Star Force: Fiddlesticks (SF65) (6 page)

“You said Morgan was leading the invasion?” Travis
asked.

“There are going to be at least 5 trailblazers
involved, so it’s more accurate to state that they’re leading the invasion.”

“Why’d you say Morgan then?”

“She’s Morgan,” Kara said with a ‘duh’ look on her
face.

“Are the Calavari going to be part of this invasion? I
assume they would be,” Karen added.

“Just about everyone is invited to this party,” Kara
pointed out, “but we’re keeping it to a Star Force only affair. The H’kar will
stick to other engagement sites. This one is personal.”

“Hycre?”

“They’ve got plenty on their hands reclaiming their
own conquered worlds, and the Voku are busy causing trouble elsewhere. This is
going to be in-house.”

“Assuming we can take it, are the Calavari relocating
there or just adding it to their collection?”

Kara smiled. “Oh, we’ve got big plans for that.”

“Care to share?” Travis asked.

“Why do we only produce Sentinels in Sol or Epsilon
Eridani?”

“Biggest industrial systems we’ve got,” Karen
answered.

“Pagaliss is slated to start producing them too.”

“Damn,” Travis whispered, realizing that without a
lick of infrastructure there now it was going to take some massive construction
efforts to get them to the point where they could build
Sentinels
with any regularity. Sol was chucking them off a virtual assembly line like
they were
lego
bricks, but they’d had 700 years to
build up that industrial capacity, while Pagaliss was starting from scratch.
“They’re ambitious bastards, I’ll give them that.”

“We, youngling. We.”

“We doesn’t usually include us,” Karen pointed out.

“It is this time. And for crying out loud, you’re just
strikers. Don’t expect to be running things. Even without my armor I could snap
you two like twigs…simultaneously,” Kara said, exaggerating a bit.

“We’re catching up,” Travis said defiantly.

“Just quit assuming that the trailblazers should treat
you as equals. They’ve been doing a whole lot of stuff way over your heads, and
was doing it before you were even born.”

“Why do you treat us differently then?” Karen asked a
lingering question that had never come up before.

“I happen to like you two arrogant pricks…”

“Why do people always call us arrogant?”

“Because you are. There’s a line between confidence
and arrogance, and you live on the far side of it. You literally ooze it, which
was one reason I insisted that you shower before we left.”

“We do have the best battlemeld skills, trailblazers
included,” Karen pointed out, “and we’re the reason the trailblazers even have
them.”

“But they can still kick your ass. Until you can hold
your own you shouldn’t be talking like you can.”

“We did break their record.”

Kara smiled. “That alone is reason enough for Paul and
Jason to stick it to you every time they can. You should take that as a
compliment, by the way, not an insult.”

“And how should we take getting passed up for all the
important missions?”

“Ah, hate to break it to you there, but we recruit the
best available and our favorites for the missions we’re in charge of.”

“What’s your point? We are the best,” Karen said as if
that should have been common knowledge. “Within our area,” she added belatedly.

“If you’re local they’ll use you. They won’t waste
your skills. But if you’re out of system they won’t call for you unless they
have to.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have a Clan.”

“So?” Travis asked. “There are others that don’t.”

“No one else rejected their Clan stating that they
were too important to Star Force to be involved in one.”

“Our battlemeld research
was
top priority…or am I missing something.”

“Your Clan affiliation wasn’t hindering that. You
ditched it to state you were on the level of the trailblazers, not a
subordinate…which is pretty much like flipping them off. The fact that you
haven’t hooked up with a Clan since then is going to keep you on a lot of
people’s black list, and when they’re recruiting favorites, well, that
ain’t
going to be you.”

“Except for you, it seems,” Karen pointed out.

“Oh, I completely agree with the others. You two are
unbearable,” Kara said deadpan. “I just happen to like you anyway.”

“Thanks, sis,” Travis said with a heavy dose of
sarcasm.

