Star Force: Aquatics (SF31) Read online

  The corvettes’ weapons fell silent, with both ships hovering over the ocean silently.

  Sara used the control podium to open a comm line to the nearest aquatics battleship, the Nautilus, halfway around the planet.

  “You up for a side mission, Captain?”

  “Possibly,” Anderson said, noncommittally.

  “The lizards just made a drop. Two transports and a cruiser. The latter submerged and I’ve got two corvettes hovering over it. They’ll keep it pinned until you can get here.”

  The aquatics captain smiled. “Always happy to add another naval kill to our boards. We’ll get underway immediately.”

  “Happy hunting,” she offered, cutting the comm and sending appropriate orders to the corvettes.

  They should be able to kill the cruiser, one way or another, but the transports, designed to move underwater, would get away, if for no other reason than there were 3 lizard ships and only two corvettes, meaning if they all traveled in different directions they could only follow a pair. The lizard cruiser wasn’t moving, however, and was probably doing what damage repair they could, hoping to wait out the corvettes, who couldn’t stay in hover mode forever.

  Sara bit her lip, frustrated. One less cruiser was a good thing, but their sensors could detect multiple smaller aquatics ships descending into the ocean and scurrying off. Now those and whatever the transports contained would be added to the lizards’ underwater front. And given the number of supply runs they were getting through to the surface, Star Force was in danger of losing the war purely from attrition.

  7

  September 9, 2429

  Retari System

  Atlantica

  Ariel read the final report on the techs’ analysis of both the control unit and the offensive/defensive tendril recovered from the downed lizard aquatics cruiser, seeing a mix of conflicting data. The unit was patterned after an Elarioni tendril, but the lizards had done a very poor job of copying it in some ways, while others were nearly exact duplicates.

  The mechanics were shoddy, with little flexibility and speed compared to the Elarioni designs, which ranged in size from 2 meters long up to a kilometer. Ariel had tried to help the Star Force techs recreate the technology for their own defensive uses, but they hadn’t got far. While she was knowledgeable in many things aquatic that the Humans were not, she was not, in fact, an Elarioni aquatics tech and only had a basic understanding of their underwater technology.

  She’d been a mathematician, focusing on navigation systems for their spacefaring craft before her capture. Now she was the foremost aquatics expert Star Force had to draw on, pathetic as that was, which was one reason why she’d elected to stay with the Humans rather than return to her own race. They needed her, badly, despite their impressive adaptive skills. They’d learned much from her over the past 2 centuries, but there was still much more she couldn’t teach them without having access to Elarioni tech, which wasn’t an option.

  Paul had offered to arrange her transit through the Alliance and into Elarioni custody, where they would spirit her through Nestafar space to their oceanic colonies…but it was a one way trip, and despite her wish to see her own kind again, she found she truly didn’t want to leave the Humans. Not only had they become a family for her, in an odd way, considering they were repulsive air breathers, but they’d given her the gift of training and self-sufficiency, and she was all but certain that if she returned to her own kind she wouldn’t be able to maintain the levels of workouts the Archons so easily completed, despite their ineptitude in the water.

  Also, the Elarioni in Nestafar space weren’t her people. They had died or fled, and despite what Paul had said about this group having picked up survivors from across the galaxy, including those from her destroyed colony, all those that she had known would be long since dead, given that they typically lived 100-150 years. No one that she’d known was still alive, she figured, so what was there to return to? The Humans gave her whatever she wanted, and were constantly encouraging her to dream up new requests for them to create, which helped them grow their own knowledge of underwater life.

  Ariel was proud of what her Humans had accomplished, not only here on Atlantica, but on many other worlds, some of which she’d been able to visit before transitioning out here. Their aquatics leader, Lens, had built a magnificent city on world they called Reach, which was split 40/60 water to land. It was far larger than the three on Atlantica combined, and according to the plans he’d showed her it was barely a fraction of what they were going to eventually build.

  Kyler had been doing well here, and the three cities they’d constructed had stood up well to the enemy’s attacks, until recently anyway. The loss of a defense tower was troublesome, but the lizards had paid a high price for it. No matter how hard they hit them, she knew the Humans would win out eventually if they could only build more of their battleships, for while they were crude in design, they were more effective than she’d given them credit for…and not to mention massive, even by Elarioni standards.

  The enemy had no answer for them, and she was pretty sure the lizards knew it too, which was why they were so desperate to penetrate the city defenses before the Humans could build any more.

  Ariel shut down her terminal, filing away the analysis reports in case she wanted to access them later, and swam through her research lab, waving at the Humans on the other side of a large window in their air chamber as she left and heading through a connecting tunnel, finding one of many branches that wound its way through Manaan’s internal structure and headed towards the outer surface.

