by Aer-ki Jyr
There had been no further conversations between Paul and Rovo’kor, but he could tell from the fleet movements that he was getting frustrated. Gone were the confident formations that Paul had been picking apart, with the V’kit’no’sat moving into mobile but defensive clusters designed to prevent evac ships from getting away but with sufficient strength to survive an ambush from Paul’s larger fleet groups. The trailblazer wasn’t allowing a head to head, but if Rovo’kor had wanted that he’d have to leave the backside of the planet open to evacuation.
That meant Paul was getting numerical advantage, tonnage wise, in some of these engagements and was trading a few drones kamikaze style to secure ship kills…all the while taking the periodic advantage to run an evac ship up from the surface.
But the people on the surface fleeing regions where the shield generators had gone down were bunching up and going to make easy targets later if he couldn’t get more out. So far the V’kit’no’sat fleet was still staying away from orbital bombardment range to avoid the anti-orbital guns that the ground troops were curiously bypassing. They had their own shields and would hold up to a small amount of counter fire, but against a fleet even a fraction of this size they’d fall one by one in short order.
Paul would have taken them out by now, but he had a glimmer as to why Rovo’kor was not. Why take damage to your ships now when all you had to do was blockade the planet? Then when all the shields had been removed and the inhabitants had nowhere to flee he could switch from blockade to bombardment and take them all out within an hour or so.
But the kicker was, why do it now when you could do it faster with more ships later?
Paul was getting the distinct impression that this assault force was to strip the planets of defenses, not to eradicate the population, as if that would fall to someone else later. And that was why he was keeping a close eye on the movements in the Devastation Zone that were trackable by Star Force and had requested scout ships be sent to specific systems not on the relay grid, guessing as to where additional mega fleets would be passing through so they could get more of a warning as to what was coming.
A day and a half had passed since Spaceball One had sunk into the outer levels of the star in the Karthus System, but no other major naval combat had taken place. Liam had, for the most part, kept her ships away intentionally while waiting this out, all the while the ground invasion was pressing onward. Olivia’s fleet couldn’t do anything to help them right now, and the Mach’nel was going to fall long before Requiem did. Already its shields were down and the star was eating through the Yeg’gor armor with a few breaches that were voraciously digging into the interior.
Oliva could watch in detail thanks to the sensors onboard Spaceball One as the crew evacuated the outer levels and probably were sealing off sections of the ship to delay the burn effect as it crept inward like slow moving goo on the Archon’s displays as walls, beams, and circuity literally melted under the intense heat and radiation, but the ship was so huge it took time to work its way in through the tiny holes. As soon as the rest of the Yeg’gor failed that process would increase in speed, which apparently the commander finally decided to acknowledge as the trailblazer got a comm from the Mach’nel.
When she accepted it the view of half a dozen Brat’mar appeared with one in the middle walking forward to dominate the screen. Its two massive clear horns sprouting out from the head were not aglow as they usually were in battle. Rather, this Triceratops looked very subdued, as did the others around him.
“It appears your snare is not going to exhaust its strength as we had hoped,” the Brat’mar said slowly. “We are dead and we know it. What terms do you think we would accept? Your illegitimate empire has been put under a death mark and we will not stop until you are destroyed. This Mach’nel’s loss will not change that, nor can it be used to barter your survival.”
“I’m not talking about our survival, I’m talking about yours,” Olivia said amicably. “I am willing to let you live.”
“In exchange for what? We will not let you possess this ship.”
“I don’t want it. I want a temporary ceasefire on the planet while you evacuate. Our ‘snare,’ as you put it, can create a shield column up to the surface of the star through which small craft can move safely. I doubt you have enough onboard to evacuate everyone, so drop pods from your fleet will have to descend to pick up the rest of you. In exchange for sparing your crew and giving you safe passage to evacuate, you will reciprocate by temporarily stopping all assaults on the planet.”
“You seek to delay your demise by days?”
“It’s worth it to me in exchange for letting you go.”
“And give you an empty ship to claim?”
“Come now, Brat’mar. Do not think I’m stupid. You can easily sabotage it before you leave.”
“And you can move it, sabotaged or not.”
“My ships will be nowhere near it during the evacuation, and once my snare comes out of the star it will be vulnerable to your fleet. There is no way I’m maintaining possession of the Mach’nel.”
“Unless you extend your shields to cover it and wait us out inside the star.”
“To what end when you claim the star system? You do plan on doing that, don’t you?”
“We will not devote a fleet to wait here indefinitely.”
“And you won’t have to. In exchange for my not holding onto the Mach’nel and playing the waiting game, you will give the planet an additional week once its destruction is confirmed.”
“Confirmed how?”
“You will sabotage all gravity drives and we will hold it inside the star until sufficiently damaged, at which point we will release it to fall further in and my snare will leave visibly empty. You will have confirmation that we do not possess it and I will have my week.”
“And you think our lives are worth a Mach’nel?”
