by Jyr, Aer-ki
1
January 2, 2690
Macalania System (Tether)
Shiva
Orval woke up to his alarm, a soft tone beside his head in bed that gradually got louder until he finally woke or it elevated to ear piercing levels. He reached over and tagged the off button, then rolled out of his narrow bunk and stood up, stretching in the overly warm quarters. His muscles were tight after the last round of workouts, so he threw in some real stretches before he hit the lights and began to get ready for the day.
That meant shaving, showering, and heading over to the nearby cafeteria for some breakfast bars that would give him some extra energy without weighing him down when he hit the track for his morning run, further loosening up his body. After an easy 8 miles he accelerated and worked the last 2, then stopped by the equipment room where he rinsed off and changed into a skin-tight swimming suit that extended from elbows to knees. On top of it he picked out a breath mask then headed over to the underwater course rather than one of the standard training pools.
The difference was the course was more tunnel and terrain than a rectangular pool, with Orval slipping his mask on, checking the air reserves, then tagging the start pedestal and diving in. Once underwater there were light beacons everywhere to guide him and a narrow bubble tunnel at the top that contained air should his mask fail, but otherwise it was a totally submerged playground.
After about 20 seconds of swimming he came to a fork in the road, so to speak, with three possible paths to follow. He took the middle one and continued on his course, swimming through various obstacles and through small tubes that required him to move in all directions. It was an agility course, forcing him to maneuver in multiple ways, and halfway through his ‘run’ he was passed up by another swimmer.
Orval let her go, seeing that she was swimming with jets and he’d never keep pace with her. Trying to minimize the disruption he slid aside while still moving forward and let her pass him in the narrow tube, with her chest brushing against his arm as she likewise twisted to give him room on the pass. It was tight, but both swimmers were on the clock and didn’t want to be slowed down. These courses were usually underused, so occasional run-ins like this were tolerated and both swimmers got back to their pacing, with Orval seeing her using all four gauntlets as he clawed at the water with his bare hands and feet.
That meant she was probably working on skills rather than fitness, for each gauntlet was its own little jet engine. She had two on her ankles and two on her wrists, giving her considerable maneuvering capability. Orval’s had to come from his own body, making his course run a workout. While commandos and aquatics were different branches of Star Force, swimming scores were part of his levels rank and they were one of his weaker areas that he was trying to focus on during this new assignment.
It was guard duty, boring as could be, but within Star Force that meant an opportunity for virtually uninterrupted training. His assignment didn’t have him standing guard over any particular facility, but rather stationed on planet for response to potential hostiles or unknown circumstances…which meant he was going to be left alone to train his heart out, for Shiva was in the middle of nowhere.
The ice world was currently the furthest tip of Star Force’s ‘tether’ territory, which was what the long string of breadcrumb outposts leading out towards the rim was called by those who knew it existed. Orval had been looking for a training assignment for a while and when this one had opened up he immediately put in for reassignment. His commando ranking of level 254 gave him the priority pick, not that there was a lot of demand for the slot. Some people liked exploration outposts, but most preferred to remain in the ADZ or on combat missions, leaving only a small pool of individuals to compete with for these far out there slots.
Star Force usually filled them with low level personnel, but in their wisdom they required some ‘senior’ slots along with what were usually filled by newbs. Orval’s presence here wasn’t superfluous, for if the small colony came under attack he and the others would be their only line of defense, hence the need for at least some seasoned personnel in the mix, but the whole point of creating the tether worlds was to quietly establish a presence heading out towards the rim and not to attract a lot of attention.
Some of the colonies were more public, but this one was meant to be secret…in so much that it was in a system that nobody wanted. The only habitable planet was Shiva, and it was covered pole to pole with ice and snow fields. Nothing living had been found on the planet, making it a prime spot for Star Force to establish their own Hoth base and put down another foothold that would eventually grow into a breadcrumb that would then be leapfrogged even further out by another expansion.
As it was, Shiva was the furthest out with the majority of their cargo fleet taking more than a year to reach the ADZ. Some ships were faster than that, but the system was some 3,490 lightyears from Sol and in the nearer edge of the gap between the Orion and Perseus galactic arms. That ‘gap’ still had star systems, but the density of them diminished in various spots making for a pseudo-geographical border. The denser regions in between the two arms acted like land bridges with the most traffic and civilizations present, according to the Nexus information.
Technically they were within the Nexus domain now, but all that really meant was they were in the neighborhood. The nearest Nexus world was some 680 lightyears away, leaving the local region in what would be considered ‘fly over’ territory. The jumplines between systems out here were longer, with fewer options, and that kept less advanced races from moving through the area or colonizing it. Furthermore the lack of habitable worlds was significant, with only a few well outfitted races/factions cherry-picking the available ones and leaving the rest untouched.
