Star Force: Probe (SF42)

  1

  February 2, 2466

  Ferinor System

  Star Force Warship Blue Ranger (Null orbit)

  Morgan ‘stood’ atop two cushioned blocks, her legs out wide to either side as she held a side splits over a disqualification pit some several meters down that had a number of turrets imbedded within it. Falling off would end the challenge immediately, but maintaining her balance wasn’t the issue here…maintaining her balance while blocking attacks was.

  The chamber in the sanctum onboard her flagship was more or less a sphere, with two small blocks magnetically positioned as strong points in the middle of the chamber with nothing else around to hold on to. Each block was 10 inches cubed, and felt sturdy enough to have been physically attached to the walls via struts…but they weren’t. They were levitated into place, leaving all approaches open for the tiny little thuds the turrets would be firing Morgan’s way, which, if they hit certain exposed areas, would hurt like hell, adding another incentive not to fail.

  The trailblazer wore her hair up and knotted into a nub on her head so that it wouldn’t fly around as she knocked down the incoming attacks. Other than that she wore a training bra and a skin tight pair of mini shorts, leaving the rest of her skin exposed. With the inside of her ankles dug into the semi-soft cubes and her posture held perfectly upright, she brought her hands together over her chest, pushing them palm against palm and reminding herself not to move them. In order to maintain her balance she needed to focus on throwing concussive energy, or Jumat, from her core rather than from her limbs.

  Morgan gave herself a moment to relish the hanging stretch, then summoned up the goosebumps that accompanied her internal energy production, which she channeled into a holding aura that she’d learned to develop after getting information from the pyramid database. Part of the control mechanism for the Jumat included a close range containment ability. This allowed her to produce the energy within her body and hold it just outside, letting her bypass her clothes or armor, before throwing it off. Somehow the energy was in a different form internally before it became ‘concussive,’ which originally happened whenever it passed through her skin.

  Now she could hold it in its original form for about half a meter out, though it took extra effort to do so. When she tried to push it further than that she lost her grip and the energy converted…blowing off randomly. Morgan had been working to extend that range and had been gaining centimeters over the years, allowing her to now pool the energy around her body to the point where she could experiment with it, allowing her to train for other applications, one of which was a concussive shield barrier…which was what this challenge would prod.

  Morgan took a slow breath, letting it out as she filled the area surrounding her entire body, minus the underside of her ankles/feet, for several inches. More tingles followed, adding yet more energy as she focused to control it all as she transformed it into a hybrid form…then telekinetically hit the start button on the far wall.

  A three count warning tone sounded, with the thuds flying the moment the third tone emitted. Five of the marble-sized projectiles shot out at her from different angles…too many for her to consciously track and stop individually, forcing her to use an area of effect defense. She could have done so telekinetically, but instead she used her Jumat, with the little thuds hitting her invisible energy and penetrating slightly…but their contact to the pent up energy caused the portion that it hit to fully transform, which pushed back on the projectile.

  The more it penetrated the more energy was released, eventually sending it flying back out on a random trajectory for the light hits, and more precise reversals for the deeper ones. Morgan didn’t need to see the things coming, only refill the gaps in her aura that they made. That meant continuous waves of tingles forming within her body and being channeled out, transformed, and mashed in with the existing aura, which responded like goo, in that it didn’t refill quickly.

  She had to keep pressure on it, pushing in the right places to get it to fill back in faster. As more of the thuds came in, hitting her Jumat field in different locations, she played a mental chess match, countering move for move as she struggled to hold everything together. There was a counter on the wall indicating shots fired and time elapsed, but she didn’t see it. Her eyes were closed and her Pefbar was off, but she could ‘see’ her Jumat in mind’s eye and that’s where she put her entire focus.

  Well, save for the part that was required to maintain her balance. If she delved too deeply into her trance she’d fall off and lose by default. Because she needed to be able to attend to her Jumat aura during combat, she had to train where physical activity was also needed, forcing her to split her focus. Doing the splits wasn’t active in a running or jumping sort of way, but it did require continuous and precise movements…stuff so small it would normally get ignored in the numbness of the mental effort she was expending.

  The harder she pushed, the more her sense of balance would fade, forcing Morgan to hold back enough to split her focus and stay on top of the problem. Sheer force was the enemy here. She had to remain cool, steady, and stable…even as the painful little pricks tried to pelt her. A few days ago she’d caught one directly from underneath, which had dropped her to the disqualification pit real fast. After that she’d found herself leery and over protective, but like anything that was out of balance in Morgan, she didn’t tolerate it and got back up on the floating cubes and forced herself to relax and push away the memory of awkward pain.

  She continued to block the incoming thuds, refill her aura, and continue the process through several waves of 500…then the challenge increased the firing rate. It would eventually overwhelm her, with the point being to hold out as long as possible. As the minutes ticked by her aura couldn’t be replenished enough, so Morgan shrank its thickness, cannibalizing sections that were intact and forcing part of their energy into the compromised areas.

