still enroute to their position, making the environment too unfriendly to risk further attacks. Get too many plasma cannons in the air and even with badly aimed shots they’d rack up kills just through sheer numbers.

So the four skeets regained altitude and transitioned into super pursuit mode, heading back to the Alpha Site with five kills between them…a small victory that reminded the Skarrons they didn’t own the planet just yet, and that the Humans were going to be damn hard to fully exterminate. At least until they found their way into Alpha Site, and with a little luck that wouldn’t happen until Star Force got a relief fleet out to the system.

A week later Ben was inserted into a ground op at one of the smaller Skarron-infested sites. He and 9 others were dropped at distance by dropship then ran cross country to get to the mining outpost, this one smaller than the facility he’d been stranded at, but like the other it also had a Type-4 walker guarding it. The barracks was built into the main facility, which was located atop one central shaft going down several miles that would eventually branch out and make use of extra infrastructure up top once it was built later on.

The outpost was just a startup, but a useful one none the less, and that wasn’t lost on the Skarrons who were actively using the Star Force equipment to mine a plethora of minerals, of which they were interested in the Archons didn’t know, but Star Force had been extracting carbon-rich minerals, including diamonds, with loads of unrefined ore stored in cargo containers on the surface landing pads.

Those pads were now off limits to aerial insertion, given the Type-4 nearby, but Skarron transports had occasionally been coming to the outpost to pick up select containers. The others they either hadn’t gotten around to transporting or didn’t want, but unlike most other facilities there appeared to be no demolition occurring on the exterior. The Skarrons had simply moved in and set up shop.

As the Archons got near to the outpost they circled around so they could approach on the opposite side from the walker, putting the outpost between them and its cannons. As a group they sprinted out of the trees and scaled the low boundary wall, dropping over the far side with a pair of scouts being taken out by precision plasma rifle fire.

The shots didn’t go unnoticed, but within a few seconds the Archons were moving inside the building and fanning out, with Ben getting his own hallway and section of the facility to himself. He ran off and started mowing down every Hobbit and Engineer he came across, much as he’d wanted to do weeks ago, but couldn’t because of the risk of exposing the Kiritak.

Well, now there were no Kiritak, just Archons, and being exposed wasn’t a concern, so he ran down the hall, shooting those that came into view while checking every room that he passed. Those with enemies inside he cleared before moving on, but a lot were empty and ransacked as they’d been at the other mining site.

Running through ammo quickly, Ben slung his empty rifle onto his back rack and pulled out a rare shotgun, taking down a few more Hobbits before getting a room to himself. He stayed inside where he could still see the hall and make sure no one got past him, then began to reload his rifle using spare rounds in an ammo pack on the small of his back. He dumped the empty shells on the ground and filled the rifle up, then headed back out, saving the shotgun as his backup, for he didn’t have any replacement ammunition for it.

Ben worked his way through his assigned section before meeting up with two of the others in the vehicle garage. He wasn’t the first one there, evidenced by the firefight that he ran out into. There were Hobbits everywhere, of which he shot several before one of the huge Skarrons turned and fired at him with two of its arm guns. Ducking to the side he returned fire as he ran over to cover behind a half blasted crate, then instead of hunkering down he ran around behind it, out of view for a moment, and came across the bay from a different angle…seeing that the Skarrons had turned this larger room into their living quarters.

It looked more like a nest, but there were some 19 in here by his count, with two of them already dead. The other two Archons were elsewhere in the bay, shooting away at the big beasts while Ben tried to pick off the Hobbits and eliminate their small, but lethal plasma fire from the battlefield.

Soon another Archon joined them, then another. By dodging the Skarrons’ plasma fire the Humans bought time for them to rack up plasma shots on the larger creatures who couldn’t dodge theirs. Ben took one hit to his shields, nearly losing them entirely on his left leg before getting out of the line of fire and letting them momentarily recharge. Then, one by one, the Archons cut down the unarmored Skarrons, with two finally fleeing and running outside as all 10 of the Archon team were finally reunited and combining fire on the enemy.

Ben hesitated from going out the wide open doors after them, for he could feel the light thuds of Skarron walker feet nearby. He couldn’t see where it was, but all of a sudden a flurry of white plasma orbs far larger than what the Hobbits, or even the Skarrons, had been firing flooded the bay doors and blasted into the concrete just inside. All the Archons pulled back immediately, with some getting a considerable wash over their shields from the ricochets of plasma and rubble…then the roof started to come down as the walker decided to target the facility itself.

“Fall back!” the team leader yelled as he put a waypoint on a different exit from where they entered…one opposite from where the walker now was.

Ben and the others ran back through the hallways as the plasma torrent tore through the vehicle bay, then started to penetrate other portions of the facility. For a while Ben thought they were out of it, for the upper levels near the center were shielding them from direct fire and it would take quite a while for the walker to burn through, but as they were getting to the far side he heard a wicked screech of twisting metal, then a few seconds later he was knocked off his feet by a tremor that was quickly followed by a wave of debris.

“Anyone down?” the team leader asked.

Ben was covered in tiny bits of debris, his shields gone, but his arms, legs, and torso were still free so he didn’t respond and picked himself up as he continued towards the exit point.

“I am,” a voice said over the comm. “I could use some help.”

Ben saw the ID marker in his HUD and redirected back a hallway and crossed over to a collapsed section of the building, under which Viken-98320 was buried. He got to him a step behind another set of red armor and together they pulled a piece of bulkhead up half a foot, exposing a lean-to sort of mess of improvised tunnel underneath.

“Hold that,” the team leader said, diving under it in his silver armor.

Another adept came up and added his strength to the pair’s, setting his back underneath and using his legs to reinforce what they were holding with their arms as Ben heard repetitive plasma blasts from underneath, then eventually  the silver boots returned, dragging a broken set of red armor out.

“Clear.”

Ben held his leverage until the adept underneath extricated himself, then he and the other let the beam down…only then did he turn around to see the broken legs of the pinned adept. But to his dismay the man stood up on them, with the armor crunching and flaking off in spots.

“Can you walk?” he heard the team leader ask over the teamcomm.

“I got a little pinched, but my armor took the pressure. So long as it doesn’t lock up on me I can run out.”

“How are we on the wall?”

“The walker is repositioning…we need to go now,” an Archon outside in scout position said.

“Move people!”

Ben ran out, letting the team leader deal with Viken, and quickly got himself to the wall and over top of it, hearing the thud, thud, thud of the walker on the other side of the outpost. He ran up and into the tree line, then turned around behind cover and looked back…only to see the entire central tower section of the outpost had been toppled over onto the facility.

A few large plasma orbs shot across the top of the rubble into the trees, causing Ben to flinch, but most of the walker was still behind the edge of the outpost, with only a few topside cannons visible as Viken got over the wall with some help, but was visibly limping as he dropped to ground on the near side. He jogged forward, with the team leader staying a step behind him the entire way, then the group of Archons was reunited and they all disappeared off into the forest where the plasma couldn’t follow.

10

August 18, 2467

Ghanis System

Ettiana

Ben woke up in his bunk to an alarm, sitting up underneath his covers as his mind instantly realized that it wasn’t his chrono talking to him, but a base-wide alarm. Whether it was just for the pilots or not he didn’t know, but in recent days he’d been getting more flying time in as the Skarrons inched their way closer to Alpha Site, though as yet they hadn’t stumbled upon any of the entrances.

His armor was standing beside his bed in the tiny quarters he’d been assigned, and after slipping on a pair of casual shoes nearby he stepped into the boots and began securing himself inside, finishing off with his helmet. It clicked into the neck latches and secured the atmospheric seal, though the small cage over his nose and mouth was still exposed to the outside air and would only lock up when necessary to prevent decompression or toxins from getting inside.

Ben flicked the power switch and immediately his HUD lit up with a battlemap warning, calling him to the hangar for immediate flight duty.

He didn’t bother using the comm, but left his quarters and went straight to his assigned skeet, seeing that most of them were alright maneuvering out of the hangar into the short tunnel that led to the ring around the base, into which all the large tunnel entrances connected.

“What’s going on?” he asked a nearby tech, belatedly realizing that the mechs were missing from the bay.

“We caught a Type-4 by itself and are taking it down, but the Skarrons are sending aerial support. Knock them down before they get to the mechs.”

“Happy to,” Ben said, climbing into the skeet and pulling as quick of a startup as he could, knowing that he could finish the rest enroute. With the anti-grav enabled he ‘drove’ across the bay and out into the tunnel spur, accessing the battlemap for navigational instructions. The engagement was occurring only 73 miles away, with the walker in question having strayed off from the others. Normally the mechs couldn’t fight them in the forest, for while the Skarrons could walk over the treetops the same couldn’t be said of the shorter mechs, but this walker had ventured out into a clearing…making it open for target practice.

Ben got himself into the tunnel assigned for departure, which was coordinated by the command center to bring him up away from the other walkers searching the area around Alpha Site, and accelerated up to speed as much as he dared in the close confines as he brought the rest of his skeet’s systems up to standby readiness, including weapons and shields.

The trip out to the exit took several minutes, then he shot up into the sky underneath the forest camouflaged tunnel cap and activated his comm. “Talk to me guys.”

“Nice of you to join the party,” Ken-39111 said from his skeet, miles away. “Double up with Amber and see if you can break up their incoming lines. Delay them as much as possible, the mechs have their hands full at the moment.”

“Where’s their dropship?”

“Safely away. It’ll come back for them when the air is clear…which is up to us.”

“Copy that,” Ben said, finding Amber-49288’s ID tag and seeing that she was only slightly ahead of him, heading towards a stretched out formation of Skarron fighters, some 43 strong, that were heading towards the mechs. Judging from the distances involved he could easily get to them first, but if they didn’t want to play tag there was no way they were going to be able to stop them from getting to their walker in time…and with their mobility and firepower they’d eat up the mechs without trouble.

“Am, I’m following you in. Don’t wait up, and see if you can draw some of them off. I’ll link up as soon as I can.”

“Hurry,” she prompted. “The mechs weren’t expecting fighters this close.”

“Where’d they come from?”

“Someplace in the forest that we didn’t know about. Probably a makeshift airfield to keep them closer to Alpha Site.”

“Don’t suppose they’d turn around if we started to blow it up?”

“I wish, but it’s too far off anyway. They’ll be at the mechs before we could get to it. Something to put on the to-do list though.”

“What’s your game plan?” Ben asked, transitioning to super pursuit mode, in lower speeds given that he was still in the thicker atmosphere. There was no time to climb to thinner air, so he got what he could out of the craft skimming above the treetops.

“Last first. If the others want to turn around and help they’ll have to slow down. If not, we pick them off one at a time moving up the line.”

“I’m down with that,” Ben said, seeing that a dozen or so other skeets were already buzzing around the enemy walker at low altitude, trying to give supporting fire without getting lit up by its topside lachar, but a few of them were already moving off to intercept the incoming fighters, and he assumed the rest would be soon. If they could kill the walker before the lightning bugs got to them the mechs would be in a much better defensive position, which was why they weren’t all moving out to intercept the fighters.

Ben watched as Amber got to rear end of the Skarron line and crisscrossed over the last fighter, drawing flashes of plasma from the five ahead of it. He watched the battlemap closely, wondering if they were going to redeploy, but they didn’t…meaning that the two skeets were going to have easy pickings so long as the opening remained.

“They’re not taking the bait,” Amber reported. “They must want the mechs pretty bad.”

“Watch your shield strength,” Ben reminded her. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

“I’m not that reckless,” she joked, but didn’t take much time off between attack runs as she looped in multiple times before Ben caught up with her, having the honor of finishing the Skarron fighter off on his first strike, gutting the thing with three slow approach mauler blasts that dropped it out of the air to crash into the forest below.

“One down,” Amber said, already hitting the second and taking a scattering of plasma fire from it and the ones ahead, but none of them turned around or grouped together…they were all making top speed for the small grassy plain ahead that the mechs were fighting in.

Ben couldn’t watch, busy as he was with the fighters, but there were 6 mechs in two trios, each flanking the Type-4 walker and staying out of its forward prime firing zone. Already its shields were down and its armor pot marked, but it was still spraying plasma quite well, and was far from dead. One of the braver skeet pilots flew in at grass level and shot it from the left flank, passing between a neo and a raven and hitting one of its legs with plasma and a mauler round, expanding on damage already done to it as the skeet turned hard left to avoid hitting the legs.

It flew so fast that only one of the plasma orbs hit it, and that was more by luck than skill. It arced back up into the air before it hit the tree line nearby that the Skarron was walking towards, knowing that the mechs couldn’t follow.

The mechs knew it too and kept hammering on that leg, eventually melting it off at the elbow joint and reducing the walker down to 5 functioning legs. It fell over when the leg broke, pinning it in place as it continued to flood the mechs with plasma, but each trio kept rotating in and out and blocking for each other to share the shield load, though 4 of the six mechs had already lost shields and were taking armor impacts.

They could have moved off, being far faster than the Type-4, but they had to stop it from getting out of the grass and into the trees…and they also knew the fighters were coming. They’d been lucky enough to catch it in the open in the first place, and now they had to press their advantage before it evaporated.

In truth the Archons were so pissed that they wanted the kill, even if they were being a bit reckless given the circumstances…but they were all of the same temperament, and they were going to make this happen no matter what.

Ben and Amber were no different, pushing their diminishing shields near the breaking point as they took slower and slower attack runs, allowing them to pour more firepower into the Skarron fighters and down them faster, but with the speed the lightning bugs were moving they had to get even closer, for the atmosphere was interfering with the plasma and flaring it out more than normal, as well as moving it off target when they fired from a lateral trajectory.

The pair of skeets kept swinging back and forth, going wide to avoid the Skarrons’ return fire when their shields dipped low, and staying directly behind them in line when they weren’t, getting into mauler range more often than not, and working their way up the line. They killed 7 of the fighters before the trees underneath them transitioned over to grass, leaving them 20 seconds out from the walker and mechs.

By that time all the skeets were in the air harassing the fighters, and their line of transit suddenly broke up into a more traditional fur ball…with Ben realizing that the mechs had succeeded in disabling the walker. It was still shooting out waves of tiny white plasma orbs, but it was on the ground and not moving, with the mechs having dispersed into more distant firing positions, recharging their shields when they could and turning to fight the enemy aircraft, knowing that they could come back to the walker later.

With the mechs turning their weapons up to the air they coordinated with the fighters, as they’d practiced many times in simulators, and used the largely immobile mechs as a hard point to maneuver the Skarron fighters around, setting up attacks from the skeets. When the Skarrons adjusted and pursued the skeets, they set up passes that brought the fighters around to prime firing positions of the mechs.

Neither approach worked quickly, for the Skarrons weren’t stupid enough to let the mechs get them with their heavy weapons, so the entire engagement began a game of movement, with the six mechs taking the majority of the beating. But as the engagement progressed the skeets increased their kill count, losing only one of their own in the process as the Skarron walker threw a lucky swath of plasma up into its path.

Amber went down hard into the forest, shredding the skeet in the process, but her cockpit armor held and she activated her beacon for pickup, indicating that she’d survived the crash…but Ben couldn’t dwell on that, for while the lightning bugs were thinning they were still peppering the mechs, who by now had lost their shields and a lot of their armor. They had, as a group, run off down the length of the plain to where the walker’s plasma was turning into spit, and with that tactical maneuver the mechs became more aggressive in their anti-air efforts.

They began grouping together and thickening their firing lines, which the skeets drove the Skarrons to as often as possible. One of the lightning bugs got caught by a plasma orb from a neo, which shattered its armor and left a smoking hole in the left side as it veered off from the others and headed off across the plain on its own. Ben went after it and swung around to target the damaged side, running up close to it enough that he nearly rammed the thing to deliver a mauler blast that matched the hole with 95% overlap.

He spun off, doing a skeet slide, and visually followed the lightning bug down to the ground where it plowed out a short trench before it came to a smoking halt. Confident that it was out of the fight, Ben accelerated to catch back up with the others…then suddenly his comm activated on the all-Star Force channel.

There was no voice, just music…but it was absolutely the best sound he had ever heard. An unrestrainable grin crept over his face as he picked one of the few Skarron fighters remaining and headed for it as he listened to the repetitive ‘Imperial March’ playing nonstop on the comm, which a quick glance at the battlemap confirmed was being transmitted from orbit.

“All drones are free.”

“Heavy cruisers concentrate fire on the juggernauts,” Tim-410 said as his flagship sat on the upper edge of low orbit along with 14 other Star Force jumpships, all of which were deploying warships that the Skarron fleet was maneuvering to intercept…but as they did more jumpships came in, microjumping from the star directly into planetary orbit and arriving on precise points fed to them by Tim’s command crew.

Each of the jumpships spewed warships, with the count escalating gradually but consistently, with the Skarrons not knowing how many were incoming.

But Tim did, crossing over to the command nexus after seeing the enemy fleet’s layout. Tweaking his own fleet’s positioning he brought in more jumpships on blocking routes, having them disperse their drones into clouds of armed debris that gradually encircled the Skarrons. By the time the enemy realized what was happening, and that the Humans had brought far more ships than they could handle, they were contained within a hemispherical bowl, leaving them few maneuvering options.

Inside that bowl was a great deal of carnage occurring on both sides, but all the Star Force crews were safely onboard their jumpships outside the perimeter, with more incoming as the battle progressed, thickening the bowl and forcing the Skarrons down towards the atmosphere as they tried to flee in the final stages of the battle, but they couldn’t get away from the smaller drones. They swarmed the larger ships, using the few IDF equipped interdictors to slow them down long enough to penetrate their shields and force them into desperate microjumps.

Those jumps ended in collisions with the Star Force ships, which ended in the Skarrons’ vessels disabling themselves in the impacts and falling prey to the drone swarm…but they had no other options, for there were no available jumplines, and the Skarron ships wouldn’t have fared any better going down to the atmosphere, which would have boxed them in even further.

Tim’s fleet destroyed the bulk of the Skarron assault fleet before all of his 312 Warship-class jumpships arrived, with the remaining enemy patrols ships in the system fleeing with the knowledge of how many reinforcements the Humans had sent, for they stayed around to observe the battle and the full arrival of the relief fleet, including the mass of troop jumpships and their unloading of scores of dropships delivering mechs and aerial craft to the planet to begin countering the Skarron units on the ground that the warships weren’t targeting with orbital bombardment.

Satisfied that they had the intel they’d been previously ordered to gather, the Skarron ships left their individual assignments across the system and high orbit around Ettiana, each jumping out from the star individually and taking their scouting reports back across the jumplanes over the following weeks until they reached Skarron territory. There they combined their data with those that had returned from Rotunna, and eventually Brenns and Iverie, giving the Skarron leadership their first substantive look at the true strength of Star Force...after which they began formulating their invasion plans for the larger war yet to come.

Consensus

1

August 15, 2467

Rotunna System (Beta Region)

Inner Zone

Aaron-010 watched from the bridge of the WS113 Warship-class jumpship that he was commanding the 19th fleet from as the system-wide battlemap began to update as the ship finished its braking maneuver against the larger of two gravity wells that were the Rotunna System’s binary stars, one orange, one yellow. Aaron had brought the first of his three fleets in against the larger yellow star, using the differential function of the gravity drives to ignore the presence of the other so it wouldn’t push them off jumpline as they arrived, with his ship being 13th in line out of the 100 warships in the 19th fleet.

The 22nd and 41st fleets also had 100 warships each, as every one of the mainline fleets was tasked to maintain. Their ground, aerial, and aquatics units traveled separately in cargo jumpships, which were trailing the warships. Each mech unit had 5 galaxies, each aerial unit 250 squadrons of 10, split between skeets and gunships. Commandos numbered 100,000 and comprised of a mix of Regulars, Knights, and Archons, while aquatics operated on a minimalistic fleet lineup, given that their larger ships were hard to transport between planetoids.

The 19th fleet/army had been assigned to Sol along with many others, of which Aaron had taken three full units. They’d been partially packed up prior to his departure order being given, so that they could respond to any incursion within Star Force’s home system, while some units had been dedicated to certain planetoids. The 19th had several mech and commando units on Mars that it had to retrieve, but given their extensive training they’d been able to recall all their puzzle pieces into their waiting jumpship transports within hours, then they’d set off for the 2+ month journey from Sol out to Rotunna to reinforce Randy’s smaller fleet that had gone to aid the first of the Star Force systems to be invaded by the Skarrons.

Rotunna was the most distant Beta Region colony, and as such it was well away from the others, making supplying it difficult, but of all the systems scouted by Star Force in the Beta Region it was by far the most valuable, which is what had prompted Randy to snatch it up sooner rather than later.

The system contained 7 habitable planets and 2 habitable moons…which was exceedingly rare. Finding a single planetoid within a system that was habitable per your race’s biological requirements was quite a find, but to have 9 was nearly unheard of. Sol only had one, being Earth, so securing and colonizing Rotunna had been a priority for Randy, despite the fact that it was a considerable distance away from Iona, his regional headquarters.

Rotunna was one of the newer colonization efforts, but it had been given more resources than the others, including an army of Kiritak and Star Force engineers to get to work setting up shop in the system, and they’d done a good job of it, with the first exports of foodstuffs coming out of the system within 3 years of their arrival.

With Star Force’s presence in the system came the attention of other races, and like the other Kiritak colonies in Beta Region, Rotunna had become a way station for the nearby races as they passed through enroute to other locations. A trading market had been established in orbit with a decently-sized defense fleet stationed there to make sure that everyone was clear that the system belonged to Star Force and no one else was going to be able to stake out any territory for their own.

That defense fleet had been steadily growing over the years, but the Skarrons had come with too many ships and overwhelmed them, though the actual number was still unknown given the fact that the relays had been cut. All information from Rotunna had ceased transmitting after that point, meaning Aaron didn’t know what the full situation would be when he arrived, but the smaller insystem relay satellites spaced around the system had not been destroyed…at least not all of them, and they linked in with his warships the moment they came out of their jump, updating them to the current positions of all Star Force assets.

As Aaron watched the map of what was supposed to be there tallied up losses of orbital stations by the dozens…but not all went out. In fact, there were two planets that appeared to have been hit, in orbit at least, which Aaron found both reassuring and odd. As more information updated a preprogrammed message came through alerting all Star Force reinforcements to travel to Othalla, the 7th planet in the system, and one of the two that appeared to still be in Star Force hands.

“Admiral, pass the word down the line. All incoming ships transition by groups to Othalla. Then take us in.”

“Aye,” Admiral Nellis confirmed the order, then set about organizing his fleet into deployments. In a few minutes time the WS113 made a microjump out to the planet in question, then linked up by direct comms to the small defense fleet already in orbit.

“Wakey, wakey, anybody home?” Aaron said over a private channel to the ship tagged with Randy’s command icon.

There was a considerable delay, then an image of an Archon appeared, though it wasn’t Randy.

“Apologies, Aaron, but Randy is currently off on a mission,” Kraven-602 said with a loose smile on his face. “Though I do hope you’ll stick around anyway. It’s very lonely out here nowadays,” the Archon said dryly.

Aaron nodded, understanding what he meant. “Where is he?”

“Pulling a ground op on Ida. We’ve managed to neutralize most of the Skarron warships…or at least scare them off for the time being, but they’re pressing their ground campaigns and we’re having hell dealing with their walkers. The only saving grace is we’ve maintained air superiority and they’re having to land the things far out from our colonies, but once they get in close they’re killing everything in sight. We’ve lost more Kiritak than I can count, with even more fleeing to the wilderness when their habitats are destroyed. We’re evacuating as many as we can, but the Skarron fleet is intercepting our transports whenever possible and we’re having to play games just to get them into position, both in orbit and in air.”

“How many ships have the Skarrons got left?”

“That we know of, about 32 warships of varying sizes. Randy kicked the crap out of their original fleet once he arrived. Might want to watch a replay, he really took them to school over the course of three weeks. Othalla wasn’t the Skarrons original target, and I think they didn’t know we’d colonized multiple planet’s beforehand, because they seemed unwilling to put down anywhere but Ida at first. That was the first planet we colonized, so their information appears to have been out of date.”

“They’ve got smaller incursions on three other planets, but Ida is the real war zone and we’re getting our asses kicked. I hope you’ve brought some toys, because when their walkers get inside city limits we can’t kill them from orbit.”

“I’ve got 3 full mainline fleets with me,” Aaron said, bringing a smile to the other Archon’s face. “What exactly is Randy up to?”

“Um, well, he’s trying to take down some of their smaller walkers.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

“Remember Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aaron said, part dismay, part jealousy. “Has he got any yet?”

“Reports say two Type-4s.”

Aaron shook his head as if to clear it. “He always was a reckless mother fucker. What’s the standing orders? We got a recall order as soon as we arrived in system.”

“The Skarron fleet has gone dark. They’re learning from us and vice versa. He didn’t want anyone to get ambushed on the way in, though we weren’t concerned about a fleet of your size.”

“Any objections to my getting to work?”

“Please do. We’ve been stuck in guard position so long we’re going stir crazy, so if you don’t mind replace our ships here and let us get in on the action.”

“You’ve earned that much,” Aaron said, gesturing to the Fleet Admiral who began setting up the transfer orders so Othalla orbit wouldn’t be left unguarded. “As soon as the rest of the 19th gets here we’ll move on Ida. Have your ships ready to jump.”

“We will be,” Kraven said, eager for some payback.

A little green blur of motion sprinted through the jungle, concealed beneath the thick green canopy as it raced to catch up with a Type-4 Skarron walker that was breaking trail for three Type-5s. The spider-legged mechanical tick was dragging its belly low and knocking or bending trees over that the shorter biped walkers were then stomping down as they made their way towards a small, independent bioharvest facility that was located in the middle of Ida’s globe-spanning jungle. No access roads or clearings were available around it, with the only way in or out being by air transport.

Star Force had skeets in the area keeping enemy transports at bay, so the Skarrons were making the long hike in to the facility by foot, and cutting out their own crude pathways through the jungle on the way. From higher altitude you could see the Skarron roads crisscrossing the planet and expanding out like a thin spider web, with this tendril reaching out into previously untouched territory.

The little blur of Archon ranger armor was alone, having been deposited via skeet some kilometers back and left to approach on foot. Irregular as his path was, he was making better time than the walkers, though at a cost of considerable strength, for he’d been running for the past half hour and putting most of his effort into making the catch. He wasn’t low on ambrosia yet, but at the speed he was moving it wouldn’t be much longer until he felt the first effects of his body’s saturated supply diminishing.

But Randy wasn’t concerned about that, for he had already made the catch. That was the hardest part, for he needed to get to the walkers when they had their shields down, and he could only do that when they were far from the combat.

The trailblazer paced the last of the three Type-5s, matching its speed but running some 120 meters to the west on the same heading as he got a ‘feel’ for the situation with his Pefbar, extending it out into a spotlight-like pylon that reached through the trees and touched the walker that his eyes couldn’t see. It was stomping what was left of the vegetation that the first three had yet to knock down, leaving a mess of timber in its wake that would be difficult for Randy to maintain even half speed on.

“Ok,” the Archon said to himself, off comm, “we’ll try a different approach this time.”

Accelerating up into another continuous sprint…or at least that’s what it felt like with the constant adjustments he had to keep making for trees and debris, Randy pushed his way up to the second Type-5 and turned hard right, crossing the safety gap between him and the Skarrons in a handful of seconds, finally stopping short and jumping up into an intact tree that had been spared from the walkers’ passing.

The trailblazer climbed fast, then walked out on a thick branch halfway up the tree that got him an approach to clean air and waited for the third biped walker to come up. It had two very thick legs that supported a short torso that had a large golf ball-like sphere top that contained the pimple pattern of plasma cannons across its surface, much like the larger Skarron walkers had. The thing had no arms, making it look like a fat Lego man, and it walked about the same. Apparently the quadruped species wasn’t all that keen on biped movement, which raised the question why they had built bipeds in the first place.

Randy had only a few seconds to wait, then he took his chance and ran a few steps along the length of the branch, pushing through smaller sprouts and crunching his way towards the end where he jumped with all his strength and flew out into the clean air and fell down into the broken tree mess below. He landed 15 meters shy of the walker, but managed to get a good left foot plant against an angled tree trunk and caught himself before he could slide down further into the mess of branches. Using that point of grip he ran up the broken trunk two steps and jumped to another one nearby.

Two more short hops and he leapt up against the side of the walker’s left leg…where he stuck onto the side, thanks to the boxing glove-like add-ons to his armor. He wore no pack, no weapons rack, nothing at all aside from his basic ranger armor with the thick grip gloves attached over top his normal armored digits.

Randy hung in place for a split second, pulling a Garfield, then disengaged the right gripping device and one armed himself higher up on the leg. Reattaching it he released the other and climbed, with little help from his legs, up above the mess of jungle debris as it washed by him threatening to peel him off. Once he got to the knee joint he was free of most of that concern, and focused on getting past the moving parts, which required some delicate timing and one armed hanging swings to get to the upper leg.

Randy was glad no one had shot him as he’d gotten to the walker, meaning that hopefully they hadn’t seen him and wouldn’t see him in this close, but there were no guarantees. Two days ago when he’d tried this he’d been spotted and took half a cannon blast to his shields before he’d dropped off like a dead flea. He’d hit the ground hard, then ran off in his melty armor with a kink in his left arm where the material had resolidified and interfered with the smooth movement of the elbow joint.

But that was the chance they had to take to get in this close, and even now that he was clinging to the side of the Type-5 he wasn’t safe yet, for if the walker turned on its shields he’d been pinned in place as if an invisible wall manifested itself with the Archon inside it. His own shields would keep it from being a hard lock, but if a body part was bigger on the inside then there was no way it could fit through the hole in the Skarron shield and he’d be truly stuck, but he’d learned that the Skarron shields weren’t directly on their armor, but rode several inches above it, meaning that most of his body would hopefully be inside the perimeter, though even if a hand was outside it’d get burnt off by enemy plasma…which was why up until this point he’d only tried taking down single walkers that couldn’t shoot him if he got pinned in place.

So with that threat in mind he climbed as fast as he could, transitioning up to the torso and around to the back side where the 2nd Type-5 couldn’t see or shoot him. Randy felt inside the machine for the mind of the pilot, finding it to be further up top than the center of the sphere, so he continued to climb up the ball with his body and feet hanging off as he had to maneuver up the underside.

The grip gloves held firm though, as they’d been designed to do. Another useful bit of tech recovered from the pyramid database.

Randy climbed up the curve and eventually got his legs back on the hull. He diverted his line of ascent twice to move around plasma cannon ports that were the size of a trash can, and eventually made his way three quarters up the curve until he was the closest to the Skarron pilot as he could get. He’d have liked to have attempted this from farther away, but his mind wasn’t nearly that powerful…at least not for the precision control that he was going to need.

Setting the grip gloves to lock into position, Randy trusted the technology to hold him in place then disengaged his mind from the majority of his senses and let his psionics link him with the mind of the single Skarron pilot inside. What he found was violent, as the others had been, but more large in scope than powerful. Using his psionics he linked to the mind and asserted control over it. Pulling the override required a lot of skill and power, hence the need to get as close as possible, but thanks to the practice Randy already had he locked down the pilot and kept him away from his own bodily functions, essentially blacking him out while jumping inside the thing’s body.

That was the creepy part…having four arms and four legs, no head, etc. Randy had to do it this way in order to get the precision movements he needed, else he could have just enslaved the Skarron’s mind and made it do what he wanted while allowing it to be partially conscious. Even now the thing struggled to wake up, but a consistent mental pressure kept it down and Randy used what was left of his psionic power to operate its limbs, see through its eyes, and interface with the pilot controls. The Type-5’s was a bit different from the Type-4s he’d messed with earlier, and it took him a few minutes to figure them out as the mech continued to walk forward under computer control, with Randy only having to make micro steering adjustments as he got situated.

When all was said and done he activated the walker’s shields, pinning his body in place with part of his back and butt showing through the shield barrier, but the rest of him was underneath it. That didn’t matter, because he was hanging off the back and the other walkers were in front, and with all the trees around them it was going to be difficult for them to flank him.

Ok, here goes, Randy thought as he activated the walker’s weapon systems, ignoring the anti-air cannon up top and focusing on the dozens of small plasma cannons on the walker’s surface. He linked them to group fire to track a single target, then powered up the primary plasma cannon that sat on the front side of the golf ball in the thing’s chest.

Picking a spot in the back of the right knee of the duplicate walker ahead of him, Randy fired the primary cannon, then triggered the smaller ones to attack the same spot, pouring as much firepower as he could into the walker before it could realize what was happening and get its shields up.

2

The joint’s armor was lighter than the rest, but it didn’t give on the first hit. Rather it took three blasts from the main cannon and a torrent of the smaller white plasma blasts to melt through and get at the internal structure. The fourth blast hit shields, delaying the walker’s collapse, but Randy kept hammering the same spot as the Type-5 ahead of him tried to turn around, getting tripped up by the tree debris that was everywhere.

Before it could swing around and bring its main cannon into play the anti-personnel cannons on the back side fired on Randy’s appropriated walker, splashing off his own shields as they traded fire. A few more direct hits from his main cannon and the shielding over the knee went down and Randy delivered the fatal blow, melting the inner mechanics from the heat of the plasma. The liquid slag cooled quickly, causing the joint to seize up. That stuck the walker in place, lest it fall over, and gave Randy a blocking silhouette against the other two walkers that were already turning around as they tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

The trailblazer knew the internal comm system was pinging the Skarron pilot, but he wasn’t answering, so with one of their own shooting at them they did what anyone would do…they shot back.

Randy kept close to his target in the downed tree trench and poured fire into the center of the walker’s spherical top, chewing through the shields and then working on the armor as the Type-4 ahead of them rose up to its full height and fired down on Randy’s Type-5, getting a sliver of a firing angle. The Archon held firm, knowing that he needed to kill the smaller walker before jumping ship, and chewed through the thick Skarron armor until he had a breach point. After that his plasma slipped in and soon the bottom hatch of the walker opened up and the pilot dropped to the ground between the legs and tried to run off before it could get roasted inside the machine, though it had a difficult time navigating the mess of tree debris.

Randy would have shot it, but it wisely headed off on an angle that had its walker blocking the Human’s firing line, so the Archon continued slagging the inner workings of the Type-5 up until he was thoroughly convinced that it was dead. After that he turned the walker to the left and walked it through the trash, making sure to take small steps and mash down as much of it as possible as his shields took a torrent of plasma from both of the other walkers.

He approached at an angle to keep his body from coming into the firing line, and headed into the forest in the direction of the other two that had also veered off to the left to circle around towards him. As soon as his walker was in the trees the incoming plasma reduced greatly, leaving him to pushing his way through, laying over one tree stalk after another as he slowly created his own path forward.

With that cover in place the Type-5 was shielded from its twin, but the Type-4 was still firing down on the top of his walker, now penetrating the shields and beginning to tear into the armor. Randy shoved his way through the trees as fast as he could without tipping the giant machine over, intent on getting to the other one before he had to jump clear.

He did…barely. The front of his walker had a gaping hole in the armor that was nearing the pilot’s compartment as he pushed through the last of the trees and ran head on into the other Type-5. Both walkers fired at each other at point blank range, with Randy’s taking the worst damage, for the other’s shields were still up.

That was alright, for he wanted the walker he was riding to go down…one less for the enemy to use, but he wanted to take the other with it, so he pushed ahead with as much torque as he could get out of the legs and rammed sphere against sphere. Like a slow motion monster wrestling match, the two locked up and tipped over, with his landing on top of the other’s legs and pinning it in place as the plasma from the Type-4 continued to fall down.

Randy disengaged his psionic link before the walker fell, and got his hand grips released halfway down, allowing him to knee-slide off the back and land in the tree mash between its legs as the plasma fell over the sphere where he’d just been. He let himself hit bottom, sliding between tree trunks and down into the mass of twigs and leaves, all of which helped to hide his green armor from the Type-4.

He imagined a heated conversation taking place as the Skarron he’d been controlling woke up, but the plasma continued to fall regardless as Randy snuck around underneath the small pile of trees, gradually working his way to the edge and into the clear forest, seeing one of the Type-4’s slender legs punch down through the canopy ahead of him as the big walker moved in for a closer look at the others as it continued to fire on the traitor.

Randy ran towards the leg, knowing that its shields would be up and any attempt to climb it would be fruitless, but he needed to get close and chanced running up underneath it, now that its belly was riding above the canopy instead of crashing through it. Its other five legs repositioned, knocking over trees or snapping off branches, making Randy stay alert and mobile. He wasn’t sure what its next move would be, but if he was going to have a chance of taking it down he had to stay close.

Eventually the plasma bombardment ceased, with the Type-5 moving overtop the others. At first Randy thought it was going to try to push the dead walker off the other, then he saw a compartment on the underside open up and a projectile shot out, landing a claw on the walker. Two more followed, and then the connecting lines pulled taught and a loud groan sounded as the Type-4 he’d appropriated began to rise up off the other.

The one underneath pushed its way out, kicking its thick legs to break loose, for it appeared the Type-4 didn’t have the strength to pull the dead weight all the way off.

Randy knew the shields had to be down, at least around the exit points for the tethers. He was half tempted to try and climb one up into the walker, but if the cannons on the belly saw him he’d be toast in quick order, so he scratched that plan quick enough.

Next idea he had sent a piece of wood the size of his thumb telekinetically up through the canopy above him. He watched it with his Pefbar as he sent it to impact the underside of the walker, paying close attention to the impact point…and seeing that the thing’s shields were in fact down all over the walker.

That was his opening, so he ran towards the nearest leg and began to climb up on the underside to keep from being painfully visible. If he stayed directly under the angled leg, he’d come up to the box-like connective point where the legs intersected with the body where there were no cannons. There would be cannons all around that point, but if he could get to the hull he could climb up around them, for they didn’t have the ability to tip to the side far enough to bother him.

Randy had made it up to the elbow joint on the leg, just beginning to transition to his ‘hands only’ grip on the underside of the walker leg, which left his own dangling beneath him as he monkey climbed up when he felt a gigantic surge of motion.

The walker below and to his left dropped back to the ground as the tethers went slack, but the Type-4 also stepped to the side, running Randy up into some thin branches that he was fortunate not to have been knocked off by. Just as soon as he got his legs up into a crunch position and had his feet planted above his head against the walker leg did the whole thing drop down towards the ground.

The leg bent heavily, undoing the angle and turning Randy’s handhold into more of a ceiling hold. Only when the walker steadied itself and the sound of a disengaging panel crackle/whined itself out of the belly armor did the trailblazer notice the mind of a Skarron on the forest floor below. It was the one that had jumped ship when Randy had toasted the first walker, and now it was coming up underneath the big one.

With his eye line set on the underside of the walker’s leg, Randy used his Pefbar to look behind him and underneath the machine as a type of boarding ramp extended out of the hull between armor segments that had peeled off. It telescoped the rest of the way down to the forest, and Randy could sense the Skarron heading for it.

“Haha,” the trailblazer lightly laughed as he suddenly had a far easier option present itself. He reached out with his Ikrid and got a feel for the three Skarron minds inside the Type-4 and began to send waves of Fornax blasts toward them as he released his grip from the leg and dropped down to the ground.

With his focus on the psionic workload his balance was less than adequate, tossing him to the right suddenly as his feet hit a curved trunk. He banged his head good on impact, but sent out more Fornax blasts immediately to keep the cannons from firing or raising the ramp if they saw him. He got to his feet and sent a fourth Fornax blast into the one heading for the ramp, causing it to trip and fall over its own legs as they suddenly ceased to work.

Randy ran after it, hopping over tree debris while throwing more Fornax up into the walker’s hull. He kept all four Skarrons subdued while he jumped up onto the back of the closest one and leapt off it up onto the ramp and climbed the ladder-like catwalk up into the walker.

Inside there was a cramped chamber…by Skarron standards anyway. It contained a central corridor with six pods spaced around the stalk, each of which was huge for Randy’s physique. He walked into the corridor and found it was also like a catwalk, but with round holes in the structure rather than slats.

Making sure not to trip on any, or to let his foot slip through, he reached out to the three minds inside and placed them, numbing one as it reached up a weapon and aimed at him. Randy didn’t move, but kept it in check while trying to do the same to the other two. He didn’t move its gun arm, not any other body parts, for he couldn’t do that without focusing exclusively on one of them and he had three to hold at bay.

Which quickly became four as the one at the base of the ramp camp up and poked its ugly front end inside. He stretched out his Ikrid and nulled it too, essentially freezing it in place by not allowing it to make any additional movements, but maintaining its current posture.

“Out,” he said, pointing towards the one at the ramp. It didn’t understand English, nor the trade language for that matter, but Randy got the telepathic impetus through, along with a heavy dose of influence. He couldn’t take control of its body, but he could tell it to.

Slowly the Skarron backed out of the entrance and headed down the ramp, seeming to crawl backwards as easy as it did forwards…with its foot claws digging into the holes in the metal for extra grip. Randy kept his Ikrid link to it strong, despite the meters of distance it was putting between them, then he pointed to the other three and thumbed backwards over his shoulder.

“Everybody off the bus,” he said, taking a step to the side as the big quadrupeds climbed out of their pods. Randy put a hand on the curved wall for support as his mental effort had to increase greatly as the fourth one got to ground. He switched over to nulling it, which saved a little mental expenditure, but influencing the other three to do what he wanted was pushing his Ikrid to the limits.

The first one went by, not bothering to look at him, then headed front first down the steep ramp, gripping it with its feet claws that emanated from the underside rather than toe nails would have. The second one did the same, but the third stopped at the edge and just stood there, and Randy could feel his grip on its will slipping. It was on the verge of questioning what it was doing, at which point the ruse would end. He had to keep it distracted, and too much thought in any direction would break the hold.

To that end he released the furthest of the Skarrons. With the lesser load Randy increased his mental pressure on the last one, remembering what Obi-wan had said about the Force having a strong influence on the weak minded…and this Skarron was stronger than the others.

“Run!” he yelled, with his mind imparting the same message. “Run, run, run!” he repeated so fast that the Skarron didn’t have time to think. It charged down the ramp, knocking the one in front of it off before ramming the one that Randy had released as it came back up. With that tangled mess breaking his hold on the pair he released all three and sent a Fornax wave in their direction and held the production until he got to the ramp controls, already having gleaned their location from one of their minds.

Randy held the Fornax as the ramp pulled back into itself, then leveraged up into the underside of the hull, with the last steps being the peeled back armor plates to seal over it…leaving Randy alone inside.

Almost immediately his captured walker came under fire from the lone Type-5 remaining, thanks to the Skarrons and their personal communicators.

“Ok, what now?” Randy said, running and looking around. Some of the controls were familiar, but a lot weren’t, and this was his first time inside one of the Type-4s…in person anyway. When he was linked to a Skarron’s mind everything had context, but now it was just him and what he could remember.

He jumped back and forth between two pods until he found the shield controls and powered them up as a portion of the front hull began to lose armor, along with a plasma cannon mount, he thought, based on one of the display panels. After that he looked around, playing with various controls, most of which he had to use his fist/elbow to toggle, given how large they were. Eventually he determined that one of the pods was a restroom, then climbed up into the highest one and found the weapon controls, still trying to clear the smell from his nostrils. His armor might not have deemed it toxic, but his biology certainly did.

As the walker got pounded on the outside Randy got the weapons controls working…only to discover that they were for the anti-air weaponry. Abandoning that pod he tried another, eventually getting to the plasma cannon controls in what seemed to be a multi-tasking format. Maybe one of the other pods controlled them directly, but what he had he got to work, targeting the Type-5 outside that had already broken through his shields and was busy melting off armor with its primary cannon.

Fortunately it had a decently long cycle in between shots, so Randy wasn’t in immediate trouble. He aligned all of his own plasma cannons within the appropriate firing arc for the other walker and synced them to one targeting reticule and placed it on the enemy…then he couldn’t find the firing trigger.

He looked around, belatedly remembering that it was on the floor. He couldn’t reach it and the aiming controls at the same time, so he stared at the control knobs for a long couple of seconds then dropped down to the floor of the pod and stomped on the button.

It didn’t fire, nor did it depress all the way, so Randy tried again, jumping with both feet, and this time it went all the way into the ground.

Outside every plasma cannon in range fired once, then fell silent.

“Crap,” Randy said, jumping on it again, then climbing up halfway to get his head within view of the readouts. Telekinetically he moved the controls, realigning his targeting reticule to a more favorable spot, then jumped back down on the firing button, pounding it into the ground multiple times like a child throwing a tantrum before climbing back up again to see what he’d hit.

The Type-5 had moved, but only partially, with his plasma still landing on the spherical ‘head.’ Randy readjusted his firing line and went back down to the ground, repeating the awkward attack function over and over again until the Type-5 was damaged enough that it tried to flee.

“Oh no you don’t…bastard,” Randy said, running over to another pod and getting the walker walking, albeit slowly. He set it on autopilot, meaning it just went in a straight line, knocking down trees and hoping they didn’t trip it up, then ran back over to the weapons pod and got another salvo of shot in on the other walker.

That process repeated itself for over an hour as the two walkers played tag, with Randy running himself silly trying to operate the controls that were designed for an elephant until the Type-5 finally went down, literally, and Randy pounded it further with plasma until it was a smoking mess of melted metal.

“Oh, god I don’t want to do that again,” he said, sitting down and leaning back against the curved wall at the bottom of the central shaft as he activated his helmet comm. “Anybody out there hear this?”

“I’ve got you, Randy, but faint,” the dropship pilot who’d brought him to the walkers replied.

“Come pick me up. The three Type-5s are junk, and I’m inside the Type-4, so don’t worry about it shooting back. What firearms do you have onboard?”

“A couple of pistols, one plasma, one stinger. Why?”

“There are Skarrons loose on the ground. We need to clean them up, and I don’t think the skeets will get a clean shot. Comm for a ground team and mark this location.”

“Copy that, I’m on my way in.”

Randy cut the comm and sighed, taking a moment to rest before heading over to the ramp controls and opening the damaged mech up. With the shields down and the armor already damaged, the skeets would have an easy time finishing it off, so his work here was done, so long as he didn’t let any of the Skarrons back inside, and given how far the machine had walked he had no idea how close they were now.

When the dropship arrived, he triggered the ramp closing mechanism and jumped out, sliding/falling down the angled metal as it closed up, then dropping to the ground after bouncing off a couple of intact branches that the Type-5 hadn’t hit on the way through. Randy took the fall well then ran out into the opening created by the downed trees and signaled to the dropship to come down and get him.

Once onboard he called for the skeets and waited until they were on station and blowing the crap out of the walker before he let the pilot leave.

3

August 17, 2467

Rotunna System (Beta Region)

Ida

“Ships are in bombardment position,” Admiral Nellis said for Aaron’s benefit as the 19th fleet was broken up and holding various positions in low orbit.

“We’ve still got two red flags, Admiral. Commence firing on all other targets,” Aaron ordered, watching the bridge tactical holo. A few moments later metallic rain began falling down through the atmosphere and targeting the Skarron walkers that were away from population centers. The two ‘red flags’ were inside cities where the inhabitants weren’t all clear yet, and each of those held a Type-1, making them primary targets that needed to be eliminated from orbit, lest there be a much larger fight on the ground.

Ida had 29 tier 1 colonies under construction, which when fully completed would be self-sufficient entities of their own on the planet’s surface spanning hundreds of square miles. Other auxiliary facilities dotted the landscape as well, but overall Ida’s population was spread out with a ‘work in progress’ feel to the planet, despite the fact that it already held some 2 billion Kiritak and several hundred thousand Humans.

A lot of those were dead, but many had been able to flee from one city to another given the slow speed of the Skarron armies. Air superiority was being split between the two factions, with the handful of conquered cities remaining in Skarron control while Star Force still held sway over the others. Not wanting to wreck their own cities with orbital bombardment, even the empty ones, Star Force had been engaging the Skarrons via mech drops and trying to draw them out into the open…which in the case of Ida meant the regions of forest that had been cut down to facilitate further expansion or to create roads from site to site.

The Skarrons had taken the bait, mostly, and the mechs had dragged their forces out away from the cities, even if only a few hundred meters beyond the perimeter on the dirt plains preceding new construction.

On those plains and roadways the Skarrons fell prey to the rail gun slugs coming down from orbit. Star Force had already pulled its armies back, drawing the Skarrons out further or causing them to give up the chase. Though the aiming of the metallic shards wasn’t precise at a range of 110 miles, plus the thick atmosphere of Ida would play havoc with the descent as well, but over the centuries Star Force had gotten good in containing the randomness of the bombardment and concentrated it to select areas, carpeting the ground with so many hits that through statistical probability the Skarron walkers were going to get hit.

As soon as the rain began to come down every Type-1 and Type-2 within range started popping missiles that shot up towards orbit, intent on taking down the warships dropping the ordinance. The few walkers that got hit initially remained intact, protected underneath large circular defense shields that stopped the falling metal in superheated splashes, sucking vast amounts of energy out of the protective barrier…energy that they could not replace fast enough, meaning that if the walkers didn’t take out the warships they were going to succumb to the attack in short order.

But that’s what the Skarron anti-air defenses had been designed to thwart, and the missile plumes rising up towards the drone warships were thick and fast moving, not to mention carrying very strong warheads. Those plumes diminished as they passed out of the upper atmosphere as additional elements of the 19th fleet, stationed around the edges of the rail gun-equipped formation, began pouring lachars and launching intercepts at the coming swarms that continued to rise up from the walkers.

The collision between ordinance was heavy, but nothing was going to stop the rail gun slugs from falling. Some of them took out missiles on their way down, but there were so many coming up that a lot got through the maelstrom of destruction in between the ships and atmosphere that was ballooning out in an ever growing debris cloud.

Anti-missile lachars on the bombarding ships opened fire in the last moments, picking off a few more as the leading missiles hit shields, with each explosion firing multiple weapon systems within the warhead, one of which was designed to suck energy out of the shields above and beyond the kinetic impact. Another element was a shrapnel component that threw out small chunks of material that effectively sandblasted the shields over a wide area rather than a pinpoint attack that the primary blast afforded. The smaller impacts drained the physical component of the Star Force shields, as well as diminishing the energy pools around the pinpoint attack.

That energy pool, in some shield designs, could be redeployed to adjacent areas to quickly cover weak spots rather than waiting on more energy to come through the emitters. By diminishing this amount in the same missile detonation, each attack blasted a wider divot in the shields and set up a longer lived weakness for the next missile to exploit.

Star Force shields had gotten progressively stronger over the years, now on par in strength to all others in the Alliance save for the Kvash, so they didn’t go down quickly, but the swarming effect of the missiles didn’t give them time to recharge, so after 15-20 seconds of nonstop pounding the shields on smaller drones went down, opening up the hull armor to the attacks.

It looked like all the missiles were getting through to Aaron, but he knew better. The other ships were knocking down more than half of what was coming up, but there were so many the bombardment ships were visibly being clouded by impacts. Never the less they continued firing until their weapon systems went offline, including their plasma and maulers, which they were using to take out missiles at point blank range by simply pointing and firing them into the swarm.

The first drone went offline at 43 seconds into the engagement, with many more following. Aaron kept an eye on the walkers, seeing several of the Type-3s and 4s being scrapped, with some of the 2s starting to get hit as their shields failed, but the Type-1s were still untouched and continuing to pump out missiles…far more than it looked like they should have been able to carry, but from intelligence gained from Kip’s ongoing war in Protovic space he knew that the things were literally walking armories.

Then again, if Star Force had a walker that big and slow Aaron would have been concerned about it being taken out from orbit too, and he had to admit the missile plumes were a significant deterrent, though the walkers weren’t going to be able to rearm, so once they ran out they were out, but to get them to that point Star Force was going to have to lose ships.

Aaron hadn’t expected that initially, given the number of ships at his disposal. He’d expected to spam low orbit and knock down all missiles coming his way, but the sheer number of walkers deposited on the surface in overlapping firing ranges shocked him. Still, he could have pooled his ships into one place and took out the walkers with near impunity a handful at a time, but neutralizing them quickly was more important, and he was only going to be able to lure them away from the ground infrastructure once, so he had to spread out his ships and attack them all at once.

As his interceptor-laden drones began to run out of ordinance before the Skarrons did they moved off, making room for others to close in and take their place close to the bombardment fleet. Meanwhile a host of cutters and corvettes dove into the atmosphere on attack runs, staying clear of the bombardment corridors, but heading down to engage the walkers at close range and making the Skarrons choose who to shoot at.

Altogether Aaron had 8,372 drones in play, that being the full complement of the 19th fleet spread out around planetary orbit. The 22nd and 41st fleets were split up on multiple missions throughout the rest of the star system, with the trailblazer intent on hitting the Skarrons as hard and as fast as possible on all fronts, for he knew the longer he took to engage the enemy the more Star Force personnel they’d kill, and he’d rather lose some unmanned ships than fail to come to their aid fast enough.

A small flashing light updated one of the red flag with a green icon, indicating that the Star Force personnel in the area had been withdrawn around a Type-1 and escorts within one of the cities. It hadn’t been drawn outside the boundaries, for it hadn’t been a skirmisher. Others had moved out to engage the Star Force mechs miles away, but it sat within the city, pumping out missiles at other targets while the fleet designated to take it out sat by waiting nearby.

Aaron really didn’t want to bust up their own city, and hoped no one had slipped through the cracks in the evacuation, but now that he had a green from the ground commander he acted on it.

“Admiral, point 14 is clear. Bring the rain.”

Nellis nodded, inputting the command into his control board. “This is going to get messy.”

77 drone warships, ranging from cruisers down to frigates, began launching rail gun slugs with impunity on the Type-1 and four Type-3s ringing in various points on the Star Force city streets. Fiery streaks came down in straight lines, burning from the friction with the atmosphere, and slammed into city buildings, shattering their structures and blowing out plumes of debris.

The defense shield over the Type-1 activated, with its missiles diverting around the edges of the circle, flying horizontal a short distance before angling up to continue firing on the nearby attack group rather than the one Aaron had just ordered to engage. That was wise, for spreading out their anti-orbital firepower would allow Star Force to shoot down more missiles before they could make it to target, but it also left this Type-1 vulnerable, essentially giving the Humans a free shot.

Streak after streak came down atop the shield, while many more hit around the edges, blasting apart buildings and every now and then coming down near one of the Type-3s that were creeping their way off from the Type-1 and spreading out the targeting area. With 30 or so rounds hitting per second, the attack wasn’t light, but neither was it heavy, given that not all of them hit the Type-1. It was the consistent and unrelenting attack that gradually wore down its shields, eventually letting some of the rounds through to hit the armor and buildings that the shield had been protecting.

More infrastructure than enemy was hit, but that was unavoidable. The slugs that hit the thick armor didn’t deflect, nor did they explode, instead they stuck inside it like a pin cushion being hit by lava, for the impact sites glowed orange as the rounds deformed partially from the sudden deceleration. It wasn’t as sudden as a shield impact, but the torsion literally tore the rounds apart as they dug through the heavy armor.

The long, caterpillar-like chain of seven body segments took damage irregularly, but the missile swarm continued to flow out of each body segment until a round slipped into the launching port on the third segment and eviscerated the inside. Those missiles stopped launching after a large internal explosion marked the airspace above the walker with a mushroom-shaped cloud.

Around it one of the Type-3s got hit by a smaller slug from one of the frigates. Its shields held up, but the impact knocked the walker over, twisting its end around and tangling up the legs, causing it to list to the left and ram into a building, after which it dropped halfway to the ground before the legs supported its weight. Some shield matrixes were standalone, others were hard linked to the emitters, meaning that a physical impact to them would move the emitter and whatever was attached to it, and in this case the Skarrons had the hard links on the Type-3s. That might not have seemed the best tech choice to make seeing as how the impact had knocked it down, but had it been a standalone the point blank deceleration stress probably would have penetrated the shield.

The more technologically advanced a race became the more shield options one had, but in this case none would have saved the Skarrons, for the Star Force fleet had full magazines and jumpships standing by to resupply them if/when they ran out. The rain continued to fall, obliterating both buildings and enemy walkers, and punching a circular wound into the city, visible from orbit after the smoke and dust eventually cleared.

Randy observed the Type-1 go down from miles away, him having been the ground commander clearing this section of the city. Originally that task had been slated for another Archon, but Randy’s last mission had ended early so he’d come over to personally oversee the evacuation.

Standing atop one of the tallest buildings on the other side of the city he watched Aaron’s fleet do its work and take out the walker that would have been extremely hard for ground troops to take down. The sight of the vicious bombardment reminded him how naval superiority ruled all, and how much infrastructure he was going to have to throw together to defend against something like this.

Bigger shield generators, anti-orbital weapons batteries, etc…but if an enemy had time to plan and assemble what was necessary, there was virtually no surface target that couldn’t be taken down from orbit, and that fact chilled him to the bone even as he felt an enormous amount of relief seeing the Type-1 and its minions go down to the Star Force metallic rain.

Others would have been concerned, being so close to the bombardment, but Randy wasn’t, knowing full well the accuracy their weapons had. Four miles away was sufficient, as well as giving him a good view while additional evacuations were taking place beneath him. The Kiritak they’d just pulled out of the other half of the city were being funneled into an underground rail line…one that was still intact…that led to another secure city, via a transition at a mining outpost.

The train cars had been removed and the tunnel opened up for hover traffic, with all manner of vehicles pouring down into the well-guarded opening. Randy had two stars of mechs covering it, with several more around the perimeter hunting down Skarron infantry as they made their way across the city. He’d had to abandon many of their previously held positions in order to clear the bombardment zone, putting distance between them and the Skarron lines, but some of the ambitious bastards had followed them out and had to be killed, with Randy’s troops on constant alert not to let even a single one of their Hobbits get through, for almost all of the Kiritak waiting for evacuation were unarmed.

Randy watched the Skarron missiles shoot off on a slight angle up into the sky, along with plumes from three Type-2s elsewhere on the horizon but outside the city. The sheer amount of firepower they were throwing up at the orbiting warships was impressive, but the rain continued to fall and Randy watched it all from the rooftop, with each stream of missiles eventually cutting off. The Type-1 continued firing up until each of its seven segments took hits, making Randy wonder how much more ordinance they had inside.

He glanced at the battlemap in his helmet, seeing that one of the Type-3s was still active, so the bombardment continued up until it was killed, then suddenly the sound of the impacts ceased and the smoke was left to drift into transparency, revealing a battered and shattered cityscape more akin to a sandbox than anything structural.

Randy uplinked to the fleet and declared the bombardment site a black flag, indicating that it was done and making sure that no more rain would fall without checking with him first. With that status logged, he ordered his mechs to begin sweeping the city out from their current positions and identify remaining Skarron infantry locations for the Archons to sweep up.

Taking one final visual look around the city, both the intact sections and the damaged zone, Randy spotted a glint of armor moving in one of the streets off to the south. He called in a nearby dropship to pick him up, after which he’d have it drop him near the Skarron armored infantry, knowing that they were tricky to take down with anything short of a mech…or a ranger.

4

September 12, 2467

Rotunna System (Beta Region)

Ida

Randy sat crosslegged on top of a table with his eyes closed as Aaron walked in the door behind him, seeing the large containment field separating his fellow trailblazer from the Skarron prisoner on the far side. The elephant-sized quadruped was pacing back and forth, only able to walk a few meters in either direction, but its pent up energy was manifesting itself in obvious contrast to Randy’s static pose.

Aaron walked over to the table, hopping up on top of it to sit next to Randy as he stretched out his Ikrid to take a brief assessment of its mind, which to him seemed a chaotic mess. The Skarron didn’t like being imprisoned, and was not one to take the matter lying down.

With the arrival of the second Human the Skarron lashed out with two of its arms and punched the containment field, though Randy didn’t react. Aaron flinched microscopically, but the shield held firm and the Skarron returned to its lumbering pacing.

“Nice to see you too,” Aaron said, knowing that it wouldn’t understand. So far they hadn’t established a common language…any language…with the Skarrons, which was making the prisoner interrogations exceedingly difficult.

“Any luck with the engineers?” Randy asked, his eyes still closed.

“Not really. All I can get are a few visuals and emotions. I’m not very good at reading non-Human minds. That’s your specialty.”

“Just takes practice, but this bastard is giving me trouble. I could use some help.”

“How so?”

“Processing power…use me for context,” Randy said before Aaron could ask the question.

“Alright,” the Ikrid specialist said, linking to both the Skarron and Randy, though for the latter he had to grab the other man’s wrist. When he did he followed a mental prompt to the vector Randy was using to access the Skarron’s mind and immediately saw that it was, as he had inferred, underpowered.

That was to be expected, for Randy hadn’t spent nearly as much time developing his Ikrid as Aaron had, though his own training had been focused on communication and combat applications with other Humans. Delving into the path that Randy’s mind had already ‘cleared’ through the Skarron’s mental geography, Aaron expanded on it, though the pieces he was accessing he couldn’t understand, so he fed the information to Randy, and once they got in sync with one another, the pair’s abilities acted as one.

With Aaron’s greater strength of ‘signal’ and Randy’s familiarities with the quirks of alien minds, the two began making steady progress sorting through the Skarron’s memories and emotions. None of the language would transfer over, however, but there were ways around that, Randy knew, and slowly, bit by bit, the two trailblazers started to glean information on their enemy.

Tracking back from where this one had gone, there was a Skarron inhabited world being used as a way station. This one had been picked up there, then shipped out over a considerable distance for the assault on Rotunna. There was no way of knowing how many lightyears they’d crossed or jumps they’d made, but the overall impression was that the Skarrons had traveled a considerable distance to get here.

That wasn’t surprising, for if they had worlds near to Beta Region Star Force most likely would have known about it, whether through their own scouting expeditions or from the other races in the region whom they conversed with regularly. Even now some of those races’ ships were coming in to Rotunna, unaware that there had been an attack. Some had left immediately, others had stayed behind to conduct business or gather information that they’d spread on their journeys. It was through this commercial transit that most information flowed, slow as it was, but if the Skarrons had been nearby someone would have noticed, just as they were now, and spreading the word.

There were glimpses of ships and troops, all in large number, but the trailblazers couldn’t isolate anything in particular. This Skarron was infantry, tasked with leading a Hobbit unit on skirmishing missions. It wasn’t the lowest ranking position, but it had zero strategic knowledge of the war aside from what was common knowledge amongst their troops.

That common knowledge was where Aaron and Randy got their most useful information, spread over several hours of interrogation. This particular Skarron had been born far from here, deeper into the core, but still on one of their outlying, mid-level worlds. It was highly urbanized, with grassy plains covering the remainder of the dry planet. The Skarron structures were oblong shaped, with internal corridors more akin to blood vessels than hallways. The architecture had a very biological feel to it, though it was definitely technological.

This Skarron had departed from that world long ago, having been moved around their frontier worlds fighting in a number of small wars, all of which were routs. This attack had been deemed of higher priority, linked in to the major expansion underway against another race that both Aaron and Randy agreed was the Protovic, though the name didn’t translate. What this Skarron knew was that a large power in the region had gutted itself in a war against another, allowing an opening for the Skarron empire to expand into the surrounding region, with the Protovic being the strongest power there, on which they were going to base their annexation force.

It seemed the Skarrons only sent as many troops as they deemed necessary, while having more in reserve should they be needed. That was a red flag for the trailblazers, but it only got worse the more deeply they delved into the alien’s memories. The Protovic regional expansion on the part of the Skarrons was, as far as this one was concerned, a minor affair given the total military efforts of their empire, which was expanding on multiple fronts. This rimward expansion was deemed useful, but the major action was occurring elsewhere.

Fighting against opponents that could at least partially defend themselves had spurred this one to great hopes, both of advancing within the Skarron hierarchy and finally being able to test its skills, something its former opponents had been ill equipped to manage. At the moment it was cursing its luck and their intelligence, for they hadn’t expected such a large orbital bombardment capability. Normally that was a means of attack closed off to their opponents, and intentionally so, for they knew well the dangers of it. Someone had badly anticipated the Human response, else they would have had more walkers on the ground to counter the threat of the starships.

It seemed the Skarrons also weren’t used to other races using rail guns, though they themselves had them. Plasma was by far the most typical weapon they encountered, with missiles making up the orbital bombardment threat in most cases, along with the occasional kamikaze run.

Aaron and Randy sorted through a lot of the Skarron’s assessments, most of which came in the form of remembered emotions. What had happened on Ida had been a surprise, given the Skarrons’ normal domination over the rimward races. They hadn’t expected to get beaten, bringing with them what they thought had been sufficient to take and hold the planet as reinforcements drifted in through the jumplanes.

The Protovic worlds already taken were considered ‘secure’ despite the ongoing fighting, with Star Force’s ability to take out some of their walkers being a concern. That small danger was what had prompted this attack far ahead of schedule. In fact, the Skarrons probably wouldn’t have come this far out in the near future, having a great deal of territory to digest from their recent conquests.

With that revelation came the Skarron’s memories of what their race typically did with conquered worlds. Those of value they’d keep, those that weren’t they’d ransack and destroy. Ida was somewhere in between, deemed unsuitable for colonization but useful as far as natural resources. The Skarrons were going to keep it as a staging base after exterminating the local ‘infestations’ as they considered the Kiritak and Humans to be.

The same thing was happening over hundreds of star systems between Beta Region and the Skarrons’ coreward territory. Some races they ignored, mostly those without space travel, but anything even resembling strength had to be dealt with. The Skarrons, like nearly every other race Star Force had come across, didn’t possess every star system within their borders, but they did make sure none of the unwanted systems could harm them, and regularly patrolled the ‘dead’ regions to make sure that none arose or slipped in uninvited.

That pacification was what was occurring in the area past Beta Region, with the bulk of this expansion army heading for the Protovic.  Once they secured that area they’d backfill, hitting other regions around the thin tendril of conquered systems they’d carved out from their core territory, some of which would bring them into conflict with what remained of the Nestafar, but at the moment the Skarrons weren’t concerned with that. The Protovic were the main concern, and the others could wait, so long as they didn’t poke the tiger.

Which is what Star Force had done by coming to their allies’ aid. The Skarrons didn’t want to encourage that sort of thinking, intending to intimidate the Humans by metaphorically bloodying their nose…only it hadn’t happened the way they thought it would.

This Skarron assumed the Star Force victory here would draw more armies and fleets out to avenge the loss, though it knew that would not occur in time for it to be rescued. It was scared, because it didn’t know what they were going to do, and was wishing for a way it could die fighting, fearing it might be tortured or experimented upon.

That Aaron and Randy could sympathize with, wanting to go down fighting, but neither this Skarron nor any of the other handful of prisoners they’d taken from the three Skarron races were going to be killed. Star Force engineers had been putting together a prison facility to match the larger race’s physiology, meaning that this Skarron and his buddies were going to be their guests indefinitely…and when they finally cracked the language barrier they were going to having lots of Ikrid chats.

Randy knew that the language issue would probably be solved by obtaining a translation from one of the races who already had contact with the Skarrons, and he’d put out word long ago that Star Force was interested in linguistic databases from any race they’d yet to collect, and would be willing to pay a hefty sum for it. That had brought a considerable amount of data to him, along with spreading the word that Star Force would pay for information, which spurred many entrepreneurs to pass through one of their systems offering up whatever they thought might interest the Humans, hoping to make some quick profit by sharing knowledge they already possessed.

But to date not much had come back to them about the Skarrons, and now Randy was beginning to understand why. It took a long time to get a feel for how this alien thought, but eventually he and Aaron were able to get a scale map of their territory, as this one remembered it. At first they thought they were interpreting it wrong, but with several different memory corroborations they were forced to admit that the Skarrons were a much larger threat than anyone knew.

Their territory was spread out through the local region of the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy. Earth, Star Force territory, and the territory of the entire Alliance and lizards combined only made up a tiny piece of the Orion arm, which was outside the Sagittarius arm and separated by a thinner region of star systems which was often thought of as a gap, though that wasn’t technically true.

This Skarron thought of it that way, noting that there were few useful systems there and that their empire usually skipped across it to their Orion Arm colonies. That was where this one had been born, but most of the Skarron empire was in Sagittarius spanning 10,000 lightyears in width and some 6-8 thousand in reach coming out from the barrier towards the core.

That barrier was where the Skarrons wouldn’t expand. It was a no-go region with a powerful enemy lurking on the other side. The Skarrons wanted to keep a buffer region between it and them, for as vast and powerful as their empire was, they were completely outmatched by those in the core. Fortunately, they’d learned if they kept their distance they’d be left alone, so the Skarrons’ territorial expansions were focused along the length of the Sagittarius Arm and out into Orion.

Both revelations floored Aaron and Randy. Star Force’s territory, reaching from Alpha Region to Beta, was around 200 lightyears in width. The thickness of the galaxy was around 1,000 and Star Force’s mapping expeditions hadn’t even come close to either the upper or lower boundary. The sheer volume of the region the Skarrons apparently held was mild boggling, making the lizards’ territory look inconsequential in comparison.

The trailblazers knew there was no way the Skarrons controlled even 1/100th of the systems in that area, given the density of the Sagittarius arm, which this Skarron’s memories confirmed, but it left them as the big dogs over a very wide expanse…whom Star Force had just attracted the attention of, first by aiding the Protovic, and now by rebuffing their shark bump.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The Skarrons didn’t matter, as ridiculous as that sounded, and after several confirmations were made Aaron slid off the table, breaking his Ikrid link with both the Skarron and Randy, and hurried out into the hallway.

Randy followed him out, seeing his friend leaning his head against the wall and taking some long breaths. He, on the other hand, was still numb inside, but Aaron’s obvious emotion was eating away at his constraints. Slowly the dread filled him, along with a wave of helplessness that he immediately clamped down on as he punched the wall in frustration.

“So much for them being dead,” Aaron commented.

“We knew they weren’t,” Randy said, turning and leaning his back against the wall as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “It feels like day 1 all over again.”

“When Davis told us?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too,” Aaron agreed. “Now that we’ve got some context to work with, I don’t think I fully understood how screwed we are.”

“If they find us,” Randy countered. “But yeah, I know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“About the Skarrons or the V’kit’no’sat?”

“Both.”

“I don’t know…play for time.”

“We’re fighting on three fronts now,” Aaron reminded him. “And we don’t have the ships to do much more unless we strip the Core Region.”

“I know. The Kiritak resource base was the first piece in the puzzle, but who knows how much that’s been damaged. Even when we rebuild, who knows when and where the Skarrons are going to hit us next.”

“We need a game plan,” Aaron insisted. “Our current playbook just became outdated.”

“How much attention do you think this has earned us?”

“If Dan follows up and boots the Skarrons out of the rest of our systems, I doubt they’ll ignore it. Question is how many fleets they’re willing to devote to this frontier campaign. Long term, I think they’ll come for us. I got the feeling from that one that the Skarrons don’t take well to losing.”

“Who does?”

“They’re coming,” Aaron insisted. “Just a matter of when, where, and how many of them.”

“Still feel like hitting them back?”

“No…yes.”

“Well that helps, though I’m feeling the same way.”

“No, I mean we need time to build. Hitting them back, even if we could find one of their worlds, would just spur a quicker reaction.”

“Agreed.”

“But we do know where they are now, and with the relief fleet we’ve got way more ships here than we’ll need to defend the system…I hope.”

“Happy hunting,” Randy said, a bit envious.

Aaron looked at him. “You’re ok with this?”

“If we’re going to survive we need allies. The Protovic fleet can’t handle their walkers once they get to ground, but we can. We save them they help us, if by only remaining another target for the Skarrons to go after. And it offers us some payback.”

“Tell me how many ships you need, and don’t skimp. I’ll take what’s left and head out tomorrow.”

Randy nodded, in full agreement, then pushed off from the wall and headed down the hallway. “Let’s start running the numbers.”

5

September 27, 2467

Prolio System

HTC

When Jason returned to his quarters onboard the seda orbiting the Star Force Calavari planet post workout, he checked the comm grid to see what had come through the relay system over the past 9 hours. There were several message packets from Sol and Epsilon Eridani, as was usual, for they pumped out status updates through the grid multiple times per day, but a few others had come in from other systems, including a priority update on the trailblazer-only boards. The title of which read:

V’KIT’NO’SAT LOCATED

Jason opened it immediately and poured through the update from Randy concerning what information he and Aaron had gotten from a Skarron prisoner.

He took a moment to sit quietly and think upon finishing the reading, something Jason rarely did. Normally his mind was working multiple threads simultaneously, with him flipping back and forth between them like he was changing channels on a vid screen. Right now there was no changing, nor planning, nor reacting. He just soaked it in, letting the truth of the extremely limited intel reawaken old memories with a new light to shine on them.

For over 400 years Star Force had been building towards a defense against an enemy they’d never encountered, nor heard of from any source other than the pyramid…and the dragon, whose knowledge predated Earth’s abandonment.

He’d never doubted they were still out there, nor had any of the others, but they’d been working on old intel, making guesses and essentially fighting against a ghost. But now it was all becoming very real, even with this whisper of their existence. Randy had said the Skarrons didn’t know them by name, but that he knew there was no other possibility. The V’kit’no’sat were there, their empire shrunken, but right where it was supposed to be.

And they were not weak. As scary as the revelations of the Skarrons’ true nature were, the fact that they wouldn’t touch the coreward side of their territory spoke volumes. The V’kit’no’sat were there, unaware of Earth’s existence, and given the amount of territory between here and there they were unlikely to find them anytime soon, but if word reached back to them of their existence he had no doubt they’d show up on their doorstep in the blink of an eye.

Randy’s report had included several questions about what to do in the future, both about the Skarrons and their true enemy. Questions like this were common, being posted to their private board and floated around for months, if not years, with them chiming in for a very lengthy back and forth as the updates were transmitted across the comm grid, but none had been more pointed than this latest one.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and if we make too much noise the dinos take notice. What the hell do we do now?

Randy wasn’t the first to see the post, for six other trailblazers had already responded, with mixed ideas of how to work the problem, but it was the most recent post from Dakota-041 that was a moment of epiphany for Jason.

When we get hit our natural reaction is to hit back, but in this case we need to assess our goals, the first of which is not to attract the attention of the V’kit’no’sat until we’re ready to face them, which will be far into the future, if ever. We know we can kick the crap out of the Skarrons, lizards, and anyone else given enough time to unlock the tech in the pyramid, so time is on our side with them and we need to play for time. Even as fast as the lizards are expanding, the key to beating them is our own advancement, and that’s where we need to put our focus.

In order to get the numbers we need to fight any and all of our growing list of enemies, we need to expand to new systems. We can turtle up in the Core Region and make use of less optimal sites or we can continue like we are and look for more prime worlds to colonize. Those worlds cannot bring us closer to the V’kit’no’sat, which means we need to establish a coreward line with the Beta Region colonies and go no further. Maybe even no more scouting expeditions in that direction.

Like the Dragon told us, the Rim is where the V’kit’no’sat cannot go, and that is where I think we have to build our power. Earth is on the very edge of their own maps, and planets like Namek are already off their grid. That’s the direction we should be heading with our expansion, but to go further. Much further. Hit the highways and get out of the Orion Arm out to the real Rim, stretch our territory out from a sphere into a tendril, leaving the lizards and the Skarrons behind.

We don’t like to run, and I’m not advocating abandoning any of the systems we currently have, but if we’re going to put down firm roots we need to do it in a place of our own choosing, and that needs to be as far from the V’kit’no’sat as we can get. And if they do come looking for us, they can steal our maps from our allies, or even our own tech. We need a sleeper expansion plan, with a new map formed that won’t, can’t fall into enemy hands. Several actually, if you want to get bold.

I’m not sure when our gravity drive technology will get to the point where we can move that far out, but we need to find the highways before then and stake them out. Like Sara said that first day we were altogether when Davis asked us what we could do, our only play is to run, and if we’re going to run we have to run far. Earth may be our home, but it will also be our grave if we keep thinking of it as our center. Forget the Skarrons. Defend Beta Region against them but don’t entertain the notion that we’re going to take them out down the road. To do that brings us too close to the V’kit’no’sat, and the effort might catch their attention by rumor alone.

We are Zen’zat. If word gets around we’re dead. If the V’kit’no’sat start branching out to colonize again we’re dead. The Rim is our only hope against them, so I say we keep that first and foremost in our planning as we fight this and every new enemy that pops up in the coming centuries.

I want to bust up the Skarrons too, and same goes for anyone that hits us, but we have to be smart about this and not slip into StarCraft mode, with us just throwing drone warships at them in a counterpunch mentality. We play to win or we don’t play, and we can’t beat the Skarrons because of their proximity to the V’kit’no’sat, so we have to play another game.

Same can be said for the lizards. Defending ourselves is one thing, but to take them out entirely, as much as we would like to one day, would bring too much attention to us. I suggest we start drawing lines and developing a defensive mentality, protecting our own and establishing a sanctuary region for our allies to flee into. We all know the Alliance will fail, the lizards have their number, but we can survive if we play it smart, and in this case I think less is more. Pick our spots and hold them while the lizards run wild elsewhere. We can’t contain them at our current strength level anyway, so we should stop thinking about it.

I want to kick the crap out of the bad guys as much as you, but we’re not operating out of a position of strength. We like to think that way, but Earth is a liability, and we need to start minimizing that sooner rather than later.

Dakota’s words were a gut check for Jason, but he couldn’t argue the logic. His natural reaction was to go after the Skarrons, but if that revealed their existence to the V’kit’no’sat it would be all but game over. They’d lived under that threat for so long Jason had started to get numb to it, and that was a mistake…one that Dakota was fortunately pointing out.

As large as Star Force’s territory was, spread over some 200 lightyears, it was a drop in the galactic bucket, which meant that it was possible to hide in plain sight if they didn’t push out any further and just became, as Dakota suggested, a safe haven against the lizards, Skarrons, and others rather than actively pushing back against them.

Paul had already developed that mentality with Namek and establishing a border with the lizards to keep them at bay. He was hitting them across that border to weaken them, but not to take systems. Their original plan had always been to cut into the heart of lizard territory when they were ready and break the back of their enemy, but maybe Dakota was right, and turtling up was the better call. The lizards would continue to expand, and the only way to stop them would be to wipe them out entirely, which was virtually impossible given their ability to ‘grow’ new colonies from a very small technological seed, much as they’d tried to do on Corneria all those years ago.

This was going to require a lot of careful thought, so Jason posted a few thoughts then composed a private message to Paul with a more lengthy exposition. They had a slightly different dialog between them than they shared with the others, and Jason wanted to get on the same page with him before making any suggestions to the others.

Aaron and his fleet of 198 Warship-class jumpships arrived in Protovic territory, not in the Krichjan System, which Kip had already helped their allies retake, but in another of the Skarron-invaded systems, one in which the enemy had completely conquered a Protovic planet, overrunning and eradicating their army even as the naval battles continued above.

The Star Force fleet entered into orbit around Aranpria, one of two inhabited Protovic worlds in the system, and the one that they still possessed. The other was Vivak, now under full Skarron control. Both races had large fleets insystem, but thus far neither had been able to break through to the other’s holdings, creating an active stalemate.

The Protovic had been recalling more of their fleets from Calavari space to halt the advance of the Skarrons to more of their systems, but the Skarrons were coming in force, with reinforcements regularly arriving, making Protovic territory a hotbed of activity. The Skarrons wanted it badly, but the Protovic weren’t pushovers, and with their sizeable fleet keeping the Skarrons from landing on any new planets, the invasion had run into a standstill, which was to the enemy’s advantage as it gave them time to digest their holdings.

Star Force’s ability to slowly overcome their walkers had allowed the retaking of one system, but beyond that there was little hope of reclaiming the others. The Protovic were in damage control mode, unwilling to completely abandon their Calavari wards as they were still engaging Nestafar fleets coming their way.

The warship count around Aranpria was impossible to determine given that Aaron’s fleet was coming in on a single vector, but even with the back side blind to them, the Star Force sensors tagged in excess of 12,000 Protovic warships, along with twice that number of support or civilian vessels in orbit. How many more were elsewhere in the system was unknown, but the Protovic presence was a considerable one, especially given that this was one of their smaller systems.

Aaron’s sensors were picking up Skarron warships, but not in planetary orbit. They were clustered above Vivak in such numbers that they were visible even from interplanetary range.

“Incoming comm,” one of the bridge crew called out.

“Put it through here,” Aaron said from his bridge command chair.

“If you’re here to fight,” the holographic Protovic said as soon as it appeared, “then you’ve come to the right place.”

“That we have,” Aaron said in the trade language. “The Skarrons hit our territory as well, and we’re looking for some additional payback. Figured we’d start with the ones on your doorstep.”

“You repelled them?”

“Eventually, but we lost a lot of people waiting for reinforcements to arrive.”

“As have we. The Skarrons caught us off guard. Until they invaded we knew little about them, but they were well prepared for us. My fleet outmatches theirs, ship for ship, but I don’t have enough numbers to rid Vivak of their presence and secure this world. Are you aware of the situation?”

“Somewhat. We’re here to help however we can. I have warships and ground troops ready to deploy where applicable.”

“How many ships?” the Protovic asked, seeing the Star Force jumpships still dribbling into planetary orbit.

“Nearly 200 jumpships, each carrying a small fleet of their own. Our ships are smaller than the Skarrons’, but I’ve got enough with me to hurt them. How many do they have at present?”

“They have a little over 6,000 line ships, but 232 juggernauts. I assume you’re familiar with the design?”

“We are.”

“Those numbers continue to fluctuate, with both incoming and outgoing ships, but they’ve maintained a fleet strong enough to decimate whatever I can throw at them while they secure their surface bases. Frankly, they’re digging in, and the longer they stay there the less likely we’ll be able to retake the planet. They’ve got surface missile batteries that will engage any warship in low orbit, similar to their larger walkers, and they’re building them in great numbers.”

“Does their fleet ever leave low orbit?”

“Only when they’ve tried to hit us here. We both make occasional raids against one another, but the bulk of their fleet stays where it can receive ground battery support.”

“What’s the condition of your people on the surface?”

“Most are dead by now. We have contact with a few holdouts, but every attempt to evacuate them has failed.”

“Missiles?”

“Yes. When clustered together they make for a potent anti-orbital defense.”

“What about something smaller?”

“They have starfighters on standby to intercept anything we send down fast enough to evade the missiles. They can’t catch our Valeries, but our transports are another matter.”

“Have you picked up anyone with the Valeries?”

“A handful, but the Skarrons adjusted their patrols to keep starfighters close at hand so they could intercept us when we try to land. As of now, we’re completely locked out of the surface of Vivak. I know you have formidable ground troops, in so far as your ability to take down their walkers, but I don’t see how you could get them to the surface intact.”

“Have they landed anything on Aranpria?”

“They tried before I got here, but the system defense fleet shot them down. They got a single walker deployed, but it was taken down after some effort. As of now Aranpria is fully Protovic.”

“And your shipyards?”

The commander sighed. “The bulk of those facilities were in orbit of Vivak. They’ve been destroyed, despite our efforts to hold them. As of now we have only three battle stations in high orbit around the planet that remain ours, and what they guard is not shipyards. The Skarrons haven’t seen fit to attack them yet.”

“What are they guarding?”

“Habitats and warehouses. The stations are largely missile boats to accommodate a defensive perimeter around the civilian apparatus. They’ll kill quite a few Skarron ships if they want to take them down, which is why I think they haven’t bothered.”

“Have the civilian stations been evacuated?”

“Yes, early on.”

“Then if you don’t mind, I think we’ll take up position there.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Cause them trouble.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“I need time to study the situation, and if they’re reluctant to leave low orbit we’ll provide a bit of a distraction. If they come out to us they won’t have surface support. If they go after you here we can hit the planet.”

“How do you plan to get past their surface missiles?”

“We have orbital bombardment capability, recently tested against Skarron walkers.”

“What type of weapons?”

“Kinetic.”

“Any damage you can do to the enemy will be greatly appreciated, but I would prefer if you consulted with me before launching any assault so that we can make the most of any subsidiary opportunities that arise.”

Aaron nodded. “This is still your turf, we’re just here to help where we can.”

“For that you have my, and our, thanks. Is the rumor true that a portion of the Calavari have joined with you?”

“A small part, but yes.”

“Then we find ourselves in similar circumstances. None of our other allies have responded to our requests for support, and most have abandoned the Calavari as well. We’ve begun to question whether or not the Alliance continues to exist.”

“In this region, perhaps not, but in other areas of Calavari territory the Kvash and others are shielding some Calavari worlds, and I know there’s an Alliance fleet at their capitol, last I heard.”

“Our connection to the relay network has been severed, so news is slow in coming to us.”

“Several relays to the far side have been cut, but we still have at least one connection all the way through to the Bsidd. Though for how long that will last I do not know. I’ll pass along all Alliance updates my ships have onboard. And if you’ll return the gesture, I’d like to see what the Skarrons are up to across your territory.”

“Agreed. I wish I could answer that question myself, but their overall strategy is perplexing. They are continually sending small reinforcements to bolster their fleets and resupply their armies. We have not, to my knowledge, discovered their point of origin, but given the distances involved, large blocks of reinforcements would seem to make more logistical sense. Neither I nor our analysts can ascertain a feel for the enemy, making their future actions very unpredictable.”

Aaron blew out a slow breath. “I may be able to help a bit in that regard, but you’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”

6

November 3, 2467

Zanor System (Protovic territory)

Erentia

Kip ran through the undercity, crossing from section to section unsure of where he was going aside from a general heading on his battlemap. He was the first Star Force member into this region, thus his helmet sensors were making the battlemap as he went and transmitting it out to any close enough to receive, though how much it would transmit down in the undercity was anyone’s guess.

His green armor clashed with the clean silver and neon yellows that predominated the subsurface architecture, but then again the dull grey armor worn by the Protovic soldiers following him was equally misplaced, but not so much as the Skarron infantry that had invaded the city.

Kip locked onto the mind of one ahead in an offshoot of the hallway and signaled to his right with an outstretched arm as he approached, throwing a Fornax blast its way and crumpling the Hobbit to the ground. He passed it by, but the Protovic following him turned the corner and took it out with a handful of plasma blasts, then ran to catch up to the Archon.

Kip continued forward, getting directional advice from Ren’san’do who followed a couple of steps behind him. The Protovic had been his liaison ever since Eshwan, and had traveled with the Human across the planet and now to this Protovic system, having become a trusted friend, who in this case was keeping the trailblazer from getting lost in the claustrophobic, twisting undercity.

Up on the surface a few kilometers from this location Star Force mechs and Protovic tanks were taking down the remaining ‘smaller’ Skarron walkers after having taken down a Type-2 inside the city. Kip had been in a voltron for that, but he trusted his fellow Archons to handle the rest of the mechs while he and a lot of the higher ranking Clan leaders had taken to the city streets in conjunction with Protovic units.

It was a tactic they’d developed during the latter days on Eshwan, coupling the psionic capability of a single Archon with the tactical unit savvy of the Protovic’s special forces. While their regular infantry was spread out across both the surface and undercity engaging/defending against the Skarrons, the Archon lead teams were punching holes in the strongest infantry defenses, with Kip’s rifle spending most of its time on his back rack. He was acting as spotter and disabler, letting the Protovic lay down the firepower…a combination that worked well, if you had an Archon powerful enough to sustain the effort.

There were all of four rangers in Protovic territory, meaning that acolytes had to be relied upon to lead most of these special teams. Already the Protovic had noticed a clear difference between the two, with the most elite alien commandos being assigned to Kip, not only to assist him with tearing through the Skarrons, but to protect their allied commander, who unlike the Protovic commanders preferred to be on the front lines rather than leading from midfield.

Ren’san’do had been adamant about keeping Kip safe, which was why he’d suggested going through the undercity where the enemy couldn’t use its walkers against him. The Protovic didn’t doubt the Human’s skills, which he grew more envious of by the month, but rather he knew that for the sake of his own people he needed to keep Kip alive because of his skills, which were irreplaceable.

That and he was also a friend, which was why Ren’san’do had insisted that he travel with Kip’s team, even though his own combat skills were nowhere near special forces level. He was acting as Kip’s guide and comm officer for when he needed to converse with the Protovic army, a relationship that they’d long ago polished to an efficient combination.

The Protovic stood a few inches taller than Kip, but otherwise they appeared identical…their armor anyway. Outside it they appeared very different, with Ren’san’do being the equivalent of a walking glow lamp. His eyes especially set them apart, with the Protovic’s neon purple orbs giving him a Thrawn-esk aura.

But inside their armor he and the others appeared Human, though on average they were faster and stronger…but not as agile. They were strong and thin, but didn’t reverse direction very well, making them good in straight line attacks but ill-equipped for mixing it up at close range. Give them an opening and they’d run right over you, for their military philosophy had been predicated on maximizing their strengths, which meant that if Kip could disrupt the enemy infantry, even slightly, the Protovic behind him would finish the job in one lightning fast strike that kept the unit almost always on the run.

Kip didn’t have to slow down much for them to keep pace, though he did have to make sure Ren’san’do had enough breath to be able to give him directions. Their target destination was a primary power station for the city that the Skarrons had taken, but not destroyed, which was odd, for they usually ransacked everything. They had restricted the power flow to certain areas, all of which they already controlled. Kip’s unit had transitioned out of the dark areas and into the lit regions of the undercity a while ago, which coincided with them running into their defensive lines.

Or expansion teams. It was hard to tell the difference with the Skarrons, for they always seemed to be on the move. The up side of that was they weren’t in the habit of establishing strongpoints…the downside was they always seemed to have units nearby to reposition and flood troops against incursions.

Kip was the psionic arrowhead that was going to get the Protovic through that mess of enemy infantry.

“Down left, then sharp right,” Ren’san’do said through his comm link with Kip, then he followed the Archon down a steep ramp and around a corner into a curvy hall, seeing a hand signal from the Human that caused him and the other Protovic to slow up. There was a thick enemy group ahead and Kip was going to use his area of effect attack, meaning they had to let him get far enough ahead or they’d limit his range.

Kip disappeared around a curve, then Ren’san’do let the other Protovic ease in front of him just before they ran into a mess of the Skarron’s smaller infantry…all lying on the floor, along with their weapons, which most of them had dropped as Kip ran through them and across the reception area to a set of wide doors that he was disappearing into.

The Protovic special forces made short work of the 30+ Hobbits, with Ren’san’do never having to stop running, though he did have to hop over a couple of bodies on the way to the doors that Kip had gone out. When he got to them his comm activated, causing him to slow his pace.

“Large infestation with Skarrons. Move to flank on entry,” the Human said.

Ren’san’do steadied himself, grasping his plasma rifle tightly as he fell to the back of the formation that included 26 Protovic. On the other side of the doors lay a ‘parking garage’ for the undercity streets, meaning a wide open area large enough for the enemy’s prime infantry. He didn’t know what he was going to see on the other side, but once he moved through the short hallway connection and the armored suits in front of him split to either side, his eye line was opened to a mass of Skarrons below them several meters and spread out across one of their nesting sites.

Blue plasma orbs flashed into the middle from the edges as larger white orbs in lesser number shot back out, with a single line of blue coming from Kip’s Star Force plasma rifle…which was nearly dead center in the middle of the Skarron formation. All around him Skarrons were down on the ground, twitching and kicking and temporarily out of the fight, with the Human shooting them while dancing around avoiding most of the shots of the others outside his psionic range.

Ren’san’do fired his own rifle over a railing as he dropped to a knee for cover behind it, shooting at one of the innermost Skarrons focusing on Kip as the other Protovic worked from the outside in. His friend was drawing a lot of attention his way, but Ren’san’do worried if it was too much, for several direct hits were absorbed by his shields. They were a bit more resilient than the ones that the Protovic suits had, but the Skarron’s rifles were much larger as well, with each hit landing the equivalent of a small cannon’s worth of plasma on the target.

He needn’t have worried, for the Human used the bodies of the Skarrons he’d just killed as cover, giving his shields time to recharge in between hits, all the while the Protovic were massing fire on the unarmored and unshielded Skarrons. After several intense minutes the fighting was over, with Ren’san’do following Kip across to the far side and directing him to the next junction as they did a quick injury count.

They hadn’t lost anyone, but two Protovic had lost shields and gotten toasted inside their armor, which now had shiny, smooth patches where it had melted upon contact with the plasma. One of them was still fit to fight, but the other one was sent back the way they’d come, unable to keep up with the group.

Kip didn’t wait around more than a few seconds, letting the Protovic worry about organizing themselves. Ren’san’do followed him out with the other 24 Protovic dropping into a 2x2 formation and following the Archon forward as he lead them further into enemy held territory.

“How’s it look?” Kip asked Ren’san’do several hours later once they were inside the power station’s control room.

“They’re siphoning off power, to where I can’t say, but the breach is occurring here,” he said, pointing to a diagnostics map of the facility that ran both above and below ground like a giant carrot growing in the dirt.

“Do we have any intel on what’s over there?”

“None that I’ve been given, but whatever they’re drawing power for is going lights out in a few seconds.”

“Good.”

Ren’san’do hesitated a moment, looking down at the control board, then turned to look at him on his left. “Movement on the perimeter.”

“On it,” Kip said as he ran off to join the rest of the Protovic in the defense of the control room.

Ren’san’do let him go and focused on the power controls, selecting certain regions of the surrounding city to black out in order to deny the Skarrons the power they’d been stealing. While there was a redundancy in the systems, the drain was occurring on a main conduit from this station, and even if power flowed in from other generators to the blackout areas, this power tap should be eliminated…in theory. Ren’san’do wasn’t a Protovic tech, so his understanding of their infrastructure was limited to what the control board was telling him.

Working the problem as well as he could, he cut off power to the Skarron tap along with the chunks of the city also being fed by that line, then observed the results…seeing that several small areas didn’t receive transfer power.

Those areas would have emergency backups for minimal lighting and life support, if they weren’t exhausted already, but they had no way of knowing how many people were still in those areas. No Protovic, he hoped, but there was no way of knowing. If the power was completely gone from those areas, which was a very low possibility, then they’d be blacked out with the air going stale, though with the open passageways it shouldn’t lose all oxygen.

To the Protovic the dark wasn’t a problem, given that they produced their own light, but it would make them obvious targets to the Skarrons, creating major problems if they didn’t have armor or an envirosuit on. He hated not knowing who he was affecting, but disrupting the enemy seemed to be the smart play, so he left the power off to deny the Skarrons their tap…for whatever it was they were doing over there.

The next day Kip returned to orbit and boarded the Tassadar for some badly needed sleep and workouts, but when he got out of the atmosphere and got around to taking a look at what was in orbit he saw new contacts on the battlemap…Star Force contacts, in the form of a fleet of jumpships. He contacted Captain Shannist on his way up and got a quick rundown on the reinforcements Aaron had sent his way, along with the notification that he’d opened up a second Star Force front in Protovic territory against the Skarrons…along with the news that they’d invaded Star Force territory and had been repulsed, but at a cost.

That shocked Kip, who had no way of being notified other than by courier ship now that he was away from the Star Force comm grid. He asked a few basic questions from the dropship, then waited until he got onboard so he could run through the data personally. He headed straight to his quarters, having the Captain shunt it there, intent on grabbing a badly needed shower and hitting the sack after doing some reading.

The jumpships weren’t warships, but troop carriers. Aaron’s message said that their engagement against the Skarrons involved naval engagement and that even if they managed to whittle down the Skarron fleet to the point the Protovic could take them out, there was estimated to be very few Protovic remaining alive on the Skarron-captured world of Vivak. It was full of Skarron walkers and anti-orbital batteries, most of which Aaron assumed they’d be assaulting with orbital bombardment, so he’d sent Kip half of his ground troops so they could be put to better use than sitting on their ships training in simulators.

The number of ships Aaron had sent him nearly matched the force he already had on planet, underscoring just how serious the Skarron invasion had been, for the ships had come directly from Rotunna, excluding those left behind to secure the system. They would be a huge boon to the efforts here and he intended to put them to use immediately, which he sent a text note to Shannist via the comm terminal in his quarters regarding the initial deployment orders. Kip would get to the specifics in the morning after he’d crashed, ending his 8 day run of catnaps between ground ops.

Tired as he was, and with his recent warm shower pushing him even further into sleepiness, his adrenaline spiked him back into full combat readiness when he read the intel report passed along from Aaron and Randy regarding the Skarrons’ knowledge of the V’kit’no’sat’s current location…not to mention the little side detail about the true size of the Skarron empire.

“Damn it,” he whisper swore, reading through the rest of the sketchy intel from the Skarron prisoner and then the two trailblazers’ input on the strategic situation. Kip had been fighting the Skarrons more than any other Human, and he had a good sense of their strength, which was superior to Star Force in a number of areas, namely the size of their walkers and warships…and everything else.

But Star Force had a weapons tech advantage, and with care could beat the Skarrons 2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1 on the naval front without any fancy strategy, just basic hit and withdrawal to range forcing a mostly long ranged engagement that would put Skarron lachars, which were stronger than the Star Force version, by far, against Star Force lachars and cleansing beams. The cleansing beams were the superior weapon, hands down, and that advantage alone gave them naval superiority.

Plasma versus maulers was also a Star Force advantage, but Skarron naval missiles beat anything Star Force current fielded…though their interceptors could shoot down the missiles with great efficiency so long as they had enough of them. Gravity drives were also a Star Force advantage, for their binary nature, though intel from the Protovic had suggested the Skarrons movement speed between star systems was superior to anything they possessed, and based on the numbers Kip agreed it was better than theirs as well, but insystem that largely didn’t matter, for all jumps were micro-jumps, and being able to jump by pulling against a gravity well in addition to pushing was a major tactical advantage.

The Protovic had some advantages over the Skarrons as well, primarily in infantry engagements, but also in naval, though their superiority edge wasn’t as great. They had numbers, in terms of warships, that Star Force couldn’t hope to match, which meant the Skarrons were having to engage them with forces far larger than they’d hit Rotunna with, but now that he had a glimmer of the size of the Skarron empire he knew that eventually they’d send enough ships to overwhelm the Protovic…unless this theatre didn’t rate high enough on their priority chain, and the fact that the Skarrons were pushing hard to expand suggested otherwise.

Meaning that this theatre was the shark bump…the test to see how much resistance the Protovic could put up. So far they were holding the Skarrons at bay, though they’d already taken several systems. Eventually the Skarrons would bring in more ships, if they had them nearby, and according to Aaron and Randy’s report they were using the galactic ‘highways’ to travel at great speed throughout their own territory, including a jumpline that brought them out towards Beta Region, though they didn’t know the exact location.

Those ‘highways’ were black hole to black hole jumps over great distance. If you could find such a route that was clear of debris you could achieve insane speeds, even with the most basic of gravity drives, given that their pushing power was based off both their strength of their engines and the strength of the gravity well…with black holes massing far more than any star.

There were no available black hole lines within Star Force territory…not that they knew of, though it was possible that there could be one passing through from one side to the other, for such jumps usually covered hundreds if not thousands of lightyears. If the Skarrons had access to several of these, it would allow them to pull troops and ships from across a wide area, and that meant that if they wanted to hammer the Protovic, or Star Force, they could summon them up far quicker than standard star to star jumps would allow.

That meant they were both in trouble, and Kip’s crashing session in his bunk was delayed for several hours as he worked through the strategic situation, unable to put his mind to rest before he weighed their options…which resulted in him sending out a courier ship with a message for the rest of the trailblazers, which was then deposited into the nearest Star Force relay the ship came across.

7

November 18, 2467

Lonigan System (Epsilon Region)

Outreach

Yori-007 eyes widened as he heard the pithy news update. “Where are they?” he demanded icily.

“Inner edge of the Sagittarius Arm,” Steve-004 told him across the holo comm.

“Gives us some breathing room,” Yori told his old team leader. “And explains why they haven’t discovered us to date.”

“There’s more,” Steve prefaced. “Get your butt groundside and I’ll fill you in.”

“On my way,” Yori said, cutting the comm and standing up from his bridge command chair. “Captain, find us a nice parking spot. I’m heading to ground. Suck some fuel and supplies and I’ll get back to you on the crew rotations.”

“Who are the Ve’kat’no’set?” Emberle asked.

Yori stopped a few steps from his chair and glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Scary monsters that hopefully you will never need to worry about. Archon stuff.”

The Captain nodded, understanding what he meant by that last bit. There was a lot of things the Archons knew that others weren’t privileged to, and they had a habit of talking freely in front of the bridge crew, which meant some things she’d just had to squelch her curiosity on. That said, she never knew what was restricted information or not, and Yori had never minded her asking.

The Archon waved lazily as he turned and walked off the bridge at a good clip, heading straight for his warship’s hangar bay. He left the Goldeneye and his 5 jumpship mapping fleet in Emberle’s care and flew down to the planet’s surface via dropship, passing through the thick cloud layer to arrive in the clear lower atmosphere where Steve was building up Star Force’s stronghold in Epsilon Region, and from the looks of things he’d been quite busy over the past 4 years that Yori had been off charting new jumplanes past where the V’kit’no’sat maps ended.

The small city Yori had left was now spread out to the horizon in all directions around the spaceport, though the truly massive buildings were still under construction, giving Outreach’s capitol a significant volume, if not yet a high density capacity. It was odd that Steve was taking that approach, but they were both 0s and he knew him well, which was why he pushed aside his curiosity until he saw the full blueprints, for his fellow trailblazer was always thinking long term when he built, which was why he’d taken on this mission.

While Yori had been scouting out new systems, Steve had been taking a chunk of supplies from the Kiritak colonies and using them to construct Outreach, the first of 6 planets in this system slated to be colonized. They were located some 98 lightyears from Sol, putting them well out in the middle of nowhere, which Steve was supposed to turn into ‘somewhere.’ Outreach was meant to be the focal point for opening up the entire region, with the other 5 planets insystem reserved for Clan expansion once Steve spearheaded the effort with a functioning mainline colony and defense fleet.

Epsilon Region had been well scouted out previously, with a lot of less than friendly races present, but none of the size or strength to worry about…at least not on a scale of the lizards. The strongest in the area were the Zenarks, who mostly kept to themselves, though their approximated size was half that of the Calavari.

Their technology was limited, however, and they existed primarily as an economic entity, with trade relations established with over a hundred local races. Star Force had established contact with them in that regard, making themselves known, but as of yet they hadn’t conducted any business with them. A conglomeration of smaller races in association with the Zenarks formed a unified defensive force that kept a lot of the nasty races at bay, stabilizing the lower portion of Epsilon, for the rest of it was highly lawless and if one wasn’t careful would end up a victim to the predatory races and pirate coalitions that roamed the area.

That was why Star Force needed a strongpoint to begin colonization, in addition to just common sense, and Steve had half the 8th fleet in the system guarding it while the local shipyards got established and began churning out drones that could be controlled from the surface. Normally those construction slips would be orbital, but as far as drone construction was concerned Steve had taken the unusual approach of having them constructed in surface yards that fell under the protection of the city defense shield…assuming he’d gotten one set up by now.

Yori studied the infrastructure from above as the dropship descended, curious as to what had been added since he was last here, but most of his thoughts lent themselves towards the V’kit’no’sat. For centuries the Archons had considered how to fight their ancient nemesis, and he was glad that they’d finally located them rather than the reverse being true, which would have quickly ended in their defeat and eradication.

When the trailblazer landed in the spaceport he took a mongoose through the city streets over to the command building, then hit an elevator up to Steve’s hideaway in the single ‘tall’ building on the planet, rising more than 2 miles up. The Outreach command center wasn’t at the top, but midway up in the thick of the narrowing tower that was capped with its own cleansing beam defense turret. In fact, the entire building had no windows, but was coated with armor plating, making it more of a military structure than a habitat.

Yori found Steve leaning over a planning table with a host of small holographic icons moving about an inch or two above the surface, and like normal, he was the only one in the private chamber, preferring to think things through in isolation rather than having a tech or administrative team around him.

“What’s the other stuff?” Yori asked, closing the door as he came in.

Steve stood up from his slight bend and turned around, sitting on the table and ‘squashing’ several holographic icons.

“Did you check the boards on the way down?”

Yori shook his head. “Not even the news updates.”

“Skarrons invaded the Protovic, Kip went in to help them with their oversized walkers. Skarrons didn’t like this and invaded four of our systems. Rotunna partially held up until reinforcements arrived, but Iverie, Ghanis, and Brenns all fell, with nearly total casualties. We’ve taken them back, but some 9 billion Kiritak are dead, and we lost 4822 Archons…not to mention Regulars and others.”

“Shit,” Yori said, his jaw dropping.

“That’s not the worst of it. Aaron took three fleets from Sol and went directly to Rotunna to back up Randy, while Dan gathered the Clans and everyone else he could and went to Iona, then branched out and retook the other three systems. Randy and Aaron took a few Skarron prisoners and did the replicator ‘hand in the head’ deal and found out their territory is massive…like huge.  They occupy a good chunk of the Sagittarius arm and are expanding spinward, anti-spinward, and rimward into the Orion Arm. Guess which way they’re not going?”

“That’s how you know where they are?”

“Yeah. The Skarrons didn’t mention them by name, and we haven’t worked out a translation program yet anyway, but there’s a force so powerful they won’t mess with it and keep a buffer zone between them and it at all times. Randy said it was the V’kit’no’sat and I’m not inclined to argue.”

“What’s the talk going around?”

“Skarrons are a big problem, but if we go super saiyan on them and kick their ass over the next millennia…”

“…it could draw the wrong attention.”

“Bingo. Plus we’ve still got the ‘small’ lizard problem rimward. Dakota has suggested that we start planning to run out to the rim and ignore the Skarrons beyond a battle line. The V’kit’no’sat are the real threat, and beating the Skarrons will mean nothing if we wake up the dinos in the process. What’s your take on that?”

Yori tapped his teeth with his fingernail as he thought. “Have you downloaded the map files yet?”

“I haven’t checked,” Steve said, sliding off the table and turning around to access the holographic controls. He dove into the city/planet’s database and checked the logs, seeing that they had in fact gotten a data transfer from Yori’s fleet. From there he went to the master galactic map, popping it up in holo between the two trailblazers as they bracketed the work table.

“I got pretty far out this time, thanks to a Leggal map I picked up enroute. There’s a black hole 329 lightyears out that links to three others, two of which go low on the galactic plane. The other slides high, but is more or less a straight shot out past lizard space. I wasn’t sure how accurate we could make the jump, but the probe we sent returned so I risked it. Smoothest jump I’ve ever made. The gravitational base width of the well considerably extends our line control. We only had to make a tweak enroute, and the destination gravity well was three times stronger.”

“How far?”

Yori highlighted the lengthy jumpline on the map, a straight shot through territory that otherwise would have meant dozens, if not over 100 ‘normal’ jumps. “946 lightyears.”

“Well that’s definitely a record.”

“For us. We passed upwards of 10000 ships on the way out, and they weren’t holding to the right side of the road rule either.”

“Any close calls?”

“A few until we drifted well off the jumpline. We did get passed by several, and at considerable speed.”

“Busy jumpline then,” Steve said, looking at the map and the region of new system data at the far end of the black hole link. “How long did it take?”

“Point to point was a little over 2 and a half months.”

“Faster than our relay network.”

“There’s room to expand out there, but if we’re really considering heading to the rim we’ll have to go a lot farther I’d imagine.”

“There’s been some debate surrounding that, and it seems like if we are going to do this we’re going to do it in secret. No point in running from the V’kit’no’sat if they can steal a city and download our maps and find out where we’ve run to.”

“Good point,” Yori agreed.

“So some have suggested a handoff system with jumpships dedicated to a specific region so none will have the full map available. Another idea is keeping the rim maps exclusive to the ship Captains on a datachip so they won’t fall into enemy hands.”

“With a dead man self-destruct, I assume?”

“Yes. We’d also have to keep our allies in the dark.”

“Allies or allies?”

“We’d take Kiritak with us, for sure, but the others wouldn’t know where they went, and I don’t see a reason to take the Calavari, though in the extreme long term it might be useful.”

“So we’re doing this or just throwing ideas around?”

“Ideas for the moment, but if you know another option for staying clear of the V’kit’no’sat feel free to chime in…otherwise, we could use your thoughts on how difficult it will be to set up a chain of systems out to at least the next galactic arm.”

“Very difficult, but possible if we have enough time and no one with a bad attitude notices us. How’s our anti-bad guy technology progressing?”

“Still waiting on the Erruvium, but they’re getting closer,” Steve said, referencing the element that they would have to synthesize in order to produce a slew of next level technology, and developing the equipment to synthesize the ‘Arc’ elements was a milestone achievement that Star Force hadn’t gotten to yet, though the techs said they were getting close.

The elements in question contained corovon, but they weren’t C-type elements. They had the same number of protons as standard and C-type, but their subatomic configuration was altered away from a clump of particles into a ring or sphere with an empty inner section. This alignment allowed the somewhat unstable elements to access a slew of properties that produced exotic energies and accessed smaller constituent particles down into tier 3 and tier 4, with protons, neutrons, and corovon occupying tier 1, which contained the largest subatomic particles.

Yori shook his head. “Without the badass tech we’re not going to be able to get anywhere near the rim and keep our territory linked. Best we could do is a splinter colony…which I do not like.”

“I agree, we need to stay in touch. Don’t want us spending millennia in between visits,” Steve half joked.

“I can see us securing territory out to the black hole link, or maybe another if we can locate one, but that barely scratches the surface with the speeds the V’kit’no’sat can manage. This might be a good idea in the long run, but right now it just isn’t feasible.”

“A few others echoed your sentiments, but most want to get started sooner rather than later, even if it is just baby steps.”

“And you?”

“Not sure yet. Either way we’re going to have to build up in Epsilon and that’s where my focus is right now.”

“Only to abandon it later?”

“That’s not clear yet. I see no reason to abandon systems because the V’kit’no’sat might find them, but I’d really hate not to have a backdoor to run out of if and when they show up.”

“Then you might want to start your own secure network of bases off the regular map out here. Sometimes hiding in plain sight is the best bet.”

Steve stared him in the eyes. “Now that’s something that hasn’t come up yet, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Canderous especially.”

That suggestion spurred another thought in Yori, which was how trailblazer to trailblazer conversations usually went down.

“Public map system, with secure networks overlapped, maybe even in the same systems…outer edge sedas?”

“Damn, why didn’t one of us come up with this sooner,” Steve said, lightly thumping a fist on the table, passing through several thousand holographic stars. “It’d keep the V’kit’no’sat, Skarrons, and anyone else in the dark of where we had our infrastructure. We’re pretty sure they knew where our Kiritak colonies were because that’s public knowledge. They haven’t done any scouting as far as we know.”

“Pretty hard to rule that out.”

“They hit us across a wide region, so they knew where to go. And given the short timespan between our involvement with the Protovic and when they hit us…”

“Point taken.”

“The mainline fleets would be more useful if they didn’t have to guard all our systems, and up until now we’ve been working off an upfront policy.”

“Keep it secret, keep it safe?” Yori said, quoting The Lord of the Rings.

“Exactly. Why have we been so stupid?”

“Because it’s not easy to hide a planet. If some cargo ship comes through and sees you’re there word will spread.”

“So we go Rebel Alliance and build underground or in out of the way locations?”

“Canderous can easily enough, but we’ll have to pick worlds that are less than appealing.”

“We have before, we’ve just gotten picky as of late.”

“It’s those choice worlds that are of the most value,” Yori reminded him. “And if we have any large populations, how are we going to hide the jumpship traffic?”

“Back to self-sufficient rules?”

“When we need to build as fast as possible, not so sure that’s a good idea.”

Steve nodded. “You’re right. Still, there are a lot of permutations to go through. Let’s write this up and get it out on the grid and see what the others come up with. You sticking around for a while or heading back out?”

“I was going to head back out, but given the current circumstances I want to stay in contact for a while. Stars can be mapped later, and I need to change out crews anyway. They need some planetside gravity.”

“Good,” Steve said, opening up a writing prompt on the table. “I could use someone to spar with that can keep up with me, more or less,” he said, throwing the trailblazer a sarcastic grin.

Yori returned it. “Challenge accepted.”

8

December 25, 2467

Hammer System (Core Region)

Ironhold

Cora-005 aimed the arms of her Morpheus-class mech using the harness control system in the cockpit and triggered two low powered laser shots that hit the moving target sled that stood twice as high as her mech. The sled hovered over the ground with only a few meters of clearance and returned fired with its own lasers, shooting up the chest of the morpheus and causing her to twist to the right and bring the vulnerable area out of the firing line.

That didn’t keep her from getting another shot off as she accelerated up into a run that took her parallel to the sled and around the narrower back end, but several of the sled’s turrets were continuing to track and rack up simulated damage on her prototype mech.

“Hurry it up, Kenny,” she said to the other Archon behind her in the oversized cockpit. “I can’t keep us in play for long.”

Even as she said the words she hit and knocked out one of the turrets on the sled…which drew even more attention towards them as the five mechs in her star assaulted the moving sled.

“Working on it,” Kenny-927 said as he sat in a stationary control chair about two feet behind her harnessed, moving body. It was a tight arrangement, but still gave the pilot full range of motion without fearing hitting the coordinator in his/her seat. Using an unusual control board the secondary Archon was remotely controlling the other four mechs in the star, two of which were brawlers, along with a starfire and boxer.

The other mechs were also prototypes, designed without cockpits and working like the drone warships the navy used. The increased internal space allowed more armor and weapons to be carried, as well as opening up new tactics given that there wasn’t a living pilot inside to jeopardize. The downside was, in this arrangement, that you only had to take out one mech, the morpheus, in order to disable the other four…more or less.

They could be programmed for autonomous battle, say by linking them to a target like the sled and telling them to attack until it was no longer returning fire or showing movement. If there were other units in the area they could take over control of them, but in this exercise there was only the one control mech, meaning that Cora had to keep them moving and intact while Kenny coordinated the rest of the star.

“Work faster,” the trailblazer said, reversing direction and ducking behind one of the brawlers, though the top of the mech still showed above the standard height mauler. Because the morpheus was more valuable, as well as carrying two personnel, it had been built oversized with a heap of armor…but not enough to make it a walking turret. That was the goal that Cora had set when Clan Scorpion had begun developing the mech, and now she had the responsibility of making it work on the practice field, else they’d have to do a third redesign, which was something she was hoping to avoid.

The sled was programmed to attack the highest threat profiles, so it wasn’t going strictly for the morpheus, but in order to beat it the five mechs had to rotate their attacks and recharge their shields, meaning that Cora had to bring the morpheus in and mix it up with the sled rather than standing back and coordinating…something she wasn’t going to do anyway. The purpose of the morpheus was to fight while carrying the coordinator rather than being the coordinator, which ran a fine line between combatant and VIP.

Cora let the brawler in front of her block several of the shots coming in at her flank and torso while raising the mech’s arms up high enough to shoot over the shorter mech. Her weapons were simulated plasma streamers set to pulse for .7 seconds with each trigger pull while suffering through a 2.4 second recharge period, with the optional setting of switching to orb fire and plastering targets with an unlimited stream of plasma shots.

The brawler was tagged with maulers, which gave it its name, for all of its weaponry was short range and its armor and shields matched. It was designed to take a pounding and dish it back out in close combat, which was why Cora didn’t mind taking cover behind it. Though it was a smaller mech, its shields were slightly stronger than the morpheus’s, not to mention it carried thicker armor plates, given that it didn’t have a cockpit to accommodate in the design.

“Got a breach forming, port side,” Kenny said, with Cora running around to the other side of the sled as it continued to glide across the grassy plain that was one of the practice fields that Clan Scorpion had on the planet. Ironhold had a varied climate, much like Earth’s, and it gave her Clan a wide variety of landscapes to practice its specialty mechwarrior skills, along with developing new tactics and technology, to which Cora devoted most of her time, in addition to training younger mechwarriors from the mainline units, Clans, Canderous, Calavari, and even a few Australians.

Ironhold was the place to go to learn the art of mech combat, and Cora reigned supreme as the Queen of Mechs, despite some fierce competition in that department as far as individual skill levels went, but no one had such a comprehensive agenda as she and her Clan did, making her stand out above and beyond the others with more than 40 prototypes in the works at present, including an aquatics variant that she’d been trying to work out for more than a century, but had never quite got it to her liking.

The morpheus was progressing better, and she knew the twin cockpit idea would work, but it wasn’t going to be a one size fits all tactic, due to the fact that it could be directly targeted. When and where to make use of it was going to be a judgement call, but like all things it was best to have options to work with, and this was one that Star Force needed badly, especially when engaging the Skarron walkers, who to date had made a mess of any mech units that dared to venture too close.

Heavy walkers were of less interest to her, and she allowed other mech specialist trailblazers to tinker with them. She was interested in the bipeds only, and was really liking the drone mechs for the compact power they carried. They were like disposable chess pieces that she could position around her, or hide behind, without having to worry about their ultimate fate. Something she’d never do with a living pilot.

Mark was doing the same thing with the aerial fighters, all the way out on Daka, but according to her information they were going to have to evacuate that planet soon, for the lizards were on the way and there was no way they were going to be able to hold out. Where Mark would end up she didn’t know, but most of the design aspects of the aerial division, if not industrial production, had been coming from Daka and the work Mark had been doing there, along with many alien influences. Losing that communal pilot training facility was a big hit to the Alliance, and it was just such an environment that Cora was trying to develop on Ironhold for the mech division, save her facilities were Star Force only.

“I see it,” Cora said, laying two plasma streamers onto the position her HUD tagged as armor damage on the sled. The starfire came around from the opposite direction and pointed four continuous lachars at the same spot and held their beams on target as if they were never ending Star Trek phasers. Both mechs received a lot of return fire, with the morpheus’s shields going down again, but Cora didn’t back off, instead she came in closer, knocking two of the sled’s cannons out of alignment so they couldn’t track her mech.

The sled then pivoted, swinging itself around 180 degrees and Cora had to dance the morpheus back so as not to get knocked over. She dove the mech forward so an impact wouldn’t occur, coming down on the left elbow and running her feet around in a third of a circle to get her balance again. She tucked her knee up near the elbow and leveraged the tall mech back up, feeling its top heavy weight pull more than she liked…but then again anything heavier than a neo she didn’t like, and with the larger cockpit the morpheus was never going to meet up to those expectations.

As the sled spun around it opened itself up to the boxer, which unleashed a pointblank torrent of missiles from the four boxes on its shoulders that gave it its name, in addition to two plasma cannons in the tiny arms. 80 tiny simulated, self-guiding projectiles leapt out together, in perfect synchronicity, and rammed into the armor breach.

Two seconds later the computer tagged the sled as dead, even though in real life it continued to hover above the ground unaffected.

“Challenge completed,” Kenny said in case Cora didn’t see the readouts, busy as she was running the mech around, literally.

“How’d we do?”

“Yellow on brawler 2 and us,” he said, referencing the level of armor penetration. “All others showing green.”

“Crap,” Cora said, bringing the morpheus to a standstill. “I was hoping we’d kept one in the blue.”

“Negative.”

“Set it up again, we have to do better,” she said, with ‘blue’ meaning no armor damage. The key to winning most battles was unit longevity, and the point of the coordinator controlling the star was to overlap strengths and defend weaknesses, taking down the sled in this case without any hull damage. Shields didn’t matter, for they could be regenerated, but armor couldn’t outside of a mobile field base or mech bay.

“Resetting,” Kenny said. “Any suggestions?”

“Try having the boxers and starfire lead the brawlers up, then keep them hammering at the door. I’ll work us in.”

“Worth a shot,” Kenny agreed. “Return to start point,” he told her as he remotely sent the sled back as well.

The pair of Archons kept at it for another 3 hours, eventually ending up with two blue as their best result. Their exercise data would be analyzed by teams of techs and mechwarriors over the coming days, and more often than not they’d come up with suggestions for new tactics or equipment upgrades. Such was the work of developing prototypes, as Cora had learned long ago back in Atlantis when they’d just been trying to get a machine to walk and pivot around a corner without falling over. They’d come a long way since then, but the process for making further advancements was remarkably the same.

After getting in two hours of physical training, Cora hit the cafeteria and filled up before heading back to her quarters and checking the message boards before bed, intent on getting an early start working with another prototype in the morning, this one a shield mech tagged as Umbrella-class, but when she saw the most recent message posting from Kip her thoughts about tomorrow disappeared, reading her fellow trailblazer’s bold suggestion.

Bold, but incredibly insightful. Some of the others had added suggestions and Cora did the same, throwing out the possibility of including the remote mech technology if/when she got it working to her satisfaction, then sending it off through the comm grid for the others to chew on. She’d check again tomorrow and every day that came, with the responses from the others coming in gradually as they were shifted back and forth across dozens of lightyears. It was a bit of a chaotic and nonlinear method of discussing things as a group, but it worked.

On top of that, they usually knew what each other were thinking anyway, thus there wasn’t much clarification required when someone posted a suggestion, just amendments that made it better as the various proposals were passed around, with Kip’s being the same.

Greg was resupplying his fleet at Namek when he got the message updates all at once, having been out of relay range for several months hunting lizards and messing up their nearby systems as much as possible to keep them from encroaching on Star Force’s territory. The more they let them build the worse the situation would get, so Greg, Sara, Paul, and others were going out regularly to cause as much trouble as they could.

The location of the V’kit’no’sat was a shock, but something that had been a long time in coming. The plan floating around to eventually head for the Rim seemed like nonsense at first glance to Greg, but the more he read through the various rationales and permutations he realized that they weren’t planning on abandoning Earth and everything they’d built up to date, only adding to it so in the case that it fell they’d have somewhere to pull back to…but the Rim was far from here and the idea of stretching a tendril of their territory all the way out to even the nearest part of it was, well, ambitious to say the least.

The more immediate suggestion laid down by Kip and amended by others involved giving technology to the Protovic in order to strengthen them against the Skarrons. Normally that was something that Star Force wouldn’t do, for unless they were a part of the ‘family’ they weren’t going to trust other races, not even their allies, to the point of giving them weapons they could turn around and use against them later on. However, in this case they were going to get destroyed by the Skarrons anyway, and the idea of strengthening them really didn’t have a foreseeable downside, given the revelations about how large Skarron territory really was.

One of the additions to that idea involved the Hycre, and Greg agreed that they needed them to be as strong as possible against the lizards, and giving them cleansing beams would be a significant boon against the lizards, as well as the idea Cora posted about giving them remotely controlled mechs so they could actually engage in ground campaigns…or at least give them enough so they could learn to build them themselves. A low flying naval ship could act as the controller, and suddenly they’d have a way to strike at the lizards in a way they’d never been able to do.

Greg didn’t know if they’d want it, for they hadn’t developed any technology in that regard as far as he knew, but then again when the Hycre didn’t have legs or anything even remotely like them, the idea of them building walkers was a bit absurd, so maybe it was just a psychological blind spot. The idea definitely had merit, and Greg gave it his blessing with a note to Cora ‘if she ever got them working.’

He didn’t doubt that she would, but he wanted to take the opportunity to annoy her a bit, for she’d been promising working units for some time now and hadn’t been able to deliver quite as fast as she’d expected.

It was the suggestion of a secure network of colonies that caught Greg’s eye the most, and he immediately volunteered his Clan Firestorm to begin setting up a network of outposts in Alpha Region, seeing that several other trailblazers had done likewise in other Regions or in general. Setting up full-fledged colonies was over the top, given their current expansion projects already under way, but setting up small test bases and seeing if they could successfully stay ‘off the grid’ was worthwhile. If successful they could gradually enlarge those outposts into whatever facilities they needed, and the gradual construction timeline wouldn’t draw the attention that a massive construction project normally would.

Greg brought up a map of Alpha Region and immediately began picking systems to scout out, knowing that the others would take care of the batch of suggestions afloat. If/when the lizards came at them hard in Alpha, they might need a secondary route from the Core out to Namek, and by secondary Greg meant none of the existing and well established cargo routes that saw regular Star Force jumpship traffic.

No, he’d need to set up inefficient ones that would have his people travelling extra lightyears to stay off the ‘beaten path.’ The trick would be to work out a system for resupply that wouldn’t lead others directly to your secret base, and he immediately thought of a deep system rendezvous. They had binary drives, so they could jump into a system then microjump out to the edge and brake against the star to come to a point that wasn’t located on a gravity well.

He could put a seda or other station there, or rather just leave it a set of coordinates for drops or transfers…though drops would be kind of risky, but doable if it was cargo only. Other ships within the system would meet at the rendezvous point and take the cargo back to their base sites while the delivering jumpship never contacted the base in question.

Yes, that was workable…if the transfer ships were sensor stealthed. Reduce the range of enemy or even allied detection and you could dance your way around any snoopers enroute to hidden locations, on planet or not. And if one of your allies chose to backstab you like the Nestafar had, they wouldn’t know the location of every world you possessed.

The more Greg thought about this the more he liked the idea and was kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner. He wrote out a lengthy suggestion and sent it off to the other trailblazers, then began writing out orders for Clan Firestorm so they could begin assembling resources and research teams towards developing the equipment they’d need to sneak around. They’d share their findings with the others, and vice versa, but even if no one else wanted to pursue this Clan Firestorm would, because Greg saw an immense value in this strategy, even above and beyond the implications noted by the others.

9

March 22, 2468

Epsilon Eridani System

Babylon 1 Station

“Hello,” Dakota-041 said as he walked into the Hycre embassy, seeing one of several floating gasbags on the other side of a very thick transparent wall in their natural environment…extremely hot and loaded with sulfur dioxide. The translation software built into the room picked up his greeting and translated it into the Hycre’s language on the other side, prompting one of them to drift over in his direction using internal atriums as air jets for propulsion.

The Hycre reached out one of its six tentacles and tapped the ‘glass’ in greeting.

GOOD MORNING ARCHON, the computerized translation spoke back in a synthesized tone.

“I have a matter of great importance to discuss,” Dakota said, crossing his arms behind his back.

PROCEED.

“Have the lizards taken any of your worlds to date?”

THEY HAVE NOT, THOUGH THEY CONTINUALLY TRY.

“What is stopping them?”

THEY CAN DESTROY OUR DEFENSIVE FLEETS IF THEY COME IN SUFFICIENT NUMBERS. THEY CANNOT REACH US IN OUR WORLDS. THEIR PLASMA CANNOT PENETRATE THE ATMOSPHERE. WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO ENTER WITH THEIR SHIPS THEY ARE EASILY DESTROYED. THEY ARE NOT ACCUSTOMED TO SUCH COMBAT.

“Are they improving?”

THEY ARE ALWAYS IMPROVING.

“Yes they are. How is the rest of the Alliance faring?”

DO YOU NOT RECEIVE THE SAME UPDATES WE DO?

“Yes, but we don’t have assets in the other regions. Your territory is spread far and thin. I assumed you know things that we do not.”

TO BE DEPRESSINGLY HONEST WE ARE LOSING. THE HYCRE CANNOT STOP THE LIZARD ADVANCE. THE ALLIANCE CANNOT STOP THE LIZARD ADVANCE IN TIME. YOUR WORLDS WILL FALL PREY TO THEM AS WELL. IT APPEARS UNAVOIDABLE AS THEY GAIN STRENGTH AND THE ALLIANCE WEAKENS. THE NESTAFAR BETRAYAL DOOMED US ALL.

Dakota raised an eyebrow. “That’s more candor than I anticipated, but we agree with your assessment of the Alliance. We do not agree on our fate. As you know our technology is advancing at a considerable rate. We believe that in time we will have enough of an edge to hold the lizards at bay.”

YOUR PROGRESSION IS REMARKABLE. BUT DO NOT ASSUME FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS. RESEARCH IS UNPREDICTABLE. YOU ALSO UNDERESTIMATE THE LIZARDS’ ADVANCEMENT RATE.

“No I don’t. We are well aware of how innovative they are, but we’re confident that we’ll outpace them technologically. What we do not have are their numbers, nor do we expect to be able to compete with them on that level. We had once hoped to be able to defeat the lizards, and had planned an assault on their core systems, but that now appears untenable given how far they’ve spread and how long it will be until we’re strong enough to attempt doing so.”

“We know they have additional technology that they haven’t revealed to us yet, as we shared with you, so how we match up with it is still a question mark, but overall we have already surpassed the lizards in several areas. We intend to stake out borders that we will defend, but not push beyond, creating a sanctuary for the Alliance and any other friendly race caught up by the lizard aggression. We are going to fortify this region as a fallback position for the Hycre and any others, but we are not ready yet.”

AMBITIOUS. I FEAR YOU ARE OVERESTIMATING YOUR ABILITIES AND UNDERESTIMATING THE ENEMY’S.

“As it stands now, I would agree, but we are building and building fast. Currently we’re holding the lizards at bay along our rimward border, but we both know they’re only playing with us. They’re holding back their main force for later. Even what they’re destroying the Calavari with isn’t their true strength.”

WE CONCUR.

“Most of your systems do not fall within the proposed sanctuary borders. Do I assume you will continue to defend them all, or do you already have contingency plans?”

WE WILL DEFEND. IF THERE IS A GRAND BATTLE PLAN, I HAVE NOT BEEN INFORMED OF IT.

“As I said, we need time to build and fortify this region, and we think you are the key to buying us that time.”

YOU HAVE A PROPOSAL?

“No, I have a gift,” Dakota said, holding up a data chip, then inserting it into a slot on the table behind him and transmitting it across the divide to the Hycre databanks. “These are the technical specifications to several items of advanced technology that we think will be of use to you. We are also offering tech support to help you convert the designs to your own technology, including the construction of prototypes. The stronger we can make you, the longer you will delay the lizard advance.”

EXPLAIN.

“We are giving you cleansing beam and mauler tech, two weapon systems that have proven effective against the lizards. They are both power hogs, but worth it when used correctly. The cleansing beam is a long range energy weapon. The mauler is a very destructive short range energy weapon that will also disrupt physical shield matrixes.”

I AM FAMILIAR WITH YOUR DESIGNS. THE LIZARDS NO LONGER EMPLOY PHYSICAL SHIELDS. THEY HAVE UPGRADED TO A HYBRID DESIGN.

“Yes, I know. But the cleansing beam will penetrate them with ease. Your military will confirm that from past joint operations.”

YOU BELIEVE THESE WEAPONS ARE SUPERIOR TO WHAT THE HYCRE CURRENTLY POSSESS?

“In their respective fields, yes. We are also including several new shield matrixes and armor variants. We believe that when this technology is incorporated with your own, your naval fleet will be far superior to the lizards. We are building ships as fast as we can, but we don’t have a tenth of your industrial output. You can put it to more immediate use than we can.”

“We are also offering you an option to use a prototype remotely controlled mech force. We’re still working out the basics, but in theory you could control an army of the machines from a nearby warship in orbit or the atmosphere, which would give you the ability to strike at lizard targets that you previously have been unable to do. This project will take longer to implement, and would be a joint venture, given that we’re still developing it for our own uses.”

IS THIS GENEROSITY OR DESPERATION? YOU OFFER MUCH.

“It is a strategic decision on our part.”

WHAT DO YOU SEEK IN RETURN?

“You not dying as soon,” Dakota said bluntly.

OUR CONTINUED SURVIVAL IS YOUR GAIN.

“That and your expertise in naval combat. We’ve learned a lot from you and are interested in seeing how you put these new weapons to use. There is also the matter of the Skarrons, who are a far larger threat than the lizards, crazy as that sounds. Have you read the report we filed?”

I HAVE. IT IS LIKELY THAT THE PRISONER WAS EXAGGERATING.

Dakota shook his head. “No, he wasn’t.”

YOU CANNOT BE SURE OF THAT.

“I can’t, but the ones who interrogated him are, and I trust their judgement. They confirmed the intelligence.”

DO YOU HAVE A STAR CHART?

“No.”

THEN HOW HAVE YOU CONFIRMED THE ASSERTED SIZE OF THEIR TERRITORY?

“We’re willing to share technology with you, but some secrets we will keep.”

UNTIL WE SEE SUCH CONFIRMATION OUR SKEPTICISM WILL REMAIN.

“Understandable, but know that we are convinced and are being forced regardless to fight a war on two opposite fronts, and if you count the Nestafar/Calavari theatre that’s three. We need you to be as strong of a deterrent to lizard expansion along the rim of our territory while we strengthen both the rim and coreward fronts.”

OTHER THAN BUILDING MORE SHIPS, HOW DO YOU DEFINE ‘STRENGTHENING?’

Dakota smirked. “We have quite a few projects in the works. Given enough time, it will become very difficult for the lizards to evict us from a system we’ve set up in, and they’ll burn through fleets of ships trying.”

3 months later…

“It’s here,” Kip said, clapping his friend on the shoulder as he walked up behind Ren’san’do in a Protovic command center in one of the contested cities on Erentia.

“What is?” the Protovic asked, with a few others glancing over at the Archon through their faceplates.

“A gift…I would have talked to you about it sooner, but I needed to get approval from the others first, and it came in along with a jumpship full of equipment and techs.”

“What do you mean?” the senior ranking Protovic in the room asked, walking over to the pair.

“Though it won’t make a difference immediately, Star Force is going to give you some tech upgrades to help you fight the Skarrons.”

The Protovic’s head tilted back slightly, but that was the only reaction Kip could see…though he could a sense of shock rippling through the commander and the rest of the aliens in the room, including Ren’san’do.

“It will take some time to alter our designs into tech compatible with your ships, which was why I’ve asked for techs to help you with the crossover. They’ve got equipment with them for you to study and are standing by to teach you everything you need to know to add our cleansing beams, maulers, and binary gravity drives to your fleet, along with some shield and armor options, though you’re pretty solid there already. That should give you a tactical advantage over the Skarron fleet, once you’re able to incorporate the weapon systems into your ships…but be warned, they’re power hogs.”

“What is it you’re asking in return?” the Protovic commander wondered.

“Kick the Skarrons’ collective ass,” Kip said, throwing a glance at Ren’san’do.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes,” Kip said, taking his helmet off. He put it on a nearby table and pointed at his nose. “See, this is my serious face.”

“Races don’t just give away tech freely,” the commander said, still in disbelief.

“Our race isn’t led by representatives, civilians, pacifists, or egotists,” Kip explained. “It’s led by warriors. Warriors that know the dangers of sharing weapons tech with others and the threat they could pose if turned around and used against us. We’re not worried about that happening with you. Our relationship is a new one, but it’s been forged in battle, and that has a tendency to cut through the crap and get straight to the truth.”

“We know we have to work together to push the Skarrons back from your territory and establish a firm boundary to defend,” Kip continued, doing a little mental digging to find the Protovic’s doubts and allay them. “To do that we need your larger fleet to be as strong as possible, and we figure if we give you the tools you’ll make good use of them…though I would recommend constructing cleansing beam towers in your cities to keep enemy walkers at bay, along with several other ground applications.”

“That…would be very useful,” Ren’san’do said, immensely grateful. “We hadn’t expected that sort of assistance…from anyone, let alone a lesser race. No offense.”

“Some taken,” he kidded with his friend as the other Protovic looked on with a mix of emotions, primary among which was eagerness…for most of them had seen the Star Force weapons in use and knew their effectiveness. They were the only reason the Protovic were slowly taking planets back from the Skarrons, with Erentia being the second in a short list. The Protovic had returned from Calavari space in time to stop the invasion from rolling from system to system, but where their enemy had gotten to ground they’d dug in deep and the Humans were the only ones proven successful in getting them out, though they had to be paired with Protovic units to be effective, given their small numbers.

The commander took a couple of steps closer to Kip and removed his helmet as well, cracking the faceplate off and retracting the headpiece down into the neck, revealing a tattoo-like pattern of glowing patches on his face bracketed by nearly black scales over his head that formed a light exoskeleton that traveled down across his back, arms, and legs.

He stared at Kip with his deep, radiant purple eyes, with the Archon staring back unflinchingly.

“You’re truly willing to give us your most advanced weapons, asking nothing in return aside from battling our common foe? Something we would do anyway out of self-preservation.”

“Yes I am. The strategic logic is favorable…to both of us.”

“You have said you are one of Star Force’s leaders. How high of rank do I have the privilege of addressing?”

“I am one of 100 senior commanders, all of whom share equal position. The others agreed with my suggestion and sent the jumpship back.”

“You are a Lord of your race, and yet you engage in the deepest of battles? Why do your subordinates let you take such a reckless risk?”

“In all our battles not one of us has been lost, so it’s not as great of a risk as you might think. That and if anyone tried to stop us we’d kick their ass. We’re the leaders because we’re the strongest.”

“And the oldest,” Ren’san’do added.

“The two go hand in hand for Archons, in most cases,” Kip explained. “And we belong where our skills will do the most good. We dislike sending weaker personnel in first as cannon fodder. We dislike it greatly.”

“And now you seek to strengthen us?”

“A warrior who does not seek greater strength is not a warrior,” Kip quoted.

“Forgive me,” the commander apologized, “but our opinion of your race has been small since our first encounter at the Alliance summit. You have been regarded as inconsequential until you came to our aid when the rest of the Alliance would not or could not. Now I am beginning to feel we are still underestimating you, perhaps because of your smaller population. I must ask, what are these special skills that some of you possess and have been aiding my special forces with?”

“Something that is not well known, even to all of my people,” Kip confided. “But on the battlefield such secrets are irrelevant. We call them psionics, and only our most advanced Archons possess them. As I and my brothers and sisters are the strongest, we possess the most, which is why it is essential that I assign myself to the integrated teams. No other Archon in this system matches my strength.”

“What are these psionics?”

“Biological energy weapons, more or less, the dynamics of which we are going to keep a secret.”

The commander nodded. “I do not begrudge you that, though I envy the rumors I’ve heard of their effectiveness.”

“I will admit,” Kip said, pointing to his nearby helmet and floating it slowly through the air and into his hands, “they are cool.”

“A biological tractor beam?” the Protovic said, amazed.

“More or less. We like to keep our full capabilities known to only us, but Ren’san’do has seen more of their use than any other Protovic, I’d wager,” he said, tapping his friend on his armored chest. “Most of the time I’m using the equivalent of mental white noise to temporarily disable enemy units. It’s quite effective when you have a Protovic team behind you to make the most of the opportunity. Your units are well organized and efficient. It’s a pity they’re not backed up by better mechanized forces. I hope our tech upgrades will help to counter that deficiency?”

“The Skarrons have imposed on us the need for such. I give you my word we will not squander your gift, nor the assistance you have provided us here.”

“The sooner our techs get to work the better,” Kip agreed with a nod. “Where is your primary development facility?”

“Achion, at fleet headquarters.”

“With your permission I’ll send the jumpship there directly, though an escort or emissary would be appreciated.”

“Of course,” the commander said, “though we don’t have a jumpship available at the moment. If you’d be willing to travel at a slower speed I’m sure we can arrange for a ship from the defense fleet to accompany you.”

“With time being critical, it’s best not to waste even a few days. If you can have an emissary travel onboard, either in person or in a small vessel that my jumpship will carry, that will be sufficient. I just don’t want it to show up insystem unannounced, and I can’t go myself because I’m needed here.”

“I’ll go,” Ren’san’do volunteered.

“No, I need you here with me,” Kip insisted.

“I will arrange a small transport with representatives that will clear your jumpship through capitol protocols,” the commander promised, turning around and gesturing to one of the control room staff. “Get me a comm to the Sarnor.”

“They’re equipped with provisions to stay insystem as long as necessary to get your people up to speed,” Kip explained. “You’ll have to handle all production yourself. We’re offering the knowledge, not our own fabricated weapons.”

“We understand,” Ren’san’do said slowly, “and thank you, my friend.”

“You can thank us by killing Skarron ships. Right now, we’ve got more of their walkers to deal with. How are your people set up at the Gamma target?” Kip asked, getting back to the business at hand.

The Protovic were slower to make the transition, literally giddy with the news of the promised technology, but the trailblazer slowly pulled their focus back to the city and the ongoing ground war, getting them set up for an attack run on another Type-1.

10

July 8, 2468

Trantiss System (Lizard territory)

Ollsonat

Paul watched from the bridge of the Excalibur as the ship’s cleansing beams severed the last remaining lizard battleship along its midsection, hitting it almost squarely in the middle flank of its 2 kilometer long mass as it tried to flee, plagued by IDF-laden goo sticking to its shieldless hull. The tiny white beam virtually disappeared by the time it hit the ship, so distant as it was from the 15 mile wide behemoth of the command ship, but that didn’t matter when the concentrated nature of the beam could melt apart material on contact. Even a beam a millimeter wide would be sufficient in cutting a ship in half, and given that strength of the cleansing beam technology, that’s exactly what the Excalibur’s gunners had been trying for.

The remaining cruisers were already fleeing, or trying to. Some were caught up in IDF tug of wars with corvettes pinning them in place while the command ship blasted them apart, but most of the 320 ship defensive fleet around the lizard colony on Ollsonat had already been destroyed. Paul had brought the Excalibur in first, leaving his handful of Warship-class jumpships out in high orbit around the planet until he wanted them, knowing they’d make for too useful targets in the beginning stages of the slugging match that was going to take place, and he wanted the command ship to take the full brunt of the lizard defensive effort.

As he’d learned months ago, the lizards’ standard fleet of cruisers was wholly unable to take on the might of his command ship, even when supported by lizard battleships. He had expected their new ship to be hard to kill, but its efficiency against the lizards surprised him. They literally couldn’t touch it without devoting insane numbers of ships…so long as the helmsman kept the giant donut moving around orbit to avoid lizard kamikaze jump attempts from below. Those they had tried early on, but Paul had seen them coming and kept the ship moving out of alignment, making it very difficult for them to set up a ramming trajectory at jump speed.

They’d then proceeded to trying ramming collisions at slower speeds that did not require jump alignment. Those couldn’t be avoided, most of the time, but proactive weaponsfire took out most of the ships appearing to be setting up at enough distance to try for a ram…and those that just did so at the spur of the moment at close range couldn’t generate enough kinetic momentum to punch through the impressive array of shields the command ship could throw up.

The ship not only had multiple shields, but each shield had multiple matrix options, meaning it could tailor its defense against the weaponsfire hitting it. There were six stations on the bridge dedicated to shield control, meaning that while the rest of the warship battled the lizard fleets, those officers would be adjusting the defensive barriers to create strong points, alter the matrixes, cannibalize energy from intact matrixes and shunt it over to others, spot flood weak points with incoming energy while denying it to others, etc.

That gave the new Command Ship design far more defensive options than any other vessel in the Star Force fleet. Being a 15 mile wide mass gave one plenty of volume to put ‘extra’ tech into, and Paul and Jason hadn’t skimped on the design. In particular, the shield matrix that was designed specifically to defend against plasma weapons was proving to be the lizards’ bane, for virtually all their weaponry relied upon it, and thanks to Star Force having access to old lizard blueprints and tech, they knew the intricacies of the lizard plasma weapons, from which they’d developed a shield setting specifically to combat them.

Switching from one matrix to another took a lot of time, for it was essentially having to create an entirely new shield without going through the full recharge process. Typically a mass of energy was held within the shield emitters, ready to be deployed into the matrix rather than having to charge them from the power core directly. That was how ships could ‘raise shields’ in a split second, because that energy was already stored up and at least partially transformed into the necessary type for their shield matrixes to utilize.

Some matrixes used similar energies, so they could be morphed from one to another without total loss, reducing the time between transfers, but battling the lizards only didn’t require a switch, so to date that feature hadn’t been battle tested. The physical-only shield had been tested, when the lizards rammed the ship. Given a heads up, the shield officers deployed one of the multiple shields in the direction the ship was coming from instead of putting it around the entire ship.

Doing so gave them the opportunity to layer the shield, essentially taking the pieces from the entire hull and stacking them up like dominoes over the approach area of the kamikaze. That ship then ran into each of them in sequence, with each hit and breach slowing it until it hit the actual hull…which had only happened twice, leaving two beauty marks on the blue hull, scraping off the paint and showing the grey beneath, but little real damage, given the thickness of the exterior plates.

That wouldn’t be enough to stop a jumping ship, but it could reduce the damage greatly if they could set up the matrixes in time. It was a tactic the V’kit’no’sat used, though with other tech that was currently beyond Star Force, but the principle was sound. Liam had dubbed it the ‘pillow effect,’ whereas the energy equivalent Paul had tagged as ‘reflect’ after the Final Fantasy power that send magical attacks back onto the sender.

In this case there was a shield matrix that attempted to do the same thing, bouncing it off rather than cancelling it out. They’d gotten it to work on lasers, but anything more powerful was overloading the matrix and causing it to breach, which when it did it went down completely, like shattering a mirror. None the less, Paul and Jason had included it in the shield options. Other than turning the ship into a giant mirror, which was cool, it wasn’t of much use as yet, but you never knew when an odd situation would arise, so better to have it in the mix than not.

The shield package the Command Ship carried had been enough to thwart the lizards on several occasions as Paul probed their third line of border systems, prompting the trailblazer to reassess their harassment missions. With the updates coming in from the Skarron front, the progress with the Calavari, and arming of the Hycre and Protovic with Star Force tech, and the other ongoing projects that the trailblazers, as a group, were conducting Paul was relieved to be able to rely on them to take care of the laundry list of items while he focused on those in the far end of Alpha Region.

He’d agreed with Jason’s assessments about the ‘run for the rim’ option floating around, being that they had to hold their ground and move to the rim simultaneously, preserving the option to fake their death if it came down to a V’kit’no’sat return by setting up separate ‘kingdoms’ within Star Force territory and expanding out to others. Paul doubted they could fool the V’kit’no’sat that easily, but it was worth a shot. The galaxy was vast, and hiding was definitely an option…their only option, really, impressed upon him and the others now that they had a glimmer of where their true enemy was, deeper into the core and currently oblivious to their whereabouts.

The dragon had fled to the rim, and it alone could have destroyed Star Force’s entire fleet. Paul wondered if that had changed by now, though he doubted it. Still, he would really like to see the tactical specs on the dragon’s armor and how much damage it could actually dish out…and take. Kara’s had been pretty well mapped by this point and he had his guesses as to what the dragon’s version could do, though the naval ramming capability mentioned in the reports from Daka still gave him nightmares. Star Force had no sensor data on that, but firsthand accounts by the Canderians in the system made clear that the Nestafar were sitting ducks, and he doubted Star Force shields and armor would fare much different.

So when the time came Star Force would run, but right now they couldn’t go far, and therein lay the problem. They needed the systems they currently possessed to grow stronger, which meant standing their ground and fighting off the enemies gathering around them. First the lizards, then the Nestafar, and now the Skarrons, which appeared far greater than anything they’d come across at this point, though Paul had a sneaking suspicion that the lizards were more dangerous, based off the combat reports from Beta Region. The Skarrons’ territory might be huge, but the lizards were cunning, and that was an attribute that should never be underestimated.

Which was why he’d half expected the lizards to throw up some new attack against the Excalibur as he invaded this system, but they hadn’t. It had been standard tactics with a few hasty attempts at creativity, but nothing that worked. He and Jason had created a monster of a ship, second only to the Kvash starbases, each of which was more than 50 miles wide. They varied in size and shape, as each one was unique, making them more like small moons than ships or stations.

But as far as warships went, nothing else bested the Command Ship…that Paul knew of. Both the Hycre and the Bsidd had larger jumpships, but they didn’t carry the armament that the Excalibur did, and now that Paul had a big bad ship to work with, he was appreciating the unique combat applications that it afforded.

He agreed with the others that Star Force needed to establish a firm territory block and defend it as their enemies closed in on them rather than trying to defeat those enemies. Star Force was playing for time as it continued to unlock, or more accurately, understand the knowledge in the pyramid, so winning the war was more about surviving than hitting back, even as the lizards’ territory grew by leaps and bounds.

Even if they garnered the full power of the pyramid Star Force, as some of the others had wisely pointed out, they would never be able to utilize it in killing the Skarrons or forcing them to submit, for it would bring them too close to the V’kit’no’sat. Even if they managed to do the same with the lizards, which was ambitious enough, word could and would travel about what they had done, and Paul was leery even that might filter back to the V’kit’no’sat when certain pieces of tech were mentioned, or what the Humans looked like, or more importantly, the psionics they wielded.

Hell, that information might already be spreading back their way. There was no way to avoid it, meaning that Earth was going to be compromised sooner or later…the big question was when. It was all about time, and the trailblazers had to give Davis’s people as much as they could. If they succeeded in protecting Star Force from all its enemies and keeping it dark to the V’kit’no’sat long enough, then Paul was confident that they would be able to engage and withdraw from their nemesis, no matter what advancements they’d made over the past 100 millennia.

He entertained no serious notions of ever defeating them, but right now if they came back it wouldn’t even be a fight. The V’kit’no’sat could own them with a single ship, and they wouldn’t even be able to take down its shields. No, the victory they were striving for was survival, and to do that they needed the full power of the pyramid. That would at least put them in the same league as the V’kit’no’sat, and if they were even slightly on par with them, Paul knew that he and the other trailblazers could make up some of the gap through sheer determination and cunning, despite the V’kit’no’sat’s reputation for the same.

At his core Paul knew they had to be better, and that they would be better in time, if the technology evened out. The idea of someone out-training the trailblazers was ridiculous, even with all the breaks they took to work on other projects or go into combat. Someone might match or exceed them for a day, a week, a month…maybe even a year. But no one was going to beat them over the centuries, and eventually millennia for one simple reason.

They craved advancement, and even if there wasn’t a super strong enemy out there that they were racing to catch up with, they’d still work their asses off just for the fun of it. They lived for challenge, and that was the core of their being. While that facet might not be unique to Humans, nor a race in particular, Paul knew the V’kit’no’sat were lazy in comparison. Not in the conventional sense, but the more information he read coming out of the pyramid the more he understood that they didn’t operate out of a need or quest for challenge, but out of ego.

The two were often overlapping, with the V’kit’no’sat responding to a need or a threat with equal zeal as  he and the other Archons, but it was in the quiet times, the peaceful times, that their drive would wane. They were too good to abandon their training or actually get lazy, but they wouldn’t push as hard in those times whereas Paul would, and he knew the other trailblazers and a lot of the other Archons would as well.

That was where they could gain ground on the individuals who’d had thousands of years’ head start on them, though it was still going to take forever to catch up to individuals like Ironnsey and their dinosaur counterparts, but the fact that they had a window, that it was actually possible, was all they needed. Given enough time they would get there.

Time, it was all about time, so Star Force’s strategy had to play towards that, even if it meant restraining themselves from going out and kicking the bad guys’ asses as much as they’d like. They had to turtle up and play the waiting game, which at his core Paul didn’t like, but when viewing the big picture it made sense, and as long as he kept that in mind there was no internal conflict. They were playing to win, and this was the game plan they needed to pursue.

But from experience with the lizards he knew that holding a strict boundary was suicidal. They operated off a creep mentality, and holding a line with them meant a constant push and pull between the two. Hold your ground and they’d push harder and harder until you moved an inch, then that would be the new boundary until they got you to move again, and again, and again.

No, in order to hold the lizard engagement line Paul had to make gains against them, and the Excalibur was his solution to the problem, for the time being, as he was launching their first assault against a lizard system with the intent of taking it away from them and making it their own. Doing so would push the lizard lines back a touch, providing more distance from the Ninkari that Canderous was still guarding in the ‘open.’

It would also send the message that they weren’t marks for the lizards to eventually take down. That often was an invitation, when someone only defended instead of counterattacking, to greater invasion because it gave the impression of weakness. That was something he’d learned playing StarCraft long ago, and ironically it held true in real warfare.

So in order to keep his piece of Star Force territory locked down, he had to expand it. Not a lot, just a touch here and there to keep the lizards at bay. It seemed counterintuitive, but give the lizards a fixed point to work on and sooner or later they’d figure out a way to beat it. Paul had to dictate the course of the conflict at least part of the time, otherwise they’d swarm over his worlds and make his defensive effort twice as difficult.

The attacker got the choice of time, place, and numbers…the defender had to work with what they had, and more often than not it wasn’t an advantageous arrangement, else the attacker wouldn’t have been launching the assault in the first place.

So here Paul was, kicking the crap out of a sizeable lizard fleet, and ‘holding’ his border against the lizards by expanding it. In the past Ollsonat had been hit twice by Sara and once by Greg, each time doing major damage to the lizard infrastructure from orbital bombardment, but the lizards always rebuilt, and would keep rebuilding until you either eradicated them or gave up and abandoned the effort…in which case they’d win by default.

Today was different, and as the last few lizard ships that hadn’t been able to flee were destroyed by the Excalibur’s weapons and the drones surrounding them reformed into patrol groups to scour the debris and eventually move to orbital bombardment locations Paul nodded satisfactorily and looked to Captain Evinson.

“How’s the weather?”

“Adequate. The cleansing beams should hit ground at 85% cohesion at minimum.”

“Good. Move us into position and prepare to disengage the landing core. I want it touching down nearby while we’re still assaulting the target to minimize their army response times. I expect them to flee the city when we start hitting them anyway, and the less that get away the less we’ll have to track down and kill later.”

“Should we wait for the drones?”

“No. Let them handle the auxiliary targets after they confirm orbit is clear. We’ll take the primary ourself.”

Evinson nodded and began implementing Paul’s orders as the trailblazer began to slowly pace around the bridge, eventually seeing the holographic status display update as the Command Ship began to retract the armor segments around its core in a slow ripple, revealing the true nature of the giant donut.

Paul suppressed a smile, imagining an image of Homer Simpson giving him an approving ‘thumbs up’ on the design.

Relocation

1

May 2, 2470

Pagalis System

Varasiss (Calavari Capitol)

Kamalat sat at a gunnery station onboard the Calavari cruiser firing his plasma cannon at the sea of Cajdital ships nearby, picking a spot his bridge weapons officer tagged for his battery to hit and firing large golden plasma orbs into the enemy’s yellow/tan hulls as fast as the weapon would cycle. He couldn’t see what was happening elsewhere, nor how his own ship was faring…only his narrow view from the gunnery station, but he could tell that the Cajdital fleet wasn’t returning fire on the other Calavari ships nearby.

The ship he was firing on was throwing plasma ahead of it, nearly hitting the other Cajdital cruisers stacked in together so tight he felt like he was looking at a school of fish in a green river…a river that led to the Kvash starbase guarding the Calavari planet. Though Kamalat couldn’t see it, none of the Cajdital ships were shooting at the other Kvash vessels, nor the Calavari, or the Hycre, or the Bsidd, or the Scionate, or the Nabboni, or any of the other Alliance races with ships present to defend the system.

The Cajdital were ignoring them all and heading straight for the massive starbase and hammering it with the combined plasma from over 2,000 cruisers as more were continuing to enter planetary orbit and flood towards the massive warship/station. The rest of the Alliance fleet, like Kamalat’s cruiser, were getting free shots on the Cajdital and tearing them up, with his cannon finally finding hull after the shields went down. The enemy ship moved off somewhat as it outpaced the Calavari vessel, but his plasma hit the target multiple times, ripping into the hull plates along with other batteries, but his ship was the only one firing on that enemy vessel, for there were so many in play that the other Allied ships all had their own chosen targets with plenty to spare.

More and more cruisers kept coming in, all of which headed for the starbase and continued to pound on its shields, with many not even making it within firing range before being destroyed. Those that did were taken down by the Kvash’s own impressive array of weapons, with their plasma streamers literally melting through the Cajdital cruisers and taking them out remarkably fast…but still they wouldn’t flee or target any other vessel. They just kept pounding the starbase until its shields eventually went down after some 800 Cajdital ships were turned into rubble.

Neither Kamalat nor the rest of the system defenders could see it, but once the starbase’s shields were down special Cajdital cruisers began jumping in from the mass of contacts manifesting around the system’s central stars. The cruisers were identical to the others on the exterior, but they’d been refitted internally specifically for this invasion and the targeting of the starbase, which had such a high mass that even as its external weapon systems were being targeted and eliminated the ship itself was in little danger of being destroyed.

The huge ship would survive to the end of the battle, and if it didn’t escape it’d have to be picked to death by the Cajdital, whose plasma cannons were pathetic compared to the size of their target. They knew that going into the engagement, but thousands of pathetic weapons could add up to sufficient power…enough at least to take the shields down.

Kamalat saw explosions ripping across the starbase’s hull, but from the distance he was at they were tiny distortions compared to the huge mass that filled most of his screen whenever the Calavari cruiser had its right flank towards the allied ship/station. As he continued to fire on the ships designated by the weapons officer he noticed larger explosions beginning to hit the starbase, enough to wonder what was going on, for they were larger than the Calavari ships, though in comparison they were still small against the starbase’s silhouette.

He would never know what happened, but some of the Cajdital ships, the ones specially modified, were ramming the Kvash starbase loaded up with explosives. The physical impact alone was usually enough to damage, if not penetrate the hull, then the detonation would rip apart the interior, exposing it to the continual weaponsfire as it blasted out more sections of armored hull with it like a flower petal opening up.

Still the massive ship didn’t die, for only the outer layers were affected with the approaches to the hangars being blocked by other Kvash ships, making the Cajdital take the hard way in…and so they did. Over the hours that followed the Cajdital pounded the starbase with thousands of cruisers, regular and modified, literally throwing them away against the Alliance fleet in order to do damage to the behemoth.

When they’d finally crippled the starbase, with large chunks of it detaching from internal explosions, the few Cajdital ships remaining suddenly withdrew. Kamalat hit several on the way out without his weapons officer’s permission, deciding to take advantage of the fact that there were so many of them in his area and just firing into the swarm until they’d passed.

Seeming content with the damage they’d done, the Cajdital disappeared from planetary orbit, making microjumps away, either to the other planets or back to the stars where the fleet of Cajdital jumpships was still arriving and unloading more ships, now blind to the Calavari since they’d hunted down and destroyed the nearby sensor stations.

What was left was a growing blob of vessels as seen from their more distant sensors coming in along a single jumpline. As Varasiss was the only inhabited planet in the system the Alliance fleet waited there, protecting the orbital installations and hanging close to the missile platforms littering low orbit and making for a significant deterrent to attack. It was the largest fleet in Calavari space, not even counting all the non-Calavari ships, which outnumbered the locals 8 to 1. The original defense fleet had been much larger, but over time those ships had been moved out to other battlefields, lessening the capitol’s defenses in order to supplement others.

Now that there was little left but the capitol in the central region that had once been the heart of Calavari territory. Their warships had been returning to the one strongpoint they had left in the tattered remains of their once massive empire, adding to its defense as well as taking refuge along with the Alliance fleet, given that Calavari naval power was severely outclassed against the Cajdital.

Their weaponry was still effective, which Kamalat was putting to good use. After the starbase was destroyed there were several hours of inactivity during which the alliance fleet redeployed, with his cruiser moving out to a position around the third of six moons, four of which were habitable. The Calavari had significantly colonized two of them, with smaller installations on the other four. All provided jump points, and as such they could reposition their ships in short order to elsewhere in planetary orbit to reinforce various positions in the blink of an eye…as well as denying the moons to the enemy.

Kamalat didn’t know what the plan was, he was just a gunner, but he got a good view of the green moon of Radamal beneath him as he waited for the next attack, forgoing a shift change so he could stay on station longer. He stuck it out long enough for his body to start urging him to get some sleep, then when he was just about to call it quits and let the relief gunner take his position Cajdital ships began jumping into the moon’s orbit.

This time they shot back, and a pitched battle broke out in orbit between the Calavari fleet, supplemented by two Kvash cruisers on station with them, and another wave of Cajdital cruisers. Kamalat’s ship was so busy dealing with the enemy around them that its bridge crew failed to notice the much larger ship that entered elsewhere in planetary orbit a few minutes later.

The Cajdital ship was massive, and unlike the yellow/tan hulls of the cruisers the invoker was colored dark black, so much so that it was almost lost against the star field aside from the pinpricks of light that it blocked out, forming an ominous silhouette with long, gangly arms that dove straight toward the densest portion of the Alliance fleet…thousands of warships with the large Kvash battleships as centerpieces.

No Cajdital cruisers or other ships accompanied it. They were jumping into the moons and engaging in battle there, sweeping the defenders away or at least keeping them busy as their monstrous chess piece jumped into the planet’s orbit and eased directly into the Alliance lines, eliciting multi-colored energy ripples from its numerous pylons. The energy seemed to defy shape and more or less arced from one point to another on the arms, but pushing out like a solar prominence in large loops.

Those loops moved, but not in any tactical fashion, seeming to have a mind of their own as they extended out around the ship more than tripling its spherical radius. The Alliance ships that had closed within range were hit by the energy arcs, with the smaller hulls virtually vaporizing on contact.

The larger ships interfered with the energy flows, creating distortions and gaps when they were hit and subsequently destroyed by the lightning storm of discharges that resulted from whenever an object hit the field, including Alliance missiles fired at the invoker. Some got through to hit the shielded hull, but those that ran into the energy likewise sent little lightning discharges out looking for something to touch. Some hit other missiles, some hit ships, but most arced off to pieces of debris, further pulverizing them in a massive display of destruction.

The invoker kept moving, albeit slowly, pushing further into the Alliance fleet as their combined firepower fell on it…or at least as much as the Alliance could mount without firing into their own ships. The oblong fleet deployment bent around the ‘impact’ point, encircling the invoker even as it was chewing through their ships by the dozens per second. More and more firepower was poured into it and eventually some of it began to get through the invoker’s shields. That didn’t last long, for after only a light amount of hull damage the invoker reversed course, clearing the debris field it had created, and jumped away from the planet.

The Alliance fleet was left in shambles, but still with a considerable amount of ships remaining. Those ships, however, were soon met with Cajdital cruisers jumping in to engage them, having come from the moons they’d already cleared/secured. Like several water faucets they poured ships into the growing engagement that formed up into organized packs hunting specific targets, all the while the Alliance fleet was in such disarray it nearly became a free-for-all defensive effort.

Kamalat’s cruiser survived long enough to see the arrival of the first Cajdital battleships, which pounded the elongated Calavari warship until its shields went down, then it and several Cajdital cruisers tore apart the outer hull, taking his plasma cannon turret offline. When that happened his screen blanked and he knew his days were over, with him considering how many minutes, if not seconds, he had before the section of the ship that he was in either exploded or decompressed.

He sat in his control chair, squeezing the gunnery controls in anticipation and summoning up a wave of anger at both the Cajdital and their treasonous allies in place of the courage that seemed to escape him. Muffled pops, hisses, and bangs were audible as parts of the ship were hit, but the air didn’t rush out of his compartment, and for what seemed like an eternity he waited for the end to come.

Then suddenly a torrent of wind cut through the open doorway behind him and hit Kamalat with a blast of heated air so hot that it singed his skin where his uniform didn’t cover it. He flinched, but while the air thinned a moment later it didn’t completely disappear. With a roar partly of rage and partly of fear, he leapt out of his chair and turned to face the doorway, intending to die on his feet.

The hot air continued to pelt his skin, then all of a sudden it stopped with one massive screech and the power went out. Suddenly he was floating free of the floor, no longer with any artificial gravity to hold him in place. He grabbed the back of his chair with his lower right hand and steadied himself, but no further explosions followed.

Kamalat waited in his gunnery chamber for quite a while, floating in darkness before he finally became curious as to why the attack had stopped. Maybe the Cajdital had left the ship for dead, in which case there was a very slight chance that he might live another hour. He contemplated staying put and waiting or venturing forth, and decided that if he was going to die today that death was going to have to come and get him, he wasn’t going to sit and wait for it.

Remembering the layout of the hallway beyond the door he pushed off and grabbed the entryway with all four hands, bracketing himself in place as he looked for any trace of light. He thought there was just a tiny haze down to his left when he suddenly heard a voice in the otherwise silent ship.

“Hello? Is anyone out there?”

“Yes,” another voice answered, and Kamalat pushed off gently in the direction of the sounds. He floated through blackness, keeping his four hands and two feet spread wide to act as bumpers, but it was eventually another hand that stopped him, planted on his chest.

“Easy there,” a voice said, though he couldn’t see the speaker…nor anything else for that matter. “Head the other way.”

“What’s to head to?” Kamalat asked as he spun about with the help of the hand and a nearby wall, though he was still floating about.

“Aft section. I’ve got a comm link to people back there. Move it. That goes for everyone!”

With a shove Kamalat was sent floating down the hallway until he brushed up against a wall and steadied his tumble, then he ran into the back of another person, but that actually helped to right himself with another source of leverage. Feeling around in the dark for the bulkheads and the Calavari in front of him, Kamalat and the others assembling behind made their way through corridors they couldn’t see, being led by whom he didn’t know, but gradually a bit of light filtered in, not enough to see by, but enough to start casting some slight shadows.

It was enough to show him the fuzzy silhouette of the Calavari in front of him as they turned to the left and entered another passage. A few more intersections up and the light became heavier, allowing Kamalat to see where he was going, dim as it was. The line of Calavari was much larger than he’d thought, meaning more had survived…but why was the ship still intact? And were the Cajdital going to come back and finish them or leave them for dead?

He got the answer to his question a few minutes later when he crossed into a powered zone, with his feet returning to the floor with the artificial gravity. From there he and the survivors from the forward sections were moved about in quick order, then shuffled to an armory where they donned their shield harnesses and weapons, plus whatever equipment packs they had available.

Before Kamalat got up the courage to ask what was going on, for everyone around him was stone-faced with either fear or shock, both of which he was also feeling, he was led to a hull breach that shown as a wicked slash through a wall in a storage compartment, on the outside of which was daylight…not stars.

To his dismay the others were jumping out the gash, though a few hesitated as they came up to it, but as soon as they got a look they proceeded to jump out, disappearing to the left. When Kamalat got up to the edge he also hesitated, not wanting to jump out into vacuum, then he saw a tilted forest landscape ahead of him…and he suddenly realized they had crash landed on the moon.

He saw a descending rope attached just inside the gash and grabbed hold of it, stepping outside…with the gravity immediately pulling him to the left. He twisted his legs around and got them below him, then four-armed it down the rope until he got to the very distant bottom and landed on a mound of dirt that had been plowed out upon impact.

Kamalat stepped aside and looked back up at the part of the cruiser that was sticking up out of the ground at a high angle. The screech he heard must have been the crash landing, but the inertial dampeners had held up so he didn’t feel the impact. The front of the cruiser was buried, and probably flattened, but everything not in the compacted forward sections would have been protected from the extreme deceleration, making Kamalat glad that his station had been midway between the fore and aft, allowing him to survive.

His personal quarters were in the forward section, meaning that if he had swapped out his watch with a replacement he’d probably be dead by now.

“Hey, snap out of it. We’ve got supplies to sort and unload,” another Calavari said, coming up and lightly punching a fist into his chest. “You want to wait around for the Cajdital to come clean up?”

“No. What do you need of me?”

The other Calavari pointed to a small stack of crates that was being added to from a lower breach point that looked to be just above the dirt line.

“Inside there is the cargo bay. Get in there and salvage what you can, but watch out for surprises. No telling what power conduits are live or not.”

“On it,” Kamalat confirmed, trodding over the hot soil with his heavy footsteps making two inch imprints all the way up to the edge, where the ground turned from soil to a glassy, gnarled substance that was no doubt a result of the intense friction of impact.

“Catch,” a voice said as a crate floated his way.

Kamalat stepped inside to catch it, immediately feeling the gravity vanish, but he kept a hand outside the boundary of the still active IDF to center him. Where it was being projected from he wasn’t sure, but wherever it was that part of the ship still had power, otherwise everything would have been dumped forward rather than floating around…though he did see some jagged pieces of debris poking out from the forward wall, apparently having been driven through on impact.

“Got it,” Kamalat said, grabbing hold of the supply crate with two arms while using his other two to leverage him and the foodstuff container outside and back into gravity. The transition was clunky, but he stayed on his feet and held the container against his chest as he carried it over and added it to the growing stash, then headed back to the torqued open doors of the cargo bay, happy to be alive and with other survivors, though how long that would last was anyone’s guess, but for the moment at least the Cajdital had more important things to do than inspect the debris of crashed ships when there was still a large Alliance fleet left in orbit for them to engage.

2

May 7, 2470

Pagalis System

Inner Zone

With the Alliance fleet still in control of Varasiss orbit, though having been reduced in size by three fourths, the Cajdital had abandoned the mass attacks and resorted to smaller tactical assaults focusing on a select group of ships, eliminating them, then pulling back out with whatever ships they had left. Most of those assaults were cruiser groups led by a battleship or two, and the Hycre figured that the Cajdital were setting up for another attack with their invoker. To combat this, the Alliance had spread out their fleet across orbit, which made the Cajdital attacks even more effective at eliminating specific ships.

With that fact in mind and expecting the big attack to come eventually, spread out or not, the Hycre chose to hit first, having located the invoker in a shallow orbit around the huge orange star in the binary pair where the stellar winds nearly hid it from sensors. Farther up was the Cajdital fleet, still receiving a steady flow of warships into the system via jumpship, with well over a thousand of the carriers parked in a slightly higher orbit.

It was those carriers that the Hycre jumped on, despite the huge Cajdital fleet of warships nearby. Their binary drives added to their already higher agility, allowing the Hycre to make strafing runs on the jumpships, blowing by with 15-25 destroyers/cruisers and puncturing the shields on one with a single pass. Another group would follow through and take advantage of the temporary weakness even as the swarm of Cajdital cruisers moved in to try and block their path.

Of all the fleets that had been hard hit by the invoker, the Hycre had lost the least ships. Most had pulled back to their outer weapons range when the attack began, expecting the furthest portions of the energy field to be the weakest…and then pulling back outside it when their expectations fell short and they lost ships they’d expected to be safe.

After that they made short runs into gaps in the field, firing off their high yield plasma weapons and then ducking back out, hoping to survive any incidental hits, for it seemed that the energy arcs were at least partially targeted rather than completely random after a few moments of study. Normally some plasma would deflect off the Hycre shield matrixes, but unfortunately the invoker’s energy didn’t work the same way, though it did skip a bit across the shield perimeter, impacting on multiple spots before breaching through and hitting the hull.

The Alliance races that didn’t have energy shields had no protection at all aside from their armor, which the energy arcs were very good at melting/vaporizing.

The Hycre ships quickly learned how much invoker energy they could take…which wasn’t much, but it allowed them to make quick attack runs in that initial assault that had hurt its shields badly, while most of the firepower from the rest of the Alliance fleet didn’t make it through in the case of missiles, with the plasma being reduced to spit as they tried to stay out of range save for those ships brave/reckless enough to charge forward.

Both tactics had left the other fleets decimated, with the Kvash being the best to withstand the invoker attacks…though their slower speed had been disadvantageous. They were used to being the immobile power that others would play against, but with their starbase being taken out of the fight they had quickly been taken out of their element, and that shift in the tactical situation had cost them a significant number of ships before they’d adjusted and started to pull back.

Fortunately the invoker had started to take damage and retreated before it could pursue them, but still the Kvash had lost a high number of ships, leaving the Hycre with the defacto command of the crumbling defenses, which had already seen a few of the smaller races’ ships abandoning the effort and jumping away.

The Hycre knew if the invoker came back in the fleet would scatter, as they should, but that would leave the Cajdital with possession of a piece of planetary orbit, opening up a ground invasion of the planet. Plus, the fewer ships the Alliance could pull together, the less chance there was of taking the invoker down, which was why the Hycre had decided to take the fight to them, and were doing so in spectacular fashion.

The Cajdital jumpships, heavily armed as they were, were sitting ducks against the Hycre’s fleet, with many of them beginning to scatter and turning a once orderly formation into navigational chaos. The Hycre used that to their advantage, maneuvering through the gaps where the Cajdital cruisers couldn’t follow with as much ease. Like schools of deadly sharks the Hycre moved around and through the mass of Cajdital ships, but only hit the jumpships, forgoing the easy targets the cruisers made.

Thinking ahead past this invasion, the Hycre knew the less jumpships the enemy had the less ships and troops they could move around in future years, meaning that even if they couldn’t hold the Calavari homeworld they’d be slowing down other invasions by taking these sitting jumpships down while they were clustered together and vulnerable.

The mass of cruisers, battleships, and even a few dreadnaughts that the Cajdital were holding back moved to defend their jumpships as the big behemoths ran for wherever they could get openings, but the Hycre had come in from numerous angles, blocking the jumplines to the surrounding planets and making the Cajdital move laterally, giving them extra time to poach their targets given the Hycre destroyers’ greater speed.

As that ruckus was underway another group of Hycre ships was waiting on the jumpline they’d determined the Cajdital were arriving by and hitting new jumpships as they came in against the other star. Simultaneously a group of much larger Hycre ships…cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships…jumped from one star to the other and began circling around its orange mass at low altitude enroute for the position where they knew the invoker to be hiding.

Given the Hycre’s natural habitats within gas giants and their navy’s ability to fly into and through the massive atmospheres that they contained, the Hycre dipped lower into the star’s orbit and pushed through the thin, hot gasses there, weathering the damage to their shields until they came up on the invoker from below and made an initial strafing run against it at considerable speed intended to deliver their plasma at nearly pointblank range so that it wouldn’t be disrupted by the stellar winds.

The Cajdital saw them coming and began rising in altitude, but not before the Hycre got to them. The energy cascades didn’t manifest, which the Hycre had been hoping would be the case. The Cajdital would have to move clear of the star’s highly charged, thin upper atmosphere to use their primary weapon, and the Hycre were going to hurt them as much as possible before that.

The invoker’s shields had already been up and weakened by the sustained effort to ward off the star’s continual light damage, meaning that when the Hycre hit them they had less shields to punch through than normal. As soon as this and the fact that the ship wasn’t powering up its primary weapon became evident, the Hycre aborted their strafing runs and moved up in between the invoker’s arms and blasted away at the ship as it desperately tried to climb out from the star without creating too much turbulence.

Given the choice of getting blindsided by the Hycre or jumping too far in, the invoker’s crew decided to go with the later and made a very light microjump away from the star on no particular jumpline. The friction of the very thin stellar atmosphere popped what was left of their shields and sandblasted the massive ship’s hull, tearing through the outer layers of armor and damaging some of the emitters on the arms.

The Hycre followed easily, though it took them a moment to get back within firing range. When they did the primary weapon lit up and the invoker was once again encircled with cackles of multi-colored energy as it continued to run, though laterally this time, trying to get to a jumpline where it could escape.

Meanwhile the Cajdital fleet trying to defend the jumpships split in two, with half running back the other way to try and get to the invoker. Over the minutes between that happening or the invoker getting to a decent jumpline, the Hycre ships braved the energy field and continued to attack the invoker with short strafing runs led by the largest of their ships.

The Hycre battleships would punch a hole in the energy arcs, taking the brunt of the storm while the others would follow them through taking less hits than otherwise, but after the first pass was made the Hycre discovered that some of the emitters had been damaged, leaving a few holes in the invoker’s ever fluctuating energy field.

The Hycre moved instantly to exploit the weakness and flew very difficult navigational routes to keep their ships tucked up inside those holes and directly over the hull of the invoker as it altered its trajectory and speed regularly, trying to shake its pursuit. They managed to break through the armor and get at the Cajdital ship’s interior, eventually sheering off one of the emitter arms and creating a much larger gap in the field around where it had been.

The Hycre packed ships inside that gap, but the Cajdital finally got to a useable jumpline and bumped their way free, ramming four of the cruisers at low speed and taking additional damage from the collisions as the energy arcs disappeared and the massive black ship disappeared in a blur.

The Hycre went after it, sending some of their ships out on the same jumpline while the others laid down tractor beams onto their own damaged ships and pulled them away on slow jumps after extending their IDF fields to cover the energy tethers, else the surge of acceleration would have torn them apart. They managed to do so just before the swarm of Cajdital ships caught up to them, and the enemy knew better than to try and pursue, given the Hycre’s better navigational capability.

The fleet attacking the Cajdital jumpships didn’t stay around long either after the other ships came into play. While the enemy couldn’t stay with them, give them enough numbers and all they had to do was blanket the approaches with plasma and the Cajdital would rack up enough hits on the Hycre ships to take them down.

Still, they persisted a bit longer, expertly navigating through the hoard and hitting a few dozen cruisers for good measure before pulling out, taking shield and armor damage with them, but without losing a single ship.

They left 86 damaged Cajdital jumpships behind, some of which were so torn up they were near to snapping in half. That number was small compared to how many were present in the system, with more still arriving with fresh warships and troops, but anywhere else that would have been a massive catastrophe and the Hycre knew it. Plus, two of the 86 had been the Cajdital’s largest jumpship models, capable of ferrying around their battleships and dreadnaughts, if not upwards of 1000 cruisers.

One of those massive jumpships, along with several ‘small’ ones were falling into the star, having been trying to escape in that direction when their gravity drives were hit, with the Cajdital fleet of warships swarming around them and trying to physically push the larger craft into a stable orbit, but in the case of the big jumpship the math wasn’t in their favor, and soon the Cajdital figured that out as well, for a plethora of smaller craft began abandoning it in a hurry as it began to kiss the star’s upper atmosphere.

The Cajdital’s plan of rendezvousing close in to the star to help mask long range sensors was now coming back to bite them, spectacularly so, as the mammoth jumpship began to burn in a huge plume of atmosphere it kicked up on the way down, then it fragmented as it hit a lower layer within the star, with each piece breaking up and further disintegrating as it sank lower and lower into the star.

Once again the Hycre’s naval mastery had stuck it to the Cajdital, but they had so many ships in the system they could overcome the losses and continued to do so, immediately jumping the bulk of their fleet out, intent on assaulting Varasiss while the Hycre were absent.

They left behind a significant force to guard the damaged jumpships, but the rest of the huge Cajdital ships were dispersed throughout the system, making it impossible for the Hycre to locate and exploit any clustering of vessels. That said, the Hycre also saw this as an advantage, for their ships were good at hunting others down, and the larger the ships the easier it was to track and intercept them…which was one reason why the Cajdital had chosen to press the attack now, forcing the Hycre to make a decision.

Over 2,000 cruisers, 50+ battleships, and 6 dreadnaughts surged their way back towards Varasiss in a stream, holding off high above the planet until their numbers pooled, then they dove towards low orbit, heading towards the nearest cluster of Alliance ships which was pathetically small in comparison, given how spread out they’d become in case the invoker came back.

The Hycre ships still in orbit, few as they were given they’d devoted nearly everything they had to the stellar assault, issued orders to the rest of the Alliance fleet, and regardless of what the other races thought about their arrogant presumption, they complied with the ‘suggestion’ and moved off on specified courses that the Hycre had not deigned to explain.

That explanation was given in the arrival of handfuls of Hycre destroyers, frigates, and corvettes that had been sitting in ambush positions across the system coming back on specific jumplines and intercepting the Cajdital with calculated precision that was typical Hycre. The other Hycre smaller ships were still bouncing around the system chasing errant jumpships and making a few kills, though most were playing a wounding game, eliciting damage where they could until their little stings could eventually get through, which in the case of a jumpship was more about mass than shield strength, with their gravity drives buried deep within the hull.

Seeing the Cajdital counterattack a lot of those ships had to be recalled, but enough were left to keep the enemy jumpships busy, and with the Alliance’s coordination with the Hycre the massive battle the Cajdital was looking for didn’t arise. Rather, it was broken down into smaller engagements that favored the Hycre ships when backed up by other Alliance vessels.

The enemy wasn’t stupid, and they saw this immediately. Instead of trying to abort the attack they pursued it and fought the Alliance on their own terms, all the while calling for some of their jumpships to return. They picked their jumplines carefully, and as the fighting entered its 3rd hour across low to high orbit, a group of 16 jumpships plus escorts arrived in an empty region above the low orbit defense grid of Calavari battle stations.

Before the Alliance could get enough ships back over to intercept them, the Cajdital launched a wave of cruisers that blew past the battle stations, taking numerous hits as they went, mostly from missile impacts. A few ships were lost, but the cruisers were clumped together so tightly the Calavari stations couldn’t down them quick enough, letting some 88% through to the atmosphere…where they were met by swarms of Valeries that exploited the damage the stations had made in their shields and hulls.

They followed the cruisers all the way to ground, losing many of the fighters in the process, but even more once their descent slowed and their anti-air plasma shards became more effective at range with the air no longer blowing them apart as soon as they left their batteries.

The Valeries were forced to withdrawal and watch the cruisers land, staking out four different locations on the second largest southern continent, whereupon the cargo cruisers began disgorging huge numbers of hover tanks and infantry protected by the cruisers’ guns that held back both the Calavari air and tanks. They were used to getting their asses handed to them on the ground by the Nestafar, but the Cajdital didn’t have walkers and in that regard they were even…both had tanks, both had infantry, both had aircraft…and the Calavari liked the matchup, but not the Cajdital cruisers’ ability to influence the ground campaign.

And as they always did, the Cajdital began burrowing and building within their cruiser ring, with a portable shield generator going up within the day, covering all the cruisers in the ring with a much stronger shield that also protected the surface structures being assembled, giving the Cajdital their first footholds on the Calavari capitol.

3

May 9, 2470

Pagalis System

Outer Zone

The invoker made another microjump, braking against a significantly-sized planet on the outskirts of the system…and right into a group of Hycre warships waiting for it. They were waiting just to the side of the jumpline and ended up within 40 kilometers of the massive Cajdital ship, guessing with incredible accuracy where it would end up. The smaller Hycre ships, who didn’t show up on sensors as soon due to their limited cross-sections and which were pointed straight onto the jumpline to further decrease the sensor image and give the Cajdital less warning to alter their braking point, accelerated quickly and got into firing range before the invoker could spin up its primary weapon.

Smaller Cajdital plasma cannons fired back, but they were few in number, capable of defending against a handful of ships, but it was readily apparent that the invoker had been designed for one purpose and one purpose only. It was a tool designed to be used in concert with a fleet of warships, but as it was fleeing from point to point within the system it had no escorts, and the Hycre had been nipping at it for two days, with the largest damage having been done when it tried to get back to the pair of stars to make a jump out of the system.

The Hycre had been waiting in ambush and pounded it to the point that its hull armor was punctured and a serious internal wound became visible as the ship vented both atmosphere and debris out the small hole…but due to the invoker’s huge size even that amount of damage was trivial, and it had microjumped back away from the stars, hoping to bounce around to one of dozens of jumplines that would bring it back into the primary gravity wells where the Hycre weren’t waiting.

But nearly every jump it made saw at least a few Hycre ships that usually got in a good salvo or two. By now the invoker had limited shields, unable to secure enough time to recharge them, and the one time they’d tried to make a slow jump to buy them time the Hycre jumped ahead and were waiting for them with even more numbers than it faced now.

The whale-like ships pounded its hull at close range, then pulled back as its primary weapon finally came online. The invoker began repositioning over to another jumpline, but the Hycre still had an opening to hit, given that the energy fields were missing around the severed pylon.

The weakened shields gave way before it could jump out and the Hycre racked up some more small-scale hull damage, hitting both armor and exposed interior components before the invoker accelerated away towards a planet on the far side of the system. The longer jump took additional time, and when it arrived there was already a battle going on between the Hycre and the Cajdital who’d placed cruisers at that location.

Those cruisers were having their ass handed to them, but the Hycre couldn’t ignore them completely and only got a few light hits in against the invoker as the Cajdital warships hounded them. It jumped out again without taking any further hull damage, enroute to another location that the Cajdital was positioning support ships.

When it arrived at a large moon of the 6th planet, the invoker ran smack into a larger Hycre fleet in the final moments of tearing apart the cruisers that had been put there to support it. A Hycre battleship was amongst the group, and it immediately surged out towards the invoker that had its braking point at a slightly higher altitude.

The invoker tried to run around to the nearest jumpline, not wanting to reverse course and go back to the ships waiting for it where it had just been, and began to spin up its primary weapon, but it wasn’t fast enough. The Hycre battleship got up close over the weak spot and blasted away at another pylon, getting through the shields just as the energy field began to manifest. That made the blind spot even bigger, and the invoker tried to spin around to catch the battleship in the intact portion of the field, but the Hycre ship moved with it as other ships also came in and added their firepower.

Two more pylons were disabled, though not destroyed, before the invoker made the jump away from the moon, heading over to the planet in the blink of an eye. The Hycre followed, but the maneuver gave the invoker a little bit of a head start. It took more damage enroute to the jumpline it wanted, then emerged back at system’s center, coming out against the smaller of the two stars where a large Cajdital fleet was waiting.

It was battling the Hycre as the faster Alliance ships zipped in and out of their lines, but when the invoker arrived the fleet immediately surrounded it in escort formation as it headed for an interstellar jumpline that would get it out of the system. As they did they lost numerous ships, for the Hycre coming at them from multiple directions ate up their perimeter ships rather than trying to bust through and assault the invoker directly. With a blind spot in its offensive capability the Hycre knew they now owned it, and were more than happy to take the advantage offered them and eliminate more of the Cajdital ships, even if they didn’t get the invoker.

Which they didn’t. It successfully moved through stellar orbit until it got to its jumpline, then vanished in a blur of motion after the Cajdital support ships moved out of the way after plowing a road through the Hycre waiting to block them.

When the invoker jumped it was immediately damaged, having run into a mine field the Hycre had hastily set up further out from the star along the jumpline. The ‘mines’ were kinetic, meaning they were just chunks of dense mass deposited in a location where the invoker would jump through. The mines were tiny compared to the size of the invoker, but they cut into it like a hot knife through butter, breaking apart as they hit the hull and turning into a narrow cloud of shrapnel at each location, punching through the entire length of the ship and blasting out the far side, with their debris dragging behind the ship on its outward trajectory with high speed, effectively clearing the jumpline after an hour or so due to the erratic drift of the residue.

The invoker lost several gravity drives, which eventually killed it a few days later when it wasn’t able to decelerate as quickly as needed, resulting it in hitting the destination star. The Hycre didn’t know of their kill, for they had no ships in the far system to note the impact, but when the mine-layers went back to recover their mines they only recovered 78% of them, so they knew they’d done damage to the ship killer.

The rest of the Cajdital fleet that had been covering for the invoker got chewed up by the Hycre until they started to mass together, at which point the Hycre spread out and fled, preferring to hunt smaller groupings of the Cajdital around the system or waiting for them to come back to Varasiss and ambush them there when they had other Alliance ships to assist.

Eventually that’s where the Alliance and Cajdital fleets ended up, with a more standard battle ensuing. The enemy kept sending cruiser formations down to the surface of the planet, which the Hycre and others would try and intercept, often with success. As the Calavari army attempted futilely to assault their encampments, going up against the grounded cruisers’ firepower, the Hycre dispatched several smaller ships to assist them, but aside from damaging a few ships they couldn’t get past the clustered Cajdital defenses.

The Hycre eventually responded by sending down more ships, which is what the Cajdital wanted. With a significant number of their warships on the ground the main orbital assault resumed, with the targets being the remaining Kvash battleships, of which there were 9 left…out of an original 26. They were spaced around orbit in clusters of three, along with most of the rest of the Alliance fleet, though there were some smaller groups from other races dotting the wide spaces in between so they could get better runs against Cajdital cruisers going to ground.

The enemy hit all three groups simultaneously, with a dreadnaught leading each attack alongside a handful of battleship escorts and a mass of cruisers. Each dreadnaught was three times the length of the battleships and equally rounded and elongated, but with a vertical fin coming out the top and bottom that ran from bow to stern, making them reminiscent of the flat cruisers and equipped with a handful of supersized plasma cannons.

The rest of their hulls were coated in cruiser-size cannons and anti-air plasma units, making them more than a formidable match for a Kvash battleship. Three, on the other hand, was more than a dreadnaught could take alone, which was where the rest of the Cajdital fleet was going to come into play…but once again the Kvash found themselves on the small side of the engagement, putting them outside their comfort zone.

But not far out. The three battleships formed into a vertical triangle, giving each a clear view of the dreadnaught minus the ships in between. Most were Cajdital cruisers, but there were also a handful of Hycre destroyers leaping out to the front to zip around and through the enemy lines, hoping to disrupt their formation and cause some damage before the two fleets slammed into one another. Spaced around the trio of battleships were the Kvash’s ‘smaller’ vessels. Battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers aligned into a halo around the three, waiting for the Cajdital to come to them, with a mass of Kitot warships lined up in between the gaps.

They were one of the Alliance’s junior races, brought in by the Kvash and well accustomed to doing battle alongside their benefactor, not just against the Cajdital, but against a number of other threats over the history of their relationship, given that Kitot territory overlapped with the much larger Kvash domain. Individually they were older, much older, with the average lifespan upwards of 500 years, but physically they were small, coming up to a Human’s waist and appearing like a ‘tripod’ on their three legs…which the Star Force pilots had come to nickname them on Daka.

Their ships were small as well, each being frigate class. Normally that wouldn’t be of much help to the Kvash with heavy fighting, but the unique design of the Kitot warships provided them with far more punch than their size suggested. They had one weapon and one weapon only, housed within the forward column of the tri-finned design that mimicked their body structure. That weapon was plasma based, but unlike a streamer which discharged a continuous narrow beam, the Kitot cannons produced and held the plasma inside a forward cavity, growing the contained plasma orb to insane size before finally releasing it when and where they chose.

As the Cajdital ships approached the Alliance fleet and began engaging the forward elements belonging to the other races, little glowing orbs of pink popped up like Christmas lights encircling the Kvash warships, with each of those lights growing brighter by the moment as they increased their charge. Then, when the forward Cajdital cruisers began taking hits by the Kvash plasma streamers that tore through their shields in a matter of seconds, the Kitot ships began to move, forming into little schools of fish that swam after individuals ships that moved past the Kvash, either intact or damaged.

They fell in behind them and launched their pink plasma orbs, each of which hit with a wider cross-section than even the largest plasma streamer on the Kvash battleships, or any other plasma weapon within the Alliance fleet aside from the starbases. The weapons had a slow recharge cycle, but by having 10-15 ships per group, they were able to hit the ship they were trailing with several quick shots that downed the cruiser without trouble.

Once the task was done the Kitot swarm turned around, snaking their way back up in next to the Kvash ships where they waited for their next target, either picking one themselves or going after ships the Kvash tagged for them. Conventional wisdom held that when attacking the Kvash you had to go after their biggest ship first, else they’d wear down your fleet, diminishing your weapon count, and making it harder to take down the biggest one later.

With that tactic in mind, the Kitot were literally daring the Cajdital to shoot at them instead. A gifting of shield tech gave the little ships more durability than most, but they wouldn’t stand up against a lot of firepower…but if they were attacked, then they were taking the hits for the Kvash, which would mean their bigger ships would persist longer in the battle, which was bad news for the Cajdital.

If the enemy didn’t target the Kitot, they’d essentially get free shots in that would assist with the Kvash’s weapons fire, exploiting shield breaches or weakening others as an extension of the Kvash fleet when needed. More often than not the Kvash ships would hit a passing Cajdital cruiser, taking down its shields but failing to kill it, then they’d send the Kitot to finish it off, often with the support of the Fanset, another Kvash invitee to the Alliance, but one that they had a looser relationship with.

The Fanset fleet was lined up behind the Kvash, given their ships were largely inferior to the rest. What they had going for them was mass…they were all fat blobs halfway to being a sphere with strategic/random protrusions over their hulls, and not all of their ships had similar designs. They, along with six other races, in addition to the Hycre, were deployed behind and around the Kvash, letting them take the brunt of the attack.

The Kvash had indicated that they wanted it that way, with the understanding that the others would move forward and engage when called for or when they saw an opportunity to strike without getting themselves mauled by the larger Cajdital ships…which headed straight for the Kvash behind a wave of cruisers.

The dreadnaught targeted the lower Kvash battleship, pouring its forward cannonfire squarely into the forward lobe of the tri-sphere ship, smothering the shields with huge green plasma orbs as maroon streamers replied from all three battleships. Smaller cannons on the dreadnaught that were in range also opened fire, though most didn’t have firing lines given the angle or the mass of other ships flanking them.

The Cajdital battleships also targeted the same Kvash battleship, which quickly became overwhelmed with plasma, prompting it to rotate to bring another sphere into the firing line as the Kvash signaled for the other races’ fleets to begin assaulting the flanks of the enemy.

They responded by flying around the outskirts of the Kvash fleet and angling in on strafing runs, small ships and large, against the battleships and whatever cruisers got in their way. Many of them moved slowly, but they didn’t stick around to slug it out with the Cajdital, forming several rivers of ships that constantly kept moving, all the while the Kvash remained as still as the rocks they looked like.

The Fanset were the only ones that didn’t move, for the Kvash were keeping them in reserve. As it was plenty of cruisers were coming their way as they strafed the battleships, which the Fanset were engaging if they moved through the gap between the fleets, in the middle of which the Kitot were chasing down many. It wasn’t until the Cajdital dreadnaught lost its forward shields and saw that it wasn’t going to be able to take down the battleship that it dipped underneath the Kvash formation and accelerated ahead, trying to get away from the battle as the enemy cruisers continued to fly and shoot in a frenzied storm, now targeting the smaller Alliance ships.

The Kvash battleships continued to pour plasma streamers into the top of the dreadnaught as it passed underneath, then two of the Kvash cruisers dropped down to pace it, exchanging close range fire with its side batteries. That was when the Kvash commanders tagged the Fanset with hitting the dreadnaught as it accelerated away closer to the planet as it curved through a wide arc setting up for a jump.

Using their fat hulls to surround the dreadnaught, the Fanset hit it with everything they had as the Kitot swarms were sent after it as well. The Kvash battleships and most of their support ships took on the rest of the Cajdital fleet, which was still largely intact, leaving the hunt to their two subordinate races now that they’d wounded the big ship.

It was a fair fight, with the Fanset and Kitot taking heavy losses, but their combined firepower shredded the dreadnaught’s exterior hull, knocking out most of its weaponry before it resorted to lightly ramming three Fanset ships out of the way to make an escape jump, with the rest of the Cajdital fleet retreating soon thereafter.

The other two Alliance fleets didn’t fare so well, with one losing a battleship and the other losing two, though that Cajdital assault group was virtually destroyed in the effort. The other two groups had different races in support, for each faction within the Alliance didn’t like splitting up their fleets, leaving the Kitot and Fanset bolstering only the one group of Kvash ships, which had made the difference in this engagement by giving the Kvash more combat assets to work with, whereas the other races were more or less random factors in the otherwise controlled and scripted battle.

The Hycre poached many ships in the engagement, including the dreadnaught some hours later when they ran it down and delivered a fatal blow to its gravity drives, pinning it in place in orbit around the 12th planet in the system. After that it was just a matter of time before they killed it, though they got many cruisers to die defending it beforehand, essentially using the monster ship as a lure to peel off ships from other deployments into smaller, manageable numbers.

The other two dreadnaughts suffered damage as well, with one being destroyed and the other coming off lightly. It retreated along with the other ships, but failing to have taken out more of the Kvash ships the Cajdital transitioned to a more coy strategy, given that their long stream of jumpships entering the system had come to an end. There would be more reinforcements coming in the months ahead, but their initial assault group was now fully assembled, with there being too few ships to rely on the swarming tactic. Had they eliminated the Kvash battleships it would have been another story, but six still remained, and that was more than the Cajdital could easily handle.

With troops already on the ground and the ability to land more under protest, the Cajdital switched from an orbital assault plan to a ground assist strategy, with cruisers running cargo ships to ground and clustering around their shield generators when the Hycre came knocking. Had their warships not been in play, the Cajdital would have sent their ships en mass into the atmosphere to attack Calavari ground targets, but they knew that was suicide, so they decided to play the waiting game, defending their footholds as needed while they constructed bases that would eventually grow to the point where they could start producing troops and ships of their own.

When that happened, they would be all but impossible to remove from the surface.

4

July 2, 2470

Pagalis System

Radamal

Kamalat ran through the trees, a rifle in both sets of hands, following three of his fellow Calavari as they retreated ahead of a thong of Cajdital infantry whom they’d just ambushed. He ducked under one low branch then pushed his way through a dense set of bushes until he came out onto the creek bank and ran across the mostly dry stone wash, hearing the smaller Cajdital foot strikes closing in behind him.

His shields flared with a plasma hit on his back as he got to the water, but they held up, protecting his otherwise vulnerable skin. The shield harness he wore blocked energy only, not physical objects, and fortunately the plasma counted as both, but he knew it wouldn’t last against more than a few hits without time for its capacitor to recharge, so he dug down into his well of energy and forced his tired legs to move a bit faster.

Before he got to the opposing brush line a hail of golden plasma streaks sailed around him and the others, coming from concealed snipers. Though he couldn’t see it, more than a dozen Cajdital went down behind him as they exited the vegetation cover, with more coming out by the second as they ran into the second part of the ambush.

Kamalat burst through the green leaves and back into the forest, turning a quick right and zigzagging his way around to an opening in the Calavari line that had decent cover, then he knelt down and brought both rifles up into firing position. With the leaves covering most of his body and his eyesight, he relied on the holographic tracking icon that floated above the top of each barrel as he set the power level to low and began firing off a hail of golden lances.

He and the other Calavari mowed the Cajdital down with great satisfaction, with Kamalat wounding/killing at least half a dozen himself, though it was difficult to keep track of them all, for there was so much plasma fire exchanging and bodies dropping that it quickly became chaotic…then he heard yells from the opposite side of their line, Calavari yells, which told him something had gone wrong.

Kamalat only had a split second’s warning as he rotated both rifles around to the left enroute to pulling back and heading to assist where the trouble was when his holographic tracking markers picked up the Cajdital flankers’ body head, flashing quick targets across the tiny displays as he turned.

“On the left!” he yelled, pointing the barrels back to where he’d picked up the signatures and opening fire as quickly as his thick fingers could pump the triggers, eviscerating the greenery in between him and his targets.

In response a much larger storm of green plasma orbs came back, blasting into tree trunks and branches, setting them on fire or simply blowing them apart, with what plasma didn’t hit coming through hitting the Calavari line and Kamalat in the head. Fortunately his shield covered his face and held up to the hit, but he flinched so bad on impact that he tipped over backwards and fell to the ground with several more plasma orbs passing through the space where his body had just been.

Cajdital infantry then came into sight, and Kamalat aimed at them from the ground with no time to get up, simultaneously resetting his power levels to a low medium so that he could be sure to take them down with one hit each, then he fired off thicker lances at two of them simultaneously, using the advantage of four arms and superior rifle tech to cut down those enemies closest to him.

The thin chest armor the Cajdital wore didn’t fully stop the Calavari plasma, leaving each shot with enough plasma to cut deep into their flesh. As he’d come to expect after weeks of ground combat, the two dropped to the ground wounded or probably dead, leaving four more coming out of the greenery behind them. The Cajdital had let their other infantry get mowed down crossing the creek as a diversion, buying time for this group and probably one on the other side to flank them, and now they were about to get the payoff.

The Calavari next to Kamalat took several hits, with at least one of them penetrating his shields. He heard his scream as the green plasma burned into his leg, but he didn’t dare look back as he fired more and more shots off against the enemy infantry while he struggled to get back up on at least a knee. He didn’t want to get shot dead sitting on his ass.

Kamalat shot another one dead before two more plasma orbs hit his chest shields, weakening them to the breaching point, then as more Cajdital infantry worked their way out of the brush he saw a tiny blur of fur jump up from the ground and cling to one of their heads, whereupon the Urik’kadel fired a tiny wristbound pistol into the Cajdital’s skull when the short barrel made physical contact.

The Cajdital dropped to the ground, dead before it landed, with the little rabbit-like alien jumping off and heading for another as several dozen of them came out of the forest and ambushed the flankers.

“Move Calavari!” one of them yelled at Kamalat as he slowly got himself back up on his feet. “More are on their way. Follow us.”

Kamalat glanced down the line, seeing that most of his fellow soldiers were dead, with two firing at something off to the right as they retreated towards him. Taking their cue he turned and backpedaled in the direction of the Urik’kadel, shooting at Cajdital targets out of sight with his rifle’s sensors while glancing back over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t trip over anything, get ambushed, or lose sight of their diminutive allies…who were quickly outpacing him as they jumped a few more enemy infantry that were popping through from the creek bed.

Eventually he just turned and ran, hoping the faster Cajdital wouldn’t catch him, and followed the Urik’kadel through the woods on a nonlinear path…with Kamalat not having a clue where he was by the time they finally stopped in a crater-like hollow. The little aliens crept up to the top edges to stand watch while Kamalat and a few other Calavari took cover in the center, with their heads just below the height of the surrounding ridges.

“Where are we?” one of the other Calavari asked.

“Northeast of the mining site,” one of the Urik’kadel said, running up between the huge aliens. “We can follow trail back to base once we make sure Cajdital are not coming.”

“What trail?” Kamalat asked. The base they’d been operating out of had been built underground in a clearing that had four roads leading out of it, with the intent being to deny the Nestafar the use of their walkers in assaulting it and making them come down inside with infantry and protomechs, while the Calavari’s own tanks would fit through the entrances, giving them the vehicular advantage for once. But as far as he knew, other than the roads, there were no trails leading to the base.

“Scent trail we leave. It’s how we know to get here.”

“Thank you,” one of the five Calavari said, kicking a stone half buried in the dirt and dislodging it enough to pop it up two meters into the air. “How did they beat us this time?”

“I don’t know,” Kamalat said, equally angry. The ambush should have worked. How the Cajdital had gotten across the creek and flanked them without being seen didn’t make any sense.

“Enemy transports,” the Urik’kadel said, pointing at the sky. “They fly behind and drop troops.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Mining base, far side. We saw from trees.”

“They must have gone pretty far out of their way to get around us,” Kamalat said in disgust. “Why didn’t you signal us with comms?”

“They no work near base.”

The Calavari beside Kamalat checked his, finding it marginally operational.

“Damn it. They’ve got a jamming field set up. That means they were waiting for us to strike.”

“Why?” Kamalat asked.

“Because we’ve been hitting too many of their precious convoys, that’s why,” he said, stomping on the ground so hard the little Urik’kadel visibly bounced. “They need resources to feed their invasion of Varasiss and we’ve been disrupting their output, so they set a trap.”

“By letting us set a trap for them?”

“They’re devious bastards, I’ll give them that,” the Calavari said, looking down at the Urik’kadel. “Did anyone else make it out? Have your scouts seen anyone else?”

The little rabbit-like creature twitched and looked to the perimeter around the hollow, conversing in its native language for a few seconds before staring back up at the high Calavari head above it.

“No one. Just you here.”

Kamalat took a knee, angry and depressed. “That was a fourth of our troops.”

“So long as one of us remains we’re gonna make these bastards pay, I promise you,” the elder Calavari said, dragging Kamalat to his feet by his left upper elbow. “We need to get moving…if it’s clear?” he asked, glancing down.

“No pursuit. Trail is open,” the Urik’kadel said, moving off to the edge. “Calavari follow.”

“Go ahead,” he said, bumping Kamalat as he passed. The Calavari naval officer fell into step behind the mechanic, with the other three doing likewise as they walked up and out of the hollow and off through the forest on a random path following their little guides, alert for more Cajdital ambushes.

None would arise by the time they got back to base, whereupon a subsurface structure lifted up to expose an entrance cupola towards the edge of the grassy clearing, but not so near as to give the enemy cover in the tree line. There were a mass of weapons turrets currently hidden below ground that could pop up and give covering fire if needed, thus the entrances had to have a clear radius around them, though Kamalat and the others certainly didn’t feel like running across the open any more than the Urik’kadel did.

The little ones went first, racing across the grass with their bodies being mostly obscured by it, and attaining speeds the Calavari couldn’t match. They got to the entrance and hopped down into the stairwell long before Kamalat and the others arrived. When the five of them had entered, barely two steps inside, the whole assembly began to lower down, closing off the entrance and leaving only a thick chunk of armor on top surrounded by dirt for the enemy to shoot at if they so chose.

The base had been attacked twice already. Once by air and once by ground, but both times the Calavari defenses held and the Cajdital seemed unwilling to lose another cruiser, with the remains of the dead one sitting upended in the forest several kilometers off where it eventually fell. The base defense turrets had been designed to shoot and kill Nestafar walkers, meaning they had to be very potent weapons, which proved sufficient to penetrate the shields and armor on a Cajdital cruiser in short order, though they had lost three turrets in the process.

That victory had kept the base in Alliance hands, with them gathering every survivor they could find to them…which was extremely few, given the lack of population on the moon. Kamalat and his crew had been the biggest fine, with most of the workers in the nearby facilities having been evacuated to the base before the first Cajdital arrived.

The Calavari had then been divided into 5 teams, each of which had enough troops to conduct round the clock operations, with the base commander insisting on such. He and the others knew there would be no escape for them, for the moon’s orbit was fully under Cajdital control. The Alliance still held Varasiss orbit, more or less, and the base was in constant contact with them, but they weren’t in a position to assist any of the moons, for the Cajdital had taken over them all and begun harvesting their on-hand resources immediately to set up bases.

Those bases had started their own mining efforts recently, with at least some of the produce being shipped off the moon and sent down to Varasiss…meaning that the moons were the industrial base that the Cajdital were going to use to feed their invasion, even if the Calavari troops on the capitol managed to contain the enemy’s footholds and not allow them to expand to the point where they could harvest their own resources, either from salvage or directly from the planet’s crust.

The Alliance had determined this and informed Kamalat’s base that they needed to do as much as they could to disrupt the Cajdital’s efforts there, and to their credit the Hycre had been assaulting the moon’s orbit and on occasion strafing surface targets, but they’d been unable to drive the Cajdital off, leaving it to Kamalat’s ragtag band of conscripts to fight a guerilla war against their enemy’s resource gathering operations, most of whom were not infantry trained.

The Urik’kadel had come to the moon the same way Kamalat had, having been onboard a carrier when it crashed on the planetoid. The pilots it’d been servicing had mostly been killed in the battle, but a few had made it to ground in their miniature Valeries, ironically giving the base more Alliance pilots than Calavari, which was a mark of shame to the piloting specialists, but at this point any bit of military hardware and personnel was of extreme value, and they were grateful for the tiny pilots…especially given their high skill level.

The carrier they’d been based on was Calavari, and a few of its crew also survived the crash, having been brought back to the base after the Cajdital strafed the survivors. Fortunately that hadn’t happened to Kamalat’s cruiser, but then again the carrier was a greater threat, and even crumpled on the surface it still could have had useable aircraft…which it had.

The Urik’kadel had been on the Calavari carrier because their own starships were pathetically primitive, and even though it had been the Kvash that had brought them into the Alliance, they and the Calavari had quickly become close friends, given the innate piloting skill that both races seemed to possess. For that reason the Urik’kadel had offered to help defend the Calavari capitol, though in truth they didn’t belong here, for some of their own worlds were being overrun by the Cajdital, and those conflicts were little more than organized slaughters.

Kamalat knew this because he was naval, and the Urik’kadel lived on naval carriers. Perhaps they were better off here than getting destroyed on their own worlds, but it seemed that it wasn’t going to matter anyway. Here or there they were going to die at Cajdital hands, and if Varasiss did fall, then the Calavari empire was doomed as well. Things already looked bleak, but if they could hold the capitol then some hope remained…and if they were going to do that, Kamalat and the others on the moon needed to give their troops fighting over there as much assistance as possible, meaning hampering the Cajdital here in whatever way they could.

To that end, as soon as Kamalat arrived at the base he was put back into the field on another mission, and would continue to do so round the clock with adequate breaks for sleep and food, but little else. Time was the object of the game here, for they knew they couldn’t beat the Cajdital. They were too many and had naval air support, which aside from over their base they couldn’t hope to touch.

No, their objective was to slow the Cajdital down and steal from them as many resources as they could, whether by destruction or relocation. Every pallet of ingots they took away from them here was one that wouldn’t be delivered down to Varasiss, so even though their own fate seemed sealed, all of the Calavari worked diligently to do what they could for their brothers down on the planet below.

5

February 23, 2471

Pagalis System

Varasiss

The Hycre cruiser, recently arrived insystem, glided across the Calavari landscape of tulip-shaped buildings capped off by an invisible defense shield enroute to the Cajdital  encampment some 132 kilometers away. A ring of destruction surrounded it, marking the location of intense naval bombardment from the grounded enemy cruisers that now sat underneath their own defense shield, shooting at any Calavari ground troops stupid enough to assault them…and many had tried before abandoning the effort short of a new idea arising.

Likewise the Cajdital stayed bunkered underneath their own defenses, burrowing and building as the Calavari likewise dug tunnels toward them, creating an underground war zone where the tunnels met up that favored the Calavari up until the Cajdital began producing mauler variants. Their forearm blades and thicker build allowed them to get up close and go hand to hand with the larger aliens, cutting through their energy shields as if they weren’t even there and causing a considerable amount of wounds where their plasma wouldn’t penetrate.

The Calavari countered this with more conventional body armor, which the Cajdital then countered with det packs in the low numbered battlefield that kept the high population of the planet out of the fight and reduced the conflict down to numbers the Cajdital could handle. While they would gladly take any advances the tunneling could provide, for the enemy it was yet another delaying tactic as they brought down more transports through the aerial blockade and supplemented the troops they were now growing on the surface with additional materials, foodstuffs, and armaments.

The Hycre couldn’t get through their cruiser stacks, with more than 100 in each of the now 7 foothold locations, all of which were close enough to one another that they could disrupt the Alliance’s aircraft, making them zigzag their way through the area to avoid the growing number of wisps on patrol that were no longer allowing the Valeries to fly free around the defense shield, not that they were going to penetrate it with aircraft weapons anyway.

The bases were close enough that the wisps could easily come to the aid of the others after a short delay, with the Calavari and Urik’kadel working to thin those numbers, but the Cajdital kept producing and importing more to replace their losses, enough to create a lingering standoff that favored the enemy.

The Hycre cruiser was about to break that standoff, flying through atmosphere towards a rendezvous spot with six destroyers already on station outside the effective plasma range of the Cajdital cruisers…which was significantly reduced in atmosphere compared to the vacuum of space. The Hycre cruiser, however, was a recent model, fresh out of the shipyard and yet to see any combat. It appeared to have the same hull specifications as the others of its class…save for one tiny spot on the front that held a different, large weapon battery.

The destroyers spread out when it arrived and moved into holding hovers more than a kilometer out from it, ready to intercept the hornets’ nest they were about to poke. The warships were 78 kilometers away from the closest Cajdital base and well outside of weapons range of the plasma that the enemy relied upon.

They were also outside of Hycre plasma range, but thanks to the gift from their Star Force allies, this cruiser had a weapon that could far exceed that range.

With its nose pointed towards the base, the Hycre cruiser spat out a perfectly straight white cleansing beam that passed underneath the elevated shield arc and slammed straight into the tower producing it. That tower also had a secondary shield wrapped around it, but the cleansing beam sucked power out of it quickly, then shut off. The capacitor inside the cruiser quickly refilled, then the Hycre warship fired again, hitting the weakened shields and punching through into the armored exterior.

By the time it fired a third shot the cruisers underneath the shield were already beginning to lift off, with the Hycre beam drifting sideways and slicing through the tower. Several dozen meters later, but still well shy from reaching the exterior, something vital within the tower was hit and the protective cap over the base disappeared in the blink of an eye just before the beam abated.

The next shot went for one of the cruisers charging out of the base towards the Hycre ship, puncturing its shields in short order, but not causing enough damage to destroy it with a single shot. The recharge rate on the weapon was significant enough that the single weapon wasn’t going to do much against the dozens of cruisers heading their way, with even more coming out from the other bases as backup.

But they weren’t sending all of them, for they correctly presumed that they needed to keep units in place to protect the infrastructure they’d been building. From several positions within the Calavari cities a mass of Valeries took to the air as more Hycre ships in orbit suddenly dropped down and headed for the now exposed base.

When that happened virtually every cruiser on the ground began to lift off and stack the airspace between the target and the incoming Hycre ships while wisps poured out to defend against the incoming fighters…which while ill-suited for going against warships of the size and number of the Cajdital cruisers, were quite capable of razing building and ground troops.

The upgraded Hycre cruiser got off another shot before its escort destroyers took off, their targets chosen, and zipped out to flanking attack lines while the cruiser gained some altitude as the Calavari anti-air defenses peppered the underside of the Cajdital cruisers. The Hycre ship was obviously their primary target, but it was also much larger than the destroyers and more than capable of defending itself, but to do so effectively it had to start moving.

After it rose up a few kilometers it accelerated forward and opened up with its formidable array of plasma cannons, hammering the Cajdital ship it had already hit with the cleansing beam. It took fire from several ships, then let the first one go as it accelerated through the Cajdital formation in a wide turn to the north and accelerated heavily as it pulled for more altitude, stretching out the enemy formation as its escort destroyers flicked about hitting the cruisers and running before they could respond with sufficient firepower to take down their shields.

As they were doing that the Hycre cruiser flipped over and dove, heading straight into the ships that were pursuing it and picking one at a time to unload on before it passed them, no longer using the power hog cleansing beam, but instead relying on its plasma cannons and the two maulers, with one located on each side of the ship but with a rotating arc that allowed them to just barely combine fire into a forward targeting sync, giving it a heavy strafing ability on a single pass…though it had to get very close to get the maximum potency out of the weapons.

In conjunction the 7 Hycre ships held their own against more than 40 Cajdital cruisers while several dozen Hycre ships, mostly destroyers and smaller, engaged the other enemy vessels as they attempted to pass through their lines and hit the base. So desperate they were to make good on the opening that they hit the Cajdital head on, with ships on both sides going down, but a few ships slipped through and tore up surface targets in strafing runs that immediately caught the enemy’s attention, with the attacker either fleeing quickly or staying to pound the target long enough that it got itself killed.

One of the Hycre corvettes that suffered that fate managed to fall towards the base, intend on using its death as a weapon until two of the Cajdital cruisers dipped underneath it and used their flat tops to redirect the ship’s fall into the burnt out ring around the base, though they were both dragged down with it into a gigantic, debris-spewing crash.

The Cajdital cruisers dropping elsewhere landed on the Calavari city buildings, most of which had been evacuated months ago around the invasion zone, but the Calavari ground troops didn’t have that luxury and had to hope that the naval battle occurring in atmosphere directly over their heads didn’t drop down on top of them…with not all of the army units being fortunate enough to avoid the fallout.

In the fighter engagement the Valeries eventually won out, leaving their reduced swarm free to hit the base and help the Hycre against the cruisers, picking at them and reducing shield strength or hitting exposed hull that their allies had already peeled the shields off of.

Eventually the Cajdital forfeited the base and sent all their available ships after the cleansing beam-equipped cruiser, which seeing its newfound popularity tipped its pointy nose up and accelerated hard into orbit, pulling the enemy behind it but at a speed they couldn’t match. Eventually it rendezvoused with the Alliance fleet in orbit, safe behind their guns and forcing the Cajdital to wave off and return to the surface, nestling into their other six intact bases while the Calavari army moved in and tore the exposed enemy base apart.

Seeing the vulnerability in their defenses, the Cajdital fleet in high orbit ran more cruisers down to the surface and expanded their defense lines around the other bases, putting cruiser clusters down outside the defense shields to keep the Hycre ships from trying the same cleansing beam attack again without an immediate counterattack.

The previous stalemate resumed, but the Calavari now had access to new Cajdital tunnels and poured troops down them, pressing the underground war and taking several new locations before that too deadlocked again, with both sides analyzing the new reality of the battlefield with the Hycre’s ability to hit the Cajdital from range with impunity.

And that was only one ship, with many more to come to the system in the days ahead.

Unfortunately the same was true for the Cajdital, with numerous cruisers arriving insystem on a regular basis.

Over the following months the hit and miss naval war in orbit continued with the Hycre reinforcements beginning to take their toll on the Cajdital cruisers. Combining the Human weapons with the Hycre’s speed, agility, and naval strategy was a winning combination, with small packs of the enhanced ships poaching a cruiser often with a single pass, hitting it with several cleansing beams from range, breaching its shields and armor and disabling it, then coming in close to hit it with plasma and finally maulers. They’d fly off, leaving it severely damaged and move onto the next one, forcing the Cajdital to operate in larger deployments for fear of isolated groups being hunted down.

That gave the Hycre the run of the system, with the enemy holding several key positions. One was near the star where the primary Cajdital incoming jumpline was located. They could not afford to have the Hycre poaching there, so they spammed the immediate area with ships to discourage that practice, but in order to keep the jumpline clear of potential collisions they couldn’t camp out on the exact spot, leaving some room for adventurous Hycre captains to shoot their ships in and ambush the incoming single enemy vessels, given that they couldn’t jump in clusters.

The moons of Varasiss were where the rest of the Cajdital fleet was located, despite heavy Hycre efforts to thin the fleet there, but as many ships as they killed, more arrived to replace them, but the more Hycre vessels that arrived the more they could kill, meaning the Cajdital had a numbers race on their hands.

The incursions on the planet were thoroughly bottled up, both ways initially, but as more cleansing beam-equipped ships arrived the Cajdital could not defended against all angles with sufficient numbers and the Alliance gradually whittled down their shield generators, then their defending cruisers, before finally eradicating their bases.

It was a significant victory against an enemy that had proved extremely intractable, and as word spread through the surrounding star systems more Alliance reinforcements began to arrive from other races, some of which had no presence in the system to begin with. What they all wanted was a safe zone, and at the moment Varasiss was the closest thing to it. If the Cajdital could be stopped here, then it was possible to push them back elsewhere, giving them a sliver of hope of defending their own worlds…but if this strongpoint failed, it was assumed by many that nothing would be able to stop the enemy.

Then, as if in some cruel joke, a fleet larger than what hit the planet initially arrived in the form of jumpships carrying nothing but thousands of cruisers. They assembled and waited around the star until their full fleet had arrived, then jumped to Varasiss en mass and blew straight through the Alliance fleet, with most of the allied warships running in the face of the armada.

As soon as orbit was secure, the cruisers headed to ground…all the cruisers, and began assaulting the city shields, battle forts, air fields, and every other valuable position on the planet, after the destruction of which they leisurely began establishing hundreds of surface bases as their cruisers roamed the planet, eradicating the half trillion Calavari population through close range aerial bombardment.

Kamalat and the other survivors on Radamal knew what was happening on Varasiss initially, then contact with the planet was cut off, leaving them temporarily safe in their underground base without a purpose to continue fighting for. They knew there could be no surrender, and they had no starships to escape on, with the Alliance fleet having quickly disappeared. Where the Calavari civilian ships had ended up no one knew, but if they were still insystem it was likely they had been destroyed…and if they had left the system then they were just as useless to them.

So Kamalat and the others waited for the end to come, but for months nothing happened. When they stopped hitting Cajdital supply convoys the enemy seemed to forget about them, with many of the Calavari wishing the enemy would just get around to killing them already if it was fated to happen.

Kamalat didn’t wholly disagree, but knew he’d rather be alive than not, and for the moment they had enough supplies to continue their futile resistance. He could only image the carnage occurring down on Varasiss, with even the less graphic nightmares chilling him to the bone. Varasiss was the home of all Calavari, whether they had been born there or not, and it held the wisest, most skilled of their race. With it falling Kamalat felt like a part of him deep inside was dying ahead of his body, putting him into the same zombie-like stupor that the rest of the base population was suffering from.

The Urik’kadel were the only exception, either not knowing or understanding what was happening. They continued to head out to the forest on scouting missions, unwilling or unable to understand the Calavari’s sudden reluctance to fight the enemy. They found it uncharacteristic of their gigantic race, who were always ready and eager to fight, and proceeded to do what they thought was their duty, spying on the enemy and trying to figure some way out of their predicament.

If Kamalat had time to think about it he would have granted that the little aliens were right, but once the base alarm went off he didn’t have time to think. If the Cajdital were finally attacking he and the others were going to take as many of them with them as they could. That sentiment ended the zombification, with a fatalistic anger swelling through the base as they were called to battle stations.

When Kamalat got on station in the armory he found a very different energy present…one of hope which quickly spread to him and those around him when they were informed that the Cajdital were assaulting the base to try and prevent them from being evacuated. The Alliance hadn’t abandoned them, and once he had his weapons and shield harness on he ran towards the surface exits, coming up through a stairway and into the open where numerous hidden turrets had sprung up and were firing on enemy infantry trying to advance across the grassy plain…with the sight of several Cajdital tanks sitting burnt out from plasma fire that was even now coming down from a trio of Scionate ships hovering over the base.

A fourth had landed and was spilling out the armored cats that were forming a loose gauntlet path from the base entrance to the ship for the Calavari to evacuate through. Kamalat moved halfway up the line then stepped off to the left, taking a knee and sighting through his rifle as others nearby were also doing, helping to aid their allies that were taking the fight out to the nearest Cajdital in person, jumping up on them in their yellow armor and firing plasma blasts directly into their torsos as they ran with incredible speed from point to point, eventually circling back to the parallel defensive lines that the Calavari survivors were pouring out of.

Eventually the defense turrets fell silent as their gunners abandoned them to form the last of the evacuee line. Kamalat and the other rifle infantry waited till they ran past, then they in turn formed the last of the line and ran up into the ship with the armored Scionate infantry following them in, with the last two jumping up and into the cargo ship as it began to lift off.

The three warships pounded the single Cajdital cruiser that had moved over to intercept them, with several more already enroute from orbit and one from another surface site. They didn’t have long to organize the evacuation, but the fact that there were few survivors was a blessing and the four ships raced up into orbit with the Cajdital fleet moving to cut them off…but the ships that got too close were intercepted by a pair of Hycre destroyers that were covering the Scionate exit.

Others did the same thing at various points around the moon, with some 28 Scionate ships in all finishing up their flash evacuation and taking cover behind a handful of Hycre ships that only now raced down into low orbit ahead of a sudden microjump by one of their jumpships. Its weaponry, also upgraded with cleansing beams and maulers, discouraged the scattered Cajdital cruisers from further pursuit after gunning two down while the Scionate starships boarded the giant transport.

They were followed in the three massive holds by the Hycre warships, and once they were all onboard the intimidating vessel jumped out of the moons orbit, carrying with it a scattering of survivors...the last of which they would be able to recover from the system after several months of similar efforts. Not for lack of trying or enemy resistance being too great, but for the simple reason being that there were no more Calavari left alive to rescue within the system.

6

March 21, 2473

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Kamalat walked off the Scionate cargo ship that he’d spent the past week onboard, tasting planetary air and sucking in its refreshingly unique feel as he joined millions of other Calavari survivors in one of their remaining ‘safe’ systems, though their number were diminishing quickly with both the Cajdital and Nestafar picking off their worlds in alarming number, and rumor had it several smaller races were also taking the opportunity to take what they could from the withering Calavari empire…races that normally would have been squashed under their imperial foot.

But things were not what they once were, and the Calavari had gone from being a dominant race to a group of scattered worlds with most of their populations turning into either refugees or corpses as their enemies continued to hunt them down. Sashneo may have been secure at the time, but no one assumed it would stay that way for long.

It was a moderately developed world, dry air, low topography, and the thick atmosphere that the Calavari pilots liked, giving them plenty of engagement room above the surface and keeping the warships in orbit further away. Cities dotted the planet, but they hadn’t consumed it, with more wild regions than infrastructure. Its normal population was a tranquil 200 million, but it had swelled to nearly a billion as they took in refugees, last Kamalat knew, but what he didn’t know was how many people had been pulled out of Varasiss to swell those numbers.

As soon as he and the others got off the Scionate transport they were met and escorted into a makeshift processing center that looked to be of relatively new construction…and not of Calavari origin. He could have sworn it was an Irondel design, but on the inside there were only Calavari present.

“Kamalat?!” he heard someone shout off to his left as he stood in line with the other survivors. He turned his large head and raised a hand in greeting when he saw a familiar face.

“Nemaba! What are you doing here?” he said as the other Calavari walked over to him in a uniform that denoted him as part of the staff. “I thought you fighting on the Nestafar front?”

“Was,” Nemaba said, pulling him out of line and over to a corner of the crowded room where they could get a little privacy. “We took two planets from them before my ship was destroyed, then I got shuffled back to the Chattis System, which fell a month after I arrived. I made it out, and have been bouncing around from one place to another until I landed here. Now at least we have a stable platform to work out of.”

Kamalat frowned. “What’s different here?”

“What’s different?” his Calavari broodmate said incredulously. “Did you miss the fleet in orbit?”

“I was on a Scionate ship,” he explained.

“Then you really don’t know?”

“Know what?” Kamalat insisted.

“This is a gathering world. Transports from many Alliance races are bringing survivors and evacuees here and to the others the Hycre have set up. Most of the people coming through here are shipped out within a couple of months back to the Sanctuary Zone, which is where you’ll be headed unless you want to stay on here and help me and the others organize the mess of people coming through. The Calavari are easy enough to work with, but some of the other races are downright obstinate.”

“Brother, I’ve been stuck in a base on Radamal forever. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Nemaba shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. A lot of people are coming in knowing less than you. I thought the fleet would have been kept informed. The Kvash withdrew their support after the capitol fell and are pulling all their ships out of our territory to reinforce their own worlds under assault. The Kitot, Fanset, and Seenqua have gone with them.”

Kamalat’s fists clenched up in anger, as did his teeth, but he quickly released the tension, knowing that meant the Cajdital were going to overrun their worlds much quicker without the Kvash’s superior naval forces. “I suppose that was inevitable.”

“The Bsidd have also officially withdrawn their support, not that they had much here to begin with. The Hycre have stepped in and assumed control of this half of the Alliance, and are pretty much calling the shots now. The Cajdital are hitting them hard, but so far they still haven’t lost a system. They’ve got worlds inside Kvash and Bsidd space, with that being the only link left. Otherwise the Alliance has split and races are running to cover their own asses and most likely pick the circumstances they’d prefer to die under.”

“Your tone suggests that’s not the case here. If we couldn’t stop the Cajdital with the Kvash, how can we do it without them?”

“There’s a plan. I don’t like it myself, but the more I’m here the more I’m beginning to think it has a chance of working.”

“What plan?”

“The Hycre are establishing a Sanctuary Zone that we’re evacuating refugees into. The Scionate are actually relocating their entire population, crazy as that is, but then again maybe they’re the smart ones. Wish we’d thought of doing that with Varasiss.”

Kamalat poked his friend in the chest, hard, to make him focus. “There were too many people, and holding the planet was our last chance to save our empire. We had no other choice.”

“Easy, brother. I meant no offense.”

Kamalat gestured with his hand to forget it. “Where is this place you speak of?”

“Beyond the war zone, at the moment. It’s a region centered on Star Force territory. They’re holding a line against the Cajdital on the farthest end, and the Hycre seem to think they will continue to do so. So do their Calavari conscripts that I’ve talked with. There are a few on planet if you’re fortunate enough to run into one.”

“Fortunate?” Kamalat said with disgust.

“I thought the same at first, but if you talk to one you will quickly find yourself in the wrong. The rumors are not true. They have not submitted. They are not servants.”

“Is that where we are being sent?”

Nemaba cringed. “Yes, it is. They have a world in the Sanctuary Zone known as ‘HTC’ that has been given exclusively to us. There is where the others have trained, then returned here to do battle.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this…” Kamalat said, turning around and looking at the line of Calavari behind him as they were being processed through an identification checkpoint, then escorted off to who knows where. “I can’t believe you’re a part of it either,” he whispered angrily.

Nemaba spun him around and held his upper and lower shoulders firm. “You know me, brother. You know I would not lie to you. The Star Force Calavari are our future, and if you take a look at the ships in orbit you’ll see a handful that belong to them. Warships that are far superior to what we’ve had to work with. You of all people should understand the significance of that.”

“I will not serve a Human.”

“There are no Humans onboard those ships. Only Calavari. I do not fully understand their relationship with the Humans, but they told me they are treated as brothers, not servants, though ultimately the Humans are in command.”

“A soft leash is still bondage.”

“If they trust us enough to give us ships and technology without so much as a single observer onboard, is that truly bondage?”

“I do not like this, Nemaba. I do not like this at all.”

“As I said, neither did I at first. You’ll be stationed here for a while with no Human connection. Look around, see what’s happening. Find the truth. The Hycre have always dealt with us fairly, and they are fully behind this plan. They know we’d never willingly become slaves, yet they are devoting a vast amount of ships and resources to pull our people out of the war zone. Consider the logic in that, my friend, and I will talk with you later. At the moment I have duties here.”

Kamalat put a hand on his upper left arm. “No promises. But it is good to see you alive and well, brother.”

“Come with me,” Nemaba said, passing Kamalat through another exit in the long check-in barrier that currently had 5 stations operational that the lines were feeding into. He logged his information in personally and sent him off to a temporary billet, with instructions on where to go and not go, and giving him a pass card for greater autonomy than the rest of the refugees were afforded.

On the other side of the processing center Kamalat passed through a checkpoint that let him out into the city, or rather the rail line that led into the nearby city, around which numerous extraneous facilities had been and were being built. Once he got inside the realm of the more permanent denizens he was shocked to see that 1 out of every 3 people on the streets was an alien.

There were Urik’kadel, Scionate, Gnar, Irondel, Nammet, Gardeen, Lemickas, and even a scattering of the flying Hammids. All were moving about as if they belonged there, rather than having been guests on the Calavari planet. That felt most odd of all, right down to the fact that the rest of the Calavari acted as if they belong there as well.

And not only on the streets, but in the air. Transports were coming and going from the spaceports built around the city, with nearly all of them being non-Calavari. The Calavari transports were heading to the city interior, where he assumed they were setting down at their own spaceport, but the airspace was literally crawling with outsiders, making him wonder just what the hell was really going on here.

Kamalat sought to find out, venturing into and out of a variety of Calavari establishments and getting the locals’ take on what was happening. In fact he spent the next 13 hours doing so, feeling the need to find the truth as his friend had insisted, and in doing so found himself very confused.

The Hycre were in fact the glue holding together this part of the Alliance, and their vast fleet of jumpships were moving around the starships of other races, most notably their transports, and shuffling around people and resources at a frantic pace to try and stay ahead of the Cajdital advance. Sashneo was one of some 12 worlds that came up in his conversations on which the Hycre were doing the same thing, 9 of which were Calavari worlds, with the others belonging to the Gardeen, Gnar, and Reen, the last of which wasn’t even officially part of the Alliance.

All the worlds in question were being used to evacuate Calavari out of their dwindling territory along with evacuees from other races suffering a similar fate…all of which were then being transferred off to other locations that eventually led, as he was told repeated times, to Star Force territory where the war had yet to arrive.

That didn’t quite mesh with what Nemaba had told him about the Humans already fighting the Cajdital, but if they were holding their own, as impossible as that sounded, then the region past that contentious line would truly have been a ‘safe’ zone…but for how long, he wondered.

For so many races to work together under the Hycre’s leadership was quite a feat, and he didn’t see the logic of the Hycre putting all this effort into a futile gambit. More likely, he expected them to pull back their support like the Kvash did and defend only their own worlds, especially since the Cajdital couldn’t seem to get at them inside the atmosphere of their native gas giants.

If they were dedicated to this endeavor, then it meant they thought it had a good chance…or at least a decent chance of working. But did they really think they could stop the Cajdital advance after so many repeated attempts and failures, the most recent being Varasiss, or were they expecting to keep running year after year trying to stay ahead of the war zone?

It wasn’t until he ran into one of the nefarious Star Force Calavari did he get some answers…which started with a double left uppercut that sent him spinning to the ground when Kamalat insulted the Humans and their ‘ownership’ of the Calavari. A few punches later and the two of them were deep into a discussion about what was really going on, with the convert insistent on making Kamalat understand, given his military rank and knowing the need to bolster their naval forces as much as possible.

At first Kamalat was defiant, but several more ‘attitude adjustments’ finally got him listening. He told him that while everyone thought the Hycre were behind this mass exodus that it was really the Humans leading it. They had a small fleet, he was told, but one with technology, training, and tactics to put the rest of the Alliance to shame…and they were sharing virtually all of it with the Calavari in order to rebuild them into a force that would be capable of fighting and winning against the Cajdital. He was told that the Humans had adopted them into their brood rather than making them allies, and had done so with one other race called the Kiritas that he wasn’t familiar with.

Together, they were going to beat the Cajdital, and the other Calavari almost convinced him on the spot with the conviction in his voice and the confidence he bore, both of which were a welcome change to the depression swirling through the rest of his race. But there was a catch, he said. The Humans were small, not just in physical size but in numbers and worlds. They didn’t have enough to beat the Cajdital on their own, not yet anyway. They needed time to grow, resources to build with, and as many skilled individuals as they could get to teach their ways to, and in turn to learn from.

He said that the Calavari’s pilots had taught the Humans much, and that the Valeries that they now flew were hybrids, combining the knowledge and tech of both into the new fighters, though the Humans still preferred their skeet designs…but it was rumored that those too had been augmented with Calavari tech. Kamalat’s race wasn’t just being taken in as refugees, they were contributing to a mutual goal, and as much as Star Force was giving them, they were also giving back.

He told him that in time the Calavari refugees would outnumber the Humans within Star Force…if they could get to them all, which the Hycre were adamant about making happen. They were joining with the Humans, who wanted them as strong as possible, rather than fearing them and restricting their access to resources, tech, and knowledge. Given time the Calavari would reassert themselves as a major power equal in prestige to the Humans, and both would be considered Star Force.

Then he went on to tell him that the Calavari on HTC, the training world, were well away from the Cajdital and the Nestafar, but that the Calavari that had already proven themselves there and joined Star Force were staking out territory on the edge of what had been their original territory. They had made Drema their foothold and were gradually expanding out from it, forming one edge of the Sanctuary Zone and ready to defend it against the Cajdital and the Nestafar, the latter of which had already attacked and been defeated several times.

That changed things for Kamalat, because it meant they weren’t running away. They might be losing most of Calavari territory, but they were going to hold onto at least a small part of it. It might be part of the Sanctuary Zone defenses, but it was home to the Calavari, and the fact that Star Force had seen fit to protect it rather than pull their forces back to their own territory told him there was more to the truth than the rumors, for like the Hycre, defending Drema wasn’t in the Humans’ best interest.

If they were using the Calavari as conscripts they’d have them defending Human worlds…and that wasn’t the case. Once Kamalat accepted that, he had more questions…many more, and spent the next few hours getting some of them answered before heading back to his tiny billet and trying to sleep, but finding he couldn’t. Too many thoughts were running through his mind, and by the time his friend came to find him the next day he was sitting on his bunk staring at the wall.

“Ah, I know that look. Eyes opened, eh?”

Kamalat twisted his neck and top shoulder so he could look up at Nemaba.

“Tell me everything you know.”

7

March 27, 2473

Llone System

Scion (Scionate homeworld)

“Hurry,” Om’ra insisted as the quadruped sprinted down a narrow street towards the spaceport with Dre’for half a head behind her on the right. “They will on the transports within moments.”

“Don’t wait on me,” Dre’for lectured. “I’ll get there when I can.”

Without another word Om’ra sped up, moving in her armor far faster than Dre’for could have managed on his best day. Normally she was too polite to show her superior speed, but with the evacuation of their people complicated by a surprise attack by Mershak raiders, formality wasn’t given as much credence.

Four fifths of the planet’s population had already left, along with a significant portion of Scion’s defense fleet, though the cheetah-like race hadn’t been stupid enough to leave it under-defended. They had the 8th largest navy in the Alliance and was one of the few that hadn’t seen much combat, save for in the one system they’d lost to the Cajdital. They’d held it long enough to evacuate their people, rather than devoting the resources necessary to rid the pair of planets of the enemy surface bases the Cajdital had set up and were expanding.

Unlike most other races the Scionate didn’t build large cities that spanned continents, rather they preferred a more open landscape dotted with settlements. That kept their planetary populations low, but that gave their society a more relaxed feel than the claustrophobic megacities that the Calavari and others built, though none were worse than the Bsidd, who they had contact with on their upper border.

The Kvash weren’t much better, whom they also shared a border with, and the three big races were suffering for it when it came to evacuations, being forced to leave many behind to die…and that was something the Scionate were not going to do, thus the foreplanning and ongoing evacuation of their capitol before the Cajdital arrived.

But the scaly creatures weren’t the Scionate’s only enemy, and one that had been their personal bane and continual nuisance had decided to drop in to say goodbye, having launched several raids down onto the planet, bypassing their defense fleet in orbit, and causing what trouble they could. Dre’for didn’t know what they were here for, precisely, but whenever they had encountered them before they were as much interested in looting resources as they were in killing his people. If they only waited a while longer they’d have a planet of technology left to plunder, so why they were coming now he didn’t understand.

By the time Dre’for made it to the spaceport Om’ra was already lifting off in her Scionate-modified Valerie, and he saw two other pilots arriving as well into the half-full hangar that sat underneath a solid shield that blocked out the sun and rain, but allowed the wind to come underneath as well as the fighters, that on the ground sat in open-ceilinged berths.

Dre’for leapt up onto the short staircase near to his personal fighter and hopped across a short gap into the open cockpit, settling down onto the belly pad and sliding his four paws onto control pads as he bit into the primary control bar and began rotating it around in his mouth, powering up the fighter and closing the cockpit.

The pointy aircraft lifted up on anti-grav and drifted above the short walls bracketing it, then Dre’for slid the fighter to the east, rising up over a circular retaining wall and climbing into the gap between it and the high roof. From there he accelerated out and into the open air, seeing the distant weaponsfire on the outskirts of the city, coming from both the ground and the sky.

Less than a minute later he was within range of the enemy aircraft, finding a knot of them overtop their battle tanks with a few Scionate icons intermixed as they hunted them down. He picked one of the enemy’s cubical fighters and raced after it, tagging it with plasma after a few quick maneuvers that the raider couldn’t match.

It dropped from the air, then pulled a tight curve and continued to fly with extensive armor damage…but no anti-grav hinderment. Dre’for cursed himself for falling for the ploy and raced after it, coming across another that cut across his path in pursuit of Om’ra, who had another two on her tail.

Dre’for broke off and followed them, using the distraction to take down one before she looped around in a corkscrew that the enemy fighters couldn’t match and tagged another, then he left her alone with the last one as he tipped the Valerie’s nose towards the ground and made an attack run against one of the battle tanks blasting into the city’s exterior defense turrets.

A belly-mounted plasma cannon built up a thick orb as he held the trigger between his teeth, then released it squarely into the top of the giant tank when he released pressure and turned away from his collision course, skimming the grasslands and nearly running into another tank that was already smoking from plasma damage.

He didn’t bother to turn back on the one he’d shot, or even look to see how much damage he’d done. Dre’for knew time was important and that he and the other few pilots on station had to take down the fighters as quickly as possible, then they’d be free to harass the tanks, whose normal ground opposition was no longer present in this region, already having been evacuated to the Scionate jumpships and their massive Hycre cousins waiting in orbit.

The Mershak fighters were fast, but only in straight lines, and they carried no shields, only heavy armor, which likewise diminished their maneuvering capabilities. They had strong plasma cannons, but the agility and firepower of the Valeries clearly made them the dominant fighters, allowing them to eventually take down all of the enemy, but not before the tanks reached the city’s edge and unleashed their ground troops.

Given time the Valeries took out the tanks without losing any of their own despite an anti-air turret that all of them carried, but after that Dre’for and the others couldn’t do much but fly over the buildings and streets and hope to catch one of the Mershak infantry out in the open. That happened occasionally, but not nearly enough, leaving the raiders with an essentially empty city to disappear into, with only a handful of their own infantry in place to try and protect the last of the evacuees coming out on a road heading towards another city where the evacuation transports were landing.

The vehicles carrying them had been kept safe from the tanks, but they weren’t all loaded yet, meaning there were people walking freely through the streets towards the vehicle loading points that the Mershak could hit, and too few infantry to do anything but guard the vehicles. Realizing that Dre’for sent his fighter to ground, or rather to a thick rooftop where he set it down and leapt out of the cockpit, sliding down to the edge of the roof and falling off the edge.

He landed on all fours with his battle armor moving up along his neck to cover his head, leaving him fully protected as he sprinted off towards the last known position of the evacuees that had yet to reach the vehicles, intending to do some ambushing of his own where his Valerie wouldn’t reach.

Several hours later, when the last of the city’s non-military personnel had been evacuated and the other Valeries had left to fight the Mershak at other settlements, Dre’for returned to the rooftop where he had parked his Valerie and was relieved to find it exactly as he’d left it. He climbed back in using some clawholds on the exterior and lifted up into the sky just as the last of the personnel transports were assembling for ‘last call.’

He commed in and reported that he was airborne and they needn’t be looking for him, then he hovered in a slow spiral over the vehicles until they finally pulled out of the assembly area and floated their way clear of the city in a small, single file convoy. Dre’for flew over top of them, providing a single fighter escort all the way across the grassy plain for some 83 kilometers until they came to a slightly larger city where their starship transports were grounding to pick up evacuees and equipment coming in overland from multiple other locations.

The Mershak weren’t stupid enough to attack here, choosing instead to pick on the weaker settlements and those that were nearly empty. Once Dre’for’s convoy was safely to the departure site he flew off looking for somewhere else he could help out, but finding no activity within a 500 kilometer radius.

That was reported, anyway, so he took up an impromptu patrol around the departure city and the surrounding cities, watching over incoming convoys and looking for ambushes, eventually finding one in progress as a Mershak tank jumped a group of vehicles as it came out of a narrow valley just ahead of them and blocked the road, firing on the first vehicles as the others spread out. Those with wheels turned about and headed back on the road they’d been driving along, while those with anti-grav charted their own course and swung wide to get around the tank before heading back to the road and resuming their course…assuming they didn’t get hit in the process.

Two did and went down, with one digging into the grass and plowing up dirt while the other skidded across the stone-like road, spinning around until it eventually hit dirt, whereupon the edge caught and the whole vehicle flipped over twice, eventually landing upside down.

Dre’for dropped into a slow strafing run and lit up the tank on a quick pass to get its attention, dodging some late anti-air fire in the process. A quick check of his sensor board confirmed that he was the only starfighter or military asset in the area, meaning the tank was now his sole responsibility and if he got shot down the vehicles would be easy pickings, so he had to work quick, but not carelessly.

He circled around low to the ground then pulled up into a high arc that brought him back down on the tank like a scorpion sting, whereupon he delivered several small plasma orbs, followed up by the ‘bomb’ orb. It hit the tank and breached its shields, setting up future passes that allowed him to burn armor off its thick hull as it continued to fire at him with its anti-air cannon, but otherwise kept its attention on the vehicles, which it was just as fast as, if not faster.

Their scattering meant it had choices to make, and it took off after a pair of hovering vehicles, taking them down but not lingering for the kill, intending to disable as many as it could then come back for them later. The wheeled vehicles it went after last, knowing where they would be, given that they were reluctant to try and drive through the grasslands on their small tires.

The tank disabled one of the wheeled vehicles, then rammed into it as it passed by, knocking both askew but damaging the Scionate personnel transport heavily. It put two plasma shots into its side as it moved on, then focused its fire ahead down the road, slowly closing distance on the next one as Dre’for came back around on a very low angle and hit the tank in the flank with another bomb orb.

He got hit by the anti-air fire this time, with his shields sparkling as the tiny plasma needles ran into it like a buzz saw. The Scionate fighter passed the tank with some shield strength remaining, then agitated, Dre’for pulled a skid loop that he’d seen the Humans do multiple times at Daka in their own craft, bringing the nose of his fighter around and keeping it on target throughout the turn, firing as fast as he could the entire time.

He kept the plasma landing on approximately the same spot, one that he’d damaged earlier, and was gratified when he saw a puff of smoke rise up as he finally got through the armor and hit something on the interior of the tank. Another wash of plasma needles forced him to move off, but the tank continued to pursue and fire upon the next closest wheeled transport, hitting it in the rear with plasma ‘spit’ and eventually blowing out the rear wheels with consecutive hits.

The vehicle slowed but didn’t stop, dragging itself on and keeping away from the tank as long as possible. Dre’for knew he had an opening and needed to take it before the tank got the transport, but his shields were almost gone so he had a choice to make…risk a hull hit or play it safe and lose another transport, with the people inside possibly surviving the hit?

With only one tank in play he didn’t need his Valerie to survive the encounter, he just needed to take out the tank, so he circled once then darted in towards the wound on the enemy vehicle and lightly strafed it, drawing an immediate response, given that the Mershak knew which direction he’d be coming from. It fired at his fighter with every weapon it possessed, which ironically bought the transport more time, so he made another light strafing run and nibbled away at the wound, increasing the smoke pyre coming from it.

He kept patiently wearing it down until it finally returned its attention to the transport ahead, catching up to within 400 meters of it, then Dre’for charged up another plasma bomb and ran it right down the tank’s throat, taking hits from the anti-air and anti-personnel turrets on the tank, but managing to avoid the anti-vehicle ones…which would have downed him rather fast.

When he passed it by his control board lit up with damage indicators, but he was still flight worthy, swerving upwards through a wide turn to disrupt following fire, then turning around to see the tank motoring on…but dragging its left side on the ground. Dre’for set up another couple light passes, needling the spot with plasma fire as his shields recharged slowly, then he went in and landed the killing blow, nearly getting himself blown apart in the process as an anti-vehicle plasma blast clipped his Valerie’s right side, melting off a bit of the fighter and giving him a smoke trail of his own.

The tank kept firing, for it wasn’t completely dead, but it no longer hovered over the ground, thoroughly stuck in place as its anti-grav no longer functioned. Dre’for flew off, watching the evacuation vehicles gain distance and eventually get outside the tank’s firing range, then he escorted the wheeled versions out back to an intersection and through a long detour of the spider web-like roads. Eventually empty transports came out and picked up the survivors from the ones the tank had disabled, with most of the passengers having survived.

The equipment was mostly left behind, though a few key pieces were recovered. Dre’for watched over the hasty efforts, keeping an eye on the distant tank in case it came back to life and began moving, but it stayed put and Dre’for paid it no further mind after the last of the Scionate vehicles reached the city. The Mershak could pick their tank up later or leave it to rot for all he cared. They were leaving, and as much as he wanted to kill the thing, the mission was to get his people safely off the planet.

“Valerie, what’s your status?”

“Damaged, but operational,” Dre’for answered the comm.

“Are you spaceworthy?”

A quick glance at the control board confirmed otherwise. “Negative.”

“Then this is your ride out. Rendezvous onboard the outgoing transport. We’ll see you at the colony site.”

“Take care,” Dre’for said in thanks, looking across the skies of his homeworld one last time before heading towards the large cargo ship just now rising up from the spaceport. One of its hangar bay doors remained open and he flew towards it, easily matching the big ship’s course and speed, and ducking inside before it gained any appreciable upward momentum.

Once inside the hull the ship’s artificial gravity took over and he gently landed his damaged ship in the berth indicated by the hangar controller. The area was designed for small dropships, with three open slots out of nine, each of which was big enough to hold multiple Valeries, allowing him plenty of room to set down, after which a pair of techs ran out to meet him.

“Do what you can with the ship,” Dre’for said as he jumped down to the deck. “It still has life in it.”

“It won’t be scrapped,” the tech promised.

Dre’for nodded and walked off, retracting his helmet onto the rest of his body armor as he looked out the closing hangar doors at the sliver of planet still visible…a planet now occupied by only a scattering of Scionate that would be following him and the cargo ship out within a few days. Their sensitive technology had been destroyed or taken with them, but everything else had been left as it was, open to looters and nomads until the Cajdital arrived…assuming they would. He didn’t know if they’d still want the planet if no one was on it, for their previous assaults seemed to have been more about killing than acquiring worlds.

Regardless, Scion was no longer his world. Sad as he was about that, they were abandoning it in order to survive, so with the regret came determination and a wisp of hope. He didn’t know what the Alliance could do against the Cajdital, but by getting out ahead of the invasion path they were buying themselves more time to find a way to beat them…if such a thing existed. Dre’for wasn’t sure it did, but where there was life there was hope, and if his people were to be destroyed it wasn’t going to be today, nor any day in the near future. Abandoning their worlds was buying them time, and they were going to make the most of what they had.

8

May 1, 2473

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Dre’for walked through one of the warrens set up on the Calavari planet specifically for the Scionate, feeling claustrophobic but otherwise at home. The facilities had been constructed by Scionate engineers using local materials, giving the layout of the area a traditional architecture, but due to the limited land space available to them they’d had to build the temporary structures clustered together, causing Dre’for to feel like he was bumping into people every other step he took.

He was being held over on the transitional world along with a great number of his people, and various others, waiting for transport into the Sanctuary Zone. The initial evacuation of the Scionate worlds had been complicated enough, and was still ongoing on some planets, but there was no way their limited ships could have taken them on a direct route to the promised planets…at least not in time to evacuate them all before the Cajdital got to them. They’d opted for a shorter evacuation to the transition worlds the Hycre had organized, leaving most of the Scionate stranded in transit.

But between the generosity of the Alliance and the Scionate’s preparedness they were well taken care of here, and what inconveniences they had to put up with were minor in the grand scheme of things. For every person he bumped into was a victory snatched from the claws of the Cajdital, so Dre’for reminded himself every time he had to walk off his directional line to avoid hitting another Scionate as they passed one another.

He was one of the few wearing armor, for unlike the others he was permitted to leave their warrens given his place in the combined defense force protecting the planet. His Valerie, now fully refurbished, was situated in a combined Alliance hangar that he was headed to now, and he and the other military members had made a point of wearing their body armor when amongst aliens, never knowing when a bad situation might arise. While allies they might be against the Cajdital, not all of them got along with each other quite as well as that moniker suggested.

When Dre’for got to the entrance/exit he passed by their own guards without incident and joined the even more crowded public streets with all manner of aliens about. Most were civil enough, but many smelled more foul than he liked, putting him in a disgruntled manner all the way to his destination.

Once he got to the spaceport and was permitted entrance, the crowded streets disappeared and a much more normal environment resumed, with the open air and lack of people running every which way prompting him to stop and stretch out his front legs, then back in a typical cat-like show of flexibility. He shook his head twice, resetting his demeanor before he headed for the pilot-only areas of the spaceport.

Though still a mix of aliens, these smelled right…at least as much as he’d gotten accustomed to them smelling on Daka. Those smelled like pilots, and now so did these, putting him more at ease as he headed for his Valerie with a Calavari tech giving him the rundown on the maintenance completed before he climbed inside and lifted off.

He flew high up from the spaceport then leveled out once he was above the tallest building and drifted in place, waiting for two more Scionate Valeries to join him a few minutes later. Once together they flew off, crossing over the vast warrens devoted to multiple races until they got to the boundaries of the city where additional construction was taking place…then they were off across the grasslands that reminded him of those on their homeworld, though more brown.

They traveled over 100 kilometers before meeting up with a much larger group of Valeries, most of whom belonged to the Calavari, though there were a few tiny versions piloted by the Urik’kadel. Dre’for knew from his time on Daka how skilled their pilots were, so he didn’t take it as offense when the Calavari had brought them into the patrol maneuvers without informing him.

“We bring three,” he said, tagging the lead Valerie for the direct comm.

“Good morning, Scionate,” Nangon greeted them. “We have air patrol for the next two hours. Would you like to spar or circulate?”

“I’ll take the circulation, but my wingmen would like to spar.”

“Granted,” the Calavari said, shunting a navigational path to Dre’for’s computer.

As the course came up he pulled off from the other two Scionate pilots and began a wide, ugly circular path around the region they were tasked with ‘defending.’ What they were really doing was keeping some fighters in the air at all times so they’d be available for instantaneous response to any attack, rather than having to rouse pilots from their beds or wherever they were, get them to the hangar, their fighters prepped, and then into the air.

All of that was valuable time the enemy could use to its own advantage, with Calavari philosophy being to keep a small number of fighters in the air at all times to act as a response unit and to buy time for the rest of their pilots to get into the air when the moment came. That said, sitting in a cockpit doing nothing for several hours a day, every day, got to be tedious, so while some of them kept to a patrol route, the others would engage in dogfights with simulated weapons, honing their edge and keeping them from succumbing to boredom.

Dre’for had only arrived a few days ago, but he’d sparred with the other pilots every day since, prompting him to take the boring patrol today so others could mix it up…that, and he didn’t want to be the first to go against the Urik’kadel. His wingmen would be good experiments, given that they’d never flown against the little pilots before, then he’d take what he learned from their imminent defeat and adjust for when he did get another chance to go up against them.

He could have monitored the brawl while on patrol, but he felt that would be a distraction and kept his attention on his duty…not that he felt the planet was going to come under attack today, but just out of a sense of professionality. With his course set into an auto-pilot function, he released the controls and went along for the slow ride with his eyes scanning the regions below and flipping back to the sensor hologram habitually, with any activity set to trigger a small tone once he left the dogfighting fighters behind.

Dre’for flew from city to city while a handful of other pilots did the same at other points on the circuit, marking the outer edges of their patrol zone while the training dogfights continued at its center. A few of the Calavari cities hadn’t been added to as of yet, but most had grown considerably with the short buildings of the Alliance warrens stretching out around them, but as he progressed through the course given to him he flew over one that was just beginning to get added to, literally only a few days old with the construction.

As he looked down on it his sensors beeped, drawing his attention to a ship descending from the upper atmosphere. Its plotted trajectory was bringing it down near him, so Dre’for went off the autopilot route and manually flew clear of the city, making a giant circle around it for good measure before continuing on.

Flying low to give himself a better view of the construction, he saw numerous Calavari workers along with a scattering of Humans. That wasn’t uncommon, for the smaller bipeds had been annexing the Calavari, so he’d been told, with many of their projects reaching out into their former territory. Even now they held a considerable fleet in orbit, centered around the largest warship he’d ever seen outside of the Kvash, underscoring how important this planet was to the evacuation efforts and their commitment to seeing them through.

The Hycre couldn’t come to ground, so it only made sense to see Humans filling in the gaps, with them popping up in small numbers across Alliance territory. Some had even come out to the Scionate, carried by a Hycre jumpship, to negotiate the terms of relocation until both races were satisfied. The Humans were donating a lot of prime colonization spots within their borders to the effort, something the Hycre were ill-suited to do, given their radically different physiology, almost making the Humans an equal partner in this effort, despite their tiny size.

The Hycre were the glue to the reformed Alliance, now that the Kvash and Bsidd had gone their own ways. While they still shared intelligence across what was left of the relay network, it was clear that they weren’t going to be helping anyone in or on the opposite side of Calavari space. They’d communicated as much to the Scionate, who were on their side of the new dividing line, asking for their allegiance, but without any promise of assistance for Scionate territory when it was hit by the Cajdital.

The Hycre plan had seemed far more sensible…especially given that they had a plan whereas the Kvash didn’t, other than turtle up and defend themselves on a smaller perimeter than what the Alliance had been attempting to do. Dre’for knew that was only a delaying tactic, which could also be said of the relocation efforts, but those at least would buy decades, if not centuries…whereas the Kvash’s plan might last them years, with them eventually getting overrun anyway.

Dre’for had been surprised when he’d been informed that they’d be moving to Human space with the assistance of the Hycre fleet, but right now it seemed the only sane option, for both the Scionate and many others in the Cajdital’s immediate path.

As the descending starship closed range Dre’for casually glanced at the identification tag, then did a double take. He was nearly through his loop around the city and about to head back onto his patrol route, but veered off for a pass by of the average-sized transport, seeing for a fact what his sensor board told him.

It was a Dvapp ship. Dre’for had never seen one before, outside of pictures, for their territory was at the farthest end of Alliance space, opposite that of the Humans, and only marginally connected to the Bsidd. Originally they had rebuffed an Alliance invitation, citing that the Cajdital were not a threat to them given the distances involved, but a number of years ago that had changed and they came in as an ally of the Bsidd, though they never had much contact with any of the other Alliance races. With the Bsidd cutting ties to the Calavari, what the hell were they doing here?

As the transport came over the city Dre’for saw it divert to the construction site and double checked his heading to make sure he wasn’t going to run into anything, for he had a hard time taking his eyes off of it. Unlike all other Alliance vessels, the Dvapp starships were not built of metal or rock, they were constructed of crystal, all of which glowed from within, much like Bsidd technology did. This transport shown ruby red, as well as picking up reflections from the sunlight, making it stand out brightly against the cityscape and making for one grand entrance.

The ship was compact, with a number of short, thick pylons jutting out here and there, but overall it was elongated fore and aft with sharp corners and edges and not so much as a single curve in the entire design. It came to a hover over the Calavari and Humans, prompting Dre’for to come in closer for a look at what it was offloading.

He flew so close that he virtually brought the Valerie to a standstill, but it was worth it, for the underside compartments opened up and out dropped globs of rounded crystal that fell to the ground and, rather than shattering, smooshed like thick liquid, then pulled back up into globs and moved their way across the ground.

Dre’for was amazed that such a life form could exist. The Dvapp were completely amorphous, and even as he watched he saw several of them heighten and form arms, legs, and a head, mimicking the Calavari and Humans in a very crude manner as several of the Alliance construction crews came forward to meet them. Other Dvapp extended themselves into long tendrils that snaked back up to the ship’s underside, creating slide ramps when four or more of them worked together, down through which ‘hard’ crystal containers followed.

The Dvapp themselves were crystal, though only on a microscopic level. They had redundant everything, allowing themselves to lose massive amounts of their body to damage and still keep fighting…or so the rumors went. The Alliance had gotten a large amount of information about them when they’d joined, but still there were many questions left lingering.

But above the splendor of it all was the undeniable fact that the Dvapp were the largest Alliance race after the big four, with their power ranking matching, though being somewhat questionable given their lack of combat with the Cajdital or others by which to evaluate them. They exclusively used beam weapons, no particles or plasma, which also left their combat capability questionable, especially if they were seeking refuge with the rest of the Alliance races this far away from their own territory.

The Scionate had come far to get here, but that distance paled in comparison to what the Dvapp had to travel, making Dre’for wonder if something else wasn’t in the works, because their presence here made no sense whatsoever. He did know that this ship was a transport rather than a warship by its color, for their warships glowed green, and it was said they had no jumpships. Had the Hycre carried them here? Dvapp territory was well beyond what he knew the Hycre border to be.

Dre’for watched the unloading begin, then forced himself to return to his patrol route with many questions running through his mind. Had he stayed a bit longer he would have gotten another eyeful, learning about it from others after his patrol had ended, though he and the others were banned from visiting that particular Calavari city, given that the Dvapp preferred some amount of autonomy, much as the other races did with their own warrens.

“Greetings allies,” one of the Dvapp said as it took a bipedal form in front of Vanessa Locke and her Calavari engineering partner Sanmat, whose height it matched exactly.

“Hello,” she answered back in the trade language, though her own voice seemed pathetically flat compared to the almost electronic voice of the Dvapp, which was laced with an overlapping echo. “You’ve arrived earlier than we expected. The transit terminal isn’t completed yet, but we do have the growth components you requested on hand.”

“We’ve marked the boundaries,” Sanmat continued in his deeper voice, “with the low wall you see there,” he said, pointing. “Can you build around that?”

“We can,” the Dvapp answered. “It matches the schematics given to us in orbit. If you will allow us access to the cargo you agreed to provide we can begin immediately.”

Vanessa turned around and motioned with a flick of her wrist to someone behind her, then some 20 seconds later a hovertruck floated out of the construction site with large vats of liquid and boxes of solid compounds, most of which was powderized carbon…all of which were in pure form.

More hovertrucks followed, eventually forming into a long cargo convoy that the Calavari workers unloaded onto the dirt and allowed the Dvapp to do with as they pleased…which involved them setting up a large tarp over the mostly level ground, around the edges of which a retainment ring was formed a meter and a half high, making it look like a football field-sized kiddy pool that sparkled bluish/white.

With that in place, and many others being set up at specific points underneath the hovering cargo ship, the vats of liquid were drained while additional gel-like liquid was deposited directly from above, extruding out of vents in the underside of the ship’s hull. A few of the Dvapp ‘walked’ out into the shallow pool and deposited a large, sharp crystal shard at a precise place, then backed away as it began to pulse with an inner white light.

The Dvapp oozed their way over the edges of the pool as more gel and liquid continued to flow in, threatening to spill out as it nearly reached the top, but when the solid components were added and eventually drifted into the shard near the center of the irregularly shaped pool, the object suddenly shrieked and began to rise up out of the liquid on anti-grav.

Except it wasn’t anti-grav. The crystal was growing at a rate of several inches per second and draining the liquid/gel/powder mix around it, creating a shallow crater in the fluid that drew the rest back towards the center and kept it from spilling over the rim. Slowly, but fast enough for the eyes to easily register, a Dvapp structure rose up, expanding in all directions while the city denizens got to withstand the nearly constant whistle/shriek of the flash growth.

Vanessa and Sanmat watched with wide eyes over the next 12 minutes as the Dvapp crew continued to pump resources into the pool up until there was only a narrow ring left around the exterior, with the building finishing its construction a meter from the retainment wall and soaking up nearly every drop of liquid within it.

“Damn,” she whispered, looking up at the 5-6 story high structure. “Talk about your fast builds.”

“What?” Sanmat asked, not taking his eyes off the building.

“Nothing. Just engineer envy. We’re going to need to bring their cargo in faster.”

“Agreed. I did not realize they, or anyone, could build this fast. I am thoroughly impressed.”

“I’m curious to how strong it is,” Vanessa said, touching her earpiece. “Bring up the rest in continuous convoys. We’ll have additional offloading spots marked by the time you get here…yes, bring it all up. There’s no need for a delayed schedule. It seems the Dvapp can grow their structures as fast as we can deliver the raw materials…no I’m not joking. I’ll fill you in later. And send someone with a camera, I want to document this for later analysis.”

9

August 11, 2473

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Ik’re drew considerable attention as it walked through the Calavari city streets, glistening with reflected sunlight as its sand-like white body tissue shifted with every bipedal step, a courtesy to the other Alliance races, for normally it would have traveled through other configurations. The Dvapp was headed for the center of the city, far past its own warrens, and was the first to do so of its own race, causing quite a stir in the other denizens.

Ik’re ignored their attention. As an ambassador/diplomat it had dealt with other races before, though never as many as were present here. Most around it now were Calavari, but there were others scattered among them, causing it more apprehension than normal, for most mono-forms found the Dvapp disturbing, and even though these were their supposed allies, old habits were hard to break.

But Ik’re had enough poise to ignore them and continue on its way with large, plodding steps most similar to the Calavari whose form it was mimicking, save for having only two arms. Those arms had no hands, nor the feet toes or the face features. Its body was configured into appendages that pressed flat against the ground below and hung uselessly at its sides for balance. The bipedal form seemed to calm some of the apprehension in others, given it was familiar to them, but Ik’re was still vastly alien and carried with it a group of onlookers all the way up to the ambassadorial building.

Inside the reception was muted, as the street travelers didn’t follow it in. The Dvapp was met by Calavari receptionists and directed to the appropriate chamber in which it met the Calavari ambassador assigned to them on this planet.

“Hello Vorshak,” it said coming into the room and seeing the Calavari standing with his back to it as he looked at some type of hologram mounted on the wall. The Dvapp stood perfectly still just inside the door as it shut, leaving the two of them alone.

The Calavari turned around slowly. “You spoke of an important matter in your message. What is it? And please relax, there is no need to hold that form for me.”

“Thank you,” Ik’re said, melting in place and forming a thick pool of material on the floor that quickly pulled back together into a rounded pillar similar to a Jell-O mold. “What I have to say is also for the Hycre. Can you initiate communications?”

“I already have,” the Calavari said, touching a button on the chair he stood beside and enlarging the hologram on the wall to real size, with the floating gas bag materializing to his left.

SPEAK AMBASSADOR

“Many of the Alliance races have made inquiries as to why we requested permission to establish an outpost on this transitional world. To all we have told that we wished to create a diplomatic link to the other races in the Alliance beyond the Bsidd and to extend that link to the new territories you are retreating into when the time comes. This is true, but it is not the full truth. I offer it to you now.”

“Proceed,” Vorshak urged, crossing both sets of arms over his chest.

“It is with great shame that I reveal this information to you, and I would ask that you keep it a secret, for knowledge of it endangers the Dvapp, but we no longer have any choice but to ask the Alliance for assistance. All are suffering from the Cajdital invasion, but we more than any other. They have found a weakness in our technology and are exploiting it to ravage our fleets and annihilate our worlds. We have no defense against their new weapon. I am here to ask that we be allowed to join in the relocation, in whatever numbers we can muster, but above that we ask if either of your races can devise a technological solution to our vulnerability. Our scientists cannot.”

WHAT VULNERABILITY DO YOU SPEAK OF?

“The Cajdital have developed a chemical that causes a chain reaction within our building materials. The reaction dissolves the structure while creating more of the chemical in the process. The Cajdital deliver it to our ships via physical impact once our shields are down, and even a single drop will consume an entire starship given enough time. But far worse is that fact that they are now using the chemical on our worlds, delivering it to the surface with little loss to their own fleet. The chemical devours and spreads across the entire world if we cannot starve it out by destroying our own infrastructure ahead of the reaction.”

Vorshak glanced at the Hycre, then unlocked his arms and pounded his right fists into his left palms. “Then that is why you have ventured this far out. Have you not asked the Bsidd for aid?”

“When they discovered our weakness their aid to us ended. They said they will not waste resources defending those that are already dead. Likewise the Kvash have refused our pleas for assistance.”

DID EITHER ANALYZE THIS CHEMICAL?

“No.”

“Did you bring some of it with you?”

“No. It is too risky to bring onboard our ships. We have not been able to analyze it, for it affects our tools as well. All our technology is built around the same crystalline structure. We have nothing aside from energy shields to repulse it…and our own bodies. We contracted another race who was unaffected by the chemical to study it. We brought their data with us.”

Ik’re’s body moved internally, and soon a small Calavari data module extruded from inside, held aloft by a white tendril. “We beg your assistance, and failing that, sanctuary far from our enemy, whom we cannot combat with this vulnerability. If compensation is required, we are willing to negotiate.”

11 months later…

Leif-069 jumped over a moving bar on Balboa Lane before sliding under an identical one a half second later. From there he pivoted on one knee up into a jump over yet another, rolling out of the leap into a somersault and avoiding contact with the object. He landed in the finish area at the end of the lane, triggering the clock to stop and the challenge to end.

The trailblazer glanced at the time, satisfied with that run when he noticed a message beacon blinking on the control panel on the wall. Had it been something urgent the Admiral would have interrupted him via the room’s comm…but then again, if it wasn’t important it would have waited until he’d left the sanctum onboard the gigantic Command Ship.

He walked over and pressed the button, pulling up a text message indicating that the Hycre wanted to talk to him. That usually meant something worthy of paying attention to, for unlike some of the other races within the system, the Hycre weren’t ones for chit chat.

“Are they still available?” he asked once he got an open comm to the bridge.

“Standing by,” Admiral Bennington confirmed.

Leif pressed a few buttons on the wall-mounted panel. “Route it down here, private line.”

A moment later a hologram appeared around Leif, from which he stepped back a couple of meters but still within the receiver’s limits, leaving him staring at the reduced image of a Hycre from a distance of a few inches.

“You wanted to speak to me?”

WE HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU TO CONSIDER.

Leif frowned lightly. “Concerning what?”

THE DVAPP.

“Proceed,” Leif said, not having a clue what this was about. The Dvapp mainly kept to themselves, with little interest in the other races, though more of them were coming into the system by the week on isolated ships.

THE CAJDITAL HAVE DEVELOPED A WEAPON THAT HAS LEFT THE DVAPP UNABLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. IT IS UNIQUE AND NO THREAT TO US, BUT IT HAS LEFT THE DVAPP COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF COMBAT.

“Go on,” Leif prompted.

THEY HAVE CREATED A CHEMICAL THAT DEVOURS THE CRYSTALINE STRUCTURE OF THEIR TECHNOLOGY ON CONTACT. THE PROCESS LEAVES A RESIDUE THAT INCLUDES MORE OF THE CHEMICAL. IN THIS WAY A SINGLE DROP DELIVERED TO THE HULL OF THEIR SHIPS CAN EXPAND AND CONSUME THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE. THE SAME IS TRUE OF THEIR SURFACE INFRASTRUCTURE. SEVERAL PLANETS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY CAJDITAL CRUISERS DROPPING SMALL PACKETS OF THE WEAPON AND RETREATING.

“Devious as always,” Leif said, now understanding why the Dvapp had come out all this way.

WE HAVE DEVELOPED A CHEMICAL THAT NEUTRALIZES THE CAJDITAL’S WEAPON ON CONTACT. IT WILL BE USED TO COAT THE HULLS OF THE DVAPP WARSHIPS, BUT AT PRESENT THEY ARE UNABLE TO REPLICATE THE SUBSTANCE. WE HAVE AGREED TO PROVIDE THEM WITH AS MUCH OF THE CHEMICAL AS WE CAN MAKE, BUT IT IS NOT A SOLUTION. MERELY A DELAYING MECHANISM.

“But still valuable. Are you wanting us to assist with its production?”

NO. WE CANNOT PRODUCE ENOUGH OF THE CHEMICAL TO PROTECT THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO SEARCH FOR A MEANS TO OVERCOME THEIR WEAKNESS, BUT GIVEN THE RATE OF THE CAJDITAL’S ADVANCE THROUGH THEIR TERRITORY WE DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME. ONCE A WORLD IS INFECTED WITH THE ENEMY’S WEAPON IT IS DIFFICULT TO STOP THE SPREAD OF DESTRUCTION. THE CAJDITAL KNOW THIS AND ARE SENDING RAIDING PARTIES OUT TO MANY DVAPP WORLDS THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE THE MILITARY ASSETS TO CONQUER. THEY ARE INFECTING THEM AND LETTING THE CHEMICAL REACTION TAKE ITS COURSE, LEAVING ALL STRUCTURES DESTROYED WITHOUT THEM FIRING A SINGLE PLASMA CANNON.

“Does the chemical kill the Dvapp?”

FORTUNATELY IT DOES NOT. IT DOES CONSUME ALL OF THEIR TECHNOLOGY.

“If you can provide us a sample I’ll have our techs see if we can come up with a solution.”

THAT IS A SMALL REQUEST WE MAKE OF YOU. WE HAVE A LARGE ONE.

Leif raised an eyebrow. “What is the large one?”

YOUR WAR AGAINST THE SKARRONS. WE BELIEVE THE DVAPP WOULD BE WILLING TO AID YOU IN EXCHANGE FOR PLANETS AWAY FROM THE CAJDITAL. THE DVAPP HAVE LONG RANGE WEAPONRY SUPERIOR TO OUR OWN PRIOR TO YOUR GIFT OF THE CLEANSING BEAM TECHNOLOGY. THEY ALSO HAVE A POPULATION AND FLEET FAR LARGER THAN YOUR OWN. IT IS NEXT TO USELESS AGAINST THE CAJDITAL. WE BELIEVE IT WOULD BE OF GREAT VALUE AGAINST THE SKARRONS.

Leif crossed his arms over his chest as he thought. “I thought you didn’t consider the Skarrons to be that great of a threat?”

WE RECOGNIZE THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE THREAT. WE DISAGREE ON THE SIZE OF THEIR TERRITORY. IF THE DVAPP CANNOT ASSIST US AGAINST THE CAJDITAL, THEY CAN FIGHT THE SKARRONS AND FREE UP MORE OF YOUR FLEET FOR THAT PURPOSE. WE BELIEVE THEY WOULD BE WILLING TO ACCEPT THESE TERMS. THEY ARE LOSING TERRITORY QUICKLY AND HAVE NO VIABLE OPTIONS.

“But are they trustworthy?”

YOU WILL HAVE THE CAJDITAL CHEMICAL. TRUSTWORTHY OR NOT, THEY CANNOT BETRAY YOU. STAR FORCE IS NEEDED TO BATTLE THE CAJDITAL. WE SEEK TO INSURE YOU ARE NOT DESTROYED BY THE SKARRONS. THE DVAPP WISH SANCTUARY AWAY FROM THE CAJDITAL. THEIR TECHNOLOGY WILL BE EFFECTIVE AGAINST THE SKARRONS. THEY CAN FIGHT THE CAJDITAL INDIRECTLY BY PROTECTING STAR FORCE AND THE PROTOVIC FROM ANOTHER ENEMY. THIS IS OUR LOGIC AND OUR PROPOSITION.

“In theory there is potential in this,” Leif agreed. “How much of their civilization is transplantable? It’s taking everything the Scionate have got, plus your jumpships to move them out, and they’re considerably smaller than the Dvapp according to the Alliance data sheets.”

THEY WILL LOSE MANY. THIS IS UNAVOIDABLE. WE WILL SEND JUMPSHIPS TO AID THEIR EVACUATION. THEIR NUMBERS WILL BE SIGNIFICANT, BUT GIVEN THE DISTANCES INVOLVED WE MUST ACT QUICKLY TO BEGIN THE PROCESS. THEIR WARFLEET CAN TRAVEL INDEPENDENT OF THEIR POPULATION AND IS LARGELY INTACT AT PRESENT. THAT WILL NOT REMAIN TRUE FOR LONG.

“Have you discussed this proposal with them?”

NOT AS OF YET. WE DID NOT WISH TO SUGGEST HOPE WHERE THERE MIGHT BE NONE IF YOU WERE NOT IN AGREEMENT.

Leif took in a deep breath, then let it out very slowly, thinking fast. “How much infrastructure support will they need?”

WE BELIEVE THEY WILL REQUIRE NONE. AVAILABLILTY OF BUILDING MATERIALS WILL DICTATE THEIR RATE OF CONSTRUCTION AND ENHANCEMENT WOULD BE PREFERRED. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ASSIGN THEM WORLDS AND ALLOW THEM TO COLONIZE THEM WITHOUT SUPPORT. THEIR FLEET SHOULD BE SUFFICIENT TO INSURE SECURITY. WHAT THEY REQUIRE IS DISTANCE FROM THE CAJDITAL.

“How fast are their ships compared to your jumpships?”

APPROXIMATELY 40%.

Leif wrinkled his nose. That was slow, considerably slower than Star Force’s jumpships, but far faster than their drone fleet was capable of jumping, which was why they still used jumpships.

“I’ll require an advance colonization team with a small defense fleet moved into position quickly to secure a foothold, then you can bring the rest along at whatever pace you choose. If all they need is territory, we can accommodate them. But make sure they understand the threat the Skarrons pose.”

HOW MANY WORLDS CAN YOU OFFER?

“How many do they need?”

WE ASK THAT YOU OFFER A MIMIMUM OF 10.

“I’ll have to do some map checking first before I can commit to a number. I also need to know what their habitability ranges are, and what level of desirability they want.”

WE BELIEVE THEY WILL TAKE ANY YOU OFFER. THEY ARE ALREADY FLEEING THEIR CURRENT TERRITORY AND COLONIZING WORLDS BEYOND OUR KNOWLEDGE. IF WE OFFER THEM SAFE HAVEN WE BELIEVE THEY WILL TAKE IT REGARDLESS OF TERMS.

“Give me an hour to consult our charts.”

WE WILL AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE.

The image of the shrunken Hycre disappeared and Leif deactivated the comm with a few telekinetic button presses as he jogged out of Balboa Lane, headed back to his quarters. When he got there he sat down at his personal terminal and brought up the master Star Force map and highlighted Beta Region. The current systems held he disregarded, for they weren’t going to share them with what amounted to strangers. Likewise he ignored the communal Alliance systems they were setting up, leaving some 98% remaining.

A few of those were inhabited by other races, some with space travel, some without, but most being single system entities. Beyond those there was a lot of unclaimed territory, with some of the systems being used as trade routes by the other races. He didn’t want to put the Dvapp down on any of those so he ruled them out, then began a search function on the available planetoids based on environmental conditions, which he double checked with the information the Alliance had on the Dvapp.

He got a list within half a second, then switched from data form to map form, with the available planets triggering their systems to glow red. He cut off the list with the top 100 and looked at what they had.

It was a shotgun spread, as he had expected, but within a few minutes he had a basic outline of a region near to Randy’s most coreward colony. Not so far out that it would leave the Dvapp exposed, but it would put them squarely on the line that the trailblazers had drawn as their furthest border. So far the Skarrons hadn’t hit another Star Force system, choosing to focus all their efforts on Protovic territory where both sides were going at it hard. If the Dvapp could slip into the region relatively unnoticed with a warfleet to cover their colonization efforts…this could work.

Leif pulled up a few of the planetoids in question and gave them a quick look over. Most were volcanic worlds with oceans present, places that Star Force could colonize but otherwise wouldn’t want to. That said, he pulled up a secondary map from his personal files and overlaid it on the primary, making sure none of the tagged worlds were included in the alternate networks the others were setting up.

One was, and Leif removed it from his list, which after a little more trimming left him with 22 viable candidates. He saved them and their data to a separate file, knowing that he’d have to get final checks from Randy, but even if a few of them weren’t available he could promise the Dvapp the 10 worlds the Hycre suggested and then some if they could get enough of their people there to colonize them.

With a quick glance over to make sure he hadn’t made any glaring oversights, Leif contacted the bridge and reinitiated communications with the Hycre directly from his quarters.

10

February 11, 2475

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Dre’for flew his Valerie up to orbit over the Alliance world for the last time, rendezvousing with a Scionate cargo ship that had been converted into a carrier. Onboard he met up with a host of other pilots, all of which were moving on from the still growing world as more Scionate and other races’ refugees were coming in. His time guarding this world was done, and once he and a few others finished up loading the carrier it moved to a higher orbit and docked with a Scionate jumpship.

Another two days of waiting while other ships arrived followed, then the massive jumpship left the system on a 6 jump course enroute to Drema, after which it would follow the Human ‘conduit’ into their region and branch off to one of the Alliance worlds they were setting up there.

Dre’for’s carrier was eventually dropped off along with the other 21 ships in stellar orbit, then the jumpship left immediately to maximize time, leaving the Scionate ships to make microjumps of their own to reach the 2nd of three Alliance worlds in the Lkat system, where the Scionate had established a transitional base of their own.

When the carrier arrived in orbit it met several hundred other ships from 8 different races. There were few orbital facilities, all Human, and they likewise had a few warships of their own present patrolling the area. The rest of the ships belong to the Gardeen, Irondel, Yammot, Hammids, and three more races that Dre’for wasn’t familiar with. They weren’t part of the Alliance, but apparently they’d been given slots on a sanctuary world?

As he flew his Valerie down to the surface he saw the expansive Scionate cities under construction in their sector, with him heading to the largest one as he descended. The Scionate had been given sector 7, which occupied one of the four southern hemisphere quadrants. Their immediate neighbors were the Irondel, Hammids, and one of the races he didn’t know. That one had more infrastructure built up than any of the others, but still it only occupied a small amount of the land space allotted, given that the entire planet had no oceans, forests, or other native life. Just vast tracks of desert underneath a humid atmosphere.

Dre’for flew down through that humidity in the form of a thunderstorm enroute to the spaceport, with many more of the tiny, isolated weather patterns popping up across their territory. He’d been told that the weather would be active, but as he came down near the spaceport he found the wind to be negligible with the rain falling gently, as if bathing the relaxed cityscape beneath.

He ducked his Valerie underneath the spaceport canopy and landed in amongst a bay full of military craft, finding a berth reserved specifically for him. The quadruped opened the canopy on the fighter and sniffed the air, finding it as humid as the thunderstorms suggested.

“Welcome brother.”

Dre’for slid off the top of the Valerie and dropped to the floor next to the other pilot, one far younger than himself.

“Who are the other races on the planet? They are not part of the Alliance.”

“Star Force and the Protovic are engaged in a separate war against a powerful race known as the Skarrons. Their territory is far coreward of here, but when the Nestafar diminished under Calavari attacks they grew bold and attacked the Protovic and others in the region. Many of these races have sought sanctuary with Star Force as well.”

“I was told these worlds were to be shared by the Alliance, not others,” Dre’for said as he looked over the scattering of pilots and techs within the hangar, taking their measure in little more than a glance. He was amongst the most veteran of pilots, and knew the others of his race well enough that it didn’t take him long to ascertain their mettle.

“The other two in the system are, but there were slots left available on this world that the Alliance chose to use rather than expanding to another system.”

“More population under the same naval umbrella,” Dre’for surmised, rotating his shoulders around to stretch them…then his hips.

“Exactly.”

“I trust the same is not true of our allotted worlds?”

“I have no knowledge of that.”

Dre’for huffed. “No, you wouldn’t. My stay here will not be long. I leave with the colony expedition when it is fully assembled. Do you know where I will be billeted until then?”

The other Scionate bowed slightly. “I am your reception. If you wish I can take you there now? Or perhaps you would like something to eat first?”

“Show me to my billet, and I will find my way from there.”

“Follow,” the Scionate said, turning and walking lazily across the fighter bay.

Dre’for did so silently, and was led on a circuitous pathway through the Scionate city until they eventually arrived at the den where 13 sets of quarters were located, set around a small courtyard. His guide pawed the doorframe, opening the vertical door and allowing him access to the small, private chambers.

“You are dismissed,” Dre’for said graciously as he entered.

The other Scionate bowed and walked off, leaving him to acclimate himself.

Dre’for shut the door behind him, then began to peel off his armor now that he was safely within the confines of their own city. Unlike on Sashneo, this city fully belonged to them and there was no mixing of the races. Each zone on the planet was similar, belong to a single race who controlled immigration, commerce, and all other aspects. Other races might have allowed public access to their cities, but the Scionate did not, preferring to be left alone save for select visitors.

There had been some conditions to be given territory on this world, because ultimately it belonged to the Humans. They had a scattering of their own settlements here occupying a narrow strip of land that separated the eight sectors. Those settlements contained resource markets that the Scionate and others could trade with, securing goods and assistance with construction or tech issues as they built up their territories, if necessary. They were also open to the public, allowing the Scionate and others full access, making them the communal points on the otherwise divided planet.

There was a long list of rules governing conduct within those settlements, and a lesser list regarding what the Scionate and others could or could not do here. Normally the Scionate would have found that offensive, but their restrictions were inconsequential save for one, given that Scionate society already operated by the same.

That one was a decree that meat production was not allowed. The Scionate didn’t wholly rely upon it for their food supply, but they did maintain herds of animals to consume as a delicacy. Those herds were not permitted here, under threat of forcible confiscation and punishment. That rule also applied to the worlds the Humans were outright giving them, along with a handful of other conditions that the Scionate had negotiated. It had been rumored that the Humans had rescued several such food herds from the Cajdital, not for their own consumption, but to give them sanctuary.

Dre’for liked that they had offered such insult to their enemy, but otherwise didn’t care for the Human’s squeamishness. He respected their piloting and hand to hand skills, along with the way they’d stepped up on Daka during the Nestafar betrayal, though that had mostly been due to the fact that the Nestafar hadn’t seen fit to consider them a worthy enemy and had trashed the other race’s fighters first.

Never the less the Humans were scrappy fighters, but the idea that they would be dictating to the Scionate was laughable. Why Dre’for’s leaders had agreed to the Humans’ terms he didn’t know, but he was certainly going to miss the meat once their stockpiles ran out. Apparently the Humans didn’t mind them eating the meat, they just didn’t want them bringing their herds into their territory.

He supposed it was a small price to pay for getting away from the Cajdital, if only temporarily, but he didn’t like sacrificing part of Scionate culture in exchange for it. Hopefully this colony still had some meat reserves. If not he’d adjust, but after such a long trip out here he had a serious hankering for a slice of bernen.

After Dre’for shed his armor he walked around the three-tiered billet, finding all as expected to be, then he pawed the door open and set off to explore the surrounding area and get something to eat…meat or not.

“We’re getting deviation again,” Ryan Umberson said, watching the vid screen displays. “Just like last time.”

“Damn it,” Tennisonne swore, monitoring a different readout on the other side of the research lab in Avalon, one of 18 Atlantis-style oceanic surface cities on Earth where most of Star Force’s small scale research and development occurred…save for what had to transpire within the pyramid.

“Shutting down,” the third engineer in the chamber said, in charge of the reactor controls.

“No!” Tennisonne said sharply. “If the computer keeps chasing the rabbit we’re not going to get anywhere,” he said, glancing at the wall between him and Ryan in the triangular room and telekinetically pressing a button, with equipment folding out of a hidden compartment. “We’re going to try this manually.”

“How is that going to be any better than the computer?” Victoria asked.

“If I can stabilize it for even a few seconds longer we’ll be able to gather data to build a better program, at minimum. The current one we’ve got is crap,” the senior level 5 tech said as he walked over to the Ikrid interface and placed his hands on the sphere. “Ryan, link in. We’re going to have to double team this.”

“Right,” his fellow engineer said, opening up an identical interface on another wall, with the reactor standing middle of the room blocking their view of one another, though from his current position Ryan could see Victoria at her corner station.

“You sure about this?” she asked. “We’ve almost lost it. If you can’t do something in the next 20 seconds I’ll have to shut down.”

“Then we have our work cut out for us,” Tennisonne told his fellow level 5 engineers, though in truth they were still his junior. He was really a level 6, but thus far Star Force hadn’t bothered to create that distinction, and skilled as they were, some of the other level 5s were still hesitant to improvise on the fly…but then again he’d had far more experience doing that than they had coming up through the ranks. Tennisonne had been at the forefront from the very beginning, and never had anyone else’s lead to follow.

Ryan got his Ikrid interlink out of the wall and mentally connected with the reactor controls, simultaneously sensing/detecting Tennisonne’s presence and the functions he was asserting control over.

“I’m in.”

“Regulate flow, I’ve got the shielding,” Tennisonne said, claiming the toughest task for himself. The reactor behind him was constraining a series of very specific and active reactions between matter and energy, set up in a mousetrap like chain designed to create a specific product at the end, but the physics involved were so new that the computer had insufficient modeling to regulate it all, which was accomplished by a series of intricate energy shields, far more dense than anything employed in combat, and designed to accomplish specific tasks rather than block anything thrown their way.

Tennisonne saw in mind’s eye the settings they were currently running, as well as the computer modifications that had them fluttering like a flag in the wind as it tried to overcome the erratic nature of the third reaction. Try as it would, it couldn’t compensate for the fluctuating nature and continually took bigger and bigger swings at the shield adjustments trying to null it out…which in turn made things worse.

The senior engineer took direct control over that shield setting and forced smaller adjustments, with the containment security warnings rising towards dangerous levels as he did. Not dangerous as in blowing up the reactor, but in overcoming the containment fields and messing up the interior…which would require days if not weeks for a rebuild, considering that everything in the reactor he and his two peers had designed and built from scratch.

“Hurry,” Victoria prompted.

Tennisonne ignored her and used a series of shield walls to chop down segments of the growing reaction as Ryan feathered the amount of incoming particles and energy, reducing the reaction without smothering it entirely. That helped Tennisonne after the first few tries it took for Ryan to get synchronized with what the other engineer was doing, then the two of them gradually pulled back the reaction with both having to make constant mental adjustments.

“Halfway there,” Victoria noted, seeing the levels calming down.

“Confirm computer is recording.”

“Confirmed. Keep schooling it,” she prompted, checking the status on the other links in the reactor in case they somehow managed to get this one working. They all appeared nominal, but to date had never been tested, given that the first three stages were as far as they’d gotten.

Pushing aside all outside influence, Tennisonne focused his psionic abilities…a gift from Davis for his long service, and something that he’d devoted daily training time towards for just this sort of manipulation that normally only a computer could accomplish. The speed of the link allowed him to make adjustments far faster than his fingers otherwise would have allowed, though still not as fast as a computer was capable of. The difference was wisdom, for a computer could only do what it was programmed to do, and improvising was something that could never be programmed.

Inside the third stage of the reactor two exotic forms of energy that Star Force had only learned to produce a few decades ago were bombarding a slurry of molecules created in stage two. Those had to be kept at extreme heat and pressure, otherwise their unusual atomic configuration would dissipate. Those molecules were then spawning a precise number of andermob particles per cyclical spin, and in order to feed stage 4 a certain flow rate was required. At present the cycles were erratic, giving large surges of andermobs followed by mere trickles, none of which stage 4 could use.

Using the shields and flow rate, Tennisonne and Ryan compressed and relaxed the pressure in various regions of the slurry, adjusting the cyclical rate and trying to maintain a steady output into phase four. The tiny tier 2 subatomic particles had to occur in large amounts to feed the reactor, meaning that a large amount of the molecular slurry was required…which was what was causing the regulation problems. In test runs smaller amounts had been easier to control, which the computer regulation program had been designed to emulate, but given the larger numbers the slurry took on a different behavior, much akin to how a lake and an ocean differed in current patterns.

Tennisonne was having to learn those patterns and counter them, as well as to get a feel for the adjustments Ryan was making. He would have liked to have communicated with him telepathically so they could increase their efficiency, but his psionic skills were already being taxed by the interlink and he didn’t have enough processing power left over to shout a telepathic word, let alone coordinate in real time.

He could still speak though, given that that ability wasn’t psionic, nor were his ears, which Victoria kept annoying with constant updates. He could see the reaction as well, if not better than she could, so he didn’t know why she kept talking at him, other than just being bored with nothing else to do.

More on accident than anything, the pair of engineers managed to keep a stable reaction for a brief span of 4.2 seconds, their longest sustained period yet, which achieved the 3.04 seconds of continuous production necessary to activate stage 4.

“We’re through to four!” Victoria announced excitedly.

“Talk to us,” Tennisonne said, now wanting her input as he continued to chase a stable reaction in stage three.

“We have 79% transfer...stage 5 is activating. Wait, no…hold on,” she said, making an adjustment on her end. “Contained within 5. We’re at 68% capacity. We need more to get through in the next few minutes or we’re going to lose it.”

“Working on it,” Ryan said as he and Tennisonne tried to repeat their success. Again, through what seemed sheer accident rather than intent, the reaction stabilized for 3.8 seconds, sending another continuous burst into stage 4.

“That did it! Stage 5 has reached threshold, transferring to six. Massive loss…we’re only getting 31% through and…” she cut off suddenly.

“What?” Ryan demanded.

“Stage 7 complete.”

“Shut down,” Tennisonne prompted, holding the reaction in check until Victoria deactivated the entire assembly. When it went offline he disconnected from the Ikrid terminal, returning his normal senses to the forefront of his mind. He blinked away the disconcertedness and walked back over to his corner terminal and studied the results.

The reactor was reading .0003 milligrams of Erruvium, and according to the readings it was in a stable form. He’d worried about there being a transitional instability in the halo of neutrons surrounding the empty core of the atom being held together solely by corovon linkage, but the structure appeared to be holding, otherwise there would have been an instantaneous collapse into traditional C-type elements.

“Did we finally do it?” Ryan asked, looking at his own terminal with the other two engineers in each corner of the triangular room with the reactor and its precious contents between them.

Tennisonne cracked a smile, but it was safely inconspicuous from the other two. Most people considered manual override of computer control absolute folly, but he knew from experience…and a little Archon envy…that it was the preferred route to take in select situations.

“Welcome to the new age,” he said loudly and proudly, “of Arc Elements.”

www.aerkijyr.com

Battlemeld

1

36 years ago…

Travis-189377 hopped over a barricade on the ‘indoor’ paintball training chamber, ducking down and rolling to the left before popping up and shooting the target sphere on a turret with a red stinger…with a purple one coming in almost simultaneously from behind him, where Karen-189376 emerged, jumping over the same barricade then hurdling the next. The pair repeated the process on the next turret, working their way out from the start area in the center of the chamber towards the outermost ring where the finish pedestal lay.

They didn’t know where it was, hidden behind the barricades and pillars, with various bunkers on the outer wall where trainers were stationed to add their sniping skills to the Tandem Challenge. To make things worse, each of the turrets had to be hit by both colors of paintballs, else they wouldn’t deactivate…and the shots had to come in together, meaning the Archon trainees had to coordinate fire, all the while ducking for cover and keeping from getting hit themselves.

Travis and Karen were having little trouble, moving from point to point in a snake-like pattern that coiled them in an expanding spiral rather than trying to head straight towards the outer ring as most trainees attempted. Even now, after completing several circulations, the pair was nearing the outer areas with most of the turrets atop of the pillars inside of them still active. There were too many of them to take out with their limited ammunition, so they had to pick and choose as they found a path to the outer ring.

Their chosen path was longer, but more reliable. Travis and Karen had ran this challenge multiple times, and had worked out the route they were most comfortable with, allowing them to move quite quickly, despite the extra distance they had to run and jump. The two trainees were so in sync that they very rarely had to stay behind cover, with most of their ducks followed by rolls, runs, and jumps that kept them moving constantly.

The trainers were a wildcard, for there were many hidden bunkers in the exterior walls and they never knew which ones would contain the sniper rifles throwing stingers at them. There was also a rover moving about through the rings, passing through the gaps between the low walls that were heavily guarded by turrets, discouraging trainees over the centuries from taking that direct route to the outer ring.

Travis and Karen had tried that way before, as many others had, but like their predecessors they knew that running the gaps was a sure way of getting hit, though the rover had no such difficulties. If trainees stayed put for too long the rover would come up on their flank and dislodge them…which was another good reason to keep moving, and at the speed the trainee pair were progressing the rover wasn’t going to be an issue. Their indirect path kept it moving around chasing them, reducing it to a ranged sniper like the trainers, except it wasn’t designed to operate as such.

Travis leapt over another of the low walls, firing at a turret simultaneously as Karen popped up out of cover to his left, with their binary rifles tagging and disabling the target sphere on top and deactivating it. By the time the trainee had dropped into cover with a few stingers passing over his head, Karen was already coming over with him, but a few meters to his left. When she ducked down, drawing the turrets her way, he popped up and moved over the wall, ducked down, rolled to the right, then came up and fired on another, becoming a distraction for Karen, who likewise came over firing, hitting the same turret and deactivating it before she dropped down behind cover.

Both of them then moved left, rotating around the wide curve and taking out two turrets that were actually inside their ring before coming up and moving over again…this time with a feint from Karen that drew sniper fire just long enough for Travis to go over. As he did he spotted a barrel within a wall bunker over the outer wall. Remembering the spot as he dropped down, he rolled to the right and came back up, sending three shots that way.

Two missed and hit the upper wall over the small firing slit, with the third hitting low and doing little more than throwing a few red paint splatters up onto the barrel…which flicked his direction.

A muffled groan sounded as Karen’s more carefully placed purple stinger slipped through the four inch gap and hit the trainer inside. That gave Travis an opening that he took, flinging himself up and over the last wall, whereupon he landed into a somersault roll and came up with his back towards the outer chamber wall, glancing side to side.

He didn’t see the finish pedestal, but he knew from gut instinct that there was a sniper nest to his right, and as he looked he saw two stubs of barrels sticking out around the curve of the wall move towards him. Travis dropped to his belly as he turned, giving him an extra split second, then fired off two quick shots. They hit low, but were followed up by Karen’s shots as he came over almost directly in front of the snipers, firing as she fell.

Both barrels went askew, and Travis knew the trainers were unconscious or numbed to the point they couldn’t hold onto their weapons. He got to his feet, pushing his safety sunglasses back up a fraction on his nose, and followed Karen further around the curve of the outer ring, combining fire with her on another turret as the rover finally showed up ahead of them…but opposite the short finishing pedestal.

Travis sprinted ahead, dodging left as Karen went right and the rover shot between them, then Travis jumped up into a superman pose over the middle, giving the rover a very shallow silhouette as Karen went low and got behind the pedestal some ten meters away, using it to block the rover’s shots. Travis fell to the ground hard behind her, but he rolled out of it and came up shooting a couple of pointless shots at the rover as she scrambled forward and came up to the pedestal.

Just then a distant sniper caught Travis in the gut and he doubled over…but remained conscious. His uncontrolled landing smashed his face into the ground, popping his glasses off as he fought to twist his neck around to unblock his nose that was filling up with blood from the impact and allow him to breathe easier as his torso seemed unwilling to respond to his body’s commands.

His legs still worked, and he got them up underneath him, flipping him over to where he could see the blue finish lights on the ceiling, indicating that Karen had gotten to and slapped down the button on the finish pedestal…but he already knew that, even if he didn’t actually see it happen. She’d been close enough that there was no way she was going to miss.

“Looks like your rifle took half the hit,” she said, suddenly appearing over him and helping stretch out his body into a more comfortable position. “Your face is a mess though.”

“That I can feel,” he told his sister, finding it a little hard to talk, for once the stun energy hit his blood stream it spread throughout his body in small amounts…which actually helped to mitigate the larger amount in his torso as it slowly broke down and absorbed into his cells.

The sensation didn’t last long, for a medic came out to him and injected the destunning serum that returned life to his body, then applied a small device to the side of his nose that triggered an acceleration of the healing process enough to clot up the breach within seconds. He kept the small Star Force device on for several minutes, knowing from past experience that if he didn’t his nose might break open again, for the thing wasn’t a regenerator. He’d never been injured bad enough to need one of those, but Ender-189388 had when he almost snapped his arm completely off in what looked like a harmless enough fall on Blood Gulch.

The thing had repaired him on the spot, making it obvious that the alien technology was far superior to the weak ass devices Star Force built, but he was glad to have the help, otherwise he’d be holding a bloody cloth to his face for a half hour or so. This way was much quicker…and cleaner.

“Congratulations,” the medic offered. “Is that your fifth?”

“What…oh, yes. Yes it is,” she said, belatedly realizing that he was referring to the challenge record once she took at glance at the display board on the ceiling that held their time. She’d gotten distracted by Travis’s faceplant and forgot to look. They’d finally got the mark…but only by 1.4 seconds.

“Thanks,” Travis offered as the medic retreated.

Karen reached down and offered her brother a hand up. “Good?”

“I think so. We got lucky that it was that close this time. Not sure we’re going to be able to shave much more time off without a hundred more runs.”

“We don’t have time for that,” she reminded him, referencing the end of their training. Their class was through all of the challenges, with them going back to boost their scores with redos that theoretically had an unlimited amount of attempts, but all of them knew that they wanted to get to the Final Challenge and graduate before too long, so they weren’t going to draw this out forever. A few more weeks at most, maybe, but not more than that.

“Agreed,” Travis said, picking up his rifle and walking off around the ring until they came to the open doorway that the medic had entered through. “Let’s focus on the Ring-out course. There’s points there to be had.”

“Aquatics first.”

Travis sighed. “You still think we can add anything there?”

“If you quit moping, yes.”

“Alright, we’ll play it your way.”

Karen lightly punched him in the ribs. “We’ve got this.”

“We’re still 70 some points off their mark.”

“Doable.”

“But not easy.”

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge.”

“We’re talking trailblazers here. That’s more than just a challenge.”

“We just took another course record away from them,” Karen pointed out.

“Small stuff compared to the tandem record…and I don’t want to hold everyone else up while we’re scraping for points.”

“We won’t need to,” she said confidently.

Travis half laughed. “Right, let’s get to it then. At least underwater my nose isn’t going to bump into anything…so long as you don’t kick me again.”

“That,” she said, pointing a finger at him, “was half your fault.”

“And all my pain,” he added as they checked in their equipment and slipped out of their challenge uniforms and into their traditional trainee uniforms. From there they headed to the aquatics section of the training facility within Atlantis.

Two weeks later they’d give up the ghost and turn in their final score, abandoning any further attempts at gaining any more points. A few days later the last of their class did the same, moving them all on to the Final Challenge.

And the two siblings went into it carrying the overall Tandem record with them.

Nathan-47434 ducked underneath Travis’s sword slash aimed at his head, then rolled across a knee to his left to avoid Karen’s thrust that came within an inch of his butt. As he twisted he flicked his double-bladed practice sword around, causing Travis to flinch backwards and give the level 83 acolyte enough time to get back to his feet.

He didn’t stay there long, jumping up into a dropping kick towards Karen as she came at him. The level 52 adept jabbed up at his knees, but a quick twirl of the double blades knocked it askew, prompting her to jump/roll to her right, over top of which Travis came and locked up blades with Nathan. A moment later Karen kicked up at his gut from somewhere on the ground and the Sangheili was propelled backwards a couple of steps…ending with a satisfied smile on his face.

He came back at the two, no longer holding back now that he’d gotten a feel for the way they moved, and attacked Travis hard for a pair of sword blows that the level 51 adept barely blocked, given the acolyte’s greater strength…then he switched to a jab towards Karen, knowing that she’d be coming at him in the blink of an eye.

Then he was back on Travis again, not giving either one much of an opportunity to move or think without having to defend themselves until the pair split, with each going to the far sides of the training mat. Nathan let them go, then sprinted towards Karen, knowing he had a few seconds of time to get at her alone.

She recognized that too and ran to her right around the perimeter, but Nathan caught up to her and exchanged three blows before he got her off balance and set up a fourth hit that swept her left leg out from under her. Nathan brought the stroke high, pulling her calve up above her waist and flipping her over, then spun around, pulling that half of his double sword away from his body as Travis came down on him from behind.

He caught his attack and repulsed it, pushing the adept backwards and taking him down quickly with a foot to his gut…then Nathan retreated to the center of the mat and waited for the pair to come at him again.

