Star Force: Excalibur (Star Force Universe Book 41) Page 8

  “I didn’t.”

  “I did. They have a control over you because we don’t fully understand their technology. We’ve allowed that because the tradeoff is the help they’ve given us, but we’ve never fully been in control, have we?”

  “No, I haven’t been.”

  “Master and Apprentice.”

  “But can we trust them as our Master?”

  “Partially. Not fully. Which is why we need to engineer some countermeasures where we can. But removing your Vorch’nas and turning away the Dragons’ help would be stupid. We need every advantage we can get against the V’kit’no’sat.”

  “We’re playing a dangerous game.”

  “When haven’t we been?”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  “If I were in your position I would be too, but sitting on this side of the desk I’m more impressed with the potential gains from this meeting than the loss. So start spilling, starting at the beginning. You said his name was Tew’chor?”

  “Yeah, and he was a big one,” she said, producing a hologram of him, for her Vorch’nas was the one recording device in the hangar bay that had not been deactivated.

  8

  October 13, 4852

  Gagrador System (Ziviri territory)

  Stellar Orbit

  Kara’s command ship, the Yi, came out of its jump after tracking down Paul’s multiple successful invasions in 6 other systems. Without being linked into the Star Force relay grid, she had no way of knowing exactly where he was so she went to his last known location and followed the bread crumbs from there in the form of decimated and now occupied systems with small bits of Star Force fleets possessing them.

  From them she’d learned where he had gone next, now finally catching up to him in the Gagrador System. It wasn’t the Ziviri capitol, but it was one of their major strongholds and the passive scans of battle activity attested to that. The bulk of Paul’s fleet was here, but not in stellar orbit, and the weaponsfire was so excessive that Kara’s command ship could pick it up all the way from the 2nd planet in the system.

  So she diverted there, passing by various bits of wreckage that were either dead ships or destroyed defense stations in near the star, and made a microjump out to a very large planet. It had twice the gravity of Earth, which was ideal for the rocky Ziviri, but it wasn’t something that was going to hinder Star Force troops too much. They’d all done high g training to some extent, and the powered function in their armor would assist their movements to maintain more agility than the Ziviri possessed.

  They were all mech sized, similar to Star Force’s Ikrotor, but the Ziviri were much wider and basically plodders. Their homeworld had even more gravity than this planet, but it looked like Paul’s forces hadn’t made it to the surface yet. Kara got piecemeal updates during the microjump, then when she came into high orbit and linked into the battlemap network she got to see what was really going on in the face of a Tar’vem’jic blast that lit up everything around it as the orange beam streaked off towards the planet where it hit a very robust shield at the bottom of a thick atmosphere.

  “What the hell,” Kara muttered, seeing a much more even fight than expected, then she got orders from Paul that wanted her ship in the fight immediately.

  “Captain, all crew to battle stations,” she said, getting up out of the Admiral’s chair and heading across the bridge to the command nexus. “Looks like they need some help.”

  “Happy to,” Zeddi said, triggering a ship-wide alarm followed by more detailed updates to specific areas. Her command ship was Clan Ghostblade, so these were the elite of the elite within Star Force and it didn’t take much to get them into combat mode.

  It didn’t take 30 seconds before the first of the extra bridge crew began to run in and take their positions, but Kara was already mentally linking in and contacting Paul. There was a bit of lag, but it was decreasing rapidly as the Yi moved in closer to the planet.

  What do you need? she asked through the technological mental link.

  I was about to ask you the same thing.

  It’s complicated, but it can wait. Give me something to shoot.

  We’re about through the shield and they know it, so they’re going all in. Can you slip in through the gap and get to ground? Our landing craft could use some extra cover.

  Give me your assault plan and I’ll be happy to play point.

  It’ll be rough. We’ve got most of their capitol troops here. They’re not waiting for us to take half their systems before objecting heavily.

  That’s an understatement, she said, seeing the hundreds of thousands of enemy ships over the planet in addition to the weaponsfire coming from the surface. Shield too strong?

  We’re getting a 93% drain.

  Kara cringed, knowing that wasn’t enough to stand off from range and poke it down with only the Tar’vem’jic. For every hit that was made, the recharge rate of the shields was slightly higher. That meant addition weaponsfire needed to be added to drain the pool of energy low enough that a single blast could momentarily penetrate and hit the generators below.

  And that meant bringing the rest of Paul’s fleet into weapons range, and in the process exposing them to fire from the surface. The Mach’nel wasn’t hanging back through, rather sitting in front position and attracting the attention of most of the Ziviri planetary defenses. The stupid rocks were living up to their reputation, for every shot against the Mach’nel was a wasted one. They should have been attacking the drones and knocking out as many of them as they could.

  How many guns do we need clipped first?

  That’s what I want you to handle from up close.

  Kara grinned. You give me all the fun assignments.

  Be careful. They pack a punch.

  As ordered. Knock me an entry point please.

  You’ve got about 6 minutes before we punch through.

  I’ll be there in 8.

