Star Force Perseverance (SF81) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “If so much as a piece of debris floats within 10

  lightyears of this system I want to know immediately, I just don’t want to make

  a habit of checking surveillance reports myself.”

  “I’ll make you aware of anything that pops up, but

  thus far it’s pretty dead out here.”

  “I hope for our sake it stays that way. I can’t turn

  this place into Epsilon Eridani overnight.”

  “I’ll give you a week.”

  “Gracious of you,” the Count replied with equal sarcasm.

  “Though I suppose I should also inform you now that a detachment from Clan

  Sangheili is within the convoy. They have orders to establish a separate

  presence here, a pure startup of their own. I don’t know where that leaves your

  chain of command.”

  “Sangheili? Interesting, but not a problem. I’d been

  told you were in full command?”

  “I am, but you know how the Clans like to do their own

  thing.”

  “And Sangheili likes to be the first to jump the gun

  whenever possible,” the Archon said with some chagrin.

  “And you are what Clan?”

  “Clan Joanna. The rest of the Archons here are a mix

  with no official Clan function on this mission. May I ask who made the

  addition?”

  “The Director added it at the last minute before we

  left.”

  “Well then, no arguing that. He must have something

  good in mind.”

  “He always does. They have a padawan with them. Will

  she take lead or will you retain it? I can work either way, I just didn’t want

  to make assumptions.”

  “A padawan? No mage?”

  “No, but she’s already completed her apprenticeship.”

  “Baby mage then,” Klevin mewed. “If her duties are

  Clan specific then I’ll maintain operational command. If not we’ll figure it

  out. We don’t actually bicker about that sort of thing.”

  “Arm wrestle?”

  “No,” the Archon said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m

  glad there’s someone here now that’s stronger than me. It’ll give me a

  challenging sparring partner.”

  “If anyone other than an Archon said that I’d assume

  it was innuendo, but with you guys I know better.”

  The Archon smiled. “Sorry, Count. We won’t be helping

  you boost the population numbers…though others are doing an admirable job of it

  right now.”

  “A population surge request?”

  “No, I gave none. They’ve volunteered themselves to

  it.”

  Jeyron cringed. “It’s that boring out here, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t speak to that. My work is essentially the

  same everywhere I go.”

  “Diminished workforce?” Jeyron asked, knowing that if

  a lot of the female population were pregnant they’d be incapacitated for at

  least a short period of time.

  “Yes, but nothing too worrisome. Filling out the

  maturias sooner rather than later seemed more prudent, so I didn’t interfere.

  Most of the women are being responsible about it and taking breaks in between

  pregnancies, so we’re not losing whole chunks of population. They’re

  coordinating an alteration pattern on their own.”

  “Wise of them.”

  “They’re Star Force. Should you expect less?”

  “Perhaps not, but I’m also used to dealing with raw

  civilians who are less…insightful in their mating habits.”

  “We don’t have any raw civilians out here…save for the

  younglings.”

  “How far along is the first maturia?”

  “They’re 8 years old.”

  The Count nodded. “A good start then.”

  “I assume I can officially relinquish master builder

  activities?”

  Jeyron smiled. “I officially relieve you, Archon. You

  can get back to full training now.”

  Klevin bowed gratefully. “Much appreciated. I’ll meet

  you at the spaceport when you land and give you a proper tour.”

  “Looking forward to it,” the Count said as the

  transmission cut off…then he noticed the Captain giving him an odd look. “What?”

  “Mating habits?”

  “Sounds more professional than fucking.”

  “Sounds like something you shouldn’t need to worry

  about.”

  The Count shrugged. “Population statistics are

  something we have to keep our eye on.”

  “Is that what your interest in me has been then?”

  “Unless your trim figure is somehow hiding it, I don’t

  think you’ve chosen to go that route, so the answer is no. This trip has been

  unbelievably boring and you’re the one thing that has made it bearable, so

  thank you for that, Captain. I don’t know how you crewers handle these doldrums

  on a regular basis.”

  “Some of us prefer solitudes, and the Archons don’t

  seem to have your boredom problem.”

  “Training is useful, but for a Monarch we need to be

  active in a practical way.”

  “So ‘mating’ with me was just to keep you busy?” she

  asked with a rueful smile.

  “Busy no. Break up the boredom occasionally…yes.”

  “How flattering,” she said, neither offended or

  amused. “It seems you’ll have a lot more prospects to keep your attention down

  in the colony.”

  “Afraid not. I’m going to be too busy doing real work.

  I only let myself relax when I have nothing else to do.”

  “So now I’m ‘relaxation?’ A promotion of sorts, I’d

  imagine.”

