by Aer-ki Jyr
“That…would be very useful,” Ren’san’do said, immensely grateful. “We hadn’t expected that sort of assistance…from anyone, let alone a lesser race. No offense.”
“Some taken,” Kip kidded with his friend as the other Protovic looked on with a mix of emotions, primary among which was eagerness…for most of them had seen the Star Force weapons in use and knew of their effectiveness. They were the only reason the Protovic were slowly taking planets back from the Skarrons, with Erentia being the second in a short list. The Protovic had returned from Calavari space in time to stop the invasion from rolling from system to system, but where their enemy had gotten to ground they’d dug in deep and the Humans were the only ones proven successful in getting them out, though they had to be paired with Protovic units to be effective, given their small numbers.
The commander took a couple of steps closer to Kip and removed his helmet as well, cracking the faceplate off and retracting the headpiece down into the neck, revealing a tattoo-like pattern of glowing patches on his face bracketed by nearly black scales over his head that formed a light exoskeleton that traveled down across his back, arms, and legs, though those weren’t visible through his suit.
He stared at Kip with his deep, radiant purple eyes, with the Archon staring back unflinchingly.
“You’re truly willing to give us your most advanced weapons, asking nothing in return aside from battling our common foe? Something we would do anyway out of self-preservation.”
“Yes I am. The strategic logic is favorable…to both of us.”
“You have said you are one of Star Force’s leaders. How high of rank do I have the privilege of addressing?”
“I am one of 100 senior commanders, all of whom share equal position. The others agreed with my suggestion and sent the jumpship back.”
“You are a Lord of your race, and yet you engage in the deepest of battles? Why do your subordinates let you take such a reckless risk?”
“In all our battles not one of us has been lost, so it’s not as great of a risk as you might think. That and if anyone tried to stop us we’d kick their ass. We’re the leaders because we’re the strongest.”
“And the oldest,” Ren’san’do added.
“The two go hand in hand for Archons, in most cases,” Kip explained. “And we belong where our skills will do the most good. We dislike sending weaker personnel in first as cannon fodder. We dislike it greatly.”
“And now you seek to strengthen us?”
“A warrior who does not seek greater strength is not a warrior,” Kip quoted.
“Forgive me,” the commander apologized, “but our opinion of your race has been small since our first encounter at the Alliance summit. You have been regarded as inconsequential until you came to our aid when the rest of the Alliance would not or could not. Now I am beginning to feel we are still underestimating you, perhaps because of your smaller population. I must ask, what are these special skills that some of you possess and have been aiding my special forces with?”
“Something that is not well known, even to all of my people,” Kip confided. “But on the battlefield such secrets are irrelevant. We call them psionics, and only our most advanced Archons possess them. As I and my brothers and sisters are the strongest, we possess the most, which is why it is essential that I assign myself to the integrated teams. No other Archon in this system matches my strength.”
“What are these psionics?”
“Biological energy weapons, more or less, the dynamics of which we are going to keep a secret.”
The commander nodded. “I do not begrudge you that, though I envy the rumors I’ve heard of their effectiveness.”
“I will admit,” Kip said, pointing to his nearby helmet and floating it slowly through the air and into his hands, “they are cool.”
“A biological tractor beam?” the Protovic said, amazed.
“More or less. We like to keep our full capabilities known to only us, but Ren’san’do has seen more of their use than any other Protovic, I’d wager,” he said, tapping his friend on his armored chest. “Most of the time I’m using the equivalent of mental white noise to temporarily disable enemy units. It’s quite effective when you have a Protovic team behind you to make the most of the opportunity. Your units are well organized and efficient. It’s a pity they’re not backed up by better mechanized forces. I hope our tech upgrades will help to counter than deficiency?”
“The Skarrons have imposed on us the need for such. I give you my word we will not squander your gift, nor the assistance you have provided us here.”
“The sooner our techs get to work the better,” Kip said, accepting his promise with a nod. “Where is your primary development facility?”
“Achion, at fleet headquarters.”
“With your permission I’ll send the jumpship there directly, though an escort or emissary would be appreciated.”
“Of course,” the commander said, “though we don’t have a jumpship available at the moment. If you’d be willing to travel at a slower speed I’m sure we can arrange for a ship from the defense fleet to accompany you.”
“With time being critical, it’s best not to waste even a few days. If you can have an emissary travel onboard, either in person or in a small vessel that my jumpship will carry, that will be sufficient. I just don’t want it to show up insystem unannounced, and I can’t go myself because I’m needed here.”
“I’ll go,” Ren’san’do volunteered.
“No, I need you here with me,” Kip insisted.
“I will arrange a small transport with representatives that will clear your jumpship through capitol protocols,” the commander promised, turning around and gesturing to one of the control room staff. “Get me a comm to the Sarnor.”
“They’re equipped with provisions to stay insystem as long as necessary to get your people up to speed,” Kip explained. “You’ll have to handle all production yourself. We’re offering the knowledge, not our own fabricated weapons.”
