Star Force: 81-84
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Science Fiction & Fantasy; Colonization; Dystopian; Galactic Empire; High Tech; Military; Space Fleet; 90 Minutes (44-64 Pages); Literature & Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Adventure; Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages); Action & Adventure; Space Opera; Genre Fiction; War; Health; Fitness & Dieting; Exercise & Fitness; Yoga; War & Military; Space Marine; Teen & Young Adult; Star Force
Description: Anthology containing: Star Force: 81-84
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

1

May 19, 3101

Shangri-La System (Cygnus Arm)

Inner Zone

Count Jeyron stood on the bridge of the Mammoth-class cargo ship that he’d spent the last 2 years and four months on, for the most part, as this supply convoy of 284 jumpships made its way up the tether from the ADZ. They’d stopped off at a few ports along the way…Lothlorien, Mandalore, Dakara…but most of the breadcrumbs of systems leading out from the ADZ and into the Perseus galactic Arm they’d skipped over, either flying through them or bypassing those star systems entirely.

They weren’t all arrayed on a straight line, meant rather to be quiet outposts that most people wouldn’t notice. They weren’t a secret to the locals, but there was no map in the ADZ that had them included, save for the ones the Archons and the Monarchs had, and up until he’d been assigned this mission by Davis he hadn’t even known about the Tether’s existence. He’d been a Baron for some 83 years without hearing so much as a whiff of a rumor, which he attributed to the Director’s ability to keep secrets…and this one was a doozy.

Star Force had quietly stretched a string of oases across the local Orion arm and into The Nexus’s domain, then hopscotched across it with even greater distances between Tether outposts. They’d actually established a link across the entire Nexus, through the Perseus Arm, and out into the very big Cygnus Arm that made up the fat edge of the galaxy.

Cygnus was more than twice the width of the Orion Arm and even bigger than Perseus. It stretched out through thick star clusters and technically even contained the much thinner dispersion of stars that bled off into the galactic void. There was no fixed edge to the galaxy, and those border systems were technically still part of it, though their relative location to each other would make travel impossible unless you had very strong and accurate gravity drives.

Star Force hadn’t made it out there, not even close yet, but the fact that they had not only left the Orion Arm but were all the way out in Cygnus had astonished Jeyron when he’d been let in on the secret, along with the destination system that they’d recently colonized that he was going to be tasked with grooming and growing even further.

Then the bombshell of the V’kit’no’sat had been dropped on him and suddenly Star Force’s history and actions up until this point had crystalized into understanding and trepidation. If the dinosaurs ever came back they’d wipe Star Force out, not quickly, but assuredly. Meaning that unless they wanted to die when that happened they’d need someplace to retreat to that was off the V’kit’no’sat maps.

The system that the Count was looking at now was one of those systems. The primary, as it was now. It wasn’t part of the Tether so much as it was the first of the new territory that Star Force had built the Tether to connect the ADZ with. The goal had always been to reach Cygnus, and now that they had they’d been doing more reconnaissance and scouting missions than they’d done before establishing that line of breadcrumbs across the galaxy. They’d essentially mapped a corridor out here, now they were doing a much more thorough survey of this region.

Which was still a drop in the bucket compared to how much raw territory there was. The Nexus had no public maps with information this far out, and Star Force hadn’t made contact with any of the local races so they were essentially flying blind as they sent out hundreds of scouting missions to add to their map while looking for a place to put down their first permanent colony.

Not that the breadcrumbs weren’t permanent, but they were never intended to be built up as large or as fast as the primaries. If Star Force lost its industrial muscle on Earth and the ADZ entirely, it was going to need something to fall back on for ship production. And small yards weren’t going to cut it.

Luckily Star Force had quickly stumbled onto a region that was virtually uninhabited. For all they knew it bordered a major power that they’d end up being enemies with, but right now it was essentially a dead zone full of systems but no races that could leave their own worlds. Nearly all of the systems were uninhabited and they were continuing their mapping missions to expand the perimeter of that area…in which Shangri-La had been found.

That was the name given to it upon discovery, and even while the mapping expeditions hadn’t progressed as far out as he and even the Director would have liked yet, they knew they could not pass on this system. They’d colonized it like the Tether systems immediately, then had been sending additional support to further build it up to a manageable starting point. An Archon had been in charge thus far, but now there were enough pieces in play to warrant a Monarch be sent to put down the firm roots that the Director wanted, and Jeyron had been his choice.

With the promotion to Count he’d been sent out here along with another supply convoy, taking the long road that bypassed The Nexus’s transport grid. They’d used traditional grav jumps between stars and a handful of black holes, following the trail blazed by others until they’d arrived at this destination point moments ago with the map being updated with current sensor readings and transmissions from the limited infrastructure already in place.

That gave them laggy connection to the battlemap, but it instantly filled up with new facilities built in both orbit and on the ground of the single planet that had been colonized…out of 306 total, not counting moons. Of those 306 planets situated around a giant white star, 57 of them were habitable and 16 marginal. The rest were airless but none the less had good amounts of gravity, including a few that topped 2g. That meant there was a wealth of raw materials buried in them, not to mention the fact that Star Force didn’t need atmospheres to colonize planets.

This one system was the equivalent of dozens, if not hundreds of others back in the ADZ, all confined into orbits around a single star. This was where Star Force had to put down roots, and it wouldn’t need to look beyond this location for some time, for there was plenty of worlds right here to build up to a level that even Sol or Epsilon Eridani couldn’t begin to reach.

But that was far down the road. This system had potential…and that was about it right now. The colony had a population of 394,000 prior to this convoy arriving, which would add another 126,000. Not the smallest starting point in Star Force history, but without even a million people to work with this was considerably smaller than Jeyron’s last assignment.

Though his mandate here was far bigger than anything back in the ADZ and he had to make it work, for literally everyone’s lives could be riding on it someday in the future. Shangri-La was to be the invisible backup to the ADZ, and right now it could barely throw spitwads militarily. He was going to have to change that, and do it almost entirely with local resources. More convoys would be coming regularly, but with the massive distance involved both he and Davis knew this had to be an independent operation. The convoys were just a shot in the arm to get the process started. After that Jeyron would be the lone Monarch out here, with orders to build an empire within a single star system…the most important star system on the Star Force maps.

He’d asked the Director why a Duke wasn’t assigned, and he said that if Jeyron was able to pull this off he would have gained the experience and skills necessary to warrant that title. So he had assigned a Duke to this, in the sense that this is what it took to become one aside from going through the Clans, but he also pointed out the fact that managing such a small colony at this point would be a waste of a Duke’s skills. They were needed on much larger fronts organizing existing infrastructure and populations, not building new ones from scratch.

And right now, seeing the updates flowing in via the battlemap transmissions, he heartily agreed. For there was nothing here worth mentioning.

A single city had been established on planet A, which hadn’t even been assigned a name yet. The city itself was more than just a startup and had been here a while, so he was glad he didn’t have to start entirely from scratch, but there were only a few auxiliaries on this planet and a few other locations around the system. Mining sites and such, without even the smallest of shipyards having been built yet.

That was like a gut punch to a Monarch, for without a shipyard you might as well have been back in the Stone Age. He’d hoped the Archon in charge would have built, or at least started to build one by the time Jeyron got here, but no such site was being listed on the battlemap…though there was a large new section of the city on planet A that hadn’t been there before.

Jeyron used a console to zoom in on that area as the ship continued to soak up more battlemap signals across the system-wide lag…which would be even worse considering the size of that star’s gravity well. Planets orbited at distances that would have put them outside other star systems, giving this one a very large volume of space to move around within. Fortunately the battlemap signals were constantly transmitting, though he wouldn’t be able to retrieve specific information without querying for it and that would require and out and back from the comms systems.

But right now he had position and status data on every facility and ship, noting a decent grouping of military vessels in orbit of the planet. 6 Warship-class jumpships full of drones were already here, with another two having arrived in this convoy. They would have absolutely nothing to do in this deserted region of the Cygnus arm, if the scouting reports held true, but there was no way Davis was going to let this system be established without immediate defenses.

The Archons he was bringing with him told him that it wasn’t a big deal so long as they had a sanctum to train in. Boredom didn’t exist for them, and a lack of missions and fighting just meant more time to increase their skills. That was a very positive spin on it, and in their case he actually believed them, based on his somewhat limited knowledge of Archon customs and culture, but the fact was this was out in the middle of nowhere so far away from home that they were essentially lost in space save for a few convoys coming now and then.

But that’s why a Monarch had been assigned. Operating independently was what they were good at. And if he really was going to someday warrant the Duke’s title he was going to have to prove it here first…and by the time he did this system would no longer be nowhere. It’d be somewhere, the somewhere in Cygnus, from which everything else in this doomsday territorial expansion would flow.

The cargo ship he was riding on sat in stellar orbit and waited for the rest of the convoy to arrive before they transitioned over to planet A…which would be getting a new name as soon as Jeyron got around to it. He wanted something special, so he was going to wait and give it some thought. He should have been doing that on the trip out but he’d expected someone to have assigned one by now and he hadn’t planned on undoing whatever moniker it had already gotten.

But it seemed that this system was an entirely blank slate for him to get around to naming. One of the few perks that was usually reserved for mapping expeditions or Archons, and he had a whole list of planets here that he got to label as he liked.

Putting that on his eventual to-do list, Jeyron stayed on the bridge and got a better view of planet A when they microjumped into orbit. He’d seen records of it previously, but watching it here in realtime was an entirely different experience. This was live, not some data file, and if he didn’t do his job everyone out here could be put into jeopardy. Not because he was indispensable, obviously. This colony had gotten along fine without him to this point, but taking it forward was his responsibility and there was no way of knowing when someone out here might come sniffing around and find them.

And if they were a superpower like The Nexus, well, Jeyron would have little to defend this system with…and the number of planets alone would be reason enough for someone to take it from them if they found it.

Calling for help would be pointless, for they’d be dead before a message could make its way back to the ADZ. No, the defense of this system would lay, for the moment, in the Archons and warships sent here to watch over it, but in the long run it would come down to what defenses and ships that Jeyron could build from local resources. Archons would come from the Earth and always would, but commandos, naval officers, pilots, techs, etc could be ‘grown’ locally out of the population. Maturias would be established and freedom of movement would be retained via the sporadic convoys, so no one would be stuck here if they truly wanted to leave…but by the same note volunteers would still be coming in to supplement this system’s population.

Fast forward centuries and you’d have a large enough population that you’d see people staying here rather than leaving, meaning that this little piece of the Star Force empire was going to be almost entirely self-contained, and it was up to Jeyron to design, build, and manage it. That was a monstrous task and one that he was kind of glad was going to take a while, because he was going to have to learn as he went, as all Monarchs did, though the Director had given him some notes for him to make use of going forward. Notes from Davis himself that he’d compiled over the years that Jeyron had virtually memorized on the trip out here.

“Count, there’s an incoming message for you,” Captain Jihadia said, startling Jeyron out of his daze.

“Go ahead and put it on the main display. It can’t be my mistress all the way out here,” he said with a sarcastic wink.

Jihadia snorted a quick laugh, then the holographic image of an Archon striker appeared out of armor, but with the telltale identification stripe on his uniform that Jeyron could just barely make out.

“Welcome to Shangri-La, Count Jeyron,” the man said with a polite bow.

“Klevin, I presume?”

“I am. I’ve gotten this system up and running, but it needs a Monarch’s touch and I’m glad you’re finally here.”

“Situation report?”

“Still empty space around us. Scouting teams have found a few more native civilizations, all pre-grav drive tech. If there are any significant powers out here they’re not right on our doorstep.”

Jeyron visibly sighed. “That’s a relief.”

“Quite so.”

The Count winced, trying to find a non-accusing way of asking this. “I didn’t notice any shipyard construction yet?”

“Priorities,” the Archon said apologetically. “Getting the base industry established was more important, thus I had resources focused on giving you as many building blocks as possible. We’ve got enough ships at the moment, so a full shipyard was unnecessary.”

“Support craft?”

“Dropships are being built in a surface shop within the city.”

“Ah,” Jeyron said with some pleasure. So they hadn’t built a proper shipyard, but they did have a tiny one for the smaller craft up and running. That was most welcome news. “I had hoped for as much. I trust I can leave the security of the system in your hands while I get to work?”

“Always. We’ll watch your back while you build.”

“If so much as a piece of debris floats within 10 lightyears of this system I want to know immediately, I just don’t want to make a habit of checking surveillance reports myself.”

“I’ll make you aware of anything that pops up, but thus far it’s pretty dead out here.”

“I hope for our sake it stays that way. I can’t turn this place into Epsilon Eridani overnight.”

“I’ll give you a week.”

“Gracious of you,” the Count replied with equal sarcasm. “Though I suppose I should also inform you now that a detachment from Clan Sangheili is within the convoy. They have orders to establish a separate presence here, a pure startup of their own. I don’t know where that leaves your chain of command.”

“Sangheili? Interesting, but not a problem. I’d been told you were in full command?”

“I am, but you know how the Clans like to do their own thing.”

“And Sangheili likes to be the first to jump the gun whenever possible,” the Archon said with some chagrin.

“And you are what Clan?”

“Clan Joanna. The rest of the Archons here are a mix with no official Clan function on this mission. May I ask who made the addition?”

“The Director added it at the last minute before we left.”

“Well then, no arguing that. He must have something good in mind.”

“He always does. They have a padawan with them. Will she take lead or will you retain it? I can work either way, I just didn’t want to make assumptions.”

“A padawan? No mage?”

“No, but she’s already completed her apprenticeship.”

“Baby mage then,” Klevin mewed. “If her duties are Clan specific then I’ll maintain operational command. If not we’ll figure it out. We don’t actually bicker about that sort of thing.”

“Arm wrestle?”

“No,” the Archon said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m glad there’s someone here now that’s stronger than me. It’ll give me a challenging sparring partner.”

“If anyone other than an Archon said that I’d assume it was innuendo, but with you guys I know better.”

The Archon smiled. “Sorry, Count. We won’t be helping you boost the population numbers…though others are doing an admirable job of it right now.”

“A population surge request?”

“No, I gave none. They’ve volunteered themselves to it.”

Jeyron cringed. “It’s that boring out here, isn’t it?”

“I can’t speak to that. My work is essentially the same everywhere I go.”

“Diminished workforce?” Jeyron asked, knowing that if a lot of the female population were pregnant they’d be incapacitated for at least a short period of time.

“Yes, but nothing too worrisome. Filling out the maturias sooner rather than later seemed more prudent, so I didn’t interfere. Most of the women are being responsible about it and taking breaks in between pregnancies, so we’re not losing whole chunks of population. They’re coordinating an alteration pattern on their own.”

“Wise of them.”

“They’re Star Force. Should you expect less?”

“Perhaps not, but I’m also used to dealing with raw civilians who are less…insightful in their mating habits.”

“We don’t have any raw civilians out here…save for the younglings.”

“How far along is the first maturia?”

“They’re 8 years old.”

The Count nodded. “A good start then.”

“I assume I can officially relinquish master builder activities?”

Jeyron smiled. “I officially relieve you, Archon. You can get back to full training now.”

Klevin bowed gratefully. “Much appreciated. I’ll meet you at the spaceport when you land and give you a proper tour.”

“Looking forward to it,” the Count said as the transmission cut off…then he noticed the Captain giving him an odd look. “What?”

“Mating habits?”

“Sounds more professional than fucking.”

“Sounds like something you shouldn’t need to worry about.”

The Count shrugged. “Population statistics are something we have to keep our eye on.”

“Is that what your interest in me has been then?”

“Unless your trim figure is somehow hiding it, I don’t think you’ve chosen to go that route, so the answer is no. This trip has been unbelievably boring and you’re the one thing that has made it bearable, so thank you for that, Captain. I don’t know how you crewers handle these doldrums on a regular basis.”

“Some of us prefer solitudes, and the Archons don’t seem to have your boredom problem.”

“Training is useful, but for a Monarch we need to be active in a practical way.”

“So ‘mating’ with me was just to keep you busy?” she asked with a rueful smile.

“Busy no. Break up the boredom occasionally…yes.”

“How flattering,” she said, neither offended or amused. “It seems you’ll have a lot more prospects to keep your attention down in the colony.”

“Afraid not. I’m going to be too busy doing real work. I only let myself relax when I have nothing else to do.”

“So now I’m ‘relaxation?’ A promotion of sorts, I’d imagine.”

“And I was?” the Count asked, curious.

“A feather in the cap,” she said honestly. “Never bagged a Monarch before,” she said with a devious smile.

Jeyron made a ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ sound as he slowly shook his head, looking at her petite and trim figure as she sat in her Captain’s chair. “Oh the perks this job would have if only I were corrupt.”

“Which is why Monarchs are virtually impossible to nail. You’re quite the score for me.”

“If that’s what alleviates your boredom,” he said as he stood up and made ready to leave the bridge and the ship. “Have a dropship readied. I’ll be taking my leave of you and your ship now. Make sure to keep that feather properly fluffed and cockily displayed.”

“It’s been a pleasure,” she said honestly.

“Likewise, Captain. Likewise,” the Count said, leaving the bridge to gather his belongings and head down to his new planet that the cargo fleet would be departing as soon as it had unloaded.

Another bridge crewer threw the Captain a glance after the Count had left. “He doesn’t know about the scoreboard?” she asked.

Jihadia shook her head. “No. I took it down before I plucked that feather. It’s going back up as soon as he’s gone.”

The crew member smiled. “A Monarch, huh? Didn’t think any of us would actually get one of those. They’re as hard as getting an Archon.”

“Archons are impossible,” the Captain stated flatly. “Anyone who claims to have done one of them is lying.”

“What if they did them before they became an Archon?”

Jihadia looked at her navigational officer, not ever having considered that possibility before. “Technically that wouldn’t count as an Archon, but it’d still be scoreboard worthy.”

2

March 31, 3102

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Tavarini reached down with his armored mandibles and picked up yet another lizard body, throwing it over the railing to the pile below to clear the small area of cover behind a bulkhead on the walkway the Bsidd were holding. The last assault had nearly choked them out, leaving them with too many bodies and not enough room to put them. The next wave would be on them any second and he needed to get behind cover as much as possible, hence he and the others were chucking the warm corpses wherever they could.

The walkway they were on was small, barely 8 meters wide, but it had a lot of nooks and openings into other areas, with a railing beside the bulkhead that opened to another larger promenade below. It didn’t connect to the upper level directly, and this damn lizard shipyard ring was a maze of connecting tunnels, ramps, and ladders. Almost all of the fighting was being conducted in small groups at extreme close range, with the lizards literally crowding out every available open space with a flood of bodies running at you and firing at pointblank range.

Their rifles and pistols were annoying, but it was the det packs that were the biggest concern. They’d cornered many Bsidd over the past two months and blasted through their armor. A handful had died, but most had to be evacuated with mangled bodies. This type of fighting was different than he was used to, but at least the lizards couldn’t throw hundreds of phaser shots against your shields at once…but the downside was that you didn’t have anywhere to run when one of the little bomb carriers found his way through the others and ran up in your face.

Hence every square meter of clear floor was precious, and as he grabbed another lizard body…or rather the upper half of one that had been cut in two with a plasma rod…he chucked it over the side ignoring the blood splatters on his armor. His shields were down on his mandibles for the moment, and the purple battle plates were already covered in lizard gore. It was something he’d gotten used to, barely even noticing now as his mind was focused on the next engagement.

A ping on his battlemap told him that was going to be on them soon enough. Star Force had already managed to conquer and secure a small slice of the shipyard ring, but they were having to defend it on both sides across miles of interior terrain, both up and down, as the lizards poured combat troops up the elevator shafts from the planet’s surface and continued to send them against the invading troops.

The promenade below was a battleground that had already been fought on and won, with the entrances, the main ones anyway, having been welded shut so they didn’t have to leave guards. As it was, the Bsidd army was spread out across this front so much that it almost seemed like there were hundreds of battles going on rather than just one, with each corridor, level, and section having its own unique history that was seeing the typical Star Force victories be pushed back by the corpse clutter.

Worse yet, the little lizards could crawl over each other far better than the larger Bsidd could do, so they had a movement advantage. Not to mention being able to crawl through maintenance shafts and other small passageways. Most of the Bsidd soldiers were Betas, but some of the smaller Epsilons had been dispatched to look for and hunt down lizards slipping through in odd places. They could never come in sufficient numbers to be a major threat, but the Bsidd couldn’t afford to have wounded personnel getting ambushed behind the front lines or a det pack carrier running up from behind them.

It was a mess, but they were working their way through it. This was lizard territory, for sure, but Tavarini was glad there weren’t wide open fields for their tanks and aircraft to operate on. Det packs aside, the Bsidd were the largest, most heavily armored units in play and he liked that change from their ‘standard’ battles…as if there was ever such a thing with the lizards.

Movement on his right caught his attention and he saw green lizard bodies wearing black vests moving on top of the piles ahead of them down the corridor. They weren’t wounded crawling for safety, but incoming troops slipping over the tops of the piles like they were surfing a wave on the ocean. Their rifles were strapped to their backs and they were running on all fours, something he’d rarely seen lizards do before this invasion, but it was obvious that the movement was all too natural for them.

A pink phaser blast shot by him, missing one of his mandibles by a few inches as he reengaged shields across his entire body save for the treads on his shoe bumps and the weapon muzzles attached to a few of his numerous mandibles. Most of his body looked like a collection of thick sticks, upon which he could run or crawl or jump as he liked, but they were all covered in armor with some holding the tread for his ‘boots’ while others were free to grasp or hit with. A few others were covered in weapons that were physically attached to his armor since he didn’t have anything even remotely like fingers, though he could grasp things better than most Humans given how many mandibles he could apply to a given object.

He pointed one of his rifle mandibles down the corridor as he put most of his odd body behind the bulkhead, twitching the end of his limb inside the device that activated the trigger. A blue plasma lance shot out and hit one of the many lizards surging towards them. It crumpled onto the pile as the lizards behind it simply rushed over the new terrain. They couldn’t get too many through this chokepoint, but then again only two or three Bsidd could get into firing position on them, so that evened out a bit. Holding position was easy, for the lizards couldn’t engage them in hand to hand without getting cut to shreds with their plasma rods…unless they had a det pack, in which case all the lizards had to do was get close enough to take down their shields and do some damage to their armor.

That had already happened twice today, with several jagged cuts on his purple body plates marking shrapnel damage, though they hadn’t gotten close enough to him to do more than force him back while his shields recharged. He’d had to give up some ground after that, but they’d taken it back and then some, though the gains were little more than dozens of meters with their orders being to hold the general area and adjust as needed while other units were probing behind enemy lines.

What units those were he didn’t know, nor had seen, for he’d been so busy here he couldn’t think of much else and he hoped there would be a relief team coming within a few hours so he could cycle back, get some food and water, maybe a little sleep. That wasn’t happening right now, so he stubbornly held his ground and shot a couple more lizards before he got a ‘hold’ order on his helmet.

He complied, even as the lizards were nearly on top of them, then saw a fast moving dot on his battlemap approaching them from behind. By the time he recognized the icon the dark blue armor of an Archon mage flashed past his position, brushing up against a couple of his mandibles as she shot by the bulkhead…then pile of lizard bodies exploded backwards under some type of invisible attack, throwing the dead and living back on top of each other.

Two white beams of light flashed into existence and suddenly the Archon was chopping apart lizard bodies in a frenzy and pushing her way through the mess and out of sight ahead.

The hold fire order was rescinded, along with a ‘don’t follow me’ command.

Tavarini looked at his fellow Bsidd curiously, then the two of them came out of cover and ran forward a few steps to give them better firing lines on the surviving lizards that were trying to crawl their way out of the pile.

Ginsi flashed past the Bsidd, getting on the other side of friendly lines and brandishing her pair of death sabers. She’d been told that the term ‘lightsaber’ had been strictly banned, though that’s exactly what they looked like, only flat to the point of invisible when viewed on the side. Problem was they weren’t actually swords and couldn’t parry anything. If she crossed the two she carried together they’d pass right through each other, and anything else would either be cut by them or disrupt the intense energy field that comprised the cutting devices.

Since they weren’t true swords they needed another name, and it had only been with reluctance that Star Force had even developed the weapons. They’d evolved out of the Bsidd plasma rods, and then the Archon plasma swords…both of which had such a low ammo count that they were almost a waste of time against hundreds of thousands of lizards, though both of those could still be used as blunt object weapons when they were depleted of charge.

The death sabers could not, which was why Ginsi was carrying a special pack with no gear in it whatsoever. It was the same size and approximate shape, not to mention a bit heavy, but it made up for that drawback in longevity. She could still run, jump and tumble with it, but the tethers that ran down her arms and ended at her wrists connected to the base of the two sabers she held and fed them with continuous power. Disconnect the weapons from it and she’d get a couple hundred dead lizards and that was it.

These weren’t stun weapons, and there was only one purpose for them…cutting apart lizards fast and efficiently with one hit kills. It was a badly needed upgrade to their fighting arsenal, but one that didn’t allow for taking prisoners or limited combat. In an environment like this, close quarters with a lot of bodies all around you, it made for a very potent weapon system when paired with an Archon mage.

Which had turned Ginsi into a killing machine.

She wasn’t fighting with troops backing her, she was going solo, same as several other Archons in different locations. Her mission was to probe beyond the defense lines and just rack up a body count. With her psionics, and especially the addition of her new Jumat that Taryn had been gracious enough to give her ahead of schedule, there was nothing the lizards could do to stop her short of detonating a really big bomb in her face.

Her armor could take a det pack and survive it, so she wasn’t holding back and aggressively pushed past the Bsidd postion, cutting her way down a long corridor that eventually led to a larger promenade that was used to haul cargo to and from various sections like a highway.

And it was filled with lizards waiting in orderly and blocky groupings that were being dispatched piecemeal into adjacent exits that would filter their way through to the thousands of tiny combat fields they were engaging the Star Force troops on.

Ginsi let slip a wry grin, no longer thinking of the lizards as people, just targets. She’d been careful to avoid thinking like that before, but after so many engagements with them and not even a single lizard in the history of the war ever surrendering to Star Force, she’d let go that safety restraint. They still offered them multiple opportunities to surrender, and would continue to do so, but in a situation like this where they were actively fighting and they were spamming Star Force lines with millions of infantry…the best way she could protect her Regulars was by becoming a slayer, and gruesome as it was, Ginsi didn’t mind at all.

These were bad guys, and taking them down fast and efficiently wasn’t a problem with these death sabers…so long as she hit killing blows. It was either take them out or not strike, for there was no point in maiming them or lopping off a hand just for fun. These were threats that needed to be taken out, with pain and punishment nowhere in her mental vocabulary.

It was a very fine line to walk, mentally, but Ginsi didn’t have trouble with it. The death sabers were definitely a weapon that could be used to torture, but neither Star Force nor her would ever use it that way…and that’s why it was reserved specifically for high ranking Archons. Those who could walk that fine line between being a slayer and a butcher, and could do so with such lethal efficiency that the lizards would have no way to stop them.

Ginsi launched herself into the first row of the lizards as they pulled their rifles off their backs and fired at her, swiping both glowing white sticks through two of their chests and cutting both in half as she passed them by, then with the help of her Pefbar she put herself into a controlled twirl that saw another 5 of them taken out Darth Maul fashion as her shields flared with phaser hits that suddenly began hitting friendly targets as she redirected and dashed a different way.

Point to point she jumped/ran, slashing and making clean kills each time while covering the artificial ground with pools of blood that the living lizards trampled through trying to get at her. None of them fled, all of them stayed and fought, pumping shot after shot into her shields whenever they could get the chance. A part of that was admirable, most of it was just stupid, but that’s what the lizard empire was and these people were born locked into it, apparently without the will to break free…and definitely no option to do so logistically, for even if they wanted to get away they’d never have anywhere to go, save for those rare times they met Star Force on the battlefield and were offered a way out.

The fact that none of them took it meant these lizards weren’t victims, and were fully committed to a combined will and mission. Dying for the cause didn’t concern them. Making themselves useful was their only priority, and even if they only landed a single phaser hit against Ginsi they were accomplishing that…though there was no way she was going to let them wear down her defenses so far that they’d actually get a chance to kill her.

Not bothering to count, though a bit interested in what the number had become, Ginsi continued to slay lizards and the more concentrated groups like this that she encountered the better, for there were billions of additional lizards on their way up the connecting columns from the planet’s surface, and it looked like the ground war was going to be fought on this spacebound ring long before they ever set foot on the surface.

And without heavy weapons or aircraft to counter her, it was only going to be a question of how many she could kill and how fast.

3

August 18, 3104

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Paul dropped down from an opening in the ceiling, one he’d just quietly cut with a very hot finger, and fell down into a mass of lizards, hitting them with a Fornax field as he punched aside a couple leading into a twirl of his death sabers. He lit them and started jumping from one area to another and mowing down all the infantry as they desperately tried to target him with their phaser rifles. A few hits were absorbed by his shields but they couldn’t land even a tenth of their shots…and it wasn’t because he was messing with their minds. Once he landed, his Fornax disappeared and he took them all hand to hand, though dropping an Ubven field on top of them would have been much easier.

He hadn’t done that, nor was he using any of his psionics now that he was on the ground. He did what was necessary with blade and muscle alone, not even engaging the powered nature of the light Archon armor he was wearing. It was originally gold, but after nearly 8 hours of fighting there was little of it showing beneath the blood splatters. His shields kept most of it off, but he’d taken on such large groupings that some of them had managed to peel that defensive layer off him a few times, resulting in a bloodbath as the precision cuts left the lizards’ dismembered body parts spurting blood as Paul passed through them.

This group was about six or seven hundred strong, but they didn’t prove a challenge…nor did they flee. They all just stayed put and kept shooting him, despite the fact they had no chance of stopping him. It was mindless slaughter and the lizards were forcing it upon him, but when he got finished with this group and was then going to be on his way back for a rest and a new power pack something inside him snapped.

When he got to the last three lizards he slashed two clean in half with a single move, each arm holding a blade that passed through two lizards’ midsections and cleaving them as well as a couple of wrists in the process. Rather than jump through them to the last lizard Paul checked up, yanking the rifle out of the lizard’s hands and tossing it aside.

The standard variant snarled and ran to the side, picking up another and aiming at Paul. The Archon let him fire twice, then he also ripped it out of his grip with his telepathy.

The lizard did not run, instead scrambling around to find another weapon in the bloody mess that was now the floor. This time Paul wicked it away from his hands before he could get to it, then he froze the lizard in place with a telekinetic grip around its waist.

“Why do you keep fighting and dying?” Paul asked in lizard. “You can live. You can all live if you would just surrender. Why are you forcing us to kill you?” he demanded, though he already knew his reasons. After so many deaths by his own hand today his nerves were on edge, for enemies they might be, but he did not like killing them, especially when they were this helpless.

The lizard squirmed around, trying to wiggle out of the Human’s invisible grasp.

“Answer me!” Paul yelled, retracting his helmet with an energy shield still covering his head just in case he’d missed another threat. He stared into the lizard’s pitch black eyes with his own twinkling grey orbs. “This world holds billions of you. Do we really have to kill you all to take it?”

The lizard snarled something in its own language that translated as an insult but Paul didn’t let it go, nor did he kill it, he just held it still and stared it down. Several minutes passed before he spoke again.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I may not kill you, but one of us will eventually,” the lizard finally answered.

“We are here to stop you from killing everyone in the galaxy,” Paul said icily. “We don’t want your deaths.”

“Your words are meaningless, Star Force. You will die like the rest of our enemies, no matter how many of us it takes.”

“Do you care nothing of being in the right?” Paul asked, sensing that he didn’t understand the concept. “Are you certain that we’re the enemy?”

“You kill us. You are the enemy.”

“We only kill you because you force us to. Surrender and you will live.”

“We will not submit to you or anyone else. One may die, but the collective will survive.”

“You don’t care about dying?”

The lizard didn’t answer, just trying to extricate himself from the invisible hold, and Paul sensed that this conversation was over, so he shoved him back a few meters and dumped him on the floor. He tripped, with his tail catching on a corpse and flipping him over.

“Not today,” Paul said, turning around casually and walking away. A few seconds later a phaser hit struck the shield covering his head, but he ignored it. Several more impacted his shields before he got to a doorway and disappeared around a corner. A few seconds later the lizard came after him, getting another line of sight on the Human, but before he could fire at his back both he and the weapon were picked up off the ground and thrown back out the door.

The lizard immediately got back up and in pursuit, but when he got around the corner the Human was gone. A short chase followed, but he could find no trace of the slayer that had killed everyone else in his unit but had left him alive. Eventually he retreated, falling back to find another lizard unit to incorporate himself with and to receive new orders. Unless he had a mission that required solo action, there was no benefit to operating alone. Better to pool his strength with the others, which was the only way to take down the heavily armored enemy infantry.

Paul made his way back to friendly lines…which was kilometers away through the interior of the ring. When he got there he bypassed the sentries and heavy defense posts as usual, but instead of checking into one of the relief areas onboard that held Star Force facilities, some prefab, some custom constructions, he headed to one of the protected hangar bays and boarded a dropship. He had it deliver him back to the nearby parked Excalibur and went straight into one of the most remote parts on the ship.

It was in the sanctum, a little corner of it that was reserved for high ranking Archons. There was a special meditation chamber there that had several different themes to it, with Paul heading for the one that was based on Dagobah.

The entrance was open, with only an energy shield separating the artificial corridor from the interior. He stepped through hit, having to push a bit to allow him passage, for it was keeping the dense fog contained within the ‘natural’ environment of the little park. As soon as he got inside he did an about face, immediately stepping back outside the energy barrier. He hit the release for his armor and had it peel apart across his chest, arms, and legs with the helmet disappearing behind his neck.

Walking out of the metallic scarecrow he went back inside, this time feeling the warm fog hit his face as soon as he entered. He stood there for a moment, breathing it in and trying to get it to wash through his senses. When it didn’t fully work he felt a pang of panic, but locked down on it. Dropping to a knee, his sweat soaked uniform picked up a bit of mud from the contact as he ran through a mental reset that he’d had to do a long time ago.

After a few minutes that worked, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to disconnect, think outside the box as he often did here, but even though his armor hadn’t let any of the lizard blood through to his skin he still felt covered in gore. The bastards were making Star Force fight like they did in order to stop them, and even though he knew that wasn’t entirely correct there was enough of it that was true to unsettle his stomach. They were taking planets from them, but he still felt like they were losing, in ideology anyway, and he had to find a way around this.

But as he thought it through he came to the same conclusions he always did…if the lizards wouldn’t surrender and they wouldn’t stop attacking people then they had to be destroyed. Unlike other races, if they took them prisoner anyway they’d just kill themselves, so there was no indoctrination/imprisonation option with them, nor was there an option of taking their younglings away from them. Lizards didn’t learn their cultural core through experience, but rather through genetic knowledge placed into their coding before they were even born.

So there were no untainted younglings to rescue. Lizards were produced as a product from genetic seeds. They were engineered to be this way, and even if Star Force could find a way to fix that genetic code to undo the inhibitors it would do no good for those alive and the planets not under their control. Star Force could create a new lizard civilization, in theory, one day but it wouldn’t change a damn thing. The current one would still have to be fought or destroyed, meaning that this blood bath had to happen or these bastards would continue to conquer and destroy all the weaker races they came across until they consumed the galaxy…or ran into the V’kit’no’sat.

But by that time they’d have grown so large that it almost wouldn’t matter. Not for the little guys out there. Paul and the others had to take these bastards out now before they could kill more, but they were forcing Star Force to make it a blood bath and something in Paul’s gut didn’t like the feel of that. In the past he hadn’t like it either, but when they were a greater threat it seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

Now though, these lizards honestly didn’t stand a chance against him aside from some fluke. He could kill them so easily, in so many ways, that there was literally no point in fighting. It was an automatic loss for them, but they were forcing him to kill them anyway, wasting their lives by the trillions in this war.

Paul had killed so many over the past couple years on this ring that he had no idea how many he was personally responsible for, but he may very well have been in 7 or 8 digit range by now. And while he wasn’t in much danger he couldn’t say the same for his troops. They were hard to kill and this station was confined compared to ground combat, but there were still casualties mounting. In order to protect them he had to kill as many of the lizards as he could, and right now he should be back down there, resting up for a bit then going back out again, but something inside him was throwing up a red flag.

So he’d come here, and now he couldn’t get his head clear. And not because of something unique to today, but he was realizing that he had been blind to something for a very long time. He didn’t know what it was, but he could feel a little corner in his mind starting to peel back, one that suggested he had a sheet of fog over his mind and now that he’d noticed it he couldn’t let it go.

The little peak he was getting made him feel like he was mentally suffocating and hadn’t even realized it previously. He had to get a clean ‘breath’ in, but right now he just knelt on the ground unable to mentally figure out how to do that with the lizard gore all over his state of mind.

On impulse he stood up and began stripping off his uniform. Shirt, shoes, pants…everything went in a pile on the muddy ground and he walked off through the fog feeling his toes sinking into the grime.

But it was a cleansing grime, a ‘holy’ grime, and Paul felt his mind slacken just a touch more. He got the feeling he needed to run away as far as he could, so to that end he headed past the partially submerged X-wing to the back side of the chamber…which had holographic walls and cleverly designed terrain to give the feeling that you were on a wide open planet. He could see through it with his Pefbar but he never turned it on in here, wanting to drink up as much ambiance as possible.

Paul found a little pond, barely an offshoot of a larger one, with holographic frogs, snakes, and other wildlife surrounding it. The sounds of the swampy forest were all around him as he sat down on the edge of the pond, barely bigger than a hot tub, and slid in feet first underneath a thick root. He had to wedge himself through the small gap, but when he got underneath it he found it was deeper than he’d expected. He went all the way under and held himself there, hiding from the planet, the fleet, and even the other Archons on this ship.

He mentally made himself so small he disappeared, and even through this chamber was shielded against telepathy he engaged his Kgat, making his mental signature vanish had there been any telepaths within the chamber. Paul let himself go anonymous, disappearing from anywhere and everywhere while sinking into a seated position on the muck at the bottom of the dirty water hole with a cage of roots over his head.

The trailblazer held his breath, but it wasn’t much of an effort. His focus was on disconnecting from anything and everything, even to the point that he wasn’t planning on going back to the fight, the war, or even the ADZ. There was no tomorrow, no duties, missions, or have-tos of any kind. All there was was this moment, and everything that had an influence over him, directly or indirect, he released. No one in the universe mattered right now, it was just him and his little pond on Dagobah. He even let himself forget he was on a ship, soaking in his surroundings on the mysterious world from Star Wars lore.

Before his lungs ran out of oxygen he slowly came to the surface, the top of his head poking out of the water until his nose cleared the waterline. It bumped against a root and he held there very still for a moment, eyes closed as he felt the air on his wet forehead that was dripping rivulets off his bangs. He was silent, but the forest around him was not. Wisps of fog flowed past him, interfering with his vision and sometimes completely eclipsing his sight…which finally sold his mind on the disconnected thing.

Paul was a Jedi in the swamps of Dagobah, and suddenly a flow of relief surged through him as his mind finally released restraints he didn’t even know he’d been running with. One after another flicked off like dominoes, and for the first in in who knew how long did he truly breathe in a breath of clean air.

The lizard gore was gone and he was himself again…just himself, and that pile of clothes that was now well out of sight might as well be a Jedi robe for all he knew. Nothing unauthentic was now here to prick his mind out of the illusion, and that gave him the clarity to realize that something had to change. He didn’t run the same mental calculations again, knowing how they’d come out, but he chose to pursue the gut feeling and let it soak into him, with it becoming ever more clear that Star Force wasn’t on the path it needed to be. He wasn’t on the proper Jedi path, and he didn’t know what it was, but for the moment, here on Dagobah, he was himself again.

Paul stayed under those roots in the water for a long time, thinking without analyzing and getting a better sense of who he was rather than what the situation demanded of him until a very soft pitter patter of feet walked up in front of his position, almost inaudible amongst the sounds of the forest, until a slender, pale pair of feet stood a meter in front of his face with the genetically altered bright red and orange toenails of a Clan Angry Chipmunk Archon he immediately recognized despite not being able to see above her ankles through the roots.

4

Those feet slid into the water, followed by the rest of Riona’s slender, pale body as a small wave washed over Paul’s face. She didn’t say a word, vocally anyway, and repositioned herself in the mucky little hot tub alongside him, pulling a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. They both held still and silent for nearly a minute, with a wry smile on Paul’s face. Eventually she tapped him on the head with a finger, telling him to drop his Kgat.

Paul let go of the mental invisibility psionic, which blocked him from sensing or receiving from anyone else as well as hiding himself.

So who are we hiding from? she asked, eyes peeling and looking around the perimeter of their little puddle rather than at him as if there were a real threat.

The galaxy, he replied after a long pause.

Cozy spot. You come here a lot?

Do you usually make house calls naked?

This is a house? Doesn’t look like it. More like a slimy mud hole.

Is there something you need?

Riona smiled, finally turning her eyes to look at his, with both of their mouths still under the water line. I was going to ask you the same thing.

Because I came back to the ship?

Word is you’re pissed. What’s going on?

Paul frowned. Who said that?

A few Archons you passed on the way out. They said you were raging so hard they could feel it in your aura.

Paul turned inward for a moment, searching his memories. If I was I didn’t even notice.

Hence the raging part.

And you thought a naked you would cheer me up?

No, I saw your armor and clothes laying back there so I decided to follow suit. What are we doing here?

I needed to get away from everyone.

So why do we need to get away? she pressed, amending his ‘I’ into ‘we.’

To clear my head.

And that means getting naked and dunking yourself in a mud hole?

Oddly yes. This is the cleanest place I could think of, but even it took some time before I felt like myself again.

What’s wrong, Paul?

Something I need to figure out for myself, he said half apologetically.

Alright, she said, not taking offense. Paul felt the water move as she repositioned herself, then her face was in his and she kissed him underneath the waterline.

What are you doing? he asked when she pulled back.

You can either tell me what’s going on or we’re going to make out, she said, kissing him again.

Sweet, he said, pushing her back slightly with his arm. But I don’t take well to threats, he added sarcastically.

No threat, she said, kissing him a third time and holding it for several seconds, but you came here to relax and I’m going to help you do it.

Riona, he said as she kissed him again, but he didn’t feel like pushing her away too strongly.

Talk, she insisted.

Sometimes people just need some space.

There’s no one here. We’ve got all the space we need, she said, ignoring his attempts to put her off and kissing him again.

This time when she released the lip lock he slid an arm up in between them so she couldn’t do it again, but in a flash his arm was grabbed and pulled aside with the water surging up over his eyes as Riona got up on him and wrapped her arms and legs around him, pushing them face to face with her nose buried in the skin beneath his right ear.

No Paul, she said firmly. You’re not pushing me away this time. Either you talk or we’re making out. And if that doesn’t bother you I’m going to fuck you after that. We don’t have sex because there’s no purpose in it, but I have one now and believe me when I say I will do you in a heartbeat if I have to.

This is extortion, Paul complained.

Yep, she said, kissing the side of his neck, but this time she didn’t stop, only taking a few small breaks for a breath of air. He didn’t stop her, but he didn’t say anything either, calling her bluff.

Riona mentally shrugged, then repositioned her hold on him and pushed him all the way underneath the water so she could straighten him out and get herself in the proper alignment. When she started rubbing against him and felt a response Paul finally grabbed her with his telekinesis and stopped her from moving.

Something is wrong, he admitted.

Riona surged her Rentar and broke his hold, but rather to pursue her sexual agenda she pulled him back up into a sitting position and they both got their noses above water.

Spill, boy, she said, still wrapping him up in a four limbed hold.

We can’t keep going on like this.

Who exactly?

Me…and the rest of Star Force.

Riona stared at him closely, then went a bit bolder and hacked into his nervous system so she could get a better look at his mental state. She didn’t push in too deep as to be offensive, but just enough to get a feel for where he was at right now.

Too much gore?

The lizards are making us fight their way, and we can’t keep doing that.

What else can we do?

That’s the problem. I don’t have an answer for that.

So you came here to think?

Yes.

And you think better naked in a mud hole?

This place is meant to feel like Dagobah. Feel like the Force, clean, holy even. When I took my armor off I still felt gore covered. I had to chuck the uniform and immerse myself until my head washed clear.

But you’re still not alright.

I was ok by myself.

If I can knock you off center either I’m a lot hotter than I thought or you’re a lot weaker…and I know neither one is true.

I was able to find my center by disconnecting with everything, but if I go back out there, back to the fighting like I know I have to, I’m going to have to numb up. We have to fight them, but doing it this way is wrong. Not because they’re in the right, but because this isn’t the way we should be fighting. There are so many of them that have to be killed, with even more being grown to replace those we take out. They’re making us fight a blood bath and it’s just too damn easy. I can kill them so easily that it doesn’t feel right. If I was in danger it would be different, but I know that, despite how devious they are, unless they get lucky or I make a mistake they can’t stop me. I’m in total control and yet they’re making me go Sith and slaughter them.

Riona kissed him again, but this time on the forehead in an endearing way. Paul, you couldn’t be Sith if you tried.

This isn’t right, Riona. My gut says so and my logic says otherwise. The two aren’t matching up and that is the real problem. I don’t have the luxury of putting this off, because as long as I’m not down there fighting someone else is, and I’ll not have them die when I could easily have prevented it. And we can’t stall the invasion, for every day it lasts more people out there, people we may never even meet are getting killed. One more cruiser might not make a bit of difference here, but out there, if they’re like we were in the beginning, a single cruiser could conquer a planet. We can’t put this off, but I had to come up here and get my head clear before I go back down. It’s clear now, or was until you came in, but I know as soon as I leave I’ll have to numb up. I don’t want to do that, but I can’t find any other options.

I’ve gotten gore head too, you know. I think we all have at some point. Especially since we started using the death sabers…and no, that wasn’t a bad idea. It makes us a lot more efficient.

How do you deal with it?

I take a break and reset. Then I’m good to go.

How?

You don’t know?

Obviously not.

I mean about me. Or are you blind to it too?

I don’t know up from down right now, so please fill me in.

I’m not in command. I command virtually all of Star Force when needed, but all the second gen take the lead from you guys. I can trust them, and especially you, to do the right thing. If you’re leading us in this fight then I know we’re in the right, even if it gets bloody, and I do my part.

What if I lead you down the wrong path?

You’d never do that willingly, and it’s not like I don’t have a mind of my own. I’ve just got a different perspective than you.

And what do you see?

I see a threat that has to be eliminated. I don’t like the methods we have to use, but ultimately they’re choosing it. They can surrender whenever they want.

I know, I know. I’ve been around this logic loop hundreds of thousands of times. But my gut is saying otherwise. I’d been ignoring it until just now, when the gore got too much that I couldn’t ignore it subconsciously. A red flag was thrown and I won’t ignore that. Something is wrong and I can’t figure out what it is.

I think I know part of the problem. When was the last time you were kissed?

A moment ago.

Don’t be coy.

You know we don’t make a habit of it.

You misinterpret me. When was the last time you were kissed?

Paul frowned. Now I honestly don’t know what you mean.

Riona opened up a bit of her mind to him and moved her lips to his mouth and kissing him gently, making the emotion clear. It wasn’t a buzz, but rather a comfort. A release from fighting and a…reward?

You’re so far in you can’t even see it, she said, pulling back and bumping noses with him. You don’t have to lead every second of every day. You can take a break. Take a moment to rest.

I don’t have that luxury and you know it. Roger and Liam can handle a lot, but I’ve…

You’re the top dog.

Not exactly…

Yes you are. You all swap duties, Morgan has the highest rank, but at the end of the day you’re a little bit better than them.

Is that really what you think?

No, it’s what you think. If you really considered them peers you’d let them lead for a bit, but you think that if they haven’t found a solution to something then it’s up to you to do it. You always put yourself head of the line, first in the fight, at the tip of the spear. I am a lot of the time, but then in times like this I’m not at the tip, I get to hide behind the tip and not take the full brunt of the stress. You’re always on the tip because you won’t let yourself go anywhere else. I don’t know if the others are the same way or not, but I know you better than I know any of them. You came here to get some perspective, but you haven’t taken it all the way.

What am I missing?

You have to have someone to take the load off you. Putting it aside for you to pick up again later isn’t enough. You’re not fully letting it go.

I won’t let someone die while I take a vacation.

That’s the problem. You don’t trust the rest of us to be able to take the lead. If you did you wouldn’t have a problem bailing out now and then. That’s how I can handle the gore. I don’t have to worry about our course of action all the time. I can just trust in the mission that you’ve given me and lose myself in the moment…then walk away from it without having to second guess myself. It’s a nasty situation, what we have to do, but the lizards are creating it. I’m surviving it. You’re worrying about leading us into those battles.

It’s my job.

There’s more than one trailblazer, and far more than one Archon.

But none of us have found another way. Until someone does…

You don’t have that luxury. You have to get your head right now.

I don’t know how to do that out there…and I can’t hide in here.

Yes you can. You just need some help.

Yeah, I could use some help. Do you have any to give?

Cry.

Cry? Paul asked disingenuously.

I’ve got two shoulders for you to pick from. I’d let you use a breast too, but there’s not much there to lean on.

How is crying going to help?

Let go of responsibility for a moment. The galaxy is beating the crap out of you, you’re not doing it to yourself. You act like everything that happens is your own doing. This invasion isn’t your choice, we have to stop the lizards or other bad things happen. You can do whatever you want, but you’ve been forced into this along with the rest of us. If we had a better way of stopping the lizards we’d be doing it already. This is what we have to do, what we’ve been forced to do, and it’s tearing you apart bit by bit inside.

And how does crying change that?

Because you stop fighting it. When you’re in combat mode you numb up stuff, hold back, press forward. You don’t fully register injuries, and you don’t see the big picture. Sometimes you just need to let go and cry, feel the pain and nastiness and how badly you’ve gotten your ass kicked. And it’s a lot easier to do that when you have a comforting body to sink into…and no, I’m not talking about sex. That’s just another distraction. For the record, I used to have a huge crush on you.

Really?

Yeah, and I wasn’t the only one. But now I don’t, and that’s no slight against you. You’re just as hot as you’ve always been, and it wouldn’t be hard at all to get off on you if I still did that sort of thing. And I would have, just so you know, if you hadn’t started talking.

It took me a moment to figure that out.

Don’t make a promise unless you plan to carry it out. No, I don’t go all fireworks seeing you naked. I know you too well for that illusion to kick in. You’re a brother, but without the societal social boundaries kicking in. Glad we got rid of those, by the way, even if we don’t apply it. No, the sexual attraction is just a biological function now, but it still can have a use. Come here, she said, despite the fact that they were already on top of each other, but somehow she managed to get a bit closer and share more skin contact than they had before with her wrapping around his body at an odd angle that kept their parts from lining up.

Just let go, she asked him. Let your guard down. Trust me with your security, with the responsibilities, with the threats and the thinking. Sink into me and just feel the bad things that have happened to you and others. Don’t hold them at arms’ length any more, steeling yourself to get through the mission. There is no mission here, it’s out there, with other people carrying it out. Right now it’s just you and me and this holy mud hole. Let go of everything and just feel…and cry. Doesn’t matter if the tears come or not, but sometimes the way to fighting an internal problem isn’t to fight it at all. You just need to face it. You don’t usually have that luxury because other people are depending on you, but right now they’re not. We’ve got these lizards beat, you know that, so let go and let everyone else handle this right now. Just let me hold you and let yourself enjoy it.

And if you’re a bit more than a sister to me?

Then compliment taken, but it doesn’t matter. If I accidentally pop you off it doesn’t matter. You’ll level out eventually, then it’ll just be you and me and no distractions. Your body feels good to me, just touching and holding you. The galaxy is a messy, nasty, crude place, but you’re not. You’re a shining beacon of light, every bit of you from your hair down to your toes. I feel good just being here with you, this close, away from everything else. If I can do the same for you indulge in it.

Paul felt himself choke up and it surprised him, then he noticed his hands started to shake under the water. At first he though something was brushing up against his fingers, but then he felt the shakes for what they were.

He had been holding back a lot, and now it was starting to creep its way to the surface.

Don’t fight it, Riona urged him. It’s a form of detox, just let it play out. I’ll be here as long as you need and then some. Hold onto me or just veg out, either way I’m keeping you in a death grip.

Paul wasn’t sure what to do, but after a few moments hesitation the ‘detox’ seemed to continue on its own without permission. He didn’t know if he should stop it so he held himself in check, thinking until his walls started to crumble and he just decided to trust Riona and indulge in it. She did feel good to his touch, and that comfort seemed to loosen him up even more when he stopped resisting it. She did turn him on, but after a few minutes that faded into a warm, passionate glow that, like she said, had no fireworks in it.

I love you, she said when his tears started to flow and she found herself reciprocating, able to feel his pain and stress bleeding off through their mental link. Immediately she realized she’d set herself up for an ‘I know’ response, but Paul said nothing, which only underscored how much he’d been burying inside himself all these years. There’d been rough times for Riona in the past, but she was beginning to realize there was a lot more to being a trailblazer than she thought, and she didn’t envy him this part.

As promised, she kept her death grip on him throughout the release process…then a bit longer for good measure, along with the fact that she didn’t envy leaving their sacred embrace and returning to the ugly galaxy either. She’d needed this moment too, and stretching it out a few minutes longer wasn’t going to inconvenience anyone else. They had time, and the war could wait a few more minutes.

5

December 1, 3105

Tor System (Ninja Monkey territory)

Red Dragon

Morgan walked into her private command center and tiredly sat down on the cushioned pedestal in the center. She’d just gotten back from a very long campaign in the Firebird System pushing back a lizard advance and finally securing a planet there that the enemy had been stubbornly holding onto for decades. Now the system was fully Ninja Monkey territory and stellar orbit had been secured, meaning she could get to work developing the infrastructure there to add its wealth of natural resources to her little, isolated empire without worry of internal ambush.

Having engaged in a lengthy training session to purge the combat-induced stagnation out of her body on the way back, she was likewise not going to take the traditional ‘rest’ that she encouraged the others in her Clan to soak up. No, she had work to do…always had work to do, and she wasn’t going to waste time sleeping when her body could be relaxing here while her mind was still working to tie up loose ends and push new agendas.

She was getting no help from Star Force at all, which had been the original agreement, but she found that she was having to do a lot of the stuff that Davis did back in the day, especially now since Falconi had been reassigned. His promotion to Duke took him elsewhere within the empire and Morgan had been assigned a new Marquis…a very green one, literally, for he was a Protovic. The bioluminescent patches on his body constantly reminded Morgan of his lack of experience and she was badly missing Falconi, though she knew in time he’d adjust, for running a Clan wasn’t the same thing as operating a planet or system within Star Force’s integrated economy.

Here you had to keep everything self-contained, and you didn’t even have the luxury of trading with other Clans for basic necessities as a fallback. That was a stipulation that Morgan had heartily agreed to, wanting to do this completely on their own, though there had been some swapping going on over the years, with the original shared Ninja Monkey capitol of Everlast being traded away to Clan Cortana in exchange for a combination of tech and raw materials. The rest of the Ninja Monkey possessions, save for their little slice of Antarctica, had also been exchanged for badly needed resources now that Morgan had a total of 17 systems under her control and some 38 habitable planets to colonize.

She didn’t need the other possessions, nor did she want her people spread out so far. Her Clan had staked its claim along the coreward border and held it firm. This was their home now, so consolidating their population and resources had only made since, but now that the big pieces had been traded away everything they needed had to be produced internally, including the new Dre’mo’don-equipped drones. They were running short on the necessary arc elements and Ninja Monkey production facilities for such things were barely out of their infancy.

Falconi had gotten the Clan squared away and capable of producing a least a little bit of everything on their own, but Morgan needed to push her industrial capability as far and as fast as possible, for she had plenty of willing volunteers requesting to join her Clan. Not all would qualify, and even those that did might not last under her rigid work schedule, but for as many washed out or decided to leave to pursue another course, more were always waiting in the queue lines for her to select them.

And she was doing so personally most of the time. Falconi had been handling that, but now that she had Yivati trying hard just to keep up with everything demanded of him Morgan had been pulling some of the duties her way to try and keep him from imploding under the stress. Clan Ninja Monkey wasn’t the largest of the Clans, but it was rumored to be the most intense. They had long lists of goals and timetables to achieve them on, military production requirements heightened by the fact that they were in a war zone, and numerous colonies to establish and grow with too few people to man the construction crews.

Morgan had been running her Clan nearly her entire life, and this change of venue had been ongoing for almost 300 years now, but there was always so much to do. Never a respite. For she wouldn’t allow one. They needed to grow larger and stronger and ‘tomorrow’ wasn’t acceptable for that. It had to happen now, for the lizards were attacking her Clan whenever and wherever they thought they saw weakness, forcing her into losing ships, resources, and time to hold them at bay…and then there was the desire and need to take more systems away from them.

Her new Marquis had been thrown in over his head, intentionally she thought, and Morgan didn’t like her Clan being used like this, but Davis knew what he was doing most of the time. If he thought Yivati could handle the pressure then she hoped he’d adjust quickly, because carrying him until he got up to speed was wearing her out more than normal.

As her top ranked Archon body rested in a sluggish seated position, Morgan used the telepathic interface and brought up dozens of display maps, screens, diagrams, and lists that she had been working on previously. Picking up where she left off, the trailblazer continued work on colony development plans, designing her worlds rather than leaving that to the Marquis or some of her Administrators.

Everything flowed from her, even when Falconi was here, and she’d been implementing a more united grouping of star systems than was traditional for Star Force. Typically a system was stimulated with outside cargo shipments to get it squared away and self-sufficient, then allowed to develop on its own merits going forward. Morgan wasn’t patient enough for that, so there was an unbelievably high amount of cargo being transported between her 17 systems, utilizing their strengths to cover each other’s weaknesses in the here and now rather than going for balanced economies straight off.

Red Dragon was the only world that was truly self-sufficient, and it was the current Clan capitol now that they’d abdicated Everlast. Morgan was hardly ever here in person, linked into the interstellar comm system and issuing orders from afar as she went to put out the various fires herself, along with leading the crusades pushing further into lizard territory along the border. She hadn’t gone deep into it, but had stretched out her holdings in a plane along the border line, setting Ninja Monkey territory as a barrier the lizards had to either take down or bypass to get at the other Star Force worlds.

With detection systems and comm relays set up in uninhabited systems in between her own, she had a detection grid that could alert the rest of Star Force if a lizard fleet moved through her territory to hit them directly, but to date that had never occurred and the lizards seemed curiously interested in hitting her territory in an aggressive manner despite the fact that they were losing handily everywhere else Star Force was engaging them. Even now their core worlds were under assault, finally, after all this time, yet still here they were, pressing back on her expansion and challenging her ability to hold onto the planets she’d taken.

Part of Morgan missed the really big battles that were going down, but these were personal and hard enough to win as it was. She trusted the others to get the job done out there while she pushed the long term objectives here…which was, and had always been, preparing for the day the V’kit’no’sat came back. Hopefully they had millennia more to work with, for she was painfully aware how unready they were now. Her Clan was growing, fast and hard, forged under the pressures of constant battles and never having a moment of peace.

She kept the internal pressure up on her people on purpose, wanting to see who would break and who wouldn’t. It was done in a fair and honest way, with everyone knowing just how hard being a member of Clan Ninja Monkey was going to be and the fact that they might not last a month here. So long as people were informed and warned prior to inclusion she didn’t mind pressing them. They could always opt out, but if they didn’t and they stayed, they’d be part of a very elite faction within Star Force.

But even with 17 systems, all of which were painfully undeveloped, including Tor, her Clan was a small piece of the greater whole and vastly inferior to the Bsidd. Morgan practically drooled with envy at the sheer power and size that faction had become under Larissa’s direction. Their growth rate was astonishing, even now that the rest of the empire wasn’t funneling resources to them, and the bulk of the troops guarding the ADZ and pressing into lizard territory were Bsidd.

Humans had become the shock troops, going where the fighting was the toughest, but the Bsidd now made up the majority of Star Force’s overall combat troops. Morgan didn’t begrudge them that status…she just wanted the Ninja Monkeys to rise enough to even be in the discussion. Right now their role was small, guarding a bit of the coreward border and doing their own thing while hundreds of other agendas and missions were taking place across Star Force territory. There were 99 other Clans out there, not to mention dozens of factions larger than her personal holdings on the starmap.

But she’d put her people up against any others head to head with equal numbers…that went for her combat troops down to her techs. Her Clan had no civilian population. Everyone here was working on something to better the Clan overall and that environment wasn’t unique to the Ninja Monkeys, but it was the strongest here. Many people had stated in various public records that they’d worked their asses off to qualify for Clan membership with the intent on coming here because they were sick of the ‘civilian’ atmosphere within the rest of Star Force and they wanted to be part of a united community. They wanted to be part of a team with a purpose.

And no Clan had a more obvious purpose than Morgan’s Clan.

Maybe Davis had seen something in Yivati that had warranted his inclusion here, but Morgan could vouch that Falconi had not been twiddling his thumbs bored and needing a greater challenge. In fact the system Davis had assigned him, while being larger and far older than Tor, was not as taxing a position as Ninja Monkey Marquis had been. He’d told Morgan that himself after the fact, making them both wonder why Davis had made the change.

He’d helped her build this new chapter in her Clan’s history, and she missed his expertise badly right now. Yivati was not an adequate replacement at the moment. Not even close.

But at the end of the day this was her Clan and was run her way. People moving in and out wasn’t uncommon in the Clans, though it was a bit odd at the higher ranks. That had changed once the new mandate had come out, with a lot of people spending time in the ‘pressure cookers’ to test and develop their higher end skills before transitioning back into Mainline or Axius to a more normal posting.

Axius…that was another faction that Morgan was envious of. Their integrated racial units were something that she’d been studying for a long time, stealing what ideas she could in her military and civilian alignments. Culture wasn’t an issue here, for all Ninja Monkeys ended up with the same one given time. No, it was a matter of biologically fitting races together into the most efficient packages.

Scionate worked well with Archons because they were just as fast, if not faster over ground. An Archon could run as fast as they liked and a Scionate unit could keep pace whereas Bsidd or Calavari were downright sloths. That said, when you needed to hold a position the Bsidd were very difficult to dislodge, and they themselves had different variants that could be reorganized into numerous configurations. They were an army within an army, and one that Morgan was still learning and experimenting with, for she had a small chunk of her Clan made up of Bsidd recruits.

Then you had the fliers…Lacvamat, Hammid, and Triari on the military front, then throw in a dozen others that could be incorporated into tech or support roles. They were difficult to understand, in a tactical sense, with the book still being written and new tech developed to allow them to be efficient and effective rather than just tagalongs. Right now Morgan had a solid group of Hammids that she was using as battlefield scouts and couriers, and they too could keep up with an Archon on the run, but in a fight they did poorly in comparison.

Then again a Human under water wasn’t all that effective either. Elarioni were far superior, save that they lacked the psionics that made Morgan a female version of Poseidon. Humans, and especially Archons, could do everything. They’d learned tricks and how to train for even the stuff they weren’t well built for, but Morgan knew that while that was a necessity she didn’t dare do the same with the other races. She had to incorporate their specialties while letting other Clans work on finding secondary applications for them.

Morgan wasn’t going to have any fliers swimming, even though there was some progress on that front elsewhere. And there was no point whatsoever in having an Irondel trained as a Commando. They were the size of a football and just as easy to kick. On their scale they definitely could fight, but so many of the other races in the galaxy were larger than them that there was little point in her Clan employing them in that regard.

What they were good at was fighting in mechs, or at least specialized mechs. Because of their smaller size an identical mech to what a Human piloted could be outfitted with stronger weapons, heavier armor, or whatever else the extra volume that wasn’t necessary for the pilot to exist within could be retasked for. That was one advantage she was exploring, though she also knew that making specialized mechs could be a problem. Better to make modifications to a Human mech to allow an Irondel to pilot it rather than make a mech that a Human could not fit into if needed.

That said she was still looking into the possibility of making stronger mechs for the smaller pilots, along with some other applications that turned the little squirrel-like race into an advantage for her Clan rather than baggage they had to carry.

That was one founding principle that she had set down long ago. No one was carried here. If they couldn’t keep up they’d be washed out, not in a mean way, because they’d go back into some other part of Star Force that they were more suited for. They’d even have a chance to come back later if they improved their skills, so Ninja Monkey culture hadn’t become a nail biting endeavor with people worried about washing out. No, Morgan had specifically seen to it that everyone knew and understood that this was a test of their current abilities, not their potential. If someone wanted to be here badly enough all they had to do was devote the years necessary to prep work, and even if they failed in their first opportunity they’d be able to keep improving until they were good enough to remain here under the increased standards and schedule.

Her people were the best and not because they were vicious with each other. They were supportive of one another, but they would not cheat to keep someone here that didn’t belong. They’d expose weaknesses as Morgan had asked them to, with those weak links being given a set of standards to train to with an automatic return ticket if they completed that personal mission elsewhere within the empire.

And Morgan wasn’t one to talk without doing, which was why she was always in motion, even when resting, as she was now. Fighting on the front didn’t allow for her to carry out all the administrative duties required of her and she had a lot of catching up to do. She get through a few hours of it here and now before she finally got some food and sleep, then in the morning she’d be back here after her first round of workouts.

There was no one here to distract her, so even ten minutes snagged from her demanding schedule could be of use. To that end she worked now, planning out the development of one of her colonies’ cities that had only just begun to establish a spaceport. Her plans for it were years in the future, but she wanted them in place in case the fighting heated up and she didn’t have a chance to get back to it later. Administrators could design and build cities independently, but Morgan wasn’t going to leave anything to chance within her territory.

