Star Force: Paladin (SF94) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  Something was definitely wrong here, but his mission was clear.

  Get on site and shoot as many of the reavers as he could.

  As expected, the drone got there first and began throwing down a horrendous amount of firepower onto the tunnel exit, obliterating it and everything nearby, but there were so many reavers already on the surface and spreading out that it couldn’t stop them. In order to try and contain the damage, 1388 swung to the left and went after those furthest out from the epicenter, dropping down low to the ground as he raced forward, then bringing the shuriken into a drifting hover as he opened up with his heavy lachars.

  A Type-1 would have had maulers, but the heavy lachars did more than adequate damage here, allowing him to vaporize chunks of the reavers’ bodies on contact, maiming or killing them with single hits. They weren’t big to begin with, but they moved very fast and in erratic patterns, juking side to side even when there was no one targeting them, but by setting his weapons to shotgun mode he was able to deliver a cone of damage rather than a narrow beam.

  That cone sent out numerous smaller beams, and 1388 could usually land a hit with each trigger pull. He’d found that it was quicker to wound a group with the shotgun mode, then switch over to standard to finish them off when their agility was diminished, but there were so many here now it almost didn’t matter. The few he was plucking off the perimeter were inconsequential to how many more were loose and fanning out in all directions, killing whatever Vittis they came across.

  1388 saw several of the equally fast white furballs running from three reavers and angled towards them, stitching the ground between them with lachar strikes and causing the reavers to flinch, then the Paladin brought his fighter to a halt midair and flipped his two blade-like nose wings down and pummeled the reavers from pointblank range with as wide a shotgun mode as he could, firing over and over again until the Vitti group was clear and their immediate pursuit was torn up into little gooey chunks.

  Then as more reavers ran underneath and around his ship, trying to get after the escaping Vittis, he started to take impacts on his shields. 1388 didn’t know what to make of it at first, for it was doing no damage, but he did see different reavers beneath him. They were about the same size as the normal ones, but these had different body parts and seemed to be spitting something into the air at his ship.

  Knowing that the shuriken was recording everything that happened, he didn’t worry about it and knew there were analysts that would later. Right now though his mission was to kill, not study, so he kept his nose pointing down and got a little more altitude, backing up into the sky and launching a tiny missile down into the group that was collecting and firing up on him together. The warhead detonated and killed several hundred while knocking down others along the perimeter that quickly got back to their feet and scurried on looking for more targets or just a way to escape the aerial destruction that was imperviously coming down and out of their clawing range.

  Back in the grounded cruiser at the center of the growing Paladin base an Oracle sat in a pod-like station monitoring the feeds coming from the ships in the field. His body looked exactly the same as that of the pilots, save for the bar within circle tattoo that marked him as an analyst and controller. When the new variant of reaver showed up on the fighters’ sensors the Oracle immediately began collecting data on them, noting that they had a ranged weapon of unknown make that was reaching the shuriken in the air but not damaging them.

  Or at least not damaging the shields. The sensor packages on the Type-2s weren’t great, but he should still be able to pull some information from the shield impacts. Digging into the mass of data being transmitter through the battlemap, he got live feeds from the fighters and a partial analysis of the gel-like substance hitting the shields. More than telling him what it was, the Oracle was able to rule out certain possibilities, and coupled with the sight of the gel dropping onto the ground and its interaction there, literally dissolving whatever it touched, he speculated that the weapon was some type of acid.

  He knew that would be devastating to a lot of the Vitti defense lines that had been built to repel melee combat, so he marked his analysis as ‘speculative’ and shot it off through the network to all those who needed to know, then began pulling up additional images of the new reavers and started cataloging their proportions, perceived weaknesses and strengths, and basically writing the book on the new enemy…all within minutes of making first contact with them.

  In the nearby hatchery, situated mostly underground and growing fast with new construction, an Arbiter worker received a message from their commander onboard the cruiser, citing the need to start producing the more advanced Dragoons. They were part of the 3rd Triad and usually reserved until later, spamming skirmishers at first to get their numbers up, but an addendum to the message added that a new version of reaver had shown up and that a counter must be produced.

  That wasn’t good news, but the Arbiter wouldn’t be fighting them himself unless things went horribly wrong and the reavers made it all the way here. His job was to produce the necessary reinforcements given the materials supplied to him and the biogel needed to grow them wasn’t easy to make, but the collection teams were feeding him enough raw materials to allow him to be birthing a decent amount of new Paladin on a regular basis. He’d have to delay scheduled allotments to work the larger dragoons in, and he wouldn’t be able to grow as many because they were patterned off the old school masterminds and had significantly more muscle mass…which was necessary to carry around their specialized weaponry.

