Star Force: Empire (SF58) (6 page)

That was rare but not unheard of, with the Axius
format much more beneficial in taking advantage of the differences in the races
and their capabilities. As such, while the Human mainline troops might be the
more skilled, Axius would often pack a bigger punch due to its diversity of
fighting styles and equipment…so long as it was properly used. The more complex
something was the more likelihood of it being messed up, which was why there
was almost always an Archon involved when Axius deployed.

This one took the combined fleet of Axius cargo ships
and warships across Zeta Region and into Beta, depressing so low that they
nearly dropped into Gamma over the weeks that passed but ended up on the lowest
border of the Skarron advance. Here they were still pushing forward, not yet
having encountered the edge of the ADZ for it angled back around the curve that
it was. The troops here were not from the same source as those now fully
engaged with the lizards, and these were continuing their typical push into the
weaker systems that surrounded the ADZ without too much resistance.

The Voku border was far below on the galactic plane,
leaving no one in the area with the strength to repel what was really an easy
gobbling up of systems by the enemy, but in recent years Star Force had been
pushing its diplomatic efforts out beyond the ADZ and establishing contact with
hundreds of new races so they could share intel on their mutual enemies.

This continuing push below the ADZ had been one such
instance where an associate of Star Force’s had relayed to them the
reconnaissance reports that had allowed a small fleet of Ma’kri to seek out and
engage several of the Skarron expeditionary fleets, blocking a few invasions
but eventually biting off more than they could chew. The eventual
reinforcements had come and it was either time to back off or up Star Force’s
game…with Flynn-046 choosing the latter and sending back one of his ships to
pull up Axius reinforcements so they could remove one of the forward Skarron
strongholds.

Do that and they’d put the Skarron offensive behind
schedule enough to buy the local region a decade, at least, with Star Force
coordinating those local races that were willing and helping them organize a
stronger, mutual defensive line to avoid the easy gains the Skarrons had been
previously making.

Star Force couldn’t be everywhere at once, but a few
hard strikes here and there coupled with a strategic game plan for the locals
could make a world of difference in the near future, and since Star Force’s end
game was predicated on unlocking more and more pyramid tech they had to try and
keep the ADZ from being totally surrounded, and to do that they had to work and
think proactively.

And when the Archons called, Axius was there to
answer, as was every other military force within the empire…and they were using
them all, right down to the more developed wards, to fight battles beyond mere
self-defense and save as many people as they could, all the while more and more
refugees fled both the lizard and the Skarron offenses and continued to pour
into the ADZ by whatever means they had to get there.

6

June 19, 2652

Unnamed System
(Beyond the ADZ)

Point 6

The seda decelerated against the gas giant’s gravity
well, with the massive jump cradle surrounding it like a spider grasping its
prey as it slowed the medium-sized station down using its considerable engine
power. Already in orbit, having arrived a few minutes ahead, was the Canderous
fleet some 18 ships strong with another 34 on the way, trailing slightly behind
the seda in loose escort formation.

None of them were jumpships, or in the case of
Canderous, jump ‘rods’ for the spacefaring civilization had forgone the
traditional Star Force model and rebuilt their fleet based on the Skarron navy,
in which each individual ship was capable of making slow jumps between star
systems. Now every Canderous ship from cargo hauler to warship was interstellar
jump capable, with only their sedas requiring a lift. Those were meant to be
stationary, but their fleet wasn’t, and the idea of a number of ships getting
stranded in a system because their jumpship malfunctioned or was destroyed was
something the Canderians weren’t too keen on.

They lived in space, operated in space, and only went
planetside
to gather resources or to fight…with this
current mission being right up their alley, for there wasn’t a habitable planet
within the unclaimed system that was situated beyond the Alpha and Epsilon
Regions. The gas giant the seda was being placed into orbit around had a slew
of moons and there were six other sizeable rocky, yet barren worlds without
atmosphere for Canderous to harvest resources from, but there was nothing here
even remotely capable of housing a standard civilization.

Star Force could have built colonies on the worlds,
contained within sealed cities like they had in many other locations, but this
system was to be Canderous only with no ADZ resources devoted to it. The seda
had within it all the necessary crews and factories required to build another
just like it…and many more. Right now it was isolated and alone, with only a
handful of warships to guard it against threats in the region, but those
threats were minor as far as Star Force’s scouting reports indicated. No,
Canderous was here for another reason beyond colonization.

