Star Force: Revulsion (SF70)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Mike released control of the battery back to the remote pilots and tweaked a few alignments going forward, but by then it was pretty much automatic. His people knew what to do so he just mainly watched and waited for an opportunity to make changes if needed, but the short trip over to this location and the others for the various splinter groups had allowed them to partially recharge their depleted shield matrixes, virtually insuring that none of the drones would be destroyed short of their deployments getting sloppy or the lizards pulling some brilliant play.

  Preventing both of those was Mike’s primary role here but none was to come to pass. The lizards’ ships were destroyed as they ignored the Star Force drones and focused exclusively on the natives, for those were the weak targets that they wanted to take out. For every one that they destroyed they could bring in more reinforcements later to compensate for any losses, so the emphasis was on doing damage and not the cost to the lizards, which was catastrophic for this small fleet of enemy ships.

  Mike’s forces managed to keep all but one of the native ships intact once they arrived. That one had already been damaged prior to the arrival of the drones and a kamikaze cruiser got through the blockade and rammed it, bumping two drones aside in the process just to get the kill. As soon as the last active ship was destroyed or disabled Mike sent orders for rescue crews to get to the native ships and recovery crews to the remains of their two dead drones. It was unlikely that someone could reverse engineer them given the tech level Star Force now had, but they didn’t want to get sloppy with their trash and end up making someone a lot more powerful through negligence.

  As soon as he sent the order he knew there was going to be issues with the recovery. The natives were an unknown, as was their biological needs. He didn’t even know if they could breathe the same atmosphere but he wasn’t going to risk someone dying from delay while they tried to establish some form of communication with the natives.

  “Admiral, you have command,” he said through the comm as he deactivated the nexus after sending one last order for the other Archons in the fleet to assemble for possible recovery operations. “If we’re going to have a first contact situation we need my telepathy, so I’m heading to the hangar bay.”

  “Understood. Still no response from hails.”

  “Keep trying and cycle through all languages we have in the database. Maybe we’ll get lucky and hit on one they’re familiar with.”

  “That’ll take a lot of time.”

  “We just bought them time.”

  “True. What are your standing orders?”

  “We own orbit. Keep the lizards out but ignore the rest of the system save for recon until I say otherwise. I’ll be on armor comm in a few minutes if you need to reach me.”

  “If you find survivors, will you be bringing them back here?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll play it by ear. Prep various atmospheric containment pods in one of the hangars and get the medtechs ready to adapt. If we can buy a few minutes with some prep I want them.”

  “At all locations I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll make it happen and have a dropship standing by when you reach the hangar.”

  “Keep an eye on the lizards and feed me updates. The dropships are going to be soft targets.”

  “We’ll keep them out of reach.”

  “I’m off,” Mike said, fully deactivating the nexus and turning about and into a run as he reentered the bridge and crossed it heading for the interior of the ship where his quarters were. When he got there he found his dark blue armor, or rather one out of three sets that he had onboard ship, and stepped into it within a few seconds. His feet went into already intact boots and his arms went into already intact gauntlets held in a statue-like pose with the rest of the armor being peeled apart in segments that included the helmet.

  A mental command saw it all close up around him and lock into place. He sent another mental command to retract the helmet, sensing a 3 second holding ‘aura’ with in his mind.

  “Retract helmet,” he said, enabling the safety protocol to release. His helmet split apart and the segments slid back down around his neck and behind his head, leaving him breathing free air and able to twist his neck side to side and backwards without being hindered, but with the segments piled behind his neck and acting as a bit of protective collar triggered with the binary command so that a rogue thought wouldn’t see the helmet splitting apart when one was in, say, a toxic atmosphere or no atmosphere at all.

  The same protocol was in effect for the rest of the armor, but the quick in-and-outs were worth that little speedbump, though he had to telekinetically smooth his pant legs down inside to get some wrinkles in his casual uniform out. Another mental command crunched the armor down around feet, shins, thighs, waist, and every other part of the armor that had been designed to give him some room for internal movement. When it contracted down to his predetermined body form he felt himself mentally slip into battle readiness with his feet gripping the ground and able to twitch in any direction necessary in a split second. He didn’t have Kex like Jason did, but he could launch himself into a full aerial flip with barely a split second of preparation in order to jump over something flinging at his ankles…which was hard to do with loose boots.

  As soon as he got his armor locked into place he headed out through the ship and to the hangar bay, finding a dropship waiting for him with a small crew of Bsidd all in either combat armor or envirosuits, some which appeared to just be getting to the ship a few seconds ahead of him.

  “Ready for departure, Archon,” one of the Gammas said, standing next to a pair of Alphas in combat armor and a few other of the slightly larger ‘workers.’ Mike knew the Admiral had sent them here because they were the strongest of the Bsidd…not taking training into consideration…and could lift or pry apart debris and carry modular equipment better than any of the rest of the ship’s crew. The Alphas were armed, lightly, and were both Bsidd commandos there for security to watch Mike’s back and those of the other Bsidd just in case something went awry…like a group of lizards showing up or the crew turning on the rescuers.

