by Aer-ki Jyr
“A lot of people want additional weapons and hand to hand training, but the upper level maturias are overloaded. That Critel is part of a private organization looking to fill the gap for a pittance of credits. They’re looking to make a profit but they know better than to try and gut people when maturia training is free, and they’ve just given me command of another training unit they’re starting up. I get to choose a staff, and you’re my first two picks if you want.”
“Yes,” both of them said in unison.
“Good. When’s the last time you two ate?”
“A few hours ago,” Jenn said.
“Let’s swing by the cafeteria then we’ll get to work.”
“Today?”
“There’s high demand and the quicker we can get our unit set up the better.”
“How many people?”
“1800, and we need as many staff as necessary to handle that number. I’ve been given a 100 credit a day stipend for the staff to split up as I deem necessary. I’ve opted not to take any myself, but I want both of you to.”
“Wow,” Sarah said, wide eyed. “How many staff are you going to get for that?”
“Don’t know. We’ve got recruiting to do and a long list of volunteers to sort through.”
“I’ll bet,” Jenn said, knowing that other evacuees were just as bored and frustrated as them. “Thanks.”
Brad waved off the appreciation with a flick of his hand. “Save it. You two aren’t trained beyond the basic maturia, so you’re going to have to learn as I teach you and then make sure the rest of the staff carry out my orders exactly. This is going to be about repetition and skill, and you two I need to insure the repetition while I’m handling the instruction.”
“Repetition I’m well familiar with,” Jenn said with a nod.
“Need a receptionist?” Sarah floated. “I’ve got more experience with handling people than she does.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but it’s going to be about the same thing. You’re going to handle the non-Humans.”
“I can do that,” she said, having dealt with mostly Humans but also a lot of other races visiting Earth.
“Let’s go, we’ll talk over the details as we eat.”
Jenn and Sarah raised their arms up and fist bumped, glad to finally have something to do, then hopped up out of their chairs and followed Brad out of the tiny set of quarters where they’d be spending little time going forward other than sleeping. The need for training was exploding in Epsilon Eridani more than they even realized, and their Critel owners were interested in creating as intense a program as possible, knowing that their customers all had their basic training during their maturia years so there wouldn’t be a big issue with integration.
And even a tenth or a twentieth of a credit per day fee would add up to a lot when you ended up with thousands of training units spread across rented facilities throughout the system. Profit was always a motive, but gathering profit while doing something beneficial for the empire was a double win, for Star Force had the most economic opportunities in this region of the galaxy by far, with many races beyond their borders having established ties specifically to get access to the Star Force markets.
Over the following months more people kept coming in from Sol and other places along with delayed but detailed news reports on the conquest of Earth. Star Force was making them pay for every mile they took all the way up to the Antarctic pyramid, then they stopped their advance and began fanning out into adjacent areas and slowly destroying all the cities nearby without getting within weapons range.
They did make the mistake of getting within shield range, for even once that section of the planetary defense shields were down the pyramid threw up its own V’kit’no’sat designed shield over a large section of Antarctica at extremely low altitude, nearly touching building tops in some cases. That made it hard for the Pterodactyls and other fliers, along with the Zen’zat gunships and their own small fighter craft, to move about and made the mechs all the more dangerous to them for the flyers couldn’t gain altitude to escape, confined to flying along the ground else they hit and bounce off the underside of the flat shield wall.
However, Star Force aerial craft were being given gaps in the shield that they could race through almost at will. The temporary doorways allowed them to escape pursuit over top the very thin barrier as well as fly across enemy troop formation below and drop down behind them. As a result, huge concentrations of aerial craft had gathered over Antarctica and were assisting ground troops in a very hard fought defense even before the enemy got within weapons range of the pyramid.
It was a far higher concentration of troops than Brad had seen to date, and he thought that was probably due to the fact that the shield would protect them from any run in from the V’kit’no’sat warships in orbit…and maybe even their superweapon if they’d gotten it working again. If they had they hadn’t shown it, but then again he had no idea how strong the pyramid shield was, though by the actions of the Star Force military it seemed they had confidence in it.
Heavy fighting was the daily staple in the news reports and he made time to review them each day, but the ample time he had previously was gone now. Busy as he was organizing his training unit, he spent 12 hours a day with them and another 2 for his personal training, leaving him 10 hours for sleeping and everything else, though not straight. His 12 hours were broken up into pieces, leaving him a maximum of 6 hours straight for sleeping.
The actual day cycle of the planet was 28 hours, but since everyone was indoors they kept to the Earth standard 24 hour day. If the exterior of the planet had been habitable to the point where people actually went outside they would have adjusted to it, but between the cold and thinner than comfortable atmosphere, the desert was treated almost as if it was vacuum, meaning almost everything that mattered happened indoors where people never had to even taste the outside air for the length of their entire lives if they so wished.
