Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (25-28)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “Alright,” she said as a new firefight broke out just below them and to the left. Looking down she could see a red suit of armor leading the way and mowing down two Nestafar with a shotgun as golden plasma streaks zipped by on either side. A tiny spec that was a grenade came flying out towards the Archon…who deftly kicked it back along the floor and into cover where Morgan couldn’t see. An explosion followed and the assault team ran forward, disappearing inside the far wall on the lowest level.

  “Nice one, Carver,” Morgan whispered.

  “His armor weighs less than yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “He moves faster than us in it.”

  “He’s slow compared to me,” Morgan said with a smirk. “That’s why I can wear the heavier armor.”

  Suddenly Chesk’va raised his weapon with the hologram popping up overtop and fired off a blink of a streak of golden plasma across the ravine and nailed a Nestafar just below their elevation on the far side as it started to creep out of one of the depressions that appeared as caves imbedded in the walls.

  “Nice shot.”

  “They are everywhere,” the Calavari warned. “They’d rather attack you from the blindside than face you head on.”

  “So would I,” Morgan pointed out.

  “Warriors stand toe to toe. Cowards slink in the shadows.”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow at the insult, then abruptly dropped her shield and pistol a meter in from the edge of the ledge and jump-kicked Chesk’va in the chest, knocking him back into the other Calavari who, caught off guard, barely sustained his weight, else four of them would have fallen to the ground.

  “Don’t call me a coward,” she said icily, standing ready to knock him back down again if required.

  “They may be little,” Maka’var told Chesk’va as he waved off any retaliation before it could happen, “but do not underestimate our allies. The reports I’ve read from Daka indicate they are skilled fighters…and it seems he doesn’t have an issue of standing toe to toe with an opponent.”

  “She,” Morgan corrected him.

  All of the Calavari’s eyes widened in shock. “You…are female?” Maka’var sputtered.

  “A lot of our troops are,” she said, picking up her shield and firearm. “You just can’t tell when we’re wearing armor.”

  “No female is that strong,” Chesk’va challenged.

  “Ugh,” Morgan sighed, leaning her shield against Maka’var and disconnecting her helmet. She pulled it off with her tight, dark ponytail flopping out and her intense brown eyes glaring at Chesk’va.

  “See, I told you,” the Calavari said. “No female is that strong.”

  “What?...hey!” she said, her face scrunching up in displeasure. “I’m totally a girl. Are you blind?”

  “You are male,” Chesk’va insisted. “Why you would pretend to be otherwise is a mystery to me.”

  “Morgan,” Maka’var asked with tentative respect. “You appear as the males we have seen in our records. Your face is the same.”

  “Well not exactly…wait, what do your females look like?”

  “They are half our size with spinal ridge on their heads and very dark skin. You appear the same as the males of your species.”

  “Our differences are internal, so I can understand your mistake,” she emphasized, glaring at Chesk’va as she put her helmet back on and secured the atmospheric lock. “I suppose you don’t let them fight?”

  “They have no wish to,” Maka’var said. “They are pacifistic and totally worthless in combat. Humans are not so, I take it?”

  “We’re even, straight down the line,” Morgan said, feeling the urge to bust up some Nestafar to lay down a proper example. “As for me, I’m the highest ranking Archon…and our ranks are based on strength, speed, and skill. So you could say I’m a little better than the males. I’d give you another demonstration, except that I’d prefer as many allies against the Nestafar as possible, and sending you to the medics wouldn’t help.”

  “You talk like a male twice your size,” Chesk’va said with a hint of respect mixed in with the condensation and disbelief.

  “While we’re on the subject, what’s a Nestafar female look like?” Morgan asked.

  The Calavari exchanged glances. “There are none,” Chesk’va answered petulantly.

  “They reproduce asexually,” Maka’var explained.

  “That…I did not know,” Morgan admitted, mentally kicking herself for not reading the whole Alliance packet. She’d focused mainly on the technology and territory subsections.

  Another Calavari, on the edge of the group to the right, snapped off a rifle shot, followed by two others firing along with him as they backed up a group of Nestafar trying to fly down to a lower level. Two dropped out of the air while the other three retreated back into the nook they came out of as another pair of plasma streaks came up from below.

  “Nice to see you boys can stay alert,” Morgan commented, zooming in on the position for a couple of seconds but seeing nothing. “Which spot are you wanting me to shoot for?”

  “One with as much concealment as possible,” Maka’var said, handing her back her shield. “I imagine many of the Nestafar will show themselves when we establish the connection. We need cover when we reach the far side.”

  “Are you climbing or sliding across?”

  “Whichever is possible.”

  “I mean hands or mechanical?”

  “We will climb by hand.”

  “Slightly down then,” she said, zooming in and searching for a decent spot. “Better get one of the end links over here and show me how to use it.”

  Maka’var thrust his chin out towards the others that Morgan had her back to and one of the smaller ones walked back into the hangar bay to their equipment stash to retrieve the additional gear. As he did so more and more Calavari transports came in and departed, dropping off new segments of their 10,600 troops, all of which moved about in an orderly fashion, organizing into mission groups and deploying as ordered into dozens of assault corridors that pushed the light resistance further away from the hangar…as the Nestafar had anticipated.

