Star Force: Divide (SF76) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  He might not be his Marquis anymore in title, but the relationship between the two had never ceased. His trailblazer needed backup, and the Arch Duke was going to send some of his own big guns into the fight rather than sitting on them here. He could build enough to replace them eventually, and it was better than Epsilon Eridani suffer that time lag than Paul did. They could afford it, barring something catastrophic, and if the lizard core worlds were going to throw their industrial muscle into this fight it seemed only fitting that Epsilon Eridani and Sol do the same.

  2

  December 12, 2938

  Gvaris System (lizard territory)

  Inner Zone

  Captain Moffis watched from his bridge command chair onboard Cradle 183 as they made the long, hard deceleration jump into the Gvaris System. It’d taken them long enough to get here from Epsilon Eridani, but this last leg had to be taken so slow it was almost painful. He blamed the lizards for that, because they were blockading the preferable jump points around the system’s star. With those out of the option bucket his cradle had to exit further out in a more difficult to reach location.

  His ship had no choice, for it was a speck attached to a huge Sentinel segment that was a dead weight until it was reactivated. Why they hadn’t been designed to at least help in the transit he didn’t know, but right now it sat within the cradle’s huge IDF field riding along without incident while the tiny ship did all the pushing necessary.

  Right now that pushing was a long braking maneuver against the star that had the glowing orb in front of him on the viewscreen growing rapidly in size. The closer they got the greater the star’s gravity affected them, offering them more pushing potential. Hit the lower altitudes and it was like slamming into a brick wall, but this far out they were only sniffing at the weak gravity and applying a lot of engine power to begin whittling off speed before they ran out of room.

  The math was predictable enough, but it had necessitated a slower than normal departure jump that led to a long coast phase that was just now coming to an end. Moffis watched as the star enlarged and changed color, then tiny dots appeared before it, zipping towards him like a swath of bugs that slowed down rapidly. They resolved themselves into warships, Star Force warships, that were blocking for their arrival as planned…but beyond that there was a sea of lizard ship icons just beginning to register on the cradle’s sensors as a priority move order was emblazoned on the tactical hologram beside the Captain’s chair.

  “Helm, make it quick,” he ordered his 9 person bridge crew. The entire ship only boasted a complement of 56, all of which were naval Regulars. That made it seem like a small time posting, but Moffis had had to spend some 236 years in the fleet to obtain a Captain’s slot, then another 54 before ranking up enough in experience points to get a cradle command. Likewise his crew were not rookies, but experienced vets. Some had combat records, but most were involved in the cargo shipping wing of the Star Force fleet.

  They all knew how to fight, both hand to hand and navally, but that was really backup training. The cradle only had one weapon, a compact cleansing beam that was more of a tool than anything else. It had been powered down since he had taken command of the craft, tucked away beneath decently armored hull plates for the rare occasion when it might be needed. If this ship had to fight then something was very wrong, for its sole purpose was to carry pieces of equipment too large to mount in a jumpship’s external docking slots.

  He’d carried small sedas around, cargo clusters, space stations, and picked up a few stranded ships from other races. The missions were varied, but they were always accompanied by a military escort to protect the cradle. It wasn’t a warship, nor a cargo ship, though it was a jumpship…and one that was all engines and IDF generators with a few shield generators thrown on for good measure. Right now they were protecting the cradle itself, but if necessary they could extend a very thin protective barrier around the entire Sentinel segment. Enough to protect against dust and debris, or as of a few seconds ago interstellar radiation, but in combat they were next to useless.

  Right now they were being constricted to the thick body of the cradle and its tendril-like arms that were the emitter pylons for the IDF holding the Sentinel attached without there being a physical lock. Small tractor beams within the arms bumped the mass around as needed, but were usually powered down. Once settled, the mass stayed put as if the cradle wasn't moving…which was the beauty of IDF.

  The downside was it was a power hog for something of this size, especially during the braking maneuver, which had drained the cradle’s capacitors down to 7% with them only now beginning to refill. 7% was enough to execute a microjump, which they had to do in order to get off the jumpline. To set up for it the cradle drifted a bit to the left as the helmsman ‘turned’ them away from the insane number of ships ahead that were lit up with a myriad of tiny blazes that were weaponsfire.

  But that wasn’t why they had a priority warning…a group of lizard cruisers were flanking the defenders and heading towards them. There were Star Force ships in pursuit, but they weren’t going to get to them in time.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “We’ve got incoming. “Make the jump now, I don’t care how slow it is.”

  “Almost in position,” the helmsman differed. “12 seconds.”

  Moffis grabbed the armrests with his hands, squeezing them tight as he watched the cruisers approaching. There were over a hundred of them, lessening by the second as the naval drones were picking at them from the flank with long ranged Keema strikes, but they were nearly up to the cradle when...

  There was a flash and several of them disappeared into hazy lines…then the Sentinel segment within the cradle’s grasp began to move out of alignment.

  “Lock it down. We have to jump now!”

