Star Force: Mantle (SF92) (Star Force Origin Series)

  1

  April 17, 3437

  Weeo System (The Line)

  Stellar Orbit

  “Lizard contacts, Archon,” a Kvash bridge officer announced less than four minutes after arrival in the star system.

  Ellie-517 raised a sweaty eyebrow. “How many?”

  “A small fleet in planetary orbit. Two jumpships and 184 cruisers.”

  “That’s too many cruisers,” she said, standing up from her command chair in the back half of the rectangular bridge and walking forward towards the gigantic hologram at the center of the room that contained over 200 personnel. “There may be more jumpships in play. Dispatch two scouts and get me passes of the other planets, all the way around this time please. Have one finish up on the backside of the primary target. We’ll hold here until the scan is complete. Get us down into the stellar haze. If they haven’t spotted us yet I’d prefer that they didn’t know we were here.”

  “It’ll interfere with our sensors as well,” the Kvash Captain warned.

  “We’ll have the scouts to feed us information,” the titan said confidently. “Take us down enough to give us good cover and reconfigure shields for concealment. Don’t take us too far down…” she added as a caveat. The Kvash were proving to be very skilled in the ways of the Star Force naval division, but they were all young and relatively inexperienced, hence she’d gotten used to giving additional orders that a veteran crew wouldn’t have needed, for they’d understand the circumstances and know what to do and how to carry it out without her babysitting them.

  On top of the triangular wedge that was the Kvash battleship, two small pieces of it detached and accelerated away as the ship headed in closer to the star, eventually sinking in so close that external visuals were pointless. The glowing white mass eclipsed the view with the stellar winds impacting the shields and causing disruptions that interfered with normal sight through them, as well as other forms of sensors, but the data link from the two drone scouts was holding steady. That wouldn’t last as they got farther away, meaning they’d need a relay.

  “Comm buoy,” she ordered. “Set it before we’re in too far.”

  The Kvash crew didn’t bother acknowledging her orders, choosing simply to carry them out with as much speed and efficiency as they could manage and the bridge was full of the stubby little guys. She was the only Human on the entire ship, but Ellie wasn’t it’s captain. She was acting commander of the Kvash navy when Paul was away and was personally doing the handholding necessary for the most advanced naval crew the little subfaction had to offer. A lot of them had already seen action in the lizard war prior to this assignment, others had come straight from intense training exercises, but all of them were well below par compared to other factions within the empire…though they were learning fast.

  Ellie watched the hologram as it stayed up to date as much as the laggy signals from the scouts could manage. As they traveled out and through the star system they turned up empty worlds while the Star Destroyer-class battleship just sat and cooked in near the star. No signs from the lizards indicated that they’d detected their arrival, for they’d had no assets in stellar orbit, and their fleet was still sitting in the same place. Right over top of what updated sensor analysis showed was an already well established colony on the surface…or rather two, the Archon saw, as more data came in from afar. It was skimpy, but Star Force had long ago learned to make a lot off a little spec of light or radiation.

  The lizards were here, building in a system that existed on the border line between the coreward lizard empire and Star Force territory, though there were no assets anywhere close. Technically this region was unclaimed, but ‘The Line’ ran through it heading up to the edge of the galactic plane, and Star Force had self-assigned patrol duty long ago which now the Kvash were helping out with rather than sending the little rocks out to the Rim Region. The lizards were a known threat, and not that much of one now, so it made sense to free up more experienced troops to head out while giving these guys some badly needed experience patrolling The Line.

  Though it seemed they were going to get more than that this time. The lizards knew where the border was, for Star Force had made that knowledge public, and they’d learned long ago that the lizards had ears inside the ADZ. That meant they knew and they were poking in experimentally to see what would happen…with the outcome being a well scripted one by this point. Ellie’s mission was clear, and the Executor had more than enough firepower to deal with this small invasion all by herself.

  But the Archon wanted to know the full amount of enemies insystem before she engaged, for there was no backup here, not even a relay to call for help with. The larger ship class in development would contain a mobile one, shorter than the sedas’ but capable of reaching specific relays spaced along the line. The battleship she commanded wasn’t big enough to carry it and everything else, even though it was some 3 miles long. That was far smaller than most sedas were nowadays, and in truth the Executor was a medium sized ship at best.

  It was the largest the Kvash had at the moment, as far as warships went, and this was the flagship of their patrol fleet with some 13 other identical vessels out patrolling assigned routes. She’d picked up a tip about lizard ship movements and come here directly, which was becoming their normal routine. Whenever there was a call they’d go in, leaving the other ships to continue standard patrols, and while the lizards weren’t making any grand pushes into The Line they certainly weren’t respecting it, giving her Kvash a decent amount of combat missions to learn from as they detected and pushed back the encroachments in their designated piece of the giant wall puzzle.