Despite the hectic schedule Brad made sure to keep up with what was happening on Earth, and after a long, hard fight to close on the pyramid he saw something that completely baffled his mind. The Dinosaurs were big enough already, but special units began showing up that had them truly monstrous in size, some of which massed more than 20 times normal and towered over the standard Star Force mechs.
Most of what the news reports were identifying as ‘Ultras’ were long-necked Dinosaurs, but none were Brontosaurus. They looked similar, but were actually different races. Others ultras were races that were likewise large, quadruped, and could carry a lot of equipment. All of the ultras had on full body armor head to tail, but they had additional machinery on them making them look very different from the nimble ground troops that Star Force had grown accustomed to fighting by now.
What all that equipment ended up being were shield generators, and when the V’kit’no’sat finally moved within weapons range of the pyramid the ultras led the way in a mad charge across the ruined crater where the surprise attack on the V’kit’no’sat fleet had blown apart the cityscape on top of the pyramid. That slowed their approach, but they had so many Dinosaurs assembled into four different assault lines, one each for the sides of the pyramid, that even when the ultras’ extra shields fell prior to them reaching the green/black stone the columns of enemy troops could not be stopped.
Nearby mechs and aerial craft punished them, but they barely even bothered to shoot back for the greatest threat were the point defense weapons in the pyramid that the V’kit’no’sat themselves had designed and built long ago. They knew they were going to have to take losses just to get up to the pyramid, so they weren’t going to waste time being slowed down by the Star Force mechs…not even the bigger ones that tried to block their path and which the ultras simply bashed aside with huge telekinetic fields.
Some were actually lifted off their feet and torn apart by the invisible energy fields, making it abundantly clear that the tightly packed V’kit’no’sat formation was far more deadly than expected.
Brad finally realized that they were also combining their telekinetic power and lifting/tearing the same targets simultaneously, meaning any mechs within range were getting squashed like tin cans…except for certain types that seemed impervious to the invisible assaults.
The ex-Commando hadn’t known the mechs had countermeasures like that, but it made sense. His old armor had carried the same, though the idea of a person being powerful enough to tear apart a mech was more than he ever expected…but then again, those ultras were so big that whatever part of their bodies produced the telekinetic fields had to be more massive as well, and where psionics were concerned size of tissue did matter.
The charge to the pyramid happened fast compared to the fighting that had preceded it, for if Star Force had been able to delay their approach then the pyramid defenses would have killed every single one of the Dinosaurs and he assumed they knew it too, for they were fully determined to get to the lowest of the visible stair step tiers, after which they were still not safe, but some weapons now could not target them due to the angle of attack.
Others could and the carnage up close was gruesome despite the shields and armor all the V’kit’no’sat wore as they attacked the weapons batteries themselves, trying to take them out rather than shooting the armor of the pyramid. Brad saw misses hit it and do no damage, simply being absorbed by the stone.
One by one the weapons in certain areas of the miles wide pyramid were eliminated and the surviving V’kit’no’sat now had blind spots to hide within. Most of the ultras made it into those areas, though heavily wounded. A few others weren’t so lucky, being killed and blown to bits by the nearly pointblank defensive fire that was so effective there was no chance of them being revived later.
But while there were blind spots on the perimeter so long as the V’kit’no’sat held close to the pyramid, the mechs outside could move around as much as they liked shooting the wounded V’kit’no’sat where they could and hammering the others as the enemy ranks continued to thin. Wave after wave of aircraft flew in through holes in the overhead shield while the V’kit’no’sat fliers had never come within range, knowing they would be shot down so fast over the pyramid as to be useless, so right now Star Force also had air superiority and were doing everything they could to kill the Dinosaurs that were holding in the best defensive formation they could and with the ultras’ shield generators that were still functioning recharging and dropping defensive walls all the way to the ground that the mechs were hard pressed to punch through on their own.
Brad couldn’t watch it all straight through, for there wasn’t time, so he kept checking in occasionally over the following days as a hole was bored through the super hard armor exterior that was cited as being the same material as used on the enemy’s giant Mach’nel warships. As soon as the breach was large enough, pods on some of the ultras and others opened up and the Zen’zat inside came out, diving through the hole and getting inside the pyramid before the cutting resumed in order to get the breach large enough for the bigger races to enter.
7
February 3, 3605
Epsilon Eridani System
Arrakis
“Brad,” Jenn said when he walked into her quarters, “it’s starting.”
He turned to look at the vid screen and listened for a moment while reading the substories, but it didn’t take long to get the gist of what she was referring to. Earth wasn’t even conquered yet, but the V’kit’no’sat were already moving out to hit other systems. Not in any full blown invasions, but enough to disrupt traffic and hunt down any unescorted ships, evacuation or otherwise, that chose to come out from the protected planets.
“It’s a blockade. They’re trying to isolate the nearby systems.”
“What does that mean for us?”