Every bit of it was going to be by her design, and her new Marquis and existing staff were here to assist her in fleshing out the Clan as she liked, not doing it for her. Every unit, every building, every ship that the Ninja Monkeys had determined how much territory she could take from the lizards and hold, and Morgan was insistent on squeezing any and all advantages out of the limited resources and personnel that she had.

Her Clan was badly outmatched by the V’kit’no’sat, and she couldn’t stand to see the Ninja Monkeys progress slower than they were capable of. They’d been very fortunate to go unnoticed thus far, and there were no promises for tomorrow. She had to get her Clan to the point where it could at least hold its own in a fight, and they were far from that now…against the V’kit’no’sat anyway.

The lizards were another story, and truthfully she was using them to hone her Clan for the real war to come. That was the only way Morgan could stand to see the wall of lizard systems in front of her and not go after them all. She had to keep the big picture in mind as much as that galled her…and she was grateful that Davis had given her permission to take down as many of them as she could, so she didn’t actually have to hold back with regards to her Clan.

But she was a trailblazer, and all it would take was one call and she’d have a fleet of Mainline or Bsidd on her doorstep and she could gut punch the lizard empire before her that was growing stronger and more bold by the day. Her Clan wasn’t holding back, but she still was, as was Star Force on the whole. She wished that wasn’t necessary, but Morgan knew they couldn’t chase the lizards much further toward the galactic core. If they tipped the V’kit’no’sat off to their presence now it’d be over before the fighting even began.

They weren’t ready, and damn it all, the lizards had to be ignored on the other side of the line, but that didn’t meant she couldn’t use them as target practice for her Clan. Every one of them they killed diminished their strength and could potentially save some system out of their reach, so Morgan didn’t have any qualms about poking them in systems that she couldn’t take just yet.

And the lizards were obligingly poking back, giving her people the challenge needed to continue the transformation process into a Clan that could one day stand against the V’kit’no’sat.

Sadly, that day was far away and Morgan could feel their vulnerability as if it were an illness they were all stricken with…which was why she worked constantly to combat and kill that illness. No one in Clan Ninja Monkey worked harder or longer hours than Morgan did, and her people knew it. She didn’t do it for them, but leading by example did have its benefits.

She just hoped that one of those would include her Marquis living up to her example, and doing so sooner rather than later.

6

February 9, 3106

Solar System

Mars

Po-1003886 came back from his workout fresh and lively even though the newly minted ranger was dead tired. He’d leveled up to the third tier of Archons four days ago and had been on a high ever since then, proudly cleaning out his wardrobe of the acolyte silver stripes and replacing his uniforms with the ones that bore the ranger green. He put on one of those after a quick shower, then stopped by the cafeteria for all of two minutes to grab a quick bite and a couple of sugar sticks to take with him as he headed for the meeting he’d been anticipating.

His dead legs didn’t bother him, aching from a very long run that he’d probably pushed a little too far. He had a habit of doing that, but it was the only way he learned his current limits. He’d adjust now that he had data to work with and find a way to approach higher level workouts without tanking, as he always did. Right now though his future as an Archon was about to be determined in a big way, and he wasn’t the only one. Several others that had also just made ranger were gathering here as well, and when he walked into the amphitheater he saw several dozen of them already sitting in the seats while a few people were waiting up on the stage.

Po took a seat and chewed on his last sugar stick, feeling his adrenaline spiking more than it did in combat. Ever since becoming an Archon he’d been working out of this facility on Mars, as a base at least. He’d had some field assignments, including one all the way down in Gamma Region, but he’d always cycled back here same as the other adepts and acolytes did, for this was Clan Null’s headquarters…with the name being a joke more than anything, but the trailblazers seemed to like doing that sort of thing with labeling.

All adepts and acolytes belonged to the Nulls, with had their headquarters here on Mars and a super-sized sanctum to accommodate them all. A good portion of those Archons were here in training and participating in the internal trials…which were beyond intense, far more so than anything he’d gone through in basic as a trainee. He knew the more advanced Archon trials were mind boggling, but to date he hadn’t been able to participate and get his butt kicked in any of them given the fact that he wasn’t part of a Clan yet.

Today that would change, for him and the other new rangers still coming into the chamber. While a Clan placement wasn’t permanent most Archons never switched teams, unless there was a good reason to do so. Po had heard that there was a fair amount of rangers moving from one Clan to another, but with strikers and on up they were pretty much set. Each Clan had taken a different development route, had different membership standards and focuses, and was in itself unique…with the competition between them being fierce.

“That looks like all of you,” Terry-201118 said as the last person walked in. The Archon mage remotely closed the door and walked out from behind the control pedestal, looking at all of the new rangers from the edge of the stage. “You know why you’re here. Time to choose a Clan and transition to the next stage. The kid gloves are coming off and your inclusion in the Nulls is now over. If on the odd chance that someone does not wish to join a Clan, or are unable to do so, the training facility on Earth for neutrals will become your new home. This facility no longer is. This is your second graduation, and now it’s time to step up and play with the big dogs.”

The mage gestured and another person on stage, a handler of some sort, took up position behind the pedestal and began operating the amphitheater’s controls. All 100 symbols of the various Clans appeared in hologram behind Terry and moved out to both sides, eventually ringing the circular chamber up near the ceiling and enlarging until they created a halo that crowned the entire room.

“Membership requirements vary for each Clan, and on the information before you, you will see those which are open to you joining them at your current skill levels. Some look for overall marks, others want specialists,” he said as an individual holographic panel lit up in front of Po, as well as every other person in the chamber. It had his data on it, and he wondered how they knew what seat he was sitting in…then again, there weren’t that many of them here, so maybe the assistant just matched up faces.

“On occasion a Clan will make a specific bid for an individual they feel is noteworthy. If they want you badly enough they’ll leave a message, otherwise they’re looking for recruits that meet their entry standards…and be aware, you have to maintain those standards to stay in the Clan. Keep that in mind when you’re choosing, for you don’t want to join one then wash out within the year. Your schedules are going to alter, so if you’re locked into a specific training pattern you might be forced to change it, and that could created a plateau or even a backslide until you adjust.”

“The Clans are a pressure cooker for all their personnel, from Archons down to techs. You’ve got to keep up with whatever training pace they want, and most of you will be in over your heads from day one. Make sure the Clan is a good fit for you, because you don’t want to waste months or years on a bad match. Those of you with options, study them carefully, those of you with few…be glad there’s an opening,” he said with a bit of sarcasm.

Po looked at his data even as he listened, finding that out of the standards for all the Clans he didn’t qualify for most of them. His ranger ranking wasn’t the issue. No Clan put a higher mark than Ranger 1 as a requirement for entry, because this was the point when Archons were meant to join Clans, but what they were looking at was subcategory scores, rates of advancement, etc. Po was a bit slow with regards to leveling up, at least compared to the average, and it looked like that disqualified him from some 13 Clans.

He adjusted the hologram again, touching the little energy spheres that doubled as buttons below the main screen to sift through the data. His commando scores were his lowest of the 5 divisions, meaning they were currently at Ranger 1. That eliminated him from some 39 Clans.

The same came from swimming scores, aerial, naval, and mechs. Clans that were looking for specialists didn’t want him, meaning he only had generic options available to him. That left him with 23 options to choose from, and he looked through them closely.

“Take your time and think this through, but you do have to choose now if you want to head out immediately. When you leave this room you either leave for your new Clan indoctrination center or you head to Earth and figure things out in the neutrals sanctum. I’d recommend you don’t go that route unless you have a good reason to. If you’re worrying about your decision and think you need a lot more time to consider it…well, you don’t. This isn’t overly complicated, it just needs some serious thought, and an hour or so here is more than enough. Look through your options and make your choice. If you have any questions or concerns, that’s what I’m here for…in addition to bidding you farewell.”

When the leader of Clan Null stopped speaking Po took that as a sign to put his full attention on his choices. None of the Clans had sent him a person message, which was understandable. None of his scores stood out above the rest. He was a ‘grinder,’ which meant an Archon that often had to try something multiple times before they accomplished it. He’d get knocked down then get back up again, working his way through challenges and training through an undeniable will rather than an aptitude for certain skills.

Of the 23 Clans that he could choose to join, only 4 of them were focused on balance. The others all had specialties, some more than one, but allowed bottom of the barrel types like him to join and try to carve out a niche for themselves in their primary training programs or to fill out their secondaries. The part of Po that craved challenges wanted him to dive head first into one of those ultra intense training programs and fight his way into a position of prominence…which for a ranger meant just keeping his head above water and being one of the guys.

Clan Sephiroth, headed by trailblazer Logan-036, was a Clan that prided itself on its Commando training, especially its swords subcategory. But unlike Clan Saber, which Po did not qualify for, all he needed to join their program was the base Ranger 1 prerequisite, nothing more. He knew the training would be insane, but the Sephiroths were ‘grinder friendly’ whereas the Sabers were not…at least not in their Commando division.

All Archons trained in all 5 areas, but each Clan apparently had training programs specifically designed to press certain skills. He assumed the other skills would be maintained and advanced in his spare time, how much he would get he didn’t know. For Clan Sephiroth it was stated that for their Commando specialty training there would be a 12 year focus on that discipline at the outset, meaning that Po’s skills, if he managed to keep up, would not progress in the other 4 disciplines much at all, but would shoot up his Commando ranking, in theory.

He didn’t like that. Grinder as he was, he wanted to keep leveling up all areas simultaneously and not get any weak spots that would hold his overall Archon ranking back. Out of the 23 Clans there were only 13 that allowed for balanced slots, but 11 of them required more than just Ranger 1 average. His 5 division scores were M3, C1, A2, S1, N3…with the ‘S’ referring to aquatics rather than using another ‘A’ that would make it confusing.

He’d been looking at these base numbers all of his Archon life, and these stats indicated that he was a balanced Archon. Some of the rangers around him in the room he recognized, some he didn’t, but one in particular sitting two rows down and one bank to the right he knew had an A18 rating. He was a damn good pilot, but one of his other scores had to be level 1 since Archon rankings were determined by your weakest division rather than your strongest or average.

But the Clans were looking at your average with regards to balanced training programs. His was an even 2.0 and most of them wanted at least a 3.5 for entry. A couple were at 2.5, with only two that allowed the bottom of the barrel entries. Those were Clan Westley and Clan Noisy Cricket. Clan Westley was notorious for taking any Archons, no matter what their skill levels, and training them up into higher ranks. Their upper tier wasn’t as good, but their lower tier was the top rated within all the Clans and it was rumored that once their ‘special projects’ put in enough centuries of training that they’d have one of the deepest Clans skill wise, for it didn’t matter how long it took you to attain the skills, and a Mage 1 was a Mage 1 no matter if they were 500 years old or 1000.

Clan Noisy Cricket had a naval focus, but had allowed for bottom of the barrel entry as well. Four Clans that focused on balanced approaches wouldn’t take Po in that regard, but they would take him in either a naval or mech training program. It seemed that while they wanted balance, it didn’t require it in all their individuals, but rather the Clan overall.

Po’s face scrunched up with debate. He could enter one of the balanced Clans and focus on his Mech or Naval skills and then hope to branch out into a fully balanced training program later when his skills met their minimum requirements. He wasn’t sure how long their base training was…so he pulled it up and frowned. The shortest of them was 8 years.

He didn’t like that. Ever since he’d entered basic training he’d been wanting to keep all his skills close to one another, and while he could veer away from that philosophy, even temporarily, he didn’t feel like doing it. That meant he had two options…unless he wanted to go neutral.

“A question,” he said aloud when someone else had finished asking theirs. “If we go neutral, are these the same requirements for entry at a later date or specifically for those of us coming out of the Nulls?”

“There are three Clans that operate with Null-only requirements. All the rest don’t care where you are in your progression.”

“So if my scores aren’t high enough for a Clan I want to go into, I can go neutral and train until I raise them up enough?”

“Correct…but your training would be mostly on your own. There are advisors in the neutral sanctum to help you, but there is no regimented programs like you’re accustomed to. Definitely nothing like what the Clans have.”

Po nodded and returned his gaze to his options. Whatever Clan he went with he was going to stick to. He didn’t like the idea of switching around. If there was a reason for it, sure, but otherwise he was going to stay loyal to whomever took him in and he didn’t want to be hasty about this. Maybe going neutral was the best option for a grinder like him?

But then there was Clan Westley who specialized in bringing the slower Archons along faster, or at least as fast, as others. While they weren’t passing up on standout individuals, they were focused on taking lower end Archons and turning them into an asset for the Clan. It was a bit of a knock reputation wise, and he really wished one of the balanced Clans would take his 2.0 average, but his progression had been too slow and steady for them. In fact, he was too balanced for them. They expected more variation, for a purely balanced Archon would have had a rating of 1.0 which made no sense whatsoever.

“Remember,” Terry said, looking directly at Po, “this is a competition, for you to join a Clan as well as for the Clans measuring against each other. Pride is on the line, as well as resources for some of the larger trials. Find the niche you want, then be prepared to work your ass off for it like you’ve never done before. If you wash out of a Clan, and it does happen, you can take another slot in another Clan that you qualify for or you can go neutral. This is not easy street here. You’re going to have to crawl and claw to maintain your placement until you get your levels up considerably higher. Some of you won’t stabilize in a Clan for 50 years. Metal Gear Commando indoctrination typically runs that long.”

Po heard someone whistle, and Terry nodded. “Choose wisely, and make sure it’s a choice you can live with, succeed or fail. You know by now that Archons don’t make it the first time at everything, and if anyone has training scores to the contrary please point them out, for not even the trailblazers have that clean of a record. When you take on hard challenges you’re going to fail, then learn from the experience. Do you want to go that route or choose a lesser challenge that you can probably succeed at and cement your place within a Clan? It’s up to you, and neither is the preferred way. How you progress in your training is a personal choice and it needs to fit you.”

That stuck with Po, and as he looked at his two primary choices he realized he didn’t want to dive into a huge challenge and struggle to keep going. He wanted to keep grinding his way up the ranks as he’d been doing, and Clan Westley’s basic program was three times as long and rumored to be considerably difficult…but it was a way to really get a second chance for the ‘slackers’ within the Archons, though that term didn’t really apply to any of them.

Po wasn’t in a hurry to advance, he just wanted to keep improving and help out Star Force when and where he could. He wanted to be an Archon, not always racing to catch up or outdo others. The higher the ranking one achieved, the less one would stay with their basic training peers. Archons advanced at different rates, some trained while others did field work. Everything got complicated and divergent, with the only important thing being what path would Po walk and how would he go about doing it.

If this was going to be his way, then he’d walk in the door with the lowest threshold to maintain his balanced training…and that meant Clan Noisy Cricket. He wasn’t going to be a star recruit or on a primary training program, but he would work his ass off to earn his Clan appointment and devote his loyalty to them. Being an anonymous Archon amongst all the others and just going about and doing his thing on his timetable appealed to Po, and the more he thought about it the more he realized this was the choice for him.

He thought it through a couple extra times to make sure, then he selected the training slot he qualified for within the Noisy Crickets and locked in his selection. His display accepted the anointment with a symbol of a tiny pistol emblazoned over a silhouette of a cricket in the background and spun it in place for several seconds, with a text prompt appearing below it that told him to report to hangar bay 8 in 2 hours and 43 minutes with his duffle of personal belongings packed and ready to head to another star system.

Po stood up, nodded to Archon Terry, and took his leave as several other rangers had already done. Apparently there was no additional fanfare, and he appreciated that. This was all business, and the importance of the moment wasn’t lost on Po. He was transitioning into a whole new realm within Star Force and he was eager to get at it, with the quick departure being a good thing. He didn’t want to linger here any longer now that he had a course charted for him. He wanted to get to the Fiora System and Clan Noisy Cricket’s capitol of Blade Waltz that it shared with six other Clans, not knowing exactly what awaited him but eager to find out.

7

August 1, 3106

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

A Falcon-class dropship flew across the gap between the troop jumpship that had brought it here along with another contingent of reinforcements, coming in to a captured hangar bay on the lizard ring that Star Force had been making use of for more than a year now. So far they’d managed to take control of a little less than a third of the massive shipyard that encircled the entire planet, including seizing and blocking off 139 of the 487 columns that connected down to the surface.

Those were no longer sending troops up to fight them, meaning the controlled areas of the ring were safely Star Force territory now, and with a sizeable warfleet outside guarding the ring from naval attack the only way the lizards could hit them was sending ground troops up the remaining columns they controlled, for the ground-based anti-orbital weapons couldn’t reach the ring itself, and to date they hadn’t fired on any of the connecting columns.

That meant the ground war that was grinding on inside the ring would continue, for Star Force wasn’t going to destroy it either, and if the lizards should start shooting out the supporting columns the gravity drives on the ring itself would be more than enough to keep them aloft in its nearly geosynchronous orbit. The lizards apparently understood this to be true as well, for they were continually spamming millions of troops up the columns they controlled and sending them in massive waves against the Star Force lines…both of them, for the controlled segment had two ends that were miles wide and high, making for ample locations to hit and get hit at.

Those two front ‘lines’ were constantly moving forward with hunter teams moving out beyond them and taking down lizards, then the fortified positions would surge forward here and there, sometimes no more than a few dozen meters, and resettle to survive the next surge of troops. As it was, clearing out the dead lizard bodies was becoming a chore, with Star Force having brought in incinerator factories and set them up inside the ring in order to dispose of them all…with Archons checking to make sure the bodies were actually dead before they got reduced to ash.

It was necessary to do that in order to keep the corridors and chambers mostly clear, for the lizards kept pouring reinforcements at them in suicidal fashion, hoping to wear them down or, perhaps, just to stall their advance. Regardless, Star Force had a huge ground war on its hands that was painstakingly making progress. More troops were being brought in from the ADZ, some to replace others rotating out, but a lot were here to increase the number of combat troops to facilitate a quicker rate of progress.

Along with those Regulars came this one dropship carrying a special assault team. When it landed on the hangar deck there was already a circus of activity, with Bsidd unloading by the hundreds and filing off to receive orders and placements without everyone bunching up into a chaotic crowd. Star Force had handlers there to direct everyone and keep the hangar deck orderly and processing quickly, with unloaded dropships heading back out to return to the jumpship and pick up more troops and the supplies necessary to sustain them within the ring.

When that dropship opened up, a murmur spread amongst the deck staff as well as the Bsidd troops. Everyone nearby paused what they were doing and looked as a group walked out, packed together tightly in a column two wide but with a casual gait that wasn’t symmetrical. They were not Bsidd, but rather Humans…the giant variety. They were Knights, all of them, but they weren’t wearing their traditional white armor. These were wearing black with gold trim, save for one in the front pair leading the others. He wore all black armor.

“Damn,” one of the Commandoes on the deck whispered. “Those are all Arc Knights.”

“I’ve never seen them together before. Always alone working with other troops.”

“They’re not all Arc Knights,” an Archon striker said, stepping up behind them as they watched the group go where they pleased, bypassing all the handlers and heading straight to an individual waiting for them at a side door. It was another Archon, this one wearing golden armor, and her presence alone caused another stir, for while there were many titans on the ring they were hardly ever seen.

“Trailblazer Megan,” one of the Commandoes said, seeing her ID pop up on his helmet’s HUD.

“That’s not who I meant. Do you see the one Knight that doesn’t have gold trim?” he asked quickly before the group left the hangar entirely.

“In the front?”

“Yes. He isn’t an Arc Knight. He’s the Black Knight.”

“What’s that?”

“A legend to all Archons. He was the first Knight, from all the way back when Star Force began, and he tormented the trailblazers and second generation Archons in their basic training. He beat the crap out of them, just like his replacement did to me. We all hated and feared the Black Knight, and that one, the original one, is the only Knight permitted to wear the all black armor. His name is Vermaire, and he trains the Arc Knights personally.”

“Shit. I’d never heard any of that.”

“Are they here to train then?” another Commando asked aghast.

“No,” the striker said with a rueful smile concealed beneath his helmet. “I have a feeling the trailblazers want this ring captured more quickly, hence all the reinforcements…and those you just saw are the big guns they’re bringing in.”

“Damn,” the Commando said again as the last one of the Arc Knights disappeared from view as they left the hangar.

“You have no idea,” the striker promised as the normal flow of offloading resumed.

On the opposite end of the Star Force zone Paul and Riona were beyond the front lines, pressed deep into lizard territory and finding their hands full. They’d stumbled into one of the massive staging areas and decided to dive in head first, using a combination of battlemeld abilities, Jumat, and their death sabers to chew enough of a hole to stand in as more and more lizards pushed themselves into the chamber in an attempt to overwhelm them with bodies, even if they couldn’t shoot them, with the lizards grabbing for their arms and legs in an attempt to slow them down with no regard for the lethality of the glowing white blades.

Linked in battlemeld as the two titans were they didn’t need to worry about hitting each other with the death sabers, which would kill their shield strength with a single hit. The weapons held their ‘blades’ by continually recharging that area with additional energy. As much bled off as necessary to cut through a tiny sliver of a target, so it appeared that the blades were solid so long as the substance wasn’t too tough. Hit a shield and all that energy would release into it if needed, and either it or the blade would go down.

If that happened it would take a few seconds for the blade to regenerate, pulling extra power from the pack they wore on their backs, but that much energy delivered into their shields would bite a chunk out of them for sure, and they were getting nicked down enough as it was with numerous phaser blasts they couldn’t avoid. The entire crowd of lizards had weapons, and they didn’t seem to care if they shot each other with them so long as they ended up doing damage to the Archons.

There were tens of thousands in this chamber, originally built to construct ribs for jumpships and necessarily huge in design. That’s why it was being used as a primary staging ground from which teams were being dispatched at a nearly constant rate to probe the front lines until they thought they found a weak point, after which many more would be sent in like a firehose spewing infantry in an attempt to put out the fire that was the invading Star Force troops.

Paul and Riona were in over their head, but they knew they could work their way out of it. In the mean time they would be killing far more here than they would hunting down loose groupings elsewhere and killing the most possible was the goal, with both of them using their battlemeld link to remind themselves of their purpose here and not get overloaded with the gore.

And it was working, for Riona stood out to Paul like a beacon of civilization amongst the lizard hoards, and vice versa. Not only were they more powerful working together, but they kept each other sane as they became the slayers that they needed to be in order to take some of the burden off the Regulars and keep them from dying from these never ending infantry waves.

Just then Riona spotted a det pack approaching, with Paul switching off his death sabers as he stepped over to her and wrapped her up in a hug, layering his bioshields around her as she telekinetically picked up the lizard and threw it back through the air over the others. Realizing what was happening in an instant, the lizard detonated itself after only getting a few meters away.

The blast killed hundreds of lizards around the detonation point and knocked both Paul and Riona away, with the two tumbling along with the dead bodies…but they rolled out of it and split again, alive and still with some mechanical shields remaining thanks to their linked bioshields taking most of the hit.

With a whole area of lizards now dead and lying on the ground, those behind them suddenly had open lines of fire and dozens of phaser blasts lit up the area. The two Archons took hits, but jumped up high into the air and let the blasts track underneath them, some taking out friendly targets before they landed again and began dashing towards one side of the blast area, getting tripped up a bit by all the bodies.

Riona’s shields went down before they made the edge, with Paul telekinetically picking her up and throwing her like a ball into the lizards ahead. Her armored body hit them and knocked more than 20 over as the others focused their phaser shots on him until he slipped in amongst the hoard and got back to cutting them up at point blank range, once again with the nearest lizards blocking the firing lines of the others in the staging area.

And the process repeated. Riona got to her feet and reengaged her blades with a bit of bioshield covering her armor to give her primary shields a chance to recharge. She took a few melting hits anyway, but it was going to take an awful lot to get through the Archon battle plates, which over the years had gotten strong and stronger. Had the lizards been using plasma she could have attacked them with no shields at all and gotten about the same result, but even with their upgraded rifles they weren’t going to get through to her flesh without them standing and pounding on her for several minutes.

Neither Archon was going to give them that opportunity for they were constantly on the move, even if it only be a few steps here and there. The fought so closely together at some points that it looked like they were going to hit each other, but battlemeld meant they were of one mind and essentially one body, knowing where the other’s limbs were and where they were going at all times, allowing them to fight at an insanely efficient level in close quarters.

The lizards that were diving at their legs were a real nuisance though, with Paul having to kick or peel off several multiple times. One dove down and wrapped up his left leg now and he sliced it in half with his left blade. It squealed in pain, but the arms didn’t release for a second or two, allowing another to jump in in its place with similar results.

They did slow him down enough that three others jumped towards his head, but a telekinetic block stopped them dead in the air, acting like little blast shields floating around him, then he summoned a Jumat blast in his right arm and held it up, blasting them all back and into the others as he kicked the upper torso of a lizard off his right leg.

Piece by piece the master and apprentice killed the lizards, leaving such a body count behind that the incoming reinforcements were having a hard time reaching them over the mounds that were building. Every now and then a det pack would go off changing the landscape, but the sea of blood always flowed back in. Paul and Riona were walking in it with every step, now half an inch deep and being added to by the corpse piles that the living lizards were scrambling over to get to the Archons.

It was mindless killing, but Paul would rather take it on himself to do rather than leave it to the Regulars who might get injured or killed in the process. The more he fought these battles the more he hated the lizards. Their civilization was impressive in some ways, but he had long lost any appreciation for them in that regard. They were barbarians, pure and simple, and didn’t give a damn about the lives being lost. Their people were expendable, and apparently even these infantry thought so. There wasn’t a discord amongst the grunts and the leaders, they were all on the same suicidal page.

After hours of fighting in that chamber something changed…the wall of lizards coming at them ended, with only a few stragglers left. Those stupidly still came at them, having no chance at all of succeeding but apparently wanting to go down fighting. The Archons obliged and cut them down quickly, then stood still breathing heavily as they searched with their eyes and minds for more targets.

There were none. The entire chamber was empty of the living save for a few nearby on the ground that would exit that category soon. Most of the blows the death sabers landed were spot on, but occasionally they only maimed a target until they bled out. Paul would have finished them off sooner than that, but both he and Riona, having been battlemeld linked for hours, just stood there looking at the literal hills of chopped up bodies surrounding them and stretching across the entire length of the chamber.

They were now standing in several inches of blood, splashing around like water with severed arms and legs and heads of lizards scattered around. Now that their minds were coming out of threat aversion mode both of them were stunned at the sight of it all. It made them both sick to look at, but they were so numbed up by now that they avoided puking in their helmets. Focusing so that didn’t happen as their adrenaline began to taper off, they both just stood still and looked around, feeling each other and helping one another to snap out of the funk they were in.

After more than a minute Paul finally shook himself loose of the spectacle and walked over to a few of the lizards that were immobile on the floor but still alive. He mentally linked to them and numbed out their pain, then put a few final slashes through their necks and saved them the final agonizing minutes. Riona did likewise with a few others, then their Ikrid radar was clear as far out as they could stretch it. They were totally alone behind enemy lines because…there was no one left to kill.

Theyboth walked towards one another, flicking aside a few corpse pieces so they had somewhere flat to stand, then they both retracted their helmets. The stench was bad and would only get worse in the days to come but they didn’t hide from it. They leaned on each other in a loose hug and touched their foreheads together. No tears came, but both were emotionally spent. With the area clear of threats they took the moment to collect themselves rather than numbing it out. Better to do it here and now than wait until they were back, because they could not let themselves become jaded.

Other elite Archons were now pairing up in a similar manner to help them handle the load, staying linked to one another during the fighting for both combat and emotional support. Paul and Riona had gone on many of these missions now, usually at least one every two or three days, but none had been as gruesome as this one. Everything around them, every cut in those bodies had been their doing. They’d created all this, and damn the lizards for forcing them to do it.

The two Archons took several minutes, taking solace within each other’s minds and focusing on the skin to skin touch to override the oppression of everything around them and put it into context. Once they had themselves grounded again and their heartbeats and breathing had returned to normal they broke contact and their helmets reformed around their heads…then they began hiking across the mounds of dead and through the shallow lake of blood until they got to and had to clear away more bodies from an exit.

After that they left the gore behind in lizard territory, knowing that they’d have to get a cleaning crew on it as soon as their lines pressed this far forward, because the lizards didn’t bother cleaning up their dead. Paul and Riona made sure to not pass back by this way again until it was cleaned up. They’d had to create it in the first place, and now that they were turning their backs on that travesty they weren’t going to lay eyes on it again, for sanity sake.

8

October 12, 3106

Solar System

Earth

Wilson walked up the circular stairway into Davis’s office, finding him in the middle of a holocom with a Hycre so he turned the corner on the railing and headed for the empty opposite side of the office. Never in his memory had Davis put anything here, leaving it open space with only the staircase and his desk breaking up the observation platform that he ran Star Force out of. Wilson headed over to the curved window opposite the Director and looked out at the not so busy cityscape below.

There was a fair amount of air traffic, but not nearly as much as there had been back in the day when Atlantis was the primary spaceport on the planet. Now it was hallowed ground with the busy commerce centers located elsewhere, though a stream of dropships and assorted craft were coming and going nonstop to service the capitol within the capitol. This had always been the nerve center of the empire, but now it lacked the added energy of a tourist resort.

Wilson waited patiently until the conversation ended and the hologram disappeared before he left his vantage point and headed back over to Davis’s desk.

“I didn’t realize there were any Hycre in the system.”

“There’s a single jumpship here on special permission. There are some future plans of theirs that they needed to discuss with me in person.”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“Mostly economic. Now that their war with the lizards is all but at an end they’re retooling and want a bigger role in the Star Force economy.”

“Last I checked the war was far from over.”

“For them it is. Their systems are secure and while they’re still patrolling and intercepting an occasional ship, they’re not actively hunting or attacking lizard worlds as their border gets pushed further away. They don’t have the weaponry for it anyway, and we’re not upgrading them again.”

“Did they ask?”

“No. They helped us long ago, we’ve repaid the favor. They’re moving forward with their own agenda now that they see we’ve got the lizards beat and that they can’t really contribute much to that going forward. The H’kar are in a different position, with their original territory still in lizard hands, but the climate within the ADZ has been developing into one of apathy regarding the lizard threat now that it’s away from our borders. We’re the ones that are doing the fighting, so everyone else is doing other stuff.”

“Begging for some of that prime lizard territory?”

“The Hycre…no. They can’t really use it anyway, and we’re not keeping too strict a hold on the gas giants. They are negotiating deals for some of the prime ones, but overall their proposals are more goods oriented. They want to integrate further with Star Force without actually joining and we’re hammering out the details. They’ll be here for another week at least and we’re done for the day. What’s on your mind?”

“I’ve finished my theoretical retooling.”

Davis’s mood perked up slightly. “And?”

“We have some options.”

“I’ve got time,” Davis said as he sat back down in his chair. “Lay it out for me.”

Wilson sat as well. “As Star Force grows we have an increasingly difficult task of command and control, which we’ve dealt with by developing and maintaining a core group of trustworthy individuals, whether they be Archons, Monarchs, Administrators, etc. Everything functions off of them, and remove that spine and you’d see the empire fall apart. Not immediately, since the factions and systems are redundant and somewhat self-sufficient, but we are the glue that holds it all together and the larger our territory gets the more glue we need.”

“Agreed.”

“The question has been whether that glue needs to be Human. The answer is no. It needs to be Star Force. Already you have a few non-Human Monarchs, so there’s no issue there, but with regards to the Archons it’s not so simple a matter because of their psionics. Ask yourself this though…could you ever see a very skillful Calavari becoming a trailblazer?”

Davis frowned. “We aren’t producing any more trailblazers, Calavari or Human.”

“Kara says otherwise. Special circumstances elevated her into their ranks, more or less. Assume something drastic happened and it involved a Calavari.”

“They would tell me whether or not they wanted him. I wouldn’t make that decision.”

“What would they judge him by?”

“Skill, obviously. Trustworthiness. Experience would also be a factor, I imagine.”

“You’re missing one.”

Davis raised an eyebrow.

“Brotherhood. That’s what bonds them together more than anything else. The things you mentions are prerequisites, but it’s the bond they have that’s the real glue with them and allows them to function without a chain of command. The rest of the empire has a structure, but they don’t. We don’t. You run things because you’re best at it, I’m best at training, but we never get into a bickerment over who gives orders.”

“Bickerment?”

Wilson smiled. “A term I coined long ago. There’s a difference between arguing and bickering.”

“So there is. Bickerment then. I’ll add that to my vocabulary list.”

“You and I are a team, without any constraints whatsoever. Originally I was your employee, but that didn’t last long.”

“You’re saying we don’t dare mess with that core bond?”

“We’re also all Human, and that factors in as well. We also all went through the process of building Star Force…and therein lies the key. We are Star Force, and we’re not going to be replaced. We can add a few worthy individuals to our ranks, but there’s no way anyone else has claim to our personal club. We built it, we earned it, and we’re the gatekeepers. Humans aren’t the gatekeepers, we are, and that’s a distinction that needs to be highlighted.”

“Noted.”

“So the real question becomes the lower elite ranks. You’ve already established protocol for the Monarchs…which is?”

“I hand pick them all, mostly from existing Administrators, though a few from other placements.”

“All experienced?”

“To a degree, yes.”

“That’s not how we choose Archons. We take them fresh off a testing package.”

Davis nodded. “Should that change?”

Wilson shook his head. “No, not at all. The process is very refined now. No need to tamper with it…for Humans anyway.”

“If you’re going where I think you’re going with this, you don’t want non-Humans in the Archon basic training?”

“I don’t want them in Archon training at all.”

“That’s a much simpler thing to say, so I assume there is a caveat?”

“Brotherhood develops in many ways. To make it the most potent you have to all be the same. Same race, same skills, same challenges. No one without the full psionic package can be Archons. We can etch that in stone right now.”

“Consider it etched then. What else?”

“The Protovic are close to Human physiology, no one else is. A few are similar, but the only real Archon question is them. If we give them, one day, full psionics, could they also be Archons?”

“I’m guessing no, but I’d like to hear your reasons for it.”

“For one they’re more rigid, due to their exoskeleton, and don’t have the flexibility range. That and other small differences are present, and aside from physically changing them into Human there’s no point in trying to make them Human. Archons are Human, pure and simple. That doesn’t mean the Protovic can’t be valuable to the empire, but they’re not Archons.”

“Which brings us back to your trailblazer question.”

“If they accepted a Protovic into their midst, how would they do it? I used Calavari because it’s a more drastic example, but either will suffice.”

“Either way they’d have to be able to hold their ground in a fight,” Davis said, thinking hard. “Strategic skills…heavy dose of sarcasm.”

“Would they expect them to match them exactly?”

“I think Paul would say that Grand Admiral Thrawn answers that question.”

Wilson laughed. “I was considering using that example. Odd how they got both of us to literally memorize those bits of fiction.”

“They’re useful metaphors,” Davis agreed. “Thrawn wasn’t Human.”

“No, and he had a slightly different way of commanding, but he still got the job done. I think that’s the bottom line.”

“So if an individual can meet Archon standards, however they get around to it…”

Wilson shook his head firmly. “No.”

“No?”

“We’re not going to hold back individuals trying to fit them into Human standards. We have some very good Calavari that have been serving as Commandos in the Human Mainline armies for centuries. They’re operating off of Human standards and ranked lower than their combat potential because they fight in different ways. At the time this wasn’t a problem because all of Mainline was Human. Now we have Mainline factions of Calavari, Bsidd, etc and there’s no need to integrate units except where advantageous. Those units that are hybrids function far better because each piece is suited to its role rather than being crunched down into a one form fits all.”

“How does this affect the Archons?”

“It’s simple. We allow them to have sidekicks.”

Davis looked at Wilson for a few seconds as he tried to wrap his head around that idea. “What exactly are you inferring?”

“If we create psionics, we create them specifically for the races and not to match what Humans have. They can become equals on the battlefield, in theory, doing it their own way. They won’t be Archons, won’t be part of that core group, from the beginning…but they could be adopted into it later as sidekicks.”

“Define ‘sidekick’ then.”

“Think of Archons like brothers and sisters, with sidekicks being cousins.”

“Ah,” Davis said, almost in a sigh, as it finally clicked. “A strong bond but not quite what exists between Archons. Yet battlefield comradery and the potential to advance up to our level if they proved themselves worthy.”

“You’re already doing that with the Monarchs.”

“Their field involves giving orders, which can be accomplished by any race. Physical combat is far different.”

“And I’ve already covered that, in theory,” Wilson said as he fished a data chip out of his pocket and tossed it to Davis. “My ideas of how to upgrade all the races we have someday. Not on the whole, but for select individuals. There won’t be a training program like the Archons, it’ll work more like the Arc Commandoes in that select individuals will be chosen based on experience and merit. They’ll work with the Archons and operate within that chain of command. Each will exist as part of Clan and organize in that fashion, with their skills being utilized for what they can and can’t do rather than trying to make them conform to Archon standards…which I’ll remind you, are designed to master all 5 divisions.”

“I don’t think we really master aquatics,” Davis pointed out, “but we’re at least average compared to the Elarioni.”

“We can do it all, and so can the Protovic. Not as well, but they can. Most of the other races are more slanted towards specialties. Specialists can’t be Archons. Archons have to do it all.”

“Sidekicks can be specialists?”

“Yes, and depending on how they’re psionically upgraded that may change in certain areas.”

“And the current blue Protovic?”

“You mean the new blue or the old blue?”

“New blue.”

“Theirs is a racial program, which seems to be working out well so far. We’ll have to wait and see what happens when they get some depth. I don’t think we need to mess with their abilities anytime soon. Leave them alone, with maybe a few bits of tinkering down the road. Let them be what they can be and forget about being Archons. If they have the merit to lead the empire, it’ll be as Protovic.”

“They’re not getting my job,” Davis scoffed.

“Nor should they. My point is Archons are Human for numerous reasons, and not just psionics. True equality comes on the battlefield, whether it be combat or economic, and not in the route you take to get there.”

“We always have been fond of doing what works. This would be no different.”

“It’s going to take a lot of trial and error to get the other races pegged down, even without giving them psionics. I haven’t trained them like Archons, and I’ll need to get to know how their bodies and psyches work better before I try to develop a really deep elite program for them. Their current training programs are solid, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not built for someone meant to hold so much responsibility, let alone problem solving, like the Archons are. I’ve got a lot of work to do if you want to head down this road, and it’ll change every time we can add a psionic or other ability.”

“Other ability?”

“We kind of use the word ‘psionic’ to refer to superpowers…and even that isn’t a strict definition.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Getting some of the air breathing aquatics races liquid breathing upgrades would be one example.”

Davis paused for a moment.

“I don’t think we can do that with our bodies though,” Wilson added. “Too much tissue change.”

“I wonder. The V’kit’no’sat didn’t include that in our genome or theirs, and I wonder if that’s because the backup oxygen is for more than just being under water.”

“They didn’t use Zen’zat for underwater operations anyway.”

“Not that we know of, but their armor still had an aquatics module. So it’s possible they were used in that sense on occasion.”

“I’ve never seen any files detailing that.”

“Neither have I. We’re too slow in the water compared to the swimmers to be worth deploying save for emergency situations. Unaugmented anyway,” Davis said as he slipped the datachip into a slot on his desk and pulled up the reports Wilson had compiled for him, seeing that, as usual, Star Force’s head trainer had been excessively thorough. “Who do you want to start with?”

“I’m assuming we’re nowhere near developing any custom psionics?”

“The timetable on that has gotten considerably hazy, but assume no for the foreseeable future.”

“Then I want 100 Calavari here, on Earth, in Atlantis so I can personally develop this program. We’ll need some considerable remodeling first, though.”

Davis nodded. “You still don’t trust the Archon trainees to anyone else?”

“I want to be able to troubleshoot if needed, but most of the duties can be handled by others. That and I want to be the face they know from the outset. I won’t lose touch completely, but I can free up a lot of spare time if needed for this.”

“How do you plan on choosing the candidates?”

“These aren’t candidates. This is an advanced training group, pure and simple. I need to learn the Calavari better before I design the real one. I just need experienced, intuitive individuals that I can press and study. I need to know how they think and respond under pressure, and to do that I need to poke and prod them in very specific ways.”

“Will a seafloor expansion suffice? We’re kind of lacking in internal space as it is.”

“So long as I don’t have to hop on a dropship to move from one group to another.”

“I’ll have them build you a private transit system to an adjacent facility. We have several nearby that can be repurposed easily and they’ll function as part of the city if the link is fast enough, which it will be.”

“Adequate. How soon can I get my experiments?”

Davis bit his lip. “I can rush the conversion inside of a year. Finding and recalling the volunteers might take longer. Do you want to handle that as well or should I just ask the Archons to do it?”

“If this were the actual first class I’d do it, but since I’m not sure what to look for in Calavari they’d probably be better judges. Just ask the ones that have worked with them extensively. The others probably know less than I do about them at this point.”

“Done deal.”

Wilson nodded. “I don’t know how long this will actually take.”

“No rush. No rush at all. Just another puzzle piece we need to get in motion.”

“We have a lot of those, don’t we?”

“The bigger the empire, the more pieces.”

“About that…I have another request. A side project that’s long overdue.”

“Yes?”

“I need to run the Archons through psionic armor challenges. For that I’ll need an army trained to use them…which I’ll have to develop if no one else gets around to it. It’s been on the Archons’ to-do list for some time, but they’ve never implemented it as far as I know.”

“Gun shy?”

“Might be. Either way, it’s better something that I handle than them. Same reason they can’t create their own challenges…at least not ones as good as I can. You can’t think like yourself and your enemy at the same time.”

“Terrorize them as you like.”

“That’ll actually be a bigger logistical project than the Calavari.”

“Recruit what personnel and resources that you need…although I would make one recommendation.”

“Which is?”

“Involve Vermaire. From an Archon’s point of view, nothing is more intimidating than a Black Knight immune to your powers, and Vermaire knows the trailblazers well enough to figure out how to hurt them.”

“Vermaire isn’t here.”

“He’s not?” Davis said, raising an eyebrow.

“They came and got him not long ago. Said they needed him and his best Arc Knights on the front.”

“I didn’t realize that. He rarely leaves Earth.”

“They asked and he went. I don’t know much more than that.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“To the core world that the 2s are assaulting.”

9

January 6, 3108

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

“Are we sure about this?” Riona asked, looking down the narrow chasm that was the innards of one of the connecting columns that ran from the shipyard ring down to the planet’s surface. It was pitch black save for the bit of light spilling in from the wall panel they’d cut through, because it wasn’t meant to be traveled in. It was null space around the numerous lift shafts with equipment bundles and a very irregular geometry.

“You can stay here if you want,” Paul answered her as the other Archons caught up with them.

“Not what I asked,” she clarified.

“They won’t know we’re coming. The tough part is what happens when we get on the ground.”

“That’s easy,” Ginsi said, nudging past Riona and glancing down the dark shaft. “We kick ass.”

“It’s a one way trip unless we can take down all the anti-orbital batteries within range,” she said, scoffing at the upstart mage who nearly equaled her in Commando skill scores. “And that’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“That’s why we’re going,” Ginsi said, glancing back at the other high level Archons behind them.

“If ego were a weapon you’d be invincible,” Riona said grimly.

Paul snickered at that then glanced over at the dark blue armored mage. “We’re letting you tag along, youngling. Try to keep up and not get killed.”

“Will do, boss,” she said, looking down the chasm again. “Can I go first?”

Paul reached an arm out and lazily threw her back into the group. “No.”

“We go first,” Megan said as she and Jack came to the front.

“Right,” Ginsi said sarcastically, making way for her betters. All of them wore equipment packs of various makes, with only a few Archons equipped with death sabers. The rest had ammunition for convention weapons while others carried specialized gear and supplies. Riona wasn’t wrong about this being a long mission, with some 46 sites that they had to pluck the anti-orbital batteries out of before Star Force could even send a single ship down to the surface…and even if they did managed to get them all, there’d only be a very small column of ‘safe’ airspace to travel through with the curve of the planet blocking the other big guns’ firing lines.

“I’ve got point,” Jack said, stepping off the edge and slowly falling down a few inches in freefall. The ring wasn’t quite in geosync orbit, so there was just a touch of gravitational pull exceeding their lateral velocity, all of which meant there was a very small noticeable gravity effect up this high, though it’d increase the further down the miles of crawlspaces they had to travel…with the only way back up being the lifts that had been shut down and blocked off, unless you wanted to crawl up the walls using the adhesive panels in your armor for 26,000 miles.

“Keep within Ikrid range at all times,” Megan said as she gave Jack a tap on the shoulder and pushed him down a bit quicker. When he dropped below the edge of the floor she knelt down and put herself into a handstand that she walked out over the edge, then used her hands to pull herself down the wall and get some speed going herself.

Paul offered Riona a battlemeld prompt and she accepted it, unnecessary for a mission like this but it was a friendly way of declaring they were going to be sticking together on the way down. The two of them let Megan and Jack get a little bit of a lead, then they both dove head first over the edge, arcing down and towards the far wall where they bounced off it and began ricocheting their way down until they got themselves straightened out.

“After you,” Ginsi said to the other Archons, preferring to stay put and be last car on the train. A line of golden armor passed her by, leaving the only mage to follow in their wake. She was glad they’d included her, especially given that her Commando skills exceeded some of theirs, for she would have been royally pissed if she’d missed this mission.

Three trailblazers, 34 titans, and one mage on a secret mission behind enemy lines facing off with everything the planet could throw at them in a race to get the orbital guns down before the lizards realized they were there or decided to start taking down the support columns to prevent them from doing something like this with the lift systems. It was a ballsy move on their part, and frankly they were going to need her help to pull this off.

Not that she’d be all that helpful given the combined skillset that she was traveling with, but she definitely wasn’t going to fall behind and could contribute to the group enough to warrant her inclusion. Ginsi was just a little surprised the Archons felt the same way.

When the last bit of golden armor disappeared Ginsi sat down on the edge and slid off head first, pulling on the edge to get her some speed as she scanned the darkness ahead with her Pefbar and Ikrid, seeing that the others weren’t wasting any time. She also got an Ikrid ping sent like a chain through the others marking an obstruction ahead. The leaders would pick them out and let everyone else know where to avoid, with Ginsi simply having to stay up and make sure she didn’t hit anything on the way down.

She had a straight line of descent several hundred meters before an outcropping forced a detour of a few meters to the right. Further down there was another few, until they got to a clumping of cables that only had a small pass through. It was wide enough for a tank, but given how large this null space was that was about as thin of a bottleneck as the schematics said there was going to be.

Which was why they were constantly speeding themselves up by grabbing on handholds as they passed and slinging themselves forward. When Ginsi suddenly was falling behind a bit she got a battlemeld prompt from the Archon closest to her and they bonded for a moment, just long enough to extend a Bataf column to her. The energy field linked them like a rope and it pulled her forward with a surge of speed while simultaneously slowing down the titan. Ginsi caught up quickly while he managed to speed himself back up with what she guessed where tugs from others up ahead.

Ginsi used a telekinetic ‘crashbag’ to shove her off one wall and over to another, grabbing a stubby outcropping and using it to swing herself forward a bit faster. She couldn’t get much speed from it now since she was falling quickly, but up ahead she managed to find another bit of terrain in the form of a support strut along the wall and veered over to get her foot on the far side of it and push off, accelerating her a bit further and closer to the 3 Archons ahead of her as one of them shot forward again, with the other two following shortly thereafter.

Another battlemeld request came and she had to take it, getting yanked ahead to even more speed as another diversion order got bounced back from mind to mind and she telekinetically wedged herself off another wall to avoid a cross beam that would have hurt like a mother if she’d hit it, for she guessed they were doing better than 50 miles an hour now and most of that was not due to gravity, making her wonder how the trailblazers were getting the speed necessary to pull the rest of them along.

Maybe the ‘youngling’ comment was well deserved after all.

8 hours later…

Ginsi braked herself against another Bataf conduit from below, counteracting the continual tug of gravity that was trying to speed them up faster than they reasonably could go. There was no air in the null spaces this far above the planet, so that meant there was nothing to slow them down if they didn’t do it themselves and there was only so much speed they could handle. Fortunately they were passed the tricky section up top near the shipyard ring, with the connections now being little more than evenly spaced gaps with occasional supports jutting out in their way. Hit one of those and they’d be squashed, armor and all, so the trailblazers were holding back on gaining any more speed as they spotted the obstructions ahead and maneuvered the group around them.

But they couldn’t be using psionics, the support struts were flashing by so fast Ginsi only saw a split second blur on her Pefbar. They had to be using schematics to navigate by and hoping that the lizards were as meticulous with their construction as Star Force was. Miles were whipping by so fast it felt like they weren’t even moving at all. The walls appeared a bit foggy, but other than that they were just smooth obstructions on either side that Ginsi knew she could not touch at any cost. The friction would eat through her armor like a chainsaw and send her bouncing from one wall to the other in a death spiral, and shields wouldn’t do much to delay that death.

Fortunately her psionics operated differently than matter. Her telekinesis was able to give her the ability to push against the moving walls without it dragging her backwards and sending her out of control, which she needed when the Bataf adjustments came, for they always threw off her orientation no matter how precisely aligned she thought she was with those below her.

But everyone in this group was a professional and they worked the quiet danger without incident, flying a predictable pattern around the various lift shaft tubes and avoiding the support struts as they continued to fall miles after miles. The danger was real, but it seemed so quiet and nobody was talking on comms or telepathically…at least not to her. She worried that she might fall asleep and bump a wall, for this was boring as hell once you got past the first hour.

But this was the mission and she was game to see it through no matter how the challenges presented themselves. Focus was something that an Archon was used to maintaining in all variety of situations…and in this one, if you slipped up even once you were probably going to end up dead. And if you went careening into others you’d take them with you.

Which was probably another reason why it was good that she was at the back…from their point of view.

13 hours into their fall and the Ikrid orders came for them to start slowing down, with them nearing the atmosphere and Ginsi knowing that if they began to hit that the turbulence would put them into the walls. Not waiting on the others, Ginsi pushed both arms out to either side and created crashbags off each, touching the walls with her energy fields and trying to force the contact down ahead of her at an angle. She pushed the fields out, forcing herself to go higher with the process and feeling the first tinglings of gravity in half a day, indicating that she was succeeding in bleeding off at least a little speed.

Apparently it wasn’t enough, for she got three different battlemeld prompts from below and accepted them all before she had a chance to crash into anyone. Suddenly she was in a tripod of Bataf links holding her still and slowing her down, leaving her with nothing to do but hold onto the links. They were making it easy on her, but like she said earlier she intended to pull her own weight so she kept her telekinetic vice operating as much as she could manage while multitasking, lessening her weight for the others to push on or pulling them up, depending on how you looked at it.

She wasn’t connected with all the Archons, just those closest to her, but through the mind links she could feel that the others had different battlemelds overlapping. That was something she’d never tried before, but she could sense through the ripple of one mind to another that all 38 of them were Bataf connected to one another and slowing as a fixed group to avoid bumping into each other.

Impressive as that was, they weren’t going to bleed off this much speed very fast. It was going to take time, and she hoped they’d got their altitude guesses correct, for the battlemap signals weren’t penetrating the column to orient themselves off of.

With the wind whipping by her inside the pitch black null space, Ginsi finally got the signal from the others to split. She’d already started spotting protrusions on her own Pefbar and from those she could guess at their speed, but the irregularity was coming back again as they got close to the surface and the structure altered into what would be a very wide base, but one bottoming out well below ground level. The lift shafts didn’t run that deep, but supporting so much weight in such a ‘flimsy’ structure required some significant engineering chops and a rooting ‘boot’ to match.

That meant more stuff in the way, but Ginsi and the others were glad to get to do something more than just falling. At these slower speeds Ginsi was able to touch the walls and bounce off them, dancing down the null space and following the others as the trailblazers charted their course through the obstructions. They remained that way, doing their dark acrobatic dance until she got the signal to start hard braking.

The mage flipped over, using the rushing air to move her over to the side wall where she dug her heels into it as she pressed against the opposite wall with a Lachka field and wedged herself into some traction…though it looked like she was skating a trail of sparks on the wall.

The others decelerated in a variety of means, though slower than Ginsi. She didn’t want to run up on top of them and need help again, so she opted for the more extreme deceleration. Eventually the others below her stopped altogether, with her accepting a final Bataf to kill the rest of her speed and allow her to grab onto the wall and hang Spiderman style along with the others below her.

Ginsi waited there until a shaft of light blared into existence. No one moved at first, allowing their eyes to start readjusting to the light, then slowly they began crawling down to that level with the light getting brighter they closer they got to the opening.

When Ginsi got to that level she was on the wrong wall, so she jumped across and grabbed hold of the other, then crawled over beneath the doorway thankful that no one else was sticking around to help her. The null space continued to fall away beneath her, traveling down to a dead end block according to the schematics, but it was below street level and not where they wanted to go.

The mage grabbed hold of the bottom edge of the hole they’d cut in the wall and pulled herself up and into it, coming out on her knees as she looked into the bright daylight as the 37 battlemap icons ahead of her were disappearing fast. She stood up and walked into the lizard city, taking a few seconds to soak in the view and the startled looks on the lizards nearby, most of whom were not armed.

Those that were fired at the Archons, but neither they nor Ginsi shot back. She ignored them and took off running, following the line of her peers and needing to match their speed. Now she was in her element and they would not be leaving her behind.

With several pink phaser shots missing her and a couple actually making contact with her shields, Ginsi sprinted off through the city, wondering exactly how much damage 38 of the most elite Archons in Star Force could cause, and how the lizards would adapt to try and stop them.

10

February 18, 3108

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Paul, Riona, and two other titans clung to the underside of a lizard transport, out of sight from above and not caring what the lizards on the ground saw as they flew across kilometers of enemy cityscape towards their next target, remote controlling the mind of the pilot as they had been doing for weeks to cross the expanses required to get to all the anti-orbital batteries within range of the column they’d come down.

So far this one hadn’t been spotted and shot down and they’d been able to cover a lot of ground while the rest of their 38 man team continued on to separate targets. There were too many for them all to hit together, so they’d split up to maximize time after the first one went down with surprising ease. It’d taken some improvising on site, but the lizards had plenty of stuff to use for demolitions if you knew where to look. Damaging the battery enough that they couldn’t get it repaired within 2 months meant a lot of fireworks, but Paul’s team had gotten good at it now, despite the fact that two buildings had been brought down on their heads as the lizards tried to kill or pin them inside the structures.

They knew what they were doing and were fortifying the anti-orbital batteries heavily but they were so big it was almost impossible to cover all the cracks, especially when psionics allowed minds to be distracted and wiped. The Archons, now that they were within the globe-spanning city, were damn near impossible to find and even harder to lock down, with them running or hitching rides across the landscape and easily disappearing again so long as they chose to run and not engage. Their targets were the orbital batteries, not the inhabitants, for which they didn’t have the ammo for anyway.

Paul and Riona had been living on the streets and in the undercity ever since they’d gotten to ground, relying on their supplies to sustain them and knowing they were on the clock. There were lots of defense batteries on the ground, not to mention shield generators that could throw up very heavy barriers overhead in an instant, but there were only so many weapons batteries that could reach orbit…and even those couldn’t reach all the way up to the ring shipyard. The Star Force fleet was safely out of range there, but when they came lower to assault the planet they’d come within range and have to slug it out, punching through the shields first to get to the guns…and taking a lot of ship casualties in the process.

And some of these anti-orbital batteries were the new cleansing beam models that packed more firepower and a decent range upgrade. The Archons had to clear a column of ‘safe’ passage around the column that spread out approximately 800 miles in radius, for that was the guessed range that the lizard cleansing beams had and the closest a ship could jump into the planet was directly outside the atmosphere. Unfortunately that was far enough away from the surface that you were high enough for multiple batteries otherwise denied line of sight by the planetary curve to still target you. A cone of safety directly over your landing site was enough to cover aerial traffic, but that wasn’t going to be enough to get dropships down to the planet.

As of now there was enough of a cone of safety that Paul could call down a command ship and sit it over the landing site if he wanted to. It could weather the few hits on the way down, but then it’d have to contend with the short range weaponry coming from the surface. If they needed evac he could have the Excalibur come down and batter one of the city shields to the point it broke, but his ship would get chewed up in the process and he didn’t want to bring a fleet of drones in at this close range at all.

The plan was to park them in low orbit, outside the short range lizard weapons and out of the anti-orbital batteries maximum range…but that required eliminating those close enough to cause them a world of hurt. Once that was accomplished, Paul would order an orbital bombardment to take out shield generators, short range weaponry, hangars, barracks, hatcheries, and anything else needing blown up before sending the ground troops down to clean up and start pressing the war across land to the other anti-orbital guns.

At least that was the plan in traditional invasions, but with so many high level Archons here they were going to keep hitting them in small teams ahead of the main force so long as the lizards didn’t find a way to counter them…and Paul knew that was always a threat, so they had to hurry and get all these close guns down and an LZ established before they adapted. The rest of the guns spread across the planet would be extras, but these had to go down now or extraction was going to get messy.

With Paul driving through the eyes of their pilot, he brought the blocky transport down onto a street a few kilometers away from their next target. The four titans dropped off and down to the street, then started running into obscurity as the crowds of lizards around them went into a panic. Paul knew that as long as they kept moving they’d have an advantage, but let the lizards know exactly where they were and they’d start running kamikaze wisps down on top of them…again.

Keeping that in mind, the foursome headed over ground for a couple of minutes before taking to the undercity and approaching the gun from there, out of the view of aerial reconnaissance and losing themselves in the lizard infrastructure.

After ‘interviewing’ a number of lizards they found out that several buildings and sublevels around the massive turret had been booby-trapped with explosives so the lizards could take them down the moment they spotted the Archons in them. Paul got the locations of those buildings and brought his four man team to one of them…for they needed to sneak off with some of those explosives themselves. The trick was not being seen, for the lizards would just detonate them in your face.

It was an old trick that they’d been using for what felt like years, though it’d been less than 2 months since they’d arrived on the planet. Being an intense situation nonstop, it had ground out into an endless flow of adrenaline, fatigue, and quick bits of sleep when you could manage it. How the other teams were doing now he didn’t know, for they were out of contact range, but his trio of Archons were holding up well and Paul was far from tapping out. It was rough, but they were getting the job done and not having to slaughter lizards to do it.

They were killing some, but the objective was to evade and the massed bloodbaths that Paul and Riona had been having to endure were a welcome absence. Most of the lizards dying here were from friendly fire, for they didn’t evacuate the buildings they’d booby-trapped, else they tip their hand.

When they finally went into the turret they’d have to do some fighting, but smuggling in the explosives was going to take a few hours and a lot of skill. If luck was against them that timetable would stretch out even further, but they’d get them inside eventually. Diversionary attacks would have to be made, but right now assembling the needed ordinance was the task, and as long as the lizards were providing factory-grade explosives they might as well take advantage of that rather than trying to MacGyver their own out of fuel cells and whatever else they could get their hands on from the local synthetic jungle that they were ensconced within.

When they got near the building in question Paul had the other three screen for him using mind tricks and diversions, allowing him to enter unnoticed and track down one of the bombs in the structure. He didn’t approach it directly, for there were guards in the area and he needed to knock them out first, but thankfully he could do that at range and even through the walls with his telepathy…so long as there wasn’t a security camera trained on them. Spotting those was the more challenging evasion, though so long as he had time to look around at his leisure with his Pefbar he could find and avoid them.

Luckily the lizards hadn’t put cameras on the bombs themselves. Those they were trying to hide from view and stuck them within the infrastructure as much as possible. When Paul finally got to one inside the building foundations he didn’t approach it, rather hiding behind a bulkhead and ‘touching’ it with his psionics just in case it did go off. Between the bulkhead and his armor he might be able to survive that, and he wanted the cushion just in case something went wrong.

Halfway through his inspection of the device he heard a faint screeching sound causing him to twitch. He recognized it instantly, and barely a second later Riona’s mental voice contacted him in lieu of a comm signal that might be tracked.

The big gun just opened fire.

On what?

Not sure, but it’s depressed pretty far.

Which direction?

Towards the column. You think…

Get eyes on it now.

Riona didn’t hesitate, breaking from her cover within a nearby building that was not rigged with explosives and making her way to the roof, knocking unconscious a few lizards along the way that happened to see her. Climbing 128 levels took some time, but when she got to the top she stepped out near a cupola and kept her back pressed against it so her silhouette wouldn’t stand out. It was transitioning over into night, with the suns no longer visible on the horizon but with a pink/orange sky trailing them still visible in the dimming light.

A much larger flash of brilliant pink cast shadows across the roof, with Riona circling around the cupola until she could see the turret. Another deep pink phaser beam shot out parallel to the ground and streaked over the building tops into the distance. The column was so far away it didn’t even register in the dark light near the surface, but there was a reflective stump reaching up and thinning into the sky where the sunlight was still reaching it. That disappearing line intersected with a thick yellow/tan ring that stretched across the entire sky in an arc, looking about a fifth the thickness of Earth’s moon.

Riona stared at the darkness beneath the visible column and zoomed in with her helmet’s optics as far as she could. The view changed into a myriad of lights around the column, bathing it in pinks coming from different directions, some of which seemed to be coming up from directly underneath it, along with a few other colors that she recognized as rocket plumes. The nearby turret screeched again and its pink lance was visible as it intersected the column, but Riona was too far away to see the effect.

She jacked up her comm signal, knowing that it might be tracked to her so she set to transmit to Derrick-633 so that he could then relay it to Paul using the dampened signal strength that wouldn’t reach all the way up to her through the layers of lizard infrastructure.

“Paul, have a look,” she said, sending him her visuals.

“Damn it,” he said with a snarl. “I need you to boost for an orbital link.”

“I’ll keep my head down,” she said, visually scanning the nearby sky for ships as she reset to act as his transmitter with a signal strong enough that they could not keep the lizards from being able to detect it. “Link established.”

“Admiral?” Paul asked, waiting a few heartbeats.

“I assume you’re seeing what we’re seeing?”

“Confirm they’re attacking the column.”

“Confirmed. Looks like they intend to sever it at the base before we can send any more troops down it.”

“Any change in combat on the ring?”

“Negative. I don’t think they expect it to all come down.”

“Make sure of that and get someone working the gravity drives to compensate for when the column gets chopped off.”

“You think it’ll hold?”

“I hope so, or 26,000 miles of pain are going to come falling down who knows where. The lizards can’t hit it further up so this is their only point of attack. Compensate for the weight and keep your fingers crossed.”

“Do want an evac team standing by?”

“Negative. My team is scattered going after different targets and we’re all under the fire canopy. If it does fall I’ll get back to you, but for now just wait it out and make sure someone is riding those gravity drive controls nonstop from here on out.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Admiral Hestin promised.

“And evacuate the connecting point in case it rips a chunk of the ring off with it.”

“Sending the order now.”

“Ground team going dark,” Paul said as he cut transmission with orbit but stayed on with Riona. “Get back down here.”

“Coming,” she said, taking a few more seconds to look at the column. It hadn’t moved so much as a twitch yet, but if/when the lizards did blow through the base she didn’t know what would happen.

With another phaser screech sounding and the corresponding pink bath of light flooding over the rooftop, Riona circled around the stairwell cupola and headed back into the building. She expected some sort of lizard response to be on her position soon and she needed to get away from this building now.

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STAR FORCE Wiki

1

February 20, 3108

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Jack-020 stood atop a tall lizard building, looking out across the planet’s cityscape in the dim morning light at the shipyard column he had in his helmet’s enhanced view. What he saw was almost comical, though he wasn’t laughing. The base of the column had been severed with a chunk a few dozen kilometers long missing out of it where it had formerly touched the ground.

Now it hung from the air, perfectly still, but not standing on anything. The weight was being supported from the ring in orbit, some 26,000 miles overhead, and the fact that the column hadn’t broken into pieces or pulled out from its connection at the top surprised Jack. Apparently the lizard construction was more robust than he gave it credit for.

He’d checked the orbital telemetry being fed down to them via the battlemap without having to break comm silence and noted that the numbers for the ring’s gravity drive output had been added to the feed. Right now they were running a lot harder than normal to support the weight of the column and that’d have to be dealt with eventually, but for now they weren’t worried about running out of fuel and Jack was fairly certain the column wasn’t going to fall down on top of their heads in the near future…thankfully.

Which meant it was time to get back to the mission of knocking out more anti-orbital batteries. Whether they proceeded with a full ground invasion to take out the others or sniped at the edges with orbital bombard, the more he and his small team of Archons could take out the wider the beginning window would be for fleet operations, and he knew naval hated being boxed in so tightly. And while Star Force did have a range advantage on the lizards, sitting in orbit and firing down on a single target would take far too long to do the damage needed with the strength of the lizards’ current shield generators, which on this planet were more massive than any they’d encountered before.

Star Force could get away with the slow bombardment using long range Keema on smaller lizard worlds, but if they tried that here they’d literally be at it more than a century, if not indefinitely, because if they took too long to lay out the damage the lizards could rebuild what they were losing.

So that meant the fleet had to get in closer and bring its other weaponry into the game, specifically the Dre’mo’dons, and to use them through atmosphere would mean they’d have to get real close. The key to not losing any of them was in not exposing them to anti-orbital fire, at least not from the big guns. The secondary surface defenses they could handle, but in order to get them down that low they had to run the gauntlet until a sufficiently wide enough safe zone had been established, and they were far from that.

