Star Force: Retribution (SF60) (9 page)

“You want me to guard your supply lines by extending
our border while you do what?”

“Create a string of outposts linking to the races I’m
tasked to defend, all the while destroying nearby lizard worlds.”

“We would stand a better chance timing our operations
to coincide. More firepower for us and less available ships for them to counter
with when they have to split their attention.”

“Not just on us, but the other threats to the lizards.
Do you have a hidden map as well?”

“Not a current one, no. We’ve shared what we have with
you.”

“And the one from your ancient empire?” Cal-com
guessed/prodded.

“Too ancient to be relevant,” Paul half answered.

“Then allow me,” Cal-com said, bringing up the secure
file that he’d constructed for use based off the knowledge downloaded into his
mind via the Elder’s implants. The whole of lizard space was finally available
for Paul to see, along with numerous highlighted smaller regions around the
edges.

“Damn, they’ve got a lot of territory.”

“And adversaries. Recently they have been consuming
new territory faster than they can maintain it. I am told they will be forced
to go through a consolidation period. It is not apparent to outsiders, for they
still retain the strength to counter incursions and continue to expand, but the
bulk of their territory is not reinforced as strongly as one would expect. As
you and I assumed previously, if we apply consistent pressure they will be
unable to respond with such effectiveness as everyone assumes is their norm.”

“How stretched are they?”

“Not enough to deliver a lethal blow, unfortunately,
nor to make easy gains against, but a strong push will result in a
counterattack…but the counterattack will be vulnerable. If we can sustain
ourselves against it they will have little to follow up afterwards. It is a
bluff, but a dangerous one on their part, for they still have the ability to do
great damage. If we expand recklessly they will be able to overwhelm us. If we
proceed wisely, with the additional troops I will be bringing to bear, we can
break their hold and run rampant over this region for a time.”

“Then we have to turtle up as the rest of their gains
begin to reinforce them.”

“They are going to become very strong once the new
territory reaches further advancement, as you well know. No one can kill them
before that time, not even the Nexus if they chose to devote their full resources.
I wish they would, because they would cripple them, but the lizards have too
many systems for them to strike at. Even if we could take out their core
systems it would not stop them.”

“What do you know of the Nexus?”

“More than you, I would wager. They too are spread
thin, but their technology allows them to maintain dominance.”

“That much I suspected.”

“There is no power in the lizards’ path that is
capable of defeating them, except for the Skarrons…and they cannot because they
are out of position. By the time they realize the true nature of the threat,
the lizards will be too strong for even them to stop.”

“So we’re going to get you to your wards, turtle
up…and then what?”

“That is my mission. I leave the rest to you.”

Paul nodded slowly. “I can work with that…but before
we start making any firm plans I need to know what your new tech is going to be
capable of doing.”

“I could say the same to you,” Cal-com countered.

“I think yours will be online a bit sooner.”

“Honestly I do not yet know. I have received
speculations only.”

“Alright then, let’s pull this back a bit. What can or
should we go after in the next decade?”

“That will also depend on how many H’kar you have at
your command. I hear more are coming by the day?”

“Their new commander is a legend to them, but to be
honest he’s a glorified
newb
. I met with him once and
he’s close to dying. No sense of training or strategy above and beyond
tradition. He has made a few wise deviations, but he is not in our league.”

“They are regimented?”

“They fight like dumb brutes,” Paul said flatly. “But
they’re slowly learning, and more are coming based solely on this commander’s
reputation.”

“They have fought well in our raids.”

“They have not fought so well on their own borders,
which is why they’re coming here. It’s also why Vedja came out of retirement to
come here. He wants to kill lizards and finds his fleets are able to do so
better under our command.”

“Curious.”

“Annoying. They are a very obtuse race, and without
self-sufficiency they don’t live long enough to learn. If they were part of
Star Force we could counter the problem, but as they are, they’re going to be
lagging behind in the strategy department.”

“
So
long as you command them
that is not a major concern.”

“Not for our purposes here, no.”

“Then let’s put them to use immediately along with
what I have here.”

“Do you have a target in mind?”

