by Aer-ki Jyr
As she went over the wall she tagged her chest and activated her jump pack, slowing her fall…then she smashed into a hard surface, rolling twice and losing her grip on the sniper rifle before leveling out face down on top of something very shiny.
She shook the stars out of her head in a heartbeat and got her feet under her, finding the ground a bit unsteady…then she realized she’d landed on the back of a spider walker passing by on the street below.
“Wha..oh,” she said, staring into the side of one of the secondary cannons, hoping it wasn’t about to pivot around and fry her…then a light rain of random plasma hits started coming down from the flying infantry and kissing the chrome surface of the walker as the infantry she’d just fled from started coming over the rooftop in alarming numbers.
Left with few good options she ran around the back side of the cannon and stooped down for cover behind it, realizing that her head was still exposed, but at least it gave her a moment to think. There were too many to fight off so she had to run for the moment, but to where?
To her left was a building, to her right was a building, above was the infantry, and below was the walker, which had plenty of anti-infantry weapons on the underside.
Not good choices, making her think about staying put and fighting it out with the infantry until a wide oval window appeared on her left. Most of the base’s buildings didn’t have windows, but a few did…and this one might just give her a way out.
She targeted it with her plasma rifle, pumping round after round into the glass-like material as the spider slowly walked by, shifting her aim up to shoot a Nestafar that was getting painfully close. In the blink of an eye she stood up, sidestepped towards the far side of the walker, then made a running jump towards the broken window, manipulating her chest controls one handed and hoping she’d be able to control her arc enough to hit the target.
A moment later she crashed into half-broken glass with her shoulder, twisting her legs around the pivot point and flopping her inside the building. Several Nestafar within the large observation room jumped at her, coming down with their bladed hand weapons that merely scratched her armor, though their mass kept her pinned down for a few seconds before she could punch and kick them free and get back up onto her knees.
One of them grabbed her plasma rifle and tried to drag it away from her, but she caught its leg and pulled it back down, punching it angrily in the chest, which dented its flesh and caused it to drop her weapon. She picked it up and started shooting everything in sight as the infantry from outside started appearing at the broken window.
Morgan took cover behind several thick tables and held her ground, thinning out the room and targeting the reinforcements as they were coming in, giving her a bit of an advantage until her rifle ran out of ammo.
Not even taking the time to swear she dropped it at her feet, pulled out the shotgun from her pack, and began pumping rounds towards the window. The scatter gun-like weapon was extremely useful at close range, given its enhanced kill power and spread area of effect, but the window was a little farther away than the weapon was designed for, so there was a bit of a standoff as several wounded Nestafar managed to get inside and try to flank her.
When they came closer the shotgun ate them up, but they annoyingly added a lot of divots to her green ranger armor, some of which were still smoking when the reinforcements died out and she finally stood up out of cover. She glanced down at all the pot marks, seeing that none were too deep, then she set the shotgun down within easy reach and began reloading her plasma rifle as the ‘all clear’ came through on the comm, indicating that the rocket launcher infantry had been disposed of.
Before she finished reloading she saw a thick red plasma stream shoot past the window, quickly matched by two smaller blue streamers that preceded a yellow skeet flashing past, apparently going after the spider she’d just been riding. Now that the fighters were free to engage she knew it was only a matter of time before the base was stripped of its remaining defenses.
She had no plans to take and hold it, only to deny the Nestafar its use as a secure landing zone for reinforcements. That meant no large ground offensive was incoming to sweep the buildings of infantry and other personnel, and as impressive as her Archon team was, they weren’t going to take on that task by themselves.
“Mission accomplished,” she told her team on a private channel so as not to clutter up the chatter between the pilots and others nearby. “Head back over the wall and rendezvous at our resupply point. We’ll arrange for pick up there.”
Eight days later…
A mantis set down on the ground next to a heavy walker for a moment before rocketing back up into the sky leaving a solitary scuffed green Archon behind. Morgan ran over underneath the giant Hoth’s legs and grabbed the ascension cable dangling there, then was pulled up through an underside hatch and into the troop bay.
There were a handful of personnel in the otherwise empty chamber that she walked her way through, pulling off her helmet and heading up into the command pod. She stashed it on a cramped console and sat down, pulling up the combined battlemap data being generated by all Star Force units in play on the surface and augmented by orbital surveillance.
Now that she was onboard the giant machine began walking again, heading towards one of the last remaining Nestafar bases on Ricopal. Two days ago what was left of the Nestafar orbital fleet turned tail and abandoned the system, including their troops on the planet. Both Morgan and the Calavari commander had offered them terms of surrender but they hadn’t gotten back so much as a casual response. Either they didn’t believe the offer was genuine or they had orders to hold out as long as they could, either to await reinforcement or, more likely, to cause the victors as much damage as possible before they were finally defeated.
“Report?” Morgan asked once she got the comm system operational and an earpiece in.
