Star Force: Capitulation (SF95) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “Yeah.”

  “The very top is an array that keeps the land area safe beneath it when activated. Everything inside the ring’s perimeter is affected though, so you can’t land and take off when in use, and the only access points are on the inner track. There’s not so much as a single airlock on the outside.”

  “Sentimental monkey,” Ace jibbed, but Ryan could tell he approved. “Please tell me there’s a blood gulch down there?”

  “That and many more map replicas.”

  Ace did a silent fist pump, but Ryan shook his head ‘no.’

  “That’s not why I built it. At least not the primary reason.”

  “What does the array do if it’s not a weapon?”

  “We got the idea from The Nexus before we ever got our hands on the schematics, so our design is crude but now polished for our purposes. After all, we don’t have to send anything across hundreds of lightyears…just a handful.”

  Ace’s eyes widened with pure shock and an equal dose of disbelief.

  “You built a mini grid point?”

  “Without much gravity out here, we gotta have some fast way to move around our clandestine network.”

  “We?”

  “The rest of the Clans established networks of secret bases. I’ve just taken it a step further…and yes, I’m willing to share.”

  “Where are the other Halos?”

  “Inside the nebula and on its perimeter. This isn’t the only way in, and hopefully with the stealth shield nobody will find the door.”

  “How fast?”

  “Not super speed, but about the equivalent of our current gravity drives.”

  “What about the nebula itself? You’re still going to have to run through it.”

  “Well, the Halos are more than just grid points. Every 13 minutes they send an automatic pulse of kinetic energy. It took us a long time to calibrate it properly, but…”

  “You’ve cored holes through the nebula?” Ace asked, his jaw open.

  “Yes, and the pulses keep it clear. It’s a needle shot in and out, but the density is low enough for our shields to handle. If the Halos shut down the nebula will fill back in and we can shut the draw bridge if needed.”

  “One or two?”

  “Given the length of this one, both ends have to be pulsing to keep it clear. But if one goes down you can send a ship through slower and still make it with proper modifications. It takes a few years to fill back in completely, so you have a window to get there and fix the problem. If not, you’re stuck with sending a very slow shield ship through.”

  “How many years did it take the first time?”

  “On this leg, it took the crew 17 years to travel 3 lightyears.”

  “With or without a pulse from this end?”

  “With. We didn’t want to risk them getting stranded due to unknown amounts of friction, so we waited until we got this Halo’s pulse generator operational. It’s a separate mechanism from the magnetic field matrix.”

  “So you have to have a special fleet of ships to move through it?”

  “Yes. One will be coming in a few days, but I thought you’d like to have a look around the surface first,” Ryan said with a smirk.

  “How do you know when to turn the field on if landing isn’t possible when it’s operational?”

  “You tell me.”

  Ace raised an eyebrow. “Comm grid?”

  “Not needed, though we do send signals through the conduit to bypass the nebula. The Halos also act as relays.”

  “But of course,” Ace mocked. “You had to smash as much coolness into this project as possible.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Much.”

  “The ships send out a signal that the Halos read when they get close and they turn on the field…with a proper warning first for all ships in the area to clear out. Once an incoming ship is stopped, the field goes down and you can come and go.”

  “What’s the downside of moving through the field?”

  “If your ship isn’t configured for it there can be malfunctions, not to mention biological ramifications. We have to pump a hell of a lot of juice inside that arc to get the speeds we need.”

  “I believe it. Same for the pulse generators?”

  “13 minutes is the best we can do with recharge times, and the deeper you get into the nebula the less effect it has.”

  “Wait, what about encountering a pulse from the other side?”

  “They cancel each other out when they hit, and our ships’ shields are configured to pass through without resistance. If anyone else tries to get through, the pulses will slow them and maybe even knock them off course.”

  “Right into the nebula…”

  “There’s that, yeah.”

  “Cross traffic?”

  “The corridor is wide enough to pass, and everyone holds to the right side of the road.”

  Ace smiled at the inside joke, knowing well that there was no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in the galaxy, so they had to arbitrarily assign such parameters.

  “And where does this lead?”

  “You’ll see when we get there, buddy. I’m not spoiling that part. Pilot, take us down at your convenience. We’ve got some exploring to do.”

  “Copy that, Archon. ETA is 18 minutes to the LZ.”

  When Ace stepped out of the transport and onto the synthetic deck of the facility’s landing pad he jogged over to the edge and the pitifully small railing there that separated you from a sheer drop off that descended into rocky cliffs that the nearby lake’s waves were crashing against. He looked out across the vast stretch of water and thought he could just barely make out the far side. There was a tiny bit of haze involved, but what caused him to have a wave of nostalgic goosebumps was the fact that the horizon curved up rather than down and that he could see the inside of the ring as the land/water arced up into a tiny ribbon in the distance that stretched over his head then widened again behind him when he spun around, seeing the dense jungle that surrounded the landing pad on the three other sides.

