by Aer-ki Jyr
2
June 16, 3202
Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)
Middle Zone
Paul hadn’t slept in 2 days, having taken only the mildest of breaks that amounted to a grand total of 23 minutes absent from the nexus onboard the Excalibur. After recovering 6 survivors from the Manticore his command ship had jumped its way back across the star system to rejoin the fight underway at the entry jumppoint. All 834 jumpships in his convoy had already arrived and deployed drones by that time and the lizards hadn’t backed off, preferring to meet the invaders and fight to the death and kill as many of them as they could rather than playing a waiting game that they knew they would badly lose.
There were so many ships in play across all 12 jumppoints that even after 2 straight days of fighting there were still some active lizard ships out there amongst the debris. Paul’s mind was locked on them, sending orders to a few drone pilots as to what routes to take through the debris to head them off as the Excalibur sat broken but not defeated amongst a mass of Warship-class jumpships while they all remotely controlled their smaller, unmanned kin. Some others were out near the combat, but with so much debris in the area it was easier for the drones to skirt around it solo, leaving the giant manned ships back to lick their wounds while their crews hunted down the remaining lizard ships.
This battle was already won, but Paul wasn’t going to allow an extra drone to get destroyed out of sloppiness, and that’s exactly what the lizards were attempting to do before they died. They were maneuvering around the debris rather than making a suicidal charge, getting Star Force to chase them in the hopes of setting an ambush for one or more of the drones.
But so long as he and other Archons were watching over and guiding the battle they didn’t have a chance. It took another 5 hours to clean up what was left of the lizards near Paul’s jumppoint, then he finally was able to let his mind wind down as he checked the status of the other fleets around the system.
Four were already clear, with the other seven being in their final stages of cleaning up as well. There had been over 12 million lizard cruisers here and some 730,000 Star Force drones carried by 9,421 jumpships, plus 73 command ships. Paul was grateful that this had not been one massive battle, for his alone had been far too large and his mind was starting to object fiercely now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
The crew had been rotating in and out, so they were all fairly fresh, but he was not. Even with his Inas he was barely holding his mind together after such a long, continuous intense effort.
Paul walked out of the nexus and down the short hall, turning the corner and coming onto the bridge where he caught Franken’s attention.
“Admiral, I’ve got to crash. Hold the fleet here until the others get done fighting, but get us clear of the debris field…no, check that. Start clearing the jump lane. Nudge it to the side so we can recover it later. Unless we come under attack again, don’t wake me. I’ll get back to you when I’m sane again.”
“Understood. Do you want a courier sent back warning of the minefield?”
Paul hesitated, kicking himself for not thinking of that. “Find out if anyone has done that already and send one if they haven’t. I am so brain fried right now.”
“Most of the Archons didn’t rest,” the Admiral told him, having already checked their status. “The fleet can hold itself together while you guys crash. I promise we won’t break anything until you wake up.”
Paul nodded. “Good work today…or, days. Make sure the crew knows it. That was a nasty fight after a nasty ambush and no one tanked.”
“Did you expect them to?” the Admiral asked, a mix of curiosity and wounded pride.
“I don’t know what I expected. We haven’t lost that many people in a very long time,” Paul said, rubbing his eyes. “Damn I’m fried. Anything else I’m forgetting?”
“We just destroyed the largest fleet in lizard history.”
“That we know of…and it’s still not over yet. If the others ask for help be ready to send it, but I don’t think they will. And get some ships in low orbit so no lizards can sneak out.”
“And we can poach any incoming traffic?”
“Yeah,” Paul said, unable to stifle a yawn. “I’m out of here.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Franken insisted as Paul walked off the bridge. He got halfway to his quarters when he saw Riona step out in front of him, surprised that he hadn’t noticed her mental presence before that.
“You alright?” she asked, not looking all that well herself having come from a secondary nexus onboard the ship.
“Fried. You?”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”
“What then?”
“The mines.”
Paul’s face slacked a bit, but he didn’t have much wherewithal left in him to lose. He was starting to get dizzy now that he wasn’t forcing himself to hold together during the battle. “I’m not ok with it, but it feels like it happened a long time ago. How are you doing?”
“Ticked and tired. Wanna crash?”
“That’s where I’m headed.”
“My quarters are closer.”
“By about 200 meters.”
“Do you really feel like walking that extra 200?”
“No,” Paul admitted. “Thanks,” he said as they began walking again.
Neither one said another word, nor did they have any telepathic conversations. There wasn’t much to be said and neither one was in good enough shape for a coherent discussion. They both needed to rest hard and get themselves back into play so they could oversee the next stage of the invasion. There wasn’t a rush per se, but with the lizards you never wanted to give them extra time to get clever with…and the mine field was ample evidence of what they could do in a very short span of time.
When they got to Riona’s quarters Paul followed her in and shut the door, then both of them crashed on her bed and fell asleep as soon as they let their last bit of resistance go, knowing they had time to recover and allowing themselves to indulge in that blissful rest.
