by Aer-ki Jyr
Mark appreciated that, but Star Force was going to produce its own equipment. To do anything less would make them dependent on others and that was a quick way to a slow death. Sharing tech and equipment was fine, but tie your regular supply network to someone else and you were just asking for trouble. That was a lesson Davis had taught the trailblazers long ago and Mark had never forgotten it.
As he came around for another pass on the large shielded target, the Archon switched plasma cannon fire over to the old school streamer that fired a lance of plasma out like a squirt gun, except that it’d been modified to fire a very wide beam, allowing the skeet to dump a lot of damage on a stable target when needed in lieu of carrying bombs. The plasma wasn’t condensed like the orbs were, which gave them their extra explosive kick on impact, a trick they’d learned from the lizards, but it made up for the lack of concentration with pure volume, allowing Mark to scathe the target as he flashed past.
The health meter dropped by a third with that single run, eliciting a smile from the trailblazer. He guessed that was a little better than the Valerie could dish out, which also had a bombardment setting to its plasma cannons, but the dynamics of the skeet’s weapon had come from a watered down version of an insanely powerful weapon in the V’kit’no’sat database…that was listed as a minor model. It still galled Mark at how far behind them Star Force was, even with the treasure trove of data they’d recovered, making him ever more grateful that the dinos were nowhere to be seen at present. One of their fighters could take out every skeet in existence, if they were all thrown together in one battle, and Paul had confirmed that the same held true for their navies.
Mark had to wait for his plasma reserves to fill back up before making another deep pass, but he managed a few more orb hits in the meantime, trying to shave down that health bar far enough that two more runs would knock it out. It had a regeneration function to it, meaning that if he left it alone long enough the bar would start to refill and he could be at this forever.
He glanced at the clock on his HUD, seeing that he was still slightly ahead of schedule compared to his previous runs, then started his second pass even before the capacitors were fully filled. That occurred halfway in, then he dumped another full load on the target, getting winged by return fire that cut 18% off his own shields. He corkscrewed away, making several more shots miss, then circled wide to recharge for the last hit.
When he eventually came back in he nailed the target with a long stream of plasma that broke through the outer shield and impacted the inner one, signaling that he’d killed the target. The anti-air return fire ceased and Mark dove back down towards the planet, heading for the last section of the course. He switched his plasma back over into orb mode and linked his pair of cannons for simultaneous fire, knowing that the last targets would require more than one hit each to take down.
As he lost altitude the view of the mountain range that held the Alliance base grew in size, but the last section of the course was located in a plain to the southeast hidden between several peaks. Mark had the location tagged on his battlemap to insure he made the quickest trip there possible and eventually came down over several long lines of objects on the surface representing lizard vehicles. On his HUD a quarter of them lit up, indicating that they were activate targets, along with a 112 second timer once he dropped to a predetermined altitude.
Mark dropped low to the ground and took a narrow attack angle to the first target, bottoming out on his gravity drives but tipping the tail up slightly higher than the forward engines so that his weapons would point down a bit. He held that hull angle, thanks to the skeet’s design, and fired off his first linked pair of blue orbs at the target…with only one hitting at range.
He knew firing from far away was difficult, but with the dual fire setting he had a pair of dots to shoot with, so if one missed wide it was likely that the other wouldn’t unless he was way off target, which Mark hardly ever was. As his skeet approached he got a few hits in, then the target flashed red, indicating that it was dead. The Archon switched to the next closest target as his forward momentum brought him up on the group in a hurry, but he had succeeded in taking out at least one before he had to slow his approach.
He got a few hits in on the second, then came to a drifting hover and blasted away at the targets from close range, two plasma shots at a time spaced apart a few meters with lachar blasts thrown in whenever he could manage. The main plasma weapon operated off the same draw as the orb cannons, so he couldn’t fire both simultaneously, but since the lachar was altogether separate he could add its limited firepower to the plasma now that he was close enough in to fire without spending too much time aiming. The targeting computer for the plasma factored in gravitational pull, which the lachar was unaffected by, so he had two reticles on screen and was snapping off lachar blasts with his left trigger whenever it drifted over the target while flying to keep the plasma zeroed in at all times.
