Star Force: Persistent Ravage (Wayward Trilogy Book 3) Page 20

  Esna wasn’t even a speck in it, but something far smaller, and with that realization came a sense of freedom. The fate of the galaxy wasn’t on her shoulders, and all that really mattered was her life, her path, and what she made of it. She was alone amongst a sea of people that were but fringe fuzz on the surface of planets in orbit of stars…and those stars were the specks in the universe.

  A universe full of so much wrong, such horrors, and yet if you looked in the right place you could find wonders and true good. Star Force was the latter and she was immensely grateful that Rammak had brought her into it, but then she wondered how many other girls like her were out there that didn’t have someone to come for them. And how many of them were being hunted or killed by the V’kit’no’sat.

  No, she couldn’t save the galaxy. It was too big. But if she could kill a Zen’zat or two and keep them from killing another girl like her out there, that would be enough. Not because she owned Rammak a debt, but because people deserved better than what they got, and if she could help a few she’d do so for their sake. Esna didn’t know what Pantheon was or what she’d be doing, but if it was in the field then what they were doing mattered, Zen’zat or no, and with a long, deep breath Esna let go her time on the seda and everything previous to it. She was a weapon now, and going where she could be put to use. This was her path and she welcomed it.

  Time to start doing things that matter and take a little nick out of the darkness plaguing the galaxy.

  23

  September 21, 4817

  Grid Point Dagran

  When Esna’s ship left Grid Point Stargate it traveled across a vast region of dead territory that the V’kit’no’sat had already purged of Star Force presence, then passed the front where the closest Star Force colonies still existed, now heavily defended against V’kit’no’sat attack. Esna didn’t see any of that, for the mag ship was flying through interstellar space where no one could touch it all the way to Grid Point Annsa located within the H’kar Region of Star Force territory. When she arrived there the mag ship had to be abandoned as it was going back the way they’d come, so Darren and Esna spent their time waiting on another Canderian seda stationed there.

  It was far smaller than JOR, but every Canderous seda looked the same inside and she felt at home getting in a few more workouts before their outgoing mag ship entered the Grid Point and they transferred over to it, waiting a few more days before it left and took them further rimward to Grid Point Mankla…and while she thought the station infrastructure around Annsa was much larger than what was at Stargate, what she saw at Mankla blew her away.

  First off, there wasn’t one construct. Nor two, like at Annsa. Here there were four, for there were four different directions one could travel from Mansa on the Grid Point system and each was linked between two constructs. They couldn’t turn to reorient on another without breaking the link, so if you had four navigational options you had to have 4 different constructs, each placed far apart from each other. That meant at Mankla there were four little islands set outside the Tarric 2 System and stretching between them were strings of stations of so many varieties that Esna couldn’t pick them all out. When she asked the computer to give her a count it reported that there were 492,773 different stations here, not counting the constructs.

  The ship count was over 4 billion, and that didn’t include dropships. Esna couldn’t help but spend some of her down time pouring through the visuals available to her as they waited for the next leg of their journey. There were so many races here, many part of Star Force, but others as well that had business relationships with the empire. More than that though, this region was free of the V’kit’no’sat and she guessed this was what it looked like when people could live outside of their influence and fear, for there were so many star systems between here and the front for the enemy to blast through before they could get here.

  That also meant that this was what the Devastation Zone must have looked like before the Viks trashed it, and that made her even more furious. What she was seeing here was beyond her ability to reconcile with the conditions she’d grown up in on Forso. The Viks hadn’t destroyed Star Force and put something else in its place, they’d just destroyed it and let the lingering scraps degenerate in apathy.

  Yet one more reason why they had to be taken down, some way, some how.

  By the time she eventually got to Grid Point Dagran, which also had 4 constructs, she felt like she’d been transported into another reality. The level of infrastructure and amount of population at these Grid Points…which was measured in the trillions…was beyond words and it baffled her how anyone could navigate the mess of stations and ships, let alone find a single person in all of that, but Star Force was organization incarnate and her contact found and met up with Darren and Esna on a Star Force starport that was 16 miles wide and shaped like a seda, but the interior design was quite different and housed travelers for the most part, acting as a way station within the Grid Point.

  “Tior,” Darren said with a nod as a familiar Canderian uniform approached them in a small atrium with a few benches bracketed by small trees in rectangular boxes that broke up the artificial sterility of the Star Force plaza.

  “I’m glad you made it. Heard we took some bad damage in the attack.”

  “Surface layers got messed up pretty good, but they didn’t have time to pound much further. This is Esna.”

  “Hello, Esna,” Tior said graciously. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “I’ve heard nothing about you.”

  “My job here is done,” Darren said, bowing out. “Good luck.”

  Esna looked at him as he turned and left, then locked eyes with the other Canderian. “And you are what exactly?”

  “I’m your ride and Pantheon 7 teammate.”

  Esna’s eyes narrowed. “How old?”

  “1738.”

  Esna sighed. “Sure you want me with you?”

