Star Force: Intransigent (SF100) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  He’d been aware of the larger Star Force troops, but those had always worn bright white armor. A part of his mind that was free even as he grappled with and easily broke through the headlock attempted on him wondered if they weren’t a higher ranking, for these were stronger than the others he’d faced, but the Jumat blast that followed succinctly ended that line of thought.

  Kaalo found himself slammed into the wall, off of which he pushed and punched both Knights in sequence, delivering Dre’mo’don blasts on the end of each as he saw the other Zen’zat fighting with what looked like at least a dozen of these Knights as the retreating troops held their ground and began sniping where able.

  Kaalo grabbed one of the Knights and hauled him into the intersection where he kicked another behind the turn and out of the firing zone. The Zen’zat punched the one he held across the width of the corridor where another Zen’zat hit him in the back and knocked him to the ground…only to be blown off his feet by another Jumat blast.

  Kaalo wobbled as a Fornax blast hit him…then suddenly he was on the ground with his helmet getting punched by a series of furious blows that were draining far too much shield energy.

  The Zen’zat tried to pry the Knight off, but he had to use three different moves to do it, then when he threw him over his head and down the corridor another Knight jumped on top of him. Kaalo used a Lachka wall to knock him askew before he landed, but a Lachka field from behind pulled Kaalo backwards on his feet and off balance before he surged his Rentar and broke it. He let himself fall backwards into a roll that he used to get to his feet…where he saw the other Knight standing there waiting for him. Unlike the others he wore totally black armor without any of their gold marks, and as frustrated as Kaalo already was by these Knights with Archon powers, this one pulled out a cylinder from a slot on his back that extended into a long, black stick much like Rio had used the last time they met.

  Then the Knight had the gall to wave Kaalo forward even as everyone else behind them was fighting each other furiously with bodies flying into walls left and right as these Knights were showing themselves to be an even match for the Zen’zat.

  Kaalo didn’t bother to respond other than to run three steps ahead then bring both arms up and fire a double Dre’mo’don blast into the Black Knight, but a bioshield briefly popped up and absorbed both of them as the sword tip flashed around in a twirl and came up from low, batting one of Kaalo’s arms away as he continued to fire blasts until he was within striking range…then the Zen’zat punched into the chest plate with his free arm only to have the Black Knight’s hand grab him by the wrist so he couldn’t recoil.

  The equally large man twisted backwards and pulled Kaalo with him as he pooled and released a quick Jumat blast that threw the Zen’zat across the corridor and into the wall…where he hit a split second before that black sword whipped around and slashed across Kaalo’s head, knocking him to the side with a hint of disorientation. A fist followed and he went to the ground, suddenly feeling his face numb up.

  Not knowing what was happening, he rolled away and disengaged for a few strides, forcing the Black Knight to follow him and give Kaalo a chance to think…which was when he realized his shields had popped on his helmet with that sword slash. The previous pummeling must have done it, for the rest of his shields were reforming but the matrix over his helmet wasn’t. Typically they all snapped on and off at the same time, but in case of massive overload they’d disconnect so not to drop the entire matrix through inefficient transfer power.

  Kaalo didn’t need to run through the specifics of what was happening. All he needed to know was the Black Knight was exclusively targeting his head in order to break through the shields there and deliver some type of stun charge.

  He didn’t have time to think beyond that as Kaalo took the next sword slash on his right arm to keep it off his head while simultaneously putting another shot from his left into his attacker’s chest. Then what he’d feared previously happened as his attacker dropped an Ubven field on top of him, freezing him and that annoying sword in place.

  The Black Knight let it go, suspended in the air by the same field, as his was free to move forward. Kaalo pulsed his Rentar, knowing that would help eat through the Lachka field restrains faster but the field was so dense he was going to be vulnerable for a moment and the Black Knight took advantage of it by beating him in the head again with multiple punches. When his fledgling shields there failed, each subsequent punch delivered a numbing blast that left Kaalo nearly unconscious when the Ubven field finally dissipated.