“We understand,” Ren’san’do said slowly, “and thank you, my friend.”
“You can thank us by killing Skarron ships. Right now, we’ve got more of their walkers to deal with. How are your people set up at the Gamma target?” Kip asked, getting back to the business at hand.
The Protovic were slower to make the transition, literally giddy with the news of the promised technology, but the trailblazer slowly pulled their focus back to the city and the ongoing ground war, getting them set up for an attack run on another Type-1.
10
July 8, 2468
Trantiss System (Lizard territory)
Ollsonat
Paul watched from the bridge of the Excalibur as the ship’s cleansing beam severed the last remaining lizard battleship along its midsection, hitting it almost squarely in the middle flank of its 2 kilometer long mass as it tried to flee, plagued by IDF-laden goo sticking to its shieldless hull. The tiny white beam virtually disappeared by the time it hit the ship, so distant as it was from the 15 mile wide behemoth of the command ship, but that didn’t matter when the concentrated nature of the beam could melt apart material on contact. Even a beam a millimeter wide would be sufficient in cutting a ship in half, and given that strength of the cleansing beam technology, that’s exactly what the Excalibur’s gunners had been trying for.
The remaining cruisers were already fleeing, or trying to. Some were caught up in IDF tug of wars with corvettes pinning them in place while the command ship blasted them apart, but most of the 320 ship defensive fleet around the lizard colony on Ollsonat had already been destroyed. Paul had brought the Excalibur in first, leaving his handful of Warship-class jumpships out in high orbit around the planet until he wanted them, knowing they’d make for too easy of targets in the beginning stages of the slugging match that was going to take place, and he wanted the command ship to take the full brunt of the lizard defensive effort.
As he’d learned months ago, the lizards’ standard fleet of cr
uisers was wholly unable to take on the might of his command ship, even when supported by lizard battleships. He had expected their new ship to be hard to kill, but its efficiency against the lizards surprised him. They literally couldn’t touch it without devoting insane numbers of ships…so long as the helmsman kept the giant donut moving around orbit to avoid lizard kamikaze jump attempts from below. Those they had tried early on, but Paul had seen them coming and kept the ship moving out of alignment, making it very difficult for them to set up a ramming trajectory at jump speed.
They’d then proceeded to try ramming collisions at slower speeds that did not require jump alignment. Those couldn’t be avoided, most of the time, but proactive weaponsfire took out most of the ships appearing to be setting up at enough distance to try for a ram…and those that just did so at the spur of the moment at close range couldn’t generate enough kinetic momentum to punch through the impressive array of shields the command ship could throw up.
The ship not only had multiple shields, but each shield had multiple matrix options, meaning it could tailor its defense against the weaponsfire hitting it. There were six stations on the bridge dedicated to shield control, meaning that while the rest of the warship battled the lizard fleets, those officers would be adjusting the defensive barriers to create strong points, alter the matrixes, cannibalize energy from intact matrixes and shunt it over to others, spot flood weak points with incoming energy while denying it to others, etc.
That gave the new Command Ship design far more defensive options than any other vessel in the Star Force fleet. Being a 15 mile wide mass gave one plenty of volume to put ‘extra’ tech into, and Paul and Jason hadn’t skimped on anything. In particular, the shield matrix that was designed specifically to defend against plasma weapons was proving to be the lizards’ bane, for virtually all their weaponry relied upon it, and thanks to Star Force having access to old lizard blueprints and tech, they knew the intricacies of the lizard plasma weapons, from which they’d developed a shield setting specifically to combat them.
Switching from one matrix to another took a lot of time, for it was essentially having to create an entirely new shield without going through the full recharge process. Typically a mass of energy was held within the shield emitters, ready to be deployed into the matrix rather than having to charge them from the power core directly. That was how ships could ‘raise shields’ in a split second, because that energy was already stored up and at least partially transformed into the necessary type for their shield matrixes to utilize.
Some matrixes used similar energies, so they could be morphed from one to another without total loss, reducing the time between transfers, but battling the lizards only didn’t require a switch, so to date that feature hadn’t been battle tested. The physical-only shield had been tested, when the lizards decided to ram the ship at close range. Given a heads up, the shield officers had deployed one of the multiple shields in the direction the ship was coming from instead of putting it around the entire ship.
Doing so gave them the opportunity to layer the shield, essentially taking the pieces from the entire hull and stacking them up like dominoes over the approach area of the kamikaze. That ship then ran into each of them in sequence, with each hit and breach slowing it until it hit the actual hull…which had only happened twice, leaving two beauty marks on the blue ship, scraping off the paint and showing the grey beneath with little real damage, given the thickness of the exterior plates.
That wouldn’t be enough to stop a jumping ship, but it could reduce the damage greatly if they could set up the matrixes in time. It was a tactic the V’kit’no’sat used, though with other tech that was currently beyond Star Force, but the principle was sound. Liam had dubbed it the ‘pillow effect,’ whereas the energy equivalent Paul had tagged as ‘reflect’ after the Final Fantasy power that sent magical attacks back onto the sender.