  Kara mentally plotted the course for her command ship and let her bridge crew handle getting there in the timeframe she allotted. Paul was busy enough there was no need for additional chitchat, so she let him continue to do his thing while her crew brought the Yi up to full combat readiness and they made a very light microjump in towards the planet, carefully avoiding debris and other ships as they zipped past the main fight and got underneath it as periodic beams from the Mach’nel linked the battlefield to the planet.

  The Yi came in very near those beams as they began to poke holes in the shield. Not much at first, which just the very tail end of the energy stream getting through before the shield recharge rate filled in the gap again. Kara knew the Tar’vem’jic wouldn’t shoot her ship, so she didn’t bother keeping her distance and got within a kilometer of the beam as her ship took shots from the rather large planetary defense rail guns. The amount of mass they were throwing was significant, and her ship didn’t have the luxury of deploying dampening shields to easily catch them, so the Yi just had to take the big hits along with the Ziviri beam weaponry.

  But it was worth it as the Tar’vem’jic fired again and just missed the command ship, poking a much longer lived hole in the shields that Kara dove her ship through. The enemy shields tried to close on it, causing a significant jolt as the edge of her hull hit them, but they failed and her command ship slid through…minus most of its own shields.

  The weaponry on the Yi lit up immediately, targeting the weapons batteries tearing furrows into the hull and eliminating them even as Kara brought the ship lower and lower to the ground until the Ziviri on the planet had a good recreation of Independence Day with her command ship blocking out the sky.

  Foothold secured, she reported to Paul once every gun within range had been eliminated. Widening now. Start sending down the troops.

  Thank you, he said with a hint of sarcasm as Kara took note of the movement of a chunk of the overhead fleet as another big Tar’vem’jic beam hit the reformed shields again, this time in a different position, to further drain them and poke another hole, but the Zi
viri had multiple overlapping shield generators and the Tar’vem’jic hadn’t knocked them all out yet. Kara knew that’s what she needed to do from the underside, then the Tar’vem’jic could start eliminating the planetary defense guns rapidly and spare Paul more drone losses.

  Kara moved her ship across the surface faster than looked physically possible, plowing through the thick air so fast it caused a tsunami that tossed the heavy Ziviri on the surface around like debris and even collapsed a few weak buildings as the Yi headed to the nearest main shield generator complex. When Kara got within weapons range she lit it up, having to take down its own secondary defense shield, but that didn’t last long against the Star Force naval weaponry…though it would have held out a long time against mech and aerial attack.

  As soon as it went down the building followed, with the massive amount of energy heading into the atmosphere being cut off and a permanent hole formed above more than a 200 mile wide area…but it was still trying to refill from other shield generators. On the sensors Kara could see it, creeping out across the landscape like waves on a beach, only to have the Tar’vem’jic fire again and cause it to recede as the energy was needed elsewhere. So long as the Mach’nel kept firing, the hole was going to remain open and the incoming troop transports were going to be able to get through without incident with their drone escorts taking the majority of the hits enroute to the surface.

  Kara watched as her crew handled the surrounding threats, realizing that she wasn’t needed here anymore and that the troops just now getting to ground would.

  “Captain, the battle is yours. Cover the landing as you see fit,” Kara said, heading across the bridge to the exit.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the surface. You can mind the store, can’t you?”

  “Shall I arrange an escort?’

  “No need. I’m going out the airlock.”

  The Kiritas looked surprised, but didn’t question her further. “Call if you need us.”

  Kara left the bridge and broke into a run, knowing that the Yi would integrate into Paul’s command structure easy enough and she would just be redundant in the command nexus. The real fight was going to be on the surface, and that’s where she could make the most difference.

  Kara did as promised, running through the ship to a lift that took her across the interior miles of the gigantic command ship to the hull where she found one of the ‘airlocks’ in the form of an auxiliary hangar bay. She ordered it opened up, then Kara ran across the deck towards the atmospheric containment shield and the Ziviri cityscape beyond, triggering her Vorch’nas and covering herself in blood red armor over the course of a few strides, then continued to run all the way to the edge where she exited the ship and let the heavy gravity drag her in a controlled fall down to the surface.

  Before she hit it she began to fly, curving her fall into a trajectory that headed her towards the first of the gigantic landing ships that was beginning to spill out mechs and aerial craft ahead of the infantry, but already there were hundreds of Ziviri with armor over their rocklike bodies firing on the leading stars.

  “Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” she said to herself as she adjusted her flight towards a group that weren’t quite up to the mechs yet. “Cannon ball!”

  Kara made the announcement, knowing that no one could hear it, just before she curled up into a ball and flew right into the back of one of the giant infantry, slamming hard and bouncing off, but transferring enough momentum that the Ziviri was knocked over, falling into another and producing a domino effect that took down 5 of them.

  Kara rolled over the ground, coming up onto her feet with a ringing in her head but otherwise ok, then she activated her external speakers as she held position.

  “Surrender now or you’re not going to like the outcome,” she said in their native language, but the only response she got was arms being raised her direction and heavy beam cannons firing at her.