  6

  Morgan picked up the end link box for the Calavari climbing cable from beside the stack of her shield and gear and flicked on the jump pack that was strapped around it, preset to ‘level’ mode. Its weight suddenly decreased and was floating in her hands as she took another step back, looking down the gauntlet of Calavari that had moved off to either side to clear her running space. There were hundreds of them packed around, ready to follow Maka’var and his heavy combat team through to the other side as they waited to see what she was going to do.

  “Here we go,” she said aloud, making sure her snipers waiting beside the edge of the drop off knew she was coming. With a jump of motion she and the box moved forward with Morgan sprinting up to decent speed over the short run-up where she tagged her own jump pack on the chest with her hand…as she did so she long-jumped up into the air, dragging along the box with her right hand, which was buried beneath the straps.

  Her jump pulled her and the box up another two meters before they leveled out, then they coasted across the gap to approximately halfway up the far side, which was more than two football fields away. Her pack’s capacitor drained of energy before the box’s did, and Morgan dropped down hanging from it like a balloon for the last few meters before she came over top one of the landing platforms…only a meter higher than expected. Without her feet touching ground she and the box slammed into the far wall and ricocheted off it, then the other capacitor depleted under the extra heavy burden and dropped Morgan to the ground.

  She caught herself and cradled the box as it landed on her chest, dumping it aside as movement nearby caught her attention. The Archon reached down to her hip holster for her plasma pistol, but before she could get it a pair of golden streaks flashed by over her head and killed the Nestafar coming out of the side passage near to where she’d just hit the wall.

  Morgan spun ove
r onto her feet and darted forward, shooting a thin blue plasma lance into another Nestafar before running forward and kicking it back the way it had come. With no more in immediate sight she turned around and ran back over to the box, pulling the jump pack off and setting it upright before triggering the adhesive grapple function that sucked it down tight to the floor.

  Morgan fired a couple of warning shots into the hollow as she heard more troops scurrying about, then a dead Nestafar dropped down behind her, landing on the loose line connecting both sides of the artificial canyon. More golden sniper streaks kept firing over her head from the Calavari, providing her cover against enemies she hadn’t even seen while she got the connecting line established.

  As soon as the device indicated it was secure she hit the ‘retract’ button and the line began to pull taught as she moved forward again just in time to meet up with two more Nestafar stepping through over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Morgan took a hit to her chest from one of their pistols while the other’s rifle didn’t have time to track towards her before she burnt him down. The other followed a split second later, then the trailblazer put a couple extra shots into both to make sure they stayed down, given that the kill power of the weapon wasn’t as significant as the rifle she’d left on the other side.

  Backing up halfway to the box to give herself plenty of room to fight and to counter any overhead opposition, Morgan held her ground as the first of the Calavari began to come across the gap. The line was nearly level to the ground with just a hint of a downward angle, not enough to slide across even if it had been slicked, but apparently the four-armed climbing power was more than up to the task, for the Calavari were dangling beneath the line and scurrying across rapidly with their feet hooked over the tether as an anchor while their muscular arms propelled them forward…three of them anyway, for the fourth held their rifles out to the side in a tuck position.

  A barrage of golden streaks shot out from at least three different Calavari positions as a scattering of red blasts came down on the troops crossing the line, one of which got hit but his shield generator took the brunt of the blast and stopped the plasma from connecting with his body. To his credit he didn’t hesitate, but kept clawing his way across in sync with the others, all staggered out so no more than 8 were on the line at the same time. Maka’var said they could have managed 10, but he didn’t want to risk the line coming down if Morgan managed to actually get it across.

  Glancing down, Morgan noted the stress meter on the top of the box, indicating that it was within limits of the adhesion capable on this surface. Both boxes working together increased the strength of the line compared to a vertical climb, as well as the steady pressure of the passengers’ weight, compared with the constant yanking of ascenders coming up.

  She did note a little fluctuation in the meter, which was a triangular icon filling from wide base up to top peak and changing in color as it went. It was about a fourth of the way down from the peak, which would indicate a threat of losing adhesion, and didn’t poke up more than half that distance on the most wild of fluctuations…meaning that Maka’var had made a good call.

  When the first of the troops made it over Morgan was alone on the platform, either with no more Nestafar coming out to play or them wisely holding back and setting up for an ambush elsewhere. The Calavari crawled all the way over to the point where the line touched the ground and he hit his head against the wall, stopping his progress. His feet suddenly disengaged from the rope and all that Morgan could see of him was three fists hanging onto the line…then one of them reached over and grabbed the ledge and pulled his head up above it.

  His other fists followed and the muscular alien pulled himself up on top and walked over beside Morgan, taking up guard position on the entrance. She waited until three of them were across before pressing herself up against the wall then sprinting back to the edge where she jumped back across the gap a bit faster than before, due to the fact that she wasn’t carrying the box with her.

