Star Force: Return to Earth

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “I think they don’t care for tactics because they don’t see us as a worthy threat.”

  “Even after what Bahamut did?”

  “I would expect this one to learn, but I’ve sensed no change in it. Its mind is like a solid wall that I need to find a crack in.”

  “And if it attacks us again, do we just pull back and play cat and mouse?”

  “Luckily we got the Uriti speeds up enough that they have that option. I don’t know, Kara. I’m still trying to find my way through this. Right now it’s sitting, chewing up an uninhabited planet, and talking. There’s no call to attack it now.”

  “The Uriti seem to agree with you. Me, I’m thinking of the lizards too and how we need to nip this in the bud. Take this one out, keep our existence secret, run home and deal with the V’kit’no’sat now. Keep this fight for a million years later.”

  “If they chase us they have to go through V’kit’no’sat territory,” Paul pointed out.

  “You wouldn’t do that even if you knew they’d only go through Vik systems, which they wouldn’t. And you don’t want to poke that bee hive either.”

  “I kind of do,” Paul admitted with a devious smirk.

  “I’d like to know how many are actually in the Core too, but we’re playing with doomsday here. I don’t want to provoke the Hadarak out to keep the V’kit’no’sat busy and away from us, even if it were effective. Enemy that they are, the Viks are doing something beneficial by curtailing the Hadarak patrols.”

  “We’re not going to kill it if it retreats,” Paul said firmly. “If it attacks again…we’ll have to play it by ear.”

  5 weeks went by before the Hadarak finally left the planet. 5 weeks of talking and talking and talking while it grew minions at an alarming rate. V’kit’no’sat notes had said Hadarak always kept an army of tiny, partially developed minions in stasis within them so that when they received material influx they could gorge and grow to full size within days for the smaller variants, weeks for the larger ones.

  The Uriti and the Star Force fleet were holding position high above the planet, and the Hadarak came straight up at them claiming they had to be destroyed and lightly apologizing to the four Uriti there for the death it was about to bring to them. Paul put the fleet in reverse, staying ahead of the Hadarak as it traveled with clouds of naval minions coming not from its own internal hangars but the ship building growth yards on the surface. Those were still creating more on their own with an army of workers digging more resources out of the planet, but they’d helped scale the production of the living beings as if they were little more than machines.

  Paul knew they weren’t, and he also knew they would probably be in total agreement with the Hadarak. He needed to capture some and get them out of the telepathic aura to be sure, but right now he was just trying to buy some time until Bahamut could get to them. He was still in the star healing up his injuries, not to mention thoroughly pissed at the Hadarak now that the shock value of the betrayal had worn off.

  He’d come out of the star multiple times to talk to the other Uriti or the Hadarak, but it was going to take a while before he was fully healed. Paul knew he was combat ready now, but there were still structural weaknesses on his left wing that would require a lot of specialized material that Star Force would usually provide them, but the fleet hadn’t brought any Uriti ‘snacks’ along, expecting them to just graze on the stars as they went.

  As the fleet moved Paul saw Bahamut emerge from the star and begin to head in their direction, with the trailblazer arranging a rendezvous point in stellar orbit, ordering Bahamut to wait for them there as the Hadarak trailed them at a slow, but methodical pace.

  “What about now?” Kara prodded from her own command ship.

  “It gets the chance to run. If it attacks again, we teach it a lesson.”

  “It won’t stop even if we seriously wound it.”

  “We don’t know that yet, though you’re probably right. Hera, are the Uriti ready to kick its ass?”

  “They’re willing to follow your lead. Not sure about Bahamut yet, but I doubt he’ll be any different.”

  “Get them to warn it again. We’re holding the rendezvous point with Bahamut. If it wants a fight it can fight us there, but we’re not moving. If it changes its mind it can run and we’ll let it go, but if it’s going to be intractable make sure it knows we can kill it and our patience is running thin. We’ve got the upper hand here and we’ve been very nice. If it attacks us again that niceness is going to evaporate.”

  “About time,” Kara commented, tapped into the same command channel that all the Wranglers were included in.