Add in that the lizards had just taken down their only other means of getting to the surface and Jack began to wonder if the other columns around the planet had also been destroyed. He didn’t think the lizards would help Star Force out by taking down the ones they still controlled, but the rest could certainly have become targets. Searching his battlemap telemetry he saw no highlights at those locations like there was here, so he assumed they were still intact. Though why the lizards would leave them up confused him. If this was just a big stalling effort, why not take them down all at once?

Jack kept wondering if the lizards had a plan up their sleeves…like getting a whole score of reinforcements coming into the system. So far that hadn’t happened, and the full remaining Star Force invasion fleet was still here guarding the system, but sooner or later they’d have to make a choice. Stay here and continue to excessively cover the ground troops as they did their thing, or move on to help assault other systems as planned.

This core invasion was going to take decades at the minimum, Jack knew, but they couldn’t get in a rush and leave themselves exposed to counterattack. Then again they couldn’t wait too long either, with Roger and Liam’s assault fleets still chipping away at two other systems. They were wearing their fleets down and killing a lot of cruisers over the course of time, but neither had risked a full on attack yet. Not until Paul got to them with his enhanced fleet.

But to do that he’d have to leave this one, and he wasn’t going to do that until the ring was fully taken and the ground assault firmly underway. All three of the trailblazers here, himself along with Megan and Paul, were trying to draw out any possible lizard counterattack before his moving on, but none had yet came. He didn’t know if that was because there wouldn’t be one or it just hadn’t manifested itself yet, but it was something constantly on his mind…with the lizards’ hesitancy to chop off the bottom of the other columns making him wonder if they didn’t want to do any more damage to the ring than necessary if they had hopes of reclaiming it and the system.

Not that it was a fragile thing. Each column was miles wide and took a hell of a lot of firepower to chop off at the base, with this one taking hours to have been severed as it was, but destroying the ring itself was damn near impossible. There was simply too much mass for the fleet’s weaponry to chew through, and frankly it would be a waste of power to do it. They could crash the ring down into the planet, with considerable effort, and that would be far more economical than using their weapons to slowly nibble away at it, for it did stretch around the entire planet, but it would make a hell of a mess of the surface and Star Force wasn’t interested in fighting that way.

Why make a mess when you can just steal the ring from them in the first place?

That was their thinking anyway, and since the troops they’d be facing on the ground would be the ones forcing their way up into the ring via the column lifts it didn’t really matter. They’d have to kill them one place or another, so it might as well be the ring, for they were still ignoring all offers of surrender.

Never can make it easy on us, can you? Always have to make us earn it the hardest way possible.

So be it. A surrender would be much cleaner, but Star Force would take the lizards down whatever way they needed, and picking them apart piece by piece had been the method employed thus far, and there was no need to change it now…though the idea of a Death Star to just blow up the entire planet was enticing. Fortunately even the V’kit’no’sat didn’t have that kind of a weapon, and by Jack’s thinking no one would. The amount of power required to crack a planet in two was mindboggling and not deployable, unless you could drag a small star over and have it go supernova in orbit.

Planets were typically durable, fat balls that could get their surface messed up but otherwise would remain the same, and this rock was no different. But Jack and the others weren’t going to mess this one up much. Just a little redecorating via the fleet, then a good scrubbing with the ground teams to clear one sector of lizard city after another.

Jack glanced at the ring in orbit above, always visible day or night and always the same section, for it was spinning with them and locked into position via the columns. Typically Star Force would spend a very long time cleaning up a conquered planet, and while that was somewhat about erasing the lizard presence entirely it also had a very big logistics value. Why go off and mine raw materials when you have concentrations of valuable ones right here in the lizard infrastructure? These were already refined, processed, and fabricated, meaning recycling these materials would be a hell of a lot easier than mining new ones.

This was the most densely carpeted lizard planet Star Force had ever tried to take, meaning it had a lot of recycling ahead of it, but fortunately they had a little asset in orbit to use for that. While they might not be able to use the ring to build new Star Force ships, with a little tinkering it would become one giant scrap yard, and if they could leave even one column intact it would save millions of dropship flights to get the material up to orbit.

This one could be repaired, Jack thought, so long as it didn’t fall off. They weren’t going to be building any new 26,000 mile bridges up to the facility, so it was either use what was here or fly the bits and pieces up via a flock of the tiny Star Force transports.

Which was another reason why they had to get more of these anti-orbital guns taken down…so the lizards couldn’t chop off more of this column if they felt like it later.

“Work, work, work,” Jack whispered, headed back inside the enemy building and sneaking his way down into the undercity where the rest of his team waited.

Paul and his team got to the surface as a squadron of skeets roared past, killing a few wisps that were sniffing around down amongst the buildings where the anti-air fire couldn’t target them. The grey skeets flashed past so fast they were a blur of metal and mauler cannons, then they were gone and the incoming icons of a dropship pulsed on his HUD, still several kilometers distant.

He responded by throwing down a waypoint in the street just ahead of them, then the four Archons spread out chasing lizards away and looking for any that were armed. The few that were they either shot or rendered unconscious from range while the Sparrow-class dropship landed. It was the smallest one Star Force had, only able to carry as many people or cargo as a truck, but there were only four people in Paul’s team and the rest of the Archons on planet were being picked up separately at their various positions that were hundreds of miles apart.

Riona got to the dropship first and waited for the rest of them before getting onboard. When Paul got there last of all the door quickly closed and the pilot’s waited until it was fully shut before lifting off and flying up through the city buildings and back into the cover of the roaming fighter squadrons.

Paul walked a few steps through the small craft and up into the cockpit compartment, finding a pair of pilots. While the dropships could easily be flown individually, it was always better to have two sets of eyes and hands in play…especially in a combat zone.

“Thanks for the lift.”

“Not a problem,” the lead pilot said as she gestured out the forward ‘window,’ though it was actually just a holographic display over top of armor plates protecting them from the exterior. “The Excalibur has our back.”

As the dropship rose up above the buildings that beautiful Star Force grey donut sat miles away in the distance, but it was so large to be easily visible and pumping out plenty of firepower against the surrounding cityscape and airborne targets while the handful of dropships sped off to pick up the Archon teams.

“So it does,” Paul said, resting hand on her shoulder in thanks.

She smiled, then glanced at her uniform and the dried blood smear he left on it.

“Sorry,” he said, forgetting that it was even on his armored hands.

She brushed it off and shrugged. “You guys sure are dirty.”

“This is nothing,” Riona commented dryly, and Paul knew what she meant. If they’d been coming back from a ‘slayer’ mission their armor would have been dripping in lizard blood.

The dropship quickly flew them to the huge command ship sitting a couple of kilometers over the tallest buildings with the chopped off shipyard column situated in the backdrop not far off. The shields lowered over one of the hangar bays to let the sparrow inside, then Paul and his team got out on the deck to wait for the others, seeing that one group had beat them there.

One by one all the dropships came in, followed by the skeet squadrons that had been covering them, and Paul was grateful that his head count came up full. None of his invasion team had been lost or injured, by the looks of them.

“You bringing the fleet down now?” Megan asked as she walked over to him, with Jack a few seconds behind her.

“No. I think we could all use a good sleep, then we can get to work on this.”

“You want to give the lizards that much time?”

“Normally no, but I’d rather have the three of us involved than not.”

Riona lightly punched Paul in the shoulder as she walked by, letting him know she was heading off.

“I agree,” Jack said, forming their little triumvirate as the other Archons all dispersed. “Let’s get some rest and pound them when we’re fresh. They’re not going to do much rebuilding before then.”

“You don’t think the fleet can start picking off targets without us?”

“I’d rather I be riding the controls when the anti-orbital guns are involved.”

“Same here,” Jack said. “It takes some finesse.”

“I thought it was point and shoot,” Megan said deadpan…then finally cracked a smile that was visible as she retracted her helmet. “Alright, I get your point. I don’t want to lose any drones or hull plates either. Mind if we kick it here for a while?” she asked Paul.

“You’re always welcome on my ship, but the Mario Kart will have to wait. I need to crash.”

“Ditto.”

“You think we’re going to pull that off again?”

Paul looked at Jack and shook his head. “I don’t know. They lizards had a hard time stopping us, but they’re going to have time to think up something new. If we can take those things out navally, that’s my first pick.”

“Going to need a lot of shields to withstand that.”

“We’ve got plenty of command ships.”

“Until you take off,” Megan commented.

“The only place I’m going right now is to bed. We’ll continue this in…10 hours?”

“Make it twelve,” Jack said, allowing himself a yawn. “I’m going to get something to eat first then zonk out.”

“Twelve then,” Megan confirmed with the three of them heading for the hangar exit, then splitting up to walk to different parts of the ship. Paul headed straight back to his quarters, knowing the other two would eventually end up in temporary versions. The ship always had some set up and ready for visitors, so they wouldn’t have to do anything other than open the door and drop into bed.

But that wasn’t quite what Paul did. When he got into his quarters he split and walked out of his armor, then sat down at his personal comm terminal and got some quick updates on the fleet and the combat still going on within the ring. There were still a large segment that the lizards controlled, but Star Force now owned more than three fourths of it with more ground being gained by the day.

Everything seemed to be normal up there, and the Excalibur had already left the surface and ran back to orbit while he was walking from the bay to here. It’d had to run through some anti-orbital phaser and cleansing beam hits on the way up, for Paul’s team had only been able to take out enough guns to create a clear zone near the surface, but the command ship’s shields were strong enough to weather the onslaught briefly. Tomorrow Paul would bring in a lot more command ships and start some fancy maneuvers while they pounded one of those barriers from low near the surface where the curve of the planet would block a lot of the others, but for right now his ship was safely back in orbit and its weakened shields recharging. He sent the Admiral a quick thank you message, then logged out of the terminal and headed for the shower.

He got a good, fast scrubbing that he’d badly needed after so many weeks living in his armor, then walked out towards his closet and grabbed some soft and oh so comfortable clothes, pulling those on and heading for bed.

Paul laid down face first, feeling the blissful softness of the bed and its covering blanket and just laid there like a dead body for a few minutes, running through some mental release tricks he’d learned long ago, and got himself out of battle mode. With his body now allowing itself to feel the stress and fatigue, he rolled over onto his side and slipped his bare feet underneath the covers and out of the frosty chill that the air conditioning was blissfully providing, then curled up into a comfortable pose and let himself sink into a deep sleep, not worrying about anything else besides attending to what his body and mind needed.

When he woke up it wasn’t to an alarm, which he’d set on his way into the shower, but to his normal habits. He’d slept 6 and a half hours in what felt like 2 minutes, which told him how bad the fatigue really was. After some of his extremely intense workouts or long slayer missions he’d be out 8-12 hours, so this wasn’t so bad. There hadn’t been a lot of combat involved, just a lot of sporadic running, sneaking around, and staying alive…with a little blowing things up thrown in.

Blowing out a deep breath, Paul rolled over in bed and got comfortable again, slipping back into a normal sleep mode and resting until his alarm would finally wake him up. Then it’d be time to get back to work and start expanding on the hole they’d just made in the lizards’ anti-orbital defense grid.

2

June 3, 3108

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Casper Jenson ran off his dropship along with a host of other personnel when it set down on the planet’s makeshift landing pad…which was little more than a cleared off section of lizard cityscape that had been blasted away. Nearby some proper ‘floor’ panels had been spread out with prefab structures going up on them, but right now it was a mixture of dirt and rubble that the mechwarrior was having to run across towards the section of the giant assembly area where a massive transport had just landed ahead of them and was already offloading mechs.

His was coming out in 5 pieces, each compacted down into a drone-like cubical rectangle to save space. Each section had limited flight capability, designed for long hauls but with little maneuverability. That was alright, because he wasn’t a pilot. He was a mechwarrior, and short flights were nothing more than travel time from one battlefield to another.

But he wasn’t flying anywhere at the moment, thankfully, as he flinched from the sound of a Keema battery firing overhead. Several actually, in a chorus that could only mean one thing. As he ran he glanced upwards, seeing the dozens of naval ‘donuts’ sitting in the upper atmosphere that were apparently continuing to bombard distant targets. They were taking out the largest threats, the anti-orbital batteries and shield generators, plus some of the secondary surface to air weaponry, leaving the mechs to clean up the smaller stuff and watch the backs of the ground troops.

As well as knocking over buildings if needed. The Tier 1 mechs wouldn’t be much good at that, for all the lizard structures in this area were huge, but the mech he was getting was a massive Tier 4, the largest that Star Force had built to date, with each of the individual segments being bigger than Tier 1 mechs all by themselves.

There were plenty of Tier 1s around, neos mostly along with some support madcats and other models that were somewhat out of date. The maneuverability of the neos was just too much to pass up, though the ‘driving’ mechs had their uses in specific missions. Most mechs Star Force had nowadays were ‘wearable’ in that they responded to your body’s movements, whether they be physical or mentally calculated, instead of having a computer control the mech’s steps and balance.

Staying clear of the areas where other mechs were operating so he didn’t get stepped on, Casper headed over to the area where the five pieces of his mech were floating over the ground with a small tech team outpost beneath. He conferred with them on the status and loadout, then a staircase stretched down from one of the pieces to the top of the prefab outpost. He ran up it, climbing inside the dense segment and into the command shell.

He slid into the loose harness in the center after slipping his boots and shirt off. He preferred more skin contact than others did, which was an old tradition for mechwarriors that had held up through to the ‘neural’ age. He wasn’t an Archon and didn’t have their telepathic skills to interface with his mech, but Star Force technology had advanced to the point where he didn’t have to, allowing him to pull on a headband-like halo that would access his mind directly.

The harness was auxiliary, but Casper was one of those who had found that a combination of neural and physical commands worked best for them, so he got himself latched in properly and checked the status of all systems before closing the hatch and retracting the gangway. He kept the 5 pieces hovering in place, then moved them back from the outpost enough not to crush it as he studied the battlemap.

The landing area was secure with a ring of mechs around it, some of which were chopping down more buildings to eliminate zones of attack for infantry, but there was another reason for that. The rubble would be compressed down into the undercity beneath them, cutting off access to it and burying the upper levels, creating a new ‘ground’ that the enemy couldn’t sneak up at them through. Cleaning out everything down to the rock of the planet wasn’t feasible during an initial foothold operation, for the lizard subsurface structures were usually extensive and the rumors coming back to him had said it was even worse on this planet, the first core world Star Force had invaded.

But that was alright. The packed ground beneath him would block out the undercity and the landing zone would remain safe, leaving him and others to work on pushing that safe zone out further while other teams were busy fighting off waves of lizards coming at them. Suicidal as always, they’d been moving across the planet to the single landing zone and engaging Star Force whenever and wherever they could. There was no natural geography left, meaning that everything was urban fighting and on the lizards’ turf, making things even more complex for the mechs until they redecorated enough to get themselves comfortable.

Aside from the Tier 1 mechs in play, which were essentially infantry as far as the hierarchy in war machines were concerned, there were also quite a few walkers around the base. The hexpeds were the upgrade versions of what used to be the Hoths, and were the only combat walkers still used, with the difference being that these had more than two legs, hence they were referred to as ‘walkers’ more often than ‘mechs.’ They had even less mobility, but were very hardened targets and carried with them impressive firepower. They were basically mobile siege devices, with the largest variety essentially being a grounded warship moving about on six legs.

There were also some anti-air walkers and other supports, but for straight up combat the heavy walkers were it, while everything else was biped mechs that started with the ‘infantry’ Tier 1s and expanded upward.

There were a handful of Voltrons roaming about, which were basically bigger versions of the neos. They were Tier 2s and came in either segments or full units nowadays, thanks to the really big ground transports currently in play. The non-modular ones held the most combat capability, but without the flexibility or quicker aerial movements of the segmented ones. They could still fly, but it was like putting a big boulder on a string and having a cloud carry it across the surface. Not graceful at all, and all combat systems had to be powered down to utilize it.

The Voltrons could fly and, in a limited fashion, fight while in the air in pieces, but put them together and they became just as ungainly, hence most Voltrons were the segmented models…though if you were in a really tough scrape you wanted the singles around for sure.

Above them were the massive Tier 3s, all of which were computer controlled ‘driven’ varieties. The Mk.3 madcats dominated the third tier, but like always Star Force had created many different models at all levels, so you’d see variations here and there. At this current deployment there were no Tier 3 mechs in play, not yet at least, but there were several Tier 4s out there already.

Structured similar to the Voltrons, Casper’s five segments began transforming on his command and a huge bipedal mech was formed. It could be ‘driven’ or body controlled, for its movements were so slow you could fight it effectively either way, but Casper preferred manual body movements and only put it on autopilot when he needed to. When the legs and arms formed they had heavy gauntlets on each, then a head appeared that was atypical of the neos that had nothing more than a short neck stump. Otherwise the Megazord-class mech looked like a huge, beefed up neo.

With all five pieces assembled, Casper began walking the mobile mountain across the crushed surface and into the less paved regions, pushing through a half broken building like he was walking through snow as he headed out to the ‘trees’ that were other abandoned buildings. Infantry had already cleared them, but they weren’t using explosives. It was up to the Megazords to take them down, so Casper took to his assigned waypoints and the buildings that needed to be leveled and started hitting them with punches, elbows, and shoulder strikes with the lizard structures crumbling under each hit almost as if they were made of paper.

They weren’t armored, for sure, and the size of the Megazord would have made the Skarrons proud, so the impacts occurring had a huge amount of mass behind them, with the Tier 4 mech itself suffering nothing more than some surface scrapes in the process.

Casper continued leveling buildings and giving Star Force more room to maneuver…or at least it would after smaller mechs and construction equipment got the rubble crushed down into a new foundation, but after a few hours he got a call to combat along with two of the others. All three mechs abandoned what they were doing and walked further inside the makeshift base and over to a tall prefab structure that was built to house the accoutrements for the mechs.

Casper let the other two go first, then he stepped in and grabbed a huge sword and even larger shield, carrying both items in the mech’s mechanical hands as he followed the other two Megazords off down one of the city roads, having to punch their way through some tight spots and having little trouble doing it. They had a long walk, but they were so large that even a casual stroll propelled them along rapidly for an urban environment. Eventually the three came to the edge of an area where there was mech combat ongoing, with a formation of Tier 1s moving in and out of streets as they contended with some very heavy surface defenses that contained anti-air and anti-mech turrets.

And beyond those were even more stretched across the landscape. Behind them the orbital bombardment had taken out a lot of targets, but now that their firepower was fixing on the big anti-orbital guns only and would remain the case until enough of the sky could be declared safe for the drone fleets to get low enough to pulverize the threats, the ground team either had to wait months or deal with it themselves.

And the Megazords were their way of dealing with it in a quick and decisive fashion, especially when employed together.

The Godzilla-sized mechs walked right up to the enemy turrets with their physical shields blocking fire in front of them and slashed down with their massive swords, cutting through buildings with a single swipe or having to hammer away at energy shields for a bit before they eventually succumbed. One by one the turrets went down and this roadblock was eliminated, then the Tier 1 mechs moved in and continued to hunt smaller targets and make ready for the true infantry teams to come in and sweep each building, with so many of the structures it looked like an urban forest so widespread and dense that the lizards could hide out here forever.

But they couldn’t. The battlemap was a mess of free fire zones and no-go zones, making sure that none of the big mechs endangered the ground troops and that the lizards couldn’t hide behind enemy lines and spring an ambush later. Casper was asked to take down a civilian building while he was there and chopped it down to size in a short period of time. Why? He didn’t know, but he trusted the ground commander who’d requested it and didn’t ask for any further explanation.

He was one of the giants roaming the cluttered landscape and couldn’t get involved with the actions of the ants below him, so he focused on his tasks and let the ants handle their work themselves while being there to take a big whack when and where requested. It was a team effort, and one that was only going to be ramping up in coming months.

Before he was done for the day he was directed to hack out a new landing zone on the perimeter, and into that rubble field a flurry of armored transports came down. Another group of Tier 1s poured out and the originals on site took their place on the ships, being carried back either to orbit or the main site for resupply and rest.

War was a round the clock operation and Star Force wasn’t going to waste a minute, and given the size and density of this planet’s civilization that was probably a good idea, for they had a hell of a lot of chopping to do to get this planet under control and the enemy threat neutralized.

Even in a Megazord you had to take it one blow at a time and trust in the plan, otherwise you’d be overwhelmed with the sheer impossibility of it all. But little by little they’d get it done, and some day down the road, years from now, this planet would belong to Star Force.

Right now though, Casper had a few more buildings to smash before he headed back to base and someone else took his place playing demolisher.

Paul had waited the additional months after establishing a foothold on the planet until combat on the shipyard ring finally came to a close. They’d been killing billions of lizards up there for years now, but the enemy had eventually run out of ring and the last column connection had been blocked off. With no more reinforcements arriving the last of the opposition had been killed off and the column sealed, leaving the shipyard fully in Star Force’s hands.

When that happened Paul knew it was time to go. He still worried about a lizard counterattack on this system, but so far none had come and he couldn’t wait any longer. Some more regular fleets had arrived to supplement the system’s defenses and guard the ground troops as they made an ever increasing bid to eradicate the lizards from the planet, so Paul felt comfortable taking two thirds of his surviving fleet out of planetary and stellar orbit and assembling them at an exiting jumppoint. Megan and Jack would be staying behind to oversee the further conquest of this system but Paul had to leave with the bulk of the advanced fleet he’d been given.

Knowing that the system was in good hands short of a massive reinforcement effort, he assembled his jumpships with their drones tucked safely onboard and jumped out, heading across several other lizard systems and knowing that they would probably relay their presence ahead of their progress via the lizards’ interstellar comm system but this time it didn’t matter, for there were already Star Force warships at their destination system.

They didn’t control stellar orbit, so rather than fight a large scale battle there Paul had his fleet make a very slow final jump and come out in middle orbit far from the star in the center of the Jenspat System where Roger had been whittling away at the lizard fleet for years. It was also a core world with an equally large defense fleet that had subsequently been reduced by over a third despite the ongoing construction taking place. Convoys were still coming and going, bringing in raw materials and taking out finished products, new ships, and more ground troops. None of them were heading to the system Paul had left, but obviously the lizards were still reinforcing something somewhere, as Roger had been informing him all along via a relay seda that had been sitting in this system and keeping the three naval masterminds in delayed, yet constant contact with one another.

It took a long time for Paul’s fleet to come out of its jump and get assembled, with some of Roger’s ships waiting for them and driving off any lizards that finally found their way out to their arrival point. No massive response took place, for the lizards didn’t seem to be trying too hard to kill Roger’s ships, mainly buying time to keep their shipyard rings active, for this system had two planets with rings, and they desperately needed to keep the supply chain flowing. So long as Roger didn’t make any massive assaults against infrastructure or try to blockade the star the lizard fleets held position and had taken on a defensive posture aside from some constant light probing actions against the invaders.

But now it was time to change that, so once Paul’s fleet got assembled he coordinated with Roger and moved down into stellar orbit and hit the lizard fleet there straight on. No subtlety or tricks, just a direct assault that had him and his Dre’mo’don-heavy drones cutting like a buzz saw through the enemy that Roger had done a good job of reducing in number. That, combined with the increased ship count thanks to Paul’s fleet, gave Star Force an advantage it wasn’t going to squander.

To their credit the lizards didn’t blink, nor did they just sit back and watch. They reinforced the star, deciding to make their stand there and try to overwhelm the combined Star Force fleets. It was really their only play, for if they didn’t go all in and stellar orbit was taken, their convoys should shut down and this system would be off the grid anyway, after which point all they could do was hope to take some of the Star Force ships with them as they were eventually destroyed.

To the rest of the lizard empire the system would have been lost as soon as it was cut off and the two rings were no longer accessible to the trade routes. Time now was on Star Force’s side, with a blockade equaling a win, so the lizards went for one final hammer blow and met Roger’s and Paul’s fleet at the star and engaged in the largest fleet action to date.

The battle lasted more than two weeks with neither side pulling back. Paul lost more than a quarter of his drones, but the rest of his fleet was still standing, many damaged, but still standing afterwards. Roger’s fleet was also hurt, but between the two of them there was more than enough firepower left to roam the system and start trashing any and all lizard infrastructure they could find, starting with the battlestations and working their way on from there.

They plucked the defenses from the two shipyard rings then left them be, with Roger’s fleet taking up a blockade mentality and simply sitting on the system to deny the shipyards access to outside resources rather than trying to destroy them. The huge ground invasion in Menchet was sucking up a lot of ground troops as it was and Star Force wasn’t going to open up another just yet. Until they did Roger was going to keep this system under his thumb and pick away at their planetary defense where he saw fit, with a second lizard core system now off their industrial grid.

Meanwhile Paul took his reduced fleet away to strike at the third system under siege and reinforce Liam, fulfilling their original battle plan and taking that core world off the grid as well. All three systems still had billions, if not trillions of lizards inside them and decades of hard fighting left to correct that problem, but they were no longer of any use to the rest of the lizard empire, and with four ring shipyards no longer pumping out ships for their use the power rating of the rimward half of lizard territory took a significant hit, though was far from out of the game.

It would take years more for Star Force to rebuild their assault fleets enough to hit another core world, but the massive reinforcements that Paul, Liam, and Roger knew would be a pain in the ass never manifested. It seemed the lizards were in damage control mode even though nearly all their core worlds were still untouched. They could see the writing on the wall, though, and there was something elsewhere they were more interested in supporting, with their obvious intention being to keep their core worlds pumping out ships and troops until Star Force got around to shutting them down one by one.

That would take decades, if not centuries, to accomplish, but the scales were already beginning to tip and the snowball effect wasn’t going to be too far behind.

3

June 3, 3119

Menchet System (lizard core)

Tess

Dak Lenson drove his construction mech across the shaved bedrock, the two massive feet of the machine stomping down on a powder of crushed pebbles that covered the solid stone. Above him the sky was visible over a ring of mountain ranges surrounding the huge reclamation site…except they weren’t mountain ranges. Up at their peaks was actually ground level with Star Force having dug down, not into the planet, but into the undercity the lizards had built in order to completely erase their footprint from this world.

That was a huge undertaking, but Dak was just one of millions of personnel that had been brought in to the system to start chipping away at that task, despite the fact that on the other half of the planet the war was still ongoing.

That bothered him a bit on arrival, but he’d been here four years and hadn’t seen a single lizard that entire time. The army was gradually taking more territory and leaving even more lizard cityscape for the construction crews to disassemble, and while there was still danger it was commonly known that the enemy no longer had any starships to travel with and the airspace was locked down around the border regions. Taking out these bastards was apparently extremely hard work, with portions of low orbit still inaccessible due to big guns on the planet’s surface, but with every day that passed the lizards were getting ground down and the inevitable was coming.

It could be another decade before this planet was finally clear, so Dak didn’t complain about his own task. It was tedious, but nothing compared to the headache the troops were having to endure.

He drove his mech down a familiar path now, carrying a box that was actually made up of two giant hands. When he got to his destination he reached the box out over a platform and rotated the wrists on the mech, cracking the box and letting the infrastructure debris fall down into the energy field. That kept it from hitting and breaking the apparatus on impact, as well as funneling it over to a conveyor. Dak turned his mech around and passed several others, heading back to the constantly moving debris line to pick up another load as the pieces of crushed building that he had deposited on the moving road sped off into the distance.

From the air they appeared to move slowly, a tiny rivulet of material traveling down a line that intersected with others, each time combining their recycling streams into larger ‘rivers’ that traveled hundreds of miles across the landscape through valleys already carved out of the lizard infrastructure. Those exposed areas of bedrock were spreading out off a vein-like network as the mashed materials eventually flowed to the base of one of the shipyard ring’s columns.

It, like all the others, had been chopped off by the lizards before Star Force could make use of them. Luckily none of them had fallen down to the planet, held aloft by their tenuous connections to the ring itself, but this one had been repaired, somewhat, with several visible structural components propping up and reconnecting the column to the substantial foot that extended much further down into the bedrock than had been excavated.

Now it shown as a wide base that narrowed up to the point where it had been above ground and broke, with those support struts making the connection and housing rebuilt lift tubes that connected the shipyard ring, through the column, to angled lifters that extended down to the flat bedrock where the rivers of material fed into them.

The pieces that Dak had delivered were shunted up those lifters like an escalator, then were shoved into one of the lift tubes and hit a null gravity field with energy shield segmentors that then pushed the material in batches up the tubes, giving them enough acceleration to continue on a ballistic path upwards without any further assistance.

The mix/mash of junk began a long journey up the 26,000 miles of column, now configured for one way transit only, eventually being caught and slowed by receptor segmentors on the other end of the column. The debris transitioned into the ring at slow speeds and was separated out into new rivers being sent in numerous directions within the facility. Most went to within 100 miles in either direction where the pieces were dumped into a sorting facility.

From there more rivulets of material were sent out, each by their kind, to recycling facilities that Star Force had rebuilt the ring for. Some of the native machinery had been repurposed while others had to be constructed on site, the materials for which came from previous recycling activities. Dead as the planet was becoming, it was also a treasure trove to any serious mining operation and the ring operated as the perfect place to begin processing it all in a way that wouldn’t take more than a millennia to complete.

This wasn’t Star Force’s first reclamation project, but it was by far the densest lizard infrastructure encountered to date and the planet was covered in it, making for a huge endeavor…but Star Force had a pension for huge infrastructure projects, so this was right up their alley and as long as the lizards were eventually removed from the planet without incident they would have as many centuries as needed to finish it all.

When those sorted materials reached their destination they were disassembled and processed, resulting in a much more efficient mining process than mining ore would have garnered. The junk material wasn’t present here, meaning that nearly all of the material being sent up to orbit was valuable in one fashion or another, even if it did appear to just be junk. Using the ‘lego’ method, Star Force pulled it apart and put it back together again, first sending the pure processed materials off through the ring on even more rivers…though this time they were carrying neat cubes rather than rubble.

Those precious materials arrived in warehouses and were stacked up with plenty of room for more to come while a smaller flow left the warehouse as crews came to pick up what they needed to feed the factories within the ring. The cubes of raw material were sent down even more artificial rivers to even more remote sections of the ring hundreds of miles away through the innards of the structure, eventually arriving at small parts factories that built the bigger ‘lego’ pieces that the shipyards required.

And those shipyards that Star Force had set up within the ring, full Star Force shipyards, were using those materials to build the equipment being used on the surface of the planet. The more material came up, the more harvesting mechs and ‘river’ conduits they could produce, along with flocks of dropships, speeders, trucks and trains, small arms, toothbrushes, etc. Some special materials were having to be shipped in for select items, namely arc elements and solari, and there were constant, yet small convoys coming in from the ADZ bringing those in to supplement the mass of material that the lizard legacy was graciously providing them, from which a small Star Forge was also being to be constructed to directly supply the rare materials in coming years.

On the ring that the lizards had used to make warships to attack and kill others, an increasing number of Star Force drones were being produced as more and more Star Force-grade shipyard nooks were being built across the ring. Those drones were going to replace others lost and refill the fleets that had taken the first three lizard core worlds, easing the strain on the ADZ in building enough to pursue yet more invasions.

They weren’t ready yet, not even close, but every year that went by the captured ring was growing more powerful. Right now it was barely operating on life support, but over time that would change and the very instrument of industrial oppression that the lizards had so carefully crafted for their own use was being turned against them. And the very infrastructure that the lizards had built to house and grow their power on the planet below was going to be used to fuel that endeavor.

The rings in the other two systems were also being converted, even as some of them were still engaged in internal combat. Some might think that was reckless, but based on the history of the capture of the first lizard ring, Star Force knew what it needed to do and wanted a head start on the conversion so that when they did get a ground reclamation site established they could hit essentially hit the ground running.

But Tess was the forbearer in what was going to become standard protocol. The rings would not be destroyed. Not dropped down on the planets to cause massive destruction as many people had argued, especially those civilians in the ADZ that came from races destroyed or forced to flee the lizard advance. Many couldn’t understand why the planets were being taken with such kid gloves, and that sentiment had only doubled since the assaults on the three core worlds were made public.

What they didn’t understand, along with a lot of other things, was that civilization wasn’t something that you abandoned during war then picked back up afterwards. Star Force fought the way it did because that’s the way Star Force chose to fight, and they didn’t feel like dropping bombs and just blasting everything to rubble. They were going to fight the lizards head on, offering surrenders constantly, and always keeping their deaths to be their choice.

Stripping away planetary defenses then just ‘nuking’ it was a whole lot of destruction after only asking perhaps one person if they wanted to surrender. Taking the planet piece by piece gave people who weren’t in charge the chance to surrender directly when the fighting got to them.

And it didn’t matter that never in the history of Star Force had a lizard surrendered. They were going to give them the chance because each of them was a different person than they’d encountered before. No one expected any different results, but they weren’t making assumptions. Sovereignty of the individual meant you might predict what someone would choose to do, but you never let someone else choose for them.

Killing everything in sight was always an option, as were different methods, but therein lay the trap. True civilization did not become uncivilized to save itself, for in doing so it would destroy that which it was trying to save. Without honor there was no civilization, no matter how many cities or ships you built, and the lizards had shown time and again that they had no honor. Fighting their way would mean abandoning honor, which was why Star Force would never do it and they were going to keep painstakingly slaying the lizards the hard way.

They didn’t use chemical or biological weapons because, one, they were nasty and, two, they didn’t offer the option of surrender. Sending an Archon in with death sabers to kill thousands wasn’t pretty, but it was honorable. Facing the enemy one, two, or ten at a time offered the enemy a chance to run away, throw down their weapons, or just say ‘I quit.’ Star Force could kill a lot of lizards and had gotten very good and experienced at doing so, but it was always because the lizards would not yield and if they were not stopped they’d go on to kill others.

Bombing a planet into rubble and sending in ground troops to kill all the inhabitants still ended up with billions, if not trillions of dead lizards, and from the outside it looked to accomplish the same thing, but in truth they were vastly different ways to conduct warfare.

And Star Force not taking the darkside route, not employing the same tactics, not decrying that every single lizard must die was also a way of insulting their enemy. Star Force was going to remain Star Force and, in defeating the lizards, show up their misguided and ill-advised philosophy and tactics. The fact that they’d defended the ADZ against them initially, then had taken thousands of star systems from them was a major blow to the ‘inevitability’ of lizard dominance, now multiplied exponentially with the fall of the first core world.

And taking that world’s shipyard ring intact, a very real symbol of the lizards’ power and superiority over the other races of the galaxy, and using it to transform the rubble of their planet into the means of further conquering their empire was an irony that was altogether typical Archon.

They weren’t just defeating the lizards, they were mockingly schooling them in the process.

That wasn’t lost on Dak and the other construction crews, who were paying attention to the war front in this system and others closely. They weren’t too worried about their security, knowing that Star Force had the situation well in hand, and that wasn’t just a Human perspective. The vast majority of the construction crews were Kiritak and Bsidd, and they had similar thoughts concerning their role here and the irony of it all.

So as Dak went back to another pile of debris and dipped both mechanical hands into it like scooping up a clump of prickly snow, he realized that what his mech was holding had been lizard material that would soon be recycled into Star Force material. They weren’t just taking out the trash and dumping it in a star, they were correcting a massive wrong. Taking the infrastructure of a murdering race and turning it into the infrastructure of a protective beacon of light in the galaxy.

That gave the mountains of lizard undercity around them different meaning, even as larger mechs were walking up the banks of those piles to tear up more exposed levels and add to the loose material that Dak was picking up. He and the others were but an army of ants chewing away at what looked like an insurmountable challenge, but then again that’s what most races thought of the lizards themselves. That they couldn’t be beaten, and even when you did manage to best them in one system they simply spread out to 10 new ones. It couldn’t be done, many had said, and still said, but here they were, bit by bit chipping away at the lizard empire and doing it in an honorable and civilized fashion.

Dak and the other ants would do their part, day in and day out, knowing not to look at the big picture, daunting as it was. No, all they had to do was worry about their individual tasks and let the Monarchs and Archons worry about coordinating and planning everything. That’s what they did, and had done from the beginning, and they hadn’t led Humanity astray, let alone the other races and individuals that had joined the Star Force empire.

And with each addition came more ants, and every year that passed saw those ants reproducing in even greater numbers. More and more people like Dak had grown up within Star Force, grown wise, strong, and experienced, contributing their tiny individual power into the greater whole and trusting in their leadership implicitly.

For as Dak was literally seeing around him, an army of ants large enough could move mountains, and give Star Force enough time to grow even larger and those mountains would become little more than warmup exercises. If people thought the lizards were intractable, they were going to find a new definition to the word once this war was won and Star Force had time to put down firm roots, for it wasn’t going anywhere, and this light of civilization was going to shine so bright that the entire galaxy would see it.

Dak glanced up from his controls as his mech was walking in line with a full load and looked out across the thousands of others mechs around him, knowing this was but a tiny dot on the planet now covered with Star Force worker ants and took pride in that fact. They were tearing down the corrupt and building up the light, one scoop of debris at a time, and daring the races of the galaxy to say it couldn’t be done one more time.

4

April 2, 3137

Anchess System (ADZ)

Mothere

Paget passed through the airlock on the ground floor of his residential building, waiting impatiently for it to cycle out the nitrogen/oxygen air and replace it with the ammonia/oxygen that would allow him to breathe properly without his suit. It took forever, as usual, but the doors eventually parted and allowed the Gnar to walk out and begin heading down the hallways seeing a mix of armored and unarmored kin in passing.

He didn’t remove his armor until he got back to his domicile, then pulled off the various pieces and removed his mask, setting it all in a specialized nook and hooking up the tank to the refiller. Paget stretched his stubby arms out, feeling the fresh air on his purple, wrinkly flesh but it did little good to improve his mood. He’d just gotten finished with another futile attempt to negotiate with Star Force regarding the acquisition of new planets in what they called the ‘lizard occupation zone’…except there were no more lizards in it. There was no one in it. But they were stubbornly denying anyone else access, and those bold enough to try to put down colonies in the region were forcibly removed when they were discovered, not to mention hit with severe economic and sometimes territorial penalties.

The Gnar knew not to trifle with them, but since there were only a few ammonia-based atmospheres in the galaxy it made no sense not for them to allow Paget’s people to colonize them! No other race could breathe the air, and aside from returning their original homeworld to them, Star Force was keeping the Gnar out of all the others…including two that used to be their own possessions!

The rest of the territory that the Gnar had lost to the lizards were worlds where they had to wear armor and live indoors, much like here. They didn’t even own the full planet, only 3/8ths of it, and it was what was known as an ‘Alliance World.’ The Gnar had fled to several worlds like this within the ADZ long before Paget had been born, then negotiated, traded, or bought other regions to expand their territorial base while constantly having to live under Star Force mandates. Technically they didn’t run the Gnar’s territory, but they were meddlesome whenever one of their rules was being violated.

As it was, only the Gnar homeworld was free of their stench, which was located in the occupation zone and that meant that all the surrounding systems were off limits to further colonization! How could they grow again if Star Force wouldn’t let them have any of the worlds that they weren’t using? What right did they have to dictate to the Gnar what they could or could not do!

Paget had argued this and many other points to no avail. The Star Force city in the border zone between planetary regions was where he had just come from, sitting there like a watchdog over the Gnar and the other races on this planet, and few people actually liked going there. He had gone out of duty, but the obstinate behavior of their representatives was intolerable! Yes, they defeated the lizards and good for them for doing so. The Gnar were willing to pay to acquire one of the ammonia worlds, even some of the inhabitable ones nearby their homeworld. Damn it all, they were even willing to pay to reclaim some of their former colonies on non-ammonia worlds that the lizards had taken from them, but Star Force would not sell to them.

This wasn’t uncommon, for most other races were in the same position. Homeworlds had been returned to most, without charge, but everything else Star Force was holding on to save for those races that were playing by their rules and ingratiating themselves whenever possible. The Reen were the worst offenders and to date had acquired 13 star systems in what had used to be Calavari territory!

Paget kicked aside a datapad lying on his floor in frustration, seeing it bounce off a wall and spin around on the smooth, hard floor for a few seconds before becoming still. The sound brought his broodmates running, but he calmed them down with a twitch of his lumpy head and headed for his private room, not interested in talking with any of them or his children, though he did request they send him some food.

While they ran off to work on that he sealed himself away from the noise of his growing family and sat down behind his comm terminal. While he was a high ranking official within the Gnar and one of the most senior on this planet, room here was scarce and even his ‘luxurious’ domicile was small compared to what his station deserved. He had 6 broodmates and 38 offspring at this point, but for a Gnar that was barely a good start at a proper family. Try as they might, the old traditions were hard to maintain on this cramped world and Yavit, his homeworld, was not much better off.

Those living there were maintaining the old traditions, but every city that had been rebuilt was full to capacity and new constructions were consuming up the available landspace as fast as the population was growing…leaving no room to repatriate Gnar from offworld. Paget was here because he was assigned to function as an intermediary with Star Force, who would not be allowed a foothold on Yavit for an embassy even if they asked, which they hadn’t.

Paget’s duty was here…and here he would stay until he completed it. If he failed he wasn’t going to the homeworld and he’d be forced to live out his remaining days cramped up here as the Gnar population had to be forcefully restricted. That was a huge insult to his people, but logistics were finite. He’d arranged several land purchases in his career over the past 73 years, one region on this world and some bits and pieces on others. It had been costly, but those bargains had given the Gnar a little more breathing room…which they quickly consumed.

He knew everyone was having population growth problems, save for Star Force, but it made no sense why they couldn’t expand to the empty worlds the lizards had left behind. No sense at all!

And it wasn’t an issue of price. Star Force wasn’t entertaining any bargains unless a race impressed them, and the Gnar had long been an adversary. It was true, they relied on Star Force markets more heavily than he wanted to admit, but the Gnar were mostly independent with their own economy and industry. Trade with other races was fair to heavy, but with all prices concerned they had to use the Star Force transit network for most of their shipping.

They had not allied themselves with Star Force though. No formal trade deals or bargains of any kind. What business they did with them was simply as customers…aside from the deals Paget was trying to strike now. He was trying every angle he could to get a hold on another planet, let alone a system. If and when he did he could move there and live like a king or go back to his homeworld and live far better there than he was here, though most Gnar on Mothere had to make due with far less.

Paget logged into his secure system and filed his report. Failure again, though it wasn’t a surprise to anyone. Star Force could not be manipulated, they’d learned long ago. They held to their own reasoning, and while somewhat unfair they were at least notoriously consistent. It was said it was just a matter of finding that special deal that would suit both parties, but even when the Gnar were willing to pay a ransom for a single planet Star Force would not even discuss the matter other than to politely say ‘no’…and that cocky politeness was infuriating on its own.

Paget found something on his desk to grab and throw into a wall, not caring what it was. He hated Star Force, as well as his inability to find a way to give them what they wanted in exchange. For it seemed they wanted nothing at all, and had the military power to hang onto those empty worlds for as long as they chose.

Some would say they deserved it for doing the impossible, but that didn’t help Paget. The ADZ was packed full of people, with the Gnar only being a small sliver of that whole. They had to expand at some point, whether Star Force liked it or not, else there would be a catastrophe in the making…or a revolution, if only that were possible. Paget would have pursued that agenda if possible, desperately wanting to, but he knew as well as everyone else how dominant they were. There was no way to beat them, militarily, economic, or otherwise, and the few small groups that had been so arrogant as to try had been quickly and hilariously slapped down.

That was where Gnar had gotten one of his small territorial acquisitions from. The Traxloni had openly rebelled, and as a result had a third of their territory confiscated. They’d been lucky that Star Force hadn’t outright annexed them as they had done others, but they were so small and pathetic it probably hadn’t been worth their time.

And they could do the same thing to the Gnar in the ADZ too if they chose, but Paget knew them well enough to not have to worry about that. Don’t cross them and there was no danger, but he had to find some way to get his people, or at least himself, out of this population time bomb.

By the time his food was ready he hadn’t had any epiphanies as to how to do that, so he ate with that not improving his mood much, but at least his stomach was no longer empty.

Two weeks later he traveled back to the neutral zone between regions and to a different Star Force city, against his liking, but he needed to meet with a contact that preferred to operate out of the Star Force facilities, citing they were ‘cleaner.’ Paget almost blew him off for that reason, but at this point any leads on available new territory were too important to pass up so he accepted the solicitation and went to meet with him in one of the many public courtyards.

His contact was a Critel, but one not working for their government. He identified himself as Crojack and requested a less public location to talk within, with the pair agreeing to relocate to nearby restaurant where they could get a private booth. Crojack ordered an expensive beverage but Paget declined, not wanting to bother with adjusting his mask to accept liquids, and he wasn’t here for social niceties anyway.

“What it is that you have to offer?” Paget asked directly, and in English, given that that was annoyingly the widely accepted trade language within the ADZ. His version included a synthesizer in his mask that gave his words a more intimidating resonance that was by no means an accident of technology.

“A large financial risk with potentially great reward…in the way of new territory to colonize.”

“Such things are hard to come by in the ADZ,” Paget floated warily, expecting to get nothing out of this, but having to pursue all leads regardless, “and Star Force is locking down all former lizard territories aside from those going to their allies and pets.”

The Critel inclined his head dubiously. “They did give the Gnar not only a world, but a full system.”

“That was ours to begin with,” Paget all but hissed.

“The lizards may have never colonized it, but they did drive you from it and you never returned on your own.”

“We couldn’t until they were gone.”

“Then the lizards possessed it by defacto. Star Force took it from them and gave it to you.”

“If you’re here to sound the trumpet to the generosity of those hoarders then this conversation is already over.”

Crojack held up a hand to forego any such theatrics. “I merely point out the truth. We work with Star Force well, so long as we remember their motivations. They deal fairly, without exception, though it does take some thinking to be able to see that in all cases.”

“Who are ‘you’ exactly?”

“We are an organization of…entrepreneurs who have a host of business acquisitions. We collectively call ourselves the Hradeiti. Perhaps you’ve heard of us.”

“Vaguely,” Paget said, remembering a few rumors of a powerful faction that had been working through shadow corporations and across many different races’ borders.

“We like to keep a low profile, but we’ve had some up front dealings with Star Force in the past. Including acquiring a single world in a system they control in what used to be Nestafar space. From there we’ve been doing a great deal of scouting, particularly along the lizard border that oddly Star Force won’t touch. We haven’t been able to determine why, though we have asked them directly…and received a direct reply.”

“They won’t go any further coreward,” Paget said, already having heard that.

“Yes, odd as that is. Perhaps they’re being prudent and not trying to expand too fast, but they have assured us that that border is essentially fixed and they do not intend to go any further. Not even if they should be able to conquer every lizard system from here to the rim.”

“I highly doubt the truth of that.”

Crojack shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. The indication is clear that they’re not pushing in that direction any time soon, but will keep the lizards from encroaching on this side of it…and all without charging us denizens for that protection, I’ll remind you.”

“Do you have a point in this?”

“Yes, I do. My organization is building an army and navy and require financial and material backers. We’re not asking the Gnar devote soldiers or ships, though if you were of a mind to we could have a different discussion. No, we’re seeking financial assistance to build up a significant enough force that we can take a system away from the lizards.”

It was a good thing Paget hadn’t gotten a drink, for he would have choked on it at hearing that.

“Are you insane?”

“Savvy, we think. We’re gathering the resources and personnel to do just that, costly and risky as it will be. But if we succeed we will have access to new worlds that will be divvied up amongst our investors.”

A server came to their boost and dinged, with Crojack opening the privacy door and accepting his drink. He took a sip and closed the translucent panel again.

“The lizards are technologically stronger than ever before. How do you expect to take a system from them now?”

“We have cleansing beams.”

Paget was taken aback. “How?”

Crojack shook his head. “You don’t need to know that. But I can assure you we have the blueprints and are currently producing said weapons to outfit our new ships with.”

“And you think Star Force will let you use them?”

“Actually, we’ve already informed them and got their blessing.”

“What!”

Crojack nodded. “We acquired the designs through a, shall we say, black marketer and developed them to an adequate level with our own prototypes, at which point we reported the transaction to Star Force, showed them what we’d built, and asked for their counsel. With our information they tracked down the technological leak and sealed it off. That’s beside the point, but while they are still adamant about no one getting that technology from them or their allies they gave us an opening. It was a gamble, but we had hoped for as much.”

“Do they know what you plan to do with it?”

“Yes, we fully informed them. They laid down a strict set of rules and the penalties that would incur for even the slightest violation…but that’s just normal for them. You know how they work. We have their permission to use them against the lizards and no one else. Aside from the single system we possess and anything beyond the border, we’re not even allowed to move those warships through ADZ space, nor conduct operations with or against any other race. Like I said, they were strict on the provisions, but they gave us a window of opportunity.”

“To attack the lizards? More like an opportunity for suicide.”

“They pretty much said the same, but they’re willing to let us try. They also said we will get no help from them whatsoever…unless we succeed. They said any system within 50 lightyears of the border, if we’re able to take it, will be extended into their protective bubble.”

Paget couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I know, it sounds crazy, but it’s true. They may not be going after the lizards in that region, but it seems like they’re in favor of someone else doing so. We don’t stand a good chance, but if we can mount a large enough force and take a system quickly, before the lizards can call for reinforcements, it will be ours and Star Force will keep lizard reinforcements from coming in and smashing us.”

“What’s their definition of take?” Paget asked, still not believing this.

“Full naval control and a stable foothold on at least one planet. Enough to know that we will eventually take it if no reinforcements arrive.”

“That’s a huge task in and of itself.”

“But doable if we pick the right system, and we’ve already been scouting out the region.”

“How did your ships not get destroyed?”

“We’re careful, and our gravity drives are Star Force models. They still won’t sell weapons, but we can put the two together ourselves. We have three targets in mind that are soft enough that we think we might have a chance at, but we need backers, the right backers, to build enough of a military force to take it and take it quickly. That is the biggest risk, but the reward would be immense.”

“How many pieces will the planet be cut into?”

“We will be dividing surface area into 32 regions, water or not. With sufficient backing from the Gnar, I can offer you one of those and up to 5 if you’re feeling very generous.”

“Water does us little good.”

“We haven’t settled on a target yet, but we’re not counting water regions. Those we’re retaining unless someone specifically wants one. But remember, it’s not just the surface. It’s orbit as well.”

“I’m well aware of that. Who are the other backers?”

“For the moment I’m keeping that to myself, and none of what I’ve told you is public knowledge. I’ve come here because I know the Gnar have had bad blood with Star Force and you’re anxious for new territory that they won’t trade to you. While Star Force has promised to extend their protective envelope out within that 50 lightyear region, they will have no presence there other than orbital defense assets if they so choose to locate them there. This will not be an Alliance World. There will be no economic tug of war. It’s a chance to get away from Star Force entirely…defense considerations aside.”

“Surely they made you agreed to a code of conduct?”

“They did, which we will enforce, but they will have no infrastructure present. This will be entirely our world to do with as we please, and to share with who we please.”

“If you can take it, and that’s a big if.”

“Yes it is. I’m not disputing that. We’ll have one chance to take the system, and must come in with overwhelming numbers. If we fail, we’ll not have enough backing to try again…unless you guys get even more desperate for new territory.”

“A one shot operation then?”

“Indeed. Is that something the Gnar would be interested in considering?”

“How much time do I have to think on it?”

“Plenty. We can’t build a military overnight. This will take decades to plan and prepare.”

“It’s worth looking into, though at first glance I’m not comfortable with the odds. Cleansing beams or not.”

“Fair enough. We’re not optimistic either. It’s a challenge to overcome, but we think it’s doable with enough resources and insight.”

“Let me run this by my homeworld, along with any additional information you can provide.”

“There is none…as of yet. We don’t want to advertise this unless we succeed.”

“And if you do you’ll try for another system?”

“Only if our wishes come true.”

“And Star Force has sanctioned this?”

“More like not interfering with it.”

“They truly expect it to fail?”

“They’ve said as much.”

“And if our military wanted to assist?”

“We can’t supply cleansing beams, but we can potentially incorporate you if you’re willing to adhere to our rules. A sloppy assault is a failed one. We have to be professional about this, so we can’t take chances. That said we’ll incorporate everything of benefit that we can.”

Paget signaled for the menu and ordered a drink for himself, cautiously feeling optimistic. “Tell me more of this world you’ve already secured.”

5

March 3, 3139

Utia System (Occupation Zone)

Ventress

The Gnar convoy of 18 small jumpships ended their slow microjumps into planetary orbit, seeing only a single, but sizeable starport in orbit. Further off, three additional planets were full of Star Force infrastructure, yet this planet was mostly barren. The starport was of standard Star Force make, as were pieces of the cities on the planet below, but the ships in orbit and the rest of the infrastructure was a mix/mash of different tech cobbled together in seemingly random fashion.

Paget hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. He was wagering everything on this endeavor, not just his people’s resources and a good chunk of their treasury, but if this scheme didn’t pay off his position within the governmental ranks of the Gnar would be over. The potential return on investment was too good for him to pass up though, so here he was, far from even his cramped home on Mothere, intent on making a personal inspection of the Hradeiti operations. It was too late to back out now, but for his own sanity he needed to see that this wasn’t a colossal blunder.

He wasn’t impressed with what he saw from orbit as the convoy was guided into a parking slot near the starport. There they waited for necessary docks to open up before the shuttles could start hauling over their cargo, and it wasn’t until they’d orbited around to the far side of the planet that he noticed a very large region had been colonized.

Using the jumpship’s sensors, which weren’t great for surveillance but adequate for navigation, he saw several large cities in addition to huge swaths of construction. What they were building wasn’t obvious, but he guessed there had to be millions of people down there. The Gnar had done a full investigation of the Hradeiti before they’d agreed to this deal, but none of the reports that Paget had read mentioned anything about this…then again, maybe they’d never actually come out here to do any checking.

Relying on secondhand information again. Why the intelligence division had to be so sloppy he could never understand.

Eventually a much smaller ship disconnected with the starport and freed up a dock, to which one of the Gnar jumpships began disgorging cargo ships to in a long line of continuous slow motion. It took some time before that line began to return with empty holds to cycle back and get more cargo crates. Paget knew unloading took forever, but at this rate he’d be here long enough to birth another 10 infants!

Deciding not to wait, he contacted the Hradeiti to demand a guide and access to the surface for his inspection. Surprisingly he got an immediate response along with a set of coordinates and an offer for pickup if he didn’t have a dropship available. He declined the second part and took to the planet in his own craft, eventually landing in the largest city on the planet and being met at the spaceport by a Calavari dressed in a uniform he didn’t recognize.

“Welcome, Gnar,” he said without sarcasm. “My name is Numshet. On behalf of the Hradeiti I am here to give you a tour of our facilities and to answer any questions you may have.”

Paget had to stare up at the Calavari, who was nearly 3 times his own height. “My fleet is offloading the materials promised. What exactly are they going to be used for? I saw no shipyard.”

“Unfortunately no. We haven’t progressed to that point as of yet. Our current battle fleet is being constructed via contractors in other systems. We’re taking Star Force commercial vessels with strong gravity drives and refitting them into warships. We will do the task ourselves in time, but right now it is more economical to work through them while we utilize surface based shipyards to construct our own smaller vessels,” he said as he lead the Gnar into the city.

“What size are we talking about?”

“Destroyers and smaller.”

“You use Star Force ship designations?”

Numshet nodded. “The core of the Hradeiti military is made up of former Star Force soldiers.”

Paget stopped in his tracks. “You mean to say this is all a clandestine Star Force operation?”

“No, not at all. We’re all ex-Star Force.”

“You personally?”

“Yes. I served some 14 years in the Calavari military as a naval officer. We never got paid, and I prefer credits, so I went looking for opportunities to put my skills to better use. I was in the employ of the Tennichoo mercenary unit for two years before being offered a position here. I haven’t regretted the decision.”

“Are you currently fighting? The Hradeiti I mean.”

“Yes we are. Attacking the lizards with an inexperienced army would be suicide. Right now Hradeiti units are engaging in mercenary work far from here where life is more lawless than Star Force will allow. I just returned two months ago from such a tour.”

“And the results?”

“We’re picking up some extra credits in addition to gaining battle experience, for both our personnel and getting the chance to field test and tune our equipment. It’s a worthwhile endeavor.”

“Who are you fighting for?”

“A range of small client worlds without the resources to support their own militaries. Most of the assignments are not complicated, but we’ve been picking a few out that are to better test our capabilities. It’s a work in progress, and those of us who’ve seen combat with the lizards know our troops aren’t ready yet. They’re getting there, but there’s a lot to do before we’re going to go up against that buzz saw. The lizards adapt so fast that we have to be equally as nimble, in both movement and thought. They are a formidable opponent, else others would have attempted this already.”

“What Human commands the Hradeiti?” Paget asked, assuming despite assurances that this was indeed a Star Force offshoot that they were actually getting other races to pay for!

Numshet shook his head. “None. We have no Humans in the Hradeiti.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Is that a rule?”

“It is, actually, and one of the demands Star Force insisted upon. No Humans are allowed to join.”

“For what reason? They think this enterprise is doomed to fail?”

“No, though they’ve pretty much said as much. But those of us who’ve been in Star Force’s military know that’s also a way of challenging us into getting ourselves ready. Leave it up to corporate types and they’d have us charging in there and get slaughtered. No, the Hradeiti are not going about this clumsily and recruiting as many civilian and ex-Star Force personnel as we can get. But we’re not allowed to recruit or accept Humans. And that’s a permanent stipulation.”

“But why not? I don’t care for them, but it seems an odd thing to insist upon.”

“They insisted on a lot of things, all of which point us into having to do this on our own up until the point where we actually beat the lizards. Then Star Force will help us maintain what we’ve taken…so long as it’s within a 50 lightyear border zone. I think the suggestion is that if we manage to do this, and repeat it regularly, that we might venture beyond those 50 lightyears, at which point we will be operating totally on our own.”

“But why not just move laterally to stay within it?”

“We probably will, but if there’s a valuable target just on the other side of the line we might consider taking it. Personally I think they like the idea of others going after the lizards. The Preema already are to great effect, not to mention the Voku. Adding in smaller allies to the fight isn’t such a stretch of the imagination. The 50 lightyear border allows us a foothold to grow, then if we choose we can venture out truly on our own.”

“I have heard little of these Preema. What do you know of them?”

“Very powerful and very far away. They want to kill the lizards before they can get to their doorstep. I’ve never seen one in person, nor have many others. They are engaging on the far side of the occupation zone and further in towards the core.”

“Is that why Star Force isn’t pushing that direction?”

“Even when I was in the military I didn’t know the full answer for that. I can say that they’ve got their hands full and then some with all the systems rimward of here. The lizard empire has already been split in two, so it makes sense to apply all their strength on one half of it, especially when that half has their homeworld.”

“But these systems are far closer.”

“But not as critical.”

“Do you think this border is temporary then?”

“We’ve been told it is firm.”

“I don’t understand then.”

“Nor do most people, but it has given us a sense of normalcy. There are two Clans fighting on the border and taking a handful of worlds, so it’s not entirely fixed, and they’ve been given permission to push out as they can. It may be that this border is being used for training purposes. I don’t have any other answers to give to you about it, save to say that there is an opportunity here and will be in the next century to come. Beyond that I do not know what will happen. Star Force says the border is fixed, and they’re not known to be liars.”

“If they were they’d lose their pristine credibility. So they let you and others do their dirty work for them?”

Numshet laughed in a booming voice as they stepped into a lift car. “We are nothing compared to them. They could sneeze and take out a star system by accident. No, there is no comparison. But they do like seeing others improve and take on tasks for themselves, so them giving us this opportunity makes sense. They don’t trust many, but they’re giving us a chance to prove ourselves and we are not going to waste it.”

“Who is in charge then?”

“We have an executive council, but the leader of the military is Bra’shom. He’s ex-Star Force as well, and has an extensive history of fighting the lizards. He’s not a naval specialist. We’ve got a few of those too, thankfully.”

“You don’t count yourself?”

“I only served a few years. Bra’shom fought with Star Force for over 300 years.”

“Why the change then?”

Numshet shrugged. “You’d have to ask him. We all have our reasons.”

“Is he also Calavari?”

“No, he’s Scionate.”

Paget hesitated as the lift doors opened again and the Calavari began to walk out. “Scionate?”

“Yes,” Numshet said, stopping and looking back.

“Aren’t they overly aggressive?”

“Perfect for fighting lizards, wouldn’t you say?”

“And unstable.”

“Not if they fought in Star Force, they’re not. Many people say the same about the Calavari,” he noted as Paget finally followed him out and they passed more people in the corridors than before. As stated, they were a mix of races but without a single Human in sight.

“Perhaps. But if some of my people are to offer their combat skills, how will they be integrated. We do not have your…size.”

“Any troops wishing to join the assault must first become Hradeiti. We will not be fighting a joint action. Too many command issues and inefficiencies. Make no mistake, this is not a sure thing. If we don’t do everything exactly right we fail and probably die in the attempt. And even if we do fight well, there’s no guarantee that we will win…which is why we have to come in with a superior numerical force just to have a chance. If Gnar wish to join we can make use of them in naval and aerial roles, but not ground troops.”

“That is probably wise.”

“Wise we must be, which is why the executive council is trying to get as many ex-Star Force personnel as possible, not just in the military but in all aspects. Half the council is also ex-Star Force.”

“What other backers have you acquired?”

“We have numerous corporations and 19 races, including the Gnar. We’re hoping to double that number in the coming years.”

“What’s the largest race?”

“The Reen.”

“What do they want here? Haven’t they got enough worlds already,” he grumbled.

“I don’t think there is ever ‘enough’ when you have growing populations. They are contributing a fair amount of resources to us, nothing over the top as far as what they’re capable of though. They’re treating this as an experiment. If we come through with the first system, they’ve promised far more support. Others have said the same. If we can start taking planets we’re going to be in the position to turn this into a very lucrative business.”

“Land for sale…and worlds that most of our ancestors would have passed on, this rock included.”

“Admittedly this world isn’t pretty to look at. No native lifeforms, harsh climate, but the air is breathable and we’ve got some large lakes. The rest of the planet is pure land and room for us to establish the type of infrastructure we need to fuel this crusade. It’s a home and base of operations, and like Star Force taught so many of us, if you live inside closed cities the outside environment doesn’t really matter, now does it?”

“A lesson everyone in the ADZ has learned given our shortages. How did you come by acquiring this world anyway?”

“I do not know that. I was recruited after the transaction had been made.”

“You never asked?”

“There are mixed rumors, but it seems that most people do not know.”

“Isn’t that odd if most of you are ex-Star Force? I thought you liked to keep things in the open.”

Numshet laughed again. “That’s an outsider’s point of view. Star Force has many secrets. The difference is they don’t lie to us about them, they simply don’t say anything at all.”

“A lie of omission?”

“No. Keeping your mouth shut isn’t lying. And there are a lot of things they won’t say.”

“Such as?”

“Like why this border is firm. They’ve just stated that it is and pointed out a few benefits of it.”

“What else have they not been open about?”

“Ever hear of an Arc Knight?”

“No. What is that?”

“Something that doesn’t appear in the public databases, but they’re rumored within the military. I saw one once, just for a moment in passing, so I know they’re real.”

“What are they?”

“Elite Knights, but whose existence is kept a secret. No denials that they exist and no corroborations. It’s a subject that won’t be officially discussed, and there are rumors of a great many other ‘things’ in Star Force that are present but not acknowledged. You only hear about them if you’re on the inside, but they never pop up in the databases. They’re secrets, not lies, and if you’re not specifically looking for them you’ll never know they exist.”

“This is common?”

“Hard to say, given that even we don’t know other than by personal experience. Lots of rumors, I only know of this one to be true. Someone probably knows why the border is firm as well but I don’t, and you can’t go look it up in the database. Hence it stays a secret to the masses.”

“Still a form of lying.”

“I can understand why outsiders would say that,” Numshet said, taking mild offense. “Until you’ve been in Star Force you don’t, and won’t, understand it.”

“And the Hradeiti have patterned themselves off of it?”

“Trying to, but we don’t have their tech level.”

“I was told you have cleansing beams?”

“That we do, and that is the only reason why we stand a chance against the lizards, but there is so much more tech that they don’t sell to the public that we really need. Like armor. We’re building our own and upgrading it as fast as we can, but it isn’t Star Force grade. We also need naval drones, but we’re having a hard time creating the command and control systems.”

“Why is that important?”

“So we don’t die when our ships get blown up in combat.”

“Sacrifices are necessary in warfare.”

“We appreciate the contributions the Gnar are making, but do not tell us how to fight,” the Calavari said with mild disdain. “You are putting your money on the line, not your lives, and if we do not handle this wisely you’ll lose your credits too. We know what we’re doing, and what we have to do. The more we can hold to Star Force combat philosophy the better equipped we will be to handle this. We will not be using tactics and methodologies of other races. Sacrifice is not a virtue within Star Force, nor is it in the Hradeiti.”

“That’s a naïve philosophy that Star Force clings to, but beside the point. You have to make this work, and as long as you do I will not argue your methods.”

“Thank you,” Numshet said sarcastically as they came to a rail car. They both stepped inside the small clear pod and the Calavari input a destination solution. Within a moment they were passing through the dark tube and the two were alone, with the car lit by only a group of small interior lights within the hard, clear bubble.

“My people have invested heavily in this endeavor. We will lose a lot if it fails.”

“The same is true of others. And we have no intention of failing.”

“Has a target been chosen yet?”

“No. And it would be pointless to do so now. We have to wait until we are ready to fight, then see what worlds are the weakest. The lizards are continuing to build defenses as we speak and things change from year to year. We won’t know where we’re going until we’re ready to go. And there are a great many options to choose from.”

Suddenly the car shot out through the exterior wall of a building and was traveling on a suspended rail through the city so that it looked like they were flying and Paget could see both above and below them with a nearly unobstructed view.