Paul was back on the bridge and in the nexus 9 hours later, still a bit groggy and needing to get in a shakeout run, but wanting to get himself up to speed on the situation first. According to the battlemap feeds that were flowing across the system constantly like a giant net connecting every single Star Force ship, the naval combat was now over save for some intercepts happening near the star. A good number of the lizard cargo jumpships had tried to make it out and run the blockade, with some 18 ships out of over 2,000 having made it on some very long jumplines that were questionable as to whether or not they could accurately hit the destination star. The rest were now additional junk that drones were going around to and destroying further rather than allowing any surviving lizards to slowly suffocate or freeze to death.
As per standard orders, surrender offers were going out on a regular basis…and as per standard lizard protocol they were all being subsequently ignored. Star Force would keep sending them though, right up until the last of them were dead or they broke their trend and actually accepted.
Looking around the rest of the system he saw the remaining lizard civilian ships clustering near the battlestations or shipyard rings. The latter they were going to board and take as previously done, though there was now one less to claim. That would save them some time, but first they’d need to take out the battlestations and any other defensive emplacements the lizards had in orbit around the various planets.
There were also a large number of warehouses here, more so than even in the other core worlds that they’d taken to date. What each contained varied greatly. Some had spare parts, foodstuffs, old ships, explosives, raw materials…they were never the same, and a few previously had been booby-trapped. They’d all need to be inspected and safed before being ticked off the threat list, and unless there was a reason to destroy them Paul wasn’t going to. Everything in this system would eventually be recycled and used to fuel Star Force, s
o breaking things up with weaponsfire was counterproductive when you’d just have to hunt down those many drifting pieces later.
There was a complication, however. Of the six inhabited planets, and there were others with outposts on them, there was a large tract of land on one that was not covered with cityscape. The scout ship had noted this and Paul was getting updates on that location now that they had ships in closer, with him seeing that the land was housing billions of varying races that the lizards used for food.
Star Force would not be targeting them from orbit, and the last time they’d taken a lizard farm thankfully their intentions hadn’t been noticed. Paul hoped this would also be the case, for as long as the lizards didn’t realize they intended on rescuing the lizard livestock then they wouldn’t try to use them to their advantage. The only reason that hadn’t occurred to date was the fact that the previous farms taken had occurred in a single swoop that didn’t allow for any communications out of the system.
That was prudent so the lizards couldn’t learn as much from Star Force’s tactics. When a system went dark, as far as the rest of the lizard empire was concerned, Star Force didn’t want them knowing what had happened to it short of risking to send in a scout ship of their own. If the lizards here didn’t realize that their cattle were on the Star Force priority list, then hopefully they’d still be alive after the lizards were all dead…though Paul could see them killing them just to spite the invaders, and he hoped that didn’t come to pass here.
All the other core worlds they’d taken thus far didn’t have farms in them, for it seemed they were too costly to maintain as a food supply for such enormous populations. Shipments of meat were then brought in to them in some form of priority system. How that worked was still uncertain despite Star Force having accessed a lot of lizard databases in the core worlds they took. Who got the meat and who didn’t wasn’t noted, so maybe it was based on an informal system that was so basic, or perhaps mentally ingrained into them, that they didn’t need to bother recording it in their computer logs.
There were plenty of farm worlds, large ones even, spread throughout lizard territory that Star Force had taken previously, but none of them were located within the surrounding cityscape. The fact that there was one here was noteworthy, for it seemed the capitol wanted its own local supply of meat rather than having to ship it in in lesser numbers.
Yet one more reason these bastards had to be stopped.
Right now though that farm region was sitting underneath its own powerful energy shields. Not to protect the foodstock, but to deny an enemy an easy landing zone. In fact there was no place on any of the six planets that wasn’t covered with either a plate-like shield or a domed variety. Not one square inch of vulnerability, and the shields here were registering significantly increased power levels. That had been anticipated, due to the fact that it was their capitol, but what Paul was seeing now showed shield density matrixes 3x what they should have been.
The lizards had gotten another tech upgrade.
Paul chewed on his lower lip as he thought. The shield strength wasn’t going to save them, but it would mean Star Force would lose more drones to the anti-orbital batteries while knocking out that first hole through which to land ground troops…and he was sure that all of these guns were cleansing beams. Based off the distribution pattern on the surface, the density of the batteries had increased as well, not to mention the placement of several sites that exceeded previously encountered weaponry. Either these were bigger versions of the same weapons or the lizards had kept something in reserve for their capitol.
He wondered about that. Why hold something back when you could do more damage by spreading the tech around everywhere? Then again, Earth had some beefy defenses of its own not seen elsewhere, or at least not yet, due to the cost of producing them. Epsilon Eridani was building one of the massive Bra’hem beam turrets right now, but they required so much solari that they weren’t cost effective within Star Force yet.
Earth currently had 7 of them and was working on an eighth, and every Archon knew why it had to have the big guns before any other planet did.