Luckily there was no return fire coming from the targets, otherwise he would have been a sitting duck this close to the surface and moving forward almost as slow as a mech. One by one he patiently made his way up the line of targets, then came to a full hover while he poured shot after shot into the final target of the course, simulating a lizard structure. After about 20 shots it went down, ending the run and stopping the clock at 23:14…a full minute better than his last run.
Satisfied with his progress, Mark gained some altitude and flew up over the nearest mountain and back to base, setting his skeet down on the deck next to the others and pulling his breath mask out of a pocket in the cockpit before cracking the canopy and letting the foul air inside. Sweating a bit from the exercise, a cool breeze immediately caught his attention, prompting him to jog rather than walk back over to the Star Force annex.
“79th percentile,” Boen reported when Mark walked into the control center.
“I know. I was reading the statistics on the way back,” he said, sitting down in a random chair and stretching out. He preferred the pommel seats in the skeets to others, but after a while they got the body sore, even for those pilots used to them if they flew enough straight hours, and Mark had just finished off a five hour training session.
“Get her refueled. I want to go back out in a few hours.”
“Workout first?”
“A hard 10k around the roof,” Mark said, pointing above them. “Wanna come with?”
“I already got an easy 20 in this morning, so no. I can’t keep up with you anyway.”
“Not even a couple of kilometers?”
“If we had a track I’d give it a go, but I don’t feel like walking all the way back here when you leave me in the dust.”
“Just jog back.”
“Sorry, boss. I’m done running for the day. I’m going over to the simulators with Alex and Jenna for some head to heads with the Protovic in two hours anyway.”
“Valeries or skeets?”
“I assume they’re all using Valeries, but I’m going to try a Bsidd raider. Been working out the controls the past two days and it’s got a good aft cannon setup that I want to test out. I don’t think the Pros will be able to stick so close to it, and that might give us an advantage.”
“Let me know how it works out. I’ve been eyeing that ship for a while.”
Boen glanced to his left when a tone sounded. “Incoming message from Vornac.”
Mark smiled. “Right on time,” he said, sitting up in his chair and scooting it over to the nearest comm terminal. He pointed down at it with a finger and Boen routed it over to him. He listened through the recording, which was critiquing his course run, then he read through the attached datasheet, slowly nodding.
“What?” Boen asked.
“The lizards hit a Kvash border world, big ground assault with a lot of fighter combat. They had Valeries in the mix and Vornac sent over the performance sheets.”
“And?”
“16 to 1 kill ratio. The rest were at 2.3.”
Boen whistled.
“They’re definitely living up to the hype. What was the battle outcome?”
“The war is still ongoing, but this engagement was a loss. The lizards hit them with a 47 to 1 fighter ratio.”
“Damn,” Boen swore. “They’re not playing around anymore.”
“Jason was right when he said the ones that hit Corneria weren’t line troops. If we’d faced these kind of numbers we would have lost the system.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Mark looked him straight in the eye, but kept his voice even. “We get better.”
5
January 3, 2396
Jartul System
Daka
Boen went flying back through the air and landed on one of the lounge chairs, flipping over backwards and rolling into a heap in the middle of the viewing promenade and 200+ other pilots.
“Ow,” he said calmly, kicking a chair out of the way as the other pilots stepped back, giving him and the newly arrived Nestafar pilot some space. He stood up and rubbed his neck, ignoring the miniature winged dragon that reminded him a bit of Godzilla as it fumed, huffing and growling as it flexed its muscular wings wide and flapped its short tail on the floor.
Boen finally turned to look at his attacker and smiled, uttering a half laugh. “You hit like a Cajdital.”