“You are losing the Mach’nel regardless. And are your lives worth less than 8 or 9 days delay in this invasion? I want the time and those are my terms. You can accept them or stay there and die. I give you the choice you would not give us, but do not think I am naïve. This is a courtesy I am extending and I want those days in exchange. You may take as much time as you think you have to consider your answer before your hangar bays are consumed and your evacuation becomes much more complicated.”
The Brat’mar stared her down for several long seconds, but the mental calculations were quite simple. They were dead unless they did this deal, and simply delaying the invasion was a small price to pay to save the large and highly experienced crew, not to mention the fleet commander who stepped forward to speak. He was also a Brat’mar, but one the analysis computer instantly identified by the tattoos on his face.
“Your proposal is accepted. Combat on the surface will temporarily halt when confirmation of a secure conduit to the Mach’nel is made.”
“Dorchav,” Olivia said, raising an eyebrow.
“Are you reconsidering your terms?” the ancient V’kit’no’sat asked quizzically.
“Perhaps I should, but the offer stands.”
“You will get your days, but once they end I will exterminate the planetary population and any ships you send against us.”
“I figured that much.”
“Strategically my death would be more valuable than a temporary delay.”
“Are you really arguing for me to kill you? Dumb Brat’mar, dumb.”
“Your terms are accepted, but I would ask to know why?”
“Because true warriors do not destroy the helpless…and we are better than you.”
“Had you not captured this vessel I would have argued otherwise. Better or not, you don’t have the ships to stop us.”
“Death before dishonor. We’ll go down fighting and we won’t become the bastards you are,” Olivia said, sending the appropriate commands to Spaceball One with a thought. “Your conduit is forming. Combat on the planet must be confirmed to have stopped in all cases, or I’ll collapse the sh
ield with your transports in it.”
“Agreed,” the very revered enemy commander said, looking to his left as he sent out his own set of orders. “We need a direct comm line. My ships won’t trust a relay through you.”
“It will be there in moments,” she said as the areas eating into the Mach’nel suddenly went silent. They were still aglow, but from residual heat and plasma as the shields expanded to cover the whole ship and the bits of star still inside quickly snuffed themselves out. Oliva checked to see if the Mach’nel was firing on the now covering shields, but they were not. It would be stupid if they were and most of the ships weaponry was already destroyed, but she wondered nonetheless.
After the ship was secure and still burning a bit internally, a section of shield continued to extend out like a straw away from Spaceball One and reached all the way up to the surface of the star and then some, splaying out like a flower and blocking/absorbing the radiation and heat giving the V’kit’no’sat fleet a target to shoot for…metaphorically speaking.
“Your comms should connect now.”
“Our drop pods will assemble nearby until we get confirmation,” Dorchav said as already there were small craft popping out from the overhead fleet that was high enough to avoid getting cooked from prolonged exposure, but the drop pods were going to have to go lower to get to the flower petal entrance. “There will be some amount of lag beyond the comm limitations.”
“No passage will be allowed either way until we get it.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll contact you when my people confirm it,” Olivia said, cutting the comm and leaving the command nexus during the wait, walking out on the bridge and heading for the far door as she picked up an earpiece. “I’ll be back. Keep me appraised of any change and be ready to collapse the conduit at a moment’s notice…but wait for my command.”
“Going for a workout?” Admiral Dentiv asked.
“No, to pee,” she said with a smirk as she left the bridge, wanting to be back in the command nexus for the entirety of the evacuation just in case the V’kit’no’sat tried to pull something.
17
Olivia watched as a steady flow of drop pods from the Mach’nel passed through the safe zone Spaceball One was maintaining while more held position above it waiting for entry. The V’kit’no’sat weren’t playing games with this and had so many of the small transport craft in play that Olivia got the impression that they either wanted to get the Mach’nel evacuated as fast as possible to reduce the possibility of betrayal, or that they wanted the stand down on the planet to last as few minutes as possible.
So far they were holding up their end of the agreement, with their ground troops holding their positions but no longer attacking Star Force positions. Liam had given orders to take massive reorganization efforts on Requiem that the V’kit’no’sat had to be hating as they watched, for they were going to make their resumed attacks more difficult. It was also allowing time for evac ships to leave the surface, and Liam made sure to get them all out prior to the evacuation of the Mach’nel while Oliva had leverage to use.
There weren’t enough ships to get the entire population of the planet out, and such efforts would require those ships and more coming back to pick up subsequent loads, but that little wrinkle to the ceasefire deal helped take a big load off the population crunch in the still intact cities.
That said, the planet was still going to lose the gradual fight if she couldn’t get reinforcements down to them…and with the massive size of this V’kit’no’sat fleet, even minus the Mach’nel, that wasn’t going to happen in any significant numbers. She didn’t have any troops ships with her or she’d have sent them down during the ceasefire, but her Defense fleet wasn’t going to waste ground troops sitting in ships when they could be doing proper training on planets. If she could break the V’kit’no’sat fleet she could call troops in from the surrounding systems in short order, but that wasn’t going to happen even with Liam’s help.
