by Aer-ki Jyr
As Morgan’s fleet deployed more ships jumped in behind them. Calavari warships, cruisers down through frigates, assembled from throughout the system came pouring in, bringing their elongated, pointy hulls to the fight and spreading out in attack groups of 3-5 heading for the Nestafar ships coming into the battle from other planets in the system. Now that the giant melee had begun the enemy was calling in all the support it had to bolster their numbers, and it was the Calavari’s job to intercept and destroy them piecemeal as they came in…or at least delay and damage them before they could engage the other three fleets.
Morgan began amending the battle formation the four warship Captains were deploying into, assigning a few individual ships onto separate missions, tagging wounded ships to finish off or points on the command ship to target. Thanks to the Elarioni they now had detailed blueprints of ALL the Nestafar’s combat equipment, from capitol ships on down to their infantry weapons…including the precise location of the gravity drives within the command ship, or more importantly, the location of the two primary generators that supplied them power.
She assigned numerous heavy cruisers to target those locations with their cleansing beams, and started to feel a tingle of energy as the first of them opened fired at range. The Archon frowned, her ire rising and her unpredictable ability seeming to respond to it. Angry at the distraction, she forced the tingle on her spine down her left arm, surprised that she was able to accomplish that much. She pushed it further, feeling it pool in her wrist and outside the perimeter of her clothes, then she flicked her hand to the left, hoping to expel it.
She succeeded, but not in the way that she suspected. The tingle transferred down into her hand and formed a solid knot of energy that rushed out in a single vector towards the wall. She heard a small thud, but no damage was done. Feeling a twinge of fatigue she raised an eyebrow, then turned her attention back to the battle just in time to see one of the Nestafar battleships break in half from the combination of 6 different Kvash plasma streamers impacting the ship and at least one of them succeeding in coring its way into a power generator.
A holographic signal appeared on Morgan’s right, citing a notice from the Hycre that the next phase of the plan was taking effect. From several of the Hycre warships engaging in the battle, Morgan didn’t know which, a specially crafted signal, created by the Elarioni after studying the comm traffic in use within the system, began transmitting continuously. If it worked as told, it should seriously interfere with the Nestafar’s battle coordination, blocking their ability to squawk when…
And there it was. Morgan smirked as a new contact emerged on the battlefield in a slightly higher orbit from the Kvash engagement. It was their third battleship, having been sensor stealthed and waiting patiently, though now it was bearing down on its sister ships and soon to come within weapons range.
With not one, but two Kvash battleships, not to mention their other heavy warships in play, the Nestafar dreadnaught and support ships were heavily outgunned. The logical response would be to withdraw and rendezvous with the fleet engaging the Hycre or the reinforcements coming in from elsewhere in the system.
Morgan waited for a response as her own warships began to slug it out with a superior number of Nestafar ships in a nasty plasma fight, but with her heavy cruisers giving them an advantage by being able to penetrate their shields prior to engagement and all ships being released to use rail guns and missiles without restraint. Still, if events continued they were going to lose more than half their fleet, assuming they came out on top at all. Star Force’s purpose was to hit the command ship, and in doing so keep a large portion of the Nestafar fleet engaged there while the Kvash and Hycre cut up the rest of them.
More and more contacts kept appearing on the widespread battlemap, indicating more Nestafar ships coming into play…far more than Morgan had expected them to be able to whistle up so quickly. Their placement was poor, delaying their arrival at the actual fighting, but most of them were coming from the star jumpline, meaning they were popping up near her fleet rather than the others.
The Calavari were bravely jumping into the gaps and delaying their approach, as well as outright killing several, but their warships were weaker than the Nestafar’s and they hadn’t brought any Valeries into the battle, leaving those behind to cover the planets they’d just abandoned to land the hammer blow here.
“Ok, work your magic, Archon,” she whispered to herself, flexing her fingers in anticipation, then taking to the controls like she was playing an RTS videogame. If the Nestafar comms were jammed, then she should be able to hit them with some complicated strategies that their commanders, even if they could see and analyze the situation, wouldn’t be able to organize a counter response for.
Morgan sectioned off a group of ships and tagged Wilkinson for command, with orders to deal with the command ship, then Morgan turned her full attention on the brawl, knowing that how many ships they lost here would have a significant impact on battles yet to come, meaning that if she could even preserve a handful, those handful would be around to use on future missions. This was to be Star Force’s last battle within the system, for the Hycre knew the toll it would take on them and had only reluctantly asked for their additional assistance this time, and not for when the reinforcements would eventually arrive.
Morgan had agreed, knowing how important this system was to the Calavari, even before the Elarioni had explained the Nestafar’s plans for it in detail during their summit meeting. Morgan had also volunteered to take the hardest assignment, knowing that her drone warships were unmanned and she could spend them as she liked…whereas their allies’ warships were all manned, and any lost meant hundreds, if not thousands of deaths.