  When the scouts reached the backside of the main planet they didn’t get close enough to engage the lizards, but they did get close enough that they were detected and the beehive of ships began to move. There was nothing on the backside save for a single shipyard with a pair of cruisers docked to it with Ellie immediately recognizing it as a waystation…meaning there were probably other lizards past The Line that were branching off of here. This particular shipyard wasn’t large enough to produce cruisers on its own, but could handle repair work on them.

  She wondered exactly what they were playing at, but when she got back within comm range of the network grid she was going to report in and request a heightened scrutiny of this region. If the lizards were putting down some bases nearby they needed to find them before they could get a good underground foothold and disappear. But for right now they had an immediate job to do, and it was time to get moving.

  “Captain, bring us out and to the jumpline for the planet. Get the drone pilots to their stations, but don’t release the ships unless I give the order. We should be able to take these guys without risking them, though we may need to chase down stragglers if they run.”

  The Kvash rattled off orders to his crew as the external view began to change. The static on the shields protecting the Star Destroyer diminished and the black sky returned along with their own sensors.

  “Mark retrieval of the comm buoy as a priority prior to leaving the system,” she added as the ship accelerated hard to the jumppoint. The lizard ships were chasing after the scouts and not even getting close to catching them, but it was typical aggressive lizard philosophy and a good way to discourage people from snooping around, but it was altogether stupid to do against Star Force.

  When the star destroyer accelerated into its jump the sensors went wonky but the view straight ahead was still decipherable. The compressed signals could still be made out with some computer rework and as such Ellie could still see some of the lizard ship positions, with the lag diminishing quickly into what became r
ealtime sensors when they braked against the planetary gravity well and the peripheral scans came back.

  “Begin transmitting surrender offers and repeat automatically in 3-5 minute randomized intervals,” she said as she stood again and walked up next to the hologram of the planet with tiny little glowing lights of ship locations within arm’s reach in front of her. They looked like Christmas lights to some people, but to her it was just an easy challenge to overcome. For the Kvash, though, it was a hard mission and they were glad she was here despite all the advanced tech they were carrying.

  Most notable was the Nash’ti reactor that ate up some 18% of the inner hull space, which was insane, but it also provided insane power. The weapons on this single ship were the equivalent of an entire fleet of drones back in the day, and that wasn’t even counting the ones they carried, which was good because Ellie didn’t have squat with her. Between the scouts and the two troop transports, all she had was 3 cutters and a corvette as far as warships went, and they were all the hexagonal tube shapes that the Kvash sported, currently racked into external docks on top of the ship along with the rest of the extra naval craft.

  The star destroyer was designed as a do-it-all vessel and wasn’t a true carrier jumpship, though it did serve that function and could hold a lot more drones if it was to extend its shielding and IDF and turn into a big fat tick of a ship, which Ellie knew was important in some situations, but the Executor had to remain mobile in others and the current design fit that description well, for it didn’t even seem to notice the extra weight it was carrying around on the back half of the top of the wedge, covering the wide part like a bunch of packages on top of a horse.

  All other external surfaces were still exposed, armored, and bristling with weapons to soak up the massive amount of power provided by the reactor, so there was no reason to hesitate once they hit orbit.

  “Pursuit course,” she ordered, touching one of the dots representing a lizard jumpship to highlight it, then left the specifics to the helmsman. “Best speed.”

  With a thought she interfaced with the telepathic Archon controls, something the rest of the crew were oblivious to, and brought up a diagram of the Executor to her left that marked every drone it carried and every weapons battery. If any of them took damage she could see it here instantly, but with the power of the Nash’ti and the strength of their shield generators they shouldn’t even see a scratch on the hull unless something went horribly wrong.

  All around her on the bridge the Kvash worked their consoles and she could feel their anxiety, but Ellie felt none. This was a tiny engagement compared to what she’d been involved in in the past, but to them it was new and dangerous and totally beyond their capability to condense down to the simple mechanics. They were afraid, not realizing that the outcome was basically over with before the battle engaged. That wasn’t arrogance on Ellie’s part, just a side effect of experience. Being able to see how a battle would play out before it happened. And it was something that none of these Kvash were able to comprehend yet.

  But as much as they were afraid, they were honed into their tasks. Their fear made them work harder, not flail around in a panic, and she appreciated that about their race and Paul’s choice to advance them so rapidly. The potential he saw in them was beginning to creep out in these patrol missions, and they were having to do it all without other Kvash to pattern themselves after, or even veteran crews from other factions. Paul had made a decision that it would be Clan Saber only directing the Kvash and only Archons at that.

  What his reasons were she wasn’t totally sure, for he’d just said to trust him on that when she’d asked. That usually meant he was playing a hunch, and her gut told her there was some aspect of the Kvash he wanted to develop on its own and patterning off others might suppress it. He hadn’t confirmed that, but the way these guys went into agitated ‘hive mind’ mode was curious to say the least. They weren’t telepathic, but when pressed into combat they seemed to be made of one will, a single cell in a body that was this ship…and that body was just about to come under attack.