In this case there was a shield matrix that attempted to do the same thing, bouncing it off rather than cancelling it out. They’d gotten it to work on lasers, but anything more powerful was overloading the matrix and causing it to breach, which when it did it went down completely, like shattering a mirror. None the less, Paul and Jason had included it in the shield options. Other than turning the ship into a giant carnival mirror, which was cool, it wasn’t of much use as yet, but you never knew when an odd situation would arise, so better to have it in the mix than not.
The shield package the Command Ship carried had been enough to thwart the lizards on several occasions as Paul probed their third line of border systems, prompting the trailblazer to reassess their harassment missions. With the updates coming in from the Skarron front, the progress with the Calavari, arming of the Hycre and Protovic with Star Force tech, and the other ongoing projects the trailblazers, as a group, were conducting, Paul was relieved to be able to rely on them to take care of the laundry list of items while he focused on only those in the far end of Alpha Region.
He’d agreed with Jason’s assessments about the ‘run for the rim’ option floating around, being that they had to hold their ground and move to the rim simultaneously, preserving the option to fake their death if it came down to a V’kit’no’sat return by setting up separate ‘kingdoms’ within Star Force territory and expanding out to others. Paul doubted they could fool the V’kit’no’sat that easily, but it was worth a shot. The galaxy was vast, and hiding was definitely an option…their only option, really, impressed upon him and the others now that they had a glimmer of where their true enemy was, deeper into the core and currently oblivious to their whereabouts.
The dragon had fled to the rim, and it alone could have destroyed Star Force’s entire fleet. Paul wondered if that had changed by now, though he doubted it. Still, he would really like to see the tactical specs on the dragon’s armor and how much damage it could actually dish out…and take. Kara’s had been pretty well mapped by this point and he had his guesses as to what the dragon’s version could do, though the naval ramming capability mentioned in the reports from Daka still gave him waking nightmares. Star Force had no sensor data on that, but firsthand accounts by the Canderians in the system made clear that the Nestafar were sitting ducks, and he doubted Star Force shields and armor would fare much different.
So when the time came Star Force would run, but right now they couldn’t go far, and therein lay the problem. They needed the systems they currently possessed to grow stronger, which meant standing their ground and fighting off the enemies gathering around them. First the lizards, then the Nestafar, and now the Skarrons, which appeared far greater than anything they’d come across at this point, though Paul had a sneaking suspicion that the lizards were the more dangerous, based off the combat reports from Beta Region. The Skarrons’ territory might be huge, but the lizards were cunning, and that was an attribute that should never be underestimated.
Which was why he’d half expected the lizards to throw up some new attack against the Excalibur as he invaded this system, but they hadn’t. It had been standard tactics with a few hasty attempts at creativity, but nothing that worked. He and Jason had created a monster of a ship, second only to the Kvash starbases, each of which was more than 50 miles wide. They varied in size and shape, as each one was unique, making them more like small moons than ships or stations.
But as far as warships went, nothing else bested the Command Ship…that Paul knew of. Both the Hycre and the Bsidd had larger jumpships, but they didn’t carry the armament that the Excalibur did, and now that Paul had a big bad ship to work with, he was appreciating the unique combat applications that it afforded.
He agreed with the others that Star Force needed to establish a firm territory block and defend it as their enemies closed in on them rather than trying to defeat those enemies. Star Force was playing for time as it continued to unlock, or more accurately, understand the knowledge in the pyramid, so winning the war was more about surviving than hitting back, even as the lizards’ territory grew by leaps and bounds.
&nbs
p; Even if they garnered the full power of the pyramid Star Force, as some of the others had wisely pointed out, would never be able to utilize it in killing the Skarrons or forcing them to submit, for it would bring them too close to the V’kit’no’sat. Even if they managed to do the same with the lizards, which was ambitious enough, word could and would travel about what they had done, and Paul was leery even that might filter back to the V’kit’no’sat when certain pieces of tech were mentioned, or what the Humans looked like, or more importantly, the psionics they wielded.
Hell, that information might already be spreading back their way. There was no way to avoid it, meaning that Earth was going to be compromised sooner or later…the big question was when. It was all about time, and the trailblazers had to give Davis’s people as much as they could. If they succeeded in protecting Star Force from all its enemies and keeping it dark to the V’kit’no’sat long enough, then Paul was confident that they would be able to engage and withdrawal from their nemesis, no matter what advancements they’d made over the past 100 millennia.
He entertained no serious notions of ever defeating them, but right now if they came back it wouldn’t even be a fight. The V’kit’no’sat could own them with a single ship, and they wouldn’t even be able to take down its shields. No, the victory they were striving for was survival, and to do that they needed the full power of the pyramid. That would at least put them in the same league as the V’kit’no’sat, and if they were even slightly on par with them, Paul knew that he and the other trailblazers could make up some of the gap through sheer determination and cunning, despite the V’kit’no’sat’s reputation for the same.