Kara pointed a finger at him to her right, and
suddenly he was bodily slammed across three empty seats and into the wall by
her telekinesis. She turned to face Karen with an apologetic look on her face.
“Sorry. Was channeling Paul there for a moment.”

6

February 27, 2755

Numar
System
(Calavari Region)

Sashneo

Kara’s jumpship entered the system to find a long
stream of vessels in the process of making the microjump out from Sashneo and
pooling around the exiting jumpline headed to Pagaliss…meaning they’d got here
just in time to catch the convoy before it left.

The honorary trailblazer watched from the command
nexus as she sent a waypoint to the ship’s helmsman indicating where she wanted
them to converge. Once they were in close enough range for realtime
transmissions she got a line to the
Megazord
, with a hologram of Morgan materializing in front
of her from the waist up.

“You’re late, youngling.”

“Couldn’t be helped. I was out of
comm
range for a long time.”

“Heavy fighting I heard.”

“Very,” Kara emphasized. “The lizards might be moving
the line in their favor, but the carnage is pretty even. We’re lucky neither of
them is focusing that level of attention on us.”

“They couldn’t get past the Sentinels without being
eviscerated first.”

“Agreed, but we couldn’t be pushing outward like we
are now, tech advantage or no. I really think we’ve been put on the back
burner. They’re having to fight hard against the Skarrons, but the territorial
gains are huge compared to what the ADZ would offer.”

“They always have focused where others are weak.”

“I wouldn’t call the Skarrons weak, but they are
kicking their ass right now.”

“As big as the lizards’ empire is compared to us, the
same is true for the Skarrons compared to the lizards. They’re not going to
beat them, especially if we start cutting the heart out of their territory
here.”

“I wouldn’t make any bets at this point. Did you read
the full report?”

“No, I just skimmed.”

“When you get some free time look at the
Broongal
invasion. We camped out there for two weeks, with
recorders running the entire time.”

“I’ll add it to my list. Are you coming in that
jumpship or do you want to transfer over to my command ship?”

“We’ve still got a full complement of drones to add to
the melee, so I don’t see any reason not to bring it along.”

“I meant where
do you
want to
ride.”

“I brought the twins with me, so I’ll be staying here
unless you want them on your ship.”

Morgan laughed. “I may not like them, but I’m not
banning them from my ship. Transfer over before we jump and I’ll add your
warship to my fleet group.”

“Sounds good.”

“Where are you planning to throw down once we get
there?”

“Are we ramming down their throats, or do I have some
time to sneak around first?”

“The bulk of the ground troops are coming on a three
day delay, but I am sending a few ships ahead of the main body to pull scouting
data so we’re not blind when we arrive.”

“If they’ve got an invoker or assault pillar I’d like
a crack at getting onboard before they go on alert. If not I can at least take
out a dreadnaught for you.”

“I envy you that. But I’m not sure how secret we can
keep our arrival.”

“I just need a few hours head start. If I can’t get
onboard so be it, but I’d like to try regardless.”

“Alright, I’ll take us to the front of the line and
make sure we get there ahead of the others. When I release the scouts to do
their thing you can hitch a ride on one of them. They’ll be paying attention to
the donut, so you may be able to slip in a back door.”

“That works for me. I doubt they’d send one of the big
ships out to deal with a single command ship.”

“Not without a support fleet, no. But we’ve been
kicking the crap out of them so bad that they’re bound to find a new wrinkle or
two in their tactics to make it harder on us. I didn’t check earlier, but
what’s the phaser distribution like on the Skarron front?”

“Oddly enough I didn’t see a single phaser-equipped
ship. They’re doing everything with their plasma tech.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “So they ignore us with the
bulk of their fleet, but start sending their most powerful ships after us and
not the Skarrons? That doesn’t sound right.”

“It may be that they’re just burning off the old
vessels rather than trying to upgrade them, and doing so against us won’t gain
them much in return.”

Morgan considered that. “Well put.”

“I’ve had some time to think on it. How many are you
seeing out this way?”

