Star Force: Retribution (SF60) (2 page)

When it finished and the debris clouds were
mushrooming out to the point where you could see through them again the Li’vorkrachnika
saw that the Gfatt ships had already moved down into the crater and were firing
all of their various colored Haxtrel beams at the surrounding structure, along
with sporadic big booms coming from their primary weapons. Those were the
equivalent of a Kamehameha being shot out from the narrow point in the
hourglasses, with the orb flying into the shipyard, melting its way inside,
then blasting out a huge new crater…after which there was a recharge period
before each Gfatt ship could fire the main weapon again, chipping out more of
the enormous shipyard.

Every ship that entered the initial large crater was
equipped with the
Jakdems
and were instructed to fire
them in very specific locations, as if each ship was a hungry beaver trying to
carve out a specific section of the giant tree trunk. The Gfatt expanded on the
crater enough to get the bulk of their ships inside, then they went laterally
no more and focused on cutting up and down from the crater, as well as on through
the center.

Not all of their ships could enter the breach point
initially, and those outside provided cover for the others, fighting the enemy
ships and even going after one of the invokers. Those engagements were meant to
delay and reduce the firepower the enemy was throwing at them, and even the
invoker attack was meant to scare it off and away from the cutting fleet, though
they had to sacrifice two of their ships in order to damage the chess piece
enough to make it withdraw.

The others firing on invoker let it go and pulled back
into the growing sphere of ships around the crater in the shipyard ring, with
more and more Gfatt entering the breach as it grew larger and adding their
‘chewing’ capability to it. Meanwhile the H’kar had their hands full, for the
enemy was not pulling back the forces they’d sent to hit it. Costly as it was,
their distraction was buying time and the Gfatt were burning through the ring
like a slow chainsaw blade, with numerous bits of debris being flung out that
added to the damage being done to the cruiser horde…with the Gfatt guiding several
of the larger pieces through their formation and launching them at the Li’vorkrachnika
like giant rocks thrown out of a slingshot thanks to their control beams.

It took quite a while to carve all the way through the
12 mile wide ring, and then to expand that piercing hole all the way across it
up and down to completely sever the shipyard into two halves. By that time the
defending ships outside the breach had either gone in to help the others or had
been destroyed, leaving only a wedge of ships between the two thick
sidewalls…which put the Gfatt in a very bad place when the Li’vorkrachnika spammed
the opening with cruisers so thick you couldn’t even see the light of the star
through them.

But the two sidewalls also provided cover for the
Gfatt, who didn’t care how many enemy ships there were. They’d cut the giant
ring in half, but it was still in orbit and that amount of damage, massive as
it was, was minor compared to the sheer size of the thing. No, in order to kill
it they needed help…and that help was going to be gravity.

Once the cut was made all the way through the Gfatt
ships snuggled up against the port sidewall, latched on with their control
beams…and pulled. Using all the grip and engine power they could apply without
ripping pieces off, they started to move the port piece down towards the
planet, leaving the other sitting in space where it had originally been.

The Li’vorkrachnika immediately knew what the Gfatt
were doing and those in the shipyard increased the power to its gravity drives,
which augmented the slow orbit to keep the giant thing in space and locked to
the rotation of the planet below. That made it a tug of war between the two and
while the Gfatt fleet didn’t have nearly enough strength to pull the entire
ring down, for there were millions of gravity drives helping keep it suspended
above the surface, they didn’t need to pull
all
of it down…just the end piece.

Several segments broke off as the Gfatt increased
their pull, with those ships flying out on momentum then back in again to latch
on as the Li’vorkrachnika fleet poured in around them now that the other
sidewall was no longer blocking their attacks. They hammered the Gfatt ships
that had their flat tops pressed near the shipyard and their flat undersides
taking the majority of the weaponsfire, protecting their inner choke points
with a wall of armor. That bought them more time as they slowly pulled the end
of the giant ring down, dragging the rest of the nearby station with it in a
very subtle bend that had hull plates warping, compressing, and cracking apart
down the length of it but the superstructure held together and kept the ring
intact.

