by Aer-ki Jyr
But fortunately that size of population also worked against the enemy, for conquering all of those cities and planets was going to take a lot of time unless the fleet was destroyed. If that happened the V’kit’no’sat could just park overhead and blast everything to bits without ever having to land ground troops…and that thought scared the crap out of her. She wished she could help with the building of new ships but that was outside her skillset, leaving her helpless to do anything other than train and worry.
A light knocking on the shower tube jolted her awake as she opened her eyes and twisted her head towards the sound, seeing Brad standing outside.
“Room for two in there?”
Jenn sighed. “Not today. I need some privacy.”
“Take your time,” Brad said with a knowing smile. “I’m here when you want me.”
Jenn tipped her head back against the curved wall and tried to think of nothing other than the raindrops on her head and sliding down her neck to the waterline, but Brad being back was making that harder even though he was out of sight.
Two months later…
“Brad!” Sarah yelled from the tiny living room in their quarters.
“What?” he asked, sleepily coming out of the other room where he and Jenn shared a bed, with Sarah camping out in a sleeping sleeve on the floor that was currently rolled up and stuffed into the corner.
“What’s happening?” she demanded, pointing at the vid screen on the wall near the door.
Brad looked at it and frowned, then his eyes widened in realization.
“They’re going at it.”
“Meaning what?”
“Our fleet is going after theirs. We got a lot more ships from somewhere and we’re pushing the offensive. If we can take them out they won’t be able to cover their ground troops.”
“So they could shoot them from the sky?”
“Yeah, but that big Mach’nel isn’t going to be easy to take down. Damn, it’s messing our ships up,” he said as the carnage of its superweapon plus the thousands of others around its hull were tearing up the huge, yet gnat-like drone fleet that seemed more interested in going after the other ‘small’ V’kit’no’sat ships. In fact, they weren’t attacking the Mach’nel at all.
“They’re stuck,” Brad said, pounding a fist on the wall excitedly. “They can’t retreat or we pound their guys on the surface. They have to fight here.”
“We’re losing so many ships,” Sarah said, seeing the counter continually decreasing like a game score. At least there were no people onboard those drone ships.
“It’s worth it,” Brad said, seeing the enemy hull damage. Their ships were so large they couldn’t be destroyed quickly, but several already had their shields down as the swarm of drones was totally engulfing them. There was nowhere they could run to without ramming into Star Force ships, but as they watched the V’kit’no’sat formation pulled in tighter and to one side of the Mach’nel, forcing the gnat swarm to face it directly on one side…which it didn’t do. They broke off their attack and swung around to double up against the ships on the other side.
The V’kit’no’sat adapted again, spreading out around the Mach’nel and getting in close to it at specific points to leave conduits open for it to fire through. If the drones tried to surround them again they’d have to move into those channels and get blown away.
But that didn’t happen either, for the drones avoided those channels and instead began weaving their way in between the V’kit’no’sat ships all the way up to the Mach’nel, but stopped just short. They kept at least one enemy hull between them and the massive ship and slugged it out with the rest of their fleet, daring the Mach’nel to fire its superweapon.
It didn’t, for shooting straight through a drone would hit the V’kit’no’sat ship behind it. Brad watching with glee as it stopped firing for over a minute, then managed a clean shot near to but missing one of their own. A few more precise shots opened up for them, but the repetitive beatdown that it had been putting on the drones earlier had been reduced down to manageable carnage.
“I think they might actually do it,” the ex-Commando said, mentally rooting them on.
“Can they really kill the big one?”
“They’re not trying to. They’re going for the rest.”
“What’s going on?” Jenn asked, coming out of the back room and bumping into the door jamb half asleep.
“We’re attacking the Dinosaur fleet,” Sarah said, not looking back at her.
“What? Why now?”
“Something changed, I don’t know what,” Brad said, “but they’re going at it hard.”
The three of them sat/stood around and watched the fighting for the next two hours, barely moving the entire time, up until the remains of the Star Force fleet suddenly broke off and retreated, leaving the Mach’nel and a scattering of other ships still intact.
“Did we lose?” Sarah asked.
“I’m not sure,” Brad said, looking through the statistics that were available on a side option. He walked over to the wall and used the menu to sift through what he wanted to see, frowning the whole time.
“It’s moving,” Jenn said as the big Mach’nel suddenly left the rest of its ships and headed in closer to Earth. The Star Force fleet immediately responded, heading back towards it as the superweapon opened up and fired down onto the planet. It didn’t hit shields, rather aiming for a recently exposed section of cityscape whose shield generator had been taken down by ground troops a few days ago.
The giant orange beam vaporized buildings on impact, kicking up a huge circular wave of destruction that expanded outward, soon followed by another a few dozen miles away. More followed as the Star Force fleet engaged the Mach’nel alone and started heavily pounding on its shields. Without the rest of the V’kit’no’sat ships, who had started drifting farther away, the Mach’nel was in a mismatch but it was so tough that it could take a lot of shots to the shields before they fell, during which they ravaged a select portion of the exposed planet’s surface.