“Their roaming fleets seem to have all switched over,
but the planetary defenses are still mostly plasma. Not sure what we’ll find in
Pagaliss, but give the lizards a few decades more and I think their plasma
weaponry is going to start being a rare find.”

“Their turnover can’t be that great.”

“Might be upgrades too. The hull designs are
identical, so if they want to take the time to swap out the interior it might
be more prudent than building entirely new ships.”

“Save for the places you know you’re going to lose a
lot of them anyway.”

“If they’re beating the Skarrons with plasma, then why
not send your best ships to somewhere they’re more needed? I just hope the
techs get the bugs in the
Keema
worked out soon. I
want our range advantage back.”

“We still have the cleansing beams,” Kara pointed out.

“If Paul were here he’d smack you right now,” Morgan
said with a smirk.

“I think he’s more interested in getting a Dre’mo’don
prototype up and running. That’ll far outclass the
Keema
damage at medium to short range.”

“True, but I still prefer our base weaponry to
outdistance the lizards’.”

“They were bound to make an upgrade at some point. I’m
surprised we haven’t seen more, to be honest, with all the races they’ve
conquered up till now.”

“Annihilated, not conquered. When you kill everyone in
sight there’s no one left around to tell you how to make their toys.”

“Point taken, but they did incorporate a Kvash plasma
streamer into their ships.”

“Which is now obsolete.”

“How much better are the phasers? I’ve read the
numbers, but what’s the feel like?” she asked, referring to how they affected
the fleet engagements when viewed through the command nexus, and therefore
‘felt.’

“They’re still weak ships compared to ours, but it
feels like we lost
Teemo’s
blind and he’s just
playing regular, dominant ADC.”

“That bad?”

“The
Keema
will give us that
back. Just have to get the damn beams working. Hey, we can talk later. Get your
butt over here before we jump.”

“Going,” Kara said, deactivated the nexus and turning
around. She jogged down the L-shaped hallway and onto the bridge, pausing when
she got to the Captain’s chair.

“I’m transferring off and you’ll be entering Morgan’s
group.”

“Going hunting?” Captain
Hafferson
asked.

Kara smiled. “You know me.”

“Good luck.”

“Likewise,” she said, running out into the corridors
and heading for her quarters to pack up her few belongings. She gave the twins
the heads up and had them do likewise, then the trio met up in one of the
hangar bays and got on a dropship that took them across low stellar orbit
toward the schools of space ‘fish’ waiting there.

Those fish weren’t individual warships, but rather
full-fledged jumpships with all of the naval fighting craft tucked up safely
inside their holds. Some were twice as long as others, for there were many
different models, but spaced amongst them were 7 larger donuts, with a few more
on their way out from Sashneo. Each of the five trailblazers here had one, plus
some more pulled from various duties to bolster the strength of the fleet as
well as add more drone controllers to the mix, increasing the efficiency of
each of the ‘little’ warships with more eyes and hands available to fly and
fight the ships.

Kara could see that this was easily the largest Star
Force fleet ever assembled, even bigger than what they had guarding Sol…not
counting stations and other ‘permanent’ defenses. However, along with this
typical warfleet were a few jump cradles carrying the segments to not one, but
two Sentinels. They weren’t going to wait to take the system before deploying
them, and so long as the fleet kept the segments covered as they were assembled
the addition of a pair of ‘safe’ islands in orbit would be extremely useful in
the fighting to come.

Aside from those three types of ships there was no
additional diversity of designs. All the cargo and troop jumpships were still
in orbit around Sashneo, with the Ma’kri waiting there to escort them in later.
As big as those ships were, they weren’t suited for really heavy fighting the
way the drone warships and their controlling jumpships were, so the
trailblazers were electing to put them to support duty rather than delegating
one of the warships, such as Kara’s, to that task.

