Star Force: The Admiral

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Losing Tarric 3 was a major gut punch, but less than a month later light probing actions started to pop up along the front systems. Small groupings of V’kit’no’sat ships would enter on obscure jumplines and try to hit some vulnerable Star Force ships before fleeing. They would pop in and pop out, not just in the front systems but those in the DZ that connected to them, as if in some giant shell game concealing what their true target was.

  Paul knew it was more than that. They were trying to provoke a response as much as to dictate Star Force’s fleet and civilian movements…with a massive exodus of non-essential personnel beginning to be transported off those worlds in anticipation of a strike.

  The Termunisef System was 3 jumps away from the front. Two if you wanted to stretch a bit with an extra powerful gravity drive on a scout ship. So if an attack was going to come nearby Paul could get there, but the front itself stretched some 2,000+ lightyears in width and was 1,000+ lightyears in height. That was a huge wall to monitor, let alone defend, and the V’kit’no’sat knew it. Now, with ships moving everywhere, it was going to make it much harder for Star Force to try and guess where the next hit was going to be.

  Paul was starting to feel a major shift coming in favor of the V’kit’no’sat when he got some badly needed good news from the DZ. It came in the form of a message from Vreemont telling him that they’d discovered the function and application of the recovered technology from the Kaeper crash on Darlek.

  Paul read it quickly but carefully, scrolling through the detailed text explanation even as the Mastertech’s hologram explained the basic points verbally.

  “The system we have patched together is only partially functional, but it has been enough to determine that it is a sensor package extremely limited in scope that functions off a form of energy that we do not even have a name for, let alone the ability to detect. It is produced in the decay of bonded lonos and travels at a rate of 17.3 lightspeed…however, reception is negated by IDF and blurred by artificial gravity fields.”

  “Also, the sensor must be recharged in a heavy gravity field. It draws gravimetric particles to it, warping the gravity field flow slightly as it gathers them, enabling the relocking of the lonos. In this way they save an expendable charge. The unlocking causes more than a reverse procedure, and the energy produced…which I’m tentatively calling ‘Ghostbane’… is sent omni-directional. For this reason the sensor is located as close to the hull as possible to give maximum exposure assuming the IDF and artificial gravity are not shut down shipwide for use.”

  “You can figure out the tactical value of that for yourself, but the key is that the Ghostbane ignores matter entirely. It only seems to interact with substances that alter gravity. Particularly the cores of gravity drives and the emitters in AG devices.”

  Paul stopped listening right there as the implications became clear. This new tech didn’t function like a normal sensor. It hunted for one thing and one thing only, and was a pain in the ass to use from the sound of it. But every ship in the fleet used gravity drives, so even if this Ghostbane energy couldn’t see the hulls or crew onboard it could ping for the location of the drives…and where surface bases were concerned that did not have gravity drives, they did have artificial gravity normalizing the planet’s gravity to Star Force standards within the bases.

  Paul needed to send out a message for the fleets and bases in the DZ, but first he listened to and read through the rest of the data. The Devastation Zone was huge and the V’kit’no’sat finding every single base in it was doubtful unless they had a lot of time to search. He got the feeling that they either followed ships to the bases that had been attacked or they’d been systematically scanning systems with stealth vessels until they had comprised the list they’d hit to draw Star Force out. If the other bases had yet to be discovered they could be salvaged by turning off the artificial gravity, for the notes that Vreemont sent said that even a minimally charged gravity drive on standby was sufficient to produce a reflective ping, and the same was true for an AG field generator.

  They’d have to be powered off entirely and have even standby power physically disabled. That wasn’t an option for ships that had to move, but the bases could be kept hidden if they didn’t use any AG devices, either in the infrastructure or in the form of vehicles.

  That wouldn’t work for all bases, because low gravity really sucked the strength out of people, but bases with higher than normal gravity could remain and the others temporarily abandoned until some way to camouflage them was created. So far Vreemont couldn’t even guess at that, but Paul had the answer he needed…as well as understanding why the V’kit’no’sat had tried to smash the technology rather than let it fall into enemy hands.

  Vreemont’s notes said there was enough that Star Force should be able to start experimenting with creating their own version of the sensor in coming years, and if that was put into play then they’d be able to find V’kit’no’sat stealth ships…and maybe even the KOQ ones.

  Damn…he really wanted to try that option out even though they were tentative allies, but the implications and saving grace of this discovery were rolling through his mind, with the saving grace being that the hidden comm relays didn’t have gravity drives, for they were positioned so far out in star systems that they didn’t have to worry about moving.

  That meant they were invisible to this kind of sensor, meaning the V’kit’no’sat weren’t going to wipe the DZ clean of them. That was a huge relief, but every stealth ship Paul had was going to be picked up by hidden V’kit’no’sat observation posts, and if they had their own relay network in place the fleet commanders were going to have to work a lot harder to move around without being spotted…especially when they didn’t know if they were being spotted or not, but getting an alert detector built was high on Vreemont’s wish list, so at least a ship could tell when they were being scanned and from what direction the scan was coming from.