Eventually the Gfatt brought the end piece all the way
down into the upper atmosphere, with the centrifugal force helping to maintain
its orbit diminishing with altitude. Soon it began falling fast but the Gfatt
didn’t let go for fear of it somehow being able to rise again. They rode it
down to within 10 miles of the surface before finally breaking free with their
surviving ships and running for orbit through the enemy fleets that now clogged
the atmosphere above. They fought as they ran, making numerous kills in the
process but losing many of their damaged own that weren’t strong enough to make
it through the gauntlet back up to even the most awkward jumppoints.

A few of the Gfatt did make it and jumped out,
signaling the H’kar to do likewise. Meanwhile the end of the shipyard ring hit
the surface and its crumpling mass pulled the next closest section down with
it…and like a giant noodle running the entire circumference of the planet each
piece yanked down the part next to it, dropping a 12 mile thick ‘rope’ down to
the surface, crushing the orbital tethers underneath that were partially
keeping it erect as they were pulled sideways then snapped off in a domino-like
effect that the Gfatt didn’t wait around to see the finish of. They knew
physics would take care of the rest and burned hard for distance away from the
swarming enemy fleet that was even more out for blood now than they had been
before.

A fair number of Gfatt ships made it back to a stellar
jumppoint, but most did not, having been whittled down by inconsequential
plasma fire throughout the engagement only to have the pathetically weak enemy
cruisers make kills against the larger warships. They didn’t die in massive
explosions, but rather were picked apart when their engines failed and they
were left helpless. There was nothing their fellow ships could do, for now that
the objective had been accomplished and their fleet wrecked, it was every ship
for itself and they were running as fast as they could.

Yren’s
battleship was one of
the lucky ones, surviving to the end of the engagement with only partial
gravity drive loss…but enough remained for the ship to make a slow jump away
from the system.

The same couldn’t be said for most of the others
desperately running away from the planet.

2

October 13, 2674

Quixva
System
(Skarron territory)

Quixstan

Morgan watched the reconnaissance reports coming in
from her bridge command chair along with the rest of the crew. The warship she
was commanding was sitting with six others in stellar orbit along with a
partial Voku conglomerate as transmissions were returning from a handful of
their scout ship ‘pieces’ that had gone on ahead to the one inhabited planet in
the system. They’d known it would only be a matter of time before the world
fell, and thanks to the Hycre’s tireless efforts to track enemy fleet movements
the trailblazer had been able to time their arrival accordingly.

The planet’s orbital paths were already overrun with
lizard ships, the naval battle having been previously fought and won, but the
surface action on the moderately developed Skarron world looked to still be in
its infancy. As she watched, Morgan could see multiple cruisers already in
atmosphere tangling with Skarron walkers and the Archon was tempted to sit back
and watch a bit, but they already had a prime opportunity as it was and she
didn’t feel like waiting for their luck to change.

The longer the fighting continued the less ships the
lizards would have, but Morgan’s fleet already outmatched the 794 cruisers and
two battleships in orbit…plus she wanted to hit their jumpships immediately,
and right now they were sitting in planetary orbit virtually by themselves
while the rest of the fleet was either in atmosphere or clustered into three
other holding groups. It looked like some of the jumpships were troop
transports as well, for they were already beginning to send small streams of
kirbies and larger dropships down to the surface.

The captain of the warship turned and gave her a
questioning glance, with Morgan nodding as she stood up and headed over to the
side room where the command nexus was located. They hadn’t known what to expect
initially for all they’d known was a lizard fleet was spotted in this general
area, but with the reconnaissance coming in telling her pretty much everything
she’d hoped this mission could avail it was time to get to work.

Stepping around the wall and into the nexus she contacted
the Voku and worked out the basic battle plan, which would have them going
after the jumpships while Morgan’s fleets deployed and engaged the cruisers.
The Voku were faster and better armed for their size, which meant they’d have
slightly better odds of hitting and disabling them before they were able to
jump out, but the troop transports sitting at the lowest altitude were all
Morgan’s.

Working out the best approach jumplines the
trailblazer began issuing orders to her warship and the others while setting a
countdown clock that she shared with the Voku, then all of them broke up and
made microjumps out to their preplanned positions. Morgan’s ship made a lazy
jump towards the planet then hard braked to come up short and outside both
lizard and Skarron sensor range, which was no small feat for a vessel of that
size.

With the planet being the size of Morgan’s fist on the
holographic
viewscreen
, she waited until the
countdown clock passed their departure mark and the crew made their final
microjump, pulling on the planet’s gravity for most of its acceleration. The
fist-sized planet grew visibly larger until it filled the
viewscreen
,
with Morgan shifting over to a tactical view and the realtime camera images
moving to auxiliary positions around the edges of her little battle nook.