The brother and sister pair brushed themselves off and walked towards the much older and stronger acolyte slowly, watching their spacing, then the pair rushed him…with Travis just slightly in the lead. When Nathan moved to counter his blow first Travis hit the brakes and let Karen arrive ahead of him. Nathan switched targets quickly, then the pair reversed again at arm’s length away from him, with Travis jabbing his sword past Nathan’s as Karen locked it up with a two-handled leverage hold that used most of her right forearm for bracing.

It was all she could do to resist Nathan’s strength, but she didn’t have to hold it for long, and down the acolyte went, bending over forward with the impact, then getting both adepts’ swords coming down on his neck/back at the same time, smashing him down into the mat face first…after which they backed up and waited on him to get up.

Nathan did so slowly, trying to learn from the encounter. Travis and Karen had developed quite the reputation for their tandem skills, not just by beating Jason and Paul’s trainee record, but by the near magical ability they had to coordinate with each other…and without telepathy at that. They’d gotten so good that they were able to take on higher ranking opponents together that neither could touch individually, with Nathan being their latest attempt. He’d requested the sparring session to test their skills…as well as his own, seeing how he’d react to such an unusual pairing.

Well, he was getting quite the education, for even given a handful of seconds he could own either one of them, but the way they were working together exploited weaknesses that he didn’t realize he had, for virtually every time he struck at one he was leaving himself open to the other, causing him to rethink his defensive posture on the fly, with the pair of adepts getting the better of him in roughly a 2 to 1 ratio, leaving him the inferior in this engagement.

But Archons liked challenged, and he was loving this, so even as he pulled himself back up he was eager to get back at it…and was glad they were beating him, because that meant he had cause to up the difficulty again. So far he’d been sticking strictly to swordplay, but he was an acolyte, and that meant he had other options.

Nathan walked towards Travis, seeing him reposition accordingly as Karen rotated around the pair, getting in almost behind Nathan but not quite out of his peripheral vision by the time he struck. The acolyte locked swords with Travis and pushed him back with one half of his double blade, then reversed his handhold, whipping the other half forward and knocking the adept in the head before he could get his footing enough to evade, then Nathan spun both ends of his sword around in a defensive twirl, not knowing where Karen was.

When the first quarter turn didn’t contact blade or body, Nathan released a Fornax field, intending to catch her wherever she was…then found his legs being knocked out from under him as Karen slammed into him. He fell on her and their swords, getting poked in the groin and bending around the point of impact as much as he could, but feeling himself get sick to his stomach from the blow.

He laid there for a moment, then rolled off her and onto the mat where he lay for a moment in sickened agony until it began to wear off. Forcing himself to stand up he got a knee on the ground under him and got his head upright enough to see where the other two were.

He frowned, and not from the pain awkward pain he was still suffering from. Both Karen and Travis were laying on the mat and not moving. They were limp, and for a moment Nathan wondered if he was somehow still transmitting his Fornax energy, but he wasn’t. And even if Karen had somehow gotten knocked unconscious when they got tangled up, slim as that possibility was, that didn’t explain why Travis was also down.

“Guys, you alright?” Nathan asked, getting to his feet and walking over to Karen. He knelt down and put a hand on her head, linking with her telepathically as much as his limited skills allowed. When he did he jerked back, getting a none too pleasant feeling in his own head, almost like he’d touched a live electrical wire.

“What the hell is going on?” he whispered, checking to make sure they were both still breathing. They were, so he tried to wake them up physically, but no matter how much he poked or shook them they were both out cold, so he jogged off the mat and found the nearest comm terminal, calling for a medic.

2

May 3, 2476

Solar System

Trunks

“And?” Nathan asked as the head medic walked over to him while both Travis and Karen were lying unconscious in the med bay on adjacent table/beds with other techs doing further scans.

“They’re not injured as far as I can tell. If I had to guess I would say it’s something psionic…except that they’re adepts. At this point I have no idea why they’re out, but they’re both showing anomalous brain activity.”

“Could it have anything to do with them being twins?” Nathan asked, grasping at straws. He didn’t know how a Fornax field could have done this to them, because it actively disrupted the nervous system, meaning once he stopped transmitting the effects equally disappeared.

The medic shook his head. “Fraternal twins are no different than any other sibling pair, aside from their birthdate.”

“They’re identical twins.”

The medic frowned and looked at the Archon like he’d lost his mind.

“They both have identical DNA and XY chromosomes, but Karen’s male genetics never activated.”

“Oh, Androgen Insensitivity. That is curious, but I don’t see how it could be a factor…then again, with us being unable to determine a cause I suppose it’s possible,” he said, referencing a condition found in some Humans where they are immune to the effects of certain bio-chemicals. In the case of Karen and others, one of those chemicals was the developmental trigger to activate the male portion of her genetic code.

All Humans contain female genetics, with approximately half also containing male genetics. During pre-birth growth a ‘fork in the road’ moment occurs where one is chosen. For XX chromosome females there is no male genetics to activate, thus they develop the only genetic characteristics they have. Those Humans with XY chromosomes have the option to go either way, and a trigger chemical is surged through the individual during development at the moment of differentiation.

That chemical activates the male genetics and they develop. In a few cases something goes wrong with the chemical trigger and the male genetics don’t activate, leaving the default female genetics as the blueprint for development. In this way a handful of females carry inactive male genetics, whereas all males carry inactive female genetics.

Karen was one such case, leaving her with the same DNA as Travis, despite the fact that they had developed into different genders.

“Scan me,” Nathan insisted.

“For what purpose?”

“Just in case my psionics are operating incorrectly. Them both going down simultaneously can’t be a coincidence.”

“Have a seat,” the medic said, pointing to an open bed/table beside Travis. Nathan walked over and hopped up, then laid back as several pieces of scanning equipment were extruded from the wall and brought out over his head.

“I have something,” the medic continuing to scan Travis said. “Looks like malformed Ikrid tissue.”

Nathan waved off his own medic and sat up, careful not to bump the hanging equipment. “He has Ikrid tissue?”

“A very small amount, but it’s not developed correctly…at least, it’s not developed according to the base pattern we have on file.”

“He shouldn’t have any at all,” the head medic said, walking up and viewing the scan results. He glared at the datapad then glanced at Karen. “Check her.”

It took a moment to set up the proper scan, for the wealth of their equipment operated in different ways without there being one ‘check all’ function. Her medic did the scan, then handed the results to the head medic.

“She has one too,” he told Nathan, then stared at the ceiling for a moment trying to piece it all together. “We’ve seen others have similar spontaneous psionic tissue growths, and the fact that they’re operating off of an identical genetic code can explain why they both have them, but I can’t theorize a link between this and their current condition. Ikrid acts as a biological comm relay. It doesn’t control any bodily functions, let alone anything critical enough to knock them unconscious. Am I wrong in that?” he asked Nathan.

“I didn’t use any Ikrid abilities on them, but it is possible to overwhelm them in various ways, none of which I’m capable of doing even if I tri…” Nathan cut off as he flinched suddenly as Karen jerked awake, sitting up so fast that she banged her head on the scanning equipment and reflexively hitting back at hit with a right forearm swing, breaking it off and throwing it into the medic at her side.

He took the equipment to the face, breaking his nose and knocking him off his feet.

“Easy,” Nathan said unnecessarily as Karen fully woke up and got her bearings.

“What?” she asked groggily, seeing that she was in a med bay and Travis was lying beside her unconscious.

The head medic raced around the end of the bed and got to the injured one, with Karen belatedly noticing…then feeling the dull spot on her arm where it had hit the now broken equipment.

“Did I do that?” she asked apologetically.

“He’ll live,” Nathan said, walking up beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “What happened to you?”

Karen looked down at the medic and the river of blood oozing out between his fingers as he grasped his nose lightly, wincing against the pain.

“Sorry,” she offered.

The medic lazily waved off her comment with his free hand as the head medic pulled him to his feet, then motioned for one of the others to take him over to another station for treatment while he got back to their patients.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

“Sucky,” she answered, then looked at Nathan. “Last thing I remember was getting tangled up with your legs. What’s wrong with Travis?”

“You both blacked out at the same moment,” the acolyte told her. “I used a Fornax field on you, but I have no idea how it knocked you out.”

“I thought Fornax was white noise,” she said, staring hard at Travis. “It loses effect when you stop transmitting.”

“As far as I know that’s the case…but something happened to you two.”

“Did you wake me up?”

“No. You just came out of it on your own. I tried waking you up on the mat, but your mind was locked down. Both of yours were. I don’t know how to do that with mine if I tried. Have you two ever blacked out at the same time before?”

“A couple times,” Karen admitted, “but that was because we both got hit at the same time. You didn’t hit us with any stun weapon?”

“No.”

“Then this is new,” she said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and looking directly at Travis.

The head medic pushed between her and Nathan and got to the head of Travis’s bed, where he rotated the scanning equipment around to reach over to Karen, given that she’d just trashed her own.

“Hold still,” he said, running the equipment around her head with Karen accommodating him.

“Did you know you have some psionic tissue?” Nathan asked.

Karen glanced at him. “I do?”

“Both of you do.”

Her eyes moved to Travis, who was still lying perfectly still. “No we didn’t. What type?”

“Ikrid.”

“A very small anomalous growth,” the medic corrected. “I’m not even sure if it’s active. Have you any conscious control over it?”

“I didn’t know I had any,” she reminded him. “How did I, did we get it?”

“It’s very rare, but some people have them without going through the upgrade process.”

Karen looked at Nathan and saw the acolyte shake his head, indicating that the medic didn’t have clearance to know what the ‘upgrade process’ truly was, though all medical personnel involved with Archons had to be given some knowledge of psionics in order to treat them.

“They’re usually nonfunctional or malfunctioning without the designer genetic modifications. I’m not sure how it works, but we’ve got documented cases of many civilians being treated by Star Force to correct the growths. How you guys were missed I don’t know.”

“They were never scanned,” Nathan said, a few puzzle pieces falling into place. “Any bad headaches in the past?”

“Nothing like what you’re talking about,” she said, looking at Travis again. “And he’s been with me since basic training. He hasn’t had anything either.”

“How’s she look now?” Nathan asked.

“The anomalous brain activity has ceased, and now that she’s awake she appears fully normal. Am I right in assuming that there’s some inform that you’re withholding that would require passing this on to a higher level tech?” he asked, looking directly at Nathan. “Psionics seem to be a touchy subject with you guys and I don’t want to pry.”

Nathan was silent for a moment, glancing down at Travis.

“Is he going to wake up anytime soon?” Karen asked the medic.

“I have no idea what’s keeping him unconscious, so I can’t answer that, though the fact that you woke up on your own is encouraging.”

“Give me 10 minutes,” Nathan said, lightly punching Karen in the shoulder as a friendly gesture before he hurried out of the med bay.

“Is he just asleep or something worse?”

“His mental state is erratic, so I can’t really say,” the medic answered as one of the others came back over, though the one with the broken nose was no longer in the bay, having been sent back to his quarters while he recovered. “But it’s more than just being asleep, otherwise you two would have woke up with some chemical persuasion. The source of the lockdown is mental, I can tell you that much. And if it is psionic related then I’m not going to be of much help to you.”

“But we do have psionic tissue?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling the datapad over and showing her the scans from both adepts, along with a bit of translation of the images. Before they finished Nathan came back in and pointed to Travis.

“Get him mobile. You two are going to Earth.”

“How soon?” the medic asked as Karen took a step over to Travis and lightly lifted him up into a sitting position.

“As soon as we can get to the spaceport. Anything you can do for him in transit?”

“Other than run additional scans and stand by to act if something changes, no.”

“Go ahead and transmit the data you’ve gathered to Atlantis. You’re relieved,” the acolyte said, flicking his chin at Karen. “Let’s go.”

She slid an arm underneath Travis’s knees and lifted him up across her chest, carrying him out the door and all the way down to the waiting puddle jumper, with the insystem transport carrying them up to orbit and onto a jumpline directly to Earth that got them to Atlantis within 3 hours.

Travis woke in the same manner as Karen, bolting upright still in combat mode, that having been the last waking memory he had. When he blinked away his grogginess he found that his head hurt…along with the rest of his body.

“What the…”

“You’ve been out for four days,” Karen said, walking up beside him in a small med bay with half a dozen medics around him, plus one Archon that he recognized as Jaime-532, the highest ranking Sangheili currently stationed in the Solar System. “We’re in Atlantis.”

“Why, what, and how?” Travis asked, picking up on Karen’s serious mood.

“That’s rather complicated,” one of the medics said, hopping up on the foot of Travis’s bed as the Archon sat up. “I’m Chandler Vortison. Me and my team,” he said, thumbing towards the other medics, “are tasked with trying to understand the V’kit’no’sat genetic engineering. We haven’t learned much, as pathetic as that admission is, but we have learned what happened to you.”

“I’m all ears,” Travis said after throwing Karen a glance.

“Well, first off you blacked out during a sparring session. Somehow you transmitted this to your sister and knocked her out too.”

“Thanks, bro,” Karen said sarcastically.

He glared at her then turned his attention back to Vortison. “Transmitted?”

“Both you and your sister have malformed Ikrid growths. How this occurred is not known, but it’s not unheard of either. We have 834 documented cases of psionic tissue developing in non-Archons, all but 3 of which were dysfunctional in some way. The three that weren’t were lucky, because the genetic degradation should have messed them up. You see, Zen’zat were never meant to reproduce. As such, the V’kit’no’sat never took into account translational problems when they genetically engineered the psionic abilities into the Ter’nat.”

“Wait…you’re saying I knocked both of us out because of faulty Ikrid?”

“No, it’s more than that. Let me explain in full before you ask further questions…it’ll save time. When our ancestors were left on this world and began to reproduce, their Zen’zat abilities transferred to their offspring, but over the millennia they degraded. They’re still fully intact within our genetic code, but they’re no longer active, just something we carry around with us like a lot of additional coding. For some reason these dormant abilities wake up in some people, but they don’t fully wake up and you get all kind of problems as tissue develops incorrectly, sometimes resulting in death, but most of the time in partial abilities. Then again, a lot of the cases we’ve seen have tissue that doesn’t do anything because it’s not fully formed. We imagine there are more people like that out there, but we don’t scan everyone, so it’s usually the ones experiences problems, headaches and such, that we find.”

“Your Ikrid growth is malformed. It is smaller, incomplete, and the tissue that is present is very different from what it’s designed to be…trick is, yours is actually working, but in a new way. Somehow your body adapted it to serve a specific function, which in this case is providing a low Ikrid link to your sister and only her. It took some time to identify, but you’re both continuously transmitting to one another. That’s probably why you never noticed it before, but your Tandem skills, I’m told, are top notch, which suggests that you’re both using this connection in a positive way, so it’s not just random transmissions.”

“Basically you cheated,” Jaime interrupted, “but it’s a very useful cheat. One that I’d prefer you didn’t waste.”

“Waste how?” Travis asked.

“Well, normal procedure in these cases is to correct the malformation by fully unlocking your psionic abilities and allowing you to grow proper tissue. Problem is that will destroy your current Ikrid growths, severing this connection you two have.”

Travis looked at Karen. “What connection?”

“I said the same thing, but the computers say there’s a link, and I’m not interested in finding out what it will feel like to not have it.”

“What’s the range of this link?” Travis asked Vortison.

“We’re not sure, but we’re guessing about 20 meters based on Karen’s transmission strength. You’ve been in lockdown so we couldn’t measure yours.”

“I’ve been further than 20 meters away from her before and I didn’t notice any negative effects.”

“It may not work that way. It could be that you just get tidbits of information from time to time that are useful, like knowing where she is during close range training drills without having to look.”

“Not that it’s perfect,” Karen noted, given the number of injuries they’d given each other over the years, all of which were light.

“You two hold the Tandem trainee record and are one of the better team pairs regardless of rank,” Jaime pointed out. “It might be natural for you, but you’ve definitely got an advantage. Don’t waste it.”

“Wait, what happened to make us…me, black out in the first place? You said I was in lockdown?”

Vortison exchanged a glance with Jaime, then swallowed hard before he spoke.

“The trailblazers have been breaking through into tier 2 psionics, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get some of them under observation when it happens. We’ve learned there are triggers that have to be satisfied before the flash growth of tissue occurs. You hit a trigger and your body tried to grow new tissue that your genetics didn’t appear to have, because it’s dormant. When that happened you blacked out, and stayed out because your body kept trying to access what wasn’t there in an endless cycle that we only just now broke.”

“How the hell did I try to skip to tier 2 psionics?”

“We’re not sure, but we think it might have to do with your link to your sister. If the trigger somehow was reading you both at the same time it might have thought you were more developed than you are, but that’s just a theory at this point. I don’t have a firm answer for you.”

“What’s to stop it from happening again?”

“We’re going to give you the other 6 basic psionic abilities,” Jaime told him. “Adept or not, you’re a special case.”

“What if what I need is in the 7th?”

“That’s the problem,” Karen agreed. “If we reset our Ikrid, we lose our link. If we don’t, you could be blacking us both out at any time now.”

“It probably won’t occur unless you’re in training or combat,” Vortison added, “but we don’t know for sure what the actual trigger is. We’ve mapped out some of the others, but this one is new to us.”

“Mapped out?” Travis asked.

“We know what we need to do in training to trigger them,” Jaime answered.

“More or less,” Vortison added. “We still don’t have specifics, nor are we close to finding a way to medically trigger the upgrades.”

Travis frowned. “Is that even possible?”

“If you’re a V’kit’no’sat, sure,” Vortison explained. “We, however, are not.”

“And good thing too,” Jaime chimed in. “Because we’d probably be killed for even suggesting it.”

“Point,” Travis admitted, knowing that the V’kit’no’sat wanted the Zen’zat to earn everything, even though the other races got bio upgrades at birth where Ter’nat did not.

“Ultimately it’s your choice,” Jaime told him, “but for the time being I want both of you down to the pyramid for upgrades and a permanent training assignment. The techs are going to study you in detail, and you’re going to explore this link you two have got. If you lock up again they know how to end it, so for now we’re in information gathering mode. Later on, if you want, we can erase this, but I strongly suggest that you keep your link. It’s the only one we know of to exist.”

Travis looked over at Karen. “Just when I was starting to get tired of you.”

“Shut up…this is all your fault anyway. I didn’t knock you out.”

“You’re just sore that I advanced sooner than you did.”

“Tried to advance,” she reminded him, “and failed.”

“Whatever,” Travis said, brushing off her accurate comment and looking at Jaime. “How long do you expect we’ll be down there?”

“I don’t know. This is new territory for us.”

“I’ll be going with you,” Vortison said.

Travis raised an eyebrow. “That high of a priority?”

Vortison nodded, underscoring how much so with his silence.

Travis glanced at Karen, then she turned to face Jaime. “When do we leave?”

3

July 25, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Karen ducked down as Travis jumped over her and landed on an illuminated square on the floor, with the red marker going out on contact. A split second later a green one lit up along with a tone to Karen’s left, prompting her to take a short hop over to it, landing on one leg for the square was too small to fit both feet on…and stepping anywhere else would have disqualified them both from the tandem challenge.

A red square lit up two over and one back from where she was standing, and immediately she knew it was going to be a problem. There was only a few inches between it and her leg, with Travis on the opposite side and only three seconds for him to get to it. Her brother jumped into a slow half flip and she caught him with her hands on his waist as he passed over her. The momentum threatened to tip her off balance so she knelt down on the one leg she was standing on, using it as a spring to cushion some of the force as she dumped him over to the left.

Travis’s left hand came down on the square in time, leaving the pair forming a crude living arch that extended even further as another green square lit up in front of Karen. She reached her free leg out and tapped it, forming a tripod between the two of them. So long as she didn’t lift either foot the squares would stay lit, and at the moment she needed as much leverage as possible, for as she guessed, Travis’s next square popped up some distance away.

Without discussing what they were going to do, her brother pushed off with his hand and she held him up over her shoulders as her legs were spread wide, with her balancing on the balls of her feet to keep them from sliding off and hitting the adjacent squares. Once she had a fairly firm posture Travis got a foot on her hip and jumped off to land awkwardly on his square, then the challenge continued on with them alternating new positions for as long as they could keep up.

This ‘Twister’ challenge was a new one, specifically created to test and push their sibling connection further than other challenges had…and both twins admitted it was by far the hardest for them to manage, not for sheer strength, but because they had to incorporate balance, timing, and each other’s body position into an impromptu acrobatics display, creating a situation that was very frustrating, but one that they were gradually adjusting to.

The landing squares were tiny, barely big enough for one of their feet to fit in. Both of them had opted to go barefoot to save a few centimeters, and fortunately they both had size 7 feet, because some of the other Archons that had taken a crack at it just for fun couldn’t put more than their toes down without stepping out of bounds. The challenge had been created specifically for Travis and Karen, and even though they couldn’t consciously feel it, it was triggering an increase in activity through their Ikrid link, which the coin-sized biomonitors that they were wearing were measuring and transmitting to the medical team stationed nearby in the pyramid.

The longest they’d progressed through this challenge was 7 minutes and 23 seconds, with them just now passing 4 minutes. The computer was programmed to only give them target squares within a certain radius, but the chamber itself was half the size of a basketball court, meaning they had quite a bit of room to bounce around and the computer was doing a good job of not letting them get into a rhythm. It’d throw several close squares together, then switch to a distant one that would require a jump or throw to get into position, then another long followed by a short and every conceivable combination trying to shake their coordination.

Karen and Travis were constantly having to adjust with no time to think it through. They had to react and go on gut instinct…or failing that, remember from the last time how to attack certain maneuvers, with the more times they ran and failed to complete the challenge giving them experience in the terms of flash maneuvers. Those were what some people referred to as ‘muscle memory’ only on a higher, more coordinated scale, with Karen pulling a flip landing or Travis doing a one-handed pushup to tag a square as if they were predetermined chess moves that they could throw out at a moment’s notice.

Such flash maneuvers had been expected by the Archons who’d developed this challenge for them, the trick of it was that flash maneuvers were individual based, and the 3 second move limit wouldn’t give the two of them time to coordinate verbally. They had to act on ‘instinct,’ which in their case meant they’d be relying on their twin link, the full dynamics of which the med techs had yet been able to deduce. The patterns didn’t match up with any tissue growths on record, suggesting that the twins’ bodies had adapted the Ikrid tissue for their own purposes, creating an entirely new ability.

Or so some hoped. Without more data they couldn’t know for sure, and the pair of adepts now wore their biomonitors round the clock to squeeze out as much as they could, prompted by challenges like this designed to push their psionic limit to new levels of activity.

Karen and Travis got through 5 minutes before Karen felt a wash of disorientation and tipped over, smashing an elbow onto a square that wasn’t lit and ending the challenge. She almost blacked out again, but this time managed to keep ‘standing’ on all fours, fighting off the effect after some twenty seconds and looking for Travis…whom she found lying on the ground a few meters off, unconscious again.

“Crap,” she said, crawling over to him as the door to the chamber opened and a lower ranking med tech rushed inside.

“You’re still awake,” he said, glancing at Travis then staring at her.

“Wasn’t easy,” she said, still feeling a bit light headed. “You guys were right. I can block it out…at least partially,” the adept said, pressing a pair of fingers against her temple and trying to use the pressure to force her head to stop spinning.

“Can you hang on another 30 seconds?”

“More data?”

“As much as we can get,” the tech prompted.

“I’m good for now,” she said, tipping over a few inches and sitting down. The bump of her butt against the floor sent her head spinning again, but it leveled out after a few seconds of stillness that stretched out into more than a minute before the medic got around to reviving Travis.

Using a bit of the V’kit’no’sat genetic engineering they understood, he placed a rectangular strip across his forehead that acted like a crude regenerator, save for it made only a handful of mental alterations…in this case shutting down the ascension trigger that had activated once again. Both adepts now had their Rensiek, Lachka, Sesspik, Pefbar, Fornax, and Ensek abilities activated with fully developed growths…but whatever this trigger needed to go along with it had to be located within the Ikrid tissue that had never developed, leaving Travis in this endless cycle of flipping the genetic switch and having nothing happen.

The device took away the impetus to flip the switch, breaking the mental lockout like unfreezing a computer, with him waking up almost instantly.

“Not again,” he said, looking up at the ceiling as the medic removed the device from his head, though the small biomonitor button still remained.

Karen, whose head had cleared along with Travis’s, stood up and offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet as the medic looked him over.

“All is well, I hope?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Travis answered, “but I’m beginning to wonder if keeping this link is worth the trouble. We can’t have this happen in the field…or a hot tub,” he added as the thought of blacking out and drowning to death crossed his mind.

“Does that sound like a Sangheili to you?” a voice asked from behind them.

“Sounds like quitter talk to me,” someone else said as Karen and Travis turned around to look at the doorway, then their draws dropped when they saw who it was.

“Definitely quitter talk,” Paul confirmed.

“What are you two doing here?” Karen asked as the medic quietly slipped out past the two trailblazers.

“Arriving just in time, it seems,” Jason answered. “Sounds like you were going to throw away your advantage to get rid of a temporary weakness.”

“I’m starting to be glad I lost that coin toss,” Paul mentioned, his eyes on the pair of adepts.

“We’re here,” Jason continued, “to help you solve this problem.”

“What can you do that the techs haven’t?” Travis asked.

Paul smiled. “Training.”

“Meaning what?” Karen asked.

Paul glanced at Jason. “Are all Sangheili this dense?”

His blonde counterpart poked him in the ribs as he walked forward and came up within two feet of his fellow Clansmen. “You need fully formed Ikrid tissue, but to get it the normal way you’ll lose the adaptation you already have. If you treat this like a wound, you’d heal it through activity, gradually reestablishing full strength and range of motion, and you’re going to do the same with your Ikrid…helped along by a lot of trips to the V’kit’no’sat medical station.”

“I don’t understand,” Karen said, with Travis thinking the same.

“We’re going to build each of you a custom Ikrid through training. The tissue you already have will be added to, bit by bit, with your bodies adapting to the demands and the medics feeding you tiny changes. The link you two have is too valuable to waste, meaning we can’t adapt it to regular Ikrid tissue…so we’re going to adapt regular tissue to it through customization.”

“Do the medics even know how to do that?” Travis asked.

Jason shook his head. “Not yet. Your bodies are going to teach them.”

“I still don’t get it,” Karen said.

“You’re going to get a treatment, then you’re going to train your asses off. You’ll get scanned, the medics will determine what you need next, then you’ll get another treatment, followed by more training. Long term, you’ll grow a fully functional Ikrid that will retain your special ability rather than having it wiped out in the Zen’zat car wash.”

“To be more precise,” Paul added, walking up behind Jason, “the treatments will undo the unwanted parts of the previous treatment, with the training flushing out what works and what doesn’t.”

“Why do you need to be here for that?” Karen asked.

Paul raised an eyebrow. “I thought that would be obvious.”

Jason didn’t say anything, and both of them just let that comment hang in the air until one of the twins decided to say something.

“You want to study our link,” Travis finally guessed.

“More than that,” Jason answered. “We want to teach you to make the most of it.”

“As well as unlocking this new trigger you’ve discovered,” Paul added. “There’s a lot of new stuff going on with you two, psionic wise, and we want to probe it.”

“Probe all you want,” Karen said with a smirk.

Jason held up a warning finger. “Hush youngling. You do through instinct what Paul and I learned to do through training. You have a psionic link, we never did…and what we have now is different from yours. You’re going to learn from us to consciously enhance your coordination, meanwhile we’re going to try and figure out your trigger problem,” he said, looking at Travis, “from an Archon perspective. You’re wholly inferior to us, so the question is what benchmark have you reached that we haven’t?”

“I’ve been asking myself that quite a lot, and I don’t have an answer,” Travis admitted. “I also don’t know why she hasn’t got it. She’s a level above me.”

“Another valid point,” Jason agreed. “You focus on the training we give you, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“Is that really worth pulling both of you off the front lines?” Karen asked.

“Our work there is mostly done,” Paul told her. “Others can handle the rest, and it was time we rotated out anyway.”

“Yes, this is that important,” Jason answered her more directly. “You’ve developed an ability that normal Zen’zat do not possess. I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s important.”

“You don’t,” Travis said, understanding his meaning. “But from our point of view we’re completely unaware of this ‘ability.’ I don’t feel any different when she’s standing beside me or miles away. If it wasn’t from the scans I wouldn’t believe there was anything psionic involved.”

“That just means you’ve fully assimilated it, probably as a child,” Paul pointed out. “When we teach you how to do it old school you’ll start to see the difference.”

“If you say so,” Karen said, not fully convinced.

“Walk,” Jason said, turning around and heading to the exit with Paul.

The twins glanced at each other, sharing a perplexed expression at the sudden end to the conversation, then they jogged a couple of steps over to pick up their shoes then caught up with the trailblazers and followed them out and over to another training chamber, with them each picking up a sword and sunglasses in the antechamber on their way in. Paul input several instructions into the control panel, with two large circles illuminating on the floor spaced 8 meters apart.

Jason walked over to one of them, with Paul joining him a few seconds later, swinging his training sword up into a guard position while standing back to back with his friend.

“Time to show off,” Jason prompted.

“Are we working together?” Karen asked, stepping into the other 3 meter wide circle with Travis.

“Nope,” Jason said, flicking his sword into a reverse grip with the tip pointed towards his toes.

“Hold on…our laces,” Travis said as they both quickly got to retying their shoes that they’d only slipped on.

Paul telekinetically hit the start button, with a series of countdown tones descending and Karen and Travis quickly trying to finish tying their shoes before the tiny projectiles began shooting out from the walls.

Travis ducked one, then got pelted with two more before he got to his feet and his sword up into guard position and began intercepting the little thuds, swinging around in a twirl a split second before Karen’s head came up to hit one coming in at his back. The limited Pefbar he had didn’t help, but somehow his situational awareness knew it was coming in, allowing him to make the block and reposition for another.

Meanwhile Paul and Jason were both moving about inside their circle, alternating positions and moving around each other’s bodies with a fluid precision, seeing the incoming thuds with their Pefbar and moving to intercept them before they could get hit while avoiding the temptation to telekinetically stop them midair…which would have been cheating as far as this challenge was concerned.

The computer was scoring both pairings, with impacts measuring as negative points and deflections as positives. The program Paul had chosen worked them through a few easy rounds then began escalating through the harder settings remarkably quick, with the twins having a hard time keeping up with the faster moving thuds as they also came in greater numbers.

Within 6 minutes Karen and Travis were doubling over from hits more than they were swinging to block them, but the challenge didn’t end. It continued well past the -100 points that usually deactivated it, with the pair getting pelted regularly until Paul finally turned it off.

“What happened? I thought you guys were good,” the trailblazer taunted.

Karen rubbed a sore spot on her leg just above the knee and glared at him. “Is this payback for breaking your record?”

“Yes,” Paul said deadpan.

Karen blew out an exasperated laugh.

“We need to know what your current capabilities are,” Jason explained, “in order to start giving you specific workouts. Best way to do that is to overload you and see where you break.”

“And you guys went through it for what, fun?” Travis asked.

“So you’d have something to compare with on the replay later.”

“Remember,” Paul added. “Useful as your link is, it only coordinates your individual abilities, and if those are lacking you still lose. You two should train together, but not all the time. I hear you’re both holding yourselves back in that department, with several marks already in acolyte range?”

“Is that uncommon?” Karen asked.

“It is when they’re not in your specialty. You two are drawing off of each other and advancing far faster than most Archons, but you’re neglecting certain skill areas and have more than a 50 level spread. Archons face their weak areas, not hide from them.”

“We haven’t been hiding,” Travis objected. “Our weak areas are well above the strengths of our classmates.”

“So we’ve noticed,” Jason said, stretching his neck a bit in a disinterested manner. “But the spread says you’re sandbagging. We want you to press this psionic link for all its worth, both for your sakes and so we can learn from it, but you can’t learn to rely on it or it’ll become a weakness. Already you’re knocking your sister out, or close to it, because of the feedback through your link. You both have to work on becoming individuals, as hard as that may be.”

“We already are,” Travis argued. “We don’t even feel the link.”

Paul sighed. “That’s the problem.”

“If we’re leveling up, in all areas,” Karen asked, “faster than the others…then where’s the problem?”

“It’s a problem in attitude,” Jason said simply. “None of us would let a weak area persist to such depths. We’d hammer it until it was more on par with the rest of our skills.”

“You’re slacking…even as you’re succeeding,” Paul added. “And nobody has called you on it because of your impressive advancement rate.”

“So…you want us to focus on our individual skills,” Karen said slowly, “while we focus on honing our link? How can we do both at the same time?”

Paul smirked. “That’s why we’re here to show you how…along with a great many other things.”

4

October 2, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Karen stood in front of the wall, facing it from only a few inches away and raised her right hand up, touching it above shoulder height and tracing a zigzaggy path with her palm all the way down to the base before letting go. She stood up and pressed her left knee against the wall, then fist bumped three vertical taps at torso as if she were punching the lights on an old school stoplight before dropping to the ground and resting on her ankles before pushing both knees in and leaning them against the wall. She followed that with both hands pressed flat wide above her head, making her feel like a tree frog.

How much longer do we have to do this? she asked her brother telepathically.

No clue, he answered from the other side of the wall, choosing the various body positions she was to mimic just as she’d done for him several times over the past hour. The wall was solid and sound proof, with them unable to see or hear the other, and their Pefbar blocked by the material of the prototype psionic cage that a number of techs had recently constructed by incorporating one of the new arc elements into an already discovered design. The chamber was one of a handful of initial projects to get their limited but growing supply of the elements, and given that it had been constructed in the pyramid, Paul had decided to make use of it for the twins’ unique training.

The shielding was designed to prevent Pefbar only, which in turn would render Lachka useless without the controlling mechanism of the Pefbar, but Ikrid wasn’t blocked, meaning that while Karen and Travis had limited Pefbar abilities sufficient to ‘see’ through a normal wall they couldn’t use them here. None the less, Karen was mimicking Travis’s body placements almost perfectly, with cameras set up on both sides for monitoring purposes.

I heard that, Jason told Karen telepathically. You’re transmitting in the open again.

The adept frowned even as she was continuing to match Travis’s movements, searching out the location of Jason’s mind and sending him a direct reply. How do you know that?

A direct link and a broadcast feel different on reception. Focus is something you have to develop over time, and right now yours is lacking.

Can you give me an answer then? she asked, still playing mime against the wall.

Another 10 minutes.

Karen sighed. Alright.

Some place you’d rather be?

Practicing combat applications, she said honestly.

Combat applications run off of base attributes, the trailblazer reminded her.

I know, I know, she said, reaching up high and tapping on the wall four times, copying Travis’s hand on the opposite side. She couldn’t see him through the wall, but she could feel where he was and how his body was moving almost as if it was an extension of her own. They’d been able to know where each other was within close proximity as long as she could remember, never having given it much thought, but now that she didn’t have sight or sound for the sense to piggyback on the extra perception was coming through much clearer…and weaker, forcing both of them to push to try to retain constant perception.

Normally it operated in blips, like someone blinking their eyes constantly, and training themselves to keep a steady flow of position information through their normally subconscious link was meaning they had to assert conscious control over it, both to maintain and boost the signal…which was something this training drill was frustratingly accomplishing.

But both she and Travis kept it up until Jason finally called them off and back over to the sanctum they’d built inside the pyramid, meeting him in one of the many sparring chambers.

“Tighten these,” he told Travis as he walked over to him.

“Ok,” the adept said, cinching up the cuffs on Jason’s wrists until they were bound together with only a half inch of separation. “What’s going on?”

“I’m tired of having to hold back against you two. Cramping my style,” he said, pulling a blindfold over his eyes. “This should make things more even.”

“Seriously?” Karen asked.

“Knockdown,” Jason ordered, walking over to the center of the ring and dropping into a light combat pose. “Let’s see if you can do better this time.”

“What good is the blindfold if you can see with Pefbar?” she complained.

“One less sense to use. Something you won’t understand until yours develops further. Now, be warned, I’m not pulling my punches like normal. So expect to get knocked on your ass harder than you’re used to. If you two can’t take me down at least a few times…well,” he said, letting that thought/insult hang in the air.

“Always like to make things interesting, don’t you,” Travis said as he and Karen split up and walked around to different sides of Jason.

“It’s called training,” Jason said as Karen suddenly moved towards him in a feint that drew a wrist block from the striker. Travis moved in and struck at his back a moment later, with Jason whipping around, grabbing his leg, and pulling him in even as Karen jumped on the pair of them and tried to get him in a stranglehold.

A moment later she was flying back through the air and landed on her ass four meters away, suddenly realizing that Jason hadn’t been kidding about not holding back. She got up and moved back into the fight, intent on rising up to meet the challenge.

Paul looked up from the lounge chair in his quarters as Jason walked in, his blonde hair still slightly wet from the shower he’d just taken.

“They do any better?”

“Not good enough,” he said, sitting down in an identical chair set across a low table that held a plate of biscuits, two glasses of blue, and a second datapad. “But they’re starting to get innovative…not that it helped them.”

“Did they get any hits in?” Paul asked with a smile.

“A few, but no knockdowns,” Jason said, picking up his sugar-laden drink. “Karen has a habit to transmit in the open. Not sure if that’s all newb or she’s missing a few neurons.”

“Just been working through their latest data,” Paul said, gesturing to the datapad on the table. “I think they’ll be needing another adjustment in a few days. About half of the new tissue is running smoothly, but the rest is normal trash, with about a third really getting junked up this time. Have they been complaining about headaches?”

“Not to me, no,” Jason said, exchanging his drink for the datapad. “Travis hasn’t had an incident recently either, and I’m starting to wonder if we accidentally knocked him out of alignment.”

“I hope not,” Paul said earnestly.

“Or maybe Karen is.”

Paul frowned slightly. “You think her learning to restrict their link is suppressing him?”

“If the trigger is erroneously reading both of them…”

“Good point, but she shouldn’t be doing anything consciously.”

“Unless she’s learned to do it subconsciously. Not block the whole link, but just the component that gets her body thinking it’s his.”

“Damn…didn’t see that coming.”

“Just a theory. We still don’t know what’s provoking the trigger anyway.”

“Actually,” Paul said, raising his datapad symbolically, “we have a partial answer.”

“We do?”

“It’s syncage.”

“Is that even a word?” Jason joked.

“It is now. The techs haven’t been able to identify the type or intensity required, but it’s definitely occurring when they’re of one mind, so to speak.”

“We’ve been of one mind before,” Jason pointed out. “So have a lot of the others. Aaron especially. Why haven’t one of us triggered this?”

“I have a theory.”

“I thought you might.”

“We coordinate, they meld.”

“Explain,” Jason prompted when the distinction didn’t immediately sink in.

“Everything we do is based off of individuality. They’ve been a pairing since before birth. Even during basic training they were in the same class, same team, and have been giving the same assignments since. I’m thinking their individuality has a different meaning than ours.”

Jason shook his head slowly in disagreement. “The triggers all have something to do with the abilities they activate. I’ve been through the list multiple times and I can’t find anything like a tandem skill.”

“Neither have I, which is why I said it was a theory.”

“I think it’s time we tested another theory.”

“Which is?”

“This supposed resistance to Fornax.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “News to me.”

“Just one of the rumors floating around the Clan regarding them. It seems they don’t go down as easy as they should when they’re fighting together.”

“Resistance…or a calibration point?”

“That’s what I was wondering.”

“Let’s add the element of surprise.”

Jason smiled. “Way ahead of you.”

The next morning Karen and Travis were finishing up a run around the pyramid’s command deck and nearing one of the internal buildings Star Force had constructed, about half a kilometer from the Archon sanctum when a buzz went through Karen’s head, nearly tipping her over into a faceplant…but she caught her balance and ran on, only to realize that Travis was no longer beside her.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was down, so she skidded to a stop and turned around just as he was getting up…only to have her body go twitchy limp with her legs collapsing underneath her.

Travis likewise stumbled when she was hit, but he kept his balance and started to walk over to her, pounding a hand against the side of his head to try and realign his brain that seemed to be malfunctioning violently.

“Are you ok?” he asked as she climbed to her feet.

“What the hell happened?” Karen asked as he got to her. “Did you black out again?”

“I don’t know, I…” he started to say when both of them got wobbly at the same time and dropped into each other, clawing for balance until the mental maelstrom finally stopped and their heads fully cleared.

“Sis, I think we’re really screwed up.”

“What did we do to bring this on…we were just running.”

A sound to their right turned both their heads, just in time to see Paul standing up from a crouch in front of the V’kit’no’sat pedestal he’d just jumped off of. “Morning.”

“What the hell was that?” Travis demanded.

“Fornax,” Jason said from the top of the gigantic, dinosaur-sized lounging pad as he too jumped off and dropped a few meters into a soft landing crouch.

Travis and Karen exchanged glances. “I didn’t think it would be that…intense,” she said.

“You guys suck,” Travis said angrily, finally letting go of Karen and standing on his own balance. “You could have at least let us stop first.”

“We wanted to catch you off guard,” Paul explained.

“Congratulations,” Karen said vehemently, her head still hurting from where she’d smacked it against the stone-like floor. “Other than you two are dicks, what did we learn?”

“If we hit one of you, the other one feels it,” Jason said, ignoring the insult.

The twins looked at each other oddly. “That’s never happened before,” Travis said warily. “Is it the new tissue growth?”

Paul shook his head. “No. It’s because you’re also using each other to resist the Fornax effect. When you lose bodily coordination the world seems to spin out of control, but unlike the rest of us you’ve got your sister’s body as a stable point to steady yourself on. That means you can take a Fornax hit and not go down, and vice versa.”

“But we did just go down,” Karen argued the obvious.

“That’s because we hit you with a lot more than normal,” Jason admitted.

“Oh, duh,” Karen said in a moment of mea culpa. “Acolyte Fornax and Striker Fornax…I should have expected this.”

“No, you guys can’t be that strong,” Travis argued.

“Correct,” Jason agreed pithily, waiting for him to come to a conclusion or for Paul to speak. Travis wasn’t sure which at first, but the lingering silence inclined him to think the logic through, though Karen got it first.

“I got hit with mine and a part of his,” she said, thumbing her right hand towards her brother.

“Technically no, but fundamentally right,” Paul half agreed. “The Fornax didn’t transmit across your link, but the messed up sensory data did. That said, you were both recovering from the effect even though I was emitting a low level field continuously after I took Karen down. Even disrupted, you were pulling orientation data from each other.”

“Wait, you haven’t had time to analyze the data,” Travis said, gesturing to the biomonitor on his head.

“We don’t have to,” Jason said confidently. “It’s logical deduction. You both have the ability to help each other weather a single or double Fornax attack so long as it doesn’t completely overwhelm you…”

“…and when it does,” Paul finished, “it becomes a disadvantage by backflowing.”

Come with me, Jason told Karen telepathically as he turned and jogged off in one direction, with Paul doing the same going the opposite way.

Karen took a step towards Jason as Travis did likewise towards Paul, then they hesitated for a moment, exchanging glances before following the trailblazers off.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Karen said as they split.

“Ditto,” Travis agreed, racing to catch up with Paul. “What are we doing now?” he asked.

“Getting you out of range of your sister.”

“So you can knock me out again?”

“Yes, but you can stand this time,” the striker said as they ran off across the huge command deck, zigzagging their way between pedestals in long, smooth turns.

“Wonderful. This is payback again, isn’t it?”

“A part of training is trial and error.”

“So you’re not still ticked we beat your record?” he asked bluntly, looking across his shoulder at the slightly shorter man who seemed to embody a raw power that made Travis feel infinitely smaller this close to him.

“Nope.”

“But you were earlier?”

“Of course.”

“What changed?”

“We found out you cheated,” Paul said lightly.

“What, you’re going to erase our scores?”

“No.”

“Then…I don’t get it. We either cheated or we didn’t…which we didn’t.”

“Yes you did, and no, your scores stay.”

“Why?”

“Because you beat it fair and square.”

“While cheating?”

“Yep.”

“You lost me.”

“That seems to happen a lot.”

Travis snarled. “If you weren’t so strong I’d hit you.”

“That wouldn’t stop me,” Paul teased.

“Probably wouldn’t,” Travis said with an ounce of grudging respect, even though he was still sore at both of them for ambushing them like that. “So why no payback?”

“There’s nothing to pay back.”

“We beat your record.”

“And kudos to you for that. We’re glad you kicked ass. We’ve got too many weak Archons as it is.”

“Wait, you want people to beat your records?”

“Of course.”

“But you got upset when we did?”

“Yep.”

“But not now?”

“Nope.”

“Is this some sort of love/hate thing you got going on?”

“If someone beats our record that means they’re better than us…but no one is,” Paul said cockily.

“We did.”

“But you cheated.”

“Oh, I get it now. Our scores count, but they don’t really count as far as you’re concerned.”

“Bingo, kiddo.”

“We didn’t know we had a link back then.”

“I know.”

“And we couldn’t have turned it off if we did. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Never said you did.”

“You said we cheated.”

“You did cheat. And please continue to do so. The more cheaters like you we have the stronger Star Force will be for it.”

“So cheating is a good thing now?”

“When it helps you defeat the enemy, yes.”

“So why were you sore earlier?”

“You broke our record.”

Travis felt like smacking himself in the head. “Why won’t you give me a straight answer?”

“I’ve been giving you nothing but straight answers,” Paul reminded him.

“You’ve been giving me nothing but gib…” Travis said, suddenly falling over as Paul slowed to a stop.

“This is far enough,” he said, releasing the Fornax field as he knelt down next to the adept. “Looks like we were right. You went down with a much weaker hit now that your sister is out of the equation.”

“I hate you,” Travis said, pulling his feet up under him but resisting the urge to stand for fear of Paul knocking him down again.

The trailblazer half stood up and offered him a hand. “On your feet. You need to fight for balance as I lower the intensity level and see how much you can withstand on your own.”

Travis grabbed his wrist and let Paul drag him up on his feet, then out of spite Travis summoned up the strongest Fornax field that he could muster and released it, knowing that at this range Paul would get the full brunt of it.

Stoically, Paul didn’t budge, with little more than a forehead crease to suggest that anything had happened at all.

“Wow. That almost tickled.”

“Just get it over with,” Travis said with a sigh.

“Brace yourself…” Paul warned before emitting a field approximately 3/4ths the strength of his last one, which also took Travis straight to the ground and half blacked him out as Paul held the effect a moment longer.

“…record breaker,” he finished with a smirk.

5

October 5, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Travis stepped out of the V’kit’no’sat medical station, trading places with Karen who was waiting nearby the tech and Jason. He had a light headache now that the numbing effect of the machinery had worn off, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d been told that since the tissue being added was makeshift there would be some ‘roughness’ to the transition, and this time was no exception.

This was the 8th adjustment he’d had made, with his sister progressing on an identical track. He’d been told this upgrade would bring his Ikrid tissue up near 90%, but how much of it would take and how much would have to be undid at the next treatment was anyone’s guess. Once Karen got her new tissue added, flash grown in place drawing from a vat of biological molecules so the regenerator portion of the machine didn’t have to suck material out from other parts of her body, they’d go through a now familiar set of psionic drills while the biomonitors registered their efficiency and logged any anomalies.

Already they both had more tissue than normal, given that their original Ikrid growths had been left in place to preserve their link. The new tissue was forming around that, creating an even larger lump in their heads that the rest of their brain tissue had to adjust to, and in fact Travis had been told that the machine actually enlarged their skulls microscopically to adjust for the extra mass.

He’d tried to notice the changes in the mirror, but never could, making him wonder exactly what ‘microscopically’ meant in med tech terminology.

Karen’s treatment didn’t take any longer than his had, with her stepping into the small platform and having the various equipment arms encircle her and connect to her body, through which the regenerator tendrils entered and worked their magic altering her DNA slightly and growing new tissue to match. Less than two minutes later she stepped out, having completed the procedure…then she stopped short, with a weird look crossing her face.

Travis felt the same thing, and a simultaneous beep from both their biomonitors caught Jason’s attention.

“Don’t fight it,” he urged.

“What is it?” Travis asked, holding his head as the internal stress increased.

“Your trigger is activating again, and this time it’s not being blocked. You’re showing 3 yellow.”

“So is she,” Travis said, pointing to Karen.

“Is he doing this to me or am I doing it to him?” she asked Jason, wincing against the pain.

“Could be either one, maybe both,” the trailblazer said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Sit down and work your way through it. Let the pressure build but keep it channeled.”

Travis and Karen sat down crosslegged, facing one another. “That’s not very helpful,” he mentioned.

“You’ve got to work it internally,” Jason said eagerly. “Stay with it. You might not get it this time, but the further you go the more you’ll learn. Only block it if you’re spiraling out of control.”

“What happens if we don’t?” Karen asked.

“Mental rugburn, so focus.”

The twins didn’t ask any more questions, instead working to chorale the escalating instability and pressure within their heads. Travis could sense Karen’s distress, and she his, but there was too much for each of them to worry about that they couldn’t focus on the other, with their mental haze rising so high the rest of the world outside the two of them seemed to disappear from mind’s eye.

“One red,” Jason informed them. “Keep at it.”

Travis let out a grunt, but otherwise the two of them remained silent, though Jason could see them rocking back and forth a bit, which meant they were starting to lose a bit of their balance as their minds were being overloaded with instability…which was why he’d had them sit down in the first place. When he saw Karen twitch badly, the trailblazer knelt down next to them and grabbed each of their neck’s from the back with his hands and firmly held their skeletons in place so they could shift some of their processing power away from balance to the problem at hand.

In truth Jason thought it would have ended by now, for the first time he’d gone through this he hadn’t been able to control the instability and he’d lost it…but maybe their twin link was helping to give them both an added bit of control, especially given the fact that they were just adepts.

“Two red,” he said aloud and telepathically so they’d be sure to hear him. “Stay with it.”

They barely heard him, awash in a mental fog that seemed to be charged with electricity. Surviving that swirling mess was hard enough, but trying to channel it to where it was trying to go was virtually impossible, with every small success being rewarded with yet more mental wind. Karen resolved herself to wait it out while Travis was a bit more bold and reached into it, actively trying to redirect the flows.

Both approaches bled across their link and affected the other, but soon Karen lost all conscious contact with Travis, reduced to the only stabile point within the mental hurricane she was experiencing, with the pressure in her head continuing to escalate. Though she didn’t know it, the extraneous link to her brother remained, helping both of them to keep their center, though Karen nearly lost it three times before it finally exploded.

She never heard Jason’s warnings about 3 red lights, nor about them starting to flash. The adept was doing her best to survive what seemed to be uncontrollable, with the last thing she remembered as the pain became too much for her was screaming…then the next thing she knew her head was throbbing and her eyes were open, looking down in her lap as her physical senses suddenly returned to her from wherever they had disappeared to.

Jason still had a hand on her neck, and for the first time she felt his presence in her mind.

“What…did you do?” Travis asked a moment before she did.

“I helped stabilize you as much as I could. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Karen said honestly.

“Ditto,” Travis echoed.

“You’re still bleeding off the instability…down to 1 red, and that will continue to decrease. Do you feel any new abilities?”

“No,” Travis said flatly. “I think I screwed it up.”

Jason shook his head firmly. “I felt you ascend…both of you. I just don’t know what changed. Where are you hurting?”

“Head,” Karen said immediately and emphatically.

“Just your head?”

“Yeah,” Travis answered.

“Well that’s a small datapoint. Just sit still and wait this out,” Jason said, loosening his grip and feeling both of them slump down on their spines. “Can you sit up?”

“Didn’t realize I wasn’t,” Karen said, straightening her spine enough for Jason to fully let go.

“I’ve been through this before, so I know what it’s like.”

“What did you get?”

“Rentar…it lets me see and disrupt others’ Lachka tendrils. It’s a psionic ability that manifests from the entire body, not just the head, so my pain was everywhere at once.”

“Meaning nobody can force choke you anymore?” Travis asked sarcastically.

Jason smiled. “Nope.”

Karen groaned. “I don’t know what just happened, but I really need a nap…bad.”

“Same here.”

Jason nodded. “Don’t worry about training today. Whatever just happened needs to process further. I was burnt out when it happened to me, and you’re just a couple of weak ass adepts, so…”

“Shut up,” Karen said, punching for his leg and missing as her arm protested halfway there and dipped towards the ground.

“Like I said,” Jason commented with a frown. “Can either of you stand?”

“Some help,” Travis said as he started to get to his feet. Suddenly he felt a firm grip around his waist and legs, belatedly realizing that Jason was steadying him with Lachka rather than a traditional arm under the shoulders.

“Ow…ch,” Travis said, standing up and feeling his head explode like a grenade had just gone off.

“Karen, stay put. Travis, head over to the platform. I want to see what was added.”

“Ok,” he said, walking very slowly over to the device with Jason doing most of the heavy lifting. Once he got inside he leaned forward on the two circular pylons and felt the trailblazer let go.

“You good?”

“So long as I don’t move, sure.”

“Just stay put a few seconds,” the tech prompted, pulling a full body scan that Jason was eagerly watching build in holo. When overlaid with the previous one taken a few minutes ago the computer immediately identified a new growth on his Ikrid tissue, and Jason immediately knew this was something new, for he’d studied all the tier 2 psionics listed in the database and their corresponding physical growths, but nothing that been even close to this size, for the tissue was nearly half again what the normal Ikrid material would have been.

“And?” Karen prompted, still sitting on the floor.

“And we’ve got a mystery on our hands,” Jason told her. “This isn’t one of the tier 2 psionics.”

“Tier 3?” Travis asked hopefully.

Jason shook his head. “No. This doesn’t match up with anything in the database.”

“Don’t tell me we grew a faulty one again,” Karen begged him.

“No, no…the placement is different. This is something new. Feel anything yet?”

“Just a monster headache,” Travis answered.

“Alright,” Jason decided. “Switch up and then I’ll take you back to your bunks to rest and we’ll figure this out later.”

“Thank you,” Travis said, stumbling out with Jason telekinetically catching him again until he got to him and wrapped an arm around him, freeing up his Lachka so he could help Karen into the device as she stood up a few inches before falling back down.

“Take it slow,” he prompted, dragging Travis out of her way.

The pair spent the next 38 hours in bed, with Travis being the first to make his way to the sanctum for a very easy run to flush the crap out of his system, feeling like he hadn’t worked out in a month. His head had stopped complaining with every little movement he made, but it was still a constant dull ache for, with it taking better than a mile before he started to feel any relief.

He got through 8 miles on the track, watching his pace carefully because his body was feeling all out of whack, before Karen showed up. As soon as she did his head exploded…but not in pain. Suddenly his senses seemed to wobble and he nearly ran off the track before he adjusted to a very strong pull coming from Karen.

Travis coasted to a stop and walked off to the side, seeing her ‘glowing’ in front of him.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“What are you feeling?”

“You…like you’re the only thing around here in color.”

“Ditto. Happened as soon as you came within range.”

“Meaning Ikrid. If this is a new ability, what the hell is it supposed to do…other than distract us.”

“Don’t know. You up for a few miles?”

“How many have you done?”

“8…it’s helping out my head.”

“Good. Maybe this will wear off too,” she said, slowly getting up to speed as they both angled into lane 1 and ran side by side with Karen taking the inner curve. By the time they got around to the backstretch they both knew something was different. They’d always knew where each other were, even when they couldn’t see each other, but this was far more intense.

Travis could literally feel every inch of Karen’s body, her footsteps, arm swings…even her breathing and heartbeat. Her bio telemetry was saturating his senses and taking precedence over everything else, but with focus he was able to keep running and quickly got a handle on it. Her ‘glow’ didn’t diminish, but it quickly incorporated into his normal twin feel as the shock of it first activating wore off.

They both completed the first lap without comment, then they began pulling weaving maneuvers close in to one another on the second. By the third they were seeing how close they could get, stepping inside each other’s stride and coordinating their arm swings to the point they were literally jumping on and over each other as they held sub 6:00 pace and drawing some very odd looks from the other Archons on the track.

They pulled off after completing a mile, and as soon as they got out of lane 1 and to the outside of the track they started shadow boxing…and missing each other by a fraction of an inch. That lasted some 20 seconds before they started going through gymnastic maneuvers, again missing each other by narrow margins, and eventually leading up to paired holds and flips, executing them with more precision than they’d ever been able to do in the past.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Karen asked once they finally stopped and got their breathing under control. As elated as they were, they still felt drained from their ascension yesterday.

“Our link just got stronger.”

“Way stronger,” she echoed.

“Is that what it’s supposed to do, or did it just do it for us?”

“Don’t know. Let’s run this by Paul and Jason before we try anything else.”

“They should be doing their own workouts now. I think this warrants disturbing them,” Travis suggested with a wry smile.

Karen copied it perfectly. “Let’s go.”

Paul and Jason were locked in a heavy, blow by blow sword fight in a small sparring chamber when suddenly they lost their balance and stumbled into each other, quickly catching their balance and pulling apart…which was when they finally noticed Karen and Travis standing just outside the doorway.

“Sorry, did we interrupt something,” Travis said, smiling widely due to the fact that their overlapping Fornax fields had been enough to break their rhythm.

The two trailblazers glanced at each other, then both pointed towards the twin with their free hands, jerking them off their feet and throwing them onto the mat a meter away with a heavy telekinetic tug.

“No, not at all,” Paul said lightly, looking down at them.

“What did you want?” Jason asked, matching his mocking tone as the twins climbed to their feet minus their previous levity.

“Something happened,” Karen said, biting back a curse.

“Our coordination got better,” Travis explained. “A lot better.”

“When, where, and how?” Paul demanded.

“As soon as we got within Ikrid range, on the track, and we’re guessing our new tissue,” Karen answered succinctly.

“Is it still active?” Jason asked.

Both twins nodded.

“Have you tried shutting it off?” Paul asked.

“No,” Travis said, resulting in Jason pointing a finger at the door. “Right,” he said, walking out and putting some distance between him and Karen.

“How’s the head,” Paul asked her.

“Dull ache,” she said, then jerking suddenly. “Ouch.”

“It shut off?” Jason guessed.

“Yeah. There was no fade out. Ugh, everything is…dull now.”

Jason sent a telepathic summons for Travis to return. “Explain what improved.”

“I know exactly where he is at all…times,” she said, twitching when Travis returned into range. “I can feel exactly where his arms and legs are right now,” she said without looking behind. “And he glows, like everything else is a weak signal.”

Paul held out his hand. “Show me.”

Karen took it in hers, allowing the two Archons to form a direct Ikrid link. Most of Paul’s mind was shut off from her, but she let him through her defenses and highlighted her new sense…with Paul also digging through her recent memories and transmitting what he saw to Jason.

Then suddenly he let go and walked around the pair, heading to the door and leaving the three of them behind.

“Where’s he going?” Travis asked.

“To send a message. Ok then, if you have enough energy to be pulling pranks, you’ve got enough to start probing this enhanced link. Let’s take a trip to Balboa Lane and see how coordinated you really are.”

6

November 11, 2476

Retari System

Atlantica

Kara woke when she heard the soft tone in her otherwise silent quarters onboard the Broadsword, prompting her to sit up in her bunk and look towards the comm terminal. As she’d suspected a message from one of the trailblazers had come in, meaning that the ship had finally returned to Star Force space and linked up with the network. After several months in lizard territory backlogged messages coming through in bunches was common, but she’d programmed her terminal only to audibly signal her when a priority alert or a message from one of her ‘peers’ came through, with all others waiting until she decided to check in and see if she had mail.

Kara slid out from under the thin covers and walked over to the terminal, feeling the slightly cool air on her bare arms and legs. She sat down and pulled up the message, seeing it was from Paul, and opened a nearby water bottle to take a swig…then nearly choking as she read his startling revelations.

The twin prodigies that Paul had tried and failed to recruit into Clan Saber had been confirmed to have a psionic link, which invariably helped to aid their tandem coordination, but Paul also indicated that he thought it was helping them to level up faster than the average Archon. He couldn’t put his finger on how exactly it was occurring, but he was sure they were gaining some type of advantage through what was described as being a continuous subconscious bond.

But that wasn’t what startled Kara. It was the headline for the message that Paul had chosen.

UNKNOWN PSIONIC ABILITY DISCOVERED

Paul went through in detail what they’d learned from Karen and Travis, eventually working up to the recent ascension that had both of them transforming simultaneously. That was unheard of, and Paul cited that he also believed that whatever allowed them to train to more effect had also triggered the simultaneous ascension, and not just because of their prior blackouts. He theorized that whatever the trigger was searching for it had found it in both of them because of the link, meaning that either one could have triggered it in the other…or that it had been looking specifically for a binary ability.

That blew Kara’s mind for a moment, then she started staring at a spot on the wall above the vid screen as a memory made its way to the forefront. In it she was a Zak’de’ron looking at a display with Zen’zat data and having a discussion with one of the other dragons about the abilities they were placing in their genetic code. They dismissed the foolish sentiments of the other V’kit’no’sat races involved in the programming and decided to include the full lexicon of abilities into the tiny beings, citing that if any of the Zen’zat proved to be capable enough of handling the myriad of skills then they would need the more extreme abilities in order to serve their purpose.

A light argument was had about whether or not to create a separate genetic template for the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat or to use the same for all of them, with the later proposition winning out. They would design the Zen’zat as they so chose, but not inform the rest of the V’kit’no’sat about the extra abilities they were weaving into their genetic code…abilities that the Oso’lon and Hjar’at were adamant that the Zen’zat not possess.

Their concerns were deemed paranoid, for even with all the abilities they were giving the Zen’zat the potential to develop, they would still be grossly inferior to the Zak’de’ron and the other major V’kit’no’sat races. True, the Zen’zat would have the full slew of V’kit’no’sat psionic abilities available to them, but their tiny size would make them inferior…so long as their counterparts worked to develop their own abilities. The dragons didn’t care one bit about the whinings of the lazy, especially when the Zen’zat would have to earn all their abilities past the initial 7 they were granting to them.

All the other races received their psionics as default, and while they did have to be developed, none of them had to be unlocked in the way the Zen’zat gained theirs. That way the Zen’zat would never be superior to those who continued to work and advance, but they could exceed…and far exceed, those who did not. That is what most of the other races feared, despite the fact that the full range of psionics would make the Zen’zat far more useful servants.

The Zak’de’ron that Kara was seeing the memory through wasn’t going to hobble their own Zen’zat based on what the others wanted, so they decided to go ahead with weaving the full array of psionics into the Zen’zat genome they were creating, while leaving out the controversial ones from their official report. The Zen’zat would maintain the potential to develop the other abilities, and if/when they did they’d deal with the backlash from the others. In the meantime the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat would train to develop them all, leaving the rest to chart their own path.

The memory suddenly shifted, as if her Vorch’nas was sorting through the knowledge it contained to tell her exactly what she need to know and nothing more, and came to an overview of Zen’zat abilities from the view of the V’kit’no’sat and not the dragons. It showed what she had already seen in the pyramid database…the 7 basic abilities, 15 second level, and 3 third level. But from this memory she knew there were more that had yet to be unlocked, with a brief glance at the true ability tree from the V’kit’no’sat point of view, with 7 basic abilities, 27 second level, and 8 third level.

She didn’t know what the others were, for the memory didn’t let her focus on that, but next came the Zak’de’ron ability tree, with many more being added that the V’kit’no’sat had never learned of…meaning their Zen’zat had never developed them. This memory wouldn’t let her count, but it did show her that there was a 4th level of even more powerful abilities…but there was also an 8th basic ability showing, which spawned its own very large ability tree of which, again, she couldn’t focus on enough to count, let alone identify the abilities.

The basic 8th did come through clearly though, with the word Pa’no’semak emblazoned over it. The name translated as ‘battlemeld,’ and as soon as Kara focused on it alone a wealth of knowledge opened up to her, all in a split second, making her feel like she’d known it all along but had somehow forgotten.

The memory epiphany ended, leaving her blinking and wondering how long she’d been staring at the wall. Bringing up a comm prompt, she activated the holocamera, intending to send Paul a recording instead of a text message.

“Paul, just had a…” she said, pausing to tap her fingers on her forehead twice, “update. What the twins stumbled upon to is very significant. It’s something in the Zen’zat genetic code that the V’kit’no’sat never unlocked, only the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat did. The other V’kit’no’sat races don’t even know it’s in their code. It’s called Pa’no’semak, translated as Battlemeld…”

Paul watched Kara’s message for the third time, having brought Jason in for this showing, as she detailed how three of the other V’kit’no’sat races had the ability to link together to create larger and more intense Fornax fields, increase Ikrid transmission range, and generate stronger bioshields. Those abilities had been given to the Vi’vek, I’rar’et, and Ni’ma’so, respectively, for special purposes unique to those races while any and all tandem skills were forbidden to the other races.

The Zak’de’ron, however, already could combine virtually all of their skills to greater power…though they had never elaborated to the full extent of those abilities. It was yet another sticking point between the dragons and the other V’kit’no’sat members, and they had been adamant that the soon to be created Zen’zat not possess any tandem abilities.

The Zak’de’ron had originally wanted the battlemeld to be part of the basic skills granted to the Zen’zat, but instead they chose to hide it, with the trigger being any individual developing a similar tandem skill using their existing Ikrid ability. As far as Kara knew none of the V’kit’no’sat Zen’zat had ever opened it up, and if that were still true to this day, then it was an opportunity to one up them if they could figure out how to do what the twins accidentally did.

She then went on to explain the other abilities that she’d glimpsed, indicating that the V’kit’no’sat Zen’zat had not discovered all of their hidden talents. That was a welcome bombshell, despite the fact of being unaware of what was happening to them over the last 100 millennia. It meant that as good as they were, they were still ‘inferior’ in the eyes of the designers of their genetic upgrades.

Kara went on to apologize for not having further information, insisting that there must have been some safety protocols in place to keep her from having full access to the memories and that any further breakthroughs should be relayed to her immediately, for they might unlock further information. Then she ended with the option of recalling her to Earth if Paul thought her knowledge and skills would be needed in their probing of this new ability.

Jason sighed after the message ended. “Are you going to bring her back?”

“I’d like to bring all of us in to work on this, but I think you and I can handle it.”

“I concur. After Travis and Karen we’re the closest to developing a sufficient psionic link…though from the techs’ analysis I think we’re still far off.”

“Way off,” Paul agreed. “But we’ve got them to actively pattern off of, and I think I’m starting to get a feel for what they did. From what Kara said, the battlemeld is just a primer used to link other abilities as they manifest, with the enhanced coordination being mostly a side effect.”

“You’re underrating it.”

Paul shook his head. “I know it’s valuable, but by the way it’s designed it lets two people work together…like creating a conduit between them. Useful enough on its own, but it’s built as a foundation to build on. They could practice with the meld, but since we don’t have it…”

“…or anything like it…” Jason added, catching on.

“…neither we nor them knew what to train for.”

“Until Ken and Barbie stumbled onto it.”

“A very fortuitous stumble,” Paul agreed, “for the linking they do is far more than we ever tried. Everything we’ve done is transmit, not read.”

“They can’t read either.”

“No,” Paul said, pointing a finger at Jason as he began to pace around his quarters. “They can’t. But they’ve gotten around it with years of experience. They transmit constantly and openly, so there’s no need to read because they’re not holding anything back…well, some things obviously, but not the essentials.”

Jason gave him a funny look. “You’re saying our badassness is blocking us from attaining the necessary linkage?”

“We think and fight as two individuals coordinating together. They act as a pair that occasionally operates as individuals. Whatever these battlemeld powers are, they must require an enormous amount of connection, either in finesse or processing power. All we’ve ever needed is some situational awareness and thought sharing.”

“You’ve obviously got an idea of how to train for this, so spit it out already.”

“We spend a few more days piggybacking on their battlemeld, then we one-up their twin link by training with constant physical contact.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “That will get us past the Ikrid blocks that even their twin link suffers from. After which we get very comfortable inside each other’s head.”

“More than that…we have to stop thinking like individuals.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem. Archons are supposed to act as individuals.”

“And they will once we learn how to teach them to meld, but since the twins are clueless as to what they’re doing, we have to go overboard.”

“Alter our training, temporarily, and go deep into paired philosophy?”

Paul nodded. “We put our individuality on the shelf for a while, then reclaim it after we’ve learned what we need to.”

Jason followed that line of thought quickly through several logic functions. “We’ll need to minimize breakage. The twins spend most of their hours together. They even have quarters next to each other, though I’m not sure if their bunks are within transmission range or not now, but they were growing up. They shared a single room.”

“Then we do too from now on.”

“Handcuffed,” Jason reluctantly suggested. “That way we don’t have to worry about holding hands constantly.”

“Ugh,” Paul said, realizing he was right…and how this was going to hamper their training, but it had to be done if they were going to stand a chance of unlocking the battlemeld. “Restroom breaks?”

“And shower, but nothing else and we keep those brief.”

“Agreed. Let’s get the techs to design something more useful than normal restraints.”

“Already got a few ideas,” Jason said as the two headed for the door, intent on starting this deviation in their training immediately, knowing how big of a training hit it was going to be and not wanting to let their minds dwell on that with second thoughts before they committed to it and linked up.

Six hours later they were bound together at the wrist with palms facing out so that the back of Paul’s right hand was smashed against Jason’s left inside a short gauntlet that not only held their hands and wrists together, but the lower portion of their forearms. This kept their skin in constant contact without rubbing from rotation, a deliberate design with long term planning in mind.

The gauntlet could be switched off from arm to arm, meaning they wouldn’t be stuck with a strong arm and a weak arm after weeks of training, but the pair quickly learned that there wasn’t much they could do with their linked arms, meaning all sparring blows had to be accomplished by their other three limbs.

Paul and Jason got through several hours of training on Balboa Lane and an awkward lap around the command deck before Travis and Karen finally met up with them…and laughing their heads off.

“What the hell is that?” Travis asked between additional snickers.

“I didn’t realize holding hands required any…accoutrements,” Karen added mirthfully.

“We’re replicating your twin link,” Paul said calmly, dismissing an idea from Jason to Vader them both, “since you two don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”

“You’re trying to gain our ability?” Travis asked, settling down.

“It’s called a Battlemeld,” Jason explained, equally calm. “And is an ability that the Zen’zat never attained.”

“Except the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat,” Paul added.

“And it is the 8th basic psionic,” Jason finished.

“What? I thought there were only 7?” Karen asked.

“There were only 7 known to the V’kit’no’sat. The Zak’de’ron did the genetic programming and included things the others didn’t know about, and over their objections. Apparently the Zen’zat didn’t stumble onto them on their own…until now,” Paul said, looking at both of them in turn.

“Kara filled us in,” Jason told them.

“What’s it supposed to do?” Travis asked. “The battlemeld, I mean.”

“It creates a link between two individuals that is the precursor to a number tandem abilities. Kara couldn’t give us specifics, but there are many.”

“And the V’kit’no’sat don’t know about them?”

“Apparently not, as of 106,000 years ago. That’s why they’re not in the database.”

“Though they do know of some that aren’t in there,” Jason corrected. “The pyramid database is the system hub, but it seems some things are kept more private. The restricted files didn’t contain the other abilities yet to be unlocked, so it’s possible that most of the V’kit’no’sat didn’t know they existed either. And according to Kara there’s a lot the Zak’de’ron knew that the rest didn’t.”

“Did the dragon Zen’zat have these other abilities?” Karen asked.

“The battlemeld, yes,” Paul answered. “The others…somewhat. Kara couldn’t be specific.”

“Is she still in Alpha Region?”

“Yes.”

“Well nuts. She could be a lot of help here.”

“She already has helped. And now that we know…”

“Kind of know,” Jason added.

“…what we’re doing, we’ll figure this out and learn to teach the others. You two just focus on getting better at what you do. Oh, and Kara did say the battlemeld isn’t supposed to be constant. You’re supposed to turn it on and off at will.”

Karen and Travis looked at each other and shrugged. “We’re fine.”

“Thought you’d say that,” Jason said as he pointed to the perimeter of the command deck. “Once you finish your laps meet us in Cerebro 6.”

“Will do,” Karen said, taking on last glance at the trailblazers’ bracelet and snickering as the pair ran off ahead of them.

Little pricks, Jason thought.

Slow pricks, Paul amended as they started running again and, despite their arms being bound together, quickly caught up to and passed the twins…who then sped up to match them.

That set up an impromptu race that lasted a quarter lap before Paul and Jason veered off to the interior and kicked it up another notch, getting better at syncing their strides together. They weaved back and forth and around the giant lounging pedestals, sometimes doing two or three completed circuits before breaking off again and chasing some of the mongooses on their painted trails.

Eventually it ended up with a long, straight finish run that had the twins barely hanging on when they began it, but another speed increased dropped them a few seconds later…with the trailblazers running ahead and waiting for them at the foot of the down ramp, seemingly untired while the twins were dragging as they finally caught up.

“Stupid younglings,” Jason commented with a shake of his head before he and Paul rotated around and began hopping down the dino-sized steps in a bit of a victory dance.

Karen and Travis watched them descend, not feeling like walking with them down to the lower level in the pyramid where additional training facilities had been built.

“Pricks,” Karen commented, with Travis nodding in agreement as they walked over to the side where the smaller steps were and slowly made their way down the ramp.

7

February, 2477

Solar System

Earth

Paul sat with Jason in one of the cafeterias built inside the pyramid, eating along with a few Archons and a lot of techs, their arms bound together but having no trouble getting food in their mouth, for in addition to their free arm they also has telekinesis to work with, making every meal a bit of a show for the techs that weren’t used to having them around. Just for a bit of fun, Jason had gotten used to pulling liquid out of his drinking glass or bottle telekinetically, and in between bites of pasta he created a snake of red that stretched up out of the bottle’s thin neck and arced up into his mouth.

Doing so was far more difficult than people thought, given that he had to grip the entire exterior of the liquid glob with Lachka and not just a few key points that would suffice on a solid. After a few more bites he did it again, but this time tried for a loop rather than a straight shot. As he got through half a curve in his invisible straw, the liquid started to drip off at a couple of points as Jason’s telekinetic skills were pushed to their limits in terms of small scale control.

Being Ikrid linked at the hands, Paul knew he was having trouble even before the first drop fell and reached out with his own Lachka to grab the drops and return them to the stream, then combined his telekinetic power with Jason’s to reinforce the loop, succeeding in delivering the post workout replenishment liquid to the striker’s mouth.

Jason, already being inside Paul’s head to a degree, didn’t thank him, for they’d gotten in the habit of just picking up after one another over the past months without recognition, whether it be in training drills or seemingly pointless tricks like this, though they both knew that every bit of psionic practice they got, regardless of the circumstances, would have an additional training effect, meaning they actually had a reason to play with their food.

Paul reached his left hand over and grabbed a cookie from his tray, but it stopped halfway up to his mouth as a beep sounded from his biomonitor. Jason looked over at him and saw 2 yellow lights glowing, but he didn’t need to say anything, for Paul knew it from his thoughts anyway before he could even have bothered to form the words.

Jason wondered if it would be enough for Paul to latch onto, but again he didn’t ask the question in words or even telepathically. The thought was just there, for both of them to think, with Paul beginning to grasp hold of the mild instability and channel it in the direction he wanted…which ramped it up to 3 yellow.

Both of them were excited, but Jason’s biomonitor wasn’t showing any activity and suddenly Paul’s sense of Jason began to blur away as he had to draw more and more of his concentration into channeling the instability. Jason could still sense Paul, but knew better than to interfere unless he asked. He watched through mind’s eye as the Paul controlled and pushed the instability on, then when the biomonitor got up to 2 red he decided to disconnect.

Jason pulled the gauntlet off and felt Paul’s mind disappear…and odd sensation given how much time they spent linked nowadays. If Paul needed him to he’d link back up and help him as a focal point, but they both assumed, for some reason he couldn’t identify, that it was probably a disadvantage to have another set of biofeedback thrown into the mix, and even if Paul wasn’t consciously trying to read Jason, he probably was doing so at least some subconsciously.

Right on cue, as soon as he disconnected the monitor went 3 red, with Paul pushing his chair back and dropping to his knees on the floor as he tried to control it. Jason could see his muscles clenching up against the stress, but he made no sound as the 3 red lights started flashing. A few people turned to look, wondering why he’d quietly dropped to the floor, then all of a sudden Jason heard his mental scream and everyone in the cafeteria jerked in shock and fear as they heard it too…with several people dropping trays as the involuntary Ikrid transmission washed over them.

“Stay put and relax!” Jason yelled to the crowd as he kept his eyes on Paul. “It’ll pass in a moment.”

He heard a number of questions raised, for the mental scream was painful enough just to ‘hear’ and wasn’t subsiding. It seemed to oscillate and then increase in intensity right up to the point where it vanished…leaving everyone in the surrounding area taking a deep breath and shaking off the effect.

“Sorry about that,” Jason apologized. “But that’s what happens when you step on an Archon’s toe.”

He waved to everybody, most of whom got the joke but didn’t know what was going on, the knelt down beside Paul as he continued to rest on his knees with the biomonitor dropping down from 3 red to 1.

Did you make it? he asked telepathically.

Yes.

And?

Get one of the twins so I can check. I felt the flash growth, but I have no ability to use. It’s like I’ve got a spotlight reaching out for something that isn’t there.

You staying here?

It’s not as bad as the bioshield upgrade, but I’ve got quite the headache.

I’ll be back, Jason said as he stood up and left the cafeteria, leaving Paul to wobbily climb back into his chair and scoot it back up to the table.

“What just happened?” a woman asked from the table next to his.

“A spontaneous psionic upgrade,” Paul said, cradling his head in his hands in tripod fashion on the table without looking at her. “Sorry about the scream.”

“It hurts?” someone else asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his head throbbing as he felt someone walk up behind him and place a hand on his neck.

“Do you know what you got?” the medic asked, with Paul recognizing the voice as one of the geneticists on Vortison’s team.

“I think so. We’ll know as soon as Jason gets back.”

“You’re really chewed up in there,” the medic said, feeling inside his head with his own Ikrid ability…infantile as it was compared to Paul’s.

“Flash growth,” he reminded him.

“Or you’re pushing it too fast,” he differed. “The instability surge is designed, we think, to allow you to partially upgrade in stages. How many times was this?”

“First,” Paul said with a touch of pride.

“I’d recommend taking it slower next time,” the medic said in all earnest.

“We can’t control when it happens, and we’re not going to waste the opportunity,” he said, wincing against the pain.

“A few dozen repeats and you might not have to,” he said, referencing the data they were gathering with the biomonitors, “but I suppose it doesn’t help your group.”

“Tip of the spear,” Paul said in agreement.

“Is there somewhere you’d like us to take you?”

“I’m good,” Paul said, still face down to the table as he held as still as possible while several waves of pain rippled across his forehead. “Go back to eating.”

“Actually, I think I’ll go see what new data you just gained us,” the medic said, laying a light hand on Paul’s shoulder before he walked away, leaving him in blissful anonymity until Jason eventually returned.

“He’s not glowing,” he heard Karen say from beside him, surprising him by the fact that he hadn’t notice her or Jason walk up…nor Travis for that matter, who was standing behind them as Paul finally pulled his head off his hands and looked at them. He used what he felt like a spotlight and pointed it at Karen, feeling her to be slippery and not wanting to accept his contact, but after some 30+ seconds of trying the link finally took and she began to glow within his mind.

“What the…” Travis said, flinching as Karen’s glow disappeared.

“I guess you did join the club,” she said, seeing Paul glow as well as feeling him as she’d only felt Travis before. “Damn, you are in good shape.”

“So you have the battlemeld?” Jason asked to be sure.

“Seems so,” Paul said, marveling at the depth of connection it was providing him. Not only could he feel Karen’s body position, the light stress in her muscles from standing and the slight bind of the hair tie in her ponytail, but he could sense what she was thinking similar to the Ikrid link he’d had with Jason…except there was no physical contact here. “I think the meld overrides the Ikrid block. I’m getting more connection with her than I had with you…a lot more.”

“My condolences,” Jason offered, drawing a glare from Travis, but Karen didn’t seem to mind.

“Can I have my sister back please,” he said, slightly annoyed.

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“I’m not connected to her anymore. It shut off whenever Paul did whatever he did.”

“It’s supposed to work with more than 2,” Paul said, reaching out with his spotlight and finding Travis, who was just as slippery. “Try and connect with me.”

“I don’t know how. It’s always been automatic.”

“Just let me in. Karen will try to reach out for you too.”

Travis stared for a moment, then closed his eyes as he concentrated. His sister was wanting to connect, he could feel that through their twin link, but she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, until he finally found a crack to let Paul in, then they both connected simultaneously forming a 3-way link.

“Holy shit,” Travis said as both the other Archon’s senses flooded into his.

“How’s your head now?” Jason asked.

“Like King Kong is pounding on it,” Karen answered for him, using the phrase he was about to speak.

“I suggest you disconnect soon and get some rest…alone. You can get me up to speed later.”

“Feeling left out?” Travis asked.

“A bit,” Jason admitted. “We didn’t ascend at the same time, and I think it’s pretty obvious why you two did.”

“Might be true of all their future ascensions,” Paul commented. “Actually, I can feel their auxiliary link now. It’s weaker, but definitely there in the background. Encrypted, I think. It’s like they’ve become wireless components of each other’s brain. I think that’s why we couldn’t pick it up before, we don’t have the right context to interpret it because it’s not traditional telepathy. We were looking for sentences and they’re communicating in numerical code.”

“Fascinating,” Jason said sarcastically, “but this has to be frying your head, especially with 2 people linked in.”

“It is,” Paul said, reluctant to let go of the new sensation. He concentrated and withdrew from Travis…immediately getting dropped by Karen. That made sense, given that Travis’s connection should trump his since he’d spent far more time with his sister. Then again, he’d been able to trump him to establish a connection in the first place.

“He’s out,” she said, suddenly missing his presence. He wasn’t half the jerk she’d thought he was.

“Yes I am,” Paul said, slowly standing and walking off. “I’ll check in with you guys tomorrow.”

“Night,” Jason joked, then turned to the twins as he grabbed a roll off his plate and took a quick bite. “Try disconnecting from each other again.”

The twins looked at each other, then both shrugged innocently. “We don’t know how,” they said in tandem.

“Try,” Jason pressed as he sat back down. “And keep at it the rest of the day until you do.”

“I think that means we’re dismissed,” Travis quipped, glancing around at the others in the cafeteria, most of whom were not paying attention to them, though there were a few nearby that were listening and pretending not to notice, though their body language gave them away.

“Want to grab something?” Karen asked.

“Just a snack.”

“K,” she said, heading over to the food lines as she examined their battlemeld link. It was firm and constant, and no matter how she tried to manipulate it, it felt like she was trying to grab a bar of soap under water, with it slipping through her fingers every time. With no ‘grip’ she couldn’t disconnect, and short of walking out of range or having Paul bump Travis out again, she didn’t know how to even theoretically go about manually disconnecting from her brother.

“We’re going to be at this for a while,” Travis said once they were out of earshot.

“I know,” she said, grabbing a bottle of green.

It took another 3 weeks of handcuffed training before Jason’s trigger activated, and like Paul he also nailed the ascension on the first try…with an equally nasty headache in exchange, but as soon as it passed the two got back to their normal training with a few additional melding sessions that surged them past the twins’ scores on the challenges that they’d developed for them, and after only a few hours of trying.

From there it was a constant whirlwind of training, with most of their free time spent either designing new challenges and equipment or kicking the crap out of the twins as Paul and Jason continued to oversee their training, and now that they knew what the melding was like they pushed them far harder than they’d pushed themselves previously, now with no excuse given that the twins were now on the short end of the psionic stick.

Or at least they were for several months. With the new training regimens that the trailblazers were creating, Karen and Travis started working on things that they hadn’t even imagined were possible before…like sequenced timing of Fornax blasts, oscillating telekinetic holds so one could rest while the other held an object aloft, allowing both to keep it levitated for far long than either could do individually or in turns, and overlapping Rensiek fields to hyper-compress their heat emissions and turn their limited skill in that area into a metal-melting handhold that, when combined with Lachka, gave them the ability to craft crude objects out of raw materials.

The twins thought some of the training was downright stupid, but they went along with it and during a paired telekinetic drill involving an overlap of their Lachka energy to try and extend their combined range, they both suddenly found themselves on the floor and going through another ascension…this one a bit quicker than before, but no less traumatic.

The next day Vortison and his team confirmed what Paul and Jason suspected after running the twins through a few exploratory drills…that they now, through the battlemeld, could produce one Lachka field rather than an overlapping two. Now in perfect sync, the tissue in both of their brains functioned like an extension of each other, producing one field as if they were a much larger individual with greater brain size…like some of the smaller V’kit’no’sat races. But more than that, the binary nature somehow enhanced the effect, with Vortison speculating that it had to do with the field being produced at an angle rather than from a single point, in effect giving them the equivalent of more leverage.

In a private conversation later on between the genetics team and Paul and Jason, they discussed in detail how they thought the twins were leveling up faster due to their non-meld link, with Vortison adding some more tidbits of data that confirmed their ‘duality.’ For whatever reason they’d developed and grown the link before birth, he suspected, and on some level they were operating as a single individual while maintaining the option of individuality when they were separated.

As such, the genetic triggers were reading them as a pair, which was why they were ascending together and why, it seemed, they had a great deal more aptitude at the battlemeld. Paul and Jason disagreed with that vehemently until Vortison revised his assessment, specifying that the duality that they suspected the triggers were searching for was already partially present in the twins due to their link, letting them get into the specified ‘zone’ with far less adjustment…though with only the four of them to study that was only a little less than wild speculation at this point.

That grudgingly made sense, and the two strikers left their info chat satisfied. If the twins continued to unlock battlemeld abilities then that would be good for them and Star Force overall…but they weren’t doing it because they were better, they were doing it because they, once again, were cheating.

Which meant the race was on, with Paul and Jason accepting the challenge. They’d have to work longer and harder to keep up with the twerps, which they’d come to almost like now that they could see them from a new perspective with the battlemeld, but there was nothing that spurred the trailblazers on more than going up against a superior opponent...and one that was cheating to do it gave them an even greater drive to ‘correct’ that injustice.

That set up a war between the two pairs, with Paul and Jason decided to remain in the pyramid for continuous training indefinitely, knowing that the sooner they uncovered and mastered these new abilities the sooner they could teach others to do the same, enhancing all of the Archons. They both made long term adjustments to their previous assignments, seeing that others could function in their absence, and set themselves in an even more rigorous schedule as they probed their potential in their own unique way while simultaneously getting a read from Karen and Travis and trying to replicate the Lachka meld.

They would succeed four months later…but only after the twins had unlocked yet another ability, with the two gleefully staying ahead and mocking the trailblazers whenever they got the opportunity, for their own schedule was becoming quite rigorous as they had no intention of letting Paul and Jason catch up.

8

May 31, 2489

Solar System

Earth

Greg arrived in the pyramid, haven’t seeing Earth in a very long time and only now returning at Jason’s request, leaving the ever expanding lizard front in Alpha Region as their enemy was constantly trying to flank the Star Force colonies and push around the edges of their sparse defensive line. He’d been leading one of the roaming fleets hunting them down and pushing them back as the reformed Alliance was extending that line with newly colonized shared worlds along with three Irondel/Star Force colonies that were forming quickly as the physically smallest race in the Alliance was staking out a piece of the shared border to assist in the defense rather than merely hiding out on the interior with the other refuges.

The chipmunk-sized race wasn’t the only ones beginning to pitch in, for there were four more races doing the same…one on the lizard border, one on the Calavari, and two on the Skarron front, though those weren’t originally from the Alliance, but from Randy’s contacts near Beta Region that had fled the Skarron invasion, and still more were talking about claiming their own piece of the ever-growing puzzle that was the Alliance Defense Zone.

That was the semi-official title, with the Alliance portion of the races still referring to it as the Sanctuary Zone, but with many more non-Alliance races being allowed in by Star Force the term ‘Alliance’ had taken on a new meaning, with the ADZ meaning all of Star Force’s allies, making them the center of power while the Hycre were still the dominating force within the anti-lizard Alliance.

The recent surge of help from the ADZ denizens had come on the heels of Star Force deploying its first Sentinel-class defense platform that outraged all weapon systems within the Alliance and their enemies…by far. It utilized a new power core and targeting orrery coupled with multiple cleansing beams that could now hit ships in excess of 1,000 miles with the accuracy of what had once been the equivalent of 20. With the promise of several such defense platforms being built, numerous races were now eager to position themselves on the ADZ borders, wanting both a chance to strike back at the enemy and to gain more stature within the quickly growing ADZ community…now that they felt they had a safe haven to run back to, provided by the Sentinels.

Blade-097 and Zack-085 had been sent to the lizard front to replace Greg and to take care of several new projects popping up within Alpha Zone, with several more trailblazers and other high ranking Archons repositioning throughout the ADZ in a slow shuffle as a new, multi-racial dynamic was forming within what had once been Star Force’s ‘territory,’ though in truth it had been more their neighborhood than their possession.

The few star systems that they had remained exclusively theirs, and thus far the Core Region was remaining a Star Force-only zone, but Alpha, Zeta, and Beta Regions were seeing heavy colonization, including lesser amounts in Gamma and Delta. Only Epsilon, which had very few Star Force colonies, was left unsettled by Alliance refugees…and Greg wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.

With their borders becoming more firm by the year, Greg wasn’t overly concerned about leaving, but he had never liked Paul disappearing from what had been his personal little empire out in Alpha, and would have much preferred he’d stayed out there tinkering with their infrastructure and defenses.

That said, he understood the importance of what Paul and Jason were doing, which was why he hadn’t complained when they’d called Greg back to Earth.

“Been a while,” a familiar voice said as Greg walked in the main doors of the pyramid along with a light flow of mongooses carrying both people and cargo in and out.

“That it has,” Greg agreed as he walked up to Aaron carrying his gear duffle and shook his hand. “How goes the psionic training? You qualify for the X-men yet?”

“Not quite to Xavier levels yet,” Aaron said with a laugh, “but it’s really Paul and Jason that have taken it to another level.”

“So I heard. What exactly have they been up to?” Greg asked, stepping aside as a super-sized mongoose drove past.

“What haven’t they been up to,” Aaron corrected him. “I’ve managed to keep the top Ikrid marks, but their battlemeld skills are getting scary. They’ve uncovered 7 of the 19 abilities, and have developed a couple of them to combat ready levels in an incredibly short amount of time.”

“Whoa…hold up. 19?”

“Kara was finally able to give us a specific number.”

“How’s she been doing?”

“Been here two years and working her tail off every day, but she’s not up to Paul and Jason’s level.”

“Who is,” Greg scoffed as the pair of trailblazers began to walk inside and down one of the humongous hallways meant for dinosaurs that stood dozens of meters tall.

“Actually, in a very narrow field the twins are, and it’s pissed them off something fierce.”

“Really?” Greg asked, suspecting that there was some grounds for teasing to be found there.

“They’re the ones finding the new abilities first, then teaching them to Paul and Jason. They like having the breakthroughs, but are aggravated that they aren’t getting to them first.”

“How are they getting to them first? They’re just adepts.”

“If you ask me they’re just getting lucky. Paul and Jason are designing their training for them, so in a way they’re working against themselves, but they know the twins are the best bet to finding the other melding abilities. That doesn’t stop them from trying to get there first though.”

“Define ‘lucky?’”

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing and they’re just finding them by accident.”

“Isn’t that how we find all the new psionics?”

“No, I mean lucky by getting there without training…or much anyway. Their whole messed up Ikrid link somehow skips them ahead and puts them very close to the trigger requirements, then they just stumble around and trip over them and…boom, new ability. Neither Karen nor Travis is even a tenth as powerful as Paul or Jason in the battlemeld category, yet they’re the ones ascending first.”

“That is interesting. And that’s where this mind meld came from?”

Aaron nodded. “Jason was the one who found it…with a lot of help from the techs. It’s the one actual trigger we’ve been able to locate, and without the twins to study we wouldn’t have found it. Their lack of skills is giving us a much smaller haystack to look through.”

“Score one for the newbs,” Greg said as they turned a corner and headed up one of the segmented ramps, choosing the smallest pieces along the side that were meant for their tiny legs.

“I give them some credit. After Paul and Jason they’ve got the next highest battlemeld scores.”

“Out of how many?”

“Last I checked there were 15, though I don’t know about Rikku. She got here a week ago.”

“How long’s it usually take?” Greg said, taking very steep steps with almost a bouncy ease, despite the duffle over his shoulder.

“Depends on the individual. Took me four days with Paul.”

“Are the twins helping?”

“Like I said, they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all instinct with them. Their battlemeld automatically turns on as soon as they’re in range of one another and stays on permanently. They had to work to learn to turn it off and link with others. With each other their linkage is crazy good and effortless, which allows them to rack up some considerable scores on the challenges.”

“But Paul and Jason are better?”

“They’re writing the training as they go, which is the only reason why the twins are progressing. They have no knack for it, and without the push they’re getting they’d be stuck on a plateau…but it’s a very high plateau within the discipline.”

“Sounds like cheating to me…no wonder Jason and Paul are pissed.”

“If their situations were reversed, we’d have all 19 by now. Probably would have had them by the end of the first year.”

“The twins are that close by default?”

“Seem to be, which makes them very valuable. Otherwise I think Paul and Jason would have beat them to death by now.”

“Attitude problem?”

Aaron laughed. “Oh yeah. Those four have had a private few going on for a decade. Karen and Travis even went so far as to revoke their Clan affiliation, citing they were going rogue and too valuable to this training research to be distracted with Clan issues.”

“Is that a nice way of saying nobody else would take them?”

“No. They meant every word of it.”

“Screw that. And you said they’re still writing workouts for them?”

“They have to, otherwise Star Force loses out, and you know they’re not going to let that happen because of a personal squabble. The twins have got situational leverage and they’re milking it in compensation for every ounce of strength they don’t have.”

“Oh, I have got to meet these pricks.”

“Later,” Aaron promised. “We want to get you going as soon as possible. I’d do it myself, but sadly I’m not advanced enough yet. Paul’s spending his time with Rikku, leaving Jason free for you.”

“Let’s get to it then,” Greg said, accelerating into a jog as they climbed the second half of the ramp, with Aaron jumping out ahead of him and leading the way.

The pair of trailblazers moved to a level above the command deck what had been a Rit’ko’sor area, now repurposed into more training facilities, with the one they were coming up on being of recent construction. Inside was a room that mimicked the Jedi temple from Star Wars, right down to the fake windows making it look like they were standing in the council chamber atop one of the spires. Greg didn’t see any cityscape outside, but there was a desert-like landscape that gave the interior room a feel of great space with an empty, calming ambiance.

“Paul’s idea?” Greg asked, setting his duffle on the floor behind one of the masters’ chairs.

“Of course,” he said, coming out of the doorway on the far side. “What better place to meditate?”

“Like the view,” Greg said as the three of them met in the middle.

“The walls are shielded for Ikrid,” Paul added, “so when the doors are shut you know you’re not going to be disturbed. Kind of a necessity, for the battlemeld trigger is tricky to find.”

“How exactly does that work,” Greg said, picking one of the cushioned circles and sitting down on it. “Comfy.”

Paul and Aaron backtracked a few steps and sat down on their own chairs, with Paul sitting in what would have been Yoda’s spot, prompting an ironic smirk from Greg.

“It’s a two part process,” Paul explained. “First is simulating the trigger, which I can do because I know what it is and I’ve already achieved it. I just have to resume that state, which in this case is a mental processing requirement necessary to achieve the battlemeld. High sustained bandwidth with an interlinking component remaining open for the duration…which basically proves that you’re capable of limited Ikrid ‘melding’ before you’re given the hardware for the real thing.”

“You can measure it?” Greg asked.

Paul nodded, then hesitated as Rikku-452 came out of the back area with her shirt off and just now pulling it over her head.

“Sweetie, you didn’t say we had company,” she said sarcastically, drawing a muffled laugh from Aaron.

Greg looked at Paul questioningly. “You didn’t say it was naked meditation.”

“It’s not,” Rikku said as she walked through the middle of the circle of chairs headed for the exit. “I just prefer the simplicity.”

“And trying to distract me,” Paul added.

Rikku shrugged as she got to the door. “Hasn’t worked yet,” she said with a wink before walking out.

Paul rolled his eyes after she left. “Second gen are always trying something.”

“Are you complaining?” Greg asked.

“Nope,” Paul said with a hint of a smile, “but now that she’s gone there’s something else you need to know…in house.”

Greg’s amusement faded, and he responded with a nod, knowing that by ‘in-house’ Paul meant it was to be kept private amongst the trailblazers.

“The second part of the process involves recreating the way the twins share their biofeedback. When they ascend they both do so simultaneously, because on some level their minds act like a single individual. It’s a very weak bond that doesn’t compromise their individuality, but it’s created a glitch in the trigger process that I think the V’kit’no’sat never anticipated, given that Zen’zat were never meant to reproduce.”

Greg nodded. “So you need to teach me how to form that link with you to trigger the battlemeld upgrade?”

“Not me, Jason will. I’m still working with the stripper and it takes several hours a day, the rest of the time I have to spend training. Right now the two of us are the only ones that have learned to create what we’re calling the ‘mind meld’ effect. The twins have it, but they don’t understand what they’re doing, so they can’t help train others.”

“So I’ve been told,” Greg said. “What’s the in-house part? I assume you told Rikku the same thing.”

“If we can identify more triggers, Jason and I think we can figure out how to share our abilities with other Archons…all of them, not just the battlemelds.”

Greg whistled. “That would certainly change things.”

“No kidding,” Aaron agreed. “Right now we’re restricting battlemeld to rangers with Ikrid level 50 or better.”

“Ranger 1 plus the Ikrid?”

“Yeah,” Paul answered. “Learning the mind meld takes a lot of skill, and there’s only so much I can do from my end.”

“And if you can find the other triggers?”

Paul sighed. “I don’t know. We’re all going to get them, but the second gen and others…we’ll have to figure that out later.”

Greg looked at the ground for a moment. “How certain are you that you can do this?”

“It will work,” Paul said confidently, “if we can find the triggers. For that we’re going to need a lot of help from the techs, but this will only work if at least one of us gains the abilities on our own.”

“What’s the chances of the techs being able to unlock the rest directly?”

“Nil,” Paul said. “The only reason we’ve even got this option is because of the twin’s cheat.”

“But in theory, if the V’kit’no’sat could create these abilities, then someone with equal knowledge should be able to do the same…or at least turn them on?”

“We’ve already had this discussion,” Aaron said. “Kara seems to think that the pyramid database isn’t complete. That there are deeper secrets that had no need to be known on this planet, or probably a lot of others. She also says that the Zak’de’ron were responsible for most of the genetic coding, and those files are not definitely not in the pyramid. She thinks they kept them to themselves and maybe the V’kit’no’sat don’t even have a full copy.”

“Wait,” Greg stopped him. “Do we or do we not have the genetic engineering knowledge in the pyramid or not?”

“We think yes,” Paul said noncommittally. “But the coding is essentially a masterpiece of ingenuity, and it was designed with triggers, not ‘on’ buttons. We’d have to rebuild the abilities from scratch, and from what Kara said that’s a very bad idea.”

“And the techs agree,” Aaron added. “Plus, they’re nowhere close to understanding that level of science.”

“Alright, I like the training route better anyway,” Greg admitted. “I just hate the idea of some V’kit’no’sat tech being able to whip up new superpowers on a whim and us not able to counter that.”

“Kara thinks the Zak’de’ron gave us the premium package,” Paul said, feeling much the same way Greg was. “If that’s true, we should at least be on par with the V’kit’no’sat no matter what new tricks they pull out of their butt.”

“Once we route out all the abilities,” Aaron cautioned.

“Work, work, work,” Greg said with a sigh. “Good thing we like training our asses off.”

“On that note, I’m due for a workout with Jason. His schedule is a mirror of mine, more or less, so he’s not going to be able to work with you until tomorrow, probably.”

“Good enough,” Greg said as Paul stood up. He and Aaron did as well, then as they walked out with Greg in the rear he added, “Might as well take the opportunity to meet the twins.”

Paul half stopped and glanced at Aaron.

“I filled him in a bit.”

“They’re valuable,” Paul said deadpan. “Try not to break too many bones.”

“I heard they joined Clan Asshole?”

“Founded it, actually. I’ve tried cognitive recalibration. Doesn’t seem to have any effect. They’re a stubborn pair. See what you can do.”

“Happy to,” Greg said, both interested in seeing how these two little adepts could have got under his skin this bad, and reflexively viewing them as adversaries given they’d set themselves against two other trailblazers. Tick off one of them and you’d usually get the other 99 gunning for you as an added bonus.

9

June 11, 2489

Solar System

Earth

Greg sat crosslegged opposite Jason in one of the smaller meditation rooms in the back of the ‘council chamber,’ facing each other with their arms resting on their legs and their fingers interlocked with one another until Greg jerked suddenly and broke their Ikrid connection as the biomonitor he wore went straight to 2 red.

Jason pulled back slowly on his padded seat, giving his fellow trailblazer a few more inches of room as he saw him physically clench up as he fought to both maintain control of the surging instability and to ward off the pain of the flash tissue growth. It only took a few seconds for him to reach three flashing red lights, then the ascension process fully activated and Greg suffered through a brief, but intense period of pain…all the while riding it out in his meditative pose like the beast he was.

Jason noticed the slack return to his form a moment before Greg reopened his watery eyes.

“Damn that hurts.”

“Well done,” Jason congratulated him. “Now try and link up.”

Greg reached out his hands again, but Jason sat still and shook his head. “Not like that. Just pick up my call.”

“What call…” Greg said a split second before he felt what Jason meant. He released his mental clenching a touch, despite the fragging his mind was still fighting against, and opened himself to the connection…immediately seeing Jason ‘glow’ in mind’s eye as he got a wave of biofeedback from the other trailblazer.

“Wow,” Greg said, swiping a tear from his eye. “This is one hell of a mind meld.”

“And it doesn’t require a physical link,” Jason said, referring to the Vulcan version. “Now break and reestablish.”

“Give me a moment,” Greg said as he concentrated, quickly finding it wasn’t difficult to break. He reestablished some of his mental armor and the connection severed, but remaking it was far harder, for Jason wasn’t reaching out to him this time.

“You have to search me out with the ability, not your standard Ikrid,” Jason said when he realized he was having trouble. “The battlemeld has its own spotlight.”

“Trying, but my head really hurts right now.”

“I know, I felt it when we were linked.”

“Duh,” Greg said, realizing how slow his thought processes were at the moment giving the searing pain. He felt like someone had just cauterized his brain with a plasma torch.

It took several bumbling tries before Jason telepathically sent him a memory of what it felt like, after which Greg was able to find and reproduce it in short order. Locking it onto Jason took a bit of work, with him realizing he needed to search out a target with his Ikrid before aiming his battlemeld spotlight. Once he did he got a firm lock on Jason then reached out towards him as if he were extending a shield column on an aquatics warships.

When the invisible energy conduit reached him it connected immediately, with the glow of telemetry coming from Jason dulling all his other senses.

“Why is everything…”

“That’s just your senses getting adjusted. It won’t look so dark later.”

Jason reached a hand up in response to a subtle suggestion from Greg and they did a triple fist bump, 360 swirl, and a top/down/side/side/middle fist bump before finishing off with a finger ripple with perfect coordination, almost as if Greg were mimicking his reflection in a mirror.

“This is so cool,” he said, going through a few more unpredictable arm and hand movements that Jason mimicked perfectly. “Just wish my head wasn’t killing me.”

Suddenly Jason withdrew his connection.

“We can practice later. I just wanted to make sure you could link in at will. Go take a nap.”

“Yes, Master,” Greg joked, standing up on the wide cushion and stepping off onto the hard floor. “Looks like you’re ready for a new apprentice. Who’s up next?”

“Dakota and Dante should be on their way,” Jason said as he too stood up. “At the moment, I’ve got some practice to do with Paul.”

“Battlemeld?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“You need to sleep.”

“I can sleep later. I want to see you two in action.”

“Danger Room,” Jason said, checking his watch. “2:30. You can catch a half hour nap before that.”

“No, I’m going to get something to drink. If I crash now I have a feeling I won’t be getting up for a while.”

“Walk slow,” Jason suggested, heading out ahead of him.

Greg knew enough to not try and match his pace, and as Jason suggested he took his first few steps slow, feeling a pounding in his head with each one. Rather than wince and curse he chose to take it as a challenge and managed a decent pace after a few dozen steps and headed down to the lower levels in the pyramid, stopping by the cafeteria on the way and making a ‘suicide’ out of the available drinks, mixing red, blue, green, and black together in a large bottle and taking it with him as he headed towards the Danger Room, sipping away as he walked out to grab one of the mongooses.

He drove down the narrow ramp that Star Force had installed over portions of the V’kit’no’sat version and down into the lower levels of the pyramid, not feeling like running and knowing that walking would mean a lot more pounding in his head. When he got to his destination he was early, but found Paul already inside, along with several other rooms being occupied by other Archons…though Paul had claimed the largest of the Balboa Lane upgrades.

The ‘Danger Room’ was where the Archons went to cut loose on targets, with multiple versions being able to be remotely controlled and moved throughout the chamber, which in Paul’s case had a diameter the length of a football field and a ceiling height spanning several stories, making Greg feel like he was entering a sports stadium. The floor was firm but slightly cushy, expecting occupants to fall regularly as they got knocked about, but there was nothing else inside aside from Paul who was doing some warm-up drills that included flips, tumbles, and spins.

The targets to come were stored in wall compartments and computer controlled, with thousands of different combinations possible. When Jason finally got there he programmed the scenario they wanted to run and left Greg by the control console to watch as he and Paul met up near the center and a host of man-sized vertical pylons came out from the walls and moved down to the floor, forming up into a grid that flowed out around them and set up covering almost the entire chamber. Each object was lightly padded and had pressure sensors to register hits and intensity of hits…but that’s not what they were using them for this time.

Jason stayed put and braced himself. Greg could see him angling his legs to the side, putting himself almost off balance as Paul jogged off behind him then curved around and ran forward on a flanking line. When got back up even with Jason and set about 15 meters away Jason put both his hands up, palms forward towards Paul and he did likewise, jumping up slightly into a twist and landing with both feet planted, whereupon he skidded on his heels.

Greg was surprised he could manage the slide, not because it was hard to do but because it was something he had never tried, let alone at the speed Paul managed. A moment later his jaw dropped when he saw Paul’s skid arc to the right, pivoting around Jason’s position. Eventually he came to a stop almost 90 degrees into the turn, whereupon he held position and Jason took off running, going wide them coming back up even and them switching rolls.

The same thing happened, with Jason skidding forward and curving around Paul, with Greg seeing that they were going around at least two of the pylons each time. They didn’t stop after a few goes, but worked their way throughout the chamber, zigzagging here and there and setting a pace that thoroughly impressed Greg. He didn’t know what they were doing, but it was all very clean and rhythmic…up until they swung by his position, which was when he noticed a little bobble in the skidding arcs.

It took him some 7 minutes of observation until he figured out what was happening, realizing that however they were linking themselves together, probably through some type of energy field, every time their line of connection passed through one of the pylons it either weakened or cut out, reacquiring on the other side as they skidded around it. Greg saw them stumble a few times from the disruption, but neither of them went down throughout the 20 minutes they practiced the odd, but very cool drill.

Greg was about to ask them what was going on when Paul came over to him, but the fact that he was running suggested he should hold off on the questions, with him coming over to adjust the control panel before running back out to the center. As he did the man-sized pylons retreated into the walls and longer horizontal bars shot out, flying towards their positions and hovering in place, locked into magnetic/anti-grav holds to keep them solidly in place as various sized cubes came out and coated the floor in clumps…setting up some sort of an obstacle course.

Once it was in place Paul hopped up about a meter and set his feet into Jason’s hands, then somehow he launched him up more than ten meters over his head to where Paul got a hand on one of the horizontal bars and flipped himself over it and dropped back down to the floor…except he never made it down. Halfway there Jason walked underneath him and put his hands over his head, almost meeting Paul’s feet but the two never touched…at least that’s what it looked like to Greg, but he was so far away he couldn’t be for sure. The gap had to be only inches if there was one.

Regardless, Paul launched back up into the air and passed over another bar, with Jason repositioning underneath him and sending him back up like volleyball multiple times until they got to one of the cube clumps. Paul grabbed hold of the last bar and climbed up on top of it, tightrope walking across it and dropping off onto one of the clump peaks as Jason took off into a sprint below.

Paul angled his legs and pushed his hands out towards him, looking for all the world like he was about to let loose a Kamehameha blast. Jason did the same and jumped, with their invisible link somehow acting like a rope that pivoting him up through the air like a fulcrum to a half-sized cube stack top…but he didn’t wait there, for as soon as he got his footing he jumped off at a different angle, or more precisely ran off, stepping down a couple times to gain speed before pulling a Tarzan and swinging through open air and coming down on the floor.

But again Greg was surprised, for he didn’t hit despite the obvious math that said he was about to. Somehow the ‘rope’ between them shrunk and Jason swung out through the  middle of the arc and back up the other side to where he was suddenly cut free and let to drop on the top of another cube cluster equal in height to the one Paul was on.

As soon as Jason was there he turned and pointed his hands towards Paul, who then jumped off his. Together in alternating fashion they moved from one mini mountain to another, zigzagging their way seemingly in random fashion across every corner of the Danger Room until they came back to the center and the largest of the cube clumps. Paul swung Jason up to the top then dropped down the side in three leaps until he got to the floor and set up on the receiving end of a platform dive by Jason.

Greg flinched as soon as he saw it, for despite how strong they were, dropping from that height, head first, was going to result in some sort of injury if he hit ground, potentially even snapping his neck if he came down wrong, but with the way Jason jumped off it looked like he didn’t care. He came down hands first and absorbed most of his fall against Paul’s equally outstretched hands, with the remained bouncing him back up into a short arc that he twisted out of and landed on his feet a few meters away before both of them took off running towards another spot on the course.

“Shit guys, you’re making me look like a newb,” Greg said to himself as he watched them launch each other over various obstacles before moving to a gauntlet of short cube clumps where he saw them each climb up on one side and jump into the narrow gap between them where they bumped into each other and rebounded off with surprising force back onto the cubes without hitting the floor. They did that multiple times, working their way through the gauntlet and Greg was fairly sure by the end that they weren’t actually touching on impact.

The pair worked through a few more drills before finishing off with the high beam throws, this time with Jason going up and Paul bumping the volleyball, after which they came back over to Greg and the control console, shutting it down rather than starting another session.

“What…the…hell…is…that?” Greg asked slowly, the coolness literally dripping from his voice.

“Thought you’d like that,” Jason said with a smile.

“It’s called Repulsor,” Paul told him. “It’s a type of binary energy that acts like a tractor beam.”

“And it’s inverse.”

“Push, pull, and…bounce?” Greg asked.

“That counts as push,” Paul explained, “but we also have a neutral version that only pushes or pulls enough to maintain shape.”

“Like a rope?” Greg guessed. “I saw you using it on those swings and skids.”

“Yeah, cool stuff when you figure out how to use it. Takes two to work, which is why it’s a melding ability only.”

“So the V’kit’no’sat don’t know it exists?”

“Hopefully not,” Jason said, “though it’s possible they might have discovered it by now, or at least seen the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat use it when they fought them.”

“That doesn’t mean they know they have it,” Greg differed. “They could have thought it was an upgrade the Dragons gave them after the fact.”

“Point,” Paul conceded. “Either way it’s useful if you don’t mind getting fancy.”

“Which you two don’t,” Greg pointed out.

“None of us do,” Jason reminded him. “Which is why we’re cooler than the second gen.”

“Among a hundred other reasons,” Greg agreed. “Do the twins have this Repulsor energy too?”

“They’re the ones who discovered it and we copied them, but they haven’t done much with it.”

Greg frowned. “I thought they couldn’t train others?”

“By ‘we copied them,’” Paul explained, “he meant we figured it out by watching and feeling them, then we had to uncover it on our own.”

“He got it a few weeks ahead of me,” Jason pointed out. “By keeping our training almost the same and sharing the battlemeld every day we’re ascending at more or less the same pace and the same abilities.”

“But you still can’t share them directly?”

Paul shook his head. “It’s different with the melds, but no, we can’t.”

“What we can do is nudge each other in the right direction by linking up,” Jason added. “We share so much biofeedback that it helps physically align us properly in order to trigger the upgrade. What we’re trying to learn to do is mentally align with an Ikrid link to trick the trigger into thinking that we’re physically where we need to be. Still a long way from achieving that.”

“So I heard. I saw you bobbling on the skids when a pylon passed in between?”

“We can transmit through thin walls, but matter in the transmission path diminishes the interlink effect,” Paul said. “It’s not a normal push/pull relationship, it’s a single energy conduit that we both contribute to, like tying each of us to the end of a long beam.”

“Stable then?”

“Very, until something passes in between. We weren’t losing full connection, but the momentary dip in power caused the bobble you saw. Just something we have to get used to and anticipate.”

“Wish I could join you, but it looks like I’m a long ways from this.”

“So’s everyone else,” Jason admitted. “We can’t train like this with anyone else, so it’s pretty much just us and us writing the training manual for the battlemeld.”

“Don’t know who’d be more qualified than you two anyway, though I wish I could help out a little. I’m going to stick around at least a few months and get a handle on this before I head back to lizard land. If there’s anything I can help you guys with let me know. Right now I’m heading to bed before I keel over. You guys going again or have something else to do?”

“We’ve got other abilities to work on, so we’ll be in here a bit longer. You need a lift back to quarters?” Jason offered.

“I’d say yes, but I don’t want to lose you any training minutes. I’ll make it back alright. I’m not so far gone that I can’t sit and steer. Keep at it, fellas.”

“Night,” Paul said as Greg slowly walked out, bottle in hand.

He’s got to be really hurting right now.

He is, Jason confirmed, but it’s a good pain. The more the better.

I hear that, Paul agreed, walking over to the control panel and setting up a scenario designed to test their linked Lachka fields, which the V’kit’no’sat called Nemsa, though they referred to it as ‘Power Lock.’

The first of six large targets exited nearby walls and moved towards them, with the pair already with an active battlemeld linking their telekinetic fields and throwing an invisible punch into the first of them with more power and range than either could have managed solo.

10

June 23, 2489

Solar System

Earth

The Danger Room spat another weight, floating it over to the target zone and dropping the couch-sized cylinder a moment later. It fell straight down, but slowed to a sudden stop four meters above the floor as Kara and the twins used a three-way meld to combine her considerable Lachka abilities with their weaker versions, strengthening all into a single field that allowed them to stop and hold aloft the weight before it crashed down on top of them.

Stopping it was hard enough, stretching the three near to their limit, but in order to achieve a count for this drop they had to move it over a few meters to the left and up to a holographic wall almost as high as it had been dropped from. That required more skill and power, for the longer the range involved the less effective their Power Lock.

But this wasn’t their first object, rather their 18th. They were all of the same mass but different shapes that required different grips, some of which made the objects increasingly difficult to both stop and maneuver over to the finish point. The cylinder was one of the easier shapes to catch, and together the three Archons lifted it up and over to the desired location in midair until it breached the holographic plane, at which point the Danger Room retook control and floated it off elsewhere as the twins took a short, but much needed breather.

The next object came some 22 seconds later, dropping a sphere on them that was much more difficult to telekinetically grab, but the threesome managed all the same and chucked it back up and out, then waited on the next one. They made it through several more tries, but on number 25 it was a no go, with a cube coming down on top of them and Kara reaching out to stop it like before with the twins help, but as soon as they made contact she felt the two of them disappear from her mind and her/their available power level dropped drastically…as did the cube.

Kara’s own strength was insufficient to lift it, but she did slow the fall as Karen and Travis dove out of the way. Kara didn’t follow them, choosing to hold her ground and raised her left hand in the air as her wrist burst forth in a flurry of red particles that coated her arm and spread out over the rest of her body as the cube made contact before she was fully covered.

Kara had trouble holding onto it, but its weight wasn’t a threat to her, even without armor. Using her own Lachka as a third hand she steadied the cube, then like Atlas from mythology she held it over her head and jumped into the air. There she spun around in a circle twice before flinging the cube over to the holographic wall with ease given her powered armor, whereupon the Danger Room picked it up and cycled it off, ready to bring in the next one.

“Tomosat, ka,” she said, instructing the computer to stop in V’kit’no’sat.

The next incoming object froze in place, as did the others circling around near the ceiling. Kara held her airborne hover for a handful of seconds, then the mass of red armor scales retracted and she dropped to the floor in her Archon training garb, landing in an agile crouch.

“Sorry,” Karen offered.

Kara shook her head. “Don’t be. That’s three more than last time. You two are making progress, but you’re still dropping your battlemeld when you get fatigued. You have to learn to focus at all times.”

“Our battlemeld stayed up,” Travis told her. “It was you that disappeared.”

“I didn’t sever the connection. Both of you pulled out simultaneously…again. Your twin mojo has a lot of advantages, this…is not one of them. You’re reverting back to each other as your default when you get rattled, not when you’re incapable of continuing the meld, which is why you jerked away from me.”

“You felt that or are you guessing?” Karen asked.

“I could feel your strength give way, then you both blinked out. Some simple deduction and you can figure out what happened.”

“I still don’t understand why we give out so suddenly,” Travis complained. “You’d think it would be more gradual.”

“It’s not muscle, it’s an energy pool,” Kara explained. “When you exhaust it, all you have to work with is the recharge stream.”

“Are we done here?”

Kara nodded. “Good work for today. We’ll have a go at some more tomorrow if you’re available.”

Karen snickered. “We live here.”

“I meant if you didn’t have other training planned.”

“We’ll make time,” Travis promised. “I like sucking off your power reserves. Makes me feel superhuman.”

“We are superhuman,” Karen reminded him.

“Super Saiyan then,” he amended.

“Tomorrow then,” Kara said, looking over at the distant control panel and telekinetically punching a few buttons that ended their current scenario and withdrew the objects into the walls, along with the hologram disappearing. “If you don’t mind clearing the deck, I need the chamber for another workout.”

“You go girl,” Travis said as he and Karen jogged off towards the doors. Kara followed behind them at a walk and came up on the control panel once they were gone, locking the doors and bringing up a scenario she’d designed specifically for her…and one that was too dangerous for spectators. Normally she had to work her way around others using the main chamber, but today, at least, she didn’t have to worry about that for another 45 minutes, which would be more than enough time for her 20 minute scenario. She might even go for two if she was feeling like it after the first.

Kara tapped the start button, then immediately turned and ran away from the control panel, activating her Vorch’nas and leaping into the air after four steps, fully covered in red, dragon-like scales. She flew up to about half altitude in the room and punched a meter-wide object flung at her like a remote-control missile, knocking it aside and scoring a point as more popped out from the walls and came at her.

Kara flew around, hitting, kicking, ramming, and dodging the objects that ranged in size from a basketball to a hovertruck, scoring points and trying not to get hit herself. This challenge wasn’t about using psionics as much as it was her getting some flying combat practice in with her armor…something the otherwise she rarely got outside of real combat, for none of the standard Archon sanctums had a chamber such as this. She was lucky it had what she needed to practice, though it hadn’t been designed with her in mind.

By the end of her first session she’d broken two of the smaller targets, hitting them so hard that the pressure sensors overloaded from the blunt trauma, and adding three more in her second round. The techs would fix them up later, as they had numerous times before. She didn’t mind giving them extra work to do, because they’d been a bit slow to design new targets that could hold up against her powered armor, and now they had five more reminders to get their asses in gear.

Once completed Kara flew back down to the floor and resumed ‘normal’ mode with her Vorch’nas retracting back into the clear crystal that rode imbedded into her left wrist like an ornament...but an ornament she could never take off. It was fused into her bone and had become a permanent part of her, which she had objected to at first, but she’d long since gotten used to it and now viewed it as another body part.

Her score for the second round was slightly lower than the first, but that was to be expected due to fatigue. Even with the power-augmentation of the thin armor covering her body from head to toe, flying around and hitting things took a toll on her body, with a considerable amount of the power she employed coming from her own muscular strength.

The score was acceptable, given that she hadn’t tailed off too much and it made for several more minutes of valuable experience. When she got back to the control panel and reset the room to normal, she unlocked the door and found Paul and Jason outside waiting for their reserved time slot that was still a few minutes away.

“How many did you break this time?” Jason asked.

“Five,” she said, walking by the pair and giving Paul a fist bump as she passed. “All yours boys.”

They went inside and she walked on, eventually heading up to the Command Deck for a few laps of medium intensity running that left her dripping in sweat afterwards. She thought about heading for a shower but decided against it as a thought kept tugging at the back of her mind and took off jogging easily until she got lost in the pedestal forest and out of sight, then quietly leapt up into the air and flew up into to the open air of the chamber, hanging from the jewel on her wrist.

Quietly she ascended up to the platforms around the narrower roof where the I’rar’et and the few other flying races had some built in perches. They had backdoor access for Zen’zat, but nobody was ever up there, giving her a quiet place to think.

She landed Mary Poppins style, coming in over the meter high ridge/railing that separate what was essentially a series of small hangars from the drop off that would have easily killed anyone falling over the side, which was why they had the railing, she knew, to protect the Zen’zat from doing just that, either by either own stupidity or by accidentally getting knocked off by the winged creatures moving about.

She landed just inside the ledge and looked around, seeing nothing new since the last time she’d been up here. Sooner or later she expected the techs to start annexing these areas, but apparently they hadn’t run out of room below just yet.

Kara turned around and climbed up on the railing and sat down on the half-meter wide stone slab and let her feet hang off the side, not fearing the height. It was odd, because before she’d always been wary of heights…and with good reason. One little ring-out and over it all was.

But now that she could fly the only thing she worried about was falling while unconscious, meaning she wasn’t going to be taking a nap on the ledge any time soon, but just sitting here she was in no danger, for all it would take was a single thought and her jewel would levitate with her hanging from it. That gave her a freedom that she relished, especially since no one else could follow her.

She kicked her legs a bit, pounding her heels on the outside of the ledge as she leaned back and grabbed the inner edge with her hands, then closed her eyes and focused on her handholds while letting her mind spin about, trying to get at that elusive thought that had been dancing around on the edge of her senses. As she’d done many times before, she lost herself in a wash of thoughts and didn’t pull out of it until sometime later when she got a slight telepathic tap on her ‘shoulder.’

Kara opened her eyes and her senses returned to normal, with her feeling a presence behind her on the ‘roost.’

“I’m sorry, I didn’t sense you coming,” Kara said, twisting her neck around as Greg walked up.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked, coming up behind the railing on which she sat, but off center to her right.

“Not really,” she said, glancing down at the watch on her right wrist. “I thought I had another memory resurfacing, but if I haven’t got it by now I’m probably not going to today. Did you need something or were you just wandering around?”

“No, I just sensed someone up here and came looking. The door was locked, so I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone or not.”

“I came up this way. I never use the door.”

“Quite the view,” Greg said, leaning over the edge carefully to halfway look over the edge.

“Care to join me?”

“I’m fine standing, thanks.”

“Relax, I’ll catch you if you fall.”

“Didn’t think you were that fast.”

Kara looked down past her feet. “Fast enough. Pick something up and chuck it over the edge if you want to test me,” she said, half expecting him to say ‘don’t bother,’ but to his credit he slipped off his own watch and casually tossed it over.

Kara pulled with her legs and pushed with her jewel’s anti-grav, sliding her off the edge and dropping her out of sight. Greg didn’t lean over to watch, but some 8 seconds later her wrist came back into view, dragging her arm and body underneath it until she got her feet on the ledge and sat back down in her original position. Then, without a word, she held up his watch in her right palm.

He picked it up and slid it back on his wrist, then carefully sat up on top next to her crosslegged, feeling a little wobbly but resisting the urge to grab the back edge.

Kara laughed. “It’s ok. I never liked heights either.”

“I’ll manage,” Greg said, sticking with it. “I heard you’re working out with the twins?”

“Yeah, but just with the three-way meld. They’re not that powerful, but their coordination is amazing. Second only to you know who.”

“I’m surprised you can stand them.”

“Well, I’m second gen, so it’s not quite the same. Their feud with you guys doesn’t seem to include me, so we get along for the most part…once you accept that they’ve got a chip on their shoulder that’s driving their arrogance. They’re still barely more than kids, so I cut them a bit of slack. Though they do push the boundaries every now and then.”

“Funny, I thought we adopted you?”

Kara smiled. “Apparently they don’t see it that way…and they didn’t break any of my records.”

“You have records?”

“No…which is why there’s less conflict there, I suppose.”

“Paul and Jason are still ticked about that, but mainly because the twins are being jerks and poking the tiger on purpose. Do that and you’re going to get the claws.”

“As they should,” Kara agreed. “They just don’t feel like poking me for some reason.”

“Then they’re finally starting to show some wisdom.”

“They have an ability that they didn’t have to earn, and it makes them think they’re higher rank than they really are. That doesn’t excuse their arrogance, but it is the source…and the fact that they keep accessing new abilities before Paul and Jason is only feeding it. If they’d had a full smackdown I think they’d learn quicker, but as long as they’ve got an edge on them they’re going to put their stock in that and continue this feud.”

“I just wish they’d leave the fantasy out of it,” Greg said.

“I think they’re learning that through me. Sharing a battlemeld has a way of opening one’s eyes.”

“That trinket doesn’t hurt either.”

Kara held up her jewel and looked at it. “Kind of surprised they don’t react harsher to me because of it.”

“They can’t compete with it and they know it. But they’re stupid enough to think they can best us in psionics. You said something about more memories?”

“Yeah, happens every now and then. Some just come out without me trying and others nibble away until I dig them out. Felt one early when I was running, but haven’t been able to get at it.”

“You remember something special about the three-way melds?”

“Meaning is that why I’m putting up with Prick and Pam? Maybe some truth to that. I do have some memories, but they’re incomplete. Shielding things I’m not ready to know yet, I’d guess. I do know that during the war Zak’de’ron Zen’zat would form hunting parties to go after stronger opponents, be that other Zen’zat or the larger races. We made a lot of takedowns that way until the V’kit’no’sat got wise to it and adjusted their tactics.”

“So they do know of the battlemeld?”

“They know the Zak’de’ron used it in their Zen’zat, but I don’t think they ever knew they had the potential themselves.”

“They thought the Dragons made extra enhancements?”

“Seems like it, because we never saw the battlemeld used against us.”

“I keep thinking, with all these defensive abilities that we keep finding, might not there be a more offensive set? Kara’s Jumat is, I know, but that’s just knocking things around. We know the Hjar’at have an energy weapon built into their biology. Might not the Dragons have included one for the Zen’zat too?”

“A good question, and I…” Kara cut off as something flashed into her mind.”

“What is it?”

Hold on, she said, chasing it. The memory didn’t want to be found, darting here and there like trying to catch a bug, but she’d had enough practice by this point that she eventually pinned it down and forced it into the conscious portion of her mind.

When she did it almost hurt, like she was forcing something into place that wasn’t meant to be there…or wasn’t meant to be there that soon, for as she did, some of those blocks on the psionic abilities dissipated, letting memories arise that had been previously shrouded in mental fog.

When it did she held her mind motionless, fearing that it might whip away as soon as it arrived, as had happened a few times in the past, but as she waited and let it soak in she got a memory of a very specific ability, a tier 4 psionic with its battlemeld counterpart, that literally made her jaw drop.

“Holy shit,” she said, looking down at the palm of her right hand.

“You remembered something?” Greg asked.

Kara nodded. “Now I know why we have Rensiek. It’s a precursor to something a lot more powerful. A tier 4 called ‘Choratrik.’”

“What is it?” Greg asked excitedly.

“Something I saw firsthand from the Dragon,” she said, remembering him arch his neck back towards the ceiling and spew a plume of white fire that melted the material of the chamber she’d found him in. “It translates as ‘bioplasma.’”

Excursion

1

September 8, 2495

Fvatt System (Hycre territory)

Kri’mas

Iesmena shuttered as he felt the concussion ripples impact his translucent skin, which he then ‘saw’ as his sensory organs translated the sonic signature into a form of sight within the Hycre’s brain. Not needing to turn its body, for he could perceive in all directions simultaneously, Iesmena watched the streak pass through the thick atmosphere of Kri’mas that had been his home for the past 23 years.

The object came in high and dropped amazingly fast, passing Iesmena’s altitude and falling further into the planet’s gravity well, burning the atmosphere from the friction and creating the ‘boom’ that he could ‘see’ from kilometers away. The muted flash of light was almost undetectable given the thickness of the atmosphere at this level, but given the normal blackness the flickering glow stood out…as did the second one coming down from above.

Iesmena was free floating in the atmosphere and ‘swimming’ as fast as he could while remembering to pace himself. The four internal air atriums that he used for propulsion were rhythmically pulsing as they sucked in air from ahead and expelled it out behind from numerous surface exits on his body that opened and closed as necessary, making his internal body structure look like a spike ball. Most of those spikes were inactive, save for stabilizing squirts, as he forced all the air he could get out his rear ‘jets’ as he raced towards the outpost that was considerably far ahead.

It was an unmanned outpost, but the closest bit of infrastructure to the Hycre and the location of his parked skip that had brought him this far out from the nearest cluster. He’d left it tethered there before heading out in person to study the nakra flocks that inhabited this region of the planet, as he regularly did. By the time the word of the Cajdital invasion had come through over the communal comms he’d already been out in the field, with the warning sitting on his communication device that he’d left in the skip.

The first notice he had that anything was wrong was the sound of a very distant detonation. He’d stayed put after that, listening/looking for any further sign of where it had come from, but he hadn’t perceived anything else until the rain had started to fall…and he wasn’t talking liquid variety, for those streaks coming down from above were solids by the telltale way they echoed, plus the disruption trails were an easy sign that they didn’t belong, for the Hycre ships never moved in such a way.

Iesmena knew that meant this was most likely asteroid bombardment and held his position, for the falling rocks were far away, though he would have definitely preferred to have been indoors. He continued his observations of the nakra for a few minutes until a sinking feeling in the pit of his gas bladder manifested itself as he realized the impacts weren’t random, but rhythmic…meaning they had an artificial origin.

That was horrifying, for he knew it was nothing of Hycre origin, and he had left the flocks immediately, heading back to his skip as fast as possible.

Halfway there the closer objects began to fall.

As Iesmena swam he scanned ahead with his bjovo, a biological organ that functioned as a spotlight sensor that created casendic energy…which his skin could also ‘see.’ Right now it was trained in the direction of the outpost, which was finally coming into view some 1500 meters ahead.

A much closer object fell behind him, and soon the little nakra came swimming by him, moving far faster through the dense air than he ever could. Then another object fell ahead, passing within 400 meters of him and creating a huge concussion wave that knocked him and the nakra around…with the little critters turning around and fleeing the other way.

Iesmena saw the outpost rock slightly from the wave, but it was the impact far below that caught his attention as the object dropped deeper into the planet’s atmosphere and impacted the top of one of the Hycre’s deeper clusters, with the boom of impact clearly audible despite it being some 18 kilometers deeper.

After that impact more objects began to fall on an identical track, coming down in a conduit of disruption that forced Iesmena to travel a different direction, fearing for his life but knowing he had to get to the outpost. Fighting the disruption turbulence he swam far wide, making a huge arc up and around the danger area but was still too close, with fear spiking through his body the entire time. Gone were the nakra, leaving him with nothing but an up/down/left/right trajectory as object after object fell down through the atmosphere, knocking him around violently until they eventually stopped when he was within 300 meters of his target.

It took his senses a moment to recalibrate, then he saw the objects start to come down in a more distant location, giving him a calm swim over the last 50 meters up to the outpost, seeing its shell had been cracked…and gone was his skip.

Iesmena swam around the outside of the bell-shaped building, feeling a huge relief as the skip came into view. It had been knocked free of the outpost, its tether snapped, but it appeared to be intact.

The Hycre swam over to the needle-shaped craft and inserted his spherical body into the rearmost section, sliding inside the thin hull and gripping the handholds with its six tentacles, giving his tired atriums a rest as he physically leveraged his body into the pilot’s cradle and opened up a diagnostics program, gratefully finding the craft to be fully operational.

He started up the engines as he checked the comm, finding the myriad of warnings and sitreps detailing a Cajdital attack on the planet, first a massive orbital assault that saw the Hycre losing their orbital facilities and many ships, then the upper atmosphere combat as the enemy began sinking their warships into the planet and trying to assault the higher clusters.

As he read the reports he kept his tendrils off the steering mechanism, realizing he was safest right where he was. Several of the upper clusters, which were lightly connected structures clumped together into city-like formations, had been hit by the Cajdital suicide cruisers. The remaining Hycre warships had retreated into the planet’s atmosphere and were defending the upper levels, but the enemy had ran several formations down and succeeded in getting single ships through…which then rammed and detonated against the cluster, destroying or at least decimating it.

12 clusters had already been hit, with Hycre making them pay for it by destroying hundreds of escort cruisers that had run interference for the suicide craft.

Iesmena was much deeper than those clusters, and based on the alerts he figured he was safe from that type of attack so long as the fleet remained in the fight, but the more recent warnings detailed assaults on deeper clusters via orbital bombardment…not by the Cajdital’s traditional plasma, but by a type of mass launcher that was hurling objects on fairly accurate trajectories down towards the deeper clusters, including some below where Iesmena now sat.

He was sure the torrent that had nearly hit him had been one such attack, and from the various warnings from individual clusters, or about individual clusters, he knew he couldn’t return to the one he had come from.

Trolling the skip over to the side of the outpost, Iesmena powered it down and swam outside to check on the condition of the tether mount, finding that only the line had snapped. He slid a tendril in underneath the hook for another and pulled it over to the latch on the skip, detached the broken one, and hooked up the good one so his only means of transport wouldn’t drift off. Then he swam around the perimeter of the outpost on tired atriums inspecting the damage, finding the one huge crack as the only visible disruption from the building’s usually smooth form.

He poked a couple of tendrils into it experimentally then withdrew and swam around to the entrance, opening up the uninhabited structure and moving inside, against resting his atriums as he used tiny crater handles on the walls as grip points to pull himself along through a narrow tunnel that emptied out into a U-shaped main room that held most of the outpost’s internal volume.

Iesmena reached out and grasped one of several vertical poles, swinging his bulbous body around to a control panel where he grabbed hold of a front handle and pulled himself up taught to it, leaving his other 5 tendrils free to operate the controls, powering up the outpost and linking in to the Hycre’s comm grid.

A holographic map materialized in ultraviolet spectrum, detailing the Hycre civilization on Kri’mas that was present on only a quarter of the massive planet. They had 1,291 clusters spread out through multiple layers, but spaced far enough apart from one another to provide ease of movement for their fleet between them on the prescribed zonal lanes. This outpost existed in one of the ‘safe’ zones where the starships and other large craft would not go, allowing Iesmena and other Hycre the ability to free float without fear of collision.

The map, which only hours ago had been intact, showed dozens of clusters off the grid, either having been destroyed or having the comm systems knocked out. Evacuations were being ordered and those clusters that were capable of descending were doing so, trying to put more atmosphere between them and the Cajdital ships in orbit, for as fast as the objects were descending Iesmena could see that their acceleration profiles were slowing once they hit the 5th layer, meaning the lower you got past it the less damage they could do.

He knew others would be heading down there, pressing their biological limits if they were out in the open, or descending in craft where possible into the thicker layers of the planet, but eventually there was a line that only a few of their craft could pass without being crushed from the pressure…and fortunately the enemy’s projectiles didn’t appear to be reaching that far down at speed, though the heavy objects would eventually sink down to the core, but at a slow pace.

The currents were also helping to throw off their aim, Iesmena saw, as one of the clusters under attack was seeing many misses, but he knew the shielding on them was limited and couldn’t hold up to very many impacts. He couldn’t tell from the limited data how large the Cajdital projectiles were, but he could see the damage statistics updating as three more clusters were taking hits…one of which suddenly dropped off the map.

Seeing that his current location was in a region that had already come under attack, Iesmena figured he was safer here than elsewhere, and that the outpost was too small to target from orbit. How the Cajdital were targeting their lower clusters he didn’t know, for the atmosphere should have shrouded them from sensors.

The map didn’t show their fleet in the planet, but it did show the orbital situation and the ships that were bombarding them. Iesmena wasn’t a soldier, but he did know what their enemy’s ships looked like. All Hycre did, for they’d been fighting them since before he was hatched, and this was not a normal design.

The ship, or rather ships, were larger than a cruiser but smaller than a battleship. They were thick and blocky, with what looked like squarish pouches poking out at multiple angles…a complete departure from the sleek cruisers and a the bulky but smooth larger capital ships. These vessels almost didn’t look Cajdital, save for the same yellow/tan hull coloration, but the 16 of them were the source of the targeted ‘rain’ falling down into the atmosphere.

And those 16 were surrounded by hundreds of escorts, preventing the Hycre ships from popping up out of the atmosphere and attacking them. None of the defense ships had the new Human ranged weapon, so they were going to have to fight their way through to get at them…which apparently had already been tried and failed, for there were no Hycre warships visible in orbit.

The cluster Iesmena had been living in was still showing active, now descending slowly as the next closest one to it was coming under attack, leaving him nowhere to run to so he decided to count himself fortunate and remain at the outpost, but he knew he couldn’t stay here forever.

Moving over to the vertical poles he pulled himself across the room and checked the storage compartments, finding some limited foodstuffs and gear when he heard a whine/thump from outside, quickly followed by several more. He pulled himself back over to the entrance tunnel and saw flashes from outside, prompting him to jet his way back inside and over to the control panel where he brought up the outpost’s sensor array.

Outside was a small dot, what it was was unknown, for the sensors weren’t very advanced. But it was floating several dozen meters away, and it was not his skip, for it was far larger. Then he noticed that his skip wasn’t showing as an intact object, but rather several small ones as more thuds sounded, this time on the outpost hull, along with damage statistics popping up.

Trying not to panic, Iesmena activated the outpost’s distress beacon then fled over to the area furthest away from the sound of plasma fire. There were no weapons on the outpost, nor in it, for the Hycre didn’t carry personal weapons except in the most extreme of cases. While this definitely qualified as one in Iesmena’s mind, the outpost didn’t have any, leaving him completely exposed as the pounding continued to mount, with successive damage occurring with each hit, small as they were, given that plasma weapons were far less effective in the thick planetary atmosphere.

The unprotected outpost only held together as long as it did due to that fact, with each impact from the Cajdital weaponry being small, but it ate through the thin hull plates with ease and began trashing the interior equipment along the outer walls, leaving Iesmena waiting in cover, frantically thinking of a way to survive and deciding that playing dead was his only option. If he swam outside he’d be easy to shoot down, and one shot would do it. He couldn’t see what was attacking the outpost, but he knew how susceptible their bodies were to plasma, despite their high heat tolerances.

It took forever for the Cajdital plasma to break through to the main chamber, which fortunately was on the opposite side from where Iesmena was hiding, giving him a few more minutes. Bits of charred debris flew everywhere, floating about in almost neutral buoyancy before slowly falling to the floor.

Then the outpost lurched downwards and Iesmena thought he might have a chance. If the tiny anti-grav unit holding the outpost was already damaged and didn’t engage, then the broken bladder that had currently been holding the structure aloft now doomed the structure to slowly sink down into the planet’s core…and if the Cajdital thought it was dead then they might just let it go to its eventual death rather than blasting it apart, leaving an opportunity for Iesmena to escape if they didn’t know he was inside.

But a glance at the partially functional control board indicated that the bladder was still intact, which didn’t make any sense until a much larger flash/screech sounded, followed by an ‘all clear’ vocal transmission.

Iesmena floated over to the control board and quickly activated the comm, signaling that he was still alive and receiving a quick response. He turned about, grasping the vertical poles and pulled himself out into the tunnel as fast as he could, then jetted out of what was left of the outpost, pushing his way around debris and through smaller pieces, which tore into his thin skin but he didn’t care. He had to get outside now before his rescuers left.

When he got into the clear he saw what had caused the sudden downward lurch of the outpost…a huge and beautiful Hycre frigate hovering over the remains of the small Cajdital scout craft it had destroyed in a single plasma blast. A tiny ring illuminated on the hull indicating the airlock that Iesmena needed to enter through, with him swimming as hard as his air atriums would allow and even adding a little fin ripple to gain some extra speed.

By the time he got over to it his fin was fatigued to the point of it going limp, meaning he had to use his atriums to steer as it began to pull him off course, but within a few more meters he was able to grip the hull handles with his tendrils and pull himself inside the tiny compartment where he passed through a double energy shield as the outer doors closed behind him.

Once he was past the shields he felt the crisp and clean atmosphere of the ship’s interior as another Hycre met him. Seeing his injuries, Iesmena was led to a compartment where he would be attended to as well as being out of the way of the crew as the warship moved off, staying away from the projectiles falling into the atmosphere and looking for any opportunity to exploit. Best case scenario would be the Cajdital fleet moving down into the atmosphere to press their attack, but that didn’t look to be the case with the surviving Hycre clusters moving down into the thicker atmosphere levels where the Cajdital plasma would be virtually useless.

Some of those clusters were hit on the way down, with those that couldn’t descend, or descend fast enough, being targeted and eliminated as the Cajdital trimmed away part of the Hycre’s 2.3 billion population on the planet before settling into a large fleet cluster in geosync orbit, intent on blockading the planet and waiting the Hycre out rather than moving down into what would be their prime kill zone.

2

March 19, 2496

Volnu System

Jasperion (Hycre Capitol)

“The Kri’mas System has been retaken. Orbit is secured. Surviving clusters are rising to altitude.”

“How many ships did we lose?” Arnja’el asked.

“67,” Bv’en answered, “but we destroyed over 400 of their vessels before they fled.”

“I am not concerned with how many the Cajdital lost. They are infinite,” the Hycre queen said. “They will wear us down through attrition. It is only our losses that are a concern.”

“They are many, but they are not infinite. The more we destroy the more we slow their advance. They may build fast, but they cannot summon ships at will.”

“They may as well be,” the third Hycre of six in the chamber said to the military commander. “Their numbers grow while ours dwindle. We cannot hold our current territory. We are spread too thin.”

“What would you suggest?” Bv’en asked, heavy with sarcasm.

“We begin evacuating to the sanctuary zone with the rest of the Alliance.”

The queen puffed out multiple little spurts of air in all directions, nulling out the movement but producing a razzing sound of displeasure.

“That would be folly,” a fourth Hycre said. “It would take centuries to build new worlds equal to what we already possess. Abandon our territory and we hand victory to the Cajdital.”

“I concur,” Bv’en said, snaking a tendril out to a control board and producing a holographic map between the Hycre leaders for emphasis. The map showed the widely spaced Hycre systems, many of which now sat inside Cajdital ‘territory,’ though their enemy didn’t possess all systems in the area, leaving many uninhabited or unclaimed ones that were useable for transit, but the former Alliance worlds belonging to other races were quickly falling, leaving the Hycre as the last man standing in many regions.

A handful of the systems were highlighted with danger markings, indicating that they were under assault, with intelligence coming in through courier ships for the most part now that the Bsidd relay grid had mostly been destroyed. That meant that the data wasn’t as current as it used to be. They’d requested the specifications of the technology from the Bsidd so they could patch or reroute around breaches in the grid, but they hadn’t responded to their multiple requests and the Hycre didn’t expect them to now after several years of silence…which from the Bsidd was their polite way of saying ‘shut up and stop asking.’

In fact, all Alliance coordination and assistance on the Kvash half of their combined territory had ground to a halt. Those races that hadn’t chosen to relocate to the Sanctuary Zone had either thrown in with the Kvash or Bsidd, or just backed out of the Alliance altogether, attempting to find their own means of surviving the Cajdital advance.

The Hycre still had systems in those regions, which they were continuing to defend, but the Kvash and Bsidd wanted nothing to do with them now, for what reasons they couldn’t fully comprehend.

“We must maintain our current territory,” Bv’en continued. “Time is now our ally, for with every year that passes we field more of the Shaven vessels. They are wholly superior to the Cajdital fleet, and with them I believe we can hold out against their advance.”

“But we don’t have the ships to hold our territory now,” one of the other Hycre leaders stated, this one serving the queen as her master builder.

“Not all of it, no,” Bv’en conceded. “Which why I suggest that we temporarily evacuate these systems down to a minimal caretaker population,” he said, adjusting the hologram with dozens of dots shifting color. “We can sink the clusters below what the Cajdital have shown to be capable of reaching while leaving a few ships behind with them. Our orbital facilities will be a loss, but if we can maintain functioning clusters in a type of stasis we can return to these worlds later, once our fleet is full of Shaven, and restore them to productive status without having to rebuild.”

“How long will this take?” Arnja’el asked.

“It will take many years to evacuate them, then well more than a century to build up our fleet. It will allow the worlds we choose to hold greater defense and less distance the Shaven have to travel to respond to attacks,” Bv’en said, using the Hycre term for ‘hybrid’ to describe their warships that incorporated Star Force tech into the design.

“Where would these evacuees go?” another Hycre asked.

“To the new colonies in the Sanctuary Zone,” Bv’en said firmly. “There they can assist in building Shaven to send back here. But it is here that we must make our stand. If the Cajdital destroy our primary shipyards the war of attrition will weigh heavily in their favor. The Sanctuary Zone production must add to this, not replace it.”

“Can Star Force protect the Sanctuary Zone without us?” the Hycre in charge of internal harmony asked.

“They do not have the numbers,” Bv’en dismissed offhand.

“But they do have the technology,” the last of the 6 Hycre to speak said. “I have seen data from a recent weapons test in their second home system. They have developed a medium-ranged weapon of immense power, and of a type I cannot categorize. It is energy-based, but neither beam nor plasma. They are keeping the nature of the weapon a secret, but not its damage potential. I believe they fear our portion of the Alliance cracking, and are releasing this information to instill unity and hope in securing the Sanctuary Zone, but they are not sharing the technology with us.”

“Have we received a response regarding the relay technology?” Arnja’el asked her technology chief.

“They have offered us a choice between their older, slower models…which we just received the specifications for two days ago, or the option of them building newer models for our use.”

“In exchange for what?” the logistics chief wondered.

“They offered their older schematics freely, but the production of their newer models would be in trade for assistance with deep mining of gas giants. They are having trouble procuring enough specialized materials, namely corovon, to produce their advanced technology. They have located a number of sources, but are unable to reach them, given the pressures involved. They want us to teach them how to access them.”

“Material in exchange for knowledge?” the Arnja’el asked.

“Star Force has garnered a reputation amongst the other races as generous, as this exchange would also suggest, but I believe they are savvy negotiators who do not allow others to know what it is that they want or need so as not to provide diplomatic leverage. It is quite possible that this mining technology is essential to their future plans…then again it could be simply an enhancement that they desire. What their motivation is, I do not know. But their breakneck advancement belies great wisdom in their planning. If not for their small population they would be able to hold back the Cajdital on their own.”

“Then it is fortuitous that we came to their aid when we did,” Arnja’el pointed out. “Sanction the exchange.”

“Looking at this map,” another Hycre began, addressing Bv’en, “you would have us cede several valuable worlds, including Darmek. How is that in our best interests?”

“They are valuable in a non-military sense. We must build more ships, thus those worlds with extensive shipyards and material resources take priority. And we will not be ceding them to the Cajdital, for they cannot claim them. Only we can live there, and it is possible that if we appear to abandon them they might not try to get at the sunken clusters…or even know they exist.”

“A big assumption on your part.”

“A probability,” Bv’en countered. “Regardless, we cannot waste resources guarding extraneous systems. If we can preserve them for later, it is best not to devote fleet resources to them.”

“Is this a limited list?” Arnja’el asked.

“I do not understand your question.”

“Have you chosen the minimum number of worlds to lie dormant?”

“I have. Any fewer and our continued existence is a gamble. The Cajdital will send as many ships as necessary to defeat us, so only by feigning weakness and hiding our true strength will we buy enough time to create enough Shaven. Grouping our existing fleet deployments gives us more regional strength than they are expecting.”

“Then I command you to choose more worlds to lie dormant. Keep only those that are vitally important to us and send the rest to the Sanctuary Zone,” she said, startling the other four Hycre, with Bv’en seeming unphased. “We cannot act meekly, and if these worlds can be reclaimed later then we should not be hesitant to hide them away now. Choose no more than half to keep, and go as low as you dare. When we are surrounded by enemies, our footholds must be like stone.”

“We will lose resources,” another informed without complaint.

“If the exchange is greater, then so be it. Choose your worlds carefully,” she told Bv’en, then begin relocating all non-essential personnel from all our worlds to the Sanctuary Zone. We need to lean our numbers here before the Cajdital grow bolder in their attacks. See to it that transportation begins immediately, then allow the evacuees from the worlds we are abandoning to transition through here. Let them feel the atmosphere of a secure world before they go to the Sanctuary Zone so that they know this is a strategic decision rather than a defeat.”

“Are we staying to buy time for Star Force?”

“We are staying because this is our home and we intend to keep it,” Arnja’el said stoically, “but the two motivations are not mutually exclusive.”

6 years later…

“Fourth section has arrived,” Captain Dseng said, taking a momentary break from overseeing the Starkill’s drone fleet as it fought the Skarrons around the perimeter of the construction site.

“Bring it in immediately,” Jennifer-801 ordered from the bridge command nexus, having taken direct control of the construction drones. “And get that jump cradle out of here before the Skarrons get to it.”

“Copy that,” Dseng said, then he went about issuing orders to his remote pilots also on the bridge and spread out into rows of control booths. On the main hologram several dozen of the drone warships peeled off from their defensive assignments and retreated into the massive space station Star Force was constructing in orbit over Praxnek, a Protovic world that had been a Skarron target for more than two years, but one that they had failed to land more than a few ground units on.

Both the Protovic fleet and Star Force’s smaller naval force that was constantly jumping around from system to system to assist had managed to hold planetary orbit at great cost, with the Skarrons responding by upping the pressure periodically, with this latest assault hitting them hardest of all…simultaneous with other assaults across Protovic space. This planet was the most vulnerable and on the verge of falling, which was why Star Force had retasked one of its Sentinel stations for deployment here, and after the debacle the Skarrons had suffered when they’d assaulted the one set up at Erentia they knew they couldn’t let another one be assembled here.

As a result they’d repositioned their entire insystem fleet and sent them after the first piece of the jumpship-sized station had arrived, with the Protovic moving en mass to block their way, leaving all Star Force warships to set up the final defensive perimeter and escort the massive jump cradles in and out from the star they were arriving on.

Each one looked like a giant spider with legs that would wrap around the craft they were carrying and extend an IDF field over the entire inner area, as well as latching on with any range of physical holds. Currently there was an empty one sitting a couple of kilometers away from the station that Jennifer was hurriedly putting together, for the massive segments had been designed for quick assembly, though like with all new toys some assembly was required.

The drones that broke off formed a wedge ahead of the cradle, whose legs were now curled in underneath it and creating a much smaller presence than what it had just been. It had a small crew onboard that took control of the drones after it reached an outgoing jumpline, pulling them with it in nearly simultaneous jumps and hanging onto the escort until it got to the star and an outsystem jumpline. There they ordered the drones to return to the planet, but they’d be late getting back to the party.

The jump cradle that had just arrived was likewise built by Star Force, having slightly patterned themselves off the Hycre version, and inside its open space hold it carried a 7 kilometer long piece of Sentinel that contained several package pieces ‘glued’ alongside. Once it made it past the Skarrons and into the ‘safe’ zone that Star Force and the Protovic were barely holding and losing a lot of ships to do it, the jump cradle moved it into position alongside the other three main segments that were already attached, with Jennifer getting it into the position she wanted before dismissing it, but not ordering it out.

There was enough room in the defensive perimeter for it to sit for the moment, and she didn’t want to lose more drones in escort or risk losing the cradle and crew by sending it out alone. She picked the spot she wanted it and sent the nearby coordinates, getting it clear of the massive chunk of station that her construction ‘bot’s scurried out to and began removing the extraneous pieces.

Some of the bots moved into positions around the perimeter of the piece and latched on, becoming maneuvering thrusters, and very gently lowered it down atop the other three, forming a long, cigar-like grey gem with multiple faces, all with sharp lines and not a curve in the design. Onto those faces the extra pieces were added, some fitting into preexisting slots and all but disappearing inside, others remaining on the surface like ugly warts.

Jennifer knew they were running behind time, so even as the last pieces were being put into place she began reworking the internal processes of the completely automated station and got one of the lower cleansing beams online, then routed control of it over to one of the pilots on her warship, bumping him from drone control and leaving his drone with only 2 pilots instead of three.

The pilot immediately put the large cleansing beam to use, targeting the strongest of the Skarron vessels within firing range, for many were blocked by friendly ships, and proceeded to put a shot into its shields that penetrated within a second and a half. When it abated there was a small hole in the ship that was otherwise fully intact.

The next shot didn’t hit the ship, but picked another and likewise breached its shields, leaving it vulnerable to the Protovic fleet. Wisely the pilot continued with the targeted motif, plucking shields off the Skarrons’ heaviest ships rather than taking the time to cut one apart.

Satisfied with that addition to the battle, Jennifer continued with the construction efforts and avoided any more reprogramming shortcuts, knowing that the cleansing beam she’d jerry-rigged would have to be taken offline and retasked before it could link up with the others. Normally that would have been accomplished with only a few keystrokes, except that the Sentinel station was designed with moveable internal equipment that would allow for reconfigurations to keep it fighting at maximum potential when suffering from battle damage.

Getting the fourth piece in place took too long, but in reality was accomplished in all of 6 minutes once the main section made physical contact with the others…which was remarkably fast for the size of the project they were undertaking. As the construction bots scurried out of the way and back to their own specialized jumpship sitting nearby, the cleansing beam went silent as the internal components began to shift, but the other 9 large batteries came online instantly once the primary power cores synced up, which Jennifer quickly delegated off to more of her personal crew of remote pilots, leaving the main extra-large battery silent to save juice…plus none of the Skarron ships were strong enough to require its attention anyway.

With its power being rerouted to the other cleansing beams the 26 kilometer long behemoth began spitting out tiny lines of light that looked like tinsel falling off a Christmas tree, inconsequential compared to the overall mass…but those tiny little beams were so concentrated with energy they ripped through Skarron shields and armor with ease, prompting a massive retreat 20 seconds after they saw the station go operational.

The Protovic fleet, or what was left of it, let the Skarrons go, but the Sentinel station continued to tag them at range until they all microjumped out, giving the Alliance a 1000+ mile radius around the station into which the Skarrons wouldn’t go unless they had overwhelming numbers…and at present they didn’t have close to enough ships within the system, and probably wouldn’t for some time.

That didn’t prevent them from assaulting the planet from other locations in orbit, but it did mean the Alliance now had a foothold that the Skarrons would be hard pressed to remove…and to which any ships would greatly add to the defense, for the enemy had to throw everything they had against the station to take it out, with any delay resulting in egregious to their fleet while its cleansing beams remained active.

“Begin recovery operations,” Jennifer ordered once the Skarrons were well away. “I’ll get the construction bots to help,” she said, referencing their own control pilots onboard their jumpship and the massive amount of debris and damaged ships left behind in a crude halo around the now fully operational station as the Archon saw the 10th cleansing beam move into the green on her holographic schematic. That meant it was good to go and any Star Force warship or properly equipped outpost could remote control it and let the Skarrons waste hundreds of ships taking it out if they so chose, and if not, it would pick apart any fleet that came near it, letting Alliance vessels run towards it for sanctuary.

Yet one more piece in the overall ADZ defense line now in place. Problem was, the massive stations were both hard and expensive to build, but worth every bit of their construction. And the longer the conventional forces of the Alliance could hold their turf, the more of these would come online, making the ADZ that much harder to breach, whether it be Skarrons, lizards, or anyone else.

Time was on their side, so long as they could win or reduce these current and near futures battles to a draw. Doing such was burning through a lot of Star Force drones and an even larger amount of Protovic lives as their unaugmented ships were aggressively defending their territory, knowing the stakes and the overall strategy, and leaving their growing mainline fleet with roving duty as they hunted the Skarrons with their own cleansing beams and maulers.

The old school ships and their crews were the barricades being thrown up as defense, and they were committed to doing their part, no matter how many of them were lost to the effort, if it would ensure the Protovic race’s survival.

3

May 3, 2502

Rvot System (Protovic territory)

Praxnek

Two days after the sentinel went online Jennifer boarded a dropship and descended to the surface of the varied planet, landing in an ice field where the Protovic didn’t have any native populations. There Star Force had been allowed to establish a small base that it was continually expanding into a home for a significant ground force. With the Skarrons looking like they were fully committed to conquering the Protovic no matter how long it took, Star Force had decided to put down roots as well, rather than flying in troops and dropping them into combat zones essentially unsupported.

The base Jennifer was landing at had one of the strongest shield generators ever built, far stronger than those on any Star Force warship, and with multiple units to provide redundancy enough to keep a 100 square mile area protected from orbital bombardment. Those shields were down at the moment, allowing her dropship easy access to one of 6 spaceports. Another was under construction along with a slew of new buildings creeping out across the ice as the artificial surface of the base slowly replaced it.

In between the buildings were large pathways meant for mechs, along with two airfields and 6 mech bays…plus a small aquatics cupola sticking up, underneath was a water corridor that stretched under the ice to a nearby ocean, with Star Force having to have done a lot of digging to make the connection.

The Protovic hadn’t colonized their oceans, which covered some 34% of the planet and interconnected with each other in the form of long tendrils that mostly connected to one another and segmented the landmasses. Star Force had received permission to develop infrastructure there, with the intent being to create outposts and troop deployment centers that the Skarrons would have a difficult time hitting, for so far they hadn’t deployed any type of aquatics forces, making the Alliance wonder if they even had any in their ranks.

Jennifer’s dropship nestled down into one of the spaceport’s enclosed bays, landing on one of six pads after dropping through an environment shield that kept the cold air out but let the transports come and go, meaning that the Archon walked out onto a warm pad that was busy unloading four Dragon-class dropships bringing down more construction materials from a convoy that had just arrived 3 hours ago.

They’d be busy the next few days unloading as the 3 mech galaxies already on planet were finishing up the last of the Skarrons’ most recent attempt at a surface attack. They’d already finished off the last of the enemy walkers, leaving only infantry to mop up on the rolling grasslands of a southern hemisphere continent.

Their dropship transports were housed in and operated out of the airfield, leaving the spaceports as the commerce terminals, but as Jennifer made her way to the interior she moved up several levels to skyline walkway that gave her a brief glimpse of the nearest mech bay promenade.

She paused a moment to look it over, seeing the normal burrows that the mech bay was constructed within and coated over top with multiple layers of dirt/rock/armor…which in this case was all armor given that they were on an ice field and the actual ground was deep beneath them. Outside the surface ‘bumps’ were large clearings broken up by a scattering of buildings. Here there were multiple mechs, most of which were stationary and set into lines, but a few were walking about and heading towards a couple of dropships, ostensibly readying for deployment.

The other mechs should have been berthed inside, not standing outside. Jennifer wondered what they were doing out there, for she didn’t think there were any pilots currently inside. They looked like they were parked, and sticking them out in the open was a bad idea in case the base came under attack and the enemy either got through the shields or slipped in a sneak shot before they went up.

She’d have to inquire about that when she got to her headquarters, now that this base was falling under her command.

The sky bridge walkway ran across the top of the spaceport and several other buildings before it came to a tram terminal. Jennifer boarded one of the small craft that ran the enclosed rails and rode it across the top/mid level of the base, passing over some buildings and through others until she got off at the terminal nearest the headquarters and hiked the rest of the way on foot, travelling down multiple levels until she got over to the subsurface control room where she found Kip waiting with his personal bundle set on the ground beside his feet while he studied a hologram of something on the planet’s surface.

“In a hurry?” she asked, glancing at the duffle.

“Places to go, things to do,” he said with a smile. “I trust you can keep things together here?”

“I find that question insulting,” Jennifer said sarcastically.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Make sure this cleanup skirmish is thorough. We don’t want to let the Skarrons keep a few infantry in place to act as scouts for their next attack.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“All yours then,” he said, offering her his armored hand.

She shook his black glove in her bare hand, glad that he didn’t squeeze too hard. Jennifer nodded and Kip released his grip, grabbing his striker helmet and locking it in place before retrieving his duffle and heading out of the control room.

He didn’t waste any time, heading for one of the airfields and climbing into his personal skeet, painted blue through the fuselage and yellow on the anti-grav ‘T’ tips. The trailblazer shoved his duffle into a compartment below his feet and slid onto the pommel seat before hitting the button to lower the armored canopy into place, blocking out his view until the holographic HUD activated, replacing the armor with an exterior view seemingly through the material.

Kip lifted off moments later, flying up over the base and accelerating laterally as he continued to gain altitude, eventually rising up to orbit some 1500 miles to the east and rendezvousing with his ride out of the system. Using nothing but anti-gravs, for the skeets didn’t have maneuvering thrusters, Kip gently crept the aerofighter through the vacuum of space and into one of the hangar bays of the Taro Adun.

His normal flagship, the Tassadar, was sitting in a Star Force shipyard undergoing an extensive refit after getting the crap kicked out of it by the Skarrons. Fortunately for it and him the massive warship had enough mass to survive the assault and keep the drones operational, though the Skarrons had destroyed almost all of the transmitters. They’d had to rely on a short range backup placed at the center of the warship to continue to orchestrate their defense escort, though if that hadn’t functioned there had been other Star Force warships in the area that would have picked up the control slack, meaning the drones wouldn’t have been taken out of the battle.

But it had shown that the Skarrons knew the warships were the control units for the drones, and that they weren’t going to be hesitant in attacking them. It was a potential weakness for Star Force, one that they’d armored over considerably, including preprogrammed attack profiles into the drones so they could continue fighting even without exterior control, but so long as they maintained a technological edge Kip wasn’t worried, for they’d been reworking the warship design continuously, now up to the Mk. 23 variety that the Tassadar was being reworked into.

The Taro Adun was a Mk. 22 that had only seen light combat, but that was likely to change as Kip left the Rvot System and headed further down on the galactic plane.

He took no other ships with him, traveling several weeks until he crossed over into Gamma Region, which sat below Earth and the Core Region, but stretched out wider the farther down you went give the 45 degree angle from centerline that it was charted off. The system to which Kip was headed was far beyond the scattering of colonies that Nevil oversaw, putting it closer to Zeta and Beta Region colonies.

It was nearly straight down from Protovic territory, with a slight coreward shift, and totally uninhabited…containing two gas giants orbiting a pair of red giant stars that were near to merging into one, and nothing else.

Traveling to the outermost of those gas giants, the Taro Adun made a microjump across the system and dropped into battlemap transmission range, with Kip seeing numerous Star Force signatures popping up on the bridge holo. There were three other Warship-class jumpships, one from the 13th fleet and two from Ivan’s Clan Cookie, which took the award for the most ridiculous name, especially when paired with the colored M&Ms paint scheme that all their craft were covered with, including the pair of jumpships.

Hilarious to newcomers, Kip no longer saw anything other than a strong Clan when he pictured the Cookies, and was grateful that Ivan had been able to devote the pair of warships to this latest puzzle piece mission, given that Kip had none to spare. Clan Protoss was fully engaged in the defense of the Protovic, leaving little resources left to go hitting the Skarrons elsewhere.

The rendezvous system they were in now sat 1.4 lightyears from their target system of Dcan, and formerly home to the Issvoks, an associate of the Protovic. They’d been a single system race with trading ties throughout the region, and hadn’t put up much of a fight when the Skarrons targeted their world. The most recent intel the Protovic had suggested that the Issvoks had been completely wiped out, with the Skarrons taking possession of their planet and moving on, leaving the conquered world behind their forward pressing fleets and giving anyone who was bold enough to hit it an easy target.

Normally Kip wouldn’t have bothered going after Skarron conquests, knowing that it would probably draw a reprisal, but this was a special case. First off the Protovic had brought it to his attention, citing they would like to incorporate what Issvoks had escaped destruction by being off planet at the time of the invasion into the Alliance refuge populations. Arrangements for that had already been made, but so far only a handful had been found and brought into the ADZ.

The second reason was the location…just on the edge of what Star Force had loosely tagged as the ADZ border in Gamma Region, despite the fact it was far from any Star Force or Alliance colony…officially. In truth it was close to one of the private networks Star Force was setting up, with this one belonging to Ivan and Megan, which was one reason why he’d been willing to devote resources to the mission.

The nearest outpost was 15 lightyears away, giving them a light, backup supply line out to them if needed, but the plan was to have a self-sufficient presence that could then backfeed into that portion of Gamma Region, establishing colonies that would then link up with current ones decades down the road.

Which brought him to the third reason…and the owners of the bulk of the fleet sitting next to the three warships.

For years Canderous had literally begged the trailblazers to let them have a greater role in the warfront, with them always playing it safe and giving the Canderians small, yet crucial assignments for them to gain some experience on. It had never been enough to satisfy the military civilization, but they’d done their duty all the while expanding their network of sedas throughout the Core Region and elsewhere where allowed.

This was to be the first major Canderian assault, with Kip knowing that he needed to be present to make sure nothing went wrong…and to make sure they got their foothold on this wide open border in the ADZ before the Skarrons felt like pushing inside it. He and the Canderians both knew that the Skarrons might respond aggressively to losing the planet, and they were prepared to face the brunt of their reprisal. In fact, the Canderians seemed to welcome it, while Kip would much prefer the Skarrons overlooking the loss of the world and continuing to press their attacks against the Protovic, much as they hadn’t hit another Star Force world since they’d gotten their butts kicked in their first attempt at an invasion.

He had no doubts the Skarrons had given up on the idea, but the Protovic were putting up a good fight and he assumed the enemy needed to concentrate their resources on the one target before trying to branch out onto multiple fronts in the region. That, or until the Skarron leadership decided to pay more attention to the region and send the mass of reinforcements that Star Force knew they were capable of.

All the more reason to get at least a single point of defense established on the Gamma Region border, especially with more and more refugee populations, and sometimes entire races, fleeing both the Skarron and lizard fronts and filling in the very large amount of territory within the ADZ…of which they had plenty more to accommodate as many allies as they could collect, so long as they weren’t too picky about the environment of the available worlds.

As soon as Kip’s ship arrived the assault fleet was complete, with the entire armada microjumping out to the central stars and making the interstellar jump over to the neighboring system with the Taro Adun and the other warships leading the way. As soon as they arrived in Dcan they scanned the area around the central star, seeing it devoid of ships, then microjumped out to the Skarron held planet of Waxcvat, finding only 6 Skarron warships in orbit…all of which were destroyer class.

There were more than 50 other Skarron ships, all of which fled the newcomers as the warships moved to intercept them as the Star Force jumpships began to deploy their drones. The Skarrons made a quick run against the Taro Adun, unloading some plasma and missiles against her shields before jumping away from the planet…or rather 5 did. One got caught in the gravity drive by a cleansing beam and couldn’t jump out, leaving it easy pickings for the drones.

The four warships settled into low orbit with their full complement of drones deployed as the Canderians began jumping in. First came their own warships, shaped like knife blades and accompanied by independent drones that were far larger and not block shaped. They had no crews, but operated a variety of functions. Some were carriers that housed smaller drones and fighters, others were pure battleships and some were shield ships that carried few weapons but acted as blockers to stave off heavy, directed attacks against the commanding warships.

Looking like Super Star Destroyers, the warships settled into orbit, some 73 strong, bringing their drone fleets with them ahead of the much larger ships to come.

Or rather the sedas that came, carried into planetary orbit by specially designed jump cradles. First came a trio of small ones, each only 2.3 miles in diameter and specialized for strategic mining operations. Following them came progressively larger ones, culminating in a 23 mile wide giant that took 6 jump cradles working together to carry between the stars.

Those jump cradles detached immediately upon arrival, with all of the 13 sedas maneuvering into their desired orbits on their own, much smaller gravity drives. Once settled in those sedas spewed forth hundreds of landing craft, with Kip taking to his skeet and dropping down from orbit with them as the Canderian troops headed for the wreck of a planet that the Skarrons had taken up residence on in a few key locations.

There might not have been any Issvoks left alive to save, but they were definitely going to be avenged, with their planet serving a strategic purpose against the Skarrons as it was shortly to become part of the ADZ and a big middle finger waving in the enemy’s face.

4

December 19, 2504

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Morgan watched from the command nexus onboard her Melee-class warship Green Ranger as the last Alliance evacuation fleet slowly moved out of orbit, a few ships at a time, enroute to the system’s star and from there across what had formerly been Calavari territory to Drema and the conduit into what was now being called the ADZ. Most of the ships were non-Star Force, and even non-Hycre, for this was the last call, with the masses that were left on the planet being crammed into every transport available.

Sashneo had served its purpose as one of the transitional worlds, but its time had come to an end. The lizard lines were now just next door, with Morgan’s fleet having held the system against their probing attacks for the past 7 years as they pulled more refugees from the surrounding systems. Recently most of those had been non-Calavari, for despite how large their empire had once been, they’d run out of people to rescue…and unfortunately that was due to the war and not their evacuation efforts, for less than 7% of their former population had been relocated.

There were still other worlds within the region that had been Calavari territory, inhabited by dozens of races, but if they hadn’t pulled out by now the train wasn’t waiting for them any longer, and they’d have to deal with the lizards on their own…or hope that they deemed them inconsequential and passed them by.

Morgan was in the command nexus because several lizard attack groups were snooping around the system, and despite the hunter teams she had out pursuing them they had yet to be completely eradicated. That meant that some of the evacuation ships might come under attack, which was unacceptable. Hence she had her defense fleet spread out to cover the evacuation route to the stellar jumpline, with her massive ship holding the anchor position in planetary orbit where the last of the transporters were clustered as they picked up the remaining dropships coming up from the surface.

Onboard those dropships were the architects of the transition world, those people that had overseen its setup and operation, and who now had just overseen its closure, with the removal of all sensitive materials that they didn’t want the lizards to get their hands on. Morgan had considered bombarding the planet to destroy the infrastructure to deny it to the enemy, but ultimately decided not to waste the ammunition. If the lizards wanted the Alliance structures then they were theirs to claim, for in a few hours’ time they’d be abandoning the planet and the system, with Morgan knowing they weren’t planning on coming back.

Wanting to keep the last bit of this operation tidy, Morgan stayed in the nexus keeping an eye on all ship movements and tweaking them as she wished until the last of the dropships were onboard and the transports made microjumps out from the planet with their escorting warships…leaving the Green Ranger as the last ship in orbit.

Morgan pulled up a holographic display of Sashneo and gave it one last real time look, seeing the mass of construction they’d jammed onto the planet only a handful of years ago, now to abandon it. It had served its purpose but it still felt like a waste, and Morgan knew that while they had accomplished their mission, this was still a defeat. Yet one more Calavari world that would soon go to the enemy…assuming they wanted it.

With a simple signal sent to the bridge, Morgan gave the order to leave and Admiral Wilkinson got the massive warship underway as it chased the tail of the evacuation line over to the star, finding a few dozen still waiting to make the jump out when they arrived, surrounded by 6 warships and their fleets of drones that were now beginning to be recalled into their berths. Morgan’s command ship waited on them and let them jump out first, meaning they were the last one out, which was fitting, since Morgan had been fighting on the Calavari front for a full century now.

Over the days that followed the Green Ranger made slow jumps, following the long line of transports as they bounced their way from system to system and into the Star Force Calavari territory that was on the edge of the ADZ, but nearly all of the transports didn’t stop there aside for fuel and supplies. They continued down the conduit to various locations while Morgan’s fleet stayed behind, either reinforcing the defense line there or being redeployed out to the other 7 transitional worlds that were still operational.

The Calavari worlds that the Protovic were diligently guarding were the only other Calavari worlds remaining intact, with those on the far side of their former territory having succumbed when the Kvash and others abandoned their defense. Morgan had helped to evacuate as many of them as possible, but given the distances involved and the aggressiveness of the lizards and their Nestafar allies, few of those Calavari had survived, leaving only these two little bastions of defiance remaining, with the Protovic protectorate having been convinced to join with the Star Force Calavari.

Taryn was there, facilitating the evacuation routes to that area and organizing their defenses as part of their population was being siphoned off to HTC for conversion training. Slowly, year by year, newly minted Star Force Calavari were being return to replace them, giving the new Calavari territory two clustered on the edge of the ADZ, with Leif heading up the defense and remaining evacuation efforts in the Drema-centered section, which had become known as the Rim sector, with the Calavari systems on the Protovic border likewise being labeled the Core sector.

With a trailblazer overseeing each and the combat within the old Calavari territory all but over, Morgan’s time there was at an end, with her leaving the Green Ranger behind to become part of Leif’s fleet as she took temporary command of one of the older Warship-class jumpships and traveled the full length of the conduit back to Epsilon Eridani where she spent several weeks getting caught up on Clan Ninja Monkey activities and assets there while she got in some much needed ground training.

She’d spent so much time on jumpships that her ‘land legs’ were quite rusty, with Morgan relishing some long forest runs and the uneven footing challenge that they provided. While she had gone on surface missions from time to time those were rare…and none of them were workouts where she could just relax and grind out the miles over the terrain.

It took her a few days to begin to really unwind, not just from the outdoor runs, but by the change of venue. The personnel around her, from the Clan to the mainline Star Force colonies, to the workload, which was management, training, and creation, were suddenly back to what had been normal to her prior to going to the Calavari front. She’d been back for short stays on occasion, but it wasn’t until her mind began to release her responsibilities to the Calavari and turning that horrific situation into something positive did she realize just how much she didn’t like being cooped up on jumpships.

Like any Archon, she’d adjusted to the circumstances at hand, but now she was realizing just how much she’d been missing, and after a few weeks of letting it all sink in she promised herself she wasn’t going to take on any more longterm fleet assignments…if she could help it.

It was a full month before she eventually got around to meeting up with Dakota, Tyr, and Kerrie at Corneria Prime, the planet’s command center and capitol of the system. She got to the briefing room last, with the other three trailblazers already engaged in a conversation with Archduke Hightower.

“Well, well…look who finally showed up,” Tyr said as she walked in.

“Shut up,” she said, pulling out a chair next to Dakota and sitting down. “I had a mountain of Clan stuff to take care of. What did I miss?”

“Not much,” Hightower said dismissively. “We were just arguing over production quotas.”

“Clue me in.”

“Warships vs. infrastructure,” Kerrie summed up pithily.

“Infrastructure builds warships,” Hightower reminded them. “Corneria has a great deal of untapped resources that I want to exploit, but to do so at the pace I desire means we can’t be overrunning the shipyards due to lack of available material.”

“Epsilon Eridani’s shipbuilding capability is beginning to exceed its resources,” Dakota explained.

Morgan frowned. “Doesn’t matter how many shipyards you have if you don’t have the supplies to feed them.”

“Exactly my point,” Hightower said, throwing a glance at Tyr and Kerrie.

“Morgan, you know how badly we need more warships on the front lines,” she argued. “Aside from Sol we’re the major producer, and the Clans can’t field enough as it is. We have to have mainline production ramping up.”

“The real question is how urgent is the need,” Hightower inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“I need numbers,” Morgan prompted.

Dakota tapped the tabletop a few times and a statistical hologram lit up between the five of them at the rectangular table, with Hightower sitting at the narrow end.

The others stayed silent for several minutes as Morgan absorbed the production numbers and the proposed plan that Hightower was floating, which would reduce warship production by 32% in exchange for building MCV jumpships over the next 12 years that he would then use to amp up construction on the slew of smaller planets in the system.

Currently there 14 main planets, one of which belonged to the Hycre, all of which were heavily populated, but there were hundreds more tiny ones in odd orbits at great distance from the others. Some of them had already been lightly inhabited by mining and construction crews, but there were far too many to get to in a short period of time with their current production slate…and Morgan wasn’t sure why they’d even want to, given their small size.

She glanced up from the holo and looked at Hightower, who technically was in command of all non-Clan infrastructure in the system, meaning he could tailor the production quotas as he liked, but he knew better than to mess with warship production without the Archons’ approval.

Morgan shook her head. “I don’t see what you’re trying for here. These planets are far too small to worry about right now. Surface facilities on the current ones should field more resources in the near future.”

“It’s not the near future that concerns me. It’s our rate of growth. Individually these planets are not significant, but combined they will be the equivalent of two more Class E planets. The trouble is getting facilities built that can service them all. The spread out nature of the resources they contain is the issue, which is why I need smaller development platforms. A temporary reduction in warship production will yield a higher rate of production down the road once the resources from these planets are added into the supply chain. Plus the MCVs can be deployed to other systems afterward. With so many planets going to other races, we’re going to have to be savvy to get what we need in future expansions.”

“Yet we have to survive long enough to get there,” Kerrie countered, “hence the problem.”

Morgan groaned. “We need both.”

“Exactly,” Dakota agreed.

“Where’s the Kiritak supply level at?”

“Holding steady, but it’s limited by the amount of cargo traffic available. Most of our local production is fed by local resources, and even if we had Kiritak supplement it wouldn’t scratch the surface of what we need. Epsilon Eridani has to be self-sufficient, and it has to be able to provide the fleets that the rest of Star Force needs. That need is growing, and if our ability to provide it doesn’t also grow we’re going to limit ourselves in centuries to come.”

Morgan looked at Kerrie, then Tyr, and finally Dakota. “You’ve been here longer that I have been. What do you suggest?”

“Keeping to the production schedule,” Tyr said firmly.

“How bad is it out there?” Dakota asked.

Morgan sighed. “Bad enough, but it’s only going to get worse. The lizards aren’t to the Rim sector yet, but when they get there we’re going to need every ship we can get.”

“Or sentinel,” Kerrie added.

Morgan looked at Hightower. “Are you building those here?”

“Just the ones for our own use. We’re not exporting any. That’s Sol’s turf.”

“I hate to say it, but…”

“Time to rip the band-aid off?” Kerrie finished.

Morgan nodded.

“Now that’s a reference I haven’t heard in a long time,” Hightower commented.

Dakota frowned. “Meaning what?”

“We go all-in and build his MCVs as fast as possible. Full production.”

Hightower raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

Tyr shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”

“If we have two bad options, might as well get it over with as quick as possible,” Morgan explained. “This way the onus is on us being able to hold the line with the ships we have, not on him,” she said, pointing at Hightower, “to build more ships than he is capable of years from now. The war is only going to escalate, so if we’re going to take a hit now is the best time to tackle it.”

“Wars,” Dakota corrected.

Tyr looked at Hightower. “How long with full production?”

“I haven’t run those numbers because I didn’t think it was a realistic option, but if we go full in on both military and cargo lines I’d guess 2 years, 3 max, with a delayed implementation as we finish up the current slate.”

“And that will give you what you need here?”

“As well as the ability to expand to other systems not currently possible, though those projects wouldn’t be under my command.”

“This is a bad idea,” Tyr reiterated. “But I agree that things aren’t going to get any better in the future. If this gets us more ships down the line, then it’s worth doing…so long as we can hold out. As it is, I’m not sure any of us know how hard we’re going to get hit and where, which is why I’d prefer having every ship we can get.”

“I don’t disagree,” Morgan told him, “but I know if he’s asking then there’s a significant need.”

“Thank you,” Hightower said, bowing his head slightly. “I promise I’ll make this work to our advantage if you can hold out.”

“You better,” Kerrie joked, “or we’ll bust you back down to Duke.”

“If I don’t I’ll bust myself down.”

“Ok, next item on the list,” Dakota said with a straight face. “Morgan, what level are you at?”

The striker gave him a bemused look. “54.”

Tyr whistled, and Morgan saw him and Kerrie exchange a glance.

“What?”

Dakota reached over and put his hand on Morgan’s consolingly. “Paul is at 55.”

“Oh, hell no…”

“Afraid so,” Kerrie confirmed. “He’s been on a training tear ever since he got back to Earth.”

“Last update I got said he was at 52. How’d he jump 3 levels?”

“We were curious about that too,” Dakota said. “Seems he had a weak score holding him back that he had a breakthrough in.”

“Let me guess, swimming?”

“Yep.”

“Damn him,” Morgan whispered. “How’d he jump three levels?”

Dakota dug into the interface and eventually brought up the Archon training scores…at least the ones most recently updated, given how spread out they were across various star systems.

“Not three,” he said, pointing to the jump in swimming scores.

Morgan’s jaw dropped. “19?”

“He hasn’t bothered to note how that happened, but we have a few guesses,” Tyr commented.

“What’s the leading theory?” Morgan asked, going through his subcategory list and seeing several swimming scores that were now above her own.

“He cheated and grew gills,” Dakota remarked.

“We’re guessing he finally fixed whatever his drawback was,” Kerrie translated. “Maybe made a correction with the V’kit’no’sat medical station.”

“Why wouldn’t he have done that before…assuming there was something wrong with him. I just thought he was slow.”

“He’s not slow,” Hightower commented, having been his former Clan Marquis.

“He’s not fast in the water either,” Morgan countered. “Do you know something?”

“Afraid not. Other than communiques I haven’t talked with Paul in years.”

“Well has anyone bothered to ask him?” Morgan wondered.

“Message sent, still waiting on a reply,” Tyr told her.

“Well do share when it comes in,” Morgan said, now thoroughly miffed. She’d held top Archon status forever, and she definitely didn’t like Paul pulling some magic out of his ass to suddenly jump ahead of her in the standings.

“Aren’t you due for a check-in with him and Jason anyway?” Kerrie asked. “You still haven’t gotten the battlemeld yet, I assume?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“So go ask him yourself,” Dakota suggested. “And send pictures.”

“I think I will,” Morgan said, having planned to get there eventually anyway.

“If that’s settled,” Hightower said politely, “we have personnel transfers to orchestrate.”

Kerrie could tell by the look on his face that he considered such things to be painful, given that each time it occurred he had to ship out some of his highly skilled subordinates to other systems that were starting up or expanding into larger colonies. That couldn’t be helped, for the most talented people were either here or in Sol, meaning this is where the brain trust had to be siphoned from.

“That we do,” Kerrie agreed, being the one that would be setting up a trio of new colonies in Delta Region through Clan Ahsoka that would eventually become mainline run Alliance Worlds. Her people would be overseeing the supply lines that would feed the startup costs, but it was mainline personnel that would be running them, meaning that they needed both skilled and experienced leaders that Hightower was going to have to part with. “What have you got?”

Hightower brought up the short list he assembled and began making his recommendations as Morgan stewed. Thoroughly ticked at herself for letting Paul pass her up, despite the meteoric rise his swimming skills had unpredictably undergone.

5

June 23, 2505

Solar System

Earth

Davis looked up from the datapad he was reading as he heard footsteps entering his office late at night. He was just about to call it a day himself, then was suddenly glad he hadn’t when he saw an old friend climbing the stairs into his office with the gentle grace that made her almost silent, and Davis was proud to have even noticed her approach.

“Now that’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said, setting the datapad down and standing up.

“Figured I should drop in while I had the chance,” Morgan said as Davis came out around his desk to meet her, then wrapped her up in a big hug.

“I never had a chance to thank you for the work you’ve done with the Calavari,” he said, stepping back and waving her towards a chair. “You’ve saved a race…and one very important to Star Force’s future, I think.”

“Not enough of them,” Morgan countered, sitting down and remembering back to the first time she was in this office along with Paul and Jason as the secrets of ambrosia were spelled out to her.

Davis nodded, knowing better than to argue the point with her. Archons didn’t like losing anyone, and no matter how many she saved her mind would be focused on the failures rather than the successes.

“Are you back to stay?”

“We’ve evacuated everyone we could find, save for those who didn’t want to go. We’ve actually been pulling more from other races than Calavari in recent years. If there are any more out there I don’t know where they’re hiding. We’ve sent a scout into every system that was formerly Calavari territory and evacuated everyone we found. The other races in the region have already evacuated, save for those who chose to stay, so my time there is over. Leif and Taryn are staying in the new Calavari sectors to organize their defense, leaving one trailblazer too many, so I’m cycling back to catch up on Clan matters and soak in some sun. Didn’t realize how much I missed planetary atmosphere.”

“Where are you heading next?”

“I’ve got some business in the pyramid, then I’m a floater until I find another mission. Don’t suppose you have anything for me?”

“Nothing worthy of your skills, no,” Davis said with a light laugh. “You’ve earned a vacation. Why not take it?”

“Being off a jumpship is vacation enough, and I had several weeks of downtime on Corneria already.”

“Typical Archon.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

“I’m not involved in combat.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Davis sighed. “Probably before you were born.”

“More Archon than you give yourself credit for.”

“Hardly,” Davis said dismissively. “But seeing how we both have an aversion to off time, how about you bring me up to speed with what you guys are working on.”

“Something specific you want to know about? We usually keep you in the loop.”

“Not your current projects, but where you’re thinking ahead. The stuff I suspect you talk about with each other prior to solidifying any plans. You guys run the frontier regions, just want to know where your heads are at.”

Morgan studied him carefully. “You’ve got something of your own in the works and you want to make sure it doesn’t conflict with what we’ve got running?”

Davis leaned back in his seat with a smirk on his face. “How in the hell did you know that? I thought we all had Ikrid blocks.”

“Deductive reasoning. What are you working on this time?” Morgan asked curiously.

“The future,” he said, with concern on his face, “of this new Alliance we’re forming.”

“Problems?”

“A few, but more on the horizon, I’m afraid. Maybe you haven’t been keeping score, but population wise Star Force is now in the minority. We still have an infrastructure advantage, but reports I’ve been getting are indicating that the other races we’ve agreed to shelter are beginning to merge into a communal identity, with plenty of power games beginning to be played.”

“I caught some of that in Corneria.”

“Your thoughts?”

“Not something I’ve been worried about, given my previous mission. But it seems like we’ve picked up a lot of backseat drivers who are thinking less like refugees and more like equal partners minus the defensive responsibility. Some of the races appear to be stepping up in that regard, but a lot are sitting behind our defense lines and building up their powerbase. Dakota says the diplomatic situation has become a bit like…well, it’s chaotic as everyone is trying to define their position, and some races are using that to advance their own agendas.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say it reminded me of the Citadel in Mass Effect, but I figure you never played that video game.”

“You figured wrong. A friend of mine was an addict and dragged me through the games. I admit I was less interested in the combat than I was in the logistics, but Citadel Station is familiar. A lot of politics and self-serving races with little interest in the common welfare.”

“Well, that’s pretty much what we’re developing, minus the communal watering hole.”

“That’s where my line of thought was taking me. We’re on good standing with the Hycre and Protovic, thanks to you guys. I still haven’t met either race, and I’d prefer to keep it that way, though I do have a suggestion for how to stabilize this growing internal conflict.”

“Almost no one has met a Hycre,” Morgan corrected him, “and for me there was still a wall in between. Why don’t you want contact with them? I’d assumed your duties here prevented you from traveling out to meet them.”

“I understand Humans, but I’m only beginning to get a grasp of Calavari and Kiritak society. And that’s mostly because you guys have created a bridge by training them in Star Force ways. Jace brought one of the Calavari with him to Atlantis a few years back, and that encounter opened my eyes to a great many things. I felt his mind, limited as my Ikrid ability is, and I was surprised by how different it was. All the training reports I’ve read about the Calavari have been quite detailed, but I made a mistake when interpreting them. They are doing things for a different reason than I believed, and I get the feeling that they’re the most like us of any of the races.”

“I understand them,” Morgan offered, “it just takes some time to get used to them.”

“Which is why I’m glad you guys have stepped up and handled all inter-racial diplomacy. I’m behind on the learning curve, but I can still spot some warning signs. Our guests cannot be trusted, and if we’re not careful we could be ushering in our conquerors if the exterior threats lesson.”

“Not that I disagree with you, but the lizards, Nestafar, and Skarrons aren’t going anywhere.”

“But if we’re able to establish a defense line and truly create the Alliance Defense Zone, those threats will decrease in immediate importance and a new internal dynamic will form.”

“You’re saying the guests are going to want to start running the place?”

“I can’t be for sure, because of my unfamiliarity with the races, but I suspect a high probability of it.”

“The Hycre came to our aid in the beginning when there was little need to do so. I think they can be trusted, more or less. And while I’m not personally familiar with the Protovic, Kip seems to think they can be trusted in a similar manner.”

“Both of them are engaged in heavy fighting,” Davis pointed out. “And they are not my immediate concern. They and Star Force create the defense shield that protects the others. It’s the others that I foresee the problems developing in.”

“You said you had an idea?”

“We need to provide more structure to this Alliance than handing out territory slots and establishing basic rules. We need to stay in the lead, which means an active involvement in internal affairs.”

“Such as?”

“I have some ideas, but like I said, I don’t know the players we’re dealing with. I need to personally get involved, and I don’t want to bring an embassy into Sol.”

“Transfer to Corneria then. It’s already the hub of the Alliance, both the original and the overall one we’re cobbling together. Every race plus outsiders have an embassy there.”

“I’ve thought of doing just that, given that Sol is pretty much a calm property. There are still some special tweaks that I need to make, but most of that can be handled via the relay network.”

Morgan leaned forward resting her elbows on his desk. “So what’s stopping you?”

“Changing one office for another isn’t going to be enough. In order to build a real Alliance out of the pieces you’ve rescued, I have to learn who we’re dealing with. And to do that I need…closer contact.”

“Spit it out already or I’ll just grab your hand.”

“For most men that wouldn’t be viewed as a disincentive,” Davis said with a flirty/sarcastic wink. “The problem is I need to go on a tour of everything we’ve got out there beyond Sol, but the travel lag is going to keep me out of contact for too long. Stationing on Corneria isn’t much different than here, as far as comm lag is concerned. But if I move about I’ll be off the grid too much.”

“You’re afraid the kids won’t be able to mind the store without you?”

“They’re used to having me around. I’ve never had kids, but some old friends of mine, now long dead, did, and I haven’t forgotten some of the stories they told me about how everything could be fine and in order at home, then they step outside to do something and come back inside 2 minutes later and all hell had broken loose. That shouldn’t happen with Star Force, but that unknown factor is why I’ve stayed put as long as I have, and I don’t know how to alleviate the problem.”

“Well that’s easy enough. Don’t tell them you’re gone.”

Davis frowned. “I’m not exactly someone that can go missing without being noticed.”

“Why not? Most of your interactions aren’t face to face, are they?”

“You obviously have no idea what my schedule is like,” Davis said with a laugh.

“Aside from personnel in Atlantis,” Morgan corrected herself.

“I have holocomm communications with other locations on Earth and Luna, but you’re right that we don’t bring in guests to Atlantis all that often.”

Morgan smiled. “I know what you need to do.”

“I see that devious look on your face…and for some reason I find myself liking it.”

“Go rogue. Assign a stand-in, an Administrator you can trust that can take your place here and give orders in your name. That will get rid of the time lag, from others’ point of view, and you can check in with him via the relays to stay in touch. Then you can go wherever you need to and no one aside from a few trusted individuals will even know you’ve left. No records of transit. You’ll be a ghost in the system until you come back here and resume your place. Plan it right, and no one will even miss you.”

“How do I do that when you guys won’t let me leave without an armada for an escort?”

“You won’t be in danger if no one knows you’ve gone, and you can travel in my shadow. I’ll be your guide and escort, and me pulling a warship for my personal transit won’t draw attention.”

Davis sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

Morgan shook her head. “You said you need to get to know the races out there. Well, I can get you far closer anonymously than you can as yourself. And no, we’re not letting you go out without protection. And I wouldn’t trust anyone other than a trailblazer to do this. I’m looking for my next mission and this is it. As soon as you can get things set up we can leave…after I make a short trip down to Antarctica.”

“Battlemeld upgrade?”

“That and a few other things…”

“How?” Morgan demanded.

Paul looked up from his tray of foodstuffs in the cafeteria, having sensed her presence before she’d walked up to him, and raised a wait finger as he chewed the last half of a roll and grabbed the last four cookies in his left hand as he got up.

“I’ll show you,” he said, ditching the tray in the return slot as he walked out with Morgan in tow. “When did you get back?”

“I haven’t posted anything since I left Calavari space. I got here yesterday.”

“In between missions?”

“No.”

“What’s new?”

“What’s new with you?” she countered as they walked through the halls.

Paul laughed. “Ticked?”

“Depends on how you did it.”

“Better if I show you. Let’s head down to the pond. You’re going to like this.”

“Is this what feeling second best is always like?” Morgan said deadpan. “It sucks.”

“Watch it, sister. I found a way to overcome a weakness. Even after you learn it, I’m not going to be so easy to stay ahead of from here on out. My Kryptonite is now gone.”

“You were never ‘easy’ to stay ahead of.”

“Well that’s better,” he said as they got outside the building and Paul grabbed a nearby mongoose. Morgan slid on behind him and wrapped herself up tight against his back as he zoomed off, eventually making their way down to the lower levels where the swimming dinosaurs had made their home.

Both trailblazers donned swimming suits and found a small pool that was really a cupola off the underwater levels where one of the swimmers could interface with the Zen’zat in air. The roof was curved and the pool was oblong, with the far end connected underneath the wall to the main area beyond where a number of arrowheads and other craft were zipping about on training runs.

“Alright,” Paul said from the rim of the empty chamber. “Old school. Down and back. Ready?”

Morgan stepped up to the edge. “Ready.”

Paul sounded a three tone countdown telepathically, mimicking Mario Kart, with both of them jumping off head first into the water on the final ‘sound.’

With an ease born of tens of thousands of hours of training, both swam the 72 meter length to the far side, touched the wall that spanned the top of the subsurface connecting tunnel, and reversed direction. As was typical, Morgan beat Paul back by three body lengths, prompting a confused look on her face as they both floated with their hands on the rim catching their breath.

“That’s the normal you,” she commented. “What’s the new?”

Paul pulled himself up out of the water and took up his starting position again.

Morgan followed him up and set herself, then took off when Paul sent her the start tones again…but this time he hit the water and took off far faster than she was capable of swimming. By the time he hit the turn he was already two body lengths ahead and pulling away, finishing ahead of her by at least five.

She pulled up along the edge and spat out a bit of water. “Ok, I’m impressed,” she admitted. “What did you do different?”

“Bioshield enhancement,” he said, holding out his hand above the water and pressing it down into the surface…with the water around his fingers smoothing out, showing Morgan that he essentially had an invisible flipper. “I can alter my body line and even add some fins as needed. Took me a long time to figure out how to do it, then even more to build up the necessary strength, but it works wonders.”

“I’ll say,” Morgan said, envious.

“And I can use it to block off my nostrils.”

Morgan laughed as she bobbed slightly in the water. “I bet you were more excited about that.”

“I was,” he said enthusiastically. “No more water in the airways.”

“Ok, I’m not ticked anymore. That’s actually pretty cool,” she said before pulling herself back up onto dry land.

As Paul came up a second later he saw the moisture on her blow off in all directions, save for her hair, as she threw off a little concussive energy to dry herself, then she pulled the tie out of her ponytail and began to ring it out.

“While you’re here, there’s something else I wanted to try.”

“What?” Morgan asked, standing back up straight and replacing the hair tie.

Paul walked to the edge of the water and pointed for her to stand opposite him on the dry side. “Hit me with a hard blast,” he said, bringing his left forearm up in a guard.

“How hard?” she said, taking her position.

“Make it challenging.”

“You think you can block it?”

“Fairly sure.”

“Alright,” she said, summoning up a good wave of tingles across her back and channeling them down into her forearm. She flicked it forward and released a concussive wave directly into Paul, then was shocked to see a wall of firework-like static flash in front of him when it hit.

It disappeared as quickly as it began, with Paul not having moved an inch.

“Did you even feel that?” she asked.

Paul shook his head. “No. Energy on energy. I can produce shields independent from my body or hard linked to my skeleton. This was independent. I just didn’t know how well it’d work, given that you can use it to walk through shields.”

“Most shields,” she corrected him, having read up on the psionic files multiple times. “Do it again.”

Morgan saw his forehead crease slightly, then he nodded.

She walked up and put her hand against the invisible wall, feeling it hard like glass beneath her fingertips and a good foot in front of Paul’s extended arm, then she summoned up another wave of tingles and shunted it into her hand and pressed into it.

The shield gave microscopically, but even as she leaned her body into it she couldn’t penetrate, eventually giving up and retreating a step.

“Nope,” she said, now thoroughly jealous.

“Good, because I’m almost out of juice. The shield eats ambrosia like crazy.”

“I know. How much force can you withstand?”

“Hard to say. There are a lot of variables involved.”

“What about plasma?”

“Lizard rifle, I’ve been able to hold up against 12 spaced shots when on full ambrosia load, but only three when they come in fast.”

“Useful,” Morgan commented.

“Very when you’re caught outside your armor. You here for your battlemeld upgrade?”

“Yeah. Don’t suppose you’ve learned how to share that shield?”

“We haven’t found any of the non-melding triggers, and so far I’m the only one with the bioshield, so the techs only have the single sample to work with, though they’re guessing it had something to do with my resistance to an incoming Fornax hit.”

“I read that report. Hasn’t helped me find it yet.”

“You’ve found 3?”

“And stuck on 3.”

“Well, let’s get you up to 4. Have a seat.”

“Here?”

“We need someplace quiet, and this will do.”

“Works for me,” she said, sitting down crosslegged with Paul sitting to mirror her, reaching out to grab her hands, linking their minds directly and bypassing the Ikrid blocks. She resisted at first, out of reflex, then let him in, finding the presence of another trailblazer mind immensely soothing as it burned out the isolation she’d unwittingly accumulated during the Calavari mission.

Two days later she’d achieve the upgrade which, in typical Morgan fashion, was an unofficial record.

6

August 30, 2505

Prolio System (Alpha Region)

HTC

“There?” Davis asked over his dedicated comm line to Morgan.

“Yes,” she said, looking down on a wide plain full of Calavari from a high building top as they roamed about underneath the morning sunlight.

Davis zoomed in a bit more via the Archon helmet that he wore, seeing the smaller four-armed aliens moving about. “What exactly are they doing?”

“The old Calavari society had a strict gender gap. The males controlled everything and the females preferred it that way. Jason and Jace eliminated that by changing the way their younglings are raised. Those females are four years old and earning points for their brood by moving small weights from the pedestals to the intake slots.”

“What is this accomplishing?”

“Materially nothing, but two very important things. Previously the females were nesting freaks, with many staying indoors for years at a time. To break them of this habit they started them on very basic training activities, but in order to give them motivation to do so they had to tie everything into the brood standings. With the Calavari, their inner society is all about the broods. It’s been their excuse for lack of activity, and now we’re using it to drive their training, both physical and giving them early experience so they can join the workforce later on if they choose, rather than it being a completely unfamiliar field.”

“You mentioned points?”

“The Calavari broods are a bit like our Clans, except they’re based off of bloodlines and a lot of other foolishness. Bottom line is the females are insanely loyal to their broods, while the males view it as a childhood thing. They look down on the females and for good reason. They wouldn’t accept females within the military or workforce until they proved themselves to be capable…while the previous culture discouraged any physical training without actually banning it. End result was the females sat on their asses and let the males handle everything.”

“And now?” Davis asked, glancing at Morgan, who wore nothing more than her white with black stripe striker uniform, as opposed to the set of red adept armor that she insisted he wear whenever they went on one of their field trips.

“We broke the broods apart at birth and created new ones without all the old baggage. At present there are a little over 2,000 of them, and we create new ones as needed. When an infant is born, whether male or female, their lineage is hidden and they’re assigned to a discovery facility like this. They have to earn their bloodline association through completing their basic training, which usually takes them to the age of 5 or 6. Those you see down there don’t know which brood they are, but they want to know, which drives them on.”

“How long does their childhood last?”

“They’re fully mature at two and a half years, but will continue to grow in size for another 10 or so. They used to say that was just for the males, but once we put the females into training they began to grow beyond their normal size as well, but still far less than the males.”

“So these can reproduce?”

“We keep them segregated so they can’t. Once their earn the brood they’re moved to other facilities where their second stage of training occurs, which is still segregated. When they graduate from that they move into an integration period, out of which they can join Calavari society or continue on with advanced training.”

“What’s the current split?”

“We’re getting about 40% going on. The rest usually go turtle and start giving birth, but the underlying experience they gained from the training has had a decided shift in their society, leaving those born here very different from the refugees.”

“Trouble between the two?”

“There has been, but it’s fading as the generations wash.”

“So the females still identify heavily with the broods, but the males don’t care?”

“Oh they care, but more as a hobby. They have a very strong loyalty to their race that supersedes their brood…while the stagnant females tend to show the reverse. The ones that join the males tend to open their eyes to the greater whole, but on an individual basis. They develop a rogue mentality, creating two very different female personas. Those you see here are more uniform, having yet to make that split.”

“How do they respond when their newborns are taken away?”

“The refugees are very resistant, and we’ve had some incidents, but those born into these maturias are reluctant at worst. They understand where their younglings will go. The refugees do not and are understandably concerned.”

“How are the refugee broods handled?”

“They retain their old identity, but their younglings are randomly assigned to a new one. Trying to get them to accept a new brood is like getting gravity to push. Doable, but very difficult. We found it easier to just make a place for them until the old broods die out, unfortunately. Very few Calavari have achieved self-sufficiency, even with their ambrosia.”

“How many is very few?”

“Enough for an upper echelon to develop. Their leadership has stabilized, but it’s not very deep.”

“Have any of the females?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Davis watched the small Calavari continue moving about like ants, carrying the weights across the short distances with the tallies being marked up, making it clear what they were accomplishing.

“What do the points result in?”

“Perks and property. The stagnant females won’t cohabitate with non-broodmates. Rather than try and break them of this we turned it to our advantage. Each brood has a base amount of habitats, enough to hold their population uncomfortably. To get more living room they have to earn it, with the younglings’ points figuring in. The bulk of the points come from the habitats themselves, where the stagnant ones have to do some work or learn to live a bit overcrowded. All the work they do is brood related, but there’s considerable pressure for the younger females to do part-time work, maybe a 6 month stint or so, so the older ones can sit on their ass,” Morgan said disapprovingly.

“Any rebellion there?”

“Usually the rebellion occurs by the females simply leaving to do work that benefits all Calavari…and their brood doesn’t get points for that, so they’re pretty much going rogue.”

“Where do they live if they go rogue?”

“Standard Star Force quarters. If we can encourage them to break with the broods, then there’s no problem, but there seems to be a strong default bonding urge that has to be broken on an individual level, so this is the method we’ve established to facilitate that.”

“Getting unplugged from the Matrix?”

Morgan looked at him, a bit surprised. “Well said.”

Davis smiled beneath his helmet. “I got tired of you guys throwing out references I didn’t understand, so I asked for a list and went on a movie binge a few centuries back.”

“How’s the weight?”

“Tolerable, but I don’t know how many more hours I’m going to last.”

“Let’s get moving then. There’s something else I want you to see today.”

“Lead on,” Davis said, feeling the slight burn in his muscles from moving the armor around, something he hadn’t trained for.

He followed her easy gait down out of the open air of the planet and into one of the Calavari buildings that was a mix of Star Force and their native architectural preferences. They passed by hundreds of the Calavari on their way through the infrastructure, drawing many glances, but none that lingered, for while Humans weren’t common place in this complex, they were a familiar sight elsewhere on the planet.

While sections still housed refugees in a holding fashion, the bulk of the planet’s infrastructure was 100% Star Force, meaning integrated cities built for the use of both races. The Calavari were part of Star Force now, and as such having Humans walking around wasn’t a big deal.

But where Morgan took him next was a bit different. She didn’t don her armor, which may have seemed a bit reckless to others but Davis knew that with her psionic powers she could disrupt multiple minds and hinder any potential attackers. Still, he was glad for his own armor protection as they got off of a tram and crossed through a security checkpoint into one of the refugee sectors.

Davis didn’t need psionics to pick up a very different vibe here. As alien as the other Calavari had been, there had always been a thread of similarity that he could latch onto…and now he recognized how that thread had been Star Force training rather than something inherent to their race. As the pair of Humans walked through the high ceilinged walkways that stood three stories and were just as wide, giving the large bodied males that predominated the area plenty of room to maneuver.

Davis could see many more up on the 2nd and 3rd tier walkways where their quarters had their entrances. Many of the males were simply lounging around on the narrow platforms, leaning or sitting and watching the foot traffic below. A few females were seen moving about, but it was obviously apparent that they didn’t want to be caught outside unless necessary, keeping inside as Morgan had said.

“Has there been trouble here?”

Not much, she answered telepathically now that there were non-Star Force personnel around, hearing Davis’s voice in her earpiece. There is a lot of despair. Remember, these people came from a war zone where they lost, badly. Some are able to put it aside and look towards the future…but most of those have already left these areas for training programs. Those that choose to stay here are, frankly, a shambles.

“Are you giving them space or are they refusing to do anything?”

We haven’t pushed. After what they’ve been through just being alive is a victory.

“But their offspring go to the maturias?”

Yes. And most of the females don’t like it. The males could care less, for the most part. Some here are still awaiting training slots, so it’s not entirely the emotional slum you see here.

“Not the term I would have used.”

What would you use?

“Dangerous.”

That’s your ignorance talking. I don’t fear them. Can you touch their minds?

“I haven’t tried,” Davis said, reaching out with his limited Ikrid ability. He got a wash of weird, alien thoughts, but using what he’d learned of the Star Force Calavari’s minds in previous days he got a basic correlation…then began to see how much different their emotions were, and how they were clouding out everything else. He did feel anger in one of the people they passed, but mostly he felt evisceration. They didn’t want to be here, but had no home to go to, leaving them without purpose and reason to continue living.

“They’re zombies.”

But they’re alive, and so long as they’re alive they have a chance to recover, she told him as the pair’s path was blocked by an extra-large Calavari who had to stand upwards of 8 feet tall.

“What do you want here, Human?” it asked in the trade language.

“I want you to retrieve your honor,” Morgan bit back in a language Davis didn’t speak, with him guessing that it was native Calavari. After a century of dealing with them it only made sense that she would have picked up at least a few words…and knowing the trailblazers he should have expected her to have learned it in her spare time.

Davis felt a flare of anger from the Calavari, churning up his already chaotic mind.

“What do you know of honor, weakling?” he said in kind, leaving Davis out of the conversation.

“I know you are wasting your life here. There is an enemy to fight, yet you wallow here like a female…you coward.”

The next thing Davis knew Morgan shoved him to the side and he hit the ground, cushioned by his armor, then feeling/hearing a hard thud. He rolled over, getting his head upright, where he saw the trailblazer standing atop the Calavari’s chest and looking down into his wide face.

“Now get up and fulfill your duty,” Morgan said icily, hopping off the behemoth and picking Davis up by the arm before walking back onto their former path as if nothing had happened.

Don’t look back, she warned.

“What just happened?”

I poked the tiger. That one will be alright now, and maybe a few others that saw.

“Why did he get in our way?”

I did that. I felt him stewing and amped up his frustration, then planted the suggestion to confront us. Worst thing for some of these guys is to treat them with kid gloves. Sometimes all they need is a spur to get their heads clear. When you’ve lost so many times, some people stop fighting altogether, even when they can win. Bring the battle to them and old reflexes kick in.

“So you picked that fight?”

Yes.

“For my benefit?”

No, for his. I’ve never met him before, nor expect to in the future, so I had to seize the opportunity when it presented itself.

“You do that a lot?”

Picking fights is part of communication with a warrior-inclined race.

“Do the females respond the same?”

Different pressure points, but the same internal mechanism is there. We have it too, we’re just smarter about it. They may be alien minds, but they still have pride. Just a different flavor you’ll have to learn.

“I have a lot to learn, it seems,” Davis said as they continued to walk through the refugee section. “What other lessons do you have for me today, Master?”

Your sarcasm is improving, at least. Up ahead is what I wanted you to see.

Davis waited patiently as they walked the last bit in silence, with Morgan letting him soak in the scenery and sample the local minds…which he made a point of doing as often as he could without giving himself a headache from the effort.

Eventually they came to a stairwell and climbed up many levels until they came to an interior promenade overlooking a type of park, inside of which there were hundreds of females sitting together. Morgan quietly leaned against the wall, trying not to make any sound as she looked down on them through the scattering of potted trees.

This is one of the old broods, she said as Davis walked up next to her and looked down over the railing as a Calavari male came up behind them for a quick look, then backed out and gave them some space. Can you reach their minds?

Davis tried, but they were too far away. “No.”

Take off your left glove.

Davis reached down and disconnected it, with Morgan taking his hand in hers and creating an Ikrid link, allowing him to see their minds through her remarkably advanced Ikrid ability. This wasn’t the first time she’d done this to show him something, but every time she did he was no less impressed by her power.

“They feel so…damaged.”

They are damaged. People are meant to be active. This is what stagnation feels like on the inside, and it’s killing them.

“This is normal for a brood?”

More or less. There’s an extra depression here, due to their situation, but this sessile nature is typical of broods I’ve encountered before on their home worlds.

“They feel…linked to one another.”

In illusion only. They have no telepathic connection. What you are feeling is a very strong fiction created off the natural biological urges. This is what we call ‘bad bonding’ run amuck, and it manifests most frequently with people who have surrendered or never developed their individuality. They’ve linked themselves to a fictitious hive mind, and because it’s fictitious there is no guiding force. They just sit here and rot…and occasionally mate.

“And they did this originally?”

They had brood pride then that drove them to some small activity, and their pride in their empire gave them cause for joy, but the stagnation remained. It just took longer for it to kill them. This is an original brood on a bad day, but still true to form. And it is this that we have tried to kill with the maturia. We don’t want their younglings transitioning to this without at least seeing that there’s another alternative. Their parents don’t want the separation, but it’s in the younglings’ best interests.

“What about the refugee younglings that come in with their parents?”

It’s hardest on them, with a painful transition, but once they make the adjustment they’re better off. It sounds harsh and if you go about it in the wrong way the parental protection drives flare up and you have an incident, but the Star Force Calavari are seeing the wisdom in it. These, sadly, are probably just going to sit here and mope with each other until they die out.

“You can’t poke the tiger here?”

Pick one.

“At random?”

Doesn’t matter. Just choose one.

Davis ‘looked’ around with Morgan’s sense, then slowly pointed to one with his mind.

The trailblazer responded by blacking out everyone else and highlighting that one mind. He felt her hack into the Calavari female and take control of her body. He didn’t understand what Morgan was doing but paid close attention, feeling her walk the Calavari over to a water fountain where she got a drink, gradually releasing control to the point where the female didn’t realize anything was amiss and finished her drink.

When she finished she turned and walked back to her spot, with Davis feeling the ugly transition. It was almost as if activity was evil within her mind, with her wanting to return to her sessile pose. When she sat back down it felt like an iron gate closed, with her mental signature diminishing greatly, almost as if she were going into a hibernation mode.

“What is that?”

A mix of fear and despair. Fear of individuality. Despair of purposelessness. If there’s an internal spark to access, you have a chance of waking them up. If there isn’t, you can try the reset button, but it’s a painful option, and if you don’t know the person or have cause to try, it’s near to a futile effort.

“What’s the reset button?”

Forced activity. You saw how she changed just by standing up and walking. The body has a strong influence on the mind, and by encouraging or forcing certain activities you can trigger certain reactions…which is why physical training for the younglings is so important.

“So you just leave them here to rot?”

We’ve given them shelter from the lizards, foodstuffs and a place to live…along with training if they want it. All they have to do is try. If they’re not willing to do that, well, some responsibility has to be on them.

“But each one is still a loss?”

I’ve had a great deal of experience with loss. What it comes down to is what battles we choose to fight. We might be able to wake up a few of these Calavari with intensive time and a lot of jarring, invasive prodding…but our efforts are best used providing the opportunity to those who don’t have it, rather than trying to prod these who simply refuse to try. Many would trade places with them in a heartbeat.

“When you put it that way, it kind of makes me mad.”

It should. But others, like the male we encountered before, are still trying on the inside, buried deep down. On the surface the two can look the same, so it’s important not to write anyone off. And even if they are like these, there’s a part of me that is angry with them as well as a part that doesn’t want to give up on them.

“So what do you do?”

What we can…and recognize the fact that in this messed up universe we’re not going to win every battle, no matter how hard we try. If you can’t come to terms with that you either quit trying or drive yourself insane from the horrors out there.

“Some of these people are so messed up they fight those trying to help them?”

You’re learning.

“As well as getting a bit queasy.”

You learn to deal with that too.

7

January 12, 2506

Dcan System (Gamma Region)

Waxcvat

“They’re heading to ground,” Kip warned from the command nexus onboard the Taro Adun. “Do not try to intercept with fighters. Their anti-air will rip them to shreds.”

“Copy that, Archon,” Consul Dayna-A003-73 confirmed from his command center onboard the A-231 seda that was the largest among the 12 in orbit. “Squadrons will establish perimeter escorts and intercept anything coming off their transports.”

“Keep them well wide,” Kip emphasized as he worked the nexus controls and ordered some of his and Canderous’s drones into more favorable positions to potentially catch the enemy transports on their way back up from the atmosphere after they dropped off their walkers and ground troops. The Skarron warships that entered the system a few hours ago had retreated back to high planetary orbit and broken up into small groups after a light, exploratory attack on one of the sedas.

They’d been repelled easily, with the 284 warships deciding not to press the issue above screening to get their transports to ground. Entering the atmosphere at points well outside the sedas’ firing ranges, the transports had gotten through while the Canderous remotely controlled drones had made their first kills, taking down 3 enemy destroyers and damaging several other capital ships.

Now that the transports were in atmosphere they were heading to a variety of landing zones, of which Kip was following closely. Canderous had established several mining outposts, as well as recycling measures for the mass of technological rubble on the planet, mostly due to the previous Issvok civilization, but there were a few bits of Skarron infrastructure that had been trashed/captured and were now being ‘mined’ for raw materials as well.

As he watched, Kip saw that none of the transports were headed to those locations, instead preferring to land in neutral territory, meaning both sides would have ample opportunity to plan out the coming ground game before they made contact.

“Archon, will you be taking part in the surface combat?” Dayna inquired.

“If necessary. We need to see how they plan to play this first.”

“With your permission, I’ll continue coordinating our forces from the ground.”

Kip smiled. “Trust me when I say that there will be plenty of combat opportunities in the coming months. These Skarrons are intractable bastards, and if they’re devoting troops to retake this world then they’re going to make a serious effort. We may get in over our heads, in fact, so don’t get in a rush for direct action. That said, permission granted and good luck. Where are you going down?”

“Firebase 8.”

“Copy that. I’m staying onboard for the moment. Their fleet is experienced and devious, and I want to feel them out a bit before I’m convinced that they’re staying back and watching.”

“That’s why I asked. Having both of us in transit to the ground would have been a momentary disadvantage that I did not want to afford the enemy.”

“Get moving, Consul. Time to impress me with your toys.”

“Challenge accepted,” the Canderian mission commander said, signing off.

Part of Kip wished he had mainline or Clan troops here, above and beyond the four warships he commanded, because the Canderians hadn’t taken standard Star Force equipment as their own. Like their unique warships and drones, they’d designed different aircraft, mechs, armor, and just about everything else, taking Star Force tech and putting their own spin on it.

That meant these troops and their equipment were green…in so far as combat with the Skarrons were concerned. A good portion of the troops down there and in the sedas had seen at least light combat against the lizards, but overall this mission was an experiment to see what the Canderians were made of, and Kip hoped the Skarrons didn’t throw down the hammer on them. So far the ground troops they were deploying were well within the ‘safe’ number that Dayna had calculated when he’d been tagged to head up this mission.

But given that they’d never gone up against one another, that number had been based off of Star Force ground battles with mechs…with the Canderians taking a slightly different approach.

Their entire civilization was based off of living in space onboard their sedas, each which was a battle station in its own right. Because of this there were no ‘civilian’ Canderous facilities. All of them had the means to defend themselves, and so too did the people that inhabited them. Each of them was trained as a soldier from birth in their maturia, which vaguely resembled a school, after which they chose their place in Canderous society…meaning that even those who chose not to become active soldiers or security still had the basic combat skills to fall back upon in a time of crisis.

But their combat skills and overall philosophy were still space based, with them building temporary ground facilities rather than permanent bases. This aversion to the ground was omnipresent in their society, and as such their ground forces, above and beyond pure infantry, had been designed with a transitory motif.

Originally Canderous had used Star Force mechs, preferring the thor over all others, but they’d since scrapped all the older mechs and built original ones of their own, save for the starscreams, whose flight capability made them a good fit for the Canderians. The mechs were tier 1 and lightly armed, but they were able to convert to full ‘jet’ mode and fly about from location to location on a planet without having a dropship come and pick them up.

That left them with good anti-infantry and strategic reinforcement capabilities, but no hard hitters, which against the Skarrons was outright suicide. But ever since the lizard threat reared its ugly head the Canderians had been working on developing a counter to their low flying cruisers. Likewise, when the Skarron walkers emerged as a threat, they also began retooling in order to combat them, with some impressive results…in theory.

That theory was about to be tested, with Kip transferring down to the planet the next day with a handful of mechs and his handpicked mechwarriors, all of which came from Clan Protoss. He landed at firebase 3 and unpacked his voltron, assembling the 5 sections together and giving him a tier 2 mech with 6 tier 1s equipped with a hoard of anti-air weapons to knock down Skarron missiles.

His voltron also had additional anti-air weaponry located in the shoulders, a necessary redesign in previous years as the Skarrons learned that only through a huge missile barrage could they take out the biped mechs at range, often launching on a single one from multiple walkers simultaneously. Kip’s forces fighting on Protovic worlds had had several voltrons trashed in such attacks, forcing them to bring yet more smaller escort mechs with them to counter the tactic. That decreased mobility and required a redesign, with several compartments worth of intercepts shoved in, making the Mk. 2 voltron look like it was wearing football pads.

The Mk. 3 would be considerably slimmer once they were completed with the new technology that the arc elements opened up, but there were so many advancements possible that it was taking a long time for the engineers to hammer out prototypes, let alone get to the point of building production models. And in addition to that, creating the arc elements required a whole slew of new factories to be built for just that purpose, with the specialized atoms being in short supply. Already Star Force was producing 12 different elements, with hundreds more possible.

That meant that Kip had to either make do with what he had available or wait for the advancements to come down the pipe…which the Skarrons weren’t letting them do. The Protovic were putting up a good fight, and as more cleansing beam-equipped ships were coming off their lines the more they were able to hold against the Skarrons’ never ending stream of reinforcements, with Kip believing that they’d soon have the strength to start pushing back and reclaiming territory that was lost to them…but not without Star Force assistance.

Even now, if Star Force pulled out its help, the Skarrons would eat away at the Protovic until they had nothing left to defend themselves with and were forced to run like the other Alliance races had. The balance of power was very balanced at the moment, with the tech upgrades they’d given the Protovic seeming to start to tip the scales in their favor, but Star Force had to continue to fight aggressively, else all that they’d gained, or saved, would fall apart.

This foothold in Gamma Region needed to happen now rather than later, so Kip didn’t feel they had the luxury of waiting. Plus, if the enemy ships and ground troops in the system had been peeled off from the reinforcements going to Protovic territory, so much the better. But if they were from an entirely different wing of the Skarron war machine, then Star Force need to push them back now before they inched their way too close to the Core Region.

That meant bringing Canderous to the forefront, for nearly all other combat resources were tapped out or held in reserve to counterattack another incursion…save for the Australians and Kiritas, both of whom he didn’t feel were ready for this level of combat. Canderous had been patient for years, waiting for this chance, and now that Star Force had a need for them, the wardogs were about to be let off the leash as they followed the trailblazer against the enemy.

The surface conditions around firebase 3 were swampy, slowing down the mechs and all but stopping the Skarron infantry from making a push. Their hobbits were out and about, but the Skarrons themselves were too heavy to do anything but plod through the grass-covered mud and make good targets for themselves, so they stayed at their landing zones, sending up huge plumes of steam as they had specialized equipment attached to their arms that blasted the moisture out of the soil.

They looked like an army of maids vacuuming the ground on the intelligence scans coming in from the circling Canderian fighters and reconnaissance drones that had slipped their way across the surface. The little probe droids were remotely/computer controlled, giving the Canderians eyes on every landing site the enemy had, though most of what was going on was being obscured by the steam plumes.

The huge, pointy legs of the Skarron Type-4 walkers and up didn’t appear to be as effected as Kip’s own mech legs were, with a convoy of the battlewagons heading out from one of the Skarron LZs towards a Canderian mining operation, which was where Kip and his star of support mechs were heading to intercept, slugging their way through the muck and hoping to catch the enemy at least a few kilometers short of their target.

Following behind Kip’s voltron were the Canderian mechs…or rather what had replaced their mechs. Floating solely on anti-gravs were a line of Turtle-class mechs, though Kip didn’t quite agree with calling them mechs. To him a mech had legs, with these having none. What they had were landing struts. They couldn’t propel the ‘mech’ forward, just keep its belly-mounted weaponry off the ground and give the anti-gravs a rest.

They had a flat underside, but the top was a modified half sphere that held a very thick layer of armor plating, dotted with shield emitters and nothing else. They hadn’t wanted a lot of weak points in the armor shell, so they’d put all the weaponry underneath the turtle, allowing it to drop out of the belly and fire ahead, then retract back out of the enemy’s firing line on command.

That meant the belly was the vulnerable point, especially to infantry. Because of this the turtles always flew low to the ground and had a slew of anti-infantry weaponry underneath, so anyone who thought that they could hide underneath the turtles was in for a rude surprise. If the Skarrons chose to hit them with a missile attack they could drop all the way to the ground, without putting out struts, and let them hit the shell, over which a strong shield defended.

Short pylons could then extend out around the perimeter of the shell from underneath that held anti-air batteries that could shoot down some of the incoming ordinance, but if they were destroyed it was a minor loss, given that they were expendable and designed only to reduce damage to the shell…which carried more armor than Kip’s voltron.

The turtles were the backbone of the heavy end of the Canderian ground game, with Hive-class and Grappler-class mechs carrying lesser firepower for more specialized roles. The grapplers were essentially neos build with collapsible limbs and a heavy anti-grav that allowed them to fly across the battlefield in ‘ball’ mode, then drop to the ground on legs and fight hand to hand with enemy units. Unlike the neos, the grapplers had no ranged weaponry of any kind, with most of their damage potential coming from physical, ripping/punching strength coupled with touch-release weaponry inspired by the lizards’ plasma rod technology.

There were no grapplers following Kip, nor were there any hives, which operated like a heavily armored carrier that dispersed attack drones that could swarm a single target or spread out to hit multiple ones simultaneously. Both versions were too light to hit the Skarron Type-3 walkers with in this upcoming engagement.

“Legat, you’re free to break ranks and engage at will. Good luck and don’t shoot me in the back.”

“With pleasure…and we won’t,” the Canderian in charge of the 18 turtles replied, with the single file line breaking apart and the anti-grav floaters moving off with ease over the swampy muck that was holding Kip up. Ahead of them the line of 8 Skarron walkers was just becoming visible on the horizon, with a scattering of trees here or there masking the lower edge of their silhouettes.

Kip switched to his local Clan comm. “Alright fellas. Looks like their missile boats aren’t coming out to play, so follow me in and add damage where you can,” he said, accelerating his voltron up into a run…something that the Canderians, who were passing him on either side, hadn’t expected him to be able to do. He had a hard time compensating for the mud that he was sinking into with each step, but he’d run through mud before with his own feet, so he had some experience here, and with the mech moving as his body moved, the trailblazer was able to make a workable crossover.

That left him running forward at a fast pace, but the turtles still outpaced him. They knew better than to get too far ahead, for they wanted his firepower augmenting theirs, but he was still the slower, with the tier 1 mechs using their jump jets and hopping from footprint to footprint rather than trying to make their own.

Kip worked up quite a sweat, glad that he’d removed his shirt before strapping into the control harness, as he fought the controls to keep the big mech from stumbling and falling flat on its face. He wouldn’t have advised anyone else to try such a breakneck pace with such bad footing, but he thought he could handle it and was proved correct when the first of the white plasma showers hit the leading turtle, instigating the first ground combat with the Skarron reinforcements.

Kip kept running, not bothering to shoot as he knew he had a better chance of taking down the Type-3 closest to him if he ran right up to it, but he held off arming himself until he started to draw plasma fire on his energy shields. He slowed to a stop, not wanting to attempt the necessary acrobatics while slogging his way forward, and detached the plate covering his back.

It fell to the ground, almost sticking in the mud before leaning forward and laying against the back of the voltron as Kip spun it around and grasped the inside handle on the huge, knight-like shield, lifting it up and around in front of him where it picked up most of the incoming plasma on its own dedicated energy shield. Reaching back with his mech’s right arm he pulled out the ‘fan’ that was imbedded in the back of the mech’s nonexistent neck and held it at his side as the sword elongated and locked into place, then Kip started walking forward slowly, unable to run as he had been with all the extra weight.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” he said as a warning flashed across his HUD. “Guys, heads up. We’ve got a redeployment. Continue the attack but be ready to swat missiles.”

“Copy that,” his Protoss wingmen confirmed, still following the big mech forward in its footsteps.

“Hurry,” Kip said to himself, walking a bit faster towards the Type-3 that was starting to backtrack as it bathed his shield with every plasma cannon it had in a useable firing line. The energy shield covering the shield in a surface blanket shimmered its last time then breached, allowing the physical material of the sword to start eating up the plasma blasts. Kip knew it would last for quite a while, but he didn’t want to delay…and the damn thing was almost as fast as him with this bad footing.

It took him far longer than it should have to get up to the damn walker that stood nearly twice his voltron’s height, then he swung his sword out beside him to the right and activated his anti-grav jump jets. Adding the strength of his mech’s legs he launched himself up into the air at an angle, dropping his massive shield as he released the grip, and sailed up overtop the enemy walker…dropping down on its back as he took a slew of heavy lachar blasts to the chest that punctured his own shields.

The next moment his sword came down point first and sliced into the weak section of the armor that held the anti-air cannon, cutting through it and driving to the interior as the Type-3 struggled to remain standing with the voltron’s extra weight on top.

Almost as soon as he got the sword inside the armor a hoard of missile launches were detected some 100 miles away as a Skarron transport dropped off a Type-2 within firing range.

“Kip, heads up!”

“I see it,” he said, sliding his mech off the right side but hanging onto his sword and dragging the entire Skarron walker over onto its side and using it as a barricade as he popped up his shoulder-mounted anti-air pods and began pumping intercepts into the sky even as the walker he was hiding behind shot him at pointblank range with some of its plasma cannons.

8

The missiles coming towards the voltron diverted when their target became obscured, heading instead for one of the turtles as 5 of them took the brunt of the attack. Already having dropped down to the ground, their extendable pylons were peppering the missiles with plasma shards while Kip’s voltron was throwing up intercepts and sniping a few missiles on the way down beside him with his shoulder-mounted lachars. Unlike in previous engagements, the Skarron Type-2 walker didn’t hold back, choosing to empty its hold as quickly as possible, hoping to overwhelm the defenders.

Behind Kip his escort mechs lit up the sky with their anti-air weapons as the swampy ground around the turtles lit up in a huge plume of steam as the ones that got through exploded and vaporized the water in the muck…which worked to the Skarrons’ advantage, for the Canderian plasma shards and Star Force lachars couldn’t fire through the vapor while the missiles had no trouble reaching their targets.

Kip held his sword in the top of the Skarron walker and kept it pinned on the ground as he popped out his plasma cannon on the other arm and started popping some of the turrets that were firing at him as the missile storm continued to come down and expand its impact radius. Meanwhile the other 7 walkers maneuvered about and took shots at the mechs, with Kip’s star having to redeploy to avoid getting bushwacked, with the swampy footing causing them to take damage as they moved off, still throwing up as much anti-air as they could as the turtles got hammered.

Kip finally pulled out his sword and took a step back, then rammed it in again to the right of his original hole, pulling the walker taught to the ground again as he popped up his mauler cannon on top and took a knee, bringing it directly in line with the puncture in the armor and firing through it. Most of the energy melted the armor around the hole, but the bits that got through began slagging internal components and eventually got to the living compartment, killing one of the pilots inside.

The trailblazer kept pounding on it until he sensed all of them die, then he stood up and withdrew his sword as one of the others came around and threw a flurry of white plasma droplets at him. Not wanting to abandon his cover, he dug the sword down into the ground and opened up both plasma cannons and the mauler mount and began slugging it out face on with the enemy walker as waves of mist flew across both of them from the missile impact zone behind Kip.

Before his shield could go down the dead walker beside him exploded with missile hits, clouding his vision with debris as the Type-2 was no longer avoiding the friendly target. Kip ran over to where his shield was laying on the ground and picked it up, feeling a hit on his back as his anti-air missed one. Twisting around he dropped to a knee and hunkered down, having to use both hands to hold the shield steady against the explosions now popping up against it.

Fortunately the explosions created their own mist cloud around him, blocking the plasma from the other walker, and Kip knew he couldn’t do anything but wait it out and hope his shield held up long enough…but then after a few seconds it was over and the pressure he felt in his arms disappeared. From the battlemap data being transmitted by the other mechs he could see that the Type-2 had stopped firing, presumably out of missiles, but there was a wave of Skarron fighters on their way, and he knew they couldn’t call their own out, otherwise the enemy walkers would eat them for lunch and still be hungry for more.

With the steam/mist momentarily shrouding him from the plasma fire, Kip picked up his shield and ran forward to get his sword, having to lift up a piece of the dead walker to retrieve it, then, taking plasma fire again, but this time from three different walkers, he cradled his shield over his left shoulder and ran as fast as he dared with the footing towards the original one and swung against one of its legs as his own armor began to take hits, his energy shields now down.

The swing didn’t get through the leg on the first cut, but it did on the well-aimed second, chopping off the bottom half of the front left leg as Kip’s voltron got a plasma bath. He twisted the knight shield around in front of him then ran forward and pushed into the walker, hoping it was off-balanced enough to topple.

And he was right, for the juggling act it was doing with its legs, poking multiple holes into the mud to reposition, had centered its balance again on the remaining 7 legs by pulling them in closer to the center and thus making it a bit easier to tip over…though Kip had to really leverage it hard as hull warnings began to flash in his cockpit as the enemy plasma from behind him began to chew through the mech’s armor.

Lifting more than pushing, Kip got underneath the flank with the severed leg and got 2 of the other 3 out of the mud then used the others as a pivot point to topple the giant machine, despite its desperate attempts to stick a pair out even further to stabilize, which drove the remaining two even further into the soft soil. They went in so far that when Kip finally got the thing to flip over they broke off as they were bent backwards farther than they were designed to move, leaving the double-hulled behemoth pinned on its side, but it was still throwing plasma into his knight shield and his right side that was exposed.

Those plasma cannons quickly came under attack, and with the walker’s own shields down Kip’s escorts picked off the batteries targeting the larger walker while jumping from point to point on the muddy terrain to get into more favorable positions to use the dead walker parts for cover. With a mix of maulers and plasma they chipped away at the downed walker as the incoming plasma from behind Kip faded out, leaving only the fallen one to try and eat through the voltron’s now pot marked armor.

Glancing at the battlemap and seeing the Canderians swarming the remaining walkers, Kip stepped away from the walker and brought his knight shield around, covering up from the additional damage and pulling his sword up level with his waist, then walked forward a couple of steps and jammed it into the underbelly near to the boarding ramp where he knew the crew pod was located.

When he pulled it out again he fired into the slit with both plasma and mauler blasts, then jabbed the sword in again slightly to the left, making another slit that he then added the energy attack to. Reaching out with his Ikrid he sensed the minds inside the walker and their approximate locations, keeping up the slash and burn strategy until they all winked out, leaving the somewhat operational walker without a pilot to operate it.

When he pulled back and turned around he saw only two Skarron walkers remaining, and both were taking heavy plasma streamer hits from the turtles that were melting away the enemy’s armor plating. The amount of plasma they were throwing out dwarfed what the voltron could manage, though his mauler cannon made up for it as he walked within range and added the superior weapon damage to what the turtles were already racking up on one side of the closest Type-3.

Kip’s shot melted away what thin armor remained on the damaged patch, letting the next plasma streamer into the internal components of the walker. A few more shots like that, plus another pair of mauler blasts, brought the behemoth down with all its legs going slack. It crumpled and smashed into the ground, sticking in the muck rather than rebounding from the impact.

The turtles floated around it, hitting it from multiple sides as the other one went down as well, save for it locked into place on its rear legs, doing a face-plant into a makeshift tripod that the Canderians likewise continued to bombard with loads of dark green plasma…now their signature color, while the voltron and other Star Force mechs continued to use the traditional light blue.

Kip looked to his battlemap and was about to call for their own fighters, now that the Skarron anti-air threat was eliminated, but he saw that they were already on their way, having broken off their holding patterns just outside of the perimeter boundaries he’d ordered the Canderians to maintain around all Skarron walkers across the planet and throughout this war. They’d followed orders, but now that they were no longer valid they had already started heading for the turtles and the enemy fighters that were just about on them.

Kip nodded, happy to see they were on the ball, then activated his one remaining lachar to auto-target the Skarron fighters as he got a quick look at the condition of the Canderians.

The turtles were a mess, with only 4 of the 18 still with active shields. The rest had messed up shells, with huge chunks of armor gouged out and missing pylons, evidenced as they now stuck out what they had and started to fire their anti-air plasma shards up at the Skarron fighters as they approached. Three of the turtles never made it off the ground, and were still sitting on the mud and smoking from internal damage through armor punctures.

Kip highlighted those three and sent a query comm pulse, which was essentially an electronic poke to get a response. Two responded with a status update in text, while the third was silent.

“Dayna, once we clear the fighters get to your people. I’d rather not have to call for a dropship to pick up survivors. How are you doing?”

“Still operational. You?”

Kip glanced at his status holo. “Significantly chewed up, but still mobile.”

“A significant victory then?”

“First round,” he said, seeing some of the Skarron fighters overhead try and hit the smallest of their mechs…and run right into an anti-air barrage. Two of them fell from the sky nearby and made small splash marks, one of which stretched out enough to hit Kip, though you couldn’t tell with all the other mud already on his mech. “They learn and adapt, we learn and adapt. This is a feel out skirmish. They probably don’t have any data on Canderous since their original defense fleet bugged out and we killed all the witnesses on the planet.”

“They know better than to hit us with so few numbers,” the Canderian remarked.

“Take a look at the condition of your turtles, Legat. You’re not fit for another mission. They did considerable damage for such ‘small’ numbers,” Kip lectured him. “Do not underestimate them. What they can’t win directly they will win through attrition, and it’s going to take a lot to get your turtles back into fighting form.”

“Noted. Shall we head back or go after that Type-2?”

Kip glanced at the battlemap, seeing it standing off so far away that it would take him hours to get there in his voltron, though the turtles could fly there much faster. That was one advantage to the anti-grav design, and one that he and the other trailblazers had debated initially, but they eventually chose to go with mechs rather than floating tanks, which is what the turtles really were, because of the power requirements. Bipedal motion, while complicated, required far less power than anti-grav did, pound for pound. As such his voltron had significantly longer battlefield potential than the turtles did, which would have to cycle back for refueling after a period of time.

The muck was making him reconsider that logic, but he knew that legs beat tanks in most situations, though he was glad the Canderians had chosen the anti-grav route. While it wasn’t for the Archons, it did have its advantages…which gave Star Force more options to fight with, and frankly the turtles were better at combating Skarron walkers than the mechs, so far as the Type-3 and smaller ones went. The Type-2s had never been hit by them, relying instead on a Hoth counterpart that also contained a tiny cleansing beam.

The planet hadn’t had any Type-1s in play when the initial invasion began and only the single Type-2, letting Canderous get some good early experience in against numerically weaker forces. Now was an altogether different matter, and Kip had to make sure the Canderians learned the enemy’s strength and tendencies without it requiring an ass kicking.

“Not a chance. Even without missiles it would tear you apart. It’s out of range anyway, and if we get that close they could drop reinforcements nearby and cause us a world of trouble.”

“If you stay behind we can attack with anti-grav only mechs,” the Canderian suggested. “That would give us the mobility required, and we can call in fresh turtles to assist.”

“Possibly, but I don’t want you hitting a Type-2 without a tortoise. They can throw down far too much plasma. We have to hit them at range to own them. Don’t let them draw you in or you’ll regret it.”

“Understood,” Dayna agreed. “I’m just eager to press the attack. Where do we hit them next?”

“We don’t. Next move is theirs. They’re the invaders, so we’ll wait and see what they have planned. If we start to get bored then we’ll stir the pot and see what comes out.”

When Dayna didn’t respond Kip sighed. “Patience, Legat. They nearly killed you with that missile attack. The last thing you want to do is hit them with less anti-air than you had here. This isn’t a challenge where you want a tough opponent, it’s for keeps, and you want to hit the enemy where they’re weakest and you have an advantage…while prepping to defend yourself against the enemy’s advantage. We get to choose the former, they get to choose the latter. Make sure you choose wisely.”

“Wise words,” the Canderian agreed as their fighters appeared overhead, mixing it up with the Skarrons. “We’ll pick up the crews from the damaged turtles. Your mechs should get a head start back, unless you’re going to call for dropships?”

“Negative, we’re walking back and I’m waiting here until you get them out. I may have to lift up an edge, otherwise you’ll have to dig through the muck.”

“There are enough armor breaches that we can go in through the top as soon as the fighters clear the air.”

Kip glanced at the battlemap again, seeing that between the Canderian fighters, which were being remotely controlled from the nearby firebase, and the anti-air mech support, the Skarrons were getting eaten alive. They didn’t stay and fight it out to their deaths, but mixed it up with the Star Force fighters long enough, Kip thought, to get a decent set of battle data, then they flew off, heading back towards their own base with the Canderians nipping at their heels and making a few more kills before pulling out to avoid running into the no-go zones of the enemy walkers.

“Copy that,” he said, heading over towards the downed turtles anyway, arriving just before the fighters disappeared with his escort mechs hopping around like crickets behind him as they kept pace. He looked down on the turtles, each of which easily outmassed his voltron, and saw the holes torn through meters of dense armor by the Skarron missiles.

Those things were damn dangerous, and it looked like the Skarrons weren’t saving them up to use in small amounts anymore. That meant that any pairings of Type-2s and larger were going to be very difficult to hit, and Kip knew that they’d use that to their advantage, with the larger engagements to come featuring dozens of walkers working together across a wide area, overlapping missile ranges while preserving skirmishers to go after the tortoises when they got within cleansing beam range.

This had just been the first of many battles to come, and from the look of it the Skarrons weren’t taking the Humans for granted this time. They were going to learn about this new version of their enemy and adapt before they made a major strike, both on the ground and in orbit, meaning the coming year was going to prove to be very interesting for Kip, and he was quite certain the Canderians were going to get an education in the ways of warfare.

Kip just had to keep them alive long enough for the lesson to sink in.

9

February 1, 2506

Mden System (Zeta Region)

Nexus 4

Morgan and Davis dropped down from orbit to one of 7 Star Force mega colonies on the planet, already having visited several other systems in their unofficial tour, landing in the Mssot spaceport. They came down through an atmospheric shield that separated the landing bay from the airless world, then parked next to dozens of other Star Force dropships and exited their craft amongst a Human deck crew.

The pair didn’t see one of the Mssot until they had progressed further into the colony, coming out into extremely high hallways, taller even than what the Calavari required, where they saw a very gangly creature nearly three times their height walking past. It was covered in black, almost oily scales and had a single red eye on his head that looked down upon them as it waved a three digit hand at the pair, seeing Davis’ red Archon armor and Morgan’s black stripe, which it knew meant she was one of the elite strikers.

Morgan waved back and they passed it, heading further into the colony.

“That’s the largest yet,” Davis commented over the comm.

Not very strong though, Morgan replied telepathically.

“These are their offspring?” Davis asked as they came across another two ahead of them as they approached an entryway onto the main promenade.

Yes. The bad ones are still on their prison station, serving their penance with genetic work. The Mssot you see here have been trained by Star Force from birth.

“Are they loyal?”

I’m told so. This is the first time I’ve seen them in person.

“What are you getting from their minds?”

Curiosity and respect. They don’t get very many Archons here.

The pair walked out through the archway and onto what looked like a miniature canyon with roads stacked along the sides and interconnecting walkways…all of which were stairs, segmented into large steps and small to accommodate the mixed population.

“How long can they hold their breath without those filters?” he asked, noting the small wrap around their chests that covered their lungs vents. They breathed the nitrogen in the air, but the oxygen that the Humans required was toxic to them.

“I’m told several minutes.”

“Do they intend to stay with Star Force?”

You’ve read the same reports I have. And Randy hasn’t told me otherwise. I do know that a few of their individuals have left.

“Where did they go?”

“Bolo, I think. Where we’ll end up eventually. They may have left Star Force space from there or remained. We can check the files later if you want.”

“Where are we heading?”

Morgan pointed to their right and Davis lead the way, walking down one of the long, straight roads until they took a short staircase off and down, which lead to a short road that ended in a commerce station…inside of which were a mix of Mssot and Humans conducting daily business.

Davis walked in, his hesitance gone as he saw the Humans interacting with the larger Mssot without a second thought. He headed over to the trading board and noted the exchange rates for various natural resources that the Mssot were nano-processing for Star Force. With a great deal of engineering and biotech help, Star Force had modified the Mssot’s own technology towards a mechanical foundation, in this case replacing designer microbes with biological nanites who had a controlling core of technology that then grew a ‘body’ made of organic compounds.

Those nanites could then be remote controlled in a limited fashion by a computer, which the Mssot were then upgrading heavily with their knowledge of biology and using to deconstruct various ores that Star Force mining teams on the planet were providing them. The refined materials and various molecular conversions were then put up for sale on the Star Force planetary market, with many visiting races or alien entrepreneurs that operated within the Star Force system to purchase the materials they needed.

This made the Mssot useful to Star Force, with them acting as a subservient part of the overall empire while their future as a group remained uncertain…with their individual liberties remaining intact and with the same travel permissions as any other secondary Star Force citizen, below the tier 1 status that the Humans, Calavari, and Kiritas maintained. They could travel to any ‘open’ system, while the rest of the citizenry had a restricted list. Visitors had very few travel options, with the colony Davis and Morgan now stood in being off limits.

The market transactions took place here, but with relays up to vendor stations in orbit where the physical transactions would occur, facilitated by Humans, leaving the Mssot isolated in the colony, which most of them preferred. Also, with their future uncertain, Randy didn’t want them mixing with the general population that the Alliance was quickly forming. They could go out and mingle in the communal colony, which was located elsewhere on the planet, but no other races could come here aside from the tier 1 citizens, with no Calavari or Kiritas having need to come here at the moment.

Do you feel it?

Davis reached out with his Ikird, trying to sense the minds of the Mssot around him and getting little but jumbled thoughts. “Feel what?”

Pride. It’s stronger here than in other places, because this is their contribution to Star Force. Some of these materials are only available here, with them being shipped out to other planetary markets. We can produce everything for our own purposes in other facilities, but as far as the open markets go a lot of these are specialties…which you already know well.

“I didn’t know they took the production so personally?”

It gives them a purpose and a leg up on the other races. They know their progenitors’ history, and how we don’t hold them accountable for it, but they still want to prove they’re different and valuable. This allows them to do that, and it’s displayed prominently here, as they earn credits that go to Star Force, whom they identify partially as their saviors. They were born into our system, so they don’t know anything other than it, but most of them realize they wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t made a place for them and they want to return the favor.

“Some of them?”

They’re individuals like all other races. There will always be rogues, and that’s not a bad thing.

“And the lizards?”

Their individuality is being suppressed, but it’s there. We just haven’t been able to reach it in an effective way…yet.

“You still hope to find a way to save them.”

We kill them because we have to, not because we want to. Those lizards being born now have no choice, bound together by a combined will woven into their genetic code. If we can break that hold we may have a chance.

“How would that work? The ones you’re fighting are still being born in a lizard lab.”

We’ve discussed that at length. Right now it’s more about not falling into the trap of disregarding them as individuals and labeling them as an automatic enemy.

“Which they effectively are?”

Yes, they are. But in a way they’re also prisoners, slaves to the collective will. We don’t want to ever forget that…but we’re not going to be suckers either. It’s a very narrow perspective to keep, and finding a way to undo the genetic suppression would help immensely, even if we never find a way to implement it.

“I understand,” Davis said, looking at the economic figures being displayed and updated in real time…whereas the ones he got back on Earth were delayed by more than a week. “Are there areas where the Mssot have a natural environment?”

Only their personal quarters and the lounges connecting them. That’s one of the issues on the table.

“Downside?”

If they go independent, no. If they want to remain a part of Star Force in some fashion then we lose a communal atmosphere. We won’t be able to go in there without special equipment, and if we can’t insert Archons in at a moments’ notice that opens up a whole slew of defensive weaknesses.

“We’d have the same problem if the Hycre join…worse, actually. Even in armor you can’t stand their environment.”

Is that in the works?

“No…just thinking through probabilities. Sort of a habit of mine.”

A useful one.

“Can you show me the atmospheric transition point?”

Sure.

“This way?” Davis said, pointing to the right.

Morgan nodded, glad that he’d taken the time to familiarize himself with the colony map beforehand.

The next day they visited another of the colonies on the Nexus world, one of 6 that Star Force had created to house irregular populations. They weren’t refugees as far as the Alliance was concerned, nor did they contain territory slots like the Alliance worlds did. They were completely Star Force owned, with the races/groups contained within them being wards of the empire, having come to them through a variety of situations.

This one held a race known as the Zevveks, who had agreed to give up their homeworld to Star Force in exchange for a position within their society. They had been a primitive race, with only minimal space travel, similar to Earth in the early 2000s. They had managed to build three space stations and had been planning to expand to the nearby moons around their planet when Star Force had made contact with them in Beta Region.

A simple survey of their planet had showed significant corovon deposits…something that the Zevveks regarded as a worthless ‘heavy’ metal that they discarded, not having the technology to be able to mold the traces they’d mined into anything useful and unable to get at the deeper deposits within the planetary crust. When Star Force had approached them with an economic offer to gain access to the corovon, they’d responded with an atypical request…which had been to join with the Humans as the Kiritas had, for they had learned through intermediaries of the growing power in the region and they wanted to align themselves with it.

Randy had agreed, but on the terms that they abandon their homeworld entirely and relocate to a Star Force colony…which they had eagerly agreed to. Morgan and Davis were now in that colony, which housed their entire 552 million population of avians.

Like the Mssot colony, this was also a mix of Humans and the bird-like creatures. Whereas the Mssot had huge road-like walkways and open air ‘canyons,’ the Zevvek colony had circular pedestals inside of large domes connected by small walkways for the Humans but allowing a lot of clear air and perches for the Zevveks, which were about the size of a dog. They had four wings and a rounded, beak bearing head, with a flight style that mimicked humming birds, only at a slower wing flap.

As Davis watched his step to stay on the railless paths, he looked up, seeing a few of them flying to and fro from small compartments that looked like bird houses, not all of which could be accessed by the Humans, save for concealed ladders for emergency situation…though more often or not they’d just grab a jump pack and head up directly, and Davis could see that several of the Human personnel were in fact wearing the packs so they could move about quicker than the pathways allowed.

Davis, in his Archon armor, walked up to a booth with a blue-uniformed Star Force attendant and caught her attention.

“What can I do for you, Archons?”

“What do you do here?” he asked, keeping his helmet on just in case he’d be recognized.

“I’m one of several hundred liaisons that communicate with the Zevveks regarding their needs. They’ve learned English, but their dialect is hard to understand if you’re not used to it. So if you need a translator I’m your girl.”

“That won’t be necessary. Tell me your impressions of them. This is my first time on this world.”

“Well, they’re a bit skittish. I think they requested to join Star Force for our protection, along with other reasons. They can fight if they need to, but they’re not good at it. So their personalities have developed around evasion and caution, but they’re very industrious. Now that we’ve given them the tools…or rather created the tools for their forms to utilize, they’re cranking out all sorts of products. They specialize in foodstuffs and other organics, but they’re also making a lot of small parts and personal…um, what’s the word?”

“Accoutrements,” Morgan offered.

“Yes,” the attendant said, not sure if that word was sufficient, but settling on it none the less. “Accoutrements that go on the body. Clothing, backpacks, harnesses, holsters, and other things, not just for themselves but multiple races. They like tinkering and coming up with improvements. I’ve modeled several things for them…though they always want me nude to do it. At first I balked, but since there weren’t any Humans watching I agreed. Kind of fun, actually,” she said, winking at Morgan. “The dry air in here feels good after a long day of work.”

Beside Davis one of the Zevveks flew up and landed on the rim of the desk the attendant was standing behind, gripping the cylindrical railing with its clawed feet, which was when Davis saw that it also had a pair of small arms extruding out from its chest, much like a T-Rex from the old days, which Humans guessed to have spindly little limbs, based on the skeleton…though now they knew that wasn’t the case.

“Hello, Chaavrakka,” she said, with the Zevvek nodding its beak respectfully.

“Veeseetors?”

“Archons,” she clarified, looking back at Davis, despite the fact that he was the lower ranking of the two, but because he was the one who spoke to her first. “Is there something specific you wanted?”

“Just exploring a bit,” Davis said, looking at the Zevvek, resisting the urge to ask it if it wanted a cracker, then belatedly realizing that some of Morgan’s sarcasm was starting to rub off on him…or maybe it was a side effect of her being in his head so much.

“You nid gyd?”

Morgan glanced at the attendant. “Are there some spare jump packs lying around?”

“Yes there are. Would you both like one?”

The trailblazer nodded, then the attendant hurried off to a back room, leaving the two Archons with the Zevvek as two more flew in and landed a respectful distance away, staring at them with their three tiny eyes.

“How is your training progressing?” Davis asked him/her, for he couldn’t tell the difference between the genders, though he did know from the files that they did have them…and laid eggs.

“We arre neerin feef levl. Whin we reech seevin we git starsheeps.”

“Have any of you reached self-sufficiency yet?”

“Naht me, boot twow hayv.”

“Two people?”

“Yis.”

“Could you show me to one of them?”

“Fahr froom her, boot I can.”

Good call, Morgan agreed as the attendant came back with two bulky harnesses.

Davis took one and swung it over his armor, finding several latches that matched up with reception points on his armor, while Morgan snugged up padded straps to fit her smaller frame.

“They’re fully charged,” the attendant said as Davis pressed the on button and experimented with a small jump that took him two meters up into the air before floating him back down.

“Thank you,” Davis said, looking at the Zevvek. “Lead on.”

In the following days the pair visited all of the colonies on this Nexus world, including a well hidden group of Nestafar that had been relocated from a planet near the Calavari border that seceded when their race backstabbed the Alliance. They hadn’t broadcast that change of sides, but had quietly informed their Calavari neighbors that their tiny little colony wasn’t abandoning the Alliance. They had lived in anonymity for many years after that, but after the Calavari territory was whittled down to almost nothing their dropping off the grid was discovered and they were forced to flee their own people, originally taking refuge with the Protovic before Star Force gave them sanctuary.

Davis found them to be the most unusual of the races he’d encountered thus far…which was saying something. Not because of their flight capabilities, but because of the way their minds worked. Morgan had found that odd, for she had no such feelings regarding them, but to the Director they were the most odd, even when he piggybacked on Morgan’s Ikrid for a closer look.

After they left Nexus 4 they traveled to another system, this one containing an Alliance world and split into 8 territorial zones, each of which was ringed with a thin strip of Star Force territory that separated the denizens. Here Star Force was not in control, merely acting as peacekeepers and providing a resource market, for the various races were essentially sovereign nations, save for the few stipulations that they agreed to operate under in exchange for the territory slots.

Morgan wasn’t allowed to visit all of them, but they did get permission to explore a newly started Urik’kadel colony…or rather the portions of it that a Human could fit inside, for a lot of the residential sections had ceilings too low for them to walk through upright.

Davis spent a lot of time on this Alliance world, not so much to explore as to investigate, for he was able to interact with the multiple races in the Star Force facilities where they mingled. He asked questions…lots of questions, getting some answers and generating even more questions. This new interracial dynamic was vastly complicated, but as he chased various society and cultural threads he began to get a sense of the various races he encountered, as well as the common ground most of them had, resulting from previous interactions that had formed a slight multi-racial culture that he was beginning to pick up on more and more.

To explore that even further, the next stop on their trek was Bolo, which held the closely compacted, most diverse interracial population within Star Force territory…which also made it the most dangerous.

10

November 30, 2506

Mensolon System (Beta Region)

Bolo

Morgan and Davis walked through the wide city streets, all of which had been built by Star Force but now customized by the various denizens into a collage of multicultural imagery. Both Humans wore full armor, Davis in his borrowed red and Morgan in her black, as they mingled about in the pedestrian flows that held very few Humans. There were hundreds of races present, with the majority in this sector being Critel, though they accounted for barely a quarter of the people he was passing by.

The Critel were notorious traders, with those here on Bolo acting on behalf of themselves, corporations, or perhaps their nation, though it had no official standing here, nor did any. All citizens of Bolo were welcomed as individuals and had to operate under a loose Star Force code as they set up their various establishments…some for industry, some for entertainment, and some that Davis didn’t fully understand yet.

Star Force owned the kiosks, but the denizens filled them with personal property and outfitted them as they liked. A very loose hand had been given to the business side of planetary affairs, and he knew that was due to a lack of oversight potential. Star Force owned the planet, but Randy didn’t want to have to babysit it, and had developed a…or more accurately had let develop a mostly tranquil commerce zone with a strong Star Force security presence to discourage the unruliness, and if necessary exile the disruptive individuals from the planet.

That had kept things orderly, but Morgan knew that there was a lot going on in the shadows, and even if there weren’t any riots or uprising taking place that there would be more quiet dangers. The security detail wasn’t large enough to police the denizens in typical Star Force fashion, so there was a ‘wild west’ element here that was tolerated so long as things didn’t escalate.

That said, Bolo had accomplished what few had before in that it brought together so many races, many of whom did not like each other, and had them living side by side without any bloodbaths breaking out. That in itself was an accomplishment, but Davis feared that this ‘wild west’ environment was what the ADZ was going to turn into, or worse.

But one thing that Davis had learned in his recent travels was that as strange and varied as these races were, there was an element to them that made them ‘people’ like everyone else, and that was something he could use. Self-defense, advancement, pride…these were present in some form across the board, along with many other themes, but the trick was they were twisted by biology and culture into strange combinations, like a rope twisted up into a huge knot that he had to patiently unravel.

Today, like yesterday, Morgan and Davis just walked through a section of the ever growing planet. Star Force insisted on everyone using their infrastructure, but in many cases Star Force engineers would build roads, rail lines, markets, and substructures topped off by flat, ground-level clearings that they then let the denizens build their own structures on, linked into a mutual power and utilities grid. In other cases Star Force would be huge shell structures, allowing entrepreneurs from other races to construct their own facilities inside them.

Those builds were off limits to the public, but technically Star Force security and the Archons had access to them whenever they wanted. Morgan and Davis dropped in on a few key ones, but for the most part they just made themselves part of the traffic flows, losing themselves in the anonymity of the crowd as they circulated about, observing and learning. While individuals coming to and from the planet had to pass through strict security checkpoints, once they were permitted inside the Bolo network they were free to roam about and conduct business as they liked, making the planet a large, wild pool of strange alien life that Davis was fascinated with.

Not for the normal reasons, but for the economic and social ones. For most of his life he’d been schooling others in what to do and how to do it…but here he was the reverse, learning how other races conducted business and their philosophies, many of whom had been in practice for thousands of years. The economics were the easier of the two to grasp, for supply and demand were universal constants, with the societal wrinkles making for a truly eye-opening experience above and beyond what he’d had on his tour stops to date.

But not in an uplifting way. As many small things there were that he was impressed with, the mass of what he was learning was junk. Problems on top of problems on top of problems. People clinging to tradition and beliefs and habits, all of which preserved the status quo and hindered problem solving. Most of Davis’ wonderment came from a sense of ‘how could they be that stupid?’

He was also learning the various grudges between races, and who trumped who in the galactic turf…but also realizing that there were pockets of space where the rules reversed themselves, which was something that hadn’t been present on Earth. He’d had a long conversation with a particular Scionate vendor they happened across, and it dawned on him that the lack of communication, and often transit, between star systems created a sociological factor that he hadn’t had to deal with regarding the former nations of Earth, where everyone knew what everyone else was doing.

That wasn’t the same out here, with some races being the big dogs in their core systems but subservient ones on the fringes. It became clear to Davis that ‘locality’ was the driving factor, divvied up largely by star system rather than by planet. The same was somewhat true within Star Force, but due to the relay network and the way Davis had built their supply and transit system they were more connected than most of the other races appeared to be, leaving isolated systems essentially writing their own rulebook.

The Scionate, by the name of Gas’para, had been a soldier prior to going into the shipping business and becoming a galactic traveler. He’d set up operations throughout 23 system before hearing about and scouting out Bolo, then deciding to move his headquarters here in order to access the hub of interracial commerce. He said many others had done the same, especially information brokers, for the traffic coming through the system was far greater than any other within the region.

He’d told Davis that wherever his shipping contracts went, they had to learn and adjust to the local culture, and as such the Scionate had got a feel for a few of the tendencies present in this part of the galaxy. Some temperaments were strict, others with a nearly total lack of oversight and control…which was bad for business, save for the adventurous sort who didn’t mind gambling their credits, and sometimes life, to exploit an opportunity.

But the biggest thing Gas’para explained to him was the naivety the local populations had regarding one another. Most people were not travelers, and with the isolated nature of the smaller systems they developed some vastly different cultures regarding trade, commerce, transit, permissions, and a host of other things a shipper had to deal with. And almost exclusively, they all believed there was only one way to do things.

Bolo was different, he’d said, being such a mix and having 10 ways of doing something sitting within 10 blocks of one another. He credited Star Force’s guiding structure within Bolo’s business society, citing that without it he didn’t think that the planet could sustain itself.

Davis had went on to have an in depth conversation regarding that point before bidding the shipper farewell and moving back out into the traffic flows and looking for a restroom with Human accommodations. He had some trouble removing his armor once they found one a couple of sections away, but the enclosure was private and gave him a shield from prying eyes while he disconnected the cod piece and took a much needed leak.

He met Morgan outside the cubicle, with her waiting on him while several other races with similar biological needs were coming in and out of the other ‘stalls’ that, like all Star Force designs, were a private, tiny room that had no distinction between male or female…or in this case any race that was bipedal. Quadrupeds had another restroom facility, with a few others for more specialized needs.

Despite the filters on his helmet, Davis was exposed to a host of new smells that the air scrubbers were fighting to eliminate, prompting a private chuckle on their way outside, for this was an area of interracial relations that hadn’t crossed his mind before.

“Where to now?” Morgan asked via comm as she scanned the sea of irregular people through her black striker helmet.

“Security station. Let’s see if they can point us towards some of the problem areas.”

“Looking to pick a fight?”

“I need to find the problems if I’m going to fix them.”

“I’m looking forward to that,” Morgan said, stepping out into the foot traffic under the bright hallway lights with Davis following a step behind her. It took them a lot of walking until they got to the Star Force security outpost, which was little more than an emergency response firebase situated in one of the more remote regions of the city to decrease response time, but it held more than 20 staff with multiple rooms, allowing Davis and Morgan to have a private conversation with the ranking officer.

“What sort of trouble are you looking for?” she asked, wearing the light golden flex armor that most of the security division preferred, giving them adequate protection for their day to day work without the bulk of their combat armor.

“The kind that you have trouble dealing with, or can’t get at at all,” Davis said through his external mic.

“If we know of a problem we deal with it,” the security officer said, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her upper arm with a gloved fingertip. “But there are always rumors we can’t track down. We have monitoring equipment on all public areas, but most of the activity around here occurs in private areas.”

“Any ongoing feuds?” Morgan asked.

“Nothing major around here, but the Davpz have tried to wall off a niche up in sector 831. You might want to check there. Rumors of intimidation and scare tactics. Security dealt with the obvious stuff, but there’s still a bit of a bad vibe, or so I hear.”

“Thank you,” Davis said, turning and heading for the door before looking back. “From your point of view, what’s the number 1 thing that needs to be improved on this planet?”

“On this planet? That’s a hard question to answer. Guess the biggest thing is not enough Humans around. Sometimes it feels like we’re the visitors.”

“Thank you,” Morgan said, following Davis out into the traffic flows again and over to a transit terminal where they boarded a tram that took them across the city to a rail line network that connected the entire planet. They both caught a nap on the trip across the continent to sector 831 then took some down time in the Human complex there. Davis stayed put, as usual, and dug through the local databases as Morgan got a few hours of workouts in at the local sanctum before coming to pick up Davis for his much shorter version. After they both completed their workouts they headed back out into the streets, with Davis having identified a particular individual he wanted to talk to.

It took them several hours to locate it, having to move through a large facility that was not open to the public, but eventually the two Humans found themselves in a nest of reptiles that looked to be assembling small components with their 8 digit hands…all four of them, plus using their short tails to grasp larger objects, as well as move around from various perches. Davis had to walk a zigzag course to get past them all, eventually coming up to one of the knee-high creatures that their guide led them to.

“You wish to speak with me?” Hi’ch’mek asked in the trade language, looking up from the computer nexus cluster it was assembling from a box of components.

He’s not the one, Morgan told Davis.

“We’re looking for unregistered individuals, and we think you might have some knowledge of their whereabouts,” Davis said, looking down on the small reptile.

Good, Morgan said as the Davpz visibly flinched. Keep pressing.

“Why do you ask me? I know nothing.”

“Been analyzing some of your economic figures. You’ve been consuming more foodstuffs than needed, which I suspect have been rerouted elsewhere.”

Got it, Morgan said, telepathically pointing Davis to another section of the facility.

“We eat more than we appear,” Hi’ch’mek said as Morgan walked past him and Davis fell into step with her a moment later. “Where are you going?”

“To your stash,” Davis said as dozens of the Davpz jumped down off their platforms and rushed to block their way, spamming the floor with bodies.

Morgan simply waved a hand and pushed them aside, opening up a meter-wide walkway that she telekinetically held open until they passed through, with the reptiles flooding back into the gap behind them as more and more came into view, flooding into the area in response to a primitive telepathic call that their race possessed.

Morgan pointed to a piece of equipment, seeing below it with her Pefbar.

“Remove the concealment or we will,” Davis threatened. “No one will be harmed.”

“There is no concealment,” Hi’ch’mek denied, only to have more step up and, with a thought, activated the powered attribute of her armor, sliding a hand into a small gap on the underside and lifting the car-sized chunk of metal and tubes up off its hidden railing, popping the guide wheels off track and tipping it over onto its side, revealing a tunnel hidden in the floor.

“You were saying?” Davis asked as the little aliens swarmed around Morgan and tried to block her from going down…but the trailblazer merely stood in place, waiting to see what Davis wanted to do.

“There are hundreds down there,” she said through the comm as she focused her Ikrid down further than her Pefbar would reach. “I think they’ve been digging underneath the utility grid to add unsanctioned additions to the complex. Habitats, I think, given how closely they’re packed together.”

When the Davpz didn’t answer Davis knelt down and looked Hi’ch’mek in the eyes. “I know there are more of you down there. If we check their genetic codes will we find that there is no record of them in our database. Explain why not, and do not lie to me, I can tell when you do.”

Hi’ch’mek hesitated, not sure what to say and was desperately searching for some way out of this when Morgan sighed.

“It’s not what we thought. They’re being hunted and have been trying to group together for mutual protection,” she said, digging into its memories. “They’re bullying everyone around them to create a defensive perimeter.”

“Hunted by who?” Davis asked over the comm while the Davpz still couldn’t find anything to say.

“They don’t know. But there have been too many of them disappearing to be coincidence.”

“Why haven’t they reported this?”

Morgan hesitated for a moment, trying to dig into less accessible memories. “Xenophobia. They don’t trust anyone other than their own.”

Davis turned back to the Davpz. “How long have your people been going missing?”

The little alien was silent.

“How long?” Davis insisted.

“Three years,” it finally answered.

Davis knelt down again. “You should have told us. We’ll find out what’s happening and stop this, I promise you. But these people down there,” he said, pointing at the tunnel entrance, “have to be registered. We have to know who’s living on this planet to make sure we can take care of them.”

“We only trust our own.”

“Then why did you come to this planet?”

“We have no planet of our own. This world is one of few accepting people in. We have few options.”

Davis raised a warning finger, despite the fact he knew the Davpz probably wouldn’t understand the gesture. “Do not prey on others here again. If something bad happens report it. You have friends to watch your back so long as you behave yourselves.”

“We do what we have to to protect our own.”

“We protect more than our own, and we will protect you as well.”

“You have not.”

“Because we didn’t know there was a problem because you didn’t report it,” Davis said, knowing there was some blame to be had regardless. This sort of thing should not have been happening on any Star Force world, even one as loose as this one was run. “Bring your people out from below. Security is going to log them into our network and you’re going to provide as much information as you can concerning the people who have gone missing. Agreed?”

“Will we be expelled?”

“No, but you will comply with our rules from now on.”

“Agreed.”

Davis stood up and looked at Morgan. “Call it in.”

“I just did.”

The pair stayed put until security got there, then they left and continued on with their wanderings, checking back in over the following days until security finally got a lead after going back through security camera footage. They’d picked up some of the missing individuals and followed them on the old recordings, eventually finding a handful of kiosks where they entered and never came out of again.

Morgan took up the investigation from there, heading directly to one of the locations and beginning a sweep of the minds present with Davis tailing her and security waiting nearby, ready to be called in when needed. They spent the next hour wandering throughout the Chartran shopping complex where all kinds of small, technical devices and parts were available for sale. The facility had many interior divisions, giving it a close feel despite the fact that there were well over 1000 people browsing about inside.

Finally Morgan came across an individual with the memories she was looking for, and after a quick but thorough information download she yanked the ape-like Dangon out from behind the counter it was working behind with a strong Lachka hold and dumped it on the ground in front of her. A moment later she delivered a light kick to its thick midsection and doubled the thing over, then she stepped forward and reached down, grabbing the shorter alien’s head, whereupon she twisted it in a flash, snapping its neck.

She let go and let the body fall to the ground, and despite the lack of a telepathic link he could tell by Morgan’s body language that she was furious.

“What just happened?” he asked over the comm as the workers and customers nearby flew into a frenzy, yelling and running about to get away from the pair of Archons.

“The Davpz were right. They were being hunted. This one killed several of them, plus a lot of other smaller races. He ambushed them here, injecting them with a sedative then hiding them away in the storage area. Then he comes back later, kills, and cuts them up into bits that he smuggles out as cargo to a dealer who we’re about to pay a visit to.”

Davis swallowed hard, finding his stomach unsettled. “A meat black market?”

“Yes,” Morgan said, the word dripping with anger.

“I thought we didn’t execute people,” Davis said evenly, asking it as a question rather than an accusation.

“We don’t kill our prisoners,” Morgan explained, not taking offense, knowing that Davis had never been in a battle, let alone a war, “but we choose who we take prisoner, and I wasn’t feeling generous,” she said as security came into view, running around the corner to the Archons’ location, responding to Morgan’s comm summons.

“Remove the body and explain to the locals that he was a murderer who’s been using their store as a hunting ground. Then get more boots on the ground, I’m going to give you a list of individuals to round up shortly. I hope,” she said, looking at Davis. You coming with or do you want to sit this out?

“Coming with.”

Sorry for the unexpected show.

“Show me what you saw.”

You don’t want me to.

“I trust you, but I need to know.”

Alright, Morgan said, transmitting a select few of the memories she’d taken from the Dangon. They weren’t as crisp as what she had seen, but they were mostly intact, preserving the graphic nature of the ‘work’ the now dead individual had been doing.

Morgan saw Davis bend over in his armor, then not stand back up straight for several long seconds as he fought to keep his stomach intact.

You alright?

“No, but I’ll live. Let’s get the others before they kill anyone else.”

Morgan clapped him on the shoulder and gave the security team a few last instructions, then Davis broke into a run to stay with the Archon as she lithely wove her way through the pedestrians enroute to a location only she knew. He stayed tucked up behind her so not to lose the clear path she was plowing for him, and as he did he came to several conclusions.

One was that if the growing population in the ADZ was left to their own ways then more stuff like this would happen. The second was that even if Star Force devoted itself to policing worlds like this in sufficient numbers and scrutiny to provide a typically safe Star Force environment to live in, that they’d never have enough people to do it. Humans accounted for less than 1% of the ADZ population, and most Humans were civilians, not Archons and security forces.

The third conclusion was that Morgan had been right to kill the bastard on the spot. When he’d seen her do it he’d questioned the move…not her motives, but the fact that word would get around that an Archon had just walked into a store and killed one of the employees. The public didn’t know about their psionic abilities, and even if they did it conflicted with Star Force’s no death sentence policy. But as Morgan said, Star Force did kill, and their military was quite experienced with it. Normally that killing happened on the war fronts, but the reason for it remained the same no matter where it happened.

Star Force was a defensive body that protected others from killers, whether they be lizard, Skarron, or a butcher like this. Morgan had talked with him several times about the Archons’ efforts to find a way to combat the lizards without having to kill them at every turn, but it wasn’t until now that he fully understood that dilemma. It wasn’t a moral conflict, but a matter of patience. The Archons, and Star Force overall, were treating their enemies with a respect that they didn’t deserve, not because of a code or a promise, but simply by choice.

Circumstances against the lizards took that choice away from them, forcing them to turn their encounters into a bloodbath. The Archons didn’t like that, but weren’t hesitant when it was necessary. In this situation Morgan could have taken this butcher prisoner and sent him to an isolation cell for the next half century…but she hadn’t, and Davis finally glimpsed the burden she and the others were under. With so much darkness in the galaxy they were taking an overly positive perspective regarding their enemies, not because they hoped they would change their ways, but to give them the chance regardless.

That allowed them to forgo the ‘gray’ areas by risking a miscalculation downside of giving them better than they deserved rather than a potential injustice. In this situation there was no ‘gray’ area, this man was a monster, and while they could have eliminated the threat he posed to others with confinement, Morgan had simply had enough with the kid gloves and fought back at the enemy.

It wasn’t until now that he realized how much she and the others had been holding back for fear of making a mistake. They’d incorporated that ‘safety net’ into their combat procedures, and had ordered their subordinates to employ them as well, but knowing that there was no ambiguity here she’d dealt with the threat how, Davis thought, she and the others wanted to deal with their enemies…fight them head on.

Taking him into custody would have been an injustice, after a fashion, and Morgan, as she’d said, hadn’t felt like it. The murderer got what he deserved, even if it was a breach of standard protocol. It had been the right call.

Which led him to his fourth conclusion…which was how he was going to deal with the ADZ alien population. It’d been top on his priority list ever since he’d started this tour with Morgan, and now it finally dawned on him what he had to do…not the details, which he’d work out later, but the basic premise on which the ADZ would have to be structured.

He had to annihilate the racial divides, destroying their cultures, their beliefs, their traditions, and their phobias…creating a single Alliance culture with Star Force at its core.

Axius

1

April 30, 2521

Achkor System (Skarron territory)

Zenniza

Morgan reached out with her Ikrid to sense the positions of the Engineers around her, timing her run accordingly before dropping down from her perch in the empty cockpit of the Skarron version of a forklift and sprinting across to the open side door of one of their parked transports. She kept a mental link with those closest to her, insuring that they didn’t see her and ready to make a few memory alterations if they did, but by the time she slipped her black armor inside the Skarron ship no one was the wiser.

She took a moment to make sure of that, then moved through the cramped tunnels built specifically for the Engineers who maintained these craft. This one was the Skarron version of a dropship, but far larger than Star Force’s Dragon-class…then again it had to be, given the size of the Skarrons themselves. It was parked along with some 30+ others in a semi-enclosed landing platform that sat on the edge of one of the city’s interior clusters.

Unlike with Human cities, or those of most other races, Skarron infrastructure didn’t occupy all the land space in a given area. Instead it had clusters connected to one another via strips of infrastructure. Large gaps of unused land existed like lakes in between them, save for they were nothing more than scorched earth or bare rock. From above the patterns reminded one of a bush with berries, for the clusters held a more or less circular/square geometry, while the interconnecting infrastructure resembled stalks or shoots, but again, they were also irregular.

Irregular regularity is how Morgan would have described it, but given that she was on the ground behind enemy lines she didn’t much care for how it looked from overhead. This spaceport held a tiny portion of the planet’s transports that were constantly ferrying troops and supplies up and down from orbit. The Achkor System was located well coreward of Beta Region, and was the first truly Skarron world Star Force had discovered, though there was little doubt they had taken it from someone else some time ago.

Whoever that was was long gone, with all native infrastructure erased and replaced by the Skarrons’ own construction. The planet appeared to have been geared towards resupply rather than habitation, for there wasn’t much in the way of a local population other than what was necessary to service the troops coming out from deeper within Skarron territory to the warfronts against the Alliance and others. Zenniza was one of three worlds in the system that the enemy had put down roots on, but the only one with a breathable atmosphere, which was probably why it had become the center of their operations within the system.

The other two were mining operations with additional production facilities being built up around them and even the beginnings of a full scale shipyard in orbit, currently operational and producing Skarron transports and other ‘small’ craft for them, but with major upgrades underway that would allow them to produce their Destroyer-class warships.

Or rather it had been, until they’d seen some recent setbacks. Morgan wasn’t the only striker in the system, and she knew Paul had already damaged the shipyard to some extent from the inside, much as she was about to do now with the transports. The key was to stay invisible and do damage that wouldn’t immediately give her away, for while she could control a few minds around her, if the Skarrons or their Hobbits came after her en mass she’d be forced to run, for she didn’t have enough ammunition to make a long fight of it.

Morgan worked her way through the transport using a schematic Star Force had obtained from downloading portions of computer memory from post-battle Skarron debris…after the techs had learned to interface with their systems, which had included familiarity files that the Skarrons used to train their people with. The files weren’t blueprints, but rather user indoctrination assets, allowing green crews to learn their way around the various craft they would be serving on so that they wouldn’t get lost the first day and become a problem to the existing crews.

And Morgan could understand why getting lost would be a problem. The Engineers were small bodied and apparently nimble enough to work in the tight confines she was now passing through that were designed with a similar erratic motif that the Skarron cities used. No straight hallways here, for everything was twists and turns and cutbacks, not just laterally but up and down as well, making for what seemed to be a very inefficient network of support tunnels.

Spotting a few minds enroute, she navigated around them or, in the case of one Engineer, she froze him in place and walked over him, releasing the freeze when she was on the other side with him not even realizing he’d lost 20 seconds. Morgan remained a ghost as she worked through the underside of the transport, eventually coming up into the larger areas where the Skarrons operated.

The transition was like night and day, with the Engineer labyrinth feeling like tunnels and the Skarron areas seeming as if open fields. Morgan avoided the cargo bay, staying instead in the pilot areas as she crossed them without incident. At present this transport was grounded for either storage or maintenance, with barely any crew onboard. She sensed only 9 Engineers and 4 Hobbits, all of which she was able to avoid as she worked her way through the ship to the sweet spot she’d discovered earlier in another sabotage run.

It was on the Skarron level, in a maintenance panel that she had to remove without notice. Once Morgan had it open she made several small adjustments with a plasma cutter she’d brought with her, then replaced the panel and moved on, eventually sneaking out of the transport and over to the next one…and the next…and the next, working her way through the spaceport and disabling as many of the craft as she could get to, but even as she got to more than half of them some of the others were lifting off and making room for more to come down.

Those coming down held troops, the first of which had an army of Hobbits pour out, while the second contained all Skarrons. They moved out of the spaceport straight to a processing center that got them situated on the planet where they needed to be while they waited for their next posting.

Troops transfers like this were coming in every hour of every day, with the traffic activity around the system’s star being continuous. Even now there were well over 1000 warships in orbit, with more than five times that number of cargo ships. The transports that Morgan was hopping to and from weren’t interstellar capable, but the means for the Skarrons to move cargo and personnel to and from the surface. The ones in space were downright huge, larger than even Star Force jumpships, and the fact that there were so many of them and the rate at which they were changing out was a testament to the importance of this system.

It was too bad Star Force couldn’t take it from them, for that would put a crimp in their assaults on the ADZ, but with so few ships available they didn’t have the resources for the scale of attack that taking and holding this planet would require…thus Morgan and a few of the others had decided to slow the enemy down a bit by going in on the ground and doing what damage they could in person, which turned out to be considerable.

This wasn’t Morgan’s first sabotage run, more like the 100th. She’d been on the planet for more than a month, with this being her fourth trip down. Her team had been ghosts to the Skarrons, having employed a few new Infiltrator-class puddle jumpers that significantly reduced sensor detection range. Using one of them, Morgan had come down to an uninhabited portion of the planet undetected, leaving her ship behind and crossing the varied terrain via mongoose up to the small ridge that ran north of this city complex. From there she had come in on foot, crossing some 11 miles before getting into the city.

First item of business had been to find a safe haven to stash her equipment pack, then after that she’d made sixteen sabotage runs into various parts of the city, with this being her 17th and last. Her supplies were almost exhausted, meaning she had to return to her ship for more, but she was going to cause a disruption at the spaceport first, one that was noticed before she got to the last few transports.

Thanks to her previous sabotage runs within the city, the local Skarrons were already on the lookout, so when one of the transports failed to engage its anti-grav and essentially became a big rock blocking part of the platform, the area went on alert and additional security patrols popped out of the surrounding areas, heading towards the exits and each of the individual ships.

That said, Morgan took her time and disabled another of the transports, hopefully in a way that they wouldn’t find for some time. The damage she was doing wasn’t hard to repair, but it did require new components to replace the ones she was severing. If they already had some standing by it would be maybe a 10 minute fix, but then again if the anti-grav simply wouldn’t engage and they didn’t know why it could be a very long wait.

She wasn’t counting on that, which was why she was quietly sabotaging other systems within the transports as well, learning with each attempt and adding more quick cuts here and there to her choreography, making her stay within each of the transports short and sweet…though the next dash between the two became much more difficult.

Rather than risking going to ground where the security troops were, she worked her way up to the top of the transport and ran over to the edge, using her powered armor to enhance her leg muscles and jump from one to another, given how tightly packed they were on the pad. Morgan barely made it across, falling onto her stomach as her legs missed, hanging over the multi-story drop, then she climbed up over the edge and out of view. She checked for nearby minds, hoping not to have triggered an alarm, then moved on to the maintenance hatch that led to the interior…where she began her well-oiled sabotage run again.

Morgan came back up to the top of the transport when she finished, seeing the next transport beside her lift off empty, for she could sense the hoard of minds below that had just come off it. All soldiers by the feel of them, prompting her to sit down on the roof of the transport and wait until they filed out before she moved on.

It was a weird feeling, for her black armor stood out against the dull white coloration of the hull, meaning that she was easy to spot from above, but fortunately all the troops around her were below eye level. It was the transports coming up and going down that could spot her…or the occasional fighter flying past. Morgan just sat there, looking up with idle curiosity to see if any of them did notice her as she waited for the floor below to clear.

Taking mental inventory of the ships she had left to hit, she picked out two more and waited for an opportunity, losing one as it took off, but able to slink back down into the ship she was on and out another of the small Engineer exits before the next one left. She hit the anti-grav’s first thing, making sure she didn’t go with the ship, then proceeded to move around ransacking whatever systems she could get access to and hitting about half of what was on her normal list, for there were more Engineers about, including a ship full of Hobbits and Skarron troops ready to be transported up to a cargo ship, and from there off to the war zone to reinforce one of the numerous enemy positions.

When she went to leave her exit was blocked, so she circled back through the Engineer section in the transport to another hatch, finding it also with people outside. Figuring it was time to call it a day she mentally froze the few Hobbits outside and made a dash for the nearby cover of a stack of cargo pallets. She didn’t make it cleanly, for someone from further away raised an alarm, after which she abandoned her subtlety and sprinted for one of the spaceport exits, drawing a bit of white plasma fire that fell well wide.

After that she was inside the city interior and disappearing into the infrastructure again, eventually working her way into the less obvious pedestrian routes that she’d become familiar with, avoiding the Skarron areas entirely and working her way through the Hobbit and Engineer-sized passages, psionically picking up on the none too subtle search effort taking place around her.

With her cover already blown, she took a small detour to a power plant and easily fought her way past the guards using a combination of Fornax and Ikrid…the former to knock them down and the later to render them unconscious one by one. Once by them she moved into the power plant and carefully knocked it out of commission, blacking out the local region of the city, aside from emergency backups that gave a little light in the now dark interior areas.

Using her armor’s night vision she evaded/fought her way through the search patrols and into the clear, moving through section after section until she came back into the lit areas and on to the spot where she’d set up her temporary camp. Taking a seldom used maintenance ladder up to the top of the city, she came out into the planetary atmosphere and walked on the irregular rooftops, with jutting pieces that went every which way. There were several tower-like segments, but for some reason the Skarron structures had no windows at all, giving her a little field of infrastructure debris to lose herself in.

Finding her way back to the waypoint marked on her HUD, she crept into the narrow trench that was blocked from overhead view and retrieved her pack, finding it sitting in two inches of water from what must have been a recent rain. Morgan pulled it out and checked on the contents, taking a moment to remove her helmet and drink the last of her water bottles, as well as eating a condensed ‘fuel rod’ and an ambrosia wafer, with the former being a heavy, chewy cylinder that held a massive amount of calories in its small volume.

Getting her stomach filled with badly needed fuel, she took one last moment to relieve her bladder in the small hovel, then she reattached her armor and pack and began a light jog across the rooftop terrain, alert for low flying ships as she started a 3 mile trek across the Skarron infrastructure that eventually led her to the northern edge where she dropped down to the surface and began to run at the best speed she could manage across the band of rocky ground surrounding the city and off into the grasslands that mostly obscured her passage up to the far ridgeline yet more miles away.

Morgan had to rely on her battlemap to guide her, for most of the time the 4 meter tall grasses didn’t afford her much of a view…which was the only reason she’d been able to approach on foot in the first place. Eventually she came up to the ridgeline, unable to see exactly where it was from her position, but not far down the opposite side and out of direct sensor range she found the waypoint where she’d hid her mongoose and was relieved to see it intact underneath the small grass hut she’d made to cover it.

Pushing and kicking the thick mat clear, she slid up on top and powered the awesome little steed up, then knelt low over the front as she took off, pushing her way through the grasses with them rubbing on the mongoose and her helmet in razorblade fashion as she accelerated up to speed, following the approximate path she’d taken to get here, though the grasses had long since eaten up the tracks she’d made on the inward run.

It took several hours for her to make her way out of the grasses and onto clear dirt ground, with Morgan then being able to accelerate up to decent speed and tear her way across the rolling landscape, meandering her way around hills rather than going over top of them and opening her up to distant observation, all the time loosely making her way back to the Infiltrator’s hiding spot, tucked up nicely inside one of the small valleys and covered over with a deployable camouflage canopy that mimicked the surrounding topography in both color and sensor profile.

Morgan drove up underneath the canopy along a small creek bed that had a steady 3 inch deep flow to the water that splashed up on the mongoose’s tires as the boarding ramp lowered and she drove up inside, happy to be back in Star Force territory, even if it was just the inside of a small ship. She docked her mongoose next to three others in the bay, seeing one empty slot amongst them, meaning one of the other strikers was still out in the field, though whether it was Kip or Olivia she didn’t know.

Morgan slid off the mongoose and headed for the puddle jumper’s interior, finding her way to the lounge area that had been built into what otherwise would have been the cargo bay on other models.

“Welcome back,” Kip said, sitting in one of the chairs with his feet up and looking at a datapad that held a now paused movie. “Any trouble?”

“Not much,” Morgan said, pulling her helmet off and seeing Kip wrinkle his nose. “Bad?”

“Tolerable,” he said, referencing the fact that she had been inside her armor and not showered for several days.

“Olivia still out?”

“Pilot says she came back early then went out again after picking up some special supplies. Not sure when to expect her back.”

“We’re due at the warship in 3 days,” Morgan commented, unlatching her pack and setting it aside. “She knows the timetable. What’d you get?”

Kip smiled and tossed her a different datapad. Morgan caught it telekinetically and flew it over to her hand, then began reading through the list of targets Kip and Olivia had hit since she’d last checked in.

2

“Miss me?” Olivia-051 asked, returning to the puddle jumper some 18 hours later with a nasty cut on her face.

Morgan pointed up at it, now showered and in a fresh Archon uniform. “How did that happen?”

Olivia tossed the helmet in her hand to Morgan as Kip walked into the lounge from another chamber in the ship.

“That’s how,” the trailblazer said, referencing the puncture in the tinted faceplate just above the nose piece on the left side. Morgan touched a finger to it, seeing that there wasn’t a melty edge to the fracture that would have indicated the high heat of plasma damage.

“Shrapnel?”

“No, a damn structural beam fell on me.”

“What’d you blow up?” Kip asked.

Olivia shook her head slightly, not wanting to add much movement to the already scabbed-over cut that ran a good 3 inches across her left cheek. “Wasn’t me. A whole section of the build came down and I got buried underneath it. Don’t know if they knew where I was and were trying to get at me or if something else happened. I dug my way out after a Sesspik nap, then headed back here. I expected them to be all over me, but I hardly ran into any troops on the way. Mostly Engineers and Hobbits coming to work on the debris.”

Olivia started detaching her armor and suddenly Morgan and Kip saw how much blood she’d lost. The inside of her neck collar was coated with it, but it had also seeped down through the thin line between the collar and her neck and soaked into her white uniform underneath…which had the most of the upper left torso colored deep red.

“Ouch,” Morgan said, taking a step closer to her and gently laying a hand on her head.

“I’m low,” Olivia confirmed as Morgan hacked into her nervous system to glean some information on the state of her body…which was running low on blood, but fortunately not low enough for the Archon to pass out. “And hungry.”

Morgan stepped back and let her finish climbing out of her armor, then Olivia stretched for a moment before picking up her helmet and looking at the damage from the outside again, tapping a finger on the intact portion of the transparent material.

“I think it’s time for a design change,” she said, throwing Morgan a glance as Kip came back in from another room and tossed her a water bottle and two sealed foodstuff packages.

“Harder faceplate?” he asked.

“No faceplate,” she countered, opening the water and sucking it down inside of a few seconds, pausing only for breath before tearing open the first of the packages and biting into a dense breadstick.

“You think we should go full HUD?” Morgan asked, knowing that the suggestion had come up before. The ‘visor’ portion of the Archon helmet was the weakest point, but now that they also had an energy shield covering it there hadn’t been much discussion about that weakness…and for good reason. The material wasn’t glass, but a super hard transparent synthetic that was stronger than steel, allowing them to keep the visor thin and avoid any lensing effects that would diminish their vision and situational awareness.

“Yo…ell me,” she said, still chewing as she glanced at her helmet.

“Your head hurt?” Kip asked, noticing that she wasn’t using psionics, which could easily allow her to talk and eat at the same time.

She swallowed. “More lightheaded than pain. I’ll be alright.”

Morgan turned the damaged helmet over in her hands, looking at it again and picturing what no visor would look like. It would mean they wouldn’t be able to see out of it except for when it was powered, using sensors on the exterior to translate images inside to a vid screen directly in front of their face…or more likely a holographic version, similar to what was used in the skeets.

“We’d have Pefbar as a backup, but the adepts and others wouldn’t…and we’d have to coat the thing with microcameras, otherwise a little armor damage would blind us.”

“Make it ranger and up then, but I want it.”

“Not going to argue with you there,” Kip agreed, with Morgan tossing her helmet to him so he could take a closer look.

“Are we ready to leave?” Olivia asked, tearing open the second foodstuff package.

“Yep,” Morgan said, “unless you have something to finish up?”

“Let’s…go,” she said, abandoning her previous targets that the explosion had stopped her from getting to, knowing that they didn’t have time nor an extra helmet for her on this run.

Morgan nodded and headed aft to take care of the camouflage canopy while Kip headed forward, walking through the sections of the comfortably small ship until he came to the pilot’s quarters and knocked lightly.

A moment later the door opened and a Star Force Regular stepped out.

“We’re leaving,” Kip told him.

“Back to the ship or repositioning?” he asked, stepping past the trailblazer on the way to the cockpit.

“To the ship. Morgan’s getting the canopy. As soon as it’s secured you’re free to work your magic,” Kip said, referencing the fact that the man had a higher pilot’s rating than he did...which running blockades necessarily required.

“Alright, let me know when she’s back,” he said, moving into the pilot’s seat and beginning the power up sequence. This was his fourth trip down into enemy territory, with him knowing well that the trick to beating the Skarrons both down and up was in getting a head start on them. He didn’t know if they’d spot the ship when the canopy came off, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

As soon as Kip signaled him that Morgan was done he kicked in the anti-grav and accelerated ahead, maneuvering through the rolling terrain at low level to mask their hiding spot in case they wanted to use it again, then when he had the spot he wanted lined up with his preferred orbital escape vector, he tipped the nose of the puddle jumper up to the sky and accelerated hard, tearing a narrow gash in the atmosphere that sucked energy out of the ship’s shields from the high friction.

He kept the speed just slow enough to not breach them completely, then as the air thinned he increased speed to match, seeing several Skarron ships in orbit altering position to try and intercept them…but it was no use. The Star Force vessel had a clear patch of orbit ahead of them and the Skarrons couldn’t get there in time, nor did they want to, for the puddle jumper would have just flashed by them in the blink of an eye.

What the enemy was attempting with their smaller vessels was to match the speed and outgoing vector, essentially meeting up with the puddle jumper further out as they accelerated towards a guessed rendezvous point…but it was no good, for as soon as the ship got outside the atmosphere and up to decent speed the pilot made a course correction, using their binary drives to curve their trajectory in an arc that the Skarrons couldn’t follow.

That broke them free of their pursuit and brought them to a jumpline for a neighboring planet, which they then took…with the Skarrons following at a considerable delay.

When they arrived at their destination a few minutes later the pilot immediately moved them around to the stellar jumpline and shot them off again…but at a very slow speed. Once they were outside the effective sensor range of the Skarrons he used their binary drives to move them off the jumpline and bring them to a standstill out in extremely high orbit around the planet. There they waited until the Skarron ships made their own jump towards the star, bypassing the puddle jumper and leaving them in the clear.

It took a while to pull back up to the planet, but once they did the pilot swung them around to another jumpline, this one to one of the outer planets in the system. From there they made another slow jump out to where they rendezvoused with the warship Luigi, which had been their ride into the system and their quiet base of operations for their sabotage runs against the Skarrons, now parked in a position that the enemy couldn’t get to easily, due to their lack of binary gravity drives.

The Infiltrator-class puddle jumper showed up on the warship’s sensor at a far greater range than they did on the Skarrons’, giving the bay doors time to fully open before the pilot flew their interplanetary transport inside and gently landed it on the deck next to several others of identical design.

The three trailblazers exited the craft wearing their armor rather than carrying it and headed for their individual quarters on the ship, depositing their armor there then heading off to various locations. Olivia headed to the med bay to get her injury attended to, Morgan headed directly for the sanctum to catch up on missed workouts, and Kip went to their impromptu war room, which was an extra set of quarters the trailblazers had reworked into a private bridge where they could monitor and plan all insystem raids.

When he got there the room was empty, but as Kip uploaded the data he and the others had compiled from their most recent run the door opened and Paul walked in, having tracked him down once he heard they’d returned.

“Surprised you’re still here,” Kip said from his seated position as he walked in.

“Have to get some training in every now and then,” Paul argued, pulling up a chair and accessing one of the four terminals so he could see what his fellow trailblazer had just added.

“What’d I miss?”

“We hit three more orbital facilities and did some light damage on the ground.”

“How the hell are you getting past their sensors?” Kip wondered, knowing that he’d hit a shipyard earlier.

“Very carefully. Kara’s shadow mode is rather useful, but even she has to be cautious at close range.”

“So you’re letting her hit the orbital stuff solo?”

Paul shook his head. “No, but she’s been getting me in and out.”

“Not worth the risk, bro.”

“Well,” Paul said with a smile, “to be honest their sensors are crap compared to the lizards.”

“But their anti-air is better…and you look an awful lot like a missile floating in space.”

“I don’t do the floating thing…that’s all Kara. She’s got a way of measuring the sensor intensity as it hits and absorbs on her armor, so she can pretty much sniff around and find the weak spots without giving herself away. After that she goes in and does a little reprogramming to create a blind spot…then I come in.”

“Using what?”

“A stealth pod.”

Kip shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

“Haven’t gotten killed yet,” Paul said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, what’s the point of saying ‘I told you so’ if you’re not around to hear it. Stop while you’re ahead, will ya?”

“You do anything on the ground other than inconvenience them?”

“Kind of hard to do that without blowing stuff up…but yeah, I managed to slow down a few of their factories.”

“Which ones?”

“The specialty kind. They won’t be making any more gravity drives for a while…their corovon stores just got significantly thinned.”

“You didn’t bring it back here did you?”

“No, way too heavy. I hid it inside their own infrastructure. I doubt they’ll find it anytime soon, if they’re even looking for it. By the way, Olivia took a nasty hit. Messed up her face when she got caught in an explosion. Leveled the building around her and a piece went through her faceplate.”

“Ouch. What blew up?”

“She doesn’t know, but she’s got a good gash across here,” Kip said, drawing the line on his own face, “and lost a lot of blood, but she made it back to the puddle jumper on her own. She thinks we should redesign the helmet to get rid of the faceplate.”

“Were her shields up when the explosion went off?”

“I don’t know, but she’s shook enough that I don’t think she’s going to let this one go…and I can’t say I disagree with her. We’ve got Pefbar to use as a backup if the HUD loses power, so I don’t see why we don’t make the change, for us at least.”

“Guess you two just volunteered to test the prototype.”

“Jason’s been the one tinkering with the armor. Why haven’t we made this upgrade already?”

“We were waiting until the neuro link became useable, but if Olivia took a hit then we probably should have come up with an intermediary before now…at least as an option. I may stick with the current model though.”

“Should we send this off to Jason or handle it ourselves?”

“If Olivia took the hit, then she’s probably the best one to design a defense against it. I’d throw what you come up with to Jason and see if he can add anything helpful, but there’s no need to shuffle it off to him if Olivia has the spare time.”

“That depends how much longer we’re going to be out here,” Kip reminded him.

“A few more runs, at least. Sam picked up something insightful on his last mission. You got an hour to spare?”

“Can…but after that I need to hit the sanctum.”

Paul nodded. “Come with me.”

“Where to?” Kip asked, following him out.

“The holding cells.”

A little over 10 minutes later the pair of trailblazers walked in behind another two sitting on the free side of the containment field that separated them from a captured Hobbit, and one that was apparently more than willing to talk, for Kip could hear him rattling off the Skarron language that the computer was translating. Kip hadn’t learned more than a few words himself, having to keep V’kit’no’sat, the trade language, Calavari, and now Protovic straight in his head…and was glad that Davis had begun implementing English as the standard Alliance language, for with the insane number of races in the galaxy, maintaining native languages was utterly absurd when the point of communication was to actually communicate with each other.

Paul and Kip didn’t say anything, preferring to stand in the back and watch as Sam and Mark-099 were having an animated conversation with their prisoner…which Paul had explained to be more of a guest on their walk over to the cell.

WE WERE A LARGE RACE SPREAD OUT TO SEVERAL HUNDRED STAR SYSTEMS WHEN THE SKARRONS FOUND US. WE COULD NOT OFFER MUCH MILITARY RESISTANCE AND THEY KILLED MORE THAN A THIRD OF OUR POPULATION BEFORE DECIDING TO INCORPORATE US INTO THEIR EMPIRE TO REPLACE THE BERULATS. THEY FOUND THEM TO BE INADEQUATE AND KILLED THEM ALL WHEN WE ARRIVED TO REPLACE THEM. WE FEAR THEY MAY DO THE SAME WITH US IF THEY ARE ABLE TO ANNEX ANOTHER RACE THEY FEEL IS SUPERIOR. IT HAS BEEN RUMORED THAT THE PROTOVIC COULD BE A POSSIBLE REPLACEMENT, BUT SUCH RUMORS ARE COMMON AMONGST THE ARONSIC.

“How long ago was this?” the ‘other’ Mark asked, for there were two of them amongst the trailblazers with the same name.

APPROXIMATELY 1500 YEARS AGO.

“How many of the other Aronsic feel as you do? How many are loyal to the Skarrons?”

ALL ARE LOYAL. WE HAVE NO CHOICE IN THAT. BUT THOSE THAT WHISPER COMPLAINTS ARE MANY ON THE WORLDS THAT I HAVE SEEN.

“How many worlds do the Skarrons possess?” Sam asked, already knowing the answer but gauging the Hobbit’s reactions to see whether or not it was playing some angle here. When it had come across Mark on his most recent mission it hadn’t fired its weapon, responding with enough curiosity that when the trailblazer had reached out with his Ikrid and accessed its mind to render it unconscious and wipe the memory of his being seen, he’d been prompted to make a different call, first engaging it with conversation then deciding to bring it back here for further questioning.

TOO MANY FOR US TO KNOW. WE ESTIMATE AT LEAST 10,000 STAR SYSTEMS, BUT THE TRUE NUMBER MAY BE MUCH LARGER THAN THAT.

And it was, for in recent years Star Force had accessed a measure of data from captured enemy ships, including a navigational map that tagged some 72,912 systems as Skarron territory, with the bulk of those in the neighboring galactic arm well over 1,000 lightyears from the ADZ.

“What about the Jenipars?”

I DO NOT KNOW. WE HAVE LITTLE CONTACT WITH THEM AND I PERSONALLY HAVE HAD NONE.

“And the Aronsic and Jenipars are the only two races the Skarrons currently have incorporated into their empire?”

AS FAR AS I KNOW, YES.

Aren’t these the same guys that were eating Kiritak a while back? Kip asked Paul telepathically.

The Word was also composed of Humans, Paul reminded him.

Not what I mean. If this is headed where I think it is, we’re going to have to distinguish between unwilling slave and willing slave.

At least we can have this discussion with them. By now a lizard would have tried to tear its own throat out.

Not my area of expertise.

But this is, Paul countered.

Prisoners are prisoners. We don’t give them a chance to switch sides after shooting at us…and by us I mean the Protovic too. We have to find a way to get to the willing ones first, if they really exist. Switching sides is easy after you lose.

Sounds like the beginning of a plan.

Down the road…after we’ve got a few more sentinels deployed. Right now I’m sticking with shooting them.

I get the feeling these two are going to want to start earlier than that, Paul said, gesturing towards Sam and Mark.

They’re welcome to try, so long as it doesn’t eat up resources.

You think it’s a bad idea?

Kip sighed. No, we just can’t fall into the trap of trying to help the guys shooting at us.

We won’t, Paul said confidently, but if we can undermine their own ranks, we might get them to hesitate before shooting us.

Kip slowly broke into a smile. I hadn’t considered that.

Being the good guys does have its advantages.

That it does, Kip said, silently walking out, having seen enough to give him something to think about on his way over to the sanctum.

3

May 3, 2521

Solar System

Ceres

Haley Somerson returned to her temporary quarters within the colony that had been her home the past 26 years, only to finish packing for the trip away from the small, icy planet to a distant star system, not even in the Core Region, but further out inside Zeta Region. She’d just said her goodbyes to her father, having spoken with her mother a week ago. She liked him far more than her, but neither were emotional affairs, given that she’d only met them a handful of times. It was her family she was having a hard time leaving, but now that she and her brothers and sisters had graduated out of the maturia they were all going their separate ways.

A lot of them were staying on Ceres, but about a third were moving on to other worlds. A few more had yet to graduate, with the first of them having tested out a year and a half ago. Since then it had been a steady progression through the 100 of them, with each completing their primary maturia training on an individual basis. Once that occurred they were given regular quarters in the city, such as Haley was now located in, and free run of the colony, having become full-fledged Star Force citizens upon graduation, despite the fact that she was only 26.

Her quarters were small, no larger than they’d been in the maturia, but the biggest change were her neighbors, for they were no longer her family. The closest member of her orisect was several blocks away and about 7 minutes of walking, making a quick stop in to catch up on how they were doing impossible. Before it was just a few steps down the hallway…now the brothers and sisters she’d trained with were scattered about the city, but at least they were still in this complex and not one of the other cities, meaning she had a few familiar faces to visit from time to time, but it wasn’t the same…not by a long shot.

Haley had been told to expect this, and that it was common. Back in the old days most people didn’t even have 99 siblings. They had one or two biological ones, at most, which she couldn’t comprehend. The other 99 in her orisect had been her closest confidants and friends, with them, more often than not, helping each other out with the tasks the trainers demanded of them, working towards this day when they would finally graduate and be free to chart their own life.

But now that she was here, she realized that freedom sucked. Some of the others remaining in the Ceres colony, which was actually a conglomeration of 19 huge cities wrapped around the low grav world, had requested quarters transfers so they could be next to one another, with those occurring as spaces were available, but Haley hadn’t gone in for that, knowing that it was going to be clinging onto something that was now lost. She’d graduated, she’d completed the quest that they’d been working so hard on since they were born. Now it was time to move on, for there was no going back.

