by Aer-ki Jyr
His rate of progress was nothing short of amazing. From day 1 he’d had boots on the ground, setting up resource outposts where the Calavari had allowed, and from there they’d worked like an army of ants digging materials out of the ground and building additional equipment to do more of the same thing. Once those operations had snowballed they’d begun assembling construction supplies and storing them in the holds of the now empty freighters in orbit, from which the construction crews began drawing as they built the superstructure of the seda.
With that in place they began filling it out, section by section, like clockwork. Keller had given Mark a projected timeline that he’d nailed to within 3 days so far, and the trailblazer doubted it would vary any until completion…unless the newly arrived supplies and personnel sped up the timetable.
As the wannabe Death Star grew on his screen Mark spotted the docking bay they were headed to as the doors began to open, revealing a blue energy field just inside that was holding in the atmosphere. The bay should have been evacuated, just as a precaution should the shield fail, but containing the valuable gasses was worth the effort and inconvenience. When the dropship hit the specially designed physical energy shield it breached under the pressure of contact, but only those points under duress.
The rest of the field stayed intact and flowed to fill in the gaps, maintaining a crude seal around the ship as it passed through before completely reforming behind it. Once all three dropships were inside the bay doors ground closed and the shield deactivated, maintaining the atmospheric integrity and allowing instant debarkment as opposed to having to vent and repressurize the bay had the containment field not been in place.
When the doors did finally close a group of people entered the bay and met Mark at the foot of the dropship’s ramp, with one of them grinning ear to ear.
“Oh, who let you in here?” Mark mock grumbled at seeing Sandra-255.
“Blake says hi,” the hotshot pilot said, referring to the trailblazer that led Clan Star Ranger. “And that you could use some help, so he sent his best pilots and a bunch of Canderian whelps out to this…frontier world.”
Mark crossed his arms over his chest and starred her down. “You’ll find this frontier world is the hottest place in the Alliance for fighter pilots.”
Sandra smiled. “Which is why I volunteered. I read your report.”
“So it actually got back?”
She nodded. “Still no word on when we’ll get hooked up to the Bsidd comm grid, but the Hycre are keeping us informed of Alliance activity. So, what have you been doing to the skeets?”
“Experimenting with some upgrades. I’m not completely sold, but they are helping in the simulations against the lizard fighters.”
“How’s our cred?” she asked as they began to walk out of the bay side by side with a group of other Archons following in their wake.
“Increasing. We’re not top dogs, but we’re gaining ground and we’re doing it with the skeets.”
“How are you with their Valeries?”
“We don’t spend enough time in them to get on par with the others, but our flight experience gives us an edge. We’re average when we do joint operations in the Valeries, and they’re decent craft, but not something we’re going to mass produce.”
“You don’t like them, why?”
Mark hesitated a moment as they passed out of the bay and into the station’s interior hallways. “They’re good against the lizard fighters, but they’re not built for our fighting style.”
“Expendable?”
“Not so much. They’re built primarily as an anti-fighter craft, modified for limited fire support.”
“We have the gunships for that,” Sandra pointed out. “How have they been working out?”
Mark smiled. “We’ve been tweaking them in private while using the skeets in our skirmishes. I’ve got a partial design change worked out, but I don’t have the engineering support I need to flesh it out.”
“We brought a design team,” she said with a wink.
“Thank…you,” Mark said emphatically, glad his report had made it back in time.
“So who’s tops now?”
“New bunch, came in about a year ago. In the Kvash camp. Reflexes off the chart…almost as fast as mine.”
“Name?”
“Urik’kadel…but we just call them the ‘rabbits.’ They’re not fluffy, but they’re only as tall as your knee and have a twitchy nose.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. They’re not tops in space, but in atmosphere even the Calavari have a hard time keeping up…and they don’t use the Valeries either. They say they’re too big, so the Calavari are working on miniaturizing the design. Vornac says they’re too valuable of pilots to waste on their native technology, which is lacking. They don’t have a lot of kill power, but they’re extremely nimble and dangerous when they attack in packs.”
“Armor and shields?”
“Neither. Hit them and they’re dead. Their pilot corps is huge, so they just replace their losses with new pilots. Survival of the fittest, or luckiest. Another reason we call them rabbits. How many losers did you bring with you?”
“122 Star Rangers, 0 losers…unless you mean the Canderians, which we brought 5000 out.”
“All Star Rangers? Why no other Clans?”
“You’ve already got your handpicked pilots, we’re just here for support and training. You didn’t request specifics.”
“No problem, just remember that as far as everyone else knows, we’re just Humans. So keep the Clan references behind closed doors.”
“Ah, I can’t make fun of you in public then?”
“Blake sent you on purpose, didn’t he?”
Sandra shrugged. “He didn’t want you to go too long without seeing your girlfriend…his words.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “I am so going to get that punk the next decade I see him.”
“Ah, come on. You used to like me.”
