Star Force: Evasion (Wayward Trilogy Book 2)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Esna had no clue what they were doing, but then again they were techs who trained for this. Combat she had started to understand thanks to Rammak, but her experience salvaging parts on Forso didn’t prepare her for this. Every now and then she saw something familiar, but she still didn’t know what they actually did. The technology she worked with and understood was far more primitive, a fact that she related to the Kiritas.

  “You salvage Calavari tech?”

  “What was left of their cities was buried under the rubble. I found some pieces still intact and sold them with my brother for extra burgos.”

  “Is that currency?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they use the salvage?”

  “I assume so.”

  “So they understood it?”

  “Actually, I don’t know. Most of what I traded I never saw again. A few pieces were put to use in the settlement.”

  “Like what?”

  “Some power transfer cord. Structural supports. Stuff I could understand, actually. I wonder what they did with the rest? Could they melt it down?”

  “Reuse materials? Some of it, yes. They are here.”

  “What?”

  “Earpiece. Speeder has arrived with wounded. Go find your friend.”

  “Thank you,” Esna said, running off and finding her way back to a proper corridor. From there it was easy to get over to the ramp but she waited there as others were coming up because she didn’t have her armor on…and it was still frozen in the hangar.

  It didn’t take long before Rammak came walking up heavily, then he raised a lower hand at Esna.

  “I’ll live,” he said before she could ask.

  “Your armor is covered in blood,” she pointed out.

  “Healing patches,” he said, pointing at the spots on his armor with holes in them. Underneath she could make out tiny spots that weren’t charred armor or flesh. “I’m better off than I was when the speeder got to us.”

  “How far away are the Zen’zat? Are the Ari’tat following?”

  “We collapsed sections of tunnel on the way, so if they are they will be delayed. We have a guard post set up in the tunnel to stop the Ari’tat before they find the hangar, but we can’t stay here long,” he said as an appendage-short Bsidd walked by him. “I need to get to the med bay.”

  “Go,” Esna urged, walking beside the Calavari. “Did everyone make it?”

  “We lost Nar’hem,” he said, referring to a Protovic Commando. “We have his body, but I don’t think he’s revivable.”

  “What happened?”

  “Too much blood lost. He passed out while running and the Archon carried him back. He tried to heal him but there was too much damage. Where’s your armor?”

  “In my bunk.”

  “Get it on,” he said, tossing her empty rifle back to Esna. “If we can’t take off we have to defend the ship and we’ll need everyone shooting. Even the techs.”

  “Will do. Glad you made it,” she said, placing a bare hand on his still cold armor as she walked in front of him and down a cross corridor as she headed back to her bunk. She looked at her hand and saw a white/orange smear on it. The white was frost from all the ice and it melted from her body heat within a few seconds. The orange was Rammak’s blood. That likewise thawed and left her hand streaked with the precious fluid. How much of it he’d lost she didn’t know, but luckily he had a lot in him.

  Apparently the Protovic didn’t. She didn’t know how close Rammak had been to dying and he probably wasn’t going to tell her, but judging from the amount of orange on his armor Esna didn’t think he would have made it if the speeder hadn’t gone back for them.

  23

  August 2, 4812

  Orlero System (Devastation Zone)

  Tauntaun

  Two Commandos were stationed down the tunnel and out of view of the hangar entrance when the V’kit’no’sat caught up to them in the form of the Ari’tat, who immediately pulled back when the pair of Bsidd opened fire on them in addition to blocking most of the tunnel with their spindly masses. The Ari’tat pumped shots into them from their speeders in a standoff for several seconds before an explosive in the ceiling of the tunnel was detonated and dropped a wall of ice down into the tunnel between them, temporarily sealing it off as the two Commandos turned and began to run back towards the hangar with a skittering of appendages that proved advantageous in the low gravity.

  They reported in as soon as the battlemap signals got through to the ship and all those onboard, indicating their time was almost up. The Archon ordered them to fall back completely, with the pair running across the hangar and up the ramp that closed behind them with everyone else already onboard. A pair of turrets popped out of the underside of the ship and targeted the tunnel entrance as an earthquake shook the ice around them.

  With Paul having left to stellar orbit to fight the ongoing naval brawl there, Archon ViLord Chase-571190 was in command of the fleet at Tauntaun and standing in the command nexus onboard his Warship-class jumpship when the ice over the hidden hangar began to break apart and raise up. He knew it had been coming after the ship made discrete contact earlier, but he hadn’t known when exactly. Apparently the Zen’zat had gotten to them and they had no more time to wait, which meant he had to cover them as they fled.

  Mentally linked to all the ships in orbit and on the surface, he saw through their sensors as the industrial mole tore through the ice and the hangar doors opened below, prompting one of the V’kit’no’sat warships to start moving underneath the defense shield. It was a 12 mile wide Domjo, meaning he couldn’t kill it very fast even with a slew of orbital bombardment, but as soon as it left the protection of the shield it got hammered from above as dozens of Star Force ships let loose on the surface with every weapon they had.

