Star Force: Internecine (SF55) Read online

  “What do you want to do?” one of the remote gunners for the Sentinel asked.

  “Bring the shields up on the Sentinel and lock down the outpost. If anyone’s outside call them back immediately. We’re going turtle and watching how things play out.”

  “We’re not going to defend the planet?”

  “This is their fight, we’re to stay out of it…since we don’t have a means to stop it.”

  “What if they come down here?”

  “We’ll jump off that bridge if we come to it, but right now I’m not seeing any transports.”

  “They could be holding them back for later.”

  “True,” Jack agreed, “but by the way they’re deploying I think they’re just here to target the navy and orbital defenses. If they wipe them out then the Scionate either have to leave the planet unprotected or pull ships from elsewhere to cover, leaving less to engage them in the invaded systems.”

  “Uh oh,” another gunner said in a nearby seat as all 4 of them in the control room saw a chunk of the Scionate fleet begin to run…right up towards the Sentinel sitting on the boundary between mid and low orbit.

  A split second later the comm lit up with an incoming transmission prompt.

  “Damn you,” Jack swore, sitting down and tapping the activation button with a hologram of the front half of a Scionate materializing next to the tactical holo.

  “Archon, we request fire support,” the ship Captain said as numerous little icons began winking out across the map as Scionate ships were being destroyed as packs of the Lacvamat’s boomerang-shaped warships hunted them down no matter where they went with slightly better gravity drives that gave them a maneuvering edge.

  “Negative,” Jack said stiffly. “We’ve been ordered not to interfere. This is your fight.”

  “You were put here to defend the planet, and we are under attack. Acquit your purpose.”

  “We’re pulling out the Sentinel and evacuating this outpost as soon as we get the necessary transport. Until then we’re just spectators.”

  “Please. One warrior to another. This is not a fight, it is a slaughter. We can’t outrun them and there are too many to fight. They have the star blockaded and mean to hunt us all down no matter where we attempt to flee. Your Sentinel is the only safe haven available to us.”

  Jack chewed on his lower lip, his gut twisting up inside. The Scionate was right, the Lacvamat had them beat and they both knew it. As he watched other ships try to flee some didn’t make it, while others made microjumps out of orbit with packs of Lacvamat ships jumping after them. If the star was blockaded as the Captain suggested then the system had just become a giant death trap for any non-Lacvamat ship.

  Jack was about to suggest they flee down to the planet’s surface when he saw others doing the same with the Lacvamat ships following them down there as well, right into the face of surface defenses in order to get to the ships and make the kill. If the enemy was eager enough to get the Scionate ships that they were willing to turret dive the surface defenses then there really was no safe place for the Scionate to go, leaving Jack to tell the Captains of the ships headed towards him that they simply had to die.

  But that’s not the way Star Force worked, and there was a reason a ranger had been assigned to this station.

  “Surrender,” Jack told him.

  “We have tried, they will not accept one. They are here for our blood.”

  “No, surrender your ships to Star Force. We’ll take possession of them so they can’t be used against the Lacvamat later and preserve your lives in the process.”

  The Scionate hissed, an involuntary reaction that quickly faded and transitioned into reluctant acceptance. He didn’t want to give up the fight, but faced with all but certain death he understood the escape route the Human was offering.

  “Agreed. What are your orders, Archon?”

  “Bring all surrendering ships within a radius of 60 kilometers, but not within 10 kilometers of the Sentinel. Power down weapons but keep shields up and cluster together to perverse the station’s firing lines. I’ll inform the Lacvamat of the transfer of possession of the ships. Any of you coming within said radius will automatically be surrendering. If you try to leave again we’ll fire upon and disable your ships. Understood?”

  “Understood and thank you. I will pass along word to the others.”

  Jack switched off that comm channel and searched for one to connect to the Lacvamat fleet. “Power up the weapons and get the seats full.”

  One of the gunners nodded and started bringing the massive defense platform to life as well as putting out a call throughout the outpost for the other gunners to report to the control center so they could get more hands on the controls, with it being established protocol that the less multitasking you had your controllers doing the more accurate and effective they would be.

  Six more people came into the control room in a rush before Jack was able to get through to the Lacvamat, with a hologram of one of the perched avians coming to life beside the tactical map that showed more and more Scionate ships altering course and heading for the Sentinel.

  “We’ve been told not to interfere in this stupid fight of yours,” Jack began, letting a bit of anger cross over into his trade language accent, something that he’d have had a bit of trouble doing a hundred years ago but he’d become fluent enough in it now that he had little trouble transmitting the appropriate emotional tones, “but we’re not going to sit by and let you slaughter their fleet. Those ships coming within range of the Sentinel are surrendering to Star Force. Their crews will be removed and we will retain possession of them, not to be returned to the Scionate to use against you later. You can consider them out of the fight, but we will not let you kill them. We can’t stop what you’re doing elsewhere in orbit, but here they will be safe and out of the fight.”

  “If they attempt to leave the zone around the Sentinel we will fire upon and disable them, ensuring that their surrender is legitimate. Likewise, if you come within firing range we will defend those who have surrendered. Unless you also want to surrender your ships, stay outside of Sentinel range.”