“That was mercy. You second gen newbs needed a lot of help after Wilson somehow passed you out of basic.”
One of the Archons behind Mark snickered, drawing a look over his shoulder from the trailblazer. “My condolences.”
“For what?” the Star Ranger asked.
“Being in the same Clan as her.”
“Are you kidding? She’s awesome. We all want to hook up with her, but apparently she only has eyes for you.”
Mark turned on Sandra like a whip. “That was scripted.”
“Was it?” she asked, a devious, yet satisfied smile on her face.
“Archons don’t date,” he reminded her, turning back to the younger ones behind him. “Even these weaklings.”
“We did once, and we were Archons.”
“Workouts aren’t dates.”
“I don’t know, some of those joint stretching exercises were pretty intense…”
“Blake!” Mark shouted, rolling his eyes and looking up at the ceiling, eliciting a laugh from Sandra.
8
February 18, 2398
Jartul System
Daka
Boen flew wide around a holographic pylon, just skimming the surface of Daka and making ripples in the tall brown grasses that followed his prototype Valerie as he accelerated through the turn, firing off the lachar at a series of targets as the nose of the alien craft passed over them. He hit four of the six before corkscrewing all the way around the pylon and pulling up to shoot through a higher elevated holographic ring that lined him up with a gauntlet run through a series of parallel and very real towers, on top of which were lizard-style anti-air defense turrets, all of which were shielded.
Boen snapped off a combination of lachars and the concentrated plasma orbs that the Valerie was equipped with, but he did not use the scattergun, knowing that given his rate of closure there was no way it would penetrate the turret shields unless he was at pointblank range, which he wouldn’t be given that he was flying down the middle of the gauntlet. As he kept the s
hip mostly stable in the center of the trench he fired off weapons independently of one another, aiming well ahead of the craft to keep the angular arc within the weapons’ tilt range so that he wouldn’t have to weave side to side to point the nose at the targets that were flipping by so fast he couldn’t even count them all, let alone shoot them.
Getting them all wasn’t the point. Hitting as many as possible was.
Boen kept his cool and methodically shot target after target, then he was clear of the gauntlet and heading up to an even higher altitude where a number of floating, mobile targets representing kirbies were tracing a lazy loop around the area. He began lighting up one of them with the lachar well before he got into plasma range, then saw return fire began to sneak his way. It was low powered, same as his Valerie’s weapons, but it was genuine lizard plasma and the green flashes of light sent a shiver up his back…something he never got in the simulator.
The Archon methodically flew around, poaching the kirbies before flying off on the last section of this test course, which was located low to the ground and simulated a lizard predator, with Boen knowing this was going to be his greatest challenge. Again he hit it from range with his lachar before coming in close to slug it out with his plasma cannon, altering it into a hold and fire function that allowed extra plasma to accumulate before release, akin to a plasma ‘bomb’ that gave the fighter heavier firepower to hit stationary targets.
While the predator wasn’t completely stable, it was so slow that it might as well have been compared to the Valerie. Boen flew it right across the much bigger craft on a direct strafing run before rocketing off the other side at a random angle, taking significant anti-air fire on the way, which dropped his shields down to 23%. He looped around at distance and took several more shots at the predator with his lachar, then broke off and circled around again as his shields recharged.
Trouble was, the predator’s shields were recharging as well and the lachar wasn’t doing much to stop them, though it was scoring hull damage. He didn’t make another strafing run, the first of which was just as a demonstration to prove how effective the predator was at defending against such an attack. Instead he kept circling around at range, firing with his lachar and nicking up the surface of the predator in a specific area until one of its anti-air turrets went down, giving him a less arduous approach vector.
From there he began making strafing runs, always coming in on the less active side, even when the predator spun around to keep him from it, in which case he’d bank away and come back in again, getting a few plasma shots off in the process while taking a few hits of his own. After a while he stopped trying to approach on the weak side and angled his strafing runs so that he exited across that side instead, still diminishing the amount of anti-air the predator could throw at him and landing a heavy plasma blast each time he came across.
Eventually he nailed another turret with his lachars, which further opened up his strafing runs, allowing him to make them a bit slower so he could throw more attacks at the enemy. When the shields eventually came down he began lighting it up with plasma, eventually killing the craft after a total of 72 strafing runs and numerous perimeter lachar attacks.
“There,” he said over the comm to the Calavari team observing him. “Told you one could do it. You just have to be patient.”
“Not something that’s always an option in combat,” Procarva said, “but point taken. It’s good to know that it is possible, but picking off individual turrets at range is problematic. How did you manage it?”
“Two ways. One, we’ve been using lachars for a long time, so I’m comfortable with the weapon. Two, I don’t aim for a specific turret. Pick an area of the hull and shoot at it. Eventually you’ll saturate it with enough hits that you’ll get a turret or two.”
“Impressive flying, but it still isn’t good enough,” the Calavari admitted. “We have to modify the Valerie with a bigger weapon.”
