Star Force: Shiva (SF98) (Star Force Origin Series)

  1

  April 17, 3602

  Solar System

  Earth

  Sweat dripped from Rio’s hair, pooling on the floor in front of where he stood, arms spread wide as two wall segments on either side of him in the middle of a large training area tried to press in on him. If he let them get within touching range then he would fail the challenge, as he’d done many times before, but he didn’t intend to today. He’d upped the pressure on the walls 3 months ago, higher than any other Archon had ever achieved, and he’d completed the 1 minute mark 7 times already over the past 3 days, but this time he was going to go to the breaking point at half pressure and see just how strong he really was.

  Right now he was at 21:28 and his head was awash with ambrosia depletion, but he kept the Jumat energy flowing off of each arm, feeling like his body was a sponge he was trying to squeeze the last bits of water out of, but so far the walls were still being held back. A side effect of the prolonged Jumat use was an insanely high body temperature, making him wonder if the designers of the psionic ever intended for it to be used in such a way. He could easily have added his Lachka to help push back the walls but that would be cheating…and the Lachka wouldn’t help much, for as far as physical pressure went Jumat was far superior, even if more uncontrollable.

  It felt like Rio had two giant firehoses that he was aiming at either wall, and while there wasn’t much kickback to him launching the energy it had enough kinetic impact that there was a vortex of moving air all around him as the energy waves dragged it towards the walls, but it was calm enough directly in front of him to allow his sweat droplets to fall more or less in the same place. He watched them travel as his mind focused on maintaining the effort, and the larger the puddle grew the more successful he was, but he knew he didn’t have much left. Now that the ambrosia had been sucked out of his bloodstream there wasn’t enough resources in his body to recharge the Jumat tissue enough to maintain the continuous effort…but he was going to hold on for at least a few more seconds and see what total ambrosia depletion really felt like.

  Rio never got that far, for inside the sanctum an alarm sounded throughout every chamber. In fact it sounded throughout Atlantis and every other city on Earth, and Rio knew it was also warbling across every planet and facility in the star system, as well as traveling out through the relay grid to every bit of Star Force territory. It was the Red Alert sound from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and that particular sound had been reserved by the Archons for one and only one use within their empire.

  It meant the V’kit’no’sat had returned.

  Rio jumped forward, abandoning his challenge and letting the walls smack together behind him as he sprinted for the door, his fatigue being partially overridden by an adrenaline surge the likes of which he’d never experienced before.

  This was it. It had finally happened. And for all the advancements they’d made over the past 16 centuries they still hadn’t fully caught up to the V’kit’no’sat’s level of technology, meaning that the fight that was about to, or already broken out could very well be their last…but this is what he and the other trailblazers had been preparing for their entire lives. This was the reason why Davis had commissioned them in the first place. This was the reason Star Force existed, and now it was time to see how much of a fight they could put up.

  When Rio got outside that particular training chamber he didn’t slow down, running through the sanctum’s corridors along with other Archons popping out of rooms everywhere, for they all knew what that alert meant and they needed to get to their armor and any other stations needed for battle. Rio raced past them, with the Archons sensing he was coming and stepping aside to let him through. When he got to the sanctum doors and out into Atlantis he saw other people scrambling about while some looked around wondering what was happening, for not even in their capitol city did everyone know of the secret of the V’kit’no’sat.

  And everywhere across Earth the same was happening, with those in the know dropping whatever they were doing or rousing out of bed and running hard for wherever they could do some good while the rest of the population heard the klaxon without knowing what it meant, for it was coming over every comm and vid channel simultaneously for a full 10 minutes before the civilian channels reverted to normal and others followed at intervals, but Rio made it to Atlantis’s control room before the red alert in the corridors had ended.

  “Where are they?” he all but yelled as he sprinted into the center of the room, looking at the main holo.

  “Mastodon System, Ninja Monkey territory,” Chad-913 said, having been on station when the alert came in. “They’ve been live streaming their battlemap data, and the V’kit’no’sat fleet is still massing at the jumppoint.”

  “Put it on the main,” Rio said, with the Solar System map suddenly being replaced by a far less populated one…but one with V’kit’no’sat ship markers and the first updates on their nemesis since the Rit’ko’sor rebellion.

  “No new ship variants,” Chad added, “but this isn’t a factional fleet. We’ve already noted 17 different races and…oh shit.”

  Rio didn’t bother to ask him what he was referring to, for at that same moment a much larger V’kit’no’sat ship emerged from its jump.

  “Mach’nel,” Rio said grimly. “At least they’re not underestimating us. Who’s commanding that system?”

  “Baron Rylain and the highest ranking Archon is presently Pila-388423,” an analyst answered.

  “They can’t stand up against a few of those ships,” Chad all but spitted. “I hope she cuts and runs.”

  “Bring all naval fleets within the system to full readiness,” Rio ordered. “I need full crews inside of 12 hours and a manifest rundown.”

  “13th, 27th, 28th, and 67th fleets are already on standby and fully stocked.”

