Star Force: Mantle (SF92) (Star Force Origin Series)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But it was a long haul out here and the Sety weren’t going to get the promised grid point pair moved here any time soon. That left Jason and the others with a trickle of supplies coming in, but the bulk of whatever resources they were going to have to work with was going to come from the locals…as it did every single time you dealt with interstellar travel. Shipping was limited, even with the massive size of Star Force’s cargo jumpships and the increasing number of them in their fleet, but Davis had always demanded they built around a self-sufficient model for just this reason.

  Unfortunately the races out here hadn’t. Many systems were dependent on trade with others, else they’d collapse…either economically or totally. Food production on several were in jeopardy and Jason’s primary concern, and he had his Clan’s Paladin tackling that first off. They were building in select sectors of those systems, sections of continents that were empty or emptying of what little inhabitation they had were being given over to the Sangheili and his loyal lizards were collecting resources and building as fast as they could, not just to support themselves but to create the extensive bioharvest facilities that would feed the systems in question and remove their dependency on trade…and hopefully do it before more trade routes were cut off.

  This one, however, was too important to leave in the hands of the enemy. The short black hole link covered 92 lightyears, approximately the same width as the original ADZ before that term got blurred with surrounding expansions, and being able to hop from one side to the other in relatively short time would be crucial for gaining this region more connectivity, for outside the Belledeir’s holding this area was one of the more wild and lawless…but the Belledeir were also among the strongest and most stable races and had been holding their borders firm. Right now he wasn’t worried about that changing, but everyone else nearby was in jeopardy and as much as he hated to admit it there was going to be a lot of carnage going on that he simply could not stop.

  But there was no way he was going to let the chief bad guy in this region hang onto the most valuable navigational prize outside Grid Point Lochat. This black hole was now Star Force property, and he was about to inform the current tenants of that fact.

  Two hours after he arrived his command ship was sitting in the exact same position, simply soaking up data from across the massive system. The more gravity the well at the center had the more ‘territory’ there was circling it, gravitationally speaking, making black hole systems the largest by far, and his ship’s sensor pings couldn’t even get back from the Megatron 18 and to his position in the middle zone by the time the rest of his fleet finally arrived.

  Warship after warship emerged from their jump and got what updated information they could from the Sanguine Blade, marking the positions of ship after ship in the local area…all of which were presumed to be dead and gutted. There were some closer in to the black hole showing movement and/or power signatures, but most contacts showing up on the sensor bounces were dead ships in a widely spaced graveyard.

  No doubt thanks to the Zargor and who knew who else had been here poaching traffic. They had some of their own ships waiting in the inner zone that had shown up immediately to Jason when he’d arrived, and it would only be about now that they would see the sensor images from the command ship arrive…but they wouldn’t be seeing the rest of his fleet until they were on top of them, for it would take another two hours for their images to reach them and Jason didn’t intend to be sitting here that long.

  When the last of his 22 warships arrived they made a microjump as a group in towards the black hole, utilizing its massive gravity to jerk them down into the inner zone far faster than you could ever hope to inside a stellar system. They moved at a speed that would be consistent with a standard interstellar jump, then once again braked easily as the gravity field increased in magnitude as they got closer.

  But it was a hard deceleration against a pinpoint target, with his fleet coming out of its ‘microjump’ within 200 kilometers of a group of Zargor raiders. Jason swung the Sanguine Blade off its trajectory and over towards them, getting within range before they even realized what was happening…or maybe they were just too drunk or otherwise derelict to notice, for the limited information he had suggested they just sat out here and waited for their prey to be spotted transitioning from jumpline to jumpline, which gave them plenty of time to intercept.

  But now the six cruiser-class were suddenly gripped in an IDF field and found their engines unable to function. No weaponsfire came from the huge command ship, but eventually some did come from the Zargor. Two of them opened fire with energy missiles, little clumps of dense, unstable energy similar to Star Force’s bloon launchers but with much shorter range and less bang for your buck. The green naval paintballs splattered harmlessly against the Sanguine Blade’s shields as it sat there, almost mocking them, for several minutes before Jason’s transmission was sent.

  “Attention Zargor,” he said with the computer translating into their native language to make sure there was no misunderstanding involved, “I am Jason-025 of Star Force. We are claiming possession of this system and your days of poaching ship traffic here are over. How they end is your choice. I have let you live so you can be messengers. Run back to your base and tell them they have 30 hours to evacuate, after which point I’m blowing it and all your ships up. Leave and live, or stay and die. Your choice. Now get moving,” he finished, dropping the IDF field a couple of seconds later.

  The two ships shooting at him continued to do so, but then thought better of it as the others quickly flew off leaving them by themselves. The command ship still didn’t fire back, staring them down and absorbing the damage on its shields until they eventually turned and ran with the sight of the other warships closing in being an added incentive to heed Jason’s warning.

  He’d given them 30 hours, but that didn’t mean they’d have 30 more hours of poaching to do. As soon as those six ships left he had his fleet empty out its drones and begin spreading out at different points around the perimeter of the black hole securing the most popular jumplines with the bulk of his ships split between the line to the other black hole and the planet to which Jason took his command ship with four warships and their drones in escort.