That elicited a roar from the pilot, as well as the two standing behind it. All three walked forward, intent on pounding Boen for the insult, as well as the result of the ongoing simulator battle that the assembled pilots were watching. Mark and five other Humans were teaming with an equal number of Calavari as they battled against the Nestafar and Protovic, with the trailblazer just having downed the best Nestafar pilot.
Given that the Nestafar and the Calavari were both primary members of the Alliance and traditionally at odds with one another…and add in the fact that the Nestafar were the only pilots on the planet that could actually fly themselves…the one standing next to Boen had become quite agitated when the Human vocally cheered on his peers as they took down the Nestafar pilots in the simulator.
When the leader got halfway to Boen the Archon released his ramrod-straight posture and ran forward two steps, lowering his shoulder and colliding with the abdomen of the slightly taller alien. His momentum knocked its spindly frame down, which Boen pushed off of to keep himself standing. The other two Nestafar came in swinging, but the Archon ducked under one then kicked the other back a step to get some spacing before he tore the two aliens apart with a flurry of strategically placed punches. Using some leverage he tossed their shocked bodies on top of the first one in a pile, then he stepped back and placed his hands on his hips stoically, looking around at the other assembled pilots.
“Anyone else?” he asked as a group of Calavari pushed their way through the crowd to get to the ruckus.
“What’s going on?” one of the four-armed aliens demanded, looking between Boen and the three Nestafar that were climbing to their feet.
“A sore loser,” a Bsidd pilot said, gesturing to the Nestafar.
The Calavari turned toward the three winged aliens. “Causing trouble already?”
“Bah,” the Nestafar bellowed, turning and walking away with the other two.
“Are you alright?” the Calavari asked Boen.
“More than alright,” the Bsidd interjected. “He took them down with ease.”
“Oh? That’s hard to believe,” he said, sizing the Human up.
“I’m not just a pilot,” Boen said, picking up and righting one of the chairs that had gotten knocked down. “I’m an Archon.”
“And what’s an ‘archon?’” a nearby Protovic asked.
“We’re trained in all forms of combat.”
“Such as?”
“Hand to hand, piloting, naval, mechs, aquatics, and a lot of specialized areas,” Boen said as his eyes flipped back up to the main display holo and the ongoing battle that the Calavari/Humans were clearly winning.
“You’re special operations?” the Protovic asked.
“That too,” Boen said, watching Mark go evasive as one of the Valeries dropped in on the skeet’s tail.
“What about the other Humans?”
“11 are Archons, 10 are pilots, 2 are Canderian pilots…which is a military civilization that lives primarily in space. They’re our lowest scoring pair, if you’d noticed. They’re not used to piloting fighters, so they’ve got a bigger learning curve.”
“Because you don’t believe in starfighters?” a different Calavari asked.
“That’s right,” Boen said, pulling the last chair up and sitting down.
“Arrogant twit,” a Gnar said, its mechanical voice high pitched coming through the metallic mask it wore connected to a small tank on the back of its head that provided the ammonia it needed in addition to the oxygen being breathed in from the air. “How you survived even a small Cajdital invasion is beyond me.”
“They had help from the Hycre,” the Protovic added.
“The Hycre,” the Gnar all but spat.
The lead Calavari waved a large finger at the shorter Gnar. “They may not have pilots, but do not underestimate their naval power. Their worlds have proven the hardest to hit, by the Cajdital…or others.”
“Is that an attempt at an insult?” the Gnar demanded.
“It is a fact,” the Calavari said, crossing both sets of arms over its chest, “that you took two small mining outposts from them, but when you tried to assault one of their gas giants you never made it into the atmosphere. Your starfighters were tore apart by their warships, I hear. Nearly total losses?”
The stubby alien pointed a finger up at the Calavari. “Do not open up old wounds.”
“Do not make new ones,” he countered, pointing towards the Human.
