Star Force: Quenar (SF88) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  1

  September 17, 3255

  Andip System (lizard territory)

  Stellar Orbit

  When the Excalibur came out of its breaking run ahead of Nami, Paul was relieved to see some 284 Star Force jumpships waiting for them. Amongst them was the Sanguine Blade, as well as numerous cargo ships and a half dozen Ma’kri sitting well off the incoming jumpline in the face of Paul’s beaten up command ship and the equally wounded vessels coming in its wake along with a handful of fully operational escorts they’d picked up along the way from other assignments. Within a few seconds Jason’s hologram popped up in the command nexus.

  “How are you holding up?” the blonde trailblazer asked.

  “We lost a lot of people, and our new allies lost almost all of theirs. Have there been any other Trinx sightings?”

  Jason shook his head. “I’ve got scouts out all along your projected path. None have reported so much as a single blip. I hope that means they’re out of ships after the beating you gave them.”

  “It was mutual.”

  “I assume you still have the Uriti?”

  “It’s following us. Riley is bringing up the rear to make sure it doesn’t go AWOL. It did, briefly, after the battle when our transmitter was down. Stayed sitting in place for more than five days, then decided to take a dip in the star and stayed there until we got the leash working again.”

  “Where are you with that?”

  “We’ve got the original working, but with everything in the fleet busted up we haven’t had a chance to try and build a bigger one.”

  “I sent for some parts before I came here. They’re on the way to Alamo and we can call to bring them up the line if you want.”

  “Right now I just want to get Nami there. She may be a beast in battle, but she’s definitely a snail when it comes to speed. When the Chixzon planned to conquer the galaxy, they had to know it would take centuries to get from one end to the other.”

  “Makes it all the more dramatic to see it coming, be able to take a lot of pictures, and know you can’t stop it when it does get there,” Jason pointed out. “At least the Hadarak aren’t much faster.”

  “I’d take a little faster now with ample joy,” Paul said dryly. “Our escorts haven’t wanted to leave and they’re badly in need of supplies. The closest relief they have is the Bahamut site and they don’t want to risk abandoning it to the Trinx so they’re sticking it out with us. They’ve got too many people on too small of ships with all the rescues we pulled off.”

  “Did you pick up any Trinx?”

  “Not living ones. We couldn’t get to all of our survivors fast enough as it was.”

  “I have a bad suggestion to make.”

  “Make it,” Paul said, suddenly on guard for more bad news.

  “The Neeyvir.”

  When Paul frowned Jason pressed further.

  “We know they have at least limited contact with The Nexus.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be…you’re right. It’s worth asking at least,” he said, adjusting the comms and calling the ranking commander within what was left of the Sety fleet that now consisted of only 6 ships. It took a while to get a response, long enough that Paul felt there might be a technological problem onboard their ship, but eventually the tree-like visage appeared next to Jason over top the control board in front of him.

  “Yes, Archon. What is it that you require?”

  “How close a relationship do the Sety have with the Neeyvir?”

  “Limited. I only know of them because we were required to familiarize ourselves with this region prior to the Hamoriti assignment. There is diplomatic contact and isolated trade.”

  “Trade?” Paul asked, wondering as to that. The Neeyvir were one of several holdout races within lizard territory…meaning that the Sety would have had to pass through it to get to them, or vice versa.

  “High end technology is all my information said. Sporadic shipments.”

  “My point is, could the Neeyvir be used as a relief port for your ships? Their nearest system is four jumps from here.”

  “I’m afraid the only people qualified to answer that question died during the attack. But bringing the Hamoriti into an inhabited system of that caliber would not be wise. They could see it as a prelude to attack.”

  “Do they know what a Uriti is?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Regardless, I wasn’t suggesting to take it there. I meant for your ships to break off from the escort now that we’ve received reinforcements.”

  “As long as we are mobile, we will not abandon our duty,” the Sety said firmly.

  “The Uriti is moving so slow you can stop by the Neeyvir, get whatever relief they can offer, then catch up to us in short order. We’re months from our destination system. Do you have the logistical longevity to last that long?”

  “My ship does not. I do not know about the others.”

  “I don’t know if the Neeyvir will assist you or not, but there aren’t many choices right now. We’ve got supplies to share, but all of The Nine have differing repair needs and we do not have a shipyard near here. Unless you want to travel a long ways to one of ours, returning to The Nexus is your only other option. Do you concur?”

  “The Yisv may offer another option if we can contact them.”

  “They won’t enter the same system a Uriti is in,” Paul reminded him. “Whatever help they can offer will mean you still have to break from the convoy. At this point, now that my reinforcements have arrived, there isn’t much your remaining ships can do to assist in a fight given their current status. Repair and resupply must take priority else the long term security of this mission could be jeopardized.”

  “I cannot fault your reasoning, but I cannot guarantee the reaction of the Neeyvir.”

  “I will accompany you there. We’re going to run into the Neeyvir eventually anyway, so I might as well make an introduction.”

  “Your presence is required to safeguard the control ship,” the Sety said earnestly.