Some of her brothers and sisters were moving on to advanced maturia training, meaning they were still housed in the maturia. Haley hadn’t considered that, because just getting through the primary training had taken all the effort and skill she had…and the thought about voluntarily going into even harder challenges was downright stupid. She’d done what was required of her, and was better for it, but the loss of camaraderie was more than she’d guessed it could be, leaving her feeling hollow inside and adrift.

But now she had a new purpose, which was what she was packing for and saying her goodbyes. Haley wanted to get the easy ones over with first, which were her biological parents. They’d chosen to remain in contact with her in the maturia, meaning they were able to monitor her progression, review her scores and achievements…and not all parents did. Being raised in a maturia, as they both knew for they had also been raised in one, as virtually everyone was nowadays, though some regions on Earth  still operated under hybrid systems, meant no contact with her biological parents up until she had achieved a certain benchmark in her training, which Haley had attained at age 7.

When that occurred she was given the option of learning who her parents were, or not. Haley had wanted to know and had been given information on them. After another benchmark had been attained two years later she had been allowed to communicate with them if they also agreed, and they had. Since then they’d kept in touch irregularly, for the amount of contact was limited so as not to interfere with her training. She’d met them several years later and had liked them both, but her father more so. A lot more, but he was still a stranger compared to her brothers and sisters, and saying goodbye was really just a ‘hey, I’m leaving’ FYI, while talking to her family that was still around had got her choked up on more than one occasion.

She still had 17 more of them to meet with over the next few days, but after that it was time for her to start the next chapter in her life. There were many options for pure citizens, and even more for those who had scores gaining them access to the Star Force network…but those required the advanced training in the maturia. She could always go back and do it later, but she knew she wouldn’t. She’d had her fill of training.

Which meant she wasn’t going to work for Star Force, on any level, but there were a huge number of other jobs out there if she was interested in earning credits, but in truth she wasn’t. She had a small set of quarters to herself, a clothing and small item allowance that amounted to as much stuff as she wanted, within reason. It was said that some people tried to hoard items or use them for raw materials to construct others, which was why there were limits, but so far she hadn’t hit any of them.

She’d gone to one of the Star Force clothing stores the day after she graduated, wanting to see what new varieties she could incorporate into her wardrobe…now that she could have one. Maturia uniforms were all pretty much the same, but the civilian line of clothing was much more diverse.

She’d come back to her quarters with several boxes full, each of which deducted from her allowance account that would refill gradually, but that was really not an issue so long as she wasn’t going nuts grabbing everything off the shelves that she saw…and right now it looked like she was going to have a hard time fitting it all into the four bags she was packing, meaning she might have to throw out some of it.

Haley knew she’d get more where she was going, so she mentally prepared herself for a trip over to the recycling station tomorrow, but was still adamant about squeezing every bit into her bags that she could, along with a host of personal items that she’d never had access to in the maturia, her favorite of which was hair color. She’d been changing it up each morning, washing the gel into her hair and letting it set for a few minutes in the shower, then rinsing it out and…poof, new color. Today she had gone with a faded green, and figured she’d settle on one eventually, but right now she was a kid in a candy store trying every little thing she saw, including all 283 different color/tint varieties.

So those bottles were a must pack, along with the makeup that she was trying out. Right now she had a claw-like pattern on her left cheek, which she’d noticed was popular amongst the Ceres crowd. Maturia rules didn’t allow for such luxuries, so it was a learning experience for her, and she was dabbling in it even if she didn’t like most of the looks she was seeing in public.

One thing she hadn’t gone in for was the dating scene, which had also become instantly available upon graduation. Apparently newly graduated individuals like herself were highly sought after, and despite not having logged into the network she’d received over 100 messages from guys in the colony who’d located her somehow. A few of them she’d met as neighbors, but she wasn’t interested in getting into a romantic relationship, on any level, especially when she knew she’d be leaving soon.

Her parents weren’t together anymore either, having completed a 5-year residential coupling then deciding not to renew. That was longer than most chose to hook up, she’d learned, but after a while they’d just grown tired of each other. They’d both fulfilled the agreement and stayed together until the coupling period ended, then they went back to living in individual quarters and leading mostly separate lives, though they’d said they still interacted with each other occasionally, given that they both lived in the same city and were close friends.

Her father had chosen to stay solo, but her mother was currently in a 6 month exclusivity coupling, meaning that she and her boyfriend agreed not to screw anyone else until it expired. Most people held to the agreements, though there were some ‘cheaters’ that did not, as her mother had explained to her in one of their chats. All the ‘coupling’ protocols were voluntary, with the relationship network set up to facilitate the interactions with a measure of organization and clarity, but without enforcing anything.

Her current boyfriend wasn’t to the ‘live with’ stage yet, and she admitted he probably never would be, but she expected them to renew another 6 month stint when this one expired in three weeks. She had talked long on the subject of dating, too much so for Haley’s liking after getting her initial perspective, for while the maturia training had informed them of such things, there was no relationship network inside for them to utilize.

Some of them had hooked up unofficially, but that had always been an extra thing. Their training took priority and left them with little free time. They all had individual quarters and lockdowns in place when they were younger, so their sexual explorations couldn’t occur until later…until the official training began. If they chose, they’d be assigned their pick of volunteer trainers to mate with in order to ‘show them the ropes’ and Haley had nervously agreed. After that she’d hooked up with a few of her brothers and sisters, but that got old quick, and to be honest none of them were as good at it as the trainer had been…but then again he probably had a lot more practice.

Haley hadn’t been with anybody in years and wasn’t planning to anytime soon. Nor was she looking for any of the other bonding protocols that Star Force organized. The couplings were all sexual oriented, ranging from casual kissing to full-on baby making, depending on the level you chose, while the ‘companions’ ranged from hangout buddies to roommates of either gender. Usually co-habitation companions were older individuals who had obtained larger quarters than what Haley and the others had starting out, either by purchasing them with credits or earning them through Star Force or colony service, because the standard quarters were quite the crunch when you tried to squeeze two inside.

More often than not you’d have two, three, four or more people that were working jobs and earning credits pool their funds and rent a huge set of quarters, both for the extra living space and to have someone to go through daily life with, much as they’d had in the maturia. Companions also had different levels with varying timespans, none of which exceeded five years, which was the maximum for all relationship programs.

There were four divisions in the relationship network. Coupling, companions, partners, and adversaries. Partners was strictly for workouts, usually with someone on a similar ability level that would agree to meet up at a certain time of day and act as both motivation and workout checker as the two or more partners would, again, go through their workouts like they once had in the maturia. Solo workouts were common throughout the Ceres colony, but more often than not you’d see pairs and quartets out running because it was easier to get the work in if someone else was expecting you…whereas if you were going it alone it was all that much easier just to sleep in and forget about it.

Adversaries were the funnest relationship, by far, but also the fewest. They’d had some experience with these in the maturia as well, where one person was paired with each other for a week, during which they had to point out every flaw and mistake the other made in ridiculing fashion. Exaggerations were allowed, but there always had to be a kernel of truth to what you were saying or there was no point…for adversaries were meant to make you better by meanly pointing out things that polite people would never say.

During her experience in the maturia it had gotten particularly nasty the first day, but by the end of the second it had turned into a competition to see who could come up with the best insults, with no holds barred. The dose of harsh honesty it provided had been cathartic, and apparently Star Force had felt it important enough to incorporate into the colonial relationship network.

Haley didn’t hear it much, but every now and then she’d walk by two people strolling through the colony calmly chewing each other out in what was usually hilarious fashion. She tried not to laugh when she passed them, but sometimes she couldn’t contain at least a smirk. Adversaries were simply too much fun, though not something you’d want to last forever. Also, she’d noticed quite a few in the training areas, railing on each other as they pressed their limits, though those exchanges tended to be more yelling and aggressive than calm and humorous.

But none of that mattered now, because where she was going there wouldn’t be any relationship network. All such things were local, with Ceres having its own network, Mars its own, etc. The colony that Haley was leaving for wasn’t even finished, barely 5 years into construction and containing only one city…one populated by numerous races, with very few Humans not in Star Force’s employ.

Haley had figured that if she was going to leave the maturia life behind, she might as well go for one as distant from it as possible, and living with a bunch of non-Humans seemed to qualify in that regard. The colony was part of the new Alliance Xeno Interstellar Unified Sanctuary thingamabob that Star Force had recently created, known better by the acronym AXIUS to Haley and the others that had responded to calls for Human colonists.

She’d been surprised when the requirements were so low, or in this case nonexistent as far as skill benchmarks were concerned. The main thing the recruitment office wanted was people willing to live side by side with nonhumans in a communal colony that would be created from the ground up, meaning that she’d be one of the first ones there and would have to do absolutely nothing. She wasn’t required to work, or train, or nada. It was a Star Force colony like Ceres, except there wouldn’t be very many Humans there.

That interested her, and gave her something exciting to look forward to as she made her final round of goodbyes in the days to come, with many tears shed as she put the finishing touches on her previous life before heading to the spaceport with four heavy bags in tow, ready to set out on an adventure, being one of the first Axius colonists…and in Star Force, with so much history and protocol firmly established, being the first to do anything was exceedingly rare, and for someone like her nearly impossible, given her lack of skills.

Once her bags were loaded onto a dropship and her into the passenger section she left the thin atmosphere of Ceres for the first time, looking down on the tiny planet and feeling a mix of loneliness and the thrill of exploration as she made her way up to the waiting jumpship. Once onboard she felt very much at home, for the interior of the massive vessel looked and felt like a Star Force colony, only given entirely new faces.

A few days later and the jumpship left the system headed for Sirius, and from there Haley would make several changeovers as she worked her way through the Star Force transportation network out to Zeta Region and arrive at the planet Zastdan, which would shortly become her new home.

4

June 4, 2521

Leil System (Zeta Region)

Zastdan

As soon as Haley stepped off the dropship she felt as if she were in a truly alien place. The spaceport was built with telltale Star Force infrastructure, but the sizing and decoration was different. The first doorway she walked through along with the other Humans coming off the dropship was way over her head, making her feel like a midget. And unlike the normal whites and greys that predominated Star Force infrastructure, these hallways were a mix of grey and red.

She knew Clan colonies had different color schemes, but it still shocked her to see it, after living her entire life with one motif, so she walked through the security checkpoint far more nervous than she had anticipated, passing under the scanning arch and having it confirm her identity and credentials, allowing her access to the colony. From there she was shunted off into a smaller, yet still oversized hallway that took her away from the main traffic flow, all of which were Humans in Star Force uniforms.

Haley and a few others were escorted into a briefing room, whereupon they sat for the next 3 hours going through indoctrination lessons familiarizing them with the colony layout and protocols, after which she was given her quarters’ access code and her luggage…leaving her a full and free Axius citizen without any further fuss.

When she walked out of the processing area dragging her stack of luggage she gulped, both at the nearly empty promenade as well as the fact that the few people roaming about were not Human. This was her first time ever seeing any in person, and it was quite overwhelming…but she tried not to stare and walked out into the open, dragging her belongings on nearly silent wheels and heading through the nearly deserted city.

They’d told her it was a startup colony and that she would be one of the first citizens, but she hadn’t thought it would be this empty. Haley was used to crowded streets, making these feel ghastly huge since they were extra wide. The ceiling top was normal, given that it stood several stories and gave the potted trees plenty of room to expand upwards, but seeing all manner of creatures roaming around immediately gave her the creeps.

She saw a cat, a glowing man, a no-armed tripod, lots of quadrupeds that she couldn’t describe if she’d wanted to, and a host of bipeds that made her feel like she was in a costume party and very underdressed. It took her seven minutes of walking before she even spotted another Human not in a Star Force uniform, with him seeing her as well and waving her down as he crossed over the median to her side of the street that was bracketed by numerous kiosks, most of which were still without vendors.

“Hello,” he said, smiling beneath a mat of thin, brown hair. “My name is Arron. You look new here.”

“How could you tell?” Haley asked, gesturing to her luggage with a sigh of relief.

“Need a guide?”

“Sure, if you’re not busy?”

Arron waved her off. “Nothing that can’t wait. Where you headed?”

“EC203.”

“You’re heading in the wrong direction for that.”

“I wanted to stick to the main routes until I got used to the layout. Name’s Haley.”

“Well no need for that with me here, Haley. We can cut through up ahead on the right.”

“Lead on,” she said, with the slightly shorter man smiling as they fell into step beside one another…something that was usually hard to do in crowds, but was remarkably easy here, given the lack of people.

“What time of day is it?”

“Everything here is internal, so there’s no cycle to worry about. It’s 14:03 and everyone seems to be on their own unique sleep patterns, so there isn’t a morning or evening that I’ve found yet. Here, take this turn.”

“How long have you been here?” Haley asked, rounding a corner and coming into a narrower walkway, but one that still had a high ceiling that a Calavari would have had trouble jumping up and touching.

“A little over a year now.”

“Wow. And I thought things looked deserted now.”

“No, no…there are plenty of people here. Star Force just builds fast, and instead of cramming us all into one little section they’re spreading us out and letting the gaps fill in over time. You probably won’t have too many neighbors in your quarters block for a while.”

“How many Humans are here?”

“Quite a few, if you know where to look.”

“That aren’t Star Force.”

Arron smiled. “Well, now there’s the kicker. I know of 52 personally, not counting the new arrivals such as yourself.”

“52?! How many people are in the colony?”

“Upwards of 10,000, last I heard.”

Haley whistled.

“Not many, I know, but I think that’s the point. I’ve developed some non-Human friends and from what I hear, each of them had to go through some pretty intense training just to get colony slots. They all know English, but most aren’t very good at it until they’ve spent some time here and get used to the various dialects. You’ll probably get some attention just because they want to practice dialog with someone who speaks it as their native language.”

“Trade language as backup?”

“Yes, but all the media is in English. It was difficult at first, but the community has adjusted somewhat.”

“What have you been up to the past year?” Haley asked as Arron pointed her down another walkway, with this one leading to a wavy path through an interior park.

“I’m a writer, so I just bum around from place to place, getting ideas or keeping up on current events…meeting new people.”

“What kind of writing?”

“Fiction. Mostly romance, but I do chime in on the news nets every now and then. People back home want to know what Axius is all about, so I do a bit of correspondent work for Jasper. What are your long hours here going to occupy you with?”

“I just graduated from my maturia and I haven’t a clue,” she said with a laugh. “Felt like having an adventure.”

“Well you’ve certainly come to the right place…though after a while you’ll get to see that all the ‘wildlife’ are still just people. Strange, odd, and sometimes crazy people, but people just the same. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Just got out of indoctrination. Three hours of indoctrination.”

“What do you say I take you around for a tour and a bite to eat after we get you to your quarters?”

“Am I to assume there’s more to that request…coming from a Romance novelist?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Arron held up his hands in innocence. “Not today. Newbie rule is in effect. You get at least a week before I start hitting on you.”

“I think that qualifies,” she said with a smirk.

“Just a friendly offer. There’s no dating scene here, at all, so us few Humans try to stick together as much as we can, help each other out, and so on.”

“Promise me I won’t end up in one of your books…”

“I promise.”

“Alright then, friend, let me dump my overpacked cargo off and you can show me around as much as you like…with my thanks.”

“My pleasure, Haley. Think nothing of it.”

“Ok, wasn’t expecting this,” she said as they both walked into the cafeteria and saw the wide variety of foods. There were stations with universal foodstuffs, much like Star Force colonies usually served, but then some of the stuff Haley ate was located in another section. It had various tags on a banner overtop, made up of icons she didn’t recognize other than them having been mentioned in indoctrination as being warning labels. Sometime during that part of the lecture she’d started daydreaming, and she didn’t have any idea what they meant.

“Expecting what?”

“What do all these thingamabobs mean?”

“The labels?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you see the black one that means Humans can’t eat it without getting sick. Same goes for the Protovic, Densan, and some others. The other labels are things that we can eat but other races can’t, so you don’t look for an ‘ok’ label, you look for one that says ‘not for you’…which in this case is just that one section,” Arron said, pointing to their left.

“So we can eat any of the others?”

“Well, if by ‘eat’ you mean digest, then yes, but I don’t think you’ll like the taste. Various races have various tastes, and in fact that’s one of the biggest complaints going around,” Arron said as he picked up a plain roll and put it on his plate next to a glopping of golden macaroni. “A lot of people don’t like the Star Force food at first.”

“Or ever,” a Critel said from ahead of them in the loose line that had formed along the various foodstuff displays.

“What’s wrong with it?” Haley asked, staring up at the gangly alien and its X-shaped lips.

“It’s not food,” he said in perfect English, but with an accent she had never heard before. “It’s nutritional supplements. No sauces, no meat, no smokes. It’s edible, but beyond that I wouldn’t call it food.”

Haley glanced at the station the Critel was pulling a variety of items from, and to her eyes it all looked like normal foodstuffs, just a different variety from what she ate. The mashed potatoes they had were red, the rolls and other baked goods were the same as hers, as far as she could see, and there were small pockets that contained who knew what inside. It looked alright to her, but then again she didn’t know what Critel usually ate.

“You eat meat?”

“Used to before coming here,” he said with some disgust. “But some sacrifices had to be made.”

“Excuse me,” Arron interrupted. “Smokes?”

“Is that not the right word? Things you breathe in. Inhalants,” he said, switching to the trade language.

“We don’t breathe in food,” Arron said, intrigued.

“Well that certainly explains a few things,” the Critel said, adding a blue-tinted pocket to his plate. “I still don’t see why we have to eat Human-style food when most of the population here isn’t Human.”

“What was that about sacrifices?” Haley asked.

“I don’t know what got you here, being Human and all, but the rest of us had to make a lot of changes to be allowed to live here.”

“And why do you want to live here?” Arron said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Not for the food, that’s for sure,” the Critel said, adding one last item to his plate before giving the two Humans his full attention.

“Then why?” Haley wondered.

“One thing that Star Force knows how to do is business. I’m here to make credits.”

“And why can’t you do that outside of Axius?” Arron asked, hoping to get a line on another story.

“I can and have, but Axius is special. The rules don’t permit visitors, at least not yet. Not sure if that will change, but there’s also an embargo on outside goods. Nothing comes in except through Star Force, meaning everyone here has to buy from them or local vendors,” he said, tapping himself on the chest.

“A fresh market?”

“An unreachable market for my competition. Trouble is I have to rebuild everything here from scratch using a local workforce and supplies purchased from Star Force, but once I overcome those hurdles I’ll have dozens, if not hundreds of stores up and running, enough to make me rich enough to tolerate this food.”

“Why not make your own?” Haley asked.

“I’m not that kind of vendor, and most of the ingredients I’d need aren’t available here anyway. Most native foodstuffs require either meat, milk, eggs, or sperm…none of which Star Force will allow. Some races agree with them on part or all counts, but the Critel do not. As it is, I doubt I could do much better than what they serve here for free.”

“Sperm?” Haley asked, wondering if she’d heard right.

“Andolosian sperm is a very expensive seasoning.”

“Oh gross,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth. She’d never seen meat, and while that idea turned her stomach a bit she had smelled sperm, hence the ideas coming to mind of what it would taste like on her food.

“Seasoning?” Arron asked.

“Additions made to food. Similar to your icing paste, but in granulated form. With the consumer allowed to make whatever additions they want. That’s something Star Force is missing as well.”

Arron glanced back at the section that held pastries and the small bottles of icing that could be added on top, each of which held various nutrients and was color coded to know what you were getting. He’d always known it as simply ‘icing,’ with the word ‘seasoning’ not ringing a bell, making him wonder if the Critel had gotten the wrong word. His own knowledge of the trade language was limited, which was why he didn’t inquire further.

“What do you sell?” Haley asked as she stepped aside to let a short, rabbit-like creature move past, whereupon it climbed a mini staircase to get up to the platform that she’d just been sitting her tray on so that it could retrieve a stack of cookies on its own miniature version that was barely the size of her palm.

“A variety of things that Star Force doesn’t care to produce, mostly imitations of products unique to the various races. Things that they already know and use but can’t get here. Clothing, decorative pieces, grooming tools, knickknacks, custom electrons, software, games…whatever there’s a demand for. But all of which can be sold in package form, whereas foodstuffs would have to be served in store and fresh. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Interesting,” Arron commented as Haley started to geek out over how cute the little Urik’kadel was. “How many stores do you have at present?”

“None as of yet, but I’m renting three fabrication slots using the credits I brought with me. Star Force operates with a very low overhead. They barely charge anything on their leases, and there are no taxes whatsoever, with the promise that there will never be. I found that hard to believe until I investigated their other economic activities, but it seems they are very shrewd operators. How they manage a profit is a mystery I have yet to unlock, but with the vast amount of slots available, I’m going to sweep up as many as I can. Problem is the limited and unskilled workforce. I have found three employees thus far, and am in need of far more. I don’t suppose either of you have skills I could use?”

“I’m a writer and currently engaged with my own projects, but thank you for asking.”

The Critel looked down at Haley, who had finally turned her attention back to the conversation after the tiny alien had left with its plate full of cookies. “And you?”

“I’m new here, today actually. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, if anything.”

“That’s another interesting facet of the Axius colonies,” the Critel mewed. “Everywhere else that I’ve ever been or heard of, an individual has to work for themselves or a collective in order to survive. The fact that Star Force is welcoming in individuals to this colony without compensation and is willing to house, feed, and otherwise sustain them indefinitely  is a very odd occurrence…but one that I think will serve my business interests. I won’t have to worry about the welfare of my workers and can offer up as small of salaries as I like, so long as I can entice them to work for me. That will keep costs low, assuming that boredom and greed set in with the populace.”

“Greed?”

“Star Force may be odd, but I’ve found that they are not stupid. They give everyone what they need to survive and live well off of, as far as necessities are concerned, but they do not hand out luxuries. The want of more without the need of it is the essence of ‘greed’ and is what will drive the economy here. It’s a much more sanitized environment than I’ve traditionally worked in, and will present new challenges…but where there are challenges there is opportunity…and where there is opportunity there are credits to be made. So I will ask again, Human, do you have any skills that would be useful in my employ? Surely you have something of value, or you would not have been granted a place in this colony?”

“I’ve been through maturia training, but that’s it.”

“And what does that entail? As of yet this colony doesn’t have a maturia, but it will when the denizens begin to reproduce in sufficient numbers, I’m told. Are all Humans taken into this maturia?” he asked, looking at Arron.

“There are a few exceptions, but I’d say 99% are.”

“And what happens in one?”

Haley and Arron exchanged glances. “Well, it’s really a bit of everything,” he finally said. “Physical training, linguistics, math, science, history, games, fabrication, design…it pretty much gives you a base level of knowledge in everything, then once you graduate you can choose whether you move on to more advanced training or leave to join the general population.”

“As I just did,” Haley added.

“Do you speak the trade language?” the Critel asked.

“A bit,” she answered pithily.

“Would you care to earn a few credits?”

“Doing what?”

“I do not know, but having someone with a wide variety of skills will undoubtedly become useful as I build my corporation.”

Haley shrugged. “I’m not sure what to say. I just got here.”

“Take your time, Human. I am not in a rush. I have many people to recruit, it is true, but the bulk of my customers are not even here yet, so there is time. If you find yourself interested, seek me out. My name is Kasdema, and I have an administrative office in section 18. One of only a handful there, so I will not be hard to find. Between 02:00 and 06:00 every day.”

“That’s normally when I sleep,” she said offhand.

“Sleep cycles in this colony seem to be all over the chart, none the less, if you are interested I’m certain I could find a place for you in any timeslot. Good day, Humans,” he said politely, turning and walking off with his tray towards one of the more private tables in the pavilion-like lounge that made up the bulk of the cafeteria.

“First day here and offered a job?” Arron commented. “You certainly seem to be on the fast track.”

“Not sure I want one.”

“Could get you a bigger set of quarters.”

Haley considered that, never having had more than a small pod-like room to herself, with the ones here nearly identical to the ones on Ceres.

“I don’t know. Eat now, think later,” she said with a smile a she stepped over and grabbed a few cold carrot slices to add to her plate before the pair found themselves a table and proceeded to talk about a great many things.

5

June 21, 2521

Leil System (Zeta Region)

Zastdan

Cor’san and his fellow Scionate walked off their own transport, wearing their equipment satchels on their backs, as they met their welcoming committee…a Human ranger, the third tier of the Archons within Star Force’s military. He had been standing in his green armor on the edge of the landing pad when the Scionate transport landed and hadn’t moved since, with the 14 volunteers walking over to his position…all without their standard armor, for they’d been told it wouldn’t be used.

As soon as the Scionate departed the transport left, heading back up to a Star Force jumpship in orbit that had brought it and a few other non-Star Force vessels into the system as part of the ADZ transit network. While Cor’san knew that was strategic folly, many of the lesser races were utilizing the service that Star Force was beginning to provide in increasing numbers and focusing their resources on building smaller ships and infrastructure. That would only work so long as the Alliance defenses held out, and in truth would probably make better use of their lesser strength, though Cor’san and the other Scionate saw it as a mark of weakness.

Their transport had come through the ADZ network simply out of convenience. The Scionate had many jumpships, but for the purpose of transporting only 14 individuals it had been deemed a wasted trip, so they’d been shipped out via Star Force, though allowed to travel on their own vessel as a measure of pride…but from this point on everything would be Star Force, whether they liked it or not.

The Scionate volunteers walked up to the Archon, but he didn’t move or speak until all 14 of the quadrupeds were standing before him, with their heads coming up to his shoulder. There were many different sizes of Scionate, with all assembled here being the larger variety more suited to hand to hand combat, or in their case paws.

“Follow me,” the Archon said unceremoniously as he turned and led the group off the landing pad and into the spaceport. After a very short trip through security they were taken on a long walk through the colony, seeing dozens of different races inhabiting it, much as they’d been told would be the case.

Without a word, the Archon took them to their quarters, which were spread out in three different sections and each on different floors. Cor’san felt that was probably deliberate, but it didn’t matter. He was just glad that proper facilities had been built to accommodate Scionate, for the needs of quadrupeds differed greatly from those of the biped designers of the colony.

One by one they were given their quarters, allowed to drop off their satchels, and given a half hour to acclimate themselves. Cor’san was 5th in line, being left alone to inspect his small den. There was a single entry door, inside of which were two levels. The bottom level held a small secondary restroom and cleansing chamber with a door that opened into the small open area that contained a vid screen and cushioned reclining pedestal. Opposite the restroom door was a Scionate ladder climbing the right side wall, leading up to the second level of the den.

The ladder was a mix between rungs and stairs in a circular fashion that had his body wrapping around the central pole as he climbed…except there was no pole. Star Force had reworked their stairs to not include it, and Cor’san found it odd, but functional as he climbed up and slid into the low ceilinged top level.

It was dark until he pressed a paw against a panel on the wall, low to the floor, that turned on a series of amber light strips on the walls that revealed the shallow sleeping pit that Scionate favored. He examined the temperature controls, seeing that they were in English but otherwise structured in Scionate fashion, and set the device to his preferred setting so that it would be appropriately warm when he returned later.

Cor’san headed back down to the lower level and opened up the storage bins built into the walls and ceiling, seeing a satisfactory amount of volume despite the compact nature of the quarters. He didn’t bother unpacking, for he knew he had to rendezvous with the others shortly, so after a quick stop in the restroom and a reset to his quarters’ security code he headed out into the very large hallway and moved down to the intersection, following the route the Archon had instructed him to take.

Passing few others in the residential section, he met up with the other Scionate and waited for the last of them to arrive while the Archon stood passive once again. As soon as the last of them caught up they moved off through the unfamiliar geography of the colony to a training center where the group had exclusive access to a large chamber with nothing inside it except for padded walls and floor…and a control panel on the wall.

“I was told you all speak English,” the Archon began. “Is this true?”

“We speak your tongue,” one of the Scionate said, with Cor’san and the others having to have spent more than a year to grasp the basics of it…but it had been required prior to entry, which was one reason why there were so few volunteers. Others had been willing, but balked when they heard the traditional trade language would not be used, not wanting to learn a third tongue.

“How well remains the question, but you will learn in time. If there is something I say that you do not understand, it is best if you ask for clarification,” he said, removing his helmet and tossing it to the side. “First things first. You’re here to learn how to fight properly. That I will teach you, but I want to know why you are here and not in your own military. You first,” he said, pointing a finger at Cor’san.

“We are part of the Scionate military,” he said with a low growl, “but our worlds are not under assault and our leaders will not deploy us to the war zones. They want us as a defensive force. I want to fight our enemy before he gets to Scionate worlds. The same is true of all of us here.”

The Archon looked around as he continued to disconnect and peel off his armor. “Good. Now on to step two. You don’t think there’s all that much we can teach you,” he said, picking up on their thoughts, “and the training you’ll go through here is an annoyance that you’re willing to put up with in exchange for a chance to fight. Time to end that nonsense.”

The Archon stepped out of his boots and collapsed his armor down into a small wad that he then attached the helmet to, setting it aside underneath the control panel as he input the scenario he wanted. Suddenly wall compartments opened up and large objects came out, startling the Scionate as they floated into various positions, setting up 22 vertical pillars in a wide circle with plenty of space in between them.

“Your objective is simple,” the Archon said as he walked towards the arrangement. “Throw me outside the pillars. Organize yourselves and devote as many of you as you think it will take. Injuries are not the objective in our training, nor will they ever be. Your objective is to move me, my objective is to stay inside. Am I clear?”

“What is ‘clear?’” one of the Scionate asked.

“In this context it means ‘do you fully understand me.’”

“We understand.”

“Good. Once I reach center you may begin.”

Cor’san and the others exchanged glances. Despite their reputation, the Archons were puny. This one massed less than half of what they did, and while well-muscled, it didn’t look like it would require more than two of them to remove, giving the Human the benefit of the doubt. To that end one of the others stepped forward alone and dropped into a reduced height stance as it crept forward into the circle as the Archon made it to center and turned around, starting to move a bit in response to Hra’ton’s approach.

The Scionate began with a simple jump lunge, reaching up into the air and coming down on the Archon with his front paws…but the Human deftly moved to the side and the Scionate missed cleanly. They both reset, getting a couple of meters between them, then Hra’ton jumped at him again, this time without the arc up.

With almost a comedic grace, the Archon reached out and placed a hand on his head, pushing it down as the Human rolled across the Scionate’s back and stepped off behind him…again avoiding the attack.

“You are quick, Human,” Hra’ton said as he turned around.

“It will take more than one of you to have a chance of moving me,” the Archon taunted. “Far more than one.”

“We will see,” the Scionate said, upping his game and coming at the Archon with a serious attempt, combining several movements that were meant to disguise his true angle. He nearly got hold of the Archon’s arm in his mouth, going for a hold rather than a bite, but the Archon slipped aside at the last moment, causing him to miss.

Then the next thing he knew he had a foot in his side and he was flipping over through the air as the Archon bodily threw him across the circle. Hra’ton flipped over midair and fell onto all fours, looking back at the Human and wondering how he had the strength to lift him.

“Come on, guys. This isn’t even hard,” the Archon said, waving the others forward.

Cor’san stepped up next to Hra’ton and the pair exchanged a few words in their native language. From there they split and got on either side of the Archon before moving towards him in a flash of motion. Cor’san swiped his front left paw at the Human’s thick leg while Hra’ton jumped to his head as a distraction. Cor’san got a light grip on the leg, then felt it go limp as the Archon moved it in the direction he was swiping.

Then his paw got pinned under the Human as it dropped down to the ground, causing Hra’ton to fly over his body and land next to Cor’san, missing him by a few inches…but the Archon held onto his paw and reached forward, getting an arm around his neck. Suddenly Cor’san was yanked to the side…then the Archon vanished.

Out of view the Human passed over Cor’san’s back and jumpkicked into Hra’ton’s side, knocking him down as the Human backed out from the two as they quickly recovered and got to their feet.

“I could do this all day,” the Archon mocked, “but for your sake let’s skip to the end. All of you come at me at once. You need to know how powerful I am.”

The Human waved at the others with both arms. “Come on, get in here. I’m serious.”

“You are quick, Human,” Hra’ton said, “but we won’t need all of us.”

“You won’t be able to with all of you,” the Archon responded. “But I need all of you in here and trying to prove a point.”

“As you wish,” Cor’san said, gesturing to the others just before he ran towards the Archon again. This time the Human didn’t move, and the two bodily met each other. Paws and fists flew, but Cor’san found himself without breath as the Archon palm-punched into his ribs several times. He got in at least one good swat, claws withheld, and knocked the Human aside just before he felt himself get tripped and go down.

By the time he got back up he saw the Human in the midst of the others, hitting them in very deliberate and odd ways. Most bipeds used their fists as weapons, but this one didn’t. He most certainly used his arms, but it was the side of his hands, his forearms and elbows, shoulders, head…he was using just about everything but his fists and knocking down the Scionate left and right.

That shot a bolt of adrenaline into the pack, and they no longer held back, feeling the light stings of his hits. They didn’t go for claws or bites, but they were going to knock him down and out of the circle without the restriction they had been planning on using. With that energy surging through them they started circling and lunging in coordination with one another, starting to make hits while being taken down time and again, then just as it seemed they were about to get the upper hand Cor’san’s head went dizzy and he fell.

He shook it off a moment later, only to stand up and have it happen again. His body seemed to betray him and he toppled over, smashing his muzzle into the lightly padded floor.

When it stopped he lifted his face up, but didn’t try to attack…which was when he noticed the others in the same position, all on the floor looking up at the Archon in the center.

“I love that look,” a voice said from outside the ring as another Scionate approached, this one wearing a distinctly Star Force uniform. “But they didn’t do poorly.”

“No they didn’t,” the Archon agreed as the other Scionate walked inside the circle.

“I am Ske’ro’ta,” the slightly smaller Scionate said, using a three syllable name that shocked Cor’san and the others almost as much as their mysterious ailment. “I am a Star Force Scionate, born amongst your previous worlds and unwanted, then given to them as an orphan. I spent my previous few years of life on a Nexus world, learning their ways and becoming one of them. Like you I want to fight our common enemy, but here you will not be able to maintain your previous identity. While you may keep your names, everything else has to change.”

“What you just witnessed,” Ske’ro’ta continued as he paced around the perimeter of the others, who remained sitting or standing as they listened, still wide-eyed, “is a secret known to only a few. The power of the Archons is not a myth. They are far stronger than even the rumors say, and as you felt first hand, they have special abilities. Not all Humans do, and the younger Archons don’t attain them until later on in their development, but what just happened to you, after getting your asses kicked in hand to hand, was a disruptive energy field that causes your nervous systems to malfunction, equivalent to white static in technological combat.”

“He generates it biologically, and as you have already noticed, it gives him a significant combat advantage. Do not underestimate their power, skill, or drive. They are your superiors, and from them you can learn much, but if you are to become a part of Axius then you must willingly become part of Star Force, because they are one and the same. The Alliance Defense Force is not a cooperation between the races, we are a single entity and you must join us. I will admit it is far easier for me and the other orphans. We were unwanted and discarded, but we have been trained from birth, and as such we have a head start on you.”

“It is true we have not seen combat, I will grant you that, but there is much we will help you learn and you will help us. But above all, we learn from him,” the Scionate said, gesturing towards the Archon with a flip of his head. “He is your master now. Treat him with respect, for he possesses powers that our enemies cannot contend with, nor can we. They will protect the ADZ, and perhaps even defeat the lizards in time…yes, that’s what we call the Cajdital here. But there are too few Archons to fight alone. Their numbers will never rise high enough, for they are the elite of their race. It is up to us and others to fight alongside them. They lead, we follow, and together we will prevail.”

“You will be the first ADF Scionate in this colony, but there will be more to come in time. We will learn to work with other races, combining their strengths with our own and covering for their weaknesses, as they will cover for ours. How this will all work out is unknown, for we are building the ADF at present. What it will eventually become is uncertain, but you can be assured that if we contribute what we are able, they will find a way to make the most use of us.”

Ske’ro’ta bowed his head to the Archon respectfully, then kicked one of the other Scionate that was still lying on the ground. “Get up. This is not a time for rest.”

“No, it is not,” the Archon agreed, letting his guard down as he sensed the Scionate were no longer eyeing him for a takedown. “We are all warriors here, so let us dispense with the civilities that many races have when dealing with others, Scionate included. You came here to fight, and you will, but first we must build an army. You are among the first. The example you lay down, others will follow, just as you will learn from Ske’ro’ta. Others will hear of what you do here and more volunteers will come. Younglings will be born in this colony and join. More Nexus individuals will come to us. All will remake themselves into ADF troops…or they won’t.”

“You will combine with us or go a separate way. If you want to remain Scionate military, then the Scionate military is where you belong…not here. When I give orders they are to be obeyed, not because they are orders, but because I know better than you. Compliance isn’t about position, it’s about wisdom and who is right. As we build the ADF, if you have suggestions then speak them. If you spot problems, speak them. This is a team effort, and while you have much to learn, you are quadrupeds. I am a biped. There are things you will know that I will not. We share, we learn, we rise together. Clear?”

“Is that why you didn’t want us to bring our armor?” one of the Scionate asked.

“You will receive new armor,” Ske’ro’ta answered. “Better armor, when you have earned it. ADF armor.”

“How did you do that to us?” Cor’san asked the Archon.

“Which part?” he asked, knowing what he meant, but he needed to teach them to be specific.

“The part where I lost control of my body and fell.”

The Archon nodded. “It is called Fornax. I can direct it against a single individual or release it in a limited radius to affect all that are near. My strength is limited, so I cannot hold the effect for long, but I can repeat it numerous times. Would you like another demonstration?”

“Yes,” another Scionate said, standing to his full height.

“Ready yourself,” the Archon warned. “I will hit you with a weakened version. If you focus you should be able to remain standing.”

The Scionate clenched up. “I am ready.”

The Archon stared at the cat-like alien and held the gaze…then it shook on all fours and collapsed to its knees, but fell no further.

“Good. You handled that well.”

“I do not like that,” the Scionate said.

“Nor do I,” the ranger admitted. “The others can do it to me as well, but I have learned how to minimize it. We face two very different enemies, three if you count the Nestafar. How we fight them has to be based on learning where we are weak and adapting. As unappealing as it is to be hit with a Fornax blast, I am rather used to it now, and when sparring with another Archon it is simply one means of attack out of many. We learn, we advance. Those who do not learn, will lose, and I will beat that lesson into you if I must.”

“What other powers do you possess?” Cor’san asked.

The Archon smiled. “A few, but for today your lesson is over. Now it is time for you to teach me. This room can be configured into many arrangements, including obstacles courses. Scionate are supposed to be faster than Humans, and I like a challenge. Let’s compare your speed to mine, shall we?”

Ske’ro’ta ran off over to the wall and adjusted the control panel with a claw tip, sending the pillars back up into the air and bringing out a lot more of various sizes, all of which lowered to the ground save for where the others stood. Those pieces waited in the air for them to move aside to the start area, then they settled down into position.

“I will go first,” Ske’ro’ta said. “You will watch and learn, then you will go in groups of three. The computer will record your progress and times. The Archon will go in the fourth group along with two of you. For the sake of our race’s pride, you had better beat him.”

With that little barb Ske’ro’ta toed the start line and pressed the start button with his chin, which started a three tone countdown, after which he was off.

The Scionate lined up in groups of three, with the Archon settling into the fourth row, one spot ahead of Cor’san as they all watched their fellow Scionate so they knew how to move through the course, despite the fact that it was fairly obvious, after which the first trio went, with the others following and watching, attempting to beat each other’s times.

When the Archon went Cor’san was relieved to see that he couldn’t keep up with the Scionate on the running segments, though he did pull back a bit moving through some of the obstacles…and he did appear to be trying, for he was scurrying about in a blur, with his reflexes showing to be considerably better than theirs…but overall he was the slower, so when Cor’san took off he found his mind back on firm ground. The Human might be powerful…far more powerful than he could have imagined. Scarily so. But as he had said, each race had advantages and disadvantages. Running was theirs, and it felt good to be able to defeat him in this.

When Cor’san had arrived an hour ago, he had felt superior amongst the other races, then when he’d been taken down by the Archon’s invisible attack he’d felt inferior. Now he felt on equal standing, with the inkling that the coming days of training were going to be far more interesting than he and the others had expected. The idea of becoming ADF troops didn’t seem like a procedural hurdle anymore. It felt like a very powerful team he was joining, and with his pride kicking in he felt like adding to it where he was able…and that was a sentiment the others would share as well in the coming days.

6

December 1, 2521

Kentir System (Epsilon Region)

Pollus

Chitticki woke up to his alarm, a rhythmic booming that continued to get louder until it cut out, then it began to repeat again, soft at first, until he crawled out of his sleeping tube and hit the off button. The Irondel yawned and stretched out his four legs, curling his back up into a ball then twitching all his muscles loose, finding he was still sore from yesterday’s training.

He walked over to his vid screen and input a few commands onto his keyboard, bringing up the most recent statistics from the ongoing competition and finding a few changes having occurred over the past 10 hours as he slept. Beta regiment had notched up another pair of challenge victories, catching them up to within 6 points of Epsilon, which had the overall lead in their ADF training. Chitticki was a member of Alpha regiment, which was last out of the 5 groups, but not too far behind the others…and every month that passed brought them closer to their first level of graduation.

Which was what he was working towards. The competition was just extra motivation.

He flipped off the screen and moved into the small restroom in his quarters, relieving himself before crossing to the bathing chamber and giving himself a good roll in the dust basin before getting dressed. After he stepped into the air tube to remove the lingering dust, he pulled out a fresh uniform and slipped it on, then headed out the door and down the hallway tube in his quarters complex.

When he got to the main road the tube ended and the massive walkway opened up, rising some 30+ times his height as he ran off along one of the pathways, keeping to the side as a few of the large Urik’kadel passed, not wanting to get run over. They were big brutes, but much faster than the Irondel…and they tended to want to run everywhere, which was why Chitticki kept to the side to give them plenty of room, despite the fact that the road was wide enough for more than a dozen of them to stand side by side.

Chitticki fell in behind another Irondel, watching his neighbor move forward with the distinctive hop/lurch that they used when they wanted to cover distance without running. True walking was too slow in a colony of this size, with the Irondel being the smallest denizen…and the Humans being the largest. He didn’t see any of the giants out and about today, but then again they never came to these areas unless there was a problem, preferring to keep to their own quarters and the communal areas.

As Chitticki progressed through the colony he came down a level, preferring to use the stairs than wait on an elevator…which was also a matter of pride, given that he was part of the ADF rather than just a random citizen. When he got to the next level he scurried off across the street, dodging a Gnar in its envirosuit, and got to the far side where he followed a narrow strip of street meant specifically for the Irondel, so the larger races could avoid stepping on them.

That was no small threat, which was why usually the Irondel didn’t cohabitate with other races, but the Humans had designed this colony to service their integration and so far in the 3 years that it had been operational there hadn’t been a fatality, partly due to the fact that races larger than the Humans weren’t permitted to live on Pollus, just as Irondel weren’t permitted to live in other Axius colonies.

Chitticki hurried along, not fully running, and passed through a tunnel in the wall while the bigger denizens went through an archway. On the far side he took a shortcut through another wall, turning left and arriving at the cafeteria and running up a plank to get him up to food level. He grabbed a tray and set it on a conveyor, nudging it along in quadruped mode because he didn’t feel like carrying it. Irondel could move on two or four legs as they chose, but carrying the stupid plate made walking awkward, so he just moved it along and put on his breakfast ‘pebbles’ as the other denizens referred to them, given that the smaller races had to have special portions made for them.

Save for some things. The mashed potatoes he especially liked, and he scooped out a lop onto his tray from their basin. Going up and getting some out of the main one was doable, but the last thing he wanted was to fall into it as one of his friends had done a year ago after first arriving. They’d ridiculed him for that ever since, and Chitticki knew it had taken him days to get the food out of his fur. Irondel didn’t like water, for bathing anyway, and it’d taken numerous dust baths to get the potatoes out.

Knowing not to load himself up with too much, Chitticki finished his gathering and pushed his tray along to the end of the conveyor, then picked it up and transferred it to another one that he walked out to a series of tables. He pulled it off and sat on the soft floor, nibbling away his breakfast until he was finished. Afterwards he left for the training areas, meeting up with a few hundred other Irondel for some running laps.

Their track was 100 meters long, with multiple lanes and pacing holos. Chitticki used the control pedestals and activated one for himself in the 18th lane and got going, having to pass only two others also in his lane as his marker overtook theirs. As was traditional, he got a good, long workout in, making his 16 laps/mile in 12:42. Afterwards he pulled off to the side, thoroughly gassed but looking none the worse for it. Irondel didn’t sweat like other races did, instead using their fur as heat dissipaters with varying intensities.

He shook himself once, forcing the heat out his hairs like he was pushing water out a plethora of tiny tubes, and cooled himself with the single effort. He was still breathing hard, but not as hard as he once had been. He’d gotten considerably fitter since arriving here, more so than he’d ever thought possible…leaving him with plenty of energy for his combat training.

He left the other Irondel to their running, moving to nearby chambers where he put in a half hour of hand to hand exercises before reporting to the infantry bay along with the other members of his regiment.

The bay was tall…more than twice the height of a Human, and filled with niches that held the minimechs Star Force had designed for them. Normally Irondel were useless in ground combat against other races, but no longer. Chitticki and the other volunteers were now riding mechanical steeds into combat, and training against Archons no less.

When he got into the bay Chitticki went straight for the nearest ‘Neite,’ as the Humans called them. They’d designed two varieties, one a biped auto-walker that Chitticki could drive by controls in the cockpit, and one quadruped that linked up to his actual body movements. Few Irondel had mastered those controls, making Chitticki ahead of the others in Alpha regiment. About one of every five minimechs in the bay were neites, so he didn’t have to travel far around the edge walkway before he came to one.

Taking to the ladder he climbed up to the top platform and entered through the back of the quadruped. Though the mech had a head, the cockpit was located in the body just beneath the neck, giving it the most mass around it in a defensive perimeter in addition to the armor shell that he now stood within. Chitticki closed the door and triggered the armor covering to seal him in, then he got hooked up to the harness and powered up the minimech.

Tired as he was from running, working the neite around wasn’t a big deal. The machine couldn’t move as fast as he could, so he was always having to move his muscles slowly. The attachments to his body pretty much moved themselves, even though they looked heavy. All in all it was a cool way to drive the minimech, but that wasn’t why it had been developed.

With the holographic displays now surrounding him, Chitticki walked his neite out of its slot in the bay and headed towards the main doors, careful to make sure no one was out on the floor to step on. When he got into the clear he saw a lot of other minimechs out in a huge chamber, along with multiple suits of armor that belonged to an Archon and several other Humans, which they referred to as ‘commandos,’ plus there were three enormous ‘knights’ that stood taller than the biped mechs, which were little more than walking turrets.

They had no arms and backward-canted legs, with all maneuvering being done by the onboard computer while the pilot drove the mech around. Chitticki was quite familiar with their design and function, having piloted them for a long time before trying the neite in simulators and eventually qualifying to pilot the real thing. Today was just a training day, no challenges to be had for him, so he got up to speed and ran his minimech across the open area with a hop/lurch that somewhat mimicked his own body movements, but was otherwise lethargic.

He stopped short of the Archon in his silver armor and waited to be given instructions. From his position he had to look up, being about equal in height to the Human’s elbows, though if he wanted he could stand the neite up on its rear legs and get over his head…but it wasn’t designed well enough to operate that way for long, making it a truly quadruped mech, whereas Chitticki himself was bodily capable of both ‘modes.’

Future design modifications were promised to give the neite that ability, for after all, the Humans had designed it for hand to hand combat so he could protect the ‘chicken walkers’ as they handed out the majority of the weaponsfire. They were easy to tip over, and with no arms they didn’t have much more than their mass to use when an opponent got close…and the Archon had himself and the other Humans exploiting that opportunity as often as possible to teach the Irondel how to compensate for the disadvantage.

Chitticki had more options in his neite, but less weapons…all of which were non-lethal variants here in training. In the head of his neite he had a stinger weapon that fired little balls of paint laced with stun energy…but that was all, and he had a limited supply of shots. After that all he had to work with was his mechanical paws, but then again, that was what the neite had been designed for.

The Archon assigned him and two other neites to an area of the training deck that held variable terrain, where they ran through a series of obstacle courses for time before eventually getting into a training fight, whereupon he was paired up with four chicken walkers against two commandos in a series of maze-like barricades that the Humans immediately took to, disappearing from view.

“Chitticki, how do you want to play this?” one of his Irondel teammates asked.

“If you go in there you’re an easy takedown. I’ll go in and flush them out. Stay here.”

“They won’t come out.”

“We’ll see,” he said, lopping off to one of the entrances. He snaked his head to the left and went inside, knowing that to take him down the Humans would have to eliminate the chicken walkers. He was the escort, so there was no way to disable him…but the chicken walkers were being monitored, and every time they got knocked down to the floor Chitticki’s team lost a point. Lose ten and the drill was over.

Meaning that he was free to go after the Humans without penalty…which is exactly what he did. He knew they wanted the Irondel to come to them, and they weren’t going to take the bait this time. If they wanted to take down the chicken walkers they’d have to come out in the open, meanwhile he’d hunt them in the maze.

Or so he thought. Almost as soon as he entered the first mini hallway that led to the right he heard weaponsfire from outside, coming from the chicken walkers, only to find that one of the commandos had gone up over the maze walls and into view, whereupon he came down on top of the neite and knocked it to the ground.

Chitticki had all four of his legs go wide as he was smashed flat, then he heard three hard taps on the outer shell of the minimech as the Human punched its back in a rhythmic insult before jumping off and running away.

“Stupid giant,” he grumbled, getting the minimech’s feet back underneath himself as he heard comm calls from the others. By the time the Irondel got back outside he saw all four chicken walkers tipped over on their sides and the two Humans fist bumping each other as they retreated to the cover of the maze without a spot of paint on them.

Chitticki opened his minimech’s mouth and shot three stingers at them, hitting with only one but succeeding in giving one of the Human’s a limp before he disappeared from view.

“Curse them,” Chitticki complained as the chicken walkers pulled their legs up underneath themselves and wiggled into an upright position that they then stood up from. He’d planned to be the hunter, but then had become the hunted.

“I think we have to go in after them.”

“I know,” Chitticki complained. “Follow me in.”

In another section of the colony an Irondel by the name of Lissicki showed up for his daily training, already having run a half mile on their track and eaten breakfast, whereupon he entered the pilots lounge with a group of Humans, Urik’kadel, a Gnar, and a Densan. Almost all of them were Urik’kadel, for their race seemed to have an inordinate number of good pilots, and Lissicki was proud to be amongst them…and as an equal, for they all flew the Axius Valerie.

After a brief meeting they headed for the hangar and boarded their individual fighters. They couldn’t share, given the different biological needs, but Lissicki had the distinction of piloting the most heavily armored fighter of them all…for the simple fact that he required the smallest cockpit, and the extra space had been reinforced with additional armor, meaning that if he was shot down, or crashed on his own, his survival was almost guaranteed…which he greatly appreciated.

When he got to the hangar he climbed up the ladder and onto the fighter, using built in steps to finally get to the cockpit entrance, which was little more than a small hole in the port side. He crawled through it until he met up with three more tunnels. Two were to other exterior entrance points, with the third being the route down into the cockpit.

Once he was inside he hit a button and the fighter scanned the entry tunnels. Confirming that there was nothing inside, their walls collapsed until they became solid armor, sealing Lissicki in. He got into his pilot’s couch and powered up the Valerie, then floated it out of the hangar on anti-grav and accelerated up into the planet’s thick atmosphere. With so many people moving into the spinward half of the ADZ, most of the best planets had already been taken, but with Pollus being located in the anti-spinward half, the Axius colony had pretty much had its pick, giving Lissicki and the other pilots a gem of a world to practice maneuvers on.

Once in the air the differences in their biology no longer mattered, and Lissicki was just as ‘big’ as the other pilots, all of whom were trying to learn the delicate operations of their Valeries in order to pass their qualification tests. So far only two had, both being Urik’kadel, but that wasn’t enough to build a unit around, so they were still training with the rest of them under Human direction, working towards the day when they’d get to take the fight to the enemy…which would come soon for the pilots. Little did Lissicki know, but barely 8 months later he and a group of the others would be leaving for the warfront to support the Protovic as they repelled the withering Skarron invasions.

So many Protovic worlds were getting reinforced with Sentinel defense platforms and newly built Protovic warships that the enemy was losing the few worlds that it had taken. They weren’t going quietly, making the Protovic and Humans work for every square kilometer of territory they had to retake and beginning new invasions on less protected worlds…some that were Protovic and many others that were not.

Lissicki and his squadron, the first ADF squadron to go into combat, would help the local Protovic and Star Force fighters clean up infantry on the planet of Chodrar, which in itself would take years to accomplish with the Skarrons reinforcing the ground troops regularly. He and his squadron wouldn’t go near the Skarron walkers, but would be used to help mop up the ‘easy’ ground targets, freeing up the veteran pilots for more dangerous missions and giving Axius its first taste of combat.

With news of their contribution to the warfront…as well as their success and unique combination of races with access to Star Force technology, the volunteer applications to the ADF and the Axius civilian population swelled, with many more colonies being constructed to absorb the inflow of those qualifying for the program, as well as expanding those that already existed, using resources harvested and produced by Axius rather than putting a drain on other parts of Star Force.

The snowball that Davis had started took a while to get rolling, but once it did it continually gained speed and prestige, quickly becoming the ‘it’ section of the ADZ where everyone wanted a piece of the action, forcing those individuals to train for and accept the Axius ways, including English, and creating a new Alliance society and culture that flew directly in the face of some of those on the Alliance worlds, starting a true philosophical war amongst the various races as they saw their own kind converting over to the Star Force way of life, whereas before they’d merely put up with the Humans as a generous landlord.

With the tiny prick of the ADZ population that Axius held being a light shining on the dark cultures of some of the Alliance races, it became clear to all those who hadn’t previously figured it out, that Star Force was going to assert itself as a dominant player within the Alliance, and not just due to its being able to hand out territory allotments. They were attempting to remake the interracial Alliance relations as they saw fit, and it appeared that the Hycre and Protovic were willing to let them do it.

That did not go over well, and set off a social civil war, fought through economics, population, and propaganda.

Fortunately Star Force had the greatest social warrior on their side, and it was deeply ironic that most of the non-Humans would never even know Davis’s name.

7

May 19, 2532

Shveda System (Zeta Region)

Wiox (Alliance World)

The jumpship A392 decelerated against Wiox’s gravity, arriving over the world that contained the standard 8 regions, two of which belonged to the Reen, two to the Gnar, and one each for the Ansp, Nabboni, Prasx, and Etti. It was a Star Force vessel, part of the ADZ transit network that had been set up to facilitate movement between the Alliance worlds and the few racial territories that had been allowed within the region. Those amounted to four, being the Scionate, Dvapp, Hycre, and Lacvamat.

The Hycre kept to themselves, given the biological differences, so there wasn’t much traffic to and from their worlds. The Dvapp were in a similar situation, except that they preferred to be left alone and traded exclusively with Star Force, using them as a medium to link into the Alliance. The Scionate and Lacvamat were well connected, each with some original Alliance World slots that provided them with ‘neighbors’ to interact with, but they also opened up their own territories to commerce and foreign relations, seeking to exert their influence over the Alliance community as major players.

In addition to the four races given permission to establish their own, independent territories within the ADZ, there were more indigenous races that had been welcomed into the Alliance. Some had chosen to have nothing to do with outsiders, but those that did also now had a position on the transit network. Their traffic levels were variable, but they were yet more players in the ever growing ‘game’ that the ADZ political situation was developing into…with more and more refugees pouring in as both the lizards and the Skarrons continued their conquests, driving off those they would not or could not kill.

Those fortunate enough to flee in the direction of the ADZ were welcomed in by Star Force, so long as they agreed to a code of conduct. Many came in small numbers, while others moved as united factions or entire races once the word spread that there was sanctuary to be had. Wiox was the 17th Alliance world to be colonized, with far more than that now in existence. The planet was lifeless on its own accord, with Star Force having established its usual ring of colonies separating the 8 regions and facilitating their development through the availability of their resource and service markets.

The A392 was carrying both passengers and cargo to be deposited on the planet, as well as the neighboring two in the system. Star Force didn’t have a full colony world of their own insystem, but they did have the scattering of surface colonies on all three, orbital facilities, and mining sites throughout the other planets that they used to funnel resources to the ‘client’ races.

Laying claim to all systems in the ADZ, Star Force didn’t permit the Alliance races from expanding to nearby worlds without their permission, with the Hycre and Protovic backing them up on that. The Protovic already had their own territory on the edge of the ADZ that Star Force had no part of, and the Hycre likewise had worlds throughout the ADZ that had predated its inception.

That had created friction as well, for it seemed Star Force would let the Hycre continue to expand as it pleased, though it was also argued that since they colonized gas giants where the other races could not there was no reason to limit their expansion…yet as far as mining rights were concerned, they also got special treatment.

The Calavari also backed Star Force, but for most purposes didn’t interact with the other races. As far as they were concerned they now were Star Force, so they let the Humans handle most of their Alliance affairs while they concentrated their efforts on the warfront. The lizard excursion forces had finally started to probe the new Calavari borders, with the promise of heavier fighting coming in the near future. Right now there was a bit of a land grab going on between the two as the Calavari secured a handful of additional systems around them, both to deny them to the enemy and to give them room to expand as more of their now growing population coming off of HTC wanted to stake out a claim.

They had enough room on their current systems, but knowing what was coming their way and out of a sense of sentimentality they wanted to retake a few of their old worlds before digging in. That would provide them room to grow later, which was why the Archons were onboard with it, despite the fact that those new worlds would require even more Sentinels to defend.

That left the once great Calavari race squarely in Star Force’s pocket, and two of the five founding members of the original Alliance backing the Humans. That kept most of the dissenters suppressed, but Star Force’s unwillingness to budge on any of its stipulations created an enormous amount of animosity amongst the races with cultures that ran counter to Star Force philosophy.

Those cultures kept to their own territory slots, only marginally restricted by the terms of colonization that were agreed upon before they had been permitted into the ADZ, but in order to operate elsewhere in the Alliance additional restrictions and requirements were added. This meant that if you wanted to become a more predominant member of the Alliance you had to take to Star Force’s ways…if not, you had to keep to yourself and leave your fate in others’ hands.

The only exceptions to this were the systems where Star Force had no reigns. The Scionate and Lacvamat had been given systems rather than planets, meaning that aside from a handful of shared systems that Star Force used to keep a resource and transit link to them, those races had the privacy to expand as much as they sought within those systems…and invite others in as they so chose.

Travel, while now mostly facilitated by the ADZ transit network, was not restricted. If you had a jumpship you could move almost anywhere within the ADZ and come and go from it as you chose. This freedom saw many races with political and economic ties outside the ADZ on worlds yet to be challenged by the lizards or Skarrons…though they weren’t the only predators roaming about, for many other belligerent races were taking advantage of the chaotic situation and making assaults on more local levels that escaped public view aside from the stories passed on by travelers.

Outside the ADZ Star Force’s rules didn’t apply, and the ‘kids’ went out there to play and let off steam while the more patient ones stayed inside the protected borders and planned out their rise to prominence. There were many players, but one of the most determined amongst them were the Reen. They utilized the transit network and Star Force markets heavily, intent on building their way to dominance as they took the territory slots they’d been given and crammed as much infrastructure into them as they could afford.

They did this to facilitate their population, which had mostly evacuated prior to the lizard invasion of their now forfeited worlds, as they pressed their reproduction capacity to its logistical limits all the while searching out more Reen beyond the ADZ. Their race hadn’t been confined to a specific territory, but had spread out across a very wide region that went more coreward and spinward of the original Calavari territory. When the lizard front inevitably came into contact with them many fled in those directions, either in a coordinated way or on their own.

Now those populations were being sought out by Reen scout ships, which they were busy building by the dozens, as they traveled far outside the ADZ to spread the word of a safe haven and the need for numbers to increase their stature amongst the Alliance.

So it wasn’t surprising that when the A392 entered planetary orbit that it decelerated near to a large fleet of old Reen jumpships in the process of sending dropships down to their two territorial regions on the world. Their green-hulled scarabs were visible throughout the spinward bulk of the ADZ, moving to and fro as they brought refugees in and went back out in search of more, invariably bringing back more ships with them that added to the retrieval fleet they’d mustered.

That fleet was taking more than 2 years round trip in some cases, and was staggered so that Reen jumpships were a common sight amongst the Alliance, while their warship count amounted to a big fat ZERO…so far as defense fleets went. The warships they had were part of the retrieval fleet, having been restructured to haul a few additional passengers as well as to protect their civilian ships, both of which nestled up into their moderately-sized jumpships and now, for the sake of expedient transit, were disengaged from them so they could open up their individual landing bays and begin the mass exodus down to the surface.

And yet more Reen were aboard the A392, having purchased passage on another Alliance world where the retrieval fleet had dropped them off, with their government feeling that was more economically viable than delaying their own ships from heading back out again immediately. The Reen were a common sight onboard the Human-built Alliance jumpships that facilitated all the races, yet still belonged to Star Force. Their large size had been accommodated into the design, given that they were the second largest race in the Alliance, biologically speaking, after the Ikrotor.

The six-legged bluish/green giraffes were larger than the Skarrons but could hunch down and walk on their spider-like legs at low height, curling their necks low like a snake and allowing them to move through walkways and rooms that a lot of other races used, but that wasn’t an issue onboard the Alliance jumpships, for the main areas had plenty of ceiling height.

That said, with so many Reen onboard space became tight when they wanted to get out and about in the communal areas, but the crew and passengers had managed well enough. They did require larger dropships to debark upon, but most of the passengers onboard Alliance jumpships didn’t head straight to the surface. Instead they got off onto a starport that the jumpship actually linked to directly using an umbilical. That was uncommon, with the umbilicals usually reserved for emergency situations, but it had become a common enough practice with the Alliance jumpships as they found it was easier to move the Reen and other large species directly rather than sending wave after wave of jumpships across…so long as you had a good pilot to null out the drift.

Fortunately the starport was bigger than the jumpship, which also had carried a few other races’ ships inside it, now releasing them out into the system save for two that were moving on to the next stop. More ships would be hopping on for the ride out, as well as more passengers boarding, with the jumpship sticking around a few days and a second coming in before it left. As was usual, there was at least 1 insystem at all times, with certain transit routes landing five or six there simultaneously, making a lingering connection to the rest of the Alliance and an opportunity for quick departure…should you have the credits.

And it was Star Force credits that ruled the ADZ, not by the choice of the denizens, but for the fact that Star Force markets accounted for over 90% of all natural resources being consumed. Some races chose to live the self-sufficient lifestyle, but those that did saw small growth as their own industries proved inadequate to match the pace of what the markets provided, meaning that for those races vying for position, they had to deal with the Star Force markets, which only dealt in credits and raw materials, making the other races’ currency pointless outside their own colonies.

Add in that Star Force maintained fair prices and didn’t engage in gouging, and you had people actually wanting to do business with them rather than their own governments. And when they wanted to trade with Star Force they needed credits, not local currency, so they put pressure on the resistant governments to switch over to full Star Force currency…which many eventually did, though there was a considerable lag in getting the actual currency in their hands/claws/tentacles because Star Force didn’t hand it out generously.

Physical credits were still used commonly in local areas, but most transactions occurred electronically, but because Star Force wouldn’t accept other currencies it had become quite the chore for a race to switch over completely…with those that did finally achieving it through a massive game of shuffling resources, ending up with an economic boom that further encouraged others to make the switch.

The Hycre and Protovic did not, for they dealt with Star Force on their own terms, with private trade deals off the public markets. That also was a point of complaint, with such things making it clear who the major drivers in the Alliance were. The Big 3, as they came to be called, were the foundation upon which all the other races built their renewed empires. Star Force was the economy, the Hycre were the navy warding off the Cajdital, and the Protovic were the army holding back the Skarrons.

That wasn’t the full truth of the situation, but that’s what the ADZ populations came to think of them regardless. Those contributing to the fighting on the fronts knew better, with the Protovic fielding a huge, well-equipped navy and Star Force being the key to everything, despite their small size. The Calavari were seen as an anomaly, with the public unsure where they fit in, and reduced to a pair of points on the perimeter, their once massive military now reduced to scraps. With their deliberate seclusion from ADZ affairs, most people forgot about them entirely, with their focus going solely to the Big 3.

The Hycre were the Hycre, virtually untouchable and alien, not having a huge influence in Alliance affairs save for where they wanted to. Most things that concerned ground-pounders didn’t affect them, so there was a disconnect there. The Protovic had their territory intact on the edge of the ADZ, with the Skarrons having been pushed out and them resorting to hitting weaker targets, some well inside the Protovic border before they were quickly met and repulsed by a combined fleet.

Further incursions continued as the Skarrons probed the ADZ, with even a Scionate world getting hit, reminding everyone of the danger and the fact that there was no ‘wall’ to hide behind. Still, the Protovic were distant from the Alliance Worlds and mostly unconnected to them, socially and economically.

That left Star Force as the only big power on the ‘inside’ that the other races had to contend with. The Reen more than others had been pushing for some level of peerdom, and as a result had received more territorial slots than others, proving that they could and would make good use of them, as well as bringing in a lot more people from outside the ADZ, increasing their need for more territory.

Others had seen this as well and were trying to outgrow their neighbors in terms of population, but Star Force hadn’t given in to that tactic entirely, favoring those who built wisely as opposed to those who scattered their territory slots with sparse infrastructure to fill it up quickly then demand more. Star Force insured they had what they needed, but they weren’t ones to be fooled. Given the Reen’s approach, they had gained considerable advantage over the others during the ‘learning curve’ that happened, upping their stature considerably.

Those Reen that departed the A392 remained on the starport only as long as necessary to arrange transit to the surface of Wiox, accomplished through a mix of surface to orbit craft of Reen manufacture, saving them the credits that would have been necessary to purchase transit down to the planet. The dropship tickets were cheap enough, requiring very little for an individual to get to orbit, or even around the ADZ transit network, but when you were dealing with the movement of billions of individuals per year even the small amounts added up, with the Reen saving credits by fielding their own craft for this last leg of the immigrants’ journey.

Once they landed at their own spaceports the Reen were taken into a processing center patterned off of Star Force’s own facilities and quickly got their people integrated into the population, with a good number of them going to supplement the mining teams harvesting resources from their territorial slots. Those resources they didn’t have to pay Star Force for, meaning the more workforce they had the more material they could harvest…and the more material they could harvest, the more equipment they could build/buy, creating a snowball effect.

That snowball effect was occurring across all the Reen territories, but not just with them. The other races that had seen the writing on the wall and gotten a head start on the others were building quickly, gaining additional territory slots and increasing their population and influence in the ADZ…with the others scrambling to catch up by following their example.

In this way, Star Force was remaking them without giving a single order or threat. Simply by setting up the playing field and letting the races do as they like, they were channeling them towards economic responsibility, proper infrastructure, and population growth…with those not getting onboard being left to their isolation as they were gradually overshadowed by the rest of the ADZ races.

But still, tricked as they were into the general direction Star Force wanted them to go, they were not onboard with the Humans’ agenda, merely willing to work within their system with the intent of walking it back later on. That approach may well have worked if their own populations didn’t see the truth of it on their own streets and how Star Force had better living conditions and greater opportunities, for both individuals and groups.

A good portion of those ‘enlightened’ individuals made their way to Star Force in one form or another, with the bulk of those who proved themselves worthy ending up in the Axius colonies, which under Star Force’s direction was growing more rapidly than most of the other races, population wise, and faster than them all infrastructure wise.

And of those people who left their previous races, few ever returned, in body or spirit, for after just a year or two living amongst the Axius inter-racial community their viewpoints changed greatly with the experience, no longer having to rely on hearsay or stereotypes to get an idea of what was beyond their own borders.

But above and beyond that they got to experience what Star Force really was and the genius behind every facet of it…right down to ceiling heights and drinking fountains, which were designed to accommodate all of the various biologies, not to mention their focus on individual sovereignty…something that was sorely lacking among the other cultures that predominated the local region of the galaxy and now had been brought into the ADZ.

That close proximity and interaction created a cultural war that Axius was surging to the forefront of as it siphoned off the races’ own population…and since freedom of movement was one of the stipulations for receiving territorial slots, they couldn’t officially close their borders and force people to live under their dominion.

That meant they either had to cheat or entice people to remain…and doing the latter meant becoming more like Star Force, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

8

While at Wiox the A392 also had the distinction of picking up the Omnigame delegation from the planet and those from the other Alliance Worlds in the system, which the jumpship would eventually deposit on Califret, the Axius colony near the edge of the Core Region that was hosting the biannual competition.

Each delegation was comprised of highly skilled individuals from each Alliance World and the Axius colonies, with the teams competing in a variety of competitions ranging from mathematics to biathlon to mech warfare. Prizes would be handed out in each category in the form of a small amount of credits to the participating individual/squad and a lump sum of credits accounted to the world they were representing…on a scale that would mean significant infrastructure expansion. The account was only good for local purchases, split evenly amongst the 8 territorial regions on an Alliance World, which was a significant enough reason for the various races to push participation in the games.

The biggest prize came from the overall standings, in which the top 5 worlds got a huge load of credits on top of the category prizes. With the societal war fueling a population boom, infrastructure expansion/upgrades were critical and those worlds winning the previous Omnigames had surged ahead of their completion with each victory. The trick of it was, for both the Alliance Worlds and the Axius colonies, no one race controlled them, meaning your best chance of victory was by fielding a combined team, forcing those races greedy with their own advancement over the others to seek out assistance on their local worlds in the hope of winning and splitting the prizes…for there were no participation prizes, and you had to earn your way to the credits.

With every event cycle bringing more and more people into the fold and greater pressure on them to succeed, the Omnigames became a social event across the ADZ with intense media scrutiny, broadcast out over the relay network Star Force had set up so people could follow it ‘live’ as it occurred over the month-long competition. Omnigame ‘athletes’ rose to prominent social status, with many devoting their lives to the pursuit of making their world’s team.

This cycle’s tournament held 198 events, adding 3 to the previous competition and expanding the field once again. Star Force continually grew the event, and the prizes, but always in a responsible way and not in demands to the public, who wanted all manner of things added. Simple things like running races were not included, for the simple fact that biology would win out and a Scionate vs. an Irondel would be no match whatsoever.

Also, all the events had real life applications. Even the videogame subset of the Omnigames had crossover applications to the remote-controlled drones that Axius used in the ADF, and which Star Force had begun producing in small amounts for purchase by the various races, encouraging them to move away from mass casualties military tactics and go in for more of a hardware expendability platform.

Remotely controlling various simulations essentially negated the biology differences, save for the control interfaces, but in addition to Star Force’s work in developing unique harnesses and controls for every race, those motivated races created their own upgrades, wanting the most efficient means of interface available to increase their chances of success, and with races like the Reen who had colonies on multiple Alliance Worlds, producing new tech to aid their athletes gave them more than one opportunity for gain, and the same was true of the other races, for Star Force hadn’t let any of them colonize an entire Alliance World, wisely mixing them up from the inception of the sanctuary program.

There were favorites in certain events and categories, but the competition was so diverse that there was no dominant planet or race, meaning that as much as the races were competing against each other socially, they actually were rooting for each other when it came to their local worlds, for their success would mean credits awarded to all, which encouraged a great amount of teamwork in the games and prep work that otherwise would not have occurred.

A392 wasn’t the only jumpship entering the system with Omnigame delegations, which included athletes, dignitaries, and hoards of media. Califret was one of five Axius colonies that had the facilities to host the Omnigames, with them rotating accordingly, and as had become common in the run-up to the games, orbit became saturated with jumpship arrivals, with the transit network having to reroute existing circuits and pull jumpships off others to accommodate the influx of visitors to the planet.

Califret was the only Axius colony in the system, though several other rocky planets remained uncolonized at present. That said, more than 10 million spectators arrived on the planet specifically for the Omnigames, in addition to the regular traffic flow coming off the Alliance jumpships.

But they weren’t the only ones coming. Many of the races brought their own jumpships into orbit, carrying their own media and dignitaries, such as the Scionate, who only had 1 Alliance World representation, which was Vashni, in the Lkat System, that had served as their transitional base to facilitate the transfer of their population to the systems Star Force had given exclusively to them. Those planets didn’t qualify for the games, but since they had one foothold in the Alliance Worlds they stocked it with their most skilled individuals, transferring them there for the express purpose of competing in the Omnigames and giving Vashni a favored position in several events.

Other Scionate were here, representing Axius colonies, but they were independent of the Scionate Empire, and while there might have been a little bit of racial support there, they were mostly considered to be competition rather than allies, for if an Axius colony won a prize, it went to Axius exclusively, fueling their already impressive growth and allowing for more immigration slots that were draining a growing trickle of population away from the other races, which was more of a hit to their pride than their population pools. Axius may have been growing, but the bulk of the ADZ’s population still resided on the Alliance Worlds.

New to this cycle’s tournament was the addition of the Protovic, who up until now hadn’t qualified because they had no Alliance World colonies. With their own territory now mostly intact and their military fighting the Skarrons on other people’s worlds, their government had begun to focus itself more on the political situation within the ADZ, and at their request Star Force had granted them a territory slot on one of the newest Alliance Worlds. The same was true of the Dvapp, who had also been enticed into joining the ADZ community, along with several other races that had previously been located within the ADZ without a piece of an Alliance World.

The only exceptions were the Hycre and Star Force, except that Axius was part of Star Force as well as the host of the games. No Human, Kiritas, Kiritak, Nexus, or Calavari colony took part, for they had no Alliance World slots…and Hycre couldn’t live on the surface very well, thus they had not been interested in the program or the games. They, like the Calavari, had more important things to worry about. That attitude also set them apart from the others, and further insulated the Calavari from the public’s perspective, with few realizing just how large and strong they were regrowing.

So with the influx of transit network jumpship traffic came small fleets from the major powers, showing off as much as they were coming to watch the games and support their various delegations. The gathering also functioned as a diplomatic and commercial event, with a lot of wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes for all types of endeavors, with the influx of a wide flung populace being brought together onto a single planet for the mutual event. That alone brought more traffic into planetary orbit, with a lot of the non-Star Force jumpships coming from races who came to conduct business rather than focus on the Omnigames.

When Mark-084 arrived on a Clan Gunstar jumpship he met up with the traffic mess in orbit, but the local navigational system had it all neatly arranged into prescribed orbits, having taken a cue from Earth’s well experienced network which was far more cluttered than Califret. The trailblazer rode a dropship down to the planet along with a host of other pilots that he had brought with him from the Alliance starfighter training center that he had created on Oberon, or rather recreated after Daka had to be evacuated. A lot of his former colleagues were here, participating in the games on behalf of the Alliance Worlds, which was why he and some of his current training delegations had come to observe…wishing they could actually participate.

Those that came with him were mostly Star Force, for the elite pilots from other races were usually recalled specifically for the games, though there were a number of Scionate with him that hadn’t been qualified because they weren’t currently living on their colony and weren’t deemed as the best the Scionate had to offer, so they’d tagged along on Mark’s invitation.

But like any good trailblazer, Mark wasn’t just going to sit and watch, and as had become common, in the days leading up to the piloting competitions he and other Star Force pilots had an exhibition tournament of their own, completely prizeless save for bragging rights, in which the athletes could participate or not as they chose. It was all simulator work for the games, but Califret had a decent atmosphere and Mark extended some of the exhibition to real life, having brought with him a lot of spare and new starfighters for others to try out above and beyond the standard Valerie. He’d even brought the X-wing with him, given that he’d been tinkering with it and bringing it up to snuff…barely.

Still, it was fun to fly and see a few others he let in the cockpit have fun with it, adding to the Omnigames a pilots gala on the side, with the same being true of the mechwarriors. Not all races used mechs, and in fact most did not, but since Star Force did and others were patterning after them and creating their own versions, Cora had started coming to the games as well and schooling the other races on just how much you could do with a biped war machine.

Mark caught up with her a few days into their preview tournaments, which they scheduled to conclude before their respective Omnigame events so as not to overlap and draw attention away from the competitions, finding her having a chat in a public lounge with an envirosuit-clad Gnar. He walked up to her and telekinetically poked her in the ribs, but otherwise let her finish her conversation before saying anything else.

When the Gnar left her table she waved a hand at him to sit down, with several other onlookers frowning, wanting to have gotten a few minutes to talk with the mechwarrior legend…though when they saw the white with black stripe uniform that Mark also wore their curiosity at seeing two of the Archon strikers in the same place overrode their disappointment as they stood around trying to listen in amongst the noise in the overcrowded lounge.

“About time you showed up,” she said, poking him back as he sat, enough to see him visibly shift to the side from the invisible impact that she screwed in hard for extra effect.

“Busy busy,” Mark said, smiling as he looked at her never-changing face. “How’s business?”

“The same. Ironhold now has more mechs than any other planet in the ADZ, most of which are mine, but the more advanced ones are running short of qualified pilots. I’m having to beat the bushes to find good recruits, and most of the ones I spent so much time on in the past have retired to old age or died already because they didn’t achieve self-sufficiency…which is really frustrating. I don’t like losing friends in the first place, but to have spent so much time training these wannabes only to have them quit and go civi is insulting. You can’t train a good mechwarrior in less than a decade, and most of these jokers,” she said, pointing at the various races around them, “want it done in 2 years, tops.”

“What for, most of them aren’t fighting on the fronts anyway?”

“They want their defense forces up to snuff without actually making them up to snuff…which they can’t unless they start insisting that their troops attain self-sufficiency. I’ve added extra physical training requirements for them while they’re on Ironhold, but when they go back home I have no control. I’ve managed to grab hold of a few and make them permanent residents, otherwise I’d be pulling my hair out. It’s sad to say, but the Australians are now kicking their butt.”

“I know,” Mark said, having to endure a similar situation. “But on the upside, I recently came across a squadron of Kitot, and they’re settling in nicely for at least a century of training…or two.”

“Kitot? I thought they went with the Kvash.”

“They did, but some are finding their way across the lizard lines and into the ADZ. Not many, and they’re having to do it on their own. No Hycre help. But a combat squadron made it across in a trashed cargo ship, with them ending up on my doorstep. From the stories they’re telling, it’s gone from bad to worse over there and had they stayed they’d have been doing nothing but digging their own graves.”

“They deserted?”

Mark nodded. “A group of five ships, with no jumpship to travel on. Only the one made it across the occupation zone, and as I said, it was beat to hell when the Calavari finally found it. They sent the pilots to me, given that one of them I’d briefly met on Daka had requested asylum. Their longer default lifespans are quite a relief compared to some of these younglings.”

“I didn’t know we had any Kitot in the ADZ.”

“319, to be exact. Not enough to build a colony for, so they’re just being logged as guests in a number of facilities. I bought Ekka with me, and he’s been getting quite a few stares, which is surprising, given how many different faces are around here.”

“You got any current pilots in the games?”

“Can’t with the residential restrictions.”

Cora raised an eyebrow. “Well I do.”

Mark frowned. “How?”

“They were born on the Alliance World. Only those migrating around have the residential restriction.”

“Why weren’t they pulled off for pre-games training?”

“Because Ironhold has the best facilities for that.”

“Well not me. Anyone they want for the games they take away early and I usually don’t get them back.”

“Competition is a lot more fierce for pilots,” Cora said offhand, referencing the fact that mech combat had only been added to the games two tournaments ago. That had been encouraging the races without mechs to start experimenting with them, even if just for the sake of winning credits for their worlds…with most of their hopefuls training under Cora on Ironhold.

“So they think. The Calavari I’ve got would wipe the floor with them easily.”

“And you?”

Mark locked eyes with her. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

“Am I to assume that means you’ve been showing off the past few days?”

“It does. And you?”

“Not yet, but I’m working up to it. The neo is too mobile for them to handle, so I’ve been going easy on them. Don’t want it to be a total trouncing on their first run,” she said with a smile, glancing at several of the mechwarriors standing around her…though in truth they didn’t truly merit that title.

“Would you like a better challenge?”

Cora’s eyes widened. “You have the time?”

“I can squeeze in one demo. That way these guys can watch and you won’t have to hold back.”

“Much,” she said with a cocky glance.

“We’ll see. I have no doubt I’m going to lose, but I bet I can make you sweat a bit.”

Cora turned to look at the others. “Hear that fellas? You’re in for a show. Archons train in all 5 disciplines, and even though this one is our best pilot, he’s also a decent mechwarrior for Star Force standards,” she said, looking back at Mark. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to round up a few more Archons for a bit bigger melee.”

“I’ll see what kind of a team I can rustle up,” Mark promised.

“You do that,” Cora said, standing up and telekinetically poking him in the ribs again. “But right now we’re heading to the sanctum…unless you’re pressed for time?” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“Been there earlier, but I’m up for a second workout before I hit the sack.”

When he stood up there was a chorus of groans, with the mechwarriors seeing that the two of them were going to depart.

“I’ll catch the rest of you later,” Cora promised, “but right now a couple of old friends need to do some catching up over training drills. I’ll be back here tomorrow evening.”

“You are quite popular,” Mark commented after they’d left the table and got out the door, having to smoosh their way through a couple of clogged points. Any more bodies in the lounge and it was going to be difficult to move at all.

“Like you’re not?”

“I don’t get out in the crowds unless I have to.”

“Chicken.”

“How?”

“You’ve got psionics, so what are you afraid of?”

“Wasting time.”

“Normally I’d agree, but I’m here to meet and greet and school. Not everything can be taught from the cockpit via beatdowns.”

“Don’t they get annoying?”

“I don’t spend that much time mingling. Training always comes first.”

“Good. Thought you’d gone civi there for a moment,” Mark said, blocking her elbow as she tried to ram it into his gut as she cut across in front of him to head to an opening in the crowd that led to the main walkway. “Too slow, chica.”

“We’ll see,” she said, eager to get into a sparring match with someone that could keep up with and potentially beat her.

9

June 13, 2532

Ursala System (Beta Region)

Califret

“Are you heading to the viewing arena?” Ekka asked in the trade language, given he hadn’t quite mastered English yet, as he and Mark climbed out of the simulators in the training area along with a dozen other pilots.

The little three-legged ‘tripod’ stood next to the trailblazer’s pod, already having climbed out ahead of him as Mark briefly ran through the post-drill statistics. The Kitot barely came up to his waist, but in the cockpit of a fighter size mattered little, evidenced by the Urik’kadel who were heavily favored in the piloting events, the next of which was due to start within an hour.

“Not straight off, but I’ll meet you guys there before the first challenge.”

Ekka inclined its pointed head and shuffled off on tiny, rapid steps as it followed the other pilots out. Mark shut down his simulator and did the same, having finished yet another informal session in his school of badass. He’d asked the Kitot to join him, with the rest of the pilots being people he’d never met before, but all of which were veteran or aspiring pilots with résumés that deserved his attention. Some wanted to test the trailblazer’s skills, or just watch them in action, while others found it an honor to interact with him or were hoping to show him some sign of latent skill to get them an invite to Oberon.

As it was, he had a full slate of pilots, both from Star Force and other races that he was overseeing the training of. Now that he was in charge instead of the Calavari, there had been some changes made to the feel of the pilot mecca. There was still a looseness to it all, but what Mark provided was structure that the pilots could latch onto as they chose, jumping into challenges as well as joining training teams that progressed through very specific drills meant to hone or teach a specific skill set.

It was all a la carte, but Mark was now leading the advanced teams personally, flying an Alliance Valerie as much as he was a skeet, for both the Protovic and Humans had endorsed the model for the standard aircraft for the new Alliance they’d forged…albeit with some additional tinkering. It was those Valeries that the non-Star Force pilots trained in, plus the Calavari and a handful of Kiritas, leaving the skeets as the signature aircraft for the Humans, to which Mark had added a few others.

The original gunships had been retired, replaced with three different heavy fighters. One was anti-infantry, one was anti-mech, and the last one was anti-air. Each could take on other roles, but were specialized in those areas, giving Star Force additional flexibility and punch while the skeets remained the multitasking workhorses that they’d always been.

The Valeries that they now produced had 12 different models. The race-specific ones that the Calavari had originally designed for the Urik’kadel and others had been eliminated, with cockpit modifications for all versions becoming modular, giving the smaller races the ability to fly the same craft with the added armor protection rather than shrinking the entire fighter. Star Force produced four versions of Valerie for sale to the Alliance, while the Protovic and Calavari now built their own. The blueprints were available to all Alliance members, but most preferred the ease of purchase rather than building the necessary production infrastructure, and Star Force was happy to oblige them.

One difference from what the original Calavari had been selling was that Star Force didn’t sell starfighter models, for they didn’t want their allies wasting lives by putting them into space combat. What they did offer were attack drones operating off a small carrier, using outdated communications systems far inferior to the interlinking that Star Force used, but still more than advanced enough for the use of their allies in short range engagements. The fear of many races was the control signals being jammed, and it was a legitimate concern, but over time many got over that impediment and began purchasing them for defensive deployments around their various Alliance Worlds and for excursions beyond the ADZ, for apparently they’d gained a reputation for being good at fighting off pirates.

That was another thing that had increased in the fall of the major powers. Pirate raids in star systems had increased outside the ADZ, and those that attempted some within it were heavily hunted by both Star Force and the Hycre, ensuring mostly reliable jumplanes to travel on, but you could never know for sure, even in Sol, which occasionally had an unwelcome visitor.

Things were so bad outside the ADZ that Star Force was getting requests from races to purchase the same weapons, which wasn’t allowed. Star Force only sold to the Alliance members, and in general practice didn’t sell weapons to the public. There was no stopping the other Alliance members from doing so, and some had tried to become middlemen, buying Star Force tech and then turning around to sell it to outsiders…but they hadn’t gotten far with that before Star Force security found out what they were up to and sales were temporarily suspended to those races involved.

That in turn had led to other races outside the ADZ requesting to become members of the Alliance, most of which were located above and below on the galactic plane and not directly in contention with the lizards or Skarrons…yet. Each of those requests were handled individually, with a high amount of scrutiny. Many were denied, but some were accepted, despite the fact that they didn’t plan to move their entire population into the ADZ, but rather establish a foothold there in order to join the community of races, gain access to Star Force markets, and in some cases to create a fallback location in case the lizards or Skarrons or other nasties out there moved into their territory.

It was a pilot from one of those races that was waiting for Mark outside the simulator complex, along with a host of others wanting to catch a moment with him for a question, autograph, photo or what not, though those in this area of the colony had to have special access rights, given that the training areas were off limits to most of the visiting public.

Dealing with the crowds was something that he had to get used to, so with a now practiced grace he engaged a few of those waiting outside while bypassing the others…that was, until the Voku pushed its way through the others and shoved Mark into the wall.

“Yu wil listen,” it said in crude English as the shorter Human went ramrod still and slowly turned a glaring eye on the alien with a look that would have made Clint Eastwood proud.

“Watch it, punk. Do that on a bad day and you’ll end up with injuries.”

“Yu moost listen to mi,” the thickset alien insisted, its pitch black muscles easily twice the size of Mark’s…with the trailblazer sizing him up and not really worried about a conflict. He could take him down easy enough, but he sensed the alien’s intent was not to bully. Mark didn’t recognize the race, but whatever it was, it had something it thought was important enough to say to risk the insult.

“This had better be worth my time, youngling.”

“It es impotant.”

“Follow me, then,” Mark said, forcing his way through the crowd until he came to a room in the hallway that was unoccupied. He pointed the alien inside and walked into the four-pod simulator chamber, shutting the door behind him so the crowd couldn’t follow. “Talk.”

“I am Voku. Wi are eh race noot in yur alliance. We ass, but noot allowd. We want…no, we ned to proov we can help. I am sint to proov or pilots are stong.”

While the alien spoke, Mark telepathically dug into its mood and memories, trying to piece together what it was after, quickly learning that it didn’t know the trade language or any other that Mark was familiar with, which made sense, given that it had come from a place outside Gamma Region and far down on the galactic plane…so far down, in fact, that its home was on the edge of the galaxy and well outside the range that Star Force mapping expeditions had gone.

Which was also why their request had been turned down.

“Why do you need to prove yourself to us?” Mark said, leaning back against one of the pods as the Voku stood tall in front of him.

“We are warrier. We are peece keeper. We are told by old ones to protect. We are told yu protect to. We are told to help yu.”

Suddenly a link clicked in Mark’s mind, remembering a file he’d read on their race. He hadn’t remembered them looking like this, but then again there were so many out there that it was hard to remember them all. What struck him was the mention of the old ones telling them to join with Star Force, because he had wondered at the time how their elders had found out about them, and just how far word of Star Force had travelled…and were they in danger even now of accidentally tipping off the V’kit’no’sat to their existence simply by word of mouth.

But now Mark knew that wasn’t the case at all. Reading the Voku’s mind he got an image of the ‘old ones,’ with a prickly sense of foreboding going along with it. Whoever had received the Voku request before apparently hadn’t been very strong in Ikrid skills, or maybe hadn’t been an Archon at all. Then again, the request could have come in through comm channels rather than face to face, because Mark knew that none of the trailblazers would have missed this connection, and a lot of the more skilled second gen wouldn’t have either.

The ‘old ones’ were linked to an image in the alien’s mind, a recent image, of a recording made and kept secret amongst the Voku leadership. An alien from another race, one that the Voku revered deeply, had visited them and given them the directive before disappearing again, insisting that they keep its knowledge a secret…a secret that now Mark had pulled from this one’s mind, and he sensed that letting him know would cause a heap of trouble for the alien, so he decided to play it cool.

“You’re a pilot?”

“Yis.”

“Are there other Voku here or just you?”

“I am one on tis plant. But others are in obit.”

“Did you bring your fighters with you?”

“Yis.”

Mark nodded. “I will give you a chance to impress me. Since you’re not familiar with the simulator controls, I will give clearance for you to bring your craft down to the planet and we will see what you can do in the atmosphere.”

The Voku bowed deeply. “Thenk yu. Yu wil noot be sorrie.”

“We’ll see,” Mark said, heading for the door and pushing his way through the crowd outside.

When Mark got back to his temporary quarters later he sat down at the communications terminal and went through the somewhat lengthy process of logging into his own account, given that it had extra layers of protection since it saw multiple users. What he’d just learned was that Star Force had made a mistake…a big mistake in turning down the Voku, something that he was about to fix in a hurry, sending out a message to the other trailblazers and Davis, detailing the extent to which the Voku could help them.

For starters they were excellent pilots. The one they’d sent to find him was almost as good as Mark, as were the others that had joined him in the air for maneuvers. Their technology was also superior to what Star Force was using, as far as the fighters were concerned, and after a quick visit to their ship in orbit he saw that it wasn’t a fluke. Their technology was well beyond what the Alliance had, and about equivalent to some of the upgrades Star Force was only beginning to employ…but tooled in a very different direction.

The V’kit’no’sat database had thousands of weapon systems from various races, not all of which matched up with the way they liked to fight. The Voku likewise held a very different combat philosophy from Star Force, but one that wasn’t totally incompatible. In the description he was about to write out, he was considering going with the metaphor of ‘transformers’ but was still working to find a better word. Everything the Voku used was manned, no drones of any kind, though heavily armored and protected, but they were all built…from fighters to warships to aquatics…to be components.

And by components he meant that they fit together to form larger ships. Two fighters combined to form a heavy fighter, four formed a gunship and so on, and the same was true of their warships. They had basic units equivalent to a Star Force light cruiser, which then combined all the way up into Death Star-sized conglomerations with equally terrifying firepower…for each component piece was identical, with small segments of machinery that wasn’t useable on a small scale and only came together in large numbers, literally having the pieces transform rather than just ‘Lego’ themselves together.

The Voku, based on the information they’d given him, were stronger than both the lizards and Skarrons combined, and dominated their region of the galaxy in a diameter of approximately 800 lightyears. They’d already met the Skarrons in battle, briefly, and had repulsed them easily, with their common enemy not having tried again…or at least delaying such an effort until they had more favorable terms.

The Voku weren’t interested in colonizing the ADZ, they wanted to ally themselves directly with Star Force, and given that they saw that Star Force was the controlling factor within the ADZ they had approached them in that regard, having their emissaries even learn enough English to communicate…and somehow it had all gotten mixed up between the two races to the point that Star Force thought they wanted to join the Alliance and turned them down because of their distance from them…a distance that Star Force couldn’t monitor.

Now Mark was very glad that the Voku had shoved him in the hallway…and even more glad he hadn’t kicked his ass on the spot for doing it. Their communication capability was still limited, with Mark pulling a lot telepathically to try and gain context, but he was about to assign a Star Force linguistics and tech team to the new project at once, getting them up to speed with the Voku language and computer systems, so at least they could get a translation program up and running…because they were going to need it, badly.

Mark had spent some 3 hours onboard the Voku ship, during which they attempted to give him as much information as they could, including star maps of areas that had been beyond the V’kit’no’sat survey. They contained several black hole links that the Voku had used to get here, with him identifying the ‘highways’ that would link the two races together across a considerable chasm of territory inhabited by many other races, some of which were powerful and none too friendly…as seemed to be the case across the galaxy.

The Voku were peacekeepers in their region, harboring and protecting hundreds of other races. They didn’t form an alliance with them, but looked after them more like pets or children, keeping the predators at bay…all because they had been told to do so long ago by a parent race known to them as the Fa’gon’stek, which Mark would have bet a million credits translated as ‘Keeper.’

The old one that had visited the Voku and told them to aid Star Force, the one that the Voku had in its mind and was sworn never to reveal, had been a Zak’de’ron. The same one, he believed, that they’d encountered on Daka. It had given Kara some advice when she’d interacted with it, advice that had proven to be true regarding the Calavari, then it said that their battle against the V’kit’no’sat was hopeless and that they’d never see the dragon again…and they hadn’t, for it had disappeared, ostensibly out towards the rim, after coming to Earth to unlock the database in exchange for a glimpse at the ‘updated’ records.

But it seemed that for some reason the dragon still favored them, and above that it wasn’t just hiding out in the rim either, but rather pulling invisible strings that Mark had fortuitously stumbled upon, thanks to his psionics…for he knew from the Voku’s state of mind that it would never have given him that information.

What the dragon was playing at Mark couldn’t be sure. The Voku didn’t stand a chance against the V’kit’no’sat either. Maybe it saw the threat of the lizards and Skarrons and didn’t think the Humans were strong enough yet to defend themselves against both threats…which would mean it had kept an eye on the region, which, with its insanely advanced technology wouldn’t be hard to do undetected, making Mark wonder if there were any dragons wandering around the ADZ right now, keeping tabs on them.

Mark had a lot to tell the others, plus he needed to get the ball rolling with the Voku, who had gone to long lengths to contact Star Force, and then continue to push the issue after having been stupidly rebuffed. The full dynamics of their relationship to come Mark couldn’t be sure, for he needed the others to weigh in and develop the possibilities, but he had a few ideas bouncing around his head already that he wanted to send out to the others through the relay grid as soon as possible, along with his report.

When he logged into his personal comm account he stopped short, seeing that a new message from Randy had come in since he’d last checked. It was a text message, one line only, but was marked as urgent so he pulled it up before starting writing.

The Dvapp have engaged the Borg.

10

One week earlier…

The oceanic world of Tetteras sat in the midst of 12 large moons, all of which rotated around it in erratic orbits, dismissing any notion of an orbital plane as some moved in polar, equatorial, and elliptical orbits. As it was, in recent history a 13th moon had crashed into the planet’s surface, puncturing the crust and melding with the interior, triggering cataclysmic changes across the planet and creating a hemispherical clump of matter that stuck out from what had otherwise been a sphere.

But that was in the past, and mathematical projection had the other moons’ orbits ‘stable’ for the next hundred years or so, more than enough time for the Dvapp to chorale them into more preferable orbits as they grew their colony on the 8th one, with splinter settlements heading down to regions of Tetteras to harvest raw materials and construct shipyards while their population resided safely on the moon as its infrastructure continued to grow, literally, from shipments of materials coming in from the planet.

The multi-colored cities were grown from a crystal tech, covering a wide range of functions including orbital defense. Their surface batteries had the range to reach orbit, foregoing the need for defense platforms to reinforce their fleet of warships in low altitude around the moon, which were the only spaceborne assets the Dvapp had in play. Their cargo ships were gone elsewhere, being used to ferry more survivors from their original homeland across the war zone to the ADZ, leaving only a handful here to carry resources from the planet up to the moon, though more were being grown in their surface yards to fill the void.

It was those yards that saw the first strike from the Skarrons, with their fleet of warships escorting transports down to low orbit where they proceeded to land troops within a few kilometers of the land-based settlements, taking fire from a scattering of weapons emplacements on station. Those small beams burned into their shields, but didn’t puncture those on the transports before they released their Type-3 and Type-4 walkers, at multiple sites, with following drops delivering infantry.

With the walkers taking the lead, they picked off the defensive batteries and proceeded into the crystalline settlements, heading for the shipyards and what were other key facilities that they had determined from reconnaissance in this system and others prior to launching a three pronged ‘shark bump’ attack, of which this was the first of the nearly simultaneous system assaults.

The Dvapp fleet around the moon responded instantly, dispatching ships towards the Skarron fleet and meeting them head on, despite their numerical disadvantage. The Skarrons had brought some 231 warships, with the Dvapp having 173 on hand. The Skarron vessels also outmassed the Dvapp, who also didn’t have anything of scale to contend with the juggernaut the enemy had leading its fleet. What the Dvapp had were mostly uniform cruisers and an integrated command system that let them maneuver and fight their ships as if they were one massive vessel separated into autonomous components.

As the Dvapp approached they began firing en mass before they even came within the enemy’s heavy lachar range…but they didn’t slow their approach, instead pulling right up in front of the Skarrons’ bigger warships and engaging them at pointblank range, already having taken down a good number of their shields with their equally uniform weaponsfire, all of which was topaz energy beams coming from their green, glowing warships.

The beams were not plasma, but a type of energy known as Sa’mo’shtat to the V’kit’no’sat, which was a derivative of mauler energy, save this form was less powerful and able to hold cohesion, for its repulsive nature had been stripped away. That allowed it to be delivered in beam format, but with an intensity and destructive capacity far greater than that of lachars, as well as better range.

Each of those beams were being targeted by a central control team that fed information out to all of the ships, giving them targets to hit and allowing the individual crews to pick which ones out of the possibilities given to them. As a result you saw multiple beams converging on precise points and persisting for upwards of 10 seconds before a recharge cycle. Each Dvapp ship had 12 such beam weapons, making the confrontation with the Skarron fleet look like a spider’s web of energy coming into contact with a rainfall of white plasma.

While that heavy battle got underway, for neither side blinked and redeployed, preferring instead to slug it out with their new enemies whose battle strength was untested on both sides, the ground attacks continued with none of the Dvapp ships making it down to the surface to assist, which they were more than capable of doing. Instead the Skarron walkers were free to shoot and pillage to their liking while their ground troops assembled behind them at makeshift landing zones, depositing Skarrons and Hobbits into the hot, humid, ashy environment that still hadn’t completely recovered from the moon’s impact.

The workers deployed there ran and hid inside structures, not having anything to defend themselves with aside from personal firearms and the defense turrets…which had already been smoked by the Skarrons. The ships in the bowl-like shipyards were not operational, leaving them sitting ducks for when the enemy got to them, having first to blast through the underside of the ‘bowls’ to get a clear shot at the ships. Huge plumes of liquid drained out onto the ground, covering the rocky surface with a blue/white sparkly soup that the needle-like legs of the walkers stood within as they opened up yet more holes, finally firing through them to hit the partially formed ships.

When the infantry finally caught up the liquid pools had been drained and spread out across the landscape, leaving nothing but puddles behind for them to trudge through enroute to the crystal buildings, whereupon the Hobbits entered first in search of the occupants while the Skarrons patrolled the streets, establishing a perimeter and laying claim to the structures.

When the first Hobbit team got to the buildings they couldn’t find the doors, or rather they couldn’t open them, for there were no switches or handles. Eventually they blasted through the crystalline structure with their plasma rifles and went inside single file, finding triangular hallways with the narrow peak up top, realizing there was no way their Skarron masters would be able to fit inside…but that wasn’t uncommon, for many of the races they conquered built equally ‘small’ infrastructure, which was the primary reason why the Skarrons had annexed the Aronsic into their empire.

The first of the Hobbits came through and stopped to the left, letting the next come in and join up beside him so they could form a 2-man wide column that slowly proceeded down the hallway and up to an intersection, passing by a door that was equally closed off, with some of the Hobbits in the back stopping to blast it open, knowing that they couldn’t leave any portion of the building unchecked.

When the first Hobbits moved into the intersection, the one on the right saw a giant white fist/glob swing around in front of it and smash into its face. It dented slightly as his face broke into a mess of blood and his body was knocked back into the group, bowling several others over in the process. The Hobbit beside him fired at the bipedal mass, blowing out tiny crystal shards as a plasma blast hit its midsection, making a small crater that disappeared as the thing took a heavy step towards him and punched it with the other handless arm, splattering it against the wall when the smaller alien got caught between the two.

More rifle barrels came up and opened fire, with the Dvapp screaming a high pitched sound and ducking off down the other side of the intersection and out of view. The Hobbits ran after it, turning the corner and firing as they saw it lean forward in the distance and dive onto its belly…only to melt into a long, snake-like pylon that whipped down the hall and turned the next corner, gripping the far wall and pulling the rest of its body out of firing range as quick as possible.

The Hobbits chased after it, with the third pair forward getting ambushed as a different Dvapp came out a side door that was closed until the first pair passed it, then the material melted and pulled aside, with another bipedal form stepping out and hammering both Hobbits with a massive jab that took its arm all the way across the hall and splashed its hand against the far wall…whereupon it melted and dropped to the ground in a splash, only to reach out two tentacles and wrap them around the nearest Hobbits.

With a crunch it constricted their thick chests, breaking ribs before tossing one each way to knock down the others as it took a few rifle shots. With the distractions it slithered towards the front few, of which only one was now standing, and tripped it up from underneath. The Dvapp caught the Hobbit as it fell, reforming its bipedal form underneath as it stood up, Hobbit in ‘hand,’ and threw the thing towards the others before running ahead and ducking out of sight around the next bend.

The remaining Hobbits held their ground and waited, calling for reinforcements that arrived a few minutes later. Then, as a more combined group squeezed three wide to get more rifles into play, they moved up over the bodies of their dead and down the hallways, making extra sure to shoot open any doors they came across to avoid another ambush. They got through an entire level of the building with no contacts, then came to an opening in the roof that was the Dvapp equivalent of stairs, with no way to get up…other than to stand on top of each other and lift.

The first Hobbit they sent up made it through and onto its feet on the second story, as did the second, but when the third went up the other two were missing…and suddenly it was grabbed and pulled up the rest of the way, disappearing through the hole and causing the Hobbits below to pull back, not wanting to get grabbed themselves.

They fired up into the next level, blasting out a bit of crystal around the edges and making the hole bigger, but there was nothing they could do but go up there and get taken out one by one so they pulled back out of the building and called for support…which came in the form of heavy plasma blasts hitting the building itself from a nearby Type-3 walker.

With the infantry clear the white rain fell, busting through the outer layers of the building and continuing to core into the interior without pause. There were so many plasma cannons on the Skarron walker that they continued in sequence, firing nonstop and pulverizing half the building until they finally readjusted their aim skyward as a topaz beam hit the machine.

That beam was followed by three others, all impacting on top where the anti-air cannon was blasting away at the warship descending from above. The walker’s shields went down quickly under the linked fire, with the lachar cannon getting slagged almost instantly as the glowing green warship descended out of the ash clouds at higher altitude and drew fire from numerous walkers…but other green spots appeared in the clouds, faint at first, then turning to bright crystal as they dropped down as well, crisscrossing their beam cannons, which the Archons referred to as ‘Sammies,’ and melted through the Skarron armor like a hot knife through butter.

Holes were cored into their interior in less than a minute, slagging and vaporizing internal components as the Dvapp probed their enemies, finding out where the vulnerable points were and taking out the walkers as their cruisers soaked up the enemy plasma storms with their potent shields.

The enemy infantry scattered, wanting to go back to their landing zone but it was also coming under attack, with the Skarron transports that had remained on the surface being targeted as well. Once destroyed, the Dvapp warships moved on to other targets, methodically and efficiency burning their enemies out with their sustained beams that put Star Trek phasers to shame.

When the walkers finally went down over one location, the other warships save for one moved off to hunt down other enemy groups, leaving a single cruiser behind to hit the infantry. To do that it came low to the ground, so low that the Hobbits almost felt like ducking as a number of much smaller beam weapons broke out, throwing hundreds of little streaks of yellow down to the ground and precisely targeting each enemy soldier, whether they be Skarron or Hobbit, though the Skarrons required more than one beam in most cases, especially the armored ones.

Having nowhere else to run, the Hobbits went into the remaining Dvapp structures, blasting through doors and trying to get away from the pointblank naval bombardment…but they didn’t last long inside, as the Dvapp workers stalked them throughout the buildings, killing them one or two at a time in a bloody game of cat and mouse, with only a handful of the denizens carrying their own weapons. Those looked more like a Star Trek phaser, firing a quick, continuous beam from a shard-like crystal weapon that the Dvapp carried around inside their bodies until they needed to use it, but it was quickly evident that they didn’t need it, for they were doing just fine slaughtering the Hobbits hand to hand.

Within a few hours the Skarron invasion of the planetary structures came to an abrupt halt, with their ground assault force unexpectedly annihilated and their naval force fleeing for their lives as the lesser number of Dvapp warships proved too lethal to survive. 23 Skarron vessels got away, not including transports, taking with them the combat recordings and news that this potential weak link in the ADZ was not so weak at all, and in fact was more lethal than the Protovic and Star Force had been prior to their Sentinels showing up.

But then again, there had been a reason the Bsidd had worked so hard to bring the Dvapp into the Alliance, and why the lizards had targeted them so aggressively once they had them at a disadvantage. They were a formidable race, and even given their egregious losses and having to rebuild in an entirely new environment, the Dvapp were more than capable of defending themselves against the Skarrons…and now that first blood had been drawn, the vendettive race was not going to sit back and wait for them to strike again.

The other two system assaults would end in similar failures for the Skarrons, which ultimately gave them what they wanted…an assessment of this new race showing up in droves to colonize the front lines of their widespread push throughout this galactic arm. Intelligence they’d gathered told them that the Dvapp were part of the Alliance, but little more than that. Now they knew, despite their hope they could have established a beachhead straight out.

But that wasn’t too significant, for there were lots of empty systems out there to set up shop in, despite the Alliance’s constant patrols that kept detecting them and responding with swift attacks to keep them from building up a forward base inside the ADZ. Two such attempts had been made in earnest, and repelled with hard fought campaigns, while more than a hundred smaller ‘sneak’ attempts had been made and easily driven off, prompting the Skarrons to try even more systems further out from the Protovic worlds, attempting to flank the enemy patrols.

With this latest attempt failing so spectacularly, the Skarron regional commanders called a halt to major combat operations against the Alliance while keeping up probing skirmishes, searching for weaknesses and harassing them as much as possible to gain intelligence and do what damage they could. Without having been able to secure Protovic territory and the mounting losses, the Skarrons now wanted time to reassess their enemy’s strength, for they’d been upping their attack forces in what they’d thought were conservative numbers to overcome what had previously been defeats…only to have the Alliance do the same, most notably with the deployment of the Sentinels.

With confusion over how many ships and troops would be required to secure a foothold against the Alliance, the Skarrons reverted back into planning mode, not having given up their attacks at all, just retooling their strategies as they let their reinforcements pool to significantly larger numbers.

Star Force took this as a good sign, for it gave them more time to build ships and Sentinels, and the Protovic agreed…but the Dvapp were of another mind and struck back at the nearest Skarron-held worlds with a vengeance, putting them on the defensive for a change and giving the ADZ its first good breather since the Skarron front first opened up some seven decades ago, as well as inspiring a new wave of confidence for those races who had fled to the ADZ ahead of the Skarron advance.

No longer was it a fools gambit, for now the Alliance had proven teeth, which word of mouth quickly spread through the surrounding regions as the Dvapp made no efforts to be sneaky in their attacks, preferring smash mouth tactics that just annihilated the weaker Skarron outposts then left their rubble behind for all to see as they moved onto other targets, eventually retreating back to the ADZ.

That alone upped their credibility, which invited a whole new slew of races seeking to join ranks with them or flee behind their defensive lines…as well as making other rimward races rethink the Alliance’s odds of holding out against the lizard juggernaut as it made its way inevitably forward.

Veracious

1

February 27, 2534

Retari System (Alpha Region)

Atlantica

Kyler woke the moment he heard the alarm, bolting out of bed and finding his shoes before running off through Manaan. He brushed his way past a few people in the hallway, none of who had heard the alarm for it was his private link to the command center and their way of summoning him in an instant when he was on a sleep cycle. Had it been less urgent they would have used a different tone and he’d have checked in on the comm, but the dragonzord flute call meant it was a top priority and that he needed to get his ass there as quickly as possible.

When he turned out of the residential area and into the more crowded hallways within the underwater city he telepathically shouted out to everyone to make room, simultaneously giving them the location in the center of the hall where they should NOT be. It took a few seconds, but suddenly a path opened up and Kyler sprinted through, bumping into a handful of shoulders and even knocking one woman down who was so light that even a slight brush toppled her.

He couldn’t wait to see who he hit, he just had to get through the city as fast as he could and after several minutes of reckless running through the crowds that more or less heeded his call to move aside, he entered the city’s command center and saw the gigantic hologram in the center depicting the orbital traffic with a large fleet of hostiles tagged.

Kyler didn’t even pause to inquire what was going on, rather running across the command center and into the nexus.

“Out,” he said, relieving the lower ranking Archon that was already on station, who graciously stepped aside and moved back out onto the main floor as Kyler touched the control sphere and mentally linked into the equipment and brought up a slew of status displays in addition to the main one that was already circling him in holo.

A fleet of lizard cruisers was already engaging the orbital defenses, with three Sentinels chewing them up at range and a hoard of drones headed their way. Some of the enemy ships were making attack runs on the drones that had already gotten to them, but they weren’t closing on any of the Sentinels, making it impossible for the lizards to do any damage to them. Instead, they were just sitting out approximately 100 miles from the nearest one and shooting any Star Force orbital infrastructure near them, including one of the storage/repair yards that was giving them hell with its perimeter defenses.

“This isn’t right,” Kyler whispered, keying for a few additional ship movements. “What are you guys up to?”

Twenty two seconds later he got his answer as the lizard ship formation suddenly became the lead escorts for a gigantic assault pillar that decelerated directly behind them, with additional cruisers and battleships coming in in its wake to create a protective ring around it.

“Shit,” Kyler said, retasking the Sentinels to exclusively target it. The assault pillar was one weapon that Star Force knew they possessed but had never encountered. It was by far the lizards’ largest vessel, measuring in at 93 kilometers and shaped like a huge needle, for at its thickest point it measured only 8.2 km wide. It was ungainly and far less maneuverable than even an invoker, but the two types of warships were killers none the less, and where the invoker came in for close-range fleet kills the assault pillar did the opposite and hit targets at range.

But its range didn’t exceed that of the Sentinels, who started hitting it with multiple cleansing beams, including their heavy versions…but its shields held up against the incredibly powerful weapons long enough for it to swivel its nose about a few degrees and the escort fleet to break apart to give it a firing line as they actually positioned themselves around it to try and take some of the cleansing beam hits.

With the closest Sentinel targeted the assault pillar spat out a single projectile towards it at amazing speed. Kyler watched its progress across the holo and the 100 mile gap in between until it smashed into the Sentinel’s shields…which also held.

A side-mounted display of that Sentinel flashed with shield damage, and Kyler could see that it had lost more than 62% shield strength. Also, the detailed sensor analysis concluded that it had been a kinetic impact equivalent to a kamikaze corvette. Kyler could see the superheated metal spray off the intact shields like a slush-filled water balloon, glowing with radiant intensity that didn’t fade quickly. The pieces of the now shredded projectile hit several drone warships and a jumpship nearby, adding extra damage to the attack that Kyler quickly countered by creating a no-go zone around that particular Sentinel, with his fleet responding accordingly as another projectile was fired.

It shot out of the assault pillar a moment before the cleansing beams got through the enemy shields and started tearing into the hull, but there they encountered dense hull armor, melting it off in globs but unable to get full penetration and slice the ship in half like Kyler hoped they could. A moment later the next projectile hit and breached the shields, with the partial splatter of superheated metal blowing right into the armor of the defense platform like a shotgun blast.

Damage statistics flared up, and Kyler noticed that the impact had occurred in virtually the same place as the first, meaning the assault pillar was hurling rail gun slugs the size of warships at a 100 mile range and managing to hit an area the size of a football field. That was insanely precise, and was probably the source of the elongated design, with longer barrels leading to greater accuracy, so long as you could position them with enough delicacy.

The third shot that came wasn’t another super-sized, super-fast slug. Instead the assault pillar began shooting out tiny ones at ‘slow’ speed, and Kyler’s gut sank even as he aligned his drones for a flanking attack against the escort fleet, using every second he had wisely as he watched the new projectiles eek their way across the holo like a dotted line extending out to touch the Sentinel.

The first one hit renewed shields and splattered, with it taking the third to bring them back down again. The fourth got hit by a well-aimed mauler blast and melted into fragments before it hit the hull, but by the time the fifth got within 100 meters of impact a bright flash occurred way back at the assault pillar and Kyler watched a chain of erratic energy arcs work its way up the line, jumping from one projectile to the other and extending out across the gap with ominous intent, not making it to the Sentinel until the 28th projectile impacted.

When it did the colored lightning that the invoker was so famous for slammed into the Sentinel with explosive results. The hull armor vaporized and the flickering crackle of energy dug into the gigantic defense platform even as its cleansing beams continued to reach out and cut into the enemy vessel, along with its two sister stations in close orbit. Kyler wished the others were within range to assist but they weren’t, spaced around orbit as they were in small clusters like this that had overlapping firing ranges.

Two of the cleansing beams on the Sentinel cut out, with the internal arrangements quickly altering to bring one of them back online with a power reroute, but the other weapon had been hit in the backflow of energy and damaged. That reduced the Sentinel down to 9 large and 1 extra large cleansing beam, with the energy being reallocated to those in order to increase firing rates.

The pale white beams continued to streak out across the 100 mile gap and tear into the enemy ship, with smaller skirmishes happening around the perimeter as Star Force drones tried to get at the gigantic vessel and the swarm of enemy cruisers moving out far enough to engage them and provide cover. Soon another one of those beams cut out as the never ending flow of rainbow lightning continued to claw into the side of the Sentinel until one of the other two stations got a lucky hit inside the ‘barrel’ and knocked out an emitter pylon…with the lightning suddenly shutting down.

The last bit of it traveled through the relay, then only the small projectiles were hitting the charred hole in the Sentinel that now reached halfway through the massive defense platform. The projectiles coming in were doing more damage, small as it was, then the last two were actually hit before they could get to their target as a much faster large projectile came up from behind and knocked them aside before slamming into the hole.

Kyler watched as several more were fired and slammed into the Sentinel, which he already had rotating around to try and take the damaged region out of the firing line. With the shields now non-existent and unable to redeploy over the wounded area, intact shields on the back half slowly rotated around and took one of the hits…then fell on the next, buying some small amount of time, though with a new projectile coming in every 2.4 seconds there wasn’t much of a breather to be had, with the station getting hammered and Kyler trying to maneuver it out of the way on its internal drives.

It moved slowly, but succeeded in throwing off the aim of the assault pillar a handful of times for clear misses as the trailblazer assumed priority control from its previous pilots and maneuvered it over towards the nearest other Sentinel which was also repositioning towards it. Kyler got it within 20 miles before he lost all gravity drive control, with the station now beginning to list with each additional hit.

The other Sentinel continued to gain speed and crossed the gap as quickly as it could without overshooting and deposited itself in front of the now critically wounded platform, taking the incoming hits on its shields and then suffering through the hull damage as it and its intact twin continued to unload on the assault pillar. That exchange lasted several more minutes before the huge weapon ceased firing and reversed course, making a jump ‘backwards’ without spinning about, and getting away from the cleansing beams.

The lizard battleships went with it, then the cruisers followed shortly thereafter with the whole mass of them making staggered jumps out as the two Sentinels refocused their attacks on the ‘tiny’ vessels and killed more than 2 dozen of them before the enemy could fully retreat.

Kyler stayed in the command nexus, repositioning all manner of ships from drones to jumpships in preparation for another attack while he monitored the sensor stations spread across the system, trying to get a feel for where the enemy fleet was going and where they were going to hit them next…but to his surprise they reappeared near to the star, with the escorts loading back up onto jumpships that had somehow escaped detection upon arrival…either that or someone had decided to let him sleep in.

He reviewed the telemetry replay and saw that it was a combination of the two. The enemy jumpships had arrived from an odd jumpline, coming in where their sensor stations had the weakest coverage…something they probably knew from earlier scouting runs/attacks. That had delayed their detection a bit, but when they repositioned around the star for the jump to Atlantica Star Force should have had enough time to get better set up.

But the lizards didn’t have to position far, for they didn’t take a direct line to Atlantica…instead they made a jump to another planet that sat on almost the identical line that they arrived into the system on. That allowed them to reposition their forward elements quickly, literally allowing their cruisers to make the microjump as soon as they unloaded, then from there they made two more ping ponging jumps that required little repositioning and had allowed them to get into planetary orbit far faster than normal, with the sensor lag covering their arrival by a handful of minutes.

After that there had apparently been a delay in calling him, for the enemy cruisers had been clustering in orbit around Atlantica for several minutes prior to the first salvo being fired and well outside of Sentinel firing range. They’d then moved in en mass, hitting a few stations but not really appearing to want to do much damage. After they got far enough inside range and were taking egregious hits from the weapon platforms the assault pillar had come in behind them…and that told Kyler that this whole attack had been designed to get at one of the Sentinels.

It wasn’t the first lizard attack against one, but it was the first to succeed. All across this region of the ADZ border Sentinels were going up and adding extra toughness to the front, as well as those systems further in so the enemy couldn’t just bypass the defenses and hit ‘soft’ targets inside the ADZ. That said, those closest to the lizards were in the most jeopardy and had been reinforced heavily with fleets and new colonies nearby, creating a web of reinforcement potential and an ever growing thorn in the lizards’ side as they pushed their territory forward, with it now seeming to wrap itself around the ADZ as the Alliance defenses held firm and the surrounding systems did not.

There were no Protovic or Hycre here. It was all Star Force, with a few other races deciding to chip in and help out on this part of the border so long as they had Sentinels overhead. The addition of the extra fleets backing them up was useful, but that still left the bulk of the defensive effort to Star Force in those systems.

The Irondel were the most helpful, with most of the others just placing a few assets this far out for pride’s sake. The Reen had recently offered to help in exchange for a significant chunk of territory amounting to half a planet, with more requests starting to make their way out to Kyler, who now held primary responsibility for this line of defense now that Paul had moved on to other assignments. The aquatics specialist had elected to stay on Atlantica and organize the warfront from here rather than moving to Namek, given that this entire world had pretty much become his home and he’d been responsible for every structure and ship built here.

And it was also closer to the lizard lines than Namek was, especially given the expansions that had been made since their first days out here. Namek was almost an interior world now, with many formerly lizard systems now in Star Force possession and undergoing heavy construction, protected by both Star Force and Hycre fleets, the latter of which had become rovers, moving about to attack or defend where needed, leaving the lizards guessing as to where they were and in what numbers.

Kyler knew that some of those worlds only had a single Sentinel set up, with more coming down the pipe from Earth, and even if the lizards wanted to avoid the Hycre fleets, hitting Atlantica wasn’t exactly an easy feat. The fleet Kyler had here was more than capable of handling the escort fleet the lizards had brought with the assault pillar, and even with it there was no way they were going to take down all three Sentinels, though Kyler was pretty sure they could have gotten at least one more if they’d truly wanted to.

A lot of the planet’s drone defense fleet had been spaced out around orbit, unable to get to the enemy fast enough to do anything…which Kyler felt had been their plan as he ran back through the battle records again. They knew the position of the Sentinels, the planetary alignment, and the approximate location of the defense fleets…and not from any recon on this trip. They’d come here through a backdoor jumpline in order to set up the rapid arrival at Atlantica, which would avoid the bulk of the defense fleet for a short period of time and give them an isolated run against the Sentinels…and Sentinels as in plural. If they’d wanted to hit just one they could have picked another system, but three was the minimum number in the defense clusters here, of which had at least 50 miles of separation between each station.

That looked like nothing on the replays that Kyler was watching, for each of the Sentinels was 16 miles long and the lizard assault pillar, while 100 miles away, measured more than half that distance in length, making the battle look like a close up brawl from a distant observer, underscoring just how gigantic the chess pieces were that either side was fielding, with the cruisers and drones looking like lethargic insect swarms moving about around them.

Kyler ran through the sensor records of all monitoring stations within the system, making sure the lizards hadn’t deposited any ships on planet, then had his command crew do a headcount to ensure that all the enemy ships had left and they hadn’t dropped off a few out of sight…which they had. Kyler sent out several hundred drones and a handful of warships after them, which resulted in 3 kills and 4 escapes, though those escapes were slow affairs, with the cruisers having to make jumps on their own, meaning a very long trip between stars without a jumpship.

Those ships Kyler was sure were simply an afterthought, trying to gain some extra intel and not the focus of the attack. The Sentinels were Star Force’s major defensive piece in the ADZ puzzle, and a major deterrent to any race that wanted to attack them. Star Force had held the lizards at bay in this region for so long because they had been persistent and the lizards had been focused in other areas. Now that wasn’t so much the case, but the increased defenses were still holding them back.

Now, it seemed, their enemy was ready to flex some more muscle, here and on the Calavari border which had its own Sentinels set up and was warding off some light lizard attacks…probes, Kyler knew, sizing them up for the hammer blow to come.

This wasn’t it. Not by far. The fact that they’d left the system as quickly as they arrived said one thing and one thing only…they needed to test the strength of a Sentinel cluster, and this attack had been designed exactly to do that. They didn’t want to lose the assault pillar, but they had succeeded in trashing one Sentinel and damaging another, and based off the battle data he was reviewing, Kyler guessed that the assault pillar would be back to full offensive capability with only a light refit. The barrel shot they’d scored had been fortuitous, and he expected the lizards to back off the range a bit more to decrease the odds of it happening again.

Yes, Star Force had just driven off an assault pillar and its escort fleet, but the lizards had just proven to themselves that they could still hammer Star Force if they wanted to, and it wouldn’t require sacrificing hundreds of thousands of cruisers to get the job done. They’d wanted to test their big weapon and that test had been well executed and invaluable in determining what strength was necessary to make a serious attempt at breaching the ADZ defenses.

Kyler didn’t know how many assault pillars they had back in their home systems, but he got the feeling they would be making a whole lot more in the coming decades, for now they knew that their boomsticks could get the job done, and Kyler suspected that the stronger Star Force and the ADZ became, the more attention they were going to draw.

And from the look of things, the lizards weren’t considering them to be a minor threat anymore.

2

April 2, 2534

Solar System

Earth

Scrolling down through the list of battles, Paul mentally chose the one he wanted and the V’kit’no’sat hologram shifted to the file in less than a hundredth of a second, giving him the post-mission statistics, sensor records, and analysis of the Hjar’at’s assault on the world of Daspoelna. It was one of thousands of high level battles that the pyramid database had logged inside of it, with Paul growing more intrigued with those records as the years passed. Star Force’s technology wasn’t close to catching up with the V’kit’no’sat’s yet, but the more they advanced the more relevant these records became, and he needed to understand their ultimate nemesis long before they encountered them face to face.

The Hjar’at were the most militant of the V’kit’no’sat races…and that was saying something. All were highly skilled and aggressive, but the Hjar’at more so than the rest with a biology to match. Their Saroto’kanse’vam were not natural to their bodies, rather a genetic upgrade that gave them the powerful plate/spikes that ran from their necks down their back and all the way to their tail tip. They’d been given permission for the upgrade by the other races because of their affinity for hand to hand combat, and the transformation had suited them perfectly.

They were deadly on the ground, combining their body armor with the Saroto’kanse’vam into a living, breathing mech that was far more agile than anything Star Force had constructed. Most of the time they ran around dominating their foes with discharge attacks or used the weaponry built into their armor, allowing them to act as a mobile turret while their Zen’zat handled the smaller threats. It wasn’t until they faced a truly dangerous foe did their full range of skills become evident, even above and beyond what Paul had seen in their training vids.

The battle records he was looking through now contained one such instance, dated some 439,826 years ago, that occurred in the densely populated core of the galaxy. The star systems there were so packed together that a region a few lightyears in diameter would hold more systems than Star Force’s Core Region did, which made navigation far more tricky, often requiring a lot of short jumps to get through an area. Only once you got further out into the galaxy did the spacelanes open up and you could make longer jumps.

The V’kit’no’sat had such good navigational capabilities that they would actually surf the gravitational eddies and travel on curved jumplines when they moved through the core, which required very precise charts and a level of technical skill that Star Force didn’t currently possess. This allowed them to have a much greater freedom of movement through the core than other races did, meaning where others hid away from the galaxy the V’kit’no’sat had an easier time finding…though there were so many systems and races in the core that it made the rest of the galaxy seem sparsely populated in comparison.

It was that densely packed population that the V’kit’no’sat dominated over, and Paul could see why they spent their time there and not expanding out towards the rim. There was so much density that there was no reason for them to look outside of it…save for they’re being the badasses that they were. That also explained why the V’kit’no’sat were only interested in colonizing worlds with a very specific set of qualities, which in Earth’s case included the water to land ratio along with other concerns. The water dwelling races held considerable sway over the V’kit’no’sat and when they colonized new worlds it was usually a shared endeavor, so landlocked worlds were out of the question.

The world that Paul was looking at now was the reverse of Earth, with more land than water, but still sizeable oceans that the V’kit’no’sat had wanted…trouble was it was inhabited, meaning they were going to have to conquer the indigenous races in order to claim it. Normally that wasn’t a problem and the V’kit’no’sat got what they wanted, but in this case they had to fight exceptionally hard to claim it.

There were many races on Daspoelna, such as on Earth, but only two that were advanced enough to cause the V’kit’no’sat any concern. They had no names in the records, for they were not a spacefaring race with relationships in the surrounding area…and the V’kit’no’sat had wiped them out before learning their language or even what they called themselves. Normally any race worthy of the V’kit’no’sat’s attention garnered an evaluation team that would investigate, learn, and catalog information about their subjects, which was why the pyramid database was so massive, containing files on 1.2 million different races…and those were only the ones that had drawn their interest.

The core was full of races that the V’kit’no’sat simply didn’t wish to conquer and they ignored them up until they had reason not to. Daspoelna had been one such world, but when the light assault team comprised of Rit’ko’sor and Zen’zat they’d sent to the planet subsequently got massacred on the ground, that drew a very serious response, for the V’kit’no’sat were not accustomed to losing…at all.

Paul found it odd that they hadn’t used their fleet, which sat in orbit and simply monitored the ground war. At first he thought that was out of pride and that the V’kit’no’sat wanted to beat the enemy on the ground rather than admit they were inferior and just blast away from orbit…but then later on in the battle record he saw that the natives had some incredibly powerful anti-orbital ‘guns’ that shot down some of the V’kit’no’sat transports as they tried to land too close to a particularly sensitive region of the planet.

That really perplexed Paul, but as he dug through the records…which were not indexed well…he discovered a surprising fact. Whereas the V’kit’no’sat were a technologically advanced race with genetic engineering, these two races on Daspoelna were biologically advanced races that accomplished everything they needed without what would traditionally be considered technology, right down to the beefy ‘lightning’ weapon that was throwing up what the V’kit’no’sat had tagged as Icara’moson energy.

It was a very high end weapon, and one that the V’kit’no’sat couldn’t fully defend against with their smaller craft, for it seemed to have a shield penetrating capability. A side note in the records indicated the necessary shield matrix to defend against it, which had been added as a post-battle entry after the remains of the natives were studied and cataloged.

It appeared that the two races on the planet had not colonized space by choice rather than lack of means, and were more than capable of defending themselves against the V’kit’no’sat. Why they didn’t fire on the ships in orbit he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was their pride working against them as well, but whatever the case there was one continent on the planet that had to be approached by land, otherwise whatever came into it would get toasted by mountain-sized turrets that dotted the landscape, which forced the V’kit’no’sat to ground their troops on the far side and work their way around in a major ground campaign.

Which is what the Rit’ko’sor had done after losing transports on a direct approach, then when they encountered the natives they were beaten handily by the giants, which were the size of a 2-story building and bigger for the land race, with the swimmers being even more monstrous.

Paul ran through several more reports, trying to piece together some sort of summary that the records lacked. It seemed an enormous amount of data had been cataloged, but was then never organized afterward, like a stack of papers on a messy desk. Everything was there, but if you hadn’t been the one doing the writing then you were going to have to piece together everything on your own…which was typical V’kit’no’sat thinking. If you needed the data then you’d understand it already…and if you didn’t, then you’d have to suffer through the learning curve as penance.

Which Star Force and the trailblazers in particular had already been going through. The way the database was ‘organized’ was less odd now than it had been in the beginning, but there was still a lot of searching that had to be done, without any ‘google’ function to use. But being self-sufficient had its advantages, one being an abundant amount of time to do some digging, which eventually led Paul to realize that of all the various races on Daspoelna, none were wild. They were all biological constructs or hybridizations created by the natives to serve a particular function.

That hadn’t occurred to the V’kit’no’sat until the later days of the brief war, when the forests and oceans suddenly seemed to come to the aid of the two races with the lesser ones going kamikaze and throwing themselves at the V’kit’no’sat, sometimes just latching on to slow them down while the combat-capable ones made the kill.

The entire planet of beings belonged to the nameless races, which resulted in a second major defeat for the V’kit’no’sat, and one of the few in the Hjar’at’s personal history.

That didn’t stand, as more reinforcements were called in and a huge offensive began, both on the land and in the water, with the water war seeming to be the more savage, improbable as that was. The natives didn’t wear armor like the V’kit’no’sat did, but instead they grew it on their bodies, both the water race and the land race, with the later having very thick, rock-like plates that reminded Paul of dragon scales a bit, though they were much larger.

But despite their bulk the giants were faster than the Hjar’at…which was what prompted the V’kit’no’sat race to show their full power in order to try and counter them.

Paul didn’t believe what he was seeing at first, then began to reconcile a few facts as he went along. The Hjar’at were jumpers, and impossible ones at that, which he guessed, no, he knew had to be due to the anti-grav properties within their armor. The Zen’zat armor that had been left in the pyramid had the same design for drifting and dropping applications rather than flight, but Paul had been able to use it to jump really far when he and the others had messed around with it initially. Their Archon armor was still wholly inferior to it, but they were steadily closing the gap with every revision that they made.

That said, the Hjar’at had to be doing a lot of the jumping off of muscle in order for the armor to amplify it such. He had seen training videos of the Hjar’at outside their armor, moving, running, and jumping, but nothing to this extent. Now he wasn’t sure if they’d just been taking it easy in the training vids or they really needed their armor to escalate their battle abilities…and he was starting to think it was the former, for all of the other Hjar’at battle records he’d studied had them in armor as well, and none of them showed the huge dinosaurs to be moving with this much agility.

There were different sizes of Hjar’at, just like there were different sizes of Human, but those deployed into battle were not young ones, meaning they all had sufficient size…equal to a small house…yet they moved with reflexes that more befitted a cat. And still the giants were faster than them, and capable of throwing off energy attacks of their own from some of their armor plating, or what looked like it, with Paul identifying the places on their arms, chest, and head where they could release their various bioweapons from.

The fighting got intense even before the ‘wildlife’ came to the giants’ aid, with the giants having a slight advantage…and Paul was keenly interested in the fact that the giants were bipedal and not quadrupeds like the Hjar’at. As he studied their interactions he had the feeling, or more accurately was hoping for the feeling, that bipedal combat was somewhat frustrating to them, for that was what Star Force mechs were patterned on, and if they were ever to go hand to hand with the Hjar’at in the future it would be in a bipedal mech, for there was little chance of doing it in their Archon armor…though he knew Morgan would argue that point.

Though it was hard to believe, the Hjar’at could run faster than they could, and their maneuvering capabilities in close range were astounding. Paul thought he could dance around one with effort, but with their ability to simply shoot him with their armor’s cannons or their Saroto’kanse’vam he didn’t think they’d last long unless they gained access to the higher level psionics…and even then it’d be dicey.

The trailblazer was still in awe at how easily they moved. It seemed one of their favorite attacks against the giants was a blindsided run-up, with their target’s attention elsewhere so it couldn’t evade, whereupon the Hjar’at would sprint forward and transition into a bit of a hopping gait, then plant its face into the ground just short of the giant and use it as a pivot point as it brought its Saroto’kanse’vam to life with a neon blue glow, then flipped over onto its back into a lightning fast roll. The first few back spines imbedded into the ground, with the larger ones in the center of its back cutting the giant and sticking into it as the Hjar’at’s tail came up and did the same.

With the Saroto’kanse’vam melting through the bioarmor and digging in deep, the Hjar’at would either knock it down from the impact or twist it down from its new grip points, then flip over and right itself with several very damaging thrashes that would leave the giant either dead or heavily wounded. Paul saw the Hjar’at try this multiple times, but with the giants’ speed they had to catch them off guard or they’d evade easily and catch the Hjar’at with its belly exposed. Paul saw several get pinned to the ground that way as a giant dodged to the side then moved back in as the Hjar’at flipped, landing an arm on its armored underside to pin it to the ground with its primary offensive capability  dug into the dirt and unable to fire.

Several Hjar’at died from such a maneuver, but the rest didn’t seem to hesitate to try when they thought they had a chance at it, for it was a very quick kill if they executed it properly, and they could recover and get back up on their feet literally as fast as a cat or dog could, making Paul reassess Star Force’s limited hope of battling them with mechs. The V’kit’no’sat word for the technology was ‘Kelzat,’ which loosely translated meant ‘strong war,’ but oddly enough they never used the technology themselves, though many other races did…and now Paul knew why.

The Hjar’at, when in armor, were far superior to any mech and made the neo look like a plodding rock in comparison…underscoring just how far Star Force had to go to find a viable counter, aside from orbital bombardment, which Paul still favored when there weren’t bystanders or his own troops to get hit.

Paul spent several hours going over that one battle record, seeing that the V’kit’no’sat eventually overwhelmed the natives with a combination of greater numbers and the addition of three other races to the assault force…as well as a handful of Hjar’at ultras. Those literally were walking buildings, far larger and stronger than their smaller kin, enhanced to massive size by V’kit’no’sat growth enhancements so they could drop the hammer on the bigger races, and this situation definitely qualified.

Still, they didn’t dominate, and had to fight a very long and hard effort to beat their way into the central zone of the native civilization and end their land-based resistance while a group of V’kit’no’sat swimmer races did the same in the oceans. Both assault groups came out of the attack with heavy casualties, but above all else the V’kit’no’sat ego had to be satisfied and they finished off their opponents hand to hand without resorting to any sort of naval activity other than shipping in more troops and ensuring that none of the natives fled into space…though none actually tried, preferring to slug it out on the ground to the last man.

Which is exactly what happened. The V’kit’no’sat were not interested in taking prisoners and went about exterminating every living thing on the planet that moved, then burning the vegetation and everything else off the land and introducing a biological ‘destroyer’ to the oceans that likewise purged them over the course of several months as the microbe multiplied and erased everything from the waters.

After the planet had been thoroughly cleansed, the V’kit’no’sat terraformed it to their liking and moved in, claiming their prize after eradicating one of the strongest races in the galaxy…and who knew how many more of them were out there, spread across the galactic arms or buried deep in the core with too many systems to count.

Checking the time on his watch, Paul bookmarked that particular battle record for later review, then headed over to the training areas in the pyramid, needing to meet up with Ben-044 and Wes-049 at 4:30 for a challenge run.

3

April 4, 2534

Sevvna System (beyond the ADZ)

Outer Asteroid Belt

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” a Regular commando said softly, walking in on Bri-921 as she held a splits suspended with her feet on small padded blocks so she could get a few degrees past 180.

The Archon ranger looked up at him, holding her stretch. “It’s alright. You have news?”

The commando nodded. “Scout just came back. We’ve got a probable location.”

“Good,” Bri said deeply, her voice laced with a bit of lingering anger. “Tell them to get my ship ready. I’ve got a workout to finish, then I’ll be up to command.”

“As you wish, Archon,” he said with an abbreviated bow, then turned to walk back out the open doorway he’d entered through.

“Don’t say it like that,” Bri complained, prompting the man to turn back around. “You make me sound like Vader.”

“Who?”

“Never mind,” she said, rolling her eyes and waving him off with her left hand, careful not to throw off her precarious balance.  Her hand came back down and rested on her leg as the commando left, with Bri’s eyes glancing at the clock on the wall. It read 4:21 and was counting up, meaning she had another 39 seconds to hold this stretch before switching to another.

Back in the day she’d been accused of being inflexible and never being able to change that, then when she’d gotten to Archon basic training Wilson had taught them how they could customize their bodies however they wanted with time and proper training. Since then she’d proven her former naysayers wrong and had become quite flexible, gradually extending her range of movement as she lightly pressed her current limits and caused her body to add additional material to her ligaments, lengthening them and other tissue. She’d had to build her flexibility whereas others had been born with it, though now she surpassed the people she’d gone to school with that had been deemed with ‘natural’ talent.

Unfortunately they weren’t around to gloat over, and not because Bri wasn’t on Earth. Everyone she’d known growing up, friends and family included, were all dead now, failing to reach self-sufficiency and dying from attrition damage. Bri couldn’t imagine doing that, after all, how could one just sit on their ass and let their body fall apart?

Then again, how could one think someone was permanently inflexible? Bri realized there had been a lot of ridiculous ideas on Earth back in the day that seemed to be common sense, and even though her friends and family hadn’t lived to see the changes to the planet she was glad that most of those stupid ideas had been burned away by Star Force, with the Archons being the prime example of what one could do with proper training…not in theory, but in practice.

It galled her even more to think that people once thought that sugar was bad for you. It and the ambrosia flowing through her veins was what gave her the energy to train at such a high level, and she’d remembered Wilson’s words on that too. ‘Sugar is rocket fuel. If you’re not a rocket you probably shouldn’t eat it.’

Simple wisdom like that was ahead of its time, and she was very grateful to have been selected for Archon training and being able to learn from men like Wilson and Davis. They’d shown the light on so many lies that they’d basically given Earth a sunbath, cleansing it of most societal stupidity after a long, hard fight…and now that fight continued in the ADZ and beyond, with Bri heading up one of Davis’s many swords that he was using to hack down the forest of stupidity that most of the galaxy sat within.

But in this case she and her team, designated Gamma 6, were dealing with more than stupidity. They were dealing with bad people doing bad things, and who were trying to hide their actions from Star Force, knowing well how Davis’s clandestine teams and the trailblazers had dealt with their previous violations of ADZ rules.

The wall clock hit 5:00 and switched over to a 10 second interim before starting another 5 minute segment, allowing Bri time to lift up on her hands and out of her side splits, only to rotate her torso around and ease back down into a forward splits with her right leg forward. She adjusted her position a few times, getting a good feel for the support blocks, then lowered down until she felt sufficient tension, settling in for another good, long stretch.

She went through three more, finishing with a handstand set of pushups before hitting the showers and heading up to the command center. The base she was currently residing in wasn’t on a planet, but a planetoid-sized chunk of rock that most likely had been part of one. It was surrounded by a swarm of other asteroids that had stretched out into a 1/3rd orbital arc around the system’s star and far outside the only planet in the system, which was a blue gas giant in very low orbit, making it far too hot for Hycre tastes and virtually unusable to anyone else.

The asteroid field held plenty of resources, but it was virtually impossible to get to with differential gravity drives. There was literally nothing to brake against save for several large chunks like this one, but to do so meant you’d have to fly through the other, smaller asteroids, practically insuring that you’d kill yourself in the process.

One could make their way out on thrust engines, but given that the system was uninhabited there was little chance that someone would go to that much effort, giving Star Force a resource base to draw off of without anyone else’s knowledge that they were then using to expand the hidden base that was one of some 7 currently built in the Clan Neon Squirrel circuit. Liam’s Clan had three bases within the ADZ and four outside it reaching into what had once been Calavari territory and below it, putting this system far beyond Protovic space and out of the way of anyone’s attention.

What Bri was using it for was a way station, allowing her ships to refuel and otherwise resupply without having to return to the ADZ and an official Star Force colony. The scout ship the commando had mentioned was one of 18 tiny jumpships designed as a personnel transport. They couldn’t carry anything other than passengers and some small amount of cargo, but they were the fastest ships that Star Force had and Bri’s fleet was out scouting nearby systems trying to track down activity that some of the ADZ members were conducting out here in the ‘wilderness.’

And there was a lot of activity going on, not all of which was coming out of the ADZ. The region of space they were currently in was sort of a no man’s land in between the lizards, Nestafar, and Skarrons, with no controlling faction and a very lawless, panicky environment. Bri didn’t land on planets regularly, nor did her scouts, but what they were observing from orbit or deep surveillance points in the systems they scouted was disturbing. There was a lot of nastiness going on that she didn’t have the power to stop, and a good amount of it had ties to the ADZ.

The trick of it was, with so many star systems, literally in the hundreds of thousands around the perimeter of the ADZ within easy access, there was no way to monitor it all and the ADZ members knew it. They might behave themselves inside Star Force’s domain, but beyond it they reverted back to their bad habits, some of which Star Force wasn’t going to stand for.

Others chose the more clandestine route, using intermediaries to do what they wanted that couldn’t directly be attributed to them. As such, a lot of smugglers, mercenaries, and other forms of pirate were working for some of the ADZ races outside the ‘safe’ zone, with most of them based out of Scionate space.

Though not an outright defiant member of the ADZ, the Scionate clung to their independence and allowed their systems with no Star Force presence to act as bastions of unmonitored activity. Bri and the others still had transit rights through their systems, meaning they could drop in and take a look, but they didn’t have any Star Force infrastructure there, making those systems the inroad for the people that Gamma-6 and others needed to monitor.

That actually worked to their advantage, because the smugglers would use predictable routes, allowing scout ships with good pilots and a bit of luck to track them through interstellar jumps, though they rarely were able to follow them through more than one before losing track of them. You had to be right on their heels to remain in contact and get a good jump measurement to know where they were going, and then get yourself aligned and off at a precise speed, otherwise you’d fall behind or overshoot your target.

Bri’s pilots knew what they were doing and had been tracking a number of ships and plotting their preferred routes. The ones less frequented were harder to find, with this latest attempt apparently paying off as her ships had been visiting every star system within 10 light years of the last known jump point.

When Bri got into the command center and pulled up the recent reconnaissance data she concurred with the assessment. Distant scans showed considerable infrastructure on a planet that was supposed to be uninhabited, as far as the charts that Star Force had compiled from a number of sources said. The scout ship had also captured sensor data for one known ship interacting with the surface via a slew of dropships, either unloading or taking on cargo. It wasn’t broadcasting an IDF so they didn’t have conclusive evidence of what ship it was, buy they’d pulled enough of a sensor profile off it to identify it as a Lemickas-made transport.

It was a design that they didn’t use themselves, but manufactured exclusively for sale. The stubby little race of bipeds were rather industrious as well as unscrupulous, not caring who they sold their ships and other products to and not looking beyond their own borders to see what they are used for. That wasn’t a problem with Star Force, for the Lemickas were just doing business, but it wasn’t uncommon to see their transports used by private enterprises that were trying to avert Star Force’s notice.

One noteworthy feature of the design was that it doubled as a slow jumpship, meaning that those who couldn’t afford to purchase a conventional one could buy their own interstellar transportation for relatively low price…if you didn’t mind the long haul between systems. Privateers and independent shippers swore by the craft, and a number of the ships that Bri’s fleet had been monitoring were of this design.

Bri contacted her warship, stationed on the dark side of the base so it wouldn’t be visible on sensors to any ships passing through the system who happened to look in their direction. They’d have to be looking very closely to notice anyway, but since the base was intended to remain a secret they weren’t taking any chances. She checked in on their status and informed the captain that they’d be leaving the next morning, then she headed off elsewhere in the base that housed some 50,000+ personnel, most of whom were not under her direct command.

They were a mix of Clan Neon Squirrel personnel and a few other Clans plus mainline troops, techs, and other useful individuals. There were no true civilians in the base, with everyone being here for a purpose. As it was, most of them were engaged in other circuit activities, scouting missions and construction, while Bri’s fleet had just made the base its temporary home, same as Beta-4 had done two months ago.

The planetoid chunk was still being expanded into, keeping the surface features ‘natural’ and all the infrastructure interior. Likewise the mining ships roaming the asteroid field were drilling into other large chunks and hollowing them out, both to keep their activities all but invisible, as well as to build structures inside. Right now only the main base was inhabited, with the few others that had been constructed to date being used primarily for storage.

One of those held a fuel reserve that had topped off Bri’s warship immediately upon arrival in the system, meaning that they wouldn’t have to worry about doing it now when they needed to leave in a hurry. There were still some other supplies that needed to be transferred over, but those would be finished within a few hours. It was Bri’s crew that was currently in the base that she had to get over to the ship.

Most were techs and pilots, which would be recalled via the comm system, leaving only a handful of Archons that Bri needed to track down, knowing that most of them would probably be in the sanctum and off comms. She managed to contact 3 of them remotely, then headed over to the base’s sanctum and interrupted them during their workouts, knowing that some would need a few hours to deal with side projects before they left.

Bri politely butted into several intense sessions, waiting on a few to finish and just telepathically telling the others while they were in action rather than stopping them to deliver the message. The last two she found in one of the small sparring rooms, sitting crosslegged on the pads facing each other and levitating a weight between them.

The ranger reached out telekinetically and grabbed the weight, suspending it herself and grabbing both of their attention…which apparently had been so focused on the task at hand that they hadn’t detected her approach.

“What?” Karen asked, glancing over at her in sync with Travis.

“Ready for some action?”

“Please,” her brother answered.

“We got a hit. I need you both back onboard, we leave in the morning.”

“What’s morning?” Karen asked.

“3 am.”

“Morning morning,” Travis clarified.

“Yep,” Bri said, floating their weight over to her and grabbing it in her hand. “You guys can lift this?”

“Battlemeld Nemsa. We can’t do it stacking.”

“Not even close,” Travis agreed regretfully.

Bri raised an eyebrow. “Not bad. Wish I knew how to do that,” she said, floating it back out between them and letting the two acolytes get hold of it again. “Carry on.”

About time, Travis told his sister after Bri had left.

What do you think they found?

I say base of operations.

My money’s on a meat farm.

Yuck…I hope there are at least some mercenaries. I want a challenge for a change. Smugglers are too easy.

We’re not there to have fun, Karen corrected him. That’s just bonus.

You want to finish here?

No, might as well switch sanctums before we get into the heavy stuff.

Right, Travis said, using their battlemeld link to pull the weight over to where he could reach it, though technically they were both moving it in sync, only he didn’t have to ask his sister to help him. She was in his head and him in hers, with movements like this occurring without conscious thought or request.

The level 67 acolyte carried the weight with him as they left the room, then deposited it in the nearby lifting chamber where he’d grabbed it from. After that they both headed over to their temporary quarters in the base, which were situated next door to one another, and packed a light duffle with their personal belongings. A few minutes later they met each other outside and headed over to the hangar bay, tagging a dropship pilot to haul them over to the GameRay.

The Mk. 26 warship was one of the newest in service, with an enhanced gravity drive that gave the ship quicker jumps and more range, letting them be the hare to the smugglers’ tortoise. It was as fast as a Hycre jumpship, which was still too slow for Karen, considering how much unused tech they had waiting in the pyramid to unlock. She didn’t see what was taking so long, but was glad they hadn’t been assigned one of the clunkers for this mission…and very glad that they weren’t stuck with training or ‘residential’ assignments.

These intercept missions might be easy with a lot of downtime in between, but they were live combat, which was what both of the twins wanted. They would have preferred a front line post fighting lizards, but that hadn’t been an option, though the trailblazers had saw fit to allow them to stick together. Splitting them up would have been downright stupid, and even though they didn’t get along with one another she was glad that they’d respected them enough to keep her and her brother together as a pair…sort of a super Archon, for most typical assignments were all individual, save for a few exceptions.

After getting off the dropship and letting it return to the base to wait for other passengers, Karen and Travis dumped their duffles off in their normal quarters and headed over to the ship’s sanctum, grabbing an open sparring chamber and proceeding to enter into a game of ‘twister’ wherein they helped each other stretch out in two person holds, both to increase flexibility and warm themselves up for the agility challenge they were about to get into before Bri had arrived.

Downtime or not, the twins were leveling up faster than any other acolytes and they intended to keep it that way, knowing that they’d have to get much higher in rank before they got to start choosing their own assignments, as well as stay ahead of the other Archons coming out of basic training, let alone catch up to those ahead of them. Paul and Jason had accused them of being lazy numerous times, and both Karen and Travis still felt the burn from that, with them deciding to work their asses off that much harder in order to prove them wrong, and to date they were catching up to and passing Archons older than them by the droves.

4

April 18, 2534

Xaxe System (beyond the ADZ)

Unnamed Planet

The GameRay came into a high orbit, braking heavily so it could avoid the normal parking lanes. As the sensors caught up to the transition Bri had 4 ships pop up on orbital scans…all cargo ships based on the designs and no threat to her warship, though what was on the other side of the planet was unclear. It could hold more ships in orbit, which was why she’d wanted a high observational position, allowing the jumpship to sit and watch to see what came around. While it was possible to hover on anti-grav, doing so was simply too much of a fuel burner, which meant ships would sit in orbit and coast around a circular or elliptical path, eventually revealing themselves to a fixed position.

The GameRay was slowly falling into the planet rather than putting itself into an orbit, but being so far out it wasn’t a concern. The surface infrastructure that the scout ship had detected was currently out of the line of sight, and Bri was going to wait until it rotated around before sending anyone down…which would occur in 36 minutes, according to the mapping data that the scout ship had brought back to update their records with.

The infrastructure the scout ship had detected from range had been little more than material readings differentiating from grass and dirt in geometric patterns. That basic outline had told them where it was on the planet but not what it was. Now that they were much closer than the scout ship had been, that weak schematic began to fill in as the planet rotated beneath them and exposed the construction to a more revealing scan.

Bri watched as a far greater region was detailed, with small structures and what looked like walls outlining large tracks of land around the heavy infrastructure…at which point she immediately knew what they had here, based on her previous knowledge of Earth before the ‘golden age’ had begun. These were farms, and even though the sensors couldn’t pick out life forms from this distance, she was sure they weren’t growing plants down there, save for maybe foodstuffs for their ‘livestock.’

Whoever they were had a meat farm set up out here, risking attack from the lizards, Nestafar, pirates, or any of the other threats in the area in order to get outside the ADZ’s legal restrictions…then to smuggle the meat back inside, probably through the Scionate worlds, or maybe even selling to them directly.

Bri flipped her earpiece on with a telekinetic button press and cycled through the various options until she got the pair of IDs she wanted to contact.

“Meet me in the hangar, full gear, scout protocol, stun weapons. We’re going down for a closer look.”

Ready sis?

Always, Karen replied, standing in the rear of the dropship that was descending into the atmosphere over the western side of the surface complex in a none too subtle nose dive. Bri was standing in front of them as they looked out the rear hatch into the sky, seeing a few stars hanging onto view as the atmosphere thickened under the morning sun, into which she ran out, jumping the last step in the artificial gravity to get some separation speed.

She shot off out the back, but didn’t fall ‘down’ given that the dropship was technically below here. Karen and Travis followed her out, passing through the inertial dampening field and into freefall as the dropship seemed to be heavier than them and continued to fall faster. That was an illusion, for in fact it was simply holding its line while the three Archons were caught up in the atmospheric friction and pulled backwards, though they too were still falling at a high rate of speed.

The two specs of silver armor adjusted their fall rate and angle by altering their body positions, using their arms and legs like rudders and flew after the green spec that was Bri, coming up behind her in a wide-spaced triangle formation as the dropship began to pull up out of its dive and shoot farther north, leaving them behind.

The atmosphere on this world was thick, thicker than Earth’s anyway, and they’d come out at significant altitude, giving them a long way to fall. Their armor blocked the wind from their eyes, with them seeing through the faceplate and on the HUD where they were headed to, with the Twins following Bri’s course corrections as they descended over one of the many hexagonal fields below.

They had detected a single anti-air turret on the trip down, hence the off-center drop. They estimated the range of the weapon to be about 2 kilometers, maybe 4, given that it was a plasma design and the atmosphere was going to mess with the trajectory. The Archon armor could take a hit on its shields if it was just spit, meaning they were good to drop so long as they didn’t get too close.

The fields below stretched out for some 30 kilometers to the west, and once the trio descended down to 5 km Bri gave them a telepathic heads up, then angled her body and started to bring herself out of the fall, using her momentum and the friction of the air to start creating lateral speed towards the complex. As she did she monitored her altitude closely, adding a bit of anti-grav from her jump pack later on to further stall the fall.

By the time the Archons reached 500 meters they were moving almost full lateral and hung onto it with a combination of aerodynamics and jump pack until they came down to within a handful of meters of the grassy fields and moving at well over 100 miles per hour. Bri adjusted her body line out of ‘bullet’ shape and feathered her arms and legs while pulsing the jump pack, forcing her up into the air again in a skid that slowed her down and regained some altitude…but hopefully low enough not to attract the attention of the turret which they were still outside the prime range of.

“Bri, how are we supposed to stop?” Travis said as they mimicked her maneuver, trailing some 20 meters back and losing speed, but still traveling quite fast.

“Run or roll rookies,” Bri said, finally dropping to the ground when her jump pack capacitor exhausted itself. She managed to come down feet first, with the trickle of recharge energy being fed into the anti-grav to cushion the drop. Her first foot strike she managed to turn into a jump. The second hit and stuck, flipping her over but she managed to jump it into an aerial flip and land on her feet again at a sprint as the twins flew past her overhead.

Her long, awkward strides smoothed out as she slowed down to an easy 30 miles per hour and had to start working to maintain the speed rather than just peg legging it to keep up with the terrain. The ranger continued to slow down, settling in at 20 miles per hour and huffing it across the grasses as she followed the others, watching them come down in a similar manner some 300 meters ahead of her, except that they weren’t fast enough on their feet to match their landing speed…with both of them tripping into falls.

Bri saw them tumble violently, flipping heads over heels until the combination of armor and ground finally bled off their speed. She continued to run forward, letting her run continue to slow until she finally came up to them at a 10 mph jog.

“You guys alright?” she asked over the comm.

Karen looked up at Bri from her sitting position, seeing that the green armor didn’t have any dirt/mud marks on it, whereas hers and her brother’s were covered in abrasion grime. “You didn’t fall?”

“Almost, but I stuck the landing and ran it out.”

“Wish I’d been able to do that,” Travis complained as he stood up and felt around his back rack. “I lost something.”

Bri pointed ahead of him.

“Thanks,” he said, walking over and picking up the stun pistol that had dislodged when he’d hit. Apparently it had better aerodynamics than he did, for it had traveled further on impact.

Karen also retrieved a couple pieces of gear that had got knocked off their attachments and stretched her neck, feeling a bit of a crimp from when she hit her head, but her armor had protected her from snapping it or anything else by not mechanically allowing any abnormal bends.

“You guys need a minute?” Bri asked.

“We running?” Travis asked.

“Yep.”

“How about a minute or two of jogging?”

“Deal,” the ranger agreed, taking the lead at a very slow pace with the twins dropping in behind her and moving a bit awkwardly for the first few steps. She gave them some time to get the wind back in their lungs then accelerated up to a decent pace that she thought they could handle over the slightly rolling terrain. There was nothing but grass around them, all of which was knee high and flowering with tiny seeds that broke off as they ran through. It wasn’t until more than a mile later that they came up on one of the captive herds.

Bri avoided the thickset quadrupeds that looked like they couldn’t run if their life depended on it. They had narrow heads and a huge chest that tapered back to narrower hips and no tail.

“Bernen,” she identified as they swung around the herd of 200 or so that was chewing on the grass in a small hollow that also had a tiny pond at the center.

“Never heard of them,” Karen commented as they ran past.

“They’re not very intelligent, but they are strong. They’re also burrowers.”

“Those things go underground?” Travis asked, looking to his left at the hippo-sized creatures.

“Hence the leg strength,” Bri added as they passed them by, with two more herds visible within a kilometer, the furthest one clustered up against one of the boundary fence/walls. “They’re a favorite foodstuff of several races.”

“Let me guess,” Karen said. “Kitty food?”

“There are Scionate here,” Bri confirmed.

Travis frowned inside his helmet. “How do you know that?”

“Ikrid. These bernen have seen them.”

“You pulled a mental download on the run?”

“Not hard when you go to what they fear the most. Spread out for the jump and let me go first. I’ll let you know what’s on the other side,” Bri said as they came up to an empty area of fence. It was a solid wall of synthetic construction with a flat top some three meters high with periodic spikes spaced out several hundred meters.

“Are those cameras?”

“Maybe,” Bri said, knowing that meant the owners were going to be able to keep track of them as they ran across the fields. “Can’t be helped,” she said, motioning for the three of them to split up.

Bri kept running on a straight line, ready to activate her jump pack but taking a moment to look at the wall with her Pefbar from range. As it turned out it was quite thick, actually wider than it was tall. Then in the last few steps she pushed her Pefbar ‘cone’ down through the ground and saw that the wall extended into the ground further than she could see, possibly built to keep the bernen from burrowing out rather than a concern about them going over top.

The ranger released the effort when she jumped, sailing up easily to the top and choosing to land on the wall for a single foot hop with a second floating jump bringing her across and down to the other side.

“Clear,” she told the others, seeing a herd nearby but not close enough to give them landing problems. The two acolytes came over a few seconds later, one to either side, then they sprinted to catch up to Bri as she continued to run on, diverting to her right about 15 degrees as she headed them towards the buildings that were barely visible in the distance over the next wall…still multiple kilometers away.

“Company,” Travis said, seeing a hover vehicle whipping across one of the walls ahead of them and dropping back down to about a meter above the grass as a huge fan blade on the back encased in a ring provided propulsion, signifying that the anti-grav was probably basic and not able to do more than provide vertical lift.

“I see it,” Bri said, slowing down just a hair so the twins could regain some strength. “Time for meet and greet.”

“Orders?” Karen asked.

“I’ll disable it. You stun everything in sight.”

“It’s armed,” she pointed out.

“I know,” Bri said, launching into a sprint at the top of a small rise and surging out ahead of the twins as the vehicle redirected its line and came to a halt with its side facing her. On top of it she saw two small tripod-mounted guns swivel towards her as the armored bipeds behind them took aim.

The next thing she knew they were firing some form of bullets at her, not the traditional plasma that almost everyone seemed to use.

Bri caught a round on her leg, which deflected off her shields and caused her to trip. She landed face first on the ground but managed a somersault roll and came back up on her feet and resumed her run at a much slower pace. She took three steps then juked left, with a spray of bullets passing by her with only two hits to her torso. Those didn’t take her down but they did drop her shields under 50% and she was still well outside her Ikrid range.

Knowing that she sprinted hard, attempting a few Fornax blasts and missing badly, then got clipped again by a three round buzz saw on her left shoulder that flipped her around and took her to the ground again. This time she rolled out of it to the side, staying low to the ground for an extra turn before getting her knees under her and sprinting out again…now at an angle so the gunners would have a harder time shooting what had previously been a more or less stationary target from their point of view.

A few seconds later she saw the right-side gunner twitch when she threw a Fornax blast at him, meaning she was getting close…but then the vehicle accelerated slightly, allowing it to move and shoot and keep some distance between her and them as they quickly saw that she wasn’t going down like they’d expected.

A telepathic message from the twins told her that they were moving the opposite way, so Bri continued to sprint forward, feeling the strain in her muscles as she fought her armor to get up over 35 mph. She could go faster than that on the track for short periods of time, but the footing here was crap and the grass was slowing her down too…whereas the hover truck was gliding along easily, with her only gaining a handful of meters on it.

She caused the gunner to twitch again, throwing off his aim, and she started throwing out Fornax blasts at where she felt the driver was sitting inside a concealed cockpit. It didn’t seem to help, but the vehicle wasn’t getting away either, making her think it was just going to play with them and keep its guns out of her range while they chewed her up.

Bri adjusted her line, seeing the vehicle likewise adjust its, then she took another hit and her shields dropped to under 20%. She slowed her run as she came to a downhill section that would cause her to temporarily disappear from view in a small hollow. When she hit the bottom she went back into full sprint, climbing up the far side and coming out the top with greater speed, catching the vehicle off guard and allowing her to get some 20 meters closer before it adjusted.

She hit the gunner with another Fornax blast and saw his hands slip off the tripod as he pitched forward onto it. The ranger hit him again and again, taking him down and keeping him on the deck of the vehicle until the range increased and she lost her ability to keep him there. He got back up, clearly shaken, and reclaimed his weapon…only to have the vehicle lurch to the side violently, knocking both gunners off their feet as it turned towards Bri’s left.

She continued her sprint, now closing distance on it as she saw the twins much closer. Apparently they’d gotten to the driver, and as Bri got within range she reached out to the mind in the cockpit and linked into it, unable to do little more than cause it some grief at this range, but a few more steps closer and she was able to freeze it in place, with the vehicle drifting lazily across the grass.

Bri held that mental link, ignoring the gunners and trusting the twins to get to them…which they did soon after, knocking down both with Fornax blasts before they jumped up onto the flatbed section of the vehicle and shot them unconscious with pink energy blasts at pointblank range. Karen disappeared from view for a moment, then Bri felt the driver’s mind drop out of her vision.

She released her attempts to reacquire the connection and scanned the rest of the vehicle as she approached, finding no other minds there and only barely picking up the three unconscious ones. When she got up to the vehicle and took a jump pack-assisted hop up on top, Karen had already pulled out the driver, also a biped, who wore a hodgepodge assortment of armor and trinkets similar to the other two but not identical.

Travis pulled the helmet off of one of the gunners, revealing a glowing purple/green face.

“Protovic,” he said, pulling a pistol and a bandoleer of ammunition off the man and tossing it to the side.

“This one’s Gnar, I think,” Karen said, lightly kicking the stubby driver, but knowing better than trying to remove its breather mask.

Bri knelt down and pulled the helmet and scarf off the other gunner, seeing that it was a race that wasn’t part of the ADZ.

“Drepwen,” she said, recognizing the race notorious for generating pirates.

“More where these came from, I assume?” Travis asked.

“Give me a moment and I’ll find out,” Bri said, pulling her green armored glove off her left hand and pressing her smooth, lightly colored fingers up against the burnt red of the Drepwen’s neck and hacking into its nervous system directly to increase her Ikrid efficiency as she searched its recent memories, made all the more difficult by the fact that it was unconscious.

That said, this wasn’t her first unconscious interrogation. It would take time, but she’d learn what they needed to know.

“Keep watch,” she told them, focusing all her attention on the task at hand.

5

Bri tapped her jump pack, getting a small boost to her leap and sailing up over a stack of compressed cargo pallets. She landed knee first on the other side on the back of a Scionate, knocking him to the ground as she pumped two rounds from her stun pistol into the thin shirt covering the quadruped’s back. The pink energy soaked through it with ease, saturating his body and causing it to go numb a moment before he blacked out.

Bri rolled off his body as it collapsed and ducked to the side as a pair of plasma orbs came her way…one red, one orange, and coming from two different shooters. They were both Critel wearing partial armor and firing at her with beefy rifles that were spitting out plasma rapidly…along with several other shooters spaced around the bay trying to keep her from getting to the transport that was about to take off with the bulk of the compound’s key personnel on it, or at least the leadership, for most of the ‘farmers’ were spread out elsewhere as Bri cut to the heart of their operation.

She’d gotten the location of the bay and the command wing from the interrogation of the captives that they’d dumped in the fields, then they’d taken the hover vehicle all the way up to the complex before splitting up, with Bri heading straight to the big wigs…who were now trying to flee after seeing the ranger tear through more than 20 heavily armed mercenaries with ease. These Critel and others were merely delaying tactics, meant to slow her down rather than stop her, and she knew she had to get to the transport within the next thirty seconds, for the bay roof was already opening up and the whine of inefficient anti-gravs was filling the air.

Bri sprinted forward a few steps, then ducked right before sprinting again, getting within her preferred range before releasing a Fornax sphere that caught both Critel and a couple of other shooters behind a barricade. All four dropped to the ground, momentarily incapacitated as she held the effort while running over them. She stunned both Critel with her pistol, but didn’t turn to get the others. When she released the effort they both got up, one of them clueless as to what had just happened and disoriented from it, with the other taking the opposite approach and seeming to forget it entirely, for he rose up and fired at Bri’s back, hitting her with one of five quick shots.

The plasma abated against her shields, draining them of more energy that her small power source tried to replenish as she ran. More incoming shots hit her, even as she moved about with random adjustments, throwing off additional plasma orbs and a few lances. The races and equipment here were all hodgepodge, coming from a variety of sources, but effective none the less and the Archon knew that these men had had some type of formal training, for they were maintaining cohesion well and forcing her to run the gauntlet in order to get to the transport…which fortunately her armor allowed her to do.

As her shields finally popped she tapped the charge button on her pistol and headed for the largest cluster of the mercenaries, having to make only a minor detour to her right. She hopped over another crate and landed in a dive roll, causing a salvo of shots to miss her high. When she rolled back up onto her feet she fired at the group of four bipeds nearest to her, sending out a conical blast that expanded to hit all of them plus several crates nearby. The intensity wasn’t enough to knock them out, but their return fire stopped momentarily, allowing her to run up on them and stun two with pointblank shots before launching herself up and over the crate wall behind them as the roof door finally locked itself open with a loud clank, fully exposing the sky.

“No you don’t,” Bri said, taking more hits and getting melty spots on her armor, some of which she could feel a little heat from as she sprinted underneath the transport as it began to rise up. There were no open hatches or doors for her to get in through, and trying to hang onto the landing gear was a bad idea, for she would be crunched the moment it retracted.

That left her one option.

Skidding to a halt she reached out with her mind, sensing those inside and guessing where the cockpit was before it was out of her range. Several plasma blasts hit her but she ignored them, focusing on sending blast after blast of Fornax energy into the large ship. Five seconds later she almost gave up the attempt, getting warning lights flashing in her HUD as her armor was taking serious damage, then the transport, now halfway up through the open doors, lurched to the side and hit the rim.

There was a loud groan as metal pressed against metal, but the small bump escalated into a full blown crash as the transport inexplicably accelerated into the contact, breaking through the roof like it was tearing a piece of paper and forcing the transport back down inside at an angle.

Bri sent out one last blast then ran out of the way as the right side of the ship hit the deck, forced down as the roof thickened, tipping the transport onto its side. She took the moment to shoot another of her attackers and diminish the plasma coming towards her as she ran behind the cover of some more crates, most of which were empty and compacted down into storage mode…dozens of which crunched loudly as the transport edge landed on them, sounding like a billion twigs snapping under a Dino foot.

Bri circled around and got closer to where she thought the bridge was and resumed throwing Fornax blasts inside, aware that her head was starting to protest the continuous effort. As she did she worked her way further around, trying to find a route inside while dodging the mercs still on the deck who had not given up their attempts to slow her, and probably now emboldened by all the surface damage her green armor was showing.

It was a sticky situation, but she wasn’t about to let the ringleaders get away if she could help it, and at the moment it was a draw. They couldn’t leave and she couldn’t get inside, with the Archon not knowing which direction the deadlock would break.

On the outskirts of the complex Travis and Karen hopped over several of the bernen that had been corralled and entered through the loading dock, wide enough for just one at a time, and came into a horrific scene. The line of ‘livestock’ were being separated into four chutes by a worker with a pain-inducing stick of some kind, where upon each bernen was separated from the others by two paddles…one in front and one in back that forced it to move slowly down the processing line.

At the end of that line there were shrieks of horror coming from the bernen as they were forced into a tight chamber smelling of the blood of the ones that had gone before. The high pitched squeals turned Karen’s stomach so much she almost hesitated, but thanks to the battlemeld link with her brother they kept each other steady and stunned the handler corralling them just as they’d done the ones outside, then both twins split up and launched themselves up and over the death chutes via jump pack.

They came down on the far side, seeing one of the corralled bernen trapped between the wall and a large mechanical hand that had more than a dozen arm-sized fingers wrapped around its thick chest. Those fingers were pinning it in place, then with a flash a blade jutted out and decapitated the creature, with a blood spill equivalent to a small tidal wave that fell into a grate while a second mechanical hand picked up the head and placed it on a conveyor that disappeared into the nearby wall.

The body followed, dropping into a chute that disappeared into the floor as the next panel came forward, with the bernen behind it freaking out after hearing and smelling what had just happened ahead of it. The mechanical hand came in and pinned it against the wall just as Karen got to the control nook, dropping in over the short wall and kicking the operator in the head.

She reached down and grabbed him by the throat and tossed the spindly Karsek off the elevated platform, pumping two stun rounds into it as it fell, then she jumped up to the top of the wall and leapt off it to the next station, coming down on the Critel there as Travis took care of the other two stations.

Karen wanted to snap the man’s neck, but orders for this mission were to take prisoners for interrogation, so she settled on a very hard kick to the ribs followed by a pair of stun shots. The acolyte pulled the man’s body off the platform and dumped him to the floor before hopping over to the nearest bernen in the kill slot, looking for a way to rip apart the machine and free it as Travis found what she needed.

Karen retreated over to the control platform and hit a specific button that her brother had discovered that retracted all of the paddles. The bernen were still in the chute but could see one another and, more importantly, could backtrack. It took a while to get them back out into the exterior corral, but Karen and Travis felt it necessary to get them away from the blades and the gore that had just been their living kin before moving further into the facility.

They locked the exterior doors so that the bernen couldn’t wander back in, not that any looked to be wanting to get near the building after they set them loose, and proceeded further inside, hunting down more personnel but finding only a handful. Some were fleeing ahead of them, but they managed to bag a few on the level below, cutting up the bernen corpses in a display that made Karen puke in her mouth…which caused Travis to do the same.

She held it in as they took care of them, then they left the gore behind and Travis covered for her as she removed her helmet and spat out the vile liquid. When she locked her helmet back in place they switched, allowing Travis to spit out what they fortunately had both held inside their mouths, otherwise the interior of their helmets would have been a mess. Once he’d resecured his helmet Karen followed him into the next section of the complex, still feeling an unsettled stomach.

Grotesque as it was, they were both Archons and knew how to steady their nerves from many high pressure situations before. Right now she forced the thoughts of the carnage aside and focused on eliminating targets…something that had been ingrained into every Archon since the beginning of basic training.

The twins proceeded to clear out the processing and packaging subset of the complex, finding only light resistance. Eventually they made their way to the residential areas that held a variety of chambers, some that looked like they were for sleeping and others for business. Karen and Travis were scouting out one of the ‘office’ complexes when Bri finally caught up to them, with Karen giving her the ‘wait’ finger as she entered.

A split second later Travis, some 10 meters ahead and around a corner, fired off a stun blast…followed by a struggle that had Karen running after it and disappearing around the corner. Bri followed her several paces behind, but got a sneak peak ahead with her Pefbar, looking through the walls and seeing Travis kicking the crap out of three people. When Karen got to him that number increased greatly, with more coming out from somewhere beyond her vision.

“Stand down!” she heard Travis yell in the trade language, then as she got around the corner and up to them the ranger saw dozens of people clustered together in the room, now kneeling on the ground with their hands in the air…save for those that were lying unconscious at the twins’ feet.

Bri reached out to the conscious ones with her Ikrid, quickly discovering that these weren’t combat trained. “Service personnel.”

“Service?” Travis asked.

“Cooks, whores, and whatnot,” she said, turning over one of the unconscious ones with her armored boot.

“Ouch,” Karen said, looking at Bri’s armor. “You get your ass kicked?”

“Necessary damage,” she said, looking at the fearful looks she was getting from the mostly female group three meters in front of her. “How many did you take down?”

“At least thirty,” Travis answered. “You?”

“126. Do you feel like babysitting these?”

“Not really,” Karen said, feeling Travis’s dread simultaneously.

“Then stun them.”

Karen shrugged. “Works for me.”

In sync the two twins raised their pistols and unloaded on the group, which was terrified, thinking they were about to be killed, but after a few seconds all of them dropped to the ground unconscious, though one Bivor hit its head on a countertop on the way down, proceeding to bleed heavily onto the floor.

“Damn it,” Travis said, seeing the wound.

“I’ll take care of it,” Bri said, glancing at Karen. “Call down a pair of dropships. We need commandos, techs, and medic. Enough to set up a makeshift prison. Techs will administer the farm until we decide what to do with it.”

“Copy that,” Karen said, using her HUD to link into the small ergonomically shaped cylinder located across her lower back. Using the comm booster she got a link to the GameRay and began organizing their support team.

Bri hadn’t carried one, preferring instead to carry extra weapons. One of her pistols had already run out of charge, but she’d brought four, plus some extra power packs, though she hadn’t changed any out yet.

The ranger pulled off her left glove and knelt down next to the Bivor, tipping him over onto his back and moving his tiny arms aside. She reached up and swiped away the blue blood, seeing how big the gash was, then she let it swell back up again and continue to run in a rivulet across his wide face and onto the floor as she looked down at her hand, with smoke rising up as the blood on her fingertips began to boil off.

Using her Rensiek, she gathered a great amount of heat on the surface of her fingers and contained it there, mostly, then carefully reached down and pushed them against the wound. When she lifted them back off the unconscious alien the blood flow had reduced to a trickle, with the skin over the wound having been cauterized.

“Ouch,” Travis commented. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Toasting marshmallows,” she said deadpan, switching over to one of the guards and pressing her now cool fingers against the Critel’s head. This one was a merc, apparently having been caught off guard getting a meal and deciding to take refuge here while the others fought…up until Travis had got to them and he’d decided to try to fight it out hand to hand with a fully armored opponent. Not the brightest move, but at least she appreciated the effort, for she would have done the same.

“Reinforcements dispatched,” Karen reported. “You looking for something specific?”

“Yes.”

“Mind sharing?”

“Kayate.”

Travis raised a mental eyebrow, with Karen returning the sentiment.

A moment later Bri released contact and stood up. “You guys talk too much…and splitting up the questions between the two of you doesn’t help. Hacking into the minds of races you’re unfamiliar with is hard enough for me without your distractions. So when the fingers come out,” she said, holding up her slender digits for emphasis, “your mouth closes.”

“As you wish,” Travis agreed.

Bri pointed her armored finger at him. “And don’t flirt with me,” she said, pulling her other glove back on. “This one was recruited in Scionate space. Same with two others I checked earlier. That’s where they’re shipping the meat.”

“To the Scionate or just through their territory?” Karen asked.

“Good question. Hopefully one of the others will know. I didn’t have time to check them all.”

“Flirting how?” Travis asked naively.

“Movie. Princess Bride. Watch it when you get back. Right now, we’ve got bodies to drag…or rather you guys do. I’ll take a couple, then I’m going to start mind scanning while you bring the others.”

“Where to?” Karen asked, not really interested in watching a chick flick now or ever.

“Cargo bay is a mess, so we’ll use one of the rooms on the other side. Not sure what it’s for, but it should be big enough.”

“What’s wrong with the cargo bay?” Travis asked.

“I broke their ship. You can check it out when you’re pulling the crew off, there’s at least 20 still in there,” Bri said, lifting the largest unconscious alien in the room up and over her shoulders. “Bring them all to me and I’ll put them in a deep sleep so we don’t have to keep wasting ammo. When the dropship arrives tell it to set down as close as it can.”

Karen nodded and let Bri walk out with her cargo before she knelt down and picked up one of her own, with Travis doing likewise.

Princess Bride?

Not watching it, Karen said, following Bri out underneath a very smelly alien.

6

May 12, 2534

Solar System

Earth

“You son of a bitch,” Alden-031 said in dismay. “Do that again.”

Paul smiled. “Happy to.”

Alden pulled an apple up out of the bag the trailblazers had brought with them then telekinetically sent it flying through the air towards Paul, who was standing in the middle of Balboa Lane, which the 6 trailblazers had commandeered for this little endeavor.

The apple sailed on a straight line towards Paul, who stepped a few inches to the side as he brought his right arm up and held his hand flat like a blade. As the apple got to him he chopped down on it, missing by half a meter.

None the less, the apple split in two, with Alden sailing both pieces on past him, whereupon he circled them around and back into his hands, staring at the cut Paul had just made as the trailblazer kicked the other pieces further away from where he stood.

Jack-020 walked over and looked at the apple slices with Alden. “Just like a knife.”

“That is scary,” Alden agreed, looking at the larger piece. Paul had sliced it in half, but he’d missed dead center by a hair.

Wes-049 yanked the smaller half out of Alden’s hand and flew it over to his own, studied it for a moment, then took a bite. “Alright…moving target,” he said as he chewed.

“Allow me,” Ben-044 offered, pulling out another apple from the bag with an invisible hold, but instead of shooting it straight at Paul he sent it in on a curve, then looped it around his fellow trailblazer out of reach before sending it in towards his back.

Paul spun around and missed again…but this time the apple didn’t cut in two, it juked up as Ben moved it just in time to miss Paul’s extended ‘hand.’

“Gotta be quicker than that,” Dina-077 teased. The six trailblazers on Earth were all in the pyramid for advanced training, and they’d taken an hour out of their time to see Paul’s new trick that he had been boasting about.

“Unless you want me grabbing it, get it back down here,” Paul warned as Ben floated it over his head.

“I thought you could hit it at range?” Wes asked.

“Not when it’s moving,” Paul clarified.

Dina smiled as Paul’s back was turned to the group, his eyes chasing the apple above him. She telekinetically picked up another apple and shot it towards him, giving him two targets to hit as Ben simultaneously brought the high apple down towards his head.

Paul saw the second one coming on his Pefbar and extended his other hand into a flat pose, then whipped both arms around in slashing motions. It took 5 attempts over the timespan of 2.3 seconds, but he managed to hit both apples, though the upper one only got a small nub cut off. He telekinetically grabbed all four pieces and tossed them back to the group, a proud smirk on his face.

Jack shook his head. “I still can’t believe you’re doing that with shields.”

“Believe me, it’s harder than it looks. I have to concentrate an awful lot of power into a very small space, but I can get an impossibly sharp edge if I do it right.”

“How sharp?” Dina asked.

“I haven’t been able to cut metal yet, but only because I’m not strong enough.”

“Damn,” Wes said in a whisper. “We can’t even see the blades.”

“I can fix that,” Paul said, mentally making an adjustment with his invisible knife blades extending out beyond both hands’ fingertips suddenly becoming translucent with a blue tint, looking for all the world like short swords floating an inch beyond his fingers.

“Better,” Ben commented, pulling out another apple.

“Not if the Zen’zat keep them invisible,” Wes argued.

“He has a point,” Dina agreed, feeling her braided ponytail.

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Need a haircut?”

She eyed him firmly. “Don’t…you…dare.”

“Ok,” Jack said, picking up a few of the already cut pieces and floating them in front of him like a rack of ammunition. “Splatter time. Everybody get one.”

“Hey…” Paul complained as they all pulled apples out of the bag, with Alden taking two.

“Here’s how we’re doing this,” Jack explained. “You stay put, we throw at you in straight lines. No switchbacks except to recycle ammo,” he said, mentally telling the others to spread out. “And no blocking shields.”

“You’re going to get me so sticky,” Paul complained, setting himself with his arms going low and wide.

“I think that’s the point,” Dina said, shooting her apple at him far faster than the previous ones had flown.

Paul twisted his torso to the right and brought his left arm up, bisecting the apple but getting hit in the cheek by half of it, leaving a wet streak there. He didn’t have time to swipe it away as more apples and apple pieces came in at him. The full ones he managed to hit, but every time he made a cut they got smaller and kept recycling back around, with all five trailblazers eventually telekinetically juggling 5 or more pieces each.

Those Paul couldn’t cut well, because his siblings were peppering him with them far faster than he could handle and enjoying every moment of it. He knew he could have thrown up a defensive shield to cover his skin, but that would be cheating and they knew it, meaning he had to flail about trying to hit pieces or admit defeat.

Neither happened, with everyone eventually laughing as Paul kept getting clobbered by the little bits, many of which ended up on his clothes and in his hair.

“Guess this is what I get for bragging,” he commented, releasing his shield blades and having them dissipate into non-existence…then he concentrated for a moment and formed a shield along the skin of his head and hands. With a slight effort he pushed it out, straightening his hair as all the little pieces and liquid blew off, though his uniform was still covered.

“Quite the mess,” another voice said from the doorway. Paul had seen him come in a few moments ago, but the others had apparently missed it, having their backs to him.

Jack and the others turned around, shocked to see Davis standing there. “When the hell did you get here?”

“A few hours ago. I didn’t want to disrupt your workouts,” he said, walking up to the group as Paul likewise came forward to join them…stepping on apple bits half the way up.

“If you needed something why didn’t you call?” Dina asked.

“Same reason,” he said, standing eye to eye with the others and looking nearly identical to them, save for a less sculpted body and a different uniform, his being a plain black while the trailblazers all had on their white with black stripe striker versions.

“What’s up?” Paul asked as he stepped up beside Wes.

“Trouble that we have to deal with immediately. Gamma 6 found a meat farm outside the ADZ that has been making shipments into Scionate territory and distributing it from there. It’s a purely independent operation, comprised of a number of mercenaries and freelance shippers, but under Ikrid interrogation Bri discovered that they were commissioned by the Scionate in order to create plausible deniability.”

“Meat shipping in the ADZ is still illegal,” Ben pointed out. “We can nail them on that, regardless of whether it’s their territory or not.”

“We don’t need proof,” Davis said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We know they’re responsible, and they know it. I’m not playing any games with them, but if they want to shrug it off and dare us to make an issue of it, I need options.”

“Have you informed them?” Dina asked.

“No. We’ve confiscated the facility, taken the workers prisoner, and are in the process of sending ships to evacuate the herds. The Scionate don’t know anything yet, nor does anyone else.”

“What kind of a response are you wanting?” Paul asked.

Davis sighed. “I’m guessing that the Scionate will double down, expecting us to not be willing to start a war over this, which we can’t, I assume?”

“Well, we could…” Jack said halfheartedly.

“Their fleet is larger than ours and mostly deployed in defense of their own words,” Paul differed. “Our tech is better, so I wouldn’t count us out, but we’d have to pull our fleets in from other deployments and leave the frontier vulnerable. That’s something we cannot do, and if the Scionate know that then they probably think they’ve got us pinned to a rule we can’t enforce.”

“Which is why I need other options,” Davis concurred. “I can throw a host of economic trouble their way, but if they’re willing to violate the agreement we had, I wouldn’t consider them to care much what we do to them. They’ve got their worlds now, behind our defenses, and they, like many others are probably considering, might be thinking that they can just do as they please without regard to the colonization agreement that they entered into in exchange for those worlds.”

“We have to drop the hammer,” Dina said without hesitation.

“Short of using the fleet,” Wes added.

“To what end?” Ben asked. “Are we bluffing or ready to take them out if we have to?”

“That,” Davis said, holding up a hand, “is what we need to impart to them. Killing for food isn’t something that we don’t like seeing, it’s something that we won’t tolerate in the ADZ even if we have to fight every single one of the races here to stop it. I’d prefer not having to fight a war to prove it, but I fear talk at this point isn’t going to be effective unless they know it’s backed up with power. I don’t want to involve the Hycre or Protovic in this, this is our edict that they’ve broken and it’s our place to enforce it. Tell me how we can do that.”

“Go in and trash their meat distribution network,” Dina suggested. “Did Gamma 6 backtrack it?”

“They uncovered some leads that Beta 3, 4, and 8 are following up, but I won’t know for more than a month.”

“I agree,” Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest as he thought out loud. “Target their illicit activities and tear the crap out of them…and do it under the radar. That way they’ll know we know and that we’re pissed, as well as shutting them down.”

“And if they have more than one of these shell suppliers?” Wes floated.

“We have to track down them all,” Paul said firmly.

“That means trashing their stuff and sticking around long enough to ask questions,” Alden continued the train of thought.

“What if they’re smuggling more than meat?” Dina asked. “What if we find farms inside Scionate territory?”

“We’d have to confiscate and evacuate the herds,” Paul said offhand.

“Easier said than done…plus that leaves us just cleaning up their messes. If they do it again we confiscate again and the cycle continues. This isn’t contraband we’re talking about, it’s lives. We have to take care of this now, and permanently.”

“Permanently is unlikely to happen,” Paul disagreed, “but if we are going to have a chance of it we have to hit them hard, and in a way that is going to make them remember...plus anyone else who learns of it.”

“Without the fleet not sure how we do that,” Wes said, hoping the others would have suggestions.

“We need a beat down,” Alden said, his eyes closed to near slits.

“That’s what the fleet is for,” Wes reminded him.

“No, we need to make it personal. Find the meat network and smash it, but also find the Scionate leaders and beat the crap out of them, in person, fist to claw. I think that will send the message we need.”

Davis considered that. “How difficult would that be?”

“Very,” Ben emphasized. “We’d have to get past their defense fleet to get to the surface, avoid any anti-air defenses they might have set up, go by foot through the city, find the bastards, say hi, then get back out again.”

“So what’s the hard part?” Paul asked.

“Sounds like you’re volunteering,” Dina said, glancing at him.

“If you guys can handle the network trashing, I’ll play meet and greet with their leaders…along with an assistant or two.”

“Don’t look at me,” Jack said, putting his hands up in front of him as if to ward off the selection finger. “Fighting a few dozen kitties is fine, but bringing an entire planet full down on your head…a bit out of my league, and yours, by the way.”

“We’ll make it work, and I wasn’t referring to any of you here. I do think extraction will be the hardest part, for both missions, especially if they have smuggled herds to their worlds. We’d almost definitely have to use the fleet to get them out.”

“Unless you made their leaders say uncle,” Dina pointed out.

“Perhaps you should hit their meat network first,” Davis suggested. “That way you know what to talk about when you say hi later.”

Ben thumbed towards Davis as he looked at the others. “Someone been giving him sarcasm lessons?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Davis said genuinely. “And whatever you arrange, I need to know the timetable so I can coordinate diplomatic elements from my end. I’m going to make sure everyone else knows what’s happening, even if the Scionate try and cover it up.”

“And if they get pissed and feel like attacking us?” Wes asked.

“Then they’re going to incur the wrath of the ADZ…as well as our new allies.”

Paul locked eyes with Davis. “That’s our ace in the hole?”

“Even if it wasn’t we’re not going to tolerate a meat market, even if we have to wage all-out war with our former allies. Make sure they understand we’ll escalate as far as necessary to stop this.”

“I’ll deliver the message,” Paul promised.

“I trust you all will handle the rest and keep me informed,” Davis said, looking at each in turn then focusing on the bag behind their feet and telekinetically bringing up his own apple from the few intact ones that remained. He grabbed it out of the air and held it up in his hand for emphasis. “But before you get at it, explain to me what you were doing with this…and how.”

Three weeks later…

Morgan’s warship jumped into a system just inside the ADZ border that held 6 planets, all uninhabited and uninviting. With scans of the system being clear, as far as their limited sensors could determine, she ordered her ship out to the 4th planet, then over to its 18th moon. The tiny pebble of a planetoid was only 300 miles wide and covered in water and moss beneath an unusually thick atmosphere for such a small gravity well…yet it was still too thin to breathe, meaning that Randy’s base hidden there had to be completely self-contained.

It was one on another of the clandestine networks, this one running throughout Beta Region, and Morgan’s drop off point for the Aronsic passengers she’d been collecting from behind enemy lines. Sam and Mark were doing likewise, with their expeditions using one of the three drop off points that Morgan had available to her. Neither of their ships were here, for such drops occurred only rarely. It wouldn’t do to advertise the location of the base, plus it was hard finding enough of the Hobbits willing to switch sides to fill a jumpship.

That said, it was getting easier now that they knew where to look, and Morgan quite liked plucking new allies out from under the enemy’s nose. The Hobbits she would be dropping off here would eventually make their way back through the circuit via cargo ships until they reached a Nexus world where they’d be making their new home under Star Force training and control, with the Skarrons not knowing what had happened to them.

When Morgan’s ship established contact with the base they exchanged message packets, passing along whatever updates either party had come across last, and in this case Morgan had a message from Paul waiting for her. After overseeing that the transfer of her guests got underway without incident, she retreated to her quarters and began going through her mail and status updates, pulling up Paul’s message first.

After reading it she contacted the Captain and gave him new orders. They wouldn’t be returning to enemy space, nor any of their Beta Region colonies. She was needed for a much more important mission and the warship was going with her, it being the fastest means possible for her to return back to the Core Region and rendezvous with the others. It seemed there was a bit of a trailblazer reunion going on, and given the party itinerary she didn’t want to be late.

7

July 17, 2534

Corvio System (Scionate/Star Force territory)

Admat

Morgan was sitting quietly on the couch in her quarters, legs folded up into a crosslegged pose doing some light psionic drills meant to increase her Ikrid sensitivity as well as probe for new abilities when she felt Paul arrive outside. Without a word she telekinetically pressed the open button on her door and let him in, slowly opening her eyes and ending the drill.

Her fellow trailblazer walked in, his eyes a bit more intense than usual, and stopped a couple of meters in front of her. “Just got word.”

“And?”

“They busted up the hub and exposed a huge network. They’re going after the other pieces, but there are no interior farms, so we’re good to go.”

“I’ll meet you two in the hangar,” Morgan said with a nod as she stretched out her legs. Paul nodded and walked out, closing the door behind him as Morgan walked over to the spot on the floor where she’d left her clothes and pulled them back on, then made a quick stop in the restroom before opening her closet. She brought out her striker armor and stepped into it, fastening the various clasps starting at her slender legs and working up to her neck before finally sliding the helmet in place and hearing it click into its atmospheric seal.

She breathed normally through the mask/grate, open to the outside air as it was, and left her quarters enroute to the hangar with a quick stop off at the local armory. The Star Force colony wasn’t her normal home, but as per protocol all of them had Archon supplies on hand should they be needed, which in this case was a jump pack that she attached to her armor. The harness-like device was neutral gray, clashing with her black motif but that didn’t matter. On top of the jump pack she attached an equipment rack that snugged up to the new outline perfectly, and on top of that she added various weapons, all of which were stun.

Morgan also swapped out her armor’s power core with a fresh fuel rod, one of three that the striker armor ran on, opposed to the normal two that the other variants used. It was rechargeable, both in the field and in the colony, but she needed to go in with full power and not have to worry about how much juice she had, for the gloves she’d brought with her were stun equipped as well, and would draw off the armor’s power source rather than an energy clip like her weapons did.

Once fully geared up she left the armory enroute to the colony’s hangar bays, heading for a small, private one reserved for their exclusive use. When she got there she passed through a pair of Knights guarding the entrance so that no one could get inside and sneak a peek at their ride.

It had been Paul’s idea, and she’d agreed, breaking standard protocol but given the situation it was a good call. The star system they currently were in held 1 Star Force planet and 6 Scionate ones, including their new capitol. Some people had been surprised that they’d located it in a system that had an outside presence, but all of the other Scionate systems held 2 inhabited planets at best, with those here being amongst the most preferable…which was also why Star Force had claimed one for themselves in order to put down roots for the ADZ transit grid, making this not only a major system for the Scionate but a link for them to the rest of the ADZ through Star Force if they chose to use it.

And they did, somewhat, but there was far more traffic here coming from other races, making Corvio an economic hotspot, but oddly enough not the meat market entry point. Apparently the Scionate hadn’t been stupid enough to put it right under Star Force’s nose, but she was sure some of it was getting here through other means, undoubtedly being smuggled on other vessels not originating from outside the ADZ.

Getting over to the Scionate capitol wasn’t going to be hard…getting down to the surface undetected was, and while Star Force had a measure of stealth technology, getting through a cluttered orbit and into the ruling city would have been damn hard to do unnoticed, and Morgan knew the key to this mission was surprise. Paul had given them a 50/50 chance of pulling it off before suggesting an alternative…which sat off to the side in the hangar bay, outside of which Paul was waiting fully armored.

Morgan walked over to him and the V’kit’no’sat gunship just as the third person in their little raiding party came into the hangar behind her, running to catch up.

“Sorry I’m late,” Kara offered, wearing nothing but her standard uniform whose cuff draped down over her wrist, partially covering her clear Vorch’nas.

“You’re not,” Paul said as he turned and walked into the side access door.

“Still going with the faceplate?” Morgan asked, following him in as Kara brought up the rear.

“It’s what I’m used to.”

“Not going to get used to the new one unless you use it,” she pointed out.

“I’ll wait for the new armor before I make the change,” he said, hanging a left and walking down between the two rows of seats and over to the lower cockpit.

Kara closed the door with a thought and followed the other two up to the cockpit, but rather than sitting down in one of the three seats she climbed the small ladder up to the command post. It was a single seat with a ring of holographic controls, all of which were instantaneously familiar to her. She pulled up several specific diagrams, one detailing sensor beam intensity/reflection, knowing that even with the sensor stealthing that all V’kit’no’sat craft seemed to have they were going to have to be sneaky…which was her responsibility while Paul flew the ship.

“Ready up here.”

“Did you bring them?” Morgan asked, suddenly remembering one important item that she didn’t have with her.

Paul stood up and reached into the pack on his back, pulling out a small sack with a flip-lid mouth. “Didn’t think you’d want one until we got there.”

“I don’t, I just wanted to make sure you brought them. What’s the dosage?”

“Each bean is 200.”

“Ouch,” Kara said from above. “That’s one hell of a headache.”

“You’d be surprised how much the shields eat up,” Paul said, activating the gunship’s anti-grav…which like all other advanced versions was silent. “Anything we need to do prior to leaving the bay?”

“Just come out slow so I can get a reading.”

“Slow sounds bad,” Morgan commented, sitting in the seat to Paul’s left and looking at her own holographic displays along with a handful of physical buttons.

“I just need to see how this responds to the local sensors. I don’t need altitude, just stick our nose out.”

“Will do,” Paul said, activating his helmet comm and linking in to the colony bay control. “Open the door, we’re ready to leave.”

“Doors opening,” the controller replied.

Paul waited while the ceiling door irised open, revealing blue sky and open air. He flew the ship over to the center of the hole and raised it up evenly, stopping once it cleared the roof by a meter or two.

“I’m good,” Kara said, shunting a course plot over to him that she would update enroute. “Let’s go.”

Paul zipped the ship up about 100 meters then pointed the nose at an angle and accelerated hard…harder than any Star Force fighter could move, with barely any drop in shield power when they auto-activated to cut the wind when reaching a certain speed.

“Easy,” Morgan said calmly.

“Less time visible the better,” Paul replied in kind.

“That’s not why you’re rushing.”

“Don’t worry. You can fly on the way back if you want.”

Morgan whisper laughed, but intended to hold him to that on the return trip.

Paul accelerated the gunship up at an angle, following a wavy course plot that was wagging like a dog’s tail on the far end as Kara made adjustments based on the position of orbital ships and Star Force’s own sensor beacons, trying to keep them in the least intense sensor ‘beams,’ which was a misnomer because most of them were transmitting in a spherical, or at least hemispherical radius.

The hull of the dropship registered the hits, including the visible light coming from the star, and dampened them, meaning that very little reflection occurred that also cut off any possibility of a sunlight glare coming off the hull for anyone looking up at the sky to see as the tiny ship left the hangar. Portions of the colony were open air, but like most Star Force colonies the bulk of the infrastructure was indoors, leaving only a scattering of people on the surface of the buildings to see the gunship rise up and disappear in the distance…whereas several dropships coming and going from the various spaceports could be seen like tiny stars, brightly shining from the reflected sunlight.

Kara led them on a very loopy course up to orbit and around to a non-standard jumpline to get away from the traffic, then Paul made a high power jump pulling/pushing against 6 different gravity wells in order to get the proper line to set them into the coast phase over to the 8th planet in the system that the Scionate had located their capitol on.

The gunship wasn’t designed for interplanetary trips, used primarily as orbit to surface transport akin to a dropship, but the gravity drives were more than powerful enough to do so, making the craft very useful for such travel…but lacking that oh so important restroom that starships required.

That wasn’t going to be a problem, for with the V’kit’no’sat gravity drive it was a short trip, with Paul decelerating them on another non-standard jumppoint and having to yank on multiple gravity wells to get them decelerated out in a fairly high orbit, whereupon Kara started to work her magic plotting them a course down inside the Scionate sensor grid.

That grid amounted to stations in orbit that were monitoring the traffic, most of which was not Scionate, but visitors to the system conducting a variety of business. No Star Force vessels were here, requiring individuals who wanted to access the transit grid to come over to Admat, as well as for market activity. That gave the Scionate the privacy they wanted while allowing them the linkage to Star Force, though there was no official restriction on Star Force ships entering orbit or even coming down to the planet. It was simply a matter of respect, which left thousands of alien ships traversing orbit around Vaadsip that Kara had to plot their way through.

Fortunately a planet was huge and there were plenty of gaps to shoot through, the trick was avoiding the sensors, meaning she had to pick areas where they were weaker, with Paul taking a cautious pace forward that had them spending more time in orbit than they had been in making the jump between the two planets.

With Kara monitoring the sensor reflectivity and keeping it within ‘ghost’ levels that wouldn’t return enough signal for them to be detected, Paul followed her directions and they got down into the atmosphere, further shielding them from sensors but also creating physical disturbances that could be tracked, requiring that Paul keep it slow and not produce a fireball upon reentry.

The last hurdle was the city sensors. The planet was a large grassland with multiple cities, the largest of which was the ruling city, which like the others had sensors to detect and monitor ships on approach…meaning they couldn’t come right down on top of them and into the infrastructure, though there was some debate about that, given how well the gunship’s hull was holding up against the ‘crappy’ Scionate technology. Funny thing was, from the V’kit’no’sat’s point of view, this wasn’t a stealth craft at all, nor were most of their ships, which their sensors could detect just fine.

To play it safe Paul brought them down well outside the city, all but landing on the surface and allowing Kara to determine the minimum height of the sensors…which came in at 34 meters. She had Paul fly about side to side around the colony giving her a slice of the radial pie, allowing her to map out the differing heights and create a basic map that would allow them to come in under the sensor beams.

She picked out a sweet spot where one of their buildings had raised the ceiling to 56 meters and Paul flew well under that all the way up to the perimeter defenses and stopping far enough out to give Kara time to plot a course in. They waited there some 20 minutes before Paul accelerated the ship ahead in a flash, visible to anyone that was looking as a blur that crossed into the city structures and decelerated so rapidly that it would have looked to collide with the buildings.

Paul took it to a spot that Kara had found for them and parked it in a nook that gave them partial visual cover from above and no windows around the immediate area…and to top it off there was a shadow forming that covered half the gunship as it hovered in place four inches above the rooftop.

“Any activity?” Paul asked up the short ladder to where Kara sat as he abandoned the pilot’s seat.

“If they saw us I see no immediate sign of it. We can wait and watch or deploy now and deal with problems as they arise.”

“I vote for option 2,” Morgan said, standing up and stepping ahead of Paul out into the walkway between the rows of seats that were two stories deep, making for four rows with a catwalk over her head to service the top two.

“Ditto. Keep us updated with any activity, but stay low unless we need you.”

“I admit I have mixed feelings about that,” Kara said, dropping down the ladder and following Paul and Morgan over to the door.

“Says the girl who’s used to going on one man missions behind enemy lines,” Morgan lightly complained.

“Is that a touch of jealousy I hear?”

“Yes,” Morgan said honestly, opening the door and dropping down to the rooftop with a muted clank.

“Same here,” Paul agreed, hesitating a moment. “Hopefully we won’t need you to go all badass on them, but if we do remember this is a zero casualty mission. Don’t get carried away, because we still like these guys…mostly.”

“Understood.”

Paul stepped out and dropped down, already seeing Morgan on the edge of the nook and looking out, plotting their first leg. He walked over to the other side of the ship and checked the opposite way as Kara followed him out and stepped down, her red scales covering her foot a moment before her toes hit the roof. She reached back towards the ship with her mind and mentally closed and locked the door, leaving the ship essentially sitting out in the open and counting on the manic nature of the city to cover their presence.

She set up a link with the ship, with her being able to monitor its sensors via her Vorch’nas so she would know if indeed it was discovered and be able to return to deal with it promptly. The shadow creeping across it would help obscure the view from above, which had numerous dropships flying high overhead at a regular pace, but none of the hovering vehicles were passing over this location, constricted to specific routes throughout the city.

When Kara stepped out of the shadow a piece of it went with her, the red scales on her body now appearing like a dull spot that seemed to defy shape…less of a blackness than a lack of light, with her body more fading from prominence than standing out against the lightly colored buildings.

That spot took off, running across the rooftop then dropping over the edge and disappearing from sight as she began scouting out a route for the pair of top ranked trailblazers who were now tied at striker level 93.

How’s it look? Paul asked Morgan as he circled back around the ship through the shadow and came up behind her.

A lot of jumping…not a lot of windows. I think if we keep moving we’ll be alright even if we’re spotted, no waiting on Kara for directions. We just take what she can offer us on the fly.

Agreed, Paul said, seeing the distant waypoint on his HUD that was their eventual destination…the central den of the Scionate race. After you.

Morgan ran forward two steps and leaned forward, jumping off the edge and shooting herself on a more or less flat trajectory over to the next building some 25 meters away with the help of her jump pack. Paul followed two seconds later, giving her plenty of a head start so he could just match her pace and leave her room to navigate without him running up on her backside.

Per typical Morgan, she took off and didn’t let up, making Paul work to keep pace and the two of them on a quick transit across the city, two black specs jumping like fleas from building to building enroute to a diplomatic session that would be long remembered throughout Scionate history.

8

Dor’wan looked up from his sentry position outside the main entrance to the ruling bloodline’s den, hearing a disturbance in the crowds of Scionate that were, as usual, wandering the open ring-shaped plaza surrounding the habitat and administrative complex of their leaders. This wasn’t the first time there had been a ruckus, with the moving of all Scionate to the ADZ having caused considerable dissent, but the ruling bloodline hadn’t been overthrown and in recent years such disturbances had been relegated to a few discontented skirmishes, which is what he assumed this to be.

Dor’wan sat in his ceremonial combat armor, looking out through the crowd but unable to see what was happening, though he quickly perked up as the din escalated. There was genuine alarm in the thousands of Scionate milling around the den, and soon he finally saw why when the crowds nervously parted as two black-clad bipeds walked through them up towards the main doors. They were a considerable distance away, but behind them he could see several Scionate laying on the ground, indicating that some sort of combat had occurred.

The other guards rose to their feet with Dor’wan, knowing full well that outsiders were not allowed in the city, meaning whoever these two were they had come here either by secrecy or combat…with the bodies in the crowd behind them attesting to the latter.

Then one of the unarmored Scionate in the crowd ran out towards the pair and executed a well-formed lunge jump towards the one on the right…but was inexplicably repulsed by a raised hand. Dor’wan didn’t even see the Scionate make physical contact, nor did the biped even turn towards the attack. It just raised its hand and the Scionate bounced backward, landing hard on the ground and not getting up for several seconds.

Dor’wan mouthed the controls in his helmet and popped out his armor’s weaponry, as did the other 15 as they came off their ceremonial pedestals and onto the hard, jeweled surface that surrounded the den. It had been polished to perfect smoothness, with each stone matching up seamlessly with the others, and was not meant for any footfalls other than Scionate.

The leader of the guard trotted out towards the bipeds as Dor’wan moved to the left to flank them, with more security assembling inside the den and coming to the doors at their request, which he monitored via the comm chatter. How these two had gotten here no one knew, and the security footage of their walk across the ring was causing those monitoring from inside to declare these invaders extremely dangerous.

Dor’wan already knew that much, but what weapons they were using was another matter…though he could clearly see handheld firearms held in slots on the back of their armor as the lead guard and one other approached the pair.

“Whoever you are, stand down…now,” he growled in the trade language through the speakers in his armor. “Or we will make you.”

“You’ll try…” Morgan said, raising a hand in front of her and unleashing a wave of concussive energy that knocked both Scionate off their feet and back through the air several meters. Before they landed both Humans split, taking a hit each to their shields from the plasma weapons the Scionate had in the head section of their armor as they ran towards the closest guard and engaged them in hand to hand combat.

Morgan punched one so hard it flew backwards into another, knocking both down and partially stunning the first, while Paul wrestled with his and got a hold on one of its paws…after which he spun around and threw it across the plaza, jumping into an attack on another before it even hit the ground.

Dor’wan backed up immediately, firing off shots whenever he could without hitting the other guards or the crowd behind that was thankfully running away rapidly. Still, he had to get low to the ground so in effect he was firing upwards to avoid hitting Scionate in the background. He made several hits on one of the attackers before his head suddenly got dizzy and he lost all bodily control.

Next thing he knew one of the black intruders was over top of him and he felt a hit to his ribs, after which he was tossed into the air before a massive blow sent him to the ground. The impact didn’t do more than jar him, given the armor he wore, but a moment later he blacked out none the less.

“That was easy,” Morgan said as she casually walked over to the center of their little skirmish and met up with Paul as they continued past the guards to the main doors that were locked tight.

“More where those came from,” Paul said, sensing a host of minds on the other side of the doors.

“Guys, heads up,” Kara said over the comm. “Valeries are headed your way, not to mention a lot of guards coming from everywhere in ones and twos. Some armored, some not. I think you’ve hit their fanatical sweet spot.”

“We’re not even warmed up yet,” Paul replied, knowing that they had to get inside before the fighters got here. The infantry they could handle easily enough.

“Want to knock first?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

“Happy to,” Paul said as he walked up to the control panel as she bit down on the two senzu beans that she’d cheeked just before they’d dropped down from the rooftops onto the plaza. Each contained 200 doses of ambrosia, with her currently daily intake at 94. Any more than that and she’d overload from saturation headaches, meaning she was going to have one monster one coming her way that would potentially cause her to black out, but since it took a few minutes to get into the blood stream she had a window of opportunity…and by the time that happened, her body was going to be screaming for more ambrosia.

Using Pefbar, Paul saw the internal components of the door locking mechanism and how they were configured within the wall, then made quick work of the control panel…tearing it out and disconnecting the physical locks so that the massive doors would move on their tracks when pulled. That said, they had no power and the seam between them was non-existent, leaving a six inch wall between the Archons and the interior of the den that had to be gotten through.

Pull stepped back, tossing aside a few components that he’d ripped out with his armored hand. “All yours.”

Morgan summoned up a continuous wave of tingles, bringing the energy up and out into her arms and then passing it through her armor into a holding aura where it manifested into the concussive energy. She dragged more and more of it out and condensed it down into an invisible ball that she held cradled in both hands beside her…then she launched it forward towards the seam in the doors in a Kamehameha motion.

The impact made a very loud boom, but other than slightly denting the doors it did no good, leaving the heavy barriers in place.

“Nice,” Paul said, walking up to the now visible crack where the two met and digging his fingers into the gap. He activated the powered movement that his armor was capable of and pulled hard on his narrow grip point, moving the door another inch that let him get his fingers in all the way. Once he did he was able to slowly walk the right-side half of the door open as the Scionate on the other side froze in place thanks to Morgan’s Ikrid.

She held them inert until Paul had widened the gap enough for one of them to go through, then Morgan ran up and mentally released them a moment before releasing another concussive wave through the opening and blowing aside those standing closest to it. Paul followed her in and the two cut loose on the 50+ guards, with Morgan doing the heavy lifting and Paul cleaning up after her. The Jumat ability that she was using was fueled using ambrosia…or more accurately could be refueled using ambrosia, and with each blast she fired the saturation level in her bloodstream diminished.

The senzu beans were going to make up for that, but she had to keep launching attacks or risk an overdose, so Paul let her take the lead and blast aside whoever she wanted, with him taking the rest hand to hand and stunning them, either by Ikrid suppression when he had the opportunity or by using the stun rifle he had brought in on his back. The Archons no longer used stingers, having left those to the security forces and general populace as they’d upgraded to pure energy weapons, now that they’d developed a decently sized clip and a bolt of energy that could travel more than a few meters.

That bolt, looking like a condensed marble of pink energy, soaked through the Scionate armor once their shields were breached…and a lot of the guards didn’t have armor with shields. With Paul blacking out those who Morgan knocked down, the pair proceeded through the outer area of the den complex, coming up against more and more Scionate that were unarmed and unarmored, literally throwing themselves at the Humans to try and stop, or at least delay them as they fought their way inside towards the central chambers where the royal blood made their home.

The den was huge, but Star Force already had a blueprint on file so Paul and Morgan knew where they were going and didn’t bother making any detours to find Scionate ass to kick. They all seemed to be coming their way anyway, and the trailblazers knew they had to get to the leadership before they could evacuate, prompting a run and gun assault that the Scionate simply could not stop. Whenever they massed plasma fire on the Archons they’d absorb a few hits with their shields before the Scionate would either get knocked down by invisible energy blasts or drop to the ground unable to make their own bodies function.

Halfway into the main chambers an elite guard unit caught up to them, wearing full armor that they’d only just now put on. They didn’t bother trying to shoot at the invaders from range, but ran and jumped at them, intending to subdue the smaller Humans in hand to hand.

Paul, now linked to Morgan via battlemeld, stepped in front of her and raised a forearm…then the two Scionate midair rammed into an invisible wall and bounced off, with Morgan coming forward a moment later and throwing back the next three with a concussive blast. Those that went down didn’t stay down, and both Archons silently agreed not to hit these guys with Ikrid. They were clearly better trained and equipped than the others, and since they were here to make a statement they decided to take the 9 of them hand to hand.

Without using Bioshields or Jumat again, Paul and Morgan jumped after the Scionate closest to them and proceeded to beat the crap out of the quadrupeds without even having to use their powered armor. Their opponents were good and got a few hits in…even managing to take down Paul’s shields as three of them pinned him down momentarily, but the Human was simply too fast and skilled for them to subdue, with him punching them into a haze before pulling out a stun pistol and finishing them off.

Morgan did likewise, only using her stun gloves, finishing off her fifth a moment after Paul returned his pistol to its slot on his back rack, sensing more Scionate lurking around the corners, both ahead and behind them. He stretched out his Ikrid to its maximum range, getting a feel for how many there were and where they were, picking up on a large group moving through another area of the den. As Morgan joined him he isolated one of those minds and was able to pick up a flicker of emotion…fear and haste, meaning this wasn’t a combat-oriented mind.

Paul pointed out the location through their battlemeld and they both took off running, with Morgan knocking the next two armorless Scionate into the wall with a wave of her hand as they jumped them at the next corner. Six more after that and they had a clear hallway that the pair sprinted down, not bothering to render the two behind them that got back up unconscious.

Morgan continued to battle those they came across as Paul tracked the ‘civilians’ as they were moved about trying to get them to an auxiliary entrance, of which there were 13 possibilities, none of which was a hangar. Despite encountering fanatical and extremely pissed Scionate throwing themselves at the Archons at every turn, the pair was rapidly closing on the closest group of evacuees. When they did get up to them Paul had already identified who they were, so as Morgan took care of the guards accompanying them he pulled out his rifle and stunned the younglings, not letting any get away but doing no physical damage to them.

The trailblazers moved on in a flash, darting here and there inside the massive den and laying waste to all those who challenged them…but they still hadn’t found the ones they were after, prompting Paul and Morgan to split up, with him going out to the auxiliary entrances and Morgan staying more in the center, given how little real opposition was being thrown up against them.

Paul got to one of the entrances and engaged a dozen Scionate coming in from the outside, none of which were armored, jumping into the center of them and emitting a Fornax field. He held the effort long enough to stun them all then ran on. He had a senzu bean in his cheek too, holding it back for when he needed a recharge, though Fornax didn’t eat ambrosia, so he had to be careful not to drain his mental power reserve there, and same with his Ikrid. Neither would completely extinguish, but it’d get to a point where they’d be laboriously hard to use.

That wasn’t going to happen for a while, given how advanced both he and Morgan were and how much time and training had gone into developing their skills and increasing their mental reserves, but his bioshields were a different matter. They did eat ambrosia, but unlike Morgan he wasn’t pre-dosing, instead monitoring his current levels by feel with the senzu bean there to start replenishing his saturation level when needed.

That moment came a few minutes later when he ran up against a group of Scionate armed with heavy plasma weapons. He put up a bioshield over his armor’s shields that were still recharging in order to avoid taking damage, and the invisible wall blocked the plasma easily, allowing him to close with and disable the Scionate hand to hand, but getting there had taken an enormous toll on his shield. He’d learned how to continuously recharge it, or nearly so, meaning that the longer he held it the more ambrosia flowed into his biological emitters.

If enough plasma hit it the bioshield would breach, but it had avoided that fate this time by a narrow margin. As he knocked down and stunned the last of the group, Paul felt the first twinges of ambrosia depletion, prompting him to chomp down on the senzu bean as he ran off down the far hallway. It wouldn’t work as fast as a DBZ senzu bean, but he knew from training that it wouldn’t take long for the first of it to hit his blood stream…after which he was going to have an overload if he didn’t keep using the bioshield, which was less handy than Morgan’s Jumat, for she could just fire it off as many times as needed to keep from overdosing.

A minute later and another 37 Scionate down Paul sensed Kara entering the building, with her explaining why a moment later as he came up on another group of 5 unarmed Scionate.

“These guys just don’t quit,” he whispered to himself just before he punched the first one so hard he actually lifted it up towards the ceiling. He felt/heard ribs crack, but he was fairly sure that it wasn’t a lethal blow.

“Paul, I’ve found the leaders,” Kara said over the comm. “They were heading for an exit and I just turned them back. Looks like they’re heading for the audience chamber.”

“Thanks. What’s it…look like outside?” he answered as he took down the last Scionate with a kick that launched it into the wall.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Sounds like fun,” Paul said, heading towards the waypoint that Kara sent him and Morgan.

“Where do you want me?”

“Can you give us a few minutes alone?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t cover all the angles simultaneously.”

“I know, just slow them down,” Paul said, ducking under a running paw slap and coming up with a reverse right elbow into another Scionate’s back as it tried to reverse course and nail him from behind. That dropped it to the ground then Paul ran on, coming across 8 more in three separate hallways before he finally got to the audience chamber, which had a single entrance that he saw Morgan knock down with her Jumat as he approached.

The small double doors flew inward, both of them dislodged from the doorjamb and trailing electrical wires as they hit the ground and skidded a few meters towards the 18 Scionate assembled inside the large chamber. Two of them rushed the Archons, with Morgan letting Paul take both guards down hand to hand as she looked at the others, searching their minds and confirming that they were in fact the Scionate leadership…or rather 16 of the 21 on their ruling council, with the other 5 having been outside the city at the time being, but these would do just fine.

“Who are you?” one of them asked, a mix of anger and fear as Morgan and Paul casually walked towards the group as they retreated back towards the ornate pedestals on which they normally sat during official sessions.

Linked together as they were in the battlemeld, the trailblazers combined their Lachka and lifted the Scionate that had spoken up into the air and held him there as the others recoiled in sheer terror. Paul walked up underneath him and removed his helmet.

“Human…” the Scionate growled, unable to move aside from flailing its paws.

Paul reached into his pack and pulled out the bag of senzu beans and tossed another one to Morgan, knowing she was getting low again, then he turned and lightly punched the Scionate in the underbelly before letting it unceremoniously drop out of the air as Morgan turned back towards the doors to deal with another pair coming in at them.

9

As she ran back Paul moved forward and emitted a Fornax field that took the others to the ground, holding them there for several seconds before letting them up and running forward three steps into a light jump kick that sent one of the younger Scionate leaders toppling several meters across the floor. Paul then proceeded to work his way around the group, hitting or kicking them all at least once while Morgan caught the few that tried to make their way to the doors.

Like Paul, she kept them conscious and with light injuries, considering that some of them were very old and decrepit… though they were all younger than the pair of Archons calendar wise.

Paul finished off with a punch to one, then he picked it up by the front two paws and spun it around him in a circle before throwing it through the air towards the middle of the audience chamber where it smashed into another that Morgan threw at the same time. The two collided with a ricocheting thump and dropped to the ground, one of which managed to land on its feet.

“Do we have your attention now?” Paul growled as both he and Morgan came to a standstill, with her still blocking the door and staring down several nearby Scionate that wisely backed away towards the others that were taking cover amongst each other behind the lounging pedestals, most of whom were showing teeth and other gestures of anger and pain.

“If not we can continue with the lesson?” Morgan added when none of them spoke.

“Why are you here?” one of the old ones finally said, walking forward with a limp. He was both angry and curious, as to how they had managed to make it this far and how they were doing what they were doing with these invisible powers.

“We are here because you violated the terms of colonization,” Paul said, pointing a finger at the Scionate and seeing him reflexively flinch backwards. “You’re killing for food and running an underground meat market…which we are in the process of dismantling,” he said, pulling his helmet through the air with a gesture and landing it back in his hand, sending yet another shock through the Scionate.

“Not only is it a violation of your word, it is behavior that Star Force will not tolerate in the ADZ or anywhere else,” he said loudly, with considerable steel in his voice. “You thought you could hide your meat farms outside the ADZ and smuggle it in through dummy organizations and get away with it. Well, you’re wrong. And if you think that because your entire race is already set up in the ADZ that you’re too numerous or powerful to remove…you’re also wrong. I don’t care how many ships you have or how it’ll weaken the front, we will not allow this to continue, and we will do whatever has to be done to stop it, even if it means destroying your empire.”

“But it won’t come to that,” Morgan said, walking up to join him and pulling off her helmet so they could see her face…as well as the recording devices in the chamber. “Because you’re going to stop, now and forever. Isn’t that right?”

“We don’t take orders from Humans,” one of the Scionate in the back half whispered.

“But you will honor the agreement you signed,” Paul responded. “Else you will be punished…and when I say ‘you’ I mean those of you right here, plus the few that are elsewhere. You are the leaders of your race and responsible for its actions…and by responsible, I mean responsible. We can show up on your doorstep with a war fleet if necessary, but like Morgan said, it’s not going to go down like that, because we know where you live, and now you know that we know.”

Paul let that sink in for a moment.

“We haven’t killed any of you,” Morgan continued, “and let that be a lesson. Star Force doesn’t kill unless necessary, and it is not necessary to maintain a food supply. It is dishonorable and downright sick. I don’t care if you personally knew it was happening or not…you are responsible, and let your current injuries be a reminder of that. This ends, now…or we’re coming back and removing you,” she said, pointing in one long arc to include them all, “from power. I’m sure there are other bloodlines that could do a better job of running your empire, so I doubt Star Force would have to actually take full control, but that’s still an option.”

Paul abandoned Morgan and walked up to the Scionate group, with those closest dropping to the floor in a preemptive crouch ready to defend themselves…but it was no use as the pair of Archons telekinetically pulled the one Paul wanted up off the ground and over to him.

The trailblazer punched him in the side of the head, spinning him around as he landed on the floor.

“No you will not,” Paul said coldly, having read his thoughts just a moment ago. “You will not hide this from us again, and you will not be able to negotiate your way around it. The terms of the original agreement are firm, and if you doubted our willingness or ability to enforce them, I can beat you as many times as necessary to get the point across.”

Paul flipped a hand in his direction and telekinetically pushed him back across the floor to the others.

“Note that we’re being far kinder to you than you were to the bernen we rescued from your farms. You’re fortunate you didn’t set up any on your worlds, else our fleet would be over your heads pounding the crap out of your defenses in order to rescue them. You do not and will not subjugate another race, no matter how ‘inferior’ you deem them…which is fortunate for you, because as you can see, I’m far superior to you.”

Another Fornax field went up and knocked them all to the ground, with Paul flinching slightly as he felt the effects from Morgan as well. Once she released it he walked up to one that was starting to stand up and took it back down with a second Fornax blast, then held its head down with a telekinetic hold unaugmented by Morgan.

“This is how Archons file a diplomatic protest,” he said, focusing on the one individual with the others bare meters away staring him down with looks more of anger than fear now that it appeared the Humans weren’t going to kill them. “Which means this is also your warning. Break the terms of colonization again and we’ll be forced to take action, because we would not allow you to colonize here otherwise, and now that you are here going back on that agreement is not an option. You will acquit yourselves with honor or you will be removed, one way or another. There is no middle ground.”

Paul pushed the Scionate’s head back down into the floor with a pop of its jaw before releasing it and walking through the others, daring them to strike him, and he could tell that some were eyeing his helmetless head for such an attack, but they wisely backed down and retreated a few steps to give him room.

“You can tell your associates in the meat market that we will deal with them in the same manner. What you have been doing is an abomination and we will not permit it in any form. If you go outside the ADZ and keep the meat out there…we may stop you. If you bring it in here, we will stop you. If you kill for food you are an enemy of Star Force. This we explained clearly before, if you did not listen that is your problem. We will not permit this…not now…not ever.”

Paul walked out the far side of the knot of Scionate and pulled his helmet back on as he got a telepathic update from Kara, indicating that heavy ground troops were massing outside.

“Remember,” Morgan reiterated before putting her helmet back on as well, “we know where you live, and if we have to come back we’re coming for you first.”

Both Archons walked across the chamber, turning their backs on the Scionate but watching them with Pefbar just in case they were stupid enough to try and jump them…then when they moved through the doors and around the corner they took off running, with both of them pulling their helmets back off and Paul digging out the senzu beans again. He took and cheeked two of them, with Morgan wanting three, then he secured the pouch and his helmet before Kara caught up to them, with the three Archons skidding to a halt facing each other.

“I think they want us pretty bad,” she said, sending both Paul and Morgan a mental image of what was gathering outside. “They’re already in the building and sending more, but I think they’re waiting for us to come out.”

“Let’s not disappoint them,” Morgan said as she crunched down on one of the oblong spheres that felt and tasted like jelly beans, this one with a purple flavor.

“They’ve got tanks on the way too…and plenty of fighters in the air.”

“Hang back and go out a side entrance while we distract them,” Paul said, feeling multiple minds approaching from both directions in the building. “Get clear and get our ride. We’ll meet you part way.”

“You’re going to need my help,” Kara insisted.

“We’ve got this,” Morgan said confidently. “Go.”

Kara nodded, then disappeared into a shadow that held next to the wall as the first of the Scionate caught up to them from behind.

Morgan turned and knocked them back with a concussive wave, careful not to hit Kara, then she and Paul took off running the opposite direction and met up with three Scionate coming towards them, taking them hand to hand just enough to knock them down and get by, finishing them off with a Fornax blast each to keep them down long enough to get a few meters ahead of them.

The pair kept up the same tactic as they worked their way back towards the main doors, with almost as many Scionate trailing them as there were ahead. Morgan had to blast their way through a crowd of 30+ just to get through the doors, throwing off wave after wave to plow them aside…then they were through into open air, with hundreds of armored Scionate soldiers waiting for them.

Battlemeld linked, both Paul and Morgan knew they couldn’t stay put or the Scionate would overwhelm them with both plasma and muscle. As they came out the doors the yellow-armored Scionate fired a slew of plasma blasts at the Humans, with Paul stepping in front and forming a shield wall just small enough for the two of them to hide behind, then as he got a few steps away from the nearest of the quadrupeds he reached his right arm back and linked it to Morgan via a Repulsor conduit as she jumped forward up over his head.

Paul used it to wheel her over him, aided by a boost from her jump pack, with him throwing her through the air over the Scionate’s heads some 50 meters as he chewed up his pair of senzu beans, knowing he’d need the ambrosia overload soon.

Morgan landed in the midst of the Scionate, with 50+ around her falling to the ground as she emitted a Fornax field. She kept it up and reached a hand back towards Paul, throwing a concussion wave into the backs of the Scionate near to him and knocking them down enough for him to punch and kick his way through back to her, having to concentrate as he hopped over the downed Scionate while feeling the effects himself.

More plasma came in over the heads of the downed Scionate, with Morgan releasing the field so they could stand up and block the shots as Paul got to her. He put a bioshield around the both of them as their armor shields dropped low, literally feeling the ambrosia draining out of him as he fought to constantly replenish the shield. Linked as they were, Morgan could ‘see’ the shield aside from the impact points, with Paul forming small holes in it large enough for her to stick her hand through and release a concussion blast ahead, bowling down even more Scionate.

The pair ran together in sync, staying as close together as possible so Paul would have less surface area to protect, with Morgan blasting aside the yellow-armored cats, some of which they stepped on as they passed with her adding a Fornax blast to keep them down. The trailblazers held that formation all the way across the plaza and through the mass of soldiers…running right up against one of their tanks.

Both Morgan and Paul split up as a large plasma splash hit between them, each taking small plasma hits from anti-personnel turrets on the tank until Paul managed to freeze the minds inside, cutting off the return fire.

Morgan ran to the tank and slid underneath it, crawling through the gap between jeweled surface and tons of machine that could drop down on her at any moment, but Paul had the pilot’s mind firmly held, which Morgan could feel through the battlemeld, prompting her to take the unconventional route to the far side, eventually coming out next to Paul as the pair hopped up on top of the more or less rectangular vehicle and got to the top, then jumped from there via anti-grav to the nearest rooftop with Paul blocking for both of them with his bioshields as another two tanks targeted them with anti-personnel fire.

A moment later they were both out of the firing line, running across the building and hopping across to the next…which was when a Valerie swooped by overhead so low that it nearly hit their helmets. It didn’t fire on the first pass, wanting to intimidate them as well as watching where they went…which was nowhere in particular. Paul and Morgan had to put some distance between themselves and the den so Kara could pick them up more or less unnoticed.

That wasn’t here, for beyond that Valerie there were at least 5 more, each taking turns in buzzing them, with the third being the first to open fire.

Paul and Morgan didn’t try to evade, instead they both huddled down together making a small black dot on the roof underneath Paul’s shield as Morgan reached out to the mind of the pilot…not to freeze him, but to align herself for a Fornax blast that she let loose a moment later.

The scattering of shots that missed them both ended quickly, with the Valerie losing its line and dipping slightly before the pilot recovered and got more altitude, passing the two by as they got back on their feet and ran to the next gap between buildings…this time jumping down in between where the fighters would be hard pressed to find them.

More troops were there, apparently having been running at street level parallel to the Archons with the Valeries telling them where to go, for as soon as they hit the pavement they were in another battle against dozens of the Scionate. Yellow armor flew in all directions, with the trailblazers resuming their dual formation and pushing off to the right down the street before eventually hanging a left and getting further away from the den.

Trouble was, the Scionate troops were faster than them, with more and more closing up and choking off the streets. Before too long they were being cut off from ahead, forcing the Archon pair to head back up to the rooftops and deal with the fighters.

After the third pass and Paul’s shields getting hit again, this time badly, Morgan’s frustration won out and she summoned up a large Jumat blast and nailed the next fighter to come through on his lazy assault line. It hit on the top side, forcing the nose down as Morgan simultaneously reached out and froze its mind, resulting in it impaling the top of the building and sinking in a couple of meters.

Releasing contact she and Paul moved on, with more fighters circling around at a now greater height, unsure of what had just taken down the one.

“You guys ready for a lift?” Kara’s voice asked over the comm.

“Nah, I thought we’d stick around and play a while,” Paul said sarcastically. “Where are you?”

In response he got a waypoint on his HUD.

“On our way,” Paul said, ducking down and forming another shield as Morgan spotted a fighter on a quick attack line. The plasma hit him in two spots, the second one breaching and nailing his armor’s shield, sucking it down to 36% strength. On past them the fighter lost control and nearly rammed one of the buildings before pulling up and missing by 10 meters as it regained altitude, flying up over top the largest building in the area, with Paul and Morgan headed down to an even lower one, trying to get as much aerial cover as possible while staying off the streets.

Through their link Morgan knew Paul was going to take his helmet off before he even got his hand up to the neck, with her turning and becoming a psionic turret, throwing out Fornax blasts to every fighter nearby, even if she wasn’t sure she could affect them at that range. Quickly Paul slipped two more senzu beans into his mouth and got his helmet back on, then the two of them linked up an Ikrid attack on one of the fighters, giving them more range and control, and froze the pilot’s mind, making it continue in its straight course over top of them and unable to attack…leaving the pair an opening to sprint over to the next building on their right and hop across, with plasma coming up from below from the infantry still tracking them.

Two more buildings over and they came to their destination roof…which had multiple protrusions coming out of it. They ducked behind one as another Valerie passed by firing in their wake, then they ran around another blocky mount and dropped off an edge, falling through the door of the gunship as it floated on its side in the depression between two building segments.

Paul felt the gravity change as soon as he hit the threshold, with it slamming him down on his butt, only to have Morgan come crashing down on top of him as she followed through. Her legs pushed down on top of him, pinning his chest to the ground, then she was up and moving forward, leaving him to stand and get the door as the view outside spun around as Kara lifted them up out of the little artificial ravine and righted the gunship before accelerating away skimming the building tops enroute to the edge of the city and outpacing the Valeries with ease.

From there they disappeared out over the grasslands, getting out of Scionate sensor range and becoming ghosts once again…leaving the kitties furious.

10

July 17, 2534

Corvio System

Vaadsip

Chieftan Pra’nom looked up from the medical slab as one of his warriors came in, waving off the attendant who was taking an excessively long time wrapping his chest in a healing sleeve with a painful flick of his paw.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

The warrior held his head low, growling in disgust. “We do not know. They have disappeared.”

Pra’nom roared and stood up despite the broken ribs flaring in protest.

“The last we know,” the warrior continued, averting the leader’s gaze, “they were being pursued through the city. Eyewitness accounts state that they escaped via a small aerial craft they had hidden somewhere within the city, but we were unable to track it and our fighters could not pursue. What became of it is unknown. No orbital tracking has detected it.”

“Nor did on entry,” one of the other Chieftans said, walking up behind the warrior and gesturing at his peer with his chin. “I have just finished reviewing the sensor logs. They have come and gone undetected. Star Force has been rumored to have impressive technology withheld from the knowledge of the ADZ, and I would wager we have just seen an example of it.”

“And what of this invisible hand of theirs…” Pra’nom sneered, “is that technology too?”

“I do not know, but it is none the less impressive.”

Pra’nom growled so low that the warrior next to Tem’lan retreated a step. “This is not funny.”

“I never said it was,” the Scionate responded evenly, walking past Pra’nom and looking at one of the other injured Chieftans. “But I do admire their boldness.”

“Boldness? Have you lost your pride! We have been assaulted and you lay praise on our enemy.”

“If they were our enemy they would have killed us,” Tem’lan said, his own voice growing harsh. “I’m more interested in the accusation they made.”

The Scionate walked up nose to nose with Pra’nom. “Have we violated the terms?”

“It does not matter one way or another.”

Tem’lan moved a hair closer, so much so that he could feel Pra’nom’s breath. “Do you know of what they speak?”

“Yes,” Car’sem said, breaking the visual deadlock between the two. “We are no longer honoring their colonization terms, nor should we. We outnumber them and these worlds are no longer theirs. They are ours and we will do what we like with them.”

Tem’lan turned away from Pra’nom and walked over to the other Chieftan, limping slightly from the injury he’d sustained to his right rear leg, but it had been far less than the others had suffered…or so they said, for he felt many of them were simply too unaccustomed to pain.

“Then we have violated our word,” he growled angrily.

“We honored their pact for many years, more than enough to satisfy the requirements of honor. We will not be bound by it for all of time.”

“Where are these farms?”

“Outside the ADZ,” another Chieftan said, walking up beside him and shooing the medics away. “It is a private meat supply. Some goes to us, the rest is sold to generate funds to expand the farms. All is accomplished by outsiders so as not to link back to us. In this way we honor the pact made, though I agree with Car’sem that we are not bound to the Humans’ will permanently.”

“Enough!” Pra’nom said, fuming. “They are in the wrong, not us! Are you blind?”

“There will be an accounting,” Car’sem agreed.

“Later,” Tem’lan said dismissively. “I have issue with this deception. If we are not going to honor the terms then let us state so plainly. Hiding the action is that of a coward…and hiding it from me is a mistake that you will regret in the coming days, I can promise you that.”

“Do not make threats you cannot back up, young one.”

Tem’lan swatted Pra’nom, his senior, so fast that the old Scionate didn’t even see it coming.

“Tem’lan!” another voice shouted from behind. Tem’lan took a step back and turned to face Ura’bor as he joined the group, staring all the others down.

“He had that coming,” another Chieftan said as an impromptu assembly meeting formed. “I wasn’t informed of these farms either.”

“They are a side project,” Ura’bor said dismissively. “Whether or not we implement them with our own people and resources is a subject we’ve not yet broached, thus you did not know. That is immaterial. The Humans have gone too far, and they must learn their place.”

“And what of their abilities?” another Chieftan asked. “I saw what they did to our troops. If you have not you need to take a look at the recordings. Two of them blew through hundreds of highly trained, heavily armored warriors. These are not the Humans we are used to dealing with. Something is seriously amiss here.”

“That may be,” Ura’bor granted, “but we do not have time to investigate prior to a response. We must act before the deed grows cold.”

“Agreed,” Pra’nom huffed, as did several others.

“Agreed,” Tem’lan echoed, his voice turning icy. “Then we will discuss this farming matter.”

Ura’bor looked back and caught the eye of the warrior who was standing on the other side of the room. “Marshal the troops.”

The Scionate bowed respectfully, then loped off out of the chamber to relay the order.

Paul, wake up.

The trailblazer blinked his eyes and sat up in bed, wondering if he’d really heard someone’s voice or not. He’d been asleep for a good…two hours after a long run with Kara, and he’d nodded off deeper than he’d expected. Maybe the aftereffects of so much ambrosia coursing through his body earlier.

Hey, sleepy, her telepathic voice clarified. You up?

I am now.

Planetary sensors are showing a Scionate convoy arriving in orbit, all warships and they don’t look too happy.

Paul frowned as he threw the covers off and slid out of bed. Why didn’t I get an alert?

You probably will in a minute or two. I’m tied into the live feeds.

Where are you at? Paul asked, getting changed out of his sleeping clothes and into a fresh uniform as fast as he could reliably manage.

In the shower. You’ll beat me there. Figure I have a few minutes at least to finish up so long as you’re in the nexus.

What…oh, Paul said, remembering her Vorch’nas as the sleep cleared from his mind. Didn’t know your toy could do that.

It can do a lot. I can’t find Morgan, so she must not be in her quarters.

Finish your shower, I’m on it, he said, pulling his shoes on and heading out the door. Kara was only three rooms down, but he wasn’t going to wait on her, knowing that he had to get to the command center as quickly as possible.

“Report,” he demanded, turning on his earpiece…with it taking a moment before anyone responded.

“How did…I was just about to call you,” the on duty Archon said, with his ID flashing up as Samli-8388. “We’ve got Scionate warships entering orbit, a lot of them.”

“Get the Sentinel powered up, the drones free of their berths, and all civilian traffic out of the way. Have they hit any ships?”

“No, they’re literally just getting here now. Staggered arrival coming in from Vaadsip.”

“Raise surface shields and prepare for ground assault.”

“They don’t have any transports.”

“Yet,” Paul said, jumping up and over a knot of people in the hallway when they didn’t move in time, capping it off with a full flip that nearly lost his earpiece. “Find Morgan and tell her to get her ass in gear. Kara already knows. I’ll be there inside of 5 minutes.”

“Copy that.”

Paul ended the conversation and made his way over to the city’s command center, it being the primary for the entire planet…which was why he had his quarters next to it. He always did, wherever he went, or at least some place with a command nexus nearby to access if need be.

He knew that it would take time for ships to assemble in orbit, but he wanted to get on station as quickly as possible and start tweaking their defenses. He hadn’t thought the Scionate would just tuck their tails and admit they were wrong, so he’d been expecting some type of reaction…though the speed of this one suggested they were really pissed.

When he got to the command center he didn’t bother asking any questions, going straight to the command nexus and linking in with Morgan arriving a few seconds behind him. Instead of going to one of the monitors or workstations out on the main floor she stepped up onto the pedestal with him, wrapping an arm around his waist for balance and reaching out to him mentally.

Paul felt and accepted the battlemeld prompt, allowing her to think as he did as well as accessing the same telepathic controls, essentially doubling up their mental processing power. It wasn’t something that he’d practiced with anyone before, but as soon as they both got to work on remotely controlling the planetary defenses he realized that had been a mistake, for together they could do a lot more, as well as troubleshoot each other as they went along.

Morgan smiled as Paul’s mind brought up an old term to coin the new skill…Fusion, which was apt enough even without the DBZ reference.

They both could ‘see’ all their assets in orbit and on the ground, even without the holographic displays. Mentally linked in as they were, Morgan could access information from any of them with a thought, though ‘reading’ it mentally was more difficult than pulling up a status hologram. She pulled up one on her left for the lone Sentinel in orbit, seeing that it was nearly ready for combat. Some operations within it were push to fire…while others needed a bit of prep time to cycle up, and given that this was ‘safe’ space the Sentinel had been in partial power conservation mode.

The Scionate fleet wasn’t anywhere near it, on purpose she assumed, because they knew what it could do. That meant the shipyards in orbit were also out of the fire, given that they were located relatively close to the defense station, as were several other installations placed at a distance so they didn’t crowd the firing lines and minimize the Sentinel’s coverage zone.

As Morgan checked on it and a few other smaller defense platforms, Paul was reorganizing their defense fleets, breaking them up into smaller groups and moving them around like chess pieces as the incoming Scionate fleet started showing transports mixed in with the warships.

“They’re going to ground,” Morgan said even though she knew Paul knew that she knew, but she felt like announcing it anyway. “Guess that means we hit the button we wanted,” she added as Kara walked in behind them.

“Getting kind of crowded in here,” she commented, staying a few steps back but joining in on the battlemeld, making it a three-way and getting up to speed with their plans quickly by drawing off the others’ thoughts. A moment later she broke contact and left, knowing what she needed to do.

Kara walked out of the nexus nook and jogged across the command deck, smelling fresh and clean and knowing that wasn’t going to last long. As soon as she got outside into the hallway she jumped up to the ceiling and flew over the heads of the people passing through, zigzagging and running on the walls as she hung from her left wrist. She kept that up until she eventually got to an exterior exit, then flew up into the open air above the city, but keeping under the hemi-spherical bubble shield now covering it.

She glanced to the west, seeing the gap near the surface where it didn’t touch the ground, and flew off over there, relishing the wind blowing through her wet hair until she got down to the barrier and ducked underneath, then she donned the red scales and shot up high into the sky like a missile, joining the skeets already coming out of their hangars and assembling in holding patterns.

Kara held there for some time, seeing the first of the mechs start to walk outside the shield barrier as well, then through the battlemap she saw the Scionate fleet descend to low orbit well outside the range of the Sentinel, but they did have to go through a smaller defense platform that had a single cleansing beam.

They sent several dozen warships after it, firing the first shots of the battle without hesitation. The defense station responded in kind, skewering one of the warships on the first shot, but unable to slice it in half before it had to recycle. Mauler cannons opened up at shorter range as the Scionate warships swarmed it, getting many of them killed before they managed to eliminate the platform and clear the sky for the transports that began heading to ground while the rest of the attacking fleet spread out to cover them and engage the Star Force drone warships that were now coming in from multiple angles…with the larger controlling jumpships not far behind.

Kara could see the approach the transports were making through the battlemap, and realizing it wasn’t near the city she was hovering over she took off, flying through the air slowly at first but gaining speed rapidly as she left the skeets and mechs behind, intent on getting to at least some of the transports before they made it to ground.

Back in the command nexus Morgan released Paul, physically and battlemeld, and headed out as well, knowing that he had the naval engagement well in hand and that the battle now was going to occur on the ground. The defense platform that the Scionate had destroyed had been unmanned, but the kid gloves were now coming off regardless. They were firing live weapons at them and there was no indication that they were here to do anything other than harm to Star Force and the Humans living on this planet.

With that thought foremost in her mind she headed off to grab her armor and some more senzu beans before catching a dropship out to wherever the fighting was about to go down.

www.aerkijyr.com

Penance

1

July 18, 2534

Corvio System

Admat

Kara spun through a corkscrew zigzag, throwing off the golden plasma orbs coming her way from the Scionate Valeries that had broken off from the transports they were escorting. They missed easily given the range, then one of the fighters fired its scattergun as she neared it, catching her shields with a few pieces.

They held, but the Valerie’s did not as Kara delivered a green/white orb the size of an apple that punched right through and exploded inside the pointy nose of the fighter. She zipped past it as it began its fall to the ground, giving the pilot at least a 50/50 chance of surviving the crash. Had she wanted to, she could have shredded the entire fighter with a larger orb…which she began summoning up once she was past the Scionate fighter screen, with the other Valeries circling around to chase her as she angled in towards the nearest transport as it descended down through the atmosphere heading towards the surface.

Checking her power gage and seeing that her Vorch’nas was nearly full, she unloaded the first orb at range, sending the watermelon-sized Dre’mo’don glob of energy shooting out from her extended palms at incredible speed. A split second later it hit the distant transport, sucking most of the energy out of its shields at the point of impact and Kara could see the matrix react with her enhanced HUD as energy flowed from other portions to fill the breach.

With that one test she determined the shield strength and matrix type of the transport’s shields, which were decent for Alliance standards but nothing compared to the V’kit’no’sat. As she approached anti-air fire from both the transport and the fighters trailing her filled the surrounding area, but very little of it even came close given the wavy approach path she was taking as she split her hands apart and summoned up two orbs, one in each, from the small addition the Vorch’nas had made to the armor over either palm.

When Kara got close to ramming the ship she decelerated a bit and fired the first orb off, hesitated a split second, then fired the second before decelerating heavily and landing on the burnt hull of the transport. She ducked down as the Scionate shield reformed over her back, ironically giving her protection from the fighters as she crawled/flew across the hull in the 1.3 meter gap between shield and ship.

Scurrying like an ant, she moved around and blew apart two anti-air batteries and a conventional plasma cannon before she came across an airlock and blasted her way inside. From there she tore through the hallways on foot, mowing down every Scionate she came across with an adjustment to her forearm weapons. The plasma orb emitters were now gone, retracted into their holdings as nubs formed on her wrists that shot out pale green stun energy, but that was Kara’s only consideration for the Scionate as she busted through the crew and every sealed door she came across enroute to the bridge.

With a stun weapon on both wrists she entered and unleashed a fury of blasts, some hitting individual Scionate multiple times. After three seconds the bridge crew was down and she had a moment of peace as the rest of the crew struggled to figure out what was happening and send reinforcements to the bridge…for what little good that would do.

Kara ran over to what looked to be the most intricate control panel on the otherwise unfamiliar bridge and raised her right hand, fingers spread wide and firm, then rammed it down into the machinery, breaking through the outer layer and into the guts of the interface. From there she switched over to a different HUD, setting up a proximity alarm function while focusing on the specialized hacking program her armor used.

Little mechanical tendrils, not unlike a regenerator, extruded from her fingers and created a hardline access to the ship’s computer system, with Kara mentally controlling the interface without having to do any manual hacking. The protocols were already in place, she just had to choose which to use and how, with her Vorch’nas doing all the legwork itself. Within a number of seconds she had helm control and sensor interface, allowing her to see from the ship’s perspective as she turned the transport to the left and accelerated it faster than normal…causing it to close range with the transport coming down just below it.

With the blue grasslands below them only a few kilometers away, all the transports were decelerating as they headed towards the grid that Kara also saw tagged in the navigational computer. Each transport had already been assigned a position, with the first one just now setting down on the wide plain that ran north and south for some 170 miles, bisecting two large forests and several Star Force cities.

Flying the transport over top the one beneath it, Kara played bumper cars and rammed the two ships together, forcing the one below her down faster than it wanted to go as well as heading towards the right and the one already on the ground, nearly missing another that just managed to veer out of the way as the tangled pair passed it in their uncoordinated fall.

Kara kept the pace heavy, adjusting the ship as much as she could to stay on the back of the other as it tried to maneuver aside, resulting in a partial pancake on the surface. She pulled out of the control console a couple of seconds before impact, letting physics do the rest, as the rectangular transport twisted to the left with only the right side coming down on the other ship.

Both vessels smashed into the ground hard, digging in and throwing up a huge plume of dirt that rolled out and showered the other transport, missing a second collision by a mere 148 meters. Hulls bent and beams burst, but more or less the ships were intact, just buried in the ground and pinned on top of one another…which Kara made sure would stay that way, taking a little side trip to the engine room and disabling the gravity drive before exiting the ship and flying over to the undamaged one as more came down from above, though relocating around the perimeter of the wreck and off their original landing pattern.

Kara zipped over low to the ground and came around to the rear boarding ramp that had not yet lowered. She waited a few seconds, then got tired of it and flew up to the ‘door’ and started blasting a hole through it. Half a meter of melted metal later and she slithered inside, dropping in on a tightly packed army of armored Scionate clustered around and under 18 hovering tanks.

“Killing spree,” she announced, seeing so many closely packed targets as she popped out her wrist bumps and unloaded hundreds of tiny Dre’mo’don shots, her own version of a scattergun, on the assembled troops, blasting through their shields and damaging their armor by the dozens. She followed that up with stun blasts, now that their shields were down, dropping them by droves as the bay doors finally started to open.

A few plasma blasts came up at her, but most of the troops were too close together to avoid shooting each other, which was why she kept low and just tore through more than a thousand of them before pivoting around and chasing after the first tank to get out, with it not even waiting for the boarding ramp to lower completely. It pushed itself out the moment the upper gap looked large enough, then got a little distance and spun around, but not before Kara got up to it.

Like the transport she knocked down its shields with a single orb blast, then used the scans of the tanks from yesterday to place three smaller orbs through its armor and into key internal components before zipping up into the sky for a quick loop-over, coming down on the next tank as the first dropped to the ground, its power systems now trashed.

By now the Scionate commanders knew something was going terribly wrong, so Valeries from the other landing zones began to redeploy, crossing the miles in between quickly and filling the sky over the crash site as they saw a tiny red spec jumping about from tank to tank and hitting them with some kind of green energy weapon…with very little infantry resistance around her.

That they used to their advantage, picking open areas and laying out assault strikes, often firing own on their own tanks’ shields to try and make a hit, but Kara managed to dodge most of it until a pair of Valeries flew in and hovered twice the height of the tanks and started blasting away at her with their scatterguns…no matter that they were also hitting some of their own infantry in the process.

Those Scionate scattered, losing their shields and chunks of their armor while Kara ducked behind and underneath a tank, then shot out like a bullet and came up on one of the Valeries from below. She fired into the underside, easily penetrating its shields and knocking out its antigrav with the single shot, then zipped out from under it as it fell.

The other Valeries swiveled backwards, swinging around and firing another scattergun blast at the Scionate fighter, knowing it wouldn’t kill it but hoping to nail the enemy…whatever it was.

What the Scionate didn’t know was how good Kara’s shields were, and that she could take several direct hits before they breached, meaning she took one full scattergun shot face on, with most of it missing around her tiny form, then she rammed the nose of the Valerie and emitted an orbit that literally vaporized that section of the hull. As it fell she climbed forward, pulling open the canopy and ripping the Scionate pilot out of his bathtub-like cockpit, then flew him down to the ground beside where the fighter crashed and pinned him there with a forearm as she stared into his muzzle.

“Did not know who you were messing with,” she said slowly in the trade language before slapping him half-unconscious and flying off towards the other Valeries streaking through the air. On her sensors she saw a plume of them rising up from some of the now grounded transports, coming out of tightly packed racks and reinforcing the few that had been on escort duty.

Kara took after the ones above her, knowing that she only had a slim window of opportunity before the others arrived to take them down. She tore after one of them, using her superior speed and maneuverability to get on top of it before it knew what was happening and rip it in half, now very angry. She’d been deliberately avoiding targeting the cockpits, wanting to disable the craft rather than kill the pilots, but as more and more transports came down and began to unload infantry, tanks, and fighters by the hundreds of thousands she pictured the Star Force troops they were about to go up against, and some of whom were likely to die…which quickly diminished her compassion.

She took down the next fighter in a similar manner, then the others began to space themselves out and treat her more like another fighter than a flying bug, meaning she couldn’t get to them as fast and they could set up attack runs and blanket the area with scattergun fire that would eventually wear her down…and as soon as the reinforcements got to her that was almost a certainty, which made her even more mad, knowing that she needed to take down as many of the enemy now as she could before they got fully deployed.

Then a squadron of skeets flew in, taking on the Valeries and strafing the transports and the ground troops coming out, with some of them taking hits by the anti-air on the transports. Kara saw one fighter go down, ramming kamikaze into a transport, but knowing that it had been a drone controlled by a more heavily armored fighter still in the air.

That was the last straw, now that her own people were taking hits, and she flew back down to the ground level, letting the fighters deal with each other. The Scionate shouldn’t have been here and even though these troops were only following orders she no longer had the luxury of treating them as misguided allies. They were here as enemies, and if that’s what they wanted to be…then so be it.

Kara zipped across the ground, barely a meter over the blue grass all the way up to the nearest intact transport as it unloaded in excess of 1000 troops, with more still pouring out but no tanks in sight. The little armored cats were loping along with shallow hops as they ran out and formed into tendrils that began running across the ground faster than a Human could move, enroute to what looked like staging points where the tanks were forming into anti-air groupings and leading the way towards the nearest city, which was only a 22 mile hike away…but with the way the Scionate moved that wasn’t very far at all.

The honorary trailblazer turned into the back of one of those lines and popped up her Dre’mo’don nubs on either wrist, jacking up the intensity to 55%, which she calculated would be more than enough to penetrate their infantry shields, armor and flesh, then she flew directly over them and fired down one shot into each as she passed, melting through their armor and wounding/killing them on contact.

She didn’t slow down any more than necessary to maintain her accuracy, running up the line and mowing them down before swinging around and over to another line and pushing all the way back to where they were exiting the transport…all the while moving quick enough that the infantry couldn’t mount any considerable return fire, though she did take a few lucky plasma hits on her shields.

The third time through the line finally broke and the Scionate scattered, followed by a Valerie strike at nearly the same altitude. Kara took several hits while bringing down two of the fighters that bowled over more infantry as they crashed, then to recover some shield strength she dropped down to ground level and flew/ran into a knot of the Scionate, taking it to them hand to hand so fast that they couldn’t get a shot off at her and their fighters couldn’t target her without hitting their own.

That little ‘respite’ resulted in dented armor and several dozen Scionate unconscious on the ground before a pair of tanks dispersed them and hit her with a wash of their own anti-air…with one of them managing to land a plasma cannon shot on her.

That shot melted through the armor of the two Scionate next to her, killing them on contact while her shields, weakened as they were, canceled out the entire blast, but the anti-air following it got through, starting to absorb on her armor and actually give her a bit of a recharge…but doing tiny bits of damage in the process.

Now enraged, Kara shot off towards the nearest tank and flew underneath it, then put as much thrust up under it as she could, flipping it over and shoving it onto the other tank, catching it partway across and pinning it to the ground. Before either could even attempt at righting themselves she popped out her orb launchers and skewered both of them, hitting some of the crew in the process and no longer caring.

She ducked underneath the top one as another Valerie shot by and peppered the area with plasma orbs and scattergun fire, then blasted into the tank again to make a hole in the armor that she climbed in through. She punched the toppled Scionate back, knocking them unconscious with a single blow each, then she tore into the section of the machine that held the power conduit to the main cannon.

She reached in and grabbed it, siphoning off energy to recharge her capacitors while giving her shields time to reform their intricate matrix. She didn’t linger there for long, pulling only a ‘small’ amount of power from the now wrecked tank before moving back to the hole and dropping onto the grass underneath her impromptu lean-to and looked out the opening…seeing a sea of Scionate infantry and tanks moving across the landscape.

She checked her battlemap, seeing that the Star Force fighters had already pulled back to the city…save for one, which was showing as having crashed. Kara’s jaw clenched and she shot out from under her cover and fired indiscriminately into the ground troops underneath her as she flew over their armored heads towards the fighter, knowing/hoping that the pilot was still alive inside the protective cocoon.

When she got there enemy infantry were all around the crash, but not paying it too much attention save for a few that were climbing on top and trying to figure out  how to get inside the grey T-shaped craft. Kara killed them on the spot and threw their bodies off while the plasma fire from the infantry around her increased rapidly now that she had given them a more or less stable target to fire at.

She ignored them and pried open the canopy, having felt the pilot inside and given her a telepathic heads up to release the latch. The top part gave them a bit of cover to hide behind, with Kara wrapping her shields around the Regular’s flex armor as she grabbed her and flew them both up and into the sky, accelerating as hard as she could in a curve that brought them onto a trajectory towards the nearest city. It took less than a minute to get clear of the Scionate army, with a few Valeries tracking and giving her trouble, but when she got near to the city defense shield anti-air lachars took down one of the Valeries, causing the others to fall back and leaving her in the clear to drop down to the forming rows of mechs and stop just outside the shield.

Kara dropped the pilot off without a word on the pavement surrounding the outer ring of buildings, then leapt back into the sky while searching the battlemap for any weak spots in the Scionate’s developing formations that she could exploit without getting herself mauled by their now swarming air cover.

2

Outnumbered more than 10 to 1, Paul kept his drones hitting the edges of the Scionate fleet in coordinated attack groups, picking on one ship at a time and killing/disabling it before moving onto another, with damaged drones pulling back to recycle and potentially lure more of the blocky Scionate ships out away from the orbital zone they were aggressively defending. Technology wise Star Force’s ships were better, but with their capitol in this system and six worlds to draw off of the Scionate had more military might to call on than they thought they needed…though Paul was about to make them recalculate those numbers.

The Scionate’s strategy was clear…screen for their transports to get to ground, which was taking a long time considering how many of them they were bringing into low orbit. Their defensive fleet was holding position just above the atmosphere, which Paul was currently chewing on, while escort groups were meeting the transports at their jumppoint and shepherding them down with a third set of attack groups roaming the perimeter and meeting up with anything that dared to get close to their vulnerable ground troops. The Scionate had devoted so many warships to this attack that they appeared unbeatable…but looks could be deceiving, and speaking candidly the Scionate naval commanders were rookies.

They were set up for a slugging match, which Paul denied them. Using the binary drives that his fleet had he chose when and where to strike, pulling back when he wanted with the enemy unable to match the curved trajectories down towards the planet, with Paul sending the drones into the upper atmosphere and underneath the Scionate on more than one occasion to target some of the bigger ships with pointblank mauler strikes. Already the Scionate had lost a battleship to those tactics and they weren’t adapting well, allowing Paul to strike and kill the bigger ships that were out of position.

Meanwhile he had the smaller drones harassing the Scionate attack groups, outmaneuvering them and nipping away at their shields until one or more would get wounded, then swarming and eliminating it before retreating and repeating the process again and again. The remote pilots in the system were proving quite adept, despite their lack of combat…which Paul could see via icons describing each one’s current level and combat history at a glance, with most of them having decent training scores but little real experience.

Training was everything, and Star Force was putting that point to the Scionate in a very destructive way as their dominate fleet was getting chewed up and reduced in size while successfully screening for the ground transports. Paul didn’t like killing so many of their supposed allies, but this was a fight of their choosing, and should they turn around and run he’d let them go…but so long as they were attacking one of his worlds and potentially going to kill his people on the ground he couldn’t afford to cut them any slack on the naval front.

Which was why, when their formation split a crack in response to yet more probing action around the perimeter of their main fleet, he sent in the most advanced drones he had. Most of the ones in action were equipped with the standard plasma/mauler/rail gun trio of weapons, with the heavy cruisers carrying small cleansing beams. A few of the drones were missile boats, while a handful were special varieties, custom configured by the local commander into what he’d wanted on deployment.

But one warship in orbit, the one Paul had arrived on, came equipped with their most recent tech upgrades. Those ships he’d kept back, hovering behind the others and waiting for the proper moment to send them in…with his eye on the flagship of the Scionate fleet, a huge Dreadnaught-class warship that was nearly the size of a jumpship. It was sitting dead center in their formation, with the incoming transports flying within a few kilometers of it as they moved down into the atmosphere, insuring that no one was going to follow them from above.

The dreadnaught was covered with plasma cannons, nothing special in their design but in sufficient numbers that they would eat apart any drones that got close to them, meaning Paul couldn’t send in the mauler-equipped ones without suffering huge losses. That would be a mistake, for the dreadnaught was so massive that it was going to take a lot of pounding. The next best option would be to hit it with cleansing beams from the heavy cruisers at range, but the Scionate fleet was spread out enough to keep those attacks down to a handful, with very little hull damage being inflicted on the massive ship.

That said, Paul had already weakened its shields prior to the formation split occurring. When the moment of opportunity arrived he sent a single mental command to the remote pilots while assuming direct control over one of the cruisers. His perspective in the nexus shifted to the view from that individual drone as he flew it, maintaining control over the main weapon while leaving two remote pilots to handle the other weapons and another two for shields and anti-air, for the Scionate were spitting missiles out like crazy trying to hit and kill the resilient Star Force drones.

Paul executed a short jump towards the planet, something the Scionate couldn’t do off the local gravity well, and pulled an atmospheric slide/bounce to redirect underneath the enemy fleet, coming up the ‘safe’ conduit the transports were going down with several dozen Scionate ships dropping into the atmosphere to stay below them and block any run against their boxed-up ground troops.

Paul ran his cruiser in between those ships and the main fleet at high speed, avoiding most of their plasma fire before hard breaking directly underneath the hourglass-shaped dreadnaught as a wave of yellow plasma came pouring down on his ship while the other advanced drones followed him in. Mauler blasts shot out immediately, pounding what was left of the dreadnaught’s shields and penetrating the local areas, doing massive hull damage on the surface but failing to penetrate very deep.

That said, a swath of plasma cannons got hit and slagged, reducing the amount of return fire and prompting the dreadnaught to spin about to get a better firing angle on those ships beneath as the rest of their fleet repositioned as well, coming down on the sneak attacking drones.

Paul had planned for that as well, signaling a predetermined attack run up top while he aimed the primary weapon on the cruiser and fired a translucent shield column up at the dreadnaught. It hit the hull and crunched a few battle plates, almost like the ship had physically punched the other, but the damage was superficial and a moment later the emitter on the cruiser released the Ta’lin’yi energy that crackled like a fireworks display down the length of the containment shield, sucking energy out of it enroute to the dreadnaught and unleashing against the hull.

The white/gold prickles that looked like a billion tiny fairies gorging themselves on pixie dust blew through the hull armor like it wasn’t even there and blasted like a torch into the dreadnaught’s interior, exploding everything they touched on contact. The Ta’lin’yi was so destructive, in fact, that Star Force had lost several prototype weapons from backfire, requiring the most advanced shields built to date to hold and channel the weaponsfire to target…which they now had thanks to the arc elements, with those shields also temporarily protecting these drones from the dreadnaught’s plasma fire.

Paul kept the continuous Ta’lin’yi, which they simply referred to as a ‘Talon Torch,’ or just ‘Torch,’ firing nonstop so that he could eat well into the interior of the dreadnaught while the other cruisers and destroyers fired theirs off in short bursts, targeting key points on the hull that the maulers opened up. Trick of it was, the Ta’lin’yi lost most of its effectiveness against shields, making it about 3 times effective as plasma and useful in assaulting shielded ships, but it didn’t get its big bang until it hit physical matter…which was why the shield disrupting nature of the maulers was so critical, allowing them to punch at least small holes it the protective barrier to deliver the torch lances through.

Paul kept his attack up until the drone’s shields eventually went down and the main weapon was hit and destroyed, but he didn’t retreat, instead pulling in closer to the dreadnaught and letting the maulers eat away at surface targets, thinning the plasma cannons that were hitting his other ships until a coordinated salvo from the other Scionate ships eventually killed the cruiser and his display reverted back to ‘Admiral’ view…where he saw the rest of the new drones finishing the work he’d started and tearing the big ship apart via deep core damage.

The dreadnaught itself was too big to blow apart, at least not all at once, but huge conduits of damage were being poked into it along with the exterior looking like a person that had been burnt so bad they’d lost all their skin. As the big ship began to list the surviving drones turned their weaponry on the surrounding ships, with Paul instructing the pilots to fight it out to the last functioning weapon. He didn’t want to lose them, but he would gladly spend them in exchange for the damage they were doing…plus the disruption they were creating in the rest of the Scionate fleet that he began exploiting with the conventional drones.

The debris from the destroyed ships on both sides fell into the atmosphere, given that they were hovering on anti-grav rather that actually sitting in orbit…or rather a lazy orbit so the Scionate could remain overtop their ground troops at all times. That was a mistake as huge chunks of ships fell down into the atmosphere, partially burning up from the friction but also reigning down meteors on the Scionate’s own troops…most of which were deflected by the transports’ shields, but some were coming down as far off as the neighboring cities, making the Star Force personnel there having to shoot them out of the sky in the case of small ones and run away when larger ones hit, with the advanced comm system and battlemap they shared proving invaluable as the meteor strikes were calculated and warning areas were flashed as no-go zones, allowing the mechs and fighters in the area time to maneuver out of the way.

The same wasn’t true of the Scionate, who lost several hundred troops to the meteor strikes…but then came the dreadnaught hulk, unable to maintain its orbit, and now guided down to the surface with a few Star Force drones equipped with IDF tugging it on a more preferable course directly down onto a cluster of transports.

One managed to lift off and fly away, but even it got caught in the impact concussion wave and knocked into the ground, skidding in the dirt before righting itself and gaining altitude again, but once it came up out of the dust cloud and looked back down on the area with its sensors there was nothing but sheer destruction in its wake. 19 transports were now gone, along with thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, with the airborne tsunami pushing all the way up to the nearest city’s shields and bouncing off them like a gentle wave, tugging at the mechs waiting outside for the ground troops to arrive…but they never did.

Those Scionate around the impact point that survived redirected and abandoned the attack, now in too few numbers, not to mention utter shock, to mount an assault. They redeployed towards another of the multiple landing zones, abandoning their target city to support the assault on another…with the herding drones staying down in the atmosphere and targeting a few of the transports before the Scionate warships caught up to them and had a brief fight over the surface. Three enemy warships fell, then the drones pulled back damaged towards the nearest city, firing as they fled.

The Scionate warships, now 8 in number, followed them, killing one before they got near the city and dropping it to the ground where it dug out a long furrow, but avoided hitting any ground troops.

Another kilometer closer and a tiny white beam struck out from the nearest city, slicing into the Scionate shields and penetrating them a moment later as the defense turret cleansing beam began providing cover for the drones. The Scionate pressed the attack a few moments longer, enough to lose one of their ships to a well-aimed slice from the third cutting beam shot as it hit the ship’s gravity drive…then the others pulled off as fast as possible, getting outside the preferred firing range of the small caliber CB and allowing the surviving drones to get some distance and redeploy back up to orbit.

Paul didn’t try to drop ships down into the ground campaign again, needing all he had for the naval fight. As it was he was having to pull back to more hit and run attacks, for he was losing too many drones compared to how many ships the Scionate had…and not just the ones involved in the attack, but the numbers he knew they had on their six worlds insystem, and if he let his planetary defense fleet get thinned too much he’d be at a disadvantage, no matter what their technological edge was.

Without any more deep thrusts into the enemy fleet the transports continued to flow down the ‘safe’ zone to the planet, landing well away from the dreadnaught wreck and deploying more and more troops to the assault lines heading out to the nearby cities. Paul brought up side displays in the nexus of the first ones to engage, seeing that the city defense CBs were angling down to hit a few tanks at range, but once the troops got within a certain radius the angle wouldn’t work, leaving it to the mechs and perimeter defense turrets to fight them off, with the Archons, Knights, and other commandos waiting to dual it out in the city streets and knowing not to venture out into what was going to become a massive kill zone.

Manually tinkering with the raiding drones, Paul continued to rack up kills along the perimeter, exploiting minor and a few major tactical miscues on the part of the Scionate, essentially playing ADC and running in to hit and pulling back out before shield strength went down, doing the enemy damage while taking none yourself…other than power loss. It was amazing how much he and the trailblazers had learned from playing video games. They literally were a form of training, and League of Legends had been one that he’d cut his teeth on as a youngling.

It was a winning strategy, given a long duration, and Paul continued it while the Scionate landed the last of their transports…but even then they didn’t abandon their orbital position, with Paul suspecting that they knew of and feared Star Force’s orbital bombardment capability. Pull their fleet back from the skies overhead and Paul could use his drones to pummel their landing zones with rail gun slugs, or even reposition the Sentinel in orbit and attack the surface with cleansing beams.

That would be risky, because it would expose the orbital infrastructure it was currently defending, but either way he could rack up considerable damage to the Scionate ground troops while they were clustered together on the surface. Once they moved into the cities it would be another matter, assuming their transports didn’t stay on the ground. If they did the defense fleet would have to stay in orbit and protect their flank, in which case Paul was going to continue to nibble it to death.

The Scionate could bring in more ships, and probably would, but the tactical situation would be the same until they started hitting Star Force positions in orbit or coming out after the drones in swarm tactics. Paul would make them pay a heavy price if they did that, but knew he couldn’t afford to lose the drones he had left. If the Scionate forced his hand he’d have to wait for the reinforcements that he’d already called for, which would be days away even after the relay network delivered the message to the neighboring systems.

Or so he wanted the Scionate to think. In reality he had a number of warships waiting on the edge of the system outside of sensor range that he could call in if badly needed. One other thing he’d learned from video games was that the enemy tailored their assault to the forces they thought you had, meaning if you held some back or hidden away from their view you could often turn the tables on them…and even if you didn’t, if you had a reputation for doing so you’d ward off a number of attacks just because of that uncertainty.

Which was why Paul hadn’t called them in. He was going to fight this battle with what he had in orbit and wait to see what the Scionate decided to do, but right now all they seemed to care about was grounding their insane number of troops. Star Force colonies were far from unprepared for this type of assault, something the lizards had taught them the hard way, but troopwise the Scionate far outnumbered them, from infantry to tanks to fighters.

It was about to start going down heavy, and Paul wanted to be out there with Kara and Morgan mixing it up hand to hand or at least in a mech, but he knew the ‘Admiral’ was needed here leading the naval front, and with the city he was currently in not appearing to come under direct attack anytime soon, that wasn’t likely to change.

Combat, aside from when dealing with rookies, was a team affair, and today his role was clear…with him going to press every advantage he had to take out as many of the Scionate ships as he could. He didn’t like slaughtering their enemies, but in this case it had to be done. If they didn’t choose to retreat, well, he couldn’t do anything about that, so he set himself to the task at hand and kept his attention on orbit, with only an occasional glance at the status of the emerging ground battles, leaving them to Morgan to work her magic on.

3

When Morgan got to the mech bay half of the walking machines were already gone, transitioning to the landing field outside where they were boarding dropships to be taken over to the Scionate invasion zone. She tagged one of the remaining ones for herself, depossessing a lower ranking mechwarrior and claiming one of the neos. Once onboard and strapped into the control harness she followed the others out, assuming command of the cluster and its 100 mechs. Admat had 2 galaxies of mechs, which totaled 1000 units, but they were spread out through the various cities, meaning it was going to take time to redeploy them to where the fighting was going down.

The heavy walkers were another matter, and not included in the ‘galaxy’ grouping, which had 5 clusters, each of which contained 20 stars, with a ‘star’ of mechs being a unit of 5 that worked together to take on/down targets. Already two Mk. 1 Hoths were moving outside to load up for transport, and Morgan knew the faster they got those into the field the more trouble the Scionate tanks were going to have. She didn’t know a lot about the enemy’s fighting tactics, but she’d studied what data files Star Force had, as well as the combat potential of their tanks, which essentially operated like the Canderian turtles…heavily armored hovering weapons platforms.

But she knew they only operated with plasma weaponry, no missiles or beams, meaning that a Hoth at range would eat them up before they could even get within firing range of the big machines…which were now much faster over ground than their predecessors had been, not to mention they’d been upgraded with a cleansing beam, now that the techs had figured out a way to miniaturize it even further. That said, her neo was still going to be the fastest mech on the field, but as she walked it out of the enclosed mech bay she felt the movements to be extremely sluggish, forcing her to reset her mind to ‘mech’ mode rather than ‘commando.’

She boarded a dragon along with a number of other mechs, then with fighter escorts they flew out to the edge of the battle zone, with the Scionate already having reached the target city’s edge. Battlemap data suggested they were going for at least 5 different cities, with Morgan opting to tackle the biggest assault she could find.

The dropships landed in a wide grid, giving the mechs plenty of room to exit several kilometers away from the nearest troops, though there were already enemy Valeries overhead strafing the dropships as several squadrons of skeets tried to keep them at bay. As soon as a few anti-air equipped madcats took to the field and downed a handful of fighters the Valeries backed off, with the Star Force pilots taking the initiative and pursuing them, leaving Morgan’s cluster a moment to itself as she handed out combat assignments.

She took 9 neos into her personal ‘binary’ and went to the head of the formation, with it splitting into two stars that kept close to each other, with Morgan at the point of hers. They ran as quickly as they could manage, with the other mechs trailing behind in a long column towards the edge of the engagement zone before splitting up to go after individual targets. On the march over to the enemy Morgan got a good look at what they were up against…and she wasn’t disappointed.

The fields of short blue grass were covered in Scionate yellow, both from their tanks and their personal armor, with thousands upon thousands of infantry storming the city’s outer walls and overwhelming the defense turrets that were chewing up everything within sight with lethal precision. The defending mechs had been forced to flee to the edges and fight around the city, drawing off tendrils of the enemy troops in order to avoid being overwhelmed with plasma…which added to the yellow motif that was drowning out the blue landscape and now encroaching on the white/greys of the city.

The city gates were raised, matching up with the underside of the bubble shield that was still holding. Valerie attacks on it were light, given the anti-air turrets raising up and popping through tiny holes in the energy barrier. Same with the primary turret that was roasting distant tanks and infantry with its single cleansing beam, but most of the enemy hoard were now below its firing angle, up close against the city walls, which in some cases were only lightly armored building exteriors.

That said, there was no way for the enemy infantry to get inside the perimeter without blasting a hole in either a building or the gates that had risen up to cover the gaps in between the structures, making for a crude, jerky line rather than a curved exterior, given that this city and others were constantly expanding. Morgan was glad they’d included the permanent defense protocol in the colony mandates, giving them a way to shut off access to the city from the ground at any stage of construction.

As she was running forward, now about a kilometer away from the nearest Scionate a pale white beam shot over her mech and hit one of the tanks ahead, moving down slightly as it fired and bisecting the rectangular slab with little effort while also vaporizing a few infantry on the far side where the beam sliced a narrow trench into the ground that erupted with a backblow of soil and moisture.

That meant the first hoth was finally unpacked and into play, something she was grateful for as a large group of tanks and infantry began turning towards her mechs, with them soon to be overwhelmed.

“Alright guys, this is it,” she announced to the cluster. “Don’t dig too deep or you’ll be toast. Hit and fade and pull them away from the others. Fighting retreat if possible. They’ve got the numbers, so we have to split them up…and remember to give the hoths some clear firing lines. Watch my back and shoot targets of opportunity, we’re about to bust them up and I’m not sure how they’re going to respond. Play it conservative until we get a feel for them.”

There were no responses from the other mechwarriors, given that none of them knew her personally. They were all acolytes and lower, mixed in with a lot of Regulars that also weren’t very experienced. Those that were either fighting on the fronts or positioned to more valuable worlds. Admat was low priority, but per Star Force protocol they didn’t underdefend any world, meaning these mechwarriors had decent skills but were nowhere in Morgan’s league and they knew it, preferring to keep a respectful quiet as they headed into battle…though that wouldn’t last long before they started chatting at each other coordinating attacks.

Morgan used her superior skill and familiarity with the neo to goose her speed, running faster than the others could do without tripping over their own mechanical feet and pulling ahead of her star slightly as she popped up both mauler cannons on her mech’s arms and started firing at the nearest tank…completely ignoring the infantry until they got underfoot. She haphazardly punted one of the armored cats that didn’t move out of her way as she tore through the shields and armor of one of the tanks that couldn’t quite manage to keep her in its primary sights, giving her the opportunity to kill it quickly without having to suffer a main cannon strike to her shields.

Her neo was covered with hundreds of infantry blasts, which she knew would add up eventually, but right now, at the beginning of battle, it was the tanks that were the most dangerous so she swerved to her left and attacked another one from the flank, melting it with her maulers rather easily, taking only 9 hits before she dropped it to the ground unpowered with large chunks of the machine dripping in molten globs onto the grass and setting it on fire.

Soon there was smoke billowing up in multiple locations as she and the other mechs hit the tanks, all the while the now two hoths were sniping more further back in the lines on a regular basis as they slowly walked forward. Morgan watched her shield strength closely, backing off twice for a run through the open field before circling back at a different point and hitting a strategically placed tank that further opened up the infantry to slaughter by some of the heavier armed Type 1s in her cluster.

The Scionate didn’t blink, pressing their losses by diverting more troops Morgan’s way, so many in fact that the armored kitties started jumping at and on her mechs, knocking over several before others came in to help shoot the cats off. Small as they were, the quadrupeds were heavy enough in numbers to make it difficult for the mechs to get up and move around, with her seeing a pair hanging onto the leg of a starbright whose shields had already gone down. They were latched on and firing their tiny plasma cannons into the mech at pointblank range before Morgan got to it and latched her mechanical hands around both and pried them off…then pitched them each baseball style back into the hoard.

After she threw the second one a few more infantry tried to jump on her mech…only to get a rude awakening as she maneuvered it around more like a giant suit of armor than a walking machine, punching and kicking the Scionate into mangled pulp inside of what felt like tin cans from the neo’s perspective.

They were not backing down though. It was as if the more troops they lost the more committed to winning the Scionate became, with Morgan’s cluster eventually having to retreat back to the hoths to avoid being overwhelmed. They all made it out, but a few had taken significant hull damage and had to be rotated to the rear of their ever changing formation that she kept modifying with the flow of battle. Her own neo was showing light damage in places but mostly for her it’d been shield damage that she’d suffered, though she had taken a square hit from one of the tanks that left a melty patch on her chest.

She’d berated herself for walking into that for some thirty seconds afterwards before letting it go and adjusting. The Scionate were now coming after the mechs in tank groups of no less than three, making assaulting them more difficult because at least one of them would usually land a direct strike when a neo approached, and multiple ones for the less agile mechs. Morgan began hunting those personally, with the others supporting her when she busted up their formation.

With the retreat they’d stretched out the Scionate lines…but their infantry was actually surging ahead of the tanks and running suicidally right into the mechs around the hoths’ feet. Morgan knew this was their chosen tactic, no matter how many they lost they were going to swarm the mechs, meaning they had to make a stand here or abandon the hoths, which no matter how heavily armed and armored they were, the hundreds of tanks coming their way would eat them alive given enough time.

Morgan ran the numbers through her head, sizing them up visually rather than trying to count as she considered having to do just that and evacuating the pilots by some means, perhaps right now before they were swarmed, but that would mean taking the hoths out of the fight and they badly needed their firepower…not just the cleansing beam, but the auxiliary weapons that were only now coming into play and firing own on the infantry with numerous plasma cannons designed for just this purpose, along with a quartet of maulers to deal with larger, close-in targets.

It was going to be a tough one, but the more they killed out here the less there would be for the infantry within the city to deal with, so Morgan decided to make their stand, sort of.

“Alright, we’re digging in here. Don’t get sloppy and keep cycling out as needed to recharge shields, but we’re holding position on the hoths, and the big boys aren’t going to be standing still. You’re going to position 400 meters apart, side by side, and casually advance. We’re going to work around you, but we are not going to get stuck in one spot and become turrets. That’s what the Scionate want, and we’re not going to give it to them. We’re mobile, so fight mobile. That order goes to everyone.”

“Keep clear of the hoth feet and let them clean up the infantry that gets to them. We break up the chunks ahead and they sweep, got it? If we go down, stay down and inside your mech. Don’t try to evacuate or you’ll be target practice. Anybody with missiles left unload them now…all of them, hit the isolated tanks. I’m going for the groups,” she said, running in a long circle to turn around, then accelerating to breakneck speed and trampling a few Scionate that got in her way, trying to trip her up.

Morgan shot several with her maulers enroute, but as she zigzagged heading towards one of the tank groups a white cleansing beam passed through it and cut two of the five tanks in half, greatly increasing her odds. She wanted to say thank you but knew there was no time, firing four shots against one of the intact tanks as a second group not far away also targeted her.

Knowing she had to get some cover she dipped her arms as she ran and popped out the underside sword blades, jumping into the air using her anti-grav and landing on top of one of the bisected tanks. She slid off it and skewered one of the intact ones, punching through its shields and then its armor with the corovon alloy blades. She wasn’t able to cut sideways, so she pulled them back out, one at a time, and jabbed them back down in, going for both the cockpit and power core, eventually hitting which one she wasn’t sure, but the tank suddenly stopped shooting her with its anti-personnel turrets, signaling to the trailblazer that it was dead.

A plasma shot hit them both, washing against her shields and taking them down a chunk as the other Scionate tank group fired on its own in order to hit her, committed to defeating their enemies no matter what the cost or sacrifice. She knelt the neo down then jumped again, this one mostly going sideways and got to another of the closest tanks and began hacking it apart, knowing that properly used the sword blades would kill faster than her maulers.

Doing her best Optimus Prime impression, she finished off that tank and ran across the burning ground to the third as another hoth cleansing beam hit the other group, taking one of their tanks out of the fight…with hundreds more approaching on the cluttered horizon.

“Not going to make this easy, are you,” she whispered, running three steps before soccer-style kicking a Scionate that didn’t move fast enough. It bowled over three others, which she proceeded to try and step on as she ran past, managing to put foot to only one and bury it into the ground on impact heading towards another tank, this one smoking from previous missile damage but still firing its main weapon.

She took it out with her maulers from range, then knelt down with its hulk to her back, gaining some cover as she targeted the nearby infantry behind her with her maulers, resetting them for quicker, smaller bursts…with the energy expanding rapidly enough to turn the weapon blasts into mini shotguns at range. Normally that wouldn’t have been effective against a tank or other heavily armored target, but the infantry was another matter, with her lining up shots with many targets down the line and hitting them with ease given the dispersion.

As she fired she also got a visual look at the rest of her mechs…which were not in good condition. Some still had shields up, but most were taking some level of armor damage. In the corner of her eye she saw a madcat with multiple Scionate hanging on it, then under their combined firepower the left leg broke off, sending the mech to the ground as it was no longer able to stand. To the pilot’s credit it moved itself around enough with its stubby arms and remaining leg to get its weapons pointed towards the enemy so it could still fire in a straight line whenever an enemy crossed it.

Her battlemap tagged the mech as down a moment later, with the infantry around the area all turning and swarming the injured target.

Morgan clenched her teeth and sprang up from her cover, sprinting back towards it as one of its weapons was ‘chewed’ offline by the tiny yellow plasma blasts. She didn’t dare use her maulers with a friendly underneath, so she popped her blades back out from underneath her neo’s wrists and went in hacking and kicking as more and more infantry poured in to replace the ones being lost.

Midway through that frenzy her battlemap pinged a warning…indicating that one of the city’s gates had been breached.

4

When Kara got the breach warning she wasn’t even fighting in that city, but she knew that was where she had to go and took off like the flash, flying low to the ground and shooting a few more Scionate infantry as she got up to speed…then she was over the blur of blue grass below with a moment of calm that she used to check out the situation on the battlemap.

It wasn’t good. The sea of Scionate was even larger around the city that was showing Morgan’s ID tag. The trailblazer was in a neo and a tough fight herself, but the enemy troops were now pouring through the breach in one of the city gates, with the surrounding defense turrets all showing to be offline…meaning they were probably slag by now. That left an undefended side that the Scionate were grouping around and sending a small, but constant stream of troops through, including tanks by the look of it.

She pulled up a side diagram on her HUD that showed camera footage of the breach with measurements overlaid. It was wide, but narrow enough that she thought she could clog it up. That wouldn’t prevent the Scionate from poking another hole elsewhere, but it would buy the city some time and relieve the ground troops already fighting off the enemy infantry in the streets. They appeared to have them somewhat contained at the moment, including a couple of ravens to add firepower, but the Scionate, the big ones anyway, appeared to be just as strong as the Knights, for she could see some of them going at it hand to paw in a wrestling match where the enemy had rushed several defensive barricades and leapt over.

The bodies were starting to pile up too…all Scionate. They were running right into a Star Force buzz saw and attempting to overcome it with numbers, armored and very agile numbers, but numbers none the less, and Kara knew she had to cut off or at least disrupt the flow before the good guys started to go down.

The back lines of the Scionate hoard became visible ahead, a growing mass of yellow that Kara didn’t hesitate for nor slow down, passing over the rear tanks too fast for them to target her and firing down on the infantry randomly as she made a straight line to the gate breach. When she neared it she arced upwards and came down on top of those passing through like a red bullet, landing on the back of one of the Scionate so hard she heard its armor crunch…then she brought up both arms and fired her Dre’mo’don at those outside, mowing down a dozen of them before turning around to fend off a lunge/jump from those just inside the gate.

An easy spin kick sent that one flying backwards, with her shooting it out of the air and nailing three others below it before it even hit the paved ground. A cartwheeled roll to the right got her out of the firing line of one of the tanks that landed a huge plume of plasma on the ground where she had just been standing, melting the pavement into a brief-lived puddle of molten goo that resolidified within seconds.

Kara’s palms morphed and produced the orb emitters, then she summoned up and fired a green/white glob of energy and sent it directly into the tank, knocking down its shields and melting through the armor plating before detonating inside and blasting it apart like a child’s toy that had broken, though the heavy parts didn’t fly far, more like they just fell apart from the green glow that flashed inside.

Kara shot down another two dozen infantry before summoning up another large orb and killing a second tank, with the remains of both now sitting just outside the gate breach and becoming impediments to the oncoming flow. Doing so was creating a significant power strain on her Vorch’nas, but she didn’t have time to poke the tanks to death with so many enemies around her, not to mention the hundreds of plasma blasts coming her way that her shields had to deal with.

To ease that burden she retreated a few steps and swung around behind the edge of the hole in the gate, shooting some more infantry on the inside then laying in wait for the next ones to come through…whereupon she mowed them down easily, with the rim of the breach now superheating as the tanks outside tried to expand the breach and get to her position.

Kara backed up, then flew/jumped across the gap, killing two more infantry on the pass and took up refuge on the other side, simultaneously getting a glimpse of the enemy troops on the interior that Star Force was managing to thin out and overcome. A line of blue plasma even shot through the breach and held steady for several long seconds as one of the ravens took aim at a tank outside, meaning that Kara had succeeded in giving the troops a breather, even as more Scionate rushed through the gap that she diligently mowed down into a growing pile of bodies.

A large bolt of yellow plasma came back through and hit the distant raven, impacting on its shields and not getting through, with Kara having a moment of epiphany that she thought Paul would be proud of. More for the sake of the other troops fighting and only a little for her own amusement, Kara opened her comm for wide broadcast, knowing that everyone would hear it, and jumped out onto the top of the pile of bodies, ducking as another blue continuous plasma beam shot by over her head a couple of meters and two yellow ones returned, also missing her as she summoned up another large orb.

She held it up over her head like a mage and stared at the enemy troops outside, picking the closest tank, and yelled with as much confidence and bravado as she could muster.

“You…shall not…pass!” she said, augmented by the armor’s vocal programming to sound as close to Gandalf as she could get without prep work, as she launched the orb and blew apart the tank outside.

Standing behind a barricade further back, commando level 36 Colt Harrison was firing his plasma rifle at the enemy infantry needing, he guessed, about two or three shots to get through their shields, then another 10+ to get through their armor, so long as you fired on the same spot. That meant the Scionate weren’t going down quickly, with him and the other commandos around him team firing on individual targets that one of the others were highlighting on the battlemap so they would know who to shoot without the delay of talking.

He had a trio of Knights standing behind him that had four times already taken on Scionate that had leapt over the barricade, leaving Colt and the others free to keep shooting, but the stupid cats were proving too tough a challenge and he knew it was just a matter of time before they were overrun, with him thinking more about where to flee to than holding his position.

When he saw the red something or other ahead of them kicking the crap out of the enemy in the brief gaps of vision visible through the infantry directly ahead that he was having to quickly shoot down, he wondered who it was and what the hell were they wearing, figuring it was an Archon of some sort but never having seen that variety of armor. The red was too deep and the figure too slim, with the Archon helmets being distinctive in shape and size, while this one looked like he was wearing a skin-tight hat…but whatever, he had aliens to shoot and keep from getting hit, having already taken a plasma blast to the face that luckily his armor’s shields held up against.

Then the enemies in front of him thinned out considerably, enough for him to see the strange armored fighter climb out on top of a heap of the dead cats with what looked like a funky plasma orb forming in his hands. Colt had definitely never seen anything like that before, but then his comm opened up and he heard a deep, powerful voice bellow out a movie reference that he hadn’t heard in a very long time, with his HUD tagging the strange warrior as the one speaking.

He threw the plasma orb at one of the tanks outside and it exploded on contact, sending a chill down Colt’s spine along with a resurgence of confidence…along with a laugh. Whoever that was, they had a sense of humor packed in with those crazy weapons, and suddenly Colt was no longer thinking about where to flee to. With half an eye on the combat occurring at the breach, he and the other commandos and Archons took careful aim and killed the last of the Scionate infantry between them and the wizard they’d seemed to have picked up.

Colt didn’t have a clue who he was, but with his assistance it looked like they might be able to hold this position after all.

“Did you hear that?” one of the other commandos asked.

“Yeah I did,” Colt said, keeping his sights focused ahead as he reloaded his rifle with a spare clip.

“Who is it? They’re not showing up on the battlemap.”

“That’s the Queen of Diamonds, you rookies,” one of the Archons nearby answered. “Otherwise known as Kara-317.”

“What type of armor is she wearing?” Colt asked.

“Something alien that she picked up. One of a kind. I didn’t even know she was here, but count yourself lucky. Rarely do you ever see that amount of badass,” he said as the raven standing a few dozen  meters behind their barricade line fired another plasma streak out the gap as a wave of infantry ran forward, which Colt and the others couldn’t see.

“Heads up,” the Archon warned, just before a sea of Scionate came over the mound of their own dead in lemming fashion…too many for Kara to shoot down at once, meaning Colt and the others were about to get busy again.

“You heard her,” the Archon reiterated. “They shall not pass. First five of you that get killing sprees get 10 credits.”

Despite the wave of powerful aliens running towards them at superhuman speeds Colt laughed, his fear of them gone, now replaced by gritty determination as he started placing shots on the leaders tagged in his HUD. He and four others nearby him took one down within 3 seconds, then moved onto the next as a few of the Scionate got through the initial plasma fire and jumped over the barricades with the Knights swarming them instantly.

The raven fired all its weaponry down into the hoard ahead of them, busting up the wave and giving Colt and the other ground troops a thinned group of enemies to target.

With the Scionate fleet continuing to succumb to Paul’s hit and fade attacks, they eventually called in reinforcements from their six worlds insystem, despite the fact that they already outnumbered the Star Force defense fleet. When more warships began arriving Paul brought his two warship/jumpships forward and into the fray, both as bait and to include their bloon launchers in the battle. Previous to now they had been sitting far back, remotely controlling the drones that had come from them and assisting with others as their pilots were freed up when their vessels got taken out.

Paul tagged the remaining battleships for their attack, with the two big ships heading straight into the enemy fleet and drawing an immediate response. The enemy fleet pulled up towards them, exposing a gap between the atmosphere and their fleet that the trailblazer had been hoping for. As the remaining Star Force drones formed up around the two warships and took it directly to the enemy fleet, even as its reserves were pouring into orbit to supplement them, Paul plotted a course diversion for the Sentinel, time stamped to begin a drop towards lower orbit in a few minutes.

Before that transition could begin, for it would draw immediate attention from the Scionate, he called for his ace in the hole, knowing that he had to bust up this fleet before the enemy got majorly reinforced. As the battle with the two warship/jumpships continued in earnest, with their massive hulls eating up a lot of weaponsfire that otherwise would have been targeting the drones, thus extending their battle life, another warship pulled an insanely difficult jump into the gap between the enemy fleet and the planet, braking so hard that Paul could see the stress levels on the ship’s status display when it finally popped up.

That warship immediately began to release drones…new drones, for it was a new warship, fully equipped with not only bloon launchers but cleansing beams, maulers, and even its own Ta’lin’yi. The Mk. 32 variety was the most lethal yet, and some 21% bigger than previous models. That cut down on its available jump speed, but with progressively better gravity drives being developed it nulled out the disadvantage, leaving a ‘normal’ warship with a much larger carry capacity.

It disgorged 126 drones in a plume falling behind it as it too dove into the enemy fleet targeting their battleships, simultaneously with a second warship jumping into the planet on the topside of the enemy fleet…a much easier jump to accomplish, with the now four warships bracketing the Scionate on three sides and putting them in a momentary disadvantage that Paul pressed. He had more warships to call on if needed, for he’d brought a lot into the system in case the Scionate didn’t respond well to their diplomatic complaint, but he didn’t want to show his full hand yet.

That said, he needed to take advantage of opportunities when they arose and take as many enemy chess pieces off the board as possible, which the torch-enhanced drones were beginning to do in earnest.

The four warships were manned, of course, meaning this ploy was a bit of a gambit. If those ships were destroyed, tough as that was to accomplish, he’d be losing people, and that was something that Star Force abhorred. But with him monitoring the situation on the planet below, he knew he had to aid the ground troops…which was why as the Scionate were suddenly getting more resistance than they could handle in orbit he sent a third warship in to the planet at a location some 1000 miles off, having it brake not far above the atmosphere and send its drones skimming across the top and over to the engagement zone.

There they made a dive into the planetary gasses and headed towards the surface, with only a few Scionate warships moving to intercept them. Some of the drones pulled back up and intercepted the enemy warships in a high altitude brawl with the others moving down to surface level. Paul watched all three fleet engagements closely, but knew that he had to get to the Scionate ground troops before they got safely inside the cities…with a tone sounding that informed him that the Sentinel was now repositioning. It wasn’t a warship, and couldn’t move all that fast, but putting full power into its gravity drives would allow for some slow jumps between planets.

So with its drives cranked up as high as it could manage, it sucked itself down towards the planet and put itself on a descending track that would bring it towards the enemy fleet in approximately 27 minutes. That was slow compared to what the drones and warships could do, but it was going to be enough. Now the Scionate had a choice to make…wait and fight until it arrived, or leave now and try to hit somewhere else in orbit.

They decided to fight on for several more minutes…then they took an approach that Paul had thought was of low likelihood, but none the less effective in the short term.

With the Scionate fleet beginning to even out its disadvantage with the influx of a lot more ships, they suddenly broke off…not leaving to a higher orbit or going after Star Force’s shipyards or other facilities, but moving down into the atmosphere, passing the warship Paul had positioned there and moving towards the surface to engage the drones that had slipped by them.

Morgan’s neo was all but trash, having lost her shields more times than she could count and now down 3 emitters, leaving her left leg permanently exposed. Her left mauler was gone, with the sword blade in that arm locked into deployed mode. She could still use it, but couldn’t retract it, meaning her hand in that arm was now useless for the blade stuck out from underneath the wrist.

Her armor had damage everywhere, but none had gotten below 25% in any spots, though there was a deep cut in her back that was registering at 34% thickness. She’d gotten that damage running away from a group of tanks that otherwise would have killed her, given that there had been some 22 of them that she’d felt like trimming down to 20. Now that kind of seemed like a bad move, but it had provided a distraction for two trios of other neos to take down some smaller groups, all the while wading through the suffocating, self-sacrificing infantry that was constantly trying to slow them down.

Morgan had stepped on more of them than she cared to remember, not liking to kill enemies that way but they were giving her no choice. Even one of the hoths had taken a leg hit that made it unable to walk, but it was still standing and fighting…forcing her and the others to change their tactics to fight around it or leave it behind. She’d chosen the later, pushing forward with the still working one while leaving a pair of madcats behind to assist the hoth with the infantry that kept trying to overwhelm it.

Morgan hadn’t had time to think about much else, let alone look at her battlemap, which meant it was a huge surprise and relief when the sun was suddenly blotted out by a rectangular cloud that started firing down into the tank formations with mauler blasts that literally melted them on explosive contact.

It wasn’t until a bright torch beam swept across the infantry hoards that she realized it was coming from a warship overhead…with her amending that sentiment as she checked the battlemap and saw multiple drones coming down from orbit and beginning to annihilate the enemy troops. She wondered how in the hell Paul had managed that with the enemy fleet sitting up there…which was when she also saw on the battlemap that they were coming down into the atmosphere by the hundreds.

“Oh shit, Paul,” she whisper swore. “You better know what you’re doing.”

5

One of the remote pilots stationed on the planet, situated in a city that was currently under attack, was flying one of the drones sent to that location. It was odd for her to see where she was from above, not to mention the hoard of enemies outside and now in, given that the city wall had just been breached. Her corvette was descending rapidly through the atmosphere, now only a handful of kilometers in altitude as she and the rest of the fleet had been given orders to engage the enemy ground forces directly.

That was an unusual order, but one that they’d trained for extensively…and given the current situation one that she agreed with wholeheartedly. There were Knights guarding their building in order to keep the enemy from cutting off their control of the drones, and given dire enough circumstances they would tell them when to evacuate, so Kaleigh didn’t have to worry about looking over her shoulder, but she was apprehensive and being able to contribute to her own defense was immensely helpful. That way she could actually do something rather than sit and wait to be shot or blown up.

“Assuming direct control,” a deep, dark voice said into her earpiece and suddenly she no longer had helm control of the corvette. In fact she wasn’t linked to it at all, now pushed into a waiting cue to be placed somewhere else within the fleet remote systems.

“What the hell?” she asked, feeling like the universe was just plain being unfair until she saw the ID tag on the top of her primary screen that had bumped her from priority control. It wasn’t a higher ranking pilot, nor even an Archon…but the Admiral himself, bringing a confused frown to her face as her display shifted to a targeting program for a weapons battery on a cruiser that was just now engaging a trio of Scionate warships of equal tonnage in the upper atmosphere.

She didn’t have time to think, dropping into her new role on cue and controlling the single battery, as opposed to the 3 or 4 that a gunner would usually control. Being given one meant that there were a large number of pilots to a small number of ships with the duties being split up for greater efficiency.

Kaleigh sighted her mauler cannon on the position of a targeting tag and fired, opening up the enemy shield for another mauler blast that hit a moment later. Together she and the other unknown gunner chewed a hole in the side of the cruiser along with a lot of others before the ship finally lost power and began to fall towards the planet…with Kaleigh mentally crossing her fingers and hoping that it wasn’t about to come down on her head.

From the command nexus Paul took control of the closest warship to the second city breach, dipping it into an even steeper nosedive as he passed out targeting orders to the pilots handling the weapons. He assumed control over the torch along with the helm, but left the secondary weapons to the others, knowing they could do a better job with them than him trying to mentally control them all…which he was capable of doing with ships far larger than a corvette.

The Scionate were taking a big gamble bringing their warships into the atmosphere, and Paul knew that regardless of how that turned out he had a small window to target the ground troops without immediate reprisal. He was going to make use of that then turn his attention to the Scionate warships that, for the most part, were not configured for atmospheric flight.

But that didn’t matter at this particular moment, because the second city breach had just occurred and there was only one Queen of Diamonds around to plug holes with, so as he brought the rectangular cube of a warship down over the city its knife blade-shaped shields reformed into their normal blocky configuration and he drifted the corvette down past the curve of the bubble shield and directly over the heads of the enemy infantry and tanks outside…with the latter turning their weapons skyward and blasting into the underside of the warship.

It blasted back, with Paul using the torch as its namesake implied, targeting the tanks like a painter making long brushstrokes, punching right through the shields and armor on impact as if they were little more than plastic toys. With the remote pilots hitting the others with maulers and the anti-air chewing up the surrounding Valeries, the corvette made its dominating presence known as more and more tanks turned their weapons on it and covered its shields with plasma.

Paul watched the shield strength closely, knowing that with enough hits the tanks would get through, given that the corvette wasn’t all that much bigger than them. Still, it had superior tech and could take a beating even after it lost shields, and Paul knew he had to take pressure off the troops inside the city fighting the enemy infantry…which was being ravaged by one of the mauler cannons that he had assigned to that task.

It was coating the area outside the breach with its destructive blue energy, vaporizing the ground and creating huge plumes of moisture and dirt littered with bits of Scionate. The pilot kept pouring more mauler blasts on the area, effectively creating a wall of destruction that kept additional infantry from getting past…though he couldn’t target inside the city without lowering the bubble shield, and doing either one was fraught with problems.

With the corvette’s shields near to breaching on the underside Paul shifted energy from the top to reinforce them, then informed his gunners to target the infantry exclusively while he continued to pick off tanks with the torch. All the other weapons onboard, including the anti-air lachars, began picking off the armored cats by the hundreds, then Paul moved the warship out into the midst of the formation before drifting left, cutting a path towards the edge were a group of mechs were fighting.

With the corvette’s shields finally going down the ship began taking light armor damage, but the weapons batteries themselves were now exposed, save for small redundant shields covering them when they weren’t firing. Those shields would delay the weapon strikes but a smart enemy would shoot the weak points and clip his offensive capability rather than trying to burn through the thick armor first. Knowing this Paul drifted the ship over the mechs, helping them out while simultaneously gaining escorts to protect his underside, though the warship was still the primary target of the tanks.

That took pressure off the damaged mechs, allowing them to start fighting more effectively as they gradually thinned the enemy troops…but it wasn’t nearly enough, for more were still coming in from the grounded transports until more of Paul’s drone warships arrived and started blasting them to bits as well.

The free shoot didn’t last long, with Paul eventually relinquishing personal command of the corvette and returning his nexus to fleet view, seeing that the Scionate had now brought down several thousand warships into the atmosphere to combat the drones and protect their troops…but Paul knew they could also be used to hunt his mechs and pound the city shields if uncountered, no matter how ungainly they were in the atmosphere.

And that ungainliness is what Paul had to exploit. The air itself was aiding Star Force, because it wasn’t allowing the Scionate to maneuver as quickly as normal. They did have their Valeries to aid them, adding weaponsfire where able, but the anti-air batteries on the drones made such efforts risky for the pilots who, like all the rest of the Scionate, seemed to be in a fury that pushed aside reason. That saw swarms of the fighters running against the smaller drones and laying down considerable plasma, despite the cost to them in losses.

Those fighters could maneuver quickly in the atmosphere, but the warships couldn’t. Star Force’s were a bit different, however, because Paul had designed them for atmospheric combat, though they didn’t look it. The plain bricks didn’t have a lick of aerodynamic design like the Hycre had, but they made up for that with shield geometries that did. Invisible as they were most of the time, the drones became pointy aerodynamic needles or knife blades when needed, allowing them to outmaneuver or outrun the Scionate warships, making it almost impossible for the enemy to make a kill if the drones didn’t stand toe to toe and slug it out.

Which they didn’t. They employed similar tactics to those used in orbit, cycling in and out of the hot zones to recharge shields. Problem was that the area was clogged with ships fighting in a much smaller region than before, meaning Paul had to have his ships eating away at the perimeter of the Scionate fleet…but he couldn’t, for they were coming down on top of the ships fighting the ground troops, meaning that for several minutes all hell broke loose as ships vied for position and Paul manically reworked their fighting position at a speed no manual interface could handle.

Using the Ikrid interlink he became the fleet, issuing orders like pressing buttons on a video game controller and doing so many so fast that there was a blur of commands coming out of the nexus to the fleet that 10 controllers out in the main room behind him couldn’t have matched in volume or skill.

All the while the debris from the fighting was falling like rain over the ground battles, with many pieces hitting the city shields and sliding off down to the edges to land in a ring of trash that the mechs, tanks, and infantry had to dodge.

Morgan’s view caught the sight of half a Valerie smashing into the topside of the hoth she was pacing besides, hitting it on the head and smashing through its shields. The impact came so fast that it off balanced the big walker, forcing her to scurry out of the way before it fell on her…but the driver was good enough to maneuver the legs around quickly to catch itself, though the big machine did drop to a knee like a dog taking a drink of water, only to come up firing its cleansing beam again at a none too distant tank.