“Containment is holding,” Cratak answered, “but there have been several infantry squads attempting to flee into the forest. All were intercepted and destroyed.”
“Just infantry?”
“Yes.”
“What were they carrying?”
“Small arms, nothing special. Why?”
“Just wondering if they don’t have another trick up their sleeve.”
“Even if they did, it won’t save them. Our forces…excuse me, your forces have them totally outmatched.”
“So why are they running when they could be surrendering?”
Cratak paused for a moment, caught off guard by the question.
“That’s why I asked,” Morgan said, switching subjects. “We’re about ready to hit base 17, do you have any Valeries you could spare for infantry control?”
“I have six in the vicinity that I can send your way,” the Calavari planetary military commander offered. “Can I assume you’ll also be requiring a cleanup ground team?”
“That’s the plan. Any trouble with the others?”
“We’ve taken just under 1000 prisoners in total, but most of the Nestafar are choosing to fight or flee. Most of the captives we’re taking are their wounded.”
“Copy that. We’ll be taking them off your hands when we leave.”
“What do you want the prisoners for?”
“Didn’t want to stick you with them, plus we’ve got some quirks as far as how we deal with our defeated enemies. We prefer taunting and teasing over enslavement or slaughter.”
“You can have them if you wish, but do not think that we would enslave them.”
“I’m noticing how you skipped over ‘slaughter.’ All around I think it’d be best if they didn’t remain on the planet, and I think I can put them to some tactical use.”
“We don’t kill our prisoners, Human, unless they rebel. Though I will admit that if you take them I won’t have to devote resources to their keeping, so you can have them with my thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Morgan said as the walker’s heavy electrolaser fired with a muted crack of thund
er audible from inside. “We’re coming in range of the base. Have your fighters standing by.”
“I’ll have them report directly to you upon arrival. Good luck.”
Morgan cut off that comm line and opened another. “Nestafar base…you’re about to get your ass kicked. Surrender is still on option. Reply on this channel now or after the hammer falls, your choice.”
After that Morgan was in spectator mode, watching over her assault forces as the three heavy walkers in the mech formation took down the anti-air turrets poking up over the shield dome on the west side. After they were down the heavy plasma cannons came next, then the fighters were clear for partial strafing runs against the shield where they unloaded a continual torrent of plasma only into the west side to avoid the anti-air towers that the walker’s couldn’t target.
As they’d done several times before the skeets eventually depleted the energy barrier then scattered before the now unblocked remaining turrets could knock them out of the sky. The Hoths then made short work of the remaining towers, which were thankfully taller than all others, followed by the return of the skeets along with the Valeries that dove down into the base in search of infantry to kill with their scatterguns. The Nestafar walkers remained inside through part of the assault, unable to fend off the elusive fighters, until more than half their number were taken down, after which the rest fled out of the base through multiple exits.
By that time Morgan’s mech formation had arrived at the base with the bipeds flanking out and around the structure forming a containment line that the enemy walkers engaged as they tried to flee. The Hoths stayed at range and Morgan was content to use hers as a front line base of operations in lieu of the typical command structures that Star Force hadn’t deployed to the planet’s surface during this campaign, knowing that they were soon to leave. Morgan wanted a torch and burn rescue methodology employed, which meant not building any assets on the surface…something very atypical for the infrastructure-loving Archons.
Once all the Nestafar walkers were destroyed, either inside the base walls or outside, Star Force pulled back and let the Calavari handle the rest. They stayed on site long enough for their allies to arrive and secure the perimeter, then Morgan’s force marched their way over to the next base and repeated the process.
One by one the Nestafar bases fell, and when the time came to clear out Morgan’s assault group picked up their units via dropship and left the Calavari to begin the cleanup and restoration of Ricopal on their own. The ranger didn’t like leaving the planet all but defenseless, but whether or not the Calavari would send reinforcements was up to them. Her job was to seek out the Nestafar and stop their advance on as many worlds as possible. With that done here, she loaded up her jumpships with her troops and the Nestafar prisoners and left the system enroute to the next engagement zone, traveling this time under the power of their own, slower gravity drives.
“Why?”
“Why do we fight you?” the Nestafar prisoner clarified. “You are weak, and will fall like the rest.”
“You didn’t cause us much trouble,” Morgan countered, leaning back in her chair opposite the cell’s force field. This was the 12th one she’d tried interrogating and the first she’d gotten to speak more than a few sentences.
“You had numbers,” it all but spat, flexing its wings as wide as the confined cell would allow. “And without your aerofighters you would not have been able to defeat us on the ground.”
“But we do have fighters, so your point is moot.”
“They have more.”
“Cajdital fighters are weak.”
“They might not have shields, but they fly fast and shoot hard…and they have so many they block out the sky, so their defenses mean little.”
“The Alliance has a good chance of defeating them, why ruin that?”
“You have no chance, and never did.”