“You’ll have to sacrifice something else,” Boen reminded him. “This is a big ship, but not that big.”
“I know, but we need to be able to take down their gunships with a pair of fighters, no more. And we can’t spend as much time on the task as you just did.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to accomplish that unless you add missiles,” the Archon said as he began flying back to the mountain base from the testing range.
“Battle longevity is the aim,” Procarva reminded the Human. “We need speed, power, flexibility, and durability.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to get much more without going over your weight limits.”
“Neither do I, unfortunately, so we’ll have to be satisfied with this minor progress. Come on back in.”
“Already on my way.”
Boen met Procarva at one of the Calavari complex columns within the massive hangar and cycled through their airlock into the more musty atmosphere that they preferred, pulling off his filter mask and slipping it into one of his pockets.
“How’d the lachar hold up?” Boen asked.
“The data is inconclusive. On average there was a slight improvement, but we’re still getting varied intensities.”
Boen shook his head in frustration as Procarva walked him through the complex. “It’s gotta be your power distribution grid.”
“It was operating within standard parameters.”
“What about within the weapon? Do you have any sensors to monitor that?”
Procarva thought for a moment as they entered an elevator. “All was in working order prior to your flight. Perhaps something is becoming amiss during operation.”
“Whatever it is, we need to find it. It may be negligible, but it doesn’t occur with our lachars. And where there’s one copying glitch there might be others.”
“Never the less,” the Calavari said as they stepped out into the research center several floors above the flight deck, “the weapon is adding extra damage at range prior to normal engagement.”
“But you had to scrap your death blossom to incorporate it. If you are focusing on engagements with the lizard fighters I’m not sure you’ll like the tradeoff.”
“Death blossom?”
“It’s a nickname,” Mark said as Boen and Procarva walked up to him, a Star Force tech, and several other Calavari all gathered around an impressive display table that held both flat images as well as holos of different fighter craft. “We have something similar in our fiction.”
“The radial burst weapon you’re referring to,” Procarva continued, “is used in the latter stages of battle when allied fighter craft are not in the area. It is a last ditch weapon designed to take as many lizard fighters down with the defeated Valerie as possible. I much prefer having a weapon that we can use prior to battle to thin their numbers and attack their larger craft.”
“As do I,” Vornac added.
“Don’t underestimate the first strike advantage,” Mark cautioned. “If you have an incoming fighter swarm and you can send out one or two Valeries equipped with the death blossom, have them dive into the lines and fire, then hope to escape out the back side and run like crazy, you could get dozens of kills since the lizards don’t use shields.”
“We’ve run those simulations,” Procarva admitted. “They don’t prove as promising as you might think. The spherical nature of the attack greatly diminishes effectiveness as distance increases.”
“What if you modify it for only certain sectors…like, say, omit upper and lower so you don’t waste plasma throwing it into the ground, during surface fighting anyway.”
Vornac rubbed his chin. “You mean to aim the blast?”
“Why not, if you can double up the intensity by eliminating other sectors?” Mark asked.
Boen frowned. “Are you arguing against them using the lachars?”
Mark shook his head. “No. What I’m getting around to is suggesting they use more powerful lachars, which would mean cutting out other weapon systems. Cut those out and put them on separate craft rather than
trying to make a ‘do it all’ version.”
“You come back to a familiar point,” Procarva said, thinking hard.
“Because I think it’s important,” Mark said, standing his ground. “We only use skeets because they have a narrow operational window. If we used them in space we’d have an alternate design, and we do have an alternative to deal with the lizard fighter swarm tactics, that being our gunships. The skeets are for fire support and air superiority, and have been so armed.”
“By air superiority you mean to take down harder targets than lizard fighters?” Procarva asked.
“Such as Valeries,” Vornac added.
“Not all races use expendable fighters like the lizards do, so we have to build tougher craft. We also build our designs with the survivability of the pilot in mind and that takes up extra hull space, so we don’t have a lot of weapon options.”
“Yet you already have 4 on your skeets,” Procarva pointed out.
“Not really,” Mark admitted. “We have two, a lachar and a plasma. We split the power requirements for a larger plasma weapon into two separate cannons, then added a holding tank that syphons off plasma from those cannons and contains it for the streamer discharge, so in a sense it’s all one weapon pulling the same amount of power, we just included variations on how to use it.”
“What would you have us do, exactly?” Vornac asked, wanting to clear the air.
“Tell me what you want and I can give you direction, but without a purpose behind a specific design there’s nothing to work with.”
“We want a fighter that can kill multiple lizard fighters,” Procarva said, humoring the Human, “survive their anti-air batteries, take down their transports, harass their warships, and be able to outrun anything they can throw at us.”
“And combat their gunships,” Vornac added.
“Individually or in squadrons?” Mark asked.
The Calavari exchanged glances. In the end it was Vornac that spoke. “We wish it could be individually, but we always fight in groups.”