There was debris everywhere, mostly in little bits no bigger than a trash can, but if those bits were chunks of warship armor they could do a  lot of damage to the mechs…not to mention the enemy troops. Morgan didn’t like it one bit and kept waiting for a ship to fall down on their heads, but there was nothing she could do about it now so she embraced the moment and tried to use the chaos to her advantage, as well as assigning a person in each of the hoths to keep an eye on the sky and mark approximate landing positions for the big pieces coming down to alert the mechs to stay out of the way just in case the main battlemap controllers in the cities missed something.

That wouldn’t work for the hoths, for they were too slow to move much, but it did give the Tier-1 mechs a chance, with Morgan already having missed three large strikes thanks to the heads up. They basically had to whistle through the graveyard and hope not to get hit, or at least hope the hits were survivable, like the broken fighter that had left a nasty scar on the top of the hoth’s head, digging into the armor and scraping it up something fierce, but the heavy walker was still in the game, now pushing far ahead of the other that was pinned in place, with its two escorts using it as an umbrella and hiding underneath as they shot incoming infantry.

Those three were far behind the rest, with the walkable hoth now having pushed far inside the enemy swarm and Morgan’s mechs eventually meeting up with another group that had originated from within the city outside the breached gate. They combined what numbers they had left, with Morgan assuming command of the others, and did not hold position. They cleared the entrance that Kara was still clogging up with bodies then turned and headed in the direction of the enemy transports, walking over the carpet of infantry and fighting their way through with what little weaponry they had left intact, with the hoth being responsible for most of the carnage.

They got about a third of the way out into the enemy formation before the tide suddenly turned and the infantry reversed course, sprinting away from the city with their tanks doing the same on a delay, forming a rear guard that kept firing at the mechs and covering for the infantry as they began to retreat towards their distant transports.

“Morgan?” one of the mechwarriors asked.

“Let them go,” she said, relieved. “Get into the city through a working gate and see if you can help out with the cleanup. We’re too chewed up to pursue anyway. Take two stars,” she said, tagging which ones had the most armor and weaponry still working, not including hers. “The rest are on recovery op. Let’s get our people inside before the Scionate decide to come back for a second round.”

A moment after she said that a pair of tiny white beams struck the surface on the horizon, with barely any longevity. They were little flashes, like straight line lightning. She adjusted her gaze and followed them up into the sky, gulping when she saw the thousands of dark shapes with tiny flashes occurring between them that were the battling fleets. The cleansing beam strikes weren’t coming from them though, they were coming from higher up and another small shape, this one looking like a cigar.

Morgan checked her battlemap and blanched, seeing that the Sentinel had somehow repositioned directly over them, just holding outside the atmosphere in a geosync pseudo orbit…meaning it was sitting there mostly on anti-grav, something that was hard for a mass of that size to do, let alone have enough power left for weapons.

But firing it was, sending down what appeared to be 6 or 7 different beams in rotating cycles and skewering the enemy warships with small bits of the energy punching clean through their hulls and falling to the surface. She hoped like hell the gunners were back checking their targets, not wanting one of the beams to hit a city…or her, but still the Scionate fleet didn’t run.

A warning popped up on her display, and she ran her mech off several hundred meters to the north ahead of a chunk of warship falling nearby. In fact it was heading very near the hoth, which was accelerating as much as it could to get some distance, now pointed back towards the city and nearly galloping, or at least as much as it mechanically could, with Morgan watching the falling object in its last stages on the battlemap and visually, guessing that the hoth wasn’t going to make it in time.

But then at the last second the bubble shield that was still deployed and touching the top of the perimeter wall expanded, maintaining the shape it was locked into but growing in size and expanding out over top the hoth like an umbrella at the last moment. The Scionate destroyer, or rather most of it, hit the shield and deflected, coming down on the ground some 100 meters past the hoth and creating one hell of an earthquake on impact.

Dust and debris flew everywhere, with a Scionate corpse bouncing off her neo as the cloud consumed her mech, with her losing her balance and falling forwards onto the ground. Morgan caught the mech with her hands forward, digging her stuck blade into the ground like it was hardly even there and waiting out the torrent while watching the battlemap for more falling pieces. The bubble shield shrank slowly as the hoth got closer to the city and Morgan followed it in, glad to have the cover and cursing Paul for his sloppiness. What the hell was he thinking bringing the orbital fight down into the atmosphere?

She knew it had been to slaughter the ground troops, which she was thankful for, but this debris dodging was downright insane, and she doubted the city shield could take a second hit like that without breaching.

As she was mentally cussing him out the battlemap saw the first of the enemy transports begin to lift off, apparently fully loaded. It wasn’t targeted by Paul’s fleet, which Morgan knew was probably by design. With the enemy retreating last thing you wanted to do was smoke their getaway car and force them back into combat against the cities…or at least she hoped that was his plan, though she didn’t want to interrupt him now to ask what was up, given the ruckus going on overhead.

It took a long while for the troops she’d just been fighting to make it back to their transports, but eventually they lifted off as well, with the enemy warships, or rather those still left, finally pulling back to cover the transports…with the Sentinel standing down along with the remaining drones as they allowed the Scionate survivors to pull out and leave uncontested.

After finding two of her mechwarriors buried under debris and recovering them, Morgan brought her mech inside the hold of one of the dropships that came out to retrieve her and the others, leaving the debris pickup to different teams. Once inside she tapped into the dropship external cams and got a good look at the once blue grasslands…now afire in multiple locations and dotted with what looked like chocolate chips that were ship debris, or in some cases entire ships.

It was a ghastly sight, but they’d managed to hold. Question was how much damage had been done inside the cities and what the Scionate were going to do now after this ass kicking, for they had far more troops and ships insystem than they’d deployed here.

6

July 19, 2534

Corvio System

Admat

Morgan picked up Paul’s mental signature a couple of hallways away before she crossed paths with him, her coming back into the command center and him coming out.

“We going back?” she asked, with the two of them stopping for a chat in the middle of the pedestrian traffic flow.

“As soon as you can pack. We have to take care of this now. We can’t wait on the others.”

“I agree. Just the three of us?”

“No one else can keep up.”

“Unfortunately,” Morgan echoed. “Grab plenty of senzu beans and I’ll meet you in the hangar in an hour?”

“Deal,” Paul said with the pair splitting and going their separate ways. He had to find Kara as well as do a little more homework. He’d already spent a few minutes running through their files on the Scionate, but he needed backup options and hadn’t gotten enough info for that so he eventually stopped by his quarters and downloaded what he needed on a datapad and brought it with him later when he went back to the hangar, this time allowing Morgan to drive while he read up.

“It seems we’ve greatly underestimated the Humans’ power,” Tem’lan mewed angrily in the audience chamber from his reclining pedestal as he and the other Chieftans watched the battle reports coming in via holo, with each using their own interface and screens to monitor the data streams they wanted with a single large map of the engagement zone displayed in the center where visitors normally stood. It was replaying various points of the failed assault as the Scionate leadership tried to comprehend what had gone wrong.

“You are repeating yourself,” Pra’nom said dismissively as he studied a personal display.

“I am reiterating the obvious. We cannot and should not launch another attack until we know the true strength of the Humans, no matter how wounded our pride is.”

“I concur,” Yen’sor said from Pra’nom’s left. “We lost so many in this attack and their Sentinel still stands. If we escalate this, even if we win we may suffer horrible losses.”

“And risk starting a full scale war with Star Force,” Jasnet added. “It’s not just the Humans, the Calavari are allied with them now. Our attempt at teaching them a lesson has failed, let us not make more of a mess of this.”

“What course of action would you suggest?” Ura’bor asked halfheartedly.

“I do not know the temperament of the Humans well enough to answer that.”

“Fairly stated,” Ura’bor conceded. “They have hidden many secrets from us, but this supersoldier of theirs concerns me the most,” he said, shifting his personal display to the main holo, showing crude images captured from afar of Kara fighting on the ground and attacking the transports in the air, plus a few images from when she was inside one laying waste to the troops waiting within.

“Note that,” Tem’lan interrupted before Ura’bor could continue, “this one stunned the troops initially, much like they did when they came here. It was we who escalated this to killing. We made a grave mistake in misreading their intentions. Their hesitancy was not weakness. I believe they were trying to teach us a lesson that we failed to grasp.”

“Which was?” Car’sem asked.

“They were warning us, and delivered the message personally so we would feel the effects and remember. We struck back like an arrogant child, not knowing who it was we were dealing with.”

Ura’bor growled. “I would dispute that if I could.”

“I still dispute it,” Pra’nom said, unrelenting. “The Humans are stronger than we thought, but their world is still ours for the taking if we act before they can draw reinforcements from other systems. We have far more troops here than they do, we simply need to send them and end this before it can escalate further. Honor demands that we finish what we started.”

“No matter the cost?” Tem’lan countered.

“It would be far worse not to,” Oru’ven said gravely. “We will lose the respect and fear of the other races if we walk away from this now.”

“We will lose millions of soldiers if we press this,” Tem’lan growled. “And I am not confident that we can even take their world. I believe we have been outplayed, and any further hasty action will only make the situation worse than it is now.”

“We cannot back down,” Ura’bor hissed as if Tem’lan was talking treason.

“We need a victory,” Tem’lan explained. “If we are unable to achieve one it would be best not to waste resources. What if they invade here after we bleed our defense fleet dry to take their world?”

“Tem’lan makes a good point,” Car’sem agreed. “They only struck us here to send a message. Now we have spilt their blood, though very little of it. If they react to that as we would, we may see a Human warfleet overhead in the coming days. I would not waste our defenses trying to destroy their Sentinel, which we will if it can move to intercept our ground troops. If it can hold the Cajdital at bay, we will be blooded taking it down.”

“Then we should recall more of our fleet to this system, regardless of what transpires,” Pra’nom suggested.

Several others nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

“Agreed,” Ura’bor finalized. “Send courier ships while we study our new enemy in more detail. Our decision on what we do will wait until our blood is less hot with the sting of defeat. If we are to defeat this enemy, we must not underestimate them again.”

“Wise words,” Tem’lan agreed. “But there’s a possibility that we might not be able to defeat them at all.”

“We can,” the elder Scionate said confidently. “It’s simply a matter of discovering how best to do it.”

“A lot of movement,” Kara commented as they quietly reentered high orbit of Vaadsip, seeing warships moving about with a lot coming into the planet from the other Scionate worlds in the system.

“They’re not used to losing,” Morgan commented from the pilot’s seat. “I think we spooked them. Paul, you have a location for us yet?”

“Somewhere on the large southern continent.”

“There are no continents,” she said, referencing the obvious fact that there were no oceans to outline any.

“Look at the city distribution. They’re clumped into what look like continents.”

“Well that’s something then,” Morgan said, glancing up at Kara who was once again seated above them. “Is that enough for you to give me an approach vector?”

“Give me a minute, then I should have something.”

“Crowded?” Paul asked.

“Very,” Kara emphasized, “but there are always holes. It’s just a matter of finding them.”

Paul nodded, understanding her challenge as he turned his attention back to the datapad in his hand. They weren’t returning straight to the ruling den. Had they been out for blood that would have been the obvious place to go and just kill all the leaders, but that wasn’t the mission here and pissing off every single Scionate in the ADZ was a really bad idea. They needed another option, which Paul was currently searching for.

It took him another half hour but he was finally able to give Morgan and Kara a destination city situated a third of the distance around the planet from the capitol and only half as large. It took them a few hours to get through the traffic and down to it, once again coming down over the grasslands and creeping up on the perimeter detection sensors, limited as they were. Kara was able to sneak them inside rather easily, with them finding another parking space in the cluttered roofline…but even by then Paul wasn’t finished with his research.

“What’s the holdup?” Morgan asked after they’d set down.

“I’ve narrowed it down to two bloodlines, both of which have their central dens here. Picking which one is the problem, along with finding the right contact.”

“So you’re saying we’re not busting down the door this time?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

“Knocking gently, then picking the lock,” Paul responded, still scouring their records on Scionate society.

“Why not pay a visit to both?” Kara asked, coming down the ladder from above and standing on the small lower deck behind their seats.

“Because they’re drastically different, and I’m not sure which way we should go.”

“Enlighten us,” Morgan said, swiveling her seat around and leaning back.

Paul sighed. “The first is Wennitan. They’re very militant and have been at odds with the ruling bloodline over their reluctance to claim a place on the front lines fighting the lizards, Skarrons, or anyone else threatening the ADZ. We just killed a whole lot of their kin, so not sure how happy they’re going to be about that.”

“The second is Grisst. They’re brokers, playing Davis’s game and playing it well. They’re in agreement with the defensive assist policy that the ruling den has been using, preferring to wage war in the ADZ economically and keep their military as an ace in the hole. They’ve been an ally of Vensiol for several hundred years, but they’re considered to be the wisest and most farseeing of the bloodlines.”

“And the others?” Morgan asked.

“Less viable candidates, in my opinion, but you’re free to look through the data yourself.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but just remember that our files aren’t going to be the best.”

“I know, we’re going to have to play this by ear and possibly work through several bloodlines before we find an acceptable one. I’m just not sure where to start.”

“Start with the ally,” Kara suggested. “That way we can gage the level of discontent.”

Morgan shrugged. “Sounds fine to me. I just don’t want to waste time sitting here discussing it.”

Paul set the datapad down and pulled back on his black armored gloves, clicking them into the arms of his body armor before grabbing his helmet and sending Morgan and Kara the waypoint he’d already stored. “Let’s go.”

The three of them left the V’kit’no’sat gunship in the middle of the city’s night cycle, making it much easier to move around without attracting notice as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop with Kara keeping pace with them rather than flying off to do her own thing. The trio quietly made their way across the city to the location where the Grisst den was located…which was a good hike away from where they’d landed, for it was located in the densest part of the city and they’d had to park in a more industrial section with less eyes around.

The Grisst den was completely different than the ruling one. Instead of a sprawling, low level facility this one was a thick tower rising up above all the other buildings…save for three other similar towers marking rival dens, none of which were built directly next to one another. There were thousands of Scionate bloodlines, with most having their central dens on the capitol world, so there were plenty of options for the Archons to pick from, with Paul knowing they needed to talk to one that had roots and a powerbase on planet rather than one of the more powerful rivals/exiles that dominated other worlds in Scionate territory.

“Kara?” Paul asked as they stared at the far building across the city lights.

“I see several options. My choice would be a window two thirds of the way up.”

“Not exactly a quiet entrance,” Morgan commented.

“It will be,” Kara differed, “if you wait here for a few minutes.”

“Go,” Paul said, with her flying off across the night directly towards the building with the other two Archons following her with their HUD. She shrank to a dot that disappeared from view save for the zoom function that Morgan was using to follow her, though Paul knew Kara’s handiwork enough that he simply watched her tracking icon while keeping his focus on the surrounding cityscape.

“Sneaky little second gen, isn’t she?”

“No need for insults,” Paul countered dryly as he saw Kara starting to come back towards them. “She knows what she’s doing enough that I occasionally take notes.”

“High praise.”

“You’re just jealous she’s not part of your Clan,” Paul teased.

“About that. If you really want to make her a full trailblazer you need to give her her own Clan.”

Paul half choked. “Like hell I am. She’s a Saber and staying a Saber.”

Morgan smiled. “Like I said…second gen.”

“Alright, shut up. Don’t give her any ideas.”

Morgan laughed. “Has this come up before?”

“Not from her, no. But she’s too valuable to lose and you’ve got a perfectly legitimate point. So zip it.”

“We’re giving her one eventually then?”

“Honorary status has its limitations.”

“You’re so screwing her…or, are you screwing her?” Morgan asked curiously.

“Nah…I’m just interested in her jewelry,” he mocked a few seconds before Kara landed next to them.

“All set,” she reported. “You riding single or buddy?”

“You can handle both of us?” Morgan asked.

“I can carry a skeet if I have to. You guys weigh far less than that.”

“Let’s not waste time then,” Morgan said as Kara turned around and spread her arms out into a ‘T’ with each trailblazer grabbing hold of one of them at her elbow and reaching around with their other arm to get a double wrist lock that they held at a 30ish degree angle down, giving Kara two passengers, one on either side of her that kept her balanced.

“Ready?”

“Good.”

“Good,” Paul echoed, with Kara connecting to both of them via battlemeld to enhance their balance and grip as she lifted up into the air a meter or so feeling their weight drag her arms down slightly, but her own strength was supplemented by the powered nature of the Vorch’nas armor, allowing her to remain in the ‘T’ as she started to fly them across with both trailblazers holding on with her elbows buried in their chests and their legs dangling freely.

Kara couldn’t fly nearly as fast, but the trip across the sky wasn’t painfully long. They got across without drawing any alarm and came up on the window that Kara had previously cut open with delicate ease, leaving it in place but still severed. When she got within a dozen meters of it she reeled back her right arm and threw Morgan towards it, pulling the pane out telekinetically a moment prior to the striker ducking through it and landing inside, falling into a somersault and coming up in sentry position, heading for the nearest door in the empty and unlit room.

Kara got a bit closer then tossed Paul through, coming in last herself while hovering the two meter wide circle of clear polymer back into position, with the seam nearly disappearing given how fine of a cut Kara had made. She walked up to it and welded it back in place at a couple of spots to make sure it wouldn’t fall out, leaving their entry point nearly undetectable…at least until someone came around to wash the windows and saw the small crack.

“Where to?” Morgan asked when no new waypoint popped up in her HUD from Paul.

“Kara, find somewhere to hack in. I need you to get a building layout and search for a few names.”

The red scale-clad Archon looked around, seeing through the walls with her Pefbar and sighting a fiber bundle. She walked over to that portion of the wall and punched inside it, grabbing the comm/computer fiber in her armored hand and linking into it with the tiny hacking tendrils.

“I’m in.”

Paul responded by rattling off a list of names from his HUD, with Kara throwing up waypoints for each one as she found them, giving the trio potential locations for them to be found, some being personal dens and others work areas.

“Hold on,” Kara said a moment later. “Number 1 on your list just logged onto a terminal,” she said, isolating the location within the building and throwing Paul a priority waypoint marked as 62 levels below them in the same quadrant of the building.

“There’s timing,” Morgan commented.

“Best route,” Paul asked, with Kara giving them three options with one highlighted, indicating a vertical shaft buried within the walls.

“Nice,” Morgan said, walking to the door and taking a look outside with her Pefbar as the trio got ready to move. “Looks clear, but let’s let the shadow go first just the same.”

“My pleasure,” Kara said, her scales disappearing into a null void shadow that really did disappear within the dark room, then became ‘visible’ again as she opened the door and walked out into the hall, more optical illusion than silhouette.

7

Ken’slan pawed the button, scrolling to the next report on the fighting on Admat, limited as they were. He had access to more information than the news kiosks, but still he was getting an incomplete picture of what was happening. Suddenly the Scionate had decided to invade the Star Force world, and from the pieces that he was pulling together the leader of the Grisst bloodline was coming to the unlikely conclusion that they had actually lost…and lost badly, but no official reports had made their way to the public as of yet, which was unusual, for as a race the Scionate fiercely supported one another. When one went into combat, all did, at least from a moral standpoint, thus news of battles was not meant to be suppressed.

The news Ken’slan was getting was fresh, but something of the launch of the attack should have been made public, with all the notice he got being a copy of the military orders forwarded to him by members of his own bloodline on the ships and in the ground forces that had been hastily dispatched.

The quadruped went to step on the button again but suddenly his limb froze up, as did the rest of his body as he went stiff and unable to move. A sickly feeling crept through him as he was paralyzed, then panic broke out as he saw a biped figure walk into his gaze, recognizing the tell-tale Archon armor that Star Force used.

“Calm yourself,” Morgan said, taking off her helmet as she stood in front of him a couple of meters and stared down into his fixed eyes across the console. “We’re here to talk, not to fight…at least not yet. I will release you, but if you flee or attempt an alarm I’ll immobilize you again. Understand?”

Ken’slan couldn’t answer, but a moment later his body returned to his control and he took an involuntary step back into a combat crouch…which was when he noticed two more Humans behind him. He half looked back at them, then eased up slightly, but he was still ready to pounce if needed.

“What did you do to me?” he growled.

“We have abilities that others do not,” Morgan said evasively. “Get used to it.”

Ken’slan’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

“Vensiol has to go, one way or another. We’re offering you the chance to do it yourselves before we’re forced to do it.”

Ken’slan didn’t reply, but just stared into the Human’s pale face. “Tell me what has happened on your world. I only have pieces of information.”

Morgan crossed her arms over her chest, black armor rubbing against itself with a whisper of a scrape. “The Scionate violated the terms of colonization. Meat farms were established outside the ADZ and you’ve been smuggling it in trying to avoid detection. We found out and are even now putting a stop to it on other Scionate worlds. The three of us came here the other day to deliver a message and a warning to your leaders that such violations would not be tolerated. We delivered it personally to the Chieftans, leaving a few injuries as a reminder but killing no one. I doubt you missed the spectacle?”

Ken’slan growled again, more at what the Human was saying than as a threat. “I am aware that there was a disturbance, but nothing has been said of it officially. Our troops were summoned to battle and little has been mentioned of it since.”

Morgan looked to Paul. “So much for our big demonstration.”

The other trailblazer sent her a telepathic question, letting her handle the meet and greet.

“Your troops,” Morgan continued, “were sent to our world where they launched an invasion and subsequently got a lot of themselves killed. We lost some people, which is something we cannot let pass. We’d prefer not to have to conquer your entire civilization, but we will if we have to. We’re here to seek another option, one that has your bloodline replacing Vensiol.”

Ken’slan wanted to hiss in defiance of what would essentially be treason, but he held his composure and considered what the Human was saying, still unnerved by its ability to take control of his own body away from him, but with a growing anger at the leading bloodline if the Human’s claims were even half true.

“If you have slain Scionate blood, you will have blood in return.”

Morgan pointed a finger at his blunt muzzle. “We came here to break bone and flesh, but we did not kill. We also wanted to show you that we are not incapable of enforcing the terms of colonization,” she said, hacking into his mind again and forcing the Scionate to sit on the floor and look up at him, unable to do anything but watch. “Your leaders didn’t get the message,” she added, finally releasing him.

Ken’slan stood up again, angry, but wise enough to continue to listen. “There were rumors floating around from the incident at the den, but we dismissed them as the ravings of those who had failed to acquit their duties.”

“Not rumors,” Morgan said, telekinetically lifting him into the air on her own accord without having to link with Paul for extra power. Ken’slan’s eyes went wide with shock and horror at his own helplessness, and Morgan let him paw the air for several seconds allowing that to sink in.

“If we wanted you dead, you would be,” she said simply, then lowered him down and released her grip. “You’re supposed to be our allies. It’s time you started acting like it. Either you fix your empire or we will, and we don’t have a lot of time to offer you. We have to deal with Vensiol quickly before an interstellar war erupts between Star Force and the Scionate. You would lose that war, but it would be costly enough to us that it could jeopardize the safety of the ADZ…and if we have to go to those lengths to rectify the situation, your race will lose your sovereignty as a consequence.”

This time Ken’slan did growl reflexively, then thought better of it and began thinking…hard and fast.

“Are you certain that we spilt blood first?”

“The first blood was on our world when you invaded it, though technically Scionate died before Humans did because your people fought stupidly. We were forced to slaughter hundreds of thousands of them in order to defend ourselves, perhaps millions. The actual number we are uncertain of, but it was on our world that your people were assaulting. Your fleet began by destroying a defense platform in orbit. It was unmanned, though I’m not sure if they knew it or not. We didn’t start this fight, but we did finish it…and now we have to truly finish it before it escalates. If your bloodline is unwilling to take the lead then we will find another, and another, and another until we run out of candidates or simply grow bored from looking and decide to do things the hard way.”

“You keep repeating that threat as if it is your preferred choice.”

“No, I keep repeating it because we said the same thing to your leaders and they ignored it. This is the Scionate’s last chance to regain their honor and fix their own problem before we have to do it for them…and on our terms, which I can guarantee that you will not like. You are independent, and with that privilege comes responsibilities.”

“So it does,” he finally agreed. “But you will find that Scionate do not respond well to bullying.”

“Humans don’t respond well to oathbreakers.”

Ken’slan hissed. “Nor do we. If your claims are true then there is an accounting that must take place here, but I will not take your word for it. I must see it for myself.”

“Kara?”

Ken’slan turned when he heard the faint whisper of footsteps behind him. The one Human that wasn’t dressed in traditional armor walked up next to the Scionate, seemingly unphased by the combat threat that he was, and nudged him aside to get her arm to his console…whereupon it began to malfunction, shutting off and reactivating with new displays and a wealth of information.

“See for yourself then,” Morgan said, pointing down at the images as Kara retreated back to her waiting position with Paul as the two made sure to keep any visitors out with subtle Jedi mind tricks being played on anyone that approached in the exterior hallway to keep them walking past and forgetful of the door that led to this chamber. “Data from the meat farm and the interrogation of the pseudo-independent group running them, their link to the Scionate, and a full copy of the battle data from yesterday.”

“Your technological edge has been severely underestimated,” he said with annoyance as he stepped forward and started looking through the images, statistics, and reports written in the trade language, knowing that this might be part propaganda as well, but he was curious and the Humans didn’t seem to be in a mind to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Still on edge with the Humans’ presence, Ken’slan searched through the records from the farm, seeing that most of the individuals involved were not Scionate, as the Human had indicated. A few were, but they were rogues and not part of the empire’s forces…but it was the linkage between the organization and its employers that was damning, as was the records of where they had been shipping the meat and to whom.

The Scionate had not liked the meatless edict that Star Force had imposed on the ADZ originally, but they had agreed to it like the others and now their youngest generation had lived their entire lives without eating meat, which was becoming the norm even for Ken’slan. Though he still craved the taste of it, even he now admitted it was a dishonorable practice. That hadn’t always been the case, but since it had been forced on them he’d gained a new perspective and was now in agreement with Star Force…though not nearly as passionate about it.

What their records indicated was that the Scionate leadership had organized special privileges for favored individuals to get the meat shipments. While the Humans were probably unaware of the significance of the locations the meat was being shipped to Ken’slan was not, and right then and there his allegiance to Vensiol ended. Grisst had reluctantly worked with them in the past because they appeared mostly level headed and honorable, but the kind of backroom dealing these records implied…and there was no way the Humans could have faked them without knowing the inner relationships between the bloodlines…was dishonorable.

If one had a dispute then one aired it out. Likewise, if one made a pact, they didn’t do so in secret…let alone say one thing to one group and say the contrary to others. Truth, forthrightness, and leadership went hand in hand, with Vensiol now leading the Scionate down the path of dishonor along with several other bloodlines that Grisst vehemently hated…and to top it off, they’d offered them the meat and not Ken’slan. Perhaps they knew he would have objected to it or the betrayal of the oath they took when moving their race to the ADZ, but regardless these records showed that Vensiol had made a number of secret pacts, ostensibly to keep themselves in power when their leadership ability became insufficient.

An honorable bloodline would have stepped aside and let another with more skill tailored to the present challenges their race faced take the lead…but this farming activity was incontrovertible proof that they’d become greedy and disrespectful to the duties of leadership, and for that alone they had to be removed.

Ken’slan kept that revelation out of his face as he shifted over to the battle records, seeing the sudden and violent assault on Admat unedited and reconciling the disparate reports he’d been getting in. He saw his people attacking with great power and forthrightness, as was proper, then, like a giant beast waking from its sleep, Star Force rose up to meet the challenge and slew them with such efficiency and ease that it galled Ken’slan to be standing next to them now.

What made it worse was that they were in the right. Many of his brothers and sisters had died in an unjust battle that the Vensiol had ordered simply to assuage their own pride, which Ken’slan also saw, from the Human’s perspective, as there was helmet cam video from their ‘warning’ to the leading bloodline.

The way these two, for he assumed they were the same pair, had gone about it had been greatly insulting to the Scionate there…and he wholeheartedly agreed with their approach, and their restraint. Had Ken’slan done the same there would have been deaths involved, but that was different, considering it was an internal matter. For the Humans to come here and physically assault the Scionate leadership, well, they had done so in an honorable manner. In fact, they’d done it perfectly, given that they were in the right, and Ken’slan now saw that they’d done so as a favor.

Star Force was their ally, and they’d dealt with the Scionate in a friendly manner. Warrior to warrior. They’d given them a chance to make amends, and what did Vensiol do? They’d doubled down and increased their dishonor…and in the process had gotten many loyal Scionate soldiers killed in a battle that should not have happened, and one where they were in the wrong.

That ate at Ken’slan more than anything, and even though he hadn’t personally taken part in the battle he felt just as guilty.

“How many of your people were killed?”

“A few hundred,” Morgan answered.

“You have my deepest apologies,” Ken’slan answered genuinely. “We were in the wrong, and Vensiol is to blame. You are correct, they must be removed.”

“Glad we’re in agreement,” Morgan answered, already having known what he was going to say, having been snooping on his thoughts the entire time he was reviewing the records. “Now how do we go about doing it?”

“We shall handle this ourselves,” the Scionate said with a growl so deep Morgan could literally feel his shame. “It will be bloody, but that must be our penance. We will make amends with your people at a later time, if you will allow it.”

“Let’s do so right now,” Morgan offered. “This is personal for us as well, in so far as the Chieftans are concerned. We’re going back there and taking them down personally…and we can do it without a bloodbath. Same way we did the first time. But we need you to step in and take over control immediately,” she emphasized.  “And we don’t need your permission to do so, but you can make amends by giving us your blessing.”

Ken’slan and Morgan stared at each other for a long moment, then the middle-aged Scionate bowed his head respectfully. “Your wisdom is as sharp as your martial skill. I agree and give you my blessing, but to do so it cannot be done with a simple word. I must accompany and fight alongside you.”

Morgan frowned. “No offense, but you’ll slow us down.”

“I am not helpless,” Ken’slan growled, his pride pricked.

“If you come with us,” the other Human spoke from behind, “who will lead your bloodline in the takeover that follows?”

Ken’slan turned to face the other in identical armor, though his helmet still remained on so he couldn’t see his face, but he knew it from the recording he’d just watched none the less.

“How much time can you give me to prepare?”

Paul considered that, discussing it with Morgan briefly through a telepathic link.

“At most two days. We have to settle this soon before another attack can be launched.”

“I will not require more than 5 hours,” Ken’slan said stoically. “You may remain here until then if you wish, as our guests, or go on your way. I will inform security of your presence and they will shield you against outside aggression…on their lives if necessary.”

“Kara?” Morgan asked.

“Right, I’ll grab the car keys and be back in a flash,” she said, walking out the door and disappearing into shadow.

“We will bring our small ship here,” Morgan said. “I assume you have a hangar?”

“I will make arrangements.”

“Just make sure they don’t touch it. It’s kind of sentimental to us,” Morgan warned.

“As you wish. With your permission I will leave now?” Ken’slan asked half serious, half sarcasm…with Morgan appreciating the second.

“So long as you are honorable, you have no need to fear us,” she said with double-edged meaning.

“That I shall remember,” Ken’slan said, turning around and walking out the door that Kara had left through quickly, leaving Paul and Morgan behind.

“If he’s faking he’s doing a remarkable job of it,” Paul commented.

“We got through to him,” Morgan said confidently. “I just don’t like the idea of fighting with him alongside. We’re going to have to protect him, and that’s going to slow us down.”

“Or…” Paul said with a smirk.

Morgan didn’t catch his drift immediately, but when she did she couldn’t help but smile. “Let Kara do it?”

“Exactly.”

“I like it…but she won’t.”

“I’ll trade off with her when she needs to do some heavy lifting. Shield boy and all.”

“So I’m free?”

“To constantly kick ass, yes.”

Morgan shrugged. “Works for me then. Just make sure grampa kitty doesn’t get smoked. He is going to wear armor, I hope.”

“We’ll insist that he does,” Paul said as he sensed a flurry of minds approaching, none of them Ken’slan’s. “Company?”

Morgan stretched out and searched one of their minds. “Anxious, not angry,” she said a moment before the Scionate security came through the door, all of which were wearing ceremonial armor in their bloodline colors, which in the case of Grisst were a combination of orange and yellow, whereas total yellow was reserved to represent the Scionate as a whole.

Six of the cats came into the room and looked the two Humans over, half encircling them before respectfully sitting on their hind legs. “We have been assigned as your escorts,” one of them said.

Paul glanced over at Morgan. “Nice to have friends.”

8

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Ken’slan said, pressing a button that he’d previously configured to send the data given to him by the Humans in a single packet form. “You may see for yourself, but there is little time. I have told them that we will be ready within hours.”

The Scionate on the other end of the private holo transmission glanced at something off screen, then looked back at his peer. “I trust your word, for I do not think this is something you would fabricate. I will have the data analyzed later, but if what you say is true then there is no dispute from us. Vensiol must be removed. The question that remains is who is to replace them?”

“Grisst will not seek that placement,” Ken’slan said stoically. “We have wronged the Humans greatly, and must pay a penance. They are honorable warriors, and I concede that we were wrong in not supporting them to a greater degree. I believe we are honor-bound to do so now and take up a significant role on the front lines of the ADZ. Since we have been one of those arguing against such a move, it would be improper for us to lead such an effort.”

Jen’ton raised his head slightly, clearly taken by surprise. “That I did not expect to hear from you. Are the others of your bloodline in concurrence?”

“I have not had time to inform most of them, but the key members are in agreement. We have little time and must act quickly, and Grisst will support Wennitan as ruling bloodline so long as you remain honorable, abide by the Humans’ terms of colonization, and aid in the defense of the ADZ militarily…much as you’ve already proposed.”

“I am humbled by your wisdom, Ken’slan, and your willingness to put the needs of our race above the ambitions of your bloodline.”

“I expect the same from Wennitan.”

“And you shall have it,” their bloodline leader growled anxiously. “But I do not know how many troops I can assemble within hours. I need at least a day, if not a week, to make the necessary preparations in order to assure a quick and effective transfer of power. If we move within hours we risk a failed coup.”

Ken’slan shook his head. “That will not be necessary. The Humans are going to assault the ruling den, with my blessing. We need only to secure the transition of power.”

Jen’ton seemed taken aback. “This is an internal matter. If blood is to spilt it must be by our hands only.”

“They have assured me that their efforts will be bloodless, much like a similar assault they mounted the other day. Information about such has been suppressed considerably. If you look quickly, you will see visual recordings from the Humans’ armor included in the data packet.”

Jen’ton frowned, pulling up and opening the packet file and searching for what Ken’slan had mentioned. He’d heard rumors of an incident at the ruling den, as well as getting a few firsthand accounts from members of his bloodline that had been highly exaggerated, but this was the first he had heard of any Human involvement.

“Mother of all youngbloods,” he said, seeing the combat recordings of the battle in the plaza first.

“These Humans with me are far more powerful than we have ever encountered before,” Ken’slan explained as the other bloodline leader was glued to the footage. “And they demonstrated some of their powers on me, here, not long ago. They are either concealing abnormally advanced tech or are some form of witches. I do not know which, but they were able to take control of my body, imprisoning me within it as they began to explain the situation. I cannot tell you how they accomplished this, but I am convinced that they are here for honor’s sake and have the means to breach the ruling den’s defenses at will.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing…or seeing, but I know that you are no liar. Is this how they were able to slaughter our people on their world?”

“I do not know, but I get the feeling that only their advanced warriors have these powers. Otherwise our ground troops would have been frozen in place unable to fight…which is a terrifying thought going forward.”

“Unless they can do this to the Cajdital as well,” Jen’ton commented, thinking of various applications.

Ken’slan bowed his head. “It is for reasons such as that that your bloodline is better suited to lead us given the present circumstances.”

“Assume I agree to the Human assault. What exactly are you asking of us in the coming hours?”

“Both our bloodlines must have people in place to secure those the Humans’ render unconscious. I would prefer not to kill them, but we cannot let them rise or flee to begin a larger conflict. This must be done swiftly and be contained. I need your security, ours, and as many other bloodlines that we can muster to surround the ruling den while we fight our way inside and deal with the Chieftans.”

“You are personally fighting with the Humans?”

“Just myself. The rest of my people will be waiting on the perimeter. As you said, this is a Scionate matter. I cannot let the Humans act alone, nor will I send a subordinate.”

“I envy you that,” Jen’ton said candidly. “If my body were not so weakened with age I would very much like to accompany you. I will send a surrogate if you will allow it?”

“I will not,” Ken’slan said firmly. “Our bloodline’s alliance with Vensiol was a mistake. It is only right that we should be the ones removing them. That way there can be no rumors suggesting that we are working on your behalf. Grisst will remove Vensiol with the Humans, then we will step aside for Wennitan to rule.”

“Bold for a Grisst.”

“We are not so stagnant as you imagine. We simply prefer to make sure a fight is righteous before we show our claws.”

“Well stated, my old adversary. I am pleased we are finally in agreement. I will round up as many of my kin as I can. How long do I have?”

“3 hours before we depart.”

Jen’ton huffed. “Not much time, but I will not waste a moment of it. We will be ready,” he said, signing off so he could get to work immediately.

Ken’slan remained at his private comm terminal, opening up another line to the next honorable bloodline on his short list while his own people were hastily making preparations for the assault, with Grisst’s other leaders handling the various aspects in his stead to maximize time. They had been reluctant and even disbelieving two hours ago when he’d woke them and brought this to their attention, but between his assurances and the data from the Humans they had consented to the overthrow and were now working hard to make it happen before Vensiol could discover the plot and take action to thwart it.

Six hours later a Grisst transport rolled up to the edge of the plaza around the ruling den but stopping short of driving out onto it. The doors opened up and Ken’slan jumped out, wearing full combat armor, and sniffed the air through his helmet vents. He drew immediate attention, for the armor was in Grisst colors and not the yellow of the hundreds of troops surrounding the den in a permanent, yet relaxed defense deployment amongst the milling crowds.

Passersby immediately took notice, then even more did so as he roared, amplified by the speakers in his armor, drawing the attention of everyone on the street and those closest on the plaza. He took three steps forward and stood staring at the ruling den complex ahead as the three Humans stepped out of the transport behind him…to the dismay of those around. They walked up and flanked him, one on the left, one on the right, and the oddly armored one behind, then Ken’slan began walking forward, with the crowds and other traffic vehicles giving them a very wide berth, but not willing to take their eyes off them.

The guards around the den immediately went on alert, for most of them had fought the Humans the other day and knew what threat they posed…despite the news suppression Vensiol had worked to keep the rest of the city and planet in the dark as to what had truly happened. Some of the surrounding denizens also knew the truth and took up safe perches wherever they could, wanting to stay far away from the Humans but also wanting to know what was happening…and why one of their own was leading them here, which also forestalled any attacks from the crowd, futile as those would have been.

When Ken’slan stepped onto the outskirts of the plaza the onlookers had already pulled back, letting the troops form a solid mass ahead of the foursome, blocking their way to the den while calling for more reinforcements. Ken’slan knew not to waste time, so for a brief moment he retracted his helmet so everyone could see who he was, then spoke as loud as he could without it becoming a scream.

“I am Ken’slan of Grisst. Vensiol has acted with dishonor and must be removed!” he said, running forward as his helmet reformed over his head and dropping into a combat sprint headed towards the nearest of the troops.

Morgan and Paul flanked him, with Kara running behind a few steps before launching herself up into the air and hanging some ten meters above Ken’slan while traveling in a forward arc, whereupon she opened up her wrist weapons and rained down two conical jets of tiny Dre’mo’don blasts, showering the troops ahead of him and ripping off their shields before switching over to the pale green stun energy and doing the same. 40+ of the Scionate dropped to the ground unconscious as Ken’slan got to them, with him lithely hopping over the fallen and heading towards the nearest one still standing.

Kara zipped forward and repeated the process from the air, mowing down the mass of guards while leaving Paul and Morgan to pick up the pieces, with Paul sticking close to Ken’slan should he need assistance.

Once the large groups were incapacitated Kara dropped back down to the ground and took it to the scattering of troops hand to hand, punching/stunning them into submission along with the other two Archons while Ken’slan seemed content to beat his own kin hand to hand without using his plasma weapon, and was doing a fair job of it so long as Paul kept them from ganging up on him.

Within 2 minutes the mass of troops was subdued, leaving an awkward moment of silence as the surrounding crowds looked on with a mix of shock, horror, and confusion as Ken’slan roared again and Kara flew up into the air in front of the main doors, pausing momentarily to summon up a small green/white orb that she then sent into the seam between them. It melted a hole straight through, which she flew over to and pried open by hand, finally using her shoulder and legs to force the doors apart, breaking the repaired components that were keeping them locked into place as a hail of yellow plasma blasts hit her from the infantry inside…ineffectually.

Morgan came through and bowled them aside with a concussive blast, clearing the way for Paul and Ken’slan to enter while she pushed ahead. Kara dropped down behind them and pulled the doors back together as much as she could, leaving a 4 inch gap where she could no longer get a fingerhold and following Ken’slan from behind as an honor guard while Paul ran ahead and took down what little Morgan dropped enroute to the first main intersection in the hallways.

There the two Archons split up and went on a stunning spree, leaving Kara with Ken’slan as they worked their way through a different section of the den, taking down all those who they came across with the Scionate being little more than a tagalong…though Kara did let him beat down those that weren’t much of a threat to give him something to do.

The three Archons kept in contact via battlemeld and comm when they were otherwise out of range, intent on keeping the Scionate away from the exits and confined to the den while they worked through their stun slaughter, though they did have to rush to various points to head off several evacuation efforts, forcing the leadership to flee once again to other areas, trying to avoid the Humans that they knew were coming even as they called for heavy reinforcements on the outside.

Some of the Vensiol bloodline managed to make it out of the building through the back entrances, all lower ranking members, who fled across the plaza ring and ran into a barricade of multi-colored armored security forces from a number of different bloodlines.

“Stand down and surrender,” one of them demanded of the three unarmored Scionate skidding to a halt on the street ahead of them as they met up with the line of armor not allowing them to pass. One of them froze in place as ordered, but the other two turned and ran, with four of the armored Scionate jumping out and sprinting after them, setting up a chase that went across half of the plasma before one of the armored ones fired a tiny needle/dart into the back of the neck of the slower of the two. It injected a numbing agent on contact, taking a number of seconds to enter the bloodstream but almost immediately slowing the fleeing Vensiol and allowing a takedown to be made.

With one of the armored Scionate standing atop the now disconcerted one and claiming it as a prisoner, the others tracked down the second and fired a similar needle/dart with identical consequences. Gripping either one by the neck, the bloodline security soldiers pulled their captives over their backs and walked off with them, clearing the plaza and taking them to nearby transports where the dopey prisoners were properly restrained and shipped off as soon as each hover vehicle was full, clearing out the Vensiol opposition a few at a time as their military reinforcements began to arrive.

Those few that came by street were stopped by the security, resulting in some nasty fighting that ultimately saw the overthrowers winning out, but the bulk of the reinforcements came by air in the form of transports flying in over the courtyard and landing hundreds of fresh troops that moved into the den, having been kept on standby for just this sort of situation after the first attack that had thoroughly overwhelmed their defenses.

This time though they had Kara to deal with, which kept the perimeter guards’ attempted delay at a minimum, meaning that once again the Humans had managed to get inside and the reinforcements would have to go in after them. When they landed there was no hesitation, despite what they knew of the Humans’ capabilities. They eventually managed to pull open the main doors despite Kara’s handiwork, as well as moving in through the auxiliary entrances, flooding the den with troops outfitted with heavy weaponry and accoutrements…basically anything and everything they thought they’d need to counter the Humans, including grapple nets and other nonlethal gadgets meant to at least slow them down long enough to shoot them.

That gave Morgan and Paul more than enough targets to satiate the two Archons, who were both eager for a personalized beatdown after fighting the recent battle from afar…more so for Paul, but Morgan being confined to a mech cockpit just didn’t have the same satisfaction as taking it to them commando style. Fueled with plenty of senzu beans between them and an understanding of the layout and the Scionate combat preferences from the first assault, the pair wove their way around the complex solo, mowing down the opposition like they were hunting targets in a videogame for points, actually going after the reinforcements as they came in rather than playing defense and trying to avoid them.

All the while Kara stayed with Ken’slan as they did their own fair share of the takedowns, with her stunning those that he beat into submission while slowly working their way around a different section of the den from the other two and eventually ending up at the audience chamber…which they found empty. The Chieftans had been smart enough not to try and hide here twice, but Ken’slan suspected he knew where they were and led Kara across the complex to a ladder shaft that led down to the lowest levels where a sacred display of relics from Scionate history resided…and a place that was off limits to combat in any form.

Ken’slan wasn’t about to break with that tradition, but suspected the cowards were hiding there and led Kara down to it, electing to stay outside the entrance when the Human told him that there were indeed people inside, somehow having scanned the interior with her formidable, yet tiny armor.

“I cannot go in. There is too much history in that place for combat to occur. No Scionate will enter, if they have their honor, and risk the relics…or the affront.”

“I’m not Scionate,” Kara pointed out.

“Exactly,” Ken’slan said with devious pleasure. “But please, try not to break anything. Drag them out here and I will deal with the Chieftans personally.”

“Easy enough,” Kara said, quietly pulling open and slipping through the doors as if she was a patron at a museum rather than a goddess of war pursuing enemies.

9

When Kara walked inside she saw a long hall with statues and other displays along the walls, as well as a few running down a center aisle. She took the left side and walked ahead, sensing where the various minds where and seeing that they’d split up and were hiding in different locations, spread around a large ring. That ring turned out to be a square of hallways that connected to the entrance corridor forming a large key shape with rooms on the interior and exterior.

It was in those rooms that the Scionate were hiding. When Kara came up to the first one she opened the door, mentally freezing the one inside that was ready to pounce and casually shooting it with a stun blast. She walked over and picked up its limp body, swung the big, unarmored cat over her shoulders and walked out, made a right, walked some more, made another right, and headed back up the entry corridor to the entrance.

She stepped outside and walked over to where Ken’slan was waiting and dumped Yen’sor at his feet. “One down, 35 to go.”

“35?” he asked, none too gently poking a paw into the unconscious Scionate’s ribs.

“I did a quick head count. There are no other exits, correct?”

“Not that I am aware of, no.”

“Good,” she said, turning around. “I’ll be back with more.”

“Thank you, Human.”

“My pleasure,” Kara said from behind her armor’s scales that covered her face as well as the rest of her body. Then she ducked inside again to fetch another one.

Ken’slan looked down at Yen’sor, a Vensiol he knew well from previous dealings, and whispered at his unconscious face. “You are lucky the Humans took you alive. Had we done this ourselves, you and your kin would most likely not have survived.”

He reached down as he retracted his own armor’s helmet, then bit Yen’sor around the neck in a carry and dragged him over to the side just before Kara brought out another.

“Place him here,” he instructed, with her tossing the heavy Scionate to the ground as if he weighed nothing. How someone so small could exude so much strength was awe inspiring, though he guessed it had something more to do with technology than muscle.

He reached down and bit Har’man, dragging him over to the position he wanted as Kara retreated inside to get the next one, which was when the Scionate heard sounds of combat nearby. He reactivated his helmet, which extended out from his neckline and wrapped around his face, then he ran backwards a bit to see what was happening and encountered a pair of soldiers coming his way.

He growled and leapt at them, firing a plasma blast into one’s shield to weaken it before he head-butted the rest of the defensive barrier into shambles. With it down and the soldier disoriented he pawed his face aside so hard that the bigger cat bounced into the wall as he turned on the other. Those two went at it for several seconds before the other one got himself on his feet and lunged at Ken’slan, knocking him down and shooting him in the chest.

The Grisst reactivated his shield just in time to catch it, then turned it off again so that the paw blows to come wouldn’t drain energy…and old tactic that these young ones apparently had never been taught. Next thing they knew Ken’slan was back on his feet, crouched low to the ground, then he waited for them to move. When one jumped on him he leapt up towards it, attempting an undercut, but a blur of red passed him and punched both soldiers back down the hallway so hard and fast that they were immediately stunned and crumpled on the ground, unresponsive for a long moment.

Kara raised an arm and shot both of them with the stun energy, letting it sink through their shieldless armor and into their bodies, putting them out for at least an hour, if not more.

“I am glad we are not facing off as enemies on the battlefield,” Ken’slan said graciously as Kara came back to him…then she did a double take and turned the other way with little more than a nod of response.

She ran around the far corner, turning right and flying down a few dozen meters to where she kicked into a mass of Scionate heading their way, sending one of them back like a bowling ball through the others before going Neo on the rest of them and physically beating their shields down before landing punch/shots of stun into the 26 of them…with Ken’slan coming around the corner to witness only the last few before it was only her remaining standing.

“Come on,” she said, bypassing him and heading back to the relic chamber. “These guys are just a distraction.”

“For you, perhaps,” he said, following her back with lopey strides but again refusing to enter the chamber, instead turning about and playing guard should any more soldiers make their way to them.

When Kara entered again she noticed that some of the mental positions had changed, and so did she…intending to just stun them all with one go-around then haul them out one by one. She headed for the closest one on the left and began to work her way around the square, eventually coming to a group of five hidden within a small room on the interior 90 degrees around the square. Freezing five minds at once was tricky, so instead she just hit them all with a Fornax field and walked in to find them lying on the floor, maintaining the field while she stunned them all.

On the way out she paused, noticing a particular relic that she could have swore was Cloud’s sword from Final Fantasy VII. She shook off the notion, realizing that some of these relics must have been trophies from past conquests, for that sword thing definitely couldn’t have been used by a quadruped with no hands.

Kara made a right and continued around the square, coming across a pair of armored guards along with one of the Chieftans, all three of which she left where they lay until she’d finished with the rest. When she came back to pick them up, she took the unarmored one first and dumped him outside at Ken’slan’s feet, with the Scionate recognizing Ura’bor and pulling his counterpart off to the side, separate from the others.

Kara eventually finished bringing them all out, with Ken’slan dismissing a pile of them as not being Chieftans, which the Human then moved to another area as Paul came up to them.

“Tag,” he said, mentally transmitting an image of hundreds of troops pouring into the complex.

Kara reached out her hand and fist-bumped Paul as she passed, knowing that she was better suited to dealing with such large numbers than he was.

Paul walked over to Ken’slan and inspected the haul of prisoners.

“Did we get them all?”

“There are 2 missing. I do not know if they are in the den or not, but their leader is here,” Ken’slan said, motioning with his nose to where he had Ura’bor laid. “How long will they remain unconscious?”

“Depends on how much stun Kara gave them. I would guess a few hours, but we need to restrain them before that.”

“We will need my security for that.”

“They’ll have to wait a bit,” Paul said, flinching as he sensed another group of soldiers moving nearby. “There are too many troops around for them to get through.”

“Can you handle them?”

“Given time, yes.”

“Then go…I will remain with these.”

“Alright, I’ll go hunting in the immediate area, but I’ll stick close in case a few slip by.”

“I can handle a few,” Ken’slan said stoically. “Help the others.”

Paul nodded and ran off, extending his Ikrid range as far as it could go and keeping it there like his personal radar, striking out towards the nearest minds while staying close enough to keep a lock on Ken’slan. It was tricky to do while fighting, but he’d had enough practice in training that he could now slip into that mode without much conscious effort.

He didn’t like the limited range he had to fight within, but it was much better than standing next to his ward while the other two fought the Scionate troops, though he had to be careful to stay within sprinting range to get back to shield Ken’slan in time, barely making it twice and intercepting the enemy infantry before they got to him…both times in which the troops had approached from the opposite side where his detection range was shorter.

Paul continued his hunter runs, clogging up the hallways with stunned troops and nearly running himself out of replacement clips before Morgan signaled that the counterassault was over. He returned to Ken’slan, informing him of the temporary cease in fighting, whereupon the bloodline leader called in his security and those allied with him using the comm in his armor…with hundreds of multi-colored armored cats arriving and taking custody of the prisoners, most of which they had to strip out of their armor.

Paul stuck with Ken’slan the entire time, making sure nothing happened to him, with Morgan and Kara patrolling the interior of the ruling den without going outside it for fear of drawing unwanted attention. The security inside had been informed of their presence and purpose, but the rest of the city would still probably consider them to be enemies.

From then on there was a flurry of activity. Transports rolled/floated in to take away the soldiers and civilians while leaving the Chieftans behind, whom they took to the audience chamber in manacles that only allowed them to walk with short steps, unable to run or fight. A large number of other Scionate without armor joined them inside, with Ken’slan eventually deploying guards at the entrance and asking for the Humans to come inside with him.

The Scionate was still wearing his armor, helmet retracted, making him the only one in the chamber so adorned. The rest wore clothing of various colors, most symbolic of their bloodlines, but their feet were bare, as was normal for Scionate. No one was situated on the lounging pedestals, which signified the Chieftans of the ruling bloodline, while their former occupants now sat before them on the stone floor with the others grouped into clumps representing the various bloodlines, each with 3 or 4 representatives for those that Grisst and Wennitan were favorable with, and a single individual for the others that had been fortunate enough to be given invites, most of whom were powerful rivals, leaving the lesser bloodlines out of the transition entirely.

“I trust that all of you have been informed of the facts surrounding this debacle?” Ken’slan asked the crowd, getting various nods from the bloodline leaders. “Very well. Vensiol has been deposed, bloodlessly so, for the most part, and I intend to keep it that way. The former Chieftans will not be harmed, so long as they relinquish their positions within their bloodline. Their stupidity cannot be left to taint their bloodline any further. If they refuse, they will remain prisoners of Grisst…or perhaps of the Humans, given that they have suffered most from their misdeeds. What say you, Ura’bor?”

The deposed bloodline leader looked up from the ground as Ken’slan walked up to within a handful of meters and glared down at him. “You dishonor us all with your collusion. They have killed over a million of us, and yet you stand here with them as allies. I will not grace your treasonous question with a response,” he said, spitting at Ken’slan and having the sticky liquid fall a meter short.

Ken’slan turned to face the three Humans. “Do you want him?”

“We’re not in the habit of taking trophies,” Morgan replied.

“As you wish. Ura’bor, you will remain a prisoner of Grisst, and you have the Humans to thank for your life. Were this overthrow at the expense of great blood, yours would have been spilt as well. Think on that in your seclusion. You will be released when you choose to abdicate your leadership. Take him away.”

Two unarmored Scionate walked up next to Ura’bor, but he wouldn’t move until one of them punched him in the side, prompting him to lazily get to his feet so he could be nosed ahead towards the door, flanked by the guards as he was forced to walk through the other bloodline leaders in shame. When he was gone Ken’slan turned his attention to the other Chieftans.

“Abdicate or imprisonment. Which do you choose?”

“I will not taint my bloodline further with this failure,” Tem’lan said, his pride not lost. “I rescind my position so that another more worthy may lead.”

Ken’slan huffed approvingly. “Remove his restraints.”

Tem’lan stood up as straight as he could as another Scionate came forward and unlocked the four tethers from his ankles, allowing him to move freely and leave the chamber under his own power to return to his bloodline and disappear from the political arena…with the unspoken ban preventing him from ever returning to a position of prominence.

Car’sem and three others followed him but the rest did not, choosing imprisonment with the hope of being freed by another coup or through trading, but Ken’slan was going to ensure that the latter did not happen. These dishonorable traitors could not be permitted to rule again, in any form.

When the last of them was removed Ken’slan walked up to the central reclining pedestal and stood beside it, with most of those in the chamber expecting him to claim leadership for Grisst, but true to his word he did not.

“What was done today was necessary, on the grounds of honor, to right a terrible wrong that has cost us many lives. The Humans are our allies, not our enemies, and they have proved far more honorable than I had previously given them credit for. That was my mistake, and I am glad to admit that I have learned from it. While capable of ruling, Grisst is not the best suited bloodline to that task given the realities of life within the ADZ. Perhaps someday when war does not cling at our throats like a constant noose we will lead, but now, when war is upon us, we must fight the enemies at our doorstep.”

“Prior to now I believed that meant hoarding our forces here, to defend our own worlds when the Cajdital broke through into the ADZ. I was wrong in such thoughts, and it is only proper for those who had more clairvoyance than Grisst to lead. With our blessing and support, Wennitan will ascend to leadership and make this den their own.”

Paul could clearly feel the shock in the other Scionate, with a lesser version mirrored in himself. He hadn’t expected Ken’slan to choose a rival bloodline, but fortunately it was the one that Paul had guessed to be on par with Grisst. Still, he was seeing some aspect of the inner workings of Scionate society that he didn’t yet understand…and that intrigued him. Not to mention the fact that Wennitan were supporters of front line combat.

Jen’ton walked out of the crowd and stood beside Ken’slan for a moment, exchanging gestures of respect, then the Grisst stepped away from the pedestal and Jen’ton climbed up on top of it…with the rest of the Wennitan leadership doing the same and assuming their positions as the new Chieftans of the Scionate.

“War Chief Paul,” Jen’ton called out with a high pitched voice…for a Scionate anyway, “please come forward.”

Paul raised an eyebrow inside his helmet and walked through the various cats, who parted to give him a direct line to the front, whereupon he removed his helmet and stared eye to eye with the Scionate, given that it sat on a pedestal and that Humans stood taller than the quadrupeds, giving them an equal eye level and an unexpected symbol of parity, whereas the other Scionate were lower to the ground, even as they stood.

“On behalf of my wayward kin, I apologize deeply for the affront we have committed. Not just the most recent attack and those few lives that it cost your people, but by our reluctance to do our part in the defense of the ADZ. We have lived in safety for many years thanks to the efforts of Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre with little in compensation. With your permission, the Scionate would like to colonize a handful of worlds on the border to further strengthen our perimeter, as well as to be included in ongoing combat operations effective immediately.”

Paul didn’t smile, though he was pleased with the turnabout.

“As you said, you killed some of my people. That we cannot and will not forgive. Even though you have deposed those responsible for ordering the assault, your troops willingly carried it out. Loyalty is valuable, blind loyalty is dangerous. It is clear that the Scionate do not see Star Force as an inherent ally, otherwise your troops would have refused the attack order and spared their own lives in the process.”

“There is a rift between us that has grown larger,” Paul continued with an even tone. “Words cannot heal the wounds of battle…only further battle can. Given time, effort, and execution we may one day grow into true allies, but that is not by any means a certainty. I will, however, grant you the opportunity to try and forge that bond. Your request for worlds on the border is granted, with specifics to be arranged later. Your request for inclusion into ground operations will have to be approved by the Protovic, for they are leading many of those campaigns, but I grant you permission to fight in conjunction with Star Force on ours. You will be given the opportunity to regain your honor and one day call yourself our ally…if you prove worthy.”

“Stern words,” Jen’ton said with an equally even tone, “but those of a warrior who does not have time for games and respects us enough to give us the blunt truth. We welcome the chance to prove ourselves, and will atone for our dishonor in Cajdital and Skarron blood…or Nestafar, if we should get the chance.”

“I believe there is a line forming on that last count.”

“As there should be, though your Calavari have priority rights after what they suffered. As for your loss of lives…that is something we cannot compensate you for. Your ships and other machines are another matter, and we will supply you with 10 times the resources necessary to replace them.”

“And the meat market?”

“I will send out couriers within the day instructing that it be dismantled and those responsible apprehended. You need not continue your clandestine attacks. If we do not locate them all, point out to us what we have missed and we will eradicate them ourselves. We made a pact with Star Force, and Wennitan will see that it is honored.”

“So long as you are true to your word, consider this to be the official end of hostilities on Star Force’s part.”

“And likewise for the Scionate, again, with our deepest apologies.”

“Rule wisely,” Paul said before putting his helmet back on and turning to leave, with Kara and Morgan falling into step with him and leaving the audience chamber enroute to their gunship, which they then took back to Admat directly.

10

July 23, 2534

Solar System

Earth

Davis sat in his office reviewing the report that Paul had sent him, detailing the resolution to the Scionate problem with better results than he had hoped for. Their military, while not as well equipped as Star Force’s, was far larger and adding them to the front would add another level of stability to the ADZ. As it was most of the ‘front’ was unoccupied by either friend or enemy, given that it was a spherical perimeter. The more dots on that shell that they could fill, the more secure the sphere would become, if for no other reason than to have secure bases to strike back from should, or rather when, an invasion occurred.

The Scionate had also agreed to end the meat market and vigorously pursue any violations that they found or that Star Force pointed out. Because of that last caveat Davis guessed they were being genuine, which Paul also echoed, but only time would tell on that point. The teams out dismantling the meat market through special ops action were being called back temporarily to allow the Scionate to take care of it themselves, but Paul and a few of the others were sticking around to make sure the job got done properly.

The other trailblazers were heading off to other assignments/training as was usual, with Davis’s part of this endeavor now coming into play. Paul had sent along a copy of both raids on the Scionate den, along with their own security recordings, detailing the Archons’ strike and how effective it was in cutting right past their defenses. Those records he was going to edit a bit, maybe cut out some of their psionics, but otherwise he was going to distribute them to the various news agencies within the ADZ so everyone could see what had happened and how Star Force could and would come after them if they violated the terms of colonization.

There would be a secondary reaction, he knew, to how powerful the Archons were, but word of that had already begun to spread of its own accord from various races’ troops that had gone into battle alongside them. Davis knew well the risks in tipping off the V’kit’no’sat to their existence, but at this point there was little they could do to stop the information from spreading…so he might as well use it to his advantage.

He believed, and hoped, that the V’kit’no’sat were too far away to notice. There were potentially millions of races within the galaxy, and if the V’kit’no’sat hadn’t returned to reclaim Earth by now then it was probably in a region that they cared little for. They were almost outside the V’kit’no’sat maps anyway, but bottom line was that Star Force had to be Star Force regardless of what happened…though there were plans in the working should/when they came back. They were far from complete, but Star Force couldn’t wait a few centuries to get them established. They had two warfronts to deal with that could end them before the V’kit’no’sat even glanced this way, making dealing with those the top priority.

The trailblazers had already set a no-go line on the edge of Beta Region, which Davis concurred with. Hopefully that would keep word of Star Force local, but at the end of the day the future was uncertain and there were no guarantees, no matter what they did or didn’t do. The ADZ was Davis’s immediate concern, and releasing this information would go a long way to heading off a list of problems before they arose. Fear of retribution was an effective weapon when coupled with justice, so that your allies didn’t fear you but your adversaries did. It was a delicate balance to maintain, but one that Davis and Star Force had already mastered.

Included in the news release he was compiling was footage from the assault on Admat…which Davis was furious about. Paul’s calming wisdom had kept him from going through the roof, but in no way, shape, or form could killing people ever be construed as a legitimate form of diplomacy or airing of grievances. By including those data records…which he was going to leave Kara out of…Davis intended to show everyone else the foolishness and price of attacking Star Force, for Paul, Morgan, Kara, and the rest of the Star Force troops there had pulled off a victory that Davis was still having a hard time understanding given the numbers that had been thrown against them.

Their losses should have been far worse, but those people they had lost were still eating at him. He was pleased with the resolution the trailblazers had managed to accomplish, but something still felt wrong about the Scionate avoiding responsibility for their actions. Them joining the warfront was meant as a form of penance, and Davis could appreciate that, as well as the fact of them losing so many lives in the attack, but still their empire was intact with only a change of leadership as a result…a tactic that had been employed in democracies on Earth back in the day to avoid responsibility, preserving the nation through blaming and discarding a few individuals.

Paul’s report indicated that wasn’t the case here, and while Davis trusted his judgement he still had misgivings, though he was going to let them pass and watch how things played out. The victory on Admat and the two successful raids into the Scionate capitol gave him plenty of social ammunition to use in the cultural clash that was ongoing, and putting the Scionate in their place was going to be part of his efforts. If they were admitting responsibility and altering from within, so be it, but he wasn’t counting on that good of luck, so in the news release he made sure to detail the events truthfully, but with an emphasis on the Scionate biting off more than they could chew and getting their asses kicked.

That was the message the ADZ needed to hear, along with various other threads. It also doubled as Davis’s personal jab at the race, for he could not and would not ever tolerate his people being killed, and there was no way the Scionate or any other ADZ race was going to spin this to their favor. He was going to make it crystal clear what happened and where the blame lay, then let the threat of the Archons and Star Force’s military might speak for itself. Stating a ‘this is what will happen to you’ boast would work contrary to the intended point, with letting the truth work its own magic being, Davis had discovered over the centuries, to be the most effective way of convincing someone of something. Push and they got defensive or disbelieving.

Davis was just going to make sure they had more than enough data to squelch any spinning before it began, as well as to make it clear that Star Force was capable of defending the ADZ against the lizards, Skarrons, and others…something that was still very much an active question floating around. Up until now Star Force had been seen as a tech guru, building the Sentinels and aiding the Protovic and Hycre in the fighting…but now the races would see just how much teeth Star Force had for a conventional fight, given that the Scionate had always been assumed to be the stronger head to head.

Several hours later, when Davis sent the packet off for final review by his staff to make sure he hadn’t missed or messed anything up, he was still fuming over Admat. The equipment destroyed could be replaced, but the lives lost couldn’t…and they hadn’t been lost fighting an enemy. They’d been killed by a so-called ally, and that just left Davis with a very wrong feeling tugging at his gut.

Unable to shake it, he left his office and went down to the gym for a workout, hoping the effort would help to clear his head and feeling the incessant need to hit something.

On the planet Rassakatt, far outside the ADZ and on the very edge of Nestafar space, Sarrew woke to an alarm, bolting out of his hanging sleep pod and pulling on his clothing before flying up to the ceiling exit and through the narrow tube-like passageway that curved over into a tunnel that led to a nearby prep room where he and many others were hastily pulling on combat gear.

Sarrew grabbed a pair of hand blades, not expecting to need them but always carrying them in a sheath on his small belt just in case. He added a pistol and some extra gear in a ready to go utility harness that he pulled on around his back and clasped in the front, then headed out another tunnel that led to the ready bay where he took to the air and flew across the vast chamber to the waiting transport, ducking inside a few minutes before it launched through a topside door the size of a grain field.

As the transport took to the air Sarrew moved about within the ship, coming to the internal hangar bay and climbing aboard his walker and joining the other crew assembling inside. Normally they would have boarded the walker prior to its being put into the hangar, but this particular military base was for fast response, with the machines being preloaded so they could leave in a minimum of time. The troops were the same way, having been kept nearby and on alert, rotating out in cycles, to maintain constant readiness.

Sarrew had been on call for some 3 years now after returning from the successful yet bloody Calavari campaign, but this was the first non-drill call he’d responded to, given that Rassakatt was a secure world far from what had previously been Calavari territory. In fact it was on the coreward edge of Nestafar territory, making it about as safe of a backwater world as you could get.

The planet was well established and boasted a large population, so it wasn’t some dinky outpost and undefended, but these types of military positions were for the young soldiers who needed experience and the old veterans that needed a breather…both serving a purpose in the defense of a world that probably wouldn’t need defending.

Yet now here he was, being called out to fight who knew what. Perhaps the Alliance had found them…the thought of which terrified him. The annihilation of their capitol system and all its worlds still haunted the Nestafar, and if they had come here with similar intent he could be facing overwhelming numbers of troops as soon as they dropped out of the transport.

Sarrew didn’t get an intelligence report until two minutes prior to drop off, with him unable to read more than ‘unidentified foe’ before he was actively walking the super dragon out of the transport with smaller walkers skittering out ahead of the giant machine. He got a heading from the regional military commander and set the Ho’shemon on its course, forming into the echelon typical of Nestafar walkers when traveling towards a target.

Sarrew was piloting the machine while the rest of the crew were handling weapons and other systems, and it didn’t take long before their enemy appeared on the horizon…for their own version of walkers were huge. Never before had he seen an enemy with something bigger than the Ho’shemon, which among this region of the galaxy was considered the dominant ground assault vehicle.

As they moved forward he could see weaponsfire ahead, with red plasma exchanging with white amongst many targets. Normally Sarrew would have been tasked with heading towards the biggest and strongest enemy to counter and usually kill while the smaller walkers engaged the others, pulling the heat off them and putting it on the beast that he was driving, but today wasn’t the case with him being tasked with heading towards the nearest of the enemy walkers as a hoard of four-legged Nestafar Urriak were engaging the large, almost floating masses that moved about on impossibly thin legs.

But there were smaller ones yet, each bipeds with thick legs that were running forward into flanking positions. Sarrew saw the main plasma battery fire a spurt of red at the orb-like top of the enemy walker, splashing over it and impacting some type of shield before melting into the armor…but it didn’t go down as he expected. Instead it took three hits before the plasma melted all the way through and the burnt out hulk came to a rest…then slowly tipped over as its legs weren’t quite in the proper position to maintain balance.

From there he kept the super dragon on its original course, with the targeting head moving independent from his leg motions unless otherwise directed. He saw one of the big walkers go down ahead under a coordinated attack from the smaller Nestafar walkers, then his went into combat with another to its right, with Sarrew setting them in place and adjusting their standing angle to assist the gunners in case the spindly-legged thing tried to run.

It didn’t, and the two machines exchanged direct fire, neither doing as much damage to the other as they expected. Sarrew knew the Nestafar armor would protect them against all but an overwhelming onslaught, but the enemy shields and armor were serving them well and kept them alive and fighting far longer than he was comfortable with.

Once the big machine collapsed and crushed its own legs, Sarrew moved them on towards the next one, taking down three more before they met up with an even larger enemy walker and the odds became a bit more even…but with time and the assistance of his escorts, Sarrew’s super dragon downed it as well, beginning to put some order to the ground battle.

That was when he got orders to travel to another location as quickly as mechanically possible. He responded appropriately, turning the super dragon to the right and walking forward as he saw a plume of missiles streak across the sky and land on another super dragon ahead, blasting into its armor so badly that when the smoke finally cleared the impact divots were obvious…meaning significant damage.

That super dragon fired back on its target…only that wasn’t what had fired the missiles at it. As Sarrew brought his super dragon into play and assisted the other with the takedown along with hundreds of plasma orbs and streamers from the smaller walkers, he finally saw the missile firing target on the horizon, far outside their current range and to which the military commander was eventually working them.

The machine was monstrous, and for the first time in his military career Sarrew felt the inferior inside the Ho’shemon.

But he pushed the thought aside. The other drivers out there had less protection than he did, and a lot of them were less experienced. If he was going to give into panic what hope did they have?

So Sarrew set himself to the task at hand and continued downing targets all the way up to the Type-2 Skarron walker that he eventually assaulted along with six other super dragons and their escorts…with him eventually dying as the wash of plasma eventually burned through the stubborn Nestafar armor and disabled the Ho’shemon. He and the other crew attempted to play dead, but the Skarrons didn’t relent and burned through the interior compartments until the plasma eventually reached the command cockpit, ending Sarrew’s military career and life without him even knowing the identity of the attackers.

Evacuation

1

May 2, 2536

Gwet System (Delta Region)

Inner Zone

Riona-111 read the message from the Hycre on her command chair’s personal display then nodded to the Admiral, indicating for them to make the jump. Her warship and the others in the assault armada leapt off the largest of the three stars at system’s center and crossed the short gap to the desert world of Leonis where the Hycre fleet was just finishing up with the lizard incursion, tearing apart what looked like three battle stations in low orbit while chasing dozens of other ships as they fled down towards the surface.

Like the message had said, the road was plowed…now it was time to bring in the convoy.

Riona searched the updated map, receiving new data from the Hycre as well as from the Adamant’s sensors as the Melee-class warship led a handful of Star Force Warship-class jumpships into planetary orbit ahead of the troop transports that were to follow a few minutes later. The warships moved out into escort positions for the incoming ships while the Adamant moved down to low orbit as Riona quickly picked her position.

Three months ago a routine scouting expedition through the ADZ had picked up lizard activity in this system, which was on the very edge of the upper curve of the sphere that made up the Alliance Defense Zone. It was an uninhabited system, but it lay inside their ‘line in the sand’ and signaled that the lizards were attempting to bypass existing strongholds and make a push towards the nearest Alliance worlds, though none were close to Gwet. Greg had assumed it was an attempt at creating a stepping stone in closer to the prime worlds, and one that had to be gotten rid of.

How many other incursions there were Star Force didn’t know. They could only patrol so many, with the lizards having had at least a few months head start setting up here before they’d been discovered…and had they not had scout ships out and about in the ADZ the incursion could have gotten considerably more advanced prior to their finding out. Greg had counted them lucky that they’d picked it up when they did and assigned Riona to taking care of it while he and the trailblazers mounted other assaults outside the ADZ ‘encouraging’ the enemy to fight them there rather than inside their borders.

Underscoring the importance of this mission, Greg had loaned her a Melee-class…something that Riona had never had the privilege of commanding before. It was here, not to cleanse the lizard fleet from orbit, for the Hycre were just finishing up that, but to protect the ground troops and secure the system while they fought on the surface…though in point, that was going to be Admiral Bocco’s job, for she was going down to the surface with one of the teams for cleaning duty. Which one yet was still to be determined, with Riona assuming she’d end up wherever they encountered the most trouble.

When the ship settled into low orbit it decelerated into a temporary hover, something the big ship wasn’t well suited for, nor had it been designed to enter the atmosphere…though Liam had assured her it could do so in a pinch if necessary. She hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but a piece of the ship was going down and Riona was riding it all the way to the surface drop zone.

The armor plates on the center underside of the huge warship began to peel back slowly like a metallic ripple, exposing the armored hull beneath that eventually began to detach once the opening was clear. The 2 mile wide center ‘plug’ of the ship pulled out from the giant donut and began to descend into the atmosphere as the Adamant then accelerated laterally to get itself back into a proper drift orbit.

According to sensor reports, mainly comprised by the Hycre but now being backed up by Star Force’s own, there were over 1200 grounded lizard cruisers in some 833 surface facilities that were busily recreating the sandy landscape into infrastructure. A few of those facilities already had full-fledged bases set up with defense shields, while most of the others were either still under construction or building underground where orbital bombardment wouldn’t reach. Riona had ordered assaults on the exposed ones from orbit, with her taking the Adamant’s ‘TF’ dropship down into an open area of the surface situated between three of the largest bases.

It landed on hundreds of thick leg-like pylons, sinking down into the sand and requiring some finesse by the pilot to get the ship to sit level. Once it did doors opened up all around the exterior and troops began to pour out as anti-air batteries all over the dropship began shooting down the lizard fighters coming out from their bases to engage the dropship.

Riona left the ship in a skeet, zipping out of a special aerial bay and into clean air a moment before she saw an approaching enemy cruiser on the horizon get skewered by a cleansing beam from orbit. The ship listed to port and smashed down into the sands, taking one of several out of the sky that were approaching as rail gun rounds began to fall on the others and would continue to do so until they got within the perimeter line…after that it was up to the dropship and its defenses to keep them off the ground pounders, which is why Riona had decided to go pilot today rather than sit on the ground and hope not to get shot.

She flew the neutral grey skeet away from the dropship as fast as she could then dove into a cloud of approaching wisps along with two other pilots, unafraid of the mass of 200+ fighters. They peppered her shields with tiny green plasma blasts, but the advanced matrix that protected her tiny craft absorbed all of the plasma fire that hit it and was thirsty for more. After a long time trying, Mark had finally got the techs to work out a plasma resistant shield setting, allowing the skeets to transition back and forth between ‘normal’ shields and the anti-plasma variety, and with it Riona felt very safe amongst the enemy that relied almost entirely on plasma.

Their warships were known to carry some missiles at times, but the fighters only had plasma weapons. Combined with her craft’s maulers and hyper lachar, the skeets were clearly the superior fighter, so much so that they literally gobbled up the lizard wisps, leaving Riona with a target rich environment that she eagerly dove into and began racking up kills with ease, for the maneuvering capability of the skeets were also greater.

Riona was in a standard fighter, but coming out of the dropship were also anti-air versions specifically designed to shoot down missiles and other fighters, with those pilots heading directly for the swarms along with her while the anti-infantry and anti-mech versions held back as a secondary screen around the dropship, also capable of eating up a lot of wisps if needed, but without that being their intended purpose.

A train of equipment poured out of the dropship at ground level behind an army of mechs, bringing the base assault gear out and getting it moving towards the nearest target some 28 miles away. It was going to be a long hike for the mechs, during which they’d be picked at by the enemy, but they were ok when dealing with airborne targets on their own and this time they had ample fighter cover so Riona assumed they’d get to the shield perimeter intact, though when going up against the lizards you never truly knew what to expect.

Riona was going to get to the shield far sooner than they would, with the defensive barrier being a flat circle riding high above the base rather than the bubble shield that Star Force used to protect its cities. The lizard version was designed simply to protect against orbital or aerial bombardment, leaving its ground troops able to fight it out against whoever dared hit them up close and in person. Creating a flat shield like that allowed for more matrix strength, maximizing the lizards’ limited technology and making for a potent deterrent. That said, Star Force knew it could breach the defenses from orbit if they spent enough time pounding,

With so many bases to take out Riona wasn’t going to waste time and ammunition hitting them from orbit…at least not all of them. Even with cleansing beams the shields would hold up for a long time, and the largest cleansing beams she had available were the medium grade on the Adamant, which could only target one base at a time if it got really close and the weather was favorable, otherwise the beam could be scattered, reducing its effect.

So the navy was going to pick at the surface targets while the mechs, aerial, and commando divisions did the real house cleaning. This opening gambit was all Star Force, intended to hit the strongest lizard targets as well as probing to see what kind of reaction they were going to get. What they couldn’t have was this invasion being a multi-year affair. They had to take the lizards out quickly before they had a chance to resupply and reinforce, otherwise this could become the beachhead for a new offensive corridor if the enemy chose to devote enough materiel to it.

Riona didn’t know what their plans were, but the more she could destroy before their friends had a chance to react the better, so it was full on assault after this opening move, with the rest of the fleet waiting in orbit for her staff on the Adamant to assign them landing zones and targets…and for her to give the final word.

That fleet wasn’t made up of Star Force personnel. 42% of it was Axius, with the balance being Scionate. Only the ground troops she’d brought down on the dropship were Star Force, given that they didn’t have so many to go around…but they were the best by far, hence she was using them in this initial assault to test the waters.

Riona chewed up some 6 wisps before breaking off and making an attack run on one of the lizard cruisers that was getting a bit too close to the TF, pulling a lot of pursuing fighters in her wake. She saw several hits on the underside of the kilometer long yellow/tan warship from mechs, along with a bit of mauler fire coming from other skeets as they dove into and out of the plasma shards, able to survive short runs then circle out and recharge their shields…allowing the skeets to literally pester the big ships to death and the enemy knew it, hence the fighter screens that were doing their best to overload the little fighters.

As the Archon made her first pass over top landing some 19 mauler hits to the upper side of the hull she immediately lost her good mojo. She’d made a run from aft to fore, with something on the ship not looking right. Riona turned around and flew high, looking down at the top of the ship and seeing an unfamiliar bump in the hull that had otherwise been burned into her memory given that the lizards had used that exact design for centuries…but now something was different.

A minute later she got her answer as to what when a solid green lance of plasma leapt out the front of the now burning hull and shot into the shield covering the dropship…and didn’t let up for some 13 seconds.

“What the hell?” she asked, immediately refiguring strength numbers in her head and opening the ‘all’ comm. “Heads up, looks like the bad guys have got some new toys. Cruisers have plasma streamers now. Keep them off the TF, I don’t want it taking hull damage. Ground convoys increase your spacing. I don’t want them laying that streamer down on several of you at once. Make their gunners earn their hits and maintain evasive weave to target until we knock them down.”

Riona adjusted frequencies to a secure line. “Admiral, get a few drones in atmosphere. I need them nearby just in case.”

“Already gave the order, Archon. They’re heading to atmosphere now.”

“Thank you,” she said, signing off and heading back at the cruiser again. Its shields were more or less down, with small segments coming back online with minimal power, one which she targeted and knocked down again before peppering the hull plates with mauler fire and vaporizing more divots into it along with toasting one of the few anti-air batteries remaining. Between her and the other skeets it was nearly plucked of its anti-air defenses, making their survival a bit easier even with the hundreds of wisps circling the big ship in a desperate attempt to fend them off.

All the while the green plasma streamer was pounding the side of the dropship. She was about to inquire why there was no return fire when she saw several small explosions on the front end from lachar hits eating into it like a rapid fire chain gun…but the cruiser didn’t continue to move forward, wisely keeping out of mauler range as it continued to deliver plasma at a greater distance than lizard weapons were typically effective from.

That said, the ship’s other plasma cannons weren’t firing, which suggested it was only the streamer that had the extended range. That was good to know, but it was still hammering the shields on the dropship along with four other cruisers…make that three, for one had just gone down on the north side, but there were still 17 more enroute and only so much she and her air cover could do to hold them off if they didn’t get close enough for the TF to eat them up with maulers.

Riona knew the dropship’s shields were solid, but there were gaps where the troops were still coming out. Fortunately those hadn’t been hit, but land a streamer into one of those and it’d mess up the interior bad…not to mention killing any personnel out moving around the deck.

No, they had to keep them back, and if the lizards weren’t so inclined then she had to take them down before they could overwhelm the shields or go kamikaze against them.

“Damn it,” she said, seeing one of the cruisers coming in at higher speeds than the rest. Not an obvious ramming effort, for the lizards were coy, but her gut told her it was going to hit or at least get close enough for a few sucker punches before it went down.

“Mechs, I need you,” she said, tagging the cruiser on the battlemap. “Hit this son of a bitch at range before it can get to the TF. I think it’s a kamikaze.”

“Copy that,” Hammer-521, the Archon leading the ground assault said as Riona saw immediate movement on the ground. A few moments later she saw a missile launch from one of the mechs, then another, then hundreds of them turned into a firestorm of smoke and flashes that shot out towards the north and on the long haul out to the incoming cruiser.

It opened up with all of its plasma shard anti-air, knocking down plenty of the missiles but there was no way for it to get them all. The bombardment hit and penetrated the ship’s shields within seconds, then began ravaging the hull inside the cloud of smoke and debris.

Riona made another pass on the cruiser she was engaged with, then as she swung around to recharge her own shields she saw the Kamikaze cruiser in the distance emerge from the cloud of smoke in a graceful downward arc, eventually falling into the sand dunes and breaking in half as it caught and tried to roll over, snapping at the midsection from the torque and cutting a huge gash into the landscape as its momentum dragged it forward, eventually settling at about 6 miles out from the huge dropship.

“Whoo, nice one, Hammer.”

“Can’t do that very many times,” he warned.

“I know. We’ll have to do better up here. Thanks for the bailout.”

“How about some close in naval support?”

“On its way. Keep an eye out for more kamikaze cruisers until it gets here. I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“Will do.”

Riona clicked off the comm and made another attack run, this time melting through the armor and opening up a vulnerable section of the hull which she tagged as a prime target. The other skeets with her adjusted their own attack runs and pounded that section, eating down into the unarmored interior and opening up an opportunity for one of the anti-mech fighter squadrons to come in and deposit some missiles into that hole.

The resulting explosion ripped through the interior, but only blasted out through a few of the wounds on the ship, with the armor acting like a cage to contain and enhance the internal detonations before ultimately hitting the anti-grav, for the big ship went down and pancaked the sand below…fortunately without any mechs beneath it.

“One down, a billion more to go,” she said, signaling for one of the drone trios to be assigned to her.

Riona swung back towards the TF as the unmanned fighters were coming out of the bay and picked them up using an auxiliary control panel, slaving them to her own skeet. Each of them looked almost identical, save they didn’t have a cockpit. What they did have was more weapons, including missiles, which she was going to need to take down the other cruisers with the help of many, many others. As advanced as their aerial division had become, warships were still freaking huge and heavily armored, requiring an insane amount of ordinance to take down.

Which was why she enjoyed it so much. Fighters should never be able to take down a warship, so whenever it did happen it was a sweet, sweet moment…except that right now there were others still in play that needed to be killed and they weren’t obliging Star Force’s mauler range on the dropship, meaning this was going to be a slugging match.

“Guys, a little cover please. I don’t want the wisps picking off my drones.”

“On the way,” another pilot in her temporary squadron responded.

“Alright,” she said, shooting down another two wisps and getting a third with her drones as the four of them ducked through a swarm enroute to the next closest cruiser that was already hammering the dropship with plasma. “Let’s find a sweet spot.”

2

Wen’sta’lon sat in the cockpit of his Wildcat-class mech, strapped into the control harness and waiting impatiently as the Axius transport made its way down to the surface of Leonis. He’d been briefed on the assault progress earlier, knowing that Star Force mainline troops had already secured a beachhead and were in the process of taking down two lizard bases, but that’s not where his team was heading. They were going after a different lizard base, one that had already been hit from orbit and blasted into smithereens…on the surface at least.

Orbital scans showed at least some subsurface structures, how many of which was still a lingering question. He wouldn’t be probing those himself, for his mech would most likely not fit inside, but others would. His job was to secure the surface, eliminate any hostiles, and cover for the burrowing teams as they made their way down inside to engage the enemy.

This was the third combat assignment that Wen’sta’lon had seen, given that the Scionate had only recently earned his spot in the Axius military and one of the first native born colonists to do so. He was only 10 years old, but had shown remarkable skill in piloting the wildcat…or at least compared to the few others who had tried, for the mech was quadruped in design and Star Force had few that could pilot it, most of whom were immigrant Scionate completely unfamiliar with the concept given that his native race used tanks rather than mechs.

Wen’sta’lon had learned quickly, but he still was being given small assignments…for which he was grateful. He’d much rather be out here fighting real enemies than stuck in training simulations and games, especially since this time it was personal. The lizards had invaded the ADZ and they had to push them out else risk their own worlds. Yes, he definitely wanted to be out here, even if all he was going to do was swat a few infantry to cover for the others.

The long trip down in the dragon was tedious, but when the bay doors finally opened he and one other wildcat exited first, walking then running out onto the mix of burnt sand and building that had been scattered by the rail gun impacts. The mech’s paws sunk in deep, but he was still able to move about easily enough, running forward at a lope and pulling a quick circle around the drop zone as more of the Axius dropships came down.

He spotted one lizard amongst the rubble and ran after it, seeing it scurry behind a piece of shrapnel the size of a Calavari and disappear. Wen’sta’lon popped out his mauler cannon from under the ‘chin’ of the mech and fired at it, melting the piece of building and vaporizing the lizard at the same time. His first target eliminated, the Axius Scionate returned to his patrol loop.

More and more dropships came down, unloaded, and took off again returning to the jumpships in orbit ferrying the troops here. Once sufficient infantry were assembled Wen’sta’lon was ordered to scout out ahead which he took to with eager lethality, hopping over various bits of debris in a way that only a quadruped mech could and getting a good head start on the mix of various races that made up the commando units. They were all armored up, but he didn’t want any of them getting killed so he kept close attention on the area he was scouting out, intent on killing any and all of the little green heads that showed themselves.

The next thing he knew his shields were taking plasma hits from the starboard side, with him turning his mech in that direction with a shuffle of the huge mechanical legs and finding a pair of lizard tanks hidden under an overhang of rubble. One was a shade, the other a copper, and both were pouring plasma into his shields…though most of the damage was coming from the shade.

Wen’sta’lon decided to target it first, running towards it and firing his mauler twice, missing low with the first shot and melting the sand in front of the lizard anti-armor tank into a puddle of glass that shot up like a geyser, obscuring his view. The next one went right through that cloud and nailed the shade, killing it with the single well-placed hit…though in truth it had been more luck than skill.

The copper began backing under the overhang and exiting out the far side, causing Wen’sta’lon to accelerate up into a full run to chase after it…then his footing suddenly went out from under him as the sand fell away and he dropped down into a chasm.

There was a loud ‘thunk’ outside the mech, but with the IDF he didn’t feel the impact as he hit the rubble strewn ground of a cargo bay. His wildcat was laying on its side, but within the cockpit the Scionate looked around, seeing on the hologram that he’d fallen through a hole in the ceiling that had what looked like now torn paper glued to it.

“Tricky bastards,” he growled as he worked the mechanical legs around in order to get to his feet as a missile impacted the head of his mech, followed quickly by more missiles and a hoard of plasma from the ambushing troops around him in the hollow.

Even before he fully stood the wildcat up he started shooting the infantry around him with his secondary weapons, popping them up from behind armored plates around the mech’s hull and shooting with computer support using buttons on the claw pads and teeth bar. The blue plasma he fired back clashed with the deep red his mech was painted, making for a terrifying sight as the enemy infantry melted under the counter attack…then larger plasma blasts began to hit the wildcat from repositioning lizard tanks, with Wen’sta’lon realizing he was in a tricky situation.

His mech would hold up to plasma fire for a good while, but the rubble he was trying to stand on was causing him to trip and stumble, essentially holding him still in the bay and giving the enemy a stationary target to shoot at. He belatedly realized he was standing in the crater of an impacted rail gun slug that had collected the debris from the roof, meaning he was essentially standing on rough pebbles that kept moving underneath his mech’s feet.

By the time he’d eventually gotten some balance his shields went down, but he was unable to turn around and fire his mauler at the tanks behind him. He was hitting them with the aft plasma cannons but not doing enough damage, for there were more than a dozen tanks down here and there were more coming in from other subsurface chambers.

“So much for fighting on the surface,” he said, crouching low before jumping off the rubble with a bit of help from his limited jump jets. He didn’t clear the edge of the crater, but did get his front two paws on the unbroken ground around it and pulled himself clear as his armor began melting off.

Before any of the enemy weaponsfire could penetrate clean through he bathed the floor ahead of him with plasma fire, burning away a few dozen infantry and seeing a secondary explosion from a missile launcher that knocked over a few more. When he turned his mech around to face the majority of the tanks he got a warning on his battlemap, prompting him to run around the large crater, still taking shots and losing armor, enroute to the closest tank and pummeling it with mauler energy.

He worked his way up the line, still getting swarmed with infantry blasts and a few missiles as the other wildcat came down through the hole above, landing with a crunch on its own jump jets and getting tripped up as well, but not fully falling over on the bad footing. It eventually got clear on the far side and the pair of mechs worked together to chew into the tanks with Wen’sta’lon taking heavy damage.

As they did so tiny little mechs poured in through the hole, floating down on their jump packs and hopping off the debris in secondary jumps to get to the edges whereupon they ran forward and the Axius Irondel began engaging the infantry directly, both with the chicken walkers and a few quadruped neite minimechs. Following them down came a few biped armored infantry with a handful of Humans and 7 other races of similar biology all wearing what appeared to be commando armor, yet it also was colored the deep red that Axius was known for.

Those infantry spread out and worked in conjunction with the minimechs, which stood about the same height as them in most cases, and tore through the unarmored lizard infantry, most of which didn’t even have protective vests on, just plasma rifles and a fiery determination. It didn’t take them long to thin them out, then they were faced with too many corridors to follow the retreating enemy through and wisely held themselves back to secure the underground bay while more reinforcements came down.

“You certainly bit the wrong tail this time,” Ha’mon’sta commented over the comm to his fellow Scionate.

“Shut up,” Wen’sta’lon bit back. “It was a trap.”

“That you fell into.”

“You would have as well.”

“Maybe,” the older Scionate said, happy to see the ‘prodigy’ having some setbacks, “but right now your armor is torn up and your shields are weak. Restrain your combat accordingly. I will take the lead.”

Wen’sta’lon growled but didn’t offer any other disagreement, knowing he was right. He watched as the other wildcat walked out through one of the large doors ahead of a column of infantry enroute to hunting more lizards, probably of whom would have more tanks that needed to be eliminated.

Wen’sta’lon cursed himself for being so sloppy, as well as the blasted shields for taking so long to get back to full strength. Once they did he assigned himself to another infantry group heading out and worked his way to the lead, comming the troops to get out of his way so he wouldn’t step on them, then it was back into prowl mode…with the armor damage now concealed underneath his shields an ever present warning in his mind not to get too careless. He didn’t want to lose his mech, else he’d be sitting out this assault and who knew how many future ones until he got a replacement.

Riona walked into the command center in the TF, just having gotten out of the shower after a forced four hours of sleep. She hadn’t wanted to take a break, but given that this assault wasn’t going to be over in a day’s time she knew she had to keep herself fresh and reluctantly had sent herself to bed after making sure both assault groups had gotten off to a good start.

The Archon was about to head back out again in her skeet but needed to get a good overview of events across the planet before she did, and while it was possible to do so from the cockpit the layout of the command center made it much easier and quicker to get up to speed, hence the drop-in on the way to the hangar.

“Talk to me,” she said, walking inside and getting the attention of the current staff, which were also having to rotate out to keep fresh.

“Axius has successfully landed and begun assaults on six sites,” a ranger by the name of Yensic began. “Mild resistance on the surface, but it’s getting nasty underneath. No fatalities yet, but they’re losing a fair amount of equipment.”

“Warn them to be patient.”

“I already have. They’re not proceeding recklessly, our old friends are just being their usual selves.”

“Why do I ever expect less?” Riona asked rhetorically. “Where are the Scionate?”

“They landed an hour before Axius. 13 current assault zones with another two due to come into play inside the next six hours. I’ve been having discussions with their commander concerning tactics, for they are losing troops, though they’re still winning at the moment.”

“Do any good?”

“Probably not, but I felt like trying.”

“Some people have to learn the hard way. Where do we stand?”

“Choppy, but we’re starting to break through. The lizards have detonated a number of explosives to seal off access shafts to the lower levels of the city. A report less than 20 minutes old indicates that they may have some seriously deep infrastructure.”

Riona nodded. “Signal the troops for upper level sweeps and to avoid going deep just yet. My spidey senses are tingling, so let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first before we bite off more than we’ve realized.”

“You think there’s a lot of them down there?”

“I think we’re only hitting the tip of the iceberg. When we go deep I’ll lead the way, but for now I’m sticking with the air. Lots of targets to hit up top. Where do we stand with the enemy cruisers?”

“They’re still hiding out there somewhere. Scouts located one concealed surface bay, but there may be a lot more out there that we don’t know about.”

“Meaning they plan to jump us?”

“I wouldn’t bet any credits to the contrary.”

Riona shook her head in dismay. “They didn’t come here to build, they came here to fight and have been setting traps for us from day 1, but building surface blinds to hide warships is an altogether new trick. I’m surprised we haven’t thought of that.”

“Nice how the lizards keep teaching us new things,” Yensic commented dryly.

“Sensor stealthed, I assume?”

“More than that, there isn’t just a blind, but tunnels connecting the entrances to, we suspect, a main hangar underground. Infiltration team hasn’t got that far, still just chewing up the blind we control.”

“Chewing?”

“We blew up the cruiser inside, now we have to fish the pieces back out.”

Riona rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

“I suggest you start here,” the ranger said, pointing to a third city on the map that was about to see mechs and tanks meet up about a kilometer outside of the perimeter defenses. “They’ve been gathering up fighters from other locations while you slept. I think they intend to hold this one.”

“Like hell they will,” she said, already having chosen that group to fight with the moment she walked in and saw their position on the holo map. “Anything new from the Hycre?”

Yensic adjusted the smaller map alongside the main display, bringing up an orbital diagram.

“Kills made in the following locations,” he said as the computer threw up a few new icons. “Most of their fleet is in the system hunting down the other cruisers that didn’t go to ground.”

“Any help with the surface targets yet?”

“Actually, they’re the one that killed the cruiser in the blind.”

“So they are engaging ground targets?” Riona asked for clarity.

“A few targets that they choose, but they don’t have many ships down here for some reason.”

“Maybe they know something we don’t.”

“You want me to ask?”

“Yes. Phone in the results,” she said, having seen enough and heading back out and over to the hangar. Within minutes she was back into the sky and heading towards the mechs now engaging the lizard tanks underneath a swarm of wisps that were dying quickly but adding enough plasma damage to be troublesome. One drone corvette was also there, adding its weaponry to the battle, but there were literally thousands of wisps in play overhead of hundreds of tanks with more coming out onto the sands by the minute.

Numbers…always a numbers game with the lizards, and they usually played it well, but in this case the Alliance should have the advantage, so long as they didn’t waste it. The lizards were going to hit them hard and try to bleed them of troops, not enough to stop their assaults but to delay them long enough for help to arrive. That meant Riona and her assault force had a lot of work to do and not so long to do it.

A month, maybe more before they saw fresh enemies coming into play. By then she had to have the major strongholds eliminated or this could turn very ugly. The ADZ was going to take this world no matter how tough it was, because leaving it in play would create an advantage for the enemy that would cost them more later, so it had to go. Her job was to hit it fast and efficient in order to avoid that eventuality.

The lizards weren’t going to oblige her, as was their nature. They’d fight to the last individual and try to take as many of the attackers with them as possible, meaning suicide attempts and as much other mayhem as they could muster. She was probably going to lose troops to some of it, and she hated that, but the more fights like this the Alliance made the more wary they were of the lizards’ tricks, which was why Star Force was hitting the big targets, hopefully sparing Axius and the Scionate mass casualties.

She trusted her troops, but Axius was still fairly green and the Scionate were like the Hycre…allies, but out of her control. Riona had command of the entire surface campaign, but she didn’t have the ability to micromanage them like she could with her own troops and even Axius, via the battlemap and her authority as an Archon.

Which was why she thought of the Scionate as ‘help’ rather than her own, focusing on what she could control and doing her best to outthink the enemy…a long ongoing challenge that Archons had been facing for centuries, with plenty of successes and failures on both sides.

3

May 16, 2536

Gwet System (Delta Region)

Leonis

Riona’s skeet took a hit, and not a small one. Somehow one of the two lizard cruisers engaging a Star Force corvette a kilometer over the surface of yet another enemy base that they were in the process of invading had hit her with a primary cannon blast and tore off the right side engine pod. The Archon drifted through the fire zone on the other two, eventually righting her ship enough to fly in a straight line but was pounced on by the remainder of the wisps in the battle.

They hammered her hull until they knocked out the left side pod, which left her skeet hanging nose to the ground on the last one and losing altitude. She tried to fly on just the one out of the battle but didn’t make it another 10 seconds before her tail was blown off by a missile launched from the infantry on the surface. Their new favorite weapon left her central hull fully clipped and tumbling to the ground where she crashed into one of the outlying lizard buildings.

She didn’t feel the impact, for thankfully the IDF was still functioning, but did get a jarring vibration through some of the connective beams letting her hear just how hard the hit was. She activated her Pefbar and got a look at what was around outside, realizing that her skeet had landed upside down and the cockpit was pinned to the ground in the rubble.

“Wonderful,” she said, triggering the release and hearing a small click as it failed to move. Riona twisted around in the cockpit and got her feet above her, quite a trick given the small confines, then pushed hard wedging her back against the pommel seat.

She got a couple of inches of separation, wedging her left toes into the crack to hold it as she mentally turned on her striker armor’s powered setting, giving her a strength boost that allowed her to widen the crack further. As she got it a foot or so open she felt the gravity difference in her foot so she held form a moment and telekinetically reached out to turn off the artificial gravity…with her head feeling like it flipped over so that she was now standing upright rather than laying on her back.

Riona walked her feet further into the gap then let the skeet fall back down on her ankles as she slipped off the pommel and crouched down a few inches below it, getting a handhold on the rim of the fighter and lifting as hard as she could. It didn’t move easily, but she did get it up off the ground about a meter before she pulled a tricky one handed support that let her drop down underneath it and get a shoulder on the rim. She almost missed, but got herself wedged in with her muscles straining despite the power enhancement when her head started to swirl with instability.

“No, no, no, not now!” she said, concentrating and scattering the effect. Given any other circumstance she would have welcomed the ascension prompt, but right now she was in hot water and there was no time. Fortunately it took her warning and disappeared, clearing her head and letting her focus on lifting what was left of the skeet up again.

Riona repeated the jerk drop, this time forcing her arms up as she lowered her torso and held an Atlas pose for a moment with her butt nearly touching her heels. She took a twitchy step forward and came back up, pushing her helmet against the hull and making very tiny steps along it until she caught against a section of rock-like wall and could go no further, so she twisted around and pushed laterally as the fighter slipped down, creating a small crevice that she got herself stuck in just as a pair of scaly heads began to climb up over the debris.

One of them got its rifle up and into firing position before Riona yanked it from him telekinetically. She thought about trying to shoot him with it as the other came up into firing position then abandoned the idea, emitting a Fornax field as she wiggled and clawed her way up a few inches with the fighter still pinning her against the wall.

It was an effort to move, let alone maintain the field, and the instability in her head started to come back again. Now thoroughly frustrated she dismissed it a second time and continued to work her way up, glad that her striker armor’s design was smooth on the exterior and she wasn’t wearing a pack or rack on her back, for eventually she was able to slide free once she got her waist up past the choke point, letting her slender legs pull through without incident.

Riona climbed on top and finally released the Fornax field, sagging a bit with relief as she reached down and picked up one of the lizards, throwing him off the heap of rubble that was inside one of their structures and knocking down three more climbing up towards her. She mentally flicked on her shields as plasma fire started to hit around her and pulled the lizard rifle into her grip as she side kicked the other one off the top of the skeet wreck.

Her plasma rifle was in the cockpit, but she wasn’t going back down to try and pull it out at the moment, needing to deal with these infantry first. The striker took two short steps over the burnt hull and jumped, coming down into the group below and firing at them from pointblank range, taking hits to her shields as she did so.

The exchange didn’t last long, with Riona mowing them down with ease and them unable to get through her shields, though one did try to grab her legs and knock her over. He got sent back the other way with a stern kick before receiving the last plasma blast to his chest, melting through most of his vest armor before she fired a second for good measure, punching through the hole and killing him.

Riona tossed the weapon aside, noting how it wasn’t as strong as she was used to as she concentrated and searched inside her ship with her Pefbar, eventually finding her rifle and guiding it up through the crevice telekinetically and over into her waiting hand.

“That’s better,” she said, turning the power on and jumping over some of the low rubble before climbing over a broken wall and up near to the roof. She didn’t have a jump pack on, or anything else for that matter, so she tossed her rifle up first then jumped, getting a handhold on a broken piece of ceiling and pulling herself up where she awkwardly pulled her body over the ledge and into the clean air.

Riona retrieved her rifle and looked around, seeing that she was still well within the lizard base but not too far from a pair of mechs blasting their way into the interior…with the enemy counterattacking with overwhelming numbers of infantry and a good number of tanks in support.

“When in Rome,” she muttered before running over to the edge and sliding her legs over the side before dropping down to street level some 13 meters below. She fell on impact, but partially rolled out of it and came up into a run headed for the nearest lizard as they saw her and responded accordingly.

Riona dove into the melee and got to work, remaining with the ground offensive until she ran out of ammo a few minutes later, then began working her way back to the exterior of the base and fighting hand to hand where necessary until she got to a group of Star Force commandos and bummed a replacement clip from one of them, then took up command of their small group along with grabbing a Calavari Knight from nearby. With the four-armed mass of white armor leading the way she assisted them psionically in punching deeper into the infantry as one of the nearby cruisers fell out of the sky and shook the ground so hard two of her men tripped and fell.

The battle from that point on was one-sided, with the Star Force warship eventually killing the other cruiser and using what operational weaponry it had for close-in fire support, but none the less the combat was brutal up close with the lizards making them pay for every inch of ground they took…and then once they had the surface secure they transitioned into a subsurface theatre where the naval and aerial power couldn’t come into play. The mechs did, to a certain extent, but some 36 hours later they were still fighting it out hand to hand deep inside the planet’s crust as an Axius team came in to relieve the battle weary mainline troops.

Riona stayed and helped them clean up most of the hot spots, then with fatigue dragging her into a near coma she eventually relented and turned over command to an Axius Protovic, letting him see to the rest of the sweeps and allowing her to return to the surface where she called for a dropship to pick her up and take her back to the TF.

Riona dosed off enroute, having to be woken up by the pilot when they’d returned. She thanked him then dragged herself out, turning on the powered nature of her armor to help her walk back into the confines of the huge dropship and find her temporary quarters where she began stripping off her sweaty armor, feeling a huge sense of relief. She was about to grab a very quick shower, if she could keep herself awake long enough, when she got two steps away from the tube entrance and fell to the ground when the instability in her head returned.

“Alright, might as well,” she said, urging it on and feeling the stress immediately increase. This had happened once before, or rather four tries ending up with one new ability, plus the battlemeld transfer that Jason had helped her trigger. Her Yetu ability had manifested just like this, and she was eager to see what new ability was making its way forward, despite how tired and loopy she was.

Lying on the elevated shower platform sweaty and naked, she suffered through the transition pains and succeeded in pushing it all the way through to spurn the new tissue growth…which left her in so much pain spread across her entire body that she wondered what the hell she had just gotten, or whether or not her fatigue had contributed to the effect, perhaps leaving her too weak for a ‘regular’ transition.

Sweaty and smelly as she was after spending a day and a half in her armor, Riona mentally told herself to forget the shower and began to climb to her feet to head to bed, not getting more than a knee step forward before saying to hell with it and easing herself back down to the ground and sinking into the fluffy bath mat and falling asleep within seconds.

Riona woke up 6 hours later, feeling like it had been maybe 5 minutes, and was shocked to see how bad she’d been hit. Her entire body ached and her neck had a pinch in it from the angle her head had been bent, but she summoned up enough energy to finally take her shower, then she got dressed and dropped into bed for another 4 hours before getting up and eating something…and by something that was two plates full of food and a load of ambrosia cookies.

Knowing she was unfit for combat and curious as to what new ability she’d gained she headed over to the TF’s training facilities for some light workouts. The dropship didn’t have a sanctum onboard, for that was located in the rest of the warship, but it did have an abnormally shaped running track/hall plus several sparring chambers and challenge specific rooms. Riona went for an easy 5 miles to start with, trying to work out the burning in her muscles from the transition before grabbing a punching bag and doing some light sparring with it…that she gradually escalated up into her normal caliber blows.

Despite her body disagreeing with her she activated her Yetu, which was a combination neural enhancement/muscle speed mode that she could maintain for 12 seconds max…or at least that had been her best to date. She didn’t try for anything so energetic, instead pulsing it for .5 to 1 seconds and getting some blurry punching combos in on the bag, which registered hits and strength intensity on a holographic diagram floating nearby, which the striker used to calibrate her workout and create a baseline for analyzing just how bad her body was at the moment.

She’d been worse before, but only barely. Everything in her seemed to be hurting, and the Yetu made that pain flare up something bad but she stubbornly kept nibbling at it, trying to work herself into a semblance of normal so she could get back out into the field. Flying a skeet wasn’t that strenuous, but she needed quick hand movements to fly effectively and right now she couldn’t hold her hand still. She was shaky and needed to bleed it off, and triggering Yetu was a painful, yet effective way of resetting herself through the super speed that her twitchiness seemed to be imitating.

Rather than trying to hold herself still she’d feed the movement, or so her theory went. It wasn’t working well but after a while she started to get a bit of inner calm that she knew would transition over into other things with time, so she pressed on. The workout continued well past an hour, but she didn’t relent nor did she escalate, preferring to just ‘grease the gears’ rather than exhaust herself again, with that sensation lingering on the edge of her senses as it was.

Riona went through a series of kicking drills against the target, some hitting with her foot and others with her shin…which was usually a bad idea for there was no muscle covering it, just skin over bone for the most part, and not a good place to get hit. The bag was soft enough to alleviate that but firm enough to give necessary resistance, so after several hundred kicks her shins were starting to complain a bit…which was when it finally happened.

As if protecting her leg from the next impact, Riona felt an invisible bubble directly over her bare skin hit the bag without her flesh ever making contact. She kicked three times in sequence, with the same light effect, until she finally stopped and tried to figure out what was going on. The Archon touched her bare leg with her fingertips, wondering if her skin was starting to get abrasion fried, but there was no sign of it so she went back to the drills with the sensation returning some 30 seconds later.

This time she caught it, mentally speaking, and pulled back from the bag while maintaining the feel over her right leg. She reached down and touched it again, with her finger being stopped a few millimeters away from her shin against a slick but firm force.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, not believing what her senses were telling her. She touched the invisible barrier again, then forced herself to let it go and reengage it, fearing that she wouldn’t be able to. It took several tries but she did manage to find the mental trigger and recreate the bioshield over her shin again.

Riona stood up and focused on her left hand, forcing what felt like a glove to form around it, then curling her fingers down into a fist and forcing as much energy as she could out into the aura around it…then she stepped forward and punched the target, hard.

The hologram registered the impact, but she never felt it hit her skin. Instead she felt the pressure all along her arm, as if the shield were physically connected not to one piece of her anatomy like an emitter, but to her entire limb…which was when she realized why her entire body was aching. The bioshield upgrade Paul had got had created little bits of tissue everywhere that acted as emitters rather than one or two solid chunks.

Suddenly Riona was glad for the excessive pain, for if she was right then she’d be able to create shields around any and all parts of her body.

She took a few more ‘gloved’ blows on the bag, then her head started to spin as she suddenly felt the effects of low ambrosia sweep over her.

“Dumbass,” she criticized herself. “Paul said it eats ambrosia. I’ll need snacks,” she said, leaving immediately for the cafeteria to collect a stash of ambrosia-laced foodstuffs along with several bottles of red, feeling the draggyness of her workouts already.

When Riona came back she spent the next 3 hours probing her new ability and working through stretching and light sparring drills while her snacks digested to continue to loosen up her body then, after she was convinced she was fit to fight, went back to her quarters and set her alarm for 45 minutes, catching a rejuvenating nap before heading over to the hangar bay and grabbing another skeet. She headed out to the closest battle zone that needed fighter cover, this one being a Scionate offensive, and dove back into the fray, overly pleased with her new ability but knowing that she needed to put it aside for the time being. She’d have an opportunity to train later, right now there was a planetary assault requiring her skills and attention

.

4

July 12, 2536

Gwet System (Delta Region)

Leonis

Riona flew her trio of drone fighters in a triangle formation behind her skeet, two positioned above and one below so they’d all have forward firing arcs as she made yet another pass on the lizard cruiser pummeling the TF with a green plasma streamer. The weapon was holding out despite the fact that the back half of the ship was on fire and smoking heavily. The lizards had put most of their shield strength forward to protect that battery and Riona hadn’t been lucky enough to get a shot through the tiny opening that was allowing the plasma to come out.

So the Archon did the next best thing and kept hammering the exposed section of the warship while six others were still pouring fire into the massive dropship as it recalled the last troops from the surface campaigns. Likewise Axius and Scionate dropships and transports were pulling up the last of their troops in the face of a huge lizard relief fleet that had come into the system a day ago prompting the recall. All of the lizard bases had been eliminated with some residual cleanup efforts ongoing, but those had been quickly scrapped in order to get the troops back onto the jumpships and out of the system.

The bulk of the Axius and Scionate fleets had already left, with the Adamant and the handful of Star Force warships and their drones providing cover for the others on their way out. Riona’s TF was the last major chess piece on the planet, given that she’d had her mainline troops assume the final responsibilities to cover the others getting out, meaning there were still convoys coming in to the big dropship even now.

They had avoided the warship barrages, which seemed more interested in killing the dropship than strafing the troops on the ground, though the mechs had downed one of the cruisers on their own when it got too close. Perhaps that was the reason they were staying back and hitting the TF at range, but while they did other warships were scouring the planet and harassing the fleeing Scionate and Axius groups who were putting up a good fight while covering the evacuation.

Meanwhile orbit was where the heavy fighting was going down. The Hycre had long since departed, apparently having left the system but in actuality had gone into hiding within it, so when the lizard fleet arrived to face off against the Adamant and the ‘small’ number of warships it had with it the lizards thought they’d brought more than enough firepower to overwhelm the big ship.

That hadn’t happened, with the Hycre jumping the enemy at a very vulnerable transitional period between star and planet, hitting both locations simultaneously and making several devastating attack runs that sent the battle into a free for all as the lizards split their attention between the Hycre and pushing down to the vulnerable transports waiting nearby their warship escorts.

The few ships that had come down to the surface were nothing compared to the hundreds going at it above the atmosphere, and Riona desperately wanted to be up there in a command nexus but that wasn’t an option. She had troops to get back onboard and right now that meant taking down this warship, which she tore up a little bit more with a mauler storm augmented by the few missiles her drone fighters still had left onboard.

As soon as she zipped past overhead a pair of wisps fell in on her tail that she had to deal with, triggering a preprogrammed attack pattern in the drones and having them split up and loop back. The wisps were caught with four targets to chase and only two fighters to do it with, allowing two of the Star Force craft to get in behind them and execute the kills in short order. Riona had the fighters reform behind her and turned for another run on the warship when she saw a concussion ripple move through the atmosphere as something big inside the lizard cruiser detonated…with it falling to the ground in a soft crash, bending it slightly on impact but otherwise leaving the smoking hulk intact.

Riona tagged the next closest cruiser as the primary target for the 18 other pilots flying with her, a few of which had their own drone escorts, and zipped off towards it together rather than splitting their fire between multiple targets. The rest of the aerial craft were dealing with targets in other planetary locations, covering for their allies while leaving her with the job of supplementing the TF’s defenses.

That hadn’t been the plan, but rather the only option given the timing of the lizard attack. She’d been inside the TF when it had happened, leaving her too far away from the other locations to do any good so she’d decided to make sure the TF remained where it was to pick up the ground troops while the other pilots were off making the kills. Only recently had these warships come into attack range giving her something to do, but in truth she would have preferred they’d just stayed away for the shields on the TF weren’t going to hold out forever.

That said, the last of the troops were nearly onboard and it wasn’t but a few more long minutes until the last of the mechs backed their way into the exposed hangar, firing up at the few wisps stupid enough to follow them into range of the TF’s anti-air, with the shield dropping down to cover the hatch before the bay doors fully closed. When that occurred Riona got a notification on the battlemap and broke off from her current attack run, taking the other pilots and drones with her as they shot upward ahead of the big dropship as it slowly began to rise up from the surface.

The skeets from all areas coalesced at various altitudes in bunches, with Riona taking the highest grouping. As the TF rose up the aerial bays opened and the fighters flew inside during transit, making for a dicey catch even as the enemy cruisers followed it up continuing to throw plasma into the shields. The atmospheric friction cut down on the amount making it to target, but they didn’t let it go, eventually moving in close and using their primary plasma cannons in addition to the streamer to try and get through the now very weak shields before it could hit orbit.

But that also brought them into range of the maulers…or rather their outside range. They weren’t nearly as effective, but what energy they could deliver to the cruisers added up, stripping off their shields and beginning to eat through their hulls while more and more fighters slipped inside the dropship.

Another dozen lizard warships broke away from the orbital battle and dove into the atmosphere, flashing by Riona’s position and heading into the melee below as the TF couldn’t climb very fast given it had to pick up the fighters enroute…which was when Riona made a different call, linking into the comm of all those below.

“Change of plans. If anyone doesn’t have intact atmospheric seals speak now because we’re going orbital. Rendezvous with the donut ring and get there as best you can or head back down to the planet and wait it out. The TF has to go, now, and we’re holding it up.”

Riona changed frequencies and contacted the commander of the big dropship, with the TF immediately gaining speed upwards and actually bumping one of the cruisers out of the way. She cringed when she saw that, with the dropship’s shields disappearing in the collision, but soon it didn’t matter for rest of the Adamant had been coming down towards the atmosphere to meet it and the armor on the dropship would hold out for the rest of the trip up.

Taking her own advice Riona launched her skeet up above the atmosphere and flew directly towards the Melee-class warship, mentally crossing her fingers as the space around it was filled with lizard warships. Their fighters weren’t built for space, so she didn’t have to worry about them, but there were so many ships exchanging fire with the massive donut that it looked like there was no way she was going to get through…but the sizing was deceptive, and what looked to be an unending net of plasma fire actually had huge holes in it, enough for her to shoot her skeet and drones through to one of the big ring’s docking bays just ahead of the ‘donut hole’ coming up from underneath and beginning to slide into the giant ship.

Riona parked her skeet haphazardly on the deck, getting it out of the way of the others but leaving the crew to reposition it where it needed to go as she jumped out of the cockpit and ran towards the exit, headed for the nearest lift to get her up to the bridge.

By the time she got there the TF had fully merged back into the Adamant and the ship had moved back further up into orbit, heading right into the heart of the lizard attack group while the Warship-class jumpships held perimeter positions while firing into the hoard of ships to keep out of the worst of it. The Adamant took the brunt of the attacks and tore through the enemy fleet by the dozens, but still there were more lizard ships arriving in groups and adding to the onslaught, making final fleet strengths impossible to determine.

Riona got over to the command nexus and linked in, reorganizing the battle slightly from what the Admiral had them running and chewed through as many lizard ships as possible while the Hycre fleet really did most of the damage. Eventually the Adamant’s shields went down in several places, with the huge ship beginning to take hull damage but she didn’t pull it out, knowing the beast could stand up to the slugging and reaping the rewards from it. The lizards took to the dropped shields like a swarm of bugs to a light, which allowed the Hycre to literally rip them to shreds.

Rather than retreating the lizards fought to the last ship, with several trying to ram the Adamant and one succeeding in slipping by the specialized shield emitters designed to ‘cushion’ the blow. That ship imbedded itself far enough that the Adamant had to stick around in orbit for another two days cutting it loose before they were finally able to withdraw and make the jump back to Star Force territory.

Eventually it was decided that the ship needed to be repaired rather than being sent into another campaign immediately, which it could have been given how big it was and how it could take several more such hits and still remain mostly operational. Star Force didn’t like operating that way when they could avoid it, so the Adamant returned to Earth where it could fit into a sufficiently-sized slip and undergo repairs…along with a few new upgrades.

Riona went with it, hopping onto a dropship in orbit and riding it down to Antarctica where she eventually found her way into the V’kit’no’sat pyramid.

“Knock, knock,” she said softly coming into the open doorway of Paul’s quarters as he was rifling through a drawer to find a particular headband he wanted before heading right back out to the sanctum.

He looked up at the sound and smiled, not having felt her approach. “Hey.”

“Hey to you too…you got a minute?”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something, but if you feel like walking and talking you can come with.”

“Works for me,” she said as he came back out and shut the door, walking at a brisk pace and her able to sense a bit of an adrenaline rush in him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“You first,” she said, glancing at the headband…which with Paul’s short hair didn’t seem necessary.

“Prototype sensor. Headbands aren’t my thing and I forgot to put it on this morning…then I got a whiff of instability and rushed back here. Might just be my imagination but I think I’ve got another ascension coming on.”

“And that would be how many now?”

“Uh, not counting battlemeld this will be the 5th if it pans out.”

“And with?”

“17th. Haven’t found any new ones recently, and neither have the twins. Whatever they are they’re buried deep…or we’re just going about it the wrong way.”

“You have to start counting those.”

“Can’t use them alone, so they’re a different category.”

“If you say so. My count just escalated to two, which is why I’m here.”

Paul looked over at her curious as they walked. “What did you get?”

“Bioshield.”

That stopped him in the middle of the hallway. So far he’d been the only one to manifest that ability, try as the others had.

“Where and when…be specific.”

“In battle on Leonis. Popped up after a crash that I had to crawl out of. I had to dismiss it at the time but was able to get it a day later when I got back to the TF.”

“Describe the crash…it’s important.”

“My skeet took a warship level plasma hit, then the stupid wisps finished me off. IDF was functional so I didn’t feel the hit, but what was left of my skeet went straight into a lizard building and I landed upside down. Had to lift the thing off to get out, and I’m really glad I had my striker armor on or I would have been in trouble. Fought my way back to our ground troops after that then stayed with them until fatigue started to win out. I was almost in the shower when the instability hit again, then I let myself pass out on the floor afterwards. That whole body transformation thing is sick.”

“I know,” Paul said thinking hard.

“What?”

“Just working on a theory. You got time to talk in detail later?”

“Ha. I came here to find you so you could teach me the ways of the Force. I’m your girl until you get tired of me.”

“Never,” he said with a wink. “Give me four hours to finish what I’m working on then we’ll get busy,” he said, raising up his hand palm out. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Riona did likewise, forming her weak shield over her hand and pressing it up against Paul’s. The two shields touched and…

“That feels so weird,” he said, relishing in the new sensation until hers popped. “Sorry.”

“That was probably just me. I can’t hold it long.”

“With time and training, you will.”

“Four hours?”

He nodded. “Meditation room. We’re going to tackle this through battlemeld.”

“Do I have to be naked like Rikku?” she said with a bit of disgust.

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Though I’ll be honest in saying I didn’t mind those sessions.”

“Well if you feel like going it in the buff be my guest,” she offered, “but I tend to concentrate better with at least a few clothes on.”

“I wouldn’t be a distraction?” Paul said, mock shocked.

Riona cracked a smile. “Ok, you have a point there.”

The levity left Paul’s face. “Full clothes and full effort. I’ve had time to get a lot of ideas and haven’t had anyone to practice with until now. It’s going to be extensive, if you’re up for it?”

“Always.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, lightly punching her in the shoulder before heading off to finish up whatever crazy training he’d just been doing, for Riona noticed his uniform was already soaked with sweat.

She let him go and stood in the hallway for a moment, trying to figure out exactly where she was for the Archon hadn’t been back here for many years and she’d never gotten the complete layout of the massive facility down. The residential area she was in now was newish, she thought, not able to remember completely given the continuing construction on the command deck and other places as Star Force added additional buildings inside the pyramid as needed. As of now it held a population of more than half a million, making it a busy city of its own, though still a secret to the public and most of Star Force.

Riona walked around a bit until she found a familiar hallway and headed back out a different entrance than the one she’d come in through, heading out for a bit of a sightseeing expedition and catching up on the new developments and discoveries as well as to just enjoy the sights. The pyramid was pretty much Disney Land for Archons and she liked being here just for the ambiance…and the constant reminder of their true enemy and how formidable they were. It both scared and impressed her to no end. To have someone that powerful as an enemy was terrifying, but to have someone that powerful was also an opportunity to learn and grow faster than you would on your own figuring things out through trial and error.

Which was why she wanted to come here to learn from Paul, knowing that he’d cut years off her own learning curve while remaining ahead of her the entire time. For bioshield he was the trailblazer, and she was immensely glad that he was still here pressing his abilities and developing others rather than out fighting in the field. She needed and wanted a teacher…not to mention the chance to get to know him better. Normally the trailblazers kept to themselves as far as any close personal bonds went, but that was to be expected. She was just a ‘second gen’ and they all outranked her.

But now that she had something to offer Paul she was eager to help out, and despite the fact that he had years of training ahead of her in this discipline she now had something the other trailblazers didn’t, making her a ‘peer’ despite the fact that she’d been an Archon almost exactly as long as they had been.

To her it felt like she’d just been bumped up to the big leagues, and now she felt different. The slight resentment towards the trailblazers was gone, now that she felt she was on par with them.

Actually, she kicked herself for having felt the resentment in the first place. It was childish and, now seeing it from a different perspective, admitted that instead of being their equal they’d ‘believed’ they were their equal, which involved more whining than doing. Now that she suddenly found herself on the other side of the line, even slightly so, it was an epiphany moment, feeling like she’d all of a sudden experienced another upgrade.

“Time to get to work,” she told herself, letting go of the last feelings of resentment and the ‘second gen’ label she’d worn with a mix of pride and embarrassment for centuries. She was an Archon, pure and simple, and it was her skills that defined her, not her birthdate.

5

September 13, 2536

Solar System

Earth

Smooth, Paul reminded her as his thoughts transmitted through the battlemeld telling her exactly what she needed to do through memory rather than words.

Trying, Riona responded, summoning up another weak shield in front of her and barely holding the effort. Manifesting the barrier around her body was easy compared to creating an independent wall not locked into a specific distance from her frame. With the invisible barrier visible to her senses, and Paul’s as well through the link, she held it in place and slowly began to walk a circle around it, forcing her to maintain its position while altering hers.

The effort was intense, but not something she could achieve through raw power. Push too hard and her ‘grip’ would slip, which was what Paul was trying to teach her. Drawing on his experiences, memories, and realtime guidance, she soaked his skill in through the battlemeld and held up the shield for the complete walk-around, then took up a position behind it as the thud shooters in the walls warmed up.

Or rather one did, placed directly in front of her while Paul was sitting with his back to the wall just underneath it and telekinetically adjusting the control panel from afar, which she could also feel through the battlemeld. He specifically wasn’t using any other psionics, such as Pefbar, so Riona couldn’t draw on those. Rather, he was letting her ‘pick his brain’ as to how her own abilities worked as the first tiny projectile shot out and hit her shield wall.

It nearly overloaded it, and when she tried to repair it she suddenly got a lot of intricate instructions from Paul, again, not in words, but in raw mental images that essentially guided her with a level of knowledge she did not currently possess. This was Paul’s choice of instruction, and Riona had to admit she was making far more progress than she’d expected. He was showing her things above her level, almost like a cheat, and as a result was helping her level up much faster than had she been doing this alone or even with an advisor.

It was almost as if he was controlling her shield for her, save for the fact that she was still making the actual projections and corrections, which right now involved reforming the damaged pieces of the shield matrix and holding them intact, for it didn’t matter how much energy she provided the shield if she couldn’t maintain the structure. Let go her concentration and the energy would dissipate…unless she recalled it, which was another trick that Paul was trying to teach her.

Riona had learned that, like the emitters on their own armor, a semi-functional shield matrix was held inside prior to deployment…kind of like opening an umbrella. That meant when a shield first formed it could be somewhat stored away for later deployment. If the shield was completely destroyed then it would have to be reformed before it could get to full strength again.

The bioemitters in her body weren’t quite to the ‘storing’ phase yet, and Paul said they’d have to be kicked in the ass to get it going, which was the next phase of this little calibration exercise…after she blocked 3 more staggered hits.

Barely making it through those, Riona then had to recall her damaged shield. She tried, really, but almost all of the energy was lost when it hit her flesh, like a glass window shattering and falling to pieces on the floor, except that in this case the shield energy simply dissipated into the environment without so much as a sight or sound…though for Paul, he could ‘see’ it through Riona’s senses thanks to the battlemeld.

“That’s better,” he said, releasing the link and standing up.

Riona frowned. “How was that better? I lost it again.”

“Not all of it. Your emitters pulled back in a touch.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Yes you did, you just didn’t notice it because it’s a subtle sensation. The effort was blinding you but I was able to pick it up because I was specifically looking for it. From now on that amount you recall will grow, thanks to the small crack you’ve formed. That was the transition point, and you just achieved it.”

“If you say so,” Riona said, not sensing anything different in her body. “Are we done or are you just tired of being in my head?”

“Just taking a break, or did you not feel somebody at the door?”

“I thought they were walking by.”

A telepathic prodding resulted in the chamber door opening and Aaron walking in. “Sorry for the interruption,” he offered.

“You’re excused,” Riona said sarcastically.

Aaron smiled at her then turned to face Paul. “We just got word from the Hycre that the Elarioni worlds are getting hit by the Skarrons. So far they’re just fighting the Nestafar on the surface, but there’s no way of knowing how long that will last. They’re requesting any help the Alliance can give in evacuating their entire population to the ADZ.”

Paul whistled.

“I know,” Aaron agreed.

“How many ships do they have available?”

“Not enough, but they were able to get a messenger out through the fighting easy enough.”

“How many worlds are currently under assault?”

“They said 5 of 8, but the Nestafar are still on the other three, so they can’t just pack up and leave without getting shot at. They’re only safe underwater because the Nestafar don’t have the resources or tech to hurt them there.”

“Is Kyler going to take this?”

“Hasn’t reached him yet. I thought you’d like to handle it since you and Ariel are so close…and the fact that we’re talking a huge naval operation to get to them. Plus Kyler is probably busy with the lizards right now.”

“And I’m just sitting here training my butt off.”

“We’re just sitting here training our butts off,” Aaron amended. “I can go, but I figured this is more in your wheelhouse.”

“It is,” Paul agreed. “But there’s no way we have the ships available for this.”

“The Adamant will be available soon,” Riona added. “Repairs are almost finished.”

“We’re going to need more than that,” Paul said with a shake of his head. “Even if we can fight through both the Nestafar and Skarron fleets, it’s going to take a long time to evacuate their people…not to mention we’re going to have to configure cargo ships to carry aquatic passengers. That alone will take a few months, minimum.”

“Yeah, about that,” Aaron said deviously. “Sounds like we could use a little help.”

“So it does,” Paul agreed after a second’s delay. “Then take them to Atlantica?”

“Not sure about that one or what kind of resources they need, but that’s a definite possibility.”

“How many people need to be transported?”

Aaron cringed. “The Hycre couldn’t give us a specific number.”

“Wonderful,” Paul said, frowning. “Did they say where this messenger was?”

“At a Hycre world in the old Calavari zone.”

“Well I need more information if we’re going to make this happen,” he said, turning to Riona.

“Go,” she said, dismissively waving her hand at him. “I can take it from here.”

Paul frowned. “What, and leave my new best friend behind. Uh uh, you’re coming with.”

A smirk worked its way onto her face. “Best friend huh?”

“You know someone else with bioshield?”

“So you only like me for my abilities?”

“Pretty much,” Paul said, turning back to Aaron. “I’ll take care of this, but I may need your help down the road.”

“You know where to find me.”

Paul fist tapped Aaron’s chest and jogged towards the open door. “You mind keeping her company for a while? She gets lonely real easy.”

Riona scoffed at his back as he ran out of view, then saw Aaron smirking.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything. You up for some sparring?”

“Actually…yeah,” she admitted.

“Come on, we’ll grab a different chamber. What were you working on?”

“Shield deflections,” she said, walking out with him.

Two months later…

Paul and Riona crossed through the shield barrier on the rear of the Sparrow-class dropship and into the watery environment of the Elarioni hangar bay. Each Archon wore a wetsuit with breath mask and swam away from the dropship to where one of the mermaid-like aliens were waiting. Their muscular tri-finned tails trailed below them in the blue-lit water as their neon-colored hair floated loose around their heads. All the Elarioni were ‘female’ in appearance, reproducing trisexually, so they all tended to look alike…almost identical save for a minor tweak here and there.

Whereas Ariel had green hair these two had orange, and one of them raised a three fingered hand up to wave them forward. Paul and Riona followed, swimming crudely by Elarioni standards through the tube-like passageways with Paul doing a weird looking flip kick for propulsion that kept him ahead of Riona and her struggling to keep up most of the time.

Their guides slowed to match their pace, but were clearly riding the brake the entire way to a large chamber that had a squashed spherical design with multiple protrusions that doubled as ‘chairs’ in that there were Elarioni latched onto them operating various control consoles, though in truth they were merely floating in place, tail down for the most part.

Both of them were led over to a pair of spindly tentacle-like arms coming up from the floor that put them nearly in the center of the room with something to hold onto, after which a blue-haired Elarioni swam down to them, her skin darker than her hair save for the patches that glowed with bioluminescence.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, translated through the programming in the Archons’ breath masks, which likewise transferred their words into the Elarioni language…with a bit of imperfection, but reliable enough for most conversations.

“If we’re going to make this happen I need information,” Paul said without preamble. “How many of you are there, where is the fighting currently taking place, how many enemy ships, etc.”

“We will tell you what you require. At present there are 800 billion Elarioni spread across 8 worlds. We believe that all will be under assault in the near future, which was why we have come now to ask for assistance.”

“How many can you transport on your own ships?”

“Only a small fraction, I’m afraid. We have lived in seclusion for so long we do not have many starships, but we do have warships and we will fight both the Nestafar and Skarrons in order to get free. We simply do not have the numbers or transports to do this alone, and we will not leave people behind to die. We ask that you help us evacuate everyone, and in exchange we will use our abilities, knowledge, and strength to become part of your Alliance and fight both the Cajdital and the Skarrons. We had hoped the latter would be honorable, but their conduct thus far has shown otherwise.”

“How did you get this ship out through their fleets?”

“It wasn’t difficult. Their technology is vastly inferior to ours and as you well know orbit isn’t something that can be locked down easily. We ran through their lines and jumped away from our world without major inconvenience, but they also didn’t know we were coming. An evacuation is quite another matter.”

“As I well know?”

“We are well aware of who you are, Paul-024, even before you agreed to this meeting.”

Looks like your famous, Riona commented telepathically.

“And who am I?”

“A skilled naval tactician and a bold and powerful fighter. We have seen the recordings of many of your battles, including the raid you made against the Scionate den.”

Guess I am famous, Paul answered her. “Then you know what I’m capable of, including sizing up our opposition. Getting your people out will be very difficult, but there is a plan in the works. Before that can begin to take place we need data…and an understanding. Have you reviewed the message?”

“Yes. Our sister has described the world in question and we are willing to take her at her word. We also thank you for rescuing her. I would ask, on a personal note, how have you preserved her so long? She is more than twice the age of the oldest known Elarioni.”

“A little thing called self-sufficiency.”

“A drug?”

“No, it’s a state of maintaining a positive healing to attrition ratio, accomplished primarily through training. She learned to do it and as a result doesn’t physically age, though she does grow wiser with time and experience.”

“We have no knowledge of such things.”

“We can teach you, or she can.”

“And there is much we can teach you, in exchange for your assistance.”

Paul smiled, tapping into her mind for a bit of a read. “You’re not sure she’s telling the truth.”

“We have no reason to doubt the word of our sister.”

“You doubt whether she is real or a fabrication we have concocted. You don’t think it’s actually possible to live that long.”

The Elarioni was silent for a moment. “I do wonder why you did not bring her with you.”

“Time,” Paul stated simply. “If we’re going to evacuate your people the longer we wait the more the war between the Nestafar and Skarrons will escalate, which will make a difficult extraction even more so. At present Ariel is in transit. She will not be coming outside the ADZ, but I’ve arranged a meeting on a world near the border.”

“What do you require of us, in addition to information?”

“If we are going to go to the effort necessary to pull your people out, it’s not going to be so you can sit in the ADZ and watch the rest of us fight. You will have to become invested in the defense as well…and not just in an advisory role.”

“Agreed.”

“What are your combat capabilities?”

“Nothing that would be of use to you on land, but our ships are superior to yours. Given time to build more we will be able to defend any world you give us.”

“We’re not giving you a world, we’re offering to share one.”

“I misspoke. I apologize. I only mean to say that we will not be a burden in the long term. What aid you give us now we will repay down the road once we are free to build and grow.”

“By that do you mean other worlds?”

“Possibly, but I meant being free to build without having an enemy sharing the same worlds. The Nestafar have restricted our growth, though they also helped to hide our existence. We do not wish to make a visible impact on galactic events, for it could draw our pursuers to us, but at the moment we face a more imminent concern. We must step into the light whether we wish to do so or not. I must ask, for Ariel mentioned it, that you too are hunted by the V’kit’no’sat?”

“They do not know we exist, but if they did they would hunt us to extinction. Of that I have no doubts.”

“Yet you operate freely and obviously. Is that not welcoming your enemy to you?”

“I hope not,” Paul said honestly. “But if we’re going to have any chance of standing up to them in the long run we have to build and grow now. It’s a bad situation all the way around, but if we’re going to die we’d rather die trying than waiting and hiding.”

“Waiting and hiding have served the Elarioni well. We are uncomfortable with what we must do, but we have no choice. I would ask that our contributions to the Alliance be allowed to occur in less obvious pursuits.”

“So long as that doesn’t mean you’ll shy away from a fight, I think something can be worked out. In fact, I already have something in mind.”

“And that is?”

Paul smiled beneath his breath mask, but the Elarioni couldn’t see the gesture. “What is most obvious to outsiders is your technology. They recognize ship hulls first off, so the answer is simple…don’t use your own. Use ours instead.”

“Yours are inferior.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “I’m not so sure about that. But even if I grant you your point, keep your current technology for defense of your new home, but use ours when battling elsewhere in and around the ADZ.”

“I hardly think you have ships to give away so freely…or do you mean to teach us how to make yours?”

“Actually, I was thinking of a third option…some of your people joining Star Force.”

6

May 27, 2537

Solar System

Inner Zone (Warship Adamant)

Paul threw a handful of tiny thuds at Riona, telekinetically guiding them into hovering orbits around her in an erratic pattern before launching one in at her leg. It hit just above her skin and bounced off, with him catching it and returning it to the halo. He repeated the process with one coming down at her head from above, but the Archon blocked it high with a projected shield rather than a ‘skin’ one. Next came a simultaneous pair, one coming at her gut and the other at her back with her deflecting the one in front but missing the other and getting a little tap on her spine.

Paul shook his head. “Pay attention to your surroundings, youngling.”

Riona rolled her eyes. “I suppose I deserve that,” she said, resetting her mental composure.

“Yes you do, “ Paul said, sending in another towards her face that she reached up and swatted out of the way with a shield-covered palm.

“Better…” he added, sending in two again, this time from left and right.

Riona closed her eyes as she manifested dual shields both a few inches away from her body and only a hand’s length wide. Both circular barriers went up in time to block the hits, but the left one was weaker than it should have been and crumpled on contact, letting the thud drop motionless to the floor while the other bounced off as it should have.

“Tolerable,” Paul noted. “You need to think of both shields as two parts of the same projection. You’re favoring one over the other and that’s a bad habit to get into.”

“I know. Hit me again.”

Paul did as asked, working with her for another 15 minutes with little progress, but each failure and mistake she made was something Riona could use to calibrate, thus the experience, while disheartening, was for a purpose and she understood that. She also knew that Paul knew, meaning there was no ego involved. He was pressing her to force her into a situation where she could learn from mistakes and kept the pressure on so that she would keep making mistakes and challenging her current limits.

That was the sort of thing a friendly Archon did, but if you didn’t have the right understanding in place beforehand it could be misconstrued as hazing, for Paul sought out any and all opportunities to exploit her weaknesses and really grind in the failure. Fortunately the two had gotten used to each other quite fast, helped in no small part by the battlemeld sessions, though for this workout that would have been counterproductive.

When he’d finished pummeling her they switched up, with her pelting him and watching how he responded. Riona didn’t hold back either, throwing three and four at him at a time and Paul having to block them with small shield projections only…no all-encompassing shield that she knew he was capable of summoning up. Still, she couldn’t get any through until she added a Fornax blast and caught him off guard, bouncing two off his taught chest.

He looked over at her with a wry smile. “Cheater.”

She was about to say something when the intercom activated with a repetitive tone. Both Archons glanced at each other as Paul walked over to the side and hit the comm. “Yes?”

“They’re here,” the Admiral said pithily.

“On my way,” Paul said, turning the comm off and walking out of the training room and eventually the sanctum onboard the warship with Riona at his side. The two eventually made their way up to the bridge as the main holo was depicting the arrival of several dozen massive ships, each far larger than the Adamant and bullet shaped, much like the old school Star Force jumpships had been, save these were shiny chrome in color and looked not to have a single protrusion, bump, or dent on their hulls.

“How are we set?” Paul asked.

“All fleets are on standby.”

“Have they made contact yet?”

“No.”

“Do so, and route it to the nexus,” Paul said, heading over that way. Riona followed him and stood a respectful two meters back to stay out of the holocomm when it activated, showing a small version of a Voku with its pointy head and thick, muscular arms. Its skin was pitch black and it had but one eye, that one a deep green and wide set like a visor, for it appeared to be made of crystal rather than flesh. Riona didn’t know if that was a natural growth or a mechanical implant, but regardless it made the Voku look intimidating…despite the fact that they were the size of Knights and larger.

“Greetings, Warlord Paul.”

“Morning, Cal-com. Glad to see you could make it.”

“I have no greater mission of importance at the time.”

“Which group are you personally traveling with?”

“That which proves the greatest challenge.”

Paul smiled. “Same here. Our ships are a bit slower than yours, especially some of the transports we’ve had to scrounge up. Do you wish to jump with us or ahead of us?”

“We will not attack until you are there, so there is no need to travel separately. We will escort you to the divergence point.”

“How soon before your full fleet arrives?”

“Only moments more.”

“Our two largest ships will bracket the convoy. The Ultrix will lead, I will bring up the rear in the Adamant. Work your ships into the formation wherever you like.”

The Voku bowed his head slightly. “As you wish. Jump when you like, we will follow your lead without further communications being necessary.”

“What is your full ship count?”

“There will be 37 conglomerates arriving. We will not reform prior to the last segment of our journey.”

“Very well,” Paul said, seeing that 32 Voku ‘ships’ had arrived. “I’ll signal the fleet to get underway.”

“May fortune favor us on this endeavor,” Cal-com said before cutting the transmission, with his holo being replaced by the sensor feeds as they came back from their miniaturized form on the left.

“Friendly,” Riona commented.

“I’ve met him before and we have an understanding. They don’t talk much, so don’t take that as a negative.”

“Big ass ships though.”

“Their version of a jumpship…except that there is no jumpship.”

“I’m interested in seeing that.”

“Apparently you’ll have to wait a couple months.”

“Bugger.”

“Yeah, it is pretty impressive.”

Riona raised an eyebrow as Paul handed out mental orders to the fleet through the nexus. “You’ve seen them transform?”

“Nothing that large, but yeah, when we had our meet and greet they showed off a bit.”

“And?”

“Worth waiting for…and stealing, if I can work out a way to do it.”

“What’s the holdup?”

“Their combat philosophy doesn’t match ours exactly, and they’ve tailored their tech to match it. Still, the adjustable nature of the transformations is immensely useful. I just have to find a way to do it without sacrificing the advantages we already have.”

“Lesser applications?”

“Probably. It’s a back burner project I dabble with from time to time. Don’t expect Optimus Prime to show up anytime soon.”

“You mean for a mech?”

Paul’s head came up slightly and he turned back to look at Riona. “Damn girl, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“I see that spark in your eye and I like it. I’m calling dibs on naming privileges for whatever you come up with.”

“Deal,” Paul said with a smile as he turned back to look at the holos…which was unnecessary since he was already mentally linked in, but he did so just in time to see the Ultrix begin repositioning around the star to get to their outgoing jumpline with a handful of warships and a host of cargo ships following.

It took a long time to get all of them into position, with the Voku ships slipping into the gaps as groups would make jumps out together, spaced with at least 1 or 2 seconds between each ship so they didn’t ram each other on exit or entry to the next system on the decel end of the jump. Larger gaps of 30 seconds or so existed between groups, allowing for the spacelanes to clear out on arrival and each progressive group tagged with emerging from the jump in progressively higher orbits, laying out the fleet in a long carpet each time it hit a new system.

Then they’d all have to reposition to the new jumpline again, stagger up and make similar jumps. That was the nature of interstellar convoy travel, and over the next pair of months they continued to do exactly that, leaving the Core Region, then the ADZ altogether and passing through what had once been Calavari territory and was now partially Nestafar and partially unclaimed wasteland.

When they got to a predetermined system within Nestafar space but uninhabited by them, the Star Force/Voku armada split up into 8 attack groups, each traveling to a system with Elarioni in it with the intent on hitting them simultaneously so both their enemies wouldn’t have any forewarning that they were coming. Paul, Riona, and the Adamant headed towards the most populous Nestafar world and the one that should prove to be the hardest to get the evacuees out of. It was called Vionsed and was part of a three planet Nestafar civilization, meaning they would have to contend with the system defense fleet in addition to whatever surprises they had in store around that particular world.

They weren’t going in completely blind though, given the information the Elarioni had provided. What they didn’t know was that the Skarrons had already invaded Vionsed. One other world in the system had already been battling the Skarrons on the ground, but when the Adamant arrived a few minutes behind the leading warships Paul saw their sensor data on the battlemap and the Skarron units already in play on the ground.

Not to mention a huge Nestafar fleet in orbit, with Skarron ships elsewhere in the system, though primarily holding onto turf around the other world that now seemed to be mostly under their control based on orbit and surface readings being fed to them by Star Force scout ships deployed there to assess ship numbers.

“Alright, time to get to work,” Paul said, mentally triggering the TF to being the dislodgement procedure from the Adamant, which Riona was on. As he did so the warships alongside began disgorging their drones and deploying them into screens as the Nestafar fleet started to come their way…but like clockwork the first of the Voku ships entered a slightly higher orbit and kept some of its forward momentum, blowing by the Star Force ships as the huge chrome bullet began to disintegrate, with smaller pieces falling off it looking like sand prior to large chunks breaking off, all of which gave the appearance that it was dying a quick death at the hands of some invisible Nestafar weapon.

But each of those chunks didn’t stay rugged. They morphed into smaller chrome ships of various designs, all with smooth lines and perfect hulls that shot off deeper towards the planet and engaged the Nestafar head on, despite their superior numbers.

They were buying time for the Adamant to drop its invasion troops to a landmass on the edge of the ocean where the transports would start setting down. They had to secure the area then hold it for the duration of the evacuation, but to do that they first had to get down there and there was no time to waste. Give the Skarron ground forces time to redeploy and you’d be in a world of hurt…something that Kip had impressed upon Paul prior to their breaking up and heading to different target worlds.

Sending a signal to the Admiral and his bridge staff, Paul ordered the Adamant lower into the atmosphere and directly into the Nestafar fleet once the TF fully separated. While the Voku made up the bulk of the firepower in this operation he wasn’t going to sit back and let them take all the damage, especially considering that their ships were all manned, tough as they were. To that end the giant donut-shaped warship slid down into the Nestafar swarm and began racking up ship kills as another Voku ship entered orbit and began disintegrating into warship pieces that fell down into the growing melee.

By the time the 3rd arrived the Nestafar saw that they were in a world of hurt and pulled back before their numbers could drop below the 50% mark, for the Voku were tearing them to bits.

They began fleeing on separate vectors, clearing the path that Star Force was hacking out down to the surface and moving off to other orbits and seeing what their new enemy would do. Paul’s ships held position, as did about two thirds of the Voku, but the rest of them pursued the Nestafar who regrouped at various locations and continued the fight with better odds.

Paul let them go, knowing that he couldn’t take the Adamant after them if they chose to dance around orbit. Besides, killing the Nestafar wasn’t the point of this mission…that was just a bonus. Getting the Elarioni out was the reason why they were here and to do that he had to hang on to orbit and protect the transports which would start jumping in from the star as soon as he signaled it was fairly safe. Right now the Voku were guarding them there, and as much as Paul wanted to head down to the surface and join in the fighting that was sure to come he knew he had to stay right where he was and oversee the naval situation for the duration of this operation.

Sometimes being the ‘Admiral’ was fun, other times it just plain sucked.

Riona didn’t wait for the TF to land, instead launching from one of the bays during the decent. Her skeet got bounced around a lot by the turbulence but eventually she got it righted and pointed down, lining up the streamlined hull with the oncoming air and pulling out away from the huge distortion ripples coming off the 2 mile wide ship with more fighters following her out. They immediately had their hands full as Skarron fighters moved to intercept the TF and met them literally half a minute after exit.

Riona ducked her skeet down through a long, hard braking loop to level off and begin chasing them through the dogfight that was forming as they tried to throw plasma into the side of the TF. At first the atmospheric turbulence shielded it for the most part, but when the tiny white plasma orbs began hitting the shields the anti-air fire started coming back too, with the enemy fighters quickly learning that this wasn’t an undefended target.

That left them to contend with the Star Force skeets that were easily outnumbered. Riona and the others kept it together though and started racking up kills while going evasive far more than they liked until the Voku fighters came down from orbit, dropping like rocks that then split up into fragments that began chasing after the Skarron fighters. The smallest of the Voku ‘pieces’ was more than twice the size of a skeet and outmassed it by a factor of 6. That said, the craft were still nimble, nearly the match of the skeets in agility alone, and armed with directed energy orbs.

They weren’t plasma, but a form of energy that Star Force hadn’t gotten around to creating yet, even in engineer play, which saw the Star Force techs building all manner of things from the database that would never be put into practical use, just so they could say they did and learn from the experience. These weapons were known as Dwio, and had an active guiding mechanism in the fighters to steer them into targets like a guided missile.

Riona could see multiple colors that she didn’t understand the significance of, but she did see that their shots rarely missed. Even when the Skarrons evaded a lined up shot, the orbs steered themselves into a correction…and passed right through the enemy shields.

The Skarron fighters had the same armor on them that their walkers did, though in significantly lesser amounts, allowing themselves a bit of longevity against the Voku orbs but it wasn’t nearly enough, with two or three shots bringing one down and there being plenty of Voku fighters to get the job done, in addition to the skeets were which holding their own.

Riona was glad for the help and by the time the TF finally set down and began unloading mechs and other ground vehicles they had the immediate airspace secured and were working on pushing the perimeter out and hitting the few surface targets that were of note, some Skarron and a lot Nestafar. Nothing civilian, but a few weapons emplacements that were throwing up anti-air and larger plasma weaponsfire at the fighters, though some tried to play dead and hide, but eventually Riona and the others cleaned out the surrounding area in preparation for the battles yet to come.

And they were coming alright. Skarron walkers were redeploying on the south and west while Nestafar ground troops were massing on the north, with the ocean and the Elarioni to the east. Within a few hours, maybe a day tops, there was going to be a showdown, with both sides looking like they weren’t going to tolerate anyone on their turf, making Riona wonder who would be shooting who if the Nestafar and Skarrons got to each other. Three way battles were extremely rare, but this looked like it might just be one in the making.

7

Ker-shat stood shoulder to shoulder with the other Voku troops inside the transport as it traveled down to the surface of the planet under assault, waiting patiently until the doors underneath his feet eventually opened, leaving him and the others standing on small squares with nothing but an energy shield separating them from the quickly moving ground beneath. As the transport slowed those behind him were released, with him waiting a few moments longer before his shield disappeared and he dropped through the square and into freefall.

The 8 foot tall Voku cushioned the drop using his flight harness, coming down onto the dirt and rock-strewn ground in a crouch as two others fell beside him. One was a skirmisher like himself, while the other was wearing the exoskeletal heavy weapons they were meant to escort to the target…which in this case was an enemy walker with infantry support that was pushing towards one of the Human positions where their infantry was guarding the coastline.

The Star Force mechs were elsewhere, dealing with larger threats and the Nestafar were trying to slip one of their own through a weak spot in the perimeter, yet it was far enough away from their massive dropship to be out of its weapon range. Those closer positions were reserved for the dozens of transports coming down and parking near the water’s edge and extending pylons out into the depths to facilitate the transfer of evacuees…and this walker was heading for the nearest of them.

The Voku transport had put them down behind the enemy grouping, with the leading elements already engaging the Humans and the four-legged machine blanketing the area ahead with plasma that the Humans were having to evade while effectively chewing up the enemy infantry. As soon as Ker-shat  got to his feet he and the other two Voku began to run, then they leapt forward and flew some 80 meters before landing again and running some more. They repeated this process three times before coming up on the rearmost infantry, with the Voku leaping up again and grabbing one of the flying Nestafar by the neck from behind.

He dragged it to the ground with him, placing a killing shot to the back of its neck from the blaster gauntlet that he wore attached to his forearm then discarding the body as he landed and ran forward. Meanwhile his double did likewise, rising up as he fell as both of the skirmishers paved the way for the slightly slower moving teammate coming up from behind as he refrained from firing so as to give the skirmishers more of a surprise factor…though his sights were set dead center on the walker ahead.

Ker-shat was wearing very little, as was Voku custom. His black body was covered by an equally black and flexible skin-tight sheath that provided a bit of armor value against abrasions and weaponsfire, but in order to preserve his agility the bulk of his defense came in the form of a pair of shield generators housed in solid strips along the outside of each hip. One was an energy shield, in that it repelled all energy while making an exclusion for his own weapons. It operated like a bubble surrounding him and anyone he kept close, with him able to adjust the size with a simple touch to the control interface he was wearing.

The second shield was the more complex, for it was anti-ballistic and also encompassed him in a sphere of protection. The delicate nature of the construction only blocked fast moving objects, allowing Ker-shat to interact with his environment as if the shield was not even there…but it was, with a matrix structured in a way not to oppose normal movements. Or rather, technically it opposed everything, just at such a low level that it wasn’t detectable. When sufficient momentum hit the shield matrix it caught and caused a chain reaction that intensified the resistance, much like trying to walk through water.

Move slowly and you have little trouble, try and go fast and you essentially run into a brick wall. It was a crude metaphor but essentially correct, though the seamless integration with Ker-shat’s combat made it appear almost magical. The only other things he wore were the gauntlets on his forearms, both weapons and comm gear integrated into a single unit. Other than that it was just his muscle and skill guiding him into combat with a fluid grace.

His flight harness was part of the shield struts attached to his legs and allowed him brief moments of ability, while needing to recharge in between. The anti-grav tech gave the Voku incredible speed across ground in addition to their own running speed, essentially able to jump ahead and close with enemies incredibly fast, as well as to augment jumping.

That was how Ker-shat approached his second target, running a few steps then dashing ahead, almost dragging his feet on the ground as he shot across 30 meters and punched a Nestafar in the head while kicking another two nearby before delivering the killing energy blasts. The rainbow glob of light seemed to defy description or shape, passing as a blur between his forearm and the targets as the rest of the nearby Nestafar began to realize they were being attacked from the rear.

That was when the heavy weapons ‘hammer’ opened fire. He wore the same equipment as the skirmishers plus an exoskeleton that contained a number of extra weapons, the most prominent of which was a tiny Dwio. He didn’t use it at first, intent on clearing out some of the infantry nearby as he closed distance with the walker, sizing up its weak spot. He knew he had to get within one jump from it first, and to do that they had to get through the infantry that was beginning to make hits on the trio’s shields with their red plasma pistols and rifles.

It was an inferior weapon, but damaging enough in large numbers. Ker-shat knew they could take a great many hits before they were in jeopardy, but not from the walker which stopped in its tracks and began to turn around, bringing its primary weapon to bear on them.

Both skirmishers went wide right, hoping to draw its attention and simultaneously diving into a thicker infantry cloud that saw about 2/3rds of the enemy shooting at them from the air rather than from the ground. Keeping on the move they avoided one large plasma blast that actually hit and killed a pair of Nestafar, with the gunner seeming not to care as it continued tracking the two as they got a bit closer to the machine.

Meanwhile the hammer was slowly approaching from the flank, fighting his way through the infantry without carrying much how many of them he got. They were for the skirmishers, his task was the walker and he cagily began to circle around behind it, eyeing the distance he needed and not wanting to dart ahead too quickly and draw attention.

Ker-shat dashed to the right, catching a small bit of the plasma orb as it hit the ground beside him and seeing his shield strength diminish considerably. He still had plenty to fight with, but too many near misses and he’d become exposed. Prompting himself to be more evasive than hunter, he took out three more enemy infantry and kept away from the plasma blasts until he saw the hammer shoot through a nearly horizontal jump and up onto the walker’s back, coming down behind the neck and firing his Dwio directly into the topside armor, vaporizing the defense turret there as it came around to shoot him off.

Ker-shat figured he had it dead to rights, but as long as it was still operational the main cannon at the top of the long neck was still a threat so he kept dancing around and killing infantry where he could until the hammer finally dropped the big machine, with it crumpling to the ground as its legs bent up to form a shallow cage around the Voku as the infantry swarmed toward him and tried to shoot him off…but it was too late.

Now no longer having to be excessively evasive, the two skirmishers went aggressive and started leaping towards whatever enemies were nearby as the distant plasma fire ahead continued without interference as the forward end of the Nestafar advance was still fighting it out with Star Force, apparently unaware that their walker was now down. It wasn’t long until a couple of silver armored Humans jumped out from behind their barricades and rushed the Nestafar while their support snipers continued laying down fire.

The Nestafar instinctively pulled back and up into the air, their natural defensive move, Ker-shat was discovering, with the Voku now making use of it and taking out two or three per leap as the Nestafar were clustering together into firing groups to try and get through the Humans’ thick armor. There were so many that the three Voku had their fill of targets, slowly wearing down their numbers with the Humans making the most kills by far, but eventually the Nestafar figured they’d lost and all of them took flight, pulling back across the dead walker and retreating towards the distant LZ that they’d come from.

Ker-shat and other Voku went after them, leaving the Humans behind and leaping forward to catch the fleeing flyers who were decently fast through the air once they got up to speed. He killed six more before an enemy fighter swooped in and landed a hit on his shield that blew away nearly a quarter of the defensive barrier’s strength. When it came around for a second pass he held up, staring it down and ready to make a defensive dash in whatever direction needed as the hammer landed a Dwio on the craft, damaging it.

The fighter pulled off and fled, with the Nestafar infantry now too far ahead to pursue.

Ker-shat activated his comm and reported their success, then waited with the others for pickup, with a troop transport flying in overhead within a few minutes. The trio jumped up to the underside and grabbed hold of the square rims, pulling themselves inside so they could be moved to another combat zone…and would continue doing so until all threats were eliminated.

Kali-1388 fired off a salvo of missiles from her madcat, with the tiny little guided projectiles swarming towards a Skarron Type-5 walker as it was escorting a Type-4 that was engaging a trio of Nestafar spider walkers and getting the armor chewed off it. Infantry from both sides were around, but otherwise staying out of the way of the big machines as there were groups of combatants everywhere.

Kali damaged the Skarron walker further with some lachar blasts but was still outside mauler range. Gauging the damage to both sides, she twisted her mech’s torso around and leveled the right arm at one of the spiders in the distance, then fired a railgun slug at it. The metallic round shot across the distance and clipped off one of the legs with the impact, missing the central hull but none the less twisting it around on collision.

As she walked her mech forward she continued to dish out damage to both sides, not in a hurry to get in close, though that’s where her mauler would come into play. Just before she reached the enemy’s plasma range she got a waypoint ping on her battlemap and quickly turned her madcat to the left, accelerating up to full speed and sprinting the machine across the rocky ground, hoping the computer wouldn’t get overwhelmed by all the small bumps and trip on the rocks.

In the distance she could see a pair of voltrons and a slew of escort mechs tangling with a Type-2 and a pair of super dragons…which at the moment were both attacking the Star Force mechs. Ignoring the craziness of it all she targeted the damaged super dragon and launched all her remaining missiles, knowing she needed to do the most damage as she could, otherwise the weapons on the enemy walkers would do a lot more in return.

It took some 18 seconds for her two missile boxes riding above the ‘shoulders’ on her mech to fully unload, with a long plume of exhaust marking their path towards the walker as she continued to run forward…with other Star Force mechs nearby turning to coalesce around the battlemap beacon. When dealing with super-heavy opponents you had to gank them quickly or they’d wear down your side so much that they could turn the tide in any battle…which is probably what the enemies were thinking about the voltrons, prompting them to shoot at the big mechs rather than each other at the moment.

Knowing better than to try and fire the railgun while running, she held off and tried to do some extra damage with her lachars…then readjusted her aim to a giraffe with a hole blown in its side that was still firing off plasma blasts at her team and pretty much being ignored in favor of larger targets. Taking manual control she lined up the shot then peppered the walker with lachar blasts rather than the continuous version she also had the opportunity to use. This way she could keep firing in a chain gun-like manner continuously rather than having to take a recharge break.

A lot of her shots missed, but she kept it up from range and even though her aim running was shaky she delivered enough hits to the damaged section to see the walker collapse on its own legs and power down, no longer throwing plasma at her friends.

Just then a huge explosion ripped apart the Type-1, with Kali not knowing where it came from. She hadn’t seen anything hit it, then as it twisted and fell over she saw a big chrome suit of armor riding it down…no, not one, but three of the things larger than her madcat with their arms dug into the side as it crashed.

But with all Type-1s that wasn’t the end of it, for it simply jettisoned the damaged segment and kept on fighting, with the three Voku mech/suits running away quickly as they got pummeled with plasma. Two of them made it, but the third went down hard, its shields no longer protecting it and the Skarrons exacting their revenge for the lost segment until a giant physical shield dropped over top and blocked the incoming fire as one of the voltrons moved forward to cover it.

The other two kept running backwards until they were out of the main firing lines, then Kali did a double take as the two came together in what looked like a giant robot hug and melted into one another, forming a stationary stature that the Archon couldn’t look at any longer as she was now within mauler range of a group of spiders and giraffes that were just now beginning to target her.

She slowed to a walk and opened up with her mauler and railgun, taking a spider out within 20 seconds before turning slightly right to attack another, with all those involved constantly on the move and repositioning, though her mech was by far the most agile…up until a pair of starscreams flew in and landed nearby, transforming into mech mode and giving her some backup with their own smaller mauler cannons.

A proximity alarm alerted her to a contact coming up behind her, and she looked just in time to see another of the Voku mech/suits run past and dive head first into three spiders. It landed on one, grabbing it and rolling through a somersault with it locked in a death grip, then flipping it through the air coming out of the roll before jutting to the side and kicking another to the ground.

Kali landed a mauler blast on that one before the Voku reached its arms forward and pummeled the walker with energy blasts while ignoring the plasma raining down on its back from the third spider and others further away. She adjusted her aim to the other spider, then held up as the starscreams crossed her firing line. With a moment to glance at what else was happening she saw the melting ‘statue’ finally take shape and walk off, now half again as tall as it had been with a similar biped form.

It ran up alongside the second voltron, now almost as tall as it, and the pair ran forward together, with the second voltron joining them in a shield wedge, with the Voku in the center and mostly protected from the white plasma storm coming down on them, though the giant physical shields were starting to show a few holes.

That was all Kali could see, for she had to turn her attention to the second super dragon as it adjusted its sights away from the voltrons and towards her little section of battle. She was still outside of mauler range, barely, so she ran forward and began firing it and her railgun off as quickly as she could, with the metallic bullets not needing to be well aimed to hit the giant machine.

It fired off one large plasma stream, hitting another madcat and melting/exploding the missile boxes off it. The mech fell, apparently already having its shields down, and buried its nose into the ground, then suddenly all the anti-air weapons on the Skarron Type-1 lit up as a mass dropped out of the air and impacted the ground with a large boom that rocked Kali’s mech slightly. Before the dust cleared a giant Voku mech/suit stood up and walked towards the super dragon and punched it down into the ground with a massive fist.

Then, prompting a laugh of joy from Kali, it picked the entire super dragon up and spun it around its body, building momentum before releasing it sideways…and throwing it into the side of its twin, sending both crashing in a tumble.

“Yes!” she yelled in a satisfactory manner as she looked for another target of her own, finding plenty and settling on a spider that was now targeting the Voku. “Kick their ass bro. I’ve got your back.”

8

August 29, 2537

Hachtat System

Eliossa

One of the Elarioni, whose name was impossible for Humans to pronounce, swam along with her sisters in a long, river-like flow of bodies through the ocean towards the shore, escorted by their aquatics warships to make sure that neither the Nestafar nor Skarrons interfered with the evacuation process and attacked the defenseless civilians. Shri, which is what she would eventually be called once they arrived in the ADZ, could sense her sisters all around her, but not just in the line she was traveling with. There were others nearby, all converging on the same area where the Human transports were waiting on shore.

The Elarioni had a limited telepathic ability, not enough to speak to one another or read minds, but they could feel each other out and read basic emotions, such as when one of them was in danger the others would know or when they were excited or happy. Right now Shri was swimming in a sea of anxiety, kicking her tail rhythmically to maintain a decent pace and having her hair swaying in the chop from the others ahead of her. She carried only a small satchel with her, having been told all other supplies would be provided on the transports and that space was at a premium.

They were going to have to endure some very close living quarters in order to get everyone offworld, but that was a small price to pay for their freedom. Already the Skarrons had attacked two underwater settlements…futilely, but their intentions were clear. Not only were they going to rid the planet of Nestafar, but they were not going to tolerate any other presence here. Their aquatic weaponry was limited to infantry troops with spike guns, but she and the others knew/suspected that the Skarrons hadn’t come here equipped for aquatic warfare, for they didn’t discover the Elarioni civilization until after they’d arrived…meaning that if they were willing to start engaging them with what little they had available, then that probably meant their true aquatic forces were on the way.

That was a fight they were willing to make in the water, but they’d never be able to remove them from the surface. And if the Alliance’s reports were accurate, the Skarrons would keep sending more and more troops from their massive empire until they eventually succeeded. Shri and the others had to flee before they could be enveloped in a no-win scenario that would gradually grind down their population and resources until they were wiped out of existence.

The fact that there was fighting going on now up above was cause enough for anxiety, but Shri and the others weren’t very keen on the idea of traveling on an alien ship…especially considering those aliens were air breathers. That said, it was a way off the planet and they were going to take it, trusting their leadership’s guidance despite their misgivings and abandoning their homes for the evacuation lines, some of which stretched thousands of miles.

Those long lines were being facilitated by aquatic ships carrying and offloading evacuees to nearby locations, then allowing them to swim the remainder of the journey on their own. Already it had been 13 days of constant evacuations, with Star Force transports landing by the dozens, loading, then taking off for the ADZ while others came down to replace them. Shri hadn’t seen any of the ships in person, only on recordings, but they were massive vessels that she had a hard time understanding how they could even land on a planet.

Most of the Elarioni ships were small and agile, with massive hulks being the way of other races…yet one more reason for their apprehension, though in theory a big ship would carry greater defenses, yet Elarioni combat philosophy held that speed and agility was more important than armor and shields.

At least that’s the way it worked underwater. In the air or space was another matter entirely, which was also why they felt so out of place there. The Alliance was much better suited to such combat arenas, and hopefully the two could learn and supplement each other…at least that was the stated purpose of this merger with the Alliance. They rescue the Elarioni and in turn Shri’s people would help strengthen their aquatics fronts, few as they were.

The pace Shri and the others were maintaining wasn’t overly hard, but they’d been swimming for the past 14 hours and all were getting tired. None the less they persisted, understanding the importance and danger of the situation, and swam on with the seafloor gradually rising up beneath them until they were in the coastal shallows…with that environment eliciting even more anxiety, for the closer to land they were the more danger they were in. Elarioni preferred deep water above all else, with the shallows making them feel claustrophobic.

Shri had expected a large group to have gathered around the loading areas, but to her surprise there was none at all. The line she was traveling in merged with four others at various points in the shallows, with the now super-thick line ending at the opening of a massive tube with several Star Force armored suits floating nearby with flanking Elarioni escorts, for crowd control she imagined. She was less than 100 meters away from them when the line suddenly stopped and she got her first rest…though she found that floating in place waiting was more disturbing, for she felt like the enemy could drop down on her head at any moment.

Those in the tube swam on, disappearing around the upward bend and into the ship beyond. Shri and the others couldn’t see more than a giant shadow ahead of them through the water, for they were staying low beneath the surface to avoid drawing attention from enemy fighters that might be circling around overhead. A few minutes later that shadow rose up and disappeared, letting the sunlight through that created a mild haze from the dust in the water from the combat that had been occurring nearby.

Shri waited and waited, nervously flexing her three fingers in and out while giving her tail and torso muscles a much needed rest. There was little talking, for all were tired, but the guards at the entrance of the tube told them that another transport was incoming and they spread the word back down the line as the group at the end swelled up into a large crowd.

Eventually another shadow lowered over them and set down on shore, connecting to the tube and sending a pair of red-armored Humans down it and into view…whereupon the line started moving again, with them leading the Elarioni up it with the guards at the entrance setting up the spacing to keep the flow moving but not overcrowded.

Shri was held for a moment by the outstretched arm of one of her sisters, then released without so much as a casual glance at her. These guards must have processed thousands if not millions of Elarioni by now, so the lack of personality was understandable. Shri swam into the 50m wide tube along with the others and curved up, rising above the level of the ocean and onto land, she guessed, for the tube walls were opaque with nothing visible outside them…hopefully because they were covered in heavy armor.

When she got to the end of the not so short tube the line was divided up, with her being shuffled into the leftmost segment and into a much smaller tube with three others beside her. That little group swam through the curvy course, with a feeling of claustrophobia choking her mind, both from her own fear and that of the others washing over her but there was nothing they could do but keep moving so they bravely swam on, not knowing what they would encounter ahead.

About a minute later her group of four exited the tube into a large chamber, with the transition being a physical relief on all the Elarioni, but above and beyond that was the curious joy at seeing their own technology inside. The room was alien, but small stations were constructed in Elarioni fashion and even had their own language prompts and keyboards, with a repetitive audial instruction to log in at an available terminal.

Shri swam over to an open one and followed the written instructions. It was little more than a check-in station where she input her personal identification information, then a small armband was produced in a cupola beside it. She took the Elarioni designed bracelet and slid it over her wrist and halfway up to her elbow, then swam forward two meters and used it to access another tube, this one with a waterlock. She swam inside the Elarioni designed structure, knowing how to access it and closing the doorway behind her.

With the armband she touched a sensitive panel and heard machinery moving for a few seconds before the other side of the waterlock opened into a very narrow tunnel which she swam down following a guide light on the wall. She kept pace with it easily enough, for it was moving slowly, but its presence felt reassuring because Elarioni used such things in their own cities to guide children and newcomers around. Eventually the tunnel split into four branches, with her following the light into the upper right and down another length before she passed through four more splits.

The last section of tunnel finally opened up into a curious habitat area, reminiscent of Elarioni design but much more compact. She saw a few others swinging around the choked passageways that were little more than cracks between floating cubes in an otherwise huge water-filled environment.

Shri politely made her way through the crowds even as a prompt was repeating itself, indicating that all should stay ‘indoors’ during the loading procedure. Some of the others were traveling as she was, while others were moving about out of curiosity and making traffic impediments of themselves.

Following the information on her armband Shri made her way through the tight habitat to her section…a large cube suspended by beams connecting it to others and the distant walls. She entered one of the 24 entrances and swam inside searching for her compartment. After several twists and turns she came to number 73 and opened the small round door and pulled herself inside, seeing little more than an elevator-sized chamber.

Immediately she worried about claustrophobia, but the entire design was Elarioni despite the difference in materials, and she settled into a resting float in the center as she logged into the computer with her new id and accessed the newsfeeds and other apps, one of which allowed her an external view of the ship.

She unconsciously released a bubble from her nose when she saw what was happening. The Human ships were truly massive and parked all along the coast, each with multiple tubes connecting them to the water. She could see fighters streaking by overhead in patrols while walking machines did the same nearby. One of the giant transports pulled up, showing its true bulk, only to be replaced by another coming down mere minutes later.

Shri knew there had to be millions of Elarioni in these ships, and she was both impressed and afraid of so many people being packed in together, for they made easy targets.

She kept looking around the other camera options, some not even based on her transport, that showed the distant fighting. The area around the evacuation zone was secure, yet riddled with debris. There appeared to be at least two ongoing conflicts to the south, but her ship was well outside of their weapons range. She did notice the Star Force troops, which she was somewhat familiar with by this point given how much information about the ADZ had been passing around, but there was another ally in play that she didn’t realize. She searched the computer database and couldn’t find a match, wondering if it was her own fault for missing something or if they simply didn’t have information on whoever they were.

Regardless they were fighting the Skarrons more effectively than the Nestafar had been, which gave her a little bit of comfort as she waited for the transport to load. Inside her compartment there was food, which she eventually started to nibble on. Everything was right here that she would need for the trip, with the introduction material on her terminal indicating that it was preferred that she stay put for the duration of the journey, given that there wasn’t room for lounging outside.

Shri knew that wouldn’t do for a long interstellar trip, but the compartment was comfortable enough that she settled in and distracted herself with watching what was happening outside…and within. There was a separate, live feed showing the boarding process, how many compartments there were, and how many were filled. At the moment there was only 2% filled, and she’d been here for more than half an hour already, underscoring just how large the Human transports were.

There were also ways of checking on who else was onboard her ship and even the others, with Shri looking up several of her friends to see if they’d evacuated already. Some had come with her onto this ship, she knew, but it wasn’t until she looked down through the lists that she found out which ones were where…and the fact that she could send them messages.

That kept her busy for the hours that followed as she had an ongoing conversation with two of them up until the transport disconnected from the water tubes and began to lift off. Shri paused her conversation to watch and mentally cross her fingers, hoping they wouldn’t end up getting shot down. Painfully slow the transport rose up above the evacuation zone, with her getting an aerial view of it all and seeing just how large it was from yet another perspective.

From there they moved up through the atmosphere with her keeping a close watch on the surrounding combat to see if any fighters or ships would be coming their way…but the trip up to low orbit didn’t see any difficulties. There they stopped, however, along with several other fully loaded transports and many empty ones under the protection of an even larger Star Force warship that dwarfed the ship she was on. It and many smaller ones guarded them as they waited, for what she didn’t know, but they spent many hours there…with her feeling a mix of anxiousness and relief, for both she and the others were off the planet they feared they’d be trapped on, but waiting in orbit to be shot down was equally vexing.

Ultimately her ship formed up into a convoy of 9 transports that were escorted out by the other faction that was aiding the Humans. Shri still couldn’t get an identity on them, but their ships had the same chrome color as their walking battle machines and they flew out to a jumppoint with them while others were intercepting the Skarron ships that were actively trying to get at them.

Shri’s heart nearly leapt up into her throat as a group of six actually got within weapons range and fired on a transport…not hers and the shields held, but it was still frightening all the same. Those enemy ships were quickly engaged while the transports moved on, jumping out from the planet on a brief trip to the star where they met up with thousands of others, most of whom the computer tagged as being empty and waiting for their chance to go down to the planet.

Only then did she fully realize the scale of the evacuation effort. Seeing numbers on a chart was one thing, but looking at all these ships here and knowing how packed hers was underscored just how big this operation was…and how much they owed the Alliance for doing this.

More of the alien ships were here, guarding them closely as a handful of Star Force warships also patrolled the area. Things appeared quiet at the moment, with no enemy ships in orbit…as far as her sensor feeds indicated. There was another long wait, one in which Shri slept through while her transport slowly docked with a jumpship, before the console pinged an update alert as they finally got moving towards their jumppoint in a much larger convoy with one of the Star Force warships escorting them out.

Her jumpship went first, followed by the others shortly thereafter that she was then able to detect mid-jump through their location beacons. It took a while for them to register over the vast distances they were coasting between, but she did see the warship bringing up the rear, glad to have the military vessel with them and even more glad to be out of the war zone.

Now was the longest wait of all, with them having to make multiple jumps that would take weeks to get to their eventual destination. Shri stayed in her compartment for three days before venturing out and over to one belonging to a friend and talking with her in person, as most of the other Elarioni were doing. Other than that she explored a bit, finding nothing but habitats and spending most of her time in her own and accessing the entertainment, social, and knowledge software to pass the time.

Of particular interest was their destination world, which she studied intently and happy to find out that it was completely a water world with no land for enemies to occupy. If they wanted to take it, they’d have to fight an aquatics war, which she knew her people were more than capable of doing.

The database called it ‘Atlantica,’ which she had a hard time pronouncing, but by the end of the trip she had it down well enough in her own dialect and was eager to feel its waters on her blue skin.

9

November 2, 2537

Hachtat System

Eliossa

Riona was woken from a sleep cycle onboard the TF and groggily ran to the hangar bay, half dressing in the hallway as she went and getting into her skeet just in time to hit the air along with a dozen others that met up with some 100+ Voku fighters a few miles off enroute to a fresh enemy LZ where the Skarrons were just now beginning to land transports. There hadn’t even been enough time for an orbital battle, with the enemy dropping into the atmosphere directly from their jumppoint and burning hard to get to the surface past the chasing Voku vessels.

Several dozen Skarron warships broke off from the group to intercept them, screening for the transports to get to ground and unload thousands of new walkers onto the planet a few miles off from the evacuation zone…and within easy walking distance for the machines to begin a new assault from. So far, after an intense first three weeks of combat, both the Skarron and Nestafar had avoided the Star Force foothold on the planet while they continued to battle each other in other areas. There were a few attempts to get at the evacuation ships over the two months that followed, but nothing that the defenses couldn’t repulse with ease.

As was typical, that was about to change. Riona blinked away the last traces of sleep from her eyes and focused on the sensor readings from the LZ ahead as she and her impromptu squadron tucked in behind the much larger Voku fighters. The skeets were faster in super pursuit mode, but she wanted to arrive with their allies because it was going to get messy very fast and the more anti-air that went their way the better. The Voku fighters were more heavily armored than the skeets and could take a greater pounding, hopefully allowing the Star Force fighters some breathing room to maneuver.

By the time the group arrived at the LZ there were already over 50 walkers on the ground and the fighters knew better than to try and hit them. Instead they climbed and stretched out into a long line, some 5 or six fighters wide, and struck like a plasma streamer at one of the descending transports that had four Type-3s suspended underneath plus who knew how many infantry inside.

The Voku hit first, pounding and breaching its shields as they shot past taking what anti-air fire could hit them as more and more fighters struck the ship enroute to flying to the far side. Riona’s group was in the back third of the lot and unloaded their maulers and what missiles they had on the target before zipping past and out of sight as the Skarron fighters emerging from multiple transports, most of which weren’t even on the ground yet, poured down on them and the Voku in turn turned their attention to neutralizing that threat as the transports continued to flow down to the surface.

Riona’s squadron turned back after some dicey maneuvers to avoid collisions with the Skarron fighters and dove after the now smoking transport. Alternating between short attack runs and flanking ‘stalls’ that allowed them to pound the craft from short distance, the skeets added to the existing damage and managed to knock it out of the sky before it could sufficiently decelerate.

The transport rammed the rocky ground, smashing the four walkers underneath it and crumpling on impact, killing who knew how many inside. Riona couldn’t watch long, for the enemy fighters were increasing in number and before too long they’d be outmatched and would have to flee, but she was content that they’d taken out those four walkers…which would mean less for their ground troops to deal with later, though given the overall numbers the Skarrons were deploying it seemed that it would matter little.

Riona brought her squadron back up to the Voku and assisted them with killing several hundred fighters before the airspace became too clogged and they had to pull back, bringing the enemy with them and fighting an ongoing battle while retreating all the way back to the evacuation zone perimeter defenses where the land-based mechs added their anti-air fire to the mix and more Star Force and Voku fighters arrived from other locations to assist.

Knowing that they had to kill as many of the fighters now, while they could before more unpacked from the transports and literally choked the skies, Riona flew hard and aggressive, more so than normal in order to rack up a high kill count but the overreach eventually came back to bite her as she risked going back into the thick of the fray with too low of shields and got hammered by a group of Skarron fighters working in concert as the two Voku fighters nearby her went down and left her momentarily isolated.

She saw the vulnerability immediately and tried to go evasive, but too much plasma was coming her way and her armor could take only so many hits. A long loop towards the ground ended with her tail being blown off and her skeet hitting and rolling across the ground in a very pod racer-like crash, with the numerous flips tearing off what appendages the enemy fighters had left intact. The last few rotations banged her around inside the cockpit as the IDF lost power, leaving her dizzy and disoriented for several long seconds after the remains of the skeet finally came to a rest.

“Damn it,” she swore, grabbing her rifle, popping the canopy open, and rolling out to drop onto the ground as she fell a couple of meters, leaving her staring up at the sky.

Riona got to her feet and looked around, seeing the fighters continuing their battle overhead but at the moment it looked like they were ignoring her…as they should, for they had plenty of targets up there that could shoot back. When she turned around and looked towards the LZ the pit of her stomach sank as she saw their ground troops already in play and heading her way…both walkers and a horde of infantry preceding them.

She figured she had about 3 minutes before the leading elements reached her, and there was no way she could fight them hand to hand out in the open…leaving her one choice.

Riona walked around the edge of her broken skeet and took off running back towards the evacuation zone perimeter several kilometers away and desperately hoping that none of the fighters would try and make a strafing run on her. The striker armor that she wore would protect her from a single hit, maybe two, but fighter weaponry was much more potent than the infantry versions and this would be a very bad matchup, especially since she couldn’t fight back, but she didn’t have any good options. Staying put was a death sentence, so she had to run and run fast.

Riona activated the powered nature of the armor and took off in a flash, running as fast as she could in just shorts and a jog bra, with the heavy armor plates moving themselves to keep in sync with her body’s own motions. After about thirty seconds she reached back and disconnected her rifle and tossed it aside to make herself lighter and more smooth, recognizing the fact that if she had to shoot it out with anyone right now she was as good as dead…plus she always had psionics to use if she had to.

With that extra weight gone her speed increased a tick, plus she threw in a few Yetu bursts that her armor matched, with her watching the skies as much as the rock strewn ground ahead of her, choosing her foot placements ahead of time so as not trip herself up. Riona ran for several minutes with additional fighters dropping out of the air…most of which were Skarron…all around her, with several pieces of debris raining down and hitting her helmet, but fortunately they were no bigger than her finger, though if she hadn’t been wearing armor they would have cut her up for sure.

Counting herself lucky in multiple ways she kept running as fast as she could consistently manage, tearing across the meters of ground with a speed that most biped races could never hope to match and searching the horizon ahead of her looking for the nearest fort/outpost that would mean a safe haven. She saw several mechs ahead, but they couldn’t do much more than distract the enemy from her. If she was going to get inside it would have to be at one of the outposts and so far she couldn’t see any, though the battlemap said they were there.

She passed by a madcat that was walking the opposite direction and firing off its railgun with a boom that shook her steps, but the Archon managed to stay on her feet and keep running, eventually passing two more in that particular star before she got behind them, feeling a bit better but still overall exposed as large dark spots began to rise up ahead of her. At first she thought they were transports leaving, but they held a low altitude and grew in size, coming forward towards the enemy and Riona seeing that they were not tagged on the battlemap for several seconds before an update was made.

That meant Star Force didn’t know what they were initially, but soon the Elarioni tags appeared just before their ring-like warships opened fire on the Skarrons behind her with what looked like Sammies but she couldn’t be sure. They were accompanied by huge globs of glowing blue and purple that looked for all the world like a glue spitter.

Riona wanted to turn and look at what they were hitting but she didn’t, knowing that she had to keep running to safety before her luck turned from bad to worse. Eventually the warships, most of which had an elliptical design to the rings, passed overhead with her able to see the sun through their hollow center, as well as the fighters that were continuing to battle it out at higher altitudes.

Eventually one of the outposts came into view and she had to divert to the south a bit, already with her legs burning from the effort but she didn’t care. She could rest later, and sore legs were a lot easier to recover from than plasma burns so she pressed on until one of the gates opened up ahead of her, allowing her to keep her speed all the way into the interior, with it resealing behind her and the bubble shield overhead finally taking her out of harm’s way.

Riona slowed to a stop then sagged to the ground, landing on her knees and breathing heavily. She knew she had to get to the command center and organize pickup so she could get back into the fight, but right now she had to let her body recover, for she’d pushed herself far harder than she’d intended to, with the adrenaline of the moment overriding her normal inhibitions.

“Are you alright?” a Regular commando asked as she came up to her.

Riona held up a ‘wait’ finger as she continued heaving, slowly pulling her breathing back under control enough to speak.

“Yes…I need…transport…back to…the…TF,” she managed between heavy breaths.

The commando nodded. “I’ll relay the message. Nice escape by the way.”

Riona nodded but didn’t say anything as she ran off, preferring to spend her precious air on recovery rather than useless sentiment. She did manage to look up and see more of the Elarioni warships passing by overhead, prompting her to adjust her battlemap to see how much damage they were doing to the enemy…which was when she also saw large Voku ground and air formations closing on the Skarron LZ and their assault columns reaching out from it towards the evacuation zone.

This was going to be one messy fight, and she had to get back into it as soon as possible.

In orbit Paul had his hands full, but nothing compared to what was going on down on the surface. The Skarrons had brought a sizeable fleet escorting their transports and some of it was headed his way to try and get at his own transports, which he was tasked to defend. That left the offensive portion of the orbital battle to the Voku, who were doing a remarkable job of it, but once again the Skarrons had brought with them a solid naval punch and were milking it for all it was worth in order to get their troops to ground…and the frustrating part was that there was no way for Paul to stop them, nor could he send drones down to the surface to help out, for he needed them all to protect the Elarioni onboard the transports.

He was relieved when he saw their own warships coming up out of the ocean and moving into the fight…something that hadn’t occurred to date, but as curious as he was to see what weaponry they employed he didn’t have the luxury of watching. The Skarrons were getting tricky in their maneuvers and he had to keep reshuffling his ‘chess board’ around the safe zone in orbit to outflank any potential runs in at the waiting transports, though some were already taking long range lachar hits, meaning Paul had to send drones out after those attacking ships to either destroy them or force them back out of range, keeping him constantly busy with only a moment here and there to glance at what was happening down on the surface.

There was someone else watching, however, and watching closely. More than a day into the battle new ships flew in, not coming from space but from overland and depositing a Nestafar army on the far side of the Skarron LZ, with them seeing a moment of opportunity to strike back at the enemy that was slowly conquering their planet. They had no love for Star Force or the Elarioni, but they recognized that they weren’t here to conquer their world and were defending only a tiny piece of it…and if they could use the confusion to put some serious hurt on the Skarrons then they were going to take the opportunity before they had to face this huge relief force on their own if/when they overran the Humans and their allies.

With flocks of Valeries following the transports out and providing air cover, the massive ships unloaded the Nestafar walkers and sent them into the Skarrons’ grounded transport like several deadly arrows, hitting their weak side with the enemy sluggish in response…and even then only able to throw a few troops their way, for the bulk of them were engaged on the far side and unable to redeploy fast enough even if they’d been free to do so.

After some 20+ transports were destroyed a few of them started taking off, with the Valeries hitting them hard and sandblasting their shields with thousands of tiny plasma blasts, enough to tear through them and take a few of the ships down while the ground troops continued to blast more of them into rubble from pointblank range.

Inside of that rubble field more Skarron infantry and a handful of walkers met them, with several Type-1s and 2s throwing up missile support in a huge arc that traveled up over the transports in the LZ and down onto the super dragons, knocking out several of them in less than a minute but leaving so many more intact that they couldn’t stop the Nestafar assault wave, despite seeing it coming towards them at an ominous, pondering pace.

Now getting hit hard from both flanks the Skarrons had a choice to make…stay and fight it out or try to pull back and save what troops they could. They chose the former, making both Star Force and the Nestafar earn their victory and wearing down the troops on both sides. It took another four days before the Skarrons were eventually slaughtered, with most of their transports fleeing into space before they could be killed…yet unable to pick up their walkers and infantry to take with them.

When the Nestafar troops eventually came into contact with Star Force, the Elarioni, and the Voku Paul ordered a slight pause to allow them to retreat…but they didn’t. Instead they dove head first into their other enemies and forced another long battle that consumed the next 2 days, ending with an Alliance victory but at a heavy cost.

There were Voku mech/suits everywhere, along with destroyed fighters and infantry corpses, though the latter didn’t have massive numbers of casualties, given that they were selective in where they employed them. Many Star Force mechs and skeets were down as well, though in far smaller numbers given that they hadn’t had a large force to contribute to the battle in the first place.

Two Elarioni warships had also fallen, now dug into the ground and leaking water. Recovery efforts were being made by the other ships to try and get to any surviving crew, but land and air were death to the Elarioni and few were recovered alive.

The rest of their ships were showing damage of various levels, all of which retreated back into the water and disappeared into the depths to make repairs, leaving an incredible amount of debris behind on the battlefield, most of which belonged to the Skarrons. It stood as a testament to the effort Star Force and the Voku were going to in order to get the Elarioni off this world…all the while the evacuation transports continued to load and depart round the clock.

That was the ultimate victory of it all, but accomplished at a high cost…and one that the Elarioni would never forget.

10

December 27, 2537

Hachtat System

Eliossa

Paul stood in the command nexus onboard the Adamant, much as he had for most of the past 4 months, but for the first time he was holding back the transports. That was because the Skarron fleet in the system had been continually growing, and even as they successfully evacuated most of the Elarioni from the planet the convoys heading out to the Voku fleet guarding the jumpships at the star had been getting jumped more regularly.

The Skarrons hadn’t hit his position or at the star, trying instead to snipe their ships when they were at their most vulnerable, and now that they were devoting more and more warships to that endeavor Paul had to hold back the last of the transports or risk losing one…something he had avoided thus far.

Most of the planet was now in Skarron hands, with the Nestafar stupidly having wasted troops battling Star Force and the Voku, but in truth if they hadn’t it would have only delayed their defeat. The Skarrons were overrunning them with numbers that they hadn’t seen in the assaults on the ADZ…a dire omen for what was likely to be coming their way eventually, for Nestafar space was much closer to Skarron territory. If this was how they dealt with nearer threats, then it was only a matter of time until their border eeked out close enough to the ADZ to warrant a larger assault.

But they had time to prepare, it seemed, and right now getting the last of the Elarioni out was the mission. They were going to accomplish it with ease, Paul knew, thanks to the superiority of the Voku. But completing that mission without losing a single transport was the tricky part…and not leaving anyone behind. The Skarrons weren’t stupid, and had deduced what they were up to, all the while trying to interfere if just out of spite, for they didn’t have the numbers to take down the Voku fleet, given how superior their ships were.

So Paul held the last of the transports, getting a group of around 400 sitting in next to the Adamant and his other few warships, surrounded by a cloud of drones with patrolling Voku cruiser analogs keeping any predators at bay while frigate analogs spread out in an even wider detection zone, sending out active signals to monitor the area with such sensor intensity that it surprised Paul. Apparently they didn’t want the enemy sneaking anything in, though to date Skarron tech hadn’t shown any such capability and Paul wondered what enemies the Voku had that did.

When the last transport was loaded at 3/4ths capacity he held the six more empty ones that were waiting in orbit and signaled the other empties at the star to stop coming. Some of the ships were on their third round trip, just having gotten back from Atlantica thanks to the ever increasing speed of Star Force’s newer jumpships. The long trek, however, still meant that Star Force had to devote an insane percentage of their transport fleet to this endeavor…and not just here, but the other 7 planets that were being simultaneously evacuated.

Paul had gotten a few status reports from them, passed along by the transports who were meeting up at their eventual destination and swapping intel, and so far there had been no major problems in any of the campaigns, each of which was led by a trailblazer. Paul had taken the most difficult assignment for himself, or so he’d thought in the planning stage, with the reports coming back indicating that he’d been correct.

This planet’s Elarioni population was the largest also, so it was with only a small shock several hours later when the TF finally pulled up from the surface that several thousand Cruiser-class and smaller starships rose up from the oceans across the planet simultaneously, making the waters look like a giant cereal bowl full of O-shaped Cheerios as they made the transition to air.

The Voku stayed on the ground covering Star Force’s exit and came up with the Elarioni, bringing their ground troop transports back up to the carriers in orbit and joining with them in transformer style while their warships pulled back from hunting the Skarrons elsewhere in orbit and formed up into a defensive wedge around the transports and Elarioni civilian starships while the aquatic race’s own warships did likewise.

Not to Paul’s surprise the Skarrons began moving their fleet around quickly, attempting to bring one last hammer blow before they escaped. Problem was such a massive fleet comprised of 3 different races couldn’t move together with as much coordination and alacrity as a single, smaller one. They had to jump out in stages while the long carpet of ships was laid out for the enemy to hit at whatever point they wanted.

Paul held the Adamant back until the last section began to move, knowing the stragglers would be the most vulnerable, and began fighting a rearguard action as Skarron warships began to come up from below them, skirting around to the gap between ship and atmosphere and hitting the rear…intent on coming up the middle and getting at the Star Force transports just ahead.

Devoting what drones he had left, Paul sent them down into the enemy not expecting them to return. He’d had enough with the playing it safe routine and decided to nail the bastards for their insolence…and with Ta’lin’yi they certainly were able to accomplish that, catching the Skarrons off guard with the offensive maneuver and creating a bloody melee as the Adamant gained altitude ahead of them and followed the back of the convoy out.

The Voku commander contacted him and they set up their final battle plans, including sending a few ships back to destroy the drone debris that was large enough to potentially survive impact with the planet. Paul didn’t want the Skarrons getting their hands on any intact pieces, and he’d purposefully had the Adamant hovering over the target zone rather than occupying a normal orbit prior to their final departure, knowing that the drone debris would fall into the atmosphere and burn up…if it was small enough.

Some of the Voku ships flew back and killed the handful of Skarron ships remaining before blasting apart the intact hulls of the drones that were now partially or totally inoperable. None had survived to return to their warships, with Paul having ordered their pilots to hurt the Skarrons as badly as possible…and their having destroyed more than 500 enemy vessels in the process.

But the Skarrons had thousands more insystem with a large chunk of those harassing the outgoing fleet and more jumping in from the other planets to tighten the noose. They weren’t going to get them all here in time and the Voku were insistent that it wouldn’t matter, taking it to the enemy head on and making them pay heavily whenever they ventured close to one of the transports.

The Elarioni warships were doing likewise, guarding their own people closely, on both their ships and the Star Force transports, and giving Paul his first good view of their military hardware. They had beam weapons similar to the Dvapp’s Sammies but these were using an altogether different type of energy. Using the limited sensor readings he was able to get what he thought was a match with the private database of V’kit’no’sat documented tech.

It was a Yor’vok, and something the Elarioni had not originally possessed when the V’kit’no’sat had hunted them. Or, to be more accurate, not what they’d possessed the last time the Elarioni had been updated in the database, with their eventual ouster happening much more recently than the fall of Earth. The Yor’vok was pretty much a standard, straightforward weapon that employed altered photons and worked like a slow moving laser…only infinitely more powerful. Normally light particles were scattered and had large gaps between them in transit, but with the Yor’vok they were densely packed together, so much so that little bits would escape and cause the beam to glow whereas a laser was invisible until it hit and reflected off of something.

It was a burning weapon, effective against shields and armor alike, but the sticky energy matrix they also had was what intrigued him more. That was an even higher level technology and something that Star Force wasn’t yet close to developing. The Elarioni weapon was crude by V’kit’no’sat standards, but it was the first time Paul had seen one of the ‘holy’ weapons employed on the battlefield…and it sent a shiver down his spine.

The Elarioni version couldn’t attack shields, meaning they had to take them down with the Yor’vok first, after which they would essentially spit a glob of glowing destructive goo at slow speeds and splatter the enemy ship…with the Ha’star melting the matter as if it were little more than snow to a bucket of hot water. The drawback was, if you could call it a drawback, that the Skarron ships were so big that the Ha’star could eat large chunks into them and the rest of the warship could keep fighting.

The Elarioni didn’t know yet the interior structure of the enemy and where to probe for weak points and there was no time for Paul to inform them of that now, but none the less the Skarrons had no defense against the Ha’star after their shields went down, for the armor they so depended on was like tissue paper to the Elarioni weapon.

Even though most of his thoughts were centered around the evacuation, a part of Paul’s mind sized up the threat the Elarioni would pose if Star Force fought them…and immediately saw a weakness. Not in his own fleet, but theirs. The Yor’vok was a pure beam weapon, which meant it was easily defendable against with a reflective shield. To date Star Force hadn’t had cause to use such a thing except in low level applications against lachars, with only partial deflection occurring. Against a Yor’vok they’d get full deflection so long as the shield matrix was strong enough, and would even be able to, with a bit of luck and a lot of skill on the shield controller’s part, redirect the Elarioni’s own weapon back at them.

And without being able to take down the Star Force shields their Ha’star would be next to useless. For as advanced as their tech was, their battle layout was lacking. Then again, they were aquatic, with naval warfare probably being something they delved into rarely, especially given that they’d spent so many years in hiding. He was thoroughly impressed by their tech and knew how effective it would be against the lizards and others, but in a head to head he’d own them.

With the Voku warships quickly cleaning up behind the Adamant, the big command ship slowly made its way up to the jumppoint…with more and more Skarron warships closing in around them, so many in fact that the only way to keep the jumppoint clear was to engage the enemy in a slugging match and slowly pull your ships back into themselves as the mass jumped out. The Adamant got severely beaten up in the last few minutes, taking many hits that otherwise would have gone to the Voku as they recovered their damaged ships, melding with them and carrying them out, until finally only a few dozen the Star Force command ship remained.

Those few jumped out together under heavy weaponsfire and ended up at the star a few minutes later, seeing that several skirmishes were already taking place there and knowing that the rest of the Skarron ships would soon be on their way. The evacuation fleet was already repositioning around to the exit jumppoint, which was where one of the conflicts was occurring, but with the influx of Voku and Elarioni ships they kept it clear and sent a continual stream of Elarioni starships out while the Star Force transports continued to load up onto the waiting jumpships.

Paul watched the jump signatures of the Elarioni, getting a computer estimate as to their speed and seeing that they were only slightly faster than the Skarrons…but like their enemy they also didn’t need jumpships, which was a double-edged sword. Paul informed the Adamant’s bridge crew that they’d need to match the Elarioni jump speed in order to stay at the back of the convoy, with a message from the Elarioni coming through that they were claiming the ‘galaxy down’ part of the road, meaning that after they made their departure jump they’d drift lower on the galactic plain, allowing the faster moving jumpships to pass them by above the jumpline to avoid any potential collisions.

As expected the bulk of the Skarron fleet showed up to ‘escort’ them out of the system under fire, with the Adamant taking a few more hull hits but nothing major as it soaked up a lot of the enemy’s attention. The Voku stayed with it and all of the remaining jumpships, ensuring their departure and sending ships with them to further guard the convoys as they moved from one system to another, knowing that an enemy could be waiting for them ahead if they were smart enough.

Paul didn’t expect the Skarrons or Nestafar to be that determined, but he was glad for the backup regardless. Once the jumpships were fully loaded they began winking out of view, carrying their precious cargo out of harm’s way and leaving nothing but warships behind. Those then stayed around a bit and fought it out with the Skarrons to make sure they didn’t jump after the convoy and potentially meet up with it mid jump or cause trouble at the destination system.

After more than an hour of combat and a lot of dead Skarron ships the Voku commander consulted with Paul and they both began to pull out, with the Elarioni already having gone ahead, given their slower speed and desire to stay with their own ships.

Most of the Voku took off at amazing speed, but the commander kept a good chunk of them with Paul and the Adamant, so when the command ship made the jump and left the enemy system behind the chrome ships reformed around it within a few kilometers, demonstrating their navigational skill, not to mention their gravity drive strength, because pulling on stars lightyears away for maneuvering capabilities mid jump was a very expensive and unrewarding venture, allowing you only a little tug here and there, with most ships using thrust engines to accomplish such maneuvering.

Paul took note of the positions of the convoy ahead, with their beacons signaling back and allowing the computer the ability to calculate their approximate position, even if the signal was lagging an hour behind. Seeing that all was in order and marveling at the Voku’s fleet, Paul released the control sphere in the nexus and left the bridge, intending to get in a short workout then a long sleep period. Something he’d been reluctant to do during the evacuation, taking only brief rest periods sufficient enough to accommodate his limited workouts.

He met up with Riona later and they got back into their training routine as if they’d never left it, both recovering a bit of lost fitness and probing their bioshield capabilities as the fleet made its way from system to system, back into the ADZ, and over to the far side where Atlantica lay near the rimward lizard border.

“Hello stranger,” Paul said through the water as he swam up to Ariel’s quarters in Manaan.

She turned around, her green hair spraying out into a fan around her head as it floated in the pristine water inside the city and bracketed a huge smile on her blue face. He could have sworn the glowing patches on her skin increased their aqua-colored intensity, but regardless it was obvious that she was glad to see him…given that it had been decades since they’d last met in person.

“Finally,” she said through the translator in Paul’s breath mask. The Elarioni swam over to him and locked him up in a big hug. “Why do you do this to me? I’ve missed you so much. You could at least stop by every 5 years or so,” she said with a touch of sarcasm.

“Bad guys to kill, ships to build, systems to conquer…I’m a busy guy,” he said, hugging her back.

“I know, I know,” she said, finally releasing him and looking him in the eyes that weren’t covered by the small, compact mask that gave him his Elarioni voice. “And you did just bring me some new friends, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.”

“I would have found you sooner, but you’ve been out and about.”

“Yes, things are absolutely crazy right now…but a good crazy. There’s no room to put everyone so we’re camping out in free water and that is something I haven’t done for such a long time. They haven’t either, so it’s a new experience, but one that they’re loving. They really like Atlantica, and your cities, by the way. I think this is going to work out beautifully.”

“Well, you did help design most of our stuff,” Paul pointed out as she pulled him all the way inside her quarters by the wrist, with him letting her propel him forward given that she was the far better swimmer.

“Some,” she corrected. “Kyler knows the water almost as well as I do now.”

“High praise.”

“And well deserved,” she said, finally letting go of him for a moment, then swinging around behind him and pressing on his lower back. “Let’s see what progress you’ve made.”

Paul laughed, then assumed an old position and let Ariel test his flexibility and kick strength as he went through several motions while she held him in place.

“Not much better,” she commented dryly. “But no worse. You haven’t been doing much practicing.”

“Actually I have, you just forget how bad I was.”

“No I don’t,” she said humorously.

“That and I’ve picked up a new trick. I’m still not as fast as you, but I’m much quicker.”

“Oh? Then why aren’t you showing me.”

Paul’s face tightened up in a smirk, but more from effort than amusement as he formed bioshield fins over his legs and kicked in a very similar way to how Ariel moved.

The water behind him moved in such a way that, despite not being able to see the shields, Ariel instantly could feel the difference…and the power that he now had.

“What is this?” she asked, curious and excited.

“A new ability,” he said, grabbing her wrist to get her to let him go, then he righted himself parallel to her and held up his bare hands, forming a shield bubble in between them that pushed back the water and formed a small vacuum, with him altering the shield so it became partially visible. “I can create energy shields and use them in multiple ways, including giving me a tail, more or less.”

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his wrist again and pulling him back towards the door. “You’re going to show me on the course.”

Paul smiled underneath his mask and let her drag him out and across the watery tunnels within the city to one of the obstacle courses that Ariel trained on to maintain her self-sufficiency…something that she’d be teaching her own people to achieve, given that she was far older than them all, but none the less younger than when he’d found her on the lizard jumpship, which her grip testified to.

He enjoyed the ride over, then swam the last few meters to the starting position near the pedestal as Ariel took up position on the other side of it and stared at him with her glowing golden eyes.

“Ready?”

“Always,” he said, putting his hand on the start button.

“Impress me,” she taunted, smashing his hand down and activating the timer in the friendly method of starting the courses they’d developed whenever running one in tandem.

Pushing off the pedestal for a bit of momentum, Paul leveled out and began the intricate kick that she’d taught him long ago, summoning up shield enhancements and finding himself still outpaced by Ariel, with her looking back at him and smiling…but with her tail kicking harder than it normally did to stay ahead of him.

She was still the better swimmer, but he wasn’t so inferior now…and judging by her smile he guessed that he’d advanced to the point of being a peer. Maybe a slower little brother, but still a peer rather than a student.

Which Paul’s mind immediately corrected into Star Wars metaphor. No longer was he a youngling, for in that satisfied expression of hers he’d just been promoted to Apprentice.

The Force is strong with this one, Paul thought, trying to goose a little more speed out of his body.

Sav

1

September 30, 2538

Megatron 1 System

Inner Zone

Bo-065 sat in the command chair onboard the Bowser, a Warship-class jumpship leading a fleet of two others and 16 Mammoth-class cargo jumpships through orbit around the black hole that Star Force had affectionately labeled ‘Megatron 1.’ It was the only gravity well in the system, meaning that moving around it to get to their preferred jumpline was taking time as they had to pull on one side of the dense mass as opposed to the center line and that gave them very literal lateral movement as high up as they were.

A slingshot approach was faster, but then they’d have to stall it out on the far side to hit their jumpline anyway, so Bo had ordered the Captain to take it nice and slow as they monitored the traffic as best they could. Sensor signals traveling in near the black hole got funky, with the event horizon completely shutting off anything from inside and slowing those reflections near it to worthlessness, making the area around the EH a sensor blind spot.

The Telaris sensors the Bowser was using reduced that blind spot considerably, but didn’t eliminate it…and they noticed quite a few starships dipping down into the EH and coming back out as they cut close orbital tracks to get to the far side quickly. With proper IDF and gravity drives there was no danger for a ship going in that close, for the black hole’s gravity was their best friend and able to lift them away from the mass at the center almost effortlessly given that only a small energy expenditure was needed to reverse the massive pull into anti-grav to keep the ships in orbit.

Trouble was if there was debris in the area or you ran into another ship, but with Megatron 1 there was nothing left that the black hole hadn’t eaten up, and given the size of the thing the chances of ramming another ship passing through, even with the high level of traffic they were seeing, was low. Bo didn’t like low, and preferred ‘no,’ so they were making their way around in an orbital path that still allowed their sensors and beacons to be partially functional. They were declaring their position while scanning for others to avoid collisions as they got closer and closer to one of 3 hot zones.

Those hot zones were the links to 3 other distant black holes and had traffic coming and going from races that Star Force was mostly unfamiliar with. Everyone seemed to give each other space, not wanting to interact and just going on about their journeys, but the closer the Bowser got to the jumpline the more congested it became…and there were no stoplights to keep everyone organized, more of an impromptu ‘get to the head of the line first’ situation that was more than a bit hectic.

Then there were the ships coming in on the jumpline. Fortunately most of them were transmitting beacons so their signals arrived ahead of them, hyper-compressed from the speeds they were traveling, but able to be detected if you had your sensors calibrated correctly. That let outgoing ships know where not to be on the jumpline and allowed to move around with a decent certainty that you weren’t risking your life on the off chance of a collision.

That said, there were some ships popping up with no preceding signal. That worried Bo, but it couldn’t be helped. As his fleet finally moved into position there were seven ships ahead of them on the line that had just come in in a much higher orbit. They waited for them to move off, looked for incoming signals and saw they had a gap, then made their slightly staggered jumps off the black hole’s gravity well and accelerated far faster than any traditional jump.

Soon they were out of the system and drifting across the stars towards the black hole on the other end on a trip that would take them better than 2 months. As soon as they were away and on course the small Star Force fleet set themselves into a drift to the right, getting them off the jumpline so to avoid ships coming at them from the other way. Still there was always the possibility of a head-on collision, which was why someone had to be at the helm monitoring for incoming beacons so they could move aside if necessary.

Bo had them taken well off the jumpline to reduce that possibility, then nulled out the drift with tugs on the distant stars to keep them headed in the correct direction. When they got near their destination they’d drift back up to the jumpline and run the traffic gauntlet again, but for the meantime it was hopefully going to be a silent, steady trip as the jumpships moved like bullets from one black hole to the next.

The trickiest part past them, Bo left the bridge and headed to the sanctum where he spent most of the next two months training, for there was little else to do while they waited to make the passage.

When they eventually arrived at the exiting black hole, which they’d designated as ‘Megatron 2,’ Bo oversaw their deceleration and movement off the jumpline over to a stellar one, bouncing off the black hole with minor power in order to move at a safe speed that could be successfully braked on at their destination star, whose gravity well was infinitely smaller.

From there they made another six jumps, hopping from star to star on a path that Yori had trailblazed years ago until they arrived at another black hole, this one much smaller but still producing a gravity well far larger than any star. It was labeled ‘Megatron 5’ and took them another 120 lightyears out to Megatron 6. From there they had to travel star to star until they eventually ended up in the Lothlorien System.

They were still well within the Orion arm, which was approximately 10,000 lightyears wide, but they were the farthest rimward Star Force had yet expanded, more than 1,000 lightyears away from Earth. In contrast, the ADZ border terminated at about 100 lightyears, leaving the Lothlorien System far outside everything that they knew…and knew them.

Which was the point. As invested as Star Force was in the ADZ they also knew that their distant future would probably involve running from the V’kit’no’sat if/when they ever found them. To do that they’d have to have some place to go, and Lothlorien was one small stepping stone out into the true rim of the galaxy where the V’kit’no’sat had no presence or maps. They were in the wilds now, as far as their progenitors were concerned, and the further they got out there the better.

Bo brought his fleet out from the central pair of stars to one of six major planets in the system. Three were habitable, in atmosphere only, and there was no other presence within the system. Star Force had mapped out the surrounding area, finding a more or less dead spot to set up camp in and beginning to terraform one of the rocky planets by introducing plants onto a world that had none.

Bo could see the first little bits of green on the surface below when they made orbit, clustered around the single city colony that Star Force was in the process of building and to which the supplies he was escorting were going. The warships would be remaining here, save for one that would be taking Yori and the empty cargo ships back as Bo switched places with him and took over control of the planet, named Legolas, as well as all other operations in this small region of space that included multiple mapping missions that were even now ongoing.

Already there was another warship in orbit, along with a few platforms under construction. The one operational station was a defense platform equipped with a large cleansing beam that was covering the construction of a shipyard and other key infrastructure pieces, for the goal of this colony wasn’t to rely on shipments from the ADZ but to become self-sufficient as most Star Force colonies were. That was even more important in this operation, given that if the ADZ was cut off by an invasion it would have to supply itself and any future colonies expansions rimward on its own.

Which was why a trailblazer was needed here at all times. There were too many uncertain factors in play and the delay to get a message back to the ADZ took 7 months one way, making this colony truly on its own. Until it was better developed it had to be watched and grown carefully, so as boring as this sort of thing was Bo knew the importance of it and how it had to succeed in order for them to start further extending the chain out into the rim.

As the cargo transfer began in earnest Bo hopped onboard one of the descending dropships and rode it down to the big city that was all that currently existed in the colony and eventually found Yori waiting for him in the spaceport. The two shared a hug then headed over to the local sanctum as they filled each other in on current events, then began a long series of workouts knowing that the cargo transfer was going to take days to complete.

Catching up on missed time and using the opportunity to press each other in training, the pair of trailblazers worked through some very long sessions taking breaks to tour the infrastructure so Yori could get Bo up to speed on what he’d built since last being in contact. In addition to the obvious stuff on the surface he’d added a considerable amount of subterranean structures, plus various sites around the planet for resource collection, including two new ones on other planets. The material being collected was just beginning to snowball, which would make Bo’s job of continuing the effort much easier now that Yori had done the hard part getting it all up and running.

Coming in the convoy was also an abundance of new personnel, with only a handful transferring back with Yori, giving the colony a new population of 55,000, up from the 42,000 previously. The extra manpower would help greatly, Bo knew, but more would be needed as operations escalated and have to be shipped in with the following convoys. People couldn’t be grown as fast as infrastructure, let alone those with the skillsets required, and that was the major drawback in the self-sufficiency goal. Lothlorien was going to have to grow quite large in order to have enough people to take care of its own needs, and by large he meant in the billions.

That day was far into the future, however, and would be overseen by someone other than Bo. He was taking on a 6 year stint, then would be replaced by another trailblazer or high ranking Archon, based on what the situation was then. Having that fixed endpoint helped him focus on the mission ahead without getting lost in the utter isolation. The mission was temporary, and necessary, but after his part in it was completed he’d head back to the ADZ where all the action was at and get back in the rhythm of things.

In the meantime he was going to do like all the other trailblazers did…focus on his training in his off hours. There were a few other Archons with him that he could spar with, but no other strikers, unfortunately. They were too valuable and assigned elsewhere, which meant there was no one around that could even come close to pressing his limits the way Yori was.

After his fellow trailblazer left Bo set himself to the task of singular workouts and the unique challenge that they posed while overseeing the construction efforts and making a few tweaks to what Yori had been running…and the person to follow Bo would probably do the same. Neither person would care, for they were only here to carry out their part of the operation and what they left behind then became the responsibility of the other, who was right to customize it as they so chose.

Over the next 6 years the city on the surface grew in size, with Bo adding another two small ones elsewhere on the planet and a fourth on a neighboring planet to further facilitate the corovon mining operations there. The subsurface expansion that Yori began Bo continued, but not with as much fervor. This colonization wasn’t clandestine, nor meant to be like the circuit worlds were. This was supposed to be a full-fledged colony, complete with economic and diplomatic links to the surrounding area where applicable, so hiding wasn’t the point, though having some infrastructure tucked away that no one knew about was always a plus.

Three years in and the first of those economic ties manifested itself in the form of a trade agreement with a neighboring race that Bo’s mapping expeditions came across. They were a single planet civilization that had to achieve interstellar travel, known as the Furrens, who were amicable enough on contact to open up formal relations with. Bo had Star Force build a starport in orbit of their world and start work on a bit more infrastructure there to facilitate the mining/trading of a rare material their planet possessed called Shema.

Originally it was a compound that Star Force thought had to be synthesized and as a result had never delved into its production heavily, though it was useful in making advanced armor when you didn’t have corovon flakes available. Since it was naturally occurring on the Furren homeworld it was of significant value, not just to Bo’s colony but to Star Force in general, and using his diplomatic skill and experience the trailblazer set up a mutually beneficial relationship between the two…the first of many such local links that would be established with their neighbors in coming years.

The rest of those would be created by others, for by the time Beck-061 came to replace him the Lothlorien colony had yet to meet any other races of note, preferring instead to keep things quiet until their defense fleet grew to decent levels…with Beck bringing an additional two warships with him that would stay behind in the system.

Like Yori before him, Bo relished the opportunity to get a few days of training in with Beck, a fellow 6, before heading back across the stars and through the two black hole jumplines leading a much larger and empty train of cargo ships…save for the Shema cargo they carried. It wasn’t much at all compared to the size of their holds, but he knew the techs in Sol would like to get their hands on it and he was interested in seeing what armor modifications they could make with an ample supply.

As his single warship and cargo ships made its way back into the ADZ they passed through the first Star Force system on their journey, getting a news update that Bo tore through eagerly. It was dated[NA1] , due to the lag involved in the relay network, but it was ‘fresh’ by Star Force standards and the trailblazer felt good knowing that he was back on the grid and no longer having to rely on courier ships to bring or send news.

Updated reports on the lizard fronts indicated they were still at it, probing here and there and trying to find a weakness or go around to get closer to the zone to decrease their supply lines. As it was they couldn’t launch a major invasion past the border worlds without having their convoys picked apart by the Hycre. There were just too many systems to go through and the navally dominant race was using that to their advantage when they knew where the lizards were going to be.

So the lizards were trying to make a trail of ‘safe’ systems into the ADZ, much as Star Force was doing heading out to the rim, so they could protect their convoys with system defense fleets rather than sending them through an abundance of ‘empty’ systems where they could be jumped.

But Star Force wasn’t going to allow that, and kept hitting and pushing back the lizard front away from the ADZ boundary creating a sort of neutral zone that saw an enormous amount of fighting whenever the lizards tried to put down roots there, let alone try and sneak past the lines and plant one inside the ADZ.

Content that everything was still under control there Bo skimmed through a lot of other entries, getting a feel for what was going on until he came across a message for the trailblazers only. It was an invite to return to Earth and assist with a new training element…and it was co-signed by both Paul and Jason.

That piqued his interest, for the last he knew the pair were lightyears apart. If they’d gotten together on a new training project then he definitely wanted to know what was up, and given that he didn’t have a new assignment as of yet he could at least pop in and see what was going on while he chose one.

It took another month or so to get back to Outreach and transit into the Core Zone, eventually arriving at Earth on a cargo ship since he’d left his warship with Steve who needed it more than he did. Bo found out that the little training summit was being held in Atlantis rather than the pyramid, which he also found odd, as well as the fact that some 13 other trailblazers had also arrived before him, with him bringing the count up to 16 in total…which was a very rare occurrence for so many to be in the same place at the same time.

Whatever was going on was big, and he hurried out of the dropship and through the surface spaceport down into the city and straight to the training areas to find out what, not even bothering to stop off and deposit his duffle in temporary quarters on the way.

2

May 31, 2545

Solar System

Earth

When Bo tracked down the others he found them…all of them on blood gulch, bumping out the trainees that otherwise would have been using the training course as they had a 10 vs 10 match going on with the old school stinger rifles and light, flex armor. It was too late for Bo to join, unfortunately, so he laid his duffle down in one of the observation galleries and watched them from above and on the various monitors. The combat course was huge, making seeing everything difficult, and the hidden cameras helped to highlight some of the close-in action.

Bo wasn’t the only one there. A handful of random personnel were in the same gallery as him, most of whom didn’t even notice him arrive until they glanced over and saw his white with black stripe striker uniform, but they didn’t ask questions, merely giving him a little more space and continuing to watch the others go at it below.

The non-trailblazers in the match were high ranking second gen and, Bo couldn’t believe his eyes, even Vermaire was out there. At first he thought he was imagining things and it was just another knight, but the way he took to the battle with a single sword only and moved with speed equal or greater to the trailblazers said it was definitely him…despite the fact that he wore the same pale white flex armor that the others did. Bo still couldn’t help but to expect the black armor that he was famous for, but there was no mistaking his skill…meaning they’d somehow recruited him for this match.

That was odd, for he was the one that constantly interrupted their old matches to beat them down randomly. Whatever Paul and Jason had going here was looking even more interesting.

The game was capture the flag, with the stunned individuals eventually coming out of their coma through what Bo guessed was respawning armor. Like what the Black Knight originally wore, the material in their flex armor probably had elements that would soak the stun energy out of their tissues after a matter of time, bringing them back into the game eventually. With the emphasis on getting to the opposing bunker and claiming their prize, how many times you went down didn’t really matter. Bo could already see several individuals covered in paint splatters, attesting to a somewhat lengthy ongoing match even before Bo looked at the clock display and saw that they’d just passed the two hour mark.

He suppressed a whistle. That meant both sides had to be very evenly matched…which made him want to get down there and into the fight even more. After taking another couple minutes to watch the action he’d had enough and walked out, taking his duffle with him out the door then jogging down to the equipment room. His presence might off balance the match, but after two hours that would probably be a welcome change. If not he didn’t care, they got to see each other so rarely he would take the chance of being rude if only to get the surprise drop on one or two of them.

Bo pulled out a flex armor suit from the various sizes available and quickly got dressed, hitting the armory before running over to the entrance doors and inputting an override code to get them to open during the match. Without announcing his presence or logging into the scorekeeping software he went inside, closing the doors behind him, then disappeared off into the terrain carrying the stinger rifle that had made up such a large part of his life but had since been replaced by the pure stun rifle.

Bo kept to cover as much as he could, not wanting the others to know he was here just yet. He moved off into the trees while avoiding the large open area in the center that was scattered with boulders and dry streams that separated the distant bunkers where the ‘flags’ rested. It was actually just a finish pedestal with a button press, but a holographic flag marked the location inside of each. Getting there was the problem.

He thought about making a sneak run against one of them, but that would have been a bit too cheating…well, maybe not, but that’s not how he wanted to handle this. He had a golden opportunity here and wanted to take advantage of it. There were two teams, with one being made up mostly of 2s. Paul and Jason led it, but Emily, Jace, and Ivan were also there, with the other half being made up of Sara-012, Kiran-011, Riona, and two other second gen.

The other team was led by Greg and had a mix of trailblazers from different teams, second gen, and Vermaire…though in truth he kind of counted as more than one. And all things being equal, Bo still saw him as the terror that he’d been to them as trainees so he opted to throw in with the expanded 2s.

To that end he got a telepathic link to Jason, who was the closest, and send him a private message.

Olly olly oxen free, he told him along with a location ping.

Bo? Where did you come from? Jason answered back, taking cover behind one of the boulders just in from the trees while he got the heads up as to what was going on.

Just got back and felt like joining in. No one knows I’m down here yet, and I’m throwing in with you guys. Where do you want me?

You armed?

Of course.

Jason smiled, quickly having a side conversation with Paul. Pay your respects to the Black Knight, he said, sending Bo a telepathic location ping. He’s giving Emily and Riona a lot of trouble.

With pleasure, he said, running off through the trees to eventually come out near his team’s bunker, swinging around behind it and coming up the far side to stay out of sight. Crossing through the middle would have alerted the others to his presence and he didn’t want to ruin the surprise so he took the long way around…and just happened to spot Greg out of the corner of his eye.

All of them were running with telepathy screens, making it all but impossible to sense someone coming unless you were focusing on a specific area. Bo was lucky he spotted Greg first, because his fellow trailblazer had no clue whatsoever that he was on his outside, probably focusing his Ikrid on the nearby bunker to try and pick up a location trace of those inside guarding it.

Bo jumped out from behind a chunk of ground with a small ledge that had been hiding him and peppered Greg’s back with stinger shots. Blue splatters covered him and dropped face first to the ground, his rifle flying from his hands as he fell unconscious. Bo ran over to him and flipped him face up so he could breathe easier, then tapped him on the chest despite the fact that he couldn’t see or hear him.

“You never did learn to mind your surroundings,” he whispered before heading back into cover and moving along the irregular wall and into the small forest on the other side, at the end of which he felt Vermaire. At the moment he wasn’t blocking his mental presence, and Bo wondered if that was because he wasn’t good at it or he was just being cocky…with him settling on the latter.

As Bo got close he felt a battlemeld prompt and accepted it, suddenly linking up with both Emily and Riona and knowing exactly where they were and what they were thinking. Without even having to talk he knew what he needed to do and darted from one tree to another as they distracted the Black Knight away from the chamber’s edge, giving him a narrow corridor of approach.

When he got close enough Emily and Riona jumped out of their cover and went hand to hand with the Knight, Emily pumping round after round at him and making him juke to the side while Riona came up and blocked a sword swing with a briefly-lived bioshield. A kick to her chest a moment later broke through it and knocked her back, then as Vermaire took after her with intent to jab Bo came up from behind him and fired twice into his back.

To his surprise the Black Knight ducked beneath both, then he belated realized the big guy must have been focusing on his Pefbar to sense the immediate area around him. Abandoning Riona for the moment he ran behind a tree and disappeared from view…though Bo still had him on Pefbar and chased after him.

Riona got up and flanked him two steps back as both sprinted ahead, trying to run the menace down. Suddenly, and with far more speed than Bo knew he had, Vermaire reversed course and came back at them, swinging his long sword in an upward flip that caught Bo in the chin and wacked his head to the side, simultaneously delivering a bit of stun energy…not enough to knock him out but giving him the wobbles as he tried to remain standing.

With one opponent temporarily disabled Vermaire took a punch from Riona who tried to swing her rifle up behind it with the other arm and deliver a pointblank salvo into the man’s crotch as she ducked beneath his reflexive sword slash, but a light telekinetic shove moved her barrel off target and she fired through his legs. Next thing Bo knew she was on the ground covered by a bioshield as he tried to kick her, then as the trailblazer brought his own rifle up to bear on him Vermaire was lit up from behind as Emily got the drop on the mass of muscle.

“Umph!” Riona said as he fell on top of her and popped what was left of her shield. It took a moment for her to roll him off, then Bo offered her a hand, pulling her to her feet.

Battlemeld-linked as they were there was no need for discussion. Bo put another six shots into the Black Knight while Riona volunteered to stay put and keep shooting his unconscious body in order to keep him down. That way they’d have a 10 vs 9 without the big guy in the mix.

The two trailblazers moved out, and within the next 18 minutes Ivan finally got to the flag and won the match for them.

In the equipment room afterwards Greg came up and lightly punched Bo in the back as he was pulling his shirt off and had it over his head.

“Ow…hey.”

“That was so cheating,” Greg said with a smile on his face.

Bo finally got his shirt off and tossed it on the bench with the armor that he’d already peeled off. He turned around, with Greg’s levity fading. “Where did you get that?”

Bo rubbed the nasty welt on his chest, checking to see if it had gotten any worse. “A few days ago. I was helping with some repairs on the cargo ship I hitched a ride on and got skewered with a piece of frag when an overload blew out a console. I thought it was mostly healed up, but I felt something pop out there,” he said, still examining it. “Doesn’t look like the skin broke though.”

“Go find yourself a regenerator.”

“Yeah, I know. Just got back though and haven’t had time. So,” he said, picking up his shirt and heading towards one of the personal compartments lining the walls to catch a shower, which was where most of the others were right now or headed there after removing their armor, “what’s the big occasion? The dynamic duo didn’t say in their message.”

“A lot of training projects, or rather attempts. We need as many of us here as we can get to try and get a handle on them, so I’m glad you showed up. Just wish it would have been an hour later.”

“Ah, suck it up. Not the first time you’ve lost.”

“Was it you that got me in the back earlier?”

Bo smiled. “Hadn’t planned that, but you walked right by me and I couldn’t resist.”

“Figures,” Greg said, planting his hands on his hips as the both stopped outside one of the empty stations. “I couldn’t sense you at all.”

“Just like the old days.”

“Yeah, but I could find all the others when they were close by. You I completely missed.”

“You weren’t looking for me,” Bo pointed out.

“I was looking for trouble and missed you completely.”

“Pefbar?”

“I don’t know. All I remember is getting jumped. Makes me a little nervous if the Zen’zat can do that too. I think I’m starting to rely on my Ikrid radar a bit too much.”

“Something to think about.”

Greg nodded. “Catch you later.”

Bo let him go and entered the person bathroom/shower chamber and got cleaned up, grabbing a new casual uniform without ID stripes and wearing it back to his quarters…which he found out were the originals they’d had in Atlantis when they’d just finished graduation. It was odd that they were going there, but also a bit refreshing as the 16 of them met up for some old school Halo tournaments using the original gaming equipment that was still lining the lounge.

They spent several hours there, fanning the old competitive flames and relearning how to work the controls and eventually chitchatting until late at night when Paul eventually pulled him aside as the others headed off to bed or for a late night snack or workout.

“Ok spill,” Bo said, with both of them sitting down on stools in the lounge along a counter with various freshly stocked ambrosia foodstuffs.

“I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but Jason and I are getting close to identifying some triggers. We both have Pren now, and six of the others have gotten it since they got here and have been training with us. We’ve gotten them close and they made the leap on their own, but with a few more ascensions we might be able to pin it down, and if we can do that…”

“…we can start sharing it with the twin link knockoff.”

Paul nodded. “We’re also working on a lot of other things that just require us here together as a group. Using the training holo in the pyramid we know we’re pretty much on par with most of the Zen’zat, or, well, on par with the masses. Their elite are still beyond us, as you know well, but our scores are starting to match up with their line troops.”

“Actually I haven’t used it much, like maybe four or five times, and nothing recently.”

“Might want to swing by and check it out. I’ve been doing so a lot and it’s sobering. We’re not behind them anymore but we’re still going to get our asses kicked if they come back and throw even a low level elite at us.”

“So what are you working on to fix that?”

“No magic bullet,” Paul said, dismissing the idea of an easy fix, “but some potential reworking of our structure going forward. We’ve got the battlemeld and they don’t, but we’re not using it much.”

“We’re not?”

Paul inclined his head in a ‘really’ gesture. “How much training have you done with it recently?”

“Next to none, but I’ve been out in Lothlorien for the past 6 years.”

“My point exactly. We’re still going out on solo missions, and while we can train pretty well doing that, working the battlemeld requires another…and one at or near our level.”

“You think we should start pairing up for assignments? Kind of a logistical waste.”

“Won’t matter if we get our asses kicked by the V’kit’no’sat.”

“Always that…” Bo said, starting to feel a similar frustration.

“Jason and I have been discussing this for several years now, and we’ve been running it by some of the others when we’ve had a chance to meet face to face. Morgan doesn’t see the need, but she likes doing the lone ranger thing anyway.”

“Big shock there.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve been training pretty hard here with the battlemeld, especially in groups of 3 or more. Takes on an entirely different dynamic, especially when we use it for more than coordination. Those are our strengths that the V’kit’no’sat hopefully haven’t discovered yet. We need to really go all in there and we haven’t been.”

Bo considered that. “With the second gen not sucking as much as they used to, we could pull back a bit from our current duties and let them handle them…the straightforward ones I mean. We’d still have to troubleshoot.”

“I don’t want to go that far,” Paul cautioned. “The ADZ isn’t exactly buttoned up yet, but if we start deploying to some of the frontiers in pairs it will give us a training partner for the battlemeld.”

“Not to mention a decent sparring partner.”

“Exactly.”

Bo looked at him closely. “Does this have something to do with the brats?”

Paul sighed. “They’ve averaged 1.9 over the past decade.”

“Holy crap,” Bo said, noting that was a faster rate of advancement than most of them had had at that point in their training. It might even have been faster than Morgan, come to think of it. Any Archon that managed 1 level per year was moving along considerably fast, but to go up 19 levels in 10 years was really cooking, especially for an acolyte.

“Yeah, I know they’re not that good, but they do everything together and there has got to be some unseen advantage to that, twin link aside.”

“And you want us back together to try and see if we get our old mojo back?”

Paul smiled. “Well put.”

Bo stood up. “I’m game. A good night’s sleep and a little quality time with the regenerator tomorrow morning and I’ll be good to go. I don’t know why, after all these years, but playing multiplayer Halo still wears me out.”

“Show me,” Paul said, staring at his chest.

Bo rolled up his shirt and showed him the mark on his chest.

“How close was that to hitting your heart?”

“2.3 inches.”

“Oh, well that’s nothing then,” Paul scoffed. “Just a beauty mark.”

“Still, it’ll be nice when we can start building our own regenerators. Healing patches just don’t get the job done.”

“I’ll be sure to kick Stark in the butt next time I see him.”

“Do that,” Bo said, walking off. “Night.”

“Night,” Paul offered, spying the video games that everyone else had abandoned. He grabbed an ambrosia cookie and headed over to the couch, intending to get a little Mario Kart action in before bed.

3

June 25, 2545

Achkor System (Skarron territory)

Zenniza

Morgan ran through the tall grasses in the night, heading for a position marked on her battlemap and arriving a few minutes after ducking down and wrapping her dark blue armor up in an impromptu blanket as a trio of Skarron fighters passed overhead. Once they were gone she got to the virtual marker and dug around through the grass until she found the tiny Star Force hatch buried underneath, through which she climbed after carefully pulling the grass back over top like a small hut to keep it from being visible from above.

A few meters down and Morgan found herself in a one person wide walkway that she’d dug out on previous missions to Zenniza with the help of some robotic drones. The tunnel had been reinforced by compressed dirt bricks they created, likewise eating up the excess soil so it wouldn’t have to be discarded aboveground. Morgan kept her elbows tucked in so she didn’t hit the walls and jogged down the long tunnel, crossing underneath the barrel strips of land that surrounded the Skarron city and into the substructure.

She came out in one of the Hobbit zones, with the entry hatch hidden behind a large, heavy crate. Morgan scanned the area with her Ikrid and Pefbar, having to wait nearly half an hour before it was clear, then she opened the hatch, pulling the door inward and putting her shoulder to the crate. With her own strength being what it was it wasn’t hard to dislodge and soon she had a half meter gap that she slid out the side from, leaving her in a maintenance/storage area too small for the Skarrons to enter. She pushed the crate back in place then moved off on her recruiting mission.

This facility was part of the Hobbit habitation zone, meaning the Engineers rarely came here unless something broke down. There were, however, thousands of the squat infantry in the area and she had to be careful to move around undetected…in which Ikrid helped out immensely. Using several Jedi mind tricks she walked past a number of Hobbits without them hearing or seeing her, or more accurately not noticing that they did, allowing her some limited freedom of movement around what had become her prime recruitment zone.

From information given to her by the Hobbit turncoats she knew the layout and the politics of the Hobbit community on the planet, as well as how to find those who didn’t hold to the Skarrons’ authority over them. Threat of death for insubordination only worked so much, and there were always dissenters making themselves known through tiny acts of defiance. It was those acts that Morgan were looking for, so she could dive into the minds of those committing them and check as to their suitability for evac.

One of those defiant activities was disappearing for a few minutes or hours when they were supposed to be contained to their barracks during downtime. They weren’t allowed to roam around, but some did manage to do so by going through sections of the facility that were dark to surveillance. Morgan had gotten a map of those areas and the routes used to access them long ago, but by now had the area layout down to memory, allowing her to make decent speed over to one of the secret hideouts.

When she got nearby she scanned ahead, finding four minds…that were in the process of mating. Deciding not to interrupt that she moved to another area, then another, and finally a third of the local hotspots until she found what she wanted…a group airing complaints while snacking on stolen rations.

Morgan had also learned that the food supply was strictly maintained, with no excess allowed. Hobbits often scavenged food from their conquests to sate their hunger, and these three had apparently managed to rip off one of the local food stores…and that definitely qualified as defiance.

Morgan didn’t just walk in on them and introduce herself, rather she linked to their minds and monitored their thoughts. Eventually she steered them and the conversation in the direction she wanted, with them finally admitting to each other that they didn’t want to be here anymore and wanted a way out.

The level 6 Mage froze them in place before she entered, crawling in through a vent that barely fit her armor and coming out amongst the three statues. She sat down next to them and gradually released their senses and heads, allowing them to turn and look at her but otherwise not move.

“Calm yourself,” she said in the Skarron language. “I’m here to take you away. The Free Aronsic welcome you,” she said as she extended her hand out and produced a tiny holographic emitter. It activated as played a message from an Aronsic that had already joined Star Force, addressing many Hobbit issues and complaints, with Morgan sensing the speech hitting home despite the fear surging through the three of them.

It went on for several minutes, and by the end of it she knew that one of them was going to go with her. The other two not so much. At least not yet.

“If you go you must go now. I will lead you to my ship and take you off this planet. If you wish to remain there will be some chances for you to go later, but I cannot promise when or where. I must operate in secret, and I do not know how long it will be before I am discovered. Have you heard of others disappearing?”

“A few have. We thought they’d been killed,” one of the skeptical ones said timidly, for Morgan was still telekinetically holding his chest in place.

“We don’t kill your kind unless you attack us,” the trailblazer explained, sensing his concern. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but we’re not your enemy. The Skarrons are invading our territory and we will fight them, but we have no quarrel with you until you attack us. If you do so we’ll treat you as the enemy, but many of your kind now live with us, free of the Skarrons. I know it is a great deal to ask, but if you are to come with me it must be now.”

Morgan released her hold on them while intently watching their thoughts. They didn’t move, but were relieved to be free of her magical hold none the less.

“Come or stay, your choice,” she said, backing up into the vent and crawling out.

The three Hobbits didn’t say anything for a moment, then began conversing amongst themselves into what became an argument. Eventually one of them followed her, but only one.

“There are really others there?”

“Yes,” Morgan confirmed as she looked down on him from her taller height in the access corridor on the other side of the vent.

“Then I will go.”

“Good,” Morgan said, freezing him in place while she crawled back inside and moved back into the hideout where the other two were chatting rapidly. The vent was the only way in and out, so before they ran off to tell others or sound an alarm they had to let her leave first.

Morgan froze both of them as well and crawled back inside, pulling her left gauntlet off and exposing her fingertips to the air…then she planted them on one of their heads and concentrated, having to keep all three frozen while she worked on the one, which wasn’t easy to do.

This wasn’t the first time she’d had to wipe memories though, so she quickly found what she wanted to erase and blurred it out of existence before switching over to do the other one. She pulled a double check on both, holding their bodies and minds in a frozen state so they wouldn’t know what was going on, then crawled back out and stood up next to the other Hobbit in approximately the same position she was when she froze it.

“Follow me,” she said after releasing it.

The Hobbit blinked a couple of times, momentarily disoriented, but it did as told and Morgan walked off with it in tow, holding the others in check until she got to the limits of her Ikrid range. When she released them they didn’t remember her or that their fellow Hobbit had crawled into the hideout with them. After an awkward moment of silence they looked at each other and picked up on their previous conversation, never knowing that one of them was missing or how they’d had a chance to go with him.

Morgan kept a close watch on the thoughts of the one with her, wondering if he was going to back out but to his credit he didn’t waver. The recorded message from the other Aronsic had done the trick, and he stuck very close to her dark blue armor the entire way through the facility, not understanding just how they were sneaking past others that should have seen them.

When they got back to the hidden tunnel Morgan pulled the crate aside and pointed the Hobbit to go in. He hesitated a moment, preferring to follow the Human.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he promised, giving him a little telepathic nudge.

The Hobbit trodded up into the gap and slid inside, with Morgan wedging herself behind the crate then pulling it back as much as she could with her hands…but that still left a noticeable gap. Concentrating hard she telekinetically grabbed it and pulled, wiggling the heavy mass into place flush against the wall, but taking nearly a full minute to do it, thanks to the amount of weight she was having to tug around.

Once it was back and in place and the chances of someone discovering it back to nearly nothing she nudged the Hobbit on and took him out through the tunnel, eventually coming up into the grasses just before dawn. The night was still pitch black save for the star light, but there were a handful of fighters on patrol that they had to be careful about.  Morgan led him through the grasses, following the waypoints on the battlemap with the Hobbit not having a clue as to where they were going. There was no path or trail to follow, so he just stayed on her heels, fearing for his life if they were caught but desperately wanting to be free of the Skarrons.

Morgan couldn’t move very fast with him, just like the others she’d rescued countless times before, so she set a slow and steady pace and reached their destination well into the next morning, arriving at the camouflaged infiltrator and bringing the Hobbit onboard, exhausted and hungry but still able to stay on his feet.

As soon as he got inside he realized he wasn’t the only one she’d pulled out, for there were four more Aronsic already there, three of which were wearing their normal uniforms but one that was wearing what he guessed was a Human uniform.

Morgan let her assistant take over and headed back out, running back to the tunnel entrance and recruiting another 6 Hobbits over the following day before finally pulling out of their concealed niche and stealthily heading back to orbit. The pilot she had with her got them out through a hole in the orbital grid, bypassing the warships collected in orbit and on an outbound vector to a jumpline that would take them past several planets in the system to where her warship hid in waiting.

But before they got to that seldom-used jumpline a wave of Skarrons ships began jumping in on the stellar entry line. It was a convoy, containing warships and transports, but it didn’t end for more than half an hour. Thousands upon thousands of ships were coming into orbit, and by the time the infiltrator reached its jumppoint they were still coming in, with a sinking feeling manifesting in Morgan’s gut.

“This is…not usual?” the pilot asked in the cockpit as Morgan was seated beside him and the Hobbits were off in the back out of earshot.

“No,” she said, her armor now off and stowed in back. The Mage crossed her arms over her chest as she continued to watch the waves of ships coming in. “We didn’t expect the lull in attacks to last forever. It looks like they’re finally gearing up for round 2.”

The pilot shook his head. “With as bad as the Nestafar are getting hammered, how in the world do they have enough ships to hit us simultaneously?”

“Their empire is huge, and there’s no telling what their force dispersion and priorities are. We’ve got the Sentinels in place, and they know they can’t take them out easily. They needed more ships to even have a shot at it, and it looks like they’re rising to the challenge.”

“How long do you think we’ve got?”

Morgan shook her head. “I don’t know. This is their forward operating base, but not the closest position. They may reinforce the skirmishes going on first, or come straight for us or the Protovic. There’s no way of telling without reconnaissance.”

“Stay and watch or make the jump now?” he asked.

“Stay a few minutes longer. I’m curious to how many they’re bringing in…at the moment.”

“How many do they need?” he asked, watching the computer tally the incoming numbers as it monitored on passive scans that were picking up the Skarrons’ own reflected signals and beacons.

“A lot,” she said dismissively. “Depends on how they plan to use them.”

“How many before we’re really in trouble?”

Morgan shook her head, but didn’t answer. Both Humans watched and waited for more than 20 minutes, but the streams continued to come in and the fleets formed up into groups that spread out around orbit…including some that were coming in their direction. They didn’t appear to have noticed them yet, but get close enough and their sensors would pick them up, stealth ship or not. Zenniza orbit was getting cluttered, which was going to make it difficult, if not impossible to head back down to the surface to go hunting for more Hobbits.

“Let’s get going,” Morgan finally said, not wanting to take the chance of being discovered.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to come back for a while.”

The Archon sighed. “I know. We’ll have to go back to hitting up their outposts.”

“Thought we’d picked them dry?” he asked, making final jump preparations.

“Well,” Morgan said, eyeing the ship counter as it finally crept up past 10,000, “I get the feeling they’re going to get some new blood in soon.”

“Point,” he said, keying the gravity drive and shooting them off away from the planet. The sensor feed went out, leaving them without any intel about how many more ships were coming in.

As soon as they got back to the Tigerzord Morgan headed up to the bridge and got the Captain to get them moving in towards the star. She wanted to sneak back into planetary orbit and have a look at how many ships had arrived, but didn’t want to tip their hand as to having been in the system. Traveling to the star always had that chance, but to date the Skarrons didn’t have any detection platforms set up to monitor traffic, so the only way they’d know that there was a Human jumpship in the system was to have another ship nearby at the time. With quick in and outs it was possible to enter and leave unnoticed, though it was a gamble each time they did so.

Morgan and the Tigerzord had been insystem for more than 9 months plucking out Hobbits to bring back, so the number of trips they were making through stellar orbit weren’t many and she hoped the Skarrons had no idea they were even here, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Dropping into planetary orbit, even in extreme high orbit that their binary drives were capable of placing them it would be like waving to the enemy. The infiltrator was small enough to sneak around, but a jumpship was another matter entirely.

None of that mattered when they got to the star anyway. It had been several hours since the infiltrator had left planetary orbit and Morgan assumed the incoming Skarron convoy had completed arrival…but it hadn’t. What she saw on the sensor display was like a kick to the gut by the Black Knight.

There were ships still coming in from outside the system, visible as tiny specs on the sensors along a specific jumpline some 58 degrees around from their current position, and a HUGE pool of ships around the star gradually transitioning over to the jumpline to the planet. The computer tagged in excess of 270,000 and there was no way of knowing how many more had already parked in planetary orbit or were still to come from outside the system.

There was no way they weren’t going to be spotted, so time was of the essence. There would be no more Hobbit fetching from here. She had to get back to the ADZ to warn the others. This was no mere reinforcement. The Skarrons were going to drop the heavy end of the hammer on them…and even now she still didn’t know just how large that hammer was going to be.

“Get us out of here,” she ordered the Captain, sitting back in her command chair and beginning to run the naval numbers through her head versus their various defense positions along the border.

4

June 29, 2545

Solar System

Earth

Bo stood in the middle of the ring, his body stationary but his mind ablaze with telekinetic control signals. All around him thuds were coming in and he was having to block them with short-lived grips, then drop and one to move onto another. Add in the random Fornax twitches that Paul and Jason were hitting him with to disrupt his focus and you had one headache of a training drill…but Archons liked challenges and this one had a very specific purpose.

They were trying to get Bo the Pren ability, which was a power upgrade to Pefbar/Lachka. In order to get him into the desired zone for it to occur they had to overload his Lachka skills, as they had done with the others and hope that the hit on the trigger. They still didn’t know exactly what it was but had narrowed it down considerably. It had taken Jason 3 weeks to get it, Paul 2.5 and the others above and below them, with Emily finding it the quickest once she arrived after only 3 days of trying. That said, she’d been the most recent to arrive aside from Bo and had the benefit of the others’ experience…but it didn’t seem to be helping him.

He’d been at it now for several weeks and Paul and Jason’s response to that was to up the intensity even further, pushing him to the ascension point, in theory, but so far nothing had happened aside from him getting pelted with thuds from the surrounding walls. He was blocking a lot of them, but every time one got by it hit him with such force that it knocked his mental balance off. The trailblazer was having to constantly reset while trying to minimize the disruptions when they happened…for his two friends were making sure they did regularly.

Right now the walls were chucking out some 18 thuds per second. Some simultaneously, others staggered. The pattern was random and kept Bo guessing, with him having to relent and just take them as they came, for he couldn’t get into much of a rhythm. Already he had some small welts from repeated hits, and was trying to cover certain angles more than others…such as those headed for the face, neck, and crotch.

He lost himself in the effort…that was the only way he could hope to keep up, and he had to remain still, for if he stepped outside the small circle it would be an immediate disqualification. That had happened several times already, thanks to the blindsiding of the Fornax blasts, but lately he’d been managing to stay on his feet when they hit and the next one was no exception.

Paul hit him with one from the left where he sat against the wall underneath the thud shooters, causing Bo to lose his balance for a microsecond, but he didn’t have to take a step to recover. A twitch in his hips was enough and he was back on center, but he missed swatting down two thuds and they hit him in the back and lower right leg. He accepted two more hits to his right side as he concentrated and held one coming in at his head a split second longer than normal…enough to throw it to his left and hit Paul.

His fellow trailblazer caught it a foot in front of his face and tossed it aside with a smile, then tossed another mild Fornax blast his way. Paul knew they had to keep pressing him in order to find the trigger, for most of the ascensions that he’d studied the data from occurred during some form of overload.

Power comes in response to a need, not a desire, he remembered Goku says, and as far as psionics were concerned that appeared to hold true. Trouble was they still didn’t know exactly where and how to push, but with every ascension that occurred they got more data, with Bo wearing the monitoring headband that Jason and Paul were also sporting, though at the moment they were just sitting and ‘watching’ while Bo was the one working up a good sweat, despite the fact that he was barely moving.

Paul sent another three Fornax blasts his way, all low intensity until Jason threw a big one at him. That sent him forward a step, just inside the boundary of the circle with Paul cringing. They needed Bo processing heavily to trigger the ascension, and every big stumble he took was going to interfere with that and essentially give him a momentary mental break. With 17 thuds hitting him in succession as he stabilized his stumble Paul was about to complain to Jason when Bo went the other direction, dropping to a knee and getting pelted by everything coming in.

Jason flicked the stop button on the far panel telekinetically as he frowned. “Bo?”

“Got some instability,” he said, focusing on it and dropped his second knee down and sitting back on his heels.

“About time,” Paul said, getting to his feet and trying to get a read on his mind. “Say something if you need help.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Bo said as the little monitor icons on his headband began to tick up into the red. Before long they started flashing and Bo physically yelled a good imitation of a DBZ powerup as Paul felt the change occur within him. Tissue flash grew as his mind appeared to explode, dulling the other trailblazers’ connection to him…then after a few seconds it began to recede as the last bits finished their growth and stabilized.

“Damn that hurt,” Bo said, holding his head and sagging backwards even further onto his heels with them pressing up into his butt. “Still hurts, actually. Feels like I pulled something.”

Jason and Paul exchanged glances. “It wasn’t that bad for us.”

“Do you mind?” Jason asked, walking up to him and putting a hand on his head.

“Help yourself…I’m still picking up the grenade pieces.”

Jason linked in and began searching through his mind, particularly the physical structure, and blinked in surprise. “Ah, I don’t know what you ascended to, but it isn’t Pren or anything else we’ve got yet. The tissue is in the wrong place.”

“You sure?” Bo asked, still wincing.

“Positive,” Jason said as Paul came up and put a hand on the other side of Bo’s head, with Jason mentally directing him to the new growth.

“Damn that’s big,” Paul said, seeing a spider-like network of tendrils where there should be none…and they were all mentally afire with activity typical of recent flash growth.

“That’s what she…ah hell, I can’t even make a joke,” Bo said, leaning forward and curling up into a ball as he sat on his legs with the pain swelling again.

“I’m not joking, you have a huge new growth,” Paul pointed out. “And Jason’s right, I’ve never see this one before.”

“Shoot me now,” Bo moaned.

“Suck it up, cupcake,” Jason said half serious, for he’d been through worse back when their abilities were first manifesting.

“Yeah, you’re all heart, Jason.”

“And focus on slipping into Sesspik,” he added.

Bo made an exasperated sound. “I can’t even think straight,” he said, trying to steady himself enough to get into a healing trance, which hadn’t even occurred to him to try.

“Hold onto this,” Paul said, creating a telepathic hard point for Bo to hold onto. When he mentally grasped it the blurriness that came along with the pain reduced somewhat, but his head was still awash with disorientation. Paul felt his mind begin to settle a bit, but whether he got into Sesspik or not he couldn’t say, for his current state was so erratic that even Paul was having a hard time reading him without exposing himself to the same pain.

“Thanks,” Bo said, not moving so much as a muscle as he tried to bleed off the fragmentation, getting just a hint of coolness as the Sesspik activated.

“Wait a sec,” Jason said, not believing what he thought he was seeing.

“What?” Paul asked, sensing something important.

“Stay with him. I’ll be back,” Jason said, letting go of Bo’s head and hurrying out.

“What?!” Paul asked.

“Not sure yet. I’ll let you know,” he said, leaving the other two trailblazers behind and trying to keep a mental picture of Bo’s new tissue intact without it warping…too much. He ran through the corridors until he found the closest room with a computer terminal, politely kicking aside the trainer who was using it and logged him out. Pulling up a special prompt he accessed Atlantis’s online database of V’kit’no’sat translated information and dug into the psionics files.

He skipped over the tier 2 abilities and brought up the 3 known tier 3s, though by this point they knew there were actually 8…but without any files on the other five.

The three were Jumat, Beynat, and Sav. He knew it wasn’t Jumat, for he’d studied those files closely after what happened to Morgan, but he thought one of the other two might be the case. That spider-like tissue pattern caught in his memory and he dug up the files on the physical growths of the other two…with Sav coming up with an almost exact match.

Jason double checked to be sure, comparing the image still in his head with the basic construction of the Sav psionic, and after several minutes of not believing his eyes he logged out of the terminal and headed back to the training area…finding Bo sitting up but still sprawled out on the Paul’s hand on his head trying to help stabilize him.

“Alright you space monkey,” Jason said, shaking his head as he walked over to and knelt down next to Bo. “You just skipped tier 2 and joined Morgan’s exclusive club.”

Paul’s eyes widened. “He got Jumat?”

“No, he got Sav…I think. The tissue looks almost identical.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Paul said, looking from one to the other.

Jason smirked. “Jealous?”

“Very,” he said, actually a little ticked.

“Remind the pain-stricken one what Sav does?” Bo said, his eyes watery.

“It’s the multi-tasking upgrade,” Paul said, still miffed. As far as naval was concerned that was the holy grail of all psionics. “If you’ve really got it then you should be able to utilize different psionics simultaneously.”

“Processing power upgrade?” Bo asked, vaguely remembering reading that file.

“As well as being able to control more drones,” Jason added. “Which is why Paul really hates you right now.”

Bo laughed, but that hurt his head even more. “Wanna trade?”

“Just think of what this will do for your naval scores,” Jason prodded, with some amusement. “You’ll be able to remote control entire ships down to every available system…if not fleets. You might even come close to matching him.”

“Shut up,” Paul said, looking down at Bo. “It’ll do a lot more than that. If I remember correctly it’s not psionic specific and essentially acts like a second brain, focus wise at least.”

“Like what I needed to keep track of all the thuds,” Bo pointed out.

“We need to take a close look at those files,” Paul insisted. “Not sure how we’re going to confirm this one while his head is fragged.”

“I’m serious,” Bo reiterated. “You got bioshields and I got a bigger brain. Trade?”

“Actually I want both,” Paul answered honestly.

“You’re no fun,” Bo said. “Jason, any advice? This feels a lot like what you described.”

“You think it misgrew?” he asked, his merriment now gone.

“I don’t know, but it’s bad.”

“Something caused you to skip a tier…though that might not be quite accurate. Regardless, we’re not supposed to access the third tier until we’re much more advanced, or so the Zen’zat say. This might be some sort of glitch or malfunction.”

“So don’t even think about undoing it,” Jason said firmly.

“I’m not hurting that much,” Bo clarified, “but close.”

“We need you to get you under a bigger scanner,” Paul said, glancing at his headband that, as far as the indicator lights were concerned, was registering no lingering instability. “Walk or carry?”

“Is stun an option?” Bo asked, slowly pulling himself to his feet with Jason grabbing his arm to help stabilize him.

“Come on,” Paul said, leading the way. “Let’s get this figured out.”

“Here,” Vortison said to Paul as Bo lay on a bed on the other side of the room under a scanner with Jason by his side monitoring other readouts. “This data you probably never looked at. It’s all statistics relating to the tissue growth process and has never been translated. I just got used to looking at it in V’kit’no’sat because some of their means of recordkeeping don’t have English or Metric equivalents.”

Paul looked at the data, seeing a bunch of mathematical data mixed in with various terminology. “What am I looking for?”

“Nothing without the proper context, but basically this outlines how the tissue is supposed to be grown…and in this case the Sav is clearly supposed to occur in various stages. The ‘instability’ that you guys refer to is actually part of the prep work that allows a smoother transition. I’d guess that Bo forced the transfer too quickly, which is why he’s in so much pain now. Same thing for the rest of you. Once the flash growth stops the pain should as well.”

Paul considered that. “I was under the impression that the instability was a hurdle to overcome in order to activate the ascension. I didn’t know it was variable?”

“I can’t say for certain because I’ve never experienced it myself, but I would guess that your tissues want time to adapt in stages. Not entirely sure what that would feel like from your end though…”

“Did his form incorrectly?”

“I would say no, for the most part. Everything appears to be there that should be, it’s just chewed up from the hyper-condenses process. He’s got more than a pound of new tissue in his head. That alone will cause headaches until everything adjusts.”

“I went through that with the bioshield ascension,” Paul reminded him.

“Yes, but that was spread out over your entire body. His tissue is all in one place, more or less if you ignore the tendrils.”

“Cranial pressure?”

“Stabilizing. The V’kit’no’sat did good work when they designed these. My guess is he’ll work it all out in time, he just rushed it and got temporarily fried in the process.”

Paul nodded, taking that as good news despite the fact that meant Bo would be in considerable pain for at least few days, if not more. “Any idea why he went to tier 3?”

Vortison held up a finger as he switched screens, bringing up the data that had been transmitted to the computer just before the ascension occurred.

“I don’t think the tiers are meant to be stepping stones. They’re a level of power or difficulty if you want to think of it that way. Sav has no precursor other than the tier ones, and I think it’s the intensity of your training that triggered it. You know far better than me…what’s your training like compared to what the Zen’zat do?”

Paul hesitated for a moment, for that was a tricky question. “We use a different basic philosophy, but a lot of their training regimens are just as intense, if not more so.”

“Do they have an equivalent to the drill you were running with Bo?”

“Not that I’m aware of. We were actually trying to activate Pren when this happened.”

“Same drills as the others?”

“Exactly the same.”

“Then I would hazard a guess that there was something different in his training leading up to this point. I’d dig into those records, if you have them.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Paul promised, walking back over to Bo and Jason.

“He’ll be alright,” Jason said confidently. “Not as bad as I was,” he said, tapping the flatscreen display, “but he did get a good rug burn.”

Paul thumbed back over his shoulder towards Vortison. “He thinks we’re pressing the ascensions too fast and that’s the problem. Seems Sav is meant to occur in growth stages. You got it on the first try and as a reward got fried.”

“So we shouldn’t be trying to press?” Bo asked, knowing that flew in the face of everything they’d been working on to this point.

“Oh we’ll press,” Jason confirmed. “There’s just an added bonus if we fail a few times first.”

“Some reward,” Bo said, still in agony.

“Worth it in the long run,” Jason said from his perch atop the pain pedestal…except maybe for Morgan, but hers was a special case. Either way, Archons weren’t going to let a pain barrier stand in their way to accessing the additional psionics…and given how impatient they were, they probably wouldn’t back off much, if any, in probing instabilities when they arose in the future. At least he knew he wouldn’t.

“At least you did this to yourself,” Paul commented, “and there appears to be no structural problems.”

“Good…can I get stunned now?”

“Fastest way to recover is Sesspik,” Vortison commented from a few meters away.

“And you need to be conscious for that,” Jason reminded him unnecessarily.

“Wonderful,” Bo said, moving the scanning equipment aside and slowly standing up. “Sounds like it’s back to my quarters for a nap. Escorts, if you please,” he said, holding up a hand for balance.

Jason took him by the elbow and began to lead him out. “You’re such a wuss.”

5

July 13, 2545

Solar System

Earth

Bo woke up to a jabbing finger in his ribcage, blinking his eyes open mid-dream and coming back to reality in a hazy flash. He sat up in bed, shaking his head out as Jason retracted his arm.

“Ah,” he sighed. “Not again.”

“Afraid so,” Jason said, referencing the fact that Bo had slept through his alarm. Ever since the Sav ascension his sleep patterns had been deeper than normal…so deep in fact he’d arranged it with his fellow trailblazers to come and wake him up if he didn’t signal them over the comms that he was up within 10 minutes of his alarm going off.

Which it now did, on repeat. Bo glanced at the control console on the wall and telekinetically flipped it off, wondering again how he could have slept through the screeching wail…the most annoying sound he could get his hands on, trying to find something that would pierce his doped up state. He put his hands on his head, massaging his forehead that was still carrying a lingering bit of discomfort but the outright pain was gone.

“Meet you in the cafeteria in 20?” Jason asked, heading for the door.

“I’ll be there in 15,” Bo said, heading for the shower.

The warm water nearly made him doze off again, but he focused on flexing his muscles every now and then to get some tension in his body as he cleaned up. Fortunately shaving was a thing of the past with his now deactivated hair follicles, so after a moderately long shower he pulled on a fresh training uniform and headed out, meeting Jason, Paul, Emily, and Greg at one of the tables for a not so early breakfast. Apparently the others were already out and about, for no Archon ever slept in late…save for losers like him that couldn’t keep it together.

He had thought he was getting better, but it seemed his head was craving sleep. Probably some type of recalibration going on but it was starting to look like this was going to be a normal thing. He told himself that so long as his head hurt a little then he wasn’t done recovering and so not to worry, but very many more of these inadvertent comas and he was going to start to worry.

He piled up a full plate of carb and sugar-laced foodstuffs and headed over to their table amongst over 300 other people at various stages of breakfast. Most weren’t Archons, but regular Atlantis staff, though they were quite well acquainted to seeing the living legends walking around so not too many people stared.

Bo grabbed a bottle of green on his way and sat down next to Emily, immediately drinking half of the vitamin-laced liquid before tearing into one of several pastries. She glanced over at him, then reached a hand up and put it on his head.

“You’re running hot still?” she asked, not meaning temperature but how his brain was processing.

“Can’t turn it off. All I can manage is a slow idle,” he said before taking another large bite and chewing vigorously.

“Is it eating ambrosia?”

“Thankfully no…” he said with his mouth half full. “But it’s still taking over when I sleep.”

“Have you tried staying awake?”

“Doesn’t help, but yeah. I only got about 6 hours in last night.”

“So you’re physically fried too?”

“Not so much, but if this keeps up I will be. I just hate nodding off before I can’t get all the way asleep. My new processor wants to run its own simulations. The only way I can get it to shut up is to be really tired, then it takes over sometime after my body soaks up the rest it needs.”

“Want some help?”

“I don’t even know what could help…other than letting this play out.”

“We can catch a nap later and I can help nudge you off to sleep. At least give you an hour or so of real rest.”

Bo hesitated, thinking. “Not sure if that will work or not, but it’s worth a shot.”

“About 3 then?”

“That works…I think. Not sure what drills these guys have set up for me today.”

“Still holding your hand?” Greg commented.

Bo glared at him, but didn’t say anything. Preferring to continue eating.

“Speaking of which,” Paul added, “they’ve got the new obstacle course ready. I ran through it this morning for a light trial and got my ass kicked pretty easy. I’m curious as to how you’ll stand up.”

“New course?” Greg asked.

“Designed for me,” Bo answered. “They want to put my multi-tasking abilities into the next dimension so they rigged up something.”

Emily whistled. “Oh, I want to see this.”

“Later,” Jason said. “He needs to get adjusted first. Cheerleaders can wait till later.”

Emily levitated a bit of the filling out of one of her pastries and sent a glob Jason’s way, but Bo telekinetically intercepted it, freezing the red goo a foot in front of his face and pulling it into tiny pieces that he arranged in a cubical grid, further dividing them down into smaller and smaller segments until it looked like a holographic grid map.

Greg’s jaw dropped when he saw the intricate control he had over his Lachka. “Now that is impressive. How many pieces is that?”

“12 by 12 by 12. Can’t do much more without losing focus.”

“1728?” Greg said after doing the math. “That’s one hell of an upgrade. Most I’ve ever managed was 162, and nowhere near that small.”

“I can see smaller detail now too,” Bo added. “I think my Pefbar was overloading to the point that we can only see as much as we can process…and now.”

“How small can you go?” Greg asked.

The filling collapsed in on itself, returning to a single glob that Bo sent the rest of its way to Jason’s face.

“That small.”

Greg laughed, but Paul just shook his head. “No, look,” he told Greg, pointing to what appeared to be an empty spot of air in between him and Bo.

Greg focused, then his jaw dropped again when he flicked on his Pefbar and saw a tiny little speck…no, four tiny little specs so small that they were all but invisible with normal eyesight.

“How in the galaxy are you doing that?”

“Not sure,” Bo admitted. “I just have a finer control of my Lachka.”

“When did this kick in?”

“A couple days ago when I started messing around with stuff.”

“Jealous yet?” Paul asked.

Greg stared at the tiny little pieces, not believing what he thought he was seeing. They were so small it was hard to be sure. “Combat applications? I could see how this would help a tech but…”

“We’re working on it,” Jason said. “Right now it’s about mass coordination. We’re not sure if the microscopic angle is intentional or just a side effect.”

“I don’t think the database mentioned anything about it,” Emily said, thinking back to what she’d read a few weeks ago.

“It doesn’t,” Bo answered between bites, for he was really shoveling it in trying to make up for lost time. “I’ve been through those files more than these two, and there’s nothing there. All they’ve got is some notes from the few Zen’zat that achieved it, and they cited use in either remote control or particle deflection with Lachka…including a huge power savings versus the wall technique.”

“If you can individually track and catch every piece,” Greg said, following the line of thought.

“Exactly.”

“But you don’t have time for than in the case of an explosion.”

“Actually…he does,” Jason said, glancing over at Greg after a sip from a bottle of blue. “His reaction speeds have increased. Not his physical skills, but his mental processing. Eye/hand coordination has gone up as a result, but now it’s his body that’s holding back further upgrades.”

“I can see things before they happen,” Bo said, taking another swig. “Sort of. It feels that way because my senses are a step ahead of my body. They’ve got me running through drills to test that theory and so far my reaction speed is upwards of Mage 73.”

“Holy crap,” Emily said, looking at him again. “And I thought you were just becoming a better chess player.”

“Haven’t actually tried that yet,” he admitted. “Head is still fried enough that I don’t want to plug into an interface just yet. Need to clean out the debris with drills first.”

Emily raised an eyebrow at Paul. “Can’t believe you’re holding him back on that one.”

“I just want him at full strength before I kick his ass,” he said with a smirk.

“I think we’re going to sell tickets for that one,” Jason commented as he finished his tray.

“What’s up first today?” Bo asked his two volunteer trainers, starting on another pastry.

“Light sparring drills then a 5k before we hit the obstacle course.”

“We?”

“I’m doing it too. Jason needs someone to compare you with.”

Jason stood up. “I’ll meet you guys there. Got some sword practice to do first.”

Bo nodded and Jason walked off with his empty tray…while his was still half full.

“Em, what are you up to?” Greg asked.

“Swimming, swimming, and more swimming,” she said, sipping out the last of her bottle of blue. “Endurance day, then I’ll catch a nap with Bo and probably go back for some flexibility drills or sparring afterwards. Depends how dead I am. Wish we’d get the stupid triggers figured out so we can start sharing. I’m really envying those bioshields.”

“Speaking of which, where’s Riona?” Greg asked Paul.

“An early start today. I won’t join her for training until the afternoon.”

“I thought you two were joined at the hip?”

“We are, but had to make room for this guy. Besides, we can’t train bioshield all day every day.”

“I thought you were going for the whole Master and Apprentice thing,” Emily added.

“About that,” Paul said, taking the opportunity while the three of them were here. “I don’t like suggesting this after the fact, but I think we should rework the Mage levels.”

“How?” Greg asked, curious. Paul was top ranked at level 8 now, with Morgan none too happy about it, but she still preferred field work to training on Earth so for her it was kind of like letting Paul get out ahead of her so she’d have a challenge to reel him back in. At least that’s what it appeared to everyone else. Her thoughts on it were less…cheerful.

“The time I’ve spent with Riona has opened my eyes to a lot of things.”

“I’ll bet it has,” Emily said sarcastically.

Paul threw her a very familiar annoyed look but continued on without comment. “I think we need to keep previous Archon levels as they are. We might not need a lot of the stuff in them, but the newbs do…like the heavy armor and no psionics up till acolyte.”

“Agreed,” Greg said, not sure where he was going with this.

“I think we need to rework Mage and make it into a much larger category…and one that has an automatic pairing with a higher ranking Archon.”

“Except there are no higher ranking Archons,” Greg pointed out.

“Our problem, which we’ll work through, but when the second gen get to this point I think it just has to happen and we have to start working and traveling in pairs…for all assignments.”

“I don’t know about that,” Emily said. “There are too few of us as it is.”

“If the V’kit’no’sat didn’t exist I’d agree, but we’ve got to take it to the next level and having, at minimum, a sparring partner with you at all times will help us advance quicker. Me pulling ahead of Morgan should be proof enough of that.”

“Generous of you,” Emily pointed out.

“I like beating her, you know that, but if she were here training the same amount I was we’d be even…at best. That’s a challenge I like tackling and going back and forth with her on, but since she’s out fighting and doing other stuff her training isn’t at such a high level. Don’t tell her I said that, because it’s not a dis, just a fact that she has no peers to work with. Now, we all learned how to train solo and the newbs should as well, which is why I’m not suggesting we pair them up until they hit Mage, or as I like to think of it the ‘Apprentice’ stage.”

“Enter the automatic Jedi metaphor,” Emily declared.

“Actually I think he might be onto something,” Greg said, thinking hard. “We’ve already been seeking each other out, those of us with the same psionics, to train for them. A more formal structure that has it happening automatically would make sense…though I really don’t want to lose the freedom we have right now.”

“We can do whatever we want,” Paul reminded him. “I’m thinking mainly about the second gen coming up.”

“We’re the masters and can take on an Apprentice by choice?” Bo asked, finally working to the end of his plate.

Paul waved a hand side to side in an unsure gesture. “Numbers game, but eventually yes. If we want to go solo we can, but if we’re in the field I think we need a partner. The combat applications should be obvious, but even if just for training purposes.”

“I can agree with that,” Bo added. “6 years out on Lothlorien without any of you guys around sucked.”

“My point exactly,” Paul agreed.

“So we split up…how? By psionics?” Greg asked.

“What Riona and I have going works well, but I’m thinking further ahead to when we learn how to share. I think the sharing should be done Master to Apprentice.”

Greg leaned back in his chair, rubbing his smooth chin. “They get whatever psionics they can break through to on their own up until they hit ‘Apprentice’ then they get the full load, along with the personalized training of how to make use of them.”

“I like the sound of that,” Emily added. “Except we can’t share and don’t know how to use them yet.”

“Work in progress, like always,” Paul said, going a step further. “We’ve also got to make this level more than 100…or make each more difficult. A hundred years on average seems like a long time, but from the Zen’zat’s point of view we’re still young. We need to structure our levels thinking far ahead of now.”

“That had crossed my mind,” Greg admitted. “But we can’t design levels that far ahead of our current abilities.”

“I know, but I meant between status changes. I also think it’s time we diversified the armor. I’m liking the heavier version, but some are wanting to go in Kara’s direction to maximize agility. I think we should have two options available at Apprentice while us Masters get more choices…after we design them.”

“We’re going to run into the problem of getting too big of a skill gap,” Bo warned. “Right now the second gen isn’t that far behind us. But 1000 years from now it’s going to be like bringing your kid brother along and I for one am not going to be too into that. Well, maybe once or twice but not as a regular thing.”

Greg nodded. “We also need elite pairings.”

Paul raised and pointed a finger at Greg. “Good idea.”

“Are we going to give them the telepathic armor too?” Emily asked. “Or save that for the ‘Masters?’”

“I don’t know,” Paul said, knowing that it was barely even in prototype stage at the moment. “What we give ourselves isn’t the same, and we can’t overload the others with a lot of changes all on the same level.”

“They’re going to have their hands full with the psionics if we can learn to share them,” Greg pointed out. “That and a choice in armor should be all we throw at them.”

“Agreed,” Bo said, now with a clean plate, “but are we renaming it?”

“Mage fits with the psionics being added, in theory,” Greg said. “Not sure exactly how that will work. The requirements might need to be easy just to get them all up and going.”

Emily nodded, thinking along the same lines. “Mage should be the hard hitting psionic requirements. We can keep the current level progression we’ve mapped out, that way you and Morgan don’t get in a hissy fit by resetting them, then add the new ones when we get access to them.”

Bo shook his head. “We really need them all unlocked first, otherwise we’re going to have people marked ahead of where they should be.”

“Can’t be helped at the moment,” Greg said, “but we can get the armor mod going.”

“Work on it, guys,” Paul said as he stood up and Bo followed suit. “Right now it’s time for training.”

“Isn’t it always,” Emily said, getting up as well.

“I’ll get back to you later today,” Greg told Paul. “Already starting to get some ideas.”

“I thought you might,” he said as the four of them abandoned the table and returned their trays before splitting up and heading off to various training facilities within Atlantis. Paul and Bo went together, but he made a mental note to stop by and have a chat with Wilson later in the day and see if he could offer any insights as to how they might progress forward. Even though he wasn’t an Archon he had always been the training master, more often than not cluing them in to new ways to approach training that they then expanded upon.

If you were ever stuck, he was the go-to guy for help with training issues or all around advice.

6

“Ready?” Paul asked.

“Whenever you are,” Bo answered, toeing the starting line next Paul while Jason watched from behind.

With the slap of the starting pedestal Paul took off with Bo matching him stride for stride up to the first barrier and both of them jumping up on top of it and walking across three narrow beams only 2 inches wide. Paul took the middle lane and Bo the right, with numerous thud launchers activating and targeting the two of them from above, ahead, behind, and from underneath. As per the rules of the course Paul couldn’t use his bioshield and neither of the Archons could create a telekinetic field to deflect the thuds with. They had to intercept each one individually, catching, bouncing, or deflecting them in order to keep their balance.

As he walked, Paul sensed the incoming thuds with his Pefbar extended out nearly to its limits, giving him a split second warning for each which was just enough time to create a hand-sized Lachka field that he placed in their path, knocking down each one individually as he cycled about mentally from point to point. There were dozens coming in at once, forcing him to have to create multiple fields simultaneously and each on their own timing, but he managed well enough. Only a few thuds made it through to hit him and it wasn’t enough to throw off his balance.

He made steady progress across, one step at a time and wobbling here and there when he did get hit…but Bo had already made it across. He’d never stopped to walk, and though Paul couldn’t pay attention to what he was doing he noticed a hail of deflections coming off him as he got pelted repeatedly.

Jason had a better view from the starting area, in which he saw Paul slow up and work his way across the disqualification pit gradually while Bo didn’t slow at all. He ran right across, with all the thuds just bouncing off his Lachka fields as if it was no trouble at all. That was the first sign that something was considerably different between the two, but it was only the start of the course and arguably the easiest section.

When Bo finished getting across the narrow beam he had to climb a ladder, still under thud assault that would last through the entire course. He scurried up the ladder like he had gone across the beam, almost as if the thuds being stopped a few inches from his body were nothing more than holograms and couldn’t touch him. In fact Jason hadn’t seen a single one hit him, while several had gotten through to Paul.

At the top of the ladders were three circles, into which Bo stepped and activated the timer. He held position as 5 times as many thuds shot at him, literally throwing about 30 per second from multiple angles, but the trailblazer just settled in and blocked them all. First he caught and dropped them, then he began deflecting them back towards various targets near the turrets and racking up some bonus points. He could have grabbed one and threw it back, but Jason noticed he wasn’t doing that. He was actually bouncing them in the direction he wanted…which was when Jason finally realized he was just showing off.

When the timer expired Paul was just getting to the base of the ladder. It opened up the floor beneath Bo and dropped him down through a short tunnel and rounded a curve, sliding him out to a lower section of the course that had two different sizes of thuds…one tiny and one large, both of which were being first at him at different speeds and with different kinetic loads. Trick of this section was to probe his differentiation skills and see just how aware he was of what he was doing.

Again, Bo surprised Jason. He traced a line on the floor that had a holographic beacon through a complicated series of twists and turns around an otherwise open square of floor the size of a basketball court getting hammered the entire time he had to stay inside a two meters perimeter of the glowing ‘mist’ that was guiding him erratically. Adjusting to it and maneuvering as he was should have been a problem, but Bo handled it with ease and continued to rack up bonus points by deflecting thuds towards nearby targets…and doing so individually, because Jason could see his Lachka fields thanks to his Rentar ability, and he was in fact creating tiny fields to intercept each…and much smaller fields than Paul was using.

The smaller the field the more accurate the trajectory trace you had to pull, and given that this was all happening in a split second you had to create wider fields the less sure you were of their exact position. With Bo’s fields being so tiny it was almost as if he could see them coming with ease…which shouldn’t have been possible with so many being fired at him nonstop.

Jason was already impressed, but it only got better the further Bo worked around the course. Eventually the thuds increased speed, size, and diversity…setting up a final gauntlet run down a meter wide elevated ‘sidewalk’ with disqualification pits on either side and a hailstorm of thuds. The ceiling and nearby walls were literally covered with launchers, some of which were sending out baseball sized projectiles while others were spraying him with pebbles in shotgun sprays.

Those Bo did take with single fields, which Jason wasn’t sure was within the rules or not, but it was how he would have reacted had he been running it. The normal-sized thuds and larger he kept deflecting singly, then he started grabbing them in the air and holding them up in a halo around him to use as a shield as he ran down the long hallway.

Jason couldn’t see most of him for the rain was too heavy, but some 18 seconds later he emerged past the line that deactivated the launchers and walked up next to the starting platform and dropped the 200+ thuds he had suspended around his body at once with them bouncing and rolling off as he casually reached out and pressed the finish button.

Some of the thuds rolled over to Jason and hit him in the feet, with the trailblazer just looking at his peer and shaking his head.

“I want one,” he said pithily, drawing a smirk from Bo.

“How’s Paul been doing?” he said, looking back.

Jason had forgotten to look when Bo was going through the final gauntlet, and as he scanned the course for Paul couldn’t find him. He reached out with is Ikrid and found his mind’s location…in the bottom of a disqualification pit.

“Not good,” Jason summed up. “You were ahead of him right from the start.”

“I’d hope so. I want to go again. Now that I’ve got a handle on what I can do I think I can manage more speed and I know I can rack up more bonus points.”

Jason looked at the score floating in the air nearby, seeing a mark of 132 bonus points that added to his time score for a total of 1032. “Somehow I think that basic mark is going to be virtually unobtainable for the rest of us.”

“How about you two tandem it this time?”

Jason smiled as Paul finally got back up to the start area, having walked through the corridors of shame below that linked the pits to the start area. “You’re on.”

Bo walked back over to the start pedestal as the other two had a brief telepathic conversation, then they lined up beside him and Paul tagged the button, sending all three off…with Bo coming out the easy winner once again, but at least Jason and Paul did manage to get to the finish with the help of a battlemeld link and staying close enough together to help block for one another, coming up with a finish score of 208.

They tried once again while Bo made half a dozen more runs, bumping his score up to 1321 and demonstrating several weaknesses in the challenge. They’d keep it as is, but if they were going to push his new ability they were going to have to design something…harder, which Jason and Paul got to work on later that day, turning in the schematics to the techs before evening so they could get it built as quickly as possible.

Two weeks later a whole new wing of Atlantis had been retrofitted into a Sav-specific training area. Paul and Jason couldn’t use it, though they’d tried and failed miserably. They’d had to really jack up the difficulty level in order to find Bo’s current limits, which they knew would only grow with time and training. He could have designed them himself, but given that he was the first to attain this ability they didn’t want him to have to do that, instead they wanted to focus on beating challenges rather than creating them.

So they did it for him and got to analyze from afar what he could and couldn’t do, making tweaks here and there and adding new challenges as they thought them up…but there was one application they didn’t understand the full implications of until Bo happened into a sparring match with Vermaire one day…and beat him.

Fortunately they’d been recording that match in order to study Bo, and he’d been wearing a monitoring headband at the time, as they all did now. Between the two there was a lot of analysis going on, both from the medtechs and the Archons, but it was Wilson who finally got the prize for making the connection. He reviewed the records, along with those that Paul had been feeding him of Bo’s other training activities, and sent a message to both of them to stop by his ‘lair’ when they had a chance.

Both of them knew not to keep him waiting, for when he had something he wanted to talk about with them, which was rare, it was usually significant. His office complex within Atlantis, from where he ran the entire Archon trainee program, wasn’t a typical office. Over the centuries he’d reworked it into part combat operations center, part training facility of its own, and when the two trailblazers got there he had a very young trainee going through some null gravity training inside a containment cylinder…drawing skeptical looks from both trailblazers.

“A bit of disorientation syndrome,” Wilson said as he came out to meet them, holding up four fingers at the trainee inside, who nodded…throwing off her balance and causing her to start twisting about until her hand hide the sidewall of the shield that was keeping her inside. As she continued to bounce around trying and failing to steady herself Wilson looked on, knowing well that she had to learn to do things on her own without him jumping in to help whenever one of them got into trouble. If they wanted to become Archons they had to learn to improvise.

“Bad?” Paul asked.

“Very. Which is why I have her here every third day for special sessions. Her mind doesn’t want to calibrate to the zero g. I’ve seen this before and what is required is a lot of metaphorical face punching before the subconscious finally catches on and makes the adjustment,” he said, turning away from the trainee and pointing a finger at Bo. “You, on the other hand, are something new. And I always like new challenges. Come with me.”

Wilson led the two trailblazers out of the main area and into a side chamber, with Paul immediately recognizing V’kit’no’sat script floating in holo above three different workstations in the moderately small chamber. Wilson telekinetically shut the door behind them and the room’s lights dimmed with him bringing up a central hologram depicting Bo’s fight with Vermaire.

“Nice piece of work, and far better than I could do, but still very sloppy.”

Bo raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“I’ve been studying the V’kit’no’sat records in detail, as I’m sure you have, but there are a lot more entries than those just listed under psionics…which you know are not, given the lack of an organization system to the database. I’ve come across numerous seemingly random entries with training components, and the techs send any new ones they’ve translated my way, but I make a habit to peruse the untranslated files and I’ve found bits and pieces of information over the years that suggest a duality in the physiology of combat…as far as the psionics engineers were concerned.”

“Go on,” Bo said, not insulted but rather intrigued by whatever Wilson was getting at.

“The mind upgrades similar to the way the body does, but a person can only fight as fast as the slowest portion. Your slowest portion is now your body. Your processing power has risen beyond it, allowing you to make more of your senses and leaving your muscle response speed lagging, which is why you were fighting sloppy…though it was enough to outmatch Vermaire. His strength is still beyond you, but he couldn’t handle your speed. But then you already knew that or you wouldn’t have tackled him the way you did.”

“Um, well…actually I was just trying to avoid getting my ass kicked. I didn’t spot a weakness, I was just staying ahead of his movements for the first time in my life.”

“Then you were even sloppier than I realized,” Wilson continued, again without negativity and just coming with a fresh, honest, and useful analysis. “Up until now your physical speed has been held back by your mind’s ability to process, but freed of that and you were still making choppy/floppy attacks. I thought there had been some strategy in them.”

“Afraid not. I was just poking him where I could. He almost had me several times.”

“I noticed. What you need to do is retrain your body to make use of your faster mind. I’m fairly sure you’ve got greater speed in you already, just uncalibrated. After that you’ll have to physically train for greater speed, but the first step is getting yourself back in alignment. You’re off balance and while you’ve leveled up considerably you’re still fighting sloppy.”

“Do you have any drill suggestions for calibration?” Bo asked.

Wilson walked a step to his left and grabbed a datachip. He input it into a slot on the console and had a new hologram pop up alongside the fight with Vermaire, which was playing continuously and on a loop. It was 8 minutes long, Wilson didn’t want to have to reload it every time he rewatched it, and he’d been going through it blow by blow for several hours previously.

When it came to a certain section of the fight he paused, rewinded, and replayed a specific series of blocks Bo had made and set it into its own mini-loop. Wilson went on to point out the small errors and the drills he had constructed to counter them, then proceeded through the entire fight in a similar manner…switching over to footage of some of Bo’s training drills at the end and offering a few upgrades there as well.

After he was finished he had a question for Paul.

“How close are you to finding the next trigger?”

“Battlemeld is the only reliable one, but I thought we were close to nailing Pren until he went Sav. He was doing the same training the rest of us had done to trigger it, and I’m at a loss as to what happened. I thought we were starting to get a handle on it but now I’m not so sure.”

“Tell me how this individual compares. I know he isn’t nearly as advanced, but from what you’d learned prior to Bo’s ascension how close do you think he is?” Wilson asked, grabbing another datachip and bringing up the biotelemetry data that Paul could almost see in his sleep by now, he’d gone through so many of them.

He gave it a quick look then glanced at Bo, having a silent conversation.

“Close,” Paul said, mildly impressed. “All the major skill areas are weak, but the internal alignment looks favorable. Who is this?”

“Not an Archon,” Wilson answered vaguely. “Is it worth your time to train with them, or would they be too much of a stretch?”

Paul didn’t know if this was a test or a request, so he just took the question at face value. “I’m curious as to how he got to this position. He’s so stacked towards what we thought was a Pren trigger that even if he didn’t get it quickly I think we could learn something from the attempt. And the closer we get to the triggers the better. What division is he?”

“Gotta be commando,” Bo said, looking at the stats. “No one else does that much physical augmentation…and he’s too short to be a Knight.”

Paul shook his head, taking to the guessing game they seemed to be playing. “No, he’s missing several commando traits. Could be an oddball, but my gut says no.”

“Then what?” Bo asked.

Paul hesitated, then went ahead and said it. “This can’t be true, but the only connection I can make is this being a quitter,” he said, referencing the handful of Archons that had turned in their badass card and went civilian. “One making a comeback?”

Paul looked at Wilson, but the taller man shook his head. “No, but I’ll thank you for the compliment. You’re looking at my biotelemetry.”

Bo let out an exasperated sigh. “Should have known.”

Paul glanced at the numbers again. “Have you been trying to get to Pren?”

“Yes. There’s only so much I can help you guys with if I don’t experience these things for myself. I can’t be a backseat driver and do much good.”

“Your past history says otherwise,” Bo added, “but I get what you mean.”

“Do you have time to join us?” Paul asked.

“Do you have time to train here while there’s a war going on?” Wilson countered. “I’ll make time, if you think it’s worth yours?”

“I’m too curious to say no regardless,” Paul said with a smirk and extended his hand to the bigger man. “Welcome onboard.”

Wilson took it with a fairly firm grip.

“But don’t expect us to go easy on you,” Paul warned.

“It’d defeat the purpose if you did.”

“Alright then,” Bo said, feeling like getting back to their workouts. “Let’s get at it.”

7

July 15, 2545

Solar System

Earth

Bo sat in one of the sparring chambers, legs crossed, eyes closed with hundreds of tiny thuds orbiting around his body in a pattern too intricate to easily pick up on…except that the trailblazer was hardly concentrating on them. Archons often found pure meditation not to work, and that in order for them to really disconnect from their environment and let their minds wander they had to be at least partially involved in the environment, as if no action whatsoever put them on guard for something to come and low level activity allowed them to relax.

Some of the Archons used handstands, others more active drills that required little effort that they would repeat over and over again. Ever since his Sav ascension Bo had turned Jedi, levitating and orbiting objects around him not so much to free his mind but to work out some of the lingering pain that seemed to be grudgingly diminishing with each day that passed. It was 1 pm and he’d just finished up an hour run, with the slight fatigue that brought warming his legs as his mind worked through the telekinetic manipulation necessary to keep his little star system of thuds in order.

Two hours from now he would get back to harder workouts, but for now he wanted to get some meditation time in before catching a shower and a quick nap…the latter of which was helping his head. Straight rest and he’d lock up, but action/rest cycling helped to loosen him up…and old Archon training trick they’d learned back in their first 100 years.

As Bo’s mind wandered he gently nudged it into the parts of his mental capabilities that were untapped, probing the limits of his thoughts almost randomly as if he was bouncing around. That was another old trick, that when one didn’t know what they were looking for they had to ‘shoot around’ randomly. That little tidbit had come from Taryn, who often went crazy in drills trying to shake more speed out of herself. A crude, jerky, almost completely random action sometimes had the ability to access a part of yourself that your normal control didn’t allow you to touch, so in order to find new mental territory Bo was flailing around inside his head, making him feel kind of like a Human pinball machine.

It was something he had done many times in the past, but now that he had new brain tissue and a whole new mental structure he had plenty of room to bounce around in, and exploring those new capabilities was something he was going to chew on in every way possible…though at night he tried to do the opposite and not think, needing smooth sleep. That didn’t always work, but he found that if he let his mind go in meditation then sleep time would often not be invaded by as many random thoughts.

Which was another reason to take a nap afterwards and suck up some good minutes while his mind was satiated from the meditation randomness.

But that wasn’t going to happen today, for somewhere in his ramblings he hit on something. He didn’t know what, but almost immediately he felt instability swelling inside his head.

“What the…” he said, dropping his orbiting thuds as his mind suddenly lost its cohesion. He focused on the ascension prompt, not understanding how this would happen outside of training. Every single time it had occurred previously, in all the Archons, it had been during some type of physical stress. He was under none now, nor mental stress given how easy holding the thud grid was. What was going on he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity for another upgrade.

With the little semi-bouncy balls dropping and rolling everywhere Bo concentrated, channeling the instability and trying not to overload himself…but then he said screw it. If he got brain burn again so be it. It was worth it in the long run.

Not taking Vortison’s advice, the trailblazer pushed the instability onward, unable to see the indicator lights on his headband creep up into the yellow. This time the instability fought him, not wanting to be drawn out as fast so Bo went with it and tried a very gradual draw, playing to not lose it rather than force it out. Little by little it crept upward, with the indicator lights marking his improvement up into the red…which was when he sensed another presence in his head.

It felt like a solid pole imbedded into the ground amidst the hurricane he was riding out and stoking. Bo grabbed hold of it and used the mental signature to stabilize himself further, which added to his ability to channel the mental winds further. That didn’t cause him to get to the transition point immediately, but with a considerable amount of time and effort his mental storm took shape and in mind’s eye turned into three tight rings before it flashed and his head began screaming from new tissue growth.

The pain passed quickly, unlike the Sav upgrade, and Bo blinked his eyes open…to see Paul, Jason, Greg, and even Wilson standing in front of him.

“Where did you guys come from?” he said, getting to his feet.

“When you were overdue for your workout I came looking for you,” Jason explained.

Bo frowned. “What time is it?”

“A little after 5,” Greg answered.

Bo’s eyes widened. “That’s not…”

“I found you here an hour and a half ago,” Jason confirmed. “That’s the longest ascension anyone has ever endured and we were worried that something might have gone wrong.”

“How long were you in here before it started?” Paul asked.

“I was meditating and it happened so I jumped on it. I don’t know what time it was…maybe 1:30.”

“I wonder what he got,” Greg commented.

“Pren,” Wilson said, holding a datapad that was linked into the biomonitors on all their heads. “I don’t know why your ascension lasted so long, but we got so much data from it that Vortison says he’s found the trigger.”

“When?” Paul said, frowning.

“Text message about 15 seconds ago,” he said, hefting the datapad.

“You always carry that with you?” Greg asked.

“Habit,” he answered, but apparently one he’d picked up after the trailblazer’s went through basic.

“You alright?” Paul asked Bo.

“I think so,” he said, levitating one of the thuds up into his palm, then his eyes tightened a bit and it shot off and ricocheted against a wall and stopped a foot in front of Paul’s chest, with the trailblazer raising an eyebrow as he telekinetically caught it.

“Definitely a speed increase,” Bo confirmed as Paul tossed the little projectile off to the side. To have gotten that much of a rebound showed considerable strength, but to line up the shot that well to hit him was definitely a Sav moment.

“Let’s take this elsewhere,” Jason prompted. “I think we all would like to have a chat with Vortison.

“Agreed,” Paul said, walking out. Wilson and Greg followed him while Jason hung back with Bo a few meters back.

“You didn’t black out earlier, did you?”

Bo shook his head as they walked through the entry doors. “I had to be awake to keep the instability going, but it felt like maybe five, maybe ten minutes tops…not hours.”

“I’d like to see what it did to your Sav tissue, if anything.”

“Think there’s a connection?”

“You’re the only one to have gone that long, by far.”

“Could be some other wrinkle we haven’t come across yet.”

“All the more reason to get you under a full scanner.”

“Doesn’t explain why I ascended while meditating,” Bo added.

“Another good point. Seems every time we start to get a handle on psionics something new pulls the rug out from under us.”

“That’s what happens when you buy a new toy and throw out the instruction manual without ever reading it.”

“Speaking of which…I think we need to have a chat with our own.”

“Kara?”

“I’m going to swing by my quarters and send her a message. Meet you guys at Vortison’s lab.”

“Recall?”

Jason hesitated. “Just a chat for now. I don’t want to pull her off the front if we don’t have to.”

Bo nodded. “Anything she can remember would be…useful.”

“Thanks Captain Obvious,” Jason said, turning left at the next intersection and breaking off from the group.

“If you’ve really done what you claim to,” Paul said when the four of them, plus Jace and Riona who they’d picked up on the way, walked into the genetics research lab, “you can have the rest of the day off.”

“Why would I want time off,” Vortison answered deadpan as he enlarged a hologram that showed biotelemetry in a synthesis of numbers and icons that made for easy recognition…once you got used to the tech vocabulary. “Here it is,” he said, pointing to one particular area. “Quite obvious now that I know what to look for. Bo’s data offered more than all the rest of you combined. If you guys can prolong your ascensions as he did it will shave centuries off us getting the complete set.”

“I don’t know how I did what I did,” Bo said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I completely lost track of time.”

Vortison pointed towards one of the beds and Bo walked over and laid down…with the scanning equipment coming out over him.

“Any side effects with this one?”

“No pain, if that’s what you mean.”

“Anything new?”

“Other than a power boost, no.”

“That’s standard for Pren,” Vortison explained, “but you should be extremely tired now.”

“A little bit, but compared to the others this has been by far the easiest ascension…I don’t know why it took so long though.”

“Perhaps therein lays the answer. You weren’t trying so hard and took your time with it, hence the lack of physical trauma…cellularly speaking.”

“Ah…actually I was pressing hard and it just wouldn’t come.”

“Impatient as always,” Vortison said as the scan results started to come in. Archons never did like waiting for anything.

While they were doing that Wilson was studying the trigger hologram intently along with Paul and Riona, with the two men having a telepathic conversation that was going on at a feverish clip…so much so that when Riona asked him a question he held up a wait finger until they’d finished.

“What?” she whispered.

“We’ve got two puzzle pieces now. Pren and Battlemeld.”

“And there are some similarities in the triggers,” Wilson finished.

“Trackable?” Jace asked, walking away from Bo and joining the conversation.

“Possibly,” Wilson said, comparing something on his datapad with the hologram. “I’ve seen these patterns before.”

That comment got Vortison’s head spinning around to face him, momentarily ignoring Bo’s scan. “Where?”

“V’kit’no’sat engineering. Whether it be combat philosophy, infrastructure, or societal architecture there are fingerprints on all of them that can be recognized with a trained eye…and I’m seeing them here as well.”

“What are you noticing?” Greg asked.

“It’s just a hunch, but I’d say that Bo’s stall during his ascension was the result of his Sav tissue. It’s not an add-on like the others, but fully integrated into his every waking thought and subconscious process. I think they designed it that way on purpose, and if I’m right every ascension from this point on for him will take extra long while it makes the upgrades.”

“How did you get that from that data?” Vortison asked, very confused.

“It’s a training thing,” he said simply.

“Then his massive headache earlier?” Paul wondered.

“It wasn’t just growing tissue, it was acclimating that tissue to his current psionic tissues,” Vortison said, taking the next logical step in the path they were traveling.

“Meaning the more you get the more it will hurt,” Greg said, cringing.

“If you rush it,” Vortison added.

“We don’t which is which when they start,” Jace pointed out. “Instability is instability from our point of view. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt even the slightest variation.”

“Neither have I,” Paul said, thinking hard as Wilson continued to study the holographic data.

“Are you done here?” Bo asked, still lying down.

“Almost,” Vortison said, getting back to the work at hand. 30 seconds later he had it completed and up on a different hologram.

Bo rolled out from under the scanners and stood up with the others as they waited for the medtech to do his thing and translate most of the mathematical gibberish they were seeing.

“Interesting,” Vortison mewed as he altered he view to a more traditional brain scan, with the various psionic tissues highlighted. “There are minor variations in your Sav.”

Greg threw a look at Wilson, who he saw crack a smile but say nothing. “Don’t suppose those will help you find its trigger?”

“Probably not, but any information is better than none. Right now I’m more interested in his Pren. It’s advanced further than any I’ve seen to date, including those of you who’ve had time to train and develop it.”

“Synergy,” Wilson commented, still pulling through a comparison of his datapad and the hologram.

“I would agree,” Vortison said, shaking his head slightly, “but I have no idea how. I thought the tissue growth was a fixed lot, but if it can be flash grown variably…then this is a whole new ball game.”

Paul looked at the more intricate holographic scan that had just been done, seeing not only the Sav tissue but the Pren that was spread out like a clump of fiber optic cables between his Pefbar and Lachka tissues. There was already some interlinking there, but this added more onto it…which Paul knew was like adding more shield emitters to a warship’s hull. Upgrading the emitters was one way to get more powerful shields, while adding more was another.

In this case Bo had gotten an emitter count increase, just as Paul and the others had done before. The thing was, he’d gotten a higher level version. Paul could see the difference, though not recognizing all of the statistics at first glance despite the extensive study he’d done into this area. Vortison was the expert, but still he could tell that this wasn’t the same Pren as he had.

“Wilson?” he asked.

“From a functional standpoint it only makes sense that the Sav would unlock higher processing capabilities that would aid the other psionics. In order to do that there would be a physical restructuring needed above and beyond training adaptation. I’m guessing that since Bo already had Sav those upgrades simply occurred simultaneously with the growth.”

“What are you basing that on?” Vortison asked, glancing at his datapad.

“Nothing more than a hunch.”

“A hunch?” the medtech repeated.

“You look on the body from a designer’s point of view, I look and learn as a user. We see things from a different angle and trust our gut and experience, because we have no rulebook to work off of except what we write and record as we live and learn.”

“Gamers guide,” Paul said, understanding his metaphor, as would the other trailblazers, he knew, for they were all gamers.

“Can I get a copy of Wilson’s version,” Jace said in a pleading voice. “Please.”

The taller man raised an eyebrow at him. “I record everything in my logs.”

“That just didn’t come from your logs,” Jace pointed out. “I can from your head and things you would never write down because you’re uncertain of them. That’s the playbook I want.”

“We each have our own,” Wilson said, dismissing the compliment. “We share when we can, but mine won’t work for you and vice versa because we have different experiences to pull off of.”

Bo looked at Jace. “Try to give the man a compliment and he schools you for doing it inaccurately.”

“Yep,” Wilson confirmed.

Paul laughed. Usually the master trainer didn’t show much sass.

“So,” Bo said, glancing at both Wilson and Vortison. “Big picture is if I can ascend again it’ll take longer?”

“If his theory holds, yes,” the medtech said.

“And if yours lasts longer,” Paul added, “we might be able to get enough data from you alone to find the triggers.”

Riona walked over and wrapped Bo up in a hug from behind. “Looks like you’re going to be our new training buddy.”

“She’s right,” Greg said. “You’ve got to stay here and train your ass off. Forget field work, go after as many triggers as you can.”

“Please,” Paul urged.

Bo held up his hands in surrender. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Sounds cool, regardless I’ve been wanting to catch up to Morgan for a long time anyway.”

“Ha,” Greg laughed. “Good luck with that one.”

“Hey,” Paul said, frowning. “I’m ahead of her now.”

“We all know that won’t last,” Bo dismissed offhand.

Paul glared at him. “Now them’s fighting words.”

“If I can beat Vermaire…” he floated with an innocent look.

“I believe,” Wilson said casually, still studying the hologram and making some notations on his datapad, “that he is looking for a rematch. I’ll wager 100 credits he’s going to beat you next time around.”

“Ouch,” Paul said with a hushed laugh as he saw the air visibly go out of the other trailblazer.

“No bet there,” Greg added. “But it will be fun to watch.”

“Killjoy,” Bo mumbled.

8

July 18, 2545

Solar System

Earth

It took three days for Jason to get the trigger down, with him having to internally adjust his physical and mental state to what was required for Pren ascension. He’d already gained that ability, but it was necessary for him to realign himself with it in order to pass it onto others…something rather easy in execution, once you knew what you were looking for. The trick was calibrating yourself without knowing where you were.

Originally he and Paul had learned the battlemeld trigger, which was now so familiar to him he didn’t require any biomonitor help when he helped a ranger ascend and gain the ability. In this case that wasn’t the case, so he’d worn a headband biomonitor connected to a datapad display and sat in a meditation chamber making internal adjustments until he’d hit the mark. Then he repeated the process again and again until he was fairly confident he could hit and hold the necessary trigger.

That was when it was time for his first ‘handshake.’ Paul was lagging a little behind him in learning the trigger, as was Greg, so it was Jason who got to try the first share outside of Battlemeld, with him choosing Wilson to be at the head of the line. He did that for two reasons, one being that Wilson was already close to getting it on his own so it shouldn’t take that much link prodding to hit his trigger. The second was that he knew that if Wilson got it he’d probably learn new angles to train it, which Jason would rather have sooner than later.

When the time came the two sat down in a meditation chamber, alone with nothing else aside from Jason’s datapad that he kept linked to his biomonitor so he could troubleshoot if he lost the trigger.

That wasn’t the hardest part, for he also had to form the twin link with Wilson. He and everyone else who had the Battlemeld shared with them already had been trained to replicate the link, so that wasn’t a problem, but each person was different and forming the link was a bit of a customization endeavor. He’d done it so many times with Paul that it just felt natural, but attempting to do so with others always required a great deal of work…which is what Wilson and Jason started with.

They spent nearly four hours in a mental chess game as they tried to line up their minds with one another, then finally they achieved the handshake and locked up, with one’s body/mind mimicking the other by registering it as their own. It was essentially a forced Ikrid glitch, but a very useful one, not only in that it could help share triggers, but that it completely bypassed the Ikrid blocks and allowed one to read another, not by requisition of data but by continuously transmitting everything.

Once the two men had that link established they remained still, Wilson focusing on holding the twin link while Jason began adjusting himself to the Pren trigger…without jeopardizing the link. That was very delicate work, but he’d done this so many times with others in sharing Battlemeld that he how far to press before the twin link would break on his end. It was Wilson that was the unknown factor, but the man was a beast in anything training related and held his end up admirably.

An little less than an hour later and Jason successfully held himself aligned to Pren long enough for it to register in Wilson’s mind, making his subconscious think that he was actually in that required state. When that happened his trigger activated and Jason immediately felt the instability surge inside both of them.

The trailblazer broke the twin link, knowing that it would interfere with the process. Wilson had to chase it, and Jason’s presence would be a stabilizing point that would essentially weigh him down. That said, he was going to help him, so once he broke the link he reached out a couple of fingers and placed them on the bare skin of Wilson’s wrist, bypassing the Ikrid block through physical contact and gave him a stable point in his mind for him to use, but otherwise staying out of the process. This was Wilson’s battle to fight, as it should be.

It took him a long time to increase the instability, and Jason felt him almost lose it several times, but whenever that happened Wilson used Jason’s mental presence to effectively reset the ascension process and try again. He was learning each time without losing the trigger activation, which impressed Jason thoroughly. Wilson only had one ascension under his belt to date, and he was showing considerable skill navigating the process despite his ‘newb’ status…and on top of that he wasn’t even an Archon.

There were a handful of trusted individuals who had gotten the psionic carwash, but only two had been given battlemeld…Wilson and Davis. Paul had offered it to Vermaire, but he’d declined, stating he didn’t want anyone in his head. That was typical Black Knight, to the core.

Davis had taken some 18 tries to eventually get the battlemeld, underscoring the fact that it was something he wasn’t ready for and reinforcing the Archons’ ranger 50 minimum benchmark for sharing the ability. They didn’t regret sharing it with Davis, for he was a very special case, but those who weren’t Archons and didn’t earn it were so mentally inexperienced in such training disciplines that it was going to be difficult for them to achieve the ascension, even with help.

Wilson was no exception, but how he went about working the problem was the impressive part. He was literally learning how to ‘fight’ as he fought, which truly showed his caliber in a way that Jason, nor any of the other Archons had ever seen before…which only added to his already considerable respect for the man.

Jason sat and gave him the mental anchor for more than 5 hours before Wilson’s headband started flashing 3 red and he eventually let go of his wrist, breaking the Ikrid connection.

Viewed from the outside Wilson was sitting perfectly still, then blinked his eyes a few times before opening them and craning his head up towards the ceiling and stretching his neck against the pain Jason knew was coursing through his head.

“Got it,” the head trainer said. “Thank you.”

“Well done. I’ve never known of anyone to hold onto the instability for that long.”

“That’s because you guys don’t need to. I’m still the learner here.”

“That won’t last long,” Jason said as he stood up. “Ow…watch yourself. Been sitting here too long,” he said, limping off to the door as his legs were sore and half asleep.

Wilson stood up and followed him with less effort, but at a much slower pace. When he got to the doorway he put his hand on the rim and steadied himself.

Jason reached out and touched his forehead, taking another read on his bios. “That long effort really scrambled your head.”

“I believe fragged is the right word, though it seems to be insufficient at the moment.”

Jason withdrew his hand. “Can you walk?”

“Barely…but I’ve got a window. I’ll work it out.”