“We’ve built a lot thus far,” Numshet commented, “but we’ve still got a long way to go.”

The Gnar nodded, impressed at what he was seeing up close and starting to feel better about the chances of this operation actually succeeding. “How soon until you get a proper shipyard?”

“Within the decade, I’m told. When that happens we won’t be expending so many credits on custom work. We’ll have our own work crews recruited by then and save a lot of credits in the process.”

“Where are we headed?”

“To the Executive Council. They wanted to speak with you personally.”

“Why?” he asked, surprised.

“We want our investors to understand what we’re doing and why. Star Force-inspired openness. This isn’t a con nor an ill-advised endeavor. We’re serious, they’re serious, and the more people know that the more investors we’ll get.”

“So long as you don’t reduce the cut the Gnar will get.”

“Slots for the first world are already filled. Future investors will be getting smaller divisions of slots the Hradeiti are holding for themselves or on future worlds, assuming we can take the first.”

“That’s a big assumption,” Paget pointed out.

“Yes it is, but we like challenges,” the Calavari reminded him. “We may be ex-Star Force, but that part hasn’t changed a bit.”

6

November 29, 3148

Utia System (Occupation Zone)

Ventress

A Scionate wearing a Star Force-style uniform walked into the Executive Council’s small meeting chamber. More of a workroom than audience hall, it was where they conducted most of their business and ran the Hradeiti, organizing the continual influx of personnel and adding them to the planet’s working population. There wasn’t much of a civilian element present, for the planet had been devoted to a singular purpose and everyone allowed here was devoted to carrying it out.

Bra’shom didn’t envy them that task, but he did relieve them of the duties for the military portion of the project. That was the most important element, and the Executive Council made sure that he was getting everything and everyone he needed to build and sustain the military. That was their role, along with diplomacy and dealing with clients and investors. The ongoing mercenary work was being arranged by the council then handed off to the military to complete, and the two aspects of the Hradeiti had a good working relationship, which was a prerequisite for attempting an endeavor such as this. Let politics creep in and they’d be doomed.

Fortunately the councilors knew this as well and kept such things at arm’s reach and confined to outsiders, both of which were kept away from Bra’shom so he could focus on what was needed without distraction.

“Good news or bad news?” a Critel councilor asked.

“I cannot speak to our fortunes,” the Scionate said as he walked the few steps across the small room to stand before their V-shaped bank of seats with them surrounding him on three sides, “but I am hesitant to say that I believe we are entering our operational window. I do not suggest we go now, but I am here to report that if we did we would have a chance at success against the weakest of the lizard targets.”

“You feel the navy is sufficient?” a Protovic asked.

“Our coordination is adequate. I still worry about the jamming of our drones, but given the hybrid structure we’ve developed I believe that we would still be capable of fighting. It wouldn’t doom us, and we still have the laser backups. Short range line of sight would enable us to instruct the drones to attack specific targets. Our efficiency would take a hit not being able to selectively choose, but such jamming would not be a deathblow. We’ve simmed several such scenarios.”

“I was speaking more to the size of the fleet.”

“I can always use more ships, but right now I’ve got enough if we pull back our mercenary teams. I do not suggest we do that, but it is time we start looking for a suitable target.”

“You’re that confident?” another Critel asked.

“Yes. But it has more to do with configuring our forces for a specific target rather than us being ready to go right now. We might be able to take a number of worlds right now, but I need to know which one in order to specialize future ship acquisitions and ground attack equipment. If we keep building in general fashion it will take us longer to get to what I consider sufficient strength to overwhelm. Right now it’d be a fair fight, and we can’t let it be a fair fight or we’ll lose most of our forces in the effort. We not only have to take a world, we have to have the forces to defend it and move on to the next. We will not sacrifice what we’ve built to attain a target knowingly, but once we engage we will go for broke.”

“I understand the distinction,” the Calavari councilor noted. “What kind of specializations are you referring to?”

“Specifically what type of orbital defenses the lizards have. How much orbital bombardment will be necessary. I do not want to use the cleansing beams, or rather I do not want to rely on them. I intend to use mass weapons to take down surface shields in a region.”

“Railguns?”

“More like throwing an asteroid field at the surface. We cannot afford to waste ships slugging it out with anti-orbital batteries. Star Force has more options than us in that regard. I need to know how many anti-orbital batteries we need to take out to secure a surface site and how strong their shield strength is in order to determine how many asteroids we need to collect or construct. We have a few launchers already, but if we need to build more I need to know how many more to order constructed. Too few or too many will waste our resources and precious time. The lizards are growing stronger and we need to take at least one world to secure our future in this endeavor. The longer we delay the more difficult it will become, and you all know that the lizards’ growth rate is exponential.”

“Your timing is impeccable,” a Gardeen said, tilting its head fin forward in a deferential gesture. “I’ve just secured confirmation from Star Force that the Mevis System is a legitimate target.”

Bra’shom’s eyes narrowed. “Why am I not familiar with that system?”

“Because sometime in the past 3 years the lizards decided to start a new colony on it.”

The Scionate gestured to the councilor on his left and the Critel brought up a starmap. The whole of the lizard boarder along the ADZ came into view in the center of the V and Bra’shom stepped back as the pinprick of stars surrounded him. Ninja Monkey territory shown as a tiny swath across the center of the border, but a single dot highlighted far from there and much further down the galactic plane.

“We got a scouting update passed on from an independent trader going off the main route from Shirpon to Velcor,” the Gardeen explained, referring to a Calavari commerce system and one of the few races within lizard territory that hadn’t been targeted. They occupied an otherwise toxic world and thus the lizards hadn’t seen fit to eliminate them. They’d been keeping a low profile since the surrounding systems had been conquered and many speculated as to whether or not they had an arrangement with the lizards. Regardless, they produced a number of compounds that were rare in the ADZ and a healthy trade route had sprung up connecting back to Star Force territory…all made possible by independent traders and others brave enough to run the border and lucky enough not to get picked up by a lizard patrol.

They avoided inhabited lizard systems, taking several possible routes around the hot spots and adding distance to their journey in exchange for anonymity, but one point on one of those routes was now blocked in so much as the lizards now had a presence, if not a stellar blockade, in the Velcor System.

“A single surface colony seen at extreme distance. The trader didn’t stick around long, but they did detect two cruisers in the system in addition to surface activity on the only marginally habitable planet. Desert climate, adequate atmosphere. We dispatched a proper survey ship and it recently reported back this.”

The starmap altered to a single system view with side panels with tactical data and surface highlights. Bra’shom saw three different colonies on the planet’s surface, as well as a small shipyard in orbit. Protecting the system was a fleet of some 83 cruisers…too many to have been produced locally. They’d obviously sent in additional ships to prop up the system defense, but that number was so low it wouldn’t do much to bother Star Force.

“Why was I not made aware of this earlier?”

“We were not sure if it was a valid target, so I wanted to run it by my contacts in Star Force first before I bothered you with it. They have said it is a legitimate target, but cautioned that this might be a trap.”

“Will they still back us if we secure a surface foothold?”

“If we can eliminate the defense fleet first, yes. I got confirmation of that two days ago.”

“Then why didn’t you contact me two days ago?”

“We know most of our veteran troops are currently on assignment and it’ll take time to recall them. Sending our other forces now to take advantage of this opportunity would be reckless, so we assumed we had time to discuss this and the repercussions until we met with you again. Now you have and we’re informing you. Please take no slight in this, we are simply concerned that this opportunity may be too good to be true.”

“We’re worried that we might jump in to find a fleet of 1000 or more ships,” the Protovic said. “This close to the Star Force border, less than 100 cruisers is too low to be secure. Do you concur?”

“Yes I do, though it may not matter. The lizards are unaware of what we’re doing here, I assume. So long as we seize the system sufficient to Star Force’s requirements our mission will be accomplished. Whatever the lizards are attempting to do will be irrelevant.”

“What of the lag time between our conquest and Star Force arriving to defend it?”

“We won’t need the full fleet at these current numbers. As fast as lizards build, we have to jump on this immediately. How recent is this scouting report?”

“28 days old,” the Gardeen reported.

“This is too good an opportunity to pass up. We must move now.”

The Calavari frowned. “Are you certain?”

Bra’shom nodded his large head firmly. “If the lizards are going to further reinforce, we would be better off taking them now than waiting. The number of ships they can pull in is far greater than what we’re capable of doing. If we can take this system, consider it a warmup for a proper assault on another. A stepping stone to our full plans coming to fruition, and a quick way to pay off existing investments and garner publicity. It won’t be the grand invasion we’ve been planning, if we’re lucky, but we cannot pass on this or delay…otherwise it will become a larger battle.”

“And if they land a large fleet there before you arrive with, arguably, our second string of troops?”

“Then we withdraw. We can send a scout ship in first, wait in a nearby empty system for the results, then move in if conditions are favorable. That will diminish the window for reinforcement to days. Star Force must be notified though, so they can add the system to their defense zone and have a fleet nearby in case the lizards counterpunch quickly.”

“Are they going to put a permanent fleet on guard for us?” a Critel asked.

“I do not know for certain,” the Gardeen said, glancing at Bra’shom. “They simply assured me of protection if we reach the requirements.”

“They’ll have to,” Bra’shom said with a nod. “I would not worry about them so long as they are notified. They will hold up their end of the bargain.”

“Are you certain of this?” an Irondel asked from his elevated platform. “We have built up so much that we cannot risk this on a gamble.”

“Trust me,” Bra’shom insisted. “If this data is genuine, we can go now and pick this world from the lizards at little cost to us. Even if they have a larger fleet arrive, they will not have anti-orbital batteries covering the planet. This data indicates only two, and we can set down our troops outside their range and began an assault overland. We can secure a foothold with ease, and so long as we are successfully advancing on a lizard city and not getting our asses kicked, Star Force will sanction the endeavor and back us up. I cannot urge you more. This is a limited window of opportunity. Our troops are ready. We must go now.”

“Then I’m sorry we didn’t bring this to your attention immediately,” the Gardeen apologized. “Go and make this happen,” he said, exchanging confirmation glances with the other councilors.

“Contact Star Force and make sure they’re aware of what we’re doing,” Bra’shom insisted.

“We’ll take care of it,” the Calavari promised. “Take whatever preparations you need and go. Waste no further time discussing with us.”

Bra’shom nodded and spun around, trotting out the door and quickly making his way through the command building.

“I am glad we are ready to seize this opportunity,” the Irondel stated. “He is right. This will score us our first victory even if it is a cheap one. It will not be a full test of an invasion.”

“Do not minimize it,” the Calavari cautioned. “Whenever you engage the lizards in combat you must be wary.”

“I will trust you on that,” the Irondel deferred, seeing as how the Calavari was the only councilor with battle experience against them, “but it is not a fully protected planet.”

“And we are not Star Force. We need to attack now, but this will be a tough fight. We will probably lose people.”

“Even if we send every available ship?”

“The lizards do not surrender. They will ram us if needed to do damage, and we do not have dampening shields.”

“But we do have drones,” a Critel argued.

“Yes, but the lizards are crafty. I believe our blood will be shed in orbit before we even get to ground. When that is the case, never minimize the assault. We know a more inhabited world will be far tougher, but this is for real. Not another mercenary mission. This is the war Star Force has been fighting since its inception. We’re just starting with a tiny corner of it. Be grateful, but do not underestimate the enemy. To us or our investors. If we are to err, let it be in overestimation.”

“Wise words,” the Protovic agreed. “Now let’s get this underway and prove ourselves to Star Force. If this is enough for them to count it, then they are surely not underestimating the threat.”

“I’ll handle the contact,” the Gardeen offered. “The rest of you see that Bra’shom is expedited as much as possible.”

“Do we tell the investors beforehand?”

“No,” the Calavari said quickly, drawing a few looks from the others. “This is a Hradeiti operation, and let’s keep it in-house this first time out. If we succeed we can show them the vids afterwards.”

“And if we fail?” a Critel asked.

“We won’t. But we may get a bloody nose. We need to learn from actual combat with the lizards using our tech and our troops what it takes to beat them before we start advertising to the ADZ that we can do this. Star Force can beat them, the Hradeiti are unproven. Let’s not make any proclamations or predictions this first time out.”

“And our mercenary teams?” the Irondel asked.

“Let them finish their assignments and return as scheduled.”

“I agree,” the Protovic concurred. “We need to be cautious about this. Keeping it in-house until we know what the outcome would be is the prudent course.”

“No point in bragging before an ass kicking,” the Gardeen said sarcastically. “So let’s not jinx ourselves. Quiet we will be until we get Bra’shom’s post battle report.”

The councilors nodded, coming to a consensus.

“I’m off then. Let’s make this happen,” the Gardeen said enthusiastically as everyone rose from their seats/pedestals…then a few sat back down as the others left when they realized their work required these consoles.

They were all eager and untested as Hradeiti, even those who had come from Star Force. This was an entirely new ball game, and no one knew for sure how it was going to play out without the Archons leading the way. They had to prove themselves, and as the time now rapidly approached, no one knew for sure what was going to happen.

7

February 17, 3149

Velcor System (lizard territory)

Inner Zone

The Hradeiti assault fleet jumped into the system without incident, finding the situation the same as what the scout sent ahead of them had returned to the rendezvous point with. There was one inhabited planet with a fleet of 85 cruisers sitting in orbit, two more than the initial survey, but that was probably due to surface yards having completed two of the ships under construction.

85 cruisers wasn’t anything to disregard, but Bra’shom knew it could have been much worse as he watched the high orbit transmissions from the current scout around the planet as it broadcast intel back towards the star where the rest of the fleet was still arriving. He didn’t know how they’d react. Come out to the star and try to attack them there? Stay in planetary orbit and fight just above the atmosphere? Go in atmosphere and retreat back to the surface? The lizards could do a number of things, but as soon as the fleet made its way around the star and into view of the enemy sensors, assuming they didn’t have any stealthed monitoring satellites with eyes on them now, they were going to see that they were heavily outnumbered.

The Scionate paced around the bridge of his flagship, monitoring the crew and various displays, though it was really just his way of impatiently waiting for his full fleet to arrive at the jumppoint. His battleship and three other identical converted cargo jumpships had led the fleet into the system ahead of the 168 naval jumpships carrying the rest of their attack fleet. Most of those had arrived by now, with only a handful left that would be followed up by the supply ships and those carrying the ground forces.

He was proud of the Hradeiti fleet they’d built, and even though most of the more experienced ships/units were not here he was confident that those that were could get the job done with a wide margin of error so long as a relief lizard fleet didn’t jump in on top of them.

Right now the jumpships were unloading their warships, most of which were crewed, but 18 of those jumpships were carrying remotely controlled vessels of Hradeiti construction. They had no internal living spaces whatsoever, making them expendable if need be, but the rest of the warships had people onboard and ranged from corvettes up to cruisers. The drones were all cutters in hull shape, but they carried weapons equivalent to their destroyers. Only the battleships were capable of jumping between systems on their own, meaning that if the relatively unarmed jumpships were lost a lot of people would be stranded here.

For that reason Bra’shom couldn’t leave the bigger ships behind at the star and push in for a quick attack on the planet. The lizards were going to know they were coming, and he hated giving them that head start. They were dangerous enough improvising on the spur of the moment. Give them time to see his fleet and prepare a strategy against the unknown vessels…the very thought of it made him cringe. He might be ex-Star Force, same as a chunk of the senior officers on his ships, but the vessels themselves were not. Almost all of them were conversions of other vessels, many of which had not been warships to begin with.

Others were, though they’d had to be modified to get them up to a respectable caliber of both weapons and defenses. Not enough armor, shields, and countermeasures was typical of warships sold in the ADZ. They were all engines and weapons, useful in going after pirates or defending convoys with just their presence. There were no full scales wars going on within the ADZ, so there was a considerable lack of shipbuilding savvy outside of Star Force that the Hradeiti had to compensate for.

They’d purchased the ships from various manufacturers, then had others rebuild them to their liking up until they had gotten a working shipyard capable of doing that themselves. Right now that still incomplete shipyard had taken over producing the drone warships in its own right, which were coming in quite handy on the frontier mercenary missions that they were currently testing them and their troops in…though those were all small scale engagements. Nothing even close to 85 lizard cruisers.

The two control ships for the drones were converted jumpships, both armed to make them combat capable and heavily armored to allow them to take quite a beating, but they didn’t have the kinetic stopping power of dampening shields. That was a Star Force tech that hadn’t been shared with the ADZ despite it not being a weapon. The shields that were available to the public were solid, multi-purpose models and every ship in the Hradeiti fleet had been outfitted with them for just that reason, but if you had to stop a kamikaze cruiser you needed dampening shields, meaning Bra’shom had a very real concern about losing crews if the lizards turned and rammed something other than the drones.

The key here was to beat the lizards in this first engagement before they could learn enough about the Hradeiti ships to exploit their shortcomings. No Star Force ships had entered the system with them, but for some reason he didn’t doubt that they’d be here when needed…if they could secure orbit and a foothold on the planet. The Hradeiti hadn’t been told where the help would be coming from or in what form, but he knew Star Force wouldn’t go back on their deal. How soon they’d get here after confirmation was made was the question mark, so the fleet commander knew he might have to hold off lizard reinforcements for a short period of time on their own if those reinforcements were already on the way here for scheduled operations rather than in response to a distress call.

The system did NOT have an interstellar communications system, meaning that a ship would have to be sent out to alert others and Bra’shom intended not to let any of their jumpships get away. If a cruiser wanted to make the slow trip that was one thing, but their big, fast carrier ships could not be allowed to get escape.

But where were they now? The scout in high orbit wasn’t showing them on this side of the planet. Were they sitting on the other side or somewhere else within the system? Or were they off to other locations and not needed to be sitting and babysitting this planet? Were they even now bringing more cruisers back here to supplement the defense fleet?

That last option concerned him, but if they truly weren’t here then there would be no distress call going out in any effective way.

When the last of his naval fleet arrived he left a few ships at the jumppoint to defend the incoming cargo and army ships and immediately took the rest of his 2,384 ships out from the star in an orderly microjump into middle orbit around the planet and well above the cruiser formation that was obstinately not moving. Even when it was obvious that they were outmatched they didn’t alter from their parking orbit, which concerned Bra’shom. Did they have some larger plan in the works? Or did they just want to see who it was coming into their system.

His ships were unknown models to them. Was it possible that other races with similar vessels were dealing with the lizards? If they weren’t sure the Hradeiti were enemies that could explain their lack of movement.

The Scionate felt the odds of that were low, but he couldn’t understand why the lizards were just sitting there.

He kept his fleet on station until all of them came out of their microjumps, then he got his formations arrayed as he liked, with the battleships leading the way and the drones pacing them ready to be shot on ahead if needed, but otherwise being held back so they wouldn’t be targeted initially given that they were the smallest of the fleet’s ships.

Then the lizards moved.

All of them, almost in synchronous movement, dipped down and headed for the atmosphere.

Damn them. So much for reckless charges to the death.

They’d guessed correctly. Bra’shom’s fleet wasn’t built for atmosphere. They could head down after them but their maneuvering capabilities were going to be hampered considerably, not to mention the fact that their hovering rates were average to bad and they’d be eating up a lot of fuel just to hold still, let alone trying to maneuver and chase down the lizard ships that were much better in atmosphere.

Then we make them come to us.

Of the three cities on the planet, only two were covered by the pair of anti-orbital batteries. Bra’shom put his fleet into a descending trajectory to get them into low orbit hover at an angle to the third city that would leave the big guns around the curve of the planet and out of range. If they came down directly over the city they’d be just within the firing arc, but offset themselves and the planet itself would shield them from the phaser fire that he knew his fleet could not stand up against. If he had to take down a lizard city shield, even a small one, before they could directly attack an anti-orbital gun, that gun would tear through too many of his ships to be worth the effort.

But so long as he had a city that he could bombard without taking return fire he was going to make the most of the opportunity…and see if the lizard cruisers would just sit out of range and watch him slowly destroy it.

The asteroid chuckers had not accompanied the fleet. Those ships and their painstakingly accumulated ammunition had been left behind at Ventress and saved for when they’d need to punch a hole in an anti-orbital grid. Here that wasn’t necessary, so they were going to use the cleansing beams to sting the defense shield enough until it gave way and they could pummel the city with impunity.

Or not quite. As his ships set up and began firing their fire pale white lances down at the planet on a steep angle, missile plumes sprouted up around the city’s edge and a wave of long range weapons could be seen tracking their way.

Bra’shom wasn’t worried. Against other ADZ warships those would be a serious problem, but the Hradeiti had painstakingly outfitted all of their ships with ample anti-air defenses for just this reason, not to mention the need to defend themselves when they were in atmosphere against the lizards’ wisp aircraft.

Bra’shom had to wait for the missiles to cross some 179 miles before his ships’ defenses were within range. The lachars bit out at the missiles and chewed them up gratifyingly, not allowing a single weapon through to one of the other battleships that seemed to be their singular target.

“Well done,” he told his bridge crew. “First test passed. Now let’s get that shield down,” he said as another round of missiles came at them, a much larger one this time, but it to failed to get through the fleet’s overlapping cover fire.

“Here they come,” a Critel officer announced, with Bra’shom noting as well that the sensors were indicating that the lizard cruisers were no longer staying near the planet’s surface. They were redirecting back to orbit in order to meet the attackers before the city’s shield could go down. When they got closer another wave of missiles shot off, with the intercept time going to be just after the lizards got to the ships.

“First priority is those missiles. Do not let them through,” he underscored. “Cease bombardment and focus all cleansing beams on the leading lizard cruisers. We have to take them out fast or we’ll lose ships. Bring the drones up to flanking positions and order them in to cover for retreating ships. Full cycling protocols, people. I don’t want any ship losses that can be avoided. We have a numerical advantage, so let’s make use of it.”

Even as he said the words he knew they were still in jeopardy. Not in losing the fight, but in getting their nose bloodied. And from their incoming tracts it looked like the battleships were going to be the primary targets.

Go for the big ones first? Fine with me. Come right into our guns and we’ll get this over with quickly, he thought, though his gut disagreed with him. By the time his brain recognized the problem it was too late to do anything.

The missiles the lizards had fired were now blocked by the leading lizard cruisers, which allowed them to get more than half of them to their targets before the warships blew past the battleships, firing as they went, then disengaged and began running back down to the planet.

The missiles slammed into one and only one of the battleships, not Bra’shom’s flagship, but the one situated to his left. He watched in horror as the lizards’ phaser shots weakened its shields enough for the missiles to punch on through and blast into the armor plates. Some of the cruisers, even now under heavy fire, circled back around and closed to pointblank range to finish off what the missiles had left. Those six cruisers were destroyed, along with two others that didn’t escape the mass of cleansing beam and lachar fire coming from the Hradeiti fleet.

More cruisers were damaged, but still mobile and retreated down into the safety of the atmosphere despite a few ranged cleansing beam shots hitting home before the distances grew too great to target accurately as they flew in an evasive path.

The Scionate snarled with contempt, cursing the lizards as well as his own overconfidence. One of his four battleships now sat, mostly intact, but with craters blown into it from all angles. More than a third of its mass was missing and now debris floating into nearby ships, but the overall shape of the ship was still there, now looking like a zombified version of its former self, with no active weaponry nor a connective comm signal.

“Organize search teams,” Bra’shom growled. “If someone is still alive on that ship I want them off there now! Meanwhile commence orbital bombardment again and redeploy the fleet into formation Gamma 7. They’re not pulling that move on us again.”

The Scionate paced around the bridge, waiting as his orders were carried out and the pale white lances began connecting with the distant spot on the planet’s surface again. More missiles came, but no cruisers with them, leading them into an overwhelming anti-air response that didn’t allow any to get through. The lizards were probably firing them off rather than losing them when the shield collapsed, which it did less than 12 minutes later under the sustained assault.

Lizard shields had gotten considerably stronger over the years, but even with his vastly inferior fleet compared to Star Force standards, they were more than the defenses could hold out against. When the circular plate went down they immediately targeted the shield tower, ensuring that it was destroyed and would not be regenerating another charge. After that they hit the largest buildings and as many smaller targets that they could given their accuracy limits.

After that they just pounded the location repetitively, hoping massed shots would compensate for lack of pinpoint accuracy and eventually hit everything in the city that needed destroying. Without explosives the damage was more needle strikes shooting through buildings and carving out holes, meaning the structures would still be there afterwards, more or less, unless Bra’shom wanted to stay up here and waste so much energy that even the buildings would be ground down into the orbital equivalent of sand.

As much as his ire would have approved of that he knew they couldn’t waste ammunition…even in the form of reactor power that fed the cleansing beams. There were two other cities that needed destroying and they both were under the protective umbrella of those anti-orbital batteries that could wreck half of his fleet before they got through the shield and took it out.

He almost regretted leaving the asteroid chuckers behind, but knew what he had to do. Landing ground troops was the best way to take out those guns, after which the fleet could pound the two cities into dust at their leisure, but he still had the enemy cruisers in atmosphere. He had to get rid of them before this system would be secure, and right now they didn’t seem inclined to rush up and fight it out.

Damn them. They didn’t control orbit until those ships were neutralized, and he didn’t dare risk landing ground troops with them in play. One cruiser could wreck their ground forces in short order if left unchecked. So what was he going to do?

He really didn’t have a choice. Time was on the side of the lizards. Eventually one of their ships would arrive, bringing with it additional resources, reinforcements, or just the ability to jump out and rouse a call for help. The initiative was with the invaders, but so was the responsibility of finishing this fight before it could escalate. A stalemate was a loss, so Bra’shom had to act.

He wasn’t going to waste his ships against that gun. Better to retreat and admit defeat than spend the lives of his crew like that, not to mention the waste of ships.

No, they had to take the gun via the ground, and to go to ground his troops were going to need naval cover…

“Bring in the troop ships,” he ordered. “It looks like we’re taking this fight in atmosphere whether we like it or not.”

8

Chamsen sat in the tiny cockpit of the hovertank he’d been training in for the past 3 years, rolling in formation with six others as they raced across the desert landscape, keeping the dunes between them and the lizard cruiser sitting almost on the ground outside the target city. It was staying low enough that that anti-orbital gun could cover it, so that if the naval fleet eased up over the curve of the planet to shoot it they’d have to face the big gun too.

That was a stalemate as far as the naval battle went, but with that cruiser parked there they were going to have a damn near impossible time fighting their way past it on the ground. Knowing this the fleet commander had ordered an unusual attack, which Chamsen and his tanks were getting in position for while about half the fleet crawled over land to stay below the anti-orbital gun’s firing depression.

They were going to have a low ceiling to work with…a very low ceiling, but it was the only way to remove the cruiser ahead of Chamsen’s tanks, not to mention the others that had parked themselves around the perimeter. Plenty of dunes were providing them cover, meaning that the fleet was going to have to get very close in order to get open firing lines on them.

As was prudent, the naval drones were going in first with the manned ships following up, but there was also a large contingent of wisps and lizard tanks to deal with as well. It would take a while, but they could take down a warship if left to chip away at it long enough. Not to mention the limited perimeter defense turrets…all of which were sitting underneath a high, flat shield that was blocking the city against orbital bombardment.

A few minutes ago a missile attack was conducted, probing the lizard city and seeing that they did have anti-air capability, for the missiles were knocked down before they hit any buildings. That meant the Hradeiti fighters couldn’t go in there just yet. This was a mess of an assault, but the Calavari didn’t know any better way to go about doing this without Star Force backup…which they weren’t going to get. The Hradeiti had to do this on their own, and he just hoped they hadn’t bitten off more than they could swallow on this one.

When one of the drones came around the side of a dune that shallowed out, it immediately drew pink phaser fire from two nearby cruisers as it responded with a single cleansing beam and a series of lachars, the latter of which glowed bright red. Following it was another drone, then a larger destroyer, and that was all that Chamsen could see before his tank formation ducked behind another mountainous dune and turned to the right following a bit of a valley as the big ships began slugging it out at nearly pointblank range all along a 10 kilometer line.

The 6 tanks were outside the northern end of that line, heading towards a washout that would lead them directly to the city’s nearest point. Fortunately there was no wall around it, meaning all they had to do to get into the buildings was to drive right up to them. But there were plenty of defenders in the way, so while the big ships occupied each other’s attention the tanks snuck around and got a firing line on one of the perimeter turrets that was pumping phaser shots into a warship somewhere off to the far right.

Chamsen flew his tank out wide of the sandy hill, making room for the others to get firing lines on it as well. He held his weapon secured until they all got into the open, then together they shot dual heavy lachars at the turret, hitting it with 12 red beams within the first second and blowing armor plates off like it’d been hit with a shotgun. The second salvo silenced the weapon, but the tanks didn’t stop there. They blasted it until the turret was visibly junk, then they pulled back into the cover of the dunes before a cruiser could take a shot at them and moved on further through the sandy canyons looking for their next opportunity for a sniping attack further away from the brawl that was attracting all of the lizard cruisers, the rest of which were abandoning their positions on the other side of the city and flying directly over it to come down on the Hradeiti warships.

By the time Bra’shom’s battleship pushed its way through the tip of a sand dune in order to stay below the firing ceiling of the anti-orbital gun the fight was already old and with multiple ships from both sides laying broken on the sand. The bigger cleansing beams his flagship carried leapt out immediately, drilling two pale white daggers into the side of an already damaged lizard cruiser and cutting a swath through it as one popped out the far side and tattooed one of the city buildings beyond.

A giant pink beam passed within 20 meters of the top of the battleship, missing it and streaking off into the distance behind the fleet as the big gun tried to get a glancing shot in. Fortunately it wasn’t as big of a gun as the ones he’d seen in action in the past, and wasn’t situated on top of a huge tower. This one was lower to the ground with several buildings actually interfering with its lowest firing lines. Depress as it could, the battleship was still under its firing line and Bra’shom was glad his crew were holding to that navigational mark meticulously.

Seeing all the devastation and ongoing carnage playing out before him, the Scionate figured they had the lizard cruisers beat. They were getting hit hard in the process, but they had numbers and the city defense turrets weren’t adding a lot to the fight. It looked like this is where the lizards were planning to make their last stand, and…

Suddenly Bra’shom saw one of the lizard cruisers dart forward, digging into the sand to the left of his battleship but he knew it wasn’t a crash course. The ship got hit by several lachars while the cleansing beam gunners were focusing on a pair of cruisers ahead that were pounding away at the forward shields. That let it get through all the way underneath the bigger ship, wedging itself between hull and sand and breaching the battleship’s shields with the contact.

The phaser beams now started hitting armor from the pair in front even as one of the cruisers lost half its weaponry as a cleansing beam cut a critical power conduit. Bra’shom wasn’t worried about those ships, but he was scared as hell to have that cruiser underneath them. If it had a self-destruct it could…

Suddenly the battleship began to gain altitude, and before Bra’shom could order full thrust down the cruiser pushed it up enough that another thick pink beam leapt out from the city and punched straight into the forward hull, burning through the armor there in a flash and cutting a tunnel half the length of the ship that blew out with the vaporized material into the surrounding decks.

The bridge was about 30 meters away from the beam trace, which was too close. The whole leftside wall exploded and Bra’shom got slammed in the rear as it blew him and the rest of the bridge crew to the far was in a load of shrapnel and heat that killed them all within a matter of seconds.

Commander Tyree was standing on the bridge of another battleship a couple kilometers to the south of the flagship when he saw it rise up above the combat ceiling and get slammed by the anti-orbital battery at maximum depression. It took him a moment to realize that there was a lizard ship underneath, crumpled and half buried in the battleship’s hull, but it had obviously pushed the warship up into the firing line.

“Damn them,” the red/green Protovic swore, immediately punching buttons on his chair’s control console and assuming command of the fleet. With that he opened a comm channel to all ships while sending out his own placement orders and reconfiguring the alignment as he saw fit. Bra’shom hadn’t been an idiot, but Tyree had learned to fight differently and if they were going to get the fleet through this they had to take a different approach.

“All ships, beware the cruisers diving beneath you. They just killed our flagship by moving it up into range of the city’s big gun. Drag bottom on the sand and push all gravity drives down if they do manage to undercut you. Crush them into the ground. If you drift up you’re good as dead anyway, so don’t worry about the damage to your ships. Smash them no matter what it takes.”

“Helm, we’re going in. Follow the course I give you and please be accurate,” he said as he ordered six of the remaining drones into flanking positions, being flown by pilots in orbit, while the rest of the fleet continued slugging it out. “Scrape bottom on approach, I don’t care how much armor you grind off.”

“Are you sure about this?” the helmsman asked, seeing the course just given him.

“I trained directly with Archons,” the Commander said with all confidence. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, sir,” the Calavari said as he surged the battleship forward and slightly north, dipping it down to drag on the ground while the drones shot ahead of it and targeted the nearest cruisers. The battleship poured all its firepower into one of them, taking down its shields with a couple of cleansing beam hits then ignoring it at the last moment as a course correction brought the bow around to face the city directly. Speed poured on and the battleship traced a line through the sand heading directly for the outer buildings.

The lizards saw it almost immediately, but the drones fired on and, in two cases, physically blocked the cruisers via collisions, getting slightly on top of them and using their engines to bury the front edges of their ships down into the sand, pinning them in place long enough for the battleship to slide between the outer buildings, ramming the edges of two further in as the gap became too narrow.

The shields held up for a few seconds, carving out furrows in the lizard towers before the armor itself began to grind against them, with it holding up far better than the lizard building materials. The battleship forced its way into the city while staying low enough to avoid the big gun’s firing line as waves of wisps suddenly appeared and started firing down on the ship from above.

Tyree didn’t call for air cover, knowing that they’d be hit with the city’s anti-air turrets as soon as they got in range. No, this was a task for the big ships…and right now they only had 2 battleships left.

Punching their way through building gaps too narrow to hold the big vessel, the Commander forced his way up to the fat turret that held the anti-orbital gun, parking the front of his ship almost in contact with it and giving one of his cleansing beams a direct firing line at it while the wisps, tanks, and ground-based turrets chewed away at his armored hull plates.

The cleansing beam shot out, melting through the turret’s armor plates and cutting its way inside while tracking to the left a few meters. The beam cut out, going through its recharge cycle, then picked up exactly where it left off and extending the cutting line a bit further. Again and again it fired while the rest of the battleship’s weaponry shot any and all vessels within range, including a pair of cruisers that flew up over the buildings but underneath the protective energy shield to take out the battleship before it could finish off the gun, but numerous cleansing beams angled up to tag them as they made themselves easy targets for the creeping Hradeiti fleet outside the perimeter.

One of those fell on top of the battleship, albeit not intentionally. It slammed down on top, damaging both ships but not moving the larger vessel more than a few meters down and doing nothing to stop the forward cleansing beam from continuing to fire. A few minutes later and Commander Tyree gave the all clear long past when his gut told him the gun was dead, not wanting to make a mistake.

He ordered the battleship to rise to test his theory before anyone else did, and the big vessel had to apply a lot of power to shove the cruiser off of it, which fell into and pancaked a nearby building leaving the Hradeiti ship with a huge chunk bitten out of the top of it.

Gaining enough altitude to clear the buildings but still staying below the shield cap, the Protovic ordered all weaponry to pound the turret and the exposed firing mechanism on top even as a few more cruisers headed towards them. If it could get off a single shot he had to prevent it from killing any of the other ships, and his battleship was already thoroughly trashed. Take out the gun and this battle was going to shift suddenly, making it the primary task even as the pink phaser lances cut into his shieldless ship from multiple sides.

The gun didn’t fire, didn’t toast his battleship, with Tyree knowing he had succeeded but needed to take out another target.

“Helm, get us to the shield tower. Take it out with whatever weapons we have left, and be prepared to ram it if necessary,” he said as multiple thumps were heard from behind the bridge. “I think we’re going down regardless.”

As he said that a couple of destroyers flew in behind them, targeting the cruisers and leading a flow of other Hradeiti ships into the city now that they didn’t have to worry about the big gun. Fortunately the shields covering the shield tower itself weren’t too difficult for the pair of big cleansing beams that the battleship fortunately still had functioning to take down, then the rest of their weaponry and some missile streaks from a frigate punched into the side of the tower and suddenly the shield above them disappeared.

“All ships, get some altitude. Primary target is the cruisers. Swarm them with cleansing beams.”

He turned to look at his helmsman. “Keep us on the deck. If we go up I have a bad feeling we’re coming back down real fast. Find some place we can land soft.”

“Outside the city?”

“If you can get us there. Gunners, take down everything you can on the way. We’ve accomplished our mission, everything else from now on is bonus.”

“Sorry, Tyree,” a Calavari voice said over the comm. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The Commander frowned and looked at the display screen that was now only operating off of battlemap relay, for most of his ship’s sensors were destroyed. He saw their only remaining battleship come racing across the top of the lizard city and tag a nearby cruiser that was doing its best to finish off Tyree’s ride.

The other battleship knocked it down, pancaking another building where it landed, then flew in and took position directly overhead its sister ship, blocking most of the incoming fire while the surrounding buildings helped do likewise.

“Don’t waste your ship trying to save this one,” he complained. “We’re already toast.”

“You’re still in the air and I intend to keep you that way, toast or not.”

“Stupid Calavari.”

“Stupid Protovic. Now shut up and let me save you.”

Tyree cracked a grin that his fellow battleship captain couldn’t see. “Kill the cruisers, will ya?”

“We can do both,” he said, with the cleansing beams continuing to fly and the cruisers now falling like flies under the combined firepower of the fleet as it got back to low altitude and no longer had buildings or dunes blocking their firing lines.

Then he saw it. They both did. A cruiser that was about dead was making a kamikaze run against their position and there was no time to shoot it down. Two more cleansing beams hit it from above but that didn’t stall its momentum as it slid in underneath the intact battleship and rammed Tyree’s already critical ship.

He cringed, waiting for the explosion and getting an earthquake in its place. Most of the bridge instrumentation went out, then a second quake hit that was far worse, knocking him out and down from his chair onto the floor where he smashed his head as the battleship hit the surface.

Tyree got to a knee and looked around, feeling warm blood on his head but still being very much alive.

“Find out what sections of the ship are intact and evacuate there. Unless we have to we need to avoid going out into the city. We’ll be target practice.”

“Intercomms are down.”

“Get the handheld backups. Poll every piece of the ship and find out where we have people and damage,” he ordered, crawling over to the side of his chair and popping a panel out on the bottom of it. Inside was survival gear, including a short range comm device of his own. He reached past it and got a medkit, attending to his own wound while the crew on the bridge were dealing with others more heavily wounded than him.

“I hate lizards,” he whispered as he opened the kit and got a healing patch applied to his forehead.

9

February 19, 3149

Velcor System (lizard territory)

Adrak

Commander Tyree, now onboard a destroyer, had brought in a portion of the other half of the fleet that had remained in orbit while sending those ships flight worth from the fight back into space to keep them from running out of fuel. That included their lone battleship, though Tyree wasn’t going to dispossess Commander Vantrech even if that ship had been suitable for this next assault. It was too big to fit under the defense shield that the lizards had lowered to its minimum height, which was now smashing flat some of the surrounding sand dunes and almost making the third lizard city a sunken pit.

But there were gaps in the perimeter. Too small for a battleship, but without any lizard cruisers in contention or swarms of wisps to counter them, the naval warships had the upper hand so long as they stayed below the firing depression of the city’s main gun. The second city, which was even now under assault by ground troops…or rather what was left of it after they got through 10 hours of point blank bombardment…was still not fully clear as far as airspace was concerned. Landing ships had to come down far from the city and come over land to get into the safe zone, for the final anti-orbital gun still reached out to cover it at the higher altitudes.

Unlike Star Force shields, lizard varieties of this small size were always flat circles placed overtop their cities. That gave them far more strength than domed shields, but left ground assaults with easy access to the buildings. The lizards counted on their own ground forces and wisp swarms to cover that approach, along with cruisers to keep any attacking fleet in orbit where they belonged, but so long as the Hradeiti were already on the ground Commander Tyree figured they might as well hit the lizard base from there as well rather than mount a traditional army attack to take down the shield and big gun.

The lizards obviously knew what they were doing and had lowered their shield height as far as they could, meaning the warships would have to shoot their way through it to get into the city. That would take a lot of time and if they raised up just enough in altitude they’d get smashed by the anti-orbital gun. Some of the dunes would insure that happened, for the only way over them was to climb into range. That left specific approaches that could be used, some with holes where the dunes didn’t meet the shield, so that’s where this small contingent of warships was going while Commander Vantrech oversaw the rest of the fleet back up in orbit.

Tyree wasn’t bringing any troop ships with him, not wanting to split the ground forces and increase the danger to them. If they managed to take down this city’s defenses they could have the fleet in orbit come down to bombardment height and lay waste to it, then move in with the troops later to clean up.

With a few drones leading the way to draw out ambushes, Tyree took his 22 ship task force slowly over land, skimming dunes and being patient as they gradually approached the city traveling in a single file line that curved to and fro in order to keep the minimum altitude as they traversed the dunes. When the first drone eventually came into sight of the curved valley that cut under the depressed shield it immediately came under a mass of pink phaser fire.

Tyree frowned, then saw a cluster of tanks sitting at the entrance as the remote pilots fired back in a one-sided slugging match, but he called off the drone and cycled another one in its place before they managed to get its shields down and do some damage. It took some time for them to swap out without gaining altitude, and both of them had to drag in the sand to accomplish it, but the second drone lowered its shields first to not drain them, then popped them back up just before it came within sight of the remaining tanks and finished them off quickly.

“Send it in and keep your distance. The lizards are renowned for traps,” he cautioned.

A minute later, when the drone dipped under the edge of the shield over top the burnt out tanks their debris exploded…into a wash so big that the drone disappeared and the surrounding dunes blew apart like sand clouds.

“Damn it,” Tyree whispered, glad he’d insisted on sending a drone in first. “That was no tank.”

“No, sir,” one of the bridge crew confirmed. “Looks like explosives planted below ground. A lot of them.”

“Is the drone gone?”

“We’re getting some telemetry, but it’s now immobile and not responding to commands.”

“And blocking the entrance?” he guessed.

“More or less. The dunes have moved now.”

Tyree couldn’t see that on the visuals, for the dust cloud was still covering everything, but on sensors he could see the change.

“Target these coordinates,” he said, manually placing a waypoint on the limited battlemap that the Hradeiti used, “and blast away some more of that sand.”

“With what, sir? We don’t have any missiles. Nor do the drones.”

“Use the cleansing beams and lachars.”

“That’ll take forever.”

“Just widen the gap a bit.”

“Yes, sir,” the weapons officer said, giving orders to the next drone in line to begin firing on the sand to the left of the now dead one.

The beam cut into the sand easily, making a small ‘poof’ on entry, but it sliced right through and out the other side without moving a lot of the material. That small hit up close was a decent amount, but nothing that a missile or other explosive would have managed. More shots were fired, with added lachar strikes of much weaker power, adding to the dust cloud but not doing much for moving the sand around.

“Aim lower. Direct the sand by undercutting its support.”

The beams drifted to the bottom and began slicing into and carving out a ditch, into which a whole section of sand suddenly slid down like an avalanche.

“Better. Keep at it until we get another 10 meters width, then get ready to send the drone in.”

The remote pilot did as ordered, then the firing ceased when a bit of the dune had been removed and the dust cloud was now a permanent resident given that the shield was blocking out most wind from dispersing it.

“Send the drone in and backside that debris. Push it out and clear the passage.”

“That’s going to be a tight fit.”

“Wiggle her in if you have to.”

A moment later the drone began taking fire from the inside as it approached the gap and pressed into the sand so it didn’t scrape the debris.

“Shields are about to go down.”

“Understood. Plow the road even if we lose this one…but don’t give them a second blocker.”

Tyree held his breath, not expecting the lizards to have any more explosives at that spot and knowing the defense turrets couldn’t take down a warship very quickly, even one with its shields down. Before long the junked drone began moving out, visible only on sensors, with the intact drone shoving it from behind and plowing a furrow in the sand until it came clear of the opening.

“Move it aside. Bury it in a dune if you have to,” he said, waiting for that order to be carried out to his satisfaction. “Rotate that drone back and give me another forward, then we follow it in. Rest of the ships after us in tight staggered formation. Light up the sand ahead of us with lachars probing for more explosives. We can’t get caught like that again.”

And then they were moving to the head of the line as another drone shot to scout position and ducked under the shield. Tyree’s destroyer followed, plowing up a bit more sand as it squeezed its larger mass through, then the buildings of the lizard city were visible kilometers ahead on sensors, though the dust cloud in here was still omnipresent. A few streaks of pink were lighting it up, with sensors indicating the scattered perimeter defense turrets as the source.

“Take out those turrets then blast us a course to that big gun. I don’t care how long it takes or how many buildings need to go down. We’ve got them in their blind spot now.”

Scooting less than 100 meters under the shield plane, his destroyer fanned out to the left, zapping the sand in front of it to probe for more booby traps, to allow the following ships to form a line that would allow them all to get into firing position. Once in, all the ships began cutting apart specific buildings to give them adequate maneuvering room up to one of the center streets in the much larger city that would lead directly to the big gun.

Once they were through to that Tyree sent a drone on ahead. It took out a couple more interior turrets that were better suited to defend against mechs than ships, then started chipping away at the big gun from where it couldn’t shoot back. The roadway wasn’t big enough to fit another ship, and Tyree didn’t want to get his fleet pinned in any more than they already were. Eventually the big gun came down, literally, as a chunk of it fell off the southern side as the support frame was melted away by a cleansing beam hit, opening up some interior shots that ended any question as to the gun’s functionality.

That drone then pulled back as another one was already nearing the shield generator. It was more heavily defended, but the attackers had time and the one drone was enough to gradually chip through the lateral shields and get to the armored plates…after which it was just a matter of time until the entire shield plate failed and the city was now open to the air, with a gust of wind coming now and brushing the dust cloud away and returning visuals of the city to the bottom feeding warships.

“Everyone get altitude and start junking cityscape. Orbital fleet, come down to bombardment range and help us toast these bastards. This planet is ours. Let’s get to work cleaning up and the less the ground troops have to do the better. Just leave them someplace to walk afterwards.”

Six days later Commander Tyree was onboard a cruiser that he’d claimed as his flagship, happy to have completed the assault but sorely missing the crews that had been lost, especially Bra’shom. After all he’d done to build up this military it wasn’t fair for him having been taken out in the first battle, but that’s the way the lizards played. Give them any room to backstab you they would, often in ways you didn’t expect, and forcing the battleship up into big gun range had been an inspired tactic, but one that wouldn’t have worked had the battleship crew been quicker witted.

They should have pancaked the cruiser with their more powerful gravity drives, for they were the larger ship and the drives were of Star Force jumpship manufacture, hence top of the line. But they’d hesitated, perhaps not even sure what was going on, and in that moment of indecision the lizards had landed the fleet commander a fatal blow.

Saddened by that and the fact that such a small lizard fleet had given them so much trouble, Tyree had a wariness about him amidst the joy of actually taking a world from the lizards…for he knew their estimates of their own abilities had been greatly overstated. Like him, many of the Hradeiti had been in the Star Force military previously, but for some of them that had been a long time ago. He’d left some 28 years earlier, then been serving in active mercenary units since then, keeping his edge sharp while it looked like others had gotten complacent and forgotten just how dangerous the lizards actually were.

Had the Hradeiti engaged one of the worlds that had originally been their targets…they may well have lost the entire fleet.

That was a silver lining to the losses here, and one that Tyree was going to make sure the Hradeiti did not waste, regardless of whether or not he would retain fleet command in Bra’shom’s absence.

“Incoming ships,” his sensor officer called our warily. “They’re registering as lizard.”

“Where?” he asked, the pit of his stomach sinking as the orbital map showed microjumps ending near the stellar jumpline but well away from the planet. They were lizard cruisers, already at least 20 of them, with more still incoming.

“All ships form up around my position and enter combat matrix 7. Drones to the front and overlap firepower as much as possible. Do NOT individually engage or we’re going to be hurt badly. Get in position quickly and make them come to us.”

The bad feeling he was getting only got worse as more and more cruisers arrived, all holding position near the jumppoint until they numbered some 238 strong. There had to be jumpships near the star that had offloaded them, but they hadn’t delivered them all the way to the planet. Either by design or accident.

Just as well. He didn’t want to have their weaponry added to this mix. They were going to have a nasty fight on their hands even though they outnumbered them 4 to 1.

When the lizards started moving towards the Hradeiti fleet they came in a tightly packed swarm, longer than it was wide, with the obvious intent on making a strafing run and taking out a handful of ships instantly, and he had a gut feeling they would be going for their only remaining battleship or the two drone controlling-jumpships.

But before they could get into firing range a ship winked into existence alongside them, as if in formation but slightly trailing to the starboard. Then another showed up beside it. Neither had microjumped in, they just suddenly appeared on sensors.

Two more did the same to port, and suddenly the lizard formation broke apart and turned on the contacts as weaponsfire broke out against the much larger quartet of ships.

“All ships hold fleet position and center on my flagship, engage with cleansing beams when we come into range. Helm, move us forward casually. Let’s not draw too much attention.”

“Sir?” another officer said, not fully understanding. “Who is that?”

Tyree raised an eyeridge. “You don’t recognize those jumpships?”

“No, sir.”

“Anyone care to enlighten him?” Tyree asked mirthfully as his fleet began gaining altitude while staying in formation, heading towards the brawl that had the lizard cruisers swarming like bees around the four ships that were undoubtedly going to tear them to shreds, perhaps even before the Hradeiti got to them.

“Those are Ma’kri-class jumpships,” a Duramitte said with both awe and respect, having served in Axius for a number of years. The lizard-like grey biped flicked a silver tongue in an odd gesture of respect that Tyree was only starting to get used to. “Star Force was here all along watching us.”

“Where’d they come from?”

“The Ma’kri are rumored to have stealth mechanisms.”

“Consider that confirmed,” Tyree said with pleasure as the lizard ship count dipped below the halfway point. It seemed they were far more interested in doing damage to Star Force than they were the Hradeiti.

“Are we going to help them?” someone else asked.

“We’re on our way, but if my guess is right they’ll be finished before we get there.”

“We can go faster.”

“Yes we can, and as much as I’d like to rack up some more lizard ship kills, do you think it’s worth the risk of them turning on us and taking out a ship or two before they all were destroyed?”

“I suppose not.”

“We’ll help them if this drags on, but I don’t anticipate it will for much longer and the lizards know they can’t outrun those ships. If they turn on us at the end be ready to kill them quickly, but otherwise we’re going to let Star Force do its thing…with our thanks.”

The lizards weren’t completely destroyed by the time the Hradeiti fleet entered firing range, so they got off a few cleansing beam strikes and knocked out two cruisers in killsteal fashion, but when Tyree opened a comm channel to the Star Force ships after the fact they oddly didn’t respond. Just as he was beginning to frown and wonder if there was something wrong with his ship’s comm systems the four Ma’kri accelerated quickly away from the debris and dropped off the sensors save for a pair of tiny specs that disappeared with distance.

“Are they angry with us?” the comm officer asked.

“We did make a mess of this,” Tyree admitted, “but I think they’re sending us a message. This is our assault, not theirs. We’ve staked our foothold and they’re abiding by the terms of the agreement to defend this system against outside aggression, but we’ve still got troops on the planet and lizards to mop up and they’re not going to hold our hands doing it.”

“Orders, sir?”

“We finish what we started and wipe every last lizard off this planet. Then we send a courier back to Ventress and inform them that we have a new planet for them to divvy up…after we collect some of that lizard tech for study.”

10

February 19, 3151

Velcor System (Hradeiti territory)

Adrak

Paget rode into orbit on the first Gnar transport, seeing to his disgruntlement that they hadn’t been the first to arrival at the newly created ‘Communal World.’ It had been given that name intentionally to differentiate from the ‘Alliance Worlds’ that Star Force had set up and on one of which Paget had been living for a long time. The Hradeiti were in sole possession of this planet and star system, and per their business arrangement with their investors a piece of Adrak now belonged to the Gnar.

It wasn’t a large piece, given the size of the planet, but in and of itself it was sizeable. Resources beneath the surface had yet to be determined, but there was plenty of land available to begin colonizing…land that had not been available on the Alliance Worlds anymore. The Gnar colonies there had filled every last square kilometer of their territory right up to the Star Force border strips that would not be present on this planet.

There were some very narrow neutral zones, barely 2 kilometers wide, that would separate Gnar territory from their neighbors, but there would be no Star Force cities there. In fact, there would be no Star Force presence on the planet whatsoever, which Paget took as a refreshing change. They did have one of their seda stations in orbit and a small but visible defense fleet in the system…which was the only reason the Gnar and other investors were willing to take the risk of crossing the old border and going ahead to colonize their investment earnings.

The world was one form of barren after another, but it was empty and that was the main point. The Gnar needed territory to expand into, and while this wasn’t a huge addition it was the first new annexation that they’d been able to make in some time while other races more favorable to Star Force had been growing steadily with new planets given to them on a slow, but regular basis.

But now the ‘not so favored’ had a route to gaining more territory, with the first fruits of the Hradeiti’s labor now visible for all others to see, and the Gnar taking a much more heavy investment in the organization before that new fame drew others in to stake their claim. This was only the first of what would be many lizard worlds taken, and the Gnar wanted an ever increasing share of future conquests.

But for now Paget had a new home to build, with plenty of room for his broodmates and whomever he wished to invite here. The construction would take time, of course, but he was in full control of this new colony and would not be living under the crush of overpopulation here. He was already planning ahead with immigration quotas that would draw off some of the existing Gnar population from their crowded worlds without bringing the problem to his new doorstep, as well as negotiating with the Hradeiti to acquire mining rights for other locations in this star system.

He was going to hit the ground running, so to speak, and it seemed other races were attempting to do the same thing. Tiny surface bases were already springing up across the planet in addition to the single working colony that the Hradeiti had already established, though even it was still in its infant stages. Only the Star Force seda was fully intact and operational, and Paget knew they had to have hauled it here from somewhere else rather than building it on site. Star Force had some impressive construction rates, but not even they could have constructed that large of a station in so little time since this world fell.

Which meant this was also a race to see who could outshine the others, gain hold of what would be the developing economy, and try to tap into the trade routes that were already running beyond lizard borders. If many of them linked here then this location could become a very important one, and the Gnar wanted to be at the forefront of that if at all possible. And if not, they still wanted their piece of the action…so long as it didn’t involve direct military engagements.

The Hradeiti would be taking all the military risks and casualties, while Star Force would be defending this system like all others in the ADZ along this border. That meant with the hard work of keeping the lizards at bay not an issue, the Gnar and others could focus on the opportunities presented here…and the massive cost of their investment in the Hradeiti looked to be an ongoing blessing rather than a risky business venture.

Whatever would happen with future Hradeiti assaults, the Gnar and others still had their first tidbits of new territory to absorb, with the legitimacy that brought with it fueling the Hradeiti into a much larger organization practically overnight.

Fleet Admiral Tyree was summoned to the Executive Council’s chambers as was occasionally the norm now that he was back on Ventress, with the fleet once again in building mode. Both he and the other surviving commanders from the Velcor invasion had unanimously agreed that they were not ready to take on a larger lizard target, but with all the new investments and recruits pouring in there was talk of potential targets already arising and the upgrading and strengthening of the fleet was being rushed as much as realistically possible.

He wasn’t letting them get reckless, but the need for building a proper fleet was painfully obvious. Good against mercenaries was one thing. Good against the lizards…that was something else entirely. The Hradeiti had their first victory against them, but Tyree had made sure the Executive Council was fully aware of how ill prepared they were to take on a larger lizard force.

But they weren’t backing down, rather rising to meet the challenge, though they had a long way to go before they were truly battle ready.

“Fleet Admiral,” the single Lacvamat councilor greeted him as he arrived.

“Councilors,” Tyree greeted as he noticed a few extra bodies in the chamber. Two Calavari and a short Bsidd. He was used to seeing the really big ones, though this one was obviously an Alpha, their middle sized variety that typically didn’t serve in their military.

“You’ve been inquiring about the possibility of acquiring some higher level ex-Star Force recruits,” a Critel said, then gestured towards the three newcomers. “Fortuitously there have been some very high marks within the volunteer lists. May I present Admiral Nashtek, Knight Renkor, and Administrator Tikkito.”

“Formerly,” Nashtek corrected. “When we left Star Force those ranks were left behind.”

“Why did you leave?” Tyree asked, knowing there were many different reasons, having been in the same position himself previously.

“A chance to become trailblazers in our own right, even if on a much smaller scale.”

“I would not go so far,” Renkor said, looking down at the shorter Calavari.

“I meant no disrespect. I merely seek a different challenge.”

“I too,” Renkor agreed. “I can teach your people much of assaulting lizard cities. The ones you took were weak. Others will not be. You cannot rely solely on naval power to defeat them.”

“That I am keenly aware of,” Tyree said with a bit of dark sarcasm.

“If their anti-orbital batteries had been more advanced, the depression rate would have been enough to prevent anything from approaching over 150 meters at the lowest point. That will block your use of naval ships on lateral approach. You must get your ground forced under that line and into the cities directly.”

“Fortunately our ground troops were not thoroughly tested,” Tyree admitted, “but we did lose a fair number of them in the cleanup efforts after bombardment. Many lizards survived, and they were quite vicious and inventive maneuvering around in the rubble.”

“Coordinating with other Star Force Calavari is easy,” Renkor all but boasted. “Training your rabble into a proper assault force will be a significant challenge. I am here for that challenge.”

“Fair enough,” the Protovic agreed, purposely not taking offense at the rather candid remark. He hadn’t had much to do with the ground troops’ training, but he knew they were in bad need of improvement considering that most of them were not Star Force trained…aside from basic combat skills drilled into them in their maturias. But some of the recruits were not from Star Force at all and lacked even that minimum skillset. “And you?”

Tyree had addressed the Bsidd, who shifted its multi-appendaged body around like a bush with the wind blowing through the branches.

“I am here on a temporary basis. One day I will return to Star Force. That is who I am and where I belong. But I also see the opportunity to gain field experience with the Hradeiti that I will not get within the well-polished Star Force structure. The Hradeiti are raw and badly in need of proper organization. If I can succeed here it will be because I have upgraded my skillset considerably.”

“And what exactly do you plan to do here?”

“You are gaining a lot of new material and resources. The larger you get the harder it will be to manage it all. If you are going to develop a proper military, you will need a proper logistical division supporting it.”

The Protovic poked a glowing finger at the Executive Council. “I thought that was their job?”

A Calavari councilor huffed a not displeased response. “We have managed. He will excel. There are no egos involved here, Fleet Admiral. We know we cannot afford any weaknesses going forward. This council will deal with the diplomatic angle and keep the functioning core of the Hradeiti insulated from it. Allow this endeavor to become political and we are all doomed. Fail to advance and acquire a requisite skill level…and the lizards will slaughter us when we attempt to take a larger target. We know we have no room for slackers, and a Star Force Administrator makes us slackers in comparison.”

“Are you on loan then?” Tyree asked the Bsidd.

“No. I quit Star Force of my own choice. They are not sanctioning my being here. But I know that they will accept me back if and when I choose to return. They value skill, and I seek to enhance mine with the experience here.”

“That’s almost cheating.”

The Bsidd regarded him quizzically. “How so?”

“We were told not to allow any Humans. Having a temporary loan of a Star Force Administrator feels like that’s crossing the line.”

“I am not Human,” Tikkito pointed out the obvious.

“But you haven’t permanently left Star Force.”

“I have, as far as they know. My intentions regarding rejoining them are my own. I did not broach the subject when leaving.”

“Are you sure they’ll take you back?”

“Perhaps not at my previous position, but my skillset will be the better for it and I do not mind having to demonstrate my mettle again.”

“As you wish,” Tyree said, deferring his future to his own accord, “I for one am glad to have the three of you here. Especially you,” he said, pointing to Tikkito, “because I need a full fleet retooling.”

“Define ‘retooling.’”

“We need more drones and a better way to employ them. The lizard ships are better than ours, more so than I feared. Either that’s because we underestimated our own strength or because the lizards are subtly increasing theirs. We’ve also got some lizard debris we’re working on, but so far we haven’t been able to crack any big secrets. Don’t suppose you’ve found any scientists for us yet?” he asked the council.

“None of sufficient merit, no,” the Irondel councilor said.

“So it doesn’t look like we’ll be stealing any insights from their tech just yet,” Tyree continued. “So we gotta make do with what we have. And we have to build more drones, better drones, and build them faster. I can’t use our warships in the way originally planned. They’re sitting ducks.”

“Why do you not have a proper control ship?” the Calavari Admiral asked.

“Range,” Tyree admitted. “Our control signals can’t reliably reach far enough to avoid jamming, so we have to keep the controllers much closer nearby. We’ve been using some relays to bounce signals off our smaller ships nearby to cheat that range, but it still requires a manned presence in case of intentional jamming.”

“If you have more drones, then the smaller relay ships will become more obvious targets.”

“Which is why we also need to redesign larger drones to appear to be identical to our manned ships…same way the lizards use a fleet of identical cruisers. They won’t know where the remote control signals are coming from, because they and the drones will be constantly transmitting signals, even if they’re filled with nothing but romantic vids.”

“It sounds like you already have a plan of action then?”

“More like a wish list,” Tyree said, turning to the Bsidd. “Which is why we badly need your guidance.”

“I agree that a proper control system placed onboard a heavily armored jumpship is the goal to attain.”

Tyree spread his hands wide. “If you can do that, please do, but if not we need another method to accommodate our next attack, which is years away, but we don’t want to wait a century while we build. Our investors will need more than that, despite our promises of no guarantees on return of investment.”

“I can put you on a path to whatever goals you wish to reach,” the Bsidd hedged. “But you must determine how you want to fight, not what you’re willing to skim with. You cannot go into battle against the lizards with a ‘just enough’ mentality. You have to have triple redundancies and then a backup plan after that. This cannot be done cheaply, with credits or time, and even if done properly you may still be killed.”

“That we all know.”

“Then allow me to give you what you truly need, over the course of time, no matter how long that may be. I promise I will not delay once a proper goal has been reached.”

Tyree exchanged glances with the councilors, who nodded in reluctant confirmation. They didn’t want to massively delay the next assault, but if it was best for the long term success of the Hradeiti then they were willing to grind their teeth and suffer through it…so long as there was an end game.

“Well then. It seems we need to go back into planning mode. Admiral, are you comfortable with taking a subordinate position? I know your skills probably exceed mine.”

“I am new here, and you already led your fleet to victory once. I do not seek full command. Nor do you need to refer to me by my previous title.”

“That victory cost us our fleet commander, so I technically wasn’t leading the whole time,” Tyree pointed out. “And as for your title, you’re going to need a new one then. Within our current structure there is only one Admiral, that being myself, due to the small size of our fleet. We’ve withheld from granting titles that do not benefit experience, which is why there are currently only two Captains. In your case, however, I think an intermediary rank should be created,” he said, glancing at the Council, “of Commodore until such a time as we have enough ships to warrant a second Admiral.”

“Agreed,” a Council said after a few seconds of silent conference.

“Well then, Commodore. Welcome to the Hradeiti.”

“I look forward to assisting you with building the fleet.”

“As do I. Renkor, I’m appointing you to my personal staff for the time being with the rank of Commander. There are presently three others with an equal title, but you and I are going to be reworking everything as we brainstorm better ways of fighting the lizards on the ground, so consider it temporary. We don’t have any other former Knights, and though it may rub some people the wrong way you’ll have eventual command once we shake everything out.”

The Calavari nodded, but said nothing in reply.

“As for you, Tikkito, you’ll also be on my staff, but at the same time be coordinating with the Council. Odd as that may be, your duties will affect both of us and therefore you’ll be something of a go-between.”

“Acceptable, so long as I have the freedom to make the decisions required.”

“We haven’t had a position suitable for your skills yet, so we’ll have to create one on the spot. I think Quartermaster will suffice?” he asked, checking with the Council again and getting nods in return.

“Quartermaster I am, then.”

“Good. Now, are there other recruits for me to sift through?”

“A long list,” a Critel answered. “We did not want to admit them before you conferred with these three. At present, there are too many applicants for us to accept, therefore we did not make any choices on our own other than these obvious ones.”

“Alright then,” Tyree said, clapping his glowing hands in front of him once. “Let’s get to work. My command ‘den’ is this way.”

“You’re dismissed,” the Lacvamat councilor said jokingly as the four of them were already on their way out the door.

Davis pulled up the recent report of the Hradeiti along with the others regarding the non-Star Force races in the ADZ. There was always something happening there, movement occurring beneath the public awareness, but never visible in an overt way. They couldn’t challenge Star Force militarily or economically, but they were always trying to find an angle to increase their powerbase at Star Force’s expense or by infighting with each other. The blatant wars had ended long ago when Star Force cracked down on such behavior by their ‘guests’ but the sentiments still ran hot and were worthy of keeping an eye on.

The Hradeiti had now become a lightning rod for those undercurrents. Offering them an opportunity to show freely despite Star Force’s involvement in the protection of the newly conquered system. Without that they wouldn’t have dared take a lizard planet, let alone put down business assets there, but with the security assured and Star Force’s gleaming record regarding such things the rats were coming out of their holes and setting up shop for a resumption of their power games now that they had an avenue of expansion that didn’t rely on staying within Star Force’s good graces.

As for the Hradeiti themselves, they were an experiment. Seeing what a non-Star Force race could do against the lizards. It hadn’t been Davis’s idea, though the protection of their systems within the 50 lightyear radius of his border had been his brainchild. It was a way of helping them to get their footing, but if they should ever push beyond that line they would be totally on their own.

