Star Force 82 Hradeiti (SF82) (Star Force Origin Series) (12 page)

      
“Use the cleansing beams and lachars.”

      
“That’ll take forever.”

      
“Just widen the gap a bit.”

      
“Yes, sir,” the weapons officer said, giving orders to the next drone in line to begin firing on the sand to the left of the now dead one.

      
The beam cut into the sand easily, making a small ‘poof’ on entry, but it sliced right through and out the other side without moving a lot of the material. That small hit up close was a decent amount, but nothing that a missile or other explosive would have managed. More shots were fired, with added lachar strikes of much weaker power, adding to the dust cloud but not doing much for moving the sand around.

      
“Aim lower. Direct the sand by undercutting its support.”

      
The beams drifted to the bottom and began slicing into and carving out a ditch, into which a whole section of sand suddenly slid down like an avalanche.

      
“Better. Keep at it until we get another 10 meters width, then get ready to send the drone in.”

      
The remote pilot did as ordered, then the firing ceased when a bit of the dune had been removed and the dust cloud was now a permanent resident given that the shield was blocking out most wind from dispersing it.

      
“Send the drone in and backside that debris. Push it out and clear the passage.”

      
“That’s going to be a tight fit.”

      
“Wiggle her in if you have to.”

      
A moment later the drone began taking fire from the inside as it approached the gap and pressed into the sand so it didn’t scrape the debris.

      
“Shields are about to go down.”

      
“Understood. Plow the road even if we lose this one…but don’t give them a second blocker.”

      
Tyree held his breath, not expecting the lizards to have any more explosives at that spot and knowing the defense turrets couldn’t take down a warship very quickly, even one with its shields down. Before long the junked drone began moving out, visible only on sensors, with the intact drone shoving it from behind and plowing a furrow in the sand until it came clear of the opening.

      
“Move it aside. Bury it in a dune if you have to,” he said, waiting for that order to be carried out to his satisfaction. “Rotate that drone back and give me another forward, then we follow it in. Rest of the ships after us in tight staggered formation. Light up the sand ahead of us with lachars probing for more explosives. We can’t get caught like that again.”

      
And then they were moving to the head of the line as another drone shot to scout position and ducked under the shield. Tyree’s destroyer followed, plowing up a bit more sand as it squeezed its larger mass through, then the buildings of the lizard city were visible kilometers ahead on sensors, though the dust cloud in here was still omnipresent. A few streaks of pink were lighting it up, with sensors indicating the scattered perimeter defense turrets as the source.

      
“Take out those turrets then blast us a course to that big gun. I don’t care how long it takes or how many buildings need to go down. We’ve got them in their blind spot now.”

      
Scooting less than 100 meters under the shield plane, his destroyer fanned out to the left, zapping the sand in front of it to probe for more booby traps, to allow the following ships to form a line that would allow them all to get into firing position. Once in, all the ships began cutting apart specific buildings to give them adequate maneuvering room up to one of the center streets in the much larger city that would lead directly to the big gun.

      
Once they were through to that Tyree sent a drone on ahead. It took out a couple more interior turrets that were better suited to defend against mechs than ships, then started chipping away at the big gun from where it couldn’t shoot back. The roadway wasn’t big enough to fit another ship, and Tyree didn’t want to get his fleet pinned in any more than they already were. Eventually the big gun came down, literally, as a chunk of it fell off the southern side as the support frame was melted away by a cleansing beam hit, opening up some interior shots that ended any question as to the gun’s functionality.

      
That drone then pulled back as another one was already nearing the shield generator. It was more heavily defended, but the attackers had time and the one drone was enough to gradually chip through the lateral shields and get to the armored plates…after which it was just a matter of time until the entire shield plate failed and the city was now open to the air, with a gust of wind coming now and brushing the dust cloud away and returning visuals of the city to the bottom feeding warships.

      
“Everyone get altitude and start junking cityscape. Orbital fleet, come down to bombardment range and help us toast these bastards. This planet is ours. Let’s get to work cleaning up and the less the ground troops have to do the better. Just leave them someplace to walk afterwards.”

 
      
Six days later Commander Tyree was onboard a cruiser that he’d claimed as his flagship, happy to have completed the assault but sorely missing the crews that had been lost, especially Bra’shom. After all he’d done to build up this military it wasn’t fair for him having been taken out in the first battle, but that’s the way the lizards played. Give them any room to backstab you they would, often in ways you didn’t expect, and forcing the battleship up into big gun range had been an inspired tactic, but one that wouldn’t have worked had the battleship crew been quicker witted.

      
They should have pancaked the cruiser with their more powerful gravity drives, for they were the larger ship and the drives were of Star Force jumpship manufacture, hence top of the line. But they’d hesitated, perhaps not even sure what was going on, and in that moment of indecision the lizards had landed the fleet commander a fatal blow.

      
Saddened by that and the fact that such a small lizard fleet had given them so much trouble, Tyree had a wariness about him amidst the joy of actually taking a world from the lizards…for he knew their estimates of their own abilities had been greatly overstated. Like him, many of the Hradeiti had been in the Star Force military previously, but for some of them that had been a long time ago. He’d left some 28 years earlier, then been serving in active mercenary units since then, keeping his edge sharp while it looked like others had gotten complacent and forgotten just how dangerous the lizards actually were.

      
Had the Hradeiti engaged one of the worlds that had originally been their targets…they may well have lost the entire fleet.

      
That was a silver lining to the losses here, and one that Tyree was going to make sure the Hradeiti did not waste, regardless of whether or not he would retain fleet command in Bra’shom’s absence.