  The Zen’zat fell to the ground as his armor began sucking away the stun energy, but he was so disoriented that all he could do was throw up a Lachka wall and bioshield over top himself in a hasty defense, the former of which the Black Knight used his Rentar to get through, then his fists to pound into the bioshield until it finally snapped.

  Kaalo managed to kick up into his side and throw the Black Knight off him before he could land another punch, then knowing that he had to get some distance to recharge his shields he took off running down the corridor opposite the other Zen’zat, firing back on the Black Knight as he did so…but his counterpart was too fast for him to backtrack against, forcing Kaalo to stop firing and run at top speed to evade him.

  Seeing him in his Pefbar he realized this Black Knight was faster than he expected, but not as fast as him…but he did reach out and try to trip Kaalo with his Lachka. The Zen’zat stumbled for a step before a Rentar wash over his legs stopped it from happening again, but a Fornax blast flew into him at that same moment. He stumbled into the wall as he threw his own Fornax blast back, forcing himself to keep running.

  His pursuer didn’t relent, and as Kaalo got further and further away from the other fight he sensed another group of Zen’zat ahead and ran towards them. They were from the Oso’lon and their leader was even more powerful than Kaalo…plus they’d outnumber this Black Knight if he could get him to follow.

  The Jumat blast that hit him in the back complicated that, as did the Lachka field throw directly in front of him. Flinching against the Jumat and trying to stay on his feet as he was propelled forward, Kaalo didn’t have time to turn on his Rentar and he smashed into the invisible wall, bouncing backward and allowing the Black Knight to catch up.

  Angry beyond belief, Kaalo turned and swung without thinking, catching his opponent slightly off guard in the leg and spinning him to the ground with the hit. Kaalo took the opportunity and jumped on top of him, trying to get him into a grapple hold as the other Zen’zat were racing to his position in response to his mental summons.

  The Black Knight was strong, but not as strong as Kaalo. He couldn’t work his way free with muscle strength alone and the Zen’zat was prepared for when the next Jumat blast came. It knocked him up half a meter, but his grip held firm and he landed back on the Black Knight again…but the warrior had managed to get a knee up into his torso, and from it he was able to, after a few seconds of rapid maneuvers, kick Kaalo off him.

  Dre’mo’don blasts came down the hallway and hit the Black Knight’s shields from the approaching Zen’zat, prompting him to run into Kaalo and try to get by him. Holding his ground, Kaalo set himself for another Jumat blast only to get pulled from behind with Lachka field that he quickly dissipated…then a Fornax blast to the face followed by a Jumat disrupted him enough that the Black Knight was able to punch his helmet again, twisting his neck to the side even as Kaalo fired at pointblank range with his left Dre’mo’don.

  The next thing Kaalo saw was the ground and the Black Knight sprinting away from him as more Dre’mo’don filled the air and took down his shield…then he was moving too fast to target and disappeared around a corner.

  Kaalo got to his feet and began to pursue slow enough for the 12 Zen’zat behind him to catch up, then they all made their way towards the location of Kaalo’s Zen’zat that he’d gotten peeled away from…and of whom there were only 5 remaining as he reached out to do a mental check, for 3 of their icons o
n his sensors were not moving.

  8

  Taylor-1007 bounced off a wall, propelling herself further down the airless corridor on the partially destroyed Brat’mar ship until she passed into a working gravity field and fell to the floor awkwardly…but that didn’t matter. The ViLord picked herself up and walked forward as the members of her boarding party behind her made more gentle landings. The group moved through damaged corridors scanning ahead with their Ikrid and picking up some minds, confirming that there were survivors onboard.