  Similar to the savage orbital bombardment the V’kit’no’sat unleashed previously, the ice around the ship vaporized on contact with missed shots, but the Domjo was so big that most hit. The few that didn’t were not aimed at the tunnels, for Star Force knew where they were, but with every second that passed the Domjo gained speed heading for the hangar whose doors hadn’t yet fully opened.

  Doing the math was easy, the implications were not, and Chase knew that unless he delayed the Domjo they’d make the intercept and just shrug off the damage being done to them. Its shields were still holding and the few hundred miles to the hangar were clipping off quickly as it continued to gain speed, dragging a pressure wave of atmosphere with it that churned up an ice hurricane in its wake.

  Smaller such disturbances were also visible following the tracks of the individual drones that Chase sent racing out from their patrol ring around the base and in towards the Domjo, exchanging fire as they quickly came within range of one another but racing to get up to the Domjo and flying past the hangar as the doors finally cleared. A few of the drones stopped on the far side, waiting for the elongated evacuation ship to rise up and blocking the Domjo’s attacks with their shields and then their armor and mass when those failed.

  The drones closer to the Domjo formed a wall, blocking as many shots as they could and firing back, but the V’kit’no’sat ship just plowed through them, accepting the loss of shields that cost them even as the orbital bombardment started to hit their hull and blast plates off at an alarming rate. Its momentum didn’t slow as it compensated for the kinetic blocks and continued to fire on the few drones now surrounding the Blockade Runner-class evacuation ship.

  Chase manually operated the drones around it, forming a box that flew in sync with the ship away from the hangar and further around the curve of the planet while still in the atmosphere. One of the drones was about to lose engine power, so the Archon dropped it back early and readjusted the others, flying a new one in and reforming the box as the Domjo continued to get closer and closer, punching its way through the atmosphere and firing every weapon it had at the clump of drones that were flying so close together they might as well have been physically connected.

>   Once they got far enough around the planet to be out of firing range of the other V’kit’no’sat ships still under the base shield, the cube began gaining altitude as yet another of its blocks was blown away by the massive Domjo that was even now trailing smoke from several wounds that were adding up as the orbiting fleet sent part of the drones in orbit after it to add damage while those on the ground reformed the ring, knowing that they had more people down in the ice to protect from the rest of the ships under the energy shield.

  Chase readjusted the box, peeling the front blocks off and rotating them around to the back as the Domjo continued to blast away at the drones, but it couldn’t get through fast enough and the evacuation ship made it out of the atmosphere…at which point it made an emergency jump away from the planet and out of firing range.

  The Archon blew out a sigh of relief but the Domjo, now heavily damaged at this point, didn’t give up. It got clear of the drones and made its own jump, heading off in the direction of the Blockade Runner as the much smaller ship ran for its life across the star system at a speed that Chase knew his drones couldn’t match, meaning his part in their escape was now complete and his duty lay to the rest of the survivors still trapped on the planet.

  Putting a priority protect order marker on the Blockade Runner within the battlemap, he turned his attention back to the planet while keeping a mental eye on their progress, though with the increasing lag resulting from distance and their current speed he could no longer follow their path in realtime, for at the moment the ship had disappeared from the battlemap entirely given the fact that it wasn’t carrying an active transponder and had accelerated faster than the sensors on his ships could catch up to. When it slowed down again he and the rest of the fleet would be able to pinpoint it, but for the moment they were running and running hard, and he wished them well.

  Now it was up to him to get the rest of the evacuees out, and he still didn’t know how many of them down there were still alive or where exactly they were, but there were another 3 evacuation ships buried under the ice and he was going to have to prepare a better reception for the next one, because the V’kit’no’sat would be better prepared the next time one of them started breaking through the ice on the surface.

  He also now had a few less drones to work with, but at least the Archon had one less warship underneath the shield to worry about.

  Esna was sitting at a table with Rammak and several techs watching a small hologram as their ship pulled out of the atmosphere and jumped away from the planet. When they eventually got free she slumped back in her seat, still tired from the normal gravity dragging on her but overly relieved to be free of that ice planet, those stupid tunnels, and the Zen’zat chasing them.

  “That was close,” a tech noted.

  “Very,” another said as they all seemed to relax, but Rammak hadn’t. He was still watching the hologram intently. Esna didn’t say anything, choosing to stare with him until her heart seemed to skip a beat when the Domjo reappeared on their rear sensors.

  “They’re still coming,” Rammak said, bringing everyone else’s attention back to the hologram.

  “Why are we that important?” a Kiritas asked.

  “We are their prey and we escaped,” Rammak said, seeing that the ship was closing on them slightly, but wouldn’t be within weapons range anytime soon as both ships zipped across the system on a heading that didn’t lead to any planet or the star. It had been a random jump and one that was going to have to be diverted else they’d eventually drift out of the system and away from the gravity wells they needed to navigate with. “They took a lot of damage chasing us, and they intend to finish the task.”

  “Will they catch us?” Esna asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rammak answered honestly, “but there are a lot of Star Force ships out there. If we run to them that Domjo isn’t going to last very long.”