“Come on,” Jason said, grabbing his arm for some added support…by way of hacking into his nervous system and partially taking control of his body to keep him from falling over. “I’ll get you back to your quarters.”

Wilson was in agony for the next two days, with most of the first just staying in bed and trying to be as still as possible. When he wasn’t making much progress there he experimented with various music, eventually finding an active song that his mind seemed to lock onto and fall into sync with rather than randomly going every which way in a chaotic frenzy. He put it on continuous repeat and felt the first slight crack of relief and did his best to stay in it until his stomach began complaining enough for him to venture out for some food some 19 hours later.

The second day he got three short runs in, staggered out with long naps in between along with brief computer sessions where he got caught up on events and just killed some time. He kept changing up what he did, because stagnation seemed to hurt his head more than light activities, almost as if he had to keep changing what he did in order to keep the painmaker from getting a lock on him.

Come the third day the mental fragging had diminished a detectable amount and Wilson could have no more sitting and lying around so he laid out a light but long training schedule for the day and suffered through it. He did the same for the fourth and fifth days before his head finally relented and the pain began to diminish, having been beaten into submission.

It took more than a week after that before he even attempted to do any psionic training, but when he did the Pren was immediately obvious. His Pefbar and Lachka skills were unbelievably upgraded, with him able to lift 3 times the weight and his Pefbar range reaching out to 2.5 times what it had previously been…and that was without any training, which he imagined would take on a slightly new dynamic with the new tissue being added. He suspected it wasn’t just more of the same, but wouldn’t get to test that theory until all the pain and clenching in his head was gone.

His ascension made, he left the trailblazers’ training group and went back to his normal routine overseeing the Archon trainees and his subordinate trainers who by now could run things without him. None the less he scrutinized each trainee’s progression and made tweaks where he thought he could help, all the while delving into new forms of training on his own, attempting to probe the Pren ability for all it was worth so he could give the Archons some help as they developed their powers.

They were quick, innovative, and all around insightful…but there were still some things that they never seemed to learn, or at least learn as well as Wilson had concerning training. Not facts or methods, but an innate understanding of the way the body and mind worked. Their approach could be likened to hitting every button in order to find out what they did, while Wilson would look them over and try a few he had deduced the function of.

That meant he could trailblaze training problems quicker than they could. He had no doubt they’d figure things out eventually, but with so many new and impressive abilities ahead of them, not to mention the gradual increase in their physical training, he knew they could use a hand…and the faster he got them up to snuff the greater the chance of them being able to pull off the impossible and defeat the V’kit’no’sat if/when they came back to Earth.

Jason was sitting in his quarters when suddenly Paul was outside at his door. Jason telekinetically hit the open switch and his fellow Archon walked in without missing a step.

“What is it?” Jason asked, sensing his mood.

“Message from Morgan. The Skarrons are amassing a huge fleet at Achkor”

“Damn it,” he whisper swore, getting to his feet. “Looks like the hammer is finally going to drop.”

“One of us needs to stay here,” Paul said apologetically.

Jason nodded reluctantly. “You’re right. Go.”

Paul put his right hand up and the two best friends fist bumped, with Paul leaving just like that and Jason knowing he was heading straight to a dropship.

That left Jason with the primary responsibility for sharing Pren with the others coming into or passing through Sol, not to mention with finding the triggers for the other psionics. He really wanted to go fight, knowing that the more trailblazers were on the front the better chance they had of holding out…but both he and Paul had discussed this earlier, and they agreed that they couldn’t just play defensively or they’d get so distracted that they wouldn’t be making the advancements necessary for the endgame.

That meant his task was here, with as many trailblazers and second gen that would stay…which wouldn’t be many. From now on they’d come in for short visits, he imagined, to pick up the share and be off. That was going to hurt their group training efforts, but there was one that he couldn’t afford to lose.

Following Paul out a few steps behind him and heading a different way, Jason was off on his own mission, and one that could have just as much importance as Paul’s in the long run.

“You want me to stay, don’t you?” Bo asked when Jason found him on the track and fell in beside him while he completed mile 6 of what was going to be 15. He held to the pacing hologram, which made it a little difficult to speak, but what was a tiny challenge like that to an Archon? He wasn’t going to slow down just for a conversation.

“You have to. I want to go fight just as much as you, but we have to get these triggers dug out. Especially the battlemeld ones and I can’t work on those with some second gen. Hell, we need the psionics discovered first anyway, and there’s no way I can do that with the second gen. You have to stay and we have to find both so we can share them with the others. We can’t let them fighting the enemy hold back their psionic advancement. We have to do this for them and you’re the key to locating the triggers after we find the psionics.”

“I know, I know,” Bo said, frustrated. No more field assignments had been bad enough, but with a major Skarron push coming staying on Earth just felt wrong…but he couldn’t deny the logic in Jason’s plea.

“How many others are staying?”

“I don’t know. Probably not many.”

“We need a few others, even if they’re second gen strikers. And no rotations. If you and I are going to be stuck here we need a team that doesn’t change up. We can add individuals in and out on top of the core group, but we’ve got to have a badass squad that will be used to training together.”

“Agreed.”

“Then we have to take it up a notch. I mean Goku in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber training. I’m not going to feel comfortable doing any less with people fighting and potentially dying out on the front.”

“You read my mind, but you know that’s not going to be easy to do. We’re going to have to cut off all outside connections, including war news.”

“If that’s what has to be done so be it,” Bo said, a fiery determination entering his stride that had him inching ahead of the hologram. “And I want exclusive training facilities. I don’t even want to see someone else working out around us. Food in our quarters…no, shared quarters. We stay together for everything.”

“I like where your head’s at…and I’m wonder why we haven’t done this before.”

“We did back in basic. Since then we’ve had a military to lead.”

“Point. Any suggestions on who to draft?”

“We need Aaron for Ikrid. No one is better than him. And Sara…for sex appeal.”

Jason blew out a laugh between breaths, not expecting Bo to throw in a joke at the moment…but then again he should have known better. Sarcasm was almost as dear to Archons as sugar.

Bo coasted to a stop near the start line and deactivated his hologram, cutting his workout short and drawing a raised eyebrow from Jason. “Let’s get our team set now, before they have a chance to take off.”

“Paul’s already on his way to orbit,” Jason told him. “I’ll find Aaron, you grab whoever else you want…or can.”

“Go,” Bo prompted, restarting his run as he headed for the exit. The pair split and literally ran off through Atlantis, tracking down as many trailblazers and strikers as they could in person or remotely, including those in the pyramid and elsewhere in the system.

Jason was able to convince Aaron to stay, thankfully, but Sara and Greg were already gone and Riona, naturally, had went with Paul. A few others that hadn’t heard yet Jason and Bo got to, but they all declined, knowing how important it was to get to the front ahead of the Skarrons so they weren’t late to the party. Ultimately they were able to find a handful of willing and eager volunteers…though none of them liked sitting back out of combat, but they all understood the importance of what had to be done and committed themselves to it fully.

In the end there were eight of them. Jason, Bo, Aaron, Emily, Kiran, David-441, Rikku-452, and Vermaire…who sought them out after he heard what was going on. With Wilson’s blessing they kicked the trainees out of a small piece of Atlantis and cordoned it off giving only the 8 of them access save for a handful of couriers who would bring in foodstuffs, training gear, and whatever else they needed while they were busy and drop off the crates for them to use later.

The restricted zone included a small number of quarters, with the 8 of them choosing those neighboring each other, literally keeping them within a few meters of each other down the same hallway. They deactivated the terminals in the zone and kept a handful of datapads around so they could send out requisitions and correspond with Wilson, who occasionally stopped by to offer insights or to monitor their progress. Other than that they put themselves into a complete blackout and focused on their workouts and team camaraderie…for they knew well and Wilson emphasized…that in order to really press their abilities, psionic and otherwise, they had to calibrate each person into the team unit which until now had never existed.

They had to form bonds, learn tendencies, and spot weaknesses in order to strengthen the group as a whole, and doing that took time, meaning they would be training both their individual selves as well as each other into a workout and sparring machine…which would need challenges. Lots and lots of challenges.

Wilson volunteered to see to that, ordering a slew of new construction in the surrounding areas of Atlantis to facilitate their needs so the 8 of them could focus on beating the challenges rather than designing them. That was the role Wilson had always taken, and did so now gladly, knowing that an individual had to fight the challenge from a fresh perspective rather than knowing beforehand how to beat it. It was a blind spot that he wasn’t going to let them have, meaning they might come up with new ways to best the challenges that he hadn’t intended.

That kind of unexpected growth is what they needed, so the Archons and Vermaire went from being the masters back to being the trainees…though very advanced trainees at that.

Wilson knew it would be a challenge to stay ahead of them, but like the Archons he reveled in challenges, and this was one he was going to go at full bore, suspending most of his duties with the infantile trainees and focusing on the advanced ones in order to give them the tools they needed to go to limits that he wasn’t going to be personally testing in the next few centuries.

He couldn’t help them as a peer, but he could help them as support and as a nemesis, so he set out to design the hardest, damn near impossible training regimens and challenges to the point that he wasn’t even sure that they could handle it. But even if they failed they’d gain from the experience.

And if they did somehow pull a rabbit out of the hat, again, and make it…then they were going to see a whole new level of Archon, and that thought alone was ample incentive for Wilson to sink his teeth into his new and ultimately important assignment.

What was old was new again, and about to be better than ever.

9

August 3, 2545

Solar System

Earth

Bo beat Emily back across the sparring ring, moving his arms slightly faster than she could and being well aware of the precise movements he was making while she was flailing with most of her blows, trying to keep up in the punching/blocking match they had going. Every now and then one of them would throw a kick in, but both Archons were trying to find a way through the other’s arms so they could land a torso hit, with Bo’s Sav giving him a considerable advantage.

But then suddenly Bo went back again, him being the slower as Emily threw in another Yetu burst and her arms threatened to overwhelm him with movements. He could see her blurry arms and mentally track them just fine, but moving his own to intercept was the problem with him backstepping to give himself some more time, forcing her to move forward as he limited Yetu burst came to an end.

Then it was back to him being the faster and her retreating. The two danced around the ring like that for some 30 minutes before Bo finally wore her down and landed a stiffened palm to her chest. That knocked her back and for a split second left her vulnerable. Bo jumped on the opportunity and didn’t let up, punching and kicking her back to the edge of the ring and knocking her down on the boundary line.

“Took you long enough,” Emily said from the floor, looking up at him.

“Those speed bursts are annoying,” he said, telekinetically helping to pull her up to her feet with a firm grip on her waist.

“Your consistency is annoying,” she countered, dropping into a slight combat stance as the two reset to the center of the ring. “But I’m going to find a way in.”

“You will try,” Bo said, taking a step back with his left foot and waving the fingers on his right hand, motioning her to come at him.

She did exactly that, but instead of going back to the punching game she activated another Yetu burst, feeling the small reservoir of strength in them flow out as she darted into a punch towards his face to get him to block high, then she dropped low and kicked at his knees, catching his right and knocking that leg back.

Already under him she pelted his abdomen with three quick punches before he got an arm in the way and began twisting out of line…then he suddenly spun back the other way and knocked her arm aside, grabbing her wrist at the same time and pinning her long enough to get a kick of his own into her hip.

Emily went back and Bo came after her, cycling through another round of arm to arm combat before he slipped through and knocked her out of the ring…this time with her staying on her feet.

They both moved back to center again, this time without any comments, and began again. Both trailblazers were a flurry of arms and occasional kicks, with Emily pressing Bo through her Yetu and him pressing her through his consistent ‘semi-Yetu’ that his Sav gave him. Bo won out on most of their head to heads, but Emily got him enough times to give him a feeling of where he was weak, as well as giving him a wealth of practice just moving that fast.

Everyone else was always slower than him and would fatigue with time, mainly from them being punch drunk, but her ability to come back at him and put him on the defensive also allowed her a moment to collect herself, thus extending their sparring to the length that both of them gained considerable experience from.

Sweat soaked to the point of dripping onto the mats and making them slippery with tiny puddles, Emily finally raised a hand and called it quits when Bo motioned for her to come at him again.

“Enough for today,” she said, standing up straight and pulling her hair tie off. Several strands had escaped it and she put them back into place, reforming her telltale short ponytail.

“Slacker,” Bo joked, but his arms were starting to get a little sore anyway from all the blocking. “Where you headed?”

“Pool. My swimming scores are pulling down my levels. Aquatics is my bane right now.”

“I’m headed to the simulator for the next hour. Aerial is pulling me down and I’m sitting on level 99 by a hair. I really want padawan.”

“Same here, but I’m still at 98,” she said, referring to the change they’d made in the Archon ranks. What had been mage was now padawan, with it being required before any sharing of psionics would take place…except for the trailblazers and some of the higher ranking second gens. The idea was that when you hit padawan you’d be paired with a mage or higher, which would be the next level up, but since there weren’t any ‘masters’ to train the padawans they were making exceptions.

Such was the role of a trailblazer. You never had anyone to learn from, you were always the ones doing the figuring out and building…with those that came after you reaping the benefits. And in order to make those advancements the trailblazers needed the sharing now, even with only 12 of them having earned the padawan rank and its dark brown armor, with the dark blue being shifted up with the mage rank. That had been Greg’s little wrinkle, which Paul heavily applauded due to it being the color of Jedi robes, all of which had happened before they’d left and the eight of them had sealed themselves away to focus on this exploratory training.

The upside was that they expected to catch up to the existing padawans, and earning that title was the first step towards doing so. Intense training trumped field work training any day, which meant that Emily and Bo were going to be catching up to Paul and Morgan eventually…or at least that was the hope. Right now they were just getting started and still strikers, but the furious pace that they were developing was going to start eating into their lead, and for Bo he was nearing the transition threshold already…with Aerial being his weakest area, and the Archon levels being measured strictly by your weakest area, making them a gage of multi-tasking ability rather than strengths.

Bo’s hand to hand scores were already padawan level 23, and some of the other trailblazers had even higher marks…such as Paul’s naval scores. All the Archons wanted to advance their levels, which meant training in all areas, but some of the second gens skewed their efforts towards one area, creating a strength that was on par with some of the trailblazers while neglecting other areas. Bo respected that approach, but wouldn’t emulate it, for he hated weaknesses.

He also wanted the new armor, which while he wouldn’t have much use for in training he knew he needed to get used to the telepathic interface. The striker armor was remaining the same, save for a few tweaks, while the brand new armor that was still in late prototype stage was coming out to them. That was another wrinkle in the ranking change. Originally they were going to hold off on it and just offer the two options to padawans…which was still the plan, but for the trailblazers they were going to give themselves the new prototype telepathic armor.

Being the tip of the spear did have a few privileges, plus they needed to work it out and troubleshoot the tech in the field before the second gen got to it. The few that had already been working with the techs to develop it, namely Vitor and Olivia, had said it was more or less ready to go and had already used it on a few light missions with no problems.

The trailblazers had decided to give themselves access to it when they hit padawan, adding a little carrot to their own progress for those who weren’t there yet. Bo knew the armor was heavily Ikrid linked, with a setting that had the Archon creating a small, continuous link to the technology that transmitted biotelemetry to the powered function and gave one much more agility and grace despite the thick armor. Olivia had said she could literally dance in it, despite it being the most dense corovon lacing to date and causing the Archon’s weight to more than double when wearing it.

They could have made it even heavier, but how far you sink into the ground when stepping was something that couldn’t be mechanically countered, so there were limits to how heavy they could make them…short of including a permanent anti-grav to compensation, which would never work with the way they moved, at least not to the efficiency levels they wanted.

Bo needed just a few more marks to get there, three of which were in Aerial, so he’d been making sure to get more simulator time in and use it as rest breaks between his physical training. Already he’d adjusted to a 36 hour day, as had the others, save for Vermaire, who was already pressing 48 hours. That man was a beast and Bo was very glad that he’d insisted on joining them, for he was definitely competition that was tapping on their egos and driving them on even harder than they normally would be pressing.

When Bo and Emily split he headed over to the small simulator room and locked himself away in an isolation pod that cut out all exterior noise, light, and vibrations…giving him an exact replica of a skeet cockpit that, since it used holograms in lieu of windows anyway, was essentially the same as being in a real craft, allowing him to get whatever practice in he needed without having to be in an actual aircraft.

There were always some differences, but the programs the Archons used to train had been developed to such an extent that they were almost indistinguishable by now, as far as rookies were concerned, but veteran pilots knew that wind was one thing the computers could never get right because of its chaotic nature, though by now it did come close.

The trick with Aerial, Mech, Aquatics, and Naval advancement versus Commando was the lack of an abundance of physical skills. Aquatics had swimming, but the other three were strictly remote control of machines which didn’t allow for training increases the way the body did. Paul’s naval skill was pretty much the same as it had been 100 years ago because he couldn’t advance when his ‘body’ was the machines that he was controlling.

So the Archons had developed experience points, requiring repetition of high scores that focused on making their great, once in a lifetime scoring sims normal affairs…as well as giving them an opportunity to pick up more tricks along the way. What Bo had to do to get to the next level in Aerial was, for this particular piece of his division score, was hold out against an unending wave of enemy fighters that never exceeded 9 at a time. When he killed one another would fly in to replace it, meaning he had to last as long as he could.

Now, while that score could go up basically forever the idea was to not just have one lucky day but rather to put in multiple impressive runs. Bo had to last at least 10 minutes and kill 150 fighters for a 1 point score, with higher levels incurring more points. In order to advance from striker 99 to padawan 1 he had to have 1200 points on this one scenario, meaning that any bad runs wouldn’t count as anything. In comparison, an adept level 10 had to kill 2 fighters to score a point, with the same difficulty level being used.

Another challenge scenario that he had been working on had him going head to head against a single fighter, with the computer-controlled craft having an insanely difficult setting. The goal there was simply to kill it…which was nearly impossible. To advance to the next level he had to kill it 141 times, no matter how long it took him. That same scenario would be used to advance from padawan 1 to padawan 2, except he’d have to do it another 144 times.

That was how Archons trained in skill areas, always looking for minor improvements once they became really good at something, but measuring their level advancement by experience…whereas their physical skills required progressively higher and higher performance, given that they were essentially customizing their bodies while they couldn’t do that with their fighters, mechs, and warships.

That said, Bo’s naval scores had jumped 6 levels since he’d attained Sav, for he simply had better mental processing capability now. Those six levels hadn’t even required any training, he just racked up the scores easily enough and would be much higher in the coming weeks as the experience points came in, for he was getting through what had previously been ‘hard’ challenges that would usually end in failure in bunches per hour.

That wasn’t the case for the skeet training, for he was only flying one craft at a time, whereas with naval a lot of the challenges were in ‘Admiral’ mode and had him controlling a large fleet. Already he was noticing improvements across the board in all five divisions thanks to his Sav, and he’d barely begun to even train the ability, making him wonder just how far he would advance until he plateaued and came back to a normal advancement rate.

He wanted to catch Paul and maybe take the lead, but he knew that was a lot easier said than done. Both Paul and Morgan were beasts, and even while they were fighting on the Skarron front they’d be training their asses off, he was sure. But then again Archons liked challenges, and as long as Bo had an advantage he was going to milk it for all he could get.

But that was almost a secondary concern now. He and the other 7 of his training team were beginning to accomplish some pretty impressive things working together, with David already having triggered another ascension, this one being Hanme, which gave him small nodules throughout his body that stored up oxygen and acted as a backup supply. It was something that only 3 other Archons had achieved to date, with all of them being Aquatics specialists.

Trouble was when you were swimming underwater, holding your breath, and heavily exerting yourself that wasn’t the best time for an instability surge to hit you. David had almost not made it back to the surface without having to dismiss it, but he held on just long enough that when he got back into the air and pulled himself up onto the side of the training pool he was able to force it up into red level on his own, then when Kiran come over and helped with a mental fixed point he made the full conversion and the upgrade…which had him now able to swim and fight underwater for several minutes without problem or a breath mask, so long as he had full reserves beforehand, which took some 20 minutes or so to replenish.

According to the database that replenishment time would come down with training, and he was eager to press the new ability. The medtechs were also excited, because with every ascension they caught with biomed sensors they got a little closer to finding the triggers…but they kept reminding Bo that he was the key to it all with his supposedly longer ascensions. That theory hadn’t been tested a second time yet, but he’d been making tweaks in his swimming training as a result of what they’d learned from Kiran.

And so the cycle continued, or rather just began. Training with others on, near, or above your ability level truly made a world of difference, especially when they were just as fanatically obsessed with it as you were. All eight of them were constantly driving themselves and helping each other out, barely taking any free time at all aside for meals, naps, and sleep…and reducing the latter down to as much as they could tolerate in order to get more training in, bumping up their advancement rate while adding an extra element to their training that the fatigue induced.

In fact, it induced it so much that only a few weeks later Vermaire ascended to a brand new ability…and fortunately they’d convinced him to wear a headband, which he’d been disinclined to previously, not expecting to be able to match the trailblazers psionically. His insane training regimen, which was both longer and more intense than even Bo was doing, caused him to ascend to Inas after three tries…the last of which had Jason nearby to help.

Inas was, unsurprisingly, an ability that was healing related and allowed one to take and process a lot of stress above and beyond the norm, including fatigue that induced a need to sleep.

After that Vermaire achieved that, his ego blossomed even more, as did his schedule. The man pushed himself to a level that Bo couldn’t hope to match in 100 years, if not 1000. The infamous Black Knight now only slept for 5 or 6 hours every 4 days.

Inspired by that feat and how much training he was getting in…which would invariably lead to even greater adaptation and advancement…Bo added a bit more to his own schedule, literally falling into bed when his sleep cycle came and dragging himself out when he woke up 9 hours later, but he knew it would be worth it.

And he loved it. They all did. Archons needed and thrived off of challenges, especially physical ones.

Hyperbolic Time Chamber was right…except that this was way more intense. And the gravity was higher. For the variable chamber they used for that type of training had Bo enduring bouts at 12g and Vermaire at 14g.

10

September 27, 2546

Solar System

Earth

Bo woke up, still in a haze but no longer missing his alarms. He rolled himself out of bed and immediately pulled on a shirt, shorts, and his running shoes, then headed over to the nearby track for an easy 3 miles to wake himself up before hitting the weight room for one of Wilson’s callisthenic programs that had, as usual, the Archons active under weight restriction. That was intentional to make sure they built strength rather than bulk, for a slow opponent was an easy one to defeat.

He latched on custom built weights to his shins and forearms before going through a series of prescribed movements over and over again. Halfway through Kiran came in and started doing an identical set off to his left a few meters and both trailblazers fell into sync with each other. As usual Bo’s weakness came from his muscles, for his coordination and awareness of what he was doing was so much higher with Sav. He had to fight to keep himself in alignment, but succeeded in doing so…which also helped keep Kiran in line by matching Bo’s pace and timing.

After that it was time for ‘breakfast’ despite the fact that it was evening. The area the training group was located in had no windows and they never left it, so time of day quickly became irrelevant, especially with each Archon on their own sleep schedule…with Vermaire virtually being awake at all hours.

After about a 10 minute break for food it was off to the simulators, this time a command nexus where Bo worked on his naval skills, or rather two of them…fleet coordination and gunnery, the latter of which had him target shooting. He could have used manual controls but his mind processed so well that he just kept with the Ikrid link and mentally targeted his simulated weapon with slightly better accuracy. The trick of it was to keep your mind focused, for even an erratic thought could have you aiming the completely opposition direction or freezing in place.

The mind was much more loose than the body, which was why mental control was key to using any tech Ikrid related. Bo found that the physical training actually helped calibrate his mind, acting as an anchor, and liked to hit these targeting drills while his muscles were still warm and the impatient part of his mind was still partially satiated with the previous workout.

He spent quite a long time on the gunnery today, racking up experience points on hard scenarios before getting in a few more easy fleet runs when he checked the time. He wore a watch to keep himself aware, otherwise he’d completely lose himself in the training. Wilson had them on a strict schedule as far as what they needed to get in per ‘day,’ and while it was up to them to figure out how to fit it in they knew better than to fall behind. Bo had to section out his days into time blocks and cut himself off when he reached his limit, otherwise some of the challenges he would get so annoyed with that he’d stick with them for hours until he passed or it became obvious that he had to get to other workouts.

That bit of self-analysis had been crucial, with him now moving from one segment to another as if he was staying ahead of an enemy chasing him. He got in what he could, when he could, but always kept moving forward no matter how tired or impatient he was. By now that had just become routine, with him bouncing around the training area from one individual drill to another before meeting up with the others for team activities.

Those were reserved for the second half of today, and at hour 21 he left the pool and headed over to the psionic training areas where he met up with Aaron and the two linked into battlemeld immediately, not even bothering for pleasant conversation. They’d gotten so invested in their training they didn’t want to waste even a few seconds, with both of them searching for tiny switches in the walls and objects in the room that they had to trigger with Ikrid.

It was a V’kit’no’sat tech they’d reverse-engineered a while ago, but these switches required two minds to activate, as well as being on tricky timers and pressure sensitive panels. Bo had to stand on one to activate a certain set of switches, or rather to make them live. Aaron likewise had to stand in certain places and do so in the time allotted, leaving both of them hopping around the room while scanning the various invisible switches and combining their Ikrid skills to ‘flip’ them.

It was training designed to go after another psionic that Kara had told them about, but that no one had gotten yet, as were many of the drills that Wilson was sending them. After completing it both Archons moved to another psionic, and another, and another, staying together for the next 8 hours before splitting up again…with Bo finally heading for food and bed.

He woke up six and a half hours later and began the cycle again, with many of the workouts being the same but some changed. No day was completely identical, but in order to improve you had to have repetition.

Bo took a few minutes and picked up a datapad, scheduling next week’s workouts ahead of time and seeing who was available for what. It took a little juggling to get what Wilson wanted them to do in, but after about 12 minutes of trying he worked out what he was going to do and when, then disconnected his mind from the big picture and focused on what he had to do next, which was another easy morning run.

Five months later Bo was working another Ikrid session with Aaron when the instability hit him. Both knew it instantly, for they were locked in battlemeld, with the other trailblazer withdrawing and making his limited mental presence known as Bo dropped to the floor and sat down crosslegged, chasing the mental storm forming and urging it on within certain pathways. The fixed point formed in his mind from Aaron’s presence and he used it to stabilize himself through what was another extra long ascension.

He got it on the first try, taking him some 43 minutes to do so…all during which his headband recorded the biotelemetry of what was happening inside his head. The tissue growth at the end wasn’t as extreme as before, but it still hurt. Both of them thought they knew what it was, for Aaron had ascended a week previously gaining Neritu…the very specific psionic that Wilson’s training had been aiming for.

It was a battlemeld ability that allowed two individuals to link together and combine their Ikrid and Ensek abilities, with both growing stronger above and beyond the sum of the two. The new tissue acted as a binary and created a powerful transmitter when the pair were within a short distance from one another.

Aaron hadn’t been able to test his because no one else possessed it, but once a quick assessment of Bo’s telemetry by the medtechs confirmed it was Neritu and was communicated to them via datapad, the pair immediately adjusted their schedules to give themselves half an hour per day to work on developing it…with new workouts from Wilson soon to follow.

But the new ability aside, the significance of that ascension was the confirmation that Bo’s Sav was going to make all his ascensions longer. One could be an anomaly, but now two had been extended, essentially confirming their theory…meaning that he was going to be the key to unlocking the triggers, with the medtechs already confirming that they were close to finding this one between his and Aaron’s data.

That discovery would come four days later once they had the chance to really crunch the numbers, and within two more days Aaron was successfully able to share Neritu with Jason through the twin link.

Three triggers down…and many more to come.

Paul was in his quarters onboard the Excalibur when word came that the Skarron fleet had begun to arrive, reading through recent intelligence reports that he quickly threw aside, with the datapad landing on his bed as he rushed out of the room enroute to the bridge.

By the time he got there and linked in with the command nexus a good 129 Skarron warships had already entered high orbit around Urrit, one of the most forward Dvapp worlds on the ADZ border and the one that Paul had guessed the enemy would hit first. He was glad he’d been right and was here to assist in the defense, though he doubted this was the only incursion that was happening. The sheer number of the enemy fleet suggested a widespread campaign…or at least he hoped. If they threw everything against one world then they were going to be in for a world of hurt.

Other fleets were positioned along the inhabited worlds on the Skarron front, with the trailblazers playing a game of chess that hadn’t officially started. They split up their reinforcements as they chose, but to date no word had come through the relay network of any assault, suggesting that Paul was going to get the first one to deal with…which was what he wanted.

The arrival of the Skarrons had already gone out over the comm network, just in case they managed to knock it out…though they had several long range Star Force transmitters scattered across the system to prevent an easy takedown. That said, they weren’t going to take any chances and intended to keep transmitting updates as they had them. That news wouldn’t make it to the nearby systems for days, but the sooner they got word out the better.

Right now that was someone else’s concern, orchestrating the orbital defenses was Paul’s…or rather the Star Force part. The Dvapp were loosely coordinating with him but their fleet outnumbered his 6 to 1, despite him having brought Mainline, Clan, Axius, and Canderous units in to both counter any assault here and give him the ability to reinforce other nearby systems if the call for help came down.

Altogether he had a massive armada centered on the Excalibur, including a large number of ground troops standing by to be thrown into the mix if and when needed. Those jumpships were holding position elsewhere in the system and safely out of harm’s way as he watched the number of Skarron vessels tick up over a thousand…and continue to climb.

The Dvapp weren’t waiting around to count, already launching their smaller ships ahead to intercept the enemy as they came in staggered. Paul didn’t do the same, instead taking the time to reposition his fleet and get the drones out into play. There were three Sentinels in orbit, which were the strongpoints in the planetary defense, and it seemed the Skarrons were respecting their kill power, for they had come in high enough in orbit to be out of their range.

More and more ships came pouring into the system, and soon the Dvapp were forced to pull back to lower orbit. As Paul had guessed the Skarrons had tightly staggered their jumps in order to avoid getting killed piecemeal on arrival. It was something they’d been hinting at in previous conflicts after the Protovic had done the exact same thing to them, and apparently they’d learned their lesson.

But it wasn’t without consequences. Paul saw at least three collisions that ended in either massive damage or ship kills as the Skarron navigators dropped the ball and didn’t leave sufficient deceleration room. That was sloppy fleet movement and something that Paul would never have tolerated, yet it barely seemed significant in the face of so many ships pouring in behind them.

Like a moving carpet, the first ships to arrive moved further down into orbit while the others kept popping up on sensors behind them. That carpet then slowly began to split up into tendrils, each with several juggernauts leading them out and around the planet…but none were coming down to engage the Sentinels or the Dvapp, who were constantly hitting the enemy’s inner flank and killing ships without provoking a massive furball.

Paul had his ships do the same, except from above. It took some time to get them there, but he had several dozen warships jump out and back in on either side of the jumpline from system’s center, with them spreading out in a funnel cone and shooting into the arriving ships with their cleansing beams from range and daring the Skarrons to come out to engage them…which the enemy was eventually forced to do. Those skirmishes were very one-sided, with the maulers and Ta’lin’yi hitting them hard, but as always the Skarrons accomplished their goal of guarding the jumpline, even if it was at a cost.

Through that cone the rest of their fleet continued to arrive, like a swarm of angry bees that was growing by the second. Eventually there were so many it started to become a fair fight between the two and Paul recalled his ships before they could start taking appreciable damage. Using their binary drives that the Skarrons lacked, they made tiny jumps further out into high orbit, knowing that if the Skarrons did the same they wouldn’t be able to stop.

The Star Force warships could by yanking the planet’s gravity and bringing themselves back in wherever they liked. Paul ordered those ships to do just that and harass the outer flank at will, doing damage but not allowing themselves to get caught up in a slugging match.

Meanwhile the Skarron ships continued to flow in, passing 10,000 and continuing to rise but they didn’t launch any assaults, merely defending themselves as they spread out in a sea of ships…

Which was when Paul finally understood what they were doing. They knew the Sentinels were going to be a problem, not just here but across the ADZ, not so much in destroying them but by costing the Skarrons too many ships to do so in order to make a successfully incursion. There was one solution to that though, and a pretty obvious one that they were now choosing to employ, made all the more evident by the glut of ships staying put at the stellar jumppoint.

The Skarrons were bringing in an overwhelming number of ships, not to fight, but to blockade the planet. If the Dvapp or Star Force wanted to fight them, they’d have to come out away from the Sentinels to do it.

Paul frowned, having hoped they’d be arrogant enough to assault them directly, but apparently they weren’t going to be that nice. They also weren’t trying to run troops down to the surface either, though Paul could see some of their transports within the fleet and a scattering more still coming in along the jumpline…which suggested that the ship count was going to get well in excess of 10,000.

Rather than be bold, the Skarrons were being cagey, which was a new trick for them…or perhaps maybe an old one that they just hadn’t shown them yet. Regardless, this was going to be an altogether different confrontation, with Paul already brainstorming ways to fight it.

Before the Dvapp could do anything stupid he got their commander on the comm and began having a chat about strategy, all the while Paul’s harassment fleet in high orbit was busy sniping ships and picking up a scattering of kills.

Survivor

1

October 2, 2548

Reesi System (Beta Region)

Metropolis

Rio Jakson walked in full battle gear along with a large group of his fellow commandos onto the Armadillo-class transport that was currently docked with their jumpship. The transport was so large it couldn’t fit inside one of the hangar bays at nearly a mile long, so it was nestled up inside the docking hollow that allowed the jumpship to carry other vessels within it. This transport hadn’t arrived in the system, but was meeting up with the cargo jumpship to transfer the troops onboard. There were some 58,000 commandos and Knights from the 18th army onboard with him, but only a third of that was going down in the armadillo…and they were being packed in tightly.

Rio walked across the docking umbilical casually, along with many other battle-hardened vets. He was still young by commando standards, but his newb days were long behind him. Now at 107 years old he’d spent 9 decades training and fighting, with what eagerness he’d previously had now lost…replaced by a steely calm that knew when the time to act came he’d be ready. His body and mind no longer wasted energy in worry, for he knew the naval division would get them to ground safely. Then it would be time to fight, but not now.

Wearing the dull grey/white armor that commandos were infamous for, Rio carried a small pack on his back, over top of which was his weapon rack, full of rifles and pistols, all but one of which were plasma. The sole exception was a stun pistol, just in case the need arose…and those situations happened, he knew, but they weren’t being shipped here to play nice. Metropolis sat in a system kissing up against Dvapp territory and was one of two Star Force systems that had been hit by the Skarron ‘second wave’ as it’d come to be called by the Regulars. The other had hit Rotunna, which was practically asking to get your ass kicked.

Archon Randy was there, safeguarding that system and its multiple planets, while Reesi had only Metropolis. It was a much smaller colony system, but well developed none the less. There were some 1.2 billion Humans and Kiritas living on Metropolis, which at the moment was surrounded by a Skarron blockade in middle orbit. Low orbit still remained Star Force territory, with now 4 Sentinels patrolling in lazy circles and the navy taking shelter in their destructive auras, baiting the Skarrons in but the numerically superior enemy was having none of it.

All across the ADZ Beta Region border the Skarrons were blockading their chosen targets and not touching a single Sentinel. Any ships trying to get in and out from the planets had to run the blockade, which was doable, but tricky…and the Skarrons were getting good at making intercept runs, despite their inferior gravity drives. They’d had 2 years to practice in some cases, with the assault on Metropolis being only 7 months old and the newest addition to the 14 other worlds that were currently under the enemy’s naval squeeze.

When Rio got to the other side of the docking umbilical the commandos were led via guiding holograms to their waiting area in the transport, with him and several other members of his Phalanx being seated in what looked like banks of theatre seats facing opposite each other with a walkway separating the two. Above that walkway were holographic display screens, updating the troops on the ongoing battles and offering other intel that would be valuable…but it was mostly a way to keep them preoccupied during the long wait.

Rio sat down on one of the bench-like seats…for his equipment rack wouldn’t have fit with a backed chair and the armadillo had been built specifically as a troop transport. Nearly identical commandos sat down on his left and right, with the row behind him already filled and the one in front to soon follow. They all had custom fit armor, with a few inches in height differential and body thickness to tell them apart, but for the casual eye they all looked the same. Rio’s helmet HUD gave him the ID tags of everyone around him when he looked at them, emblazoned in little icons above each person’s helmet.

That mode he could toggle on and off, but with so many people around he wanted to know who was who. His Phalanx was his operational unit, and he knew every one of the 991 commandos in it…along with the 25 Knights assigned to pair with them. Normally there would have been 1000, but they’d taken some losses in their previous campaign and had yet to be sent replacements…if there were any to be had.

Rio was immensely glad that Star Force had had the wisdom to keep him out of the war zone for as long as they did while he got the training he needed…which now looked a lot less thorough from his experienced point of view. And the only reason he’d been sent out when he did was because of the special circumstances and Clan Metal Gear’s individual approach to assignments. After 43 years in the Clan’s service he had been transferred to a Mainline army unit…not a colonial one or other relief/training units, but a frontline army.

The 18th had 1.2 million commandos in total, augmented by Knights, Aerial, Mechs, and Aquatics that put their full roster at 2 million+. His Phalanx existed within a Brigade of 10,000 and a Regiment of 200,000…with his Phalanx identification being 18th Blue Epsilon 4. The 4s and 7s were being dispatched to Metropolis in a fleet of cargo jumpships that were also carrying badly needed supplies along with a new Sentinel, broken down into pieces that was even now beginning to run the blockade to get down to low orbit where it would be assembled and add to the planet’s orbital defenses.

The Skarrons weren’t taking well to that and a major battle was forming along the entry corridor as the navy was screening for the first piece. They’d entered on a seldom used jumpline because the Skarrons had all the main ones guarded. Thanks to the binary drives Star Force could come in anywhere they wanted, but it was the speed of approach that varied. The main jumplines could deposit ships close in or far out from a planet in the blink of an eye, but use a rogue line and your approach had to be much slower…while expending the same engine output, for you didn’t have a direct line to the gravity wells to push/pull off of.

That slower approach had given the Skarrons a little bit of a heads up they were coming, but not much. As it was they were scrambling to get more ships into position to engage the screening drone fleet, but as Rio watched he could already tell they weren’t going to make it. Warships on both sides were getting slagged in the fighting, but the jump cradle carrying the first piece of the Sentinel was getting through and soon would be within the firing range of one of the complete ones…and Rio doubted the Skarrons would dare to go there. For the past 2 years they hadn’t gone within firing range on a Sentinel anywhere, meaning that if this piece got through to that radius then it was probably going to be safe.

There were still three more sections to get in, and Rio guessed they’d be coming in along different jumplines. A notice indicated that the armadillo would be going to ground concurrent with the third section and using the blocking naval fleet to cover for it simultaneously. Rio had expected to go down somewhere else while the Sentinel sections made for a distraction, but apparently not. He waited patiently as the armadillo finished loading, then watched on some of the holos as it detached from the jumpship and began maneuvering away, ready to make its own microjump.

Currently they were sitting in high orbit around a nearby planet, with the data feeding into the holos being delayed by lag but otherwise ‘live.’ The armadillo moved down into a lower orbit and aligned on a jumpline to nowhere, launching off the planet’s gravity well with just a kiss of momentum. It traveled out into null space between the planet and the star, then yanked hard on both distant gravity wells in order to slow them to a stop at the rendezvous point where the Sentinel section and its escort fleet already waited, with the escorts being mostly the same ones that had just been fighting to screen for the first piece.

The escorts taking the second piece in were already currently engaged while this fleet finished assembly. When they were ready and aligned the armadillo pumped up its gravity drives nearly as high as they could go and pushed off using multiple gravity wells, all of which only gave them a small response. The jump cradle had no trouble, given it was capable of traveling between stars and had huge gravity drives. The armadillo was another story, designed as an insystem transport, and had to boost its output extremely high in order to keep up.

When they came out of the microjump at Metropolis the deceleration was a piece of cake, but a group of Skarron ships was nearby and redirected to intercept them immediately. The jumplines down to the Sentinels were constantly obscured, despite the orbital rotations, by the enemy fleet to keep Star Force from jumping incoming ships directly to them else risk a collision. That meant the armadillo and others had to come down beside it, outside of weapons range, then scurry over to get within its protective umbrella or head down to the surface.

The Sentinel piece went laterally along with most of the escort fleet while a few drones followed several armadillos down to the atmosphere until they were sure the Skarrons weren’t going to cause them trouble. Only a few ships actually tried, for most were desperately trying to break through the escort fleet around the Sentinel piece…making the choice of coming down with the massive payload obviously correct. Rio had expected a diversion, he just didn’t think it would occur in the same place.

Still watching the holos and feeling only a little trickle of adrenaline starting to creep its way into his system, Rio and the other commandos talked little, merely waiting patiently as the armadillos split up heading to different locations on the planet and picking up aerial escorts waiting for them. While the Skarrons weren’t engaging the Sentinels, there was way too much orbital space for the defense platforms to block, with the enemy having run ships down to the surface whenever they could get past Star Force’s low orbit fleet…which wasn’t overly hard given the number of warships they had in orbit to screen with.

Star Force almost always made them pay for it, but they’d succeeded in getting troops to several LZs and were pressing the war to conquer the planet from a ground perspective rather than naval. Rio appreciated that, for it was usually the reverse. The fate of Metropolis and the other 14 systems under assault would be determined by his field of specialty, and both he and the others were more than ready to fight that kind of war.

Recently his Phalanx had been engaging the lizards on multiple worlds with most of those engagements being cleanup efforts when the enemy was outnumbered but still needed killing. They were hard fights…they always were when you went up against the lizards, but the outcome was never in question. The losses they’d suffered were more like freak accidents, with Dan having been killed by an errant tank blast that was never meant for him. A mech had hit the tank just as it was firing, twisting the shot and landing a swath of plasma on his shieldless armor as he took cover behind a Knight’s shield as his emitters reset.

He’d been doing everything right and been caught by the lateral blast. The Knight survived, but Dan had his armor melt right off him in several spots, with what plasma was left getting through and carving several deep gashes into his body that he didn’t survive. Rio hated losing him and how it had happened, but life was messy and sometimes the statistically impossible scenario played itself out. Had his shields even been deployed at 10% he would have survived, but he’d been caught by a tank blast in the maybe 15 seconds needed to get a matrix back up at minimal power.

That was just plain bad luck…and it had ended the life of a good commando that had been training and fighting for more than 150 years. That felt like such a waste to Rio, to die like that, but he couldn’t find fault in anyone that day. It had just happened, like getting sucker punched in the gut and losing your breath. The only thing you can do from that point on is recover and keep moving forward, which is what he and the others had done.

They didn’t like losses, at all, but if there wasn’t a mistake made that they could correct then there literally wasn’t anything to be done, so Rio had put Dan out of mind and same for the other 8 losses in recent years. He didn’t know when they’d get replacements, for sufficiently experienced commandos were in high demand nowadays, but they didn’t really need them. 991 or 1000 made no difference to Rio. They’d get the job done regardless, and he almost preferred going 9 short rather than getting sent newbs that didn’t belong here.

He credited Star Force for that too, given that none had shown up and they were simply floating the reduced Phalanx.

Halfway through their atmospheric flight orders started popping up on the holos and then in Rio’s helmet, indicating that they were going to come down very near a combat zone instead of the preplanned LZ. That got a spike of adrenaline flowing, and Rio clenched and unclenched his leg, back, and arm muscles, loosening him up a bit from what he knew could be a sluggish body after such a long time sitting.

Around him the others did the same, for they’d been through this before and knew how to prep.

He got a comm prompt in his helmet and activated it with an eye blink.

“You ready?” Peter asked.

“Always,” he answered, seeing that he was seated on the opposite half almost all the way up to the back.

“We’re going to have to find each other pretty quick. There’s plenty of elite Skarrons in play, and we can’t get caught isolated.”

“Not that it’d matter,” Rio commented, knowing that by ‘elite’ Peter meant the armored versions of the quadrupeds that more resembled walking tanks than infantry.

“It matters in how quickly we take them down.”

“Point. I’ll make sure I find your beacon.”

“Make it fast, I’ve got skirmish orders and we can’t wait around.”

“Copy that, Pete.”

His squad commander cut the link, cycling around to other members of the 13 commandos that would be working in conjunction with each other. The ‘squad’ was a flexible designator and could have any number of infantry, including Knights or others. Peter had been Rio’s squad commander for about 2/3rds of his time with the 18th and the 308 year old commando certainly knew his stuff…not to mention he was stronger and faster than Rio, so much so that he looked up to the guy like a big brother.

When the armadillo eventually set down Rio and the others exited the seats in a fast, organized flow by rows with none of the craziness that would have resulted had there been civilians here. Commandos moved with each other, never as a random crowd. Rio gave others just enough space to get by while keeping tucked close to maximize available space for others to move through as they debarked via a series of ramps into a thick, moist atmosphere with tufts of fog that covered the ground in places…but with the sun overhead coming down brightly, making for an eerie feel.

Rio switched to one of his scanning modes, with the fog cover being pierced by an overlay onto his normal vision. He immediately felt better, knowing that no enemy was going to be able to use the ground clouds to get the jump on him…then he groaned as soon as his boots hit the soil and sunk in about two inches.

They had landed in a swamp. That would slow them down, but so too the enemy…and probably more them given the commandos’ agility and overall lightness on their feet.

Rio got the beacon from Peter on his battlemap in the form of a moving waypoint as the other commando moved off and out from the units assembling around the armadillo and safeguarding it from any attempt to board or sabotage by Skarron infantry. Soon Rio broke out and away from the others, running around a scattering of trees and passing through a thick cloud with one other commando on his flank until they both met up with Peter inside a thicker area of trees.

He fell into position with them, focus turned outward as they slowly walked forward as the others gradually caught up. When all 13 were there they took off running, with no words being exchanged. No ‘good lucks’ or ‘be carefuls’ were needed. They were experienced warriors who knew the score and didn’t want to give the enemy so much as one extra second of preparation that needless talk would consume.

Like ghosts moving through the foggy swamp Rio’s squad moved off to an area in between the entrenched Skarron forces inside a captured mining outpost and the armadillo that the bulk of the troops would be coming through. Ahead there was already fighting as a couple of stars of mechs were engaging the trio of Skarron walkers, with a large infantry battle was occurring on the far side.

The armadillo had landed in a position to backdoor them and Rio’s squad was pushing hard ahead to clear the way for their coming, with the commando already spotting a couple of Hobbit scouts nearby. His squad split up, intending to come at them from different angles and get their first kills without slowing their run.

18 seconds later they were down and the commandos moved on, scouting ahead and prepping the way ahead for the heavy hitters with Knight escorts to come through and into the outpost perimeter without any surprises.

2

October 21, 2548

Reesi System

Metropolis

Davi Jameson kept the dropship low to the ground with the Falcon skimming the tall marshy grassland as numerous Skarron walkers were visible on the horizon, some of which were spewing tiny white dots in the dim light of evening, but too few. The perimeter defenses of the city ahead were all but down, leaving a nasty fight on the interior that was slowly becoming a losing effort. Further ahead on the battlemap but out of visual range for the moment, more enemy walkers were approaching as the horde of ground troops they had on planet was slowly making its way across the largest of three flat continents.

Already two cities had fallen, with this one looking like it was about to be the third. Davi’s mission was straightforward but dangerous…get to the city and evac personnel. Trouble was, Skarron walkers dominated the local airspace. The few fighters they had in the air flew about with impunity, for anything that Star Force sent into region would be shot down almost instantly by the heavy anti-air capability that the huge walking machines carried…but he knew there was a window of opportunity low to the ground. Their anti-air had a ceiling limit, and if he could stay under that he could theoretically get into the city and out again.

But being constricted to 50 or so meters off the ground wasn’t fun to fly with and didn’t give him many options to work with when the fighters came after him. Fortunately he wasn’t alone, and in addition to the eight other dropships in formation with him he had a squadron of Starscream-class mechs flying ahead of them clearing the road.

The flying mechs couldn’t rise up above the ceiling height either without drawing fire from the distant walkers, and thankfully none of the big ones were within range, else their missiles could have downed the dropships quite easily. No, Davi had a window and they had to take it now before the big ones did get into range. They were slower than slow but on approach none the less, meaning they didn’t have long to evac and he didn’t know how many trips they were going to get to make.

The starscreams flew several kilometers ahead, drawing the attention of the Skarron fighters their way, some of which headed straight for the dropships, but the mechs landed and transformed into ground fighting mode and lit up the sky with anti-air fire, fighting the fighters safely beneath the ceiling height and giving the dropships a ‘safe’ zone over which to fly into the city.

Davi’s Falcon took a couple of plasma hits to its shields as one of the fighters strafed it on a pass from left to right, but within a few seconds the anti-air batteries on the near side  of the city opened up and drove it away. Fortunately the Skarrons hadn’t circled around to the back side yet, and the dropships made it safely inside the perimeter but not under the city’s shield, which had already gone down.

The Star Force pilot landed the dropship in the one spaceport still under their control and which the ground troops were fiercely hanging onto, opening the boarding ramp and waiting for the first of the evacuees to come onboard. Setting the ship into standby mode he headed to the back of the craft, intent on packing as many people in as physically possible, knowing full well that there could be some left behind to die, and that thought was one that he wasn’t keen on.

“We have to go now!” Chad Erri said, pointing to the door.

“Hold on,” Kevin Pru warned, doing one last head count of the 7 year olds in this orisect. There were supposed to be 100 and he was damned if he was going to leave anyone behind. He’d already made the count once, but he was going through a second time just to be sure.

“No…now!” Chad insisted.

A few more heads…there, they had them all. “Ok, go. I got the back.”

Without needing any further prompting the handler went straight to the door with the younglings following him two by two. Kevin waited at the back of the line to make sure nobody wandered off or stayed behind, following the last pair of girls out and reluctantly saying goodbye to the city that he’d spent the last 12 years in as home. He’d been working in maturias for well over a century, but Metropolis had finally become home to him, and this city in particular…but now it was about to fall to the enemy and he needed to push sentimentality aside. Getting his charges out was what mattered.

He jogged at the back of the formation out into the hallways where other orisects were also evacuating. All the lines were neat and none were strung out, from the 20 year olds down to the hover sleds carrying the infants…which was a relief. The situation was panicked enough, but this was Star Force and not one of the holo vids. People knew their jobs and were professional about it, right down to the younglings. They were worried and upset, but they held to orders and their formations, just as they’d trained to do many times before. Repetition was key, Kevin knew, and he was gratified to see their training being verified in an emergency situation like this, despite the myriad of other things going through his mind at the moment.

The surface streets had been deemed a ‘no-go’ zone, so Chad led their orisect down into the subsurface connective tunnels in the city and the line jogged their way across more than two kilometers before they got to a bottleneck with ground troops holding them and several other groups up. Kevin saw one finally be let through into the spaceport, having to run up a flight of stairs to ground level. Apparently there was danger nearby, else they would have been sent up immediately. That wasn’t a good sign.

The younglings started to stir, having nothing to do but stand in line. They held position, but began talking and filling the hallway with din. That wasn’t preferable, for it hindered people’s ability to hear what was coming, but Kevin knew there was no way to make them be quiet. They were only vocalizing some of the same thoughts running through his head and he couldn’t blame them for that.

It took some ten minutes that felt like hours before the next orisect went through, then two more shortly thereafter before Kevin’s and Chad’s was next up. When the word came he saw Chad hit the stairs at a slow run with the 7 year olds sprinting up after him in order to keep close. Kevin made sure everyone ahead of him made it, then followed the last two up himself, passing a pair of security guards in full combat gear and clapping one on the shoulder in thanks.

They climbed some 18 flights of stairs before they got into the spaceport, with the little ones being forced to walk the last few. The line lagged but held together well enough, then they were up on level ground and moving through hallways, wide expansive courtyards, and promenades with the distant sound of plasma fire sending a chill through everyone. They were so exposed now that even a rookie with a rifle could have hit someone just on accident, and Kevin literally cringed as Chad led them forward and through a chokepoint out onto the loading pad.

When Kevin’s end of the line came up to the archway that led into a short tunnel, he glanced back to make sure no one was following them, seeing an Archon sprint into and out of view far down the promenade. Glad to be getting away now and fearing for the others still waiting behind, Kevin focused his attention ahead and jogged out into the huge open air landing pad that fortunately still had its own shield covering it like a flat dome. He saw one dropship take off and move through that shield as soon as he entered, with many more on the deck loading people coming in from multiple entrances.

The dropship they were destined for was halfway across the deck, making for another decent run with the younglings already fatigued from the stair climb, but true to form they held together all the way up to the dropship and hit the boarding ramp still in their two by two formation, with Chad stalling at the entrance and shooing them on inside.

“Seats,” Davi said, pointing at the far end of the cargo bay to the forward section that was for passengers. The hold was empty, but the first ones were going up there. “Fill them all in,” he told the younglings as he escorted the first ones up and saw that they got seated where they were supposed to go. When all of them were taken he directed the others to stand in a corner of the bay, with their handlers coming up to him at the end of the line.

“We have to pack you all in, like concert pack,” Davi explained. “Nobody sits on the floor, everyone stands as close as possible. We’re not leaving anybody behind if we have room. Keep them in tight.”

Kevin nodded as Davi ran back towards the main boarding ramp as another orisect came up, this one made up of 15 year olds which he directed to the left wall. More and more came aboard, with him stacking them in like he was playing Tetris. His route to the cockpit was obscured, but that didn’t matter. He had to get as many in here as possible.

More and more came and he filled the hold with them, then squeezed a handful more people in that were not orisect. Hopefully this was the last of the younglings, at least. Everyone else in the city should be smart enough to survive a bit longer than they would.

From the outside Davi triggered the hatch to close, making sure those inside were standing in the correct positions so they didn’t get arms or legs caught in the diminishing creases. When it finally locked up he found himself on the outside of the dropship and he turned and pointed to the civilians standing behind him.

“I don’t know how many I can take, but come with me,” he told them before running around to a secondary entrance on the dropship that led to the tunnel neck between the passenger compartment and the cockpit. He opened the small ramp and ran up it, pointing those with him to squeeze into the gaps in the walkways between the seats that held the younglings. He jammed as many people in there as he could, then added a few more in the ramp foyer and even in the cockpit before yelling back down the ramp that he could take no more and for them to back away from the dropship.

Knowing that he’d done all he could he squeezed his way between those in the cockpit over to his pilot’s seat and kicked in the anti-grav, confirming that the shield was still in porous mode above him. That meant it would stop energy and light material from coming through, including atmosphere, but large heavy objects could pass, such as the dropships. A kamikaze fighter would get through too, or any missiles, which was why someone in the control room was monitoring and could snap a second shield into place a few inches over the existing one if needed.

Making sure that one wasn’t up was necessary before takeoff, as was making sure their exit corridor was clear. He had to wait some 30 seconds on that, then he got the word and lifted up along with three other dropships, clearing the deck with many people still visible around the edges. There wasn’t anything he could do for them other than get back, offload, and hopefully come back for a second run…if the city and spaceport were still in Star Force hands by then.

When he cleared the shield and returned to open air he saw many lurking white bulges reflecting the city lights in the dark that surrounded the colony, marking them as closer than they had been before, with weaponsfire coming from along the edges of the ‘safe’ side of the city as the Skarrons encroached and slowly eliminated the defense turrets along the outer wall.

Wasting no time Davi shot the dropship off across the low building tops, darting between the taller ones until he passed the city edge and accelerated hard with the grasslands becoming a dark blur below him. Battlemap contacts popped up, showing Skarron fighters angling towards them but some low flying skeets took to them and risked an aerial confrontation, keeping the brawling close to the enemy in the hopes that the walkers wouldn’t risk firing on their own fighters.

Davi silent thanked them for getting him and his passengers out. Enemy fighters scared the hell out of him, and he knew his own shields would offer little protection if they were able to hound the dropships, for his craft was the slower and he had a long way to fly, with every small shot adding up to a takedown kill. Fortunately he and the other three dropships got enough of a head start that the rest of the Skarron fighters didn’t pursue them. Once sufficiently clear of the walkers’ lachar range he elevated to normal cruising height with the atmosphere thinning and his Falcon accelerating in response.

It took some 23 minutes to arrive at the nearest safe city/colony and even more precious minutes to offload his passengers. Once finished he got a warning, indicating that the zone around the target city was becoming too dangerous to return to, with the option being floated at pilot’s discretion given that they couldn’t guarantee air cover.

“To hell with it,” he said, lifting off again. “Might as well take a closer look.”

Davi lifted off and flew back the way he came, eventually stalling out into a hover a few meters over the marshy ground as he studied the battlemap ahead. The perimeter defenses were all but down, but a handful of the anti-air turrets appeared to still be functional. No walkers had closed on a narrow slice of the city, but there were plenty of enemy infantry there fighting some mechs who were guarding an overland evac route, with numerous vehicles pouring out of the city.

“Ok, time to play truck,” he said, daring to be reckless and moving off again, this time towards the convoy route and floating barely 10 meters off the ground. He couldn’t move very fast that low, for there was a bit of elevation change that would have him bumping the ground, but he aligned himself with the evacuation corridor and got in close to the mechs, hoping they’d give him some air cover.

It wasn’t enough, and a pair of Skarron fighters poured plasma into his topside shield, eventually breaching it with three blasts before he got near the intact anti-air turrets in the city and they killed one of them…which almost fell on top of his dropship. The other peeled off, giving him a straight shot into the city.

He got a message indicating that the spaceport had been taken, then revised landing coordinates from an Archon that wanted him to put down on top of one of the lower buildings near the city’s edge. Glad that someone had a plan he could execute, Davi flew to the small four-story building and landed on an auxiliary pad…or rather hovered over it, for it wasn’t really a pad but a parking spot for hover vehicles and too small for his dropship. He lowered the main ramp and parked his dropship on the edge of the building so the ramp set down on the pad while the rest of it hovered over the dropoff.

This time he stayed in the cockpit to maintain the precise altitude and keep the ramp steady. He got on the comm and communicated to those ground troops in the building, instructing them of what he needed them to do…then a few seconds later the first of the evacuees ran up onto the roof and into his dropship.

Halfway through loading he got a comm from the Archon indicating that they had gotten everyone onboard, but with a glance from Davi at his hold cams he saw that they had plenty of room to spare. As he raised the ramp he asked if there was another location they could pick up people at and he got a second waypoint…this one on the ground just outside the city walls.

Davi blew out a breath, realizing how reckless this all was, but went for the second group anyway. He flew over the city edge and set down, picking up a host of commandos that were fighting a rear guard action. Before they were even all up the ramp he got the signal to go and didn’t hesitate. He moved the dropship forward, triggering the ramp closure, and took off towards the rear of the convoy that was now making good speed away from the city…with no one else staying behind aside from a pair of chewed up madcats covering for him, and they were now running in retreat as well as the enemy infantry swarms were closing in around them and bathing their armored hulks with tiny plasma blasts.

One of them got hammered by a nearby Type-4 walker, but it didn’t go down and accelerated up into a sprint that threw off the enemy’s targeting enough for it to break free…then it started peppering the sky with anti-air fire as a quartet of fighters came in towards the dropship.

Knowing that he couldn’t just sit there and fly a straight line, Davi pulled up and did a corkscrew to starboard, hopefully putting the fighters between him and the nearest walker. The part of the ship the enemy had been shooting suddenly disappeared from sight as he flipped the ship upside down as he continued to accelerate ahead and into a weave over the convoy as a few more mechs turned around and added to the anti-air.

The underside shields on the dropship held up until a lachar blast from a walker penetrated them and vaporized half the hull armor. Davi completed the corkscrew and dropped back down to the surface, zipping over top the convoy vehicles and seeing two of the fighters go down behind him. That left two more on his tail, which a lone skeet came up from the ground and distracted, giving the dropship a few precious seconds to accelerate ahead and get a gap on them.

That skeet blew apart and crashed nearby the convoy, with one of the enemy fighters surviving and coming back at the dropship. It was out of weapons range but closing distance again, with Davi squeezing every bit of acceleration out of the Falcon that he could…but seeing that it wasn’t going to be enough.

He held out as long as he could, not going evasive and wasting precious seconds of their lead, then the Skarron fighter caught up to them and started hammering his aft shields.

“Shit,” he said, pulling up hard and angling into the sky. The Skarron trailed them easily, continuing to pound the rear of the dropship and broke through the shields just as Davi reached his apex and flipped the aerodynamic nose of the craft down to the ground, with the flat top catching the atmosphere and braking it hard…forcing the dropship back and almost into the fighter, which dodged evasively.

Then Davi used the one advantage he had and pulled on the planet’s gravity well with his craft’s binary drives, putting it into a descent so fast that the Skarron fighter couldn’t match with gravity alone. At the end of the sudden fall he braked hard and angled them back onto a course towards the nearest city pushing his ship for all it was worth and getting abrasion warnings on the hull, given that it didn’t have any shields left to cut the air with…for those had burnt off in the rapid descent.

They reformed a few seconds later at low power and created the needle nose shape that added to the craft’s aerodynamics, allowing Davi to regain a bit of a lead on the Skarron, but it fell in behind him again, gaining rapidly.

Fortunately there were mechs ahead, further up the long ground convoy, that signaled him to come to them. He gladly did so, literally parking the dropship in with their convoy vehicles and baiting the fighter in…with it subsequently blowing up and its shredded hulk impacting like a meteor nearby.

“Thank you,” he commed them before heading back off towards the destination city and accelerating to amicable speed with no further pursuit.

“Davi, you can be so stupid sometimes,” he berated himself.

“I’d call it badass flying,” the Archon said, coming up behind him in the cockpit.

“And a lot of luck,” he added, still not accepting that what he had done had been anything other than reckless. Fortunately it had paid off.

The silver-clad Archon put an armored hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Ditto. I only move stuff around, you’re the one killing the Skarrons.”

“And we have a lot more to kill,” she said, letting go and sitting down in the empty copilot’s seat.

“Yes we do,” Davi agreed, glancing at the battlemap full of enemy contacts.

3

January 11, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

“Go, go, go!” Victor Anassi yelled over his comm to the rest of his squad as he ran across a fairly firm section of ground. Skarron infantry was trailing them but not very fast on their quadruped feet, nor were their Hobbit skirmishers, meaning that if the commandos and other Knights kept moving they could stay ahead of them. Sticking around to fight, however, would end up being a bloodbath.

They’d just executed a fighting retreat out of the partially constructed city of Topalia, which was now being overrun by enemy infantry with light walker support. There were no mechs or aerial units in the area, so they’d had to abandon their position. The firepower the walkers threw down was just too much, and even with the building cover there was no way to take them down. They could have stayed and tried to find a way, but the enemy infantry had driven them out and now the defense team was executing a running retreat to the northern sea a few kilometers away.

Victor kept up a steady pace, his longer strides eating up the distance as the shorter commandos scurried alongside him. His Knight shield had been so damaged and full of holes that he’d left it behind, making his running considerably easier, though a few of the others still had theirs and were lugging them over their backs as they moved. Altogether there were about 500 Star Force troops fleeing across the ground and out onto a peninsula, effectively boxing themselves in as the Skarrons swarmed over the city and chased after them, cutting off all other land retreat options.

Victor didn’t like that, but they had few choices. Had they gone laterally they would have had to run the gauntlet and most probably wouldn’t have survived to get to the nearest forest…and even then they would have had a very long hike to the next closest outpost. They’d been placed in Topalia to hold it, being backed up by a mech unit roaming the area. That unit had been redeployed in an emergency relief effort to the south two days ago that had not gone well. Stripped of their support the Skarrons had eventually moved on them and forced their hasty retreat.

All across the continent Star Force cities were falling, with the civilians now being evacuated prior to assaults as the Skarron approach was becoming predictable. They were knocking off one city after another and being none too subtle about it. Star Force was kicking the crap out of their units but they were overwhelming them with numbers…the same old story, it seemed. Very rarely had Victor fought a battle where they had the numerical advantage. They were always trying to pull off the upset, and usually did, but today wasn’t one of those days, nor this year, for the Skarrons were getting close to owning the full continent.

There were still a number of cities that were intact, but they were already undergoing evacuation with the writing on the wall being clear. Star Force orders had set down that they weren’t going to hand anything over to the Skarrons, hence Victor’s unit’s assignment here. Hold if you could, but hurt the enemy regardless. That they’d done, in terms of infantry anyway, but they simply didn’t have the ordinance to take down the walkers…nor the Archons. He’d heard rumors of strikers and even some rangers taking them down singlehandedly. He wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but he really wished they had one of the higher ranking ones with them now.

All they had were two adepts, powerful enough in their own right, but not a match for a walker by any stretch of the imagination. They’d had a third, but she hadn’t made it out of the city, along with a few others that had got caught in an ambush by the Skarron elites. They’d engaged the Archon while sending in a flanking wave of Hobbits. The Archon had mowed down the smaller infantry, as expected, but the larger plasma weapons on the elites wore her down to the point that when she finally broke free and retreated another group of waiting Hobbits got the drop on her.

Victor had gotten to her and pulled her out of the fire, but she didn’t last more than five minutes. They had to leave her body there, for they couldn’t carry anything with them on retreat, save for the three injured commandos. Victor had offered to take one of them, but the remaining Archons wanted him in the rear being unkind to anyone that might catch up to them, leaving him trailing behind the others slightly with a constant eye on his battlemap and peripherals.

The three commandos ahead of him, one of which had a plasma gash on his left hip that had melted through the armor and left a visible burn mark on his skin, splashed through a small creek slowing their process momentarily. Victor jumped and made it across with only one foot hitting water, but it sank in some four inches, nearly tripping him up as he ran on but the light muck was nothing his superior musculature couldn’t handle.

When he caught up to the backs of the commandos he turned sharp right, running perpendicular to their direction and allowing himself to look behind them, as he’d been doing for the past 2 kilometers. No one was close, but he could see glints of Skarron armor in the distance as the sunlight reflected off their shiny plates. There were tufts of trees and grasses, making the visual inspection dicey and leaving plenty of opportunity for ambush. He wished they’d had at least a probe in the air for a visual, let alone a fighter or warship that he could pull telemetry from, but at the moment all he had was his eyes and ears to work with.

Victor turned back on course and slowly made up the distance, catching up to the others then pulling a juke to the left in a similar manner. They were staying ahead of their pursuit, but before long they’d run into the water’s edge and could go no further. They were supposed to receive evac there, but if it didn’t come they’d be in for a tough battle. So far none of the Skarron walkers had left the city, meaning they’d only have infantry to deal with for a while…which was a fight Victor was more than willing to make.

He was still fuming over the lost Archon and commandos and really wanted something to smash.

About 20 minutes later he got his chance as the soldiers bunched up on the water’s edge, their ride now there yet and the enemy slowly catching up. Victor moved out into a small depression, keeping his head high enough to see through the grasses while relying on a spotter further back to keep an eye on enemy positions. He waited there until he got a battlemap ping then took off, springing up and running straight towards an armored Skarron and jumping up onto its back.

It tried to move aside, but Victor was too quick and got up on top…their weak spot. He pulled its two front arms in, which were jutting up from the sides of its flat back, throwing off their aim as it tried to shoot the commandos following Victor out. He held them, weapons up, as the back two tried to knock him off, delaying it long enough for the commandos to pour plasma into its ‘face’ and break through the armor there. A lot of wrestling later and it dropped to the ground, with Victor taking a plasma hit to the left arm as a nearby Hobbit took aim at him.

The Knight jumped off and ran towards the stubby creature, pulling his sword off its armor latch and whipping it around so fast he nearly took the thing’s head off with it. It rolled to the ground, stunned and possibly with a broken neck, and Victor paid no more attention to it as he  moved to the four more nearby and physically beat them down. His sword and one backup pistol were all he had left in the way of ammunition, but his body was also a weapon and he was going to save his last few plasma shots for later when he expected to need them the most.

More and more plasma began to fly through the air as the Skarron troops closed in and both sides went at it. A few minutes of hard fighting and several commandos went down. Victor didn’t know if they were dead or not, but he couldn’t worry about that. There were enemies all around and that meant just one thing…if he couldn’t run, he was going to take as many down as he could.

With his physical shield left behind and his armor’s shields flickering on and off he began to take damage, but that didn’t slow him down one bit. Pulling on decades of experience and training he moved from point to point as fast as the two Archons and punched, kicked, and whacked Hobbits down like they were nothing more than children throwing rocks at him.

When he was about to get to another Skarron, this one unarmored and leading a group of some 50 Hobbits, a loud screech belted out from behind him. To his credit Victor didn’t look back, taking the distraction as an advantage and getting several more Hobbits as they stared up the water behind the Humans as a giant walker rose up from the depths emitting the electronic battle cry.

As the water fell off it two thick forward arms on the crab-like Weapon-class aquatic ‘mech’ opened up with mauler blasts, showering the infantry beyond the Star Force troops with not a single glob of energy but a shower of smaller globules spewing out like a showerhead. They mowed down the hobbits and penetrated the armor on the Skarron elites while kicking up a huge plume of vaporized water and ground, creating a visible wall separating the friendly troops from most of their attackers.

Switching his HUD over to augmented view Victor dove into the edge of that cloud and took down the nearest Skarron as the rain continued to fall 100 meters out. He knew better than to go out there, but also knew that the gunners would be watching the battlemap closely and see his ID tag. He felt safe to venture out a bit and take advantage of the visual mess, which he hoped the enemy wouldn’t be able to see through.

He spent four shots from his plasma pistol and took the unarmored Skarron down quickly, then used his sword to plow through a group of more than 20 Hobbits before finally getting a retreat ping on his battlemap. Victor took down two more then turned and ran, coming back out of the cloud and heading towards the spot where the beacon was located, visible on his HUD as an overlay marking a position near the shore.

Victor sprinted up over a small rise and saw another craft coming up out of the water as the Weapon moved up fully onto shore, walking with its eight pointy legs and waving its four upper tentacles around like a goad to the enemy as it continued firing with its stubby arms. The aquatic mech was designed for underwater combat, but with shoreline applications in mind as well…and right now the ugly thing was a welcome sight…as was the hatch opening up on the transport that had just the upper section of its hull above water and a long bridge reaching out to get all the way to shore.

With the Weapon providing cover fire, and hopefully killing a lot more enemy infantry in the process, the commandos sprinted across the five meter wide bridge and poured down inside the aquatics craft, with Victor and the two surviving Archons running around the battlefield to pick up the wounded, which appeared as special icons on the battlemap. Victor got one of them and slung him over his shoulder, then picked up another and brought both of them to the foot of the bridge, dropping them off for others to carry in while he went back for more.

He did that three times, then moved around the battlefield looking for more despite there being no more ID tags. From experience he knew that armor could be damaged and not transmit their location, so he made a visual scan and ran around the area…and it was a good thing he did, for he saw a dull white suit crawling across the ground with its helmet off and a large blood splotch on the side of his blonde head.

Victor ran over to him and, without a word or gesture, picked up the commando and ran him back over to the bridge as the Archons made similar sweeps to look for others. Three steps before he hit the bridge he got a ‘finished’ ping so he took the man all the way in, running across the firm, rail-less walkway all the way to the top of the transport that was barely two meters above the water line and fairly far out into the water. He felt very exposed running out there, but as soon as he ducked down inside he knew they were safe.

There were several medics in the much larger compartment below, so he set the wounded commando down and let them attend to him as he stepped back up enough to look out as the Archons finally came back. He let them pass him by, then he ducked down as the hatch sealed over and the bridge retracted.

The transport eventually sank back into the water, but the Weapon did not. Instead it walked further up onto land and laid into the infantry at range as far as its maulers would reach. It worked them over good, killing as many that were stupid enough to stick around, then when it had no more within reach walked backwards and disappeared into the water like some monster of legend, with the ripples of its passing eventually dissipating and making the calm water a question mark of what other terrible things lay beneath.

Victor and the others rode the transport for several hours until it docked with an underwater city and they got off into familiar surroundings. With no immediate reassignment the troops were given temporary quarters and Victor was shown to his. He went inside and began stripping off his damaged armor, inspecting each piece and judging whether or not a simple patch job would suffice or whether he’d need a full replacement for the piece.

His chest plate was going to have to go, for it had taken the most damage and was nearly penetrated in three separate spots. His back showed no damage whatsoever…which was typical Knight. They always fought facing forward and did very little running away, though in large skirmishes they often dove into the middle and had enemies all around them. Today hadn’t been one of those days, so his back piece was salvageable.

He disconnected the emergency latches, for the torso usually stayed together as a single piece when he put it on, and pulled the damaged section off. The rest he categorized and organized into piles, then took a shower and got the grime off of him before heading over to the local armory and trading out the damaged pieces for new ones and getting some quick ‘putty’ work on the small holes in the rest.

That sealed them off and hardened into a good armor of its own, slightly weaker but much better than throwing out nearly good pieces in exchange for new ones…and in an long campaign like this you never knew how many new suits were going to be available, so you needed to make do with what you had whenever possible.

With his armor back up to snuff Victor headed to the cafeteria and grabbed a bite to eat before heading off to bed. When he woke up the next morning new orders still hadn’t come through so he hit the training facilities and got in a good few workouts until four days later when an underwater transport finally arrived to take him and the others off to another engagement zone.

The same type of transport deposited them on another shore some 1000+ miles away from where they’d been evaced. There they boarded land vehicles and sped off to a nearby city where they supplemented the defense forces prepping for a Skarron attack that looked to be two days out, judging by the pace their walkers were making heading towards it.

This city did have mech and aerial support, which gave Victor hope that they could hold out this time. There were a lot of walkers headed their way, with ample infantry support, but he didn’t think they were unmanageable numbers…so long as an enemy transport didn’t swoop in and add to them, which was always a possibility. That said, fresh troops were in short supply on both sides, so he hoped the enemy had better places to send them. He wanted a victory to counteract the bad taste in his mouth from so many retreats and maybe, just maybe, this upcoming battle had the look of being one.

With ample motivation, Victor armored up and headed for his combat deployment post, supporting a group of commandos waiting inside the outer wall for when/if the enemy penetrated into the city…with the mechs outside already starting to snipe at Skarron units on approach.

4

January 18, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

With the initial attack successfully repulsed, Victor was reassigned to a unit that was headed into what was now Skarron territory. Glad to be going on the offensive, he joined up with a group of 60 commandos and four other Knights and boarded a single Falcon-class dropship that took off from the city several hours into night and flew across the horizon, gaining more minutes of dark as they moved opposite to the spin of the planet.

Their dropship had a full squadron of skeets in escort as it flew an evasive path up and around the main Skarron strongholds, avoiding their walkers and their anti-air, and traveling a very long route up to a captured outpost. They set down in the trees barely a kilometer off as the fighters strafed the small defensive emplacements the Skarrons had set up.

Victor offloaded with the others and ran in formation with four commandos attached to him, his physical shield held at ready in front of him on his left arm and his massive stun sword held in his right hand. The nightvision in his helmet showed them the way through the trees until they eventually came out into a light skirmish, with Victor sprinting ahead and bashing a hobbit with the front of his shield, sending it flying back a couple of meters while he turned and whacked another with his sword as the commandos followed up closely and gunned the others down.

There wasn’t much more to do than that, for the rest of the troops were mowing over the light guard the Skarrons had on the place. It was a relatively minor outpost, barely 20 buildings in total. They had no illusions about retaining possession of it, but what it did possess was an entrance to an underground tunnel network…and that was where they were ultimately going.

With the initial attack a success, Victor saw the dropship lift off and fly away with the skeets in escort, leaving the ground troops on their own.

That was the plan, and the sooner they got underground the better…take the mechs and fighters out of the equation entirely. That left head on head infantry fighting, which Victor highly preferred.

Not wasting any time the commandos found the entrance, still sealed up and apparently undiscovered by the Skarrons. They descended down a lengthy staircase into a small terminal that held a number of parked pod-cars. Victor and the others boarded them and quickly set off through the binary tunnels, all traveling down one side and leaving the other free for passing traffic…if there was any. This network was already shut down for the most part, and the Skarrons hadn’t seen fit to use it given the thousands of miles it spanned and the limited number of troops able to be moved around.

Their actual target was a small city that had been overrun by the Skarrons near the ocean’s edge, and one that was about to come back into Star Force possession given that the enemy had sent most of its walkers off to other targets. They were getting sloppy in their rollover of the continent, assuming that the Humans were simply going to keep pulling back in retreat, and now was the time to make them pay for that arrogance. Victor’s team was going to come up inside the city just as the attack on the exterior mounted. With the defenses down the Skarrons wouldn’t have much to work with other than infantry and a handful of walkers plus whatever fighter support they had in the area.

That meant they’d all be headed for the perimeter to fight the enemy coming in…leaving the back door unguarded or maybe even unnoticed for the surprise team to come up out of and do a lot of damage. That was the plan anyway, and Victor was anxious to get to it.

It took hours for the pod-cars to move across the underground of the continent, and it was fortunate that Star Force had taken the time to establish these subsurface links instead of relying on surface traffic and hover trains, for those routes were now shut down by the Skarron invasion. Their air cover was thick, and anything heading out without proper escorts was just begging to get hit. Victor was glad that Star Force prepped its worlds with multiple layers of infrastructure and battle planning, for right now it made all the difference. He didn’t care for tunnels, but having ground over his head meant no big weaponsfire coming down on him...and he was once again the dominant force on the battlefield.

The Skarron elites would argue otherwise, but he could take one hand to hand if he had to. They were easier to take down as a group, but he’d wager on a Knight any day in that confrontation.

When they finally arrived and the exterior assault begin in coordination with their placement on the battlemap, he got his chance coming up from below in the lead and running into a pair of unarmored Skarron guards with Hobbits surrounding them. They weren’t guarding the entrance to the tunnel, but rather running past enroute to somewhere on the perimeter. Victor dashed out from the side and ran directly into one of the Skarrons, knocking it askew but not down, and whacking one of its legs with his stun sword…which immediate collapsed numb.

He blocked a plasma shot from one of the overhead arms on his shield as the commandos followed him out and took aim at the hobbits who were starting to pepper him with smaller plasma blasts. Victor ignored them and focused on the Skarron, numb-hitting its other leg and collapsing the left side of its body. He quickly hit the arms before jumping up on top and pulling out his pistol, then fired down into the top of its back between the arm sockets multiple times until it finally crashed down on its right side as its other arms fell limp.

Victor walked off the top of the headless creature and sprinted into a Hobbit, bouncing him off his shield and rolling him across the ground like a ball before a commando shot and killed him while still on the tumble. After that Victor resumed the lead and pushed on, following the waypoints set down by their commander and heading towards the nearest enemy units tagged on the battlemap.

Sally Hendricks was approaching the outside of the city, just having been dropped off by dropship with the other mechs in her drone star. She was seated in a chair control station half a meter behind Dravis, who was operating their Morpheus-class command mech and appropriately strapped into his control harness. Meanwhile she operated her control board piloting the four other drone mechs like she was playing a videogame…only one that she was in the middle of.

The morpheus was the largest of the five mechs, with two slightly shorter brawlers, a madcat, and a rifleman…all without pilots or even cockpits, having been designed with enhanced weaponry given the extra interior space, as well as armor, making them pound for pound more potent mechs. She had the brawlers situated on either side of the morpheus and slightly ahead while the madcat brought up the rear and the rifleman was slung out to the left, giving its longer range weaponry a clear line of sight on the city.

She triggered it to attack one of the walkers ahead, a Type-5, by placing a reticle on the enemy golf ball. In response the rifleman opened up with continual lachars, making four bright beams of the energy/particle cocktail that connected with and held on contact for some 12 seconds before recycling. That drained away a large chunk of the walker’s shields before the other mechs even got within firing range.

Sally had the madcat hold off on its missiles, saving those for when the shields were down. Meanwhile other mech stars were operating at various points, coming in from the north and west sides of the city, while her group was coming in from the southeast. There was one other star with her, all with pilots, and they were pacing her morpheus about 400 meters to starboard, with their starbright just now beginning to open up with its plasma cannons now that they were coming into range.

A little while later they began to take hits from several Skarron mechs’ plasma fire, then the mauler cannons came into play…and from there on it was a slaughter. The morpheus she rode in closed range and put the finishing touches on a Type-4 while she watched from her control board, having to mentally disconnect from the fact that she was in one of her chess pieces and let her pilot handle that part while she played coordinator.

And as coordinator she was the first to see incoming transports on the battlemap…two of them, both of which appeared to be carrying additional walkers from an encampment not too far away.

She keyed open the comm to all the mechs in play. “Heads up. Transports coming in. Let’s see if we can get a few pokes in before they get too close,” she said, suiting action to words as she ordered the drone madcat to get a target lock on one of them and fire off all of its missiles at the distant target.

Both shoulder-mounted missile boxes exploded into a wash of fire and smoke as two darts of exhaust stretched out towards the horizon, traveling at high speed past the range of all the other mechs’ weapons. When they got close to the first transport some of them were taken down by anti-air fire, but enough got through to weaken the shields…then when more missiles hit from the mechs on the outer side of the city the transport started to take hull damage and stopped its advance, moving down to the surface and deploying its four Type-4 walkers immediately.

Well, at least they’d made it put them down further out. The other transport came in closer, fending off some lachar fire from a pair of riflemans and deposited a pair of Type-3s before landing all the way on the ground and disgorging infantry…but not as many as it could have carried, which Sally guessed meant they had rounded up everyone on hand to send them out as quickly as possible without enough prep time to counter this attack.

Problem was they were coming in together. They’d just jumped the defense walkers because they’d been spread out and all Type-4s and 5s. The pair of incoming 3s were going to be a handful, but right now those would have to wait, and not just because they were out of weapons range. Their mission right now was to take down the walkers and get the infantry into the city. The first half of that was complete, but the enemy had barricaded the entrances where they’d blown them apart previously, meaning they now needed to blast back inside.

Dravis took care of that personally on their side, moving the morpheus right up next to an intact city gate and pounding on it with its plasma streamers, literally melting through the metal like a squirt gun into a snowbank. It took a while to carve out an entry hole big enough to get a mech through, but as soon as he did the neo in the star next to theirs went through and started chewing up the infantry on the other side as a wave of commandos and Knights followed it in.

Rio followed the Knight ahead of him as the backside of the neo functioned as their tracking beacon. When he got up to the burnt-out gate he stepped lightly, knowing the metallic rim was still hot and not wanting the softer armor of his boot tread to melt. He took one step onto it and jumped the rest of the way, glad his foot didn’t melt/stick. Most of the color had faded from the metal, but had he been wearing normal shoes he was sure that there would have been enough residual heat to damage them.

Now inside the city and somewhat pinned between buildings, he and two other commandos broke off into the door of a factory and cut through to the other side, finding it uninhabited, and exiting on another street. While the battle was going on they had a side mission. Apparently there were a handful of survivors that somehow had never gotten evacuated during the initial assault. Just less than 10 minutes ago they had made contact via comm and Rio’s trio was tasked with getting to and protecting them.

Their tracking signal, now active and potentially traceable by the Skarrons, though he doubted they would bother noticing with everything else going on up top, was coming from the subsurface section of the city. Rio’s team got to a descending stairwell and headed down multiple levels before finally coming out into what was essentially a maintenance area that allowed access to the major infrastructure from underneath.

It was a network of tunnels, tunnels, and more tunnels…no real rooms or sections, just a forest of machinery that the tracking beacon led Rio through. When they eventually came up on it they found…no one, just a small comm device sitting in the middle of the walkway, with Rio immediately going on guard and raising his plasma rifle just a tad higher, searching for trouble.

“Over here,” a voice said, walking out halfway and raising a hand into view from several meters down. Rio ran up and turned the corner where the man was standing.

“We have wounded,” the very thin man said, leading him through several twists and turns to some place well away from the beacon…which Rio realized had been done in case the Skarrons came looking for it. Smart move, especially if you had people that couldn’t easily be moved around.

“Why didn’t you evacuate with the others?” one of the commandos with Rio asked.

“We tried, but got cut off in an explosion. The comm device I had I lost, and the other one was damaged. I had to search the city for that one, and by then everyone was already gone,” he said as he pointed to a crate set up next to a wall. “Push this aside.”

Rio stepped in and moved it aside, revealing a nook in the wall where six other people were sitting…four of which were covered in bloody healing patches and the other two were younglings.

“Are they mobile?” the other commando asked, who outranked Rio by 18 levels.

“If we have somewhere to go, yes.”

“We have a dropship standing by on the perimeter. We can call it in once we get topside…assuming the air cover doesn’t change. Come on, we need to get moving,” he said, glancing at Rio.

He nodded and headed back out, becoming point man/skirmisher, and knowing that it was up to him to find and head off threats before they could get anywhere close to the wounded…for they would make for easy targets.

As he moved ahead he began plotting out an evac route on the battlemap…which was when he saw the infiltration team coming up from within and saw them near the underground lines. He quickly put two and two together and reassessed their evac plan, knowing it would be slower but infinitely more safe if they could take their wards underground rather than flying them through the air…not to mention avoiding the fighting up top.

Using his battlemap he got an open comm line to one of the commandos in that group, thankful that the relay nodes in the city still worked for they were a ways off, and inquired as to the status of the rail cars. Once he got the availability confirmed he commed the other two commandos with him and got the green light from them, then began working their route over there, seeing a small pocket of subsurface combat ongoing with a section of the infiltration team.

Knowing that they’d soon have that handled he set the route directly there, then held up and kept within a reasonable distance of his wards as they slowly walked out of their concealment, all of which were malnourished and surviving off a handful of rations and med kits they’d been able to scrounge. Rio knew not to expect anything out of them, so he began making search patterns ahead of them, running back and forth through the machinery and visually scouting out a wide area, hoping to draw out any potential ambushes against himself rather than let them get the jump on the others.

Nothing occurred on the way over, though he did come across several bodies…mostly Human but a few Kiritas and Hobbits as well. This area was too constricted for Skarrons to enter, given their size, which made it a good place to hide…just not good enough for these few, and Rio wondered how many others had gotten left behind and how. Star Force wasn’t sloppy, so something must have gone seriously wrong here.

5

January 20, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

Sally and Dravis ran up into the hold of the Eagle-class dropship with spurts of plasma fire missing behind them. A few moments later an Archon in silver armor joined them, with the boarding ramp rising immediately and the ship taking off before it had even closed halfway. The two dispossessed mechwarriors had just gotten back into the city after their morpheus had gotten toasted and nearly left them stranded in the kill zone that the outskirts had become. A nearby madcat had covered for them and they’d run unarmored across the open ground to a checkpoint on the wall that had allowed them inside.

After that they’d been sent directly to the improvised spaceport that had numerous dropships coming in and evacing personnel. The Star Force counterattack had hurt the Skarrons badly, but apparently they were committed to retaking the city and had been pouring reinforcements in nonstop. Sally and the other mechwarriors had been chewing them up to no end, but eventually the attrition wore down their mech and a Type-5 had ended their three day campaign. There were still a handful of mechs in deployment, but they were covering the pullback and would be the last ones out via dropship.

Since Sally and Dravis no longer had a mech they were sent with the various troops and civilians that were being pulled out…and as she looked around she was having a hard time figuring out why there would be any civilians here at all.

Not content to wonder she walked over to one of them and sat down next to where he was leaning back against the wall, with a look that said he wasn’t in very good condition.

“Hi there,” she said, getting him to open his eyes and look at her. “I’m Sally, and I was wondering what you were doing here. I thought all the civilians had been pulled out long ago.”

The man sighed. “We were supposed to be…name’s Chad, by the way. I’m a maturia handler and this is the second time I’ve had to evac. First was with my younglings, then I was supposed to move out with them again and got caught up in an explosion and blacked out. By the time I came to and dug myself out of the debris everyone had gone and the Skarrons were coming in.”

Sally’s eyes widened. “You got left behind?”

Chad nodded. “I lost my commlink, so I guess they had no way of finding me.”

“What kind of explosion?”

“Something big…inside the city. It knocked out a huge crater several levels deep but with no shaft to the sky. It made a mess of things. I don’t know how many people died, but I hid out from the Skarrons in a restroom until you guys came back. Big thanks to that, by the way. I wouldn’t have made it much longer.”

“You’re welcome, but nobody should have been left behind. The counts…”

“I don’t know either, but it happened.”

Sally put a hand on his very thin shoulder. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Now that I’ve got some foodstuffs in me, yeah. I think so.”

The mechwarrior nodded. “Kudos for staying alive as long as you did,” she said, standing back up and working her way through the crowd over to where Dravis was standing. When she got to him she was slowly shaking her head.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“There were people left behind in the first evac. He’s one that survived the Skarron occupation.”

Dravis whistled. “That is not supposed to happen.”

“I know,” she said, at a loss to explain it. “He said there was an internal explosion and he blacked out. Nobody came from him.”

Dravis frowned. “That might partially explain it.”

“What?”

“If the explosion took down some of the internal relays then their comm signatures wouldn’t register at range…and if they were assumed to be dead from the explosion.”

“Still there should have been a visual inspection,” she said in an angry whisper.

“During an attack? If the Skarrons were already in the city blowing things up then they probably didn’t have time for more than a light recon of the area. If you want to hide from that you can, fairly easily, and if he was knocked out that’s pretty much the same as hiding, in so much that you’re not up, looking around, and waving your hands to get people’s attention.”

“He wasn’t the only one.”

“We always check,” Dravis said firmly. “That doesn’t guarantee we always find everyone.”

“I’ve never heard of this happening before.”

“Nor have I, but we’re getting our asses handed to us here for a second time. Messy fights don’t leave a lot of time to double check.”

“I still don’t like it. At all.”

Dravis sighed. “Nor do I, but I doubt we dropped the ball. Sometimes bad things just happen.”

“Tell that to him.”

“We’re spoiled in that when a mech goes down people immediately notice. A few people in a city of millions don’t show up when something goes boom and they’re probably dead. You can’t wait around and count corpses when the enemy is on your throat.”

Sally dipped her head. “You’re right…I. I just hate that we left people behind, even on accident.”

“Anyone that felt otherwise would have to turn in their good guy card,” Dravis pointed out.

Sally halfheartedly smirked. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Iden-202747 walked into the cockpit of the dropship and stood just behind Davi who was intently watching the control board as he flew the eagle in formation with two others, both Falcon-class, with him lagging a bit behind.

“What’s wrong?” the acolyte asked.

“This bird took some damage on the way in. A couple of plasma hits to the hull, nothing major, but they hit on a patch from previous hull damage and I’m not getting full speed out of the gravity drives. I’m not showing any warning lights, but something is off.”

“What kind of damage was done?”

“I’m not sure, this is my 4th dropship in 2 days. Everything was fixed, but I’m guessing those hits found a crevice and seeped through. I don’t know, maybe just my imagination, but I’ve flown enough eagles to know this one is a touch slow.”

“Don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it in flight?”

“Not unless you’ve got a tech back there?”

“I can check…” Iden said, half turning as a beep from the pilot’s battlemap pinged. The Archon immediately brought up his own in helmet and saw the cause for alarm…Skarron fighters heading their way that had broken through the skeet formations covering their tail.

“Oh shit, not again,” Davi said, having a quick conversation with the other dropship pilots.

Iden checked the battlemap at further range, seeing that there were no other friendly units nearby…then suddenly the three dropships split up, each going a separate way. There were only two fighters coming up on them, so this way, he knew, at best they could only shoot down two, assuming the third got far enough away.

He watched the pair of enemy fighters continue forward for a while, then they split up, one each coming at the middle and starboard dropships…with theirs being the starboard.

“Don’t suppose you have any special powers that can take down fighters?” Davi asked sarcastically.

“I don’t have the range, no,” he said, thinking hard. “If we’re going to go down, find us some terrain.”

“I’d prefer not to go down at all,” Davi countered, trying to milk a little more speed out of the smaller dropship. It was faster than a falcon, but this stupid drive wasn’t cooperating.

“I’d shoot out the back, but our rifles aren’t going to scratch their armor with its shields up,” Iden said, stating the obvious.

“Well, we’ve got about 2 minutes to figure something out,” Davi said, seeing a thick section of forest slightly further to starboard. It would take them further away from their destination, but it looked like they weren’t going to get there anyway so he took the Archon’s suggestion and altered course, guessing they’d make it there in about 45 seconds.

“Do what you can,” Iden said, abandoning the cockpit and heading aft where everyone else was. There were 36 people onboard, not counting himself and the pilot, and only about half of them had armor.

“Listen up!” he yelled through his helmet’s external mic. “We’re about to get shot down. Ready yourself, and grab whatever supplies you can find. One way or another we’re going to be on the ground shortly.”

As soon as he heard the Archon Rio’s attention immediately turned to the light cargo onboard the dropship, then his eyes crossed over to the emergency kits imbedded into the walls. He ran over to one and began to pull the panel off when a Knight came up on his left and detached another. Inside Rio’s was foodstuff packets, highly concentrated, with a carry satchel rolled up and stuffed in next to them.

He pulled it out and filled the bag up, then attached it to the back of his armor. Inside the Knight’s were weapons, several pistols of both plasma and stun variety. The taller man pointed to his bag and Rio turned around, giving him his back while he stuffed them inside. They could be passed out later if needed, but right now they needed to be secured and Victor preferred not to have anything else to carry aside from his partially damaged shield.

Elsewhere other commandos were tearing apart emergency supplies and rifling through the crates onboard and salvaging what they could. The Archon had all the unarmored individuals cluster together in the center of the bay, then layered the commandos around them. If the IDF held up they shouldn’t feel the crash/landing, but that wouldn’t stop shrapnel from coming through. If it did hopefully it would hit an armored person first, which was the basic idea, though in Rio’s mind it was probably just a last ditch effort to do something when they really had no good options. Dropships were maximized for speed and cargo carrying capacity rather than multied out to carry weapons.

Doing so would reduce their efficiency, and in truth they were never meant to go anywhere dangerous unescorted…though right now he really wished they’d installed at least one gun turret so they’d have some way of defending themselves.

When he’d finished filling his satchel he joined the ring around the unarmored, putting his back to them so to also shield his supplies, then he activated his armor’s shields and took a knee, waiting for the inevitable to come.

When it did it came in the form of a hole punching through the ceiling. One moment there was solid metal, the next there was a shower of superheated fragments as a piece blew apart from weaponsfire. The outside air sucked out the smoke and left the hole visible, then more impacts could be heard, or more accurately more explosions as the Skarron plasma hit and blew apart pieces of the hull. He looked up, then sucked in a quick breath as the blue sky twisted to the side and the ground became visible, with the gnarly trees growing closer at an alarming rate…then the ground rotated out of sight and the sky returned, with him realizing that they were falling in a death spiral.

The crash was noisy, but he didn’t feel any vibration thanks to the IDF…until it was knocked out as the dropship rolled through the trees. Suddenly he and the others were floating around inside the bay, then slammed up against a wall as it came to a stop. Bodies and crates fell on top of him, but fortunately he had his armor to protect him…not all of the others were so lucky.

He let the Knight work his way off him, then the man pulled up one of the crates and moved it aside, freeing Rio’s legs and allowing him to get up. As he did he looked to the left and saw one of the mechwarriors with a bloody gash in the side of her head where a crate had hit. He moved over to her and pulled the crate off, only to see that her head was caved in some two inches where the corner had hit and punctured her skull.

The commando checked for vital signs anyway, but as expected found none. He pulled Sally’s body up and off the man below and laid it aside as everyone worked their way through the mess. Fortunately the bay had been mostly empty and no large crates had been in play. That said, when the pilot finally came out from the cockpit with blood streaming down the right side of his face from a gash on his head, he realized just how important his armor was…and how that he, one of the uninjured ones, had just become more important to their survival.

“See to them,” the Archon said, passing Rio and trying to open the rear hatch, which was now on its side according to the gravity. When he couldn’t get it to open he tore open an emergency panel and hit a manual release. That cracked it a few inches, but otherwise it didn’t move.

“Secondary exit?” Rio asked, walking up beside him as he began to wedge himself into the breach to widen it.

“No go,” Iden answered, with Rio adding his own leverage and the both of them moving the big door more than a foot when several blasts were heard overhead.

“My battlemap is down,” Rio noted.

“The front of the dropship is pancaked, including the relay and emergency beacon. I’d guess that’s the fighter trying to finish us off.”

“Stay or run?”

“Depends on how many trees,” Iden said, continuing to push and getting significant resistance from the door.

“I think I can slide through,” one of the other commandos said, standing next to them.

“Try,” the Archon insisted, still applying pressure.

The slightly shorter commando passed by Rio and went through feet first. He got caught at the waist but managed to wiggle his way through, then a moment after he was out of view they all got a battlemap update as his armor began to map out the surrounding area with low level sensor pings. He also sent them a visual as he scanned the area, catching sight of the Skarron fighter making a looping turn to come back for another pass.

“Back or go,” Iden told him on the comm, with the commando taking off into the woods.

“Allow me,” the Knight said, stepping in between Rio and Iden, inserting a leg into the gap then pushing off with his other and shoulder to form a bigger wedge that moved the stubborn panel further out on its hinge and enough to easily get the other commandos through.

A waypoint flashed on Rio’s HUD and he dove through the gap as the explosions peppered the upper hull and dissipated. Behind him a cherry red spot appeared and disappeared on the port side…which was now the roof given how the dropship lay. Knowing that wouldn’t hold long, Iden ducked out after three of the commandos went through and got himself into open air.

He looked around at the trees…tall, thick, crooked, and not much in the way of leaves but there were enough branches to take some of the plasma.

“Perimeter at 100 meters,” he ordered. “I need a hideaway for the wounded.”

As he said that he moved around and got a view on the Skarron fighter, wondering why it wasn’t just hovering over top and blasting into them. Almost as soon as he made the thought the thing decelerated at range and began creeping up on them…with him knowing that was exactly what it intended to do next.

He opened a comm to the Knight. “I’m going for the fighter. I think I can at least slow it down with my psionics if I get close. Get everyone out and moving. I’ll catch up if and when I can. Don’t wait on me.”

“Understood,” Victor said, keying his own comm and coordinating with the commandos still inside the dropship to get everyone out ASAP. As he did he saw the silver armor run off through the trees in the direction the fighter was coming from, then eventually disappear as too many trunks and branches got in the way of his vision.

He could still read him on battlemap, but he trusted the Archon knew what he was doing…and as he said, would buy them a little time.

Victor came back under the opening where the ramp was wedged against several trees and helped to pull out a very bloody woman and two men, Chad included, and sent them along the line of unarmored people heading off through the trees following a pair of commandos he’d just assigned to the task. He poked his head back in for one last look, then seeing nothing but the 2 corpses he mentally abandoned the dropship and followed the perimeter commandos out as they collapsed around the vulnerable personal in a flanking escort, leaving the dropship and the Archon behind.

Everyone was running as best they could, but it was much slower than Victor was capable of so he took a few moments to look back, finally getting a good view of the damage to the dropship, who’s front section looked to be completely missing. He was surprised the pilot had survived at all…then he suddenly saw and heard the Skarron fighter dip down from the sky and into the trees, breaking through several of them before pulling up and racing back into the sky.

Their momentary diversion a success, Victor did as ordered and left the Archon behind, goosing his charges along as quickly as he thought they were capable of moving.

6

January 21, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

“What have we got?” Nevi asked, leaning against the trunk of an ugly tree as Rio took a look ahead from several branches above him.

“Trouble,” the other commando answered, using his helmet’s magnification to scout out the plain ahead. They’d been traveling for more than a day and had lost six people to Skarron fighters strafing them, but eventually they’d either eluded them or the Skarrons had bigger things to shoot, for they hadn’t seen any for the past 11 hours. It was just coming up on the night cycle, with a little daylight left in the very long rotation that the planet had, but ahead of them the forest ended and a grassy, muddy plain lay…which would leave them exposed out in the open with nothing to hide from the enemy in.

“Fighters?” Nevi asked.

“No,” Rio said, shaking his head in dismay. “There’s a grounded transport several klicks to the southwest and it’s got a good flood of infantry around it.”

“What they hell are they doing all the way out here? Wait, are they setting up a new LZ?”

“I doubt it. It’s just a single transport and there are no walkers. I’m pretty sure they’re here to hunt us. There are no other Star Force signals in the area.”

“Shit…why are they going to so much trouble?”

“I guess they don’t like us very much,” Rio commented, searching the limited view he had. There were several branches up and around him, for he didn’t want to climb high enough to make himself visible and give away their position. The survivors had hunkered down for a few hours of rest a ways back, with Rio and Nevi scouting out the area ahead while some of the other commandos who weren’t tired did likewise in other directions.

But they had to go across that plain to get to their destination, which was a small Star Force city still some 50+ kilometers away. They’d tried to get a signal out to alert the others to their position, but in order to do so they had to use the ‘open’ method of communication. Upgrades to the armor had included a transmitter capable of reaching orbit, but the signal wouldn’t be stealthed like their normal battlemap transmissions. Those signals had a much shorter range, and when they’d reported in their position they’d immediately drawn an enemy fighter response…basically waving their hands and saying ‘come shoot me.’

They’d lost two people to that, and weren’t about to do so again. Fortunately they’d gotten a response from an orbital relay that was one-way, informing them of the current status of the surrounding units and cities, so they knew the one they were headed toward was still intact, but the area they were located in was deemed ‘hazardous’ and there was no way an extraction team could get to them at the moment. Normally that wasn’t something that Star Force ever said, but with the level of Skarron units deployed Rio didn’t doubt it was the truth.

Their only chance was to stay off the radar, and Victor, the lone Knight in the group, had assumed command in the Archon’s absence and ordered no further comm attempts. The battlemap transmissions continued, along with a reduced local comm range, helmet to helmet, but nothing that would go more than a few miles and potentially alert the enemy to their location.

But they had to go across the plain, or else stay put and try to wait the enemy out with the limited emergency supplies they had. Fortunately one case had ambrosia doses, so Rio wasn’t feeling that loss just yet, but they didn’t have a lot of time to burn and still had a good day’s run ahead of them…with a lot of people who couldn’t run, meaning they were several days away from getting to their destination.

Part of him almost wanted to try and hijack the Skarron transport, but the hundreds of Hobbits spilling out around it squelched that idea immediately. He could spot a few elites as well with their shiny armor reflecting the last of the daylight. Night would help, but not as much as you’d think, given that the Hobbits could see well in the dark.

That meant they were stuck, and Rio wasn’t sure what they were going to do. He made a recording of the transport and panned his head around to get a good view of the area, then climbed down the tree and headed back into camp with Nevi, where he shared his visuals and sentiments with Victor and the others.

“They can’t be here for us. That’s way too much effort,” the Knight immediately said, not liking their luck. “There must be some other objective in play.”

“Well we can’t get through there either way,” Nevi added.

“No, we can’t,” Victor agreed. “And we can’t stay put. We’ll have to head north and get more distance between us and them before we try to cross.”

“That’s at least a 3 kilometer gap to cross,” Rio pointed out. “The civies will be sitting ducks.”

“Not just them,” Dravis added from the second row of what had becoming a growing circle of troops mingling together to discuss the matter. “I can run, but without armor I can’t take any hits either.”

“It’s the running part that worries me,” Rio answered him. “We have to make the crossing as quickly as possible and hope that their air cover doesn’t find us. And even if we get across I bet someone will notice and send those troops after us. We’ll be running for our lives and not everyone can keep up.”

“Perhaps one of you should go on ahead and try to bring back help,” Davi said, being one of the slower ones and very out of his element without a ship to pilot, having to rely on his secondary training and overall fitness to sustain him.

“They’ve got no help to send,” Victor reminded him. “If there was it would already be on its way. Based on their last transmission the city we’re heading towards might not stay in Star Force hands for long. They’re already beginning to evacuate the civilians, so they expect to get hit. This transport may be the first part of that assault. Even if it’s not, we can’t wait and miss our opportunity…otherwise our trek gets impossibly longer and our supplies are not increasing. We have to cross the gap and soon. The question is where.”

“We can’t risk the unarmored personnel,” another commando, one of the eldest in the group, said with finality. “We need a test to see how the Skarrons will respond. A two or three man team crossing at speed. If they make it across undetected then we can plan out how to get the slow ones across. If they don’t, at least they can run and gun.”

Victor nodded. “I agree, save for that we might be squandering our only attempt at surprise.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Rio added. “There are too many unknowns. We can’t run people out there without armor without some certainty. All our options are bad, but a little test seems to be the best bet. I’ll volunteer.”

“No, I will,” the other commando said. “And I’ll take Greg and Christi. We’re the fastest here, so if we do get spotted we’ll have the best chance. More than 3 will be a greater detection risk, and if we have to fight I don’t want to go with less than that.”

“It’s risky either way,” Victor said, uncertainty in his voice. “If you want to try, then you’d best do it now and hope darkness offers you some cover.”

“We’ll need a spotter on the edge to monitor,” he said, glancing at Rio.

“Done.”

“Then let’s get moving,” he said, tapping two others via battlemap ping. Rio saw them fall out with him and jog off into the woods. He hesitated a moment, nodded at the Knight, then trailed behind the three all the way to the forest edge several kilometers away where they held up, hunkering down behind the thickest trees and looking out through the thin ones on the edge.

“If we make it we’ll have to stay silent,” the elder commando said to Rio, “but we’ll be watching this area if possible.”

On Rio’s battlemap a section of forest a kilometer and a half long was highlighted on the far side.

“If you come under fire we’ll be skirmishing that area. Expect us there even if you don’t hear from us.”

“That could be enemy central,” Rio pointed out, given that the transport was only a few kilometers to the south.

“All the more reason to have friendlies there when the slowpokes come across.”

“I don’t like this, but I like sitting and waiting even less,” Rio said candidly. “Good luck.”

The elder commando fist bumped him then nodded…with the trio silently taking off through the trees and running out into the grasses, half disappearing from view even with Rio’s nightvision activated.

Knowing he needed a better vantage point, he backtracked a few meters and started climbing a tree that he thought would go high enough. Once he got halfway up he realized he was wrong and had to transfer from one to the other via walking out on a branch and hopping over to an adjacent one, then climbing a bit higher in it.

When he finally got a semi-clear view he could see the battlemap signal trackers from the trio making their way across the muddy terrain at fairly high speed, all running single file with a few meters of gap in between each of them. He glanced in the direction of the Skarrons, then searched what he could of the dark skies, looking for fighters but seeing no activity in either.

His gaze was drawn back to the three commandos, tearing across the terrain and sticking to what looked to be a combination of drier and lower regions…which was difficult to find, given that there were many puddles out there. Running cross country was something that commandos had a lot of training experience in, and even though this was an entirely new planet, mud was still mud.

Rio zoomed in with his helmet and watched the tiny silhouettes move out towards a kilometer, where he began to lose sight of them. The grasses were hiding their legs, with only their upper torsos and helmets visible…and those were bouncing about, coming in and out of view as they ran through trenches and up crests where they couldn’t avoid going elsewhere. Their tracking IDs were still marking their position, and given the clean line of sight he expected those to hold up most of the way across.

Rio found he was unconsciously holding his breath and forced himself to blow out and resume a normal rhythm. So far so good, but he still had a sinking feeling in his gut as they made it to the halfway point…then a bit of motion to his left made that feeling collapse into complete dread as a Skarron fighter zipped in and flashed past, firing plasma down on the trio.

They immediately split up, all heading in the same direction as the fighter looped around then came in slow and started bathing the area around one of them in plasma. Rio couldn’t see much more than a dot, and the flashes of plasma were trying to overload his nightvision. Eventually the tracking beacon for that commando winked out, with the fighter moving up a bit and chasing the next one.

Rio watched in horror as that one, then finally the third disappeared from his battlemap. The enemy fighter hovered in place, looking around for more soldiers. Finding none, it started to backtrack their route with it headed directly for Rio.

He jumped/fell out of the tree, hitting hard enough to drive his boots halfway into the soft ground on landing. Pulling them out he took off running back into the thicker forest and found a place a few hundred meters in to hunker down, backing up into a small hollow where an exposed root made a bit of an overhang that had dirt piled up on one side.

Rio waited there, hearing the faint whisper of the fighter’s gravity drive as it passed nearby without stopping. He froze in place for nearly five minutes afterwards before even thinking about moving, then gingerly pulled himself up into a standing position and looked around, listening intently.

Finding nothing he moved off, headed back to the main group to report on the three dead and there being no way in hell they could cross here.

With no other choice but to move further north, the group spent the next day trying to get further away from the Skarrons, limited in their movements by the civilians and wounded. They moved up another 11 kilometers before Rio volunteered for a single scouting mission…one with spotters deployed high up in the trees so they could scan the skies for fighters.

He went in the daylight and didn’t run, but rather jogged from point to point, taking breaks and hunkering down playing an imaginary game of Frogger with enemies that he hoped were not watching. The gap that he was attempting to move across was more than 5 kilometers wide…hardly a choke point, but that was also by design. If the Skarrons expected them to cross they’d be watching those and not the larger areas, or so he hoped.

When Rio made it halfway across he took a long break, looking around and just happy to be alive. He chanced using his comm on a slightly longer range and had a brief conversation with the commando on the forest’s edge as he sank himself halfway down into a tiny pond, with the water coming up to his chest as his feet got sucked into the muck below.

There he waited for another 10 minutes, seeing if anything was coming in after him delayed. When it appeared there wasn’t another commando retraced his path…exactly. Rio had recorded his movements, putting waypoints on the battlemap everywhere he had stopped and with his movements being plotted. On the other commando’s HUD there was a holographic marker that let him see exactly how Rio had moved and he followed it step for step all the way out to him…then sunk into the water beside Rio.

They waited again for several minutes, seeing if there would be a response. When there wasn’t another came, then another. When the fifth one arrived, this one being an unarmored civilian, they waited it out again, with one of the commandos using a small distiller cylinder they’d got from the emergency supplies to purify a bit of water, offering Rio a quick drink before he took off. Trailblazing another half kilometer, he set down more waypoints then hunkered down again in another oversized puddle, with people shifting more rapidly through both sections.

Three and a half hours after he’d started his trek across he slowly moved out of the plain and into the forest, scouting out the area and finding it clear. He held position there as the first few others came through, one at a time, and joined him in establishing a defensive perimeter…with one going up a tree to act as an aerial spotter.

Six minutes later that spotter threw up a warning signal, telling everyone to hunker down as a Skarron fighter flew up the length of the plain…and passed directly over them. Everyone stayed down for many minutes to come, but the fighter didn’t come back.

Slowly people started moving again, and over the next half hour some 16 made it across…then out of nowhere Rio spotted a Hobbit in the forest. A split second later it noticed him, with Rio knowing that he had to act quickly. He took off sprinting towards it, firing his rifle and mowing it down before it had a chance to report in. He took two plasma hits to his armor’s shields, but they held up…then he noticed another Hobbit nearby.

It took off running in retreat and Rio went after it. It took more than two minutes for him to catch up to it and make the kill, but by then it was already too late.

A few minutes later the fighter returned, and despite everyone on the plain taking cover and not moving a muscle it found them and started blasting away as they jumped up and ran for their lives…with only two making it to the forest edge, both commandos with plasma damage to their armor.

Rio waited on the others until the last of their battlemap tracking signals cut out, including the Knight’s. He’d almost made it across, but was gunned down within 150 meters of the forest edge. Biting down so hard his jaw hurt, Rio forced himself to keep going with the others, four of which were unarmored, including their pilot.

Prodding the civy along as fast as he could manage, the survivors kept moving on…with what would be a constant trail of Skarron infantry following them, making it a footrace to get to friendly territory that the commandos couldn’t excel on, given that they could only move as fast as the slowest person…and damn their luck that they had to have an untrained civilian with them.

7

Chad ducked behind one of the commandos who half swung him around with a firm grip on his upper right arm as a salvo of white plasma dots flashed past with a few impacting the dull white armor’s shields, with the commando taking the hit for him. The man fired back but stayed put as more commandos moved around them, falling back and intercepting the Hobbits that had flanked them. The stupid little things were fast and there were many of them, with this being the third time since the plain that they’d been attacked.

Like before the commandos chewed them up, focusing on the weak point around Chad and the other unarmored personnel and moving outward like an exploding nova killing everything they came across. Soon the commando shielding him stood up and released his grip on his arm…then they were off running again, with Chad’s legs protesting heavily. He’d thought he was in good shape, having attained self-sufficiency long ago, but the aliens were just as fast and he knew the commandos were itching to run faster, but they wouldn’t leave him and the others behind, which Chad was immensely thankful for.

Pumping as much speed out of his fatigued body as he could manage he followed the commando through the trees, not worrying about where he was going but just with keeping up. Nearby was their pilot and a couple of other civilians, both techs. The pilot seemed to be holding pace fine, but the other two were just as worse off as Chad, each of which had a commando with them to keep them on pace and to shield them should the enemy close in. Fortunately none of the Skarron monsters were pursuing them through the forest, just the little ones, but they were deadly enough and didn’t seem concerned about their own losses…just in killing the Humans.

And what was worse was that the Humans couldn’t stop running. Chad was getting slower and slower, but if they stopped they’d be overwhelmed. He thought the commandos realized that they’d have to eventually, because every now and then he’d see some of them dropping back and hear weaponsfire behind them and he guessed they were going back to kill some of the enemy before catching back up to the slow moving group.

Chad didn’t know how much longer he could keep going without walking, but he had to at least try to keep moving. The others might not make it much longer either, but he didn’t want to be the one to cause them to stop. If the others did, then there’s nothing he could do about it, but if it was just a matter of his being able to stretch himself further then damn him if he wasn’t going to find a way to do it.

Thoughts like these were running through the back of his mind as he focused on his steps and keeping pace…then all of a sudden the commando he was following hit the brakes and grabbed him again, slamming him against the trunk of a nearby tree and holding him there as the forest erupted with a barrage of white plasma from ahead.

“Stay here, stay down,” he said, then the commando disappeared ahead as well. Chad did as told but knew that was bad. So far the aliens had been coming up at them from the rear, but now it seemed that they had gotten ahead of them somehow…maybe even cut them off.

He pulled out the stun pistol from the holster he wore, the first time he’d touched the weapon since he’d been given it. It couldn’t kill the enemy, but it could knock them down long enough for him to run and he clung to it now with a fierce grip as he kept his body melded up next to the tree trunk. He didn’t dare look around, so he watched what he could from his position, especially the area behind him where he’d expected the enemy to come from, and waited while the commandos did what they did best.

After what felt like an eternity of adrenaline-laced torment, the plasma fired died down but did not entirely quit. Frozen in place Chad jerked when the commando came back and yanked him onto his feet.

“Run!” he yelled, pointing ahead as the armored suit headed the other way.

Chad didn’t know what else to do so he turned and ran forward, not having anyone to follow. He spotted the pilot to his left and ran towards him, unable to keep up pace but visually following him and dropping onto his path as much as he could. Ahead and to his right there were explosions as plasma hit wood in a variety of places, none right nearby but still loud enough to send shivers up and down his spine.

Chad just kept running, not thinking, just running. His muscles had stopped complaining, for somehow they knew how close to dying they were so they shut up and seemed to work with him, but still failed to give the necessary speed. Another suit of commando armor shot past him, this one coming from the left and cutting across diagonally in front of him about 2 meters away. Chad hesitated, then forced himself back into a full run as plasma fire broke out behind him. A few steps later and his shoulder exploded in pain and he lost his coordination, with his own legs tripping him up and sending him crashing into the soft ground.

He turned right side up and started to get back to his feet, smelling the charred flesh of his own body but refusing to look at the wound just as a pair of aliens came into view. Chad grabbed the stun gun in his left hand and fired twice, missing the first and hitting the second time as plasma flashed by his head. One of the Hobbits went down, then the other one sent a shot directly into the man’s forehead, killing him before he even hit the ground.

When the commando told him to run, Davi didn’t hesitate. He knew how bad the situation was and he didn’t want to be in the firing line anymore than he had to be. He took off sprinting in the direction he was told and didn’t look back, relying on years of training to deal with the fatigue creeping through his body. His legs, arms, and lungs were burning but that didn’t matter. He’d been through tough workouts in order to get his fitness level up and he knew he could take it and more…the problem was he was running a race against plasma, and unless the enemy was simply bad shots he was going to lose out.

His only hope was putting as many tree trunks between him and them as possible. He wore a pistol on his hip but didn’t bother to pull it out, needing every arm swing to carry him further away from the Hobbits. They were slow as far as foot soldiers went, but he wasn’t all that much faster and this terrain suited them well. Lots of trees, mostly flat, soft and moist with wisps of fog. He wished he had armor with a sensor helmet, but at the moment he was just going to have to rely on the commandos’ guidance.

Not long after he took off running one of them came up on him and flanked him for a few seconds, redirecting him slightly more to the left, then she tore off and headed for some unseen enemy. There was weaponsfire everywhere, mostly heard, but some flashes were visible through the trees. Davi desperately hoped he wasn’t running right into the enemy, but for the most part the sounds of battle were behind and to his right, which made sense with the leftward angle he’d been told to run.

Down! a voice yelled at him so loud he almost jumped, but trusting in it he crashed to the ground just as a couple of plasma blasts shot across over top of him, one of which hit a tree and blew pieces of bark out like a fragmentation grenade. Two of them stuck in his forearm, imbedding a good half inch. Ignoring them the pilot rolled over and looked back just in time to see a ghost of silver armor pop out of a cloud of fog and hit a Hobbit so hard it literally flew three meters through the air before it hit a tree and slumped to the ground.

Nearby three others fell to the ground without being touched. The Archon reached down, grabbed one of their rifles and shot them with it in quick, accurate blasts…then shot the one unconscious by the tree before running over to Davi, who saw the man’s armor punctured in multiple places.

“You’re alive?” he asked, but the Archon didn’t have time to answer and just picked Davi up by the arm and began dragging him forward. The pilot got his feet under him and started running, with Iden finally releasing him and running off into the lead.

They ran for some thirty seconds before the Archon spoke into his mind again.

Stay on this heading, he said, then turned to the right and disappeared through the trees, accelerating to a speed Davi could never have hoped to match.

The pilot ran…and ran…and ran. He didn’t talk, think, or use a single muscle impulse to do anything but run as fast as he could until the sounds of combat finally disappeared. No one was around him and he wondered what he should do, but at the moment he just kept running, hard and fast, on the line the Archon had assigned him.

When he was finally considering stopping he eventually met up with a commando that waved him over. Glad to finally have some direction he followed the man forward until he met up with many others who jogged alongside him. None of them stopped, but the pace slackened a bit and Davi was able to ease off slightly, but he figured if he stopped and walked now he’d have a hard time getting his body going again at this speed.

He did notice that the pace was faster than it had been previously. Not hearing anyone nearby he ventured a hushed question between breaths.

“Where are…the others?”

“They didn’t make it,” the commando said.

“And the…Archon?”

“Covering our exit. Keep moving as fast as you can.”

“I’m the slow one now?” Davi asked.

“Yes,” the commando said with no animosity, only regret.

“I can manage…a little more. But I don’t know…for how long.”

“Give us what you can.”

Davi took in and let out a deep breath, then accelerated up another gear with the commando matching pace. Those ahead did so as well when he started to catch them. He didn’t know if this was everyone, but by his count they were down to 13, not counting the Archon which was nowhere in sight. The slow and wounded were no longer with them.

Davi ran and ran until finally the group stopped and he was told to grab some quick sleep while he could, as well as some rations. Water had to wait a few minutes until one of the commandos came back with a container full, which Davi sucked down gratefully. It was literally the best water he had ever tasted…then he laid down on the ground and passed out, trusting the commandos and giving in to the urge his body had been hammering him with forever.

He was woken in what felt like 5 minutes and dragged to his feet. His body didn’t want to comply and his mind was foggy, but the commando pulling him up and on eventually got him woken up and they were back on the run again…though this time it was more of a jog. The food he’d gotten in him had done some good, but it wasn’t enough and his legs felt like shredded lead. Still, he knew the importance of keeping moving and while he wasn’t wearing any armor nor as strong or fast as the commandos, he was military and he understood their predicament. He desperately wanted to get back into the air, but right now their failure or success was largely dependent on how fast he was able to move, so for the sake of himself and the others he focused on that to the exclusion of all else.

Iden wasn’t with the group, nor did he intend to be. He was trailing behind them at the very edge of battlemap range so he could know where they were but keep enough of a buffer between them and him so he could keep the Hobbits off their tail. He’d grabbed a handful of foodstuffs from one of the commandos on the run and had ate them in the past few minutes, the first food he’d had since the crash, then he was back into Venator mode, hunting the enemy in order to play aggressive defense.

His own ammunition had run dry by now, and he was left with using the Hobbits’ own weapons against them. He had three armor punctures, not large but the burns on his chest, back, and left leg were hurting quite bad, not to mention seeping blood occasionally. He’d stopped some 14 hours prior for some quick Sesspik work to stop the bleeding, but more than that he couldn’t manage. He was on the clock as far as supplies went, with very little body fat to operate off of and his ambrosia already depleted.

He hadn’t been able to get any of it from the commandos, for there had been no time during the firefight. Iden knew he could still fight with the low energy, but sooner or later attrition would wear him down. Before that happened or he got a lethal puncture to his armor he had to get back into friendly territory. Linger and he was as good as dead, even if it came from simple starvation.

Even in his weakened state he was faster than the others, who were now moving at a decent clip since the slowest members were no longer around. That was a small, bittersweet blessing and Iden was committed to making the most of it by causing the Hobbits so much trouble that they wouldn’t have a chance of catching up.

He’d already killed over 200 of them, not that he was counting, or cared, for they had so many in play that it almost seemed not to have mattered. How they were keeping up with them was a mystery to him until he caught sight of a transport flying further to the south, barely a small object on the tree choked horizon, but it was then that he realized that the Skarrons were dropping Hobbit groups off nearby and ahead of them…fresh Hobbits, in order to run them down and potentially cut them off.

If the enemy had known exactly where they were they would have landed right over them or sent in fighters to blast into the trees, but it seemed they didn’t and just had an approximate location and heading. That was one more reason why Iden was pressing his attack on the trailing Hobbits, in order to draw the attention to him and away from the others, but if/when they set down a group of infantry ahead of the others there was nothing he was going to be able to do to distract them there.

He kept in range of the battle map link as he ran in and out of the enemy lines, which were constantly trudging through the forest and giving him plenty of ambush opportunities when the alert came through from one of the commandos, giving him a heads up that there were enemies ahead…

When he saw that Iden turned and ran back to the group, moving far faster than the Hobbits behind could match and worked hard to catch up, knowing they’d need his help to break through or divert…which the latter was what occurred. They’d been headed in a mostly eastern direction, but the group suddenly turned and headed north, with Iden catching up to them just as the Hobbits were chewing away at their back positions.

One of the commandos went down just before he got there. He didn’t know if he was alive or not but telepathically told one of the others to check while he went into berserker mode and didn’t concern himself with anything other than engaging the enemy and killing as many of them as he could. He moved from one to the other, with his partial shields protecting him from a scattering of plasma hits until they eventually went down. He risked a few more kills, grabbing a fresh Hobbit rifle, then turned and followed in the direction the others had went, darting from tree to tree and trying to give his shields time to reform, though he took another hit to the left leg, fortunately in a spot that didn’t have exposed flesh.

The armor there melted slightly, but remained mostly intact. A few steps later and he was momentarily in the clear and gaining ground on the others when he noticed another group of Hobbits ahead and coming at the others from the flank. Apparently they’d set down further to the north and were coming down on them from multiple angles.

Resigning himself to another scrappy, fatigue-laced fight he veered off to the right, heading for the nearest of them and jumped the enemy as they keyed in on the others, shooting many of them at pointblank range as he ran up on them. He didn’t bother to wait around and make sure they were dead, for even wounding them at this point was a victory with the ever moving battlefield.

Slipping back into berserker mode he went to work, buying the others time and thinning their opponents while drawing as much attention to himself as possible without getting overwhelmed by enemies.

8

January 23, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

Davi was beyond tired, operating completely on biological emergency backups. If he stopped he knew he’d collapse so he kept moving…always moving, always with the enemy on their heels or trying to ambush them from ahead. The commandos kept guiding him on, with the Archon having gone missing again. Yesterday he had went back to divert their trackers then hadn’t been seen since. At least Davi hadn’t seen him, but without a helmet or headset he couldn’t tap into the battlemap, so it was possible he was still around and just out of sight.

That said, he could barely see two meters in front of his face. It was night and all he could do was stay with the commando ahead of him and pace in his footsteps. They had nightvision, he didn’t. And even if he had he wouldn’t have trusted his eyes. His head was so groggy he was surprised he could even keep his eyelids open, but somehow he managed and they moved on, getting closer and closer to the Star Force city.

Rio was in a much better position, though his own ambrosia levels were teetering off. He did have nightvision and battlemap access through his armor, and they’d just crossed into transmission range from the city, picking up their telemetry through relays that were constantly transmitting out. They weren’t within their own transmission range yet, so the city didn’t know where they were, but Rio could see their status…and it wasn’t good.

The Skarrons were already assaulting the city, with half of it having been fully evacuated and the rest in the process of fleeing while a pitched battle was taking place outside and on portions of the interior. The defense shield was still up, but there were breach points on the barrier wall with troops coming through. At the moment they were being held off and the evacuees were being covered, but if they didn’t get there soon there wouldn’t be anyone left to evac them.

After a long night of continuous running/walking the commando ahead of Davi stopped short and put a hand on the pilot’s chest to get him to halt. His body didn’t want to, so locked into movement that the man had to forcibly stop his progress as he looked back at him through his helmet.

“Wait here…and get down.”

Davi didn’t have the energy left to swear or he would have. Dropping to a knee and nearly collapsing down onto his face he ducked behind the nearest tree and waited as told. The commando stayed with him, looking up every now and then until a section of forest blew up not far away as a hail of plasma came down, blasting away the trees.

Davi jerked, his nerves fried on adrenaline, but the commando didn’t move so neither did he. After about 20 seconds of heated destruction the plasma stopped falling and the commando yanked Davi up onto his feet and literally dragged him forward by the arm as he fought to get his legs working again.

They headed directly to the blast sight, and as they got close a fighter sank down into the gap…but with no sound of anti-grav. Skarron fighters had a tell-tale hum/whine due to their inefficiency, but the skeet that was coming down was whisper silent.

“Your ride,” the commando said as he pulled him forward. “Hurry. We only have a small window.”

Seeing a way out Davi somehow found more energy within him and pushed on, but the commando was still providing most of his momentum all the way up to the cockpit that cracked open. When they got to the side the commando grabbed Davi around the waist and literally threw him up to the opening where another pilot grabbed him and pulled him inside.

“Slide in,” she said, scooting over as much as she could in her armor. She was a pilot, not an Archon, but she still wore light armor in case she had to ditch her craft. That made the fit even tighter, but she moved over to the far side of the cockpit on the pommel seat and pulled him in almost onto her back.

The cockpit canopy came down and almost fit, but not quite. A little more wiggling and the two got their bodies aligned enough for it to seal, clicking shut with a reassuring sound as Davi almost lost consciousness.

“Thank you,” he mouthed, his face in her armored shoulder.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said, raising the skeet back up through the hole in the trees and flying as best she could at the odd angle her body was at. “Had to take down 21 fighters just to get here, and there are more on the way. We got about 15 more seconds before they’re all over us.”

Davi didn’t say anything further, realizing what she was up against and just glad to be inside a ship again, even if he wasn’t piloting it.

Rio watched the anti-air skeet lift off and move away from the city and the enemy fighters he could see on battlemap, glad that they’d gotten the pilot away. That left 11 armored commandos and 1 Archon, who was current outside their range somewhere delaying the enemy infantry. The commandos knew what they had to do now and even as Rio watched the skeet move up and off the 11 of them came together on the run and formed a single file line as they accelerated up to true commando speed and took off through the forest at a rate that the Hobbits shouldn’t be able to catch up to from behind.

But there were plenty ahead, hunting them and those simply assaulting the city. It took several more hours and three more skirmishes until they got to the forest edge, with two of them injured but still moving. Now with no one to protect they could fight as a unit and had kept themselves alive despite several hundred Hobbits worth of kills. It was mind blowing how many the enemy had in play, but that seemed to be their MO in this invasion. They weren’t better on the ground than Star Force, certainly not in terms of infantry, but they were making up for it and then some with sheer numbers…and orbit was no exception. If not for the Sentinels holding them at bay this planet would long ago have been theirs.

That said, this piece of it looked to already be theirs, or at least in the transition stage. Waiting just inside the tree line the commandos spread out and scouted out the view ahead. The forest ran right up to the city, but the engineers had cut it back for a radius of nearly a kilometer to accommodate new growth and to give the perimeter defenses decent firing lines.

That was good for the city, but not for them. As they looked out with their own eyes in addition to the battlemap they saw several Skarron walkers in that gap, none too close but nearly within firing range…but at the moment one of them was getting picked to death by a trio of mechs making an ambush run, coming out from inside the city…with a fourth heading out into an infantry pool entering through a breach in the city wall and laying waste to them by the dozens per second.

Another walker to their left began to crawl its way towards that mech, trying to get within firing range.

Suddenly a waypoint materialized on Rio’s HUD with a ping, ping, ping sound indicating that they had to go now. Trusting in it he and the other commandos ran out from cover and sprinted towards a point some 100 meters out from the mech and in the gap between it and the walker heading their way…and now he could see a second behind it coming around the curve of the city wall as well.

“Wedge up!” one of the commandos said, prompting them to adjust their formation into an arrow that would give each of them a clear firing line straight ahead. The wounded two fell in behind that arrow and kept up as best they could but they were lagging behind. One of the others went back with them, keeping some cohesion in their formation as it stretched out into a much longer line.

Rio and the first few kept pressing hard, heading for a group of Hobbits that finally noticed them coming that were running away from the mech. It took a couple of minutes for them to get to each other, but when they did the commandos were faced with a shower of white plasma orbs, which they returned fire on with their own more accurate blue streaks…and a few white orbs of their own from captured enemy weapons.

The commando arrow cut through them, with the flanking edges downing more Hobbits as they passed through and wounded several Skarrons, clearing a narrow tunnel through them that the wounded pair and their escort slipped through, adding weaponsfire of their own. In front of Rio the mech suddenly abandoned its slaughter on the right and cut hard left, coming across the commandos and helping to clear a path as it took the first hits from the Type-4 now coming into range.

The neo didn’t bother shooting back at it, saving its weaponry for the infantry and playing big brother to the commandos as they sprinted towards a specific point on the wall. When they got close a small anti-infantry battery opened up and shot down a few hobbits with plasma fire as a car-sized portal opened up on the city exterior and allowed them access.

Rio ran up to that point but didn’t go in, turning around and circling back to make sure the others got in…just in time to see one of them get cut in half by a plasma blast from the Skarron walker. The white glare was so bright and intense that it seared through the commando’s midsection, with his legs and head toppling to the ground as separate pieces in the steam-laced explosion from where the rest of the plasma hit the wet surface.

Recklessly ignoring it he stepped out a few strides and fired at the nearest Hobbits as the wounded pair finally caught up. When they were within a few meters he finally retreated, seeing the mech doing the same and running across the now smoldering grass, kicking and stepping on several Hobbits and even a Skarron that didn’t move out of the way fast enough. It roasted a few with its maulers then Rio lost sight of it as he dashed inside and out of the firing line.

When the last of them came through the blast doors shut on their own accord, but there was no one on the other side.

His helmet came alive with a transmission that was going out to all of the now 10 commandos. The Archon wasn’t with them, but another’s ID tag popped up with the comm, and this was one a ranger.

“Welcome back, but unfortunately your day is just starting. I’m in the city’s command nexus and remotely controlling as many functions as I can. The section of the city you’re standing in has been evacuated and is currently under Skarron control. You’re going to have to fight your way through and I’ll guide you as much as I can, but several areas have already gone dark. I think the enemy is learning how to cut our feeds. Head here,” he said, with a waypoint popping up on the city map, “and I’ll get back to you. Not many dropships left, so hurry.”

“You hear that?” one of the other commandos asked.

“Yeah,” Rio responded. “Let’s go.”

By the time they got to the waypoint Rio had a hole in his armor, right chest under his armpit that was spitting fire through his body with every move. Between the cauterizing nature of the plasma and the medical gel laced into the armor’s inner layer his blood loss was kept to a minimum, but every time he twisted while running the crunchy layer of burnt skin and scabby clotted blood would crack and seep even more, enough that the right side of his white armor down to about his knee now had dark red streaks.

The Skarrons knew they were in their backfield now and were cycling troops back from pushing further through the city to get at them. They’d had two big firefights, the second of which they’d been pinned down for more than 15 minutes before they broke free…but they hadn’t lost anyone else, though several more were chewed up like Rio was, one with a shin wound that caused him to run with a limp that couldn’t keep him with the others.

Fortunately they didn’t have the luxury of moving very fast. They had to be methodical, covering every corner they came to as if it might contain an ambush and that allowed him to keep up without slowing the others down. When they got to the waypoint the door to the armory opened up remotely and they filed inside, with Rio about to hit the close button to shut them in but the door did so on its own as the ranger’s voice popped up on the comm again.

“Armor up. I can give you maybe 40 minutes to get to the LZ. I don’t think we can hold out longer than that. I’m going to have to abandon this position in the next 5 minutes or so. I’m transmitting the best route I know, then you’re going to be on your own. Be warned, they’re massing ahead of you. You’re going to have to run and gun and not get pinned down. I wish I had better news for you but this is where we’re at. We’ll hold the LZ as long as possible, but I’ve already ordered the mechs to start pulling back and our air cover isn’t going to hold out much longer. Run fast, shoot straight, and be the badasses I know you are. We’ll be waiting.”

Rio didn’t waste time listening to the message standing still. As soon as he heard ‘armor up’ he began pulling off his damaged armor and grabbing a generic version out of storage. He had to make several adjustments to the pieces in order to get a decent fit but that didn’t matter. It was fresh armor with fully intact shield emitters. He also grabbed several weapons and ammo containers, including some Kiritas style grenades and trigger.

There was no food with them in the chamber, nor had they any left to bring with them, but at the moment that didn’t matter much. Ambrosia would have helped almost immediately, but by the time they’d digested much of anything their window of opportunity would have been lost. They had to fight their way through to the LZ on what energy reserves they had left.

Fatigued, injured, and in constant pain…Rio was good to go. Being back inside their own territory and out of the firing line of walkers and fighters alike was enough to make him hopeful. He could handle the Skarrons, and if he guessed right the route the Archon had given them would take them through areas too small for the big ones to go…leaving them with Hobbits, Hobbits, and more Hobbits to block their path, and those he could eat for breakfast fully armored up, which he now was.

“We good?” he asked, looking at everyone else.

“I was born for this,” the injured one said, his wound also obscured beneath a fresh set of armor.

Rio pointed and the nearest commando to the door hit the release and they began filing out, ten commandos strong, and dropping back into a well-practiced mobile formation designed for hunting rather than running. With no hope of a clear route ahead, they were going to have to fight their way through, and to do that they were going to have to play offense rather than defense.

Which was fine for Rio. He’d had enough falling back. Now they had an objective and a way out clearly marked on his battlemap. It was like thousands of challenges before, only this one was a single try, do or die. All the others, with so many opportunities to repeat, had taught him well how to handle the moment and the nerves, and he was pleasantly surprised that now, in the moment when it mattered most, his mind was completely calm. He knew what he had to do and that he could do it…with a resolution that if he failed it wouldn’t matter.

The path ahead was the only way to survive, so he committed himself to each step he took forward, not looking or thinking back, and focused on shooting every flat headed little Skarron minion he came across before they could kill him.

9

Rio ducked down behind a potted tree, with the bark on the trunk exploding above his head with plasma hits. He and the others were stuck in an interior park that was only a few sections away from their LZ, but it was their only way through and the Skarrons had turned it into a temporary base of operations…with three of them and a horde of Hobbits in play. The bigger Skarron plasma rifles/cannons had already killed one of the commandos when he got ambushed by a group of Hobbits and forced out of his cover. Rio thought the hit was more blind luck than skill on the Skarron’s part, but the plasma orb hit him square in the helmet.

He fell to the ground, the plasma burning through an already damaged section and penetrating his skull. After that the fighting had grown into more or less of a standstill, with every Hobbit the commandos took down being replaced by others coming in, getting them nowhere and the clock still ticking. They all knew it, and knew if they played by the usual rules the enemy would win by default.

That meant it was time to get reckless…but in a smart way. The 9 of them had a lengthy, yet choppy conversation as they continued to fight in and around cover, then Rio finally got the signal and popped up, taking a few hits to his shields immediately as he sprayed suppression fire in a particular area.

His armor took several more hits then he ducked back down, glad that none had gotten through as two more commandos popped up and continued to bathe that particular area with blue streaks…then another came around a blind in the park, essentially a small booth with a V-shaped wall, and jumped into the mess of the now ducking Hobbits, firing as he landed amongst them.

A second tone signaled throughout all their helmets and Rio popped back up, his shields not having enough time to reform, and fired at whatever Hobbits were shooting back at the others as four of them converged on the same point and slaughtered the enemy there. The incoming plasma hit them hard, and Rio did his best to down their shooters or make them duck for cover…then he was on the move, transitioning to another preplanned spot as he saw one of his fellow soldiers go down.

Soon he was behind a bench and doing his best not to get mauled by the Skarron closest to him. His barricade didn’t last long, being blasted apart by the plasma, but it did draw off those shots from the others before Rio leapt up and targeted the unarmored Skarron, trying to be as evasive as possible in his movements. It worked at first, allowing him to land several hits to its midsection as the enemy’s shots missed to the sides…then one of the other commandos got the jump on it and literally stepped up onto its back and fired down into the top of the creature.

Rio added a few more shots until the thing went down, then both of the commandos ducked for cover as more Hobbit-sized plasma flew their way. Rio felt a burn cut into his left leg then he was in a side alcove, temporarily out of the firing line but also pinned down. Several pings on the battlemap later and he took off, running out into the open again and shooting a few Hobbits on the go as the rest of them continually took the offensive and hoped that the enemy would blink.

They did, for the most part, but another commando went down by the time they got the second Skarron. The eight of them finished off the third then had an easier time with the Hobbits, though more were still coming in. Rio managed to get to one of the fallen commandos and found that he was still alive. Coordinating with the others via comm and battlemap, Rio pulled the pain riddled commando over his shoulders and carried him across the park as he got confirmation that the other was dead.

With the commandos screening for him, Rio made it across and into an exiting hallway, now not able to fight aside from one handed. He held a pistol at the ready, with his rifle now tucked underneath the commando’s body on his back, and hoped he wasn’t going to need it. He followed the others, monitoring the battlemap closely as they scouted out ahead and kept the area behind him clear, essentially giving him a bubble of protection as he carried the wounded one…up until one section over where they hit another bottleneck.

The commandos poured directly into it, with Rio falling to the back and those behind him rushing ahead. He was told to keep moving no matter what and did so, coming out into a long hallway with plenty of weaponsfire ahead but several dull white armored suits in between him and it. Rio ran as fast as he could with the other man overtop of him, then finally ducked inside a side hall that had a waypoint on it. Down some 50 meters was a stairwell with one commando already there, clearing the way and a few Hobbit bodies in between them.

Rio stepped over them as he heavily jogged forward, then took to the stairs for three flights before meeting up with the others after they took another route up, with both groups arriving at a skywalk that connected two of the buildings within the city.

The skywalk was simply a clear tube walkway across the open road below, but it made for a perfect defensive point and the Skarrons had already set up there…hastily it seemed, for the others got the drop on them and downed many before Rio had to set his man down behind an ornamental wall barely a foot high and get into the fight himself.

There wasn’t a lot of cover, which meant it was whoever shot first that was going to win. That’s why Rio had to join in, for their armor and shields would only offer them a bit of an advantage. Pulling out another pistol he dual wielded and ran forward, pumping lances into Hobbits as three of the others took on the Skarron with them. A bloodbath quickly ensued, with one of the commandos going down and the others all showing burn injuries save for one, though his armor was so melted in places it looked like it was all but breached.

Two of them headed across the skywalk while Rio went back for his man, picked him up, then headed across while one of the others held back as a skirmisher to protect their rear. As they ran out into the open Rio looked to the side through the glass walls and saw the streets below, mostly empty but with a few visible Skarron units moving about, including some of their elites with the shiny battle armor that almost made them look like tiny mechs.

A flash on the left resulted in the glass melting into a puddle, then several more blasts hit and eventually shattered it as some of the Skarrons on the ground noticed them and opened fire upwards. Rio tried to ignore it and just kept going, with waves of the plasma coming through and him moving to the far side to keep as much of the floor between him and their firing lines as possible.

A short gauntlet run later and he was on the other side and headed down another stairwell. A bit of clear running later and they were back into the undercity and fighting through a scattering of unorganized resistance that barely slowed their run…with the others getting far enough ahead of Rio and the other commando carrying a man that they didn’t even see the fighting, only the bodies as they ran past them.

Eventually they came to their LZ area, another building with a small pad on the roof. They hit the stairs and clawed their way up some 42 flights with Rio ignoring his dead muscles and focusing on the way out. It was so close ahead that he could literally taste it.

Just then, he rounded another turn in the stairwell and saw a group of some six Hobbits in the hallway adjacent to the stairwell take aim at him. Not knowing what to do he just kept climbing stairs and mentally flinched, expecting a shower of pain. Several plasma blasts hit him in the chest and even his faceplate, then a flash of silver entered his vision and only a few more white orbs came at him.

One burnt through and he felt his left lung deflate, nearly toppling him over as he stepped out of view of the enemy. He caught himself on his upright knee, then forced himself up the next step with the other commando still on his back…and the next, and the next. He had a small window, for they could be coming right up after him, and he had to make use of it.

He climbed, willing all other thoughts aside, and somehow made it up the three more flights to the roof. When he came out he saw a dropship waiting with its rear hatch open and he dragged his legs across the short tarmac and up into the craft, dumping his fellow commando onto the floor as he collapsed himself. Knowing there was still danger he twisted himself around and held up his pistol, ready to shoot out the entrance if anything came into view but the only things that did were his fellow commandos popping out of the stairwell and running across to the dropship.

He counted, seeing that all of them had made it, then as the last of them came up and hit the ramp retract button he let himself fall down and curl up into a pain ridden ball that could barely breathe.

The commando that hit the button stared back out the gap to make sure no one got a cheap shot in on them as they closed up, but then the ramp locked into place only a foot off the ground. Frowning, the commando hit the button again, getting it to rise another six inches or so before it stopped again, this time with the pilot coming through on his comm.

“Hold up, there’s one more coming.”

“We’re all in,” he said, checking his battlemap and seeing no other signals.

“I’m told there is and we’re giving him another 30 seconds.”

“Copy that,” the commando said, looking around and up into the sky. He could see distant enemy fighters, hoping that they could get away without getting shot down again. A skeet flew past at a closer distance, meaning they had some air cover left which was a small comfort, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

After 23 seconds he finally saw an image appear in the stairwell, staggering out and momentarily dropping to a knee before clawing its way back up onto its feet.

“Damn…” he said, running and jumping off the ramp towards Iden. He wasn’t showing up on the battlemap and the damage to his armor clearly showed why. He was a mess of melted and charred bits, with so many wounds to his body that he should have been dead…and looked close to it, barely able to stagger his way across to the dropship.

A Hobbit came up the stairwell behind him and the commando shot it dead before it could get a cheap shot off. He put himself in between the Archon and the opening, covering him with his own body as more came up. He shot them all down quickly, not giving them a chance to group up, but still took a couple of hits, the first of which his shields caught. The last one hit him in the leg on a portion of intact armor, keeping him in the fight without injury.

When the Archon got to the ramp he rolled onto it with his chest, then one of the other commandos yanked him up and hauled him inside as the skirmisher hopped up and triggered the ramp closure…this time with it proceeding normally and the dropship taking off before it even got halfway up.

The air seemed to get sucked out of the hold as the turbulence outside increase drastically, indicating a rapid acceleration until the ramp sealed up and left the commandos inside unable to see what was going on.

The one uninjured one sat down and pulled up his battlemap to a larger view, tracking their progress and hoping beyond hope that they made it out. He didn’t have another fight left in him, and if they went down again…he would do what he could, as always, but he was nearly clocked out with fatigue. He glanced at the others, seeing several on the ground and not moving. Without anyone else doing anything he walked over to one of the emergency slots on the walls and began pulling out rations and medical supplies, tossing the former to the ones still on their feet and attending to those on the ground as best he could.

Two more commandos came over to help, getting healing patches on and pain meds in those that were blacked out…and finding one that hadn’t made it.

The Archon was the worst off, with them getting his helmet off and finding him likewise passed out with so much damage to his body that the commando hoped he didn’t wake back up to feel it all. He injected him with a pain numbing cocktail and put patches on the worst spots, but didn’t dare try to remove the armor. Its inner layer had oozed gel out onto many of the injuries and he was afraid the Archon was going to need every bit of help he could get right now just to stay alive.

He wanted to get some ambrosia in him, but so long as he was unconscious he couldn’t feed him. Eventually sitting down beside the torn up silver armor that he was wearing, the commando waited perilously, counting every second that went by and hoping beyond hope that they were finally out of it. On the battlemap he could see them leave the city and shoot off across the surface, with multiple enemy fighters in the area and only a handful of Star Force ones…but those few were eating up the Skarrons and providing them the diversion they needed to get away.

Still not convinced, he didn’t relax until they were so far away that the Skarrons dropped off the map. When they did and they were essentially out in the middle of nowhere alone, he finally removed his helmet and sucked in a fresh breath of air, feeling several drops of sweat fall off his hair and onto his neck as he did so.

They’d made it…the few of them that had survived, anyway. Still shocked to actually have made it out, he stared at the ground for a long time lost in thought until the ramp suddenly began to open and the movement jerked him back to reality.

When it came down medics came in, attending to the wounded and making him realize they’d arrived at a safe haven. He checked his battlemap again to see where they were, finding them in a large city on the neighboring continent, having flown some 800+ miles across a narrow ocean that bisected the two.

He picked up his helmet and followed the wounded out, being the last man off the dropship. He glanced back at the small blood spots on the floor, cringing as the toll of the wounded and dead they’d taken to get this far fell heavily on him. Resolving himself to get back into the fight and make the Skarrons pay, he turned away from their rescue craft and headed into the city enroute to an information terminal to secure temporary quarters and get in a badly needed shower and rest. There was nothing he could do for his wounded brothers and sisters at the moment, so he needed to attend to himself.

Getting an electronic allotment within seconds, he hauled himself on one last walk through the city and to his quarters, then came inside them and began stripping off his trashed armor, having to twist and pop his way free, for the melted material had reformed over some of the connection points. When he eventually got out of it all he left it in a heap on the floor and undressed, dragging himself into the vertical shower tube and turning the overhead rain jets on as he leaned up against the wall and let his mind wander off into a very tired and stressed void.

With the warm water coming down on him, he began to feel a bit of relief and kept himself awake just enough to stay upright and soak in the water, with a few silent tears flowing down with it as he finally released his emotional lock and let the stress and pain of the past few days bleed out.

10

January 24, 2549

Reesi System

Metropolis

Rio woke up on a medical bed wearing nothing but medical patches and a thin blanket. He sat up, painfully, and the silver fabric flowed down over his chest and puddled at his waist revealing three separate patches covering burn spots. He had more on his arms and legs, and could feel a dull soothing in each of them that was fighting against the pain of movement…but at least when he held still he wasn’t hurting.

“How long have I been out?” he asked as a medtech walked over to him.

“Several hours. How are you doing?”

“I’m alive…and naked.”

“If that’s the worst of it then I’d say you’re past the danger stage,” the medic joked, tapping on the display panel nearby. “You vitals were…not good when they brought you in.”

“I can imagine,” Rio said, glancing under the blanket to confirm that he had no pants on. “Where did my clothes go?”

“You mean those tattered and blood-soaked rags? We had to get rid of them to get you cleaned up.”

“Cleaned up?”

“Yes, one of the girls volunteered,” he said with a smile. “Don’t worry, they’re all professionals. She didn’t enjoy it too much.”

“Ambrosia?” Rio asked.

“Already in your system, but we guessed low to keep you from overdosing. What are you currently at?”

“4.2 doses.”

The medic nodded. “You’ve got 2.5 in you now, along with a lot of nutrients we added through injection. We kept you under during the process.”

“Thank you,” Rio said, grasping the blanket to keep himself covered as he swung his very sore legs off the bed and sat on the edge, glancing at the few other medical staff in the room, two of which were girls.

“I hear you came a long way over land. Had to fight your way through the enemy?”

“Our dropship got shot down behind enemy lines. It wasn’t pretty and we lost a lot of people.”

“But you survived?”

“And I’m very grateful for that, but in addition to these injuries I’m still really pissed. Nothing to do with you,” he added as his tone turned harsh.

“Can’t say I fully understand, but I can sympathize. Other than clothes what do you need?”

“How secure are these patches?”

“You want to move around?”

“I need to clear my head with some light training.”

The medic frowned. “I don’t think you’re strong enough yet. Try standing,” he suggested as a test.

Rio pulled the blanket around himself like a towel and slid off…with his right leg buckling and him falling to his knee, but that was as far as he went.

“Easy,” he said as the medic reached to grab him. “I’ve got this. Let go and I’ll get my balance.”

“If you say so,” the man relented.

Rio focused his mind and willed strength into his leg, pulling himself up inch by inch until he got on his feet and stood up, wobbily, but under his own power.

“Well done.”

“I’ll improve with time and movement,” Rio said from past experience. “Not the first time I’ve been shot with plasma.”

“No,” the medic half agreed, having read his file, “but nothing this traumatic.”

“Clothes?” Rio asked.

The medic motioned to one of the others and she grabbed a stack of garments from a nearby shelf and brought them over, shoes included, which Rio saw were his size.

“Thanks,” he said, thinking about how to get dressed under the blanket then deciding just to screw it. They’d already seen him naked.

He dropped the blanket and pulled on his pants with a hand on the bed for support so he didn’t tip over. “Thanks for the shower. I must have really been a mess.”

“Not a problem,” she said with a wink, then went back to her other duties and the few patients in the room, none of which had come from his team.

“Where are the others I came in with?”

“We treated and released them, though one, the Archon, was transferred outside the city.”

“He made it?”

“I haven’t heard. He was worse off than you were.”

“I mean he came back with us?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

“Must have been after I passed out. That’s a relief. He saved our asses more than once out there.”

“Archons do have that tendency.”

“No, this was…beyond that. You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve had the combat training.”

“I guess not then.”

Rio pulled on his shirt and shoes, then cautiously looked at the door. “Thanks for everything. I’ll take it from here.”

“Don’t make me pick you up off the floor.”

Rio smiled at him. “No promises,” he said, adding a small two fingered salute before he took his first step. It was wobbly, but he had control and turned it into a few more heading for the door. By the time he got there his training kicked in and the gritty determination that had saved his life found the simple footsteps easy by comparison…even though his head was swirling in what he recognized was ambrosia depletion. Apparently he’d already burned through what the medics had given him.

He turned the corner and walked into the hallway outside, gaining rhythm with each step. A minute later he realized he was going to be ok and increased his pace a bit up to normal levels and wandered off through the city, intent on getting himself back into fighting shape and then heading back out again. There was a war to be fought and he’d be damned if he was going to sit it out while they lost more and more cities to the Skarrons.

Iden woke suddenly, jumping up out of reflex but finding a strong hand on his chest holding him down. As he opened his eyes and realized where he was he forced himself to relax. He was in a med bay with a regenerator on his chest and now that he got his head clear he could feel the tendrils inside his body doing work…or rather the numbness that accompanied them. He could never feel the actual workings of the mysterious devices, but had learned to identify their sensory cloaking.

He also realized that no one was holding him down, which didn’t make any sense until he saw another Archon standing beside him…who had a firm telekinetic hold on his chest and was pressing him back down onto the table.

“Hold still,” Megan said monotone. “It isn’t finished yet.”

Iden blew out a breath and leaned back, feeling the tightness on his chest disappear as Megan slid over into view and sat on the bed next to his right hip. “Welcome back, badass.”

Iden whisper laughed. “We’ve got to put more armor on those dropships.”

“Then they’d be slower and you would have got shot down even sooner,” she differed. “You were dead when they got you here.”

Iden’s eyes widened and he raised his head, still with several visible tendrils of the regenerator passing up the right side of his face and sinking into his forehead. “How long?”

“About 20 minutes. They said you were bad when you got back to civilization, so I had you moved here. You didn’t make the trip and I wasn’t sure it was going to work…we don’t know how long the window of opportunity is, but the fact that it’s been working on you for more than 45 minutes attests to how messed up you were. You held out far longer than your body should have been able to.”

“Definition of an Archon,” the acolyte said, taking considerable pride from the trailblazer’s words.

“True.”

“I’m glad there was one of these here to bring me back,” he said, looking down at the metallic lump on his chest that had sprouted out numerous tendrils like a chrome spider web that were sunk into his skin at numerous points…though the numb areas were getting smaller and smaller, so he guessed it was near to finishing up. Plus he was awake.

“We don’t have many, but I always travel with one. For special cases like you.”

“And in case you need it?”

“Yes,” Megan said, not ignoring the fact that the trailblazers were the most important assets that Star Force had.

“Where are we?” Iden asked.

“Seafloor city. The Skarrons are beginning to mount an aquatic front, but I’m told they’re not so skilled in it. We’re safe here.”

“And elsewhere?” he asked as the tendrils retracted from his head and slid back down his neck, but others remained sunk into his chest.

“The western continent is nearly lost. We still hold a few positions but we’re in the process of evacuating them. We’ve got missile emplacements being built up on the others so we can hopefully knock down some of their transports when they come across, but bottom line is we’re losing. I’m managing the loss and buying us time, and I don’t think it’s game over so long as we can keep their fleet in orbit. We’ve got a tough opponent to face, and though I’m not quite sure how to do it yet, I think we have a winnable challenge.”

“Without reinforcements?” Iden asked.

Megan chewed her lower lip for a moment. “Never count an Archon out, but we need more ground troops. Mechs especially. We’re building what we can here, but the rate of Skarron advancement is considerable…and they’re starting to build their own infrastructure in the captured areas. First priority is to fortify and hold a position on planet, then work on pushing back. The first, as difficult as it is now, may end up being the easy fight in retrospect.”

“How are the others doing?”

“Others?”

“The other worlds…I assume we still have a relay link?”

“Yes, we’re still on the grid. All stalemates on the ground, but the more time the Skarrons have to reinforce the harder it’s getting for them to hold…and the enemy just opened up another front on a Protovic world.”

“Has Paul worked his magic yet?” Iden asked as the regenerator finally retracted back into the normal short stick that its dormant form took. Megan reached out and pulled it off his chest as he sat up looking at her, with both of them ignoring the fact that he was naked. For Archons that had never mattered. Fighting the war did.

“He’s got his hands full. Every fleet he manages to destroy the Skarrons replace. He thinks we spooked them and they’re playing a conservative game to feel us out. We know they’ve got the numbers to overwhelm us if they choose to pull them from other areas of their empire, but it looks like they’re not willing to do that just yet on the naval front. They’re keeping enough to maintain a blockade and making this a ground war.”

“Thanks to the Sentinels,” Iden said.

“We think so. In order to take control of orbit they have to knock them out, and it’s going to be very expensive on their part to do so. So long as they’re in play we can use them as a safe zone to work out fleets out of and own the bastards. If they go down it’s over, and the Skarrons seem to be testing Paul’s fleet more than others. They’re learning what we can and can’t do, and he’s taking them to school, buying us all time.”

“If they’re toying with us…”

“I know, but we’ve worked our way out of worse situations.”

“Name one.”

“Ever win a training challenge against the Black Knight?”

Iden frowned. “Actually, no.”

“Well we have. If there’s one thing he teaches you it’s how to turn what looks like an impossible situation into a workable one. Which you just got through doing.”

“Not quite the same thing, but thanks.”

“I had the techs pull your helmet recorder. Looks like you had more than 1000 kills over your little cross country trek.”

“That few?” Iden asked, literally feeling like he’d been up against an infinite number of Hobbits.

“You didn’t give up, and we’re not buckling under here either. We’ll find a way to beat these bastards, we just have to survive long enough to do it.”

“You said something about an aquatic front?”

Megan nodded. “They’ve begun landing special equipment and are building a base along the shoreline. They’ve got submersibles in play and are feeling out our resistance. We’ve slapped that base down twice now, but they keep rebuilding and spamming the area with mines. I think they know we’re down here and that in order to take the planet they have to get to us.”

“What’s the rush with more continents to overrun?”

“That thought occurred to me as well…and I think they see us bringing in more Sentinels as a time constraint. They need to take the planet so we have nothing more to reinforce, and to do it before the inevitable orbital battle doesn’t scale out of proportion to what they’re willing to devote.”

“Just because we lose the surface doesn’t mean we’ll abandon orbit,” Iden pointed out.

Megan raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we wouldn’t, but would you say the same of other races?”

“Good point,” Iden conceded, flexing his left hand and wiggling out some of the lingering numbness. “Do you have another mission for me?”

“I need you to run through calibration drills and see how much strength you’ve lost. When the regenerator rebuilds you it does it with new tissue that’s weaker than what you previously had.”

“After that?”

“There’s plenty to do. What would you prefer?”

“Sabotage.”

Megan smirked. “Tired of being on the run?”

“We’ve got to keep them on the defensive, otherwise they could turn into a juggernaut with an exposed flanked that we’re not exploiting.”

“I’ve got several teams doing just that. When you check out I’ll reassign you to one.”

“Thank you,” Iden said, gesturing to one of the medtechs to bring him a new set of clothes that he was holding while giving the Archons a respectful bit of space as they discussed things far above his understanding.

“When you get finished shoot me the results,” Megan said, lightly punching him in the shoulder as she left him to get dressed. She carried the regenerator with her, not trusting anyone with it. To date it was one of the holy grail pieces of V’kit’no’sat tech that Star Force wasn’t even close to duplicating. The pyramid had some industry of its own, so if they absolutely needed to they could build some tech even if they didn’t understand it, but the regenerators were something that had to be built in specialized facilities that the pyramid didn’t possess.

Those facilities had been destroyed during the Rit’ko’sor rebellion, along with the rest of the V’kit’no’sat infrastructure on Earth, making these few remaining pieces invaluable. Most remained on Earth, with a few scattered elsewhere on ‘safe’ worlds. The trailblazers all took one with them whenever they venture out to field assignments, and it wasn’t something that Megan ever let out of her sight.

She took it back to her temporary quarters within the aquatic city and hid it away in a drawer before returning to the command center and linking into the nexus there, getting status reports on the planetary battlemap that had signals being transmitted between various relays to link in the short range signals to the overall grid.

Megan could see everything from individual commandos in the field to the warships in orbit, along with the enemy blockade fleet and the maneuvers both were continually making as their chess game continued. Right now Admiral Xander was picking away at the Skarron fleet with another hit and fade run, which would probably damage two Skarron cruisers by the time it was finished, with the Star Force drones pulling out on their superior binary drives before their shields could be taken down.

But any ships destroyed would be replaced by a continual flow of reinforcements that always seemed to know what was needed. Megan figured the Skarrons had a courier fleet running requests back to Achkor or some other staging system. That delay was possibly something she could use in a large scale counterattack, but right now she was forced into playing the ground game as well…so long as they could manage a stalemate in orbit.

It wasn’t an ideal situation by far, but had anyone else been on the border they would have been overrun by now. The Dvapp had fared well in their matchup, but without the Sentinels deployed there they’d have fallen to the same large scale blockading fleets. As it was they were fighting an identical stalemate, with Paul leading the ADZ forces and using the Dvapp’s strengths against the Skarrons well, now that they’d gotten used to following his lead.

If someone was going to find a weakness in the Skarron fleet it would be him. Until then Megan had to play for time and find a way to start eating up more of the enemy ground troops…otherwise they’d blossom to such large numbers that they’d overrun the other two continents no matter how many shortterm upgrades she made.

If she could buy enough time for some of the bigger defense pieces to be built, then that would be an altogether different story.

[NA1]Outdated?

Backdoor

1

March 3, 2549

Devox System (Lizard territory)

Yavvi

Kara clung to the hull of the lizard cruiser, nestled up against one of the many lumps on the hull and doing her best to blend in. Her shadow mode wasn’t active, but her Vorch’nas armor had adjusted its color to match the yellow/tan ship as she pressed her body up against it in the void of space doing her best imitation of Spider Man…though to be truthful the wall crawler had nothing on the Zen’zat. With her armor providing and recycling her oxygen supply, the Archon patiently rode the enemy cruiser as it rejoined up with the rest of the lizard fleet, with her already having spent over 8 hours bouncing from ship to ship.

Her quiet, dangerous little game was about to pay off for this cruiser was pulling up into escort position along with dozens of others around the assault pillar that was her target. The 93 kilometer long siege weapon was orbiting one of the lizards’ strongholds 73 lightyears from the ADZ border, with Kara having snuck into the system via warship before being deposited into the upper atmosphere via a quick drone drop off. From there she’d made her way across the planet and hopped a ride up into the lizards’ orbital facilities.

Now that the cruiser was pulling up nearby the assault pillar she shifted her armor into shadow mode…nulling out almost all of the bounce back radiation that eyes and sensors saw with and becoming a black spot on the hull. She jumped off it, clearing the cruiser and flying across the gap to the assault pillar. Both ships had their shields down, for as far as they knew there was no enemy presence within the system.

This fleet was being assembled for another strike on the ADZ, presumably one of the Sentinel strongholds. To date they’d destroyed 7 of the defensive emplacements, but not enough to get at any particular world. Unlike the Skarrons they preferred to knock on the door rather than run troops down to the surface, which was probably due to their history with Star Force and their penchant for orbital bombardment. The lizards needed to secure orbit before any planetary assault, and in order to do that they had to take down the Sentinels.

The assault pillars were the key to doing that without egregious losses, and more and more were beginning to show up in systems near the ADZ. Star Force and the Hycre were pulling regular reconnaissance missions to hopefully give themselves a heads up for any future assaults, but there were so many systems and places to hide a fleet that it was nearly impossible to find something that someone wanted to keep hidden. Fortunately the lizards didn’t appear to be playing coy, and had this assault pillar sitting in orbit around one of their larger and known worlds.

Where it was going Kara didn’t know, or rather where the lizards planned to take it. She knew where it was going, if the Archon had her way, as she sailed across the gap and landed on the giant ship’s hull with her yellow/tan armor reappearing and blending in. She held steady for nearly a minute, checking the area to make sure she’d gone unseen, then she began crawling across the surface of the ship using grip points on her fingers to pull her along as she drifted weightless.

Already having a schematic on file in her armor, she navigated her way to one of the anti-air batteries and nestled up against it. Using her Dre’mo’don condensed into a fine beam she began cutting through the weapon very carefully, tearing out pieces without disconnecting them completely so they wouldn’t float off and be spotted. She opened a hole in the casing and crawled inside halfway, continuing to cut and reposition various components like a mole digging through dirt until she got to a fiber bundle.

Kara grabbed it and extruded tiny mechanical tendrils from her armor that physically hacked in, allowing her to cut the battery off from remote control and keep it from throwing up any mechanical failure flags. With that software blind spot established she began cutting more freely, pulling her body all the way in and moving through the hole in the thick hull armor that the weapon was concealed within.

There was no gunnery chair or control station attached to it, for it was merely a remotely controlled turret. The gunnery station was nearby, set in a small cluster of others, so all Kara had to deal with was machinery as she slowly moved her way through the innards of the ship’s skin, eventually coming to an atmospheric inner liner. Since she’d cut her way through the outer one already she had to reconfigure her shields to cover the panel she was now cutting into. When the hole in it formed and she removed the small plate, the atmosphere didn’t begin to rush out as it otherwise would have, giving her enough time to slide through into the small maintenance crawlway on the other side, turn around, and reseal the panel in place.

It took some extra melting to get the material to fill the tiny gap her cutting had created, but once she got a good seal she released the shield cover and began crawling through the ship. Kara avoided the hallways and stuck to the maintenance areas, most of which were not head height. The lizards crawled as well as they walked, so all of the access shafts in these areas were about a meter high, forcing her to do the same. Given the size of the ship it took her hours to reach the area she wanted, but eventually she came to the navigational control nexus with the enemy fleet and crew completely unaware that she was there.

Still in the maintenance areas, she found the control line that came from the bridge to the nexus and hacked in again. She cut off all control signals from the helm, which wasn’t hard considering how primitive their computer systems were. Kara also felt the same way about Star Force’s own tech, for she’d gotten so used to using the dragon tech that she wore as a permanent part of her body that everything else seemed downright pathetic in comparison. The upgrades the dragon had made to her mind had also considerably changed her…not in mood or character, but by giving her a great deal of knowledge that the other Archons lacked.

No matter how much she shared with the others they would never understand. She not only knew about computer systems, she was permanently linked to them via her Vorch’nas, and over the years had gotten used to interfacing in that way…making this type of hack extremely easy.

With the bridge cut off she took control of the ship’s engines, running a quick diagnostic and ensuring that they were fully functional before powering them up. She issued movement orders to the escort fleet around her, indicating that the big ship was going to reposition and that they needed to get out of the way. It was exactly the type of thing the bridge would send, except they were completely in the dark up until the giant needle began to twist to starboard and lightly accelerate…with the cruisers matching its movements.

Kara figured they were beginning to panic, or would shortly, when they realized they’d lost control. Then again they could all be napping, giving that the ship hadn’t moved from its current orbit in the past 19 days according to the navigational logs. Regardless, Kara didn’t care how they reacted. They didn’t know where she was and they weren’t going to find her anytime soon…not that it would make much of a difference if they did.

Very slowly the giant assault pillar transitioned over to a jumppoint with hails being sent by a number of lizard superiors inquiring as to what was going on. Kara didn’t have access to those from her current position, for the line she was tapped into only held the navigational operations and it was an isolated system…deliberately so, making it impossible for an outside source to access their computer systems and interfere with things like maintaining orbit.

But she wasn’t on the outside, she was inside their giant chess piece and moving it out away from the planet…and dragging the escort fleet with it. Whether they knew or not what was happening they maintained their position, possibly on the orders of others to stay with the ship until they figured out what was going on.

102 cruisers jumped with it, as Kara gave them the appropriate navigational linkup to execute a fleet jump. Several preceded it, with most following a few seconds back as they headed for another planet in the system. It was uninhabited, with the assault pillar leaving the bulk of the lizard fleet behind and transitioning to the gas giant and its six moons while leaving the lizard bridge crew at wit’s end.

Kara moved the assault pillar into orbit of the largest moon and sent out a beacon pulse from her armor powerful enough to get through the mass of material around her, then she input some final holding commands into the navigational nexus and abandoned her position. Finally she worked her way out of the maintenance areas and into the walkways, stretching a bit as she stood up, then took off down one with a three step run before leaning forward and transitioning into a superman/flash pose and flew down the hallway, knocking over the first lizard she encountered with a hefty shoulder hit.

Given how large the ship was, running would take too long and she didn’t want to use the internal transit system…for that could be shut down and she just didn’t like the idea of waiting for them to come at her. She wanted to be on the offensive, so she flew through the corridors with her feet only inches off the ground and made her way to where she knew there was a link into the main computer system nearly 3 kilometers away.

She rendered the two lizards in that room unconscious with a single thought, knocking them out via Ikrid as she walked over and punched her armored hand into one of the consoles and hacked into the system, giving her access to the majority of the ship’s primary functions not on deliberate isolation. With them she was able to access the ship’s sensors, comms, and weapons control. She shut off the later, taking down the sensor link to all the gun turrets on the behemoth…leaving them able to shoot but blind as to what they were shooting at.

The camera feeds from the batteries themselves she also took out with a simple virus added to the system, but she still maintained her uncorrupted view of the mounting space battle outside as the Hycre fleet that had been lying in wait on the far side of the moon came around and began trashing the escort cruisers.

Kara took the assault pillar’s shields down as well, with a handful of the Hycre’s beautiful warships hitting the armor plating around the gravity drive and beginning to cut their way through as the rest of the fleet quickly cleaned up the easy ambush, which many of the naval specialists referred to as a ‘gank,’ which was a gaming term meaning the ‘blindsiding of the enemy from concealment.’

That concealment now gone, the lizard fleet around Yavvi was immediately alerted by the escort cruisers and began to move out to the jumppoint. That only gave the Hycre a short window of opportunity, but in those free minutes they killed 95 of the escort cruisers with the other 7 successfully running away, trying to draw pursuit off and buy time for the assault pillar but the Hycre didn’t take the bait. With its escorts now gone they turned on the giant ship and began targeting specific areas and hammering on the thick armor protecting the vital systems.

The weapons were another matter, with those being located in openings on the hull…and without the shields they were completely exposed. Many of the Hycre ships went for the main weapon, firing up the ‘barrel’ and slagging the interior while the rest ignored the defensive weapons, knowing they could easily be replaced after a quick stint in a shipyard. They needed to severely wound the gravity drives so it would stay put in orbit. Kara could have taken the ship and let it fall into the moon, or even the gas giant or star. She didn’t feel comfortable with slaughtering the crew like that, but there was also another reason for leaving it be.

The Hycre had been operating in this system for a while now, mostly reconnaissance missions and a few isolated hits, but with only one inhabited planet for them to guard the lizard fleet was massed in orbit around it, making any small scale action virtually impossible. If the assault pillar was stranded here, in orbit around a 2nd location, the lizards would have to split their forces or leave it unguarded. If they left it unguarded the Hycre would finish it off, nipping at it until it was just a floating carcass. If the lizards defended it or tried to bring in enough tugs to move it to a shipyard then that would offer up options for smaller scale engagements…and if they brought over their massive fleet from the planet then the Hycre could strike there when they weren’t guarding their orbital infrastructure.

Either way it changed the playing field while taking one of their key pieces out of the picture for a while and putting an end to whatever near future mission they had planned…which spared an ADZ system from getting hit and bought them more time to build Sentinels and defensive fleets.

That was why Kara had elected to stay on the lizard front rather than transitioning over to fight the Skarrons. While she could do a lot in direct battle, she was the only one who had the Vorch’nas and could go on these insane clandestine missions that would prevent attacks on the ADZ, potentially saving many lives but more importantly hardware that would be destroyed even if all the people were preserved. Given the attrition that Star Force was facing fighting on two fronts, keeping the lizards off their backs and letting their defenses swell was oh so critical.

That, and she just liked messing with the enemy’s big ships.

With her sabotage efforts done, Kara flew through the assault pillar’s interior not even aware of the pounding it was taking. Nothing could be heard or felt where she was at, for the ship was just that freaking huge. That said, she still had her own sensors and was able to pick up the Hycre signals between their ships and tap into their own version of a battlemap…though they didn’t know that she could.

Picking a spot on the hull that wasn’t under attack, she headed for one of the many small hangar bays and knocked aside the lizards in her way with either brute force or telekinesis as she coasted up to the doors. She opened them with a casual button press and walked through, launching herself over to the control station and barging her way inside. She waved a hand at the occupants theatrically and the six standard variety lizards dropped unconscious along with one librarian. Putting them into a deep sleep via ‘the Force’ she walked over and activated the bay doors.

When they began to part she walked back out into the bay, knocking down a pair of armed guards heading her way with an invisible Lachka punch that felt like a crate hitting their scaly faces. One was rendered unconscious by the hit, with the other squirming around stunned but trying to get back on its feet and to its weapon as quickly as possible.

Kara ignored them and flew off across the deck, zigzagging through the various ships and darting out through the atmospheric shield and the crack in the doors. Once into open space she activated her beacon and let the Hycre know where she was. Using the gravity drives in her armor she flew a curved course up and around the massive ship, heading for one Hycre cruiser in particular as it pounded on the assault pillar.

It opened a portion of its shields and let her into one of its airlocks. She ducked inside and let the exterior doors reseal, then the inside of the small cubicle filled with the hot, thick, sulfur-laced atmosphere that the Hycre lived in. Her armor didn’t mind and she walked inside, heading through the ship and passing several of the floating gas bags until she got to the chamber where they wanted her.

It was several stories tall, with Hycre floating through it at various altitudes. She flew up a level and sat on a support pylon jutting out from the wall to connect to a workstation. Keeping out of their way she sat and waited, watching their sensor feeds in her HUD as they pounded the assault pillar and eventually broke through its armor, getting at the sensitive interior.

When the lizard fleet began to arrive the Hycre took the opportunity to kill a few of their cruisers, then as the numbers swelled and they’d done sufficient damage to the assault pillar they began to withdraw using their superior binary drives to pull away from the lizards at range, but still able to fire cleansing beams back at them.

They stuck around the edges for some 20 minutes sniping the lizards before they came out after them in packs of 30+ ships to one…but it wasn’t until the lizards began to backdoor the Hycre and try to pinch them off with other sneaky attempted ganks did the Hycre eventually withdraw. Some of the ships stayed in the system, bouncing off to other gravity wells and putting themselves outside of lizard sensor range waiting for an opportunity to jump back in and kill a ship or two.

Kara’s cruiser took her back to the two stars at system center, allowing her to transition over to the Star Force warship waiting there. Her task done, it jumped out of the system and she headed over to the sanctum for a quick run to flush out the stagnation she’d been accumulating from sitting and waiting for so long…then she got some much needed sleep. When she woke she headed back to the sanctum for some real workouts as the warship took her to the next location on her hit list.

And that list was growing with each year that passed.

2

April 21, 2549

Reesi System (Beta Region)

Metropolis

Ikki watched the countdown inside his Valerie cockpit anxiously, wanting to get out into clean air but still tucked up inside the carrier that was just now entering the atmosphere. The big ship served as his Axius squadron’s mobile base of operations and had just entered the system via jumpship, detached, and was now making its way down to the planet under naval escort. According to the battlemap telemetry the Skarron navy was doing their best to get at the carrier and other vessels but the Star Force drones were holding them at bay, giving them their window of opportunity to get down to the planet.

Metropolis was a Human/Kiritak world on the border of the ADZ and one of the more recent Skarron invasion points. The fighting had stalled in orbit just like everywhere else as the Sentinels kept the enemy pinned to higher orbits aside from staged runs down to the surface to escort troops, with the heavy fighting occurring planetside. Metropolis was badly in need of reinforcement, having already lost one of its three large continents to the enemy, but with so many engagement zones across the ADZ reinforcements were hard to come by.

Ikki and his squadron were relatively new, having only been in three previous campaigns against the lizards, but some of the pilots with him had considerable experience. Their ‘Cap’ was a veteran from the very beginning of Axius by the name of Chitticki, an Irondel, but one with good skills and could keep up with the rest of the squadron that was made up solely of Urik’kadel. All of their fighters were standard Valerie, no specialty variants, given that this was going to be a mixed operational campaign and they needed flexibility. Other squadrons would have the different models, but Ikki’s was straight up regulars with the idea being that they would go wherever needed.

Orders had already come through concerning the drop…for they were going into combat immediately. The Skarrons had established aerial superiority wherever they had walker clusters or one of the bigger models, but they were extending that range out by employing massive numbers of their own crappy fighters. The Skarrons flew them themselves, not their Aronsic, meaning the craft were big, heavy, and didn’t maneuver well compared to the Valeries…but they were tanks when it came to survivability and required a lot of hits to take down.

Combine that tankiness with numbers and you had an aerial force that could literally run over any other small squadrons, even if they didn’t kill them. That meant keeping them back from targets was difficult enough, and with the enemy not seeming to care about losses you had a juggernaut that could wash over any nearby section of the planet and support/cover for infantry advances.

On the upside the enemy fighters weren’t too good at poaching mechs, but they were trying to none the less with swarm tactics…which was probably why the mech kill stats for fighters was nearly the equal of the Star Force aerial total. On average the veteran pilots had a running 77/1 kill ratio, but given how many fighters the Skarrons had, and were continuing to receive from reinforcement runs, Star Force couldn’t establish aerial superiority except for in locations where they had mech or city backup.

Axius might not have a lot of ground troops to bring into the fold, yet, for they were still growing and growing rapidly, but they did have a huge aerial division. The Urik’kadel were largely responsible for that, choosing to ally with Axius for nearly all military applications rather than try to contribute on their own. Ikki had grown up in an Axius colony, but several of the pilots in his squadron had not. They’d transferred over specifically to join the military, as had many others. In response Axius had devoted more resources to fighter creation so they’d have enough Valeries to accommodate them all.

They all lived in Axius colonies now, but those who were not native to them planned on returning home when their time here was done. That said, they were all Axius in blood now, even the newer additions, given the length of training they’d all endured together. Axius didn’t field rookies, and Ikki had had to prove himself time and again before being given his first combat slot.

And when he had gotten it there was more training to be done in order to get himself accustomed to flying with the members of his squadron. They’d gone through hundreds of simulator runs onboard the carrier prior to each assault and in the down times in between, working on learning each other’s tendencies and practicing combined maneuvers of so many varieties it’d been a challenge for Ikki to learn it all…but he had, as had the others, and because of it and their natural piloting skill they were about to go to school on the Skarrons with it.

Ikki waited impatiently until the countdown finally ended, with his fighter being given the go to launch. He lifted up off the small deck that his fighter sat on and moved out into the large hangar bay that had the rest of his squadron parked into the back wall in niches. The Urik’kadel followed three other Valeries out the opening bay doors and shot through the atmospheric containment field, immediately getting hit with turbulence as the carrier continued to descend through the atmosphere.

As soon as he was outside his battlemap lit up with target contacts being highlighted by either the Cap or a controller in the carrier. Regardless he shot out after them, seeing several hundred enemy fighters coming in to harass the carrier and troop transports that were coming down and now splitting up to head to different locations on the surface. His targets were about 50 klicks out, but that was nothing for his pointy-nose Valerie and he shot out across the sky of the new world, linking up with his 10 man squadron as he did so.

Cap flew center, with three trios spread around him, making what was called a ‘tri-force’ formation. Ikki didn’t understand the metaphor there, but he’d learned the grouping early on and found it was the most reliable for head on engagements, for each piece would split up and chase down Skarron fighters in the simulations. Since they required more pounding having 3 Valeries working together could take them down pretty quick, leaving Cap to fly around on his own as a diversion or to add a few kills of his own with enough persistence.

He did well with that, and when the break came Ikki went with his pair flying starboard wing and following Fanvi’s lead. A targeting mark appeared around one particular enemy fighter and the trio went after it, with Ikki flying wide. He turned sharp left and came at it from the flank as Fanvi shot it head on and dove low, getting a two hit run in. The third fighter in their group, Mava, spun around and came in on its tail, pounding it relentlessly with a scattergun until it suddenly fell out of the sky…their first kill of the day.

There would be many more to follow, for the carrier held some 60 squadrons and there were multiple carriers coming down to the planet. It was feeding time, and the largely Urik’kadel comprised squadrons went to work on the slow Skarron hordes with a ravenous appetite for kills.

Two Axius armadillos landed outside one of the captured Star Force cities on the Skarron-held continent that was currently undergoing a counterassault. Infantry was coming up out of the ocean and heading into the city while aquatic mechs held off and were doing a good job of chewing up the few Skarron walkers challenging them. In addition one aquatics battleship had risen up out of the water and was adding its firepower to the insertion, ensuring that the infantry made it inside the buildings where they began taking it to the invaders in close quarters fighting.

The armadillos landed several kilometers away on the north side, far enough away from the Skarron walkers not to come under fire, given that the largest in play was a Type-3 that didn’t have any missiles and a few lachar blasts weren’t a cause for concern. The two large ships set down on the marshy ground and opened up their doors, spewing out a contingent of Axius mechs that immediately began running towards the city as they fanned out into a loose line that buckled outward into an arch. Inside that arch followed infantry…huge infantry.

Reen scurried out with their long necks reaching up nearly two stories high as their six pointy legs poked holes into the soft ground as they walked/ran their way forward covered in heavy armor that made them look like mechs themselves. The big race actually had turrets on their armor in lieu of the handheld weapons they didn’t have…given that they didn’t have hands. Each of them also had a tiny mauler on their head, able to point it wherever they looked and fire in addition to the plasma cannons placed at the high knee joints on their inverted ‘V’ shaped legs that rose halfway up their neck length.

They were far larger than the Skarrons, but still able to move around in tight confines given their ability to crunch down into a smaller form. That said, it was going to take several minutes for them to get to the city walls before they could get inside, with the mechs providing them an escort to make sure they did prior to going after the walkers.

Then, almost as an afterthought, a few more ‘infantry’ came out of the transports last of all. There were 7 in total, each of which was an Ikrotor that stood taller than the mechs. The Ent-like race also had body armor covering their already stone-like bodies, but where the Reen were mildly slow the Axius-trained Ikrotor were not. They ran ahead, quickly catching up to the Reen and then the mech line. When they passed it a few of the mechs accelerated to keep pace with them, for they were not heading for the city…they were heading directly for the enemy walkers and coming up on their rear flank as they battled the shoreline aquatics forces.

The Ikrotor were bipedal and enormous. Untrained individuals moved about slowly and ponderously, like the Ents they resembled, but with time and Star Force-specialized training, a little side project of Wilson’s, they’d gotten their stride length and cadence up, allowing them to actually run with strides that ate up nearly 20 meters with each step…and that was with armor weighing them down, for theirs didn’t have a powered function as of yet.

In stark comparison the tiny Irondel in the mechs beside them kept pace despite their being smaller than a cat. Through the use of technology and Star Force’s unique approach to warfare, both incompatible races now fought side by side within Axius, with both ambushing the Skarron mechs with a fervor born of going into battle knowing you were going to win and win big.

The mechs that went with the Ikrotor started pounding on the Skarron’s shields from range with plasma and maulers, eating into and weakening them as the giants ran directly up to the enemy machines while charging plasma nubs on their fists. Like the Elarioni and lizard aquatic weapons, the plasma was held concentrated in a small container until physical contact was made, then released suddenly with no dissipation loss suffered from firing over range.

The first Ikrotor to get to a Type-5 walker punched the golf ball square in the center, with the plasma blasting through what was left of the shield and the physical impact to follow tipping it backwards. The walker’s thick bipedal legs made choppy steps trying to catch its balance but the Ikrotor didn’t relent, swinging its other plasma charged fist into the armor and melting a bit of it off while knocking it further back.

The Skarron walker tipped over and immediately pulled its legs in to begin the righting process, but that wasn’t to occur. The Ikrotor came up on it and, even while it was showering out tiny white plasma blasts like a bright sprinkler, punched it repeatedly on top, keeping it pinned to the ground while melting through the armor with each semi-charged hit. That eventually weakened the protective shell enough that the physical blows cracked it open.

The Ikrotor reached in and peeled the shell open, then pounded plasma inside until the walker stopped returning fire. The giant infantry stood up and stepped aside, its shields having gone down and it taken a few slight scorch marks to its armor but that didn’t matter. It looked around at the others and focused on the nearest Type-3 as two more of its brothers headed towards it, running off to join them a few hundred meters back and meeting up with a Weapon-class aquatic mech coming in from the other side as the Skarron walkers suddenly found themselves severely outgunned and began to scurry around in a panic.

The Axius mechs moved through the chaotic mess and pounded down shields while letting the Ikrotor inflict the armor and physical damage. In the case of the Type-3 its back legs were wrapped up by the mechanical tentacles on the aquatic mech which held it close as it pounded one side of its double-hulled body with pointblank mauler shots. At the same time the three Ikrotor came at the other section and tore off one of its front legs with repeated plasma punches to the spindly support.

The walker shot out a tether launcher from underneath, which attached to the leg of one of the Ikrotor and tripped it up, pulling it in underneath it where it launched a waterfall of plasma down onto its armored figure before one of the others got to the cable and cut it.

Its leg now free, the Ikrotor stood back up and, instead of running away, stayed underneath and punched up into its belly taking out a few plasma cannons as the other two likewise pounded on various segments. Unable to move with the aquatic ‘tick’ on its backside the Skarron walker poured as much plasma damage as it could into its opponents before it eventually went down, with the Ikrotor tearing through its armor shell and pouring plasma inside to make the kill with the aquatic mech letting them finish it off as it retreated back to shore.

Meanwhile the Reen finally got to the city, with their mechs breaking off into two groups. One went to fight the walkers outside while the other led the Reen inside and began patrolling the main streets and sniping infantry where they could. A host of navigational beacons and target icons popped up on the Axius battlemap and the Reen broke up and headed out on individual assignments to aid the Star Force infantry already in the city…and to hunt the Skarron elites who looked like tin cans compared to the armored Reen.

No Axius small-scale infantry had been deployed to the city, but their large scale supplemented the mainline units there and broke through any strongholds/barricades that the Skarrons had laid down with ease, supplemented by the mechs that had come in with them. Though larger, the Reen could wiggle their way into everywhere the Skarrons could go, leaving only the Hobbits for the regular infantry to hunt down inside the buildings.

The slaughter of the walkers on the exterior was mirrored on the inside, with the latter taking much longer to execute given the sheer size of the city and ample opportunities for the enemy to hide out. Not long after the beatdown began the Skarrons responded strongly, throwing their aerial superiority down on the city with waves of hundreds of fighters sniping the Reen, Ikrotor, and mechs…with all taking cover inside the city walls and hiding behind buildings as the mechs returned anti-air fire, downing many of the Skarron’s bulky fighters that then crashed into the city, wrecking building exteriors but not damaging the beefy superstructures.

The city defense shield was down and would stay down until repairs could be made, but for the moment it was Star Force territory again…with distant enemy walkers and troop transports mobilizing to come in and take it back in the days to come. Shield or no shield they were going to push Star Force back off the continent, but for the moment all they had to strike back with was fighters, which they spammed heavily.

Eventually the Axius fighter squadrons made their way over to the city and began chewing into those swarms, culminating with an hour-long feeding frenzy that eventually saw the Skarrons retreat with the armor on the Ikrotor having been chewed up considerably. The Reen had managed to avoid most of the incoming fire while the mechs were middle ground, being enough of a threat to the fighters to make them keep a little distance, but also taking some damage when their shields went down.

The Ikrotor armor wasn’t exactly easy to replace, but none of them had been injured and the city was theirs. With cleanup of the smaller units still to be finished, the Axius troops stayed on location to assist then headed back over to their armadillos for repair patch work on their armor and provisions. A few hours after that the ships took off, repositioning elsewhere on the planet while allowing others to hold the city. When the hammer came back down on them the giant infantry and their mechs would return, but until then there were other engagement zones to gank…and they planned to milk their size advantage as much as they could until the Skarrons learned to adapt to it.

3

May 26, 2549

Jennit System (Dvapp territory)

Urrit

Paul sat in the command nexus onboard the Excalibur, having found that standing was too much of a distraction, as he directed a largescale orbital assault. The raised platform that he sat crosslegged on was a new addition to the nexus and brought him up to a level head height to where he normally stood, but his eyes were closed and not looking at the numerous holographic displays encircling him. His hands were forward and resting on the Ikrid interface sphere linking him to the ship’s computer system as he issued orders, some to crew and others to automated devices, at a rate that no one in Star Force could match.

And he had to…for the Skarrons were learning. They knew they had to attack the planet periodically to draw Paul’s forces out from the Sentinels and had done so this time with an insertion of several warships into the atmosphere to bombard ground troops, which was something that Paul wasn’t going to allow. Likewise, when Paul had attempted the same thing the Skarrons had come down into atmosphere to stop him. Neither side was going to allow the naval game to be played in atmosphere, though that hadn’t stopped Paul from getting in a few quick strikes here and there.

The Skarrons knew Paul would react when they went to ground and he had to send his fleet out from the Sentinels’ protective radius to get after them. The point had been to draw them out so the Skarrons could eat up a few of his ships, for they knew that if he was allowed to pool them in safety as more Star Force reinforcements gradually trickled in then their technological edge would tip the scales of the stalemate to their advantage. Thus they had to keep an attrition rate on the naval forces while their ground ops continued.

But the reverse was also true, for if Paul allowed the Skarron reinforcements to build their fleet to insane numbers then they could conceivably take down a Sentinel with far less casualties than he was counting on. The whole idea of the Sentinel defense grid was to make the enemy pay a heavy price to remove them from orbit, but the more weapons they had in play to throw against one the quicker it would go down, thus preserving more of their ships.

So Paul had to eat away at the Skarron fleet, and the Skarron fleet had to eat away at Paul’s and the Dvapp’s. His ally’s wasn’t linked into the Star Force battlemap the same way the drone fleet was, but with dozens of movement and targeting orders going out of his mind per second some were going to the Dvapp fleet none the less, with both races working out a shorthand that Paul could use to quickly communicate with them.

At the moment the fighting was in a gap between Sentinels and just above the atmosphere. Paul had driven their in-atmosphere warships back up…or crashing down in some cases, with the fight turning into a moving slugging match. Both sides were making constant adjustments, with Paul needing to get his drones in close to make use of the talon and mauler cannons. Given that Skarron armor was designed to be plasma resistant, more than a third of the drones in Paul’s fleet were a special variety built with no plasma weapons whatsoever. They had a mix of Ta’lin’yi, maulers, rail guns, and missiles, making them very hard hitters in close range.

The Skarrons knew this by now and were constantly moving ships back to outside the talon and mauler range so they could hit them with their plasma. That kept the whole mess of battling ships constantly moving…with new groups coming in from both sides to try and blindside the others. Right now Paul had a group of 52 Dvapp ships coming in to counter the range differential with their Sammies. When they started to engage the Skarron ships from the rear the enemy had a choice. Move in closer to plasma range or run.

They chose run, knowing that if they went head to head with the Dvapp they’d have to hold position and Paul’s short-range sluggers would come after them. To counter the run the Skarrons were bringing more ships down into low orbit to hit the Dvapp from the top side, forcing Paul to choose from reinforcing them or chasing the fleeing lower group.

That sort of back and forth chess match had been going on for more than two hours with both sides losing ships…but the Skarrons were losing far more. That didn’t necessarily mean a win, for Paul had to average nearly a 14 to 1 kill ratio just to hold even with the reinforcement rate the Skarrons were getting. He was near to that at the moment, but he needed more and was tweaking formations and targeting assignments all across the fleet trying to maximize their advantage. His fleet pilots, Captains, and Admirals were good but he was better…and he didn’t hesitate to make improvements to what they were doing on the fly.

He didn’t have time to explain anything, for the orders he was giving happened in the blink of an eye. The trailblazer had become so accustomed to the mental interface that his speed with it was phenomenal. He was in command and commanded. There was no time for discussion or suggestions, with the Star Force fleet recognizing this and following his orders immediately.

The Dvapp had been slower to coming to that realization and had questioned orders many times in the past or offered suggestions, but now they knew not to waste his time. He wasn’t in command of their fleet, but if they weren’t going to take his suggestions they’d learned not to argue about it. Paul needed to focus on making quick adjustments, so they’d just send back a declination signal if they were unable or unwilling to do something he wanted.

That didn’t happen much anymore, for Paul’s strategies were proving to maximize their survival and enemy damage rate. Still, there was only so much he could do with their current interface, and getting a more advanced one built was on the top of his to-do list, with the techs currently working hard on it and Paul dropping in to make tweaks when and where he could.

They were designing it to his wishes, but so much of his time was spent in the command nexus that he couldn’t go very far away from it, nor for very long. The Skarrons kept pressing their attacks, usually 3-4 times per day, and even the slightest delay of him getting linked in with the fleet could cost them a handful of ships. He knew he had to utilize every single one as much as he could and didn’t want to waste any opportunity in what was essentially a game to stall the enemy advance long enough to build and bring in more Sentinels.

It was a game that he wasn’t sure he was going to win, for the enemy was hitting his fleet the hardest out of all the systems under attack. He preferred that, but conceded that they might get the best of him just through sheer numbers. Naturally Paul didn’t want to accept that, and was putting everything he had into the defensive effort.

Unfortunately that left him little time to train or even sleep. That just killed him, but true to form he adjusted his workouts for the short gaps he had and even had ordered additional command nexuses built around the ship for him to use on a moment’s notice, including two inside the sanctum, one of which he was currently sitting in.

He’d been in the middle of a 10k run and only at the 3.4 mark when the call had come in. He’d sprinted off the track and through the hallways to get to the nexus, leaving him dripping sweat as he sat in a meditative pose, his mind nearly disconnected from his body as he continued the fight in orbit.

Paul was also in orbit, with the Excalibur sitting tucked up next to a Sentinel…but then it also began to move under his orders, and move fast. With it came two of the nearby Warship-class jumpships, both empty and remote controlling from range where they normally sat. All three ships winked out of view as they made a microjump away from the planet, then made a heavy turn to starboard during the jump that required an insane thrust expenditure from their gravity drives. Without even coming to a stop they made a highspeed U-turn and accelerated back towards the planet, braking easily against its gravity well and coming in behind the Skarron fleet in mid orbit that was not involved in the battle.

Still controlling the battle in lower orbit, Paul let some of his attention drift out to the three big ships and gave firing orders…as well as navigational ones telling the helmsmen to dive right into the Skarron lines towards several of their juggernauts.

The two jumpships got there first, given they were the smaller, and began launching mauler bloons onto the targets while opening up with the rest of their weaponry at the surrounding ships as they dove into the swarm. The big donut that was the command ship came in behind them and the Skarrons seemed to get caught off guard for a moment, not knowing whether to run or fight. They eventually settled on fighting, with the hope of taking the big chess piece out, but their slight hesitation cost them as the mass of weaponry across the Excalibur opened up and shredded the smaller Skarron ships nearby.

Paul took control of shield control and adjusted the forward shields into repulsor mode, creating an invisible second shield out in front of the primary one that only blocked dense matter. It let the plasma fire through, but any sizeable objects got caught up in what ‘looked’ and felt like a giant airbag that would depress then push back on them. The Excalibur didn’t slow when it hit the enemy fleet, with Paul intent on ramming right through it and not letting ships in the way be a problem.

The two jumpships fell in behind it, firing as they went, with the command ship plowing the way, literally, as it pushed aside ship debris and even a few intact ones that failed to move aside in time. The shields didn’t hold up forever and the physical impacts eventually reached the primary shield. That held up even less, with several impacts hitting the hull…but that hull was so thick with armor and the ship so big that they were inconsequential given the slow collision speeds.

Eventually the command ship came all the way through, leaving a swath of destruction behind it that the jumpships added to, then the three ships accelerated again, making the tiniest of jumps down to low orbit, and coming in at the back of the Skarron’s upper fleet in that engagement that Paul was still directing.

Seeing what was happening, the Skarron fleets higher up broke their position and came rushing down after them. Paul knew he only had a few minutes before they arrived and intended to make the most of them. With bloon launchers hurling mauler energy at ranges the cannons never could, the command ship blew through the Skarron cruisers’ shields with single hits, savaging their hulls and leaving them easy pickings to the drones.

Paul had all three big ships hitting the smaller ones with single shots, essentially ripping off their defenses and opening them up to the Ta’lin’yi to do their thing…and in those few minutes so many enemy ships went down that the remainder began to flee even as their overwhelming number of reinforcements were starting to come down to them.

Which was when Paul sent his fleet scattering in groups to the nearest Sentinels, making sure to give the Dvapp a window for retreat as well, given that they wouldn’t respond as fast. He kept himself and his command ship there as the last ship, then made a slow lateral jump to get out from under the hammer coming down and back within Sentinel range.

A few of the Skarron ships not yet to the engagement zone diverted and tried to intercept the command ship, given that its shields were down, but they didn’t make it in time and got hit by cleansing beams at range from the Sentinel that sliced right through their hulls, bisecting them with the touch of beam drift the gunners liked to use. Three went down within a second, then 29 more were damaged before the Skarrons were able to reposition enough to make the long-range shots miss as they fled.

The cleansing beams didn’t have a finite range limit, with the beam cohesion dropping over distance, but it was primarily the accuracy involved, meaning the bigger the ship that came near, the greater the range the Sentinel would have…which was why the Skarron juggernauts were keeping well clear to make sure the Sentinels didn’t get in any lucky shots at extreme range.

Paul stayed linked in and hyper active until he was sure that the Skarrons were done with this engagement. He saw their ships pulling back up to mid orbit while a few limped away, damaged but not killed. The few ships that were sitting in place Paul sent drones out after to finish them off. He wasn’t in a position to take prisoners and would prefer killing them quickly rather than letting them die slowly, for there was no rescue coming anywhere near Sentinel range.

A quicker death was the only concession he could, or would, make to the enemy. There were over a billion Dvapp on the planet’s surface that, if he failed, would be eradicated by the Skarrons…not to mention the Star Force troops down there. Mercy was a luxury of the dominant, and right now he was doing everything he could to just hold their lines without the Skarrons spamming them out of existence.

When he eventually released his mental and physical link with the control sphere he noticed a presence behind him.

“How long have you been there?” he asked without turning around, for he could both sense her mind and see her with his Pefbar had he wanted to.

“A while,” Riona answered. “Take a break, I’ll watch things for a few hours.”

Paul blew out a long breath, realizing as he spun around on his pedestal that he’d gotten a bit stiff. “Thanks.”

“Gotta keep our number one asset battle worthy,” she said, exchanging spots with him. “And you look like you need a good workout session and powernap.”

“You read my mind,” he said sarcastically, referencing a running joke between the two of them. Other than Jason she’d become his closest friend, with an unexpected bond forming that both were a bit surprised at.

With her lowering the pedestal and taking a standing position in the nexus he left her there, knowing that she knew that he couldn’t relax without knowing that she or one of the other trailblazers was watching over the planet…and at the moment there were no other trailblazers here.

Riona’s naval scores weren’t the equal of Paul’s, but they’d been rising steadily the more time the two of them spent together, though they rarely worked on those skills. Most of their combined sessions were straight up physical training or bioshield related, but both of them suspecting that Riona was getting some bleedover knowledge from the extensive battlemeld training they were doing, with Paul feeling a bit the same way.

Linking with Jason had had the same effect, with Paul’s own mind adjusting a bit to the presence of the other as they got repetitively in sync with one another. The same thing was happening with Riona and Paul could notice a few new tendencies creeping up in his speech that mirrored hers. It was minor stuff, with Riona seeming to get the benefit in her naval scores, but Paul guessed that had more to do with emotional control and mental focus rather than any particular strategy or tactical awareness that he had.

Being in a nexus required a certain mindset that couldn’t be taught, and if she was picking up on his mojo and mimicking it then it’d essentially speed up her learning curve. That was one of the benefits of the battlemeld, but it could also be a disadvantage if there was a negative habit or mindset…but they were Archons…and Archons were troubleshooters and problem solvers. Any personal problems they may have had in the past had long ago been solved.

Back in the day when Paul was growing up people had said, almost as if it was unquestionable, that nobody was perfect. That sort of nonsense was long behind him now, for the word ‘perfect’ had to have a definition and a measurement. Assess where you were relative to perfect and work towards it.

If perfect meant not having any flaws, then he and the Archons were there…at least the older ones were. Not all the adepts, he guessed, but then again you didn’t have to be perfect to kick ass. One of the others, he couldn’t remember which after so many years, had floated the metaphor that having a personal problem was like running with a backpack with a rock in it. Three problems three rocks, etc. The problems didn’t stop you from running, they just slowed you down, and if you were a badass you could beat a ‘perfect’ person, meaning one without any rocks, by being so much better than them that your strength outweighed the drag your problems had on you.

So ‘perfect’ didn’t mean you always won, it just meant you weren’t being held back by anything. Paul had been ‘perfect’ for quite a long time now, but that didn’t make life easy. With everything that he’d learned and all the strength he’d gained it seemed like it was never enough, and the current situation was proving that. He was holding onto their defenses by what felt like a thread and wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage it. He knew he had to take it one moment at a time and play it out, but the writing on the wall wasn’t good and it wasn’t the fault of any inadequacy on his part.

Sometimes you were simply outmatched, perfect or not.

But there was a part inside Paul that wasn’t going to accept a no-win scenario, if just out of spite. Riona taking the helm for a bit allowed him to relax enough to head back over to the track and get in a full 10k before hitting the shower and catching an hour nap. After that he relieved her, made a few adjustments to their orbital positions, then tentatively headed off for some sword work while wearing an earpiece to keep him in constant communication with the bridge crew or allow him to access a holographic battlemap with the touch of a button.

That was how he lived nowadays, always worried about being caught off guard and knowing the consequences that would result if he was. But as he reminded himself on occasion, Archons liked challenges and this was just another one…and one worthy of a warrior of his caliber.

With that in mind and a little bit of Vegeta’s ego channeled to emphasize the point, Paul kept himself invested in the moment and fighting the Skarrons, knowing that every minute he bought for them meant more Sentinels being built and deployed along the border, which was going to be their longterm key to holding the line.

4

May 29, 2549

Rotunna System (Beta Region)

Heimdall

Randy jumped up from the ground on the barren forest floor using his jump pack to get him extra height, then kicked off a tree trunk to bounce him higher and back towards a tree branch some 20 meters up. He landed on the half meter thick limb and nearly slid off the far side but caught himself with his right arm and hung on, then pulled himself up on top and into a crouching position. He stayed there, alone, and waited for more than 20 minutes before he began to pick up activity nearby, not with his battlemap sensors, which were next to useless in the forest, but with his Ikrid that he had extended out in detection mode as far as his padawan range would allow.

The branch he sat on was barren, for it was underneath the canopy and leading up to higher foliage, though more or less flat where he now sat hunched. The moon he was on orbited a gas giant that sat 2nd in line around the system’s two central stars that bathed it in an excessive amount of sunlight. The trees here ate it all up, but a considerable amount still got through their thick leaves and left the forest floor visible and covered with small plants. In between those and the extremely tall treetops was a dead zone, for the trees didn’t seem to want to grow leaves in the lesser light.

That left a lot of branches for Randy to move across, as he had been doing for weeks out hunting in the forest. Originally the moon had been a startup colony with some 50 million inhabitants located in two cities and a scattering of outposts but recently they had all been evacuated, leaving the planetoid as the playground in the war between Star Force and the Skarrons.

Randy had all 9 habitable planetoids in the system colonized to some level, but this moon had been the weakest link and only possessed a single Sentinel as opposed to the 46 he had around Ida. The Skarrons had attempted to land troops there and failed three times, with his fleet intercepting their transports and kicking the crap out of their warships, preventing them from setting up a blockade in mid orbit as they had done in other systems.

That left the Skarron fleets roaming the system and attempting to intercept ships moving about. Randy had been out hunting them as well and making a lot of kills while the local population of 12 billion Humans and 153 billion Kiritak worked to produce more drones at an astounding rate. Rotunna was a system that didn’t need naval reinforcement, for they simply made their own, and the Skarrons hadn’t yet fielded enough ships to challenge them in any meaningful way. They’d preferred looking for opportunities for ambushes and sneak attacks up until a few months ago when they’d finally made their move.

They hadn’t been stupid enough to assault the major planets, but they had hit Heimdall’s single Sentinel with an enormous fleet…half of which the defense station wasted before they took it out. The Skarrons had had to close to short range to kill it with their plasma weapons, meaning the Sentinel’s own short range defensive weaponry also came into play, though the enemy had tried to hover in the sweet spot that would allow their plasma to hit but the Sentinel’s maulers to remain ineffective.

But there really was no safe place anywhere around a Sentinel and the Skarrons had paid a heavy price to take it down. Afterwards they spammed the moon’s orbit with ships as Randy’s fleet came out to engage them in a massive conventional brawl…all of which was a diversion to get their ground troops down to the moon. It had been well planned and some 2,385 transports jumped in and headed down into the atmosphere simultaneously, preventing Randy’s fleet from stopping them.

They didn’t hit the cities or outposts at first, merely coming down over top the moon-spanning forest and burning out some landing zones where they could deposit their ground troops…minus their walkers. The forest was too tall and too thick for them to operate with, so the transports merely hung in the air over top the LZs until enough of the trees had been cut down and disposed of to allow the ships to land.

From there they’d burned back more forest to create room for their walkers to deploy and hold ground as they began building prefabricated structures and setting up their own outposts on the surface. It wasn’t long before they had shield domes covering them and a foothold on the moon that they began expanding upon.

Trick of it all was, Star Force’s mechs couldn’t operate in the forest either, making this ground war purely infantry save for the open areas surrounding both Star Force and now Skarron infrastructure. The Hobbits and Skarrons had moved out on foot almost immediately and filled the surrounding areas with troops that eventually hit one of the outposts. They’d suffered heavy losses to take it, but the forest came right up near the edge and didn’t have much room for mechs to operate, instead relying on a number of defense turrets. With a combination of plasma and their annoying shoulder-launched missiles they’d taken them down and secured the outpost, but not before the Kiritak there were evacuated.

That was the one small gain the Skarrons had made, but with every day that passed they were cutting out roads through the forest for their walkers to travel on. It was hard work, for many of the trunks were 10+ meters in thickness, but the army of workers they’d brought with them were diligently making progress. Randy had bombarded several of their LZs from orbit, but every time he did more Skarron ships would appear from wherever they were hiding within the system and force him to stop.

One tactic the Skarrons had picked up was not showing their full hand, leaving Randy guessing how many ships they had insystem rather than showing him up front with a standard blockade. They kept a large number in orbit around the moon for quick response, as did Randy, but every naval engagement they’d made had resulted in more forces being brought in on either side, creating a stalemate all of its own over the moon while Randy still had ships out hunting the enemy elsewhere in the system…especially incoming transports that the Skarrons were using to reinforce their surface campaign.

Randy’s fleet had a 1 in 3 kill ratio going on those, with the Skarrons hesitant to bring them in randomly. Each attempt led to another costly naval engagement, usually for the Skarrons because Randy’s fleet pretty much owned them so long as they didn’t get careless. That price was something they seemed to be willing to pay in order to secure the moon. There was no way they were going to take the other habitable planets in the system, but whether it was out of pride or some long spanning strategy the Skarrons wanted this moon and Randy wasn’t going to accommodate them.

Right now there was a column of Skarron infantry heading out from one of their LZs, as there were many, Randy had discovered, moving from place to place and setting up a network of outposts underneath the forest canopy. Some were camps, others were being dug into the ground, and all being accomplished by hand and underneath the forest canopy keeping them away from sensors and air support. The Skarrons seemed intent on making this an infantry campaign up until they could get their walkers to the primary targets and Star Force had responded in kind, taking the fight to them underneath the trees with Randy choosing to become his own one man Venator squad.

That meant he was roaming freely while other units held to prescribed locations, defensive assignments, or attack runs. It also meant he got to play ambusher, and while his dark brown armor clashed with the deep grays of the tree trunks he’d found that the Skarrons didn’t pay much attention to the trees above them, thinking that their enemy was going to hit them from the ground only. That had allowed him to move through the treetops over them many times with impunity, but this time he was waiting for them to come to him.

They weren’t coming directly under, with the leading Hobbit skirmishers passing about 50 meters to the south. After them came a pair of Skarrons with their Hobbit units surrounding them. Behind them came the ranks of closely packed troops aligned simply for crossing territory rather than fighting…and there were thousands of them stretched out in a line that was 4 or 5 wide for the Hobbits and single file for the Skarrons, most of whom were not elites.

Easy pickings for a trailblazer so long as he had enough ammo…and Randy had packed plenty of extra plasma clips.

Rather than jump them at the midsection he waited for the end of the line to come up, then he stood, stretched out his legs a bit, and casually looked around.

“Time to play Master Chief,” he said to the air before taking a few steps forward on the branch and jumping with the assistance of his jump pack across to another one. He stuck that landing better then hopped again, coming over top the line of footprints in the ground where the enemy troops had just passed.

Randy stepped off the branch and fell to the ground, landing lightly with some anti-grav assistance and pulling his plasma rifle off his back as he sprinted forward. It took him some 14 seconds to catch up with the back of the line but he didn’t shoot immediately, instead he ran up to them and actually knocked two aside to get in their midst before he emitted a large Fornax field and dropped some 20+ Hobbits to the ground.

He peppered them with shots making easy kills as the sound of his plasma fire turned the attention of those ahead to him. After a moment of shock white plasma orbs began to fly his direction and hit his shields, but he stayed long enough to kill most of the ones on the ground before sprinting sideways and getting behind a tree trunk.

From there he did a Jedi jump straight up and got back into the branches, repositioning to another tree and jumping down inside the growing group of those turning around to engage him. Another Fornax field took them down and he killed some dozen more before taking off behind cover, this time running from tree to tree and drawing some of them out after him…which he circled back around to kill in ones and twos.

Though he couldn’t see it, the Skarron column suddenly became severed. The leading portion didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t hear the weaponsfire, for they were too far ahead. Those that did turned back, leaving those in the middle at a loss as to what was going on and what to do. Soon that was resolved by their Skarron commanders via comm and the line began to shrink in length and fan out into a wide formation to look for and pin down their attacker.

Which worked perfectly to Randy’s advantage. Get them isolated and he had easy kills, keep them bunched up and he could Fornax them into submission, but with enough of them they’d rack up plasma hits to his armor’s shields and force him back. That was their only effective option, for they couldn’t run, they were too far away from the nearest help for that, and they couldn’t call in air support for the trees would block their fire and most of their sensors.

That meant this battle was Randy’s to lose, and he was too experienced to let recklessness get the better of him. Keeping the engagements spaced out and allowing his shields to recharge at least a bit each time between strikes, he worked through hundreds of Hobbits while avoiding the Skarrons, knowing they’d take more than a few shots to take down…but deprive them of their escorts and they were vulnerable in the trees, for they already didn’t move very fast, allowing Randy to dart here and there almost with impunity.

The Skarrons might be stupid, but they weren’t stupid and after it became clear that they weren’t able to kill the single Archon they pulled their scattered forces back together and formed a clump of troops in a circle, putting as many plasma weapons together as they could to increase their chances of making a killing hit in the few seconds that their enemy would appear.

Randy recognized this and acted appropriately, going Jedi and pulling weapons out of the Hobbits’ hands when he was behind trees but able to see with his Pefbar. He’d throw them out into the forest, almost daring them to come out after them. When they didn’t he remained patient, picking a few more Hobbit weapons off while the Skarrons literally wore theirs on their gangly four arms and weren’t so available for picking.

Eventually the Skarrons saw the writing on the wall, knowing that if they let this continue their escorts would be defenseless, so they guessed Randy’s approximate location and charged en mass.

The trailblazer smiled inside his helmet and jumped up into the higher branches, staying behind a tree trunk so they couldn’t see where he’d gone. He let them pass underneath him then he dropped down into the back section of their charging horde and emitted another Fornax blast, with this one catching a Skarron as well. It went down, but struggled to get back up on its feet while the Hobbits seemed to have no resistance to the intensity of his Fornax.

Randy shot several of them then decided to chance going after the Skarron. He ran up to it, still emitting the field which felt like he was mentally holding his breath as he maintained the effort, and jumped up onto the quadruped’s flat back and fired his rifle down into the sweet spot just back of the ‘head’ though in truth the creature had none. Its face was part of its body, but the spot he was firing into led directly into its vital organs and after some 14 shots it died and dropped fully to the ground.

Randy took several plasma hits to his shields from ranged shots, but not enough to penetrate so he jumped off and shot a few more Hobbits before retreating to the rear and ironically the spot where the enemy had been turtled up, now clearing their lines and releasing his Fornax emission, feeling his mind start to recharge so he could do it again.

He caught a few more Hobbits off on their own then went back at the others, making sure to give himself escape routes so the enemy couldn’t pin him down and hammer him with shots, for as small as the Hobbit blasts were they still posed a risk and he wasn’t going to be arrogant and think he could just run in there with impunity. He had to earn these kills like all others, and the best way to do that was by being smart and quick on his feet.

Eventually the Skarron infantry had had enough and they began to flee back the way they’d come, though it was more than 8 kilometers to their closest forest outpost and none ended up making it back. When they turned and ran Randy knew he had them, pursuing and taking them down with ease as there was little unit cohesion left in them, nor were they interested in firing at him…merely wanting to get away from the single enemy that they just couldn’t manage to kill.

Randy couldn’t be sure he got them all, and in truth he probably didn’t if some of them had ran off in a different direction, but he was sure that none had made it clear of those that had retraced their path. He stuck around a while and roamed the area, now having to use Hobbit weapons given the fact that he’d run dry on plasma rounds for his rifle, despite the excessive amount he’d brought with.

He found and killed some 13 more stragglers then, finding no more nearby on his Ikrid radar, took to the trees again and climbed up high, moving into the dark green leaves that were, in most cases, larger than his body and looking like thick, giant surfboards. They were so firm in fact that he could stand on them and got to actually ‘walk’ on top of the canopy, looking up into the blue sky and seeing the twin suns overhead as they poured radiation down onto the moon.

The gas giant was also visible overhead and much larger, giving the view an epic sense but he hadn’t come up here for the scenery, rather to get better range on his armor’s transmitter. He called for a pickup, and within 20 minutes a small mantis flew out to his location and spun about over the treetops, opening its rear hatch and allowing him to walk inside the armed personnel transport. There were still Skarron fighters in the area that could have harassed a dropship, but given the wide spacing of their patrols he’d decided to risk calling for the tough little craft and was able to evac without incident rather than take the long hike back over land.

But he wasn’t heading back to base, rather he reloaded with ammunition onboard the mantis and had it take him over to another engagement zone and drop him off on the treetops there before it had to fight off a rogue fighter. Randy watched for a moment as he stood on a giant leaf, then saw the anti-air lachars on the mantis take the Skarron fighter’s shields down and scare it off, allowing his ride to get away and head back to base.

Checking his battlemap and getting some troop locations nearby, Randy ran across the thick canopy until he found a spot where his boots fell through and he disappeared from the bright sunlight. Moving through various layers of leaves he eventually broke through into the empty middle zone of the forest and used his jump pack to cushion his landing, coming down on the shin-high grasses that covered a lot of the forest floor and seeing his battlemap update as the sharing signals got better reception.

He picked the closest units currently engage in battle and ran off, intending to add to his 4 digit kill count on the day.

5

May 31, 2549

Twensa System (Protovic territory)

Naden

Kip stood in the cockpit of the Voltron Mk. 3 as its centerpiece flew across the landscape with the other four segments following in formation and surrounded by a squadron of starscreams as he headed for an engagement zone that had literally just broken out minutes ago. The Skarrons had managed to slip a few transports through the Protovic orbital defense fleet and landed a Type-1 and a handful of Type-4s in a very bad spot on the map.

Bad because Star Force had no units nearby, leaving only the limited Protovic defenders incapable of defending themselves against a walker of that size. It was locking down the local airspace and keeping the Protovic Valeries out of the area while the Skarrons’ own fighters pounded the local populations. All that was in play were the cleansing beam defense turrets in some of the cities, but the Type-1 was put down out of range but still popping missiles at anything of size that came into the area.

That also included the Valeries, which Kip found disturbing that the walker would waste its missiles on them at extreme range. To the trailblazer that meant the Skarrons were buying time for some other play, possibly bringing in more troops to the area once the Type-1 locked it down. He couldn’t be sure, but his spidey senses were tingling and he knew he needed to knock that walker out as soon as he could.

One voltron wasn’t going to do much under normal circumstances, but this was Mk. 3 and in addition to the flight capability of the individual segments it was also a tad bigger and much better armed. He didn’t have a physical shield with him, due to the fact that he couldn’t carry it out to the engagement zone while the mech was in separate pieces, but the speed increase in the Mk. 3 had made it much more maneuverable, now like a stiff neo, so he figured he could at least do some damage to the Type-1 and eliminate its escorts with some fancy maneuvering. His plasma-resistant shield setting would protect him for a short period of time, enough to get in and out he hoped, but at the moment all he wanted to do was slow down whatever plans the Skarrons had and maybe get a poke at their grounded transports…if not scare them off.

Flying low to the ground to try and avoid missile fire as long as they could, Kip’s mech segments and the starscreams eventually saw launch warnings on their battlemap. When they did they went to ground immediately, with Kip throwing all power to the shields on each of the five pieces while the starscreams landed and transformed into mech mode and readied their anti-air weapons.

A few seconds later they lit up the incoming missiles with high frequency lachar bursts and plasma shards, reducing the number of hits greatly but not stopping them all. Their shields took the brunt of the attack then suddenly it was over, with the dust cloud drifting away in the stiff winds.

Kip saw two starscreams with light armor damage and suppressed a curse. The Protovic were supposed to have gotten the Type-1’s attention but they were nowhere to be seen. Checking his battlemap log he queried for those units and quickly found the problem…they were all dead.

Not understanding what had just happened he issued hold orders to the starscreams and replayed the last known location time log, essentially rewinding the battlemap data until he saw something entirely new from the Skarrons. The transports that were sitting nearby the Type-1 had deployed infantry, Kip knew, but along with that infantry had come some type of assault sleds. A quick look indicated that they were small, about the length of 5 or 6 Skarrons lined up in a row, and barely 4 meters high. They looked like small trucks carrying supplies for the ground troops, but Kip nor anyone else had ever seen them before, for there was no mention of them in the Skarron intel log.

What they were, Kip quickly realized, was something he should have expected from their anti-air obsessed enemy. They were fire and forget missile launchers for the infantry…and the large Valerie force the Protovic were sending to distract the Type-1’s missile fire had flown over the Skarron infantry, intending to harass them later if Kip’s group ended up drawing the attention instead, forcing the Skarrons to make a choice, but when they had the little sleds popped like fireworks, sending up a one shot shower of missiles that had caught the Valeries off guard.

Nearly all of the aircraft had went down, with the few survivors retreating low to the ground and trying to play tank to avoid attention.

“Damn it,” Kip said, triggering the voltron’s assembly procedure and activating his comm. “Looks like we’re going over ground from here guys. Our distraction got roasted by infantry missile launchers. If you see any vehicles with them knock them out quick. They’re pretty much an anti-air mine for any fighters crossing overhead.”

“What the hell?” one of the starscream pilots asked.

“I know, I’ve never heard of it before either, but it fits with their MO.”

“That Type-1 is going to light us up over ground.”

“I’ll help with the voltron’s anti-air. At minimum we can get it to waste some of its ammo on us.”

“And when the transports nearby reload it?”

“I’m open to any better ideas,” Kip floated.

Another mechwarrior broke in. “I’m onboard with trading plasma for missiles. Costlier for them.”

“And our armor,” another added.

“These guys are up to something,” Kip reminded them. “We need to interfere however we can.”

“Alright, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Kip agreed as his five mech segments finished linking together as they floated above the ground. He flipped it upright when the legs fully formed and set it down, then transferred the energy going to the anti-grav into the other systems. The mech was so heavy and the anti-grav units so small that it took nearly all the power generation it had to move the individual pieces around, then when it transformed into the bipedal mech the internal components reconfigured into jump jets that operated off a capacitor that was even now beginning to fill.

All the other systems came online, drawing power from the five generators and taking away its full flight capability. Sensors, weapons, shields, and muscle fibers all began drawing from the active energy supply as Kip stood the mech on the ground and began walking it forward, choosing the anti-missile shield variety and getting its matrix forming, knowing that it would be many kilometers before they’d come within range of the plasma hurricane the Type-1 was capable of producing.

The starscreams did the same, shifting from standard shields to the variant and giving them a chance of pulling this off. With the one big mech and its ten flankers they began running across the ground, diverting to the right slightly to work their way around a small Protovic city enroute to the walker that was clearly visible on the horizon behind it.

Another round of missiles popped up from the Type-1 and Kip readied the anti-air units on the Voltron’s shoulders as he chose a deployment configuration and sent it out to the starscreams…with them heading forward and spreading out to give the Skarrons wider spaced targets so they couldn’t get double hits on missile strikes. He assumed they’d be shooting at the voltron, and this way the starscreams could knock down a few more missiles as they flew overhead.

“Looks like you could use a hand,” a very familiar voice broke through the comm as the missiles were halfway to him.

“Cora?” he asked, confused and a bit distracted.

“Who else?”

“I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Noticed. Got a couple Easter eggs here if you want them.”

“Seriously?” he asked, surprised, as the missiles continued to accelerate and his anti-air systems began tracking them.

“Got two Mk. 3s ready for hot drop if you’ll let me come down and play.”

“You see the bastard shooting at me?”

“Yep.”

“Go say hi.”

“With pleasure,” Cora said as she saw the missiles beginning to hit Kip’s group of mechs. She cut the comm and sent a message to the transport in orbit to go ahead and detach, with Kip’s coordinates already preprogramed into the navigational program.

The big transport released two spherical pods of considerable size from berths on the underside, with them coming out of racks in a specialized bay. The specialized dropships accelerated towards the planet, coming down into the upper atmosphere within minutes and heading on an angled trajectory to get to Kip’s location. Cora watched her fellow trailblazer fend off round after round of missiles as she fell towards the planet, hoping they didn’t get too much through their shields but also hoping that he kept the Type-1 distracted.

The two pods passed into missile range of the Type-1 but didn’t get any response fire for another thirty seconds…then missile streaks began to come out towards them en mass, with some still heading towards Kip.

“Looks like they noticed us,” Jarvan-1381 commented from the other enormous pod.

“The shells can take it…but we may need another lift afterwards.”

“Understatement of the year,” the fellow Clan Scorpion mechwarrior specialist said dryly.

A few moments later the pods began to take hits, with their thick armor absorbing the impacts after the limited shields went down. That hurt their insertion angle a bit, now that they didn’t have the invisible wings to navigate with, but such a situation had been anticipated and built into the design with the anti-gravs still capable of keeping them on course, though without the shield the front of the giant sphere began to sprout an ablative fireball of reentry friction in addition to the missile impacts assaulting it.

Watching the status telemetry, Cora rode in the shell down all the way to the surface, then braked hard allowing the damaged pod to set down on the surface with only a tiny thump as its landing legs sunk in and stabilized the giant egg as it continued to take missile hits, some nearly getting all the way through.

“We’re down,” she told Kip as she powered up the mech inside.

“We’ll get there as soon as we can,” her fellow trailblazer reported, with her seeing his group now running at top speed since the Type-1 was no longer shooting at them.

“We’ve got this,” she promised, triggering the pod release.

“Damn straight,” Jarvan agreed as his pod also began to crack apart along a single seam. The two halves rotated out exposing one side of the protective cocoon and the Archon walked his giant mech out, but Cora’s shell had been damaged enough that that pivot function wasn’t working so she triggered a secondary release and the two pieces flower-petalled out, with her hitting the jump jets and shooting her Mk. 3 madcat into the sky in a giant hop that got her outside the pod.

It took a couple of moments but the missile streaks hitting the pod eventually switched targets to the big mechs that had landed about a kilometer apart from one another. As soon as they did the ‘missile boxes’ on the mechs returned fire, save for the Mk. 3s didn’t have missiles. They were prototypes that Kip had been working on in conjunction with Cora and designed specifically to fight the Skarron walkers. They were slightly taller and massed more than a Mk. 2 Hoth, with both shoulder boxes containing all anti-air weaponry.

When those boxes came online the missile plumes disappeared in a torrent of topaz light as the rapid-fire Sammies ate up the missiles and began to push the explosive collision point back further up the stream given the anti-air’s exceptional range and firing speed. Cora and Jarvan both began walking their enormous mechs forward, with nothing but an occasional missile or two getting through to hit their shields.

“How’s that?” Cora asked as the Skarron walker continued to fire relentlessly.

“I want one,” Kip said seriously.

“We’ve got four more upstairs for you.”

“Sweet. How’s it handle?”

“Like a fat turret, but straight line speed is good. And it can run rings around their walkers. Everything looks good, but this is the first battle test so feel free to criticize,” she said as the Type-1 finally stopped firing and wasting its missiles now that it saw that they weren’t getting through.

“Show me some fireworks.”

“Not quite in range yet,” she said as she and Jarvan lightly ran the big, backwards-canted leg mechs across the ground with a touch of a hop in their strides. That was as much as they could manage given their weight, but in future years Cora knew they’d work on that and get them more speed. Right now though what they needed was a slugger to take on the big enemy walkers…and that’s exactly what Cora had given Kip using his basic designs and adding her own special touch.

“Do you want the starscreams to move up with you?”

Cora frowned. “Not yet. Let’s just see how we handle solo.”

Jarvan tagged one of the Type-4s that was closest to them and Cora saw the icon flash on her battlemap. “He’s all yours,” she told him, adjusting her line a bit more to starboard and tagging another for herself.

The two fat madcats trotted off towards their targets with Cora stitching hers with Sammie fire before her weapons came into range and was pleased to see she was able to whittle its shields down some 7% with those alone. That wasn’t something that she could have done with lachars, which was why all Star Force anti-air was eventually going Sammie once they worked out the conversion issues.

Cora kept her madcat moving forward, holding off on her primary weapons and getting within mauler range. Before she was quite there she opened up with the four cannons on the central body of the mech and bathed the Type-4 in mauler blasts that were spreading out and becoming impotent but still containing some damaging effects. With each step closer she got they became more condensed and dangerous, eating through the walker’s shields and then the armor, with the Skarron walker going down before she even got all the way up to it.

The tick-like design slumped to the ground with the front half of it melted off and its legs collapsing like toothpicks beneath it when they lost power.

“Well that was easy,” she said, ignoring the others and heading straight for the more distant Type-1.

“I’ll get the rest of the little ones,” Jarvan said, killing his a few seconds after hers.

“Give me some support fire when you can,” she said in agreement, focusing the primary weapons in her madcat’s two bulky arms and aiming them at the middle segment of the lateral Type-1. She was coming in at it from the flank…which normally would have been suicide given that all 7 segments would be able to target her with plasma.

Before she got within plasma range she opened fire with one of her small cleansing beams, hitting the wall-like shield that the Skarron walker put up in between it and the mech. The beam and shield collided and held out against each other for more than a second before the pale white beam disappeared. When its twin in the other arm fired a moment later the shield again reappeared with the distortion effect but breached almost immediately on impact.

The rest of it cut into the hull, then Cora began carving out a section of it like she was working on a giant pumpkin…all outside the walker’s plasma range.

Looking like it was totally outmatched the Type-1 fired off a gravity grapple, with the device hitting her mech in the left leg and nearly knocking her over. She struggled for balance and nearly had it until the device powered up and sucked her mech down face first into ground and held her there.

“Cora?” Jarvan asked.

She tried to leverage the mech back up, but the odd angle it had her pinned was giving her trouble.

“A little help,” she asked.

A cleansing beam shot out from Jarvan’s mech and sliced a swatch across the ground in between her and the walker, easily cutting the power cord to the grapple and releasing the gravity trap. Cora, now with her mech’s muscles seeming to work again, worked her boxy arms and legs around and got the mech back on its feet.

“Thanks,” she said, having antipicated that tactic but she’d been unable to get any of her weaponry pointed at the device or cable due to the way she fell. “Let’s cut this guy up.”

“Mid section?”

“Yes,” she said, targeting both cleansing beams where she’d previously been firing as Jarvan did the same. With the beams alternating as they recharged, the four bright but pale white beams sliced through the insanely thick armor on the walker with little effort, cutting up the middle segment to the point where it became dead weight and ceased to function.

Another gravity grapple came out and hit Cora again, this time landing between her mech’s legs and sucking her down into the dirt but she remained standing. Her arms dropped and nearly touched the ground while her mech’s feet sunk in deep into the soil but she remained standing. With some effort she got her body rotated slightly and fired a mauler blast out from her mech’s protruding chest and cut the power cord herself, with her mech’s handling once again returning to normal.

As soon as she did that the Type-1 began launching all the missiles it had from all six intact segments, pinning both the Mk. 3s down as they had to defend against it. While they were preoccupied the six intact segments on the walker detached from the damaged one, creating two three-segment sections that began walking towards the mechs as fast as they could trying to get within plasma range as they kept the mechs pinned with missiles.

“Looks like they want to slug it out,” Jarvan commented as his mech was throwing so many tiny Sammie blasts into the missile cloud it looked like he was a wizard hurling magic to keep the weapons at bay.

“Shall we oblige?”

“Since this is a test run, why not?”

“Let’s go,” she said, beginning to walk the mech closer and giving the Skarrons what they wanted, eventually coming into plasma range while the missile storm continued, but they didn’t stop there, with both madcats moving into their own mauler range and unloading on the two segments of the Type-1 and giving their heavy shields a good test…but in the end it was no contest and the pair of madcats destroyed the largest walker the Skarrons had without even taking a lick of hull damage, then they got around to cleaning up the remaining Type-4s before Kip’s group could even arrive.

6

July 3, 2549

Interstellar Space

Mid jump

Cal-com woke from his sleep early as a soft, repetitive tone brought him back to full consciousness as it grew ever louder in his tube. The Voku’s sight returned as he gave focus to his single eye, previously ignored as he floated inside the vertical null g chamber that encased his body. He reached forward and pressed a few buttons, canceling the weightlessness and audio suppression a moment before he triggered the release and the tube split in front of him.

The Voku naval commander stepped out, seeing one of his advisors waiting for him in the rest ward where hundreds of other tubes resided, many with occupants and more without. Neither Cal-com nor the other Voku had personal quarters, for when they weren’t sleeping they were working or training in some fashion, with time spent on anything else being viewed as a waste for military personnel.

As Cal-com looked at the slightly shorter Voku Hem-ra bowed slightly in apology. “We have received an update from our scout ships. The enemy fleet is larger than expected by 32%. I assumed you would want to prepare before our arrival.”

“You assumed correctly. Were the ships discovered?”

“Not according to the transmission.”

Cal-com nodded. “I will be in the oracle shortly.”

Hem-ra bowed again, dipping his elongated head in a curt gesture before leaving Cal-com to his personal prep. The commander, fully nude but with no exterior genitalia to be concerned about, walked over to a curvy corridor that wound its way through many pod sections and branches before he finally arrived at the prep area. There he took care of biological needs and cleansing before pulling on a body-hugging suit of clothing and thin shoes that covered his wider than Human feet. He added a few accoutrements to his arms and popped out his eyepiece, revealing his natural line of three eyes beneath.

Each was tiny and blacker than his skin with two ports set between them that the artificial eye plugged into. It was a technological implant that all Voku received once completing their basic training, but one that required a power source that Cal-com now had to replace. He took out the small charging bead and swapped it out with a new one despite the fact that the one he had was only a few weeks old. Prior to going into combat it was expected of all soldiers to replace the bead to give them maximum longevity with the enhanced eyesight.

The lateral rectangle that stretched across 80% of the width of his face actively scanned in a number of different modes as well as allowed Cal-com to see in wavelengths that his natural eyes could not. Those eyes still saw through the crystal-like implant, for otherwise they would atrophy, with the sensory enhancements being added to the visual input from the device and being smoothed together by the processing circuitry just beneath the ports that functioned off of the charging bead as well.

With the new bead in place he reinserted the small pylons into the ports and sealed the visor back in place with a double click. Good to go he walked out of the prep area and headed towards the nearest transit terminal, finding one some 40 seconds of walking away.

It was a personal model, barely larger than his rest chamber, and when Cal-com stepped in he had the cover seal over him and an options menu arise on the panel before him. He chose the oracle and the tiny pod whisked him away through the monstrous conglomerate that was thousands of individual base ships and a scattering of specialized ones that could be configured into various combinations to suit battle needs. All of them had been designed to be interconnected, with them now forming a giant jumpship/warship that was traveling between stars.

The command center on the conglomerate was the oracle, which Cal-com got to with only a bit more walking after exiting the pod. When he arrived he stepped through a circular door and into a wide open plain that only had a few workstations popping up here and there, with most of the 5 acre wide area simply being empty, which was due to their being in transit. During battle conditions this chamber would be packed with personnel, though it wouldn’t be this large.

Cal-com walked over to what looked like a random section of floor and knelt down, pressing his hand into a soft panel and triggering a transformation. A pedestal and two display monitors rose up out of the floor and gave him his command station which he quickly pulled up the scouting reports on…seeing as Hem-ra had said, a much larger Skarron fleet than had been anticipated. It was still within their power to handle, but the amount of warships they were throwing at the Humans was beginning to mount towards the level they were attacking the Voku with…to no avail.

The Humans were temporarily weaker than the Voku but the Elders had said they would grow stronger if they were preserved, and given what little time he had spent with them, especially warlord Paul, he didn’t doubt it. Never before had the Elders led the Voku astray, and while still somewhat primitive in technology the Humans had shown considerable ingenuity in their combat strategies and weapons development.

Keeping them alive long enough to become a worthy ally was his duty, though he didn’t have as large of a fleet as required to fight the battles for them. The Humans and their less capable allies were fighting two major enemies at the same time and playing for a defensive engagement while creating a safe zone in which to continue building and advancing. In Cal-com’s opinion it was a wise play, but they were outmatched heavily, with the only reason they’d survived this long without being overrun is that their enemies didn’t consider them to be as dangerous as the Elders indicated that they would become in time.

Ignorance had turned the tide of many wars before and it had served the Humans well thus far, but as both the Skarron and Cajdital lightly probed the Humans’ territory and discovered the level of resistance they could offer their ignorance was diminishing and their military assets being deployed were increasing. Soon, Cal-com feared, there would be too many enemies for the Humans to handle, despite their skills.

Without being able to directly protect them the Voku commander had to assist them. He couldn’t win it with the few troops he had, but he could do things to help them win…which is what this current mission was designed to do in that it would buy them additional time to increase their defenses and further develop their technology.

He only had 72 conglomerates at present to work with, and he was bringing 43 of them with him now, given the importance of hitting the Skarrons hard in order to diminish losses. The increase in fleet strength on the scouting reports worried him, but not in the overall outcome. He didn’t like the attrition that would ensure amongst his forces, so he spent many hours reworking their battle plans and running sims…most of which did not turn out favorable.

Frustrated, he kept up the effort until it was time that he needed to get in his daily workouts. He wanted to stay and work, but training was the lifeblood of his race…something the Elders had taught them long ago, and he wasn’t going to forsake their lessons out of eagerness or worry. Mentally setting aside the task at hand he left the oracle and cleansed his mind of naval concerns as he delved into a myriad of physical training exercises, letting his muscle take priority and drive his purpose for a long period of time.

He returned to the oracle afterwards and found, as he did most times, that his point of view had shifted as a result. Sometimes he lost his previous insights, but this time was one in which a fresh perspective was a welcome change. Reassessing nearly everything he had been trying to do in simulations previously, he went an entirely different way then started pulling back towards what he had originally planned.

He hit the sweet spot somewhere in between…as far as sims were concerned. The real enemy was unpredictable, but the Voku had had enough experience fighting them on the border of their own territory to program a computer enemy that mimicked their fighting styles adequately. Still, there was no way to know for sure what would happen when battle actually commenced aside from wading into it and working the problems as they arose.

Cal-com finished his simulations for the cycle and retreated to another section of the massive ship where he dealt with his subordinates and the maintenance of the vessels and the troops they contained. Such detail work was necessary and he never felt comfortable letting others handle such things, for they could make or break a campaign…and with the Elders specifically requesting they assist the Humans the importance of this campaign could not be overstated.

After that work was done it was time for nourishment and additional training, with him spending time in both physical activities and in simulator work…not the speculative assaults he’d been planning, but in combat games with other members of the crew designed to keep their skills sharp during the long down times in between planetside activity. Cal-com often piloted one of their Stranom mechs in the games and had an average ranking, given that it wasn’t his specialty. That fact that he could hold par impressed those with more experience than him in that type of combat and he liked to mix it up with them in the games, both to gage their capabilities in order to know how to best assess what they could and couldn’t do in missions he’d be assigning them, as well as to push his own skills and learn from those superior to him in their fields of specialty.

When it came to fleet operations he had few equals, so it was usually him instructing and training others, including those on his advisory staff. This cycle there was none of that, with them focusing on the mission prep, so Cal-com satisfied himself by indulging in the games for many hours up until his 79 hour day was complete and it was time he returned to the rest ward.

When he returned to a random tube he sealed it over him and deactivated the gravity with the sound suppression canceling out all exterior interference. In a well-practiced mode, Cal-com retreated within his own mind, cutting out most sensory stimuli and slipping into a vulnerable yet deep rest. The armor plating on the tubes and the internal locking mechanisms insured that no one could mess with him other than offering a soft tone to get his attention. Not having to worry about physical threat the Voku could lower their mental barriers and engage in a healing trance that allowed them to recover far quicker than had they attempted to do so on the battlefield. In only 15 hours Cal-com woke again to a soft, preprogrammed chime which brought him slowly back to reality and barely 30 minutes away from system entry.

Refreshed and fully prepped, Cal-com returned to the oracle just prior to the deceleration of the massive conglomerate against the star, dropping them out of their drifting interstellar jump inside the Skarron-held Achkor System. He triggered his own command center to rise up out of the floor, containing a number of different control stations around which his advisors situated with him taking center position and inspecting the battle feeds while allowing his staff to handle the more basic organizational tasks…leaving him free to watch and react as necessary.

There were no ships in orbit around the star…at least not on the visible side, which meant their entry would go down without incident. Cal-com’s conglomerate was the second in line to decel, with the first having arrived some 20 seconds earlier. Both vessels moved in closer to the star to clear the spacelane for the others to arrive and began a slow transition around the perimeter of the star towards the primary jumpline in to the planet of Zenniza, as the Human charts referred to it.

If there were any hidden Skarron reconnaissance assets they’d see the ships prepping to go in on that line, but as the others came in some of them deployed elsewhere, jumping off to other planets as Cal-com got additional updates from the scout ships that were already in system and now transmitting their updated intelligence to him rather than the burst transmissions they’d sent back along the incoming jumpline to his approaching fleet.

These reports gave him nearly up to date positions of the Skarron fleet and the Voku commander began tweaking his mission assignments. At the moment the conglomerates were still together, but with new orders going out a few tiny pieces began to break off and make microjumps of their own elsewhere in the system. Cal-com wasn’t going for a blunt, break the door down type assault. No, he was much more cagey than that, and was going to work this attack from multiple angles.

So when his conglomerate finally did make its microjump into the planet he had them come out in extreme high orbit, getting their first live sensor feeds and seeing what they were up against.

As expected, there was a huge Skarron fleet spaced in clumps around orbit that was no doubt intended to transition on into the ADZ and supplement the blockading fleets there. Cal-com also detected numerous transport ships in orbit, with him knowing that Achkor was also a ground troop staging system, with those transports potentially full of reinforcements being run into the worlds that the Humans were currently defending. The more of those he could kill in orbit the better, regardless of whether or not they were full.

Using a pedestal before him he added a few more ship assignments to the star to hunt down any transports attempting to flee the system. Even a few taken out could turn the tide in a single ground battle, and he wanted to give the Humans every advantage that he could.

“Renimar?” Hem-ra asked, using his Voku title that was the equivalent of ‘Grand Admiral’ in the Star Wars universe, with the skillset to match.

“Not just yet,” he cautioned. “Let’s see how they react first.”

7

Cal-com watched as the Skarron fleets in orbit began repositioning to assault those conglomerates and pieces of conglomerates that he’d shown to them in orbit, about 7 in total thus far with the others still elsewhere in the system and hopefully out of view. Those he was showing had been intentional, as he was trying to maneuver the Skarrons around to where he liked and after some 20 minutes of repositioning and shuffling on the enemy’s part he finally got the opportunity he was looking for.

“There,” he said to his advisors, pointing to a particular slice of low orbit. “Bring in Dorpa. Full engagement protocols and get us ready to move.”

His staff carried out his orders without so much as a verbal acknowledgement or gesture. The Voku military was notoriously efficient, knowing that delays in combat often resulted in losses of material, personnel, or opportunity. Cal-com watched the orbital displays, seeing the Skarrons continuing to reposition and forming up into larger fleet configurations in order to assault the Voku conglomerates, for they were familiar with this enemy. That Cal-com knew by the way they began arranging their fleet.

It was true that the Skarron Empire was huge and that Voku territory was a considerable distance from here and that in all likelihood none of these enemy troops had ever fought them before, but knowledge had to have traveled across their empire for they were responding to the threat that they knew the Voku to be given their pathetically ineffective attempts to take systems away from Cal-com’s home territory on the lower side of the galactic plane.

These Skarrons knew the Voku and knew they had to mass their fleet together or otherwise be chewed to bits once the conglomerates separated and chased down their ships. Cal-com knew he had a winning hand here, that wasn’t the issue, it was how many ships and soldiers he would lose in the process.

Suddenly there was a microjump into orbit as a streak appeared on the sensors, decelerating rapidly and coming down into a small gap in the Skarron formations. They weren’t aligned yet, still in transition, and the conglomerate came in right at a very bad spot where they were still spread out. Weaponsfire immediately sprouted from the conglomerate in the form of long range Javvens that were condensed packets of energy that were launched in clusters. They appeared to be a beam, but were actually a shotgun of individual orbs.

Those orbs spread out over extreme range, allowing the Voku to at least nip away at distant targets where they didn’t have the necessary accuracy and dozens of Skarron ships were showing hits on their shields within seconds as the conglomerate began to flake off pieces that reformed into hunter squadrons that rapidly accelerated away from the mass to hunt down the ships that the Javven were weakening.

Cal-com highlighted the largest combined Skarron fleet on the near side of the planet and signaled for them to make a tiny jump. Using their binary drives they enhanced Zenniza’s gravity pull and closed distance rapidly, then switched back over to gravity repulsion and braked hard, bringing the full conglomerate into what otherwise would have been the Skarron’s prime kill zone. Cal-com kept his conglomerate intact and fighting as a single mass as he signaled others to start coming in, being the bait for his much larger trap.

The conglomerate’s shields were considerable, but the Skarrons had an idea of what it would take to get through them and they had more than enough ships in the local area so they moved towards the big mass rather than away and hammered it hard. It was a calculated risk for Cal-com, but one that he had made before many times. As that large battle escalated and he watched his shield strength consistently diminish, Skarrons ships were literally being shredded by short range Dwio cascades that essentially threw hundreds of them out like a fountain into the nearby ships.

The Skarrons ignored the losses, going for the big score and even circling ships around to the back side of the conglomerate to keep it from jumping back out. Soon there was a sphere of enemy ships encircling Cal-com and effectively pinning his ship in place unless he wanted to risk a collision…but that’s exactly what he wanted. The Skarron fleet was so close in that he was destroying a lot of it in the exchanges, but he needed it close for the next part of his plan.

With the press of a button the Voku commander activated the conglomerate’s auxiliary IDF and extended it out as far as he could, covering a spherical zone some 17 kilometers in radius and catching about 2/3rds of the Skarron fleet within it. It took an incredible energy expenditure to do it and most of the weaponsfire on the conglomerate shut down to compensate, with what energy they had left over going to recharging the shields, though a few Dwio cascades were still firing.

The IDF created a pocket of space around the conglomerate where external inertia was attributed to the entire field as if it was a single mass. This meant that any acceleration by the conglomerate would drag all the ships within the field with it…but at the moment that wasn’t possible, because the conglomerate’s gravity drives were also located within that field. And because all external forces were applied to the field rather than the contents, they had no gravity effect to push off of.

Nor did the Skarron fleet, leaving them drifting on their last known trajectories.

A few moments after the IDF extended conglomerate chunks began jumping in around it and disintegrating into smaller, faster attack ships that began encircling the Skarron fleet in a much larger sphere. Those ships outside the IDF began engaging the newly arrived ships immediately while the others were stuck in limbo save for conventional thrust which the Skarrons had little of. Those maneuvering engines were reserved for small scale docking adjustments and not capable of true flight, throwing off gasses for minimum thrust. Almost all maneuvering was accomplished by gravity drives, even with the Skarrons not having binaries.

With Cal-com’s conglomerate getting hit hard, the Voku commander held position and the field until his trap was fully deployed then shrank the IDF back down to the dimensions of his ship and the weaponsfire returned…as did the Skarrons’ maneuvering capabilities, but by then there were so many Voku ships inside and outside of them that they had no choice but to fight and die, for there was little opportunity for escape.

In order to preserve as much of his conglomerate as possible Cal-com didn’t have it disengage until the shields finally went down. With the exterior armor beginning to take hits he issued the warning to the crew then began the split along predetermined patterns, for the many pieces of the conglomerate could reconfigure into many ship analogs.

Standing at his command pedestal, Cal-com watched as force fields came up and bisected the oracle, separating the various command crews and containing the atmosphere in each of some 24 segments before the walls started moving and the ceiling and floor disintegrated. Cal-com’s section moved through the conglomerate until it arrived in a new location, with a much smaller oracle forming around it with the walls closing in and reforming into an octagonal shape.

As that happened, similar transitions were happening all throughout the interior of the conglomerate as the massive superstructure reset its internal design to what was needed, breaking apart the giant mothership and essentially ‘building’ the smaller ones. Cal-com hadn’t ordered the smallest possible units, and had kept a sizeable one for himself and two other subcommanders, known as Neppas, but the rest all went into fast, moderately small ships with decent firepower that could stand up to the Skarrons.

In addition to those there were tiny pieces coming off and turning into what were essentially supersized fighters given their speed and agility. Those moved off throughout the Skarron fleet, zipping in and out of ship formations and nipping at their shields for the larger ships to add to later, all the while creating a very chaotic battle environment that left the Skarrons unsure who to target for they weren’t standing still and slugging it out. A ship would move in, exchange fire for a handful of seconds up to a minute, then move on to engage elsewhere at speeds the Skarrons couldn’t follow.

The battle wasn’t short, and took nearly 3 hours to complete. There were so many Skarron ships just in this one location that the area became littered with debris that added ‘terrain’ to the battle, with the last stages involving a hide and seek situation that the Skarrons excelled at. Cal-com had to rein his ships in so they didn’t get too aggressive and fall into traps, for knowing they were as good as dead the Skarrons liked to go kamikaze and take as many of their opponents with them as they could.

Meanwhile there were other battles ongoing in orbit, with some of the Skarron fleets leaving to try and escape planetary orbit. Many made it out, for not all the Voku Neppas had gotten the Skarrons to fall into an IDF trap, but those fights then transitioned to elsewhere in the system because the fleeing Skarron navy ran into a blockade at the star, with so many ships lying in wait that getting to an exiting jumpline was going to be difficult. Given the size of a star it was hard to lock it down, but apparently the Skarrons didn’t like their odds so they redeployed back out into the system and bounced around from planet to planet, attempting to either get away from the Voku or lure them into smaller engagement traps.

That chasing game would continue for weeks, but planetary orbit was secured within a day…save for low orbit. The few Voku ships that poked down there received a hail of surface missiles and had to quickly gain more altitude before they were destroyed.

Cal-com had expected as much. Normally with an enemy once you took orbit you owned the planet. The more advanced races had surfaced defenses, but the Skarrons had for some reason decided to build such capability into their walkers. It was overkill as far as Cal-com was concerned, for it diminished their ground operations and kept them from being as effective as he would have liked had he been their commander, but in this situation it meant that in order to successfully move down into orbital bombardment range they’d have to either suffer the missile fire or take the walkers and surface launchers out first…and there were many of the latter as well, given the well-established Skarron cities on the planet and those had defense shields that would take considerable pounding to get through.

The Skarrons hadn’t amassed such a large empire by being pushovers, Cal-com knew, and given his two obvious choices he decided to go with the ground assault op. Scanning the planet he found several weak regions of coverage and massed ships there, commencing in orbital bombardment of one of the cities and several walker positions and traded Javvens for missiles, rotating his ships out as they became damaged and accepted the hits in order to neutralize the missile launching capabilities in that single surface region.

The walkers went down fairly easily, but the city lasted long enough that Cal-com’s fleet took considerable damage. They had so many missile launchers throwing up ordinance simultaneously that, on his screens, it looked like the enemy was sending a snake up to orbit to bite into his ships. This wasn’t the first time the Voku had done this sort of thing, for they’d counterattacked a few Skarron forward bases near their own territory, but the strength of the surface resistance was always a question mark without detailed intelligence…which he didn’t have here save for what the Humans had provided him.

He’d calculated for more than what they’d reported to be safe, and in fact saw that his estimates had been nearly spot on accurate…which both surprised and worried him. The Skarrons had fortified this city, at least, far more than the Humans knew, or perhaps since they’d last taken a look. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the planet, but this city at least was still going down, yet at a cost of equipment. Cal-com wasn’t going to lose any lives here, given his option for cycling out ships, but many ended up damaged before the city shields fell and the Javven finished taking out the hundreds of missile launchers within the city, often with them popping in ‘small’ explosions visible from orbit.

Those explosions ripped apart sections of the urban landscape with the Javven doing even more damage elsewhere. Cal-com ordered the offensive threats targeted, not the city infrastructure itself. He wasn’t trying to obliterate it, just clear the airspace to establish an LZ. Barbarians the Voku were not, but in this case the city inhabitants happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time…which was right next to their missile launchers.

When the return fire finally ended Cal-com had his damaged ships join the recovery conglomerate that had already started to form from the damaged/destroyed warships in the orbital battle. An intact segment went around and picked up the ‘wounded’ components and incorporated them into the whole, sweeping up even their own debris for crews to salvage or destroy as necessary. Those segments that could be repaired would be, then sent back out into other groupings to enhance them or form new ones. Recovery of damaged ships was essential for campaign longevity, and Cal-com had his fleet get on it immediately following the cessation of weaponsfire.

Once the Skarron city was shredded he sent down fighter squadrons to secure the local airspace against the enemy’s own fighter squadrons which were hovering around the edges of the bombardment zone, not wanting to accidentally get caught up in the downpour. With those fighter engagements paving the way he deployed ground troops, first through direct orbital drops for a number of his mechs, then through full transports that had been brought inside the conglomerates and now freed to fly free.

Those transports landed in the ‘safe’ zone and began offloading more troops and temporary infrastructure, allowing Cal-com to quickly set up a number of surface bases of his own, complete with shield generators and defense towers. Those guarded and created LZs for an even larger flow of troops and supplies to the surface, for the Voku commander was going to have to wage a ground war to secure the planet and he’d brought enough material and resources to make sure he got the job done. Last thing he wanted to do was come up short and have to try and stretch his resources.

He could do it, and had many times before, but he needed to quickly take the planet before the Skarrons in other systems could become the wiser…which was why he had ships stationed near the star to hopefully intercept any couriers they tried to send out, as well as ambush any incoming reinforcements or transports that would have no way of knowing the system had suddenly changed hands.

Information was critical in interstellar warfare, as well as knowing how to exploit the blind spots. The Skarrons didn’t have any known transmission capability between stars and operated explicitly off of couriers. That meant so long as Cal-com could keep any ships from leaving the system he would have a very large timespan to work with here, but let so much as even one ship through and it would just be a matter of time before an even larger Skarron fleet showed up to evict them.

He knew they would come eventually and was already planning for that battle, but the ultimate goal here was to take pressure off the Humans and buy them time…with the more days this system’s change of hands remained a secret meaning the more time he could give them.

And he was confident that if he gave Warlord Paul the time he needed that he would secure their territory. He was young, and didn’t have the wealth of experience that Cal-com had in his 3,832 years of military deployment, but he was smart and innovative and largely responsible for the creation and design of the Human’s navy which, while inferior to the Voku, had an interesting makeup, especially their use of pilot-less drone warships.

Cal-com knew that there was a serious risk of jamming that the Voku would never tolerate, but against the Skarrons and the Cajdital he didn’t think it would be a problem, given the type of comm system that Paul had hinted they were using. Obviously he wasn’t going to give the details of it to the Voku or anyone else, nor should he, given how much the Humans and their Star Force relied upon it. Also, the inclusion of other races into wings of their military was something Cal-com was studying with interest. Typically multi-racial organizations were doomed to self-destruct, but what Paul and his kin had set up seemed to be functional…all the while maintaining an all-Human core, which Cal-com found to be both wise and insightful.

Still, different races gave them different combat options. He could see it in the Skarrons and how they used a smaller race to supplement their own movement and size weaknesses. The Voku were strong in all areas and had never bothered to experiment with bringing in others for a variety of reasons, so Cal-com was very interested in seeing how it played out for the Humans over the long term.

And he intended to give them the time necessary to find out. Achkor was the Skarron’s main supply base to their invasion of the ADZ and as of now it was no longer operational…not to mention the Voku had just destroyed many of the ships slated to reinforce their assault fleets. Give Paul that bit of an assist and Cal-com was confident that he could finish up the rest of them.

That said, it meant that Cal-com had just put the target squarely on his newly captive system…which is exactly the way he preferred it. It was the place of the strong to be in the center of the storm in order to shield the weak, and in this war the Voku were the strong…though personally he didn’t consider the Humans to be weak, just young and needing some time to catch up. The Elders obviously saw merit in them, and even without that incredibly important edict Cal-com would have eventually come to the same conclusion on his own after seeing them fight in their curiously reserved, yet aggressive style of warfare.

8

September 1, 2549

Achkor System

Zenniza

Cal-com set foot on the surface of Zenniza for the first time, landing in their primary LZ that was now safe from enemy interference. Their overland push had consumed nearly half the planet with the Skarrons unable to hold them back. The lack of mobility of their walkers made for easy targets when the Voku could drop more from orbit on a whim, and whenever the enemy’s transports tried to pick up and relocate theirs the Voku fighters would harass them to the point that it was safer to leave the walkers on the ground where their anti-air weaponry could be effective in keeping the fighters back.

They still managed some movement, but mostly it was the Voku on the offensive, hunting down isolated walker groups and hitting cities when they later bunched them up to avoid such poaching. Slowly and efficiently the Voku took out more and more of the surface missile launchers, often attacking a city to destroy those very batteries then pulling back and leaving its conquest for later. Right now the key to the invasion was to get their navy into bombardment position. Once that happened, it was practically game over.

So far as he knew, no enemy ships had managed to leave the system. Many had come in to the star and been subsequently destroyed, but the blockade and the resulting surveillance provided by it had shown no further attempts to get out, meaning that with any luck the rest of the Skarron Empire still didn’t know that the Voku were here. And if they didn’t know they couldn’t send the forces necessary to reclaim it.

Cal-com expected more warships to arrive enroute to battling the Humans, so he knew there would be naval fights to come and there had already been 5 separate battles when small warship groups had arrived. He’d lost a few ships in those ambushes but the Skarrons had been totally wiped out jumping into a system they thought was secure. With his fleet deployed properly in orbit and the land fronts far from the LZ, it was time for the Voku commander to come down and officially lay claim to the planet in a ceremony he’d conducted numerous times before.

Within the conglomerates were also cargo ships carrying all kinds of equipment, some of which had now landed on the planet to deliver specific pieces necessary for a long term occupation. It was those pieces that required activation though they weren’t at the LZ, but rather at a specific site some distance away but still close enough that there was no threat of enemy counterattacks or sabotage.

Cal-com could have flown to the site but he preferred taking a Stranom instead and there were many situated here in reserve so they could be called upon for support or replacement as necessary. The Renimar walked up to one of the egg-shaped material constructs and placed a hand on the activation panel…which quickly caused a dent to form in the material as it reconstructed itself into a small pod. Cal-com stepped inside and turned around, facing out, and pressed another panel that sealed him inside with a flow of moving parts covering him.

From the exterior the giant egg began to transform into a tall bipedal mech with a head that, unlike the Voku’s pointy craniums, was flared out more like a Jackal from ancient Egypt and with a stocky body to match. The exterior armor plating was the last to form, with the tiny segments migrating to the exterior and locking into place forming a smooth, lineless mechanical construct that moved as if it was made of muscle as opposed to the obvious joints in the Human mechs.

Cal-com stood in his pod, with several restriction bands coming out to encircle his body. One wrapped around his head, giving him direct neural access to the Stranom that allowed him to operate it completely by thought. His eyepiece registered the mech’s external sensors and fed the information directly into his visual processing matrix while machinery monitored his neural output, linking him to the machine in such a way that he saw, felt, and fought as the giant device…including light pain stimuli when it was damaged so he could instantly be aware of what was happening to it without looking on a display screen.

That was necessary to fight at speed, and as Cal-com brought the mech online he began accelerating up into a run that he held across the landscape with three other Stranoms encircling him in escort. His people knew better than to ever let him go off alone, even in secured territory, and the constant bodyguards were something that he’d simply adjusted to. He no longer even had to give them orders, they simply went wherever he went when outside a warship. Renimars were rare in the Voku and had to be protected, for losing even one of them would seriously hurt their Empire’s military efficiency.

Cal-com was one of only 29 at present, though that number wasn’t set. The most there had ever been simultaneously in their history was 34, with 7 having since been killed in a variety of ways, two of which had been accidents. Another had chosen to retire from the military and pursue other endeavors, which made him effectively dead to them. To relinquish the responsibilities of a Renimar was equivalent to treason, but that Voku had made his choice and Cal-com chose not to comment on it. He’d been one of his mentors early on and an individual he’d patterned his early years after…but no longer.

With only 29 Renimars for the entire Empire his being sent away from it on this mission was highly irregular. There were always wars being fought, on some level, with the Skarrons being a newer threat arising, so there was always work to do, not to mention dealing with internal matters and advancing their military through training, recruitment, and experimentation.

But the Elders had deemed this a priority so Cal-com had been sent. Keeping him alive was of such importance to the Voku that the light escort was to be expected, though both he and his bodyguards knew he could handle himself in the Stranom…it was the unexpected ambushes they wanted to guard him against, and for those there was no preparation available.

Today that wasn’t an issue for he made his cross country trek at decent speed and without enemy contact, even eventually arriving at the secondary LZ where the precious cargo had already been unpacked and spread out into the necessary arrangement. Being linked in to the Stranom, Cal-com decided to remain inside and let his biotelemetry be transmitted through it rather than going down on foot and doing it the normal way. This was still a battlefield, after all, plus it looked much more imposing to perform the activation ceremony from a mech.

Cal-com walked the mech up to one of the pieces that stood more than twice the Stranom’s height and reached out his giant mechanical hand towards it, placing it palm flat against the device. He opened a comm channel and recited several lines from a story, which also doubled as activation code in addition to his genetic identification. The ‘seed’ piece he was activating could only be done so by a Renimar or, in some limited cases, a Gahmorn, which was the equivalent of a fleet Admiral.

Once Cal-com finished speaking and his genetic ID was transmitted through the physical contact between him and the mech, then the mech and the device, it began to transform. As it did so he walked the Stranom over to the next piece and did the same palm press, but with different activation lines as he continued to recite the story of creation, detailing in metaphor what they were about to do to the planet they were still in the process of invading.

Cal-com went around did the same on all six pieces, then backed away as the final transformation began and the pylons the seed pieces had extruded sought each other out and locked all the segments together, forming one giant mining machine that continued to transform even as it began digging down into the ground beneath it in search of the raw materials that would fuel its growth.

Not everything could be got from one location, however, but there was a tiered hierarchy of seed planting. This location held all of the necessary components for tier one equipment that the giant machine would construct. Those machines would then be taken to other sites to harvest additional resources that would then be brought back to the seed. Those materials would then begin to be incorporated with the others and the creation of tier two machines would begin.

Likewise those would be sent out to find and harvest even more varied compounds, eventually escalating to the point where the seed would have all the necessary requirements for fueling its own growth, becoming bigger and bigger until it was essentially its own city. From there more preplanned stages would occur, with the Hatomek eventually sprouting more secondary seeds of its own that would be taken to distant regions of the planet or nearby planets to begin their growth. The secondary seeds wouldn’t require a Renimar for activation, only the primary, with the lesser ones being activated by high ranked, yet lower personnel in the command structure.

Cal-com had only been given a fixed number of ships and supplies, but in order to buy the Humans the time they needed he was going to have to hold the Achkor System and draw the Skarrons attention away from his allies for an extended period of time. In order to do that he needed to not just bust up Zenniza’s Skarron fleets and infrastructure but actually take possession of it and establish a full Voku presence.

Once he did that and could begin building more ships, mechs, aircraft, etc he could requisition personnel to man them from the Empire, drawing on reserve units and such. It would take time for them to get here, but likewise it would take time for the Skarrons to bring in their reinforcements as well, meaning he had a time game to be played on the supply front and this seed would allow him to build faster than the Skarrons could ever hope to do so.

Cal-com stayed and watched the seed continue to change shape until it finally settled on its necessary form and began pouring dirt and rock out of exterior ports into large piles around it that would eventually form a crater-like ring of material that would double as a defensive barrier. Already there were numerous mechs circling the site with defense turrets and shield generators in place on a wide perimeter to ensure that nothing interfered with the seed’s growth, but having a mass of material to block incoming weaponsfire was always a help.

That wasn’t the purpose of it though, for the seed was having to dig large shafts down into the planet’s crust to get at the resources it needed and that material had to go somewhere. Internal sifting machines sorted through what was being dug out, maintaining the valuable components and discarding the rest, all with a very small onboard control staff that wasn’t technically necessary. The seed could be operated by remote, but Cal-com always preferred to have people inside so they could troubleshoot as necessary.

Once the seed’s final transformation took place that crew boarded and began monitoring the automated process, sending Cal-com a message indicating the initial resource collection rates with a level 3 efficiency rating out of a possible 5. That indicated that this wasn’t the most rich site in natural resources but it was more than adequate for their needs. It also gave Cal-com a generic time estimate to the next phase of the operation.

Satisfied that all was getting underway properly Cal-com signaled his escorts to merge with his Stranom and the three other mechs walked over to his and melted into it. Internally the four pilots’ pods came together and the walls separating them disappeared. Each was still latched into place but the air was open between them allowing them to speak to each other without the use of comms, though there was no chatter here.

Cal-com took priority command of the now larger mech while the other three went into support/observation mode. During combat they would be useful, but right now they were simply extraneous passengers.

Cal-com waited for the much larger version to finish transformation then he looked out through the Stranom’s sensor ‘eyes’ from a much higher vantage point on the seed than he had had before, nearly seeing over the top of it as he raised the mechs arms up over his head in a clenched fist pose and opened the comm and external speakers on the mech and finished the ceremony with the last bit of the story, told in short segments of words with a rhythm intoning the importance of the moment.

When he finished a log amendment was made, indicating that this planet was now part of the Voku Empire, despite the fact that the enemy still controlled most of it, with nearly all the Skarron cities needing to be dealt with. Clipping their orbital weaponry was one thing, but there were troops and workers in them that could still fight and they would have to be dealt with when the time came.

Those cities closest to the seed and the primary LZ had been hit already, with the Skarrons being driven out and allowed to evacuate…or run, to be exact. Some had stayed and fought to the death, while others, especially the Aronsic, and eventually abandoned their posts and fled, many running outside the city with nowhere to go.

Cal-com hadn’t ordered hunting teams to go after them, preferring simply to take the city and eliminate the threat of it while they established their perimeter and their assault teams pushed on to more distant ones, clipping their defenses and leaving the house cleaning for other units to accomplish. That house cleaning was a matter that Cal-com had to deal with next, for they weren’t simply going to slaughter the enemy. Such things were a matter of necessity when your back was to the wall, but here, with the Voku predictably gaining dominance, offering a surrender was protocol and some of the fleeing troops had already submitted when a comm call over their own equipment had made the offer.

For them it was either try and make the long hike overland to the nearest Skarron city, for the Voku air cover wasn’t letting any transports through to pick them up…or face starvation. Many thousands of Aronsic had already been taken captive, with a much larger number to come, Cal-com knew. Accommodations for them had to be made, which the seed would eventually supply. In the meantime temporary prisons had to be fashioned using prefab constructs brought with them, but Cal-com wanted to use one of the captured and not completely destroyed cities for that purpose…which was his next destination.

His oversized Stranom split back up into four standard ones and they ran across the landscape back to the LZ where he boarded a transport while still in the mech and was flown out to the city that he had chosen for the prisoners. He roamed it in what felt like a giant suit of armor, inspecting the construction and adding a few orders here and there based on what he found intact and destroyed, planning out how his prison was to be built and seeing that the first captives were properly secured and fed, using first their own foodstuffs being recovered from the city. Once fully grown into a Hatomek the seed would provide all the Voku-made foodstuffs the prisoners and the assault force would require.

Cal-com stayed there for many hours, then eventually transferred back up to orbit and his command ship, resuming the traditional position of a Renimar…at least until a proper command center was built on planet, but that would be in the distant future, for it was far down the priority list when raw infrastructure was required.

9

February 11, 2550

Achkor System

Zenniza

Cal-com stood in the oracle onboard his command ship, giving the final orders to bring his fleet down into the low end of orbit and to set up for orbital bombardment. His ground troops had succeeded in destroying most of the Skarrons’ anti-orbital missile platforms, though some still remained on the walkers they had stationed in or near their cities. Strike teams had gone into those cities and hit the immobile launchers, knocking them out while leaving the rest of the infrastructure and troops alone. It had taken a long time to pluck the planet of its defense against orbital bombardment, but now was the time to put an end to this assault…one way or another.

Cal-com had already sent a message to the Skarrons, telling them which city they were going to obliterate and the timetable on which they were going to do it, giving them a chance to either surrender or flee…and to date none of the surrender options he’d given to intact cities had been taken. It seemed the Skarrons needed to be bloodied before they would consider that alternative and Cal-com sympathized, for surrender wasn’t in his own vocabulary. That said, what the Skarrons were doing was wrong and they should expect to have to pay a penance for their misdeeds, so when he was giving them the option of living it was something they should take, especially with the recent history between the two races.

But no, the Skarrons in the target city weren’t surrendering nor were they fleeing. Cal-com resigned himself to having to set a bloody example, having already given them forewarning. If they chose to stay and die then that was on them. The bounds of honor had been satisfied, though he didn’t like their stupidity. They had nothing to defend themselves with now, even though a handful of missiles did come up toward his ships as they got into bombardment position just on the border of the upper atmosphere, braking against the orbital drift and hovering in place.

Those missiles were shot down easily, with only an occasional one getting through to knock on their shields. The swarms that made for such an effective defense were no longer here, and as the timer eclipsed the window of evacuation he’d given the Skarrons he issued the order to begin bombardment.

Javven opened up with larger energy packets meant to sustain through the atmospheric friction, landing tiny hits by the hundreds of thousands in a blue/white sparkling rain that ate away at the buildings as if it were acid. Every hit destroyed a bit of the structures and those individuals standing outside. After a few moments a Skarron shield went up covering the city, drawing a bit of a surprise from Cal-com. His reports had indicated that the strike teams had taken it down along with the missile launchers, but apparently the Skarrons had managed to do some repair work…yet it was only showing 36% strength.

Even if it had been at 100% it wouldn’t matter more than a delay. The Javven rain continued to fall and stress the shield, diminishing its strength until the matrix finally broke and the deadly fireworks finally returned to hitting the city structures. They didn’t destroy them quickly, but then again they didn’t need to. This wasn’t a lightning strike with them needing to get in and out before reinforcements arrive. The Skarrons had no one in the system to come to their aid, so Cal-com waited patiently through the multi-hour bombardment without so much as a peep of reply from the Skarrons.

When it was finally finished the Renimar deployed nearby ground troops to the location to clean up what remained in the rubble fields. He needed to make sure the site was secure and couldn’t be used by the enemy for any future operations. That meant every piece of every structure had to be visibly inspected, including subsurface chambers. From orbit he could see that there were no intact buildings remaining, but there may very well have been extensive bunkers below that the enemy could hide out in.

Those would have to be probed and eliminated, then the recovery crews would begin moving in and taking bits and pieces of the rubble away to a nearby machine that was already beginning to travel their way. It was a recycling mining station that would both clear away what was left of the Skarron city as well as use those resources within the rubble for the Voku, sifting, sorting, and condensing them down into bricks of pure materials that would then be shipped off to the Hatomek.

Any surviving Skarrons recovered would be taken away to the prison facilities and kept there rather than simply being annihilated. Already Cal-com was collecting quite a few from battling units that got caught out in the open without anywhere to flee and he guessed that number would increase drastically once the destruction of this city was seen by the others across the planet. With the bombardment complete he issued an ultimatum to the next three, each with individual timetables, and began repositioning his fleet towards the location of the next one on his hit list.

It was two weeks later when the first large Skarron fleet finally arrived in the system, though Cal-com didn’t think they were here to fight him…but rather to transfer out to fight the Humans and their allies. When their long convoy first began to arrive the warships were jumped immediately, but their numbers pooled to the point where Cal-com’s ambushing fleet needed assistance with him bringing portions of the main fleet out from the planet to reinforce them, his ship included because he didn’t want to have to direct the fighting through signal lag.

Upon making a microjump back to the star his partially reformed conglomerate split up and moved off to engage the Skarron warships that were still continuing to arrive. Many of them were already destroyed with a massive debris field forming, but the others were arriving outside of it and getting enough forewarning that they began deploying into attack groups to counter the Voku.

Cal-com had sufficient forces to deal with them, but what he couldn’t do was contain them all. They were certainly up for a fight, but he regrettably noticed several make jumps back out, no doubt carrying word of the Voku presence in the system that so far he’d managed to keep a lid on.

With no way of stopping them he focused on destroying those that were here now and worked through most of them before the last of their convoy even arrived. The remainders went down easily enough given the mass of Voku ships waiting for them, then it was back to recovery operations…first for his own ships that had been damaged/destroyed, then bringing out ships to tear apart the Skarron wreckage and begin recycling it. Every bit of refined material that they could collect without having to mine was invaluable, plus they needed to clear the space around the star for navigational purposes.

Anything left behind deemed not of value would pushed into a descending trajectory into the star to be rid of it, but there was very little material that the Voku did not use, with the pushing being relegated to gas and dust fields that could interfere with navigation at high speeds. Those clouds were contained within an enlarged IDF field and dragged onto a collision course with the star before being released to drift on their new trajectory. The process was tedious, but necessary to maintain movement options.

In the past Cal-com had been involved in a number of campaigns where he deliberately created debris fields around a star in specific locations to give his fleet some ‘terrain’ to operate within, as well as to block certain jumplines. While it was true that a ship could jump from any point on the line, meaning they didn’t have to be in close to the star, the further away you were the weaker the gravity got and the less push you would get per jump. That forced his enemies to travel at slower speeds coming in and out of the system, and that was one of many different advantages that he’d used to win campaigns in the past…but for now he wanted this star clear, so his ships diligently went about removing the debris field and chasing down the bits of it that had drifted out to considerable distance.

With them beginning their work and an adequate ambush fleet in place to catch any more ships arriving in the system, Cal-com took the rest of the ships back to the planet and continued with the orbital bombardments of the now evacuated cities. The Skarrons didn’t want to surrender but had gotten the clear message that they were going to die if they stayed so prior to each attack there were long overland convoys of evacuees pouring out and traveling at high speed to the nearest city or outpost, or in some cases just into the countryside to avoid the deadly rain that was about to fall.

Those that headed towards other cities Cal-com ordered to be left alone. Those that headed out to nowhere he had engaged and a surrender forced upon them whether they agreed or not. Some died but many were taken prisoner and added to his haul of captives, for which he had to continually expand the prison facilities, but with the Hatomek up and running that was never an issue…only what else he could or couldn’t build due to the delay of resources.

It took another 5 months to completely secure the planet, with the last city choosing to fully surrender prior to the orbital bombardment. Cal-com went down to the surface in a Stranom to personally oversee the surrender and make sure the enemy didn’t have any tricks up their sleeve…but the truth was they were whipped and didn’t care to die. A sensible mindset to have given their circumstances, though they did find many bodies within the city of those who chose death over surrender.

Those were all Skarron bodies, not Aronsic, and Cal-com looked at them with disgust. Death was failure, not honor. If the enemy killed you then at least you had the dignity of going out fighting, but this…this was a betrayal of all that the Voku stood for and it disgusted him.

He took those with more sense and had them moved to the prison facilities, leaving the city intact for his own people to begin working on. They would clear out all the trash first then begin disassembling the components and recycling them, eventually tearing down everything and leaving nothing but a large hole in the ground where the subsurface structures were.

The same was being done across the planet, with the Voku removing everything Skarron that they weren’t currently using. The prison facilities would be the last to go, but eventually even those would be replaced with Voku construction and every trace of Zenniza having been a Skarron world would be eradicated. The planet and system were now part of the Voku Empire and they would look as such, with every building and structure that Cal-com created strengthening their foothold here, including some very large defensive weapon platforms beginning to be constructed on the surface that would be capable of reaching up into orbit.

Time…time was the key factor here. Given enough and Cal-com could lock down the system permanently, but he knew he wasn’t going to have decades to work with. The Skarrons were being alerted to their presence even now and the Renimar had no way of knowing how far back into their territory that message would have to travel until it got to a fleet nexus that could divert the necessary response ships their way.

He had his ships on a keen lookout for any scouts to enter the system, but to date none had arrived. Many more Skarron ships had, coming in on previous orders without realizing the change of hands, but in the past month they had had none arrive…telling Cal-com that word had at least gotten to the nearest links in the chain and those convoys stopped before disappearing into the maw that Achkor had become.

Knowing that the convoys could be redeployed around the system to still get to the front, Cal-com sent out scout ships of his own to the neighboring systems to wait and watch, not to jump them but to detect them when/if they came through. Once he had that information he could start to play blocker and even give the Humans a heads up to what was coming. He’d had some contact with them recently, with them informing him that they were extending a link of their interstellar communications system out to the system so they could stay in more reliable communication, both ways. When that happened they could coordinate somewhat effectively, but he already knew that the pressure on their worlds under blockade was weakening. If Cal-com could maintain the break in reinforcements another year or so he guessed the weakening would snowball and the Humans would break through.

But he couldn’t make that assumption, given that now the Skarrons knew of their problem and would seek to work around it. Cal-com had to find their new supply lines and shut them down, and in order to do that he had to put ships out into dozens of systems and physically look, augmented by some detection stations he was having constructed. Little more than permanent sensor probes, they would be able to monitor stellar traffic within line of sight, but his available resources were still low and most were going towards projects on planet, leaving him having to send out a small chunk of his fleet to manually monitor the possible routes.

It was another 3 months before he got his first hit. A ship returned to Achkor with a report of a Skarron supply convoy with warship escort passing through a system some 24 lightyears away from Achkor. Cal-com immediately dispatched an assault force to lay in ambush for the next one to come through, but he wasn’t going with it. Achkor was going to be his base of operations with him needing to remain here, meaning he was going to have to direct regional actions through intermediaries. He trusted his senior commanders with naval intercepts, but always liked to do everything himself when possible.

Waiting for word was always troublesome, but eventually another two reports of supply routes from other scout ships had him breaking up his fleet further to send assault groups out into ambush position. None of the enemy came to Achkor, but they were out there, he knew, and would come eventually. Having assault groups missing when that occurred worried him, but he had to keep the pressure off the Humans and that meant he couldn’t turtle up here and hold out. He had to extend his reach and become a major blocker to the Skarrons and hope the Humans could take care of things behind that naval umbrella.

The first report of combat came back positive. A ship returned with a kill count indicating an ambush had went down with disastrous results for the enemy. It had been a warship convoy, but his fleet had intercepted them beautifully and chewed them apart before they could fully arrive in the system, ending up with a 97% kill count.

It was those other 3% that Cal-com didn’t like. He didn’t fault his troops for that after watching the battle telemetry, but it meant that those surviving ships that had fled would cause the convoy route to change again. Had they got them all there would be no way of knowing that the Voku were there poaching and he’d hoped they’d get at least a short span of easy takedowns, but that wasn’t going to be the case this time.

The next report he got was more favorable…a supply convoy coming through one of the other routes that was completely annihilated as it tried to run. A surrender option had been given and decline, which Cal-com had demanded. The Voku were not going to become predators shooting up ships that had nowhere to go, but if the enemy didn’t take that offer they’d been instructed to blow them away. There was only so much mercy he was going to give to the enemy, and it was more about his troops being in the right than his concern for the enemy that had him issuing those orders.

Finally a scout ship entered the Achkor system, a Skarron ship, and was intercepted before it could flee. It was damaged and captured on his orders, with the crew all dying save for six due to decompression issues. Those he added to his prisoner count, but it was the ship itself that he wanted. A thorough look at its computer systems gave him some information about where it had come from and some fleet movements with him being able to identify a link in their chain further in towards the core and potentially the location where the hammer blow would come from when the Skarrons got around to coming back to reclaim Achkor.

Cal-com dispatched a small scout fleet to that system to poke around and see what they could find, again having to wait weeks or months to get a report back. During that time the link to the Human relay grid was finished with two separate transmitters being brought in by the Humans and deposited in high and odd orbits that would make it difficult for the Skarrons to get to without binary drives.

Those relays were adjusted to interface with the Voku comm systems then the Humans left again, leaving Cal-com with a faster communication option with his allies than courier ship would have allowed, though messages still took weeks to travel across the grid.

What it did gain him was continuous reports of what the Skarrons were doing on the ADZ border and a private line to Warlord Paul, with both of them beginning to exchange a large amount of information on a regular basis. Each respected the other for their skills, but over time that respect mutually grew as they plotted out the next phases of the war, pulling on both of their experience and skills and running ideas past each other.

During that time Warlord Paul also broke the Skarron blockade of the Dvapp world he’d been defending, just as Cal-com had expected him to if he’d provided him with an opportunity. Hopefully the rest of the Humans and their allies could do the same in the coming years. In the meantime he had a planet and system to fortify, with him sending a ship back with requisition requests…for as his infantile shipyards came online he was going to need more personnel to fill them, along with the myriad of other positions in his fleet and on the planet as it started to grow into a full Voku battle colony.

10

November 30, 2550

Reesi System (Beta Region)

Metropolis

Megan stood in the command nexus on the planet, safely inside one of the cities on their secure continent. The Skarrons still retained theirs and the fighting was now on the third, with Star Force holding its own and keeping the Skarrons contained to the southern chunk with combat operations going round the clock. The trailblazer was still mounting sabotage missions to the Skarron continent but most of her efforts were focused on the center of fighting and in keeping the enemy off of theirs.

Right now the Skarrons were making another push in orbit, with Megan dancing her defense fleet around between Sentinels and killing what ships she could. With Skarron transports coming down towards their continent they were hoping to bait her fleet out into the open to engage it…otherwise she’d have to let the transports land uncontested. She wasn’t about to do either, so she was personally handling the navigation for a number of ships in order to get them to make an in-atmosphere strike run underneath the Skarron fleet.

Meanwhile she had another group make a strike up into a higher orbit, essentially backdooring the enemy as they focused on low orbit. They had so many ships that it wasn’t easy pickings, but even if she could manage a few kills it would be worth it. Until now they’d had too many in position there to risk it, but now with the trap they were setting having repositioned some of them it was time to try.

She let one of her naval commanders handle that strike, for right now the Skarron ambush fleet was coming down towards atmosphere hard as the ships she’d sent after the transports tore fiery meteor plumes through the air as the friction mounted on their shields. They hard braked against every gravity well they could find and stopped short of ramming the transports, ending up a couple of kilometers beneath them and in prime position to strike.

The Skarron escort warships moved off immediately, but Megan had sent enough ships…18 in all…that they were met and challenged, leaving some 6 drones free to pursue the transports and hammer them hard at close range with Talon cannons after the maulers stripped their shields off. Within 20 seconds the first of them tilted off course and out of control, falling into a death spiral that would land it in the ocean and hopefully away from any aquatics units or infrastructure down there.

Megan wasn’t overly concerned about that, for the water itself acted as a shield against impacts if it was deep enough. A brief look at the battlemap told her that particular area of ocean was clear of friendlies so she concentrated on the other transports while the higher drones quickly cut apart the Skarron escorts. Higher up the ambush fleet was coming down into the upper atmosphere after them, forcing Megan to make a choice…bring the rest of her fleet down as well and fight it out there or let the Skarrons move about with impunity, hoping they’d go back up after the transports were either destroyed or landed safely.

Frowning, she was about to issue the orders for her ships to come down in-atmosphere as well, because she couldn’t give the enemy the chance to strafe ground troops if they were so inclined, but before she could issue the thought a notice beeped in her mind, letting her know that there was activity at the star. A quick glance indicated that there were ships incoming, signal lagged, but otherwise occurring in realtime. She expected more Skarron reinforcements after such a long drought without them, but then she was relieved to see Star Force ID tags begin popping up.

She began composing new orders to be sent to them, indicating where she wanted them to hit…for with a chunk of the Skarron fleet in atmosphere and additional Star Force ships in play they had an opportunity in orbit so long as the Skarrons didn’t get too belligerent down on the planet. Megan almost sent the order, then stopped when she saw that one of the incoming ships was a command ship…and it was the Excalibur.

Grinning like an idiot, Megan recomposed her message into a short two sentence request and sent it off…then turned her attention back to the Skarron fleet in-atmosphere.

They were descending fast, trying to get to the few remaining transports that had yet to be shot down, or more likely trying to get to the ships that had done the damage in order to exact revenge. The closest Star Force city was some 2,000+ miles away from their location, but that distance wasn’t all that comforting. It was true that it would take them some time to get there moving in the friction of the atmosphere, but Megan had to do something to stall them from whatever they intended.

The trailblazer dispatched some two dozen additional drones from orbit and sent them shooting down into the atmosphere towards the Skarron fleet, knowing they’d see them coming but also know that those few ships wouldn’t be enough to stop them. They’d be wondering what she was doing and hopefully that confusion would stall them. If not, she could harass them with the ships and maybe get in a few kills…or if necessary fly them straight into the maw and slug it out. Whatever she did she had to keep the enemy fleets split so Paul could work his magic up top.

Eventually two Skarron transports made it to their LZ on the Skarron continent, with the atmosphere lighting up with missile launches as the walkers on the ground fired on the drones. Their anti-air and shields held up well, enough for the warships to redeploy towards the descending enemy fleet, which cut out the missile fire from the walkers didn’t want to risk hitting their own in the brawl that was about to ensue.

Megan didn’t want to count on their good sense so she reconfigured the drones’ shields into needle points and aimed them sky high. With a boost from their gravity drives the drones shot up through the Skarron formation, creating some significant atmospheric disturbance on the way by that buffeted the enemy ships a bit, then the drones peaked in the upper atmosphere above the enemy fleet and began firing back down on them with their own missiles and rail guns, for at the moment they were outside of both plasma and mauler range.

A portion of the Skarron fleet moved up to engage them while the rest continued descending down to the surface, intent it seemed to lay claim to their continent there and perhaps drift over to the neighboring ones for some naval support of their ground troops. Megan ignored that for the moment, hoping the timing for everything worked well, but she sent a warning ahead to the closest troops telling them to be prepared to scatter if it came to that.

Just then a ship jumped into orbit…right into the midst of the mid level enemy fleet. Megan saw it was the Excalibur as the battlemap updated and the command ship began targeting the enemy blockade directly before any of its escorting warships jumped in and began deploying drones in a flurry of activity. The big donut-shaped ship literally advanced up to pointblank range and opened up with every weapon system it had, tearing apart the Skarrons as they quickly moved to arrange themselves into a conical formation so they could pound the Human ship for its arrogance.

But behind it came many Warship-class jumpships, all spewing drones like a hive and sending little bees out to surround the command ship as it continued to push forward into the enemy lines. The smackdown the Skarrons had expected to give to the command ship soon turned into an even fight…then a not so even one as Megan’s warships in low orbit came up to assist and caught the Skarrons in a pincer movement. For a while they decided to fight it out, then with more and more ships coming in from the star the enemy broke ranks and fled en mass.

Both Megan and Paul sent ships after them, killing many on site before they could get to adequate jumplines, then tracking down others as they ran across the system…with Paul having left a few ships behind at the Star in ambush for just such a retreat. Those ships got many kills as the Skarrons fled right towards them, but some of the enemy ships made it past and out…with the majority scattering around the system and being hunted down in the coming days.

The enemy fleet in atmosphere chose to hold position, fighting off the few drones that Megan had originally sent after them and then taking up permanent residence in the sky over their controlled continent. They didn’t advance to the contended one or Star Force territory, merely sitting and daring the Star Force ships to come down and get them…which would bring them within the firing range of their walkers.

It was the best tactical play the enemy had and a sticky one. Megan couldn’t let them stay down there, for it would be too easy to drift over and start shooting surface targets. She could bring her own ships down over their continent and play a chess game in-atmosphere, but hovering warships ate up a lot of fuel so it wasn’t something they could maintain indefinitely…nor could the Skarrons.

That said the smaller ships could stay there for weeks with their current fuel loads, so for the moment it was a good play for the Skarrons. What they would do after that point was up in the air, but for the moment it looked like they had good position to survive and become a nuisance until the figured out what to do next.

Megan was about to have a chat with Paul about their next move when the Excalibur suddenly dropped out of mid orbit and headed down to the atmosphere in a slow jump, braking just prior to the planet’s boundary and sinking into the gasses like a boulder being thrown into a pool of water.

“You son of a bitch,” she said in a whisper as she watched him take the monstrous ship down with a host of drones following it at a safe distance to avoid the violent disruption in the air…not to mention the mountain of missiles coming up at it from the walkers on the surface.

The command ship’s huge mass and heavy shields ate up the missile fire with ease while the fiery wall of air in front of it destroyed or shook off many of them. Then when it finally slowed and came into weapons range of the Skarron fleet the missile damage began to add up and the big ship’s shields began to weaken, but as they did the drones caught up and kept to the blind spot it was creating for them before zipping around its hull and engaging the Skarron warships and walkers head on.

Sitting there literally daring the enemy to shoot him down, Paul took the naval fight into the atmosphere and littered the landscape with the hulks of the enemy ships who couldn’t maneuver half as well as the drones could in atmosphere. Paul used that maneuverability to his advantage with Megan wisely letting him assume control of all naval forces insystem while she began organizing ground troops for an insertion onto the Skarron continent.

Gravity grapples shot out from many of the walkers below, tugging down some of the drone warships but they couldn’t do anything to the command ship. In a costly battle to both sides Paul used his drones like a disposable hammer to stun and delay the enemy fleet while the Excalibur killed them, accounting for nearly a third of all the enemy warship kills and then began hammering the nearby walkers that simply didn’t have the necessary firepower to take it down.

With its shields hanging on at 7% and beginning to recharge, Paul dismissed most of the surviving drones back up to orbit to keep them safe before drifting his command ship across the Skarron continent, taking down additional walkers and strafing enemy LZs and the infrastructure they’d begun assembling, some of which was quite far along given the newness of this invasion campaign. He got ID tags from Megan’s sabotage teams on the continent and made sure to avoid shooting anything near them, but otherwise just strolled his big ship across the countryside like a scene out of Independence Day shooting anything that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Megan let him go and concentrated on other ground aspects, seeing that he was simultaneously overseeing the hunting teams elsewhere in the system. Within a few hours she had flocks of dropships taking off from safe zones and carrying mechs towards a new LZ on the Skarron continent that an aquatics team had just carved out, mounting a quick assault on an enemy shoreline outpost and securing it and the nearby area by taking out the three enemy walkers that had been present.

That was the foothold she was going to use to start taking back their territory. She wasn’t sure how long Paul was going to keep the command ship in atmosphere, but as long as he was out doing his thing she was going to take advantage of it and grab up some quick gains that, for the past two and a half years, had seemed virtually impossible to attain.

As Paul had reminded her many times, in the rock/paper/scissors contest of interstellar warfare…naval beats everything.

“Hey,” Paul finally said some hours later as his holo popped up in Megan’s nexus. “Sorry for the kill steal.”

Megan grinned. “No you’re not.”

“You’re probably right,” he said straight faced.

“How long you sticking around?”

“As long as it takes to secure the planet, then we’ve got other Dvapp worlds to cleanse before this lull ends.”

“Any idea how long that will be?”

“Permanently if the Voku get their way, but there’s no way the Skarrons are going to accept this defeat. If they’ve got the ships available they’re going to hit back. Question is how far away are those ships going to come from and how much time do we have.”

“Same old same old,” Megan said, feeling like they were back to square one.

“Not quite. Aside from Randy losing a Sentinel all the others on this front are still intact and we’re adding to their numbers. Give us a few more years and the Skarrons are going to have a lot harder time running troops down to planet.”

“Especially if we can spam the system with drones.”

“That’s on my Christmas list as well. No, I think the hammer is going to come down on Achkor. If we have enough time to clean up the front, I want to be in a position to help them.”

“We definitely owe them,” Megan agreed.

“Can you stay insystem and build or are you going to redeploy?”

“After all we did to save this world I’m not abandoning it now. Give me the time and we’ll get it buttoned up.”

“Deal,” Paul said with finality. “I’ve got a few more hours of ground time with the Excalibur then I’m heading back to orbit. We’ll work on the rest of the walkers from there.”

“How much fuel did you burn?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Still, that’s a pretty sick move. Sorry I didn’t do something like that sooner.”

“Not such a good idea when you have an enemy fleet over your head,” he reminded her.

“Still, I’m skittish over bringing any large ship in-atmosphere. If you don’t have a good pilot that can account for the medium turbulence…”

“This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision,” Paul said, cutting her off with a grin.

“One of your side projects?”

“Something like that.”

Megan stared at his holo for several long seconds. “You took the helm.”

“Wasn’t going to trust anyone else on that fast of a descent. Not my first time either with a command ship.”

“Why am I even surprised?”

“Good question,” Paul mocked.

Megan sighed. “Terrible 2s.”

“Have you seen the training logs?”

“Whose?”

“I’ll take that as a no. Might want to take a look at Jason and Emily’s progress.”

“Oh?”

“Jason passed me up a month ago, and Emily is almost ready to tie me.”

Megan’s eyes went wide. “Holy crap. Who’s on top now?”

“Aaron by a level over Jason.”

“I’ve been so busy I haven’t checked…though I can see why you’d make time. Back to number 2…no, make that 3 now?”

“Four, actually. Morgan caught back up.”

Megan couldn’t help but laugh. “Knew that was coming.”

Paul glared at her. “More a result of me spending way too much time in a nexus.”

“I hear you there,” Megan said, losing a bit of her merriment. Like Paul she’d been trying to oversee every operation personally in order to tweak things to get whatever small advantages she could buy them.

“Two, maybe three days?”

Megan cringed. “Probably more like 4. Got a lot to do down here.”

“Four then,” he said, referring to them getting together for a decent training session. “You got any ground ops I can jump into? The kids can drive the car from here on out.”

“A few, but I’m going to have to stay back and quarterback.”

“Send me the list. I need to get my commando mojo back on. Been stuck in space the entire time with the Dvapp.”

Megan slowly shook her head in dismay.

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, actually. Good to have you around again.”

“Likewise.”

“List will be coming. Right now…”

“…bad guys to kill,” Paul finished.

“And if you don’t mind, have your student driver swing by this location,” she said, sending him coordinates, “before you pull out.”

“Will do.”

“And do you have any ground troops in that thing?”

“Afraid not. The Excalibur has been on a strictly naval mission. But you’ve got me now, so throw me at something tough.”

“You know I will,” she said, cutting the comm and immediately digging into the mission files searching for something worthy of his skills. She knew they’d catch up later in person, but right now they had a war to fight and she needed the badass trailblazer out there racking up a kill count. The enemy fleet may have been eliminated, but the war on Metropolis was far from over.

Bloodlust

1

May 1, 2552

Gamu System (Delta Region)

Mensqua

Jamka waited patiently as the Lemickas vendor counted out the Critel’s currency chips, a somewhat unusual procedure given the electronic banking systems the ADZ worlds used but spacers were notorious for preferring hard currency, especially when they dealt with various races. Given that the Lemickas sold a good percentage of their products to spacers they had a well-established system in place to handle large currency transfers…which always required at least two counts.

Jamka watched as the shorter Lemickas ran his Star Force credits through a machine that counted for him the second time, shoveling the small stacks into the input cone and watching them disappear inside. Each credit had an electronic signature inside the durable shell of the palm-sized currency, identifying which coin it was and what value it had. Given the two bags worth that the Critel had laid on the counter the Lemickas had opted for the machine rather than a hand count.

Most of the credit coins Jamka had given him were large, but given that he was purchasing starships that was to be expected. Most of the coins were 1,000 credit triangles, but there were a handful of 10,000 thicker triangles thrown into the mix plus a lot of lesser valued coins that brought the two bags’ full total to what the purchase cost of the 6 vessels would be, given that Jamka had counted them out himself earlier.

Once the vendor confirmed the exact price was paid it transferred ownership records to Jamka and gave him a physical pass card that would allow him to take possession. Without another word the Critel left the vendor and headed off through the shipyard. The interior was a massive commerce hub, designed and built by the Lemickas to facilitate their business, with the actual construction slips for their starships spaced around it in clumps. Some of them held completed starships, others held those still being built or refurbished.

Jamka’s new purchases were located in two different holding areas, with him headed first for the communal areas where his crewers were waiting for him. They were a mix of Critel and four other races, but all had worked for him for multiple years and they were individuals he could trust. Less savory individuals that his business relied upon to function had been left behind to be picked up later, for the last thing he wanted was for one of his new purchases to go missing as soon as they left the system.

As crazy as that sounded it wasn’t unheard of. There was corruption and backstabbing going on every day in the ADZ, and while there were no outright wars going on inside thanks to Star Force’s restrictions on such things and their willingness to throw their superior tech around in order to enforce them, everything else was practically a free for all so long as you didn’t poke the sleeping giant.

Those areas where Star Force had no presence, which was most of the ADZ, the local races controlled or ‘claimed’ to control their societies, but largely it was all a jumbled, chaotic mix of cultures, codes, and lawlessness. Jamka had heard plenty of stories of ships going missing from other spacers’ fleets for a variety of reasons, but usually it was either pirates or an inside job.

Now would be a perfect opportunity for someone to steal one of his new purchases, with only a handful of people to form skeleton crews, which was why he’d pulled several of his most trusted employees off their current assignments in order to bring them here to man the ships as they took them back to base.

Jamka rounded up his shippers from the lounging and entertainment areas, allowing them a few minutes to finish up their meals, then took them straight to the restricted sections of the shipyard that his pass card got them into. As a group they walked through the more or less deserted corridors until they came to another vendor station where Jamka presented his credentials.

After a quick check he was given access to one of the nearby airlocks that connected to the first of the starships he’d purchased. He boarded with three of his crew, inspecting the medium-sized cargo hauler and finding all was in order. The Critel left the crew onboard to do a more thorough inspection and proceeded to the next ship on his recent purchase list, leaving behind three more there and at the other ships he eventually got through checking.

Jamka stayed onboard the last, intent on commanding that vessel out of Lemickas territory himself. He proceeded with a full inspection and conferred with the other temporary Captains, finding everything in order. He’d expected no less given the Lemickas’ reputation for craftsmanship, but he’d learned long ago not to take anything for granted.

The ship he’d taken was the smallest of the six and the only warship. It was designed for a crew of 60, but him and the seven others with him would be enough to get it moved out of the system and back to their base in the Vannsep System. He’d only come to this world to make the purchase, but otherwise did no business here. Mensqua had a minimal Star Force presence, as all Alliance worlds did along the borders between the 8 regional slots, but they also possessed a planet of their own in the system and that kept a lot of shenanigans from going on.

On the downside, that meant that a lot of the local economies relied on the Star Force markets and there was little business opportunity there for Jamka’s fleet. He serviced areas of the ADZ where Star Force had no economic presence, or rather where they had so little that they couldn’t meet the full demand. That accounted for most of the ADZ, but not this system. The Lemickas had two territorial slots on this world and were in the process of securing a third from a deal in the works with the Densan, who were trying to consolidate their own holdings into a few, highly developed regions and selling off the others for an exorbitant price.

Word was they were currently haggling over that price, but once the deal was settled the Densan would leave the planet and the Lemickas would expand into the new region. Such shuffling was occurring on a slow, but steady basis throughout the ADZ as the various powers sought advantage over the others. The Lemickas were choosing to develop Mensqua specifically because of the Star Force planet in the system because it offered them a much greater resource base than the limited facilities on Mensqua…and the industrious little race of bipeds was buying up everything they could from the Humans and using it to fuel their own shipbuilding industry.

That industry was larger than Star Force’s own now, given that they built quality ships that undercut Star Force’s prices by a hefty margin and there was such a huge market for ships within the ADZ that no one faction could supply it all. Most races preferred to spend their limited resources on that which would give them the most return in the ongoing power games being played on the economic front, and in most cases they didn’t want to suffer the expense of building their own shipyards when there was a much cheaper and efficient means of purchasing starships from a nearby vendor.

The Lemickas were happy to be one of only a handful of such large scale providers and Jamka bought exclusively from them. Star Force ships were preferred, but they were far too expensive. The Lemickas built solid ships that he could rely on and still make a profit…besides, Star Force queues were so backlogged that he’d have to wait years to get a purchase order from them. So much of their production was going to the warfront now that the Lemickas and a handful of others had actually surpassed them as the primary starship vendors within the ADZ.

They also built warships, which Star Force did not sell. Jamka needed another because the piracy rates were beginning to creep up amongst his competitors. His own fleet hadn’t been hit yet, but he was having to run some convoys without an escort and that was something he literally couldn’t afford to do much longer. Star Force ships were constantly on the prowl in Alliance systems and their own, but with the fronts sucking so many of them away the pirates had gotten a bit bolder…sometimes too bold and Star Force would nail them, but the successful strike rates were climbing and in truth most of the other races didn’t care so long as they didn’t hit any of their shipping lines.

That left independent shippers like Jamka as easy prey if they couldn’t defend themselves…and given the fact that virtually all of his business occurred well away from Star Force’s fleet he needed the ability to fend off at least light attacks and perhaps scare others away before they could happen.

Jamka would have brought one of his current warships into the system to escort the cargo ships out if he hadn’t been purchasing one of his own today. He’d brought along enough crew to be able to fly and shoot at the same time, but he didn’t expect any trouble here. No, if there was to be any pirate activity it would be in transit or at their eventual destination.

Once all six ships were checked and prepped, Jamka had his fleet move off from the shipyard and gradually transition over to the stellar jumpline. They made a group microjump out to the double stars at system center, ending up at the larger of the pair and transitioning around to their exiting jumpline. Running their drives nearly as high as they would go, the Lemickas-built ships launched themselves into a slow jump without the benefit of a jumpship.

It would take nearly 3 weeks for the first leg of their journey and some 8 in total before they arrived at their home base, but the ability to free fly through the ADZ without having to own a jumpship or purchase a berth on one was something that could never be overvalued. Star Force’s ADZ transit system would have gotten them to their destination within 2 weeks, but the cost of taking all six ships in the hold of a jumpship was far more expensive than the fuel and time he would expend traveling independently. It was one of the reasons for the profit margins he had, for Star Force vessels available for sale didn’t have the drives strong enough to make independent jumps.

That wasn’t due to a lack of tech, but because they built them small and efficient knowing that they’d only need to make insystem microjumps. Those independent shippers that went that way utilized either their own jumpship fleet or, more likely, purchased travel berths on the grid, giving them faster shipping times but much more costly ones.

And Jamka’s customers valued cost more than they did time.

They also valued not having to deal with Star Force in any way, shape, or form, especially if some of the cargos they were having shipped didn’t match up with ADZ protocol.

Jamka knew better than to risk that, so he kept his fleet clean of any obvious contraband…at least anything large enough to stand out to a casual inspection. Small items, a few individuals seeking to go unnoticed…that sort of thing was standard practice and considered a small risk, but Jamka wasn’t going to go any further, for the stories of how Star Force had dealt with previous violations had put the fear into many independent shippers. ‘Break their rules and they take your ships’ was their standard practice…and they wouldn’t return them, essentially putting you out of business for the first offense.

Several large shippers had had their entire operation shut down by Star Force, with their Archon strike teams coming in and blowing through any personal security they’d had in place. No, the wise knew to avoid Star Force and their code of conduct…and be extremely clean whenever operating under their gaze.

Technically the entire ADZ was under their code, so there was always a risk of them finding out about violations and coming down on you for them, which was why Jamka wasn’t going to risk his fleet on anything obvious. That said, when operating in the shadows you had to let a few small violations slip by just to pick up some extra credits.

The systems that Jamka’s small convoy moved through were inhabited save for one, which made it the biggest risk of getting jumped. When they arrived there were a scattering of other ships in transit as well, but none came near to his and he made sure they spent as little time as possible making the transition around the star to their outgoing jumpline. After that the chance of pirate raids was less, but he knew better than to ever let his guard down.

Eventually he arrived back in the Vannsep System, which had no Star Force presence whatsoever. It was a Lacvamat system, with three inhabited planets, one of which belonged to the Reen. The system itself had been given to the Lacvamat along with 5 others for them to colonize independently, putting them on par with the Scionate, Dvapp, and Hycre colonies that existed without Star Force assigned territorial slots on Alliance worlds.

The Reen had negotiated with the Lacvamat to get their own planet in the system. It wasn’t a very good world, barely habitable for their race, but it was their own and outside of Star Force’s leash. Technically they still had to obey the same rules given that they were in the ADZ, but Star Force had no outpost in the system, making it a defacto ‘free’ zone, though with the Archons able to snoop about one never knew when or if they’d come down on you.

On occasion you’d hear of a clandestine raid that scooped up somebody from somewhere, but for the most part Vannsep was Star Force-free territory…with all the economic opportunities that entailed.

