by Aer-ki Jyr
With flocks of Valeries following the transports out and providing air cover, the massive ships unloaded the Nestafar walkers and send them into the Skarrons’ grounded transport like several deadly arrows, hitting their weak side with the enemy sluggish in response…and even then only able to throw a few troops their way, for the bulk of them were engaged on the far side and unable to redeploy fast enough even if they’d been free to do so.
After some 20+ transports were destroyed a few of them started taking off, with the Valeries hitting them hard and sandblasting their shields with thousands of tiny plasma blasts, enough to tear through them and take a few of the ships down while the ground troops continued to blast more of them into rubble from pointblank range.
Inside of that rubble field more Skarron infantry and a handful of walkers met them, with several Type-1s and 2s throwing up missile support in a huge arc that traveled up over the transports in the LZ and down onto the super dragons, knocking out several of them in less than a minute but leaving so many more intact that they couldn’t stop the Nestafar assault wave, despite seeing it coming towards them at an ominous, pondering pace.
Now getting hit hard from both flanks the Skarrons had a choice to make…stay and fight it out or try to pull back and save what troops they could. They chose the former, making both Star Force and the Nestafar earn their victory and wearing down the troops on both sides. It took another four days before the Skarrons were eventually slaughtered, with most of their transports fleeing into space before they could be killed…yet unable to pick up their walkers and infantry to take with them.
When the Nestafar troops eventually came into contact with Star Force, the Elarioni, and the Voku Paul ordered a slight pause to allow them to retreat…but they didn’t. Instead they dove head first into their other enemies and forced another long battle that consumed the next 2 days, ending with an Alliance victory but at a heavy cost.
There were Voku mech/suits everywhere, along with destroyed fighters and infantry corpses, though the latter didn’t have massive numbers of casualties, given that they were selective in where they employed them. Many Star Force mechs and skeets were down as well, though in far smaller numbers given that they hadn’t had a large force to contribute to the battle in the first place.
Two Elarioni warships had also fallen, now dug into the ground and leaking water. Recovery efforts were being made by the other ships to try and get to any surviving crew, but land and air were death to the Elarioni and few were recovered alive.
The rest of their ships were showing damage of various levels, all of which retreated back into the water and disappeared into the depths to make repairs, leaving an incredible amount of debris behind on the battlefield, most of which belonged to the Skarrons. It stood as a testament to the effort Star Force and the Voku were going to in order to get the Elarioni off this world…all the while the evacuation transports continued to load and depart round the clock.
That was the ultimate victory of it all, but accomplished at a high cost…and one that the Elarioni would never forget.
10
December 27, 2537
Hachtat System
Eliossa
Paul stood in the command nexus onboard the Adamant, much as he had for most of the past 4 months, but for the first time he was holding back the transports. That was because the Skarron fleet in the system had been continually growing, and even as they successfully evacuated most of the Elarioni from the planet the convoys heading out to the Voku fleet guarding the jumpships at the star had been getting jumped more regularly.
The Skarrons hadn’t hit his position or at the star, trying instead to snipe their ships when they were at their most vulnerable, and now that they were devoting more and more warships to that endeavor Paul had to hold back the last of the transports or risk losing one…something he had avoided thus far.
Most of the planet was now in Skarron hands, with the Nestafar stupidly having wasted troops battling Star Force and the Voku, but in truth if they hadn’t it would have only delayed their defeat. The Skarrons were overrunning them with numbers that they hadn’t seen in the assaults on the ADZ…a dire omen for what was likely to be coming their way eventually, for Nestafar space was much closer to Skarron territory. If this was how they dealt with nearer threats, then it was only a matter of time until their border eeked out close enough to the ADZ to warrant a larger assault.
But they had time to prepare, it seemed, and right now getting the last of the Elarioni out was the mission. They were going to accomplish it with ease, Paul knew, thanks to the superiority of the Voku. But completing that mission without losing a single transport was the tricky part…and not leaving anyone behind. The Skarrons weren’t stupid, and had deduced what they were up to, all the while trying to interfere if just out of spite, for they didn’t have the numbers to take down the Voku fleet, given how superior their ships were.
So Paul held the last of the transports, getting a group of around 400 sitting in next to the Adamant and his other few warships, surrounded by a cloud of drones with patrolling Voku cruiser analogs keeping any predators at bay while frigate analogs spread out in an even wider detection zone, sending out active signals to monitor the area with such sensor intensity that it surprised Paul. Apparently they didn’t want the enemy sneaking anything in, though to date Skarron tech hadn’t shown any such capability and Paul wondered what enemies the Voku had that did.
When the last transport was loaded at 3/4ths capacity he held the six more empty ones that were waiting in orbit and signaled the other empties at the star to stop coming. Some of the ships were on their third round trip, just having gotten back from Atlantica thanks to the ever increasing speed of Star Force’s newer jumpships. The long trek, however, still meant that Star Force had to devote an insane percentage of their transport fleet to this endeavor…and not just here, but the other 7 planets that were being simultaneously evacuated.
