by Aer-ki Jyr
There were a lot, but not enough to give them trouble despite the fact that they were the size of giants. Every time Maddok saw one at a glance he thought it was Nasus, though these were not so well armored. They had shield generator belts on, but otherwise they were naked save for an ugly loincloth. Their bodies were totally covered in fur though, and underneath it was a mountain of muscle capped off with a muzzle full of teeth that stood a good two feet higher than the Protovic’s head.
That said, the 40 or so that were trying to flank the main battle ahead weren’t going to be a problem now that he saw other Protovic were following them off the main street, so the foursome ran right at the group, getting a few more strides in before the Zargor noticed them. Rifles spun around and fired at the quartet, but the shots missed high as the enemy soldiers inexplicably raised their guns at the last moment.
They reaimed but missed again, shooting the ground or walls…anywhere but the rushing Protovic who fired back and did not miss. They all hit the same target and its shields went down, but it dove out of the way as more came up to block for it and take aim. Those fired and one of the shots hit another Zargor ahead of them…then the Protovic were on them and firing at pointblank range with the Zargor still unable to shoot them.
Friendly fire hit a few more Zargor, then some of them dropped their rifles altogether and dove towards the Protovic, intend on battering them to death or maybe ripping a few arms out of socket, but two of them stumbled and fell while the others ran the wrong way as the Protovic continued messing with their minds using their telepathy. They couldn’t take control of the enemy like an Archon could, but they could still use a long list of tricks they’d learned confusing the enemy and making it almost impossible for them to aim in the right direction…for when they did, they saw it as being askew in mind’s eye.
Same thing with the few that tripped and fell. Their sense of balance was pushed off by the Protovic as they stepped in and gunned down several, though with only four against 40 they couldn’t mess with all of their minds, so they focused on those closest and kept them in between so the others didn’t have good firing lines. By the time the first few fell more Protovic were coming up from behind and adding their telepathic skills to the fight even before they fired shots.
The Zargor had no chance whatsoever. Disoriented, confused, and furious as hell, they all were shot dead eventually with the Protovic putting extra shots into their big bodies to make sure they stayed down. Their orders were to kill any that fought back, and in previous days of fighting they’d had some get back up when they had no right to. Their big bodies seemed to adjust to the trauma and block it out temporarily to give them some additional fight time before they blacked out, meaning that if you didn’t actually kill them you could have a crazed giant punching you in its last few breaths…which was what had happened to Maddok his second week here.
The Zargor was so strong the single punch knocked him halfway across the street and bounced him off a side wall, and had he not been wearing armor he probably would have been knocked unconscious and soon to be killed, but with the Star Force protection the blow did little more than bounce him around like a beach ball, though it did instill on the Protovic just how powerful the Zargor were and why they were so feared.
But Maddok and his fellow Commandos now knew how to close get and not get, and they were getting better at taking these giants down as the days progressed. Their missions were always hunt and destroy in this sector or that. There were no prisoners being taken, nor were there cities. Star Force wasn’t claiming this planet as their own…they were simply here to destroy select pieces of it. Not enough that the population would starve to death after they left, but enough to cripple its communications, military industry, and all shipbuilding functions.
What Maddok’s assignments had been were going after defensive emplacements, shield generators, training centers, etc. The big combat was being taken care of by the mech units, leaving the infantry cleanup duties along their path and being sent on little offshoot missions like this. Up ahead was a munitions factory that supplied some very nasty explosive traps and cluster grenades that Star Force had been fighting against in other systems, but they were most effective against unarmored infantry or light vehicles and had a penchant for maiming rather than killing.
The factory had to go, but the Zargor citizenry thought otherwise. They were coming to the aid of the few soldiers defending it, and as many that did the Protovic were going to kill. These bastards were out across this region of the galaxy conquering and butchering countless worlds, so Maddok and the other Protovic weren’t going to cut them any slack. If there truly were noncombatants here they could prove it by not fighting, but anyone who took a shot or claw at them was going down hard.
And as long as the Protovic didn’t get sloppy, the Zargor couldn’t ambush them with hidden troops. Their telepathy passed through walls as if they weren’t even there, allowing them to look for minds and disable them even before the Zargor got sight or scent of their battle armor. Sometimes Maddok could trick one Zargor into shooting another one, but it was all based on misdirection rather than control, and thankfully these guys weren’t too bright. All muscle and tenacity with little problem solving involved. They did one thing and did it well, but take that option away from them and they all but pouted, getting madder and madder which only helped the Protovic manipulate them easier.
Once his unit got finished with this 40 the Protovic kept moving out from the main street hunting additional flanking units coming in. Every now and then a group would have armored individuals denoting either current or inactive soldiers, but most wore the loincloths and carried handheld weapons, some even without shield generators. It was as if they were expected to fight even if they didn’t stand a chance, and with the number of them on this planet that could pose a problem if they got organized, but it seemed like they were just coming at the Protovic as soon as the individuals arrived here from whatever nearby building they were originating from.
