The Skarrons knew this by now and were constantly moving ships back to outside the talon and mauler range so they could hit them with their plasma. That kept the whole mess of battling ships constantly moving…with new groups coming in from both sides to try and blindside the others. Right now Paul had a group of 52 Dvapp ships coming in to counter the range differential with their Sammies. When they started to engage the Skarron ships from the rear the enemy had a choice. Move in closer to plasma range or run.
They chose run, knowing that if they went head to head with the Dvapp they’d have to hold position and Paul’s short-range sluggers would come after them. To counter the run the Skarrons were bringing more ships down into low orbit to hit the Dvapp from the top side, forcing Paul to choose from reinforcing them or chasing the fleeing lower group.
That sort of back and forth chess match had been going on for more than two hours with both sides losing ships…but the Skarrons were losing far more. That didn’t necessarily mean a win, for Paul had to average nearly a 14 to 1 kill ratio just to hold even with the reinforcement rate the Skarrons were getting. He was near to that at the moment, but he needed more and was tweaking formations and targeting assignments all across the fleet trying to maximize their advantage. His fleet pilots, Captains, and Admirals were good but he was better…and he didn’t hesitate to make improvements to what they were doing on the fly.
He didn’t have time to explain anything, for the orders he was giving happened in the blink of an eye. The trailblazer had become so accustomed to the mental interface that his speed with it was phenomenal. He was in command and commanded. There was no time for discussion or suggestions, with the Star Force fleet recognizing this and following his orders immediately.
The Dvapp had been slower to coming to that realization and had questioned orders many times in the past or offered suggestions, but now they knew not to waste his time. He wasn’t in command of their fleet, but if they weren’t going to take his suggestions they’d learned not to argue about it. Paul needed to focus on making quick adjustments, so they’d just send back a declination signal if they were unable or unwilling to do something he wanted.
That didn’t happen much anymore, for Paul’s strategies were proving to maximize their survival and enemy damage rate. Still, there was only so much he could do with their current interface, and getting a more advanced one built was on the top of his to-do list, with the techs currently working hard on it and Paul dropping in to make tweaks when and where he could.
They were designing it to his wishes, but so much of his time was spent in the command nexus that he couldn’t go very far away from it, nor for very long. The Skarrons kept pressing their attacks, usually 3-4 times per day, and even the slightest delay of him getting linked in with the fleet could cost them a handful of ships. He knew he had to utilize every single one as much as he could and didn’t want to waste any opportunity in what was essentially a game to stall the enemy advance long enough to build and bring in more Sentinels.
It was a game that he wasn’t sure he was going to win, for the enemy was hitting his fleet the hardest out of all the systems under attack. He preferred that, but conceded that they might get the best of him just through sheer numbers. Naturally Paul didn’t want to accept that, and was putting everything he had into the defensive effort.
Unfortunately that left him little time to train or even sleep. That just killed him, but true to form he adjusted his workouts for the short gaps he had and even had ordered additional command nexuses built around the ship for him to use on a moment’s notice, including two inside the sanctum, one of which he was currently sitting in.
He’d been in the middle of a 10k run and only at the 3.4 mark when the call had come in. He’d sprinted off the track and through the hallways to get to the nexus, leaving him dripping sweat as he sat in a meditative pose, his mind nearly disconnected from his body as he continued the fight in orbit.
Paul was also in orbit, with the Excalibur sitting tucked up next to a Sentinel…but then it also began to move under his orders, and move fast. With it came two of the nearby Warship-class jumpships, both empty and remote controlling from range where they normally sat. All three ships winked out of view as they made a microjump away from the planet, then made a heavy turn to starboard during the jump that required an insane thrust expenditure from their gravity drives. Without even coming to a stop they made a high speed U-turn and accelerated back towards the planet, braking easily against its gravity well and coming in behind the Skarron fleet in mid orbit that was not involved in the battle.
Still controlling the battle in lower orbit, Paul let some of his attention drift out to the three big ships and gave firing orders…as well as navigational ones telling the helmsmen to dive right into the Skarron lines towards several of their juggernauts.
The two jumpships got there first, given they were the smaller, and began launching mauler bloons onto the targets while opening up with the rest of their weaponry at the surrounding ships as they dove into the swarm. The big donut that was the command ship came in behind them and the Skarrons seemed to get caught off guard for a moment, not knowing whether to run or fight. They eventually settled on fighting, with the hope of taking the big chess piece out, but their slight hesitation cost them as the mass of weaponry across the Excalibur opened up and shredded the smaller Skarron ships nearby.
Paul took control of shield control and adjusted the forward shields into repulsor mode, creating an invisible second shield out in front of the primary one that only blocked dense matter. It let the plasma fire through, but any sizeable objects got caught up in what ‘looked’ and felt like a giant airbag that would depress then push back on them. The Excalibur didn’t slow when it hit the enemy fleet, with Paul intent on ramming right through it and not letting ships in the way be a problem.
