by Aer-ki Jyr
“Nothing to be ashamed of, youngling. I know I’m hot.”
Esna giggled. “Yes you are.”
“See, you’re better now because you’re not thinking ahead. You’re living in the moment.”
Esna’s mood soured a bit, but not quite back to where she had been before the Archon had walked in. “What do you mean?”
“Stop trying to plan out the future. You’re here, now, so embrace that and learn as you go.”
“I don’t want to lose Rammak,” she said bluntly.
“Friendships are good when they’re an advantage, and right now it is with the two of you, but you’re going to need to split up later. If you don’t it will hurt you both.”
“Because I’ll slow him down?”
“And because he’s a cheat for you. He can teach you things from his experience that you are better off learning on your own. Believe me, we all prefer to learn from someone wiser than us, but some things are better learned by failing, adjusting, then getting it right later. If we have someone guiding us the whole way we never get the failing part.”
“So why didn’t you leave me here alone?”
“Because sometimes when we’re lost we need a helping hand. We have to make do without if no one is there, but when we can help we do. You’ve got a lot to learn, but the thing you need to realize is that we all started off where you are. We were all that weak in the beginning. So don’t look on us as different, just think of us as having a really big head start. You can choose to work and train and catch up with us, or you can go civie and have all the sex you want.”
“Not both?”
“No, not both. Not if you want to catch up. If you don’t care about catching up and just want to improve, then yes. You can have both, but I know that catching up is important to you.”
“I’m basically helpless right now.”
“You’re not the only one. There are a lot of younglings in maturia that are less capable than you. They just aren’t here for you to see. In a way that’s also an advantage, because we’re your norm here, which is why you feel so out of place, but the longer you stay with us the more you’ll pick up our mojo.”
“Mojo?”
“Our way of doing things. Our habits. Our awesomeness.”
“I wish.”
“Why?”
“If there are weaker people in Star Force, I don’t want to meet them. I want to catch up with you guys.”
“Have you had enough sex to figure out how all your parts work?”
Esna couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I think so. But some of them are requesting your inspection right now.”
“I could oblige, but what I’m going to tell you will be more helpful. If you want to catch up to us, to join the elite ranks, then no more sex. No more anything besides training and rest. That’s how you’ll improve the fastest, if that’s what you want. You can still improve at slower rates and get to this level, sort of. There’s something special about the way we do things because we’re totally committed, but as far as strength and speed are concerned, there are multiple ways to get to my level…and I’m not the strongest Archon. Middle of the pack, actually.”
“I don’t know how someone could be stronger than you.”
“You need to pay more attention. A lot of those Zen’zat were.”
“Then why didn’t they kill you?”
“I have psionics they don’t. It’s one big advantage that Archons have. I have more than any Zen’zat, though the older Zen’zat have several too. If one of them was in the tunnels none of us would have survived. Thankfully they weren’t.”
“How does Star Force survive against all that?”
“By earning it. We’ve lost a lot, but we don’t quit and we keep improving. Knowing what’s out there, is having sex worth it?”
“No, it’s not,” Esna said firmly. “I want to fight.”
“Alright then,” Tyrenk said, kissing her on the side of her forehead before lifting her up and off the crate. “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll give you as much of a head start as I can.”
“How?”
“Younglings don’t get to train with Archons, but right now I’m bored and have nothing else to do on this jump, so your gain. Ready for some cheating help?”
“Won’t that make me weaker because I’m not learning it the hard way?”
“There’s plenty of hard stuff for you later. The biggest lesson is learning to seek it out because it’s valuable, not because someone led you to it. You’ve already learned that. You want to improve, so I’m going to help speed you along…if you want. If not, there’s a couple male techs that I’m sure could help keep you from getting too bored.”
“Really?”
“Like I said, you are cute.”
“Good to know,” she said smiling, but it was a cruel smile. “But I’ll pass. Teach me what you can.”
Tyrenk pointed to the door and it magically opened for him. “Let’s go, youngling.”
25
August 5, 4812
Urego System (Devastation Zone)
Stellar Orbit
The evacuation ship came out of the first leg of its jump, decelerating into a mass of ships transitioning around the star. Fortunately they were Star Force ships, all 5,294 jumpships in what was quickly identified as trailblazer Morgan-063’s fleet. A quick comm confirmed they were headed for Orlero and the already huge fight going on there, but that didn’t alter the Blockade Runner’s orders. Their escort wasn’t amongst them, so they passed each other by transitioning through the system with the fleet making the jump out a few hours ahead of the evacuation ship.
But they weren’t the only ship in the system. Almost immediately after the last of Morgan’s fleet departed another faint signature popped up on the battlemap within the system, not on an incoming jumpline.
“What have we got?” Tyrenk asked when he got to the bridge.
“Not Star Force and barely registering at all, but it’s on an intercept course.”
“Show me a layered scan.”
Vreen brought up the little data they had on the sensor contact and split it into different views, some of which were not present at all, as if the ship weren’t even there.
