by Jyr, Aer-ki
The report noted some 13 Scionate ships that the Sentinel had shot and disabled as they tried to ‘unsurrender’ and leave. The report went on to indicate that the civilian ships rescued from the attack were allowed to leave and return to service on the condition that they evacuated the warship crews, after which, having no means to take possession of them given how few Star Force personnel were in the system, the Archon ordered the empty warships destroyed.
An addendum to the report indicated that the Scionate had requested permission to destroy the pieces of Lacvamat ships within the firing radius of the Sentinel. The Archon on station had flatly refused, wanting to rescue and take prisoner any survivors, but the Scionate wouldn’t comply and waited for the varying pieces to drift clear of the Sentinel, after which they pounced on the ship fragments with the handful of their own warships that had survived the assault.
Those pieces that had yet to drift clear and contained surviving crews were left to die a slow death, protected by the Sentinel but without any Star Force ships insystem to rescue them. The Archon had tried to co-op some independent shippers in the system into service but they all likewise refused, not wanting to cross the Scionate whose umbrella they operated under even for the ridiculous amount of credits he’d offered. Frustrated to no end the Archon had gone up to orbit himself in a dropship and managed to rescue a handful of Lacvamat before they died, then he’d brought them back down to the outpost and almost had to fight the Scionate on the ground to protect his prisoners.
They’d surrounded the outpost and demanded that they be turned over, but he and his defense force held firm and the Scionate eventually backed down but did not leave until the evacuation crews finally got to the planet and began dismantling both the Sentinel and the outpost, with the Lacvamat prisoners going with it as the Star Force personnel fully abandoned the Scionate planet.
Davis didn’t fault the Scionate for defending themselves, nor for their anger at being attacked, but several instances that had come to the Director’s attention were proving them to be far less honorable than their reputation and egos asserted. Killing helpless crews onboard incapacitated warships and abandoning line units in battle to their deaths was unforgiveable. He knew you couldn’t judge an entire race by the actions of a few, but then again the actions of a few should not be repetitive ones, with this recent report indicating that the Scionate were putting themselves and their agendas ahead of honor when it became inconvenient…and honor wasn’t something you could switch on and off at will.
And the Lacvamat were even worse. They’d been attacked, and rightly were incensed, but they’d given Star Force all the information they had and by no means did it finger the Scionate. Unless they knew something they weren’t sharing then they were using the bioweapon attack as an excuse to air old grievances and it appeared the Scionate were doing the same thing now that fighting had broken out, with neither side interested in the truth or honor. Both were out for blood and it looked like they were going to get it.
And neither race was happy with Star Force either after the Sentinel incident. The report Davis was reading was an update, with bits and pieces coming in to him through the relays as events progressed, including scathing messages from the Lacvamat over the destruction of their ships and Star Force’s protection of the enemy and taking sides where they’d claimed to be neutral…as well as the Scionate’s utter vehemence over the destruction of the warships that had surrendered to Star Force. Apparently they hadn’t taken the ‘surrender’ seriously at all, and were more than angry about losing so many needlessly, not to mention Star Force’s reluctance to defend their planet as the Sentinel was put there to do in the first place.
Davis could sympathize with the latter bit, because the Scionate in that system were probably not the ones making decisions for the rest of their race and could well have felt betrayed by the surrender demand made by the Archon on station, but Davis wholeheartedly agreed with the solution he’d come up with. It kept Star Force out of the fighting while not being party to a slaughter that simply watching and taking no action would have been. Scionate lives had been protected, as the Sentinel was supposed to do, it was just their ships that were lost, and Davis wasn’t going to worry about those after how many drones Star Force had lost covering the Scionate’s sudden pullout.
Still, he realized that there were probably a lot of people out there getting burnt because of the actions of others and he wanted to minimize that as much as possible, but the economic penalties he was handing down to both races were going to hurt them considerably. That couldn’t be helped, but he knew he needed to do something else…creative, to move the situation in a more civilized direction.
He wasn’t sure what that would be, but he was working on it and was glad to get the Sentinel incident resolved in such a decisive way. It would give him some more social ammunition to use and hopefully would serve as a testament to Star Force’s stance. They weren’t going to take sides in this war, but they weren’t going to be manipulated into becoming a helpless bystander. Those individuals wanting to flee the fighting would have a sanctuary to run to, and he intended to emphasize that point going forward.
But there were rumblings amongst the other races that worried him, for the bad blood between the Scionate and Lacvamat was small compared to some of the others, and now that there was blood in the water and Star Force was shown to be too busy fighting to defend the ADZ to put a stop to it…
Needless to say he had a bad feeling about this, and his gut feeling was about to be proven right.
The Lacvamat had overextended themselves, hitting the three systems they had with such numbers as to take two of them and being on the verge of taking the third, and had taxed their military to the brink, with the subsequent naval assault in Sului having drawn off so many of their warships from their defensive fleets that the Scionate saw an opportunity and chose to take it once the bulk of their fleets had returned home to fight.
