by Aer-ki Jyr
“If so much as a piece of debris floats within 10
lightyears of this system I want to know immediately, I just don’t want to make
a habit of checking surveillance reports myself.”
“I’ll make you aware of anything that pops up, but
thus far it’s pretty dead out here.”
“I hope for our sake it stays that way. I can’t turn
this place into Epsilon Eridani overnight.”
“I’ll give you a week.”
“Gracious of you,” the Count replied with equal sarcasm.
“Though I suppose I should also inform you now that a detachment from Clan
Sangheili is within the convoy. They have orders to establish a separate
presence here, a pure startup of their own. I don’t know where that leaves your
chain of command.”
“Sangheili? Interesting, but not a problem. I’d been
told you were in full command?”
“I am, but you know how the Clans like to do their own
thing.”
“And Sangheili likes to be the first to jump the gun
whenever possible,” the Archon said with some chagrin.
“And you are what Clan?”
“Clan Joanna. The rest of the Archons here are a mix
with no official Clan function on this mission. May I ask who made the
addition?”
“The Director added it at the last minute before we
left.”
“Well then, no arguing that. He must have something
good in mind.”
“He always does. They have a padawan with them. Will
she take lead or will you retain it? I can work either way, I just didn’t want
to make assumptions.”
“A padawan? No mage?”
“No, but she’s already completed her apprenticeship.”
“Baby mage then,” Klevin mewed. “If her duties are
Clan specific then I’ll maintain operational command. If not we’ll figure it
out. We don’t actually bicker about that sort of thing.”
“Arm wrestle?”
“No,” the Archon said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m
glad there’s someone here now that’s stronger than me. It’ll give me a
challenging sparring partner.”
“If anyone other than an Archon said that I’d assume
it was innuendo, but with you guys I know better.”
The Archon smiled. “Sorry, Count. We won’t be helping
you boost the population numbers…though others are doing an admirable job of it
right now.”
“A population surge request?”
“No, I gave none. They’ve volunteered themselves to
it.”
Jeyron cringed. “It’s that boring out here, isn’t it?”
“I can’t speak to that. My work is essentially the
same everywhere I go.”
“Diminished workforce?” Jeyron asked, knowing that if
a lot of the female population were pregnant they’d be incapacitated for at
least a short period of time.
“Yes, but nothing too worrisome. Filling out the
maturias sooner rather than later seemed more prudent, so I didn’t interfere.
Most of the women are being responsible about it and taking breaks in between
pregnancies, so we’re not losing whole chunks of population. They’re
coordinating an alteration pattern on their own.”
“Wise of them.”
“They’re Star Force. Should you expect less?”
“Perhaps not, but I’m also used to dealing with raw
civilians who are less…insightful in their mating habits.”
“We don’t have any raw civilians out here…save for the
younglings.”
“How far along is the first maturia?”
“They’re 8 years old.”
The Count nodded. “A good start then.”
“I assume I can officially relinquish master builder
activities?”
Jeyron smiled. “I officially relieve you, Archon. You
can get back to full training now.”
Klevin bowed gratefully. “Much appreciated. I’ll meet
you at the spaceport when you land and give you a proper tour.”
“Looking forward to it,” the Count said as the
transmission cut off…then he noticed the Captain giving him an odd look. “What?”
“Mating habits?”
“Sounds more professional than fucking.”
“Sounds like something you shouldn’t need to worry
about.”
The Count shrugged. “Population statistics are
something we have to keep our eye on.”
“Is that what your interest in me has been then?”
“Unless your trim figure is somehow hiding it, I don’t
think you’ve chosen to go that route, so the answer is no. This trip has been
unbelievably boring and you’re the one thing that has made it bearable, so
thank you for that, Captain. I don’t know how you crewers handle these doldrums
on a regular basis.”
“Some of us prefer solitudes, and the Archons don’t
seem to have your boredom problem.”
“Training is useful, but for a Monarch we need to be
active in a practical way.”
“So ‘mating’ with me was just to keep you busy?” she
asked with a rueful smile.
“Busy no. Break up the boredom occasionally…yes.”
“How flattering,” she said, neither offended or
amused. “It seems you’ll have a lot more prospects to keep your attention down
in the colony.”
“Afraid not. I’m going to be too busy doing real work.
I only let myself relax when I have nothing else to do.”
“So now I’m ‘relaxation?’ A promotion of sorts, I’d
imagine.”
