Star Force: Kaalo (SF99) (Star Force Origin Series)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “I can kill you in an instant, and I don’t even need my weaponry to do it.”

  “Get on with it then,” the ranger urged.

  “At least you have the spirit of a Zen’zat, but not our size. Why? You have others of Zen’zat size, but not your elite. This makes no sense.”

  “Maybe you should try thinking rather than blind obedience,” the Archon said as his feet hung dangling in the air, though his eyes caught sight of the healing wound on Kaalo’s arm, for he wore a sleeveless shirt with his long pants, both of which were skin tight and dark green. “Maybe learn to duck too. You got shot up, didn’t you?”

  “My injuries are healing. I would have defeated your Rio and the three Archons with him had it not been for your treachery. How have you bypassed the Ikrid restriction?”

  “He got you in a headlock, didn’t he?”

  “No. I do not mean by physical contact. How have you bypassed it remotely? I was told this was impossible.”

  “We have a penchant for doing the impossible…but I actually don’t know what you’re talking about. Rio is a trailblazer, so he knows a great deal more than I do.”

  “That is obvious. If you possessed Rentar like the others you would have freed yourself from my grip already. If you do not follow protocol, why don’t you possess the psionics that the others do?”

  “I haven’t earned them yet.”

  “None of you have earned them,” Kaalo growled. “However you managed it, your abilities are not naturally gained. Why not give all of your kind the same?”

  “Only those who are worthy get them, and I’m too young to have proven myself for all of them.”

  “What did Rio have to do to get Ubven?”

  “Ask him.”

  “I am asking you, warrior to warrior, answer my questions directly or I will treat you like the rest of the scum of your bastardized race.”

  “If you’re going to kill me, then all I can do is resist. Would you give away information if you…” the ranger said, cut off as he floated within reach of Kaalo and the Zen’zat punched him so hard in the chest that ribs snapped…then he was inside his head, digging around but still asking questions, amplifying his physical voice until it boomed so loud that the ranger couldn’t help but shudder with each word.

  “How do you bypass the Ikrid restriction? What psionic have you altered to accomplish this?” Kaalo asked, but as the ranger said he did not know the answer. As much as he knew, Ikrid could only be bypassed by skin to skin contact, which was one reason why they wore full armor in combat.

  “What psionics do you possess?” he asked next, with the information rising to the surface of his mind as he posed the question, making it easier to recover. This Archon had the basic 7 abilities that all Zen’zat did, but none of the second or third tier like the others had. It was a pity that none stronger had been captured, though he would have had several if not for those overlapping Ubven fields. It and their other rare psionics gave them the psionic power of legendary Zen’zat, which was an even greater sacrilege given how low their physical skills were.

  “What do you know of their skills? Their psionics? Their tactics?” he asked, getting a lot of information hits that he had to further dig out. It took him several minutes until he crossed something unusual. Something that no Zen’zat possessed and betrayed all reason.

  Kaalo checked again, digging out any and all information this low level Archon had, but the word was clear and there were a few instances of him having heard stories from others, though he’d never observed it occur himself. The higher level Archons had something they called ‘battlemeld’ that was supposed to combined the psionic power of more than one individual to make them stronger as a pair or group than the sum of their individual powers.

  Was that what Rio had meant when he promised to kill Kaalo with friends? Did they gain strength in numbers? And did that somehow allow them to bypass his Ikrid blocks and mess with his mind? It was the Ubven that had caused him the most trouble, but it was the mind tricks that truly worried him, for Zen’zat had always been immune to them. Fornax operated differently and they had become acquainted with both using it and weathering it, but if these Archons had found a way to cheat the Ikrid block then their treachery was growing to a truly dangerous level.

  “Battlemeld. Who has it? What creates it? Is there a weakness to it?”

