by Aer-ki Jyr
As promised it took a few hours to get from the asteroid field back in close to the star, then when the ship hit the proper position it allowed itself to begin falling towards the star so the components that were soon to be unprotected wouldn’t crash and crush on the floor against the engine strain.
That meant Vreemont had a limited amount of time before the ship had to alter course or ram into the star, but the captured and reassembled V’kit’no’sat components began working in a limited fashion, with the loose lotos suddenly beginning to lock together when power was applied to the device…but they hadn’t previously when he tried, meaning that the gravity field of the star was necessary.
But that shouldn’t have mattered, for the strength of the artificial gravity was plenty high. There had to be a collection mechanism to draw more of it to the ship within the device.
“Captain, are we experiencing any navigational anomalies?”
“We were just looking at that. The angular direction of the star has changed according to the gravity drives. Not much, but it’s off .4%.”
Vreemont smiled. “That’s my fault, Captain. This device is probably sucking the gravimetric particles towards it like a fat kid in a candy shop.”
“What?”
“My apologies. It’s an old expression. Somehow this device is pulling the gravimetric particles into it, thus altering the trajectory of those nearby that still miss.”
“I didn’t think we had any technology that could do that,” the Kiritas noted curiously. “That could mess with ship jumps, could it not?”
“In theory yes, but I suspect you’d need a much larger device and it’d only nudge one slightly off course. Approaches would be an inconvenience only. Outgoing jumps could be skewed but automatic correction devices would null it out. No, this is something else entirely.”
“Do you know what we’ve got?”
“I’m starting to get an idea. I think this sensor has to have a gravitational recharge.”
“Any idea what kind of beam it uses?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting close. I can feel it.”
“You’ve got another 36 minutes before we have to climb again. Will us reestablishing the artificial gravity cause anything more than an inconvenience?”
“I don’t know. Give me a heads up before you do so I can shut down the device just in case. We don’t want it broken any more than it is now.”
“Understood.”
Vreemont ended the conversation so he could apply his full attention to the problem. He was close, damn close, but he was missing just one piece of information.
What exactly were the locked lotos emitting?
11
May 16, 4813
Termunisef System (H’kar Region, Star Force territory)
Tavai
Paul stood suspended in an energy field as he was mentally linked into a mech training simulator, but rather than piloting the single craft he was handling 11 simultaneously. All but his were drone models, and he was running his 2 accompanying stars of mechs in a very active challenge that kept him pressed to his limits. He’d controlled far more units navally in real combat before, but this was different in that he wasn’t just directing the mechs, he was using his own mental balance programs instead of those in the machines themselves…meaning he had to feel each and every step they took, every arm lift, every torso twist.
And Paul had to do that to navigate the uneven terrain fast enough to stay ahead of the horde of minibots pursuing him while fighting enemies in front, to the sides, above, and below in the form of aerial craft, infantry, heavy infantry, opposing mechs, burrower bots, and goo spitters. This was a challenge that he’d tried some 387 times to pass and failed, and while Paul was best at the Naval and Commando divisions, his Archon rank was measured by his weakest category…which currently was Mechs thanks to this persistent nuisance of a challenge.
His aquatics weren’t much better, but that was only from his point of view. Compared to the rest of Star Force his aquatic and mech skills were superior to almost everyone else’s, and the challenges to advance further were tailored to capitalize on that point, making this and those beyond virtually impossible to beat. Paul knew the key was to keep fighting while advancing, but the computerized opponents were designed to prevent that at all times.
But it was just a program, not live opponents. In real life the computer enemies were probably harder, save for when you met the unexpected or the extremely skilled. The challenge programming had accounted for the former with a high degree of randomization, so even while Paul knew exactly what the computer would do, he had a list of options rather than certainties, making each attempt a different kind of failure…and today was no different. Eventually his two stars plus one, while all surviving, got slowed down enough that the minibot swarms caught up to them and then it was all over.
It took several minutes of fighting and dying before it became official, but there was no way his mechs could survive hundreds of thousands of the dog-like machines nibbling away at them and slowing them even further with varied means of technological ‘glue’ such as gravity mines and trip lines. When the challenge was finally lost Paul took a few long breaths then triggered the energy field release, dropping him back to his own feet as his senses fully returned to his body from the disconcerting 11-way split his head had been locked into.
Paul left the mech training chamber and headed for the nearby track in the planetary sanctum, needing an easy run as a transition before another hard challenge…this one aerial…to give his mind a break. When he got there he pretty much had the halo track to himself, jogging up the ramp-like entrance and turning left as he ran on the ‘wall’ that had its own artificial gravity. He disappeared into the tunnel that looped around for a stretch of 5 miles with multiple entrances, but there just weren’t that many Archons around here, which was understandable.
