Star Force: The Dinosaur War (Star Force Universe Book 45) Read online

  But now relief had finally come in the form of a single drop pod. Niom entered first along with half the Oso’lon and all the Zen’zat. The others would have to wait, for the pod was not large enough to fit them all, and his surviving fleet was busy picking up survivors from across the system, for the battle had spread out once the V’kit’no’sat had secured the jumppoint. Niom had not commanded the latter stages, for his ship was destroyed early on, and he did not know the current status of his fleet other than a brief update via comm. The system was theirs. Star Force had fled. But the Oso’lon fleet had taken heavy casualties.

  As soon as Niom was on the drop pod he linked into the fleet systems and got a tactical hologram depicting the damage and current positions of all ships…or ship fragments. The Seinac Lancer had escaped, and there were no more Star Force contacts in the system, though there were thousands of ships around the third planet belonging to the natives. They weren’t moving out to interfere, and they were so primitive that even if they did they couldn’t do any damage, but he was glad they were rightfully minding their own business and the planet had already been scanned for any trace of Star Force assets, coming up clean.

  The drop pod diverted from its original course as soon as Niom’s presence was determined, taking him away from the Ti’mat it had come from and instead docked with the nearest undamaged Na’shor left in the fleet which now became his flagship. After that the drop pod went back to collect the other Oso’lon left behind, and Niom arranged for them to be brought here as well, for several of the survivors were from his command staff.

  The ship’s commander met him in the hangar bay, with the orange/pink spots down his neck/back/tail denoting his membership in the Trugati Herd. It was one of lower status, with few ship captains originating from it, but at this point Niom did not care. A Na’shor was a Na’shor, and all were built exactly the same. If this Oso’lon was not qualified for his post, he would not be here, and more than likely he deserved the position, otherwise his lineage would have disqualified him for even the slightest inadequacy.

  “Niom, I am grateful that you survived. My ship welcomes you onboard. I am Kachi, captain of this Na’shor, and it is an honor having you onboard.”

  “There is no honor this day, Kachi,” Niom said gravely as he walked off and past the other Oso’lon, with the quadruped captain falling into step beside him. “We have been made fools of. Have any of our scout ships been located?”

  “None. No debris either. They simply are not here, but there are two buoys registering the path ahead as clear.”

  “There should be at least two vessels here waiting for us,” he growled. “If the patrol commander neglected her duty, I will execute her myself. Which jumpline did Star Force retreat on?”

  “Several. The Seinac Lancer went to Sevarti.”

  “Where is that?” Niom asked, not recognizing the name of the system. He’d made himself aware of most of them along the conduit of systems his fleet would be jumping through, but virtually all of these systems were uninhabited or barely inhabited, and unknowns as far as the V’kit’no’sat were concerned.

  “It is back the way we came at an angle spinwards and up. Their other ships exited in all directions.”

  “They scattered?”

  “We chased many, but the scattering appears intentional and not forced by our pursuit. They did not engage in anything less than mismatches, though some of our ships became incensed and fought the mismatches anyway. We have many disabled or destroyed across the system because of this.”

  “What is the final count?”

  “936 ships destroyed. 428 damaged and unable to maintain fleet speed. Another 128 significantly damaged but with full engine power. Were we aware that they had a Seinac Lancer?”

  “Not that I was informed of, but Yaniel insisted that we not underestimate them. It appears his warning was apt.”

  “I see no fault on our part, save for perhaps the scouts.”

  “Fault or no, the damage is done. I am not interested in laying blame, Kachi. I am interested in victory. How many ships did Star Force lose?”

  “Tonnage comparison gives them a 5 to 1 kill rate,” the ship’s captain said, offering the more useful ‘tonnage’ measurement, for Star Force drones were so much smaller that comparing them ship to ship against the V’kit’no’sat fleet was virtually useless.

  “That is all?” Niom asked, fearing it would be higher.

