Star Force: Symbiosis (Star Force Universe Book 72) Read online

  3

  August 3, 128888

  Unexplored Frontier

  Shadow Network Node 22913

  Jason-025 wore full armor in one of the numerous air-less storage bays that were half full of crates and Caretaker debris. He’d been here personally for this battle, but by accident. The Founders were continuing to press their war to reclaim the Shadow Network with random drone armies surging forth into locations previously taken, and typically Jason found out about it after the fact. Usually the battles didn’t remove the Star Force garrison troops, for they were too well dug in and the machines simply weren’t that good in combat, but the continual pushback was expending resources and getting more out here was difficult…for both sides.

  But this warehouse was full of raw materials and small components that had been manufactured elsewhere. It was also the first of its kind discovered, which was why Jason was here snooping around. Something about it just didn’t feel right to him. Everything in the Shadow Network was structured to support the Temples, and the idea of storing stuff out here rather than in the Temples seemed stupid on a scale that not even a newb could fathom…yet here it was, looking like a bad impersonation of Deep Space Nine with three rings to this station connected by stubby protrusions that spiked upwards into docking pylons.

  And off of those pylons were supply ships, now captured even before the battle, but many more were now in Star Force hands that had brought the army of Caretakers to fight on the station. All were operating off of a small mag jump platform nearby, too weak to travel a long distance, but powerful enough to get to a much larger mag jump platform that had to be re-orientated to switch to this location. That function hadn’t been discovered until recently, which had allowed for this warehouse station to be reached.

  A funny feeling had prompted Jason coming all the way out here himself, and he’d had only a few hours to explore before the assault force arrived and he assigned himself to primary interior combat duty. Since then he was back to exploring as others cleaned up the debris, though there was a lot of it.

  Something about this place just felt wrong, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. The supplies were meant for somewhere else, that was obvious, but nothing cataloged in the Shadow Network needed them. This place was an anomaly, and no movement to it had been noted prior to Star Force’s arrival. The invaders had arrived via a different mag jump route, and the receiving dish had altered on its own prior to their arrival after receiving an incoming signal.

  That was a damn risky way to travel. If the dish wasn’t redirected, the incoming travelers would either smash into it or deflect off the magnetic field to be lost in deep space. Then again, with only drones being sent perhaps the Founders didn’t care…expect that a near miss could have it colliding with the warehouse station too.

  He wasn’t sure if the attack was part of a coordinated effort or a response to their incursion in this specific location, but the shape of the station still baffled him. It was so much wasted hull plating because the surface area was high because of the non-centralized design. Most Founder infrastructure was economically designed with small variations for style or specific function, but this one was not…at first glance. Jason didn’t think it was an homage, as some Star Force-built structures were. So there had to be some meaning here.

  The vector the invading army had come from was close to intersecting with one of the periphery ‘Coins’ that his forces still couldn’t touch. The few connections prior to them were still too heavily guarded for his own drones to take, and he wasn’t going to risk sending manned ships into an ambush. With no planets to jump off of, there was only the mag jump platforms to use or the Dark Network links that had been proving more useful, but none of them went where he needed to go, and the front door was too well armed. Almost comically so. The Coins were something that the Founders didn’t want anyone getting to, even from their top secret transit networks that nobody was supposed to know about anyway.

  As he was walking the storage bays a Star Force-captured Caretaker transport arrived, bringing a priority message for him from Morgan-063, which it transmitted to his armor via an external relay placed on the station just outside a hangar bay, for the hull blocked all other transmissions for a reason Jason also had not yet determined.

  The trailblazer stopped walking as the mass of information hit him, along with Morgan’s request, and a sickly fear ran down his spine. He looked up at the ceiling and panned his head around slowly, using his Pefbar to see well through the walls as he examined the part of the station within his psionic range.

  Suddenly he took off…not running, but flying through the station scanning as he went. It didn’t take long to confirm his initial suspicion, finding an exotic array built into the middle ring where he currently was. He following it around the arc nearly two thirds of the distance before it connected to a node.

  Inside of which was an Essence containment orb plugged into some sort of device.

  “Backdoor,” he said, suddenly feeling very insecure. If he was right, this facility was more important than he had realized. So much so that it might be attracting more than another Caretaker attack force…or perhaps a bigger one.

  Orders flew through the battlemap coming from his Sav-enhanced mind that those receiving them had to sort through their parts for several moments before comprehending…then all the ships in the area began moving, as did the Commandos and Archons inside the station and on the mag jump platform.

  If Jason was right, he’d just stumbled onto a third network, one that operated off of some sort of Essence travel. And if the trailblazer was also correct, it was probably what had allowed the Nu’avi access to the Temples while bypassing all of Jason’s roadblocks he’d been setting up in the other two networks to prevent just this sort of incursion.

  And they’d sent 60 Essence-capable troops of unknown power to deal with the situation. Not the one or two that Kara had predicted. They’d sent an assault team to deal with the ‘infestation,’ and if Jason really had touched a sore spot here, there might be some coming his way right now.