While others built up the defenses within and around
the ADZ Canderous had been tasked to go beyond it, into the expected expansion
path of the lizards and build up outposts that they could monitor the local
areas from and hopefully pick off small scale invasions before they grew to the
point where the mainline fleet would be required. So many systems were falling
to the lizards simply due to the fact that no one was around to fight them,
with them picking up valuable planets with almost no resistance at all.

Sure, there were major battles being fought elsewhere,
but the lizards were assaulting so many systems that neither Star Force nor anyone
else could counter them all, let alone detect them. Even with their relay grid
and progressively faster communication between star systems there was always a
lag, and that relay system didn’t extend beyond the ADZ save for a few
locations, meaning outside the ADZ the lizards were gobbling up easy targets,
some of whom Star Force only learned about from survivors fleeing their way.

While lizard territory was too vast to contain,
Canderous had been tasked with slowing them down. To that end they were picking
29 widely spaced systems and putting down roots, in this case a seda in each,
and developing those systems while scouting out the surrounding area and
establishing permanent patrols once they built up their fleets. Each location
was well ahead of the lizards current lines, with the intention to be that
Canderous could be firmly established in their outposts and fielding sizeable
fleets by the time the first lizard ships arrived, but with their tendency to
hop over some systems and go for others there was no way of telling when it
would be, but sooner or later they would come and Canderous would be waiting
for them.

They knew they didn’t have the firepower to resist a
major invasion, but what they planned to build their outposts into was a small
scale, high numbered fleet that could monitor and hit the type of seed planting
invasions that the lizards had originally hit Epsilon Eridani with…a handful of
ships that would create a lizard colony and grow their way into greater
strength. If they could detect and take out those when they arrived, they could
deny the lizards hundreds of planets going forward. In the greater scheme of
things that was a small number, but the less they had to work with the better.

The lizards were veterans at fighting in multiple
arenas simultaneously and Star Force was going to take a page out of their
book, letting Canderous play with their expeditionary forces and cause them the
kind of havoc the lizards typically caused others.

To that end the giant seed that the seda was dropped into
a stable orbit and immediately began sending out short range craft to the
nearby moons, landing mining equipment and other gear there for the work crews
to begin assembling. The seda was purposefully over staffed, knowing that they
weren’t going to get any personnel reinforcements for several years to come and
the local birth rate wasn’t going to be enough to supply what they needed. The
rest of Canderous would make up for that, but aside from this initial seda and
fleet, Point 6 was going to have to build everything else on site.

The jump cradle detached from the seda after it was
secured into a fixed orbit and left immediately, capable of traveling far
faster on its journey back to the ADZ than any of its previous escorts could.
It would report back that the outpost was now operational and growing, but
beyond that the Canderians would be on their own for months, if not years
before the next ship came to check on them. They were about 3 months away from
the ADZ given their ‘slow’ gravity drives and more than 3 weeks away from the
nearest Point outpost, making them truly on their own with no relay links back
to the ADZ…only courier ships should they send one.

But that didn’t worry Canderous, for this environment
was one that they lived and thrived within. They’d chosen a system far enough
away from the lizard lines to give them plenty of time to build and they set
out to do that immediately, sending only two warships away to begin scouting
the neighboring systems and updating the limited maps they’d been given. This
was their turf now and they needed to get to know it in detail if they were
going to end up monitoring and lightly defending all of it, not through
establishing bases and putting up Sentinels, but by creating and maintaining
patrolling fleets to knock down any small scale invasions that might occur, or
rather would. It was the timetable and location that was in question.

With the two ships jumping out, the rest spread around
the system pulling more detailed surveys, dropping off sensor probes and
comm
relays, and otherwise fully claiming the uninhabited
system as theirs. How much traffic passed through en route to other systems
they didn’t know, but there hadn’t been so much as a scratch of infrastructure
in the system when previously scouted, nor was it marked on any of the local
maps as belonging to anyone. It was simply one of the ‘junk’ systems set in
between the others and used as a hopping off point to shorten jumplines or
avoid bad ones.

Canderous intended for it to remain that way, with
them not taking up any positions near the star other than dropping off some
monitoring probes. If no one knew they were in the system that was fine, they’d
just build quietly and keep an eye on the local star systems, waiting and
watching for the inevitable arrival of their enemy while the rest of Star Force
fought the major battles.

It was the small ones that were winning the lizards
the most territory, and there it was that Canderous had to counter them, at
least in this small piece of the galaxy. And as was typical of the Canderians,
they were eager for the lizards to get to them, for as many engagements as
they’d had against the Skarrons they’d seen less combat than others. And for a
purely military civilization that just wouldn’t do, hence their volunteering
for this part of the master plan before Paul had even had a chance to suggest
them for it.