  Ryan followed him out to the railing, giving him a moment to soak it in before saying anything, for his face was blank with an expression he knew well from their early days in Atlantis when they were going through Archon basic training together. His teammate was literally dumbstruck, which was better than even Ryan had hoped for.

  “Like it?” he asked sarcastically.

  “I want one,” he said deadpan, though his eyes were still focused on the ribbon in the sky and the tiny spec of a star off to the left that was at the center of the system that had no idea this Halo even existed.

  “Davis wants us to have a backup plan for the far rim if the V’kit’no’sat come back. We’ve been planning survival and harassment strategies in the ADZ. This is another option I came up with.”

  “You don’t think they’ll find it?”

  “Not unless they follow a ship here.”

  “What about the hole in the nebula?”

  “They don’t have a reason to look, not to mention it’s tiny.”

  “You know, if they do find this they’re liable to just blow it up rather than landing ground troops to fight us.”

  “Oh I know. This isn’t our main base. It’s just the portal to get there. We’ve got 6 star systems unavailable to the V’kit’no’sat to hide in, and as of now I’m offering your Clan first dibs on franchise rights.”

  Ace frowned. “Franchise rights?”

  “I’ve got a master plan in the works, but not a fraction of the resources needed to really get work going on it. Building the transport ships, for example. I’ve got a fleet of 209 right now, so if you’d like to help start spamming those and other items I’ve designed you can be the first to sign up. I’ll bring the other 9s in on it too, and all the Clans eventually, but I wanted you to have first dibs.”

  “What is there to claim? Do we each get a Halo?”

  Ryan smiled again. “You’ll see once we get inside.”

  “You know, I
could beat it out of you,” Ace said, finally looking at him instead of the awe inspiring view.

  “You’re welcome to try, but I’m not saying anything more about what’s there. Here though, you’re free to ask questions about.”

  “How’d you get this built without people knowing it was here?”

  “Simple. I built it elsewhere and moved it into position once the superstructure was in place. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of having a construction crew that can keep their mouths shut. You have to keep yours that way too, by the way.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Ace said, looking back at the uptilting horizon again. “This is fucking awesome.”

  “That’s what I was going for,” Ryan scoffed. “And I think it’s worth the cost.”

  “Shut up and take my money…” Ace said with a laugh.

  “Unfortunately, like you said, unless they’re hidden the Halos are target practice.”

  “Still worth it, portal or not. This is why a lot of us got involved in Star Force in the first place.”

  “I know. Too bad I couldn’t build one to full size.”

  “Close enough, buddy. You did good.”

  “Thank you,” Ryan said, then letting the moment persist as Ace continued to look around at the sweeping landscapes. This really did feel like being in the video game, and there was no need to rush the tour. Their ride wasn’t here yet and first impressions never repeated themselves, so he was going to let him soak all this in at his own pace…and revel in the total victory he’d just achieved over the other trailblazers in their ongoing construction war.

  9

  April 22, 3549

  Aatrox System (Rim Region)

  Darkin (Clan Sangheili Rim capitol)

  Jason returned to his command center buried deep beneath the barren moon that orbited a giant red gas giant, just having completed another naval mission in the Sanguine Blade. They’d been blowing apart a Virdeen pirate base and cleaning out yet another point on what he was establishing as a ‘safe’ trade route…which meant he also had to devote troops to patrolling it so that it remained clean.

  Right now there was one Clan Sangheili warship there supported by six Belledeir capital ships of mixed sizes. He’d scrapped the entire Belledeir starfighter core when he got here and took control of their civilization, but their carriers were still somewhat valuable in that they could be reworked into mobile search and rescue craft, and one of those was also with his small patrol fleet. It wasn’t much, but now that the Virdeen base was literally nothing more than bits of debris there wasn’t anything left in that empty system to counter them with, and he knew they’d give any potential pirates or raiders entering the system a hell of a hard time poaching ships.

  The trailblazer walked past a few Clan personnel at workstations in the small room. One was a Calavari, another two were Protovic, and the fourth was a Urik’kadel. They had their individual oversight tasks to attend to so he didn’t bother them, simply talking a standing position in front of the main hologram next to a pedestal that doubled as a control nexus. He laid a hand on it and accessed the interlink controls, mentally adding the dot that was the Hyfernk System to a list that would update automatically and be sent out through the comm grid he was continually growing, though unfortunately it didn’t connect far enough to reach any of the other trailblazers’ realms.

  That was because there were far too many systems nearby that needed them and he couldn’t waste units in a long chain over to Paul, Megan, or the others just to stay in quicker contact. Message packets were continually being ferried through the grid point system and added to the comm relays so it wasn’t a total blackout, but he was still isolated from the others far more than he would have liked.

  As he added the Hyfernk dot, three other nearby systems linked to it with glowing golden jumplines indicating that those routes were now open for the commerce traffic that he was slowly developing in order to bring a greater structure to a region that had been incredibly isolated due to the rampancy of the hits on shipping. Systems only a dozen lightyears apart from one another had no connection because interconnecting systems were too dangerous to pass through, forcing them to go around or, in most cases, trade and travel with only a handful of others nearby, making the entire Belledeir region a collection of tiny communities that did not communicate or support one another, and that left them ripe for conquest by those strong enough to take advantage of the situation.