  Taylor wasn’t here for them though, and when her team eventually got to an emergency force field they passed through into atmosphere and immediately got the smell of burnt flesh, for not far ahead there was half of a Brat’mar lying next to a huge bulkhead that had fallen down through the ceiling, pinning it to the ground with the other half of its body on the far side. There was no mind within it and Taylor’s team bypassed the two pieces of fresh corpse as they moved onward and scanning furiously. The Na’shor was a huge ship, but thanks to the schematics in the pyramid they knew there were only a few places available to look for the prisoners that had been taken onboard it at the Ribbon.

  Most of those places had been destroyed in the battle, but two should have been intact within the debris. The first prison area they came across was empty, both of minds and bodies, but a Brat’mar that had not yet been injured was approaching them from another of the huge corridors though not yet in view.

  “Not today, people,” Taylor said, pointing them to a Zen’zat access point in the wall. A few members of her mostly Archon team ran over to it and with some prying got the warped door open. The team filed inside, but as Taylor was the last one in and the Brat’mar came into view for a second she almost ran into the debris just inside the frame, having to duck down and go right…with the left side branch having been completely blocked off.

  Taking up position at the back of the line, Taylor led the others through what access ways were viable and out through the larger ones as needed…all the time with the Brat’mar trying to follow. Eventually they got to the other prison area, finding that battle damage had destroyed half of it, but fortunately also blocked the Brat’mar from getting close. The Archons were able to find ways to get through the debris, but what they found inside made several of them gag as they fought not to throw up inside their helmets.

  There were 14 Human prisoners here…spread out into 70 pieces. Every one of them had both arms and legs torn off, leaving their helpless torsos on the ground to bleed out. Taylor wasn’t sensing any minds remaining here, but two of the bodies were still warm as she switched to infrared on her HUD. That meant those had died last and that this barbarism hadn’t occurred too long ago.

  “Gordon,” she said, pointing to one of the limbless torsos. “Try him.”

  The Archon responded by jumping across the field of body parts until he got up next to the one Taylor had tagged. He pulled out a regenerator from his pack, a V’kit’no’sat model, not one of the less powerful Star Force knockoffs, and placed it on the man’s head. He wore a white uniform with silver stripes over the shoulders that ended where the limbs had been ripped off, indicating he was an Archon Acolyte.

  Taylor didn’t expect for the Kich’a’kat to respond, but she was going to try anyway. When it lay dormant over top the body she pointed to the other one with ranger markings and Gordon moved to him.

  All of her team flinched when the regenerator activated and sunk in its tendrils to the body. It took a long time, but eventually a mental signature returned and Taylor ran up beside the survivor.

  “We keep him unconscious,” she said as the torn arm and leg sockets began to seal over, though with bone fragments still sticking out here and there. Gordon pulled another device out of his pack and applied it to the ranger’s head, insuring that he wouldn’t feel or sense anything until they got him back to a medical station where they could regrow his lost body parts. Right now all the Regenerator could do was patch him up enough to keep him alive, and when it finally disconnected he was little more than a living piece of cargo.

  “Can we reattach his limbs?” Gordon wondered.

  “He’s not walking out of here even if we can. You and Brian carry him out and be ready to throw a Rentar field over him, otherwise someone could twist his neck off from the other side of a wall.”

  “You going after that Brat’mar?”

  “I’d like to, but it’s too risky. I’m more worried about Zen’zat,” she said as Gordon pulled an envirosuit out of his pack and began putting the limbless Archon into it so he could survive the trip through the airless sections of wreckage. “Get him out.”

  “Keep them off us.”

  “We will,” she promised, then began giving members of her team individual waypoints as she organized a skirmisher perimeter around the moving cargo, making sure they had enough lead to detect either Brat’mar or Zen’zat that might be closing on them.

  The big one kept hounding them, and when it had figured out they were heading back the way they came it went to block their path, hoping to force them into a fight as one Zen’zat mind eventually joined it.

  “Damn it.”

  “We have to fight them,” a mage pointed out.

