Star Force Perseverance (SF81) (Star Force Origin Series) (9 page)

bringing the slower Archons along faster, or at least as fast, as others. While

they weren’t passing up on standout individuals, they were focused on taking

lower end Archons and turning them into an asset for the Clan. It was a bit of

a knock reputation wise, and he really wished one of the balanced Clans would

take his 2.0 average, but his progression had been too slow and steady for

them. In fact, he was too balanced for them. They expected more variation, for

a purely balanced Archon would have had a rating of 1.0 which made no sense

whatsoever.

“Remember,” Terry said, looking directly at Po, “this

is a competition, for you to join a Clan as well as for the Clans measuring

against each other. Pride is on the line, as well as resources for some of the

larger trials. Find the niche you want, then be prepared to work your ass off

for it like you’ve never done before. If you wash out of a Clan, and it does

happen, you can take another slot in another Clan that you qualify for or you

can go neutral. This is not easy street here. You’re going to have to crawl and

claw to maintain your placement until you get your levels up considerably

higher. Some of you won’t stabilize in a Clan for 50 years. Metal Gear Commando

indoctrination typically runs that long.”

Po heard someone whistle, and Terry nodded. “Choose

wisely, and make sure it’s a choice you can live with, succeed or fail. You

know by now that Archons don’t make it the first time at everything, and if

anyone has training scores to the contrary please point them out, for not even

the trailblazers have that clean of a record. When you take on hard challenges

you’re going to fail, then learn from the experience. Do you want to go that

route or choose a lesser challenge that you can probably succeed at and cement

your place within a Clan? It’s up to you, and neither is the preferred way. How

you progress in your training is a personal choice and it needs to fit you.”

That stuck with Po, and as he looked at his two

primary choices he realized he didn’t want to dive into a huge challenge and

struggle to keep going. He wanted to keep grinding his way up the ranks as he’d

been doing, and Clan Westley’s basic program was three times as long and

rumored to be considerably difficult…but it was a way to really get a second

chance for the ‘slackers’ within the Archons, though that term didn’t really

apply to any of them.

Po wasn’t in a hurry to advance, he just wanted to

keep improving and help out Star Force when and where he could. He wanted to be

an Archon, not always racing to catch up or outdo others. The higher the

ranking one achieved, the less one would stay with their basic training peers.

Archons advanced at different rates, some trained while others did field work.

Everything got complicated and divergent, with the only important thing being

what path would Po walk and how would he go about doing it.

If this was going to be his way, then he’d walk in the

door with the lowest threshold to maintain his balanced training…and that meant

Clan Noisy Cricket. He wasn’t going to be a star recruit or on a primary

training program, but he would work his ass off to earn his Clan appointment

and devote his loyalty to them. Being an anonymous Archon amongst all the

others and just going about and doing his thing on his timetable appealed to

Po, and the more he thought about it the more he realized this was the choice

for him.

He thought it through a couple extra times to make

sure, then he selected the training slot he qualified for within the Noisy

Crickets and locked in his selection. His display accepted the anointment with

a symbol of a tiny pistol emblazoned over a silhouette of a cricket in the

background and spun it in place for several seconds, with a text prompt appearing

below it that told him to report to hangar bay 8 in 2 hours and 43 minutes with

his duffle of personal belongings packed and ready to head to another star

system.

Po stood up, nodded to Archon Terry, and took his

leave as several other rangers had already done. Apparently there was no

additional fanfare, and he appreciated that. This was all business, and the

importance of the moment wasn’t lost on Po. He was transitioning into a whole

new realm within Star Force and he was eager to get at it, with the quick

departure being a good thing. He didn’t want to linger here any longer now that

he had a course charted for him. He wanted to get to the Fiora System and Clan

Noisy Cricket’s capitol of Blade Waltz that it shared with six other Clans, not

knowing exactly what awaited him but eager to find out.

August 1, 3106

Menchet System

(lizard core)

Tess

A Falcon-class

dropship flew across the gap between the troop jumpship that had brought it

here along with another contingent of reinforcements, coming in to a captured

hangar bay on the lizard ring that Star Force had been making use of for more

than a year now. So far they’d managed to take control of a little less than a

third of the massive shipyard that encircled the entire planet, including

seizing and blocking off 139 of the 487 columns that connected down to the

surface.

Those were no longer sending troops up to fight them,

meaning the controlled areas of the ring were safely Star Force territory now,

and with a sizeable warfleet outside guarding the ring from naval attack the

only way the lizards could hit them was sending ground troops up the remaining columns

they controlled, for the ground-based anti-orbital weapons couldn’t reach the

ring itself, and to date they hadn’t fired on any of the connecting columns.

That meant the ground war that was grinding on inside

the ring would continue, for Star Force wasn’t going to destroy it either, and

if the lizards should start shooting out the supporting columns the gravity

drives on the ring itself would be more than enough to keep them aloft in its

nearly geosynchronous orbit. The lizards apparently understood this to be true

as well, for they were continually spamming millions of troops up the columns

they controlled and sending them in massive waves against the Star Force

lines…both of them, for the controlled segment had two ends that were miles

wide and high, making for ample locations to hit and get hit at.