If that might happen, and Davis knew it was a big if, then they’d have an ally eating into the lizard systems on the other side of the no-go line, and that concept had interested him enough to allow this reckless enterprise to continue with his blessing. The Hradeiti had been sloppy and lost a good number of ships and people in their assault, but he knew that their having ex-Star Force personnel among them had undoubtedly kept them from completely falling apart. Star Force could easily have taken any system along that border if Davis wanted them to, but if the coreward half of the lizard empire was to be pushed back it was not going to occur by them.

Nor would it be by the Preema, which had apparently wised up to the fact that the lizards were expanding into Skarron territory and elsewhere faster than the Preema were able to cleanse them from the other systems. Combined with the Skarrons’ inability to hold the majority of their lines without Preema assistance, it had led their powerful ally to implement a no-go line of their own. They were burning back the lizard systems to a new border that would keep them well away from Preema territory, but they’d given up on the hope of ever eliminating them all.

That said, the help the Preema had been giving Star Force and the Voku had been invaluable and saved them centuries of fighting, despite their earlier bailing in the assaults on the core worlds. Even now the Voku were hitting one themselves, along with a small advanced warfleet commanded by Paul, but the Preema were keeping well away and going after the smaller lizard worlds and making it clear that the enemy would not be allowed to encroach on the spinward border.

Maybe if they kept on burning out every lizard colony that popped up there the lizards might get the message and focus on other areas…though Davis wasn’t going to put any credits on that.

In comparison, the Hradeiti was nothing more than a blip on the radar, and one so small they weren’t even worth noting, but Davis knew that small blips had the potential to grow and he was going to keep an eye on this one. He’d provided them with the shelter they needed to hold the planets they took, if they were able to take them, now it was just a matter of waiting and seeing what they made of it.

He didn’t expect much of them, but their competence to this point had urged him to give them a chance and see what they made of it. Their first step had been shaky, but they’d pulled through and were now drawing the support of the ADZ in numerous forms. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but the report he was reading indicated that they’d acquired the services of one Tikkito, a Bsidd that Davis was familiar with. He’d never met him before, but he was on a list of potential Monarchs that the Director was monitoring. Him leaving Star Force had scratched him from that list, but it would be interesting to see how he handled this situation.

And with his involvement, the Hradeiti might just have a chance of building themselves into something less clumsy. Time would tell at this point, but no matter how many ex-Star Force personnel they acquired Davis was going to give them no help. They were not going to become an offshoot of the empire. If they wanted to hit lizard systems, then they were going to have to go through the growing pains and figure out how to make it work on their own. Davis hated to see people throwing away lives and ships out of ignorance, but what happened beyond their borders was largely out of his control, and already mercenary groups were seeking out the range of Star Force’s reach in an effort to exceed it.

Better to have the focus for the ADZ’s efforts nearby and under his scrutiny than them leaving to potentially harass native populations when Star Force wasn’t there to insure there was no bad behavior on their part. And while it hadn’t been his idea, Davis found the concept of them taking worlds from the lizards useful in two ways. It hurt the lizards a tiny bit, and Davis didn’t have to worry about the attacks wiping out the indigenous populations…because the lizards always fought to the death no matter what.

If there were reports of torture going on Davis would intervene immediately and shut the Hradeiti down by force, but other than that he was going to take a step back and let them succeed or fail on their own merits. If they wanted to be stupid and assault too strong of a world and got themselves all killed…well, Davis might want to stop that from happening, but he knew that any ally they ‘grew’ on the border had to be smart enough to fend for itself, and that wouldn’t happen if Star Force had them on a leash and kept tugging them away from danger.

The Hradeiti had asked for a chance, so he was giving them that…as well as being able to keep an eye on ADZ activity that would be drawn directly under his ability to monitor. He didn’t want to watch as people got slaughtered trying to attack the lizards, but so long as all these people were volunteers and not forced into this in any way, and they had a safe haven to run back to, then he was going to permit it and see what happened.

Though he always had the ability to send his fleets in to stop it if things truly got out of control…though he hadn’t told the Hradeiti that.

www.aerkijyr.com

STAR FORCE Wiki

1

May 29, 3151

Gavratel System (lizard region)

Outer Zone

As the Clan Ghostblade jumpship moved near the construction site a tiny spec left the opening hangar bay before the dropships did, traveling through the emptiness of space until it landed on one of 18 joined construction cradles that were enwrapping a large skeletal structure that was being slowly added to. Kara walked across the landing bay, her armor unwrapping from around her body as she drew a few curious glances, but by now most people within the Clan knew that she could fly through space on her own and more often than not wouldn’t bother wasting a dropship when she needed to transfer from ship to ship.

“What have you brought for me today?” Vreemont asked, glancing at the huge Star Force jumpship only partially visible outside the open bay doors.

“Those special items you’ve been wanting,” Kara said with a smile. “No more trips back to the ADZ for us.”

The Human tech pumped one arm in celebration.

“How far along are we?” Kara asked as the pair turned to walk off the bay floor as the first of the cargo-laden dropships began to appear as dots moving away from the jumpship.

“We got another 12 shipments of structural materials in while you were gone, so that’s put us a little further ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point. Frame completion is at 72%.”

“How long before the gravity drives are working?”

“Insystem or interstellar?”

“Full working.”

“We’ll need shields before we can start hopping around too much,” he reminded her. “We’re nowhere close to getting this beast truly mobile, I’m afraid.”

“Damn,” Kara said, knowing that as long as they stayed here there was a small risk of detection. They were low on the galactic plane in lizard territory, or rather one of the star systems that the lizards didn’t want and that held no habitable planets. There was little here at all, and what there was was located in the inner and middle zones. Right now Kara had two ships mining asteroids there and keeping a close eye on any traffic that might be passing through the system. They would have no business here and not pay attention to anything beyond stellar orbit, but she didn’t want to be detected at all.

The joined mess of construction cradles was located far beyond those mining ships, beyond the high zone and all the way out into the outer zone of the system where there was literally nothing. Kara wanted it that way, because what they were building was by no means small, and if someone did find and come after them it would take them a long time to get out to where they were without any nearby planets or even small rocks to gravitationally brake against. Her jumpship had to decelerate to a stop by pulling on the distant star, but thanks to Star Force’s advanced drives it wasn’t too strenuous an endeavor, though it did take a considerable amount of time to get out this far while maintaining the ability to stop before going interstellar.

“You hoped for more?” Vreemont asked.

“Given your reputation, yes.”

“Ouch,” the tech said. “Now that hurts.”

She wrapped a friendly arm around his neck, making sure not to squeeze too hard. “I just want my baby mobile, even if all she is is a skeleton.”

“It’s going to take a while, I’m sorry,” he said as she let go. “I’ve got enough gravity drives online to slowly move around the system, but without a larger power core it’s not worth much right now aside from not having to worry about attitude adjustments.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “Do we need any?”

“Just keeping with paranoid protocol and aligning the axis to point our smaller profile towards the star.”

“Good boy,” she said as they came to a junction and both of them climbed a ladder to get up to the next level. “You getting much drift?”

“Negligible, but every time we connect a new component it nudges her a fraction. The cradles were compensating for that, but the more mass she gets the bigger the adjustments are needed. As of now she can nudge herself back into alignment.”

“Well, that’s something then,” she said, obviously disappointed.

“You weren’t gone that long,” Vreemont pointed out. “Did you pick up any new recruits?”

“A few specialists and a handful of Archons.”

“Any good engineers?”

“Four. They’ll be transferring over on the dropships.”

Vreemont smiled. “Keep sending me as many as you can get. Calista isn’t going to build herself.”

“No, but she’s going to help us build a lot of other things,” Kara said as they got to the command center of this massive construction project…which was no more than a small utility room on the cradle that had been reconfigured with workstations and a realtime hologram set up in the center.

When Kara entered she could see the massive construct with the cradles circling it like spiders with their tethers interlocked and forming a crude cage around it that matched the view from outside, but this hologram wasn’t a visual. Rather it was a schematic that showed varying levels of completeness, the location of individuals and ships actively working on the construction, and the fleet of vessels sitting alongside that were fabricating the components for it and then passing them off to the cradles or delivering them directly to the various worksites.

As she watched, the dropships from the jumpship split apart with most heading for that fleet while a handful continued over to the cradles to deliver specific personnel and the rare compounds and equipment that Kara had gone back to the ADZ to get from Clan Sangheili. Lots of arc elements and solari, plus some special items that the Ghostblade fleet couldn’t yet produce on their own. That would be changing as upgrades were made to her existing factory ships…upgrades that these new bits of equipment would now allow them to produce.

“Are you running into any problems?” she asked, looking at what in time would become a tiny, but mobile Star Forge-class mining station. One that her mobile civilization could haul around from star system to star system to mine the solari and other stellar materials they needed rather than having to rely on their two patron Clans for supplies. Once Calista was fully operational, Clan Ghostblade would be totally independent save for personnel, with their mandate not to house younglings. Every person here was either part of Clan Saber or Clan Sangheili in the records and had grown up in the ADZ, and that was going to continue to be the way they operated.

The Clan’s ships, however, were not from the ADZ. All of them had been built off the books and away from prying eyes. Making the Ghostblade fleet something that didn’t exist as far as Star Force’s computer systems went, with her personnel simply being misplaced individuals of other Clans that were carefully marked as being in varied locations on ho-hum assignments that nobody would notice them missing from. A few extra personnel listed here and there on the master records but emitted from the local ones where an Administrator would notice absent personnel, and you had a way of siphoning off people without anyone else being the wiser.

The Clans knew what was happening, for it had been Paul and Jason’s idea, but aside from the upper management in those two Clans the rest of their populations and even Earth didn’t know about the Ghostblades, including Davis. The only person who was ever noted as being gone was Kara, but it was easy enough for Paul to claim she was out on a mission for him, which she was, but no one knew it was a permanent one or to what scope it had grown.

Tell people Kara was out singlehandedly hunting down lizard warships and they wouldn’t ask any further questions, giving her the perfect cover to build her Clan away from the ADZ…though she wasn’t the only one. Other trailblazers had their clandestine networks in play and growing by the century, and those too were kept off the books, at least as far as the public maps were concerned, but Clan Ghostblade differed in that it wasn’t an operation supported by a Clan, it was a Clan in and of itself, and it had no territory to root itself in. They were all living and working on ships, right down to producing their foodstuffs on the go, and Calista was going to give them the stellar mining power to match.

They’d have to take long stops to activate it, but that wasn’t unusual. Her fleets didn’t keep moving constantly, rather finding and ducking into little dark corners like they were now where the lizards and others never traveled. They’d park here and do what they needed, then eventually move on to reposition closer to their own supply lines or if traffic increased and there was a chance of detection. Kara had fleets moving all over, none of them getting so far away that they’d lose cohesion and their string of courier ships couldn’t find them, but the idea was that if one group ever was found it would only be a small cell of the Clan, with nobody truly knowing how large they were.

Kara knew, and a handful of others, but even most of the Ghostblade personnel didn’t know how many ships they had or where they were other than the small groups they were assigned to and rotated between, nor would they show on any map. Each fleet left a single ship at a rendezvous location, one that Kara knew to find, and with it would be the itinerary of the fleet wherever it was in the nearby region. That way the fleet could move around despite the lack of a relay network that they hadn’t yet gotten around to building.

It was coming though. After they built this star forge they’d be constructing communication ships that would sit at the predictable locations and act as mobile relays, then the roaming fleets could signal to them, knowing their location, and tell them theirs, after which a two way exchange could occur until such time the fleet moved on. That would allow information to be transmitted across Ghostblade ‘territory’ without having to send courier ships…but to get a comm ship big enough it’d have to be seda-sized and they’d need a lot of them to put up a grid across even a small region of space.

That region would travel wherever the Clan went, though as the Ghostblades grew Kara knew she was going to have to get more clever in her structure, but being able to stay in contact was essential should something happen, especially back in the ADZ. She hadn’t discussed it with Paul yet, but she was going to take one of those communications ships and stick it on the outskirts of a border Star Force system so she could tap into the grid and transmit data updates to her Clan without having the extra lag of using courier ships, though she knew she couldn’t transmit back into the Star Force grid without potentially being detected.

And to do all that she’d need a camouflaged communications ship. Yet one more thing on her to-build list, but right now communications was a luxury, not a necessity. Getting the raw materials she needed to build everything was a necessity, and until Calista got up and running she was going to have to keep sucking off of the Sabers and Sangheili for rare materials. That had to end sooner rather than later, and what she’d just brought back would be enough to construct the star forge itself, but there were a lot of other projects like those communications ships that would require a lot more, and until she had her own stellar mining operation they were going to stay in planning stages only.

Kara pulled a datachip out of her uniform pocket and slid it into a receptacle, adding to the cradle’s database a myriad of information.

“What’s this?” Vreemont asked.

“Some new ideas from Jason and a batch of new tech updates from Earth.”

“I love updates,” the tech said, pulling up the files and skimming through them in the otherwise empty room, for all other personnel were off on tasks and busy doing their part to build this monster of a mobile mining platform.

Kara waited, watching his blank face until it lit up like a fireworks display. “Oh my…god.”

“Thought you’d like that one,” she said with a smirk.

“How the hell did Tennisonne do that?”

“He’s good.”

“No…” he said firmly. “This is way over his head. Top level V’kit’no’sat stuff.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. We’re nowhere near to this tech level yet. How is this possible?”

“He found a shortcut,” Kara said deviously.

Vreemont’s eyes were still on the data files even as he was arguing with Kara. “Explain that.”

“He figured out how to do something the V’kit’no’sat never did, though in their defense they never needed to since they didn’t have a full picture of the tech progression. Jason said he’s been working on this for a very long time.”

“I don’t believe this,” Vreemont said, rereading the same summary texts twice. “He’s actually found a way to achieve atomic restructuring without an assembly matrix.”

“Only in a few cases,” Kara added.

“He shouldn’t be able to do it in even one,” the tech said firmly. He wasn’t in the top tier of Star Force’s engineers, the ones doing groundbreaking research to catch Star Force up to the V’kit’no’sat, but he was just below them and had access to everything they did, including shared field notes. Had he not been born in the century he did he would have been in that top tier, but those techs had a head start on him and somehow one of that had just found a way to do the impossible.

“Can we implement those?”

Vreemont rubbed his tongue inside his teeth as he thought. “Not right away, but the compact nature of the equipment required means we should be able to get decent production quotas out of our current hull sizes. The jumpships, I mean. We might be able to squeeze this into a factory ship, but the output would be minimal.”

“Even a little carbon can go a long way…if we rework other items into a carbon base,” she said, referencing the alchemy that Tennisonne had just figured out how to achieve in a few select transitions using what the V’kit’no’sat would have deemed irrelevantly outdated technology, but he’d done it in such a clever way that she knew the V’kit’no’sat would never have even attempted to research down that pathway. They built for the bigger and better, never figuring out how to make do with less. Star Force was middle of the road, reaching for those higher technologies while also being forced to make the most of what they’ve got now in order to grow their empire as fast as possible, but in the case of Clan Ghostblade, doing more with less was essentially their mandate.

As far as the carbon synthesis went, Tennisonne had found a way to take hydrogen atoms and remake them into carbon ones without the energy heavy and extravagant process the V’kit’no’sat used in their assembly matrixes, which typically occupied a 22 mile wide footprint on a planet for even the smallest facilities. They never really had a lack of carbon, which was yet another reason they probably hadn’t discovered how to do what Tennisonne had, with the assembly matrixes more focused on creating exotic atoms that were rare to mine and some that didn’t exist in nature altogether, as well as being able to crank them out in volume.

Tennisonne’s approach had taken inferior technology and found an ingenious way to make the hydrogen to carbon transition with a comparatively low energy application that could be achieved in a facility ideally less than a mile wide, with smaller factories possible but at a significantly reduced output rate. A certain critical mass of machinery was required to make it all work, and Tennisonne’s process was unique to each specific alchemy, meaning that one of his proposed assembly matrixes could only produce one output.

But that was so incredibly valuable for Star Force, not to mention the Ghostblades, that Vreemont’s reaction had not been overstated. And coupled with the hydrogen mining capability that a star forge provided, Kara’s Clan would never have to go looking for carbon to mine again…and if they could convert a lot of the technologies within the fleet to carbon alternates, which other techs had been researching for quite a long time, as well as with other more common elements, then she could retool her Clan to afford a lot more industrial output and not have to worry about available resources limiting their growth, or even repair efforts.

Hydrogen was the most abundant element in the known galaxy, with every star about to turn into a fill-up station once Calista was completed.

Which was why Vreemont was so geeking out right now.

“They won’t be as resilient in most cases, but I agree that carbon is our ticket. We can supplement a lot of load bearing structures with carbon configurations to replace at least some of our corovon requirements if you’re willing to suffer reduced strength.”

“Which is why I’m going to be sticking around here for a while,” Kara agreed. “You and I need to outline what acceptable limits are and see how much of a production advantage we can milk out of this. We also need to reduce the number of elemental components to as few as possible, even if just for a prototype design. If we can one day get them all down to resources we can mine from a star…I want that, in a bad way.”

“And you could just sit in orbit and soak up the energy needed to make the conversions,” Vreemont said, thinking rapidly. “Tennisonne isn’t there yet, and I could tick off a list of things we’d still have to go hunting for right now even if these blueprints were working facilities, but I didn’t think even this would be possible without a full assembly matrix. I wouldn’t guarantee anything, but if we can even just get the carbon conversion working we’re going to be able to build a lot more ships without having to poke our noses into systems we don’t want to.”

“I really want this,” Kara emphasized. “Start working on it whenever you can without slowing Calista down. Without her this doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Mostly,” Vreemont corrected. “There are still other applications available, but I see your point. This is a historic day, to be sure.”

“I know,” Kara said with a smug smile. “Star Force just got a whole lot more powerful.”

2

April 5, 3159

Shemtala System (lizard territory)

Yametren (contested world)

Jaina-61004 jumped to a branch above her head, grabbing hold and hauling herself up on top before repeating the process. She gradually worked her way to the top of the tree, branches scraping harmlessly over her dark blue armor as she got above the tree line enough to poke her helmet out. From there she could see down into the valley and the river below, beyond which there were several smoke plumes…but she didn’t think these were damage related.

The Archon made a quick check of the battlemap again, seeing no lizard assets in the area, at least as far as aircraft and known ground troop deployments were concerned, but there was always a chance you’d run into the little buggers roaming the forest at the wrong time. If they moved quick they might get there before those smoke plumes drew the wrong attention.

She slid down between the branches, falling in spurts until she finally hit dirt with her Protovic unit waiting patiently nearby. With a mental command they all started moving along with her, following in a line 25 people long as the Archon led the way at a run. All were armed and armored with supplemental packs on and had been in the field the past 5 days trying to hunt down survivors from a lizard attack on a Menbati outpost.

For 733 years the Menbati had held off the lizards, having no orbital capability but living in caves and small surface bases often hidden within the terrain, having their population gradually reduced while causing the lizards numerous casualties over the long haul…and Jaina would be damned if she let the lizards get to this group before she.

The Archon ran hard, but not so hard that she’d leave her troops behind. They weren’t too slow, but they were young. All of them were Star Force Blues, having graduated from their maturia at ‘full color,’ which was how the citizenry had dubbed those that stayed in long enough to earn all of their upgrades. None had earned any of the three additional colors and none would for more than a century, for they operated like Archon ranks, totally skill based with no additional abilities, and were damn hard to earn. As it was these Blue/Pinks were the highest ranking individuals within the Protovic that had their abilities.

The old school Protovic were fighting elsewhere, helping with some of the Core World invasions while the new Blues were pressing into less hazardous lizard territory in conjunction with the H’kar. Right now there was a large H’kar fleet in orbit that had fought through the lizard fleet with the help of a handful of Star Force ships, but they were wisely leaving most of the hand to hand fighting to the Protovic.

The lizards had about 3/4s of the planet when the allied invasion had finally got to them, and in the past 2 months they’d cleaned out half a continent of lizard bases…but the lizards obviously knew their days were numbered so they were making full out assaults on anything Menbati, trying to eliminate as many of their long term nemesis as they could before Star Force wiped them out. Trouble of it was, now that help had arrived, the Menbati were coming out of hiding themselves to fight the lizards head on. Star Force had warned them not to, but given that they’d only just met and communication was sketchy, they weren’t listening.

Lots of Star Force troops were not available for invasions this small, given the amounts needed elsewhere, but the Protovic Blues needed experience so Brad had them out on the ‘smaller’ frontier worlds getting a feel for combat with their new skillset and learning how to make use of it outside of training and challenges. Jaina was one of many Archons here leading the way and watching over them, but 99% of the troops were Protovic with unimpressive levels of combat experience.

They weren’t incompetent, far from it actually, but compared to some mainline units that had been fighting the lizards for over 500 years these Protovic were barely past being newbs and she knew she couldn’t expect too much of them. Throw in their cocktail of abilities that not even Brad had fully come to grips with yet and these invasions were part experiment, part training mission, and part ass kicking…with an added part rescue thrown in on this one.

Jaina broke trail, pushing through the vegetation and grabbing what bits of paths were available all the way down to the river with the Protovic in their brilliant blue armor trailing close behind her, but not so close that they’d trip over her or each other if someone suddenly stopped.

Which she did at the water’s edge. Able to communicate telepathically with them both ways given their own limited mental skills, this unit hadn’t said a spoken word since they’d left their dropship and started searching on foot through the vegetation that had a very high sensor reflectivity value…which was probably why the Menbati had been able to evade the lizards for so long.

Anything above the trees was visible enough, but duck below and even Star Force’s comm range dipped lower than normal. Her unit could still use short range comms and battlemap links if they stayed close, but the nature of this planet made things interesting and Archons excelled in interesting…especially whenever it brought things back to old school. The lizards couldn’t use comms worth a damn out here, but with her range she could telepathically communicate and track her team at a good distance and have them able to answer back at shorter, but workable range.

This wasn’t her first mission with Protovic, and some of these she’d worked with in past weeks, but after 5 days together they were getting used to each other and the telepathic shorthand that Jaina and other Archons working with the Blues had agreed upon using. Even though they’d been around for three centuries, the Protovic were still very raw in some respects, due in no small part to their recent conversion to Blues. That aspect of their faction was still being worked out, and as a result just about everything else had to adjust as well.

But Jaina knew it was worth it. She could work with these Pink Blues in ways she couldn’t even work with Human Commandos. Having telepathy work two way and having her troops be able to spot nearby minds themselves was a huge advantage, not to mention their default running skills that gave them enough of a head start that they could keep up with her at a decent pace…along with other tricks the Archons had been learning.

Jaina planted herself on the river’s edge and mentally coordinated with those behind her within a second. The nearest Protovic came out of the forest at a full sprint with her giving him a telekinetic lift as soon as he came within a step of the water, adding her power to his momentum to throw his blue armor all the way across. He landed on the dirt feet first then tumbled through a somersault as his center of gravity was too far forward. He recovered quickly and got to his feet just as the next Protovic was flying across the river behind him.

One by one they all came across without too much of a gap in between, though the last two barely made it. Jaina didn’t have unlimited telekinetic power and sending 25 across had nearly overtaxed her, but the Archon knew her current limits well enough considering how many times they’d done this already as they crossed the countryside looking for Menbati survivors.

Once she got the last one across she dropped into a crouch then tapped into her powered armor and jumped, getting about a third of the distance across before landing in water and having to trudge her way across as the Protovic rushed on ahead of her as instructed. When she got to the river’s edge and back onto dry ground she took off far faster than any of them could run and started to make up the gap while staying in telepathic communication and guiding them as to which way to head.

Steering from the rear, so to speak, she eventually caught up with the end of the line and started passing them agilely, working her way up to the front of the line and retaking her place. Not long after that she sensed Menbati minds and adjusted their heading. Tearing through the forest she led the Protovic on, wondering when their luck would end and a lizard wisp or transport would show up on the battlemap that was cutting in and out whenever they passed under extra thick tree cover.

When they were almost on top of the Menbati she slowed down, with the Protovic silently matching her speed all the way into the camp. Jaina reached out and made mental contact with one of the locals, letting him know someone was coming and forcing him to calm down and realize it was a friend before they burst into view.

Her dark blue armor slid through a bush and into a sub-canopy clearing that had the brush removed but not the overhead branches. Inside was a group of tents and a campfire that was leaking the smoke up through the trees, with dozens of Menbati getting to their feet as the Archon appeared, followed by sets of brighter blue armor that casually walked out behind her.

She could sense other camps nearby, with probably some 200 or more survivors within her telepathic range. “We are Star Force and were sent to collect you,” she said, using the hastily compiled translation software. It wasn’t that detailed, but was sufficient for basic communication. “We are friends.”

The little armadillo-like Menbati were standing erect about 1.2 meters tall and pointing weapons at the Archon. They were clearly agitated and afraid, but Jaina wasn’t and tried to spread calming vibes into their alien minds.

“Why are you here?” her helmet said a split second after one of the Menbati spoke in a series of guttural spikes that sounded like sharp coughing.

“To find you and bring you back to the others before the enemy kills you,” she spoke, trying to use simpler words for the program to latch onto. With a thought she made sure that the Protovic slung their weapons onto their back racks so they didn’t appear as threatening and that they did it in full view of the Menbati.

“How did you find us?” another one asked.

“Smoke. How many of you are here?”

“At least 900,” a Menbati commander said as it rolled through the others then unfurled itself to stand before her, apparently not afraid. She searched his mind, finding bits and pieces that she could decipher, along with the knowledge that he had been aware of Star Force’s efforts in other parts of the planet and the fact that they were here to kill lizards…along with an ambiguity about what else they might do afterwards.

“Gather them here,” she said with a frown, trying to extend her senses out far enough to catch them all and failing. Where the others were she wasn’t certain, but if she could sense more than a kilometer they must have been pretty spread out. Plus she hadn’t noticed any smoke further away, “and we will fly you away.”

“Where are your flying craft?” the commander asked, looking up at her opaque helmet.

“We will call for them now,” she said, sending a mental command to one of the Protovic in the back that was out of view to climb a tree and send a message in the clear, highlighting this position on the global battlemap and calling for dropship pickup, “but all of you must be here when it comes and we must cut away the trees so it can land.”

Technically they could go back to the river, but she didn’t feel like trying to move the Menbati at all at this point.

“We are spread out so the enemy cannot find us.”

“How far away are the others?”

“They are guarding *****, and cannot leave. Others can.”

Jaina frowned. The buzzing she’d heard indicated a word that didn’t have a translation. She tried to search this one’s mind for the meaning but got lost in the jumble of unfamiliar thoughts.

“All must come before the enemy sees your smoke.”

“There is no smoke at *****. They will not find it.”

“Your word is unknown to us. Describe what they guard.”

“It is important. We cannot leave it.”

“Can it be moved?”

“No.”

“Show me where it is.”

The Menbati hesitated and Jaina could feel all of their minds defensively wall up.

“No one is permitted to see *****. You cannot.”

“What if the enemy finds it?”

“We will defend it.”

“They will number more than 900.”

“We will defend it.”

Jaina sighed. “How many will join your others far away?”

“These here. More nearby.”

“We will take down trees there,” she said, pointing to her right just south of this tent camp. “We will clear the area for the ship.”

“We will help,” the commander said, with six of the Menbati behind him suddenly running over to where Jaina had pointed and began digging into the roots. She stared at them for a long moment until she realized they weren’t just digging, but also tearing into the wood with their teeth like a beaver.

“Do you eat the trees?”

“We eat many things. Trees bad, but we not starve.”

A few Protovic headed over and started pumping rifle shots into another one a little further away as Jaina got a telekinetic feel for the trunk even from where she was standing. “Do you have hurt people?”

“Some.”

“Bring them first.”

The Menbati turned around and had a conversation with the others that Jaina could only get bits and pieces of translated, for several were talking over one another and messing with the computer analysis that couldn’t yet pick out one voice from another. Maybe they all sounded alike or the software just didn’t have that ability activated, but when they all talked it basically cut out her ability to understand any of them.

Soon two of the Menbati started running on two legs away from the Archon then leaned forward and fell into a roll that didn’t stop. Forming a rough circle with their armored backs, the Menbati moved like a wheel through the forest with their arms and legs tucked inside. The perfect circle wobbled, throwing weight and shape in the forward direction to continue propelling itself in a way that was inefficient on its own, but was more than adequate of maintaining and increasing momentum once underway.

Combine that with their natural armor and they could roll through brush with ease, and once out in the open could gradually accelerate up to vehicle speeds while carrying their short rifles and equipment pouches across their center like an axel that stuck out to both sides.

Jaina figured she could outrun them, but they were impressive little things. Especially considering that they’d frustrated the lizards for so long. That spoke volumes for their indirect combat potential, despite their smaller size. Altogether she figured the one who had been talking to her was probably a little heavier than her out of armor, with the weight differential maybe evening out when she was fully equipped.

The sound of plasma stopped and Jaina telekinetically pushed, leaning the tree away from the Menbati with several Protovic also pushing with their hands and bodies at the base as the very tall tree came crashing down through others. Shortly thereafter one of the Menbati had gotten through enough roots for his tree to start leaning over, though it held firm at an angle until one more root snapped, then it came down to about a 30 degree angle from the ground, sticking on something further up in the canopy at its top.

One of the Menbati jumped on top of the trunk and walked up into the leaves, then the sound of teeth rubbing like a chainsaw resumed while the Protovic swarmed around their own tree and lifted it up with the arm power of some eight of them while two more traveled the length of it shooting off branches. Smoke from that added to the campfire, but soon the trunk was more or less plucked and the Protovic walked it off into the nearby forest and dumped it out of the way, then came back to collect and haul off the branches before they started on the next tree.

Trouble.

What? Jaina asked as a battlemap update was relayed from Protovic to Protovic then to her through the trees beginning with the scout now up above the canopy. Nothing was visible nearby, but in the very far distance there was a squadron of wisps heading in approximately their direction.

She also got an ETA on the dropships, noting that they would be arriving in approximately 2 hours and 18 minutes…which meant if these lizards had seen the smoke or would come close enough to spot the smoke that they would be in for a forest fire of strafing runs, and the materials in the leaves that blocked sensor and comm signals wouldn’t be stopping phaser blasts.

3

Jaina ran over to the nearest Menbati and got its attention, not sure which one was the leader given how similar they all looked.

“The enemy is coming by air. Stop the smoke.”

There was no response to her, but the Menbati did start chattering with each other for a few moments before several took off into the forest while another two went over to the nearest campfire and began kicking dirt on it. Jaina extended her hand towards it and put a bioshield over top, catching the smoke and holding it in a growing ball as they got it covered, then she pulled the ball towards her and started running with it, gradually squeezing out little bits and spreading it into the forest in too small of amounts for it to rise up and attract attention.

Keep working on the clearing, she ordered as she made her long trek out and back, with her hopping up into the tallest tree she could find on the return and climbing to the top. From there she got a view on the distant wisps and could tell that they had in fact seen the smoke, for their heading was directly towards where the puffs were dissipating. At least by the time they got here they wouldn’t have markers to target the camps with. They would have the clearing to spot, which meant they’d be coming on a direct line from their current position to…

Jaina marked that position as a waypoint and in her memory before dropping out of the tree and ran hard across the forest to a position about a kilometer ahead of the growing clearing and climbed another tree, racing to get to the top before the wisps got here.

She barely made it, poking her head up just in time to see them fanning out and beginning to fire into the forest randomly, intending on carpeting the area with phaser strikes given their sensors’ inability to pick out the Menbati, though there were several Protovic visible ahead once they got into a high enough angle to see down into the tiny clearing.

They might also be able to spot her, though most of her body still had some leaves covering her armor. That didn’t matter, for if they came to her so much the better. She needed them to get as close as possible…

With pink lances falling around her and exploding trees into shrapnel filled fireballs, the Archon mentally grabbed hold of the nearest wisp as it closed in and did as much hacking as she could in that short amount of time. Her skills weren’t as good as the more advanced Archons, but this wasn’t the first time she’d been in a lizard’s mind. Knowing she had to work fast, she sent it an overwhelming impulse to dive from a threat overhead.

As it passed her the yellow/tan craft dipped down, running through the top of the trees before starting to pull up again, but it caught a taller one and a thick enough central branch that when it bent over it caught on the wisp and pulled it over with it, smashing it down into the trees below that then bowled over as it broke free and tumbled into trunk after trunk as it tried to regain emergency altitude.

The small, unshielded craft rose up again and well out of Jaina’s range to influence as the other wisps were circling back around for another firing pass, but it came up dented and torn. It sailed upward in a smooth arc, getting some 200 meters above the treetops before a small puff of an explosion inside the craft preceded it from arcing back down and slamming into the forest for keeps.

That left five wisps in play, but they suddenly gained altitude and distance, increasing their range from the threat and keeping Jaina from getting close enough to snag another one. She didn’t know if they suspected an Archon was here or if they were just being wary of whatever the threat was, but they quickly began firing again randomly into the forest too high up for her catch unless they came directly over top of her.

Scatter and take cover. There are no troop transports in play, so they’re just trying to do whatever damage they can. What are the Menbati doing?

Packing up, one of the Protovic said along with a mental flash of his view from below.

Jaina realized what he meant instantly. The Menbati were taking down their tents and collecting the rest of their equipment to begin moving out with, but at the moment that meant they were all clustered around the campsites where the smoke had been rising from. Fortunately it was dispersed now, but they were still making themselves targets should the lizards get a lucky shot through. If a tree was hit it would send shrapnel out like a bomb…then again the Menbati had armored skin. Maybe they thought they’d be ok or didn’t realize the danger.

Regardless, if a piece of wood hit them in the eye their body armor wouldn’t mean a damn, but there wasn’t a safe place for her to tell them to go and it was obvious that they didn’t want to leave their supplies behind. They’d had to run from their original base with all this stuff, so obviously they though it was essential to their continued survival.

But right now it was making for a very bad strategy to avoid the phaser blasts coming down randomly everywhere around her.

There was nothing to do about that so she just waited, poking her helmet out and wondering if the lizard sensors would pick it up. Climbing a bit higher and feeling the tree sway beneath her, she tried to get a bit more visible and was rewarded with the five fighters almost simultaneously turning towards her. Two pink beams leapt out at her, one of which clipped a branch a meter to her left.

Having got their attention she slid off her footholds and fell, creating a bioshield around her to pinball her way down through the branches until she slammed into the ground. Her shield breached and she was tossed onto her side by the drop, but otherwise was fine and got to her feet as the top of the tree exploded into pieces that began to rain down on her.

She sprinted off to the side while extending her Ikrid as far straight up as she could. Unfortunately it didn’t stretch out like her Pefbar did, but if she concentrated only on a small area it gave her more focus.

A few second later a huge crash shook the ground as a wisp nosedived down into the forest thanks to a firm mental grip on it, but the other four wisps didn’t run. Instead they continued to blanket the area and shred a wide path of trees inside of which Jaina stood. Before she could grab another fighter a tree fell beside her and its branches pulled her to the ground and pinned her there as more and more came down on top of her.

She couldn’t see anything, but soon a few plasma shots from the Protovic around the perimeter hit one of the wisps. They didn’t do much damage, barely little stings against the thin armor on the fighter, but hit it with enough and you’d punch through.

With the leaves obscuring Jaina from view and sensors, the four wisps turned and went after the Protovic who smartly scattered and ran as fast as they could as more trees were being felled by the pink beams.

She knew what they were doing because they told her with a variety of quick mental shorthand and images, with the mage wasting no time as she scrambled around underneath the pile, having to break some branches to get free, but as soon as she got into clean air she gathered herself into a Jedi jump and leapt up onto an exposed trunk nearby. She ran up to the top of it, which was actually the bottom that had been uprooted, and stood there defiantly waiting for the wisps to notice her as she got mental status reports from the Protovic.

“Over here you bastards,” she said on an open comm channel, then in a few moments one of them streaked by putting a shot within a couple meters of her but it missed.

She missed too, for it flew by so fast she couldn’t get a firm hold on its pilot. The wisp bobbled a bit but flew on avoiding the treetops. Jaina really wished these guys didn’t adapt so fast, not to mention having genetic knowledge of what Archons were and what they were capable of woven into them from birth. That was a revelation that wasn’t all that old, and it seemed that the lizards relied less on databanks and conventional learning than they did genetic updates that would spread across the entire empire and make all lizards within subsequent generations aware of what Jaina could do and a few tactics on how to avoid it.

But that was ok, for the high speed pass reduced his firing run to only the one shot that nearly hit her, but it also kept him from shooting anywhere else. When the other three came in making equally fast runs, Jaina held her ground and upper her shields to full power forward, keeping her front towards them whenever they strafed her to increase her odds while also generating a bit of a bioshield as her tissues recovered from the last one getting knocked away.

Reaching for one of the wisps she tried to affect it earlier in its run but couldn’t do much more with it than the last one. Two more came in on its heels and pelted the area around her with phaser hits, destroying the trunk underneath her feet and throwing her to the south in the explosion. She fell into the leaves on the downed and smoking trees, dipping out of sensor range of the wisps.

How close are they?

Another few minutes here.

“Damn it,” she said to herself as she crawled back into view and jumped to another stump that would give her a decent foothold. She had to buy more time.

The wisps came back in again and this time she got hit, blasting away half her shield strength as the branches that she fell into burst into flame with other hits. Another shot fell near to her, blasting into the ground and covering her with a spray of dirt as they streaked by overhead, still maintaining a speed that wasn’t giving her enough time to mess with them.

As she picked herself up and waited for the next run she got an image of smoke trailing one of the wisps, though the surrounding intact trees were blocking her actual view. The image was coming from the Protovic, who’d managed to wound one of them enough with multiple rifle shots to get through the hull and do some internal damage.

Another report came in detailing the progress of the Menbati and Jaina, seeing the low state of her armor’s shields and feeling the bad frayed feeling of her bioshields being completely spent, decided that was enough. Leaping across the burning, felled trees she got to the intact forest within four jumps just as another wisp came around. Rather than trying to snag it she just ran, sprinting ahead of the phaser strikes and getting knocked off her feet to the left as one fell close to her on the right.

She flipped over midair and landed on her feet awkwardly. A split second of balance control and she was running again, taking  a sharp turn to the right and away from the last known position the wisp had her at as she was now underneath the sensor dampening leaves again.

With no visible target in sight the wisps went back to randomized bombardment, but still kept their speed up so high that she wasn’t going to be able to catch any of them with her psionics. Fortunately the Menbati were just finishing up packing when she got to the camp near the clearing the Protovic had been working on. It was the only one that had clear footing, but was too small for a dropship to land in. The ones the lizards had felled were large enough, but they were full of debris and there was no point in staying near any of them at this point.

Jaina had the Protovic follow her in a widely spaced formation while they followed the Menbati as they retreated carrying heavy packs of gear with a few left unencumbered to act as skirmishers. She ran up beside one of them and gave it a boost over a line of rocks, picking it and its pack up telekinetically and hopping it over the terrain that the one in front of it had trouble with.

It shrieked, not knowing what had grabbed it, then got back to slowly running after she set it down and ran up beside it. The Menbati probably didn’t understand what had happened, but with no enemies in sight it didn’t have time to think, only run, and it couldn’t enter wheel mode with the cargo it was carrying, meaning it was moving very, very slowly compared to the Protovic and Archon.

Phaser blasts continued to come down randomly, but the further they traveled the less danger they were in because the lizards couldn’t see them, and fortunately there weren’t many natural gaps in the tightly packed forest to let them sneak a peek inside.

After some ten minutes of running/jogging along with the Menbati, one of them rolled up to Kara in her distinctive dark blue armor that differed from the Protovic blue enough to be significant for these guys to spot.

“The ***** is this way,” it said before rolling off a different direction.

Jaina didn’t know what they were talking about, but she followed it anyway as it led away from the group of campers they had been following. Up and over a ridge and down through a couple of ravines and the Menbati stopped just short of a dirt mound that had a cave entrance in it.

“One come. Others stay here.”

Jaina nodded, not knowing if it would understand the gesture. “Yes.”

The little wheel of armor rolled slowly into the leading edge of the rim and disappeared down the three meter wide tunnel at an angle as Jaina told the Protovic to stay behind and secure the immediate area. She walked in after it and accelerated into a slow jog to keep up, using her Pefbar to see as the light from above dimmed and there was no interior illumination to replace it.

They traveled down gradually with the tunnel mostly taking them laterally off to what eventually transitioned from dirt into stone. Shortly after that the stone was replaced by fabricated materials and she had to duck down a few inches to walk inside as their ceiling hung low, but that was typical of Menbati structures. She’d been in several of their bases before, but those had all been on the surface.

This one had obviously been here a while, for once they got past a guard station the interior revealed itself to be a small city, though the inhabitants that were moving around had multiple injuries. This was no doubt the location of the rest of the survivors that she couldn’t sense in the forest, and what those on the surface had been guarding…with something else inside.

“What is the purpose of this place?”

“Emergency,” her guide said, with Jaina realizing this must have been a premade bunker stashed far out in the forest. No wonder these guys had hidden from and survived the lizards for so long.

There wasn’t much in the way of equipment or luxuries, but eventually the Archon was lead to a compartment that did have technology in it, along with a flatscreen map of this region of the planet detailing their location and the surrounding facilities, including several other bunkers that she had not known about nor had the Menbati told her existed previously.

If she’d been told she could have saved days’ worth of wandering around in the forest looking for these guys.

“You have come to move us?” another Menbati asked, this one dressed differently enough that she guessed it was a leadership caste ‘organizer,’ though the uniform was so ragged and dirty she couldn’t be for sure given the small differences in their clothing that covered only their softer bellies. Their armor had no need of coverings.

“I have ships on the way to do just that. I had not been told this place was here. Do you want to go or stay?”

“Most go. The ***** cannot be moved. You lead away.”

Jaina sighed. “Prepare your people to leave soon. I will guard the surface entrance and tell you when the time is near.”

“Thank you, Star Force.”

“Thank you for staying alive,” she said, exchanging a few more words before heading back up to the surface and filling in the Protovic, one of which was up in a tree linking in with the battlemap and passing the signal back down to those on the ground. The dropships were on their way, but she knew it was going to be a tight fit to get some 900 Menbati in them.

She linked into their comm systems and passed a message up to the lookout who transmitted it in a direct line towards the oncoming transports so the wisps wouldn’t pick it up, asking for more ships and a fighter escort.

Within a few seconds a reply came, along with a highlight of the Protovic squadron already enroute with the skeets pressing hard to catch up before a series of lizard kirbies beat them there. The nearby 4 wisps hadn’t left the area and were still shooting down into the forest occasionally in the distance. Once they got boots on the ground they’d have a much better time of taking out the Menbati, but they had to know they’d be easy pickings for an Archon.

Then she realized how many kirbies there were…not just in the group approaching, but those coming further back from not one, but four nearby bases, including the one that the lizards had just overrun and kicked the Menbati out of.

These guys really want the Menbati dead, she told the Protovic. We are not going to let that happen. We’ve got air cover incoming, but there are too many transports to avoid getting their troops on the ground. We’re going to have to go on a killing spree once they find our evac point. We can’t load fast unless we have a large clearing, and we can’t get a large clearing without letting the lizards know where we are.

4

April 6, 3159

Shemtala System (lizard territory)

Yametren (contested world)

Jaina helped a limping Protovic over a fallen tree with a brief telekinetic lift then followed her up into the last dropship, standing on the edge as the ramp closed up to make sure that nothing slipped in a final shot. All the lizards were dead, as far as her senses could tell, but you never wanted to assume.

Once the ramp/door clicked into place she found herself a seat along with the rest of her troops and rode with the flock of dropships across the expansive forest until they arrived at a Star Force staging base set just outside a Menbati city, one of the few they still had left that was visible from the air. It had survived as long as it did due to the cheap and plentiful little missiles the natives had used. Individually they packed a small punch, but the Menbati had so many of them and used them so liberally against anything in the skies that the lizards were always taking heavy loses when they went about the obvious approaches.

Even cruisers weren’t immune to the little missiles, and there were two on the horizon testifying to that effectiveness, half buried in the ground where they had crashed long ago, but not so long that they were overgrown with vegetation. More than anything the Menbati were making the lizards bleed in order to slowly take over their world, and gratefully the enemy hadn’t considered the little race too much of a problem to warrant sending in heavy reinforcements.

The city itself was barely even with the treetops, with no structure rising more than 3 or 4 stories above ground. Numerous tunnels and sublevels stretched out throughout the Menbati architecture, giving the bit of native civilization a larger footprint than appeared from the air. They’d allowed Star Force to set up a base only a few kilometers away and Jaina’s dropship headed there even as she saw others further ahead diverting over to the city to drop off the survivors.

There were none in her ship so they went straight back to base to land and offload her troops. The casualties had gone first, with one of them losing an arm and others with severe yet lesser injuries. The lizards had not been subtle in their pursuit of the Menbati and both Jaina and her unit had to overextend themselves in order to protect the little twerps who refused to coordinate with them.

The Archon was still fuming when she got off the dropship and was met by Stan-47554. He was the senior Archon assigned to this invasion while this base and its 23,000 Protovic were under her direct command, though more than a third of them were techs. Seeing him was a surprise, so as she diverted away from the line coming off the dropship she wondered what was up.

“Your guys look beat up,” he commented as she stopped in front of his nearly identical dark blue armor and retracted her helmet.

“They are,” she confirmed, showing a scowl. “Those damn Menbati wouldn’t stay put and my people had to cover for them. And don’t blame it on the translation programming. These guys don’t want to listen to us.”

“They’ll learn eventually,” Stan said, glancing over her with his Pefbar. “You took a few nicks.”

“Not worth mentioning when one of my people lost an arm.”

“Already on the way up to orbit.”

“Good. Now why are you here?”

Stan offered only a mild sarcastic look, given how upset she obviously was. “Do I need a reason to drop in and say hi?”

“If it’s bad news I can’t promise I won’t hit you.”

“Did you hit any of them?” he asked, referring to the Menbati.

“No, but I did kick one when he wouldn’t board the dropship fast enough.”

“Hurt your foot?”

“My armor is stronger than his. What’s up, Stan?”

“We didn’t ask, they did. I’m not sure they fully understand either, so we’re going to have to deal with that, but I’ve already sent a courier back to Sara to ask for instructions. The Menbati want to join Star Force.”

Jaina’s frown deepened. “You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Oh, it gets better. They don’t just want to join, they want to fight. In the great crusade across the stars.”

Jaina rolled her eyes. “How do they even know what’s going on out there?”

“They don’t, beyond what little we’ve told them. But they’re adamant. I’m not sure why, especially after I told them that we’re only here to kill the lizards and want no compensation for it. That didn’t dissuade them in the least.”

“What do they think being part of Star Force means?”

“They want to be part of the empire.”

“And…”

“I’ve talked to their leaders for several hours. I can’t get much out of them, but they have a deeply ingrained loyalty that is now transferred onto us. I would have dismissed the request out of misplaced gratitude, but there’s also a great deal of intellect in them. They’re not making a rash choice. A quick one, for sure, but there’s more to it than there appears on the surface.”

“Do they know we’ll tear their culture apart and rebuild it?”

“Yes, and they seem to think it’ll be an improvement. And to be frank, they don’t have much left compared to what they did pre-lizard.”

“That usually doesn’t stop anyone from clinging onto tradition, especially when there are millions of them remaining.”

“Billions, actually,” Stan said with a cringe.

Jaina stared at him blankly for a moment, then hung her shoulders in a visible sigh. “Underground?”

“When they asked to join us they revealed their full holdings. I don’t think the lizards ever knew how many of them there were. They’ve burrowed down through the crust nearly to molten rock all over the planet. Only a small portion of their population was on the surface.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“They’ve been collapsing tunnels and digging new ones to keep the lizards from reaching their strongholds. Very savvy when it comes to underground warfare.”

“And dumb on the surface.”

“The fact that they showed me everything also underscores how serious they are about their request. They just exposed everything, and they wouldn’t have done that if they thought there was even a possibility that we were a threat.”

“Gullible too it seems.”

“Why, are you planning on killing them after we get rid of the lizards?”

“Do they know that?”

Stan shook his head. “I don’t know. Either they’re far too trusting or they’re good judges of character.”

“They didn’t trust me a little while ago,” Jaina pointed out. “What do you think Sara will do?”

“I’m guessing that she’ll come here in person. Beyond that your guess is as good as mine.”

“What is your guess, beyond that?”

“Have we ever said no?”

“Twice.”

“And what were the reasons there?”

“Rumor says deceit.”

“And I can’t find any in these guys.”

“So you’re saying if they’re on the level then Sara is going to take them in in some form?”

“That’s my guess, but you never know with a trailblazer. They have a knack for finding other options.”

“And you came to tell me this in person because?”

“Because if Sara decides to bring them into the fold, even if just as a ward…”

“It better not be more than that.”

“…whatever she decides, I’m going to request permanent assignment here.”

Jaina’s uncomfortable look changed into disgust. “And you want me to stay too?”

“You’re already familiar with the planet,” he said with a wince. “Though maybe today is a bad day to be discussing this.”

“Very bad.”

“It’ll take Sara a few weeks to get here regardless, and we can discuss this in a few days once you cool off,” he said, holding up his hands in a warning gesture as she looked about ready to explode, “not that you shouldn’t be upset. Just remember we’ve taken formerly bad races and turned them around. No matter what these guys have or haven’t done recently should reflect on their race’s potential.”

“Tell that to the armless Protovic.”

“What were they actually doing? Running or fighting?”

“Whatever they damn well pleased! I don’t know what they were doing half the time, but some of them wanted to kill lizards when we were trying to herd them towards the dropships. And I don’t care what you think my mindset will be in a few days, I’m staying here until the lizards are eradicated then I’m moving on. If you want to rehab these morons you’re welcome to it.”

“Fair enough,” Stan relented. “Are you fit to go back out?”

“I need an hour to shower and eat, then I’ll be good to go.”

“Without shooting the next Menbati you see?”

“Not unless he deserves it.”

“Good enough,” Stan said, pointing an armored thumb over his shoulder before stepping to the side.

Jaina took off immediately, not feeling like continuing the conversation and both Archons knowing she needed to keep moving. With the lizards constantly pressing against the remaining Menbati until they were all killed, everyone was under the clock. All the army units had a mage as field commander, leaving him free to go where he needed and maintain a global view of the combat. He was going to offer to give Jaina a break and take the next mission in her place, but he knew that the best thing for her to do was get back into the action and work off some of her frustration. Sitting and stewing wouldn’t help.

And he didn’t like the news of the Menbati making trouble for the rescue teams either, though he also noted that it was a sign of how they needed proper Star Force training. And a race that had managed to outwit and survive the lizards for this long could probably be turned into an asset for the empire once the trailblazers worked their magic on them.

When Sara-012 got to Shemtala she immediately assumed control of ground operations, making a few tweaks to what the mages had been running, then dismissed the H’kar fleet to another system where they were needed, leaving her command ship and the other Star Force vessels already here to protect this world in the unlikely event that the lizards tried to counterattack. That wasn’t occurring in any of the other systems that Sara was sweeping up beyond Alpha Region, so she felt secure sending the order for the H’kar to move ahead to another invasion.

She hadn’t expected to need to come here, but a race requesting to join Star Force in this manner wasn’t something for the mages to handle. Most races requested something from Star Force, usually more than they were ever going to get, but to have one ask to be fully included without caveat had happened before, and when it did it usually meant a willing populace rather than one she’d have to wrangle into line over generations via control of upcoming younglings.

But with every new race they encountered there were always unexpected variables that needed a trailblazer’s touch, or in this case evaluation, so she didn’t waste any time and headed down to one of Star Force’s bases on the planet and over into a Menbati city, walking around in her golden titan armor with almost no hindrance at all. The short ‘Rammuses,’ as she thought of them, were tough looking but also skittish. There was no animosity present, no sense of danger, but they had also never seen the golden armor before and that was drawing some curiosity.

Getting into their heads as often as she could she sampled their mindset, culture, worries, and aspirations. They were immensely grateful for being rescued after so many years, and that obviously factored into their request to join Star Force, but there was something else underneath the surface that she didn’t catch on to until the following week.

Once she identified it, Sara began to understand the Menbati. They had never left this star system and few had ever come to it before the lizards arrived. They knew of other races but had no means to reach out to them, with doing so and taking their place amongst the community of the stars was one of their driving societal imperatives. They had no illusions about peaceful relations, expecting there to be more enemies than friends out there, but they knew they had to get into the game and had been building up their technology in the hopes of attaining space travel when the lizards came and put an end to that.

Since then all tech upgrades had been geared towards ground combat with some impressive results. In the beginning the lizards had outright slaughtered the Menbati, but there were so few lizards that the planet had time and population to spare. That wasn’t the strategy, just a simple truth that had led to further and further resistance. By the time the lizards had four cruisers and were bombarding their cities from above with impunity but without enough troops to invade them, the Menbati had upgraded their existing defensive missiles into their Hip’cha, building up numbers of them before releasing them all on a single cruiser and taking it down before it knew what was happening to it.

That first cruiser destruction had been a signal to their entire race that they could effectively fight back and had been memorialized enough that almost every mind Sara touched knew the story. Since then they’d been growing and learning all the while the lizards were doing the same and chopping off chunks of their planet for their own uses. The Menbati didn’t wait to get hit, having counterattacked numerous times, but gradually they had been losing territory, but not hope, for the heart of their society lay below ground where the lizards apparently had never gone.

That in itself was impressive, given how good the lizards were at tunneling, but it seemed they never got intelligence about the true size of the Menbati civilization, otherwise she was sure they would have found a way to get at them by now.

There was potential here, and the more she visited city after city and a few battlefronts to see and help them in combat, the more she recognized that their desire to join their rescuers and take their place amongst the stars fit in with Star Force’s own aims enough to make these guys a worthy annexation if they held to their word. There could, and probably would be problems arise, but after such a long history incorporating races into the empire at multiple levels she was confident that the Menbati would not be an issue…and if they were, Star Force also had plenty of experience dealing with such things.

What did surprise her was that the mage in command of this invasion wanted to stay after the lizards were removed and play a hand in bringing the Menbati into the empire.

So she started to investigate him as well. Stan she already knew, along with all the other 574 mages assigned to her invasion corridor, but if he wanted to take part in this annexation she needed to know more. Before publically accepting the Menbati into Star Force she took the opportunity to tour the planet along with Stan, sizing him up at the same time as learning more about the planet and pushing the lizard killing even faster than their suicidal rush to destroy the Menbati was accomplishing in its own right.

Her skill and power had impressed the Menbati to no end, and she didn’t hesitate to jump into combat whenever needed or just because she felt like it. Staying on the world for the next several months, she got the lizard infestation cleared out then began organizing the withdrawal of most of their bases now that the bulk of the Protovic troops would be moving on to another system. Already having sent back a report to Davis, she wasn’t surprised when a convoy of civilian ships with military escort arrived along with a reply.

Annexation approved. Ward status granted. Judging by the extensive underground structures the Menbati have developed I get the feeling these guys could have some Kiritak qualities with industry in mind. Their combat prowess I imagine will be lackluster, but I’ll leave that to you. Subsequent convoys will be forthcoming. I want these guys upgraded faster than typical for a ward and a full evaluation of their potential with measurable numbers. If they are eager to contribute then they may very well achieve more than ward status, and I want to know what they’re capable of.

Oh, and as for renaming them, I think it would be a good way to fully test their commitment to an empire they don’t truly understand. If they’re really onboard and willing to follow your lead, get these guys up to speed as fast as you can. If you don’t want to head up this annexation personally, I’ll let you choose a replacement or defer to me. Just get things moving quickly. If these guys balk, I want to know sooner rather than later.

Sara smiled. Not because he was giving her the green light to annex them, but because he was letting her rename them after her favorite little spike ball.

Henceforth the Menbati would be known as the Rammus. Both singular and plural in form.

5

January 3, 3160

Shemtala System (Star Force territory)

Yametren

Stan stood onboard his flagship, a Warship-class jumpship and the only military vessel left in the star system aside from Sara’s small fleet that was just now leaving orbit. He’d spent several months with her going over what she wanted done with the Menb…the Rammus, and now she was leaving him to single-handedly bring this race into the empire. That was what he’d wanted, but he hadn’t expected to be left in full command.

Sara was still going to be directing things from afar, but all the onsite adjustments and brainstorming were going to be his responsibility, with that being the largest task he’d ever been assigned to date. But he was an Archon and embraced challenges, with this one offering more than he’d ever expected to be entrusted with. That meant he had to come through, and with something like this there was no procedure to follow. Sara had laid out the basics for him, but had also made him aware of how much he’d have to rely on intuition and adaptation.

Stan blew out a slow breath, watching her ships jump out of orbit enroute to the star. It was all on him now…well, sort of. He was in charge but he had a good staff of techs and administrators with him, though they’d be taking their cues from him, and despite the instructions Sara had given him he was going to have to make up a lot of this on the fly.

Taking her advice, he was going to base himself off the warship rather than posting to a firebase on the surface. There were already a few left over from the lizard cleansing that had been converted into supply depots and interface sites with the Rammus, but a proper city hadn’t been built yet. That was waiting on the designs he set down, and Sara had left that bit up to him, for it had a lot to do with the Rammus and if he wanted a joint habitation right off or wanted a separate facility to then build others out of.

At least the translators were a lot better now. Sara had got people working on those first thing when the convoy arrived, though they did have an odd glitch in them in which ‘yes’ often was translated as ‘ok.’ Stan had asked about that and found it wasn’t a glitch per say, but an alteration that Sara had made. He’d asked her about it and she’d just smiled, not offering a reason and he hadn’t pressed. He could order them to change it, but wasn’t going to bother. She probably had a reason for it, and it didn’t really interfere with communication.

And he wasn’t about to second guess a trailblazer on something like this. She might not care…or she might kick his ass the next time they met.

He walked over to his command chair and sat down, pulling up the Star Force territory map. His efforts would be confined to this single star system, but he needed to find a niche within the empire for these guys so he had to think big picture right now.

In the center of the map was the ADZ, the population crunch interior of their now massive territory. Beyond it to the spinward side, which he tended to think of as ‘west,’ was the Calavari Region. Rimward was the Bsidd Region while the patchy network of Axius expansions were up above. The lizard coreward territory line was, naturally, in towards the core with the Achkor Region in between. To the ‘east’ and against the galactic spin was the region the lizards hadn’t gotten to, leaving it with a multitude of races and far too many for Star Force to keep track of. This area was loosely referred to as the Expanded Region and stretched out down below the ADZ as well.

Straight down from the ADZ was the link that ran to Voku territory, with the Benoid slightly off to the side. Skarron territory met up with them there, but did not touch near to Star Force. It was, in fact, getting further away as the lizard line extended and devoured the other enemy empire. There was a glut of systems coreward and down from the ADZ that had not yet succumbed to either the Skarrons or the lizards, but the latter were slowly eating into them and Stan had been told that if/when they hit the geographical boundary Star Force had marked they’d have to hold them there as well all the way down to Voku territory.

On the map there were also little lines reaching up to the top of the galactic plane all along that border ahead of where the lizards had actually reached. Each of those little dots held outpost-level colonies designed to plant the flag and provide an oasis in the great distances that had to be traveled, but were never intended to grow too large. Those living there were building, of course, but there was no additional material or personnel being pumped in from afar to speed up that process, letting them develop at a leisurely pace as they set up a network of surveillance patrols, probes, and relays along the border so they would know when the lizards eventually worked their way there.

Those little lines were insufficient on their own, but they had reached all the way up to the top of the galaxy, approximately 500 lightyears away from the ADZ that sat in roughly the center of the plane. There was no firm upper boundary, for there were scattered systems beyond orbiting off the main group, but the edge of that group had been reached and two small outposts had been established beyond it, having to jump much further distances between stars to get there, but the view they had was worth it.

Stan brought up the pictures they’d taken, looking down at the giant disc that was the galaxy from just above it and seeing the big bulge in the center. That bulge was where the V’kit’no’sat made their home, reaching out into the disc a ways, but it was that dense central region that had so many systems, so many worlds, and so much debris that it was a cluttered mess of navigational hazards offset by many short jumplines. If the galaxy could be divided into an urban and rural zone, Star Force inhabited the rural while the galactic center was the urban, which partly explained why the V’kit’no’sat had not pushed all the way out to the rim…besides the fact that the galaxy was truly so big that no one could conquer it all.

And yet, the lizards were well on their way to doing that if they weren’t stopped. Their version of conquest was that of a virus spreading to everything everywhere with no real conquest involved, only destruction and replication. Consuming the galaxy would take a very long time, but unchecked they could do it. They might not have command and control over anything given the size, but they could dominate it.

He guessed that was the difference between the lizards and the V’kit’no’sat. One wanted to dominate, the other wanted to conquer. To conquer meant you controlled, whereas in this context, domination mean pushing out all others and populating everything. Grass could do that, so it wasn’t an achievement that the V’kit’no’sat would deem worthy of their consideration. They chose to dominate by intimidation and taking out anyone they chose, leaving the bulk of the galaxy’s races as they were and knowing that they were no threat to their empire…one which was interconnected and knew what every other part of it was doing.

And looking at the visuals they had on record, Stan was very glad they were in that big bulge of the galactic core rather than out on the disc where Earth had the good fortune of being, marking the outer edge of the furthest expansion by the V’kit’no’sat and really no more than an outpost world like the few Star Force had set up on the disc’s upper edge.

Getting out there had been an achievement, to be sure, but it also meant the lizards couldn’t flank them from their coreward region. There was still a huge number of lizard systems left in their rimward hemisphere, more than half their number, but hopefully once their core worlds and their shipyard rings were taken away from them, the rest of the lizard systems would fall more quickly, potentially to others once they saw the unbeatable lizards’ homeworld go down.

It would be a very long time until the rimward hemisphere was taken out and their continuous expansion colonies hunted down, but once it was there was the threat of the coreward hemisphere spreading back out to their territories, and in order to prevent that Star Force was going to have to create a wall across the entire galactic plane from top to bottom and maintain it with the help of the Voku and any other willing allies.

The number of systems that would lie on that wall was insane, but Star Force was already beginning to throw up their detection net with these little lines of systems. Holding back the lizard empire once it’d filled out that region was going to be a constant pain in the ass, and Stan hated the idea that they had to let them get that large, but the trailblazers’ logic was sound. They couldn’t chase the lizards in close to the V’kit’no’sat. The fact that they’d been able to grow this large and not be found out testified to the size of the galaxy and their lack of knowledge this far out. But go closer and hit their sphere of intelligence, wherever it may lay, and it’d be like hitting a trip mine.

They couldn’t go after the lizards there, damn them, but they could make sure that they exterminated the buggers on this side of the line.

Star Force also had one line reaching down to the bottom of the galactic plane, passing around the edge of Voku territory rather than going through it, so right now Star Force touched one intergalactic ‘ocean’ to the other, spanning some 1,000 lightyears from which the net across the galactic disc would be stretched to hold the lizards back.

Trouble was, there was no lateral sides to that disc. The Preema held one side and, after giving up their hopes of wiping the lizards out entirely, had resolved to form their own boundary. So as long as they didn’t cave, that side would match up and keep the lizards boxed in, but the other ‘eastern’ side was wide open with no ally there to block them in down the road. Right now it was the Skarron empire poking out into that region, but the lizards were winning that fight and eventually would round the corner on the Star Force wall once it was put up, meaning that they’d have to keep extending it further and further.

The solution to that problem he didn’t know, but luckily he didn’t have to be the one to figure it out. His puzzle was the Rammus and where they would fit into all of this. Geographically they were near the outer lizard border, but that line was going to keep moving and the Rammus were going to be in safe territory.

They weren’t going to hold a border slot and they weren’t going to interlink with the ADZ…they were too far away for that. The trade routes would stretch out eventually, but they were sitting in a region of empty systems that had been taken from the lizards and there were no plans to recolonize them anytime soon.

So the Rammus were basically going to be on their own little island for the foreseeable future. They could relocate or expand elsewhere, but there was no need for that. Other factions had that covered, especially in this region with the Bsidd able to grow so fast and in so many variations.

What could these guys become? Down the road at least. Numbers wise they were tiny…not super tiny, thankfully, but with one world that was mostly busted up by the lizards it was going to be a fixer upper for sure, despite what the Rammus had maintained below ground, which was impressive. He and Sara had visited those cities extensively, feeling claustrophobic the entire time.

That was one item he was changing. All future construction was going to be big enough for Humans as well, which was Star Force standard anyway. Stan would make use of their underground cities during the transition but eventually they’d all have to be remodeled or abandoned.

But what could these guys do other than patrol the local region? That was always needed, given how many empty systems Star Force had to watch over and make sure no one else took from them. Both he and Sara saw potential in these guys, but how was Stan really going to make them distinctive and able to contribute outside of massive numbers and infrastructure that would be centuries, if not millennia in the making?

They were diggers, and Star Force didn’t have many of those. Not in a distinctive way, at least. Star Force built underground too, but these guys could literally do it by hand. They could burrow down even through loose rock thanks to a retractable claws on all four limbs, and even survive cave-ins thanks to their natural armor…from which they’d just dig their way back out given time. They even had a special fatty tissue that stored oxygen that they could burn away slowly to survive in bad atmosphere or limited atmosphere underground.

But what did that matter to Star Force? Their mechanized diggers were far better, and aside from chasing lizards into tunnels too small for Humans to easily go there wasn’t any combat advantage that he could see to it.

