by Aer-ki Jyr
“No need,” Davis assured him. “I actually have seen the movie and recognized the words. Coupled with the warning the operative gave Nathan, I think the spell is indicative of how they’re going to deal with us.”
“How so?”
“In the movie the spell takes inanimate objects, suits of armor in a museum, actually, and brings them temporarily alive to fight for the witch against a superior military and defeats them. The Word knows, and has admitted to the fact that they can’t match us in raw power. I think the spell is them telling us that their power is going to come from an uprising of sorts. Something or some things that appear innocuous will turn out to be our demise.”
“Sleeper agents?”
Davis shook his head. “No, bigger than that. I think they’re declaring an unconventional war, and the way they delivered the message indicates that they’re fully committed to carrying it out. They know sacrifice is an advantage they have on us, and I expect we will see many more examples in the future…though no suicide bombing spree. They know we won’t bow to social pressure.”
“I wouldn’t call sacrifice an ‘advantage,’” David argued.
Davis waved off the notion with a hand gesture. “The darkside operates with a slightly different bag of tricks, some that we’d never touch. That can offer our enemy a tactical advantage in a limited number of situations. Correct?”
“The lizards use suicide bombers to great effect, but when you know it’s coming you can guard against it. I’d call an advantage something your opponent can’t retaliate against.”
“Such as?”
“Our orbital bombardment capability. The races that use plasma weapons can’t hit the surface from orbit, we can with rail guns. Hence we have an advantage.”
Davis smiled. “I stand corrected. What word would you use?”
“It’s an avenue of attack. This Dargomir, is it always detonated with the same frequency?”
“I believe there are several options, each of which is determined by the molecular structure of the explosive.”
“Then they’re not the only ones that can detonate their bodies,” David pointed out.
Davis tapped a finger on his desk as he thought. “I’ve had this information for 5 hours now, and that thought had not occurred to me. Though the idea of random people exploding amongst crowds is not something we can allow. How do we confine the damage?”
“Choke point detonations, though they’re not practical. Have an armored room that each person has to pass through individually. Blanket each one with a microwave burst. If they blow they only take themselves with them. Is there a way to sniff out the explosive prior to detonation?”
“I’m told it requires physical contact, but I’ve already assigned a team to start work on a remote detector.”
“What’s it take to create the explosive? Something rare, I hope.”
“I’ve already got a list of targets compiling. Some of which we’re buying out. I’ve also got some idea now of what The Word is importing to their bases, some of which is exclusive to a handful of suppliers. I’m going to start waging an economic war that will hopefully slow them down, or force them to start creating more and more industry of their own. The ones I can’t take out of their reach we’ll monitor closely.”
“Green Team calls dibs.”
“You’ve got it, but I need you down in Antarctica.”
“For what?”
“Taryn agreed that an Archon training summit is needed. We’re sending word out that anyone experiencing any sort of superpowers, no matter how slight, should report to the pyramid indefinitely. I’ve got a full medical research team standing by exclusively for the project. Between them and the pyramid database and equipment, I’m confident you’ll be able to sort things out.”
“Am I going to be down there by myself?”
“At present the list stands at four. You, Aaron…who will be there in 3 days, Mathis-831, and Angel-676. The latter two are Clan Croft that Taryn discovered recently insystem, and she guesses that there will be many more popping up once word gets around. Both are mild cases, like yours. Nothing as extreme as Jason, as of yet. I’m hoping you’ll be able to get some answers before anyone else potentially gets to that point.”
“You think that’s predetermined?”
Davis bobbed his head in indecision. “The problems Jason reported could be isolated to him, but I wouldn’t bet very many credits on that.”
“Neither would I,” David admitted. “These abilities have been dormant so long I can understand us having problems waking them up.”
“Find a way to do it gently, please,” the Director asked.
David mock frowned. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“The faster you get adjusted, the stronger you’ll be.”
The Archon narrowed his eyes. “I was just thinking that. Sure you’re not developing any telepathy? You’re older than the rest of us.”
“No, no mental abilities popping up here. And I don’t think it has to do with age. Your advanced training is probably shaking them loose. All four of you are from the first batch of trainees, and have become some of the strongest…so I don’t think I have to worry about myself any time soon.”
“A bit premature there, given that we don’t know what’s happening yet…and especially considering that I’m only an acolyte and there are plenty of rangers that are currently unaffected.”
“Call it a hunch then.”
“How long do you expect us to be down there?”
“As long as it takes. Use your own judgement.”
“If something develops with The Word I want to know immediately.”
“I’ll keep you informed and let you decide whether to assign yourself or other members of Green Team, but put a priority on hammering out these new abilities. Long term they’re going to be more important than anything The Word can throw at us.”
“Translation…the V’kit’no’sat will stomp them the same as us if we don’t get strong enough to oppose them.”
“That too,” Davis added.
