Whitmore Day

by Aer-ki Jyr

  He wasn’t surprised no more were trying, but the rest of the Hadarak were being quite stupid in their attacks. Had Star Force’s equipment not been so resilient the swarming would have worked, but they had no chance of getting to Paul as long as he remained in this position…and as long as he kept directing the fighting personally.

  That was when three contacts emerged from within one of the stars, accelerating fast with Essence enhancement and giving Paul only a few moments to react…but a few moments to him were more than enough time in his enhanced computer-interlinked combat mode.

  The Excalibur created an Essence shield over the side of the ship they were approaching while thickening the light dampening field that surrounded his ship. He extended it in the direction they were coming, knowing that it wouldn’t expand far enough in time, but it would slow them on approach.

  Paul added an Essence component to it, enhancing the effect as the first of the three Lurkers hit the outer boundaries of it…with him noticing that they were not slowing…so he moved the Excalibur laterally, peeling it partially out of the way as the arrowhead-shaped Hadarak attempted to ram him.

  He fired a disintegration burst along with an enhanced Tar’vem’jic towards them before they got into range, with the first one taking both hits and flying into a field of debris that stuck in the dampening field like ornamentation as the other two passed through a few microseconds later.

  Paul could do the math, and without good maneuvering capabilities he wasn’t going to be able to evade…so he accelerated towards the opposite star, getting about the best gravitational pull one could get in this close and heading directly towards it as he launched a ‘nose blunt’ attack against the next one, throwing what was the equivalent of an Essence Jumat energy field that hit it as a physical impact at an angle designed to deflect it, and that’s what happened. The second Lurker skipped past the Excalibur, and as it did Paul hit it with three different Essence weapons, but didn’t kill it as it passed by damaged.

  The third he couldn’t deflect or stop in time, and it would have rammed into and penetrated his Essence shields if he allowed them to stay up…so right before impact he lowered and retracted them to defend the inner core of the Borg vessel where the crew were just before the Lurker made impact with his conventional shields.

  The nose tip of the beast crumpled on impact before the shields collapsed, but the Lurker had so much mass and momentum the mathematics of it were determinant. It plowed into the Excalibur’s armor and plunged into the more massive warship like a knife at first, then as its width widened it got stuck halfway, only to use its Essence power to disintegrate the ship around its insertion point.

  59 miles deep of Paul’s vessel exploded outward, but retracted Essence shield #1 kept it from going further, and now that his ship’s mass had stopped the Lurker’s movement, he kicked it back out away from him with another Jumat-like blast called a Lo’par’yi. It was one of many techniques Star Force had learned from the Temples and Neofan and reworked to their own uses, and Paul used it now as he accelerated more towards the star as the other damaged Lurker tried to double back on him.

  But before either could gain enough speed to ram, he disappeared into the outer layers of the star.

  What are you doing? Azoro asked, unable to see it within his mind due to the speed at which he was calculating other stuff unrelated to the present movement…because Paul had a habit of thinking ahead and then leaving a little bit of his mind to carry out present operations simultaneously, making monitoring him in this state almost impossible.

  Being unpredictable, he said, offering no further explanation as the Excalibur fired deeper into the star with one of its Essence weapons…which triggered an explosion in the upper layers that he braced the ship against with the intact shield generators on the side opposite the Lurker impact…and due to the redundant design of the Excalibur, the massive damage done didn’t hinder the other parts of the ship in their various functions, though the loss still affected total combat capability.

  Paul and his crew rode the explosion outward, using their engines to reverse direction and diminish the pressure wave as the star micro-novaed in an explosion across an eighth of its surface into the gap between stars. It wasn’t fast enough to hit the minions or his drones, but it did provide him cover as his ship came back into space, now in the midst of a quickly cooling asteroid field that made it difficult for the Lurkers to move through without constantly running into objects.

  That gave Paul some time to look at them and for them to look at him as they were temporarily locked into the outward flow from the star. The 2nd Lurker had two chunks missing out of it, looking like bites taken on either flank, while the other one was missing its ramming tip, which was the weakest part of the Lurker despite the slightly denser armor there.

  Once the comm channels returned, Paul sent orders to his drones, with bands of them peeling off the carrier ships and headed towards the approaching nova. Their smaller size allowed them to maneuver between the larger pieces, with the less coalesced plasma and gas spreading out as it traveled, meaning reduced resistance to the drones who aligned against the flow and sculpted their shields into points to make them the most aerodynamic possible as they raced towards the Lurkers that were trying to gently maneuver out of the mess.

  But they couldn’t leave before the drones got to them, and while they could target and kill the drones on approach, their weapons were line of sight…and with so much debris, the drones were able to get closer than normal.

  And they were not normal drones, not all of them. Some were one time use Essence-carriers that produced shields that lasted only a few seconds to shield other drones with warheads up to the Lurkers’ hulls.

