Star Force: Internecine (SF55)

by Jyr, Aer-ki

  What the Lacvamat were doing to the Scionate had nothing to do with a bioweapon. They’d been the major contender of the quadrupeds for dominance over internal ADZ matters while the big three were focusing on the fronts to keep everyone safe, including the Hammids, who had been devoting a steady supply of resources to the Protovic in lieu of sending their own people into battle. The anti-air capability of the Skarrons would be a literal death sentence to them, and the lizards were not much better.

  During the defensive battles they’d fought, the lizards had slaughtered the Hammids save for when they had overwhelmingly superior numbers. If it wasn’t for Star Force and the Hycre helping them relocate to the ADZ they would have been wiped out long ago. They knew they couldn’t fight either enemy directly, so they’d decided to wage war on the resource front and had been doing so ever since the ADZ had been created.

  But now was different. The Lacvamat were jeopardizing everyone with their bloodlust and the big three couldn’t pull troops away from the front to stop it. Despite Star Force’s warnings of consequences for getting involved, the Hammids had decided to take matters into their own hands and come to the defense of the Scionate…as well as to make the Lacvamat pay in a way that no other race could, avian to avian.

  As Nammti flew with the others they corkscrewed their way down, forming numerous tornado-like spires that hit the topside of the Lacvamat formation, attracting the attention of their fighters. Some of the Hammids’ own Valeries moved to intercept the flying boomerangs, but some small carnage couldn’t be helped as the Lacvamat fighters unloaded scatterguns on the descending flyers. Their shields saved many of them from small hits that would have winged or killed them on contact, but those that took the brunt of the fighters’ attack were turned into puffs of feathers and burning flesh.

  Knowing that there was nothing she could do about it Nammti took her chances and continued descending with the others down into the Lacvamat swarms, charging her two tiny plasma pistols located on either leg as she stretched her short arms down and pressed the activation levers. The Hammids were flying quadrupeds, but when in air they were mostly wings and beak, keeping their appendages tucked up underneath their elongated bodies for maximum aerodynamics. Nammti’s pistols were ankle bracelets with loops around her four claws that allowed for firing and weapons control, now that she’d hit the ‘on’ switches.

  Knowing that she wanted to take the Lacvamat down as quickly as possible she triggered the holding charge, which contained and grew a tiny plasma burst so that when she finally did drop down on the back of one of the disgusting fleshy flyers she literally touched the back of it with her two short legs and unloaded one of the pistols’ charge into it.

  The Lacvamat dropped into a death spiral as soon as the blue plasma discharged, burning a hole through its thin torso armor and either killing or wounding it, Nammti didn’t know, but it was out of the fight and she flew towards the next one headed in a similar direction, with many more zipping by on alternate trajectories in a jumbled, chaotic mess that the Hammid found to be neither. She was used to flying in thick, complex swarms…at least more so than the Lacvamat were, which gave her an easy second kill as she came up on one of them that was distracted trying to shoot from its chest launcher horizontally at another Hammid.

  Nammti tagged it on its exposed head, burning a hole into the left side of its double skull and dropping it down through the air while she dodged another dead Lacvamat coming down from above as her two pistols began to charge up again. She flew evasively until they were, then went about poaching more targets as her kin did the same.

  Though she couldn’t see it, the Scionate on the ground were ducking for cover wherever they could find it on the tree-dotted savanna as the corpses fell more rapidly than the Lacvamat’s purple energy orbs. Both races were falling out of the sky as the fierce aerial battle escalated, but it was clear that the majority of those being killed were the Lacvamat, with their heavier bodies thunking the ground and often the Scionate as they got hit falling from above, whereas the Hammids fell softer, dotting the landscape with burning feathers rather than seared flesh.

  Unable to fire up at the maelstrom the Scionate were left with nothing to do other than run and hide for fear of hitting their allies…but that didn’t matter, they were grateful for the distraction and used it to either get to nearby cover or to push ahead to the grounded Lacvamat transports and hit them on the surface while the two aerial races were so consumed with each other they virtually forgot about the troops on the ground.