Five weeks later Taryn made a microjump from Earth to Venus via a Puddle Jumper-class transport, riding the next generation of small transport craft that had begun with the mantis and expanded up into dropships. The puddle jumpers were Star Force’s first experiment with combining a dropship’s and starship’s roles over interplanetary distances, forgoing the need to transfer ships onboard a starport. The puddle jumper the Archon rode in was as large as a Falcon-class dropship, but only had 1/10th the cargo capacity.
That put it still in the prototype phase, but the Archons had decided to put it into production anyway for priority personnel transfers around the Solar System. Several hundred had been built and spread out amongst the Clans while Star Force engineers continued to try to downsize the most basic of gravity drives to more manageable sizes. Taryn had 3 in Clan Croft, and kept one reserved at all times for her personal use.
This trip, however, was going to be one way, with the puddle jumper returning to Earth for other Clan Croft usage in the near future. Hopefully by the time she got back they’d have a newer version in production stage, for the ability to hop into a ship on the ground and ride it all the way up into space, across the interplanetary gap, and land on another planet or moon was too tactically and logistically significant to pass up.
When her puddle jumper reached Venus it stretched its gravity drive out and flash decelerated against the planet’s gravity well, bringing it out of the ‘jump’ outside the tracks of orbital infrastructure literally ringing the planet. Several bands were visible, holding industrial processing equipment on a level that rivaled Earth orbit, though the majority of Venus’s infrastructure was devoted solely to Star Force’s space navy.
With the micro-jump timed so as not to approach any of the rings as well as brining the puddle jumper out into middle orbit on a coast track to the lower zone, Taryn had a short tour of Venus orbit as the ship made its way to the cluster of Mark III warships in ex
treme low orbit that was her destination. Before they got there, though, they passed by thousands of factories with hundreds of starships bringing in the raw materials to feed them from elsewhere in the system, though a great majority of it came from Mercury, whose mass had already decreased by 1.28% due to the heavy mining Star Force and a few others were conducting on the planet, literally eating it apart at an astounding rate.
Other shipments were being brought in from the Asteroid Belt and beyond, with a significant amount coming from Venus itself. Though it was too far away to see, the puddle jumper’s sensors detected a continuous flow of needle-shaped dropships coming up and down through the planet’s thick clouds carrying raw materials up to distribution centers, essentially huge warehouses that held and sorted out the millions of compounds and components that were being shipped around planetary orbit and elsewhere by an army of small orbital ferries.
Taryn’s ship linked with orbital control and established a flight path that would avoid the rest of the traffic and keep from risking a collision with not only with the small craft, but with the huge infrastructure of the rings and satellite facilities dotting the orbital map.
They passed by one of those satellite facilities at a range of a few hundred kilometers, close enough to see a cluster of stations interlinked by thick structural bands that contained transport passages for both cargo and personnel so they could avoid excessive space travel. In the cluster, Taryn knew, were the factories to process raw materials brought in, refine them down into various compounds, and recombine them into hundreds of new compounds. They referred to the stations as ‘Synthesis Clusters,’ and most of the planets in the system had at least a few so they could reduce the amount of unwanted material in various ores before shipping it from planet to planet.
Venus had 73 such clusters, serving it as well as Mercury, which was so close by that almost all raw materials harvested on the smaller planet were brought across the small interplanetary gap en mass by cargo ships so large as to appear like miniature jumpships, even bigger than the Gargantuan-class transports. One of the Juggernauts was visible, nestled up against one of the structural pylons of the synthesis cluster they were passing, unloading its cargo holds internally and dumping so much material into the cluster that it would fill nearly 40% of its cargo space.
That was because the Juggernauts were 95% cargo hold, 5% starship. Other than a tiny crew compartment and living quarters, strapped onto a thin frame with undersized engines, the ships were empty boxes for the mining division to fill up and specifically built for the Mercury/Venus circuit.
There were also smaller, yet still drastically large cargo ships docked with the cluster. They were there, for the most part, to carry processed materials over to the factories in the orbital rings where precious materials would be molded into all sorts of technology that would be put to use building starships.
One ring around the planet, which was only 3/4ths complete, was comprised entirely of shipyards, ranging from small to large to insanely huge Thanatos-class monsters…all of which were tasked to produce jumpships, drone warships, cargo ships, dropships, mantises, skeets, mechs, and anything else that Star Force’s naval fleet equipped. If you were going to plan a planetary assault, you’d find everything you needed could and would be built in Venus orbit. Just add personnel and you’d be ready to go.
Which was the purpose of Taryn’s visit. She was the last of the crew to assemble in the fresh-off-the-line armada built for the specific purpose of fighting in the Nestafar/Calavari conflict. All of the ships were the latest models, and based off of the few of Morgan’s reports that had cycled back through the Hycre they’d made some adjustments to weapon loads and the disposition of the ground forces they’d be carrying, foremost of which was additional rail gun stores and an increased number of small scale warships capable of atmospheric combat.