The two jumpships fell in behind it, firing as they went, with the command ship plowing the way, literally, as it pushed aside ship debris and even a few intact ones that failed to move aside in time. The shields didn’t hold up forever and the physical impacts eventually reached the primary shield. That held up even less, with several impacts hitting the hull…but that hull was so thick with armor and the ship so big that they were inconsequential given the slow collision speeds.
Eventually the command ship came all the way through, leaving a swath of destruction behind it that the jumpships added to, then the three ships accelerated again, making the tiniest of jumps down to low orbit, and coming in at the back of the Skarron’s upper fleet in that engagement that Paul was still directing.
Seeing what was happening, the Skarron fleets higher up broke their position and came rushing down after them. Paul knew he only had a few minutes before they arrived and intended to make the most of them. With bloon launchers hurling mauler energy at ranges the cannons never could, the command ship blew through the Skarron cruisers’ shields with single hits, savaging their hulls and leaving them easy pickings to the drones.
Paul had all three big ships hitting the smaller ones with single shots, essentially ripping off their defenses and opening them up to the Ta’lin’yi to do their thing…and in those few minutes so many enemy ships went down that the remainder began to flee even as their overwhelming number of reinforcements were starting to come down to them.
Which was when Paul sent his fleet scattering in groups to the nearest Sentinels, making sure to give the Dvapp a window for retreat as well, given that they wouldn’t respond as fast. He kept himself and his command ship there as the last ship, then made a slow lateral jump to get out from under the hammer coming down and back within Sentinel range.
A few of the Skarron ships not yet to the engagement zone diverted and tried to intercept the command ship, given that its shields were down, but they didn’t make it in time and got hit by cleansing beams at range from the Sentinel that sliced right through their hulls, bisecting them with the touch of beam drift the gunners liked to use. Three went down within a sec
ond, then 29 more were damaged before the Skarrons were able to reposition enough to make the long-range shots miss as they fled.
The cleansing beams didn’t have a finite range limit, with the beam cohesion dropping over distance, but it was primarily the accuracy involved, meaning the bigger the ship that came near, the greater the range the Sentinel would have…which was why the Skarron juggernauts were keeping well clear to make sure the Sentinels didn’t get in any lucky shots at extreme range.
Paul stayed linked in and hyper active until he was sure that the Skarrons were done with this engagement. He saw their ships pulling back up to mid orbit while a few limped away, damaged but not killed. The few ships that were sitting in place Paul sent drones out after to finish them off. He wasn’t in a position to take prisoners and would prefer killing them quickly rather than letting them die slowly, for there was no rescue coming anywhere near Sentinel range.
A quicker death was the only concession he could, or would, make to the enemy. There were over a billion Dvapp on the planet’s surface that, if he failed, would be eradicated by the Skarrons…not to mention the Star Force troops down there. Mercy was a luxury of the dominant, and right now he was doing everything he could to just hold their lines without the Skarrons spamming them out of existence.
When he eventually released his mental and physical link with the control sphere he noticed a presence behind him.
“How long have you been there?” he asked without turning around, for he could both sense her mind and see her with his Pefbar had he wanted to.
“A while,” Riona answered. “Take a break, I’ll watch things for a few hours.”
Paul blew out a long breath, realizing as he spun around on his pedestal that he’d gotten a bit stiff. “Thanks.”
“Gotta keep our number one asset battle worthy,” she said, exchanging spots with him. “And you look like you need a good workout session and powernap.”
“You read my mind,” he said sarcastically, referencing a running joke between the two of them. Other than Jason she’d become his closest friend, with an unexpected bond forming that both were a bit surprised at.
With her lowering the pedestal and taking a standing position in the nexus he left her there, knowing that she knew that he couldn’t relax without knowing that she or one of the other trailblazers was watching over the planet…and at the moment there were no other trailblazers here.
Riona’s naval scores weren’t the equal of Paul’s, but they’d been rising steadily the more time the two of them spent together, though they rarely worked on those skills. Most of their combined sessions were straight up physical training or bioshield related, but both of them suspecting that Riona was getting some bleedover knowledge from the extensive battlemeld training they were doing, with Paul feeling a bit the same way.
Linking with Jason had had the same effect, with Paul’s own mind adjusting a bit to the presence of the other as they got repetitively in sync with one another. The same thing was happening with Riona and Paul could notice a few new tendencies creeping up in his speech that mirrored hers. It was minor stuff, with Riona seeming to get the benefit in her naval scores, but Paul guessed that had more to do with emotional control and mental focus rather than any particular strategy or tactical awareness that he had.
Being in a nexus required a certain mindset that couldn’t be taught, and if she was picking up on his mojo and mimicking it then it’d essentially speed up her learning curve. That was one of the benefits of the battlemeld, but it could also be a disadvantage if there was a negative habit or mindset…but they were Archons…and Archons were troubleshooters and problem solvers. Any personal problems they may have had in the past had long ago been solved.
Back in the day when Paul was growing up people had said, almost as if it was unquestionable, that nobody was perfect. That sort of nonsense was long behind him now, for the word ‘perfect’ had to have a definition and a measurement. Assess where you were relative to perfect and work towards it.