  Never before had these two races fought against one another, but within minutes it was clear that the Lacvamat were at a serious disadvantage. The Hammids had never been considered a serious military power, with their starships and tech being on the lower end of the ADZ hierarchy, but where the Lacvamat were usually the more agile and dominated the skies over the groundpounders the Hammids took that away from them…and couldn’t function without it. So used to being nearly impervious to infantry attacks high up in the sky they were completely caught off guard by the Hammids’ agility and ferocity.

  The normally tranquil race was coming at them with an anger that could not be explained and that had rarely been seen before, and they were showing far more skill in flight combat than they should have had given their pacifistic racial philosophy. The Lacvamat knew they’d sided with the Scionate prior to this invasion, but they hadn’t expected anything like this. Being the larger and stronger of the two they’d expected to own the little ‘birds’ in the sky, but that was not the case at all.

  Within hours the Lacvamat began evacuating their troops off the planet, completely unable to contend with the Hammids in the air and attempting to go after their ships in orbit, but what was left of the Scionate fleet guarded them intently, often sacrificing themselves to keep their new allies safe, and together they pushed the Lacvamat invasion fleet off the planet and out of the system, for while they still had more warships in play they were so stunned by the reversal they became stupid and didn’t use what they had available or they could have possibly retained control of orbit.

  Though that wouldn’t have mattered if they couldn’t make any gains on the ground, so they turned tail and ran…and ran hard, with the Gnar going with them and being equally perplexed as to how they’d lost the ground campaign against the ‘benevolent’ Hammids.

  Admiral Victor watched all this from afar, not knowing what was going on down on the planet, and being equally perplexed as to how the Lacvamat had been driven off of Night’s Veil. He didn’t feel right about asking the Scionate after his fleet had been sitting out the fight, so he didn’t discover what had happened until months later when the rest of the ADZ was informed through indirect means and word filtered back to the Skarron front where he was taking the new warships into battle to help secure one of the remaining Dvapp worlds under significant assault.

  8

  November 11, 2553

  Solar System

  Earth

  When Davis saw the message packet come in from Donn he skipped over the other items on his notification panel and pulled up the long overdue update…which he quickly discovered was not an update, but a mission end summary. The Director read through it slowly but eagerly, line by line revealing the full nature of the bioweapon attack’s creators and financier, who’d been the last individual that Donn’s team had apprehended.

  According to the report they’d made a clean sweep of all 16 high level medtechs who were part of the privateer unit that had created the bioweapon without the others being alerted, then finally they’d picked up the Critel who’d paid for the attack, with all those involved taken to the nearest Star Force prison facility for holding until they determined what to do with them. Donn stated that he wasn’t going to get into that and the length of prison sentence he was leaving to Davis along with all other loose ends as he got back to the front…unless Davis required anything further from him.

  Included in the packet was a thorough explanation of the
nature of the wayward medical unit and their activities, including several assassinations that Donn had pulled from psionic interrogations. It was also noted that the group intended to develop bioweapons for use against the Skarrons and lizards, ostensibly for the defense of the ADZ, but even if that was the case you don’t practice by killing your own people.

  Bioweapons had long been a sticking point with Star Force. Many races preferred using them opposed to sending in troops of their own, but history had showed that whenever they did and the enemy found out it usually caused more trouble than it was worth because they’d be targeted with an even harder reprisal. Now that was from races that fought each other regularly and only did so haphazardly, not an all-out war like the Skarrons were waging. Tick them off all you wanted, it couldn’t get much worse as far as their intent was concerned.

  Star Force didn’t use them because they and chemical weapons were considered ‘dirty’ weapons by the Archons. Davis was less opposed to using them in certain circumstances, in the way of disabling rather than killing, such as gassing a target in order to render everyone there unconscious, but the Archons were adamant that they weren’t going to fight that way. Davis didn’t entirely understand why, but he agreed with them on most points and bowed to their wisdom on the differences.

  But Star Force did have a bioweapons program, and a beefy one at that, so they could design and test defenses against the very weapons they were building. The Archons knew the danger of such weapons and they wanted as many immunities against them as they could get, but there was a strict ban on ever using any of the bioweapons and likewise Star Force had banned them from the ADZ as well. Davis knew that didn’t mean there weren’t bioweapons out there, but the races or groups that had them had to keep them secret else Star Force would come and take them away, along with instituting heavy penalties.

