Star Force: Knighthood (SF36) Read online

  “Copy that, boss. Take your time. We’re not in a rush.”

  3

  March 19, 2439

  Karchonis System

  Elomirit (Calavari territory)

  Morgan and her personalized neo, or rather what was left of it, returned up to orbit via dropship and rendezvoused with the trailblazer’s taskforce that consisted of 43 warships and an additional 28 cargo jumpships. Huge as the fleet was, it paled in comparison to the 263 jumpships that were holding position in a slightly higher orbit, each of which was twice the size of the Red Ranger and full of new tech.

  They were the largest jumpships Star Force had ever constructed, with several variants. Only a handful were warships, Morgan saw as she studied the dropship’s link into the fleet battlemap as it ascended, with the rest being a mix of pure cargo ships and hybrid carriers. Those carriers were empty, which she found odd. They were designed to carry other ships, drone or otherwise, and it didn’t make sense for Star Force to send them out here with empty loads. She hoped their internal cargo bays weren’t likewise empty, because she could use as many resources as she could get out on this very lonely battlefield.

  The Calavari civilization was in shambles, or rather parts of it were. There were still strong areas, bunches of star systems that the Nestafar hadn’t yet been able to touch, but by the same token there were vast areas of carnage that may have been labeled as Calavari territory on the map, but it no longer truly belonged in that category. Some of them had fallen into Nestafar hands, but most were just empty battlefields littered with machines and bodies from both sides.

  The Calavari had made two reprisal campaigns into Nestafar territory that had cut deep, and after that everything seemed to get lost in the fog of war. Information coming from the Alliance was sketchy, with Morgan, Taryn, and Leif coordinating with each other through a network of courier ships. They were hitting targets of opportunity rather than engaging in the heaviest of fighting, often being able to blindside Nestafar fleets and ground troops that were in more or less the same condition as the Calavari.

  The two civilizations were pounding each other so hard, it seemed like whoever came out the victor would be a mere technicality, for they were decimating each other in the process.

  Morgan was doing what she could to help, as were the other Alliance races, but the Nestafar had committed their entire military to this blood feud and the Calavari had been forced to respond in kind. The Bsidd and Kvash had been assisting them primarily in the contended region with the lizards, insuring that the Nestafar threat wouldn’t pull Calavari out of that fight and leave the door open for the real enemy to come in through. Meanwhile the Hycre were all over the map, making strikes with their dominant naval power but never staying in one place for too long.

  The lesser Alliance races, Star Force included, were helping out where they could, but in the case of the Humans they just didn’t have the numbers to make a significant difference on the overall warfront. They were making a huge difference to the systems they were intervening in, as well as racking up a sizeable kill count of Nestafar ships, which Morgan was most definitely keeping score of, but it was still just a drop in the galactic bucket, with the overall outcome remaining in the hands of the Nestafar and Calavari.

  Had she more resources Morgan could have made a bigger dent, which she hoped had been provided by Jenna’s fleet, but seeing the carriers empty made her reconsider that and question what in the blazes were they really doing out here.

  Once she got back onboard the Red Ranger Morgan didn’t have to wait long to find out, for Jenna was waiting for her inside one of the ship’s map rooms.

  “Ok, what’s going on?” she asked, stepping into the medium-sized room and only seeing Jenna present, which was odd, for these workrooms were typically busy with overflow duties that couldn’t be accommodated on the bridge.

  “Shut the door,” Jenna prompted.

  Morgan frowned but turned around and spotted the door control on the edge of the entryway arch and telekinetically pressed it, with what looked like a blast door closing behind her. She waited until it had sealed before looking Jenna in the eye and raising an eyebrow.

  “I can brief you in full,” the Ninja Monkey said, holding up a small data chip, “but first you need to see this…so you don’t bite my head off.”

  “Nice to see you too,” Morgan said, walking up to the main holographic table and standing next to it on the opposite side from Jenna as she input the chip into a slot on the underside, with a half-sized image of Jason appearing to stand on the table between them facing the wall to Morgan’s right and Jenna’s left.