Then when they tried to leave they were stuck in place by numerous interdictors creating an IDF field that nullified the Mach’nel’s engines. It then targeted them and killed a lot more drones up until it broke itself free and retreated back to where the other ships were, having its shields completely stripped away and a few weapons batteries damaged, but the armor on it was a rare type and incredibly hard to punch through…meaning it had only gotten scratched in the exchange for the damage done to the surface.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jenn said, covering her mouth.
“I hope those cities were evacuated,” Sarah added.
The battle reports suddenly highlighted something in a replay, showing a small spot on the Machn’nel that had taken major damage. They showed several drone warships ramming it after a heavy barrage…then even more destroying themselves in an almost vain attempt to damage the Mach’nel, for its armor was even resistant to their collisions. They were doing damage, but the first few didn’t even punch through the outer shell and the others simply disappeared inside the hull, being swallowed up by its insane mass and resulting in no visible explosions that one would expect.
“They got it?” Sarah asked, listening to the reporter say just that.
“Yeah they did,” Brad confirmed with a satisfied smile. “A trade for the damage to the cities. Their superweapon is out of commission. They won’t be able to fire outside of our planetary defense guns’ range again without it.”
“Still…” Jenn said, not sure if the tradeoff was worth it after seeing the damage done to the cities.
“That just bought us a lot more time. We can’t kill their fleet with that Mach’nel there, but it’ll take a while for them to repair the damage. Hopefully a long time.”
“They can fix that?” Sarah asked incredulous.
“The files said they have factories inside that can make about anything, and the majority of the weapon is buried beneath the hull. They probably just br
oke the outer part.”
“How long?” Jenn asked.
“That’s miles of damage, so it won’t be quick.”
“What now?”
“Maintain the standoff and keep evacuating, I’d guess. Maybe the trailblazers have another plan, but I’m pretty sure that came off better for us than the V’kit’no’sat.”
“If there were people down there…”
“Those nearest the battlelines would have been the first ones evacuated to other parts of Earth. You know that.”
“I hope so. What about the troops?”
Brad’s face soured. “We probably lost some, but most would still be under the protection of the planetary shield unless they were in combat. The V’kit’no’sat won’t have fired on their own troops, but odds are we at least had some scouts down there…if not more.”
“I want out of here so bad,” Jenn said, closing her eyes.
“We all do,” Sarah echoed. “Every hour that goes by more get out. Our time is coming.”
That time didn’t come for another year, and by then the V’kit’no’sat had taken over or destroyed most of South America along with huge sections of the ocean colonies on either side. A month prior to the ships coming to Mars the swimming Dinosaurs had pushed all the way up to the Antarctica coastline where they established a foothold for the land troops to follow. A massive fight had occurred to get them that little bit of land and they had to pay a high price to take and keep it, but as of the first dropship landing in their Martian city the V’kit’no’sat were working their way out from the coastline in the long march towards the site of the Star Force-operated V’kit’no’sat pyramid that held their superweapon.
The trio rode up on another jam-packed dropship, but this time the journey was what the dropships were meant for…going up above the atmosphere and transferring their passengers to a larger ship. This one was a starship along with many others, most of which were civilian models, but the one they were taken to was a Star Force cargo ship and upon landing in one of the gigantic hangar bays they were hurried down and off the ramp with the dropship immediately taking off again, headed back down to Mars.
The same was true for hundreds of others coming and going from the hangar bay as the evacuees were herded into a series of huge doors that led further inside the ship…to the cargo bays. Their size dwarfed the hangars, with the trio walking into a room that was more than a mile high up to the ceiling and filled with portable housing modules stacked into crate mountains.
“Wow,” Sarah said, taking it all in.
“Stay together,” Brad urged as they and others were being waved forward into processing lines where they’d get their quarters assignments for the duration of the journey…which would only end up being a little more than a day after several spent loading people up. They headed in to the sun and used its massive gravity well to give their engines the push needed to travel between stars, then launched themselves off on the jumpline towards the Epsilon Eridani System, a mere 10.5 lightyears away, and the second most developed star system in the empire.
It was also a Human system, but one with an ally present and living in a gas giant. The Hycre were a very odd type of alien lifeform and not a part of Star Force, but they had been the only reason Star Force had survived when the lizard war began and even though the Human-led empire had quickly surpassed them, they still remained close allies and shared a bit of this system.
The rest of it was all Star Force and heavily industrialized. There were plenty of shipyards here churning out more drone warships along with a huge population that they were apparently going to be added to. Jenn especially had hoped they’d be going further away, but as of now there were no V’kit’no’sat in the system and a huge defense fleet waiting here for whenever they eventually came.
Breathing room at last, but there were still a whole lot of people back in the Sol that had to be evacuated…and if they came here, where would everyone go if the V’kit’no’sat followed?