Tavai was a H’kar planet well in from the front that was both a mining and logistics stronghold, with almost as many Kiritak as H’kar…but very few Archons. The sanctum was built to match others across Star Force territory and was the exclusive training grounds of the Archons while the mass of other personnel had their own facilities. Paul could use theirs whenever he liked, but only the sanctums had the necessary high level equipment to accommodate a trailblazer. His command ship had a smaller version than what planets had, and as long as the Excalibur was parked in orbit he was going to take advantage of the extras available here.
A lot of those extras were group training courses for which a lone individual had no use, but there were unique, non-testing courses that his ship didn’t have and sometimes one needed to train just to improve rather than focusing on a challenge requirement, but at the moment Paul was still clawing his way up the ranks in all 5 divisions, but would be stuck at Goku 18 until he got past that mech challenge. In the past he would have kept hammering it over and over until he got it, but he’d learned to bounce around from discipline to discipline rather than get stuck in a rut. He’d be back to it tomorrow, but for today he was going to work other areas while his new fleet began to assemble.
What was left of his original fleet had been cannibalized and sent off to reinforce others as they stayed in the Devastation Zone fighting off V’kit’no’sat attacks on a total of 13 different hidden bases. Comm lag had eventually reported them all in, though there still could be some happening now that Paul wouldn’t know about for a week or two now that he was out of the Devastation Zone but still close enough to stay in the loop. Only the Excalibur remained under his command, with his mass of Warship-class jumpships having been reassigned or, for the empty ones, sent further back into Star Force territory for repair work and to pick up new drone complements rather than wasting shipping resources to move them all out here.
As it was, Paul was going to be out of the fight for a while even though he could have pulled rank and took possession of his own repurposed fleet by combining others, but in truth this was a better location to respond to any f
ront incursion that occurred rather than being stuck on the other side of the DZ if and when it happened…and Paul was convinced it was going to happen soon, for the V’kit’no’sat were chewing up their fleets and expending huge numbers of their own ships to do it. That signaled to him that they were creating a moment of opportunity to strike from, for he didn’t think they’d sent enough ships to continue this pace of attrition. If they had, he knew they wouldn’t be patient and just run them up to the front and hammer away. They were being strategic here to set up a hammer blow they weren’t convinced would work without the roaming fleets having been neutralized…as Paul’s now was.
Sara’s too, along with Greg’s. Three of the 19 trailblazers out wandering the Devastation Zone were now sidelined due to lack of drones, though most of their jumpships still remained. Not quite as useless as old fashioned aircraft carriers back in the pre-Star Force days, the Warship-class jumpships could definitely fight on their own, but without a drone fleet to carry and disperse, they would have to slug it out with V’kit’no’sat ships sometimes larger than them…and that would endanger the crew inside. Star Force didn’t fight that way except as a last ditch action, so no one was going to send a fleet of empty jumpships into combat and waste them in a fight the V’kit’no’sat would very much like to see.
So he and the others would have to wait until more drones came in from the ever growing production facilities here and rimward. There were over 7,000 star systems in ‘safe’ territory that were producing drones for the DZ fleets, whether in small numbers or great, in addition to other systems providing the drones for the lesser wars being fought elsewhere, for as many highly developed systems the V’kit’no’sat took from Star Force, the Human-led empire was expanding out to 10 others rimward.
They weren’t conquering them, rather moving into uninhabited areas or annexing other races that petitioned for membership. Conditions were bad out there, bad enough that there was a long list of races and civilizations that wanted help, allegiance, or membership…too many for them to get to in the wake of The Nexus’s collapse. That mammoth civilization was still around, but its primary weakness had been claiming territory it couldn’t control, for they’d sprinkled a few of their own worlds amongst the other masses while claiming dominion over them…so when those few sprinkles fell to enemies, vast tracks of territory were now open to the predation of others.
Before the V’kit’no’sat war had begun the situation with The Nexus had been deteriorating but not nearly this bad, and even then there had been a steady stream of refugees leaving it to come into Star Force. Now that number had increased exponentially, despite the fact that they were told of the V’kit’no’sat threat gobbling up the coreward side of the empire…but that was a long way away and the need of these people was in the here and now, so Director Davis and the other trailblazers were out there adding to and stabilizing those newly acquired regions while making plans to push even further out and collect more of the scraps the dying Nexus left behind.
Current that massive civilization still held their major systems, but they were now reduced to a skeleton of what they once were. The threat of their intervention was now almost nonexistent, and that bluff in the past had been what held their limited control over the vast regions they controlled in the Perseus and Cygnus galactic arms. Now it was gone and the territories they’d held sway over but did not directly own were in revolt and there was little The Nexus races could do about it other than to bunker down and try to protect what they still had.
Star Force had, to date, annexed 38 former Nexus races on the coreward edge of that civilization’s territory, with another 13 having requested membership but were too far away to include yet. There were some Star Force fleets out there trying to help them survive, but the fact was that Star Force wasn’t going to make the same mistake The Nexus did and leapfrog over entire regions and hope that they didn’t become a cancer from within.