  It would take months at the minimum to get even a fraction of their ships equipped with that if they had the technology right now, but at least the countdown clock had started ticking, for this message hadn’t just gone to Paul. It was traveling throughout Star Force territory and techs across the empire would begin working on all possible applications.

  Paul sent a quick thank you to Tyrenk, the Archon who had been quick witted enough to save what pieces the V’kit’no’sat had been trying to further smash, then the trailblazer began communicating new orders and suggestions to the defense fleets, system defenders, and roaming DZ fleets. Now that they knew what they were up against they could fight it, but for now the V’kit’no’sat still held a serious advantage over them.

  Time. Star Force needed time to catch up on this, but Paul doubted they were going to get too much of it. Hopefully the V’kit’no’sat still didn’t know they’d gotten their hands on a Ghostbane sensor…

  Paul sent one more message back to Vreemont, officially sanctioning that name, then recorded a hologram for Davis going over the strategic and tactical implications of this new world of warfare the V’kit’no’sat had been the first to break into.

  12

  July 12, 4813

  Jennizeren System (Star Force Front)

  Ennvor

  The Jennizeren System had once been on the back edge of the Occupation Zone, taken from the lizards during the conquest of their rimward territories between the ADZ and H’kar territory, then built up into a decent sized colony on three of the 6 planets. But when the V’kit’no’sat war began and people started flooding out of the ADZ many ended up here, far from the fighting, and the Monarch in charge, Baron Tovren, had put anyone of sufficient skill to use here, incentivizing many to stay and avoid moving on to the Rim Region.

  He knew the V’kit’no’sat would eventually fight their way out here, and while he had no illusions about being able to fight them off when Sol and Epsilon Eridani couldn’t, he had always intended to make them bleed for it. Because of his efforts begun over a thousand years ago, Jennizeren
was a point further into the Devastation Zone along the front, with weaker systems having been hit while the Baron’s system was avoided.

  That wasn’t going to last, and he’d known in recent decades that his system’s time was soon to be up. He’d prepared well, and had used the valuable resources within his system to build a larger than average system defense fleet, but today was the first day it had ever been used en mass, with his fleets congregating around low stellar orbit as the enemy fleet began pouring in along one of the many incoming jumplines.

  Tovren didn’t control the fighting. Rather he sat back and watched as the Archons handled that. His job now was to assist them as he could and organize the evacuation efforts. Already people had been moved out all along the front, and he’d been reducing the number of outright civilians for years, making this planet and the other 5 essentially prepped battlefields to fight on, but now, seeing this day finally come, he was worried. People were going to die here in the coming days, no matter how well the evacuation went, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.

  Tovren was now a Count, having been promoted two centuries back, but that didn’t give him any special powers that Baron did not. He’d been quietly given a number of psionics when he became a Monarch, including Sav, but his job was to handle logistics and planning…things done prior to a battle, or things done to support those in battle on far off systems. Now the war had arrived at his little island in the ocean of space and he was at least happy to see several V’kit’no’sat ships blow up soon after entry as the assembled system defense drones combined their firepower and literally annihilated the Kafcha-class vessels.

  But their mass was so high and it took so much firepower that the death of those ships allowed many more to arrive behind them, soon billowing to such numbers that a retreat was ordered. Stellar orbit was forfeited to the V’kit’no’sat while the fleet was going to pull back and force a fight in range of the planetary defenses where they’d be the most effective in killing enemy ships. If they stayed in deep space and fought it’d be to the V’kit’no’sat’s advantage, but now the evacuation ships were going to have to wait for an opening and escort, for the enemy ships were sending out small groups to all the major jumplines and effectively blockading the system.

  But there they stayed, for days leading into weeks. Their fleet size was large, but even the Count could tell that it was light for what it would take to conquer this system. They could do it with what they had, but Star Force would make them bleed heavily for it and any reinforcement coming in from other systems would tip the scales in their favor.

  Tovren knew help would come, and the V’kit’no’sat must have known that too, so what were they waiting for? Every day that passed meant reinforcements would be closer and with the relay network intact the Archons would know which jumplines to use coming in and which ones were blocked. The V’kit’no’sat couldn’t poach all of them with enough ships to make a dent, and there were some very long range jumps on unlikely jumplines that could be used to get the first group of ships in cleanly.

  It made no sense to Tovren, but there they stayed, almost waiting for the system defense drones and the limited number of warships that controlled them from afar to get frustrated and bring the fight to them…but that wasn’t going to happen, so there was a stalemate and staring match going on, making Count Tovren wonder what in the hell were the V’kit’no’sat playing at.

  Paul watched on Tavai via the relay network as the V’kit’no’sat invaded 6 different front systems with a large number of ships, but didn’t go any further than combat in stellar orbit. They assaulted no planet, but blockaded the systems as best they could, though they couldn’t keep all ships in or out. Several smaller fleet groups had gotten in and increased the defensive ship count, as well as some escorted evacuation ships taking more people out, but the normal traffic flow had been shut down in these 6 systems that were spread out across the central third of the front.