“And I was?” the Count asked, curious.
“A feather in the cap,” she said honestly. “Never
bagged a Monarch before,” she said with a devious smile.
Jeyron made a ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ sound as he slowly shook
his head, looking at her petite and trim figure as she sat in her Captain’s
chair. “Oh the perks this job would have if only I were corrupt.”
“Which is why Monarchs are virtually impossible to
nail. You’re quite the score for me.”
“If that’s what alleviates your boredom,” he said as
he stood up and made ready to leave the bridge and the ship. “Have a dropship
readied. I’ll be taking my leave of you and your ship now. Make sure to keep
that feather properly fluffed and cockily displayed.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” she said honestly.
“Likewise, Captain. Likewise,” the Count said, leaving
the bridge to gather his belongings and head down to his new planet that the
cargo fleet would be departing as soon as it had unloaded.
Another bridge crewer threw the Captain a glance after
the Count had left. “He doesn’t know about the scoreboard?” she asked.
Jihadia shook her head. “No. I took it down before I
plucked that feather. It’s going back up as soon as he’s gone.”
The crew member smiled. “A Monarch, huh? Didn’t think
any of us would actually get one of those. They’re as hard as getting an
Archon.”
“Archons are impossible,” the Captain stated flatly.
“Anyone who claims to have don
e one of them is lying.”
“What if they did them before they became an Archon?”
Jihadia looked at her navigational officer, not ever
having considered that possibility before. “Technically that wouldn’t count as
an Archon, but it’d still be scoreboard worthy.”
March 31, 3102
Menchet System
(lizard core)
Tess
Tavarini reached down with his armored mandibles and
picked up yet another lizard body, throwing it over the railing to the pile
below to clear the small area of cover behind a bulkhead on the walkway the
Bsidd were holding. The last assault had nearly choked them out, leaving them
with too many bodies and not enough room to put them. The next wave would be on
them any second and he needed to get behind cover as much as possible, hence he
and the others were chucking the warm corpses wherever they could.
The walkway they were on was small, barely 8 meters
wide, but it had a lot of nooks and openings into other areas, with a railing
beside the bulkhead that opened to another larger promenade below. It didn’t
connect to the upper level directly, and this damn lizard shipyard ring was a
maze of connecting tunnels, ramps, and ladders. Almost all of the fighting was
being conducted in small groups at extreme close range, with the lizards
literally crowding out every available open space with a flood of bodies
running at you and firing at pointblank range.
Their rifles and pistols were annoying, but it was the
det packs that were the biggest concern. They’d cornered many Bsidd over the past
two months and blasted through their armor. A handful had died, but most had to
be evacuated with mangled bodies. This type of fighting was different than he
was used to, but at least the lizards couldn’t throw hundreds of phaser shots
against your shields at once…but the downside was that you didn’t have anywhere
to run when one of the little bomb carriers found his way through the others
and ran up in your face.
Hence every square meter of clear floor was precious,
and as he grabbed another lizard body…or rather the upper half of one that had
been cut in two with a plasma rod…he chucked it over the side ignoring the
blood splatters on his armor. His shields were down on his mandibles for the
moment, and the purple battle plates were already covered in lizard gore. It
was something he’d gotten used to, barely even noticing now as his mind was
focused on the next engagement.
A ping on his battlemap told him that was going to be
on them soon enough. Star Force had already managed to conquer and secure a small
slice of the shipyard ring, but they were having to defend it on both sides
across miles of interior terrain, both up and down, as the lizards poured
combat troops up the elevator shafts from the planet’s surface and continued to
send them against the invading troops.
The promenade below was a battleground that had
already been fought on and won, with the entrances, the main ones anyway,
having been welded shut so they didn’t have to leave guards. As it was, the
Bsidd army was spread out across this front so much that it almost seemed like
there were hundreds of battles going on rather than just one, with each
corridor, level, and section having its own unique history that was seeing the
typical Star Force victories be pushed back by the corpse clutter.
Worse yet, the little lizards could crawl over each
other far better than the larger Bsidd could do, so they had a movement
advantage. Not to mention being able to crawl through maintenance shafts and
other small passageways. Most of the Bsidd soldiers were Betas, but some of the
smaller Epsilons had been dispatched to look for and hunt down lizards slipping
through in odd places. They could never come in sufficient numbers to be a
major threat, but the Bsidd couldn’t afford to have wounded personnel getting
ambushed behind the front lines or a det pack carrier running up from behind
them.