Paul had gotten a few status reports from them, passed along by the transports who were meeting up at their eventual destination and swapping intel, and so far there had been no major problems in any of the campaigns, each of which was led by a trailblazer. Paul had taken the most difficult assignment for himself, or so he’d thought in the planning stage, with the reports coming back indicating that he’d been correct.
This planet’s Elarioni population was the largest also, so it was with only a small shock several hours later when the TF finally pulled up from the surface that several thousand Cruiser-class and smaller starships rose up from the oceans across the planet simultaneously, making the waters look like a giant cereal bowl full of O-shaped Cheerios as they made the transition to air.
The Voku stayed on the ground covering Star Force’s exit and came up with the Elarioni, bringing their ground troop transports back up to the carriers in orbit and joining with them in transformer style while their warships pulled back from hunting the Skarrons elsewhere in orbit and formed up into a defensive wedge around the transports and Elarioni civilian starships while the aquatic race’s own warships did likewise.
Not to Paul’s surprise the Skarrons began moving their fleet around quickly, attempting to bring one last hammer blow before they escaped. Problem was such a massive fleet comprised of 3 different races couldn’t move together with as much coordination and alacrity as a single, smaller one. They had to jump out in stages while the long carpet of ships was laid out for the enemy to hit at whatever point their wanted.
Paul held the Adamant back until the last section began to move, knowing the stragglers would be the most vulnerable, and began fighting a rearguard action as Skarron warships began to come up from below them, skirting around to the gap between ship and atmosphere and hitting the rear…intent on coming up the middle and getting at the Star Force transports just ahead.
Devoting what drones he had left, Paul sent them down into the enemy not expecting them to return. He’d had enough with the playing it safe routine and decided to nail the b
astards for their insolence…and with Ta’lin’yi they certainly were able to accomplish that, catching the Skarrons off guard with the offensive maneuver and creating a bloody melee as the Adamant gained altitude ahead of them and followed the back of the convoy out.
The Voku commander contacted him and they set up their final battle plans, including sending a few ships back to destroy the drone debris that was large enough to potentially survive impact with the planet. Paul didn’t want the Skarrons getting their hands on any intact pieces, and he’d purposefully had the Adamant hovering over the target zone rather than occupying a normal orbit prior to their final departure, knowing that the drone debris would fall into the atmosphere and burn up…if it was small enough.
Some of the Voku ships flew back and killed the handful of Skarron ships remaining before blasting apart the intact hulls of the drones that were now partially or totally inoperable. None had survived to return to their warships, with Paul having ordered their pilots to hurt the Skarrons as badly as possible…and their having destroyed more than 500 enemy vessels in the process.
But the Skarrons had thousands more insystem with a large chunk of those harassing the outgoing fleet and more jumping in from the other planets to tighten the noose. They weren’t going to get them all here in time and the Voku were insistent that it wouldn’t matter, taking it to the enemy head on and making them pay heavily whenever they ventured close to one of the transports.
The Elarioni warships were doing likewise, guarding their own people closely, on both their ships and the Star Force transports, and giving Paul his first good view of their military hardware. They had beam weapons similar to the Dvapp’s Sammies but these were using an altogether different type of energy. Using the limited sensor readings he was able to get what he thought was a match with the private database of V’kit’no’sat documented tech.
It was a Yor’vok, and something the Elarioni had not originally possessed when the V’kit’no’sat had hunted them. Or, to be more accurate, not what they’d possessed the last time the Elarioni had been updated in the database, with their eventual ouster happening much more recently than the fall of Earth. The Yor’vok was pretty much a standard, straightforward weapon that employed altered photons and worked like a slow moving laser…only infinitely more powerful. Normally light particles were scattered and had large gaps between them in transit, but with the Yor’vok they were densely packed together, so much so that little bits would escape and cause the beam to glow whereas a laser was invisible until it hit and reflected off of something.
It was a burning weapon, effective against shields and armor alike, but the sticky energy matrix they also had was what intrigued him more. That was an even higher level technology and something that Star Force wasn’t yet close to developing. The Elarioni weapon was crude by V’kit’no’sat standards, but it was the first time Paul had seen one of the ‘holy’ weapons employed on the battlefield…and it sent a shiver down his spine.
The Elarioni version couldn’t attack shields, meaning they had to take them down with the Yor’vok first, after which they would essentially spit a glob of glowing destructive goo at slow speeds and splatter the enemy ship…with the Ha’star melting the matter as if it were little more than snow to a bucket of hot water. The drawback was, if you could call it a drawback, that the Skarron ships were so big that the Ha’star could eat large chunks into them and the rest of the warship could keep fighting.
The Elarioni didn’t know yet the interior structure of the enemy and where to probe for weak points and there was no time for Paul to inform them of that now, but none the less the Skarrons had no defense against the Ha’star after their shields went down, for the armor they so depended on was like tissue paper to the Elarioni weapon.