  “And I was?” the Count asked, curious.

  “A feather in the cap,” she said honestly. “Never

  bagged a Monarch before,” she said with a devious smile.

  Jeyron made a ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ sound as he slowly shook

  his head, looking at her petite and trim figure as she sat in her Captain’s

  chair. “Oh the perks this job would have if only I were corrupt.”

  “Which is why Monarchs are virtually impossible to

  nail. You’re quite the score for me.”

  “If that’s what alleviates your boredom,” he said as

  he stood up and made ready to leave the bridge and the ship. “Have a dropship

  readied. I’ll be taking my leave of you and your ship now. Make sure to keep

  that feather properly fluffed and cockily displayed.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” she said honestly.

  “Likewise, Captain. Likewise,” the Count said, leaving

  the bridge to gather his belongings and head down to his new planet that the

  cargo fleet would be departing as soon as it had unloaded.

  Another bridge crewer threw the Captain a glance after

  the Count had left. “He doesn’t know about the scoreboard?” she asked.

  Jihadia shook her head. “No. I took it down before I

  plucked that feather. It’s going back up as soon as he’s gone.”

  The crew member smiled. “A Monarch, huh? Didn’t think

  any of us would actually get one of those. They’re as hard as getting an

  Archon.”

  “Archons are impossible,” the Captain stated flatly.

  “Anyone who claims to have don
e one of them is lying.”

  “What if they did them before they became an Archon?”

  Jihadia looked at her navigational officer, not ever

  having considered that possibility before. “Technically that wouldn’t count as

  an Archon, but it’d still be scoreboard worthy.”

  March 31, 3102

  Menchet System

  (lizard core)

  Tess

  Tavarini reached down with his armored mandibles and

  picked up yet another lizard body, throwing it over the railing to the pile

  below to clear the small area of cover behind a bulkhead on the walkway the

  Bsidd were holding. The last assault had nearly choked them out, leaving them

  with too many bodies and not enough room to put them. The next wave would be on

  them any second and he needed to get behind cover as much as possible, hence he

  and the others were chucking the warm corpses wherever they could.

  The walkway they were on was small, barely 8 meters

  wide, but it had a lot of nooks and openings into other areas, with a railing

  beside the bulkhead that opened to another larger promenade below. It didn’t

  connect to the upper level directly, and this damn lizard shipyard ring was a

  maze of connecting tunnels, ramps, and ladders. Almost all of the fighting was

  being conducted in small groups at extreme close range, with the lizards

  literally crowding out every available open space with a flood of bodies

  running at you and firing at pointblank range.

  Their rifles and pistols were annoying, but it was the

  det packs that were the biggest concern. They’d cornered many Bsidd over the past

  two months and blasted through their armor. A handful had died, but most had to

  be evacuated with mangled bodies. This type of fighting was different than he

  was used to, but at least the lizards couldn’t throw hundreds of phaser shots

  against your shields at once…but the downside was that you didn’t have anywhere

  to run when one of the little bomb carriers found his way through the others

  and ran up in your face.

  Hence every square meter of clear floor was precious,

  and as he grabbed another lizard body…or rather the upper half of one that had

  been cut in two with a plasma rod…he chucked it over the side ignoring the

  blood splatters on his armor. His shields were down on his mandibles for the

  moment, and the purple battle plates were already covered in lizard gore. It

  was something he’d gotten used to, barely even noticing now as his mind was

  focused on the next engagement.

  A ping on his battlemap told him that was going to be

  on them soon enough. Star Force had already managed to conquer and secure a small

  slice of the shipyard ring, but they were having to defend it on both sides

  across miles of interior terrain, both up and down, as the lizards poured

  combat troops up the elevator shafts from the planet’s surface and continued to

  send them against the invading troops.

  The promenade below was a battleground that had

  already been fought on and won, with the entrances, the main ones anyway,

  having been welded shut so they didn’t have to leave guards. As it was, the

  Bsidd army was spread out across this front so much that it almost seemed like

  there were hundreds of battles going on rather than just one, with each

  corridor, level, and section having its own unique history that was seeing the

  typical Star Force victories be pushed back by the corpse clutter.

  Worse yet, the little lizards could crawl over each

  other far better than the larger Bsidd could do, so they had a movement

  advantage. Not to mention being able to crawl through maintenance shafts and

  other small passageways. Most of the Bsidd soldiers were Betas, but some of the

  smaller Epsilons had been dispatched to look for and hunt down lizards slipping

  through in odd places. They could never come in sufficient numbers to be a

  major threat, but the Bsidd couldn’t afford to have wounded personnel getting

  ambushed behind the front lines or a det pack carrier running up from behind

  them.