  “Where are we headed now?”

  A tech adjusted the hologram and plotted their course. It was a straight line heading nowhere in particular, but after a few seconds it started to shift ever so slightly in closer to the star.

  “Is that the star’s gravity or are we turning?”

  “Turning,” Rammak said, “by pulling on the star. I think we’re headed somewhere in here.”

  Esna and the techs saw him point to the massive battle taking place on one side of stellar orbit, but his thick digit wavered covering a stretch right next to the battle.

  “We can’t fight that ship, so we run to those who can,” another Kiritas added. “And once we get a proper gravity launch we should be the faster. Not sure how it’s gaining on us now.”

  “Adjusting to our speed and one upping it. Short of a full power jump Vreen couldn’t prevent that, but we can increase speed too on our next proper microjump.”

  “It’s going to be hours on this track, so there’s no point in staring at the holo,” a Human by the name of Tadi said. “We’re out of the worst of it. Time to sleep or train. At this point we’re just passengers.”

  “Agreed,” Rammak said as he stood up. “Esna?”

  “Let me guess. Running?”

  “Best way to get your legs back to normal. Go wear yourself out.”

  “As ordered,” she said sarcastically. “What about you?”

  “I’ll join you later. I need to do some calisthenics to work in this new tissue,” he said, referencing the regrowth of the damaged areas of his body that the ship’s regenerator had recently completed.

  “Sore?”

  “Not exactly. But with all the low gravity and the damage my equilibrium is off. I need to reset.”

  “You’re not the only one,” a tech added. “That low gravity has me messed up too.”

  “Work on it,” Tadi said. “Then get some rest. If we’re needed for repair work they know where to find us.”

  With that the hologram on the table was abandoned and people split up to go wherever to do something. Sitting and watching a slowly approaching dot while your ship traveled through space was pointless when you couldn’t do anything about it, despite how counter intuitive that seemed right now. Part of Esna wanted to watch until they were either caught and killed or fully got away, but either of those two things didn’t require her attention and her body did, as did the rest of the makeshift crew.

  The ship was small by Star Force standards, but it wasn’t so small it didn’t have a track. It was a tiny one, only 400 meters long and a few meters wide in an irregular loop winding between sections of the ship. She wasn’t the only one there on arrival, seeing a Kiritas come hop/skipping so fast she just stood there gawking at how he moved.

  But then he was past and around the corner out of view, so she dragged her heavy body out onto the running path and took off slowly, intent on jogging for a while until she forgot the loping steps of low gravity. That didn’t happen fast, and by the time Rammak came flying by her later she hadn’t regained much form but she had picked up her pace a bit. He didn’t stop to talk, as was normal during workouts because he was so much faster than her, but he did lap her a few times before she finally called it quits and slumped to the ground just outside the entrance to the track where she’d started…she thought. There were several exits and her legs were so dead she might have messed up the markings but Esna didn’t care.

  Her body felt like crap, but she knew she’d be better for it later and the sitting on the floor was a luxury she was going to give herself for a few minutes. Actually she gave herself 5 passes for Rammak as he kept running laps, then she forced herself up and walked across the ship to the communal showers. Two booths were empty and she grabbed one, glad to be back in a water shower tube and able to fill it up all the way to her shoulders.

  Still alive and kicking and the 2nd Star Force starship she’d been on after being rescued, except this time she didn’t feel like an outsider. She might be totally outclassed by those around her, but over the past few weeks she’d become one of them. A newb to be sure, but now one with a bit of
combat experience against the Zen’zat.

  Thinking about that fact made her feel good, as well as acutely aware of how unready she was to fight them. Hopefully she wouldn’t see another Zen’zat again within weapons range…at least not until she got the proper training that would take a couple of centuries.

  But right now that didn’t matter. She was alive. Rammak was alive. And they were out of those ice tunnels. She much preferred liquid water, and right now was going to soak it up without regard for time unless someone banged on the door for her to get out. There were other shower booths and the ship was designed to hold a lot more people than was on it, so she assumed she wasn’t making anyone wait.

  Esna dipped her head under the water and slicked down her red hair, then touched her forehead to the clear, curved panel and closed her eyes, letting herself reset as much as she could while her body relearned normal gravity and a lot of other things. This time, at least, there were no tears, but she felt thin inside. Stretched from the effort that it took to get here, but her experience on Forso had helped, for she had come through this one a lot better.

  Rammak was right. Experience was worth more than burgos ever could be.

  Paul woke up from 68 minutes of sleep then returned to the command nexus on the bridge of the Excalibur and reasserted control of the fleet as it continued to fight the V’kit’no’sat. Most of the ships weren’t engaged, rather holding position out of weapons range while pieces of each fleet dove in at each other trying to expose or create a weakness in a conflict that hadn’t stopped for so much as a minute since their fleet had arrived. No new ships had come in recently, but the V’kit’no’sat were still holding onto their jumppoint. Maybe to protect another group coming in later or just to make Paul think they were, but they hadn’t stopped attacking when he had pulled his line back a bit in an experiment.