  She exited through one of 26 external ports and swam out into the open ocean overtop the slight downwards curve of the city behind her. The water out here felt different…slightly warmer and cruder than the processed internal environment Kyler had built into Manaan specifically for her. The other two cities were not so equipped, but they did have some chambers she could use when visiting. Most of her time on the planet she stayed and worked out of Manaan…but sometimes she just needed to get out and feel the wild water on her flesh.

  Knowing better than to venture anywhere close to the perimeter fence, Ariel followed the curve of the city, feeling the pressure on her body increase while her body’s size decreased slightly in response. She could go deeper than the city sat, but there were some regions of the planet beyond what her physiology could deal with, but those were far from here, and aside from some mapping expeditions Star Force hadn’t ventured down into those regions, which covered about 18% of the planet.

  Ariel wore her communications necklace, so she wasn’t worried about being away from the lab, knowing that the Humans could contact her if needed, so she lazily swam down the side of the city until she reached the polished seafloor, running her fingers across it and dragging up just a bit of silt that had settled on top of the rock that the engineers had ground down to a flat plain. She didn’t know why, but Star Force seemed to dislike any structures that didn’t have straight lines or aerodynamic curves, and the irregular rock of the seafloor seemed to irritate them to no end.

  The mermaid-like alien swam a few meters above the polished rock, kicking with her powerful tail in a twitchy, underpowered way that scooted her along quickly with her long green hair trailing behind her while her arms were tucked in next to her sides. She respired through her skin, as all Elarioni did, and the movement through the water actually enhanced her breathing process, much akin to wind stoking a fire by providing more oxygen to it, giving her a boost as she swam, though it was less than half of her top speed.

  Still, it took some time to cross the gap to the nearest structure. Another dome/seashell shaped building rose up out of the ground, this one housing a bioharvest facility annex to supplement those inside the main structure, and was connected via a subsurface tunnel, though it did have water entrances should one want to take the long route to get there.

  Ariel bypassed it, swimming up and over the visible part of the structure, for it extended well down into the be
drock below. That was another oddity of the Humans. They preferred burrowing beneath their cities, both on land and water. Elarioni built on the seafloor, but did not like living beneath it. Their mining operations were the only exception, out of necessity, but even most of those simply involved cutting out a huge section of material and processing all of it…then returning the unwanted material in to the chasm, filling in the hole they’d just dug.

  The Humans liked digging and then building underground, and a good part of Manaan was actually subsurface. The Archons had told her that was for defensive reasons, but she sensed it was more of an aversion to the open water. Elarioni didn’t like being indoors, and built their structures to be as open to the environment as possible, with their spacecraft being ‘oversized’ in order to provide excess internal living space.

  When Ariel swam up over the top of the bioharvest facility she got the view of another prime example of their resistance to open water. A building almost as big as the main city structure stretched out more than a mile long, yet was low to the ground, having been built with the bulk of its internal structure below the seafloor.

  There were eight massive, armored doors spreading across the top, each covering a piece of the 2x4 grid and protecting the clear water doors beneath. Those enclosed an air pocket in which the Humans were building another of their giant battleships. Even though they were air breathers, she found it difficult not to criticize their decision to build a water ship outside of the water. The hull at least should have been constructed in the open ocean, then they could have pumped in air so they could finish the rest of the construction inside…but no, they had to build them completely away from the water, only exposing them to their primary environment after total construction was completed.

  Then again, they were also airships, so in some respects they weren’t true water craft, she often found herself telling herself, but that wasn’t fair and she knew it. They were beasts compared to what the lizards were throwing at them, and to be totally honest, she didn’t like being cut off from their construction.

  There were a few waterways in the structure so she could enter and interface with the engineering crews, but she couldn’t touch the ship or anything else inside until they finally opened the main doors after flooding the bay.

  That wouldn’t be happening for many more months, as the current occupant wasn’t anywhere close to sea worthy. Currently they had 4 operational battleships, with a fifth due to be finished in a few weeks in Seaquest, but it was taking them almost 2 years to finish a single ship, which was far longer than Kyler had told her it should take…with the main reason for the delay being available resources.

  A slight vibration in the water caused Ariel to turn her head to the left where she saw a convoy of transports rising up from their berths at the nearby waterport. They were no doubt empty vessels beginning the return trip to one of the mining sites, and their guardian destroyers were moving out alongside them.

  All of their jet engines firing off had created the vibration, but the destroyers were moving on anti-gravs, as the battleships did, though they didn’t share their same design aesthetic. The Star Force aquatics destroyers had an angular design to them with multiple hulls, similar in design to the Normandy from Mass Effect. There were two going out with the convoy, one in the lead and one bringing up the rear, literally daring the lizards to jump them, for each one had a single medium-grade plasma battery of the same make the battleships carried.

  That gave them an unbelievable combat rating, giving their much smaller size, and allowed them to fire on approaching ships before the raiders could even get within firing range of the convoy. It took most of their available power to do so, but the ships definitely lived up to their classification name.