“Nothing specific, but the longer we delay the
stronger the enemy will become.”

“But we can’t provoke the counterstrike just yet. Not
unless we can force it against the Sentinel line.”

“I was not thinking of anything so large.”

“Feel free to clue me in.”

“Just read my mind.”

“I’d prefer the map, if you don’t mind. I’ll brain
raid only if we get stuck.”

“Terms accepted,” Cal-com said, with them striking a
friendly deal going forward for how they’d handle the telepathic issue. Cal-com
was too much of a warrior to expect Paul not to use it, and Paul was too
respectful to use it on a whim. With the balance set they began moving forward
with their planning, and within a week they had a basic strategy that Paul sent
out over the network for the other trailblazers to chew on and improve.

Meanwhile Paul and Cal-com began theoretical planning
deep into the future, exploring many options and scenarios as they plotted out
the development of both of their empires and tried to intertwine them as much
as possible to mutual advantage.

9

July 3, 2683

Nephla
System (near
to Achkor)

Neph

When the Voku warship/mini conglomerate emerged into
planetary orbit it was immediately detected and the fleet of lizard cruisers
that had been guarding the world for the past 9 months moved to engage quickly.
Strong as the Voku were technologically, one large warship wasn’t going to be
enough to beat the cruisers that were protecting the infantile colony on what
had previously been a Skarron world. The lizards had recently moved in,
eliminated the opposition, and were now devoting a significant amount of their
smaller vessels to holding it.

They knew the
Voku’s
approximate strength, and sensing a mismatch they moved
en
mass towards it, intent on taking advantage of the opportunity while it
existed, fully aware that there might be more ships nearby.

The Voku simply held their position in orbit not far
from their jumppoint, waiting for the cruisers to come up to them. They were
almost in plasma range when addition contacts began jumping in behind the Voku,
with the green crystals that appeared opening fire immediately on the lizard
ships with their
sammies
and burning into their
shields with the constant topaz beams.

As the Dvapp warships continued to arrive more beams
leapt out, touching targets and quickly getting through their shields to the
hulls as four, five, six or beams would be attacking an individual ship at
once. More and more green crystals appeared out of the jumppoint and flew
forward, encircling the Voku ship that hadn’t moved nor engaged the enemy…and
it wasn’t going to save for self-defense. It was armed but not here for the
naval battle, rather carrying Voku ground troops for the forthcoming assault.

There were lizard incursions occurring all along the
edge of the ADZ that stretched out to Achkor as they preyed upon weak Skarron
worlds and others, with Star Force and the Voku countering them wherever they
appeared within the new annex to the ADZ loosely termed the ‘Achkor Region.’ It
had no firm boundaries like the ADZ, but rather stretched out beyond Beta
Region to Achkor itself, from which there was a string of worlds being
colonized to create a second defense line.

Some were uninhabited worlds, but many were formerly
Skarron or now lizard colonies that were being removed. Nearly all of the
Skarron worlds in the Achkor Region had now been reclaimed, but with the
lizards creeping in it had been necessary to skip over the last few and start defining
a border…as well as to knock down these small colonies before they could grow
stronger or receive additional reinforcements.

With conflicts occurring on multiple battlefronts the
Dvapp had volunteered to use their reconstituted fleet to take this one…with a
little Voku assistance on the ground where they didn’t fare so well. The Dvapp
would also be keeping this world for themselves and taking a place on the new
border, plugging one hole out of many, but it was one that the major powers in
the ADZ wouldn’t have to fill and an opportunity on the part of the Dvapp to
start reclaiming their status after the nearly fatal losses their civilization
had taken during the Skarron war.

That, and it was time for some payback against the
lizards, who had done far more damage to the Dvapp than the Skarrons ever
could.

And a good number of the Dvapp troops had lived
through that time, seeing their empire diminished against a weapon they
couldn’t counter, then the evacuation to the ADZ and their short lived regrowth
before the Skarrons had nearly ended them. But now was different, both because
the ADZ and their new
homeworlds
were now secure and
the fact that Star Force’s alteration to their crystalline technology now made
the lizards’ chemical weapon against them useless.