  It was about the size of Mercury and just as rocky. No atmosphere, no native lifeforms. Just a huge, dark rock with no light cast on it aside from the distant stars and his ship’s sensors, but there was a significant Zargor population on the surface. A pirate’s lair, more than anything, and apparently a shipyard being used as a chop shop to salvage what vessels they wanted out of the graveyard around the black hole.

  Jason held to his 30 hours, holding back and just observing what was happening as the Zargor chose to fight rather than flee. They pulled in ships from across the system and gathered them at their base, effectively making it easier for Jason to kill them all. Once they’d amassed several thousand of them they decided to strike, sending them into pointblank range to make the most use of their pulse-style weapons.

  The trailblazer had his own ships hold back most of their own weaponsfire, letting the enemy get the impression that they weren’t that well-armed as the engagement ranges shortened and the two fleets mixed in with one another in a crescendo of energy and particle exchanges. Before his ships could take damage beyond shields Jason rescinded the hold order and every Dre’mo’don in the fleet opened up within their preferred range as his command ship extended its IDF and trapped dozens of ships within it, then pounded them into a pulp within less than a minute.

  Everywhere the Zargor ships were getting hammered, but they couldn’t jump away with so many ships around them and by the time they realized that was what they needed to do half of them were dead. Rather than stand their ground and go out fighting they all began disengaging at once and trying to weave their way into position for emergency jumps that wouldn’t see them ramming other ships, but not very many of them made it out and Jason didn’t bother to hold fire and ask for a surrender. The Zargor outnumbe
red Star Force and their new members in this region and he wasn’t about to let them get away with intact ships now that they’d chose to fight.

  Some did manage to find clearings in the gaggle of warships and jumped away, but Jason ordered drones to be sent after them and on the battlemap he could see the tiny holographic specs shooting out like insects as they went in pursuit while he was left in control of the debris field. He searched through it looking for the most intact ships and tagged them for boarding parties with orders to recover survivors and any computer records or intel sources onboard. There was a lot they didn’t know about their enemy, or rather one of their new enemies, and he figured that when the planetary base witnessed this butt kicking it would be deleting all the ones they had before Jason could get to them, meaning these wrecked ships were probably the best chance for grabbing valuable intel.

  “Zargor,” he said after opening another comm, this one sent directly to the base. “You have another 5 hours and 42 minutes to evacuate. If we recover any survivors from your fleet you’re welcome to have them, but you will be gone from this planet and on your way out of the system by the time the deadline expires or you will become prisoners yourselves or dead. I’d prefer some of you lived to tell your bosses of your loss of this system, but if not so be it. They’ll figure it out eventually. Heed my warning and evacuate while you still have time.”

  With that being the last communication he planned to have with them, he left the bridge and headed down to the hangar bay to join the boarding parties…or rather oversee them. He stayed behind and dealt with the first survivors that they secured, a lot of which were badly injured. He pulled off one who wasn’t and let his helmet do the translating with the 8 foot tall wolf-like biped that was bound by the hands.

  “Stop,” Jason ordered, holding up a pink-armored hand. “I want to speak with you.”

  “You…” it said with obvious spite. “You have no idea what you have done.”

  “Spare me your threats. I don’t care to hear them. I need you carry a message back to your people…assuming any of them will bother to pick you up. If not I’ll arrange secondary transport.”

  “My people will be here shortly. Our defeat will be avenged.”

  “Blah, blah, blah…listen kiddo, you have no idea who you’re talking to or what you’re up against.”

  “You are scavenging the scraps of The Nexus as they withdraw.”

  “Oh, well then I guess you understand part of it. The part you don’t get is how powerful we are, hence I’m going to give you a demonstration just in case us blowing up your fleet wasn’t enough,” he said, raising a hand theatrically as he telekinetically lifted the heavy Zargor off his feet and levitated him in the air with a pinch of his torso, leaving his legs kicking helplessly beneath him. “Do I have your attention now?”

  “Your tricks with shield tech will not…”

  Listen to me! Jason yelled into his mind with the words reverberating with the emotion of a giant stomping on the ground.

  The defiance within the Zargor suddenly turned to cold fear as Jason began to mentally repeat text translation on his helmet’s HUD directly into the other’s mind and he wasn’t being subtle about it. He made it so loud and dressed up with emotional impetus that it felt to the Zargor like he was a god having invaded his mind.

  You will take a message for me back to your people. And you will make them understand the power I am showing you now. They will not listen to reason or logic, but they may listen to fear. Stay away from us and you have a chance to live. Fight us…and you will be destroyed. Not just the soldiers you send against us, but your entire civilization. Challenge us, and we will take you all down given time. We are just arriving here, but there are many more of us yet to come. And if it’s a fight you’re looking for, we’ll be happy to oblige. Kicking ass is our specialty.