  “The Seinac Lancer did not have optimal position. We were spared greater losses because of it. Your order to proceed at 85% speed saved us much damage.”

  Niom huffed through his two large nostrils. Though he had wanted to arrive at the war front as soon as possible, he had heeded Yaniel’s many warnings concerning Star Force’s penchant for using IDF fields to tamper with incoming jumplines. With enough prep work you could see an entire fleet ramming a star from such sabotage, but proceeding at less than optimal speed gave you additional leverage with your deceleration jump. No sabotage effort could scale across the entire jumpline, meaning only pieces of it would be without gravitational resistance…but if you were coming in at max speed you needed every bit of that distance to decelerate, and missing a single second could end up putting your arrival point within the outer layers of the star.

  Niom had insisted on a comfortable margin to prevent this possibility, though he had no idea it would be useful in keeping his ships further away from the trap of the Seinac Lancer. And yet, it hadn’t been enough to escape it entirely.

  “It is still a loss,” he reminded the captain as they made their way out of the hangar and into one of the long, tall corridors that the Oso’lon had stretching nearly the entire length of the elongated diamond-shaped ship. Other smaller corridors were for the Zen’zat to move through, but the Oso’lon were so huge the interior design was predicated off of only a few large passages that had doorway connections to nearly every chamber on the ship.

  Given their size, the Oso’lon were able to cover ground quickly, but with the 38 mile length of the Na’shor even running was not fast enough for intra-ship movement in times of crisis, so there was a Satu field running along the top of the chamber. Niom and Kachi both walked into the nearest boarding platform and felt the energy fields lift them up to the invisible suspended track that they then walked out on, gradually being accelerated as they stepped from the outer areas to the innermost one.

  They were carried quickly over the heads of those below, making the Zen’zat look like little insects as they scurried about carrying out various ship tasks, many of which required the Oso’lon to telekinetically manage if not for the tiny hands of their servants. They made the ships work more efficiently, but the Oso’lon didn’t actually need them. Still, every ship in the fleet had an army of them underfoot and this vessel was no exception.

  “What do you want done with the damaged vessels?” Kachi asked.

  “We are not moving from this system until our scouts report back. I have to know what happened to them, or another ambush could be awaiting us ahead.”

  “Shall we send out more now?”

  “Yes. But we will not proceed until the others return…or we determine what happened to them. Until then, we continue recovery operations.”

  “Our delay may hurt forward operations.”

  “It is unavoidable. We cannot allow ourselves to be whittled down with ambushes such as this. If we do not attack with sufficient strength, their planetary defenses will eviscerate us.”

  “As you wish. I will have already made arrangements for you and whatever staff you wish to bring onboard. This Na’shor is fully operation and awaits your orders.”

  “Convert it to fleet control immediately, then begin debris collections. We cannot let the locals here have it, nor can we allow Star Force to harvest resources from it in our wake.”

  “Disposal or tow?”

  “We cannot go back, nor can I risk sending a small flotilla. We must dispose of what we cannot take onboard.”

  “A
suggestion.”

  “Speak.”

  “Given the amount of ships that are still to come, perhaps we should secure this system and every other one between our territory and theirs. That way they cannot arrange any more ambushes and all future ship movements, to or from the warfront, will be secure. As it is, we cannot risk cargo shipments if our patrols are compromised.”

  Niom looked over at the other small head rising above the massive bodies of the Oso’lon. “Though it pains me to avoid direct combat, I believe you are correct. Securing a route of transit will prevent needless losses such as this.”

  “Moving battle stations might also be warranted.”

  “No,” Niom said firmly. “We cannot permanently hold this route, or we become predictable. We must occasionally shift, and moving fixed stations is too tedious. We will keep a third of our fleet here for recovery operations, the rest will be split up and sent to secure systems behind us. Once a link is established, we will tow the wreckage back to Vbora. Even if the other attack fleets choose to proceed by different routes, we will maintain this one so cargo fleets will not require escorts. It will be tedious, but I fear you are correct in that it is now necessary,” he said as they began walking to the edge of the Satu and slowing their transit as they approached the off ramp near the command deck.