Not that these enemy ships were equipped with it
anyway, but now that the
Dvapp’s
hulls wouldn’t melt
under its infectious contamination the strength of their weaponry was more than
enough to shred the enemy cruisers under sustained fire that they’d never been
able to mount before given the presence of the chemical weapon.

The lizards weren’t stupid, but having no other
options they fought the Dvapp head on while the single jumpship within the
system ran, hoping to make it to the star and evacuate the system before it
could be destroyed. The Dvapp let it go, more than happy that the cruisers were
fighting them head on and giving them a chance to really lay out the damage. In
a satisfying, one-sided beatdown the Dvapp fleet ran through the cruisers and
claimed orbit, with a few jumping off to the star to make sure the lizards had
actually left while the Voku ship moved down just above the atmosphere and
began spewing pieces of itself down towards the planet.

Part of the Dvapp fleet followed them down, entering the
atmosphere and heading for the shield plate that was protecting the single
large lizard colony. There were several spurs already beginning to form, but
they weren’t shielded and would make easy targets for the Voku who were coming
down some distance around the perimeter. The Dvapp moved in directly over the
colony, taking the first bits of
overranged
plasma
fire as they settled into position and began stretching out their energy beams,
multiple ones per ship, and pouring firepower down into the shield rather than
trying to skirt under its exposed edges.

Slowly they drained it, with the lizards unable to get
through the Dvapp shields given that the
sammies
far
outranged their plasma weapons. Streams of wisps came up from the colony in an
attempt to get at the warships but they were more or less impotent against the
larger ships who all but ignored them as they continued to pound the colony’s
shield until it finally fell and the shield tower in center was exposed.

That tower had secondary shields covering itself, but
those didn’t hold up for more than a handful of seconds as dozens of beams
targeted and burned through it, wrecking the tower and insuring that the shield
plate would not go up again. The Dvapp could have stayed at range and sniped
the lizard buildings from there, but instead they chose to move in and hit the
defensive plasma batteries directly, suffering a little hull damage on a few
ships whose shields went down but quickly establishing dominance over the air
as their weaponry also ate through the wisp swarms when they finally turned
their attention to them.

As those were thinned a scattering of Voku fighters
moved in to mop up the rest as their mechs approached the colony’s edges and
began working their way in, targeting key structures and ground troops that
managed to survive long enough to get to them. The Dvapp were roasting
everything that popped its head up within the colony, with none of the lizard
tanks even able to get into position to fire on the Voku.

Along with their Stranom mechs came transports
dropping three man teams at various points around the colony where they began
chewing up the bits of infantry in the streets that the Dvapp had left alive
and the masses still inside the buildings and underground passageways. They
knew their job was to be scouts/hunters, seeking out the enemy and destroying
what they could while Dvapp troops would follow them in…and were even now
starting to flow out of two low flying transports that bathed the yellow/tan
buildings in a slight red glow from their hull crystal.

Barely 10 meters off the ground, white globs of liquid
dropped out as if the ship was a giant, red leaky bucket and splattered on the
streets and rooftops. Those splatters quickly pulled themselves together into a
variety of shapes and grouped up, some traveling the streets as long snakes,
others moving in arcs, taking one ‘footstep’ at a time while constantly
flipping one end of their body tube over the other, while still others went
bipedal and pounded their way forward, tracking down the Voku beacons and
closing in on the larger lizard formations that they weren’t confident they
could take alone.

This was the first time the Dvapp and Voku had worked
together, but both races had plenty of experience fighting the lizards and knew
the danger they posed even in a huge mismatch such as this. With the Dvapp
relying on the Voku to sniff out ambushes, explosives, and other potential
dangers, the amorphous crystals cleared building after building and level after
level, creating a perimeter around various structures then calling in pinpoint
fire from their warships floating overhead, more often than not to cut
passageways down into the understructure where the lizards hadn’t planned on
defending from, but also to destroy buildings so the lizards wouldn’t have
positions to fall back to and so the Dvapp wouldn’t have to waste troops
placing guards on them.