  “My apologies,” the prerecorded message began, “for keeping you in the dark for so long, but we thought it’d only serve as a distraction for you until we had the assets in place to allow you to take action. You’ve been kicking the crap out of the Nestafar and we didn’t want to jinx you, so we didn’t include any of what you’re about to hear in the standard message packets.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, we told everyone else except you three because, well, we just don’t like you,” Jason joked as his hologram snapped its fingers and a star map popped up beside him. “Operation Conduit provides us a link to Calavari space independent of the Hycre, freeing up their carrier jumpships for other uses and allowing us more tonnage than they could provide…save for Daka, which they are still providing transit to.”

  The star map outlined the zigzag course from one pinprick of light to another starting at Epsilon Eridani and ending just inside the outer boundary of Calavari space, crossing a huge gap of territory in which the majority of the Hycre worlds fell, along with a number of other smaller races.

  “Now, here’s the part we didn’t want to distract you with, and what Jenna will explain in detail. The Conduit isn’t meant for us to supply you with additional resources. It’s meant for you to start sending Calavari back to us, quietly, so we can start rebuilding their civilization within Alpha Region. As we discussed earlier, the Alliance is doomed one way or another, but we intend to save the Calavari…some of them anyway…and make them a part of Star Force, similar to what we’ve done with the Kiritas.”

  “From the reports you’ve been sending back, we know there’s a lot of worlds the Calavari aren’t resupplying, either because they’re short on resources or because they’re now behind enemy lines. I’d suggest you target those Calavari for removal. There’s no need to consult with the Calavari government, for these worlds have already been abandoned in one form or another.”

  “They also might not like the idea of us annexing their race, so be careful how you proceed. We know we won’t be able to evacuate even a tiny fraction of their overall population, but we have facilities in place to handle all you can send us via the Conduit. You’ll be getting more of the new jumpships sent your way as the years pass, and we intend to make this operation one of our top priorities. Aside from their friendship with us, the Calavari are too valuable of an ally to let them be destroyed. Whereas the Kiritas aren’t well suited for combat, the Calavari are another matter entirely. Put them in Knight armor and…well, you can use your imagination.”

  “We didn’t want your actions tipping our hand prior to now, which is why you weren’t informed. Taryn and Leif I’ll leave you to update and coordinate with.”

  With that Jason’s hologram and star map winked out, leaving Morgan looking across the table at Jenna.

  “I only found out a year ago, so don’t blame me,” she said, raising her hands up defensively.

  “No, it’s alright,” Morgan said, waving off her concern as she started thinking hard. “What’s your fleet’s carrying capacity?”

  “Conservatively, 80,000 Calavari per jumpship, half that for the hybrids, with sufficient supplies onboard for the trip back home. Roughly 14.5 million capacity with the ships I brought.”

  Morgan sighed and shook her head. “That’s not enough, not by a long shot. Most of the Calavari frontier worlds hold 50 million plus. Wi
th all the losses they’ve taken we might be able to evacuate one.”

  “More jumpships will come, and these will rotate back. We know this is going to be a long process. Our primary concern is finding Calavari that want to be rescued.”

  “’Rescued’ isn’t the concern,” Morgan said, knowing well by now how the Calavari thought. “Whether or not they’ll want to leave the war zone is the real question. If this war was happening in Star Force territory and the Calavari came and pulled you off a destroyed colony, would you want to leave or get back into the fight?”

  “Dumb question there,” Jenna answered.

  “Don’t assume their military is going to be any different, for the most part. We’ll have to be choosey, as well as offering to relocate the ones who don’t want to leave…probably just drop them off at Drema, but there’s only so many refugees they can take on, and we don’t want the Calavari government catching on to what we’re doing. We need to deal exclusively with the Calavari colonies that have been lost or are in really bad shape, and I can’t go up to them and offer to evacuate half of them,” Morgan pointed out.

