Star Force: Canderous (SF16) Read online

  6

  July 12, 2261

  Epsilon Eridani System

  Corneria

  The small Sparrow-class dropship hovered over the elevated landing platform just poking up over the tree line and descended down to the metallic deck plates, settling into place on landing skids and lowering the access ramp, disgorging the most recent shift change of Canderian workers. A quartet of armed security guards came with them, each wearing the distinctive, helmetless flexible body armor that would stop a knife or small caliber bullets while leaving them aptly mobile.

  As the new workers scurried off to the descending stairwell in the corner of the rectangular pad, the lone guard on duty met up with the others mid distance offering a quick, two-fingered salute against his chest plate.

  “Any activity?” Niles asked.

  “None yet, Centurion,” the Triarii answered formally, though the two men knew each other well.

  With a flick of his head Niles dispatched the other Triarii while he remained on the platform with Frank as the outgoing shift started to come up the stairs to board the dropship. He took a step closer to the lower ranking Canderian and kept his voice down.

  “Star Force has picked up a sensor ghost in their records. The Archons think we might be dealing with some sort of stealth craft, so we’re increasing the guard on our surface sites. If they’re bold enough to hit us, we’ll be ready to hit back.”

  “Are you taking command?”

  Niles shook his head. “Just came along for the ride. Spread the word around, quietly. They hit Corvati during the night, so make sure your people are wearing night vision glasses and assign a Venator for the forest.”

  Frank nodded. “We won’t be caught off guard.”

  Niles clapped his hand on the man’s armored shoulder. “I would hope not, but I know how boring these patrols can be.”

  “A chance for a bit of action will keep everyone on edge.”

  “One of the dead Corvati was their security chief,” Niles said as he stepped into line as the last of the outgoing shift workers passed by, underscoring the fact that these thieves should not be taken lightly. He boarded the dropship and traveled back up into low orbit to the tiny artificial moon that was their home.

  The spherical space station held 30,000 of his fellow Canderians with room for another 10,000 as their population grew. As per their code, the Canderians only lived in space. The surface site Niles had just visited was a resource collection base with a temporary encampment. The security guards he’d just sent down would live there for a week or so, then rotate back up to their ‘seda,’ the Canderian word for ‘home’ but which also meant their station of origin or allegiance.

  Nile’s current seda was the dark green sphere the dropship was quickly approaching, but he’d been born on one of the Jupiter stations. When the expansion allotment had come through he’d volunteered and, based on his proficiency scores, had been granted the posting. He’d lived in Cornerian orbit for the past 8 years, rising to the 4th level ranking of Centurion in the security forces. Given that all Canderians were combat trained, the security forces necessarily had to be a notch above the rest and were viewed in a slightly elevated social position versus the other divisions of Canderian society.

  He was one of 16 Centurions assigned to the K1 seda, currently the only branch of Canderous within the star system. All seda within the Solar System were given ‘A’ monikers, while those in the Proxima system had a ‘B,’ Alpha Centauri had a ‘C’ and so forth. Epsilon Eridani was the 11th star system by distance from Sol, and Canderous had at least 1 seda in each system, some of which were still being constructed. Sol had 34 seda last he checked, with the newer ones being progressively larger in size.

  K1’s highest security rank at present was 5th level, a Tribune, overseeing 6 Centurions, which oversaw 6 Evocati, which oversaw 6 Triarii, which oversaw 6 Munifex. There were 3 Tribunes at present, with Arc Tribune Raines overseeing seda security. The Epsilon Eridani System, being a new expansion to Canderous, did not have a full legion at present, so no Legat, the 6th rank, had been assigned. Raines also held default status as system commander in the absence of a Legat.

  This made Niles one of the highest ranking Canderians within the system, overseeing 258 men at maximum. Raines had given his ‘century’ the duty of overseeing the security of K1’s surface mining sites while the other Centurions dealt with matters inside the station. In some respects this made his century more respected, given that they had field duty…but it also meant they were isolated, something Canderians were not accustomed to, having lived in such close confines inside their seda.

  At present there were six Canderian mining sites on Corneria, isolated inside the deep forest and far away from any of the colonies. The materials they were harvesting from the planet’s crust were being used to increase K1’s stores and reduce the amount of material having to be shipped out to them from other seda in order to establish themselves in this system.

  Niles had one other surface site under his protection, though ‘mining’ didn’t quite describe it. It was a water collection station situated at one of Corneria’s many lakes and from it continual shipments of fresh, processed water were being shuttled up to the seda, gradually filling its internal reservoir. That gave him 7 sites to secure with his 258 men, of which he had to continually rotate back up to the seda for additional training and rest.

  This trip down was the first of the seven he was making, delivering a few additional men into the rotation along with a warning. Less than a day after the raid on the Corvati the Archons had arrived on the seda demanding answers, thinking that someone within Canderous was responsible. With a detailed analysis of their records they were able to rule out this possibility, after which the Archons revealed that the two Corvati men that had been killed had fallen to plasma-based weapons.

