Star Force: The Admiral

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “If you need anything, just ask. Otherwise I’m a spectator here,” the Duke said regretfully.

  “Knowing you, you’ll find something to do.”

  “Not going to insist I leave before they get here?”

  “Why? You’d just refuse citing you want to see the fireworks go off.”

  Barrington smiled. “You know me well. I’m going to have to work on a better personality mask. Dukes are supposed to be unreadable.”

  “Ikrid,” Krevin reminded him jokingly. “You don’t really think I bump into you because I’m clumsy, do you?”

  “Are we ready for this?” Barrington asked seriously.

  “Better us than some other system, but I don’t know. I can guarantee we’re going to do damage.”

  “Damage it is then. Get to work and stop wasting time informing me. I know how to monitor the feeds.”

  Krevin gave him a mock, two fingered salute, then cut the comm feed leaving the Duke to sigh in private. This was it then. He didn’t doubt the Archon’s read on the enemy. If he said they wanted to pick a fight with Requiem, then that’s what they were going to get.

  As for what Barrington would be doing, he wasn’t going to be completely useless. There were emergency logistics to oversee that needed to be handled so the Archons didn’t have to. The Duke had subordinates to handle that, but he was going to personally make sure everything was going smoothly before the hammer fell and this fight turned into organized chaos when they finally made the surface and turned this into the ground war that Requiem was designed to be.

  In middle orbit around the giant white star, far enough away from the major traffic lines to avoid close scrutiny, thousands of stealthed warehouses suddenly popped up on the battlemap and began to spew out drone spacecraft…but these weren’t warships. They were minelayers dragging huge cargo canisters behind them like ants carrying bits of wood and leaves far too big for their tiny frames to handle.

  But carry them they did, coming from all around the circular orbit and heading for the jumpline the V’kit’no’sat were reported to be entering upon. Already a signal had been sent back to the Vesper System to halt any incoming traffic, and the last reported incoming ship on that jumpline was due to arrive in 2 hours. That gave most of the minelayers time to get in position and ready for when the civilian transport came through, braking against the star amongst the swarm of ships sitting just off the jumpline that began to move instantly as the newcomer was given a specific course to follow in order to get out of their way as they began to disperse tiny orbs with even tinier gravity drives meant to keep them in place rather than floating sideways in stellar orbit or falling inward due to the star’s gravity well.

  Each mine was one of several varieties, with the most exotic of them being IDF field generators that would cause havoc with the braking abilities of the incoming ships. There weren’t enough of them to set up a proper slip’n’slide, but they would insure higher impact velocities against the mines than otherwise.

  And for the mines, some were comprised of tiny granules charged with various types of shield draining energy that would be enhanced by the collision speeds. Others were solid matter as dense as possible that the ships would run into, further draining shields to the point of breaking as they hit wave after wave of the mines that were lined up off the jumpline as well. When the first of the V’kit’no’sat ships came in and began to plow the road for the others the mines would start to move like conveyor belts into the traffic path, replacing the field as it was destroyed and keeping the forthcoming debris from further taking out more mines.

  The Duke and Archon had planned this out carefully long ago, and they wanted to maximize as much damage as they could out of the limited number of mines they had in the outer region of the jumpline. Down low near the star where the enemy ships would come out of their braking maneuvers late thanks to the IDF, there was another cluster of mines spread out further to catch ships that might get wise to the trap and move slightly off the jumpline to avoid them.

  Sitting nearby those were also a pair of Sentinels with more repositioning from other jumplines to reinforce them, so there would be some considerable firepower waiting for the damaged ships to drop into their firing lines…assuming they didn’t overshoot and ram into the star itself.

  How many Sentinels they could get there within 14 hours was in question. The easy math said 38, with another 6 on the verge of making it in time to do at least some damage. But whether to send them or have them reposition along with the others into a deeper defensive grid around Requiem was in question, and Barrington saw that Krevin sent 4 to the jumpline and the other two back towards the planet on the slow microjumps the massive weapons platforms were capable of.

  Each of the Sentinels was between 70 and 90 miles tall, making them huge targets while the fleet of system defense drones measured at the largest only 6 miles long. But in the face of what was coming only the Sentinels looked big enough to prove any deterrent, with even the ‘large’ system defense drones being far smaller than the V’kit’no’sat ships that had been designed to fight Hadarak…against which they were the small ones.

  In addition to the larger system defense drones came the regular ones that could be carried by the jumpships to other locations, and there were almost a million of them here. Tiny in comparison, their use would come as bees with almost microscopic stings, but when used in swarm mode those stings would add up to major damage while the V’kit’no’sat focused on the Sentinels…and if they didn’t and instead tried to swat the bees, the Sentinels would rip them a new one.

  Which was why coming to Requiem was a bad idea for the V’kit’no’sat. If they wanted the biggest challenge they could get within 600 lightyears, then this was definitely the place they wanted to go…and they’d suffer massive losses because of it, making the Duke continue to wonder why they would want to strike here first as one of the roaming Defender fleets began entry 9 hours prior to the expected V’kit’no’sat arrival.

