Star Force: Retribution (SF60) Read online

  1

  June 19, 2674

  Unnamed System (lizard Core)

  Low Stellar Orbit

  The first few hundred H’kar battleships sat around the incoming jumppoint, sniping the lizard cruisers throwing themselves at the invaders before most of their insane number could get into plasma range. Their destars had about six times the firing distance before the photon slurry destabilized and disintegrated into small, spherical novas of intense light, which would do damage on its own, but the nature of the weapon gave it a medium range that still outdistanced the lizard weapons, making for easy 1 or 2 shot kills against the cruisers as the H’kar covered for more of their ships to enter the system.

  This wasn’t a stealth entry, so the H’kar had their active sensors scanning the moment the first ship arrived and they could see the disposition of the nearest enemy fleets. The cruisers hitting them now were merely the scattered elements closest to the star and were trying to disrupt or poach the incoming ships, which the H’kar already in place were not allowing them to do…but the mass of ships heading their way was an entirely different matter.

  They were moving towards them in the hundreds of thousands, coming in from 5 different planets and various deep space positions around the system. Those were delayed, for they didn’t have the gravity intensity required for a standard microjump, but the ones coming directly off the planets would be within weapons range before the whole H’kar fleet arrived, thus it was up to Yren’s ship and the others already on station to buy them the cover they needed.

  Yren was one of the battleships’ commanders and a seasoned veteran, having spent over 120 years in his race’s navy and the past 6 years fighting in the raiding fleets along with Star Force and their allies. He’d learned a great deal about fighting the H’kar’s arch nemesis from the Human commanders, but today they were not involved. This was payback time and a strategic strike against one of the Li’vorkrachnika’s strongholds, which Star Force scouts had finally been able to locate. Now that they had a big target to hit the H’kar were going to do what they did best and punch the enemy in the face, metaphorically speaking.

  But to do that they needed their full fleet, and Yren and the others had to hold position long enough for the long jump convoy to arrive. With every minute that passed more warships entered the system and strengthened their lines, increasing the destar fire going out and picking off the enemy cruisers like the inconsequential gnats they were, but at the same time the number of enemy ships was rising faster than the reinforcements were coming in, meaning that Yren had his work cut out for him.

  Standing on the command deck of his ship the H’kar has his four pointy legs inserted into small depressions in the floor to allow him to stand firm while working the controls around him. His pod was a solitary one, for the rest of the crew were located out of sight and sound while still on the main floor, leaving his central compartment completely shut off from them so that he could think clearly without any background distractions. His orders to the crew were carried out remotely, with his six arms working the controls in a mixed flurry of motion and moments of stillness as he studied the battlefield around him and made adjustments to their tactics accordingly.

  While the crew fought, flew, and made ready to repair damage he was left to think and see clearly what was happening around them, with his pitch black quartet of eyes tracking the bright streaks of destars as they leapt out instantaneously to pierce the yellow/tan hulls of the enemy ships. Mentally he was feeling out their numbers rather than counting and he could already sense the tide shifting. There were more cruisers arriving than they had destars to fire, meaning that the enemy was now getting some ships in through the growing debris field and into firing range.

  Yren’s ship was taking some hits, minor as they were, and the only way the Li’vorkrachnika could get through their Nexus-built shields was with sustained damage from a high number of targets. That intensity wasn’t present yet, but the battleship commander knew it was coming and the bloodbath that would result. He didn’t know if he’d live out the day, but he was confident that the others would take down their target…which was the giant shipyard ring circling the third planet.

  Yren’s mental counter reset as one of their behemoths arrived in a blur of braking motion and began to reposition over to support the screening fleets, which were engaged in three different positions. The massive vessel was fortunately coming to his, increasing his odds of survival as more and more cruisers began chipping away at his ship’s shields. Secondary defenses were firing back at them, but they didn’t have the kill power of the destar conduit, meaning it would take time for them to burn through the cruisers’ shields and hull armor before doing any real damage.

  But the H’kar commander had learned in his time with the raiding parties that he had to protect his main weapon, for the enemy liked to target it specifically. To decrease the odds of them landing the pinpoint plasma attacks necessary to knock it out prior to shield collapse, he had the helm keep moving the ship around while about two thirds of the others merely held position and fired on the enemies that came closest to them.

  Yren knew they were old school commanders who either hadn’t been part of the joint operations or those who hadn’t learned from the mission reports coming back to the empire. Those battleships that were maneuvering about were commanded by those who had, and they were giving the enemy a constantly shifting formation to line up against, adding a little bit of uncertainty as to where they should hit the hardest.

  He input a few more navigational commands, tapping buttons and sending the orders off to others who would carry them out as he saw one of the neighboring battleships turning back and retreating from the lines…while its shields were still up. Yren knew that would infuriate some of the other commanders but his group commander had spent even more years fighting with Star Force than he had and wouldn’t condemn the act as cowardice. The battleship in question had been getting picked on harder than the rest and its shields were in danger of dropping, hence it was pulling back to recharge them prior to reengaging in battle.