  As far as anyone knew, the only people with plasma weapons were the Archons, high ranking members of Star Force security, and Canderous. This left a very unpleasant mystery to solve, and the Archons left the seda upon giving orders that they tighten their security. They wanted these thieves discovered, and since Canderous also had surface mining sites it was speculated that they might also be targeted.

  Niles understood their dilemma. Canderous was the only other rogue organization within the star system aside from the Corvati colony. If neither of them had been responsible for the raids that left few others to blame. While it was possible that someone within Star Force had set this up, doing so was a short trip to a bad ending. The Archons obviously weren’t going to let this slide, and whoever was responsible could be tracked down easily enough given the sparse population within the system.

  Niles couldn’t understand how someone could be so stupid as to even think about pulling something like this…but so far whoever the idiot was had gotten away with it, but only by attacking the lone soft target on the planet. If they had the gall to hit a Canderian facility, they were going to have a very rude surprise waiting for them.

  Which was what made Niles wonder if the thieves really were Canderians. He didn’t want to consider that possibility, but with so few others it would have been irresponsible not to. Bottom line was they needed to figure out who the culprits were, and if they truly were Canderian they wouldn’t hit one of his sites without sufficient planning…which made reinforcing his security teams even more important.

  When the dropship arrived back on the seda it refueled and loaded up with another shift that Niles escorted back down to another mining site, along with yet more guards. He repeated the process with each site, giving personal orders to make sure everyone understood what was at stake and that they needed to pay extra attention to detail.

  Four days later Frank woke up for his night shift, reflexively rolling out of his bunk at the sound of his wristwatch alarm. He dressed in a casual uniform and caught a bit of ‘breakfast’ in the cafeteria, then headed over to the armory to get suited up.

  He arrived at about the same time as the ot
her four members of his watch, each of which went straight to their lockers and began stripping out of their uniforms, which they neatly folded up and put onto a shelf in their oversized lockers for use when they finished their patrol. Frank, standing in nothing but a skintight set of briefs and socks, pulled out the various pieces of his armor and slipped them on one at a time.

  He started with the boots that extended up to above his knees, stepping into the right one and wiggling it on before doing the same with the left, snugging up the fit with a series of external dials hidden within the knobby pads. Once secured, he pulled out the belt piece that looked like an hourglass when flattened out. He wedged it between his legs and pulled it up around his pelvis, snapping the belt together on the left and right sides.

  With that in place, Niles grabbed his right leg gauntlet and wrapped it around his quadriceps. A few well practiced movements and the attachments at the knee and hip joint snapped into place, completing the nearly watertight seal. He repeated the process with the left gauntlet then pulled on his chest armor, which was open along the shoulders so he could slip it on over his head. It attached at the waist with an extra flexible piece, then Frank closed the shoulder flaps with hard, curved caps settling over the clasps.

  Lastly he pulled on the arm gauntlets, attaching them at the shoulders. His hands remained free of armor, as did his head. The Canderians had much more stiff, full body armor available, but they’d found that this flexible armor worked far better for surveillance given that they could move around quietly and keep their senses alert, not having their eyes, ears, and nose buffeted by a helmet.

  Once he double checked all his fasteners, Frank pulled a hip holster out of his locker and attached it to his upper right leg in a slot premade for it on the armor’s exterior. No belt was necessary, as there were dedicated latches on the belt piece and leg gauntlet for it to snap into place. Into the empty holster he slipped a fully loaded stinger pistol, flipping the charge switch on as he did so. That way it would be ready to fire in a split second if trouble arose…otherwise he’d have to wait several precious seconds for the first few rounds to soak up the stun charge.

  With the pistol as his backup weapon, Frank pulled a plasma rifle off a rack on the far wall. He didn’t take one of the preloaded ones which were prepped for immediate, emergency use. Instead he grabbed a recently cleaned empty one and a box of shells, then sat down on a bench and began to load the weapon.

  The thick rifle was vertically aligned, having a very narrow cross section but a board-like side view, narrowing at the end of the barrel making the whole assembly look like a sword out of Final Fantasy. Frank broke the straight butt of the rifle away just aft of the trigger assembly and set it aside. Just ahead of the trigger assembly, which was within the line of the rifle rather than hanging below it, he slid open a small hatch that opened up the forward ammunition hold.

  He opened the box of shells and began sliding them into the hold one by one.

  Each shell contained both the energy charge and physical material necessary to create plasma. Upon triggering the round, the hyper-compressed xenon gas would be bombarded with electrical energy, contained within a small capacitor located inside the shell. The gas would ionize and break containment at the weakest forward section. As it did so, the barrel of the rifle would magnetize and push the ionized gas out like the slug of a rail gun, forming a short, glowing ‘squirt’ of plasma. Different elements produced different colors, but as far as he knew all Star Force plasma firearms used xenon, which glowed painfully blue.

  After he finished filling the forward ammo hold he began adding shells into the disconnected aft piece. Once full and reattached, the rifle would hold 432 shots total, with 207 of them being quickly replenishable through a quick release swap-out with another preloaded aft piece. Frank wouldn’t be carrying any spares, but knew where to find them in the security outposts if needed, stashed into hideaways in case of a prolonged fight.