      
“Incoming ships,” his sensor officer called our warily. “They’re registering as lizard.”

      
“Where?” he asked, the pit of his stomach sinking as the orbital map showed microjumps ending near the stellar jumpline but well away from the planet. They were lizard cruisers, already at least 20 of them, with more still incoming.

      
“All ships form up around my position and enter combat matrix 7. Drones to the front and overlap firepower as much as possible. Do NOT individually engage or we’re going to be hurt badly. Get in position quickly and make them come to us.”

      
The bad feeling he was getting only got worse as more and more cruisers arrived, all holding position near the jumppoint until they numbered some 238 strong. There had to be jumpships near the star that had offloaded them, but they hadn’t delivered them all the way to the planet. Either by design or accident.

      
Just as well. He didn’t want to have their weaponry added to this mix. They were going to have a nasty fight on their hands even though they outnumbered them 4 to 1.

      
When the lizards started moving towards the Hradeiti fleet they came in a tightly packed swarm, longer than it was wide, with the obvious intent on making a strafing run and taking out a handful of ships instantly, and he had a gut feeling they would be going for their only remaining battleship or the two drone controlling-jumpships.

      
But before they could get into firing range a ship winked into existence alongside them, as if in formation but slightly trailing to the starboard. Then another showed up beside it. Neither had microjumped in, they just suddenly appeared on sensors.

      
Two more did the same to port, and suddenly the lizard formation broke apart and turned on the contacts as weaponsfire broke out against the much larger quartet of ships.

      
“All ships hold fleet position and center on my flagship, engage with cleansing beams when we come into range. Helm, move us forward casually. Let’s not draw too much attention.”

      
“Sir?” another officer said, not fully understanding. “Who is that?”

      
Tyree raised an eyeridge. “You don’t recognize those jumpships?”

      
“No, sir.”

      
“Anyone care to enlighten him?” Tyree asked mirthfully as his fleet began gaining altitude while staying in formation, heading towards the brawl that had the lizard cruisers swarming like bees around the four ships that were undoubtedly going to tear them to shreds, perhaps even before the Hradeiti got to them.

      
“Those are
Ma’kri
-class jumpships,” a Duramitte said with both awe and respect, having served in Axius for a number of years. The lizard-like grey biped flicked a silver tongue in an odd gesture of respect that Tyree was only starting to get used to. “Star Force was here all along watching us.”

      
“Where’d they come from?”

      
“The Ma’kri are rumored to have stealth mechanisms.”

      
“Consider that confirmed,” Tyree said with pleasure as the lizard ship count dipped below the halfway point. It seemed they were far more interested in doing damage to Star Force than they were the Hradeiti.

      
“Are we going to help them?” someone else asked.

      
“We’re on our way, but if my guess is right they’ll be finished before we get there.”

      
“We can go faster.”

      
“Yes we can, and as much as I’d like to rack up some more lizard ship kills, do you think it’s worth the risk of them turning on us and taking out a ship or two before they all were destroyed?”

      
“I suppose not.”

      
“We’ll help them if this drags on, but I don’t anticipate it will for much longer and the lizards know they can’t outrun those ships. If they turn on us at the end be ready to kill them quickly, but otherwise we’re going to let Star Force do its thing…with our thanks.”

      
The lizards weren’t completely destroyed by the time the Hradeiti fleet entered firing range, so they got off a few cleansing beam strikes and knocked out two cruisers in killsteal fashion, but when Tyree opened a comm channel to the Star Force ships after the fact they oddly didn’t respond. Just as he was beginning to frown and wonder if there was something wrong with his ship’s comm systems the four Ma’kri accelerated quickly away from the debris and dropped off the sensors save for a pair of tiny specs that disappeared with distance.

      
“Are they angry with us?” the comm officer asked.

      
“We did make a mess of this,” Tyree admitted, “but I think they’re sending us a message. This is our assault, not theirs. We’ve staked our foothold and they’re abiding by the terms of the agreement to defend this system against outside aggression, but we’ve still got troops on the planet and lizards to mop up and they’re not going to hold our hands doing it.”

      
“Orders, sir?”

      
“We finish what we started and wipe every last lizard off this planet. Then we send a courier back to Ventress and inform them that we have a new planet for them to divvy up…after we collect some of that lizard tech for study.”

 
      
10

 
      
February 19, 3151

      
Velcor System (Hradeiti territory)

      
Adrak

 
      
Paget rode into orbit on the first Gnar transport, seeing to his disgruntlement that they hadn’t been the first to arrival at the newly created ‘Communal World.’ It had been given that name intentionally to differentiate from the ‘Alliance Worlds’ that Star Force had set up and on one of which Paget had been living for a long time. The Hradeiti were in sole possession of this planet and star system, and per their business arrangement with their investors a piece of Adrak now belonged to the Gnar.

      
It wasn’t a large piece, given the size of the planet, but in and of itself it was sizeable. Resources beneath the surface had yet to be determined, but there was plenty of land available to begin colonizing…land that had not been available on the Alliance Worlds anymore. The Gnar colonies there had filled every last square kilometer of their territory right up to the Star Force border strips that would not be present on this planet.

      
There were some very narrow neutral zones, barely 2 kilometers wide, that would separate Gnar territory from their neighbors, but there would be no Star Force cities there. In fact, there would be no Star Force presence on the planet whatsoever, which Paget took as a refreshing change. They did have one of their seda stations in orbit and a small but visible defense fleet in the system…which was the only reason the Gnar and other investors were willing to take the risk of crossing the old border and going ahead to colonize their investment earnings.