That was why Star Force had chosen to reach their tether out through this region in order to get to the Perseus Arm. They were nowhere close to that, but this was the first good step out into the ocean of emptiness between the two, and the less attention drawn the better. There were plans to establish other branches within the tether, but those would be constructed later off the main route, which Shiva was on and had been the tip of for some 14 years.
Other colonies would have been much further along after a similar period of time, but Shiva had been visited by only a single convoy and exploration team that had done well to set up operations. Yet given the insanely long supply routes virtually everything had to be built locally and the other nearby links in the tether chain weren’t in a position to offer up exports just yet either.
That said, scouting teams were already searching for where to establish the next link in the chain while Shiva grew to a prerequisite level of infrastructure…a tenuous hold, but the Archons knew that so long as they could maintain anonymity they could stretch the chain out fast and far, while letting outposts like this develop into colonies at their own pace instead of waiting for them to become full blown civilizations.
So as it was, Orval was one of some 72,000 people on the planet that were busy digging new tunnels down through the usually 2 mile thick ice and into the sandy crust of the planet. The mining probes had to go down even further to get to the actual rock layer, and then even further to get to the limited geothermal heat the Mars-sized planet produced. That’s where the bulk of their mining operations were taking place, with both crust harvesting and magma siphoning being utilized, though the latter had only come online in the past 6 months.
But that’s not where he and the bulk of the colony was located. They were up in the ice layer, with a few spires poking up through to the open air…which for a world this small was extremely thick. The CO2 levels were a bit high, but tolerable if you could stand the cold. The atmosphere was habitable, meaning you co
uld walk up top without any breathing gear, but with temperatures never getting above the melting point aside on some freaky occasions Shiva definitely earned its nickname of Hoth, save for there wasn’t a lick of wind on the planet…nor wampas.
Orval spent his days inside, only rarely going up on the surface in armor just to get a feel for the planet. Today wasn’t going to be one of those days, for he was in strict training mode and volume protocol…which had him doing virtually nonstop training at lower intensity levels. If a problem arose he’d drop what he was doing and deal with it, but ever since he’d arrived on Shiva he hadn’t known of a single ship to pass through the system aside from their own. Star Force had chosen their location for this little breadcrumb extremely well.
And the commando enjoyed the anonymity, for while the interior of the colony looked the same as any other Star Force city this one felt different. He knew that was because of their distance from the rest of Star Force and how exposed they were out here, but it also had something to do with the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere. This was definitely a frontier outpost, but it felt like as much of an exploration mission as a foothold grab. That technically didn’t involve him since he was just here as a military babysitter, but it definitely felt like they weren’t in Kansas anymore.
And no matter what the internal temperature of the city was, he always felt cold. The water he was swimming through was mildly warm, but when he finished his course and came to the finish/start area on the opposite end he pulled himself up into the air and felt a mostly psychological chill. He pulled his mask off and took a few normal breaths, letting the small cell recharge fully pulling oxygen from the air to replenish what he’d burnt off during the swim. It did the same when underwater, but at the moment there was no need to be breathing the supply when he was taking a momentary rest.
The room temperature was fine, but just knowing he was on an ice world made him subconsciously aware that he was wet and his mind told him that wasn’t a good thing, so after a few minutes he jumped back into the water, starting the timer for a reverse swim down a separate group of tunnels and feeling ‘safe’ back in the water as his skin was no longer chilling.
When he finished up his swimming workout he walked through the chilly air over to the equipment room and got dressed in a casual uniform before heading back to the cafeteria for a larger second breakfast. Getting that food down him was necessary but he knew he’d need a bit of time to digest it, so as usual he went to one of the targeting ranges where he wouldn’t need to move around too much. His focus right now was straight up fitness, but taking breaks with skill work kept him from having to wait between workouts and he’d found it better that if once his mind got going in the morning he never stopped till he went to bed, in order to keep the low level fatigue from nudging him into nap mode.
On the way to the targeting ranges he hopped into a skybridge that connected two of the surface towers, with him feeling absolutely chilly the moment he stepped out into the clear tunnel. Aside from the footpath the circular tube he was walking through didn’t appear to be there at all and gave him an awe-inspiring view of the surface ice sheets. They weren’t smooth, but rather ragged and sometimes spikey giving the illusions of topography when in reality there wasn’t a bit of rock, dirt, or sand anywhere near the surface.
But ice was hard enough, especially at these temperatures. The twin suns in the sky didn’t produce enough combined heat to melt more than just a tiny layer on the surface, giving numerous gleaming mirrors to reflect the light into his eyes as he walked across. Fortunately there was recent snow on the ground which cut down on the blinding light, but in many places where there were vertical faces the mix of yellow and blue light bounced off and gave the surrounding landscape the look of being decorated with Christmas lights from afar.
