by Aer-ki Jyr
Clan Mantle hadn’t ventured out into that arena yet, having very little in the way of a military other than the Archons. Sara’s Clan had some militia for peacekeeping purposes, but with the presence of the Star Force fleet in the system she hadn’t seen it necessary to try and replicate it. Her Clan preferred using those resources for growing the Clan’s economy, but others like Paul, of course, had wanted one of his own so a mini arms race had ensued between part of the Clans.
It galled her that Paul could spend so many resources on building his personal warfleet and still have enough resources to surpass Clan Mantle’s economic output.
Someone had to stop him, and Sara had long hoped that someone would be her Clan, but to date it was all they could do just to keep pace with his growth. They were losing on the economic front, but their skill levels were not bad and Clan Saber’s were on par in most areas as far as improvement was concerned. He’d just gotten such a jump in the beginning with his ‘selection’ of personnel that her people had yet to close the gap.
Sara adjusted the message prompt into the respond function, then hit the key on the wall monitor that would record a reply.
“Good news indeed, but if you think the Sabers won’t be ready come a year from now you’re being overly optimistic. They’ll get their qualifier…and so will we,” Sara said, shaking her head at what she presumed would be Katherine’s response. “Don’t argue the point, because I know it is possible. Even if we’re not going to win Dysnomia I want our Clan to be in the trial for it. This is the biggest prize Davis has ever offered and it’d be embarrassing if we had to sit on the sidelines.”
“I know we’ve got some ground to cover between now and then, but we’ll just have to double down on our training and kick our asses into overdrive. I won’t be back for a month, so you’ll have to get the others started. Focus entirely on our weak areas and get some combat sims running. We need a mix if we’re going to catch up in time…and we will. Don’t think otherwise. I know our capabilities and this is within our range if we don’t hold anything back…so we won’t.”
“Get me a copy of our training schedules so I can tweak them from here,” Sara finished unceremoniously, reaching out and punching the stop button. She skipped over the review option and sent the message back to Katherine who was on Earth. By choice Sara kept most of her Archons in the primary sanctum, utilizing its extensive training facilities in lieu of spending the resources to create a copy elsewhere in Clan Mantle’s holdings. Several other Clans were also Earth-based, with deployed personnel scattered around the system seeing to either Star Force business or Clan activities.
Her business with Canderous was one such Star Force duty, but only the more experienced Archons were deployed to the field, allowing most of her Clan members unlimited training time, more so than many of them knew what to do with. She hadn’t pressed them too hard in the past, as far as Archon standards went anyway, but she knew there was a slack in scheduling there that she could rid them of in order to catch up in time for the Dysnomia trial.
Belatedly she wondered how hard the other Clans were pressing, and if the dominance of Paul and the others was a result of it.
Sara shook her head in the negative as she shut down the communications console.
“Nope,” she whispered to the air. “Paul just cheated.”
3
July 3, 2136
Jason ducked under a slash at his head, then brought his low-powered stun sword up with a flick of his wrist towards Paul’s chin, but the Archon backstepped just in time to miss the tip of the rounded blade. Jason continued its motion around in a large circle, then crossed blades with Paul in a series of quick, short, and powerful strikes, pushing and countering as they squared off in the training ring.
Both were excellent swordsmen, and about the only ones who could provide the other with a significant challenge. Today they were simply going through sparring drills, fighting at about 80% and maneuvering their way through a mostly orchestrated routine, shifting from one aspect to another with the occasional twist thrown in to keep each other on their toes…and with the blades set to low stun just to remind them not to get sloppy.
Both Clan leaders met up for workouts on a regular basis while the rest of their people kept to themselves. It was one perk of being a trailblazer to be able to step over Clan lines for training partners, because without that the second gen Archons wouldn’t have provided enough of a peer group. When Clan Saber was founded on Venus Jason had taken his newly minted Clan Sangheili there as well so they could train against each other as needed, and to date both Clans often competed against each other in informal challenges to enhance their training, though today wasn’t one of those days.
It was a regular workout, and only the third they’d had together since Jason had returned from a trip to Earth, both for Clan duty and to deal with Knight matters. The miniature giants now outnumbered the Archons 3 to 1, with most of them being deployed on security details across the star system. They made for intimidating guards, but whenever there was special ops duty required it was usually the Archons that stepped in to fill it, leaving the Knights without many combat duties.
To compensate for this Jason had organized an extensive training regimen that kept those not assigned to posts busy on an almost Archon-like level trying to increase their skill ranks while competing against each other in occasional tournaments. The process had been adequately successful in raising a core group of skilled fighters, but overall it had become clear that they had more Knights than they knew what to do with, given the lack of conflicts post WW3.
Problems still arose, but no one was game enough to try to launch an outright war again after seeing how Star Force had dealt with the previous combatants, so instead they tried more subtle means to get at each other, most of which were economic. Those that involved behind the scenes military action were easily dealt with by the Archons, leaving the Knights as almost an unnecessary part of Star Force.
