Star Force: Relocation (SF44)

  1

  May 2, 2470

  Pagalis System

  Varasiss (Calavari Capitol)

  Kamalat sat at a gunnery station onboard the Calavari cruiser firing his plasma cannon at the sea of Cajdital ships nearby, picking a spot his bridge weapons officer tagged for his battery to hit and firing large golden plasma orbs into the enemy’s yellow/tan hulls as fast as the weapon would cycle. He couldn’t see what was happening elsewhere, nor how his own ship was faring…only his narrow view from the gunnery station, but he could tell that the Cajdital fleet wasn’t returning fire on the other Calavari ships nearby.

  The ship he was firing on was throwing plasma ahead of it, nearly hitting the other Cajdital cruisers stacked in together so tight he felt like he was looking at a school of fish in a green river…a river that led to the Kvash starbase guarding the Calavari planet. Though Kamalat couldn’t see it, none of the Cajdital ships were shooting at the other Kvash vessels, nor the Calavari, or the Hycre, or the Bsidd, or the Scionate, or the Nabboni, or any of the other Alliance races with ships present to defend the system.

  The Cajdital were ignoring them all and heading straight for the massive starbase and hammering it with the combined plasma from over 2,000 cruisers as more were continuing to enter planetary orbit and flood towards the massive warship/station. The rest of the Alliance fleet, like Kamalat’s cruiser, were getting free shots on the Cajdital and tearing them up, with his cannon finally finding hull after the shields went down. The enemy ship moved off somewhat as it outpaced the Calavari vessel, but his plasma hit the target multiple times, ripping into the hull plates along with other batteries, but his ship was the only one firing on that enemy vessel, for there were so many in play that the other Allied ships all had their own chosen targets with plenty to spare.

  More and more cruisers kept coming in, all of which headed for the starbase and continued to pound on its shields, with many not even making it within firing range before being destroyed. Those that did were taken down by the Kvash’s own impressive array of weapons, with their plasma streamers literally melting through the Cajdital cruisers and taking them out remarkably fast…but still they wouldn’t flee or target any other vessel. They just kept pounding the starbase until its shields eventually went down after some 800 Cajdital ships were turned into rubble.

  Neither Kamalat nor the rest of the system defenders could see it, but once the starbase’s shields were down special Cajdital cruisers began jumping in from the mass of contacts manifesting around the system’s central stars. The cruisers were identical to the others on the exterior, but they’d been refitted internally specifically for this invasion and the targeting of the starbase, which had such a high mass that even as its external weapon systems were being targeted and eliminated the ship itself was in little danger of being destroyed.

  The huge ship would survive to the end of the battle, and if it didn’t escape it’d have to be picked to death by the Cajdital, whose plasma cannons were pathetic compared to the size of their target. They knew that going into the engagement, but thousands of pathetic weapons could add up to sufficient power…enough at least to take the shields down.

  Kamalat saw explosions ripping across the starbase’s hull, but from the distance he was at they were tiny distortions compared to the huge mass that filled most of his screen whenever the Calavari cruiser had its right flank towards the allied ship/station. As he continued to fire on the ships designated by the weapons officer he noticed larger explosions beginning to hit the starbase, enough to wonder what was going on, for they were larger than the Calavari ships, though in comparison they were still small against the starbase’s silhouette.

  He would never know what happened, but some of the Cajdital ships, the ones specially modified, were ramming the Kvash starbase loaded up with explosives. The physical impact alone was usually enough to damage, if not penetrate the hull, then the detonation would rip apart the interior, exposing it to the continual weaponsfire as it blasted out more sections of armored hull with it like a flower petal opening up.

  Still the massive ship didn’t die, for only the outer layers were affected with the approaches to the hangars being blocked by other Kvash ships, making the Cajdital take the hard way in…and so they did. Over the hours that followed the Cajdital pounded the starbase with thousands of cruisers, regular and modified, literally throwing them away against the Alliance fleet in order to do damage to the behemoth.

  When they’d finally crippled the starbase, with large chunks of it detaching from internal explosions, the few Cajdital ships remaining suddenly withdrew. Kamalat hit several on the way out without his weapons officer’s permission, deciding to take advantage of the fact that there were so many of them in his area and just firing into the swarm until they’d passed.

  Seeming content with the damage they’d done, the Cajdital disappeared from planetary orbit, making microjumps away, either to the other planets or back to the stars where the fleet of Cajdital jumpships was still arriving and unloading more ships, now blind to the Calavari since they’d hunted down and destroyed the nearby sensor stations.

  What was left was a growing blob of vessels as seen from their more distant sensors coming in along a single jumpline. As Varasiss was the only inhabited planet in the system the Alliance fleet waited there, protecting the orbital installations and hanging close to the missile platforms littering low orbit and making for a significant deterrent to attack. It was the largest fleet in Calavari space, not even counting all the non-Calavari ships, which outnumbered the locals 8 to 1. The original defense fleet had been much larger, but over time those ships had been moved out to other battlefields, lessening the capitol’s defenses in order to supplement others.

