Star Force: Allegiance (SF21) Read online

  Liam tweaked their lines and maneuvered a few of their ships around the perimeter to target backside weaponry, but otherwise he just stood and watched the station go down piece by tiny piece as the Hycre destroyer limped up out of the atmosphere and rejoined the Human fleet.

  3

  July 4, 2331

  Gadre System

  Iracet

  Liam watched as the first rail gun rounds began to pass through gaps forming in the shields of the lizards’ largest base on Iracet…though ‘base’ was a misnomer, for this one had grown to the size of a city and had a shield both larger and stronger than any they’d encountered on Corneria. Fortunately the fleet that Star Force had sent had more than enough rail-gun equipped warships to deal with it.

  Ammunition was limited in this assault, however. While the warships could refuel, repair, and reload at the jumpships there was only so many surplus rail gun rounds in storage and once they ran out their assault would come to an end…and there were far too many lizard bases on the planet to take them all out. With the increased shield strength they were showing compared to previous estimates, Liam was having to scale back their expectations considerably.

  Taking out the largest base was the first priority, just to give the lizards and the Darlestiks the message that there was nowhere on the surface safe from Star Force’s orbital firepower. Hopefully that message, being delivered now in a horrific display of wanton damage as the lizards’ shields finally collapsed and all of the lethal rain began to get through, would inspire Iracet’s native population to greater rebellion, killing the myth of the lizards’ unchallengeable dominance, at least locally.

  As Liam monitored the shattering buildings below he was simultaneously searching out their next target, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to get even a third of them all. He was currently torn between hitting those bases on the edge of the Darlestik contention zone and from trying to clear their inhabited moon of all lizard bases. He thought they had enough ammunition to do the later, but most of the ongoing rebellion was occurring on the planet. The lizards didn’t have many bases on the moon because it had been mostly pacified, so if he cleared out those installations he wasn’t sure if there would be enough of a rebel presence to overthrow the scraps.

  There was a lot he didn’t know about the situation. Star Force only had limited data provided by the Hycre to work with, which included a translation program but one that they hadn’t been able to dig into very deep on their own to verify. As it was, Liam didn’t have any Darlestik contacts on the planet to even talk to, let alone strategize with.

  Which made this mission what he considered to be a ‘blind op.’ By that he meant that the help they were giving the Darlestik would be occurring without the natives’ knowledge. Obviously they would see the lizard city/base being wiped out, but how much communication those near the destruction had with those on other portions on the planet was unknown. It was possible that the rebels might not hear about it for some time and miss the opportunity for a quick counterstrike.

  A planet was a huge place and without communications infrastructure one side of the world wouldn’t have a clue what was happening on the other. How much communications capability the Darlestik retained Liam didn’t know, but he doubted the lizards would have willingly left them much.

  That question suggested a third possible plan of action…hitting bases in as widespread a pattern as possible, hoping to maximize eyes on target to spread the word. But was breaking the psychological stranglehold the lizards had on the Darlestiks the main objective, or was it breaking up the lizards’ infrastructure and supply lines?

  Even still, should Liam call off the assault going on now after the shield generator was destroyed, which it just had been a few seconds ago with a beautiful centerline shot that gutted the tower in explosive fashion, and save ammunition to take down the defenses on more bases? Was it necessary to obliterate this base to send a message or was more widespread destruction the way to go?

  Liam was leaning towards obliteration, but at the moment there were numerous contacts moving away from the doomed base, scattering in all directions now that they couldn’t hide underneath the shield…one of which was quite large and quickly gaining speed as it flew at low altitude across the landscape.

  The Hycre hologram appeared and a pithy screechy transmission played out, along with the translation.

  PAUSE ATTACK TO LET US PURSUE.

  Liam frowned for a second, then realized that the angle that the battleship was escaping at put it directly opposite the base from the low orbit where the Hycre destroyer was waiting, meaning that a straight line pursuit course would bring it directly under the orbital bombardment.

  Liam tapped a pair of buttons and all rail gun fire from his fleet ceased.

  “You’re clear. Go get them,” he said, noticing that the destroyer had already begun its rapid descent. Even damaged it was far faster than any ship Star Force possessed, especially in atmosphere. He didn’t fully understand the shield modifications that let them cut through the air so rapidly, but given that their home environment was the high pressure atmosphere of gas giants he figured that technologically speaking the thinner atmosphere below them didn’t provide that big of a maneuvering challenge.

  How the Hycre planned to take out the battleship with part of their forward weaponry destroyed was a mystery to Liam…but also something he was keenly interested in observing. The Chimaera was receiving a copy of the Hycre’s sensor data, both of the battleship it was pursuing and of the surface area of the planet that it was passing over. Both were far more detailed than what Liam had available from his own fleet, including the images of the damaged lizard base as the destroyer flew across it in hot pursuit of the fleeing warship.

  “Map those images,” Liam told Captain Leslie, “and get revised targeting data out to the warships. I don’t want to waste a single round of ammunition by random firing if we don’t have to.”