The Lacvamat capitol had been stripped of the majority of its defenses in order to fuel the assault forces hitting the Scionate hard, so while the fighting continued in those three theaters with increasing tenacity a backdoor armada was put together as quietly as possible with the Scionate taking better than 12% of their military out of view and forging it into a hammer that they intended to crush the Lacvamat capitol with, ending the war with one bold stroke by destroying the heart of their civilization that otherwise would not have been possible if the Lacvamat hadn’t stripped their defenses down to such an extent.
When the Scionate armada began to enter planetary orbit over Keeson the hordes of civilian and non-Lacvamat ships began to scatter like roaches, leaving only the weakened defense fleet and a number of orbital platforms standing between the Scionate and the planet. They engaged them directly, coming in with superior numbers and equipment, then began landing their troops even as the battle raged in orbit, with the Lacvamat unable to prevent them from getting to the atmosphere.
In a display of cunning strategy, yet barbaric sacrifice, the Lacvamat fought and lost nearly 75% of their defense fleet and stations before they sprung their trap. The Scionate knew the size and strength of the Lacvamat military and knew they didn’t have the numbers to stop this armada in orbit, nor to adequately resist the ground force they were bringing with them and even now beginning to field on the planet below…but what they didn’t account for was there being another player on the field, let alone two.
Jumping into planetary orbit from their hiding spots elsewhere in the system, the Lacvamat’s allies closed the trap they’d cunningly devised with both the Gnar and Nammet fleets coming in behind the Scionate and pinning them against what was left of the Lacvamat forces. It was by no means an easy fight, but the three races combined were now the superior in number and positioning, resulting in a very bloody battle that left little opportunity for the Scionate to retreat…and on top of it, the Scionate had been so overconfident they’d begun landing their ground troops, with a host of transport ship
s now vulnerable to naval assault in orbit and others trapped on the ground.
Some of those in orbit were able to flee, but many who tried were tracked down by the Gnar and destroyed along with all the troops they contained…something that would have been incredibly difficult to do on the ground, but was pathetically easy when they were all boxed up onboard mostly defenseless ships, for the Scionate escort fleet was fighting for its life and unable to protect them.
After several hours of battle the Lacvamat fleet was left decimated. It had been the sacrificial lure to attract and pin the Scionate, with the Gnar and Nammet fleets being the hammer to spring the trap and kill the Scionate…and that they did, but at a cost. They lost nearly half their ships but succeeded in destroying some 94% of the Scionate armada, including 72% of their loaded troop ships, with the rest being on the surface of the planet.
Those troops were already deployed or deploying, but were now greatly outnumbered by the Lacvamat on the planet, then to add insult to injury the Nammet brought in a number of their own troop ships to assist in the slaughter of the Scionate. The Gnar, not being well suited to the atmosphere, kept their assistance to warships alone, but continued to safeguard orbit and make sure any Scionate transport trying to flee the surface wouldn’t make it out alive.
It would take more than 2 months before the tenacious Scionate ground troops were completely eliminated, for backed into the corner that they were, unable to flee and having no hope of rescue, they admirably committed themselves to doing as much damage to the enemy as they could and made good on that goal, but in the end they were wiped out and the Lacvamat capitol remained more or less intact, now with a much stronger defense fleet that the Scionate couldn’t hope to counter as more and more Gnar and Nammet ships arrived. With word having gone out about the ambush and the new alliance between the three races they were going all in, sensing an opportunity to stick it to the Scionate and depose them from their dominant position within the ADZ…as well as to get back at them for past grievances.
What had gone from being a pointless war on the part of the Lacvamat, given the superior military of the Scionate, had now shifted into one that had the dominant race on its heels, and given the Scionate’s penchant for getting even with those who attack them, the Lacvamat, Gnar, and Nammet knew they had to go all the way and annihilate the cats or potentially suffer for it in the long run. It was a gamble, but given the opportunities it presented they’d decided to make their play and made it well, for by destroying the Scionate armada at Keeson they’d eliminated a huge portion of their military, with the Scionate now in a position to choose between defending their own worlds and stripping them down in order to make counter assaults.
When news of the events spread throughout the ADZ the backroom deals started occurring at a frantic pace, with both the Lacvamat and the Scionate bargaining hard for allies to bring into the fold and many races sensing opportunity to be had or just the opportunity to fight their adversaries where Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre had been preventing it before…but now with the floodgates open and the peacekeepers otherwise occupied they had their chance and weren’t going to pass it up, regardless of the long term implications it would have on the ADZ and their mutual defense against the Skarrons and lizards.
Right now that didn’t seem to matter, only the old bad blood coming back up to the surface and the ‘injustices’ happening to both the Lacvamat and Scionate, for both were victims and in the right according to their point of view, with few people interested in the truth and siding with those they previously favored while using events to seemingly justify their actions.
It was mostly subterfuge and propaganda. The truth was these races wanted to fight each other and now they had an excuse, with their bloodlust and greed overriding their better judgement and Lacvamat and Scionate territory being the playground on which they were going to settle old scores.
