Star Force: Excursion (SF46) Read online

  The base Jennifer was landing at had one of the strongest shield generators ever built, far stronger than those on any Star Force warship, and with multiple units to provide redundancy enough to keep a 100 square mile area protected from orbital bombardment. Those shields were down at the moment, allowing her dropship easy access to one of 6 spaceports. Another was under construction along with a slew of new buildings creeping out across the ice as the artificial surface of the base slowly replaced it.

  In between the buildings were large pathways meant for mechs, along with two airfields and 6 mech bays…plus a small aquatics cupola sticking up, underneath which was a water corridor that stretched under the ice to a nearby ocean, with Star Force having done a lot of digging to make the connection.

  The Protovic hadn’t colonized their oceans, which covered some 34% of the planet and interconnected with each other in the form of long tendrils that segmented the landmasses. Star Force had received permission to develop infrastructure there, with the intent being to create outposts and troop deployment centers that the Skarrons would have a difficult time hitting, for so far they hadn’t deployed any type of aquatics forces, making the Alliance wonder if they even had any in their ranks.

  Jennifer’s dropship nestled down into one of the spaceport’s enclosed bays, landing on one of six pads after dropping through an environment shield that kept the cold air out but let the transports come and go, meaning that the Archon walked out onto a warm pad that was busy unloading four Dragon-class dropships bringing down more construction materials from a convoy that had just arrived 3 hours ago.

  They’d be busy the next few days unloading as the 3 mech galaxies already on planet were finishing up the last of the Skarrons’ most recent attempt at a surface attack. They’d already finished off the last of the enemy walkers, leaving only infantry to mop up on the rolling grasslands of a southern hemisphere continent.

  Their dropship transports were housed in and operated out of the airfield, leaving the spaceports as the commerce terminals, but as Jennifer made her way to the interior she moved up several levels to the skyline walkway that gave her a brief glimpse of the nearest mech bay promenade.

  She paused a moment to look it over, seeing the normal burrows that the mech bay was constructed inside and coated over top of with multiple layers of dirt/rock/armor…which in this case was all armor given that they were on an ice field and the actual ground was deep beneath them. Outside the surface ‘bumps’ were large clearings broken up by a scattering of buildings. Here there were multiple mechs, most of which were stationary and set into lines, but a few were walking about and heading towards a couple of dropships, ostensibly readying for deployment.

  The other mechs should have been berthed inside, not standing outside. Jennifer wondered what they were doing out there, for she didn’t think there were any pilots currently in them. They looked like they were parked, and sticking them out in the open was a bad idea in case the base came under attack and the enemy either got through the shields or slipped in a sneak shot before they went up.

  She’d have to inquire about that when she got to her headquarters, now that this base was falling under her command.

  The skyline walkway ran across the top of the spaceport and several other buildings before it came to a tram terminal. Jennifer boarded one of the small craft that ran the enclosed rails and rode it across the top/mid level of the base, passing over some buildings and through others until she got off at the terminal nearest the headquarters and hiked the rest of the way on foot, travelling down multiple levels until she got over to the subterranean control room where she found Kip waiting with his personal bundle set on the ground beside his feet while he studied a hologram of something on the planet’s surface.

  “In a hurry?” she asked, glancing at the duffle.

  “Places to go, things to do,” he said with a smile. “I trust you can keep things together here?”

  “I find that question insulting,” Jennifer said sarcastically.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Make sure this cleanup skirmish is thorough. We don’t want to let the Skarrons keep a few infantry in place to act as scouts for their next attack.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “All yours then,” he said, offering her his armored hand.

  She shook his black glove in her bare hand, glad that he didn’t squeeze too hard. Jennifer nodded and Kip released his grip, grabbing his striker helmet and locking it in place before retrieving his duffle and heading out of the control room.

  He didn’t waste any time, heading for one of the airfields and climbing into his personal skeet, painted blue through the fuselage and yellow on the anti-grav ‘T’ tips. The trailblazer shoved his duffle into a compartment below his feet and slid onto the pommel seat before hitting the button to lower the armored canopy into place, blocking out his view until the holographic HUD activated, replacing the armor with an exterior view seemingly through the material.

  Kip lifted off moments later, flying up over the base and accelerating laterally as he continued to gain altitude, eventually rising up to orbit some 1500 miles to the east and rendezvousing with his ride out of the system. Using nothing but anti-gravs, for the skeets didn’t have maneuvering thrusters, Kip gently crept the aerofighter through the vacuum of space and into one of the hangar bays of the Taro Adun.

  His normal flagship, the Tassadar, was sitting in a Star Force shipyard undergoing an extensive refit after getting the crap kicked out of it by the Skarrons. Fortunately for it and him the massive warship had enough mass to survive the assault and keep the drones operational, though the Skarrons had destroyed almost all of the transmitters. They’d had to rely on a short range backup placed at the center of the warship to continue to orchestrate their defense escort, though if that hadn’t functioned there had been other Star Force warships in the area that would have picked up the control slack, meaning the drones wouldn’t have been taken out of the battle.