  “Working on it,” another crewmember said as she used the tractor beams to get the huge mass settled inside the IDF. If even a piece of it drifted outside the field while they were accelerating it would tear the segment free of the cradle and take several of the arms with it.

  Just then another cruiser kamikaze rammed the Sentinel segment, propelling it a bit more to the left…but the crew were anticipating it and had cut the IDF completely, repositioning the cradle off center and catching the Sentinel chunk in its sweet spot again. As soon as the IDF snapped into place the approaching ships disappeared into streaks as the cradle made a slow microjump and out of harm’s way for the moment.

  “Damage?”

  “Looks like some armor breaches. We’re fine, but the Sentinel got gut punched.”

  “Is it operational?”

  “The armor took the hits with minor interior damage. I think it’ll be alright, and I’m crossing my fingers with regards to the interlocking components. One of the craters is practically on top of a swapping channel.”

  “Bring up the system tactical data,” he said, knowing that it was now dated and would remain that way until they slowed down. Their jump wasn’t fast, but it was still messing with the Doppler effect and that practically nixed any chance they had of deciphering the intricate comms security that Star Force used, though if they needed to transmit in the clear they could still do so for those targets ahead, which would then unravel the compression upon reception and get the data being sent.

  He’d only gotten a glance at it before, namely the far too many ships at their arrival point. This was his second trip here and the last one had been congested, but this was far more than he had expected. The lizards had been said to be ramping up their numbers, but unless they’d been laying in wait they should not have had that many ships that close to the jumppoint.

  But they did…and it wasn’t just at the jumppoint. There were lizards everywhere across the system in huge fleets, including another jumppoint a third of the way around the star where there was an active incoming convoy of their reinforcements. Moffis pulled up the time compression on that, seeing that they’d gotten data on the past two hours or so before making the jump, and the enemy convoy had bee
n spilling more jumpships into the system that entire time with no Star Force response.

  The fleet waiting to protect it was so thick with ships it would have been suicide challenging that, especially if they were willing to go kamikaze at the drop of a hat.

  Looking ahead to where they were going he realized it wasn’t to any of the planets, but rather a null point in the system that was going to require them to brake hard again. At least there were ample Star Force signals there and no lizards at present.

  “Do we have enough juice to pull a null burn?”

  “Yes,” the helmsman said. “Jumping out again will be dicey if we can’t stall a bit. We can do it, but it’ll put us into the danger zone.”

  “Understood,” he said, knowing that the ‘danger zone’ was a margin of error that ships were meant to avoid. Draining capacitors all the way would leave a ship unable to make all but the smallest of jumps if they ran into a situation where they needed to immediately move again, and he didn’t mean trolling around orbit. If the enemy was at your braking point you’d have to face them while waiting for a partial recharge, and in an all but defenseless ship like a cradle that meant you were as good as dead.

  Right now though he and his crew were in fleet hands, with multiple trailblazers in system to see that they got to where they needed to go. That gave Moffis some comfort, but pulling a null jump didn’t put him at ease. Little gravity on decel also meant little gravity on acceleration. The star was close enough to use in both directions, but unless your destination was on straight line trajectory you were going to have to heavily push/pull on laterals to compensate and that largely depended on the current location of the planets in their orbits.

  Looking at the map he saw that there weren’t any nearby. That made navigation difficult to get to that location, but then again that was probably the point, for the lizards would be hard pressed to get there in any ample numbers using the same techniques. The might be clogging the jumplanes insystem, but the null points would offer some temporary safety.

  When the cradle did finally decelerate to the rendezvous point it was met with a few hundred drones and one warship overseeing them, with Moffis getting back on the comm grid and his ship downloading more data directly from that warship in addition to picking up the active signals from around the system. He also got a navigational prompt from the warship indicating where they were supposed to go next once their capacitors were sufficiently recharged. Apparently this little fleet was meant to buy them some respite before sending them through the gauntlet again, for their destination was Planet 13, which was showing a massive lizard fleet holding its distance around a chunk of orbit outlined by some 18 Sentinels with overlapping fields of fire and a few other cradles and cargo ships sitting inside while the rest of the orbit tracks were essentially blockaded where there weren’t sedas.

  “Assembly area,” he said to himself. If they could get in there they’d be ok…but the lizards probably knew that as well, which was why they were physically blocking any direct jumps into the area. He was going to have to take them to a nearby jumppoint and run the cradle through with the help of an escort fleet and hope they didn’t get hit again.

  “We’ll go when we hit 16%,” he announced. “If we can make it here,” he said to his bridge crew, highlighting the position in orbit of the small planet, “we should be safe. I want enough juice to pull some bad-angled stops. If we take it slow we’re asking to get hit, and it’ll put our escorts in greater risk the longer we stay out there.”

  “So many,” the IDF operator said, seeing the half million cruisers around the one planet alone.

  “Space is big,” Moffis reminded her. “If you’re going to try and build a wall across it, you need a lot.”