  The Arbiter put in an order for 3rd Triad growth pods to be assembled and stocked as soon as possible, which he expected would come online within 2 days. At that point the closely guarded genetic material would be inserted and the new Paladin would begin their rapid growth, reaching maturity in 42 days for the dragoons. 1st Triad took 26 days and 2nd took only 18, which was another reason why 3rd Triad wasn’t usually rushed in the beginning of a seeding mission like this, but you had to adapt to the current situation and the bigger guys were now needed. The Arbiter just hoped there was enough time to get them grown and the necessary weapons produced for them…and that whoever needed them now could hang on long enough for them to get to them.

  AVN-2712 was rushed to the equipment room as soon as he passed verification. He geared up with four others, putting on their armor and exoskeletal racks as easily as if they’d been doing it for 100 years, though none of them had ever touched one before. In fact none of them had ever done anything before, having gone straight from their growth pods to verification and were now here only hours later. They were as green as green could get, but had the knowledge of veterans and knew exactly what it was they needed to do.

  2712 wore heavy armor colored dark blue, which wasn’t as dense as what he normally wore because it was also a Type-2 along with probably everything else the Paladin had on planet so far that they hadn’t brought in with them. That said, the armor was still incredibly strong and had built in energy shielding that could recharge whereas armor couldn’t. Given his 8 foot tall size he could carry a lot of it, but that wouldn’t be necessary with the powered enhancement. He’d wear it, but the armor would carry most of its own weight for him and on top of it wasn’t just a weapons rack, but a full exoskeleton of attachment points that ran down his back, arms, and legs.

  It was a full body rack, and onto it he added the weapons that dragoons were known for. His orders were to fill out as a rocket baby and as he glanced around he saw the others were as well. He grabbed three launchers and attached them to various spots, then added boxy ammunition canisters that were extra well protected with both armor and shields of their own. Having one of those detonate on his back would be a very bad thing, even with the armor he wore, and should a dragoon go out like that they were probably going to die, for their rockets were far more powerful than their small size suggested.

  The smaller Paladin used them at times, but they couldn’t carry very much. Dragoons were built
to be the tanks of the infantry and lived up to that reputation, with 2712’s unit marching out together to board a droplet in an intimidating line. A few dozen new skirmishers joined them and took their seats in the hold, but the dragoons simply stood. With their exoskeletons loaded up they couldn’t sit in the seats anyway.

  When the droplet reached their destination point the ramp opened up onto a massive battlefield just behind friendly lines that were under assault. The Vittis had established several fort-like bunkers that they were holding just ahead of a low wall so that when the reavers came they’d surround the bunkers that would diminish their numbers and break up their ranks before they got to the weaker wall…behind which 2712 saw was a huge Vitti settlement. The buildings weren’t tall by Star Force standards, but with the Vitti being so small they could pack a lot of them into a remarkably small space, making their interior levels much shorter than normal and meaning there was an awful lot of people depending upon this line to be held.

  The dragoons led the way out and headed straight for the waypoint on the wall, but the skirmishers quickly passed them by and got there first, moving the odd little Vittis aside that were standing on their rear legs and holding small rifles in their front ones. Suddenly targets appeared on their battlemap, but they weren’t the ones already engaged ahead. They were further out in the approaching masses of reavers and out of sight…but that didn’t matter to the rockets.

  “Clear the area,” 2712 ordered, with several skirmishers assisting with shooing the Vittis away from the five heavily armed Paladin.

  Using battlemap telemetry, 2712 raised his right arm and aimed the tube-like barrel on the necessary trajectory as indicated by his HUD, getting it within tolerance before pulling the trigger that released a flash of glowing red that shot up in a high arc up and over both the wall and the bunkers, sailing far out beyond the swarms of reavers and illuminating them slightly in the nighttime conditions.

  There were large torch-like lights set up all around the wall and bunkers, but it was dark further beyond making it hard to see any reavers save those within firing range. Star Force sensors didn’t have that limitation, so the rocket that was the size of a Calavari finger guided itself using the tiny engine inside to track towards a clump of reavers that were not the melee version. Rather they were the acid spitters raining down their little attacks on the front wall of the bunkers and slowly chewing through it, after which the claws of their brethren would be within range of the Vittis when they jumped through the holes created, but if they got much closer they’d be able to arc their acid shots up and over the small defense wall and hit the exposed troops there.

  But not the group that this glowing rocket landed on. It knocked one acid spitter to the ground when it hit, then detonated a split second later creating a briefly lived expanding ball of burning red light that ate away at everything within range far faster than the reaver acid would. Even the ground vaporized in places, and that sudden expansion of solid into gas created a hurricane-like pressure wave that shot out from the impact, knocking down all the reavers nearby like dominoes with a few even bouncing off the bunkers.

  But the dragoons didn’t just fire one rocket, they launched multiple ones and the sea of reavers suddenly turned into a torrent of air and red flashes, after which the battlemap indicated that the acid spitter groups had been destroyed, for the most part, but there was no guarantee that more reinforcements weren’t coming from the subterranean tunnels that they dug unnaturally fast to avoid air patrols.