The Mach’nel had already done its damage in the initial assault and the remaining V’kit’no’sat fleet was much larger than it otherwise would have been after bombarding the planetary defenses. Too large for her fleet to do more than scratch at, but the major victory had been achieved and the Mach’nel was soon to be destroyed…with her wondering what kind of sabotage they’d actually made to it prior to them leaving and signaling that it was now empty.
Status reports from the planet indicated no new attacks, so at the moment at least the V’kit’no’sat were holding to their word. Would she get her week? Olivia didn’t know, but she was going to make good on her deal to destroy rather than try to keep the Mach’nel. Taking it out of play was too important, and trying to hold onto it would only give them a chance of recapture.
To put an end to that she ordered Spaceball One to reopen the holes in the shield while protecting itself, allowing the star’s destructive power to further eat into the massive ship as Spaceball One began to sink deeper into the star in order to accelerate the process while still maintaining the IDF field that was draining more and more energy as it now had to accommodate the stellar material within it.
The pressure didn’t relent, for it translated through the field. The gravitational crunching did not, so there was a pushback that kept less pressure internally but still enough to continue the burning through deck after deck as Olivia watched each and every gravity drive within the Mach’nel eventually get consumed, including those at the center.
It took over a day to get to that point, and there was no Yeg’gor armor remaining on the shell. The Mach’nel looked like a rapidly shrinking snowball as it melted away into floating slag inside the IDF field cradled within a holey Spaceball One.
When she was convinced, Olivia ordered it released and the mass began to sink lower in the star…but slowly. A lot of the materials weren’t that heavy, with the weight of each atom determining what level in the star it ended up despite the gooey nature of the highly pressurized gas and plasma. The chunks would eventually reach the liquid and solid core of the star, but there was no need to wait around for that. On her command Spaceball One pulled down into an orb, pushing out the stellar material with its shields and then reforming into a long needle as it pushed further into the star and disappeared from V’kit’no’sat sensors.
Olivia sent a message along with the final sensor telemetry to Dorchav, waiting to see if he’d honor the agreement now that Olivia no longer had any leverage. As for Spaceball One, she had it moving under stealth protocols to another section of the star where it was going to come out at high speed and run for its life so the V’kit’no’sat fleet couldn’t exact revenge upon it. Much of it had already been destroyed, but Olivia wasn’t going to waste it even if Star Force had a few others waiting in storage.
To her mild surprise there was a reply comm coming with a request for a private line to Olivia. She took it under such protocol and saw a holo of Dorchav alone appear.
“You honored your part of the deal, and you will have your week. After that, if you remain here, you will die.”
“You almost sound disappointed by that?”
“While I do not possess Sav, I am superior to you. But in my expansive experience I have never encountered an opponent to try this tactic against a Mach’nel. Now that I have suffered from it, I realize it might be put to better use elsewhere.”
“The Hadarak?” Olivia guessed.
“Indeed. They are far more dangerous than a Mach’nel and actually prefer a star’s interior to open space, but the ability to move them where we wish is something I must admit to never having considered. Nor has anyone else in the V’kit’no’sat, to my knowledge. It’s a pity you and your herd were born into a line of treasonous Zen’zat and not a Ter’nat colony.”
“Perhaps there is your answer. You don’t let Zen’zat reproduce at all.”
“My information says Archons do not either?”
Olivia bobbed her head, conceding the point. “True, but that’s a mat
ter of effectiveness and containing our psionics. We don’t kill violators.”
“And what do you do with your illegitimate Archon offspring?”
“There’s never been any from the Archons. But individuals who acquire psionics without permission are either conscripted into service or have the psionics deactivated.”
“Some cannot be deactivated.”
“We haven’t had to deal with those. However, we don’t have telekinesis in our population. You do, as far as my information goes. Why do you tolerate everyone having it and yet are so scared of the Zen’zat reproducing?”
“They are servants given powers the rest of us do not have, or at least the potential to acquire them. Each individual must earn them. That is the only way such a conglomeration of power is allowed in a single race.”
“Oh? I thought it was because the Zen’zat were tiny?”
“Less psionic tissue is a limiting factor, but there are Zen’zat that can kill Brat’mar in single combat. They are lethal in ways that we cannot permit to accidentally exist.”
“Believe me, I know,” Olivia said, smiling. “I’m pretty sure I could handle a Brat’mar, though I haven’t had the chance to try.”
“You are an abomination that was never meant to exist.”
“Or are we what the Zen’zat had the potential to become but never developed into?”
“I am curious about that. You have ample motivation in survival, but there must be more than that. How have you progressed so far in so few years?”
“We don’t kill people who step out of line. Rather we reward those who are effective and leave the others to civilian life.”
“As do we, for the most part.”
“Zen’zat serve you. You never let them have anything for themselves. Maybe your example has held them back?”
“They are bipeds, we are quadrupeds. If they are keying off of us then they are stupid.”