  “The more ships Star Force loses, the less times they will be able to repeat this ambush,” Kachi added. “Once we fully engage them in their territory, they will not be able to spare enough to hurt us.”

  “Unless they feel they can do more damage out here than in direct combat,” Niom added as he floated down to ground level, then began walking into an offshoot from the main corridor that led to the command deck. “Disperse scouts to the adjoining 20 systems. I want to know what is around us now…”

  Over the next two years Niom did his duty, sacrificing his fleet to hold the 27 links in the travel chain that led from Star Force territory back to the closest Oso’lon border colony. The black hole link was already guarded, due to its significance, and Niom’s forces filled in the rest of the gaps to secure a route free of ambush. Both Oso’lon fleets and those from 6 other races elected to use the route, while the others traveled from their own border colonies and suffered similar ambushes.

  Information on them was limited, but with Niom running couriers regularly between systems, a primitive Urrtren link was established between the comm grid and the invading forces. It was slow, but with Niom sitting and waiting impatiently he had all the time in the galaxy to monitor what was going on elsewhere.

  And what he saw he did not like. 29 other fleets had been ambushed, 14 with a Seinac Lancer. One with two of them that had cost the Lir’nen nearly an entire fleet of 9,000 ships before Star Force was driven away. The other ambushes were ship only, but the report Niom was reading now was far different. Multiple assaults had been launched on worlds all along the Star Force border, spread out intentionally so not to let the Uriti gather in one region to easily reinforce systems. 18 systems had been invaded and abandoned once Uriti showed up to defend them, while another 39 were under assault with no Uriti showing as of yet.

  It was hard fighting to take down those systems, and not all were succeeding for the V’kit’no’sat were not coming in with overwhelming force. Instead they were hitting multiple systems and making Star Force choose where to defend with the Uriti. A single system with overwhelming force could be countered, but split that massive fleet up into 10 smaller fleets and you’d get 7 or 8 systems conquered before the Uriti could be moved around to drive off the invaders. And once there were troops on the ground in good control, the Uriti would only be enough to defend orbit and the real work of the ground troops would come into play holding those gains.

  But even as more and more V’kit’no’sat fleets arrived and began to open up additional invasions in more systems, Star Force had managed to smuggle a Uriti beyond their borders and hid it within a star while a Pas’cha fleet passed by. Nearly a third of it had exited the far side of the system, leaving it strung out in a long line curving around the star when Star Force ships emerged from hiding within a nebula and engaged them. Not knowing of the Uriti the Pas’cha had fought back, gradually increasing their numbers since the incoming jumppoint had not been attacked and new ships were arriving safely, but when the battle had swelled to the point the V’kit’no’sat were winning, the Uriti known as Bahamut suddenly appeared beneath them, coming up from the star while the enemy ships began to emit IDF fields and pin the V’kit’no’sat in place.

  The end result was the loss of more than 7,000 ships, with the leading third of the convoy not even knowing there was an attack on the rear until they suddenly stopped arriving in the next system further on, save for a scattering of survivors who came with the news of the Uriti ambush.

  Once again, Star Force was able to circumvent the V’kit’no’sat patrol fleets, and Niom still did not know how. No breaches on his secure chain of systems had occurred, which he was grateful for, but up and down the intermediate territories V’kit’no’sat scouts were going missing or failing to report in. He believed Star Force was jumping the gaps in some cases where surveillance temporarily lagged, but there was something more going on…which was why two more races had elected to send ships down the Oso’lon conduit rather than risk traversing on their own.

  But even when they arrived they were not safe, for moving across the border was hazardous. Star Force was not waiting for the V’kit’no’sat to get to them, and everywhere they could ambush a jumppoint they would, with Virokor ordering most of their fleets to break up into smaller groups and travel by different jumplines. That made those groups easier to ambush, but more ships would end up arriving at their intended destination because Star Force couldn’t block all the routes and they had become too damn good at guessing where they would go.

