Star Force: Evasion (Wayward Trilogy Book 2)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never met a Human who didn’t come through a maturia, but she hasn’t shown a quitting attitude yet.”

  “And if she does?”

  “Stun her and put her with the crates. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”

  Paul-024 was taking an easy run on the Excalibur’s halo track doing 17 mph as he watched the ongoing fleet movements across the star system via a simple headband that allowed him to mentally tap into the battlemap system as he ran. Over the course of his 1,788 year life he’d run more miles than he could tally and had gotten so efficient at it he could almost sleep while running, so monitoring the condition of the ongoing conflict and issuing a few commands wasn’t taxing in the least for the Archon as he got in a light workout not knowing when the next major engagement was going to go down.

  The majority of his fleet was in orbit around the star, with his flagship and others stationed over Tauntaun and holding planetary orbit while others were busy chasing and harassing V’kit’no’sat ships across the system as they continued to evade without trying to make a stellar run and break through the thin blockade. He was pretty sure he knew the reason for that, which was why he had the bulk of his ships on the jumplines.

  But at the moment his primary concern was the survivors of the base attack. He’d committed a lot of drones to continuous hover within the atmosphere so they could fire underneath the base defense shield and now had a standoff with the V’kit’no’sat ships defending from underneath it. Neither was within range of one another around the curve of the planet, but if the V’kit’no’sat ships eased out just a bit they’d get hit by ranged attacks…and vice versa.

  Paul knew the layout of the ice tunnels, and the furthest endpoints were now in the ‘safe’ territory that could not be targeted directly from underneath the base defense shield. They’d have to move over the surface a bit to get the right angle, especially if they had to rise to get over some of the ice canyons, and if they did that they’d expose themselves to the full firepower of the drones that were lined up and just waiting to hammer the larger V’kit’no’sat warships with massed fire…not to mention those further up in orbit that did not have current lines of attack on the ships beneath the shield.

  If they came out from beneath it he’d be in the bad position of having to shoot down and potentially hit their own people beneath the ice…or kill a ship and have it land on them…but Paul had them positioned there to prevent the base shield from gaining elevation. If it did the curve of the planet would matter less and the protected ships would gain more range out to the ring of drones and any survivors that made their way to the surface in between.

  But if they raised the shields to a higher elevation then the low orbit warships Paul had standing by would be able to get an angle underneath the shields to target the V’kit’no’sat warships near the base. He was fairly certain that anyone who got out of the base would not be within a few kilometers of it, and any inside would be protected from falling debris, so there was a free fire zone he had tagged around the base if the shields did rise in elevation and he figured the V’kit’no’sat knew it, for they were keeping the shields as low as they could with their massive ships pancaked between it and the surface.

  With them there Paul couldn’t launch a surface attack with mechs and aerial craft…they’d get annihilated against naval power. Right now the V’kit’no’sat owned that little bit of territory within the system, but Paul had them bottled up now. If the survivors could make their way beyond the curve of the planet then he could find a way to get them out, though it still wouldn’t be easy. The V’kit’no’sat ships were so large one or two could zip out from under the shield and into firing position, shoot off a round or two killing the survivors, then duck back under the shield before it took enough damage to be disabled.

  And Paul knew they’d do it just to spite Star Force, so the trailblazer had to have assets ready to protect the survivors. Mechs would be better than people on foot, but a single shot from a warship could destroy one if the battery was big enough, and the same thing went for dropships. He could send some equipment down to the surface, but doing so would alert the V’kit’no’sat to the location of the endpoints of the tunnels, at which point they could just connect the dots and guestimate where they were running and start blasting away in the area with saturation attacks.

  And a good number of the 48 V’kit’no’sat warships stuffed underneath the shield were Hjar’at, and they had even more of a tendency for brute force attacks than the rest of the V’kit’no’sat did. They wouldn’t hesitate to take damage in order to accomplish their mission, and if they ignored the drones and went straight for the survivors Paul knew their chances of killing them were high…so he was going to have to get innovative.

  But there was no rush. Right now this was a game of chess and he had the V’kit’no’sat pinned down from assisting the subsurface Zen’zat and any other smaller races that could fit in the tunnels. There were still holes bored down through the ice where low flying gunships were moving back and forth delivering supplies and additional troops from the base now that Paul had severed some of the tunnels that appeared to already have been compromised. That denied the enemy the ability to move through them for resupply, but he felt the gunship movements were also about saving time, for the furthest navally bored holes in the ice were over a hundred miles from the base.

  The curve of the planet was protecting them against fire from the drones as long as they buzzed the surface, but that didn’t stop Paul’s people from taking occasion shots at them when they got beyond the shield. Star Force knew where the tunnels were and where not to shoot, and without giving away their location with too many shots they kept a few energy weapons poking shallow holes in the ice of their own as they aimed for the gunships.

  They’d got 4 so far with another 7 damaged, but the Zen’zat pilots were now flying extremely fast and evasive, making the long range shots difficult despite the speed of the beam weapons. Trying to hit them with kinetics or missiles would have been pointless, for the V’kit’no’sat’s own ships could intercept them before they hit, but the low powered Ardent beams traveled at a rate of 1.7 lightspeed, making them very good for target shooting at a range of 200 or so miles.