  But with every jumpline that Jason cleared out and the addition of comm relays that would follow later, the various races now had the freedom to move about knowing that Star Force was on the patrol and that the hunters were now being hunted. Many were still too fearful to veer off their known and trusted trade routes, but gradually as the brave began making extended journeys and living to tell about it the freeze on interstellar travel was slowly thawing…though only along the links that glowed gold before Jason on the starmap.

  The system he’d just added helped, but the main routes were the black holes and a handful of super large stars, all of which he’d already claimed and secured, but a lot of the local races didn’t have gravity drive technology sufficient to make the longer jumps, thus they were very isolated and limited to sometimes less than 7 lightyears per jump. In order to facilitate their movement Jason had begun using the Belledeir to create his own transit network for hire, but he still had too few ships. Those out and about were visibly establishing where the safe routes were and jumping across the longer distances where others could not, bridging the gap for those with the resources to purchase tickets for personnel or cargo, but the first full-sized jumpship capable of carrying other ships wasn’t due to come off the Clan Sangheili shipyards for another 3 years.

  Jason hated having to work with so little when everything he produced got gobbled up by the void of need out here, but he kept chipping away year after year and had succeeded in bringing a spider web of stability throughout the otherwise chaotic and barbaric region to which he’d been assigned. Just getting to the point where he’d even consider building civilian ships rather than squeezing out every warship he could was a milestone, but he was still stretched thin on the military front. The Belledeir were secure, but his decision to start sucking a bit of Clan resources into development of a transit grid was due to the necessity of uniting this region in order to avoid more headaches down the road.

  He needed partners, and in order to reach out and find them he had to actually have reliable links in place. Infantile as it was, he was already contracting out mining work to various races in bad need of resources their systems couldn’t produce. Jason hiring them provided them with the currency to trade for what they didn’t have and it provided him with additional materiel. He wasn’t going to start giving out advanced technology, so that was something his Clan was going to have to produce on their own, but he was sharing lesser tech that was a huge improvement to a lot of races that were being friendly and not trying to kill their neighbors over scraps.

  Economy was a weapon, and that was a lesson Davis had taught him a long time ago. Jason wasn’t just fighting enemies that lived and breathed but fate itself in numerous forms. You couldn’t blast your way out of a food shortage or a plague, meaning that some wars you fought had to occur via different means and Jason badly needed clear jumplanes and as many systems hooked up to his relay grid as he could get, and spam as they did, his Paladin could only build so fast.

  As Jason updated the map and searched it for new additions since his last visit he saw an update on Zargor activities with the pullout continuing. Paul’s meeting with them hadn’t been a feint after all. They were pulling back from one invasion zone after another, even abandoning some of the worlds they had taken. That was probably out of fear that Jason would eventual get to them and recover them the hard way, but the fact that they were leaving without even a shot being fired spoke volumes for how spooked they were. Star Force hadn’t backed down when hit, and had in fact hit them back harder and in a way they ha
dn’t expected. It seemed they were more bark than bite, and now running away with their tails tucked between their legs…despite the fact that they didn’t have actual tails, but the metaphor fit.

  If this pullout continued it was going to remove one of seven major headaches Jason had in his region, and that was a major relief. He couldn’t be sure that the Zargor didn’t have some devious plan up their sleeve, but based off of what he’d learned about them he doubted it. They were trying to buy time, pure and simple, now that they saw they couldn’t win head to head and that Star Force was willing to not reinforce smaller worlds they were attacking to instead hit the Zargor where it hurt.

  Jason would never leave a system defenseless, but those systems that he hadn’t even known about other than them being a dot on the map had to wait. He hated that, but the strategy had worked. Now with the Zargor disengaging, if it held to course, a lot more of those small worlds would be protected without even sending a single ship to them. They’d still have to deal with raiders and other threats on their own, but the big bad Zargor were not going to be around to threaten them anymore.

  Some people would say Star Force had sacrificed some of those races and their worlds in order to make the Zargor back down…and from a misguided point of view that would appear to be correct. But like Star Force’s edict about not killing prisoners, they were under no obligation to actually take prisoners in the first place. The same was true about putting a system under their protection. A lot of them needed it, but if Star Force hadn’t gotten to them yet it was simply a matter of priorities, not selling someone out.

  And when you had people dying everywhere and you couldn’t stop most of it, let alone all of it, there came a time when you just had to say ‘fuck it all’ and go on the offensive. Star Force hadn’t quite got that far in over its head, but they’d used the same principle.

  When the enemy is making you play defense to the point where they don’t have to defend themselves, you need to call their bluff and make them defend by keeping fleets in reserve. If you never attack their territory they don’t have to leave any ships behind to guard it and can hit you as hard as they like without their population and infrastructure coming to harm.