Taryn was pleasantly surprised by how fast everything had been built, with the oldest ship having been started in construction only 4 years ago…and even now there was a partial second armada in orbit, with additional ships being added by the month that would eventually be dispatched to Paul’s front against the lizards.
After that there would come more, and more, and more…while Earth’s shipyards split their production between feeding the armadas going out to combat the enemy and domestic production, building a mass of cargo ships that continued to expand Star Force territory out to new star systems, as well as producing the naval fleets to defend them. Lesser on the priority charts were starships sales to the public, with dedicated shipyards feeding those, but a staggering 68% of all natural resources harvested by Star Force were being funneled into infrastructure construction.
Starships were tiny compared to the stations and cities that Davis had sprouting up around the system and elsewhere, though most of the resources harvested in Sol stayed in Sol, given the exponential shipping costs of sending them across the stars…still, the Director knew that quick startup in new systems required an influx of supplies to get their own resource collection and industrial infrastructure up and running, so there was continuous, daily jumpship travel leaving the system carrying cargo off to other worlds.
This was nothing new to Taryn, having become accustomed to Star Force’s industrial might long ago…what blew her mind was the idea that all of this was but a drop in the bucket compared to the production of the other Alliance races, and that Star Force had to up its game considerably in order to stand a chance of survival if the united front was defeated and the heavy fighting shifted to their own front door.
Because of that Taryn understood her mission well. Even as Morgan’s armada was on its last leg, having to return home soon for resupply and refurbishing, Taryn was going to take her place hitting the Nestafar and aiding the Calavari wherever they could. Plans were to have 2 active armadas in play within the next 5 years and to expand on that as Davis continued to scale up their starship production rate.
She knew the more trouble she gave them out there, the more time it would buy Star Force back here to grow to a size comparable to the other races. Like it or not, even with some advancements in technology thanks to the V’kit’no’sat that the other races didn’t possess, Star Force was still the low man on the totem pole, both in terms of their fleet size and territory.
Morgan’s initial reports had indicated that their battle acumen was still effective against the Nestafar, if applied properly. Play the game the enemy’s way and they’d rip you apart, but seek out their weaknesses and not overcommit and Star Force could rack up an impressive kill list, as Morgan had already started to do.
Taryn planned on continuing that trend, and adding to the newly created battle manual on how to fight the Nestafar.
When the puddle jumper finally reached the 184 jumpships in her armada, of which 104 were Warship-class, it flew into a shielded hangar bay and deposited Taryn and her single duffle of gear on the deck before promptly turning around and leaving the gigantic ship. Taryn’s personal armor sets had already been delivered, with everything else she’d need for combat already packed inside the Archon armory onboard the ship. The few items she carried with her now did not come standard, most of which she’d collected over the years as she’d had custom items created for her, such as a modular hair-dying kit that she could run her originally brown locks through in less than 10 minutes to adjust the color.
On occasion she’d experiment with new colors, but in recent years she’d stuck primarily with a fiery red so bright it almost appeared neon, which she wore now braided into a Tomb Raider-esk ponytail that trailed halfway down the back of her white with green stripe ranger uniform and could be tucked up inside her armor’s helmet with ease.
Taryn’s ship Captain met her on the edge of the deck, offering a brief salute that she immediately waved off.
“If you know of an Archon that likes getting saluted, please give me their name and number so I can make a personal attitude adjustment.”
“Ha,” Oppenheimer laughed, caugh
t off guard by her frankness. “As you wish. You’re the first trailblazer I’ve met, and I wasn’t sure if you’d be more formal than the others.”
“Less, actually,” Taryn said, walking with him into the ship. “How are we set?”
“Ready to break orbit on your command…assuming you’ve got a name in mind for 2312?” he asked, referring to the warship’s production number.
“Winston,” she said without hesitation. “Go ahead and get the fleet moving. I’ll meet you on the bridge once I unpack.”
10
December 18, 2405
Eritath System
3rd planet
Jack-020 watched from the bridge of the Fury as the system tracking data updated as his pair of warships decelerated against the planet’s gravity well. Hundreds of Star Force markers popped up in low orbit, spread widely around the planet. Previous reports that had come back to Corneria, as well as the updates Paul had given him while passing by Namek, had indicated that the system had a major lizard presence on the third planet and that the assault group had chosen to keep it bottled up from orbit as they pounded the surface…and it appeared that tactic was still in play.
No lizard contacts appeared in orbit on the battlemap as the Fury pulled information from the other Star Force ships, but the planet’s surface was covered in them. At a quick glance Jack could see several bombardment regions tagged on the planetary holo, but there were many more that appeared untouched. Too many to mount an effective ground campaign against.
That was alright though, because parked in several ship slots on the pair of warships he’d brought out from Corneria were cargo containers stacked full of rail gun rounds, both for his use and to reload the fleets already on station.