  This challenge was meant to test her endurance, while another would have the thuds concentrate their attacks on specific areas, sending 20 or so to one location over three seconds, trying to breach through that specific point. That was an altogether different problem to tackle, with this one being ‘easy’ in comparison, but the duration challenge gave her a great deal more practice, like a 5 mile run compared to a sprint, which would force her body and mind to adapt, giving her even greater abilities down the road.

  ‘Grinding’ is what it was, and no matter what the training exercise entailed, grinding workouts always worked up a lot of sweat…which in this case wasn’t good, for it was making her feet slippery as Morgan made tiny adjustments to keep her balance.

  Before she could fall off or the thuds penetrated her defenses a different tone sounded, causing her to open her eyes and almost lose her grip on her Jumat aura, which would have let all of the thuds through after it dissipated, but she caught her focus in time and held it intact, though she stopped replenishing it. With a telekinetic press of the wall controls she paused the challenge and opened the chamber’s mic and speakers to the incoming comm.

  “What is it?” she asked, not letting herself get annoyed. If someone was interrupting her during training they’d have a good reason for it…otherwise they’d get an unpleasant lesson in proper protocol.

  “Morgan, we’re about to come under attack,” Captain Wilkinson said calmly. “Nestafar warships are a few minutes out at best.”

  “On my way,” Morgan said, rolling backwards and letting her legs go slack. She fell down through a reverse flip and landed in a crouch on the padding below, then jogged over to the staircase that led up to the control panel and door, switching off the comm and the challenge program telekinetically as she ran out into the sanctum’s corridors.

&nbs
p; She headed for the exit and then straight up to the bridge, not bothering to stop for a uniform or shoes. If there was going to be a naval battle it wouldn’t matter much what she was wearing, unless the hull was badly breached or they were boarded, neither of which was likely, meaning the sooner she got to a tactical holo the better.

  By the time she reached the bridge the Nestafar had already arrived, with the Blue Ranger’s fleet still deploying to counter them along with the 8 other Star Force warships she had with her. With them were some 103 Calavari starships, 16 of which were warships. As Morgan padded her way up to her command chair on sweaty feet she saw a group of newly arrived Calavari ships slightly ahead of the Nestafar, suggesting the reason for the attack.

  “They were followed,” Wilkinson summed up as she stepped beside him.

  “How do we stand?”

  “Escorts are in good position, and should provide us adequate time to launch the rest of the fleet, but we don’t have firm numbers on the Nestafar yet. They still have ships incoming.”

  “I’ll be in the nexus,” she said, running off to the side of the bridge to a concealed alcove. She came through a very short tunnel and turned right, entering the cylindrical room that held a command nexus terminal in the center. Morgan stepped up to it and placed her hands on the Ikrid sphere, mentally powering up the system and interlinking with the battlemap and system commands far faster than button presses would have allowed.

  An image of the battlemap appeared in her mind as well as in holo around her, cutting off vision of the room and replacing it with a map of the empty star system. Aside from the yellow/orange star in the center there was nothing else here, no planets, asteroid fields, space stations…nada. It was completely empty and unclaimed, making for a good staging area for Morgan’s fleet as they rounded up Calavari survivors from surrounding systems.

  The main group was located well out from the star, with the Calavari ships over-braking to arrive in the system this far out. With no gravity wells other than the star, ships passing through had to stay close to the single gravity well and use some conventional thrust or tricky navigation to maneuver around to an exiting jumpline, given that there weren’t any distant planets to push off against for maneuvering purposes. By allowing some entry drift towards the star you could drop into a failing orbit and get some lateral maneuvering options from the pushoff potential, but rising up to a higher orbit was a no go…because you’d have nothing to push on to come back.

  Neither the Nestafar nor Calavari had binary drives, meaning the Calavari ships parked next to the Star Force ones were essentially stuck in the system, else they approach the star very slowly using conventional thrust. Morgan had convinced them to come here with the promise of modular gravity drives that could attach to their ships and help them maneuver around, much like the Hycre had, save Star Force’s version were tiny in comparison, rather than full jump cradles.

  Morgan had seven such devices imbedded into drone corvettes that would nestle up against another ship and extend pylons out that contained IDF generators. Once the entire ship was blanketed, the small binary gravity drive would allow the Calavari ships to move where the Nestafar couldn’t go.

  Trouble was, it was a slow process, and there was a backlog of Calavari ships waiting in near the star to be moved out to the holding area, where the Blue Ranger and the other warships were located, save for one that was with the Calavari fleet at the staging area. Morgan immediately recalled it with instructions to leave a few drones behind, just in case, but she knew the Nestafar couldn’t get out to them unless they over-braked on a jumpline near their position.

  The Nestafar had over-braked, following the Calavari in to an elevation above the star about halfway between Morgan and the staging area, but well around the circumference of the star. That location would make it easier for the Star Force tugs to bring the Calavari over, but it was still a long haul. She assumed the Nestafar knew nothing about that and were merely matching the Calavari’s acceleration curve…which sorry for them left them stranded well out from the star, meaning they only had thrust-based acceleration to work with.

  Which left them sitting ducks…but so were the Calavari at that position.