  Now that there was little left but the capitol in the central region that had once been the heart of Calavari territory. Their warships had been returning to the one strongpoint they had left in the tattered remains of their once massive empire, adding to its defense as well as taking refuge along with the Alliance fleet, given that Calavari naval power was severely outclassed against the Cajdital.

  Their weaponry was still effective, which Kamalat was putting to good use. After the starbase was destroyed there were several hours of inactivity during which the alliance fleet redeployed, with his cruiser moving out to a position around the third of six moons, four of which were habitable. The Calavari had significantly colonized two of them, with smaller installations on the other four. All provided jump points, and as such they could reposition their ships in short order to elsewhere in planetary orbit to reinforce various positions in the blink of an eye…as well as denying the moons to the enemy.

  Kamalat didn’t know what the plan was, he was just a gunner, but he got a good view of the green moon of Radamal beneath him as he waited for the next attack, forgoing a shift change so he could stay on station longer. He stuck it out long enough for his body to start urging him to get some sleep, then when he was just about to call it quits and let the relief gunner take his position Cajdital ships began jumping into the moon’s orbit.

  This time they shot back, and a pitched battle broke out in orbit between the Calavari fleet, supplemented by two Kvash cruisers on station with them, and another wave of Cajdital cruisers. Kamalat’s ship was so busy dealing with the enemy around them that its bridge crew failed to notice the much larger ship that entered elsewhere in planetary orbit a few minutes later.

  The Cajdital ship was massive, and unlike the yellow/tan hulls of the cruisers the invoker was colored dark black, so much so that it was almost lost against the star field aside from the pinpricks of light that it blocked out, forming an ominous silhouette with long, gangly arms that dove straight toward the d
ensest portion of the Alliance fleet…thousands of warships with the large Kvash battleships as centerpieces.

  No Cajdital cruisers or other ships accompanied it. They were jumping into the moons and engaging in battle there, sweeping the defenders away or at least keeping them busy as their monstrous chess piece jumped into the planet’s orbit and eased directly into the Alliance lines, eliciting multi-colored energy ripples from its numerous pylons. The energy seemed to defy shape and more or less arced from one point to another on the arms, but pushing out like a solar prominence in large loops.

  Those loops moved, but not in any tactical fashion, seeming to have a mind of their own as they extended out around the ship more than tripling its spherical radius. The Alliance ships that had closed within range were hit by the energy arcs, with the smaller hulls virtually vaporizing on contact.

  The larger ships interfered with the energy flows, creating distortions and gaps when they were hit and subsequently destroyed by the lightning storm of discharges that resulted from whenever an object hit the field, including Alliance missiles fired at the invoker. Some got through to hit the shielded hull, but those that ran into the energy likewise sent little lightning discharges out looking for something to touch. Some hit other missiles, some hit ships, but most arced off to pieces of debris, further pulverizing them in a massive display of destruction.

  The invoker kept moving, albeit slowly, pushing further into the Alliance fleet as their combined firepower fell on it…or at least as much as the Alliance could mount without firing into their own ships. The oblong fleet deployment bent around the ‘impact’ point, encircling the invoker even as it was chewing through their ships by the dozens per second. More and more firepower was poured into it and eventually some of it began to get through the invoker’s shields. That didn’t last long, for after only a light amount of hull damage the invoker reversed course, clearing the debris field it had created, and jumped away from the planet.

  The Alliance fleet was left in shambles, but still with a considerable amount of ships remaining. Those ships, however, were soon met with Cajdital cruisers jumping in to engage them, having come from the moons they’d already cleared/secured. Like several water faucets they poured ships into the growing engagement that formed up into organized packs hunting specific targets, all the while the Alliance fleet was in such disarray it nearly became a free-for-all defensive effort.

  Kamalat’s cruiser survived long enough to see the arrival of the first Cajdital battleships, which pounded the elongated Calavari warship until its shields went down, then it and several Cajdital cruisers tore apart the outer hull, taking his plasma cannon turret offline. When that happened his screen blanked and he knew his days were over, with him considering how many minutes, if not seconds, he had before the section of the ship that he was in either exploded or decompressed.

  He sat in his control chair, squeezing the gunnery controls in anticipation and summoning up a wave of anger at both the Cajdital and their treasonous allies in place of the courage that seemed to escape him. Muffled pops, hisses, and bangs were audible as parts of the ship were hit, but the air didn’t rush out of his compartment, and for what seemed like an eternity he waited for the end to come.

  Then suddenly a torrent of wind cut through the open doorway behind him and hit Kamalat with a blast of heated air so hot that it singed his skin where his uniform didn’t cover it. He flinched, but while the air thinned a moment later it didn’t completely disappear. With a roar partly of rage and partly of fear, he leapt out of his chair and turned to face the doorway, intending to die on his feet.

  The hot air continued to pelt his skin, then all of a sudden it stopped with one massive screech and the power went out. Suddenly he was floating free of the floor, no longer with any artificial gravity to hold him in place. He grabbed the back of his chair with his lower right hand and steadied himself, but no further explosions followed.