  “So we don’t evacuate the military, just the civilians.”

  “Their females may be ‘civilians’ but the males aren’t. They all fight, one way or another,” Morgan said, tapping her fingernail on her teeth as she thought.

  “This is your end of Operation Conduit,” Jenna said bluntly. “Get Calavari back to the others however you like and they’ll take them from there.”

  “Where is there, exactly? If they’re going to a planet in the expansion zone, stopping off at Corneria is out of the way.”

  Jenna pulled up the map that had been alongside Jason’s hologram and highlighted the conduit’s route…then brought up a spur several segments away from the Epsilon Eridani System.

  “Here’s the point where the Calavari transports will break off…all other jumpships will continue to Corneria as usual.”

  “Are the Hycre aware of this?”

  “No.”

  “What system is that?” Morgan asked, pointing to the end of the spur.

  Jenna zoomed in on that portion of map, expanding out Alpha Region until it filled the table.

  “Prolio. It has one large, habitable world with conditions favorable to the Calavari. We’re building Star Force infrastructure there already, but tailored to their physiology. You don’t need to send Calavari construction crews back, just the people themselves.”

  “Can I offer the Calavari sanctuary here if they travel on their own ships?”

  Jenna nodded. “That’s a contingency plan that’s been discussed. If they want to construct their own colony here they’re welcome to, but we’re planning on assimilating the refugees into Star Force, not recreating one of their homeworlds. We can do both, if necessary.”

  “Well that’s something then. What kind of numbers can we support, foodstuff wise?”

  “As many as you can send our way. With the help of the Kiritak, we’re setting up bioharvest facilities on a scale we’ve never attempted before, some of which are being placed in Alpha Region to directly feed the Calavari. One of them will be operational before you can get the first refugees there.”

  Morgan nodded. “Useful little buggers, aren’t they?”

  “I had a chance to meet a few before we left. They’re very eager to help, and they speak perfect English, which is a little disconcerting.”

  “Randy’s doing…what’s their efficiency like?”

  “Better than ours, mostly. Their smaller size is letting us design more compact factories, and we’ve got a very basic ambrosia formula worked up for them…so they’re very hyper.”

  “Not sure that’s a good idea,” Morgan scoffed, trying to imagine what that would look like.

  “It’ll increase the odds of them reaching self-sufficiency, and that will help maintain a workforce rather than having to cyclically replace…”

  “I know, I know. I was joking.”

  “Oh,” Jenna said, having missed that cue, probably due to the fact that she hadn’t seen Morgan in more than 20 years.

  “Who’s handling the Calavari at Prolio?”

  “Jason and Jace. Jace with the training and Jason is organizing the entire operation from a seda he built in orbit. They’ve got the relay network extended out that far, so he can link in with Corneria and the rest of the inner zone.”

  “Have they got it out to Namek yet?”

  “Working on it, but they’re still missing a few links.”

  “Do the warships you’ve brought have telaris sensors?”

  Jenna nodded. “Both the jumpships and the drones.”

  “Well then…looks like I’m claiming a new flagship. We’ll swap out my oldest ones and put them on convoy duty.”

  “What about Taryn and Leif?”

  Morgan shrugged. “First come, first serve,” she said with a smirk.

  Jenna mirrored her expression. “Jason wanted me handling the convoys, unless you had another place for me?”

  “Sort of,” Morgan said, thinking fast and already having outlined a rough playbook that she’d be working out of for the next decade. “The Captains can handle themselves moving up and down the conduit, what I need you to do is oversee the transfer from my taskforce back to Drema…and to make sure we don’t lose that planet, otherwise our convoys coming up the conduit could be walking into an ambush. The Nestafar are fairly good at insystem intercepts, and if a ship is caught sleeping they’ll nail it.”

  “I’d hope none of our Captains are that sloppy.”

  “They’re not, but some of the Calavari are, and the Nestafar have picked up a lot of experience at their expense, so they’re not so hesitant to try as others might be.”