  “Yes, sir,” she acknowledged, relaying more specific orders to the bridge crew.

  Liam left her to it as he watched the Hycre chase down the battleship…which was apparently trying to leapfrog across to another lizard base and take refuge there. When it was about halfway across the gap and discovered that it wasn’t going to be able to make it before the Hycre caught up it wheeled about and gained a few kilometers of altitude, intending to fight it out there.

  The smaller Hycre destroyer didn’t hesitate or veer off course. It headed straight in, executing a hard braking maneuver and opened fire on the battleship as soon as it was in range, sending two long streaks of bright white plasma out towards the battleship as dozens of green plasma orbs were sent back in reply. The destroyer cut off its braking maneuver early, causing it to shoot ahead from where the lizard gunners expected it to be and making most of the enemy plasma overshoot.

  The Hycre got off another hit before the destroyer flashed by at fairly close range then executed a long sweeping turn, taking it well away from the battleship with enough lateral momentum that the lizards gunners couldn’t track the ship until it came back at them straight on from the port flank, firing off another pair of streaks.

  Then it held course, firing off a second salvo as it took hits of its own on its forward shield and top ‘fin’ on the shark-like design. That second pair of plasma lances broke through the battleship’s port shields and kissed the hull with minor damage…then the destroyer hit the brakes something fierce and came to a stop less than 1 kilometer away from ramming the larger ship. With its nose pointing straight into the side of the battleship the Hycre began blasting away with not two, but four plasma cannons that were now in range thanks to the wider profile of the target.

  In addition smaller weapons on the ‘shark’ opened fire, adding damage to the unshielded hull as several pointblank green plasma orbs pummeled the destroyer’s shields. The two warships literally slugged it out like a boxing match until the destroyer took a hit on its port side and pulled up, accelerating over the battle
ship and away, firing its aft plasma weapons as it left and adding to the horrific gash in the enemy ship’s port side.

  The battleship’s starboard weaponry hammered the destroyer for a few seconds as it fled, getting another hit through the gap in its shields but it didn’t take the ship down as most of the hits were absorbed by the ‘tail’ shields. The Hycre flew off on another long sweeping turn, pausing at extreme distance until their downed shields regenerated. Seeing the writing on the wall the heavily damaged battleship turned and began to accelerate towards the nearest lizard base, putting its still shielded starboard side in direct line with the Hycre.

  To their credit the Hycre waited, pacing the battleship until their shields regained a measure of strength, then hit the lizards again before they could get within firing range of the defense towers at the lizard base. Instead of hitting the flank the battleship offered them, the Hycre flew around the aft arc at distance and came back in on their port side for another strafing run, landing two white streaks into the gaping hull breach.

  Apparently the Hycre gunners weren’t just lashing out randomly at the enemy hull, because with the additional hits the front of the elongated battleship dipped down, falling underneath the rest of the ship and dragging it towards the surface. The lizards increased power to their aft gravity drives and the descent slowed to a stop, but the ship was hanging in midair, nose down, putting its aft conventional engines at the wrong angle to propel it on towards the base. In fact, it couldn’t fly in any direction other than straight down on those engines, making it a sitting duck for the Hycre destroyer to finish off.

  Executing the only option it had, the battleship ran their remaining gravity drives to full power and began to lift the ship higher up into the atmosphere as the Hycre came around for another attack run and put two more shots into the hull, blasting out small pieces of the ship as it continued to rise up.

  Before the destroyer could come around again the lizards shut off their gravity drives completely and let the ship fall towards the surface, using maneuvering engines to tip the nose progressively to the side, bringing its orientation parallel to the ground about halfway down. Once it passed that point and began to tip up the lizards kicked in their conventional engines and began to fly sideways, with every degree of angle added to their orientation adding more thrust to counteract gravity’s pull.

  Liam watched the tracking data, mentally estimating their curve and not seeing how they were going to pull out of the dive in time. They did manage to get their nose to sky, but the speed they were dropping by was too great for their engines to counteract…then it dawned on him what they were trying.

  Suddenly the tracking numbers shifted and the ship began to decelerate much faster…meaning the lizards were reactivating their gravity drives now that the ship had its nose up in the air instead of underneath them. This caused the ‘heavy’ top section to tip to the side, which the lizard thrusters tried to counteract.

  They only slowed the tip over, but it was enough. The downward momentum was completely stalled out 4 kilometers above the surface and began to reverse. As it did they cut off the gravity drives and relied on the conventional engines only as the ship teetered to the side, gaining lateral momentum but losing altitude again as the thrust was angled to compensate for the ship’s center of gravity.

  It all bottomed out at 1.5 kilometers above the surface, then the battleship ungainly limped up into the sky like a rocket and began to slowly fly towards the lizard base nose up and throwing out a massive amount of thrust to compensate, unable to use the gravity drives due to the angle of the ship.

  The Hycre watched its tug of war with gravity, waiting to see if it would hit the ground. When it pulled out of the maneuver and began once again traveling toward its destination the destroyer came at it again making a series of several strafing runs, cutting into the vulnerable side of the ship until its conventional engines took a hit, dooming the lizards.

