by Aer-ki Jyr
There was also a bit of fear there, but she couldn’t track it down. She wished this had been a Protovic or Reen, because she could have dug deeper, sleep state or no, but Jenna didn’t even know what this one’s race was called, let alone was familiar with their mental structure. Most minds tended to be structured in similar ways, which was how she and Levi were able to render them unconscious, but even small differences were troublesome when trying to access memories.
Jenna went back to the walkers, focusing on them and following that thread to its source. This one did know where they’d come from, with the Archon triple checking her findings, not believing what she was hearing through his memories. This one hadn’t been involved in acquiring them and the others, for the Varshoo had come into possession of several more, but it had heard the story of how the Varshoo had claimed them.
It was that story that she was trying to check on, gathering up all the details she could glean from its memories, which was hard without being able to understand words.
Jenna took what she could get from this one then left it behind to sleep as she moved down a few levels and found one of the other three targets that Levi had already knocked out. It was a different race, one that she recognized as a Delveb. The Voku had records on them and Star Force had linked up the identity when the mercenaries had sent them data on the invasion. Apparently they were a scattered, yet highly populated race spread across a significant portion of this galactic arm. Jenna wasn’t any more familiar with their mental structure than the big guy, but this spider-like quadruped resembled Bsidd minds in a very limited fashion, offering her a bit more access due to her past experience with theirs.
The Delveb didn’t have any more information on the Trzzl, but its knowledge of the Skarron equipment backed up what she’d picked up in the other one. There had been a planet within range of the Varshoo that was owned by the Skarrons, some type of forward outpost, and it had been hit by another race. During the fighting some type of biological weapon had been used against the Skarrons, wiping out nearly half their population over the course of several months. The remaining troops then fought the attackers nearly to the extinction of both sides.
The Varshoo had been monitoring the conflict and in a moment of either brilliance or recklessness they send landing craft down to the Skarron regions that had been contaminated with the bioweapon. They raided a military base and recovered a lot of abandoned equipment, which was where they got their walkers and a lot of other small-scale weapons. Neither side in the planetary fight stopped them, nor had the means to given the confrontations occurring on other parts of the planet and the limited naval forces left in orbit after the Skarron defense fleet was painstakingly destroyed.
Whether the attackers didn’t care or just didn’t have the gumption to pick another fight, the Varshoo were able to come down and raid the base and surrounding area for several days before leaving with multiple captured Skarron transports and their own full of precious war machinery.
Jenna almost laughed. How they had managed that was almost ridiculous. The Varshoo’s tech level was low, and the fact that they were able to pluck even one walker away from the Skarrons was hilarious. It also meant that this whole trip out here was a wild goose chase. The Skarron Empire wasn’t expanding into this region, yet anyway, nor did they have any affiliation with the Varshoo.
That left just one question for her to get an answer to…and that was which side here were the good guys, if any. The Varshoo weren’t here to slaughter, and Tieor being the defenders didn’t automatically put them in the right either. Jenna hated walking away from a fight, especially when a lot of people were dying, but she wasn’t about to throw in without making sure what she was fighting for. For all she knew this Trzzl had a reason to take over this planet, and methods aside, she needed to know more before declaring the invaders ass holes and gut punching them on their way out of the system.
If both sides were ass holes, then it was possible that the Trzzl might actually end up making the planet a slightly less yucky place, and if that was the case then Star Force wasn’t going to get involved in this mess. Bad guy versus bad guy was a fight that Jenna had learned to stay out of a long time ago, and with this system being so far away from Star Force territory her options for dealing with the situation were limited. Had it been closer they could have just taken the planet for themselves and cleaned it up properly.
Jenna wasn’t able to get anything more out of this one, so she tracked down the third while Levi stayed on watch roaming the building and keeping a close eye on the surface entrances. If people started to come in he’d have to bag them before they could sound an alarm, and such things couldn’t be concealed forever. Not to mention if people called in to the command center and didn’t get a response. The Archons’ time here was limited, but they could stretch it as much as needed if they felt like making a bit of noise.
That wasn’t going to be necessary, for the third target was the highest ranking individual on the planet…as well as one of the shortest. It barely stood even with Jenna’s waist, but had as much mass as she did, making it look almost like a black bowling ball given the odd clothing that it wore. Its mind was less extreme and she was able to get a bit more information on the Trzzl. Apparently it was a king-like individual who controlled a large amount of territory spread out in bits and pieces across a very wide region of space, avoiding the major powers and picking on the primitive systems.
The Trzzl was on a quest to uplift the lesser planets, as far as the publicity/propaganda was concerned, and had contracted the Varshoo on four different occasions for their mercenary talents. What was odd was in the payment, for it occurred in the form of tribute from the conquered worlds. Foodstuffs, raw materials, and a limited amount of industrial produce would be percentaged into an annual shipment back to the Varshoo in lieu of a monetary payment.