  The Lacvamat bobbed its thick head back and forth angrily. “So you side with the assassins?”

  “We’re not siding with either of you idiots. Both of you should be fighting the Skarrons, not each other.”

  “Tell that to our dead.”

  “I don’t know or care what happened elsewhere. Here, now, the Scionate are surrendering to Star Force and their ships that do so will be of no threat to you. You have my promise on that, as they have my promise that they will be allowed to surrender. I will hold to both promises, so keep your distance.”

  “We will not be denied our kills.”

  Jack smiled dangerously. “You have a lot of ships insystem, but your fleet is no match for a Sentinel.”

  “We will not attack your station, but if you think you can keep the Scionate from us you are wrong,” the Lacvamat said, ending the transmission.

  One of the gunners raised an eyebrow and glanced at Jack. “Tell me he just didn’t…”

  “He did,” the Archon confirmed, pulling up a targeting prompt so he could operate part of the Sentinel’s systems. He started with defining a ‘line in the sand’ distance range from the Sentinel and began an automatic transmission that was sent out into the clear along with a brief message he recorded also for autoplay, informing everyone on the planet and in orbit what the ground rules were. Scionate inside had to stay inside and would be safe, Lacvamat had to stay outside or be fired upon.

  As the first Scionate warships and civilian transports began arriving Jack began tagging parking zones and pinging the ships as to where to go, hoping to line them up so they didn’t interfere with the Sentinel’s weapons batteries and give the Lacvamat blind spots to approach from if they were so stupid.

  “Jack?”

  “I see it,” he said as a trio of Lacvamat ships were nearing the line as they continuously pounded on a la
rger Scionate warship that was throwing back some weaponsfire but otherwise was overwhelmed.

  Jack dialed down the power on one of the large cleansing beams as low as it would go and lined up a shot, waiting to see if the Lacvamat would cross the line and hoping the Scionate ship would survive that long. It was already taking hull breaches, but momentum alone would bring it across the ‘safe’ line within the next 20 seconds.

  A large explosion blew out a chunk of the ship just prior to the line, then the four ships passed it…with the Lacvamat continuing their attack and ignoring the distance markers.

  Jack fired immediately, sending out a very pale white beam that hit one of the boomerang ships on the shields and sucked some 22% out of them. He fired on the other two in turn, giving each a warning shot but to his gall the ships didn’t turn back. They had the Scionate ship nearly destroyed and he realized they were going to try and finish it off regardless.

  With a roll of his thumb he dialed up the intensity on the beam and fired a brighter lance out from the distant station and punched through the weakened shields, burning a short line into the hull. He did the same to the other two, rending them vulnerable to the few weapons batteries still firing from the Scionate warship as it moved further within the safe zone…just as his comm lit up with an incoming transmission from the Lacvamat.

  “Sorry, busy,” he said as he dialed up the intensity again and put a hole straight through the starboard side of one of the boomerangs where he knew a gravity drive was. As soon as he did the ship twisted as the intact drive that was operating under minimal power to stay with the limping Scionate warship pulling that side around and the dead ‘wing’ fell backwards.

  Still the three ships wouldn’t let the Scionate warship go and it was near to being destroyed, already with hull breaches in numerous areas.

  “Damn you,” he said, turning the cleansing beam back up to full intensity and cutting one of the Lacvamat ships in half with a drifting shot.

  He thought that would scare the other two off, but he was wrong. They kept hammering the Scionate ship until its gravity drives were destroyed and the blocky ship began to list, with only two weapons batteries showing any return fire.

  Jack gritted his teeth and fired again, bisecting the second ship and then quickly the third when it wouldn’t turn back, leaving the damaged Scionate warship drifting in towards the Sentinel at the same rate as the Lacvamat pieces that probably still had living crews aboard in some sections.

  Finally Jack accepted the incoming comm.

  “I warned you idiots,” he said icily.

  “You dare to strike us?” the Lacvamat said angrily, following by a series of words in its native language that the Archon didn’t understand, but got the gist of.

  “Stay outside of range,” Jack repeated.

  “If you want to fight with these mongrels, so be it,” the Lacvamat said, cutting the transmission again as numerous dots scattered around the planetary map began repositioning, abandoning those ships that they were chasing elsewhere and beginning to head for the Sentinel, knowing that they could track the others down later. Right now they had to get at the ‘safe’ ones, and to do that they needed numbers.

  “Shit,” Jack said, realizing what they were about to do.

  “Orders?” the gunner beside him asked.

  “I think they’re about to dive in and try to get the Scionate ships before we can kill them all.”

  “Suicide run?”

  “They know they can’t take down the Sentinel, but that isn’t their objective. They want the Scionate and we can’t put shields around them, only scare the Lacvamat off. They’re about to call that bluff which means we have to shoot fast and hard and play defense with offense…and that means it’s about to get very bloody. Barry, you’ve got herding duty. Get the Scionate ships where they need to be as they come in. The more they can overlap shields the better.”

  “On it.”