But if that’s the same idea that the lizards had taken to here, they’d been at it for a very, very long time. And given their more recent cleansing beam additions, whatever these big guns were couldn’t have been that advanced…or had they seen the writing on the wall and just went all out in building the biggest and hardest system to take in order to kill as many Star Force ships and troops as they could as a massive middle finger while they trotted off to their coreward territory?
“Yeah, I’m getting the feeling that’s exactly what they did,” he whispered to himself as he looked through more updates across all six major planets. The minor ones were airless and had a plethora of mining sites, most of which seemed abandoned, and from the mass readings he knew they were now hollow. What was inside he didn’t know, but they’d find out before hitting the inhabited worlds.
Paul had access to a file sharing system that no one else did aside from the trailblazers, and inside it he had already seen that some of the others had claimed targets for their own. Given that they were still spread out across the system and couldn’t talk to each other in real time, this was the best way to communicate and they knew each other so well they could do so shorthand to save a lot of time.
Right now the targets tagged were orbital ones, with the battlestations being divvied up but not all claimed yet. Paul ignored them and decided to tackle two of the minor planets that were orbiting each other. The binary pair wasn’t equally balanced, though the larger one was reading less mass than the smaller, with it swinging in a more robust orbit as the two danced around one another.
Paul also included the handful of orbital installations and battlestations there, completely claiming those two locations for his fleet to handle while the other 11 fleets went about taking down varying pieces of the lizard defenses and infrastructure. That was one of the advantages of having other trailblazers here. He could totally depend on them to get things done and Paul didn’t feel that he had to watch over their shoulders in the slightest. Had he assigned Riona to such a task he could have trusted her to get it done without him worrying, but with the other trailblazers he knew they might well come up with ideas that he wouldn’t, making them more than just replacements for him in those other engagements, and perhaps even his superior in some circumstances.
He’d make sure to review what they did later so he could steal any good ideas, but right now he was going to focus on this pair of minor planets and find out what was hollowed out inside both, for even the more massive one was reading less of a gravitational field than it should have. Even if he wasn’t curious, everything in this system that was lizard had to be checked out and cleansed of inhabitation.
It was going to take some time to clear the mine fields and neither Paul nor the others wanted to start bringing in their ground troops until that was done. While there wasn’t supposed to be anyone else arriving here he was worried that Cal-com might show up anyway. He’d originally planned to help Paul with decapitating the lizard empire, but a priority target had been discovered just on the other side of the coreward boundary line where Star Force wouldn’t go and Cal-com had wanted to knock it out before it could help strengthen the surrounding systems.
Paul had agreed, knowing that even if they allowed a tiny piece of a shipyard ring to get established it would flood cruisers to the surrounding systems and begin to snowball once it got a big enough supply fleet established to keep the raw materials flowing. Symbolism of taking the capitol aside, the more of these big targets in the region where Star Force wouldn’t go that the Voku could take out would see a significant impact going forward. Maybe not for Star Force, but for others fighting against them…or those just trying to survive a little longer before they were annihilated.
Paul hated to say it, but maybe if this dragged on longer the Skarron empire might get their head out of their ass and send the type of reinforcements to fi
ght the lizards that he guessed they were capable of. They might have been in a situation like The Nexus, with so many threats they couldn’t focus on just one, but Paul had to believe that an empire so large that it dwarfed what the lizards had built could squash this invasion if they put their full force behind it and for some reason they hadn’t been willing to do that yet.
Regardless of their situation, the lizard capitol was going down and Paul knew Star Force had assembled more than enough drones to make it happen, so he’d told Cal-com to go hunting elsewhere with the ships he’d been gathering for this invasion. The Voku were currently invading other lizard worlds, almost as many as Star Force was, with more and more troops flowing out from their home territory to assist in the massive lizard cleansing effort and the patrolling and holding of the territory thus liberated from them.
But it would be just like Cal-com to send some ships to help mop up the lizards after the big push and he didn’t want any of them running into these mine fields. To him, getting these moved was the first priority, and several of the other trailblazers had already begun dealing with theirs in a hope to clean out the ‘highways’ before anyone could accidentally stumble upon them or the cleaning crews…which was why all the ships were keeping a keen eye on incoming stellar reflectivity. If there was a ship incoming they might be able to warn them off just in time, and if not they still needed to get out of the way themselves…and with a sky full of debris they couldn’t just zip out of there in a straight line in any direction they wanted.
Mine field first, pair of planets second, Paul settled on. Lizard homeworld we’ll save for last.
3
June 29, 3202
Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)
Hemratik
With his fleet split up dealing with multiple targets in the minor planets, Paul stood in the bridge nexus as the command ship scanned the planet they’d just rid of orbital defenses. Now that they were able to get in this close they had a better picture of what was below the surface…and it was showing enormous caverns within the lighter of the two planets that were reading gaseous atmosphere and water in different sections.