  There were none here, for this was a lower priority region and more valuable cities were in need of them, both the Paladin shurikens and the Vitti craft. This was to be an infantry war here, and as long as the dragoons had ammunition they were going to keep the reavers to melee combat, to which end the five of them spread out across the wide northern defense line and made like turrets at key points while an army of skirmishers aided the Vittis and mowed down reavers as fast as they could.

  5

  May 23, 3501

  Tekin System (Rim Region)

  Plataro

  AVN-127335 sat on a stool with his large blue tail hanging off the back as he read through reports at a furious rate, flipping from one to another and absorbing the first real knowledge of his life. He’d just come out of verification and was now catching up on the mission for which he’d been created that was already 8 years in. The planet was Plataro and the native race was called the Vitti, whom Star Force had declared a ward and sent three Archons and a small group veteran Star Force personnel in to lead a Paladin seed that was now large enough to begin producing hatchery batches in decent numbers.

  Resources were still an issue and they were consuming everything they collected with a ravenous appetite, but he’d finally been grown now that the skills of a master strategist were starting to become needed with the increased number of Paladin involved and a planet full of natives that needed guidance as well. According to his reports, the Archons were spending most of their time on the front lines as combat personnel rather than organizers, so it was no surprise that they’d called for his birth long before typically…

  The door to his small transitional chamber opened and a golden clad suit of Archon armor walked in showing considerable battle damage.

  “Viceroy,” Myra said, pulling her helmet off as the lizard noted that damage was preventing it from retracting normally.

  “Archon,” he responded.

  “Your verification came through cleanly, and now I need you to get to work immediately.”

  “I am already reviewing battle records,” the 3rd Triad lizard said. His variant was based off the original masterminds but with some considerable alterations that upped their mental power. It was a far cry from Sav, but the Viceroys could think faster and interface with certain computer systems to let them monitor and send orders at a lightning fast rate, as well as do a number of other things that were small upgrades to the previous masterminds, though that term and its Li’vorkrachnika equivalent had been scrapped for the Paladin ranks.

  “Good. You know the enemy we face?”

  “I am beginning to.”

  “There is something wrong with them,” Myra said, leaning against a nearby wall as she talked. “They have a telepathic hive mind, but they are behaving too smart. They are easy to destroy in small numbers and difficult in large groups, but our biggest weakness is not being able to be in the same place at the same time. A mindless hoard wouldn’t know where and when to hit us, but the reavers do. I believe they have a controller somewhere on the planet handling strategy, for there’s just no way these fortuitous hits are random. I need you to look for this influence while you manage the Paladin. I have to devote my time to combat or we’ll lose additional Vittis.”

  “What are our causalities?” he asked, not having gotten to those numbers yet.

  “4% and falling as we increase our numbers. The reavers are dangerous when they can isolate a target, but we can’t clump together without leaving other areas undefended. I’m responding to incursions constantly, and even then we can’t stop them all. There is a continuous retreat going on and we need to save as many Vittis as we can prior to us forcing the reavers back. We will win this, but our objective is to claim not just the planet but the Vittis as well, so there are no acceptable losses, but there are some that we simply cannot stop from occurring.”

  “They do not fight well.”

  “They are ill suited for it, though they are trying.”

  “Have you noted any offworld influence?”

  Myra shook her head. “After we removed the pirates there hasn’t been any visitors or indication of a link between the reavers beyond this planet. They appear to be local but usually stay in select areas, mostly underground, and in much smaller numbers. There are rumors of past surges like this, but I don’t believe they’re accurate. The Vitti were much less numerous and technologically viable in the past and at least some of them survived. Either the previous instances were far less intense or this
is something new.”

  “What has happened to your armor?” the Viceroy asked, referencing the widespread damage.

  “Attrition over the past years. I already used up my other suits.”

  “We are not building replacements?”

  “Not of this grade, and it is tactically more viable to use this damaged one now than to make use of a replacement.”

  “The resources on this planet are not rich enough,” he said, agreeing with her based off the mining reports he’d been rifling through.

  “Not enough for full armor, no, and we can’t spend the resources we need to build synthesis facilities yet.”

  “How long do you want me to wait?”

  “Until the defense lines stabilize. Until then every resource we spend on future production means more Vittis get overrun. We need maximum growth rate for immediate engagement. There is no time to prepare.”

  “Which is why you are assigning yourself continuous combat duty.”

  “And will continue to do so. You will oversee coordination efforts from here on out. If there’s somewhere you think I or the other Archons need to be, don’t hesitate to make a recommendation.”

  “I will maximize your effectiveness,” the Viceroy promised. “Are we getting any incoming convoys?”

  “No. This is a totally isolated assignment. Local resources only, no personnel transfers.”

  “A worthy challenge in its own right, but we could grow more rapidly even with a small amount of assistance. Why is none available?”

  “Looks like you’ve got some more reading to do. We’re stretched thin across the Rim Region and normally this planet is one that we couldn’t help, but with the Paladin’s growth potential it was decided to send a small team and try to save some of them.”