Star Force: Sav (SF51)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  One of those defiant activities was disappearing for a few minutes or hours when they were supposed to be contained to their barracks during downtime. They weren’t allowed to roam around, but some did manage to do so by going through sections of the facility that were dark to surveillance. Morgan had gotten a map of those areas and the routes used to access them long ago, but by now had the area layout down to memory, allowing her to make decent speed over to one of the secret hideouts.

  When she got nearby she scanned ahead, finding four minds…that were in the process of mating. Deciding not to interrupt that she moved to another area, then another, and finally a third of the local hotspots until she found what she wanted…a group airing complaints while snacking on stolen rations.

  Morgan had also learned that the food supply was strictly maintained, with no excess allowed. Hobbits often scavenged food from their conquests to sate their hunger, and these three had apparently managed to rip off one of the local food stores…and that definitely qualified as defiance.

  Morgan didn’t just walk in on them and introduce herself, rather she linked to their minds and monitored their thoughts. Eventually she steered them and the conversation in the direction she wanted, with them finally admitting to each other that they didn’t want to be here anymore and wanted a way out.

  The level 6 Mage froze them in place before she entered, crawling in through a vent that barely fit her armor and coming out amongst the three statues. She sat down next to them and gradually released their senses and heads, allowing them to turn and look at her but otherwise not move.

  “Calm yourself,” she said in the Skarron language. “I’m here to take you away. The Free Aronsic welcome you,” she said as she extended her hand out and produced a tiny holographic emitter. It activated and played a message from an Aronsic that had already joined Star Force, addressing many Hobbit issues and complaints, with Morgan sensing the speech hitting home despite the fear surging through the three of them.

  It went on for several minutes, and by the end of it she knew that one of them was going to go with her. The other two not so much. At least not yet.

  “If you go you must go now. I will lead you to my ship and take you off this planet. If you wish to remain there will be some chances for you to go later, but I cannot promise when or where. I must operate in secret, and I do not know how long it will be before I am discovered. Have you heard of others disappearing?”

  “A few have. We thought they’d been killed,” one of the skeptical ones said timidly, for Morgan was still telekinetically holding his chest in place.

  “We don’t kill your kind unless you attack us,” the trailblazer explained, sensing his concern. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but we’re not your enemy. The Skarrons are invading our territory and we will fight them, but we have no quarrel with you until you attack us. If you do so we’ll treat you as the enemy, but many of your kind now live with us, free of the Skarrons. I know it is a great deal to ask, but if you are to come with me it must be now.”

  Morgan released her hold on them while intently watching their thoughts. They didn’t move, but were relieved to be free of her magical hold none the less.

  “Come or stay, your choice,” she said, backing up into the vent and crawling out.

  The three Hobbits didn’t say anything for a moment, then began conversing amongst themselves into what became an argument. Eventually one of them followed her, but only one.

  “There are really others out there…free?”

  “Yes,” Morgan confirmed as she looked down on him from her taller height in the access corridor on the other side of the vent.

  “Then I will go.”

  “Good,” Morgan said, freezing him in place while she crawled back inside and moved into the hideout where the other two were chatting rapidly. The vent was the only way in and out, so before they ran off to tell others or sound an alarm they had to let her leave first.

  Morgan froze both of them as well and finished crawling back inside, pulling her left gauntlet off and exposing her fingertips to the air…then she planted them on one of their heads and concentrated, having to keep all three frozen while she worked on the one, which wasn’t easy to do.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d had to wipe memories though, so she quickly found what she wanted to erase and blurred it out of existence before switching over to do the other one. She pulled a double check on both, holding their bodies and minds in a frozen state so they wouldn’t know what was going on, then crawled back out and stood up next to the other Hobbit in approximately the same position she was when she froze it.

  “Follow me,” she said after releasing it.

  The Hobbit blinked a couple of times, momentarily disoriented, but it did as told and Morgan walked off with it in tow, holding the others in check until she got to the limits of her Ikrid range. When she released them they didn’t remember her or that their fellow Hobbit had crawled into the hideout with them. After an awkward moment of silence they looked at each other and picked up on their previous conversation, never knowing that one of them was missing or how they’d had a chance to go with him.

  Morgan kept a close watch on the thoughts of the one with her, wandering if he was going to back out but to his credit he didn’t waver. The recorded message from the other Aronsic had done the trick, and he stuck very close to her dark blue armor the entire way through the facility, not understanding just how they were sneaking past others that should have seen them.

  When they got back to the hidden tunnel Morgan pulled the crate aside and pointed the Hobbit to go in. He hesitated a moment, preferring to follow the Human.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she promised, giving him a little telepathic nudge.

  The Hobbit trodded up into the gap and slid inside, with Morgan wedging herself behind the crate then pulling it back as much as she could with her hands…but that still left a noticeable gap. Concentrating hard she telekinetically grabbed it and pulled, wiggling the heavy mass into place flush against the wall, but taking nearly a full minute to do it, thanks to the amount of weight she was having to tug around.