Lizard contacts began popping up on the map
everywhere, slightly updated from the passive scans they’d just been monitoring
from range, as did the other Star Force jumpships as they all came in at once
along with the Voku, leaving little time for any of the enemy craft to
maneuver. Morgan signaled through the nexus for her jumpship to begin firing
immediately with its bloon launcher at one of the troop jumpships that was now
sitting a handful of kilometers in front of them while the Star Force carrier
dispersed its drones as quickly as possible. The little black bricks began
spewing out as the first glowing energy balls were launched, with the lizard
cruiser formations beginning to move to intercept.

The first of the energy-filled bloons splashed against
the transport’s hull, with it not even raising shields in time to block it. The
bluish/red orb spread out an IDF-saturated energy goo that clung to the ship
and isolated an area of it with the effect…and the placement hadn’t been
random, for within that region of the vessel was one of their gravity drives,
now currently disabled by the field and limiting their movement options. The
next one to hit was the same variety, and the next, with the Star Force warship
trying to pin the enemy jumpship in place while its drones came out.

They needn’t have bothered because the lizards were
taken completely off guard, thinking they’d just won control of the system from
the Skarrons. Star Force had never been known to operate this far away from the
ADZ, with them being past the ‘no-go’ line and on the coreward side of Achkor.
Also the precise jump in had given the lizards no warning, not to mention they
were still offloading kirbies full of ground troops.

The shields on the enemy jumpship finally raised, but
the goo was still inside them and would last more than a minute before it
depleted its charge. The hits that came next had the goo sticking to the
shields and accomplishing the same effect, though the bloon strikes that
followed were stopped by the barrier.

Those were orange orbs containing mauler energy, which
savaged the shield strength and opened up gaping holes in the defense field for
the few drones that had already deployed to shoot through, landing Ta’lin’yi
columns against the hull in explosive fashion and trying to damage enough key
systems to disable the big thing. There were four other jumpships nearby, and
two of them began to bug out a few minutes after Morgan sprung her trap, though
they started getting peppered by cleansing beams in an attempt to knock out their
gravity drives directly as more and more drones got into the field.

It was a race to critically hit the big ships and one
that saw some losses. Three of the lizard ground troop transports managed to
jump out, but the others did not. Likewise the Voku made 16 jumpship kills, two
of which came at the star as they pursued them on their way out. The others had
successfully managed to flee the system, but a few of the stragglers were not
so lucky.

Meanwhile the lizards threw their warships against the
Star Force fleet, knowing they were outmatched and going to die but as always
trying to do as much damage as they could in the process. Even some of the
cruisers in atmosphere began to come up to assist, though most of them came too
late to do anything more than just make themselves easy kills. A pair of them
tried to make a kamikaze jump against Morgan’s jumpship, but the crew spotted
the lineup in time to deploy acceleration dampener shields. They didn’t
surround the entire ship, but rather put up a wall against one approach vector
that stretched out into a square column of invisible energy.

That energy acted like a crash bag, collapsing and
resisting the physical momentum and forcing a braking maneuver on the ships
that left them trying to push through the field with their gravity drives still
active less than a kilometer away from the hull. Weapons batteries all over the
jumpship opened up and tore the cruisers apart before they could push their way
through and lightly ram the ship, ending the threat in what would have been a facepalm
moment for the lizards had they still been alive.

If the ship’s crew hadn’t seen it coming it would have
been another matter entirely, or if the warship had been surrounded by an
assaulting fleet then they would have taken hull damage, for the power charge
flowing to the main shields had to be diverted to the ‘cushion’ in order to
inflate and reinforce the already existing capacitor charge. The sheer amount
of energy needed to stop physical momentum on that scale was staggering, which
was why it made for such a useful last ditch technique and any power reactor
that didn’t use at least arc elements didn’t stand a chance of providing enough
juice to pull off the defensive block.

As it was, to shield a vessel the size of a jumpship
with a sufficiently wide and deep wall of collapsible shield energy required
not only the output of the reactors, but a huge amount of energy
prestored
in a special capacitor…though rare moments like
this proved the engineering feat more than worth the over-burdensome design.