Even though most of his thoughts were centered around the evacuation, a part of Paul’s mind sized up the threat the Elarioni would pose if Star Force fought them…and immediately saw a weakness. Not in his own fleet, but theirs. The Yor’vok was a pure beam weapon, which meant it was easily defendable against with a reflective shield. To date Star Force hadn’t had cause to use such a thing except in low level applications against lachars, with only partial deflection occurring. Against a Yor’vok they’d get full deflection so long as the shield matrix was strong enough, and would even be able to, with a bit of luck and a lot of skill on the shield controller’s part, redirect the Elarioni’s own weapon back at them.
And without being able to take down the Star Force shields their Ha’star would be next to useless. For as advanced as their tech was, their battle layout was lacking. Then again, they were aquatic, with naval warfare probably being something they delved into rarely, especially given that they’d spent so many years in hiding. He was thoroughly impressed by their tech and knew how effective it would be against the lizards and others, but in a head to head he’d own them.
With the Voku warships quickly cleaning up behind the Adamant, the big command ship slowly made its way up to the jumppoint…with more and more Skarron warships closing in around them, so many in fact that the only way to keep the jumppoint clear was to engage the enemy in a slugging match and slowly pull your ships back into themselves as the mass jumped out. The Adamant got severely beaten up in the last few minutes, taking many hits that otherwise would have gone to the Voku as they recovered their damaged ships, melding with them and carrying them out, until finally only a few dozen the Star Force command ship remained.
Those few jumped out together under heavy weaponsfire and ended up at the star a few minutes later, seeing that several skirmishes were already taking place there and knowing that the rest of the Skarron ships would soon be on their way. The evacuation fleet was already repositioning around to the exit jumppoint, which was where one of the conflicts was occurring, but with the influx of Voku and Elarioni ships they kept it clear and sent a continual stream of Elarioni starships out while the Star Force transports continued to load up onto the waiting jumpships.
Paul watched the jump signatures of the Elarioni, getting a computer estimate as to their speed and seeing that they were only slightly faster than the Skarrons…but like their enemy they also didn’t need jumpships, which was a double-edged sword. Paul informed the Adamant’s bridge crew that they’d need to match the Elarioni jump speed in order to stay at the back of the convoy, with a message from the Elarioni coming through that they were claiming the ‘galaxy down’ part of the road, meaning that after they made their departure jump they’d drift lower on the galactic plain, allowing the faster moving jumpships to pass them by above the jumpline to avoid any potential collisions.
As expected the bulk of the Skarron fleet showed up to ‘escort’ them out of the system under fire, with the Adamant taking a few more hull hits but nothing major as it soaked up a lot of the enemy’s attention. The Voku stayed with it and all of the remaining jumpships, ensuring their departure and sending ships with them to further guard the convoys as they moved from one system to another, knowing that an enemy could be waiting for them ahead if they were smart enough.
Paul didn’t expect the Skarrons or Nestafar to be that determined, but he was glad for the backup regardless. Once the jumpships were fully loaded they began winking out of view, carrying their precious cargo out of harm’s way and leaving nothing but warships behind. Those then stayed around a bit and fought it out with the Skarrons to make sure they didn’t jump after the convoy and potentially meet up with it mid jump or cause trouble at the destination system.
After more than an hour of combat and a lot of dead Skarron ships the Voku commander consulted with Paul and they both began to pull out, with the Elarioni already having gone ahead, given their slower speed and desire to stay with their own ships.
Most of the Voku took off at amazing speed, but the commander kept a good chunk of them with Paul and the Adamant, so when the command ship made the jump and left the enemy system behind the chrome ships reformed around it within a few kilometers, demonstrating their navigati
onal skill, not to mention their gravity drive strength, because pulling on stars lightyears away for maneuvering capabilities mid jump was a very expensive and unrewarding venture, allowing you only a little tug here and there, with most ships using thrust engines to accomplish such maneuvering.
Paul took note of the positions of the convoy ahead, with their beacons signaling back and allowing the computer the ability to calculate their approximate position, even if the signal was lagging an hour behind. Seeing that all was in order and marveling at the Voku’s fleet, Paul released the control sphere in the nexus and left the bridge, intending to get in a short workout then a long sleep period. Something he’d been reluctant to do during the evacuation, taking only brief rest periods sufficient enough to accommodate his limited workouts.
He met up with Riona later and they got back into their training routine as if they’d never left it, both recovering a bit of lost fitness and probing their bioshield capabilities as the fleet made its way from system to system, back into the ADZ, and over to the far side where Atlantica lay near the rimward lizard border.
“Hello stranger,” Paul said through the water as he swam up to Ariel’s quarters in Manaan.
She turned around, her green hair spraying out into a fan around her head as it floated in the pristine water inside the city and bracketed a huge smile on her blue face. He could have sworn the glowing patches on her skin increased their aqua-colored intensity, but regardless it was obvious that she was glad to see him…given that it had been decades since they’d last met in person.