And Maddok’s unit was chopping them into bits because of it. Maybe the Zargor on the other planets would take notice and adapt, but these weren’t and they were already 2 months into this slash and burn operation. Literally, there were smoke plumes rising from across the planet from where the warships had toasted key buildings and weapons batteries. Not all of the planetary defense shields were down yet, and those that weren’t were going to see more Protovic on the ground going in to drop them the hard way…and after they did the warships would own anything that was left exposed.
They’d already been through this area, but the factory wasn’t something they were just going to blow up. Using infantry allowed the workers time to run away, though any that felt like sticking around to die were welcome to do so. If you were inside a shield generator then it was your unlucky day, because those were being taken down as quickly as possible, often by mech units that just blasted the things into oblivion once they got close enough.
The Zargor had a lot of tanks in play, but they weren’t built for their own city streets. The mechs that were capable of it were climbing over the buildings and flanking…or sometimes landing on and flattening…the tanks, taking advantage of their hand to hand superiority and keeping the Zargor from massing firing lines on them by avoiding the few wide open areas within the city and sticking to the synthetic jungle that Maddok was now traversing.
Every time he was dropped into battle it was nonstop. Run, disorient, kill, and repeat until he got so tired that he had to cycle out and fresh troops would come in. Sometimes he’d get a breather after a particular mission was accomplished, but with so much of the ‘civilian’ population coming to fight the invaders there seemed like there was never too many people to kill and these Zargor did not have a problem running to their deaths, seeming to be happy if they could just get in a single attack against the enemy.
It was zealotry in its rawest form and Maddok wasn’t guessing about that. He was in their heads and could feel their emotions.
They had one impulse for the lot of them, and it was to kill the Protovic. Didn’t matter how. Didn’t matter how many died in the process. They simply had to get to the defilers invading their planet and rip them apart in whatever way they could. There was no strategy or tactics. They weren’t fighting as a team, but rather as a pack. Rushing the enemy with numbers and fighting individually…and against an empire that had cut its teeth against lizard swarm tactics, defeating these guys would have been easy even without the telepathy.
Suddenly a mech stepped out into the side street ahead of Maddok and he got a ping from the pilot who lowered the right barrel on the Madcat-class mech to the ground. Two other Protovic ahead of him jumped up onto it and climbed, with Maddok doing the same until they plus another six were riding up around the boxy shoulders and holding on via their armor’s grip pads, otherwise the walking motion of the mech would have thrown them off as the pilot moved them forward through a lot of ground fighting and up to the roof of the factory.
The mech rammed its shoulder into the wall and its little ticks jumped off, with Maddok and the others sprinting across the lower rooftop towards an access door just shy of a taller section of the factory that was shaped similar to a ziggurat. They blasted their way through the lock and got inside the facility, flanking the defenders and attacking them from the backside with their telepathy and disabling a few stationary guns as the Zargor operating them started seeing bigger targets in the sky to shoot at that weren’t really there.
Maddok and the others kept up their telepathic attack without using their weapons for more than self-defense. The longer it took the Zargor to realize they had a group in their midst the better, so they hid out and opened up as many avenues of attack as possible for the Protovic outside before moving forward and helping with the final breakthrough. Maddok had used up almost all of his ammo at that point and logged himself to ‘low ammo’ status using his HUD, quickly getting a waypoint further back along the street leading up to the factory sent to him under new orders.
He ran back to it, seeing a few others heading in the same direction, then he spotted several rolling wheels coming down the street ahead and unfurling at that point. Each Rammus was carrying weapons or ammo, and when he got up to that position one of the little support troops opened up his carrying boxes and Maddok refilled all his weapons and his own ammo pouch, topping off with as much as he could carry before heading back and logging himself as ‘restocked.’
He got new orders that brought him back inside the factory where the Protovic were sweeping the facility, either killing or chasing out everyone inside with numerous telepathic sweeps to pick up people hiding, though with the Zargor that didn’t usually happen, but more civilians were coming into the factory where they could and Maddok was posted to one entrance to keep people out while the sweep was ongoing.
They had to do a lot more killing to accomplish that for the Zargor would not let up, but eventually he was signaled to push out from the factory and establish a neutral zone around it. That took another 10 minutes to accomplish, then he got a warning that bombardment was incoming and where not to go…namely back into the factory.
In the sky above a Destroyer-class drone drifted overtop the factory and the triangular cube began raining down a massive amount of firepower that, coupled with the munitions components that they were shooting, began to blow apart the Zargor facility piece by piece. It wasn’t one large explosion, but a methodical buzz saw of energy attacks that eventually leveled the factory.
When that was done the drone’s weapons suddenly fell silent and it glided off out of view heading for its next fire mission as Maddok and the other Protovic Commandos were likewise reassigned, bypassing huge chunks of the enemy city as they plucked away the key facilities and left the others untouched.