It was a mess, but they were working their way through
it. This was lizard territory, for sure, but Tavarini was glad there weren’t
wide open fields for their tanks and aircraft to operate on. Det packs aside,
the Bsidd were the largest, most heavily armored units in play and he liked
that change from their ‘standard’ battles…as if there was ever such a thing
with the lizards.
Movement on his right caught his attention and he saw
green lizard bodies wearing black vests moving on top of the piles ahead of
them down the corridor. They weren’t wounded crawling for safety, but incoming
troops slipping over the tops of the piles like they were surfing a wave on the
ocean. Their rifles were strapped to their backs and they were running on all
fours, something he’d rarely seen lizards do before this invasion, but it was
obvious that the movement was all too natural for them.
A pink phaser blast shot by him, missing one of his
mandibles by a few inches as he reengaged shields across his entire body save
for the treads on his shoe bumps and the weapon muzzles attached to a few of
his numerous mandibles. Most of his body looked like a collection of thick sticks,
upon which he could run or crawl or jump as he liked, but they were all covered
in armor with some holding the tread for his ‘boots’ while others were free to
grasp or hit with. A few others were covered in weapons that were physically
attached to his armor since he didn’t have anything even remotely like fingers,
though he could grasp things better than most Humans given how many mandibles
he could apply to a given object.
He pointed one of his rifle mandibles down the
corridor as he put most of his odd body behind the bulkhead, twitching the end of
his limb inside the device that activated the trigger. A blue plasma lance shot
out and hit one of the many lizards surging towards them. It crumpled onto the
pile as the lizards behind it simply rushed over the new terrain. They couldn’t
get too many through this chokepoint, but then again only two or three Bsidd
could get into firing position on them, so that evened out a bit. Holding
position was easy, for the lizards couldn’t engage them in hand to hand without
getting cut to shreds with their plasma rods…unless they had a det pack, in
which case all the lizards had to do was get close enough to take down their
shields and do some damage to their armor.
That had already happened twice today, with several jagged
cuts on his purple body plates marking shrapnel damage, though they hadn’t
gotten close enough to him to do more than force him back while his shields
recharged. He’d had to give up some ground after that, but they’d taken it back
and then some, though the gains were little more than dozens of meters with
their orders being to hold the general area and adjust as needed while other
units were probing behind enemy lines.
What units those were he didn’t know, nor had seen,
for he’d been so busy here he couldn’t thi
nk of much else and he hoped there
would be a relief team coming within a few hours so he could cycle back, get
some food and water, maybe a little sleep. That wasn’t happening right now, so
he stubbornly held his ground and shot a couple more lizards before he got a ‘hold’
order on his helmet.
He complied, even as the lizards were nearly on top of
them, then saw a fast moving dot on his battlemap approaching them from behind.
By the time he recognized the icon the dark blue armor of an Archon mage flashed
past his position, brushing up against a couple of his mandibles as she shot by
the bulkhead…then pile of lizard bodies exploded backwards under some type of
invisible attack, throwing the dead and living back on top of each other.
Two white beams of light flashed into existence and
suddenly the Archon was chopping apart lizard bodies in a frenzy and pushing
her way through the mess and out of sight ahead.
The hold fire order was rescinded, along with a ‘don’t
follow me’ command.
Tavarini looked at his fellow Bsidd curiously, then
the two of them came out of cover and ran forward a few steps to give them
better firing lines on the surviving lizards that were trying to crawl their
way out of the pile.
Ginsi flashed past the Bsidd, getting on the other
side of friendly lines and brandishing her pair of death sabers. She’d been
told that the term ‘lightsaber’ had been strictly banned, though that’s exactly
what they looked like, only flat to the point of invisible when viewed on the
side. Problem was they weren’t actually swords and couldn’t parry anything. If
she crossed the two she carried together they’d pass right through each other,
and anything else would either be cut by them or disrupt the intense energy
field that comprised the cutting devices.
Since they weren’t true swords they needed another
name, and it had only been with reluctance that Star Force had even developed
the weapons. They’d evolved out of the Bsidd plasma rods, and then the Archon
plasma swords…both of which had such a low ammo count that they were almost a
waste of time against hundreds of thousands of lizards, though both of those
could still be used as blunt object weapons when they were depleted of charge.
The death sabers could not, which was why Ginsi was