Jason knew otherwise, as did the rest of the Archons, but the Knights didn’t know about the threat of the V’kit’no’sat so they had very little to focus themselves on. A growing number had begun to quit, requesting the size decreasers so they could return to ‘normal’ life without towering over everyone else. Most retained a few inches over the public for vanity’s sake, but what was growing into mass desertion worried Jason, prompting his return to Earth and the Knight training center in Antarctica.
He’d had a long talk with Vermaire, during which the Black Knight had suggested telling them the truth, or at least a small group of them, and letting him take them to the pyramid so that they could train against the holograms and see what they were really up against. To date, Vermaire was the only Knight to have been made aware of the pyramid and those who’d built it.
After several rounds of discussion, in which Jason correctly pointed out that such an action wouldn’t affect the overall Knight ranks, Vermaire offered to train the ‘commanders’ of what would potentially become Clan Knight companies that would fight with the Archons in the commando trials…or at least those that were applicable.
Incorporating the Knights into the Clans wasn’t a decision he could make on his own, but he knew Paul would be game and had arranged for a trial program to start the following year after Vermaire had run them through his own version of badass boot camp. Jason wasn’t sure how all this would pan out, but between Clan Saber and Clan Sangheili they’d experiment and see what they could make of it.
The bottom line was, though, that the Knights needed challenges as much as the Archons did, perhaps even more so to keep them focused and prepping for the future during these ‘peaceful’ times. Though it wasn’t his specific domain, Jason had also commented to Paul that they might need to incorporate a similar version for Star Force’s security forces, which had grown into an army of its own over the years. They were always busy, but weak when compared to the Archons and Knights.
Originally they had only been designed as placeholders wh
ile the Archons would do the fighting, but they’d been the ones taking the casualties during Star Force’s conflicts. No Archons or Knights had been killed to date, though a couple of the Knights had come close, losing limbs to enemy explosives. They’d been stabilized and shipped back to Atlantis, whereupon after treatment by the V’kit’no’sat regenerators they’d regrown said limbs over a few months time.
As a result of the security force casualties an evolution within the ‘police force’ had gradually taken place, upgrading their ranks into tiers with more and more combat skilled individuals being organized into squads within the structural hierarchy to deal with situations that an Archon would originally have been called in to handle, such as confiscating property from armed individuals.
To make a simple point of the matter, the security forces had grown up as an organization and would need to be looked at in a similar way to the Knights with regards to keeping a combat-ready edge, even though that’s not what they’d originally been intended for.
A quick over-powered thrust caught Jason on the shoulder, delivering a tiny numbness on impact as Paul saw a moment of hesitation in his friend’s movements and exploited it.
“Wake up,” Paul said as Jason responded with a set of more powerful return blows. Jason pushed Paul back a step, then likewise retreated and held up a hand for them to stop, nodding at the entrance behind his friend.
Paul turned around and saw two men in the open doorway to the private sparring ring. “How long have you two been there?”
“I just got here,” Marquis Danison said, glancing over at his counterpart.
“About five minutes,” Marquis Hightower answered with a shrug. “I was enjoying the show.”
“Both of you at once?” Jason wondered, glancing at Paul. “This has got to be something good.”
“Or bad,” Paul differed. “Alright, what’s up?” he asked the two men responsible for their Clans’ economic and logistics ventures. They were Davis’s handpicked ‘mini-me’s’ and had been responsible for the Sabers’ and Sangheili’s civilian operations from the very beginning.
Danison gestured for Hightower to go ahead.
“I received a request from Clan Star Fox to purchase or trade for one of our Leos...and a pair of lancers.”
“Funny,” Danison said, leaning against the door jamb. “They made a similar request of us, except that they wanted two Cougars.”
“Warships?” Paul asked his Marquis, referring to the Lancer-class ships that Clan Saber had developed. Smaller than a cutter and only marginally larger than a pair of drones, the lancer had been Paul’s brainstorm to provide a mobile weapons platform with decent speed to the Clans in lieu of the larger warship fleets that most of them couldn’t afford to build. Clan Saber had built every lancer in service and sold them to the other Clans for a tidy profit, but to date Clan Star Fox had never placed any orders with them, preferring to focus on economic ventures rather than building up a military fleet.
“Yes, I found that rather odd,” Hightower noted.
“Two Cougars?” Jason asked skeptically. “We have three surplus, correct?”
“Correct,” Danison echoed.
“They’re up to something,” Paul suggested, turning to Jason.
“You think they’ve been hit?”
“By what, pirates? They’d just call in the fleet to deal with them.”
“I have a theory,” Hightower interrupted.
“I wonder if it matches mine,” Danison mewed.
“I think it might,” the other Marquis continued. “The only reason I can consider for their wanting warships is a change of philosophy…”
“Hardly,” Paul scoffed.
“…or they’re operating in a region where the main fleet isn’t stationed and they’re concerned about response times.”