  “I need more than that,” Rio said, pointing out the obvious. The biggest difference between Star Force and V’kit’no’sat warships was the size. Zen’zat were small compared to most of their races, and because of that they tended to build really big warships. Their standard battleships massed three times what a standard Star Force jumpship did, easily making them the equivalent of more than 1000 drones. Even the smallest ships arriving so far, which was their Wur’ki-class skirmishers, were on average 2.7 miles wide/long despite the various designs. In contrast, Star Force’s largest fleet drone was a battlecruiser that massed half as much.

  The only way to beat them, even if tech level wasn’t an issue, was to mass numbers and go lizard on them. Taking less than 50 times their number was an invitation to suicide, and Rio was very glad that Star Force used drones rather than manned warships for the most part. This was looking to be bloody enough as is, but sending crews to their deaths against heavily armed and shielded V’kit’no’sat warships was not something he ever wanted to do. Throwing drones against them and losing the number that they had in simulations was bad enough.

  And there was no way of knowing how much more powerful they’d gotten over the past millennia until they opened fire on the system defenders in Mastodon and they got some data to analyze.

  But that wasn’t to happen, for as Rio was organizing a good portion of the Mainline fleets guarding Sol for deployment and sending out coordination orders to the surrounding systems, the attack in Mastodon never happened. The V’kit’no’sat ships held position at the jumppoint until the last of their 10,488 number arrived…a fricking huge fleet compared to their normal deployments even without the Mach’nel…then they began to transition around the star, passing the jumppoint for the nearest planet as Rio got a call.

  “Archon, you’re request
ed to link in,” one of the control room staffer’s said, walking up to Rio and addressing him in person, for saying ‘Archon’ in a room full of them was not very efficient, “by Ethan-014.”

  “I know his number,” Rio said with a hint of sarcasm that his face didn’t show. He’d been laser focused since the red alert had sounded and it didn’t look like that mojo was going to crack any time soon. He walked a few steps to the left and found a small crystalline orb rising up from the ground on a very thin rod, making it look like a waist-high lamppost. With his eyes still on the tactical situation in Mastodon, though time lagged by about 3 days, he put his hand on the orb and suddenly his mind was connected to the entire Sol comm network, but the most prominent mind within it was also on the planet, though in a different city, meaning there would be no appreciable lag…save for those with Sav that could detect even the tiniest of fluctuations.

  So it’s finally happened, Ethan said through the computerized mental link.

  Looks that way, but I’m starting to think they’re not hitting Mastodon.

  My thoughts too. I’d bet they’re heading somewhere else and don’t even bother to attack. Typical superiority complex. Did you see the decel statistics?

  No.

  Extremely high speed. Either their gravity drives have improved far beyond expectations or they’re in a big hurry.

  Going where though? Rio asked as he simultaneously accessed archived data, specifically V’kit’no’sat records from the pyramid detailing trade routes.

  Maybe they don’t know we’re in Mastodon, Ethan suggested. That could explain why they’re not attacking.

  That is a possibility, but Mastodon was on one of their original trade routes.

  That connects to where…

  Give you one guess.

  Ethan quickly checked for himself, but Rio could sense his confusion through the brief silence that followed.

  There are no colonization ships, he finally said. If they’re coming to reclaim Earth and don’t know we’re here, their fleet composition makes no sense.

  And if they do know we’re here, why are they bypassing our colony in Mastodon?

  Exactly.

  The Nexus?

  Doubtful. More likely they just ignored the small colony while going straight to our heart.

  Depends on what intel they’ve got and where it came from. There’s a lot of other systems between Mastodon and here for them to hit.

  Reesi?

  Maybe. Something about this still feels off. We’ll have some idea if they take an outgoing jumpline. They might just be doing a lap around the star to take a look at everything.

  Easier to just split your fleet.

  I hope for Mastodon that they are just passing through. At least the others up the line will have some warning. And I don’t want to take a fleet towards them only to pass them in transit.

  How much do you want to strip from here?

  Enough. We can’t lowball this or we’ll get torn apart for sure.

  Word. You note the new paint scheme on the Era’tran ships? Ethan asked.

  Kill markers?

  Those aren’t standard.

  It took Rio a moment of study before he made out the symbology, then it became obvious.

  Raptor kills.

  And from the looks of it, these are very accomplished troops…for the Era’tran anyway.

  Where are you bastards going? Rio asked, with him and Ethan carrying on a sporadic mental conversation even as Rio continued to send out direct orders to Sol and received back status intel, some of which Ethan helped to work on. They were the only two trailblazers in Sol, but there were a few others in the Star Force Core Region that could meet up with them if they could ascertain a destination point for the V’kit’no’sat fleet…assuming this was the only one coming. They couldn’t ignore the possibility that they were about to get hit in multiple locations.

  Then the fleet in Mastodon began jumping out, with both Rio and Ethan releasing a big sigh of relief, for Morgan’s troops in that system wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  They’re jumping for Taail, Ethan noted, which was the next stop on the old trade route that linked out to only one point on the old V’kit’no’sat frontier…and that was Sol. I think it’s safe to assume they’re headed straight here.