Out in the open they had a speed advantage in wheel mode, but nothing he couldn’t outrun. These guys were eager, he’d give them that, but biologically speaking they didn’t have anything that really bespoke combat except for their armor…which wouldn’t stand up all that well to plasma strikes. Fabricated armor was much better, so where did that leave them?

Stan didn’t know and it was beginning to bother him. He’d discussed all this with Sara but she hadn’t had any firm solutions, citing that he’d have to get them adjusted to Star Force ways of doing things before he could really evaluate what they were capable of.

And that meant years of training.

So that was his first task. Get an advanced training group going so he could build a standardized basic program for the rest of them and enough of a starter program so they could start filling out maturias. Getting those facilities built was going to take time, but he had to have the plans first so that when the first structure was ready to go they could start putting infants inside immediately. As long term of a process this was, he couldn’t afford to waste months. The Rammus wanted to be Star Force, and he needed to take advantage of that before they could change their mind or subsequent generations could be born and grow up free of the lizards…which could incline them to different ideas.

All that meant he had to make the transition for them now, as soon as possible, and get them working towards goals even if he didn’t have enough infrastructure to house them all. So what goals could he given them right off the bat?

Raw materials, obviously. They were diggers, so mining was an easy option even if they didn’t have Star Force’s level of tech. So that was one big item he could add to his list. But what else?

Picking up after the lizards. There was a lot of their infrastructure that had to be removed and recycled. If he had them bring the pieces to the Star Force recyclers that would give them something to do and allow him to use his limited offworld personnel for other tasks. About a third of those were Human, with the rest being a mix of Kiritas and Bsidd.

Wait a minute, this isn’t about what the Rammus can do, but what does Star Force need?

Or more accurately, what could it use, more of as a luxury or an enhancement, because it already had everything it needed.

Then an epiphany struck him. He thought it through with as many variations as he could imagine, settling in on an uncertain course of action but one that he knew would lead to something of merit.

He looked up from the panel he’d been working on for several hours by now, with that time having flashed by rapidly once he’d gotten on the trail of a good idea. Stretching his back a bit as he sat up, he looked at the forward vid screen that showed the planet below them from their low orbit.

He nodded at it, imagining one of the Rammus standing in front of him.

“Ok,” he whispered with a smile, then got up and left the bridge to confer with the Administrators assigned to him in order to get the ball rolling.

6

January 3, 3193

Unnamed System (lizard territory)

Planet 12

Jaina picked up a Protovic with her Lachka and threw him into a mess of lizard infantry, his blue armor balled up into an improvised wrecking ball that docked down more than a dozen of them. Plasma shots flew across over top of him, nailing lizards all around as he stood up, punching one back while two more shot him from pointblank range as his shields snapped back into place.

A third lizard jumped and looped his thin arms around the Protovic, dragging him backwards off balance as two more jumped on top of him, knocking him to the ground as a rush of lizards moved forward to fill the gap that he’d made, some of them piling on top of his blue armor as they tried to get some more rifle shots into him.

He dropped his already weakened shields, letting the lizard bodies make contact with his armor…

Suddenly the mass of them jerked, recoiling without thinking and letting him go as he sent an electrical charge through his specially designed armor that allowed him to channel his natural ability. It wasn’t a strong charge, especially spread out through so many lizards, but it was enough to get them to loosen their grip and give him a little maneuvering room that he used to get a strong kick into one that knocked it back into two others.

From there he went about punching and kicking, disrupting the lizards enough that Jaina and the others were able to mow down a lot of them as they worked their way back to him. Another blue ball shot by, landing a few meters ahead and taking more pressure off of him. Together they disabled more than killed the lizards around them fighting hand to hand, then the wave of Star Force troops rushed around them and shot the lizards they had knocked down.

The Archon clapped one of them on the shoulder as she passed, with both of them knowing to fall into the rear and get their shields recharged over their pitted armor. They’d taken far too many hits, but it had been worth the tradeoff to get the lizards out of the urban cover they’d been taking in the debris of their own city.

Jaina pushed forward for another two kilometers, cleaning out more narrow points where the lizards were trying to mass their numbers and kill any of the Protovic that they could. She either had the option of waiting or pushing forward, either of which would be to the enemy’s advantage. Protovic units were assaulting this section of city from multiple angles, working their way back to what had been labeled as an area that contained subsurface entrances. They’d hit as many as they could find from orbit and then close in with air power, but there were obviously some that they had missed and the only way of finding them was going in on foot.

She wasn’t going to make the mistake of chasing them down their tunnels, at least not with so much of the surface still left to cleanse. They’d find the holes and seal them, leaving any subsurface warfare until later and knowing that while her troops weren’t in a lot of danger up here so long as they kept their heads and fought smart, the lizards were succeeding in grinding down their supplies. Ammunition was low and their armor was getting chewed up. Before too long they’d have to pull back or find themselves in a situation where the lizards could kill them.

An upgrade to their armor let her check not only the status of everyone in her unit at a glance, but it also linked with the weapons they carried and let her see how much ammo they had remaining. They were all getting low and would need to cycle out or get resupplied, and while they were on the move that wasn’t easy. Bringing in a dropship was doable, but the lizards might have more of their little missiles launchers nearby, and while one wouldn’t be a threat to a dropship’s shields, multiple ones could be. With air cover they could take them out, so dropship reinforcement was doable if needed, but fortunately they’d come up with an alternative means of resupply.

She hit her beacon, then continued pressing forward and not giving the lizards an opportunity to regroup. After a while several new contacts popped up on the battlemap, coming from behind their lines and not lizards. They were moving erratically, surging forward quickly then almost stopping again. They didn’t move like troops nor aircraft, and she knew better than to anticipate their arrival, instead waiting for it to happen with a piece of her mind as she and her Protovic continued fighting even to lower levels of ammunition that she wasn’t too concerned about.

Surge and stall, surge and stall…the contacts kept getting closer, and she knew that the varied terrain was the cause. Give them a stretch of open road and they could get up to good speed, but maneuvering through the rubble required them to move slowly while coming out of wheel mode.

Soon the first of the Rammus came up behind them and into view. Jaina stopped and reversed course immediately, being the first to go back and meet the dark green mass of armor as it sped forward like a wheel then unraveled into a standing quadruped within a few meters of her. Across its chest was a pole that contained supplies that would become a stubby axel when it balled up again. Also, around the edges of its back were pouches built into the armor, each separated from the next to keep the flexibility required to provide propulsion while moving.

The Rammus held position, standing as tall as it could as she plucked out two ammo containers and began reloading her weapons, then pocketed some more into her own pack. Another Protovic came up and relieved the Rammus of the rest of what he was carrying, then both Archon and Commando headed back to the front lines as more began to fall back in singles or pairs while the group continued to press the attack into the lizards.

The Rammus, now with empty cargo pouches, turned around and balled up again, jumping into a roll that then accelerated by bending his otherwise circular shape. Stretching and flexing at the proper moments he gained speed, traveling down a straight section of road and passing two others coming the opposite way. When it got to a blockage it had to slow and unfurl, climbing over some chunks of building and around a turn until it found another flat section, where it then went back into wheel mode and accelerated heading back to the nearest supply depot to pick up another load.

Jaina headed back to the front lines, taking a short moment to grab a bit of ambrosia out of her pack in M&M form and slipping it into her mouth as she mentally retracted that bit of helmet. Her shields extended momentarily to include her arm so they didn’t block the little pellet as she popped it into her mouth. As she crunched and swallowed it her shields reset and her helmet reformed, then she was back within firing range and added her plasma rifle shots with the others as an automated program in her armor began selecting other Protovic along the line and ordering them to fall back whenever a Rammus got near.

That had taken some time to work out, but now both the Rammus and the Protovic had gotten good at making the exchanges fast and efficient, with the little guys marking themselves as ‘empty’ on the battlemap so no Protovic would be erroneously sent back to them and have to wait. The system kept everyone in fighting mode except when they needed to pick up supplies.

The exchange happened efficiently despite the random nature of the debris, then about ten minutes later Jaina’s troops got stopped cold as a group of tanks suddenly appeared from underground. She ran towards and leapt up on top of one of them as the Protovic scattered, doing what she needed to in order to take it out as skeets were diverted to hit the rest of the tanks…then had to pull out as hundreds of infantry-sized missiles shot up towards them.

Breaking up, the skeet squadrons began zooming around the perimeter trying to draw missiles in smaller numbers towards them and gradually deplenish the lizard ammunition, but for the moment they couldn’t get near the Jaina’s troops, which she quickly ordered to retreat. The Archon followed as soon as she got the first tank killed, using the pilots inside to open the hatch then chucking a grenade inside to render the controls inoperable after obligingly dragging the pilots out and tossing them safely to the ground…though she did land one with a stern kick on its way down.

As the tank puffed with a little smoke when the insides got junked, she ran off nearly taking a large phaser shot to her armor. As it was the near miss crackled on her shields thanks to the ionization of the air around the beam and she ducked behind the nearest bit of building as soon as she could, only to have that wall blasted apart by another pink beam.

A chunk of wall hit her in the head, another in the legs, and knocked her off her feet and into a pile of debris, pinning her for a moment as the tank lifted up on its anti-grav to clear what was left of that wall as dozens of little plasma streaks hit it as her Protovic infantry opened fire from numerous positions, but it didn’t deter the tank from going after the Archon.

“Aaahhh!” she yelled, summoning up as strong of a telekinetic bubble around herself as possible and pushed everything laying on top of her off…then she was on her feet again, scrambling up a wall and jumping over top of it as another phaser beam hit near her feet. A few seconds later and she was gone, scampering off through the debris and out of sight.

A little too close there, boss, one of the Protovic thought as she caught up to him.

No shit, the Archon replied, not bothering to slow down and chat as she ordered the retreat to continue as a Keema beam struck down from orbit and hit something in the distance. On her battlemap was a set of rings indicating firing range, and even at a glance she knew they were too close to most of the tanks for the orbiting starships to target.

The tanks knew it too, for they were chasing the infantry over the crushed buildings and able to move faster given the fact they could just float up and over the walls and debris piles, forcing the Protovic to either run or try to hide, neither of which was a good idea at the moment, so they just ran and hoped the skeets would get close enough to provide air cover, but there were still so many little missiles shooting up into the sky.

One of them streaked laterally towards the Archon. She barely saw it in time, diving to the ground and creating a telekinetic wall over top of her at an angle like her Master had taught her. The missile hit it and deflected ever so slightly, not enough to trigger it to explode, but enough to get it far enough away from Jaina before it hit a wall and blasted it apart, hitting two Protovic with bits of rubble and causing them to stumble, but they managed to run on.

A new icon lit up with a pulsing signature to get everyone’s attention. It glowed green, meaning it was a safe haven, and she immediately directed the Protovic towards it just in case they didn’t notice it on their own. It was more than a kilometer away but all of them were running fast and not making the mistake to slow and try fighting the tanks, of which there seemed to be far too many for a subsurface bunker.

Jaina stayed behind the Protovic, able to move faster than them but knowing that she needed to provide them cover with a distraction, and lizards always liked going for Archons when they could…plus she had psionics to use that the Protovic did not, and their telepathy wasn’t strong enough to deal with these tanks.

She could have taken out a few of them on her own, but there were too many with overlapping lines of fire. At least the lizard missile launchers couldn’t keep up with her infantry retreat, so they didn’t have that hazard coming at them as they all ran as fast as they could, knowing that Jaina wasn’t going to leave them and not wanting to get her killed with their sluggishness.

At the ‘safe’ marker ahead there were Rammus, already more than 20 of them there with more rolling in rapidly, each carrying a bit of machinery, some of which were so large it was visibly slowing them down. They carried it across the middles, making it look like a big bone they were cradling and rotating around, for they had been designed with a central ring that rotated so the big pieces didn’t have to.

With each one arriving another puzzle piece was added to the construction they were assembling in an open area. Bit by bit it was growing and already partially online. Once sufficient power cells arrived the Rammus activated the shield bubble over an area about the size of a basketball court. It wouldn’t block against missiles, but it would stop phaser hits. It was weak right now, as far as tanks went, but the more pieces that the Rammus brought in would upgrade it with no limit. They’d been designed for specifically this task and could grow to whatever size or strength necessary so long as they had enough of the pieces delivered.

Other Rammus were bringing different gear, flowing into the area like a river of fast moving wheels. The ones that didn’t head to the central generator went to the perimeter, some inside the shield boundary, others outside it. The pale blue dome was visible so everyone knew where it was, friend and foe alike, and would allow the Protovic to run through it given that they were physical rather than energy…though they’d have to drop their shields to do it, otherwise those would bounce off.

Two of the Rammus ran outside the front of the shield and unfurled, setting down a small device that they cobbled together from the two pieces they carried and suddenly there was a new wall across an open area between rubble piles. It looked real enough at a glance, sufficiently torn up to match the surrounding topography as new little wrinkles were added to it as the sensors got a better feel for the location.

The holographic wall was identified on the battlemap so the Protovic would know it wasn’t real and would appear highlighted on their HUD with an overlay…but to the lizards they wouldn’t know the difference.

Other Rammus moved even further ahead, setting up a few more fake walls while others placed turrets and mines, all of which were combined from multiple pieces of equipment given the fact that one Rammus couldn’t carry very much. The genius of the design was that they didn’t have to, and with hundreds of Rammus flowing out to the waypoint on the battlemap they were able to assemble a makeshift base within minutes that the first of the Protovic were now finally getting to.

Missiles streaked overhead, angling towards a skeet that was trying to sneak in over top the base but the lizards were not out of ammunition yet. It took several hits then dove down behind a building where it sat and began recharging shields. The lizards couldn’t keep this up for long, but it seemed like they were intent on killing this Protovic unit and the skeets knew they had to get in there as soon as they could.

When the first three Protovic got to one of the fake walls they ran right through it like ghosts, then were soon inside the protective shield bubble and sucking air as they took cover behind a debris pile as more scattered troops began trickling in. They didn’t hold position long before they started planning out their defense, knowing they’d only have a minute or two at most before the tanks got here.

One of the Rammus pinged a Protovic nearby, then rolled up to him and unfurled with a brand new rocket launcher held up in his hands.

“I owe you one little guy,” he said, picking it up and immediately running to the front edge of the shield.

The Rammus turned around and jumped into a roll as he headed back towards the distant supply outpost, glad to have been of service and rushing to get in another supply run as fast as he could.

With phaser strikes audible behind him he ran through a predetermined course that he was following on his HUD, using his internal balance to keep him aware of where he was without getting dizzy and disoriented with the rolling. It was a natural part of their biology, and even though he only got a brief snippet of the view ahead each time he rotated around it was enough to give him a means to navigate by. The Protovic and Humans couldn’t do that, except for the Archons with their special abilities, but even they couldn’t rotate as fast as Rammus without losing control.

It was a fact that he and the others prided themselves on, training themselves to go faster and faster to increase their usefulness in making multiple runs. He was focused on that when a phaser hit him from the side, blasting into his shieldless armor suit and knocking him off balance for a few turns. He got under control again then saw a bunch of lizard infantry pop up out of nowhere and jump in front of him to block his path in an ambush.

With a sense of fear and adrenaline the Rammus didn’t slow down and plowed right into the group with a tiny jump at the very end by stretching and snapping his rotating circle as much as he could to clear the ground.

When he hit one lizard the green armored wheel sparked with light as a sphere of stun energy was released. The Rammus hit the ground unfurled, then scrambled over the incapacitated bodies and jumped back into wheel mode, continuing on for a few seconds while marking the location on the battlemap of the ambush so others could divert around it.

7

March 13, 3193

Unnamed System (lizard territory)

Planet 12

Jaina sat on a half burnt log in the smoking forest outside what had been a lizard bunker. Barely 100 meters deep into the ground, it had some 5,000 lizards or more in it that her Protovic team had to go in and clean out. The entrance on the surface was small, but had been decently defended and was now little more than a boxy building with chunks of wall blown out where weapons batteries had been.

The entrance had plenty of booby-traps in it that she’d had to find and disable, fortunate enough not to have missed one and gotten some of her people killed, with the rest of the battle having been ground out by the ‘never say surrender’ attitude of the lizards. She could have called down orbital bombardment on that site but had chosen to go in hand to hand in order to make sure they got all of them killed. In previous engagements it had been found that some lizards still survived after orbital bombardment of subsurface structures, and it made it damn hard to get down to them after the pathways were blocked by rubble and dirt. Better to just do it the old fashioned way so you could sign off on an area and move on to the next target.

This was the fourth assault of the day for her unit, some 123 Protovic strong. The missing two had been taken back for medical treatment this morning after getting a bit too close to a lizard with a det pack. Both had survived, but their armor was a mess and their bodies just slightly less so. They’d live, but would be out of action for a while.

The rest of them needed a break, so she’d decided this bunker would be the last offense on the day and logging it as such in the battlemap while posting sentries in case the lizards tried a sneak attack. They’d get some rest then keep pressing forward against the small lizard infrastructure spread throughout the planet’s forest and other wilderness areas. Finding all of the sites was tricky and the lizards were learning how to hide them better, but the one thing they couldn’t do was cleanse a planet and miss some of them, so they had to be thorough and that involved a lot of low flying aircraft with sensor modules and Archons out and about looking for minds where they shouldn’t be.

Her Protovic helped with that, but their telepathic ranges were far shorter than hers. She trusted the Admiral in orbit to find targets for her and feed them either directly or through the commanding mage. At this point Jaina could be commanding some of these ‘small’ planetary invasions herself, but she preferred leading the elite Protovic teams personally rather than staying back and playing planetary strategist. She could, and had done that many times, but had passed up opportunities for more recently when offered.

That wasn’t a big deal with Archons, for they all had their preferred niches. They just had to be able to do any duty when necessary, and Jaina preferred getting involved in taking individual objectives and allowing herself to not worry about anything beyond them. It was when leading a planetary assault she’d have to keep the big picture in mind, with her more than willing to follow someone else’s lead in that regard.

She just wanted a target and a challenge…then to be let loose against it.

As she sat catching her breath a little green armored Rammus rolled up to her and unfurled, walking the last few steps over and opening up his cargo pouches. She saw that he had a bit of ammo, but most of his items were food or water. Jaina reached into two of them, pulling out a bottle of water and a couple of food cubes, both of which were designed for maximum volume use in order to keep them small enough not to interfere with the Rammus’ carry motion too much.

“Thank you,” she said, with the Rammus nodding in typically silent reply and closing his pouches before turning and rolling off elsewhere.

Jaina opened her helmet but kept her armor’s shields up, pushing them out in a bubble around her so she could eat and drink without interference. She took an opening swig of water, then popped one of the dense food cubes into her mouth and slowly chewed, looking around the area with her eyes but taking a moment to rest her Pefbar and trusting in her Protovic sentries to alert her to any surprises before they could get to her.

She looked down at her left leg, seeing the hole in her armor that had started oozing gel in a few tiny places, meaning it had punctured all the way through the tough material. The gel both cushioned and cooled her body within the armor, making the sidewalls of the interior safe to her legs rather than being just as dangerous in an impact as they were on the exterior to whomever she was kicking. Within that gel was a myriad of other things, including biosensors, healing packs, and whatever else the techs could work into it. Whenever it leaked, you knew a shot had hit home.

Fortunately her leg hadn’t been damaged, but that piece of her armor was going to have to be replaced and the Rammus didn’t carry such things in battle…at least not directly.

A few minutes later a pair of skeets flew by overhead preceding an aerial convoy of small transports. Each was outfitted as a light gunship, able to offer ground support or self-defense if needed, but these transports were meant for battlefield logistics assistance rather than combat, especially the large central one. It was bigger than a Dragon-class dropship by far and had the smaller transports flanking in proper formation held so rigid that it was almost comforting to see.

She could have offered a waypoint for landing if she wanted, but knew the Rammus onboard could handle the site selection themselves. That and it didn’t really matter where they set down around here, for there wasn’t anything of value or danger to maneuver around.

Staying put and watching as she finished chewing and began to gulp down half of the water bottle, the six smaller transports spread out into a flying perimeter as the big boxy centerpiece began transforming as it floated about a kilometer away from her. The compact ship expanded greatly, unfurling internal compartments that had been compacted down for transport. The cabin of the craft contained the Rammus crew while the bulk of the transport was inaccessible during flight, packed down so tight not even an Irondel could climb back into it.

Eventually the giant plate spread out and landing gear dropped from it, extending out in a length that would keep it overtop the trees, smoking or otherwise, then the whole assembly lowered and settled itself onto the ground looking like it was standing on stilts. Those sunk in a bit, then lights on the underside turned on despite it still being daylight.

Jaina glanced over her shoulder, seeing the twin suns on the horizon getting low to the ground. Night fighting didn’t bother her, but she hadn’t realized they were that close to losing daylight. She often lost track of time when fighting, but hadn’t expected this planet’s 39 hour day to be over just yet.

When the main assembly was set, the other six transports flew over top of it and landed, connecting to it in order to add the customizable modules needed for this mission. The central assembly was what the Rammus called a ‘Portal,’ for it was a way for field teams to access a bit of civilization no matter where they were. The modules were known as ‘Augments,’ each of which carried more rooms that would be added on top of the Portal. They could be warehouses, factory units, defensive weapons, shield generators…anything and everything that you could possibly imagine up until you found yourself lacking in something.

Then the Rammus would design and build a module for that the next time.

One of these augments, once docked and expanded into a tree-like add-on, dispensed a number of tiny drones into the air that spread out in patrol patterns, both for surveillance and anti-personnel missions as needed. They would monitor the airspace above the trees and give the Portal a heads up of anything coming in from afar, but they didn’t work down in the forest very well, despite having sensors to see through the trees.

Fairly soon she saw the scout armor of the Rammus coming out of the Portal and heading across the semi-clearing in front of her. They rolled through the smoke in a group of six, then dispersed when they got past her. They carried no pouches or supplies of any kind, rather outfitted with sensors and weapons so they could hold and monitor the ground perimeter in addition to the security drones.

This wasn’t the first time Jaina had worked with them and she knew she and the Protovic could now stand down from guard duty, allowing everyone to get some rest while their allies watched over them. She sent that order out, then picked herself up off the log as she finished off her second food cube and headed in the direction of the Portal.

When she got beneath it and walked past one of the thick support pillars that was keeping it aloft without burning fuel on gravity drives, she spotted three different ramps that had been lowered to allow access to the giant portable treehouse. She walked to the nearest one then scaled the stairless ramp as she passed through an energy shield and into the internal air.

Jaina dropped her shields and the armored gloves on her hands, breathing in deeply while flexing her fingers. The planet wasn’t bad, but the crisp air in here felt and smelled a lot better…though she probably didn’t. She headed for an equipment bay and shed her armor there, with bits and pieces contracting down while others split apart. As the decades went by their armor continued to improve, though the outward appearance had stayed much the same. It was the transformational technology that kept getting added, allowing them to put on and take off the armor far faster than in the old days.

The bit on her leg where the major damage was wouldn’t split apart as needed, so she had to pull her leg out of it like a massive boot while several Protovic were around the locker room-style chamber doing much the same thing. Once out of all of it and standing in her sweat soaked casual uniform, she disconnected the damaged segment of her armor and picked up the rest in her left arm. She carried the damaged boot over to the quartermaster, laying it out in front of the unarmored Rammus there with a look of frustration.

“I don’t think you can repair this one. Need to call me in a replacement before I head back out again. I don’t want to bother with a generic suit if I don’t have to,” she said, referring to the ‘one size fits all’ Archon armor sets that adjusted to a user’s dimensions rather than being custom designed to her body.

The Rammus pulled the armor piece across the table to him with stubby arms, then twisted it around in his hands with claw-like fingers picking at various points. “Are you hurt?”

“Just my pride,” she admitted.

“I’ll call for a replacement from orbit, highest priority,” the shorter Rammus said, looking up at her with its narrow, snout-like face and speaking fairly good English, though it still sounded like he was coughing with every word. This one, she knew, hadn’t been born into Star Force, but one of the early converts that she hadn’t been able to stand back then. Now the Rammus were always a welcome sight on the battlefield so long as they stayed within their support role, which they took to with great pride and efficiency.

“Thanks, Vrita,” Jaina said as she left the Rammus to deal with Protovic armor issues and headed for one of the few personal pods on the Portal. They had a Rammus design aesthetic to them, but had been configured to work for Humans and other Star Force races, though larger ones had to use other customized Portals. As was normal, everything worked for Humans though, and she locked herself inside one of the small rest room/changing/shower compartments.

After cleaning up and donned a new casual uniform she checked herself out of the pod and a waiting Protovic took her place as she found one of the small but private sleeping bunks set into a wall like a honeycomb. She climbed into an empty one head first, then tapped a small control panel near the pillow at the far end. A one-way panel slipped past her feet, closing off the sleeping area from view or sound, though she could still see out of it.

It was a tiny bunk that she couldn’t fully sit up inside without tipping her head slightly, but putting even the smallest of quarters in a mobile facility like this wouldn’t have made sense. What she needed was a place to sleep with the addition of the unnecessary but welcomed privacy. Knowing that the Rammus would be handling security for them and would wake them the moment there was a threat sighted, she let her head hit the pillow and not worry about anything else.

The Portal was far better than sleeping in her armor in the forest or having to ride a dropship back to a firebase or a ship in orbit. They had to make sure the Portals were protected, for they made good, if not quite helpless targets, but so long as they had sufficient air cover and distance from the enemy they would allow her unit to stay in the field indefinitely without getting wore down from fatigue, limited food, or lack of equipment/ammo.

Jaina fell asleep almost immediately, drifting off to dreamless sleep as her body finished digesting those food cubes and a sugar stick that she’d taken out of her own pack before setting it on a rack in the equipment room to be recycled and refilled for her use tomorrow.

But right now it was time to recover, and snugged up in the confining tube she didn’t hear a sound or feel a vibration from those outside or in the bunks beside, above, and below her. She was alone in her little island of serenity in the middle of a war zone, and the Archon knew she would be safe here until morning, as would the rest of her unit. The Rammus might not be that good in combat, but they made for loyal and attentive sentinels.

When she woke, Jaina filled up on a big breakfast then armored up with the rest of her unit, grabbing her refilled pack of ammunition, equipment, and a bit of foodstuffs and water. Enough to last her a few days if needed, for while the Rammus Portals were very welcome, you never knew when they’d be able to get to you, and if there was any real threat against them Jaina would not allow them to come in.

The mobile supply depots were another matter. They were as well armored as the Rammus were, and as Jaina joined her unit outside and began running with them through the forest she saw a new Rammus transport flying in from afar. It landed nearby the Portal as it was disconnecting its augments and packing up. By the time Jaina and her unit were on their way to the next known lizard outpost the Portal and its transports were flying away from danger and back to the nearest Star Force surface base where they would wait until they had an opportunity to aid a field unit again.

The depot, however, was staying put and would be conserving fuel on the ground as it tracked the Protovic, occasionally leap frogging across the terrain to stay close but safely behind them. If it had to deal with wisps it could run and survive long enough to get to help thanks to its thick armor, but it was meant to resupply the unit rather than engage in combat, though it too was decently armed.

Later in the day, when combat was deplenishing the ammo counts of her troops, that depot sprouted a number of offloading ramps out of which the Rammus themselves rolled in several lines of cargo carriers, all of which were headed across considerable distance to the front lines to supply the field unit with ammo, weapons, and whatever other supplies had been requested or assumed to be needed.

It was tricky for the Rammus to pull off without being ambushed or directly targeted by the lizards, but tricky was one thing Star Force’s new little ward was, for they’d been tricking and surviving against the lizards far long than anyone else had been able to, and now they were applying those skills and Star Force tech in new and devious ways, keeping their heads down and enabling the frontline units to become even more effective and efficient than before.

The Rammus might not be killing the lizards themselves, but they were seeing to it that they died in greater numbers and at a faster rate than otherwise, and were quite knowledgeable and proud of that fact.

And as far as the front line combat troops were concerned, they loved the little guys.

8

April 9, 3201

Ivataru (lizard territory)

Inner Zone

When Jaina got to the bridge of the Warship-class jumpship the fleet had already emerged at the destination star and was transitioning around to the jumpline for the known lizard planet of Chammtre, but as she’d been told via comm and could see now for herself on the long range sensors, they were not the first ones to get here.

There was already an ongoing conversation via holo with a waiting beacon for her, so when she sat down in a secondary command chair next to the Captain’s she hit a button and four meter-tall images appeared around her, three of which were Archon mages on other ships in this fleet, but the other was a mage not assigned to them and apparently the commander of the Lacvamat fleet that they were picking up on sensors around the distant planet.

His image was apparently a recorded message being played out, while the others were realtime. She caught the last bit about them needing to survey five sites on the planet for possible survivors, then the rogue mage’s image disappeared.

“What’d I miss?” Jaina asked.

“Apparently we’ve got word from independent sources that there might be an indigenous population on this planet that the lizards haven’t discovered yet,” Arron-44920 explained. “The Lacvamat fleet was sent to investigate but they’ve not had much luck on the ground. They’ve cleared out orbit of lizard warships and begun some ground bombardment, but so far they can’t find any of these hidden outposts. They need ground assistance for the search.”

“Why Lacvamat?”

“Looks like they were the only sizeable unit available. They’re holding down the airspace over the designated regions, but we’ve got to go to ground to investigate. Jaina, you’ll knock out this lizard base,” he said as a zoomed-in planetary hologram popped up with a waypoint on it a fair distance from the nearest of the marked exploration zones. “Get us a solid foothold.”

“What about anti-orbital defenses?”

“The nearest ones have already been knocked out. If we stay within the brackets we’ll be fine. Madi, you’ve got search zone 1. Knock out the lizard outposts in the area then do an extensive search. Trevor, zone 2. I’ve got 3. We’re told these guys are amphibian, so if you see any water down there that’s probably a good place to start.”

“What water?” Madi asked, seeing a planet full of vegetation but only a scattering of tiny lakes and rivers.

“Doesn’t make much sense to me, but these guys have been running some smuggling routes off this planet. They know how to hide.”

“Smuggling past the lizards?” Jaina said, doing a double take. “Are you sure?”

“That’s what we’ve been told. Not a lot, but an occasion ship in and out.”

“How?”

“Good question. We’ll find out when we find them.”

“Are we working with the Lacvamat or keeping our distance?” Trevor asked.

“They’re going to keep the skies clear and assist where able. When we make orbit begin immediate deployment. For some reason our contacts believed the locals were under some sort of time constraint, so let’s not delay…and keep your eyes open. Something about this feels weird.”

“A trap?” Madi asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did we get a name at least?” Jaina asked.

“No. Whoever these guys are they like to keep a low profile.”

“Then what was the rush…to us anyway?”

“Yuri didn’t say. He just got orders to come out here and investigate and pave the way for us.”

“I wonder what was worth smuggling?” Trevor asked.

“One way to find out,” Arron said. “Let’s get to work.”

The holograms in front of Jaina disappeared, save for Madi’s. “Looks like you get to take the biggest crack this time.”

“I don’t mind that. At least I know the lizards.”

“This doesn’t feel right to me either. There must be something really important down there.”

“Let me know when you find it.”

“Will do, sister. Happy hunting,” the mage said as her hologram also vanished.

“Nearing the jumppoint, Archon.”

“Make the jump as soon as possible, Captain. Apparently we’re in a rush.”

“What do you want opened?”

“Give me cover as you see fit and coordinate with the Lacvamat so you don’t accidentally shoot any of them,” she said with a touch of frustration.

“They’re Star Force, so what’s the issue?”

“I’ve never worked with them before.”

“We’ll be careful,” the Protovic captain promised. “You going down first?”

“Duh,” she said, giving him a stupid look.

“Would you like a landing zone flattened for you?” he said, his voice going heavily sarcastic.

“No, we’re taking theirs. Signal our ships to prepare for hot drop,” she said, getting up out of her chair and heading for the hangar bays.

“Could have made credits on that,” one of the Protovic crew muttered after she’d gone.

“Assuming someone would have been stupid enough to take that bet,” the Captain said with a smirk. “As soon as we make orbit, pull up all the records from the Lacvamat and double check their kill history. Let’s make sure the clear zones really are clear before we send our people down. We’re assuming ground control, so let’s make sure we get everything squared away. No mistakes.”

“We’ll make sure the bats got it right,” another crewer said as helm signaled that they were ready to make their microjump as other ships were visible doing so ahead of them.

“Big ass bats,” the Captain corrected. “Execute jump.”

Jaina road down to the planet in the back seat of a two person mech, being dropped off near their target base by dropship as she controlled her remote star of mechs while her Protovic pilot handled their own. Three other stars assembled with them and marched across the grassland towards the craggy rocks that surrounded the lizard base. It wasn’t a city per se, but rather a military fortification that contained a variety of buildings, which was odd on a planet like this. Perimeter turrets were plentiful and it also had decent anti-air capability, prompting the land assault.

It also had a single anti-orbital battery, which had meant the dropships had to come down to the surface far away then skim overland to get to their LZ, but now that they were below the big gun’s range Jaina was going to bust up this base, take it down, and work on securing a proper foothold for a much larger invasion heading north while the search teams were located on one of six continents in the southern hemisphere outlined by mountain ranges and a handful of rivers.

With her mind plugged into the mini nexus software, Jaina drove four mechs simultaneously, each of which was outfitted with additional weapons, armor, shields, and anything else they could squeeze into the space that otherwise would have been reserved for a pilot. That made them tougher and, above all else, expendable if need be, while the other 15 mechs out there were all piloted by Protovic.

As they came within range they began a sniping exchange, the phaser turrets crossing the distance with badly aimed shots while a few of the mechs returned fire with baby cleansing beams. Jaina made sure two of the turrets were down before she gave the order to charge, then all 20 mechs began running across the grass up towards the rocks that ringed the base. As distances closed more weaponry opened up on both sides, but with that pair of turrets down the exchange was tolerable to cross the distance up to the base wall.

Before they got here they had to pass the rocks, some of which were building sized. Keeping an eye on depression angle of the really big gun, the mechs with jump jets floated up and over them while the ones that did not climbed and mechanically leapt over the hazards, fighting their way up to the nearest turrets and taking them down before the mechs began getting hit too hard.

The group of them took refuge against the lizard wall, spreading out both directions to begin stripping the nearest turrets away with overwhelming firepower one at a time. Meanwhile Jaina’s star began pounding on the wall, not wanting to jump up and over it and into the fire zone of the anti-air batteries. It took a while, but eventually they pounded enough of a hole that they were able to press through…right into the guns of a huge tank formation.

Jaina pulled back the drone mech she’d sent in first as it was getting hammered, coming back out through the gap with ample armor damage.

“We’re going through phalanx style,” she told her pilot. “Put us fourth in line.”

The four drone mechs in her star lined up beside the eastern wall, leaving a gap for the control mech to slide in. Once in place all of them sidestepped to get out from the wall and make a less sharp angle to the gap, then the five bunched as close together as they could and Jaina shifted the lead mech’s shields full forward and charged the formation into the lizards’ firing line.

Her mech came through safely, but the first one lost its shields and an arm before the other four spread out and savaged the surrounding tanks. They’d been arrayed in a hemisphere with their full attention on the breach point, maximizing their firepower, but now that the Star Force mechs had gotten within melee range they were at a disadvantage and suffered the consequences.

When Jaina got those mechs cleared out she put her two wounded ones in the back of her star and proceeded through the base knocking out whatever shot at them and working their way towards the big gun in the center as the other mechs made their way back around to the breach point and followed them in in ones and twos. Jaina waited for them to catch up before she pushed too far, then the twenty mechs worked together to force their way up to the big gun and began chipping away at it with their weapons.

They got counterattacked four times and had to fend off lizard tanks, wisps, and infantry before finally being left more or less alone to chew through the thick armor of the turret tower. When they did Jaina sent a mech almost all the way inside to trash the interior. It blasted away at point blank range until their sensors determined the tower was inoperable.

When that happened Jaina tagged it as out, then recalled that mech and brought all of them together into a small opening within the base. It looked like a courtyard but the lizards didn’t have such niceties in their cities, at least not for the sake of mingling anyway. The 20 mechs clustered there and put themselves back to back in a defensive posture as they waited for the orbital bombardment to begin.

The shield tower they’d not bothered with, so the now low flying naval drones were hammering it as they came down through the atmosphere so they could get into better range and not worry about hitting the mechs accidentally. When the shield finally came down the triangular wedges that were the Protovic drones hovered over the city looking like tiny birds in the air, but birds that were raining down precision weapons strikes against the remaining turrets and any other large defenses that could be identified.

The mechs waited it out, then when the ‘all clear’ was signaled they broke up by stars and began to roam the base looking to clean up whatever else was left as the infantry were on approach in more dropships. When they arrived they’d do a room by room search with sensors and psionics to make sure that every last inch of this lizard base was clean of the vermin.

With a replacement mechwarrior taking over her control of the drones, Jaina got down dirtside with the rest of the infantry and helped them clean out the buildings in the base, including the subsurface structures, then got back to the surface in time to see a huge flock of Lacvamat flying overhead a few kilometers up.

She checked the battlemap and compared it to their heading, seeing that a Lacvamat ship was coming down from orbit nearby. They were probably cycling out at the end of a patrol, with the ship coming low into the atmosphere for them to fly into. They didn’t use traditional dropships, rather these considerably larger transports with dorsal entry. They rarely landed on the surface of a planet, but when they did they usually were laden up with cargo with too small a workforce to empty it quickly, otherwise they’d just hover over the ground and let the Lacvamat workers fly in the top, scoop up the supplies, and fly them out to wherever they needed them.

As she was taking a moment to watch them and snoop out what else was happening around the planet via battlemap, a section of the Lacvamat flock broke off and dove down towards the surface. Jaina frowned and zoomed in on that section, seeing sporadic enemy signatures popping up. There was nothing but grassland there, but somehow there were lizards out in the open where there had been none previously.

With a quick check of her surroundings to make sure she was safe, Jaina walked over to a chunk of lizard wall and started inputting commands, getting a sensor highlight on that region from orbit that allowed her to zoom in to the surface and see what was happening in real time.

Not surprisingly, the Lacvamat were dive bombing lizard infantry and making a mess of the little green guys, but she was more interested in seeing where the lizards were coming from. It wasn’t until one of the Lacvamat swung low and actually landed did she find what she was looking for. He pulled away a grass mat to expose a hole in the ground, dirt walled, that led down deeper than was visible. Jaina was now pulling visuals directly from the Lacvamat’s armor, looking down inside and seeing the little claw marks where the lizards had pulled themselves out through the dirt.

The Archon was about to pull up an intense sensor focus but someone else beat her to it, for the sensor map enhanced immediately and was growing in detail as a drone descended from orbit. By the time it got near the ground Jaina could make out the slight sensor distortion in the faked subsurface structure that indicated a lizard sensor blind, meaning the lizards had some sort of bunker there, and it was far away from any of their nearest outposts.

Jaina adjusted her comm, about to call in and offer to send some of her Protovic over with Rammus digging equipment to start tearing out that bunker when she got an incoming comm.

“I’ve found them,” Madi said, though her voice was a bit more tense than it should be. Jaina noticed that it was a multiple comm message, with all the mages in the Protovic fleet being included. “And I think they’re freaking out.”

“Define freaking out,” Arron said.

“They’re below ground, and from the visuals I’m pulling from their minds there’s water down there. Sensors aren’t showing it, so it must be some type of blind, but they’re down there, and I can feel a few of them freaking out. I think it’s spreading to all of them.”

“Did they see you?” Jaina asked.

“No…” Madi said hesitantly. “They felt me.”

“Meaning?” Trevor asked.

“I didn’t pet them,” Madi said snippily.

“They’re telepathic?” Arron asked.

“Yeah. They tried to get inside my head in response to me snooping in theirs and hit my Ikrid block…and now they’re freaking out. I get the feeling they’ve hid from the lizards by playing Jedi mind tricks on them. Now I’m here, with telepathic powers too, and they can’t affect me. Hence, they’re freaking out.”

“And doing what?”

“Moving around inside. I can’t sense too many of them, so I think they’re dug in deep, but I am pulling as much information as I can from the few up top…and they’re really not liking that either.”

“Have you found an entrance?”

“Not yet.”

“What are they?” Jaina asked.

“Turtles.”

“Turtles?” Arron asked.

“Flippers and all. They couldn’t fight a lizard hand to hand even if they had 100 to 1 odds. I get the feeling they do everything with telepathy and tech, and this hidden city is evading our sensors too. All I’m picking up now is a flat panel a few dozen meters below the surface. Everything else beyond that is blocked.”

“I can understand why they’re freaking,” Trevor agreed. “They’ve got no defense against us and we just blew their cover.”

“Can you try and calm them down?” Arron asked.

“Trying but failing. They’re just getting more and more worked up.”

“Can you take control of one?” Jaina asked.

“Not at this range.”

“We need to find a door.”

“I’m on it. But I get the feeling that there are a whole lot of them down there…and by down there I mean inside the planet. More than the lizards I’d guess, and I think I just ticked them all off.”

9

April 14, 3201

Ivataru (lizard territory)

Planet 4

Jaina sat crosslegged on the grass in her aquatics armor next to Madi, both of the Archons linked in battlemeld and projecting their extended range telepathy downward into another portion of the ‘turtles’ hidden civilization. They sat on what they’d discovered to be a concealed hangar bay, patiently trying to reach those beneath them and confer upon them the reason they were here and that they were no threat.

It wasn’t going well. They’d been at it two days, taking breaks for workouts and sleep, but otherwise they were here, using their linked abilities to probe as deeply as they could. They didn’t want to break in and force their way underground and were hoping that they could come to an understanding via telepathy, but so far there were only a few beneath them within range…yet they could sense that those were there specifically to received their ‘manipulations.’

That’s how the turtles saw them. The rest of their population was out of range but were able to sense through those exposed. Had Jaina been down there she wouldn’t have liked to have been the one to draw the short straw, but either these few had or they’d volunteered. Regardless, they were still very much afraid and continually vexed having had their secret entrance to their secret civilization located. The lizards were far from here and the Protovic and Lacvamat were keeping them away, leaving only the two Archons to politely keep knocking on the telepathic door. How long they’d keep doing that though, was a matter of question.

They could just leave them alone, rid the planet of the lizards then leave them be. However, they really didn’t want to do that given how few races actually possessed telepathy, even if it was an inferior form. It was becoming obvious to Jaina that the V’kit’no’sat telepathy was the premium variety, with far more depth and intricacy than was standard. She’d never fully understood that, just thinking that the Protovic telepathy was limited. Now that she’d gotten inside a turtle’s head it was becoming clear that the Zen’zat had gotten the Super Saiyan variety standard.

Not only was her telepathy raw power higher than the turtles’, there was so much she could do with it that they couldn’t. There were blind spots where she could go in their minds that even they could not. For example, they could transmit and receive while locating other minds, but they couldn’t pinpoint locate anyone. Not alone anyway. They needed several of them working together to lock down a person’s location. On their own they could sense the general area and transmit to it, but they couldn’t correlate that with their physical senses well at all.

She was also realizing they made up for a lot of things by using the group. They didn’t have battlemeld or anything like it, they just collaborated their telepathic insights as if using multiple sensors to look at the same target then sharing data. It didn’t raise their raw power any, and she was pretty sure two-way communication was locked out from multi-transmission, but these were genuine telepaths and she was wondering if they were hiding for the same reasons the Protovic Pinks had been. Were these guys hunted down too because they could get inside people’s heads?

“I’m getting sick of this,” Madi suddenly said out loud, though she didn’t need to having been linked with Jaina, for the Archon could sense the words even as she said them. “They’re not going to let us in. They’re playing ‘turtle,’ pun intended.”

“We can give it a while more.”

“Or…”

Jaina sighed. “That’ll really tick them off.”

“Well I’m tired of waiting, and we’re doing them the favor of kicking out the lizards so…they can tolerate it.”

“Fair enough,” Jaina agreed. “I’m tired of sitting here too.”

The pair didn’t say anymore, instead focusing their telepathy on those individuals below. They’d pulled a lot of information from their minds already regarding the layout below, including the controls to open the concealed bay doors. Picking one of the turtles below, they focused on him with their combined power and barely managed to take control of his mind. They held him steady at first, cementing their hold, then had him swim closer to the surface. They also made sure to look out for the others in case they tried to stop him, but the Archons were pretty sure the turtles had no idea anyone could do this.

They had their little guy find his way to the bay door controls and hit the release, then released him from their control but knocked him unconscious, along with anyone else that was in range so they couldn’t contest their entry.

The ground they sat on jolted, then slowly rose up with them sitting on what was basically a giant plate of dirt and grass. It raised up above ground level then rotated around a fixed point on one edge, moving the plate clear of the circular opening as the Archons stood up and walked towards the pivot point.

Looking down they saw an empty room big enough to accommodate ship traffic, but with nothing in sight. They knew the bay was much wider than the opening, so Madi casually jumped off the edge and slowly fell on the end of a Bataf conduit from Jaina, with the invisible rope disconnecting a meter above the floor. The Archon dropped the rest of the way and landed gracefully in a partial crouch, seeing several ships around the perimeter of the mostly empty bay. This was obviously a receiving area, and from their mind raids they knew that other races they somewhat trusted as intermediaries would fly their ships in here and have the hatch sealed while they conducted business.

Madi extended a Bataf conduit up like a pole and Jaina rode down on it, joining her on the bay floor. They left the entrance open, not worried about the lizards while they had their troops on the surface keeping them well away from the vulnerable turtles.

“Time to get wet,” Jaina said, gesturing to the hatch to the south.

“Yep. Let’s take it slow so we don’t look like we’re chasing any of them.”

“They’re already freaking out,” she said, sensing them more easily now that they were closer and resisting the urge to knock them out too now that there were more in range.

“Let’s go say hi and get this over then,” Madi said, getting a telekinetic grip on the light hatch and pulling it open without needing the hydraulics. Just below the rim of the rectangular cutout was the water, and it immediately struck both Archons as being foul.

“I guess they have something more than water in it,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Looks clear though.”

“Probably their version of air freshener. Just be glad we didn’t bring any Elarioni. They’d probably gag on it,” Madi said, sitting down on the edge and sliding in feet first with Jaina following a few seconds later.

When they got in the water their helmets automatically shut out the air and switched over to internal oxygen. Whereas their normal armor had a short backup air supply, the aquatics armor had far more stuffed inside the bulkier construct and could be augmented for days with additional backpacks. Also, if there was oxygen in the water their armor could draw it out directly, allowing them unlimited time underneath the water. If there wasn’t they could even slowly add oxygen to their reserves through hydrolysis, but that wouldn’t be enough for them to stay active. If that was all they had left they’d have to stop moving and get their breathing very, very low…but that was far better than dying.

All of that meant that the Archons were perfectly comfortable sealed up inside their armor as they went underwater. Both of them immediately began transmitting calming telepathic waves but including a bit of annoyance, making it clear they didn’t like waiting outside. They wanted to talk to the turtles and they made that known, but did so trying to make it clear that they weren’t the lizards and weren’t going to hurt any of them.

“Little bastards,” Jaina said, seeing ahead with her Pefbar.

“No kidding,” Madi said, referencing the defense turrets popping out of the walls. “Let’s make it clear who they’re trying to shoot.”

Both of the Archons swam forward using the jets in their arms and legs for propulsion as they reached out and telekinetically grabbed the little minnow-like darts being fired towards them. Freezing them in mid swim they held them there, knowing that the turtles would be watching on vid screens or whatever else they used.

Once the Archons got close enough they used their telekinesis to reach inside the turrets and break or bend what was needed to disable them. One by one they went offline as the Archons casually swam by the interior defenses continually mentally transmitting their ‘we come in peace’ vibe, but apparently these guys had seen Mars Attacks and weren’t buying it, so the pair swam to find the nearest one that they’d rendered unconscious.

When they saw it they were surprised by the glow coming off him. He was floating in the water just off the floor, suggesting these guys were a bit on the sinker side, and was covered in a more rounded shell than a typical turtle, but he had four flipper-like legs, no tail, and a stubby head that had small tentacles on it that doubled as hands. It looked gross, but it appeared they just head-butted their controls and made alterations from inches away.

This guy had four short, almost tiny arms bracketing his two eyes and mouth, but it was his shell that was glowing deep red on vein-like lines. The rest of his body didn’t glow, but neither Archon had expected that for none of the visuals they’d taken from their minds had shown it.

“They can’t see it?” Madi wondered.

“I guess not,” she said, noticing that the interior was dark. They’d been using their Pefbar and hadn’t noticed, but the lights around the rim of the hallways were dim. Jaina did a check on the light sources with her HUD, seeing that they only slightly bled over into the visible light spectrum for Humans. Most of it was ultraviolet, with her guessing that the red end was out of their ability to see. Odd that they’d be producing it, but then again Humans glowed in infrared and couldn’t see it, though not in only specific areas. On the turtles it almost seemed like decorative trim.

“Alright, let’s wake this guy up,” Madi said. Jaina held him steady, pulling him up off the floor so his flippers couldn’t hit anything but water and keeping him there with her invisible grip while the other mage slowly brought him back to consciousness. As she did so she started working on him, dosing him up heavily with calming and soothing emotions while letting him get minimally aware of their presence.

But eventually a point was reached when he realized they were not his kin and he started freaking out, but neither Archon would relent. He spent several minutes spasming, trying to swim but unable to, and with far worse things occurring inside his mind.

The mages didn’t move, merely staying still and calm and talking to him using emotions and senses given that they didn’t know their language. They kept bombarding him with the notion of ‘friend’ until he finally settled down, though it was more from exhaustion than acceptance. Knowing the razor’s edge they were walking, both of the Archons proceeded slowly, not moving, and working on him telepathically as they gradually released the physical restrictions.

When they did fully release him he bolted, getting across a few meters far faster than he looked capable of, but Jaina gently slowed him down to a stop and came swimming up beside him.

You’re not going anywhere buddy, so just chill.

“Heads up, his friends are coming.”

“Good,” Jaina said, sensing the other turtles on approach. “Let’s speed this up.”

“They’re armed.”

“So?”

“Right,” Madi agreed. “Hang onto our friend. I’ll deal with them,” she said, swimming off a few meters.

Jaina stayed put, looking through Madi’s eyes but otherwise not paying attention to what was going on behind her. She kept trying to soften up this one’s mind but years of paranoia and ignorance were layered into its mind and hard to get through. By not harming it some of those layers were peeling off in calculation, and she knew if she so much as stubbed its toe that bit of progress would be undone, so she just held him still as Madi stopped more of the little missiles that were being fired from backpacks on the other turtles.

Jaina grabbed a handful of them from where Madi had them floating and pulled them over in front of her little guy’s face. She grabbed them in her hand, held them for a moment, then pushed them down from the floor and away from both of them.

She heavily insisted that there was ‘no need’ for those weapons, and finally she felt something click in this one. Taking a guess, she slowly released her hold on him. His emotions spiked again, feeling the ability to run, but he checked himself and just stared at her hard, unmoving body, then she felt him say something to the others and they all stopped moving, just looking at the two intruders.

“Progress,” Jaina noted.

“Keep it up.”

“Working on it,” she said, bringing an image of the lizards to both of their minds and sending it the feelings of hate and revulsion, trying to make it understand that they were an enemy. When she felt understanding she added a vision of the galaxy, then zoomed down to the stars the lizards held, seeing them as little green dots, then showed them winking out in bunches coming up to this star.

Then a first happened. The turtle asked her a question. It wasn’t in words, but rather a concept. Isolation and acceptance. It wanted to know if they were going to leave the turtles alone.

It took some work, but eventually she was able to get the idea across that Star Force didn’t want this planet, they only wanted to remove the lizards from it. Then she went on to infer that they wanted communication with the turtles, but nothing more. Doing so without words was difficult, so she worked to try to get it to understand that they wanted a sample of their language to learn.

The other turtles were on the edge of blowing up inside, but this one was acting as an intermediary and Jaina stuck with him. After some not so successful attempts at him speaking to her, he pictured an image of one of their display screens and directed her to it. She accepted, then let him go and gently followed. The others freaked out again as soon as she moved, but her guide kept his nerve and Jaina kept reinforcing the calming emotions flowing to him, sensing that if she didn’t filter out all the noise from the others he’d freak out again too. The communal mind here was strong, almost to lemming levels, so Jaina decided to keep this guy in her camp constantly, not wanting to let their progress slip by releasing her telepathic domination of him.

It was odd. Usually such interference was used to cause problems with others, but she was actually helping him, giving him far more emotional structure and clarity of perception than his race had. In essence she was making him emotionally smarter by plugging her mind into his. That was a crude way to describe it, but given that all they had right now was crude communication it seemed fitting. The others obviously didn’t like what was happening to him, for they could feel it a bit and he was still communicating with them, but she knew from Madi that they thought he was in some sort of trance or possession.

More like helping someone with a limp stand up straight, but whatever. So long as this guy was playing along the others could freak out all they wanted.

The turtles’ display screens were small for the most part. There were a few large ones for general viewing, but the work stations were no bigger than their faces. That was due to the fact that their arms didn’t reach more than a few inches, meaning they were literally planting their faces in the tiny screens to work.

Her new friend did just that, working one of the consoles and bringing up an image of text on one of the bigger screens in what looked like some sort of monitoring room.

“Surface surveillance,” Madi filled in. “They keep track of the lizards a lot.”

“Big surprise,” Jaina said, having to adjust her HUD to see the ultraviolet displays that otherwise looked like ghostly images just spilling over into the visual spectrum, much like their hallway lights. She didn’t recognize the script, but thanked the turtle for showing it to her as she recorded her helmet telemetry so the analysts could study them later.

It wanted to know if she understood them, and she inferred ‘no, but that they would learn.’

The turtled popped its head back into its working face plant and tweaked a control with one of its face arms.

The text changed, not just saying something else, but into another form entirely.

“Different languages,” Jaina guessed. “They’ve got to have relations with other races out there if they’ve got smuggling going on. Hopefully we can recognize one of these.”

She recorded this one and gave the turtle a negative thought. It switched to another and another, running her through a list until it was her turn to freak out.

“Madi!” she said, a bit of trepidation spiking in her. The turtle apparently sensed a bit of it and recoiled as if he had done something wrong. Before he started wondering if he was going to get killed Jaina dismissed her own emotions to a corner of her mind that wouldn’t transmit to him, then calmed him down while quickly explaining that she did recognize it, but that it was the language of an enemy.

“Never thought I’d need this,” she told Madi, activating a tiny laser on her helmet that was configured to be a projector. Why it had been included in their armor she’d never really known, but now it was going to be incredibly helpful until they figured out how to interface with the turtles’ own comm systems. Different technology didn’t allow for plug and play options, and mating up computer systems was a pain in the ass that required some pretty good software techs. Fortunately they had some of them onboard the ships in orbit.

Jaina configured it for their light spectrum, sampling what was coming off the monitors and reciprocating, then she spoke the words she wanted and had them displayed in script on a nearby wall that she directed the turtle to.

“Asc ratch cu. Asc sen burtu,” she said in V’kit’no’sat.

10

March, 3202

Solar System

Earth

Davis walked into his office in the early morning, having just finished a pre-dawn workout in time to see the sun just climbing over Atlantis’s buildings on the east side. He sat down at his desk feeling the post-workout relaxation as he brought up his logged messages, finding 122 new ones since leaving his office yesterday.

That was typical, and he breezed through most of the notifications until he came to a rather long one. It was a data update from Sara concerning the Tamni, whose language translation was still ongoing. The turtle-like race spoke V’kit’no’sat only so far as it was in their databanks and therefore offered a means of limited communication, but overall they were not familiar with it aside from being an obscure language from their distant past.

But the fact that they knew it had been a big concern, especially since they were considerably far beyond the furthest reaches of the V’kit’no’sat empire. In this update Sara shed some clarity on that, detailing that the Tamni were not local to this region. About 330,000 years ago they were involved in a civil war that saw this faction leave their homeworld in the Sagittarius Arm. They ran far, horrified at what had happened to their kin and what they’d been forced to do defending themselves. They left their traitorous kin behind and hid themselves away further rimward.

They were pursued for a long time, then local threats forced them underground and they kept periodically moving so they could avoid their enemies, which were rapidly growing in number thanks to their benign persona and their advanced technology that many wished to exploit, for they were trading bits of it away in exchange for resources and continued to do so to this day, which was why some races were willing to try and slip past the lizard empire in order to get to them.

They had had no contact with the V’kit’no’sat, fortunately, but they knew their language as well as the commonplace knowledge to stay the hell away from their scattering of outposts and not to attract their attention. They hadn’t had many footholds, but from those they did the V’kit’no’sat dominated the region with everyone else keeping their heads down whenever they came around. Fortunately that was almost never, and the Tamni and other races went on about their business aware of the threat of the V’kit’no’sat but never having to deal with them outside of rare circumstances…but the example of those few who did was enough to let everyone else know that they could not be challenged, and to do so even once was suicide.

But this data update was more about the Tamni and their split, along with more details on their race and current activities. Their technology was impressive in some regards and primitive in others. What they were trading to others often involved small scale things. Medicines, genetic alterations, nanotechnology, stealth equipment…but no weapons. No ships either. Their gravity drives were decent, but overall their starship capability was dismal. They were not engineered to fight, or even defend. This was a race that did not like being in space, so their ships were designed to get them from planet to planet and that was about it.

Which also explained why people came to them rather than them going out to customers. They traded their technological services for raw materials they couldn’t get on their current planet and hoarded them. Sara indicated that she had offered to trade them a great deal more, and as a result the Tamni were offering up more information than she’d even requested. It seemed that they were always lacking for something and having to ration various things. Food wasn’t one of them, but their civilization was perpetually on life support. Stable, but unable to grow in any meaningful way.

And since coming out to this galactic arm they’d been unable to acquire any Solari, meaning there was a whole host of machines they couldn’t build. When Sara had told them they’d be able to trade for that as well, in small amounts, they’d immediately reversed their isolationist footing and wanted to open a permanent link to Star Force.

Sara had indicated that she was going to set up a small colony on the planet to act as an intermediary and trading partner, but wanted Davis to choose which faction it should come from.

He thought about that for a moment. The Bsidd had the largest population and this world wasn’t far from their region, but there were other races within Star Force that were looking to expand and he figured this would be a good opportunity to throw one of them a bone. This colony wasn’t going to grow to cover the entire planet, rather be restricted to a piece of it that it would develop to fill then remain contained. The Tamni owned the planet, which Sara was willing to concede to them even though it was Star Force that had removed the lizards from it, and the colony was just going to be a link into the Star Force markets in an otherwise empty region.

So that limited growth potential meant the best choice would be a ward. The colony would be open to the public, so not quite an Axius deal but it wouldn’t be closed off to one faction only like many worlds were. Davis needed a ward to run it, but one that could facilitate both Star Force traffic and other visitors while allowing the Tamni to maintain their privacy.

There were several wards that could do that, but one that had been chomping at the bit was the Aronsic. Ever since the end of the Skarron war they’d been eager beavers with little to do. Their population hadn’t grown rapidly due to a lack of females recovered from Skarron planets, but over time that had rectified itself and they numbered about 3 billion spread across two systems and 4 planets. Neither of those systems were controlled by them, with Mainline colonies and other wards present, so giving them a chance to expand beyond that would be most welcome.

Davis knew he needed to assign a veteran Administrator to the task though to handle the interface with the Tamni and to set up the links to the transit network. He pulled up one of his quick lists of personnel and input a search parameter that gave him 294 candidates. He scanned the list briefly, with only a few names sticking out at him, then he picked a Kiritas named Briddi and brought up her file.

She was 493 years old, had worked a stint with the Kiritak that lasted 43 years before returning to the Kiritas faction and helping to run one of their major trade hubs. After that she’d moved to an Axius posting, then over to work with the Calavari before finally landing in a Mainline colony with a high Administrator ranking, but not quite good enough to warrant a Monarch posting. Her skills weren’t widespread enough for that, but her proven abilities would cover this assignment easily.

He logged the transfer request and sent it off immediately. There was a chance she wouldn’t want to go, but typically most Star Force transfers weren’t declined. On occasion someone would want to stay with a particular faction, but given how much Briddi had been moving around he didn’t see a problem with it…especially since he was assigning her to the top position in a new colony. That’d be a new mark for her and he had no doubts that she’d jump at it, as most Administrators were accustomed to doing. There was so much work to do in the empire, but so few top positions available that any time you could run an operation, let alone a planet, an Administrator couldn’t afford to pass up the opportunity if they had aims to increase their skillset and work their way up the leadership ranks.

And most of them knew that Davis was watching them. Monarchs were handpicked by him, and it was assumed that the more challenging of tasks that an Administrator could do the more they’d show up on his radar for future assignments. Running a world of your own was usually a Monarch’s job, so even though this was only going to be a small colony, it was the type of situation where an Administrator could show off, especially when it was being built from scratch. Briddi would be able to design it as she saw fit, and it would also be a chance to see how she could work with the Aronsic and utilize their skills.

“Knock, knock,” Paul said, coming up the stairway into his office.

“Morning,” Davis greeted, pausing his work as he looked at the now black haired trailblazer. “What happened to the blue?”

“Felt like a change,” he said, spinning a chair around and straddling it. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to say hello to the new Vilord,” Davis said with a smile.

“You’re close to acolyte yourself.”

“Plodding along as usual, yes. Adept 98 and near to 99.”

“So long as you’re improving, the rate doesn’t matter.”

“Says the guy who’s constantly racing Morgan for new ranks.”

“Friendly competition,” Paul corrected with a smirk.

“I take it she’s not too happy you beat her to it.”

“Knowing Morgan, she’s ticked off. I haven’t talked to her since, but to be fair I’ve been camping out in the advanced training program and been making up ground. She hasn’t been back here since she moved her Clan to the border.”

“Think this will bring her back for a bit?”

“I doubt it. She’ll just try to train harder where she is…or build a bigger sanctum. How many worlds are you going to let her take?”

“As many as she can.”

“This is Morgan we’re talking about. She’ll be at the galactic core eventually.”

“Not if she keeps expanding laterally. Am I sensing some professional jealousy?”

“Yes,” Paul admitted. “She’s got the most territory of any Clan now, by far.”

“It was hard earned.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“As was your ViLord rank.”

“Point taken.”

“So…what is Clan Saber up to now?”

“Like you don’t already know.”

“I don’t know everything, just a lot. What are you focusing towards?”

“Primarily…naval tweaks. Can’t beat the V’kit’no’sat if we can at least hold the line in engagements where we have a 10 to 1 advantage. We’re not there yet, but we need to be.”

“How do you think they’ll respond to the drones?”

“I’ve been discussing that with Jason quite a bit. If they can’t jam them, they’ll either go straight for the control ships or ignore them completely. Either way we can use that to our advantage if we can shave down their tech advantage. If we can’t, then it’s going to get ugly in the best case scenarios.”

Davis sat up in his chair and leaned forward, bringing up a map of the scattering of Clan Saber holdings, along with numerous holographic windows of Clan stats.

“You’ve done well, Paul. Damn well. As have the rest of you. But with you…I know you’ve got something else in the works. You’ve covered your tracks well, but you’re operating a lot of your colonies with a cushion. Not much, but I know you’re more efficient than that. And not resources. I mean personnel. You’ve got too much staff logged in across the board. Where are they really at?”

Paul stared at him for a moment, then hung his head. “Damn you.”

“I guessed right then,” Davis said, not having been sure until now.

“I thought I hadn’t left any traces.”

“You didn’t.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I hadn’t.”

“I don’t think anyone else would notice, especially since it’s Clan-wide. You each do things differently, but I’ve been with you from the beginning so I know how you think. There is no giveaway in your Clan stats that I could find, it just doesn’t fit your mojo. No outsider would spot that. So…what are you working on?”

“Not working on. Already done,” Paul said with a sigh. “Notice anything about Clan Sangheili?”

Davis’s head ticked to the side. “No.”

“Add insult to injury,” Paul scoffed.

“A joint venture?”

“Yeah. Something off the books in case our computer systems were compromised. Jason should be running excess personnel too?”

“Not that I’ve noticed, but then again he’s always been a little heavy handed in that department.”

“I’ve never paid that close of attention to how the others operated. Do we all have a fingerprint like that?”

“Oh yes. Even when you’re doing the same things there are telltale signs, though things sometimes alter when you get a new Marquis. Some of them add more flair while others go by the book and don’t alter what you’ve already established, merely adding to and repeating it.”

“Renning?” Paul guessed, referencing Jason’s current Marquis.

“There was a shift when he came on. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t notice the personnel shift, if Jason is doing the same thing you are?”

“He is. We decided to spawn a new Clan in secret. One off the books and without territory.”

“Kara?” Davis guessed.

Paul shook his head. “You really know us too well.”

“I’m on your side, so don’t worry about it.”

“Thankfully.”

“So where is this new Clan…”

“Ghostblade. It’s outside Star Force territory, raiding lizard shipping and worlds for resources to fuel a mobile fleet. Right now they’re working on a tiny moveable star forge. All the personnel are Clan Saber and Sangheili members, but all resources and ships are built beyond Star Force bookkeeping.”

Davis leaned back in his chair, eyeing the trailblazer. “You two sneaky little bastards.”

Paul smiled widely. “We learned from you.”

“And you covered your tracks well. Why not have a completely separate population?”

“Maturias? We’re not allowed to have them anymore.”

“If this is a rogue operation…”

“Not going to pin anyone down to a mobile fleet unless they want to be there. I thought I’d covered our tracks well enough to make that work.”

“Other than your fingerprint, there is nothing that I’ve seen to give it away, so I think you’re on solid ground. Has Kara really been gone that much?”