  The jump carried her higher than before, causing her to come back over the opposite platform four meters up where she dialed down the last bit of energy in her capacitor and dropped herself down into a semi-hard landing on her feet, which she then rolled out into a somersault from to bleed off momentum…running into the legs of one of the Calavari waiting to go across.

  “Sorry,” she said, getting her feet underneath her and standing up.

  “Your jump pack is well suited for Nestafar architecture,” Maka’var said, handing the Human her shield. “Did you bring enough for the rest of your men?”

  “If they choose to go back to the hangar to get them, yes,” she said, strapping on her equipment pack and setting her rifle and stinger pistol into their slots on the back rack while her plasma pistol set in her hip holster, which was little more than a tiny snap-latch for the hilt to connect to.

  “Well done,” Chesk’va offered.

  “For a female?” she said half sarcastically as she walked over to the line of Calavari waiting to go across, stopping the next one with her left hand as she cradled her shield over her right shoulder like a half cape.

  “Excuse me,” she said, holding him up for a bit before adjusting her pack controls to just less than neutral and walking out onto the line.

  She gradually accelerated up into a run within a few steps, barely adding any weight to the line while using it to cross the gap with the extra weight on her back. When she got to the first Calavari she passed him by carefully, stepping in between his crossed ankles and his whirling hands, then long stepping out in front of him with a slight hop, expertly crossing the line as if it were a sidewalk, though in reality she was having to make a number of balance checks that the jump pack delayed enough that she could keep herself from falling off.

  Morgan ran across, hopping over five more Calavari before she got back to the other side, then with shield in front she ducked ahead of the others assembled on the platform and followed the skirmishers inward through a narrow, zigzaggy tunnel into what looked like more traditional hallways for a starship. They were laid out in straight lines that dead-ended randomly, avoiding long stretches and giving the area a maze-like feel. The halls themselves were pentagonal, with the upper half wider than the lower to accommodate flight.

  The Calavari stood only half as tall as the ceiling, but from Morgan’s perspective they were still giants. Problem was there were no Nestafar around for them to shoot, and there were six different hallways heading out from a pair of intersections, one on either side of the doorway.

  “Any contacts?”

  “Just one,” the Calavari on her right said, pointing. “Down there. It ran off before we could kill it.”

  “I’ll have a look,” she said, running away from the six Calavari as a 7th came out to join them. Morgan ran with her shield latched to her right forearm, pumping it to and fro while keeping her pistol level in her left as she came to another branched intersection. It had two angled halls shooting off to the left, with a pair of Nestafar retreating down the first visible one. The trailblazer slid to a halt and diverted that way, then doubled back as a hail of plasma blasts covered her left side.

  Twisting around she brought her shield up, snapping a shot off during the rotation then jumping back down the main hall the way she’d come. She took a moment to curse her own recklessness then set up for a pivot turn with her pistol propped on the inside of her shield next to the corner, allowing for only a three inch wide gap.

  Taking a moment to listen for movement and hearing plenty, she rotated around into the backward-canted hallway and fired at the first sign of ugly alien that she saw, blocking several plasma blasts with her shield. Rather than standing still and battling it out Morgan charged forward, ramming into several and getting wrapped up in their wings as she shot them at point blank range on her left and butted them out of the way with her shield on her right.

  She went on that way for several long seconds, then got through the group and found clear hallway ahe
ad. Turning back she shot two that were still moving while counting seven in total. The Archon kicked aside a new version of pistol, but didn’t stoop down to pick it up. It looked bigger than normal, making her wonder if it wasn’t an alternate, heavy version rather than an upgrade. She spotted three of the weapons, with the other four being their standard plasma rifles.

  Just then a pair of Calavari came around the corner behind their odd rifles, ready to shoot the enemy on sight…but only found the green-plated Human with her black shield.

  “Ambush,” she told them, stepping over the bodies and walking up to the four-armed soldiers. “Tell the others to watch these forked intersections. They were hiding on the back side.”

  “Are you injured?” one of them asked.

  “Just a few scratches to the armor,” she said, nudging past them. “Two more went this way.”

  An hour later, with nearly all of the Calavari troops onboard the jumpship and Morgan’s team already having broken through to the enormous central chamber on the ship, a few Calavari techs were crossing the artificial ravine back over to the hangar on ‘ground’ level now that this section of the ship had been cleared of the enemy. They came to one of the vertical shafts the Nestafar would fly up in lieu of an elevator and began climbing the synthetic rope installed there with all four hands up halfway to the hangar level where they pulled up over the edge and stood up…then grabbed another line hanging down nearby and scaled it up to the entry level.

  As three of the techs headed into the hangar together, two others were lagging back and came up the lines a half minute later. When they began walking through the short hallway into the hangar an energy shield snapped into place, blocking their way.

  “What is this?” one of them asked, pounding a fist against the clear red barrier, causing a quick burst of static around the impact point.

  “What is what?” one of the leading group said, turning around at the question. His eyes went wide in surprise as he rushed back over. “Where did that come from?”