  The problem was that the gunships were resistant to sensors. They weren’t cloaked, but they didn’t offer a lot of reflectivity. Star Force sensors were good, so they were still being detected, but there were also some scattering countermeasures in place. So instead of a faint dot for the guns to target there was a widespread dot giving the impression that each gunship was many times wider than it actually was and the dot was constantly changing shape so Paul’s gunners couldn’t just target the center.

  They hit each dot with every shot thanks to their prime position parked in low orbit with no resistance, but where the gunship was under each shot was unknown and that shell game was how most of the gunships were getting through. The upside was that no more warships were coming out to drill new holes down to tunnel depth, meaning that if the survivors were continuing to move further away from the base then the V’kit’no’sat infantry was going to have to be traveling through the tunnels on foot or speeder over great distance, and he knew Zen’zat didn’t use speeders. The gunships were the smallest craft they typically carried, so they were probably having to run through the tunnels in pursuit.

  Paul wished he had a battlemap link to what was going on down there, but he knew they had to stay comm silent else they’d reveal their position. Star Force comms were very hard to pick up by the enemy, but since the technology they were based on had been created by the V’kit’no’sat this enemy would not be so easily fooled. Pump out enough signal strength and they’d just lock their weapons onto their location and use the signal as a homing beacon.

  If they had a warship sitting overhead that would be game over, which was why Paul was adamant about maintaining orbital control now that he was here. He couldn’t directly save the survivors on the planet, not
yet anyway, but he was going to make sure they at least had a fighting chance.

  And if the V’kit’no’sat decided to move outside the shield and start tearing up the ice, he wasn’t going to hold back. If the survivors didn’t make it out, then neither would the V’kit’no’sat down there no matter how hard they ran or fought. Paul had enough firepower sitting in orbit to make sure of that, and if needed he’d blow through the base energy shield to do it.

  Right now it was a temporary standoff while whatever was going on in the tunnels continued, but Paul knew it wouldn’t last. The V’kit’no’sat were clinging to this base because they wanted it for some reason. Normally they’d just want to scratch it off their map, but they’d taken it intact and were adamant about holding it.

  That told Paul more ships would be on the way and they were just playing for time until they arrived…which was why he’d stationed most of his fleet around the star. He’d already intercepted and destroyed/chased off some smaller arriving V’kit’no’sat ships but nothing yet of the size he expected them to bring. As much as the enemy wanted to think of the Devastation Zone as their territory, it wasn’t. It was a neutral zone where both sides had large fleets moving around looking for an opportunity to exploit.

  There was no way they thought this small a ship count could permanently hold this location. A short term operation…yes. Enough to stop Paul’s fleet, let alone the others…no. The V’kit’no’sat were up to something bigger, and he just hoped whatever stalling game they were playing would allow at least some of the survivors to make it out.

  But until something happened Paul had workouts to do, so he kept running while monitoring until he got 20 miles in then headed over to the Sanctum’s sparring chambers and obstacle courses. He wasn’t going to let his fitness sink while this stalemate continued, but he was going to stay mentally linked to the battlemap at all times so that when something did happen there wouldn’t be any lag in his response.

  The V’kit’no’sat were too good to give any advantages to, and even while his subordinate Archons and Admirals were damn good, he was better and Paul knew that he always had to keep himself in the loop…which is why he even slept with the headband on in standby mode. The first sign of any trouble and he’d be altered immediately with the ability to send orders back within a fraction of a second, though for a full scale battle immersion he’d need to get to a command nexus. The mobile interlink would suffice for the few minutes it took him to get there, and he’d gotten well accustomed to running through the ship’s corridors when needed to cut down the time even further.

  Right now though there was no activity reported around the star, and until there was he didn’t expect the V’kit’no’sat huddled up under the defense shield to do anything more than wait…aside from whatever pursuit was taking place down within the ice.

  19

  July 31, 4812

  Orlero System (Devastation Zone)

  Tauntaun

  Esna was riding on the back of the speeder with Rammak, bored and stiff from another long trip with the warriors as they moved to yet another outpost, but fortunately the one ahead was a full variety with artificial gravity, heated air, and perimeter defenses. Right now though there wasn’t much to do, so she was watching the feeds being transmitted down through the ice from the fleet in orbit, but not much was happening there either.

  The only movement was the piece of the V’kit’no’sat fleet that had run off to an empty part of the system with Star Force chasing. They kept moving around not wanting a fight and had been doing so for a while now, but suddenly she saw that reverse and the V’kit’no’sat hold position waiting for Star Force to catch up with them.

  She didn’t understand what was going on up until they started firing at each other…and not some brief scuffle. They were closing to pointblank range and slugging it out.

  It was far from the planet she was on, but it was still frightening, though it wasn’t until she belatedly noticed the plethora of warnings popping up around that star that her breath caught in her throat. The fight she had been watching was small compared to the onslaught that was happening with the main Star Force fleet as it was attacking and trying to stop a slew of V’kit’no’sat ships coming in along a single jumpline.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “The Viks are dropping the hammer,” a Commando ahead of her said, “and they’re trying to do it coming through the front door.”