Given that this wasn’t a raid and the Dvapp intended
to keep the planet they had to make sure every lizard was destroyed and they
didn’t intend to leave the city standing. That said, they preferred to search
it while it was still mostly intact, though it was a common sight for the Voku
to see several warships in the sky nearby blasting specific sections into
powdery rubble that was sending up debris clouds that the ships were containing
with energy shields and shunting skyward to keep them from hindering the troops
on the ground.

Jas-
mek
was one of those
Voku, operating as the ‘Hammer’ in his trio as they flushed out the lizards
from one of their tank bays. It was empty but intact, with a plethora of
equipment that gave the enemy lots of cover to either ambush from or hide
within. With their intricate shield generators protecting their otherwise
armorless
bodies, Jas-
mek
followed his two skirmishers in, leaving the sight of the overhead warships
behind, and began flushing out the lizards from what the Voku guessed were
their typical hiding spots.

They were sneaky, but they tended to think alike and
Jas-
mek
had a pretty good idea where to look as his
fellow Voku led him to the spots he would have picked first off had he been in
the lead. That wasn’t his job here, and as one of his skirmishers directed him
to a particular spot he activated his chest-mounted dwio and fired a small orb
of red/pink oscillating energy across the floor and caused it to curve hard
right, swinging around the corner of a large piece of machinery and
disappearing from view for a split second before exploding and throwing debris
and lizard bodies out everywhere.

His two skirmishers jumped in from different angles,
finishing off the other lizards that were left alive as he heard commotion back
at the entrance and turned to see several dozen Dvapp arriving. He signaled to
them with a set of predetermined motions, given that neither spoke each other’s
language and they didn’t have time for computer translations.

They got the message and moved off to the positions he
indicated as the skirmishers likewise transitioned on, identifying a few more
ambushes waiting for them, either by scouting them out or drawing their fire.
With the Dvapp present the Voku trio were able to be a bit more aggressive and
pressed their search faster, often using their odd allies to finish off the
lizards while they just went around busting up their formations.

Once that building was cleared they moved to an
adjacent other, then three more before Jas-
mek
saw
the sky again with more conical clouds rising up marking the place where the
Dvapp were already remodeling. He appreciated that efficiency, for the quicker
this world was rid of the lizards and their infrastructure the sooner it would
begin growing into an allied stronghold, with the Dvapp having promised to
reinforce it heavily.

That would be one less point in
Achkor’s
area where the Voku would have to patrol, which was the main motivation for
Jas-
mek
to be here. The more he could assist the
lesser races in taking and securing worlds the less drain there would be on
Voku resources babysitting them. His fleet had held this region secure for a
long time, locking down and containing the Skarrons here and elsewhere while
withering them away with diminished or sometimes completely cut off supply
lines, forcing them to either die or produce enough resources to sustain
themselves.

That wasn’t the type of task Jas-
mek
preferred, with him being forced into naval duty far too often. He and the others
would do whatever was necessary, but he much preferred being on the ground
fighting the enemy, whoever they were, in hand to hand, racking up kills and
taking territory. Today he was doing that, even if the Voku weren’t going to
keep this planet. Word was once this area was secured they’d be moving on to
more proper assaults that would result in actual territorial gains as the Voku
spread out from Achkor and firmly cemented their hold in this part of the
galaxy.

For a long time the Voku had been fighting defensive
wars, important enough, but there hadn’t been a grand push for anything of
consequence. With Jas-
mek
liking to fight on the
ground he was content with one battle at a time, no matter where it was, but
when he could sit back and look at the big picture he hadn’t seen any goal in
play, only never-ending defense.

Now that had changed, with the newly minted Dafchor
setting the Voku on what was rumored to be a nearly impossible agenda…which was
exactly the kind Jas-
mek
liked, not to mention the
rumors of a massive expansion of their empire. He didn’t know how it all fit
together but knew it was more than just rumor. The Voku were on the move again,
with a purpose, and even if Jas-
mek
didn’t know what
it was yet, just knowing that there was one was enough for him. He wanted a
grand conquest to work for, and the faster they got through helping the locals
tidy up here and elsewhere around Achkor the sooner they’d be free to move on
to securing their own gains.