by Aer-ki Jyr
“Go right. That tall building,” she said, managing to extend an arm to point around the invisible lashes holding her onto his armor.
Aaron swerved without question, taking the moment to send a few orders via comm to his three ships in orbit.
“That door,” Anja amended when they got closer. When he got there he slung her off his back so skillfully she was able to step into a casual walk immediately and entered the building with her normal poise…or the best imitation of it that she could manage given the circumstances.
Orders followed, and to her credit Anja didn’t waste any time. A few minutes later when she was finished a vehicle was waiting for them outside the doors.
“Get in,” she told Aaron, and he hopped over the tall railing, bypassing the door entirely as she and two other personnel entered and sat behind the driver. “To the alien craft with all haste!”
Aaron held on as the wheeled vehicle accelerated quickly, and somehow the traffic ahead was clearing for them, opening up a straight shot to where his dropship was parked.
“These two are for communications,” she said, pointing to the pair of male Protovic accompanying her. “May they come with me?”
“Yes. And him too.”
“The driver?” Anja asked, shocked.
“And those three there,” Aaron said, pointing to a trio of guards unnecessarily standing near the dropship as they slowed next to it, for no one else was allowed within 200 meters of it. “I can make room for them on the warship, but we have to go now. 4 more lives saved, Anja. Order them to come.”
“Guards!” she yelled to get their attention. “On orders of the Empress, come with me now. You too driver.”
“Why?” he asked, though he was walking the direction she indicated without disobedience.
“It’s your lucky day,” Aaron said, shoving him along faster towards the ramp.
“You are assigned to me for the duration of my mission,” Anja said formally, though she was starting to tear up as the reality of the moment crushed her. “Get onboard.”
Aaron didn’t wait for them, running on inside and having a chat with the pilot. When they took off he flew low rather than heading straight to orbit, coming over top the crowds on the streets that had no idea what was about to happen to them.
“Grabbing a few more on the way out,” Aaron told Anja as he walked to the edge of the still lowered boarding ramp. “Explain it to them when they’re onboard.”
As the dropship moved into a drifting hover one body after another flew up and into view as Aaron telekinetically yanked them off the street and into his arms, then he tossed them back to the other Protovic so they could deal with their panicked states. Coordinating with the pilot to keep them moving over the thickest crowds, Aaron kept fishing people out at random until the dropship was packed, literally, then he closed the hatch and stood still in the rear as there wasn’t enough room left to walk up to the cockpit. He’d wedged them in that tightly, and even though they were freaking out now it wouldn’t matter later. They were on their way to orbit, and despite whoever they’d just left behind, either on the street or in their homes, it wouldn’t matter in a few days or weeks or however long the planet held out, for they were as good as dead already.
Harsh as it was, he’d just done them a favor…though he didn’t expect them to feel that way. Very bad things were about to happen on this planet, the kind of things that would drive an Archon crazy if you let yourself dwell on it. But for a few more people, at least, they weren’t going to have to be here to experience it.
“Here they come,” Aaron told Anja as she stood next to him in the command nexus onboard one of two warships he had with him on the jumpline. The cargo ship, while it did have some weapons and good shields that could have helped in this situation, was now full of Protovic children packed in as tightly as the Protovic supplies that had accompanied them would allow and was already on its way straight back to Star Force territory, leaving just the two warships and their drone fleets to fight.
He didn’t even have 300 ships in total. Less than half that at 142, which put him at an even greater disadvantage than Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae. He did have 1,209 Protovic warships in support, but the enemy fleet was also larger. Estimated at 2.8 million, so all in all, the video clip he pulled from the ship’s entertainment library and sent to all of his remote pilots onboard both warships seemed appropriate.
“We will not win this battle,” he told them as the first Skarron ships arrived, running into pieces of space stations disassembled and flung far out into the spacelane beyond where the invaders were expected to emerge. “We will not die here either. The warships accompanying us will, because they will not abandon their worlds to the Skarrons.”
“So this is where we hold them. This is where we fight. This is where they die,” he said, cuing up the clip from 300 and sending it to every remote pilot’s station so they could hear the same words in that setting to get his point across, then he turned to Anja. “At this point, you just watch unless I need an order relayed.”
“You’re right about them not leaving. Even if the Empress gave it, they will ignore all orders to run and fight to the death.”
“We’re going to make sure a lot of Skarrons go with them,” he said, turning away from her and closing his eyes. “Now I have to concentrate.”
“Do your best,” she urged. “And thank you.”
Aaron fully linked into the nexus using his Sav-enhanced mind and became the fleet, watching the Skarron ships arrive and seeing the first of them to get through the debris as the rest broke up and flew past their position on in towards the star unable to slow down further. When the first intact one did emerge Aaron sent a corvette after its dark red bulky hull, a coloration that indicated it was from a faction different from those that had invaded Star Force territory long ago.
