Star Force: Consensus (SF43)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “Large infestation with Skarrons. Move to flank on entry,” the Human said.

  Ren’san’do steadied himself, grasping his plasma rifle tightly as he fell to the back of the formation that included 26 Protovic. On the other side of the doors lay a ‘parking garage’ for the undercity streets, meaning a wide open area large enough for the enemy’s prime infantry. He didn’t know what he was going to see on the other side, but once he moved through the short hallway connection and the armored suits in front of him split to either side, his eye line was opened to a mass of Skarrons below them several meters and spread out across one of their nesting sites.

  Blue plasma orbs flashed into the middle from the edges as larger white orbs in lesser number shot back out, with a single line of blue coming from Kip’s Star Force plasma rifle…which was nearly dead center in the middle of the Skarron formation. All around him Skarrons were down on the ground, twitching and kicking and temporarily out of the fight, with the Human shooting them while dancing around avoiding most of the shots of the others outside his psionic range.

  Ren’san’do fired his own rifle over a railing as he dropped to a knee for cover behind it, shooting at one of the innermost Skarrons focusing on Kip as the other Protovic worked from the outside in. His friend was drawing a lot of attention his way, but Ren’san’do worried if it was too much, for several direct hits were absorbed by his shields. They were a bit more resilient than the ones that the Protovic suits had, but the Skarrons’ rifles were much larger as well, with each hit landing the equivalent of a small cannon’s worth of plasma on the target.

  He needn’t have worried, for the Human used the bodies of the Skarrons he’d just killed as cover, giving his shields time to recharge in between hits, all the while the Protovic were massing fire on the unarmored and unshielded Skarrons. After several intense minutes the fighting was over, with Ren’san’do following Kip across to the far side and directing him to the next junction as they did a quick injury count.

  They hadn’t lost anyone, but two Protovic had lost shields and gotten toasted inside their armor, which now had shiny, smooth patches where it had melted upon contact with the plasma. One of them was still fit to fight, but the other one was sent back the way they’d come, unable to keep up with the group due to painful burns beneath the affected material.

  Kip didn’t wait around more than a few seconds, letting the Protovic worry about organizing themselves. Ren’san’do followed him out with the other 24 Protovic dropping into a 2x2 formation and following the Archon forward as he lead them further into enemy held territory.

  “How’s it look?” Kip asked Ren’san’do several hours later once they were inside the power station’s control room.

  “They’re siphoning off power, to where I can’t say, but the breach is occurring here,” he said, pointing to a diagnostics map of the facility that ran both above and below ground like a giant carrot growing in the dirt.

  “Do we have any intel on what’s over there?”

  “None that I’ve been given, but whatever they’re drawing power for is going lights out in a few seconds.”

  “Good.”

  Ren’san’do hesitated a moment, looking down at the control board, then turned to look at Kip on his left. “Movement on the perimeter.”

  “On it,” Kip said as he ran off to join the rest of the Protovic in the defense of the control room.

  Ren’san’do let him go and focused on the power controls, selecting certain regions of the surrounding city to black out in order to deny the Skarrons the power they’d been stealing. While there was a redundancy in the systems, the drain was occurring on a main conduit from this station, and even if power flowed in from other generators to the blackout areas, this power tap should be eliminated…in theory. Ren’san’do wasn’t a Protovic tech, so his understanding of their infrastructure was limited to what the control board was telling him.

  Working the problem as well as he could, he cut off power to the Skarron tap along with the chunks of the city also being fed by that line, then observed the results…seeing that several small areas didn’t receive transfer power.

  Those areas would have emergency backups for minimal lighting and life support, if they weren’t exhausted already, by he had no way of knowing how many people were still in those areas. No Protovic, he hoped, but there was no way of knowing. If the power was completely gone from those areas, which was a very low possibility, then they’d be blacked out with the air going stale, though with the open passageways it shouldn’t lose all oxygen.

  To the Protovic the dark wasn’t a problem, given that they produced their own light, but it would make them obvious targets to the Skarrons, creating major problems if they didn’t have armor or an envirosuit on. He hated not knowing who he was affecting, but disrupting the enemy seemed to be the smart play, so he left the power off to deny the Skarrons their tap…for whatever it was they were doing over there.

  The next day Kip returned to orbit and boarded the Tassadar for some badly needed sleep and workouts, but when he got out of the atmosphere and got around to taking a look at what was in orbit he saw new contacts on the battlemap…Star Force contacts, in the form of a fleet of jumpships. He contacted Captain Shannist on his way up and got a quick rundown on the reinforcements Aaron had sent his way, along with the notification that he’d opened up a second Star Force front in Protovic territory against the Skarrons…along with the news that they’d invaded Star Force territory and had been repulsed, but at a cost.

  That shocked Kip, who had no way of being notified other than by courier ship now that he was off the Star Force comm grid. He asked a few basic questions from the dropship, then waited until he got onboard so he could run through the data personally. He headed straight to his quarters, having the Captain shunt it there, intent on grabbing a badly needed shower and hitting the sack after doing some reading.