And what Davis was accomplishing out there was nothing short of truly amazing…but he could never do enough, for the continuing collapse of The Nexus was killing so many people, even entire races in some places, as formerly suppressed threats reared their ugly heads and went on a rampage. Others faced logistical nightmares as the former economy of The Nexus that had sustained them pulled back out of their territories, leaving them stranded and trying to find enough foodstuffs just to keep their people alive.
It was a nightmare that Star Force was chipping away at…and those races like the Tolsoi and H’kar that had been the first members to switch over were now solidly defended and exporting Star Force drone warships to other factions, adding to the industrial muscle of the empire as it fought to replace the losses from the old ADZ that the V’kit’no’sat had eliminated long, long ago.
Paul had helped a member race called the Vedran switch over and stabilize, but once the V’kit’no’sat had returned he’d come straight back and let others guide the Vedran. This was the fight he was meant for and where he was needed the most, but Star Force’s ultimate survival was going to depend on the expansion efforts and how many replacement drones they could produce…for this was primarily a naval war, and if Paul could hold the black sky he could defend worlds like this one without the V’kit’no’sat ever landing a single Zen’zat on the surface.
But the reverse was also true, and too much naval power by the enemy meant they could obliterate a world like this without even landing a single Zen’zat on it. The V’kit’no’sat were still better than them, but commanders like Paul, Roger, and Liam made up the difference and then some, but they couldn’t wish away bad numbers, and right now the fleet strength in the DZ was getting lower and lower. Soon it would be so low that when the V’kit’no’sat chose a target to smash on the front they’d get it…assuming they had enough ships left to mount the assault…because Star Force wouldn’t have much in the way of huge reinforcement fleets to send, though the surrounding systems would chip in.
And that would further weaken those systems to assault. The DZ roaming fleets were the backup to hold the front, and so long as they were out and moving and the V’kit’no’sat didn’t know exactly where they were Star Force had an advantage, for if the V’kit’no’sat launched an attack they wouldn’t know how many ships they actually needed, and could in fact be outnumbered if one or more of the mega fleets arrived to join the fight.
But eliminate those fleets and the combat math became a lot more simple for the attackers.
There were Defender fleets roaming Star Force territory to make sure the V’kit’no’sat didn’t dash past the border and hit worlds further in or skirt around the edges and get into the far rim areas where Star Force was weaker. But if those fleets had to come out to the front then a lot more people would be left vulnerable further back. It was up to the roaming fleets and the trailblazers commanding them to protect the front, and right now they didn’t have enough naval toys left to do it.
And Paul knew the V’kit’no’sat weren’t going to give them a breather so they could make more…which was why he knew the hammer blow was coming soon. He just hoped he could be back in the fight when it began with more than the Excalibur and the few dozen fully loaded jumpships assembled in a parking orbit further out that he would be commandeering once those numbers began to pool from resources that otherwise would have been flowing to the Uriti Preserve.
There was no point in sending them all the way out there when the need was here, and both Sara and Greg had pointedly told Paul that he got first dibs on the new ships and had appropriately assigned themselves to system defense in two of the strongest positions on the front where the V’kit’no’sat ego might demand they hit first…unless they were being less bold and hitting at the weakest areas. If they were that would mean either a change in strategy or the loss of more ships in combat with the roaming fleets than they had anticipated. Either way, Paul was all but sure they were going to take at least one more system, but his gut said dozens or this whole poaching expedition within the DZ wouldn�
�t be worth it to them.
But he was wrong. Dead wrong. And word came through the haphazard relay grid across the DZ that the V’kit’no’sat had gone for one of the two biggest prizes and hit Grid Point Stargate’s guardian system, Tarric 3. Shortly thereafter, while Paul was mentally kicking himself for being stuck on the sidelines, he got word that they’d lost the system and had to retreat back to the Grid Point that was located nearby and essentially formed its own star system…but one that had to move through Tarric 3 to access other star systems, for the gravity field generated by the huge construct wasn’t enough to allow travel anywhere else using gravity drives save for the guardian system.
Over the following weeks the V’kit’no’sat did not press in to the Grid Point itself, and Paul knew they wouldn’t. They knew what kind of defenses it had, and no matter how inviting a target all that infrastructure around the construct was…let alone the magnetic jump platform itself…he didn’t think them so foolish to try and get it at, for it would cost them as many ships as taking down a Hadarak and they’d have to come in a few at a time on a very slow approach.
No, that Grid Point was secure and was going to stay secure save for some off the wall strategy that Paul couldn’t predict, but it was almost pointless. The V’kit’no’sat hadn’t just driven Star Force from Tarric 3. They’d claimed possession of the empty system and were now blockading the Grid Point, meaning that any ships that came through the mag jump had nowhere to go except back the way they came.
And now Star Force couldn’t hop halfway across the Devastation Zone then move out from Tarric 3. They’d have to take the long, slow route that would give the V’kit’no’sat a lot more control over the region and make roaming fleets operating anti-spinward of the old ADZ very far from help if they got into trouble.