“Damn it,” the Archon said as he began pulling up star charts of varying systems. “Increase speed.”
“You know what that is?”
“It’s V’kit’no’sat. Probably a scout ship trailing Morgan’s fleet.”
“How can you be sure? The computer can’t identify it?”
“It’s running on a suppression cloak, which means its invisible at this range to part of the sensors while the rest only return a faint image. That fingerprint tells me who it is, but not what it is. Take us to the Narven jumppoint.”
“Narven? That’s out of the way.”
“If that’s an augmented Kaeper like I’m afraid it is, it’s faster than us. We won’t be able to make the rendezvous. Get us as much of a head start as you can.”
“On it,” the Bsidd said, using the gravity drives to pull laterally as much as they could on the star to kick up their speed as they headed for a jumppoint even further away than the one they had been headed for. “We’ll see if they can match. How much firepower does an augmented Kaeper carry?”
“More than us. The engines are enhanced to complement the suppression field and allow it to trail ships at a distance and overtake them mid jump if needed. This one was probably following the trailblazer without them even knowing it.”
“Then why do we know it?”
“They know they can kill us and aren’t being subtle about it. When they see us accelerating they’ll probably drop the cloak altogether. Goose as much of a jump on them as you can.”
“With or without going for max jump speed?”
“If we don’t make it there first it won’t matter, but save as much as you can.”
“Why the divert?”
“Unless they’re slower than I think or we run across the some help, we’re going to
have to run hard and we can’t do that in vacuum.”
“Then let’s hope they’re not faster,” the Bsidd said as both it and the Archon studied the tracks privately without informing the rest of the crew. As expected the cloak dropped on the Kaeper, revealing its form and amping its speed a little more with the extra power available. It was Kat’vo, belonging to the smallest avian race in the V’kit’no’sat based on the 5-pointed ‘X-wing’ hull shape.
Tyrenk waited on the compact bridge until they finally got to the jumppoint and left the system with the maximum acceleration possible. It drained their capacitors completely, after which the power core would begin to refill them as they drifted between stars. Those capacitors would then deliver the massive power needed to brake the ship at their destination, but fortunately that star was larger so it wouldn’t take as much energy thanks to the deeper gravity well.
As soon as they made the jump they lost contact with the V’kit’no’sat ship and wouldn’t be able to detect it again unless it caught up to and passed them mid jump. If it was that much faster they were dead on arrival, for it would be waiting for them on the other end and run them down shortly thereafter. If it didn’t overtake them, then they wouldn’t know how far behind it was until it arrived, for the distance between ships with even a couple of seconds head start was massive at jump speeds.
Right now they had what looked to be 4 or maybe 4.5 hours head start on the Kaeper. If that increased by even a fraction after the jump they’d be ok. If it decreased by a small amount they could still probably make it to the rendezvous point.
If it decreased by a lot, as the Archon feared, they’d never make it and that was why he’d ordered the redirect. To at least give them a small chance of survival if they were going to get caught.
“So that’s what we’re looking at,” Tyrenk said after explaining to everyone in a meeting in the cafeteria. “Until we come out of the jump we won’t know any more.”
“If we have to fight, how long will we last?” the Scionate mechwarrior asked.
“I’m not sure how strong their shields will be with the augments, but they’ll have more weaponry than us. They know it too, otherwise they wouldn’t have come after us. We’re an easy kill if they can catch up, even if they have to chip away for a while.”
“How does going to Narven help?”
“If they can catch us there, nothing. But if we can jump out and get to Chawik, there’s a large planet with a thick atmosphere. If we can get to it and dive inside, we’ll have better navigation options. If they catch us in vacuum, we’ll fight but I don’t see how we can win.”
“How does air help?” a Kiritas asked.
“We have a narrower profile, so less drag. That should eliminate their speed advantage.”
“So we run laps around the planet until one of us runs out of fuel?”
“Better than certain death,” the Archon said with a shrug. “Plus there are some really high mountain ranges. If we can get some terrain to fly in, that gives us something else to work with.”
“To buy time or to kill them?” a Protovic asked.
“I’d prefer the latter, but I doubt it. We’re stuck here, so I’m trying to give us as much to work with as possible.”
“Anything we can do to lighten the ship?” a Human tech asked.
“Not yet. If its hairline then we’ll look at that, but there’s not enough equipment onboard to change our mass by much…and we might want to chuck some of that as kinetic weapons in a pinch.”
“Asteroids?” another pilot asked.
“None in Narven without going way out of our way. The jumppoint for Chawik will be closer, and the more systems we get through the greater the chance of running into friendlies.”
“Or more V’kit’no’sat,” a Bsidd added.
“That won’t matter unless they’re more augmented Kaeper,” Tyrenk said with a confident shake of his head. “We weren’t given an escort because we can outrun just about everything in the V’kit’no’sat fleet. It’s just our sucky luck that we happen to run across one of the few as fast as us.”
“Why are we more valuable than trailing the fleet?” Rammak asked.