  The old school H’kar philosophy would have had it sit and continue firing and do as much damage as it could up until it was destroyed, and as Yren watched he saw a portion of the enemy fleet disengage from other vessels and go after it, intending to knock its shields down whether the H’kar liked it or not.

  Yren immediately gave new firing orders, having his ship rotate around to port and target one of the chasing cruisers. Several other battleships did as well, sniping some of the pursuit as the retreating ship gained speed and pulled back towards the jumpline. Yren let the rest of the cruisers go after it, for more of the reinforcements were coming their way and adding to the sniping, insuring that the weakened ship would get clear and have a chance to recharge and come back into the fight at nearly full strength again.

  That little maneuver alone had cost the enemy at least 15 cruisers, and it was small tweaks in strategy like that that had given the raiding fleets such an impressive record. Yren almost wished one of the Human warlords was here to guide this battle as they had done many others, but this was the H’kar’s payback for centuries of defeats that had amounted to trillions of deaths. That made it more personal than the other battles he’d fought, though this one was also a Nexus affair.

  As the H’kar battle near the star continued to escalate to the point where some of the chess pieces were beginning to reposition away from the planets and head towards the fight, a second jumpline on the other side of the star opened up and additional ships started pouring in…but they weren’t H’kar, they were Gfatt.

  These didn’t stick around to fight, nor did they transition over to assist the H’kar. They
were here for one purpose and one purpose only…and that was to get to the giant ring. The H’kar were the bait and distraction, with the hammer blow going to come from the more technologically advanced race.

  They’d been planning this assault for the past 12 years after getting the intel from Star Force. Since then other ring shipyards had been discovered in different systems, but this one was the closest to the H’kar border and the others were much better guarded. As it was this attack was not a system-conquering one, nor even a battle to destroy the ships in orbit. There were too many for the H’kar and Gfatt to take out and they knew it, but they’d finally assembled enough strength from both their fleets to be able to deny the Li’vorkrachnika one of their big prizes.

  The hourglass-shaped Gfatt warships came in multiple sizes, but all had the same basic design and tore through the out of place defending fleets around the third planet when they began making microjumps in to it immediately. A long trail of their warships stretched across the system as the first few to arrive didn’t delay, knowing that their presence was going to be detected immediately. As soon as they hit planetary orbit they went straight for the nearest enemy warships and unleashed a torrent of Haxtrel blasts at multiple targets simultaneously.

  The light show was emanating from the narrow point of the Gfatt ships and sending out squirt gun-like streaks of multi-colored light that had a visible delay in hitting their targets, unlike the destars in the H’kar fleet that traveled at the speed of light. The Haxtrel beams were matter that had been broken down into subatomic particles and forced into an unnatural state that had it recombining or breaking apart en route to the target, which produced the light show.

  Some beams were designed to produce particles or energy bursts that would drain shields, while others were meant to rip apart matter by destabilizing its molecular bonds with a switch out to the new particles incoming. Still other beams had different functions, some working like mini explosives on contact and others that compromised hull integrity by altering the structure of it into something less robust. Last of all was a white beam that was purely for cutting, structured much like a plasma stream only much more exotically lethal.

  The Gfatt were firing at the surrounding ships with every Haxtrel they had whether it was the prime moment for it or not trying to do as much damage as they could, for when the bulk of their ships arrived they were going to ignore the defending fleet and go straight for the ring shipyard regardless of how much damage they took in the process.

  The Li’vorkrachnika’s defending ships didn’t stand a chance at first, but others nearby began to reposition and group up to come at them…with several pairs and trios of the hourglasses moving off from their rendezvous point to engage them before they could get clustered up to dangerous levels. All the while the H’kar were taking the brunt of the attack in near the star, with their fleet still yet to fully arrive.

  If the enemy pulled back from that engagement to fight the Gfatt then they’d signal the H’kar to jump into the planet to assist them in making the run for the shipyard…if not the H’kar would fight and die as a distraction while the Gfatt made their dive for the target. Either way the shipyard was going down, it was just a matter of how many ships they’d lose in the process. This was not going to be a clean victory and they knew going in that it would be messy, but this was the first big target the Li’vorkrachnika were known to have and the Nexus was going to take it from them one way or another.

  Once enough Gfatt ships arrived they sent a scattering out as skirmishers while the bulk headed straight for the shipyard…with a huge defense fleet standing in the way that included multiple invokers and even an assault pillar, though the latter’s primary weapon would be next to useless against moving targets…which is what the Gfatt were, for they didn’t stop to engage the fleet, instead choosing to run right through it firing as they went and counting on their superior shields to get them through the loose but otherwise intimidating blockade.

  They made sure to avoid the invokers’ energy arcs, diverting around them like a school of fat fish evading a whale, then the Gfatt ships decelerated hard just above the 12-mile wide ring and started firing blue streaks down into it and disrupting its thin defense shields. As they did the Li’vorkrachnika’s slower ships began to catch up to them, as did their plasma weapons, but the Gfatt ignored all but the invokers, moving to keep out of their attack range while maintaining fire on one piece of the ring. Additional Gfatt ships entering planetary orbit followed the others in, making a long river of continuously moving warships that the enemy attempted futilely to disrupt.

