Star Force: Augmentation (SF22) Page 9

  “I’m going to grab a shower then I’ll be up,” Kara said, raising an eyebrow at Boen.

  “I think most of us will find our way up there sooner or later,” the Archon agreed.

  “Good,” Vornac said, clapping palm in fist on his upper set of arms. “I want to see how the others react…especially if they don’t make it.”

  Mark glanced up at the hologram. “You don’t think they will?”

  “Difficult to say, but I intend to find out with drink in hand. As always, you’re welcome to partake.”

  “As always,” Mark replied, inferring his normal declination. Drunk pilots, or Archons for that matter, were dead pilots, as such Star Force had banned all alcoholic substances from use by their personnel and refused to sell them to the general population. The Calavari version was mild compared to some of their other inebriating concoctions, which could theoretically kill a Human, so Mark has issued orders that none of their people should ever so much as sample any alien foodstuffs or drink that hadn’t been cleared for consumption.

  Vornac walked off, leaving the Humans alone in their victory as they watched the Nestafar get cut to pieces by the simulated lizard fighters. They did manage a 3/1 kill ratio, but that was far inferior to most of the other races on Daka, putting them well below the qualification line. That said, they had another 5 runs to try and up their score.

  “See ya later,” Kara offered Boen and Mark before heading out herself. Once she got into the quiet hallway outside she jogged off to the right, passing Vornac as he headed to a nearby elevator terminal to speed him over to his destination. Kara, heading for the shower anyway, preferred to get a bit of an extra run in and hoofed it over to the entrance to the Human complex, which was more than 3 kilometers away.

  The closest simulator complex had been hogged by the Gnar most of the day as they practiced in repetitive shifts, making it impossible for all 22 Humans to get online at the same time, so they’d relocated to an empty one to make their three qual runs today, after a less than successful effort yesterday.

  The elevator entrance to their complex was slightly downhill of the simulator, prompting Kara to turn her jog into a heavy run, which felt good after being cramped up in a pod for the past several hours. They’d gone through some practice maneuvers before and in between their quals, stretching out the session considerably, but doing so in order to keep them from getting in a rut and simply repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

  Kara tagged the open button on the elevator twice and stepped in, letting the tri-door close and the atmospheric processor recycle the air. While they breathed the standard atmosphere within the base just fine, Mark had fine-tuned their complex’s atmosphere to Star Force standards, diminishing the amount of oxygen and upping the nitrogen. As such she always felt a bit more lethargic after losing the more oxygen-rich air, but then again she didn’t need to be sprinting around their interior hallways.

  The Archon headed over to her personal quarters and went straight for her shower…which had been one of the first upgrades Star Force had made once moving in. The Calavari had air turbine scrubbers to blow off dirt and grime, but then again they didn’t sweat either. The modifications made were one of many that all the incoming races were encouraged to make, given that the Calavari didn’t know about all of their individual needs…and very little about the Humans until after they arrived.

  Kara walked up the short rubbery staircase, stripping off her clothes as she went and tossing them along with her shoes on the floor, then pulled open the lid on her shower tank and slid inside. The water rushed up over her chin, then careened out overflow ports in the sidewall until it leveled out just below her shoulders. She slid the lid back in place over top, which triggered the illumination panels running up and down the tank which had a clear wall looking out over the rest of her quarters, making the tube feel less claustrophobic.

  The water was already warm and filled with a soapy solution according to Kara’s standard settings. With the press of a button drops began falling from the lid and slicking her hair down with pure water as a series of pressure jets underneath the waterline began scouring her body in a rhythmic fashion that doubled as both a scrubber and a masseuse.

  She stayed inside for a good ten minutes before she killed the sequence and climbed out using footholds imbedded in the far side of the tube. She straddled the opening, letting excess liquid fall back inside as she rung out her hair before grabbing a nearby towel and stepping aside, only to slide the lid back in place with her left foot before walking down the steps and over to her closet.

  Once dressed she left the Human complex and snagged the nearest transit elevator on the circuit of ceiling corridors and headed over to the main hangout for all the pilots on base. When she arrived on the promenade she found Boen and several dozen others already there hanging out in small clusters while the rest of the races did the same with little mixing…save for the bar which was where she was headed to.

  “Water and a niktat,” she told the nearest server on the long countertop. With a precise throw the Calavari tossed her a bottle, then a sealed package, both of which she caught with ease.

  “Thanks Sala,” she said, retreating back over to one of the tables with half the seats filled with Archons and regular pilots. “What’d I miss?”

  “The rabbits went back out on another run, just to show off,” a Star Force regular by the name of Larry Ibsig said. “They upped their high score by 23.”

  “Damn,” Kara whispered, tearing open the packaging on the niktat, which was a chewy dough that was on the ‘ok alien food’ list. It tasted like cookie dough to her, which was why she usually picked up some whenever she was in the lounge.

  Peter-523 leaned over and pointed up at the main scoreboard. “Have a look who’s in the basement.”

  Kara looked down at the bottom half of the list, running through the usual subpar races, of which Star Force was usually one, until one name jumped out in particular.