  But it had shown that the Skarrons knew the warships were the control units for the drones, and that they weren’t going to be hesitant in attacking them. It was a potential weakness for Star Force, one that they’d armored over considerably, including preprogramming attack profiles into the drones so they could continue fighting even without exterior control, but so long as they maintained a technological edge Kip wasn’t worried, for they’d been reworking the warship design continuously, now up to the Mk. 23 variety that the Tassadar was being reworked into.

  The Taro Adun was a Mk. 22 that had only seen light combat, but that was likely to change as Kip left the Rvot System and headed further down on the galactic plane.

  He took no other ships with him, traveling several weeks until he crossed over into Gamma Region, which sat below Earth and the Core Region, but stretched out wider the farther down you went, given the 45 degree angle from centerline that it was charted off of. The system to which Kip was headed was far beyond the scattering of colonies that Nevil oversaw, putting it closer to Zeta and Beta Region colonies.

  It was nearly straight down from Protovic territory, with a slight coreward shift, and totally uninhabited…containing two gas giants orbiting a pair of red giant stars that were near to merging into one. Beyond that there was nothing else in the system.

  Traveling to the outermost of those gas giants, the Taro Adun made a microjump across the system and dropped into battlemap transmission range with Kip seeing numerous Star Force signatures popping up on the bridge holo. There were three other Warship-class jumpships, one from the 13th fleet and two from Ivan’s Clan Cookie, which took the award for the most ridiculous name, especially when paired with the colored M&Ms paint scheme that all their craft were covered with, including the pair of jumpships.

  Hilarious to newcomers, Kip no longer saw anything other than a strong Clan when he pictured the Cookies, and was grateful that Ivan had been able to devote the pair of warships to this latest puzzle piece mission, given that Kip had none to spare. C
lan Protoss was fully engaged in the defense of the Protovic, leaving little resources left to go hitting the Skarrons elsewhere.

  The rendezvous system they were in now sat 1.4 lightyears from their target system of Dcan, and formerly home to the Issvoks, an associate of the Protovic. They’d been a single system race with trading ties throughout the region, and hadn’t put up much of a fight when the Skarrons targeted their world. The most recent intel the Protovic had suggested that the Issvoks had been completely wiped out, with the Skarrons taking possession of their planet and moving on, leaving the conquered world behind their forward pressing fleets and giving anyone who was bold enough to hit it an easy target.

  Normally Kip wouldn’t have bothered going after Skarron conquests, knowing that it would probably draw a reprisal, but this was a special case. First off the Protovic had brought it to his attention, citing they would like to incorporate what Issvoks had escaped destruction by being off planet at the time of the invasion into the Alliance refuge populations. Arrangements for that had already been made, but so far only a handful had been found and brought into the ADZ.

  The second reason was the location…just on the edge of what Star Force had loosely tagged as the ADZ border in Gamma Region, despite the fact it was far from any Star Force or Alliance colony…officially. In truth it was close to one of the private networks Star Force was setting up, with this one belonging to Ivan and Megan, which was one reason why he’d been willing to devote resources to the mission.

  The nearest outpost was 15 lightyears away, giving them a light, backup supply line out to them if needed, but the plan was to have a self-sufficient presence that could then backfeed into that portion of Gamma Region, establishing colonies that would then link up with current ones decades down the road.

  Which brought him to the third reason…and the owners of the bulk of the fleet sitting next to the three warships.

  For years Canderous had literally begged the trailblazers to let them have a greater role in the warfront, with them always playing it safe and giving the Canderians small, yet crucial assignments for them to gain some experience on. It had never been enough to satisfy the military civilization, but they’d done their duty all the while expanding their network of sedas throughout the Core Region and elsewhere where allowed.

  This was to be the first major Canderian assault, with Kip knowing that he needed to be present to make sure nothing went wrong…and to make sure they got their foothold on this wide open border in the ADZ before the Skarrons felt like pushing inside it. He and the Canderians both knew that the Skarrons might respond aggressively to losing the planet, and they were prepared to face the brunt of their reprisal. In fact, the Canderians seemed to welcome it, while Kip would much prefer the Skarrons overlooking the loss of the world and continuing to press their attacks against the Protovic, much as they hadn’t hit another Star Force world since they’d gotten their butts kicked in their first attempt at an invasion.

  He had no doubts the Skarrons hadn’t given up on the idea, but the Protovic were putting up a good fight and he assumed the enemy needed to concentrate their resources on the one target before trying to branch out onto multiple fronts in the region. That, or until the Skarron leadership decided to pay more attention to the region and send the mass of reinforcements that Star Force knew they were capable of producing.

  All the more reason to get at least a single point of defense established on the Gamma Region border, especially with more and more refugee populations, and sometimes entire races, fleeing both the Skarron and lizard fronts and filling in the very large amount of territory within the ADZ…of which they had plenty more to accommodate as many allies as they could collect, so long as they weren’t too picky about the environment of the available worlds.