As they’d expected, the scattered reinforcements coming into the system were focused on rescuing the command ship, meaning her fourth of the enemy fleet was growing rapidly in number. The Calavari had insisted on aiding them, and Morgan was glad that the Nestafar were more keen on breaking through to get to the command ship than engaging them directly, because they were taking a lot of damage as they passed by and destroying only a few of the Calavari when they deigned to stop and engage their rivals.
The Calavari had hoped to encourage that, but the Nestafar’s need to get to their crippled command ship was overriding their hatred and giving Morgan more and more warships to contend with.
As she worked her forces around, moving them through various formations far more than the Nestafar were, who were mostly drifting around and slugging it out with anything in range, the trailblazer smiled as the kill counts began to rack up. She’d gone through thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of naval simulations in challenges over the past 400 years, many of this size, but never before had she been thrust into this type of command position in a live naval engagement where Star Force did not have the advantage.
Her skill, her painstakingly trained and developed skill, was making a real difference above and beyond even what her skilled Captains were organizing. Her presence mattered, navally, which was a new experience for her. Paul, Liam, and Roger had always been the ones to take the heavy naval battles on their shoulders, and Morgan was both proud and relieved to see that she could step up to the challenge and work the ‘Admiral’ magic in their absence.
9
“We’ll begin recovery operations here,” Morgan told the holographic symbol representing the Hycre on the other end of the transmission. “Go get the bastards.”
ARE YOU CERTAIN?
“Yes. We’ve got enough ships left for defensive operations, and our jumpships are armed. We can handle a few strays and you need to press your advantage while you have it. Don’t forget they’ve still got a few jumpships lurking around the system.”
WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN. THE WARSHIPS ARE THE GREATER THREAT WHILE WE CONTROL ORBIT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.
“Our pleasure,” Morgan said, ending the transmission. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the battlemap again, seeing the Hycre warships begin to m
ove off the massive debris field in search of the Nestafar warships stationed elsewhere in the system and those that had fled the battle during the later stages. There weren’t many in comparison to how many had been destroyed, but with reinforcements on the way the more they could hunt down now while they were isolated the better…and the Hycre fleet was the best equipped to do so.
The Kvash had already retreated from the battlefield, having lost a pair of cruisers. Both battleships remained, their hulls unblemished, while their other ships showed some wear and tear. Thinking defensively they immediately redeployed their assets to the other planets in the system whose defenders had been stripped from orbit to mount this assault. They didn’t like leaving ground forces exposed, theirs or their allies, and sought to get at least some orbital cover back in place as soon as possible.
That left the Calavari and Star Force in orbit, both of whose fleets had been decimated. The Calavari were remaining to hold orbit while the Hycre went off hunting, all the while the ground war raged on beneath them…but at least the enemy wouldn’t be getting resupplied in the near future.
Star Force was therefore left to pick up the pieces, roaming the debris and destroying what partially operational ships remained. A destroyer whose gravity drive had been damaged had surrendered to them, unable to flee, but the rest of the survivors refused any such offers and Morgan had them obliterated with what was left of their ships, having neither the manpower nor the disposition to save the lives of their enemies if they were going to be uncooperative.
That said, there wasn’t much left alive out there to negotiate with. They had managed to rescue some of the Calavari from damaged vessels while the Hycre had seen to their own survivors. Star Force couldn’t have helped them anyway, given the life support requirements for the race, and the Kvash, having suffered the least damage thanks to their tactical ploy, had already cleaned up what they could then left the wreckage of their destroyed ships to float as so much more debris in the ever expanding rubble that marked the orbital battlefield.
Morgan had 35 operational drone warships left, half of which were damaged to some extent. That equated to about half of what the Red Ranger alone could carry. The rest of her impressive fleet was now junk floating nearby, but they’d come out the victors and given the Brokal System a chance of survival once the Nestafar reinforcements arrived. Morgan hoped to be gone by then, and she felt a ticking clock inside her head urging her to depart soon for fear of being caught up in the next massive engagement.
Calavari reinforcements were also on the way, she’d been told, and even the Protovic were sending a fleet, though there was no way of knowing how soon they’d arrive. If this system was as critical to the Nestafar’s plans as the Elarioni had stated, then Morgan knew the Alliance would keep sending assets in to secure it, even as the enemy did the same…and she didn’t have the resources to stick around for that type of prolonged, heavy fighting. All four of her warships had survived undamaged, and she wanted to get them and their few remaining drones out of the combat area before they could be wasted by being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the enemy arrived.
With the remaining drones encircling the warships in a thin defensive halo, Morgan ordered recovery efforts to begin on the wreckage, with a flurry of support vehicles moving out of the warships’ hangar bays to start chewing apart the salvageable technology from their dead ships. The Archon knew she needed to recycle as much as possible, for even one repaired warship could make a difference in the smaller engagements her armada was dealing with, and she intended to pick the Nestafar apart as much as possible on the flanks while they continued devoting the bulk of their resources here.