  The battleship sank to the ground, hitting a Darlestik city while still maintaining partial thrust, blowing apart several buildings before it landed aft end down. The ship visibly crunched from the impact, then the top portion tipped over and flattened dozens of structures, killing who knew how many natives and lizards within the city.

  The Hycre did a flyby, receiving no return fire, then angled their ship nose to sky and headed back up to orbit.

  “Well done,” Liam whispered, belatedly signaling his fleet to resume bombardment of the primary lizard base. One on one, based on blueprints alone, the lizard battleship should have had a slight edge on the Hycre destroyer…but apparently they were as good tacticians as they were shipbuilders. Having stronger ships was important, but knowing how to use them was key, and it seemed the Hycre had both aspects covered.

  They were definitely living up to their reputation of naval superiority.

  Liam turned his attention back to the lizard base, seeing that Leslie had also sent his terminal the updated map of targets. After a quick glance at what they’d already destroyed he began tagging certain areas for additional hits and others as ‘clear’ zones, indicating that they didn’t require any more rounds fired. While it was impossible to precisely hit targets with unguided projectiles from orbit, Star Force had gotten good enough at the practice that he was confident that they could target specific areas of the city reliably, so he started to conserve ammunition while insuring that the base/city was thoroughly busted up.

  Less than half an hour after the assault began Liam called a final halt to the bombardment, taking a few more minutes to survey the damage before ordering the fleet to redeploy to another location on the planet’s surface. Kitla, the planet’s moon, would have to wait. The active rebels on Iracet needed their assistance the most, not only in wiping out more lizard bases along the border of the rebellious areas, but in hitting the bases supplying the personnel, vehicles, and aircraft being used to try and subdue those areas.

  The information the Hycre had given them included detailed maps and estimates of military production of all the lizard bases, dated as of 6 months ago. The destroyer had offered some updates upon arrival, but there were still three major centers of industry that Liam decided needed to go and it looked like his fleet had enough ammo remaining to take out one of them before heading back to the jumpships to reload.

  Meanwhile 7 of the Star Force warships were already docked with the pair of jumpships and undergoing moderate repairs from the naval battle with the lizards. The large ships didn’t have full shipyard capability, but they had enough repair services to replace hull armor and swap out damaged components for spares they kept in storage, such as weapon batteries and shield emitters.

  Once those ships were patched up they and their rail guns would be added to the rest of the fleet, and Liam intended to use every last rail gun round they had against the lizards before they left the system, hoping that whatever damage they managed to do would be enough to give the Darlestik enough of an advantage to survive.

  4

  September 13, 2331

  Epsilon Eridani System

  Inner Zone

  The Chimaera braked hard against the Epsilon Eridani’s center star, ending the last leg of their return journey from Gadre without incident and with 11% fuel remaining. As soon as they slowed down their tracking data was immediately updated by the system’s navigation grid, relaying the position of all ships and stations with only a few minutes of signal lag.

  The Sirius jumpline defense station was right where it should be…off to the side and monitoring all incoming and outgoing traffic. Next to it were two dozen or so drone warships ready to respond to any uninvited guests, a pair of SRs to deal with emergencies, and a halo of sensor stations surrounding the jumpline, but not on it. Even when a sensor stealthed ship like the lizards used jumped into a system there was enough of a high frequency reflection, or ‘jump flash,’ that could be detected moments before the ship arrived.

  With the jumpship acting as a plow against the radiation comin
g out from the star, it would push the light back in towards the system with such a high doppler shift that the signal frequency shot well above gamma rays, giving the telltale sign of an incoming vessel even if it was only a minuscule amount of radiation being reflected.

  That momentary warning was critical, however, for navigational purposes…and in fact all Star Force jumpships intentionally sent out an intense signal ahead of them starting at least an hour before arrival in order to alert the sensor beacons to their arrival point and trajectory, that way they could have at least a few minutes warning to clear the jumpline to avoid a potential collision. As it was, once a jumpship made the jump out of a system they had to veer to the ‘right’ and travel several hundred thousand kilometers off the jumpline to keep from potentially running into another jumpship coming the opposite way…then scoot back over onto the line for deceleration at the target system.

  Granted, space was huge and collisions were extremely unlikely, but the more accurate a ship was able to hold to a jumpline the greater the chance of another doing the same and running into each other, hence the new travel protocols, which also included a weaker signal being transmitted continuously during a jump so that an opposite traveling jumpship could mark another’s position and move to avert an upcoming collision, again, moving to the ‘right’ as far as the galactic plane was concerned.

  Trouble was, not all races observed the same protocols, though the Hycre had agreed to follow Star Force procedure when traveling through one of their 17 systems.

  “Welcome back, Chimaera,” a voice sounded over the comm from the ‘jump station.’

  “Thank you,” Liam answered back as the comm officer shunted the communication over to him as had become standard protocol when entering a system. “Any activity while we were gone?”

  “Nope. All quiet here. Ship status?”