  “I’ve got the main,” Jack said, taking control of the extra large cleansing beam while leaving the other 10 large versions to the gunners. He set the firing sequence into shorter bursts, giving him more shots per cycle given the fact that it wasn’t going to take much power to get through the Lacvamat’s shields and hulls. They were about to face a zergling attack, and when that happened the big guns were pretty much useless. You needed the small, rapid fire or area of effect weapons to manage the horde. The Sentinel didn’t have any of those, but it did have short range weaponry.

  As he began lining up his first shot and tagging the ships that he wanted the others to target so they didn’t waste shots accidentally doubling up, he saw Barry begin parking the Scionate ships that were coming in by the dozens on the opposite side of the station from where the bulk of the Lacvamat ships were approaching from. There were boomerangs coming in from all directions, meaning there was no ‘back’ to hide the ships in, but placing them opposite the largest number meant those ships would have to come close to the station in order to get to them.

  Making an alteration to the plan, Jack tagged a few fallback positions in very close to the Sentinel and had Barry organize with the Scionate so when the word was giving they could orderly come down within the short-range defenses of the station if Jack and the others couldn’t keep the Lacvamat off them at range.

  With that done, Jack targeted the first ship cluster to pass the line and opened up on it with the main battery, spitting bits of cleansing beam that punched directly through their shields and hulls on single hits, damaging them with ease as more and more Lacvamat approached and crossed over the designated ‘safe’ line.

  As they did the other gunners opened up and the region around the Sentinel lit up like the night sky on the fourth of July.

  4

  June 14, 2553

  Huey System (Zeta Region)

  Quacker (Alliance World)

  Donn dropped down from a decorative railing along the ceiling of the rightside wall of the promenade, landing in a crouch amongst the sparse pedestrian traffic in the Javvi city and scaring the nearby octopeds who scurried out of his way as he approached the security escort around the Gnar heading his way some twenty meters down.

  As soon as she saw his black armor the envirosuit-clad medtech turned and ran, leaving her mix of bodyguards behind to deal with the Archon…but she shouldn’t have bothered, for it took Donn all of 8 seconds to dispatch them and another 6 to catch up to her, with the Archon getting a firm telekinetic grip on her slightly plump body and pinning her against the nearby wall.

  “Hello Veen,” Donn said casually, looking from his helmet into hers…though hers was necessary, given that she couldn’t breathe a ‘normal’ atmosphere and requiring ammonia in addition to oxygen.

  “Release me at once! How dare you…”

  “Cut the act. You running is as good of a confession as anything. You should have played it cool, not that it would have helped. We know what you did, and now you’re going to give us the details.”

  “What are you accusing me of, Archon?”

  “That little mess between the Lacvamat and the Scionate,” Donn said, telekinetically moving her off the wall and forcing her to walk. “Let’s move this conversation to somewhere more private, shall we?”

  “You have no right to take me into custody! I am a member of…”

  “See this helmet,” Donn said, pointing at his faceplate. “Underneath I’m giving you the ‘I don’t care’ look, now move on your own or I’ll drag you off.”

  “No, I will not,” she said through her mask via electronic synthesis giving her a bit of a robotic voice. “You have no right…”

  Donn sighed and linked to her mind, shutting down her voice and dropping her into a deep sleep as he caught her body and lifted it up over his shoulders in an awkward carry, but with a bit of telekinetic assist he got the armored little alien in place and carried her off, then turned around and stared down one of the bodyguards getting up and coming back at him.

  “You don’t want any of t
his,” he said, not bothering to even take up a defensive posture. “Just leave.”

  The Calavari returned his stare, then calculating his odds of taking down the smaller Human that had just beat him and the others within seconds decided to talk rather than fight.

  “She is our responsibility,” he said, almost pleading.

  Donn hesitated a moment, sensing his conflicting responsibilities. He wasn’t a Star Force Calavari, but an independent hire to protect members of the EMT as they moved around the ADZ, often through less than savory regions where they were hunting various ailments.

  “This one is going to prison, and will require your services no longer.”

  The Calavari huffed as another of the bodyguards, this one a Densan, got up and stood a few meters back. “For what crime?” the four-armed giant asked, not believing that the healer could be responsible for anything untoward.

  “She created or helped create the bioweapon used against the Lacvamat. I assume you’ve heard of it?”

  The Calavari looked from the Archon’s helmet to the unconscious Gnar on his back. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, and we intend to get additional answers from her, so stand down. You can’t stop me anyway.”

  “Will you sign off on her transfer from our custody?” the Calavari asked, drawing a smile from Donn.

  “Sure. Follow me and I’ll put everything in order,” he said, turning his back on the guards and carrying his captive off through the city with those he had just beat the crap out of in the blink of an eye following him at a respectful distance.

  Davis read through the report from the Sului System, amazed at the lengths both the Scionate and Lacvamat were going to in order to kill each other. The Lacvamat had actually gone up against a Sentinel in order to try and destroy warships that had surrendered to Star Force in order to escape destruction. He gave the Archon on site credit for offering them that out, and for enforcing it, for it seemed that after the Lacvamat had lost so many ships and eventually left the system some of the Scionate tried to go back on the deal.