The jumpships were capable of taking a lot more fire
than the Ma’kri were, essentially having become mobile mountains that were very
difficult to destroy, with the bulk of their firepower residing in the crewless
drones. The Ma’kri were not crewless, and more suited for medium to small-scale
engagements where they could dominate with their speed and capture capability.

But while the Star Force fleet looked relatively
uniform, it was anything but. Morgan-063’s group was comprised of mainline
units, while Larissa-048 had brought a chunk of the Bsidd fleet over for this
assault, as well as a conglomeration of 18 different Clans. Connor-018 was commanding
the Canderous, Scionate, and Lacvamat, while Kian-093 was bringing a huge Axius
fleet to bear…yet it was nothing compared to the Calavari fleet, which had the
largest ship count and was under Liam-090’s command.

Both the Bsidd and Calavari had radically different
drone designs, eschewing the standard ‘blocks’ in favor of other geometric
shapes, but they all used the same basic jumpships, meaning that from the
outside the massive fleet looked to be from one faction, but in truth it was a
representation of Star Force’s diverse naval power and the unity of design and
purpose that bound them together.

But beyond that, it was just damn impressive to look
at.

Kara’s dropship seemed smaller than a gnat in
comparison, flying amongst the huge vessels and over to Morgan’s command ship,
slipping inside one of the small bays on the otherwise packed hull of the ship
that was not designed as a carrier, but rather a badass fleet-buster that did a
good impression of a pint-sized Sentinel.

But it was far more than that, with the interior
segmented up into all sort of command and control functions, weapon storage,
survey gear, medical facilities, and just about everything else you’d expect
from a command center. This one just happened to be mobile and sat in the
middle of the fighting rather than safely behind the fleet.

Those who lead have to
lead
…and the only place to do that was in the front.

The idea of sending the peons first was not part of
Star Force’s military structure, which was a major reason for their troops’ and
ships’ longevity. Even the drones, which were considered expendable, were not
wasted by flinging them at the opposition, nor were they designed flimsily.
They could take hits and damage and still be able to retreat to be repaired
later, which was the perfect counter to the lizards’ swarm tactics.

But the biggest thing that was evident by the command
ship in front of the dropship and the jumpships surrounding it was the sheer
size involved. Star Force had grown massive over its 7 centuries of existence,
and there was no way tiny little cruisers were going to take this fleet down.
Kara felt a moment of pride as they transitioned over, looking at the assembled
fleet, then they were inside and walking off across the bay and into the
connective tunnels that crisscrossed the entire vessel.

The trio of Archons boarded a small pod car and zipped
off across the kilometers of ship, eventually coming to the armored central
region that housed the more sensitive areas. It was shaped like a ring that
surrounded the central plug that was the TF-class dropship housed inside. That
was currently full of ground troops, mostly mech division, but likewise
protected by the second layer of armor, ensuring that this command ship could
survive an insane beating and still keep most of the crew alive to be recovered
afterwards.

That wasn’t going to be an issue in the coming battle,
for Star Force wasn’t bringing a fleet designed to make it a fair fight. They
were bringing a sledge hammer that was going to pound the known lizard forces
flat and have considerable margin for error knowing that they’d bring in an
unknown number of reinforcements to counter them as the invasion progressed.

Still, it felt good to be standing behind that much
armor, just in case something did go horribly wrong.

In Kara’s case she had an out, and in some respects
she’d be safer flying through space in the middle of the battle than standing
inside a ship…so long as she didn’t come up against any anti-air batteries. She
was small enough to avoid the aim of the big ones, in theory, but the small
ones would rack up so much consistent damage that they’d puncture her advanced
shields in a relatively short amount of time.

That said, she liked having a backup plan as well as the
fact that she’d be fighting in the naval battle personally, rather than plugged
into a gunnery station or in a command nexus. That was something that no other
Archon had ever had the pleasure of doing, and only she understood just how
reckless it really was. It all came down to guile and positioning, which she
would have to be employing in a couple of days, for Pagaliss wasn’t that far
away from Sashneo.