6
August 1, 3545
Uyit System (Rim Region)
Orrpwer (Tolsoi capitol)
Davis ran out the door from the building where he had his command center and into the streets in the Star Force built city within a city on the Tolsoi capitol. 99% of the personnel here were Tolsoi that had been maturia raised or conversion trained, making them full Star Force rather than transitional workers. In the 110 years that the Star Force Director had spent in the Rim Region a lot of work had gotten done and a lot of people had died for lack of adequate help, but the Tolsoi themselves were no longer at risk.
Their borders were firm and their economy stable with the population only about one third converted, but that wasn’t stopping Davis and Greg from using the faction in the making to help stabilize surrounding areas and further push back against the Zargor and Firbyns. The monkey-like race was decent across the board and were slated to become a full faction in Star Force down the road with all 5 divisions of their military currently developing and their taking the mantle of responsibility on themselves as the leading race within the Rim Region.
Right now Greg was out with a Tolsoi warfleet making strikes against Firbyn incursions and sending an ongoing message to the denizens of the Rim Region not under Star Force control that they were the new sheriff in town, and no matter how big the vast stretch of territory they’d laid claim to was, they were not going to ignore any of it. Conflicts that were long done and over with were still going to be righted and villains dispossessed, with Davis currently work on a plan for a 6 system confederation that the Firbyn had invaded and enslaved to join Star Force.
They didn’t have much to offer, but that was pretty much the point. The Firbyn had destroyed or stolen most of what the Friq Colo had, and if Davis just left them alone after kicking the Firbyn out the conglomeration of 8 races were either going to be invaded again or implode under the chaos that would result. Right now the Star Force occupation forces that were a mix of Tolsoi and Clans Firestorm, Skystrike, and Dark Knight were all that was keeping the Friq Colo together and Davis knew he’d be causing a disaster if he pulled them out now.
Correction…more of a disaster. There were already shortages of practically everything and Star Force had the local supply production facilities under close guard and were pumping out as much equipment and foodstuffs as they could using local workers who were glad to no longer be slaves, but were not in very good physical health. No one was starving, but it was hard to heal up past damage when your food was being rationed.
Shipments were coming in from the Paladin and being put to use, but it was going to take a long time to get the Friq Colo self-sufficient even within the Star Force structure. Abandoning them to their ‘freedom’ would be a death sentence, so Davis was obligated to take them on as a ward and scrape by to make do despite the thousands of other systems out there that needed Star Force assistance. For as much as they’d accomplished over the past century, the Rim Region was so large and so messed up that there was always more to do and not enough personnel and ships to do it with.
But overall the Rim Region was better off than when The Nexus had left, and there was even a small amount of people coming to Davis and asking to help rather than joining in with the refugee stream. These were skilled individuals or coalitions within the current Nexus boundaries that were voluntarily leaving and asking to join up with Star Force for a variety of reasons/conditions. Some of them were people with experience working the grid points, others were manufacturers, soldiers, technicians, scientists, farmers, etc…and they were all top notch people that had no reason to leave The Nexus.
Why they were coming here had to do with the future. Events happening in The Nexus were something that Davis was keeping an eye on but he didn’t know much and was so busy he didn’t have time to work to find out more, but apparently conditions were slowly deteriorating in some areas and drastically falling apart in others. Even the ‘secure’ regions had growing concerns of how and when that status might change, and that’s where most of these volunteers were coming from. They saw the Rim Region steadily improving over time while The Nexus was further deteriorating and they were savvy enough to want to jump ship befor
e anything worse happened.
Oddly that meant they were coming into worse conditions than they were leaving, but they knew it and were here to work. Davis was grateful for that, but he still didn’t have enough people to do everything he needed and the Friq Colo were a perfect example of that. He needed to rotate out his Clan troops but didn’t have enough capable Tolsoi to do it, so he was trying several theoretical personnel swaps in his head even as he ran through the Star Force city getting in an easy workout while mentally continuing on with his administrative duties, doubling up as he did most hours of the day, for never had a single day gone by since he arrived out here that he wasn’t in over his head and trying to accomplish more than was possible with limited resources.
It sucked, but he’d learned long ago to put the plight of people outside his reach mostly out of his mind. He never gave up on anyone, but if he couldn’t reach them then there was no point in wasting thoughts lamenting their plight. He couldn’t change it, but he could change others and that’s where his focus went in addition to taking a few minutes here and there to rest and attend to himself. This was a marathon of an assignment and that fact was something he had to continually remind others of even as he had them rotated through different duties and even back to the ADZ as needed, but he was the one link in the chain that could not falter, so he mentally disconnected from the chaos and barbarism out here as much as he functionally could.
He’d gotten so good at it that when his head hit the pillow at night he was able to completely blank his mind of everything else and focus on regenerating himself…then when he woke up his priorities snapped back into rescue mode with him working to save as many people as quickly as possible while building up or reworking those who had been saved in order to add them to his current assets.