  Morgan started issuing orders, with the drone warships that had already been deployed zipping off on micro-jumps within seconds of her commands going out to the remote pilots. She sent one of the jumpships on ahead with them, but had the rest continue deploying the smaller vessels to get them in play as soon as possible, then the Blue Ranger and other Warship-class jumpships followed suit and zipped over to the entry jump point using an ‘in and out’ course that brought them back closer to the star to get more lateral pull, then a short angular course correction followed by another push to bring them out to the incoming fleets.

  Morgan began to get battlemap data before that, and even as her ship came into position she saw more and more Nestafar arriving, all of whom were using the navigational data being relayed back through the line to give them the desired drop out point so they wouldn’t risk ramming each other…and so they could stay hot on the heels of the Calavari.

  And it wasn’t a small fleet, save for ship size. The largest registering was a Nestafar destroyer, with the bulk comprised of corvettes and frigates, but there were more than 100 of them already with more on the way…and Morgan soon realized why when she looked at the Calavari fleet that had just arrived.

  She’d been expecting survivors from the Alatis System, where they’d fought a battle to secure the planet several months ago. They’d arranged rendezvous here for any surviving ships the Calavari in that system could scrounge up, for Star Force just didn’t have the transport capacity to move the Calavari en mass. Morgan had expected a scattering of ships to arrive at some point, but the Alatis Calavari had far surpassed her expectations with literally thousands of smaller ships, all of which were now packed so close together that they read like larger vessels on long range scans.

  What they were doing was sharing shields, which was a Calavari tactic that she’d become familiar with long ago. As a race their warships sucked, so they made up for it a bit by configuring their shield matrixes to interconnect so they could pool their combined energy into a single shield that had less surface area than the individual ships combined would have had. That meant putting hulls right up against other hulls, but in the case of unarmed or lightly armed transports it could means minutes of battle longevity, which in this case could very well save their lives.

  The fact that they had no gravity drive maneuvering options left them essentially adrift anyway, so clustering together made a world of sense…especially when they had Valeries to launch. Morgan saw hundreds tagged on the battlemap, maneuvering around on thrust engines and gravity drives where applicable when they could push against the star. The fighters were fairly fuel efficient, but Morgan knew they’d have to return to their carriers regularly during a prolonged fight, which made those ships high priority for protection…which Morgan quickly tagged on the battlemap.

  Whether out of wisdom or a lack of ability to run, the Calavari refuge fleet organized itself well, allowing Morgan’s ships plenty of room to decelerate as they jumped in, then the drone warships became cats on the prowl, literally flying rings around the Nestafar warships who, at best, limped around in pathetic maneuvers, trying to gain some strategic alignment, but they never were able to coordinate, strung out in the long line that they were. The Calavari had had more than an hour to reposition their first ships, but the Nestafar had no such luxury.

  Morgan didn’t offer up any surrender terms, giving orders to her fleet to take out the bastards. Star Force would pick up survivors, but she wasn’t cutting the Nestafar any slack. They’d come here to kill a mostly civilian fleet of people running away from the war zone, expecting easy targets. She knew they wouldn’t have offered surrender terms to the Calavari, for they were out for blood, and she was happy to turn the tables on them.

  One after another the Nestafar ships were swarm
ed and destroyed by the Star Force fleet…which didn’t lose a single drone thanks to the careful battle plan employed by Morgan and the jumpship Captains. They were able to tackle each enemy destroyer with five or six of their own ships, while the rest of the Nestafar fleet looked on helpless from a distance, waiting for the Humans to work their way down the line to them.

  When a drone lost shields, or was near to, it was pulled back and another inserted into its slot, with Morgan patiently overseeing the destruction of some 294 Nestafar warships when all was said and done…and not because of firepower, armor, or shielding. This battle had been won simply because Star Force had binary gravity drives and the Nestafar did not. She knew Paul would appreciate that irony, and was grateful for them having the advanced technology for a change. For most of her years in Calavari space, Star Force had always been the little guy poking at the big enemy’s flanks, and it felt good to finally lay out a smackdown of this magnitude.

  She knew that Star Force was on the rise, technologically speaking, as they got more and more tech upgrades from the pyramid, but to date it hadn’t mattered much in the overall war. A 294/0 rout would certainly send a message that there was a new sheriff in town, and Morgan was going to deliver it via the survivors…if there were any to pull out of the mess Star Force had made of their fleet…which she’d drop off in a system the Nestafar controlled or contended on the way to pick up more Calavari.

  Word would get back, she hoped, and give these bastards the message to stay clear of the local region of what had once been Calavari space that Star Force was now operating in, and what Morgan privately considered her turf in this gigantic free for all of a war.

  2

  October 1, 2466

  Jasne System

  Drema

  The Blue Ranger decelerated against the Calavari planet’s gravity well first in a long line of ships in Morgan’s convoy, finding the planet as it should be…still in Alliance hands. She hadn’t been back here in nearly 3 years, having been shuffling Calavari away from the pickup points via other escorts, but this was the largest fleet of refugees collected to date and Morgan intended to see it through to completion…not to mention she needed to resupply, and bringing her fleet in was easier than running cargo ships out to them.