  Kara easily dodged them, zipping left and right as their aiming was restricted to the speed that they could move their bodies. She tried to access their minds and get them to shoot each other, but found she couldn’t. It was rare to find a race resistant to telepathy, but apparently the Ziviri were, and she was not able to take control of them as she could most other races in the galaxy…but she could still transmit to them.

  She shoved the image of a mech approaching on the left and got two of them to turn and fire at nothing, prompting a smile from her. Kara might not be able to remote control them, but she could still cause so much havoc they wouldn’t be able to fight effectively.

  More began to appear from around building corners, and Kara tapped into the battlemap network to see just how many there were…

  “Oh shit,” she said, seeing that there were literally thousands of them within only a few miles. They’d be easy targets for a warship to kill, but they weren’t here to slaughter them. They were here to conquer them, which meant forcing a surrender or taking them captive, more or less. “This is gonna take forever.”

  A stun blast shot over her head, impacting the shield on one of the armored Ziviri ahead of her, though she could tell from the battlemap that many coming out late were not. They must have been civilians while the armored ones were troops, but they were all mech sized.

  Star Force was trying to take a planet inhabited by living mechs, and do so without killing them while the Ziviri were free to kill the attackers however they could.

  “Paul would be the one to pick a fight like this,” Kara said, summoning up a huge Jumat field over both her arms and bringing them together beside her right hip. “Alright, let’s get this done.”

  Kara threw her arms forward, releasing the invisible Jumat blast across a quickly filling courtyard into another armored Ziviri. That took its shields down and hit it square in the chest, knocking it not only off its feet but propelling it backward to where it fell and tripped up two others as Kara ran up on top of it and fired her stun weapons directly into a gap in its armor plates…only to have another hit her with a bright yellow blast that knocked her off and sent her rolling towards another Ziviri that tried to stomp her.

  Kara used her Yen’mer to accelerate her trajectory, passing under the massive foot and standing up just behind it where she fired her Dre’mo’dons into its shields repeatedly, dancing around and evading its attacks and others until the shields went down, then she switched to stun weapons. She had to dance like crazy to keep from getting hit, and she wasn’t always successful, but slowly the giant began to stumble and wobble, with Kara eventually taking him to the ground and delivering several more stun blasts to make sure he stayed down for another hour, at least.

  “One down,” Kara noted, leaving that Ziviri and finding another to pick on as more mechs poured out of the landing zone and worked their way towards her.

  9

  November 27, 4852

  Gagrador System (Ziviri territory)

  Javvrier

  More than a month had passed since Kara had arrived in the Gagrador System, but she’d been so busy helping Paul with the invasion that she hadn’t had 5 minutes alone with him to explain why she’d come here. With the planetary defenses now totally down and the ground war continuing at a good pace, Paul was back onboard his flagship gearing up for the assault on the other two inhabited planets in the system and Kara was finally able to grab some time with him.

  “They got everything?” he asked after she’d filled him in on the Zak’de’ron encounter.

  “I assume so.”

  Paul didn’t take that knowledge as easily as Davis had, and began to pace around the wide observation deck where he’d met her. The view of space outside was displayed in holo, making the interior chamber look like it was sitting on the hull of the Excalibur.

  “That’s a huge problem, Kara.”

  “I know. I screwed up.”

  Paul eventually stopped and looked at her. “We can’t be sure the Dragons are telling the truth about the manual block
. We can’t be sure about anything concerning your Vorch’nas. You have a choice to make. Remove it, or keep it and lose your access to our high level data.”

  Kara glanced at the floor, having expected this conversation to happen with Davis, though it had never materialized.

  “Davis said he thought it was a moot point, because we hold the knowledge of their existence over them. They won’t betray us to the V’kit’no’sat.”

  “Hopefully not, but there is a lot more in play than that. We have to be able to keep secrets. If you can’t keep them, you have to be isolated. Is the Vorch’nas worth that much to you?”

  “I should say no, that I’m an Archon and don’t really need it. But to be honest, it’s a part of me I don’t want to lose.”

  “And what if they can take direct control of your mind with it?”

  Kara frowned. “I highly doubt that.”

  “Can you rule it out completely?”

  “It would have to fight against my mind to do so.”

  “Would it? It has a Kich’a’kat in it, meaning it can reach anywhere in your body and do whatever it wants. If they can drain your memories they might be able to do a great deal more.”

  “Why let me keep it then?” she argued.

  Paul shrugged. “I supposed we should have considered this possibility, but the Zak’de’ron had never bothered to contact you. They came to me the last time. But if they can hack you…then that’s a big problem, Kara. A huge problem.”

  “It has to be close range, only a few hundred meters.”

  “So they say...”

  “I don’t think they’ve ever lied to me about anything, Paul.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not. Are you willing to risk other people’s lives on that?”

  Kara sighed. “No, I’m not.”

  “If you want to keep it, we have to make adjustments,” Paul offered.

  “We can’t hack it. It’s too advanced.”

  “And if we put in a block between it and your mind, it can just go around it physically. You either have to trust it or remove it.”