“If they try to come into this system they’re going to get their asses kicked, but some of the others don’t have large enough fleets to do the same. They’re going to try to force a naval fight beyond planetary defenses, and if we don’t take the bait they’re going to sit at the stars and poach incoming traffic. It means we fight them on their terms or the blockade shuts down commerce.”
“And the evacuation…”
“The trailblazers won’t let that happen.”
“What are they going to do? The V’kit’no’sat keep bringing in more ships.”
“So do we, and we’ll start moving in armed convoys if necessary. Their ships are faster than ours, so unless we get a big head start they’ll run us down, but if we travel with warships they’ll have to fight on the run and that gets tricky. I’m not a naval officer, but I know standing and slugging it out is how you do the most damage. If you keep making microjumps, you’re in and out of targeting range constantly. It’s a different type of game that I’m not familiar with.”
“This is a game to you?”
“Commando slang, don’t read into it.”
“Hard not to. What if we were on one of those evacuation ships in the ‘game’ you’re saying is about to be played?”
“The trailblazers are good at winning games,” he reminded Jenn. “They’re not going to send convoys with only a chance of getting through. I’d feel fairly safe.”
“You’re alone in that.”
“Where’s Sarah?”
“She left an hour ago, not sure where. Think she might have herself a boyfriend.”
“About time.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning you’ve got me and she doesn’t. Not in all aspects, anyway.”
“About that, are you…” she began, but his attention was caught by a news update…one stating that the pyramid on Earth had finally fell to the Dinosaurs and that the remaining Star Force troops were evacuating beyond its weapons range, though reports indicated that they’d sabotaged everything internally that they could, so they expected them to be able to run without getting shot in the back.
“Damn it,” Brad said, shaking his head. “They did well to hold out that long, but there goes our superweapon and the strongest battlefort in the empire.”
“Did you expect them to hold out?”
“That was our best chance of anywhere on Earth, now the rest of the fight is going to be constant delaying withdrawals trying to bleed as many V’kit’no’sat troops as they can. It needs done, but that’s not a fun way to fight. You know you’re going to lose and are just trying to hold everything together so you don’t lose super bad.”
“Glad you got out when you did?”
“Yes and no. I’m glad I’m not fighting there now, but a part of me disagrees with that and probably always will.”
“Once a Commando, always a Commando?”
“You don’t fight as many battles as I have and just turn it off. Those skills, instincts, and experiences are still a part of me. I can’t unlearn it, nor would I want to, but fighting these V’kit’no’sat has to be a whole lot harder than the lizards and I can only imagine what that’s like,” he said, visibly grimacing. “And getting your ass kicked isn’t a nice way to learn.”
“How long do you think Earth has left?”
“If it keeps going like it is, years, but if they bring in a lot more ground troops that number gets cut down considerably. Then there’s all the other planets in Sol. It’s not going to completely fall for a long time so long as they have naval support. If that dries up then everyone there is going to die, civilian and warrior alike.”
“It’s all about naval, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t they teach you that in the maturia?” Brad wondered, having been born long before she did and not knowing what might have changed over the years.
“Yes, but it never really sunk in until lately how bad they have us outmatched. If we run out of drones it becomes a slaughter?”
“A delayed slaughter for planets with heavy defenses, but without naval cover there’s no way to evacuate anyone and once the enemy sizes up your capabilities it’s just a matter of waiting for the necessary troop levels to arrive and
overwhelm you. Without the ability to change your forces’ status, defensive positions get predictably whittled down.”
“Is there anything that we can do? I mean Star Force, not you and me.”
“Keep the game changing and not let them know what we have. Make them either come in with overwhelming numbers, the kind of which they haven’t shown in their reinforcement streams, or risk picking a fight with unknown foes that they might end up losing. If they have enough to do the former its game over. If they risk a closer margin of victory then we have a chance to rack up some more wins, but the attrition is going to eat away at both sides. We’ve got the Kiritak, Bsidd, and Paladin feeding us resources in an impressive way, but I can’t even imagine what industrial machine the V’kit’no’sat have operating back in their territory.”
“What’s a Paladin?”
“The blue lizards on our side.”
“Blue? I thought they were all green.”
“The ones we breed are blue, the ones that were captured are green. Beyond that I don’t know much, aside from the fact that they can churn out supplies almost as fast as the Kiritak.”
“If you say so. I never paid attention to the logistics of the empire.”
“I’m not an administrator either, but when it involves getting more weapons and ships a warrior likes to know where they’re coming from.”
“Do you think the lizards will start hitting us again? I mean, after the Dinosaurs weaken us.”
“Are we going to have to fight two wars? It’s possible, but we’re so beyond the lizards now that even weakened they wouldn’t be very effective and the border hasn’t seen any activity in a long time.”
“I heard a rumor a few days ago that the reason we didn’t chase the lizards further coreward was because we were afraid of finding the V’kit’no’sat. Do you think some ship went too far and gave us away?”