Jamka brought his six ships into orbit around Leerbot, one of the two Lacvamat planets, where he had a private space station. He might be an independent shipper, but he wasn’t one of the smaller ones. The station they were about to dock with held over 50,000 of his people and serviced a fleet of some 178 ships of varying sizes. Most of those were out on business runs at the moment, with only a pair of warships and 3 cargo ships accompanying the station in its lazy orbit some 2,200 kilometers above the thick-atmosphered planet.

The Lacvamat were an aerial race, with four wings and a very private mentality. Only a few locations on the surface were accessible to outsiders, but where visitors were allowed they were welcomed warmly. The Lacvamat were heavily invested in the power grab going on within the ADZ and sought to maximize the advantage they had in possessing their own systems. Star Force had granted them that based on their previous relationship and their willingness to evacuate their entire population into the ADZ prior to their systems falling…something that many other races had refused to do, resulting in a lot of people dying who otherwise could have been saved.

The Lacvamat had chosen not to take part in the frontline defense of the ADZ, but they maintained their own sizeable warfleet and patrolled several systems outside their own, essentially holding a bit of turf and keeping their eyes and ears open for incursions by the lizards or anyone else. Their territory wasn’t on the edge of the ADZ, so their position was fairly stable, with many other races complaining about them being given preferable treatment then refusing to help out with the common defense.

They weren’t alone in that position, for there were many races living off of Star Force, the Hycre, and the Protovic’s superior military forces. Rather than try to find ways to assist them as some of the lesser races did, the Lacvamat kept to their own business with their eventual aims being anyone’s guess. Jamka had based his operations here because of the business opportunities and the Lacvamat’s willingness to work with outsiders, in orbit at least. They’d allowed an independent contractor to build the station for Jamka, as well as giving him cover to operate his business and ship throughout their system in return for a few favors here and there.

And Jamka wasn’t the only one set up here, for the system was a central hub of the ‘shadow’ sector within the ADZ. The Scionate also operated in a similar manner, but ever since the recent Star Force coup there had been a subtle shift away from the quadrupeds’ independence push. The Scionate were now more in line with the ‘proper’ Star Force backers, though they still maintained a significant chunk of the shadow business opportunities.

The Lacvamat had gained from their newfound respectability, recruiting more of the unsavory elements into their territory along with the legit who simply wanted to get away from Star Force’s choking presence. Jamka serviced both factions, making inroads where he could and expanding his business and fleet whenever possible.

Always on the lookout for trouble, Jamka kept an eye on the public warning system the Lacvamat had in place and as he brought his new warship in last to dock with his base and begin getting the full overhaul that it would need to be brought up to proper ‘shipper’ specs…meaning a lot of concealed compartments and other scoundrel gems…he noticed a small warning flashing up, with location coordinates of a new no-go zone within the planet’s atmosphere.

He pulled the warning up, wanting to know ahead of time of any trouble going on anywhere in the system, and saw a report of a ship having gone off course and entering a restricted zone of the planet…then according to the report it had exploded while on descent through the atmosphere. The immediate area was being locked down by Lacvamat security, heavily, and there was an unnecessary reminder to everyone else not to go anywhere close to the explosion zone where they were now beginning to recover debris.

That made no sense to Jamka, for if the Lacvamat had shot it down there would be no need for such a lockdown. Something about this didn’t feel right, and the Critel made sure to keep up to date on the news reports and official warnings coming in…as well as the unofficial word that began spreading around, for within a week all hell began breaking loose down on the planet and the Lacvamat fleet came down to low orbit and put a planetary lockdown in place with no one being allowed to come or go.

A day later a similar freeze was put on all orbital traffic, stranding Jamka and his ships at his station, but he knew better than to defy the warnings. The Lacvamat were not to be trifled with, and whatever was going on had brought them out of their normal seclusion into full militant mode.

Jamka knew his best bet was to simply stay still and silent and hope whatever was going on would sort itself out without him or any of his people getting caught in the middle of it.

2

August 12, 2552

Plenx System (Dvapp Territory)

Rvitx

“Where are they?” Donn-1001 asked in the trade language, leaning over the holo table in his striker armor as the wind whipped across the open air outpost.

One of the four Dvapp with him extended a tendril from its column-like mass and pointed to a nearby area on the battlefield map.

“Here. There are several subsurface caverns that the Aronsic appear to be moving through.”

“Do you have them charted?”

“No.”

“Then we do this the hard way. Heavy scout team, formed on me. We’ll go in and flush them out, but you have to keep them away from here,” Donn emphasized, pointing to a relatively flat section of the barren, rocky landscape on the map that held the entrance to one of the Dvapp’s mining stations. It was mostly below ground with only a small surface facility, but it held subsurface tunnel links to 5 nearby facilities…and similar tunnel links were allowing the Skarrons to assault many other Dvapp facilities in the area. If they broke through here, they were practically inviting them to spread further.

“I do not know if we can,” the Dvapp said honestly. The Skarrons had no walkers in play, but they were flooding the area with infantry while the big toys from both sides were off playing elsewhere on the planet.

“Slow them down when they’re crossing terrain, but do not let them mass out in the open. Buy me time to plug a few holes.”

“We will try.”

Donn nodded and left the holotable, walking across the small prefab Star Force outpost and electronically tagging two other Archons nearby to follow him. He picked up a half dozen Dvapp on the way and the 9 of them ran out through the entrance and onto the orange/brown cracked ground that made up the majority of the planet. A few meters out and they ran up a hillside before sliding in between boulders and making their way over the varied terrain towards the caverns the Dvapp had indicated.

It was more than 8 kilometers away straight shot, but with so many ravines and other topography a straight anything wasn’t going to happen. Donn didn’t have a jump pack, which would have helped him greatly, because his Dvapp troops didn’t have any. He only had a few Archons and commandos assigned to what was a low priority region on the planet that had been basically left up for grabs while the heavy fighting was occurring elsewhere.

Only some local ‘troops’ were available, but Paul had sent him to the region to do what he could while he and the others fought the heavy opposition in orbit and some 6 different ground sites, two of which the Skarrons had already secured and built into fortified anti-air havens. With the Voku disrupting Skarron reinforcements the enemy had abandoned all but six invaded systems, choosing to throw everything they had at them while leaving the ground troops on the other worlds to do what damage they could before being wiped out.

Donn had come from one such Protovic world that they’d just finished cleaning up, and it hadn’t been an easy affair. With so much anti-air fire capable of coming from the ground troops most of them had to be taken out down low else risk losing a sizeable chunk of your navy to do it from orbit or the air…and right now Star Force couldn’t waste drones taking the easy route, leaving the dirty work up to the ground troops.

That hadn’t entirely been true here, with several naval strikes supplementing the Star Force troops before a warfleet had arrived to reinforce the Skarrons’ hold over orbit. Their blockade of the planet had only grown in number as fleets from neighboring systems had redeployed here to help secure the ground gains they’d made. Two small Star Force fleets had come as well, with Paul commanding one, that had kept the Skarrons from attempting a forced overrun of the 6 Sentinels around the planet.

That no longer looked to be in the cards, but an enormous number of ground troops were being escorted down to the surface en mass and a huge surface campaign was underway. While that was happening the Skarrons were pushing out to secondary and tertiary regions with infantry alone and taking most of them almost by default. Donn had been sent to try and secure one of the regions now coming under assault by taking command of the Dvapp there and adding a little Archon magic to the mix...though it was questionable as to whether that would make enough of a difference.

He’d already reorganized their shoddy defense, for most of these Dvapp were not soldiers. They were essentially militia rounded up from workers and denizens that were otherwise simply going to be killed as the Skarrons came through. Under his direction the past 3 days they had begun to offer more resistance, but the Skarrons kept progressing forward despite the many ambushes Donn was organizing against them.

Recently enemy infantry had been popping up into locations they had no business being in, with the newly revealed subsurface caverns giving the Skarrons an underground route to bypass some of the surprises the Archon had been laying out for them.

It was to the nearest of those confirmed locations that he was now running, with two acolytes in tow trying to keep pace with the much faster Archon. He slowed enough not to lose them while the Dvapp scurried across the ground like bouncy snakes, moving in a mix of a crawl and leaping stride as the giant, crystal worms moved as fast as they could. A lot of the time they’d simply fall on the rocks rather than try and step around them, melting into the crevices and moving past in a partially liquid fashion, but over flat ground they couldn’t keep up with Donn and were just barely managing over the varied terrain.

Inside their bodies they carried their weapons, suspended in the midst of the crystalline goo as if they’d ate them. Each was a hard shard about the size of the Archon’s forearm that made up their version of a rifle that fired a yellow energy beam about 3 times as intense as a lachar. The beams were long in duration, requiring them to be held on target as opposed to a quick flash that Donn’s plasma rifle wielded, but given that the Dvapp didn’t move that fast to begin with they fit their physiology well and could burn through the Skarrons’ thick skin quickly when given the opportunity.

About halfway to the waypoint he’d put on the battlemap for him and the other two Archons to track towards they met up with a few Hobbit scouts. Donn broke left and began to flank them as the line moved forward, then another Archon moved out to the right giving them flankers on both sides. The striker accelerated on his zigzaggy path now that he had no one following him and got up to within 10 meters of the first Hobbit, gunning him down with a quick pair of plasma streaks before he noticed the four more nearby via Ikrid.

Heading straight for them he rounded a car-sized boulder and mowed down the two nearest him with plasma, then kicked another aside before telekinetically yanking the rifle out of the hand of the fourth. He killed those two within a pair of seconds and moved on, eventually coming back up to the line of Dvapp that had continued moving forward at pace, knowing they had to get to those caverns sooner rather than later.

Donn eventually got back into the lead position, with the acolyte coming back as well after dealing with a pair of scouts on his side of the line. After a lot more running the Archon brought the full scouting group to a halt, with the Dvapp literally melting into the rocks around them to get out of sight while Donn cautiously walked ahead as far as he dared, using his Ikrid and Pefbar to scout ahead.

On the other side of the hill he was kneeling against was a large group…too many to hit, but at the moment they weren’t moving. Donn plucked a few recent memories from the closest of them and confirmed another cavern exit nearby with more infantry coming up through it and assembling for a new push on the Dvapp infrastructure further to the south.

Getting an approximate size on the deployment, Donn got his scouts moving laterally and worked his way around it, eventually getting back to their original path on the far side while logging the position of the enemy troops on the battlemap so those back in the outpost would know where they were. What little aerial surveillance they had was complicated by the rocky terrain, and it was possible that the intermittent cloud cover could block it entirely.

He didn’t know if this group had been spotted or not, but it was better that he log it just in case and sent the data back with a pulse transmission, knowing that if the Skarrons tracked it back to their location they wouldn’t find them, given that they were staying on the move.

It took a while and some more dodging/killing of scouting groups until they eventually got to the entrance that he’d been made aware of back in the outpost. It too had troops pooling around it, but less than a minute after the scout team arrived the enemy infantry began to move out, sneaking their way through the house-sized rocks and cracks within the ravines and traveling in several strands across to where Donn didn’t know, but they were heading in a generally west direction.

He logged that too, then brought his team down into the hollow that the troops had just left, finding several overhangs cut out by wind or water a long time ago that had the ground chewed up with footprints. Nearby was a narrow crack in the rock that led to the subsurface caverns, with Donn heading in without hesitation given that his Pefbar gave him a limited heads up to what was ahead, though too much rock would block his ‘x-ray’ vision as well.

The two acolytes followed him in, then the Dvapp after that, taking them out of transmission range and into the planet’s crust in search of more enemies and where they were moving about.

As soon as he got inside Donn began recording a new map, placing waypoints for himself and the other two and having them move off down every branch they came across with their armor emitting a low level signal that essentially measured the shape of the hollows and added a crude schematic to the map on his HUD, though several times it would update in chunks when one of the acolytes came back into normal battlemap transmission range, which in this case was line of sight of only a few meters given the rock that was everywhere was blocking all standard signals.

The Archons tried to run to save time, but the chambers were so narrow and jagged that the best they could manage was a slow jog most of the time until one of the acolytes finally found a route out of the maze that led to a much larger chasm some 215 meters below the surface.

Donn followed the others down there, with the acolyte signaling for silence as they approached. When the striker came through he got down on his belly and crawled across the small slope down to a large boulder where his fellow Archon was crouching…and on the other side of which was a dry creek bed with hundreds of Hobbits milling about.

His armor sensors were mapping out only part of the chamber, which was more than a football field wide and stretched off both to the left and right in a ragged U-shape that had them currently on the peak. The Hobbits were scattered, apparently waiting while more came in, for Donn could hear movement to the left in the extreme distance as well as sense some of the closer minds. There were more coming this way, not in great numbers but enough that he knew this scattered group was going to grow…and there were a few Skarrons with them.

The Hobbits could see well in the dark, he knew, but the Skarrons less so. The chamber was pitch black, without a single light to see by and the Dvapp moving around mostly by feel, though knowing they were going underground they’d ‘ingested’ a small nightvision device that gave them some sight capability when used, though at the moment none of them were for they didn’t want to give away their location with the little pings of lights that they emitted.

“More on the way?” the acolyte next to Donn asked via the comm, with the other holding back in the narrow tunnels with the Dvapp.

“Yeah, with most outside my range I’d guess,” he said, crouching down behind the rock and ‘looking’ with his psionics.

“Map or fight?”

“I don’t think we have the option of just mapping, but we can’t engage them head on either. Fight and run, but without knowing where we’re going that’s going to be tricky.”

“Send me out to map the right side,” the acolyte suggested. “If I get into trouble you can ambush, and at least you’ll have some idea of what the layout is.”

“Nice to have a volunteer,” he commented. “Go quietly as far as you can.”

The acolyte crawled off to another rock without a word and disappeared around the far side, with Donn tracking him via Ikrid when the battlemap signals eventually cut out from so much rock in between and no lateral transmitters to relay. A quick telepathic signal brought the other acolyte down out of cover, crawling up beside him to the spot the other had just left.

“What’s up?”

“Hold the fort and keep the Dvapp here. I’m going left and getting a better read on the layout.”

“Kind of crowded that way.”

“I know,” Donn said, leaving the group behind and moving off. There were Hobbits some 20 meters ahead of him that he had to avoid, but with a few Jedi mind tricks it wasn’t difficult. Finding the proper rocks and crevices to move through was, and Donn forced himself to go slow and be as invisible as he could while his armor automatically updated the battlemap for every meter that he crossed.

The Archon got some 150 meters down before he could go no further, not because of geography but because of too many eyes being nearby. He stopped and tried to knock a few of them asleep, but those standing wouldn’t go down so easily, and the third one that he tried shook off the effect just enough to stumble and fall over a small cliff, landing two meters down and drawing the attention of the others.

When that happened the two that were asleep looked to be dead at a glance and an alarm went up, prompting Donn to get moving before they could figure out where he and the others were. Jumping out of cover he ran, slide/hopping across two large boulders up to the nearest Hobbit and punched him down into the ground, knocking him out with a single hit then jumping another one before the first white orb lit up the dark cavern as he was spotted.

Blue plasma streaks tracked the source of the orb and killed that Hobbit, with many more popping up like fireflies as Donn ran about gunning down the few easy targets he had before probing a little deeper and eating up some of his shield energy, knowing that his battlemap would continue to update until he eventually got too much attention and had to fall back…fighting his way through more of the Hobbits that were seeming to come out of the rocks from every angle.

A second blue plasma lance shot by him, followed by three yellow beams that reminded him of the sentinels from Halo. They burned into their targets for what seemed like an overly long period of time, but took them down in single hits save for the Skarron that came charging down through the widest gap in the rocks…and extremely angry from the brief emotional surge Donn picked up from it when he pulled a location trace on the nearby minds.

As soon as the striker got back behind cover his attention went directly to his battlemap, with the section from the other acolyte not yet having been added…then suddenly it was, all at once as the Archon popped up on the map some distance away but at higher elevation, giving the signals line of sight, as well as his comm.

“Found another entrance with a group assembling. Small enough for us to take if you’re not too busy.”

In the distance the other direction Donn felt a swell of minds pop up on his Ikrid radar, making for a waterfall of enemies churning down the chasm towards them.

“Might as well, we can’t go the other way,” the striker said, switching to his exterior comm after telepathically telling the other acolyte to get moving. “Get moving,” he told the Dvapp. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

3

Donn fired two plasma lances back into a pack of Hobbits that were chasing him aboveground, with many more spilling out behind them as he ran looking backwards but with his Pefbar on so he could see where he was going without tripping over or running into rocks. The scout group had managed to slaughter all the Hobbits in the assembly area, but that only seemed to tick the rest off even more and they were pursuing them heavily as the group came up out of the surface entrance and began fleeing across the complicated terrain.

The other two Archons were on point, clearing any Hobbit scouts in the way while leading the Dvapp out. All six were still with them, but their physical size had shrunken after taking lots of body hits. The tiny portions of their crystalline structure that had been vaporized by the enemy plasma had been left behind as the rest of them reformed into whatever shape they needed, but Donn knew they couldn’t keep getting whittled down forever so he’d volunteered himself to play rear guard and harass their pursuers long enough for the Dvapp to get away.

That was easier said than done given that he was almost out of ammo, but he did have psionics to use. Right now he was just trying to get some distance on the Hobbits, but a few dozen meters ahead he came to a blind spot and disappeared from their view.

When the Hobbits got to that spot and turned the corner he was gone…then suddenly they fell to the ground twitching as they got hit by some invisible weapon. Two of their own plasma rifles flew up into the air and into the Archon’s hands as he reappeared, with the Hobbits unable to do anything as he shot them dead with their own weapons.

More enemies kept coming so Donn had to stay on the move as his team made progress further to the east to where the Dvapp had a forward firebase. It was little more than a camp, but it had some defensive weapons and barricades that served the troops there. It was 4 kilometers off, and with the damage the Dvapp had taken they weren’t traveling over ground as fast as they had been on arrival so Donn needed to buy them as much time as possible.

He thought about leading the Hobbits off another direction, but nixed that idea with the thought of them splitting up and catching up to the Dvapp from behind. Speed-wise that shouldn’t happen, for the Dvapp were still faster, but with such an irregular terrain he wasn’t going to risk them getting ambushed from behind and decided to keep fighting a rear guard action while he monitored their progress via Ikrid.

Back and forth he ran, engaging a few then getting some distance from the others only to come at them from another angle. Twice he nearly got in over his head and took armor damage, but he succeeded in buying enough time for the others to get a decent head start, then ran to catch up with them before they finally made it to the outpost.

Once there the task wasn’t done, for the Hobbits were still following and appeared to be going to mount a full assault on the wide ravine where the camp was. Donn grabbed some ammo from a small stash of Star Force supplies there and headed back out, climbing up a small ridge and taking a sniper position, more to see from than shoot, and plotted out his next ambush.

Six hours later the camp was overrun and the survivors were forced to retreat on a Dvapp cargo ship that came in to pick them up, but overall more than 2,500 Hobbits lay dead throughout the ravine along with a few dozen Dvapp, though their bodies literally melted away upon death, leaving only a puddle of pure liquid goo behind.

When the transport brought the three Archons and some 211 Dvapp back to a city that hadn’t yet come under attack, Donn was flagged down by a newly arrived detachment of some 22 commandos and the ranger that had come with them. The striker jogged over to his fellow Archon who exchanged a wrist clap, which had both men shaking hands by grabbing one another’s wrists in a firm binary grip.

“Nice work out there,” the ranger commented. “Saw the results on the way in.”

“Glad to have some more help,” Donn added, releasing the Archon’s hand.

“Actually we’re your relief. Paul needs you in orbit ASAP.”

Donn frowned. “What’s up?”

“He didn’t say, but knew you wouldn’t want to leave the Dvapp on their own so he sent us to replace you…immediately.”

Donn had mixed feelings about that. The region was still far from secure, and no matter how many Hobbits they killed there always seemed to be more to replace them.

“We’ve found a series of subsurface caverns that the Skarrons are moving through. I wouldn’t recommend going down there again, but we haven’t fully mapped out their tunnels. They’re using them to pop up where we aren’t expecting them.”

“Peachy.”

“Any chance of air support?”

“Not yet, but we’ll do what we can to hold down the fort.”

“Alright,” Donn said, having a bad feeling about leaving. Ranger or not, Donn’s higher level psionics were going to be missed in the swap out. “Good luck.”

“Likewise,” the Archon said, with the pair parting and Donn heading for the nearby dropship that had brought the commandos in along with a good pile of supplies.

He ran up the ramp and into the hold, then found the pilot conversing with a couple of crewmembers.

“I take it you’re my ride?”

“As soon as we get the rest of the cargo off, yes. We’re supposed to take you directly to a ship waiting in orbit.”

“What ship?”

“A transport.”

Donn frowned again. “Can you get me a comm to the Excalibur?”

“Just a minute,” the pilot stalled, finishing up his conversion with the crew before they moved off to help unload crates, then he moved into the cockpit and got a link to the command ship in orbit.

“There you go,” he said, giving Donn his seat.

A brief conversation via audio with the bridge crew quickly brought about a small hologram of Paul’s torso appearing above the cockpit control board.

“Sorry for the pullout,” the trailblazer apologized.

“What’s going on?” Donn asked, pulling his helmet off and swiping at the sweat on his forehead with his armored fingertips.

“Not my idea,” Paul floated, “but Davis needs you. There’s a situation brewing with the Lacvamat and with all his special teams deployed to the front he wants you to come back to head up the investigation.”

“Me or all of Crimson Team?”

“Just you, as far as I know.”

“I trust this can’t wait?” Donn wondered aloud.

“53 million dead with the count rising by the day,” Paul said flatly.

“What the hell?”

“There’s an information packet waiting for you, I’ll let you sort through it without any commentary from me. The transport you’re heading towards is leaving the system within 2 hours and will get you back to Iona. From there you’ll have to make your own way.”

“Diverting even a transport for me is reckless with as bad as we need supplies out here.”

Paul smirked, but it was a humorless smile. “I’m not. It’s a scheduled return. Davis’s message came in 13 days ago. No point in pulling you out until your ride was ready.”

“Thank you,” Donn said, realizing that Paul wanted him down on the surface supplementing the Dvapp as much as the striker did.

“Figure this out. We’ve got enough on our plate as is.”

“Understatement of the century,” Donn said as Paul’s transmission cut out. He wondered just what the hell was going on back inside the ADZ, but without Paul giving him any hints he was just going to have to wait till he got to orbit to find out.

In order to make that happen sooner rather than later Donn went back into the hold and helped with the cargo offloading, cutting a few minutes off their schedule. Once the dropship was empty it took on a couple more passengers, all Dvapp, and lifted off…flying first across the surface to another landing zone in a major city where the crystaline aliens got off, then the dropship headed straight up to orbit and into the hangar bay of a large cargo transport.

Once onboard Donn was greeted by the Captain and taken to temporary quarters where he could get out of his armor and cleaned up in the interim before the transport left planetary orbit and met up with a distant jumpship tucked safely away from the Skarron fleet far out in the system where they couldn’t easy go. Donn ignored the shower and fresh set of clothes waiting for him and sat down in his armor at the comm terminal and logged in, pulling up the message packet that Paul had promised would be waiting for him.

There were several files of data, but the striker went first to the personal message from Davis which became a small hologram set in front of the flatscreen monitor and hovering over the keyboard.

“I apologize for interfering with your efforts on the front, but I need an experienced hand in this situation,” the Star Force Director said without preamble. “Whether or not you need to pull more of your team in or others is a decision I’ll leave to you. What we know as of now is that on June 24th a ship exploded for no apparent cause in the atmosphere over the Lacvamat world of Leerbot. Within a day a number of illnesses began to register, followed quickly by a planet-wide epidemic. A bioweapon is suspected but as of yet it hasn’t been identified nor who used it. The planet is in lockdown and the Lacvamat are gearing up to start a war with whoever they think did it.”

“They don’t know, but with more people dying by the day they’re ready to blow a hole in whoever did. I need you to find out what’s going on and take whatever steps are necessary in dealing with it. There’s no time to bring you back to Earth to discuss this in person, so I’ll leave the details to your discretion so you can get onsite as quickly as possible.”

“I don’t know where this investigation will lead, but I get the feeling that it’s an inside job…and by that I mean another faction within the ADZ. I have no proof of that, but with as much attention and resources being focused on the war fronts there is still a high level of animosity and competition between the races and without the ability to fight conventional wars against each other due to our edicts and the Protovic and Hycre backing us up, the belligerent ones may be reaching for secondary means of conducting warfare.”

“The ship in question was a standard commercial transport, no racial affiliation and belonging to an independent shipper that apparently died in the explosion, though that hasn’t been confirmed. It appears like a dead end attack with no way to backtrack to the source. We can’t have that, or we’ll start to see more popping up and the interior of the ADZ could end up turning into a third front. As you well know we don’t have the resources to deal with that, so find out what’s going on and bust the appropriate heads. I’ll deal with the backlash and fallout later.”

“I’ve attached all the data I have at present and will send updates as they become available, but the Lacvamat are keeping a pretty tight rein on this. They’ve agreed to allow us access, more as an unbiased witness to legitimize their payback when they find out who’s to blame, I imagine, than interested with any real help, but we’ll work with it none the less. I’m told the bioweapon is race specific to the Lacvamat, given a number of offworlders on planet that haven’t been infected, but they’re not allowing anyone to come and go for fear of a second detonation. They’re quarantining the various regions of their planet to try and keep it from spreading, and with a local population of 4.3 billion the death toll could climb much higher if those quarantines are breached…so expected resistance regardless of any permission you’re given.”

“Beyond that I have little more to say. This is a very bold attack, and one that I hadn’t predicted was coming. The races are constantly making various moves against and with one another, but nothing this overt. This is a game changer and I need information as to what’s going on if I’m going to get back ahead of the curve. As you know, our guests in the ADZ are here because they have nowhere else to go, not because they like each other. Push things far enough and twist the right arms and things could get very nasty very fast.”

“But above all else I need to know the truth about what happened. Faster would be preferred, but I can’t operate off of guesswork. Figure this out, Donn, before we start fighting a civil war that will giftwrap the ADZ for the Skarrons and lizards.”

The striker let out a slow whistle as the hologram finished and shut down. Now he understood why Davis would call him back from the front. He’d originally thought the Director had crossed a line, but he should have known better. The man was a civilian and knew not to get involved in military affairs, but he was quite right in saying that if the races in the ADZ started fighting each other it would take so many resources to stop that they’d be handing the Skarrons an easy win, Voku help or not.

The Lacvamat had the largest military that wasn’t currently involved in frontline warfare…and the fact that they weren’t meant they’d essentially been piling up warships and resources to protect their own systems against invasion. That was useful, because it meant Star Force and others didn’t have to worry about them so much, but it also meant that if they wanted to misbehave they could do a lot of damage.

An exploding cargo ship as the means to deliver a bioweapon to a planet’s atmosphere was very odd…not to mention that a single detonation could cause such a widespread contamination. Donn sifted through the data Davis had sent but in it was not a chemical or genetic profile on the ‘weapon,’ which confirmed his suspicions as to why Paul hadn’t mentioned such…the trailblazer wasn’t entirely convinced it was a bioweapon, and Donn couldn’t disagree with so little data, most of which was just speculation on the Lacvamat’s part.

What he did have were casualty numbers and travel logs, both the Lacvamat’s copies of the passage of vessels through the system in question and all of Star Force’s logs for the surrounding systems and the now exploded ship.

Davis had already backtracked it to several locations, all of which Donn quickly put into a file as places of interest. The owner was an independent shipper that possessed only the single vessel, which had been modified three times in varying shipyards, none of which were Star Force. It was a Lemickas large-scale hauler, capable of carrying large pieces of machinery or a vast amount of cargo, making this independent shipper in a league with those that possessed a dozen or so smaller vessels. The Scionate in question apparently wanted all his eggs in one big, decently armed basket…for one of the modifications made to the vessel were light defensive weapons that included some beefy missile racks that would keep most low level pirates at bay.

Nothing unusual had happened, as far as the official logs were concerned, at any of the previous port calls for the ship, leaving as Davis suggested a ‘dead end’ that basically meant this was a free attack. Without an enemy declared the Lacvamat would have no one to strike back against…legitimately, though they might just pick one based on suspicions or circumstantial evidence so they could appear to be doing something. If that happened Star Force might actually end up fighting them in order to prevent the injustice.

But Donn knew he couldn’t let whoever did this get away with it or, like Davis had so pointedly commented, it would most likely lead to other races or factions seeing an opportunity to strike at their enemies under the radar and turning the ADZ into a clandestine war zone.

The truth about what had happened had to come out, and it looked like whoever had done this had covered their tracks well. Donn just hoped his skills were up to the task to ferret this out, regardless of whether or not their mysterious attacker had made a mistake. Hopefully he had, but if not there were other ways, Donn knew, to find answers…especially when you had the ability to read minds.

But he couldn’t do anything here, so he was glad that Paul had left him in combat up until the last moment so he didn’t have to sit and wait in orbit. Shortly after Donn got out of his armor and into the shower the transport made a microjump in a convoy under escort out to the waiting jumpship where the smaller transports all attached within the exterior hold and were encased in the big ship’s IDF, making their piggyback ride into the star effortless as they floated in place and were attached to the jumpship’s superstructure by flimsy pylons that never would have been capable of the stresses of the ship simply turning to starboard without the IDF holding them all in place.

Donn stayed in his quarters reviewing the data that Davis had sent him for several hours before transferring over to the jumpship and indulging in the sanctum there, splitting his time between training and data analysis as he waited out the journey back deeper into Beta Region where he was going to pick up a few old friends and make some new ones along the way.

This mystery was a huge one, and he wasn’t about to tackle it alone.

4

October 2, 2552

Vannsep System (Beta Region)

Leerbot

The Rover-class jumpship braked against the Lacvamat planet’s gravity well, coming out high enough to avoid the orbital blockade of the avian race’s warships that had the quarantine still firmly in place. The jumpship was only three times the size of a Star Force heavy cruiser and fell within the ‘scout’ family, with the exception that the rovers were armed warships designed to function as both transport and escort for personnel transfers when a full warship wasn’t an option…and with everyone needed on the front the rover had been the obvious choice of transport for Donn and his adhoc team, given that they didn’t know how many different worlds they would be needing to visit.

He’d picked up his ride at Iona along with a third of his crew, two of which were medtechs, four Archons that he personally knew, two more that he didn’t but that were insystem with skill sets he wanted, three Kiritak crewers and a Human Captain for the rover, and an eight member special ops squad from the Kiritas. The others he had accumulated at two other stops enroute to Vannsep, including a Knight he’d come across accidentally while in a spaceport, who was transitioning back to Earth for extensive medical work on battlefield injuries…including a severed arm.

Donn had gotten permission to pick up a regenerator in Iona, so having that with him he grabbed the Knight and added her to his team while giving the 7 foot tall woman as many foodstuffs as she could eat over the following days with the regenerator using the additional biomass to slowly begin regrowing her arm and mending her other battle damage. Star Force now had tech to regrow limbs that didn’t require a regenerator, but those devices were huge and located almost exclusively on Earth or elsewhere in the Solar System, requiring transport back ‘home’ to deal with such injuries save for a handful of very expensive medical ships that were floating around the ADZ that could accommodate the same.

The regenerators were reserved for special circumstances and this Knight had gotten wounded in the wrong place at the wrong time with none available. Had she been critically wounded she would have been moved to the closest planet with one, which would have been Horizon in Iona that had four…or now three since Donn had borrowed one. Given that she was stable she’d been assigned to recovery work on Earth, which would have involved recalibration training for the new arm and an overall break from combat to reset herself.

After two minutes of talking with Galia Donn knew that wouldn’t be necessary and had pulled her into his squad, realizing that mentally she was good to go and would rather get back into some sort of action rather than sitting back on Earth while others were still fighting.

She stood beside him on the bridge, a full head taller with both warriors outside their armor as they looked at the mass of Lacvamat warships corralling the orbital infrastructure traffic into very tight lines, but it appeared that they were letting some traffic come and go up here at least, but there was nothing moving to and from the planet’s surface.

“Find me someone to talk to,” Donn told the Captain who was seated nearby. “Start with those warships.”

“Any one in particular?”

“Start with the big ones.”

The Captain motioned to one of the Kiritak who got on the comm and started chatting in the trade language…and didn’t stop for some 10 minutes before he finally turned and gestured back to the Captain who activated his holographic communication display with the image of a fleshy winged Lacvamat seated on a perch with its folded wings angling up like points bracketing its double-skulled head.

Donn walked up beside the Captain so he would be in transmission view, but put a hand on his shoulder when the man tried to get up to give him his seat.

“You are the investigators?”

“We are,” Donn answered evenly. “We require passage down to the planet, both to the origination point and anywhere there is currently the illness. We do not need access to uncontaminated areas.”

“Your movements will be allowed, but only if preapproved. Do not wander about.”

“Our ship will file all movements on planet prior to flight,” Donn promised, but not saying anything about personnel on the surface.

“An escort will be waiting at these coordinates,” the Lacvamat said before cutting the comm, obviously annoyed at having to let the Star Force ship through.

“Coordinates received,” the Kiritak helmsman noted.

“Take us in,” Donn said, seeing that the coordinates were relatively high up in orbit when they popped up on the holographic map.

The rover made a lazy jump down to a midway point, braking to a stop before adding some lateral momentum to bring them around to a second mini-jump down lower to match up with the given coordinates where some 16 Lacvamat warships were waiting with starfighter escorts numbering over 300. Once there the ship was wrapped up in escorts and given additional navigational prompts that led them through a non-linear course down through orbit that took them more than 2 hours to hit the atmosphere.

There the warships backed off and the starfighters remained, bringing down the rover to the point on the planet where the cargo ship had exploded and began the whole mess. Donn picked a spot nearby the debris field where the bits and pieces had rained down and had the ship land there…after getting permission from the Lacvamat.

Huge landing legs extended from the underside of the rover that sank down more than a meter into the semi-soft dirt nearby a settlement that was now evacuated. Unlike Star Force cities the Lacvamat lived in spires on the flat and cliff dwellings where they had available terrain. The nearby structures were situated on the cut-out side of a small mountain with the rover being nearly half their size. A temporary camp of structures that looked to house many more individuals was spread out in little chunks across the nearby area, and Donn guessed those were the recovery teams for the ship debris.

“Armor up,” he told Galia after they landed.

“Babysitting?” she guessed.

“You’ve got the medtechs. I’m going to roam.”

Without complaint the tall redhead walked off the bridge leaving Donn with the four man crew of the tiny jumpship.

“Not sure how long this will take, so just sit, keep your eyes open, and the door locked.”

The Captain hesitated, then he simply nodded. “Will do.”

Donn followed Galia out and headed to the small training facility on the ship. It wasn’t a full sanctum, not even close given the ship wasn’t large enough to hold one, but it had been enough to keep them occupied during jumps as well as serving as an impromptu armory. When he got there Galia was already part way into her armor with the others looking on waiting for orders.

“Archons suit up, Brad with eagle, Kiritas stay put, medics grab your puffs,” he said as he started to step into his own armor, sliding his casual shoes into the hardened plates.

There was a sigh of regret from the Kiritas, but the Humans moved immediately without any questions. The ‘puffs’ Donn referred to were extremely low grade, light armor that also doubled as hazard suits. The Archon armor did likewise with a filter upgrade, which they all had in place, but until the medics confirmed that the recently identified contaminant was truly only hazardous to Lacvamat they weren’t going to take any chances.

They exited via airlock mode, with an energy shield covering the exit point so as not to exchange atmosphere with the outside, with Donn leading the group and getting a few meters past the foot of the ramp before a pair of Lacvamat swooped in and landed nearby. Both were covered in a thin, translucent material that was their version of a hazard suit.

“We will take you where you need to go,” one of them said without preamble.

“We need all the information you have gathered, access to the ship fragments, and the ability to roam around the area without interference.”

“You will find nothing that we have not already discovered,” the other said.

“Maybe, maybe not, but we came here to look and confirm your data. We can’t do that if we can’t make an independent analysis of our own,” Donn emphasized, picking up on a few of their thoughts…which were that this was just a for show exercise to give the Lacvamat analysis the credibility it needed with the rest of the ADZ…ostensibly for a counterattack at whoever they fingered.

“He will search from the air,” Donn continued before they could object. “The rest of us will search on the ground. Please make sure that none of your security forces shoot him down.”

“Yes please,” Brad-7919 said, wearing a heavy backpack that stretched from above his shoulders almost all the way down to his feet.

The two Lacvamat looked at the awkward Human, not sure what to make of him, but they relented and had a short conversation with a comm device attached to their heads, coordinating with the rest of their security forces that were several thousand strong and covering the area, most of which were currently on the ground but many of the long winged avians were currently in flight, soaring around with little whip-like tails trailing them through every twist and turn they made as they glided about, rarely flapping their ample wings as they surfed the air currents.

A group of three redirected from their patrols, which had reformed above them after the rover had landed, and dove down to the surface meeting up with the pair as several more flew in and circled overhead.

“We must stay with you at all times. Do not attempt to go off alone.”

“We’re here to help,” Donn reminded him. “And we won’t try to lose you, but it’s your responsibility to stay with us.”

The Lacvamat that had spoken huffed once through its dragon-like nostrils and stared at the Archon’s brown helmet from its widely set eyes, one each on the double lobes of its tiny skull. It had but a short snout, but behind it was a cranium thick enough to double as a wrecking ball…and the Lacvamat were notorious for head butts on their almost snake-like necks.

It didn’t say anything, merely waiting on the Human to move.

Donn turned and pointed Brad up into the air, then looked back at the Lacvamat as the ranger shot up into the sky on his flight pack. “We need samples of the bioweapon to study. Have you recovered any from the debris?”

“No need,” one of the medtechs said from behind him in his aqua-colored armor as he was messing with a field kit attached to a platform on his left arm. “It’s still in the air.”

Donn frowned and turned towards the medic.

“There is none remaining, except within the bodies of the sick and dead,” the Lacvamat said.

The Archon’s head ping-ponged back, with him searching the alien’s mind to see if he was being genuine or lying, but having little prior contact with the race made mind sifting a bit uncertain.

“It’s trace amounts,” the medic answered in English. “Their equipment might not be able to detect it.”

“It should have dissipated by now,” Donn argued, “unless there was a renewable source nearby.”

“Agreed.”

“Do you have your dead nearby?”

“They have been taken away to deal with properly. You will not be examining them, for none remain here.”

“What have your people studied the bioweapon with? Where did your samples come from?”

“The infected.”

“Are there any infected nearby we can examine?”

“Not here. They have been quarantined elsewhere.”

“Arrange for us to get access to them after we finish here.”

“That is not my task,” the Lacvamat said firmly.

“Then pass on the request to whomever’s it is,” Donn said, matching its tone and adding a bit of Ikrid influence with it.

As soon as Brad shot up into the air he had two Lacvamat pacing him, with several more diverting from nearby and flying in to assert their dominance. They hadn’t expected the Humans to be able to fly, even with technological augmentation, and they swirled around him as he got some 150 meters up and held position, visually scanning the area. The area was rolling flat, with tufts of scraggly vegetation dotting the otherwise barren terrain. It was mostly dirt, very few rocks, but those that were there were jutting up from underneath, almost as if something was punching segments of bedrock up and into view to form small mesas.

Brad could see the various temporary structures the Lacvamat had set up to collect/analyze debris and began tagging the closest ones on the battlemap for the others to see. As soon as he got those marked he moved forward using the hand controls on the short armature on his left side, loosely attached at his elbow and giving him a gripbar/joystick to navigate with. The anti-grav unit was fairly simple, equipped with two differential drives that could push off of various portions of the planet’s mass to provide lateral movement, as well as to keep the rectangular pack from spinning about on a singular levitative point.

One of the units was near his head, the other near his feet and situated so they would swing ‘up’ with gravity’s pull on his body and the rest of the unit. At the moment he was ‘standing’ vertical with his body spinning a bit to the left that he wasn’t able to control until he finally tipped the upper edge slightly forward and allowed gravity to settle the orientation on the anti-grav ‘pins.’ That left him facing down ever so slightly as he moved forward, gaining speed slowly as he crossed the landscape with the Lacvamat lazily keeping pace beside him.

The flight pack or ‘eagle’ as they referred to it wasn’t a combat piece, given its size and awkwardness. He couldn’t fight with it on his back when on the ground and it made him a sitting duck in the air, but if one needed a good view and the ability to cross terrain quickly without a dropship or fighter the flight pack was the way to go.

It was a civilian tool, but one that came in handy in a variety of situations.

Brad continued tagging Lacvamat sites so Donn could see through the battlemap where to go without having to wander randomly, but as he did so he tried to get a feel for the debris impacts. He imagined most of the crash craters were underneath the little peach domes they’d constructed, but he was able to spot scratch marks and some other small trash on the barren landscape, with him actually descending to one spot for a look.

When he landed he deactivated the anti-grav and walked across to a scrub bush, carrying the 280 lb pack like it was a Knight riding piggyback. One Lacvamat landed with him while the others kept to the sky, circling overhead and watching.

Brad knelt and picked up a marble-sized piece of charred metal, holding it in his armored hand.

“Ship debris?” he asked.

“Everything of consequence has been recovered.”

“How large of a radius have you recovered pieces from?”

“Wherever you see our collectors. We set them on top of the locations rather than moving the items for study.”

“Are the objects still here?” he asked, dropping the tiny fragment.

“Some have been removed for further study after a forensic analysis was completed.”

“Do you happen to know the spot where the ship exploded…in the air, I mean?”

“It is marked.”

“How?”

The Lacvamat tilted its head to the air and looked in a specific direction. Brad followed its gaze and saw nothing.

“What am I supposed to see?”

“Hear,” it corrected him. “The beacon is auditory.”

Brad adjusted the controls for his helmet and searched through the range of sounds that his ears weren’t capable of processing…finding a light, repetitive ‘beep’ that he was able to isolate the location of. Using his helmet’s zoom he examined that position, finding a tiny object hovering in midair there.

“What is the purpose?”

“To assist the search teams, as well as to mark remembrance.”

“I want to get a look from that vantage point.”

“Can you fly that high?”

“I can go to orbit if needed…I’ll just run out of air.”

“Then follow,” the Lacvamat said, a bit more eager to help than the others.

Brad reactivated his flight pack and took off again, angling up to a spot high in the air where he began to mentally calculate the possible debris patterns, as well as working in all the little dome sites below, trying to figure out some insight that the natives may have missed.

5

“This it?” Donn asked.

“Yes,” Brad answered from high in the sky overhead. “The distortion ripples are centered about two meters to your left.”

“Give me a moment,” the Archon said, sitting down on the ground crosslegged by himself while the rest of his team was out inspecting various sites, mostly those that the Lacvamat had set up. The striker had an escort with him, but they stood back and remained silent, not understanding what the Human was doing but not caring to question him either.

Donn took a deep breath through his filter mask and extended his senses, clicking on his Pefbar and looking down into the ground around him. He was sitting on what he would have described as a ‘sand wash’ in that it wasn’t hard packed ground. It was firm enough, but the top layer was loose and had moved around a bit in a pattern Brad had spotted from above. There was no visible debris in the area, but they’d seen similar crash site damage before and suspected there were pieces that had been buried and covered over in the turbulence.

The Archon was sitting down to get his head an extra meter of range, with the Jedi pose being a mere afterthought. Focusing his Pefbar into a ‘spotlight’ cone he searched beneath him as far as it would reach before rotating it around and scanning the area. The grainy black/white images in his mind were hard to decipher the further away they got, but he did find several rocks beneath him that had been caught up in what was a small ravine that had been filled in with sediment, probably years before, but the top layer and several jabbing scars beneath were made of looser material that he knew was a recent deposit.

And at the bottom of those scars were six pieces of untouched debris.

Donn activated his all-team comm. “Got something guys, but it’s going to require some digging.”

Galia was down on her hands and knees, her head buried in the hole she was scooping out with her big armored hands that was already two meters deep. Her white armor was only half visible, from the chest on out to her legs and feet which were almost vertical as she kicked dirt and tiny rocks up past her body as she dug further with the assistance of an Archon’s Pefbar as a guide.

Donn was digging his own hole a few steps away, as were four other Archons while an army of Lacvamat surrounded them and the site, keeping others away and monitoring the Humans closely. They’d called for digging equipment of their own, but Donn wanted to get to it first…plus he didn’t want to wait. The softness of the wash being what it was they’d decided to go at it by hand, though in his case he was actually scooping as much telekinetically as he was pawing it out, though with his head down in his own gopher hole the Lacvamat couldn’t tell the difference.

“Got something,” Galia said over the comm, but Donn kept digging after his own and didn’t pop his head out, seeing that he was only half a meter away from his.

“Brad?” Donn asked.

“Got it,” the free Archon said, stepping over to Galia while the others continued to dig and tapped the big Knight on the butt twice, hard enough to get her attention. She pulled out and let him down into the hole where he started pushing away small amount of debris telekinetically and cleaning off the edges of the shrapnel as one of the medics came up behind him and stuck a probe into the hole beside him.

“Concentration is spiking. Nothing too dramatic, but far higher than the latent amounts in the air.”

“This is a big one,” Brad commented as he ate away at the sharp and frayed edges of the junk, creating a little cave around it as he progressed and having to make a little telekinetic dome above his head to catch falling material to keep it from refilling the hole. What he caught he chucked back out past his legs, making for a dirt sprinkler that was spitting out a nearly constant fine spray of material as opposed to Donn’s hole that was chucking large glumps out periodically.

“Galia, we need to widen the hole. Play plow please,” Brad said, pointing her to his right.

“Muscle coming,” she said, kneeling beside him and reaching her thick arms down in next to his hip and pulling large handfuls of material out from the sidewall. A lot of material fell back in, but Brad pushed it back up to her and between the two of them enlarged the entrance to more than two meters wide, enough for him to finally pry the piece loose. It was too heavy to lift telekinetically, so he leveraged it out by hand to get it loose then pulled out, letting Galia do the heavy lifting while he added some telekinetic pull from a distance.

It took a while to get it out, given the bad angle the Knight had to reach down at, but eventually the trashcan-sized, razor sharp fragment came out and she put it down on the flat ground nearby with both medics scurrying over to it and taking samples…with a trio of Lacvamat techs coming over as well.

One of the medtechs looked at his sensor analysis and immediately pulled out a device from his satchel of equipment and placed it on the ground nearby. With the flip of a button a semi-visible bubble shield activated over top forming a 3 meter high and wide radius around the piece of junk that would contain the atmosphere inside but otherwise wouldn’t interfere with their movement.

“Containment shield,” he explained to the Lacvamat. “The debris has a fresher concentration of toxin given that it’s been buried since impact.”

One of the flyers extended a wingtip and touched the shield perimeter, finding that it could move through without interference, then it stepped inside and touched a device to the debris next to the medtech.

“I am detecting only trace amounts.”

“Our equipment is more sensitive, and I think there’s enough of a concentration lingering on the debris to get a sufficient sample for a full analysis.”

“We have samples taken from the bodies of the infected,” the Lacvamat said, as if his collection was both pointless and redundant.

“I’d like a comparison. The more we know the better.”

“Got one,” Donn said, pulling a baseball sized piece out of his hole with two more segments still buried a few inches lower.

“Bring it over here, please,” the other medtech asked. “Inside the shield.”

Donn stood up and walked it over, then headed back to his hole for further digging.

The second medtech waved a sensor around the device, picking up a decent concentration of the toxin on one side, with almost nothing on the other…indicating that, as they suspected, the toxin was released through an explosion that coated the various pieces as they were hit in the blast radius.

“Any idea what this junk is?” Galia wondered over the comm.

“Afraid I’m not that kind of tech,” the medic replied. “But that doesn’t really matter. It’s the toxin on the pieces that we need.”

“Have you determined if it’s safe for us yet?” she asked, watching him work as the others continued to dig in their holes.

“Just collecting now. Analysis later. I’d keep your armor on, just in case.”

“Do I need to take a dirt bath before heading back inside the ship?”

The medic laughed, then fell short when he realized she was serious. “No, we’ve got some cleansing fields that will do a better job of it.”

“Inside the ship?”

“Yeah…oh, crap. Guess the Kiritas will have to bring them out.”

“Worry about that later,” Donn said, coming back out with another piece as more Lacvamat flew in, some of which were carrying equipment bundles of their own. “This is a piece of a gravity drive. Scan it.”

The medic did as requested as the other was still pulling samples off the big piece. “Yeah, we’ve got good levels on this piece as well.”

“Liquid?” Donn guessed.

The medic chewed on his lower lip inside his helmet for a moment, but it was the other one that answered. “Almost. These particles resemble more of a gel. It’s mostly cloying powder now though.”

“Binder?”

The medic shook his head. “Can’t tell with this equipment. Have to wait until we get back to the ship.”

“Do you think you have enough to identify?”

“Should.”

“Good,” Donn said, heading back to his hole to get the third piece.

After the Humans were done with the debris pieces they’d recovered the Lacvamat took possession and conducted their own analysis, but the small amount of toxin recovered, equal to about 6 grams of material, was more than enough for the pair of medtechs to do a thorough analysis. Coupled with the blood and tissue samples the Lacvamat grudgingly allowed them to take from several of the infected the next day, they were able to get a good handle on what the toxin was and how it had been delivered…as well as how to shut it down within the local population.

The shutting down part wasn’t something they could accomplish on site, unfortunately, but once they got back to a system with access to the communications grid they’d get the data to Earth where they’d be able to synthesize what was needed. To date no relay had been built in any of the Lacvamat systems, with them preferring to remain somewhat isolated within the ADZ. That choice was going to cost them many more lives in the coming days, but at least Donn knew that they could eventually stop the spread of the toxin…which was, in fact, a bioweapon.

It was an airborne spread, self-replicating toxin that was accomplished through a bacteria that did the spreading and acted like miniature factories for the toxin. Typically bioweapons were viruses or some manner of manipulation of an individual’s body to cause it to malfunction. This didn’t fit that mold for the toxin produced was straight up poisoning…it was the fact that it was being manufactured within the individuals’ bodies by the bacteria that made it a very creative and dangerous weapon…especially since the toxin it produced specifically targeted an aspect of Lacvamat physiology.

That particular function, a regulatory organ that was interlinked with their blood stream and balanced various levels of nutrients and natural toxins, was caused to go berserk, in some cases shutting down and in others triggering massive surges in a very random fashion. In this way the Lacvamat infected would not die of the same cause, disguising the source aside from the fact that the mass of deaths occurring were happening at relatively the same time.

The Lacvamat had identified the toxin in their bloodstream but had missed the bacteria…or rather had ignored it, for it mimicked the types found in the planetary atmosphere. It was almost as if someone had purposefully disguised the toxin producing nano-factories to keep them from being discovered. The medtechs had a quibble over that, with one suggesting that it was coincidence and the other believing it had been intentional. Either way, the Lacvamat had missed the source, believing that the toxin was somehow being spread from individual to individual when in truth it was the bacteria doing it.

And that bacteria was airborne…at least it could survive in the air, which was why trace amounts of the toxin had been detectable upon arrival. Unless a way was found to neutralize the effect of the toxin or kill the bacteria it was possible that the bioweapon would spread across the entire planet…not to mention potentially spread to other systems by infected individuals or even just some bad air taken in during a cargo transfer.

The bacteria wasn’t a crazy spreader, which was also probably why it had been missed, but its growth and spread rate was solid and steady, meaning that whoever had done this intended to kill off the entire planet’s population…and potentially all other Lacvamat within the ADZ if they expected carriers to move it to other worlds.

It was fortunate that they’d put the quarantine in place immediately. Hopefully none of the bacteria had been transferred off the planet to date.

But the medtechs’ analysis left Donn and his team with more questions. First of which was whether the toxin would be harmful to any other race. A brief inquiry into that led to three other potential problems, those being the Bali, Veeslah, and Quo…all minor members of the ADZ. They had a similar circulatory system that may or may not be affected, but for all the ‘major’ races there would be no threat, though they could still be carriers of the bacteria.

Which begged the second question of why blow up a ship in atmosphere to begin the spread of the bacteria when all it would take was one person arriving on planet and unleashing a small sample into the atmosphere. Given enough time it would spread and the Lacvamat would grow sick and die just the same, even just sending a contaminated person in amongst the population could do it, in theory, but a small, pure sample of the weapon was a sure way to get it deployed, so why go for the huge amount they’d deposited in the explosion?

It was faster, obviously, but Donn had a gut feeling that wasn’t the reason. Someone wanted to be seen doing it. Though no one had claimed responsibility the destruction of the ship and the subsequent mass infections and deaths made it clear this was an attack, whereas a small, covert planting of the bacteria would have left no traceable source. If your aim was to kill the Lacvamat that would have been your best bet, and to do it on all their worlds and the worlds they frequented in other systems. Contaminate them all simultaneously then sit back and watch them die.

But that hadn’t occurred, for no other illnesses had been reported in the ADZ to date. Only here, on Leerbot, was there an outbreak following the highly visible ship self-destruction in the atmosphere.

That told Donn one thing…this was a field test set up for a third party to witness. It was meant to impress someone in a way that could not be anything other than a deliberate attack.

Which made Donn suspect an independent faction, possibly selling bioweapons and using this attack as their advertising campaign.

There were other possibilities, but as the striker considered them he kept coming back to this one. His instincts told him this was just the beginning, and they were dealing with someone with considerable biotech capability, based on what his own medtechs were telling him. A level far beyond that which they knew any of the other races to possess.

Fortunately Star Force had already risen to a level above and beyond the others and would be able to counter whoever’s handiwork this was, but it meant there was a significant threat out there that had to be tracked down and neutralized…and Donn thought he had the first clue where to look.

The binder that held the bacteria and toxin-laden gel together had been identified, giving him one item on the shopping list to track down. Fortunately it wasn’t commonly used, so the list of potential suppliers wasn’t impossibly long. He also had the itinerary for the ship that had been destroyed to compare with and was planning on following that lead up first, but with the list of suppliers added to that thought process and the huge amount of gel necessary to have spread out so fast across the local region of the planet, his list of potential worlds shrunk rapidly.

He admitted there could be a great deal of diversion capable, but if he assumed the attackers to not have expected someone to be able to analyze the binder after the explosion, or at all, then they wouldn’t have gone far to get their materials. He put in a data mine request along with the information packet they were going to send back to Earth, looking for supply shipments of the binder and the other items that the medtechs suspected were used in its construction. Keeping the bacteria alive and, apparently, producing toxin required a number of nutrients in the gel, for otherwise the explosion wouldn’t have coated the debris with it.

It had been saturated, which with the concentration levels being guessed at and the production rate determined from the bacteria analysis gave Donn a loose timetable as to how long the gel had sat prior to detonation…which was in months. That gave a data range to search, but such a search was best left to analysts that did this stuff regularly. They’d scour the information grids on every available world and track down what he needed, if it was there to find.

That left Donn to go after the ship lead while he waited to see if they would find anything. First port of call then was the last world the ship had passed through enroute to Leerbot, with the rover lifting off from the infected world inside of three days and taking a close pass near to the star with its shields down where it sunbathed a bit to kill any bacteria caught on the outer hull before making a jump following what Donn hoped would be a trail of bread crumbs…if he could find a solid one to start with.

6

December 22, 2552

Weema System (ADZ border)

Weemstra

Morgan jumped from the cliff edge, pulling her legs up underneath her as she passed through the apex of the leap and fell like a rock out of view and down into the valley below, letting her speed build before finally goosing her jump pack to slow her descent. She didn’t bleed all of it off and let the remainder punch her through the treetops as she straightened out her legs and made herself into a needle that pierced the blue below.

Small branches snapped as she passed through, but the bush-like trees had no thick or firm supports, being a mass of flexible straws that ended with puffy blue leaves. The impact felt more like hitting a pillow than the sound of crunching branches attested, with her brown padawan armor taking the minor blows as she finally got down to the swampy ground below. Her boots sunk in two inches on landing, then she was off running through the thin puddles that dominated the very wet planet that the Skarrons had conquered 14 years ago.

The native Jenfor had been evacuated into the ADZ long ago, those that survived anyway, and the planet had remained just outside the ADZ on the upper edge of Beta Region. It was technically beyond the border but so close as to be within the contentious region, yet the Skarrons had never heavily colonized it. Star Force had never fought here, nor had the Protovic or Hycre. It was one of many small, single planet civilizations that had been run over by the Skarron advance. There were many still out there, hoping not to become the next victims or completely unaware of what was happening around them.

There were so many star systems in the galaxy that no one claimed them all. Races chose the ones they wanted and ignored the rest, with many people living in the ‘fly over’ systems and not attracting notice of the giants passing through them. The Jenfor hadn’t been so lucky, but the system was a lower ranking Skarron outpost, still thoroughly defended, but never having gained much notice. The ADZ had always been too busy elsewhere to do anything about the Skarron presence there, but now with some breathing room thanks to the Voku, Morgan was leading a coalition of ADZ troops to remove the enemy from this tiny piece of the border, regardless of whether or not the Jenfor would ever return.

Running at high speed and weaving through the clumps of shoots that led up to the canopy some 4 meters over her head, Morgan navigated via her battlemap as her ‘agile’ armor amplified her speed with its powered setting. One of two variants to the ‘standard’ version of Archon armor, the agile version was slightly less bulky due to some 46% less material, making up for it with double shield generators. That worked well in short, quick engagements but lacked the staying power of the standard or ‘heavy’ versions that had additional armor plating.

Paul favored the heavy for some reason, but Morgan had picked up the agile as soon as it came out of prototype stage and right now she was glad she had, because between the looseness of the feel and the power amplification she was doing some 39 mph through the vegetation enroute to a Skarron battery she had to take offline before a contingent of ground troops dropped directly into the center of one of the Skarrons’ highest populated areas…as far as military troops were concerned.

Those ships were operating on a countdown clock, meaning Morgan had to get to and disable the primary anti-air defenses before they landed while some 6 other engagements were already taking place across the planet plus two more in orbit. The ADZ didn’t have many troops to spare, but Morgan had brought just enough to take care of business…if she could do some of the heavy lifting on the ground personally, which is how she always preferred it.

The Archon had already covered some 20+ kilometers from her drop point, having been run in close by a skeet and dumped off in a way that the enemy wouldn’t notice. She’d essentially been scrapped off the Star Force fighter as it dove towards the surface and clipped the treetops, making sure there wasn’t a falling silhouette that could be picked up on sensors.

The recent fall she’d just made had been unavoidable, for she was approaching on the blind side of a mountain ridge that was really more of a mesa edge. The rocky wall hopefully would cover her fall against the outpost’s sensors, but regardless she was on the clock and had to keep moving as fast as she could manage over the squishy ground.

True to her word, Morgan got to the outpost perimeter with 16 minutes to spare and crossed into the buildings with another hefty jump, moving up through the foliage again and popping out onto the rooftops that the forest was encroaching on. The Skarrons hadn’t burnt it back, or rather not recently for the growth near the edge was all fresh and faint blue, suggesting they’d just gotten lazy and hadn’t kept it ‘mowed’ down.

Once up top she leapt from building to building until she was finally noticed, then she dropped down and killed some two dozen Hobbits and a pair of Skarrons before running a bit to keep them guessing as to where she was, then she leapt back up to the rooftops and moved towards her primary target…not the big anti-air lachar battery, but the power source for it. It was located in a special building that was mostly equipment and storage overtop the actual power source that was buried below ground.

She fought her way into the building with little resistance that could stop her, though the streets were sprouting more enemies by the second. Watching the countdown in her opaque helmet she worked her way down to the generator and killed the staff there before taking a moment to look around and find the sweet spot, finally crossing to a particular bank of equipment and lighting it up with her plasma rifle to get through the casing.

She stepped forward, latching her rifle on her back after shooting one more Hobbit that scurried in and took a shot at her. Her shields caught it as the Archon dropped the enemy and dug her hands into the melted holes to get grip points, then with a foot put forward for support she yanked hard, using the power setting in her armor to enhance her own insane strength. It took three pulls, each of which warped the material further, before it popped off and exposed the interior.

Digging a hand into her thin satchel located underneath the jump pack near the small of her back, she pulled out three explosives and armed them, set to a detonation trigger in her helmet as well as a countdown that she programmed for 6 minutes just in case she couldn’t get a transmission through. Morgan buried them in the exposed equipment then ran out, brandishing her rifle and shooting all those she came across up until she hit a group of 20 or so pouring down after her.

She didn’t have time to kill them all so she just Fornaxed and ran over their twitching bodies, needing to get to the surface now rather than later.

Eventually she broke through into the outside air, running into a wall of white plasma orbs as soon as she exited the door. Jerking to the right she ran, getting a few steps into her sprint before mentally triggering the detonation signal. Her shields dipped significantly, then there was a huge earthquake that nearly knocked her off her feet but she managed to maintain her balance while the Skarron troops couldn’t. Their aim knocked askew she disappeared into a side street and kept running, now enroute to her secondary objectives.

The outpost had no missiles, but the lachar battery would have been enough to kill several of the incoming transports, beefy as it was. The two main defensive towers should also have been down, now without any primary power source, but there were smaller ones that had their own generators. Those were now her targets as she could see in the sky above, with some help from the ID tags on her HUD, the escorting drone warships dropping first to draw any potential fire as the bigger transports came down to an LZ a few kilometers away.

They were ahead of schedule by a good 2 minutes and it had nearly cost them, but fortunately Morgan had been ahead of schedule too and it looked like the battery hadn’t got a single shot off for the ships were showing no damage or shield depletion, though there were a swarm of fighters moving about picking at them where they could. An Axius squadron was up there was well, eating through them with regularity but still outnumbered. This was going to be a tough fight, but so long as there were no Skarron surprises in store they should own them…if there weren’t any more snafus like this timing issue.

Morgan would deal with that later, if she remembered. Right now she had a million things to kill and not enough ammo for all of them, for the enemy barracks were emptying in a nearby facility in light of the incoming attack and she wanted to get to and whittle them down before they met the Scionate and Canderous troops on the ground.

There was a turtle coming down with them to handle the single Type-5 walker nearby, with everything else being infantry…but a lot of infantry. The other walkers were engaged in other locations on the planet, leaving the door open for this main strike if one was bold enough, for there really was a lot of infantry present, plus a horde of workers that probably weren’t going to up and surrender.

But for a trailblazer ‘infantry’ was basically free kills, especially one with Jumat. Morgan stayed in the outpost for a while, killing as many as she could come across as she zigzagged her way from turret to turret and over to the main barracks, then crunched an ambrosia senzu beam that she telekinetically pulled out of a rack of the potent doses inside her helmet. There were 12 different concealed slots tucked away wherever there was room and Morgan had 12 beans there for future use. It took some wiggling to get it around to her mouth, but when she did it went in and the trailblazer started the mental countdown to overdose, making sure she’d get to the mass of troops pouring out and heading towards the LZ before the negative effects began to hit her.

She was still in the Skarron infrastructure, now working her way across the lower rooftops with several long jumps across the streets when she saw the first elements of the enemy infantry begin to engage the Canderous scouts in the forest on her battlemap. She couldn’t visually see them because they were below the canopy, but she could see the carpet of Hobbits sprinkled with Skarrons disappearing underneath it like a line of rabid fans bunched up to get the first copies of Halo on release day.

Morgan couldn’t get ahead of them, so she opted for a rear attack, maybe make them hesitate a bit and buy her troops more time to unload and get into position. She knew the Canderians had rocket launchers that could pop the Skarrons in one hit, so it was just a matter of them chewing up the Hobbits and that would come down to numbers, position, and patience…for they were each worth at least 5 of the little jerks in a firefight. Trouble was, there were literally tens of thousands of them coming out of the barracks, which wasn’t a building but an entire complex.

That didn’t discourage Morgan, rather it enhanced her determination as she came to the last building and did as big of a jump as she could off it, maxing out the jump pack to send her several hundred meters ahead where she dropped down like a bomb into the edge of their swarm in the gathering plaza outside the barracks.

She crunched one Hobbit on landing then sent out a Fornax pulse that toppled more than a hundred of them around her like bowling pins with her shooting as fast as she could pull the trigger on her rifle and not aiming at any specific one. There were so many that so long as she aimed level to the ground she would hit someone, so she fired over the heads of the downed ones and killed/wounded those beyond the circle of disoriented enemies…who then began standing back up and blocking the return shots starting to come at her.

Those shots hit and missed, with the misses in turn hitting other enemies as an added bonus. Morgan turned the shields on her arms and legs off and began punching/kicking the Hobbits around her as they stood up, pausing for split seconds to fire plasma shots before she was back to hand to hand. She did that for some twenty seconds, getting adjusted to the combat situation and smiling inside her helmet as she began to work up a bit of a sweat and the first twinges of ambrosia overload began to hit her.

She let it build a bit more then ran through the mass of Hobbits, knocking several aside to get her further into the midst of the group but nowhere near to the center, then she dropped her rifle and extended both hands out to her sides, summoning the Jumat into her limbs then throwing it out like invisible punches that knocked two or three enemies down with each rapid fire blast.

White plasma was everywhere, and the more Morgan batted the Hobbits around the more friendly fire hit them…and those that didn’t were usually shell-shocked enough that they didn’t immediately get up. Others were injured or sometimes killed if they were close enough to Morgan when she released the concussive energy, with it hitting them like a brick wall and snapping their small bones in some cases.

When she got to one of the Skarrons she paused a brief moment to get a larger concentration, then in theatrical mode pulled both hands back and did a Kamehameha as she took several plasma blasts to her shields…with one of them not making it all the way to her, for the plasma orb actually was thrown backwards as she released the Jumat. It dissipated before it hit anything, but the residue washed over a Hobbit near the Skarron that she knocked upside down, flipping it backwards and onto its arms with its thick legs kicking around like a crab trying to right itself.

“Morgan, get out of there now!” a voice yelled in her helmet.

“Wha…” she said, caught off guard and getting whacked in the face with a Hobbit plasma orb. She pulled herself back into the moment and threw off a few more Jumat blasts while telekinetically picking up her rifle and bringing it into her left hand while continuing to use her right to knock enemies aside and cause continuous confusion.

“Just get out, the LZ is compromised. We can’t wait for you.”

“What…” she said, getting knocked down as a Hobbit tackled her from behind. She twisted on the ground and kicked him off before throwing up a wave of concussive energy that cleared the perimeter around her fallen body long enough for her to get up and start running towards the edge of the mass of troops back towards the buildings that she’d jumped in from. “…is going on?!”

“The Scionate are pulling out…all of them. Every unit and ship across the planet is leaving.”

“What the hell?” Morgan said, shooting some more as she got her mind into fleeing mode as she watched her shield strength closely. Fleeing was going to get her more hits, but it couldn’t be helped. Without the LZ pushing forward with troops there was no way she was going to be able to take on the whole Skarron army by herself.

“They’re silent on the comms too, so I don’t know what they’re doing,” the naval specialist ranger in charge of the orbital fleet and overall mission organization said in dismay. “But they’re leaving us hanging in a very bad way, and not just where you’re at. I’m scrambling to make adjustments, but just get yourself out of there now!”

“Going,” she said, forcing herself to stop running in a straight line as the shields covering her back began to get close to breaching…and if the shots got through to her jump pack she was going to be in real trouble.

Morgan turned to the left and circled around, throwing off more Jumat and going aggressive again, tearing up and confusing the enemy enough to cover another quick sprint closer to the edge but not on a straight line. She stopped again and repeated, making small frog hops through the mass until she got to the edge and headed towards one of the building doors, stopping just in front of it and doing a Jedi jump up to the roof as she was covered with plasma hits.

When her feet hit the rooftop edge she threw herself into a roll, getting out of the line of sight of those troops as her shields finally did breach. She rolled over her rifle and haphazardly got to her feet as the turtle shell of a jump pack rocked her sideways as she rotated around on top of it.

“Shit,” she said, getting a notice on her battlemap that a pair of fighters were breaking off from the main engagement and heading her way. She knew she had to get back down to street level or get roasted by them, so she ran across one building and jumped to the next, chancing one more before dropping off the edge and down out of sight…and landing on the back of a Skarron elite below.

Morgan didn’t even try to kill it, she just sent an Ikrid pulse into its mind that rendered it into a zombie. She didn’t have time to concentrate enough to put it to sleep, so she just stunned it enough to jump off its back and Jumat blast her way through the Hobbits escorting it as they opened up on her weak shields with their plasma.

Knocking them askew she ran off to the nearest corner, getting around it and out of firing range as she kicked in her powered setting and ran as fast as she could as more tiny soldiers and their ugly elephant-sized overlords kept popping up into view wherever she fled.

7

“Damn it,” Kev-10001 said, resisting the urge to punch the control sphere he was holding onto as he oversaw the planetary operations from orbit. He had 6 Warship-class jumpships contending with the Skarron fleet and guarding the cargo ships that had brought the troops in. He would have dismissed them to an obscure part of the system for safe keeping except that he couldn’t spare a single ship to go with them as escort plus some of them still had troops onboard.

There were also Axius and Canderous warships in system but the bulk of their naval force, some 62%, were Scionate…all of which were pulling out of the fight to screen for their own transports that were picking up their ground troops and leaving the system. The Skarrons had obviously seen this and were pressing their attack, and the ranger didn’t have enough ships left to hold them back for long. As it was he was sacrificing some of his drones just to buy time to recall their own ground troops from the most dangerous planetary zones, with those in somewhat secure ones packing up to leave as well.

They couldn’t continue the assault without the Scionate for they just didn’t have the numbers, and anyone left down on the planet was going to be in a world of hurt…meaning he had to get them out before they were overrun in orbit and the logistics weren’t in their favor. He knew he couldn’t get them all out and it was the Scionate’s damn fault. If they’d just given him a 10 minute heads up that would have been something, but they hadn’t offered a peep of warning or explanation over the comms. They just up and started to leave, without him or anyone else realizing what was going on until several of their positions on the ground started to collapse as the Skarrons poured through the positions the Scionate had been holding.

The Scionate in Axius weren’t going with them, they were sticking with their units and they knew nothing about what was going on, but as glad as he was for them not abandoning ship it didn’t matter much at this point. Star Force was in full retreat now and losing men in the effort, which Kev was trying to minimize.

Worse yet Morgan was still down there, but she’d ordered him not to waste a dropship on her. He knew he just couldn’t leave her down there, but when it came to picking up 50 some commandos or her, he gave the trailblazer better odds at surviving another hour. But it wasn’t just her. Pretty soon he was going to lose control of orbit and there would be no more dropships heading down to the surface…and they had tens of thousands of troops down there.

Focusing on the task at hand he kept sending out Ikrid orders through the control sphere, taking personal control of the naval battle while tweaking ground movements…anything he could to make a difference, and there was no time to plan. They were already in over their heads and every second counted, so he didn’t waste time venting and worked the problem even as the dread in his gut began to grow as he noticed the casualty reports coming in on a side screen.

Morgan dropped from the rooftop, falling through a few meters of clean air before landing in the vegetation at the outpost’s edge. She hit hard, her jump pack now gone and discarded as it had been shot and damaged. Her feet twisted as they hit the straw-like stalks and she came down on her shoulder, jarring herself as she bounced around a bit inside her armor, but between the thin gel layer and the squishy ground she didn’t injure herself.

Rolling onto her feet she got up into a run as the nearest exterior entrance opened up and Hobbits flooded out into the forest chasing after her. She got four steps into her run before a geyser of dirt and steam blew up in front of her as a plasma blast from a strafing fighter burst through the canopy and hit two meters away.

The trailblazer jerked and juked but kept running, knowing her speed was her best defense as she put distance between herself and the outpost, but heading in a zigzag around the perimeter rather than running a straight line away that the enemy could anticipate and follow with or without seeing her. She didn’t know how well the sensors on the fighters would penetrate the foliage, but if she could lose them then she was going to do her best to do so…and if not she was going to make herself as hard a target to hit as possible.

She knew she could outrun their infantry, so long as they didn’t have any outside the perimeter already to collapse back down on her. It was the fighters that were the problem, and given the little demonstration she’d just made of her combat prowess the Skarrons knew she was a high value target and they weren’t just going to let her slip away.

Morgan pressed hard, covering 4 kilometers in just under 10 minutes but unable to lose their fighters that were stitching the forest around her with plasma. However they were tracking her it wasn’t precise, for they were missing most of the time but every now and then she’d get a wash of plasma that would take her shields down and melt a touch of armor. Fortunately the material had corovon flakes in it that resisted the high heat well, leaving her with the ability to take several direct hits, but while her shields would regenerate her armor would not, leaving every nick the Skarrons made a permanent victory for them.

Eventually she came to a break in the canopy and had to turn to her right, running along the side of a lazy river to avoid direct visual contact with the fighters. Wondering where she was going to go next as another plume of fiery foliage burst out in a spherical ‘pop’ to her right, she made a rash decision and veered left, jumping into the river and submerging herself as far as she could, down about two meters and digging her hands into the silt on the bottom to pull herself down the rest of the way.

The filter on her helmet locked up, keeping the water out and engaging her backup oxygen supply. It wouldn’t last long, but she should have a few minutes without holding her breath and the water would block the plasma. Question was, could they track her under water?

Not staying in place so their infantry could get to her last known position, Morgan pulled herself upstream against the light current, clawing her way across the riverbed and glad that it was muddy water. She could see where she was going thanks to the battlemap sensors that gave her a crude proximity map, but she one upped that and clicked on her Pefbar, getting a much more detailed visual. Once she got about 20 meters upstream a cascade of plasma came down where she had been, churning up the river and tracking up and down it…both ways.

One of the fat fighters came to a hover over the river, close enough for Morgan to make Ikrid contact though she resisted the urge to bring it down. She hacked into the pilot’s mind and observed what it was seeing, and with a bit of translation work got the feeling that they were tracking her shields.

That was odd, because to date they’d never shown an ability to do that. When she’d hit the water she’d turned them off so they didn’t waste power against the physical pressure. Pulling herself further upstream she got some more distance as the fighter began moving along the narrow riverbank, with the foliage on either side only a meter or two away from the craft as it moved downstream searching while others zipped by overhead.

Keeping her shields in standby  mode Morgan continued to move underwater, but finding it taking too long she risked a bit of disruption ripple and formed two pillars of concussive energy outside of her legs, pooling the energy on the outside of her armor before releasing it slowly down towards her feet. The light pressure pushed against the water and moved her forward, with the trailblazer reaching her hands out in front of her and forming a guide fine to adjust her depth and direction as she moved further up river.

She kept going up until her oxygen ran out, then trolled over to the riverbank and poked her head up inside some of the overhanging blue leaves. The filters unlocked and began to pull small amounts of oxygen from the air to recharge her backup as she breathed normally, sitting and waiting as she extended her Ikrid out to its limits in search of nearby minds.

She immediately noticed a creepy little six-legged lizard a couple meters above her head, but other than him and several others along the river bank and some smaller stuff up in the trees she was alone, now that the fighter had gone back up to altitude. Keeping her shields turned off, Morgan slowly crawled her way up out of the water and through the foliage on the edge, then disappeared off into the forest intent on putting some distance on her last known position as far as the Skarrons were concerned.

Ella-2109BB-17 twitched, sending a spike a pain through her abdomen that cut through the sleepy haze swallowing her head. She fought it further, bringing herself back to consciousness enough for her to open her eyes…seeing the inside of her battle helmet and half a visor full of mud as she lay on the swampy ground with something obscuring her vision a meter away. She tried to roll her head over but the pain exploded again as she tried to move, with her briefly remembering getting hit with plasma before she’d blacked out.

Gritting her teeth the Canderian forced herself up a few inches, raising her helmet out of the ground where it had been half buried. She didn’t have a chance to swipe the mud off for as soon as she got some elevation she realized the thing blocking her vision was a body…along with several others around her. She was laying on the battlefield they’d just fought on along with the dead.

With that thought bringing her fully awake she checked the battlemap, seeing that nobody was around save for a swath of red dots…indicating the position of other suits of armor with suspected deceased individuals inside. The dots had to be manually added after the fact, so that transmitters that wouldn’t be turned off wouldn’t cause nearby active troops to think reinforcements were nearby.

Ella saw that her own dot was tagged as red as well. She bit back a scream of pain as she twisted when her arm slipped on the mud beneath her, falling face first back down to the ground and remaining there as she adjusted the battlemap to take the red off her dot.

She didn’t know how bad her injury was, but it wasn’t going to let her do more than maybe walk. She couldn’t fight, and didn’t know how much blood she’d lost, but she obviously couldn’t stay here. The Canderian resolved herself to finding a way to move, but first she needed to figure out where exactly she was and what the situation was.

Readying herself for another flare of pain, she clenched up her muscles and pushed herself up to her knees with her head still on the ground.

The tears in her eyes attested to the lack of disappointment in her body’s response, but she somehow managed another transition, rolling backwards so she sat on her heels and got her torso upright so she could look around, but her first glance was down at her gut…which was missing a huge chunk of armor. Beneath it was missing skin and muscle, with charred flesh mauled up in a mess so bad that she made herself stop looking.

Knowing that she wasn’t going anywhere on her own, she searched on her battlemap for any nearby units, extending the range out as far as she could. There were still several contacts in orbit transmitting their locations, but nothing on the ground aside from more red dots. There was nothing for her to flee to, so she did the only thing she could, knowing she wasn’t going to survive very long with this wound. She unsafed her primary transmitter and activated the emergency beacon setting, transmitting in the open and with a signal strong enough to reach orbit.

It wasn’t stealthed like the battlemap signals were, so the Skarrons could pick it up too if they were looking. Hopefully that wasn’t the case, but there was nothing else she could do. Looking around she saw dead everywhere, both Canderians and Hobbits, along with a good number of Skarrons too but the distribution was all wrong. Normally the Canderians would make the enemy pay for a defeat like this with 10/1 kills, but they’d been blindsided by not one, but two infantry surges that caught them in the flanks as they’d been executing a hasty, but controlled retreat.

Ella had been hit early, but even she knew the numbers they were facing were all wrong. Someone had screwed up badly for that many enemy troops to be that close nearby. And with so many Canderians dead around her they had to have either been hit by heavy weapons or so many infantry that there literally was no way to shoot them all.

But that didn’t matter right now, survival did. Looking around for somewhere to drag herself, all she saw was bodies and scorch marks on the plain they’d been running across. The forest edge was too far away to get to and the narrow ravine in the center didn’t have enough terrain to hide in, so she picked the biggest thing around, that being a Skarron body, and started dragging herself towards it.

She crawled half a meter before having to stop, biting back the pain, then resigned herself to moving only a few inches at a time so her abdomen didn’t have to flex too much.

Bit by bit she moved herself over some 35 meters, finding a plasma rifle on the way and dragging it with her up to the side of the dead thing that was missing one of its arms. It lay a couple meters to her right, with the plasma gun still attached to its ‘wrist.’

She poked it with the rifle several times, wanting to make sure it was dead, then moved herself up alongside the elephant-sized corpse and lay down on her side, curling up in a ball and trying to hold as still as possible without putting tension on her abdominal muscles that weren’t fully there anymore.

It was hours before anyone got to her, but eventually a shadow crossed over her helmet and she lifted her head slightly to get a better view…but there was no one there.

The shadow moved, and only then did she realize it was coming from further away. Despair flowing in her as the last hope of survival was dashed, she replaced it with spite and summoned up as much anger as she could to push back against the pain. Grabbing her rifle she got to her knees and saw the Skarron walking nearby that had cast the shadow, then the scattering of Hobbits around it, none of which had seen her yet.

The big one wouldn’t go down easily, but she wanted to get at least one of the small ones. With her back obscured by the corpse she stayed put, not thinking that she had enough abdominals left to stand, and leaned back against it, giving her torso some stability as she raised the rifle and took aim at the closest Hobbit.

The Canderian hit it with the second shot, then put two more in it before switching to the targets that suddenly began swarming into her vision. Plasma orbs popped all around her, including one that hit her leg, but it caught on the intact armor there and she kept shooting, not knowing how much ammo was in the rifle and just pumping the trigger as fast as she could.

More plasma began to hit her, with her armor melting off in various places. Her helmet took a hit and her battlemap went out, with either the transmitter or receiver having been slagged. At the very least that made the red dots disappear.

The Canderian killed/wounded four more Hobbits before one of their little fiery white orbs hit her exposed gut, burning through what remained of her muscles and tearing apart her internal organs in a splash of charred tissue.

Her arms sagged and her rifle dropped out of her hand, with her being dead before it even hit the ground.

8

December 30, 2552

Weema System (ADZ border)

Weemstra

With a thought Morgan rendered the Hobbit scout unconscious, dropping him to the ground a few seconds before she broke from cover and scurried across the remains of one of Star Force’s firebases. It had been wrecked from fighter bombardment with nasty blast marks of melted material everywhere but was more or less intact and abandoned. The Skarrons had been here and gone, leaving only a few roaming troops doing what Morgan didn’t know, but if she wanted to stay alive she had to keep scrounging supplies from what was left behind, and this was the best place to look.

She’d come down to the planet with nothing other than the senzu beans in her helmet, but the orbiting fleet had managed to send a supply pack down to her through hot drop…several actually, with a cluster of little meteors raining down in the region she was in. She’d gotten to one before the Skarrons had gotten to the others, grabbing as much equipment as possible, including foodstuffs, but it had already been a week since then and the supplies weren’t going to last her forever.

With those stashed a few kilometers away in a place marked on her battlemap, she’d come across what had been a battlefield but with the bodies having been removed. The Skarrons had picked up their own dead first, then it seemed the Hobbits had scavenged the others and ate them, for the armor pieces were laying everywhere without any occupants. There were a few tree clumps but otherwise the location the firebase had been put up in was an empty, squishy plain that was just on the dry side of being a swamp.

Those troops in the firebase had evacuated long ago, the lucky ones anyway, and those ships in orbit had long since left. So far Morgan hadn’t come across any other battlemap signals from surviving troops, though given how spread out they were across the planet that didn’t mean much. The nearby LZ was the only one she was within range of, and it had sprouted three different firebases that had been left behind in the rushed evacuation…not to mention the equipment packs on the Star Force troops.

Those were strewn about with the armor pieces, and Morgan stopped next to one to look inside. Keeping her Ikrid senses alert for more roaming scouts she opened the pack and found it half empty, with some ammo and other useful items but no foodstuffs. Morgan plucked a few clips out and moved on, searching another two packs and likewise finding no foodstuffs, only a wrapper in one, suggesting that the Hobbits had eaten them too. After that she abandoned the battlefield and moved inside the remains of the firebase, finding it similarly looted.

At least all the cargo crates were, having been opened and emptied of everything edible, but when Morgan checked the emergency supplies in the walls she let out a sigh of relief when the hidden panels were still in place. She opened one and found both foodstuffs and water, plus medical supplies and other useful stuff once she opened up all of them throughout the base, giving her enough survival gems to stay alive a good while longer…if she had a way of carrying it all.

The trailblazer made the snap decision to leave most of it in place, resealing the panels that the enemy obviously didn’t know were there and deciding to come back for it later as needed. Taking a single satchel with her she left the firebase and headed across the chewed up ground dotted with disconnected armor segments and came up on the Hobbit she’d rendered unconscious. She knelt next to it, accessing its mind and making a few memory wipes so it wouldn’t remember falling, then she moved its body around into a sleeping position and input the idea that it’d decided to take a quick nap.

That way when it woke it wouldn’t raise an alarm. She needed to be a ghost here, both to keep the troops off her and to keep her stash in the firebase safe. Anonymity was how she was going to survive, and even one missing scout could betray her position if she made this one ‘disappear.’

Morgan got across the plain without incident, then headed back into the blue-leafed trees and took an evasive route back to her stash to make sure she wasn’t being followed, coming up on the car-sized boulder in the riverbed that had a small nook on the far side up next to a small cliff wall. She stomped her way across the water and circled around the rock, with her footprints being erased by the water.

Once out of sight she came up on a small patch of dry land pinched in between the boulder and the cliff wall with enough foliage over top to make a roof that would keep her invisible to any fighters passing overhead. Taking a moment to search the area with her senses she waited for nearly a minute before sitting down and pulling her helmet off. She swiped several beads of sweat onto her armored fingertips then flipped them off into the pool of water nearby, sending small ripples out in the otherwise calm puddle around the boulder base.

She tossed the satchel aside and began unlatching the armor on her chest, eventually undoing all the connected segments and crawling out of it and leaving the open shell on the ground like a carapace. Making another check of the area with a mental sweep, Morgan pulled off her sweat-soaked clothes one piece at a time and moved into the shallow pool, submerging her body as much as she could in the slightly cool water and trying to pull some of the persistent heat out of her chest. The weather had gotten insanely hot two days ago, and her armor only had so much heat dissipation capability built into it.

Part of those systems were now offline, having been damaged by plasma the second day, so her internal ‘air-conditioner’ was only minimally active and these cross country treks were causing her to sweat out way too much water. Fortunately the drop kit she’d recovered had a device that allowed her to drink the river water or collect moisture out of the air and she was using it a lot, but her internal heat levels were still too high and she guessed she had a fever.

It was odd, because Archons almost never got sick. Their immune systems were so buff with all the training that the worst they ever got was a little sniffle, but new planets had new biological problems to contend with and she was pretty sure she’d picked up something here that her body was fighting off well, but leaving her a bit heat sick in combination with the temperature and the oppressive humidity.

She spent several minutes in the water naked before crawling over and grabbing her sweat soaked shirt. Still kneeling in the pool she wrung it out then dipped it underneath the surface and tried to hand scrub as much of the grime out of it as she could. Morgan repeated the process with the rest of her one set of clothes and laid them out to partially dry as she stayed in the water trying to get her temperature down while mentally scanning the area every few minutes.

So far her hideout had remained secure, but there was more than Skarrons and Hobbits about and three days ago she’d been jumped during the night. Fortunately she slept with armor on so the cat-like beast’s claws only scrapped her plates before she woke up and none too gently sent it packing. Since then she’d been on the lookout for more critters, both on land and in the water, not wanting to pick up any leeches or other nasty stuff while skinny dipping, but there was no way she was going to stay in her armor and roast if she could help it.

Morgan dipped and washed her hair in the water then swam out around the rock and into the river where she could feel the current and relieved herself with her body mostly below the surface to keep her little pond clear. She looked around in the bright daylight as she did so, with the blue foliage everywhere along the water’s edge on both sides. Chirps and squeaks were audible everywhere, making for a quiet din that made her even more nervous about enemies sneaking up on her. If she hadn’t had psionics to give her a definitive answer as to what was out there she would have driven herself crazy with worry.

She didn’t have a watch on, for it would interfere with her armor, so she didn’t know how long she spent in the water, coming back in and almost sleeping in the puddle for a long time before walking out and drip drying…which was difficult in the humid air. She wrung out her hair and put it back into the ponytail she’d had since she’d began basic training then grabbed her mostly dry clothes and put them back on before getting something to eat and stashing away the new supplies with the rest that she had hid until a bush that she’d uprooted outside and brought into the nook to cover the hole she’d hand dug.

After that she waited a long time, sitting down on the ground and pulling her knees up to her chest and thinking. She didn’t have anything else to do and she needed to reduce her calorie expenditure down from her Archon high metabolism. Her body didn’t like doing that, but she gave it at least a short run in armor each day to help and keep her from going totally stagnant, but she really didn’t like just sitting and waiting…though given the circumstances that was what she had to do.

And given that her body was used to a lot of activity she couldn’t sleep much, which left a lot of time to just sit and think…and she really would have killed for a video game right now, even if only played in her helmet’s HUD. When she got off planet that was one of the to-do items going on the techs’ list.

After she’d had too much staying in place she got back into her armor and took a walk around, scouting out the immediate area. Moving slowly she didn’t burn many calories and spent the rest of the day tracing a circle around her hideaway several kilometers in diameter looking for scouts and just getting a better feel for the topography, which was varied and vegetation covered. Underneath the trees were ravines, switchbacks, and all other kinds of things that made navigation difficult. A good place to hide in, but also to get cornered in, especially if the fighters returned.

Ever since she’d switched her shields off they’d been absent, which was something else she needed to get back to the others to tell them sooner rather than later, though right now there was nothing she could do other than try and commandeer a Skarron ship…and if this forced inactivity lasted much longer she might start to get ideas in that direction, despite the impossibility of it. Even if she could manage to fly it she’d never get past the ships in orbit.

No, she had to wait for rescue, meaning her fate was now in someone else’s hands…and that was something that Morgan absolutely hated.

Two days later, after another cooling session in her private pond, she put her armor back on and saw a recorded message waiting for her. Cursing herself for not having put it on sooner she played the transmission, which as it turned out was intended to be one way.

They were going to try a hot extraction for her and had come down into orbit on a trial run to get within broadcast range, giving her the message that included coordinates and a timestamp…indicating that her ride was coming in a little over 2 days from now at a point 52 kilometers away.

That was a decent hike, but given that they didn’t know exactly where she was they’d just had to pick one that looked favorable in the general vicinity of her last known position. The 2 days was to give her time to get there, and potentially for orbital concerns. A ‘hot’ extraction meant it wasn’t going to be secretive and the enemy was going see them doing it. That meant the retrieval team had to get to the LZ ahead of the bad guys, grab her, then get out again before they got blown away.

Morgan had organized such things numerous times and knew they were tricky, but the news led to a surge of energy in her, for now she had something to do…get to the LZ and secure it in a way that they could pick her up in a manner of seconds.

With that goal now before her, her mind set itself to the task at hand and the heat no longer seemed the dire threat it had been previously. She had a countdown and knew she could put up with it for that long.

Morgan pulled out one of the emergency satchels and put enough foodstuffs in it for 3 days then hid the rest back in the hole on the off case that the extraction went bad and she was still stuck here. Taking it all with her would make her too awkward, like a combat-ready Santa with sack and that just wouldn’t do. She needed to be mobile and intended to make the LZ ready to go…with a slim backup plan and a place to retreat to if needed rather than potentially having to drop her stash and leave it behind in order to run if the Skarrons got to her.

Putting the now shriveling shrub back over the hole, she left the nook and stomped back out into the water, crossing the river and moving up the far bank and into the trees as she accelerated up into an easy jog headed towards her distant extraction point.

Morgan watched from the treetops where she had climbed up to get a view of the sky as the dropship made its way down to the surface at a breakneck pace. At first she could only see it on battlemap sensors, for it was broadcasting its arrival in no weak terms, making her aware of where it was so that she could be ready…and ready she was. She was standing on the highest leaves of the trees, scanning the skies looking for Skarron fighters as she watched the dropship come down like a distant meteor with her helmet’s zoom.

When it got within a couple of kilometers overhead she let go her awkward hold on a cluster of straw-like stalks and slid down through the leaves, falling through the massive plant and eventually hitting the ground on her side, smacking the wet soil then rolling over and onto her feet before running out onto the gravel wash on a U-shaped bend in another river. The wash had no trees or vegetation of any kind, making for a small clearing for the dropship to come down in.

By the time Morgan got out there it was growing large overhead, and within the next 17 seconds it disappeared behind a nearby ridge, then zipped out over top of her a moment later with an opening boarding ramp as it rapidly descended down to the gravel.

The trailblazer ran for it and jumped up onto the ramp before it had the chance to touch ground.

“Go!” Morgan said over the comm as soon as her foot hit the metal, launching her inside between two Archon acolytes at the entrance.

The scenery outside whipped to the side as the dropship spun and accelerated upward. Neither Morgan nor the other Archons felt the shift due to the IDF, allowing them to casually close the ramp as a bit of wind pushed in to kiss Morgan’s armor as she tossed her nearly empty satchel to the ground with a sigh of relief, pulling her helmet off and heading for the cockpit.

“Nice to have you back,” one of the Archons said, following her.

“You have no idea,” she said, not looking back at him. “Note to the wise, the Skarrons can track our armor shields in the forest. We have to turn them off to avoid detection.”

“Damn,” the other one said, with the two exchanging glances. “What kind of range do they have?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not far. Get them overhead and they’ll own you.”

“Good to know,” the Archon said as he followed Morgan to the cockpit as the pilot was pushing the dropship as hard as he could to get up out of the atmosphere. On the holographic monitor they could see several fighter squadrons pursuing them, as well as nearby warships coming fast on an intercept…but at the same time three drones were moving down to cover for them.

“Where’s the rest of the enemy fleet?” Morgan asked.

“Busy on the far side. We had to pull them off to get you out.”

“How many others are getting picked up?”

The pilot shook his head. “You’re the only one to last more than 3 days.”

Morgan was silent for a moment, then turned and punched the wall with her armored fist. “What the hell happened?”

“I’m sorry, we couldn’t get back to the surface.”

“I meant with the Scionate,” she said, both fire and ice in her voice.

“I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve gotten a courier back with news yet, and with no relay in this system…”

“How many dead?” she asked angrily.

“I don’t know that either.”

One of the Archons behind her pulled off his helmet with an apologetic look on his face. “Twenty six thousand, four hundred and eighty one,” he said painfully slow. “We also lost most of the drone fleet covering the evac.”

Morgan closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, suppressing a string of vitriol that she knew would never be sufficient.

“Looks like we’re going to make it,” the pilot said after several dead seconds. “The drones are forcing the fighters off.”

“Thank you,” Morgan finally said, her voice now calm…yet dangerously so, like she was ready to snap and pounce at the first enemy to show itself.

“We don’t leave people behind,” the pilot said, fully aware that Morgan had ordered his dropship and others to skip her the first time in order to evac more troops.

“No, we don’t,” she said, glancing at the holographic map and seeing that they were nearly in the clear. Tossing her helmet to the floor and having it bounce off the wall and skitter around she began unlatching her armor with angry pulls. “Our allies are another matter.”

“What are we going to do?” the Archon to her right said, wrinkling his nose a bit at the smell of her rancid clothes.

“Get some answers,” she said, stepping out of the armor and into the crisp, cool air of the dropship with the planet’s excessive humidity blissfully gone, “then break some bones.”

9

January 24, 2553

Hatten System (Scionate Territory)

Inner Zone

Commander Yen’ten watched from the pit as his jumpship braked against the star and came back to relative speeds with the system, allowing for the continuous transmissions from the two inhabited planets in the system to begin registering properly, giving him the information he needed to plan the next jump…a small one across the system to the further of the two planets.

An insertion point in a friendly section of orbit was being repeatedly transmitted for any incoming fleets to hear, with the urgent call for reinforcements going out not just across the system but across the ADZ. Yen’ten’s troops had been on the border fighting Skarrons at Weema when the courier ship arrived with the recall orders, and since then they’d been on a breakneck course back to Scionate territory with him sucking his fuel reserves dry in order to get here as quickly as possible.

Running his gravity drives further out from both origin and destination systems allowed for greater speeds but had a diminishing return as the gravity weakened, costing you more fuel for less thrust. At the moment speed was more important so his giant troop ship had trimmed the navigation as closely as they could, now arriving with barely 4% fuel reserves. That would be enough to get them across the system with some left for maneuvering, but they weren’t making a stellar jump again until they got refueled…and the only way that was going to happen was if they won the ongoing fight occurring on both planets.

The Scionate troop jumpship came out of its microjump into middle orbit amidst a group of Scionate warships holding the rendezvous point while far more numerous fleets of Lacvamat ships dominated low orbit…but not enough to blockade the planet, which had the surface tied up in battles that saw the enemy pushing over 2/3rds of the smaller planet of Orril and with a solid but contained foothold on Rewqt. According to his information the Lacvamat were pushing Orril hard, intent on wrapping it up then moving their troops over to Rewqt to then conquer that world, with Yen’ten being ordered to send his 36 transports worth of ground troops down to Orril.

They had to hold that planet or lose the system, and with so many Scionate troops deployed elsewhere in the ADZ there was no way of telling when the next group would return. Three systems were under assault, all smaller ones. The Lacvamat hadn’t been so bold as to hit their Capitol or primaries, but they were succeeding in taking the targets they were striking, due in no small part to the fact that the Lacvamat had no troops on the front and were essentially hitting the Scionate with a dishonorable, blindsided attack.

But that advantage wasn’t going to last, for the troops on the fronts were being recalled en mass to defend their territory, giving the Lacvamat a window of opportunity that the local defenders were trying to stall out…with little success. A quick glance at the overall troop disposition and Yen’ten knew his transports would be going down heavily outgunned, but they had to hold at least a piece of the planet to deny the Lacvamat the clean sweep. More troops would be on the way, he knew, and the Scionate were the dominant military power of the two, so if they held long enough the scales would tip in their advantage, but they were going to have a very bloody price to pay in order to do that.

There was no question whether or not they’d pay it. The Lacvamat had hit Scionate territory and every single one of the quadrupeds was now out for blood. They’d do what was necessary to attain eventual victory, even if it meant fighting and dying here to buy time for others to finish the job.

The jumpship waited at the orbital rendezvous point long enough for the other ships following it in to arrive, which took nearly two hours, but that was as long as they were going to wait. Two more jumpships, one a troop ship identical to Yen’ten’s and one a warship carrier that added desperately needed firepower to the Scionate orbital presence. With those ships and the others working as escorts, Yen’ten ordered his transports to disconnect and head down to the planet to make a contended landing in a very hot LZ where the troops already on the surface were losing ground rapidly as they retreated across a massive grass plain with only a few small cities to find shelter in.

Mik’tal ran hard, keeping pace with the Scionate tank alongside him. The big, blocky rectangle shielded his right side and the hole in his yellow armor as the skies overhead were filled with distant Lacvamat. Little energy orbs dropped like rain, landing randomly across the landscape from the unarmored flyers that were too far overhead for the infantry to shoot back at. The few Valeries in the air were consumed by the Lacvamat’s own fighters, shaped like a boomerang similar to their starships.

Those fighters were nearly the Valeries’ equal, despite the inferior technology…but then that was to be expected of an aerial race. Trouble was that meant the Scionate had lost air superiority, which meant they’d effectively lost the ground war because the Lacvamat didn’t fight on the ground. They flew overhead and rained down ordinance on the infantry, landing only when there were key structures to take.

In those few situations the Scionate were eating them alive, making it hard for the Lacvamat to take the few outposts and cities ahead, giving Mik’tal and the other fleeing troops somewhere to run to. They’d just had to evacuate one of their major cities, with so many Lacvamat flying overhead and dive-bombing his unit that they’d been hard pressed to see the sun in the sky. The enemy was attacking in swarms, even on the ground, making it virtually impossible for the Scionate to hold out once the city shields went down, though his unit had made them pay for the victory with many kills when they came down inside the buildings.

Mik’tal had barely gotten out alive, more due to luck than skill, then had taken so many orb hits from above as he ran that his shields had gone down and his armor was penetrated on his right side. The wound was light, but it pained him as he ran…but run he did, for the Lacvamat were still overhead raining down glowing little purple orbs that were hitting the tank beside him and every now and then himself when he got unlucky.

Staying as close as he could to the tank he avoided taking another hit to his exposed side, but the further he and the others ran the more of them got hit, for there were more than 500 infantry running alongside 18 tanks and a myriad of civilian vehicles as they made their way towards the outpost ahead, which was already throwing up anti-air against the fighters pestering it ahead of the Lacvamat ‘infantry’ swarm.

Small twangs of energy discharge were sounding everywhere the orbs hit, then suddenly there was a loud screech of plasma overhead just before a Valerie shot over the tank so close that Mik’tal flinched. Two more quickly followed it and a glance upward saw the Lacvamat swarm changing its normal flow as the Scionate fighters flew directly into their midst, shooting or ramming them out of the sky.

The first glint of hope in many hours forced Mik’tal to continue looking up as he ran, catching an orb to his armored face that then drove him down into the ground. His head hit and tripped him up, rolling his armored body over in a bad somersault as the tank continue to move ahead of him. A small personnel transport behind him hit him in the head as it didn’t slow, knocking him down a second time underneath it as the anti-grav vehicle floated over him.

He held still for a moment, then popped up and got into the clear before the next vehicle in the convoy could do the same, nudging aside another Scionate and falling back into the group as they ran with the orbs continuing to drop even as the Valeries tore into the swarm…but the Lacvamat weren’t letting the ground troops go, intent on killing them in the open and having more than enough flying infantry to do it, no matter how many of them the Valeries took down.

Mik’tal continued to run, seeing a few others around him go down to the purple rain accompanied by the occasional falling Lacvamat corpse, as they were still two kilometers away from the outpost and the more or less clear sky over it that was still in contention with weaponsfire and enemy fighters continuing to go at it, though the outpost’s shield appeared to be down, which was probably why the Lacvamat weren’t pulling back despite the losses they were taking.

Mik’tal’s skin rippled with goosebumps as a loud rumble sounded on his right and grew louder quickly, with the sun going out above as a Scionate troop transport flew in low overhead, pushing the enemy infantry away with its own anti-air fire but more importantly blocking the airspace above the convoy so they couldn’t rain down fire on them. Elsewhere nearby other troop ships were coming down right into the swarm and beginning to unload with Mik’tal very glad for the help but knowing that the Lacvamat weren’t going to be easily displaced.

He just hoped all these Scionate weren’t coming in to see their quick deaths.

The transport overhead stayed with them all the way up to the city, but then it began taking heavy plasma hits as the Lacvamat version of walkers began pounding it. They were fighters, but so bulky and heavily armed they were more like mini flying turrets…and a group of 60 or so were coming in through the infantry swarm to hit the transport, as well as firing down underneath it.

The vehicle to Mik’tal’s left took a hit, then quickly two more that exploded a chunk of it out that bowled over four Scionate ahead of him before tearing into the grassy plain and setting small fires in its wake. He didn’t know if they were injured or dead but he didn’t stop, knowing that he’d end up like them if he didn’t get indoors and the outpost was just ahead. He kept running, trying to block everything else out, including a plasma blast that fried the Scionate next to him and took down his own shields, leaving the left side of his armor a melty mess.

A few seconds later and his left rear leg seized up as the melted metal hardened and locked the mechanical joint in place. Mik’tal fell, then got up into a three-legged limp continuing forward as another tank flew directly over him. He had to duck to keep from getting hit, but was momentarily glad for the air cover.

When it passed him by he saw troops coming out from the outpost towards them, fresh troops, one of which came up to him and knocked him over with her head, then rolling him up into a rescue carry over her back with his armored paw in her mouth as she retracted her helmet into segments that pulled back down her neck.

Glad for the awkward help, he let her carry his massive bulk all the way into the outpost gate where she dumped him to the side then disappeared, with him seeing her helmet reform just before she went back outside. Now laying next to a building, Mik’tal dragged himself over to the nearest entrance and went inside, relieved to be out of the deadly rain, and inspected the damage to his armor and realizing he was going to have to jettison it. He couldn’t fight with three legs, so he began peeling it off and pried his leg out of the jammed section, leaving him with only the wound on his right side hindering him.

He was alive, for the moment, and needed to either find a new set of armor, which was unlikely, or find some way to assist the others that didn’t involve taking weaponsfire.

Ven’poi ducked his Valerie down through the Lacvamat swarm again, cutting through three of them with the bladed front of his fighter before even getting to fire the scatter gun, mowing down another dozen within a few seconds, but for every cluster he killed more came in to replace them. The sky was literally cluttered with the enemy, making for a target rich environment that had a very bad time targeting him. Their weaponry was designed to use gravity assist to cause heavy damage on the ground, with their air to air setting being very inaccurate. Add to that their reluctance to fire laterally for fear of hitting their own and Ven’poi had virtually a free fire zone to work through up until the enemy fighters got to him.

Somehow the swarm knew when they were coming and parted for them, allowing their fighters and heavy fighters through without any collisions. Their boomerang-shaped fighters took after him immediately, two against his one, and he knew he had to run. Dropping down to the surface was suicide, for the infantry would bombard the hell out of his ship, so his only choice was to go up and above the swarm…and quickly finding that’s where the other Scionate fighters had gone as well.

The boomerangs came up with them, both the small and the large versions. The larger ones were slow enough that Ven’poi could stay away from them, but the Lacvamat fighters would retreat towards them whenever the Scionate got the advantage, forcing them to either peel off or go head to head with the flying death traps. The heavies had enough weaponry and armor to slug it out with tanks, making his Valerie severely outgunned. The only way he could take one down would be to nip away at it with hit and run attacks, but the Lacvamat fighters wouldn’t allow that, making for a potent two-punch combo that frustratingly gave them aerial dominance over top the swarms continuing to assault the ground troops below.

Ven’poi knew they couldn’t win, so he focused on doing damage. Every enemy he killed here without getting himself shot down would be one less the Lacvamat would have to throw against other Scionate tomorrow. With that in mind he engaged the enemy fighters when and where he could, but when they tried to draw him off towards one of the heavies he let them go, dipping down to the upper edge of the swarm and killing dozens more infantry there before the fighters returned to chase him off again.

Eventually the outpost beneath them was overwhelmed, but the newly arrived ground troops were holding position a kilometer outside it with a tight cluster of tanks with infantry around them firing up randomly into the air and managing to hit the Lacvamat infantry enough to do damage, even when their plasma spit only brushed against them. The tank blasts did far more damage, and through sheer number of weaponsfire the swarm began to thin.

Then like clockwork when their numbers diminished to a predetermined level, the Lacvamat swarm turned and fled, all of them, in a matter of seconds as their fighters flew around behind them, covering their exit as they left the Scionate ground troops behind to reclaim what was left of their orb-battered outpost.

Ven’poi tried to chase after them, but their fighters wouldn’t let him or the others get close to the swarm that was now tightly bunched up to make it easier to protect as they flew rapidly across the landscape back towards one of their surface encampments, which were literally prefabricated vertical buildings where the flyers would roost. Ven’poi desperately wanted to bust one of them up, but their defenses were too strong to go up against with anything less than a full ground assault…or a warship.

But still, the idea was to hurt and stall the enemy. With that momentarily accomplished the Scionate pilot flew back over his own troops, waiting for orders on where to go next and getting a recall order to his carrier transport. He flew back inside the bay and set it down on the appropriate spot, then abandoned the cockpit and let the crew move it to where they wanted for service and repair, for he’d taken a few hull hits during the fighting.

Others hadn’t been so lucky, and a number of slots in the bay remained empty. Pushing aside thoughts of the dead, he headed further into the grounded ship to get some water and an update on their next mission…keeping himself ready to be called to the hangar at any time. They’d come down directly into the heart of the fighting and it was unlikely that they were going to get much of a respite, for the enemy was hungry for their world and wouldn’t be denied for long.

How soon the rest of the Scionate military arrived would determine the fate of this planet, and Ven’poi truly didn’t know who would come out the victor, with only the relentless bloodshed to come being a certainty.

10

January 29, 2553

Plenx System (Dvapp Territory)

Rvitx

Paul read through Morgan’s report, his anger growing at the Scionate, but he wasn’t overly surprised. This was the third notice that had come through the relays of Scionate units suddenly abandoning their assignments. A day ago he had gotten the answer as to why…the Lacvamat had cited that it was the Scionate who had launched the bioweapon on Leerbot and the avians had subsequently attacked one of their systems in response. Given the amount of troops the Scionate had devoted to the border they were at a disadvantage to the otherwise inferior Lacvamat, necessitating the recall to defend themselves against what, according to the few reports had made their way out to Paul, was a huge offensive.

But that didn’t excuse the Scionate leaving other troops behind. According to Morgan they didn’t even tell her they were leaving, just up and pulled out in the middle of fighting resulting in many dead soldiers and even Morgan had to pull a Houdini just to survive. Paul didn’t care if Earth was under V’kit’no’sat attack, he wouldn’t sacrifice others to return to defend his home a few hours early.

Fortunately some of the other Scionate commanders had been more tactful, informing the Star Force and Protovic troops that they were leaving but still offering no explanation. Paul expected that was because they didn’t want to argue when their minds were already set, but regardless of their motivation they’d just significantly weakened the Skarron front and handed the enemy two worlds that were in contention…maybe more, with the reports filtering in through the relay grid and those, like Morgan’s, that had to get back to a grid nexus just to log in and be sent.

There were no Scionate units in Plenx, so Paul hadn’t lost any of his troops but several other systems had. He wanted to send some of his off to counter the losses but he couldn’t afford to do so. He’d finally gotten the Skarron offensive on Rvitx pushed into a stalemate and was using it to reset the battlefield to his liking. Given time he’d push the Skarrons back but he needed all the troops he could get to do it. The fighting was still heavy and looked to favor the enemy, yet Paul could read between the lines and knew he just about had them beat, so long as there weren’t any surprises heading his way.

No, he couldn’t reinforce anyone else. The best he could hope to do was win this campaign quickly so he could leave it in Dvapp hands and move off to another…but this was a planet he was talking about and taking it back from the enemy wasn’t going to be easy nor quick, and it was going to take his unique skills to lead them to do it, so he couldn’t redeploy himself either.

If the weakened systems were going to get reinforced it wasn’t going to come from him…which he explained in detail in a message that he sent out, hoping some of the others would be in a better position to help. If it wasn’t for the Voku disrupting the Skarron reinforcements the Scionate and Lacvamat would have just handed the enemy the border worlds...and he wasn’t entirely sure that they hadn’t. Right now there were at minimum 12 systems that were vulnerable. He didn’t know if the Skarrons could take advantage of that or not with the limited fleets they had, but those with troops already on the ground were beginning to roll over the weakened opposition.

Paul expected more updates to come in emphasizing that point, but his hands were tied so he tried to put it out of mind and focus on the problems before him…reclaiming the Dvapp planet and preserving the surviving civilian population while killing as many of their warships as possible.

Morgan waited for the boarding ramp to lower fully before she walked out the back of the Eagle-class dropship and onto the plaza surrounding the Scionate ruling den on Vaadsip, leaving about a 300 meter walk between the ship and the entrance with yellow-armored quadrupeds surrounding it and blocking her way. They began to part as she got close, seeing that she had no weapons, opening a path to her up to a pair of Scionate standing in front of the closed doors in their ceremonial armor, indicating that they were permanent guards assigned to the den rather than the standard military versions surrounding it as backup security.

“Permission is required prior to entry, Human,” one spoke, referencing the fact that Morgan’s dropship had simply informed the Scionate that it was coming down. The Scionate hadn’t fired on it, despite their never agreeing to let it land, but giving her access to the ruling den wasn’t going to happen, especially after what had happened the last time she was here…though it was for that reason that the other guards were giving her extra room as she passed through them. Her armor color had changed and the designed thinned down a bit, but otherwise she was still the same intimidating presence that she’d been when she, Paul, and Kara had kicked the old bloodline out of power…for which this one was still grateful.

Morgan didn’t stop walking forward, nor did she say anything. There was a brief staring match as she approached the two, then when it appeared she was going to walk between them they moved to block her way.

With a single stiffened palm, she pushed her arm forward on the go and threw both armored Scionate back through the air and into the closed doors with a concussive energy blast, bouncing them off it hard and dropping them to the ground.

“Open the doors or I will myself,” she said loudly, coming to a standstill a few meters in front of the tall, closed entrance.

She let her demand sink in for a long moment, then when there was no response she pulled back her arms into a Kamehameha position and readied a large blast to begin breaking through when the doors cracked open and began to slowly pull apart. The two shell-shocked guards stepped aside at the insistence of others that had received a comm message from those inside and got out of Morgan’s way as she continued to walk forward, meeting up with a ceremonial honor guard that led her in and through the building…more to keep others from interfering with her than to keep her from going where she wanted, which was obviously next to impossible to do with the Archon.

When they came to the audience chamber the guards stayed outside, allowing her private access to the room…that held only a single occupant. As she walked inside the doors closed behind her, sealing her inside with the Scionate leader, Jen’ton, coming down off his pedestal and meeting her halfway wearing no armor.

“I do not apologize for the recall order,” he said stoically

“One hour,” Morgan said icily. “One hour and I could have arranged a pullout. Your people gave no warning and left in the middle of battle. I lost 26,481 soldiers, most of my fleet, and the planet because you idiots couldn’t open a comm channel.”

The Scionate’s eyes narrowed. “Where was this?”

“Weema.”

Jen’ton frowned and turned around, walking back to his pedestal and accessing the controls there to bring up the battle reports. It took him a moment to find the ones for the system Morgan had mentioned, then even longer for him to read through them.

Morgan gave him time, her anger not abating with it.

Finally the Scionate leader shut off the holograms and turned around. “If what you say is true I have no record of it. Our troops recalled from there withdrew without incident.”

“I was on the planet at the time.”

Jen’ton looked up at her. “I will investigate the matter further. If the commander in question abandoned his post prematurely he will be punished for it.”

Morgan took a step forward and suddenly Jen’ton found his throat constricting and his body being lifted up into the air with his legs and backside dangling from an invisible grip.

“Twenty six thousand,” Morgan repeated ever so slowly, “four hundred and eighty one of my people are dead because of the Scionate. The planet we fought to retake is now fully in the hands of the enemy. My ships were destroyed trying to save as many of us as we could evacuate in the time you didn’t give us. The entire front is now weakened and vulnerable to a Skarron push, with even a small one now capable of taking more worlds. You betrayed us and the entire ADZ.”

“Re…lease me,” Jen’ton demanded.

Morgan held her Vader choke, pinching her fingers a little closer together and tightening her grip while she pulled her helmet off with her other hand, then tossed it onto the ground to her left.

“We told you that we would not tolerate any more misdeeds,” she said as the doors far behind her burst open and the guards rushed in, running over to where she was strangling their leader with her magic.

Morgan raised her ‘free’ hand, though technically her other one wasn’t necessary other than for theatrics, and summoned up a surge of Jumat, pooling it outside her armor for a moment then throwing it out in a hemispherical wave as the guards got within a few meters of her and Jen’ton, bowling them over with ease while her body didn’t so much as twitch.

“Killing…me won’t…change anything,” Jen’ton said defiantly.

“I was going for pain,” she said, taking a quick moment while the guards gathered themselves to access the Scionate’s mind and inject a stinging pain sensation…the feeling of a plasma burn from her distant memory translated as best she could into Jen’ton’s realtime senses. She forced it into his mind for only a second, just enough to get his attention before she telekinetically threw him over top of her and to the ground in front of the guards as she opened up and emitted the largest Fornax field she could, sending everyone around her also the ground.

She held the effect, simultaneously targeting one mind at a time and sending the Scionate individually into a deep sleep, neutralizing the guards until half of them were down and staying down, then she released the field and began to pick off the others in twos and threes, leaving Jen’ton to slowly stand up in the center as his dozens of guards were dropping like flies around him.

“Blame the Lacvamat!” he roared, both fear and anger in his tone. “They invaded us. We have to defend our own worlds!”

Morgan didn’t answer, still looking at and dropping guards as more came in and ran over to the fallen others. One actually fired a plasma shot at her, but she saw it coming and put out a telekinetic ‘net’ that actually caught the fiery ball of gas a few meters in front of her. She held it in place and let its glow fade out into nothingness before releasing the now hot air into the room…then she pointed at the one who had fired at her and sent a Jumat blast his way, knocking him back four meters to where he skidded across the ground and into the legs of another oncoming guard.

“What would you have us do?” Jen’ton demanded as she continued to mow down guards with her ‘sleep stun.’ “Let the Lacvamat take our worlds and kill our people? They are already close to doing that with the troops we recalled. We must defend our own kin!”

Morgan swiped an arm through the air sideways and bowled back another half dozen at range, then finally looked at Jen’ton, who was crouching three meters away and to the right. “Not by sacrificing others.”

“We have a right to defend our own first.”

Morgan’s rage ticked up a notch when he said ‘right’ and she telekinetically grabbed him again, dragging him across the floor and under her. She dropped a knee down on top of him and held him in place while once again emitting a huge Fornax field, dropping all the conscious guards in the room, then picking off a few more with her sleep stun before finally relenting and seeing Jen’ton’s eyes focus on her again as his body began to recover its function.

“You speak of honor as the foundation of Scionate society…but the truth is you have none. What you have is a bastardized version that puts you and your kin above all others, and where they cross swords with honor to you slay it to justify your own pride. Those you abandoned on the front are no less valuable than those at risk to the Lacvamat. You could have withdrew your troops in conjunction with us, we could have formed a plan that would have kept the front relatively secure with no unnecessary losses but you didn’t give a damn about anyone else! You just up and pulled out…and to what, fight the Lacvamat?”

Morgan raised her arm again and threw out another Jumat wave, knocking down the guards that kept trying to get close to her and their besieged leader despite the mounting bodies all around testifying to the stupidity of that notion.

“Your military is superior to theirs,” Morgan bit out. “You didn’t recall everyone to defend yourselves. When your pathetically slow jumpships finally arrive you’re going to push them off the worlds they have taken and then annihilate them for the impudence of attacking you! You let my troops die to go on a bloodlust!”

Morgan repeated her Fornax field, taking down and neutralizing a few more before continuing to speak.

“The Lacvamat claim you poisoned their world. They’re reacting the same way you are. Irrationally and dishonorably striking back at their supposed enemies.”

“We did not attack them,” Jen’ton said, snarling up at her face that was only a few inches above him, close enough to smell her Human breath. “If we had we would not have hidden our intent.”

“You sure about that?” Morgan asked irreverently. “Seems you don’t know what the hell your people are doing. Perhaps you should investigate that too,” she said, throwing up her arm again as more guards got a bit too close and sending these flying backwards so hard they took down others behind them, some of which were knocked unconscious by the impacts.

“We are not to blame in this war,” Jen’ton reiterated. “Why are you not on their homeworld?”

“They didn’t abandon my troops in battle!” Morgan said, slapping him hard across the face with her armored hand before emitting another brief Fornax field. “We put you in power to rule wisely and you stab us in the back, you treasonous bastard. We’ll deal with the Lacvamat on our own terms, but as you damn well know we don’t have the troops to spare. We don’t even have enough to hold the border worlds without you, and we’re going to have to scramble to try and find a way and hope the Skarrons don’t recognize and take advantage of the weakness.”

“You aren’t defending yourself against attack any more than the Lacvamat are. You’ve been building towards this for decades and now that you both have an excuse you’re going to go all out, damn the ADZ and everyone else in it, just to fulfill your bloodlust…and you know we can’t stop you without pulling troops off the border, which we WILL NOT DO.”

Morgan knocked some more guards down, but more and more kept coming in, making the room very cluttered and forcing her to keep rendering them unconscious in order to maintain a buffer zone around her and their leader.

“If you want to fight go ahead and bleed your dishonorable asses dry. The Sentinels we have guarding your worlds won’t defend you or the Lacvamat. In fact, we’re going to move them to the front to try and help fill the holes you’ve left us with. If the Skarrons or lizards or anyone else feel like jumping across the border and hitting you, well, you’re going to have to defend yourselves on your own merits…but then again you’re good at that, aren’t you? Going it alone and all. Putting yourselves first and saying to hell with your allies, so I think you’ll understand the concept, but don’t misunderstand this as consent. We simply can’t stop you…now. But don’t expect that to always remain the case.”

Morgan Fornaxed again, this time having to take down more than before. Apparently the masses outside on the plaza were finally working their way inside.

“And if you have a change of heart and feeling like fighting our true enemy again, you won’t be doing so with us. Pick your own battlegrounds, because we’re not sharing ours with ‘allies’ that may or may not stab us in the back again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…not happening.”

Morgan stood up and telekinetically pulled her helmet back to her, slipping it on and no longer worrying about an errant plasma blast hitting her. She released her invisible hold on Jen’ton then kicked him hard in the gut, breaking at least a rib and sliding him a meter across the floor before Fornaxing again and pulling down the guards that were nearly on top of her as if she suddenly commanded the gravity of the planet to increase tenfold. They all dropped and she ran across their wriggling bodies, heading for the exit and busting her way through the troops there and all the way out to her waiting dropship.

A group of the troops outside approached her hesitantly, not sure whether to jump her or not as the boarding ramp lowered once again. Morgan walked to it, almost daring the Scionate to jump her, then held up a warning finger and waved it at those she felt were considering it. Remembering what had happened before they let her go, with other less wise troops coming back out of the den and trying to chase after her, but they were too late. The dropship took off and headed for her warship in low orbit…without any interference.

It left immediately, taking her back to the weakest areas on the front to do what she could on the ground in lieu of the armies of Scionate troops they no longer had. A trailblazer might not be able to replace the millions that had been lost, but she could at least rack up a decent kill count in their stead and hit some secure facilities to try and stall the Skarron advances while others began plucking the Sentinels out from Scionate and Lacvamat territory and redistributing them to the front.

Internecine

1

April 2, 2553

Ezreal System (Zeta Region)

Karmath

Leote crept around the alleyway, shrouded in a dull brown cloak that hid his combat armor from view…not that there were that many people around to see. It was night and a few hours before the traffic flows would start manifesting themselves for the coming day. Better sections of the city had day-round traffic but the slum the Kiritas was currently in had a much more lazy routine, though there were always a handful of people milling about in some various stages of depravity.

He blended in well enough, though there were no other Kiritas or Kiritak on the planet. At least not in this regional zone belonging to the Mesoni. They operated a fairly loose society with a large number of other races intermingling with their populations and making up about 55% of the inhabitants, so Leote’s small form wouldn’t attract too much attention so long as he kept his head hidden. Kiritas were well known in the ADZ for their connection to Star Force, mainly due to the Kiritak that were deployed across dozens of star systems doing all kinds of work directly for Star Force as opposed to the Kiritas who were a semi-independent member nation within the overall empire.

Leote and the Kiritas kept to themselves for the most part, with the Archons not wanting them to play a role in the fighting on either war front due to the fact that their technology wasn’t up to par with the other races. It wasn’t for lack of trying, and Star Force had given them many upgrades…but through lessons rather than gifts, forcing them to advance on their own rather than simply be handed tech they didn’t understand. When it had been heard that Star Force had given the Hycre and Protovic advanced weapons tech some of the Kiritas had openly complained, though most loyal ones like Leote knew there was always a reason behind what their patron Humans did.

The truth was the Kiritas weren’t ready, and independence did have its drawbacks. Kiritak were already fighting in some small theatres because they’d been born and raised as Kiritak as opposed to being born Kiritas and transitioning over to Star Force service. Still, those Kiritak fighting were doing so in defensive roles, for as far as Leote knew they had no line combat units with Kiritak in them.

Both the Kiritas and Kiritak were support players within Star Force and the ADZ, but for those like Leote that didn’t mean no combat…just not the full scale invasion scenarios others were having to deal with. Leote had seen more than 120 years of clandestine missions and small scale combat, having first been part of the Kiritas military then transferred to their special ops units that, unlike their line troops, actually went offworld and did something.

And they’d been doing a lot in recent years as the ADZ population continued to blossom…for with that growth there were always shady characters taking advantage of others and someone had to stop them. With the Archons and Star Force’s line troops busy fighting the big wars, units like Leote’s got to pick up the slack and fight the small ones in their stead. That was no small task and Leote was grateful for it. The more the Kiritas got to fight the better it would be for his people…despite the fact that most of them weren’t up to his level of skill.

This wasn’t the first alley he’d staked out, but it was the first time he’d worked directly with an Archon and that put an added emphasis on not screwing up. Right now the others were inside the building complex he was creeping around the outside of, covering a possible escape route for those inside if they bolted when the Archons went in. The other 7 members of his unit were likewise spaced around the perimeter at places the Archons expected the Compact might flee from and he was here to make sure that they didn’t get away again.

They’d been on their trail for months ever since they’d interrogated their first captive and began the chase. A shipping invoice trail had led them to a courier who had placed the order and was part of a quasi-military organization that had numerous divisions, mostly legit and commercial, but with a not so public presence in the shady regions of the ADZ…and a much larger one that Star Force had realized existed. Leote’s team had hit two previous facilities, both with some of their people managing to get away.

Enough had been caught, or computer records found, that the chase was able to continue across multiple star systems leading them here to what they suspected was a major hub of their illicit activities. The Archons and the Knight were going in, with the Kiritas being deployed as a safety net to catch some or all of the potential fleers if they managed to somehow avoid the heavy hitters.

Leote had been on station for more than three hours, getting his cover established and becoming part of the scenery as he alternated between sitting and standing against a wall, making himself look like the others that had nowhere else to go. It was sad, given everything that Star Force had done for the Mesoni and other races, that they would run such a poorly organized society. The freedom that many sought here was the freedom to misbehave, and with that came the class of rundown, trodden upon ‘support’ that the rest of the society stood upon.

This never would have happened on a Star Force world, and at least the nearby outposts along the border strips gave these people a possible escape, but once again it was made clear to Leote that life in Star Force was not the norm in the galaxy. Many of the Kiritas took for granted the lives they had and didn’t realize how messed up everyone else was, which was why Leote and others like him were eager to do everything they could to help Star Force fight its wars, on any front, so when the Archons called he and the others had eagerly responded.

And tonight it looked like he was going to make himself useful, for one of the side entrances about 50 meters down the alley suddenly opened and a Rama came out, turning to the left and plodding down the opposite direction. The big, beefy biped was literally all chest and arm muscle, with short, tree trunk-like legs that Leote knew wouldn’t let him outrun the Kiritas so he watched for a pair of seconds to see if anyone else was following him out. When there wasn’t he threw off his cloak and sprinted after him, his armor making small dull clicks on the dry, grimy ground as he scurried down the alley, tail swinging side to side behind him in stride, and caught up to the big guy about 10 meters shy of him getting to the main street.

Before he could get within physical contact range the Rama turned around and swung a huge four-fingered fist at him, but Leote lithely hopped over it, kicking off the giant’s shoulder and falling behind his back. As he dropped the Kiritas reached out and stuck a small, hockey puck-sized object onto his back, then rolled across the ground and sprinted away from the next fist to fly, getting a couple of meters of distance before triggering the handheld remote for the stun mine.

With the trigger press the stun energy surged out through the physical contact, soaking through the Rama’s clothing like a stinger would, and tipping the hulking mass over as he fell unconscious to the ground.

Leote hopped back over to him and nudged his head with his armored foot, making sure the mine had delivered enough stun, for on a race of his size all that bulk had a way of eating up and negating the energy. The Rama didn’t move, but the Kiritas jabbed him with a tiny stun stick anyway, making sure he was going to be out a while, then took up guard position until one of the Archons could eventually get to him, for there was no way Leote was going to be able to drag this one off without an anti-grav lifter.

Galia dragged the Rama by the arm back inside the building to the private lounge where the other prisoners were gathered, not even bothering to try and pick the big guy up and put him on her shoulders. She knew she could, for he wasn’t that heavy, but it would leave her vulnerable and she didn’t feel like trusting the local denizens that much. After she got him inside the Knight deposited him next to the last four individuals she’d claimed from the Kiritas, then headed back out to get the 5th of what was 12 reported captures…with a few having slipped their grip again.

This time, though, they had some 40+ captives and hopefully that was going to be enough to get the answers they needed.

As Galia walked out Donn knelt next to a Drepwen with his exposed fingertip on his forehead, probing deeply into the unconscious mind as he had been doing the others. There was only so much information he could get when they were asleep, but he was using it to sift through the lot and figure out who would need a thorough interrogation later. Right now they were in the middle of a raid on a world that they hadn’t announced their presence to, and while technically Archons could go anywhere within the ADZ, slums like this didn’t take well to following rules, meaning that this wasn’t a safe place to stay and chitchat.

And even the governments of a lot of member races didn’t hold to that policy, though they’d initially agreed to it upon being given territorial slots as they fled the lizards and others, giving rise to a number of previous conflicts when Archons had gone in to investigate or put the smack down on someone who deserved it. Star Force wasn’t about to back down under public pressure, and routinely asserted the agreed upon rules despite the pushback. Donn wasn’t too sure how this particular region worked, but he knew the Scionate and Lacvamat had gotten extremely territorial given that they held systems with no Star Force presence.

The Archons usually asked permission, just to be nice, but if they refused they’d go in anyway…and Donn had had a great deal of experience doing just that with Crimson Team, though most of their ops were not public knowledge and had them going in and getting out before any of the locals even knew they were there, much like this mission. Any forewarning to the local authorities might have tipped off the Compact that they were coming, so Donn had expected to have some local security troops showing up on the doorstep to deal with the ‘interlopers’ in response to an alarm.

That hadn’t happened yet and the Kiritas would give him a heads up before anyone else could get inside, though the complex was quite large and the 8 of them couldn’t cover all the entrances, just the main ones. Donn figured he had a few minutes at least to do some probing and he wasn’t going to waste a second of it. He needed answers, badly, for the Scionate and Lacvamat were already fighting a civil war within the ADZ over this attack with several others on the edge of getting involved, though Star Force and the Protovic had bullied them into staying out of it…for the moment, but there were numerous secretive treaties between the varied races within the ADZ, not all of which Star Force knew of, with a lot of plot lines going down now that the real fighting had started and it was obvious that the major powers were too tied up on the fronts to do much about it.

Like Davis had said, he needed the truth to work the situation with, and Donn knew that assignment was up to him and him alone given how shorthanded they’d gotten trying to reinforce the Skarron front.  Reserve units kept in Epsilon Eridani and Sol had been called up, taking a gamble that those two systems wouldn’t get hit anytime soon, and sent to plug some of the holes along with the Clans doing the same and stripping off a lot of their homeguard units, as many as they dared anyway, and sending them out to the front.

In theory the Core should be out of danger, but Donn and the others knew better than to leave their backdoor open just in case someone was bold enough to hit it. Right now though it looked like they couldn’t play cautious and still hold the front so they were going to leave it slightly ajar and hope no one noticed.

When Donn accessed the Rama’s mind he got a mess of thoughts he didn’t understand, for their race was one that didn’t originate in the ADZ. They were native to a region below Protovic territory, with only a scattering of their individuals migrating up to a number of worlds. He’d never encountered one before, aside in passing, and as a result had to spend extra time trying to make a mental connection, focusing on the trade language that they both spoke.

Getting lost in the process he didn’t notice Brad approach, with the Archon startling him as he put a hand on his shoulder.

“Got something over here,” he said as Donn flinched.

“Oh?”

“Check the hotty,” Brad said, referencing the one Human in the lot.

Donn walked over to the brunette, who was casually attractive, and pressed his fingers against her forehead, not to increase efficiency but in order to create a link given the latent Ikrid blocks that she didn’t even know she possessed. It didn’t take long for Donn to find what Brad had referenced…a link to a command structure, in which this woman was a handler, so to speak, for the orders coming into this facility from their superiors.

“Take her,” Donn said, heading back to the Rama. “I’ll get back to you on the others.”

Brad picked up the woman over his shoulder, took her out of the room and through the facility, eventually coming to a roof access corridor that he climbed, making mental contact with the Kiritas up top who was waiting for him when he emerged on the roof. The Human dropped his treasonous kin on the ground and headed back down, leaving Jorfi to deal with her.

The Kiritas pulled the squishy Human over his shoulders and carried her across the grimy building top to where they had a mantis stashed between two higher sections that hid its silhouette from view against the semi-lit cityscape. He took her inside and gave her an extra tap from his stun stick to make sure she wouldn’t wake before binding her wrists and ankles and leaving her there, the first of what would be four snares on the night.

The rest of the captives were quickly interrogated for what little they knew then left behind as the Archons, Knight, and Kiritas eventually all came up and boarded the mantis with Donn flying them out and across the Mesoni airspace until they hit one of the neutral Star Force strips of land that gridded the planet. There they came to a ‘clean’ city, leaving the depravity behind and landing in a well-organized and friendly spaceport, shifting their captives over to Star Force security for safekeeping.

Then Donn dismissed the others to free time and went with the captives, intent on doing the full interrogations himself and needing at least a few days to do it. Meanwhile the other Archons would be following up the data traces they’d pulled from the computers in the complex. Until they had their next breadcrumb to follow they’d be staying put, with the emphasis now on Donn and his mental interrogation skills.

So far the Compact had operated with decent security, keeping only certain individuals aware of what they needed to know and offering no possibility of breaches…but what this organization did not know was that the Archons had the ability to pull up memories, including faces and other obscure facts that the individual who observed them might not even had known of. It was often from these innocuous tidbits that they’d be able to pull traces in the local databases and at least narrow down what they were looking for, but in this case that wasn’t going to be necessary.

The Compact had never expected anyone would be able to be traced this far back, and between the Human and the Critel he was able to break open their quarry. Both Compact members had been in contact with a medtech that had been in the same facility and overseeing the creation of the contaminated gel in a small test set. The full creation had happened in another facility that Donn and his team had found earlier, but it was here that they’d been given the tools and instructions necessary in order to complete production in a ‘safe’ external site.

That medtech was a Gnar, and given the memories Donn was reviewing it had also been the bacteria’s creator…or at least involved in the creation and not just a handler, given the snippets of verbal chitchat he was recovering. Not all of it was there to be found and Donn knew he wasn’t getting a full picture because of his limited skills, but because he had two minds to search through who had overseen the same instructions he was able to gleam a lot more detail with the binary pull than otherwise, giving him information about the Gnar that hopefully would be able to lead them to him.

That information, coupled with security footage recovered from the area surrounding the complex and local city eventually gave the Star Force analysts a potential identity, which they sent over to Donn’s team a couple of weeks later after an extensive electronic hunt.

The Gnar’s name was Yeveni Sammish Veen, and she was not only a medtech but one of the senior experts on the ADZ’s ‘Expeditionary Medical Team’ or EMTs, which was not a Star Force-led organization, but one put together by a number of other races to track down and combat various diseases and conditions resulting from the abnormally high mixing of the races that was having the downside of transferring one race’s ‘germs’ to the others and often with unpredictable results, some of which were lethal.

The EMTs sought out such cases and developed countermeasures, essentially being a goodwill effort that Star Force approved of without any interaction, and one which contained some of the most experienced medical professionals outside of Star Force.

Donn didn’t know what that meant in terms of the big picture, but to have someone so noteworthy involved in this sent up a warning flag in his mind, along with the feeling that they were about to get to the bottom of this…so long as he could get to Veen before she had a chance to disappear.

2

April 19, 2553

Solar System

Earth

Jason woke up…and immediately wished he hadn’t. His head as pounding but it was the rest of his body that was on fire. He’d had Bo stun him so he could get some rest, but now that he’d come out of it the pain hadn’t subsided and for a moment it seemed worse…but that was just because he wasn’t mentally fighting it. As soon as he fully woke up everything got back in line and his internal defenses reestablished, with him weathering the pain like a champ…and it was that internal clenching up that he had been trying to circumvent with the stun, for while it was active he couldn’t sleep…at all.

Jason rolled out of bed, feeling every fiber of his body complaining loudly and with needles, and looked at the clock.

Two hours and 18 minutes…that was better than nothing, but not nearly the sleep he needed. Deciding to take what progress had hopefully been made and put it to use he stood up and walked over to the nearby mirror and stared at his short blonde hair and ran his fingers through it, undoing a smashed section from his pillow. His gaze dropped down to his own eyes and he stared at his reflection, reminding himself that the pain was worth it as the twinkling grey of his irises attested to his recent ascension to tier 3…and not just tier 3, but one of the abilities that the V’kit’no’sat Zen’zat had never discovered…at least not by the point when the pyramid lost contact with their data network.

Kex was an ability that the V’kit’no’sat knew of, one of the mysterious 5 that the Zen’zat had never achieved and as such there was no data on it in the pyramid, leaving only Kara’s dragon knowledge for him to work off of. The full body modification made sense, but aside from a little hopping around Jason hadn’t been able to do anything other than fight the pain. He’d got the ability on the first try, which was probably why he was in such agony. Like when Bo got Sav, this was Jason’s third day of transition and the process was neither fast nor pleasant.

But those eyes attested to significant power, and even as his body complained it now held an impressive new strength. Not the processing power that Bo possessed, nor the concussive energy that Morgan wielded, but an entire revamping of his musculature and connective tissue, including an alteration to his skeleton that essentially gave him the Spartan treatment from Halo…only with far more impressive results.

According to Kara the strength was merely a byproduct of the process, which was designed as an agility upgrade. Jason hadn’t been able to test it yet and wasn’t going to today either, but he was able to jump insanely high. His vertical had at least tripled, and that was him only half trying. He now had a Jedi jump, at least, and was interested in finding out what else he could do, but right now he was just going to try for a short, slow run to get his body into some semblance of rhythm.

He pulled on some shorts and running shoes and headed for the track, aching with each step as he walked through the restricted training section of Atlantis where he and his team had been at it for the past 7 years…with ample results. He was now Padawan level 34 and top Archon, two levels ahead of Aaron, and they’d isolated some 7 ascension triggers outside of battlemeld. Vermaire was a bigger beast than ever, with him still able to beat the crap out of any Archon one on one and hold his own against 2, but when he threw in his own developing psionics he was truly a problem for others to try and deal with.

Jason’s psionics let him own him, however, so most of their duels were non-psionic, but put him up against 100 veteran commandos and he’d tear through them with ease. Vermaire was literally a juggernaut and still the standard bearer for the Knights, which Jason hoped could at least attain half of what the Black Knight had accomplished.

He was also very glad that he was here in the training group, because he gave the Archons the challenge they needed by beating the crap out of them time and again, just like in the old days, and they responded to that challenge in a myriad of ways, occasionally finding a way to take him down, then he would adapt and counter it with the end result being them both improving at a remarkable rate. His size, however, was becoming a huge asset.

Jason and the others had always known that was the case, which was why they’d created the Knights with the intent of using the V’kit’no’sat physical enhancements to beef them up to the 7 foot tall range, with a myriad of other upgrades along with it. What he hadn’t realized was how much a larger brain helped boost the psionics. In theory was one thing, but having the Black Knight Fornax and generate a field larger and more potent than any Jason had ever seen before was chilling.

And it was chilling because Jason had had the ability far longer than Vermaire had, yet he had already surpassed him in raw strength…not duration or accuracy, but in terms of raw power he had more because he had more brain tissue generating it, essentially a bigger emitter than Jason would ever have. The trailblazers got stronger with time, but he would never have as much tissue as a Knight did…and the Zen’zat were all Knight size.

Above and beyond that, the V’kit’no’sat were larger still and had so much brain tissue due to their size that their psionics were going to be difficult to combat. He knew there were ways to go about doing it, especially the battlemeld techniques that allowed two or more individuals to essentially share their tissue and amplify their abilities, but Jason was realizing that their psionics were really only crowd control for low level or small enemies and not a true threat to the big guys.

Which was why there was tier 3, with the change in eyes to match. Bigger size had its disadvantages too, and number one of those was agility. Vermaire was fast, mainly due to his endless training, but his higher mass required more power to redirect because of his momentum and the same was true of larger opponents…which was why the Archons had decided not to use the physical enhancements that the Knights did. They wanted their original small size and created the Knights so Star Force would have the best of both worlds.

Now, go up against an Era’tran and you were in trouble, but as far as small movements go the Archon would have the advantage. Boost that advantage high enough and you could theoretically evade them forever…though takedown power would still be lacking.

Jumat was that takedown power, and Kex was the agility.  Throw in Sav as an upgrade to both and you’d be at another level entirely, not to mention the other tier 3s.

But without any data on Kex or the other undiscovered psionics it was still a question mark as to what exactly Jason could do with it…and it was quite a surprise when he finally got to the track and painfully started to jog that he found his stride to be completely messed up. It was like his body had been switched out for a new one and his timing was completely off.

But it was a fast off…with him covering ground awkwardly, but quickly.

He hadn’t started the timer, so when he finished a couple of laps he stopped and painfully stretched out a bit, with his body still adamant that moving was a bad idea. He stepped back up to the start line and triggered a holographic pacing icon with his normal workout speed and hit the start button, with it shooting out ahead of him at speed while it took him a moment to accelerate.

He was tired…very, very tired, but he kept pace with it easily for a mile before he stopped. The lack of sleep was really grinding on him now, on top of everything else, but his excitement overrode that all and he readjusted his holographic tracker to match his personal record for the mile, which was a 2:24 on the track. The turns slowed him down a bit as compared to a straight line run outdoors or on some of the linear tracks, but this was the one he had access to in their training area and he was going to make the most of it. He set the program and started it, taking off at race speed and waiting for the pain explosion…which didn’t disappoint.

And his stride was so floppy there should have been no way he was going to hold a lap at pace, but somehow he came around with the marker and stayed with it up till the halfway point. Then he ignored the pain and pushed harder, with his stride seeming to smooth out a bit and him pulling away from the marker on the third lap.

The fourth one was where he ran out of gas, with the ascension and lack of sleep getting to him, but he swam through to the finish and managed to stay ahead of the hologram, recording a 2:21 pr as he crossed the finish and dropped to the track, curling up in a ball as the pain began to get worse as the numbing stress wore off and he got the full sensory load.

Totally worth it, he told himself. He was a physical mess right now and had just ran faster than ever before. The thought of how fast he might be once he recovered made him smile in spite of the pain, with him knowing that Paul was going to be soooo jealous of him now…on top of the fact that he was top Archon.

When the eventual update made its way through the relay network to Plenx Paul wasn’t onboard ship to see it. He’d gotten the naval situation stable enough that he’d left command in the hands of Admiral Caster, the most junior of all the Admirals within the fleet. Given Paul’s own naval skills having an experienced Admiral on the same ship was deemed a waste of personnel, so Paul always took the ‘rookie’ under his wing and sent the others out to where they could have more of an impact as he passed along some of his knowledge to the newbs…which were usually at least 200 years old by the time they got to him.

Caster had a been a long time Captain of a Warship-class jumpship, recently promoted up to Admiral with the same type of duties only multiplied exponentially given the size of the command ship and the fleet that came along with it. He was competent and had spent a few years with Paul, enough for the trailblazer to trust in his skills to handle the situation now that the orbital conflict wasn’t at risk of going south barring any stupid mistakes that he knew Caster wouldn’t make.

That left the ground war on Rvitx as the trouble spot, and as usual Paul threw himself right into it, assigning himself to commando duty and going down in his heavy armor to help make up for their lack of troops. Rather than fighting with a Star Force or Dvapp unit he went solo, dropping from high altitude down into infantry-only theatres and fighting his way out of them to a nearby outpost or Dvapp city…and racking up a significant kill count on the way.

Paul preferred the heavy armor, which had about 30% more plating than the standard version and 50% stronger shields, because it gave him additional battle longevity as opposed to the regular or agile armor, both of which weren’t necessary given the opponents the faced. He wouldn’t have wanted to go up against a Zen’zat in this armor, because he would have needed the extra speed, but like all Star Force armor it wasn’t actually bulky and was still designed to move with his body like a thick second skin.

To Paul it felt like wearing two layers of clothing as opposed to one, preserving most of his agility and giving him plenty of speed while allowing him to just plow into Hobbit units without worrying about racking up too much shield damage. Those few extra seconds were enough to essentially make him an invulnerable tank in small scale engagements…and that he took to the bank, killing far more enemies in the same amount of time as he could have in the other two armor variants.

Slowly, region by region, they were pulling the Skarrons back, with them not being able to mount the infantry attacks on secondary areas…and Paul handing a lot of those when they did. Without the ability to simply flood the planet with infantry the fighting was being constricted down to fewer and fewer areas, with those containing their walkers and other anti-air capability. That gave Star Force and the Dvapp air superiority everywhere else and took the pressure off a lot of the remaining Dvapp cities…those that hadn’t been taken or destroyed previously.

Paul stayed on the ground for the next three months, personally leading one of the major assaults on a Skarron-captured city and taking down several of their walkers himself using his Ikrid. The fighting was heavy and the enemy dug in hard, without Star Force or the Dvapp able to call in additional troops, but being the strategic mastermind that he was Paul found a way and ground it out until they finally broke the walker support and were able to bring in their air cover…after which that particular city fell within 2 days.

Paul stuck around another day to help clean up lingering infantry then finally returned up to the Excalibur for a few days of badly needed training and to catch up on naval matters before heading back down again for the next heavy assault…with the Skarrons having seen how they’d taken down the other city and no doubt preparing a few surprises for them when they tried to do so again.

It took him a while before he got around to catching up on the training logs from the other trailblazers across the ADZ, as well as filing his own embarrassing numbers. Fighting the enemy mattered, but he hated when it took him away from his training…and his first workout had been total crap, having been away from it for so long. He’d lost both strength and speed, but knew he could get it back. Trouble was he wouldn’t be here for long, needing to go back down to the planet for the next assault.

That frustration blossomed when he got to Jason’s logs and personal messages. Not only was he eating through Archon levels like they were a bag of Doritos, he’d somehow managed to join the tier 3 group that only Morgan and Bo had attained to date…but he’d even one-upped them by attaining a psionic that even the Zen’zat hadn’t achieved. That was insane, and Paul wanted to be back training with them so much he nearly punched the keyboard in front of him.

But he didn’t, for he knew Jason felt the same way about being on the front. Both of them were where Star Force needed them to be and doing what was necessary to secure the future, both against the current threats and the big one looming on the horizon. Attaining a psionic that the Zen’zat hadn’t was HUGE, and Paul made sure to remind Jason of that when he sent back a reply…and to remind him that as soon as the found the trigger for it he was going to be the first one Jason shared it with.

When Paul was going through the training logs of some of the other trailblazers posted to various regions within the ADZ a news warning icon manifested itself with a recent update. Paul paused what he was doing and pulled it up, with a notice that a Protovic system had just been evacuated due to insufficient ground troops to hold the two inhabited planets there. What few civilians remained had been successfully pulled out, but despite there being two Sentinels in orbit and an adequate defense fleet comprised of two Star Force Warship-class jumpships in support of 254 Protovic line warships, they’d completely lost control of the surface.

Unable to prevent some troop and cargo drops from occurring, the Skarrons were reinforcing their ground gains and littering the landscape with missile turrets. They didn’t have the ships to even scratch the Sentinels, but other than dropping them down near the atmosphere and bombarding the planet, which the notes suggested the Kip was already doing, there was nothing they could do.

Paul knew that his fellow Archon would kill as many of them as he could, but the planet was now theirs and all they had to do was build underground where sensors couldn’t see them and they’d have a safe haven from the cleansing beams, which could drill down into the crust to a decent depth, but without knowing where to shoot and having ground troops to follow up, the Skarrons could establish strongholds out of Star Force’s reach.

His mood soured by the news of the loss, he mentally cursed the stupid Scionate and went back to reviewing workout logs before heading to bed. After a couple of days of intense training and some long sleep sessions Paul would return to the surface and lose himself in battle, his planet and campaign heading in the right direction, at least, due in no small part to his personal presence there.

3

June 3, 2553

Sului System (Scionate Territory)

Favrrcor

“Jack, you better get up here.”

The ranger paused mid swing at the punching bag in Balboa Lane as the voice broke through over the chamber’s speakers. He glanced at the wall panel that held the comm unit and telekinetically flicked a few switches.

“What is it?” he asked, knowing that only something serious would warrant interfering with his training.

“Looks like the war has finally showed up on our doorstep.”

“Who?”

“Lacvamat.”

“Damn. On my way,” Jack-81118 said, logging out of the training sequence he was in and resetting the chamber to normal with all the various objects retreating back into the walls as he exited enroute to the command center in the outpost.

Favrrcor was a primary Scionate planet, the only one in the system but one of their major habitation centers. Star Force had no presence in the system aside from a tiny outpost on the surface that held some 5,400 personnel who were due to evacuate soon. They weren’t a colony or civilian center, but a military outpost with one purpose…controlling the single Sentinel in orbit.

It was scheduled to be removed, as were they, but they weren’t first on the list and the jump cradles needed to move the big sections of the station were hard to come by. Jack’s assignment to this post was really a dead-end one, but there had to be a senior Archon in charge of such a massive piece of weaponry, not so much to operate it, but to make decisions about who to shoot given that there were no other Humans within the system.

They’d been deployed here as a courtesy along with the Sentinel, as well as to make sure no one, including the Scionate, messed with the control station. Most of the people he had in the outpost were defense troops whose purpose was to safeguard the outpost, with the balance being a few techs and other support personnel. The Sentinel itself was completely remote controlled and sat in geosync orbit above them, a tiny dull star amongst the others in what was currently the planet’s night cycle.

It was a necessary deployment, but a boring one. Jack and the others focused on training exclusively, with several commandos and Knights having requested such an assignment strictly for that reason. A few had seen combat on the lizard front and needed a breather, while the bulk of the others were rookies getting some time outside of Sol. Jack’s time was split between his personal training and drilling the others, of which only four were Archons.

But today his assignment here was going to come heavily into play.

By the time he reached the small control center the Lacvamat fleet had already jumped into orbit in numbers that stunned even Jack. There were no troop ships or other transports…it was a massive fleet of warships that were already pouring down into low orbit and literally hunting the Scionate defense fleet. It had been reduced by about 30% to send relief to the other worlds under attack, but even had it been at full strength he doubted they could have handled the Lacvamat fleet he still couldn’t believe he was seeing. They outnumbered the Scionate ships 12 to 1.

“What do you want to do?” one of the remote gunners for the Sentinel asked.

“Bring the shields up on the Sentinel and lock down the outpost. If anyone’s outside call them back immediately. We’re going turtle and watching how things play out.”

“We’re not going to defend the planet?”

“This is their fight, we’re to stay out of it…since we don’t have a means to stop it.”

“What if they come down here?”

“We’ll jump off that bridge if we come to it, but right now I’m not seeing any transports.”

“They could be holding them back for later.”

“True,” Jack agreed, “but by the way they’re deploying I think they’re just here to target the navy and orbital defenses. If they wipe them out then the Scionate either have to leave the planet unprotected or pull ships from elsewhere to cover, leaving less to engage them in the invaded systems.”

“Uh oh,” another gunner said in a nearby seat as all 4 of them in the control room saw a chunk of the Scionate fleet begin to run…right up towards the Sentinel sitting on the boundary between mid and low orbit.

A split second later the comm lit up with an incoming transmission prompt.

“Damn you,” Jack swore, sitting down and tapping the activation button with a hologram of the front half of a Scionate materializing next to the tactical holo.

“Archon, we request fire support,” the ship Captain said as numerous little icons began winking out across the map as Scionate ships were being destroyed as packs of the Lacvamat’s boomerang-shaped warships hunted them down no matter where they went with slightly better gravity drives that gave them a maneuvering edge.

“Negative,” Jack said stiffly. “We’ve been ordered not to interfere. This is your fight.”

“You were put here to defend the planet, and we are under attack. Acquit your purpose.”

“We’re pulling out the Sentinel and evacuating this outpost as soon as we get the necessary transport. Until then we’re just spectators.”

“Please. One warrior to another. This is not a fight, it is a slaughter. We can’t outrun them and there are too many to fight. They have the star blockaded and mean to hunt us all down no matter where we attempt to flee. Your Sentinel is the only safe haven available to us.”

Jack chewed on his lower lip, his gut twisting up inside. The Scionate was right, the Lacvamat had them beat and they both knew it. As he watched other ships try to flee some didn’t make it, while others made microjumps out of orbit with packs of Lacvamat ships jumping after them. If the star was blockaded as the Captain suggested then the system had just become a giant death trap for any non-Lacvamat ship.

Jack was about to suggest they flee down to the planet’s surface when he saw others doing the same with the Lacvamat ships following them down there as well, right into the face of surface defenses in order to get to the ships and make the kill. If the enemy was eager enough to get the Scionate ships that they were willing to turret dive the surface defenses then there really was no safe place for the Scionate to go, leaving Jack to tell the Captains of the ships headed towards him that they simply had to die.

But that’s not the way Star Force worked, and there was a reason a ranger had been assigned to this station.

“Surrender,” Jack told him.

“We have tried, they will not accept one. They are here for our blood.”

“No, surrender your ships to Star Force. We’ll take possession of them so they can’t be used against the Lacvamat later and preserve your lives in the process.”

The Scionate hissed, an involuntary reaction that quickly faded and transitioned into reluctant acceptance. He didn’t want to give up the fight, but faced with all but certain death he understood the escape route the Human was offering.

“Agreed. What are your orders, Archon?”

“Bring all surrendering ships within a radius of 60 kilometers, but not within 10 kilometers of the Sentinel. Power down weapons but keep shields up and cluster together to perverse the station’s firing lines. I’ll inform the Lacvamat of the transfer of possession of the ships. Any of you coming within said radius will automatically be surrendering. If you try to leave again we’ll fire upon and disable your ships. Understood?”

“Understood and thank you. I will pass along word to the others.”

Jack switched off that comm channel and searched for one to connect to the Lacvamat fleet. “Power up the weapons and get the seats full.”

One of the gunners nodded and started bringing the massive defense platform to life as well as putting out a call throughout the outpost for the other gunners to report to the control center so they could get more hands on the controls, with it being established protocol that the less multitasking you had your controllers doing the more accurate and effective they would be.

Six more people came into the control room in a rush before Jack was able to get through to the Lacvamat, with a hologram of one of the perched avians coming to life beside the tactical map that showed more and more Scionate ships altering course and heading for the Sentinel.

“We’ve been told not to interfere in this stupid fight of yours,” Jack began, letting a bit of anger cross over into his trade language accent, something that he’d have had a bit of trouble doing a hundred years ago but he’d become fluent enough in it now that he had little trouble transmitting the appropriate emotional tones, “but we’re not going to sit by and let you slaughter their fleet. Those ships coming within range of the Sentinel are surrendering to Star Force. Their crews will be removed and we will retain possession of them, not to be returned to the Scionate to use against you later. You can consider them out of the fight, but we will not let you kill them. We can’t stop what you’re doing elsewhere in orbit, but here they will be safe and out of the fight.”

“If they attempt to leave the zone around the Sentinel we will fire upon and disable them, ensuring that their surrender is legitimate. Likewise, if you come within firing range we will defend those who have surrendered. Unless you also want to surrender your ships, stay outside of Sentinel range.”

The Lacvamat bobbed its thick head back and forth angrily. “So you side with the assassins?”

“We’re not siding with either of you idiots. Both of you should be fighting the Skarrons, not each other.”

“Tell that to our dead.”

“I don’t know or care what happened elsewhere. Here, now, the Scionate are surrendering to Star Force and their ships that do so will be of no threat to you. You have my promise on that, as they have my promise that they will be allowed to surrender. I will hold to both promises, so keep your distance.”

“We will not be denied our kills.”

Jack smiled dangerously. “You have a lot of ships insystem, but your fleet is no match for a Sentinel.”

“We will not attack your station, but if you think you can keep the Scionate from us you are wrong,” the Lacvamat said, ending the transmission.

One of the gunners raised an eyebrow and glanced at Jack. “Tell me he just didn’t…”

“He did,” the Archon confirmed, pulling up a targeting prompt so he could operate part of the Sentinel’s systems. He started with defining a ‘line in the sand’ distance range from the Sentinel and began an automatic transmission that was sent out into the clear along with a brief message he recorded also for autoplay, informing everyone on the planet and in orbit what the ground rules were. Scionate inside had to stay inside and would be safe, Lacvamat had to stay outside or be fired upon.

As the first Scionate warships and civilian transports began arriving Jack began tagging parking zones and pinging the ships as to where to go, hoping to line them up so they didn’t interfere with the Sentinel’s weapons batteries and give the Lacvamat blind spots to approach from if they were so stupid.

“Jack?”

“I see it,” he said as a trio of Lacvamat ships were nearing the line as they continuously pounded on a larger Scionate warship that was throwing back some weaponsfire but otherwise was overwhelmed.

Jack dialed down the power on one of the large cleansing beams as low as it would go and lined up a shot, waiting to see if the Lacvamat would cross the line and hoping the Scionate ship would survive that long. It was already taking hull breaches, but momentum alone would bring it across the ‘safe’ line within the next 20 seconds.

A large explosion blew out a chunk of the ship just prior to the line, then the four ships passed it…with the Lacvamat continuing their attack and ignoring the distance markers.

Jack fired immediately, sending out a very pale white beam that hit one of the boomerang ships on the shields and sucked some 22% out of them. He fired on the other two in turn, giving each a warning shot but to his gall the ships didn’t turn back. They had the Scionate ship nearly destroyed and he realized they were going to try and finish it off regardless.

With a roll of his thumb he dialed up the intensity on the beam and fired a brighter lance out from the distant station and punched through the weakened shields, burning a short line into the hull. He did the same to the other two, rending them vulnerable to the few weapons batteries still firing from the Scionate warship as it moved further within the safe zone…just as his comm lit up with an incoming transmission from the Lacvamat.

“Sorry, busy,” he said as he dialed up the intensity again and put a hole straight through the starboard side of one of the boomerangs where he knew a gravity drive was. As soon as he did the ship twisted as the intact drive that was operating under minimal power to stay with the limping Scionate warship pulling that side around and the dead ‘wing’ fell backwards.

Still the three ships wouldn’t let the Scionate warship go and it was near to being destroyed, already with hull breaches in numerous areas.

“Damn you,” he said, turning the cleansing beam back up to full intensity and cutting one of the Lacvamat ships in half with a drifting shot.

He thought that would scare the other two off, but he was wrong. They kept hammering the Scionate ship until its gravity drives were destroyed and the blocky ship began to list, with only two weapons batteries showing any return fire.

Jack gritted his teeth and fired again, bisecting the second ship and then quickly the third when it wouldn’t turn back, leaving the damaged Scionate warship drifting in towards the Sentinel at the same rate as the Lacvamat pieces that probably still had living crews aboard in some sections.

Finally Jack accepted the incoming comm.

“I warned you idiots,” he said icily.

“You dare to strike us?” the Lacvamat said angrily, following by a series of words in its native language that the Archon didn’t understand, but got the gist of.

“Stay outside of range,” Jack repeated.

“If you want to fight with these mongrels, so be it,” the Lacvamat said, cutting the transmission again as numerous dots scattered around the planetary map began repositioning, abandoning those ships that they were chasing elsewhere and beginning to head for the Sentinel, knowing that they could track the others down later. Right now they had to get at the ‘safe’ ones, and to do that they needed numbers.

“Shit,” Jack said, realizing what they were about to do.

“Orders?” the gunner beside him asked.

“I think they’re about to dive in and try to get the Scionate ships before we can kill them all.”

“Suicide run?”

“They know they can’t take down the Sentinel, but that isn’t their objective. They want the Scionate and we can’t put shields around them, only scare the Lacvamat off. They’re about to call that bluff which means we have to shoot fast and hard and play defense with offense…and that means it’s about to get very bloody. Barry, you’ve got herding duty. Get the Scionate ships where they need to be as they come in. The more they can overlap shields the better.”

“On it.”

“I’ve got the main,” Jack said, taking control of the extra large cleansing beam while leaving the other 10 large versions to the gunners. He set the firing sequence into shorter bursts, giving him more shots per cycle given the fact that it wasn’t going to take much power to get through the Lacvamat’s shields and hulls. They were about to face a zergling attack, and when that happened the big guns were pretty much useless. You needed the small, rapid fire or area of effect weapons to manage the horde. The Sentinel didn’t have any of those, but it did have short range weaponry.

As he began lining up his first shot and tagging the ships that he wanted the others to target so they didn’t waste shots accidentally doubling up, he saw Barry begin parking the Scionate ships that were coming in by the dozens on the opposite side of the station from where the bulk of the Lacvamat ships were approaching from. There were boomerangs coming in from all directions, meaning there was no ‘back’ to hide the ships in, but placing them opposite the largest number meant those ships would have to come close to the station in order to get to them.

Making an alteration to the plan, Jack tagged a few fallback positions in very close to the Sentinel and had Barry organize with the Scionate so when the word was giving they could orderly come down within the short-range defenses of the station if Jack and the others couldn’t keep the Lacvamat off them at range.

With that done, Jack targeted the first ship cluster to pass the line and opened up on it with the main battery, spitting bits of cleansing beam that punched directly through their shields and hulls on single hits, damaging them with ease as more and more Lacvamat approached and crossed over the designated ‘safe’ line.

As they did the other gunners opened up and the region around the Sentinel lit up like the night sky on the fourth of July.

4

June 14, 2553

Huey System (Zeta Region)

Quacker (Alliance World)

Donn dropped down from a decorative railing along the ceiling of the rightside wall of the promenade, landing in a crouch amongst the sparse pedestrian traffic in the Javvi city and scaring the nearby octopeds who scurried out of his way as he approached the security escort around the Gnar heading his way some twenty meters down.

As soon as she saw his black armor the envirosuit-clad medtech turned and ran, leaving her mix of bodyguards behind to deal with the Archon…but she shouldn’t have bothered, for it took Donn all of 8 seconds to dispatch them and another 6 to catch up to her, with the Archon getting a firm telekinetic grip on her slightly plump body and pinning her against the nearby wall.

“Hello Veen,” Donn said casually, looking from his helmet into hers…though hers was necessary, given that she couldn’t breathe a ‘normal’ atmosphere and requiring ammonia in addition to oxygen.

“Release me at once!  How dare you…”

“Cut the act. You running is as good of a confession as anything. You should have played it cool, not that it would have helped. We know what you did, and now you’re going to give us the details.”

“What are you accusing me of, Archon?”

“That little mess between the Lacvamat and the Scionate,” Donn said, telekinetically moving her off the wall and forcing her to walk. “Let’s move this conversation to somewhere more private, shall we?”

“You have no right to take me into custody! I am a member of…”

“See this helmet,” Donn said, pointing at his faceplate. “Underneath I’m giving you the ‘I don’t care’ look, now move on your own or I’ll drag you off.”

“No, I will not,” she said through her mask via electronic synthesis giving her a bit of a robotic voice. “You have no right…”

Donn sighed and linked to her mind, shutting down her voice and dropping her into a deep sleep as he caught her body and lifted it up over his shoulders in an awkward carry, but with a bit of telekinetic assist he got the armored little alien in place and carried her off, then turned around and stared down one of the bodyguards getting up and coming back at him.

“You don’t want any of this,” he said, not bothering to even take up a defensive posture. “Just leave.”

The Calavari returned his stare, then calculating his odds of taking down the smaller Human that had just beat him and the others within seconds decided to talk rather than fight.

“She is our responsibility,” he said, almost pleading.

Donn hesitated a moment, sensing his conflicting responsibilities. He wasn’t a Star Force Calavari, but an independent hire to protect members of the EMT as they moved around the ADZ, often through less than savory regions where they were hunting various ailments.

“This one is going to prison, and will require your services no longer.”

The Calavari huffed as another of the bodyguards, this one a Densan, got up and stood a few meters back. “For what crime?” the four-armed giant asked, not believing that the healer could be responsible for anything untoward.

“She created or helped create the bioweapon used against the Lacvamat. I assume you’ve heard of it?”

The Calavari looked from the Archon’s helmet to the unconscious Gnar on his back. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, and we intend to get additional answers from her, so stand down. You can’t stop me anyway.”

“Will you sign off on her transfer from our custody?” the Calavari asked, drawing a smile from Donn.

“Sure. Follow me and I’ll put everything in order,” he said, turning his back on the guards and carrying his captive off through the city with those he had just beat the crap out of in the blink of an eye following him at a respectful distance.

Davis read through the report from the Sului System, amazed at the lengths both the Scionate and Lacvamat were going to in order to kill each other. The Lacvamat had actually gone up against a Sentinel in order to try and destroy warships that had surrendered to Star Force in order to escape destruction. He gave the Archon on site credit for offering them that out, and for enforcing it, for it seemed that after the Lacvamat had lost so many ships and eventually left the system some of the Scionate tried to go back on the deal.

The report noted some 13 Scionate ships that the Sentinel had shot and disabled as they tried to ‘unsurrender’ and leave. The report went on to indicate that the civilian ships rescued from the attack were allowed to leave and return to service on the condition that they evacuated the warship crews, after which, having no means to take possession of them given how few Star Force personnel were in the system, the Archon ordered the empty warships destroyed.

An addendum to the report indicated that the Scionate had requested permission to destroy the pieces of Lacvamat ships within the firing radius of the Sentinel. The Archon on station had flatly refused, wanting to rescue and take prisoner any survivors, but the Scionate wouldn’t comply and waited for the varying pieces to drift clear of the Sentinel, after which they pounced on the ship fragments with the handful of their own warships that had survived the assault.

Those pieces that had yet to drift clear and contained surviving crews were left to die a slow death, protected by the Sentinel but without any Star Force ships insystem to rescue them. The Archon had tried to co-op some independent shippers in the system into service but they all likewise refused, not wanting to cross the Scionate whose umbrella they operated under even for the ridiculous amount of credits he’d offered. Frustrated to no end the Archon had gone up to orbit himself in a dropship and managed to rescue a handful of Lacvamat before they died, then he’d brought them back down to the outpost and almost had to fight the Scionate on the ground to protect his prisoners.

They’d surrounded the outpost and demanded that they be turned over, but he and his defense force held firm and the Scionate eventually backed down but did not leave until the evacuation crews finally got to the planet and began dismantling both the Sentinel and the outpost, with the Lacvamat prisoners going with it as the Star Force personnel fully abandoned the Scionate planet.

Davis didn’t fault the Scionate for defending themselves, nor for their anger at being attacked, but several instances that had come to the Director’s attention were proving them to be far less honorable than their reputation and egos asserted. Killing helpless crews onboard incapacitated warships and abandoning line units in battle to their deaths was unforgiveable. He knew you couldn’t judge an entire race by the actions of a few, but then again the actions of a few should not be repetitive ones, with this recent report indicating that the Scionate were putting themselves and their agendas ahead of honor when it became inconvenient…and honor wasn’t something you could switch on and off at will.

And the Lacvamat were even worse. They’d been attacked, and rightly were incensed, but they’d given Star Force all the information they had and by no means did it finger the Scionate. Unless they knew something they weren’t sharing then they were using the bioweapon attack as an excuse to air old grievances and it appeared the Scionate were doing the same thing now that fighting had broken out, with neither side interested in the truth or honor. Both were out for blood and it looked like they were going to get it.

And neither race was happy with Star Force either after the Sentinel incident. The report Davis was reading was an update, with bits and pieces coming in to him through the relays as events progressed, including scathing messages from the Lacvamat over the destruction of their ships and Star Force’s protection of the enemy and taking sides where they’d claimed to be neutral…as well as the Scionate’s utter vehemence over the destruction of the warships that had surrendered to Star Force. Apparently they hadn’t taken the ‘surrender’ seriously at all, and were more than angry about losing so many needlessly, not to mention Star Force’s reluctance to defend their planet as the Sentinel was put there to do in the first place.

Davis could sympathize with the latter bit, because the Scionate in that system were probably not the ones making decisions for the rest of their race and could well have felt betrayed by the surrender demand made by the Archon on station, but Davis wholeheartedly agreed with the solution he’d come up with. It kept Star Force out of the fighting while not being party to a slaughter that simply watching and taking no action would have been. Scionate lives had been protected, as the Sentinel was supposed to do, it was just their ships that were lost, and Davis wasn’t going to worry about those after how many drones Star Force had lost covering the Scionate’s sudden pullout.

Still, he realized that there were probably a lot of people out there getting burnt because of the actions of others and he wanted to minimize that as much as possible, but the economic penalties he was handing down to both races were going to hurt them considerably. That couldn’t be helped, but he knew he needed to do something else…creative, to move the situation in a more civilized direction.

He wasn’t sure what that would be, but he was working on it and was glad to get the Sentinel incident resolved in such a decisive way. It would give him some more social ammunition to use and hopefully would serve as a testament to Star Force’s stance. They weren’t going to take sides in this war, but they weren’t going to be manipulated into becoming a helpless bystander. Those individuals wanting to flee the fighting would have a sanctuary to run to, and he intended to emphasize that point going forward.

But there were rumblings amongst the other races that worried him, for the bad blood between the Scionate and Lacvamat was small compared to some of the others, and now that there was blood in the water and Star Force was shown to be too busy fighting to defend the ADZ to put a stop to it…

Needless to say he had a bad feeling about this, and his gut feeling was about to be proven right.

The Lacvamat had overextended themselves, hitting the three systems they had with such numbers as to take two of them and being on the verge of taking the third, and had taxed their military to the brink, with the subsequent naval assault in Sului having drawn off so many of their warships from their defensive fleets that the Scionate saw an opportunity and chose to take it once the bulk of their fleets had returned home to fight.

The Lacvamat capitol had been stripped of the majority of its defenses in order to fuel the assault forces hitting the Scionate hard, so while the fighting continued in those three theaters with increasing tenacity a backdoor armada was put together as quietly as possible with the Scionate taking better than 12% of their military out of view and forging it into a hammer that they intended to crush the Lacvamat capitol with, ending the war with one bold stroke by destroying the heart of their civilization that otherwise would not have been possible if the Lacvamat hadn’t stripped their defenses down to such an extent.

When the Scionate armada began to enter planetary orbit over Keeson the hordes of civilian and non-Lacvamat ships began to scatter like roaches, leaving only the weakened defense fleet and a number of orbital platforms standing between the Scionate and the planet. They engaged them directly, coming in with superior numbers and equipment, then began landing their troops even as the battle raged in orbit, with the Lacvamat unable to prevent them from getting to the atmosphere.

In a display of cunning strategy, yet barbaric sacrifice, the Lacvamat fought and lost nearly 75% of their defense fleet and stations before they sprung their trap. The Scionate knew the size and strength of the Lacvamat military and knew they didn’t have the numbers to stop this armada in orbit, nor to adequately resist the ground force they were bringing with them and even now beginning to field on the planet below…but what they didn’t account for was there being another player on the field, let alone two.

Jumping into planetary orbit from their hiding spots elsewhere in the system, the Lacvamat’s allies closed the trap they’d cunningly devised with both the Gnar and Nammet fleets coming in behind the Scionate and pinning them against what was left of the Lacvamat forces. It was by no means an easy fight, but the three races combined were now the superior in number and positioning, resulting in a very bloody battle that left little opportunity for the Scionate to retreat…and on top of it, the Scionate had been so overconfident they’d begun landing their ground troops, with a host of transport ships now vulnerable to naval assault in orbit and others trapped on the ground.

Some of those in orbit were able to flee, but many who tried were tracked down by the Gnar and destroyed along with all the troops they contained…something that would have been incredibly difficult to do on the ground, but was pathetically easy when they were all boxed up onboard mostly defenseless ships, for the Scionate escort fleet was fighting for its life and unable to protect them.

After several hours of battle the Lacvamat fleet was left decimated. It had been the sacrificial lure to attract and pin the Scionate, with the Gnar and Nammet fleets being the hammer to spring the trap and kill the Scionate…and that they did, but at a cost. They lost nearly half their ships but succeeded in destroying some 94% of the Scionate armada, including 72% of their loaded troop ships, with the rest being on the surface of the planet.

Those troops were already deployed or deploying, but were now greatly outnumbered by the Lacvamat on the planet, then to add insult to injury the Nammet brought in a number of their own troop ships to assist in the slaughter of the Scionate. The Gnar, not being well suited to the atmosphere, kept their assistance to warships alone, but continued to safeguard orbit and make sure any Scionate transport trying to flee the surface wouldn’t make it out alive.

It would take more than 2 months before the tenacious Scionate ground troops were completely eliminated, for backed into the corner that they were, unable to flee and having no hope of rescue, they admirably committed themselves to doing as much damage to the enemy as they could and made good on that goal, but in the end they were wiped out and the Lacvamat capitol remained more or less intact, now with a much stronger defense fleet that the Scionate couldn’t hope to counter as more and more Gnar and Nammet ships arrived. With word having gone out about the ambush and the new alliance between the three races they were going all in, sensing an opportunity to stick it to the Scionate and depose them from their dominant position within the ADZ…as well as to get back at them for past grievances.

What had gone from being a pointless war on the part of the Lacvamat, given the superior military of the Scionate, had now shifted into one that had the dominant race on its heels, and given the Scionate’s penchant for getting even with those who attack them, the Lacvamat, Gnar, and Nammet knew they had to go all the way and annihilate the cats or potentially suffer for it in the long run. It was a gamble, but given the opportunities it presented they’d decided to make their play and made it well, for by destroying the Scionate armada at Keeson they’d eliminated a huge portion of their military, with the Scionate now in a position to choose between defending their own worlds and stripping them down in order to make counter assaults.

When news of the events spread throughout the ADZ the backroom deals started occurring at a frantic pace, with both the Lacvamat and the Scionate bargaining hard for allies to bring into the fold and many races sensing opportunity to be had or just the opportunity to fight their adversaries where Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre had been preventing it before…but now with the floodgates open and the peacekeepers otherwise occupied they had their chance and weren’t going to pass it up, regardless of the long term implications it would have on the ADZ and their mutual defense against the Skarrons and lizards.

Right now that didn’t seem to matter, only the old bad blood coming back up to the surface and the ‘injustices’ happening to both the Lacvamat and Scionate, for both were victims and in the right according to their point of view, with few people interested in the truth and siding with those they previously favored while using events to seemingly justify their actions.

It was mostly subterfuge and propaganda. The truth was these races wanted to fight each other and now they had an excuse, with their bloodlust and greed overriding their better judgement and Lacvamat and Scionate territory being the playground on which they were going to settle old scores.

5

Donn sat crosslegged on a table in the holding cell opposite the blue-tinted force field separating the Archon and security officers from Veen, who was now outside her envirosuit given that the other side of the cell had been reconfigured to the atmosphere necessary for her race. Her previously plump form was no longer present, having been mostly mechanical necessity to store the ammonia needed for long duration excursions.

Breathing both oxygen and ammonia, some Gnar opted for less than full suits outside their own facilities, but most preferred the total coverings that concealed a very muscular, yet short physique. This Gnar was no exception, save for her musculature was more lengthy than bulk, due to the fact that she was a sedentary creature rather than a fighter.

Donn sat with eyes closed, making it look like he was napping as the two Star Force security officers questioned Veen at length, with no results. The Gnar was adamant that she had nothing to do with the bioweapon attack and was holding to her story, thinking that there was no possible proof to backtrack to her, and already demanding an official inquiry and that her people be informed of her imprisonment.

The Archon didn’t care about any of that, for he was already inside her mind and ferreting out the answers he needed, many of which were prompted by the questions being asked, with the true answer flashing in her mind so she could quickly avoid it, giving him plenty of threads to work with. It had been only 40 minutes since they’d begun questioning her, and only a few hours since he’d plucked her out of the Javvi region and brought her to one of the Star Force cities on the boundary strips, but already he had solved the riddle as to who was responsible for the attack…with him gathering up additional names and data as he made a thorough assessment of the intricate web these medtechs had woven.

Veen was one of a group of 16 from numerous races that had chosen to band together in the name of profit and, ostensibly, creating bioweapons to use in the defense of the ADZ. They’d conducted small scale attacks on individuals, assassinations and such to fuel their research, with this being the first large scale attack and pulled off in such a way to broadcast to all the shadow lurkers out there that they were in business and capable of delivering.

The Lacvamat had been chosen as a test in order to secure a contract with a wealthy, independent buyer who wanted an assortment of weapons created for him. The Critel apparently had a long running grievance with the avians and wanted them hurt, badly and publically, and Veen’s little syndicate had come through in that regard. Currently they were working on three new bioweapons for the buyer, as well as making subtle contacts with others through a network of shadow brokers, all the while keeping their identities a strict secret.

They hadn’t expected the Scionate to be fingered, or any wars to break out. They’d thought the attack would be untraceable and subsequently tolerated for lack of an enemy to strike back at. With the Lacvamat and Scionate now fighting an all-out war against one another Veen was worried about the future of their now blossoming profession, given that it appeared that Star Force didn’t have the manpower to curtail the fighting…but recent inquiries by a number of new parties suggested that the fighting might actually spur a new clientele that wanted bioweapons with more immediate, battlefield applications.

Donn got the sense from her that such things were years off, and that it had taken her and their little group more than 15 years to develop the toxin-producing bacteria they’d used on the Lacvamat, with Veen being responsible for modifying them to specifically target their physiology. They didn’t have an arsenal of lethal weapons capable of ravaging populations, but they did have some very select and nasty little assassination weapons that they’d been using for some time now and Donn needed to identify what they were and where they were being produced/held…and that was taking him longer than he’d expected, for the Gnar’s mind was a touch more resistant than most.

Occasionally Donn would telepathically feed the security officers new questions, with Veen starting to get worried as they were getting more and more specific, wondering how exactly they knew what to ask and if one of the others had been compromised…but she kept to her plea of innocence like a champ, completely unaware of the Archons’ mind reading abilities.

When he finished with her there were no further inquiries made, nor statements made to the public or notifications sent to her government. She was simply sent off to a prison facility and kept there under secrecy until Donn said otherwise. He and his team now had a laundry list of people to round up and facilities to hit, and he wasn’t about to give them a heads up that they were coming.

Once they cleaned this up they’d make public their findings and deal with that mess, but right now the hammer needed to drop and drop fast, with the travel lags going to be problematic. To that end he decided to split up his team into three groups, each which would head to different systems to round up the various individuals using ships commandeered for the occasion from what was in orbit. It took a couple of jumpships off their normal routes, one being a cargo ship and the other an ADZ transit ship, but he couldn’t wait and used his Archon authority, which was essentially limitless, to get his teams moving, with him taking the rover and heading to the furthest site on his hit list with Galia and two of the Kiritas.

Essentially isolated from the rest of the ADZ, the Hycre world in the Gavchi System contained some 18 billion inhabitants in what was a relatively underdeveloped world. There was little infrastructure in place to accommodate that many evacuees from the handpicked worlds in their original territory that had been abandoned, but since the Hycre preferred the atmospheric conditions on the more or less pristine world they were comfortably getting by with living in the open while additional facilities were slowing being built across the gas giant.

Orbit traffic was virtually nonexistent save for material shipments from mining sites elsewhere in the system and the occasional interstellar transports. The other races had no business to conduct here and Gavchi wasn’t on any of the current trade routes, making it an out of the way system in Gamma Region and well away from both fronts. There were some other threats in the area that existed below the Humans’ core region, but they were minor in comparison and didn’t require much of a defense fleet to keep subdued.

So it was with some surprise when a Scionate jumpship arrived insystem, with it quickly making contact with the planet and asking for the senior military and diplomatic officers.

WHAT DO YOU REQUIRE? the diplomatic officer on station replied, not bothering to contact the others unless this inquiry was deemed worthy.

“We have come to discuss the current war,” the Scionate answered in his native language, knowing that the computers were going to have to process it into the Hycre’s own, intelligible language.

WHICH ONE DO YOU REFER TO? THERE ARE THREE.

“I’m referring to the Lacvamat assault on our worlds, which the Gnar and Nammet have joined in.”

I AM TOLD THAT THE HAMMIDS HAVE DECIDED TO ASSIST YOU, AGAINST THE WARNINGS STAR FORCE HAS ISSUED.

“They have, and we do not take orders from Star Force.”

WE AGREE AND SUPPORT STAR FORCE’S EDICTS. YOU JEOPARDIZE ALL RACES WITH YOUR INTERNECINE. THE LARGER THIS CONFLICT GROWS THE WEAKER THE ADZ BECOMES.

“We only defend ourselves against the Lacvamat. They were the ones who began this war.”

ACCORDING TO THEM YOU STRUCK FIRST WITH THE BIOWEAPON ATTACK.

“A lie.”

WE DO NOT KNOW EITHER WAY. REGARDLESS YOU AND THE OTHERS ARE WASTING LIVES AND SHIPS THAT COULD BE PUT TO USE SECURING THE BORDERS. IF THEY FALL THE ADZ IS ALL BUT LOST. ONLY THE HUMAN CORE, OUR WORLDS, AND PROTOVIC TERRITORY WILL SURVIVE. THE REST OF THE ADZ IS WEAK AND VULNERABLE. YOU SHOULD BE CONCENTRATING YOUR RESOURCES ON STRENGTHENING IT. INSTEAD YOU DESTROY.

“We cannot help that now, save for ending this war quickly. For that we ask for your assistance.”

WE WILL NOT TAKE SIDES IN THIS CONFLICT. OUR FLEET IS CURRENTLY FIGHTING NECESSARY BATTLES.

“Securing the ADZ is necessary. As I said, we did not start this fight, the Lacvamat did. Then they recruited other races to join them in their push for our destruction. We were fighting on the front before they attacked us, they were not. We would like to return to fighting our true enemy, but cannot while our worlds are at risk.”

ARE YOU WILLING TO COME TO TERMS IF WE NEGOTIATE?

“It is not us that are the issue, it is the Lacvamat and others. I do not believe they are interested in a settlement.”

BUT ARE THE SCIONATE WILLING TO ACCEPT ONE?

“This war must end, and if a settlement is feasible that is preferable, and acceptable so long as the terms punish the Lacvamat accordingly. We will not accept a simple desist. We have lost too many lives for that.”

AND YOU WISH TO LOSE MORE IN COMPENSATION?

“We wish to decisively end this. We would have accomplished this on our own had the Gnar and Nammet not intervened. We have been betrayed twice, first when we were attacked while the bulk of our troops were fighting on the front, then again when we struck their vulnerable capitol and their secret allies ambushed us. They destroyed enough of our fleet and troops that we will not be able to quickly defeat them, even with the Hammids’ help. We require someone with greater strength that can force a surrender through either negotiation or military force.”

IF WE DO NOT KNOW WHO IS AT FAULT WE CANNOT FORCE AS SURRENDER, ONLY A CECESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.

“That will not be enough. Two Scionate systems are currently in Lacvamat hands. They must be returned.”

WITHOUT KNOWING THE SOURCE OF THE BIOWEAPON WE CANNOT GIVE JUDGEMENT OTHER THAN TO CONDEMN THIS WASTE OF RESOURCES.

“For the sake of the ADZ this has to end and end quickly. The Lacvamat are intractable. The only way to end this is to overwhelm them and force a surrender. The Humans will not intervene and the Calavari are now on their leash. The Protovic are defending their own territory, as are we, and we will not ask them to pull ships away from their own worlds to save ours. The Hycre are in a different situation, and we ask you to involve yourselves so that we can put an end to this.”

DO YOU KNOW THE SOURCE OF THE BIOWEAPON?

“We do not.”

IF YOU WERE STRUCK BY IT AND BELIEVED THE LACVAMAT WERE RESPONSIBLE, HOW WOULD YOU REACT?

“That’s irrelevant now. They had no proof it was us and they attacked anyway. The bioweapon is past history, with the current conflict made of long held grievances.”

WE CONCUR WITH THE SECOND POINT, BUT THE BIOWEAPON ATTACK IS OF IMPORTANCE. HAVE YOUR PEOPLE LEARNED NOTHING OF ITS SOURCE?

“We have had other concerns and no access to the attack site. We know nothing more than the Lacvamat do. Our concern is with events going forward.”

HAD YOUR WORLD BEEN THE ONE ATTACKED YOU WOULD LIKEWISE BE OUT FOR BLOOD. A NEGOTIATED END TO THIS WAR WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIOWEAPON SOURCE.

“Then a military victory is the only viable solution. Your assistance will make it much more bloodless and preserve more of the ADZ’s resources. Without you the conflict will grind on for years, perhaps decades. The Scionate will not yield, but our enemies are stacked against us and this looks to be a very long conflict. The sooner it ends the sooner our forces can return to the Skarron front. For this reason alone we ask you to intervene.”

AND WHAT IF WE INTERVENE ON THE SIDE OF THE LACVAMAT? WILL YOU SUBMIT?

The Scionate’s hologram scowled. “We are not in the wrong.”

IRRELEVANT. WILL YOU SUBMIT?

“We will not submit when we are in the right.”

THEN WHY DO YOU EXPECT THE LACVAMAT TO DO OTHERWISE? THEY WERE FIRST ATTACKED WITH THE BIOWEAPON. FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW THEY ARE IN THE RIGHT. WERE YOUR SITUATIONS REVERSED YOU WOULD DO THE SAME.

“Then we are at an impasse and fated to destroy one another.”

SO IT WOULD SEEM.

“Is there nothing you can do? We are willing and able to contribute to the front, the Lacvamat are able but not willing. They conserved their fleet while we expended ours for the benefit of all. This does not make us equals, yet you regard us as such.”

YOUR PAST CONTRIBUTIONS ARE NOT OVERLOOKED.

“Then I ask, what would you suggest we do?”

STOP FIGHTING.

“How? The Lacvamat will not stop until we are all dead.”

IF THE SKARRONS BREACH THE FRONT YOU WILL BE JUST AS DEAD.

“And if we don’t fight back the Lacvamat and their allies will destroy us long before the Skarrons can get to us. We did not start this fight, but we will defend ourselves. You would do the same if your worlds were to come under attack.”

OUR WORLDS HAVE COME UNDER ATTACK BY THE CAJDITAL. WE DID NOT WISH TO ABANDON THEM, BUT WE WERE WISE ENOUGH TO REALIZE THAT THEY COULD BE RECLAIMED LATER. MOST OF THE POPULATION OF THIS WORLD CAME FROM LOW PRIORITY WORLDS THAT WE EVACUATED IN ORDER TO PRESERVE OUR MOST VALUABLE ONES. DO NOT LET YOUR PRIDE OVERRIDE YOUR STRATEGIC WISDOM.

“You would have us concede the worlds the Lacvamat have taken from us?”

YOU ARE CURRENTLY WASTING VAST AMOUNTS OF RESOURCES TO RETAKE THEM. ARE THEY TRULY SO VALUABLE?

“They are our home. We will defend our territory no matter how large or small the world may be.”

THEN YOU WILL BLEED YOUR FLEET DRY.

“Which is why we need your assistance. We have no wish to annihilate the Lacvamat, merely to recover what is ours and put an end to this.”

YOUR ATTACK ON THEIR CAPITOL SUGGESTS OTHERWISE.

“Taking out their leadership was deemed the quickest way to end the war. It would be over by now had their allies not intervened. They had severely overextended themselves.”

SO YOU BELIEVED. THEY KNEW THEY HAD SUPPORT THAT YOU DID NOT. THAT IS NOT OVEREXTENSION. IT IS AN ERROR ON YOUR PART. YOU SOUGHT THEIR DESTRUCTION AND FAILED. NOW YOU TALK OF PRESERVATION OF LIFE. YOUR MILITARY DOMINANCE OVER THE LACVAMAT HAS BEEN EFFECTIVELY COUNTERED AND YOU HAVE AN EVEN FIGHT BEFORE YOU. WE WILL NOT TIP THE SCALES IN THAT FIGHT.

“You would have us annihilate each other? How does that benefit the ADZ?”

IT DOES NOT, BUT NEITHER SIDE IS INCLINED TO DO OTHERWISE. THE SCIONATE WILL NOT YIELD. THE LACVAMAT WILL NOT YIELD.

“It is not a matter of who will yield but of who is in the right. They invaded us. We are not at fault. We did not create the bioweapon. The Captain of the ship that exploded in their atmosphere was Scionate, but he was not affiliated with us any more than the independent Lacvamat mercenaries are with their government. We have been wronged, and our blood is running freely. We cannot tolerate this.”

AND WE CANNOT INTERFERE WHEN WE DO NOT KNOW WHO IS RESPONSIBLE. WE ONLY COMMENT ON THE INEVITABLE OUTCOME. IT IS A WASTE THAT WILL WEAKEN THE ADZ FURTHER.

“We agree. Something must be done. That is why I have come here to ask for your assistance.”

THE ASSISTANCE YOU SEEK WILL NOT HAPPEN. WE WILL NOT FIGHT IN THIS WAR. NOT FOR YOU OR THE LACVAMAT.

“Then fight to stop it.”

IF SHIPS ARE TO BE DESTROYED THEY WILL NOT BE OURS. WE HAVE BIGGER THREATS FOR THEM TO COUNTER.

From there on the conversation continued to loop for multiple days as the Scionate tried to plea their case to varying Hycre on the planet, none of which would accede to their requests in even the smallest way. The Scionate diplomat couldn’t understand their resistance, because the Lacvamat were clearly the ones to blame. After the incident with the Humans and the change of bloodline leadership the Scionate had been extremely faithful to the Alliance and they had not initiated this fight, despite their past bad blood with the Lacvamat.

They had been attacked and defended themselves. The issue with them pulling out from the front so suddenly was a separate matter, with the inclusion of the Gnar and Nammet making it clear that the Scionate didn’t have the luxury of only using part of their military to fight the incursion. They were in a fight for their very survival and had to go all in.

And that’s what they ended up doing, recruiting allies from every race that would listen, right down to independent military units and mercenaries that were willing to work for hire or favor. With the Hycre unwilling to take sides the Scionate were left on their own…and they were willing to take up that challenge. The condition of the Skarron front concerned them but honestly there was nothing they could do about that now…short of letting the Lacvamat kill them and end the war that way, which was never a thought in any of their minds. Besides, the Lacvamat weren’t going to help out on the front anyway, so the only way to get back to bolstering it was to win the war and free up their troops.

Now that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The Scionate were in trouble, having to fight a real war and not just a series of skirmishes, so they pushed aside all thoughts of the Skarrons and focused on their immediate enemies…races they had once called allies or at least associates, and who now were out for their blood.

6

July 3, 2553

Vensi System (Protovic Territory)

Ven

“You two ready?” the dropship pilot’s voice asked in their helmets.

“Always,” Travis answered for the both of them just before the aft boarding ramp cracked open and a flurry of wind shot inside, with both level 2 rangers waiting on the edge in armor and jump packs as a countdown began inside their helmets linked with the navigation system. Both of the twins watched it diminish down to a handful of seconds as the falcon zipped across the mountainous landscape, sometimes so close to peaks that that Karen felt she could literally reach out and touch them.

There was also the occasional plasma orb visible, shooting up and missing the kamikaze dropship and its insane pilot as they flew deep inside enemy held territory on the last of two contested planets the Skarrons were holding onto in Protovic territory…and holding onto with a vengeance. Most of the Protovic cities had either been evacuated or captured, with a band in the southern hemisphere still inhabited and fueling the planet’s resupply. That band was where the heavy fighting was occurring, with the Skarrons pressing their army advantage even while the naval situation in orbit was up for grabs.

The Protovic were holding their own up there well, with a bit of assistance from Star Force, though that ‘assistance’ was racking up far more kills per ship given that all of the drones in play were equipped with Talon cannons. Had there been more of them Star Force would have been able to push the Skarrons from orbit, but right now they were just barely managing to keep the Protovic fleets in play as they systematically chewed up ships given their superior gravity drives, often ambushing the enemy reinforcements coming into the planet.

Virtually everything in the region that the Skarrons were getting past the Voku was coming here, with several other systems having been abandoned or evacuated…with their troops redeployed here or to the neighboring planet in the system, Dahwa, where there was also heavy fighting. Every other star system in Protovic territory was now back in their hands save for one…though most were wrecked beyond immediate repair. Their fleet was also thin, not to the point of cracking, but after so many decades of continuous warfare their numbers were down and they desperately needed a breather to build up their ship count and train new personnel.

They were throwing most of their remaining army units here, attempting to stall the full Skarron takeover so they wouldn’t have a second uncontested foothold in their territory. Star Force was assisting with what few troops they had available, for most were deployed to Dvapp territory where the Skarrons were making more gains…and with the pullout of the Scionate several of the worlds just on the far side of the border that Star Force had been assaulting, either to reclaim or remove the enemy presence, were now back in Skarron hands and growing, slowly with the lack of adequate supplies, but the longer they were left to develop the easier it would be for the Skarrons to launch future assaults.

Ven and Dahwa were the key points now. If the Protovic were allowed even a short respite from the war they’d come back stronger than ever and be able to kick the Skarrons out completely. If the Skarrons were able to hold onto and even secure one of the two worlds, let alone both, they’d dig in hard and play the waiting game as they held onto their footholds while the rest of their empire found a way to deal with the Voku on Achkor, and even if the Protovic could reclaim one of the systems they wouldn’t have the strength anytime soon to take the second, meaning the Skarrons were going to be around to stay for a long time.

A number of reserve Star Force units had been pulled out of the core to replace others in Beta Region on ‘secure’ worlds, freeing up the more veteran units there to redeploy to the front in order to counter the Scionate pullout and make several strategic pushes in key places while the rest of the engagements in 9 systems played for a stall. Some of those were minor league battles now, with neither the Skarrons nor the Alliance sending reinforcements. They had to make do with what they had available, which burned Star Force even more because with the Scionate’s help they could have been able to at least marginally reinforce those positions and sweep away the Skarrons…but right now, even with all the reserves they’d pulled up, their outcome was still up in the air.

Karen and Travis has been pulled off their special ops work long ago and had spent the past two years fighting on another Protovic world as they maintained their remarkable advancement rate despite their irregular training. Now rangers with Karen holding the barest of leads over Travis in their training marks, they were being deployed into the Skarron rear to cause some havoc…which was what they’d been doing for quite some time now that their commanders had seen what they could do with their battlemeld psionics. Rather than splitting them up, which having two rangers together for these missions would normally have been considered a waste of resources, they were being sent out into more dangerous areas together, always together, and taking down key facilities or drawing heat off the major engagement zones.

Though in truth what they were doing was minor compared to what was happening down there, but even the loss of 1000 Hobbits could turn the tide in a close engagement, and as of this campaign their kill count stood at 3,421 with an additional 85 Skarrons…which the two were keeping track of by reviewing their helmet telemetry in their few spare hours.

In truth they were probably close to 4,000 by now but hadn’t had time to check, just having come out of a mission to reinforce a Protovic army defending a mountain stronghold. They’d gotten there just in time to work their magic and the Protovic had held…barely, but the facility remained in their possession and opened up the surrounding region to future operations rather than forcing the natives to retreat further.

That was the thing about Ven…it was all mountainous, with not a flat piece of land on the planet aside from the scattering of lakes that dotted the surface, one of which held a Star Force aquatics outpost that the Skarrons had no counter for. It was a strategic stronghold that Karen and Travis were operating out of north of the main inhabited band of cities literally hanging from and drilled into the mountainsides.

It made a mess of conventional ground warfare, but the giant Skarron walkers were still able to maneuver around better than the Star Force mechs and Protovic tanks…that latter of which could only operate in the wide open ravines, for they had been built heavy enough to tackle the Skarron walkers and no longer had the speed or maneuverability that they needed for traditional engagements. They were literally flying turrets carrying cleansing beams with some smaller versions, none of which could do much to support the infantry in all the nooks and crannies of the mountains.

Star Force was deploying an army of their smallest mechs, mostly ravens and neos, with the latter being used for their ability to work over the rough terrain with a skilled pilot, but there were so few on the planet compared to what was needed that, while they dominated wherever they were located, the Skarrons’ infantry horde was winning most of the planet for them…with their walkers coming in only to hit the big defense targets, such as city shields and turrets.

It was very much an infantry war here, with the big machines playing support, and in infantry wars the Archons dominated…let alone a battlemeld-linked pair of rangers.

When the countdown expired Karen and Travis walked off the ramp together, not having to say anything to each other for they already knew what the other one was thinking. Trusting the telemetry they dropped into freefall, immediately goosing their jump packs to break against some of the lateral momentum as they fell into a deep river at the bottom of one of the ravines…with Travis nearly missing and hitting the rocky sidewall.

He created a telekinetic wedge between himself and it, acting like a crash bag, and deflected himself down into the fast current a meter shy of the rock, disappearing underneath the water and coming back to the surface some 40 meters down as he swam to the side and came up near to where Karen was, with both of them quickly disappearing into the rocky jungle using their jump packs to get over tricky terrain.

They moved quickly for about 10 minutes before they finally noticed overhead Skarron fighters. Knowing to keep their shields turned off unless necessary, they kept moving under the canopy as much as they could manage and avoided their detection all the way up to a Skarron outpost that was little more than an encampment underneath the trees with a few single story prefab structures set up to accommodate the troops temporarily stationed there as they moved from one point to another on trails the Skarrons had been carving out of the trees, dirt, and rock for months…all of which usually operated below the canopy, making their movements virtually invisible to any fighters or orbital surveillance.

And with the great distances involved the Skarrons weren’t walking. They’d brought in tread-wheel transports that looked like giant centipedes in that the ‘wheels’ were made up of hundreds of individual segments that would literally wrap around rocks and allow the trucks to move over bad ground without having the energy expenditure that anti-grav would require. They had flying transports for that, but they were spamming the surface with these trucks and moving both troops and supplies everywhere they had built their roads.

The outpost ahead contained both troops and workers for doing more of that carving, with at least one branch being extended nearby. When the twins came to the edge of the outpost they didn’t offer up any warnings or give any sight nor sound of their approach, simply sliding into the camp and opening fire on one of the Skarrons there that was out in the open and moving from point to point.

Both Archons hit it with a combined Fornax blast before Karen jumped up on top of its fallen form and blasted into its back with her plasma rifle while Travis stayed on the ground and shot the Hobbits nearby that were coming to the Skarron’s aid and attempting to shoot his sister. Both of them kept the big enemy down with Fornax blasts until it was dead, then Karen jumped off and helped Travis clear a path through the enemies that were popping up everywhere to the largest of the buildings.

They fought their way inside, killing the Hobbits there before a lot of them could even get to their weapons, then split up and came out different exits, with Travis staying outside and fighting in the open while Karen snuck over to the nearby building and killed six more Hobbits inside, but passed over the knot of Engineers she found there. For whatever reason their race never fought the Humans, and in return the Humans didn’t target them. They were workers, not combat troops, and even though they were on the enemy’s team building and harvesting raw materials for them, they were no threat and treated accordingly.

Once the Hobbits began to pool outside to numbers that would jeopardize the Archons’ shields even with half of their shots missing, the twins used their Lew ability and both started generating an Ikrid field between the two of them, creating an invisible column of energy connecting the two Archons that they then ran through the Hobbits, taking down all those who passed through it with a disoriented visual and auditory wash implanted into their minds. It was temporary, just a little bit of mind tricks that made them see blots and bright flashes of light while hearing distracting sounds, all of which was delivered not to a targeted enemy, but to any that passed through the energy field.

The twins rendered some 80+ of them unable to fire back within four seconds of sprinting around either side of the group, then they proceeded to fire away at the enemies outside those affected, shooting those who could still shoot back while hitting them with individual Fornax fields and trimming the plasma fire coming back at them considerably.

Between Fornax, Lew, and a few other psionics, Karen and Travis kept the mass of Hobbits and two more Skarrons distracted, disabled, or confused long enough that the two of them were able to fight and shoot their way through them…then they broke up and chased down the scattered remainder of the combat troops and killed them before returning to the outpost and ignoring the Engineers as they came out of the buildings to look at what was going on. The two Archons quickly moved to the racks of equipment lining the storage buildings walls and pulled out several fuel canisters that they converted into a makeshift bomb.

After getting the Engineers clear they detonated it, blowing apart the building and at least damaging the handheld equipment so it couldn’t be used to carve out new roads, after which the twins got to work on the big pieces of mechanized equipment that looked like miniaturized and beefier versions of their combat walkers. Gone were the thin legs, leaving thick columns that supported crab-like work walkers that could cut down trees, move dirt, or carve out sections of rock.

For those the twins pulled out small explosives from their packs, with both knowing exactly where to put them on the machines in order to disable them. They planted some 14 in total, all linked to a single detonator and made sure the Engineers were clear before wrecking the lot with a quick pyrotechnics display that caught some of the nearby tree branches on fire.

Travis looked over at the group of Engineers just staring at them blankly, throwing them a sarcastic salute then leaving them and their residential buildings and food supply intact as he and his sister ran off down one of their roads heading towards the next link in their mountainous supply chain. They couldn’t do anything about destroying the roads themselves, but they could wreck the equipment being used to create them and kill their workforce, for most of the Hobbits were doubling up their infantry duties with construction ones.

Leaving the Engineers alive could have been seen as a strategic mistake, for they could go to work again, but in truth the only reason the Archons were targeting these camps and killing the Hobbits on sight was because they were actively assaulting the Protovic world. Had this been a Skarron world the Archons wouldn’t have killed them so…lithely, but they were here doing harm or helping others do harm to the Protovic and that they couldn’t tolerate. Those Hobbits, while building roads, would just as quickly pick up a plasma rifle and go into battle. The Engineers wouldn’t, which was why there was no point in killing them.

Not to mention the fact that a good number of them were defecting to the Alliance, for they were seeing more compassion from their enemies than they were their masters. Karen and Travis didn’t care about that now, for they weren’t on a recruitment or rescue mission. They were here to cause havoc and havoc is what they were going to cause…but there was a very fine and firm line between being a slayer and a butcher, and butchers they were not going to become.

That was a lesson that Bri had drilled into their heads, and they hadn’t truly understood until she showed them some of the results. While the twins had always been told how Archons were supposed to think and behave, all the way back into basic training, it had always been focused on them doing the right thing rather than seeing how it affected others. Once they’d gotten to see and hear firsthand from some of the Hobbits that had switched sides and get their point of view did they stop looking at the enemy as targets.

They were people, and not always involved due to their own choices. The Hobbits in particular were a slave race that would be killed on the spot if they didn’t fight, which meant that Star Force wasn’t just going to kill them off. They were going to help them if they could.

But if they were trying to kill their allies and doing a good job of it, well, the kid gloves would come off fast enough. Bottom line was, Archons would let you stop being an enemy, and would always give someone that option…but if you chose to be an enemy then they would treat you as such, with their dislike for killing quickly disappearing when you put someone else’s life in danger.

They were warriors and took on the role of slayer in a heartbeat if necessary, and right now, with the Skarrons pressing hard against the inhabited band of the Protovic planet, slayers were what Travis and Karen had to become…and they were very good at it.

7

October 23, 2553

Evelynn System (Scionate/Star Force Territory)

Shadow Isle

“Report please,” Admiral Victor asked when walking into the moon base’s command center.

“A large Lacvamat/Gnar fleet has arrived insystem and is moving to assault Night’s Veil. Information is still updating, but I would guess they’ve already begun combat.”

“Damn, they are getting bold,” Victor said, sitting down in his chair and accessing his personal holos with information coming in directly from the insystem relay network. Though Star Force had no presence on the Scionate world they did maintain a number of surveillance posts throughout the system, including planetary orbit, though at present Night’s Veil was on the other side of the star from Shadow Isle, which was orbiting a large, uninhabited planet full of valuable resources cloaked in a noxious atmosphere named Widowmaker.

It and the three moons surrounding it belonged to Star Force, while the rest of the system was Scionate property. Shadow Isle wasn’t a transit grid nexus, but rather a more private Star Force colony used as a military staging base that doubled as a storage depot, collecting both shipments of supplies from other systems as well as a scattering of mining outposts on Widowmaker, though those operations were mostly remote operated from the moon, with only a few hundred personnel on the planet to facilitate the machinery and handle the quiet excavation of subsurface tunnels that Star Force was creating without anyone else’s knowledge.

To the Scionate the moon was just a little backdoor Star Force outpost recently created since the transfer of ruling bloodlines and an added bit of penance on the part of their race…while also serving to bolster the system’s defense as Star Force kept a decently sized naval force there to service both Beta and Gamma Regions with reinforcements as needed. Most of that fleet had since been dispersed, but 3 warships and several hundred drones were still present around the moon as a defense fleet.

So far the Lacvamat had stayed away from Star Force worlds, even going so far as to avoid transitioning through one of their systems given the bad blood resulting from the Sentinel incident, but now they were hitting a Scionate planet right next door and Victor wondered just how far they were prepared to push this…and if the Scionate were going to flee to the moon to seek sanctuary.

Admiral Victor was the senior commander on the moon, given that it was primarily a naval way station, with a handful of lower ranking Archons on site for security reasons but no high level ones. Technically they outranked him, but given his experience they let him handle the security of the moon and planet below while they worked on their training and dealt with any odd problems popping up. They were stationed here primarily as backup, and Victor hoped they wouldn’t be needed in the coming days.

A new fleet of six warships was due to arrive within 2 weeks, fresh off the shipyards in Epsilon Eridani, and he truly didn’t want to have to waste any of their drones with this mess that was about to unfold, but so far the Lacvamat hadn’t shown any signs of strategic sensibility…though their tactical acumen was proving to be significant. They were handing the Scionate their asses where the reverse should have been true, both out thinking and out maneuvering the dominant military power and putting them on the defensive, but with no planning for the long term or how it would affect the ADZ as a whole.

If the front fell the Skarrons would come in and wipe out the Lacvamat, which would make this war all but pointless.

Then again blood feuds rarely made sense outside their fanatical context, which was why the Admiral wasn’t entirely sure the Lacvamat would avoid the Star Force world. It was small and isolated, and if they truly wanted to control the system they’d have to take it out…which would put them at war with an opponent far more powerful than the Scionate but so overwhelmed with the Skarrons that they couldn’t do much at the moment.

At the Sentinel incident they hadn’t fired on any Star Force craft or facility, they merely braved the weaponsfire to get at the Scionate, showing that they weren’t going to listen to Star Force’s edicts, but then again they weren’t, Victor hoped, stupid enough to cross the line into actually fighting them.

As the updated reports made their way across the system and to the command center the Admiral watched with keen interest how the combined Lacvamat/Gnar fleet systematically drove the Scionate out of orbit, with many of the ships fleeing to elsewhere in the system but the attackers didn’t follow them. Instead they held onto low orbit and began landing a large number of troop ships, some of which were Nammet but none Gnar. They opened up three different ground invasion sites and went about the process of what looked like a legitimate grab for the world.

Victor couldn’t do anything about it, given that his orders were not to waste ships on their blood feud, but he hated watching a fight going on nearby and sitting it out. The Scionate also sent out a plea for help the second day, which he had to grudgingly refuse. This war never should have been happening, but given that it was the Scionate were the defenders. He didn’t know about the legitimacy of the bioweapon attack, but the Lacvamat were the ones to start the actual fighting and he really didn’t like having to leave their insystem neighbors vulnerable when they were being assaulted.

He had to keep reminding himself of the Skarron threat and that his ships would eventually end up fighting there, as would he once the reinforcements arrived. He’d be transitioning out with a new commander coming in, for his stay here was just a temporary one.

But none of that mattered to his gut. Combat was going down and he wasn’t involved…and that just felt wrong.

8 days later the situation changed when a relief fleet arrived from the Hammids and Victor took keen interest in seeing how they were going to fight. To date they hadn’t taken part in combat on either front, but for some reason they’d sided with the Scionate and, so far as he’d been updated, this was the first time their troops were being thrown into battle.

Their fleet wasn’t large, but it was strong enough to defend itself and the massive number of transports it was escorting down to the surface. Victor wished he had some surface surveillance posts or even some stealth drones in play, but he didn’t. All he could see was from high orbit and where the ships went, with only a very tiny glimpse at what was happening down on the planet.

Nammti was riding in one of the first transports to go down, her wings tucked in closely as she and her broodmates were packed together in a rack so cramped it was hard to breathe as they waited to be released into open air. Her feathery wings were stiff and cramping from the long wait that had her cooped up with the rest of them prior to arrival in the system so they could be deployed tactically once they arrived no matter what the circumstances were.

She didn’t know any more now than she did before loading, but when the signal came the floor beneath her feet opened up and she dropped out of the transport like a rock, letting gravity pull her down and away from the others before spreading her wings and nulling her fall. There were so many other Hammids around her that it was hard to fly, but they’d practiced such maneuvers ad nauseum in the past and they all managed to avoid hitting one another as they formed up into groups and flapped their way down to a surface position now being marked for a diving attack on her visor.

She wore a headset and light harness around her body that mimicked the old Calavari design and had actually been created with assistance from one of their techs. It provided an energy shield that would shield her from plasma while not interfering with her flight in the least. Physical objects would still get through, but their enemies didn’t use many weapons of that sort aside from missiles, which would be mostly useless against the flocks of Hammids given they were deploying in the tens of thousands.

Each was about half the size of a Lacvamat and could outmaneuver them with ease, and as she flew with the others Nammti saw that the distant ground below her was covered with a swarm of Lacvamat that were their targets. She’d never liked the fleshy avians who didn’t have a single feather on them, nor their overly militant attitude. Hammids knew how to fight but were very reserved in doing so given their fragile bodies. They couldn’t put armor on else lose their flight capability so they had to brave the fields of combat without protection, at least until the shield generators had been built.

That gave them some measure of survivability, but their strength had always been in their numbers and being able to chip away at a superior enemy until they were wore down enough that they either retreated or were destroyed. The Lacvamat had a similar strategy, except they liked to bombard ground troops from above where they were out of return fire range. It was a cowardly method of attacking that the Hammids didn’t employ, though they would bombard the surface, but through diving runs rather than just lopping ordinance down…though in part that was because of their smaller size their weapons had a much shorter range of attack.

But the Hammids also believed that if you were serious about fighting then you’d do it face to face, with the way the Lacvamat fought being disconnected to the point of cruelty. They killed opponents without even seeing them, leaving them little more than statistics, and in war the Hammids fought people, not statistics.

What the Lacvamat were doing to the Scionate had nothing to do with a bioweapon. They’d been the major contender of the quadrupeds for dominance over internal ADZ matters while the big three were focusing on the fronts to keep everyone safe, including the Hammids, who had been devoting a steady supply of resources to the Protovic in lieu of sending their own people into battle. The anti-air capability of the Skarrons would be a literal death sentence to them, and the lizards were not much better.

During the defensive battles they’d fought, the lizards had slaughtered the Hammids save for when they had overwhelmingly superior numbers. If it wasn’t for Star Force and the Hycre helping them relocate to the ADZ they would have been wiped out long ago. They knew they couldn’t fight either enemy directly, so they’d decided to wage war on the resource front and had been doing so ever since the ADZ had been created.

But now was different. The Lacvamat were jeopardizing everyone with their bloodlust and the big three couldn’t pull troops away from the front to stop it. Despite Star Force’s warnings of consequences for getting involved, the Hammids had decided to take matters into their own hands and come to the defense of the Scionate…as well as to make the Lacvamat pay in a way that no other race could, avian to avian.

As Nammti flew with the others they corkscrewed their way down, forming numerous tornado-like spires that hit the topside of the Lacvamat formation, attracting the attention of their fighters. Some of the Hammids’ own Valeries moved to intercept the flying boomerangs, but some small carnage couldn’t be helped as the Lacvamat fighters unloaded scatterguns on the descending flyers. Their shields saved many of them from small hits that would have winged or killed them on contact, but those that took the brunt of the fighters’ attack were turned into puffs of feathers and burning flesh.

Knowing that there was nothing she could do about it Nammti took her chances and continued descending with the others down into the Lacvamat swarms, charging her two tiny plasma pistols located on either leg as she stretched her short arms down and pressed the activation levers. The Hammids were flying quadrupeds, but when in air they were mostly wings and beak, keeping their appendages tucked up underneath their elongated bodies for maximum aerodynamics. Nammti’s pistols were ankle bracelets with loops around her four claws that allowed for firing and weapons control, now that she’d hit the ‘on’ switches.

Knowing that she wanted to take the Lacvamat down as quickly as possible she triggered the holding charge, which contained and grew a tiny plasma burst so that when she finally did drop down on the back of one of the disgusting fleshy flyers she literally touched the back of it with her two short legs and unloaded one of the pistols’ charge into it.

The Lacvamat dropped into a death spiral as soon as the blue plasma discharged, burning a hole through its thin torso armor and either killing or wounding it, Nammti didn’t know, but it was out of the fight and she flew towards the next one headed in a similar direction, with many more zipping by on alternate trajectories in a jumbled, chaotic mess that the Hammid found to be neither. She was used to flying in thick, complex swarms…at least more so than the Lacvamat were, which gave her an easy second kill as she came up on one of them that was distracted trying to shoot from its chest launcher horizontally at another Hammid.

Nammti tagged it on its exposed head, burning a hole into the left side of its double skull and dropping it down through the air while she dodged another dead Lacvamat coming down from above as her two pistols began to charge up again. She flew evasively until they were, then went about poaching more targets as her kin did the same.

Though she couldn’t see it, the Scionate on the ground were ducking for cover wherever they could find it on the tree-dotted savanna as the corpses fell more rapidly than the Lacvamat’s purple energy orbs. Both races were falling out of the sky as the fierce aerial battle escalated, but it was clear that the majority of those being killed were the Lacvamat, with their heavier bodies thunking the ground and often the Scionate as they got hit falling from above, whereas the Hammids fell softer, dotting the landscape with burning feathers rather than seared flesh.

Unable to fire up at the maelstrom the Scionate were left with nothing to do other than run and hide for fear of hitting their allies…but that didn’t matter, they were grateful for the distraction and used it to either get to nearby cover or to push ahead to the grounded Lacvamat transports and hit them on the surface while the two aerial races were so consumed with each other they virtually forgot about the troops on the ground.

Never before had these two races fought against one another, but within minutes it was clear that the Lacvamat were at a serious disadvantage. The Hammids had never been considered a serious military power, with their starships and tech being on the lower end of the ADZ hierarchy, but where the Lacvamat were usually the more agile and dominated the skies over the groundpounders the Hammids took that away from them…and couldn’t function without it. So used to being nearly impervious to infantry attacks high up in the sky they were completely caught off guard by the Hammids’ agility and ferocity.

The normally tranquil race was coming at them with an anger that could not be explained and that had rarely been seen before, and they were showing far more skill in flight combat than they should have had given their pacifistic racial philosophy. The Lacvamat knew they’d sided with the Scionate prior to this invasion, but they hadn’t expected anything like this. Being the larger and stronger of the two they’d expected to own the little ‘birds’ in the sky, but that was not the case at all.

Within hours the Lacvamat began evacuating their troops off the planet, completely unable to contend with the Hammids in the air and attempting to go after their ships in orbit, but what was left of the Scionate fleet guarded them intently, often sacrificing themselves to keep their new allies safe, and together they pushed the Lacvamat invasion fleet off the planet and out of the system, for while they still had more warships in play they were so stunned by the reversal they became stupid and didn’t use what they had available or they could have possibly retained control of orbit.

Though that wouldn’t have mattered if they couldn’t make any gains on the ground, so they turned tail and ran…and ran hard, with the Gnar going with them and being equally perplexed as to how they’d lost the ground campaign against the ‘benevolent’ Hammids.

Admiral Victor watched all this from afar, not knowing what was going on down on the planet, and being equally perplexed as to how the Lacvamat had been driven off of Night’s Veil. He didn’t feel right about asking the Scionate after his fleet had been sitting out the fight, so he didn’t discover what had happened until months later when the rest of the ADZ was informed through indirect means and word filtered back to the Skarron front where he was taking the new warships into battle to help secure one of the remaining Dvapp worlds under significant assault.

8

November 11, 2553

Solar System

Earth

When Davis saw the message packet come in from Donn he skipped over the other items on his notification panel and pulled up the long overdue update…which he quickly discovered was not an update, but a mission end summary. The Director read through it slowly but eagerly, line by line revealing the full nature of the bioweapon attack’s creators and financier, who’d been the last individual that Donn’s team had apprehended.

According to the report they’d made a clean sweep of all 16 high level medtechs who were part of the privateer unit that had created the bioweapon without the others being alerted, then finally they’d picked up the Critel who’d paid for the attack, with all those involved taken to the nearest Star Force prison facility for holding until they determined what to do with them. Donn stated that he wasn’t going to get into that and the length of prison sentence he was leaving to Davis along with all other loose ends as he got back to the front…unless Davis required anything further from him.

Included in the packet was a thorough explanation of the nature of the wayward medical unit and their activities, including several assassinations that Donn had pulled from psionic interrogations. It was also noted that the group intended to develop bioweapons for use against the Skarrons and lizards, ostensibly for the defense of the ADZ, but even if that was the case you don’t practice by killing your own people.

Bioweapons had long been a sticking point with Star Force. Many races preferred using them opposed to sending in troops of their own, but history had showed that whenever they did and the enemy found out it usually caused more trouble than it was worth because they’d be targeted with an even harder reprisal. Now that was from races that fought each other regularly and only did so haphazardly, not an all-out war like the Skarrons were waging. Tick them off all you wanted, it couldn’t get much worse as far as their intent was concerned.

Star Force didn’t use them because they and chemical weapons were considered ‘dirty’ weapons by the Archons. Davis was less opposed to using them in certain circumstances, in the way of disabling rather than killing, such as gassing a target in order to render everyone there unconscious, but the Archons were adamant that they weren’t going to fight that way. Davis didn’t entirely understand why, but he agreed with them on most points and bowed to their wisdom on the differences.

But Star Force did have a bioweapons program, and a beefy one at that, so they could design and test defenses against the very weapons they were building. The Archons knew the danger of such weapons and they wanted as many immunities against them as they could get, but there was a strict ban on ever using any of the bioweapons and likewise Star Force had banned them from the ADZ as well. Davis knew that didn’t mean there weren’t bioweapons out there, but the races or groups that had them had to keep them secret else Star Force would come and take them away, along with instituting heavy penalties.

But Davis knew the idea of creating bioweapons to fight the Skarrons was going to be something many races would favor in lieu of sending troops to the front. He wasn’t going to advertise that that had been one of the aims of this rogue group, but he had to be prepared if it came out anyway…or if the bioweapon attack gave others the same idea. He didn’t think it would be an easy fix, for the Skarrons and lizards undoubtedly had the tech to counter such weapons after the fact.

But it was the lingering thought that, with the pyramid database, Star Force might be able to develop a neutralizing weapon against the Skarrons that would cover the loss of the Scionate. Something they could seed into the atmospheres of the contended planets that would render those who breathed it in unconscious, and tailor it to the Skarron and Hobbit physiologies.

It wouldn’t affect their walkers or aircraft, but any unarmored ground troops would be neutralized shortly after landing. In fact, the more Davis thought about it the better an idea it seemed, and as he was writing up the press release for the bioweapon attack investigation results he couldn’t shake that something was off. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something he wasn’t seeing.

There weren’t any trailblazers in Sol at the moment, aside from those in deep training and he didn’t want to bother them so he held off for a couple of days, trying to think it through on his own.

Killing through bioweapons was usually gruesome, for people didn’t have an off switch and killing them required causing damage of some kind despite myths to the contrary. But even if there was a magical kill gas that just eliminated opponents without damage it would be an area of effect weapon, meaning you just targeted an area and all those within it would be affected…which meant you didn’t really know who you were killing, and that inaccuracy was something the Archons would never tolerate, nor would Davis.

Bioweapons could be tailored to kill individuals, either by genetic identity or through delivery method, such as a dart as opposed to a gas. But again that left the question as to why you were fighting. Star Force didn’t fight to kill, they fought to neutralize threats, which was why so many stun weapons had been created to supplement their lethal ones…but even the lethal ones weren’t kill machines. They could wound an opponent without killing them, whereas a bioweapon just killed.

Then there was the surrender option. Star Force wanted to neutralize threats, and if they chose to surrender or otherwise stop being a threat that accomplished the goal and there was no need to kill them. Bioweapons didn’t allow for that, essentially being a death sentence when employed and unable to be rescinded if the situation changed. Even if a counteragent was devised there would be a lag in implementing it, and that sort of thing was needlessly sloppy to the point that Davis would have objected even if the Archons hadn’t.

But that still brought him back to the stun issue…if bioweapons could be made to stun and not kill, why not develop and use them?

It bugged Davis so much that he went ahead and sent a message to Jason, not knowing if or when he’d respond given the intense training he was undergoing, but not wanting to wait for the delay that sending a message out of the star system would entail.

It took all of 9 hours before Davis got a response that, in typical trailblazer fashion, cleared up the ambiguity that was plaguing him.

IT’S ABOUT CONTROL. ALL OUR WEAPONS ARE TAILORED TO OUR ABILITY TO DECIDE WHEN AND WHERE TO USE THEM AND OCCUR IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, MEASURED IN SECONDS. A BIOWEAPON IS NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL AFTER RELEASE, NOR CAN WE RECALL IT. IT IS ESSENTIALLY POISONING THE LOCATION RATHER THAN ATTACKING, AND WHEN YOU DO THAT YOU ARE HOPING THAT FUTURE EVENTS ARE TO YOUR LIKING WHEN YOU NO LONGER HAVE CONTROL OVER THEM.

THE POISONING COULD AFFECT SOMETHING ELSE, OR COMBINE INTO A NEW COMPOUND WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS. IT IS UNPREDICTABLE IN THAT IT IS NOT 100% PREDICTABLE. BIOLOGY IS BASED ON ADAPTATION AND CHANGE, AND ANY BIOWEAPON PRODUCED WOULD HAVE A SIMILAR EFFECT. CHEMICAL WEAPONS WOULDN’T, BUT THEY CAN CHANGE AND ALTER BY ACCIDENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS. A SMART ENEMY COULD DELIVER A COMPOUND THAT CHANGES YOUR OWN ENVIRONMENTAL POISONING INTO A WEAPON AGAINST YOU OR OTHERS.

BOTTOM LINE IS WE’RE NOT GOING TO USE WEAPONS THAT COULD CAUSE MORE HAVOC THAN WE INTEND THEM TO. AS FAR AS STUNNING ENEMY TROOPS EN MASS, USING ENERGY-BASED STUNS IN LARGE SCALE IS IN DEVELOPMENT, BUT THE POWER REQUIREMENTS ARE HEAVY. WE CAN’T TAILOR THE ENERGY TO ONLY AFFECT CERTAIN RACES, BUT WE CAN INCLUDE DESTUNNING ELEMENTS INTO OUR ARMOR SO WE COULD, IN THEORY, STUN AN ENTIRE CITY AND HAVE OUR TROOPS WAKE BACK UP WITHIN MOMENTS WHILE THE ENEMY REMAINS DOWN FOR HOURS.

SATURATION IS THE CURRENT ISSUE, BUT USE ON AN OPEN BATTLEFIELD WOULD NOT BE AFFECTED. WE ARE DEVELOPING A DROP POD FOR THAT BUT SO FAR IT’S NOT LOOKING TO BE ECONOMICAL ENOUGH GIVEN THE SIZE OF THE TECH WE’RE NEEDING TO USE. EVENTUALLY WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEVELOP STUN NUKES, BUT THE LARGER THE RADIUS THE MORE POWER IS REQUIRED AND THE MORE THE ENERGY DISSIPATES.

WE CONTROL THE STUN ENERGY, BUT WE WOULDN’T CONTROL A STUN BIOWEAPON. IT WOULD LINGER WHERE THE ENERGY DOES NOT. THAT COULD PROVE ADVANTAGEOUS IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT OUR SPIDEY SENSES ARE TINGLING WITH POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS THAT WE DON’T WANT TO MESS WITH, SO WE’RE STICKING WITH CONTROLLABLE WEAPONS.

Why Davis hadn’t seen that earlier he didn’t know, but after reading it he mentally facepalmed, shaking his head and eternally grateful for having the trailblazers to help him run Star Force. They had a clarity of vision and purpose that complemented his perfectly, and now it was time for him to make good on his half of the equation.

With now 5 races involved in this growing internal ADZ war he needed to stop the others from jumping into the mix, and there were rumors of several being on the fence in that regard. He highly doubted those already fighting would stop when he revealed the truth about the bioweapon, but hopefully a little light shed on the true course of events would restore some sanity.

But Davis also realized that this conflict might need to run its course. He’d kept the various races bottled up within Star Force restrictions to the point where he knew there was considerable hostility between them beneath the surface and it seemed like now that they thought they had an opening with the front limiting Star Force’s ability to intervene they were going to make up for lost time and have it out.

The more they did so the weaker the ADZ became, but it could also be turned into an advantage in the long term…if they managed to hold the Skarrons and lizards off that long. Axius was already taking a bite out of the multi-racial dominance in the ADZ, increasing Star Force’s population by leaps and bounds while attracting many of the best individuals from the varying races to what was proving to be a better way of life. Also, until recently, it had been the place to go if you wanted to fight and had attracted a lot of the top warriors…who to their credit hadn’t abandoned their posts and were still fighting on the front.

That said, Star Force was still only 11% of the ADZ population and several races, such as the Reen, were multiplying so fast that the dynamic was always in a constant state of flux. Already they had contacted Davis requesting what he wanted them to do to help, for they had no military of their own, and were eager to curry favor in return for more territorial allotments. They assumed that the penalties being handed down for those fighting would include territorial losses and they wanted in on the redistribution if possible.

They knew the key to dominance in the ADZ was population growth, and to accommodate that they needed more territory. Star Force had asserted that all worlds within the ADZ boundaries were theirs to divvy up, regardless of whether or not they’d colonized them, and to date they’d made that assertion stick with the backing of the Hycre and Protovic, otherwise there would have been an insane territorial grab with more fighting happening over that, he imagined. He didn’t trust the Reen, who obviously had their own agenda, but for the moment they were behaving themselves and playing by the rules, hoping to gain advantage in this chaotic war.

And they weren’t the only ones. There was a huge shift undergoing and a lot of it depended on what Davis would do to the Lacvamat and Scionate. At the moment there wasn’t much he could do with the Archons busy to the point of breaking, but as always power was more than just military might, with the economic arena just as important.

Now that he knew the Scionate weren’t responsible for the bioweapon attack that put their fighting down to self-defense. That didn’t excuse what they did during the pullout or how they were fighting the war, but it made the Lacvamat as the ones who were in the wrong. He suspected that would not matter to them, and they’d probably cite Star Force as being allied with the Scionate, but it did mean the penalties on the Scionate would be less than had they actually instigated this whole mess.

They’d already lost 2 systems to the Lacvamat and were on the verge of losing a third with four more now under varying levels of attack. So far most of the fighting was occurring on Scionate territory rather than Lacvamat worlds, and it was entirely likely that at least one of the worlds the Lacvamat had taken would not be returned to the Scionate afterwards…but that was just thinking ahead. Without the Archons and their fleet to enforce any of his edicts he was going to have to work this from a different angle for the time being, and to that end he decided to open up another Alliance World.

There were four already in the planning stages, none of which had been assigned regional owners, but with so much material being used to boost warship production the additional of new worlds and their construction required some heavy Star Force infrastructure that was lagging behind. And if he couldn’t curtail the fighting between those races involved, he could reward those that were staying out of it…as well as getting them to supply the resources to get the Alliance World up and running.

The Reen had wanted to help, and now they’d get their chance. He’d offer them 3 territorial slots out of the 8 available in exchange for a number of materials that he’d negotiate later, then open up a similar arrangement for several other races who had resources to spare. Being as territorial hungry as they were, he could bring additional resources into Star Force’s coffers, perhaps even more than needed for the construction of the planet, while giving those less belligerent races a boost in the internal power struggle…as well as hinting that more would be coming in the future for those who played ball.

That would put fear into those races sitting on the fence and might even convince the five engaged to rethink the wisdom of pushing this conflict as far as it seemed they were intent on going…which was to annihilate the opposition.

Davis had already blacklisted those five races from Star Force purchases of starships and construction contracts, not that there were many available given the heavy war production, but those vacancies had moved up others on the waiting lists and that in turn would also affect the power struggle down the road. But he knew he had to do more than that, so with the bioweapon attack mystery solved he began laying out a plan of numerous little tweaks, nothing major, that he would begin to use to reshape the ADZ in this time of turmoil and leave the territorial penalties to the future when he had the ability to actually enforce them.

He also had two requests from races outside the ADZ still standing, and decided to act upon them now. Both were races with worlds along the border of Epsilon Region, which Star Force hadn’t colonized very heavily as yet, but of these two races one already traded with the ADZ and the other one wanted to begin to do so in considerable amounts, with both requesting a foothold world to act as an emissary to the rest of the growing community.

Giving them an entire world wasn’t going to happen, but he would give each a single regional slot on a scheduled Alliance World coming online in Epsilon within the next 14 months, along with the promise of more territory if they proved themselves valuable. That would also mean that two of the slots that would have gone to present ADZ members would be taken away by outsiders, sending the message that the power struggle wasn’t going to be a purely internal affair and Star Force could bring in as many outsiders as it wanted, meaning new players in the game that, as far as percentage went, would diminish the current ones.

Growth was the key to everything, and he needed to make the races fighting one another pay in that regard. If they kept fighting and wasting resources and lives then they’d be curtailing their own growth while others expanded even further with Davis’s assistance. That might not be enough to get the blood feud stopped, but it would be an ever-present reality that cooler heads would respond to as they saw the writing on the wall.

Hopefully that would prevent some of the races considering throwing in with either the Scionate or the Lacvamat from adding to the internecine.

It wasn’t a good situation, but Davis had learned long ago that even in catastrophes there were always opportunities if you looked hard enough. The real question was whether or not the Archons would be able to hold the line without the support they deserved.

He didn’t know if they could or not, for he was reviewing the stats daily as they came in, but he’d learned long ago not to bet against them. He would do his part on the interior, and hoped they’d be able to pull another Houdini, keeping the Skarrons pinned down and out of the ADZ interior for a good while longer.

9

December 15, 2553

Plenx System (Dvapp Territory)

Rvitx

Paul waited, tucked underneath a rocky overhang as the Skarron troops moved all around him enroute to a major offensive. They’d gotten reinforced by a trio of transports that had made it down from orbit, with his warships having gunned down two others as they came in. The ones that landed, though, had added just enough troops that the Skarrons were mounting one last push to try and break the Star Force troops that were all that was holding the native Dvapp defenders together. Both sides had been so wore down that the number of troops on the planet was a small fraction of what it had been in the beginning, and a windfall of new reinforcements from either side would easily tip the scales.

The Skarrons hadn’t gotten a large one, but it was enough that they thought they now had the advantage, and it was all rooted in the Type-1 walker they’d received and was now covering for the rest of the 26 walkers and infantry in the attack column moving across the rocky terrain towards one of three remaining Dvapp cities. The rest were either evacuated or destroyed, with the planet essentially having been turned into a debris field with more dead than you could count, especially with the Dvapp corpses melting away and not sticking around long enough to be noted.

Most of Star Force’s losses had been in the way of machinery rather than troops, with them having more people available than mechs and fighters, but they’d still lost a lot, and without those valuable machines the excess personnel wasn’t much of a help, especially when they didn’t have enough places on planet to house them. Most of his dispossessed troops were now back up onboard the jumpships, including those commandos and Knights who he didn’t have replacement armor for. He wasn’t sending them into combat without it, so he’d had to evacuate them.

That left a small core of Star Force troops to head off the Skarrons while the Dvapp tried to rouse what limited resistance they could. Nearly all of their combat troops had been killed, with only militia remaining. For some reason the Skarrons were targeting the Dvapp harder than others, not just in the number of systems under assault but in killing all those they came across. They’d actively pushed the residential areas rather than gunning for the Star Force troops, atypical of their normal methodology which had them going at the strongest enemies and most highly valued targets straight off.

But that didn’t matter now. This last assault was going to make or break the invasion of this world, and if Star Force couldn’t turn it back the Skarrons were going to run the table and eliminate the remaining settlements, and there was going to be nothing he could do about it short of bringing down his limited warships for fire support…and that was practically suicide with the Type-1 in place, not to mention the other walkers with their anti-air capabilities.

If he’d had more drones he could have taken it out regardless, but he couldn’t waste what he had and still hold onto orbit. There were Skarron ships up there, and if he weakened his fleet enough they’d pounce, but for the moment Star Force and the Dvapp were the stronger and keeping the enemy back from low orbit, aside from the occasional resupply run that they pretty much had a 50/50 chance of intercepting. Paul just wished they’d gotten the transport bringing in the Type-1, for that beast of a machine alone was going to decimate what mechs he had left.

In this late game scenario it looked like the limited reinforcements were going to win the Skarrons the planet and that no matter how much Paul tweaked their defenses it just wasn’t going to be enough. He was going to have to bring the warships down and try to take out the Type-1, but then there would be nothing preventing the Skarrons from bringing their own ships down into the atmosphere after they finished off his fleet in orbit and pounding the crap out of his surviving ground troops.

Either way the Skarrons had already won, or so his Dvapp colleagues had pointed out, wanting to start evacuating the few people they could in the hours they had before the Skarron assault column got to them. Paul wasn’t going for that and had his mechs and handful of fighters standing behind in ambush positions within the varied terrain, given they were able to move around much easier with jump jets than the Skarrons could walking overland on their spindly legs.

They couldn’t take down the Type-1, but they’d stand a decent chance against the Type-3s and 4s. There was one Type-2 in the mix as well, but that one would just have to be dealt with the hard way. Chew up the others first and they could isolate it, but the key to it all was taking out the Type-1. So long as it was in play they were doomed.

And they had nothing that could contend with it short of a fleet of drone warships.

They were beat, pure and simple, and damn the Scionate for pulling out when they did.

That was the general sentiment in the mini war council between Paul, a handful of his Archons, and the Dvapp, which was when the trailblazer quoted Darth Vader and left their headquarters, deploying himself out ahead of the rest of his troops that he’d carefully arranged into the ambush formations he wanted.

Don’t underestimate the power of the Force.

With him concealed in his tiny hollow with his shields turned off so the Skarrons couldn’t track him just in case their sensors could penetrate the rock, which he doubted, he waited and watched with his psionics as infantry and then several of their walkers passed by his position. He could actually see a piece of one of the Type-4s out the open side of his hollow standing atop a ridge that gave him a view of its upper half, but it was too far away to notice him behind them and only a few inches of helmet showing on a direct line of sight.

No, Paul was tucked away nicely and now in the center of their army waiting for the enormous Type-1 to come across his position, hoping he’d guessed right about what path it would take.

The seven segmented walker was mid formation, leaving it with flanking units on all sides to protect it from attacks, though in truth there was nothing around that could harm it. Right now it was providing aerial cover for the rest of the mechs and capable of throwing up a flat, circular shield above itself or the nearby area to protect against bombardment from orbit or fighters, though Star Force didn’t usually use any bomb-type weapons. They wouldn’t get through the anti-air lachars anyway.

Stretching his Ikrid to its limits Paul waited and watched through the rock behind him, sensing the infantry minds and those in the nearest of the walkers until he finally felt the big one coming slightly to the east. He thought it was going to be close enough, but given the height of the segments this was going to be a stretch as was and he didn’t want to add any more meters than necessary. He knew he couldn’t reposition without drawing attention, and right now his only chance was to stay hidden. Get even close to that thing and it’d bathe the surface with so much plasma they wouldn’t even have to aim to hit him, just spam the area with shots.

He felt the minds in the first segment and tracked their movement, mentally plotting out the closest they would come to him. Each piece had its own crew, which worked together to move the giant centipede around, up until they decided to split it apart. That didn’t happen unless one segment needed to be jettisoned, because the shield generating strength of the flat ‘plates’ it created to defend against heavy attack were much stronger when all the segments were combined, though the armor alone was enough to protect it against an insane amount of weaponsfire.

But it would do nothing to block Paul’s Ikrid.

When the first segment hit the closest point to Paul’s position, with the first of its legs coming down some 250 meters to his left, he reached out and tried to connect to one of the minds he was sensing. His contact was very light, given the range, but he focused his mental power and tried to make it as efficient as possible. At first he didn’t think he was going to be able to do it, then he finally got a very faint connection that allowed him to pull information from its senses and allow him to see the inside of the walker along with a few of its surface thoughts.

He quickly realized it wasn’t the one he wanted and switched to another, then another. It wasn’t until his sixth connection that he found the Skarron that had the control panel that he wanted.

Implanting the suggestion proved even harder than reading its senses and took numerous layered attempts to get the impulse firmly imbedded to cut the power to the plasma cannons and divert it to the shield generators to block an incoming orbital bombardment that would destroy the walker if he didn’t scrape together as much power as possible.

It didn’t work at first, but with the layering going on more and more eventually it just snap activated the Skarron carried out the suggestion. There was a large, audible crackle outside as the shield formed over top the big walker even as it continued to plod forward, prompting him to act quickly. He switched to another mind in the crew pit and hammered it hard with layering, feeling it pop a moment later as the rest of the crew focused on the loss of power to their weapons and the shield going up, prying the other as to what was going on.

With that confusion taking place the other Skarron lowered the boarding ramp, with Paul bolting out of cover the moment he felt him hit the switch. Having planned out his run through the terrain via Pefbar earlier, he climbed up a small ridge, shot by a half dozen Hobbits that he didn’t even bother to flip off, and ran underneath the outer legs of the forward segment of the Type-1 as it continued to walk forward.

As it moved a long, thin tendril extended down from the underside forming a stairway. Cringing, he saw it hit a rock and twist a few seconds before he got to it, but the trailblazer jumped up onto the narrow ‘straw’ before it had a chance to break off and climbed the odd staircase in a hurry, needing to get inside before the plasma cannons overhead came back online.

A jolt underneath his feet signaled that the Skarrons were pulling the boarding ramp back in, with him only halfway up. He didn’t bother trying to reacquire mental control over the crew, instead run/jumping up it and staying ahead of the collapsing sections behind him in a race to get to the hatch before the steps beneath him vanished and he fell.

With the help of his jump pack he took several meters in each step, coming up to the opening and ramming into a Skarron poking out the entry parlor to see what was happening below. He drove his armored shoulder into its face, denting into its mount as he hit and rolled/jumped up onto its back as its arms bent over and tried to grab him with more of a limb-bending attempt than he had ever seen one try, for it didn’t have any weapons on them to shoot him with.

Paul didn’t bother fighting it, merely Fornaxing and sliding across its back and heading through the extremely large interior of the walker and into one of the auxiliary crew bays. The main control pit was further up, with these Skarrons being techs/gunners, and Paul bypassed them as well, neutralizing them with his Psionics and running past, heading for the ‘bridge’ of the segment and having to climb through several levels in order to get there.

When he got inside the giant control room he pulled out his rifle and started shooting, having to throw a lot of shots into the Skarrons to take them down, then even more at the ones coming up from below to counter him with some small weapons they’d appropriated from somewhere. He took care of them as fast as he could, then those that came after him unarmed, resulting in a corpse-filled room with even more minds staying away below.

Rather than go back down after them he went for the control consoles and began inputting commands, drawing off the memories of those below when he encountered something unfamiliar, and stopping the big walker in its tracks. He ignored the questions coming in from the other crews and disconnected the forward section, a process that took an incredibly long amount of time.

When it finally separated from the other 6 pieces he walked it forward and rotated it around, powering up the plasma cannons and using a blind targeting lock to get them to remotely shoot without their gunners manually targeting each one, then began pouring plasma into the unarmored connective tissue that he’d just exposed.

Catching the other segments off guard he took the moment while the plasma was pouring out to activate the missile launchers in the uppermost section of the segment and fired on the nearby walkers…unloading the entire payload in his segment and damaging a lot of the Type-4s while pouring most of the missiles into the somewhat distant Type-2, enough at least to get through its shields and damage its armor on the starboard flank, though the thick plates and sturdy shields protected against the missiles far better than he’d expected. He’d hoped to take it down, but then again he only had the missiles in his segment to work with and the walker’s anti-air was chewing up a lot of them.

By that time the second segment had been disabled so badly by the pointblank plasma fire that it had become dead weight, the other 5 segments disconnected from it and pulled back, leaving Paul with his intact segment on the other side of the still standing damaged one and able to use it as a blocker as his armor began taking hits from the nearby walkers he’d just fired upon with the long missile barrage.

Paul created a plate shield over the exposed connective tissue on his segment’s backside and closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out to the surviving crew in the damaged section and trying to access one of them…but it was no good, for those in the control pit had died in an explosion and those in other sections didn’t have access to the missile control.

Oh well, he’d have to go after the others then.

Taking the pilot station and having to use a lot of skill and telekinesis to operate the controls meant for a quadruped with four arms, he walked his enormous segment around the other into a wave of plasma coming from the 5 segments that were in the process of turning their flank towards him so they could all fire simultaneously. Knowing his armor would hold up for a while he didn’t bother to try and shoot back, for that would have required a different control console. Instead he focused on accelerating the sluggish mass towards them, with it stutter stepping across the bad footing and him almost tripping it up three different times.

Piloting the walker wasn’t a point and click endeavor, but he had practiced before on captured machines and simulators for just this type of situation and managed a half decent walk over to the middle segment of the remainder of the Type-1 and rammed it.

Though by ‘ram’ it was more of a slow moving kiss as armor hit armor and the shield covering his backside began to weaken. With the range now being as close as it was going to get Paul reached out with his Ikrid and tried to access the minds in the segment ahead of him…with success.

About a minute later a huge plume of missiles shot out from that segment and nailed the Type-2 that was getting near to plasma range. Paul sent all of them into it, consuming it in a black-smoked billowing fireball that eventually dissipated into the remains of a crippled walker with its leg segments having collapsed and its previous flank wound having been expanded upon into massive internal damage.

Paul tried to reach out to the crews in the other segments but they were too far away, so he kept control over a mind or two in the middle one and made them lock down their legs so the whole walker couldn’t move without disconnecting from them. Then, like a student driver backing out of a minor crash, he pulled his plasma-eaten segment away and walked it to the side, losing more plasma cannons by the minute as the hull was ravaged by fire coming in from multiple angles.

Now in front of the segment to the left he walked it forward and kissed it with an impact, bringing it within his Ikrid range so he could hijack the minds within. Knowing that his time was nearly up, he didn’t bother sending missiles at the other mechs, but instead programmed them to fire straight up…and come back down on the other segments from above.

10

“That’s it, let’s go,” Yavi Soloson said, lifting her neo up out of the crouch it was in and climbing the side of a steep hill when Paul signaled. It took several seconds to get to the top, but then she had a clear view of the distant Type-1 now broken up into pieces and clouded with missile impacts. That walker wasn’t her target, but the other smaller ones nearby were, with a Type-4 less than half a mile down the far side of the hill.

She popped up both mauler cannons and ran forward, dodging the outcroppings and other rocky tripwires the terrain had for her as other mechs came up and over the hill along with her, two being neos and a pair of starbrights that opened fire immediately with their plasma streamers. Yavi held off on her maulers until she got down the hill and on relatively flat ground, then she began trading fire with the tick-like walker as the rest of her star collapsed on it, not giving it a real chance to do anything more than weaken her shields.

Her maulers ate through the plasma-resistant armor after the starbrights took down its shields from behind, then the other neos ran on by leaving her to finish it off as they headed for a more distant Type-3 as other stars were popping up at various places and jumping on the walkers that were redirecting themselves towards the messed up Type-1 at the behest of the crews in the loyal segments.

With Yavi’s attention on the walker before her she didn’t see the carnage taking place on the disloyal segment until after she’d finished off the Type-4 and began to move to back up the others as they tackled the Type-3. Plasma from a dozen walkers was pouring into the thick armored hull of Paul’s segment, with it blasting apart the interior when the shield plate finally went down and exposed the unarmored linkage.

Even as it did another section of the Type-1 sprouted missiles that traveled up and came back down on the adjacent segment, covering it with so many explosions that the dust and debris even swallowed up Paul’s piece, with his ID signature coming through clearly as he declared his location via battlemap. Yavi didn’t know how he was going to get out of that mess but he was thoroughly trashing the Type-1, leaving the smaller ones for her and the other mechwarriors to handle. There were a lot of them, but with the jump they’d got from coming out of concealment the enemy was situated all wrong to bunch up and fight them, leaving a few easy first kills before the real slugging match began.

Yavi pulsed her neo’s weak jump jets and added momentum to a jump up a steep but short cliff, getting her mechanical foot on the rim and traveling over before sprinting some 150 meters up to another Type-4 that had two buddies not far off that began throwing plasma spit her way. Ignoring their weak attacks she charged directly for the closer walker without support and began blasting away with her maulers at pointblank range.

Her shields went down fairly quick, given the amount of plasma coming back at her from the taller walker, but her maulers ate through the forward section with an appetite for armor, melting it off after punching through the shields and letting her deliver a kill shot to the interior before the enemy plasma did more than kiss her hull. Rather than collapse the Type-4 locked up, becoming a dead statue on the rocky battlefield that she took a moment to reposition and hide behind while her shields started to recharge.

As she did that a distant madcat threw some missiles into the side of one of the walker’s near her as another neo came in from the same angle. She waited to coordinate with it then jumped out of cover as both assaulted the closer of the walkers, doubling up their mauler damage and taking it down quickly given that its shields were weakened from the missile strike.

That left one more, which the pair of the mechs took down with only minor armor damage to hers and none to the other. After that it was on to the interior and closer to the broken up Type-1 where the hard fighting was going on and the rest of the walkers were grouping up, meaning heavier plasma fire coming their way when they headed after them, needing to make the most of Paul’s disruption while it lasted.

Paul tucked himself into a corner of the control pit, wedged in between a bulkhead and a bit of computer panel that wouldn’t stop much in the way of shrapnel but it was the best location he had available as the explosions around him blew plasma gouts into the chamber as his walker segment got hammered by the others. He’d managed to take out their missile launchers up top and do some damage beyond that, but the lower sections of the Type-1 segments were still intact and bathing his captured piece with plasma, blasting through the armor while the other walkers hammered the exposed backside that was now shieldless.

He’d long since given up on using his segment as an offensive weapon, now focused on surviving the destruction while reaching out with his Ikrid to any Skarrons within range, of which there were only a few in the segment directly touching his as it leaned into the other, now that its legs were not fully powered. Paul took control of a few of their gunners and turned plasma cannons on the far side against their own walkers in that direction, causing more chaos as the Star Force mechs came out of concealment at distant positions and began fighting their way in.

He couldn’t get a whole lot from the battlemap given the amount of walker around him interfering with the signals, but every now and then he’d get a surge of update and could see his people doing well and chewing through the isolated walkers on the edge of the engagement with no losses of their own.

The wall ahead and to the right of him blew out in a wave of shrapnel that danced over his padawan armor’s shields, failing to penetrate but scattering debris all over the chamber as he kept tucked in next to the rib-like bulkhead. He could feel the nearby crews trying to get the Type-1 moving, but he kept his foot on the brake with the control of the crew directly ahead refusing to move their legs in conjunction with the others.

Eventually the other segments saw they had no choice but to detach, and when they did Paul knew they had them if he could goose the damage rate up a bit. Using the gunners within reach he targeted the exposed sections where the connections were broken and threw plasma into them before shield plates formed, knocking out some of their functionality and actually preventing the shields from forming over one of them that had already been partially damaged into the connective tissue from the missile strikes.

Paul continued throwing plasma into it as his remotely controlled segment began taking fire itself, meaning he was now getting the Skarrons to shoot at two of their own segments. He kept up the chaos until a much larger explosion breached the control pit and knocked him against the wall so hard that he lost his mental link…then a wash of machinery rushed over him and he was buried in debris as his segment finally lost all power to its legs and came crashing down to the ground.

It took Paul a long time to crawl his way out of that mess, and by the time he finally got a clear view of the outside sky most of the other walkers were down, along with most of his mechs according to the battlemap. The few that remained were harassing one intact segment of the Type-1 that was showing heavy damage but still throwing off some 30% of the plasma fire it was normally capable of.

Paul spotted a pair of mechs finishing off a Type-4 nearby and signaled to them, with the madcat making a quick jump his way before walking around the debris from another Type-1 segment and into view as Paul ran/climbed towards it. Like a tick he crawled up the back of the armor-damaged walker and clung there as the mechwarrior turned to face the nearest enemies and walked forward.

The one-armed neo that was pairing with it fell into step and the damaged duo approached one of the three remaining ‘small’ walkers and began trading fire until it came within Paul’s psionic range, with the crew taking repetitive Fornax blasts that kept them unable to operate the controls. The return fire ceased and the damaged mechs pounded the Skarron walker until it crashed to the ground, then the neo ran ahead of the madcat and the two headed for the Type-1 piece as four other mechs were engaging it and getting pounded in the process.

The neo didn’t last long, going down before it could get anywhere near the spindly legs, but it bought enough time for the madcat to get Paul close enough to start Fornaxing at extreme range, with a chunk of the plasma fire dying out immediately. Eventually the madcat made its way up to the legs and walked underneath the teetering segment, allowing Paul to Ikrid link with the crew, turning their remaining plasma cannons against the other remaining half-dead walkers and assisting the mechs in finishing them off…as well as sparing them the defeat that was heading their way, for even a partially intact piece of a Type-1 had enough plasma to eat away the shields and armor on tier 1 mechs quite easily, and there were no larger Star Force models on planet at the moment.

Eventually only the Type-1 segment was left, which then opened up and extended its boarding ramp down to the madcat where Paul hopped off and ran up inside, shooting the crew dead in a short-lived killing spree as he ran about to hunt them all down. Once he returned to the boarding ramp and got back within battlemap signal range and saw that all of the enemy were truly down and out of the fight did he sit down on the top of the alien stairs and take a breather, feeling his head about to cave in from the excessive psionic usage.

But that didn’t matter. He’d recover and the Skarrons wouldn’t, for this was their last major offensive. They had only a handful of walkers left on the planet guarding their remaining bases, five Paul knew as of last count, and each was isolated from the others. He could take them himself if needed, meaning the planet was all but back in ADZ hands.

As he rested his aching head he got on the comm and organized infantry search parties to come out and search the debris. Whether they shot them on sight or took them prisoner they had to account for all the Skarrons, including those probably still alive in the hulks of the Type-1.

But that was cleanup work, important and occasionally dangerous, but nothing that would jeopardize the fate of the planet. So long as the Skarrons didn’t get more reinforcements the Dvapp were about to get their world back, broken and busted up as it was, but it would be theirs again.

Paul stuck around on the ground to help with the searches, using his Ikrid to spot the location of minds, before grabbing a dropship and heading up to orbit. There were still Skarron warships up here, but Admiral Caster was doing a good job of keeping them at bay. As they approached the Excalibur Paul cringed, seeing that the chunks missing from the hull had expanded a bit in his absence, but then he realized the outlines were nice and straight, not the ragged cuts from weaponsfire, meaning it was the work of the crew disassembling surrounding components in order to repair them properly…or at least as much as they could outside of a shipyard.

The damage had been a necessary tradeoff earlier, taking hits that he knew the big ship could take and survive instead of wasting valuable drones that he needed for multiple, simultaneous hits. As powerful as the command ship was, it could only be in one place at one time, and as much as he didn’t like doing it he’d used it to beat down the Skarron fleet multiple times while holding his drones back.

The results were still visible, making it look like a wounded ship that was a sitting duck, but it had so much bulk and redundant weapons systems that it was still quite lethal, especially when its shields were up. Some of the generators had been lost, along with two gravity drives. One was supposed to be repairable but the other had been slagged. That would slow the ship a bit, but not stop it from making decent jumps, for the command ships had multiple gravity drives in order to achieve the insane speeds they were able to travel.

Fortunately the sanctum wasn’t anywhere near the damaged areas, with the crew sections being located towards the interior. That was where Paul was heading next, and even as the dropship came in close to the massive ship he saw the central plug disconnect and head down to the surface to pick up the damaged mechs and other equipment as they continued the cleanup rather than send repetitive dropship flights.

It was empty of troops, unfortunately, but with luck they wouldn’t need any more here. Paul wasn’t counting on that, but he did have his fingers crossed.

When the dropship landed he walked off and found Caster waiting for him on the deck.

“Bad news?” he guessed.

“Yes and no,” the Admiral said, falling into step with him as the trailblazer headed out of the landing bay. “We got word that a Sentinel is on its way here and should be operational within 18 days.”

“That’s good news,” Paul said happily. This world had had none to begin with, making the naval situation even more tricky. Putting one up wouldn’t stop the Skarrons from getting to the ground, but it would give what was left of the Dvapp fleet a safe haven to run to if/when the Skarrons came back.

“I also got word that Veernad finally fell. They’re finishing up evacuations before they get completely overrun, but they’re conceding the planet and system.”

“Damn it,” Paul swore angrily. The Dvapp planet was some 13 lightyears away and the next planned stop for the Excalibur after securing Plenx, but apparently they were too late. He stood still for a moment, then took a step to the left and punched the wall with his armored hand while the Admiral patiently waited nearby with other passing members of the crew giving them both a wide berth.

“Where are they headed?”

“The Dvapp to Keema, the Clans to Metropolis,” Caster said, referencing the still intact Dvapp capitol.

“How much is left?”

“About twice what we have here, ground wise. Shall I have their naval assets transferred to us?”

Paul pulled his helmet off and blew out a sigh. “Feel like going hunting?”

“Always.”

“Give me as many full jumpships as you can, send the remainder on to Metropolis.”

“Rendezvous here or at a neutral location?”

“Here. We’ve still got a few locals to run down now that we don’t have a blockade to maintain.”

“Shall I wait on that?”

“No, my young apprentice. You may begin causing havoc immediately. Call me if you get stuck. I’ll be doing some badly needed training.”

“Nice work down there,” Caster added. “You pulled out a victory single handedly.”

“No, not single-handedly. I just carried.”

“Impressive none the less.”

“Gave me a headache,” Paul mildly complained.

Caster smiled then nodded, touching two fingers to his temple in a brief salute before heading back to the bridge and leaving the trailblazer to start getting himself back into shape.

Paul didn’t even bother showering before heading to the sanctum. He got out of his armor and into fresh clothes then hit the track immediately, intent on running the stagnation out of himself. Almost non-stop combat missions had been taxing on him, but not in any beneficial way. Having been away from his normal workout routine he’d gotten rusty and sloppy, but he knew his body and mind would readjust quickly enough, but it was going to be an ugly process and he wanted to get through it as quickly as possible.

And when Archons wanted to get through something quickly, they hammered.

Paul spent the next 6 hours in high cardio training, a mix of running, swimming, and agility drills before finally retreating to his quarters and logging into the terminal to begin checking updates and messages, with a lot of backlog to get through. He’d had access on the surface via Star Force facilities, but he’d had such little downtime that he had passed over everything that wasn’t priority flagged.

He wasn’t going to get through it all now, but he worked through the recent stuff and got himself up to date on what was happening on the ship and across the ADZ, including the stupid war occurring on the inside. If the Scionate were still here where they belonged they’d have punted the Skarrons out of Dvapp space by now rather than having lost another world to them. That put the count at 3 now, giving them footholds on this section of the border that needed to be routed out sooner rather than later.

But Paul didn’t have the troops or ships to do it, and was barely hanging on to what they did have. The incoming Sentinel would help, both for the planet and his sanity, reminding himself that the longer they held on to territory the more of them would be made back in Sol and transported out here, fortifying the border worlds they possessed, so he wasn’t fighting a pointless campaign, as much as it felt sometimes.

Plenx was so weak right now that a healthy Skarron sneeze would take it, but thanks to the Voku the Skarrons were as starved for reinforcements as Star Force was.

He saw a new message from Cal-com, dated 28 days ago, and pulled it up, intent on it being the last message he read before heading to bed for his eyelids were getting so heavy he wasn’t sure how productive he was going to be if he kept pushing through his stack of mail.

What it contained was a bit of intel taken from the Skarrons, indicating a troop shift spinward, which was in the direction of Zeta Region from Earth’s point of view. The Skarrons were redeploying, and it didn’t appear to be related to the ADZ or the Voku.

That caused an eyebrow to raise, despite his fatigue. If the Skarrons were redeploying away from the ADZ that was definitely good news, but if they had somewhere else to go where was it and, more importantly, who were they fighting that was of higher priority?

Liberation

1

March 19, 2554

Cdat System (Dvapp Territory)

Haxplet

“Any movement?”

“Not on the ground,” Nevil said, looking through his sniper scope from his perch on the rocky hillside, “but I can see the transports coming in.”

“We are so about to get owned,” his fellow commando said, taking a glance back at the 200 or so Dvapp troops in the valley below. They and several other units in the area were set up to attack the fringes of the Skarron base just a few kilometers away, but word had come down that the enemy had gotten a reinforcement fleet into orbit and was fighting their way down with multiple transports…and that the limited navy that Star Force and the Dvapp had in place wasn’t going to be able to stop them all from getting to the surface.

Nevil frowned. “Um…something’s wrong. They’re not carrying walkers.”

Donald mimicked his frown, though both commandos were wearing full armor and couldn’t see each other’s faces. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve got the closest one lined up and there are no walkers hanging underneath it.”

“Must just be a troop ship then.”

Nevil adjusted his sights to match the battlemap telemetry being transmitted down from orbit and sighted the next transport. “Negative. Another one is empty too.”

“Maybe they don’t have the big toys to throw around anymore. Good for us, except the infantry alone are going to be more than we can manage.”

“I hear ya there,” Nevil said, sighting a third equally empty transport, as far as the exterior underside latches went. He saw the drift angle they were taking and moved his rifle to the side and ahead of their path, pulling back the insane zoom and looking at the bit of the enemy base that was in view. “Hold up, we’ve got activity…north side. Troops coming out.”

“They might be trying for a hot drop,” Donald said, adjusting his crouched stance in agitation. He hated waiting for the fighting to start, though this next battle wasn’t one that looked to be anything less than a slaughter…which meant a fighting retreat trying to whittle down the enemy’s numbers as they moved.

“Walkers are not coming out…they’re heading back in?”

“What?”

“Perimeter walkers are pulling back. What do they think we’ve got out here that can touch those transports?”

“Pulling back to the LZ?”

“Looks like.”

“What’s that mean for us?”

“Mechs will have to reposition. They’re going to be too far away to hit at full strength.”

“Damn…there goes our ambush,” Donald said, biting his lower lip. He knew orders would come down eventually, but right now the comms were silent.

“I think the ambush was off as soon as they started coming down from orbit.”

“Point…so where does that leave us?”

“Keep our heads down and wait,” Nevil said, still scoping the LZ as the first of the transports got close. “You know…” he said, trailing off.

“For the record, you didn’t finish that sentence.”

“The infantry is coming out of the city and it looks like they’re headed to the LZ.”

“Joining up with the incoming for an immediate assault?”

“Should be the other way around.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Give me a moment,” the commando said, watching the first of the giant transports land next to the small Skarron base, nearly right on top of the infantry and walkers but in an open spot just large enough to fit its bulk. As it settled large doors on the underside opened up and Nevil could see one of the ramps lower to the ground…with the infantry outside running up it and into the ship.

“Son of a bitch, they’re loading.”

“Loading?”

“They’re getting onboard.”

“Gotta be a hot drop coming.”

“Won’t be on us.”

“They’ve gotta be going for one of our bases.”

“Walkers too,” Nevil noted as the second transport came in and didn’t land all the way, hovering over the surface as several of the docking arms reached down and grabbed the nearest walker, pulling it up and into one of the niches on the underside of the transport, with several more headed its way.

“This is too weird.”

“Explains why the transports were empty. Are all of them?”

Nevil readjusted his sights and scanned the incoming ships. “I don’t see a single walker under them.”

“Must be really short-handed right now…same as us,” Donald said as deployment orders flashed an incoming message icon in his HUD. “Here we go,” he said, pulling them up. “We’re moving a klick to the west.”

“Archon chess pieces,” Nevil said, referencing themselves. “Looks like they’ve got a plan. Let’s hope it’s a good one,” he said, looking up from his rifle and crawling back behind the nearest rock before he stood up and looked down at the Dvapp below that were just now stirring as they began to redeploy.

“After you,” Donald said, waving his hand forward as the two commandos came down from up high to join them.

An hour and a half later Nevil was ducking behind a jagged rock as a quartet of Skarron fighters flew over pelting the ground with plasma blasts. He saw a nearby Dvapp literally evaporate when it got hit, blowing bits of goo everywhere, some of which washed over his grey armor. A split second later two skeets zipped past overhead in pursuit, with blue mauler blasts reaching out towards the slower fighters and blasting one out of the sky before they got out of Nevil’s view.

One of the incoming transports had been loaded with enemy fighters, which had taken to the sky and moved directly against the friendly infantry positions around the base even as their walkers continued to load up for their hot drop. It was obvious that they were providing cover fire, but they were doing so far more effectively than the commando liked. The Star Force mechs were nearby but out of sight, leaving this group of Dvapp temporarily exposed, but at least there were friendly air assets in the area to keep the Skarrons from getting too comfortable up there.

Nevil held position, knowing there wasn’t much he could do right now with no enemy infantry nearby to shoot. He thought about trying for a shot on the fighters, then dismissed the notion given how low powered his lachar rifle was compared to their shields and armor. About two seconds later when another section of rocky terrain blew out and threw debris across him and three nearby Dvapp he change his mind, tired of just sitting and waiting to get hit. With the rocky fragments bouncing off his armor and being expulsed by the Dvapp’s bodies after penetrating a few inches deep, he swung his sniper rifle off his back rack and tucked in backwards to the nearest crevice that gave him a good view of the sky and tried to pick out a moving target that he might be able to hit.

The Skarron fighters were slow, but they were still aircraft and moved a hell of a lot faster than anything on the ground did. Nevil knew he’d need a long range shot to have any chance of getting a bead on one, so as a pair swung around a couple kilometers away and started heading  in his general direction he brought his scope up and  tried to get one in range.

To his surprise he got a lock on one fairly quick and kept his arms as steady as he could, then pumped out a phaser-like beam burst, with the continuous lachar just nicking the upper edge of the fighter and hitting its shields. He fired again, then got two more shots in before the fighter zipped past on the right. He was pretty sure he hadn’t hit the hull, but at the least he drained a touch of shield energy off…which might make a difference.

Another bit of movement in the distance got his attention and he swung his scope around…then checked his fire as a Star Force ID tag hovered over it, indicating it was a Starscream-class mech in flight. To his relief it was heading directly towards them, taking a bit of Skarron plasma on approach but its shields and armor plates were so thick it almost didn’t matter. The heavy ‘super fighter’ flew in near to Nevil’s position and came to a hover, then began transforming some 600 meters away and dropped onto the top of a small rise with its newly formed feet landing on the rock as its shoulders formed and popped up anti-air turrets.

They began spraying lachars through the air, covering Nevil and the rest of the nearby infantry and pushing the Skarron fighters back, save for those attempting runs on the mech. Regardless the repetitive explosions nearby the commando ceased and he breathed a sigh of relief, along with a deeply felt thanks to the mechwarrior for flying in…and the for techs who’s thought of creating a flying mech in the first place.

Nevil put his rifle back on his armor rack and moved to a different position, trying to get some view of what was going on in the direction of the enemy base but not wanting to expose himself and press his luck. As he darted from one rock to another a Skarron fighter blew apart overhead with the debris falling some 40 meters nearby in three separate chunks, one of which bounced off a rock in a shower of pieces and caused the commando to duck for cover.

He didn’t get hit but one of the Dvapp nearby did, getting a sharp piece impaling it all the way through its jello-like mass.

“Are you alright?” he asked, scurrying over to it.

For a moment it didn’t respond, then it melted around the shrapnel, flowing out onto the ground and Nevil thinking it was dead, but the pool reformed and became another meter-high pillar ‘crouching’ on the landscape.

“No, but I will live,” it finally answered him, vibrating to create the sound, for the Dvapp had no mouth or vocal chords to speak from.

“Way to stay alive, buddy. I envy you that.”

“And I envy your armor,” it said, forming a pair of legs and walking over to a different rock to take cover behind. It left behind a small pool of goo, with Nevil seeing just how much material it had lost from the impact. He knew if they lost a certain amount of core material they’d die, though he was never sure how much that was or what ‘core’ material was comprised of. He just knew they were damn resilient to physical impacts and could soak up several plasma blasts before going down too, though it had a lot more effect on their crystalline bodies than blunt force trauma.

“Nevil, they’re pulling out,” Donald broke in over the comm.

“What do you mean?” Nevil answered his fellow commando, who was some 230 meters to the south.

“I mean the Skarrons are pulling out…as in off the planet. The transports are taking them back up to orbit, and not just here. It’s happening everywhere.”

“We are not that lucky,” Nevil argued.

“Luck or not, they’re leaving.”

“They bring a fleet into orbit just to pull them out?”

“Looks like.”

“I thought they liked to fight to the death.”

“Just be glad they’re not this time.”

“Agreed.”

“Keep your head down, their fighters aren’t gone yet.”

“Will do,” he said, lying and breaking out of cover to running up the hillside to find a partially obscured viewpoint on the distant base just in time to see one of the big ships lift off and start to head up to orbit, with several more already on the way and the others still on the ground, loading up.

Nevil pulling his rifle off and sighted in on the base, ignoring the few fighters still zipping overhead and trusting the starscream to keep them off him as he scoped out the activity at closer range.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, seeing more infantry and walkers being loaded up. They really were leaving.

“Here and here,” Paul said, pointing out the two star systems in Dvapp space that the Skarrons were holding onto. “Everywhere else they’re pulling troops out.”

“To reinforce those positions?” Megan asked from across the display table that held several different maps and intel reports.

“We think so. A lot of the convoys are still in transit.”

“Where’d the evac fleets come from?”

“Cal-com said they must have pulled a long flanking run to get around them. They didn’t come through the systems he’s got blockaded.”

“Well, good for us they didn’t bring in more troops.”

“Bigger fish to fry.”

Megan wrinkled her nose. “Need a better metaphor.”

Paul frowned. “You’re right, I do.”

“I don’t think we’ve got the troops to do more than annoy them if they’re consolidating their forces,” she said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “They’re making it easy on us giving up the contested worlds, but the two they own are going to get very tanky very fast if all these troops are headed their way…and we don’t have a Last Whisper to throw on since you broke yours.”

“Just a few scuff marks,” Paul said, referencing the damage to the Excalibur.

“More like pot holes.”

“I always preferred a full crit build anyway.”

Megan snorted. “Can’t kill tanks with that.”

“I did well enough.”

“What’s your full crit build here?”

Paul shook his head. “Don’t have one. We’re scraping bottom and need to consolidate our own troops. I think you’ve got Metropolis buttoned up pretty good, but even if the Skarrons go turtle and don’t strike out at any more Dvapp worlds there’s not much we can do about it on the ground.”

“And navally?”

“I can poke and run, but that’s about it.”

“Isn’t that what ADCs do?”

“We have so got to bring that game back,” Paul commented, adjusting one of the star maps. “What do you think of risking a Kiritak expansion here?”

Megan cringed, seeing him point to one of the formerly Dvapp worlds the Skarrons had just evacuated. It wasn’t far from Metropolis, but bringing the little guys up to the front wasn’t what she liked doing…especially when they wouldn’t be able to defend them well. “A gamble.”

“Agreed, but if the Skarrons are going turtle then a nearby supply base is viable…not to mention badly needed.”

“I’d rather expand Metropolis.”

“I meant do both.”

Megan tilted her head while she looked at the star map and the planet that had once housed millions of Dvapp…all of which were now dead or evacuated. “You sure they’re not going to want it back?”

“They’re licking their wounds too, but the resources there are too valuable to pass over. Our mining technology is far superior to theirs, so in order to get them the materials they need to regrow we have to go after them.”

“Trade them the planet for materials?”

“Something like that, though I wasn’t planning on asking. We currently hold the planet anyway…or did. Right now there’s no one there.”

“Still risky. They’ll be exposed.”

“The entire front is exposed.”

“I know. I think this could work, but if it goes wrong it will go horribly wrong.”

“We can’t tolerate the long shipping lines,” Paul reminded her. “The rebuilding effort has to be local.”

“I know,” she repeated. “I just wish your ship wasn’t busted in case you need to go to ground again.”

“Well, it’s not that busted,” Paul wavered.

Megan raised an eyebrow. “You said the gravity drives had been damaged?”

“There’s still enough to take it into the atmosphere.”

“Ok, you are officially nuts.”

“It’s not that big of a deal if you go slow. The tricky part is in the atmospheric calculations…and this planet is low grav anyway.”

“Fine, you can still pull your stunts with a broken wheel, but you’re not going to be camping out there are you?”

“No, I’ll be roaming. Gotta keep the Skarrons on the defensive. If they’re holding on to these worlds then I bet they’re still gonna be trying to resupply them.”

“Or they could be going all local if they’re really turtling up.”

“Possible, but they don’t build that well. Last ditch option, I’d say, and I’d bet a million credits they’re going to try some more long flanking resupply runs over the coming years. I’d like to intercept those before they get here.”

“So while you roam the Kiritak mine and build and hope nobody comes in to shoot them? Can we at least get them a Sentinel?”

“Planned on that, plus a decent drone fleet.”

“Define ‘decent?’”

“Enough to hold out long enough for me or other reinforcements to arrive.”

“Is the relay intact?”

Paul pulled up another screen and did a quick check. “Yes.”

“Ok, we’ll try it. I’ll stay here and keep building up Metropolis, then put down a colony after the Kiritak start the resources flowing so we can avoid the trade lag. I’ll keep enough ships here to reinforce with, but stay close enough that I can call for you if needed.”

“No promises there, but I am going to drop a few more stealth relays in neutral systems so we can stay in closer contact. Actually, we need to start hitting up every system in the ADZ.”

“That’s a lot,” she reminded him, with there being 2,373 star systems within their current borders as measured by a 100 light year radius around Sol that made up the ADZ, with some deviations here and there, mainly around Protovic territory.

“I know,” he said, mimicking her.

“I also get the feeling that we just became responsible for carrying the Dvapp.”

“They fought well and bled the Skarrons dry, otherwise we’d have already lost the front, so it’s a debt I don’t feel bad about paying.”

“Agreed, but it’s one more item on our plate.”

“Good thing we’re used to eating a lot.”

Megan smiled. “True. Just keep your donut around for a while, ok?”

“Need to get it patched up anyway, so deal.”

“We don’t have a big enough slip here.”

“That’s why I said patched. I need it too badly to send it all the way back to Earth. She’s still fighting capable so we’re going to work out what repairs we can out here.”

“Scrappy…good. How soon you going to bring the Kiritak in?”

“Give it a year to see if the Skarrons really are going turtle, but I want them prepped to move when we give the word.”

“Going to need a good sized transport fleet for that.”

“Saber and Canderous will come through on that one.”

“Alright, I’ll make it work from this end. I just hope we don’t get ganked.”

“Same here…but we really don’t have any choice but to try.”

“I know,” she repeated, this time without any merriment.

2

February 19, 2555

Belar System (Bsidd Capitol)

Hassnve

The Cajdital fleet escorting the invoker into middle orbit was met with a swarm of Bsidd warships, countering numbers with numbers as they wisely targeted the escorts and not the fleet killer, for so long as they were in close proximity to the enemy cruisers the invoker was harmless to them else the Cajdital risked killing their own ships. However, there was nothing to prevent the invoker from moving up next to the numerous stations circling the planet and incinerating them with its wild, multi-colored energy arcs. One by one it was chewing apart both defense platforms and habitats, with the Bsidd fleet unable to do anything more than engage the enemy escorts and hope to whittle them down.

But as much whittling as they accomplished it was useless. Like they had across the rest of Bsidd territory, the Cajdital had outwitted and outnumbered them at every turn, and even now groups of enemy reinforcements were coming in to replace the escorts lost almost as if the enemy was playing with them by not showing their full hand up front.

The capitol was the only major planet left, with its defense force cobbled together from surviving fleets and the permanent defenders in order to make a last stand. They had no hope of surviving given the strength of the enemy, but without anything else to do they might as well make them pay as high a price as they could to wipe them out.

There were a few other planets that hadn’t fallen, all minor, with some Bsidd scattering to the unexplored regions of the galaxy to try and escape, but word was the Cajdital were pursuing at least some of them though it hardly mattered. They had nowhere to go even if they got away, but even a small chance of survival was more than the inhabitants of Hassnve had. They were doomed and knew it, with nothing more than regrets about what could have been had the Nestafar not betrayed the Alliance.

None the less the remaining jumpships left to the Bsidd were loading in low orbit. Where they could go even if they managed to get past the Cajdital was a curious question, but it didn’t matter for the 56 billion Bsidd on the planet. They couldn’t fit even a small fraction of that population inside, with those on the surface digging in and preparing to make their last stand, literally, by carving out subsurface hideaways and tunnels where they stood a better chance of engaging the Cajdital given their air and naval support couldn’t get to them.

Those jumpships, however, held one tiny hope for their race…almost an afterthought. There were a few surviving Alliance relays still operational and linked to Bsidd territory and recently they’d received a message on them, prompting the Bsidd to prepare to evacuate a few key personnel and equipment on the off chance that the communique had been legit, let alone feasible.

The loading was still taking place as the invoker broke through the middle orbit defensive ring and began trashing the Bsidd shipyards like a giant, angry energy cloud devouring everything in its path, with such destruction taking a long time to execute. While that was happening another group of jumpships emerged at the system’s star and released yet more warships…but these weren’t Cajdital.

Before long the ongoing brawl containing Bsidd blue plasma orbs and Cajdital green added a few white streaks as the Hycre fleet moved in and engaged, small in number as they were, but used their range advantage to contribute damage while taking none of their own. They didn’t touch the invoker or go anywhere close to it, focusing instead on the escort fleet and trying to help the doomed Bsidd make a few more kills before it was all over.

Their numbers were dropping fast, and before long it was going to turn into a total rout. That little bit of time that remained was going to be put to use as the remaining Bsidd queens were evacuated up to the jumpships along with their necessary minions as their troops and civilians bought them time with their lives. A few Hycre warships flew down and intercepted the roaming Cajdital vessels looking for targets of opportunity, with the rest sniping the enemy fleet while the Bsidd continued to get hammered.

The evacuation didn’t take long, for there weren’t that many Bsidd jumpships to fill. Nearly all of their previously massive fleet had been expended in the war and even now the jumpships were being filled up with transports, leaving the loyal warships behind to die providing them cover.

When the time came the Hycre redeployed into a protective wedge and fought the Bsidd clear of the planet, micro-jumping with them back to the star and leaving the capitol behind to die. They encountered another enemy reinforcement group coming in, with the Hycre jumping on it immediately and killing half of their ships, including two jumpships, while the Bsidd fled on the jumpline the Hycre had given them.

Once the last of their ships were out, the Hycre executed a fighting withdrawal back to their own jumpships and followed the Bsidd out, catching up to them at the next system and providing an escort across what was now Cajdital-dominated space to the closest intact Hycre world. There they were safe behind a much larger Hycre fleet, all equipped with cleansing beams and maulers, for a short stay. Eventually they began to transition from one Hycre world to another, moving with escort at all times as they gradually made their way across what had formerly been Calavari territory and into the ADZ.

By the time they arrived their capitol had long since been annihilated, leaving the small fleet of jumpships as the only cohesive remnant of their once great empire. They were led up into Delta Region to an Alliance World still in the making, with only two functioning Star Force cities on the border strips. The Bsidd were quickly given one of the regions on the high grav world to begin colonizing, with them immediately sending an ambassador to Earth to discuss the future of their race and their place within the Alliance they had previously abandoned.

Davis met the Bsidd in one of Atlantis’s sister cities, not sure what to expect. The Bsidd had insisted that they be allowed to speak to the Star Force leader, and given their previous status he’d been inclined to indulge them…but not on Atlantis. That was Star Force’s core and sanctuary, and no one else was going there unless they had special permission. Davis wanted to keep it that way, hence the short hop over to Mediterranea via Mantis where the gangly alien was waiting for him after having arrived on a Hycre jumpship carrying a Star Force transport from the Alliance World.

The inclusion of the Bsidd into the ADZ had been at the Hycre’s request. Star Force had written them off long ago, along with the Kvash and others. According to the Hycre the Kvash empire had already fallen, and now the Bsidd, but with their queens surviving the insect-like race could repopulate quickly, and given their formidable technology the Hycre suggested that they could be a valuable addition to the communal defense in the future.

Future was right, for at the moment the Bsidd had nothing aside from a handful of people and some key technological elements. Impressive as the latter were, Star Force had already pulled ahead of them in most areas, though there was always an element of design unique to each race that was sometimes valuable. The Bsidd had better tech than anyone else in the ADZ, save for maybe the Elarioni, and in time that could be an asset, but the Bsidd were still on Star Force’s black list after what they’d done to the Nestafar capitol and essentially abandoning the other races in the Alliance to fight the lizards on their own.

Davis wasn’t going to turn them away, but he wasn’t going to give them the status they probably wanted within the ADZ and expected this meeting to be more of an argument than anything productive.

And he wasn’t disappointed.

He met the tall, multi-limbed alien in a conference room with two Knights flanking him should it not play nice, and after two hours of ‘discussion’ had melted down into the Bsidd making demands for resources and inclusion in ADZ decision making committees the Star Force Director had exhausted his patience and finally laid it out plainly for the ambassador.

“You have no control here. Not in any way, shape, or form. The Alliance you were formerly part of has been dead for some time now, with a new one growing in its place. The Hycre, Protovic, and Star Force make the decisions here, for we carry the burden of the ADZ’s defense. You have nothing to contribute to that, hence you have no decision making privileges. Your past empire’s greatness no longer matters. You are what you are now…a handful of refugees seeking a new home. I will and have granted you that, but everything you get from this point on you’ll have to work for, and you’ll have to abide by our rules or you’ll lose your sovereignty…do I make myself clear?”

“You will not dictate to us, Human,” the Bsidd said stiffly.

“I am, actually, right now.”

“We are still the technologically superior, and the wiser. Your race is young and immature.”

Davis smiled, born of frustration rather than amusement. “You might want to have a look around before you start making assumptions like that. A great many things have changed, and you’re alive right now because we’ve carved out a sanctuary that we are defending with our technology. The Hycre rescued you using weapons that we gave them. We have succeeded, to date, where you have failed, so do not think that you are in a position of power here.”

“You will give us the resources we require to rebuild. The Hycre have guaranteed it!” the Bsidd said, almost in a yell.

“Not without compensation, and the Hycre have guaranteed you nothing other than foodstuffs and other basic necessities to keep you alive while you rebuild. We will not do it for you, nor provide you the resources in any way that differs from what we offer to the other races via our markets.”

“You will not subjugate us to minority status. We are a founder of the Alliance, you are not.”

“We are the founder of the new Alliance, you are not,” Davis countered. “And we alone dictate all territorial allotments within the ADZ, and the Protovic and Hycre back us on this.”

“The Protovic are minor, only the Hycre and Calavari are to be concerned.”

“The Calavari are now part of Star Force. I speak for them.”

The Bsidd looked taken aback…or as close as Davis could guess based on his thoughts, for his ‘facial’ expressions were nearly impossible to read.

“The Calavari would not submit to you.”

“They didn’t submit, they joined with us, as have many others.”

“We will not do so.”

“You don’t have to, but you will have to earn your place in the ADZ and rebuild your civilization from scratch. Use the resources in the region we gave you or trade for them with us or another faction.”

“We have nothing to trade and you know it!”

“You have technical knowledge that others lack. Start there,” Davis suggested.

“We will not give away our secrets, Human!”

“Trade, not give. It seems like I’m the only one that gives anything away nowadays.”

“You would be wise to treat us well, for once we regrow we will remember your actions.”

“Then remember that we took you in when you had nowhere else to go,” Davis said, standing up and causing the two Knights to shuffle, ready to move if needed. “It seems you’ve wasted time and resources coming here, for you expect us to cave to your whims and that is not going to happen. Go back to your people and begin rebuilding at whatever pace you can sustain. We will keep you alive with the necessary foodstuffs in the interim. You need not fear dying, but as for your empire’s glory, that’s on you to reestablish…not me.”

Davis pointed at the door and a Star Force personnel relations attendant and a trio of security officers came up and prodded the Bsidd towards it as the Director left the room via another entrance while the alien ranted in its native tongue. Davis stopped a few steps out into the hall after the door was shut behind them, rubbed his chin for a moment, then belatedly glanced up at the Knights.

“Dismissed,” he said, backtracking a few steps and heading the other way while they headed off to wherever they needed to be.

Davis had a thought, then rapidly developed it into a plan causing him to accelerate into a jog and race towards the nearest lift, which he took to the closest security station. He had them locate the highest ranking Archon within the city and get her to the spaceport asap…along with a medical team.

The ranger in question, following Davis’s order/suggestion, intercepted the Bsidd before he boarded the dropship to head back to orbit but did so in such a way that she froze him in place using her Ikrid and dulled his senses. She wasn’t skilled enough to erase memories, but she messed up his senses enough then released them back into normalcy that the Bsidd didn’t realize what had just happened and after a bit of disruption and confusion walked on into the dropship and headed back to his people without being any the wiser.

The ranger came back to Davis in the security station with a smile on her face. “Easy peasy.”

“Thank you,” he said as she handed him the small vial that contained the genetic sample she’d had the medics take off the Bsidd while he was disoriented.

“Anything else?”

“Always something else to do…but not for you.”

“Call if you need me,” she said, retreating out of the station and back to whatever she had been doing which, judging by the casual tank top and shorts she was wearing had been a training session.

Davis let her go and looked at the genetic sample in his hand, or rather the container, for the actual sample was microscopic and something the Bsidd wouldn’t notice missing. Their files on their race hadn’t included a full sample, and were so sketchy that a lot of the data was little more than rumor, one of which was how they reproduced. It was said that all Bsidd originated from a small number of queens, but unlike some other known races they weren’t directly birthed or hatched. They came from subqueens in various forms.

The exact details were lost, however, for the Bsidd didn’t share such secrets with outsiders. With analysis hopefully the medtechs would be able to shed some light on the truth of their reproductive systems, which was important if Davis was going to assimilate them. He’d been skeptical about their inclusion into the ADZ from the beginning when the Hycre had requested it, but this meeting made it clear that the Bsidd had a one track mind and if he let them develop, or redevelop, with their current disposition then they were only going to be trouble going forward…and the ADZ had enough of that with the ongoing civil war that now included 6 races.

He would have just broken them up by individuals and incorporated them into Axius, scattering them far and wide and essentially ending their civilization right from the beginning, but if they could only reproduce through queens that gave those queens a firm hold over their society, and anywhere they went they could start to rebuild their numbers and that wouldn’t work with the Axius maturia setup…and he didn’t want the Bsidd reproducing off the grid and causing havoc that way.

Which was why he needed to know exactly how they reproduced. If the Bsidd were going to be a problem then it was one he was going to deal with from the get go rather than let it grow. If Axius wasn’t feasible for the Bsidd then Star Force could incorporate them as a ward of the empire, but only if they had full control of their race. If the ‘minions’ couldn’t reproduce on their own and only the queens could, he couldn’t separate biology from culture the way he had with others and that lingering taint could cause problems, though it would fade over time.

He didn’t want to take that risk and hoped there would be a way to annex the Bsidd without them becoming more trouble than they were worth. If not…then he’d have to keep them contained and under his thumb while he tried alternative ways to influence them. That wasn’t something he wanted to do, especially given all the bad examples floating around the ADZ for them to pattern off of. He needed to isolate and teach their offspring in order to cut the cultural cord…but queens was something new.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with them and hoped his genetic experts would have some answers for him now that he had something more than rumor for them to analyze.

3

December 22, 2555

Solar System

Earth

Davis flew in a mantis across the landscape of Antarctica, now devoid of snow given that it was the summer. Most of what was below him, visible through the datapad that he was browsing on during the flight, was cityscape with large, almost mountain-sized buildings rather than the smaller versions seen in warmer climates. There were roads and rail lines crisscrossing everywhere, but most of the infrastructure was subsurface with the ‘ground’ being comprised of rooftops and other artificial constructions that didn’t collect and hold the native snow well.

During the winter the cityscape would be covered regularly, but for now the once white continent was just a chilly cityscape basking in partially cloudy skies.

The continent held a considerable population, in excess of 12 billion, with the rest of Earth being similarly choked with people, though Davis had seen to it through restructuring that the heavy population was no longer suffocating. The planet might be crowded, but there was still ease of movement given sufficient and proper infrastructure…not to mention huge buildings like those seen below that could pack in more population per square mile when they themselves were more than a mile high.

Extensive subsurface infrastructure actually made the buildings even taller from an interior standpoint, and Star Force was continuing to expand on those, digging down deeper and deeper into the crust to build more habitats and facilities. They were also continuing to expand the colonization of the oceans, which held both surface and subsurface cities, but eventually those would fill up too and Davis would be faced with either having to start shuffling off the native population in far greater numbers than he was already doing or begin rebuilding again with even larger infrastructure.

He hated tearing down functional structures in order to replace them with larger ones, but sometimes it was necessary. Earth’s current population of 153 billion was continuing to grow rapidly, even with the mass exodus traveling out to the stars. Some didn’t go far, for the Solar System had already passed the half trillion mark and made up approximately one quarter of the Human population in Star Force, making it by far the most valuable system in the ADZ.

Davis had kept it exclusively Human, with very few travel permits allowed for outsiders. Occasionally you would see a few ships passing through for trade purposes, but otherwise it was a closed system to the rest of the ADZ while the other Star Force systems were open and would always remain so. Davis preferred it that way, and while he liked having a Human-only zone part of the time it wasn’t by choice. Sol was as much of a liability as it was an asset, and he’d never been able to structure it as he’d liked. Chasing the population curve always kept him making adjustments, but never with a fresh start like he had in other systems.

Antarctica had been a fresh start because no one had been living here when Star Force took possession of the continent, but it was still facilitating the rest of the planet by being the evacuation point for all those looking to move out to the colonies. Davis was never going to restrict reproduction, such would be a major privacy invasion, which left him always feeling a little bit behind the curve with Earth, but like the Archons he rose to meet challenges.

And yet, while Earth was in continual population increase it wasn’t enough to fuel the expansion he wanted throughout the ADZ. Humanity was still only a tiny fraction of the overall population that now exceeded 900 trillion. Other races were growing faster than the Humans, based on their biology, and if it weren’t for the Kiritak Star Force would have been relegated to a shrinking minority unable to produce the natural resources necessary to wield the power that it now did in the ADZ.

The Kiritak/Kiritas now numbered over 70 trillion and were continuing to grow as fast as resources would allow, with those greater numbers then being deployed to various worlds to harvest more resources. They were the key to Star Force’s growth, but Davis needed more Humans to form the core of the organization.

The greater the population pool the better the chance of individuals testing out to become Archons. As it was Star Force was averaging 10-15 classes per year, which meant 1000 to 1500 new Archons with every calendar change. Out of a population of 900 trillion that was a pathetically small number, and going forward Davis knew that the Archons’ low numbers could become a liability if they started dying off in considerable numbers, for they were damn hard to replace.

But they were more than worth it. Even without psionics they were dominant on the battlefield and in a myriad of other applications. Trick of it was, only Humans could become Archons because only Humans had the potential for the psionics. He wasn’t going to explain that to the ADZ, because the source of the Archons’ powers was still a tightly guarded secret, but it was a sticking point with regards to the Star Force military because Davis knew that with Humanity’s limited reproduction rate they’d never grow to the size needed…at least not until far into the future, and the need for a much larger military was already on their doorstep.

The Calavari outnumbered the Humans 3 to 1 now, with their reproduction rate being about the same and their efforts tied up in defending their portion of the ADZ from the lizards. They were holding the line well and even taking back a handful of worlds from what had formerly been their territory, but their once impressive population figures were gone, and like the Humans it would take them a long time to get them back.

The Kiritas were an altogether different story. Their reproduction had to be continually kept in check else it’d scale out of proportion. They reproduced via eggs, which the females pumped out regularly. The males then had to fertilize them, and it was that fertilization rate that had to be regulated. If not, a pair of Kiritas could reproduce at a rate of 120/1 compared to Human reproduction.

Star Force was fortunate to have both the Kiritas nation as part of the empire and the Kiritak, which now outnumbered their semi-independent kin 7 to 1. There were many Kiritak trained and equipped as security forces, but their smaller physiology didn’t make them well suited to combat…at least not Star Force-style combat. If you were willing to lose huge swaths of the Kiritak in battle they could be a formidable force the same way the lizards were when they simply swarmed you with numbers.

But Star Force wouldn’t fight that way, meaning the Kiritak and the Kiritas military were defensive only, guarding the back door for anything that might slip through the mainline troops. Those were comprised almost entirely of Humans…hence the population rate problem.

Axius had been changing that, and now that it numbered better than 20 trillion and continued to rise limited only by the rate at which Star Force could build new cities Davis had a source of good troops that weren’t tied to Humanity. They weren’t mainline per se, but sort of a quasi-branch. Trouble was most of the Axius population wasn’t interested in fighting, limiting their available numbers. Their mixed race makeup made for some potent fighting combinations and the fact that they came almost exclusively from non-Human populations helped greatly, but it still wasn’t providing Star Force with the numbers it needed.

There were a number of races that were wards of the Empire that had better than Human population growth rates, and in time some of them might be able to assist in a military manner, but none that had a proven combat record similar to the Bsidd.

Their race was more suited to combat than the Kiritas, though less so than Humans or Calavari. The Bsidd came in several variants, much like the lizards, but most were taller than Humans and could cover ground rapidly on their bipedalish frames. The Bsidd had multiple appendages, with two main ones for walking but the others could be used as additional legs or arms as needed. They had no center of mass, for they looked like a pile of sticks and moved like it, but in combat they had proven themselves more than capable, though mostly through the use of swarm tactics and high tech walkers.

Davis knew from his work building Axius how various races had both advantages and disadvantages when faced with combat, and many races that had previously been deemed unuseful, such as the Irondel, had found a niche and were proving themselves valuable. Davis wasn’t sure, but his gut told him the Bsidd would be more than useful once integrated into a Star Force system, though the dynamics of that would be worked out by Archons and others with far more military savvy than he wielded.

A preliminary report on the tissue sample and an analysis of its genetic code had informed Davis that the Bsidd had the potential to reproduce even faster than the Kiritas, which could make them valuable allies indeed if Davis could bring them into the fold…which was why he was traveling to Antarctica, for Star Force didn’t have the necessary technology as of yet to do as in depth an analysis of the sample as needed.

The mantis eventually brought the Director to the foodstuff factory that sat atop the V’kit’no’sat pyramid, with him heading below and down to the main doors. Every time he visited here the sight of the green/black stone filled him with a sense of wonder and dread, reinforcing the fact that Sol’s high population was little more than a target rich environment should their real enemy come back, no matter how many Sentinels they spammed the system with.

He walked through the massive doors and found a nearby mongoose that he mounted and rode up into the higher levels until he came to the Zen’zat floors where he found one of his chief medtechs working on the Bsidd sample.

“Director,” Manfred Trell said in greeting, throwing a quick glance towards him as he continued to work a series of holographic controls that were floating midair.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Davis said, walking up beside his right shoulder.

“Just a moment, need to finish this,” the geneticist said, doing something with the displays that Davis couldn’t mentally or visually track. He was punching solid holographic buttons so fast and manipulating the jumbled image in a way that completely escaped Davis until the medtech zoomed out and a bit of structure returned that he recognized as the cell codes that Trell had been instructing him on via messages.

“There…now, I still have a lot to dig through, but how we proceed is going to largely depend on you. I was just getting some cataloging done while I waited. These…” he said, tapping and highlighting several orb-like structures within a Bsidd cell, “are the code modules I was telling you about. I’ve identified 17 so far and there may be more here, but only 2 are currently active…and by active I mean that they have a component that the others are missing.”

The medtech adjusted the view and brought up a side by side comparison, highlighting the surface region of one that looked like it had a chunk bitten out of it.

“I believe this area is a receptacle for a code key, both to unlock the modules as well as to deliver additional data…and by data I’m referring to genetic knowledge. It’s hard to say so soon, but I’m guessing it’s more than skills and actually has to do with temperament and potentially even memories or commands. If you want to coopt the Bsidd this is the kicker. With it the queens control the others.”

“Define control.”

“Predisposition. There’s no telepathic structures that we can determine. One of the code modules that’s dormant is actually for a queen, so we’ve got a copy of their genetics as well, minus their code key. They don’t appear to have any psionic tissue, nor chemical transfers…nothing obvious anyway. It’ll take a few months to sift through it all, even with these machines and a staff of 50.”

“Pull a staff of 500 if you need, this takes priority,” Davis said dismissively.

“If you wish. I can tell you that every egg a queen lays has the code modules for all the variants…that’s a guess, anyway, and that the code keys activate them. How many variants I’m not sure of at this point, because it seems the code modules interlink with one another. This one has two active to create its version, and without more samples it’s going to be some time before I can tell you about the other ones.”

“Focus on the keys. Are they required information?”

“You’re wondering if it’s just an ‘on’ switch? Possibly, with the extra influence added.”

“It’s important.”

Trell rubbed his chin. “I can only guess at this point, but biologically speaking everything this one has physically is coded within the module, not the key. How much of its intellect comes from the key…is something I can’t say as yet.”

“Are they born with the minds of adults?”

Trell tapped one of the holographic modules, enlarging it and bringing up some addition data that Davis couldn’t read given that it was the V’kit’no’sat medical shorthand symbols. “Possibly. If that’s the case the Bsidd could develop the old fashioned way without the keys…or it’s possible that the keys are necessary. I’m sorry, I just don’t know yet. There’s too much to go through without you giving me a direct line of inquiry.”

“Is it similar to the lizard problem?”

“No,” Trell said immediately. “Their genetic coding is hardwired in, so to speak. This is completely modular. I think the queens can customize keys based on the situation. The lizards operate off of a single societal drive program that we can’t strip away without something to replace it, and every simulation that I’ve ran has failed. I keep trying occasionally, but there’s no way to deprogram them that I can see.”

“Alright, with the Bsidd it seems like their programming is shipped in after the fact. If we block that shipment can they still function?”

“That’s your priority question?”

“Yes.”

“I would say maybe, at this point.”

“How long to find out?”

“Give me an hour, maybe two. Can’t guarantee anything, just have to follow my instincts as I sift through all this.”

“How many staff you need to make this go quickly?”

“Right now just me until I figure out what the tedious work is going to be.”

“Fair enough.”

“What else do you want me to look into?”

“How are the keys produced?”

“Oh, already know that,” Trell said, bringing up another hologram and physically dragging it across his primary view and over in front of Davis. He highlighted one module and zoomed in, pulling up pieces of what Davis didn’t know, but he suspected it was important.

“This is the queen’s genome. They have a special line connection running from the base of their brains down to their egg sack. The keys are produced in the brain and secreted down, bathing the eggs until they take.”

“How big are these eggs?”

“Microscopic at that point. They don’t begin growing in earnest until the keys are delivered.”

“And if they’re not delivered?”

“There’s a null line code that renders them inert. I suspect they’re expelled in the fluid if the keys don’t take.”

“How big do the eggs get before hatching?”

“Um…not sure, but I’d guess about yay big,” Trell said, holding his hands apart about the distance of a football. “They don’t stay within the queen for long, or, well they can, but based on the few rumors floating around I’ve deduced that they use an artificial birthing pod filled with nutrient fluid to grow the eggs outside the queen’s body.”

“So they can reproduce faster?”

“Way faster. Like factory line faster.”

“Growth rate?”

“This one matured within 4 years, physically speaking.”

“You said something about an immunity?”

“Yes, here…” Trell said, adjusting the holograms again and showing Davis something equally unintelligible. “It’s something they added, I think, because it stands out. Shoddy work, if you ask me.”

“Genetic engineering?”

“Pretty sure, and since I sent you that message I’ve determined it’s a toxin. One that would be lethal to many races…including the lizards.”

Davis’s face tightened. “They fought them with a chemical weapon that they made their own people immune to?”

“They tried, I think, but the immunity isn’t complete. The toxin won’t kill them, but I think it will still make them sick. Not sure, haven’t gotten that far on it yet. Been cherry-picking inroads to give you some options.”

“And the reason I need to be here in person?”

“These holograms won’t transition through our computers,” Trell said, altering them again into a much more detailed view, making Davis think he was looking at star charts at first, but with angles to the shards that made it look a bit creepy. “If you’re up to it I can give you a primer. If not I’m going to have a headache trying to translate all this for you. If you really want to find a way to strip the queens’ influence we’re going to have to have a back and forth regularly about how that might be possible and what you will or will not allow. Not that I’m going Dr. Evil on you, but with genetics there are always a lot of bad ideas available that we have to sort through…and if you can’t read the lingo you’re going to be out of the loop.”

“I cleared my schedule, so let’s get started with the basics,” Davis said, wasting no time jumping into the challenge. If there was a way he could strip the hive mentality out of the Bsidd he was going to go for it, both for their sakes and the power balance within the ADZ.

4

March 1, 2556

Orica System (Nestafar Territory)

Inner Zone

The Hycre jumpship came out of its interstellar braking maneuver with its sensors transitioning back into the readable range, immediately picking up several contacts near to the central stars in the trinary system. At first they expected the contacts to be Skarron warships, given that they were in the process of devouring the Nestafar empire in leaps and bounds. After the annihilation that the old Alliance had laid down in their capitol system, the Nestafar had begun rebuilding heavily as the Cajdital had taken away what opposition remained…up until the Skarrons had attacked.

The Hycre had kept tabs on the Nestafar, along with many other regions outside the ADZ, but such scouting trips were sparse and there hadn’t been one to Orica in the past 8 years. Then there had only been Nestafar there, so when new contacts that didn’t match Nestafar profiles were detected it was assumed, for a few seconds at least, that they were Skarron…but immediately that was dismissed as soon as the sensors began to get better resolution as the last of the momentum canceled out and the passive signals got some computer work to increase clarity.

The ships were larger than the Skarrons, but clearly not the wing-shaped Nestafar designs. They were, however, familiar enough that the Hycre computers spat out a match with little additional data required, let alone active sensors that would make the scout ship stand out to everyone even remotely close by.

What they were detecting were unescorted jumpships…Cajdital jumpships sitting in the null gravity gap between stars. Not an orbit, but the tug of war center of their gravitational pulls that effectively hid them from most of the rest of the system. The jumpline the Hycre had come in on happened to be lateral to the three point line, allowing the stellar radiation reflecting off their shields to make the contacts literally glow on passive scans given their immense size.

As the minutes passed no further signals were detected around the stars, so the scout ship moved around the larger of the pair to a jumpline that would take it out further into the system to Orica B, the system’s third star, where they began doing their survey of the 93 formerly inhabited planetoids. At last count only 18 had been repopulated by the Nestafar, and lightly so, but after finding the outer star devoid of any ships or tracking satellites the first planet they jumped to, a formerly barren one after the Alliance’s ‘cleansing,’ showed both orbital and surface activity.

There were Skarron ships in orbit and even from the distance that the Hycre ship was spying from they could pick out their larger walkers on the surface…along with several small cities. The Skarrons also had a handful of orbital facilities, but nothing Nestafar was remaining, at least from the mid orbit view of the scout ship.

Two more planets showed similar results, one with more infrastructure and one with barely any at all, but both with a Skarron presence. The fourth planet the scout ship visited was the Nestafar capitol world of Nestarraffa, and as soon as the Hycre ship came out of its microjump the orbital map lit up with thousands of contacts.

None of them were Nestafar, but there were Skarron and Cajdital ships seemingly parked in orbit next to each other…until the tiny flashes of weaponsfire began registering on sensors.

The Hycre ship kept its distance but didn’t move on, sticking around and recording the battle as the two sides hammered each other. The Skarron ships were larger and had plasma-resistant armor, while the Cajdital mostly cruiser-class fleet used primarily plasma weapons but had greater numbers by about a 3 to 1 margin…making for a very even fight.

But not just in orbit. As the scout ship stuck around it also pulled as detailed surface scans as it could manage, picking up reflections from the enemy ships’ own active scans and finding four Cajdital LZs on the ground with hundreds of Skarron walkers surrounding them. The Hycre were very interested in seeing how that was progressing, but other than their approximate placements they couldn’t get any useful information.

Judging by the positions of the battling fleets, which were grouped together in various clusters in specific places around orbit, the Hycre had some open lanes to approach through and, knowing that they could outmaneuver both enemy ship types, moved down into low orbit to get some better scans figuring that they’d already been spotted in the system anyway with all the active sensor beams flashing around the planet. But with both sides heavily engaging one another they probably weren’t going to care.

As the ship came down near to the upper atmosphere the resolution of the ground campaigns increased exponentially…showing that the Cajdital had landed clusters of cruisers looking like bees on a hive and were maintaining a free fire zone around them as they were setting up shield towers inside. Those outside corridors had some of the Skarron walkers on approach and exchanging plasma fire with the Cajdital cruisers…which weren’t all that much bigger.

Though the Cajdital landing clusters were intact there was no movement out from them…and there was a trail of broken ships littering the ground nearby, a testament to the anti-air fire the Skarron walkers were capable of throwing down, not to mention several discarded gravity grapples that had apparently yanked others out of the air. The Cajdital did have their LZs and they were presently intact, but they’d paid a heavy price to establish them and at the moment it looked like they weren’t able to push out at all, with more and more Skarron walkers slowly transitioning towards them to tighten the noose.

The Hycre stuck around a while, inspecting all four surface battles and cataloging as much of the Skarron infrastructure and troop counts as they could reasonably get before retreating to a higher orbit and jumping out to the next planetoid on their search list, finding Skarron/Cajdital conflicts on 6 different worlds and no sign of the Nestafar anywhere within the system.

That reconnaissance data would eventually be brought back to a Hycre world outside the ADZ, then transition through a series of couriers until it got to a world that was linked into the Star Force relay grid. Once there it made its way into the ADZ and eventually over to Dvapp space where Paul was poaching a few ships in orbit of Veernad with the Excalibur and adding a few more dings to its already damaged hull. He didn’t have many drones to work with, but with him in command and the Skarrons’ limited resources it had become obvious that they weren’t going to be able to kill the big ship so he was bleeding them as dry as he could knowing that a trip back to a shipyard for repairs was in the near future.

He didn’t get the intel from the Hycre until a day later once the Excalibur had pulled back to an anonymous position in the system that still had the Star Force relays in operation. Either the Skarrons didn’t know where they were or hadn’t bothered to destroy them, but the formerly Dvapp system was still on the grid allowing Paul to stay linked in while he singlehandedly poached ships with his small fleet of warships elsewhere hunting down convoys.