  But Davis knew the idea of creating bioweapons to fight the Skarrons was going to be something many races would favor in lieu of sending troops to the front. He wasn’t going to advertise that that had been one of the aims of this rogue group, but he had to be prepared if it came out anyway…or if the bioweapon attack gave others the same idea. He didn’t think it would be an easy fix, for the Skarrons and lizards undoubtedly had the tech to counter such weapons after the fact.

  But it was the lingering thought that, with the pyramid database, Star Force might be able to develop a neutralizing weapon against the Skarrons that would cover the loss of the Scionate. Something they could seed into the atmospheres of the contended planets that would render those who breathed it in unconscious, and tailor it to the Skarron and Hobbit physiologies.

  It wouldn’t affect their walkers or aircraft, but any unarmored ground troops would be neutralized shortly after landing. In fact, the more Davis thought about it the better an idea it seemed, and as he was writing up the press release for the bioweapon attack investigation results he couldn’t shake that something was off. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something he wasn’t seeing.

  There weren’t any trailblazers in Sol at the moment, aside from those in deep training and he didn’t want to bother them so he held off for a couple of days, trying to think it through on his own.

  Killing through bioweapons was usually gruesome, for people didn’t have an off switch and killing them required causing damage of some kind despite myths to the contrary. But even if there was a magical kill gas that just eliminated opponents without damage it would be an area of effect weapon, meaning you just targeted an area and all those within it would be effected…which meant you didn’t really know who you were killing, and that inaccuracy was something the Archons would never tolerate, nor would Davis.

  Bioweapons could be tailored to kill individuals, either by genetic identity or through delivery method, such as a dart as opposed to a gas. But again that left the question as to why you were fighting. Star Force didn’t fight to kill, they fought to neutralize threats, which was why so many stun weapons had been created to supplement their lethal ones…but even the lethal ones weren’t kill machines. They could wound an opponent without killing them, whereas a bioweapon just killed.

  Then there was the surrender option. Star Force wanted to neutralize threats, and if they chose to surrender or otherwise stop being a threat that accomplished the goal and there was no need to kill them. Bioweapons didn’t allow for that, essentially being a death sentence when employed and unable to be rescinded if the situation changed. Even if a counteragent was devised there would be a lag in implementing it, and that sort of thing was needlessly sloppy to the point that Davis would have objected even if the Archons hadn’t.

  But that still brought him back to the stun issue…if bioweapons could be made to stun and not kill, why not develop and use them?

  It bugged Davis so much that he went ahead and sent a message to Jason, not knowing if or when he’d respond given the intense training he was undergoing, but not wanting to wait for the delay that sending a message out of the star system would entail.

  It took all of 9 hours before Davis got a response that, in typical trailblazer fashion, cleared up the ambiguity that was plaguing him.

  IT’S ABOUT CONTROL. ALL OUR WEAPONS ARE TAILORED TO OUR ABILITY TO DECIDE WHEN AND WHERE TO USE THEM AND OCCUR IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, MEASURED IN SECONDS. A BIOWEAPON IS NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL AFTER RELEASE, NOR CAN WE RECALL IT. IT IS ESSENTIALLY POISONING THE LOCATION RATHER THAN ATTACKING, AND WHEN YOU DO THAT YOU ARE HOPING THAT FUTURE EVENTS ARE TO YOUR LIKING WHEN YOU NO LONGER HAVE CONTROL OVER THEM.

  THE POISIONING COULD AFFECT SOMETHING ELSE, OR COMBINE INTO A NEW COMPOUND WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS. IT IS UNPREDICTABLE IN THAT IT IS NOT 100% PREDICTABLE. BIOLOGY IS BASED ON ADAPTATION AND CHANGE, AND ANY BIOWEAPON PRODUCED WOULD HAVE A SIMILAR EFFECT. CHEMICAL WEAPONS WOULDN’T, BUT THEY CAN CHANGE AND ALTER BY ACCIDENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS. A SMART ENEMY COULD DELIVER A COMPOUND THAT CHANGES YOUR OWN ENVIRONMENTAL POISONING INTO A WEAPON AGAINST YOU OR OTHERS.