  Jenna nodded. “How many warships do you want to leave me?”

  “Enough to hold Drema and patrol the routes out to ever changing pickup points,” Morgan said, taking control of the map and zipping it over to Calavari territory…which was far larger than all six Regions surrounding Sol combined.

  She pointed to their current position, then ran her finger back through several systems until she got to Drema.

  “We’ll have to coordinate well, but I want fingers coming out from Drema that will be your responsibility to guard. Me, Taryn, and Leif will bring the Calavari transports to the end points where they’ll meet up with your escorts. Once they do and move back to Drema, the finger will move to another position, that way neither the Nestafar nor anyone else will be able to peg our movements and get inventive.”

  “I’ll have to know where to go ahead of time,” Jenna pointed out.

  “I’ll send the next finger endpoint back with the jumpships, so will Taryn and Leif. You plot the best route to get there…and be mindful of the geography, there are some jumplanes that we won’t use, but the Nestafar will.”

  “I thought our shields were on par with theirs by now?”

  “The newer models are better, actually, we’re just more cautious with navigation. They’re losing so many ships per day that the odd debris collision during jumps probably seems minor compared to the distance savings.”

  “Glad I’m not on their side.”

  “The Calavari are doing the same thing, as far as I can tell. Information on their movements is sketchy, but they’re desperate. They know they’re losing, even with Alliance help. Their naval disadvantage is proving too great, but then the Nestafar can’t easily take the worlds they’re claiming from orbit. That means really messy ground combat that is eviscerating the Nestafar.”

  “We’ve been picking off as many ships from orbit as we can,” Morgan continued, “but have left most of the ground engagements to the Calavari. We’ve pacified this region more or less, but we keep moving about so as not to draw attention for a counterattack. Thus far it’s been easy pickings, but equipment wears down and ammunition is depleted, limiting what we can do. So I hope somewhere in that big ass fleet of yours there’s supplies for me and just not the Calavari?”
r />   “Well, we had to fill the empty interiors with something for the trip out,” Jenna said, smiling.

  “Why are the carriers empty then?”

  “They’re only empty since Drema. We dropped off a lot of stuff to fortify the planet.”

  “Good,” Morgan said, relieved that Jason was on top of the planning. “Now give me the rundown on who and what you brought.”

  4

  August 27, 2439

  Renx System

  Lrat (Nestafar Occupation Zone)

  Bronsor ducked behind a tree trunk as a pair of Nestafar infantry flew by overhead, pulling his four arms in close to his chest and trying to hold still. He and the rest of his unit had fled into the hills surrounding the city of Sassma when the garrison finally fell, and they’d been hunted ever since, though the Calavari had been taking down a good number of them from range.

  These had gotten in close, meaning Bronsor’s unit was either out of place, incapacitated…or dead, otherwise this pair would have been sniped out of the sky by now. Give the Nestafar the sky and they had a significant advantage, but force them down to ground level and the odds weren’t in their favor. The trees here weren’t the thickest, granting many gaps for the Nestafar to fire down through and leaving Bronsor in a tight spot when he’d been expecting fire support.

  Luckily the Nestafar didn’t spot him and flew on past. The Calavari held still for several seconds afterwards, listening for more wing flaps or footsteps and hearing neither. Unfurling his arms from his sides, he pulled up his one remaining rifle and held it at the ready in his lower right hand. He only had a few dozen shots remaining, and after that he’d be down to his knives, which wouldn’t be very useful against Nestafar in the air, especially given that he wasn’t very good at throwing them.

  Bronsor walked away from his tree, trying to stay under the thick parts of the reddish/brown canopy as he moved further into the forest and away from the city…heading to a small training outpost where he and the others hoped they’d find some supplies. Ammo they needed, but food and water were more scarce, and Bronsor hadn’t eaten anything the past 2 days, leaving him lightheaded but none the less committed to reaching his target and finding a way to survive.