  In addition to the primary plasma cannon, they also had multiple smaller versions with shorter range to deal with a close-in mass attack, similar to what the battleships had, only these were tiny in comparison. Still, they had the ability to reach out and touch the enemy before they could get within plasma nub or grapple range.

  Ariel watched the convoy form up in the predictable formation and begin trolling out through the overlap in the perimeter fence. The ships were hazy at the range she was looking from, but her eyes were more than equipped to pick up their running lights and thermal signatures from a distance where the Humans’ couldn’t.

  The Elarioni didn’t stop to gawk, but continued swimming forward, taking an angle down and around the edge of the shipyard, then popped out a few bubbles of air from her nose, startled. With her keen eyesight she’d spotted three splotches on the seafloor wriggling their way between the buildings.

  She took a moment to be sure of what she was seeing, then she activated her necklace. “We have a perimeter breach,” she said excitedly, though the computer translation didn’t take that into account when the message reached the city’s command level. “We have a perimeter breach, do you understand?”

  “Where, Ariel?” Kyler’s voice came back, though she couldn’t tell given the translation. Fortunately the communication came with an ID tag.

  “In between the buildings. There are three of them, at ground level, in between the industrial buildings.”

  “Which ones? And where are you?”

  “I’m outside…and they’re next to the non-metallic processors.”

  “Our sensors aren’t showing anything,” Kyler said, his voice calm but worried. “What do you see?”

  “They’re practically crawling across the ground, very slowly.”

  “Infantry?”

  “I believe so. They move like biologicals, but I’m far away.”

  “Stay away,” he said firmly. “Get back inside.”

  “No. I’m going to watch them until you get someone out here. If you can’t track them you need my eyes.”

  “Are you in any danger?”

  “I don’t believe so. They are all I see.”

  “If they got through there could be more,” he warned. “Keep an open link. I’m deploying streaks to your location. One of them will pick you up.”

  “Very well,” she relented, keeping her eyes on the lizards as they crept forward. How did they manage to get past the perimeter defenses?

  True to his word, a streak zipped over to her position within minutes, decelerating hard but well away from her then moving in closer at a casual speed.

  Not wanting to delay, Ariel swam towards it, seeing the cockpit crack open just before she got up to it. The Elarioni swam inside and the Archon in silver armor triggered it to reseal, but kept the internal water so she could breathe while his suit’s reserves sustained him.

  “Ahead and to the left, down on the seafloor,” she said, tagging his armor’s comm on her necklace’s display rather than relying on his external audio pickup.

  “How many are there?” Levi-1832 asked.

  “I’ve only seen three…there,” she said, reaching an arm up past his helmet and pointing into the hologram that surrounded the cockpit in lieu of a window, leaning heavily on his back in order to reach that far.

  The Archon focused his streak’s sensors ahead, but the ship still couldn’t pick up anything, though he could see a faint smudge on the ground, illuminated by the city’s running lights, though that was hardly a substitute for the sunlight that failed to reach this far down.

  “Get closer,” she urged, seeing several other streaks closing in from multiple directions on the battlemap over his left shoulder, though the bulk of his armor required her to slither around inside the cockpit to see even half of it.

  “I’m supposed to get you out of here, but if they’re not showing up on sensors then you’re all we’ve got, so hang on,” he said, accelerating them forward, intent on doing a swimby.

  “To what?” she asked, seeing no handholds.

  “Just an expression,” he said, cracking a grin. With the inertial dampeners they wouldn’t feel a crash, let alone the acceleration swings of some fancy piloting. “Keep your eyes on that spot, I
’ve still got nothing on sensors.”

  “I will,” she promised, watching the fuzzy blip enlarge. Thanks to the external cameras’ complexity, they were retransmitting all images captured, including those outside the Humans’ vision range, allowing her a bit more spectrum to work with, though her eyesight in the water was still superior to the technological hologram.

  Finally, as they came within 200 meters the sensors lit up with three tiny contacts.

  “Got them,” he said as they suddenly accelerated and split up, with him opening a wide comm. “Sensor contacts. Come get them. I’ve got a passenger onboard and will play eagle. Hurry up, they’re moving fast.”

  “Shoot them,” Ariel urged.

  “This is as close as I’m getting with you. Keep your eyes on the surroundings. Tell me if you see any others.”

  “I can watch better from outside,” she said, but glanced around the encompassing hologram none the less, including the part on the wall behind her, playing Gumby so she could twist her head around to multiple angles.

  “I’ll take you up to a better view in a moment. I just need the others to get in sensor range. Until then they’re using ours to key off of.”

  “I know how it works,” she said dismissively, though the computer translation spat it out in the cute cartoon voice.

  A few moments later a streak moved in and one of the little icons on the battlemap disappeared…then the holographic view vibrated as a concussion wave rippled out towards them.

  “Det packs,” Levi said, pushing them forward through an ascending spiral to get more altitude as additional streaks moved into the area below. “If there are any more we need to find them now.”

  “Let me out,” she insisted as the streak rose up to several hundred meters above the seafloor.