“She keeps popping around on odd assignments, but most of her time is spent with her Clan.”

“I guess she spent a lot of time beyond borders anyway. I didn’t spot that change either.”

“So I really run with low personnel?”

“Due to your pushing your resources harder than others, but you always stay just an edge on the safe line. The others may push the Archons and military, but you run your industrial base closer than anyone else does. You know how to get a lot out of your personnel, so when you slack off a bit it shows, to me anyway.”

“So that’s a compliment then?”

“Like you didn’t already know. Your starship production facilities pump out more ships than any other Clan, and I have no doubt that your twindome with Jason is why Sangheili is a close second.”

“Well, I guess I feel better then. Jason not being found out was due to his sluggishness. Yeah, I can live with that, so long as the V’kit’no’sat don’t notice the same thing.”

“I’m certain they wouldn’t,” Davis assured him. “Speaking of which, I just got an update on our new neighbors. Apparently they came from Sagittarius before the Rit’ko’sor rebellion.”

“Any reason why they moved?”

“Civil war of some sort. I was just reading through it when you came in. Sara wants to set up a colony on their planet to facilitate trade, and I’m sending the Aronsic.”

“The Hobbits? Are we upgrading them?”

“More like allowing them to upgrade themselves. I’m not planning on any push.”

“Anyone else getting a promotion?”

“The Rammus have caught my eye. They’ve come a long ways in such a short time. I wish they could reproduce faster, because they’re just too few of them right now to do what I want to do with them.”

“Which is?”

“An empire-wide support faction.”

“Support as in…”

“League of legends support.”

Paul was taken aback. “Where did you learn about League?”

“Greg turned me onto it. Not quite as good as the games we’ve got nowadays, but it does have an obvious motif structure that makes role play obvious.”

“Have you played it then?”

“A bit on the retro games platform.”

“Who do you main?”

“Main?”

“Guess you haven’t played that much then.”

“A term I should know?”

“What champ do you use the most.”

“Oh, well that’s Nedrador then. How about you back in the day? I doubt you get much of a chance to play it now.”

“Caitlyn…and no, I haven’t played in a long time.”

“Do you play any in the field?”

“I’ll hit up a little Mario Kart or Hedrasool if I need to force my brain to detox, but no, I’m either fighting, training, or sleeping. ViLords can’t afford to play video games much.”

Davis smiled. “I suppose they can’t. How soon do you leave?”

“Two days, maybe three. Depends when Aaron’s fleet is ready. Wanna go along on this one?”

“I can’t afford several years away, but part of me wants to be there. These bastards have been plaguing us and this region for so long I’m surprised we’re finally at this point, yet it seems like it’s taken far too long. Do you think there will be any special surprises waiting for you?”

“I don’t think they’ve got any tricks left in the bag, but we’ll keep an eye out just the same. We’re taking enough ships that we’ll have a significant advantage this time, and every Clan is sending at least one warship.”

“Make sure you send pics. I intend to gloat to every race out there when we take the lizard capitol.”

“Don’t worry, I promise to get you plenty of gloating material.”

www.aerkijyr.com

STAR FORCE Wiki

1

June 14, 3202

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Middle Zone

Paul was standing in the Excalibur’s command nexus as the ship was finishing its hard deceleration into the enemy system when he heard a series of distant rumbles and had a vibration through the deck rock him on his feet. Immediately he saw alerts pop up on the ship’s status display, detailing the fallen shields and the huge hole in the ship’s forward starboard side that ran like a knife blade halfway to the interior.

Already linked into the system he calculated what had happened and sent an immediate ping backwards to the other ships in the convoy alerting them to the fact that the jumpline was mined. He’d brought his ships in off the line a ways and was right now having to correct for that misalignment with some serious navigational tugs on the system’s planets…though that was made even more difficult due to the fact that the ship had just lost two gravity drives in the damaged area.

But the Excalibur slid to a halt in the middle zone of the star system, farther in than he’d wanted but still clear of the lizard fleets choking the inner zone to death. The ship’s sensors could pick up the enemy’s own sensor bounce and the light having come off them minutes ago, though they hadn’t seen his ship arrive yet. Paul did see, in addition to multiple smaller holes on his command ship that hadn’t penetrated more than a few hundred meters, that a warship came out of its deceleration further behind the Excalibur and was reporting no damage.

Another came, then another before his ship’s sensors bounced back from the numerous contacts further out along their incoming trajectory. There were millions of chunks of rock placed in a cylinder along the jumpline far away from the star. The Excalibur, having come in offline, had clipped the nearest edge of that field…

Paul immediately sent information back to the approaching ships of the field size and placement so they could navigate around it no matter how that would screw up their approaches. They might end up on the other side of the system before they bled off momentum, but that was preferable to ramming another of the rocks.

A contact zipped by the Excalibur and Paul’s gut wrenched as the sensors recognized the debris of a Warship-class jumpship broken into four segments and falling out of control in towards the star. There were people on that ship, not just drones, and anyone who might have still been alive was either going to ram into the star or run into the lizard ship swarm first and get blown away.

Paul sent out dozens of orders simultaneously, one of which was to the command ship’s remaining gravity drives, having them enhance the star’s pull as much as possible and jump the Excalibur in towards it at reckless speed. It had to accelerate from a dead stop, but it gradually ate up the speed difference with what had been the Manticore then reeled it back in as the lizard fleet ahead was getting closer in a hurry.

As fast as it was going, the now dead jumpship had already bled off most of its interstellar speed, which had been further reduced by the slow jump necessary to allow the fleet to come out in the middle zone rather than the inner and avoid the lizard defense fleet waiting there to ambush anyone coming in on the expected jumplines.

But Paul still didn’t have enough time. Even as the lizard fleet saw the speeding ships coming and graciously moved out of the way so they could hit the star without interference, the Excalibur caught up to one of the four segments and his waiting crew locked onto it with every tractor beam the command ship had, having to abandon the other three, and extended a weakened IDF field out around it. Normally that was something a command ship was built to do with ease in order to disable nearby enemy ships, but a decent portion of the necessary equipment inside the Excalibur had been junked when that mine had dug in so deep.

The field was steady, but there was only so much stress it could take without collapsing. The tractor beams held the ship segment firm to the command ship, but they couldn’t do squat to move the thing at any decent speed without the IDF. It was what was taking the inertial stresses in the Manticore fragment’s place, and if it collapsed the tractor beams would rip out the pieces of the hull they were gripping and it would break free.

Paul and the ship’s computer were calculating the stresses as best they could and knew it was going to be close. The blue/white star ahead of them was shifting to the right even as it was growing to fill the forward viewscreens. Stellar radiation began baking the exposed hull, but a few seconds later the shields snapped back over most of the Excalibur, thought the Manticore fragment had no such protection.

Pulling to the side as much as it could, the command ship brought the chunk of jumpship down to kiss the star’s atmosphere, burning through several sections of hull before they began gaining stellar altitude, but were continuing to get baked from the radiation that close in. With their momentum persevered they passed by the star quickly and the radiation threat diminished as the Excalibur shot between lizard formations on the other side that were fortunately not in the way.

“Admiral, get rescue crews over there immediately. You have the ship.”

“Understood,” Admiral Franken said grimly as Paul’s mind directed itself to the rest of the star system. Lag times in signals were increased the further they got away from the convoy, but he was already picking up battlemap signals indicating that two other jumpships had been hit by mines upon entry. Cursing silently he watched the updates belatedly flow into him, noting that no more in his convoy were taking hits thanks to a much wider approach vector. They were coming in somewhere other than planned and much closer to the star than he’d wanted, but there were no lizards waiting for them there.

But there were other damage alerts starting to make their way to him coming in from other Star Force convoys that were coming into the star system simultaneously on other jumplines. They’d timed their departures so that all 12 convoys would be arriving along different jumplines at the same time, making it hard for the lizards to spot them incoming and rush to meet them before they could get enough ships into play. Simultaneous arrivals also meant they could get the ships here 12 times faster, even if they weren’t all in the same location.

Paul was reading damaged or destroyed jumpships in Aaron’s convoy, more in Brian’s, and he expected to get more in as the battlemap signals from the more distant ones traveled across the system far faster than the speed of light, but well too slow for anything resembling instantaneous communication.

Paul was furious at the loss of people occurring, for every one of those ships were manned. The last scout they’d sent into the system had reported no mine fields of any kind, and it’d only been 37 days since it had last been here.

How the hell did the lizards get mine fields of this size and density set up on multiple jumplines and this far out from the star since then?

The answer didn’t hit him for some time, namely because it was so big and his focus was on the arriving convoys. All of them eventually stopped reporting dead ships soon after the first ones arrived, for they were all adjusting their incoming trajectories around the fields once alerted. If they hadn’t, or had been coming in straight on the jumplines, just about every ship in their convoys would have been destroyed up until the time when the impacts cleared a hole through the field for more ships to pass through.

The lizards had walled themselves in good, expecting attack. That meant the scout ship had not been here undetected. Paul hadn’t counted on it going unnoticed, but how had they gotten that many mines in place in such a short span of time?

His mindboggling answer came when he looked at the status of the six inhabited planets in the system…and saw that one of them was missing a shipyard ring.

Paul double checked himself, making sure he was thinking straight, but there was no mistaking the fact that the scout had reported 6 rings, one around each planet, 37 days ago…

And now there were only 5.

Paul pulled up a closer look at those mines from the previous sensor readings, as well as what was being transmitted from the other ships, and saw that they weren’t identically shaped. Rather they were chunks of rubble ranging from the size of a tank up to the size of a cruiser.

The lizards had somehow disassembled an entire shipyard ring and moved the pieces out to all 12…no, make that 23 different jumplines, and mined them all the way out in the middle zone where a wider pattern was needed to catch ships. Normally you’d put a field in close where maneuvering options were less, but they’d probably expected Star Force to come in using slower jumps so to avoid the defending fleet near the star. They couldn’t know where exactly they’d emerge to be waiting for them, so they’d mined all the approaches and sacrificed a shipyard ring to get enough material for it.

But how had they torn apart one and moved it all in such little time?

Paul looked at the lizard fleet guarding the star and the updated ship icons around the planets as they came in, knowing he had his answer.

They’d brought in their cruiser fleet and had it shoot the ring, breaking off pieces that were then latched onto and pulled out to the wanted locations. The scout had reported there were over 12 million cruisers in this system, and apparently they’d put them to good use since the scout ship had left.

As the Admiral saw to getting dropships over to the piece of the Manticore to see if anyone was still alive, Paul stepped out of the nexus for a moment, disconnecting from the system and balling his fists. He knew it could have been far worse, but he’d gone through entire planetary invasions without losing a single person before, and already they’d lost several thousand minimum to these mines. People who had spent centuries training and improving themselves. All of it wasted by running into some dumb chunks of rubble.

The lizards didn’t care about dying, or killing others, no matter what the numbers…and that was one reason why they had to be taken out. Whether by dying or being captured, these bastards could not be allowed to leave this system.

And Paul knew they didn’t care about that either. Every lizard here knew they were going to fight to the death and there would be no escape. It was their homeworld and they didn’t care. They hadn’t bothered trying to evacuate, merely writing off everyone here to their deaths, so why would they care about trying to kill Paul’s fleet? The more Star Force personnel who died here the better, and if they had managed to kill most or all of the fleet with the mines then they probably would have considered the loss of their homeworld suitable compensation.

Ripples of invisible energy formed around Paul as he let his fury flow out of his mind and into his body. The Jumat energy pooled around him, then in a split second of rage he threw it all at the wall to his left, denting a two meter wide crater into it with a crunch.

Paul forced a slow breath, transitioning his internal fire into ice. He had a moment to spare while the Admiral worked, but he needed to get his mind into as efficient a mode as possible before he went back at it, which was why he’d allowed himself to bleed off that Jumat blast. There was no way to bring back those who were lost, and they were going to have to kill every lizard in this system anyway, so there wasn’t even a chance for vengeance. The lizards had won the opening round, and there was no undoing that.

A crewmember ran into view in the short hallway behind Paul, with the trailblazer waving him off. “It’s ok. I just punched the wall in frustration.”

The crewer looked at the dent and nodded. “We all feel the same way. Make these bastards pay for it.”

“Unless they surrender, none of them are leaving this system alive,” Paul said firmly.

“You’re still going to offer…after this?”

“Yes,” Paul said simply, getting himself back into ‘Admiral’ mode. “They won’t accept it, but if we don’t offer then they will have scored another victory in being able to manipulate us. And if even one of them surrenders, that’ll be a victory for us.”

“I guess more dead lizards mean nothing to their leaders.”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Sorry for the suggestion.”

Paul shook his head. “Wanting to get back at the lizards is the correct emotional response. How you apply it is the tricky part. The most obvious method is not always the right one.”

“Point taken,” the crewman said, excusing herself with a nod and disappearing back around the intact wall that separated the command nexus from the rest of the bridge.

Paul stood there for a moment, thinking. Sometimes you did just need to hit something, immediately. Unfortunately this war was about the lizards expanding, which meant they were actually winning. Lose 1 world, gain 10 more, even if that one was their homeworld. Taking this system was going to hurt the lizards for sure, but they weren’t defeating them in coming here. The lizards would survive as a race, even if these would die, and they would spread and build elsewhere. Already the Voku had identified three systems in the coreward half of lizard territory that had partially operational shipyard rings. They’d destroyed one of them, but it was clear the lizards were just building new, albeit small at this point, core worlds in their new territories even as Star Force was taking their originals down.

The lizard expansion systems were weak, Paul knew, but damn the V’kit’no’sat for keeping Star Force from going after them when they were done here. Risking detection wasn’t worth it, otherwise Paul and the others could hunt down and kill all of these bastards given enough time. With that no longer an option with their coreward expansion, the victories Star Force was going after were selective. Taking out the original lizard empire, for one, was no small thing. And with the eventual fall of this system and the rest of the core worlds they’d be sending a big message to this part of the galaxy that the lizards were not unbeatable. They might be numerous, but not superior.

Star Force was the new power in the region, and even The Nexus was going to take notice when the lizard capitol fell, for they knew this enemy was not as small as they pretended it to be. Davis had learned that much from his contacts, and they were relieved they were no longer encroaching into Nexus space in force. One less threat for them to deal with on their very long list.

But there was no getting around the people lost here. Had Paul or the others even suspected the lizards could set up this type of minefield so fast they would have prepared for it, but they’d never used this tactic before and the idea of them cannibalizing a shipyard ring to do it had never crossed Paul’s mind. He’d always known the lizards were adaptable and innovative, and a part of him was kicking himself for not seeing this possibility. Next time they’d make sure a scout was sent in just prior to the invasion so they wouldn’t have this much time to work with, but their rate of mine laying scared Paul, for he knew there would still be several days gap between when a scout ship left the target and when the attacking convoy would arrive, especially if that convoy was going slow enough to come out in middle stellar orbit or higher.

He’d have to send multiple scouts and leave some behind to watch for mine laying so they could transmit a warning to the incoming convoy, allowing them to divert like they were now.

Damn it, why hadn’t they thought of that before?

Because tearing apart an entire ring around a planet in a little over a month is nuts, Paul admitted. It had probably taken them centuries to build that one ring, maybe more if it was one of the earlier ones in their empire. But if you were going to lose it anyway, why not take it apart yourself and put it to use.

This mission was already a failure, but Paul and the others still had a job to do.

He stepped back into the nexus and linked into the system, getting a couple of messages from his fellow trailblazers that were variations on curses and facepalms. None of them were happy, but an initial report from the first boarding party on the Manticore was picking up localized emergency beacons. Low power and long lasting, the beacons were used to highlight regions within the ship to rescue crews to allow them to find survivors in lifeboat-like enclosures or other makeshift sanctuaries.

That didn’t mean anyone was still alive after the radiation cooking they’d got in near the star, but if they were only half dead Paul had a V’kit’no’sat regenerator onboard that would bring them back. Hopefully they’d be able to pull at least one person back from this ambush.

In the meantime crews were heading out to do emergency repairs on the Excalibur while they were away from combat. The damage was such that they’d need a shipyard to fix it all, but some band aids could be applied here and there to the massive construct…and that mass was the reason why Paul wasn’t taking a dip in the star himself. That, combined with the higher shield strength, had blocked or dampened enough of the mine hits to allow the Excalibur to survive.

And judging from the damage reports, she wasn’t just alive but still combat capable. Not 100% by a long shot, but she wasn’t going to be a spectator in this fight.

As the Star Force convoys were continuing to emerge from their jumps around the system Paul saw the lizard fleets in low stellar orbit begin to detach and race out towards the jumppoints to engage them before they could get all their ships here. The fighting was about to go down in a very heavy way, but Star Force had enough ships in play to keep their footholds while the rest arrived, and at the moment it seemed the lizards were ignoring the Excalibur entirely.

As soon as the Manticore debris was searched his ship was heading back in. Until then his convoy commanders would be in charge of the fighting, for he was too far away to suffer the signal lag, making him for the moment a mere spectator while his peers were the ones calling the shots as the first lizard ships came into contact and the battle for this system began.

2

June 16, 3202

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Middle Zone

Paul hadn’t slept in 2 days, having taken only the mildest of breaks that amounted to a grand total of 23 minutes absent from the nexus onboard the Excalibur. After recovering 6 survivors from the Manticore his command ship had jumped its way back across the star system to rejoin the fight underway at the entry jumppoint. All 834 jumpships in his convoy had already arrived and deployed drones by that time and the lizards hadn’t backed off, preferring to meet the invaders and fight to the death and kill as many of them as they could rather than playing a waiting game that they knew they would badly lose.

There were so many ships in play across all 12 jumppoints that even after 2 straight days of fighting there were still some active lizard ships out there amongst the debris. Paul’s mind was locked on them, sending orders to a few drone pilots as to what routes to take through the debris to head them off as the Excalibur sat broken but not defeated amongst a mass of Warship-class jumpships while they all remotely controlled their smaller, unmanned kin. Some others were out near the combat, but with so much debris in the area it was easier for the drones to skirt around it solo, leaving the giant manned ships back to lick their wounds while their crews hunted down the remaining lizard ships.

This battle was already won, but Paul wasn’t going to allow an extra drone to get destroyed out of sloppiness, and that’s exactly what the lizards were attempting to do before they died. They were maneuvering around the debris rather than making a suicidal charge, getting Star Force to chase them in the hopes of setting an ambush for one or more of the drones.

But so long as he and other Archons were watching over and guiding the battle they didn’t have a chance. It took another 5 hours to clean up what was left of the lizards near Paul’s jumppoint, then he finally was able to let his mind wind down as he checked the status of the other fleets around the system.

Four were already clear, with the other seven being in their final stages of cleaning up as well. There had been over 12 million lizard cruisers here and some 730,000 Star Force drones carried by 9,421 jumpships, plus 73 command ships. Paul was grateful that this had not been one massive battle, for his alone had been far too large and his mind was starting to object fiercely now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

The crew had been rotating in and out, so they were all fairly fresh, but he was not. Even with his Inas he was barely holding his mind together after such a long, continuous intense effort.

Paul walked out of the nexus and down the short hall, turning the corner and coming onto the bridge where he caught Franken’s attention.

“Admiral, I’ve got to crash. Hold the fleet here until the others get done fighting, but get us clear of the debris field…no, check that. Start clearing the jump lane. Nudge it to the side so we can recover it later. Unless we come under attack again, don’t wake me. I’ll get back to you when I’m sane again.”

“Understood. Do you want a courier sent back warning of the minefield?”

Paul hesitated, kicking himself for not thinking of that. “Find out if anyone has done that already and send one if they haven’t. I am so brain fried right now.”

“Most of the Archons didn’t rest,” the Admiral told him, having already checked their status. “The fleet can hold itself together while you guys crash. I promise we won’t break anything until you wake up.”

Paul nodded. “Good work today…or, days. Make sure the crew knows it. That was a nasty fight after a nasty ambush and no one tanked.”

“Did you expect them to?” the Admiral asked, a mix of curiosity and wounded pride.

“I don’t know what I expected. We haven’t lost that many people in a very long time,” Paul said, rubbing his eyes. “Damn I’m fried. Anything else I’m forgetting?”

“We just destroyed the largest fleet in lizard history.”

“That we know of…and it’s still not over yet. If the others ask for help be ready to send it, but I don’t think they will. And get some ships in low orbit so no lizards can sneak out.”

“And we can poach any incoming traffic?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, unable to stifle a yawn. “I’m out of here.”

“Take as much time as you need,” Franken insisted as Paul walked off the bridge. He got halfway to his quarters when he saw Riona step out in front of him, surprised that he hadn’t noticed her mental presence before that.

“You alright?” she asked, not looking all that well herself having come from a secondary nexus onboard the ship.

“Fried. You?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”

“What then?”

“The mines.”

Paul’s face slacked a bit, but he didn’t have much wherewithal left in him to lose. He was starting to get dizzy now that he wasn’t forcing himself to hold together during the battle. “I’m not ok with it, but it feels like it happened a long time ago. How are you doing?”

“Ticked and tired. Wanna crash?”

“That’s where I’m headed.”

“My quarters are closer.”

“By about 200 meters.”

“Do you really feel like walking that extra 200?”

“No,” Paul admitted. “Thanks,” he said as they began walking again.

Neither one said another word, nor did they have any telepathic conversations. There wasn’t much to be said and neither one was in good enough shape for a coherent discussion. They both needed to rest hard and get themselves back into play so they could oversee the next stage of the invasion. There wasn’t a rush per se, but with the lizards you never wanted to give them extra time to get clever with…and the mine field was ample evidence of what they could do in a very short span of time.

When they got to Riona’s quarters Paul followed her in and shut the door, then both of them crashed on her bed and fell asleep as soon as they let their last bit of resistance go, knowing they had time to recover and allowing themselves to indulge in that blissful rest.

Paul was back on the bridge and in the nexus 9 hours later, still a bit groggy and needing to get in a shakeout run, but wanting to get himself up to speed on the situation first. According to the battlemap feeds that were flowing across the system constantly like a giant net connecting every single Star Force ship, the naval combat was now over save for some intercepts happening near the star. A good number of the lizard cargo jumpships had tried to make it out and run the blockade, with some 18 ships out of over 2,000 having made it on some very long jumplines that were questionable as to whether or not they could accurately hit the destination star. The rest were now additional junk that drones were going around to and destroying further rather than allowing any surviving lizards to slowly suffocate or freeze to death.

As per standard orders, surrender offers were going out on a regular basis…and as per standard lizard protocol they were all being subsequently ignored. Star Force would keep sending them though, right up until the last of them were dead or they broke their trend and actually accepted.

Looking around the rest of the system he saw the remaining lizard civilian ships clustering near the battlestations or shipyard rings. The latter they were going to board and take as previously done, though there was now one less to claim. That would save them some time, but first they’d need to take out the battlestations and any other defensive emplacements the lizards had in orbit around the various planets.

There were also a large number of warehouses here, more so than even in the other core worlds that they’d taken to date. What each contained varied greatly. Some had spare parts, foodstuffs, old ships, explosives, raw materials…they were never the same, and a few previously had been booby-trapped. They’d all need to be inspected and safed before being ticked off the threat list, and unless there was a reason to destroy them Paul wasn’t going to. Everything in this system would eventually be recycled and used to fuel Star Force, so breaking things up with weaponsfire was counterproductive when you’d just have to hunt down those many drifting pieces later.

There was a complication, however. Of the six inhabited planets, and there were others with outposts on them, there was a large tract of land on one that was not covered with cityscape. The scout ship had noted this and Paul was getting updates on that location now that they had ships in closer, with him seeing that the land was housing billions of varying races that the lizards used for food.

Star Force would not be targeting them from orbit, and the last time they’d taken a lizard farm thankfully their intentions hadn’t been noticed. Paul hoped this would also be the case, for as long as the lizards didn’t realize they intended on rescuing the lizard livestock then they wouldn’t try to use them to their advantage. The only reason that hadn’t occurred to date was the fact that the previous farms taken had occurred in a single swoop that didn’t allow for any communications out of the system.

That was prudent so the lizards couldn’t learn as much from Star Force’s tactics. When a system went dark, as far as the rest of the lizard empire was concerned, Star Force didn’t want them knowing what had happened to it short of risking to send in a scout ship of their own. If the lizards here didn’t realize that their cattle were on the Star Force priority list, then hopefully they’d still be alive after the lizards were all dead…though Paul could see them killing them just to spite the invaders, and he hoped that didn’t come to pass here.

All the other core worlds they’d taken thus far didn’t have farms in them, for it seemed they were too costly to maintain as a food supply for such enormous populations. Shipments of meat were then brought in to them in some form of priority system. How that worked was still uncertain despite Star Force having accessed a lot of lizard databases in the core worlds they took. Who got the meat and who didn’t wasn’t noted, so maybe it was based on an informal system that was so basic, or perhaps mentally ingrained into them, that they didn’t need to bother recording it in their computer logs.

There were plenty of farm worlds, large ones even, spread throughout lizard territory that Star Force had taken previously, but none of them were located within the surrounding cityscape. The fact that there was one here was noteworthy, for it seemed the capitol wanted its own local supply of meat rather than having to ship it in in lesser numbers.

Yet one more reason these bastards had to be stopped.

Right now though that farm region was sitting underneath its own powerful energy shields. Not to protect the foodstock, but to deny an enemy an easy landing zone. In fact there was no place on any of the six planets that wasn’t covered with either a plate-like shield or a domed variety. Not one square inch of vulnerability, and the shields here were registering significantly increased power levels. That had been anticipated, due to the fact that it was their capitol, but what Paul was seeing now showed shield density matrixes 3x what they should have been.

The lizards had gotten another tech upgrade.

Paul chewed on his lower lip as he thought. The shield strength wasn’t going to save them, but it would mean Star Force would lose more drones to the anti-orbital batteries while knocking out that first hole through which to land ground troops…and he was sure that all of these guns were cleansing beams. Based off the distribution pattern on the surface, the density of the batteries had increased as well, not to mention the placement of several sites that exceeded previously encountered weaponry. Either these were bigger versions of the same weapons or the lizards had kept something in reserve for their capitol.

He wondered about that. Why hold something back when you could do more damage by spreading the tech around everywhere? Then again, Earth had some beefy defenses of its own not seen elsewhere, or at least not yet, due to the cost of producing them. Epsilon Eridani was building one of the massive Bra’hem beam turrets right now, but they required so much solari that they weren’t cost effective within Star Force yet.

Earth currently had 7 of them and was working on an eighth, and every Archon knew why it had to have the big guns before any other planet did.

But if that’s the same idea that the lizards had taken to here, they’d been at it for a very, very long time. And given their more recent cleansing beam additions, whatever these big guns were couldn’t have been that advanced…or had they seen the writing on the wall and just went all out in building the biggest and hardest system to take in order to kill as many Star Force ships and troops as they could as a massive middle finger while they trotted off to their coreward territory?

“Yeah, I’m getting the feeling that’s exactly what they did,” he whispered to himself as he looked through more updates across all six major planets. The minor ones were airless and had a plethora of mining sites, most of which seemed abandoned, and from the mass readings he knew they were now hollow. What was inside he didn’t know, but they’d find out before hitting the inhabited worlds.

Paul had access to a file sharing system that no one else did aside from the trailblazers, and inside it he had already seen that some of the others had claimed targets for their own. Given that they were still spread out across the system and couldn’t talk to each other in real time, this was the best way to communicate and they knew each other so well they could do so shorthand to save a lot of time.

Right now the targets tagged were orbital ones, with the battlestations being divvied up but not all claimed yet. Paul ignored them and decided to tackle two of the minor planets that were orbiting each other. The binary pair wasn’t equally balanced, though the larger one was reading less mass than the smaller, with it swinging in a more robust orbit as the two danced around one another.

Paul also included the handful of orbital installations and battlestations there, completely claiming those two locations for his fleet to handle while the other 11 fleets went about taking down varying pieces of the lizard defenses and infrastructure. That was one of the advantages of having other trailblazers here. He could totally depend on them to get things done and Paul didn’t feel that he had to watch over their shoulders in the slightest. Had he assigned Riona to such a task he could have trusted her to get it done without him worrying, but with the other trailblazers he knew they might well come up with ideas that he wouldn’t, making them more than just replacements for him in those other engagements, and perhaps even his superior in some circumstances.

He’d make sure to review what they did later so he could steal any good ideas, but right now he was going to focus on this pair of minor planets and find out what was hollowed out inside both, for even the more massive one was reading less of a gravitational field than it should have. Even if he wasn’t curious, everything in this system that was lizard had to be checked out and cleansed of inhabitation.

It was going to take some time to clear the mine fields and neither Paul nor the others wanted to start bringing in their ground troops until that was done. While there wasn’t supposed to be anyone else arriving here he was worried that Cal-com might show up anyway. He’d originally planned to help Paul with decapitating the lizard empire, but a priority target had been discovered just on the other side of the coreward boundary line where Star Force wouldn’t go and Cal-com had wanted to knock it out before it could help strengthen the surrounding systems.

Paul had agreed, knowing that even if they allowed a tiny piece of a shipyard ring to get established it would flood cruisers to the surrounding systems and begin to snowball once it got a big enough supply fleet established to keep the raw materials flowing. Symbolism of taking the capitol aside, the more of these big targets in the region where Star Force wouldn’t go that the Voku could take out would see a significant impact going forward. Maybe not for Star Force, but for others fighting against them…or those just trying to survive a little longer before they were annihilated.

Paul hated to say it, but maybe if this dragged on longer the Skarron empire might get their head out of their ass and send the type of reinforcements to fight the lizards that he guessed they were capable of. They might have been in a situation like The Nexus, with so many threats they couldn’t focus on just one, but Paul had to believe that an empire so large that it dwarfed what the lizards had built could squash this invasion if they put their full force behind it and for some reason they hadn’t been willing to do that yet.

Regardless of their situation, the lizard capitol was going down and Paul knew Star Force had assembled more than enough drones to make it happen, so he’d told Cal-com to go hunting elsewhere with the ships he’d been gathering for this invasion. The Voku were currently invading other lizard worlds, almost as many as Star Force was, with more and more troops flowing out from their home territory to assist in the massive lizard cleansing effort and the patrolling and holding of the territory thus liberated from them.

But it would be just like Cal-com to send some ships to help mop up the lizards after the big push and he didn’t want any of them running into these mine fields. To him, getting these moved was the first priority, and several of the other trailblazers had already begun dealing with theirs in a hope to clean out the ‘highways’ before anyone could accidentally stumble upon them or the cleaning crews…which was why all the ships were keeping a keen eye on incoming stellar reflectivity. If there was a ship incoming they might be able to warn them off just in time, and if not they still needed to get out of the way themselves…and with a sky full of debris they couldn’t just zip out of there in a straight line in any direction they wanted.

Mine field first, pair of planets second, Paul settled on. Lizard homeworld we’ll save for last.

3

June 29, 3202

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Hemratik

With his fleet split up dealing with multiple targets in the minor planets, Paul stood in the bridge nexus as the command ship scanned the planet they’d just rid of orbital defenses. Now that they were able to get in this close they had a better picture of what was below the surface…and it was showing enormous caverns within the lighter of the two planets that were reading gaseous atmosphere and water in different sections.

That was about all their sensors could tell them, for the outer crust of the planet was still solid rock. He saw the water and could think of only a few possibilities, then found Riona’s presence within the battlemap network and sent her a direct question through the mind-linked computer systems.

Thoughts?

They probably hollowed out the planet mining then repurposed it for habitation. The water could be storage reserves or maybe living space for a pocket of their aquatic variants.

They can breathe air too, Paul pointed out. This may be some sort of training facility.

Lizard challenges?

Maybe. They have to figure out what the hell they’re doing somewhere to develop the genetic memories, and I doubt they have that many veteran survivors to pull information from. Everything they’ve built seems to be localized, so if they do have a training zone, or maybe a full-fledged experimental planet, it would make sense.

You mean having lizards fight each other to study new tactics?

Paul cringed. No, and I really hope you’re wrong about that. I was thinking more along the lines of prototype testing. Their aquatics variants are latter editions, so where did they develop and refine their biological abilities?

There are plenty of lizard planets with oceans on them. You want to go down and have a look?

Any reason I shouldn’t?

They might blow up the planet.

We’ll be careful. Wanna come with?

Normally I’d say yes, but you’ll feel better if I’m up here running things so you can go explore. If the lizards have secrets they want hidden from us, better to go find them before they have a chance to destroy them.

Point taken, Paul agreed. Bring as many ships down as needed for an intense scan. Find me someplace to knock.

Will do. How many are you taking?

I think 20 ought to do it.

For an entire planet?

For a scouting mission. I’ll call in reserves if needed, but I don’t think there’s any reason to wait for the troop ships to get here.

Have fun storming the castle.

Paul laughed, but that didn’t transmit through the system.

As you wish, he answered in kind before releasing his hold on the control sphere and backing out of the nexus. With a few words to the bridge crew, he left the ship in their hands and his fleet in Riona’s as they continued their more or less mundane orbital sweeping activities and headed off into the ship to armor up and grab a team of Archons from the ship’s crew and the limited ground troops contained within the central plug of the ship, though the TF wouldn’t be needed today.

When Paul got into a dropship with 19 other Archons and set off from the command ship, Riona already had him a target and a handful of drones ready to escort them down. Unlike on other worlds, this one wasn’t defended at all. The now destroyed battlestations had been all the obvious weaponry either the worlds of Hemratik and Hegrasil had to their name, hence the exhaustive look for concealed emplacements or machinery that could be coopted into explosive use.

There were other drones literally hovering hundreds of meters off the airless surface of this world, pulling detailed scans down inside the planet looking for things that went boom or just trying to give him a localized schematic of the facilities they contained. On the surface there were structures, but only at a handful of sites, one of which was still getting an up close look by several drone corvettes and one big cruiser.

Paul’s dropship slid down between them to a docking facility that had checked out, but the Archons didn’t try to blast in the hangar doors or hack their way into the system. Rather they set down on the rocky ground nearby and the 20 of them left the dropship at a run across the airless surface. Paul led the way while half the others carried cargo with them.

As soon as they left, the dropship took off leaving the Archons running in their assorted colors of armor across a couple hundred meters of surface and up to the wall of one of the buildings that had no surface entrance. There they set up their equipment, cutting through the flimsy yet thick building material and installing a temporary airlock of their own make, through which they all entered the lizard building and got their armor out of airless mode and back to breathing the local interior atmosphere.

There were no lizards nearby. No troops waiting for them to fight through. In fact there were no minds within detection range, which seemed odd given that this facility was only some 19 miles wide on the surface and Paul could sense a decent fraction of that distance.  Undeterred by the emptiness, the Archons quickly made their way through what felt like a ghost town and over to the hangar facility that they had bypassed and commandeered it. They placed a local hack into the system via a small transmitter device that they were able to then link to the ships above, allowing Star Force to send in dropships at any time without having to blast their way through the bay doors.

Paul opened them experimentally, seeing that they functioned and the energy fields holding in the atmosphere were working properly, then he closed them again just in case there was a power failure…the kind that could happen when Archons got to shooting things and the lizards went about blowing themselves up in the process.

After less than a minute Riona’s voice entered his helmet.

“Paul, we got a schematic from their computer. There’s a single shaft running from your location to the planet’s interior,” she said as an updated map file was sent to his HUD.

“Any idea why there’s no one around?”

“Mothball protocols are showing. Whatever they used this place for in the past, it’s no longer relevant. And there’s no computer link to the planet core.”

“Old mining base?”

“Something like that.”

“Alright. If we lose comms expect a check-in within 48 hours. If you don’t hear from us send in a retrieval team. If these guys can shut down the lifts we’ll need you to get them back working again.”

“48, check.”

“Orbit still quiet?”

“As a tomb. Our other operations are progressing normally and I’m not picking up any alerts from the other fleets. You’re good to go exploring.”

“Later,” he said, cutting the comm and leading the Archon team across the empty complex to the lift shafts that ran down deep inside the planet. They were all located at the same place, but there were hundreds of individual lifts clustered together like a fiber optic bundle, save for each little line was the width of a several dropships. There were no smaller ones to be found, so his team walked out onto one of the football field-sized chambers obviously meant for bulk cargo transfers and began to ride it down using the small cupola attached to the side that had operating controls.

The entire chamber was self-contained, so when they began moving an energy field snapped over the open side of the big box as the lift tunnel wall replaced the view of the facility interior and quickly began flashing by as the lift gained speed. It took them more than an hour to make it to the bottom of the route, with the giant car slowing gradually and the first lizard minds popping up on the periphery of Paul’s senses.

“Contacts,” he advised, knowing the others wouldn’t pick them up so soon. “Let’s keep this quiet until we see what’s going on.”

And by quiet they all knew meant mentally disabling the lizards from range. Two mages stood ready to assist him with that and battlemelds as needed, but there were only a few lizards nearby when the lift finally settled in place and he was able to put them to sleep himself without incident.

The group walked out of the now shieldless entrance and onto a small loading dock that didn’t match the massive nature of the lift cars. There was ample room to offload cargo, but it appeared to Paul that the structures he was seeing now were add-ons after the mining endeavors had run their course, for there was no way these small docks could have handled the massive amounts of raw ore that would have been funneling up to the surface.

In fact these were mainly storage areas with much smaller access points into the rest of the facility, able to be offloaded with supplies that would then be moved to the interior by hand or small mechanisms. If all of the lift shafts were so equipped it suggested that there was still cargo transfer occurring, but not of the nature that the lift shafts had been designed for.

But then why the ghost town above? Maybe the cargo transfers were sporadically spaced and didn’t require an onsite maintenance staff.

Whatever was down here looked to be fairly low key. Maybe it was the star system’s version of a closet. If that was the case then they could make use of it. Most lizard infrastructure was recycled when Star Force took a planet, but given that this was the interior of one they might be able to use it with only some minor redecorating. If and when they got the six major planets cleansed of lizards there were going to be a huge amount of recycling efforts ongoing, and assuming they still controlled the 5 rings they were going to need a place to store the raw materials being produced by them.

Paul could definitely make use of a planet-sized locker for that, knowing that in other core systems they’d taken that they’d had to scale back the planetary recycling efforts due to the fact that the rings would fill up with material that couldn’t be used fast enough to produce products…and then those products had to go somewhere. As big as the rings were, when the recycling teams really got up to steam they could move an insane amount of material.

Given how much there would be to process here, this planet might come in handy and give them a place to store either the raw materials or the finished products without having to ship them out of the system or back down to the surface into newly built warehouses or even out on massive plains of bedrock where they were just stacking cargo cubes up for lack of places to put them until transport convoys could arrive.

So little could be transported between star systems that they needed local options for just about everything, and having a lift system already in place with a potentially planetary core empty for their use would be a really nice prize to snag.

Paul led his team over to the first of some 30 lizards that Paul had detected from afar and knocked out with his Ikrid, then as the others waited he knelt down beside it and retracted his armored glove. He pressed his pale skin against its green scales to pull a deep scan that would easily bypass the sleep state and give him access to the lizard’s memories.

Sorting through it all was always a pain in the ass, but he was familiar enough with lizard minds to know where to begin his search…their recent memories. From there he could link to anything like following an old school internet pattern, finding one site that would link into another or another. Unfortunately there wasn’t a search engine involved, but he could process the links so fast that it almost looked like there was to outsiders.

“It’s residential,” he said aloud rather than transmitting what he was seeing to them telepathically, preferring to use his full power to root out secrets, “but not for lizards. This is a giant prison facility.”

“For who?” a striker asked. “They kill everyone they come across.”

“They coopt a few,” a mage reminded him.

“Are these some that they double-crossed or a slave labor force?” a ranger asked.

“Experiments,” Paul added. “Not labor. They have pockets of races kept here and forced to reproduce so they don’t run out.”

“What kind of experiments?”

“Research. This one doesn’t know what, but I’d guess genetic. We know the lizards developed their aquatic variant not that long ago, and they probably did the same with the others as well. If they’re experimenting on other races long term they may be developing new ones or making tweaks to existing ones.”

“Who do they have here?” another striker asked.

“Races that I’m not familiar with, but this one thinks they were all conquests. Races that the lizards defeated,” he said, pausing as he made a connection and quickly sought out confirmation. “Trophies. In addition to the research, this is the galactic trophy case.”

“Of those they’ve defeated,” the mage commented. “How sick.”

“The water pockets,” Paul said with a silent curse. “How stupid can I be?”

“What is it?” another mage asked with concern.

“I’m trying to find a memory, but this one hasn’t worked in any of the water sections. He does know that some of the prison areas are for aquatics.”

“That makes sense if they developed an aquatic variant.”

“Do any of you know who Ariel is?”

“The Archon?” one of them asked.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, releasing the lizard and resealing his armored glove over his hand as it transformed back to match his exact dimensions. “They’ve got a decent-sized staff on planet, but no combat troops. We need to clear them all out.”

“Just us?”

Paul smiled. “We could if we took our time, but that’s not what I meant.”

“And what about this one?” a ranger asked.

The trailblazer lifted the lizard off the ground and floated him out in front of him. “I hate killing these guys when they’re asleep, but I don’t want them running off and sounding an alarm that might result in them killing the prisoners. We need to find some place to stash these guys while we find a control center and figure out if they have any booby-traps in place.”

“I’ll take this one,” a mage offered and Paul gave him the silent telekinetic handoff.

“Should we collect the others?” a striker asked.

“Can you sense them?”

“A few.”

“Alright, split up and grab all the ones I knocked out. If you sense any more at distance leave them be. If they see you knock them out. I’ll look for some place to stash them while we go exploring.”

With that the twenty Archons split up and headed in different directions, with Paul pointing out the locations of all the lizards on his battlemap just to make sure they didn’t miss any of the now unconscious minds.

4

It didn’t take Paul long to find a control room, set off the entrance facility that was designed as both control hub and barracks for the prison guards for the immediate area. After disabling the lizards in the chamber he stood over top one of the lizard control panels and accessed the system, having gotten fairly good at it over the years and seeing that their computer systems remained virtually identical to those they’d first encountered on Corneria. There were doubtlessly upgrades to the computer power and abilities, but the interface was the same.

It took him a while, but eventually he was able to access the other regions that this hub didn’t oversee, getting a schematic for the entire hollowed out moon. From there he dug into personnel files, both for the prisoners and the guards, finding that there was barely a skeleton staff of lizards here and no troops anywhere in the planet. As far as the prisoners went, there were over a million of them.

Paul wondered how they were being fed and soon discovered internal processing factories that made foodstuffs and a delivery schedule for additional raw materials. A lot of stuff was being recycled locally, but there were still steady deliveries being made to supplement what was being grown here and…yeah, they had internal livestock farms as well. Those weren’t included in the prisoner list, but apparently they were raising them here as well then chopping them up and feeding them to the prisoners.

Bastards.

What he needed to know was whether there were any doomsday mechanisms in place, either for the facility or just the prisoners. Worming his way through the lizard system took time, a lot of time, in fact, with the other Archons all cycling back to his position before he had an answer.

“Prisoners are rounded up and stuffed in a barracks compartment,” a mage reported. “All are napping.”

“If they have any precautionary measures against invasion, they’re not easily accessible,” Paul said, still working through the systems. “I’m starting to think there are none.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t kill the prisoners by other means,” another mage pointed out.

“Get somebody back into comm range and get a message to Riona. Have her get me as many Archons and troops as she can from the fleet and send them down here. We’re going to need to purge this facility of lizards quickly.”

“It’s a planet,” a striker questioned. “How fast can we manage that?”

“With a lot of running, it’s manageable. The personnel are clustered into specific areas and only go out into the prisoner realms occasionally, so there’s a lot less territory to cover than it seems. We’ll need at least 10,000 to make this work, and we’ll hold position here quietly until we get those numbers.”

“Ship’s crew?”

Paul shook his head. “No. Ground troops on the command ships and as many Archons, Knights, and Commandos as you can strip off the others. I don’t want anyone down here without armor.”

“I’ll relay the message,” the mage said, turning about and running back through the facility in the direction of the big lift shafts.

“And by quiet you mean?” a striker asked.

“We hold position and knock out anyone who wanders into this area while I keep digging. Other than that, make yourselves comfortable. We’re going to be here a while.

‘A while’ turned into 17 hours before Paul had his 10,000 and then some troops assembled on the loading docks and beginning to file out through the facility towards individual targets that he’d given them. Some were heading to horizontal lifts that connected various sections of the facility while others were going to smaller vertical ones that accomplished the same thing. The core was a hollowed out sphere where the habitats had been constructed, all with artificial gravity, so there were thousands of cubic miles to search and neutralize lizards on.

Some of that space was made up of rock forming structural columns that kept the thick crust of the planet from collapsing in on the structures, but most of the internal space were the preserves. Park-like areas where the prisoners lived in a more or less ‘natural’ habitat like a zoo. There were even observation platforms set up for visitors to look out over the lizards’ conquests, and when too many of them died or were expended in various experiments or other activities they’d be compelled to reproduce…either naturally or forced via more medical ‘treatments.’

There wasn’t a lot logged now, but occasionally across the planet there were scheduled abductions from the preserves where the lizards would go in and capture who they wanted, then take them to facilities where they did whatever it was they wanted…including eating them. He’d found evidence that some higher ranking lizards were allowed the privilege of consuming the prisoners. Not enough to threaten their population numbers, but they were considered a delicacy.

Recently there had been no such consumptions, dating back for nearly 13 years. To Paul that told him the lizard leaders were long gone from this system, having evacuated prior to the invasion and took who knew what with them. There were still masterminds in the system, Paul knew that from how the fleets had fought, but the templars and sovereigns were obviously gone.

He’d expected as much, but it seemed they hadn’t been able to take their living trophies with them, and he hoped there was a lot more they’d been forced to leave behind…though he expected most of it to be loaded up with booby-traps to kill interested Archons.

That was why he’d spent so much time digging through the lizard computer systems. If there was a failsafe mechanism it would probably be manually triggered, meaning that the lizards in this facility would need to have a quick way to activate it. That meant it should have been easy for Paul to find, but there was nothing he could locate. There was still the chance that there were hidden automated triggers, but nothing he’d found even hinted at there being destructive mechanisms built into the preserves.

His skills were decent, but he’d also had some software techs brought down in armor to take over the job from him. They’d stay here under guard in combat mode just in case the atmosphere suddenly vented from the facility. If they secured this place he’d be able to bring down people in a shirtsleeve environment, but he wasn’t going to risk that yet. The lizards had known they were coming here for years and had plenty of time to prepare all kinds of subtle surprises for them.

So Paul left the hackers, which were commonly called ‘slicers’ when it involved alien computer systems, to their task and headed off with a small detachment of Archons to one of the internal lifts after releasing their prisoners. He woke them up himself and the Archons had telekinetically held them in place as they instructed them to go and tell the others here that they had the option of surrendering and living, but that if they didn’t they’d all be hunted down and killed shortly.

Part of those lizards tried to attack the Archons, humorously, without being able to lay a finger on them. Eventually they gave up and left with the others, running off into the facility as Paul made an announcement to everyone via the comms and internal computer systems that he had the slicers keep sending out.

He had no doubt those lizards they’d released would fight to the death, but Star Force didn’t kill prisoners and they’d at least have a choice in their own fates. That said, while Paul gave them a head start, any lizards they ran into from this point on that didn’t surrender to them were going to be killed on sight.

The trailblazer had a renewed anger at the lizards after reading through some of the things that had been happening here, so now that he had the terms of engagement set to his liking he wasn’t going to hold back.

With teams spreading throughout the planet’s interior heading to very distant locations where there were clusters of enemies present, Paul took his 12 Archon group over to the water regions. He’d called for and received his aquatics armor from the ship, as had the eleven others with him. He’d swapped it out back in the control room and was now clunkily running through the facility, but that sensation would disappear when he got in the water.

But first he had lizards to kill, and when they got to the end of the last lift transit the doors opened to reveal lizards waiting for them with weapons drawn. They opened fire immediately, but there was no chance of them getting through the Archons’ shields in the few seconds it took the superhumans to cross the floor to get to them. A handful of seconds later the lizards were dead and the Archons were moving on, noting that these had been aquatic variants, and eventually split up and hunted down all the lizards in this area, after which they regrouped in the local control room for a quick look through the database.

Some of the logs were identical to what he’d accessed remotely, but some were only stored here and dealing with the various aquatic races they held, each in a separate preserve. This control hub oversaw 6 different ones, with others being services by other locations. Paul would get to those eventually, but as he reviewed the basics of the security measures he found no booby-traps or defensive weapons aside from around the entry hatches. Beyond that there was nothing for the inhabitants to attack, with the solid walls around the chamber leading to nowhere even if they had somehow dug through them.

“Let’s go,” Paul said, leading the Archons out to one of the observation platforms that existed above water level. Most were beneath the artificial lakes and accessible via clear tunnels that would take them in amidst the denizens but safe from any potential threat by the thick, clear material of the tubes, but there were a handful above the waterline where the lizards could look down on the surface where some races would poke up for air or even on small bits of land for those that were amphibious.

The preserve Paul was heading to did not contain any of those, nor were they air breathers, but they had open air access anyway in addition to the subsurface entrances and exits.  When he got to one of the decks that existed only a few meters above the calm lake he punched the safety glass and cracked it. Several more hits reduced its structural integrity, then he summoned up a distortion around the armor on his right arm and held it out towards the glass, barely inches away, then released the Jumat blast.

The glass shattered and blew out over the lake, falling into the water as the Archons jumped through the gap and followed it down into the previously tranquil reservoir. Paul could already sense the disruption in the minds below, but he also felt something sickly about them and knew it wasn’t his imagination.

He swam through the water using his armor’s jets with the other Archons following in his wake as he headed towards the nearest group of prisoners. Many swam away, knowing they couldn’t escape but not wanting to submit to whatever was coming, but a few stayed put and Paul could sense that they knew that they weren’t lizards, or at least anything like what they had seen before.

Paul swam up near them then came to a halt some 20 meters away so not to spook them further, for he could feel their fear and how it was a common place thing for them, choking and rotting away their minds. He activated the translation program so that his armor would speak in the impossible to reproduce Elarioni underwater language and addressed those nearest to him.

“We are friends of the Elarioni and are not here to hurt you. We have come to destroy the lizards and did not know you were here. Now that we do, you will be freed.”

“You…you speak our words?” one asked, with the translation coming from Paul’s own armor though he could also hear her actual words as well as all other sounds in the watery environment.

“Yes. Your people taught them to us.”

“Who are you?”

“We are known as Star Force. My name is Paul. I’m sorry to say that you must stay here a little while longer. My troops are moving throughout this planet killing the lizards, but we did not bring any aquatics capable ships with us. We will send for some to come here and take you away, but it will take time. Right now I need to know if any of you know of any means the lizards have of killing you before we can take you away. Are there any explosives in here, poisons, or any other traps they could activate to prevent us from saving you?”

The Elarioni around him, glowing with bioluminescent on body patches and their golden eyes, didn’t speak. Their minds were having such a hard time comprehending this that they were just locking up, with many of them running through possible horrors that could result from this and others trying to shut out emotions that were surging to the surface now that it appeared that there was hope.

Paul gave them time, but eventually another swam up to them from further away as the rest of the hundreds in this one lake swam nearby but kept their distance, forming a huge circle around them, then extending it down below in a bowl shape as what Paul sensed was their leader swam up to within a few meters of him.

“We do not know much,” she apologized. “All those who were brought here from the stars have since died. All of those you see here were born here. We know our place well. There are no devices of which you speak. The lizards come in and take us when they wish. Only their entry portal is guarded with a stun weapon. Most of those who pass through it do not return. Those that do are damaged or carrying fertilized eggs. I do not believe they want us harmed unless it is done outside these walls. Are there really others out there, like us, beyond this place?”

“Yes,” Paul said, telepathically trying to calm her teetering nerves. “We are allied with some of your kin, while others are part of our empire. We would have brought them with us, but we did not know you were here.”

“What is happening outside?”

“We are taking this star system from the lizards.”

“Star system?”

Paul looked at her, suddenly realizing how little these Elarioni knew. Whatever they’d been taught had to be passed down from one to another, so they were probably very naïve…not to mention traumatized.

“There are many planets located around the nearest star. The lizards own them and we are taking them away from them, as we have been doing around all their other stars. There are many more that we have yet to conquer, but this place is their capitol and contains their homeworld. Where you are right now is inside a small planet further out from their main ones. It is a prison. Do you understand what a prison is?”

“A place to keep people.”

“The lizards defeated a part of your race in battle and took some of the survivors as prisoners, brought them here, and you were descended from them. They claim you as their property, and we are here to take you from them.”

“What will you do with us?” she said, worrying about a number of things but also eager to and afraid to go someplace beyond these walls. They were all she had ever known, but a part of her did not want to be here and those conflicting thoughts were fighting inside her right now.

“We will take you away from here and let you live with your kin. What happens to you after that will be your choice. You are not our prisoners or our property. You will be free.”

“Free?”

“Free,” Paul said pointedly. “You may not fully understand what that means, but no one will control you and you will be able to go where you want when you want.”

Another Elarioni swam up near him, but stayed a little bit behind the other one. “Are there others here?”

Paul searched her mind quickly, finding the reference that he needed.

“There are other prisons like this within the planet. Some have other races, a few have Elarioni like you. You have had no contact with them?”

“A few of us have been moved and they tell stories.”

“You are the first that I have found here, but I know where the others are. I will leave and go tell them what is happening, but it will be some time before I can get you out of here. Most of this place is air.”

Paul felt that word ripple through all of the Elarioni here. ‘Air’ to them meant toxic and death, for they were purely water breathers. “We will move you in water when we are able, but until then you must wait here while we make preparations and remove the lizards from this place. How much food do you have?”

“Very little. They give us additional pellets daily. If they are not here we will not have enough food to live…” she said, hesitating as she glanced at the others, summoning up as much courage as she had. “We have hid a bit more over the years, so we are not in immediate need, but it will not last long. How soon can you take us from this place?”

“Not soon enough. We’ll find what the lizards were feeding you and make sure you have enough to survive until we can get you some real food. We can make it on our ships, though I’m not sure how much will be needed. Do you have a way of measuring time?”

“Feeding cycles.”

“Are any of your people injured?”

He could sense she didn’t want to answer that, fearing for them, but he dosed her up heavily with trusting feelings and insulated her from the subconscious telepathy that the Elarioni used.

“Yes. Four are hurt. They are hidden.”

“Take me to them…so that I can help them,” he added when her fear spiked out of control. “I don’t want any of you to die before we can take you from this place.”

It took some more finagling but eventually Paul as taken to a place on the floor of the facility where there were decent approximations of rock and plants that would be in a natural lake. Stuffed into a crevice were several Elarioni that showed visible signs of experimental surgeries, with one in particular that was barely hanging onto life.

Paul swam down beside her and triggered his right glove to retract. His wrist sealed around it so no water got into the rest of his armor, but he needed physical contact to make his Haemra work. Talking the Elarioni down took some time and he didn’t want to force this, but eventually he got her permission and gently placed his alien hand on her thick tail that replaced for what a Human would have been legs. He held the contact, numbing up her body so she couldn’t feel the pain any longer, nor could she move, but he let her retain her ability to talk to the others.

What the lizards had been doing involved several internal organs that had been damaged and altered in ways that were crude and not part of Elarioni physiology. He guessed they were waiting to see how long the alterations lasted before this one died, then would probably study the corpse and gather data. He was committed to make sure that didn’t happen here, but he wasn’t going to be able to trigger a regrow of her organs with the mutilated ones still here, so he triggered flash growth of tiny areas, making patches and temporary alterations to try and keep her alive long enough to get her to the Excalibur. She wasn’t going to last long enough to get an aquatics ship here, so the crew was going to have to fashion a mobile tank to get her moved and up to a med bay.

One of the Archons with him turned around and swam off, heading back immediately to get that in the works while Paul stayed here healing her as much as he could then working on the others to buy them time. What the lizards had done here was inexcusable, but he’d be damned if any more of these people were lost now that they were in his custody.

5

July 3, 3202

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Hemratik

Paul stood outside the glass looking in on another preserve, with a mix of sadness and relief. There were still Archon and Commando teams moving around the planetary facility hunting down the remaining lizards and securing level after level to make sure none slipped by, but there was no way for them to get reinforcements on or off with his fleet in orbit so it was just a matter of time before they were all killed and the facility was his.

Them fighting to the death as usual wasn’t what he was sad about. It was the occupants here. He’d been visiting a lot of the races, some he knew, a lot he didn’t, and all of them had to stay put until he could get a large enough relief fleet here to evacuate them. That meant civilian jumpships configured to carry a wide range of races, including the rock-like aliens he was looking at now. They weren’t moving around, just standing in place like statues in a very small enclosure compared to the others built here. They had about a half mile wide region that contained some 3,000 of them based off a quick glance, and there were a few other identical facilities nearby.

In total there were about 12,000 survivors, and Paul couldn’t tell by looking at them what their physical status was, but from their minds he could draw a different kind of picture. These Kvash were in bad shape, for the most part, but a few were younger, having been born here more recently, and that youth meant less wear and tear on them from captivity, though their minds were not the same as they should be. With each generation they’d lose their identity, until after enough years they’d be completely institutionalized. There wouldn’t be any trace of Kvash knowledge or culture remaining, save for maybe their language, but he doubted that most of these Kvash could even read or write by this point.

The other races here were no different, but here was an old ally that Paul had thought was destroyed and he knew that no matter how bad off these Kvash were he’d be able to save them and restart their race within Star Force. They’d once had a population upwards of 50 trillion and were arguably the strongest race within the original Alliance until the lizards had eventually defeated them. They hadn’t evacuated to the ADZ with the others, going their own way and fighting to the last in what was for all intents and purposes an unwinnable fight, and only thanks to the Hycre did the Bsidd come out of that to land in the ADZ, for they’d suffered the same fate.

There were Bsidd here too, though Paul hadn’t gotten around to seeing them yet. He was going to rescue everyone here, but the Kvash were a race that had predated Star Force’s rise to dominance. They’d worked together in some small ways in the past, but they had always been the stronger and a bit brusque with the Humans. They had no idea what Star Force would become, and he was glad that they weren’t completely wiped out from the galaxy, even if this had been the way they’d been forced to survive.

In some regards he wished they’d just died and didn’t have to suffer like this, not even wanting to know what kind of experiments had been done on them, but as long as they were alive he was going to seize the opportunity and bring these guys back. The Calavari, Bsidd, and in a small way the Nestafar had all found a place in Star Force. The Hycre were independent but were still an ally and now a Protectorate in some respects. The Kvash were the fifth piece of that old Alliance puzzle and it felt very good finding them here.

He worked his way away from the glass and around to the access point for the chamber. The lizards couldn’t go in there without equipment, for the average temperature was 160 F, but that wasn’t something that was going to bother Paul’s armor and he could breathe the air thanks to a chilling function on his helmet. He didn’t expect any of these Kvash would recognize his armor or even know what an Archon was, given the fact that it had been some 700 years since their civilization had fallen and their ancestors had been brought here as captives.

Paul passed through an energy shield once the doors opened, walking into the oven that was ‘mild’ temperature for the Kvash. When he approached one of the short, standing rock piles they didn’t move. None of them did. Rather than scatter it seemed they were just impassive, though he could still sense their fear. They had nowhere to run, so these prisoners had taken to a sedate existence. That was a true pity, for it meant their lives would be even shorter without even accidental training effect from moving around in a panic.

Then again, in a place like this, a shorter life might be a good thing…save for the fact that there were less of them here to save now.

Let’s see if these guys still know how to talk, Paul thought, activating the translation program for the Kvash language rather than the trade language the Alliance had used. He doubted these Kvash would have learned two here, so he was guessing they would have preserved their default, though it could have altered over all these years without any standards in place to keep it rigid and ward against linguistic evolution.

Paul walked up less than a meter in front of one and looked down on the Kvash’s flat head. Its eyes not staring back, and it having no other features on its face save for some small slits in the rock-like exoskeletal skin that it used to produce sounds.

“You do not remember me, but I am an ally of your ancestors that were brought here as prisoners when your civilization was conquered. We have come here to destroy the Cajdital. You are no longer prisoners.”

A few rocky heads that resembled tabletops shifted, but a far cry from what was triggering in their minds that Paul could sense. Each race behaved differently, but there were some similarities. Hope, relief, disbelief…they were all there, but in different forms. The Kvash thought quickly, and if it hadn’t been for their stagnation here they could also move fairly quick despite their sluggish appearance.

“What are you?” one of them asked, but not the one directly in front of him.

“I am Human. There was once an Alliance between the Kvash, the Hycre, the Nestafar, the Calavari, and the Bsidd. We were an associate of the Hycre and joined the Alliance as a junior member. We have grown to dominance over the Hycre and all others, and are now finishing the fight that the Alliance began and reclaiming the worlds that the Cajdital took from you. The Hycre are our allies and the Calavari, Nestafar, and Bsidd are now part of our empire. We thought you were totally wiped out, and though I do not pretend that your living conditions here are anything but deplorable, I am very relieved to find some of you alive.”

“Show us your face. Prove you are not a Cajdital,” one of them said from further off as it slowly walked towards him.

“The heat is not good for us, but I can stand it for a brief time,” he said, forming a bioshield over his head and extending it out a bit to catch some air when his helmet retracted. His face blushed with heat from the spill through, but he was alright. He looked at the Kvash, twisting his head back and forth, then resealed his helmet before he ran out of air.

“I am not one of your tormentors,” he promised. “They are being killed as we speak and you will not be seeing them again. You will have to remain in this chamber until we get a properly equipped ship and transport equipment from our homeworlds to move you. We did not know you were here otherwise we would have brought it with us. We will provide you with food and supplies during the transition, but you will no longer have to fear the Cajdital. Their time here is over and all of their prisoners are being freed.”

“What others?”

“There are many captured races here, including some other Kvash. The lizards were keeping you as trophies. Whenever they conquered a race they kept a few alive and brought them here. I have a lot of people to rescue, so I ask that you remain patient until we are able to remove you from this place.”

“What will happen to us?” the one in front of him said, finally rising up a bit to its full height. Despite the naivety he sensed in these Kvash, they were remarkably even keeled. No doubt that was one reason why they’d built their warfleet the way they had, with such huge ships and starbases that required patience and wisdom to operate and was the polar opposite of the lizard’s expendable fleet philosophy.

“I will take you back with us and build up a planet where you can live free,” Paul said, feeling the urge and opportunity in their mindsets to go a bit further. “I know you know little of what you once were, but I will help you reclaim what you have lost and rebuild your civilization. If you do not want to have any part in that and just want to get away from here then you may live with us without responsibility. You will be our guests for the remainder of your lives, but your offspring will be able to reclaim the lost past and I will show them and any of you that are willing the way. The same goes for every other race held captive here, but you will have a special place with us.”

Paul looked around at all the Kvash, some of which were moving towards him. “It will take time. A lot of time. But now time is your ally rather than your enemy. You are prisoners no longer. You are simply waiting here for your ride out, and from there you will begin a journey into…things you can’t even imagine,” Paul admitted. “The dark days are over now, and you need not fear any longer. It will take time for you to adjust to freedom, but you have a future now. Welcome back, my friends.”

Several Kvash who had come close looked at each other, conversing in their own language with Paul picking up bits and pieces of it. The translation software was severely outdated, given that there hadn’t been any Kvash alive and it’d been relegated to a dead language.

“We do not know of what you speak. We only know of here.”

“Then let me show you,” Paul said, forgoing the limited holoprojector that his armor held and accessing their minds directly. “I have mind powers, and I will show you some of your history.”

The Archon sat down on the ground casually in his armor, not noticing the scorching temperatures, and began sending them memories of his own and visual recordings of battles the Kvash had fought in that he was actively pulling from the battlemap link they’d run up to the surface and using to access the fleet databases.

He was watching it on his HUD and mentally transmitting what he saw to them, and decided to take a decent amount of time with them before he headed off to meet and greet some of the other races here.

Several weeks later, when the facility had been confirmed cleansed of lizard presence thanks to a widespread and exhaustive search using Archon telepathy, Paul returned to the Excalibur and got in some decent workouts, not having had much available to him other than some long runs down within the planet based out of the mobile facilities that they’d set up camp in. After starting to feel a little better with the workout burn saturating his body, he returned to the command nexus on the bridge and took stock of his fleet’s positioning and made a few tweaks while watching the live status update from the others as they continued to engage lizard orbital assets but not having tried punching down to a major planet or assaulting a shipyard ring yet.

He’d been keeping in the loop from his armor link, but that was primitive compared to what he could do in a proper nexus. After getting his space footing again he went into a side task, detailing a report for Davis that he was going to send out with a courier within a few minutes. One had already been sent back requesting the relief fleet in order to get it here as fast as possible, but he wanted Davis to get to work on what was going to be a small, but major shift within Star Force. The population of the prisoners wasn’t large, but there were so many races here that had otherwise been eradicated it was going to take a lot of work to keep them from expiring now that the lizards weren’t forcing them to reproduce via sometimes horrific means.

Paul activated the holo-recorder rather than sending a text transmission, for he expected this to be a very long message.

“Davis, I’ve got a lot to put on your plate this time. As you’ve already been told there are a lot of prisoners from races that have been thought extinct or nearly so that need to be rescued, but we need to do more than just take them in as refugees. The lizards didn’t pick these races because they were collecting samples. Each one represents a significant opponent that they had to overcome, meaning there is a lot of potential in these guys. The Kvash especially, but there are others here who, I’m guessing, could hold even more assets for Star Force down the road.”