  “Easy dragon breath,” Paul cautioned.

  “Hey, I can take a punch to the face with a smile the same as any of you, but I draw the line when someone kicks my dog.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Hera agreed.

  “It’s as simple as that, huh?” Paul asked neutrally.

  “It is to me.”

  The Wranglers all agreed too, but not in words. Linked into the battlemap system they sent mental agreements backing Kara up, leaving Paul with a sarcastic sigh.

  “Anger and aggression, Yoda once said…”

  “You told me you thought Yoda lied about that.”

  “He was talking to the Jedi as if they were kids who wouldn’t understand an accurate analysis, thus he just said anything dangerous was bad. I don’t want you guys, especially the Wranglers, in a fury that will seep over to the Uriti. If the Hadarak picks a nasty fight then decides to run at the very end, I want to make sure the Uriti will let it go as promised.”

  “Noted,” Hera said. “We’re not going feral, we just want some payback, and the Uriti are more reluctant to fight than us.”

  “But they will fight?”

  “They will. They just don’t like having to do it against their own.”

  “Well, we’re giving the Hadarak an out. That’s as fair as we can get without turning tail and running. Just make sure that out doesn’t disappear. I trust you guys, but this is new for the Uriti, so keep your minds as calm and focused as possible.”

  “What about me?” Kara asked playfully. “I’m not talking to them.”

  “No training wheels for you. Just no sloppy fighting when we control the battlefield.”

  “I’m not going Sith on you, but this bastard has to die.”

  “Not if it opts to retreat.”

  “He won’t.”

  “We still give it the chance, even if that will be really inconvenient. Clear?”

  “Clear. I’m just saying that he isn’t going to back down.”

  “We’re about to find out. I have a feeling the Hadarak is a bit delusional, and when we kick its ass it may have an epiphany. If not we end this.”

  “Fair enough,” Kara said, her hologram winking out but with Paul still feeling an open connection to her. It was going to be at least a couple hours before the Hadarak caught up to them at its present speed, but this confrontation was going to happen. He felt like Kara did, but he had to play the long shots just in case there was an opportunity to avoid killing the Hadarak.

  As for the minions, there wasn’t much hope for them unless they turned around prior to the first shot being fired…

  Paul stood in the command nexus, his mind interconnected with the large Star Force fleet and the Wranglers, the latter part of which was the unusual component. He didn’t have direct control over the Uriti, or even a direct line of communication to them. If he had it would have diminished his ability to control the fleet, so he was having to relay battle commands through the Wranglers and the delay there was annoying to say the least, but the Uriti were so huge that he didn’t need to give them split second commands to be effective. Still, the lag gnawed on him.

  There wasn’t anything he could do about it as the minion swarms reached out to attack anything near them. There wasn’t any coordinated assault, more of a ‘move over we’re here’ mentality that had them meeting up with the Star F
orce drones first, and Paul’s ships were getting hammered along the thin front line, for the Hadarak had grown so many in the previous weeks it could literally cloud out the stars from view.

  But space was huge, as were the Uriti, so while the swarms continued to surround the Hadarak he ordered Bahamut to make a fly-through against the minions…staying away from the Hadarak’s grapple range as he did so. The Uriti plowed into the swarm, knocking many aside and getting gooed in the process as his maneuvering capability failed. He lit up his red lighting arcs and began vaporizing those closest, along with the goo, but he was more or less pinned down on a ballistic track that the Hadarak was now accelerating towards.

  But as the swarms focused on Bahamut they mostly ignored the drones, allowing Paul to begin getting free shots off at the smaller biological weapons, each of which was a person rather than device, but they were clearly acting off of control signals from the Hadarak, for many didn’t even bother to return fire on the drones that were killing them.

  Paul thought it must be some sort of override, taking control away from the minion itself or giving it such a high priority that it chose to act stupidly. The Hadarak obviously valued attacking Bahamut more than the tiny ships…which is what Paul had expected.