  The jumpships weren’t warships, but troop carriers. Aaron’s message said that their fight against the Skarrons involved naval engagement and that even if they managed to whittle down the Skarron fleet to the point the Protovic could take them out, there was estimated to be very few Protovic remaining alive on the Skarron-captured world of Vivak. It was full of Skarron walkers and anti-orbital batteries, most of which Aaron assumed they’d be assaulting with orbital bombardment, so he’d sent Kip half of his ground troops so they could be put to better use than sitting on their ships training in simulators.

  The number of ships Aaron had sent him nearly matched the force he already had on planet, underscoring just how serious the Skarron invasion had been, for the ships had come directly from Rotunna, excluding those left behind to secure the system. They would be a huge boon to the efforts here and he intended to put them to use immediately, which he sent a text note to Shannist via the comm terminal in his quarters regarding the initial deployment orders. Kip would get to the specifics in the morning after he’d crashed, ending his 8 day run of catnaps between ground ops.

  Tired as he was, and with his recent warm shower pushing him even further into sleepiness, his adrenaline spike him back into full combat readiness when he read the intel report passed along from Aaron and Randy regarding the Skarrons’ knowledge of the V’kit’no’sat’s current location…not to mention the little side detail about the true size of the Skarron empire.

  “Damn it,” he whisper swore, reading through the rest of the sketchy intel from the Skarron prisoner and then the two trailblazers’ input on the strategic situation. Kip had been fighting the Skarrons more than any other Human, and he had a good sense of their strength, which was superior to Star Force in a number of areas, namely the size of their walkers and warships…and everything else.

  But Star Force had a weapons tech advantage, and with care could beat the Skarrons 2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1 on the naval front without any fancy strategy, just basic hit and withdrawal to range forcing a mostly long ranged engagement that would put Skarron lachars, which were stronger than the St
ar Force version, by far, against Star Force lachars and cleansing beams. The cleansing beams were the superior weapon, hands down, and that advantage alone gave them naval superiority.

  Plasma versus maulers was also a Star Force advantage, but Skarron naval missiles beat anything Star Force current fielded…though their interceptors could shoot down the missiles with great efficiency so long as they had enough of them. Gravity drives were also a Star Force advantage, for their binary nature, though intel from the Protovic had suggested the Skarrons’ movement speed between star systems was superior to anything they possessed, and based on the numbers Kip agreed it was better than theirs as well, but insystem that largely didn’t matter, for all jumps were micro-jumps, and being able to jump by pulling against a gravity well in addition to pushing was a major tactical advantage.

  The Protovic had some advantages over the Skarrons as well, primary in infantry engagements, but also in naval, though their superiority edge wasn’t as great. They had numbers, in terms of warships, that Star Force couldn’t hope to match, which meant the Skarrons were having to engage them with forces far larger than they’d hit Rotunna with, but now that he had a glimmer of the size of the Skarron empire he knew that eventually they’d send enough ships to overwhelm the Protovic…unless this theatre didn’t rate high enough on their priority chain, and the fact that the Skarrons were pushing hard to expand suggested otherwise.

  Meaning that this theatre was the shark bump…the test to see how much resistance the Protovic could put up. So far they were holding the Skarrons at bay, though they’d already taken several systems. Eventually the Skarrons would bring in more ships, if they had them nearby, and according to Aaron and Randy’s report they were using the galactic ‘highways’ to travel at great speed throughout their own territory, including a jumpline that brought them out towards Beta Region, though they didn’t know the exact location.

  Those ‘highways’ were black hole to black hole jumps over great distance. If you could find such a route that was clear of debris you could achieve insane speeds, even with the most basic of gravity drives, given that their pushing power was based off both the strength of their engines and the strength of the gravity well…with black holes massing far more than any star.

  There were no available black hole lines within Star Force territory…not that they knew of, though it was possible that there could be one passing through from one side to the other, for such jumps usually covered hundreds if not thousands of lightyears. If the Skarrons had access to several of these, it would allow them to pull troops and ships from across a wide area, and that meant that if they wanted to hammer the Protovic, or Star Force, they could summon them up far quicker than standard star to star jumps would allow.

  That meant they were both in trouble, and Kip’s crashing session in his bunk was delayed for several hours as he worked through the strategic situation, unable to put his mind to rest before he weighed their options…which resulted in him sending out a courier ship with a message for the rest of the trailblazers, which was then deposited into the nearest Star Force relay the ship came across.

  7

  November 18, 2467

  Lonigan System (Epsilon Region)

  Outreach

  Yori-007 eyes widened as he heard the pithy news update. “Where are they?” he demanded icily.

  “Inner edge of the Sagittarius Arm,” Steve-004 told him across the holo comm.

  “Gives us some breathing room,” Yori told his old team leader. “And explains why they haven’t discovered us to date.”

  “There’s more,” Steve prefaced. “Get your butt groundside and I’ll fill you in.”

  “On my way,” Yori said, cutting the comm and standing up from his bridge command chair. “Captain, find us a nice parking spot. I’m heading to ground. Suck some fuel and supplies and I’ll get back to you on the crew rotations.”

  “Who are the Ve’kat’no’set?” Emberle asked.