It was then that Jenna realized the Varshoo were a collection of needy factions that used their combined military power to supply a good portion of what their planets lacked. That was the hint of fear the other one had, for if they failed in a mission there would be no reward and their people would suffer for it. Also, if they failed their reputation would diminish, with future contracts of necessary size drying up.
That made this invasion a mess of a situation. Jenna released the Varshoo leader’s head and stood up, putting her glove back on and reaching out her mind to Levi to find where he was. Her battlemap had lost track of him, given so many floors of material in between them, but her Ikrid didn’t have that limitation and she saw he was near the ground floor.
“We’re leaving,” she said, using her comm and seeing his signal ping on the battlemap when he responded with the stronger signal.
“With or without answers?”
“They scavenged the walkers. There’s no link to the Skarrons.”
“Scavenged how?”
“I’ll fill you in on the way back. How’s it look below?”
“Quiet for now, but I had to grab four more people coming in.”
“Meet me at the window,” she said, starting to walk away from her sleeping prisoner and head that way herself.
“Are we helping the locals?”
“Both sides need helping…which we can’t do this far out.”
“One of those, huh?”
“Yeah. That said, you don’t make someone else’s problems your own, so we’ll throw the locals a bone or two on the way out.”
“The other walker?”
“You read my mind,” Jenna joked, coming to a ladder and beginning to climb up to the waypoint on her battlemap that marked where the cut window was. By the time she reached that level Levi’s mind was catching up quickly from below so she didn’t rush, getting to the room they’d entered from a few seconds ahead of him. She reached out with her Ikrid and made one last check on the minds nearby, finding them still unconscious.
“Slingshot?” Levi guessed.
“Yep,” Jenna said, getting a telekinetic hold on
the window slice and yanking it free of the melt points. She managed to do it in a way that didn’t result in any pieces breaking off and keeping the circle’s shape intact, then she gently set it aside and began to move the various pieces of furniture away from the opening by hand along with her padawan. When they finished she knelt down beside the opening as a gentle breeze blew in, making the potted plants rustle, though neither Archon could feel the effect inside their hard armor.
Jenna offered a battlemeld prompt, with Levi taking it immediately and beginning to run across the room for the few steps of acceleration that he could manage. As he did so a repulsor conduit between the two of them yanked him forward, helping him get up to greater speed until he flashed past Jenna, jumping off the edge of the floor where the glass had been cut away and out into the nighttime air towards the far roof.
When he passed her they reversed the conduit, with Levi forming it off his back and Jenna using it to push him forward across the gap. She added a telekinetic lift to it, gaining him a little more height, which translated to meters of additional distance that eventually dropped him right at the rooftop edge. His legs hit short, but he grabbed on with his arms and thumped over the edge, hitting on his abdomen and crawling the rest of the way up.
Jenna backed up to the wall and activated the powered function of her armor, then took off sprinting and jumped out the hole in the window with Levi yanking her across the gap with another repulsor conduit. Without the telekinetic boost she fell short, but her padawan’s invisible rope swung her against the building three levels below. She crunched her legs up on impact, softening the thud she made when her boots hit, then walked up the wall and onto the roof with Levi’s help.
The pair took off running for the far side and began an equally quiet exodus from the city.
7
October 12, 2735
Noop System
Tieor
Jenna shot one of the Varshoo infantry in the face with a stun pistol, dropping it to the ground as she ran past and hopped over the short wall on the perimeter of the park that nestled up against one of the partially captured cities. Most of the fighting was over, but a full quarter had still to be pacified. That sort of street and in-building fighting wasn’t suited to the Skarron walker, so it had been positioned in the park so it could guard the city against any heavy tank retaliation while intimidating those within by its mere presence.
But it wasn’t alone. After the takedown of the other Skarron walker at the hands of the Marauders, the Varshoo had surrounded their second key chess piece with an army of tanks and infantry that had not moved into the city limits. The exterior park sat nestled up against the northern border and was partially encroached on by a forest, with the city and the eastern and western approaches covered in wide open grasslands where the walker had done the majority of its damage against Seriprin’s perimeter defense turrets.
Right now the Marauders were approaching over land, but at a considerable distance. Whether the Varshoo were aware of that or not the Archon didn’t know, but there was no way they could miss the Valeries streaking over the city and hitting selective targets within, all the while staying low enough and positioning themselves on the other side of buildings to keep away from any potential spray from the Type-5. So far it hadn’t responded, having no real anti-air weaponry of its own, and sat parked in a large picnic area that was perfectly flat and covered with some type of short, blue grass, looking like it was a statue that belonged there.
The tanks ringing it were on the eastern and western sides, given that those were the overland approaches. The south was the city where more of their tanks were roaming about and securing those sections they’d already taken, but the north wasn’t covered by vehicles. There was a decent amount of infantry spread out there, but it was the Marauder rail gun tanks that the Varshoo appeared most worried about.