Even Brad didn’t know that, but for the moment they were safely away from the war and that was what mattered most…though it wouldn’t last.
6
December 21, 3604
Epsilon Eridani System
Arrakis
As big as the Epsilon Eridani System was, it was able to handle the incoming evacuees with ease, though Duke Avril also had a head start in preparing to handle more while Sol had waited to get hit by the V’kit’no’sat again. When Jenn, Sarah, and Brad arrived in the system they were sent to a processing facility and then onto a small starship that took them out to the distant desert planet of Arrakis.
Aptly named for scifi lore, it was a huge desert world, but a cold one. It wasn’t completely colonized, with vast tracks of barren wilderness still visible from orbit, but slightly less now than of a few years ago given the massive expansion of pre-fabricated city structures. They were being built quickly, cheaply, but were solid and effective as all Star Force infrastructure was. They weren’t flashy, but when the evacuees got there the inside was almost like a normal city, just a lot more blan without all the ostentation that habitation for centuries often resulted in.
All three were given separate quarters, but arranged to have them side by side with one another. There were plenty to go around so they didn’t have to double up, but they were all level 1 quarters in order to pack as many into the quick built cities as possible. Jenn and Sarah still chose to share one though, with Brad giving them badly needed breathing room by staying in his. The other was left vacant but still assigned to Jenn, and it didn’t look like it was going to be needed by anyone else anytime soon.
Evacuees were coming in regularly to add to the population, but this was just one of many locations throughout the system that were specifically built to handle them. That said, there was a multitude of quarters spread across multiple planets that could also absorb people, so right now there was no population crunch going on, but it wasn’t until a few days ago that they learned more systems aside from Sol were being evacuated here.
There were no other attacks yet, for the V’kit’no’sat were still putting all their ships into their ongoing attack on Earth, but smaller Star Force systems along the enemy’s route to get to Earth were being slowly redirected here, prompting an ongoing discussion.
“Another group just came in,” Brad said as he walked into the girls’ quarters and found both watching the vid screen, Jenn perched on a stool and Sarah in a cushy single chair. “This time from Metti.”
“Metti now?” Sarah said with a sign. “Are they expecting every system to fall?”
“I think that’s the idea,” Brad said, leaning against the wall.
“Did you talk to any of them?” Jenn asked.
“Yeah I did. They don’t know much either, but they’re glad to be here. The defenses in Metti are pathetic compared to what Avril has built up.”
“Didn’t stop them in Sol, and that’s our capitol. You really think we can hold out here?”
“You’re forgetting all the ships we’re killing. They’ll have to bring more in to hit us here, a lot more. Then it’ll cost them huge again to take Epsilon Eridani and every other system they hit. Unless they keep bringing in constant reinforcements their own success will doom them. They’re going to run out of ships so long as we keep hammering them everywhere they go.”
“Think they’ll finish off Earth first?” Sarah wondered.
“I don’t know, but there’s a lot more in Sol than Earth for them to hack their way through.”
“So you think they’ll move us again?” Jenn asked.
“Not for a while. Most ships are probably pulling people out of Sol. When they’re freed up, yeah, I think they’ll move us again.”
“Plus everyone else already here? That’ll take even longer.”
“And where do we go?” Sarah added. “Where’s safe that we can flee to?”
“Away from the fighting. Make them keep hammering through system after system until they lose thei
r appetite for it. Maybe force a stalemate. Their empire is huge and they could kill us all if they wanted, but how high a price are they willing to pay to do it? Maybe if we just slow them down enough, hurt them enough, they’ll be satisfied with taking Earth back and not make a serious attempt to take any more systems.”
“Star Force said they’re going to try and kill us all,” Sarah reminded him.
“I have no doubt they want to, but do they have enough ships to do it with.”
“You mean are they willing to send that many of their people to die to do it,” Jenn corrected. “Their ships have Dinosaurs on them, right?”
“Yes. Usually they’re so big they don’t get destroyed, but we can kill them and they know it now. How important is destroying us to them really? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows for sure, but I can promise you the Archons are going to make it very hard for them to finish the job and we’ve got such a large empire it will take them more than a century to do it if they really want to. And they’ll be losing ships and ground troops all the way. If they try to do it with just their navy our planetary defenses will eat them alive. They have to use the same penetrate and spread strategy, and that takes time. A lot of time.”
“Time for us to keep moving?” Sarah said, seeing the Star Force strategy there. “Has this been planned all along?”
“I would assume so. The trailblazers knew the threat, and if some Commandos knew, then all the Archons did. This war has been in the planning since the beginning by us. It’s the V’kit’no’sat that are new to it, and I get the feeling they’re not used to dealing with this much resistance.”
“Did you find a job,” Jenn asked, “or did that guy just want to talk?”
“I got a job, and if you’re willing I can use both of you.”
“Anything,” Sarah said, totally bored of just training and sitting, despite their freedom of movement to other parts of Arrakis. Playing tourist got old quick enough, and both she and Jenn wanted something constructive to do.”