  It was a mess, but they were working their way through

  it. This was lizard territory, for sure, but Tavarini was glad there weren’t

  wide open fields for their tanks and aircraft to operate on. Det packs aside,

  the Bsidd were the largest, most heavily armored units in play and he liked

  that change from their ‘standard’ battles…as if there was ever such a thing

  with the lizards.

  Movement on his right caught his attention and he saw

  green lizard bodies wearing black vests moving on top of the piles ahead of

  them down the corridor. They weren’t wounded crawling for safety, but incoming

  troops slipping over the tops of the piles like they were surfing a wave on the

  ocean. Their rifles were strapped to their backs and they were running on all

  fours, something he’d rarely seen lizards do before this invasion, but it was

  obvious that the movement was all too natural for them.

  A pink phaser blast shot by him, missing one of his

  mandibles by a few inches as he reengaged shields across his entire body save

  for the treads on his shoe bumps and the weapon muzzles attached to a few of

  his numerous mandibles. Most of his body looked like a collection of thick sticks,

  upon which he could run or crawl or jump as he liked, but they were all covered

  in armor with some holding the tread for his ‘boots’ while others were free to

  grasp or hit with. A few others were covered in weapons that were physically

  attached to his armor since he didn’t have anything even remotely like fingers,

  though he could grasp things better than most Humans given how many mandibles

  he could apply to a given object.

  He pointed one of his rifle mandibles down the

  corridor as he put most of his odd body behind the bulkhead, twitching the end of

  his limb inside the device that activated the trigger. A blue plasma lance shot

  out and hit one of the many lizards surging towards them. It crumpled onto the

  pile as the lizards behind it simply rushed over the new terrain. They couldn’t

  get too many through this chokepoint, but then again only two or three Bsidd

  could get into firing position on them, so that evened out a bit. Holding

  position was easy, for the lizards couldn’t engage them in hand to hand without

  getting cut to shreds with their plasma rods…unless they had a det pack, in

  which case all the lizards had to do was get close enough to take down their

  shields and do some damage to their armor.

  That had already happened twice today, with several jagged

  cuts on his purple body plates marking shrapnel damage, though they hadn’t

  gotten close enough to him to do more than force him back while his shields

  recharged. He’d had to give up some ground after that, but they’d taken it back

  and then some, though the gains were little more than dozens of meters with

  their orders being to hold the general area and adjust as needed while other

  units were probing behind enemy lines.

  What units those were he didn’t know, nor had seen,

  for he’d been so busy here he couldn’t thi
nk of much else and he hoped there

  would be a relief team coming within a few hours so he could cycle back, get

  some food and water, maybe a little sleep. That wasn’t happening right now, so

  he stubbornly held his ground and shot a couple more lizards before he got a ‘hold’

  order on his helmet.

  He complied, even as the lizards were nearly on top of

  them, then saw a fast moving dot on his battlemap approaching them from behind.

  By the time he recognized the icon the dark blue armor of an Archon mage flashed

  past his position, brushing up against a couple of his mandibles as she shot by

  the bulkhead…then pile of lizard bodies exploded backwards under some type of

  invisible attack, throwing the dead and living back on top of each other.

  Two white beams of light flashed into existence and

  suddenly the Archon was chopping apart lizard bodies in a frenzy and pushing

  her way through the mess and out of sight ahead.

  The hold fire order was rescinded, along with a ‘don’t

  follow me’ command.

  Tavarini looked at his fellow Bsidd curiously, then

  the two of them came out of cover and ran forward a few steps to give them

  better firing lines on the surviving lizards that were trying to crawl their

  way out of the pile.

  Ginsi flashed past the Bsidd, getting on the other

  side of friendly lines and brandishing her pair of death sabers. She’d been

  told that the term ‘lightsaber’ had been strictly banned, though that’s exactly

  what they looked like, only flat to the point of invisible when viewed on the

  side. Problem was they weren’t actually swords and couldn’t parry anything. If

  she crossed the two she carried together they’d pass right through each other,

  and anything else would either be cut by them or disrupt the intense energy

  field that comprised the cutting devices.

  Since they weren’t true swords they needed another

  name, and it had only been with reluctance that Star Force had even developed

  the weapons. They’d evolved out of the Bsidd plasma rods, and then the Archon

  plasma swords…both of which had such a low ammo count that they were almost a

  waste of time against hundreds of thousands of lizards, though both of those

  could still be used as blunt object weapons when they were depleted of charge.

  The death sabers could not, which was why Ginsi was