  The Archon wouldn’t answer, and unfortunately his mind did not contain much in the way of answers beyond a single memory of some type of tournament he’d observed…no, that he had reviewed images of later…in which many high level Archons participated. During group combat this Archon had seen two others swing each other around various objects, both pulling and pushing the other with their Lachka to great effect…but they always had an extended arm or arms to do it, and both of them, which made no sense to Kaalo. Only one used Lachka, and while physical directions helped one to focus their concentration they were not necessary.

  This Archon had also saw something odd with the way they operated, speculating that it might be some form of battlemeld psionic while realizing that such things would not be revealed to him until he made their rank of Padawan. That was when they were instructed by another more skilled Archon in the attainment of the additional psionics. This was where their accursed ‘sharing’ occurred and the natural progression of development was cheated. It was also inferred that this was where the battlemeld was learned if not previously gained.

  Somehow they even had cheaters within their own ranks, sharing powers before their approved time. How could a group of Zen’zat, no matter how bastardized by their illicit reproduction, function in such discord?

  Kaalo was beginning to question how a sponsor could be so silent and still manage to keep this rabble functional…and yet he had witnessed himself how effective they were in combat, undeserving of their psionics for certain, but their effectiveness was more than just fortune.

  Had this Star Force actually created new psionics? Or was there more to them that even he did not know? If the latter was the case he was going to find out now. If the former…

  Kaalo released his physical contact with the Archon, pushing him away from him in his Lachka grip slightly.

  “Your kind cannot be allowed to exist. You are an abomination that will be purged, no matter how many of us it takes,” the Zen’zat said, grabbing the Archon’s arm and flipping him over his head so hard that his shoulder dislocated as he slammed him down onto the table, breaking his nose…but Kaalo didn’t stop there, pulling on his arm again as he smashed the Archon’s torso to the table with a Lachka field so that the limb ripped clear off the body in one sickening snap/crunch.

  The Archon screamed, then rolled off the table onto the ground making more sounds of agony as Kaalo left the room, pulling open the giant door with his Lachka and walking by the Zen’zat outside. He tossed the Archon’s bloody, severed arm at her and the Kilnor caught it on the wrist so the blood wouldn’t drip on her.

  “I am finished here. Reattach it if you wish.”

  9

  April 3, 3602

  Solar System

  Venus

  The Tar’vem’jic from the Mach’nel continued to fire from range, hitting another Sentinel in Venus orbit as the V’kit’no’sat fleet made a run in toward the planet similar to what they had been doing in previous days. Already one shipyard had been destroyed and it looked like they were going after another now, with Roger having deployed a lot of the remaining Shiva ships here to help defend the planet, but there was no outdistancing the Mach’nel. That forced him to engage it at closer range, and every time he did so he lost ships.

  The V’kit’no’sat fleet had gotten smart, in that they didn’t allow any long battles to ensue. The size of their ships meant that the Star Force fleet had to hammer them for a while in order to do sufficient damage to kill them, thus the V’kit’no’sat fleet, in a very atypical strategy, was making fast hits to do damage to the Star Force orbital defenses and ships before retreating to
recharge shields and repair the limited damage to their hull plates…so it had become a frustrating game of attrition with Roger trying to slow the damage they were inflicting on Venus orbit while picking off a ship or two when he could.

  And the Mach’nel wasn’t just shooting at the shipyards and Sentinels, it was also targeting and one-hitting the Shivas, forcing Roger to run them up in the face of the other V’kit’no’sat ships in order to use the enemy vessels to block incoming hits, otherwise he was just wasting them. If the Mach’nel wanted to shoot at destroyers and frigates he’d let it do so all day, for most of its primary weapon’s destructive power was wasted to take them out and he had hundreds of thousands of them to pull on, but bring a big ship or station within range of the Mach’nel and it was going to be quickly destroyed, just like all the Sentinels in stellar orbit had been.

  The trailblazer had hoped they’d go after the Slip’n’slide, but they’d wisely ignored it, for it wasn’t a threat to them now, and destroying it would have wasted valuable time that they could otherwise use to hit more important Star Force targets all the while more drone fleets were returning to Sol and increasing their numbers.