  “We’re not losing anyone on a rescue mission.”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “When you’re Clan Saber, that’s obvious,” she said, motioning them back a ways to a specific room that appeared mostly intact. The ViLord had them barricade themselves inside with as much debris as they could pry loose from nearby, but the Zen’zat wasn’t coming in after them. It was staying with the Brat’mar…then another Brat’mar mind popped into her mental range, though this one was screaming with pain and probably injured.

  Taylor sent out a battlemeld ping to two of the other Archons, then used their Neritu to boost her own range. She sensed a few more minds out there, all of which were moving in their direction. Given that their ship was dead in space, the only fight they had left was with the boarders and it seemed they were eager to engage.

  Hear me, V’kit’no’sat, she said telepathically, putting enough power behind it that hopefully everyone on the ship would hear her even if she couldn’t sense their position. You have this one chance to live. Surrender now and you will not be killed or tortured. You will be taken prisoner as we have done with others throughout our history. You have 1 minute to respond, after which we will kill you. Either way, make your choice and live with it.

  Taylor didn’t want to take them prisoner after witnessing what they’d done to the Human prisoners, but to be fair you couldn’t judge the entire crew against what could have been the actions of just one individual…though right now she really wanted to.

  She watched the time tick down with no response coming, either telepathically or over comms. When a minute elapsed she was glad. They’d been given a chance to surrender, and that was all these bastards were going to get.

  “Requesting pinpoint bombardment,” she said to the Archon in control of the recovery fleet who was standing in a nexus onboard a jumpship not too far away. “We have recovered one prisoner but are cut off from our entry route by surviving crew. They have refused to surrender, so please blow away the rest of the ship that we’re not standing in.”

  “How secure are you?” Varn-1633 asked.

  “We have a room to ourselves and in no danger of decompression. The prisoner is buttoned up, but he has no limbs. They tore them off everyone and we were lucky the regenerator brought him back. He needs to get to a medical bay ASAP.”

  “And you want me to blow you an entry path for a dropship?”

  “Yes. I know it can be done.”

  “Standby. This is going to take some planning. How critical is he?”

  “Unconscious and alive. We’ve got the regenerator on his body in case he dips again, but so far it hasn’t reactivated. I think we’ve got a little time, but don’t push it.”

  “Link up your armor and bioshields when I give the wo
rd…and cross your fingers.”

  “It’ll work, just shoot straight and have our dropship standing by at a safe range.”

  “Estimate 6 minutes.”

  “Copy that,” Taylor said, having let everyone else in on that comm. “Put him in the center then huddle up. Lock grip points to each other and the floor. Check that…make it the floor and wall. Move to that corner.”

  The team quickly repositioned and began laying down their own armor suits as a secondary wall against which they placed the single envirosuit, then another layer of Archons and Knights went over it, with two of their physical shields covering the outside of their little nook as they began locking each other in place to form as solid of a mass as they could.

  “Fleet is ready. Give the word when you want us to begin.”

  Taylor sent a 30 second countdown to the jumpship as well as the rest of her team so they all knew when the firestorm would be incoming. When the timer reached 12 seconds she extended a battlemeld prompt to the 19 individuals that were capable of sharing it, knowing that was going to be a lot of headache to manage, but they might need their combined bioshields.

  Their minds interlinked and the weight of all those connections dropped onto Taylor like a load of bricks, but she and the others held up and created a massive bioshield around the group far stronger than 19 individual bioshields would have been. They held the turtle-like position even as the effort began to get tedious…but the countdown reached 0 quick enough and dull thuds started to be heard around them coming from a distance.

  Taylor and the others focused on nothing but maintaining their Cerden as the explosions got louder and the air suddenly got sucked out of the room. The group stayed put, attached to the wall and floor through their armor’s grip points, then blasts of light so bright their HUDs had to block them out began showing through the doorway as the rumbles elevated to the level of an earthquake…eventually snapping the floor beneath them and sending it spinning.