The corvette flew in towards it so fast the Skarron never had a chance to evade and quickly succumbed to a braking run that left the drone sitting right above it and pounding it with Dre’mo’don cannons. Its shields popped with the second hit and its hull didn’t last much longer than that. Being tempered against plasma weapons meant nothing against the vastly superior Dre’mo’dons and within a few seconds the ship was dead and the drone was accelerating around to another flanking position as a few more Skarron ships made it through the debris field intact.
Eventually the mines ran their course and the enemy ships began coming in in clusters. Aaron had the Protovic holding back in a large halo around the calculated jumppoint and sent out correction maneuvers to get them focused on the actual one…which was a bit deeper into the stellar gravity well than he’d expected.
They were given orders to let the Star Force ships shoot first and to go after any that got past them, so at the moment they were holding position and waiting while Aaron’s ships put on a display of what ‘superior firepower’ truly meant.
And it was working. Several Skarron ships would emerge every 10 seconds or so, but Aaron’s drones were so powerful they were able to destroy or disable them enough to be able to move on to the next batch as they came in…but it didn’t last. Apparently those dying were able to send a message back up the jumpline and the exit point began to drift further out as they began braking a bit harder.
Aaron moved out with it, chasing the incoming ships and soon finding that they weren’t just pulling back the jumppoint, but using multiple ones so they wouldn’t run into a single location…which also meant that if Aaron sent his ships into the middle of the line there would be a possibility of collisions.
With a thought he split his fleet and arrayed it like a cylinder, stretching it out up the jumpline and sending in the drones to target the now widely spaced ships as more kept coming in like little bugs on the battlemap. He kept the two jumpships at the base of the cylinder with the Protovic behind them as he quickly determined what sequencing the Skarrons were using so they didn’t run into each other. Once he figured that out he sent the drones
into the zone on pointblank attack runs, blasting apart the Skarron ships as fast as he could while the jumpships sniped at the few that penetrated deeper through the jumppoint with their bloon launchers and Bra’hem beams…the latter of which penetrated a Skarron dreadnaught straight through with a single shot.
It’s working, Aaron thought to himself, but that debris was going to accumulate and make his attack runs harder. It would also interfere with the last bit of the Skarrons’ braking, causing lower level collisions, but if it delayed his ships from getting them their deaths were going to be to their advantage.
“Anja, I need your fleet to tow the debris in towards the star.”
“What?”
“Just give it a tug, or we’re going to get so much here it’ll prevent our ships from maneuvering and the Skarrons will bunch up.”
“Won’t they hit it too?”
“Just relay the order. They’re not responding to mine.”
Anja used a portable headseat and started talking as Aaron kept assigning targets and his remote pilots flew their assigned drones or targeted their weapons batteries as the Protovic ships eventually began breaking from their battle positions and moving into the base of the column, but not to shoot the remains of the Skarrons, for they needed them intact in order to tow them out, and that was the sticking in point in the order that Aaron had given within a millisecond along with numerous others going out to his own fleet thanks to the nexus neural interface.
Piece by piece the clogging debris started moving down to the star, but more and more was being added and soon Aaron had to request all the Protovic ships start moving in to assist. If they could keep the jumplane mostly clear then maybe Aaron could actually do this…but even his weapon systems had their limits in terms of ammunition/power, and if there was ever a time to test them this was going to be it.
10
February 3, 3575
Dfarch System (Crusade front)
Inner Zone
Aaron cycled back a destroyer nearly out of power towards his warship’s hold as the jumpship continued to fire its beam weapons. It had reserves the drones didn’t, but all the available recharges for them had been swapped out over the past 2 days of continuous fighting. Aaron hadn’t left the bridge for more than a handful of minutes as the Skarron convoy continued to come into the system in steady, staggered formations…right into the Star Force buzz saw. They’d altered their arrival jumppoint as much as they could, but given their weaker gravity drives they couldn’t brake much harder than they already were, meaning Aaron had them right where he wanted.
But it was all coming apart now and the Protovic ships were fully engaging rather than clearing debris, with a huge trail of it drifting in towards the star like a road of Skarron torment, for their ships didn’t have a chance arriving in such small numbers. The Protovic would not have been able to destroy them fast enough on their own and their numbers would have swelled, quickly giving the invaders the advantage, but Aaron being here had changed that, and blast it all, he was going to have to retreat because he was running out of fuel!
If he’d known he was going into heavy battle he would have stocked up appropriately, for while the standard complement of disposable weapons and fuel cells to power the gravity drives and beam weaponry were always in great number onboard carrier jumpships such as these, 52 hours of straight fighting was not something that was prepared for. When the lizard core worlds were invaded such battle longevity was expected over the course of weeks and they would have extra cargo supplements, but Aaron had no such resources here.
And damn it all, he could have pulled it off too! The Skarrons were dying in waves and the Protovic were sweeping the floor to keep his drones flying free…but now the Protovic were going to die because his ships were running out of fuel. Of all the defeats in history this had to be the most spectacular and most humiliating at the same time. 1,394,338 Skarron ships destroyed and counting by his 142, but now only 6 of them were still in the fight and the four drones among them would be recalled within 12 minutes before they were dead in space.