  So the fear was natural, though a waste from her perspective. At least it’d give them something else to gain experience from.

  When the ship came within weapons range Ellie began tapping on targets, mainly the cruisers escorting the jumpship, but she also targeted several spots on the big ship for specific weapons to hit. Star Force had so many weapons systems built at this point it got confusing for the Kvash, so Paul had decided to refer to them in shorthand and let the details soak in later. The star destroyer’s weapons were therefore split into beams, pulses, anti-air, slugs, and gel despite what model or even what type of weapon they were, and with more advanced ones coming out regularly even the tiny Kvash fleet now had different ships with different weapons systems, so Paul had decided to focus on their role in combat rather than their V’kit’no’sat names and their technical variations.

  Ellie tagged the top two of four big beams for the first jumpship, with them firing off and punching right through its shields on the first hit. Both beams converged at relatively the same point, spot overloading the shields there and punching into and through the armor, then killing one of the ship’s gravity drives, making it a bit slower but not stranding it. More beams targeted specific spots on the hull, trying to knock out as many as they could but failing to stop the ship before it jumped out on an irregular jumpline simply to escape.

  The cruisers didn’t go with it, nor did the other jumpship. It was a combat carrier, not the cargo version she’d just tried to snipe down, and it had about as much weaponry on it as 20 of the cruisers and a lot more mass to soak up hits with. The cruisers formed around it to make their stand, ignoring the offers for surrender as typical, so Ellie didn’t hold back save for the slugs. Those were railguns and missiles with physical ammo, and there was no point in wasting them here.

  When the star destroyer came within medium range the pulses began to fire out spurts of energy along with the big beams, tearing through cruiser shields with two or three hits each. The lizards didn’t stand a chance, but they ran right into the Star Force buzz saw with two of them making last second microjumps into the Kvash ship…but they were stopped cold by dampener shields, then the close range weaponry turned them into expanding balls of confetti.

  The battle didn’t last long, but it did take a while to tear apart the jumpship. It wasn’t totally destroyed, but Ellie tried to kill as much of the crew as she could so they didn’t linger and die much more distressful deaths, but eventually she’d need to send over a safing crew before they towed and dumped the ship into the star…and they weren’t going to do that with a chance of even a mouse being still alive onboard.

  When the carnage was over she ordered the ship clear of the debris, then knew it was time to go hunting for the other jumpship before it could leave the system.

  “Release all drones save for the transports. Intercept protocols. Get that jumpship pinned and pound it to death, using lag protocols,” she added, making it a bit harder by keeping the Executor in planetary orbit, but not expecting the lizard ship to be able to get underway regardless. This was battle, but if she could tweak the way they went about it, it could double as additional battlefield training as well.

  The hologram of the star destroyer shot off little pieces from the top-mounted racks until most of the upper hull was exposed. The racks themselves then began to retract all the way up to where the two transports were docked, though not for long.

  “Ready for ground assault,” she ordered. “How’s the surface looking?”

  “No signs of anti-orbital guns, Archon.”

  “Good. We caught them early then…or they’re just not wasting resources on defenses that won’t stop us. Any response to surrender?”

  “Negative.”

  “Keep transmitting. We’re going to bombard the cities one at a time, and if they still don’t surrender we’re going to wreck everything then send in Axius to mop up. If they do so much as respond t
o a transmission just to cuss us out I want to know immediately,” she said, starting to tag targets on the surface while simultaneously selecting an orbital position from which to begin the bombardment from.

  “Helm, new coordinates. Take us there after we drop a probe in the debris. Program to search for survivors and keep a feed on it. If it goes dark I want to know this time,” she said, referencing a prior mission when one was caught by an exploding chunk of ship. It had been accidental and not an enemy attack, but no one had noted it until some 12 minutes later. If something like that happened in another faction’s navy it would raise a red flag immediately, and that was something these guys had to get into a habit of doing on reflex rather than thinking through task lists.

  She watched as the drones jumped off on their own pursuit courses, knowing that they’d be operating on built-in protocols as well as engagement orders given to them from the pilots, for with the lag they couldn’t fly them directly. It was going to be another real life test of their skills, though with the wounded jumpship’s speed being reduced so much it should still be an easy kill.

  With her monitoring that soon to be engagement peripherally, Ellie turned her attention to the shipyard and all the intel the two scouts were giving her on it. Was it a repair station? And what exactly was it expecting to repair? Star Force didn’t leave them in big enough pieces to put back together, so were they fighting someone else out here?

  Relevant questions that someone else was probably going to have to investigate and answer, but if she could get anything out of their apparatus here she would before moving on to the next hot spot. This was a combat mission after all, not a babysitting expedition. The Kvash needed experience, and there were plenty of others that preferred the more quiet work of running an empire that could handle investigation and low key patrols. The Kvash were built for naval war…that she now agreed with Paul…and Clan Saber wasn’t going to waste them on mundane duties, no matter how green they were.