  BOTTOM LINE IS WE’RE NOT GOING TO USE WEAPONS THAT COULD CAUSE MORE HAVOC THAN WE INTEND THEM TO. AS FAR AS STUNNING ENEMY TROOPS EN MASS, USING ENERGY-BASED STUNS IN LARGE SCALE IS IN DEVELOPMENT, BUT THE POWER REQUIREMENTS ARE HEAVY. WE CAN’T TAILOR THE ENERGY TO ONLY AFFECT CERTAIN RACES, BUT WE CAN INCLUDE DESTUNNING ELEMENTS INTO OUR ARMOR SO WE COULD, IN THEORY, STUN AN ENTIRE CITY AND HAVE OUR TROOPS WAKE BACK UP WITHIN MOMENTS WHILE THE ENEMY REMAINS DOWN FOR HOURS.

  SATURATION IS THE CURRENT ISSUE, BUT USE ON AN OPEN BATTLEFIELD WOULD NOT BE AFFECTED. WE ARE DEVELOPING A DROP POD FOR THAT BUT SO FAR IT’S NOT LOOKING TO BE ECONOMICAL ENOUGH GIVEN THE SIZE OF THE TECH WE’RE NEEDING TO USE. EVENTUALLY WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEVELOP STUN NUKES, BUT THE LARGER THE RADIUS THE MORE POWER IS REQUIRED AND THE MORE THE ENERGY DISSIPATES.

  WE CONTROL THE STUN ENERGY, BUT WE WOULDN’T CONTROL A STUN BIOWEAPON. IT WOULD LINGER WHERE THE ENERGY DOES NOT. THAT COULD PROVE ADVANTAGEOUS IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT OUR SPIDEY SENSES ARE TINGLING WITH POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS THAT WE DON’T WANT TO MESS WITH, SO WE’RE STICKING WITH CONTROLLABLE WEAPONS.

  Why Davis hadn’t seen that earlier he didn’t know, but after reading it he mentally facepalmed, shaking his head and eternally grateful for having the trailblazers to help him run Star Force. They had a clarity of vision and purpose that complimented his perfectly, and now it was time for him to make good on his half of the equation.

  With now 5 races involved in this growing internal ADZ war he needed to stop the others from jumping into the mix, and there were rumors of several being on the fence in that regard. He highly doubted those already fighting would stop when he revealed the truth about the bioweapon, but hopefully a little light shed on the true course of events would restore some sanity.

  But Davis also realized that this conflict might need to run its course. He’d kept the various races bottled up within Star Force restrictions to the point where he knew there was considerable hostility between them beneath the surface and it seemed like now that they though
t they had an opening with the front limiting Star Force’s ability to intervene they were going to make up for lost time and have it out.

  The more they did so the weaker the ADZ became, but it could also be turned into an advantage in the long term…if they managed to hold the Skarrons and lizards off that long. Axius was already taking a bite out of the multi-racial dominance in the ADZ, increasing Star Force’s population by leaps and bounds while attracting many of the best individuals from the varying races to what was proving to be a better way of life. Also, until recently, it had been the place to go if you wanted to fight and had attracted a lot of the top warriors…who to their credit hadn’t abandoned their posts and were still fighting on the front.

  That said, Star Force was still only 11% of the ADZ population and several races, such as the Reen, were multiplying so fast that the dynamic was always in a constant state of flux. Already they had contacted Davis requesting what he wanted them to do to help, for they had no military of their own, and were eager to curry favor in return for more territorial allotments. They assumed that the penalties being handed down for those fighting would include territorial losses and they wanted in on the redistribution if possible.

  They knew the key to dominance in the ADZ was population growth, and to accommodate that they needed more territory. Star Force had asserted that all worlds within the ADZ boundaries were theirs to divvy up, regardless of whether or not they’d colonized them, and to date they’d made that assertion stick with the backing of the Hycre and Protovic, otherwise there would have been an insane territorial grab with more fighting happening over that, he imagined. He didn’t trust the Reen, who obviously had their own agenda, but for the moment they were behaving themselves and playing by the rules, hoping to gain advantage in this chaotic war.