5
Donn sat crosslegged on a table in the holding cell opposite the blue-tinted force field separating the Archon and security officers from Veen, who was now outside her envirosuit given that the other side of the cell had been reconfigured to the atmosphere necessary for her race. Her previously plump form was no longer present, having been mostly mechanical necessity to store the ammonia needed for long duration excursions.
Breathing both oxygen and ammonia, some Gnar opted for less than full suits outside their own facilities, but most preferred the total coverings that concealed a very muscular, yet short physique. This Gnar was no exception, save for her musculature was more lengthy than bulk, due to the fact that she was a sedentary creature rather than a fighter.
Donn sat with eyes closed, making it look like he was napping as the two Star Force security officers questioned Veen at length, with no results. The Gnar was adamant that she had nothing to do with the bioweapon attack and was holding to her story, thinking that there was no possible proof to backtrack to her, and already demanding an official inquiry and that her people be informed of her imprisonment.
The Archon didn’t care about any of that, for he was already inside her mind and ferreting out the answers he needed, many of which were prompted by the questions being asked, with the true answer flashing in her mind so she could quickly avoid it, giving him plenty of threads to work with. It had been only 40 minutes since they’d begun questioning her, and only a few hours since he’d plucked her out of the Javvi region and brought her to one of the Star Force cities on the boundary strips, but already he had solved the riddle as to who was responsible for the attack…with him gathering up additional names and data as he made a thorough assessment of the intricate web these medtechs had woven.
Veen was one of a group of 16 from numerous races that had chosen to band together in the name of profit and, ostensibly, creating bioweapons to use in the defense of the ADZ. They’d conducted small scale attacks on individuals, assassinations and such to fuel their research, with this being the first large scale attack and pulled off in such a way to broadcast to all the shadow lurkers out there that they were in business and capable of delivering.
The Lacvamat had been chosen as a test in order to secure a contract with a wealthy, independent buyer who wanted an assortment of weapons created for him. The Critel apparently had a long running grievance with the avians and wanted them hurt, badly and publically, and Veen’s little syndicate had come through in that regard. Currently they were working on three new bioweapons for the buyer, as well as making subtle contacts with others through a network of shadow brokers, all the while keeping their identities a strict secret.
They hadn’t expected the Scionate to be fingered, or any wars to break out. They’d thought the attack would be untraceable and subsequently tolerated for lack of an enemy to strike back at. With the Lacvamat and Scionate now fighting an all-out war against one another Veen was worried about the future of their now blossoming profession, given that it appeared that Star Force didn’t have the manpower to curtail the fighting…but recent inquires by a number of new parties suggested that the fighting might actually spur a new clientele that wanted bioweapons with more immediate, battlefield applications.
Donn got the sense from her that such things were years off, and that it had taken her and their little group more than 15 years to develop the toxin-producing bacteria they’d used on the Lacvamat, with Veen being responsible for modifying them to specifically target their physiology. They didn’t have an arsenal of lethal weapons capable of ravaging populations, but they did have some very select and nasty little assassination weapons that they’d been using for some time now and Donn needed to identify what they were and where they were being produced/held…and that was taking him longer than he’d expected, for the Gnar’s mind was a touch more resistant than most.
Occasionally Donn would telepathically feed the security officers new questions, with Veen starting to get worried as they were getting more and more specific, wondering how exactly they knew what to ask and if one of the others had been
compromised…but she kept to her plea of innocence like a champ, completely unaware of the Archons’ mind reading abilities.
When he finished with her there were no further inquiries made, nor statements made to the public or notifications sent to her government. She was simply sent off to a prison facility and kept there under secrecy until Donn said otherwise. He and his team now had a laundry list of people to round up and facilities to hit, and he wasn’t about to give them a heads up that they were coming.
Once they cleaned this up they’d make public their findings and deal with that mess, but right now the hammer needed to drop and drop fast, with the travel lags going to be problematic. To that end he decided to split up his team into three groups, each which would head to different systems to round up the various individuals using ships commandeered for the occasion from what was in orbit. It took a couple of jumpships off their normal routes, one being a cargo ship and the other an ADZ transit ship, but he couldn’t wait and used his Archon authority, which was essentially limitless, to get his teams moving, with him taking the rover and heading to the furthest site on his hit list with Galia and two of the Kiritas.
Essentially isolated from the rest of the ADZ, the Hycre world in the Gavchi System contained some 18 billion inhabitants in what was a relatively underdeveloped world. There was little infrastructure in place to accommodate that many evacuees from the handpicked worlds in their original territory that had been abandoned, but since the Hycre preferred the atmospheric conditions on the more or less pristine world they were comfortably getting by with living in the open while additional facilities were slowing being built across the gas giant.
Orbit traffic was virtually nonexistent save for material shipments from mining sites elsewhere in the system and the occasional interstellar transports. The other races had no business to conduct here and Gavchi wasn’t on any of the current trade routes, making it an out of the way system in Gamma Region and well away from both fronts. There were some other threats in the area that existed below the Humans’ core region, but they were minor in comparison and didn’t require much of a defense fleet to keep subdued.