  Once it was back and in place and the chances of someone discovering it back to nearly nothing she nudged the Hobbit on and took him out through the tunnel, eventually coming up into the grasses just before dawn. The night was still pitch black save for the star light, but there were a handful of fighters on patrol that they had to be careful about. Morgan led him through the grasses, following the waypoints on the battlemap with the Hobbit not having a clue as to where they were going. There was no path or trail to follow, so he just stayed on her heals, fearing for his life if they were caught but desperately wanting to be free of the Skarrons.

  Morgan couldn’t move very fast with him, just like the others she’d rescued countless times before, so she set a slow and steady pace and reached their destination well into the morning, arriving at the camouflaged infiltrator and bringing the Hobbit onboard, exhausted and hungry but still able to stay on his feet.

  As soon as he got inside he realized he wasn’t the only one she’d pulled out, for there were four more Aronsic already there, three of which were wearing their normal uniforms but one that was wearing what he guessed was Human clothing.

  Morgan let her assistant take over and headed out again, running back to the tunnel entrance and recruiting another 6 Hobbits over the following day before finally pulling out of their concealed niche and stealthily heading back to orbit. The pilot she had with her got them out through a hole in the orbital grid, bypassing the ships in orbit and on an outbound vector to a jumpline that would take them past several planets in the system to where her warship hid in waiting.

  But before they got to that seldom-used jumpline a wave of Skarron ships began jumping in on the stellar entry line. It was a convoy, containing warships and transports, but it didn’t end for more than half an hour. Thousands upon thousands of ships were coming into orbit, and by the time the infil
trator reached its jumppoint they were still coming in, with a sinking feeling manifesting in Morgan’s gut.

  “This is…not usual?” the pilot asked in the cockpit as Morgan was seated beside him and the Hobbits were off in the back out of earshot.

  “No,” she said, her armor now off and stowed in back. The Mage crossed her arms over her chest as she continued to watch the waves of ships coming in. “We didn’t expect the lull in attacks to last forever. It looks like they’re finally gearing up for round 2.”

  The pilot shook his head. “With as bad as the Nestafar are getting hammered, how in the world do they have enough ships to hit us simultaneously?”

  “Their empire is huge, and there’s no telling what their force dispersion and priorities are. We’ve got the Sentinels in place, and they know they can’t take them out easily. They needed more ships to even have a shot at it, and it looks like they’re rising to the challenge.”

  “How long do you think we’ve got?”

  Morgan shook her head. “I don’t know. This is their forward operating base, but not the closest position. They may reinforce the skirmishes going on first, or come straight for us or the Protovic…or maybe even the Dvapp. There’s no way of telling without reconnaissance.”

  “Stay and watch or make the jump now?” he asked.

  “Stay a few minutes longer. I’m curious to how many they’re bringing in…at the moment.”

  “How many do they need?” he asked, watching the computer tally the incoming numbers as it monitored on passive scans that were picking up the Skarrons’ own reflected signals and beacons.

  “A lot,” she said dismissively. “Depends on how they plan to use them.”

  “How many before we’re really in trouble?”

  Morgan shook her head, but didn’t answer. Both Humans watched and waited for more than 20 minutes, but the streams continued to come in and the fleets formed up into groups that spread out around orbit…including some that were coming in their direction. They didn’t appear to have noticed them yet, but get close enough and their sensors would pick them up, stealth ship or not. Zenniza orbit was getting cluttered, which was going to make it difficult, if not impossible to head back down to the surface to go hunting for more Hobbits.

  “Let’s get going,” Morgan finally said, not wanting to take the chance of being discovered.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to come back for a while.”

  The Archon sighed. “I know. We’ll have to go back to hitting up their outposts.”

  “Thought we’d picked them dry?” he asked, making final jump preparations.

  “Well,” Morgan said, eyeing the ship counter as it finally crept up past 10,000, “I get the feeling they’re going to get some new blood in soon.”

  “Point,” he said, keying the gravity drive and shooting them off away from the planet. The sensor feed went out, leaving them without any intel about how many more ships were coming in.

  As soon as they got back to the Tigerzord Morgan headed up to the bridge and got the Captain to get them moving in towards the star. She wanted to sneak back into planetary orbit and have a look at how many ships had arrived, but didn’t want to tip their hand as to having been in the system. Traveling to the star always had that chance, but to date the Skarrons didn’t have any detection platforms set up to monitor traffic, so the only way they’d know that there was a Human jumpship in the system was to have another ship nearby at the time. With quick in and outs it was possible to enter and leave unnoticed, though it was a gamble each time they did so.

  Morgan and the Tigerzord had been insystem for more than 9 months plucking out Hobbits to bring back, so the number of trips they were making through stellar orbit wasn’t many and she hoped the Skarrons had no idea they were even here, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Dropping into planetary orbit, even the extreme high orbits that their binary drives were capable of placing them in, would be like waving to the enemy. The infiltrator was small enough to sneak around, but a jumpship was another matter entirely.