“You helped found the Alliance, so apparently you didn’t think so in the beginning.”
“We founded the Alliance to control you, to spy on you, and to steal your strengths. Even now your Valeries are being used to conquer the race that built them.”
“I’ll admit, the Calavari were kind of stupid to sell them to you…and now it’s coming back around to bite them in the ass. But they’ve got friends, like us, to help them out. You’ve got no one backing you.”
“No one?” the Nestafar laughed. “The Cajdital are no one? They are the power in this region of the galaxy…perhaps one day they will even control the entire galaxy. We have chosen the winning side. Your Alliance is doomed to fail.”
“Ha,” Morgan laughed in spite of herself. “Control the galaxy? That’s hilarious. There are so many enemies out there more powerful than the Cajdital that you’re proving how ignorant your race is.”
The Nestafar all but growled in response, but took a moment to consider its next words. “Your worlds are far from ours, and you may not know the full strength of the Cajdital, but we do. They will crush all that oppose them, so by supplicating ourselves we will survive where you do not.”
“Supplicating? Interesting word choice. Sounds like surrender to me.”
“We will remain intact.”
“Unless they’re just using you and, say, stab you in the back after they’ve finished with the Alliance. Has that thought ever crossed your mind?”
“They sought us out, Human. We did not go begging to them as you have with the Hycre. We accept their dominance of the galaxy, but they will respect our current territory and all that we take from the Calavari.”
“Guess you’re interested in pushing ahead as far as you can to take as many systems as possible before the Cajdital get here…but it looks like one less, now that you failed to take Menthat,” she said, hiding her pleasure at getting him to reveal that bit of intel.
“You will not hold it for long,” the Nestafar promised.
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t anyone tell you? We’re not in Menthat anymore. We’re enroute to another system.”
The prisoner looked a bit surprised, so Morgan pushed.
“Yep, next up on the list is Donovir. Want to place a bet as to how long it takes us to overrun your forces there?”
“You caught us early, Human, but those in Donovir have had time to fortify their holdings. I hope I get the opportunity to see your smooth face again before our fleet destroys this ship. When we arrive you won’t even have time to attempt a ground assault.”
“Don’t count us out just yet,” she said, mentally making a note to expect more enemy warships than previous intel had suggested. “In fact, sparky, I think we’re going to have the opportunity for many more conversations.”
7
August 4, 2403
Mid jump
Jason sat perched on the balls of his feet in the center of one of the jumpship’s Archon sanctum’s sparring rooms, staring off at nothing as he held his meditative stance. Like most of the other trailblazers he found his mind needed some sort of low level activity in order to focus, which at the moment was maintaining his balance. With that focal point in place his thoughts drifted through many places, past, present, and future as he probed the corners of his mind and searched out the faintest of his senses, seeking to expand upon those he already possessed skill over and broaden others.
Long ago Wilson had taught them the importance of being able to think without using words. He hadn’t been referring to spoken words, but words in the mind. Jason hadn’t caught on immediately to what he had been saying, and since there was no way to monitor or measure one’s thoughts it had simply been a suggestion to the trainees rather than an exercise, but later on Jason came to realize what he had meant.
In order to attain maximum speed of reflex and reaction one had to pull and process directly from sensory input and not shuffle actions through the logic center of the mind. That was where words, analysis, and simulation came into play. Useful as those things were in the proper place and time, they were, in effect, a form of fiction. Jason had learn
ed that that fiction could take on a life of its own if not constantly calibrated by direct sensory feeds, which was why Archons needed to be constantly active.
It was the truth that fed them, and if they made the mistake of predicting what was true rather than seeing it, their sense of perception would fog over. Fog would lead to inaccuracy. Inaccuracy would lead to imprecision. Imprecision would lead to hesitancy. Hesitancy would lead to further fogging that could then spiral into full blown delusion…all of which would happen so gradually that one might not even realize it was happening.
Thus was the trap in the logic center of the mind. It was a powerful tool if mastered, but a detriment to the young and inexperienced. Hence, Wilson had suggested that they learn to think without the logic center engaged, both to reset and calibrate it, as well as to give them another level of thought to operate off of in times of need.
That other level had long ago been dubbed ‘Matrix mode’ by the trailblazers, and several other variants had been added over time as they continued to self-analyze and push their mental skills far past what Wilson had taught them. His knowledge had come from athletics, useful in that it served as both game and pseudo-combat, but Jason and the others had risen far beyond that level in their four centuries of training. One rule that they’d set for themselves was to never assume they knew everything, and to keep a constant pursuit of new facets of reality to discover…and then pass on what they learned to the others.
Matrix mode was so easy for Jason now that he didn’t even have to focus to banish the logic center of his mind. Whenever there was the least bit of action required he slipped into it, even if only for a second, pulling directly from his senses and determining what was necessary based on feel…living in the moment rather than anticipating the future.