“If we treat them as refugees and put them into Axius we’re going to lose them through attrition. We need to insure that we get access to younglings and create programs to rebuild these races as a part of Star Force. Ward status for a lot of them, but with the Kvash and others we need to fast track them beyond that. I personally want to oversee the Kvash program, not so much as in spending every waking day with them, but I want to design it and run it from afar. I think I can turn these guys into a naval powerhouse once again, but there are only around 12,000 of them left so we have to hit the ground running with this.”

“I need a program set up for them to get into immediately upon arrival in the ADZ or wherever you think is suitable to plant them. It will take centuries before their population even hits nominal levels, but this is an investment we need to make. Forget their history, these guys have potential with us based off of what they are now. I haven’t had a chance to sense a Kvash mind before, but even broken as these are they are impressive as hell.”

“There are 283 races that we have discovered here, though we have not visually inspected them all as of yet, and some of them were being kept strictly as a food supply and some of those will need sanctuary status. Priority has been on eliminating the lizards and making sure they didn’t kill off the prisoners. Thankfully that hasn’t happened, but we couldn’t take chances. All the races here are in bad physical, and especially mental states, but they’re worth salvaging.”

Paul sighed. “You might think I’m just getting sentimental, but I’m not. We have a huge opportunity here to reshape Star Force…not that we need it, but this is too good to pass up. We already have a lot of wards, and this will more than double the count, but I think we can get some full factions out of the Kvash and others someday down the road and I think we should be gearing them towards that immediately, not using a ‘wait and see’ system.”

“We didn’t know these guys would be here, so we’re already a step behind. I want this to be the last lapse and I need you to work your magic on this. We’re going to have to evaluate the new guys, but as far as the Kvash are concerned this is what I want to do…”

6

June 7, 3204

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Semtric

Greg-073 sat on a stool in the nexus onboard his command ship, looking down at the lizard world of Semtric as his fleet bombarded the surface relentlessly in the face of hundreds of cleansing beams and a scattering of new lizard weapons that packed even more of a punch. He was losing drones rapidly as the lizards targeted individual ones with multiple strikes, but Greg had so many in play that it was only a matter of time before one of the shields on the surface collapsed.

That happened about 20 seconds later, with him adjusting fire to the few key facilities in that newly exposed area, then on to the next closest intact shield. One of the new big beam gun batteries fell silent but the onslaught coming up from the surface continued. This was the second primary planet in the system to be assaulted, with troops already on the surface of Kennfrit battling to remove the lizards from that rock. Star Force wasn’t waiting to cherry pick these one at a time, and as long as the fleets were here they might as well strip the defenses off the other planets ahead of freed up ground troops being ready to assault the second world and shipyard ring simultaneously.

Another shield and battery went down under the fire of Paul’s fleet, then two more fell to Rio’s and Olivia’s. The longer it took to punch a sizeable clear zone down to the planet the more drones they would lose, so the trailblazers had decided to mount a huge fleet action and pound this planet’s defenses as fast as possible to minimize damage taken. The assault on Kennfrit had cost them heavily in terms of drones due to the unforeseen damage of the new lizard weapon systems and they didn’t want to repeat that, so they were literally throwing everything they had at this one and giving the lizards too many targets to choose from.

The big beam weapons were packing a considerable punch, but their rate of fire was low. Still, each time one fired they were hitting the smaller drones in the fleet and killing one with each shot. Destroyers on up could survive a hit, but their shields would be gone as well as most of their armor. It was a tradeoff that Star Force was having to make in order to get through the intense surface defenses that the planet contained…and had Star Force tried to eliminate all of the anti-orbital batteries on a single world from orbit, they would have lost most of their fleet in the process.

That’s how well defended these capitol worlds were, and the homeworld of Yamitar looked to be no different…save that it was some 38% larger than this one. That meant even more guns in range and a lesser curvature to bring others out of line with the targets in extreme low orbit. All six of these worlds were nightmares, but nightmares that had to be taken down and Star Force was going to get the job done slowly but surely.

The shipyard ring around this world had already been plucked of defenses, but there were no ground troops onboard yet. They were all down on Kennfrit expediting that invasion as much as possible. Its shipyard ring had gone to make the minefield, so in that way the lizards had saved Star Force some time, not requiring them to conquer it first or splitting their numbers with the ground assault.

With a hole now for his fleet to expand upon, Greg had a group of drones suddenly dive towards the surface. The lizards knew what was coming and several cleansing beams readjusted their attacks to target them, missing most but nailing a destroyer and a frigate that were covering for the single special drone inside their tightly packed formation. There was also a shield ship with them providing extra protection in addition to the speed they were coming down into the atmosphere with.

When they got close enough the secondary surface defenses opened up, adding a lot of shield loss and damage to the drones but they managed to get their charge down to the cityscape of the mildly wrecked target that Greg’s fleet had first hit. Most of the buildings were intact for the simple reason that they didn’t waste time targeting them when they had other nearby massive shield plates to take down.

The drones stuck with their special cousin with another destroyer dropping to the ground and ramming a building as it was knocked out while the group angled into a horizontal direction that was skimming over building tops and heading for the edge of the clear area. They kept low enough that the big guns couldn’t target them, having to fly between buildings part of the time all the way over to the next closest city, one that wasn’t under attack yet. It had a plate shield up high overhead ready to absorb a lot of punishment with its rigid design, but it wasn’t protecting laterally.

The drones slipped under that shield height, delivering their demolition twin to the edge then turning back, staying down in the buildings and beginning to shoot targets of opportunity now that they were on the planet. A minute later there was a huge explosion underneath that shield dome near the city center that leveled hundreds of buildings…but more importantly the shield plate dropped thanks to the kamikaze drone. The time and firepower needed to take that shield down conventionally would have cost Star Force hundreds of drones, so economically the tradeoff was worthwhile, even though Greg didn’t have very many of those drones left. Most had been used against the first planet.

Neither he nor the others wanted to wait for a lot more to come, so as soon as they had a decent supply of them they’d decided to attack, sick of having to tolerate these guys nearby as they assaulted another world.

As Greg oversaw his portion of the bombardment he raised an eyebrow when he saw the Excalibur dive down towards the surface with a flock of drones in tow. A lot of them didn’t make it, but his big donut did and parked itself over the city as a few cleansing beams nicked the top of it before it had blasted the buildings below it low enough for the ship to depress far enough to be out of the firing line.

The drones with it did the same, lowering into gaps between buildings and firing into them without bothering to worry about the lizards inside. A surrender offer had been given prior to the attack, and subsequently ignored. The lizards would have many opportunities to surrender going forward, but for right now Star Force was going to forcefully blow a hole in the lizard planetary defenses and it looked like Paul was taking a more direct approach than the others. He was using the tiny bit of his fleet that had made it down to the planet to chew apart the buildings and expand the area of destruction that would eventually connect to Greg’s region and others nearby, fully forming the ground invasion corridor that would then be used to establish a foothold on the planet.

He watched what Paul was doing off and on, noticing that he was overly pounding the same ground rather than moving on once the nearby buildings were down. That did make the rubble shield against subterranean lizard tunnels and structures more even and compact, but he guessed Paul was doing it because he hated the idea of trapping lizards under the rubble to slowly die…so he was blasting everything so hard that it was unlikely that anything would survive from the upper city.

That was one way of going about it for sure, and typical Paul, with Greg noting that he was going to end up being more efficient with his grounded warships than his own demolition drone attack had been so long as Paul didn’t encounter stiff resistance from ground defense turrets. He doubted that, but could see a lot of fire coming from the surrounding city that Paul’s shields were shrugging off, including occasional explosions that he knew were not coming from Star Force weaponry and were far larger than lizard infantry missiles could account for.

He hadn’t noticed those on the first planet, and they were nearly one third of the way across its surface.

What other little surprises do these guys have waiting for us?

12 years later…

“Liam?” Paul asked over the comm.

“Just about ready. This beast is fat and fighting the accuracy needed. She’s not ready for this, you know?”

“Doesn’t have to be pretty.”

“It won’t be,” Liam assured him from onboard the hastily constructed Devastator-class weapons platform. Back on Earth they’d take one of the existing Bra’hem defense turrets and brought it up to orbit, stuck it in a shipyard, and built a warship around it. It wasn’t fast, agile, or efficient, and had to be helped here with the assistance of several jump cradles to get the necessary speed to cross the distance from Star Force capitol to lizard capitol in relatively decent time…but it was the most powerful weapon Star Force had at their disposal, not counting the V’kit’no’sat pyramid defenses.

“Think the lizards even suspect this is coming?”

“Ha…I didn’t even think this was coming until Roger suggested it. It’s nuts, you know.”

“Totally,” Paul agreed.

“Good thing we like nuts. Alright, we’re ready,” he said as the Devastator sat in very high orbit over the third lizard primary world. The first one had already been conquered and the ground troops were heavily engaged on the second. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

“It’ll work,” Paul insisted.

“Yeah, we’ll you’re not the one sitting in it in case it blows up.”

“How’s it going to blow up?”

“You know what I mean. Everyone clear?” Liam said unnecessarily, as he could see the battlemap well enough. “Here goes.”

Paul watched from an external view as the huge ship fired what looked like a tiny green beam down at the planet. It stretched out farther than any of the lizard weapons could even hope to reach, traveling some 149,000 miles to where it hit the first lizard defense shield on this planet while the fleet also sat outside of anti-orbital defense range.

A close up view of the surface showed that green needle hit the shield plate. It hesitated ever so slightly then punched straight through and melted the building beneath it. The vaporized material mushroomed out and exploded into nearby buildings, looking like a water balloon smash from afar only save the fact that this was actually solid rubble and not soft liquid.

Paul smirked. A one shot kill. Perfect.

“Not bad,” he told Liam with a bit of skepticism. “You blow up yet?”

“Noooo,” he said sarcastically as he studied various readings as the weapon recharged. “Adjusting for second target. Ready to fire in 32 seconds.”

Paul waited and watched as the second green needle popped another lizard balloon and detonated a building beneath much like the first…both of which had been the shield generator towers, ensuring that they would not be regenerating to cover those cities again.

“Well done,” he said in all seriousness.

“The Bra’hem is performing as expected. Odd that this is our first live firing test.”

“Of one this size anyway.”

“Like Davis said, no need to blow up a perfectly good ship to just to test it.”

“We could have found a lizard jumpship easy enough,” Paul differed, having wanted to test the weapons on Earth but getting overruled on that idea. Davis had said he didn’t want to clean up the debris in orbit after they got done playing and told them they could test fire them all they wanted when they build one on a Clan world.

“I’d say this is better,” Liam noted.

“Agreed.”

“Nice shot,” Taryn said, joining in on their little virtual conference. “So we have a lumpy Death Star now?”

Liam laughed. “I’m surprised someone else beat Paul to that.”

“I’m glad we beat the lizards to it,” Paul said, deferring their joint merriment. “It’s going to save a whole lot of drones over the coming years.”

“It’ll be the first thing they target with their fleets,” Taryn cautioned.

“We don’t have to bring it in early,” Liam differed. “Wipe out the defenders then bring it in with the ground troops.”

Taryn’s hologram feigned shock. “You mean you don’t want to snipe ships with it?”

“If they had an invoker or assault pillar sure,” Paul answered, “but cruisers would be like swatting at a swarm of mosquitos.”

“Agreed. Nice work you guys. Glad the naval geeks came through on this one.”

Paul and Liam both glared at her as she smiled and her hologram disappeared.

“Prick,” Liam pronounced humorously.

“Her braid’s probably too tight,” Paul said as Liam fired the Devastator again, knocking out yet another of the ‘small’ shield segments blanketing the planet. “Any negligible variation?”

“Not yet. We’ll see how long this can last. Davis really should have let us test fire these on Earth.”

“I think he didn’t want us putting on this big of a fireworks display.”

“People are going to know now,” Liam pointed out.

“Should we edit this bit from the news vids?”

Liam considered that as he set up another firing angle. “We’ll seal it classified and send it to Davis. He can decide if he wants to make our possession of the boomstick public or not.”

“Boomstick…that’s way better than Death Star.”

“I have my moments. Too bad Roger isn’t here to see it.”

“I’m sure he’ll manage to find a way to gloat from afar,” Paul said smugly, referring to the other piece of their naval triumvirate that was off hitting smaller lizard worlds low on the galactic plane. “And he deserves it this time. I didn’t even think about trying this.”

“Neither did I, though it seems kind of obvious right now.”

“I was still thinking in terms of production. We couldn’t have built another for at least 20 more years.”

“We could do it in 15.”

“Still too late.”

“You think we’re going to be done here in 15?”

“I don’t know. If we just slaughtered all the lizards we could.”

“Not an option. Besides, I want to have a walk around their homeworld and see what’s there. Let’s try not to blow up too much of that before then, ok?”

“Getting cocky now?”

Liam smirked, this time in apology. “Right. Don’t want to jinx us,” he said as he fired the weapon again, popping another shield. “This is seeming too easy.”

“Let’s milk it while we’ve got it.”

“You going down with your fleet to lay the parking lot again?”

“Yes.”

“The ground forces won’t be available for a long time.”

“We can start building regardless.”

Liam looked at him oddly, then caught on. “Baiting them out?”

“As long as we have warships within range, why not?”

Paul’s peer sighed. “We have got to find a better way to defend a planet. Orbital bombardment is too damn effective.”

“Easy enough when you know where they’re going to fire.”

“Even then, the V’kit’no’sat could punch through any shields we have in place this easily. A Mach’nel would punch right through our shields with their baby Tar’vem’jic,” Liam said, referring to one of the larger V’kit’no’sat warships and the largest naval weapon that they possessed, which was a smaller version of what the pyramid’s main gun was.

“I’m working on it,” Paul said grimly.

“We all are, but you know as well as I do that we haven’t caught up enough yet. 1,200 years of research with their playbook and blueprints and it still hasn’t been enough.”

“If this tech was easy, a lot of other races would have it. Be glad that we’ve got what we have, otherwise the lizards would have killed us long ago.”

Liam glanced back down at the planet, taking in the mass of infrastructure and life within it…malevolent life intent on killing just about everything else in the galaxy if and when they had the opportunity.

“Yeah, I guess we overlook that sometimes. It’s still scary though. The lizards have nothing that can stop the Bra’hem, and I wouldn’t want to be in their situation now.”

“No…they have the chance to surrender and live. We won’t get that opportunity. Whether it be lizards or V’kit’no’sat, they’re coming for blood.”

“True,” Liam said as another green needle punctured a shield and detonated the tower beneath. “Let’s keep whistling past the graveyard then and hope we have enough time to catch up before fate comes knocking.”

“They’ve also had 100 millennia to make upgrades.”

“Let’s hope Kara is right about them being slackers when they’re not pushed.”

7

June 7, 3221

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Trexklip

Greg was on the surface of the fourth planet that Star Force had invaded, helping a team of Bsidd clear out yet another piece of the lizard infrastructure when he got a report from one of the advanced teams fighting a few hundred kilometers to the north. The Archon punched another lizard back into a wall then dashed into a trio to his right, ramming one with his shoulder and spinning through a wrist lash that caught the other two, knocking them unconscious with the body blows from his very hard armor.

He put a shot into all four lizards, then used a Jumat blast to shove back a fifth that a nearby Bsidd finished off for him as a team of 13 of them finally caught up to his position. Greg mentally signaled to them to hold position and watch his back while he took the comm call.

“What is it?” he asked the Archon titan whose headshot appeared in a tiny square of his HUD.

“We have a prisoner.”

Greg frowned. “A lizard actually surrendered?”

“Not intentionally. He was unconscious when we found him, but we now have him in custody.”

“And why are you doing that?” Greg asked, knowing that every lizard they’d ever taken prisoner by force had killed themselves rather than remain confined, so Star Force had adopted the practice of only taking voluntary prisoners with regards to the lizards…of which there never were any.

The Archon’s tiny head image smiled. “He’s a mastermind.”

Greg immediately stiffened. “How, where, when, and what’s his condition and current location?”

“Building destruction, pinned under light rubble in a subsurface bunker, damage induced about 20-25 hours ago, we found him about 10 minutes ago, and he’s sedated and being brought back to the nearest firebase for treatment and containment,” the titan said, mentally ticking off all the points.

“Keep him unconscious at all times until I get there. I’ve got some fighting left to do here, then I’ll personally take custody of him.”

“Copy that.”

“And you, young man, are getting an extra box of donuts.”

“A whole box? Not sure I earned that,” he said deadpan. “The falling rubble actually deserves the credit.”

“Noted. How bad are his injuries?”

“He’s pretty torn up, but he’ll keep all his limbs.”

“Head wounds?”

“Concussion, but I think his marbles are all still there.”

“Thank you,” Greg said with emphasis.

“Just picking up the trash,” the Archon said, his image winking out as he got back to work killing other lizards.

Greg contacted his command ship in orbit and arranged for them to prepare a holding cell and all necessary medical treatment to keep the mastermind alive, then he also go back to the task at hand, not wanting to risk his Bsidd unit by his absence and not wanting to order them to pull back. He’d finish up this latest push, then when they settled into defensive arrangements he’d take his leave and go have a chat with their elusive Jackalope.

Other than Kara, nobody had ever seen a mastermind in person. No mastermind had ever been captured. No body had ever been found. They were known to exist in many systems, based on the way the lizards there fought differently under their control, but they were kept well hidden despite many attempts to root them out. This one having got caught in a building collapse and still living was a stroke of crazy luck…so much so that Greg had the mastermind thoroughly scanned for booby-traps of any known kind just in case this was a Trojan horse to get at the Archons.

Greg suspected it wasn’t, but he didn’t want to take chances. The lizards here were beat, but they were making Star Force fight tooth and nail for every last bit of ground. This invasion could have been over years ago if only Greg and the other trailblazers had authorized total bombardment from orbit, obliterating every last thing on the surface and most of the subsurface. There would have been pockets of survivors underground that could have been hunted down and killed or left to starve to death afterwards, but Star Force was not going to fight like that.

He knew they were making this harder on themselves, but they were not going to become barbaric. The lizards were going to have a chance to surrender, each of them as they came into their areas, and Greg would be damned if they ever got in the habit of just shooting them on sight before they had a choice. Star Force was not going to become the lizards in order to defeat them. If they had to be killed, then so be it…but it would be done Star Force’s way on honorable terms, no matter if the conquest of this system took a century to complete.

The same was true of the assaults happening in other star systems, for Star Force wasn’t just fighting here. This was the most heavily fortified lizard system by far, and while there were other nasty core worlds to tackle there were probably not going to be any like this again. This was going to be the worst of it, and even if the lizards were building a new capitol in the coreward region it would take an insanely long time to develop it to the extent that even one of these six planets had risen to.

All of them were essentially one big city split up into shielded segments, and all of them stretched far underground where orbital rounds could not follow. Every building, every subsurface level, had to be fought into and cleared, looking out for explosives and other booby-traps, and sealed off so the lizards couldn’t flank the invading troops and get into areas already cleared. It was an insanely difficult task that Star Force now achieved almost casually…unless you were on the ground, where you realized the enormity of the endeavor and just how damn good the troops being deployed actually were.

And now the Star Force type of war was giving them an added benefit of a mastermind prisoner. With the templars and sovereigns all assumed to have been evacuated there was no chance of catching one of them here, but needle in the hay stack was an overly generous comparison to this situation where you had trillions of lizards and planets full of infrastructure to hide in. Greg was overly pleased that their methodical assaults had paid off in this lucky stroke, and neither he nor the other trailblazers were going to waste the opportunity it gave them.

None of them were here yet, busy with other things in the system, so Greg was going to have first crack at him. When he arrived back on his flagship he headed straight to the holding cell, entering in his pink ViLord armor that had a few scratches on it from recent battle. It stood out brightly compared to the already gleaming white armor of the Knights standing guard, who nodded down at him as he walked past them.

Greg retracted his helmet and looked at the nearby medtechs. “Learn anything yet?”

“Cognitive density is far larger than the librarians. I’m guessing this variant is by far the smartest the lizards have…though without being able to examine a templar I can’t say that for certain. It’s no wonder these guys are used as their battlefield commanders.”

“Much more than that, I’d guess. Find any bioweapons in him?”

“No. All indications are he was really caught unawares and his imprisonment was an accident.”

“Good. Wake him,” Greg said as he took a step towards the security field in front of the medical table where he lay under several scanners.

“He’s not restrained,” the medtech pointed out.

“I can handle that, but I can’t push out the medication you have in him.”

“Very well,” the medtech said as he gestured to another who began operating a control panel. Within the chamber most of the medical sensors retracted into wall slots where they couldn’t be damaged, but a few mechanical arms remained. One of them reached down and injected the large, muscular lizard with a counter-serum that would clear the sedation medicine from him within a matter of seconds.

The remaining monitoring arms disappeared from view as well several seconds before the mastermind began to twitch its way back to consciousness.

Greg kept a link into its mind so he could forestall any attempts to kill itself or cause other problems, but beyond that he let it wake naturally. Eventually it shook its head clear and rolled to the right, catching itself on the edge of the bed before falling off, then looking out through the clear blue energy field at the Human beyond.

Greg waited for it to slit its own throat, but to his surprise it didn’t try. Merely snarling as it rolled its thick legs off the bed to free its cramped tail, then it walked up to the energy shield and looked down at the trailblazer and others, standing as tall as the Knights behind Greg and massing considerably more. The lizard looked like a tiny version of Godzilla minus the back spikes, though he got the feeling this guy could move a whole lot faster if he wanted.

“Do you speak?” it asked in its native language.

“Somewhat,” Greg answered, reforming a piece of his helmet to cover his right ear. “My armor will translate the rest.”

“Why am I not dead?”

“You know we offer surrender options.”

“What do you demand of your prisoners?”

“I’m here to talk.”

“More likely to scan my mind.”

“Why aren’t you trying to kill yourself?” Greg wondered.

The mastermind stared at him with black, glassy eyes. “You have forcibly taken prisoners before?”

“We tried. They all killed themselves, and we couldn’t get any to do differently. Eventually we just returned those we had left.”

“Returned?”

“We sent them back to you. We’re not interested in killing you, only defeating you. When you don’t surrender you leave us with no other option. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

“Archon,” one of the medtechs said in an alarmed voice. “His vitals are crashing.”

Greg dug into his mind deeply, searching out the cause, but it was on the lizard’s conscious thoughts and therefore easy to access and trace back to the knowledge he needed.

“He has a mental kill switch. His body is shutting itself down.”

“I can’t treat him when he’s awake!”

“You cannot stop it,” the mastermind said, staggering a step as his body began to self-destruct from the inside out. There was no toxin of any kind involved, simply his mind triggering his body’s hardware to shut down.

“Like hell I can’t,” Greg said, the air around his armor shimmering with distortion as he walked into the shield between them. His body passed through and he froze the lizard in place, extending a hand towards it and peeling back the armor covering his pale flesh as he pressed it against the lizard’s thick green scales.

The medtechs flinched when they saw him go through the shield without lowering it, not knowing how that was possible, but they forced themselves to focus on the task at hand and brought a few of the scanners back out from their wall niches, waiting for the Archon to lay him back down but he didn’t.

“Get the Kich’a’kat now. It’s the only thing that will work,” he said as he could feel the status of the lizard’s body and his feeble attempts to heal it failing utterly. There was no damage involved, simply a shutdown, and he didn’t know how to override that so he tried to force his heart to keep pumping and a few other organs functioning but it was a losing effort. He could drag it out only so long, then the body parts simply ignored all further input.

“Hurry,” he demanded.

“It’s coming,” the medtech informed him, referring to the one original regenerator that each trailblazer kept with them when in the field, though Star Force had many lesser copies made from their own tech. But everyone knew they were mere toys compared to the real deal, and he really hoped there was something in their automated programming that could fix this internal sabotage.

By the time an Archon outside his armor came running in carrying the small shiny silver device the lizard was already dead, with Greg telekinetically holding his body upright in a standing position. Greg shut the energy shield down so he could pass him the Kich’a’kat, then he put the device on the lizard’s chest.

For a moment he thought it wasn’t going to activate, but then it melted down and extended out its little rivulets until it covered half his body. Greg had withdrawn his hand, but without a functioning mind to access he no longer could monitor what was happening inside, so he glanced back at the medtechs who were monitoring their own sensor equipment.

“Nothing yet,” one reported.

Greg could see inside the lizard with his Pefbar, watching the tiny tendrils continue to spread out, but it wasn’t until they reached the mastermind’s brain was there any reaction…but it came from the Kich’a’kat rather than the lizard. The branches it had extended into the body quickly withdrew and the material extended up into the brain with thousands of tiny, thinner than hair-sized extensions accessing bits and pieces without damaging them in ways that still boggled Greg’s mind.

He did note that some tendrils still remained, connecting to the heart and lungs, and soon those organs began to function minimally, with Greg guessing that the Kich’a’kat was manually working them in a way that the trailblazer couldn’t.

With that blood flow resuming at a creep, something else happened within the mind…

“It’s bringing him back,” the medtech said with a measure of awe.

Greg smiled. This bastard wasn’t escaping them after all.

But the Kich’a’kat didn’t let go of the lizard.

“What’s happening?” he asked. “It’s still working on something.”

“I’m not certain,” the medtech said with a frown as the lizard woke back up and Greg froze him in place physically but didn’t alter him mentally so in order to not mess with the Kich’a’kat while it was working.

“I’ve never seen this happen before,” Greg commented.

“Neither have we,” another medtech answered. “The work is always quick. It looks like it’s stuck in place.”

“It’s got to be doing something…is the kill signal still active?”

The other medtech snapped his fingers, realizing Greg was right, and extended some more equipment out from the walls and did a specific scan. A few moments later he had his answer.

“It’s not done because it’s blocking the shutdown signal. That mechanism is part of the lizard’s genetic structure, not damage, but it’s causing damage. The Kich’a’kat can’t remove it because it’s supposed to be there, but it can’t let it order the body’s organs to shut down either, so it’s just blocking the signals.”

“We have to neutralize that signal ourselves,” Greg insisted.

“Anything we do the Kich’a’kat will repair.”

“Damn,” Greg said, realizing he was right.

“He’ll try to kill himself the old fashioned way,” the unarmored ranger that had brought the regenerator in offered. “Might as well let him go down this road rather than having him tear his own throat out…after we get the information we need. How long does the battery on that thing last?”

Greg smiled grimly. He didn’t like the end result, but the other Archon was right. This guy was going to die by his own hand at some point anyway. Might as well get the information now and just use the Kich’a’kat as a stopgap against the self-destruct from doing its thing.

“I don’t think it’s ever been run continuous,” Greg said, glancing at the medtechs.

“They’re supposed to last several hours of continuous use. We always put them into a recharging container when they’re not being used so it’s never come up before.”

“Get the techs down here to work up a portable recharger so that it can draw power while functioning and be prepared to camp out here for a few days,” his attention turned to the Archon. “Tell the other trailblazers to get their asses here on the double. If they argue they’re busy, make them understand. Go in person if you have to, but get them here now.”

The ranger didn’t offer any response, not wasting the second that it would take as he ran out of the room. Greg could have called the bridge or any of the trailblazers directly using his armor, but he was going to be busy here and at least some of the trailblazers would either be sleeping or in battle and unavailable, so he needed someone on that task while he focused here.

The mastermind regained enough consciousness to begin to wonder why he was still alive, then looked down at his body and the alien piece of technology imbedded on his chest.

“Sorry,” Greg said, increasing his telekinetic grip on him as he began to struggle, intent on ripping the thing off. “But you’re not getting off that easy. Your empire has been murdering trillions of people and doing a lot of other really disgusting things, and I want to know why, how, and what other things you’re up to that we don’t know about. You may not be a templar with all the answers, but you know enough to have a kill switch woven into your genetic structure, and you’re either going to tell us or we’re going to dig the information out of your mind.”

The mastermind snarled a string of words that the translator couldn’t fully grasp, but Greg’s reading of his mind provided the context. He turned around to face the Knights with a wry look on his face.

“That’s the lizard version of ‘Fuck You.’”

8

June 8, 3221

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Trexklip

Paul walked into the holding cell, seeing Greg, Jax, Ace, Taryn, and Dan sitting around silently on tables, most with their eyes closed, and an assortment of techs monitoring readouts while a giant lizard stood still as a statue behind a blue containment shield. The Archon raised an eyebrow and walked past the others, seeing that Dan had a Lachka tendril wrapped around the lizard to hold him in place and telepathically signaled to him that he’d take over.

The telekinetic binds shifted from one to the other, with Paul loosening up the restraints a bit and letting him shift his fleet in place as he looked up at his pitch black eyes.

“I am Paul-024,” he said without the benefit of a translator, for he wasn’t wearing any armor since transferring over to Greg’s command ship, though two of the others still were.

The mastermind’s stance shifted slightly and all the trailblazers could feel the recognition.

“You are known to me.”

“I am curious how much you know of me. Most of the recent invasions haven’t let any ships leave to report, so how much intel do you have on me?” he said, making it a personal connection.

“You are the most difficult spacebound commander to fight,” the lizard said with a mix of disgust and grudging respect.

“Have you and I crossed paths before this system?”

The lizard almost smiled. “We have.”

Paul frowned. “Where exactly?”

“You call the system Tyrannus.”

Paul though back in recent memory, then one campaign clicked from over 200 years ago. “You were in the flotilla that escaped through the asteroid field?”

“Your memory is sound.”

“I took that system, but a small number of your ships got away. I knew one of you was there, but I could never locate you. You hide exceptionally well.”

“Why do you bother to speak to me when it is obvious that you can invade my mind at will? These others,” he said with disgust, “have been doing so for hours while I am their puppet.”

“I can do both, but prefer actually talking to someone of your skill. Were ships and technology even, you and the others of your kind would make difficult commanders to defeat.”

“You assume dominance?”

“I am well familiar with my own skills…though not overestimating them. I am slightly better at adapting than you are.”

“Tell me then how you discovered my location.”

“I’ll admit we didn’t. You were found in the rubble. We had no idea of your location.”

The lizard’s face twisted up in a mix of rage and satisfaction, knowing that he had not been bested, only caught by bad luck. “And what do you hope to gain from me?”

“Feel like changing sides?” Paul asked casually.

“You do not understand us if you think there is even a chance of that.”

“I don’t fully understand you,” Paul said in all seriousness. “You are misusing your skills and have become a threat I have to deal with. I would much prefer to be allies, yet the Li’vorkrachnika seem bent on exterminating all other life in the galaxy. Why must you expand in such a manner?”

“We do not have much use for slaves.”

“But why kill everyone else? Why not coexist with at least some of them?”

“We coexist with those that we must.”

“And kill all those that you can? What is your end goal? Even if you are able to conquer the galaxy and destroy every other race in it, what does that gain you?”

“The galaxy.”

“To do what with?”

“Whatever we wish.”

“Is there no purpose to your civilization?”

“My purpose is to serve my civilization. Others set the direction and goals.”

“But what are they? I’m not asking you divulge secrets…we’ll probably get those anyway with time, but just in general, why are you expanding? Is there a limit you wish to reach or are you going to continue expanding indefinitely?”

“The larger we grow the more powerful we become.”

“True,” Paul conceded, “and not without merit. How you expand matters greatly, which is why we’re presently in conflict. But is there nothing else driving you beyond expansion?”

“You seek common ground?”

“I seek an option other than having to hunt down and kill every last one of you.”

“Submit.”

“And what will that gain us, other than an eventual stab in the back? We’ve seen what you’ve done to former associates and slaves. And you’ve been eating the prisoners in this system. Is submission truly a valid option for us? If we agreed to a line that neither side would cross, would you always honor it, leaving each civilization to their own pursuits? Do not bother lying, I am in your head and know when you do.”

“Why do you not eat other races?” the mastermind asked instead. “Why do you war and conquer those who do?”

“Because we respect the sovereignty of life. Being dominant doesn’t mean you own the subordinate. They have as much right to live as we do. It is the place of the dominant to protect and guide the lesser, not to consume and exploit them.”

“Do you find strength in that approach?”

“Is that a genuine question or a veiled insult?”

“You should already know that. Do you believe your victories over us flow from your philosophy, or do you succeed in spite of them?”

“We make it harder on ourselves because of them in many cases,” Paul admitted freely.

“Why do so if you have that knowledge?”

“Therein lies the purpose behind our civilization, which is why I ask what yours is. Ours is not to expand, dominate, or even survive. Those are all lesser goals, but we will not pursue them if they conflict with the primary. And the primary is to do the right thing.”

“Ambiguous at best.”

“For you more than most. Are you aware that your genetic structure has been altered in order to assure loyalty and obedience, and that in doing so your sense of right and wrong has been at least partially suppressed?”

“My mind cannot be suppressed. It would be counterproductive.”

“We’ve never captured one of your kind before, but we created a genetic profile on you as soon as you were onboard this ship. I consulted it on my way over. I can assure you the blocks are there, same as with your other breeds. Curiously, we have failed to recover any detailed files on you or your leaders.”

“Such knowledge of them is restricted to even me,” the mastermind said, but Paul could sense a twinge of doubt mixed with professional curiosity.

“The blocks in question make it very difficult to consider options beyond what is mandated. How can you be such a good tactician despite those restrictions?”

“I have no restrictions.”

“Then you could choose not to kill yourself if you wanted? Out of all the Li’vorkrachnika that we have encountered, none have accepted surrender. And those that we did take prisoner anyway sought to kill themselves or each other without exception. How do you account for that?”

“What is there to account for? Perhaps you are merely accustomed to disorderly races.”

“Granted. But is your order achieved through skill and loyalty, or genetic manipulation that keeps you submissive to the group? Such a device might be effective, but it would also be a sign of inferiority. My kin and I need no such mechanisms. We are united in brotherhood. Other races may not be, but our Archons have never had a traitor. Have never conflicted with one another. We are solid. If the Li’vorkrachnika have to artificially create such a state, there will be drawbacks.”

“You have seen our effectiveness. What ‘drawbacks’ have you noticed?”

“Negotiation, trade, information exchanges, outreach. Your inability to interact with other races aside from killing them on the spot is a rather large inability on your part.”

“Do not mistake our unwillingness as ineptitude.”

“So you can make deals?”

“We typically do not seek them out, but we can if needed.”

“But do you honor them, or is it merely a tactic to manipulate your enemies?”

“Whatever is needed.”

“No, no,” Paul said, waving a finger in front of him, “there is a great difference. That is obviously a technique that you have not used before. One negotiates simply through your actions. By being honest and carrying through on established deals even if it turns out to be disadvantageous to you, you then generate reliability in the minds of others. That reliability can then be used as an asset. I do not believe that the Li’vorkrachnika possess that weapon in your arsenal, nor do I think you are capable of doing so with your current blocks in place. Perhaps your leaders are, if they do not have the blocks, but the rest of you cannot without being extremely strong willed.”

“Strong willed?”

“The blocks make independent thought difficult, not impossible.”

“Is that why you are talking to me? Hoping that I will have the will to betray my responsibility?”

“I am trying to ascertain what that responsibility is so I can propose an alternative that does not conflict with it.”

“My responsibility when captured is to escape if possible…”

“No chance of that.”

“…or die so to not give the enemy any information or assistance in any form.”

“And those two things are not currently possible,” Paul pointed out. “So tell me, is your intelligent mind considering other alternatives in this unforeseen circumstance, or is your mind driven to the same repetitive conclusion that you must kill yourself?”

“How are you preventing me?”

“That device heals you, but it cannot finish its task while your own body betrays itself. It is interfering with the process, but cannot stop the trigger. If we take it off you, you will die. That’s why I’m holding you in check physically.”

“And how exactly do you accomplish that?”

Paul looked at him with all respect. “If you only want to die, and there is no way to return that knowledge to the others, why do you ask? You have curiosity, the blocks have not eradicated it. You must use that curiosity to overcome the blocks.”

“I will not assist you.”

“Then how about assisting yourself? What if I agreed to let you go?”

The lizard saw the other Humans twitch, then regarded Paul skeptically. “Why?”

“If I wanted to use you as a courier to send back a message to your leaders, wherever they are now, could you do it? Or would your mental constrictions have you kill yourself the moment you were outside our control?”

The lizard began thinking hard. “What message?”

“Irrelevant. Could you do it, or would you be compelled to carry out your self-destruct order?”

“It is not an order, but a necessity. Take away the necessity and it no longer becomes an issue.”

“Would the other breeds do the same? Are they intelligent enough to make that distinction?”

The mastermind regarded him skeptically. “You have tried this approach before and failed?”

“If they were in our custody they would kill themselves, without fail. Only when we rendered them unconscious then delivered them to another location or free ship did they not do so. Tell me, if they did return to the others what happened to them? Were they reincorporated or destroyed?”

“I have no personal knowledge of this.”

“What would you do if I sent a captured ship back?”

“For what stated purpose?”

“None. I just released it from our custody after a period of time. None but your crew onboard.”

“I would destroy it before they had a chance to contaminate others.”

“Contaminate?”

“Subterfuge of some sort. Biological, explosive, software. You would not return them to us without purpose.”

“There is your answer. We would, and have in a few occasions, because we didn’t want to keep them sedated or restrained indefinitely. We’d rather they die against us in combat than to allow them to die as prisoners at their own hands. We did not tamper with them, we respected them for the living beings that they are. And from what you’ve said, I would guess they were killed upon returning, assuming they didn’t fly themselves into a star on the way back to save you the trouble. Your blindness to the possibility that we could have no malevolent motive has caused you to waste resources and personnel.”

“Negligible. You put value on life where there is little. If we need more personnel we simply create more.”

“So if I offered to let you and every other living Li’vorkrachnika in this system go, you wouldn’t consider it. You’d just write off trillions of people as inconsequential losses.”

“You would have us forfeit the remaining worlds without a fight?”

“In exchange for your lives and your freedom, yes.”

“Our lives are worth less than your losses and consternation with having to remove us.”

“And is that your personal assessment, or do the others do your thinking for you?”

“The logic is sound.”

Paul all but snarled, letting his displeasure and annoyance visibly show as he theatrically reached out a hand towards the lizard and telekinetically lifted him up off the floor and lightly bounced his head against the ceiling.

“My power is strong, not because it is built that way, but because I have increased it in small amounts year after year, and others have done the same. I have lived for more than a millennium, and will continue to grow stronger so long as I survive and continue training as I have. That power is something civilizations with your expendable philosophy will never achieve. You relegate your own powerbase to that which you can take cheaply and quickly, while true dominance is forged with time.”

Paul smashed him back to the floor, but kept his restraining hold on him so he couldn’t rip the Kich’a’kat off his chest. “You are inferior because you do not see the value in life. And you, personally, are someone who should see it, if only in a combat perspective. Highly skilled troops that, if allowed to continue development, will outscale the young 2 to 1. 3 to 1. 10 to 1. You know how damn effective we are in combat, but all of us are like that because we have had time to grow stronger because we weren’t deemed expendable. We keep our people alive in order for them to grow stronger and kick your ass. Can you not get that concept through your feeble mind!”

There was a brief, but chilling silence that the lizard finally broke. “That is why you do not push all advantages?”

“Destroying the enemy at the cost of ourselves is not an option. We would rather wait and devise a way to kill you without any of us dying. I do not know how much information flows back to you, but I have personally conquered several of your planets without losing a single person. We take injuries, then heal them, but if we do our jobs right none of our people will die.”

“We have cost you lives here.”

“Some, yes. And even one loss is unacceptable. A defeat.”

“Why then are you concerned about our lives?”

“Given time you could learn, overcome your blocks, and realize that we are only fighting you because you give us no choice. Stop destroying other races and we’ll leave you alone. If you would just understand that the war could be over in an instant.”

“You think to spare yourselves more losses via strengthening us?”

“You could look at it that way. Your strength is not a threat so long as you do not misuse it.”

“Strength is always a threat, and there can be no security if others have the power to dominate you.”

Paul sighed. “There it is then. That’s why you’re doing all this? You’re trying to take out threats before they can harm you. You’re so scared of the galaxy that you want to destroy it before it can destroy you.”

“We are not alone in that motivation.”

Paul flicked off the energy shield and walked inside the containment area, then turned it back on with him standing only a few inches away from the mastermind. He wore a thin robe like Kara had observed previously, but this one had been fashioned out of Star Force materials given that the clothing he’d worn when the building fell on him had been torn and battered upon recovery.

“If you are truly dominant, you do not need to fear others,” he underscored by tapping on the lizard’s exposed chest next to where the V’kit’no’sat device was. “I have no need to kill you. For all your strengths, you cannot harm me. And if not for that medical device I would release my hold on you to prove it. You would attack me and I would kick your ass, over and over again until you understood that I do not fear you. I respect your skills, but I do not destroy you because you possess them. My responsibility as a leader of Star Force is to be the best. And if I am not the best, I do not try to destroy those who are. I improve myself until I am the best again, then I continue improving to increase my advantage. Destroying your opposition instead of developing yourself is a telltale sign of an imposter.”

“I know my physical skills are no match for your abilities.”

“Are you not compelled to try to kill me regardless?”

“Perhaps.”

“And what purpose does that serve?”

“I might get lucky.”

Paul smiled. “Ok, I can agree with you on that count. But wasting numerous lives by telling everyone to do the same thing in the hope of you getting lucky every now and then is not worth the tradeoff. If you have nothing to lose, then go for it. But if you can live to fight another day, you shouldn’t waste your life looking for a lucky hit.”

“How then would you recommend we go about defeating you?”

“Defeating us, or keeping us from killing all of you?”

“Defeating you.”

Paul decided to indulge his curiosity as long as he was showing it. “You would either have to develop units stronger than ours, whether they be ships or personnel…especially personnel…or you would have to field so many weaker units that you’d need to blanket a star system with troops and ships in order to wear our superior units down. You almost did so long ago when we were weak, but now you do not have that option short of generating truly insane numbers, the like of which you do not possess the ability for.”

The lizard tilted its head down and slightly forward as far as Paul would allow him and stared the Human in the face.

“And there is your answer to why we must conquer the galaxy.”

9

June 21, 3221

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Trexklip

Paul walked into the holding area again, this time with only a pair of titans present and using their telepathy to hold him in place. Feeding him and other amenities had been tricky, but they’d kept Archons here round the clock to prevent him from killing himself and potentially destroying the regenerator…something that they didn’t have the skill to replace yet.

“I’ll take it from here,” Paul said, getting a telekinetic grip on the lizard and allowing the other two Archons to release him and walk out of the room. The trailblazer gestured to the pair of techs, one medical, one mechanical, to leave as well, then when the door shut behind them Paul walked up to the edge of the blue energy field and stared up at the mastermind again.

“More questions? I thought you had grown tired of my interrogation.”

“We are done,” Paul admitted. “We’ve learned a great deal from you, and there may still be some secrets you carry deep within your mind, but we’re not going to spend the time trying to find them when we don’t know what is or is not there.”

“Then why are you here?”

“We can cancel the self-destruct protocol within your mind. It requires equipment we do not have onboard this ship, but it is possible. We can even remove the capability from you if we wish.”

“You are moving me then.”

“No,” Paul said with a sigh, “but I will return you to another Li’vorkrachnika system, if you’ll allow it.”

“Allow it?”

“Are you going to kill yourself as soon as I release you? With your claws even if I arrange to disable your current method?”

“What do you wish to use me for? A courier?”

Paul shook his head. “Would there be any point? No message we send will be considered. You have made that clear.”

“Then what is your purpose? Contaminate me?”

“No. I simply don’t want you to die, but if we keep you here you are going to find a way to do it. And I will not keep guards on you at all times.”

“Why is my continued existence valuable to you?”

“I hate seeing skill such as yours be wasted.”

“So you would return me to another world, not one here that you are about to assault, but another where I will fight you later?”

“Perhaps, but that is of no disadvantage to us. They will grow a replacement for you if needed. Sending you back gains them little other than your experience.”

“That is something of note, whether you realize it or not.”

“And even now you are trying to find a way to die,” Paul said with irreverence. “Rather than trying to find a way to freedom, you seek to die. Do you not know I can see right through you?”

“So you say.”

“Sending you back may gain the Li’vorkrachnika a bit of information, and therefore not be in our best tactical interests, but the simple fact is we’re winning and you’re not going to be able to stop us. I do not expect your people to negotiate, so I am not offering to send you back as a messenger, nor am I intending to use you in some tactical sense. I am simply offering you travel back to your people as a courtesy.”

“Why not then send me to a planet in this system?”

Paul stiffened. “You won’t live as long here.”

The mastermind stared at him intently. “I cannot determine your intent. Your intent does not make sense.”

“We are enemies because you chose it. We don’t have to be enemies. I’ll fight and kill you if I have to in order to stop you from killing others, but I don’t do it because I seek your death. Someone of your skill should not be treated as expendable, and you deserve a chance to think and reason your way out of your genetic shackles. You’re smart enough to do it, given time, if you have a reason to try.”

“And what reason would that be?”

“Curiosity. Now that I’ve told you of it, you will want to know the truth. You can’t help it. You’ve been bred to find solutions, ascertain what works best, not blindly follow tradition. You are built to think, and once I have shown you the chink in your armor you will not be able to resist picking at it. You do not tolerate weakness or vulnerability, and in our conversations I have shown you many within the Li’vorkrachnika, though you may not fully understand them at the moment. In time, however, I am confident that you will reason most of them out.”

“So you seek to contaminate us with knowledge?”

Paul smiled faintly. “Perhaps so. But the truth is not a poison. It is a weapon that I am giving you. Only those who are wise can truly wield it. All others, no matter how effective they may be, are clumsy when trying to grasp it because they are in some form of denial. Only those who are loyal to the truth in its pure form can grasp its full power, and none of them are enemies of one another. All find themselves to be allies over time. If you came to see the truth you would be our ally, and I’m not speaking of your race, but you individually. I don’t think most of your kind are smart enough to work their way around your genetics.”

“Then why not keep me imprisoned in order to give me the time to contemplate these revelations?”

“Because I know at this point you already have, and you will either choose to pursue them further or turn a blind eye to them. Further time in this state is pointless. Only when you are free will you be able to truly think through the matters we have discussed.”

“Even if you did so it would be of no use. They would not accept me back unless I escaped by my own means.”

Paul pointed a finger at his scaly face. “There. You just did it. You broke with your programing for a split second and considered an alternative option. Don’t deny it, it’s too late. I saw it.”

The Human lowered the energy field and stepped up to him.

“I will not assist you with this.”

Paul loosened his grip on the lizard enough that he could move freely, but kept a zone over his chest where his arms would not move. He gave him a split second to realize he was no longer bound, then another to realize his arms wouldn’t allow him to tear at the device, before Paul leapt up to get more height and punched the mastermind in the side of the head.

“Think!” he demanded. “You are nearly my equal in strategic skill. Use your abilities and prove me wrong if I truly am, but do not cower like an imbecile. Find the truth, whatever it may be, and face it.”

Unable to get his clawed hands at the device on his chest, the mastermind went for his own throat…only to find that it was also inescapable. Unable to kill himself he decided to go after the Human instead and found that option was still available to him. He struck out with his thick right arm in an overhead slash that abruptly stopped as Paul simply raised an arm and blocked it.

The mastermind’s arm hurt as if he had just flung it against a bar of metal, with the two seemingly locked in place as he did not relent against the pain and tried to force his arm down, mostly out of spite, rather than trying to attack with his other.

“If you are truly my peer then you will think!” Paul half yelled. “If not, then you and the whole of the Li’vorkrachnika are INFERIOR,” he said, emphasizing that word with significant telepathic force just before the lizard grew faint and fell to the floor, soon to black out.

The mastermind woke up groggily, not knowing where he was or even who he was for a long moment, then he saw the interior of a familiar ship…one of their small atmospheric troop transports, and he was laying on the floor of the hold bound up in several restraining straps. He reflexively pulled against them, then as his head cleared enough to focus his strength he snapped them and freed himself, standing up just as his memories clicked in of his captivity.

He froze in place, looking and listening around as he heard the distant sounds of battle coming in through the broken cargo bay door that was slightly ajar and spilling in light from the exterior. He had no memory of coming here, nor where he was, and the fact that he was in one of his own craft made no difference. This must be some type of subterfuge. Reaching into his mind he sought out the self-destruct function, seeking to take this chance to fulfill his responsibility before the Humans could stop him, having erred by giving him this moment of freedom.

But it wasn’t there. The spot was dead in his mind.

He snarled, taking a moment to give Paul credit for doing exactly what he said he could do, then the mastermind brought his hand up to his throat, not relishing going out this way but finding it preferable than remaining a captive or assisting the enemy with whatever plans they had set in motion. He stiffened his arm then raked his fingers across his own throat, closing his eyes in the process…

But his fingers slid across his throat with no resistance.

The mastermind looked down at his hand, seeing that he no longer had his claws. They’d been removed, and done so with such finesse that he could see no surgical damage. He simply didn’t have them anymore.

Clever, he thought, glancing around and hoping for a weapon but seeing none and not expecting Paul to have been so careless as to leave one in here with him.

He stretched his body, testing to see if he was restricted in any way by their invisible machinations, then touched his chest, finding the device gone and his movement no longer hindered. He walked up to the cockpit, finding it empty and damaged, with the front of the ship smashed and mostly buried in the ground.

He returned to the small cargo bay, pressing his shoulder into the gap between door and wall, then used his considerable strength to pry it open a bit more, enough for him to crawl out the bottom of and onto the burnt rubble of the outside ground. His thick skin didn’t cut against the abrasion as he crawled out nude through and around several large chunks of debris that had once been lizard buildings, then he finally got out into the open and stood up, looking around to try and see where he was.

The view of the sky overhead showed the tiny specs of warships in orbit, and from the size and position of them he knew they were Star Force. He was on a world under attack, for he could hear distant sounds of weaponsfire, but what world? What system?”

Looking around he sought out something he could use to kill himself with, but then pushed that thought aside. If Paul had returned him to a world already under assault what would be the point? He would die when its defenders fell, and Star Force didn’t need subterfuge in order to take Li’vorkrachnika worlds. If they had wanted to contaminate them with a biological agent they could have done so long ago through a variety of means, and had they wanted to they would have returned him to a fully intact world and let the disease ravage them. Putting him down on a world that was already falling to their assault had no logic in it.

The mastermind walked a ways, trying to find a perch of higher ground, or in this case rubble, where he could get some better visibility. It took him more than an hour to find one, but when he finally climbed up the wall of one building…which was very difficult without claws…he was able to see for several kilometers in all directions.

Not all of the landscape was wrecked. Only select areas that he immediately knew held key structures. The rubble of a shield tower lay behind him, and the ship he had woke in had obviously been crashed into the rubble afterward. How he survived that crash he didn’t know. Maybe it was a plant and not a real crash, but Star Force didn’t hold this region yet. Damaged as it was, it was only softened up for their ground assaults yet to come. He’d seen the routine so many times, and been unable to do anything about it, that he could get a sense for just what stage of damage this city was in and about how much time it had before falling within only a few seconds of visual inspection.

The sound of weaponsfire was coming from a city to the west, and he could see occasional flashes of phasers and the Star Force plasma. None was coming from orbit, which meant that the full ground invasion was present there. Paul hadn’t put him down in a region of safety as he had planned, so what was his purpose in this?

Before he could think on that much he heard a whistle. Not a mechanical one, but one that was used by troops to identify themselves to each other.

He turned in the direction it was coming and saw several standard variant lizards creeping through the rubble in his direction. Conflicted between trying to find a way to kill himself or rejoining the others he hesitated for a moment, then seeing the warships overhead and the inevitability of the oncoming ground assault he figured he would die soon anyway and he might as well use his skills to try and take some of the enemy with him.

The mastermind whistled back and began to climb down, wondering if that was what Paul had intended. Giving him a circumstance where he would be disinclined to find a way to kill himself after the most obvious routes had been denied him. Perhaps he was true to his word about not wanting to kill prisoners and was affording him a death via battle rather than a suicide.

If that was the case then he had made a mistake, for his kin would fight more effectively with his leadership and they would succeed in destroying at least some of his precious, long-living troops…or at the very least some of their mechanized craft. If Paul’s ego was so large he thought returning him here was inconsequential then that was a philosophical contradiction for him.

He finished climbing down as the smaller lizards scrambled to get to him with most of them encircling and forming a perimeter around the most valuable asset they had on the planet. Exchanging glances with them they waited silently for him to give them orders. They did not view him as an enemy or potentially contaminated, though he couldn’t rule out that last possibility completely. He’d need a scientist variant to check him over, but any thought of killing himself was now gone.

If Paul had returned him to this world untainted, then him killing himself would be denying the Li’vorkrachnika on this planet the leadership they needed to hurt Star Force before they were all destroyed, and mistakenly weakening themselves would be a sure sign of the inferiority that he had spoken of. Was he trying to win the argument with him by putting him in this position? If he killed himself he’d be proving the Human right?

Paul’s deviousness had depth, to be sure, so he was going to work this problem from his current situation. His former captivity no longer mattered other than the bits of information he was able to glean from them.

“What world am I on?” he asked the lizards, getting some curious looks that immediately transitioned into obedience.

“Michra,” one of them said.

Michra. Then he was still in the capitol system. Paul hadn’t sent him away after all.

The mastermind looked to the sky, knowing that Paul was up there somewhere. Maybe not in the ships he could see or even around this world, but he was in the system, and the mastermind’s death was all but a certainty now knowing how many enemy ships and troops opposed him.

If this was just a courtesy, one strategist to another, he could grant the Human that.

“Take me to the closest command center,” he told the shorter lizards, who immediately started reforming around him into running lines that would bracket him all the way to his location.

He took off running with them and they matched his pace, which was slower than normal given his stagnant period imprisoned. Adjusting into a stable pace, he moved erratically around the debris as the little lizards guided him where he needed to go further away from the distant, yet all too close Star Force ground troops.

If Paul had meant to return him to the fight, then he was going to do just that and kill as many of his enemies as he could before he finally died. If that was what the Human intended or he had another motive, it no longer mattered. He was back where he belonged and, despite whatever moral victory for them to have averted him killing himself, he now had a much greater purpose that silenced the directive to destroy himself. It no longer applied in this circumstance. His death was no longer a concern.

Killing the enemy was.

10

May 2, 3222

Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

Michra

The mastermind picked his way over a half destroyed command center, utilizing a few still active display screens because he knew that Star Force had considered this area already destroyed and moved their orbital bombardment further on, meaning it would be safe for him to operate out of for a while until the ground troops got here, and they were a far distance off.

There seemed to be enough equipment still working, but he wanted more and quickly ordered his engineering variants to get to work making repairs and doing what adaptive field modifications were necessary to give him the command and control capability that he needed. They were the smallest Li’vorkrachnika variant, barely 2/3rds the mass of a standard variant, and not produced en mass. Standard variants could handle construction well enough, but the engineers were designed to troubleshoot new technology, weapon designs, or in a case such as this, rework existing equipment and potentially build new items or adaptations on the fly.

With so much rigidity in the Li’vorkrachnika to give them structure and clarity, they needed an addition to increase their adaptability in unforeseeable situations. Standard variants could adapt their existing weapons and tactics to use them in different ways to combat an enemy or overcome a problem, but designing new things was beyond them, hence the engineering variants had been created.

These few went to work with a lot of standard variants helping them to get the broken command center’s functionality increased as the mastermind studied what displays he had available. As predicted, the battles were going poorly and they were unable to inflict losses of personnel on the enemy…but they were causing them a lot of equipment losses and injuries. With their body armor it was very hard to kill them though, and their troops were trained to prioritize saving their wounded rather than pressing advantages against their opponents.

Was that because of illogical concern for their wellbeing or a practical matter? The Human leader Paul had said it was both. That keeping their people alive meant they could grow stronger over the course of years, and the mastermind couldn’t argue the results. The stronger Humans scared him, but he knew their weaker ones were not so impressive. The ones they called Archons marked their skill level with their color of armor, making it easy for him to target them…in theory. The ones they called Commandos and Knights were more difficult to measure, for their armor all the looked the same, but the Archon veterans made for bold targets, and unfortunately that wasn’t resulting in their deaths.

In fact he assumed part of the color scheme was to draw fire towards them and away from weaker troops that would fall more easily…but potentially eliminating those more powerful individuals was too important an opportunity to usually pass up.

The non-Humans were a different matter. Some were weak, some strong, but they all fought in the same manner to try and preserve themselves and their kin. He could use that against them, and had on numerous occasions, but their relative numbers and tech level were so much greater than his here that the best he could do is slow them down and cause them as much frustration as he could as they slowly took this planet from him.

Win or lose, the Li’vorkrachnika always fought. Paul had confirmed this more so than the mastermind’s own information, citing that no lizard had ever surrendered. The Human saw that as ‘limited thinking,’ but the mastermind knew it to be the solid rock upon which their race was based. They fought as one, without exception, and would not yield.

But as the engineers worked he found himself staring at them as his thoughts wandered. They too were known for their thinking skills, and while he did not doubt their loyalty he wondered if they had the genetic restrictions that the Humans had claimed existed.

Checking current situations again and finding them more or less stable in the immediate area, he sent several runners to issue commands that could not be traced nor interfered with by battle damage. At present he only had a tenuous link to his troops in this area, let alone across the third of the planet he still controlled, but maintaining the secrecy of his location was paramount, else he’d find a round of orbital bombardment dropped on his head.

Or would he? Would Paul spare him again if he discovered his location?

The mastermind huffed as he considered the absurdity of that. He has seen no hesitation from the invading army or navy since his return to the planet, and if they could find his command center, or even just him, they’d take him out in order to facilitate the rest of their invasion with less resistance.

But then why had he been returned in the first place?

More than two days later his couriers returned with additional variants in tow. They were librarians and scientists, to which he assigned several tasks, the first of which was for the librarians to brief him on whatever they knew of these genetic restrictions. They were the keepers of knowledge within the Li’vorkrachnika, and if they didn’t know something themselves they would know where to go to find that information.

With adequate computer links established to other parts of the planet they got to work after informing him of no personal knowledge of such things. With them dispersed through his still rubble strewn and increasingly improvised command center, he instructed the scientists to take tissue samples from the engineers, the standard variants, and his own and compare them to the records on file that the librarians would provide and to look for discrepancies.

They took to their tasks without question, leaving him to continue his never ending oversight operations of every Li’vorkrachnika left on this planet, for he was the only mastermind remaining here. There were others on the capitol and one other world that had yet to be killed, but they had their own tasks to attend to and did not communicate with each other unless there was a matter of mutual concern, and never on a direct link in a combat situation where the enemy might trace the transmission to both ends.

Normally there wouldn’t even be two masterminds in the same star system, but this was the capitol and he’d gotten used to the presence of others here, though they never strayed beyond their own dominions that were laid down by the templars. As for the sovereigns, he knew of their existence by rumor only, for all his communication came from templars, who in turn wouldn’t deal with the lesser Li’vorkrachnika unless absolutely necessary. The masterminds were the go betweens, taking care of strategic tasks and insuring that others took care of theirs while the templars attended to foresight and the interconnection of their vast empire.

One couldn’t micromanage across the lightyears, so masterminds would often be placed to oversee a star system, or perhaps managed a small region, but they did not know what was happening elsewhere. The templars did, and that task division had well served their race as they spread out and conquered all in their path.

At least until these Humans had found a way to resist them. And from what Paul had told him and he had verified by asking, there were other small races out there that had defied the Li’vorkrachnika and still lived within their borders. Had he not sought out that knowledge he never would have known, and it made him wonder what else was going on.

Not in a questioning of the templars, but in him having an accurate assessment of the Li’vorkrachnika’s true strength and position in the galaxy. Misjudgement based on inaccurate or incomplete data could be fatal, so he had been digging into their records for a while now to try and confirm or deny things that Paul had told him, but it hadn’t occurred to him until now to check on the assertion that there were controlling genetics placed in all of them.

He knew the standard variants were very regimented, constructed that way to ensure they followed orders and made the most out of their brief lifespans. Other weak races learned by experience rather than genetic memories, and often had to develop for many years after birth. The Li’vorkrachnika did not have that weakness, but if there were constrictions implanted along with those memories in more than just the standard variants it could have a negative side effect.

His own mind was designed to consider all options, to be able to outthink any opponent, and the engineers were likewise so designed, only their opponent was the physical structure of machines and physics itself. If they had restricted thought he needed to know, because he might need to nudge them in some different directions if they truly did have blind spots.

But then that begged the question of whether or not he did. If he had a blind spot would he even notice it?

The Human had said he could, given enough time to think, and the mastermind had never been able to forget that brief snippet of conversation. He hadn’t dwelled on it, but if it wasn’t true he should be able to discover that for a fact and put this matter to rest. If it was true, then he would have to make strategic adjustments to not let the Humans take advantage of such a blind spot.

The information on the genetics came back to him first, though they’d had to access one of the few remaining deposits of information on the planet. Typically those were destroyed by the librarians themselves before an invading assault force could get to them, but there was still a good chunk of this planet that was untouched. The trick was getting a connecting subsurface comm line to those databases. A lot of the orbital bombardment had punched into the substructure across the planet with every anti-orbital battery having been taken out, but the engineers always found ways to make reconnects through other systems and the mastermind knew that when comms went down they wouldn’t stay down for long.

But the protected databases had to deal with potential intrusions from Star Force, who knew their own computer systems very well, no doubt from analyzing captured equipment. Getting past that hurdle had almost required a physical runner, but the librarians on the other end eventually were able to make positive identification of their peers and allowed the data link.

According to the genetic database, which was massive, there were restrictions in place on the minds of the standard variants and heavily so. The engineers were also showing some, but far less. It took some time for the scientist variants to explain several aspects of it to him, but it seemed that with regards to the engineers their constrictions were limited to loyalty programming. That made sense, given the wide range of responsibilities they had and the abundant opportunity for sabotage if they so desired.

And with regards to his own genetics there were none. He’d suspected as much, but why had the Human told him so if it wasn’t true? He could have lied, obviously, but so far ever bit of information given to him from Paul had checked out and Star Force’s methods centered on fixing the truth rather than blurring it.

It took several more weeks before he got a full report back from the scientists, who had been delayed by lack of necessary equipment to do the tests. The engineers had either repaired broken pieces or fabricated new ones out of varied components, after which the tests didn’t take long at all.

When he accepted the results from them he saw at a glance the summary.

The standard variants matched perfectly. The other two did not.

The mastermind dug through the minutia of the results, seeing which regions had differences, then asked the scientists many questions regarding those areas before eventually dismissing them back to their original tasks…which in their case were not many given the current state of the planet.

He immediately tasked the librarians to send a runner to one of the intact databases and do a thorough search looking for genetic template updates and the dates to which they occurred and to see if the current samples from himself and the engineers matched any, during which time he had to abandon his command center and relocate to another trashed area to avoid detection from approaching troops.

He traveled almost exclusively below ground where there was a sensor interfering layer built into the lizard infrastructure. The invading ships could scan the surface buildings, but not what lay beneath them until they breached that barrier…in theory. He had been assured it would interfere with their sensors, but without having access to Star Force technology he had no way of knowing for sure how effective it was.

But aside from his admittedly accidental capture, he had always been able to stay at least one step ahead of his enemies, though the available areas to run to were gradually diminishing on this planet and it wasn’t going to be long before he had to make do with much more limited options.

He had many thoughts running through his head, most of which had to do with troop placements, available resources, foodstuff and ordinance factories, and everything else required of his supreme intellect to keep this planet in the fight and hurt the enemy as much as possible, but there was a bit of his mind that kept running through possibilities regarding the genetic programming. Almost like a low priority task, he kept occasionally analyzing it from all possible angles up until he got back the results from the librarians.

There were no positive matches regarding any genetic template, for his variant or the engineers.

Following that discovery, he gave the order for all existing variants to be sampled and compared to templates in the database.

Mage Trevor-153992 was in a forward firebase along with the Bsidd army he was assigned to as they geared up for another assault. He wasn’t in his armor yet, nor were most of the other Archons assigned to him, but the Bsidd mechs were already out and about, some patrolling the distant front perimeter where they had finished busting up two cities the previous week. They were going after another one today on the far side, though the borderlines between cities was almost an arbitrary measurement when the cityscape blanketed the entire planet.

Usually they measured their centers at the anti-orbital guns or other major infrastructure, but in truth the entire subsurface levels made such distinctions nearly pointless. None the less that was how Star Force tended to chop up the planet with regards to purge and hold operations, with Trevor’s army only concerned with the surface and a few subsurface levels. Anything deep would be physically sealed off and another unit would come through later more suited to that deep probing action. His task was to keep any lizard units that deep from coming to the surface and flanking them while they swept the surface ‘cities.’

As was standard before any operation of this size, the commander would signal the lizards offering a surrender. One could argue that it was giving away their intention to attack, but the lizards knew they were coming anyway so it didn’t really matter.

Trevor had his comm officer send a recorded message of his own voice then paid no further attention to it, moving on to other prep tasks as more supplies were being moved in from other locations on the planet and orbit. His Bsidd were burning through a lot of plasma rounds, grenades, and armor, all of which had to be continually resupplied or their conquering march across this planet would grind to a halt real quick.

His troops already had what they needed for this next assault, but the Archons had learned to plan well ahead so as to not get caught with shortages by unexpected turn of events…like dropships suddenly being unable to land.

“Trevor,” the comm officer said, his face with a weird expression despite his alien visage. “We’ve received a reply.”

“To what?” the Archon asked, wondering which request to the fleet he was referring to.

“From the lizards,” the Bsidd Alpha said, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth. “They’re asking what are our terms for surrender.”

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Table of Contents

- Star Force 81 Perseverance (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force 82 Hradeiti (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force 83 Rammus (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force: Resurrection (SF84) (Star Force Origin Series) by Jyr, Aer-ki