  Reconnaissance was a losing gambit now, for Star Force had somehow managed to get the upper hand on them, so Virokor was switching to defensive maneuvers even as they launched offensive assaults. Niom hated to see that, but he was glad Virokor was adapting faster than he expected. They’d all been told to view Star Force as equals in this war, and already their skill and unpredictability was proving that warning to be true.

  This was going to be a hard war to fight, but in the end there could only be one outcome.

  The question was, who would survive to see it? Niom intended to, but he also did not want to survive by sitting and watching over unimportant systems. Fortunately for him, a year later he would receive his orders to transition to the front while fleets from other races replaced the Oso’lon on their secure route.

  Eventually he arrived with more than 20,000 ships, having received command of two more Oso’lon fleets in the interim, but he had to break them apart past the last staging area per Virokor’s orders. He gave each of the sub-commanders a different route to travel by, but their arrival point would be the same…a moderately strong Bsidd system known as Braum that boasted the most redundant planetary shield generators in the Hov Region, though the defensive weaponry did not match…at least as far as their information said. At this point, Niom wasn’t expecting a guarantee on anything.

  He’d find out one way or another in the coming weeks, for when all of his fleets arrived simultaneously from multiple jumppoints, they’d find what Star Force had waiting for them…if they didn’t get ambushed enroute first.

  3

  February 9, 4897

  Defran System (Rim Region)

  Rufio

  Saavaa was on the ground of the enemy-held planet, trudging through rain forest and water up to his stubby ankles. The hexped Octo’mar had been on the surface for 5 weeks, fighting a combination of H’kar and Clan McClane troops as the two V’kit’no’sat races pushed towards the nearest shield generators to their landing zone. Unlike most of the attack fleets that were comprised of single races, Virokor had allowed some to pair up, and the Octo’mar’s longtime ally the Serni’jar had agreed to make all their invasio
n forces co-ops.

  Both races were similar in size. The Serni’jar had 4 hefty legs and an armored, boxy head. The Octo’mar had two additional legs and a longer neck, but nowhere near as long as that of the Oso’lon. They also had two tails that helped them become decent swimmers on the surface, but they were not aquatic. Both races were land dwellers, and both were slow and heavy. They carried extra armor because of that, for they were not expecting to move fast, and right now Saavaa had a huge hole in his.

  He’d stopped the armor from thinning elsewhere and had simply shifted the hole to his belly where it would be extremely hard to shoot, for his legs supported his torso only a meter off the ground. It looked like Octo’mar crawled rather than walked, though that was just a visual illusion. Saavaa’s hips were actually at the top of his back, so his leg length and torso length were nearly the same.

  That kept the armor under his belly usually unscathed save for explosives in the ground, but Star Force hadn’t been known to use them very often…and when they had, they’d mined whole fields where their own people were nowhere near. Here, in the jungle, there was a fight going on to keep the V’kit’no’sat from the boundary wall that made up the outer perimeter defense of the shield generator. It was one of hundreds on the planet, but this one was located in an uninhabited region, making it the perfect battlefield for Star Force, who didn’t like fighting amongst their civilians.

  Back behind him and his fellow Octo’mar, who were having to push over trees occasionally to get room to move through the jungle, there were huge synthetic mountains made up of grounded Octo’mar and Serni’jar warships. They’d come all the way to ground once they’d punched a hole in the shield generators, and a costly hole at that. They’d lost nearly a third of their fleet in the orbital combat and simultaneously facing down the planetary defenses, but they had their entry vector now and were continuing to push the offensive while bypassing the rest of the intact anti-orbital guns. It was a narrow approach window, but already a small convoy of supply ships had arrived to deliver additional ground troops and prefab structures, giving them a decent base at the LZ even if the warships were not there.