  He clicked the aft piece into place then checked to make sure the rifle’s power charge was full. While the shells contained the energy needed to make the plasma, the rifle’s own power source was required to magnetize the barrel and propel it to target.

  Seeing that it was at 97% he set he rifle down on a nearby table and removed the power charge, sliding the rectangular cube out of the side of the area just above the trigger. He replaced it with another and rechecked the rifle charge meter, which now read 100%.

  Frank carried the rifle back over to his locker, from which he slipped a small knife and inserted it into a hidden sheath on the outside of his left calf, after which he grabbed his night vision glasses and earpiece, then closed the locker.

  The others were more or less ready to go when he was, so he waited another 30 seconds for everyone to finish up and they walked out of the armory as a unit over to the security outpost on the other side of the compound looking up at the underside of the high topped landing pad, under which several buildings were sprawled. The entrance to the mine shafts were nearby, with the rest of the necessary processing buildings arrayed in a small circle.

  The security outpost was located near the center of that circle, with two guards inside and another two on patrol walking laps around the short streets and perimeter. A fifth was stationed out in the forest as Venator, roaming about with no particular pattern and making for a wildcard should anyone try to exploit the static security measures. That man was just now returning inside the perimeter as the two patrolmen circled back to the outpost as their replacements arrived.

  Without any unnecessary chatter the five Canderians swapped places with their counterparts. Frank was tagged as the Venator for this patrol, so he quietly made his way out of camp and into the forest, losing himself in the foliage and becoming a ghost in the night.

  Two hours later, crouched into a sitting position with his back up against a tree and rifle laying across his knees, Frank heard the first faint hum of engines, which sent a surge of adrenaline up his spine. He strained to get a direction on the sound, then stood up slowly as a craft flew over his position, up above the treetops where he couldn’t see it, and in towards the camp at a creep.

  Keeping to cover and brush as much as possible, Frank followed them in, noticing that they were heading towards the storage area on the north side of the platform. When the ship emerged from the canopy and dipped down towards the ground it finally cleared the high leaves enough for him to get a good look at it. His nightvision glasses produced a yellowish tint to everything, but the blocky outlines of the craft stood out in contrast to the naturalistic surroundings, revealing some type of transport that he’d never seen before…and it clearly wasn’t Star Force construction.

  The idea that some other faction had found their way to Epsilon Eridani without Star Force knowing about it didn’t make any sense, but that wasn’t for him to worry about now. Whoever was on that ship was going after their cargo crates, just like they’d done with the Corvati. They had a full load of materials that were scheduled to be shipped up to the seda tomorrow morning waiting to be transferred up to the top of the landing pad…and there was no way Frank was going to let them steal from Canderous.

  On top of that, he intended to steal their ship.

  “Contact coming to ground,” he whispered, touching his earpiece as he quickly jogged forward.

  “Copy that,” a voice replied, equally low. “Wait till they get boots on the ground.”

  Frank understood what that meant and pushed his pace, wanting to get in position before the fireworks started.

  From a distance he saw a side hatch on the hovering ship open up and a large forklift-like device drop out over the edge…then bounce back up on an invisible cushion as it ‘hit’ the ground. It moved towards the crate stack, lowering its angular forks to the ground to slide them underneath the first metal-loaded industrial box. Behind it a pair of figures dropped out of the hold and disappeared into the shadows.

  A heartbeat later a stealthy pair of stingers shot out towa
rds one of the targets that Frank couldn’t see or hear, the sound of his own footsteps and the distance involved covering the muffled wisps of the pistol fire, but he couldn’t miss the green plasma lance that returned from the interloper. He couldn’t tell if anyone had been hit, but he did see three blue lances return fire on the target…then all hell broke loose.

  7

  Half a dozen more enemies dropped out of the hold, scattering when they hit the ground and running for cover. One of them was hit as he began to move, but the others got clear and began returning fire, with the green lances now outnumbering the blue. To make matters worse the ship opened up a small port and extruded a turret that fired a large green orb of plasma that exploded on impact, spraying dirt and burning filaments everywhere.

  Frank broke into a run, but didn’t head straight for the engagement. Coming in from outside he had an advantage if he kept to the forest so he headed north and flanked the position of the ship, making a hard right pivot and down a slight ridgeline so he could come in from behind the enemy. He’d been forced to turn his attention away from the firefight while he trekked up and around the edge of the camp, but now as he came back in towards the edge of the forest and the clearing surrounding the camp he saw one of the enemy taking cover behind the edge of a building.

  Shock nearly froze him, but Frank’s training served him well as he dropped to a knee and lined up a long shot. He fired three quick rounds, hitting the target in the back just above its tail and dropped it to the ground. Meanwhile the ship’s cannon was making a mess of the camp, and he could only hope that the others were going evasive.

  As his eyes scanned the area for more targets he noticed with dismay as the enemy forklift was still going after the crates even as the battle was raging on. Apparently they intended to rob them regardless of the amount of resistance they put up. That wouldn’t do at all.