  None of that mattered when they got to the star anyway. It had been several hours since the infiltrator had left planetary orbit and Morgan assumed the incoming Skarron convoy had completed arrival…but it hadn’t. What she saw on the sensor display was like a kick to the gut by the Black Knight.

  There were ships still coming in from outside the system, visible as tiny specs on the sensors along a specific jumpline some 58 degrees around from their current position, and a HUGE pool of ships around the star gradually transitioning over to the jumpline to the planet. The computer tagged in excess of 270,000 and there was no way of knowing how many more had already parked in planetary orbit or were still to come from deeper inside Skarron territory.

  There was no way they weren’t going to be spotted, so time was of the essence. There would be no more Hobbit fetching from here. She had to get back to the ADZ to warn the others immediately for this was no mere reinforcement. The Skarrons were going to drop the heavy end of the hammer on them…and even now she still didn’t know just how large that hammer was going to be.

  “Get us out of here,” she ordered the Captain, sitting back in her command chair and beginning to run the naval numbers through her head versus their various defense positions along the border.

  4

  June 29, 2546

  Solar System

  Earth

  Bo stood in the middle of the ring, his body stationary but his mind ablaze with telekinetic control signals. All around him thuds were coming in and he was having to block them with short-lived grips, then drop and move on to another. Add in the random Fornax twitches that Paul and Jason were hitting him with to disrupt his focus and you had one headache of a training drill…but Archons liked challenges and this one had a very specific purpose.

  They were trying to get Bo the Pren ability, which was a power upgrade to Pefbar/Lachka. In order to get him into the desired zone for it to occur they had to overload his Lachka skills, as they had done with the others and hope that they hit on the trigger. They still didn’t know exactly what it was but had narrowed it down considerably. It had taken Jason 3 weeks to get it, Paul 2.5, and the others above and below them, with Emily finding it the quickest once she arrived after only 3 days of trying. That said, she’d been the most recent to arrive aside from Bo and had the benefit of the others’ experience…but it didn’t seem to be helping him.

  He’d been at it now for several weeks and Paul and Jason’s response to that was to up the intensity even further, pushing him to the ascension point, in theory, but so far nothing had happened aside from him getting pelted with thuds from the surrounding walls. He was blocking a lot of them, but every time one got by it hit him with such force that it knocked his mental balance off. The trailblazer was having to constantly reset while trying to minimize the disruptions when they happened…for his two friends were making sure they did regularly.

  Right now the walls were chucking out some 12 thuds per second. Some simultaneously, others staggered. The pattern was random and kept Bo guessing, with him having to relent and just take them as they came, for he couldn’t get into much of a rhythm. Already he had some small welts from repeated hits and was trying to cover certain angles more than others…such as those headed for the face, neck, and crotch.

  He lost himself in the effort…that was the only way he could hope to keep up, and he had to remain still, for if he stepped outside the small circle around his feet it would be an immediate disqualification. That had happened several times already, thanks to the blindsiding of the Fornax blasts, but lately he’d been managing to stay on his feet when they hit and the next one was no exception.

  Paul hit him with one from the left where he sat against the wall underneath the thud shooters, causing Bo to lose his balance for a microsecond but he didn’t have to take a step to recover. A twitch in his hips was enough and he was back on center, but he missed swatting down two thuds and they hit him in the b
ack and lower right leg. He accepted two more hits to his right side as he concentrated and held one coming in at his head a split second longer than normal…enough to throw it to his left and hit Paul.

  His fellow trailblazer caught it a foot in front of his face and tossed it aside with a smile, then tossed another mild Fornax blast his way. Paul knew they had to keep pressing him in order to find the trigger, for most of the ascensions that he’d studied the data from occurred during some form of overload.

  Power comes in response to a need, not a desire, he remembered Goku saying, and as far as psionics were concerned that appeared to hold true. Trouble was they still didn’t know exactly where and how to push, but with every ascension that occurred they got more data. Bo was wearing the monitoring headband that Jason and Paul were also sporting, though at the moment they were just sitting and ‘watching’ while Bo was the one working up a good sweat, despite the fact that he was barely moving.

  Paul sent another three Fornax blasts his way, all low intensity until Jason threw a big one at him. That sent him forward a step, just inside the boundary of the circle with Paul cringing. They needed Bo processing heavily to trigger the ascension, and every big stumble he took was going to interfere with that and essentially give him a momentary mental break. With 11 thuds hitting him in succession as he stabilized his stumble Paul was about to complain to Jason when Bo went the other direction, dropping to a knee and getting pelted by everything coming in.

  Jason flicked the stop button on the far panel telekinetically as he frowned. “Bo?”

  “Got some instability,” he said, focusing on it and dropped his second knee down and sitting back on his heels.

  “About time,” Paul said, getting to his feet and trying to get a read on his mind. “Say something if you need help.”