  Mike took a quick glance, confirming that they both had one lethal and one stun weapon, keeping their options open to deal with the unknown.

  “Let’s go,” he said, walking through the small Sparrow-class dropship and into the cockpit.

  “Where to?” the Epsilon variant pilot asked.

  “Any of the tagged ships that their own vessels aren’t at.”

  “Do they have rescue parties deployed?” he asked as they lifted off the deck and drifted towards the energy field separating the bay from space as the heavy blast door over it slowly retracted with a bright splash of sunlight shooting inside the crack.

  “Not as a few minutes ago, but I hope we’re not the only ones picking up people. Get me within 400 meters of the hulls and I should be able to sense if there are living crew inside.”

  “Really?”

  “Archon magic,” Mike said, referencing a term that a lot of others had come to use when they didn’t feel like explaining something. “No point wasting time searching empty debris.”

  “Proceeding to the nearest target,” the Bsidd said, setting a course around the various debris chunks and getting a few pea-sized hits as soon as they left the jumpship.

  Mike took a deep breath and centered himself before extending his Ikrid out in spherical mode well beyond 400 meters. Technically there wasn’t a fixed ranged, for the ability kind of acted like a rubber band in that you could stretch it out via cone mode and the tighter you restricted the cone the further it would reach. He wanted the dropship close enough that he wouldn’t have trouble searching the ship segments, as well as being able to pick up faint lifesigns that could be missed at the outer edge of his range, for unconscious minds didn’t register as well as conscious ones.

  The first chunk of ship they passed Mike scanned thoroughly but there was nothing living aboard. He had the pilot tag that pie
ce on the battlemap as having been searched and then they moved on to the next ‘needs to be searched’ tag. They passed by five of them before he picked up a group of closely packed minds in the right ‘wing’ of one vessel that had been chopped in half by weapons damage or an internal explosion.

  “Stop here,” Mike said, focusing his Ikrid tighter so he could squeeze out a bit more detail. “There’s at least 20 holed up here. I think…I think they’re stable but it’s hard to tell.”

  The Bsidd in the pilots chair glanced up at him in question.

  “Never mind, just find us a way onboard,” Mike said as he turned around and went into the back of the ship with the six others. The pilot would be staying here, but the rest were coming with him.

  “Pack up, we’re going over,” he said, keeping his own hands free as he took position by the rear hatch. The Bsidd picked up a lot of equipment and waited behind him, each of them towering at least a foot taller than the Human and wearing purple/black armor. Their battlecasts were more flexible than the Archon’s, in that their hard plates only covered select portions but the ‘soft’ pieces were still more resilient to weaponsfire than the original Archon armor had been. Add on considerable shield strength and the Bsidd were anything but weak, and the envirosuits themselves were lightly armored so as not to get pierced by debris or low level weaponsfire.

  Mike wouldn’t have been bringing men wearing those over if there were any suspected lizard activity, but only the soldiers had combat armor sculpted to their forms and he needed the jumpship techs to handle the bulk of the recovery operations. He stood at the ramp until he got a confirmation from the pilot that they were in position, then hit the door controls and an energy shield snapped into place a moment before the ramp cracked open and lowered to reveal an internal deck of the derelict chunk of ship that was now open to space.

  “Me first,” Mike said, jumping through the shimmering blue field and into zero g for the two meter coast that ended with him getting his adhesive fingertips on a severed structural beam, then he turned around in the void of space as his armor switched over to internal oxygen. “Safety line.”

  One of the techs threw an object through the field and Mike pulled the toss to him telekinetically, attaching it a few meters in so they’d have a firm line to hold onto and wouldn’t risk careening off into space if something went wrong…and in the Bsidd’s case ‘holding on’ involved wrapping two appendages around the line like a hoop, insuring that they didn’t float off, for the artificial gravity was out in at least this piece of the ship.

  “It’s fixed. Let’s go,” he said, moving on into the exposed corridor and pulling the line with him.

  6

  Mike attached another nub some thirty meters down where the corridor made a sweeping turn up and to the right. That provided a solid point for the line to feather to, letting it stay slightly loose in between as the mage continued to lay cord down as he bounced his way from one wall to the other and up the corkscrew tunnel. The minds that he was sensing were nearby and all clustered in one area, but since he didn’t have a schematic of the ship he was just guessing which way to go aside from a little Pefbar help.

  There was no grid-like pattern to the corridors so he just strung line where he went and left it in place when he had to backtrack, starting a new line inches from the old and heading off in another direction until the chamber the minds were in came into Pefbar view. From there he was able to see the route necessary to get there…along with the emergency blast doors that had cut off the survivable section of the ship from the decompressed areas.

  There was no power here so he and the Bsidd were having to work their way through using nightvision and some tiny lights being emitted from their envirosuits and armor. Mike didn’t need his, for he had his Pefbar, and when he came up to the blast door he saw that it was more than a foot and a half thick using his psionic sense.