That left the pair of Archons with a window of opportunity, if they were fast enough. As Jenna crossed the low wall and entered the park on the northern border Levi did the same some 400 meters away to the west, stunning a few infantry as he passed them. Both of them were running casually towards the south where the walker was, but they accelerated up to a near sprint as they got into the clear and out on the wide open tracts of the park that were segmented by rows of trees and clumps of bushes and ornate flowers.
Jenna zapped another Varshoo soldier as she ran by, hitting him at a range of some 20 meters, after which she tucked her pistol away onto her back rack and just focused on her movement. They weren’t here to fight it out, despite a long argument she’d had with the merc commander. He seemed to think this was exactly Star Force’s type of work, but given that he’d quit the military he didn’t get to carry such opinions anymore. Jenna didn’t mind stunning the Varshoo when she came across them, but she wasn’t about to start killing them.
There was a fight here, to be sure, and every fight was potentially Archon business, but this was one of those times when, in order to fix the problem at hand, you’d have to fight both sides and take control of the planet for yourself. That was outside of her reach, so she and Levi were going to back off and let this play out without them. Jenna didn’t like that, but sometimes it was more important to keep yourself righteous than to worry about the outcome, and this was, unfortunately, one of those cases.
The issue of defense wasn’t enough for her to come down on the locals’ side, and the merc commander had even admitted that he was here for the payday more than for any concern about the planet…though he had pressed the significance of this world to the surrounding region. That may have been true, but the locals weren’t exactly upstanding individuals and a change might do some good. If that change occurred through bloodshed it was unacceptable, but if she couldn’t stop it from happening she wasn’t going to contribute to it with the same.
Brayden had been insistent that he was going to keep the Marauders here and try to win this fight, but that he’d need Star Force’s help to do it. Jenna had reminded him that even if she helped him fight off this invasion, they wouldn’t be sticking around to protect the planet thereafter. Then, after even more arguing she offered him a limited amount of help, which he politely accepted. They sealed the deal with a handshake, skin to skin, which gave her a quick glimpse at his thoughts.
That quick access was all she needed, for she was very good at reading Humans. A lot of the concerns she’d had about the mercenaries evaporated, but it was clear they weren’t Star Force troops anymore. A lot of what they had once been still remained, and because of that the planet might be a little better off if they did indeed prevail, but the merc commander was definitely being driven by credits and reputation, seeing this as the biggest opportunity his unit had ever had and wanting to climb the ranks in militants for hire crowd.
So as they’d planned, his troops were on their way here…but not to attack the walker. That was reserved for the Archons.
As Jenna and Levi ran towards the Type-5 the gap between them diminished, with them eventually coming together on a stone courtyard with the big, elevated golf ball visible across the next line of trees. Around them a scattering of infantry took notice and fired a few shots off at them, but they were running so fast that when they missed they didn’t get a second shot. Jenna saw one of the tanks on the western side of her park battlemap begin to move their way, but it was going to be too late.
They had a straight line approach to the walker, with only some infantry units in between and they weren’t going to engage them. Before the Archons hit the trees they linked up in battlemeld, with Levi’s psionic component of Neritu adding considerable range and power to Jenna’s Ikrid, letting her stretch out all the way to the distant walker and probe the minds inside as they ran.
She could feel them, but the range was still too great for her to access them enough to assert control. The question was how close would they actually have to get, and would it involve dodging plasma blasts. Both Archons thought they could do it from at least plasma spit ra
nge, but with the bit of available terrain in the park they had a backup plan if their strength wasn’t enough.
Jenna took the lead on this due to her greater skill, for identifying the minds was easy compared to accessing them. New races, new difficulties…and that meant she needed more time and power to do the necessary override work.
Meanwhile the pair raced forward, looking for all the world like they were intent on committing suicide. The infantry tried to stop them, but the shields on the Archons’ armor held up against the few lachar blasts that hit. Levi crossed in front of Jenna as a group of three Varshoo tried to block their path and rammed them aside, clearing the road for her to keep running and as much attention on the walker as possible. Once past that group they were in the clear, literally, for the trees had disappeared behind them and they were now out on the open picnic area where the walker stood motionless.
Tanks were on approach from the west, but given their rate of advancement and the Archons’ running speed they were going to be kept out of this little battle, so long as Jenna didn’t have to delay their approach.
That almost happened, for she could feel the gunners begin focusing the walker’s plasma cannons in their direction, ready to pepper the ground in front of the two fast moving infantry and either kill them or cause them to veer off. At the last moment she got control of the one in charge of the batteries on their side of the walker and froze him in place. That was easier than making him power down the weapons, and as the Archons ate up more meters of their approach she was able to freeze another of the crew.
Technically both Jenna and Levi were doing the freezing, but he let her lead their combined effort, though he could ‘see’ everything that she was doing, and vice versa. The mental strain was significant, but it was also shared by them both, making it manageable enough for them to disable the crew and keep the walker standing still and quiet as a statue as they raced their way towards it, trying to beat the approaching tanks.