  Kamalat waited in his gunnery chamber for quite a while, floating in darkness before he finally became curious as to why the attack had stopped. Maybe the Cajdital had left the ship for dead, in which case there was a very slight chance that he might live another hour. He contemplated staying put and waiting or venturing forth, and decided that if he was going to die today that death was going to have to come and get him, he wasn’t going to sit and wait for it.

  Remembering the layout of the hallway beyond the door he pushed off and grabbed the entryway with all four hands, bracketing himself in place as he looked for any trace of light. He thought there was just a tiny haze down to his left when he suddenly heard a voice in the otherwise silent ship.

  “Hello? Is anyone out there?”

  “Yes,” another voice answered, and Kamalat pushed off gently in the direction of the sounds. He floated through blackness, keeping his four hands and two feet spread wide to act as bumpers, but it was eventually another hand that stopped him, planted on his chest.

  “Easy there,” a voice said, though he couldn’t see the speaker…nor anything else for that matter. “Head the other way.”

  “What’s to head to?” Kamalat asked as he spun about with the help of the hand and a nearby wall, though he was still floating about.

  “Aft section. I’ve got a comm link to people back there. Move it. That goes for everyone!”

  With a shove Kamalat was sent floating down the hallway until he brushed up against a wall and steadied his tumble, then he ran into the back of another person, but that actually helped to right himself with another source of leverage. Feeling around in the dark for the bulkheads and the Calavari in front of him, Kamalat and the others assembling behind made their way through corridors they couldn’t see, being led by whom he didn’t know, but gradually a bit of light filtered in, not enough to see by, but enough to start casting some slight shadows.

  It was enough to show him the fuzzy silhouette of the Calavari in front of him as they turned to the left and entered another passage. A few more intersections up and the light became heavier, allowing Kamalat to see where he was going, dim as it was. The line of Calavari was much larger than he’d thought, meaning more had survived…but why was the ship still intact? And were the Cajdital going to come back and finish them or leave them for dead?

  He got the answer to his question a few minutes later when he crossed into a powered zone, with his feet returning to the floor with the artificial gravity. From there he and the survivors from the forward sections were moved about in quick order, then shuffled to an armory where they donned their shield harnesses and weapons, plus whatever equipment packs they had available.

  Before Kamalat got up the courage to ask what was going on, for everyone around him was stone-faced with either fear or shock, both of which he was also feeling, he was led to a hull breach that shown as a wicked slash through a wall in a storage compartment, on the outside of which was daylight…not stars.

  To his dismay the others were jumping out the gash, though a few hesitated as they came up to it, but as soon as they got a look they proceeded to jump out, disappearing to the left. When Kamalat got up to the edge he also hesitated, not wanting to jump out into vacuum, then he saw a tilted forest landscape ahead of him…and he suddenly realized they had crash landed on the moon.

  He saw a descending rope attached just inside the gash and grabbed hold of it, stepping outside…with the gravity immediately pulling him to the left. He twisted his legs around and got them below him, then four-armed it down the rope until he got to the very distant bottom and landed on a mound of dirt that had been plowed out upon impact.

  Kamalat stepped aside and looked back up at the part of the cruiser that was sticking up out of the ground at a high angle. The screech he heard must have been the crash landing, but the inertial dampeners had held up so he didn’t feel the impact. The front of the cruiser was buried, and probably flattened, but everything not in the compacted forward sections would have been protected from the extreme deceleration, making Kamalat glad that his stati
on had been midway between the fore and aft, allowing him to survive.

  His personal quarters were in the forward section, meaning that if he had swapped out his watch with a replacement he’d probably be dead by now.

  “Hey, snap out of it. We’ve got supplies to sort and unload,” another Calavari said, coming up and lightly punching a fist into his chest. “You want to wait around for the Cajdital to come clean up?”

  “No. What do you need of me?”

  The other Calavari pointed to a small stack of crates that was being added to from a lower breach point that looked to be just above the dirt line.

  “Inside there is the cargo bay. Get in there and salvage what you can, but watch out for surprises. No telling what power conduits are live or not.”

  “On it,” Kamalat confirmed, trodding over the hot soil with his heavy footsteps making two inch imprints all the way up to the edge, where the ground turned from soil to a glassy, gnarled substance that was no doubt a result of the intense friction of impact.

  “Catch,” a voice said as a crate floated his way.

  Kamalat stepped inside to catch it, immediately feeling the gravity vanish, but he kept a hand outside the boundary of the still active IDF to center him. Where it was being projected from he wasn’t sure, but wherever it was that part of the ship still had power, otherwise everything would have been dumped forward rather than floating around…though he did see some jagged pieces of debris poking out from the forward wall, apparently having been driven through on impact.

  “Got it,” Kamalat said, grabbing hold of the supply crate with two arms while using his other two to leverage him and the foodstuff container outside and back into gravity. The transition was clunky, but he stayed on his feet and held the container against his chest as he carried it over and added it to the growing stash, then headed back to the torqued open doors of the cargo bay, happy to be alive and with other survivors, though how long that would last was anyone’s guess, but for the moment at least the Cajdital had more important things to do than inspect the debris of crashed ships when there was still a large Alliance fleet left in orbit for them to engage.