  “No way,” she said at seeing the Protovic not only in the bottom half, but the bottom quarter on the round 1 score list. “Do they have any more runs?”

  “Just one…coming up in a few minutes.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t miss this,” she said, leaning back a touch and pinching off a glob of niktat that she downed in a slow gulp. “Who else has to go?”

  “The Gnar, of course,” Peter said, knowing that there was little chance that they were going to make it given the strength of the scores having been posted, but then again anything was possible with so many elite pilots around. Even those who were at the bottom of the basement were considered top notch just about anywhere else in the galaxy. “But the Irondel are just on the good side of the bubble, and they’re hanging onto their last 2 runs in case they need them.”

  Kara glanced up to the top name on the list, the Urik’kadel or ‘rabbits,’ then her eyes slid down to the second name, written in the trade language, the Humans, which was just above the Calavari…wait, no it wasn’t. They’d slipped down to 4th. The Bsidd had moved up to 3rd, which was a total shock. As advanced as their technology was, their pilots had always been subpar, relatively speaking.

  “This is turning out to be a very interesting tournament,” she commented to no one in particular before washing down the niktat with a healthy swig of water.

  10

  December 20, 2399

  Jartul System

  Daka

  Mark heard noise behind him in the hallway then flinched as two Nestafar flew past over top of him as he ran. He wasn’t used to people being able to catch up to him, and very rarely did he ever see any of the Nestafar flying around, though the hallways were plenty high to accommodate their wide, muscular wings. They kept their legs, arms, and tail tucked up to their torso and pumped their wings furiously to get up the incline that Mark was running.

  The Archon shook off the surprise, reminding himself to remember that sound in case it happened again…then he twisted to his left and peeked
back over his shoulder to see if any more were coming…but the hallway was clear, as it usually was. While it was possible to walk from pilot complex to complex through the ceiling passages most people used the elevator system to get them close, then huffed it over the short distances with very few venturing out into the long ovoid tunnels…save for the Humans when they were running workouts.

  They’d never established a proper sanctum in the base, but had made accommodations where they could within the local structure. The hallways offered plenty of room to run and had been mapped out for their precise distance the first week after arrival. Addition chambers within the Human complex had been renovated with various pieces of training equipment, sufficient to cover their core workouts and the specialties of those Archons on site, but they only built what they needed inside the base, given that they were working out of someone else’s infrastructure.

  The newly finished seda in orbit did have a full range of training equipment and chambers that they could use, but most of the time Mark and the other Archons weren’t up there, so they just made sure they got in what workouts they needed to maintain and slightly grow their skills while focusing the rest of their time on flying.

  The 1st round of the annual tournament, which was measured in Calavari years, was completed with Mark and the others notching the 3rd overall spot with the Kvash bumping them out of second by three points. Those positions were immaterial, for the next round was not seeded in any way. Starting in two days the top half of the field would be running through support tests, assaulting the lizards’ larger craft and bases, which Mark felt their skeets were better equipped for than dogfighting compared to the Valeries, so he held out some hope that they might qualify through to the round robin, where the remaining races would go head to head.

  As it was, they were the only qualifying race that wasn’t flying a Valerie. The rabbits had gotten their modified version worked out with the Calavari, which had made them even more of an obstacle to the other pilots. They’d solidified their dominance over the atmospheric competition and were thought to be contending for the space title as well this year, which would occur a few weeks later.

  As Mark ran up the incline he accelerated enough to maintain pace, then leveled back out when he hit the peak, keeping close attention on his cadence so he didn’t screw up this lap segment. Each 500 meter section had to be run in under 100 seconds to keep him below 5:20 mile pace and the Archons had put small tracking markers on the corridor walls across the entire base for measurement purposes that would synch with his wristwatch…and it didn’t matter whether there was an incline, flat, or decline in the sections, they still had to be run under minimum pace.

  When Mark got a few meters in from the top of the incline and back onto the flat he saw the Nestafar land and walk into one of the pilot dens. They’d gotten so far ahead of him that it took a couple minutes for him to catch up and pass by the entrance…where he skidded to a halt. Inside the open doorway there were sounds of a commotion so he stepped in to see what was going on.

  The interior was a labyrinth of narrow hallways leading to pocket-like rooms. He’d been invited to these hangouts several times before so he had an idea of what took place inside and what didn’t, and the sounds he was hearing were very atypical…given that and the fact that the Calavari and Nestafar didn’t like each other, he could tell there was trouble.

  After making a right/left/right through the pathetically short halls he almost tripped over a Calavari laying on the floor with orange blood seeping from multiple cuts on his body. Mark glanced ahead and behind to make sure he was clear, then knelt down next to the unfamiliar alien and tried to rouse him, but a loud screech from further in drew his attention and the Archon jumped up from his crouch across the downed Calavari and zigzagged his way towards the sound.

  He came out into an alcove and saw three Nestafar flying half a meter off the ground around a Calavari, along with two other winged aliens lying on the ground with misshapen limbs. The three in the air were punching and kicking at the four-armed alien as it wildly jerked about, trying to knock the flyers down.