  “That depends. Show me your Fornax.”

  Esna didn’t hesitate, sending a single focused burst directly into his face. He didn’t see the energy discharge, for it was invisible, but it disrupted his control of his body so fast he dropped to the floor in a pile as if he were a robot whose power switch had just flipped off.

  Esna didn’t keep him down and Tior got back to his feet quick enough, shaking his limbs a bit as he looked at her with a grin.

  “Yeah, we can definitely use you. We’ll just have to make do with your lack of other skills. What’s your best mile up to?”

  “4:21 and my 10K is 34:18.”

  “Slow as hell then, but your Fornax will be worth it when we figure out how to work you in. No duffle?”

  “Traveling light,” she said, referencing the fact that she’d just been getting clothing and other accessories locally as needed after making the decision to let go old habits. In Star Force territory everything you needed to survive was made available for free, so she didn’t actually need to carry anything with her aside from her uniform, which she was wearing.

  “Alright then, let’s go,” Tior said, pointing a direction and then walking that way with Esna having to catch up a step.

  “Where are we going? I wasn’t told.”

  “That’s because no one knows. Well, I do, but the unit moves around so much few know where we actually are at any given time.”

  “Are you all here?”

  “No, I was sent to come pick you up. Little bit of vacation for me, but the others are still in the field.”

  “Doing what exactly?”

  “Hunting pirates at the moment. Not here,” he amended. “This region is stable, but the further rimward you go it gets a lot less pretty. We’re still picking up the pieces from the Nexus collapse and a lot of people are trying to take advantage of it. We’re doing some quiet work that otherwise would have to go to the Archons, so it gets challenging at times, but we know when and where to stick our heads in and when not. You’re going to give us some badly needed new options.”

 
; “And slow you down in the process.”

  “We’re good enough to manage it. You won’t be involved in every mission, just like I’m not involved in what they’re doing now, but given time your skills will increase and we’re willing to suffer through that deficiency in exchange for your psionic. Do you know how you got yours?”

  “I know where, but not how. The medtechs called it spontaneous development.”

  “Our gain,” Tior said, squeezing between two aliens that Esna couldn’t identify, but they smelled like burnt wood. “You’re going to have to work your ass off to get up to speed as fast as you can, but we’ll make this work if you’re game.”

  “Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she said, passing between the pair and coming back up on Tior’s shoulder, which was a couple inches higher than hers. “How many are in the unit?”

  “22, counting you.”

  “Do we all deploy on the same missions?”

  “Depends. Sometimes 22 isn’t enough for the tasks we’re assigned. It’s really chaos out there in places, and not enough Star Force troops to get to everyone. We go out beyond the lines and hit the biggest threats we can to diminish the damage, but there’s always some other planet we can’t get to, so we stay deployed pretty much constantly.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Hangar bay. Then we have two more Grid Point jumps before we get off. There will be a warship waiting there to take us out to the wilderness.”

  “Have you read my history?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it as bad as Mace?” she asked, using the official name for Forso.

  “Yes and no. Biggest difference is there are more people out here, a lot more. Mace was pretty much deserted. There’s plenty of bad guys to take down. Don’t expect that we will ever run out. We have to pace ourselves and make sure we never overextend, but we’re taking down as many as we can. With you, we’re going to have to relearn what we can and can’t do.”

  “Is there anything we can do enroute to shave some time off the learning curve?”

  Tior smiled. “Yep. I’m going to feel you out as much as possible in training, so be mentally prepared to be pushed past your breaking points. I need to find out where they are. Nothing personal, Red.”

  “Red?”

  “Your hair.”

  “People always called me ‘Phantom,’ but never Red.”

  “Why Phantom?”

  “I didn’t socialize or sleep around.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Extra workouts.”

  Tior smirked. “I think you’re going to fit in fine. Just don’t get cocky and killed on the first mission. We’ll have your back, but you gotta learn to err on the side of caution in between bouts of recklessness.”

  “Isn’t that a contradiction?”

  “Theoretically yes, in practice, no. It’s something you learn in the field, and we’ll keep you alive long enough to get that experience, but you have to promise not to ignore orders and try to do more to prove yourself. You’re here because we want you here, so there’s nothing to prove.”

  “Alright,” Esna said, not accepting that but also not willing to argue it. She had a lot to prove, but she understood the need to not get cocky. Rammak had drilled that into her long ago, forcing her to focus on doing what she could and living in reality rather than the delusions of ego. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Good. Now let’s get out of here. Keep up,” he said, accelerating to a jog as he wove in and out of pedestrian traffic.

  Esna followed him, not sure why he was running and seeing a lot of odd looks from the people they were wooshing past, but she kind of liked it. Civilians walked, and she was now part of an elite unit operating outside of civilization…so why not run and break the mold?

  She kept pace with him all the way through the congested walkways until they came to a sealed entrance that Tior keyed open, then he led her inside a maintence walkway that stretched out in both directions as far as she could see.