  “They’re losing so many ships,” a Protovic commented.

  “It’s a force push,” Tyrenk said, being the only person here with naval credentials, given the fact that Archons were not only badass hand to hand fighters. They had to be skilled in all 5 divisions of Star Force warfare and their ranks were determined by their lowest skillset. “We were set up on all the jumplines, but it will take time to pull the other fleets around to this one. During that time the V’kit’no’sat will push in as many ships as they can and attempt to get a foothold, which they’re doing now.”

  “How can they navigate that close?” Rammak asked.

  “We’ve seen it done before,” the Archon explained, “in smaller numbers. Usually they have the upper hand and don’t need to stack like this. I’ve never heard of this density and volume seen in an interstellar jump. They either knew what we had here or they didn’t and were coming in as hard as they could. We’re doing a lot of damage right now, but in a few more minutes it’s going to shift and they’re going to control the jumppoint.”

  “And then?” Esna asked.

  “Then it’s a slugging match. I’m glad we’ve got Paul up there.”

  “He’s leaving orbit,” someone else mentioned.

  “There’s too much lag out here. He has to get close enough to link in with the fleet in realtime, then the V’kit’no’sat are going to get their asses kicked in the short term. Long term I don’t know. We’ll have to see how many ships are coming. I expect a lot.”

  “How does this affect us?” Esna asked.

  “Depends. If they can…Rammak!” Tyrenk said, suddenly jumping off the side of the speeder. Once he got outside the air shield the drag pushed him back past the end but Rammak reached out and gave him an arm to grab onto, then swung the Archon in behind him as the Commandos in front of Esna moved up. She did too, with Rammak spinning around and putting his back to her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, but Rammak only replied by pulling out multiple weapons and firing back down the tunnel.

  Esna was facing the wrong way and couldn’t see, but she could looking through Rammak’s point of view so she did that, getting a pop up screen on her HUD that showed his weaponsfire zipping off into the distance as a contact showed up on the battlemap that Esna hadn’t noticed before. She had been watching what was in orbit while the Archon had been more focused on what was behind them.

  And it wasn’t just one, it was two now as they caught up…whatever they were.

  A flash of green zipped past Esna and the speeder entirely on her right side, at which point she realized that they were being fired on as well.

  “Ari’tat,” Rammak announced. “Esna, get to the front.”

  “How?” she asked as the Commando in front of her reached back and grabbed her arm, then pivoted around her mass to exchange positions with her. The next one did the same, and the next and next all the way up to the pilot’s station.

  “Stay tucked in behind me,” he said, “and hold onto my butt. We’re about to slow down real fast.”

  “Ok,” she said, planting both her hands on the side of his hips as she pressed herself up against his pack while the weaponsfire behind them increased. Suddenly the Archon dropped off the back as they continued on, then about three seconds later they started slowing down fast.

  “Stay with the speeder, Esna,” Rammak said as the rest of them jumped off when it came to a stop. The pilot put a hand on her shoulder and hopped off for a step to get by her, then came back up and took position on the opposite pilots station dragging
the control bar.

  Esna moved to avoid it as she watched Rammak run off with the others as the Archon fought in the distance. She switched to his viewpoint and suddenly saw several small floating devices with even tinier long-necked bipeds riding in them. Both them and their rides were firing on the Archon as he got up to and made physical contact with one, grabbing it and throwing it off its perch as he soaked up shots with his shields. Then he hid behind the captured speeder a bit and came out in a surge of speed that Esna found impossible.

  He was on the second one before it could pull back, but the others didn’t make the same mistake. They zoomed back down the tunnel and out of range, firing as they did and racking up hits on him as the little Ari’tat from the first speeder continued to fire tiny shots up from the ground where it stood about knee height to the Archon.

  Suddenly Tyrenk turned around and ran back towards the approaching Commandos, kicking the Ari’tat further down the tunnel with him before pounding it with multiple rifle shots. The little thing couldn’t take much damage and against an Archon 1v1 it had no chance. He killed it then ducked to the ground as the Commandos opened fire and filled the top of the tunnel with shots that forced the Ari’tat back, taking down one of their speeders but the Archon didn’t go after it. He pulled back as his almost depleted shields began recharging and met up with the Commandos who were also met by the speeder Esna was on as it followed them.

  They all boarded within a few seconds as the pilot switched ends again and Esna got sandwiched between armored bodies. More shots were fired as they accelerated away, but on her battlemap the Ari’tat kept so far back that most shots from either side were hitting the tunnel walls as much as their targets.

  Esna wondered what would happen if they managed to hit the speeder enough times but she didn’t say anything. Sometimes she wondered if she should speak at all, but right now they had better things to do than answer her questions and that didn’t end for more than an hour later when they neared the outpost and several turrets flashed by that were popping out of the walls. Esna also saw a shield pop up across the tunnel, taking a few shots as the speeder moved on and the Ari’tat finally fell back, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t go far.