He could keep fighting with the jumpships’ weapons, but he couldn’t hold the jumppoint with them. The Skarrons would start getting ships through and their numbers would swell, meaning this position was about to be overrun.
The Protovic defense fleet was engaging and buying some more time, but they couldn’t lay down the same damage his drones could, meaning the Skarrons would gain numbers as the debris field increased and eventually overwhelm them, then head in to the planet and begin obliterating it.
Aaron, still leading the ongoing battle with his mind, opened a comm channel to the Protovic fleet. Anja was on the other side of the wall watching the battle alongside the Captain and in Aaron’s command chair, but since the first hour of combat there had been no need for her to relay orders. Seeing the damage Star Force was doing, the Protovic fleet captains bent over backwards to do everything they could to assist him without hesitation.
“You have fought well, allies, but my ships are running out of fuel. Within minutes only my two jumpships will have weapons and engine power, and we will not be able to hold this position any longer. According to your scouts’ report, there are many more ships on their way. Too many for you to defeat. You may want to die here, fighting, but as hard as leaving with the knowledge of what is going to happen on the planet is, know that you cannot stop it. You may buy them an extra hour, but no more. I will do what I can to slow the Skarrons as we leave, but I invite you to come with me and help escort your evacuation fleet back to our territory.”
“I hate leaving, but there is no choice. If we stay here, we die and we do not prevent the planet’s fall. If we leave, the planet falls but we survive to avenge them later. It is a bad choice to make, but the Skarrons have given us no other. Dfarch dies no matter what we do. So when we begin to withdraw, please come with us.”
“By the power the Empress has bestowed upon me,” Anja’s voice added, “I order all warships to assist in a fighting retreat centered on the Star Force jumpships. If we can distract the Skarrons into chasing us, we may be able to buy several more hours for the Empress where our deaths will not. So long as we live the Skarrons will have to split their focus, therefore we must stay alive and secure what time we can.”
“There is one last thing I can do,” Aaron added. “If the Skarrons are sharing information with those up the line, then they will know what has happened here and how many of their ships mine have killed. They may value destroying us more than attacking the planet. I will linger in this system and try to get them to chase us. If they take the bait it will buy some more time, but I don’t have the weaponry left to kill enough of them.”
Aaron saw in mind’s eye comm channels opening up across the Protovic fleet as dozens of their captains, weary from the past 2 days of maneuvers and seeing the unbeatable foe for what it truly was, were chiming in their individual support and allegiance to Aaron, bypassing their fleet commanders and going beyond Anja’s orders. After seeing what he had done, and how it had not been enough to stop the Skarrons, they no longer wanted to stay and die if there was no hope of saving the Empress.
With a thought Aaron uploaded comm protocols to all those ships and folded them into the Star Force battlemap, immediately giving them deployment orders as Skarron warships began to slip through the lesser firepower that Star Force was throwing down. He had them abandon the direct engagements and begin covering for the damaged ships in order to allow them to withdraw. Some wouldn’t go, so Aaron didn’t bother contacting them again. If this was where they wanted to make their last stand so be it. He’d done what he could.
The Archon made sure to get the Protovic fleet out ahead and have his two jumpships bring up the rear as the last of the drones redocked on nearly empty fuel cells. Accelerating away from the jumppoint slowly, he looked back and saw more and more Skarron ships coming in and pooling up in the debris field with a fair number of them colliding with it and taking themselves out.
>
The Protovic ships that stayed behind were superior in firepower and shields and were able to hold their own for a good while, but they couldn’t kill the Skarrons faster than they were arriving and the numbers tipped to their disadvantage quickly. At the end several Protovic ships changed their mind and turned to run…but three were damaged and couldn’t make better acceleration than the Skarrons’ weaker gravity drives.
Immediately Aaron reversed course with his two jumpships, ordering the rest of the Protovic to keep moving forward as he went back for them, popping out two of his drones with the most fuel left after he got the jumpships back on site so they wouldn’t have to burn off more power braking on their own. The destroyer and cruiser shot on ahead though, diving into the cluster of Protovic ships limping off and Aaron knew he was going to lose both of them. At this point he didn’t care and kept them fighting and destroying Skarron ships left and right as he brought his jumpship up and ordered the damaged Protovic vessels to get alongside it, at which point he extended his IDF field and grabbed them within it, then used his own engines to tow them away from harm while the rest of those fleeing Protovic ships accelerated away under their own power.
The two drones remained on station fighting, with the cruiser running out of power 18 seconds later and the destroyer lasting another 2 minutes. Their armor held up for a long while after that, but the Skarrons mercilessly pounced on them, not even thinking about capturing and studying them. If they were Aaron was going to swing back and take them out himself, but the ravenous combat appetite of the Skarrons took care of it for him.
He and the Protovic fleet now loyal to him kept to stellar orbit and waited while the Skarron fleet massed, then made a few feints to pull them out of position and danced around the star for a long while until the enemy got it in their heads to start blockading all outgoing jumplines…at which point Aaron had to leave the system behind. He repeated his request for the Protovic to come with them and Anja backed him up, but still a few ships changed their minds and headed back to the planet.