  “Ok, newb. Take the lead and make decent speed. I’ll tell you when to veer off,” he said, pointing to their left.

  Esna smiled and took off running at full speed, not a polite jog, down the narrow and empty walkway that was a mix of catwalks and solid panels that occasionally had views out into the heart of machinery that kept the starport functioning. Tior’s footsteps were a constant presence behind her and she knew she couldn’t outrun him, so she didn’t try. Esna just picked a medium pace and ground it out as she got the feeling that the promised intensity of the Pantheons was not understated. If Tior was impatient enough to walk to the hangar bay when off mission like this, then what he and the others were like on mission was probably going to be insane.

  And as long as Esna found a way to keep up, she wouldn’t have wished it any other way.

  The training Tior had her do on the way out was limited but intense, lasting only an hour or two each day and leaving her drained. He never had her repeat a drill or challenge twice, testing the level where her skills and abilities were so he and the others would know how much to expect of her. The rest of the time was spent swapping stories and Esna doing a few easy workouts while Tior did his own. She watched a few of them, slack jawed the entire time. Esna could have sworn he was faster than Tyrenk, and that reminded her of something Rammak had told her.

  He’d said that a Commando could be more powerful than an Archon if they had the time and training to gradually build up their strength to insane levels. Tior didn’t have psionics, which would have meant Tyrenk could have owned him, but as far as physical skills went Esna was pretty sure that this Canderian exceeded the Archon…and by a wide margin, which meant Esna was back to being the pathetic carry along. But a carry along that was wanted this time.

  Esna knew she wasn’t going to catch up to their skill level, so her personal mission became not holding them back so much that it annoyed them. She didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she was going to have to fit in with these superior warriors somehow, and she really didn’t want to be a static weapon that they literally had to carry around like a rocket launcher. Esna wanted to be one of them, and that meant she had to at least be able to move herself around.

  Which meant she was back to running again. Some things never changed.

  When they eventually got off the Grid Point system and onto the warship…which happened to be a Star Force Tolsoi warship…Tior’s testing of her was complete, leaving her to do her normal workouts alongside the monkey-like race in their onboard training facilities. They were Star Force members, but ones that she hadn’t seen back on Tauntaun. Apparently that was because most of their troops were not up to fighting the Viks, but they were doing a lot of heavy work out here where the Star Force empire was thriving and constantly sending resources back to the front to replace the ships and everything else the Viks destroyed, thus delaying their advance as many races that did not fight directly fought with supply production.

  The Tolsoi were in between, having a large military and ample supply production, in addition to worlds near the front. If the Viks kept advancing they’d get to them and then the Tolsoi would be in direct conflict, but so far they were providing a support role by handling the lesser wars Star Force was involved in while the most elite troops were on the front defending against the Viks.

  Or rather most of the elite troops. Her Pantheon unit was one of the exceptions and Tior told here that there were also Archons sporadically deployed out on the far rim territories. Enough to lead the ‘lesser’ troops and do some solo work, but not enough to even dent the sheer amount of territory that had to be protected, conquered, or patrolled. The outer border of Star Force wasn’t a smooth one, and it was constantly expanding as they took down or absorbed more and more threats while also incorporating new races that petitioned for joining. Growth out here was the norm, even as the Viks were consuming and destroying what Star Force had built up long ago on the coreward front.

  That was a huge chang
e for Esna, but it wouldn’t sink in until much later when she got a chance to actually see and feel some of it. The trip out on the warship was full of learning, talking, and training, but the experiencing would come later.

  When they eventually reached their destination Esna discovered it was a small seda. LEP was the identification, meaning it had been built after JOR, and it was the only one in the system that held two planets with Star Force colonies on them. They weren’t fully developed, with one only possessing a single city and the other having a dozen or so. This was primitive compared to the Grid Points and some of the other systems the warship had passed through, but still night and day different from Forso.

  Esna and Tior were dropped off on the seda, then he took her to a special reserved area that the Pantheon units had to themselves. Esna got a huge set of quarters in addition to a lot of other equipment, including her armor, which Tior had fitted and constructed to her body dimensions rather than giving her a generic adjustable suit. The armor was almost identical to what she had worn on Tauntaun, but with a few distinct variances.

  Most notable was the T-shaped visor on the helmet. When she asked about it Tior said it was symbolic rather than functional, but if the holograms inside failed you could see out of it as a backup. The design was reminiscent of something from Human history, but he didn’t know what. It had become the symbol of Canderous, distinguishing their armor from everyone else’s, but most of the technology was the same, including the internal controls that had a different color scheme and some altered tones, but Esna adjusted to it quickly given her previous experience alongside Rammak.

  After that and a few days orientation, Tior took Esna out of the system on a smaller Canderian ship headed towards the location where her Pantheon unit was currently engaged, intending on meeting up with them there and diving head first into her new Fornax support role...all the while expecting this transition to be uncomfortable for her and especially her new unit, for she was going to mightily slow them down. The only question was how much.