  Yori stopped a few steps from his chair and glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Scary monsters that hopefully you will never need to worry about. Archon stuff.”

  The Captain nodded, understanding what he meant by that last bit. There were a lot of things the Archons knew that others weren’t privileged to, and they had a habit of talking freely in front of the bridge crew, which meant some things she’d just have to squelch her curiosity on. That said, she never knew what was restricted information or not, and Yori had never minded her asking.

  The Archon waved lazily as he turned and walked off the bridge at a good clip, heading straight for his warship’s hangar bay. He left the Goldeneye and his 5 jumpship mapping fleet in Emberle’s care and flew down to the planet’s surface via dropship, passing through the thick cloud layer to arrive in the clear lower atmosphere where Steve was building up Star Force’s stronghold in Epsilon Region, and from the look of things he’d been quite busy over the past 4 years that Yori had been off charting new jumplanes past where the V’kit’no’sat maps ended.

  The small city Yori had left was now spread out to the horizon in all directions around the spaceport, though the truly massive buildings were still under construction, giving Outreach’s capitol a significant footprint, if not yet a high density. It was odd that Steve was taking that approach, but they were both 0s and he knew him well, which was why he pushed aside his curiosity until he saw the full blueprints, for his fellow trailblazer was always thinking long term when he built, which was why he’d taken on this mission.

  While Yori had been scouting out new systems, Steve had been taking a chunk of supplies from the Kiritak colonies and using them to construct Outreach, the first of 6 planets in this system slated to be colonized. They were located some 98 lightyears from Sol, putting them well out in the middle of nowhere, which Steve was supposed to turn into ‘somewhere.’ Outreach was meant to be the focal point for opening up the entire region, with the other 5 planets insystem reserved for Clan expansion once Steve spearheaded the effort with a functioning mainline colony and defense fleet.

  Epsilon Region had been well scouted out previously, with a lot of less than friendly races present, but none of the size or strength to worry about…at least not on a scale comparable to the lizards or the founding members of the Alliance. The strongest in the area were the Zenarks, who mostly kept to themselves, though their approximated size was half that of the original Calavari.

  Their technology was limited, however, and they existed primary as an economic entity, with trade relations established with over a hundred local races. Star Force had established contact with them in that regard, making themselves known, but as of yet they hadn’t conducted any business with them. A conglomeration of smaller races in association with the Zenarks formed a unified defensive force that kept a lot of the nasty races at bay, stabilizing the lower portion of Epsilon, for the rest of it was highly lawless and if one wasn’t careful would end up a victim to the predatory races and pirate coalitions that roamed the area.

  That was why Star Force needed a strongpoint to begin colonization, in addition to just common sense, and Steve had half the 8th fleet in the system guarding it while the local shipyards got established and began churning out drones that could be controlled from the surface. Normally those construction slips would be orbital, but as far as drone construction was concerned Steve had taken the unusual approach of having them constructed in surface yards that fell under the protection of the city defense shield…assuming he’d gotten one set up by now.

  Yori studied the infrastructure from above as the dropship descended, curious as to what had been added since he was last here, but most of his thoughts lent themselves towards the V’kit’no’sat. For centuries the Archons had considered how to fight their ancient nemesis, and he was glad that they’d finally located them rather than the reverse being true, which would have quickly ended in their defeat and eradication.

  When the trailblazer landed in the spaceport he took a mongoose through the city streets over to
the command building, then hit an elevator up to Steve’s hideaway in the single ‘tall’ building on the planet, rising more than 2 miles up. The Outreach command center wasn’t at the top, but midway up in the thick of the narrowing tower that was capped with its own cleansing beam defense turret. In fact, the entire building had no windows, but was coated with armor plating, making it more of a military structure than a habitat.

  Yori found Steve leaning over a planning table with a host of small holographic icons moving about an inch or two above the surface, and like normal, he was the only one in the private chamber, preferring to think things through in isolation rather than having a tech or administrative team around him.

  “What’s the other stuff?” Yori asked, closing the door as he came in.

  Steve stood up from his slight bend and turned around, sitting on the table and ‘squashing’ several holographic icons.

  “Did you check the boards on the way down?”

  Yori shook his head. “Not even the news updates.”

  “Skarrons invaded the Protovic, Kip went in to help them with their oversized walkers. Skarrons didn’t like this and invaded four of our systems. Rotunna partially held up until reinforcements arrived, but Iverie, Ghanis, and Brenns all fell, with nearly total casualties. We’ve taken them back, but some 9 billion Kiritak are dead, and we lost 4822 Archons…not to mention Regulars and others.”

  “Shit,” Yori said, his jaw dropping.

  “That’s not the worst of it. Aaron took three fleets from Sol and went directly to Rotunna to back up Randy, while Dan gathered the Clans and everyone else he could and went to Iona, then branched out and retook the other three systems. Randy and Aaron took a few Skarron prisoners and did the replicator ‘hand in the head’ deal and found out their territory is massive…like huge. They occupy a good chunk of the Sagittarius arm and are expanding spinward, anti-spinward, and rimward into the Orion Arm. Guess which way they’re not going?”