Most of the reflections were a mix of sunlight, but get one sun shadowed and the other not and the colors would become evident, making it hard to look at sometimes with Orval’s eyes yearning for something nongleaming to lock onto…which they did when a speck of dullness caught his attention below him to the right. It was moving across the surface on its metallic biped legs, with the mech following a faint path of footprints in the snow as it moved about doing what the commando didn’t know.
Feeling considerably chilly just by looking at all the ice, he walked across the long straight bridge until he entered the nearby building and his eyes readjusted to normal light levels, then he headed down to the range which was built just below the ice layer and picked up a sniper rifle in the nearby equipment room. It was one of the new sammies, which had replaced the well-established lachars, but for the purpose of target shooting the intensity was dialed down so he wouldn’t melt the targets. That said, if he accidentally shot someone it would still do damage akin to sticking your hand in an open flame.
Stepping out into the gunnery circle he started the automated practice program and began tracking targets within a 30 degree cone ahead of him. He couldn’t brace the rifle on anything other than his arms, which made the really long shots difficult. That said, the sniper weapon was capable of shooting further than the range, so he wasn’t going to have to get super steady to hit the furthest targets…in theory.
His sniper skills weren’t quite that good, but like any proper commando he was up to the challenge. Besides, this was just an ‘extra’ challenge to kill time while his food digested, so he didn’t put much mental effort into it. Relaxing, he fired off round after round, lightly goosing his accuracy without picking any of the robust targeting drills. This was one of the perks he had for getting a ground assignment, and even if he wasn’t going to go all in on it today he was definitely going to avail himself of the range.
In recent years he’d been fighting lizards, which meant he’d spent a considerable amount of time onboard jumpships. All Star Force ships had training facilities on them, but they were nothing compared to what planetside facilities contained. Basic sanctums had shooting ranges, but nothing as large as this. Nor did they have underwater swimming courses. At best they’d have 2 or 3 pools for lap swimming and that was it. The volume of a ship, even one as large as a jumpship, had its limitations…and over the years Star Force had come up with an insane number of training chambers and drills that could be built.
This training facility was a tier 2, the second highest of all and he’d been told that was deliberate given how far away they were from any other facilities. That meant that even thought Orval was out in the middle of nowhere he had one of the best locations to train in. The tier 2 facility was even good enough for the Archons on Shiva to use, for there hadn’t been a separate sanctum built for them yet. That virtually never happened, underscoring just how impressive this training facility was.
Orval knew fighting the lizards was important, but after so many years of doing so he’d seen his skills begin to plateau and that wasn’t a good thing. There was word coming down through the ranks of a major crusade in the planning stages, and when/if that actually happened he wanted to be ready…not burnt out and stagnant. That’s why he’d taken this assignment, to get his combat mojo recharged and to grab another few levels of advancement before it was time to do whatever the Archons were planning.
But he also didn’t like sitting back and doing nothing to help out, so this assignment was about damn near perfect. He wouldn’t have to do anything if there was no trouble, but he was here just in case something happened and that was an important function, especially considering all the low level commandos that he was surrounded with. For a few of them this was their first field assignment, and learning to train without the trials as motivation was a big hurdle that he was trying to help them overcome…along with a lot of other things.
They were capable, as all commandos were, but amongst the lot of them there was very little combat experience. That’s where he and a handful of others came in, for if they did come under attack it would be up to them to lead the defense and carry the rookies through it, making use of th
eir limited skills while counteracting their lack of experience with his own.
Orval didn’t think that was going to happen, but someone had to be here just in case it did and that counted as doing something, for if he wasn’t assigned here then someone else would be. Right now that person was out there fighting, so his holding this position contributed and allowed him to train like he needed to…and that more than made up for the ever-present phantom chill that hounded him.
2
March 18, 2692
Jafat System (lizard territory)
Ulmed
With the Star Force fleet largely engaged over the inner planet of Irad, the lesser defense force around Ulmed was met with a handful of warships that preceded two large jumpships. With the lizard ships tied up in a battle that they were easily going to lose the massive transports began moving down near to the atmosphere with their defensive weaponry swatting a pair of enemy cruisers that tried to take poaching shots at them.
By the time they settled into as low of an orbit as they could half the lizard fleet was destroyed with the others soon to follow, so the defense shields on the jumpships were lowered and the four aquatics battleships were released. Their smooth hulls looked quite alien to space, but they were airtight and had gravity drives sufficient to lift themselves out of the water and to fly through atmosphere…and those same drives also allowed them to descend from orbit, with the large ships dropping below the jumpships and into the upper atmosphere where they began to bleed off orbital speed.
That friction slowly built into fireballs against the defense shields covering each of the ships that were decelerating from orbital speeds using their underpowered gravity drives. Slowly the turbulence around the meteors faded and their hulls reappeared, with them continuing to bleed off lateral speed. Two were deep blue colored with their telltale ridges running fore to aft with the thinner ‘wings’ spreading out on either side but the other two, while identical in shape, were colored aqua blue almost to the point of being neon.