“We’re so hard to find and kill out here they probably didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.”
“Is there anything we can do to stack our odds?” a Kiritas asked.
“Not unless you can boost the ship’s capabilities.”
“If it’s going to be a rear catch, we could pull armor off the front and double up the coverage on the back,” another tech thought out loud. “It’d be tricky moving the plates, but it’s doable.”
“If they clip our weapons first the armor won’t matter,” the Archon said as his eyes moved off.
“What?” a Commando asked.
“How much additional structural integrity could you get me on the forward hull?”
“It’s smaller,” a Kiritas said, trying to work through whatever Tyrenk was getting at. “We could get triple, maybe quadruple armor there by exposing other areas. We could also tear out the shield generators over some of the batteries and double up the ones we expect to get hit first.”
“We don’t have time for all that,” a Bsidd differed. “We only have a few breather packs. Not enough for all the techs.”
“I can help from the inside,” Tyrenk offered, “but prioritize the strengthening of the bow. I need as much kinetic punch as possible. Weapons enhancements are a bonus if there’s extra time, which I doubt.”
“How much strengthening?”
“Enough to survive a collision…that will snap them in half.”
Esna sucked in a quick breath, not having understood a lot of what they were talking about, but she understood that and exchanged glances with Rammak, who seemed to agree with the Archon as he nodded his approval.
“The planet’s habitable?” a Protovic asked.
“Jungle climate, 1.3 gravity, and most of it mountainous.”
“Any outposts?”
“Not to my knowledge, but there might be a dead drop. Trouble is that I don’t know where it would be if it’s there.”
“Dead drop?” a mechwarrior asked.
“Habitable planets sometimes have caches of emergency supplies stashed away,” the Archon explained. “But I don’t have the list of what planets and where they’re located. I do know how to find them if they’re there. There’s a comm chirp that goes out periodically, and if we adjust our comms to look for it then maybe, but we can’t assume there are any. We need to prioritize supplies and rework some additional IDF in the rear of the ship, as well as a control link for me. I don’t think the bridge will make it. Are we all on the same page?”
There was a chorus of nods, then the Archon clapped his hands together.
“Let’s get to it.”
With that they broke up, or at least the techs did, and scurried out of the cafeteria along with the Archon while the warriors stayed put and congregated around one of the tables. Esna walked up beside Rammak, who was standing behind them, and gave him a shrug of her shoulders.
“If we can’t outrun them,” Rammak explained, drawing everyone’s attention to the newb, “we’ll have to abandon the ship and fight them on the surface. That doesn’t give us good odds, but it’s better than sitting here and getting shot up.”
“Agreed,” a Human Commando name Bard echoed. “We need to cram as much gear into our packs as we can and work up some additional carry capacity. The techs have enough to do as it is. If they can get us to ground, it’ll be up to us. Kat’vo are aerial and about as worthless as Ari’tat, but assuming they have any Zen’zat with them they’ll be able to scout from the air while they hunt us on the ground, as well as adding fire support. We’ll need to prioritize the deployable shields.”
“That’s you big guy,” a Protovic said, looking at Rammak. “Think you can manage two?”
“If we’re staying with the techs, yes.”
“Good. Now what about her?”
�
��Give her the ammo,” a Bsidd suggested, “so we can carry more weapons. The Kat’vo are hard to hit on strafing runs unless we can blanket the sky.”
“Bsidd have that duty. Take as many rifles as you can hold. Esna, you’re getting a single pistol, a handful of rations, then we’re going to stuff your pack with all the ammo we can fit in it. You’re going to be a big fat mushroom stuck to Rammak’s side and you have to stay with him. If they kill you we lose most of our ammo.”
“Whatever you want,” she said. “But why can’t they just shoot us from their ship?”
“Tyrenk is going to try and make it so they can’t, but if he fails we’re going to have to run for whatever cover we can find. There are mountains and our armor makes us difficult to track. If we tell you to scatter, don’t hesitate. Just pick a direction and take off running. We’ll use pre-packaged waypoints for rendezvous later. Our only hope in this is to survive long enough for someone to find us.”
“We’ll drop a beacon,” the Protovic added. “They’re working on it now. One in the system ahead and one if we can make it to the next.”
“Won’t they shoot it?”
“We’ll send it off a different direction. If they chase it then we’ll get a bigger head start and it’ll be worth the loss, but it’s also camouflaged and won’t send out a signal unless it detects Star Force comms. It’ll tell them where we’re going if and when another ship passes through there. So we just stay alive, got it?” he said, looking directly at her.
“Again?” she asked, but nobody laughed at her sarcasm.
“I know it’s not fair,” Bard said. “You’ve survived the V’kit’no’sat twice already in a short period of time. Sometimes the galaxy is like that. You just have to keep clawing back until it finally cuts you a break. No giving up, because you never know what’s going to happen 5 minutes from now.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”
“Same to you,” the Commando said, looking up at Rammak. “Your luck really sucks.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve survived 3 times already. Some would say that was very good luck.”