  They were weakening shields and doing hull damage in a few cases, but they couldn’t prevent the Gfatt from getting to their target. When they did arrive they were sitting ducks for the Li’vorkrachnika to shoot at, but the attackers didn’t care and hammered away at the shipyard shields until they finally dropped over a mile-wide segment. When that happened armageddon unleashed and a slew of missiles raced down to the surface of the shipyard and detonated in a continuous firecracker string that lasted over five minutes.

  When it finished and the debris clouds were mushrooming out to the point where you could see through them again the Li’vorkrachnika saw that the Gfatt ships had already moved down into the crater and were firing all of their various colored Haxtrel beams at the surrounding structure, along with sporadic big booms coming from their primary weapons. Those were the equivalent of a Kamehameha being shot out from the narrow point in the hourglasses, with the orb flying into the shipyard, melting its way inside, then blasting out a huge new crater…after which there was a recharge period before each Gfatt ship could fire the main weapon again, chipping out more of the enormous shipyard.

  Every ship that entered the initial large crater was equipped with the Jakdems and were instructed to fire them in very specific locations, as if each ship was a hungry beaver trying to carve out a specific section of the giant tree trunk. The Gfatt expanded on the crater enough to get the bulk of their ships inside, then they went laterally no more and focused on cutting up and down from the crater, as well as on through the center.

  Not all of their ships could enter the breach point initially, and those outside provided cover for the others, fighting the enemy ships and even going after one of the invokers. Those engagements were meant to delay and reduce the firepower the enemy was throwing at them, and even the invoker attack was meant to scare it off and away from the cutting fleet, though they had to sacrifice two of their ships in order to damage the chess piece enough to make it withdraw.

  The others firing on invoker let it go and pulled back into the growing sphere of ships around the crater in the shipyard ring, with more and more Gfatt entering the breach as it grew larger and adding their ‘chewing’ capability to it. Meanwhile the H’kar had their hands full, for the enemy was not pulling back the forces they’d sent to hit it. Costly as it was, their distraction was buying time and the Gfatt were burning through the ring like a slow chainsaw blade, with numerous bits of debris being flung out that added to the damage being done to the cruiser horde…with the Gfatt guiding several of the larger pieces through their formation and launching them at the Li’vorkrachnika like giant rocks thrown out of a slingshot thanks to their control beams.

  It took quite a while to carve all the way through the 12 mile wide ring, and then to expand that piercing hole all the way across it up and down to completely sever the shipyard into two halves. By that time the defending ships outside the breach had either gone in to help the others or had been destroyed, leaving only a wedge of ships between the two thick sidewalls…which put the Gfatt in a very bad place when the Li’vorkrachnika spammed the opening with cruisers so thick you couldn’t even see the light of the star through them.

  But the two sidewalls also provided cover for the Gfatt, who didn’t care how many enemy ships there were. They’d cut the giant ring in half, but it was still in orbit and that amount of damage, massive as it was, was minor compared to the sheer
size of the thing. No, in order to kill it they needed help…and that help was going to be gravity.

  Once the cut was made all the way through the Gfatt ships snuggled up against the port sidewall, latched on with their control beams…and pulled. Using all the grip and engine power they could apply without ripping pieces off, they started to move the port piece down towards the planet, leaving the other sitting in space where it had originally been.

  The Li’vorkrachnika immediately knew what the Gfatt were doing and those in the shipyard increased the power to its gravity drives, which augmented the slow orbit to keep the giant thing in space and locked to the rotation of the planet below. That made it a tug of war between the two and while the Gfatt fleet didn’t have nearly enough strength to pull the entire ring down, for there were millions of gravity drives helping keep it suspended above the surface, they didn’t need to pull all of it down…just the end piece.

  Several segments broke off as the Gfatt increased their pull, with those ships flying out on momentum then back in again to latch on as the Li’vorkrachnika fleet poured in around them now that the other sidewall was no longer blocking their attacks. They hammered the Gfatt ships that had their flat tops pressed near the shipyard and their flat undersides taking the majority of the weaponsfire, protecting their inner choke points with a wall of armor. That bought them more time as they slowly pulled the end of the giant ring down, dragging the rest of the nearby station with it in a very subtle bend that had hull plates warping, compressing, and cracking apart down the length of it but the superstructure held together and kept the ring intact.

  Eventually the Gfatt brought the end piece all the way down into the upper atmosphere, with the centrifugal force helping to maintain its orbit diminishing with altitude. Soon it began falling fast but the Gfatt didn’t let go for fear of it somehow being able to rise again. They rode it down to within 10 miles of the surface before finally breaking free with their surviving ships and running for orbit through the enemy fleets that now clogged the atmosphere above. They fought as they ran, making numerous kills in the process but losing many of their damaged own that weren’t strong enough to make it through the gauntlet back up to even the most awkward jumppoints.