Once the threat was gone the power generators switched
back to reinforcing the decaying primary shield as a handful of enemy ships
were still taking potshots at it. Those vessels were eliminated from the
battlefield in a handful of minutes, leaving only a few other scattered
engagements still occurring in orbit away from Morgan’s group.

She checked on them with a few mental prompts and
glances, pulling as much information directly into her mind as she saw with her
eyes. It was a technique that no newbie Archon could achieve, but one that
she’d grown accustomed to over time. Her mind acted like a part of the computer
system and she’d learned to receive information in the same way, with it
playing out in mind’s eye…or at least as much as she’d learned to handle.
Paul’s skill in this department was far beyond hers, though Bo had both of them
whipped with the sheer amount of information his
Sav
allowed him to process.

The other fleets cleaned up shortly thereafter, with
the raid having been a smooth victory given that the lizard fleet had already
been heavily reduced in number given the previous battle with the Skarrons.
That was the moment of opportunity that Morgan had hoped to catch, but they
hadn’t come all this way out from the ADZ just to kill some lizard ships, for
there were plenty closer to home to go after had that been their aim.

This system was in the large region surrounding the fallen
Skarron capitol, and according to the Hycre the lizards were sweeping up the
systems in the area even as the Skarrons mounted a series of counteroffensives
in selective spots. The problem was there were too many systems and the lizards
were hitting most of them like a tidal wave with smaller fleets, knowing that the
Skarron colonies wouldn’t be getting reinforced from their capitol now that it
was no longer there.

That was literally handing the lizards a huge chunk of
territory on a silver platter given the widespread number of ships and
resources they were committing to take it. The Skarrons weren’t making it easy
on them, but systems like this one that weren’t of high population density or
importance were basically on their own now, with no hope of reinforcements
coming and the lizards knowing this. Rather than let them stand, the lizards
were hitting them fast and hard, deploying what forces they thought were
necessary to take them then starting their own colonies in their place.

But that also meant that they weren’t coming in with
overwhelming numbers, and while the Skarrons might not have been in a position
to reinforce this system Star Force and the Voku had been, making for a load of
easy kills given the lizard fleet’s weakened state. And now, without the mass
of troops on their destroyed/fled jumpships, their ground invasion was beyond
hopeless, even if there had been some cruisers remaining to deal with the
Skarron walkers…which there weren’t.

Once the naval battles were completed Morgan and the
Voku began searching the orbital rubble, not only from this small battle but
the larger Skarron/lizard one from the previous days, or weeks. They couldn’t
be sure when it happened but there were a lot of hulks left in orbit with some
of them beginning to degrade and fall towards the atmosphere. They intercepted
and moved them into safe orbits while searching the remains for survivors.
Those lizards they found they killed on the spot rather than let them slowly
starve or freeze to death, but it was the few Skarrons they found still alive
that they went to the bother of rescuing and taking prisoner.

Meanwhile the Voku sent a tiny piece of their
conglomerate back to the star where it made a jump towards a nearby system
where the rest of Morgan’s fleet was waiting. It would deliver the all-clear
message then return with the cargo ships, for the second half of this mission
was about to begin.

Throughout her recent years Morgan had tasked herself
with recovering and rescuing as many Hobbits from their Skarron slavery as she
could manage, sometimes in ones and twos on solo missions and others in large
scale battles where, with a little nudging, she could get groups of them to
switch sides before they were destroyed. The reason she had brought this
raiding fleet out this far was because of the unique situation that it
presented…and the hopelessness of the reality that these Skarron worlds were
doomed to fall to the lizards without the necessary help that she knew they
wouldn’t be receiving.

Morgan didn’t care for the Skarrons much, but their
slave races were another matter. The jumpships the Voku were going back to pick
up were configured as personnel transports that she hoped would be filled with
new ‘rescues’ on the return trip to the ADZ, for this was the first of some 6
systems on her list that she was going to try and pick up recruits from, one
way or another.

Already there was a growing free Aronsic ward within
Star Force, and she even had a few of them with her onboard her warship to
assist in the negotiations on the planet, either by
comm
or sneak missions to get a direct conversation with the Hobbits down there.
With their Skarron masters still in play it was going to be tricky getting to
them, and in this case they were probably going to have to assault the planet
for themselves and kill the Skarrons before any of their slaves would be able
to choose freedom.