  Before the Hadarak could get to it Bahamut lit up his primary weapon, vaporizing minions above and below while Paul’s drones were safely in the lateral arcs. The attack didn’t kill all the minions, but with them congregating on the Uriti a lot more got hit than otherwise would, taking out more than a sixth of their total number in a matter of seconds.

  Once that Torronna blew, Devastator moved in on the far right flank, firing all four of its pinpoint beam cannons as the arm/tentacles bent over to all point in the same direction. The blue beams struck the thick hide of the Hadarak, vaporizing the outer layer but not penetrating any further. Devastator held position, cycling his firing one arm at a time like a very slow machine gun adding damage with each hit…and vaporizing any minions that happened to get in the way as the massive beams burned right through them.

  The Hadarak didn’t veer off, still heading directly for Bahamut as Godzilla fired its arm beams, which were much more potent power wise, against one of the Hadarak’s tentacles that were emerging. The wider green beams struck it at its base, putting smoking divots in it as it further extended. When it eventually got all the way out the Uriti focused on its base, putting shot after shot into it from the left flank, probing its strength and finding it to be extremely durable. Godzilla stopped firing and rotated over until its flat belly showed between the three thick starfish-like arms that were no longer pointed at the Hadarak.

  An equally green glow appeared in the center of the ‘triblade’ Uriti, growing in intensity until finally a huge beam leapt forth, tracking on a similar trajectory and smashing into the Hadarak slightly off target but still hitting the base of the tentacle. Vaporized material blew out everywhere in a cloud as the tentacle reached out towards Bahamut…and continued to reach beyond all expectations as it floated forward, now totally severed from the Hadarak.

  When that happened Paul signaled for Apollo to head in, but the Wranglers were already a step ahead of him. The rough spherical shape of the Uriti flew past Bahamut at close range, smashing through more minions and entered the grapple range of the Hadarak. The energy fields encompassed it and pulled it closer, but that’s where it wanted to be anyway. It fought the redirection to the left and focused in on the point of the severed tentacle, landing on that portion of the moon-sized Hadarak with its 30 mile wide mass.

  The two collided with such force that both their bodies rippled with the impact…too much for the Hadarak to take, as those ripples bent its ‘skin’ beyond stress limits and caused cracks wherever they couldn’t hold. Apollo was also hurt, but less so as he was situated between the other tentacles in a location that made it difficult for them to reach it. He wasn’t out of range entirely, but there was no way they could coil around him as they had done with Bahamut before.

  But beyond that, he had no wings or other body pieces that could be leveraged against or tore off, making him essentially a giant water balloon that was starting to ooze material on its surface as if it were leaking…but it wasn’t damage. Apollo was another Uriti designed for contact combat, with the glowing energy goo being a very advanced version of the Hadarak’s own point defenses. Its own corrosive material leaked out from its skin, but was neutralized by Apollo’s as it ate through and began dissolving the Hadarak’s outer hull as if it were acid…all the while seeping through the cracks and down into more vulnerable layers below.

  Devastator continued firing from its perch, but Godzilla did not. Instead he redirected towards Bahamut, plowing through minions that barely slowed his mass, then wrapped Bahamut in a gentle grasp and pushed him out of the way of the Hadarak that was nearly on top of him. Its tentacles nearly got to both Uriti, except that Apollo wasn’t just an ugly tick on its surface. He pushed back with his own biological engines, shoving the larger Hadarak the opposite direction and stalling its approach to Bahamut entirely until the Hadarak eventually responded and surged forward.

  Godzilla had Bahamut out of the way in time, with the Hadarak not being able to turn fast enough to catch them both. Paul’s drones scattered out of the way like a school of fish evading a shark, as did the minions who now turned on what seemed to be their own initiative and began fighting the drones again.

  Meanwhile the Hadarak began using its grapple fields to push Apollo away. It even reversed its localized gravity generators to do the same, but that didn’t help since Apollo could use them in the reverse to get closer. The Hadarak kept switching between gravity and anti-grav, trying to shake him loose and gaining a small gap between the two, but Apollo kept pushing back until the tentacles finally reached it and slipped their ends underneath…then threw him away like a baseball.