  Roger thought they might be able to win a straight up fight right now, but he didn’t want to waste the number of ships that would involve nor tip their hand to how many more summons they had…but Roger couldn’t let this damage keep going forever, so it was time to up the intensity and try to counter the hit and run tactics with a quicker takeout punch.

  Directing the combat from a distant command ship, Roger sent his fleets in towards the Mach’nel and its thousands of escorts as it sat out of range of Venus’s orbital defenses and continued sniping Sentinels around another valuable shipyard. Once they were in range of the V’kit’no’sat fleet and a good-sized brawl broke out the Mach’nel stopped firing on the Sentinels and redirected its primary weapon at a Shiva, punching through its enhanced shields on the first shot and gutting the ship with a hole blown straight through and out the other side, followed by explosive plumes of debris out both openings as the ship’s center tore apart and shredded like a piñata.

  But that Shiva had deliberately drifted high to attract attention, for with the Shiva ships hidden amongst the beehive of regular drones were another summon that Roger had quietly pulled down several days ago. These ships were Ultima and well hidden behind the wall of other drones as they all headed into the defensive alignment the V’kit’no’sat had used in previous engagements, setting them with decent spacings so they could focus fire from multiple directions while also blocking for one another.

  Roger hit the outer ships hard, but before they could get to their predetermined minimum shield strength and begin to run, peeling away from the formation while allowing the Mach’nel to continue sniping targets, he ran the Ultima ships up close and activated their element. Where the Shiva ships had special shields to make them more durable, the Ultima ships had basic technology across the board, from weapons to defenses, with one key addition.

  Many Star Force drones suddenly lost propulsion, drifting on previous headings as conical-shaped IDF interdiction fields stretched out and grabbed the leading V’kit’no’sat ships, taking away their ability to maneuver along with all the drones in between. Almost as soon as they did a Tar’vem’jic blast fired at one of the Ultima, hitting many other drones in between and failing to get more than a bit of energy through…which was absorbed by its shields.

  Roger began throwing more ships into gap, some of which had to decelerate hard to cut their momentum before they hit the field, but others were able to block while maintaining navigational control because the interdiction field wasn’t spherical, but rather focused along certain channels and strong enough to hold all the mass in it that it wished.

  With multiple ships captured per field and dozens of Ultima casting their fields into the V’kit’no’sat lines, Roger had ships pinned in place that he could now kill, but he knew the V’kit’no’sat wouldn’t stand for that. They were going to pour the rest of their ships into the engagement and fight it out rather than abandon their ships and let Star Force get some ‘easy’ kills. Anticipating that, Roger also had other ships in this formation that had not engaged the V’kit’no’sat before…in the way of fully topped off Fireflies.

  With the already weakened V’kit’no’sat ships stuck on the edge of their formation, Roger ran the fat firefly interceptors up through his ships lightning fast as the drone swarm parted for them under his direct control, allowing them to get into firing position before the other V’kit’no’sat ships could flank the IDF fields while the Mach’nel was busy shooting Shiva and trying to punch through to the Ultima with primary weapon and others.

  The Fireflies, running with energy shields that hid the glow inside them, moved up to almost pointblank range with the pinned V’kit’no’sat ships, drifting forward as they lost engine power as well, but with their ‘firehose’ mounts still pointed toward their targets as other drones flanked them to provide extra blocking ability, both with their mass and shields, as well as contributing as much firepower to the targets ahead as they could, for the IDF only interfered with gravity drive operation. Not weaponry.

  The first Firefly got within four kilometers of an 18 mile-long Voro’nam Dak’bri when it extended a shield column up to the enemy ship just after the V’kit’no’sat shields fell. Roger was hoping for that, because the Fireflies were not as effective against shields as they were matter, and had tweaked their approach timing to get them their best shot…which this Firefly took now.