  Mark didn’t hesitate and jumped up behind the nearest Nestafar and let gravity pull him back down a few inches as he hammered his left elbow into its back right between its wing stalks. It went slack, taken completely off guard, and hit the ground underneath the Archon’s body as he somersaulted over it and back up onto his feet where he punched another in the lower abdominal cavity, forcing it to fly backwards a few meters and away from the bleeding Calavari.

  That was when Mark noticed the bladed weapons the Nestafar had in their hands and on their feet. The handheld slicers wrapped around their fists in wicked looking circular blades while the foot straps had a claw-like blade sticking up at a nasty angle…and from the look of Gonstan they’d been doing a considerable amount of damage with them.

  The Calavari pilot grabbed the last of the Nestafar attacking him by the throat and threw it to the ground as it sliced both hand blades into his thick upper arm. His lower arm grabbed one and pulled it away, but the other carved out a deep trench in his skin, gushing out a river of orange just before his foot came up and stomped down on the creature’s neck, after which it dropped both blades as its arms fell lifeless.

  The other one left in flight ignored the Calavari and went straight at Mark, but the Archon was too fast. Even as it swung its blades at his exposed skin he caught it by the wrists and walked up its chest, making the pair too heavy to stay in the air. They both came crashing down to the floor, whereupon Mark delivered a heavy punch to its ribcage while sliding in between its legs so it couldn’t gut him with the foot blades.

  It tried to swing a right cross that would have cut through his face, but he caught its forearm with his elbow, then drove his stiffened fingers into its throat with a strike quick as a scorpion, then his arm was back up in defense while the Nestafar choked to get air. Meanwhile Mark grabbed one of its wrists and pried the blade out of its hand, tossing it aside while working on the other…then a huge foot came down on its head and the alien went limp.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, sliding back out from under Gonstan’s blood drips.

  “I don’t know,” he said, walking out of the room towards the sound of other combat.

  Mark left the dead/incapacitated Nestafar where they lay and followed the Calavari through the narrow hallways and into another room where more fighting was going on, but before he could jump in to help he heard sounds behind him and turned just in time to duck a blade swiping for his throat.

  The Archon pulled down into a crouch then exploded forward, running on hunched knees into the midsection of the first Nestafar and driving it back football style into the two behind it, then he stopped suddenly and kicked into its midsection before grabbing one of its wrists and twisting hard. The ugly alien’s grip slackened and he pulled the blade free as he backed up a step.

  Mark glanced over his shoulder into the room to make sure he wasn’t about to get ambushed from behind then held his ground in the hallway, not letting any of the reinforcements get through to the Calavari as he struck a pose with the curved blade wrapping around his fingers like the scariest set of brass knuckles every conceived. He held it out in front of him in warning with one shoulder turned backwards so he could have a bit of peripheral vision to the inside as the three Nestafar clawed their way to their feet.

  None of them could fly, given the width of the halls, but Mark could see and hear more coming up behind them, probably flying in as the two had done prior to his arrival.

  “Stand aside!” he heard a voice bellow from behind.

  Mark took a step backward to clear the entrance then ducked behind the wall to his left just before a table came flying through the air to smash into the attackers. Following it another Calavari charged in, this one not so bloody, and Mark could hear all kinds of screeches and screams as the four-armed giant busted his way through the pinned flyers. Unable to amass or surround, the Nestafar had no chance
one on one, hand to hand with a Calavari and they knew it.

  Mark turned his back to the wall and looked for more enemies, but the small room had only 3 Calavari on their feet, with another one lying dead on the ground along with a host of Nestafar. He reached up to his ear to make sure his earpiece wasn’t there, then turned the corner and followed the Calavari all the way out to the entrance after the attackers, spotting at least one that had taken a side detour.

  As the four-armed behemoth closed and sealed the tri-door Mark turned and chased the Nestafar through a series of twists and turns until it came out into yet another small chamber, this one with two attackers and one wounded Calavari trying to shield itself from the swinging blades with its already cut up arms and legs as the flyers tried to go for its throat.

  Angry as hell, Mark ran up and drove his own blade into the back of one, eliciting a horrible screech as it imbedded in the cartilage and the Human was able to physically pull it away from the Calavari using the handhold.

  He yanked it back and away, twisting it to the side before running up and clobbering the other in the back of the head with his fist and instantly regretting it as his knuckles took the brunt of the hit. The wing flaps paused in a moment of shock, bringing the Nestafar down to Mark’s height, upon which he swung his right arm around and leaned into the blow, bypassing its face with his fist and instead landing his much stronger elbow on target.

  That knocked it out and Mark pulled it off the wounded Calavari before turning around to see another come in and finish off the one squirming around on the floor with the blade still buried in its back. As he heard the neck snap the Archon turned around and frowned, looking down at the pile of blood that the Calavari was still lying in, unable or unwilling to stand.

  “Where are your medics?” he asked the other.

  “Elsewhere,” was all the pilot said, heaving with exertion. “If they too aren’t under attack.”

  “Are there any more in here?”