  Yeah, but that doesn’t meant they can’t stop off and do some shooting on the way. Clear the road for me, will ya?

  Sure. What are you up to?

  We know which jumpline they’ll be entering on.

  Yes we do.

  So get Schwartz to block all traffic outgoing on that jumpline so I can set up the Slip’n’slide.

  Ethan thought about that for a moment. I guess there’s no chance of them stopping by just for a chat, is there? What’s your minimum ETA?

  Just working on that. Something between 12 and 16 days.

  Let’s assume 8. Our ships coming in from Schwartz are all the new models thanks to the distance, the slowest of which will take 6 days to get here. That’s cutting it pretty close.

  Have Schwartz send a confirmation message when they shut it down. I’ll get the pieces in position while you handle everything civilian. Clear the skies buddy.

  Will do. I hope Roger isn’t too far away.

  Same here, Rio said, breaking his link and deciding to talk to his control room staff rather than working through the interface, for not all of them were linked into it.

  “Listen up,” he said loudly enough to get all 300+ people’s attention. “Best guess is the V’kit’no’sat are headed straight here. Mastodon to Taail is the old trade route they took to get here, and it seems they’re using the same star charts. Hopefully they keep ignoring everyone they pass on the way, but regardless I’m betting this is their final destination, so amend the orders to the local fleets and get them ready for system defense. If the V’kit’no’sat want to come here, let them. This is where we can hurt them the most. Put out a call for all available reinforcements from roaming fleets, but do not strip assigned defenses from the surrounding systems. This may not be the only assault or that fleet could split up to go against multiple targets. We have to consider that, but my gut says they’re coming straight here.”

  “So I want all stellar Sentinels moving towards the Schwartz jumpline. We should have at least 8 days, so don’t waste a minute. Those fat bastards are going to be hard to get in position, so get them moving ASAP. Gauntlet formation along the lower end of the line. Open up warehouses 53 through 78 and get the Slip’n’slide pylons out. Work out the best position on the line beyond the Sentinels. The idea is to cluster them where they will end up, and I want best to worst simulations assuming 50% increase in gravity drive power. Don’t wait on the Sentinels, get them moving and as many free jumpships pushing them along as possible. Leave planetary Sentinels in place, but move any outer ones that mathematically can make it inside of 8 days.”

  “Ethan is handling civilian relocation, but we need to evacuate all stations in stellar orbit or they’ll be target practice. I don’t want anything manned down there.”

  “What about the Star Forges?” Chad asked.

  “They’re not going to be in stellar orbit. When the V’kit’no’sat arrive they’re to descend and hide.”

  “They won’t know how long to stay down there if they go deep enough to avoid scans.”

  “Then they stay down there until they have to resurface. I don’t want to lose them, and if we evacuate…check that. Get everyone off but a minimal crew, then they’ll take them down the moment the first ship is detected.”

  “What about the Earth orbitals?” another Archon asked.

  “Ethan will take care of evacuating those, but start making arrangements for the people on the surface. Get me Arch Duke Vectir.”

  “He’s been waiting at your convenience,” a staffer said.

  Rio placed his hand back on the sphere and linked in, taking control of the comm system and activating a portion of the hologram in front of him to display the M
onarch’s image.

  “What’s the situation?” the man asked stoically.

  “You’ve been watching the live feed?”

  “I have.”

  “I think they’re going to bypass everything and head straight here, coming in through Schwartz like they used to.”

  “That thought crossed my mind. What do you need me to do?”

  “We’re going to have to evacuate the orbital population to the surface of all planets, and the more civilian help we get the better.”

  “I’ll make sure people make room and conscript as many vessels as needed. Would you like me to tell them or would you prefer keeping them in the dark?”

  “No need for a history lesson, just let them know a new enemy from coreward is coming here to knock on our door and they need to get beneath the planetary shields.”

  “That should do. Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing that we’re not already handling.”

  “I’ll stay out of your way then. How much of a chance do we have?”

  “With everything we have here, we can beat them with their old fleets. How much they’ve improved and how much collateral damage they want to make are the pertinent questions…not to mention how close their reinforcements are when they realize we’re not pushovers.”

  “Collateral damage?”

  “Meaning do they want to fight our troops directly or bypass them and start messing up planets. If we have to spread out to defend real estate then we can’t group up as much as we need to and things will get even more messy.”

  “Let’s hope they’re as arrogant as their reputation states. And if not, I’m sure you can arrange a few pertinent insults.”

  “If only it were that easy. Get everyone nice and cozy beneath the nearest planetary shield and we’ll try to keep this fight in space.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “At minimum 8 days. Probably considerably more.”

  “That’s a lot of people to get down to the surface in 8 days, but it’s doable. I assume you don’t want the Galactica project activated for this?”

  “Not unless we can’t evacuate the orbitals without it.”