  It opened up its aperture and poured fiery hot plasma sucked up from the star through the shield ‘straw’ to help contain it further until it got to its target. What normally would have been a laughable plasma attack against a V’kit’no’sat ship took on a whole new dynamic in the amount of plasma being channeled. This wasn’t a plasma weapon being fired, this was the entire content of the Firefly being funneled out through a very wide tube in a one shot attack.

  And that attack burnt into the V’kit’no’sat hull on a specific spot, eating into the armor plates and puncturing through before the full load was delivered. Return shots were fired immediately, but the Firefly was well enough shielded to survive them long enough to unload, blasting a crater in the hull and vaporizing so much internal structure that there was a backwash of molten debris thrown out into space as the Dak’bri pounded the drifting Firefly into scrap, not realizing that it had nothing left to attack with.

  But it wasn’t the only one hitting the Dak’bri, for three others did as well, opening up points in the thick hull armor that the surrounding drones then tore into as adjacent weapon systems went down, no longer with power or otherwise gutted by the plasma flow inside the ship that ate into it like venom.

  Roger had timed the attack so well that all 126 Fireflies he’d brought into this fight delivered their attacks within 2 minutes of one another, and combined with the Ultima pinning the targets in place and the mass of drones around them firing constantly, Roger got more than a handful of ship kills in this engagement before he finally pulled back when the V’kit’no’sat wouldn’t. He gave them a little breathing room, fighting a withdrawal and protecting both his Shiva and Ultima as he reset his formation into a better defensive alignment.

  The V’kit’no’sat didn’t press in, suddenly turning around and fleeing now that their damaged ships were no longer pinned. Those that could move did so, and those that didn’t got towed away while the remains of others were targeted by friendly fire and destroyed as the V’kit’no’sat ships made hasty microjumps as the Mach’nel continued to snipe drones the entire time.

  Roger, knowing it was going to leave soon, sent his ships in towards it so it couldn’t sit around an extra minute or two and get free kills in on his ships or the Sentinels…and given the numbers he had now and the threat of the Ultima pinning it in place, it did in fact run, pulling back through its own microjump and abandoning the attack on Venus until the V’kit’no’sat fleet could
lick its wounds and adjust to the new ships and tactics Roger had just effectively thrown at them.

  As it left, Roger pulled up a bit of media from the Halo library and sent a cinematic clip to both the V’kit’no’sat fleet and made sure all his remote pilots could see Sergeant Johnson as well.

  “The message just repeats…regret, regret, regret.”

  “Catchy. Any idea what it means?”

  “Dear, Humanity. We regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth. And we most definitely regret the corps just blew up our raggedy ass fleet. Hoorah!”

  Within two seconds he had thousands of replies through the battlemap, either text or audio, echoing the ‘hoorah’ at the end, and with his Sav-enhanced mind he could hear/read all of them at once.

  For the moment the attack on Venus’s orbital infrastructure had been paused and they’d just destroyed another 47 ships and damaged upwards of 200…and given just how big those ships were, that was a huge victory despite the 3,000+ drones lost.

  “They’re starting to pull out.”

  Rio frowned and pulled up the battlemap focus on the nearest V’kit’no’sat camp on the Ribbon from where he sat on top of a tall building overlooking the continuous evacuation of the civilians, guarding against another attack or assassination attempt.

  “Damn. They’re going to bombard the station when they’re clear. We have to get them out faster.”

  “We can shove more ships through other portals if they’re not contending,” Sara said over the comm.

  “Keep an eye on it, but I don’t think they’re going to be that gracious. They may still have Zen’zat on the prowl up until the end too.”

  “It won’t take much to breach the atmosphere, but they’ll have to do it section by section. Do you wanna hit them to delay their pullout?”

  Rio thought about that for a moment, then shook his head.

  “No. We straight up race them. Pull everyone back and pack them in as tight as possible. Send the dropships out beyond the spaceports if you have to.”