  As soon as Kip’s ship arrived the assault fleet was complete, with the entire armada microjumping out to the central stars and making the interstellar jump over to the neighboring system with the Taro Adun and the other warships leading the way. As soon as they arrived in Dcan they scanned the area around the central star, seeing it devoid of ships, then microjumped out to the Skarron-held planet of Waxcvat, finding only 6 Skarron warships in orbit…all of which were destroyer class.

  There were more than 50 other Skarron ships, all of which fled the newcomers as the warships moved to intercept them as the Star Force jumpships began to deploy their drones. The Skarrons made a quick run against the Taro Adun, unloading some plasma and missiles against her shields before jumping away from the planet…or rather 5 did. One got skewered by a cleansing beam and couldn’t jump out, leaving it easy pickings for the drones.

  The four warships settled into low orbit with their full complement of drones deployed as the Canderians began jumping in. First came their own warships, shaped like knife blades and accompanied by independent drones that were far larger and not block shaped. They had no crews, but operated a variety of functions. Some were carriers that housed smaller drones and fighters, others were pure battleships and some were shield ships that carried few weapons but acted as blockers to stave off heavy, directed attacks against the commanding warships.

  Looking like Super Star Destroyers, the warships settled into orbit, some 73 strong, bringing their drone fleets with them ahead of the much larger ships to come.

  Or rather the sedas that came, carried into planetary orbit by specially designed jump cradles. First came a trio of small ones, each only 2.3 miles in diameter and specialized for strategic mining operations. Following them came progressively larger ones, culminating in a 23 mile wide giant that took 6 jump cradles working together to carry between the stars.

  Those jump cradles detached immediately upon arrival, with all of the 13 sedas maneuvering into their desired orbits on their own, much smaller gravity drives. Once settled in those sedas spewed forth hundreds of landing craft, with Kip taking to his skeet and dropping down from orbit with them as the Canderian troops headed for the wreck of a planet that the Skarrons had taken up residence on in a few key locations.

  There might not have been any Issvoks left alive to save, but they were definitely going to be avenged, with their planet serving a strategic purpose against the Skarrons as it was shortly to become part of the ADZ and a big middle finger waving in the enemy’s face.

  4

  December 19, 2504

  Numar System (Calavari Territory)

  Sashneo

  Morgan watched from the command nexus onboard her Melee-class warship Green Ranger as the last Alliance evacuation fleet slowly moved out of orbit, a few ships at a time, enroute to the system’s star and from there across what had formerly been Calavari territory to Drema and the conduit into what was now being called the ADZ. Most of the ships were non-Star Force, and even non-Hycre, for this was the last call, with the masses that were left on the planet being crammed into every transport available.

  Sashneo had served its purpose as one of the transitional worlds, but its time had come to an end. The lizard lines were now just next door, with Morgan’s fleet having held the system against their probing attacks for the past 7 years as they pulled more refugees from the surrounding systems. Recently most of those had been non-Calavari, for despite how large their empire had once been, they’d run out of people to rescue…and unfortunately that was due to the war and not their evacuation efforts, for less than 7% of their former population had been relocated.

  There were still other worlds within the region that had been Calavari territory, inhabited by dozens of races, but if they hadn’t pulled out by now the train wasn’t waiting for them any longer, and they’d have to deal with the lizards on their own…or hope that they deemed them inconsequential and passed them by.

  Morgan was in the command nexus because several lizard attack groups were snooping around the system, and despite the hunter teams she had out pursuing them they had yet to be completely eradicated. That meant that some of the evacuation ships might come under attack, which was unacceptable. Hence she ha
d her defense fleet spread out to cover the evacuation route to the stellar jumpline, with her massive ship holding the anchor position in planetary orbit where the last of the transporters were clustered as they picked up the remaining dropships coming up from the surface.

  Onboard those dropships were the architects of the transition world, those people that had overseen its setup and operation, and who now had just overseen its closure, with the removal of all sensitive materials that they didn’t want the lizards to get their hands on. Morgan had considered bombarding the planet to destroy the infrastructure in order to deny it to the enemy, but ultimately decided not to waste the ammunition. If the lizards wanted the Alliance structures then they were theirs to claim, for in a few hours’ time they’d be abandoning the planet and the system, with Morgan knowing they weren’t planning on coming back.

  Wanting to keep the last bit of this operation tidy, Morgan stayed in the nexus keeping an eye on all ship movements and tweaking them as she wished until the last of the dropships were onboard and the transports made microjumps out from the planet with their escorting warships…leaving the Green Ranger as the last ship in orbit.

  Morgan pulled up a holographic display of Sashneo and gave it one last real time look, seeing the mass of construction they’d jammed onto the planet only a handful of years ago, only now to abandon it. It had served its purpose, but it still felt like a waste and Morgan knew that while they had accomplished their mission this was still a defeat. Yet one more Calavari world that would soon go to the enemy…assuming they wanted it.