  He had 23 minutes to think about it before the mag jump platform activated again, and as soon as the first Caretaker ship arrived it was fired upon by the three Star Force warships here, their accompanying drones, and several captured transports that had been rebuilt to his liking. All were navigating on mooring beams for lack of any appreciable gravity, including the Star Force drones from the warships, as were the Founder ships arriving.

  And they were in fact Founder ships, not just Caretakers, though there were some of them coming in too…and much larger versions, that weren’t just transports. They were Devastator-class, only seen in the really hot spots Jason had not yet been able to breach. And the first one to arrive was gutted within seconds as it was caught with its shields down inside the magnetic field that had just stopped its momentum.

  The bloons did the most damage, exploding the craft wherever they hit hull, but the beams and bursts from multiple Star Force weapons ate away at the rest as the shields on Jason’s ships took many hits from debris being throw out as the second ship arrived far too close behind…and a third…and a fourth.

  The immediate carnage was necessary, but when the 5th ship arrived it was one of unknown origin and only half the size of the Devastators…but it’s shields were up despite the mag jump arrival, and its weaponry was far more potent…allowing it to hold up long enough for another Caretaker ship to arrive behind it, this one a carrier with thousands of small drones that leapt off the craft before it could be destroyed.

  They pushed off each other with mooring beams and threw themselves at the Star Force ships and the station beyond, most of which were shot down before they could arrive, but the unidentified ship was proving too tough to ignore, so all available weapons were turned towards it and a few of the smaller drones made it to the station, crawling their way around the hull towards the open hangar bays…or to closed bays that were opening upon their arrival despite attempted
overrides from the Star Force team in the control center.

  This was bad, because Jason didn’t have another exit point. The mag jump dish was pointed the wrong way, and right now that was the only way in or out…and even if he wanted to leave on that line, there were ships coming in his face that he might run into.

  Bottom line was, he and his limited forces were cornered. They had to win this fight or they’d die here.

  “Jason, look out!” a voice said over the comm as a battlemap warning marker appeared inside the station. It wasn’t exactly in his position, but a few corridors over. “Essence transport from the ships. I’m trying to lock it out, but they’re getting some people through a terminal.”

  “Shit. How many terminals are in the station?”

  “Checking…looks like just the one.”

  “On it,” he said, flying towards the danger and realizing that if he acted fast he could limit the number of adversaries by destroying the device. Then again, he could also be rushing to a quick death. But if he was going to have to fight this out, keeping the numbers low was his best bet.

  He could already feel two minds present, and when he got close enough he attempted telepathic intrusion…getting blocked by one immediately but getting a quick grab on the other before being shut out.

  They were Essence capable, but they were grunts. He didn’t know what that meant in terms of power level, but they’d been grabbed off other missions and stuffed onto the lead ships to deal with or slow down the Star Force incursion while the advanced troops were called up.

  Jason didn’t get much more than that, but the situation was clear. Whatever was coming in the subsequent waves would wipe them out, either navally or hand to hand. They were not going to let Star Force have this facility, which meant Jason had accidentally bitten off more than he could chew.

  “We win this fight or we all die here,” Jason told everyone moments before he engaged the Essence users, which were now 3 in number. “More advanced troops are on the way, and they’re going to wipe us out. If we hold here, we evacuate. If we lose, we’re dead. Reorient the mag jump immediately after the reinforcements stop coming. Push the damn thing with your hulls if you have to. It’s our only way out.”

  He wanted to say more, but there was no time. He flew through the archway into the medium-sized chamber that held the invisible Essence portal that appeared little more than a decorated wall, but as soon as he was through he dropped to the ground and ran, causing his body to transition into Saiyan 1 form, with his hair going blonde inside his armor and his body calibrating to a much higher tempo, so much so he moved faster across the ground than he could while flying, running towards the now four individuals clad in heavily mechanical armor and unleashing the full fury of his mental psionics against them as he put up a defensive Essence barrier around his body.

  Which was needed. He got hit with something immediately, then the foursome stumbled or fell as they were disoriented, allowing him to run dangerously close by them as he activated his armor’s death sabers, popping a flat energy blade out of each wrist just above his hands. He slashed through the arm of one that was in reach, cleaving it with a tug on his own arm as the enemy armor resisted the cutting somewhat.

  It wasn’t a kill shot, but he couldn’t move any further away from the wall and still be able to slash through the equipment just as a 5th individual came through right in front of him.

  Jason didn’t have long to react, with his body slamming into the new arrival as he kept his arm stretched out to make sure he got through the entire portal with one slash. He took the body hit, then finished up with a quick Jumat ring blast that knocked the individual further ahead of him and pushed some of the others to the ground, then his Saiyan reflexes got his own footing back sooner than his stunned opponent…whom he dove his right death saber right through his chest with a quick poke, then slashed it sideways out of his body, cleaving half his torso in one quick gesture that felt sluggish as the armor resisted the cutting.