The two Archons exchanged glances. Star Force had patrols and outposts virtually everywhere in the system where there was civilization.
“I concur with my colleague,” Danison said. “I think they’re going prospecting, and need the extra cargo ships to extend their supply lines.”
“Prospecting?” Jason asked. “They can’t unless they…” he stopped, turning to Paul. “No way.”
“They’re expanding into the outer zone,” the other Archon said, coming to the only viable conclusion. The inner, middle, and high zones were under Davis’s direction, and at his prerogative to divvy up however he wanted, but the outer zone was still the frontier and not under Star Force’s domain. Paul knew Davis was going to extend out there eventually, but until he did it was technically up for grabs.
“That son of a bitch,” Jason said, referring to Randy. “He’s going to get the jump on Davis and grab up a bunch of territory.”
“Bold move,” Paul said, his mind wandering.
“What?” Jason asked.
“Davis wanted the Clans to be independent,” he pointed out. “Why not take it a step further instead of waiting on him for handouts?”
“Logistically speaking,” Hightower interrupted, “that would be a nightmare, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking.”
“No,” Danison said, glancing at Jason for confirmation or denial. “Not that far out.”
“All the 2s?” Paul asked.
“Not enough,” Hightower said with a firm shake of his head.
“What about all the Clans then?”
Hightower considered that, then nodded once. “Possible.”
“We need a summit meeting,” Jason decided. “Without Davis hearing about it,” he added, glancing at his Marquis, then Paul’s.
“Mum’s the word,” Danison reluctantly agreed.
“We can use one of the trials,” Hightower suggested. “It’ll cover most of our transit in legitimate business.”
“Just to make sure we’re all on the same page here,” Danison said warily. “You’re talking about Mordor, right?”
“At the end of the to-do list,” Jason reassured him. “There’s plenty of grabs closer in than that.”
“Good, because establishing a supply line that far out is going to be hard enough for Davis to accomplish, let alone the Clans.”
“Not up for a challenge?” Hightower teased.
“Easy fellas,” Paul cautioned. “Play nice.”
“Even the closest planet in the outer zone will take weeks to travel to from here,” Danison explained. “And the big ones are, quite frankly, out of our reach until we get a workable gravity drive. Even then it’ll be a long trek out.”
“Which is why no one is going to care or notice us out there,” Jason explained.
Danison sighed. “Aren’t there enough rocks in the high zone to satisfy you guys?”
“You know,” Paul said sarcastically. “If the Sangheili want to opt out, I’m sure the rest of us will be able to manage our way out there.”
“Don’t be insulting,” Jason deflected. “My Marquis just has this habit of only working within the realm of the possible. He hasn’t mastered the art of the impossible yet.”
“You guys really want to waste a significant portion of Clan resources on this?” Danison asked disbelievingly.
“And to do it without Davis knowing about it,” Jason added with a sly smile.
“What about the transponders?” Hightower asked, noting the obvious problem.
“Fleet is the one who monitors them,” Paul pointed out. “And they take orders from us.”
“Ok…” Hightower said, not realizing it was that easy to hide things from Davis.
“Look at it this way guys,” Jason said, rubbing his hands together expectantly. “Davis wanted you to get some independent experience, and what better way to do that than to organize outside of his reach.”
“Won’t he be mad if he finds out?” Danison asked.
“Not with us,” Paul assured him, deadpan. “He knows we can beat him up.”
4
November 8, 2136
Paul stood in the Admiral’s circle aboard th
e bridge of the battleship Excalibur, only vaguely aware of his Clansmen around him. A physical pedestal stood before him with a host of controls, but it was the only tangible object within reach. Everything else was hologram in a 360 degree spherical radius that overshadowed the view of the bridge, which was reduced to a faint haze, his crew mere outlines behind a vast starfield that circled him head to toe as he ‘stood’ next to the Excalibur with the triangular warship occupying about 3 meters to his left.
Elsewhere in the holographic space were the two dozen other warships that made up his strike force for this naval trial. Each of them was visible, stretched out around the battleship in a tight perimeter as they traveled towards a large green gas giant that glowed ominously ahead of Paul and his fleet. In orbit around it was a defense station, the destruction of which was their objective in this trial.
Paul watched the range-finder scroll down quickly, then began deploying his fleet when they hit a specified distance out via his control pedestal.
Suddenly the warship beside him shrank down to less than a meter and highlight markers began to sprout up on the other ships. With each one tagged in sequence he sent out specific orders to his crew manning the other stations on the bridge that were flying the remote ships. Within those orders each Archon would fight their part of the battle, weapon by weapon, as Paul guided their overall strategy.
As he issued orders an enlargement of the defense station appeared in ghostly holo, indicating it was not truly where it now appeared, floating amongst his ships. With the schematic he began tagging target locations on the station’s hull, which he then shuffled over to individual ships, setting up his lineup for the assault.