When he got the priority message packet he read through it intently, with one big piece of the current puzzle falling into place. The Skarrons had pulled most of their attempted reinforcements away from the ADZ in order to fight the lizards, and he knew well how much of a handful they were. He welcomed the distraction, which was already giving Star Force and the Protovic a chance to rebuild and press the pair of worlds the enemy held in their territory while Paul used what scraps he had to poke around Dvapp space.

Paul spent the next six hours reviewing battle data, both that occurring in orbit but also that on the ground…and he was keenly interested in seeing how the lizards handled the Skarron walkers.

The ultimate answer to that was, they weren’t. They were getting beat up on the ground and spamming cruisers to try and counter, and doing so effectively, but at great cost. It didn’t take him long to guess their theory, for by now he knew the lizards weren’t stupid, and they were using a strategy that Star Force never would.

They were sacrificing ships and troops in order to bleed the Skarrons dry of their missiles.

Most of the ground battles that were ongoing in Orica, or probably over by now given the time lag, were in the early stages, but two had progressed to the point where the lizards were actually winning, and they were doing so by using their cruisers to counter the walkers in hover mode, essentially making them walkers in and of themselves and using their single plasma streamers to great effect. Trouble was, the Skarron armor was resistant to plasma and it required a lot of chewing on to take them down.

But instead of developing a different style weapon to counter the armor, the lizards were just hammering them until they fell. It was costing them cruisers left and right, but they were making gains on the ground where the Skarrons hadn’t thrown too much resistance their way. That was one advantage the cruisers had over the walkers…they could move around much more quickly, but put 20 cruisers against 20 of the big walkers and the lizards lost badly, even when their missiles were depleted.

That left the lizards with a tough but winnable fight so long as they had the numbers to keep pouring into the engagement. Paul knew the Skarrons did as well, and wasn’t sure who would come out the victor. If neither received additional support he’d put his credits on the Skarrons, but knowing both enemies he knew they’d each have support coming their way.

He just wished they had a permanent recon post in the system, because he expected the battle for that highly valuable piece of real estate to be one stretching out a decade, at minimum, unless one side rolled insane numbers in.

But what else was in the report, or rather missing from it, was the Nestafar. Nothing had been heard of them in quite some time and Star Force had had no assets in their territory since the Elarioni pullout. The Hycre and a few other races had pulled scouting runs in that area and beyond, for some of the ADZ races still had contacts out there on worlds that the enemies had no interest in. None of them had reported sighting the Nestafar within the past 3 years and now their capitol system, though decimated earlier, was now completely lost.

He didn’t know if they were still fighting elsewhere, had evacuated, or were wiped out, but it seemed karma had kicked in for their backstabbing of the original Alliance and they wouldn’t be a concern for the ADZ going forward. Paul didn’t know that for a fact, but he could read the writing on the walls. Whatever had gone down they’d got their asses kicked, and their territory was in the hands of the Skarrons and, apparently, now the lizards as well.

Paul hoped that the lizards would also start pulling reinforcements off the ADZ border to fight the Skarrons, but knew Star Force had to keep reinforcing it or the lizards would find a way in. They were too devious to just go away, and he knew the ADZ couldn’t just turtle up on the border and hope to be ignored. They’d have to keep hitting them, with Greg and others continuing to do that in earnest razing worlds and maintaining a neutral buffer zone around the border that the lizards were constantly trying to reestablish themselves in.

Their pesky enemy knew how to creep well, something the Skarrons didn’t bother with. They went with more blunt force attacks, even if in small numbers, with the lizards adding sneakiness to that trait, for they also could drop the hammer when they chose. So far the ADZ had avoided that hammer multiple times, a lot of which was due to Kara preemptively hitting them in key areas, but aside from a few feel-out attacks the lizards hadn’t used their big toys to try and break open the front as of yet.

Paul wondered why that was, for their own scouting reports suggested they had a huge surplus of troops sitting back inside their deeper worlds. Maybe they were just being patient, or maybe they had some other plan in place. Regardless, Paul knew to never take them lightly. They would take easy targets if offered up to them, but he feared they were a more dangerous enemy than the Skarrons, despite the huge size of the other’s empire.

And they were dangerous because they were cunning and adaptive…but they also held to a consistency of tech and tactics that they made work rather than altering it to fit the current circumstances. Their ships were essentially the same as they were when they first attacked Star Force, save for small upgrades here and there. The one big change was the addition of a plasma streamer, though while still holding to the plasma theme of the majority of their weapons was an upgrade that they’d reverse-engineered from the Kvash who’d they’d managed to roll over without breaking much of a sweat.

That weapon upgrade alone, spread throughout their entire territory, gave them considerably more naval power, not to mention the occasional tweaks in their shield generators and plasma composition that the trailblazer was continuously following. While Star Force tech was now considerably more advanced, the lizards were doing well with what they had and maintaining a consistency across their territory that bespoke impressive organization and unity.

Paul had been studying them intently over time, even as his priority focused on the Skarron threat, and he was keenly interested in learning from this new challenge they were facing, for it would show more of their hand given the numbers and tech the Skarrons would bring to bear. If they didn’t find a way to counter them the Skarrons could slowly chew into their territory and push back towards their core worlds, for the trailblazer knew how hungry they were for new territory.

The reverse wasn’t true, for even if the lizards rolled over them in their current conflicts and conquered double the territory they current possessed that would only be a fraction of the Skarrons’ current empire, making them an altogether new type of enemy for the lizards to face.

And the more they fought each other the more resources they’d expend. Paul just hoped that wouldn’t backfire and bring more attention from both to the region and the ADZ. If it did they were pretty much screwed, but as far as the Skarrons were concerned the ADZ was an offensive campaign that they could deal with at their leisure and not a threat to them…and it wasn’t going to be, for aside from some raids Star Force wasn’t pushing closer to the galactic core.

The lizards were past that point, with both sides knowing what each other were about and going for the throat whenever they could. The only reason Star Force wasn’t hitting them harder was the size of their territory, making an ultimate victory far beyond their current scope…in theory, at least, for the Skarron war had already pushed them to their limits in terms of resources.

Take the Skarrons out of the picture and the war against the lizards would still be a defensive affair, for Paul knew the key to ultimate survival was the unlocking of the data in the pyramid and incorporating it into their empire. Once that occurred, fully, then they could roll the lizards…but then that would potentially send up a flag to the V’kit’no’sat that they couldn’t afford.

So no matter which way you sliced the strategic situation the ADZ was a sanctuary that Star Force would defend but couldn’t push out from in any meaningful way. That meant endless war, which was something that the Archons were prepared for given that it wasn’t much different than their endless training. For other races that wasn’t the same, and many that had been beaten by the lizards had made it too easy for them simply because they gave up trying.

And that ‘giving up trying’ was part of the reason why their surviving factions were sitting in the ADZ and not contributing to the fronts.

But Paul didn’t care about them any longer. Davis might still be working on them but the trailblazer wasn’t. Star Force and its allies were the key to the defense of the ADZ, and long term it would be Star Force alone given the advancement that he knew was coming. Building up their empire was his focus, and right now that meant protecting it and buying time so they could advance.

Hopefully this new Skarron/lizard war would finally buy them enough time to get a firm border defense in place, and with any luck they could sit back, eat popcorn, and watch the fireworks.

Unfortunately he knew that wasn’t going to happen, not with the lizards anyway, and there were still Skarron held worlds on and near the border that had to be reclaimed. The fight may have gone from impossible to doable, but it wasn’t over and it wasn’t easy…not yet anyway. Tennisonne had said it’d be 15-20 years before he’d get Liam’s armor ‘packets’ out to him, but when he did it’d change how Star Force’s naval division operated.

And even without the weapon upgrades that were coming in the near future, the secondary armor was going to make their ships so tanky that they’d be able to handle the swarm tactics of both the Skarrons and lizards. Until then it was buy time and build Sentinels…and hope that both of the big powers got so distracted with each other that they wouldn’t realize how fast Star Force was advancing and choose to take them out now, with overwhelming numbers, while they still had a chance.

5

May 31, 2556

Trenzalore System (Delta Region)

Christmas (Alliance World)

Raven-266 ran through the forest easily, ducking here and there as she made good time from her LZ to the Bsidd colony that was under construction along with the rest of the planet. The 8 territorial regions were empty and unassigned save for the one given to the Bsidd, but it barely had a single city built with most of their people living in their ships or in prefab structures on the surface provided to them by the Star Force markets.

Those were just getting under way themselves, with only a handful of operational colonies on the planet and not enough to service a full Alliance World as of yet, which was why the planet hadn’t been opened up for colonization to date, but the Bsidd had been a special case and coming in with extremely low numbers. That was changing, however, as the insect-like queens began pumping out eggs and growing new population by the thousands…stressing their limited resources to the limit in order to expand as quickly as possible.

The Bsidd didn’t know the striker was coming, nor would they if her mission was a success. She was approaching on foot in armor through the forest, knowing that the Bsidd didn’t have any detection nets set up as of yet. Most of the buildings in their tiny city were half built, with only the ‘royal’ section being amicably functional. That was her destination, but first she had to get inside undetected.

The Archon began picking up Bsidd minds before she could see them, adjusting her path to avoid the closest ones as she came to the forest edge where some of them were clear cutting the trees to make room for construction growth. Raven circled south to avoid them and came up on a partially built structure that had no sharp lines to it, being all curves and twists and the internal structural supports showing were no exception. The Bsidd didn’t care for the square, preferring more exotic designs that made navigating around inside their buildings like riding a twisty turny waterslide.

Raven found a blind spot along the perimeter and sprinted across the small clearing in full daylight, knowing that coming in night would have made her more visible. The Bsidd didn’t like really bright light, and the planet in question was considerably closer to the star than they would have preferred, making their night shifts more active than their day ones. Coming in midday gave her less eyes watching, and with a little psionic monitoring she was able to get across when no one was looking.

She stuck to the building exterior and moved laterally until she came to an opening and ducked under a thick support beam and entered a section under early construction. It wasn’t long before she came up on a group of workers, some of which stood twice as tall as her and others that were barely half her height. The small ones were scurrying about bringing parts and attaching bits here and there while the larger ones lifted the bigger pieces into place using multiple appendages to work the curvy lego bricks around.

That’s what they looked like to Raven anyway. Whatever they were building with was unlike anything Star Force used. Every piece that came in resembled a puzzle piece, with the Bsidd scurrying over the framework like ants assembling the building bit by bit at a good rate. It wasn’t hard to distract them from her presence given the focus they had on the task at hand, so as long as she didn’t get in their way she was able to walk right past them with a few Jedi mind tricks and work her way to the interior of the city to where the completed buildings were located.

Actually there were only three, all moderately large. One was what they thought was the queens’ lair and ‘capitol’ of the Bsidd colony. The other two were industrial, one for making materials and the other for making people. The latter was her destination and the striker moved to the closest entrance and slipped inside, bypassing a foot patrol of what she recognized as soldiers. They were taller than her but their torsos were almost nonexistent, with their mass made up of a head and a lots of arms, legs, and whatever else they had.

The two she passed each walked differently, apparently choosing which appendages to use to move about, but both were armed though not armored. She’d spotted a few other pairs out on patrol as well, which she assumed was standard protocol given that there were no threats here and the Bsidd couldn’t fight off a stiff breeze right now given how few of them there were.

It took a moment to work the door controls, then she was inside and maneuvering her way through twisty, curvy hallways that didn’t remain on the same elevation. There were ‘hills’ going up and down in no predictable fashion, with Raven having to navigate with the help of her psionics and memory as she scouted out the facility where the mind count jumped dramatically. There were literally thousands inside, all packed closely together, which she took to investigating carefully, having to backtrack numerous times to avoid running into someone roaming the halls, but for the most part the corridors were deserted. It was the chambers that were packed.

The first few she came to were barracks holding adults, apparently on sleep cycle while the others worked outside, but she eventually came to chambers with some level of activity and lesser minds…the first of a new generation of Bsidd maturing in colony fashion, with her avoiding those areas completely. There was no way she could distract that many minds, so she had to find other routes through the convoluted building, feeling very much like Solid Snake as she snuck her way around being careful not to be spotted so much as once.

She had the ability to erase memories, but had never tried on a Bsidd…let alone felt one of their minds before today, nor had many others. That unfamiliarity was a problem she was having to overcome on the go, but her experience with other races was paying off as she was able to find some similarities and build off of those, though distraction wasn’t difficult when the target in question used the same basic senses as you did, namely sight and sound.

Raven continued to explore the facility and add each twist and turn to her growing battlemap, giving her a means of backtracking easily enough and leaving herself waypoints to help orient herself. After two more steep climbs, then a corkscrew downhill, she came to a large chamber that had no minds in it at present, and with her Pefbar she could tell it was large even before she opened the hatch-like door, with the single segment pulling back inside the wall to allow her entrance.

But the chamber wasn’t empty, it was filled with maturation vats that contained eggs at various stages of growth ranging from microscopic to marble-sized. Nothing larger was here, and based off the information Davis had given her about Bsidd reproduction she knew their eggs had to get quite a bit larger before the birthing process, which wasn’t quite ‘hatching’ but a waking process as they came out of their gelatinous cocoons.

None of these were even close to that, which was why she wasn’t able to detect any minds. The entire room reminded her of the Kamino cloning facility, only more tightly packed with catwalks and other narrow passages separating the open air tanks full of sticky, stinky liquid that her helmet didn’t fully block the smell of. She was glad though, because that meant she wouldn’t have to actually break into any of the containers to steal some of the eggs.

Davis had said he needed unkeyed eggs, and that was going to be the difficult part. All of these currently growing were unviable, so she needed to find a vat that hadn’t been keyed yet, if one existed, or find the throwaways that didn’t take. Unfortunately the medtechs hadn’t given her some nifty scanner to be able to differentiate between the two, so she was just going to have to use her Archon ‘wisdom,’ as Davis had put it, to find what they needed…that or come back for another try later if she grabbed the wrong ones.

So Raven started looking for the microscopic tanks, inspecting as many as she could come across and unable to differentiate between them. They were all pools of goo, and short of just scooping up a sample and hoping for a hit she didn’t have any way to stack her odds…so she kept looking, with no one else in the huge chamber to spot her, though surveillance was always a threat, but she hadn’t noticed any visible monitoring devices.

No one had come after her either, so she felt that she was still operating under the radar and had time, so she made a thorough examination of the room and finally came on what she was looking for, though she hadn’t know it earlier. There were small pods full of a different kind of goo, sealed, and put in some sort of storage chamber and not growth pods.

And there were a lot of them, all carefully and respectfully stacked into individual slots on a honeycomb-like wall, and Raven had the distinct feeling that these were eggs from the queens that were waiting to be vatted. The info packet she’d got indicated that the queens couldn’t produce eggs nonstop, but did so in bunches. With only so many vats here to grow the maturing eggs in it only made sense that they’d store the excess so they’d have them available when other buildings finished construction and upped their growing capacity. If the Bsidd were eager to get as big a population as possible the queens would be pumping out eggs as fast as they could regardless of the number of vats they currently possessed.

And if these containers were full of microscopic eggs then there were truly a lot of them, for the clear canisters showed a milky white goo that she guessed was pure egg, though some type of stabilizer liquid might have been included. She didn’t know, but hoped that these eggs were still unkeyed since they were in storage. Knowing that this was her best bet she began looking for a way to open one of the sealed containers, having to use her Pefbar and Lachka to find and pick the ‘lock,’ for the opening mechanism wasn’t built for her hands.

A double seal released, then an even fouler smell caused Raven to choke a bit but she held it together long enough to pull a sampler out of her pack and sucked up a decent amount of the goo, but not enough that would be detected as missing, she hoped, then she resealed the container and put it back in place before quietly making her way out of the building and city, then back to the forest and her waiting dropship.

Davis had sent Trell with her to Christmas so he could analyze and handle whatever Raven brought him, and the Archon was pleased when he confirmed that she’d grabbed unkeyed eggs and more than 150,000 of them. That meant she wasn’t going to have to go back for a second run and her mission was completed.

Raven left the planet on the next available flight, as did Trell, but after that they split up with the Archon heading out on a combat mission and the medtech back to Sol but not to Earth. He went straight to Venus and the facility Davis had been building there for this project, should Trell be successful. The future of the Bsidd now rested on his shoulders, with him needing to fabricate a new key for the eggs and to do so without screwing up a batch of them. Not because he didn’t have enough, but because once they started to grow they were on their way to becoming people and he didn’t have the luxury of letting them mature before figuring out if he’d been successful or not because the failures would be totally unacceptable.

He and Davis had had many discussions on that front and had worked out a course of action for his ‘experiments’ that focused heavily on computer simulation. The geneticist had already done a lot of the groundwork previously, so he was ready to start his additional sims now that he had actual eggs to analyze instead of just the genetic blueprints for them. In theory that wouldn’t matter, for they should be structured the same, but reading genetics was not an easy thing to do and more often than not you needed context to understand it…which these eggs would hopefully give him.

He didn’t try keying any up at first, merely analyzing them with some portable equipment from the pyramid in addition to the facilities Star Force had built for him in one of the many cities on the planet’s inhospitable surface. It was still hot, dense, and full of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, but inside the cities built to withstand that hostile environment he felt just as much at home as he did on Earth and dropped into his research without missing a beat.

He spent two weeks scanning and sorting through the data, comparing it to his expectations and making a few adjustments where they didn’t match up, then came the tricky part. He went about fabricating the key that he’d been working on designing for months. It had been pirate grown from the adult Bsidd sample he’d previously had, then with modifications made to erase the hive mind commands imbedded within it. Davis didn’t want him trying to add anything new, just releasing the genetic shackles on the Bsidd…without screwing anything up.

There were many keys to choose from, but he’d began with the one he was most familiar with…that being the variant that the diplomat had been. The Bsidd hadn’t been so kind as to share that bit of data with the Alliance but Trell was calling it a #4 and worked hard on it as a proof before even attempting to fabricate keys for the others.

With every possible safeguard in place and more than adequate simulation he crossed his mental fingers and added the fabricated keys to a group of 12 unkeyed eggs and introduced them into a Star Force version of the growing vats…with a much more aromatic liquid tailor made to suit their genetic requirements rather than trying to copy the Bsidd version. Figuring out that need had been easy compared to the keys, but waiting was in some ways harder as he monitored the growth of all 12 individuals after bombarding them with enough keys for them all to take.

With every day that passed he scanned and monitored their growth, looking for anomalies and gratefully finding none. Soon the eggs grew to the point where they were visible, then they continued to mature over the following weeks up into fruit-sized dimensions, developing mental signatures of their own and eventually ‘birthing’ by breaking free of their gel sacks and popping up from the oxygen-rich goo and having their respiratory systems kick in, which simultaneously deactivated the birthing organs that had sustained them during their development.

Those would be reabsorbed into their bodies over the following weeks, but the newly born Bsidd were now air breathers and needed to be treated as such, with specialized handlers taking them out of their vats and into a brand new maturia…one that was going to have to learn the ropes on the go, hence Davis had brought in the top people he had in the field, including several non-Humans from Axius that were egg-produced.

The twelve Bsidd ‘trailblazers’ were thoroughly examined, with Trell overly relieved that there were no anomalies present…physically speaking. Mentally and socially was another question that wouldn’t be answered for a long time, and until it was Trell wasn’t going to key up any more of their eggs. That meant he was going back to other assignments while keeping a waiting eye on this project, ready to return when more data had been collected, and hopefully, to talk with those Bsidd he’d just helped into the universe.

But even as he returned to Atlantis and let the maturia handlers do their thing he couldn’t shake the worry that he’d messed something up by deleting the pieces of the keys that held the queens’ commands. There was so much about the structure of life that even the V’kit’no’sat didn’t understand that he didn’t like meddling with such things, not because he didn’t like the challenge of it, but because if he screwed up then someone else was going to pay for his mistakes.

He was more suited to fixing problems and creating upgrades in people that already existed, not tinkering with the basic blueprints for those yet to develop…but in this case it needed to be done, and Davis had convinced him of that fact early on. He was trying to free the minds of the Bsidd that were locked into a highly influential hive mind on a genetic level, meaning that it didn’t control them per se, but it made it an uphill battle for them to develop ulterior thoughts to those prescribed given that the controlling influence was inside their heads rather than just environmental.

Freedom was every individual’s right, or should be, and this project was a big leap towards that for the Bsidd and for Star Force, who’d never tried anything like this before. He just hoped he’d got it right on the first try, and that worry would plague him for years to come until the twelve Star Force Bsidd completed the limited basic training program established for them and were incorporated into Axius. There they were quietly monitored, with the results of their interactions and socialization coming back to Trell and putting his worries to rest.

If there had been anything lost, it wasn’t detectable. The Bsidd were fully functional individuals and now free to live their lives as they chose…not to mention Star Force trained and now visible to others. Word of that would filter back to the other Bsidd eventually, but that was going to happen sooner or later anyway and was something Davis would deal with.

Trell now had the results he wanted and a plethora of data available to him…with the next phase of the project now on his shoulders once again. He needed to create the keys for the other variants, or at minimum just the one that would allow them to produce their own eggs, that being a queen.

6

June 19, 2572

Solar System

Venus

Nadei woke up, blinking her deep set eyes and pushing open the panels of her sleep cocoon as she fully regained consciousness. The silky coverings kept in the heat and blocked any cooling wind, though in her quarters there was none aside from thermal eddies from the cooling/heating strips in the walls. Still, she felt better with the wrappings covering her body and got a rush of cool air on her abdomen as she sat up and climbed out of the horizontal pod.

The Bsidd stretched her 18 appendages, some short, some long, some thick and some thin. All were useful for movement, but she preferred to walk erect as the Humans did, relying on her thickest ones for use as legs as she moved over to the shower to get ready for the coming day. She climbed into the squarish compartment and passed through the containment shield as the water started to fall. She didn’t linger, spending only a few minutes in the nearly scalding hot water before stepping out through the energy shield and having it whisk the moisture off her for the most part, leaving the steamy chamber behind as she pressed the cycling button that would reset it as she got dressed.

Nadei wore a body suit covering all but her appendages, including her neck, head, and most of her face, leaving only a strip where her eyes were and giving her a ninja-like visage. Once that main piece was on she slipped her gauntlets onto each of her appendages, covering them up save for an inch or so of exposed flesh at the points where they met the body suit. Her purplish skin was thick and hard, almost like a carapace, but it didn’t retain heat well and the Star Force colony always felt cold to her, hence the full body clothing.

Her gauntlets doubled as shoes/gloves, with the Bsidd having no hands or fingers. Several of her appendages ended in small nubs that, when used in concert, could grasp objects and press buttons, but using the Human-style controls was difficult. They had designed special ones for her physiology, but Nadei didn’t want to use them. She wanted to integrate as much as she could with the Humans, who were her only friends and acquaintances, and had raised her since hatching.

She knew there were many other races in Star Force, but the Humans had created it and were the leaders, not to mention responsible for her existence. Nadei knew of the other Bsidd on Christmas and how her egg had been stolen from them, and while she was curious to meet them some day she already knew a great deal about them and was following their growth…while being deeply disappointed by them. They were working against Star Force at every turn, despite all that they’d done to help them get established after granting them sanctuary. Nadei wanted to do better, but before she’d have a chance to do so she’d have to finish her basic training…and in order to do that she had to get through today’s workouts.

First off she headed out of her quarters and over to a climbing course, one that she was proud to say she could handle better than most of the Humans, though they always seemed to find someone who could beat her. She figured it was to keep her motivated and improving, though she didn’t like to get beat. Today it would be a solo workout, as most days were, with her putting in the repetitive requirements necessary to level up her scores and get her another inch closer to graduation.

After the climbing came running, then swimming and flying…with the swimming being the hardest. The flying was by anti-grav and had her moving about through another obstacle course using small thrusters to adjust her movements because the levitation was basic and only vertical…not lateral propulsion. That made it tricky, but still fun.

After that it was time for food and a quick nap, followed by simulator work and information downloads. She had a great deal to learn and the more she did the more she wanted to contribute to Star Force, though in what way she wasn’t yet certain. Nadei knew that, physiologically, she was a Bsidd queen and capable of reproducing others for Star Force, but she didn’t want to become an egg factory. She wanted to do something that mattered.

She’d been told that after graduation, if she made it that far, her path would be her own choice and she’d be able to leave the planet and go where she liked. Nadei looked forward to that day but didn’t plan on leaving Star Force. Where she would end up she didn’t know, for her scores were pretty even across the board, but she was definitely going to find a niche and make good on the investment that Star Force had made in her.

What Nadei didn’t know was that she wasn’t the only Bsidd queen that Star Force had hatched. There were 12, all coming out of the first batch but trained in isolation, not knowing of each other unlike the other Bsidd that came before and after. She didn’t know the others had been trained as a group, nor that any others like her existed, which was by design. Each of the queens needed to be evaluated and scrutinized heavily, for it was learned that the genetic keys that unlocked the egg cells and determined which variant of the Bsidd they would grow into also contained behavioral inclinations.

They weren’t restrictive as the hive mind programming was, which Nadei and the others no longer possessed, but traits of the queen were definitely passed onto their offspring and it was imperative that if Star Force was going to create a colony of Bsidd that they skew their initial presets towards a preferred mindset that they could then enhance through maturia training.

And it was a good thing they had separated them, for each of the 12 queens developed considerably different than the others. Some resisted the training, much like some Humans, with a lackadaisical attitude that was all around unmotivated. Others were highly motivated, but with the stated intent of joining the other Bsidd once they graduated. Four would ultimately stay with Star Force, Nadei included, but she was the only one who wanted to play an active part in it, with the other three joining Axius civilian life, two preferring to be denizens while the third started working her way up the business field.

Those that rejoined the Bsidd told them everything about what Star Force was doing, so far as they knew, which infuriated their queens. Not only was it confirming the previous theft of eggs, which they already knew/suspected by the handful of ‘free’ Bsidd living in Axius, but the genetic tampering set them into a rage of complaint…but that was all they could do. As Larissa had quoted to Davis, ‘all they could do was float and sputter,’ with their single regional territory only marginally developed and their population limited by their available resources.

They weren’t playing nice with others either, save for those that bowed down to their might and offered them tribute in exchange for favor, but those were few and far between. Within the ADZ the Bsidd were minor players and the focus lay on the seemingly endless civil war that was continuing to rage with the Scionate having lost half their territory but fervently holding onto the rest.

The Lacvamat had picked up many allies, but their military had been beaten down to such a state that there was little they could do to press the war, with the Scionate being equally eviscerated to the point where they couldn’t mount any counterattacks. Most of the fighting was being handled by their allies, in their name at least, but really it was the other races trying to grind old angsts and take a piece of the independent pie that Scionate and Lacvamat territories provided.

Some small bits of territory, a moon here or a continent there, were given to allies in exchange for military assistance, allowing them to gain a foothold outside of the Star Force-controlled Alliance Worlds, but more than that they were claiming bits and pieces of enemy territory for themselves, with half the worlds the Lacvamat had taken from the Scionate now belonging to neither.

Given that situation and the ever changing power structure within the ADZ the Bsidd were a mere afterthought. They had no military and only a pittance of population, with only the memories of the past and their current tech level gaining them any traction with the other races.

Upon graduation Nadei had her choice of where to go and what to do, as the others did, but before she was able to make that choice she had a visitor. She’d been told to pack for a trip then to report to the exit of the maturia for her first time, with a bit of nervousness hitting her as she walked out those doors and into the ‘real world.’ The Bsidd was both excited and unsure, waiting where she was told and watching the pedestrian traffic flows, seeing some a couple non-Humans in the mix, the first she’d ever encountered.

“Hello,” a voice said from behind her, with the Bsidd turning around and looking down on the smaller Human female that only rose to her chest height.

When Nadei focused on her and saw the white with brown stripe uniform she suddenly felt the smaller of the two, realizing that this wasn’t just a Human, but an Archon…and a padawan at that.

“Hello,” she mimicked, unable to form any other words. She spoke English well, though with an accent typical of the Bsidd’s vocal chords that gave it a bit of a twang.

“I’m your ride,” the Archon said. “Name’s Larissa-048.”

“You’re a…trailblazer?” Nadei asked, now in full fangirl mode.

“Yep. And I’ve got some things to show you before you decide where in Star Force you want to land.”

“Wherever I can help,” the Bsidd said candidly.

“Come on. Grab your duffle and we’ll talk on the way.”

“Where are we going?” Nadei asked, picking up the strap on her bag and hooking it over one of the pointy should joints on her left side and letting it drape down in between several appendages that wrapped around and held it snuggly up against her thin body.

“Bit of a tour of the ADZ,” Larissa said as they began walking, with the Bsidd’s ‘clicking’ footsteps tripling the Human’s as Nadei bent forward and walked on six to bring her head height down about even to Larissa’s so she could see her more closely.

“We’re leaving the planet?!”

“New to you, I know. Me, I travel a lot and there are some things you need to see.”

“What things?”

“Important things, but let’s start with what you think of Star Force and where you want to make yourself involved…”

“These images are live?” Nadei asked.

Larissa nodded, her usually loose demeanor tightened a bit as they orbited high over a world in Scionate territory where four races were battling on the surface in three separate theatres. Nadei was watching a holographic display in the command nexus onboard the warship that Larissa had been taking her around the ADZ on the past 2 months, with the images of ground engagements floating in air beside the pair.

“Hammid, Jeen, Gnar, and…”

“Zati,” Larissa finished when she couldn’t identify the fourth.

“I didn’t know they were involved in the war.”

“Recent addition.”

“Won’t they incur penalties?”

“Yes, but they don’t seem to care.”

“Why are they doing this? It seems so pointless…and who’s winning?”

“The Scionate faction is winning here, prior to the Zati arrival. Not sure yet how much that is going to swing things. As for why you’d have to ask them. Long term there is no end game for them, and I think they’re just focusing on the here and now trying to grab up any advantages they can get.”

“But if they can’t keep them?”

“We’ve told them as much, but so far they don’t seem to care.”

“Why haven’t you taken these worlds from them yet?”

“How would we do that?” Larissa asked in an instructing tone similar to the one she’d been using throughout the trip.

“Bring in a Star Force fleet and…”

“Fight them?”

“Maybe,” Nadei said, suddenly unsure.

“Then we would be wasting resources fighting our own that could better be put to use reclaiming worlds on the Skarron border. There’s still one in Dvapp territory that we haven’t reclaimed and dozens along the border that need to be taken in order to create a buffer zone similar to what we’ve established along the lizard front. Knowing that would you waste warships and ground troops here?”

“When you put it that way no…but it feels like something should be done about this.”

“Agreed, but what?”

“I don’t know,” Nadei said honestly.

“We have plans in place, for the long term, which is where you come in, actually.”

“Me?”

“Not as far as stopping this fighting, but in preventing a future one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Bsidd would be here, in this fight, if they were strong enough. They’re not our ally, not now. Before they were when they had their own empire far from here, but now they have next to nothing and are seeking to replace what they’ve lost rather than assist us.”

“I know,” Nadei said apologetically.

“One problem with dealing with the Bsidd is their hive mind, making it difficult to deal with any individual when the group will is in effect. We removed that hive mind influence from you, before you were hatched, so you could make your own choices without it pushing you one way or another. The Bsidd out there are not your entire race, not now. They’re just a rogue faction, as far as Star Force is concerned, while you and the others are the real ones.”

“Because our minds are free?”

“And because we’re not willing to give up on your race. You know that other Bsidd are living in Axius?”

“Yes.”

“What you don’t know is that there are other queens, hatched the same time as you. 11 others in fact.”

Nadei’s eyes widened. “There are?”

“Yes. We kept you separate so we could observe you and your development and see if there would be any differences...and there were. Some of them have chosen to return to the other Bsidd, while some are going into Axius as civilians. You are the only one who wants to remain in Star Force.”

Nadei was taken aback. “They’re leaving?”

“It’s their choice.”

“But why? Why would they go back to those…traitors.”

“Traitors how?” Larissa asked, curious as to why she would use that term.

“Star Force saved them, saved us, and all they do is work against you.”

“Against us, you mean,” Larissa corrected. “You’re a part of Star Force and have always been. Stop thinking you’re one of them.”

Nadei bowed her head. “Thank you.”

“If we are going to bring back the Bsidd, as a race, we can’t let this happen to them,” the Archon said, pointing to the live holos of the fighting on the planet below. “And while we’ve removed the hive influence from your genetic code, there is still a lingering influence from the queen that spawned you. Negative characteristics that you and the others have as default. I believe that’s why the others want to return to the Bsidd colony. Those that are going to Axius have overcome that and are choosing the lifestyle they want, and good for them, but you’ve gone a step further. You’ve overcome that subtle influence and, based on everything you’ve told me, have a typical Star Force mindset, not because it was implanted into you, but because you find it to be best.”

“I do.”

“So what if we can take your mindset and put that as the default for the Bsidd. They would still be able to choose their own path, but the ones not strong enough of mind to make their own choices, the ones that just go with the flow, would go with your flow rather than that of the original, corrupt queens…who themselves were most likely influenced by those that spawned them and constricted by their hive mind programming.”

“You want me to produce eggs?” Nadei guessed, feeling a bit disappointed.

“You don’t like that idea?”

“I will do so gladly.”

“But…”

Nadei dropped a few inches in height. “I want to make a difference.”

Larissa smiled. “Do both.”

“What do you mean?”

“The characteristics that you will pass onto your offspring are variable. In order to pass on the good traits you have to possess them yourself. As you change during your life those traits will change, so we need you to be as Star Force as you can get in order to give your offspring the best start we can give them. That means you need to be an active part of Star Force, not an ‘egg factory,’” Larissa said, pulling the term from the Bsidd’s mind.

“How can I do both?”

“We only need you to get the ball rolling. A few eggs here and there, with no imposed programming. You’ll have to make a conscious choice to do that.”

“I’m not sure how.”

“We’ll help you figure it out, but it’s probably something that you won’t understand until you start a reproductive cycle.”

“I’ll miss my workouts,” she mildly complained.

Larissa laughed. “And that mentality right there is exactly what we need passed on.”

Nadei looked from the Archon to the holograms, now realizing the importance of the task being asked of her. To shape the Bsidd away from this needless destruction and chaos without having to lead them. She could just be herself, no responsibilities other than what she earned through merit, and make a difference where she chose. All they needed were a few eggs, and that was something she would try to do. She owed them that much and more.

But she still didn’t like the idea of going sessile and missing workouts.

“Tell me what I need to do.”

“First thing is to find your place in Star Force. You’ve had some time to think about it. Where are you leaning?”

“I want to be a builder. An engineer if possible.”

“That’s a lot more training ahead of you.”

“I know, but I want to try. I’m not afraid of a challenge…and with all the destruction going on, building just feels right.”

“Then that’s where you begin. Down the road we’ll tackle the egg laying thing, right now we need you becoming as strong and skilled as possible so you will have plenty of good habits to pass on.”

7

May 4, 2583

Zerus System (Alpha Region)

Char

Larissa sat in her office, feet up on the clear desk as she read a datapad containing Paul’s most recent report on the assault of Tarania…the last Skarron foothold within the ADZ, or it was, because now Star Force, with the help of the Dvapp and Hycre, had finally rid the planet of enemy troops. Paul indicated that there were still enemy ships insystem that had to be hunted down or forced out, but the planet was back in Dvapp hands and the incursion was, after so many decades, finally repulsed.

“About damn time,” she said aloud, tossing the datapad on her desk and sliding her feet off. She stood up and looked out the window behind her, running her fingers through her pink hair and staring down on the colony that was building rapidly below. Her office was tower top in the center of the city, sitting right below the primary shield generator in a huge spire that had been the first bit of infrastructure completed on the ugly moon.

It was low grav, dirty, but with a habitable atmosphere and moderately high temps. Larissa knew it was a fixer upper, with plans to start terraforming when they had the necessary resources and workers, the latter of which were beginning to pool back on Venus as they completed their basic training. There was already a Kiritak colony insystem, set up on the planet below that contained no atmosphere whatsoever, and was feeding Char the materials it needed to build the Star Force Bsidd infrastructure that Larissa was tasked with overseeing.

Already she had a few hundred thousand Bsidd here, but they were all young and inexperienced. Her core of Humans, a handful of Calavari, and a lot of Kiritak were in charge of building the colony and giving the Bsidd their secondary training in a hybridized work/training environment that the trailblazer was having to juggle. With Star Force’s empire continually growing faster than its Human population adequate leadership was hard to come by, but fortunately several other races were contributing experienced people to the project so it wasn’t entirely relying on Humans to keep it progressing forward.

It was operating on a thin budget, both in terms of resources and personnel. All the Bsidd in Star Force were essentially younglings, with none of their own to lead or train others. Until they elevated to the point where they could themselves become trainers and handlers the amount of Bsidd population they could grow was going to be limited, but like all good trailblazers Larissa was pushing the limits and cover the slack herself.

The number of eggs even a few queens were capable of producing was staggering, so Star Force was never going to be limited in that regard. All reproduction was controlled through the maturias, however, so there was no fear of a runaway birth rate such as with the Kiritas. Larissa could ‘produce’ as many as she liked and feed the maturias exact numbers of keyed eggs with whatever variant was needed. It was then up to the individual Bsidd to complete their training and choose the course they would take, either staying in Star Force or leaving…with a good number heading to Axius, which while part of Star Force was essentially free man’s land where they could disappear into civilian life and do whatever.

Those that chose to stay in Star Force were being shipped out to Zerus and deposited on Char. Rather than be incorporated into Star Force’s mainline organizations they were being crafted into a splinter division much like the Kiritak, but given their biology and sheer size, not to mention their variants, it was a splinter division that Larissa was going to shape into a full-fledged entity…including military capability.

That would put them on par with the Calavari, but before that happened Larissa had a lot of work to do.

Most of the Humans on Char were Clan Meteor, with Larissa having recruited them from her own ranks. They were going to be the transitional crew until permanent recruits could be obtained. Thing of it was, even a lot of her own Clansmen were mere rookies, some not even 70 years old. She was here to overcome that weakness and keep everyone in line and basically create the new Bsidd civilization from scratch, though there had been a lot of prep work done previously on Davis’s part. Now it was time for the padawan to make it all work…and to adapt as things progressed, making what alterations were necessary on the spot.

Still, having Dvapp territory reclaimed was a burden lifted from her mind. Protovic space had already been reclaimed and their allies were beginning to lick their wounds and regrow…while making a few raids across the border to keep the Skarron outposts from developing too much. The Voku were doing most of the leg work there, and admirably, while the lizards and Skarrons contributed more and more resources to battling each other in a war that no one could predict the outcome of. Whenever one seemed to have the upper hand the other would pour more troops in, and vice versa.

For the moment they were more or less ignoring the ADZ, but there were skirmishes happening constantly, especially on the lizard border. As they’d shown previously, they were more than capable of multitasking, and even though they were being held back by a wall of Sentinels that was growing with each year, Star Force didn’t have the number of troops necessary to really lock up the ADZ…which was where the Bsidd came into play.

Or hopefully would, for right now they were still in learning mode and small in number, unlike the original Bsidd who were growing quite rapidly now that they’d secured a decent resource base. They hadn’t taken up a part in the ongoing civil war, but were trying to gain as much of a foothold in the power struggle as they could and becoming a bigger and bigger thorn in Star Force’s side given that they felt the only way to return to their previous dominance was to play adversary and pick up allies that held similar anti-Star Force sentiments…with the ‘free’ Bsidd being a huge sticking point with them.

If Larissa had her way, it was going to go from ‘sticking point’ to full-on insanity producing angst, because Star Force, even stretched thin, had far more resources to throw her way than the Bsidd had, and as soon as she got enough second tier maturias up and running here they’d easily be able to out-populate the ‘originals’…after which the real work would begin.

But maturias didn’t work if you didn’t have experienced handlers, and to accommodate the massive numbers to come those handlers had to be mostly Bsidd…not to mention the engineers, soldiers, builders, medtechs, etc. Getting this first batch off on the right foot was key, and to do that Larissa had searched long and hard for as many skilled and experienced individuals from across Star Force to provide the leadership necessary.

Her top tech was actually a Kiritak, a position that normally would have gone to a Human, but the little guy was more than 200 years old and was as big of a gear head as anyone she’d ever met. Right now he was out in the southern construction zone tweaking the controls on the construction mechs to better suit the Bsidd physiology. Adaptations had already been made in the basic designs when they’d been built, but as the crews got some more experience with them problems arose, with Navvi jumping on them as they arose, pun intended, and making adjustments to fully customize them to Bsidd needs while updating the schematics that would be used to create new models in coming years.

Little things like that were crucial and consumed most of Larissa’s days. While the Bsidd spoke English and had been trained in maturias like everyone else, their mentality was different, as it was for all races. The Star Force cultural vibe was there, and allowed them to connect easy enough, but the Bsidd weren’t eager beavers like the Kiritak were. They were hard workers when given a task, but give them free time and they would pretty much stand in place doing nothing.

Larissa hoped that would go away with time and experience, but she also wondered if it didn’t have something to do with the hive mind programming being stripped out of them. There had been no detected problems noted in the files she’d been given and practically memorized by this point, but there was definitely a vain of laziness in them that seemed to come more from not knowing what to do next rather than not caring. In a maturia that wasn’t a big problem because you had tasks given to you nonstop, but curiosity and exploration were two big elements missing in most of the Bsidd, though as always there were exceptions where individuals were involved.

Larissa had been sorting through her Bsidd to find those oddballs and advance them up through the ranks as she threw them into various new situations and waited to see how they’d respond. Experience couldn’t be underrated here, and she was going to goose along their learning curve as much as possible because she needed visible examples for the future Bsidd coming her way to see. Looking at other races was one thing, but when it came from your own it was a much more effective way of communicating than making instructional vids.

And the trailblazer had been making a lot of those. All the Bsidd coming out of the maturias knew who she was, for she’d been lecturing them since birth via the recordings. Like Randy was the patron of the Kiritas and Kiritak, Larissa was becoming the same for the Bsidd. That’s actually how Davis had put it when he’d asked her to take on this never-ending assignment.

A beep from her desk caught her attention and broke her stat-laden haze as she was running recent figures through her head while looking out at the dwindling light of the nearly nighttime cityscape. With a glance she telekinetically pressed a few buttons and brought up a holographic itinerary, showing a number of recent assignments and one that had gone awry. There was a mining operation underway, more of a learning tool but useful in city construction none the less, and one of the digging machines had broke while active and caused a cave-in.

Larissa frowned, wondering if it was a pure accident or a misuse that had caused the incident. Didn’t matter at the moment as she ran for the door, needing to get down to the city substructure as quickly as possible…with only a short detour to the armory to grab her second skin.

When she got down to the tunnels there were hundreds of Bsidd standing around, all made up of two varieties, known to Star Force as gammas and epsilons, or ‘eppies’ for short. The gammas stood twice as tall as a Human and were heavy lifters, though still low mass themselves. The eppies were smaller and looked like bushes given their many appendages. Both were standing around and waiting for orders, with Larissa moving through them with a telepathic ‘out of my way’ warning sent ahead of the trailblazer.

When she got through them she saw others working to remove rubble in the low gravity, given that they were below the city’s IDF field, both with tech assistance and their appendages. She spotted the few non-Bsidd minds nearby and moved to them, twisting and turning to get through the crowd in the packed tunnel.

“What happened?” she asked the lead miner, who was sitting on the side of a mining walker with a bloody right arm.

“I think one of the drills missed and hit the shield generator.”

“That holds the rim rock?” Larissa asked, knowing that the tunnel she’d just come through had been braced and walled off, with the area just ahead of her being pure rock with a shield that held it in check to keep any chunks from falling down. Had they been digging through sheer rock that wouldn’t have been such a risk, but what they were moving through now was a mix of rock, gravel, and empty pockets of air that would shift and fall when breached…hence the need for the containment shield overhead.

That said, there were a number of shield generators in use for varying applications of the mining process, with the rim rock being the trailblazer’s best bet as to what could have caused the debris field she was seeing around her.

“Yeah,” the miner said. “Took it out with one hit then boom. I got hit by a small piece, but there are people trapped under the rubble.”

Larissa turned and looked at the mountain of dusty rocks and peered inside it, seeing several crumpled Bsidd underneath the rocks but detecting a few active minds…meaning there were still some alive.

“I count six still alive.”

“My fault,” the miner said. “They’re too green. I should have handled point myself.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, touching his good shoulder with her armored hand. “But we can’t hold their hands forever. And if they can’t miss a big fat pylon then that’s hardly your fault.”

“I don’t know…but this shouldn’t have happened.”

“Sort it out later. Move rock now,” she said, leaving him behind and shoving her way through the Bsidd working to move the chunks away to a shield conveyor that was taking them off overhead down the wide tunnel. The Archon hopped up on top of one of the walkers and replaced the Bsidd at the controls, using an auxiliary panel with Human-style controls to reposition it to the side and start pulling out chunks near to where she felt the closest minds, playing a giant tetris game and trying to keep from creating a second collapse.

The shield generators were back up, but the material within the tunnel could still shift and fall on those buried underneath. Larissa worked as much as she could with the walker then pulled it back and got off, going into the rocks and activating the powered function of her armor and digging her way down to one of the trapped eppies. She wedged herself into a gap, kicking a small boulder out of the way near her right knee, and making herself a living arch to create an escape route.

“Crawl,” she ordered, with the tiny Bsidd, scared out of its mind, rushing into the light and getting free.

It took Larissa a moment to extract herself without getting pinned, then she went to work directing another walker in pulling a few large sections off another area. There they recovered a very mangled corpse of a gamma along with another that had three appendages smashed and pinned underneath the rock. They got those chunks removed and rushed it off, leaving Larissa and the other green miners to pull out the rest.

After they finished more than an hour later Larissa pulled the vid records from the walkers and saw what had happened, taking the visuals over to the miner in a nearby med bay as he was getting his broken arm attended to.

“Not your fault,” she said, showing him the recording. The mining walker was drilling into a wall segment near the shield pylon, then for no apparent reason the machine veered left and dove straight into it, tearing it apart and releasing the loose material above.

“I don’t understand why it did that,” the miner said, with the guilt weighing heavily on him, for these Bsidd were under his guidance and care.

“Look closer,” she said, tapping a small section of screen that showed a cockpit view. As it replayed again they both saw the Bsidd twitch suddenly, knocking several controls askew.

“What am I seeing?”

“Something rare in the Bsidd, the equivalent of a seizure.”

“What caused it?”

“Allergies. We’ve identified 2 compounds to date that have about a .03% chance of causing a reaction. We we’ve kept both out of this colony. I’m guessing we may have stumbled on a third. Sucks that we had to find it this way, but there was no way of knowing ahead of time. Just the bad luck monkey punching us hard in the head.”

“What compound?”

Larissa shook her head. “Don’t know yet, but finding it is top on my to-do list. We’ll put a hold on all mining activity until we find it.”

“Poor guy,” the miner said. “He probably feels terrible right now.”

“I’m on my way there now. I’ll explain it to him.”

“Thank you. It’ll be better coming from you, but he’s still gonna hate himself.”

“Heal fast. I’m going to need you as soon as I get this figured out.”

“I’ll be good to go tomorrow.”

Larissa nodded and left, leaving the medtechs to continue wrapping his arm up in healing bandages that stoked his cellular regeneration. The bone wouldn’t fully heal in a day, but the head miner didn’t need his arm to give commands and direct the others. While he preferred to do the delicate work himself, he’d hold back until his arm fully healed but wouldn’t take time off. The Bsidd had so much to learn that he couldn’t go awol. They desperately needed him to get back to work as soon as the trailblazer got this allergy figured out. Sitting around and waiting was contagious for the Bsidd, and with them being so young they didn’t need any bad examples to follow.

8

November 2, 2589

Hatten System (Occupied Scionate Territory)

Orril

Paul’s command ship braked into orbit above the mixed fleet of Lacvamat, Gnar, Nammet, and Hesquid that held possession over the planet with colonies of their own growing on its surface. The nearby planet of Rewqt held a similar grouping of Lacvamat-allied races with the Temassi and Brofat added to the mix of squatters claiming bits of the world as their own. There were also others picking over pieces of the system that the Scionate had not inhabited like a pack of rats scurrying over an uncovered plate of food, trying to get their hands on Star Force-free territory while it was up for grabs.

The same was happening elsewhere, in both Scionate and Lacvamat territory, with the bold enough races circumventing Star Force’s edicts and waging a war of conquest that was occurring simultaneously with a colonization boom. Those colonies had also become priority targets in the ever escalating civil war, with many of the planets under assault never having been inhabited by either the Scionate or the Lacvamat, but being technically under their possession.

Today that was going to change.

As the fully functional Excalibur dropped into mid orbit a slew of Protovic warships with their telltale X-shaped silhouettes came in its wake, followed by an equally large group of Hycre, including a pair of their rare battleships, that were escorting an even larger number of Calavari transports. The combined fleet pushed their way down into low orbit with the transports beginning to enter the atmosphere as a previously recorded message was sent out to the entire system, instructing the various races’ warships that they had exactly 3 hours to either leave the system or enter low stellar orbit to await a jumpship. Refusal to do so would mean the forcible confiscation of their ships.

A similar edict was sent to the surface colonies, instructing them that they were to being packing up and leaving and that the Calavari were coming down to help them do it, starting on Orril and then moving on to every other bit of infrastructure in the system. With the Calavari transports coming down into the atmosphere over several races’ colonies there was a hesitation in response and even the raising of some defenses until the Hycre ships began descending into the atmosphere along with them and pumping a few warning shots into the erected defense shields.

It took some considerable intimation on the part of the Big 3 but eventually the colonies on Orril reluctantly surrendered, seeing that they had no alternative. The ‘too busy to intervene’ status quo was apparently over, and though there wasn’t a huge amount of warships and transports arrayed against them, the tech and experience advantage was far more than the combined Lacvamat-allied force could hold out against if it actually came to a fight…plus the repercussions down the road if they dared to face off with the big boys were too chilling to chance.

The slew of whining chatter and diplomatic outrage that followed was not disappointing, but it didn’t matter in the least. The Hycre, Protovic, and Star Force were unified in their course of action and were sending a firm signal to the rest of those involved in the stupid war that it was time to either run or get the hammer dropped on your head.

But they weren’t going to get off easy for complying with the order to evacuate. Now that there were some available ships and troops that weren’t devoted to defending the fronts it was time to start dealing with inhouse affairs and clean up the ADZ. The Hatten System was the first of what would eventually be many systems reclaimed from the squatters, but it would not be returned to the Scionate. Rather Star Force was going to take possession of the formerly ‘independent’ system and create a slew of new Alliance Worlds with the regions going to races that had not been involved in the civil war.

That process would take years, with the Big 3 not getting to the second system on their list for another 4. Meanwhile the civil war continued at an increasing pace, not to colonize, which they’d more or less given up on, but to strike at their rivals and kill as many of them as they could. Some races sought to hold onto what they’d taken, even announcing they were finished fighting and only taking on defensive roles, but it didn’t matter to the Big 3. Slowly, system by system they reclaimed the worlds that had been taken from both the Scionate and Lacvamat.

But Star Force didn’t stop there. For the races that had thrown in and aided both sides there were stiff penalties, each tailored to the actions of the individual races, many of which involved losing regions on Alliance Worlds. Star Force took possession of their colonies, allowing all who wished to evacuate to do so, with those populations that stayed behind becoming Star Force wards and adding even more varied races to their growing empire. As they’d done numerous times before, most notably on Earth, they restructured the acquired colonies according to Star Force protocol, both in terms of infrastructure and society.

When it eventually came time to deal with the Scionate the Big 3 brought an overwhelming warfleet into their territory and forced them to abandon all but three systems, each of which would contain at least 1 Star Force or Alliance World, with them retaining their freedom but not without being watched. The Scionate did not relent easily and called the bluff, forcing a short lived conflict that involved the easy disabling of their defensive fleet. For the resistance they put up and the few Scionate lives that were lost in the brief fight, one of the three systems was forfeited, reducing Scionate territory down to only 2.

Like the other races the denizens had a choice…evacuate to the Scionate worlds or stay and live under Star Force rule. With their pride running high most of the Scionate eventually chose to leave, despite the overcrowding that was going to occur on their remaining worlds. That said, a few of the dissentious bloodlines made a separate pact with Star Force, evacuating all of their holdings and moving to what would be the new Star Force Scionate worlds.

The only reason the other Scionate were allowed to retain their independence was because they had been the defenders in the conflict. For the Lacvamat the penalties were much harsher and also enforced by Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre.

They lost all of their worlds and their independence. It was a stretch for Star Force to assimilate them all, but the Protovic helped out with transitional personnel and resources and the Hycre provided naval oversight at all times to ensure there were no further dissentions after the short war they had to fight to subdue the Lacvamat capitol. Both the Hycre and Protovic knew how far Star Force was attempting to stretch to digest the populations they were taking responsibility for, and they both helped cover up that fact and assist where they could to prevent dissentions should people realize how tenuous Star Force’s hold was.

Quietly the Protovic began taking on more and more responsibility on the Skarron front as Star Force’s resources, while still building up their fleet, were heavily devoted to the ADZ reorganization. Meanwhile the Hycre kept a close watch on the growing war between the lizards and the Skarrons as more and more systems became battlefields. The Skarrons had eventually won out to claim the Nestafar capitol, but the lizards were winning twice as many smaller systems with both races apparently being evenly matched.

Even as they battled the lizards probed the ADZ constantly, with skirmishes and full blown battles occurring in the neutral zone around Alpha, Zeta, and Delta Regions that Star Force maintained. The Skarrons were less ambitious, preferring to maintain their holdings rather than continually butt heads with the superior Voku when the bulk of their reinforcements were heading towards the lizard front.

It was a tense first decade, with the Big 3 gambling that they could pull off the ADZ seizure and maintain the front long enough for Star Force to catch its breath, but as the years passed thereafter the situational tension lessoned and Star Force’s grip on their new holdings increased. The new order had mixed reactions from the other races, some supporting, others condemning, while most were happy that their rivals were now out of the picture…but very unhappy that Star Force’s empire was continually expanding along with their powerbase, with many vocally wondering how long it would be before they were annexed as well.

When the Bsidd saw the actions the Big 3 were taking they were highly alarmed, not only because they had not been including in the decision making, but because it was being made crystal clear that all those races within the ADZ were answerable to them. The original Alliance had been a group of peers and their subjugates, now it was a restricted zone where individual races no long had sovereignty to conduct their own affairs. The races fighting each other had not attacked the Big 3, but none the less they were punished for their actions. That and the revocation of their independence was a clear sign that the Bsidd could no longer stay in the ADZ, with the queens beginning to look for places to relocate.

Using the network of contacts within the ADZ and the trade relations with those races outside it, the Bsidd began making inquiries and studying communal star charts outside of Epsilon and Gamma Regions, focusing on the areas opposite from the Cajdital threat and exerting their technological superiority to create relationships with lesser races, ironically offering up some of their tech as Star Force had suggested in exchange for resources and concessions. In a process that took better than 20 years the Bsidd eventually secured a planet in a two system race that needed a powerful benefactor to help protect it from rivals in the area.

The handful of warships the Bsidd possessed were more than sufficient for the task and the queens established a new colony there, growing it and securing their foothold as they continued to increase their population within the ADZ. Now with a distant second home they began funneling more and more of their people out beyond Epsilon Region and Star Force’s reach. They maintained their single region within the ADZ as a cover and didn’t make their final pullout until they were firmly established on their new homeworld.

When the time came they made no announcements, nor gave any forewarnings to their neighbors or business associates. One day they were there and the next they were packed up in their ships and gone, leaving a ghost town of structures behind that had been stripped of any sensitive tech.

Star Force knew where they had gone, giving that they monitored most traffic in the ADZ, but their leaving had been a surprise…and a blessing. They were one more thorn removed from the slowly settling ADZ community, though it was far from stable. The threat of outright war between rivals was now gone, squashed by the lesson the Scionate and Lacvamat had taught the others, so they resorted to other means of conflict that were not so obvious.

But the spacelanes were more or less secure, and that gave the ADZ another false sense of security. The ongoing war between the lizards and Skarrons was made public with reports going out as to the various changes in ownership of the worlds that had once belonged to many of them, but a lot of the factions saw it as a distant and unimportant backdrop to the inner workings of the ADZ. The Big 3 had proved they could keep the lizards and Skarrons beyond the fronts, leaving the ‘important’ internal power struggle as the main social impetus that drove events.

Star Force was seen as the ‘sheriff’ of the ADZ and not a major player by most of the races that knew they would only come down on you for violating terms of colonization, with many of them crafting their silent wars around those terms so as not to invoke their wrath. Even with the annexations that Star Force had made in the wake of the civil war they still held a small minority of the overall ADZ population, both in terms of individuals and worlds, so while they were a major overshadowing force, they weren’t seen as ‘competition’ from most of the races.

The Hycre and Protovic were likewise disconnected, with both having independent systems and their own empires to run. Neither were interested in expanding their powerbase in the ADZ, for if they wanted they could conquer systems on the fronts and expand their borders that way, which was happening occasionally as the fighting to establish and maintain neutral zones was ongoing. Some few ADZ races still had contacts outside the ‘safe’ zone with worlds that hadn’t yet been targeted by either the Skarrons or lizards, but most now kept to the interior and away from the fronts, consumed with the now sheltered community that was growing by leaps and bounds.

That growth was being fueled in two parts, one being the protection from invasion, whether external or internal, and the available resource base that the Star Force markets offered. As the populations grew and new Alliance regions were made available there was always a contest to gain influence and power, with a big advantage going to those races who were savvy businessmen, prolific industrialists, and had a high reproduction rate.

It also helped that Star Force usually had a place for the races’ excess population to go, virtually eliminating the problem of overpopulation because people would flee it through the transit grid before it became overly problematic. That put the burden on Star Force to continue expanding Axius and other branches of its empire and essentially giving the various races a set of ‘training wheels’ and allowing their empires to grow larger and stronger than they could have done on their own.

But that was all part of the plan, which Davis was continually working no matter whether events occurred in his favor or not. He was always there, behind the scenes or out in front of them guiding the ADZ and working with the Protovic and Hycre to maintain their good relations and firm leadership, which he knew was critical to keeping all the various races in some semblance of order. Should their triad crumble Star Force didn’t have the strength to hold everything together…and the Hycre and Protovic knew that without Star Force backing them with tech and infrastructure, most notably the Sentinels standing watch over most of their systems, they wouldn’t be able to survive either of the insanely large threats on their borders.

The silent partner in all of this was the Voku, which Davis had little contact with. They preferred to deal with the Archons, warrior to warrior, with Paul being their number one go to contact. He and their commander got along well and Davis didn’t try to impose himself there, but he was keenly interested in studying their newest ally and had asked Paul to dig up whatever he could on them.

They were maintaining their hold on Achkor but expanding no further, strengthening and growing the system as part of their empire and set well outside the ADZ. They didn’t care to involve themselves with the other races, only Star Force, and Davis knew the real silent partner wasn’t the Voku…it was the Zak’de’ron.

Davis didn’t have much info to work with, but he got the feeling that the dragons were using Star Force to achieve their own goals, whatever they might be. If not for the Voku involving themselves in the Skarron war it was possible that Star Force might be defending their core worlds with the rest of the ADZ smashed beyond repair. Not only had the Voku come to their aid, they’d come to their aid before they were truly needed, which meant the dragons were very aware of the course of events in this part of the galaxy and had tagged Star Force as important enough to be preserved.

And that fact chilled him to the bone, for it made the true threat resonate even more so. The V’kit’no’sat were still out there, and he knew they were the Zak’de’ron’s focal point. If they were involving themselves with Star Force then they knew something was coming, perhaps far into the future for right now Earth couldn’t stand up to even a small invasion force given their limited tech, but something was coming, he could feel it, and the dragons were like the wind sock turning with the first breeze of an approaching hurricane.

They wanted Star Force to be a player, and that meant the game was afoot…with the Skarrons and lizards being a mere sideshow.

And that thought truly scared him.

9

May 9, 2631

Zerus System (Alpha Region)

Char

“I still say it’s too soon,” Ben-30118 commented as he was walking with Larissa to the spaceport.

“It will always be too soon,” she countered, “but they’ve got to learn from practical experience and that means stretching them a bit. We can’t hold their appendages forever. Not enough hands anyway,” she joked, but the sarcasm was laced with a secondary meeting that the other Archon understood.

“We still need oversight.”

“And we have it.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“You’ll just have to keep a close eye on them, but don’t interfere unless there’s a problem.”

“I still have a bad feeling about this.”

“If there’s going to be a catastrophe better it be now than down the road when there are more of them.”

Ben laughed. “Nice of you to point out the doomsday scenario to make the less than appealing one look beneficial.”

“You’re welcome,” she said as they entered a sky bridge and began crossing between two of the very high towers in the Star Force Bsidd capitol city, leaving what had been her home for more than 50 years and heading into the adjacent building where they’d hop a lift that would take them down to the surface and to the small spaceport nearby. As they walked out into the clear tunnel the first rays of the morning sunlight were beginning to break over the horizon and filter in between distant spires and other shorter, but wider buildings that held the Bsidd population.

This city contained some 370+ million, but the entire planet now held a population of 3.4 billion and was growing as fast as the infrastructure would allow, which in turn was growing as more and more Bsidd became available to harvest resources and construct new facilities. The snowball was off and running, with Larissa’s on site control no longer being needed. She’d continue to monitor and adjust the Star Force Bsidd civilization as it grew, but she’d do it from afar and leave others like Ben in charge of the day to day duties on this planet and the second planet they were expanding to.

That was the source of the discussion, with the Bsidd being given instructions to colonize it and Larissa wanting them to use only local workers to do it. The Archons and others would monitor, but the Bsidd badly needed the experience given that most of them were less than 30 years old. Usually colony construction was reserved for experienced engineers at least 100 years old, but no Bsidd was going to get that experience and they needed them to start fielding their own personnel for the bigger tasks, hence the need to practice.

But they could only practice by doing the real thing, with this being the first real test for the newbie Bsidd engineers and construction crews. Before long there would be too many of them to monitor with Humans anyway, and Star Force needed trained and vetted Bsidd to build the future growth of their race around. Larissa was convinced her top people could handle it, despite their youth, but there was only one way to find out.

Her leaving aided the ‘greater responsibility’ mojo beginning to go down within the Bsidd, but as it happened it was totally unrelated. Her time here had been well spent, but she wasn’t going to remain a permanent part of the Bsidd. She was an Archon and trailblazer, with there being plenty of other things for her to do. She’d gotten the Bsidd civilization up and running, tailored it to Star Force fashion, and done so without putting a drain on offworld resources. Now the Bsidd were producing more than they used and even exporting a bit, with most of the resources going into expanding their infrastructure and accommodating an increased population…one that would continue to grow to insane levels, they hoped, but in a controlled fashion.

The Bsidd here, now, were going to be the skeleton on which that larger mass was going to align itself, and it was high time the training wheels started to come off. They needed to know what they were doing and confident in their own abilities before the mass of younglings were thrown their way to lead and train. Already the maturias were mostly run by Bsidd, with Human handlers occupying the highest ranks and ensuring everything went smoothly. That would continue, but the more and more maturias that came online would be staffed by other Bsidd, as would most positions within their civilization.

The Humans would always be there as a safety mechanism to ensure the Bsidd grew properly, and to offer advice, but now was the time to start pulling back and letting them earn their way forward, with her symbolically leaving only reinforcing that times were changing. Larissa looked out to her left at the city that stretched to the edge of her vision. It was typical Star Force but built with the Bsidd physiology in mind. The interiors were larger, but the original convoluted designs had been replaced with the straight grid-like patterns that Humans favored.

The exterior was also so gridded, making it instantly recognizable as a Star Force city. Half a century ago this planet had been barren, now it was filling up with similar cities spreading across its surface…yet to Larissa it had taken forever to get built, given the intense handling that had been required to goose along the construction as quickly as possible. She’d taken several trips off planet to attend to other matters in the ADZ, never for long and always returning here before things had a chance to go wrong, but now she wasn’t worried. The Bsidd had done well and she was convinced they’d continue to do so as long as they had a little nudge now and then.

Overhead a few strands of flying traffic crossed between the buildings, with others moving below the sky bridge in a lackadaisical but orderly flow. Most of the transit was subsurface, but there was plenty of activity in the air to make sightseeing a never-ending activity. Up until now she’d never looked at it that way, but now that she was leaving Larissa took a moment to gaze out the skybridge and really see the city for the first time without wondering about one project or another. She’d already mentally disconnected, with this walk allowing her a brief moment of tourism as she returned to ‘normal’ Archon duties.

“Something wrong?” Ben asked as she slowed.

“No, just doing a bit of perspective transition. These buildings are a lot taller than they seem.”

“How so?”

“I’ve always measured them by floors, but Bsidd floors are larger than Human ones.”

“And you’re realizing this now?” Ben commented with a chuckle.

“Guess it just never sunk in. My mind’s always been on other things and I’ve never just looked at the city before.”

“Getting nostalgic?”

“No, just disconnecting my mind from the collective.”

“Back to being a rogue?”

“Yep,” she said with a smile, increasing her pace back to normal as she carried a duffle over her left shoulder…the only personal belongings she would need, for Archons traveled and lived light. An Archon packrat was truly an oxymoron.

“You are going to read my reports, I assume?”

“Rogues keep aware of their surroundings.”

“Just disconnected from them?”

“You really shouldn’t have to ask,” she said, glancing at him.

“I don’t know. I’m the one stuck with playing administrator now,” he said jokingly. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good combat mission.”

“I’m not heading for combat, not yet anyway.”

“I think that counts.”

“No,” Larissa said with a smirk, “it’s way harder.”

“I’d say I could imagine…but I can’t. Having all those psionics alone.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Where do you figure you’ll end up after training?”

“Not a clue,” she said as they came to the end of the skybridge and entered the neighboring building, heading for the nearest lift. “Rogues go where needed when needed. In the meantime we play videogames and eat donuts.”

“And manage to run a Clan at the same time?”

“Archons can multitask,” she reminded him. “If you haven’t learned that by now I need to replace you before I leave.”

“You do a bit more than the rest of us,” he said, ignoring her jab. “And don’t say it’s because you’re older.”

“Better?”

“No, just realizing you have to have a lot of really good help and that I’m going to have to carry for you here.”

Larissa raised an eyebrow. “More truth in that than you know.”

Both Archons moved over close to the wall as a group of Bsidd betas crossed paths with them. The ‘soldier’ variants no longer held that role, with them being assigned to many different tasks that they qualified for. The same was true of the other variants, and while some types tended to choose similar assignments there was a hodgepodge nature to the Star Force Bsidd civilization that made it totally unrecognizable from the original one. Individuals chose where they wanted to go and do, rather than being born into a role.

Larissa dragged her duffle along the wall until they got past the knot of heavy traffic, then moved back out on Ben’s left as they headed on through the enormous building, eventually coming to a lift terminal and grabbing one of the waiting elevator cars and descending down the spire to a subsurface nexus that connected directly with the trams that ran underground, one line of which ran to the spaceport Larissa would be leaving from.

The two Archons continued to chitchat on the way over, covering some business matters and some personal. Ben had been her right hand on the planet for the past 27 years and was going to be her replacement leading the Bsidd, with him taking the training wheels off bit by bit as she directed from afar, meaning the two were still going to be in regular contact but probably not seeing each other again for years to come.

That was another aspect of Archon life. You were always around people but those faces were constantly changing. Every Archon was a rogue, or had to be able to be given the situation, but given that they were trained to be masters of all areas it was good to rotate around and keep things fresh, although long term assignments like the one she was just finishing were necessary from time to time. Randy’s logs had helped her a lot in the beginning, and she’d filed her own for use by the others if/when they had to go through a similar assignment.

They all shared information, knowledge, skills, and even now psionics where they were able, but in the end each Archon had their own path to walk and needed to be enough of a free spirit to embrace that…which was why Larissa was already able to start mentally walking away from Char even before she’d made it to the spaceport.

When she finally boarded the dropship she dropped her duffle into the passenger seat beside her, feeling the heavy weight of her armor bundle inside bounce a bit on the cushions, and sat down blowing out a deep breath that felt like she’d been holding it for the past 5 decades. Other than a few tweaks here and there the Bsidd were no longer her responsibility. They were growing into their own and becoming part of Star Force…and a self-sufficient part, capable of contributing rather than needing attention given to them.

True, they were still a long way from being on the level of the Calavari, but the ball was rolling in that direction and Larissa had no doubt they’d get there eventually. It was just a matter of getting the necessary experience, and she didn’t need to be there for that. Her task was done and now she was back to just being Larissa, one person with one life rather than having billions to worry about.

A little tingle of energy shot through her as the dropship lifted off, which surprised her. She was actually excited to leave where she had expected it to just be a normal trip. Larissa had left before and never felt this way, and with a decent amount of self-analysis during the flight up to orbit she realized it was because of the disconnect occurring and how, despite the need for it, she really didn’t care for administrative duties.

The trailblazer didn’t regret the Bsidd assignment, nor hold any ill will against them or Davis, for it had been at his request she’d taken it on. No, it wasn’t that. She was just ready to move on and get back to being, like Ben had been discussing with her, a rogue and ready to jump at whatever problem showed up next.

Fortunately most of the big problems were relegated to the past. The interior of the ADZ was more or less quiet, though there was always something going on. The big problems were outside their borders and battling each other in what had once been Nestafar territory, with the conflict spreading out as more and more of the lizard and Skarron expansions ran into one another. The ADZ was soon to become encompassed by both, with talks ongoing with the Voku about how to possibly counter that.

Given the 3D nature of the starmap they lived on there wasn’t a specific line that could be drawn against the enemy, and the lizards tended to hold more systems above the galactic middle line than below, giving the ADZ with many borders where they and the Skarrons didn’t yet threaten. Star Force didn’t want to get to the point where the ADZ was swallowed up on all sides, so they were working with the Voku for extremely long term contingencies, given that they were already fighting the Skarrons in their own territory and it wasn’t impossible that the lizards might work their way down to them as well someday.

But for the moment the two big powers were so consumed with countering each other they weren’t paying a lot of attention to the ADZ, and probably because they’d taken up a defensive mindset rather than an aggressive expansion. Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre weren’t taking Skarron worlds from them, so they probably saw the pesky ADZ as something they could deal with later at their leisure.

For the lizards there was a few of their worlds coming into Star Force possession, but not enough to truly matter. On that front Star Force was mainly being defensive and not threatening the lizards in any major way, leaving them a threat they could deal with later as well…though they were never completely left alone. There was still continuous fighting going on, but the bulk of the lizard fleet was headed elsewhere, leaving only their second line for Star Force and the Hycre to contend with.

It wasn’t a golden age by far, but compared to what they had been facing the ADZ was doing well and more or less stable. Larissa knew that was only temporary, but it was giving everyone a much needed respite to catch their breath and rebuild, with the fronts being flooded with Sentinels and the new Ma'kri patrol ships, though those were still more or less a secret that Star Force was keeping from public knowledge.

But the ADZ was huge, and most of the ‘border’ was unsecured. Most of it lay in areas where the lizards or Skarrons hadn’t been pressing them, and huge swaths of Epsilon, Gamma, and Delta Regions were Star Force territory on map only, with many more outposts and colonies needing to be built to get a firm grip on the spherical region they’d laid claim to. In those ‘wild’ regions there were other races that weren’t part of the ADZ Alliance that had to be dealt with, either left alone or fought when they took actions against their neighbors.

Freeing of slaves or hunting down pirates had become a common practice for some of the other Archons, with them slowly weeding the wild areas and making them more civilized…not to mention scouting out the areas beyond the ADZ, including their every growing line of bread crumbs headed in the direction of the galactic Rim.

There was a lot going on and Larissa didn’t know where she’d end up eventually, but as the dropship rendezvoused with a transport in orbit she had no doubts about where the next few years would take her, barring an emergency. The cargo ship would be taking her to a nearby system where she’d get on the ADZ transit grid and make her way back to Earth rather than tying up a warship with the unnecessary trip. Once she got back to her first home she’d be joining the other 54 trailblazers and a host of second gen in the long running advanced training group that had already spawned several mages.

Larissa was only a level 58 padawan and was still missing a few psionics whose triggers had been unlocked since her last brief visit. She intended to stay with the group permanently and make up for lost time, as well as reconnect with her brothers and sisters who’d she’d been apart from for what seemed like forever.

She and the other trailblazers might be rogues, but they still preferred operating as a team…and when they got together good things always happened, often in unexpected ways, and it was high time Larissa got back to pure training and see what she and the others could accomplish together.

That, and she was just sick of falling so far behind in her levels.

10

February 2, 2633

Solar System

Earth

It was late, but Davis was finishing up some planning files for a theoretical program to be implemented in the Lacvamat colonies that he was going to shoot off to the trailblazers for some feedback tomorrow at the latest, so he was spending an extra hour or so watching the stars come out through his panoramic office windows when an update icon flashed on a holographic display to his left.

It was the 19th update in the past 10 minutes, but it was flagged with a selective tag that Davis had put on it earlier, reminding himself that he wanted to see it as soon as it came in. The Director paused the planning and set it aside for a moment as he read through the Bsidd population statistics.

Another 1.3% increase in the past 6 weeks, as far as egg hatchings were concerned. Included in the batch of statistics were the graduation rates from the maturias and the number of personnel attaining ranks in the various disciplines within their society…including a breakdown as to which were which variants. More and more they were mixing as a talent pool formed, still very inexperienced but now at the point where Star Force could really ramp up their population numbers to the amount he needed.

That didn’t happen overnight, nor without the proper infrastructure in place, but ever since Larissa had given him the green light he’d been pumping resources and construction crews into Char to flash build more colonies than they’d previously had…all with the intent of utilizing the Bsidd’s population growth potential to add some additional stability to the ADZ, among other things.

The original Bsidd leaving had been welcome news, but the rest of the races were growing at such a rate that Star Force’s hold on their percentage of the ADZ’s population was mainly due to the Kiritas/Kiritak. Davis was stoking Human growth as much as he could, with a great imbalance still existing on Earth, which had too many, and the rest of the Human colonies outside of Sol that had too few to fuel the expansive growth that he wanted.

That he needed. Star Force was large, far larger than he’d ever imagined it becoming back when he’d begun the organization in what seemed like an altogether different world, but it was still tiny compared to the major players out there, and the more reports he got from the lizard/Skarron war the more he realized just how outclassed they were in terms of resources and population. Star Force needed to get larger, and Human reproduction rates weren’t enough.

He was still continuing to surge Kiritak expansion, but their small size made them ill-suited to some tasks. On the contrary, the different variants of Bsidd made them skilled in just about everything, relatively speaking. That was judging them based on their race’s default attributes and not the skills of the individuals, which Star Force based its entire structure on, but he knew there was a great deal more potential in the Bsidd than the Kiritak, though he doubted the larger race would ever outwork the energetic little guys to whom Star Force owed a lot.

Davis didn’t want to replace them, at all, but he wanted to add to them and with the Bsidd he could add a number of different aspects to Star Force…but only if their population grew to similar levels. Right now it was only a few billion, but as the new facilities came online Char was going to be seeing a population boom like no other. Even now there was an army of more than 150 million Star Force engineers and construction workers on the planet and a never-ending flow of cargo ships coming in and out of the system delivering the raw materials they required for the sudden and massive expansion.

He knew that such growth was dangerous, which was why he was monitoring every little fluctuation in the numbers as they filtered in through the relay network. As he skimmed through the report the recent batch looked to be right on with what he expected, including the construction rates which were still staying ahead of projections. Cargo shipments were growing a surplus of foodstuffs and other materials on planet which he intended to add to, having had prefab warehouses built across two large plains on the planet.

Those were increasing as the need arose and were now easily visible from orbit as a flat sheet of artificial construct standing in stark contrast to the harsh landscape. The various colonies stood out as small dots, underscoring the size of the warehouse facilities and the scope of the project that Davis was rushing along. So far everything was proceeding as planned, but he intended to keep it that way by overseeing it from afar rather than relying on his staff. He trusted them and their skills, but something of this size he needed to handle himself just to be safe.

Once he saw that everything was in order he set the update aside and returned to his planning for the Lacvamat. They’d not taken to annexation well, and even the younglings that had been born and raised in maturias didn’t acclimate as they should after graduation. There was something significantly lacking in the structure of their new society and Davis was brainstorming what that was and how to make adjustments.

Part of the problem was that the Lacvamat were flyers and that most of Star Force was made up of groundpounders. They weren’t the only flying race, for Star Force had several as wards, but those had been adapted to Human-style colonies in a hybridized form that the Lacvamat just weren’t taking to. They were becoming very stagnant, more so than other civilian aspects of races. It was always assumed that there would be slackers, just as a byproduct of individual choice, but the percentages were sky high in the Lacvamat. So much so that Star Force was pretty much having to babysit them with very few in terms of their overall population actually working to assist in their own survival.

Davis had spent considerable time researching other flying races and trying to get inside their heads…literally in some cases, and had thought he had a solution that involved a mix of infrastructure changes as well as a societal restructuring that involved the creation of what he was loosely calling ‘flocks,’ something that he’d tried to discourage in other races. It seemed the Lacvamat needed a group mentality, at least in some small part, to provide them motivation to act and Davis was intent on giving it to them in a Star Force fashion.

Like the Clans, he knew that beneficial competition was the answer, but he had to craft it in such a way to stoke their energy without inducing resentment and the kind of blind hatred that had seen the former Lacvamat tear into the Scionate. It was a delicate balancing act, but again something that wasn’t new to Davis. The competitive aspects he wanted the Archons to tweak, as well as troubleshoot the rest and maybe come up with some additional or better ideas.

He was feeling the need to sleep dragging on him, but got the gist of his ideas down and did a little streamlining before going ahead and sending it off through the relay network to all 100 of the trailblazers, knowing they’d vet and discuss it amongst themselves and send back something to him in a few months. With that task done he left the rest of the incoming updates till tomorrow morning to deal with.

Davis took a casual glance out his window, seeing the nighttime lights of the city and the normal traffic flows in the sky. Yawning out of reflex he realized he was a bit more tired than he thought and put aside any thoughts of doing anything other than going straight to bed once he got back to his quarters, else he’d regret it when he got up for his morning workout.

He headed for the spiral staircase and worked his way down through his staff control level, which was always active with rotating crews, and informed them that he was going dark…meaning that he’d be off comm until further notice. With a few last instructions he was off on a casual walk through the city and lift system back towards his waiting bed.

Davis was nearly to his quarters when a security officer came running up to him in the hallway, brushing past two other people and nearly knocking them over in the process. The Director sensed him coming before he got to him, as well as his mental state, and turned to face the slightly taller man.

“What is it?”

“Unidentified ships have entered the system. A lot of them.”

A spike of fear shot through Davis’s body, but he didn’t let it show as he turned around and headed back to his office, accelerating up into a run with the security officer rushing ahead and playing blocker, clearing his path when necessary.

“Earpiece,” Davis said on the run.

The security officer took his out and tossed it to Davis, who telekinetically plucked it out of the air and inserted it into his left ear, then went through the rerouting process so it would register his ID, after which he contacted defense command.

“Talk to me,” he said to the Archon on the other end while still running through the moderately crowded hallways en route to the nearest lift terminal.

“Director, we have at present 126 ships of unknown origin in stellar orbit. Their hull configurations do not match any known profiles and as of yet there has been no attempt at communication.

“Not V’kit’no’sat?”

“Not unless their tech got a whole lot crappier, no,” the striker said.

Davis felt a huge relief flow through him in a wave of goosebumps, but he still kept running. “Why kind of ships?”

“Warships…and another two just came out of the braking maneuvers. They’re about half the size of our jumpships, but we don’t have close enough eyes on them to determine what type of weaponry.”

“Where do we stand?”

“Defense fleets are moving to contain or engage, and the trailblazers are being notified. I think this warrants interrupting their training.”

“Let’s hope not. Civilian traffic?”

“Rerouting. They came in on an odd jumpline, so there’s not much in the immediate vicinity.”

“Which?”

“Westley.”

Davis frowned. That star system was on the other side of a thin nebula that Star Force always routed around. Their shields were strong enough now to go through if needed, but there was no sense in taking the chance other than in emergency situations…and that suggested that whoever this was didn’t have accurate star maps of the region, not to mention strong enough shields to survive the trip, making Davis wonder exactly how advanced they were.

“Define crappy.”

“None of the really sweet toys we know the V’kit’no’sat swear by. Right now my best guess is plasma variant weapons with some others thrown in. Maybe some missile racks. I’m looking at the updating sensor feeds now.”

“They’re staying put?”

“For the time being, yes.”

“I’m heading back to my office, set up a tactical feed there with holo.”

“We’ll keep you in the loop, but if there is a fight to be had it’s going to be a quick one.”

“Copy that,” Davis said, deactivating the earpiece and pulling it out as they rode the lift through the city. “Thank you,” he said, giving it back to the security officer. “I can find my way back from here.”

The man nodded and waited out the rest of the transit in the car beside him, then stayed inside when the doors opened and Davis ran out. The Director worked his way back towards his office, blowing through the various security checkpoints and hitting his staircase without bothering to confer with his staff, knowing they’d have everything he needed to know sent up to his desktop.

When he got back up on his office floor there was a life size hologram standing next to his desk, which he immediately recognized as Roger-009. Davis triggered and stepped onto his own holopad, with the trailblazer now able to see him from his end.

“No change as yet, aside from more ships coming in. Count now up to 138. They’re staggered pretty wide. Either that’s a conscious choice or their navigation systems suck.”

“Confirm they’re not V’kit’no’sat.”

“Not a chance,” Roger dismissed. “But I have no idea who they are…whoa.”

“What?” Davis asked, just before seeing a new contact on the system map floating beside him enter stellar orbit. It decelerated just as the others had, but it was easily 10 times their size.

“Some type of carrier or command ship. Big sucker,” the trailblazer commented offhand, though Davis could see it wasn’t as large as a Melee-class.

“Maybe it will talk,” Davis wondered/suggested.

“I’ve got a repetitive inquiry going in every known language. If that doesn’t work we’re going to go up and knock on their door. I don’t see any repositioning for a second jump, so I doubt they’re just passing through.”

“Combat formation?”

Roger’s left eye half closed. “A little, but they’re not looking like they’re here to fight…or they’re really stupid and they don’t know what they’re up against. They’re not moving to match our incoming ship trajectories.”

“Sensor lag?”

“No, I meant those already in stellar orbit,” he said as a few more smaller unidentified ships came out of braking maneuvers.

“Best guess?”

“They took a wrong turn somewhere.”

Davis laughed humorlessly. “A single ship I could understand, but a fleet of that size doesn’t go roaming about through the ADZ without knowing where they are. Our maps are widely available.”

“Maybe they don’t like closed systems and wanted a peek at what we’ve got.”

“Came a long way to get it,” Davis mewed.

“Unless they’ve got a lot more coming there’s no real threat here…unless they have something sneaky planned.”

“Such as?”

“Drop a bioweapon into the atmosphere or slingshot around the sun to go back in time and steal some Humpback whales.”

Davis cracked a smile. “Not a direct threat, but they’re obviously here for something.”

Roger’s head twitched. “Got a relayed hail through one of the closest drones. Coding is weird, but compatible with ADZ comm protocols.”

“Put through a copy when you get a chance.”

“They’re using a laser transmission, tight beam to one drone in particular. Shields were blocking it until we made adjustments. This is going to take a few minutes, it’s not audio or holo.”

“Please tell me it’s not a computer virus.”

“They’re not hacking our systems,” Roger said defiantly, knowing full well how much time and care had gone into crafting their drone control systems. Communications research in the pyramid database had been stamped with the number 1 priority, with it being well ahead of the other prototypes Star Force had constructed based on that data.

Davis waited patiently while the army of analysts worked through the signal, then Roger raised an eyebrow and hit a few buttons, sending something to Davis that popped up in holo beside him, though all he saw was statistics.

“What is this?”

“Comm protocols. They’re telling us how to interface with their systems.”

“How long to make the adjustments?”

“Not…long,” the Archon said as a repetitive message popped up on his screen, being transmitted continuously from all of their ships but using a form of signal transmission that Star Force couldn’t previously recognize. “Well, looks like they’ve been transmitting since they entered the system after all.”

“Why didn’t we pick it up earlier?”

“Stellar interference. The filters assumed it was garbage…and it’s written in English.”

“Care to share?” Davis asked.

Roger’s hologram looked up at him almost in apology, then sent a copy to him. Davis saw it was a very brief introduction, identifying who they were and the fact that they were here to negotiate with Star Force concerning the mutual threat of the Li'vorkrachnika. It took Davis several moments to recognize the name, with it being what the lizards referred to themselves as. The Alliance always called them the Cajdital and this was the first time he’d ever seen the official title in use.

They were here as representatives of another Alliance that was engaged with the lizards, and from the position data given in a popup map it indicated that they were located well rimward of the ADZ, farther than Star Force had scouted to date, but the biggest thing that stood out to Davis was the name of the race that the ships belonged to, for it was familiar to him. He’d read about them in the very first data packet he’d gotten from the original Alliance.

Like the others he’d written them off as long dead, but it seemed the intel he’d gotten had been a bit more on the assumption side than the factual, for the H’kar were literally standing on their doorstep and wanting to talk about their mutual enemy.

“Roger, I’ll let you handle this. I’ll just eavesdrop.”

Nexus

1

May 8, 2635

System: Unknown

Rimward beyond Star Force’s maps

Kerrie-057 sat in the command chair of the Ma’kri-class warship as it and two of its twins raced across interstellar space mere seconds away from beginning their braking maneuvers against an unknown star. The three Star Force ships were following a H’kar ship and trusting in their navigational abilities, for the foursome had passed into the unknown regions of the galaxy beyond the furthest rimward border of the lizards and were now arriving at their destination. Beyond the gravity signature ahead the trailblazer had no information about where they were or what was waiting for them, and even the V’kit’no’sat had never bothered to push this far out with a mapping expedition.

Star Force’s map was being updated with each jump the group made, but when the ships decelerated against the star Kerrie found what she had expected the least…a completely empty system. There were no gravity signatures anywhere nearby, and at first she guessed they had to be on the far side and out of sensing range, with at least one planet’s gravity adding to that of the star and seeming to disappear behind it.

But there wasn’t, made all the more evident when the H’kar signaled with new position orders that had them moving around the star to what appeared to be another jumppoint given that there was nothing there, not a planet nor station, when they came around and into direct sensor alignment with the location.

“What are they playing at?” she mumbled, looking at her sensor holograms closely. The H’kar weren’t the most talkative race by far, and their escort hadn’t done more than relay them coordinates with each jump, leaving the trailblazer to guess at where exactly they were going. This system had been tagged as their ultimate destination in the last transmission…yet there was nothing here.

Kerrie felt like hitting the comm and asking what was up, but she decided to play it cool and just wait it out…then to her second surprise the H’kar ship contacted them, with a hologram of an exoskeletal monster appearing before her. A series of words that were a mix of low tones and bird-like chirps sounded, with the computer providing a text translation below the image.

WE HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATION. PLEASE SEARCH THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES FOR A SMALL GRAVITY FIELD AND TRANSITION THERE AT SLOW SPEED.

With that brief snippet the hologram of the H’kar disappeared, replaced by a slew of navigational figures.

“What have we got?” Kerrie asked, looking to her bridge crew. The Ma’kri wasn’t a full-sized jumpship, rather about a third of its size and carrying no drones, but the 6.3 kilometer long knife blade was packed with armor and weaponry that most of the ADZ had never saw before. It had been designed to mimic a Star Destroyer, giving Star Force an all-in-one battleship that could roam freely and drop the hammer wherever needed, while also being a control ship and troop transport when necessary.

Kerrie only had a handful of troops onboard her three ships now, with most of the modular cargo bays being full of supplies. She would have brought only the one ship on this diplomatic mission, but given how far they were traveling she’d felt it was wiser to bring three. More firepower and the option of abandoning a ship and transferring the crew over to another if something catastrophic happened could be a lifesaver when going into the unknown like this. And they weren’t even a fraction of the way to their ultimate destination yet, but were supposed to meet up with a carrier that would take them the rest of the journey.

The Ma’kri were considerably faster than the H’kar ship, though they didn’t let on as much. The rimward race had simply asked if they could maintain a certain speed, which Star Force confirmed without adding how much faster they could actually go. That said, they weren’t sure that the H’kar weren’t holding back either, but for right now Kerrie guessed that her ships were the faster and she was interested in seeing what ride they were supposed to be meeting up with…and where. She’d been expecting at least an outpost if not full blown inhabited world, but right now all they had was empty space to greet them.

“Here,” a voice said, followed by a holographic map of the system popping up beside Kerrie’s chair and expanding outward until it shrunk to a dot…with another dot beside it 1.7 lightyears away. “Planet-sized gravity field, barely detectable, but reachable in about 2 days.”

“Inform the H’kar of our estimates,” she ordered, glancing at the dot sitting out in the middle of nowhere. It could be a rogue planet, in which case it would make for a good hiding place for an outpost. A gravity well that far outside a system would go unnoticed without a close scan, for its effect on her ship was so much smaller than that of the other stars nearby. The sensitivity of their gravity drives allowed them to detect increasingly fainter fields as their tech progressed, but this was pushing it.

After a few moments the H’kar ship jumped out, albeit very slowly, with Kerrie glancing at her navigator with a raised eyebrow.

“They’re slower by 22%.”

The Archon smirked. “Thought so. We’ll wave as we go by. Confirm jump formation and let’s get moving,” she said, standing up a bit disappointed. She’d expected to have some answers by now.

Heading off to the sanctum to wait out the painfully slow jump, made that way by the limited gravity on which the ships could brake against upon arrival, Kerrie continued with her training, being only 3 levels away from reaching mage but with considerably less progression now that she was isolated and training alone.

Kerrie had been in Atlantis with the others in the advanced training group for the past 3 decades and, while she’d been doing solo workouts most of her life, doing them here and now felt hollow. The environment just wasn’t the same, but she wanted mage bad and continued to get in the best workouts she could manage on her own, knowing that once this mission was over she’d be heading back to the others.

Not all the trailblazers were there, for some were still engaged on the lizard front and attending to other missions across the ADZ, but all of them had been rotating in and out of Atlantis as they picked up the new psionics and got a bit of time in with the group no matter how short their stay was. When the H’kar had come to Sol unannounced they’d done so to deliver a message and information concerning a race called the Sety and their Nexus, of which the H’kar were a new member, Kerrie had volunteered to respond to their invite given that she was one of a handful of trailblazers who’d had extensive experience fighting the lizards.

She hadn’t expected the isolation to hit her so hard, but adaptation was key to being an Archon and she began to adjust after the first few days…but without the others it felt akin to running without music. The movements were the same, but the energetic buzz was missing.

So she buried herself in workouts until it was time to return to the bridge and hopefully get some answers as to where the H’kar had been leading them off through the wilds of space. She had no idea what or who was out here, nor what threat level they posed. The fact that the V’kit’no’sat had never mapped it also made her worry, because everywhere within their domain they would have knocked off the major powers. But out here they had no influence, so what was or could be waiting for them unnerved her considerably.

Kerrie wasn’t worried about this mission per se, or the H’kar, so long as everything went according to plan…it’s those times when it didn’t that were the problem, in which case Kerrie’s three ship fleet could be completely blindsided. The H’kar had said there’d be a transport ship waiting to carry them on further out, implying that even their own gravity drives were insufficient for the task, meaning that there was at least one race out here considerably more advanced than Star Force was, speed wise anyway, and that made her and the others wonder how many potential sharks there were in the waters.

The location of their ultimate destination was approximately 6,400 lightyears away, which would take them across the ‘gap’ between the Orion and Perseus galactic arms and far beyond any system Star Force had charted to date. That gap wasn’t truly a gap, but a region of space with a lesser density of star systems, all of which Kerrie’s ships would miss sitting inside the hull of another carrier ship as it supposedly whisked them away through the Nexus’s transit grid, with the furthest coreward hub being the tiny gravity well they were currently en route to.

According to the H’kar, when the lizards were consuming their territory system after system they had executed a fighting withdrawal, moving further and further out towards the rim and discovering that the lizards didn’t want to chase them. They did follow but at a slow pace along with the rest of their expansion, not a straight line pursuit setting out for their destruction as they’d anticipated given the ferocious nature with which the lizards fought.

Using this to their advantage the H’kar had stayed alive and ahead of the lizards, eventually moving far enough out through the Orion arm until they caught the attention of one of the races within the Nexus, which the Sety ran. A formal invitation was made after some vetting was done and the H’kar became members, setting down roots and fleeing no further. When the lizards’ growth crept out to meet their new worlds they were met with Nexus troops and repulsed, creating a firm boundary beyond which the aggressive race could make no progress.

But that hadn’t stopped the lizards from trying. As they expanded that line in the sand had continued to get wider and wider, with the Nexus having to defend more and more systems with a greater number of troops and resources…though the battles were easy affairs. As the H’kar began to regrow their empire, this time as part of the Nexus, they became the coreward front line of the large interstellar union and had the responsibility to hold it against the lizards and several other minor threats within the local region with appropriate help now and again from others as needed.

Over the years the threat of the lizards had gone from minor to moderate, with them continuing to spread out and in such great numbers that there was no way for the Nexus to stop them aside from a huge campaign to wipe them from existence…but as the H’kar continued to gather intelligence on their enemy and the true size of their domain was revealed the unworthy opponents that the lizards were became a nuisance that was too large to eradicate. Even if they destroyed them in 100 systems they’d expand to 200 more elsewhere, literally a race of cockroaches they could not stamp out of existence if they’d wanted to.

The inability of them to be able to negotiate with or destroy the lizards, combined with their minor threat to the Nexus itself, had prompted a containment plan set to keep the lizards from expanding into the Nexus region and surrounding areas. More and more resources were having to be diverted there, not yet putting a major stress on the Nexus but growing as the years passed. There were other, more powerful races in both the Orion and Perseus arms, but the lizards were something new for them to contend with, for no matter how many battles they fought the inferior race would not quit, nor could they be destroyed unless you got them all…which wasn’t remotely feasible given the size of their territory.

As the lizard problem continued to grow the Nexus was learning more about them and the areas ahead of their lateral expansion, with the H’kar handling a piece of that assignment. They’d come across contacts that were associates of Star Force’s string of rimward reaching colonies, sharing with them information about the Humans, their public maps and language, and the news of them successfully holding back the lizards…which drew the attention of the Nexus. With the lizard threat being something that was devouring system after system, someone who wasn’t falling to them as even the H’kar had was someone they wanted to get to know, hence the invitation.

Kerrie didn’t usually like playing ambassador, but in this case she wanted to see what was out here and what the galactic competition was like…given that they’d just been invited into a bigger league. The H’kar didn’t say that they were being offered membership, but rather that the Nexus wanted to talk concerning their mutual threat. What that meant was unclear, but Star Force wasn’t going to send anyone less than a trailblazer or Davis to deal with this, and there was no way they were going to let Davis come this far out into the middle of nowhere.

The H’kar were impressive enough, given the time they’d spent in Sol and the data exchange they’d had with Star Force, which made Kerrie all the more interested in seeing those who were supposedly superior to them. So far they’d been led on a wild goose chase across the stars, but when they finally did brake against the tiny gravity well the scope of the Nexus finally registered with her.

“Oh…my…freaking…hell,” she whispered as the camera displays showed the ‘planet’ they’d arrived at, except that it wasn’t round…nor a planet at all. The thousands of starships floating around the area were a mere afterthought to the Archon, though the size of some of them was impressive in their own right, but the construct they were looking at had a stubby shaft in center connecting two large discs made up of radiating struts. Each ‘umbrella’ was curved slightly, making shallow cups with sections missing and all clearly artificial in construction.

Kerrie tapped a few keys on the holographic display on her left and got a size grid, seeing that the thing was 800 miles wide on the central stub, with each pinwheel having a diameter of 12,000 miles. The entire length of the construct was over 34,000 miles long, making it 4 times the width of Earth.

“Hold position until we’re contacted,” she ordered, seeing the other two Ma’kri decelerating behind them and knowing it’d be several hours before their H’kar escort caught up.

“Archon, we’re detecting stellar level magnetic fields emanating from the…device. They’re directional off the arcs.”

“Mag…” Kerrie said reflexively, then her eyes went wide as she realized what this was. “Holy shit, that’s how we’re getting out there.”

“Care to share?” the Captain asked.

“Ever hear of a magnetic drive?”

“Pie in the sky rumors only. Highly inaccurate to the point of stupidity.”

“Inaccurate why?” she asked, leading him as she kept her eyes glued on the visual and holo displays as more information was being detailed with the computer and analysts chewing on the sensor feeds.

“Gravity is constant, but magnetic fields fluctuate.”

“Natural ones,” Kerrie said, pointing at the planet-sized structure. “But I’d bet you a million credits that one is stable and the endpoint of a very long jumpline…correction, those two are stable. One in, one out I’d bet.”

“If I had the credits I’d take that bet. Even if you could build something like that why would you given the black hole routes?”

“Magnetism is more powerful than gravity,” she reminded him, still wide eyed like a kid in a candy store. The V’kit’no’sat had never built mag drives, for they didn’t need to, but they were aware of the technology and its potential…though nothing like this had ever been cataloged in the database. “And I’m curious to see just how fast this slingshot can fire.”

The Captain shook his head. “Can’t be mag drive. There’s no way you could hit a target that small.”

“Combo with grav drives to adjust course during drift,” Kerrie said, thinking out loud.

“Why two? Seems an awful waste to build something that large in duplicate.”

The trailblazer inclined her head to the side, granting that he had a point. When jumping into or out from a star there was only one jumpline available, and the more you got off it the braking line would veer and produce lateral movement. That meant ships coming and going had to move through the same region of space, risking a collision. The threat of that was minimized via beacon signals that traveled ahead and warned of ship’s incoming so they could drift off the line and allow each other to pass.

Busy jumplines were dangerous because the final braking maneuver had to occur in that tiny slice of space, but it was workable by monitoring the incoming super-accelerated signals from ships in coast phase, then the ships waiting to jump would wait for an opening, move into position, then jump on the line for a few minutes before easing off it and into drift mode.

The process would work the same, in theory, for a mag jump…so why build two massive mag fields when one would do?

Before she could start listing off possibilities a streak of a signal resolved itself in the clear area in front of the upper ‘dish’ that reminded Kerrie of the giant arms on the Ark from Halo, minus the greenery of the natural environment.

“Son of a bitch,” the Captain muttered, seeing the incoming ship, then he threw a glance at the Archon. “Doesn’t mean it’s a mag drive,” he said stubbornly.

“If it’s not,” Kerrie said, seeing that the ship was longer than a lizard assault pillar and considerably wider, “I want to know what it is.”

The Archon turned to the comm officer. “See if you can find someone out there to talk to before it goes Death Star and uses us for target practice.”

2

As it turned out the H’kar ship wasn’t necessary for the next stage of their journey, though it arrived several hours later as Kerrie’s three ships were left to wait for the next 3 days until their transport was ready. During that time they got plenty of questions answered, as well as were able to monitor a very high amount of traffic coming in through the Nexus ‘grid point,’ which was a direct link to another similar massive construct some 1,539 lightyears away.

The carrier vessel they were waiting for was one of a number of large transports that operated like jumpships on the grid, carrying other vessels back and forth exclusively. The thousands of other ships around the grid point were a mix of those awaiting transit and a defense fleet, none of which could travel on the grid themselves.

The massive vessel that the Star Force ships were assigned to had room for all three plus an additional 23 other vessels, each of which was tucked away inside what looked like a lagoon. The bulk of the ship was pointed into a wide, four-spined arrow whose tips circled around an empty, squashed sphere of space inside of which the ships were berthed and held steady by an IDF. The three Ma’kri were not the largest vessels being carried, with four being larger plus a myriad of smaller ships made up of multiple designs.

There was no interlinking with the carrier ship, so all the crews had to stay onboard their own ships and wait out the trip as if they were traveling solo through the jump, which lasted only 8 days. In comparison, had the Ma’kri attempted to travel that distance on their own, going through one small jump after another between stars, it would have taken them approximately 7 months to get that far, assuming they had fuel reserves to sustain them through that many jumps.

But when they arrived they were not at their ultimate destination, rather another grid point. It was identical to the other, each with two giant emitters creating the magnetic fields that the carriers amplified and repulsed off from. One for one direction of travel and the other for the reverse…but also to act as backups in case one had to be taken down for maintenance or was damaged. Kerrie also learned that unmanned probe ships were continuously sent through the grid, with them seeing 6 come in and immediately leave on the other emitter during their short wait.

The probes were unmanned and intended to inform one end of the link if the other was no longer viable, for a ship that made the jump couldn’t slow down without the other grid point being active and would either slam into the construct or miss it and shoot off into the galactic void unable to stop and essentially be lost in space. If a probe didn’t come through on schedule all outgoing traffic was halted until another came in, so as to minimize losses if a grid point was taken down.

If one of the emitters went offline the other could be used for double duty, but typical procedure had an ‘in’ and an ‘out,’ with Kerrie’s carrier coming in on the top segment of the opposite grid point, after which the Ma’kri exited the ship and waited for instructions as where to go next, for there were three additional grid points within 2 million kilometers, all situated in deep space outside of any system, keeping the transit grid a private one for Nexus use.

It took another 4 days of waiting before another carrier became available for their use, with the Star Force warships loading up and shooting off through another linkage, for unlike a gravity well the grid point’s emitters were monodirectional and could only fire and receive ships from one destination point. It seemed like an enormous waste of material to build four different constructs in one location, but the speed boost was very beneficial for transit once you had them up and running.

The amount of ships at this location was even larger, with additional stations spread out in clusters between the grid points, indicating that the one they had originally started this journey from was on the edge of the Nexus’s territory. This point was much more robust with facilities, for the constructs themselves were not housing or commerce units. Almost all of their interior space was devoted to the sole function of producing the magnetic fields and self-defense, leaving these other large facilities, though tiny in comparison, to service the ships coming through the grid.

It was hard to comprehend, but there were more stations and ships in this location than there were in the entire Solar System, and she didn’t doubt that the local population might be the same. There were no planets or natural objects of any kind to colonize, but there were so many bits of floating infrastructure and ships that it was truly mind blowing. Fortunately the Nexus was very organized and the traffic controllers had Kerrie’s fleet stationed where necessary until their ride was ready, then they loaded up and were taken on another link in their journey out to the next galactic arm.

The further they went the bigger the grid points got, with their final point containing 19 different constructs and a sea of infrastructure, all floating in deep space away from the prying eyes of anyone else. There they picked up an escort by a Sety ship that was half their size which led them through a series of grav jumps through the nearby star systems until they arrived at the capitol of the Nexus.

It wasn’t the Sety homeworld, but a system built specifically for the interracial community…and like the grid points it was choked with activity.

Kerrie had never seen anything even remotely like it before. It was a binary system, with a main central star and a small outer one in very high orbit. Worked into a complicated set of odd orbits were 39 planets and 193 moons, all of which were inhabited with layers of infrastructure. There were no natural environments visible, they’d all been erased in favor of cityscape, but the various planetoids were colonized by different races with different architecture, though it looked like approximately the same level of tech…all higher than what Star Force currently had.

In addition to the planets there were millions of installations situated in orbit or null space between the planets, but once again each and every one was neatly arranged with traffic flows moving through a very scripted routine. The three Star Force ships followed their escort closely, matching microjumps and other lesser maneuvers until they arrived at a particular planet and were given a parking orbit.

Though she couldn’t be certain, she suspected that this one system contained more infrastructure and population than the entire ADZ…which was mindboggling. Talk about big fish in the little pond. Seeing it all she wondered what the hell the Nexus had to worry about from the lizards, because they were truly the superior, like Asgard superior to Earth in Stargate, only bigger and more impressive, for some of the ‘stations’ were the size of moons themselves.

Once getting parked, arrangements were quickly made to get her down to the planet with a dropship being escorted by fighter-like craft from orbit all the way down to a city made of angular pillars that reminded her of Superman’s fortress of solitude. They even looked like ice, though more blue, and were sticking up at all kinds of angles that belied any visible motif other than sheer randomness. It wasn’t until the dropship came in closer did she realize just how big each of the spike/columns were, with most reaching up some 7-12 miles, with the largest oddballs climbing as high as 20.

The escorts led the tiny Star Force dropship to one of the ‘tall’ ones, with the mountain-sized structure having nearly invisible cutouts until you got close enough to see them, one of which was a landing pad recessed into the otherwise smooth, crystal-like exterior…though that pad alone could have held more than 1000 dropships, with several larger Nexus craft sitting on the deck along with a steady stream of smaller ones coming and going as Kerrie’s ship landed.

The planet itself was larger than normal, with 1.27 gravity and a mix of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. Ironically the Sety breathed the nitrogen, while most of the other races in the Nexus respired using oxygen. The binary atmosphere worked for both races, which meant that Kerrie wasn’t going to have to wear special breathing gear, though she did choose to wear her brown padawan armor, minus the weapons, and blew out a deep breath as the boarding ramp lowered and she walked down to the deck, feeling the gravity thicken as she left the dropship’s IDF.

Outside the ship there was a delegation waiting, made up of six individuals from two different races. Five of them were what Kerrie recognized from the files the H’kar had given them to be Gfatt. They had huge arms and one leg, which was more of a tail that fell directly beneath them. These were wearing an anti-grav harness and floating above the ground, but she knew they could walk as a tripod with their ape-like arms doubling as legs if they leaned forward slightly. Their skin was silver and slick, without so much as a hair or blemish, reminding Kerrie of dolphins save for the face…which was made of harder spikes jutting out at odd angles.

The other individual was a H’kar, with its exoskeleton clashing with the smooth motif of the Gfatt. It was a dark green almost to the point of being black and looked very intimidating, though from their previous experience she knew they were more turtle than warrior, though the natural armor meant they’d be a beast to tackle hand to hand.

“Welcome to Nexvt’ya,” the H’kar said in passable English. “We are pleased you were able to make the journey.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at the Gfatt and making a modification inside her helmet. “Can you understand me?”

Her external speaker created a series of words that were unintelligible by Human standards, and ones that Kerrie had yet been able to even minorly master with her own vocal chords, which replicated the Nexus’s basic language.

The Gfatt exchanged glances, then one looked at her with its three eyes and clasped its hands together. “We did not expect you to be able to speak our language.”

“Computer translation.”

“Well, it seems I’m not going to be needed here after all,” the H’kar said, who had spent a considerable amount of time learning the Human language in order to act as translator.

“No, stay. There may be other issues that arise,” the Gfatt said in a tone that indicated that they were definitely higher up in the pecking order.

“As you wish.”

“Please come inside, there is much we have to discuss,” the Gfatt said, pointing Kerrie towards the far interior of the landing bay as more ships continued to come and go around them, though none in the immediate area. “Do you have any environmental considerations we need to take into account?”

“The armor is precautionary and designed for combat. I can breathe the air,” she said, trying to keep any and all sarcasm out of her voice. The translation program was new and the simpler she spoke, the less likelihood of it messing up.

The Gfatt exchanged looks. “Are you carrying weapons?”

“No,” she said, suppressing the urge to declare herself a weapon.

“Weapons are not permitted on the planet aside from those in the possession of the security forces, which is why I ask. Your bodily protection is permissible, but unnecessary. Follow me.”

Kerrie fell into step behind the Gfatt, looking up at its shoulders as the others formed up into flanking positions with the H’kar following behind as a tagalong. They walked across the deck and into a large, cave-like entrance that split into hallways traveling in all directions. They took one angling down and to the right, with it twisting and turning at various angles with the segments always being straight and angled at the joints. Instead of stairs they had grippy, yet shallow ramps covered in traction nubs that kept wanting to trip Kerrie up.

The Gfatt simply floated over them, with the H’kar working his way down by ‘foot’ noisily behind her. The clicks of his footfalls were the only sound other than her light footsteps, with the rest of the pedestrians they passed by being eerily silent as they floated about. There was no talking, only a calm tranquility that gave Kerrie the urge to yell just to break up the monotony, making the clunky H’kar stand out amongst the silent crowd.

Eventually they came to their destination and a large table that was more of a raised symbol coming out of the floor. It was twisted and curved, with what would have been chair positions in a mess of different angles but there were none. All the Gfatt in the room simply floated beside the work station, with what looked like a giant sandbox on part of the tabletop.

That ‘sand’ was mutable, with it forming into various shapes and sizes of objects while other positions worked with recognizable holograms, not unlike what Star Force used. The ‘sand’ was what drew her attention, for it was shaped into a landscape with tiny moving structures that looked like army men…but whom she recognized as lizard mauler variants.

“Stand here please,” the Gfatt said, pointing to a spot alongside one of the edges of the sandbox.

“You’re obviously studying the lizards,” she said, with the translation program using their proper name, which she didn’t care to pronounce.

“They are a growing nuisance that will not go away, though you know better than us given your history with them.”

“Given your level of technology how are they a threat to you?” Kerrie had to ask.

“The Nexus is spread across a wide region of the galaxy. We do not control systems, we oversee them. Because the Li'vorkrachnika consume approximately 30% of all systems within their territory they are spread too wide for us to selectively target. Likewise we cannot defend the systems within the Nexus region that are not exclusively ours. We can fight the Li’vorkrachnika and win, but they are striking numerous targets simultaneously, wherein the problem arises.”

“You aren’t monitoring your territory?” Kerrie guessed.

“Not the lesser systems, no. At least not at a sufficient rate to ward off invasion. The Li’vorkrachnika are taking worlds and developing them before we even become aware of their presence. They are like unwanted hazmats sprouting everywhere along the H’kar border region and expanding into others. When we find them we destroy them, but there are too many systems to monitor simultaneously.”

Kerrie cringed at ‘hazmats,’ guessing that was the first translational glitch of many to come, then the sandbox in front of her spat out tiny globules that resolved themselves into star positions.

“This is a map of their known invasion area, but for every star system denoted there are 150 others not shown due to stellar density. These are our systems,” the Gfatt said as a scattering of the tiny bits of sand changed color and glowed red. “As you can see, we don’t hold as many systems per volume of space as you do. We believe your alliance’s contained perimeter is an advantage you possess. Do you concur?”

“Actually, I’d like you to tell me why the Nexus is so spread out? There have got to be valuable worlds inside your territory worth colonizing. Why keep expanding outward?”

“We do not seek to dominate the galaxy, merely keep it tranquil. The larger the region we inhabit the more we can inhibit the growth of threats. Local conflicts will always exist, and most of the races within our territory are not part of the Nexus. They are insignificant and we ignore them unless they should advance to the point of recognition, either as an ally, neutral, or enemy.”

“You’ve spread yourselves so wide you can’t focus on a single area?”

“Our militaries are spread out, dealing with hundreds of conflicts simultaneously. Normally a threat on the level of the Li’vorkrachnika would have been eliminated early on, but they appear to have no weak point. Within a region of space where we would have 6 system strongholds they have 6,000 weak systems. We cannot target and eradicate them all without devoting an enormous amount of resources to the effort, of which their threat level doesn’t warrant.”

“So you’re used to having a high valued target to hit, and since the lizards are more interested in spreading than consolidating you can’t cripple them with a few key strikes?”

“They are too spread out to pinpoint target, and our intelligence reports indicate that they are spreading out further towards the core. With the more systems they consume the larger their resource base will become. If they grow large enough they could threaten our border through sheer numbers, at which time we will pull forces from other regions to deal with the threat, but for now we are seeking alternative ways to combat the Li’vorkrachnika in a more economical fashion.”

“You know you can kill as many as they send, you just don’t know how to defeat them?”

“Short of a massive campaign to wipe them from the face of the galaxy, no. They seem destined to either dominate or be eradicated. Normally there is middle ground to negotiate with, even if through force alone, but the Li’vorkrachnika have shown a disinterest in survival. They will die by the billions if necessary to achieve an objective.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“I am told you have considerable experience fighting this common enemy.”

“I do.”

“Any insights you could provide would be greatly valued, as well as information concerning the battles you’ve fought and won.”

“That I can offer, but first I need to see more of the Nexus and how you’ve been fighting them. If I had your resources the lizards would have been defeated long before now and I don’t see why they’re beating you.”

“They are not defeating us,” Gfatt countered.

“They are surviving and expanding, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Then they are winning and defeating your stated objective.”

“The Nexus survives fully intact, we have not lost a world. There is no defeat.”

“Maybe this is translation issue. You are not winning, correct?”

“We have not won a complete victory, no.”

“Then I need to see how you are fighting and what you have available in order to point out where you’re going wrong.”

“Strategic information is limited to outsiders.”

“Give me as much as you can, then I will compare and contrast between our battles with the lizards and yours.”

The Gfatt turned and conversed with another beside it, with their whisper being too low for her translation software to digest, but a moment later the original Gfatt altered the sandbox and a slew of new objects appeared, some being starmaps and others ship profiles.

“We will extend internal public information rights to you for the purpose of this conference. Ask and we shall answer what we are allowed.”

Kerrie looked over the various ships, then pointed to one of the smaller ones. “Let’s start here.”

3

January 3, 2637

Danba System (lizard territory)

Vani

Liam-090 studied the holograms in the command nexus aboard his Warship-class jumpship as he began to mentally link into the Ikrid control sphere and begin issuing orders to his raiding fleet, which was spread throughout the enemy-occupied system just on the far side of the ‘neutral zone’ beyond Alpha Region. They were about to stage a naval attack on the key lizard stronghold in order to beat down some of the excessive growth the planet was undergoing, and to do the maximum amount of damage possible Liam needed to adapt his fleet positioning to what the lizards were showing.

The lag made it tricky, with his own ship being in null space between the planet and star but close enough that a low speed microjump would get him there within a few minutes. He needed to be close to monitor the fleet positions without them being able to see him, for the sensor dampening hull plates that Star Force now fielded made the long range lizard sensors virtually useless unless they knew where to focus their attention.

The reverse was no longer true, for it had been Star Force that once had difficulty tracking the lizards’ own stealth plating, but right now their ship hulls were literally gleaming in reflectivity that Liam’s passive sensors were registering and giving him half a planet’s worth of orbital signatures to gather information from. He had another jumpship on the far side, and between the two of them and others relaying the signals, he was looking at a low detailed position map of everything the lizards had in orbit around Vani.

Beside him he had two more holograms for the other inhabited planets in the system, but neither was a tenth of the density of this one. The others were start up projects, further deepening this system’s resource base and defenses, but a little orbital bombardment would fix most of that while the bulk of Liam’s fleet was going after Vani…or to be more precise, the fleet surrounding it.

They had some 28,000 cruisers or better in orbit, clumped together into various formations with others moving about in patrol. The other two planets were virtually barren of orbital defense ships, with these just being a short microjump away if needed. Liam had 6 jumpships in his fleet, plus two Ma’kri, and unless the lizards fought extremely stupid there was no way Star Force was going to beat them.

They were here to do damage and pull out, a quick poke to bleed off some of their strength, though depending on how the enemy responded it might turn out to be three or four pokes. Liam was used to running circles around them, and if he could do so here he was going to make the trip pay off as much as possible.

There was a ninth ship that had come in with the Star Force fleet, an observer from the Gfatt that had been tagging along on two previous missions studying the lizard threat in this region of the galaxy and how Star Force was fighting them. Today Liam intended to give them quite a show, for the ships under his command were all top of the line models, right down to the support drones that two of his jumpships were carrying.

The trailblazer waited another 20 minutes, patient to get the positioning right with the bit of movement occurring in orbit. Nothing much, just a handful of lazy patrols moving about, but every ship counted and there was no rush. So far their arrival in the system hadn’t been detected, at least as far as the reaction from the defense fleet was concerned. They’d overbraked to come out of their jumps well out from the star in the hopes of evading any stellar detection grid the lizards had set up and it appeared they’d been successful.

The Gfatt had come with them, easily making the maneuver given their ship’s superior drives. Just how superior was a matter of question, as was the rest of their technology, but according to Kerrie they were a mid-level race within the Nexus and extremely formidable when it came to military engagements. They’d been brought in to deal with the lizards when the H’kar had been unable to handle them, even with the Nexus upgrades bestowed upon the new member.

When the Gfatt hadn’t been able to stop the spread of the lizards either more attention had been placed on the matter. They were able to win every battle they fought, but the enemy’s growth rate was something they were unable to counter without devoting a lot more resources to the ‘low level’ problem. What other threats were high level Liam didn’t know, but the Gfatt were wisely here to study how the ADZ was surviving and now thriving against the lizards.

At least as long as the Skarrons kept their attention, anyway. Right now Star Force was building like crazy to secure their borders and raids like this one were intended to keep the lizards from doing the same. At first the Gfatt had not seen the wisdom in harassing the lizards without taking planets away from them, but after their first observance coupled with an analysis of Star Force battle history they were beginning to come around to the idea of just racking up ship kills rather than securing ‘wins.’

How many Liam was going to get today was up in the air, but seeing the positioning in both holo and minds’ eye he knew he’d get at least a couple hundred. How the lizards reacted would determine how much higher that number went.

With a single thought he sent the ‘go’ command and his sensor feed vanished as the jumpship accelerated too fast to keep a clear lock. The signals coming in from the other ships were likewise distorted until they reemerged into ‘normal’ speeds in middle orbit, with another jumpship coming in beside them while the others entered at various points around the planet. Liam’s position was to be the major one drawing attention, with his two coming out and into view some 45 seconds ahead of the others.

Both jumpships immediately began deploying drones, fast releasing them on mini slingshot docking arms that allowed them all to get clear within a minute. Rather than stay with the jumpship they shot off immediately on multiple trajectories, some in groups, some solo, while the two jumpships pulled closer together and charged ahead into a ship formation of some 834 cruisers. No larger enemy ships were present at this location, but as soon as the jumpships appeared they began redeploying from elsewhere in orbit along with their flocks of additional cruisers, with many heading to higher orbit to try and block their escape jumplines.

Both jumpships opened fire with cleansing beams and bloon launchers, then added point defense maulers as the cruisers swarmed to them, not intending to survive the engagement but committed to do as much damage to the two big ships as they could and potentially set up kills when the others arrived. It wasn’t the sort of play Liam would make, but the lizards fought a different type of war and it was one version of combat that the trailblazer had become intimately familiar with…enough so that he could often predict their movements before they made them.

As the pair of jumpships tore apart the much smaller and weaker cruisers, their shields were bathed in plasma but were virtually unaffected by it. Only once the number of incoming hits scaled up drastically did they begin to weaken, with Liam not ordering the secondary armor deployed until they finally dipped below 80% and additional groups of enemy ships began to arrive to reinforce the others.

Across the hull numerous openings appeared, exposing specialized internal cargo bays from which a flood of tiny blocks flowed like water out over the hull, using each other as grip points as the 2 meter wide segments laid out a carpet of ‘replicator’ blocks across the standard armor and stacked three thick at the thinnest, with several mountains of blocks positioned over key areas for quick redeployment later if/when the shields were breached.

It took a long time for all the tiny blocks to get out onto the hull, but the shields held up admirably as the secondary armor covered everything aside from weapons batteries and other key systems that needed line of sight. Every now and then some enemy plasma would slip through the momentary gaps in the shield where it had to be opened to let the jumpship’s own weapons fire through, but those tidbits barely kissed the secondary armor, a mere prelude to what was to come.

Liam kept the jumpships in the fray, knowing that his shields would go down and expecting them to. He was here to cause damage and he couldn’t do as much as he wanted if he played too clean. Likewise the drones he had deployed were fighting harder than normal, engaging other groups as they moved in towards the jumpships but not sticking around to join them. They were skirmishers in this engagement and they needed to keep moving, but didn’t have the luxury of pulling back and recharging shields else they’d lose part of their surprise attack effect and give the mass of enemy ships time to reposition and drop the hammer.

Before that happened they’d have to pull out, which was why Liam was pushing beyond normal protocol in order to get more kills. It wasn’t a risk as far as he was concerned, for he knew well what his own ships and those of the enemy were capable of, and even while he was drawing the majority of the enemy attention the other ships were coming out of microjumps at precise positions and engaging smaller fleets while they were isolated, some of which they were catching en route to the growing main brawl.

Those intercepts were being executed by the Ma’kri, which were specifically designed to hunt down enemy ships. Liam monitored them and all others engaged around the planet while letting his captain handle most of the immediate battle. It was necessary to give him the ability to improvise, but in order to do that he needed to be aware of everything that was happening and not get tunnel vision on one particular part of the engagement.

The Ma’kri were big ships, but their design had them overpowered with engines, meaning they could move their mass around far quicker in small scale maneuvers than they appeared capable of doing. In addition they were equipped with three types of weapons, long range to snipe with, short range to ravage with, and disabler Nami-class missiles to ‘stun’ with. As Liam glanced at their progress he saw tracking markers for the big missiles being launched one each at cruisers far outside of cleansing beam range.

Each missile was the size of a Skarron fighter and was equipped with sufficient engines to get it to target and decelerate before impact, with it landing on or near the ship and emitting an IDF bubble that surrounded the target. The nami had its own shield generators, for it had to survive in order to be effective, and the ones they were currently using were plasma-resistant varieties knowing that they were going up against the lizards.

The missiles would track towards their targets, then suddenly the enemy ships became ballistic and unable to maneuver. Using their faster and more agile binary drives the Ma’kri would race out to them and make the kill at close range, hovering over top while the IDF gradually ran out of capacitor energy, and blow them apart with multiple Ta’lin’yi cannons before the charge ran out. With the kill made they’d move onto the next one, stunning one or two at a time and gobbling them up at close range or launching multiple namis and using the ballistic trajectories they created for easy long range targeting with their cleansing beam, destroying or disabling the ships quickly as the Ma’kri moved around orbit like predators.

Liam knew they had to engage small groups or they’d be overwhelmed, for their shielding and armor wasn’t anything like what the jumpships had. The Ma’kri were crewed, so they had to take care not to lose those ships by being overzealous, but they were very good at cleaning up stragglers and racking up an impressive kill list until they ran out of namis, after which they were still good in a fight but lost their main function.

Liam’s attention flicked from the Ma’kri to one of his drone fleets that was flashing warning symbols, indicating that their defenses were weakening to the point of breach. Before one of his crew could get to it he assumed priority command over one of the support drones pacing them and not firing, for it had no weapons aside from two backup plasma cannons that were currently powered down. The drone wasn’t meant to fight, but to assist the other ships, and now it was time to do so.

Liam spotted the two destroyers that were nearest to getting wrecked and brought the support drone in, which was three times as big and heavily shielded. He ordered the destroyers closer together, then brought the support ship down right in between them and extended a bubble shield around all three, blocking the incoming fire on them while they lowered what was left of their existing shields while their emitters began to recharge.

With their shields down the support ship shot over a stream of secondary armor blocks in packets, with them splashing against the drone hull and spreading over key areas of it. Had they already taken hull damage the blocks would have filled in and covered over those weak areas, but right now Liam just wanted the secondary armor there so the destroyer pilots could use it instantly when their shields did go down.

Before the support ship became vulnerable itself it lowered the bubble shield and redirected power to its own redundant emitters, hardening up its skin-tight barrier and moving ahead while blocking a bit more fire with its bulk before pulling out. It headed back between the other drones and into a waiting position while the destroyers, now with slightly recharged shields, continued to fight and would put the secondary armor to use mere minutes later when the lizard cruisers finally broke through with mounting plasma storms as more and more reinforcements came into the fight.

Liam kept that support ship and others moving, sometimes controlling them himself, sometimes letting the remote pilots handle it, but he made sure to reinforce his drones prior to them taking serious damage rather than after, extending their battle life and keeping their weaponry more or less active nonstop, though some lucky shots by the lizards were taking out a few batteries here and there, which was why you never wanted a ship with just a single weapon. Too easy to render useless with pinpoint fire.

Liam kept his chess pieces moving, waiting for the right moment in several locations, then when it looked like the lizards had them outnumbered with far too much plasma pouring into his ships for them to sustain much longer, a few specialized drones that hadn’t been contributing much firepower to the fight opened up armor panels, revealing concealed storage compartments while the rest of the nearby Star Force drones pulled back in close to the support ships, which created large shield walls in front of them that began soaking up plasma…but that wasn’t their purpose here.

The shield ships put everything they had into the walls, dropping the rest of their shields and leaving themselves vulnerable to flanking shots which the other drones tried to block as the specialized ships spewed forth a swarm of tiny, self-guiding objects out through the gaps between the shield walls as they too ducked behind any nearby.

The seekers were each the size of a small dropship, but as they flew out towards the closely packed lizard fleet they split up into smaller pieces, each moving out on their own trajectories but linked together by a remote timer. Liam held the detonation trigger himself, assuming priority control and detonating each cluster when it got into prime position. Over the course of the next 30 seconds the space surrounding the turtled up little cluster of drones became a fireworks display of explosives that put the old style nukes to shame in an area of effect attack that resulted in a lot of damaged ships.

Suddenly the overwhelming enemy numbers switched over to being targets of opportunity, with the support ships pulling their remaining shield energy back into defending themselves while the drones shot out on one final attack run before retreating, hammering the wounded cruisers and making a lot of easy kills in the face of the incoming reinforcements that were going to be minutes too late to the party.

Just as Liam issued the recall order to one drone fleet he got a ping on his battlemap, alerting him to something he had not expected to happen. The Gfatt warship, sitting high up in orbit and observing the battle, had just jumped into low orbit and was headed towards one of the lizards’ massive Atlas-class battle stations.

4

The hourglass-shaped warship moved in towards the lizard station, being barely a tenth of its size and only half the mass of one of the Star Force jumpships, with its flat top pointed towards the incoming plasma storm. No other ships were in the area, with the battle station being left unguarded as the fleets chased the Star Force ships, and it looked like the single, oddly shaped warship wasn’t going to stand a chance on its own but once it got within short weapons range it flipped over, exposing the narrow band around the center that held most of its weaponry, and unleashed hell at nearly pointblank range.

Multiple points of light appeared around the midsection of the Gfatt ship, then they leapt out in series at the lizard shields in squirt gun fashion, showing that whatever the weaponsfire was it was partially matter but not plasma. The warship flashed six different attacks every .68 seconds, creating a rapid fire torrent that built up on the stations’ shields, sapping them of strength and quickly breaching as the Gfatt hourglass was likewise covered in plasma hits.

Liam watched off and on, still leading his own battles, but it wasn’t long until the lizard battle station was showing heavy damage with scores of ships heading to reinforce and, fortuitously, drawing them away from his fleet. He did a quick mental check, not seeing any advantages to exploit, and continued the fighting withdrawal as he watched to see how much damage the Gfatt would do. He hadn’t expected them to fight at all, but suddenly now they were and he wondered why.

The slugging match wasn’t over quickly, and Liam had to keep turning his attention elsewhere as he had his hands full making as many ship kills as he could but he kept watching, hoping the Gfatt hadn’t bitten off more than they could chew…up until the ship finally pulled out from the station, which was showing a huge crater in its center but otherwise still intact and returning showers of green plasma fire, including a few streamers that were really hammering the Gfatt’s still intact shields.

The squirt guns ceased as the ship paused several kilometers out, not firing back at all as the plasma continued to flow, dampened by the range a bit but still doing damage to the shields when a huge blast emitted from the warship and sailed into the crater on the station.

The next thing Liam knew the battle station was breaking apart into chunks amidst a huge debris-riddled explosion that for a brief moment appeared like a mini nova down in low orbit.

“That’s one hell of a finishing move,” he commented dryly as he continued to issue mental commands to the ships he was linked in with, keeping an eye on the Gfatt in case they needed support, for he really didn’t want to have to relay the message that the ‘observer’ got itself killed in combat.

He needn’t had worried, for the warship ignored the incoming cruisers and made another microjump back up to high orbit and waited there, returning to its altitude perch and watching as Liam finished up his combat assignments one by one and eventually pulled his ships out of orbit, jumping to a rendezvous spot elsewhere in the system where he began to consolidate reports from the ships dispatched to the other two planets.

They didn’t arrive until later, but their laggy telemetry did and Liam watched as they quickly and efficiently pounded several orbital and surface sites, using their drones’ rail guns on the latter and knocking out several lizard mining colonies that had been funneling resources over to the main planet. The enemy would rebuild, of course, but the damage would slow them down a bit and right now that’s all Star Force was trying to do.

Some might say what they were doing was recklessly violent and wasteful, that without even trying to conquer the planet they were just wasting their time and resources, but Liam had long ago learned that the lizards thrived off of being left alone. They were builders, and in order to knock them out of their mojo you had to come in and wreck what they’d built randomly to keep them scared and cautious, otherwise they’d just creep right up on your doorstep and then start hammering your door from very short resupply lines.

That was essentially the problem the Nexus had, for winning battles wasn’t the problem, it was holding territory. Not their own, which was more than secure, but the other systems in between that they didn’t care about or were inhabited by others. The lizards were devouring them and spreading, steadily growing stronger even without conquering a single Nexus system. They didn’t have a strong world to be targeted, and even ‘small’ ones like this, given enough time, would escalate to the point of being formidable strongholds.

The trick was that one was not more important than another. Liam didn’t know about their homeworld, but every other planet they’d come across was built up in the same way using the same tech and strategies, so if you hit and annihilated one well established planet or system others would grow to replace it, often multiples ones for every one you took out…and the larger the lizard territory grew the more that math snowballed.

Every ship they killed here reduced that snowball by a fraction, which was why Star Force and the Hycre were continually hitting them near the ADZ and elsewhere where they were weak, denying them more strong worlds by getting at them before they were built up. They couldn’t get to all of them, obviously, but the region directly around the ADZ was of high priority to keep ‘weeded’ while worlds like this a bit further out were prime targets when and where they had an opportunity.

Even this attack was designed to go after the ships in orbit so they wouldn’t be available to reinforce other systems when they were hit. Taking out the reinforcements before you began the assault was another tactic that Liam, or more accurately Roger, had come up with long ago and worked well against the lizards so long as you had good intel data, most of which the Hycre were providing.

Liam was glad the Gfatt had taken out that battle station, for it was one more chess piece the lizards didn’t have to work with, though this one was immobile and could only be used to defend this planet unlike the fleets surrounding it that could go anywhere. Those, after all was said and done, were reduced by 384 kills with an additional 392 damaged. A good tally for this mission, with him having only lost 3 drones in the process.

54 more were damaged, but all of those were able to return to their jumpships and could be repaired later. He didn’t like losing the 3 and would review the battle records later to determine why they’d been lost, but overall they’d put yet another nick in the lizards’ empire. Liam wanted to do more than that and watched the surveillance intel from the monitoring probes they’d dropped off before leaving, but as predicted the lizards had restructured their fleets into larger groupings without leaving any targets of opportunity for him to hit with a second attack…at least not without losing a chunk of his own fleet.

That wasn’t an option given how many more ships the lizards had than the ADZ. Each drone they had was worth multiple lizard cruisers, both in armor and armament, and as that fact continued to snowball with subsequent upgrades it was imperative that they not get into a trading war, for the enemy would always have more to throw at them given their production capability that stretched across thousands of worlds by now.

No, Star Force had to engage and retreat, engage and retreat…preserving its own ships while taking out some of the lizards. That was the only way to fight them, which he hoped the Gfatt were now realizing.

After everyone had reached the rendezvous point and Liam saw there were no more opportunities for easy strikes he took the time to contact the Gfatt and ask them why they had hit the station. They responded by stating that they saw an opportunity and decided to take it, which he thanked them for, but then he inquired why they weren’t fighting with them the entire time, to which they said they were merely here to observe.

The two things didn’t jive and he wouldn’t get any more of an answer from them before they left the system and headed back to the ADZ, but after they returned to their staging base he pushed the issue with their commander and learned that similar battle stations in the H’kar region were never so exposed and that the Gfatt had been targeting them specifically. Biggest chess pieces in the game, hence they drew the first attention, so far as the Nexus thought.

It seemed the lizards had been using that to their advantage and using the battle stations and other large ships as bait, getting them to drop the hammer on them and potentially losing them in the process, but doing decent damage to the attacking fleet by having flanking units nearby. With having to fight long and hard to take out similar stations the Gfatt were not going to miss the opportunity for a clean kill, despite that fact that the system in question was far from their borders and no threat to them.

That gave Liam an inkling as to how the lizards were countering the Nexus, or rather surviving it and learning from the engagements. They had plenty of ships and resources, with the ability to grow additional personnel at will, to throw at an enemy that seemed unwilling to take the fight directly to them in a wide campaign. They’d hit a target and obliterate it, but the lizards could always rebuild elsewhere or even in the same location after they’d left. The Nexus wasn’t yet serious about fighting the lizards because they were fighting out of a defensive mindset.

Star Force was as well, but only out of necessity. Liam and Paul had long talked about going after the lizards’ core worlds but they never had the fleet strength necessary to do it. They were fighting defensively to preserve the ADZ because they had to, but because they knew and wanted to eliminate the lizards on the whole they went about their defensive efforts much differently than the Nexus.

Liam was wondering why, with the long experience the H’kar had of fighting the lizards, had the Nexus not wised up earlier. Kerrie’s notes had guessed at troop strengths and that they didn’t have a lot to throw around the H’kar front, superior as they were, which basically gifted the lizards a permanent presence there. One had to go all in when fighting them, gruesome as that might be, because so long as one of them lived they would continue fighting with no surrender and no mercy.

Star Force had learned that the hard way after centuries of trying to make inroads against the lizard hive mind. To this day they still took some prisoners, but they always tried to kill themselves when it looked like there was no way for them to escape or harm their captors. Those taken were for specific reasons and often dumped off at another lizard world when Star Force tired of them, but in general when Star Force attacked it was to kill the enemy for there was no other way to deal with them when they were coming at you with the numbers they possessed.

Mercy was a luxury of the dominant, and with the lizard empire slowly creeping its way around the perimeter of the ADZ it had become a ‘shoot and move on’ scenario, though the trailblazers still hadn’t given up the idea of one day breaking the genetic lock that the lizards had on each other. Until they found a way to free them as they had the Bsidd, the lizards were a threat round the clock no matter how many of them there were or the circumstances, and had to be hunted down and destroyed in order to secure targets.

The raids weren’t meant to secure territory, but diminish resources. Star Force wasn’t targeting their population but their ships and infrastructure. Without those their personnel numbers hardly mattered, so when Liam bombarded a planet he wasn’t interested in killing the people down there but their equipment…though with the lizards he wasn’t going to hold off because they were next to or inside the infrastructure. Other races he would, but with no other options with the lizards he wasn’t going to let them act as living shields to protect their assets.

That was a hard choice for him and the others to come by, but at the end of the day it came down to a matter of offense and defense. If Star Force was attacking someone else they’d use more controlled tactics and not target population centers, troop ships, etc. They had a respect for life, even that of the enemy, and would only go all-in if one of their own worlds was under assault, with any enemy present there essentially declaring their ill will when they came into the system.

Enemies sitting on their own worlds minding their business were completely different, and Star Force had dealt with the Skarrons, and the Hobbits especially, in a different manner. The Humans weren’t going to become destructive monsters and were smart enough to find ways to defeat the enemy without outright slaughtering them…but with the lizards there was catch.

The creep factor. All the lizard colonies near the ADZ hadn’t originally been there. They were recent and growing fast with the pure intent on expanding further by defeating enemies and consuming their worlds. The lizards there weren’t minding their own business, they, as a collective civilization, were bent on conquering others, making all of them active enemies attacking the ADZ and others even if they hadn’t set foot inside their territory.

Liam and the others couldn’t respect their worlds and ‘citizenry’ because they were essentially firebases setup on the galactic battlefield, and in order to fight back they had to look at it as such. No other race that Star Force knew of held themselves to the same standards of combat as they did, but when it came to the lizards they knew that if they didn’t fight them all-in in every engagement that the creep effect would eventually surround and strangle them, at which point they would, in obvious defense, go all-in…but at that point it would be too late and the enemy would have the overwhelming advantage.

It was a fine line Liam and the others were walking and he was ever aware of it, but he’d never cross it and become a butcher. The needs of the many DID NOT outweigh the needs of the few and he wouldn’t sacrifice individuals that were noncombatants in order to get a victory.

But the lizards had no noncombatants and they were all out for blood and more territory. Liam didn’t like making that assumption for trillions of individuals but after dealing with so many of them as prisoners and not finding so much as one who acted differently he’d cautiously put that concern aside. If he ever found even the slightest deviation in their behavior he’d reassess everything, but for now, with regards to the lizards, he and the others were in full blown berserker mode and killing as many of their ships and colonies as they could.

And it was that fine line that he was working with that prompted several long conversations with the Gfatt, not just to teach them some of the tactics they’d learned to fight he lizards but for them to understand why and how they were doing it, for someone unaware of the situation it would look like Star Force didn’t care about anything other than destruction, which was far from the truth and he needed the Gfatt to understand that…as well as why they too had to take a ‘cleansing’ strategy with regards to upstart lizard colonies near their worlds and take them out with preemptive strikes following up an insane amount of recon patrols so they could find them before they got rooted in place.

The Gfatt weren’t stupid, but they were used to fighting in a certain way, just as Star Force and most other races were. Star Force fought the way they did for legit reasons, while others did so out of tradition and doctrine. Liam knew he wasn’t getting through to the Gfatt instantly, but their jumping in and destroying a station when they had the opportunity was a good sign…but also a wary one, for while Star Force was capable of walking that fine line Liam wasn’t confident that others could and, faced with the way the lizards fought, would either be overrun or become bloodthirsty in response.

Liam had 600 years of experience to learn and understand the bounds of honor, which today was no longer a murky issue for him, but others would have their own learning curve and couldn’t get to his level of ‘righteousness’ overnight, and he was afraid the example they were setting would be misunderstood and inspire bad habits in their growing list of allies.

But being the tactician that he was he knew there was no way to avoid that. He had to be true to the lightside even if the lightside wasn’t obvious. With enough scrutiny others would be able to see what he was doing and figure out why, but for those who didn’t look so closely…well, he couldn’t control them and wasn’t going to restrict himself from actions that were in the right just because someone else might misunderstand. If they did it was on them, not him, and the example he set was merely a byproduct of action, and so long as he was in the right that was enough. The stupid of the galaxy weren’t going to shackle him into inactivity by their misunderstood observations.

But while he had the chance he was going to try to make the Gfatt understand, and with each subsequent observed mission he hoped they’d begin to get the gist of it.

5

March 8, 2638

Hamma System (lizard territory)

Inner Zone

The Watchman-class probe was sitting in an off orbit that kept it away from the major jumplines heading in and out of the system, as were several others that Star Force had quietly dropped off into position around the star of the otherwise empty system. There were planets nearby, but all uninhabited and mostly gas giants. The few that weren’t the lizards hadn’t seen fit to take interest in, leaving this system one of several ‘stepping stones’ within their territory that they commonly passed through en route to other locations.

In lieu of running constant patrols through enemy systems Star Force had begun dropping the little probes off and coming back later to pull data dumps from them, allowing them to see a record of all traffic and activity within a system whereas a patrol would only get a snapshot. With the lizards expanding to so many systems it was determined that a heavier surveillance was required, with the added benefit of the ability to belatedly track convoys and other ship movements.

The probes didn’t have the ability to transmit to the relay grid and were little more than stealthy little cameras operating off of passive scans. The stellar radiation reflecting off ship hulls and shields usually gave enough of a signature to pick up at range, though some stealthier and smaller vessels could pass through unnoticed, especially if they were using an irregular jumpline, so the detection grid wasn’t perfect, but it was clandestine. So far the lizards hadn’t found any of the probes that Star Force was littering the space around the ADZ with and gathering a large amount of information on the enemy’s movements…as well as how much other traffic there was moving around ‘occupied’ space.

The incoming fleet however were all lizard and too large and numerous to possibly be missed. They were just passing through headed coreward, but this was the first location where they would pop up on the surveillance grid, though a patrol wouldn’t be through for another 8 months to pick up the data and belatedly register the thousands of jumpships moving through the system.

They would register in three more systems, culminating in a line headed towards the Skarron border where the lizards were devouring system after system, but only small targets. The Skarrons were winning the big fights and claiming the key prizes, but in overall numbers the lizards were taking 4 systems to every Skarron 1.

Never before had a fleet of this size been registered or even rumored of, and the approximate track that Star Force recognized and passed onto the Hycre was headed in the general direction of the Orica System, former capitol of the Nestafar and by far the largest Skarron stronghold on the border.

“I don’t think so, but it’s possible,” Paul told Cal-com as he got a message ping on his earpiece. “Just a moment,” he said, accepting the com from the Star Force warship that had just arrived in the Achkor System where the trailblazer had been camped out the past 2 months working on planning sessions with their ally.

Paul’s expression turned hard, with him pointing at the bigger Voku a few moments later. “Incoming data packet. Pull it up.”

The deep black muscled warrior worked the Voku controls and accepted an incoming transmission from the Human ship, then passed the control function over to Paul’s side of the holoprojector so he could do with it what he wanted.

“It’s finally happened,” Paul said, bringing up the Hycre intel report that hadn’t yet hit the grid network and was only now being sent out through it as the warship connected to and transmitted the fresh data back to the ADZ, soon to return to reconnaissance/courier duty in concert with the Hycre. “The lizards dropped the hammer and hit Orica.”

“How many?” Cal-com asked.

“36,783 jumpships,” Paul said, feeling his gut tighten up.

The Voku was silent for a moment, then crossed his massive arms over his chest as he stared at the visuals the Human was bringing up in holo with his wide crystalline eye. “We knew they were capable of this.”

“If that fleet came here they’d overrun any system in the ADZ aside from Sol and Epsilon Eridani, and I’m not totally confident we’d win those battles in any appreciable way. I don’t think you’d be able to hold out here either.”

“What of their larger vessels? I see several here.”

“8 invokers, 29 assault pillars…and a new design I’m not familiar with,” Paul said, pulling up the limited sensor scans the Hycre had made when they snuck in and observed the combat taking place in Orica. The ship was about half the size of an assault pillar but much more compact, and in all the recordings it was not involved in combat, but sitting back with the jumpships.

“It’s not a warship,” Cal-com said after a few minutes of analysis. “I would guess it’s a supply depot. Given the density of enemy infrastructure within the system the lizards will not have the ability to build initiation colonies on the planets to strike out from. They will have to fight directly and for a long period of time before they can start harvesting resources on site. I believe that ship will hold either supplies or a combination of supplies and ground troops for use when they reach the surface.”

“Possibly,” Paul admitted, “but don’t underestimate the cleverness of these bastards.”

“I’m not. Given the heavy fighting occurring in space, in which their major pieces are currently in play, they would not hold back these if they could contribute firepower that would spare their cruisers such egregious losses.”

“They don’t mind taking losses, but I agree. And given the numbers they’ve got here they’re going to strip off the Skarron fleet quite fast, though I’m not sure how much progress they’ll make on the ground. They’ve got the numbers to roll them, but this is the highest concentration of walkers I’ve ever seen and we know they become more potent when grouped together.”

“A worthy battle to study, but it only emphasizes my previous point. The lizard threat is greater than that of the Skarrons. If they aren’t countered they will grow to such a number that our technological advantage will not be able to sustain us. The war to win is the neutral systems, not the primaries. If we only defend a select number we will survive but the enemy will continue to grow. My homeworlds will be safe for some time, given their distance, but I do not see this enemy as ever being content with what it has. They will continue to expand until they reach Voku space…and if we wait until then they will be too strong. We have to strike them now.”

“It’s not for lack of wanting, Cal, I just don’t have the ships yet.”

“Your new friends in the Rim are failing for the same reason. They can beat the lizards in any battle, but they’re not fighting them in the ones that count. The lizards know the key to beating superior opponents is to wait and devour the smaller ones, growing stronger and stronger until they can do this,” he said, pointing to the visuals of the Skarrons getting overrun.

“So we’ve told them, but right now they view the lizards as a regional threat and not worth the attention we both know they deserve.”

“Then they are fools.”

“Fools that we’re trying to educate,” Paul added. “But they’re wise enough to seek the counsel of those with experience. Plus I don’t know what other threats they’re facing. The Nexus’s assumed territory is massive and they haven’t been too informative of anything beyond H’kar space where the lizards are currently present.”

“And what do the H’kar think?”

“They’ve been fighting and losing to the lizards longer than we have. They know the threat and are relying on the Nexus to keep them alive.”

“That I know, but do they recognize the need to attack?”

“They are open to any suggestions and are the ones who referred the Nexus to us.”

“Loss will tend to educate those who are blind…but it can also blind those who are weary.”

Paul smiled in vexation, seeing what the Voku was getting at. “You think they’re just happy to be alive and are catching their breath?”

“I think that no one is taking this threat seriously. They are biding their time and not showing their full hand. Even this,” he said, pointing at the insanely large fleet they had brought out of nowhere to attack Orica, “I do not believe is their full strength. They are sitting on enough power to counter any mistakes they make, for they are hiding their strength from others. They should have overrun you long ago but they did not. Why? Because they are confident that they can do so later. They probe, they fight, and even when they lose they learn. They learn the true strength of their opposition then tailor their eventual response accordingly while masking their own strength.”

“You have survived,” Cal-com continued, “because you are growing and adapting to them, otherwise what they have thrown at you to date would have been enough to cripple you. Your Sentinels they did not anticipate and it has bought you time, but even now they probe your lines, learning and planning, meanwhile they attack targets they are more confident they can take while sweeping up the neutral systems that no one cares to defend. The loss of races exterminated by them is insulting enough, but the apathy of their neighbors and their stupidity is unbearable.”

Paul could tell his friend was upset, and he was glad he wasn’t the only one who realized how dangerously devious the lizards were.

“If I’m missing something please enlighten me, but right now all I can do is build and take a handful of worlds away from them along our borders. What other options do we have?”

“If the lizards weren’t so far away from my home I could do more,” Cal-com complained. “But with the lizards fighting an enemy the size and strength of the Skarrons we have an opportunity that we cannot afford to waste.”

“We’re just not in a position to exploit it…yet.”

“I am doing all I can to build up this system and will continue to do so, but the resources must be local. We can’t ship what we need from our home territory, not in the numbers we need, and there are other threats our people must deal with…but none so dangerous as this one. Perhaps not now, but in the future the lizards will become a nemesis we cannot kill, and the longer we survive the larger they will grow. We have to kill them afar before they can come to our doorstep, but I have less resources here than you do. I will do my part, but the solution is not a solo act, but a coordinated offensive.”

“I don’t think the Nexus will get that heavily involved.”

“But will the H’kar?”

“I don’t know. If we give them something tangible to work with us on perhaps, but without a plan I don’t think they’re going to be able to do much more than hang onto what they have.”

“That thinking will kill us all,” Cal-com said, with no mistaking the foreboding in his voice despite his odd English accent.

Paul laughed in a huff. “Most people would say you were crazy, given your position and strength.”

“Others have the luxury of living in the moment and following the lead of others. You and I must lead, and to do so we have to look to the distant future for possible threats. Am I wrong about the lizards?”

“Unfortunately no.”

“Then we cannot wait any longer,” the Voku said, pointing again at the recent intel reports from Orica.

“I don’t know what else we can do at the moment. All my plans are still in the development stages.”

“We must begin the creation of a united front that will be able to halt their takeover of the neutral systems. Even now they are expanding around your ADZ. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

“I don’t see how we can stop it. Star Force is growing fast, but it will take time for us to get to the size we need to push far beyond the ADZ.”

Cal-com shook his head firmly. “No. You cannot do this alone and the Voku cannot support you as much as needed. You must seek out other allies. Strong ones who will see the threat for what it is and aid you in order to protect themselves from future harm.”

“If such races exist out there, other than the Nexus, I don’t know who or where they are.”

“Other than the H’kar forget this Nexus. You must look elsewhere.”

“Our ships are getting faster, but they’re not that fast yet. We’re mapping what we can but most of the races we’re finding aren’t a match for us, let alone the lizards.”

“No, such mapping expeditions would most likely be futile. We have some contacts that may be of help, but what you need are maps. Ask this Nexus and any others you have encountered for word of other powerful races. Find them and coopt them.”

Paul shook his head. “That is not going to work unless the lizards are a known threat to them.”

“We must have allies. Before the lizards grow so large they cannot be contained. Now they are vulnerable because of the Skarrons and the resources they must expend on them. Not for a killing blow, but to contain their spread.”

“To do that fully we would need allies around their borders. Neither of us have contacts on the upper side, correct?”

“This is true, but you must seek them out none the less. Neither of us have sufficient strength to contain them, therefore only a cooperative effort between dozens of races is viable.”

“I don’t disagree, but I don’t think there are sufficient powers out there. I’m upgrading lesser ones as we speak, and the Bsidd are going to be a great help in the distant future, but outside powers are few and far between. The Nexus would be the biggest help, but as I said they consider the lizards a small threat. They’re too big to fear them as they should. They will have to suffer losses until they wise up.”

“The lizards will not give them that, they will be patient and grow until the Nexus cannot defeat them without contributing their full might…and at that time it might not even matter. The lizards might not be able to defeat them, but in turn they will not be able to defeat the lizards. They are like a sotart, soaking up damage that would kill others because they can outgrow it.”

Paul frowned, searching his mind for ‘sotart’ and realizing the Voku didn’t know the word for ‘sponge.’

“I don’t disagree, I just don’t know where to look.”

“Ask anyway, and I will do the same.”

“Map search it is then. In the meantime let’s see if we can’t nibble away at the sotart.”

Two months later a Voku courier ship arrived back at their homeworld, delivering a personal message from Cal-com to Yev-jat, another Renimar, who watched the brief but thorough holographic recording before traveling across the planet to the most sacred facility the Voku possessed…that being the Elders temple.

Yev-jat had automatic access to the exclusive facility, built on the location where the Elder had visited them not so long ago. It was there that they maintained a gift of a specialized interstellar comm device that allowed the Elders to contact them from afar when they so chose. The Voku were not to contact them unless absolutely necessary, but both Cal-com and Yev-jat agreed that now was one of those times.

The Voku stepped onto a simple pedestal, dropping to a knee and touching the transmit button on the floor.

“Elders, we seek your counsel. The Humans you sought us to protect are in peril. We have secured them for the moment but the enemy they face from the Rim, which call themselves Li’vorkrachnika, pose a threat not only to the Humans but to the Voku and all those you have tasked us to protect. They are spreading and fight in a way that we have not seen before. We believe if we merely defend the enemy will grow too strong and overwhelm us with sheer resources, but we do not have the strength to strike out and annihilate them. They will not communicate and it is believed no surrender is possible. They will fight and spread and grow until they are eradicated, and we do not possess the strength to undergo such a task at great distance.”

“I ask for instructions. We will do as you command, but are at a loss as how to proceed in order to safeguard the future.”

6

December 7, 2639

Vengor System (beyond Delta Region)

Bobo

Nizzi swam hard, knowing that the enemies were behind him and the other Ollofan, and that they were slightly slower on average. That might give him a chance to stay alive and a similar sentiment was shared by the others around him as the little aquatic race pushed hard to escape the infantry battle they’d just lost on the seafloor several miles from the coast where the enemy was establishing another front.

Not that it mattered now. Most of his people were dead and the planet all but in the hands of the Li’vorkrachnika after only 2 years of fighting. At first the invaders had landed in a single location with only three ships, but they were using technology superior to what the Ollofan had and they’d been unable to remove them. After that it had all gone downhill, with loss after loss as the enemy received reinforcements out of the void. No ships arrived to bring them, they literally sprang out of their base with far more than they could have possibly had on their ships.

That wasn’t the only thing that confounded the Ollofan about the Li’vorkrachnika, and now it didn’t matter. Nizzi and the others had tried one last attempt to confront them head on, buying some time at least for the last transports to load, but it had been a debacle. The number of swimmers the enemy were grossly underestimated and soon their attack was overwhelmed, with most of his unit dying while he and a few others swam for their lives.

Nizzi’s little head tails flailed in the murky waters around him as he clawed at the water with both hands and feet, pulling himself through it while the enemy used their tails mainly for propulsion. Their green scales also clashed with the bluish waters, which the Ollofan’s skin matched, making them look like an infection on the planet…and that wasn’t far from the truth.

The surviving Ollofan swam and swam until they reached a tether line outpost, grabbing little handles on it and pushing the activation buttons that sent each one individually zipping off down the line and being dragged through the water faster than they could ever have swam. Nizzi held on tight and felt the water pull on him as he accelerated through the ocean just above the sea floor, breathing a sigh of relief, or the equivalent, given that he was using his gills right now rather than his lungs.

He rode the tether with the others for nearly 90% of the distance before it suddenly stopped, all power lost, leaving him and the others stranded short of their destination. He figured the enemy had destroyed the other end of the line, but at least it had given them a good head start.

A few aquatic chirps sounded and he swam to meet up with the others, then as a group of 18 they swam on, following the dead line until they finally got to one of the last of their intact cities, swimming inside through portholes in the otherwise smooth surface and passing through containment shields that separated air from ocean.

Nizzi slapped damp feet down on the floor and ran with little squishy sounds through the empty halls with the others en route to the hangar bays, hoping there was still a ship left. Everyone else that had been here was gone, which was partially a good sign indicating that they’d had time to leave before getting overrun, but if they hadn’t left any ships behind then he and the others would have to take to the open water and try to survive in the wild and avoid attention as long as they could, with no ultimate hope of rescue.

When he got to the hangar his chest was tight with worry, then relief flooded through him as he saw a single ship left. It was old and looked to have some battle damage, but he could tell from the patchwork done that it was flyable. He and the others ran to it, with one of them swinging by the control booth and opening the upper shield door.

The physical barrier retreated, leaving only a shield holding back the ocean above. When Nizzi and his fellow soldiers got onboard one of them with flight experience took the controls and rose the transport up and into the water, heading for the surface at a slow and ponderous speed, seeing distant enemy water ships on approach to the city. They wouldn’t reach them in time to stop them, with Nizzi and the others watching the sensors intently as they rose.

When they transitioned into the atmosphere they picked up speed quickly, avoiding the pesky enemy fighters which were luckily nowhere near their position. The old ship burned hard for space, getting there and running for the stellar jumppoint that at the moment had no enemy ships. The Li’vorkrachnika never had many to begin with, but the few they did have were true terrors. The up side was they couldn’t blockade orbit very well, only able to track down and kill a few ships if they were close enough.

Luck was on the Ollofans’ side today, for they made it to the jumppoint and accelerated off towards the star where their people’s jumpships would be waiting to pull the last ships out of the system. But when they arrived they found only three ships…all enemy ships. They immediately redirected towards the tiny Ollofan transport, intent on hunting it down like several others that were now little more than debris fields showing on the sensors.

“What do we do?” one of them asked the pilot.

“There are no jumpships. We have to go back to the planet,” another one said.

“We can’t.”

“We have to jump,” Nizzi said, watching the enemy ships coming closer on sensors and realizing they didn’t have a lot of time to decide.

“You’re crazy!” the little blue guy next to him said, eyes wide.

“If we stay we’re dead. We have to try,” Nizzi argued, hoping someone else would have a better idea.

“He’s right. We have no other options,” the pilot said, looking for the shortest jumpline out of the system and scratching it immediately, for it was on the other side of the star and there was no way they’d get there before the enemy got to them.

“We’re not rated for a jump,” another said.

“It’ll be slow and inaccurate, but it’s possible,” the pilot argued, looking hard for a useable jumpline just to get them out of here. It took far longer than he liked but eventually he got a half decent one not far off and set course for it, though the distance was going to be problematic. The destination system was twice again as far as the shortest jumpline, with there being a chance that the inaccuracy of their navigational system could mean they would miss the destination star entirely and be lost in space for a long, slow death.

But they were dead if they didn’t try, so he set course and hoped they’d get to the jumppoint before the enemy did.

“Go extra slow,” Nizzi said. “Save fuel.”

“Right,” the pilot agreed, beginning to revise his jump calculations.

“I’ll see how much food we have,” another said, trodding off.

Nizzi cursed silently. He hadn’t even considered that.

The rest of the Ollofan waited in the cockpit, crammed inside so they could watch the sensors as they transitioned across stellar orbit to their jumppoint with the Li’vorkrachnika cruisers racing hard to catch them, but once again Nizzi’s luck won out and his ship got to the jumppoint before they did, holding there to align as precisely as they could, then the underpowered gravity drive launched them out through the system on a very slow interstellar jump, out of the reach of the enemy.

“3 months, 2 weeks,” the pilot said, studying his readings intently and making a minor tweak in their trajectory as they passed a planet on their way out, trying to keep them on the jumpline as much as they could. Once they got out into interstellar space the gravity would be so low he’d only be able to get a touch of movement in any direction, and the same went for the backup maneuvering thrusters.

“We’re alive,” another said. “That’s what matters. Let’s see what’s left in the ship for us to use.”

As it turned out there were more than enough supplies for the 18 of them. The ship had been stocked with enough foodstuffs to last a much larger crew, sad to say that not enough of them had survived to need it. Those with Nizzi would, however, for the normally quick transition between systems that a jumpship provided was going to take them forever in their tiny transport, assuming they were able to goose the accuracy enough to even arrive. The line they were drifting on was decent, but some heavy thrusts had to be made on several occasions as they got closer to their destination and found that they were veering off, not because of any new movement, but of not being able to accurately measure it in the first place.

They had to use quite a bit of fuel to make those adjustments, but when they got close to their destination and saw that they would in fact make it a discussion was brought to a head…that being where they were supposed to go?

None of them knew where the jumpships had gone, for all they had been told was that they were evacuating, not to where. The enemy, as far as they knew, had been heading towards their planet for some time with many other neighbors having falling to their advance. The Ollofan had hoped to go overlooked, given that they lived underwater, but apparently they too were targets for the rolling mass of what had been called a galactic plague.

When they studied the maps they had a whole section of space ruled out, for that was where they knew the enemy to be. Systems close to their former home were also ignored, for the Li’vorkrachnika could be there already and there was no one they knew of that could stand up to them. It was either run or hope to be ignored. In that regard the Ollofan had not been so lucky.

And to make matters worse they only had so much fuel and not a lot of jumplanes short enough for them to try to make, giving them few options. Eventually they decided to head for a known commerce planet and beg for help…while hoping that they too hadn’t been overrun.

That planet was in a system four jumps away, which would take more than a year for them to get to and exhaust their fuel supply to the point that they could go no further, or perhaps one small jump after, meaning they were going to be stranded if no one offered them assistance, and given the state of the galaxy and the mass evacuations occurring ahead of the enemy advance there were no guarantees. Problem was Nizzi and the others had no better options, with only hope to rely on, though they did have plenty of time to think, stranded on their transport as they limped their way across the stars.

When they finally arrived in the Kattremon System they nearly missed the star, hitting it off center and propelling themselves laterally as they braked. Fortunately there was a gas giant nearby that they were able to pinball off of, and from there to some other nearby planets bleeding off momentum and keeping them in the system. That extra effort bled their fuel reserves nearly dry, making them incapable of doing anything more than some slow microjumps insystem.

Being very grateful to be alive and having dodged yet another catastrophe, Nizzi’s ship headed to the commerce planet and arrived in orbit just in time to witness a firefight ongoing. His little chest tightened up when he saw the enemy ships chasing down a much larger transport that was shooting back, ineffectively, with him realizing that with nowhere to run they were going to die. It might be in an hour or in a week, but they were stranded here and if the enemy had already gotten to this point there wasn’t going to be any way to evade them.

As all of this weighed on his mind a small black elongated cube moved into close sensor range and headed for the transport under attack. The enemy ships immediately ignored their target and went for it, and to the Ollofan’s amazement the smaller ship attacked the enemy 1 on 3. At first Nizzi thought it was a sacrifice play to save the transport, but as the big ship ran off leaving the little one behind to fight he saw that it was beating the crap out of the Li’vorkrachnika ships.

It wasn’t long before one of them had its shields down, and when it happened a bright beam fired into it and the hull exploded on contact. Whatever weapon it was repeated the attack many times until the ship was inoperable, then it turned its attention to the other two that were hammering it with plasma nonstop, including their potent plasma streamers, yet the smaller ship’s shields held up until it tore the second enemy ship apart.

Finally the third ship got through the black ship’s shields and began making hull hits, but it didn’t seem to matter. The resilient little thing held up and systematically tore apart the enemy that never even tried to run. Nizzi didn’t understand why nor did he care, for never had he heard of anyone who could stand against the Li’vorkrachnika, let alone dominate them in such fashion.

“What just happened?” he asked in the stunned silence.

“The Li lost,” another said, equally perplexed.

“Follow that ship.”

“Good idea,” the pilot said, slowly accelerating to follow the very fast ship as it moved off. They kept track of it on sensors and saw that it eventually made its way up to a higher orbit where a much larger ship jumped in and it docked with it. Then they noticed others nearby, some different sizes but all elongated cubes colored pitch black so that they almost disappeared against the backdrop of space, save for the reflective sheen from the sunlight.

During their lazy pursuit they were contacted by traffic control, cycling through various languages until they found one in common that they could use, that being Darfar, a trading nation that the Ollofan had relations with. Through not so good grammar they identified who they were and their circumstances…with a surprisingly accommodating response. As it turned out a lot of the ships in the system were evacuees from neighboring worlds, some a lot further out than the Ollofan had come from, that were here to parlay acceptance as either individuals or even entire races into a distant region where the Li’vorkrachnika could not go.

Nizzi’s group was told that there was an alliance that was successfully holding back the enemy and protecting a region of space where they were welcoming in those that could not defend themselves. The ship that they were following belonged to that alliance and was here to protect the system while facilitating the processing of evacuees and making arrangements for their inclusion into what they were calling the Alliance Defense Zone, or ADZ for short.

The Ollofan didn’t understand ADZ, for it was an acronym in a language they didn’t speak, but they learned the name regardless and everything else they could, begging the Star Force ship that was here to grant them sanctuary. They were given a provisional slot, with them having to wait in line until sufficient slots became available and transport arrived, but they were told so long as they agreed to the provided terms they would be accommodated.

Nizzi didn’t know if that was the truth or just a pleasant lie to keep everyone from panicking, but as the months passed by he and the others saw ships come and go, seeing those that were waiting with them being taken away periodically. As their food supplies dwindled this Star Force made arrangements with the planet to provide them replacements, ostensibly in exchange for the protection they were providing if not some other arrangement, and while being bored out of their minds Nizzi and the other 17 Ollofan were alive and safe onboard their ship in orbit, which was far more than he’d thought possible not long ago.

He didn’t know where the rest of his people were, or if he would ever see them again, but what mattered right now was that he was alive and needed to find a place in this ADZ where at minimum he could survive, though some of the stories coming out their way said people weren’t only surviving but prospering inside the well-defended borders. He wondered how much truth there was in that, but like always without options they had to take what was available to them, and he desperately wished that this wasn’t false hope.

Then the day came when their turn in line finally became pole position and their transport was given instructions to dock with one of the Alliance’s giant jumpships, this one belonging to a race called the Hycre and by far the largest ship Nizzi had ever seen. They were tucked up alongside many other ships, some more damaged than their own, then they were transported across the system to the star and jumped out into the unknown, en route to a destination they only knew of in the information packets they’d been given and the rumors circulating. What this ADZ was and why they were so welcoming of outsiders was a huge mystery, but it was one Nizzi and the others were going to have to explore, for right now this Alliance was their only chance of survival.

7

May 25, 2641

Paxxila System (Delta Region)

Akali

Nizzi’s jumpship took them across what on the map was a very long distance in only a handful of days, bringing them out into a star system that was stated as being on the border of the ADZ. The Ollofan’s ship was dropped off in orbit around one of the planets there and was directed to move to a set of coordinates, first high up in orbit, then down to a starport set just above the atmosphere. During the layoff and then the zigzagging orbital movements Nizzi and the others looked on in awe at the sheer number of ships and stations in orbit…not to mention their size.

There were huge round ones that looked like artificial gray moons while others were elongated like giant pillars. The information broadcasts indicated that those were ‘no go’ zones and defense platforms called ‘Sentinels’ and for the first time Nizzi began to understand why the Li’vorkrachnika had never made it this far.

The ADZ defense platforms were huge and spread all over orbit. The traffic map had a total of 93 spread around the system with 58 here. Some were low orbit, others at higher altitudes near what were tagged as shipyards. He didn’t know what kind of weapons they had, but just the sight of them was enough to scare Nizzi into staying away, and he hoped the same would be said of the enemy.

In addition to those scary stations there were thousands of warships in system, tagged so everyone flying a ship knew what and where they were. On top of those were 50 times more transports of varying sizes, though most belonged to what the IFF was saying was ‘Star Force.’ In fact, as Nizzi and the others digested the available information, after getting it translated into Darfar, which thankfully the local systems supported, they saw that the planet itself belonged to Star Force with four of five continents being fully cluttered with infrastructure, but only a few sprouts on the fifth.

To his delight he also saw that there were water cities set on the sea floor and surface of 16 different oceans, but that’s not where they were being diverted. Their instructions were to land at a spaceport in one of the cities on the smallest continent, which is where their pilot took them, down through the atmosphere and into the blocky, tall buildings to a wide open area in between, setting their transport down where instructed then waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.

That didn’t take long, for there was an attendant at the foot of their ship within minutes. Nizzi and the others opened up their boarding ramp and went down to the surface of the alien world, nervous almost to the point of twitchiness, and made no more easy by the very dry air they encountered, which irritated their water-loving skin.

“Hello,” a Human said in Darfar, “and welcome to Akali. There are 18 of you, correct?”

Nizzi and the others exchanged glances, then when he saw no one was volunteering to talk he hop/stepped forward and looked up at the alien that stood nearly twice his height.

“Yes, 18. You speak Darfar?”

The Human smiled, showing very white teeth that made Nizzi flinch back until he realized the gesture was friendly rather than intimidating. “We speak many languages, Darfar is one of mine which is why I’ve been assigned to you for your indoctrination. You’ve been granted sanctuary status, which means you can live on this planet without compensation for as long as you like so long as you agree to follow our rules. What they are and where you’ll be living are things that I will cover, but first let’s get you inside where we can see some holos. Your ship will be safe here. Follow me please.”

The Human waved a five fingered hand at the Ollofan, who exchanged more looks with the others who only understood about half her words, and gradually followed her across the landing pad after shutting up their ship. The short blue, fish-like race wore no shoes and found their feet hurting by the time they got to the far side, but once they entered one of the nearby buildings the ground smoothed out and no longer rubbed their soles with the dry, rough textured surface.

None of them said as word, staying close together so not to get lost as they passed a lot of different races, though most of the people they saw were the pinkish/brown skinned Humans. Following their guide Nizzi stayed right beside her and was led into a small compartment that turned out to be a transit car. All of them moved inside and sat on the seats lining the walls save for two, who stood along with the Human as the door closed and they started to move inside the building.

“You’ve been assigned aquatic quarters, which will be a mix of air and water, including hallways. You’ll be able to swim between some locations or walk, your choice, but most of the public areas will be air only. We Humans can swim, but not all that well, and this colony was built for us. We’ve been growing it and accepting in newcomers like yourselves, so we’ve done some remodeling. Food is available in communal areas and you can eat as much as you like, you just can’t take it with you.”

“What kind of food?” one of the others asked, with Nizzi wondering the same thing.

“Many kinds. Given how many different races we have here, we’ve had to develop foods that Humans won’t eat but others will, and we’ve gotten quite good at it. On the small chance that there is nothing of ours that you can tolerate we’ll make something new, so don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” Nizzi said, looking up at the woman as the door opened.

“You’re welcome,” she said, leading them out into a wall of humid air that made Nizzi shudder with relief.

“There are three other aquatic races living in this area, so we’ve adjusted the communal areas to a neutral environmental setting. Your individual quarters you can reset to your liking,” she continued as an even smaller alien walked by them. It was about as tall as Nizzi’s shoulders but was quadruped with a very finny tail. It looked over at him with big black eyes but said nothing, passing the group of Ollofan by as it headed off somewhere.

“Here we are,” the Human said as they came out into a much larger chamber, this one with several ponds in it separated by walkways and kiosks. “This is the center of the quarters habitat. Food is over there, down that hallway, but it’s in an area outside of this humidity. That booth there,” she said, pointing a slender finger to the right, “will give you information about whatever you desire. The other rooms are entertainment zones, with stores being located in other areas of the city. This is more or less a lounge and a place for you to interact and rest outside of your quarters…which are this way.”

The Human led them across the ponds, in which they saw a few individuals swimming lazily about, one of which actually looked to be a Human. Two more he saw were lounging on the side of the pool, laying on the dry land for some reason. What they were doing here he didn’t know, but most of those he saw were clearly waterborn. He had no idea what race they were, but intended to stay away from them for now. He just wanted some place to hide away and get settled, as did the others.

The Human walked down a tall hallway and stopped in front of an equally tall door with a lighted strip running from top to bottom.

“Touch the light to open,” she said, pressing a hand against it, with the spot she touched changing color, “and input your access code. Right now it’s just 000. You can reset it to your liking later.”

With three touches of her finger the Human opened the door and motioned for them to go inside. Nizzi followed the others in, seeing a darkly lit room with a small pool in the corner.

“It’s small, but designed for a single person. The water entrance has a door of its own and is operated in the same way with the same code. There are a few lounging areas down there that I can’t take you to without a breath mask, but you can explore on your own later. Over here is a cleansing chamber, sleep area, and personal information terminal. It’s not as user friendly as the one back in the lounge and will take some time for you to learn, but you can communicate with anyone else in the ADZ through it.”

“There are a few storage areas here,” she said, pointing to some cabinets on the second level, which was little more than a catwalk along the ceiling at the top of a ladder. Obviously this room had been designed for a shorter species than the Humans and seemed to fit the Ollofan well, though the sleeping area was not wet, which would be bothersome, “and a holographic display here. Clothing and other small items are available as needed, but everything else you want has to be bought with credits that you don’t have. These are what we call luxury items. They are not necessary for living, but can make it more comfortable.”

“Whether you choose to pursue those or not is your own choice. Regardless you will be able to live here without responsibilities for the rest of your lives, though you will also be able to move elsewhere within the ADZ where possible. There are many options, but right now I’m guessing you just want to get settled, or maybe explore a bit?”

Nizzi looked up at her. “What are the rules?”

“We’ll get to those shortly. First we need to assign quarters. Who wants this one?”

One of the others immediately volunteered, upon which the attendant assigned him an ID tag. She did the same with Nizzi and the others, then gave them a little time to explore their individual living areas before they regrouped in a facility in another building. There they were asked many questions, medically scanned, given foodstuffs and clothing to sample with the Humans and some other races making quick adjustments were needed. It took a few hours, then the attendant took them on a brief tour of the surrounding buildings and facilties, showing them the stores and communal areas, which were packed with people, then she took them back to their quarters and told them they’d meet again the next day.

When Nizzi and the others went to their quarters they jumped into the water tunnels and explored the area, seeing that they were just a tiny swim away from each other and an empty room that appeared to be all theirs. They gathered there and talked, working out some of their nervousness and mentally marking their territory…though Nadfe got a little too excited and soiled the water with a few bubbles.

Nizzi didn’t blame him, much, for he was also feeling out of sorts. If what the Human said was true they could stay here and be safe…but in exchange for nothing? That didn’t feel right and he expected there to be some sort of trap. Some of the others felt the same way and decided to be very cautious, staying with each other at all times and near their quarters whenever possible.

The next few days were spent going through more ‘indoctrination’ in which they learned about the planet and the ways of Star Force. Many things surprised them, such as the rule saying they couldn’t eat meat, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for safety…and Nizzi wished the others had made it here. He didn’t know where they were or how many had made it out of their homeworld, with only those beside him making up his community now.

That wasn’t new, for they’d been alone on their ship for a long time, but here and now, with so many other people on this planet, he felt lonely again, with a deep sadness setting in that didn’t go away. For the next several months he and the others kept to their quarters, doing nothing more than hiding away from the galaxy until they had a visitor that arrived in their quarters area through the water hallways.

It was a Human with no legs, but blue skin almost like them. She also glowed in spots, including her eyes. The first time Nizzi saw her he was taken aback, not in fear but amazement. She was a pure breather, he could tell, and clearly dominated the water with her movements and size. He got the feeling this person was both very old and wise, but she moved with considerable youth.

Trouble was, she didn’t speak Darfar. Nizzi and the others had to talk to her via a datapad that did the translating, for they hadn’t yet learned the native language, nor planned to. What this person wanted, whose name was Jaavblet, was to offer the Ollofan different quarters in one of the ocean cities. She said that it was for water breathers only, save for some Humans of course, and that she felt they would be more welcome there than here.

Nizzi was surprised by what she was saying, for the city in question was one that he and the others had learned of through the information terminals. It was closed off, meaning they couldn’t go there nor could any others without invitation…which apparently now they were getting. However, there was a price to pay.

Jaavblet wanted their help on a construction project. If they completed it the 18 of them would earn a permanent upgrade to their status, which would mean larger quarters and a tiny stipend of credits every cycle. At first the others refused, for they didn’t want to leave their little home here, but Nizzi offered a compromise and volunteered to go look at the city and the construction project so they could know what it was that was being asked of them.

Jaavblet agreed and Nizzi went with her, wondering what in the galaxy he was doing as he followed her through the water tunnels and into new areas of the city where he’d never ventured before, eventually heading lower and lower until they came to a transit system that Jaavblet led him to. They both got into a small water car that shot them across the underside of the city all the way over to the ocean, with the transition being visible through the clear ceiling of the car as the tunnel they were in disappeared and the open water became visible…along with all the craft in it.

The edge of the continent was full of underwater habitats and infrastructure, including ships, but they all were left behind as the small car shot through the water just above the seafloor, traveling on a solid rim that was propelling it all the way out to the distant city. It took a long time to get there, but just before they arrived Jaavblet pointed out the window and Nizzi saw the construction project that was ongoing.

It was another underwater city being built, and only now in the early stages of construction. The water was too hazy to make out much, but a flurry of lights showed movement all around, both large and small, as people were working on the project.

When they got inside the city Jaavblet showed Nizzi almost identical quarters to what they were now staying in, along with the upgraded ones they could get upon completion of the project, then she took him out to the construction site and showed him how he and his fellow Ollofan could help. What she wanted wasn’t complicated, with them being little more than couriers carrying small parts back and forth so the work crews wouldn’t have to leave their positions. It would require four of them per day, if they wanted to make the deal as a group, and it didn’t matter which four. They could even switch off during the day if needed, for it would be a round the clock shift on the 24 hour day.

The planet’s rotation was 38 hours, but they were so far down under water that the sun didn’t penetrate, so they kept with what was standard for Star Force. Nizzi figured up the math, seeing that it would take some work on their part, but by sharing the load it wouldn’t be too much trouble. Before he made up his mind he asked if he could try out what it was that they wanted him to do, with Jaavblet taking him out to the construction site and swimming with him as they navigated the chaotic area, sure to stay away from the bigger pieces of equipment moving about.

He was given a small satchel  of parts or tools, he wasn’t sure which, and swam them out to the place Jaavblet showed him, giving the other tailed ‘Humans’ the bag and letting them pull out what they needed. When it was empty she took him back to a refilling point, showed him which ones to pick up out of which container, then had him swim back. No fuss, no problem.

Nizzi repeated the process for a good half hour, doing little more than swimming and getting a workout while the larger aliens did all the real work. After he saw that it wasn’t much more than a long series of swims that they were asking of them, he went back to the others and told them what he’d learned. It took some convincing, but a week later they relocated and began helping the Star Force Elarioni build the new city, and in the process became acquainted with the other workers and the larger aquatic community as a whole.

No longer did they shy away hiding from the world, but began making it their home, tentatively at first, then becoming accustomed to the other races as neighbors and even friends. They would never replace their own kin, but the loneliness that Nizzi and the others were plagued by gradually faded, leaving them with a new future free of the Li’vorkrachnika and other worry, for over time they learned that Star Force was both huge, powerful, fair, and wise…with the Ollofan immensely grateful and later proud to become part of the empire and contribute to it in whatever tiny way they could.

8

January 30, 2642

Vasper System (lizard territory)

Deegan

Nem’tran’cov waited inside the Protovic transport encased in a flexible body armor that was concealing both his luminous body and the perspiration on his forehead. He and the other infantry were about to enter combat, not in the defense of one of their own worlds as his forebears had done countless times, but in taking the offensive against the Cajdital on one of their worlds. It was to be his first combat mission aside from the extensive training he’d received, and he as nervous beyond words.

The Protovic stood armor to armor with the others in his unit, all veterans. He was the spur of the moment replacement for another that had been lost, not to combat but to retirement. Thus he was being thrust into a role that was, honestly, more than he was ready for, but the others assured him that his training was complete and that he would fit in fine, relying on their experience and simply following orders as they fought as a group of 8.

There were far more than 8 in the transport, but those to which he was assigned were right next to him, waiting for the go signal to deploy. When it occurred there was no mad rush outside, as he’d expected, but rather everyone simply walked off the transport and set foot on the extremely dry ground of the enemy-held world.

Nem’tran’cov lingered a bit, looking around until he was nudged ahead, then he walked with the others over to a prefab command post that had recently been set up. As they did so another transport was offloading tanks and he could see a few Valeries in the air above, but no sign of the enemy.

For some reason he’d been expecting to come out fighting, but as he quickly learned they were in a processing base that was handling all the incoming troop transports. He and the others would be deployed out to a number of battlegrounds soon enough, but for now everything was calm and orderly…which unnerved him even more. He wanted to get into the heat of it to shake off these nerves and lose his rookie status, but for the moment he was going to have to wait for another long ride.

His 8 man team was held over for several hours, then were taken aboard a tiny aerial transport and flown across the flat, dirty landscape to a mountain ridge several hundred miles away. It was only some 800 meters high, but on this world that counted as mountains and supplied the little bit of terrain available. This mountain range held several Cajdital bases, dug into the subsurface, and his team was to probe the area around known entrances. Nothing major, just a bit of recon that would hopefully be followed up later with a full assault, but without knowing exactly what was there, the Protovic’s nerves were as troublesome as ever.

The transport set down on the edge of the flat, offloading the troops in a location that was blind to the known entrances on the far side where Cajdital tanks had been seen coming and going from. Sliding in 5th man in line, Nem’tran’cov followed the others in a slow jog as they moved into the ‘foliage’ that covered the mountains but was distinctly absent on the large plains. Rather than typical trees, the area was covered with what looked like spikes rising up at all number of angles and topping out at some 25 meters tall.

They bent over enough to obscure the location of the troops, giving them some badly needed cover…as well as the enemy troops if they were out and about. It wouldn’t be hard to hide a small personnel entrance in the mess of spike trees, and if there were any here the Protovic recon team needed to find them before the main assault occurred on the other side of the range.

“Scouting reports are in,” the local Protovic commander commented over holo to the distant Calavari firebase, “and we’ve found several small entrances on the far side. We should be able to force an entry there while you have them distracted.”

“How many?” the Archon ranger asked.

“We’ve found eight in total, but there may very well be twice that number. We’ll have troops stationed in the area to hunt down any that get out.”

“Delay your insertion well into the battle,” the Archon suggested. “If they’re small entrances you could be sending your men into a tricky situation and I don’t have the Archons to spare to scan ahead.”

“We can handle it. You have my word,” the Protovic said without insult, for he knew well how formidable the Archons were.

The ranger nodded. “Very well. Attack will commence in approximately 3 hours. I’ll leave you to judge when to go in.”

“Agreed. Good hunting.”

“Likewise,” the Archon said, turning off the hologram and looking up at the pair of orange-clad Calavari Knights beside him. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You suspect a trap?”

“When the lizards are underground…always. Get the mechs in motion and our air cover scanning the area. We’ll fly the troops in after we’ve got our support in place…and I’ll be taking point.”

The other Calavari huffed. “Could have made credits on that,” he said, turning around and walking out of the battlefield command center to ready their men.

Vlad-195338 remained behind, sifting through the intel reports again as his staff were updating the battlemap with what the Protovic sent to them along with the commander’s transmission. The mountain ridge was one of many secondary sites on the planet that had to be routed out, now that the primary lizard colonies had been destroyed from orbit then invaded on ground. Most of them had subsurface levels that the rail gun slugs didn’t reach and cleaning those out was always problematic, but a facility like this that was entirely underground was going to be even worse.

Still, they had the advantage. Orbit was theirs and the mix of Protovic and Calavari troops were spread across the planet hunting down secondary targets and safing the destroyed colonies for engineers to come down and start tearing apart the rubble. This wasn’t a torch and run op like so many others in lizard territory and they meant to keep the planet, which was situated just outside the ADZ and one of many worlds that had formerly belonged to the Calavari. Several of their ruined cities still remained, with lizards swarming over them, but most of what had once been home had been destroyed or deconstructed, leaving a full blown lizard civilization that they now had to dismantle.

Vlad and a few other Archons were here leading the Calavari, but no other Star Force divisions were present. It was a joint op with the Protovic, whose border wasn’t far off, and yet another small step out from the neutral zone they’d been diligently patrolling and weeding of new lizard invasions. The Calavari weren’t hard up for room to expand just yet, but they fervently wanted to reclaim worlds that had been lost, despite the fact that most of those fighting today hadn’t been born when their original territory fell. Still, they were determined, and it fit into an overall strategy that Paul and the Voku commander had brainstormed.

Vlad didn’t know the full extent of it, but he had been told they were going after a number of systems near to the ADZ that they intended to keep and see what type of reaction that drew from the lizards, who were right now heavily engaged with the Skarrons. Orica looked to be soon in their hands, but the Skarrons were drawing more and more reinforcements from deep in their coreward territory, with those ships and troops headed straight towards the lizards…leaving the ADZ virtually forgotten.

The reconnaissance of those battles was something Vlad found more exciting than the entertainment holos, and he studied them regularly. Two massive superpowers were literally throwing down not too far away and Star Force was whistling through the graveyard while they built and researched like crazy. The V’kit’no’sat pyramid would win them the war in the long run, but until they delved further into its technological secrets they had to lay low and avoid attention…which was why taking this world and others made no sense to Vlad, but he trusted Paul to have something up his sleeve, which the trailblazer always did, and was content to focus his attention on the local fights while letting the padawans and now mages handle the big picture planning.

That focus wasn’t blind delusion, but rather trust. He knew they’d take care of business on their end and that he had to take care of the Calavari here. They were Star Force troops, to be sure, and could handle their own same as Canderous or the mainline troops, but they didn’t have psionics or the Archons’ unique leadership skills, let alone experience, hence he and several others had been assigned to lead them into battle, as they always did, for within their growing empire whenever there was an invasion to execute you’d find at least one Archon at the lead, if for no other reason than to troubleshoot problems that might arise.

Vlad had operational command of nearly a third of the Calavari troops on planet, with a few acolytes at his disposal, but they were here to guide more than fight, leaving the heavy fighting to the Calavari, which were more than eager to take territory. They were well trained, but the lizards were devious and he never liked going after them underground…which was why he was assigning himself to this mission and leaving one of the acolytes behind to coordinate other matters until he returned.

After reviewing the new data and current positioning of his troops across this hemisphere, Vlad went outside and up to the roof of the command post, which had only been built two days ago to replace the prefab unit he’d been using before. There were engineers and Kiritak everywhere building him a small military base even as he worked his troops in and out of the temporary structures. This location was secure, with constant air and mech patrols across the flat terrain with no way for the lizards to sneak up on them, save for tunneling, but he had active scans routinely running on the subsurface to spot anomalies.

He doubted that any would be able to tunnel this far out from their nearest base, but already the lizards had shown more hideaways than he thought they’d have. They either made them as part of their standard colonization package or they’d expected to get invaded and left plenty of blinds to retreat into. Vlad wasn’t sure which was the case but they were doing everything they could to kill at least a few of his troops, and he didn’t want to lose any of them. So far he hadn’t, for the orbital bombardment had kicked the crap out of their surface resistance, but he had lost a few mechs with the pilots recovered when some explosive traps were triggered.

That was a new version of an old tactic, with the new det packs being upgraded and placed in the infrastructure or even buried just under the ground to ambush troops or mechs with. The yield was clearly designed for the mechs, but given their armored cockpits the mechwarriors had survived even when their four-armed monstrosities had a leg blown off…along with a huge amount of dirt and infrastructure, making it look like a rail gun impact in the aftermath.

The mechs he had repositioning to the mountain range were going to sniff out traps like that before the infantry came in, and had sensor equipment added to them to assist in the task. The range was low, but it’d give them some warning and allow them to shoot the traps before they were sprung if they were cautious enough. Another tactic was having the Calavari Valeries fly low and scan the ground, though if the det packs were mounted on walls of ruined infrastructure there was a chance they could get caught in a proximity blast. Some of the triggers were pressure sensitive, others were heat, and still more were either movement related or remote controlled. The lizards had a full bag of tricks in play, and if the Calavari weren’t careful they’d needlessly take casualties.

Same went for the Protovic, yet the Archons weren’t commanding them. They worked well together, but without direct operational command Vlad worried about their safety. They were seasoned warriors, but again, these were the lizards. They adapted to everything you threw at them and would spend 1000 lives to get one of yours if necessary. They had to be hunted down and removed from this planet, but when Vlad had the choice between pushing an offensive and biding his time he’d always do the latter. The lizards weren’t going to get reinforcements, so time was on Star Force’s side and he intended to use it.

When Vlad got to the roof of the building he took off his helmet and took in a deep breath of the dry air, feeling it on his skin as a light breeze blew in from the southwest. He looked around, seeing his troops in motion, including a few stars of mechs to the north coming back from patrol. The spaceport had been the first thing permanently constructed, and even now there was an almost constant flow of dropships coming down from orbit bringing additional supplies for the work crews to build with.

Slowly he spun around, looking in all directions and seeing nothing but barren, dirty plains around his little nest of activity. Very far off to the south he could just barely make out a bit of variation on the horizon that was the ruins of a Calavari city. It was scheduled to begin disassembly within the month, but until then Vlad had troops stationed to patrol it to make sure none of the lizards slipped in and took up residence.

The nearby mechbay, which was little more than an open field with a few support structures at this point, began showing considerable activity as the units he’d ordered to get moving towards the target began walking over to the dropships in the spaceport and loading up for the flight out. They’d land well away from the base and walk the rest of the distance, but it would take far too long to cross on foot from here. In fact he had so many dropships at his disposal he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fight a war without them. They were literally the glue that held Star Force’s military together, and he didn’t have a clue how many millions there were in service, but from his experience he knew he could never have too many in play.

Most of the people he saw outside were workers, with the Calavari troops waiting inside of prefab buildings or transports. There was nothing for them to do outside other than make nice targets, so they bided their time in various ways indoors and left the thousands of Kiritak free to roam without interference as they quickly put together new infrastructure for Vlad to use.

Up in the sky there were constant Valerie patrols, both the original version that the Protovic used and the Star Force upgraded model that he Calavari preferred. He knew they’d keep his base safe, and the lizards had long since lost the last of their cruisers. All they had left were wisps and kirbies, and there was no way even a suicide run was going to get them past his air cover.

Everything was buttoned up tight here and proceeding smoothly, with Vlad about to go the opposite direction and head up the expedition into the unknown. Where there was danger an Archon would be, if only to shield others from it, but to be honest Vlad could never just sit by and watch, even if he wasn’t needed. He was warrior and warriors fought, which put the Archons at odds with almost every other military philosophy in the galaxy that had their valuable leaders well protected and hidden from the enemy.

Archons dove straight in, for they weren’t just the leaders, they were also the strongest…and the place of the strong was in the front taking the worst of assignments and finding a way to carry the others to victory, or at least survival when things went bad. That was one reason why Vlad hated the game of chess, because it had the weak pawns up front as sacrificial minions.

The ranger put his helmet back on and sealed it in place, still tasting the outside air but with a bit of a twinge as it passed through the filters. Time to get moving so he could arrive on site with the mechs and make sure everything was suitable for the ground troops to come in.

The Archon walked to the edge of the roof and stepped off, falling several stories and cushioning his landing with his jump pack while scaring the crap out of a nearby Kiritak.

“Sorry,” he offered, heading off towards the spaceport.

9

The Calavari mechs ceased firing on the main doors of the lizard base, having burnt a good-sized hole in them that was now beginning to cool and lose its trim glow, then repositioned off to other locations leaving one of the four-armed machines in place to cover the entrance as the infantry began to move forward. Vlad was ahead of them, looking inside with his psionics as he moved up to the doors and the opening that was a meter up from the ground.

After getting a quick glimpse he hopped through, sidestepping to the left and finding a deserted hangar. There were several tanks sitting nearby, but Vlad knew they were empty and no threat. He didn’t like there not being anyone here, for it wasn’t like the lizards to just give up and run, and his spidey sense began tingling. With a quick comm to the troops outside he told them to hold off for the moment, then he moved further inside to scout out the area.

He pulled heavily on his limited Ikrid and Pefbar, sensing a trap and not sure where it would come from. The tanks alone should have been put to use strafing whatever troops would come in, and the fact that the lizards were abandoning them was totally wrong. The Archon ran over to one, looking inside it with his Pefbar and expecting explosives…but he found none. He transitioned to the other tanks and likewise found them clean.

It wasn’t until he moved to the exits of the hangar did he finally find the traps he feared. The narrow hallway entrances had det packs inside the walls, completely invisible to anyone passing through, but Vlad could see them with his Pefbar. There were also links to proximity detectors, tiny pinprick devices in the walls that wouldn’t be noticed without scrutiny…and the type of scrutiny that would put you in the blast radius before you saw them.

Vlad retreated back to one of the tanks and went inside, grabbing the first loose item he could find and bringing the hand-sized thingamajig with him over to one of the hallways. He wasn’t sure what the yield was on these det packs, but he made sure to stay well back as he chucked the object into the entrance. He guided it as much as he could telekinetically until it was out of range, then it dropped towards the floor but never made. The left side of the hallway blew out and shot debris all the way back to Vlad with some small bits and pieces bouncing off his shields.

“Sneaky bastards,” he commented, getting on the comm and calling the infantry in as he picked up a small chunk of wall and headed over to another of the hangar exits. He detonated that one and three others as the first of the Calavari Knights came through the now mostly cool hole in the main doors. Each of them wore the telltale orange, four-armed armor and was carrying an array of weapons on their back racks, along with some that had physical shields made famous by the mainline Knights.

They moved in quickly and held back as Vlad commanded, then he began to probe deeper into the base, sniffing out more traps and detonating them. The Calavari knew well how dangerous the lizards could be so they heeded his warnings and kept back, even as some lizards came out to engage them then ran, trying to draw them back into ambushes. When that didn’t work small groups of them ran out, obscuring a single individual carrying a det pack that was trying to get to the Calavari.

Vlad hit them with Fornax and toppled the suicide bomber far enough that when he did detonate a few moments later none of the energy shields on his infantry were taken down…though a few meters more and that wouldn’t have been the case.

With plasma fire the Calavari suppressed others running out at them, some of which tried ambushes out of side doors as they moved further and further into the subsurface facility. As they did Vlad began picking up more and more minds nearby, with them eventually getting the telltale horde rush once they were three levels down. Vlad tried not to fight too much, worrying about det packs in the mix and trying to pick them out, and getting one early enough that he was able to snipe him down before he detonated.

The Calavari meanwhile took to the standard variant lizards like they were toys, shooting them at range then knocking them around almost effortlessly in hand to hand. Their size, strength, extra arms, and the thickness of armor they were able to carry were over powering, with only the det packs a true threat. Vlad kept his troops with him rather than having them spread out, but as they took levels he had to leave some behind to hold regions they’d taken, with some of the suicide bombers getting through in places where Vlad wasn’t.

Fortunately the Calavari took them down before they got within touching range, diminishing the intensity of the blasts enough that their shields and armor protected them, though several had to be evacuated with injuries. Had they been Human troops they would have been dead, but the extra armor had been enough to save them, and for that Vlad was grateful as he pressed on, knowing that the faster he killed these bastards the less opportunity they would have to be devious.

But he couldn’t move too fast, for he had to scan all the walls in front of him, both for det packs and minds, for there were also hidden compartments with troops in them. Had he not been there the Calavari would have walked right by, then the lizards would have popped out behind them and in front, catching them from both sides. He still would have put credits on the Calavari winning out, but the more armor damage they took the greater the chance that others would deliver the finishing blows later.

The det pack threat didn’t disappear early, with Vlad having to deal with them up until the very end, but after some 7 hours of fighting and him thoroughly searching the facility with his psionics the task was done and the base was now in Calavari hands. He met up with the Protovic on the far side, with them having come in only a few levels and engaged in a brutal firefight. Apparently they hadn’t had any explosives in the walls around the hidden base entrances, but they’d been committed to doing whatever damage they could, with the last few stragglers making useless attack runs, sometimes solo, which the Protovic easily mowed down after taking a few injuries.

With their allies pulling out of the base and leaving, Vlad ordered some of his troops to remain to babysit the facility to make sure the lizards didn’t sneak back in, then took the rest and headed back to base where he would begin planning the next attack and readjusting his troop disposition accordingly. He had more than enough assets to do the job, but his primary task was to safeguard the Calavari while retaking the planet. So far he’d managed to do that, putting aside the injuries, but there had been a few deaths in other areas of the planet, and more so with the Protovic than the Calavari.

A few days later when there was a lull in activity he took a dropship back up to orbit and one of the Star Force jumpships so he could get a few decent workouts in its sanctum, for while the combat on the ground was intense at times it was no substitute for training and Vlad was already feeling squishy after so many days missed. He knew he had to get a few workouts in here and there to minimize the damage, so he took the opportunity now, not knowing when he’d get another chance in the future.

The dropship shot him up to orbit, passing by the Calavari drone fleet. Unlike the standard Star Force drones these were elongated in typical Calavari design, looking like fat spears and docking with specialized jumpships that accommodated their shapes into a crate-like lattice that would expand out from the jumpship hull rather than having a cut out section premade. It was a variation that allowed the jumpships to be more compact when empty, but it made them overly fat when full.

The jumpship he went to was one of three varieties and the largest, with all Calavari ships being built with a small segment of their training facilities as Archon sanctums on the off chance that they might be needed, and this was one such occasion given that there were no mainline ships in the system, only Calavari and Protovic.

It was still a Star Force ship though, and he felt at home inside it when he finally arrived. The hallways were a bit bigger, but all Star Force ships were designed to accommodate all the Star Force races, including the quarters Vlad had been assigned, not to mention the food. He had to have his own ambrosia stores, for the backup supplies for all the other races wouldn’t be enough for him and the others over the long haul of this campaign, but about half of what the Calavari ate he could also digest…with a few other Human items added to the cargo stores prior to his coming on this assignment.

As of now there were three races that had specialized ambrosia within Star Force, the Calavari, the Kiritak, and the Elarioni. The latter was originally designed for Ariel, and easily applied to the newer Star Force members. Most of the Elarioni population was still independent, such as the Kiritas were, but a good faction of them had crossed over and joined Star Force, establishing their own colonies while maintaining close ties with the other Elarioni.

Ambrosia research was currently in play for the Bsidd and the recently annexed Scionate, but those wouldn’t be widely available for at least another couple of decades, for Star Force didn’t take any chance with the concoction that was still lightyears ahead of their current tech level. Copying the original Zen’zat formula was one thing, but modifying it for other races was quite another and it required a lot of work to just make feasible, but like with everything else Star Force did they chipped away at the problem until they finally got a solution, with it serving the Calavari and Kiritak well to date.

All of Vlad’s troops were on ambrosia, though most of the civilian Calavari were not, just like the Human population. The Kiritak all were, given that they were workers and anyone born into the Kiritak that did not want to be such went back to the Kiritas or into Axius, leaving the entire Kiritak population as energetic little busybodies, made all the more so with their ambrosia that was geared more towards endurance and stamina than the general balance than the Zen’zat variety, which had the same with considerable ‘burst’ added that allowed it to be depleted quite quickly with activity or specialized psionics that directly consumed it.

The Kiritak didn’t have psionics and they weren’t physically strong combat troops, with their strength being in their workload and aversion to sedation. The ambrosia amped that up even more, with the Kiritak always being assigned to doing something and their personal training filling up the balance of their time.

The Calavari were the reverse, with great physical strength that their ambrosia heavily amped up along with a speed burst, giving their muscles compounds to increase contraction speed and endurance, letting the big guys overcome some of their clumsiness, though they were still no match against a Human when it came to agility.

The Elarioni were the most radical, given that they were swimmers. Ariel’s compound had simply been a standard transition from the Zen’zat compound to fit her physiology without Star Force trying to meddle with it. Now that the Elarioni as a race were part of Star Force that hadn’t changed, with their ambrosia formula most notably upping their self-sufficiency rates heavily simply by making it easier to attain.

That boost was also the reason why the Kiritak were growing by leaps and bounds…for their death rate was almost non-existent.

The Calavari’s sluggishness was a hindrance to self-sufficiency, making it harder for them to attain but still feasible with proper training. Some races were simply more energetic than others by default, which got them closer without trying, but all could attain self-sufficiency if they wanted to work at it…but unfortunately a lot didn’t.

Vlad’s troops were all self-sufficient, but the Calavari civilians were not. At present it was estimated that some 12% were, based on those reaching an age that those without typically would not. Aside from the medical devices in the pyramid there was no way to test for self-sufficiency, other than to keep living and not growing old.

Then there were some who attained self-sufficiency early on and grew tired of the training and chose not to continue. The body adapted to everything you did and did not do, meaning that if you wanted greater strength you had to keep using it. It wasn’t an attainment that would last forever, and necessarily so for that ‘loss’ allowed you to customize your body in new ways by undoing what you’d previously done.

That’s why stagnation was so dangerous, for you were undoing your strength but not building up any new ones. Granted, it would take Vlad a very long time to lose the amount of strength he’d gained from centuries of training, but getting in a good workout now would start to reverse the downward slide he was already experiencing, which was why he headed straight to the tiny sanctum and got to work right away with a good long run.

He was alone in the sanctum, for there were no other Archons up here at the moment, but that didn’t bother Vlad for he was well accustomed to solo training. Some others preferred having training partners but this Archon felt it was a distraction, a healthy one at times, but when you transitioned from a partner back to solo you often were left with a lackluster period of time until you readjusted. Because of that Vlad preferred to always train solo and focus on pressing his own limits rather than comparing himself to others.

He didn’t need a rabbit to chase, for his motivation was internal…something that most people in the galaxy lacked. Star Force was designed to offer incentives everywhere, and it worked, but at the end of the day you were either a badass or you weren’t, and a badass didn’t need incentive to do workouts.

Vlad also preferred the empty sanctum, for while he got along with the Calavari well they were not up to his level, in any way, and he preferred the isolation so he didn’t have anything else to compare with. When with the Calavari he felt totally superior, which he was, but here, in the sanctum, it was just him and himself…and for the first time since his last visit did he realize just how rusty his body had gotten.

A rusty Archon could still kick a Calavari’s ass, but take away that dominance and Vlad was just left with a body that was desperately in need of workouts. He kept his narrow perspective focused on himself and got three days’ worth of exhausting workouts in, so much so that he woke up the last day wobbly legged, but knowing that his duties down on the planet would offer up plenty of time to rest.

When he boarded the dropship and began the descent he pulled out a datapad and got up to date on what had been occurring the past 3 days, for he hadn’t been monitoring anything during his training, keeping his focus squarely where it should be. Now that he was back he was totally invested in the fighting and the Calavari…plus the Protovic where he could help them out. In fact they were prepping for an attack on another subsurface lizard facility, which he knew they’d need an Archon for.

Once he got back to the command center he contacted them and walked them through the various traps the lizards had in their most recent fight, then volunteered himself to take point more than a week later. Before that happened, though, he launched another attack on the remains of a lizard surface colony, which included subsurface sections, with the Calavari. After cleaning it out he transitioned back to base for a few hours then headed over to the Protovic to assist them.

And so it went on, with Vlad bouncing from one fight to another, knowing that his psionics were badly needed to counter the lizards’ traps. Even though they were beaten, the enemy was going to strike out at the Calavari and Protovic at every opportunity until they were all dead, meaning that up until the planet was cleared of them Vlad was going to be needed constantly, for he didn’t intend to lose any of his people by getting sloppy.

To that end he took point whenever he could, resolving himself to catch up on his training afterwards, for while his body could recover lost fitness he couldn’t bring back the dead.

10

September 3, 2643

Epsilon Eridani System

Corneria

Kerrie sat in a waiting lounge at the spaceport as her dropship was finishing loading when a ‘click, click, click’ series of footsteps approached from behind her. Without needing to look or even use her psionics she knew it was Mavrel, their H’kar ambassador of sorts.

“Yes?” she asked without turning from the observation window where she had her feet propped up on the rim.

“You are hard to sneak up on,” Mavrel said in heavily accented English.

“You should try putting some sound dampening nubs on your…contact points,” she said, not sure what to call his ‘feet’ because they were little more than hardened points…all four of them. “Your exoskeleton is noisy on our hard floors.”

“That is why H’kar have soft floors,” he said, walking around the long sofa and into the trailblazer’s view. “You are about to depart?”

“Yes I am. I thought you had already gone.”

“Our fleet will not leave until yours does, so there is no rush. I wanted to speak with you again.”

“Concerning what?”

“I am still not convinced this plan will work.”

“I thought the Nexus and your leadership approved of it?”

“They have given their approval, but I do not see the wisdom in it. I was hoping you could kill those concerns.”

“What is there that we haven’t already discussed?”

“I do not see how we can do enough damage to matter.”

Kerrie sighed. “Someone a long time ago once said that before you can stop a moving ship you must first slow it down. We aren’t planning on defeating the Li’vorkrachnika, just diminishing their ability to spread.”

“And we can do that, but I fail to see how it will lead to an eventuality that is favorable to us.”

“The Li’vorkrachnika are used to being on the offensive, hitting where and when they like. We’ve evened that out around the ADZ and they’re not so tough when we get to pick the battlefield and the amount of forces we bring to the fight. If we get too defensive we give them the advantage.”

“Yet our numbers are so few compared to theirs.”

“Our combined tech level is far superior. We should be able to make ship kills without losing our own.”

“I fail to see how that is possible, though I know you have a history of doing so.”

“That’s why the Nexus wanted to learn from us,” Kerrie said pithily.

“Which is why I think they authorized our presence here. They want to learn more, but I see no chance of doing effective damage to the enemy.”

“You think this is just a training exercise rather than real battle?”

“The combat will be real, but the campaign will not. We have no objective to attain.”

“Kill a lot of the enemy.”

“To what end?” Mavrel said, clicking his mandibles together over his mouth with a triple tap.

Kerrie stared at him and probed into his mind, trying to get a feel for what he was getting at. Inside the hard carapace that covered his awkward body was a sense of hopelessness, minor at this point given that his race was protected by the Nexus, but he had no hope of ever defeating the lizards.

“Some people,” Kerrie began to explain, “only know how to fight when they can see all the options and know they’re going to win beforehand. Then there are others who don’t assume to predict the outcome and only focus on what they need to do in the moment. The first type cannot fight a superior opponent, the second can and potentially win. A great deal of combat is based in denying your enemy the fight he wants and making him operate less efficiently than normal. Over time we can wear them down, but there are no guarantees. There are never guarantees. That is something you have to get used to.”

“In my experience, if you go into a fight you are not confident that you will win you end up wasting troops and resources.”

“For many that would be true, but a real warrior knows how to probe and disengage. Only fools fully commit blindly.”

“Yet we are taught that once battle begins we must forcefully apply our full strength or risk defeat through indecisiveness.”

“I would call that reckless. Things can change in battle in only a few seconds. You have to be able to adapt in the moment.”

“Which is something your empire does well, but it is not how H’kar fight.”

“Anyone can learn, given enough time. And you’ll have my fleet and the Voku’s with you to carry the load until you do learn.”

“Yet ours will be far larger.”

“In the beginning, yes. But that’s also why I’m going. So I can adapt for you.”

“And we are grateful for your inclusion. I just do not feel that this endeavor will come to a beneficial conclusion.”

“You never know how a fight will go down before you start, and anyone who says otherwise is asking the bad luck monkey for an upset.”

“Mon…kie?”

“A metaphor we use. It’s a fictitious person who exists to sabotage you with bad luck at every opportunity.”

“You have many metaphors in your language. It has been difficult to learn.”

“You’ve done well.”

“It was necessary, for we have no means of other communication.”

“That’s a problem we’ve had to face here as well. So many different languages end up hindering communication. We operate with two, one for our empire and the more common one that most races in this region use. It’s a commerce language but we’re trying to replace it with English over time.”

“Then it is good that I have learned most of it.”

“How many do the Nexus have?”

“Many, but one that binds us all. I have learned 6 in total over my years.”

“I can read 14 and speak 5, though I’ve had a lot more years to learn than you have.”

Mavrel stepped forward and turned around, sitting down on the couch with his spindly legs sticking forward like spears…and just as deadly if someone tripped and fell into them.

“I keep forgetting your longevity. Most H’kar do not live half as long.”

“Why haven’t you attained self-sufficiency?”

“I have learned that word, but there is no translation. Our lifespans are default. We cannot train as you do. Our bodies are not built for it.”

“Bullshit,” Kerrie said, staring at him during a brief pause. “Are you familiar with that term?”

“No.”

“It means what you just said isn’t true in any way, shape, or form and is reserved for extreme cases of stupidity. You can train, you just don’t know how.”

“You do not know as much of us as you think you do.”

“We currently have 273 different races in Star Force, most are wards that we care for, but a lot of them have said basically the same thing. It took some time and modification on the part of our trainers, but we found a way for all of them to reach self-sufficiency. It’s just a question of whether the individual is willing to work to attain it, and then maintain it. Sadly most are too lazy to do either.”

“We are not lazy. Our energy reserves are low. We have long, sustained effort at minimal levels or short bursts of intense action, but we do not have the stamina for your type of training.”

“Humans don’t either, in the beginning. You have to develop it. Look at me, I wasn’t anywhere near this powerful when I first joined Star Force. I was a pathetic weakling…still better than the other pathetic weaklings…but I was so squishy I have trouble even remembering what it was like. You can’t expect instant results. And now suddenly I think I understand your problem.”

“What problem?”

“Your concerns about this upcoming campaign. You can’t handle facing the unknown. You need some tangible results to work towards. You can’t get your mind set to fight simply to fight…or train simply to train. Tell me, have none of the H’kar achieved self-sufficiency?”

“We have not.”

“They call me a trailblazer because I will push into the unknown and learn new things that I can then teach to others, either directly or by example. I’m starting to think that once you guys start spending a lot of time with us you’ll advance rather quick.”

“I do not understand.”

“You need a battle plan to follow. Without one you’re totally lost. You can’t see a way to beat the Li’vorkrachnika and you can’t see a way to train so you don’t try. If you watch us you’ll see us doing it and then you’ll have something to pattern off of.”

“Even if you are correct about the battles we will jointly fight, we will not be witnessing any of your training. We will be on our own ships.”

“I wouldn’t mind a side project.”

The H’kar shook his pointy head. “I do not wish this.”

“If any of the others do, please tell me.”

“Agreed, but we cannot eat your food,” Mavrel said with some hilarity.

“We’ve made food for countless races, I think we can manage a few new items.”

“I will pass the offer along, but I do not think you will receive a response.”

“Don’t your infantry train?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t they attained self-sufficiency?”

“Our bodies are not suited for it.”

“Bullshit,” Kerrie said softly.

“It is a fact of our race.”

“I’m never going to accept that.”

“You do not have to.”

Kerrie sighed. “I always enjoy our conversations. You’re so optimistic.”

“After a long history of lost wars, optimism is not something the H’kar have much of.”

“Time to change that.”

Mavrel flexed his binary arm, which was more of a claw, and tapped his leg with both sharp points making loud clicks. “How you have survived I do not understand.”

“Watch and learn,” Kerrie said as her earpiece activated and she slid her feet off the window trim and back to the floor. “My dropship is ready to go. I guess we’ll be talking via hologram from now on.”

“Yes,” he said, and Kerrie sensed a gratitude in that sentiment.

“I stink?” she said suddenly, picking up on his thoughts.

“Apparently this is not the first time you have been told so. I was not going to say anything, but Human scent is quite foul.”

Kerrie reflexively tilted her head and sniffed near her armpit…smelling nothing. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Perhaps you are used to your own scent.”

Kerrie frowned at him. “Do other races stink to you, or just Humans?”

“Some do. Most do not. I believe it is your sweat glands.”

Kerrie looked at his hard carapace. “Which you have none of.”

“Of course not. We regulate temperature internally.”

“Well, this stinky Human is going to head to her ship. Remember to pass along that training offer. I’ll write up workouts you can do on your own ships if you want.”

“I will tell the others.”

“Alright,” Kerrie said, standing up and walking around the couch on the opposite side from Mavrel, heading for the door and taking another whiff of her armpit. She walked out of earshot then whispered, “I don’t stink.”

18 hours later Kerrie was aboard the Majestic Dolphin, a Melee-class command ship, as her crew went through final fleet checks. She had 22 Warship-class jumpships with her, full of the latest model naval drones and some of the best remote pilots Star Force had. There were no ground troops aboard the Majestic Dolphin, which had been packed full of cargo in their place, for this first hunting mission into lizard territory was to be naval only. They could bombard planets if they chose, but they were after ships, and not the big ones.

They’d take them if they ran across them, but the task force was primarily interested in hunting cruisers and jumpships. Those are what the lizards had in legion, and those are the kills Kerrie was going to be going after…and the more the better.

But she wasn’t going alone. Sitting in high orbit around Corneria were two Voku conglomerates, but both the number of ‘ships’ they could split into and the drones that Kerrie had paled in comparison to the H’kar fleet sitting mid orbit. There were six of their ‘Hive’ carriers along with thousands of their mainline warships of various models. All were upgraded with low level Nexus tech that gave them a significant advantage over the lizards, it was their battle tactics that were in question.

Kerrie had learned that they were sluggers, and their ships were built for just that purpose. Well armed and armored, but they didn’t know how to retreat or use navigation to their advantage. They just wanted to walk up to a target and blast away…and against the lizards that wasn’t going to work. They were devious bastards and turned the H’kar’s up front combat philosophy against them, but not without a cost. The lizards had to fight them at close range sooner or later, which cost them a lot of ships in the process.

Now that the H’kar had Nexus upgrades the lizards couldn’t beat them short of spamming them with ships…but then again they didn’t have to. They just hit the other worlds around them, grabbing up the easy territory and growing, always growing. Then fielding the spam-level ship numbers wouldn’t be such a hard thing to do.

But this H’kar fleet was going to take its lead from Star Force. The Voku were involved because, well, their ships were superior to both of the others and if you were going on a hunting expedition you wanted as much firepower and speed as you could get. Kerrie expected them to move as a single fleet most of the time, perhaps splitting up occasionally but hitting their targets with overwhelming numbers that would make it difficult for the lizards to flee. The Voku had already volunteered for stellar ward duty, which left Kerrie and the H’kar with the job of hitting their planets and tearing them apart.

That had seemed a little off the wall when Paul had first suggested it to her, but he and Cal-com had been going over and forming this plan for years and he quickly explained that while the first few attacks might be better with the Voku up front, the lizards would learn from survivors what was happening and choose to run rather than fight and lose…which meant in order to kill as many as possible you had to have a backdoor guard and the Voku tech was best suited to that.

That was the plan, anyway. What would actually happen once they started to dive deep into lizard territory and hit them where they weren’t expecting was anyone’s guess. Kerrie felt they’d be able to stay mobile and survive even if something went horribly wrong because they wouldn’t be tied down to defending or assaulting any planets. That and they had binary drives and the lizards didn’t, fortunately, though that wasn’t going to last forever.

So it was going to be hit and run for at least the next two years. Nobody would know where they were going, nor did Kerrie, because they would decide on the go and be as random and unpredictable as possible. Paul had likened the hunting fleets, of which this would be the first of many to come down the road, to what the Black Knight had done to them during their basic training.

That had immediately sold Kerrie, for she remembered well how much of a menace he had been…and a lot of it had been because they never knew when or where he would pop up. Their Final Challenge had been different, because they had come to him, otherwise she doubted they would have ever graduated.

Well, maybe not ‘ever,’ but it would have been a whole other matter to deal with.

Once the fleet checks were in Kerrie contacted both the H’kar and Voku, getting confirmation that they were ready to move out. The three fleets, which in the Voku’s case was only two enormous ships, all made their way out of planetary orbit to the star and transitioned over to a jumpline that would head them in the direction of Zeta Region and eventually what had formerly been Calavari territory.

Kerrie sent her warships ahead first, then jumped the Majestic Dolphin out a few seconds behind them, leaving the much larger H’kar fleet to gradually transition through their jumps with the Voku bringing up the rear. Though they hadn’t let the H’kar in on the fact, Star Force and the Voku were going to look out for their new ally and babysit them to the max until they learned the ropes. It was odd saying that about a race that had been fighting the lizards for longer than they had, but it had become clear that virtually all opponents the lizards faced eventually lost out, which Star Force being the shining exception.

That was why the Nexus had wanted to watch and learn from them, and that’s why they approved the H’kar coming here. Kerrie wanted them to learn, but more than that she just wanted their firepower in the here and now. Star Force was building more infrastructure than ships at present, but they were gradually increasing their fleet numbers to a level that would be able to sport multiple hunting fleets, but until that happened she had to work with what she got, even if it was the ‘green’ H’kar.

Their fleet was formidable, but their recent experience against the lizards showed them to be little more than seasoned newbs. She and the Voku would watch their back as they learned, then hopefully down the road they could take that experience back to their territory and apply pressure on the lizards from there.

But that was well into the future, and as she’d explained to Mavrel nothing was guaranteed. Right now they just needed to find lizard ships and work on their kill count…then see where it went from there.

Empire

1

April 8, 2652

Baarg System (Beta Region)

Keeson

Larry Vich was sitting in his office looking out the panoramic window down into the valley when the comm tone sounded, bringing him out of another of his daydreaming sessions. The Administrator spun around in his chair, seeing a holographic prompt. He reached out to his desk and touched the button accepting the call, with the image of another Human popping up above his wide desk.

“I just finished compiling the recent numbers,” his counterpart from region 18 said with a light smirk on her face, “and you were right.”

“I usually am.”

“But you weren’t right about the source,” she quickly corrected him. “It was D flock.”

Larry frowned, his pleasure with being right now tinged with confusion. The former Lacvamat capitol world that they were tasked with managing pieces of had been in Star Force’s care for some time now, but not long enough to do a thorough job of reworking the infrastructure and civilization up to their standards. Humans still held all the important positions, with the fleshy fliers working their way up the learning curve and having to earn their place.

Most hadn’t cared early on until Davis had instituted the ‘flock’ program, which was a reorganization unique to the Lacvamat. While Star Force still had the individual advancement possibility woven into the design, most of the Lacvamat didn’t care to act unless it favored a group, hence they’d been given group advancements. That was atypical of Star Force but with each race they added, whether as member, ward, or mainstay, peculiarities had to be troubleshooted.

Technically right now the Lacvamat were a ward of the empire, but they weren’t being treated as such. Rather they were being reorganized and grown into what would one day be a mainstay, similar to the Calavari or Kiritak, and in order to make them a feasible addition their race had to be integrated into the whole…which always came with challenges.

For the Lacvamat that was double trouble because they weren’t bipeds. Most of their movement occurred through flight, though they did have two fairly thick, short legs they could hop around on. Those legs doubled as hands with some precision talons on them that could grab or manipulate controls, but designing infrastructure for such a race varied differently than for Humans, and blending both together was far more difficult than, say, blending the needs of the Calavari with Humans.

As far as the societal aspect was concerned the original Lacvamat were definitely routed in a ‘group think’ that the maturias had virtually eliminated, but without that cultural hive mind the individual Lacvamat were lazier than most species. There were always exceptions, but on average the fliers just weren’t cutting it, then Davis had instituted the flocks and so far that had seemed to cure the problem.

The flocks were not made up of bloodlines, but were rather talent pools. One had to earn their way into a flock through individual merit, but after that point they worked together for a myriad of things short of full autonomy. Davis had made it clear that he didn’t want the competition factor overemphasized to the point of division, but rather to keep it friendly and constructive.

Each Lacvamat world that Star Force now possessed was split into regions that had unique flocks within them, each of which amounted to as little as 200 or as many as 10,000 Lacvamat. Every one had a specific purpose with none being self-sufficient, but rather tasked with a tiny piece of the overall planetary puzzle. Each region was redundant and able to fully support itself, if not also assist others in times of need.

Larry had been having discussions with Nadie as to how production quotas were going to fare for years, with both Administrators being able to call outcomes before they occurred. Recently Larry had suggested that in one of their neighboring regions, number 13 to be precise, there was going to be a quota overage in the production of iron ore. Nadie had disagreed, suggesting that they’d just barely scrape by in the six month cycle, which she now had admitted was a mistake.

But the confusing thing to Larry was that, while he had apparently been right about the numbers, he had been wrong as to which flock had given region 13 the boon.

Each assignment, such as a mining operation in a given facility, would have several flocks attached to it. Each would be working alongside one another, some during different shifts, others simultaneously, but never working together. The output was measured independently for each flock and scores were assigned. In this case it was D flock that had kicked the overall mining site production well over their expected quota, which was merely a loose figure that the local facility was shooting for.

Flock D for this facility was the oldest flock in the grouping and had been in ownership of the top spot for some time. They always hit their quotas and little more, earning points for the flock that gave them upgrades to their status. Throughout Star Force civilians were assigned luxuries based on statuses that they earned or could purchase with credits, but those statuses were always individualized. With the Lacvamat flocks they were not, with the entire group rising or falling with the others.

This ‘team’ advancement was the first for Star Force, which valued the individual above all other concepts, but in the Lacvamat’s case it was working to provide them the motivation they needed. That said, D flock at the facility in question had always been steady and reliable, doing what they needed but never going over the top, which was why Larry didn’t understand how they could have been the ones to push his estimates to fruition.

“What about B?”

“Just over par,” she said with some mirth.

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s certainly unusual, but with the new A flock coming in perhaps the vets wanted to lay the law down.”

“That’s not how they think.”

“Well, whatever the reason, D came through for you and you won this round. I just get the satisfaction of knowing it was by accident. Any news happening on your end?”

“Same old, same old.”

“How close are you on that spaceport?”

“Still another 2 months before it goes partially online, what with these damn aerial patterns.”

“Definitely one of the challenges of living here. Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to gloat.”

“Like I’ll miss that.”

Larry nodded. “Yes, we’re still on, and I’ll grant you a tie on this one.”

“No, it may have been a sloppy prediction, but it still came out to be true. Take your luck and run with it.”

“Alright, have it your way. 2 shot lead.”

“Three, actually,” Nadie said with some dissatisfaction.

“They came in that far over quota?”

“Ye….ep,” his fellow Administrator said with some shame as she cut the transmission, leaving Larry alone again in his office.

Curiosity got the better of him and he dug into the planetary files to search out the production records she was referring to. They were recent, having been filed within the past 6 hours, and showed that the mining site in question had registered a 6 month production quota at 278%.

That blew his mind, not because he hadn’t seen numbers like that before, but because of the location and those involved. He’d expected the newer 2 flocks to up their game and put the lagging facility ahead on this cycle but he had not expected so much. Since he’d taken the over on this one the higher the number went the more credit he got for it with Nadie on their regular ‘dates’ as he liked to think of them, though there was nothing romantic involved. It was just a chance to spend some time with a peer on a planet full of aliens.

Their dates were part work, part games with them picking two or three activities to do over the course of a day while chatting. They necessarily had to be low effort to accommodate the conversation, and the first of which they had planned was hologolf, in which his prediction had earned him a bit of a head start. It was one of the games available in an entertainment chamber, rather than a ‘real’ game that left physics to the universe instead of computer simulation, but the luxury of being able to pull up over 300 premade competitions inside a bland, somewhat small room had its benefit for those that weren’t overly concerned with competition and just wanted to play to blow off some steam or hang out.

There were other Humans here, of course, but only a handful of administrators and Larry liked to spend time with his peers whenever he could. Nadie was the closest of them, being located in the region to the north and only a short hop away by dropship or a longer ride by train, but all of the Administrators could get to one another without too much trouble or delay and keep some semblance of community on the otherwise bizarre planet…one that they were attempting to convert into semi-bizarreness.

Larry swiveled his chair around so he could look back out the window. The cityscape below him was Star Force, telltale from the grid layout and the material of the buildings, but what varied was the high, needle-thin spires rising up from the center of the city and the mass of buildings clinging to the far canyon wall. They were built vertically, such as his office was on the opposite side, connected by a carpet of structures between the two with a smattering of spires in the center.

That wasn’t typical Star Force, but it wasn’t that far outside their normal motif. The bizarre thing about it was the aerial traffic that had the open air within the canyon filled with the Lacvamat moving around. Instead of taking internal lift cars or walking down hallways they flew everywhere, making the cityscape below more of an outdoor interior than true buildings, where the roads doubled as topless hallways.

There were enclosed structures, of course, but when one wanted to move from point to point they came out to the roof and flew over to the next location, meaning that all of the structures had to be thin and accessible to the air, with none of the big, hulky city-buildings that Star Force favored elsewhere.

Larry and the other Humans moved about conventionally, for it was Star Force infrastructure and therefore accommodating Humans and others with subsurface rail lines and lift cars. Not far off down the canyon, where the exit of the river that flowed down the now artificial center met up with a spindly little lake, there was a large plain sitting in the middle of the otherwise varied terrain. There construction was still continuing, with the most notable feature being a spaceport…but unlike most Star Force spaceports this one wasn’t being constructed on the ground.

It looked like a giant mushroom rising high up into the sky and spreading out laterally, leaving a thick central stalk supporting it then an umbrella outstretch that allowed the Lacvamat fliers to move across the surface beneath the starship traffic so they wouldn’t cross paths. The Lacvamat could fly to considerable height, but Larry and the others had found that giving them an altitude free of craft that they could move about through without worry saved a lot of hassle…or rather it had been an Archon that had devised that little tidbit and passed it onto them, for he was technically in charge of the entire Lacvamat race.

But it was Administrators like Larry that held everything together, with the planning and building of individual cities to consider. The Archons would come in, change this or that, then leave again to put out any procedural and societal brush fires that popped up, but it was the Administrators that stayed in place and made sure everything progressed smoothly, for that was their function. Sometimes what the Archons wanted was a pain in the ass to do, but he’d never met one who had given orders just to yank someone’s chain and there was always a reason for what they did, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious.

But on this planet he’d been left mostly alone. It had been the Lacvamat capitol before but, on the call of an Archon, that designation had been stripped from it and moved to another location. Keeson was still heavily populated, as far as the aerial race was concerned, though the layout of the cities was very thin and almost underpopulated compared to the Star Force norm. That was necessary, given there was only so much sky space, and while the Lacvamat could navigate in large groups fairly easily the Administrators had learned not to get them too packed together, for when they all had different directions to go the ‘group think’ of the Lacvamat kind of misfired and chaos broke out.

Get them all going in the approximate same direction or with the same purpose and they could swarm through the air with ease, but the somewhat regulated flight patterns of the low altitudes within the cities defied that theme to a degree, though there were long, thick columns of fliers all heading the same way on what looked like roads in the air from Larry’s window.

Little specs would split off from them and fly through the open spaces in between, coming down or up to one of the spires or surface buildings where they needed to go. It was those transitions especially that caused trouble in greater numbers, but with proper city planning and population monitoring the Star Force Lacvamat cities functioned and functioned well, though there were always opportunities to improve.

Some 160 miles to the south was one of the temporary habitats Star Force had set up some time ago to house the Lacvamat population while the true cities were being built, and those temporary sites had been constructed in order to move people out of the original Lacvamat structures, which were now all decommissioned and in the last stages of recycling the materials. The temporary habitats would stay up until all of the Lacvamat could fit within the cities, then Larry and the others would begin expanding more slowly to suit their growth needs. Right now, however, they were building as fast as they could just to give everyone a place to live.

Which was why the maturias were slowing reproduction rates to a steady trickle. The Lacvamat reproduced through eggs, giving Star Force the ability to firmly control population rates as opposed to live births because the eggs had to be externally fertilized. Originally, unsanctioned reproduction had been a minor problem, but virtually all of those Lacvamat that had been born through the maturias accepted Star Force’s mandates and didn’t try to circumvent them. It was those that had lived prior to the annexation that were showing defiance, and while there weren’t a lot of them left due to the war and subsequent attrition there were always some problems with the dissenters, but at least it seemed they’d given up on trying to breed off the grid.

Most of them just sat and rotted away in their habitats, ironically cleansing the planet of the problem they represented. Some had converted over, but most stubbornly refused to help their ‘conquerors’ and were gradually fading away from the social consciousness. The planet and their race were Star Force now, with that becoming more so every day and with every subsequent generation being hatched and trained in maturia, but there was still a lot of work to be done before the Lacvamat could take their place as peers within Star Force, for right now without the Human Administrators and other ‘support staff’ the Lacvamat civilization would quickly fall into shambles.

They weren’t ready to be independent yet, not in any way, shape, or form, but they were gradually making progress and most of those Larry interacted with now could speak English, which was a blessing, for his trade language was not in a comfortable sound range for his vocal chords. It always was a chore to pronounce, but with the conversion taking place on the planet and the Lacvamat becoming more and more Star Force, English began to take over as well, allowing normal speech that he was grateful for.

The Lacvamat had their own dialect, of course, but it was easy to get used to given that they’d learned it from Human trainers and holo recordings. It was the non-maturia raised natives that spoke it with an almost garbled tone, and that gave him some considerable difficulty in understanding them, but he rarely dealt with those individuals anymore now that he’d accumulated a moderately sized staff of Lacvamat that he could rely on to do basic tasks. Over time that staff would grow in number and experience, but it was going to be a long haul indeed.

He’d learned early on that he needed breaks to refresh his Humanity, or more accurately to refresh his ‘Star Force.’ That wasn’t a proper term but it was the only one he had, for when dealing with the Lacvamat and trying to pull them into the massive organization he was likewise pulling himself out of it a bit, being blended with their bad habits and tendencies as he battled them.

So it was days like the next, when he met up with Nadie and the pair took the day off from duty, going far away from the Lacvamat and retreating down into levels where they didn’t typically go to get away from their charges and recharge their Star Force batteries. As planned they hit up the entertainment facility, playing through two rounds of simulated golf by smacking the real little projectile and having the computer calculate its movements even as a force field caught it only a few meters away.

After golf it was damough, then tennis, followed up lastly by a lazy game of holographic cards in a private hot tub as they soaked the alien influences out of them. Through it all they exchanged information, plans and concerns, turning the ‘fun’ day also into a business one, but that was just who they were. Administrator wasn’t a job you did during the day and walked away from at night, it was a position with round the clock responsibilities and while they might take time to blow off some steam and recharge, they were always Administrators and when they chitchatted it usually came back to the work at hand.

After quick, separate showers they had food brought in for them and they spent the evening on a rooftop deck watching Larry’s city as the twin suns slowly set over the far canyon wall and the nighttime lights replaced them, twinkling as tiny Lacvamat would fly by in the dark and cause the distant lights to blink in and out almost as if they were silent fireworks going off.

The breeze felt good and the pair sat in silence, taking one last break from the Lacvamat while still observing them, almost as if in transition back into their world and out of the tiny bubble they’d retreated into. Bringing a race into Star Force was no easy task, and if one wasn’t careful they’d lose themselves in the process. This had been underscored many times by the Archons and even Larry’s superiors. He hadn’t understood initially, but now saw the wisdom in their warnings.

He had to stay Star Force in order to bring the Lacvamat into it. It wasn’t a trade off or merger, they had to come fully in with Larry not budging an inch. That was the only way they would truly become part of the empire, and it was the only way to keep the Administrators and other personnel on planet from being corrupted, for like it or not, those you spent time with had an effect on you, and the weaker minds would often begin to emulate their environment.

Larry’s mind wasn’t weak, but he also wasn’t an Archon. That said, a little recharge like today was enough to keep him on track and come tomorrow morning he’d be ready to go at it again and bring the Lacvamat one more baby step closer to truly being a part of Star Force.

2

April 28, 2652

Sului System (Beta Region)

Favrrcor

Gam’len’wex ran through the small stream, kicking up water as the Scionate bounded across in only eight footfalls, with the latter two sinking into the mud on the bank and slowing him as he ran up the short incline and back onto the trail he was following. The quadruped wore no armor nor shoes, clothed only in a thin torso vest that had holes for his neck, legs, and tail…the Scionate equivalent of a body suit.

Behind him others followed, staggered a few seconds apart, with two on ahead of Gam’len’wex as the group crossed through the still wild regions of the planet that Star Force was rebuilding for them. They owed the great empire a debt they felt they could never repay, and had been working hard the past 6 years to prove their worth after hearing the stories of how their forbearers had so dishonored themselves.

Gam’len’wex had not been born at that time, but he’d learned from others what had truly transpired. The records Star Force had available to the maturias were incomplete, and it wasn’t until Gam’len’wex had graduated and met others who had lived through that era that he’d learned the truth.

The Scionate had never been a united people, with constant dissention and battling amongst themselves over various matters. When the war to fight the attack by the Lacvamat began they were united in the obvious sentiment to defend themselves, but how they did so and the subsequent counterattacks they made were not universally supported. By the end of the war those frustrated and ignored Scionate that had argued for a saner course of action had an opportunity presented to them when Star Force and the other major powers punished the Scionate for their actions by taking a number of systems from them.

The fools had fought back, which cost them further, reducing the Scionate’s holdings down to only two systems, each of which had a Star Force presence in it acting like a leash to monitor the behavior of the dishonorable. The Lacvamat had lost all of their systems due to their actions, but given that the Scionate acted mostly in self-defense their autonomy was not stripped from them. They did, however, have to relocate their populations from the confiscated worlds into those they retained, with anyone staying behind falling under Star Force jurisdiction.

Many of the original bloodlines that did not need to evacuate because they were based in the capitol system sought out Star Force and asked to arrange a deal in which they would be allowed to come over to the Star Force worlds regardless of how many Scionate decided to stay behind, for they were sick of the way Scionate society operated and felt that, in addition to a form of penance for the bad decisions their kin had made, their sense of honor could be better satisfied as part of the Humans’ empire.

Ironically those bloodlines were one of the first things to be disbanded by the Star Force conversion, with Gam’len’wex having been born to parents that were unknown to him. He’d been raised in a maturia and had no idea what former bloodline he belonged to, nor did he care, for the new Scionate, the Star Force Scionate, did not think in such terms. They were a united people who, regardless of whether they were new born or converted, were committed to growing their small race into a military force capable of assisting the rest of Star Force and earning their keep.

Gam’len’wex had also learned that the conversion of the originals did not go smoothly, for Star Force had to break them of many bad habits…but they had been willing to try, and that willingness had set them apart from other races, they’d been told, with the Scionate taking to the Star Force ways far more quickly than others once they got past the first few transitional bumps. They were adapting so rapidly, it was said that they were being fast tracked towards higher status within the empire, even more so than the Scionate within Axius.

Therein lie part of their success, he was told, for Scionate maturia already existed within Axius and did not have to be constructed from scratch. The same was true of military equipment designed for the Scionate, though they’d taken it up a notch as they designed modifications along with the Star Force Archons and techs. Right now there were 3 large Scionate units dispatched to field work, with a fourth being formed that Gam’len’wex hoped to join.

Two of those units were holding defensive positions on the border, freeing up other more veteran Star Force troops to move into actual combat theatres, though if attacked the Scionate would have more than enough action to sate them. They were not safe by any means, but they were holding guard over valuable sites and facilities, something that Star Force hadn’t been willing to trust to others. There were many races within Star Force that had military capability, but most were not permitted placements on the front, even those that had been in the empire for several hundred years.

That made the defensive placements quite an honor, especially for a race so new to Star Force, but there was one unit, their most elite, that was operating beyond the borders of the ADZ and assisting Star Force in taking worlds from the lizards. That fascinated Gam’len’wex more than anything, and he desperately hoped that in time he would be able to join that unit or another, which was why he and the others were working so hard in the advanced training group that was blessed with an Archon as trainer.

And his workouts did not disappoint, which heavily focused on running…the one major advantage the Scionate had over the Humans, for they were far faster than most of them. That was a basic fundamental of quadruped motion, at least those with flexible joints. Even the small quadruped races were faster than their bipedal counterparts, on average, and the Archon wanted the ‘full sized’ Scionate to amp up their speed as much as possible so they could be a new asset for Star Force to utilize rather than just a redundant replication of other races’ capabilities.

That was why Gam’len’wex and the others were running without armor, for this training exercise was all about speed and endurance sustained over rough, unpredictable terrain. The trail was one he’d ran before, but it was so long that there was no way he was going to be able to memorize it after only a few runs, leaving nearly every twist and turn as a surprise, not to mention changes in the forest that occurred naturally.

They were covering ground quickly, with his legs already burning after just 20 kilometers. That was due to their pace and the climbing they were forced to do. The trail took them up and over every little hill there was to be found, almost as if it had been cut out in such a way to maximize difficulty, but that hadn’t been the case. Rather it was a run from one training base to another, with the lay of the geography running perpendicular to the path, resulting in the up and down rollercoaster of a trail run that Gam’len’wex found incredibly challenging.

But then again what wasn’t here? He’d been told specifically that this group was designed to give the worthy few a short cut to combat assignments, and that they’d have to endure a lot of stress in order to prove their readiness whereas the normal progression path would be more gradual, taking decades at minimum, with many Humans taking more than 100 years before they got posted to the front.

There was a need for more troops, as many as they could get, but Star Force wasn’t going to let anyone go who would be a liability, forcing individuals and races to prove themselves time and again before they would be trusted not to get themselves killed and give the enemy an opportunity to poke its way into the ADZ. The fact that the Archons were even giving the Scionate this opportunity for a fast track was a great honor, and Gam’len’wex had quickly realized that great honor came with great responsibility within Star Force, and this training group did not disappoint.

More than half of the original group that was here when Gam’len’wex arrived had washed out, by their own choice, for they couldn’t handle the intensity. None of them had quit, but rather went back to the standard training programs and the ‘slow’ track. Those that remained were supplemented with new recruits every now and then, but those weren’t put with Gam’len’wex on his workouts. Those few Scionate with him now were half of the most experienced ones, but even they were still several years away from the benchmarks set down by the Archon.

Those called for running skills far beyond what Gam’len’wex had now, and what blew his mind was that those numbers came from the fastest of the Archons. The Scionate had to prove they were faster, amongst other things, and there was no way he could ever see a biped moving as fast as he was now, let alone faster.

Their Archon was fast enough, and had come with them on some of their early runs when they were still slow, after which he’d teased them about getting beat by a biped. That had aggravated Gam’len’wex more than the others and he’d worked a little bit harder in response, but even today there were still Humans out there faster than him, though not on this planet.

The Archon was monitoring their progress from afar, with a tiny ear clip on each of the Scionate that doubled as an emergency comm device. It tracked their location for they were moving across terrain where there was still hazardous wildlife and all types of potential dangers from rocks and trees and who knew what else. This wasn’t a typical training session in a controlled environment, this was a cross country run, literally, so there needed to be some type of backup in case something bad happened.

But that was just typical Star Force procedure, looking out for the odd ball situation. Right now the only threat to the Scionate was the physical fatigue they were suffering from as they came up to their next check point.

It was little more than a tracking archway, but when Gam’len’wex came up to it he saw the colored energy shield that he was meant to run through shining a pale green almost to the point of being clear. That meant he was just ahead of schedule, for the darker the green the bigger the lead he had. If it shifted over to yellow then he would have been slightly behind pace, with red indicating that he was slower than the minimum requirement, which would end in a challenge fail if he didn’t speed up.

Pale green was a relief, for he wasn’t sure how much he’d slowed over the past kilometer. He could judge his pace off the others, but if the leader was slow then the rest would be and he hadn’t felt like they’d been dragging him along as fast as they should. Tired as he was, he realized he’d been doing better than he’d thought.

Just on the other side of the archway he saw Hef’met’ka standing beside the trail taking a breather. It wouldn’t last long, for his turn keeping pace was over and now Gam’len’wex was second in line. Hef’met’ka would wait to fall into last position and just try to stay with the group while the new leader set and tried to maintain the desired pace, allowing others to just focus on the moment and the sound of the footfalls ahead of them.

It made a difference, not having to worry about how fast you were going and just keeping with the guy ahead of you, but one more kilometer up the trail and it would be Gam’len’wex’s turn to lead, and then he would have to worry, for there was no way to measure speed other than by feel, and with the terrain being so erratic you had to make constant adjustments, keeping the long, boring run anything but.

The Scionate never had the ability to just settle in and relax, with the trail forcing them to be agile and evasive nonstop as they made their way across the countryside, passing from one checkpoint to another until they finally reached their destination and the forest ended, giving them a sprint across level ground to the final archway set inside the training base.

All the Scionate grouped up within a few seconds and hammered the last bit three wide, getting up to the final marker that was showing yellow. Their time didn’t record until the last of them made it across, but when he did the final result was tolerable and did count for points, though they were only 22 seconds away from failure.

Gam’len’wex sagged heavily, wanting to lay down but knowing he shouldn’t or he’d get an earful from one of the non-Archon trainers who were waiting for them. His perseverance was rewarded with a light tap on his right shoulder by one of the tall Humans, a small sign of respect as the muddy, water-drenched cats walked their way indoors and to the equipment room where they showered and got dressed in a fresh set of clothes, including the small shoes that felt very good on his now raw foot pads.

But there was no time to rest, or at least sleep, for after a quick stop by the cafeteria Gam’len’wex was sent into a study session, allowing his body to rest while his mind had to soak up yet more data regarding Star Force protocol and tactics, with today’s lesson covering aerial tactics. The Scionate fought off the sleepiness and devoured everything they showed him, knowing he needed to know how each part of the empire’s military forces worked for when/if he would end up fighting alongside them in combat.

After an hour of rest/study he was sent to do some light agility drills then sparring practice, first against the Humans then against other Scionate on loan from Axius. The Humans were tricky, but he did have some advantages he could use and managed to get the best of them a few times, but the Axius Scionate he literally couldn’t touch. They were so fast and experienced that they owned him each attempt unless they deliberately held back to teach him something, which they did most of the time.

Hand to hand was a weakness of quadrupeds, but what they did have was first strike potential given their running speed and pouncing range. Once engaged they didn’t have the leverage that a Human did, with their trainers trying to teach them how to hit and run, then circle back and hit again rather than trying to lock onto an opponent. It was difficult to learn, but with the Axius Scionate there to show them what the Humans were trying to explain helped greatly, though some of the movements required him to think like a biped and that was a transition that he hadn’t fully made yet.

He didn’t want to raise up and expose his belly, for one, and his trainers made him pay for that multiple times with overtop attacks and today was no exception. He knew what he had to do but was still hesitant. Mentally marking that as a place for future improvement he did his best during the rest of the day’s training then eventually retreated back to the cafeteria for a very large last meal, before walking off to his personal den and falling asleep almost immediately.

The next day he would rise and repeat, for that was what was required on the fast track to a combat assignment, with only those wanting it bad enough being able to keep themselves going, and so far Gam’len’wex was hanging in there, taking it one day, one moment at a time, and finding himself growing stronger and faster than he had ever imagined…yet with so far yet to go that it was almost comical.

He’d long ago set aside his concern and trusted in Star Force, for if they could get the Axius Scionate ready then they could do the same for him. With that worry gone he focused on doing his workouts, leaving the big picture to his trainers and thus far that approach had been working well.

Only time would tell how far he got and if he’d have to tap out and take the slow route like many of the others, but for now he was holding par and that’s all that mattered.

3

May 23, 2652

Maxzet System (Epsilon Region)

Mazicc

Admiral Laver watched from his jumpship as the previous intel reports were updated with realtime telemetry. The six locations on the planet’s surface that had been tagged as containing pirate hideouts were indeed registering infrastructure as well as some surface activity at one site. A liftoff was taking place, with the cargo ship in question even now beginning to rise up through the atmosphere to make a run for orbit and, ostensibly, out of the system.

It took a moment for the Australians’ sensors to identify the type of ship, marking it as a Lemickas insystem commerce model, meaning it didn’t have interstellar jump capability. Laver ordered it tracked and followed, but not intercepted. Unless it met up with a jumpship it wasn’t going anywhere and they could deal with it later.

Their mission was to take out the pirate bases on what was otherwise an independent system within the ADZ. The planet was home to a primitive civilization that hadn’t yet achieved space travel and one that had wished to be left alone. Star Force had tagged it as a transit only system, meaning that only passerthroughs were permitted and that the planet itself was off limits, as was the rest of the system.

There were many other systems in the same situation, having fallen within the boundaries of the ADZ and not wanting to have anything to do with the Alliance or the war. Star Force counted them as lucky and left them alone, making sure that others did as well, but those systems in question were regularly targeted as places to get off the Star Force grid and attracted a lot of illicit attention.

The six pirate bases that the Australians had been sent to get rid of had been identified by Star Force security previously, but they hadn’t sent their own team to eradicate them. Often they did, but with so many needs to attend to in the growing ADZ population that was approaching a quadrillion, they often farmed out such duties to other parts of the empire, with the Australians finally being able to step up to the plate and contribute in a significant way.

Admiral Laver had been part of 3 previous campaigns to hunt down pirates, slavers, and other scum from the ADZ, all of which had been under the command of an Archon. This tour, however, he was in sole command. He figured it was due partly to the limited number of the super soldiers and the vast scale of the ADZ that had them going all over the place with significant travel lags in between, but he also knew that his fleet would never have been assigned this duty solo if they weren’t trusted. The previous campaigns had been the Archon using the Australians in lieu of other ships and troops they didn’t currently have available, but it had also been a test.

Apparently one that Laver and the others had passed, for the previous 4 months had been missions similar to this yet lesser in scope that had the Australians dealing with assignments completely without oversight. Most were ship interdictions with a few surface raids, but this was the largest strike given to them yet, with indications that there were thousands of pirates on the planet below that either had to be captured or killed…and he knew from previous experience that pirates didn’t like to go down without a fight.

This lot had been responsible for well over 50 hijackings of starships passing through Epsilon Region, all non Star Force, for the pirates weren’t stupid enough to try and take one of those. No, they preyed on the ever-increasing traffic from the other races in the ADZ, often picking off ships and getting away before anyone even received a distress signal. Star Force did belatedly monitor all transit between inhabited systems and had picked up at least faint sensor recordings of the attacks, along with the jumplines the pirate ships had taken when leaving with their bounty, which was sometimes cargo or passengers, or even entire ships.

There were becoming fewer and fewer places in the ADZ for starships to hide, with virtually every attack that occurred being followed up and those responsible found and dealt with eventually…yet more kept coming as if they didn’t care or didn’t follow the news. It was very difficult to hijack a ship in the ADZ and not have it noticed by Star Force unless you did it insystem, for it was just a computational twitch to match up entry and exit signatures and see if there was an anomaly. If there was, that was red flagged and a closer scrutiny of the sensor logs was taken up, with those in question having led Star Force security to this planet.

They’d done a thorough recon then left the system, noting that the military capability of the pirates was beyond what they could have dealt with on their own, and referring it on to others more suitably equipped. The mission was eventually farmed out to the Australians, which were doing a considerable amount of pirate hunting and other cleaning duties within the ADZ given that they weren’t deemed fit enough yet to take part in combat on the front or beyond.

That still left the Australians sour, but Laver knew that they were being slowly let off the training wheels for a reason. No Archon oversight on this campaign highlighted that, as well as the fact that this strike was way down on the priority list. Still, it had to be done and done soon else they’d let the pirates run rampant in the shadows and that couldn’t be allowed.

Australia was more than happy to step up and contribute, freeing up other Star Force units for higher priority tasks while giving the junior members some greater standing within the ADZ. Previously Australia had been little more than a closet member of Star Force, neatly tucked away where no one could find them, but over time they’d been stepping out and attaining some new colonies of their own. Nothing large, but they were outside the Core Region and allowed them to begin to interact with other parts of the ADZ as the independent entity that they were.

They were still Star Force, there was no disputing that, but within the empire they were a semi-independent piece, similar to the Kiritas but not the Kiritak. Australia had to operate within the boundaries that Davis set for them, but so long as they stayed within the coloring book lines they could paint whatever picture of their society that they wanted. They had taken a lot from standard Star Force protocol but diverged in a number of places, creating a separate identity that many had not liked.

Australia’s current population now ran a little over 3.7 billion, but with an outflow that at some times had exceeded their growth rate. Many individuals born into Australia eventually chose to leave for either Axius or a mainline Star Force colony, finding the pure openness to be more attractive than the somewhat traditionalized Australian society. It had taken a lot of trial and error on the part of Australia’s leaders to keep their population at home, but eventually they began attracting more immigrants than they suffered in losses…and they did so by offering things that the rest of Star Force didn’t allow.

They couldn’t go so far as to legitimize contraband, for that would put them outside the coloring lines, but they did offer alternatives to many people who didn’t like the Star Force take on life, with the biggest selling point being hybrid maturias. Nearly all Australians were born and trained in Star Force standard maturias, or at least the Australian version of such, but eventually a secondary program was instituted for those individuals that wanted, and sometimes loudly protested for, the ability to keep a family connection with their offspring.

What the Australians eventually offered was the ability for a parent or parents to become low level trainers and work in the maturia where their child was present, maintaining a connection to them until they became old enough that they were allowed to live in a separate facility with them during off hours, yet they would still be part of a maturia and all the rigorous training that it required.

That familial connection that the Australians allowed was the first big move the Australians made, with Davis’s approval, away from the typical Star Force model and it attracted so many immigrants that it prompted the Australians to begin reshaping their nation into a Star Force alternative and experimenting with new things to both try and distinguish themselves from the rest of the empire, as well as to attract more immigrants to replace those that were continually leaving.

Semi-independence had its privileges, but it also had its down side as well, with the Australians faced with the risk of losing pretty much their entire nation if too many of their citizens decided to leave. And with the Australians having to make every ship and building themselves, what mainline Star Force colonies offered looked a lot more appetizing to most, hence the push to attract the discontents and offer them up alternatives.

It had been a long process, but eventually Australia had etched out an identity for itself and was now pushing for a greater role within Star Force, with that being them taking on some of the responsibilities of keeping the spacelanes safe and hunting down pirates where others wouldn’t or couldn’t, for most races in the ADZ didn’t care about anyone other than themselves, leaving Star Force and a few others as the guardians of all.

That was a responsibility that Star Force took very seriously, which further indicated that the Australians’ status was increasing given that Laver had been given this solo campaign, low key as it was. This bit of it was going to be a milestone, one way or another, because to date nothing like this had ever gone down without an Archon running the show, and today it was going to be an all Australian affair.

He just hoped everything went smoothly.

“Lock in the drop points and get the transports moving,” the Admiral ordered after watching the track of the ascending transport for a bit. “Deploy the fleet into standard containment formation and inform the planet that we’re here to remove some squatters,” he said, almost word for word mimicking similar orders given by the Archon that he’d worked with in previous years. “Get me air cover preceding our ships and everyone stay alert. We need to bag these guys before they get a chance to run and hide.”

The Australian jumpship wasn’t large, for they’d had to construct it themselves and virtually every ship in their fleet was undersized compared to the mainline Star Force navy. While they had access to nearly all Star Force tech, the more recent and impressive developments were withheld from them until they showed they could master what they’d already been given…and ‘given’ in terms of blueprints rather than actual machinery.

They had tech assistance as well, with many mainline and even Canderous techs helping them design and get their own machinery up and running. Given the necessary disconnect between the two, Australia’s equipment looked and was designed differently than what the mainline troops had, just as Canderous’s differed as well. The Australians didn’t fare well in the comparison, but they did have competent, solid ships that had gone through numerous revisions and upgrades as the most junior member of Star Force slowly cut its teeth on a handful of missions and assignments.

It was aggravating to most Australians how newer members of Star Force got privileges that they didn’t, with the Lacvamat and especially the Scionate being rushed into prominence. It was true that neither of those pieces of the ever growing Star Force empire would be independent, but rather constructed and run by the mainline section just as the Kiritak were. That meant they didn’t have the freedom to experiment and deviate from standard protocol the way Australia did, but they were being given so much in terms of resources and tech that it rubbed many Australians the wrong way.

Laver had once been one of them, but he’d gradually come to see just how juvenile Australia was compared with everyone else as he moved around the ADZ with the Archon, gaining bits of insight here and there and realizing how much the Australians still had to learn. They were like kids being allowed to play in the sandbox, but when it came time for the volleyball match they weren’t allowed to play in the same sand at the same time.

Laver was one of the three highest ranking military officers Australia had, and as such he held a significant voice in their decision making and future planning, with him lecturing the others constantly on how and why they were behind the rest of the empire and even falling behind the other ADZ races. It was simply a matter of drive, for while Australians had everything they needed others did not and were power hungry. That was not necessarily a good thing, but it drove them forward while the Australians metaphorically just laid out in the sun getting a good tan while complaining about not being treated as equals with the rest of Star Force.

What Laver hadn’t originally understood was that all of Star Force was working its butt off in some way or another, while Australia was consumed with the civilian aspect of Earth. Civilians reaped the benefit of others’ hard work, and if Australia wanted to be one of the big dogs they had to get out of the ‘taker’ mentality and start becoming a ‘provider.’ There had been some very long and loud arguments over that point, but eventually Laver and a few others had made their case and several expansion programs had begun to be formed and implemented.

They were still in their infancy right now, but first on the list was an increase in military production. He was pleased with the fleet that he had, and obviously the Archons felt the same otherwise they wouldn’t have been calling on them for duties in recent years, but in overall numbers their fleet was tiny and that had to change.

As he watched from his command chair four pieces of his ‘half-sized’ jumpship broke off, leaving him with a skeleton of a ship between the forward cone and the rear engine compartments. It was still armed and decently shielded, but the jumpship was little more than a mobile command center and not a true warship. Those were being deployed elsewhere in orbit with each carrying its own small drones, none larger than cutter class and most being the equivalent of oversized starfighters.

After those warships broke off from the jumpship and moved out of sight to their assigned positions a series of hatches on the underside of one of the neighboring jumpships opened up and released golf ball-like dropships of decent size that began descending into the atmosphere. Soon the other four did likewise and sprinkled the planet with descent craft carrying the Australian army down to the surface to contend with the pirates up close and in person.

Following them out of the jumpships came, sometime later, squadrons of Australian fighters that dove into the atmosphere and raced to meet up with the slower dropships to give them air cover as they began landing near the six pirate bases. As expected enemy aircraft began to take to the sky and a beehive of activity began to show up on Laver's sensor scans. The pirates weren’t going to go down easy, but he sent a message ahead of the arrival of his forces demanding they stand down and surrender both themselves and all equipment that they had.

The Admiral expected no response, for there usually was none in cases like this, but one of the pirates bothered to reply with a curse-laden spiel accented by various unkind gestures. What otherwise would have been somewhat ironically humorous was anything but given the pure vitriol being displayed. These pirates had no intention of submitting to Star Force and were either arrogant or ignorant enough to think that they had the right to go around stealing from and murdering travelers.

These weren’t valiant rogues, but savages…and Laver didn’t like thinking ahead to what he suspected his troops might find down in their bases, but this was work that needed to be done, and while it occasionally turned his stomach he wasn’t going to relent. Australia needed to prove its worth, even if it meant taking out trash like this that preyed on the weak, but who had no real chance against the troops he was sending against them.

4

Timothy heard the crack of the dropship door a moment before he saw the light coming in from outside as the big ramp began to lower. The luminous intensity was twice that of a ‘normal’ planet and made his eyes wince despite the auto-glare cutdown in his mech’s cockpit. He was viewing the outside of the bipedal machine via camera relays while he sat within a protective cocoon inside the Bushwhacker-class mech, one of a handful of favorites the Australians produced out of more than 320 models that Star Force had come up with over the years.

“I’ve got point,” he told his fellow mechwarriors as he walked out of his receptacle in the improvised mechbay inside the dropship and over to the now half lowered door. He waited until it finished deploying then walked his hunched mech down and onto the planet’s heavy surface. Gravity here was 1.3 and caused his mech’s footfalls to be a bit sluggish, but the computer automatically adjusted and allowed him more or less normal ‘driving’ as he ramped up his speed and put some distance between himself and the big spherical dropship behind him.

9 other mechs followed him out, which formed up into two stars of five. Timothy had another bushwhacker and three ravens with him, while the others had a thor, maddog, and another three ravens.  All the mechs were intended for the pirate base a few kilometers to the north while other dropships were bringing down more mechs and troops for the other five locations on the planet, all of which were situated in a geographical band running a few hundred miles through a wild section of the planet and far from the population centers.

Timothy’s bushwhacker stepped heavily through the marshy ground upon which they’d landed, for there was little else around the base that made for a suitable landing site. The area was heavily forested, with only the cutout for the pirate base and these swampy, almost shallow rivers bisecting the forest in numerous locations. Those were going to be the roads the mechs came into the base on, for a direct drop would have been impossible.

The pirate bases weren’t just hideaways, but armed firebases. They had enough point defense weaponry to roast any dropship coming down on top of them and even now were giving the fighters havoc as they attempted to strafe some of the defense turrets now that they’d cleaned up the pathetic pirate craft. Timothy saw one hit by what looked like plasma fire and go down before the others eventually broke off and held to a perimeter that the mechwarrior could see on his battlemap. They were still in the air and nearby to call for assistance, but it was made clear that they couldn’t take out the bases defenses on their own, even before orders came over the comm.

Their overflights had tagged a number of additional batteries that they hadn’t noticed from orbit, with all of them going through analysis by the ships in orbit and then filtered back down to the mechs as priority targets. Timothy had a slew of them highlighted on his battlemap before all of the mechs were offloaded, and was well prepared for what he was going to face and have to knock down as his star began sloshing their way through the marshy gaps in the forest.

The mechs weren’t subtle, standing some 10+ meters tall at the smallest and making a lot of noise walking through the shallow water and muck, but they slowly made their approach, working through the twists and turns of the natural waterway as contacts began popping up on the battlemap and headed their way…fast. Analysis soon identified them as hover tanks that were also following the marshes, though without any hindrance given they were operating on anti-grav instead of legs.

“Ok fellas, let’s see how many prizes we can bag,” Timothy said, adjusting his weaponry accordingly as he saw the stand down order for the fighters. These were going to be pure mech targets. “Disabling shots only.”

“Can’t we blow up at least one?” Ellie asked from the raven to his left sarcastically.

“Save it for the turrets,” he said, seeing the first of the tanks come around the bend ahead. It was more of a giant sled than a tank, but it had three enclosures with weaponry mounted on top, all of which opened fire with orange plasma lances that leapt out and hit the ground, air, and left leg of Timothy’s mech.

The one that hit the ground resulted in a plume of vaporized water that created a short lived cloud, but the impact on the bushwhacker’s leg merely sucked away some shield strength as Timothy pointed the nose of the squat mech towards the tank and fired off a single lachar blast. The bright streak of red hit the body of the tank and punched a hole in its thin armor plating but did little other damage as three more tanks came around the bend and began to take aim.

Timothy marked the one firing at him as his priority target, then gave the other four mechwarriors their own to deal with as he fired another lachar shot, peppering the same area of the tank with successive hits and avoiding the cupolas where he knew the crew were even as they fired back with their more potent plasma. Eventually he hit the anti-grav in the forward section and the tank’s front end dipped and rammed itself into the muck, leaving the other part still in the air and the whole thing askew.

Meanwhile the ravens moved up and went right for their tanks, coming up on them and weathering the plasma storm before firing their own tiny plasma blasts into key points on the flat hulls, blasting apart the internal mechanized components and disabling them to the point that they were no longer able to fly as more tanks flooded into the battle. Eventually there were so many peppering them that the shields on the mechs began to weaken, with Timothy again taking the lead with his larger bushwhacker and walking into the middle of them.

He pulled the power on his mauler back considerably, then launched the tiny orbs from his mech’s boxy right arm, with the blue blasts melting into the tank hulls and exploding outward, ripping the vehicles in half with a single shot as if they were made of nothing more than wood and paint. The internal components that were being compromised made the explosions erratic, and more than once Timothy saw the cupolas get hit, often with the occupants being thrown out with the debris. He didn’t know if they were still alive or not, but he at least tried to keep from stepping on them as he moved forward towards the other tanks that were swerving left and right to try and throw off the mechs’ aim.

It didn’t buy them much time and eventually the last few tanks turned and tried to run back to base, but the ravens didn’t let them go, running up behind them at about half their speed and maintaining target locks long enough to gun them down with either plasma or a few of their missiles for when they got around one of the bends. Thanks to the battlemap they were able to fire up and over the forest, hitting the fleeing tanks and knocking them down in various states of damage, but keeping all of them from retreating back to base and reinforcing the defenses there.

“Cleanup crews, you’re a go,” Timothy reported to the dropship along with location tags for each of the downed tanks and some of the pilots and gunners that were trying to flee across the marshes and into the forest on foot.

Back in the dropship Veronica waited on her speeder bike with two passengers seated behind her, finally getting the ‘go’ order and accelerating out of the bay along with several others. Unlike the mechs the swampy ground didn’t bother them and they shot out across the waterway on anti-grav and quickly caught up to the big warhorses after several twists and turns in the geography, with the first thing Veronica saw was a pair of pirates making for the forest to her left.

She veered that way instantly, leaving the other targets of opportunity to those coming up behind her and wanted to get to these two before they disappeared in the trees, otherwise they’d have to go on foot and track them down…something she’d prefer not to do.

The Australian version of a commando lined up her speeder with the first of the pair and flew straight at him/her/it while popping out the stinger turret on the front of the bike. The four little barrels descended out from the otherwise smooth underside and began spitting the stun-laced paintballs in a flurry, mowing down the first runner and dropping him into the water.

Veronica swung the bike around quickly and made a second attack run, likewise stunning the other pirate before flying her passengers up to where the first went down and dropping one off, who quickly ran to the unconscious pirate and pulled the Critel out of the water before he could drown. Veronica got her other passenger in position to do the same then flew a lazy circle around the location as the two got to work, ensuring that their prisoners weren’t dead and having to do a few chest thumps on the Gavrosan to get some water out of his airways.

Once they were squared away breathing wise the commandos bound their captives and Veronica picked them up, latching them to the speeder then flying her unconscious guests back to the dropship for proper processing. After dumping them off there she returned and picked up her pair of wranglers and moved on, looking for more to round up and eventually having to dig through some of the tank debris to pull out those injured while the mechs continued to move on towards the base and out of sight.

When Timothy came around the last bend the pirate base came into view just in time for him to see a large transport take off from the nearby pad and slowly rise up into the air, underneath of which a hail of plasma fire hit his mech from various ranges. He targeted the closest of the defense batteries and fired back with a mauler blast that melted the stubby little turret set into the last of the water to his right before the marsh transitioned into what had been the tank dock.

There, along the water’s edge, was a straight pier with a half dozen more turrets spread out, behind which there were more distant towers and a half dozen other starships that were hurriedly prepping for launch. Timothy ignored them and the one now gaining distance overhead, knowing that the navy would deal with them. Right now he had base defenses to take down and he was walking right into them, meaning he didn’t have a lot of time to work with before his mech started taking damage.

The other batteries on the pier were outside of mauler range, so as Timothy walked his mech through the sloshy marsh he took aim at one of the towers with the rail gun in his left arm and tried for a ranged shot, nearly missing but clipping the side of the tower and knocking a chunk out of it as the metallic projectile shot straight through the concrete and blasted it into a shower of little chunks that rained down on the crews scrambling about below.

As he did the mechs in the other star began to approach from a different marsh entrance 90 degrees around the perimeter to the north and Timothy saw the towers on that side begin to open fire. There were so many he wondered exactly what the pirates had been planning to defend against, but they weren’t going to keep the mechs back. Even as a shield warning flashed in his cockpit the other bushwhacker targeted the same tower with its rail gun slug finishing the work he’d started.

The entire top half came crashing down, its stalk severed, taking that battery out of the fight and likewise removing one of the anti-air turrets that had been on top. That diminished the firepower being thrown at Timothy only slightly, with him turning to the right and running up on some of the ground turrets and slagging them with his mauler as the ravens ran forward drawing fire towards them as they hopped up on the dock and began crossing solid ground shooting at anything that shot back at them, including infantry.

As they pressed inward across a large open deck area that could have accommodated ten times the number of starships that were present, tiny missiles began sprouting from random points and fired into the mechs from infantry with portable launchers. The ravens ignored them at first, mowing down a few more turrets and making sure Timothy wasn’t going down, then they left the remaining big guns to the pair of bushwhackers and went after the infantry, firing a mix of stinger barrages and short range energy blasts that looked like a sprinkler of stun energy delivered via a bubble gum pop. They had to be very close, but any infantry stupid enough to run up near the ravens got the energy bubble in the face and went down like someone had hit their off switch.

Those further away were stitched with a hail of stingers, of which the mechs could carry a lot and fire with decent accuracy over range…and what they couldn’t accurately hit they took down with sheer numbers of projectiles. All across the landing pad/dock area the infantry began to pile up, both those with weapons and those fleeing to the ships. The mechwarriors didn’t care who they were, they were all getting stunned and let the infantry deal with them afterwards.

Timothy’s armor-damaged mech was still fully operational and he worked with his twin to target and take down the remaining towers and turrets in their area save for those at the far end that bracketed the entrance to the base. They were obscured by a ship still sitting on the deck, with others spaced around similar ‘solid’ areas surrounding the base, whether it be artificial surface or just hard packed dirt above the waterline.

All of them had to be taken out, so with one of the fully shielded ravens going first Timothy walked his mech around the parked starship and pounded the fairly large plasma turrets with his mauler as the raven played bait and got whacked for it. It lost all shields and got a kiss of melted armor before Timothy and the other bushwhacker took down the last of the wall-mounted turrets, then all three began to redeploy around the perimeter of the base and pick off the others while the two remaining ravens patrolled the area hunting more pirate infantry and crewers…all the while careful not to step on those they’d already rendered unconscious.

Jack ran out of the enclosure on the rover a few minutes later, coming out onto the landing pad and seeing a waypoint pop up on his helmet immediately. He and the other assault teams poured out of the small anti-grav transports that had brought them up to the base as speeders whipped around them on patrol and in the distance he could see the dropship that had brought them here climb up into the sky and began a controlled hover that would bring it across the gap and land it at the base.

Before that happened cleanup crews had to remove people and debris from the area, but that wasn’t Jack’s purpose here. He was going inside the base and neutralizing personnel, with a host of stinger weapons at his disposal along with one regular plasma pistol should the occasion warrant it. He felt a bit clumsy with all the weaponry on his back in the heavy gravity, but as soon as he passed through the blast doors that the mechs had melted a hole in, the base IDF took over and approximately normal gravity resumed, though it felt a bit on the light side to be honest.

That wasn’t surprising considering it wasn’t a Human base, but the lightness was welcome and he felt more like his normal self as his squad pushed ahead on the ever growing battlemap as various teams fanned out and added more hallways to the virtual display. It took several minutes before they ran into any personnel, with the first group being an ambush waiting for them.

He and several others took armor damage from the pirate plasma weapons, most of which looked to be of standard Zarati make, but their defenses kept them alive long enough to respond to the ambush and turn the tables on their attackers. They disabled most of them then pursued the fleers throughout the base, hunting them all down in ones and twos before reporting in that all areas had been safed, after which Jack and the others were put on scavenger duty, hauling the unconscious prisoners back to the loading dock for processing.

A similar course of events was occurring at the other 5 bases, with them being systematically overrun and most of the pirates being taken alive. Meanwhile the navy was intercepting the ships that managed to get off the surface all the while waiting for their jumpship to arrive. That would take another 5 weeks but the wait paid off and the Australians bagged the big ship as it came off the stellar jumpline and into planetary orbit, including the warships it carried and the most recent victim in the form of a damaged cargo vessel of independent origin.

The pirates also had a few captives of their own in one of the bases and the jumpship, which were recovered and freed…along with the stories of those who had not survived. In addition it was learned that this group of pirates had a second jumpship, so the stay for the Australians was lengthened as they waited for it to unwittingly walk into their hands, which it did some 3 months later. By that time the pirate bases had been cleaned out and somewhat destroyed by demolition crews. They left behind what remained and cleared out, returning the system to its neutral status and carrying their prisoners back to Star Force territory where they could be unloaded for a proper debriefing before being sent off to various prison facilities to being their long isolation sentences.

As an added bonus, the Australians were permitted to keep the captured jumpships, taking them back to their nearest colony to begin either refitting or disassembly, for the gravity drives alone were worth recycling.

To Admiral Laver it made him feel like they had become anti-pirate pirates, though he was pleased to return home with some loot, which Australia was more than happy to receive to bolster its limited resources.

5

June 4, 2652

Delorean System (Zeta Region)

Flux

Ren’jar’tel sat on the elevated walkway with his legs hanging out into the air and his arms resting on the guard rail as he watched the dance taking place below in the park. He wore a full body suit, including loose helmet, to keep his bioluminosity obscured from the other Axius denizens but the dancers below did not. They were all female Protovic and fully nude, which is what drew his interest, but for the other races watching below they were interested in seeing the light show, for the artful and graceful gymnastics routine they were putting on was made all the more impressive with the myriad of glowing purple and green patches of their bodies’ own natural colors.

There weren’t many Protovic in Axius, with most choosing to remain in their own territory, but Ren’jar’tel was born into the arm of Star Force and had never been off planet. Most of his associates were other middle-sized races, with the Flux colony being one of seven inhabited planetoids within the system and reserved for those near his size range. There were two other colonies that were for races smaller than him, and one for those larger, with the remaining three being hybrids, two on the small end and one on the larger.

That meant he could travel to a total of four worlds within the system if he chose, and live there also, but he had never had cause to leave Flux, let alone make a permanent move. In the past 12 years since he’d graduated from the maturia he had switched quarters twice, both times moving to different parts of the same city but going no further. He liked where he lived and the carefree lifestyle that Star Force provided, and while he was a bit curious as to what the Protovic worlds were like it wasn’t enough for him to investigate further. He was happy where he was and with the current scenery as some 23 of them danced about making for an erotic display to the handful of other Protovic in the crowd.

But that’s not why they were here in the open air park. They were dancing for aesthetic reasons, with most of the races not being able to recognize the sexuality in it. They thought it was a colorful acrobatics display, which it was, but as far as Ren’jar’tel was concerned there wasn’t anywhere else in the galaxy he wanted to be right now.

A few other spectators were on the railing with him, most of whom were standing as the mass of the crowd was milling about in the courtyard below on the grass. There were no seats or infrastructure, for the performance was a random one. More often than not various artists would come here to perform whatever it was they did, making the locale a hot spot for spectators. A few hours ago there had been a sparring display between a Critel and a Scionate, with both showing enough skill that their mismatched forms made for a good bit of action, but most of the displays were less impressive.

More often than not you’d get amateurs trying to polish their skills in whatever it was they did, building a fan base that could propel them into the credit-generating class of artists, but there were some, like this Protovic group, that simply danced to dance, using their natural glow to highlight their movements in the twilight hours.

It made for quite the spectacle, and luckily they made their circuit of performances known a day or so in advance, otherwise he would have missed it being over in the entertainment complex catching a vid. He found it funny how the crowd was completely oblivious to the fact that they were nude, making it almost his own private peep show, despite the fact that it was in public with a crowd of several hundred watching.

Normally nothing would have torn his eyes away from the dancers, but a silent mass rising across the last bit of sunlight on the horizon drew his attention, along with several others on the upper walkway whose vision wasn’t blocked by the trees.

“Whoa,” someone else said, pointing to the ship rising up from the surface. It was big…in fact, bigger than big, so much so that to the Protovic it looked like it didn’t belong in the atmosphere at all. From the direction it was he knew that the location had to be the D39 spaceport, for there was nothing that could handle a ship of that size anywhere within 100 kilometers.

“Troop transport,” an old Calavari said from behind him.

Ren’jar’tel turned back to look at the dancers, who were appearing to glow more and more as the last bit of sunlight faded out, but his curiosity overrode his sexual buzz for the moment and he half spun around on his stone seat. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ve traveled on many of them. The silhouette is familiar.”

“Whose troops?” a Martekal asked, blinking its three eyes eagerly.

“Ours,” the Calavari said matter of factly. “Those are either Axius ground or aerial troops leaving to fight, probably on the front somewhere…there, you can just see the top of the second ship now. They’re leaving in convoy to meet up with a jumpship stationed in stellar orbit.”

“I thought our troops stayed here to defend us?” Ren’jar’tel asked.

The Calavari shook his head slowly, as if that was the quickest movement his decayed body was capable of. “No, no…Axius does most of its fighting elsewhere. Only twice has one of our worlds come under attack, with both being little more than scouting runs by the enemy. Our troops are taking the fight to the lizards in order to keep them from coming here.”

“Those ships are huge,” someone else commented, now that the second one was fully visible and trailing slightly behind the other as it quietly rose up in altitude and headed for orbit at a tranquil pace.

“Most of Axius, like you, are civilians,” the Calavari explained, “but do not underestimate the size of Axius. There are, proportionally, enough of us wanting to fight that we have one of the largest militaries in the ADZ. You don’t see it because it’s spread across many systems, but it’s there, and right now you’re getting a glimpse of a tiny piece of it.”

“How many people are onboard those ships?” Ren’jar’tel asked.

“Difficult to say without knowing what races there are, but I’d conservatively estimate over 100,000 each, plus their fighting equipment, which will including mechs and other large craft.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I know because I once fought with them, long ago.”

“And now?”

“Now? As you can see I am not fit to fight those dancers, let alone a lizard. My time has passed and I earned my keep, now I sit back and watch others continue the fight.”

“Why haven’t you obtained self-sufficiency?” someone asked from behind the Calavari.

“I did, once, as do all our troops…but after I finished my duty, well, the strains of civilian life are so few that retaining your strength is not a priority. I am not proud to admit it, but I got lazy. It is a well-deserved, restful lazy, but my body has deteriorated none the less. I am content as I am, and have lived a long life. I have no regrets.”

“Why not start training again?” Ren’jar’tel asked.

The Calavari stared down at him, his bulk coming more from fat than muscle. “Perhaps the same reason you do not.”

Ren’jar’tel scoffed beneath his mask. “I’m not old.”

“But you are not self-sufficiency either…and do not try to tell me otherwise. I have been around too long not to be able to tell the difference, no matter what race you are. Ask yourself why you do not train, then you will have my answer in that it is the same.”

“I don’t need to train,” the Protovic said, not sure where this conversation was going.

“You’d rather watch others…act,” the Calavari said, pointing one of his lower hands at the dancers, “than do so yourself.”

“I’m not a dancer.”

“No, but you are inactive, as are most people in Axius. You are taught differently in the maturia, then you slowly lose what you gained there. It is common and due to a lack of motivation. I predate Axius, I was not born here, but back on one of the original Calavari worlds just before they fell. I fought to help my people survive, and that we have accomplished. Now I am content to pass the torch to others who wish to fight. I have earned my place here, whereas most of you do not nor ever will.”

“You’re saying we don’t belong here?” the Critel asked.

“No, no, do not misinterpret my meaning. I only say that most do not contribute. That is a luxury that Star Force allows you, and it is a luxury that I am enjoying right now, though as I said I earned my keep early on, just as those,” he said, pointing to the rising ships now three in number, “are doing now.”

“I’d rather watch the dancers,” Ren’jar’tel said, turning his attention back to them as they jumped and flipped around in the darkness, lighting the faces of the crowd nearest to them in their multi-colored glow.

“As you wish, youngling. Your path is yours to choose. Fortunately not all of Axius feels the same way, and a good number of them are heading out now to keep us and others safe.”

“Why don’t you go with them?” Ren’jar’tel asked, his attention now fully back on the dancers.

“I lost one leg, and it is something that I do not wish to repeat.”

The Protovic spun around, seeing both of the big Calavari’s legs from the knees down to his shoes in fleshy yellow/orange.

“It was regrown,” he explained, “but with it went a great deal of my strength. As did my self-sufficiency.”

“Sounds like you quit,” Ren’jar’tel said, wishing the Calavari would just shut up and let him enjoy the nude dancers in peace.

“At least I had something to quit. Most never begin,” he said, followed by some heavy footsteps as the old man walked off to Ren’jar’tel’s relief.

The Protovic sat and watched the dancers for several more minutes, then glanced back at the now black horizon. The cityscape below was lit, with just enough of a haze to block out most of the stars, though it was more than enough to light the underside of the stream of transports rising up and disappearing in the distance. He saw at least a dozen, once again in awe at the sheer size of them, and now a bit more so knowing who and what was inside.

He shook the thought off and returned his attention to the park and the living campfire in the center that was dancing around. He wasn’t a fighter and never would be, but he was glad the others were and silently wished them good luck before his mind was once again lost in the spectacle of his nude kin and he returned to the normal ebb and flow of Axius civilian life.

Waiting in orbit around the central star a Ma’kri floated next to a slew of Axius jumpships, all of which were taking on personnel and cargo from the various planets. The Ma’kri was a recent arrival, bringing with it an Archon commander and some light battle damage from a recent engagement. Two of the Ka’sevron cannons had been knocked out, but the rest of the weaponry remained intact and the ship wasn’t retreating to a shipyard for repairs. With a bit of secondary armor covering the damage in the primary plating it had come here to pick up reinforcements, then was heading back into battle at the head of an Axius fleet.

While unknown to most, Axius was technically a branch of mainline Star Force, but one focused on non-Human adjuncts. They used all the same technology as the Human forces did, and as such the Axius-produced drones were the same make and model of the ones produced in Epsilon Eridani or Sol. There were some variations in mechs and fighters, but that was largely given to the fact that the different races had different talents and needs. Valeries were used more than skeets, and the whole line of mini-mechs was not present within the Human mainline forces, but otherwise they were the same and operated out of the mainline hierarchy of Administrators, meaning that in the upper levels Humans ran Axius the same way they ran the Core Region.

The Calavari were different, with Human oversight and command but with the Calavari handling a lot of internal decisions on their own and customizing their equipment to their liking. Axius was a mixed bag of races that was growing with each decade that passed, making it the communal mixing ground that Star Force was using to unite the various races in the ADZ as well as to make use of their skillsets. That generated a unique Axius culture, but not a singular identity, for different Axius colonies had different feels to them, some with denizens only a few inches tall where others were multiple meters in height.

They were all Axius, and all Star Force, but unlike the Calavari there was no nationalist bond uniting them. They were a scattering of individuals, most of whom were living off of Star Force’s generosity…and that didn’t come anywhere close to the level of self-reliance necessary for a semi-independent status within the empire.

But it had never been intended to become that. Axius was like the majority of Human colonies who existed primarily with a lazy and uninterested population, but out of which enough volunteers came to take care of the rest. Axius produced far less warriors and workers by percent than the Human colonies did, but the sheer size of Axius, which now outstripped all but the Kiritak, meant it was fielding a high number of troops and resources that Star Force had come to rely upon.

Right now that meant calling up troops waiting for just this occasion, and doing so within a day of the Ma’kri ship coming into the system. Where they had been extensively training, now the Axius troops were being shuffled onto transports and taken up to the jumpships...and after loading the Archon would be taking them to locations unknown to do battle against what they also didn’t know. The Axius troops weren’t the most veteran in Star Force, but they were solid and motivated, willing to go where needed with no questions asked. Some of them had even migrated over to the mainline fleets and armies, where their physiology allowed them to pass the Human requirements.

That was rare but not unheard of, with the Axius format much more beneficial in taking advantage of the differences in the races and their capabilities. As such, while the Human mainline troops might be the more skilled, Axius would often pack a bigger punch due to its diversity of fighting styles and equipment…so long as it was properly used. The more complex something was the more likelihood of it being messed up, which was why there was almost always an Archon involved when Axius deployed.

This one took the combined fleet of Axius cargo ships and warships across Zeta Region and into Beta, depressing so low that they nearly dropped into Gamma over the weeks that passed but ended up on the lowest border of the Skarron advance. Here they were still pushing forward, not yet having encountered the edge of the ADZ for it angled back around the curve that it was. The troops here were not from the same source as those now fully engaged with the lizards, and these were continuing their typical push into the weaker systems that surrounded the ADZ without too much resistance.

The Voku border was far below on the galactic plane, leaving no one in the area with the strength to repel what was really an easy gobbling up of systems by the enemy, but in recent years Star Force had been pushing its diplomatic efforts out beyond the ADZ and establishing contact with hundreds of new races so they could share intel on their mutual enemies.

This continuing push below the ADZ had been one such instance where an associate of Star Force’s had relayed to them the reconnaissance reports that had allowed a small fleet of Ma’kri to seek out and engage several of the Skarron expeditionary fleets, blocking a few invasions but eventually biting off more than they could chew. The eventual reinforcements had come and it was either time to back off or up Star Force’s game…with Flynn-046 choosing the latter and sending back one of his ships to pull up Axius reinforcements so they could remove one of the forward Skarron strongholds.

Do that and they’d put the Skarron offensive behind schedule enough to buy the local region a decade, at least, with Star Force coordinating those local races that were willing and helping them organize a stronger, mutual defensive line to avoid the easy gains the Skarrons had been previously making.

Star Force couldn’t be everywhere at once, but a few hard strikes here and there coupled with a strategic game plan for the locals could make a world of difference in the near future, and since Star Force’s end game was predicated on unlocking more and more pyramid tech they had to try and keep the ADZ from being totally surrounded, and to do that they had to work and think proactively.

And when the Archons called, Axius was there to answer, as was every other military force within the empire…and they were using them all, right down to the more developed wards, to fight battles beyond mere self-defense and save as many people as they could, all the while more and more refugees fled both the lizard and the Skarron offenses and continued to pour into the ADZ by whatever means they had to get there.

6

June 19, 2652

Unnamed System (Beyond the ADZ)

Point 6

The seda decelerated against the gas giant’s gravity well, with the massive jump cradle surrounding it like a spider grasping its prey as it slowed the medium-sized station down using its considerable engine power. Already in orbit, having arrived a few minutes ahead, was the Canderous fleet some 18 ships strong with another 34 on the way, trailing slightly behind the seda in loose escort formation.

None of them were jumpships, or in the case of Canderous, jump ‘rods’ for the spacefaring civilization had forgone the traditional Star Force model and rebuilt their fleet based on the Skarron navy, in which each individual ship was capable of making slow jumps between star systems. Now every Canderous ship from cargo hauler to warship was interstellar jump capable, with only their sedas requiring a lift. Those were meant to be stationary, but their fleet wasn’t, and the idea of a number of ships getting stranded in a system because their jumpship malfunctioned or was destroyed was something the Canderians weren’t too keen on.

They lived in space, operated in space, and only went planetside to gather resources or to fight…with this current mission being right up their alley, for there wasn’t a habitable planet within the unclaimed system that was situated beyond the Alpha and Epsilon Regions. The gas giant the seda was being placed into orbit around had a slew of moons and there were six other sizeable rocky, yet barren worlds without atmosphere for Canderous to harvest resources from, but there was nothing here even remotely capable of housing a standard civilization.

Star Force could have built colonies on the worlds, contained within sealed cities like they had in many other locations, but this system was to be Canderous only with no ADZ resources devoted to it. The seda had within it all the necessary crews and factories required to build another just like it…and many more. Right now it was isolated and alone, with only a handful of warships to guard it against threats in the region, but those threats were minor as far as Star Force’s scouting reports indicated. No, Canderous was here for another reason beyond colonization.

While others built up the defenses within and around the ADZ Canderous had been tasked to go beyond it, into the expected expansion path of the lizards and build up outposts that they could monitor the local areas from and hopefully pick off small scale invasions before they grew to the point where the mainline fleet would be required. So many systems were falling to the lizards simply due to the fact that no one was around to fight them, with them picking up valuable planets with almost no resistance at all.

Sure, there were major battles being fought elsewhere, but the lizards were assaulting so many systems that neither Star Force nor anyone else could counter them all, let alone detect them. Even with their relay grid and progressively faster communication between star systems there was always a lag, and that relay system didn’t extend beyond the ADZ save for a few locations, meaning outside the ADZ the lizards were gobbling up easy targets, some of whom Star Force only learned about from survivors fleeing their way.

While lizard territory was too vast to contain, Canderous had been tasked with slowing them down. To that end they were picking 29 widely spaced systems and putting down roots, in this case a seda in each, and developing those systems while scouting out the surrounding area and establishing permanent patrols once they built up their fleets. Each location was well ahead of the lizards current lines, with the intention to be that Canderous could be firmly established in their outposts and fielding sizeable fleets by the time the first lizard ships arrived, but with their tendency to hop over some systems and go for others there was no way of telling when it would be, but sooner or later they would come and Canderous would be waiting for them.

They knew they didn’t have the firepower to resist a major invasion, but what they planned to build their outposts into was a small scale, high numbered fleet that could monitor and hit the type of seed planting invasions that the lizards had originally hit Epsilon Eridani with…a handful of ships that would create a lizard colony and grow their way into greater strength. If they could detect and take out those when they arrived, they could deny the lizards hundreds of planets going forward. In the greater scheme of things that was a small number, but the less they had to work with the better.

The lizards were veterans at fighting in multiple arenas simultaneously and Star Force was going to take a page out of their book, letting Canderous play with their expeditionary forces and cause them the kind of havoc the lizards typically caused others.

To that end the giant seed that the seda was dropped into a stable orbit and immediately began sending out short range craft to the nearby moons, landing mining equipment and other gear there for the work crews to begin assembling. The seda was purposefully over staffed, knowing that they weren’t going to get any personnel reinforcements for several years to come and the local birth rate wasn’t going to be enough to supply what they needed. The rest of Canderous would make up for that, but aside from this initial seda and fleet, Point 6 was going to have to build everything else on site.

The jump cradle detached from the seda after it was secured into a fixed orbit and left immediately, capable of traveling far faster on its journey back to the ADZ than any of its previous escorts could. It would report back that the outpost was now operational and growing, but beyond that the Canderians would be on their own for months, if not years before the next ship came to check on them. They were about 3 months away from the ADZ given their ‘slow’ gravity drives and more than 3 weeks away from the nearest Point outpost, making them truly on their own with no relay links back to the ADZ…only courier ships should they send one.

But that didn’t worry Canderous, for this environment was one that they lived and thrived within. They’d chosen a system far enough away from the lizard lines to give them plenty of time to build and they set out to do that immediately, sending only two warships away to begin scouting the neighboring systems and updating the limited maps they’d been given. This was their turf now and they needed to get to know it in detail if they were going to end up monitoring and lightly defending all of it, not through establishing bases and putting up Sentinels, but by creating and maintaining patrolling fleets to knock down any small scale invasions that might occur, or rather would. It was the timetable and location that was in question.

With the two ships jumping out, the rest spread around the system pulling more detailed surveys, dropping off sensor probes and comm relays, and otherwise fully claiming the uninhabited system as theirs. How much traffic passed through en route to other systems they didn’t know, but there hadn’t been so much as a scratch of infrastructure in the system when previously scouted, nor was it marked on any of the local maps as belonging to anyone. It was simply one of the ‘junk’ systems set in between the others and used as a hopping off point to shorten jumplines or avoid bad ones.

Canderous intended for it to remain that way, with them not taking up any positions near the star other than dropping off some monitoring probes. If no one knew they were in the system that was fine, they’d just build quietly and keep an eye on the local star systems, waiting and watching for the inevitable arrival of their enemy while the rest of Star Force fought the major battles.

It was the small ones that were winning the lizards the most territory, and there it was that Canderous had to counter them, at least in this small piece of the galaxy. And as was typical of the Canderians, they were eager for the lizards to get to them, for as many engagements as they’d had against the Skarrons they’d seen less combat than others. And for a purely military civilization that just wouldn’t do, hence their volunteering for this part of the master plan before Paul had even had a chance to suggest them for it.

Within two days the first of the processed ore shipments arrived in the seda and the factories began to come alive, building structural components and other parts needed to begin constructing larger mining facilities on the moons. Those would then produce more output and the process would snowball as it had many times before as Canderous followed well-established colonization protocols. It would be a few years before they had another seda built, but once they did the personnel reinforcements would start flowing in from the ADZ and the Point 6 outpost would continue to grow, eventually producing its own starships and everything else they’d need, increasing the patrols and area around the system that they were monitoring.

Like little balloons, their detection and monitoring range grew out spherically, creating a ‘safe’ zone for the locals that the lizards were not aware of. It would be 16 years before Point 6 saw their first sign of enemy incursion, but when it came they’d be ready and the lizards wouldn’t know where the resistance was coming from, further confounding their expeditionary forces as to the location of the enemy and where the weak spots were for them to spread into.

Naru flew a few feet over the floor, carrying a small satchel as the Nestafar’s hummingbird-like wings accelerated to compensate for the extra weight. She was on her way to a birthing ceremony and had forgot the gift, scurrying back to her quarters to get it and hoping to arrive in time. One of her maturia sisters was giving birth to 3 new members of the Nestafar civilization, with each one celebrated as a blessing now that word of their race’s extinction was common knowledge across the ADZ.

Most didn’t know that some of them remained, as wards of Star Force and tucked away on a private planet with a few other races that had suffered similar ill fate. Those were either in a waiting state, with their future uncertain, or they’d chosen to remain wards and forgo any ideas of independence. Star Force was gracious enough to extend that option, with their needs being taken care of in perpetuity, with no worries about surviving into the future.

The Nestafar were past the waiting stage now, and chose to live in seclusion. Their population was small, small enough to fill only three large cities on the planet with a fourth slowly under construction. They had no dreams of one day rebuilding their huge civilization, but in simply making a place for themselves to live here, peaceably, and to do their small part in helping the overall empire and ADZ thrive…but from a distance.

Part of the desire for seclusion was the lingering resentment in the ADZ against the Nestafar, but as that gradually died out over time along with those who had lived during that era, the Nestafar that had turned their backs on their own empire and fled to Star Force simply no longer had the desire for glory. They wanted to build, but not expand, making their granted cities a new home they could be proud of, and welcoming each new member into the fold immediately as they arrived.

The birthing ceremony was one of Naru’s favorites, but one that she’d only been on the other side of once. It was pleasure mixed with pain, but it marked not only the end of the pregnancy but the beginning of the younglings’ journey as they were transitioned into a maturia within minutes, and all done in ceremonious glory. The mother would then be allowed to rest, with her responsibilities complete, and would be showered with attention and gifts as a show of compensation for the duty to her people that she had just acquitted.

And it wasn’t a pleasant one, for a Nestafar womb could hold up to as many as five infants simultaneously, turning the mother into more or less a fleshy orb in the final stages. Naru hadn’t liked that at all and didn’t intend to go through the process again, but she recognized the importance of it and figured that the four Nestafar she had acted as a conduit to bring into the universe were enough to acquit her duty…but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to support and praise those that continued to reproduce, knowing the toll it took on them.

With that thought stuck firmly in her mind she flew as quickly as she could, arriving at the ceremony as the first of the younglings was born. No one could see the actual birthing, for those involved were behind a screen, but the first of the transition canisters came out with the youngling inside and ceremonial guards flanking it as the hover pod was taken across the chamber for all those gathered to see, then off down a special hallway to the nearby maturia where the little one would begin his life and eventual training.

Naru cheered along with the others, then did the same as the other two came out in sequence. Once they were gone and a few minutes passed the screens lowered with the mother now visible and clearly fatigued, but the onslaught of well-wishers surrounded her and she received them with joy and thanks.

Naru was relieved she’d made it in time and gave her sister the gift she’d been working to make for the past three weeks. It was a head piece with an ornate script across the front and sides with several jewels inset, and it had cost her quite a few credits to acquire the pieces, after which she’d done the construction and inscribing herself.

The gift went over well and Naru was pleased, then she excused herself from the remainder of the ceremony and rushed over to another part of the city…the bioharvest zone, where she had taken a short break from work to attend. The Nestafar dropped to the floor at the entrance and proceeded on foot the rest of the way into the harvesting center, then made her way over to the section she’d been working on before and stepped up to the control cupola that had another two people inside working the remote controls.

“That was fast,” one of them said, his attention focused on the displays.

“The ceremony is still continuing, but the younglings have been born and I didn’t want to delay things here so I hurried back.”

“Good, because we lost one harvester already.”

“What happened?” Naru asked, activating the controls to one of the full growth pods.

“One of the tines snapped. First one I’ve had in years do that.”

“What did it hit?”

“I don’t know. We couldn’t find anything in the pod. Must have just been a freak thing.”

“I don’t like that. How far behind are we?”

“Enough,” the other Nestafar said, taking a brief break to move his harvester from one pod to another.

“Let’s get to it then,” Naru said, passing her armature that was attached to the ceiling down through the open top of the pod, which now only had a thin energy shield keeping the concentrated CO2 environment inside. The Tanazi bushes within were stacked thick against one another, but with just enough of a gap that Naru could push the harvester down between them, bending aside some of the supple branches. Using camera relays she began cutting off certain branches and leaving others, with the severed pieces going into the harvester and being transported up a conduit and into the ceiling.

The trick of it was to cut the right branches without killing the Tanazi, and to date computerized harvesters had a less than stellar success rate than guided ones. It was labor intensive, but the Tanazi branches provided three major foodstuff components used across Star Force and were grown virtually everywhere. This bioharvest facility was different in that it only grew Tanazi, with the intent being to export the products off planet after all local needs were met.

Those needs were exceeded by other facilities, with this one and others like it being the Nestafar’s means of contributing to the empire on the whole. They were ill-suited for combat, at least when armored up to Star Force’s standards and taught to fight in honorable ways that didn’t involve massive risk and sacrifice, but in truth most of the Nestafar here weren’t interested in fighting. Those few individuals that were had left long ago, to where Naru didn’t know, but virtually all of the others simply wanted to be left alone and live in peace, with foodstuff production allowing them to help repay Star Force for all they’d done and were continuing to do for them.

And Star Force seemed happy with the arrangement, for they made no demands on the Nestafar. They expected them to produce what they claimed they would, but beyond that there was no pressure put on them to do more or other things. Regular shipments of the Tanazi components would be seen leaving via dropship almost round the clock, but other than the cargo ships there was virtually no orbital traffic. The Nestafar and the other wards on the planet were kept isolated and secure, with Naru and the others glad for their little bit of tranquility in an otherwise chaotic and violent galaxy.

7

August 3, 2652

Solar System

Ganymede

Arvil Netherson was walking down one of the main promenades in the Clan Saiyan capitol city, heading to catch a few friends at the theatre for a newly released vid when he passed by the 9 foot tall statue of Vegeta that marked one of the city’s status boards. More like a wall, the glowing panels held up to date information on the Clan and its rivals and Arvil swung over to it, knowing he had a few minutes to spare. He worked in the fabrication division of the Clan, building structural components that techs would later use to create new infrastructure, and their output was continually monitored along with the rest of Clan activity.

On the status board he went to the fabrication panel straight off, knowing its location by habit rather than reading the tiny icons on display, for there was a huge amount of data being presented with everything from naval ship count to the latest trials results on display…all of which was translated into points that made up the power ranks that the Clans obsessed over. It was friendly competition, but it drove them to be better than the rest, keeping the Clans ahead of the rest of the empire despite their smaller size.

Arvil saw that in overall fabrication rank the Saiyans were still sitting in 36th position, but their lead over Clan Mantle had diminished, due no doubt to the new production facility the rival Clan had built in the Istar System. Numbers from outside Sol were always laggy, but the small jump in their output score was no coincidence. The new facility must be up and running, adding a bit more industrial muscle to Mantle, but the question was, was it fully operational yet?

Arvil didn’t like the idea of them slipping any further than they had. 8 years ago they’d held the 31st position and were 18th in infrastructure production, which his division directly fed. Saiyan operations hadn’t lessened, in fact they’d slowly been increasing both the efficiency of the facility that Arvil worked in and were adding a handful of others, bumping up their score but falling behind a few other Clans that were growing faster than they were.

Some were doing it, he knew, simply by building a slew of new facilities. On Ganymede that wasn’t an option, given that most available land space on the moon had already been exhausted. It was mostly one endless cityscape now shared by several Clans and a few others, with any building being done requiring the upgrade of existing facilities or the demolition thereof to make room for larger, newer models.

The Saiyans had been upgrading their capitol in such a way for centuries, choosing to stack as much of their powerbase here and a few other locations rather than going for the shotgun approach and spreading throughout the Core Region and even the ADZ as other Clans had. That was both a matter of defense and pride, for the Saiyans wanted one central location that they could call home and one that would serve as a stronghold upon which the rest of their Clan could center.

Arvil had been working long and hard to help his Clan build up their production rates, even though he was only involved in a tiny bit of it…but that was true of everyone, for while the Clan was nowhere near the size of, say, the Calavari, it was a large, interstellar civilization of its own with considerable resources, not to mention military assets.

Those were displayed on another panel, with Clan Saiyan being ranked 84th in naval power, but with a skill score of 56th. The skill score came from the Trials, in which both Archons and other military personnel participated. They were challenges and war games meant to test and hone one’s skill absent actual combat, and the Clans took them very seriously, even more so than the sports leagues that had the Clan competing against each other through civilian tournaments. The Trials were watched by virtually everyone in the Clan, with Arvil rooting on the Saiyans whenever he could.

The Clan was like one giant team, no matter what you did, and they all had each other’s back automatically. That was the culture in the Clan, and as such everyone wanted to know how their ‘team’ was doing, hence the status boards, which were constantly changing. Some trends held true, such as the Sabers always being in the top 5 in the naval categories. They had the most skilled fleet on a regular basis, but they would burn off a lot of drones in real combat, diminishing their fleet strength scores and dropping them in rank.

That didn’t affect skill scores from the Trials, but how much a Clan had in terms of resources was also tied to how much it lost, and the Sabers were more involved in defending the front lines than most Clans. That was due, no doubt, to Archon Paul being the mastermind behind the current war plan, but his Clan was getting hit with losses sufficient to knock them down to the 3rd spot presently. Arvil knew the Sabers had a huge industrial base that would replace the ships that were lost quite quickly, but with other Clans not getting so hard hit with the brutal combat their fleet numbers were increasing, and hence their rank was eclipsing the otherwise dominant Sabers.

There were thousands of ranks displayed on the board, some in broad categories, but more in the breakdowns of those categories, letting each individual be able to track his or her own contributions and see how others were doing, both in their own Clan and others. Some of the board panels were mutable, with a touchscreen that would allow more detailed information on other Clans to be brought up, but at the moment Arvil wasn’t interested in those stats…his eyes were drawn to the news panel, which was detailing various current activities that his Clan was involved in.

A breaking news beacon was flashing, indicating that the status update was less than 60 seconds old. Arvil and the others nearby, including those just walking and not paying any attention to the numbers, all stopped and looked at the flashing lights that also were accompanied by a small chime that quickly disappeared. Someone near that panel touched it and amped up the volume, with a reporter standing inside a holographic map detailing the location of a system within the ADZ near the border.

“We’ve just received word that a Clan Saiyan fleet stationed at Oxion has responded to a lizard incursion of the ADZ. It was detected early by the stellar monitoring system and relayed through the comm grid, allowing the Saiyans and two Axius fleets to respond before they could gain a sufficient foothold. The following images come directly from the Saiyan flagship involved in the fight, and as you can see there was orbital bombardment of multiple surface sites on the uninhabited planet.”

“The images you’re looking at now are without context, for we’ve only just received them, but what we can tell you is that the lizard incursion was successfully uprooted and their base destroyed. No word yet on numbers of casualties or ships lost, but the Saiyan fleet we know to have been comprised of at least 20 Warship-class jumpships in addition to the Command Ship. That underscores that this was not a small incursion, and is to date the furthest inside the border the lizards have attempted to jump.”

The reporter went on, with multiple battle footage displays popping up giving those watching views of both orbital and surface combat, all without tags or context, but it was enough to make Arvil’s skin crawl with a mixture of fear and anger. Star Force and its allies maintained a neutral zone around the ADZ where they kept back lizard forward bases through a nearly continuous cycle of battles. Clan Saiyan was involved in some of them, from time to time, though the Clans were used more as defensive emplacements within the ADZ while the mainline fleets were the ones taking the offensive.

But for the lizards to have bypassed the neutral zone and the border worlds to set up an attempted foothold inside the ADZ was a very bold attack. Star Force obviously squashed it, with them unable to resupply that far inside without their convoys getting picked apart on the way in, but the mere fact that they’d tried and had gotten as far as they did was ominous and Arvil had to remind himself that the front wasn’t an armored wall, but rather a collection of tiny dots…and there was nothing keeping the lizards or anyone else from moving between or over those dots.

Any system in the ADZ could theoretically get hit, but with monitoring systems around most of the stars any attacking fleet passing through would be detected and the word would spread, albeit slowly due to the lag, but that meant the enemy couldn’t sneak inside and set up a base with years of anonymity to work with. Arvil didn’t know how many systems still lacked the monitoring devices, but he knew there were regular patrols going through them to prevent just such a thing and give Star Force a heads up if someone was trying to grow a forward base behind their defensive ‘lines.’

There was no way the lizards had more than a few months to get set up before they were confronted, meaning that they must have smuggled in a huge fleet as opposed to the single ships that were reportedly conquering entire systems elsewhere, planting a colony somewhere out of the way and growing the troops and building the ships that would then conquer it over subsequent years. That couldn’t happen here, so the lizards had to take another tactic, but what the hell had they been thinking?

That incursion was doomed to failure…or was that the point and the whole thing just a test of the ADZ defenses?

Arvil didn’t know, for while he followed the activities of his Clan closely military matters weren’t his specialty. He stuck around long enough to see if there were any kill counts given, with a stats sheet popping up a few minutes later. A murmur of approval whispered through the crowd as they saw that the Saiyan fleet had a 19/1 kill count against the lizards, though with varying ship sizes that wasn’t always an accurate measure, but it was enough to get the point across that it had been a major beatdown.

The two Axius fleets were marked with a 13/1 and a 15/1 count, which garnered a sense of pride in Arvil that he left the status boards with. The Clans were better than the rest of Star Force, maybe not by much in some cases, but their accused ‘obsession’ with training and rank had pressed them to a higher level, from warriors down to techs, making the Clans superior across the board.

Now granted, it had been Axius troops and not the mainline fleets involved in the battle, and a lot of Clan personnel made up the mainline fleets, or rather ex-Clan, but Arvil took it as a positive regardless that the Saiyan fleet had outperformed the two Axius ones, and he wasn’t alone in that analysis, as most of the rest of his Clan, spread across the Core Region, would utter similar sentiments in the coming days.

When Arvil arrived at the theater he spread the word, with the recent news consuming the chatter until the lights dropped and the vid began.

Just beyond the edge of Beta Region Clan Meteor had an even larger fleet of warships, with some of their best naval crews hammering the Skarron defenses over one of their strongholds left isolated by the Voku’s semi-blockade of the region around Achkor. It wasn’t the first Skarron-conquered world that Star Force was taking back from them, but it was one of the largest ones they’d tried to assault and required a significant force above and beyond what the Meteors could field alone.

No other Clans were with them, nor were there any mainline troops, instead this was the first real test of the Bsidd military. Clan Meteor was taking the lead in the assault and doing the heavy hitting, both in orbit and soon to be on the surface as well, but given that this was a ‘safe’ assault and it was highly unlikely that the Skarrons were going to get any sizeable reinforcements past the Voku, especially when all available ships were being diverted to counter the knife blade that the lizards were thrusting into Skarron territory, it had been deemed the best opportunity for the Bsidd to get their feet wet…or whatever you wanted to call the ends of their various appendages.

Their military was new and green, but it was large. They had 5 times as many ships here as the Meteors did, and even more so in the way of ground troops. Larissa had even come out to personally lead this assault and make sure everything went smoothly, for it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. They’d brought sufficient force with them to take the planet, but it was going to be a hard fought victory like everything else, for they didn’t have enough available ships and troops to just spam the enemy out of existence…not yet anyway.

Larissa knew the Bsidd had to get combat experience so they could pass it on to those coming up in the ranks behind them. A huge yet green military was a really bad idea, and so long as they had a mostly predictable assault like this available for them to fight and genuinely contribute to without risking the entire operation, Larissa was going to make use of it and deployed herself here to counter any unforeseen surprises.

She was not going to take the Bsidd up against the lizards yet, for they were too devious and her Bsidd too inexperienced. While they could still win, no doubt, she could end up losing thousands of them and that wasn’t a risk she was going to take. Her Clan Meteor was going to take it to the Skarrons and the Bsidd were going to play backup, with her channeling as much responsibility their way as she thought viable, with an ongoing reassessment taking place in her mind starting as soon as the first Bsidd-controlled drone entered combat.