  The first few blasts caught the Lurkers off guard, then when they realized the threat of the tiny drones they tried to run…with one of them making a microjump through the field and ramming several pieces of glowing debris and killing itself in the process. The other hesitated, getting savaged by the drones, then made a less fast jump, hitting debris on purpose at survivable speeds as the drones chased after it, soon making the kill and leaving extra to spare.

  Paul had those drones return to their docking racks as he organized the regular ones still engaging in combat. They hadn’t fared as well without his direct control, but as soon as the Excalibur got out of the main comm interference the battle visibly shifted as the brains behind the Star Force fleet movements returned.

  “Paul, are you ok?” Liam asked over a slight time lag.

  “Heavy damage, but no casualties. I’ve been expecting something like that for millennia, but I didn’t see it coming here. Almost worked.”

  “I’m sending Essence sensor drones into the star near me. I suggest you do the same in case they try a second time.”

  No need, Azoro said, sending a small tap into Paul’s brain that gave him a much more complicated view of the Saiolum currents than he could produce himself, but his companion cut it off instantly to not distract him. I will watch.

  “Azoro says he can monitor for the same tactic again, but I want both stars and the gas giants mined with drones so we know when and where the Lurkers, Wardens, or anything else comes and goes from them,” Paul said, sending orders to his own drones while making the request to the entire Star Force fleet.

  “How long are you going to stay there without a break?”

  “Have you taken one?”

  “Four short ones. My crew is well trained and covered adequately. Isn’t yours?”

  “If I had been napping a moment ago we’d be dead.”

  “Then get out of the box canyon you’re in.”

  “I can handle another day, perhaps two. I’m boosting your killcount considerably by playing bait.”

  “We don’t have to rush this, Paul. We’re going to win.”

  “Not until we get the jumppoints. Talk to me after we have them under control.”

  “That might take another 5 days. And even if you last that long, you�
�ll be trashed afterwards.”

  “Then tell the others to hurry up with the rest of the system and get their asses down here.”

  “They’re not dragging their feet,” Liam noted, dismissing Paul’s ire. He’d seen him like this before, and it wasn’t intentional. He was overloaded and burning out. “Jason is coming, though.”

  Paul mentally laughed, given his body was all but silent inside his pseudo-sarcophagus. “You tattled on me?”

  “Someone had to.”

  Paul waved off the comm and stayed focused on the waves of minions coming into the ‘box canyon’ as Liam had described it, eventually seeing another Borg cube fly into the gap along with a wedge of drones. They cut through easily, but like drawing a line in the ocean with your finger, the water refilled almost instantly, and the same was true of the Hadarak minions continuing to enter the system through nearby spouts that were so heavily guarded that the Star Force combined fleet had been able to lock down only one, and Megan-026 and Kip-022 were both camping out at the base of that line with a gauntlet of drones on either side killing all the Hadarak as they came in instantly while simultaneously fighting on their outer flanks as other Hadarak tried to remove them from their prime ambush position.

  When Jason’s Sanguine Blade came to Paul’s drone line he moved them aside to let it pass, with Jason’s drones deploying alongside Paul’s and meshing together seamlessly as they kept the Essence capable minions well away from the manned vessels.

  “Nap time, buddy,” Jason said once his Borg vessel came up alongside and sat only 600 miles away…which was dangerously close for ships 327 miles wide. “We’re double teaming it from here on out, and right now is my watch. I can handle your ship and mine.”

  “I’m good for a while longer, Jason.”

  “Good, yes. Good for later, no. Disconnect and sleep for a few hours. You’re the only one who hasn’t.”

  “Really?” he asked, not having had time to even consider that.

  “You beat Roger by 9 hours. Now take your victory and recharge. We’re not getting control of this system anytime soon.”

  “And that triple Lurker formation has you spooked?”

  “As it does you. They want Maty bad, and I don’t understand why.”

  “Likewise. They also want us dead.”

  “It’s more than that. There’s something here we’re not aware of, and neither of us are in a position to worry about that now. You can think on it while you nap, but I doubt you’ll have time. I dropped off within two minutes.”

  “You timed it?”

  “The computer did. Now get going. We’re going to have to stretch later, I fear.”

  “Right,” Paul agreed, having assumed the worst would be up front, but their inability to quickly seize all the necessary jumppoints had him worried as well. “I’m out.”

  I can’t warn the others, Azoro noted as Paul relinquished command of his ship and fleet to Jason in a microsecond.

  Wake me if you have to. I can communicate with Jason as needed as long as I am wearing a commlink or in a room with a node.

  You do not need a rest yet.

  I agree, but Jason is thinking ahead more than I am. He’s right if this goes really long term. I can’t regenerate as fast later as I can now. The burnout affects it, Paul said as he ignored everything, including Azoro, and began to withdraw his Core from his Astromech…a process that took several minutes to accomplish.

  When he finished he blinked his eyes open and ordered the meter thick armor plate over his vertical cupola to open, with him stepping out of his body-molded cradle on very stiff steps.

  “Oww,” he groaned, not realizing his Furyan body would get that bad after only a few days. “That’s worse than when I was a Human.”

