Star Force: Cascade (SF73) Read online

  There was a need to have a pilot in the cockpit in the middle of battle in a variety of situations and Mark believed that would always be the case, though there were some where remotely flown craft were definitely the way to go. In the cases where there needed to be a pilot the emphasis was always on reducing the risks, and this latest improvement was going to take a squadron of ten pilots and reduce them down to one, making it a bit of a shell game as to which skeet to shoot at from the enemy’s perspective.

  Not only that, it would mean Star Force could deploy more aerial craft than they had pilots, much like Cora was doing with the mechs. The difference was, Mark was the only person in the skeet, whereas a mech star of drones was controlled by the backseat rider in a two-person morpheus. It was a piggyback system, but the project he was working on was based on the idea of taking a single skeet as the craft of choice for an advanced pilot and changing it into a squadron piloted in the same manner, by the same person, without any reduction in efficiency or reaction time.

  That did leave a caveat, and that was that the squadron had to stay together. A few kilometers apart didn’t matter, but send one skeet off across hundreds of miles and you’d start to get microlag, which was a problem with the remote control method from cities or warships in orbit. The adjustments that Mark and other veteran pilots made were so precise that even the tiniest bit of delay could be felt when mind-linked with the operating systems, and as a result would decrease their agility, even if it was just by a hair.

  Mark didn’t believe in fighting handcuffed, but with the localized transmitters in the prototypes they would not only have no detectable lag but also be able to ignore most types of jamming. That technology had existed for a while, with the neural controls being what had hung the trailblazer up when he’d pursued this project before. Now that that was no longer an issue, it was ‘game on’ into the next phase of aerial combat.

  So as Mark flew his squadron out away from the hangar and over to the ranges he saw them and the landscape from a hive mind position. He could see and ‘feel’ everything from each of the craft, but he could also step back a bit and taken an omnipresent position…one that was critical when planning out strategy and analyzing the enemy’s movements rather than just living in the moment and trying to juke and evade the nearest enemy craft.

  That was why it was important that the neural interface not overstress the pilots. Most couldn’t handle 10 craft, and it was Mark’s job to refine the neural interface enough that they could. Most Archons did not have Sav and wouldn’t in the coming years, so he had to get this project so smoothed out that they wouldn’t need it. His goal was a squadron of ten, but if he could even get his midline pilots flying 3 craft at a time it would be a success…though one with reduced firepower, for the ‘cradle’ skeet would always be underpowered due to the extra layers of protection, and in a trio that amounted to 33% of the craft being diminished, whereas in a full squadron that number was down to 10%.

  But it wasn’t just about limiting the number of pilots in the air and allowing a drone or two to go down in flames to achieve an objective. It was the interplay between the skeets that most intrigued Mark. Teamwork was essential in any dogfight, and he had gotten very good at syncing his movements and attacks with others, but this new system went way beyond that, in that he didn’t have to coordinate at all. He was in control of all 10 craft, so he could use them in an unlimited number of new ways that had never been conceived of before.

  The tactics had, of course, but the implementation had not, for you didn’t have time to discuss what you wanted to do over the next half second with your wingmen. Now Mark didn’t even have a tenth of a second delay, for he was all 10 craft and didn’t have to discuss anything with himself. Aerial combat was usually chaos with a bit of organization thrown in, but if Mark could get this project out of the prototype phase and into the field, Star Force’s half of that uncertainty would virtually evaporate and they’d be able to own the enemy in a way never seen before.

  And the best way for a trailblazer, or any Archon, to modify tech or strategy was to throw themselves into simulated combat and make adjustments when failures happened, which is what Mark was going to continue to do today.

  He’d already been at this several weeks, so when he lowered his squadron down to ground level and zipped them across the grassy plains he knew to keep them below 62 meters in altitude to avoid the targeting zone of the turrets ahead, as well as when to bring them up off the deck and into a crisscross pattern that left the automated guns chasing targets of his choosing as his ten skeets hopped up over terrain and back down behind it, leapfrogging across a scattered series of hills as they approached the turrets that he knew were designed to chase a single target until it was taken down, for he’d developed that program to counter the rotational strategies that Star Force preferred to keep shielded units in play.

  He had to make this course hard, so he’d added in challenges that he wasn’t sure how to beat, expecting to lose…as he had done on every run. So far he hadn’t even made it a third of the way through the course before the low-powered targeting beams registered enough hits on his shields to knock a skeet out of the air, which in this case was it disconnecting from Mark’s mind and flying off out of the challenge zone and to a waiting area.

  The Achilles heel to this project was in his cradle ship, for if it went down the rest of the squadron would revert to normal drones operating on preprogrammed protocols or picked up by a remote controller. If he was working with other squadrons then his drones could be retasked to one of those pilots, but that still left the handful of manned skeets as the primary targets for the enemy, which was why he needed to fight with his in a way identical to the others.