If perfect meant not having any flaws, then he and the Archons were there…at least the older ones were. Not all the adepts, he guessed, but then again you didn’t have to be perfect to kick ass. One of the others, he couldn’t remember which after so many years, had floated the metaphor that having a personal problem was like running with a backpack with a rock in it. Three problems three rocks, etc. The problems didn’t stop you from running, they just slowed you down, and if you were a badass you could beat a ‘perfect’ person, meaning one without any rocks, by being so much better than them that your strength outweighed the drag your problems had on you.
So ‘perfect’ didn’t mean you always won, it just meant you weren’t being held back by anything. Paul had been ‘perfect’ for quite a long time now, but that didn’t make life easy. With everything that he’d learned and all the strength he’d gained it seemed like it was never enough, and the current situation was proving that. He was holding onto their defenses by what felt like a thread and wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage it. He knew he had to take it one moment at a time and play it out, but the writing on the wall wasn’t good and it wasn’t the fault of any inadequacy on his part.
Sometimes you were simply outmatched, perfect or not.
But there was a part inside Paul that wasn’t going to accept a no-win scenario, if just out of spite. Riona taking the helm for a bit allowed him to relax enough to head back over to the track and get in a full 10k before hitting the shower and catching an hour nap. After that he relieved her, made a few adjustments to their orbital positions, then tentatively headed off for some sword work while wearing an earpiece to keep him in constant communication with the bridge crew or allow him to access a holographic battlemap with the touch of a button.
That was how he lived nowadays, always worried about being caught off guard and knowing the consequences that would result if he was. But as he reminded himself on occasion, Archons liked challenges and this was just another one…and one worthy of a warrior of his caliber.
With that in mind and a little bit of Vegeta’s ego channeled to emphasize the point, Paul kept himself invested in the moment and fighting the Skarrons, knowing that every minute he bought for them meant more Sentinels being built and deployed along the border, which was going to be their long term key to holding the line.
4
May 29, 2549
Rotunna System (Beta Region)
Heimdall
Randy jumped up from the ground on the barren forest floor using his jump pack to get him extra height, then kicked off a tree trunk to bounce him higher and back towards a tree branch some 20 meters up. He landed on the half meter thick limb and nearly slid off the far side but caught himself with his right arm and hung on, then pulled himself up on top and into a crouching position. He stayed there, alone, and waited for more than 20 minutes before he began to pick up activity nearby, not with his battlemap sensors, which were next to useless in the forest, but with his Ikrid that he had extended out in detection mode as far as his padawan range would allow.
The branch he sat on was barren, for it was underneath the canopy and leading up to higher foliage, though more or less flat where he now sat hunched. The moon he was on orbited a gas giant that sat 2nd in line around the system’s two central stars that bathed it in an excessive amount of sunlight. The trees here ate it all up, but a considerable amount still got through their thick leaves and left the forest floor visible and covered with small plants. In between those and the extremely tall treetops was a dead zone, for the trees didn’t seem to want to grow leaves in the lesser light.
That left a lot of branches for Randy to move across, as he had been doing for weeks out hunting in the forest. Originally the moon had been a startup colony with some 50 million inhabitants located in two cities and a scattering of outposts but recently they had all been evacuated, leaving the planetoid as the playground in the war between Star Force and the Skarrons.
Randy had all 9 habitable pl
anetoids in the system colonized to some level, but this moon had been the weakest link and only possessed a single Sentinel as opposed to the 46 he had around Ida. The Skarrons had attempted to land troops there and failed three times, with his fleet intercepting their transports and kicking the crap out of their warships, preventing them from setting up a blockade in mid orbit as they had done in other systems.
That left the Skarron fleets roaming the system and attempting to intercept ships moving about. Randy had been out hunting them as well and making a lot of kills while the local population of 12 billion Humans and 153 billion Kiritak worked to produce more drones at an astounding rate. Rotunna was a system that didn’t need naval reinforcement, for they simply made their own, and the Skarrons hadn’t yet fielded enough ships to challenge them in any meaningful way. They’d preferred looking for opportunities for ambushes and sneak attacks up until a few months ago when they’d finally made their move.
They hadn’t been stupid enough to assault the major planets, but they had hit Heimdall’s single Sentinel with an enormous fleet…half of which the defense station wasted before they took it out. The Skarrons had had to close to short range to kill it with their plasma weapons, meaning the Sentinel’s own short range defensive weaponry also came into play, though the enemy had tried to hover in the sweet spot that would allow their plasma to hit but the Sentinel’s maulers to remain ineffective.
But there really was no safe place anywhere around a Sentinel and the Skarrons had paid a heavy price to take it down. Afterwards they spammed the moon’s orbit with ships as Randy’s fleet came out to engage them in a massive conventional brawl…all of which was a diversion to get their ground troops down to the moon. It had been well planned and some 2,385 transports jumped in and headed down into the atmosphere simultaneously, preventing Randy’s fleet from stopping them.
Star Force: Backdoor (SF53) Page 3