Those two front ‘lines’ were constantly moving forward

with hunter teams moving out beyond them and taking down lizards, then the

fortified positions would surge forward here and there, sometimes no more than

a few dozen meters, and resettle to survive the next surge of troops. As it

was, clearing out the dead lizard bodies was becoming a chore, with Star Force

having brought in incinerator factories and set them up inside the ring in

order to dispose of them all…with Archons checking to make sure the bodies were

actually dead before they got reduced to ash.

It was necessary to do that in order to keep the

corridors and chambers mostly clear, for the lizards kept pouring

reinforcements at them in suicidal fashion, hoping to wear them down or,

perhaps, just to stall their advance. Regardless, Star Force had a huge ground

war on its hands that was painstakingly making progress. More troops were being

brought in from the ADZ, some to replace others rotating out, but a lot were

here to increase the number of combat troops to facilitate a quicker rate of

progress.

Along with those Regulars came this one dropship

carrying a special assault team. When it landed on the hangar deck there was

already a circus of activity, with Bsidd unloading by the hundreds and filing

off to receive orders and placements without everyone bunching up into a

chaotic crowd. Star Force had handlers there to direct everyone and keep the

hangar deck orderly and processing quickly, with unloaded dropships heading

back out to return to the jumpship and pick up more troops and the supplies

necessary to sustain them within the ring.

When that dropship opened up, a murmur spread amongst

the deck staff as well as the Bsidd troops. Everyone nearby paused what they

were doing and looked as a group walked out, packed together tightly in a

column two wide but with a casual gait that wasn’t symmetrical. They were not

Bsidd, but rather Humans…the giant variety. They were Knights, all of them, but

they weren’t wearing their traditional white armor. These were wearing black

with gold trim, save for one in the front pair leading the others. He wore all

black armor.

“Damn,” one of the Commandoes on the deck whispered.

“Those are all Arc Knights.”

“I’ve never seen them together before. Always alone

working with other troops.”

“They’re not all Arc Knights,” an Archon striker said,

stepping up behind them as they watched the group go where they pleased,

bypassing all the handlers and heading straight to an individual waiting for

them at a side door. It was another Archon, this one wearing golden armor, and

her presence alone caused another stir, for while there were many titans on the

ring they were hardly ever seen.

“Trailblazer Megan,” one of the Commandoes said,

seeing her ID pop up on his helmet’s HUD.

“That’s not who I meant. Do you see the one Knight

that doesn’t have gold trim?” he asked quickly before the group left the hangar

entirely.

“In the front?”

“Yes. He isn’t an Arc Knight. He’s the Black Knight.”

“What’s that?”

“A legend to all Archons. He was the first Knight,

from all the way back when Star Force began, and he tormented the trailblazers

and second generation Archons in their basic training. He beat the crap out of

them, just like his replacement did to me. We all hated and feared the Black

Knight, and that one, the original one, is the only Knight permitted to wear

the all black armor. His name is Vermaire, and he trains the Arc Knights

personally.”

“Shit. I’d never heard any of that.”

“Are they here to train then?” another Commando asked

aghast.

“No,” the striker said with a rueful smile concealed

beneath his helmet. “I have a feeling the trailblazers want this ring captured

more quickly, hence all the reinforcements…and those you just saw are the big

guns they’re bringing in.”

“Damn,” the Commando said again as the last one of the

Arc Knights disappeared from view as they left the hangar.

“You have no idea,” the striker promised as the normal

flow of offloading resumed.

On the opposite end of the Star Force zone Paul and

Riona were beyond the front lines, pressed deep into lizard territory and

finding their hands full. They’d stumbled into one of the massive staging areas

and decided to dive in head first, using a combination of battlemeld abilities,

Jumat, and their death sabers to chew enough of a hole to stand in as more and

more lizards pushed themselves into the chamber in an attempt to overwhelm them

with bodies, even if they couldn’t shoot them, with the lizards grabbing for

their arms and legs in an attempt to slow them down with no regard for the

lethality of the glowing white blades.

Linked in battlemeld as the two titans were they

didn’t need to worry about hitting each other with the death sabers, which

would kill their shield strength with a single hit. The weapons held their

‘blades’ by continually recharging that area with additional energy. As much

bled off as necessary to cut through a tiny sliver of a target, so it appeared

that the blades were solid so long as the substance wasn’t too tough. Hit a

shield and all that energy would release into it if needed, and either it or

the blade would go down.

If that happened it would take a few seconds for the

blade to regenerate, pulling extra power from the pack they wore on their

backs, but that much energy delivered into their shields would bite a chunk out

of them for sure, and they were getting nicked down enough as it was with

numerous phaser blasts they couldn’t avoid. The entire crowd of lizards had

weapons, and they didn’t seem to care if they shot each other with them so long

as they ended up doing damage to the Archons.

There were tens of thousands in this chamber,

originally built to construct ribs for jumpships and necessarily huge in

design. That’s why it was being used as a primary staging ground from which

teams were being dispatched at a nearly constant rate to probe the front lines

until they thought they found a weak point, after which many more would be sent

in like a firehose spewing infantry in an attempt to put out the fire that was

the invading Star Force troops.

Paul and Riona were in over their head, but they knew

they could work their way out of it. In the mean time they would be killing far

more here than they would hunting down loose groupings elsewhere and killing

the most possible was the goal, with both of them using their battlemeld link

to remind themselves of their purpose here and not get overloaded with the gore.

And it was working, for Riona stood out to Paul like a