  To that end he had the same mauler cannons as the drones did, while they had a slew of additional weaponry. If he had them use it and his craft didn’t it would be a giveaway, but the maulers were the primary choice for most aerial combat and if he only used them there would be no obvious tell, for the short range transmissions were being emitted from every craft so no signal monitoring could pick up which craft he was actually in.

  That was why he had his skeet going through the attack pattern on the turrets along with the others rather than lagging back and playing a more conservative role. He needed anonymity to protect him more than armor and a secondary shield, and he had to get used to fighting that way in these simulations now so it’d become second nature when he actually got out into the field against the lizards at a later date.

  As for the basic design of the skeets, those had remained the same through all these centuries. T-shaped with spherical pods on each prong that held anti-grav units. The skeet could limp around on one if necessary, but all three were required for full maneuvering capability. The hull was thin save for a bump around the cockpit, with most of the weaponry lying in the crossbar up front with the sensors, shield emitters, and other support systems situated behind the cockpit in the tail.

  Other auxiliary craft had been built for Mainline, such as the gunships and interceptors, but the skeets had remained the backbone of Star Force’s aerial division and would remain so, even with other factions deciding to use different craft. The Calavari Valeries were solid, and the other models were decent, for Mark had helped in their construction, but none suited his style of combat more than the skeet. Its narrow profile made it hard to target, and the T-shape meant there wasn’t much of a silhouette to shoot at from above or below. Overall it was simply the best design he had ever come across and Mainline and the Clans would continue using it until they found, or created, something better.

  If the other factions wanted a unique craft, so be it. They weren’t going to let them build any junk, but Mark knew that combat could be achieved in a variety of approaches and if they wanted to pursue different ones then there was an advantage in that…coupled with disadvantages. Mark wanted his skeet because it was all around solid, rather than weighted in a single attack profile. Those singular attack profiles cou
ld be very effective when you got to choose your battles, but when defending and not having very many options he preferred to be piloting a craft that was nimble and could be utilized in multiple ways…which was basically the definition of a skeet.

  Some of his fellow pilots that were working with him on this project had suggested outfitting the squadron with different ships, or even just altered models of skeets to give him some singular attack or defensive options but he wouldn’t have it. This project was complicated enough as it was, and making it even more convoluted by mixing up ship designs would put more stress on the pilot and reduce the amount of processing power he had. Mark could pull it off, but those without Sav wouldn’t be able to…at least not as well as he’d hoped. Keeping all the craft systematically identical was a way to reduce the mental load and free up some thought for other purposes.

  That and he needed all the ships to look alike to hide the cradle.

  Mark spun and crisscrossed his 10 skeets around the pair of turrets on the first rise, stitching them with mauler fire from all the ships and circling them around behind terrain to get the targeting programs to dismiss them and chase another skeet. There was no easy way to take down these turrets, so he just had to make it a slugging match without incurring hull damage. If he could do that he could buzz around and recharge shields before heading into the turret field ahead.

  Those would require diving down into canyons to avoid, for if he pulled up out of them the crossfire would be so intense it was unlikely that he’d get all 10 ships through…and if he was really sloppy he’d lose all of them right then and there. He’d tried it on day 3 just to see how bad it’d get and hadn’t been disappointed, learning from the danger now that he knew what it was rather than having to guess, and pushed the canyon approaches with his skeets heading down multiple ones and out of sight of each other.

  The transmitters were powerful enough to punch through a limited amount of rock and dirt, so he didn’t lose his linkage to the drones, but he had to keep them within a tight radius that he was also pressing out to find the fail point. This entire challenge run was more about finding ways to fail than finding a way through, for a lucky run wouldn’t do him much good.

  He had to lose, over and over again, in order to build a playbook for this new type of aerial warfare, and while he certainly didn’t like losing, he had no problem thinking outside of the box and trying new approaches, no matter how odd or seemingly stupid. For when he was piloting a squadron solo he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone and could experiment on a whim if necessary.

  And that freedom was always necessary when searching out new ways to do something. Success on this course was learning, not finishing it. That would be bonus, and right now Mark seriously didn’t think there was a way through, for he’d made it overly hard and, honestly, not entirely fair, but in the back of his mind he just saw that as an even sweeter challenge.

  Tell a trailblazer something couldn’t be done and half the time they’d find a way to do it anyway. He recognized that tendency within himself and the others and wasn’t above self-goading. He’d spent a long time planning out this course before putting all thought of designing it aside and switching his mindset over to beating it. Now it was just a fixed thing, immutable, with no one actively changing it up to thwart him. He’d created a monster, but it was a static monster that he was going to figure out how to beat if he could.

  Meanwhile there were many betting pools in the pilot corps as to if and when he’d actually get around to pulling it off, with a little over 60% wagering on completion despite their knowing how insanely difficult the course was. They had that much faith in their top pilot to figure out this puzzle that they were willing to put credits on it, while others were hoping to clean up by betting against him, knowing that it would be a win/win scenario.