  It was led by a high ranking second gen Archon, Nathan-937, and brought with it some 6,397 jumpships. As they began their long sequenced entry Barrington felt a little better, for there was another half million drones coming into play with more on the way. Seena-1933’s Defender fleet was reported to already have jumped for Karthus and should be here within 4 hours, bringing with it 5,229 jumpships and two more Defender fleets heading this way but still several days off.

  If the V’kit’no’sat were going to hit the planet hard, they were going to have to do it quickly…but the Duke didn’t want to lose the Defender fleets in the process. That would open up other areas to easier attack, which was why he hoped the Wall of Pain lived up to its name. After that they’d fight in planetary orbit then scatter the fleet when the planetary shields went down. He knew he was going to lose all the Sentinels, but that was what they were for and only good for defending this system. They couldn’t move to others, so they were going to sit within range of the planetary defense guns and make the V’kit’no’sat come to them and pay a very heavy price to poke a hole down to the surface.

  Then if/when they broke through all that and got the main planetary shields down over the target region, each city would still be covered by its own secondary shield, meaning the V’kit’no’sat were going to have to continue to brave the anti-orbital fire or land troops in the open areas between cities and try to take them out over lane. If it came to that point the system defense fleet and the Defender fleets, or what would be left of them, would withdraw and switch to harassing attacks, letting the surface war play out as intended rather than standing their ground and canceling out against the V’kit’no’sat.

  That was the plan, at least. Barrington was fairly confident in it until the V’kit’no’sat fleet began to arrive and hit the minefield. Some of the larger ships blasted all the way through in a vivid pyrotechnics display to hit the star without shields. The smaller ships managed to decelerate in time as they sent warning signals back to the others in line…bu
t jamming mines were scattering those signals so they couldn’t warn them, keeping the first waves of incoming V’kit’no’sat ships blind to what was happening.

  They died quickly, either to the mines, the star, or the few sentinels sitting in pristine placement to finish them off. Even the few Kafchas that came through early didn’t last long, but then something happened. Barrington didn’t know what, but mines started going off on their own in a large swath that ended with a destroyed stealth field and a deceleration into the upper reaches of the star. It didn’t dive in so far as to lose visibility, and the shields were still up so no hull damage occurred, not that it truly would have mattered against the Yeg’gor armor it carried.

  The pit of Barrington’s stomached dropped out as he realized the horror of what he was seeing. Somehow the V’kit’no’sat had smuggled a stealthed Mach’nel along with their fleet past the front, and only now the collisions with the mines were revealing it.

  A Mach’nel. A fucking Mach’nel. Kafcha were 36 mile wide monsters, but Mach’nel made them look like pushovers at 120 miles wide and covered with thick shields and even thicker specialized armor that literally drank in energy weapons. They were superweapons, carrying Tar’vem’jic, and they hadn’t been seen in Star Force territory since the assault on Earth.

  Now the V’kit’no’sat coming here made sense. They weren’t outgunned, not in the least, and they were going to use this Mach’nel coupled with the massive support fleet to punch out the toughest spot of resistance in this region.

  The Karthus System was about to fall. The only question was how many of these bastards could Star Force take with them.

  While Barrington was considering that a pair of Knights came up from behind in the control center he operated, looking down at him from their 7 foot height.

  “Apologies, Duke, but we have orders to personally escort you out of the system. Krevin says you’re too valuable to lose, and you’re coming with us willingly or over our shoulder. No argument.”

  The Duke gritted his teeth, not wanting to budge from this spot, but the Archon apparently knew that too, for this was no light threat. The Knights would carry him out if they had to.

  Barrington looked around at his senior staff, seeing many of them nodding their agreement. They wanted him to go, even though they’d stay until the last minute evacs, putting up as much of a fight as the Requiem could. The Duke kept looking at their faces until a hard, armored hand laid on his shoulder gently, silently reinforcing the Knights’ demand.

  “Since I have no choice, I won’t waste time,” he said, looking up at the Knights as he began walking for the door, both hating and loving Krevin for doing this…but mostly hate right now, for this was the Duke’s fight as much as his.

  14

  October 15, 4813

  Termunisef System (H’kar Region, Star Force territory)

  Tavai

  Paul was still on Tavai waiting for more of his jumpships to return, kicking himself for not being in the fight yet as the presence of a Mach’nel was revealed and the six systems with V’kit’no’sat blockades got reinforcements and turned into full blown invasions…along with 4 other systems that simultaneously were invaded within the space of 2 days. The V’kit’no’sat had planned this to keep the Star Force fleets spread out and having to pick where to go to help, virtually insuring that some of the systems would fall.

  The amount of ships the V’kit’no’sat were deploying was insane, but it was the presence of the Mach’nel that confirmed for Paul that they were finally being taken seriously. From bits of intel captured over the years, it seemed the V’kit’no’sat were so incensed, as well as scared, they’d sent not one, but three Mach’nel to Earth in the initial invasion over two waves. The first Star Force paid a heavy price to wound and then capture, then two more were sent…something virtually unheard of in V’kit’no’sat history…and they succeeded in kicking the crap out of Star Force and taking the Sol System before they were withdrawn and the invasion continued with conventional fleets.