  “Don’t suppose there’s a backdoor?”

  “If there was the other cradles probably took it and now it’s being watched. Looks like we’re going in the hard way. Inform the warship when we hit sufficient charge. Until then just hold position and wait, but put all shields on us. If we go down the Sentinel piece is ballistic and probably lost. It can take hits better than we can.”

  “We can’t take a ram,” the helmsman reminded him.

  “No, we can’t,” he agreed. “But we’re not the big fat target. Actually, spin us ventral side forward. Don’t let them get a shot at us from the front and request a ship or two to block us over top.”

  “Gladly,” the comms officer said, relaying the request. After that everyone just waited quietly until it was time to go…though by that time another cradle had jumped in near to them and was waiting through its own recharge period.

  “Alright people, cross your fingers and hold your butts. They know we’re coming,” he said, looking at the helmsman. “Jump.”

  A few seconds later they accelerated slowly for a microjump, but the ships outside disappeared within a second regardless and the tracking signals disappeared in the acceleration wash. Some 23 minutes later they decelerated into a wedge of drones that immediately fell back to surround the Sentinel segment while an even bigger wedge collapsed around them and pushed forward, getting some considerable distance on the cradle so they could engaged and take the hits plowing the path before the Captain’s ship and cargo came within weapons or ramming range.

  The lizard cruisers were far enough ahead that they looked like gnats, so many in number they formed waterfalls of ships that descended on the drones with a few tendrils getting through and heading for the cradle. The second line of defense ships intercepted them and took them out all the while the big mass was moved deeper into orbit headed for the ‘safe’ zone and having to pull heavily on a distant planet and one of the bigger sedas to get the necessary lateral tug to creep them into position. It was far too slow for Moffis’ liking, but with their cargo onboard the cradle always moved at a creep.

  He watched while his crew flew the cradle, seeing numerous drones destroyed to buy them their ticket into orbit. Dozens were taken out acting as blockers and stopping ramming cruisers with their deployed dampening shields intercepting them by the dozens. Then those ships engaged them at close range and the drones tore them apart, but more and more came in and a few got hit by kamikazes themselves. Star Force tech was superior, by far, but throw enough ships at you and eventually they’d hit your limit break and take you out.

  The lizards were spending an awful lot of ships trying to get at them, but the route they’d taken put most of their blockading fleet out of position. Moffis had probably been given a different route than the previous cradle had come through and that was the only reason they were making headway, for the lizard fleet was adjusting and pouring ships towards them with the second wave sending some behind the cradle to block for it as he’d requested when the chasers began to catch up with the slower mass of Sentinel that was about to make all this worth the effort if it could find its sister segments and link up.

  Their trip in wasn’t a clean one though. Two kamikazes got through from the rear, ramming the Sentinel chunk but hitting in places that hadn’t seen damage before, thankfully. They tore into the armor but didn’t do much internal damage, but then another three ships decelerated just shy of collision, dropping them inside the escorts.

  The three cruisers shot the Sentinel component with their phaser beams but did not hold position, for they were flying up and around it heading directly for the cradle. Fortunately the group of drones overhead reacted instantly and met up with them before they had a chance to pull a slow speed ram into the wispy ship, though three phaser bursts did his the cradle’s shields before the lizards were destroyed.

  “No damage,” his crew reported.

  Moffis nodded, blowing out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. This wasn’t over yet, but they’d just dodged a bullet…literally.

  The carnage continued all around them with the lizards losing so many ships they were laying down a trail of debris behind them that would block any further transits through this area, so it was a good idea to have the cradles
take different routes into the perimeter. Unfortunately a small, but hefty percentage of that debris was coming from Star Force drones. They were being thrown at the numerically stifling enemy to block for the cradle, with there being next to no chance of them all surviving. Thankfully Star Force didn’t have crews in the drones, otherwise this would have been a bloodbath.

  It certainly was for the lizards, but for Star Force it was just weapons being lost. Costly, but acceptable to get this precious cargo into the safe zone…which the cradle began to approach with the first Keema batteries from the Sentinel perimeter reaching out to swat cruisers from the black sky. Only a few at first, but the closer they got more Sentinels came within range and the lizards began losing the initiative. A few more made runs in and got some weaponsfire off at the Moffis’ cargo, but no more kamikazes made it through.

  Two were stopped just kilometers away, with the escorts that were left ahead of the cradle cycling back to the rear to catch any more coming in with their sail-wide invisible dampening shields. Like bugs getting stuck to a window, the kamikaze cruisers were prevented from getting to either the cradle or the Sentinel segment as the weaponsfire was getting so intense from the perimeter that he lizards were forced to break off their now pointless attack.

  The swarm of cruisers moved back as the Sentinels swatted more of them down, leaving the broken escort fleet to follow the cradle in past the perimeter where it then dispersed to other assignments with a few recovery ships coming out to pick up and deal with the damaged drones while Moffis carried his cargo into a point near the center where he was directed via waypoint.