  5

  April 19, 3462

  Appachu System (Rim Region)

  Seenigal

  Ryen-10389 dove out of the transport as it hovered over the choppy ocean, hitting a wave at an angle and punching through underneath head first, making a hole with his armored fists and slamming into the extra dense water that covered 2/3rds of the planet. It had a greenish tint to it, but right now he couldn’t see it or much else given that it was night and the only light above the water was the distant exchanges of weaponsfire near the coast some 14 miles away.

  When the titan drifted a few meters down from the initial impact he kicked in his aquatic armor’s jets and pulled himself lower as multiple impacts hit all around him, punching through the waves much less gracefully as the Bsidd fell out of the transport in sequence to ensure they didn’t hit one another. Ryen could see them on his battlemap and sensors, but visually there was nothing coming through his faceplate as all of his attack group made their way down to the seafloor.

  Ryen took position there and waited as the Bsidd Iotas made their way down to him. Of all the variants they most looked like crabs, but they moved well under water and could even breathe it if necessary, though all those in Ryen’s unit were fully armored and supplied with oxygen the same way he was. As they floated down to join him, Ryen used his Da’she upgrade and searched everywhere between his current position and the coast, picking up various minds that the Ensek range upgrade allowed in the vaguest of senses.

  He couldn’t touch them, for most of them were out of his normal Ikrid range, but the Ensek psionic had a different biological transmitter that was capable of reaching much longer distances, including all the way up to orbit with Da’she increasing it. But in order to pass information from one to another you had to know where the other was, so Ensek allowed a very watered down version of Ikrid at those extreme ranges and Ryen was able to find three other Archons between himself and the shoreline.

  “Cover me,” he told the Bsidd around him as he sat down on the sea floor and mentally disconnected from everything else, essentially turning himself into a transmitter that could relay his own or another’s telepathy across vast ranges, including the dense ocean that was blocking all native transmissions and limiting Star Force’s own super comm range significantly.

  Three of the Iotas walked beside him on their 16 appendages and formed a defensive triangle. Ryen hadn’t picked up any minds nearby, but when he really stretched out the range like this he became vulnerable and he didn’t want to get in the habit of taking chances.

  We’re here, he said to the mind some 12 miles away.

  It took some time to get a response, for the Archon on the other end would have had to go through the same procedure to send a reply and she was a lot closer to the combat than he was.

  We’re under the perimeter of the energy shield, but we can’t make the shore. The defenses here are too strong and all automated.

  All?

  Yes. The Hashvi aren’t fighting us directly, but they’re still killing a lot of Bandaii and they won’t stop the assault knowing their kind are about to be slaughtered.

  Would we?

  Not like this and I can’t talk sense into them. They’d rather die trying than sit by and let them be executed.

  Where do you want us?

  Not here. A lot of the defense units are mobile. Try and get by them to the south.

  How blind are they?

  They’re not. We’ve been finding and destroying buried cable links, but it doesn’t do us any good until we’ve taken them out already.

  So there’s no good way in and you just want us chipping away somewhere?

  Make them choose where to send backup. You or us. If they keep it on us push as hard as you can.

  Understood. We’re on our way, he said, ending the telepathic link that always felt like it echoed somehow when used. When his senses returned to normal he felt the drops still occurring above him, but his Elarioni scouts were already here and waiting a few meters away wearing their own version of Star Force armor.

  “Comm range is said to be around half a mile. Find out and establish a perimeter. The Bsidd
aren’t that agile in the water, so we need to see where the threats are before we trip over them,” he said, then turned to one of his Bsidd commanders. “Get a comm buoy on the surface and keep us linked in with the others as much as possible.”

  “Reports say the Hashvi are targeting the buoys.”

  “I know, and it may not last. But if we can stay connected with orbit 2 minutes longer, I want those two minutes.”

  The Bsidd needed no further explanation and jetted off at surprising speed back towards where the equipment drop was piling up. It included crates of supplies, weapons, and a couple aquatic mechs that were going to come in real handy, but Ryen’s toys hadn’t arrived yet and he couldn’t get a battlemap line to anything on the surface. His own transmitters were too weak to punch through the atmospheric haze the Hashvi were throwing up to further cloud attacking communications, but once his units got into the water he was able to pick them up so long as they didn’t get too far away.

  As the Bsidd troops continued to congregate at waypoints that he or other set, the comm buoy floated to the surface and suddenly its much stronger transmitter/receiver was able to punch through the haze and connect them to the fleet in orbit that hadn’t yet won the naval front. The Hashvi had invaded this planet 2 years ago and been playing with its captured population ever since beneath an impressive armada and huge dome-shaped deflector shields that covered most of the land on the planet.

  The Bandaii were amphibian and had colonized both land and water, but the Hashvi were not. Those caught on the surface had become a captive population while the fighting on the Bandaii’s third largest world had been pushed out into the oceans. The race hadn’t been faring well before The Nexus transfer, unlike others whose major threats were future ones, and had been fighting the Hashvi for more than a century. Then when it became public knowledge that The Nexus truly had pulled out the Hashvi had decided to mount a major offensive into this system to test both the Bandaii’s defenses and those of the new overlords.