  “One of my peers has arrived. He will take over security in my absence. Regardless, my command ship is heading back to a shipyard for repairs. I’ll transfer to one of the newly arrived warships so I can stay in the region while our damaged ships are cycled back. Yours need to do the same.”

  “Very well. The Sety will go to the Neeyvir, but I can make no promise as to their willingness to help.”

  “I’ll dispatch a courier to the Yisv and inform them of our departure from the convoy. That way they’ll be able to rendezvous there and offer whatever assistance they can.”

  “Acceptable.”

  “Make preparations to leave after the Uriti exits this system. Inform the others of The Nine of the logistical reality and of the timetable. If they’re not convinced as to its wisdom, tell them to contact me.”

  “I will spread the word, Archon. Thank you for your assistance.”

  Paul nodded and the hologram cut out, leaving him with Jason.

  “You’re leaving the Excalibur?”

  “She’s a broken sword right now, but she’s still far faster than Nami. Assuming you’re going to stick around, I want to send all the damaged ships back to start repairs.”

  “I’ll take it from here,” Jason promised. “But the Zeus has to stay.”

  “I know, but there’s no reason to keep the others here. We’re just well armored target practice right now, sorry to say.”

  “Did you have to leave any ships behind that we need to recover?”

  “Not whole ones, but there’s a lot of salvage to be done. That’s low priority, but we need at least a M
a’kri on the site to keep scavengers away. There’s a large sample of advanced tech floating out there that I’d rather the lizards didn’t get their hands on.”

  Jason raised his eyebrows. “Before we do?”

  Paul smiled. “They’re not going to be picking it up anytime soon.”

  “I’ll get three Ma’kri there immediately, then send another back to pull a recycling team off the front line. We should be able to get a collection crew there within a handful of months.”

  “Good. I’m going to go meet the neighbors and will meet back up with you somewhere along the line.”

  “What do you want to do about the Trinx?” Jason asked ominously.

  Paul’s eyes hardened. “There’s a reckoning to be had.”

  “Obviously. What do you have in mind?”

  “Keep them on ice for now. If we go after them it’s going to suck a lot more resources away from the lizard campaign. I don’t want more planets dying because we took our time eradicating those buggers. The Trinx can wait, unless The Nine get to them first. I don’t think they’re going to take this betrayal well.”

  “Do you want to coordinate with them on the ass kicking?”

  “Possibly. But we need to figure out what to do with the Uriti they’re sitting on first. And to solve that riddle we need to learn to talk to this one and figure out if Nami is as nice as her namesake or the big obtuse hunk of rock she looks like.”

  “But bottom line, the Trinx lose their sovereignty?”

  “In some form, yes. We’re not tolerating them as neighbors.”

  “Agreed,” Jason said as his ship’s sensors picked up the Uriti coming into stellar orbit. “Damn, she’s…small.”

  “Small?”

  “Compared to the ship I’m sitting in, yeah.”

  “Apparently her mind is not. Have a chat with Riley about that and see if you can’t brainstorm a solution I’ve missed.”

  “What’s the challenge?”

  “Finding a way to make a Uriti pay attention to the ants it can so easily step on.”

  “We’re in ships bigger than she is, so it shouldn’t be hard to get noticed.”

  “Telepathically it’s a different show. Our ships probably look like rocks to her without the aura.”

  “How’s our resident Chixzon doing?”

  “Complaining about lack of adequate parts.”

  “Should I try building a new transmitter on the Sanguine Blade?”

  “Do you have enough resources to spare?”

  “Depends what it will take.”

  “Then the answer is probably no to the big one, but having a redundancy for the small one is worth tinkering with. Even if you can only half build one, it’ll save precious time if the primary goes offline.”

  “Offline?”

  “If Riley gets his ship blown up.”

  “With Nefron on it?”

  “He’s smart enough to get out first,” Paul said deadpan.

  “He’d have to build it, I assume. Will he leave the Zeus?”

  “If it’s during jump he might. Gets really boring and even if you talk to the Uriti it can’t do much of anything, so he doesn’t need to be there.”

  “Nice to have a hobby. How often does Nami need to stop and eat?”

  “The hungrier she gets the less likely she is to obey, so we’ve been having her take a dip in the star every 3 stops.”

  “No planets?”

  “Not yet. The stores she gets from them don’t deplenish very rapidly. It’s mainly her energy reserves that need a boost.”

  “Alright. Where’s she headed now?”

  “Into a preordered orbit. She’ll get the redirect once the Zeus gets here.”

  “Safe range?”

  “I’ve been keeping it at 1000 miles minimum.”

  “Any sneezes?”

  “Not yet. She’s been a good girl so far. Even sat still and watched us while we fought.”

  “Good to know she’s not temperamental, now that I’m babysitting for you.”

  “Riley is babysitting Nami, you’re babysitting Riley. I hope the Trinx don’t have anything else to throw at us, but I’m not counting on it.”

  “I’ll make them pay if they try it. Which ship do you want?”

  Paul mentally looked through the list via the nexus in less than a second.