Within two days the first of the processed ore
shipments arrived in the seda and the factories began to come alive, building
structural components and other parts needed to begin constructing larger
mining facilities on the moons. Those would then produce more output and the
process would snowball as it had many times before as Canderous followed well-established
colonization protocols. It would be a few years before they had another seda
built, but once they did the personnel reinforcements would start flowing in
from the ADZ and the Point 6 outpost would continue to grow, eventually
producing its own starships and everything else they’d need, increasing the patrols
and area around the system that they were monitoring.

Like little balloons, their detection and monitoring
range grew out spherically, creating a ‘safe’ zone for the locals that the
lizards were not aware of. It would be 16 years before Point 6 saw their first
sign of enemy incursion, but when it came they’d be ready and the lizards
wouldn’t know where the resistance was coming from, further confounding their
expeditionary forces as to the location of the enemy and where the weak spots
were for them to spread into.

Naru
flew a few feet over
the floor, carrying a small satchel as the
Nestafar’s
hummingbird-like wings accelerated to compensate for the extra weight. She was
on her way to a birthing ceremony and had forgot the gift, scurrying back to
her quarters to get it and hoping to arrive in time. One of her maturia sisters
was giving birth to 3 new members of the Nestafar civilization, with each one
celebrated as a blessing now that word of their race’s extinction was common
knowledge across the ADZ.

Most didn’t know that some of them remained, as wards
of Star Force and tucked away on a private planet with a few other races that
had suffered similar ill fate. Those were either in a waiting state, with their
future uncertain, or they’d chosen to remain wards and forgo any ideas of
independence. Star Force was gracious enough to extend that option, with their
needs being taken care of in perpetuity, with no worries about surviving into
the future.

The Nestafar were past the waiting stage now, and
chose to live in seclusion. Their population was small, small enough to fill
only three large cities on the planet with a fourth slowly under construction.
They had no dreams of one day rebuilding their huge civilization, but in simply
making a place for themselves to live here, peaceably, and to do their small
part in helping the overall empire and ADZ thrive…but from a distance.

Part of the desire for seclusion was the lingering
resentment in the ADZ against the Nestafar, but as that gradually died out over
time along with those who had lived during that era, the Nestafar that had
turned their backs on their own empire and fled to Star Force simply no longer
had the desire for glory. They wanted to build, but not expand, making their
granted cities a new home they could be proud of, and welcoming each new member
into the fold immediately as they arrived.

The birthing ceremony was one of
Naru’s
favorites, but one that she’d only been on the other side of once. It was
pleasure mixed with pain, but it marked not only the end of the pregnancy but
the beginning of the younglings’ journey as they were transitioned into a
maturia within minutes, and all done in ceremonious glory. The mother would
then be allowed to rest, with her responsibilities complete, and would be
showered with attention and gifts as a show of compensation for the duty to her
people that she had just acquitted.

And it wasn’t a pleasant one, for a Nestafar womb
could hold up to as many as five infants simultaneously, turning the mother
into more or less a fleshy orb in the final stages.
Naru
hadn’t liked that at all and didn’t intend to go through the process again, but
she recognized the importance of it and figured that the four Nestafar she had
acted as a conduit to bring into the universe were enough to acquit her
duty…but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to support and praise those that
continued to reproduce, knowing the toll it took on them.

With that thought stuck firmly in her mind she flew as
quickly as she could, arriving at the ceremony as the first of the younglings
was born. No one could see the actual birthing, for those involved were behind
a screen, but the first of the transition canisters came out with the youngling
inside and ceremonial guards flanking it as the hover pod was taken across the
chamber for all those gathered to see, then off down a special hallway to the
nearby maturia where the little one would begin his life and eventual training.

Naru
cheered along with the
others, then did the same as the other two came out in sequence. Once they were
gone and a few minutes passed the screens lowered with the mother now visible
and clearly fatigued, but the onslaught of well-wishers surrounded her and she
received them with joy and thanks.

Naru
was relieved she’d made
it in time and gave her sister the gift she’d been working to make for the past
three weeks. It was a head piece with an ornate script across the front and
sides with several jewels inset, and it had cost her quite a few credits to
acquire the pieces, after which she’d done the construction and inscribing
herself.

The gift went over well and
Naru
was pleased, then she excused herself from the remainder of the ceremony and
rushed over to another part of the city…the bioharvest zone, where she had
taken a short break from work to attend. The Nestafar dropped to the floor at
the entrance and proceeded on foot the rest of the way into the harvesting
center, then made her way over to the section she’d been working on before and
stepped up to the control cupola that had another two people inside working the
remote controls.