  Paul thought that was a scoff at the threat level of Star Force, which it was, but it also had to do with a growing civil war within the V’kit’no’sat that had long since been settled. Then they had to fight off a Hadarak invasion, with both occurrences requiring all of the 384 Mach’nel the V’kit’no’sat had built…minus the one Star Force had taken. None had been seen since the initial attack on Sol, but Paul knew that eventually they’d send one back against them if Star Force could hold out long enough.

  And blast it all, he had to be sitting and waiting for more ships while it was all going down!

  The V’kit’no’sat had played this well, and even if he did have a fleet available Paul wouldn’t be going to the Karthus System. It was too far away and there were two other trailblazers closer, Kerrie-057 and Liam-090, with Liam having come back from the far rim warzones when the activity in the DZ started to pick up. Luck had it he was close to Karthus and heading there, so Paul didn’t need to go. Rather he needed to get into the fight at one of the other invasion points.

  First off he checked to see if Spaceball One had been activated, and once the response came back through the relay grid it confirmed it already was, with Olivia-051 having beat him to it. She was bringing it out to meet her fleet on the way to Karthus, but it was going to be a couple weeks before she could get there.

  Paul was going to keep tabs, but that fight wasn’t going to be his to make. He wasn’t going to wait much longer, taking what fraction of a fleet he had, currently at 938 jumpships, to reinforce someone, but the question was where to go to maximize the defensive effort.

  Two days later he made a decision based off the laggy battle reports and headed up to the Excalibur, leaving with his much smaller fleet headed for the Jennizeren System.

  17 days later…

  When the Excalibur entered the system and linked up with the local comm grid the battlemap immediately confirmed what he had feared. Scores of V’kit’no’sat ships dominated stellar orbit with more camping out over Ennvor, Tardon, and Zulu…3 of the 6 planets in the system, and each of the three had a section of their planetary shields breached and enemy troops on the ground.

  What was left of the Star Force fleet was elsewhere, staying alive and in position to return and assist if the V’kit’no’sat tried to take down another section of shield from space, adding their firepower to the anti-orbital batteries. The V’kit’no’sat knew that and weren’t going to risk losing even more warships when their ground troops could push overland and take down both the shield generators and planetary weaponry at far less cost.

  But they also had to stay in orbit to cover the ground troops, otherwise the Star Force fleet could zip in and bombard them into oblivion with ease. That meant Paul had those three fleet segments grounded there, at least in part, with another huge mass of ships right in front of him that were swooping to clog up the jumppoint with resistance.

  That wasn’t going to work, for Paul had the element of surprise and enough jumpships here already to spew a cloud of drones that would protect the other jumpships coming in. Paul kept the Excalibur with them and engaged in direct combat to pump up their firepower until more of his fleet was able to arrive and unpack as he took command of all military assets within the system with a single thought.

  The surviving system defense fleet was his, the Defender fleet that had arrived prior to Paul was now his, as was all the units on the ground and the planetary defenses on all 6 worlds. He sent orders out to all of them in the matter of a few seconds with the signals then traveling across the void of space with a lag of 12 to 98 minutes, for all the planets were not sitting side by side in a line.

  Paul was still heavily outnumbered, but cracking planets open was not an easy thing. The V’kit’no’sat were going to be here for months at the minimum, and Paul was going to be a constant annoyance that entire time.

  But now was not the right time to fight, so he held the jumppoint and slugged it out as much as necessary to get
all his ships into the system, then he retreated away from the star and left the larger V’kit’no’sat fleet there unhappy that he didn’t stay and trade against bad odds. Rather his fleet splintered like flower petals and split up, with Paul taking one of those petals over to Ennvor and hailing the Kafcha arrogantly marked as their flagship.

  “Attention idiots,” Paul said, imitating Rocket Raccoon as best he could in V’kit’no’sat. “I see you’ve sent yet another Era’tran commander against me. I thought you would have learned your lesson by now, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you didn’t expect me to be here, in which case I’m giving you this one time, exclusive only, chance of packing up your bags and leaving before I tear you a new one. Generous, I know, but what can I say? I’m feeling overly sentimental this morning.”

  The response came immediately, as Paul had hoped, with the image of a maroon-skinned Era’tran with silver tattoos down the left side of his entire body staring back at him.

  “Paul-024. Based on your reputation I would have assumed you would bring with you a larger fleet?” the huge T-rex said, heavy with scorn.

  “It got broken, so I’m running a little light.”

  “I am sorry I cannot offer you the same bargain. These worlds will be ours, and hopefully your corpse as well. You have fought well for a heretic, but if you press us here it will be your end.”

  “Is that concern I’m sensing…” Paul continued as he ran through the V’kit’no’sat database from before the fall of Earth to see if he could identify this bastard, “…or caution?”

  “You are heavily outnumbered, yet you do have a penchant for strategic ingenuity. It’s a pity my own Zen’zat are not so creative, but there are limits to what a commander can do without the necessary ships…and unless you have more on the way, you are impudent here.”