  “The Jasper,” he said, selecting one of the Protovic ships in the mixed fleet. It was the oldest model, a Mk.6, but it was still fast enough to carry him around the region while Nami crawled on.

  “All yours. But before you transfer over stop by my command ship. There are a few things we need to discuss at length. I assume you’ve got at least a few hours before Nami moves on?”

  “That we do. I’ll be right over,” he said, cutting the comm and walking out of the nexus and onto the main bridge.

  “Admiral, the ship is yours. You’ll be taking it and the other damaged ships back home for repair. I’ll be staying in the region on the Jasper.” Paul glanced at the ceiling. “Get her fixed up good. I’d like to keep this one if at all possible.”

  A day later and Paul watched Nami leave the system with her escort ships, leaving his one spotless warship with the broken fleet that was all that remained of The Nine. He rallied them to a different jumppoint and accelerated away at the best speed the slowest of them could handle, headed for the not too distant territory of a race that had withstood the lizards’ expansion while hanging on to some 27 systems spread out in shotgun fashion. The interconnecting ones had been swallowed up by the lizards, but apparently the Neeyvir went where they liked and hadn’t seriously been endangered by the occupation of the surrounding systems.

  Paul had misgivings about that. Turtling up was one thing, but he didn’t care for the idea of sitting it out while watching neighbor after neighbor fall to a civilization that you could have kicked to the curb without even making a full effort. He didn’t know the history of the Neeyvir, but given their not too distant location from Krachnika he assumed the lizards had gotten to them during the second or third major phase of their expansion, which was well before they’d come into conflict with the H’kar.

  But then again, not everyone was a warrior. Were these guys sitting out the war because they were snobs or because they were just keeping their heads down and tending to their own? They weren’t isolationists, that much had been determined from the Shanplenix, not to mention their link with The Nexus, but that didn’t mean they also couldn’t have had an agreement with the lizards. Thrawn had never spoke of such a thing, but both he and Paul now knew that the templars kept much from the masterminds.

  Paul didn’t think that with the already established diplomatic relations to The Nexus that they’d come under attack upon arrival, but he wasn’t sure what kind of a reception they’d get or what assistance they could offer that would be compatible with what The Nine’s ships needed. At the very least it would be a rendezvous point that the Yisv could access. He was guessing that their vulnerability to the Uriti’s aura was being overhyped, but he didn’t fault them for being cautious. He had a lot more safeguards in place than they did, so it was hard to tell just how fragile their telepathy was without ever having met one in person.

  It took some 18 days to reach the Neeyvir system, with them braking in at a respectable distance from the giant white star that held some 9 major planets in its gravitational pull, but they didn’t have to travel to any of those to attract attention, for as soon as they arrived they were met by patrol ships. They were shaped with a helmet-like forward face that trailed off into what looked like tendrils hanging behind it. They had luminous lines across the face and the hull was colored a pale purple, giving the ships an aggressive persona despite the fact that they only massed about that of a cruiser and were no longer than 1200 meters, tendrils included.

  Paul used a Sety translation program rather than their own they’d cobbled together from bits and pieces of language references from other races that had had dealings with them in the pas
t, figuring it would be more up to date and professional given their reputation, but he chose to directly address them rather than having the Sety ships do it.

  There was only a single Star Force vessel with the fleet, but it was the largest ship and the only one without battle damage. Beyond that, Paul was in command and felt that these other races were his wards after what had transpired, despite the fact that they were just as advanced, perhaps more so in some cases, than the Humans were.

  “Attention Neeyvir, I am Archon Paul-024 of Star Force. As you are probably aware, our warfleets are gradually pushing back the Li’vorkrachnika and reclaiming the territory that they have stolen from others. Though we have not reached your borders yet it will happen eventually and we had intended on making contact before that occurred to establish formal relations. The current situation has hastened that necessity, for we and our allies have just survived a massive battle with the Trinx. We were the marginal victors, but the Sety and others do not have any region bases from which to resupply or make repairs and Star Force facilities are also a great distance from here.”

  “We have come here asking for aid and a port of harbor so that these ships can begin repairing damage and making arrangements with their far flung civilizations for permanent relief. We do not expect the Trinx to follow us here. The target they sought is moving on and their warfleet has been destroyed. What reserves they have we do not know, and we are not asking for protection against them if they should come. We are only asking for what material aid you can offer, or at the very least the ability to use this system as a waypoint while other allies are rallied to us.”

  “While we are here, I would like to have a lengthy conversation concerning the Li’vorkrachnika and the future of this region if you are willing. We will hold to stellar orbit while we await your response.”

  2

  January 3, 3256

  Ashbay System (Occupation Zone)

  Stellar Orbit

  Jason’s command ship came out of its jump into a clear stellar orbit, finally having made it out of lizard territory. He immediately picked up battlemap signals coming from the few assets that Star Force had in the captured system. There were several warships with drones guarding a single planet where fighting had recently ended and the recycling crews were hard at work picking up all the trash and beginning the process of erasing the lizards’ stench from the world. This was hardly civilization, but it was Star Force territory.