Star Force: Intransigent (SF100) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “I expected them to be more cautious with equal opponents, but I was wrong. When they get pushed they push back harder. Their dominance hasn’t made them soft. If not for battlemeld they would have wrecked us.”

  “They killed enough as is,” Sara said, referencing not only those involved in the battle here but the deaths the Zen’zat had racked up amongst the civilians and security forces they’d blown through to get this far into the Antarctic cityscape. “We’ve got a huge backline problem if they send units of this caliber in.”

  “I think these were the best they had. They were going for an infiltration of the pyramid.”

  “Agreed. What the hell were they thinking?”

  “Maybe they thought we wouldn’t fire through our own city.”

  “That was stupid of them…but we’ll take it. I don’t expect any gifts like that in the future. How long do you think we have?”

  “If Roger can’t destroy their fleet, maybe 6 months. If he can, I think they’d send a scout to check out what’s going on,” Rio hoped. “We might get a couple years that way.”

  “I bet they get at least one ship back.”

  “I never count Roger out, but I wouldn’t put credits on him getting them all either. You think they’ll come straight back here or hit our perimeter systems?”

  “Maybe both, but they’re not ignoring Earth. We beat them here, so this is where they will come first to undo their failure. Their collective ego won’t allow for anything else.”

  “I’m still worried about Morgan.”

  “Don’t be. She’ll be ambushing them as they transit here.”

  “Point, but her worlds are new and can’t match the defenses here…and they know what it takes to get through our planetary shields. They’re going to come back prepared.”

  “I know,” Sara said, wincing a little as she flexed her chest, testing the level of numbness. “What’s our next move?”

  Rio thought through that for a second, but no matter what ingenious ambushes they set up or how many summons they pulled down it wasn’t going to matter. Even if they destroyed the next assault fleet, and the next, and the next, the V’kit’no’sat would keep sending more from their nearly infinite empire until Earth and the rest of Star Force wasn’t just defeated, but completely erased from existence.

  There would be no surrender, no mercy, no negotiation. As they’d expected all along, the V’kit’no’sat were completely unyielding and there would be nothing that deterred them from eliminating the Zen’zat ‘abominations’ that existed in defiance of their edict. They’d even said as much directly, confirming long held assumptions and Puff’s prediction, with the combat here attesting to the fact that even when outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outgunned they were not going to surrender. They were going to fight to the last and take as many enemies with them as they could, even if negotiation would actually save their own people to fight another day.

  They were totally intransigent, and in light of that there was only one thing Star Force could do. They’d known it would come to this, and even as fiery and determined as Sara was, Rio could see in her eyes that she’d already come to the same conclusion.

  “Begin the evacuation.”

  Mass Effect 'Hold the Line' Speech

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  ***Note from the Author***

  The Origin Series has come to the end…but it is only the beginning of the Star Force franchise. The backstory covering the creation and origin of Star Force is now complete. The time period it covers is what I refer to as Phase 1. Phase 2 is the V’kit’no’sat War that follows, and the first entry into that phase will be three novels known as the Wayward Trilogy.

  The first book is titled Lost Destiny and will be released May 1, 2016. The Pre-order link is below.

  Star Force: Lost Destiny