  The enemy alien hit the wall with him, dead or heavily injured, as Jason kicked his feet up and landed against it with one foot on either side of the body, taking his momentum and turning it into a jump off the wall with him heading back towards the others as he hit them with another Fornax blast while attempting quick mental hacks and disorientation attacks…but it didn’t fully work, and one of them remained standing this time as they others fell.

  Jason’s Essence barrier melted under the next attack that came, but not before he got within melee range and got a good slash across his opponents neck…with his head coming clean off as he telekinetically reached for the other three and added an Essence boost to it, pulling all of their wobbling bodies in his direction as he dug his feet into the floor and slid to a stop while using his Yen’mer to help ‘fly’ him the other direction, for his speed was so great it was not easy to quickly redirect it the opposite direction.

  That closed the distance he had to cover…only this time he wasn’t able to, because an Essence wall smacked into him and knocked him backwards, only to have him spring out of the fall so fast he remained a blur as a Jumat wave came back at the three remaining enemies.

  Two of them got knocked down, but one blocked it with an Essence technique and threw an invisible attack back towards Jason who put up a defensive wall of his own, not around his entire body but concentrated in front of him. More than half of it melted away, but some slipped around the edges and reached for his armor, sinking into his body and making him feel so sick he puked in his helmet as his internal organs were messed with somehow.

  He nearly fell, but surged the Essence from his Magicite ring through his body in a cleansing wash, returning him to fighting capability within a second, even as he recognized he was injured. He had to end this fast, so he opened up the glove on his left hand, in the palm only, to expose his skin and the slit in it while goosing his shields to protect him from the lack of air…and from that palm he fired his Bra’hem. His other arm still had his bioplasma, but he was one of the Archons who had elected to replace the other with the far more potent weapon…and he poured everything he had into one shot directed at the enemy that had remained standing, expecting him to be the strongest as he quickly threw another Fornax blast towards the others, hoping to at least delay their attacks against him.

  The green beam shot out like a wobbly laser, but Jason’s arm precision was good enough to land it in the armored chest, though the beam hit something before that and splintered, with pieces of it shooting out into the ceiling, walls, and floor…and luckily into one of the other enemies as well, but most of it got through the primary target and burnt clean through his armored body…and the wall behind him into the next room.

  He wasn’t dead, for Jason could still feel his mind active, so as he dropped to the floor Jason ran up over him and lopped off his head before he could launch another Essence attack in his last moments of life…yet his head rolling on the floor was able to release one last grab, which felt like a mini black hole sucking everything towards it, and it tripped up Jason, smacking him face down on the ground as his feet were pulled back from him, then the effect disappeared and he pushed himself up into the air and flew forward, having his Essence shield completely destroyed and the upper layers of his armor disintegrated in a puff of smoke that obscured his vision…but not his Pefbar.

  He disabled the two remaining enemies with a tier 4 Si’mosa, creating a Lachka object equivalent to handcuffs around both individuals’ bodies, then pulled them together until they were touching each other and unable to move.

  Jason ran up to them and dropped an Ubven over both before slicing off the head of one of them, then he surged the power through his body as he activated his Saiyan 2 genetics a moment before he struck, having to deactivate most of his Saiyan 1 speed in the process, then he delivered a punch to the alien’s midsection so powerful it broke through both the Ubven and the remains of the ‘handcuffs,’ throwing him across the room and bouncing his last opponent off the w
all, his armor crushed from the fist punch and much of his body inside it.

  Jason could tell he was unconscious, which had been his intent. He was too dangerous to be kept alive and restrained, but unconscious was no threat…so after a quick revisit to the portal and slashing it beyond recognition with his energy blades, he returned to the alien and pulled off the crushed chunks of his armor, belatedly realizing that there was now atmosphere in the room. He didn’t remember when that happened, but probably during or just before the fight in response to the living owners arriving in the station.

  Lucky for this one, otherwise the decompression would have finished him off. Jason touched his hand to the blue/green chest and hacked into his body, healing what ended up being a ‘her’ enough so that she wouldn’t die, but making sure she remained unconscious as he dug out as much information as he could, knowing there were at least some Caretaker drones in the station, but his troops should be able to deal with those. Right now he needed some answers, and he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get them…all the while monitoring the ship vs. ship carnage at the mag jump platform via his battlemap link as he momentarily opened his helmet and telekinetically cleaned the puke off his face.

  4

  Commando Ren Ghanna fired her Dre’mo’don rifle three quick times, throwing blue orbs of destructive energy down the corridor into the Caretaker drone along with many others coming from her squadmates that punched through its shields within seconds, but not before it fired back with a topaz beam directly into her chest.

  It drained her shields rapidly, and as she dodged to the side the beam followed her, roasting her armor as it didn’t relent…then Harold stepped in front of her and took the blast, leaving her a wicked scar pattern on her Mainline blue/white hard plate armor, making her glad she had been wearing it instead of the weaker nanite version.