  Perhaps your adaptation was more to activity than static endeavors.

  “Duh,” Paul said, reminding himself of the obvious as he hobbled across a short bridge that held a chasm so deep he couldn’t see the bottom of it…just in case boarders got this far on the ship and he needed a moat for some extra protection. Plus it reminded him of the Death Star.

  Paul walked to the other side and then to a nearby room that had a bed, food, bathroom, and everything else he needed. He put a little food in his stomach, for he wasn’t actually hungry, then laid down face up and crossed his hands over his chest as he closed his eyes once again, calming his mind and accepting the fatigue prompt that was now growing in focus as his battle-numbing diminished.

  When he did, sleep mode came easily, as Jason had predicted, and Paul drifted off fully trusting his friend to watch his back as he slept and the system-wide battle continued to rage beyond his perfectly quiet and secluded refuge within his massive warship.

  6

  December 6, 154960

  System 9923004 (Hadarak-Occupied Territory)

  8th planet

  Morgan-063 had met up with the V’kit’no’sat troops inside the Maty on the second day of fighting, and since then had been taking brief respites in their makeshift camp inside the construct, but each time she woke she went out alone to fight in an area where there were no others. No V’kit’no’sat, no PanNari, no automated defenses. She wanted nothing but enemies before her, and that was what she was getting with no end in sight even after Star Force secured orbit and cleansed the surface of the roving armies.

  But somehow the Hadarak already had underground bases that were feeding reinforcements in through tunnels. Some of those entrances had been fought to and secured, with Morgan taking 5 of them single handedly and sealing them with a simple code the PanNari had discovered. Manual input was required at the site, but other than that it was a simple matter of closing the blast doors that the Hadarak could not cut their way through.

  Everything other than monitoring and communications seemed to be configured for manual operation in the Maty, and by communications Morgan meant the facility’s own, for everyone else’s was blocked, even telepathy…but not her Essence sense. Apparently the builders of the Maty didn’t have that technology, or perhaps knowledge of it, and Morgan was using it to navigate towards the largest concentrations of Hadarak as her armor kept track of her movements, making a map she could follow back later, because she wasn’t paying attention to what was behind her. She was focused full ahead and eager to kill as many Hadarak as she could before they accessed or destroyed the prizes held in the Maty…which had communicated to her as much on a very odd frequency, but using Star Force language and code prompts.

  She didn’t know who had sent it, but it was labeled as the Maty itself, and the fact that it was getting through the walls seemed to confirm that. It had requested her help a number of times at various locations, but was silent to any type of return conversation. Recently it had been quiet and Morgan was out searching for more targets on her own since the flow into the facility had diminished, but it was so large Star Force hadn’t been able to lock down all the entrances yet and do a proper sweep, so Morgan had no idea how many were left, but she could feel a great deal of them in various directions, meaning this fight was far from over.

  The Furyan turned down another random hallway, this one on an incline going lower in the facility that appeared to have no lifts in it…or perhaps cleverly hidden ones. Regardless, Morgan had been running up and down a lot of these, and at the bottom she came across more Hadarak, but they weren’t moving as all the others seemed to be. These were standing still and clogging the hallway like a roadblock, with many of the larger varieties that massed some 10-15 times what Morgan did.

  She ran halfway down the hall, then tipped forward and kicked off the floor, flying low over it and forming a Jumat wave in front of her like a nosecone that she then released when she neared them and began to take fire. It punched a hole into them, smashing them backwards and into the walls a moment before she entered the concave and touched down on the momentarily clear floor and brandished her death sabers.

  Morgan spun and dashed, with the blue energy blades cleaving the minion flesh wit
h hardly any resistance, and with the tight confines in the hallway they couldn’t evade her, only try and fall on top and pin down their attacker, but Morgan’s other psionics pushed and pulled them aside, allowing her small body to slip between the cracks and continue to make more kills until she was on the far side of the crowd and into empty tunnel again.

  She planted her foot and reversed course, sensing many that were not dead yet, and dove back into the mess, walking over severed bodies at first and then flipping over and walking on the ceiling using her armor boots to give her grip on it while flying a little here and there as she went about engaging the rest.

  None ran away, though they had no chance against her. That wasn’t abnormal, but the fact that they were all standing in this one spot was. Had they meant to delay here from going further?

  As she finished off the survivors Morgan reached out her senses ahead, finding nothing further down the tunnel, but there was a small group very close by on the other side of the wall.

  The trailblazer sliced and dice the remainder, numbing her mind to the cauterized gore that this enemy forced her to fight in, but none of them would ever surrender or retreat, and this was the way it had to be done.

  Morgan retracted her death sabers when she was finished, finding the floor completely covered with stacked body parts. She used her Lachka and began throwing some further down the hall to clear a spot on the floor for her to land, then she summoned up a Jumat wave, added some Essence to it, and blew the area clear with two tsunamis of Hadarak gore tumbling down the tunnel in either direction.