The question was how long to stick around chewing on the debris. When she finally left the command nexus she told Wilkinson they had 48 hours to get what they could, then they were pulling out regardless…if not sooner, then she left him and the other Captains to handle their work and Morgan retreated back into the Red Ranger’s sanctum, feeling like they were nearly past the worst of it, but could lose everything if they made a misstep over the next hours. With her luck the Nestafar would arrive today, at this planet, with no forewarning, and they’d get annihilated before the Hycre and Kvash could get back to assist them.
That creeping feeling aside, she was relieved to have the star system at least nominally back in Alliance hands. The ground wars on all 7 planets were still continuing, oblivious to the naval engagements above them save for how it affected their resupply. Morgan had wanted to at least pound a few more surface bases before they left, but the recent battle had expended their full supply of rail gun rounds, save for those in the batteries on the jumpships…and part of the recovery efforts getting underway were aimed at salvaging unused rounds from the wreckage.
Star Force had managed to turn the tide of this micro-war, but at a cost. A lesson Morgan wasn’t going to forget. The more data from the V’kit’no’sat pyramid that they unlocked and learned how to use the stronger their ships would be, but this recent engagement showed her that, in the near future at least, Star Force had to have numbers on its side, against the Nestafar and the lizards, otherwise they were doomed. The other races were throwing around warships and their crews like they were expendable commodities, and when opponents were willing to play that type of game an inferior enemy could succeed in defeating a superior one through attrition alone.
Morgan knew she needed to have a chat with Paul about that one, because this Nestafar front of the overall war was just plain insane. If this type of fighting ever came to Star Force territory they’d better have a damn good battle plan in place, for this chaos was totally unacceptable…and she had no idea how many millions of Calavari had already died as a result.
Banishing such thoughts from her mind for the moment, the trailblazer hit the locker room in the sanctum and swapped out her casual uniform for a pair of formfitting shorts, sports bra, and running shoes, then headed over to what the Archons called ‘Balboa Lane.’ When she entered the long rectangular room it was completely empty, just a three story high ceiling with walls set about twice that length apart and running about a football field and a half in length.
As the doors auto-closed behind her she turned a sharp right and adjusted the control board set into the back wall. Panels opened up along the length of the chamber, sending out a myriad of floating objects suspended by precisely controlled magnetic fields so there were no connecting wires or supports. Some were man-sized and pill-shaped, like traditional punching bags. Others were squares, spheres, bars, targets, platforms, etc. The course layout Morgan used was preprogrammed, as was her music playlist which she cut down to a single song, ‘Stamp on the Ground’ by the ItaloBrothers, and set it for continuous repeat before she walked over and activated the training challenge with a tap to the start pedestal that had risen up out of the floor on the left side of the door.
She timed it perfectly to coincide with the beat of the music and ran forward lazily matching up her footsteps and jump-kicking a punching bag-shaped target. She let herself fall down to the ground on the opposite foot, then pivot and sidestep to the right, side-kicking another before bouncing back left and side-kicking a third. From there she moved forward rhythmically, following a sequence of targets she had done so many times she could probably do it blindfolded, though she’d never tried.
With the music pumping through the chamber Morgan got into the groove, punching the next series of targets, also punching bags, but using their trademark Archon Punches for the forward targets and the side of her fists/wrists for the lateral attacks. She alternated between the side attacks and elbow-lunges that the trailblazers had learned to use long ago in lieu of punching with their knuckles when unarmored. The ‘Archon Punch’ required getting bodily closer to your target, which Morgan actually liked because it took a higher skill level to execute, and swinging your elbow up along the side of your body and into a level ramming level, using a shoulder twist to add extra momentum into the blow.
; As Morgan Archon Punched several of the targets the monitoring equipment inside measured the intensity of the blows, as it did everything in the chamber, which she could review afterwards, but right now the trailblazer was losing herself in the music and fluidic movement, punching, kicking, and jumping into a sort of training trance that most of the higher level Archons had mastered. It required living in the millisecond and linking one moment to another…something that Morgan did so easily nowadays this was actually like recess to her.
She worked her way down the course, which gave her progressively harder targets, but none overwhelmingly difficult. The sweep bars came halfway down, which were floating forwards and back over a 20 meter stretch like a pinched racetrack. Morgan hit the first one with a forward flip, sailing over it cleanly before ducking down beneath the next one and coming up to forward flip over another as they continued to come at her. When she got to the end of the row she sidestepped over to the right and began back flipping up the reverse stream of bars, landing and immediately flipping into the next jump for a series of 11 leaps before coming back out in front of the zone.
She went back through the first line again, this time doing a leg-flip jump, cartwheeling her legs over each bar as she leaned at a 45 degree angle with her torso, keeping her head upright and mostly stable as she playfully moved down the length of obstacles. She spun out of the final landing and ran forward to the next section, kicking up on the underside of a floating sphere with her knee, then danced over to another one on her left and repeated with the opposite leg.