The Gnar glanced at Boen, then back at the Calavari. “So, you have adopted the Hycre scraps,” it said, walking off as the final statistics of the now ended battle flashed up in the air, showing that all 12 Nestafar/Protovic pilots had been downed with 5 Calavari/Humans surviving, Mark among them.
Another of the Calavari made an unpleasant noise and walked up behind the Gnar and kicked it to the ground before the other pulled it back by its left arms. “If you want to start a fight, do it in the simulator, you coward,” the Calavari said to the Gnar. “Are you a pilot or a politician?”
“I will personally shoot you down, Morshav, that I promise you,” the Gnar said, pointing up at the Calavari.
“What terms?”
“Since you think these Humans aren’t a joke, use their craft against our own. No Valeries.”
The Calavari hesitated, glancing at the other four-armed pilots around him.
“What? You’re not confident outside your special starfighter? A skilled pilot will prevail no matter what craft they use.”
“11 days,” he agreed. “6 or 12?”
“12,” the Gnar said without hesitation. “We will prove how weak both you and the Human fighters are.”
“Seeing as how you were insulting me,” Boen said from his chair, “I want to fly with the Calavari…or is that too much of a challenge for you?”
“Acceptable, but just you…and you will be their 13th pilot. An extra bonus, so that when we defeat them there can be no excuses.”
“Your funeral,” Boen said before the Calavari could respond.
The Gnar looked up at the taller aliens. “Do we have terms?”
Morshav hesitated, but the lead Calavari nodded its head. “We have.”
With that the Gnar walked off as another simulated battle began to play out on the hologram, this one without any Humans in it.
“Have you tried our skeets in the sim?” Boen asked, walking up next to the Calavari.
“I have not.”
“Name’s Boen,” the Archon offered.
“Gonstan,” the Calavari said, placing one of its hands on Boen’s shoulder. “If we’re going to fly together, we need to practice in your ships. Have you fought the Gnar yet?”
“No,
but I’ve flown one of their fighters in the simulator, so I have an idea of what they’re capable of.”
“Good. You will instruct us in their use?”
“Happy to, as soon as you assemble your 12.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Done,” Boen said, looking up at the battle between the Bsidd and Fanset.
Mark spun his simulated skeet around to the left, flipping front for back while gliding across the surface on its anti-grav engines, then fired off a single blue plasma orb at the lizard fighters behind him, nailing one square on and dropping it from the sky. He kicked his conventional engines back in and accelerated towards the swarm, taking a couple hits on his shields along the way. He shot another two before passing into the clear, but his shields were hit with two small areas of damage popping up on his status display, floating in holo in front of his left shoulder approximately where it would have been in an actual skeet.
The tiny fight diagram showed two yellow marks on the starboard hull just outside the cockpit, indicating armor damage but no penetration. Mark mentally made a note not to try that maneuver again when he had more than 6 lizard fighters on his tail and flew off to the left as he swerved through a series of S-weaves trying to break up the hoard of fighters chasing him. When he got a partial split he acted, turning hard and cutting back across a piece of their ‘cloud’ and firing at one of their little wisps on the edge before flashing past.
The fighter icon on the sensor board didn’t disappear, meaning he hadn’t killed it but he was sure he’d at least winged the craft.
Unfortunately he didn’t have the Star Force battlemap in the simulator, nor did he have the normal straddle seat, but the Calavari had made similar augmentations that got fairly close. The feel of it wasn’t right, but Mark was a pilot and could fly just about anything and he’d adjusted the modular controls enough to be able to get his full range of maneuvering options back, despite the lack of spherical joysticks.
The trailblazer kept swinging his skeet about, not having any topography or other combatants to use to shake his pursuit. It was just him and what had been 26 computer-controlled lizard fighters. He’d trimmed that number down to 17 but he was running out of moves as the computer adjusted its attack pattern to compensate for his, according to noted lizard starfighter tactics. The Calavari and others had accumulated a wealth of data on the enemy, making these simulations some of Mark’s favorites…especially because they kept beating him every time.