  Either they’d get a boat load of credits or some valuable new tactics and equipment tweaks. Either way this was on Mark’s shoulders for now. What he was able to achieve, limited or whole in this endeavor, would set the stage for their contributions on this project to follow.

  7

  August 2, 2890

  Solar System

  Europa

  Daniel-002 received the package from Lens on one of the surface landing pads that connected to the moon’s underwater cities through the thick ice sheath protecting them from space. It was a cargo crate the size of a house and had been dropped off via a cargo ship passing through the system with other ports of call to attend to. The slight detour had been negligible, but saved his fellow trailblazer the trouble of sending an entire jumpship to get him the package when sending it through the ‘mail’ was far easier.

  Time wasn’t an issue here but Daniel was glad he finally got it, for when he brought the crate down into the Clan Westley colony situated on the ocean floor he opened it to find a series of Dvapp aquatics gel packages. Daniel’s Clan was only ranked 28th in aquatics, but he’d been working with Lens for the past few decades in order to develop some new technologies in an effort to undercut Erin’s Elarioni advantage. Eventually the tech would get distributed out to Mainline and the other Clans, but for now it was a private affair that had Daniel more than eager to incorporate the advancements into his own Clan craft.

  The gel had been a work in progress for a long time, but what Lens had sent him was the prototype for a new matrix that should allow Daniel to create the morphing properties he required for his Project Tentacle. Unlike Lens, who was building ‘standard’ aquatics craft, Daniel was going in a more Elarioni fashion and working on limbs rather than beams and torpedoes. He saw the potential in the gel that, while weaker than a solid plate of armor, had so many combat uses it was insane. First and foremost of those was the ability to reach out and touch someone by extending a tendril of gel out considerable distances.

  The enemy wouldn’t know how far the ‘safe’ zone was and that would cause a lot of chaos in battle. Project Tentacle intended to create aquatic drones that could be controlled from a battleship or other protected location. The difference between these drones and others was the fact that these could morph into different craft as needed for the mission. They could be long and needle shaped for chasing operations or ball up into protective spheres for chokepoint defense.

  The problem Daniel had had with the earlier forms of the aquatics gel was that it wasn’t responsive enough to create active drones, in that they could change shape while fighting. Those prototypes they currently had could morph then fight, rather than fighting through morphing. Lens had said this new gel slurry would be up to the task and had already sent Daniel the specs through the relay grid, but rather than building factories to produce the insanely complicated material…of which there were only two in existence…he’d sent along a lot of packets of it, each of which could be ‘grown’ by adding a specific set of raw materials.

  That had been designed into them so they could repair themselves in the field without the need for a shipyard. They absorbed materials like a plant did, from both solids and the water, meaning that Daniel could take several of the packets and ‘plant’ them in larger containers in order to grow more material. None of it was biological, but a very complex crystalline technology that operated similar to how the Dvapp themselves were built. It wasn’t their body material, for that, while odd, was still biological despite its crystalline tendencies. At a casual glance the gel might look the same, but it wasn’t alive and never had been. Just a very useful piece of technology.

  When Daniel opened the crate he pulled out a single packet and carried it off on a cargo sled to his research lab while the rest was spirited off to others for immediate use in experiments or for growing purposes. The packet that Daniel took, which was the size of a couch, he brought to a specific lab that he was spending a lot of time in. He personally levitated the packet up and tore a hole in the flexible casing, allowing the mushy material to spill out into a collection basin that looked like an elevated sandbox by the time he was done with it.

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bsp; The trailblazer dipped a finger into the white ‘sand’ and tested the cloyingness. It flowed like a thick liquid, but didn’t snap back into level shape like water did. That confirmed his suspicions and he immediately inserted a probe into the eight inch thick pool, causing it to solidify into armor rigidity.

  He poked another finger into it…or tried. It was now hard to the touch and would stand up to considerable pounding, but as far as armor was concerned it was subpar. His drones would compensate for that fact by having a lot of it on them, allowing them to bleed away material at a faster rate while still preserving the interior components. Those amounted to three floating orbs of traditional technology that would interface with and control the gel, and for experimental purposes here was accomplished by the probe.

  Daniel ran the gel through a simple set of commands, confirming the upgrades Lens had made, then he dove into the task of reprogramming it to his personal needs. Part of that work had already been done previously, so all he had to do was download segments of the software, but the rest had to be configured on site in response to additional test runs that he was now going to begin to execute.

  First using one of the preprogrammed ones, Daniel had the gel change color, shifting from base white to blue, then pink, green, and finally black before cycling back to white. Next he caused the gel to segment into four pieces. As soon as they broke apart three of the pieces became dead weight, retaining their shape and not doing anything while the fourth segment that had the probe attached continued to morph into a cube while the others were just solidified puddles.