  He waited for his team to catch up, then grabbed a piece of equipment from one of the Bsidd and helped him stretch it across the width of the corridor. It was a flexible hoop that both of them went about extending and melding to the floor, walls, and ceiling with some reliable adhesive, both to keep the atmosphere contained and to keep the mount from moving with the pressure. They put it two feet back from the blast doors then activated the portable shield generator and a blue film covered the corridor.

  “What the hell…” Mike mumbled.

  “What’s wrong?” one of the Alphas asked, with a pair of mandibles dropping over its stun gun.

  “These minds are familiar. I think this is a race we’ve encountered before.”

  “Which one?”

  “Give me a moment,” he said as he floated in place and lightly disconnected his mind from his surroundings as he reached out to one of natives ahead. He could pick up thoughts and voices, both of which were not in any language he recognized, but he was able to hack into one of their bodies and see through their eyes.

  The room was dark, for apparently the entire ship had lost power save for some few emergency systems. Mike saw a few status lights in the dark, but what drew his attention immediately were the faces and hands of the crew…for they were glowing a mixture of red and green. That was the wrong color, but there was no mistaking the body structures, including the hard carapace covering their heads and running down the back of their necks and beneath their uniforms. It was the telltale partial exoskeleton that, combined with the glowing skin, told Mike who this race was.

  The Archon activated his comm, but also opened a channel to let his team hear his conversation so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. “Admiral?”

  “Here.”

  “We haven’t met face to face yet, but the survivors on the other side of the blast door are some variant of Protovic. Dig up all known variations of their language and see if one is compatible with the natives.”

  “Protovic? How?”

  “I don’t know, but these have red/green skin instead of purple/green. I think we’ve stumbled onto a mystery that a lot of people are going to want to know the answer to.”

  “If you haven’t seen them how do you know what color they are?”

  “I managed to pull a feed from within the room they’re currently in. They’re just about the only thing glowing, so I think it’s safe to assume most of this ship is dead. Send over a shipment of envirosuits compatible with Protovic physiology.”

  “Human sizes?”

  “Basically. If they don’t have any of their own we’re going to need to get them out through vacuum. Have the other rescue teams similarly equipped. If you get even a hint of a comm line to the natives I want to know immediately.”

  “Understood. Anything else you need?”

  “A lightsaber would be useful, but other than that, no.”

  “Team 4 has arrived on site and is attempting to recover three survivors.”

  “Get as many as you can. Have the Protovic ships moved to recovery positions?”

  “They’re sniffing around, but haven’t made any real attempts yet.”

  “Give them a wide berth, but if they get near one of our teams have an escort drone standing by in case we need to peel.”

  “Already on it. We’ve got your back.”

  “Copy that. Keep me updated,” Mike said, cutting the comm and returning to his team’s frequency. “You get all that?”

  “What eyes did you have on the other side of the door?” an Alpha asked.

  “Telepathy.”

  “Can you use it to contact them?”

  “I can do better than that. In the meantime get some atmosphere on the other side of the shield,” he said as he went meditative again. One of the Gammas pulled himself past him using the ceiling line and deposited a canister on the other side of the energy shield, hitting a button and holding it steady so it didn’t blow itself out of the contained space as it released its solidified gases. Per its design it consumed the fuel reserve it had up until the atmospheric pressure reached desired levels, then it stoppe
d releasing nitrogen and oxygen and began swirling around what was there through an intake vent and heating it towards room temperature rather than the frigid cold that it now existed at.

  Mike let the Bsidd watch his back as he connected with the crew again, finding one of the healthiest ones and taking over control of his body. The Protovic slipped into a state of sleep that made it very suggestive and allowed Mike to order him about without having to worry about controlling every single muscle contraction in its body. He heard questions from the others as the Protovic moved out of the room, then he thought better of it and took a moment to knock all of them unconscious before taking his puppet out through the corridors and over to the far side of the blast door.

  The emergency system still had power, and through the knowledge that this one contained he was able to identify the override sequence necessary to open it. The Protovic did the button pressing while Mike did the coaching, then when the thick doors split and retracted into the walls there was a bit of atmospheric bump as the two sides mixed, but the energy shield held without incident.

  Mike pushed his way past the Bsidd who was putting away the partially depleted canister and gently shot himself through the door and over to the glowing face and hands inside a white uniform that clashed with the dark green of the corridors…or it would have if they had been able to see them, but the Archon knew what the interior of the now dark ship was supposed to look like, for he was still in this one’s head.

  He gently withdrew his presence, letting the Protovic wake up slowly while he pounded him with reassurance and impulse of ‘ally,’ ‘friend,’ and ‘rescue.’ That said, the Protovic jerked fully awake when he finally saw the similar silhouette of the Human and the totally bizarre silhouettes of the Bsidd.

  Mike spoke to him telepathically, not knowing the right verbal words, and eventually was able to settle the male Protovic down. Instructing him as to what to do next was a long 15 minute process, but eventually he was able to establish a rudimentary language between the two of them and decided right then and there to keep this one with him to act as emissary to the others they were hopefully going to rescue after this group.