Larissa knew her Clan could handle this on their own, though it would be tight and stretch out much longer than wise. Give the Skarrons too much time and they might sneak a supply convoy through or find a way to make her life hell through sheer resistance if she didn’t have a large amount of troops to work with. The trailblazer knew she could get the job done without the Bsidd, and always had that as a backup plan if something went wrong and they suddenly showed they weren’t ready, but they weren’t just here to watch and she needed them if they were going to efficiently and cleanly kick the crap out of the Skarrons and take the planet…and she intended to personally make sure that happened.

With the orbital battle heating up she began throwing a few Bsidd warships into the fight, testing and evaluating them on the fly then gradually bringing in more and more over the coming days with their performance being satisfactory for a first outing. Had it been her Clan troops she would have been irate over the sloppiness, but the Bsidd were green and needed time to learn, and so long as it was only equipment being lost it was an acceptable price to pay for the lesson…especially since she knew what kind of industrial powerbase the Bsidd were building, with a few hundred drones being a small order in the near future as their growth rate continued to snowball.

When Larissa sent troops to ground they were all Clan, with the Bsidd being reserved for cleanup operations and kept far from the enemy’s big walkers. The Bsidd’s own mechs didn’t see their counterparts on the battlefield until well past the halfway point in the campaign, with a few of their best being added to some Clan formations where they could protect them if things went very bad…but they didn’t, with the Bsidd mechwarriors faring better than their naval counterparts.

But it was the infantry that stood out the most, with the larger Bsidd variants, armored in typical Star Force style, owning their Skarron counterparts. The Hobbits could barely scratch them, and the muscle behind the otherwise looking ‘spindly’ Bsidd was enough to be able to wrestle the Skarrons to the ground, even when they were wearing their own elite armor.

Larissa fed them into the combat formations gently, not wanting to take any great risk, but even she was surprised by their effectiveness, for the original Bsidd troops had never been anything close to this strong in combat. They’d always been lightly used as cannon fodder with their numbers being their primary strength, but now that each of them was being treated as a valuable component and armored/armed as such, the future applications were literally mouthwatering with Larissa putting them in more and more combat situations against the Skarrons to get a better test of their capabilities.

Their strategic sense was lacking, she discovered, but that was just due to them being green and would be something they’d have to work through like everyone else, but their hand to hand effectiveness was nothing short of amazing, and even their smaller infantry units were proving to be more than competent once she let them wade into combat.

The entire campaign took some 9 months to complete, which was fast in terms of a planetary takeover, and a large part of that was due to the Bsidd being able to take on more duties than Larissa had expected and freeing up her Clan troops to make quicker and more forceful advances without having to spread out into defensive arrangements that the Bsidd were now capable of maintaining.

At the end of it all Larissa was genuinely impressed and already making plans for tweaks to the Bsidd military structure…along with a message to the rest of the trailblazers indicating what a gem she’d stumbled across and how down the road the Bsidd were going to add so much firepower to Star Force that she didn’t even want to try and estimate the impact they’d have.

But it was going to be huge.

8

August 30, 2652

Typhis System (lizard territory)

Hashfa

Uxtral sat in his Valerie cockpit, waiting in standby mode as his fighter was tucked away safely inside an armored transport waiting to head down to the surface when the order was given. He’d been sitting in his angular ship for more than 2 hours, but for some reason they were being held up with his transport sitting in middle orbit along with the rest of the non-warships as the Calavari navy continued to clean up the orbital clutter.

The major battle had been won, and won convincingly, some three weeks ago with the Calavari breaking through the lizard defense fleet and taking out their orbital battle stations, but instead of stay and fight to the death, the surviving lizard cruisers had broken up and fled around the system. The ground offensive had been held off until they could be hunted down and killed, for their ability to aid surface troops was well known, and Uxtral and the others waiting to get into the action did not want to see one of their silhouettes approaching on the horizon once they’d entered battle.

Their Wisp-class fighters were bad enough, not that the craft was any match for the Valerie. Star Force tech had made them even more potent than their original designs and the Calavari prided themselves on the effectiveness of the tiny craft and their being used by many allies and other factions within Star Force. The mainline and Clan aerial divisions still preferred their skeets, with a never ending conversation over which was superior, but both were far better craft than the lizard fighters, which didn’t even bother to come equipped with shields.

Their advantage was in their numbers, for the tiny craft were agile, had decent firepower, and almost no defense. That made them easier to produce and the lizards were doing so in vast numbers. Uxtral hadn’t fought them many times to date, but when he had they were always outnumbering the Calavari at least 10 to 1 and fighting in packs, as if 5 or more of their fighters were a single unit that you had to contend with. They flanked as often as they could and whittled away at your shields and armor until one eventually broke through…and unlike going up against a single opponent, when you killed one of the wisps you only diminished the incoming firepower against you slightly, making for battles that seemed to never have a pause.

But that was their only advantage. The lizards had even tried adding shields to their fighters once, but after several horrific encounters the heavier wisps were never seen again, for the reduction in their agility made them so much easier to kill. It was clear that the lizards were experimenting and adapting, as they always did, but more so in recent years as they tried to crack the puzzle that Star Force had become. It was true there were other races involved in the defense of the ADZ, but Star Force was the skeleton on which all others were fixed, both in terms of defenses and technology.

The Calavari were Star Force through and through now, but they retained their individuality as a race and even Uxtral felt the debt they owed the Humans weigh on his shoulders, despite the fact he had been born well after the fall of the original Calavari empire. Star Force had rescued the survivors, preserving a few of their worlds and bringing them back into the ADZ to train on others, reshaping and enhancing the Calavari military and overall civilization into what it was now.

Or so the stories went. Uxtral had to take their word for it, for he had never known life outside of Star Force, but he felt the urge to prove the Calavari worthy and to take on a greater share of the combat duties. The Humans had more than done their part, and many other races in the ADZ were sitting on their fat assess doing nothing. All those in Star Force were contributing in some way, and he didn’t fault any of them, but the freeloaders that sat in safety and complained about the very empire keeping them alive and prosperous irritated Uxtral and most other Calavari to no end.

But more than that they didn’t like playing a support role. They viewed the Humans as their brothers, and the other races within Star Force as the same, only lesser so, as if they were younglings whereas the Humans were elder siblings. The Calavari wanted to rise up on par with their brothers and share the load they’d more or less been single handedly carrying while everyone else licked their wounds and used the time given to them to retool and grow.

The Humans were still in command, or their elites were anyway, and they’d been holding the Calavari back for some time. Uxtral grudgingly agreed that it had been necessary in the past, but now was different. The Calavari race was resurgent and taking back worlds from the lizards…a few small ones here and there, but they were taking and holding them, with few reprisals coming their way. Some said it was because of the Skarron war the lizards were fighting, but Uxtral knew their enemy hadn’t been ignoring them. All along the border there were raids and full blown battles going on. No, the lizards just hadn’t found a way to deal with Star Force yet, and they weren’t committed to sending the numbers of troops and ships it would take to make for a sloppy overrun.

And even if they did, they’d only get a few systems. Star Force had been reinforcing the border worlds for decades and now had so many Sentinels in place that there was no way the lizards could take them all out. The simply didn’t have enough ships to do so, which was why Uxtral assumed no large scale invasion had taken place. It was a stalemate, with Star Force unable to kill the lizards due to their huge territory, and the lizards unable to kill Star Force due to their Sentinel defense line and density of well-defended systems.

Without much room to expand, Star Force had been colonizing planets that no one in their right mind would have wanted previously, but by doing so they had thickened the inhabited band of systems within the ADZ to the point where if one system were hit it wouldn’t be very long before reinforcements would arrive from the next. Given that fact, no matter how hard the lizards attacked they couldn’t get very far, and until they found a better way to fight Star Force, Uxtral assumed the enemy wasn’t going to waste resources.

The Calavari didn’t feel like maintaining the stalemate and had been urging for a larger assault, which they now had. Hashfa was one of three inhabited planets in the system and not lightly so, for the lizards had poured more resources here than the surrounding systems, with documented supply convoys coming in on a regular basis rather than building and growing everything they needed locally. The system was a central hub of lizard activity in their territory near the Rimward Calavari cluster, and from it a mass of new lizard colonies were attempting to spread out.

Those systems had been the targets of raids and ‘weeding’ expeditions, but Hashfa hadn’t been touched due to its stronger defenses and distance from the border. The Calavari had urged the Archons to let them hit it, knowing that it would weaken the surrounding area if it fell and set up the possibility to sweep away a dozen other systems in the following years, systems that mostly belonged to the Calavari before the fall.

It had taken a long time, Uxtral had learned, before the Archons had granted the Calavari permission to hit it solo, though there was one caveat they had insisted upon. Right now there were two Sentinels sitting in orbit around Hashfa, one of which had only been assembled yesterday after being brought into the system in large segments. If the Calavari were going to take the system then they had to be able to hold it afterwards, and without the Sentinels that would be very hard to do when the lizards responded, as everyone assumed they would.

This wasn’t a small target Star Force was taking away from them, and he wondered if the delay in landing ground troops was to get the Sentinels up and operational or to wait and see what kind of reinforcements the lizards sent before potentially stranding them on the ground if they were forced to flee orbit.

Uxtral didn’t care right now, he just wanted to get into the fight and all he could do was sit and watch the battlemap as the navy did their thing. Frustration aside, it was good to see his people kicking ass in space, for rumor had it that pre-Star Force the Calavari navy sucked hard. He couldn’t understand how that was possible, but right now his brothers were hunting down and kicking the crap out of the surviving lizard fleets as they tried to ambush the cargo ships and others as the Calavari were beginning to spread out across the system to go after varying targets.

This was by far the largest assembly of Calavari fleets to date, with them devoting a significant chunk of their overall naval forces to be able to take this system without needing mainline fleet help. That had been the main emphasis when they pleaded their case to the Archons, for they knew ships were scarce with so many needs across the ADZ. They didn’t want to weaken any other positions, but felt they had enough to make this assault happen on their own.

Uxtral had heard there had been some wrangling over that point, but eventually they’d been given the green light and here he was, all set to do his part but stuck inside a transport waiting for a release that felt like it would never come.

After another ten minutes he began wondering if they were going to get called out of their fighters and back to their quarters, for they couldn’t stay in their cockpits all day, but then the battlemap began registering incoming jumps into planetary orbit and he realized that their arrival near the system’s star must have been detected earlier and that’s why their planetary assault had been delayed, for scores of lizard cruisers were popping up in escort of several larger battleships and dreadnaughts…enough to be a concern as the Calavari fleet was somewhat spread out between the various planets.

But the Sentinels were here and one opened fire immediately, with the nearby Calavari ships moving aside to give them clear firing lines. The lizards didn’t hesitate and went after the Calavari warships, completely ignoring the pair of Sentinels, of which only one was currently in range of the jumppoint.

Uxtral really wanted to get out there and fight, but his Valerie wasn’t designed for space combat. None of theirs were, as was standard Star Force military philosophy. Fighters were too small to be effective in space given the risk of the pilot, with similar sized drones being more effective, though the Calavari used none, nor did most of Star Force save for Canderous who fielded a lot of them. No, the Calavari aerial core was strictly planetary, though they did fight on airless worlds a few times.

It was the anti-grav that they needed to maneuver, not the air, and this far above the planet the angles were all wrong. He could fly his Valerie through space, but not at combat speeds given the lack of necessary lateral tug that being on the surface provided. That, and if he got shot down he’d suffocate to death if the canopy was breached or someone didn’t get to him in time.

Thoughts of getting into the action in some way were pounding through his head as the panel that would show deployment orders was annoyingly blank, but then his attention was taken fully back to the battlemap as a huge target manifested itself on sensors, with him recognizing it as a lizard assault pillar. That meant they were going after the Sentinels before Star Force could get any more here, which was a wise play because a few more with overlapping firing arcs would make it almost impossible for the lizards to reclaim orbit.

A moment later a second jumppoint, one not originating from the star, began spewing more ships. They too were lizard cruisers, so many that Uxtral couldn’t visually count, but with them came another large ship, this one an invoker that was headed not towards the Sentinels but towards the cluster of Calavari ships parked in orbit…including the one that he was sitting inside.

“Damn it, let us go!” he yelled to no one inside his cockpit, smacking the armored canopy over his head in frustration. The navy was going to have its hands full dealing with that beast, and there was nothing he could do about it sitting in here so they might as well let them head on down to the planet where they could do some good, otherwise they’d just be target practice in here or their quarters.

The Calavari’s frustration turned to dread as another target at the first jumppoint materialized on sensors, with this being a second assault pillar amongst even more waves of cruisers.

“What the hell is going on?” he said angrily, knowing that they should have had some ships covering the star. It took some doing, but he adjusted the battlemap to give him the lag-delayed data from stellar orbit and his jaw dropped when he saw how many enemy jumpships there were. No more incoming arrivals were being logged, but there were far more than he’d expected the enemy to have available to counter attack with, especially after only 3 weeks.

The Calavari ships that had been there were gone, but a quick check of stats indicated that they had redeployed elsewhere rather than stay and get destroyed…which was smart. With the two Sentinels up and running this was going to be a good fight that could go either way, but regardless of who came out on top Uxtral’s fleet was going to get trashed in the process.

But so be it. The fight was here and the more lizards they killed…

Then the Calavari pilot saw the other large contacts sitting around the star as they waited their turn in the long lines heading to multiple jumppoints. There were three more assault pillars on the way, plus a second invoker.

So much for the lizards poking around and experimenting. The Calavari had wanted to hit them hard, and it looked like they were counterpunching in the same fashion. Uxtral figured the ground assault was now permanently off, with his transport and others probably going to evacuate the system while the navy played with the enemy for a while. They weren’t going to waste two Sentinels, but he didn’t think there was much of a chance of them winning out, despite their range advantage with the cleansing beams.

The lizard cruisers could compensate for that by running ahead and screening for the bigger ships, and if more than one assault pillar targeted a Sentinel at the same time it was unlikely that both could be taken down before it was taken out. Add in the invokers that would rip apart any drone warships that got within short weapons range, meaning their maulers and talon cannons were going to be useless against them.

Just as Uxtral was mentally calculating the strategic advantages that the lizards had his display lit up with a countdown just before his transport made a microjump down into low orbit. He was so confused that he didn’t register the deployment orders for several seconds, then blinked away invisible haze over his eyes as he confirmed that it was telling him that they were going to drop into the atmosphere and clear the way for the troop transports to land.

Battlemap data was shunted his way showing swarms of wisps near the target area and part of his mind immediately flipped into combat mode while the rest was screaming out in panic, knowing that their naval fleet was about to get their ass kicked.

He didn’t know what his commanders were thinking, but he wanted to trust them…he just had no idea what angle they could possibly be playing with all of this.

Uxtral was ready to fight though, and with the countdown ticking off the seconds until they were in position for release he committed himself to his part while hoping this whole thing didn’t turn into a bloody mess. A few seconds later that bad feeling reversed itself as a rare but familiar sound played out into his cockpit and every other cockpit and control station throughout the Calavari fleet as more incoming jumps were registered on the battlemap.

These weren’t lizard though, they were mainline Star Force coming out of odd and difficult jumplines directly into ganking positions, and they were broadcasting the Imperial March as both reassurance that they had the Calavari’s back and a massive middle finger towards the enemy that was receiving the same battle song on open broadcast.

Uxtral should have had more faith, and he kicked himself for not counting on the Archons to have everything covered as the bay doors opened and his countdown expired. Without hesitation he launched his Valerie into space and put it into an easy dive down into the upper atmosphere along with the others in his squadron and the squadrons pacing them. He had new worries to deal with now, but before he got within the fog of war and focused entirely on the enemy wisps he glanced back at the battlemap, which still included the stellar orbit data…and he saw a flurry of Star Force icons there, hitting the lizard jumpships where they were lightly defended.

The Calavari gritted his teeth in both excitement and a swell of pride seeing that this was going to be a hard win, but they were going to own the enemy so long as no one screwed up and he was going to make sure he didn’t.

Dismissing the extraneous battlemap displays he brought the local up to full size and got a feel for where his squadron was and how the enemy was moving below them as they kept to their nose dive, intent on hitting them from above as the lizard fighter swarm spread out like bees below. This was not going to be easy, but they had Valeries and Star Force training, and it was time to give the enemy another lesson on why both were superior.

9

September 3, 2652

Iona System (Beta Region)

Kirit

Fatti had a decision to make, and a big one. The Kiritas stood in front of a display screen in his maturia quarters, two days from leaving and still he didn’t know what he was going to do. He had graduated a day ago and was now ready to transition into his ‘real’ life, but until he chose what his path would be they couldn’t assign him new quarters or travel plans.

He had two more days before he’d automatically be punted into the general population, which was a fair option. No responsibilities and an unlimited amount of time to decide what he wanted to do…or to just kick back, relax, and do nothing. That sounded horrible to him, for the Kiritas had so much energy that downtime was literally the worst thing possible. He wasn’t going civie, and like most other Kiritas he was going to find at least something he could do to keep himself busy and help out either his race or Star Force.

He wasn’t entering the general ADZ population independently, he knew. That didn’t appeal to him. He wanted to remain somewhere within Star Force and had a lot of options to choose from, though all of them required a lot more training to qualify for. He could stay local and find some support task to help out with, ranging from personnel relations to maintenance, but that seemed a bit too low energy. He wanted something bigger.

On the screen in front of him was a list of all the options available to him, and he’d been running through it for the past 4 hours, pacing back and forth as he thought and weighed his options. In general there were 3 basic paths available to him, and that was stay with the Kiritas, go into Axius, or become Kiritak. Axius wasn’t some place that Kiritas went unless they wanted to get away from everyone else, and while there were a handful making use of themselves there most of the stories he’d heard were that they’d gone civie and essentially given up on Star Force.

That wasn’t for him, which left the two main options every Kiritas had. Work as part of the semi-independent Kiritas empire, into which he had been hatched, or transfer over to the Kiritak that had no independence and directly served Star Force as a massive workforce. The Kiritak reproduced on their own too, with their population being far larger than the Kiritas, but some of them didn’t want to stay and came over to Kirit or one of their colonies to take a different path. Nobody was locked in to where they began and there was a lot of swapping back and forth, sometimes with the same person changing more than once during their life.

For the Kiritas, they were fervently loyal to Star Force, for in their distant history it had been the Humans that had saved their planet and race from starvation and utter collapse, but more than that they had taught them a better way to live and had guided them through stages of advancement that had led them to colonize multiple star systems within the ADZ…something that was totally beyond his ancestors, who only had Kirit when the Humans first came to them.

The Kiritas were building and expanding along a plan that Star Force had set out for them, which everyone knew of from their maturia training. They were meant to be a home guard and resource production carry while other portions of Star Force focused on tech development, exploration, and combat. Kiritas troops and ships were rarely ever called upon for frontline duty, with their purpose being to defend their own worlds and be in a position to reinforce others if things went bad and the front was lost. To date that hadn’t happened, and a lot of Kiritas didn’t like sitting back and waiting while others did the fighting, but faithful as they were they followed the plan and so far it seemed the Humans knew what they were doing, as always.

While the Kiritas kept to their own systems and were continuously developing them into outright marvels of engineering capable of holding an insane number of people in a workable and comfortable environment, the Kiritak were the exact opposite and scattered across the ADZ. They had no civilian population and were all business, doing various tasks for Star Force that heavily fell into the resource collection and processing categories. Entire Kiritak colonies were established for no other reason than to mine and ship the materials collected off to other parts of the empire for use, while other colonies were industrial-based and used those materials to make parts and products that were likewise feeding the rest of Star Force, not to mention foodstuff production.

But more than that, the Kiritak were also heavily merged with mainline Star Force activities, not in terms of military, but the cargo naval fleet. The Kiritak had their own fleets built for the express purpose of shuttling resources to and from their colonies, but even the massive cargo freighter jumpships that had no contact with those colonies were seeing a good portion of their crews being made up of Kiritak. It was a mix, with Humans always involved, but no other race had such a presence in the mainline operations of Star Force as the Kiritak did, and that was a note of pride that interested Fatti greatly.

But making it onto one of those crews would be a long process full of training and competing against others for who had the highest marks. Only the best got to crew with the Humans, and he knew that 4 jumpships even had Kiritak Captains, who were literally a legend to all Kiritas. If Fatti wanted to go that route there was no guarantee he would make it, and to be honest he wanted to start making contributions now rather than later.

The Kiritak also had a military division, which was used as security for their various colonies. Those had seen more action than the Kiritas military had, but only through combat with the Skarrons during the initial invasion…during which most of them died fighting. That wasn’t the case anymore, and like the Kiritas they were merely homeguard protecting the valuable resource collection infrastructure upon which Star Force depended, but they too were elite and required years of training and competition to rise to a level to earn those positions.

Fatti wanted the notoriety of a military unit, but feared he’d be bored just sitting and waiting for a fight that might never come. Crewing on a cargo ship meant he’d be contributing on a daily basis, which was more to his liking, but it would take so long to earn a slot that he reluctantly pushed that option aside as well. That left a slew of possibilities that were less visible, but none the less important, and he stopped his pacing once again to run down the list that he’d practically memorized by now.

He’d had enough waiting and thinking and otherwise boredom and told himself he was going to pick and pick now so he could get going, so he ran through field after field, ranking them on a scale of 1 to 10, then going back and eliminating everything below a 6 on a datapad he had nearby. Then he went through the remaining list, weighing the advantages and difficulties of those before him and ranking them again, eliminating the bottom tier and repeating the process.

Fatti kept it up, feeling reckless but knowing he had to make a choice for there was no one area that stood out beyond the rest. Eventually he narrowed the long list down to five options, then found himself stuck as to how to eliminate another. All were quick routes, which employed huge numbers of people in a massive workforce and required less than 2 years of additional training beyond what he already had in the maturia…and as he looked at the list he realized all 5 were in the Kiritak rather than his native Kiritas.

Well that bit was decided, at least, but he still wasn’t sure how to choose between the 5. The first two were mining related, with one being a vehicle pilot and the other being a cargo loader. They were simple tasks but very important to keep the flow of materials moving, and they needed lots of them, meaning the competition for those slots wasn’t as fierce as it was for others, though he’d still have to prove himself once his training was complete. If not he’d stay in training until his skills rose to a level where he could earn a slot.

That was why he didn’t want to go naval, for he could be stuck in training for the next 50 years. The other 3 options he had on his short list were also movement related, with a bioharvest loader, warehouse loader, and an aquatic terminal loader having caught his attention. The last one was the rarest, with some aquatic mining colonies sending trains of resources up the sea floor to the coast where they were held in a depot for ground or air transport to other locations on the planet.

Being that it was rarer than the others Fatti reluctantly crossed it off, knowing he needed something that was widespread and easily accessible if he was to maximize his chances of earning a slot. With that in mind he also nixed the pilot, figuring there would be less craft available than crates to move, leaving him with three choices…all of which were nearly identical.

He went back to pacing again, glad to be near to a decision but still stuck. Eventually he just said to hell with it and chose one at random, imputing the numbers 1, 2, and 3 into his datapad and having the randomized function choose one…with it spitting out #2.

That was the bioharvest loader, which would have him moving crates of foodstuffs, either grain or finished products, between segments of the transportation grid, be it from rail to dropship or from hovertruck to warehouse. The position didn’t specify, which was why it had such a large number of open slots which were literally being updated with every transmission that came through the relay grid and he could see the numbers changing on his screen. With every slot filled they’d decrease, then new batches of openings would become available and the number would rise again.

At present, there were 1.6 million slots available, though only yesterday there had been 1.4 and two weeks ago when he’d been lightly perusing the numbers while going through his final graduation challenges there had been 1.7 million. That meant there was an insane amount of transition going on, but with a population in the trillions that was to be expected.

Fatti couldn’t petition for one of those slots now, for first he had to go through the proper training. To accomplish that he needed a slot in a higher level maturia, and a Kiritak one at that. Using his terminal he put in the request and got an acceptance message within 3 seconds, followed by deployment orders within the hour.

Feeling the excitement and relief at finally being on the move again he packed up the few belongings he had and headed out of the maturia to the spaceport indicated, hop/walking through the Kiritas crowds with his little duffle over his shoulder and mentally saying goodbye to the planet that had always been his home. He’d never been offworld before, but now he was headed for a Kiritak colony in Alpha Region, clear on the other side of the Human Core systems.

Most of his peers that he’d gone through maturia training with were already gone elsewhere, with about 15% remaining that would graduate soon, so it was time to move on and he was glad to be doing so in such a wild fashion. Transitioning to the Kiritak was going to take him farther away than any of the home colonies and he liked that. More to do and see and less chance for boredom.

When he got to a transit terminal he hopped inside and road a subsurface tram over to the spaceport and came out directly underneath it along with a lot of other soon to be passengers, most of which carried duffles like him. They didn’t talk, for the most part, but exchanged glances and understood that they were all in a similar position and heading out for new assignments.

He had a nav beacon on his wristbound comm/datapad that led him to the check-in point where he was given his dropship ID and departure time, with him having to wait only half an hour before it came in through the open ceiling doors and landed next to some 50 others. He and a large group boarded it and took their seats, then were flown up to orbit and deposited on a jumpship. Fatti was led to temporary quarters and left there on what would be more than a month’s journey across the ADZ.

The Kiritas tried to deal with the boredom of transit through training and games, but Fatti was just as relieved as the others when they finally arrived in Alpha Region and the Kiritak colony that housed their own maturias. The infrastructure was similar to what he’d grown up in on Kirit, but with a different feel and coloration to it, enough that he felt at ‘home’ but still in an alien environment.

There were also a handful of Humans in the otherwise all Kiritak zone, which was a new experience for Fatti who’d never seen one in person before. They were so tall and pale it surprised him, despite the pictures he’d seen all his life. Especially their heads, which were so narrow and decorated with different colors of what they called ‘hair.’ Each one he happened along over the coming days he stared at, respectfully, but didn’t interrupt. It was awe-inspiring to be next to one of them, let alone several, for he’d counted at least 14 different ones in his first two weeks in the colony, most of whom he ran across in the cafeteria or the nearby hallways.

Other than those areas it was all Kiritak all the time, with his training being taken up a notch from what he’d known back on Kirit. That was to be expected, for this was higher level maturia training and supposed to be more intense than basic had been, but it was still a challenge…though it helped that those going through it with him were also training for the exact same profession and they helped each other out whenever they could to maximize their chances of making it.

And Fatti would make it, some 17 months later when he’d completed his requirements and input his current scores into the slot selection process. He didn’t get chosen immediately, for the highest scores got preference, but after a week he received notification that he’d been accepted into a Kiritak colony all the way out in Epsilon Region, for which he left immediately.

It took three jumpships to get him out there, for there were no direct flights, but once he arrived he was put to work right away and given an exoskeleton mech to use, just like he’d trained with. It was six times as tall as he was and open to the air all around him save for a protective cage that encircled the now Kiritak. With the skills he’d developed over the last year he walked the cargo mech over to the train that had just came into the terminal and was directed to one of the cars along with six other mechs in the very long bay that allowed more than 60 cars to be unloaded simultaneously.

Fatti was last in line, following the others in and sliding the mechanical hands/pylons underneath one of the crates and lifting it up, pivoting the mech around with a shuffle of its mechanical feet, then walking the crate out and over to a conveyor onto which he sat it down before returning to the car to get another one. The conveyor had slots on it designed for the size of these crates and serviced three of the offloading stations, with Fatti’s crate dropping into one of the open slots between some others from the car to the left and all of them traveling around a few bends in the river-like flow before disappearing into a tunnel in the wall.

That was all Fatti would see of them, and his task was simple enough. Unload every train car that came through his position and get the grain that was in them to the processing factory on the other side of that wall…or wherever it was down the line. Maneuvering the mechs wasn’t easy, and even with the extensive training that the Kiritak had had, he was slower about it than the others. They didn’t give him any grief over it, for they had once been in his position, and gave him some pointers here and there and made sure to give him plenty of room to maneuver, but over the months that followed he became better at it, with his team remaining the same and them getting into a fluid sync that became second nature, allowing them to work faster and more efficiency than other, newer crews.

Their offloading rates were measured, as were all things in Star Force, so they could have numbers to compare with and Fatti quickly realized it was a matter of pride for both himself and his team as to how many crates they unloaded and how fast…but to never ever ever drop one. They were strong enough to not break, but it slowed down the process and basically said you didn’t belong here.

One of the first things his teammates told him when he arrived was to take his time and do a proper job of it. Taking their advice he did just that and never dropped one in his early days…then when he’d gotten more than a year on the job he wondered how in the hell someone could drop one, for it was so easy a task that it was almost impossible to screw up.

But that was just experience talking, and he would get even more skilled with the loading mechs as the years passed, with him transferring to another crew some 18 years later that had a higher rank and stricter timetables to work under that added a new challenge, for while the Kiritak were patient and careful, they didn’t like to be slow and designed their entire shipping process to be as fast as possible, with their loaders expected to keep up as both a matter of pride and function.

10

October 2, 2652

Epsilon Eridani System

Corneria

Hightower looked out the observation window of the shipyard at the internal slip where a partially constructed warship floated with a beehive of Human workers moving around it, pulling more pieces in and attaching them wherever they needed to go and fleshing out the synthetic skeleton. No longer were they using metals, but had moved up the tech tree to Dar’mats, which were a synthesis of various compounds with corovon-heavy bonding points that made the molecules cling to one another even more so than metals.

There were varying degrees of Dar’mats, some with more corovon in them than others, but this newest version had the lightest amount, yet in an arrangement that gave it an 82% strength rating of the heaviest to date. That made the warship skeleton somewhat weaker, but would allow 26 warships to be built out of the same amount of corovon as one of the heavies.

Hightower knew the tradeoff was worth it, for corovon mining and recycling was his highest priority in this system and across the empire. There was so little of it available in most locations because of its density, with the greatest deposits having sunk to the center of gravity wells. Already he was working with the Hycre to mine the gas giant that they occupied in this system, but they were having trouble reaching the true core. Still, the amount of corovon they were pulling from the surrounding layers was more than the terrestrial mining operations were turning out, with the Duke knowing that most future corovon hunts were going to have to go where most races couldn’t.

Hightower’s responsibilities were like those of Davis, he had to oversee that everything the mainline Star Force colonies in the system did, as well as keep an eye on the Australians and Hycre that were also in the system, but the biggest part about being a Duke was seeing the problems years in advance and working to solve them before they arose, with corovon shortages being a persistent nemesis that somehow he’d always managed to find a way to avoid. But with the continual growth of the system’s infrastructure the number of ships it was exporting there was never going to be a time when they didn’t need more.

And it wasn’t just corovon, he had to balance population against infrastructure, maintain the traffic flow of cargo and personnel, oversee the economic fluctuations in both the local and interstellar markets, plan out additions to the planetary infrastructure, orbital habitats, and just about every other bit of building within the system…all the while coordinating with the other Dukes, Marquis, and Davis to keep the overall empire in balance. They shared resources often, but it was the aim to get each system as independent as possible so to diminish the cargo transit between them, which was already reaching staggering levels.

There were nearly constant jumps in and out of the system, with far more activity within. The movement of the vessels had to be continuously monitored and guided, otherwise there would be collisions and utter chaos. The bigger Star Force grew the more challenges there were in maintaining it, for size did matter and the smaller colonies had a much easier time of running themselves.

The tradeoff was that the larger systems like Epsilon Eridani had the industrial and personnel muscle to do things the others couldn’t, and that was both a privilege and responsibility that Hightower carried on a daily basis, for it was up to him to choose what, where, and when, with others filling in and making his plans a reality. But at the end of the day they had a framework given to them that they had to work inside of, a focus that they could rely on and tune out everything else, but Hightower didn’t have that luxury.

He knew it was even worse for Davis, who had not only Star Force but the entire ADZ to oversee, which was why he and the other Dukes tried to do as much as possible themselves to free the Director up to work almost exclusively on the big picture. The same was true for the Dukes, in that their subordinates took care of a lot of the repetitive duties to free them up to troubleshoot and plan ahead, but one didn’t fully understand what it was like to have people depending on you but without anyone for you to turn to for advice or guidance.

Hightower had many conversations about this very point with Paul when he had been Clan Saber’s Marquis, for the Archons were in the same position. The trailblazers had to lead with no one to pattern off of, for they were who everyone else took their cues from. It was total freedom to do what you wanted, but you had to come up with answers when problems presented themselves, and making that happen took a curious combination of determination, creativity, and luck.

It wasn’t easy, yet it was simple, and aside from his fellow Dukes and the trailblazers no one ever seemed to understand that, which left him in a very rare group of peers that he virtually never saw.

Epsilon Eridani was his turf, and having another Administrator of his caliber in the same location would have been wasteful, so he was left to secure and grow Star Force’s 2nd most valuable system and feed the mainline colonies and fleet in addition to what the locals needed. Epsilon Eridani had to be an exporter, and beyond that it had to be a huge exporter in order to give the rest of the empire what it needed to grow at a rate far faster than self-sufficient expansion would allow.

With the flow of cargo, ships, and pre-made structures a new colony could reach a level in a single year that, in the past, would have taken 50 to reach. That new colony in turn would reach exportation levels of its own in a relatively short amount of time, which would then help feed other colonies in a growth plume that could see entire planets reshaped in the blink of an eye compared to what he’d had to work with when he first took over control of the system.

That was the power of a large empire, and that power had to be used wisely. Many people thought that Star Force pretty much ran itself nowadays, but that was a misnomer. Mainline Star Force was full of leadership with centuries of experience and a wealth of skill, and through them the younger members were able to do things that otherwise they could not, raising the bar higher than most civilizations had ever reached.

But therein lay the snag, for without that core of experience the rest would diminish to mediocrity, not for lack of trying but simply for lack of guidance. It was easy to do something efficiently when you had a procedure to follow, given to you by a person who had had to figure it out the hard way through years of trial and error and insight, but take away that procedure and the efficient workforce suddenly became ineffective.

That was why Hightower and the other Dukes had taken Davis’s orders regarding training very seriously, for they knew that personnel rising up through the ranks could fall into the trap of simply mimicking others and learning by example. That was all fine and well until they encountered a new situation or rose to high enough rank where they had to start improvising. In order for the empire to continue to grow the leadership had to be able to think outside the box, which was why the Archons were chosen more for their intuitiveness and determination than their beginning physical skills.

Likewise Administrators had to figure out why something worked, rather than just seeing that it did and doing it again. No Duke had ever been promoted to the position without first being a Clan Marquis, and there you had to learn to do for yourself because the Clans were deliberately severed from the mainline colonies. The economies were separate, as were their supply lines and military forces. They were independent empires each, and the skills that Hightower had learned leading Clan Saber had made him ready to take on Epsilon Eridani because he’d had the opportunity to learn from doing rather than following protocol.

Likewise there were other learning experiences occurring at lower levels, with people like Hightower taking a hands off approach and letting the junior Administrators earn their keep…but he couldn’t ignore them for they’d need a poke or nudge now and again, which meant he couldn’t just sit in his office and watch the numbers roll through. He had to get out and actually see his star system first hand, which had prompted him to pick up the habit of taking random inspection tours, which at the moment brought him to this shipyard.

He always came unannounced and had a quiet look around, usually finding everything in order, but occasionally picking up on an inefficiency or a better way to do something. It was the little things that added up over time, and even while his people were damn good at what they did there was always room for improvement. They were the best within Star Force and the ADZ for that matter, but the older he got the more he learned that there was always more to learn, and with a civilization so big with so many facets, he’d stopped expecting people to be jacks of all trades…which was his job.

Specialization was a powerful tool, but when a person only knew how to do one thing it was also a weakness, for they couldn’t coordinate with others. It was the job of Administrators to get the specialists into the positions they needed, like arranging puzzle pieces, and then let them do their thing. Each puzzle piece usually had no idea what the others were doing, making the Administrators the glue that held everything together.

“I trust everything is in order?” a voice behind Hightower asked.

“That I’ve seen, yes,” the Duke said without turning around as the shipyard Administrator came up on his right side next to the large window.

“You know,” she said, “if you want to sneak onboard you shouldn’t wear your Duke’s uniform.”

“I’m not hiding, I just need to get my own eyes on what’s happening from time to time. Datapads only tell you so much,” he said, gesturing to the Cruiser-class drone being constructed in front of them inside the contained bay. It was zero g to facilitate the movement and assembly of the various components, but it was also pressurized and sealed off from space with thick doors to allow the workers to move about without wearing envirosuits.

“There’s always something to see here, given the round the clock work schedules, but I’d guess there was something more that caught your eye than the view?”

“I was curious to see the frame assembly.”

“Then you’re in the wrong slip, this one is complete.”

“Already been there,” Hightower said, glancing at her with a slight smile.

“How long have you been on my station?”

“A few hours,” he admitted.

“I’ll have to have a chat with my security chief. He only found you 40 minutes ago.”

“I hate fanfare, even in small amounts. Wastes time.”

“To answer your question, the frame assembly is taking slightly longer than previous models due to the bonding agents. We’re having to supercool them in order to make them malleable enough to take. My people are used to using heat to bond, so this cryo putty is going to take some time to master.”

“I haven’t seen any accident reports.”

“My people aren’t sloppy,” she objected with a frown.

“Didn’t imply they were, but I’ve been told the cryo bonding is dangerous.”

“Ha…most things we do around here are dangerous. It’s new, therefore we’re taking our time and learning all the little variations so we don’t have accidents. Production rates will increase slightly over the following year, I can guarantee you, but I don’t think they’re going to match the previous timetable. The process is more time consuming, even taking the learning curve out of the equation.”

“Worth the tradeoff.”

“So am I going to get all of my slips filled, or are you still holding out on me?”

“Lots of mouths to feed,” Hightower said, ignoring the complaint he’d heard more times than he could count, “only so much ore.”

“I’ve got 18 open slips, two of which are jumpship. I hate wasting time leaving them sit.”

“As do I, but I’d rather have more slips than resources as opposed to more resources than slips.”

“We used to be full up,” she reminded him.

“We didn’t have any many shipyards back then either.”

“Just saying.”

“I may have some more coming to you in a couple of years, but don’t hold me to that.”

“A mining expansion, I hope…or is it a fabrication holdup?”

“Rare compound holdup, but there are a few more cheats in prototype like this one that could alleviate some of that burden.”

“Gravity drive without corovon?”

Hightower laughed. “Unfortunately no, we’re nowhere close to that tech level.”

“Just wishful thinking.”

“Rumor has it that some distant races have achieved it,” he floated, knowing that the shipyard Administrator didn’t have pyramid knowledge access.

“Seriously? Who?”

“Someone far beyond our reach, but I’ve been told it’s doable.”

“Wow. Never heard that.”

“Keep it to yourself, please.”

“Just get me the specs as soon as you can,” she joked.

“Deal.”

“Well, as long as you’re here, I might as well take you on a proper tour. There are better places to view your minions than here.”

“Any chance I can get a look at the cryo bonding up close?”

“Sure, but is this sightseeing or are you looking for something in particular?”

“Just trying to keep up with everything new. The more I’m familiar with the better.”

“No problems at the other shipyards?”

“No, the frames appear bugless.”

“Good,” she said with a bit of relief. New pieces to work with were always a bit jittery, for her workers were used to building the same design specs again and again, with the process down to a very fast and efficient routine that allowed them to assemble ships at an impressive rate. “I’ll take you out myself, unless you want to snoop alone?”

“Lead on,” he said, finally abandoning the window.

Hightower would spend another 4 hours in the shipyard, studying the new construction procedures and learning a few more of the old ones, then he took his private puddle jumper through planetary orbit and out to a jumppoint not cluttered with stations then over to Arcadia, the innermost planet whose original desert wasteland was now almost entirely covered with cityscape. There he went down to the surface and inspected the deep mining operations and half a dozen factories, stopping by a maturia and then a Knight training center before continuing with his system-hopping tour that would take him some 3 weeks to complete before heading back to Corneria and his office tower.

There he fell back into the regular routine, pulling through massive amounts of data from across the system while also monitoring news feeds from across the empire, the ADZ, and the war reports, along with a new message from Paul.

That he pulled up first off and saw a short tech note indicating that a new containment shield was in prototype stage and working well, putting them one step closer in the long journey towards stellar mining.

Hightower pulled up a secure file, then a hologram of the V’kit’no’sat version of a ‘star forge’ manifested itself over his desk, next to which was a long list of items necessary for its construction, a few of which had checkmarks next to them. With the touch of a button and a bit of virtual scrolling he found the containment shield requirement and checked it off, putting them one step closer to the mother of all corovon mining operations.

Shame

1

March 1, 2655

Unnamed System (lizard territory)

High Stellar Orbit

Kara’s Ma’kri exited the very slow interstellar jump at full repulsion, draining its capacitors in order to slow the jumpship far away from the star where the gravity field was weaker. That left the ship vulnerable, for it would take time for the gravity drive capacitors to recharge sufficiently to make another jump, but the benefit of it was that the lizards wouldn’t know where to expect them. Even if they picked them up on sensors it would take time to get ships out to their location, and without the lizards possessing binary drives it would be a difficult bit of navigation for them to do so.

Which was why Kara was willing to risk the jump. The system in question was on the edge of the lizards’ core region, with the journey to get here being extremely difficult. Over the past few years she’d been raiding one world or another, blowing up or otherwise sabotaging important pieces of infrastructure or ships, and data mining every computer system she could get her Vorch’nas plugged into…as well as mind melding with a few Mastermind variants she was able to track down.

Little by little she gained information on the lizards, their territory, and their inner workings…but only in piecemeal for most didn’t know anything other than what concerned their local affairs. In fact, she probably knew more about their empire than most of them did, and that knowledge had led her here.

What ‘here’ was she still wasn’t sure, but it was a level of system far beyond anything Star Force had encountered before. Those systems surrounding it were nearly impossible to enter without being detected and swarmed with ships, and on more than one occasion her ship had to bug out almost immediately when scouting the area became impossible.

Kara desperately wanted to probe deeper into the core of lizard territory but to do so she’d needed more engine power…and now finally she had it. The Ma’kri she was commanding was a prototype, or rather the first model out of prototype finishing. It carried Star Force’s newest gravity drive, which now put them at 1/10th the strength of the V’kit’no’sat’s basic drives. That was no small feat, and the ship had to be redesigned with most of the internal space going into more jump drives and leaving little more than a skeleton crew onboard, but the Sonic was now by far the fastest jumpship in the ADZ and probably the entire local segment of the Orion galactic arm.

That made her trips between systems ultra-fast, but that wasn’t the point. She needed the enhanced engine power so she could jump off the star’s gravity field but far enough out from it to miss the stellar detection network the lizards, or others, would have set up. That was the only way she had been able to scout out the surrounding systems, and it was the only way she’d been able to make it this far into the interior.

The Ma’kri also had the best sensor plating available, which would hopefully make it a ghost to lizard sensors at range, but there was no way of telling until you got there to find out.

“How do we look?” Kara asked her Captain, standing behind his command chair with her hands on the backrest.

“Nothing local, but there are…oh my,” he cut off as the passive sensors began to pick up slight reflective signals from the lizards’ own detection grid as they bounced off of various objects, with the biggest ones being the first the computer analysis could pick out.

“We knew there was something special here,” Kara said calmly. “Let’s have a thorough look.”

“Please tell me you’re not going in there?” the Captain pleaded.

“Not today, no,” she said, seeing more detail forming on both the main hologram and the Captain’s readouts that she was snooping on. “We’re just going to take a peak from range, but let’s make sure we see all that there is to see. Bring us in a lazy slingshot around the planet, but keep it high,” she said, seeing the closest of the planets in the system not too far off from their current position. It was larger than Earth by about a third and was covered in green according to the visual scans that were being enhanced and shown to the bridge, along with so many ships in orbit that they appeared to be solid globs on the sensors until they were able to sort out the tiny dots for what they were.

They appeared as schools of fish, with varying sizes. The Ma’kri couldn’t give numbers or makes from this range, only detect the mass of them, but that wasn’t what had shocked the Captain. Also in ‘orbit’ around the planet was a solid, giant ring some 10-15 miles wide and by no means a natural occurrence. As the Ma’kri began moving a bit closer the sensors were able to get more detail, but it appeared that there was a massive, artificially constructed ‘halo’ around the planet, and one with lines running down to the surface.

The closer they came the more detail they got, up until they’d ventured as near as they dared yet still in high orbit, but it was close enough to get ship counts and see the construct for what it was. The previously smooth ring was not so pristine on inspection, but rather a lumpy jumbled assortment of niches and pylons that housed partially constructed ships of massive size. As they lazily flew by the closest approach in their slingshot orbit they saw several invokers under construction, along with slots that appeared to be building assault pillars and their massive cargo ships.

Others were constructing their jumpships and no less than 7 additional models that Star Force had not seen to date, nor had gained intelligence on from Kara’s computer and memory raids. There was no way to tell if they were warships or not, but it was clear that the lizards had constructed a mindboggling shipyard that ringed the entire planet and was no doubt the source of the swarm-like fleets sitting nearby.

The lines that connected the ring down to the planet were obviously orbital tethers, something that Star Force had experimented with early on then abandoned in favor of dropships. It seemed the lizards had found a use for them, and if Kara’s instincts were right they were hauling massive amounts of resources up from the planet round the clock, and given that each one was nearly a mile wide there had to be multiple shafts inside to run who knew how many lifts.

Other than the Nexus grid points this was the biggest feat of engineering Star Force had ever seen, and the fact that it was the work of the lower tech level lizards only underscored how innovative, bold, and devious they were…not to mention industrious. This ring shipyard had to be capable of producing more warships than all the slips in Star Force combined.

Kara guessed that the cruiser slips were interior ones, for the bulk of the ships in orbit were of that make, but there was also a disproportionately high number of battleships, dreadnaughts, and other larger vessels, with facilities like this no doubt being their primary source of fabrication. Already Kara was thinking of ways to attack or sabotage the thing, but it was so massive that there was literally no easy way to do it. Even if she smuggled several dropships’ worth of explosives onto it she’d only make a dent in the thing, leaving virtually all of it intact and operational.

She had no clue how she was going to mess with it, but right now that wasn’t going to happen anyway. This was a pure recon run and they’d already got further than she’d thought they’d get, so it was time to move on, look some more, then get the hell out of here before they pressed their luck to the limit.

Keeping well clear of the planet the Ma’kri made a light jump across to the next planet in the system and traveled around the full circuit, always going slow and braking high up where there should have been no trouble. They found several other worlds fully inhabited by the lizards, including three airless ones that were no doubt mining operations to assist in feeding the shipyard ring. Kara wished they could turn their own active sensors on, for she knew they were missing a wealth of information, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Already the planetary tracking sensors were hitting their hull lightly and being absorbed, but any closer or even a twitch from their own actives would give them away.

But they didn’t need actives to see the ship counts around each of the planets they passed near. There were literally millions of ships in the system, a mix of warships and transports and who knew what else with all the unfamiliar designs, but it was clear that this system was on a development level far beyond any they’d come across before, making this a whole new ball game and confirming the fears the trailblazers had had about the strength of the lizards…with Kara only now beginning to understand how patient their enemy was.

With the exception of the Skarrons the lizards were almost lazily conquering their tiny slice of the galaxy, picking off easy targets and working over those more difficult ones with successive hikes in ship count and resources, but not overwhelming targets with the gigantic hammer of a fleet before her. They were biding their time and expanding while keeping their true power held back and out of view of others, giving them perhaps a hope of surviving when they had none. It was simply a matter of time and a waiting game, with the lizards watching, learning, and growing stronger as their second and third tier troops did all the fighting.

Star Force had noted that the lizards were not taking that strategy with the Skarrons, and from the intel reports they were getting, which they knew were incomplete, there was a steady flow of ships coming out from the core and ramming straight into Skarron territory…and now Kara knew from where they were coming. There was no doubt in her mind that there were other ring shipyards like this one in the other core systems, which numbered about 40 as far as she’d been able to deduce, and for every fleet they monitored heading for the Skarrons there must have been ten times that going in that they were unaware of.

Already the lizards had carved out a huge chunk into the Skarrons’ expansion region in previously Nestafar space, but instead of pushing out laterally the lizards were driving forward like a spear in the giant empire. Kara thought she now knew why, for the lizards had to have learned from captured ships or recovered debris of the size of the Skarron empire and realized that this was a foe they could not overrun nor play the waiting game with.

Up until now she didn’t think the lizards had a chance of beating the Skarrons, not on the whole, but now she wasn’t so sure. Granted, lizard territory was still vastly smaller, and that meant less resources available for them to use, but with the aggressive way they were going at the Skarrons and pretty much ignoring everyone else, figuratively speaking, she got the feeling they sensed a worthy opponent and were going at them hard before they had a chance to realize the threat from the rim for what it was.

Then again this was the lizards, who always seemed to have something up their sleeve that you didn’t know about, but the spear of systems they were attacking and taking away from the Skarrons hadn’t made any sense to her until now, and she would have bet a million credits they were pushing towards a high level Skarron system further inside their territory, intent on knocking it out and weakening the entire region around it so they could move forward and gobble up the pieces.

Hit the stronghold and the systems that relied upon it would wither, and now Kara saw that the lizards had the might to possibly pull that off. She didn’t know for sure because Star Force hadn’t probed into Skarron territory to see what their strongholds looked like and they weren’t going to. Heading further towards the galactic core was banned because they didn’t want to increase the odds of word getting back to the V’kit’no’sat of their existence. That meant Beta Region was as far in as they were willing to go, or maybe out to Achkor where the Voku were, but no further.

The Hycre had been going though, and monitoring what they could of the lizard/Skarron war, and from that Star Force was getting most of its intel, but in order to get to the ‘spearhead’ the lizard core fleets had to pass through or around what used to be Calavari territory, and that’s where Star Force was monitoring and ambushing what they could, though they weren’t stupid enough to try and hit one of the mega-sized fleets moving through.

Kara’s Ma’kri made it through seven planetary peeks before their luck ran out at the 8th, and as soon as they came out of their microjump in high orbit they were hit with a much higher intensity sensor scan than the other planets had had, with their armor not being able to absorb all of it. After only 9 seconds there was activity in the nearby ship ‘clouds,’ making it obvious that they’d been noticed.

“Full sensor scan for 20 seconds then run like hell,” Kara ordered, wanting to get a quick peek as long as they were here. “Capacitor charge?”

“23%,” the navigator replied.

“Damn.”

“Hop around or try a stellar run?” the Captain asked.

“There’s no time to play games, they’ve got too many ships in play. Take us to the star, indirect route, but make it quick…and go dark when we make the jump,” Kara said, tapping her short fingernails against her teeth in frustration. They shouldn’t have been detected because the tracking systems around the planets were nowhere near as powerful as those around the star. Why this planet was different she didn’t know, but they’d jumped right into the beams like a bunch of newbs and now they had to run before they were hunted down, and with so many ships available that wouldn’t be hard to do.

They could hide in the system, for sure, just by using their binary drives and going out beyond the furthest planet where the lizards couldn’t follow, but they couldn’t make an interstellar jump from out there. That meant they had to come back in in order to jump out…and give the lizards time to set up ambushes for them and you were as good as dead in a system packed this full of warships. That meant Kara had to get her ship out of here before they had a chance to set up, and with the ship’s capacitors not fully charged they couldn’t make the same sneak jump as before because they needed more gravity intensity to make up for the less available power…and that meant getting a lot closer to the star.

“Damn,” she whispered a moment before they made their emergency microjump, pulling on multiple planets to get the necessary line given how they were out of position for a natural jump. With the active sensors engaged briefly the hologram of the planet they were fleeing gleamed with detail, most of which Kara missed as the two massive rings around the planet caught her attention, previously obscured in the mass of ships and stations surrounding a world that was half ocean, half land…with that land covered with lizard infrastructure from shore to shore.

Then the active feeds cut out as they made their jump, moving over to another planet and pulling a similar navigational feat to come out of it near the stellar jumpline. They didn’t bother opening up the active sensors again, for if there was a chance they could make a quick bounce off the planet’s gravity without being detected then Kara wanted that advantage. The sensor intensity was not so strong here so there might have been a chance they’d accomplished that bit of sneakiness, but the Ma’kri didn’t stick around long enough to find out, making a second microjump at much greater speed 3 seconds later, just long enough to store up a bit of energy without lowering the main capacitor charge.

Doing the math en route, they determined how close they needed to get in order to make the interstellar jump at decent speed and picked their destination system…an empty star that was on the other side of a diffuse nebula, but one that she knew the Ma’kri’s shields could protect them from. It was the best option without taking the time to bounce around the system to a preferable jumpline, and Kara had the feeling that if they stayed any longer than necessary their odds of surviving this were going to diminish drastically.

When they came out of their microjump they had to position around the star slightly, meaning lateral movement that wasn’t speedy. Kara had them dip into the main capacitor a bit to reduce their time in the system, but when they came around to their jumpline they could see a cluster of lizard ships forming up in blockade formation across it, with many more hurrying in on different trajectories.

Luckily they were further in on the line than where the Ma’kri was heading, suggesting that for the moment they weren’t being picked up on sensors…or at least the lag hadn’t transitioned back yet to the receivers, and from the receivers to the lizards in charge who then had to issue new deployment orders. They didn’t know the Ma’kri could make jumps further out, so from their point of view they were quickly bottling up the system along all available jumplines so they couldn’t get out.

Kara cursed herself for burning this new advantage right off the bat, but there was no other choice. They had to make this outer jump, and when the lizards saw them do it, even if on replay weeks later when they scanned every bit of sensor records they had, they’d learn Star Force had a greater jump range and not make the same mistake twice.

As the Ma’kri got into position the capacitors that held an enormous amount of energy for nearly instantaneous release into the gravity drives opened up and channeled their power into producing the repulsion necessary against the somewhat weaker field to get them up to speed, accelerating and shooting them out of the system on what would otherwise have been a normal/slow jump. That wasn’t altogether a bad thing, for it would reduce the power required of the shields to protect them from the thin nebula by decreasing the collision speed with the widely spaced molecules.

But they wouldn’t get there for days, during which Kara was going to go over every bit of the sensor recordings they’d collected. She didn’t think they’d be back here anytime soon, nor did she think they could assault the system unless the lizards left it underdefended, and even then it’d be one hell of a battle if Star Force brought a massive fleet of drones with it.

No, right now this system was beyond their ability to hit, let alone take, but at least they knew where it was, and potentially someday down the road that would allow them to set up a backdoor attack on those ring shipyards to knock out a significant part of the lizards’ ship production capability…if she could figure out how to take them down.

That was a mental exercise she spent a considerable amount of her time on during the return trip to the ADZ and still she had no answers by the time they got back, with Kara filling in the others as to what she’d found before heading back out again.

2

June 9, 2657

Unnamed System (Skarron territory)

Regional Capitol

The lizard invoker broke off from its escorts, dipping lower in orbit and carrying its rainbow energy arcs around it like a giant shield that obscured view of most of the massive ship. Leaving the cruiser shield that had been running interference for it, one of the 28 centerpieces of the lizard invasion quickly moved towards one of the Skarrons’ massive orbital defense platforms that was even now targeting another invoker with a mass of heavy lachars and rail gun slugs that were penetrating the destructive cocoon and making hull impacts.

The other invoker was nearly into physical contact range, with its energy arcs ripping through Skarron ships that had positioned themselves in the path of the big ship to slow it down, for their plasma couldn’t touch the hull given the range of the energy arcs, leaving it little more than spit by the time it reached the ship, and most didn’t, for the fluctuating rainbow scattered the plasma where it collided with them.

Already massive hull breaches were occurring on the other invoker, but it didn’t pull back. The station it was closing on had already been damaged by an assault pillar that had since been destroyed, with the attacking ship being the smaller of the two. The Skarron double orb-shaped construct was larger than both the invoker and assault pillar combined and was one of six defending the heavily populated Skarron planet. The lizards knew if they could take this one out now it would save a lot of their smaller ships later, hence they were tearing at it and willing to sacrifice their bigger ships if necessary in the tradeoff.

But they weren’t stupid, and seeing that the invoker wasn’t going to get the job done on its own the other closest nearby abandoned its fleet to destruction in order to join up with the other, making the tiniest of microjumps down to the defense station and moving through a scattering of defensive ships, none of which could do anything to stop the giant chess piece. It came in on the opposite side from the other invoker, which was now close enough that its energy arcs were eating through the outer layers of the station while in turn it was also getting pummeled with plasma that was making it through the gaps where the energy arcs disappeared on contact with the hull.

The second invoker came in so close it looked like it rammed the far side of the station, but in truth the hulls never touched. The energy field did and vaporized hull plating like a glowing hurricane that slowly moved in closer and closer, consuming more material and literally eating away at the station. Between the two of them the invokers focused on the narrow mid section of the station until their energy arcs finally met up and they cut the station in half.

The first invoker, now heavily damaged, moved into the gap and began to eat at the upper orb from the interior where there were no weapons to damage it while the other pulled out and headed for the relief fleet pouring towards the station. The Skarron ships had just finished mopping up a lizard formation higher in orbit and were now coming down to hit the bigger ship, with dozens of juggernauts in the mix that began sniping the invoker from range with their lachars.

If the invoker allowed that to occur it was doomed to a slow death, so it accelerated towards the incoming enemy, buying time for the other one to eat away and finish off the two halves of the station from the inside out. The juggernauts immediately withdrew, knowing they’d be no match for the lizard ship up close, and the other Skarron ships went with them, bullied away by the invoker that could not catch the quicker ships.

All over orbit there were literally hundreds of naval battles taking place, with the lizards having brought their largest fleet to date to assault the Skarron’s most rimward regional capitol. This was the first time the lizards had assaulted a civilian planet, with all others involved in the war being pure military civilizations. The one below them now was the source of the soldiers that continually kept flowing out to the front, and if knocked out would diminish the Skarrons’ ability to counterattack with any longevity.

But it was going to cost them greatly, for the system was more heavily defended than any other they’d taken. That was expected, for the lizards had recovered computer data from damaged Skarron vessels that included strength analysis and maps of Skarron territory, highlighting this system as the central strongpoint supporting the rest of the region. Below them there were over 15 billion Skarrons and 120 billion of their slave races, all of which were reproducing regularly to supply them with new troops.

There were other worlds similar to this one further into Skarron territory, but their troops and resources were being funneled through here en route to the fronts, making this the sweet spot and weak point of this tiny piece of the Skarrons’ giant empire. The Skarrons knew it as well, which was why they’d built the enormous defense stations and had a slew of ship varieties the lizards had never encountered before guarding the system. They intended to hold this strategic point and the lizards intended to take it away from them, resulting in an apocalyptic naval battle that was seeing carnage inflicted to both sides.

The invoker moved through as many debris fields as it did intact ships as it continuously chased away incoming fleets seeking to aid the still operation halves of the defense station. Less and less weaponsfire was coming from them over time as the other invoker slowly chewed apart their innards, but that was a slow process considering their sheer size and meant the other invoker had to either come in very close to aid or keep its distance to avoid the lachars and, more importantly, the rail gun slugs, both of which would pass right through the energy fields and hit the hull with nearly maximum effect.

The Skarrons had learned early on that the invokers had a weakness in that their energy fields needed prolonged contact to inflict massive damage, racking up power being poured into a target to superheat and vaporize it, meaning that fast moving objects could pass through with only minor damage. That was why there were hundreds of new rail gun-armed warships in the system that had not yet made their way to the front, but that had been designed specifically to fight the invokers.

So far none of them had made their way to the bisected station and the pair there, but they were elsewhere hunting the others while they in turn were using their cruiser swarms to corral the Skarron fleets into positions where they couldn’t easily redeploy…then the invokers would come through the masses and run right into them, making almost instantaneous kills on contact.

The Skarrons were likewise responding with their own monster ships, far larger than the invokers, that were heading directly for the lizard cruiser swarms and peppering them with plasma and lachars with such intensity that they were eating through them almost like the invokers were eating through the Skarrons’ smaller ships, though not with such a spectacle. The Skarrons’ Titans were smaller than the invokers, barely a third of their size, but covered in so much plasma-resistant armor that the lizard cruisers could barely scratch them short of hitting them with thousands of ships…which the Skarron escort warships sought to disrupt long enough for the titans to do their job.

The outer invoker, doing its job to scare off the small fleets that came nearby eventually was overwhelmed when three groups of planetary defenders joined up and hit it with all ‘small’ scale ships, though for the Skarrons none of their ships were what most races considered to be small. Taking a page out of the lizards’ play book six of the Cruiser-class warships went kamikaze, accelerating up to considerable speed and plunging into the rainbow vortex around the invoker.

Their shields went down almost instantaneously, with their hulls being stripped off their superstructure before they made it all the way through, but the mass of the innards of the ships survived and plowed into the invoker like slow, giant rail gun slugs. Within seconds the amount of energy arcs dipped by about 20%, leaving some bigger holes in the field that the other Skarron ships then began trying to target, often with their plasma hitting and being dispersed by the erratic arcs that seemed to defy prediction.

In order to get close enough for the plasma hits to really register those ships had to enter the kill zone, but when they did they all did, and like a coordinated swarm of bees they all stung the invoker simultaneously and from multiple angles. The mass of ships looked like someone had snuffed out the bright candle for a moment as their hulls ate up and stopped the energy arcs from cascading from one emitter to another, then there was a massive series of explosions as the Skarron ships were ripped apart, sending debris out in all directions like confetti.

But there were enough ships that didn’t get hit, with the dying ones shielding them from the energy arcs, that they were able to pound the invoker with clear lines of fire, targeting the emitters and crippling the lizards’ primary weapon. Some arcs returned and hit more ships, killing or disabling them but it wasn’t enough. Soon the rest of the emitters were down and the big ship was just a giant target.

Knowing it was doomed it accelerated, plowing into the Skarrons that didn’t move out of the way. Below it the other invoker pulled back from the half of the station that it was almost now buried inside and moved away, taking some more fire as it came within the targeting lines of the intact batteries on the station’s hull but those didn’t really matter, it just had to get clear as the doomed invoker rushed in on its own kamikaze run and rammed the lower orb.

The big white structure visibly dented as the invoker buried itself inside, then the concussive force caused that orb to bump into the other drifting nearby, adding to the damage the first invoker had already caused. As that damaged chess piece ran up higher in orbit with defensive cruiser screens rushing down to defend it, the Skarron defense platform showed only a handful of defensive weapons still online, meaning that the severed and now otherwise wrecked but still massive structure was essentially out of the fight.

The lizards had achieved their objective and now the area where it had held dominance was free for them to move through and engage the roaming Skarron fleets.

Similar drastic tactics were required to remove the other giant defense stations from orbit, but with great cost to themselves the lizards succeeded in killing them all and turning the rest of the assault into a more or less ‘normal’ engagement. They made sure to stay away from the atmosphere and extreme low orbit, but eventually the Skarron warships retreated there, into the firing range of their surface defenses, and created a stalemate.

The lizards waited, knowing that going down there would have been needless suicide, so they took possession of orbit and hunted down and destroyed all the damaged Skarron ships and took out their remaining orbital infrastructure in the coming weeks, taunting the remaining Skarron fleet to come out after them but they wisely wouldn’t. Even without the handful of big chess pieces that had survived, the lizards had the remaining Skarron ships outnumbered, so a naval fight to try and save infrastructure that they knew they couldn’t protect would serve no purpose.

But on the other hand the lizards didn’t have anywhere near enough ships to assault the planet itself and the Skarrons knew it, so they preferred to preserve their remaining ships and see if the lizards were stupid enough to press a surface attack.

The stalemate that resulted would last 9 months, with most of the Skarron ships entering the system unaware of the assault being hunted down and destroyed before they could make an emergency jump back out or race down to the planet past the blockade, but eventually the second lizard fleet arrived as planned, now augmented with data returned from the initial assault and the ground troop transports that had been missing from the first assault fleet.

The big chess pieces were not present here, merely jumpship after jumpship carrying an insane number of cruisers that filled orbit with hundreds of thousands of ships that waited patiently. The troop transports stayed back at higher orbits, biding their time, then when the moment was right the cruiser swarms descended into the atmosphere and took on the remaining warships, surface batteries, and anti-air capable walkers all at once, counting on their numbers to give the defenders too many targets to shoot at, leaving other ships free to become slayers.

It was a tactical move that no trailblazer would ever consider pulling, for the lizards lost almost their entire fleet in the following 6 hours, leaving two assault pillars, a damaged invoker, and a light defensive cruiser screen around the troop transports as all that remained aside from a few hundred of the ships that had descended into the atmosphere and lived to tell of it. Most of those were damaged and only partially operational, but 54 of them had somehow come through the maelstrom untouched and were now in a position of impunity, for all of the Skarrons’ walkers, warships, and surface missile batteries had been eliminated, leaving them with nothing to defend themselves with.

With those handful of cruisers scouring the planet looking for any defenses that might have been overlooked or quiet, the troop jumpships began disgorging landing transports that brought the lizard armies to the ground, and without any walkers to oppose them their tanks reigned supreme in the ground battles that would follow, with cruiser fire support added where necessary. The Skarrons did have their aerial forces more or less intact, but in those troop transports came the lizards’ wisp swarms as well, which flooded the skies and kept the Skarron fighters occupied long enough for the ground troops to do their work over the coming 2 years.

The aerial war proved to be a stalemate, but it was a stalemate that gave the ground troops the opportunity to press their advantage. Before all was said and done a few walkers popped up that they had to contend with, either having been incomplete before the initial attack or down for maintenance. Those made things difficult, but with cruiser assistance they were eliminated and the slaughter of the civilian population continued well past the last of their military succumbing.

During the first year of major ground battles a dribbling of lizard naval reinforcements would come into the system, shoring up the meager defenses there with the assault pillars being redeployed elsewhere. The damage invoker stayed, mainly due to the fact that its gravity drives weren’t fully functional, but in large part the lizards’ hold on the system was extremely tenuous. Unfortunately for the Skarrons this was the regional hub, and there were no other nearby strongholds to reinforce them from.

The lizards knew the Skarrons might respond with a huge force from further inside their territory, but figured it would take a considerable number of years before that counterattack would come. Instead of building up the defenses of their captured regional capitol they chose to sack it, destroying the entire population and then moving on to trash every bit of infrastructure they could, with that being a tall order given the dense cityscape that covered the planet.

It would be 3 years before the counterattack would come, and it would come like a hammer blow, easily killing the defense fleet in the system and eradicating the ground troops the lizards still had on planet, but while the invaders hadn’t seen fit to try and keep their razed conquest, they had been devoting incoming ships and resources to the surrounding systems that no longer had their stronghold to receive reinforcements from. Those systems saw heavy fighting and one loss after another for the Skarrons, with the lizards once again focusing on claiming a large number of lesser systems rather than trying for a handful of big prizes.

The regional capitol was no longer a threat and didn’t interest them. It was now just a wrecked, uninhabited 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 where they could think they were safe, so the Hevmaj took their fastest jumpship and loaded it up with supplies and their finest diplomatic delegation, then shot it off towards the location of the distant Star Force outpost in the hopes of securing some form of help.

Now they were here, sitting in orbit around an unknown planet next to one of the Star Force’s giant metal worlds…and they were not alone. There were ships from many races here, all of whom were welcomed as visitors. The Hevmaj were no different and granted movement privileges the moment they entered the system, with the traffic controllers being a bit surprised when the Hevmaj answered their multi-lingual hail in their native English, for the Hevmaj had acquired knowledge of the language from traders and spent the majority of their year-long trip studying it intently, along with whatever other information they had gathered about the Star Force previously.

Securing a diplomatic contact wasn’t difficult either, for it seemed that this location served as an embassy to the local region. The Hevmaj had several discussions over the comms during the following weeks until finally one of the Star Force representatives asked to meet with them in person. Unfortunately the Hevmaj could not live within the oxygen atmosphere on the artificial world, but the Star Force agreed to send their representative over to their jumpship instead.

The short, fury Hevmaj waited in the landing bay during the atmospheric cycling, with the big heavy doors keeping the ship’s atmosphere in while the outer ones closed and the new atmosphere flooded in around the Star Force ship. Once all was balanced out the inner doors opened and the Hevmaj trotted out on their stubby legs, getting halfway across the bay when the boarding ramp on the Star Force ship opened up and a tall alien walked down it, passing through a shimmering barrier and onto their deck.

They couldn’t see what it looked like, for it was covered head to toe in armor. That wasn’t unexpected, given that it couldn’t breathe the Hevmaj’s atmosphere either, but it still left the little aliens curious and all the more intimidated by the giant’s presence.

“I am told you speak English?” it asked through an external speaker on the helmet.

“Wee du,” one of them responded.

“I am Brendan-JK804-78 of Canderous, a subsect of Star Force given possession of and the duty to defend this system. I will be your diplomatic liaison.”

“Wee wulcum yu tu ar sheep,” the Hevmaj said with their odd but understandable dialect. “Wee ar heer tu ahk yur hellp.”

“Help in what way?” the Canderian asked, holding their first conversation right there on the hangar deck of the primitive jumpship as he gazed down on the little fury aliens that looked like they couldn’t stand up to a stiff breeze.

“Wee spec fur ta Benoid. Tin raices in tutal. Wee ahk tu jun yur impir.”

“Quiet as always,” Davis commented as Greg walked up the staircase and into his office while the Director had his back to him and was standing staring out his panoramic window at the early morning sunrise over Atlantis.

“Archons don’t like to make noise,” the trailblazer answered as he walked up to him. Davis turned around and sat down, so Greg did likewise opposite him as the slightly older man pulled up a holographic display of statistics.

“I need your advice. These are the latest batch of diplomatic requests coming in from outside the ADZ. As always there are races asking for territorial slots or outright amnesty, but there’s a new trend developing,” he said, pointing to a specific part of the hologram.

Greg looked it over, seeing a host of races he wasn’t familiar with along with a few names he’d come across before. “I didn’t realize there were so many.”

“I haven’t given any of them a decision yet, though some have been waiting several years with the communications lag and all. Your thoughts?”

Greg rubbed his hairless chin, studying the list but with his mind wandering elsewhere. “Tricky. We know we can’t stick to our existing borders for it will allow the lizards to grow too large, but we also can’t expand far enough to stop them,” he said, telekinetically tapping a few buttons on Davis’s desk and bringing up a map that had the various locations of the requests highlighted. Most were coming in from beyond Epsilon and Gamma Regions, putting them on the far side of the ADZ where the lizards hadn’t gotten to yet, but a few were above beyond Delta Region and one was even in the gap between Beta and the Voku at Achkor.

“An endless mental back and forth for me. I was hoping you could offer another angle before you head out again.”

“Do they understand what joining Star Force means?”

“Most do, the others I’m having educated. So far only one has canceled their request.”

“Switched over to a territorial slot?”

Davis smiled. “Yes. They along with a lot of others think that having a colony in the ADZ to fall back to when the lizards get to them is the smart play, and that’s also beginning to become a trend.”

“What would you prefer to do?”

“I want to play it safe and creep out our borders, but I also don’t want to turn down requests for help…and races wanted to join us rather than just freeload I’m eager to incorporate.”

“You’re worried they’re too far away and we don’t have the resources to incorporate them all as quickly as needed?”

“And we can’t spare any trailblazers to oversee the conversion,” Davis added.

“There are enough others that can fill that void now,” Greg said dismissively. “Are any of these guys big enough to warrant one of us?”

“No. They’re small, primitive, and pretty much helpless. A few exceptions, but nothing beyond the Lacvamat.”

“And moving them in isn’t an option?”

“They want to retain their current worlds if possible, and we don’t have the resources to throw around to create brand new ones for them here. We need to utilize their existing infrastructure if this is going to be a possibility.”

“And that takes us far beyond the Sentinel line.”

“That is my concern.”

“We’ve been having similar discussions,” Greg said, leaning back in his chair. “Without another major ally there’s only one way to stop the lizard advance in this region,” he said, pointing to the lower part of the galactic plane that held neither lizard nor Skarron territory. “And that’s to expand drastically.”

“Logistically that isn’t feasible in the short term,” Davis reminded him.

“And the larger we push our borders the more vulnerable we are,” Greg added.

“And the more visible.”

The trailblazer sighed. “I know, but it looks like we’re all that’s standing in the lizards’ way. Sooner or later we’re going to have to make a choice. Turtle up and survive or take on a larger role in the expanded region.”

“And become the Nexus?”

“The similarity is worth noting, given that we can’t put the density of colonies into that vast of an area like we’ve done here. The ADZ is huge enough, trying to assert control over an area dozens of times larger is going to be…well, this is why we haven’t made any recommendations yet.”

“For the sake of argument, suppose we asserted domain over this region,” Davis said, using a combination of telekinesis and his fingers to highlight virtually all of the territory between the ADZ and the Voku, plus a huge chunk laterally around Epsilon Region. “That won’t contain the lizards. They’ve got too many other directions to expand into. The only way I can see to stop them is to kill them all, which we’re nowhere even close to being able to do.”

“No we’re not,” Greg said with regret.

“So if we can’t beat them, we’d be expanding for what purpose?”

“To slow them down and to save worlds.”

“I sense a catch somewhere in there.”

“No matter how far we expand there will always be somebody a little further away that the lizards are going to get. We can’t save them all, so the question is how far do we push.”

“I hate those questions.”

“As do we.”

“And if we overextend we risk those under our current protection.”

“That is the current dilemma,” Greg agreed.

Davis shook his head. “Sometimes I find I have to keep reminding myself that we have an endgame here, because it looks like we’re already beaten.”

“Not beaten, just not capable of winning. There’s a difference.”

“It sickens me to see how there are so many places in the galaxy that are just helpless to defend themselves. Against the lizards, Skarrons, and whatever other dominant powers are out there. It’s like they’re just sitting there waiting to be eaten.”

“When you’re at the top the view is a lot more scary.”

“I wish we had someone to turn to, and briefly I had hoped the Nexus would be that someone, but we lie outside their domain and they’re suffering from the same problem we are…the galaxy is just too damn big.”

“That’s why we do what we can and try to not let the fate of the others drive us insane…to that end, I’d give the go ahead on this one,” Greg said, pointing to the small dot between the ADZ and Achkor. “I know our original no-go line was the edge of Beta, but we’ve privately revised that to reach out to the Voku. They’ve built up that planet so much that we don’t want to leave them hanging, so we’re going to creep the border out there eventually. You might as well bring that race, whoever they are, into the fold now because we’re going to expand around them anyway down the road.”

“Is that going to be our permanent line or is it going to keep creeping closer to the core?”

“As much as we don’t like turning a blind eye to anyone, we’re not setting up any colonies past Achkor. Whether or not we make raids or put a few clandestine outposts out there is still up for debate, but those would only reach so far. The mass of Skarron territory is beyond our reach and will stay that way regardless of how strong we get. That’s a choice we’ve made and we’re going to stick to it.”

“That gives us one permanent border to work with then…once we creep out to it.”

“And it gives our enemies worlds that they’re safe on, meaning we can never fully defeat the Skarrons.”

“I hate even hearing that,” Davis said with a sigh, “but unfortunately that’s the galaxy we live in. We’ve done well to survive and grow to the size we have, given everything concerned.”

“And now that the lizards are pushing further into the core, we can’t go after them there either.”

“You think the Skarrons will let them stay?”

“Not willingly, but I have no idea what their priorities are or what other opponents they’re tangling with. Most of the intel data we’ve gotten has been local only. We still haven’t recovered a comprehensive map of their territory.”

“Compartmentalization?”

“That’s been another long, on-going discussion. Current theory is they’ve got fiefdoms that operate independent from one another to counteract the lag times given the distance, but who knows.”

“So even if we grew strong enough overnight to defeat the lizards, they’ve crossed a line into a region where we will not follow?”

“Sounds like something out of the Lord of the Rings, but yeah.”

“Which leaves our victory rooted in staying alive and saving as many others as we can?”

“If you’re asking can we militarily expand…the answer is yes. The question is how much, when, and where.”

“I know a border stretch is impossible, which will leave us with colonization blips similar to what Canderous is doing, correct?”

“We’ll need to establish strongholds with Sentinel emplacements, yes.”

“Which leaves reinforcement the issue?”

“I sense a suggestion coming,” Greg said keenly.

“One of the requests,” Davis said, zooming in on a portion of the map, “comes from a cluster of systems with 10 different races. They’re practically located on top of each other.”

“I like this,” Greg said immediately after glancing at the map. “Their proximity would allow a mini version of the ADZ to be built, though it’d have to be self-supporting and that would take a lot of time…but it is far enough away from the lizards to potentially have that time.”

“It’d have to be off the grid,” Davis pointed out.

“It’s doable. Not sure if it’s the best use of our resources, but if you want it we can make it happen.”

“And the others?”

Greg bit his lip. “Hate to say it, but without a link into the ADZ transit network it’d be a bit of an overreach at this point.”

“Which brings up another item I wanted to discuss with you. How difficult would it be to establish trade routes beyond the ADZ to link us to the surrounding regions?” Davis said, bringing up a premade map of what he was thinking, with numerous finger-like lines reaching out like the branches on a plant…including one that ran all the way down to Voku territory.”

“You are a bold one,” Greg said, giving Davis credit for an idea that even the trailblazers hadn’t thought of…at least not to this extent. “These lines will be vulnerable initially and we’ll have to devote considerable military presence until they get fortified locally. This isn’t something we can setup all at once. You’d have to grow these routes out over time.”

“I assumed as much. Once we get them set up?”

“As far as our scouts have gone we haven’t found anyone that can challenge us at our current tech level. That’s not saying much, considering a lot of these routes go beyond our current maps, but so long as they stay away from the lizards I’d say it’s also doable.”

“Too much?”

“Depends on our long term plans.”

“Which are still in flux.”

“To be honest, we’re going to annex all this region anyway. We’re just being cautious and not wanting to overextend ourselves,” Greg said bluntly. “No one else is strong enough to step up to the plate and we’re not just going to sit back and watch the lizards run rampant.”

“If I’m hearing you correctly, we’re going to settle on a fixed coreward border to keep from inviting discovery by the V’kit’no’sat, but we’re going to have to stop worrying about drawing attention to ourselves out here in the mid rim?”

Greg closed his eyes. “That’s what I do not want to say.”

“Because there’s no way of knowing what could tip them off,” Davis said, his thoughts running down a similar path, yet he’d come to a conclusion about 30 seconds ago that he’d been working towards for centuries. “The fixed inner border is a necessary decision that I support, but we can’t let people die that we can save on the possibility of our actions drawing the V’kit’no’sat here. If we’re truly going to hide then we need to start evacuating to the rim now and go far beyond the lizards.”

Greg smiled deviously. “You know we’re not going to walk away from a fight.”

“Agreed, so let’s just admit to the fact that we’re going to be ourselves and not be handcuffed by what might happen. We’re a long way from the current V’kit’no’sat border with the Skarrons sitting in between, and while we can always take one more precaution I say we stop now and get to work. The inner border will have to be it.”

Greg blew out a slow breath. “I can’t disagree with that. I wonder if the V’kit’no’sat know the Nexus is out here and don’t care or just don’t have a clue. The lack of maps suggest the latter, but it still feels like a gamble.”

“We have an unknowable variable that will remain unknown until they drop in on our heads. The question is, how are we going to deal with it.”

“I hate to say it but my gut is still uneasy on this one. We’ve made so much noise already I’m half surprised they haven’t found us. The size of the galaxy is our greatest advantage, and the bigger we grow the harder it will be to remain unnoticed.”

“Now this is odd. I find myself more gung ho than an Archon,” Davis said with some amusement.

“Very odd,” Greg agreed.

The merriment left the Director’s face as he looked the trailblazer in the eye. “We can’t leave these people to die,” he said slowly.

Greg returned his stare. “No…we can’t.”

4

March 7, 2658

Gangon System (lizard territory)

Sevvba

Greg sat on an elevated pillar in the command nexus, having been on station for several hours as he watched the surface assault of the lizard world with care. None of his ships were down in the atmosphere, but the H’kar under his command were. Their Destar Conduits were far more efficient at wrecking unarmored infrastructure than anything Star Force had, and now that the defense shields were breached on several lizard colonies he’d sent his allies down to target key facilities to cripple the lizards’ regrowth rather than trying for wholesale slaughter.

That list of targets was constructed by Greg personally for each assault, not wanting to leave anything up to chance or his subordinates, and the H’kar had grown to trust in his judgement and now followed his orders to the letter. That hadn’t always been the case, but after many years of fighting side by side with Star Force and learning from them the number one lesson they’d picked up was that the trailblazers had no equal when it came to strategy…and the fact that their ships survived more engagements when one of the Humans was in command.

Greg had already sent down the list of targets, which spared the lizards main habitation areas and food storage/production facilities but targeted all other industry and the growth pods. Greg was willing to let most of the current lizards live, but he couldn’t afford to let them easily make more, hence the growth pods were always a high valued target. They could and would rebuild them again after Star Force left, but it would delay them considerably by not being able to replace their personnel losses in such short order.

The H’kar had originally argued that if they were razing lizard colonies that they should kill everyone on the planet, but after fighting alongside Star Force they’d begun to accept the different strategy and, whether they agreed with it or not they did adhere to it, which was why Greg was willing to let them carry out the secondary surface bombardment. He didn’t have to worry about them going off mission and targeting structures he hadn’t tagged. That sort of foolishness was not something the H’kar went in for, and Greg was glad they had a professional ally to work with.

While most of the H’kar battleships, their smallest ships, were in atmosphere their two behemoths sat nearby Greg’s command ship in wait. Both H’kar ships were the equivalent of mobile starbases, capable of a wide range of support tasks but just as well equipped to throw down the damage at heavy targets…in fact that was the design behind the entire H’kar fleet, to walk up to a big enemy and punch it in the face. That made them a heavy hitting race, and so ill-suited to fighting the lizards.

They didn’t previously see the value of having smaller warships, though their time with Star Force was certainly giving them an education. Their destars were a Nexus upgrade that they’d created for just that purpose, and essentially being a superlaser that would fire continuously with no recharge cycle. It was made of a dense photon slurry, but altered in such a way to artificially bond them together into packets, giving it much more kill power than any traditional laser could conceivably throw out regardless as to how much power you put into it.

Typically one of the H’kar battleships would move up close to an enemy and tag it with the destar, keeping the blue-white beam on it until the ship was destroyed then moving on to the next. When facing off against a few large ships this worked very well, but with a lizard cruiser swarm each individual ship didn’t last very long under that level of firepower, but it took time to target another and the speed at which the cruisers moved often gave the H’kar gunners trouble.

They could certainly kill a lot of cruisers, but the same tonnage of ships, when combined into three or four big vessels was much easier for the H’kar to take down. Spreading it out into fleets of hundreds of them mean the H’kar had to take weaponsfire for a very long time because no single crippling shot could be fired.

Add in the fact that each battleship only had 1 destar and not a lot of support weapons and you had a prime target on their ships for the lizards to target, often with the H’kar running off with ‘blinded’ ships that had their destar destroyed. While having a big gun was an advantage in many circumstances, the mismatch against the lizards proved to be one glaring problem for the H’kar. Already they were working with Star Force to develop new warships designed specifically to fight the lizards, but the first prototypes were several years from completion.

That said, the H’kar fleet was anything but useless. Originally no H’kar battleship had ever entered the atmosphere of a planet, for they were built in space and operated in space…up until Liam had convinced them that they could go planetside and be effective. Now it was a standard tactic in their joint raids, with their destars being able to widen the beam and created a paintbrush that could level infrastructure quite quickly as opposed to the thin cleansing beams that Star Force could hit the surface with.

Rail guns were also less effective because of their needle-prick hits. Both weapons had been used to take down the colony shields, and now Greg had the H’kar moving in to clean up even as he repositioned his own drone fleet to assault more of the lizard colonies on the planet that had seen nearly a third of its surface consumed by the invaders. They were in what had once been Calavari space, though this planet had belonged to the Vesdan, who sadly had not survived the encounter nor were able to flee from it, given their primitive technology.

The battle in orbit had been quick, with only a few dozen cruisers in defense which the much larger joint fleet easily hunted down. It was good to eliminate them, but the real long term effect was in ridding the surface of the colonies’ ability to build and sending what they had already created into the junkyard category.  This was the third system that Greg had assaulted on this campaign, and in each case he left the lizards with less than they had originally, setting back their development in these systems and effectively nullifying their ability to reinforce or spread to others.

As of now they didn’t have a single starship left in the system, nor had they advanced to the point of creating an interstellar comm station, meaning that the rest of the lizard empire was going to be kept in the dark as to what had happened here, and the more confusion Greg and the others could sow behind enemy lines the better.

Just then the battlemap began to flicker with activity as a group of incoming jumps registered in planetary orbit a few dozen kilometers higher in altitude than his command ship currently sat on its lazy orbit around the planet and several hundred behind its current track.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, mentally sending out an alert and repositioning those ships closest to him. “Now there’s bad timing for you.”

An image of the exoskeletal H’kar commander popped up alongside the battlemap, with the computer handling the translation given that only a handful of their allies spoke English.

“An ambush?”

“They’re coming from the stellar jumpline, so I’d guess they were scheduled to arrive here and we just picked a bad time,” Greg said as the much larger image of an invoker appeared on the battlemap behind a large mass of cruisers that, almost belatedly began to reform into a screen, suggesting that they were as surprised by the raiding fleets’ presence as Greg was to see them here.

The H’kar made an annoying clicking sound that the computer didn’t bother to translate, but that Greg knew was angry frustration. “Shall we withdrawal?”

“No, we’re taking this bastard down…so long as there’s only the one of them.”

“We only have a light fleet and not the tonnage required to defeat that ship…at least not without great sacrifice.”

“Keep half your fleet on the surface running through the target list and bring the other half up to me and task them to protect these ships,” Greg said, mentally tagging every rail gun-equipped drone he had. “Do not assault the invoker.”

“You cannot take it alone.”

“Your destars are medium range and will require you to get within the energy arcs, that means you stay back or get slaughtered.”

“Our behemoths can weather the storm briefly.”

Greg shook his head. “Watch and learn. This isn’t the first invoker we’ve tangled with. They’re designed to destroy tonnage, so what you have to do is sting them to death.”

The H’kar commander was silent, then a moment later his hologram disappeared, but as ordered portions of the fleet assaulting the surface abandoned their targets and began to gain altitude.

Greg watched carefully as the rest of the lizard fleet arrived. There were a few bigger ships in the mix, four battleships and one dreadnaught, but it appeared to merely be an escort fleet for the invoker with no other ‘chess pieces’ involved. He guessed they were either passing through the system en route to elsewhere or were using this location as a rendezvous, for there was nothing here warranting that much firepower.

Greg’s own command ship he was keeping away from the fight as well. He knew he could dive into the energy arcs if he had to, but the shields wouldn’t last long enough for him to deliver a killing blow to the invoker before it started to eat away at his giant donut. No, Liam had taught him this trick a while back, and it was a drone-only affair. He just hoped the lizards hadn’t developed a counter for it.

The enemy didn’t hold off, but rather came straight at the command ship and the two H’kar behemoths, which with their escort fleet would have made for an even fight. It was odd, given how in the past the lizards had always wanted to protect their invokers, but now every time they had a chance to hit one of Star Force’s command ships they took the opportunity regardless of what it would cost them. They wanted a kill badly, but Greg wasn’t going to give them a chance today.

Instead he had his rail gun-equipped warships move into a partial spherical arc around one quarter of the invoker as the cruiser swarm came out to meet them when it was determined that they were going to hold range and not let the big ship move within striking distance. By then the H’kar began to catch up and helped the drones fend off the cruisers, using their overpowered destars to knock out one gnat at a time, leaving the rest of the swarm free to poke at the black, rectangular drones.

As they did the rail runs began targeting the invoker and firing on specific points that Greg gave them. The metallic bullets moved so fast that they passed through the energy arcs without getting fully disintegrated, merely a little melty on the outside, allowing the hard central mass of the slugs to hit the thin shields guarding the hull of the ship. It took several minutes of pounding, but eventually they broke through and with enough subsequent hits knocked out a few of the invoker’s emitters.

That reduced the amount of energy arcs in that area, with the invoker immediately beginning to pivot around to bring a more intact area of the field into the firing line. Greg wasn’t going to have that, so he had his drones chase the weakened area around the invoker like they were the horses on a carousel, all the time with the H’kar and other drones protecting them from the cruisers and the five larger lizard ships that the H’kar eagerly pursued.

Those kept trying to retreat to the invoker and draw the H’kar into range, but every time they poked a few holes in them they’d disengage, not falling for the bait as they would have once done. Traditional H’kar strategy held that once you engaged a target you stayed on it until either it or you were destroyed, but thankfully Star Force had rid them of that lunacy…at least as far as their raiding fleets were concerned.

The rail gun slugs kept firing, targeting the area near the emitters despite the fact that sensor locks were nearly impossible given the disrupting nature of the energy arcs, but the more that were damaged the more gaps there were in the crisscrossing rainbow lightning field, allowing more precise plotting and even a few well targeted cleansing beams to shoot through.

Greg could have had all his cleansing beams open up on the invoker, including those on the command ship, but he needed those to assist with destroying the cruisers right now and his own ship had to keep moving to stay away from the invoker that was still chasing it, with the battlefield being dragged along wherever it went.

The Star Force and H’kar ships had to keep dancing to remain in position, but eventually the weak area on the invoker dropped its energy arcs low enough that Greg gave the go ahead to four of his drones that were standing by in the back of the battle. As a group they moved through the lizard swarm and dove towards the energy arcs, with the three cruisers tucking up against the rear of a shield ship as it deployed its full power to create an egg-like barrier around the foursome.

Greg had never done this before, but Liam’s notes had indicated how much the shield ship should be able to take and he’d gone just a little under that amount to be on the safe side…though the random nature of the lizards’ weapon defied confident numbers, so he found himself holding his breath a bit as the remote-controlled ships dove into the field.

He lost track of them on the battlemap briefly, with the control signals also being disrupted by the energy arcs but with enough gaps that there was still intermittent contact and control. The shield ship lit up with damage statistics suddenly, then it and the three cruisers were inside the energy arcs and into the ‘calm’ center of the hurricane where the hulk of the ship sat.

Defense weapons began popping plasma at the quartet, but the three cruisers had come through virtually unharmed and targeted them, first having to break through the massive ship’s shields with their maulers before they began picking off the defense batteries and owning a little piece of the ship as they maneuvered carefully so not to hit the hull or be flung back out into the energy arcs as the invoker made several abrupt course changes.

The drones were the faster and able to stay in their pocket of calm, and from which they began moving out across the hull, targeting other defensive weapons before they migrated over to the nearest emitter and slagged it. From there they hit more and more, diminishing the energy field to the point where the lizards saw the writing on the wall and decided to run.

The invoker reversed course and moved back to the stellar jumpline, with the four drones sticking with it and some of the remaining cruisers following, with the rest staying behind to fight and die as a diversion. When the invoker got back to the jumpline it deactivated its energy field and disappeared with a massive surge of acceleration…and with it went the drones, now out of communications range and acting on preset orders.

Greg didn’t know if they’d do much more damage or not, but he wanted them pestering the invoker when it arrived at the star.

A few seconds later his command ship made its own offline jump, tugging on other gravity wells to get the proper angle as he intended to beat the invoker to the star, leaving the two behemoths behind with orders to move in and assist with cleaning up the remains of the enemy fleet which included the battleships and dreadnaught.

Greg’s navigators had to guess at what altitude the invoker would come out of its jump, but they got him close. The command ship arrived some 17 seconds head of the invoker, which lit up its energy arcs again and one of the cruiser icons pacing it went out, unable to stay or get back within the hollow in time.

The other two and the damaged shield ship were still there and now back in remote control range, with several more emitters shown to have been knocked out during the microjump. Greg’s pilots used them to target a few more as the command ship chased down the invoker and dove straight into the now weakened energy arcs, taking the massive hits against its shields and getting within close firing range.

When that happened the hull of the invoker literally exploded with weapons impacts. Several emitter pylons were severed by cleansing beams and the bloon launcher blasted into the hull with multiple hits in the same location, chewing a crater into it as the command ship enlarged its IDF field to dangerous levels in order to ensnare the bigger ship and keep it from jumping out or maneuvering at all.

It was a modification that had been made in the newer models and had the IDF emitters ramped up to their maximum output, with so much power flowing through them they were on the verge of burning out, but it had been approved by the techs and was holding up at the moment, though Greg knew it wouldn’t last because the field was drawing off of a specific capacitor that only held so much juice.

But in that short span of time the command ship was going to rip apart the invoker. The only question was whether they could damage the internal gravity drives before their nullification bubble popped.

Eventually the command ships’ shields went down and the hull started taking hits, with several weapons batteries going offline like the lights of a Christmas tree slowly winking out, but the number of emitters left on the invoker was diminishing even faster, and before long there were only a few rainbow tendrils left to damage the Star Force super ship, and those were having trouble getting through the hull armor, for like the invoker had done previously Greg was now spinning the giant donut around and taking the damaged portion out of the line of fire.

With their sensors now back to almost normal, the cleansing beams began poking deep into specific portions of the hull, reaching for and hitting some of the gravity drives or their support components, but they were having to burn through kilometers of ship to get to them, and every twitch in their firing lines meant more material to get in the way of the beams.

Then the IDF bubble expired and the field reverted back to ship’s size, with Greg waiting to see what would happen.

A sudden surge of motion tore the invoker away from the command ship, then it was off on a course around the perimeter of the star, ostensibly towards a jumpline.

“Damn,” he swore, getting navigational analysis a moment later that indicated the invoker was off course and headed towards no known jumpline…as well as drifting out from the star, which would diminish the gravitational intensity it would need to make an interstellar jump, especially now without all of its gravity drives to pull on.

Greg smiled and input a chase course to the navigator, with the command ship making its own jump and catching up to the invoker without it altering course in response. A quick look at the sensors indicated that there had been an internal explosion, possibly due to the last microjump, that had gutted the remaining gravity drives or at least their power sources.

That meant the ship was now dead in the water.

Greg held the command ship back at range and let his shields recharge, poking the invoker with his cleansing beams and now bloon launchers since the ship had only a handful of energy arcs to stop them. Some would get through, he knew, so he didn’t mind spamming the giant ship with them while the cleansing beams poked the remaining emitters out of existence.

After that happened, he’d move in and finish off the ship...then have the techs paint a kill marker on the command ship’s hull as they repaired the damage.

5

September 29, 2658

Solar System

Venus

Davis’s puddle jumper landed in one of the many starports in orbit around the planet, nestling up against the wall in a hangar bay that contained a mix of dropships and larger transports before releasing him to walk over to a spoke-like concealed tunnel bump that ran across the huge deck floor. Once inside he walked in safety over to the far wall while more ship traffic moved about over his head, visible through the clear bubble that was ringed with bulkhead ridges that he passed through rhythmically. It took a while to cross the huge bay, but eventually he made his way into what was a service starport that was off limits to the general public.

The station was huge, like most in the Sol System, but the Director found his way around easy enough and eventually ended up in an observation lounge that had false windows relaying realtime camera footage of the outside of the station showing the planet below and the larger than normal sun just above the horizon. Inside the lounge were 10 white clad Archons, each showing a brown stripe running from neckline down to their ankles on the outside of their casual uniforms, denoting the padawan rank that they all held.

They noticed Davis approaching before he had even come in the doorway, and all turned to look as the Director entered their little get-together.

“You’re late,” Olli-247 teased.

“I’m never late,” Davis said deadpan. “I always arrive precisely when I mean to.”

“Some last minute instructions I assume?” Victoria-243 asked, sitting on the back of one of the two couches in the room.

Davis shook his head. “More of a pep talk. I know you’re going to have to improvise on the spot, so there’s little point in giving you instructions. Have a seat please,” he said as he walked over and pulled up a loose chair so he could sit in front of the Archons and face them as they piled into the two couches that held four each, with Victoria and Dennis-240 sitting perched on the back corners.

“I know this is new for you, more or less,” Davis began. “Stephan did some work with the Calavari back in the day, but the rest of you have been focused more on combat and training than dabbling with empire building. You have all had some experience handling Clan matters, so I wouldn’t label you as newbs, but I’m here to tell you that’s basically going to be what you are when you get to the Benoid. I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with alien races and their various cultures, and every time I deal with a new one I have to learn again.”

“Granted, there are some similarities in the process of annexing a race, but it’s not something that can be preplanned. You’re Archons, you’re the best we have at improvising and Duke Stevenson will bring with him all the experience and administrative procedures we’ve concocted to date, but at the end of the day it will be you ten that will be reshaping the Benoid into a Star Force adjunct and I want to encourage you to take liberties. Lessen disadvantages and reinforce strengths, like you always do, and make the Benoid your own.”

“I know you’ve had some chats with the trailblazers who have done this sort of thing before, but I can tell you that no matter how much prep work you do you’re still going to have to play it by ear once you arrive. The language difficulties will be a major problem, as will be dissenters. There are almost always some, and we saw that with the Kiritas too, despite their being the most loyal and grateful of all the races we’ve come to include in Star Force. If I were you I wouldn’t expect the same when you arrive.”

“When you first tested out for basic training you had to pass a video game test, proving that you could understand the fundamentals of working together as a team, and I want this endeavor to be no less. You may be going to different star systems but I want the Benoid acting as a single unit. The details of which I’ll leave up to you. It’ll be decades before I get a strong grid link out to you, so you’re going to have to make do with what you’ve got on site, and even I don’t know what exactly that will be. The data files we’ve gotten from the Benoid are sketchy, as you already know.”

“Back in the day I played a lot of video games before transitioning over to the corporate side, and it should be no surprise that the ones I favored were civilization building games. I know you guys are far better experienced in the gaming realm than I am, but I want to draw a parallel here. You’ll be doing in real life what was called for in the games, and look on it as such. Right now the Benoid is far enough away from the lizard advance to give you some time to build, but you are under a countdown, one for which we don’t know the exact date.”

“Canderous will shield for you as long as they can, but the Benoid is going to have to become self-sufficient as soon as possible, and like with some games you only have your handful of ships and personnel to start with. You’re going to have to incorporate the locals, but do so at a reasonable pace and don’t put too much on them. You are transforming them into Star Force, so don’t cut corners and compromise standards for the sake of time. Use transitional teams if needed, but the Benoid cannot become a Star Force hybrid, it must be fully Star Force.”

“I don’t say this because I doubt you, I just know some of the headaches that you’re going to encounter. These races are joining us out of self-preservation more than anything, so expect resistance when you drastically start to change their culture. It’s going to be similar to what Randy and Tom had to deal with when they saved the Kiritas, but my gut says this is going to include some new challenges. I don’t know what they will be, that’s something you’ll have to figure out on the spot.”

“Bottom line is there is no training for this, and even if I was to go myself I’d have to learn and adapt to the conditions present. So if you find the situation seemingly unworkable don’t fret. Just take it piece by piece and build out from a fortified position. Even though you’re on the clock, building a proper transition is of a higher priority.”

“Sounds a bit like double talk, and it is…but it’s also the reality you face. If this was going to be easy and straightforward I wouldn’t be sending the 10 of you and a Duke. You’ve got to start from scratch until I can get the transportation grid extended out to you, and when I do I expect something useful to feed.”

“Normally a trailblazer would be assigned to a mission of this importance, but they’re needed elsewhere and this isn’t the only annexation that we’re undertaking…but it is the largest. It’s also going to be a proof of concept, to some degree, for the region. If you succeed I imagine other races will petition us for inclusion as well. Biggest thing I want to say, in addition to good luck, is that this is the first big stepping stone to our future expansion and I need you to make it work, even though I have no idea what that will take.”

“Relax,” Zac-241 said confidently. “You were smart to assign our old basic team to this. We’re used to brainstorming as a group. We’ll make this happen.”

“Agreed,” Victoria echoed.

Davis smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“And?” Olli asked.

“If it wasn’t for the Ikrid blocks I’d say you were reading my mind,” Davis commented, impressed with the Archons’ deductive abilities, for he was fairly sure he wasn’t giving away anything with his facial gestures. “There’s been a last minute request that I’m stalling until I get your take. In fact I’m leaving it up to you. This is your mission and I want you to go with a team you’re comfortable with, so don’t worry about hard feelings if you don’t want them, but both the Calavari and the Elarioni have offered their assistance.”

Britt-249 frowned from his position in the middle of the second couch. “Star Force Elarioni or the independent faction?”

“The independent Elarioni.”

“What the hell do they want in this?”

“When they found out that two of the races in the Benoid lived on waterworlds it seemed to have piqued their interest.”

“I already have a handful of Star Force Elarioni in my team,” Attrick-242 noted, for he was to oversee the annexation of the one fully aquatic race. “And I thought the other Elarioni were only interested in hiding out from the V’kit’no’sat.”

“I’ve been noticing a shift in their culture that I believe has resulted from their connection to the ADZ. While they’ve taken the hermit role to be sure, they’re linked in with our data grid and are getting a lot more knowledgeable about the region around them. I think it’s bringing them out of their fear-induced shell, on top of the fact that they know Humans are also on the chopping block and we’re not exactly hiding.”

“What’s their angle here?” Britt asked.

“I think they want pull with the other aquatics races. They don’t seem to care that much about the land dwellers, but they’ve established significant diplomatic relations with every known aquatics or semi-aquatics race to come into the ADZ.”

“What type of help are they offering?” Attrick wondered, suspecting more interference than assistance.

“They want to establish their own colony on Vardeenplis, given that those oceans are uninhabited, and a resource outpost on Bellot to feed you,” Davis said, pointing to Attrick, “resources and to assist as an intermediary learning their language and acting as a bridge between the two. They also want to share 40% of their collected resources on Vardeenplis in exchange for the right to set up that colony.”

“Sounds like claim jumpers to me,” Garen-248 scoffed.

“Do you think they’re on the level?” Attrick asked.

“That thought had occurred to me,” Davis said, addressing Garen first, “and I think they are. Consider that, while they’re not part of Star Force they are operating within our borders as an ally and associate rather than going outside and trying to set up a fully independent colony. I think they see this new annexation as an opportunity to expand and play a role in shaping future events.”

“How did they even know about this mission?” Victoria wondered.

“Any new annexation I make public knowledge. And since this isn’t a military operation I’ve let the timetable go public as well.”

“How long will we have to delay if we want them to tag along?”

“You won’t. Both have fleets insystem ready to go with.”

“Sounds presumptuous,” Wrex-245 accused.

“Not for the Calavari,” Stephan differed. “They probably saw the timetable and wanted to be in a position to help without having to delay us. You told them the mission commanders would make the final call, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Davis confirmed.

“Then that’s just them trying to be as efficient as possible. Not leverage.”

“And the Elarioni?” Wrex asked.

Stephan shrugged. “You may have a point there.”

“I’ve made them no promises and they’ve acknowledged that point. Whether that’s just talk or not is anyone’s guess,” Davis said, looking from face to face as he tried to judge their reactions. “It’s totally your call. Do you want a third wheel or not?”

“The Calavari are already Star Force, so they’re not a third wheel,” Stephan said assuredly. “If no one else wants their help, I’ll be glad to take it.”

“How many of them are there?” Victoria asked.

“They’ve assembled a team of 1.6 million, mostly comprised of techs and workers, with enough supply ships to sustain themselves.”

“Done deal there, I think,” she said, glancing at the others for confirmation, getting a few nods and telepathic equivalents in response.

“I should probably say that the Elarioni are offering a much larger fleet to the mission and some 22 million personnel.”

Attrick whistled. “That’s one hell of a colonization effort.”

“And potentially useful if they cooperate,” Stephan added, “but not to me.”

Attrick looked at Draven-246. “What do you think?”

“Depends on how willing they are to take orders. They’ll heavily outnumber us and may think that gives them the right to play loose with the rules we set down.”

“It is a risk,” Davis agreed, “but I’ve discussed this with some of the Star Force Elarioni that transferred over and they seem to think the offer is legitimate and would be very useful.”

“What does Ariel think?” Attrick asked.

“If she hadn’t okayed it I wouldn’t be bringing it to you guys.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Attrick said satisfied.

“Same here,” Draven agreed.

“Alright then,” Davis said, clapping his hands together once, “that’s done. So now to the big question.”

The ten Archons looked at him for a moment, getting some weird looks on their faces when he didn’t say anything…then Davis laughed once, breaking his straight face.

“Nah, there’s nothing. Just messing with you. Get going,” he said, motioning towards the door, “do your thing.”

Victoria blew out a breath in a half laugh as she swung herself off the couch top, standing up. “Punked by Davis. That’s a first.”

“See you in 50,” Britt said to the Director with a two fingered salute as they got up off the couches and headed out, with Attrick lagging behind a bit and giving Davis a curious stare.

“Problem?”

“You did that to check and see if we’d found a way around the Ikrid blocks.”

The air in Davis seemed to go out, with his facial features sagging a bit. “And I thought I had an answer.”

The Archon smirked as he casually headed towards the doorway. “Learn to live with doubt.”

Davis stayed on his chair, back to the wall ‘window’ and watched him leave, then slowly shook his head in dismay. Somehow the Archons could always read him, and it’d become his private little war to find a way to hide whatever cues he was giving away and from time to time to test the limits of their awareness.

It certainly seemed like they were reading his mind, but at times he was able to conceal things from them…or ‘punk them’ as Victoria had put it. Today was just another datapoint in his ongoing quest to try and figure out the riddle of the way their minds worked, and he had a feeling it was going to take him another hundred years or so before he made any real progress.

Davis returned the chair to its original position and headed back to the landing bay and his waiting ship, his task here done. He’d be returning to Atlantis directly while the 10 Archons would each be heading to their own MCV-class jumpship escorted by a flotilla of cargo ships and a handful of warships. They’d be leaving the system within the next 6 hours, with the Calavari and Elarioni ships meeting up with them at Venus and then transitioning over to the star in a long convoy that would begin making the numerous jumps required to travel across Epsilon Region and beyond the ADZ to the mostly uncharted wilds of the neighboring galaxy where they’d start to hack out some new Star Force territory ahead of the brushfire that was the oncoming lizard advance.

6

January 3, 2659

Banner System (Core Region)

Smash

“Ship arrival without IFF,” one of the Star Force traffic coordinators told the deck chief over his shoulder, his eyes still on the contact near the smaller of the two stars in the system that the detection grid had just registered and transmitted over the gap in the system to the heavily populated Human world where the transit headquarters were located.

“What make?” the Chief asked, leaning forward microscopically in his chair as he pushed aside whatever it was he was working on at the time. The coordinators handled all the traffic within the system, each with a particular zone that was micromanaged by other controllers on site, but in this case there was no station near the stellar pair so the anomaly had been routed directly to the control center.

The coordinator waited for a few seconds so the sensors could chew on the readings they were getting, but with no luck he merely shook his head and raised an eyebrow. “Unknown.”

“Alert the defense fleet to stand by for intercept and get a comm to the H’kar. This may be one of theirs.”

“It doesn’t match any H’kar ship in the database.”

“It could be another Nexus craft that we’re unfamiliar with. Where’s it heading?”

“Staying put for the moment…defense fleet says drones are being dispatched.”

“Reroute traffic patterns around it until we know what we’re dealing with. If it is hostile we don’t want anyone getting caught up in the crossfire. Backtrack its trajectory.”

“Jumpline indicates Mortica System.”

“Incoming comm from the unidentified ship,” another control room staffer interrupted. “It’s a copied Star Force transmission granting them pass-through rights.”

“It’s what?”

“It’s a green card.”

“Those don’t come from ships, they come though the grid.”

“I know, but this one is coming from the ship.”

The Chief rubbed his forehead in confusion. “Who does it say it is?”

“It’s labeled as a H’kar associate.”

“Inform the defense fleet that we have a probable legit transport, but that we request a military escort anyway. I don’t like this.”

“Actually, the green card is for a convoy fleet of 259 vessels.”

“What the hell,” the Chief said, getting up out of his seat and walking forward. He stepped down two levels and came up behind the coordinator, double checking what he was seeing. “Amend that comm to the defense fleet to ‘convoy escort.’ Still just the one ship?”

“So far yes.”

“Keep an eye on it. I don’t like this,” he said, staring at the sensor image of a single, moderately-sized jumpship just sitting in stellar orbit with a host of Star Force signals moving towards it. Eventually he took his eyes off it and retreated back towards his chair.

“Here they come,” the coordinator said before he even made it halfway back. “Multiple vessels incoming in tight stagger.”

“Sent the messenger on ahead did they?”

“And these are much bigger.”

“Defense fleet says they’re assuming priority control of the situation,” another staffer said.

“Good,” the Chief uttered, returning to his chair. This was in someone else’s hands now. “Keep the area clear and let them do their thing…and bring up possible evacuation routes for the orbital traffic. I want to be ready if fighting breaks out.”

“They do have a green card,” the coordinator pointed out.

“That they transmitted,” he said, bringing up a comprehensive system traffic tracking holo in front of him so he could see the big picture and hand out assignments for the coordinators to tackle as needed, “and that makes me wonder.”

A tone sounded on the desk where Keina was reading a mass of text, bringing her out of her studying haze. She telekinetically pressed a button on the surface half a meter to her right, connecting the incoming comm line. “What is it?”

“Unidentified ships entering the system under a green transit card that they themselves are transmitting. Traffic control requested an escort and one is under way now.”

The acolyte frowned, standing up. “On my way.”

She walked out of the small office and jogged down a straight hallway to an open platform overlooking the system defense command center. She was holding the fort, so to speak, while the normal commander was off duty. He was probably in the sanctum right now and she needed to see what was going on before interrupting the ranger. Having unidentified ships coming through wasn’t all that unusual, for some races just wanted to poke around the Human Core Region and see what was there, but with the addition of the H’kar colony a great deal more traffic was popping up, bringing with it a wide variety of onlookers.

The part about them transmitting their own green card was odd, but there was only one possibility that rose in the Archon’s mind. The relay grid sent the transmission on ahead of the irregular ships so that the destination system would know that they were guests of some sort in the ADZ and not subject them to the same suspicion and scrutiny in every inhabited system that they passed through. The only reason a ship would carry a copy of the transmission itself was…if the ships were capable of moving faster than the interstellar comm signal.

Keina bypassed the two lateral stairs and just hopped over the forward railing, dropping a good four meters into a deceleration crouch that went a little too far, forcing her to roll out of it into a somersault, but she kept the transition smooth and was back on her feet in a flash, racing towards the commander’s post and getting a quick look at the holo before she started getting additional information fed to her both visually and verbally.

It didn’t take the acolyte long to get caught up, with her sending her own message to the H’kar inquiring who this was and if they were responsible for them being here. The lag time up to the moon that they’d been given half of to establish a base of operations to service their fleet and act as an embassy within the ADZ wasn’t more than a fraction of a second, but it was a long few minutes before they finally received a response.

“Dsevmat,” she read aloud, doing the best she could to get the pronunciation right.

“Sound familiar?” one of the naval staffers asked.

“They’re on the member list of the Nexus, but one that we have no other information about. Grant them clearance and have traffic control stand down their redirects, but keep the escort drones nearby. There aren’t a lot of weapons on those bigger ships, but the small ones look well outfitted.”

“Warships escorts?”

“That’d be my guess. Keep enough drones nearby that we’ll be able to respond instantly if they go hostile, but otherwise give them their space.”

Roger was in Alpha Region when he got the message concerning the arrival of another Nexus member and the request they were making of Star Force, prompting him to hop on a Ma’kri and head back to the Core Region immediately. Both Paul and Liam were heavily engaged elsewhere in combat operations, with his work on Lucian tinkering with Clan Emerald Shark infrastructure prototypes being able to wait until later given that the Dsevmat were requesting one of Star Force’s naval warfare specialists.

When his ship finally arrived in the Banner System he had it go straight to the H’kar moon where the visiting fleet was sitting quietly in orbit carrying the diplomatic delegation and the reward they were offering if Star Force could help them solve a lingering problem. As soon as they were aware that Roger had got here the local Archon in command sent the trailblazer an update, informing him that the green card copy that the Dsevmat ships had been carrying was eventually followed up by the actual transmission through the relay grid two days later.

That right there told Roger that this wasn’t a low level race within the Nexus like the H’kar, and that whoever they were they had gravity drives far faster than what Star Force currently possessed and probably a full tech tree to match. He made contact with the H’kar first, then let them make the formal introductions via comm, during which the newcomers wanted to meet with Roger in person…and onboard one of their ships.

Donning his dark blue mage armor, the Archon headed to one of the landing bays in his Ma’kri where the Dsevmat transport eventually landed, sprawling what looked like glowing white hairs in the thousands beneath the ship as landing legs to cradle its mass as a portion of its hull melted open and the material reformed into a meter-wide foot ramp.

At first Roger waited for someone to come out, but when no one did he reluctantly walked up to the base of the ramp and looked inside, seeing nothing more than a dark hollow. Using his Pefbar he was able to penetrate the hull and look all the way through the small ship, seeing that no one was inside. Guessing that the transport was remote controlled he walked up the ramp only to have it melt and pull back up to reform the wall behind him, then the landing ‘hairs’ retracted and the ship floated out of the hangar as Roger meandered further inside.

There were only two chambers inside the seed-like pod, a main floor and a small adjunct not counting the short hallway to the door. Both were bare, but he could see additional structures in the floor, walls, and ceiling that he guessed were extrudable if the situation called for it. The main chamber flashed on a flat hologram mimicking a window across the side of the smooth-walled room that had not a single crease nor crevice in it, showing the departure from the bay and the flight across orbit to one of the pearl-colored ships.

They were likewise smooth and lumpy in places, with tiny splotches that glowed white, blue, or even a tinge of purple here and there. Mostly their hulls were just blank, but several places had been highlighted on the ships during their entry into the system denoting the position of weapons batteries that had since been retracted into the hull and were now hidden, probably behind the same melty technology that the pod’s door was made of.

Likewise a hangar entrance formed on the side of one of the biggest ships in the Dsevmat fleet, with small ripples of material moving aside and allowing the pod within, only to close up behind the trailblazer and seal him in. A moment later a trickle of apprehension ran down his spine as he reached out with his Ikrid and sensed the surrounding minds…with him immediately picking up reflective feedback.

He could only get the faintest of readings on them, but could tell that his telepathic touch had sent them into a flurry, for each one he brushed minds with immediately became agitated. Roger pulled back from the penetrating scans that he usually used on new species and just noted the position of their minds as the pod’s door opened and reformed into a ramp, inviting him to leave the tiny ship.

When he did he saw the source of three of the nearby minds…which sent another little tickle down his spin, for the Dsevmat easily outmassed him and moved in an unusual manner, given that they had no arms, legs, or appendages of any kind. They were literally giant pearl-colored snakes.

“Hello,” Roger said in the Nexus common language, which he’d learned a number of years back, as all the trailblazers had.

“We were not told you had telepathic abilities,” the closest snake said, slithering up beside him in the heavy gravity and raising its tri-finned head up level with the Human’s. “Do not try to access our minds again or you will be harmed.”

“No need for threats,” Roger said calmly. “You asked for me to come here, remember?”

“Calm yourself, Hameen. He meant no offense,” the snake to the left said with a reverberation in its voice that Roger suddenly realized was being transmitted telepathically rather than physically, imbuing it with the equivalent as a restraining hand on the shoulder or a poke in the ribs. “He withdrew as soon as he sensed us. We would do the same with strangers.”

“We were not told they were this advanced,” Hameen countered with uncertainty rippling off him.

“All the better,” the third snake said without any telepathic reinforcement. “We will not have to rely fully on verbal communication.”

“How can we when he…” Hameen said, then cut off immediately, making Roger wonder if they were only able to transmit omnidirectionally. If they could have private ‘lines’ between one another then they probably wouldn’t be discussing these things in the open.

“You’re wondering why you can’t probe my mind,” Roger interrupted their moment of indecision. “That’s because we have a defense against such things. My apologies if I startled you earlier. I won’t intrude again.”

“Apology accepted, Human,” the left snake said agreeably, with its three tiny clear eyes looking Roger over. “Is our atmosphere inappropriate?”

“It is a bit foul, but breathable,” he said, referencing some of the trace gasses that the Dsevmat used as the equivalent of vitamins that Roger’s nose was equating with a cooking experiment gone horribly wrong. “The armor is precautionary when we are entering unknown environments.”

“It has its own atmosphere then?”

“Short span, yes.”

“Tell us what your native atmosphere is and we will make adjustments.”

“Unnecessary…I will adapt. Tell me more of this request you have of us.”

Hameen turned away from the trio, but it was only to loop his body around itself in a coil that he then raised his head back up from before he spoke. “It has become known throughout the Nexus that Star Force’s strategic capabilities far outstrip your technological ones. Your efforts against the Li’vorkrachnika and subsequent joint missions with the H’kar have shown that your wisest warlords have a knack for finding ways to win battles that statistically they should not. Are we to assume you are one of these warlords?”

“I am not only one of them, but one of the top three regarding naval warfare. Which of us is best is still an undecided issue,” he said, referencing the little rivalry/camaraderie that he, Liam, and Paul still had going on to date. “What is it that you wish me to apply my skill on?”

“Follow us please,” the snake on the right said, emanating a sense of satisfaction before it twisted around and lengthened out, wiggling back and forth as it headed for a wall. Hameen followed, but the third snake telepathically gestured for Roger to go next and the Human walked off following the other two snakes, feeling very out of place with his bipedal movement. There were many others moving around the bay that he could visually see, plus many more that he could sense in nearby chambers or behind the rows of transport pods, all of which wiggled around with no apparent ability to handle the tasks normal tech crews would.

The wall opened before them, exposing a hallway on the other side, but it was the little tendril of Lachka that caught Roger’s eye. It wasn’t the same, but close enough that his Rentar allowed him to detect it stretch out from the first snake’s head and contact a control nub on the wall, indicating that not only did the Dsevmat have telepathic abilities, they were also telekinetic…which solved the mystery of how they were able to work with technology without any limbs.

The snakes were able to move rather quickly despite their trash can thick bodies, though their hallways were shallow ceilinged, with Roger having to duck down in some of the more constricted segments when his height was a few inches greater than the architecture. After a few minutes they came to a brightly glowing tunnel that clashed with the dimly lit rest of the ship that was illuminated from the walls themselves without the presence of any individual orbs or fixtures.

Before him now was more of a tunnel than a hallway, and as the first snake slithered inside it was whisked away in some type of energy field and quickly disappeared into the distance.

“A faster means of internal transport,” the one behind Roger said as Hameen likewise entered and disappeared. “It is harmless and automatic. Simply move inside.”

Roger remained silent, but did as instructed. Suddenly his forward foot left the floor and his center of mass quickly followed…then he was moving down the tunnel of bright light suspended shy of any of the round walls but likewise unable to turn his body. As he wondered what type of force field was holding him the exit manifested itself ahead as he was drastically slowed without any felt effects, meaning an IDF field was also in play.

He stepped forward back onto solid ground when the field released him, then moved away as the third snake came through. From there they ‘walked’ some more until another wall melted and they entered a chamber with six other Dsevmat at what must have been their version of work stations. They were coiled up inside clear bowls with a mess of holograms around them, some of which appeared to be solid, for they were touching them with their ‘necks’ and it finally clicked that they were head rests.

“Show him,” Hameen said to all in the chamber, this time purely telepathically and without any physical words, which made it hard for Roger to understand given the mental dialect of the language he wasn’t that familiar with.

In response to the command a star map of the Nexus and the surround regions appeared, which included lizard territory as a tiny spec on the periphery. He only noticed as his mind registered the geography for there was another region that was highlighted, along with which came hundreds of holographic schematics of alien bodies, warships, cities, weapons, and everything else belonging to a single civilization.

“They are known as the H’bat’i,” Hameen said with a tone of disbelief in his words. “And they are a conundrum that we ask you to solve.”

7

“Explain,” Roger said, beginning to soak in the information around him.

“They are a violent race within the boundaries that the Nexus is tasked to pacify, one that has fallen to us to deal with. Not long ago we mounted a major push against one of seven strongholds, an assault with sufficient force to defeat and conquer the planet in question. Instead we suffered a defeat and lost nearly our entire invasion force. We have reviewed the assault thousands of times and brought in many tactical experts from within the Dsevmat and other Nexus races. No one can account for how the H’bat’i defeated our clearly superior force, and we are not willing to mount another assault until we understand how we failed.”

“At the moment,” another Dsevmat said, slithering up on Roger’s left, “we are engaged in containment protocols, preventing the spread of the threat and limiting their actions outside their territory, but they are a problem we must deal with eventually and containment is insufficient. We ask that you conduct your own analysis, and are hoping that you can see the key to the H’bat’i’s victory over us.”

“Do you have full battle records?”

“Yes, a few of our ships managed to escape and with them they brought the data logs from every other vessel, which are transmitted automatically to nearby vessels when they begin to suffer catastrophic failure. We have a wealth of data, but no answers.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Approximately 40 years. Since that time other threats have become emboldened by our inability to neutralize the H’bat’i, making our typical peacekeeping efforts more problematic. We could mount another assault, but feel that to do so without understanding what happened the first time would be reckless. We did not expect that so much time would go by without an answer, but the longer this persists the more eroded our reputation becomes. That reputation is keeping smaller threats neutralized without us having to commit ships, and without it we cannot oversee the territory assigned to us with our current resources.”

“So you want me to show you how to beat them?”

“No,” Hameen said with a telepathic air of disgust at his presumption. “We are only asking that you show us what they did. We will formulate our own battle plans.”

“I will need a full history of their race and their conflict with you, as well as any conflicts with others.”

“We have brought along all information regarding the H’bat’i, and we are prepared to wait here as long as necessary for you to complete your analysis.”

“Alright then…let’s start with the battle itself.”

Roger spent the next 7 hours onboard the Dsevmat ship watching holos and asking a lot of questions, then eventually headed planetside for a break with the alien pod delivering him to the spaceport on the surface that he requested. For the rest of the day he trained, pushing aside the challenge the Dsevmat had laid out for him and clearing his head before getting some sleep and heading back up to the ship, for the Nexus race wouldn’t allow copies of their data to be taken with the Human for outside study. They were trusting him with a wealth of information, but only him and within their own ship, meaning he was going to have to do a lot of commuting in the coming days.

The way the H’bat’i had won was obvious, for the Dsevmat did have the superior force even when you include the orbital defenses of the planet under assault. Both races possessed tech currently exceeding Star Force’s, and the Dsevmat more so than their enemy, but they’d been beaten soundly when their weapons’ targeting systems malfunctioned. It wasn’t a total malfunction, nor was it isolated to individual ships. Across their fleet weapons batteries began to miss their targets, not with every shot, but on average 73% misfired.

During the later stages that amount diminished to 32% when the Dsevmat were losing badly, then it almost disappeared entirely as they were being wiped out. Some ships had higher and lesser accuracy numbers, and the same went for certain batteries. Some hit with every shot and others were malfunctioning. There was no discernable pattern to be found, no computer glitches or attack programing found within the computer systems, and no known weapon system on the part of the H’bat’i that could interfere with the targeting systems.

Sensor records had been gone over so many times by the Dsevmat that they’d literally run themselves ragged with frustration in an endless search. There was no energy or matter being emitted from the H’bat’i ships that could account for this, and their weaponsfire showed no variations from standard specs, nor was there any variation between what was hitting the malfunctioning ships and those with normal accuracy rates…which for the Dsevmat was 99.7%, and that included anti-fighter stats.

Roger resisted the urge to start forming theories, or strong ones anyway, and used the opportunity to study the Nexus race and their adversary, learning that this was truly a mismatch. The Dsevmat clearly outmatched them, but as stated before the higher level empire was spread out maintaining a vast tract of territory where other races lived. They couldn’t focus their might into a single area and had to work with limited fleets and resources while effectively being overstretched. What the reason was for this within the political workings of the Nexus he didn’t know, but it did shed a bit of light on why the Nexus wasn’t rushing to defeat the lizards.

If the other races were likewise as stretched, and he wasn’t automatically assuming so, then they wouldn’t have the numbers to hit the lizards on as many fronts as needed, and to be truthful the H’bat’i and some of the other races they had fought against were clearly higher level than the lizards, if not so widespread. It was a bit shocking at seeing the power gap, but Roger was soaking it all in and getting up to speed with the ‘big dogs,’ though they still didn’t fare well in comparison to the V’kit’no’sat.

That said, if the two ever went head to head it wouldn’t be a total slaughter on the part of the dinos.

With no obvious mechanism detected for messing with the Dsevmat weapons Roger dug into the construction and function of them with his analysis assistants, learning that all Dsevmat weaponry was based off of Ketara energy. The trailblazer played dumb, letting the snakes inform him of what it was and how it worked, but he already knew from the pyramid database that it was a cloying field that, rather than breaking the bonds of molecules created new ones with a rabid appetite.

That meant that a burst of Ketara energy hitting the hull of a warship would effectively condense whatever material it hit like a mini black hole, forming a crater with a condensed nub of matter in it. That meant whenever the Dsevmat attacked something there would be no explosions, which made for odd battle holos because Roger was used to at least a shrapnel spray, but these weapons were very tidy and oh so nasty.

They had several versions from orbs, to beams, to streamers and even some net-like fields they’d throw against a target. All were Ketara-based and worked decently well against energy shields as well, enough so that the Dsevmat had decided to go all-in on the tech and really refine it to potent status. That said, Roger knew the V’kit’no’sat didn’t use the energy because it had a glaring weakness, not to mention it was weaker than their other available weapons. With a special shield modification the energy could be completely neutralized to the point where virtually no amount of weaponsfire could penetrate it, similar to trying to shoot fish in a barrel with a flame thrower.

That type of shield matrix was well above Star Force’s head at the moment, and Roger got the feeling like the Dsevmat didn’t know there was a counter for the technology, which meant that probably no one else in the Nexus or the region they dominated did either.

That counter hadn’t been in play here, for the H’bat’i shields weren’t anywhere near as sophisticated…but they were extremely thick, with more emphasis going into the shields than the hull armor, which was a favorable place to stand when going against the Ketara weaponry, for like a Ta’lin’yi they really racked up the damage when they hit solid matter.

That said, they were almost useless in atmosphere because they’d hit and cause the air molecules to fuse together into solid particles that became pebbles or dust depending on density of the environment. That was going to be an issue during the ground invasion but the Dsevmat never made it that far. They’d been routed in orbit and never even had a chance to call in their troop transports waiting outside the system, which had fortunately spared them from destruction.

As it turned out in a thorough examination of how the Dsevmat military was constructed, they used an almost exclusively drone army system given their lack of limbs. Control snakes would be inserted into the combat zones and would then run operations remotely from outposts or large command centers. They didn’t operate them from orbit, which Roger felt was more tradition than function, but they had multiple variations of mechs and infantry, some which he’d never seen before.

It was side quests like that where Roger was trying to dig up more information, for the Dsevmat were quite correct in their initial analysis…there was no viable explanation as to why the weaponry malfunctioned the way it did, but as Sherlock Holmes had once said if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. With that in mind Roger felt he knew what had happened, but he needed to know why before he was going to say anything.

In addition to learning about the Dsevmat and a lot of their battle history, for his assistants were very willing to let him peruse the database even when it didn’t appear to tie in directly to the investigation, he dug into the history, culture, and society that was the H’bat’i and tried to get a feel for the way they thought and built. They were triped, twice the size of Humans, and very introverted. They usually didn’t interact with other races outside of warfare and kept their economy self-contained. They did seek to expand their territory, and that expansion is what had got the Nexus’s attention in a bad way.

They had conquered several primitive worlds and essentially turned them into a slave labor force, growing a small empire that had crossed one of the Nexus’s minor spacelanes. The H’bat’i basically shut it down, claiming ownership of the system and insisting that he traffic flow be rerouted elsewhere which had sparked the first conflict with the Nestaw.

The Nestaw were a race within the Nexus a bit higher level than the H’kar and they’d been tasked to deal with the disruption in the spacelane and the freeing of the subjugated worlds. When they failed horribly, finding the H’bat’i were far more resilient and tech savvy than intelligence had estimated, the Dsevmat took over and sent a proper recon team. They deduced the strength required and waited several years until they could muster the necessary fleet, drawing ships from various other assignments as they became available, then launching them at one of the H’bat’i’s main worlds, intending to inflict a crippling assault that they could then dictate terms from afterward.

Such tactics were standard practice for the Dsevmat, who liked to bloody an enemy’s nose then force them to submit out of fear, though in most cases it was a bluff and the Dsevmat didn’t have the reinforcements they needed to go a second or third round. Their opponents didn’t know that, so they’d been getting away with and heavily favored the tactic in a lot of their peacekeeping assignments, which also told Roger that they were desperate to figure out how the H’bat’i had bested them else they wouldn’t be sharing this and other things so openly with him.

But as he ran through the data something bothered him, and that was the cultural fingerprint of the H’bat’i being introverted not fitting in with their taking slave races. There wasn’t a wealth of data on the subjugated and the H’bat’i’s activities there, for the intel had come primarily from the Nestaw and a few independent analysis teams prior to that, but there was enough geographical and population statistics for him to see that on the conquered worlds there were virtually no H’bat’i present.

That was odd, for usually when you conquered a planet you moved in, but the H’bat’i didn’t aside from what looked like overseers and some military personnel. The planet was shipping resources off it that were going back to the H’bat’i worlds, but as for on-site occupation there virtually was none. That made him wonder what exactly the circumstances of the conquests were, but that information wasn’t available.

There were tidbits that Roger was slowly able to string together, and with those he was able to conduct some searches through other Nexus records and found two of the conquered races mentioned in survey files that predated their annexation. Those records were the first concrete data points that Roger had, and from there he began narrowing his search of the intelligence reports the Dsevmat had available to them prior to the assault.

There was a lot of military-related data, for the Dsevmat had been extremely thorough. That too was an additional data point, and slowly Roger collected the bits and pieces of extraneous data, learning as much as he could for Star Force’s purposes along the way, but needing to present solid evidence of what had happened so the Dsevmat would accept it…if he truly wanted to tell them.

He considered not doing so once he found out what had happened in the battle, for right now the Dsevmat were holding off on another assault and if they found out what had occurred it might prompt another and he didn’t want to get involved in a war that he only knew about through a few records from one party involved. Roger weighed his options, looking through all the angles he could conceive of and not really caring about the promised reward. Eventually he decided to tell them, banking on his read of their culture, with him returning to their ship one last time to spell it out for them.

He wasn’t sure how it was going to hit them, and they might flat our refuse to accept the theory he was going to give them, but the trailblazer had no doubts now as to what had happened and in reviewing the battle holos one last time before calling the snakes to him it was painfully obvious what had occurred…and saddening to the point where he almost wished it hadn’t, despite the circumstances.

Hadeem and a group of about 20 other Dsevmat slithered into the room where Roger had been working with a pair of assistants for the past month, all obviously eager to see if the Human warlord had been worth the trip and actually found the cause of their defeat as they transmitted little blips of excitement, curiosity, and doubt telepathically as they entered the room and moved around the small armored biped.

“You have an answer for us?” Hadeem asked skeptically, with the telepathic prodding being to prove the point.

“Yes I do, and you’re not going to like it.”

“Better that we know the truth and learn to counter the H’bat’i’s tactic than to live in doubt and uncertainty,” another said almost as if reading a quote.

“The reason,” Roger began, pointing to a running loop of the battle on the gigantic hologram behind him, “that your weapons’ accuracy was diminished or outright compromised in some cases, and the reason you haven’t been able to find any discernable pattern in the lapses, is because you’ve been looking at things from a technological perspective, and therein does not lie the problem.”

Roger looked around at the various snakes, with no clue how they were going to take what he was about to say.

“Your weapons didn’t hit their targets because your gunners deliberately missed.”

8

Ripples of confusion and disbelief transmitted off the surrounding Dsevmat, creating a telepathic noise that was contrast to the physical silence as none of them spoke an audible word. They stayed like that for nearly half a minute before one finally asked Roger to explain, also using telepathy as if speaking now would have been inappropriate somehow.

“The H’bat’i conquest and annexation of the surrounding worlds that prompted your assault is not what you have told me it to be. I’m assuming your people had access to the same information I’ve had, and there are enough pieces here for the line troops to put together what really was happening on those worlds. The lack of population is the first clue, for when someone conquers a world they usually want to keep it for their own purposes.”

“The H’bat’i have almost no personnel on their annexed worlds, and those that they do have are not sufficient to keep the population suppressed militarily. If you review the intelligence reports on those planets, you will see that the materials being harvested are being transported back to the H’bat’i worlds, but this does not make the conquered a slave race. I believe it to be tribute…and I think your troops figured this out as well.”

“What more there is to find in the reports is the lack of certain things, such as executions, prisons, various forms of maltreatment of the natives. There was very little to be found by the recon team, though those few instances were overly emphasized. The truth is the H’bat’i conquered these worlds to become their caretakers, not to enslave them. The resources flowing back were merely in compensation, with 92% of the local economic produce remaining on planet.”

“Whether or not the locals had a choice in the H’bat’i taking control is unknown, but even if they didn’t I believe your troops deduced that they were being ordered to attack a race that didn’t deserve it…which prompts me to ask you a question. Had they refused to fight what would their punishment have been?”

Roger let the question hang in the air as no one wanted to speak, but finally one did, with the discontentment of the others telepathically visible. “Sedition is punishable by death. Our military must act quickly and decisively. There is no room for discussion and debate. All know and accept this.”

“And what is the role of your military?” Roger asked, already knowing the answer.

To safeguard the Dsevmat and to pacify the region the Nexus has tasked us with.

“Pacify? Or maintain the tenants of justice?”

Both, another snake replied when the one the Archon was talking to refused to answer.

“I think your assault force saw that they were being sent to conquer and kill a race that did not deserve it, but with the threat of death on them if they refused to fight they tried to deliberately lose the battle instead. Not all the troops, but the vast majority of them. This is why the inaccuracy rate spiked so drastically and why you couldn’t find a technological cause. Your troops had to fight, but being in an unjust battle they were trying not to win.”

“Then, when the tide was turning the H’bat’i outmaneuvered your fleet in a brilliant piece of strategy and pinned them down. When that happened and your troops were in danger of being destroyed the inaccuracy began to vanish, and by the time they were fighting for their lives and trying to flee it disappeared entirely. It’s one thing to try not to win a battle of conquest, but quite another to commit suicide. Your troops wanted to live, but with no coordination between the dissenters they threw the battle too much and the H’bat’i bested them.”

“Rather than drive your fleet back, the H’bat’i went for the kill, sacrificing many of their own ships to keep yours from fleeing. The handful of Dsevmat ships that escaped were those that had shown no inaccuracy problems, thus the dissenters were not around to tell what had happened. They all perished because they underestimated their opponent while trying to protect them. You put them in a position where they would either have to defy the purpose of your military or to defy orders and risk execution. They tried a third option and it ended up getting them killed anyway, but at least they preserved the independence of the H’bat’i in the process.”

“I know you do not like to hear this, and the reason you came to us was so you could learn how the H’bat’i had bested you, devise a countermeasure, then go back and finish them off, but what you need to understand is that you were in the wrong and your troops knew this. Rather than commit the treason of injustice they deliberately threw that battle in order to preserve their honor.”

“You couldn’t find the truth because it was something that you weren’t looking for, but it was staring you in the face the entire time. Your leaders were in the wrong and your troops knew better, but had they refused you would have killed them. You failed to follow the course of justice and I don’t care what your reasons were. You probably wouldn’t care to tell me even if you knew, but the point is your troops figured it out and acted in the only way they could without sacrificing their own lives…which they accidentally did anyway by not fighting hard enough to be able to withdrawal against an opponent that had been grossly underestimated twice.”

“So there is the answer to your conundrum, whether you will accept it or not.”

And he knew that they wouldn’t, at least not right now based on the telepathic impulses that he was getting from this group. No one spoke again, but the rage and disgust within one of them boiled over and Roger felt the brush of a consciousness against his own. It couldn’t get past the Ikrid blocks, but him being able to feel even the slightest pressure meant that the Dsevmat was trying to hammer him with telepathic influence.

That was odd, given that they seemed unable to talk to each other directly using telepathy, but he quickly surmised that the transmission ability and the interlink were separate for them and they’d have to get past another one’s blocks in order to communicate privately. If that wasn’t something they culturally allowed then ‘speaking’ omni-directionally made sense. Roger also guessed that with their entire race being telepathic that casual probing was frowned upon, which would make what this one was attempting to do to Roger a full blown fist in the face, despite the fact that it wasn’t using its body or telekinesis to do it.

The trailblazer looked at the one that was the source of the tickle and decided to return the favor, hacking into its mind and essentially taking it by the telepathic throat. The tickle in his mind vanished, and the Dsevmat was froze in place as its body no longer responded to its own impulses.

The others sensed the assault taking place and responded instinctually, trying at first to get to Roger then wisely abandoning that idea when they couldn’t reach past his permanent Ikrid block and instead hacked into their fellow snake and fought Roger through him. That made it harder for the Archon to maintain his grip, but even with them stacking their telepathic power against him it was still no contest. They might possess some psionics, but theirs were nowhere near as advanced as the V’kit’no’sat package.

Wanting to make a quick statement he let them try and remove him from the other’s mind, then after giving them a taste of failure sent out a Fornax sphere that dropped all of them to the ground like limp ropes. When he did he let go of the Dsevmat’s mind, then let them shake off the temporary effect and try to figure out what had just happened.

“Do not try and enter my mind,” Roger warned. “And do not do so in retaliation for me simply showing you the truth. That’s rude. If I’m wrong feel free to point out where and in detail, but you know you won’t be able to. What I’ve said may infuriate you but it also smacks of truth and you know it. I can sense it in you without even entering your minds.”

Just then the doorway melted open and more snakes rushed in, apparently having felt the telepathic scuffle, but one of them wasn’t focused on Roger and instead headed directly for the Dsevmat that had first tried to get inside the Human’s head.

There was a scuffle between them, all telepathic, and Roger quietly tapped in to see what was going on but without enough of a presence for them to notice. The one who had rushed in was ship’s security and he was reviewing the recent memories, confirming the attempted invasion of the Human’s mind.

“How dare you shame us in this manner,” it said aloud, the first words spoken by the Dsevmat in some time. “This one is a guest and here at our request. Be gone,” it demanded, telepathically pointing towards the door and telekinetically shoving its head in that direction none too gently. The snake didn’t stick around to argue and slithered away, but it was spouting a considerable amount of telepathic noise in the process, all of which was in its native language that Roger couldn’t understand, but then again some sentiments were universal and didn’t require translating, with this one being the equivalent of a middle finger back at the Human.

“Our deepest apologies,” the security snake said, throwing discontent at the others nearby for their part in the scrap. “We do not normally behave in such a manner, though your skills are clearly sufficient to defend yourself.”

“They are,” Roger agreed.

The snake twitched it head slightly, sending a telepathic nod of respect along with it. “I do not care what the guest has said. You will retreat him with respect. Is that understood?”

The telepathic boom on that last word was so forceful that even Roger got a bit prickly from it, and it had the effect of subduing the others instantly.

“I know what he has said and the affront it carries, but if there is even the slightest truth in it we must know, for if there is it would shame us all. Ask your questions of him, ask many questions, but do not turn away from this and do not disrespect him again. He is a guest and I should not have to remind you as to what that means.”

With that the security snake left the room along with his escorts, his task apparently done, leaving Roger with the others and another long, awkward pause before one of them spoke.

“Explain the H’bat’i further.”

Roger telepathically told one of his assistants which files to bring up, then pointed to an unrelated report that he’d found when digging through commerce records.

“Prior to the Nexus’s interest in them, the races that the H’bat’i conquered has some contact with your economic community through third parties. The data is piecemeal but I’ve gathered enough scraps to suggest that several of the conquered races were themselves predatory, with the others being a mix of the needy and primitive. Comparing those states with those in the reconnaissance reports indicates that the tech level of the conquered races and their living standards rose after annexation, and rose considerably for some.”

“Now that typically does not occur when one is subjugated by a hostile entity. Another point is the population statistics. In nearly all cases they rose, with one that I have been unable to confirm for lack of initial numbers. There were no massive purges that diminished the local populations down to ‘manageable’ numbers, and the number of overseers in the most recent reports show that they would be incapable of suppressing an uprising. This suggests a partnership of some sort rather than brute force control.”

“A broken slave is often compliant,” Hameen commented.

“Yes, which is why I went further in my analysis and searched the current infrastructure. Even with broken slaves there must be some measure of control in place, even if it is not used. I found none other than a light military force, and those were arrayed as defensive guards at the H’bat’i outposts instead of in the population centers. However the H’bat’i took possession of the annexed worlds, even if it was through war, I believe the current inhabitants are not at odds with them given the lack of societal controls. The H’bat’i may be in charge, but it’s not by means of any leash that I can detect.”

From there on Roger explained in detail each step of his logical progression which invariably came to his final conclusion. The Dsevmat, after their initial backlash, probed him with more and more questions trying to poke holes in his theory, for which the trailblazer schooled them on each one. They stayed at it for hours, but in the end they were forced to reluctantly accept the truth that was being explained to them.

And with that they were gone, sending Roger back via pod and leaving a massive slew of cargo containers drifting in space without even bothering to tell Star Force what was inside them. It took a while to unload them before they jumped out, so Roger was able to have his own people there to stabilize and receive the ‘bounty’ for him completing the challenge, but he didn’t know what was inside until they tried to move them.

A few of the giant boxes were so massive that there was really only one thing they could contain and Roger was eager to open them up to confirm it. The others massed less and were still a mystery, but once all of them were moved over to the nearest station with sufficient hangar space they were floated inside and positioned on the deck with the AG slowly cranking up to normal and settling them in place.

The armored Archon was out with the techs as they figured out that there was no opening mechanism for the boxes, rather just a containment sheath that had to be cut through. The futuristic equivalent of cardboard didn’t take long to peel off and reveal the perfectly smooth cubes of a greenish metal that was instantly recognizable as corovon in its pure form.

Roger whistled within his helmet, then pulled it off with a click and looked along with the deck chief at the lowest cube that stood more than a meter tall, with this crate/box being some 16 meters high and 28 meters long. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” the tech said wide eyed. “That can’t be corovon.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Not that much. That’s gotta be more than we mine in, what, a decade?”

“You underestimate how much we bring in, but you’re right about this not being any small amount…and there are four more crates as massive as this one.”

“What the hell is this for? You give them a star system or something?”

“I answered a question,” Roger said simply, reaching out and tapping the lowest cube in the stack with his armored finger.

“Must have been a hell of a question.”

“Let’s see what else they gave us,” Roger said, curious, as he started walking over towards one of the ‘light’ ones. It took a few minutes to get the sheath torn off, but before they did it began spilling out clear orbs like raindrops, with each being the size of croquet balls and none the less hard.

“I got it,” Roger said, telekinetically catching a lot of them and holding the dam in place so more wouldn’t flow out. “We need collection bins.”

“I’ll have some cargo crates brought over,” the tech said, glancing at the motionless Archon. “How long can you hold those?”

“Not very…they’re heavy too.”

“Right…clear the area,” he told one of his subordinates before making a comm call to someone else. A few minutes later some car-sized, open-topped crates were flown up on anti-grav and Roger let the top portion of the load spill out into it, though he had to guide the flow and that further added to his mental fatigue. He only had so much Lachka energy in his reserves, but he managed to hold it together until the top portion of the box emptied and he was able to finally let go.

“Find a better way to get the rest out,” he said, walking over and picking up one of the orbs and looking it over.

“I don’t recognize it,” the tech commented after some confused looks from Roger.

“Neither do I, but I think the orb is a carrying case for those particles in the center.”

“I thought it was an integrated component.”

“Whatever it is, get them collected and out of their original containers.”

“Will do, but we’ll need a lot more crates shipped in. We don’t get a lot of call for them in a warehouse, odd as that sounds.”

“Because everything is already shipped in one.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll find you some more. Don’t open too many more boxes until we get them, all the way at least.”

“You going to peek inside?”

“Are you kidding, this might as well be Christmas.”

“What’s that?”

Roger glanced at him. “Sorry, figured you were older. It was a holiday where you got presents.”

“What for?”

“No reason, you just got them on that day.”

“Sounds odd. I thought holidays were for parties.”

“Both in some cases.”

“How can you get a present without a reason? That makes no sense.”

“Just one of those cultural quirks that got lost with time,” Roger said, walking over to another unopened box. “But come Christmas morning you felt something like this.”

“But you earned these?”

Roger laughed. “Never mind. If you didn’t live through that era you wouldn’t understand.”

“Guess not, but I understand this,” he said, stepping onto a mobile lift and heading up to the top with Roger and a cutting team. “Surprise boxes.”

“That’s pretty much what Christmas was,” the trailblazer said, waiting for them to tear the top corner off. When they did his jaw dropped as he smelled the contents. They were tropical, almost fruity but with a very metallic/coppery scent that was hard to explain but impossible to forget.

The tech reached into the packing material and pulled out a small cube. “Heavy sucker,” he said, handing it to Roger.

“Damn,” he said, taking another sniff.

“What is it?”

“Take a whiff.”

“I can already smell it. Strong stuff.”

“That’s a scent you will never forget…and this,” he said, holding the cube between them, “is a raw arc element.”

The tech pointed towards it reverently. “You mean this…”

“Yep,” he said, glancing at the packing material that held many more of the tiny cubes in regal fashion.

“Holy shit. What the hell was that question you answered?”

“Something important…that I hope they learn a lesson from.”

“Expensive lesson.”

Roger’s expression dimmed just a touch as his mind flicked back to the Dsevmat/H’bat’i battle.

“Very.”

9

February 3, 2659

Fvatt System (lizard territory)

Kri’mas

The Hycre scout ship sat in orbit along with the rest of the debris fields that had once been their orbital infrastructure, ships, and even the hulks of their attackers. All still floated mostly where they had been when the Hycre had been forced to evacuate the system, and other than a few reconnaissance probes thrown into the mix there was nothing functioning or alive here, from either race.

Those probes were short range, meaning that a lizard ship would have to come through the system to pick up their records of activity, from which the Hycre there had been none for the past 164 years. After the lizards had completed their destruction of everything they could find they’d apparently been satisfied and left, given that there were no habitable worlds available for them to colonize. The gas giant of Kri’mas was still inhospitable to them, and other than deposing the Hycre, they seemed not to care about the system at all.

The scout ship had come ahead to survey the location for a second time so that when the colonization fleet arrived they could have a sitrep available immediately to them. The small Hycre vessel was transmitting it continuously, and once the fleet learned that there was no enemy presence to contend with they jumped out from the star and began to litter orbit with all manner of ships, including a warfleet composed entirely of Shaven.

Some of them immediately began to focus their attention on the debris, clearing it away and opening up the sections of orbit that were tagged as restricted travel zones. They’d want those back after they got the system in working order, for several of them crossed over major jumplines out from the planet during various times in the planet’s cyclical revolution. Meanwhile other ships headed down into the thick atmosphere of the planet, slowly descending further and further in altitude until they found the clusters that had been hidden there long ago.

To their relief their hails were acknowledged and docking instructions were given, with the tightly packed work crews and colonists crossing over into the Hycre equivalent of cities and meeting up with the denizens who had volunteered to stay behind and maintain them in the depths where the enemy could not go. Only a few had remained, with some having died in the interim, but their preservation mission had been a success and the clusters hadn’t fallen into disarray and sank to the planet’s core or floated up to the detection range of the lizards.

They got a welcome committee quickly as the crews moved in and began to bring the clusters back to life, feeding them fuel and other supplies as they gradually increased their elevation and brought the clusters back to their preferred depth. Dozens of them rose up across the planet, giving the Hycre an infrastructure base that they would not have to rebuild and the ability to start producing auxiliary equipment that would enable the planet to return to self-sufficiency on a remarkably short timetable.

Those who had cared for and maintained the clusters in their ‘stored’ mode had been living off of a modicum of supplies that they were able to produce for themselves along with the reserves that had been left in the cluster. Those were near depletion and the caretakers partially malnourished, but most had survived and would have continued to go on doing so indefinitely if needed. They were greeted and welcomed back into Hycre society as heroes as the floating clusters came back to life and the population of the planet suddenly jumped by some 200,000%.

The lizard probes were found and destroyed, but eventually one of their ships would come around to find the planet back in Hycre possession, sitting in the middle of lizard territory as many current and former Hycre worlds were, but that was part of the plan set forth by Star Force. The Hycre had always intended to come back and reclaim their dormant worlds, else they wouldn’t have left people behind to maintain their most valuable infrastructure, but now they were doing so both to retake what had once been theirs and to put pressure on the lizards.

‘Pressure’ was the key focus of the overall battle plan against their common enemy, with the Human warlord Paul having insisted that they make the lizards play defense rather than dictate when and where the fighting would occur. Star Force was hitting, probing, and confusing the lizards on multiple fronts, as were the Voku and Protovic, with the Hycre’s contribution being the reclamation of their old worlds. The lizards would have to choose who to push back against, all the while funneling most of their reinforcements towards the Skarron front whose level of fighting was beyond anything the Hycre had seen before.

They were continually scouting the regions surrounding the ADZ and others, including the ever moving Skarron/lizard border, and while they suspected there were a lot of conflicts they were missing out on, those they were quietly monitoring and recording were beyond vicious. The lizards had finally found an enemy that they couldn’t overwhelm with sheer numbers and the amount of ships both sides were deploying into the war, and subsequently losing, was staggering.

Knowing this Star Force and the Hycre’s other allies were committed to pushing back on multiple fronts, not in any big way, but enough to pressure and test the lizards to see how much they could or would defend. Already there were gains being made and worlds retaken, but some were drawing large responses while others were not. One didn’t know when and where the lizards would strike back, but for the first time the Alliance was getting a few easy wins in.

The Hycre didn’t know if/when the lizards would hit them back, or maybe because they couldn’t use the gas giants for their own purposes they wouldn’t bother trying this time around. Regardless, the Hycre now had enough Shaven, their line of ships that included the tech gifts from Star Force, to defend themselves against the lizards short of their enemy throwing the hammer down at them…and currently that hammer was being occupied by larger targets.

Kri’mas was operational again within 4 hours, but it would not be rebuilt to its former status for several years to come. Many clusters had been lost in the invasion and the mass of orbital infrastructure had been wiped out completely. Given what they knew of the lizards and their tactics the Hycre would not be rebuilding it in their outer colonies, instead choosing to build their facilities entirely in atmosphere, even when it was disadvantageous to do so.

They felt the tradeoff was worth the inefficiency and other hassles that would result so long as they were able to shield them inside the planet and make the enemy come down to attack them directly, for any battle within the thick atmosphere was almost an automatic win for the Hycre, and if the lizards chose to bombard them from orbit as they had done before the Shaven would go after those priority targets rather than leaving floating stations that made for easy pickings and locations the Hycre would be forced to defend.

This way the warfleet was free to roam and strike where it chose, and that was the worthwhile tradeoff to the Hycre, for as the years passed and they began to tinker with the cleansing beams and mauler cannons that Star Force had given them they were building stronger and more purposeful Shaven, which only increased their confidence that they could now retake and hold some of their former worlds.

How many was the question, but the Hycre were going to get some now to put pressure on the lizards and begin to reverse the formerly ‘inevitable’ advancement they had been making for centuries.

And with every world reclaimed the Hycre had an additional base behind enemy lines from which to strike out from, not for the purpose of hitting strongholds but to conduct recon and small scale harassment attacks, hitting the enemy where they were weak and forcing them to more heavily defend areas that previously were protected by the intimidation factor the lizards possessed. With that being the case, the enemy was going to have to shore up far more systems than they’d become accustomed to, which would drain even more resources from their overall empire.

There was no mistaking the fact, however, that that empire was still growing by leaps and bounds in multiple directions. That said, the Hycre were confident they could hold their own worlds and take back a few others, no longer having to play the victim and constantly running. They’d held their capitol against numerous attacks, and now it was their turn to start returning the favor and make use of the footholds they’d fought so hard to preserve.

Over the coming years more worlds like Kri’mas would be returning into the fold, and from them the sharks of the space ocean would begin to reassert their dominance, first in raids and then in organized planetary strikes using the cleansing beams coupled with the remote mech technology Star Force had also gifted them with to further harass or wipe out small lizard colonies. Before long the lizards were forced to increase their ship traffic into full blown convoys else risk ships getting poached while in transit, making the large region that was dotted with Hycre worlds hazardous to travel despite most of the claimed worlds in that area still belonging to the lizards.

Pressure was the key, emphasized over and over by the Humans, and with the Hycre gradually tipping the scales of naval combat back into their decided favor, pressure is what they contributed, with the lizards never knowing when or where the growing ‘schools’ of Hycre warships would strike next.

Tennisonne rode the civilian traffic ferries across Earth orbit rather than requisitioning a personal craft to do so, which his position in Star Force afford him the right to do, but he never liked pulling a ship off for his own transit unless time was of the essence, and in research and development it hardly ever was. So he hitched several rides across the orbital rings of habitats, factories, shipyards, and whatever else people had envisioned to build that now gave the planet 8 visible bands circling it like squashed hula hoops, each at different altitudes.

That left huge areas empty to allow for traffic coming off the surface to head directly for jumppoints or the outer halo of starports, but maneuvering within the rings was slow and tedious work. Virtually all altitudes running from Earth to Luna were occupied, with each band of infrastructure rotating around a fixed axis so they wouldn’t collide with each other.

A few facilities were located outside the bands and used anti-grav to augment their irregular orbits or lack thereof, but the small artificial moon that the tech was heading towards wasn’t one of them. It was situated within the third ring and was one of the largest sedas built to date, easily outmassing the Death Star from Star Wars, though to the Archons’ disappointment they hadn’t been able to include a superweapon in the design.

Actually, this station wasn’t mean for battle. Rather, it was a massive industrial station that fed a lot of the higher end materials to Star Force and included research and development facilities that focused on just that purpose. Tennisonne didn’t come here often, but every now and then some project he was working on would take place on the small moon, or rather within, and today was one of those days.

The recent ‘bounty’ given to Star Force by the Dsevmat had been brought here for both analysis and use. Roger had ordered it inspected just in case it contained some sort of Trojan horse, but that was just the Archon being paranoid as usual. That was his job, and Tennisonne was glad he was there to do it, which left the level 6 tech free to focus on the scientific endeavors without worrying about something blowing up…unless he was causing it.

His last leg of the journey up from Earth was a short hop via dropship from a nearby civilian terminal station, passing him through the restricted zone around the station and inside one of thousands of hangar bays that had a continuous flow of ships coming in and out with either raw materials or finished products, most of which were building materials of sorts or processed materials that other facilities would use to produce more specific items.

Once onboard he was greeted with a reception committee made up of other techs and quickly escorted through the internal city to the special hangar were the rarer items in the bounty were being held and inventoried. A lot of the corovon cubes had already been sent off for processing, but there were plenty still left for Tennisonne to see. Though it was nothing new to him, the sight of so much corovon in one place was still awe inspiring…and underscored just how far Star Force had yet to grow. They’d come a long ways, with Tennisonne doing no small part in giving them the tools they needed, but the scope of a civilization that could trade away corovon on this scale was downright impressive and beyond anything they could currently field.

Star Force shipped corovon in ingots the size of his thumb, for that was how rare it was. Then those ingots were almost immediately used to produce compounds that had corovon in them, meaning the raw element was hardly ever seen outside of select facilities and research departments. The giant cubes littering the deck before him were as much a snub as they were a gift, declaring in wealthy fashion just how primitive Star Force was in comparison to the benefactor.

But Tennisonne didn’t care about that, for he was used to being the new kid on the block that couldn’t tie his shoes or walk and chew gum at the same time. Years spent digging through the V’kit’no’sat database and multiple trips down to the pyramid underscored that far more than the Dsevmat ever could, but having so much corovon at hand still made him feel like a kid just being given his first piece of candy.

But that was a metaphor his fellow techs wouldn’t understand, for now candy was free to everyone in the cafeterias…or the simple ones were anyway.

After inspecting the corovon cubes he went straight over to the other items the Dsevmat had included, with there being 7 different ‘presents’ given to them. Two were more basic materials, one being an advanced polymer and the other an assortment of common metals in vast quantities.

The clear spheres with the pixilation in the center had subsequently been classified as fission fuels, but of a type that Star Force didn’t use. They were densely constructed molecules that when deconstructed would release impressive amounts of energy, so much so that they made for extremely potent volume ratios, but the fuel systems that Star Force used and Tennisonne had had his hand in creating were on a tech tree line heading towards bigger and better things, meaning that using these Scvob fuels would be a divergence and not worth the effort.

Still, the compounds themselves could prove useful in research and development and give his assistants something to play with down the road. The same went for two other items in the inventory list, but the smallest one was the sweetest and the reason Tennisonne had come here in person.

There were four crates that had small, palm-sized cubes stacked in elaborate holding materials that made up the majority of the volume of the crates, which Tennisonne considered over packing, but none the less the valuable contents more than made up for the dramatic packing peanuts. In total there were 2048 cubes that were a mix of 26 different arc elements, each far more valuable than their larger corovon twins. To date Star Force had artificially created and produced in large quantities 8 arc elements, with an additional 17 in low levels of production and another 8 in research development only.

Most overlapped with the bounty, but there were 4 that did not. Tennisonne’s people had already identified what they were, with one arc element in particular drawing his attention. They were all immensely valuable, especially the 4 types that Star Force couldn’t produce yet, but the most rare type of them all had only 1 cube in the inventory…and it alone was worth more than all the rest combined.

It was an arc element known as Bi’rovsken’thrnem to the V’kit’no’sat, but to him and the other techs they simply referred to it as Biro. It wasn’t the top tier as far as the V’kit’no’sat were concerned, but it was an important component in a lot of the machinery they used on a daily basis. That might not sound all that impressive, but since Tennisonne and the others like him had to build the tools to build the tools that built the machinery that made the products, he was limited in what he could build despite knowing how to build bigger and better things.

He wasn’t able to produce Biro, therefore he couldn’t build any tools that required it. But this one little cube would allow him to create a low, but impressive number of new tools that would advance the research and development department ahead by at least 60 years, in some areas. They’d eventually get to the point where they could produce Biro on their own, but having some on hand to use was quite the cheat, and when Tennisonne found and picked up the small blue cube and held it in his hand he literally felt like he was holding onto a piece of the future.

“Alright fellas, keeping doing your thing with the rest. I’m taking this one and getting to work on it immediately,” he said, keeping the warm metalish cube in his hand as he walked a few steps through the tables set up with all the little cubes on them…then he stopped suddenly and reached out telekinetically to pick up a dirty yellow one and drag it through the air to his free hand.

“And that one,” he said so they could log it and not go running around like crazy later when they counted and found it missing.

10

May 21, 2659

Solar System

Earth

Ginsi Korinth transferred off the jumpship and onto a Falcon-class dropship along with six other A7 candidates, settling into the small bank of seats next to a trainer and a handful of other personnel heading down to Atlantis. She was both excited and nervous, for this was the first time she’d ever been to the Solar System, let alone Earth, and everything she was seeing on the trip in was blowing her mind.

Ginsi had been born on Kokiri in the Dancer System, a Human-only world that in the Core Region that held some 22 billion people spread out over a mix of forest and grasslands. It was classified as a heavy grav world, with a 1.34 rating, but Ginsi like the other natives had lived inside cities with normal AG so she hadn’t acclimated to it any more than the people on Earth or Mars, but one difference between the planets was that Kokiri had a forest of ‘small’ infrastructure blanketing the planet and lacked any of the huge structures that were present in Sol.

And not just on the surface either. Kokiri had been one of the original colonies Star Force had created, but it had grown slower than Sol and developed along a less cluttered geography, filling the planet with people and expanding as needed, but never letting the masses grow too large in any one place. Ginsi had been born to parents she didn’t know and didn’t care to know, then immediately taken to a maturia where she’d developed and trained with her classmates up through graduation, all of which occurred in a restricted part of her native city.

It was only 3 months ago that she’d even been able to roam freely and explore the planet, having known it only through vids and maps. Just as soon as she’d begun to feel accustomed to the mojo of it all she’d been whisked away to the very heart of Star Force and was having to go through yet another acclimation process to the organized chaos that was Sol. So far that’d been happening remotely, with her watching the ‘scenery’ via datapad or vid panel as her jumpship had taken her across to Sol, exiting its jump near the yellowish star, then making a slow microjump first to Mars, then Ganymede and Titan before coming in to Earth orbit.

From there it parked near a starport and a flurry of activity ensued with Ginsi watching it all unfold and staring at the great rings of infrastructure orbiting the planet. She’d heard that back in the day it had been a spherical shroud of stations on crisscrossing orbits, but at some point they’d decided to line them all up into the various rings, putting them closer to each other to allow for shorter travel routes, as well as to leave open the large gaps for the quick to ground transit that the civilian public didn’t have access to.

But her dropship did and as it exited the jumpship it flew ‘down’ beneath the ring of stations that the starport serviced and got well clear of the infrastructure before making a tiny jump down towards the atmosphere. There it braked and settled into a looping descent that would bring it a quarter turn around the planet and over the Pacific Ocean to where Atlantis sat. Ginsi still couldn’t believe she was coming here, and ever since they’d told her she’d passed the tests to become an Archon she’d been in a state of denial, expecting there to have been some sort of mistake and still clinging to a bit of worry about that.

She was barely out of maturia training and now here she was heading to Atlantis of all places! It was the most secure and secretive city in the ADZ and she just got a 1-way ticket down to what she didn’t know, but however the Archons trained it was done here, behind closed doors, with few ever glimpsing what went on. There were a wide variety of rumors, but the Archons themselves didn’t care to share about their experiences, nor did Star Force itself, leaving her more than a little worried about what she might be asked, or forced, to do.

She still didn’t think she belonged here, but the other six sitting next to her didn’t seem that different, which made her feel a bit better…and more worried, for some of the rumors said the Archons were cyborgs with the candidates receiving implants and conditioning to make them follow orders like they were nothing more than computers. Ginsi didn’t really believe that, but seeing the other ‘weak’ candidates around her the notion that they were fit to become Archons without some extraordinary augmentation was quite a stretch.

She watched on her datapad as the exterior cameras cleared up from the reentry friction and the ocean below came into view, with a tiny dot marked as the city that they were quickly approaching. Ginsi stared at it, wanting to see what it looked like in realtime, but the trainer sitting next to them stood up and turned around so he could see them all and got their attention.

“Alright younglings, we’re about here,” he said evenly and almost bored, as if he’d done this many times before. “First thing you need to know is that there are many different classes of trainees in Atlantis and you are not all in the same class. When we arrive I’ll take you to a holding area where you will be grouped with your classmates, then you’ll get your first briefing from Head Trainer Wilson and Director Davis himself…and from there you’ll be given instructions about what to do, where to go, this and that. It’s much like your maturia training, only way, way harder. Stick to the program and you’ll probably make it through. Usually the only ones that wash out are people who just decided to quit…and Archons never quit.”

“Davis?” the boy next to Ginsi asked. “We’re going to meet Davis?”

“Yes you will. He keeps a very close relationship with the Archons and meets with every class as they begin their training. He’ll fill you in on some very important things…things the public doesn’t know and that you will need to, but for now I’m here to tell you who you are and where you’re going. You no longer will use your last names, nor does any Archon. You may be trainees right now but you get your number at the outset, not at graduation as some people erroneously believe.”

“Stan…500112. That’s your name from now on, as well as tells you what class you’re in. The last bit anyway. 112 means you’re in the 100s. All of your classmates will have the same first four digits, with the last two ranging from 00 to 99. Emil…you’re 500398 and in a different class. You won’t be seeing each other again except maybe in passing in the hallways on some rare occasions, but you’ll be doing everything with your classmates. They’ll become your brothers and sisters. Bit of advice I like to give the rookies coming in is to be honest with each other. You need to learn to work together as much as you do as an individual, and it works better when you leave your egos behind at the door.”

“If not you’ll lose them eventually, like a lot of other bad habits you’ve picked up from civilian life…and I know some of you are straight out of the maturia. Hopefully that means you haven’t picked up as many, just be aware that your classmates here are going to be on a whole different level. They’re going to be like you, the rarest of the rare, so respect them enough to be honest from the get go. You’re essentially being reborn and going through the maturia all over again, so just mentally start over and learn as you go. Let everything else from your previous lives dissipate and walk into Atlantis as a clean slate.”

“Just some advice. You guys always figure it out eventually. Han…500181. You’re in the same class as Stan. Julie…500001. You’re in the half million mark group. That means nothing other than a lot of zeros in your number, by the way. Ginsi…500289.”

500289, she repeated in her head, memorizing the number. That meant the other three weren’t in her class, nor were the others that the trainer read off next. Glancing down at her datapad she realized the city was right below them and decided to stow it away, no longer feeling like sightseeing. The trainer didn’t have much more to say, but she could already get the feeling that this was a high pressure environment and she needed to have her mind focused on what she was doing, and right now that meant following instructions and not looking out the virtual windows.

When the dropship finally did land the ‘trainees,’ as they were now apparently called, were escorted off first onto the open surface of the city. The humidity struck Ginsi immediately, given that she’d grown up on a world that had no oceans or bodies of water larger than a small lake. The wet air hit her nose right off, as did the wind that whipped her loose green hair around like a hurricane with her swiping it out of her eyes as the seven trainees followed the trainer over to a nearby building entrance.

Once inside her hair settled down and she was split up from the others, with a different trainer taking her off on his own and the pair heading for a lift. From there they traveled through the city interior, which wasn’t all that different from what she was used to, though it did feel a bit more ancient, if that was a feeling that one could feel.

Out of the lift they walked a bit more then passed through a checkpoint and into what the man said was the Archon training areas where the rest of Atlantis’s personnel weren’t permitted. From there Ginsi was escorted to the holding area the first trainer had promised and she was left to mingle with her new family until they were called for, with some six trainers stationed nearby to look after them. She got the feeling they were being handled a bit like younglings, but since she didn’t have a clue what was going on she was actually glad for it.

“Nice hair,” a girl behind her commented.

Ginsi turned around, then ran her fingers through the mess a few times. “That stupid wind.”

“Actually I meant the color. I like the green.”

“Thanks. I’m Ginsi by the way. 289. Or, well, 500289. Don’t think we’ll be using the first 3 very much since they’re all the same.”

“First four actually. I’m Sax-500211.”

“Right, four.”

“Looks like we’re only 3 shy now.”

“If you say so,” Ginsi said, looking around at all the others. Most were near her height of 5’10’’ but a few looked to be near the 6’5’’ range.

“I’ve been counting.”

“Did they tell you we were going to see Davis?”

“Yes,” Sax said eagerly.

“They also said something about secrets.”

“Archon only stuff…I can’t wait.”

“I didn’t realize being hot was one of the requirements for being an Archon,” a guy said, walking up beside Sax.

“It’s not,” she said, glaring at him. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

He looped an arm around her shoulders. “Now that’s starting to sound like my sister already.”

“I’m Ginsi…89.”

“Matt…34.”

“And thanks for the compliment.”

“Just pointing out the obvious,” he said, letting go of Sax. “Some of us have been here a few hours already and we’re getting a bit tired of waiting.”

“Did anyone say how long it would take?”

“No,” Sax answered. “So we’re just chitchatting to pass the time.”

“Ugh…and here I really hate small talk.”

“Apparently all of us do,” Matt commented. “That’s one of the first things we figured out.”

“Really?” Ginsi said, starting to feel an odd familiarity with them already.

“Would you like to make out instead?”

“Why not,” she said, calling his bluff and taking a step towards him while grabbing his neck with her right hand and laying the biggest kiss on him that she could manage before slowly pulling back. “Here or would you prefer some place more out in the open?”

Matt coughed once, catching his breath. “Wow. You’re even more sarcastic than me. I humbly admit defeat,” he said with a short bow.

“Slayed with a kiss,” Sax said, lightly punching Matt in the stomach. “Now that’s a new one.”

“Looks like our last 3 are here,” he said, pointing to the entrance as two guys and a girl were brought in wearing the same white with blue stripe uniforms that the rest of them had been given prior to transit to Atlantis.

“Just in time to wait some more,” Sax said dryly, and she was right, for the group wasn’t taken away to another chamber till an hour later. There they were seated in a small amphitheater with her taking a seat in the second row with a tall, muscular man standing before them that introduced himself as Wilson, their Head Trainer. He spoke briefly, then another man walked up and exchanged places with him.

Ginsi almost didn’t recognize Davis in person, for his hair was all short and spikey, but as soon as he started speaking there was no mistake. He spoke quickly yet clearly, and outlined why they were here, what they had been chosen for, the challenges ahead, and the ‘secrets’ that had been alluded to.

By the end of it all Ginsi was nearly speechless. After all this time and 6 centuries of building and growth and war, the general population still had no idea of who the true enemy was and the threat they posed. She found that staggering, but also empowering, because she was being trusted with the secret and the responsibility to do something about it by completing her basic training and becoming an Archon.

Little did she know how big a role she’d play in the future, for like any proper Archon she kept her mind focused on the here and now. Ginsi didn’t need any coaching on that, for once the V’kit’no’sat were revealed to her everything in her life seemed to crystalize into one undeniable purpose…and from that day on she worked just as hard as the others, if not harder, to earn her spot in the Archon ranks and begin her meteoric rise up through the levels.

Retribution

1

June 19, 2674

Unnamed System (lizard Core)

Low Stellar Orbit

The first few hundred H’kar battleships sat around the incoming jumppoint, sniping the lizard cruisers throwing themselves at the invaders before most of their insane number could get into plasma range. Their destars had about six times the firing distance before the photon slurry destabilized and disintegrated into small, spherical novas of intense light, which would do damage on its own, but the nature of the weapon gave it a medium range that still outdistanced the lizard weapons, making for easy 1 or 2 shot kills against the cruisers as the H’kar covered for more of their ships to enter the system.

This wasn’t a stealth entry, so the H’kar had their active sensors scanning the moment the first ship arrived and they could see the disposition of the nearest enemy fleets. The cruisers hitting them now were merely the scattered elements closest to the star and were trying to disrupt or poach the incoming ships, which the H’kar already in place were not allowing them to do…but the mass of ships heading their way was an entirely different matter.

They were moving towards them in the hundreds of thousands, coming in from 5 different planets and various deep space positions around the system. Those were delayed, for they didn’t have the gravity intensity required for a standard microjump, but the ones coming directly off the planets would be within weapons range before the whole H’kar fleet arrived, thus it was up to Yren’s ship and the others already on station to buy them the cover they needed.

Yren was one of the battleships’ commanders and a seasoned veteran, having spent over 120 years in his race’s navy and the past 6 years fighting in the raiding fleets along with Star Force and their allies. He’d learned a great deal about fighting the H’kar’s arch nemesis from the Human commanders, but today they were not involved. This was payback time and a strategic strike against one of the Li’vorkrachnika’s strongholds, which Star Force scouts had finally been able to locate. Now that they had a big target to hit the H’kar were going to do what they did best and punch the enemy in the face, metaphorically speaking.

But to do that they needed their full fleet, and Yren and the others had to hold position long enough for the long jump convoy to arrive. With every minute that passed more warships entered the system and strengthened their lines, increasing the destar fire going out and picking off the enemy cruisers like the inconsequential gnats they were, but at the same time the number of enemy ships was rising faster than the reinforcements were coming in, meaning that Yren had his work cut out for him.

Standing on the command deck of his ship the H’kar has his four pointy legs inserted into small depressions in the floor to allow him to stand firm while working the controls around him. His pod was a solitary one, for the rest of the crew were located out of sight and sound while still on the main floor, leaving his central compartment completely shut off from them so that he could think clearly without any background distractions. His orders to the crew were carried out remotely, with his six arms working the controls in a mixed flurry of motion and moments of stillness as he studied the battlefield around him and made adjustments to their tactics accordingly.

While the crew fought, flew, and made ready to repair damage he was left to think and see clearly what was happening around them, with his pitch black quartet of eyes tracking the bright streaks of destars as they leapt out instantaneously to pierce the yellow/tan hulls of the enemy ships. Mentally he was feeling out their numbers rather than counting and he could already sense the tide shifting. There were more cruisers arriving than they had destars to fire, meaning that the enemy was now getting some ships in through the growing debris field and into firing range.

Yren’s ship was taking some hits, minor as they were, and the only way the Li’vorkrachnika could get through their Nexus-built shields was with sustained damage from a high number of targets. That intensity wasn’t present yet, but the battleship commander knew it was coming and the bloodbath that would result. He didn’t know if he’d live out the day, but he was confident that the others would take down their target…which was the giant shipyard ring circling the third planet.

Yren’s mental counter reset as one of their behemoths arrived in a blur of braking motion and began to reposition over to support the screening fleets, which were engaged in three different positions. The massive vessel was fortunately coming to his, increasing his odds of survival as more and more cruisers began chipping away at his ship’s shields. Secondary defenses were firing back at them, but they didn’t have the kill power of the destar conduit, meaning it would take time for them to burn through the cruisers’ shields and hull armor before doing any real damage.

But the H’kar commander had learned in his time with the raiding parties that he had to protect his main weapon, for the enemy liked to target it specifically. To decrease the odds of them landing the pinpoint plasma attacks necessary to knock it out prior to shield collapse, he had the helm keep moving the ship around while about two thirds of the others merely held position and fired on the enemies that came closest to them.

Yren knew they were old school commanders who either hadn’t been part of the joint operations or those who hadn’t learned from the mission reports coming back to the empire. Those battleships that were maneuvering about were commanded by those who had, and they were giving the enemy a constantly shifting formation to line up against, adding a little bit of uncertainty as to where they should hit the hardest.

He input a few more navigational commands, tapping buttons and sending the orders off to others who would carry them out as he saw one of the neighboring battleships turning back and retreating from the lines…while its shields were still up. Yren knew that would infuriate some of the other commanders but his group commander had spent even more years fighting with Star Force than he had and wouldn’t condemn the act as cowardice. The battleship in question had been getting picked on harder than the rest and its shields were in danger of dropping, hence it was pulling back to recharge them prior to reengaging in battle.

The old school H’kar philosophy would have had it sit and continue firing and do as much damage as it could up until it was destroyed, and as Yren watched he saw a portion of the enemy fleet disengage from other vessels and go after it, intending to knock its shields down whether the H’kar liked it or not.

Yren immediately gave new firing orders, having his ship rotate around to port and target one of the chasing cruisers. Several other battleships did as well, sniping some of the pursuit as the retreating ship gained speed and pulled back towards the jumpline. Yren let the rest of the cruisers go after it, for more of the reinforcements were coming their way and adding to the sniping, insuring that the weakened ship would get clear and have a chance to recharge and come back into the fight at nearly full strength again.

That little maneuver alone had cost the enemy at least 15 cruisers, and it was small tweaks in strategy like that that had given the raiding fleets such an impressive record. Yren almost wished one of the Human warlords was here to guide this battle as they had done many others, but this was the H’kar’s payback for centuries of defeats that had amounted to trillions of deaths. That made it more personal than the other battles he’d fought, though this one was also a Nexus affair.

As the H’kar battle near the star continued to escalate to the point where some of the chess pieces were beginning to reposition away from the planets and head towards the fight, a second jumpline on the other side of the star opened up and additional ships started pouring in…but they weren’t H’kar, they were Gfatt.

These didn’t stick around to fight, nor did they transition over to assist the H’kar. They were here for one purpose and one purpose only…and that was to get to the giant ring. The H’kar were the bait and distraction, with the hammer blow going to come from the more technologically advanced race.

They’d been planning this assault for the past 12 years after getting the intel from Star Force. Since then other ring shipyards had been discovered in different systems, but this one was the closest to the H’kar border and the others were much better guarded. As it was this attack was not a system-conquering one, nor even a battle to destroy the ships in orbit. There were too many for the H’kar and Gfatt to take out and they knew it, but they’d finally assembled enough strength from both their fleets to be able to deny the Li’vorkrachnika one of their big prizes.

The hourglass-shaped Gfatt warships came in multiple sizes, but all had the same basic design and tore through the out of place defending fleets around the third planet when they began making microjumps in to it immediately. A long trail of their warships stretched across the system as the first few to arrive didn’t delay, knowing that their presence was going to be detected immediately. As soon as they hit planetary orbit they went straight for the nearest enemy warships and unleashed a torrent of Haxtrel blasts at multiple targets simultaneously.

The light show was emanating from the narrow point of the Gfatt ships and sending out squirt gun-like streaks of multi-colored light that had a visible delay in hitting their targets, unlike the destars in the H’kar fleet that traveled at the speed of light. The Haxtrel beams were matter that had been broken down into subatomic particles and forced into an unnatural state that had it recombining or breaking apart en route to the target, which produced the light show.

Some beams were designed to produce particles or energy bursts that would drain shields, while others were meant to rip apart matter by destabilizing its molecular bonds with a switch out to the new particles incoming. Still other beams had different functions, some working like mini explosives on contact and others that compromised hull integrity by altering the structure of it into something less robust. Last of all was a white beam that was purely for cutting, structured much like a plasma stream only much more exotically lethal.

The Gfatt were firing at the surrounding ships with every Haxtrel they had whether it was the prime moment for it or not trying to do as much damage as they could, for when the bulk of their ships arrived they were going to ignore the defending fleet and go straight for the ring shipyard regardless of how much damage they took in the process.

The Li’vorkrachnika’s defending ships didn’t stand a chance at first, but others nearby began to reposition and group up to come at them…with several pairs and trios of the hourglasses moving off from their rendezvous point to engage them before they could get clustered up to dangerous levels. All the while the H’kar were taking the brunt of the attack in near the star, with their fleet still yet to fully arrive.

If the enemy pulled back from that engagement to fight the Gfatt then they’d signal the H’kar to jump into the planet to assist them in making the run for the shipyard…if not the H’kar would fight and die as a distraction while the Gfatt made their dive for the target. Either way the shipyard was going down, it was just a matter of how many ships they’d lose in the process. This was not going to be a clean victory and they knew going in that it would be messy, but this was the first big target the Li’vorkrachnika were known to have and the Nexus was going to take it from them one way or another.

Once enough Gfatt ships arrived they sent a scattering out as skirmishers while the bulk headed straight for the shipyard…with a huge defense fleet standing in the way that included multiple invokers and even an assault pillar, though the latter’s primary weapon would be next to useless against moving targets…which is what the Gfatt were, for they didn’t stop to engage the fleet, instead choosing to run right through it firing as they went and counting on their superior shields to get them through the loose but otherwise intimidating blockade.

They made sure to avoid the invokers’ energy arcs, diverting around them like a school of fat fish evading a whale, then the Gfatt ships decelerated hard just above the 12-mile wide ring and started firing blue streaks down into it and disrupting its thin defense shields. As they did the Li’vorkrachnika’s slower ships began to catch up to them, as did their plasma weapons, but the Gfatt ignored all but the invokers, moving to keep out of their attack range while maintaining fire on one piece of the ring. Additional Gfatt ships entering planetary orbit followed the others in, making a long river of continuously moving warships that the enemy attempted futilely to disrupt.

They were weakening shields and doing hull damage in a few cases, but they couldn’t prevent the Gfatt from getting to their target. When they did arrive they were sitting ducks for the Li’vorkrachnika to shoot at, but the attackers didn’t care and hammered away at the shipyard shields until they finally dropped over a mile-wide segment. When that happened armageddon unleashed and a slew of missiles raced down to the surface of the shipyard and detonated in a continuous firecracker string that lasted over five minutes.

When it finished and the debris clouds were mushrooming out to the point where you could see through them again the Li’vorkrachnika saw that the Gfatt ships had already moved down into the crater and were firing all of their various colored Haxtrel beams at the surrounding structure, along with sporadic big booms coming from their primary weapons. Those were the equivalent of a Kamehameha being shot out from the narrow point in the hourglasses, with the orb flying into the shipyard, melting its way inside, then blasting out a huge new crater…after which there was a recharge period before each Gfatt ship could fire the main weapon again, chipping out more of the enormous shipyard.

Every ship that entered the initial large crater was equipped with the Jakdems and were instructed to fire them in very specific locations, as if each ship was a hungry beaver trying to carve out a specific section of the giant tree trunk. The Gfatt expanded on the crater enough to get the bulk of their ships inside, then they went laterally no more and focused on cutting up and down from the crater, as well as on through the center.

Not all of their ships could enter the breach point initially, and those outside provided cover for the others, fighting the enemy ships and even going after one of the invokers. Those engagements were meant to delay and reduce the firepower the enemy was throwing at them, and even the invoker attack was meant to scare it off and away from the cutting fleet, though they had to sacrifice two of their ships in order to damage the chess piece enough to make it withdraw.

The others firing on invoker let it go and pulled back into the growing sphere of ships around the crater in the shipyard ring, with more and more Gfatt entering the breach as it grew larger and adding their ‘chewing’ capability to it. Meanwhile the H’kar had their hands full, for the enemy was not pulling back the forces they’d sent to hit it. Costly as it was, their distraction was buying time and the Gfatt were burning through the ring like a slow chainsaw blade, with numerous bits of debris being flung out that added to the damage being done to the cruiser horde…with the Gfatt guiding several of the larger pieces through their formation and launching them at the Li’vorkrachnika like giant rocks thrown out of a slingshot thanks to their control beams.

It took quite a while to carve all the way through the 12 mile wide ring, and then to expand that piercing hole all the way across it up and down to completely sever the shipyard into two halves. By that time the defending ships outside the breach had either gone in to help the others or had been destroyed, leaving only a wedge of ships between the two thick sidewalls…which put the Gfatt in a very bad place when the Li’vorkrachnika spammed the opening with cruisers so thick you couldn’t even see the light of the star through them.

But the two sidewalls also provided cover for the Gfatt, who didn’t care how many enemy ships there were. They’d cut the giant ring in half, but it was still in orbit and that amount of damage, massive as it was, was minor compared to the sheer size of the thing. No, in order to kill it they needed help…and that help was going to be gravity.

Once the cut was made all the way through the Gfatt ships snuggled up against the port sidewall, latched on with their control beams…and pulled. Using all the grip and engine power they could apply without ripping pieces off, they started to move the port piece down towards the planet, leaving the other sitting in space where it had originally been.

The Li’vorkrachnika immediately knew what the Gfatt were doing and those in the shipyard increased the power to its gravity drives, which augmented the slow orbit to keep the giant thing in space and locked to the rotation of the planet below. That made it a tug of war between the two and while the Gfatt fleet didn’t have nearly enough strength to pull the entire ring down, for there were millions of gravity drives helping keep it suspended above the surface, they didn’t need to pull all of it down…just the end piece.

Several segments broke off as the Gfatt increased their pull, with those ships flying out on momentum then back in again to latch on as the Li’vorkrachnika fleet poured in around them now that the other sidewall was no longer blocking their attacks. They hammered the Gfatt ships that had their flat tops pressed near the shipyard and their flat undersides taking the majority of the weaponsfire, protecting their inner choke points with a wall of armor. That bought them more time as they slowly pulled the end of the giant ring down, dragging the rest of the nearby station with it in a very subtle bend that had hull plates warping, compressing, and cracking apart down the length of it but the superstructure held together and kept the ring intact.

Eventually the Gfatt brought the end piece all the way down into the upper atmosphere, with the centrifugal force helping to maintain its orbit diminishing with altitude. Soon it began falling fast but the Gfatt didn’t let go for fear of it somehow being able to rise again. They rode it down to within 10 miles of the surface before finally breaking free with their surviving ships and running for orbit through the enemy fleets that now clogged the atmosphere above. They fought as they ran, making numerous kills in the process but losing many of their damaged own that weren’t strong enough to make it through the gauntlet back up to even the most awkward jumppoints.

A few of the Gfatt did make it and jumped out, signaling the H’kar to do likewise. Meanwhile the end of the shipyard ring hit the surface and its crumpling mass pulled the next closest section down with it…and like a giant noodle running the entire circumference of the planet each piece yanked down the part next to it, dropping a 12 mile thick ‘rope’ down to the surface, crushing the orbital tethers underneath that were partially keeping it erect as they were pulled sideways then snapped off in a domino-like effect that the Gfatt didn’t wait around to see the finish of. They knew physics would take care of the rest and burned hard for distance away from the swarming enemy fleet that was even more out for blood now than they had been before.

A fair number of Gfatt ships made it back to a stellar jumppoint, but most did not, having been whittled down by inconsequential plasma fire throughout the engagement only to have the pathetically weak enemy cruisers make kills against the larger warships. They didn’t die in massive explosions, but rather were picked apart when their engines failed and they were left helpless. There was nothing their fellow ships could do, for now that the objective had been accomplished and their fleet wrecked, it was every ship for itself and they were running as fast as they could.

Yren’s battleship was one of the lucky ones, surviving to the end of the engagement with only partial gravity drive loss…but enough remained for the ship to make a slow jump away from the system.

The same couldn’t be said for most of the others desperately running away from the planet.

2

October 13, 2674

Quixva System (Skarron territory)

Quixstan

Morgan watched the reconnaissance reports coming in from her bridge command chair along with the rest of the crew. The warship she was commanding was sitting with six others in stellar orbit along with a partial Voku conglomerate as transmissions were returning from a handful of their scout ship ‘pieces’ that had gone on ahead to the one inhabited planet in the system. They’d known it would only be a matter of time before the world fell, and thanks to the Hycre’s tireless efforts to track enemy fleet movements the trailblazer had been able to time their arrival accordingly.

The planet’s orbital paths were already overrun with lizard ships, the naval battle having been previously fought and won, but the surface action on the moderately developed Skarron world looked to still be in its infancy. As she watched, Morgan could see multiple cruisers already in atmosphere tangling with Skarron walkers and the Archon was tempted to sit back and watch a bit, but they already had a prime opportunity as it was and she didn’t feel like waiting for their luck to change.

The longer the fighting continued the less ships the lizards would have, but Morgan’s fleet already outmatched the 794 cruisers and two battleships in orbit…plus she wanted to hit their jumpships immediately, and right now they were sitting in planetary orbit virtually by themselves while the rest of the fleet was either in atmosphere or clustered into three other holding groups. It looked like some of the jumpships were troop transports as well, for they were already beginning to send small streams of kirbies and larger dropships down to the surface.

The captain of the warship turned and gave her a questioning glance, with Morgan nodding as she stood up and headed over to the side room where the command nexus was located. They hadn’t known what to expect initially for all they’d known was a lizard fleet was spotted in this general area, but with the reconnaissance coming in telling her pretty much everything she’d hoped this mission could avail it was time to get to work.

Stepping around the wall and into the nexus she contacted the Voku and worked out the basic battle plan, which would have them going after the jumpships while Morgan’s fleets deployed and engaged the cruisers. The Voku were faster and better armed for their size, which meant they’d have slightly better odds of hitting and disabling them before they were able to jump out, but the troop transports sitting at the lowest altitude were all Morgan’s.

Working out the best approach jumplines the trailblazer began issuing orders to her warship and the others while setting a countdown clock that she shared with the Voku, then all of them broke up and made microjumps out to their preplanned positions. Morgan’s ship made a lazy jump towards the planet then hard braked to come up short and outside both lizard and Skarron sensor range, which was no small feat for a vessel of that size.

With the planet being the size of Morgan’s fist on the holographic viewscreen, she waited until the countdown clock passed their departure mark and the crew made their final microjump, pulling on the planet’s gravity for most of its acceleration. The fist-sized planet grew visibly larger until it filled the viewscreen, with Morgan shifting over to a tactical view and the realtime camera images moving to auxiliary positions around the edges of her little battle nook.

Lizard contacts began popping up on the map everywhere, slightly updated from the passive scans they’d just been monitoring from range, as did the other Star Force jumpships as they all came in at once along with the Voku, leaving little time for any of the enemy craft to maneuver. Morgan signaled through the nexus for her jumpship to begin firing immediately with its bloon launcher at one of the troop jumpships that was now sitting a handful of kilometers in front of them while the Star Force carrier dispersed its drones as quickly as possible. The little black bricks began spewing out as the first glowing energy balls were launched, with the lizard cruiser formations beginning to move to intercept.

The first of the energy-filled bloons splashed against the transport’s hull, with it not even raising shields in time to block it. The bluish/red orb spread out an IDF-saturated energy goo that clung to the ship and isolated an area of it with the effect…and the placement hadn’t been random, for within that region of the vessel was one of their gravity drives, now currently disabled by the field and limiting their movement options. The next one to hit was the same variety, and the next, with the Star Force warship trying to pin the enemy jumpship in place while its drones came out.

They needn’t have bothered because the lizards were taken completely off guard, thinking they’d just won control of the system from the Skarrons. Star Force had never been known to operate this far away from the ADZ, with them being past the ‘no-go’ line and on the coreward side of Achkor. Also the precise jump in had given the lizards no warning, not to mention they were still offloading kirbies full of ground troops.

The shields on the enemy jumpship finally raised, but the goo was still inside them and would last more than a minute before it depleted its charge. The hits that came next had the goo sticking to the shields and accomplishing the same effect, though the bloon strikes that followed were stopped by the barrier.

Those were orange orbs containing mauler energy, which savaged the shield strength and opened up gaping holes in the defense field for the few drones that had already deployed to shoot through, landing Ta’lin’yi columns against the hull in explosive fashion and trying to damage enough key systems to disable the big thing. There were four other jumpships nearby, and two of them began to bug out a few minutes after Morgan sprung her trap, though they started getting peppered by cleansing beams in an attempt to knock out their gravity drives directly as more and more drones got into the field.

It was a race to critically hit the big ships and one that saw some losses. Three of the lizard ground troop transports managed to jump out, but the others did not. Likewise the Voku made 16 jumpship kills, two of which came at the star as they pursued them on their way out. The others had successfully managed to flee the system, but a few of the stragglers were not so lucky.

Meanwhile the lizards threw their warships against the Star Force fleet, knowing they were outmatched and going to die but as always trying to do as much damage as they could in the process. Even some of the cruisers in atmosphere began to come up to assist, though most of them came too late to do anything more than just make themselves easy kills. A pair of them tried to make a kamikaze jump against Morgan’s jumpship, but the crew spotted the lineup in time to deploy acceleration dampener shields. They didn’t surround the entire ship, but rather put up a wall against one approach vector that stretched out into a square column of invisible energy.

That energy acted like a crash bag, collapsing and resisting the physical momentum and forcing a braking maneuver on the ships that left them trying to push through the field with their gravity drives still active less than a kilometer away from the hull. Weapons batteries all over the jumpship opened up and tore the cruisers apart before they could push their way through and lightly ram the ship, ending the threat in what would have been a facepalm moment for the lizards had they still been alive.

If the ship’s crew hadn’t seen it coming it would have been another matter entirely, or if the warship had been surrounded by an assaulting fleet then they would have taken hull damage, for the power charge flowing to the main shields had to be diverted to the ‘cushion’ in order to inflate and reinforce the already existing capacitor charge. The sheer amount of energy needed to stop physical momentum on that scale was staggering, which was why it made for such a useful last ditch technique and any power reactor that didn’t use at least arc elements didn’t stand a chance of providing enough juice to pull off the defensive block.

As it was, to shield a vessel the size of a jumpship with a sufficiently wide and deep wall of collapsible shield energy required not only the output of the reactors, but a huge amount of energy prestored in a special capacitor…though rare moments like this proved the engineering feat more than worth the over-burdensome design.

Once the threat was gone the power generators switched back to reinforcing the decaying primary shield as a handful of enemy ships were still taking potshots at it. Those vessels were eliminated from the battlefield in a handful of minutes, leaving only a few other scattered engagements still occurring in orbit away from Morgan’s group.

She checked on them with a few mental prompts and glances, pulling as much information directly into her mind as she saw with her eyes. It was a technique that no newbie Archon could achieve, but one that she’d grown accustomed to over time. Her mind acted like a part of the computer system and she’d learned to receive information in the same way, with it playing out in mind’s eye…or at least as much as she’d learned to handle. Paul’s skill in this department was far beyond hers, though Bo had both of them whipped with the sheer amount of information his Sav allowed him to process.

The other fleets cleaned up shortly thereafter, with the raid having been a smooth victory given that the lizard fleet had already been heavily reduced in number given the previous battle with the Skarrons. That was the moment of opportunity that Morgan had hoped to catch, but they hadn’t come all this way out from the ADZ just to kill some lizard ships, for there were plenty closer to home to go after had that been their aim.

This system was in the large region surrounding the fallen Skarron capitol, and according to the Hycre the lizards were sweeping up the systems in the area even as the Skarrons mounted a series of counteroffensives in selective spots. The problem was there were too many systems and the lizards were hitting most of them like a tidal wave with smaller fleets, knowing that the Skarron colonies wouldn’t be getting reinforced from their capitol now that it was no longer there.

That was literally handing the lizards a huge chunk of territory on a silver platter given the widespread number of ships and resources they were committing to take it. The Skarrons weren’t making it easy on them, but systems like this one that weren’t of high population density or importance were basically on their own now, with no hope of reinforcements coming and the lizards knowing this. Rather than let them stand, the lizards were hitting them fast and hard, deploying what forces they thought were necessary to take them then starting their own colonies in their place.

But that also meant that they weren’t coming in with overwhelming numbers, and while the Skarrons might not have been in a position to reinforce this system Star Force and the Voku had been, making for a load of easy kills given the lizard fleet’s weakened state. And now, without the mass of troops on their destroyed/fled jumpships, their ground invasion was beyond hopeless, even if there had been some cruisers remaining to deal with the Skarron walkers…which there weren’t.

Once the naval battles were completed Morgan and the Voku began searching the orbital rubble, not only from this small battle but the larger Skarron/lizard one from the previous days, or weeks. They couldn’t be sure when it happened but there were a lot of hulks left in orbit with some of them beginning to degrade and fall towards the atmosphere. They intercepted and moved them into safe orbits while searching the remains for survivors. Those lizards they found they killed on the spot rather than let them slowly starve or freeze to death, but it was the few Skarrons they found still alive that they went to the bother of rescuing and taking prisoner.

Meanwhile the Voku sent a tiny piece of their conglomerate back to the star where it made a jump towards a nearby system where the rest of Morgan’s fleet was waiting. It would deliver the all-clear message then return with the cargo ships, for the second half of this mission was about to begin.

Throughout her recent years Morgan had tasked herself with recovering and rescuing as many Hobbits from their Skarron slavery as she could manage, sometimes in ones and twos on solo missions and others in large scale battles where, with a little nudging, she could get groups of them to switch sides before they were destroyed. The reason she had brought this raiding fleet out this far was because of the unique situation that it presented…and the hopelessness of the reality that these Skarron worlds were doomed to fall to the lizards without the necessary help that she knew they wouldn’t be receiving.

Morgan didn’t care for the Skarrons much, but their slave races were another matter. The jumpships the Voku were going back to pick up were configured as personnel transports that she hoped would be filled with new ‘rescues’ on the return trip to the ADZ, for this was the first of some 6 systems on her list that she was going to try and pick up recruits from, one way or another.

Already there was a growing free Aronsic ward within Star Force, and she even had a few of them with her onboard her warship to assist in the negotiations on the planet, either by comm or sneak missions to get a direct conversation with the Hobbits down there. With their Skarron masters still in play it was going to be tricky getting to them, and in this case they were probably going to have to assault the planet for themselves and kill the Skarrons before any of their slaves would be able to choose freedom.

But there were many cities on the planet, some with more Hobbits than Skarrons, and Morgan begin looking at those as first choices for invasion points all the while the Voku began making preparations for mech drops to deal with the walkers the lizards hadn’t gotten around to destroying yet…and there were still many. Morgan was in a conversation with the Voku about coordinating cleansing beam fire on some of those walker targets when she got an interrupting prompt from her captain.

It was flagged urgent, so she politely asked the Voku commander to hold for a moment and opened the comm line to the man sitting in the room only a few dozen meters away on the other side of the wall.

“What is it?”

“I issued the standard offer for surrender as usual, and we just got the Skarron reply. They’ve accepted.”

“What?!” Morgan asked, shocked. Star Force always offered a surrender to their enemies, but only on some very rare or bizarre occasions had the Skarrons ever accepted…and to this day the lizards never had.

“I just double checked with them, and they’re surrendering. The entire planet is surrendering to us.”

3

October 28, 2674

Quixva System (Skarron territory)

Quixstan

Morgan rode a dropship down to the landing zone her ground troops had just set up, still not believing that this was a legit surrender. Her mind kept expecting an ambush or some form of deceit, but in the couple of weeks it took for her troop ships to arrive the Skarrons had complied with every edict she’d sent down. They’d sent their walkers out away from their bases and abandoned them there, and their elites had removed their armor and likewise piled it and all their handheld weapons up in large piles out in the open.

They’d even begun relocating as specified, but it didn’t feel right to Morgan. The Hobbits she could understand, and the Engineers with them…but not the Skarrons. Never the less the surrender offer was legit and she was going to keep them alive so long as they didn’t try anything, but something deep down inside said that they would, though what it would gain them at this point she didn’t know. She’d parted them from their weapons and the few ships they had, including their fighters and even their ground transports, so if they were going to do some sort of mischief how they were going to accomplish it was beyond her.

When she finally landed on planet she brought with her several Star Force Aronsic who’d previously switched sides, and through them she began to get some answers. They knew the Skarron empire better than she did and quickly put pressure to the points where needed, without rubbing it in the Skarrons’ faces…on Morgan’s orders.

It turned out that after the recent lizard invasion and overall buttwhipping that Star Force and the Voku had just interrupted, the Skarrons didn’t have the stomach for any further fighting. The recent invasion had been the last gasp of their defiance, for it turned out that they knew they’d been abandoned by the empire along with a lot of other systems in the local region. With Skillion gone, the regional capitol that directly fed and controlled this region, there was no longer any oversight. This world and the others were categorized as losses, with any fleets coming in from other regions going straight towards vengeance rather than reinforcement.

If the abandoned systems were going to survive they were going to have to do it on their own merits, and if they could, then some day they might reunite with the rest of the empire, but the writing on the wall said otherwise and the Skarrons here had already known their time was near even before the lizards arrived. With Star Force and the Voku showing up to kill their mutual enemy then offer a surrender option that would keep them alive rather than being wiped out by the new arrivals, they’d decided to take it…given that they didn’t have any warships left to fight with and the number of walkers remaining on the planet would be insufficient to stop the orbit bombardment that they knew would be forthcoming.

Already abandoned by their empire, the Skarrons made the choice to officially cut ties and not fight to the death. It wasn’t a matter of them being disloyal, but in not having any options left. Star Force had offered them one and they took it, simple as that.

Morgan still wasn’t totally convinced and kept her troops operating on a tight lockdown and constant patrols, with her doing her own little snoop recon on occasions…but there was no misbehavior to be found. There were many Skarrons who didn’t like being taken prisoner, but just as many who were mentally subdued, clearly having given up any resistance. Both complied with orders, and Morgan made sure her people paid them a certain amount of respect and didn’t needle them. If she wanted to try and provoke a reaction she’d do it herself.

Slowly the transports came down from orbit, having disconnected from their carrier jumpships, and landed their massive hulks on the surface. It took some reworking of the interior to accommodate the Skarrons, for she’d been expecting Hobbits and maybe some Engineers, not the larger race. This wasn’t their first evac though, so the ships had been built with considerable flexibility and adjustments were eventually made. The Skarrons were put into separate ships than their slave races, and Morgan made sure that split was maintained from here on out so that the Hobbits and Engineers would never have to see them again.

She kept expecting an individual or two to lose it and go rogue, but none of them did. Once they saw that they were being treated well there was no resistance at all and the now prison ships were loaded to the brim, given that there were far more people being picked up than expected. Morgan made sure they could fit them all in, despite the discomfort of the close quarters, and confiscated a lot of the Skarron foodstuffs from their cities to bolster their own supplies long enough to get the prisoners back to the ADZ. She’d expected to hit several systems on this tour, but now that wasn’t going to be an option.

Nor was keeping the planet, which the Skarrons had expected them to do. According to the Star Force Aronsic, to whom the other Hobbits had taken to immediately, when the surrender offer had come down they’d expected this world to be annexed by either Star Force or the Voku, as had been rumored to have happened on a few other worlds the Skarrons previously owned. When word was spread around that they were leaving the planet uninhabited there had been confusion as to why Star Force had even come in the first place.

The Star Force Aronsic had explained that it was to rescue their kin. That didn’t get accepted at first, but as Morgan’s little emissaries continued to talk and explain their own lives and how they’d come to be in Star Force there was a shift in attitude and more than a bit of awe that anyone would care enough to come get them, let alone fight to free them.

The Engineers were indifferent, content to serve whoever was in charge. Such had been their role since before they could remember, and they simply switched from taking Skarron and Aronsic orders to taking Star Force ones. They expected to be put to work when they returned to Star Force space, trading one master for another, and no matter how many discussions the Star Force Aronsic had with them they couldn’t shake them from this self-assigned fate.

The Skarrons refused to believe that Star Force had come for the Aronsic, and Morgan didn’t spend much time worrying about what they thought. They were being taken back as straight up prisoners, while the Hobbits and Engineers were being treated a bit differently. They wouldn’t be free upon arrival, but would have to earn their freedom and place within Star Force, with a well-established procedure already in place for the Aronsic.

It took a while for the fleet to get back to the ADZ, with the Voku peeling off at Achkor and not returning with them, but eventually Morgan brought them to an airless world in Beta Region known as Tartarus. It was one of six planets in the system that Star Force inhabited, all of which contained overseeing colonies for a number of wards that made up the bulk of the system’s population.

Tartarus was not a ward planet, but a prison one. Rather than keeping the individuals in isolation as typical prisons were, when Star Force offered a surrender and enemy troops accepted they were treated with a different status than ‘criminals.’ What they were was involuntary guests, with Star Force building small cities for them to inhabit. Foodstuffs and other materials were provided to maintain the population, with them making nothing for themselves and being left more or less alone so long as they didn’t start misbehaving with regards to the other prisoners.

This was by far the largest haul of Skarron prisoners ever taken, with most of those already in possession having been captured against their will at the very end of engagements where strays were being hunted down. More often than not Skarrons and Hobbits would be stunned and captured, though that no longer happened for the lizards, knowing how much of a pain they were to keep prisoner, with most of them killing themselves as soon as they saw there was nothing they could do to hurt Star Force.

The Skarrons were a bit different, and not just because of their elephant-like size. While they weren’t agreeable prisoners, to say the least, typically they didn’t offer up much trouble moving them around and they didn’t try to commit suicide…nor did they have the claws to do so. Previous prisoners held considerable animosity towards their captors but it was more in the form of spite. They didn’t think they were still in the fight, and acted more like prisoners than the active combatants that the lizards always were.

This lot was even more subdued, given the fact that they saw this as a way to stay alive rather than being captured against their will. They had to be kept onboard their transports for several weeks after arrival in order for appropriate accommodations to be made, for there weren’t enough Skarron facilities to hold them all. The Hobbit facilities were much more massive, given that they expected to bring a lot of them into the fold. Those were located on a different planet and used as a holding/testing facility. If they didn’t take to Star Force they’d eventually be relocated over to Tartarus, while the ones who did would be added to the Aronsic ward that had a colony in this system and several others.

The Engineers were sent to Tartarus as well and held as war prisoners along with the Skarrons, though in separate facilities. Those also had to be enlarged, or rather other standby facilities had to be reconfigured to hold them all. Each race had different requirements, and while some were universal amongst similar body types there were usually little tweaks that had to be made to get it right. Star Force didn’t ascribe to making prisoners suffer in any way, they were simply denied their freedom and nothing else, with no punitive philosophy involved. They’d been taken out of the enemy’s arsenal, and that was what mattered most.

It was true that Star Force was devoting a considerable amount of resources to keep them fed and housed, but that was just one of the responsibilities of a proper civilization. Others would execute prisoners rather than spend resources on them, or put them to work as slave labor…along with other nastiness that even involved eating them for some races. Star Force was going to have none of that and dealt with races that did harshly, so it was no wonder the Skarrons and their slave races entered Star Force territory with some trepidation.

What they found was none of that. They were treated as guests…strictly confined guests, but no shackles, subdermal tracking chips, restrain or punishment collars, or surgical subduement.  The food wasn’t to their liking, for it was Star Force produced, but they’d get used to it in time. The guards were virtually never seen, leaving the Skarrons to live quietly alone with each other and unaware of what was transpiring in the outside world. They were completely cut off from their former empire, but then again they’d already been when the lizard invasion had robbed them of their supply lines, so mentally it wasn’t such a huge transition, though it did take some time to fully adjust to.

The Engineers adapted instantaneously, though they quickly became bored and soon began asking for tasks to do when they weren’t being used as slave labor as they’d expected. They really didn’t want to be left with nothing to do, and that at least was something Star Force could sympathize with. It wasn’t long before a training/work program was established to allow them to both keep busy while helping to contribute to Star Force…and in the process begin a long path to earning their freedom.

Freedom, however, wasn’t something that they desired. They simply wanted to work, and given that their treatment by Star Force as prisoners was better than their treatment by the Skarron empire as ‘forced’ members, they didn’t want to leave. They kept to themselves and their assignments, with an Archon and an Administrator being assigned to begin developing a place for them in their empire as a ward, soon to begin filling with those that earned their way out of prisoner status…with a discrete mental check to make sure they were on the level and not just playing nice so they could get in a position to sabotage something else later.

The Skarrons’ mentality was completely different. They were the masters of their own empire and weren’t interested in being anything but that. These wanted to live, but identity wise they had no interest in changing, let alone sides. Star Force was content with that, merely keeping them contained and alive, but they weren’t going to subject all of them to that fate and kept a route of ‘escape’ possible for those wanting more than to just exist in captivity.

There were a fair number who fell into the escapist category, which began with physical training missions. Once they learned to train and follow orders they were moved into a third nearby facility, already having been taken away from the areas when they first declared their intentions to ‘rebel’ a bit further. The move was both for their own safety and to mentally disconnect them from the others, into which they went from a group system into the seclusion similar to a normal Star Force prison.

The difference with the third stage was that this was a work assignment and when they made the second transition they were given provisional status and a bit of access to the data grids, allowing them to learn about Star Force and outside events. It was during this period that they were discretely visited by an Archon or other psionic-capable Human that did a check of their intentions, with about 2/3rds of those claiming to be working towards a place in Star Force having no intention of helping their captors. They were playing ‘friendly’ in order to get out, gather intelligence, or find a way to sabotage something.

Those individuals were then dumped back into the primary group with no word as to why, other than that they weren’t serious about their commitment to working their way out of the prison. They were told that they’d have another opportunity to begin again 6 months later, and in that way Star Force enabled their prisoners to work their way to freedom without running the risk of unwittingly creating an internal resistance group in the process.

Not that there was a significant threat from that. The ADZ was full of malcontents that Star Force had been dealing with for decades, not to mention people in Axius and even Humans in the Core Region that were anti-Star Force. They weren’t a real threat and were looked on as little more than children playing make believe, but even if they were a threat Star Force wouldn’t have condemned the Skarrons or others to permanent imprisonment. The sovereignty of the individual wasn’t just a high flung concept that you abandoned out of necessity, it was an acknowledgement that people didn’t get to choose where they were born or into what civilization, and Star Force wasn’t going to give up on anyone.

That, and Star Force had learned long ago that the fakers couldn’t take a long string of training and would eventually crack and eliminate themselves, leaving only those willing to work hard to earn their place left behind to exit the prisons and take a place in Star Force. Challenges were the best way to ferret out who was worthy and who wasn’t, but when you needed answers more quickly an Archon mental probe was definitely the way to go.

Morgan didn’t stick around to watch all this go down. Once she delivered the prisoners and resupplied her ships she returned to Achkor and picked up another Voku escort, then went back out hunting more Hobbits on the Skarron worlds that had been cut off by the lizards razing the regional capitol.

Not all of them surrendered, in fact most didn’t. Some hadn’t been visited by the lizards yet and Morgan had to conquer the planets in order to get to the Hobbits, killing many in the process before they could be convinced to surrender. Most of the Skarrons fought to the death, but like in Quixva there were some who didn’t see the point in further resistance and accepted the surrender offer. Some were individual cities, others military bases or even individual walkers. No full planets surrendered until they were reduced to scraps, with Morgan not needing to make a one and done campaign to head back with a full load of prisoners.

One by one she went around to the weakened or under attack systems, catching one in the very end of a lizard attack and only able to rescue a few thousand individuals after her fleet kicked the crap out of the invaders. The trailblazer made use of the transitional nightmare in the region, picking up survivors where she could as the lizards methodically chewed apart withering pieces of the Skarron supply lines and claiming the worlds for themselves with infantile colonies, some of which she destroyed when she came across them for good measure.

But even with several large Skarron fleets roaming the region and hitting targets there were too many lizard startups to eliminate, meaning that no matter how many big fights the Skarrons won the lizards were taking territory…and with every year that passed those little seeds grew, making them even harder to eliminate down the road up until the point where they were no longer vulnerable and full-fledged strongholds.

The collapse of the region didn’t happen quickly, taking decades to accomplish, but by the end of it all the former Skarron border with Achkor would completely disappear, leaving nothing but lizard colonies and the systems they chose not to take interest in, with the ADZ being further swallowed up by the lizard advance.

4

February 7, 2675

Gravis System (beyond Protovic border)

Hampric

Paul watched from the command nexus onboard the Ma’kri as the ship’s Ka’sevron cannons fired off their own projectiles along with the nearby drone fleet’s rail gun rounds. All fell to the planet’s surface and the small lizard colony there, with only one shield dome left to penetrate. The rail guns were going there, but the Ka’sevron rounds were falling on one of the exposed cities.

The hollow rounds hit buildings and sunk through the infrastructure, using their kinetic mass to punch through before the internal energy cocktail reached overload. It never happened at exactly the same moment, but within a few seconds of impact each of the imbedded rounds exploded from within, creating far more damage than the rail gun slugs or even the cleansing beams could manage. Right now those were pinpoint targeting lizard structures in a number of exposed cities, while Paul was reserving the Ka’sevron rounds for where he needed to level a given area.

They were also useful in naval warfare in select circumstances, but because they wouldn’t detonate on contact they were virtually useless against shields save for their kinetic value. If fired against a warship with sufficient shields to hold up to the physical assault the rounds would hit and either deform or deflect, sending them off into space where they would then detonate with little or no secondary damage done to the ship.

Then again if a ship’s shields were down and you landed one inside their hull…pretty much instant confetti. Down side was their casings weren’t quite strong enough to survive the pass through an invoker’s energy arcs, but give the techs another 50 years or so and that little problem would be remedied. Right now the Ka’sevron cannons were more useful in assaulting larger enemy ships and stations, but like the rail guns they had limited ammunition that had to be stored before charging. Once the charge was set the round was ‘live’ and had to be fired, else it’d explode inside your own ship.

That made for a volatile weapon, but in the right hands and the right circumstances it was highly effective, such as at the moment where each Ka’sevron round was saving some 100+ rail gun slugs with each detonation within a shipyard facility that Paul was slagging on the surface. There were two partially constructed cruisers there, and while the cleansing beams could have cut them up at range, the Ka’sevron rounds made the job oh so much easier.

At present only the Ma’kri had the weapons, and that would remain the case, for the other weapon systems coming their way from techland would be implemented on the drone fleet and would take them to a whole new level of badass. Those weren’t out of prototype stage yet, so it’d been decided to give the Ma’kri some extra bang in the interim with the Ka’sevron cannons…which otherwise would have been reserved for specialized assault craft rather than the fleet standard.

The Canderians also really liked the weapon system and were implementing it large scale. To each their own, Paul knew, but useful as it was now the weapon wasn’t going to fit in with their long term plans for the mainline fleet, nor for Clan Saber. A few of the other Clans might dabble with the Ka’sevrons, as they’d done with other weapons that Star Force had built and subsequently decided not to use large scale, but Saber and the mainline fleet were pretty much one and the same as far as tech went, due in no small part to the fact that Paul was the primary architect in both.

The planet that he was current chewing up was yet another lizard expansion into the neutral zone around the ADZ, this one just above the Protovic region on the border between Beta and Zeta Regions. No matter how many Star Force killed, the lizards kept trying to sneak others in, meaning that Paul and others had to keep mowing the grass or face an overgrowth, with the lizards hoping they’d eventually grow tired or lax and allow them to creep up on the fortified region.

But that wasn’t going to happen so long as the trailblazers were in command. The lizards were used to rolling over rookies, and they were anything but. These missions were tedious, and Paul had several other systems he had to raze/check on, but it was necessary work, bloody as it was. This one though had to be eradicated completely, for it was too close to the ADZ to leave anything standing. That was why Paul was willing to waste the Ka’sevron rounds, because he needed as many dead lizards as buildings before he sent his ground troops down to clean up, literally.

Not only would they be hunting down the surviving lizards they would also be removing their infrastructure…and that was always easier if it was rubble rather than just sliced up segments. Paul needed to erase this colony from the neutral zone entirely and not leave anything remaining for the lizards to return to. Had this planet been deeper into lizard territory he’d have been content just to wreck it and force them to rebuild, but unfortunately this one had to become a blood bath…which he never liked.

The demolition from orbit continued until the last city was shieldless and devoid of anything looking like a standing structure, after which Paul took a skeet down from the Ma’kri and joined his ground troops as they scoured the rubble fields looking for lizards…and finding many still alive, most of whom were moving around looking for and setting up ambush locations. Paul flew over them, close enough to scan with his Ikrid and spot potential traps, but eventually when the surface survivors were taken care of he had to come down to ground and help the infantry make their way underground.

Some of the subsurface infrastructure had been pulverized by the Ka’sevron cannons, but a lot was too deep for them to hit, meaning some nasty fighting was still underway for Paul wasn’t going to turn the machines loose on the rubble with living people still in it…even if they were enemies trying to kill them at every turn. He also wasn’t going to try to take any prisoners this go around, knowing the futility of it, but he could at least give the lizards a fighting death and saw to killing many of them himself as he took point to ferret them out with his Ikrid.

Every last one fought viciously to the death, like always, but in the end it didn’t matter. Star Force lost no personnel and only a few aircraft/mechs in the ground combat, most of which was due to hidden explosives. Weeks later, when Paul was sure the cities were clear, he had the ‘chewies’ brought down from orbit and turned them loose on the rubble. The anti-grav platforms grasped pieces with tentacle-like arms, scoops, nets, and several other contraptions, all of which were designed to move it up and into compartments on the exterior that would funnel the junk to interior factories that would mash it up into the equivalent of dust.

That dust was then dumped back onto the ground, either directly under the chewie or off to another location via a boom, eventually leaving a dune field where the cities had been, or in the case of the subterranean structures a massive pit filled with the sharp sand. In other situations Star Force would have recycled that debris, but out here on a planet they didn’t intend to retain possession of, this was as far as they were willing to go.

With the dunes marking the planet like scars Paul eventually closed up shop and jumped to the next system on his list, but not before swinging back into the ADZ to hook up with the grid and get caught up with events, for these purging missions took a considerable amount of time. With Protovic territory being the closest his Ma’kri swung by while the rest of his fleet traveled to a standby point near the next target, which he would be at with only a few days delay thanks to the superior gravity drives that the newer Ma’kri possessed.

But when Paul arrived and connected his ship to the relay grid he didn’t jump back out immediately, for there was a flag on a message that came from Roger. Knowing that he might need to respond to it he kept the Ma’kri sitting in place rather than swinging back out to an exiting jumpline as he read the message regarding the Nexus raid on a lizard core world.

Roger’s sentiments were dark and mirrored his own, with Paul physically pounding the arm of his command chair as he read them…drawing the attention of the ship captain and the rest of the bridge crew.

Paul ignored them and read on. According to the reports the ring shipyard had successfully been destroyed, which was a huge victory and would reduce lizard ship building production by a significant fraction, but the H’kar had lost 73% of their fleet and the Gfatt had lost 88% in the assault…and those weren’t drone warships. They had crews on all of them, and their lives had just been sacrificed in order to achieve a strategic victory. It wasn’t a last ditch effort to hurt the enemy or to save a planet. This was a planned assault, undertaken by choice, and they’d just traded away those people’s lives in order to knock out the lizard shipyard.

From the way the H’kar report read, which they’d translated and sent to Star Force as a FYI, they saw this as a huge victory and payback for all the defeats they’d suffered in the past, and the Nexus saw it as a key strategic victory. Neither faction saw it as anything but positive, though there was a subnote that indicated that hitting another ring in the near future wasn’t an option for lack of available ships.

Roger obviously had a problem with that, as did Paul and Star Force in general, but the Nexus was completely oblivious to the horror they’d just committed, trading away people’s lives as they had. Each one of those deaths was a defeat, a loss, but like the lizards they just saw those crews as replaceable assets rather than prizes to be safeguarded. They’d just handed them to the enemy in what arguably was the biggest tower dive Paul had ever read about. Even the V’kit’no’sat were never this sloppy, despite the drastic lengths they sometimes went to achieve objectives.

The Nexus had sent those troops in without any intention of them surviving. They simply wanted the shipyard dead and knew their superior technology would allow the ships to survive long enough to accomplish their objective if they went full bore against it and didn’t get distracted with anything so trivial as defending themselves.

Paul pounded the armrest of his chair again, this time standing up and walking around to the back of it and gripping the top of the cushion with both hands in a stranglehold.

“What’s wrong?” the Captain asked, spinning around in his own chair to face him.

“The Nexus has taken out a lizard ring in one of their core worlds.”

The Captain’s eyes widened in surprise, then just as quickly narrowed again in suspicion. “What’s the bad news?”

“They sacrificed almost all of a combined H’kar and Gfatt fleet in order to do it…including several of the commanders we’ve been training to avoid that kind of stupidity!” Paul finished with a half yell.

The Captain was silent for a moment, as was the bridge crew, and he let the Archon have a moment before he spoke again, seeing that he was clearly fuming. “How many?”

“18 million H’kar, and around 12 million Gfatt,” Paul said, squeezing his eyes shut at the horrific numbers. Those were all soldiers who had trained long and hard to develop their skills, serving their races for years upon years…and now they were gone, not because the enemy had surprised them or overwhelmed them, but because their leaders had decided to trade their lives away in exchange for a damn shipyard.

“No matter how powerful the Nexus is, they can’t afford to lose that many ships.”

“No they can’t,” Paul agreed, “but it’s their typical bluff. Hit the enemy hard and in place that really hurts them and hope they back down or submit. We know that won’t happen with the lizards. The H’kar should know that won’t happen with the lizards, they’ve been fighting them longer than we have.”

“How vulnerable do you think this makes the H’kar?”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. If they expected to lose the fleet then they should have more than enough to hold their territory without them, but it’s going to seriously inhibit their ability to push back on the creep advance. This was stupid no matter how you slice it, but all they can see is the big prize they bagged.”

Another moment of silence followed before the Captain spoke.

“Do you need to go somewhere else?”

Paul sighed. “I want to beat the brains out of the H’kar, but that’s already being handled by others. No, go ahead and get us moving. We’ve got a mission list to complete.”

“Do you have all the data you need?”

“Yeah. I’m going to go through it more closely before I send any messages, so there’s no need to wait. I’ll be in the sanctum hitting something,” Paul said, spinning around and walking off the bridge.

“Get us to the Jaxvot jumppoint,” the Captain told the helmsman after he’d left. “And be glad you were born Human and not H’kar.”

“Very glad,” the helmsman muttered, plotting the course and goosing the gravity drives enough to get them moving around stellar orbit.

Taryn stood in the V’kit’no’sat pyramid watching as the medtech took several of her Clan Croft adepts through the ‘genetic carwash’ and unlocked their 7 basic psionics from the ‘rust’ that had rendered them dormant from so many generations of illicit Zen’zat breeding. Normally Taryn wouldn’t have brought them here herself, but today was a special case.

As a brand new acolyte stepped out of the chamber Ginsi stepped in, taking his place with Taryn throwing her a wink when their eyelines crossed. It had only been some 14 years ago when the trainee had graduated from basic training and the trailblazer had luckily been able to bring her into her Clan. Her scores had been impressive but not groundbreaking going through basic and she’d been highly sought after, but even Taryn had no idea what a monster she’d become after being ‘released’ from the group training and allowed to fly free as all adepts did, more or less.

Previously Morgan had held the record of the quickest elevation to acolyte, both in age and in years training. She’d been 74 at the time and had spent 49 years after graduating from basic training, from which Archons emerged at a variety of ages. That record had been eclipsed a few decades ago by an Archon named Mathias-489220 who’d squeaked in at 48 years training and an age of 110, with him being one of the ‘slower starters’ who didn’t pass Archon testing during the last phases of the maturia training but had volunteered to give it another go years later after some further development (often along with a host of other tests) and found that he’d improved to the point of trainee candidacy.

Some of his physical skills were head of his classmates, which some had argued gave him a head start, but Taryn had looked up his scores at the time and while they were strong they weren’t record setting. She and the others, Morgan not included, had pretty much agreed it was time that someone had reached acolyte faster than the slow troll that most Archons progressed through simply because the process had been so polished since Taryn and the others had literally been making it up as they went along the first time.

The Archon trials were a huge boost, as were the various training methods and equipment that had been established, not to mention the peerdom available within the Clans that gave you stronger trainer partners to work with…all of which the trailblazers never had. That said, even the ‘inferior’ Archons should have been reaching acolyte faster than they had been, and when one finally beat Morgan’s training years mark it had generally been accepted as something that had been very long overdue.

But Ginsi was totally different. She’d accomplished in 14 years what had taken Morgan 48, and she was only 41 years old. Her rapid rise had caught the trailblazers’ attention, and even Davis was keeping a close watch on her, prompting the discussion as to how fast Taryn and her classmates would have leveled up if they’d been born into this generation and had all the advantages afforded to trainees and adepts today.

Even when they had that discussion there was a lot of doubt as to if they could have achieved what Ginsi had, so as Taryn watched her get her psionics the trailblazer wondered what was laying in store for her in the future…and knowing that nothing was automatic. Ginsi had been busting her butt in training ever since graduation, but 14 years was a far cry from 600, and there were some side bets going as to how long she could keep this up. Many thought she’d plateau eventually, as many other Archons had, but so far Taryn didn’t see it happening, though with the inclusion of psionics into the level requirements there was no knowing how she’d progress.

On one level Taryn did resent her a bit, though that was little more than competitive envy. She could snap her like a twig if she needed to, but the look in Morgan’s eye whenever her name was mentioned was more than worth it, for her fellow trailblazer didn’t like losing records, of any kind, and had gradually worked her way back up to top Archon status after being at a decided disadvantage to those who’d camped out in the advanced training group while she was off on field missions.

But this was different, for she not only lost the record but had it literally blown off the map. The trailblazers weren’t quite sure what to make of her, and despite that fact that she was so young and weak compared to them Taryn and the others looked at Ginsi like a little sister, wondering just how long this hot streak would last and if she was truly in their league…or perhaps even better.

Taryn didn’t know, for a big part of being a trailblazer was figuring things out for yourself or with your peers and Ginsi was having everything fed to her. That’s what the trailblazers had worked to build, so weaker Archons could gain greater strength by following their example and using training programs and drills refined to perfection before they were even born. It was a very good thing, but there was a higher level for those who managed to do it on their own, which left Ginsi in ambiguity as to what her caliber was as far as Taryn and the others were concerned.

So they were in wait and see mode, with Taryn keeping a very close eye on her little sister and fellow Clansmen heading forward.

5

December 28, 2679

Pooovalla System (H’kar territory)

Ratchniva

Gavra walked down one of the long, curvy corridors that typically made up H’kar infrastructure, coming to a dead end and stepping on the elevation pad that lowered him down to the next level. The four-legged armored ‘crab’ walked on, finding another pad nearby and moving down a second level, then another 8 until he came to a guard post with a pair of fellow H’kar soldiers with weapons strapped to two of their six arms.

He was known to them, so with a nod of recognition he passed through the checkpoint and into one of the off limits areas of the command complex where only a few high ranking H’kar were allowed to enter. There he walked through a few more corridors, traveling from memory rather than the navigational markings on the ceiling, until he came to the main receiving chamber where a small assembly was ongoing.

The Royal halted their conversation the moment he saw Gavra, clicking a welcoming tone on his mandibles and getting the crowd to part ways to allow the senior military commander access to the central slot in the approach bank. The H’kar formerly standing there backed away, leaving two other niches in the narrow, curved table occupied by non-military personnel but otherwise high ranking officials with the H’kar. They faced the Royal, situated inside the shallow arc of the approach bank and surrounded by control boards and display screens/holos.

Gavra ignored them all, along with the tidbits of conversation he had heard upon entry. Without a word he began pressing buttons and accessing a secure file that even the Royal didn’t have the access codes for, bringing up a map amendment that changed the regional holo that was centered on Pooovalla and showed the scattering of H’kar systems butting up against the Li’vorkrachnika border.

When the update was applied, several new dots interspaced between the H’kar systems changed color, indicating new acquisitions by their enemy. None of the systems were previously H’kar owned, but it was clear that they were failing in their Nexus mandate to control the local region.

“The situation has worsened far more than we anticipated,” Gavra said sternly, his respect for the Royal present in his tone but it not masking his anger and frustration. “We wrongly assumed the Li’vorkrachnika would strike back at one of our worlds in retaliation for the strike on their core worlds. To be truthful we hoped they would, for such an attack would be to our advantage by consolidating a large percentage of their fleet into a single location for us to destroy in our greatest place of strength.”

“The Li’vorkrachnika have not been so stupid. They continue to strike us where we are weak, but they are retaliating. The number of expansions we’ve previously noted have increased by 23% since the combined strike with the Gfatt, but the latest survey numbers indicate a much larger increase…in the realm of 340%. They are devoting far more resources to this region, all without any large fleet action. The loss of the majority of our strike fleet had diminished our ability to hunt down and eliminate these expansions, but do not mistake that as being the primary cause of this onslaught. The enemy has increased its attention here, and we are unable to stop them.”

The Royal remained passive, then held up one of its pointy, fingerless arms. “Have we lost an engagement?”

“No. The enemy is not engaging us when they have the option to run. Those times when they cannot they are doing what damage they can, targeting individual ships for destruction. I’ve instructed our commanders to withdrawal those vessels in such occasions, but we have lost a few when they stupidly chose to remain in position. Each ship we lose is a defeat, but we have not lost a full battle since the core world strike.”

“Then in what danger are we?” the Royal asked obtusely.

“We are in danger of allowing the enemy to grow to a level where they can threaten us. Joining the Nexus advanced us considerably, but we are not safe. The Li’vorkrachnika have not been beaten, and now that we’ve shown we can hit their core worlds they are paying us more attention than before. It is only a matter of time before we are isolated and surrounded,” he said, bringing up a specific intelligence report that he’d only received 18 days ago.

“This is the beginning of a trend, I fear,” Gavra said, highlighting a neutral system on the starmap situated in between two widely spaced H’kar worlds. “The Li’vorkrachnika have placed a semi-permanent raiding fleet in the Kiltuum System. They are disrupting traffic, killing what civilian ships they can, then running when our warships arrive. I believe they will continue to do so, and we do not have the ships necessary to secure our shipping lanes. If this continues we will either have to dedicate vessels to Kiltuum or reroute traffic flow. Either way is a win for the enemy.”

“Assume they do the same for 100 other systems, and tell me again how safe we are.”

The H’kar to Gavra’s left bristled with the insult that the military commander was throwing the Royal’s way. “Then it’s time to recall our ships from the ADZ. We obviously need them to secure our own territory.”

Gavra made a click/clash noise so violent that all the H’kar around him visibly shook with surprise.

“You have said as much yourself,” the Royal reminded him calmly.

“I have been stupid and unwilling to see the truth,” Gavra admitted. “Recent events have forced my vision to clear. We are making the same mistakes we made before, emboldened by Nexus membership. Our methods saw us lose the first time, nearly to the point of extinction before Samenra ordered the evacuation. He was shamed and exiled for that decision later, but it saved our race. Had we stood our ground and fought it out we would not be here today.”

“He was right to do so,” the H’kar on Gavra’s right said irreverently, “for it brought us into contact with the Nexus.”

“But you still speak of him with shame, as most of us do. We did not learn, and now that we have superior technology to the enemy we have fallen back to using flawed strategy, myself included. I however am learning to adapt…or at the very least learning how to read a scorecard,” he said, bringing up another display, this one with numerical tallies.

“This is the killcount for our fleets operating out of Star Force territory. Compare with those here…”

“Those numbers are being augmented…”

“No,” Gavra said, cutting off the H’kar to his left. “I have omitted partial ship kills. These are those resulting only from our weaponry. Our fleets, when operating under Star Force command, are destroying more enemy ships than those here, and the Star Force warlords are keeping our fleets virtually untouched in the engagements. I will not recall them when they are doing more damage to the enemy there than we are doing here.”

“Our mandate takes priority here.”

“The enemy is the same, their ships do not belong to any one region. If we kill them here or there it does not matter, only the number is relevant. Furthermore, the performance rates of those crews who have participated in the raiding fleets increases once they are cycled back into our standard forces. We are not only killing Li’vorkrachnika in considerable numbers there, we are learning how to fight them better. I will not recall those fleets, and I am here to recommend we augment them.”

“If we are already shorthanded,” the Royal said, beginning to think Gavra was going senile, “how can we spare anymore?”

“Our worlds are secure for the moment, and we are losing the region regardless. We need to fuel our successes, and right now those are only occurring in the raiding fleets.”

“We have a mandate to acquit,” the H’kar senior diplomatic officer said, whose primary duty was dealing with Nexus issues.

Gavra pivoted around, shuffling his footpoints until he squarely faced the H’kar on his left. “It is time we acknowledge that we have failed in our mandate and move on.”

“We cannot!”

“It has already occurred.”

“If we admit failure,” the Royal interrupted, “we run the risk of losing our Nexus membership. If that happens they will reclaim the technology granted to us. Our civilization will be cannibalized.”

“That will not happen, and I am not suggesting any political push. I am saying that we should admit to ourselves that we have failed and stop trying to protect systems that we cannot. We must focus on the long term while we still have the benefit of strong worlds. The Li’vorkrachnika will take them eventually, this I can promise you, if we do not alter our course.”

“You are talking nonsense, Gavra,” the diplomatic officer said, exchanging a questioning glance with the Royal. “No Nexus member world has ever fallen without an immediate and massive reprisal from the other members. They are our insurance against the Li’vorkrachnika. If we abandon our mandate we abandon them…and we will be committing the equivalent of suicide.”

“Define ‘immediate?’” Gavra demanded, throwing the other H’kar off balance with the simple question.

“You know the battle history better than I do, I assume.”

“Yes I do, but I no longer underestimate our enemy. We hit one of their most valuable worlds and took away an equally valuable asset, one that no one, to my knowledge, has ever touched before. And how do they respond? Calmly. They increase their efforts here drastically, but with no overt moves. No big battles. In fact, they are attacking less than before. Perhaps the resilience of our ships scared them, but they do not quit. Instead they hit us where we are weak, where we cannot defend.”

“I ask you this,” he said, raising his voice and using it to verbally beat down the non-military H’kar, “what happens if the enemy strikes ALL of our worlds simultaneously, with enough numbers to destroy our populations? They will undoubtedly lose their fleets in the process, such as we did to kill their shipyard, but our people will be dead, our industry crippled, and our defeat all but complete before even one ship from the other races arrives to avenge us.”

“So I ask you again, will their backup be immediate? Or is that just a comforting lie you tell yourself to preserve this false security you cling to.”

“You speak of fiction yourself,” the H’kar on his opposite side said. “They cannot launch such an attack of this scale, not against all of our worlds.”

“Perhaps not today, but they are growing. How long do we have until they reach that numerical strength?”

The H’kar didn’t answer. He wasn’t convinced, but didn’t have a retort handy.

“How does increasing our fleet size in the ADZ help counter this possibility?” the Royal asked.

“We cannot defeat the Li’vorkrachnika,” Gavra said plainly, his words essentially treason as far as H’kar philosophy was concerned. “But they are, slowly, in small parts. They are holding their territory and slowly expanding it. The Li’vorkrachnika are expanding faster, growing larger, but they are, for reasons I don’t fully understand, unable or unwilling to topple Star Force and its allies, one of whom I’m told has come from further away to specifically aid Star Force. An ally that has, what is rumored to be, Nexus-level technology. For whatever reason they value Star Force’s ability to stand against the enemy and are assisting in their raiding fleets as well.”

“We would be wise to do the same, and I for one will not risk the future of our race to appease those who foolishly cling to the old ways. I admit, until recently I was one of them, but through the strategic savvy of our enemy in recent days and the lashings of my old master I have forced myself to reconsider many things. I will not waste my time trying to do the same with you,” he said, looking at those non-military personnel that ran most of the empire for the Royals, “nor will I waste our limited resources on strategies that the Li’vorkrachnika have proven time and again to be impotent.”

“Are the other commanders in agreement with your assessments?” the Royal asked, suspecting otherwise.

“Most are not,” Gavra admitted.

“Why then should I sanction this ambiguous new strategy?”

Gavra stared back at the Royal, this time with no respect. “To keep the empire from fracturing.”

“Explain yourself,” the Royal said, the first hint of anger in his voice.

“Most of the other commanders are not in agreement, but a few are. More importantly I have already sent orders to dispatch the appropriate ships to Star Force territory, as have some of the others.”

“You have no authority!” one of the H’kar standing behind the three in front of the Royal shouted.

“I am in command,” Gavra said forcefully, “and it is my mandate to protect our people. I will not fail in it, even if I end up suffering the same fate as Samenra. And there are others who are of similar mind.”

“But more important that that is this,” he continued before anyone else could speak, though there was considerable mandible clicking that he had to raise his voice to talk over. “Vedja has come out of retirement because he senses the danger we face, and the new ire we have invoked in the Li’vorkrachnika with our strike on their shipyard.”

The clicks shifted in a heartbeat at the mention of the legendary commander who almost singlehandedly had saved them from destruction during the time just prior to Nexus membership. He was held in great esteem, and his name alone gave weight to what Gavra was saying, not to mention the fact that the commander had been one of Vedja’s primary students.

“Who authorized his return to service?” the Royal asked, his tone uncertain as to which side to take in this dangerous schism that was forming. If one of the other Royals had done so he should have heard about it by now.

“I did,” Gavra said firmly. “And my old master is already en route to our colony in Star Force territory.”

“Colony? It is little more than an embassy,” the diplomatic officer said as the Royal virtually blanched, though his exoskeleton wouldn’t allow for any color change.

“It will grow if needed, for my Master has informed me that he intends to pursue this war bond with Star Force regardless of Royal sanction. He has few years left in him, and is willing to risk exile if it is necessary to save our race. I and a few others are willing to follow him, so I submit that sanctioning this endeavor is in the best interests of unity, for it is happening regardless of how many stubborn traditions we have to trample in the process.”

“You are far beyond your birthright,” the Royal warned.

“I know. But my mandate supersedes it, whether officially recognized or not.”

The Royal was silent for a long moment, but Gavra didn’t break his stare, underscoring that he was fully committed to this. Others would be as well, with Vedja involved.

“Why did you not come to me with these concerns earlier?”

“I was stubborn and did not want to admit the losing position that we are in.”

“And you believe that we are showing the same stubbornness?”

“I recognize it well.”

The Royal considered what Gavra was saying, not from a military position but from a political one. Nexus membership guaranteed the H’kar’s survival, so the threat of their defeat was farcical. Their mandate to protect their allotted region was not, and in that they were failing, though he’d never admit it publically. The only risk came from a revocation of membership, but he was aware that the Gfatt didn’t currently fault the H’kar for their inability to stop the Li’vorkrachnika, though that could always change going forward.

Vedja, however, changed things. The old warrior was a legend, and his involvement in this none too subtle treason made the Royal wonder if there was a greater threat involved or if he also realized the risk of a revocation of membership. Regardless, siding against him could very well split the H’kar empire and even run the small risk of triggering a civil war, not in a military sense, but by fracturing the political bonds that held them together.

They were safe, the Royal reminded himself, so long as the Nexus did not abandon them.

“If Vedja thinks this is of merit, then let us not bicker. Keep what ships are necessary to defend our worlds and maintain a semblance of our duty to the Nexus mandate, then send as many others as you wish. We will fully support Vedja in this, and hope that his genius leads to a second pivotal moment in our race’s history.”

Gavra didn’t say anything further, nor did he gloat. He simply offered a small gesture of respect before withdrawing, realizing he’d just won the political war and gained more than he’d hoped. How the rest of the H’kar empire would respond he didn’t know, but this region’s resources were going to the ADZ…as many as he could spare, anyway.

6

May 31, 2680

Szequat System (Voku territory)

Nergthen

When Cal-com arrived back at his race’s homeworld it was with some displeasure. He had been summoned to return, but without any notification as to why. The priority summons couldn’t be ignored, but it had come during one of his planning sessions with Warlord Paul as they began mapping out the reconquest of what had once been Calavari territory. Such a task was a bold one, and Cal-com wasn’t convinced that it could be done so quickly, but the pair worked so well together they were laying out the difficulties and devising countermeasures in an attempt to see just how far down the road their plans could become reality when the summons had arrived.

He’d left immediately, with all apologies given to Paul, and headed back across the long journey between the ADZ and Voku space. During that time he wondered what would have been important enough to recall him, and now that he’d finally arrived he still couldn’t deduce a valid reason. Only two individuals had the authority to summon him back in such a manner, one was the Brosika and the other the Letrifiv.

The Brosika was the Voku’s chief of tranquility, tasked with maintaining the inner workings of their civilization and hunting down problems before they began. With any interstellar empire, let alone one the size that the Voku sported, divisions could easily occur with the distances and communication lag, thus preserving a single cultural identity was a huge necessity that could not be overstated. The Brosika held the responsibility of holding the Voku together, not through censorship or restraints, but through a gentle push or pull here or there dictated by the tenants of wisdom.

The Letrifiv was the complete opposite and responsible for the day to day running of the empire. It was the highest administratorial position and also the most difficult, with an insane amount of data to process daily. Even with a support staff the Letrifiv needed to know everything that was going on in order to insure that an oversight didn’t leave a planet without enough foodstuffs for the coming year or that the fuel supply wouldn’t exhaust itself leaving ships stranded insystem. While local administrators accomplished a variety of tasks independently, it was the Letrifiv that had to keep the empire’s priorities fulfilled, and as such he was the most knowledgeable person in the empire when it came to current events.

Both leaders held a slightly higher position within Voku society than a Renimar, but they respected each other enough not to give orders. The military was separate and the third part of the trinary that made up Voku society, but technically the Letrifiv and Brosika were co-rulers…though the term ‘ruler’ had a different meaning for the Voku, since they all served the Elders’ will.

The small conglomerate that brought Cal-com back home passed through their orbital defense grids without delay, being allowed immediate and priority access through the defense fleet screens, bypassing the Kastas, and coming into very low orbit where a tiny bit of the conglomerate broke off and headed down into the thin atmosphere of the planet with the Renimar onboard. It was allowed direct access to the Hall of Majesty, which was the capitol within the capitol and the home of the Letrifiv and Brosika, when the Brosika was insystem, for he was traveling almost nonstop.

When Cal-com’s ship landed he was escorted by an honor guard into the sprawling complex that he had become well accustomed to since he became a Renimar, though most of his duties kept him away, similar to the Brosika. So it wasn’t a great surprise that he noticed the change in architecture within the Hall of Majesty when they entered a particular wing. Cal-com remained silent and simply observed, seeing more and more alterations that appeared to be of extremely new construction, yet all were complete with no signs of ongoing work.

Then when they turned a corner the size of the architecture changed drastically, and the Renimar saw himself standing in a foyer large enough for a starship to land in, and in fact he could see on the distant roof the markings indicating that there was a hidden exit to the sky built into the structure that could be opened at will. But it was the huge doors that stood closed before him and the presence of both Yev’jat and the Letrifiv waiting for him that truly shocked him.

The honor guard stopped in their tracks as Yev’jat waved them off, leaving only the three leaders behind as the infantry retreated to a respectful distance away from the doors.

“What is this place?” Cal-com asked, having to crane his neck up to see the top of the doors that stretched a third of the way up to the ceiling.

“An Elder is here,” the Letrifiv said, almost a whisper.

Cal-com immediately stiffened with awe and shock, then forced himself to push the foolish emotions aside. “Why have I been recalled?”

“The Elder specifically requested your presence. I am sorry I could not tell you by message,” his fellow Renimar said, “but his presence is not to be made known to the public. He comes and goes as he chooses, but aside from the nearby eyes no trace of him is recorded. Our machines will not betray his existence, and I could not do so in message either.”

“Did he say why?”

“No, but he has made many changes since his arrival. The first of which was the creation of this,” Yev’jat said, pointing at the chamber in which they now stood. “What lies beyond the doors if of Elder technology, and none are allowed to enter except by invitation. You have yours.”

The Letrifiv stepped over to the doors and pressed a hand against them, with the touch creating a split that pulled apart the lower halves like a zipper about twice Cal-com’s height then stopped, with the two flaps bending outwards and bracketing the threesome.

“We have not been requested,” the Letrifiv said simply, then stepped back.

Cal-com didn’t delay nor fawn over the presence of the Elder and walked through the opening, intent to be as efficient as possible. If the Elder wanted to speak with him, then he was going to show himself promptly.

As soon as he walked through the doors resealed behind him and Cal-com found himself standing on the edge of a ridged floor that circled up into a large tunnel. Almost immediately he felt a presence in his mind, guiding him forward, and he began hopping from one flat-topped ridge to another and bypassing the small toughs in between. The architecture was not straight, and the Voku had to meander through several tunnel branches before he finally came to the end of the ridged tunnels, thankfully before he hit one of the down ‘ramps’ that would have been much harder to traverse.

The chamber just to the left of the ramp had a smooth floor that led up to a dome with a low lying wall, and as Cal-com got halfway up to it the dragon behind it rose up, giving the Voku his first glimpse of the red, scaly skin that covered its lithe body.

“Welcome home, Renimar,” the Elder said graciously. “You have done well in your absence.”

Cal-com dropped to a knee respectfully, but a tisking noise that was both physical and mental halted his reverence. “Rise. I have no need of supplicant servants today.”

As the dragon said so Cal-com’s eye line returned to the neck that was reaching above the wall and the bit of body connected to it, then a pair of arms reached up to grip the edge and pulled the Elder over top of it, with his body sliding over the rim as he came fully into view and dropped down onto the solid floor in front of the Voku, who was now standing back up as ordered. The dragon’s wings were tucked along its body, looking like little more than patches of wrinkly skin and blending in well with the rest of the scaly tube, but the deep red was both intimidating and surprising, for the Elder that had visited them previously had been colored grey, or so he had been told. The size of this one was also considerably smaller, but the presence it emanated could not be denied and the Voku felt very small in comparison despite the fact that the Elder stood only half again as tall as him.

“You honor me with your praise, and your presence. What have you summoned me for?”

The dragon walked sideways in front of the stationary Voku, then twisted its long neck back towards him, looking him in his artificial eye from only a meter away.

“The Voku are not the only race we have guided from afar. There are others, like you, who serve us across the galaxy. Some old, some new, but they are few and the threats many. You and the other Voku have done well during our long absence to preserve yourselves and the knowledge we granted you, and in return I am here now to elevate you to the next level. This will be done in secret, as always, but of you personally I have another task.”

The dragon sat back on its tail and hind legs, rearing up to bring its front two off the ground and stretch out its wings. The thin material flexed with remarkable strength as a wind was summoned forth simply by him reaching out and stroking the air a few times.

And as he did so a sea of holograms surrounded the Voku, with him fixating on one in particular that was a galaxy map. It slowly zoomed in until he recognized their own empire and the ADZ, but it also showed a great deal more, including the current domain of the lizards, the Skarrons, and many others that he did not know of, but all were detailed before him, with images of various races swirling about that he did not recognize.

“You have done well to safeguard Star Force, and it is growing in size and strength rapidly. Your task there is done, but you are correct in assuming that the ‘lizards’ as you call them will eventually reach the Voku. Star Force will survive and prosper, but your enemy cannot be so easily stopped.”

Various areas of lizard territory were highlighted by an eerie glow that seemed to defy any technology, leaving Cal-com in awe at the spectacle but with his mind also working furiously as a tactician to soak up all the data before him…and its implications.

“The enemy is fighting hard to expand, but as they do they are encountering those who do not submit easily. You are aware of two such engagements. The Skarrons and the Nexus. As you can see here, there are others. The enemy has found that it is not alone and seeks to quickly devour systems so to stay on the offensive to cover their overreach. They are temporarily weakened, and not for the loss of one of their shipyards. They are processing through a growth surge that will make them far more deadly in the future, but for now they must digest their holdings and develop them.”

“They are not so weak as to allow you to defeat them, but you can deny them significant gains if you progress wisely and quickly. If you wait until they are on your doorstep, you will not survive given your present strength…which I am now amplifying. When completed, you will have no need to fear this enemy at home. Your fight with them will be abroad. I require a warfleet to secure this region,” the dragon said, highlighting a much larger squashed sphere around present day Voku territory that ran all the way up to the ADZ as well as bit into a large chunk of Skarron space…not to mention traveling out below the galactic plane to the scattering of systems that didn’t hold to the boundaries.

In fact Cal-com saw several star clusters out there that would be difficult to reach, but if the Elder commanded it they would find a way to make it happen. That determination aside, this new mandate was beyond anything the Voku had expected of them and was indeed a fitting task for the promised upgrades to their empire.

“This task will put you into direct conflict with the lizards that Star Force now fights. You cannot destroy them so do not try. The Voku’s task is to hold and protect the territory assigned to you, much as you have done in the past with your current territory…do not concern yourself with the Nexus,” the Elder said, reading his thoughts. “They are fools with delusions of grandeur. Powerful they may be in technology, but in wisdom they are lacking. Their time is coming to an end, but that end will not be soon. In the interim allow them to fight the lizards as they will, but they are a temporary power that will fade, so draw no close bonds with them.”

“Look closely, Renimar,” the dragon prompted, highlighting a few new sections of the galaxy map that bordered lizard space on multiple sides. “These are some of our other servants, all of which have or will come into conflict with the lizards shortly. Alone they will not survive what is coming, for they are not as large nor as gifted as the Voku, and we will not give them that which they have not yet earned.”

“We do not wish them destroyed in their infancy, so I have a special task for you, Cal-com. You are no longer a Renimar, but the first Dafchor from the Voku. From this day forward your race will take orders from you, as will these others. You are my personal emissary and war leader, and I task you with preserving and shielding my servants against the lizards.”

Cal-com wanted to bow, but refrained from doing so. “How am I to accomplish this?”

“The task is not straightforward, nor simple. If it were a Dafchor would not be required. I will teach you what you need to know, and guide you from time to time, but you and you alone will be in command of the 9 races I am entrusting you with, including your own, though your people are more than capable of handling their own affairs. You will not be remaining here, for this is too distant from the conflict. You must go to the heart of the problem and solve it from within.”

The galaxy map shrunk again slightly, with the ADZ almost disappearing off the edges as lizard space expanded.

“These are the strongest lizard worlds,” the dragon said, highlighting a region that was not in the center, as Cal-com already knew, but further rimward in the lizards’ current territory. “You will avoid them. Here is where you must go,” he said as a single star system was highlighted up closer to the edge of the galactic plane and more in the center of lizard territory but still askew to the ADZ side. “This system you will conquer and claim, and from it you will establish contact with the races I am entrusting you with. With the gifts I am granting the Voku you will build a stronghold here that the enemy will not be able to touch, but you cannot share those gifts with those you will protect.”

That last sentiment was emphasized telepathically as a line that could never be crossed, even if it meant risking their demise.

“You must use them and their abilities to defend as you see fit. You can place your strengths within them, but they must never possess them. I trust you understand the difference?”

“I do,” Cal-com said solemnly.

“They will obey your commands, retool them as you like. If you put them astray of the path we wish of them I will correct you. If I say nothing proceed as you will. Be wise and wary, but do not delay. Once the lizards consume their holdings they will pose a threat your races cannot withstand on their own. You must strengthen them before the storm arrives on their shores.”

“What of Star Force?”

“They are not one of our servants, but they are more valuable to us than the Voku. You need no longer safeguard them, but they are a common ally against the lizards and others. Let them grow on their own accord, but keep close the ties you already possess and continue your planning work with the one called Paul. Modify it to act as a bridge to your target system.”

“How much time do I have to prepare my wards?”

“Even we do not know that for certain, but the storm is coming. There is no guarantee of your success, nor will we intervene if you fail. I may be giving you an untenable task if our time estimates are overly generous. You are to work the problem, not be consumed with the outcome. You are a Dafchor because we have no doubts as to your loyalty or skills. This is not a test of you, you are proven. Apply your skills and let fate make what it may.”

Cal-com crossed both arms over his chest and thumped them twice in a Voku gesture of pride and eagerness that signaled he was willing and able to accept the challenge.

The holograms suddenly disappeared and the dragon’s wings returned to his sides as his front legs came down and he went back to being a quadruped, but from behind the low wall that obscured Cal-com’s vision of what lay on the other side floated a small object that came up over the Elder’s back and hovered beside its head.

“Remove your eyepiece.”

Cal-com did as ordered, taking the artificial enhancement off and revealing his natural eyes to the dim, unfiltered light of the Elder’s chamber. When he did so the tiny, shiny object flew up into the inserts in Cal-com’s head and suddenly his face became numb. The next thing he knew the old implants came out and fell to the floor, then feeling returned to his head and for the first time he sensed a new facet to his mind.

“I have added a component that you will carry unseen beneath your eyepiece. No one is to attempt to examine it, or it will destroy the machines attempting to do so. Within it is knowledge that I am granting you and I will update it as needed going forward. This is how you will receive my commands at a distance, but you will not be able to respond. Replace your eyepiece.”

Cal-com pushed it back up and slid the short pylons into the new receptacles, returning to his advanced vision.

“Return to Achkor, Dafchor. Every day delayed from this point forward is a waste,” the dragon said, climbing back up over the low wall and disappearing from view as Cal-com turned about and walked off, taking the Elder at his word and not intending to waste a single moment of the time that he knew was going to be in short supply. He doubted he had more than 200 years, based on the knowledge now creeping into his mind, before the lizards overran the Daswa…and he wasn’t about to let any servants of the Elders perish on his watch.

7

August 20, 2680

Banner System (Core Region)

Loki

The elder H’kar walked across the soft floors of the command deck slowly, with an aide at his side ready to support him if necessary but the old war leader wanted no assistance with movement and per his orders the larger H’kar at his side merely paced him as he moved towards his oversight position on the dreadnaught’s observation platform. When he reached the small stair steps that led to it Vedja nearly stopped, taking each step with care, but with three contact points at all times he was in no danger of falling and mounted the four rises with precision before walking over to his stool.

There he sat against the backrest and spun it around through a complete circle, noting the position of the displays, control boards, and the view out over the rest of the command deck where the ship’s commander would be handling all the normal functions from his pod except when Vedja decided to step in, as was typical of a fleet commander. What was not typical was the dreadnaught, or rather the prototype that had just arrived from back home along with a slew of additional reinforcements…with the blessings of multiple Royals.

All pretense, he knew, but the troops were real enough. Vedja was nearing the end of his life and it was much simpler for the Royals to give him what he wanted in the short term than risk an uprising. The fools were so determined to maintain tradition that they couldn’t see the continuing threat the Li’vorkrachnika posed, though after so many centuries of war no H’kar should doubt their power or ingenuity. Joining the Nexus had bought the H’kar a new life, but that was a far cry from victory…and their enemy was knocking on the door once again, trying to slowly advance their way into a position to take the H’kar’s empire from them a second time.

Vedja would not live to see it, and would have remained in quiet isolation during his remaining years had the former fleet leader not sent their ships on a suicide mission that had drawn the ire of the Li’vorkrachnika. Their attention was now centered on the H’kar, with far more enemy vessels migrating towards their worlds and snatching up the surrounding systems, making it clear that there would be a price to pay for the shipyard they had destroyed along with the Gfatt.

The H’kar’s only saving grace was the other Nexus races, or he was sure that the Li’vorkrachnika would be mounting a killing blow right now. Their backing would buy the H’kar time but he didn’t think it would prevent their demise. Tech upgrades were one thing, but there was no substitute for the sheer numbers the enemy commanded and would command in coming years as their territory continued to grow. That should have been obvious to all, but rather than use their advantage to its maximum potential now, they were sitting and waiting for the enemy to grow stronger.

Vedja did not want his legacy to have been only a short reprise for the H’kar before their eventual defeat, thus he had returned to prominence and asserted his reputation to take command of ships that technically he had no authority over. That technicality did not matter in the slightest now that he was here, deep inside Li’vorkrachnika territory and the small oasis of tranquility that Star Force had somehow managed to carve out. He was in command and no one here questioned that, and given the task ahead of him Vedja doubted he’d live to return to the empire, so he did not care what they had to say of the matter.

The dreadnaught he was taking possession of orbited about the moon named Loki that Star Force had graciously given half of to the H’kar and was one of a handful of the newest ships built by his people. Star Force design elements had been incorporated into the standard design, which Vedja did not approve of, but it was the largest warship in the fleet available to him. The behemoths that he possessed were not as formidable, given that they were mobile battle stations rather than a proper warship, and had this been a standard dreadnaught its smaller frame would contain slightly more firepower…though with this new prototype Vedja did not know for sure.

The primary weapon had been diminished in strength down to what the battleships carried, with the destar being tripled into separate weapons. The combined strength was less than a single typical dreadnaught destar, which Vedja thought was a grave design mistake. The upside was being able to target different ships simultaneously, and with the Li’vorkrachnika preferring to use cruiser swarms against the H’kar they might well kill more with this design, but the larger enemy ships would be a different matter and Vedja wished he’d had a proper dreadnaught under his command, but he was going to make do with what he had.

His mission here was twofold…learn and teach a new fighting style against the Li’vorkrachnika to the troops that would return home to fight there, and to kill as many of the enemy here as he could. All combat would be joint operations and he would still be operating under Star Force command, something that normally he never would have allowed, but their war record was undeniable and his willingness to submit to their authority only further ingrained that there were lessons to be learned here, with his troops opening their eyes further and taking a peek outside of tradition.

He intended to take that peek and stretch it as far as he could here and now before he was gone, for their sakes, but Vedja was just as interested in killing enemy ships for his own. The H’kar was 254 years old, having retired just as the Nexus upgrades were being implemented in the fleet and their position as a member secured them against the Li’vorkrachnika with the Gfatt fleet positioning vessels to safeguard them until they could hold their own. Figuring his task was done Vedja stepped down and let others build as he attended to personal matters, a hero amongst the H’kar and with far too much attention placed on him.

He’d taken seclusion as his reward and stepped away from the public, rarely making an appearance other than on a few occasions that he chose to nudge events to his liking. That nudging had made him somewhat aggravating to the Royals because of the influence he maintained, but they allowed him his due and didn’t interfere, knowing that he’d return to seclusion again soon enough.

Vedja had kept a link to the fleet, monitoring the Nexus upgrades and how they were implemented, with various officials coming to him for advice or with problems to solve. He attended to such things quietly, behind the scenes, but had never had the fortunate of commanding one of their upgraded vessels in combat…but now it seemed he was going to get that chance after all.

In the past the Li’vorkrachnika had even tech with the H’kar, or approximately so. Both races used plasma-based weapons and other similar motifs but with different applications. Now the H’kar didn’t use plasma at all, having upgraded to far more powerful weapons that the enemy could not stand up against head to head. It was their numbers that they were using to continually defeat the H’kar, this time by surrounding their new worlds with too many conquests for the fleet to adequately prevent.

But the battles the raiding fleets were engaging in were not lopsided affairs. More often than not the ship count that Star Force would bring to bear would be nearly even, with the tech advantage allowing the H’kar to utterly destroy their opponents during battle…and that was something that Vedja wanted to experience firsthand after so many decades of hard fought retreats just trying to keep his people on the move and alive.

The elder H’kar had been reviewing the stats ever since they’d started returning to the empire, and he was amazed at how the Star Force commanders were deploying the H’kar so effectively. They were very rarely losing a ship, and that fact coupled with the tech advantage meant that a low number of H’kar vessels could do an immense amount of damage to the enemy fleets. If that strategic wisdom could be learned and duplicated throughout the entire H’kar fleet then Vedja had no doubt that they would be able to repulse the Li’vorkrachnika from their assigned Nexus territory without the help of the Gfatt or anyone else.

Which was why Vedja was willing to take command of the dreadnaught, giving Star Force and the H’kar designers that they’d worked with the benefit of the doubt. He intended to learn what wisdom they had melded into the design and hoped there was something here he wasn’t immediately seeing. That said, the ship was still vastly stronger than a battleship…and there was no way a proper war commander would oversee a fleet from a behemoth.

While his aide stood quiet watch behind Vedja the fleet commander settled in and got himself acquainted with the new design. It was mostly standard H’kar, but there were a few tweaks here and there that he thought might have come from Star Force…or some overzealous H’kar designers who liked to change things simply to put their own stamp on them.

Never the less the design was sound and he adjusted his mind to it accordingly as the final preparations were made amongst the fleet sitting alongside his new flagship in orbit of Loki. He was the last major piece to arrive, and after the last few minor checks were attended to he ordered the dreadnaught to the head of the fleet and they began their microjumps over to system’s center, some 1,394 ships in all that would be traveling to a rendezvous point in Zeta Region before splitting off into three separate groups that would meld with Star Force fleets and constitute the newest raiding groups heading out.

Already there were H’kar ships out there, fighting and presumably winning battles. They were due back over the coming two years, with Vedja leaving instructions on how to restructure them when they arrived so they could be dispatched with additional fleets comprised in his absence. He didn’t have time to train a new subordinate, so he was just going to work with posted orders. The elder H’kar didn’t have time to do things properly, so the others were simply going to have to adapt on the go and earn their marks.

Vedja remained on the command deck for many hours, mostly silent and learning about the ship and crew through his displays but vocalizing commands and questions to the crew when needed as any commander would. He would have preferred taking a tour of the ship once it was mid jump but he didn’t have the strength, so instead he stayed put and soaked in the feel of being in command again before finally heading off to his personal quarters where he put himself into a nutrient bath to help reinforce his weakening exoskeleton.

Soaking in the supplements he studied holographic schematics of the Star Force ships in detail, working off of scans the H’kar had taken given that they had never been trusted with blueprints. That wasn’t uncommon, for allies were only allies to a point, and even the H’kar had never given full blueprints for their warships to Star Force when co-designing the new vessels in order to maintain security and the Nexus edicts about sharing technology.

The Star Force vessels were curious, and now that he was here he had access to a great deal more information than had made its way back home. Vedja studied their drone system intently, for it was completely foreign to H’kar philosophy and he all but knew therein lie an advantage, but at the moment he couldn’t see it. For as radical as he was a commander within the H’kar, he was still tightly bound by tradition. He might loosen the strings on occasion, but his mind was very firm when it came to how to go about doing things, as were all H’kar.

But he would learn, slowly, as he studied reports during the jumps out to the rendezvous point and then even more so when he finally engaged in combat alongside Star Force, who also had a Voku vessel with them. Its technology was mind-baffling, in that Vedja never knew how many vessels it truly was. They broke apart and reformed into many hull varieties, offering them plenty of formation options without him being able to figure out just how they were able to accomplish it.

Their battle strategies were likewise fluid and even more alien than those used by Star Force, but the orders given to Vedja’s fleet were straightforward enough. Wisely he followed them all even if he disagreed with them, and while Star Force passed up many an opportunity to make kills they succeeded in preserving all of the H’kar ships during their first system raid…which was when Vedja had his first epiphany.

Star Force wasn’t fighting in a way to destroy enemy ships, but to weaken them so that they could kill them later while preserving their own vessels. Moreover, they were seeking to do damage to the enemy while only losing shield strength. That was why they appeared to be so hesitant and often ordered H’kar ships to withdrawal when they were undamaged.

What would have taken an Archon all of 5 minutes, at most, to figure out, the elder H’kar had finally saw…and when he did he connected it to reports that had come back from previous raids in which Star Force had tried to explain what they were doing to the H’kar commanders. Their words had been farcical then, but now they appeared to crystalize into perfect clarity in retrospect.

So strong was the H’kar urge to lock onto a target and destroy it that learning to engage and disengage as common practice was something that was going to take a fundamental shift in H’kar psychology to accomplish, but Vedja knew it had to happen. He wasn’t going to be able to do it on his own and began drafting a series of messages to his former students that now commanded the majority of the fleet back home, outlining in better terms what Star Force had been trying to tell them all along and imploring them to begin making alterations in the training programs immediately to make the upcoming recruits more open to the new combat philosophy.

Vedja also realized one other thing, and that was the reason why the ships coming back home after spending time in the raiding fleets showed less than the stellar stats that were being reported from the joint raids. When the H’kar were following orders they didn’t attach their egos to the assignments and were able to mentally leave the outcome in the hands of their alien commanders…but once back under their own direction they could not think like Star Force did, at least not completely. Some small amount of tactical knowledge was coming back with those ships and crews, but in order to maintain this overpowering kill to death rate the H’kar had to work jointly with Star Force.

Vedja had known that hooking up with the Humans was necessary in order to learn from them, but now he saw that it was more than that. Their psyche was operating on a different level than the H’kar, and it happened to be in a way that directly countered the Li’vorkrachnika. Vedja doubted it would be as effective against the Nexus races or others, but against this enemy Star Force’s curious ways were more effective than H’kar battle philosophy had ever approached being, and in order to hurt their common enemy the most the H’kar had to do joint battle as often as possible.

As Vedja wrote his messages he outlined this as well, noting that in the short term it would be easier just to use the Star Force commanders rather than attempting to retrain the entire H’kar military. They could incorporate lessons learned and modify their existing philosophy rather than attempting an immediate and total overhaul…but in order to make it work there would have to be an unprecedented level of cooperation, for without the Star Force commanders the H’kar could not defeat the Li’vorkrachnika.

But with them, and a lot of favor…it might just be possible.

And that was something that no H’kar had legitimately imagined since the early days of the war.

8

March 16, 2682

Achkor System

Zenniza

The Excalibur dropped into planetary orbit around the Voku world, with Paul immediately seeing the bolstered ship count that Cal-com had spoken of in his last message. They hadn’t met one another since he’d been recalled back to his homeworld, communicating through the relay system as Paul had gone out on another raiding mission into lizard territory. Their conversations were intermittent and delayed, but they’d continued making plans for the war going forward in piecemeal knowing that they’d have to get back together again for a proper planning session at some point.

The trailblazers didn’t need face to face conversations to coordinate, for they practically knew what each other was thinking with only a few lines of text being shared across lightyears, but Cal-com, as much as Paul had grown to know him, operated on a completely different mental frequency that required a lot of back and forth between the two in order to hammer out strategy. They worked well together, but it was a communication heavy relationship that just couldn’t work over distance with an endeavor this complex.

Cal-com had said he’d be getting more resources, enough to push up their timetable for the reconquest of Calavari territory…a little project that was only in the planning stages, for aside from the handful of systems along the ADZ border there was no major push underway for territory, merely nipping at the lizards here and there while disrupting their holdings with more and more raids.

When the Voku had sent the message requesting their meeting as soon as possible Paul had arranged for his raiding tour to allow him to split off while the bulk of the H’kar fleet cycled back to the Core Systems for refueling and damage repair. The Star Force vessels were stopping off short at Rotunna for resupply then heading back out with a mixed Calavari/Bsidd support fleet in lieu of the H’kar for some smaller strikes with Paul catching up eventually. He’d taken his command ship, which didn’t require resupply yet given its larger cargo holds, and had gone straight to Achkor, now arriving amongst a sea of Voku conglomerates sitting in orbit like an asteroid field composed of small moons.

He took a dropship down to the surface along with a Voku escort that led him directly to the facility where he’d met Cal-com on previous visits. The two had their own private planning center to themselves, constructed on Cal-com’s orders, with a lot of Paul’s personal data stored there for him to utilize on visits like this rather than having to work from scratch.

Cal-com was already inside when he arrived, but even before he saw his friend he felt a change in him. The always serious Voku mind was even more sharp than before, but also more relaxed as he made some casual adjustments to the starcharts before him, sorting through a variety of options without committing to anything until he had Paul’s input.

“Welcome back,” the taller alien said when the Archon arrived in his dark blue armor. Cal-com triggered the door to close behind him and Paul pulled off his helmet, setting it aside. If this had been a Star Force facility he would have come down in his casual uniform, but whenever somewhere else he wanted to be in his armor just in case something unexpected happened.

“Important trip I take it?” Paul asked.

“And beneficial,” Cal-com said with a mental twitch so large that it stood out to Paul’s casual feel of his mood. Curious, he probed deeper…following the twitch to the source and opening up the memories of the recall.

Paul didn’t say anything for several seconds, merely looking up at the dark black face of his friend as he pulled out the memories. Usually he didn’t pry, but fortunately this time he had.

Cal-com twitched his head to the side. “What’s wrong?”

Paul set his helmet on one of the nearby planning tables. “Is this room being monitored or recorded in any way?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I suggest we be honest with each other.”

“Have you not been previously?” Cal-com challenged casually.

“You met with an Elder,” Paul said flatly, getting the surge of shock that he’d expected, but also with a desperation that he quickly tracked back to the order of secrecy given to him. “Relax, your secret is safe.”

“How do you know this?” the Voku said, half angry half curious.

“The Elder read your mind the same way that I can read yours. I’ve been able to do so since you first arrived. We knew the Elders sent you here to help us.”

Cal-com took a step back, shocked and humbled at the same time.

“Furthermore,” Paul continued, “we’ve met your Elders and they know we have this ability. The one you met spoke my name, so it had to know from your memories that I had access to yours. You have not betrayed their trust, and I believe they are also sending me a message through you.”

“And you didn’t think I could be trusted with this knowledge before?”

“Few know of our full abilities, which are many. While there are rumors abound no one knows the true extent of the powers we possess and we prefer to keep it that way. We also knew you were told not to tell us of the Elders when you first arrived, and we felt it best if we let you maintain that…illusion.”

“Then why tell me now?”

“Because I trust you…and because we’re going to have to work together without interference. If you try to hide your given mission and I pretend not to know our troops movements will have to be curtailed to maintain this fantasy. We cannot afford that restriction.”

“I am annoyed, but I cannot find fault in your logic.”

“I know,” Paul said with an almost apologetic smirk.

Cal-com huffed and leaned forward, setting his big fists on the table between them. “And all the times you’ve had me explain Voku strategy was for show?”

“I don’t read your mind continuously, and it makes it easier to access memories if you’re thinking about them actively.”

“Is there anything that you don’t know?”

“Plenty. Don’t assume I always know what you’re thinking. It takes some effort and I can’t think freely when I’m in someone else’s head, so most of the time during these planning sessions I don’t know what you’re thinking and don’t pry unless there’s a language issue.”

“And here I thought the Voku were the superior. You’ve hidden your true strength well, and I fault myself for not linking your telekinetic ability with this sooner.”

“Moving objects and reading minds are completely different abilities.”

“And you gave no clue with regards to your words. You hid your stolen knowledge well.”

Paul shrugged. “I wouldn’t like it either if someone could pry into my mind, but as long as I can…”

“You should make use of the ability,” Cal-com reluctantly agreed. “I’m beginning to see why the Elders value you so.”

“That was the message I referred to,” Paul said, taking a moment to pull more of the memories from his friend concerning that discussion, as well as visuals. The dragon he’d spoken with was not the one Paul had seen on Earth, meaning those eggs that Kara had told him about had apparently hatched.

“How so?”

Paul looked at the floor for a moment, then glanced back up at Cal-com. “I possess a secret of yours, though not by your choice. Can I trust you with one of mine?”

“If I lied you’d know,” the Voku quipped with a bit of frustrated merriment.

“If I was paying attention,” Paul amended, trying to give his friend some parameters as to his ability in order to calm his mind. Omnipotence was a myth, but as an illusion it was very effective at making someone worry with indecision, for if you didn’t know the capabilities of an opponent you would have no way of knowing if you could effectively fight them or would be walking into a beatdown.

“What is your secret?”

“We have many,” he added, “but the relevant one involves the Elders. We share a common enemy, one so powerful that if either of us are discovered we’re as good as dead. When the Elder told you that we were valuable to them, I think he was sending me a message stating that one day in the future that fight is going to come to both of us, and they want us to survive and develop to the point where we can at least cause our enemy some damage.”

“You are not allies then?”

“Not exactly. We share some common ancestry, which is why we both have the ability to read minds, but we have only had one encounter, and I am speaking for Star Force on the whole. We did them a favor and they did us one in return…then we went our separate ways. I would not call that an ally, but it seems they think we’re an asset to potentially use in an end game far into the future.”

“This common foe you speak of. Is it the power in the galactic core that you will not approach?” he asked, referencing the Star Force no-go line that had come up in their previous discussions.

“It is.”

“I find it hard to imagine any foe capable of matching, let alone exceeding the Elders…and it scares me,” Cal-com admitted, knowing that Paul could sense the emotion anyway.

“It would scare you even more to know the details.”

“Your race…why is it so primitive technologically? Given your rapid advancement I would guess you are in the process of reclaiming a familiar level rather than researching into the unknown.”

Paul smiled. “Good guess.”

“Deduction.”

“Same thing.”

“It is not…and it seems I don’t need to explain why.”

“Don’t let my abilities be an excuse for your laziness.”

Cal-com breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. “This will take some getting used to.”

“Only Archons acolyte level and above possess this ability, along with a scattering of other specialized individuals,” Paul offered.

“It is artificial then?”

“No, just dormant until we wake it up. More reclamation.”

“I feel that…”

“Yes,” Paul said, answering his question regarding other secrets that he wasn’t going to reveal.

“Do I even need to speak your language?”

“Yes you do. I can barely understand yours.”

“So most of my knowledge you can’t translate?”

“It makes it difficult, but there are a few cheats I can use.”

“So, my mind is not a complete status report for you.”

“As I said, it takes some effort…and skill. When I first got this ability I could barely use it until I learned how, and then I had to develop it the same way one does their physical skills. Digging out memories is very difficult, and few of my people are capable of doing it to the degree that I can.”

That admission seemed to settle the Voku considerably, knowing that it had to be trained for rather than just a default biological function.

“You then know of my mission? Or do you need me to add missed details?”

“I know what the Elder commanded you, but I do not know what you have planned…and I’d prefer if you told me rather than forcing me to try and find it in that huge head of yours.”

“I sense you are being polite.”

“The more different the mind from mine the more difficult it is. Humans are far easier to read.”

“You know of the upgrades then?”

“I know what the Elder said, but nothing beyond that.”

“The fleet that has arrived here is the first of many current vessels coming to us. More will come when they are replaced with new ones, giving me a much larger force to work with before any of the new upgrades become available. I am told it will take some time to adjust our infrastructure, so I will not be able to produce any here on Achkor for some time, but give me 20 years and that will change. I have to protect our current territory and the bulk of the new tech will go to that priority first, but once it is secured there will be a flow of vessels coming here above and beyond what we can produce locally.”

“What you have in orbit already is impressive enough.”

“According to the reports I’ve been receiving, they are mere toys in comparison.”

“Ooh…now you’ve got me being envious.”

“Yet I get the feeling that your own advancement won’t be far behind?”

“It will continue, but I get the feeling you’re going to maintain your advantage for a while.”

“So…you do expect to exceed us over time.”

“Yep.”

Cal-com laughed. “It is good we had this sharing. I prefer a strong ally, and your strength has been well hidden for some time. I will need it if I am to accomplish my mission.”

“What’s that new title of yours?”

“Dafchor…and it is not a Voku title. I now supersede my race.”

“I caught that. You have full command of them and the others?”

“I do, but as of now I do not believe the others know it, though it is possible the Elder has foretold of my coming.”

“Makes you rather popular.”

“I worry about getting to them in time. They are weaker than the Voku, and smaller. The lizards will destroy them in time if I cannot reach them.”

“Where exactly is this target system?”

Cal-com pulled up the map he’d been fiddling with and highlighted the location the Elder had provided him…along with the other hidden data that he hadn’t been planning on showing Paul.

“Other side of Calavari space,” the Archon commented.

“I must create a supply route there from Achkor, then create auxiliaries on a more direct route if possible. For that I ask for your help.”

“What do you need?”

“I need fire support…and you to eventually pull your border all the way out to here. I can help hold it once the foothold is established, but I’d rather not have a single system sitting in the middle of enemy territory. I can make it work if I have to, but it’ll require far more ships to secure supply lines and delay movement. I need a secure route back to Voku space, even if it means traveling extra lightyears to accomplish it.”

“You want me to guard your supply lines by extending our border while you do what?”

“Create a string of outposts linking to the races I’m tasked to defend, all the while destroying nearby lizard worlds.”

“We would stand a better chance timing our operations to coincide. More firepower for us and less available ships for them to counter with when they have to split their attention.”

“Not just on us, but the other threats to the lizards. Do you have a hidden map as well?”

“Not a current one, no. We’ve shared what we have with you.”

“And the one from your ancient empire?” Cal-com guessed/prodded.

“Too ancient to be relevant,” Paul half answered.

“Then allow me,” Cal-com said, bringing up the secure file that he’d constructed for use based off the knowledge downloaded into his mind via the Elder’s implants. The whole of lizard space was finally available for Paul to see, along with numerous highlighted smaller regions around the edges.

“Damn, they’ve got a lot of territory.”

“And adversaries. Recently they have been consuming new territory faster than they can maintain it. I am told they will be forced to go through a consolidation period. It is not apparent to outsiders, for they still retain the strength to counter incursions and continue to expand, but the bulk of their territory is not reinforced as strongly as one would expect. As you and I assumed previously, if we apply consistent pressure they will be unable to respond with such effectiveness as everyone assumes is their norm.”

“How stretched are they?”

“Not enough to deliver a lethal blow, unfortunately, nor to make easy gains against, but a strong push will result in a counterattack…but the counterattack will be vulnerable. If we can sustain ourselves against it they will have little to follow up afterwards. It is a bluff, but a dangerous one on their part, for they still have the ability to do great damage. If we expand recklessly they will be able to overwhelm us. If we proceed wisely, with the additional troops I will be bringing to bear, we can break their hold and run rampant over this region for a time.”

“Then we have to turtle up as the rest of their gains begin to reinforce them.”

“They are going to become very strong once the new territory reaches further advancement, as you well know. No one can kill them before that time, not even the Nexus if they chose to devote their full resources. I wish they would, because they would cripple them, but the lizards have too many systems for them to strike at. Even if we could take out their core systems it would not stop them.”

“What do you know of the Nexus?”

“More than you, I would wager. They too are spread thin, but their technology allows them to maintain dominance.”

“That much I suspected.”

“There is no power in the lizards’ path that is capable of defeating them, except for the Skarrons…and they cannot because they are out of position. By the time they realize the true nature of the threat, the lizards will be too strong for even them to stop.”

“So we’re going to get you to your wards, turtle up…and then what?”

“That is my mission. I leave the rest to you.”

Paul nodded slowly. “I can work with that…but before we start making any firm plans I need to know what your new tech is going to be capable of doing.”

“I could say the same to you,” Cal-com countered.

“I think yours will be online a bit sooner.”

“Honestly I do not yet know. I have received speculations only.”

“Alright then, let’s pull this back a bit. What can or should we go after in the next decade?”

“That will also depend on how many H’kar you have at your command. I hear more are coming by the day?”

“Their new commander is a legend to them, but to be honest he’s a glorified newb. I met with him once and he’s close to dying. No sense of training or strategy above and beyond tradition. He has made a few wise deviations, but he is not in our league.”

“They are regimented?”

“They fight like dumb brutes,” Paul said flatly. “But they’re slowly learning, and more are coming based solely on this commander’s reputation.”

“They have fought well in our raids.”

“They have not fought so well on their own borders, which is why they’re coming here. It’s also why Vedja came out of retirement to come here. He wants to kill lizards and finds his fleets are able to do so better under our command.”

“Curious.”

“Annoying. They are a very obtuse race, and without self-sufficiency they don’t live long enough to learn. If they were part of Star Force we could counter the problem, but as they are, they’re going to be lagging behind in the strategy department.”

“So long as you command them that is not a major concern.”

“Not for our purposes here, no.”

“Then let’s put them to use immediately along with what I have here.”

“Do you have a target in mind?”

“Nothing specific, but the longer we delay the stronger the enemy will become.”

“But we can’t provoke the counterstrike just yet. Not unless we can force it against the Sentinel line.”

“I was not thinking of anything so large.”

“Feel free to clue me in.”

“Just read my mind.”

“I’d prefer the map, if you don’t mind. I’ll brain raid only if we get stuck.”

“Terms accepted,” Cal-com said, with them striking a friendly deal going forward for how they’d handle the telepathic issue. Cal-com was too much of a warrior to expect Paul not to use it, and Paul was too respectful to use it on a whim. With the balance set they began moving forward with their planning, and within a week they had a basic strategy that Paul sent out over the network for the other trailblazers to chew on and improve.

Meanwhile Paul and Cal-com began theoretical planning deep into the future, exploring many options and scenarios as they plotted out the development of both of their empires and tried to intertwine them as much as possible to mutual advantage.

9

July 3, 2683

Nephla System (near to Achkor)

Neph

When the Voku warship/mini conglomerate emerged into planetary orbit it was immediately detected and the fleet of lizard cruisers that had been guarding the world for the past 9 months moved to engage quickly. Strong as the Voku were technologically, one large warship wasn’t going to be enough to beat the cruisers that were protecting the infantile colony on what had previously been a Skarron world. The lizards had recently moved in, eliminated the opposition, and were now devoting a significant amount of their smaller vessels to holding it.

They knew the Voku’s approximate strength, and sensing a mismatch they moved en mass towards it, intent on taking advantage of the opportunity while it existed, fully aware that there might be more ships nearby.

The Voku simply held their position in orbit not far from their jumppoint, waiting for the cruisers to come up to them. They were almost in plasma range when addition contacts began jumping in behind the Voku, with the green crystals that appeared opening fire immediately on the lizard ships with their sammies and burning into their shields with the constant topaz beams.

As the Dvapp warships continued to arrive more beams leapt out, touching targets and quickly getting through their shields to the hulls as four, five, six or beams would be attacking an individual ship at once. More and more green crystals appeared out of the jumppoint and flew forward, encircling the Voku ship that hadn’t moved nor engaged the enemy…and it wasn’t going to save for self-defense. It was armed but not here for the naval battle, rather carrying Voku ground troops for the forthcoming assault.

There were lizard incursions occurring all along the edge of the ADZ that stretched out to Achkor as they preyed upon weak Skarron worlds and others, with Star Force and the Voku countering them wherever they appeared within the new annex to the ADZ loosely termed the ‘Achkor Region.’ It had no firm boundaries like the ADZ, but rather stretched out beyond Beta Region to Achkor itself, from which there was a string of worlds being colonized to create a second defense line.

Some were uninhabited worlds, but many were formerly Skarron or now lizard colonies that were being removed. Nearly all of the Skarron worlds in the Achkor Region had now been reclaimed, but with the lizards creeping in it had been necessary to skip over the last few and start defining a border…as well as to knock down these small colonies before they could grow stronger or receive additional reinforcements.

With conflicts occurring on multiple battlefronts the Dvapp had volunteered to use their reconstituted fleet to take this one…with a little Voku assistance on the ground where they didn’t fare so well. The Dvapp would also be keeping this world for themselves and taking a place on the new border, plugging one hole out of many, but it was one that the major powers in the ADZ wouldn’t have to fill and an opportunity on the part of the Dvapp to start reclaiming their status after the nearly fatal losses their civilization had taken during the Skarron war.

That, and it was time for some payback against the lizards, who had done far more damage to the Dvapp than the Skarrons ever could.

And a good number of the Dvapp troops had lived through that time, seeing their empire diminished against a weapon they couldn’t counter, then the evacuation to the ADZ and their short lived regrowth before the Skarrons had nearly ended them. But now was different, both because the ADZ and their new homeworlds were now secure and the fact that Star Force’s alteration to their crystalline technology now made the lizards’ chemical weapon against them useless.

Not that these enemy ships were equipped with it anyway, but now that the Dvapp’s hulls wouldn’t melt under its infectious contamination the strength of their weaponry was more than enough to shred the enemy cruisers under sustained fire that they’d never been able to mount before given the presence of the chemical weapon.

The lizards weren’t stupid, but having no other options they fought the Dvapp head on while the single jumpship within the system ran, hoping to make it to the star and evacuate the system before it could be destroyed. The Dvapp let it go, more than happy that the cruisers were fighting them head on and giving them a chance to really lay out the damage. In a satisfying, one-sided beatdown the Dvapp fleet ran through the cruisers and claimed orbit, with a few jumping off to the star to make sure the lizards had actually left while the Voku ship moved down just above the atmosphere and began spewing pieces of itself down towards the planet.

Part of the Dvapp fleet followed them down, entering the atmosphere and heading for the shield plate that was protecting the single large lizard colony. There were several spurs already beginning to form, but they weren’t shielded and would make easy targets for the Voku who were coming down some distance around the perimeter. The Dvapp moved in directly over the colony, taking the first bits of overranged plasma fire as they settled into position and began stretching out their energy beams, multiple ones per ship, and pouring firepower down into the shield rather than trying to skirt under its exposed edges.

Slowly they drained it, with the lizards unable to get through the Dvapp shields given that the sammies far outranged their plasma weapons. Streams of wisps came up from the colony in an attempt to get at the warships but they were more or less impotent against the larger ships who all but ignored them as they continued to pound the colony’s shield until it finally fell and the shield tower in center was exposed.

That tower had secondary shields covering itself, but those didn’t hold up for more than a handful of seconds as dozens of beams targeted and burned through it, wrecking the tower and insuring that the shield plate would not go up again. The Dvapp could have stayed at range and sniped the lizard buildings from there, but instead they chose to move in and hit the defensive plasma batteries directly, suffering a little hull damage on a few ships whose shields went down but quickly establishing dominance over the air as their weaponry also ate through the wisp swarms when they finally turned their attention to them.

As those were thinned a scattering of Voku fighters moved in to mop up the rest as their mechs approached the colony’s edges and began working their way in, targeting key structures and ground troops that managed to survive long enough to get to them. The Dvapp were roasting everything that popped its head up within the colony, with none of the lizard tanks even able to get into position to fire on the Voku.

Along with their Stranom mechs came transports dropping three man teams at various points around the colony where they began chewing up the bits of infantry in the streets that the Dvapp had left alive and the masses still inside the buildings and underground passageways. They knew their job was to be scouts/hunters, seeking out the enemy and destroying what they could while Dvapp troops would follow them in…and were even now starting to flow out of two low flying transports that bathed the yellow/tan buildings in a slight red glow from their hull crystal.

Barely 10 meters off the ground, white globs of liquid dropped out as if the ship was a giant, red leaky bucket and splattered on the streets and rooftops. Those splatters quickly pulled themselves together into a variety of shapes and grouped up, some traveling the streets as long snakes, others moving in arcs, taking one ‘footstep’ at a time while constantly flipping one end of their body tube over the other, while still others went bipedal and pounded their way forward, tracking down the Voku beacons and closing in on the larger lizard formations that they weren’t confident they could take alone.

This was the first time the Dvapp and Voku had worked together, but both races had plenty of experience fighting the lizards and knew the danger they posed even in a huge mismatch such as this. With the Dvapp relying on the Voku to sniff out ambushes, explosives, and other potential dangers, the amorphous crystals cleared building after building and level after level, creating a perimeter around various structures then calling in pinpoint fire from their warships floating overhead, more often than not to cut passageways down into the understructure where the lizards hadn’t planned on defending from, but also to destroy buildings so the lizards wouldn’t have positions to fall back to and so the Dvapp wouldn’t have to waste troops placing guards on them.

Given that this wasn’t a raid and the Dvapp intended to keep the planet they had to make sure every lizard was destroyed and they didn’t intend to leave the city standing. That said, they preferred to search it while it was still mostly intact, though it was a common sight for the Voku to see several warships in the sky nearby blasting specific sections into powdery rubble that was sending up debris clouds that the ships were containing with energy shields and shunting skyward to keep them from hindering the troops on the ground.

Jas-mek was one of those Voku, operating as the ‘Hammer’ in his trio as they flushed out the lizards from one of their tank bays. It was empty but intact, with a plethora of equipment that gave the enemy lots of cover to either ambush from or hide within. With their intricate shield generators protecting their otherwise armorless bodies, Jas-mek followed his two skirmishers in, leaving the sight of the overhead warships behind, and began flushing out the lizards from what the Voku guessed were their typical hiding spots.

They were sneaky, but they tended to think alike and Jas-mek had a pretty good idea where to look as his fellow Voku led him to the spots he would have picked first off had he been in the lead. That wasn’t his job here, and as one of his skirmishers directed him to a particular spot he activated his chest-mounted dwio and fired a small orb of red/pink oscillating energy across the floor and caused it to curve hard right, swinging around the corner of a large piece of machinery and disappearing from view for a split second before exploding and throwing debris and lizard bodies out everywhere.

His two skirmishers jumped in from different angles, finishing off the other lizards that were left alive as he heard commotion back at the entrance and turned to see several dozen Dvapp arriving. He signaled to them with a set of predetermined motions, given that neither spoke each other’s language and they didn’t have time for computer translations.

They got the message and moved off to the positions he indicated as the skirmishers likewise transitioned on, identifying a few more ambushes waiting for them, either by scouting them out or drawing their fire. With the Dvapp present the Voku trio were able to be a bit more aggressive and pressed their search faster, often using their odd allies to finish off the lizards while they just went around busting up their formations.

Once that building was cleared they moved to an adjacent other, then three more before Jas-mek saw the sky again with more conical clouds rising up marking the place where the Dvapp were already remodeling. He appreciated that efficiency, for the quicker this world was rid of the lizards and their infrastructure the sooner it would begin growing into an allied stronghold, with the Dvapp having promised to reinforce it heavily.

That would be one less point in Achkor’s area where the Voku would have to patrol, which was the main motivation for Jas-mek to be here. The more he could assist the lesser races in taking and securing worlds the less drain there would be on Voku resources babysitting them. His fleet had held this region secure for a long time, locking down and containing the Skarrons here and elsewhere while withering them away with diminished or sometimes completely cut off supply lines, forcing them to either die or produce enough resources to sustain themselves.

That wasn’t the type of task Jas-mek preferred, with him being forced into naval duty far too often. He and the others would do whatever was necessary, but he much preferred being on the ground fighting the enemy, whoever they were, in hand to hand, racking up kills and taking territory. Today he was doing that, even if the Voku weren’t going to keep this planet. Word was once this area was secured they’d be moving on to more proper assaults that would result in actual territorial gains as the Voku spread out from Achkor and firmly cemented their hold in this part of the galaxy.

For a long time the Voku had been fighting defensive wars, important enough, but there hadn’t been a grand push for anything of consequence. With Jas-mek liking to fight on the ground he was content with one battle at a time, no matter where it was, but when he could sit back and look at the big picture he hadn’t seen any goal in play, only never-ending defense.

Now that had changed, with the newly minted Dafchor setting the Voku on what was rumored to be a nearly impossible agenda…which was exactly the kind Jas-mek liked, not to mention the rumors of a massive expansion of their empire. He didn’t know how it all fit together but knew it was more than just rumor. The Voku were on the move again, with a purpose, and even if Jas-mek didn’t know what it was yet, just knowing that there was one was enough for him. He wanted a grand conquest to work for, and the faster they got through helping the locals tidy up here and elsewhere around Achkor the sooner they’d be free to move on to securing their own gains.

For the Dvapp this was their grand crusade, and a world that they were taking from the enemy rather than being given out of charity by Star Force. They liked and appreciated their ally very much, for they had literally saved them from annihilation twice, as well as giving them the fix to their chemical weapon vulnerability, but there was just something missing for a race like the Dvapp if they weren’t able to stand on their own merits.

It was true they had taken a lot of blows by the Skarrons in order to shield Star Force and their allies, but those were still losses. This was different because they were on the upswing and winning, heavily, in this battle. The Voku were here to assist, so it wasn’t entirely a Dvapp affair, but the responsibility for securing this world after the Voku left would be entirely theirs and any reprisals by the lizards or Skarrons would be theirs alone to handle.

And after that, when they’d built the planet up considerably, they’d begin patrolling the surrounding systems, establishing a small footprint similar to what the Voku had done. This system was their piece of the gigantic puzzle and as pride had it the Dvapp were going to own it in every way, shape, and form…with the chance to fight and kick the crap out of the lizards being a sweet payback that was long in coming.

It wouldn’t be the last, for the Dvapp were staking out their spot on the new front lines, with many more conflicts to come in the following years as the lizards further consolidated their growing conquest of the Skarron systems around the ADZ.

10

August 17, 2687

Zeta Region

Mid Jump

Vedja was in his personal quarters onboard his flagship and had been there for several days, moving as little as he could for his joints were paining him terribly. When H’kar neared the end of their life one of three things typically happened…their carapaces weakened to the point of cracking, their digestive systems malfunctioned and began to leak acid into the rest of their body, or their carapaces overhardened, extending their firmness into tissue where it didn’t belong.

The elderly H’kar was experiencing the latter, barely able to move without extreme effort and pain. He only came to the command deck when battle was imminent, and ever since this recent campaign had concluded he’d become a recluse, with all food and other sustenance being brought to him by a single aide. The rest of the crew didn’t have access to him, nor did Vedja want them to. Right now the only thing he was holding onto was his duty, and with his fleet on a return trip to Loki with a host of Li’vorkrachnika kills to add to their already impressive totals he had nothing to do but review battle data and wait for the next opportunity to be of value.

But he wouldn’t make it back to the Star Force core worlds. Forcing himself out of his unrestful sleep he slowly walked across his quarters, pushing through movements that felt like he was lifting weights given the resistance in his joints as he headed to the adjacent chamber to relieve himself. He wasn’t so far gone that he’d become completely sessile and was determined never to be, with him putting as much effort as required to make the short walk to where he could properly empty his internal bladder…which for a H’kar couldn’t expand much given the rigid volume of their bodies.

Vedja made it halfway there when he felt something inside him snap. A few moments later his vision blurred and he lost consciousness, then a few minutes later he was dead…but standing in place, for without the effort of his muscles his stiffened joints held him still like a statue that his aide would discover several hours later.

When the younger H’kar entered the elder’s quarters and found him frozen in place he knew immediately that he was gone, but did the various biological checks to be certain. Before he informed the captain of the dreadnaught he walked over to a storage compartment that Vedja had instructed him to open on the occasion of his death, for inside it contained his final orders.

The aide pulled out the small data storage device and quietly input it into a nearby reader, seeing a mass of text as well as visual records. He sorted through them, for they were itemized in great detail, even as the statue corpse seemed to look over his shoulder as he did so. It didn’t take long for the aide to find the order meant for him and read it through thoroughly, for it was simple text only.

Complying with his orders he took the data device with him and immediately had it copied, securing several in device form and hiding them away within the ship before taking one to the Captain and informing him of what had occurred.

That conversation occurred on a lightly staffed command deck, for mid jump there was little to do but the Captain preferred to remain there when on duty. There was no surprise when he revealed Vedja’s death, for they had known it was coming for a while now. There was only a deep sadness and resignation, knowing the loss that the H’kar had just suffered. Within the orders was one directed specifically to the Captain and the aide referred him to it, then left the rest of the assigned task in his hands, for now his only job was to preserve copies to insure that they did not become ‘lost’ in the coming days.

There was no risk of that occurring on the dreadnaught, for the crew were fiercely loyal to Vedja. The Captain immediately read through the order specified for him, then had the crew carefully preserve the elder’s body in a stasis pod that was put into storage until they arrived back at their ever growing colony on Loki. It was then when the H’kar were informed of Vedja’s passing and the Captain met with the other H’kar commanders on the moon. They went through his final orders, which were many…some not to take effect for years to come, but sending a message via courier ship back to their empire was the first priority.

That message was not going back to the Royals, however. It was going to Vedja’s former students, many of which held high positions within the military and who had supported his move to the ADZ. They had to be informed first, so as to prepare themselves for what Vedja assumed would follow news of his passing reaching the empire at large.

Gavra received his message first, via a specialized courier ship sent directly to him. His portion of the orders, of which he got a complete copy, were extensive. Vedja did not want a recall from the joint Star Force mission...in fact he wanted escalation and, if his predictions were valid, a backdoor assault on the Li’vorkrachnika invading the H’kar’s assigned Nexus territory. Gavra didn’t understand at first, then it finally clicked that he wanted to turn Star Force’s territory into the primary warfront.

That was not going to go over well, for the idea of fighting through the full length of enemy territory in order to get back to H’kar space was ludicrous. They couldn’t even defend their own region, how then were they expected to fight through the thickest and strongest Li’vorkrachnika colonies?

But Vedja had a plan for that as well, and after the third read through Gavra reluctantly agreed with his former master…though he knew the Royals would never go through with it. It put primary emphasis on aiding Star Force and defeating the enemy through them while basically abandoning their Nexus mandate to protect their assigned territory. On the face of it there was no possible way to convince others of the wisdom hidden within the order, even with the numbers that Vedja provided. Gavra knew their significance, but others would not.

The H’kar fleet, under Vedja’s command, was killing so many enemy ships that they dare not assign them anywhere else. They were actively pushing the Li’vorkrachnika back in several areas and raiding even more systems deeper into enemy territory, racking up results that the H’kar had never come close to matching throughout the entire history of their losing war.

Vedja was adamant in his final orders that victory could be achieved in a joint venture with Star Force and their assembled allies, with or without other Nexus support, and his master implored his former students to find a way to make it happen. For so long victory hadn’t been more than a foolish notion for the H’kar, who were so decimated and demoralized that, even when they received Nexus membership, only hoped to survive and hold the enemy back.

Victory was what Vedja and others had long sought and never achieved, so even a whiff of that sentiment from his old master put Gavra into a state of anxiety…for he knew that the Royals would never allow them to do what was needed, but that if they had such a chance they could not let it pass by and allow their enemy to continue to grow stronger.

Fortunately Vedja had also included several contingency plans, with one that seemed to fit the circumstance.

But this wasn’t something that Gavra could do alone, so he immediately sent out messages to Vedja’s other supporters informing them to gather at a rendezvous point so they could discuss matters amongst themselves. Once the messages were sent the H’kar departed on a ship of his own, traveling to the secret summit even as Vedja’s messages began to arrive at the others.

Slowly his followers began to assemble and take action, whereas before they’d been spectators reading the reports coming back from the ADZ. Now it was up to them, and they agreed that they would do whatever was necessary to give the H’kar a chance at true victory and honor Vedja’s last orders, impossible as they were.

They considered keeping his death a secret from the empire, but knew that word would eventually leak out or his absence would be noted indirectly no matter how close a charade they concocted. It was also noted that such a deception could backfire, so they decided to go with the polar opposite and make his death public knowledge…but with a political push going along with it.

It was many months later when Vedja’s body eventually returned to the empire, escorted by a massive honor guard fleet that grew in number as it began a long ceremonial tour of each and every H’kar world. With his body came the open publication of some of his final orders, with Vedja’s students loudly declaring that they would be followed and trying to preempt the Royals from making any decisions to the contrary.

That built backlash that was contained but brewing, with the Royals being patient but ready to begin removing Vedja’s supporters now that he was gone, one by one if necessary to keep the empire calm and secure, but they had no intention of letting this presumptuous faction gain defacto control.

That was until they began getting reports back of the reaction that the ceremonial tour was having on the worlds Vedja’s remains were visiting…as well as the promise that victory was possible, followed up with the legend’s last orders and predictions detailing what he thought would happen if they were implemented.

The ground swell of support broke all expectations and eventually became fervor, with the empire having been subconsciously waiting for the seed of hope to grasp onto. The Nexus had once been that hope, but with the stalemate that it brought that hope had faded, with it seeming that no matter what the H’kar did they would never be able to defeat the Li’vorkrachnika. For if even with Nexus support they could only survive and not push the enemy back, with them being fated to be survivors at best and never victors.

The combination of that lingering bitterness, the gravity of Vedja’s death, and his assertion that there was a way to win hit every world the honor guard visited like a storm, reawakening belief in even the most ardent doubters when they saw that the legend had not only promised a possibility of victory, but had laid out a battle plan…his last contribution to the H’kar…of what exactly they had to do to achieve it.

When word reached the Royals they went into a panic, for there was no resisting this patriotic uprising. They immediately sought a way to steer it off course or to put it to their own use, but with Vedja having laid out in detail what had to happen, and his former students making sure there was no misinterpretation allowed, there was no way to stop the uprising short of instigating a civil war.

That possibility was considered as a necessary step in order to maintain control, but the Royals’ military advisors pointed out that such a drastic step would have cataclysmic effects on the empire…not to mention the fact that most of the military would probably side with the patriots and the Royals would end up losing their power in a full-fledged revolution.

For a long time the Royals were publically silent, watching the ceremonial procession moving from planet to planet and gaining supporters with each transition. When it finally culminated at their homeworld they’d seen the writing on the wall and had arranged to back the supporters, organizing and funding a much larger ceremony as Vedja’s body was brought to its final resting place

That place was a new monument built in the center of the capitol city, with several very important buildings being leveled to create the artificial plain amongst the chaos of the tightly packed infrastructure. In the center of that 6 kilometer-wide plain was a single structure…a narrow spire that reached up higher than any other object within the city, seeming to defy the parameters of physics.

The ‘sky needle’ had at its base a single interior room that held Vedja’s preserved corpse, still locked into the rigid position of his death, and surrounded with the enshrined orders that he had left for the H’kar so that anyone visiting the monument could look upon him and receive the orders personally, with an endless line of visitors forming outside and stretching back into the city.

That line would exist for years to come without a break, and the site became the central rallying point within H’kar society. The sky needle was the symbolic spear that would be sent into the heart of their enemy, delivering them their long awaited retribution against the Li’vorkrachnika. Eventually the buildings surrounding the monument would be reconstructed to service the site and the pilgrimages being made to visit it. Whatever small hope that the Royals initially had of their being able to wait out the fervor and return the empire’s future into their hands withered away as the public demanded reports of what was happening in the joint operations with Star Force.

Those reports became the most important and scrutinized news within H’kar society, and as the resources and ships continued to flow out to the distant empire the impressive results only got better, showing to everyone that the Li’vorkrachnika could in fact be beaten and the H’kar learning in detail just how it was being done…with Star Force becoming revered second only to Vedja himself.

Hope was powerful enough, but give people actual results and their hope quickly became belief, then belief became confidence as the list of star systems being reclaimed from the Li’vorkrachnika began to grow. That list was eventually displayed at the monument in the form of small pedestals, with each conquest labeled and arranged in a rough map of enemy space around the sky needle.

The trend caught on, with each addition pumping more adrenaline into the H’kar…with someone even going so far as to paint the spot where the pedestal for the original H’kar homeworld would go should they ever get that far.

The mark hadn’t been official, just some hopeful graffiti added by an overzealous citizen, but the thought of one day returning and reclaiming their old worlds spread like wildfire throughout the H’kar, with even the Royals genuinely getting onboard with the idea and fully setting their entire civilization towards that goal, despite the fact that Star Force was nowhere near to them and was in fact on the other side of the Li’vorkrachnika core worlds.

That didn’t matter to the H’kar, for even if they were inching their way forward they now saw a way to one day reclaim what was lost to them, and even if they didn’t live to see it happen they were committed to doing their part in the here and now to make it happen for their descendants…with their legend leaving them the blueprints for how to do it.

And it was those final orders from Vedja that ultimately transformed H’kar society, for prior to them the H’kar were always the one that carried the battles. They were the focal point, the strong arm that did the heavy lifting and took on the biggest battles…but Vedja had made it clear that they couldn’t beat the enemy on their own merits, nor could they lead others to victory. No, the ultimate victory over the Li’vorkrachnika was rooted in the H’kar becoming a support empire and their doing all the auxiliary tasks that they had previously ignored out of a mix of tradition and arrogance.

But that no longer was the case, with their pride now rooted in supporting Star Force.

Vedja had said that given enough backing the Human-led empire would one day, in the distant future, lead the H’kar to ultimate victory…and with the initial results seeming to confirm his predictions the H’kar went all-in in their new role, with the single focus of their civilization becoming the reclamation of their true homeworld, and them no longer settling for mere survivor or anything less than full and final retribution.

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Table of Contents

Upgrades

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Probe

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Consensus

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Relocation

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Battlemeld

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Excursion

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Axius

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Veracious

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Penance

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Evacuation

- 2
- 3
- . 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Sav

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Survivor

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Backdoor

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Bloodlust

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Internecine

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Liberation

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Nexus

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Empire

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Shame

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

Retribution

- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10