  They weren’t close to each other, meaning any of the roaming fleets would have to choose where to go. If/when they got there they’d thump the V’kit’no’sat fleets, for they weren’t large enough to tackle them and the system defenders, but Paul knew there had to be more enemy fleets lurking nearby…the question was where?

  He had access to limited sensors in many of the systems beyond the border, and if a large fleet passed through them he’d see it. So he could eliminate those systems, lag assumed, but that still left a lot of other pathways they could be using to get to the front. He also didn’t know where the roaming fleets were, exactly, just their last known check-in points. He also had information from Tarric 3, confirming that the huge blockading fleet was still there, meaning these ships had come from somewhere else.

  Already there were over 230,000 V’kit’no’sat ships identified in the Devastation Zone at different locations. Many of the high profile wars the V’kit’no’sat had fought in the past had used less than that, and prior to this new invasion the highest number known was 78,000. When grouped together they were literally unstoppable, but Star Force had been getting better and better at trimming their numbers, and with thousands of star systems left for the V’kit’no’sat to conquer the attrition had gradually added up and the rim regions had begun to produce more and more drones, making this almost a fair fight.

  Apparently the V’kit’no’sat did not like that, so they’d devoted a slight larger fraction of their empire’s forces to this purge of the rogue Zen’zat, as they’d labeled it. And to be fair, they’d purged a lot of them and their worlds to date, but the time it had taken them to do the damage they had was their Achilles heel. Had they devoted 230,000 initially Star Force would probably have been annihilated by now, but Paul and others had been continually upgrading the drones and the Star Force navy in general, which the V’kit’no’sat had recently been schooled about.

  That said, it looked like the V’kit’no’sat were getting exactly what they wanted. Grid Point Stargate was now neutralized and Paul’s own fleet was destroyed/disbanded. In a way that was actually advantageous, because he could remain in constant contact with the relay grid here and see what was going on better than bouncing around unlinked systems in the DZ, but not having him in these fights was going to be a disadvantage. As soon as he figured out where he needed to go he was going to board the Excalibur and head there…but where that would be still eluded him.

  It might not actually be any of the 6 systems currently besieged, with these being a big distraction that could then be turned into an assault if Star Force sent ships elsewhere. At least the V’kit’no’sat were not so overconfident to just charge into whatever system they wanted assuming they could take it. Losses inflicted on them must have finally taught them a lesson…or maybe this was the work of their new commander.

  Whoever was calling the shots, they had Paul guessing up until the first hammer blow came. A few months later a full fledged assault came on the far ‘left’ side of the front, then another on the opposite side with the 6 besieged systems remaining as they were with those fleets ready to act whenever they decided to push the attack into the planets.

  Paul didn’t leave. He could tell they were stretching Star Force out, and his gut suspected that a major assault was going to push into more than just one system and he needed to be there soon after it happened, not stuck a couple months away out on the wings.

  But where was it coming…

  Then it hit Paul. This wasn’t a push for a single system, nor even a group of them. The V’kit’no’sat were attacking in a way to erode Star Force’s defenses along the entire front. Drawing them into battle and bleeding them of ships the same way they had done in the Devastation Zone.

  Paul knew they had far more than 230,000 in play, now confirmed to be up to 311,000 based on ship identifiers that the V’kit’no’sat had never bothered to fake. When not hiding they broadcast who they were, with ship and racial IDs, and sometimes even who the commander was and what ship they were on, daring Star For
ce to come after them personally. The V’kit’no’sat were ego incarnate…but they were not stupid, and whoever was running this part of their purging efforts wasn’t going for a chunk of the front.

  They were trying to cripple the entire front, followed by a massive wave of attacks…if Paul was right…that would sweep up hundreds, if not a thousand systems before Star Force could bleed the V’kit’no’sat into another stalemate. The key was always the fleets. Take them away and the systems were a known quantity that scouts could size up. Bring in an overwhelming force and you could take them with a minimum of losses, one by one.

  And Paul knew that was exactly what the V’kit’no’sat were going to try. Whatever had changed in their empire had finally got them taking Star Force seriously and they were going to drive them completely out of the Orion Arm.

  After that they wouldn’t let them go. They’d pursue them until every Star Force world was obliterated, and with all those systems gone Paul and the others wouldn’t be getting so many replacement drones and the attrition curve would snowball in the V’kit’no’sat’s advantage. Star Force had a few centuries left, maybe a millennia a most, then they’d be reduced to a handful of secret systems that couldn’t hold all the evacuees…not that there would be many left with multiple assaults happening everywhere and too few ships to move everyone.

  The V’kit’no’sat had sized them up well this time, and they were accepting an unseemly number of losses to accomplish it. It appeared they had finally had enough of this war and were sending what they deemed necessary to quash it, and in doing so acknowledging how dangerous Star Force really was.

  They weren’t fighting against an inferior anymore. They were fighting them as if they were a worthy opponent…and an opponent that they could now track with impunity thanks to the Ghostbane sensor.