  Their strength surprised Paul, along with their speed, which appeared to exceed any reports from the V’kit’no’sat. Then again, no ship that had ever got grabbed had made it out intact, let alone been thrown out, so this was a new application that he doubted the Hadarak had ever bothered to use…unless they fought against each other, for he figured they were too large to crush with each other’s tentacles.

  The thought passed through Paul quickly, for he didn’t have much brain power available for speculation as he continued to diminish the number of minions in play. On their own they were pesky, but not too hard to fight. Their strength was their swarm numbers, which Paul was very acquainted to fighting after the lizard war, but their primary usefulness was disabling ships and allowing the Hadarak to pull them in, though right now the Hadarak was busy with the Uriti.

  The crater that Apollo left in it was badly damaged, which huge cracks in the dense outer layer exposing the innards. Those were tough by any other standards, but far less resistant to weaponsfire than the hard defense shell that the V’kit’no’sat had partially copied to make the Yeg’gor armor their Mach’nel and planetary defense stations sported. And with that heavy defense compromised, the arm shots from Godzilla were getting through in about a 2/3 ratio and doing significant damage to the guts of the Hadarak.

  Paul kept checking with the Wranglers, making sure that Nami kept bugging the Hadarak with surrender requests, but so far it hadn’t said a word other than ‘you must die’ and varieties on that theme. And while the damage to its outer ‘hull’ was serious, the Hadarak was 215 miles wide and per volume they’d only scratched it. Paul knew this was going to take forever if they wanted to actually kill it, and maybe the Hadarak knew that too, which was why it wasn’t interested in surrendering or running away.

  When Godzilla got Bahamut far enough away, the other Uriti took a while to cleanse itself of minion good, then it spun around and headed back into the fight, passing Apollo who was done for the moment and sporting injuries of his own. Once Bahamut got by him the tip of his neck/head began to glow, then he shot his own long range beam into the crater and hit a se
am. That blew a chunk of the Hadarak’s armor off from it into space…but it didn’t go far, being pulled back down to the surface to land like a slow moving asteroid thanks to the Hadarak’s localized gravity field.

  That surprised Paul, but then he saw the chunk move laterally. It had to be using its grapple energy to move it, and when it slid into one of the larger cracks and roughly blocked out the incoming weaponsfire on it from some of the drones, he realized the armor didn’t have to be fixed in place to be effective. It just had to get in the way of the weaponsfire, and as he paid closer attention to the sensors he saw much smaller pieces rolling across the surface to land in other gaps, as if the Hadarak were using damaged pieces of itself like bandaids.

  Those pieces could probably be reincorporated later, or at least digested and the material used to grow new armor, giving this monster more longevity than Paul had expected.

  Fortunately the trailblazer had a gut punch up his sleeve, for all this time Devastator had still been attacking the same spot on the Hadarak and tearing a hole in its armor there. When it broke through the armor it didn’t fire on the weaker tissue beneath, but rather continued to expand the hole. Soon it had reached a width of more than a mile, at which point Paul signaled for Nami to ask for surrender or withdrawal one more time.

  The Hadarak calmly declined, saying it was still going to kill them all, then Paul gave the go ahead for the fifth Uriti to enter the fight. Nami didn’t have any significant long range weapons, just enough to flick the flea-like starships off. No, she was another melee-combat Uriti but ill-suited to fighting a Hadarak so much larger than her at only 2.1 miles long. She’d doubled in mass since arriving in the Preserve, but was still one of the smallest Uriti and pathetically small compared to the Hadarak.

  But this fight wasn’t a 1v1, it was a 1v5 and Devastator had just blasted a hole in the Hadarak large enough for Nami to enter through.

  The Uriti raced towards the Hadarak, maneuvering to align with the hole even as the Hadarak fought to pull her to the side. Two tentacles began reaching out to cover the hole, but they didn’t get there in time and Nami slowly slammed into the ‘soft’ tissue underneath and half disappeared from view like a golf ball being stepped into the wet grass.