Star Force: Nexus (SF57) (3 page)

“
They are a
growing nuisance that will not go away, though you know better than us given
your history with them.
”

“
Given your
level of technology how are they a threat to you?
” Kerrie had to ask.

“
The Nexus is
spread across a wide region of the galaxy. We do not control systems, we
oversee them. Because the
Li'vorkrachnika consume approximately 30%
of all systems within their territory they are spread too wide for us to
selectively target. Likewise we cannot defend the systems within the Nexus
region that are not exclusively ours. We can fight the Li’vorkrachnika and win,
but they are striking numerous targets simultaneously, wherein the problem
arises
.”

“
You aren’t
monitoring your territory?
” Kerrie guessed.

“
Not the lesser
systems, no. At least not at a sufficient rate to ward off invasion. The
Li’vorkrachnika are taking worlds and developing them before we even become
aware of their presence. They are like unwanted
hazmats
sprouting everywhere along the H’kar border region and expanding into others.
When we find them we destroy them, but there are too many systems to monitor
simultaneously
.”

Kerrie cringed at ‘
hazmats
,’
guessing that was the first translational glitch of many to come, then the
sandbox in front of her spat out tiny globules that resolved themselves into
star positions.

“
This is a map
of their known invasion area, but for every star system denoted there are 150
others not shown due to stellar density. These are our systems,”
the Gfatt
said as a scattering of the tiny bits of sand changed color and glowed red.
“As you can see, we don’t hold as many
systems per volume of space as you do. We believe your alliance’s contained
perimeter is an advantage you possess. Do you concur?
”

“
Actually, I’d
like you to tell me why the Nexus is so spread out? There have got to be
valuable worlds inside your territory worth colonizing. Why keep expanding
outward?
”

“
We do not seek
to dominate the galaxy, merely keep it tranquil. The larger the region we
inhabit the more we can inhibit the growth of threats. Local conflicts will
always exist, and most of the races within our territory are not part of the
Nexus. They are insignificant and we ignore them unless they should advance to
the point of recognition, either as an ally, neutral, or enemy.
”

“
You’ve spread
yourselves so wide you can’t focus on a single area?
”

“
Our militaries
are spread out, dealing with hundreds of conflicts simultaneously. Normally a
threat on the level of the Li’vorkrachnika would have been eliminated early on,
but they appear to have no weak point. Within a region of space where we would
have 6 system strongholds they have 6,000 weak systems. We cannot target and
eradicate them all without devoting an enormous amount of resources to the
effort, of which their threat level doesn’t warrant.
”

“
So you’re used
to having a high valued target to hit, and since the lizards are more
interested in spreading than consolidating you can’t cripple them with a few
key strikes?
”

“
They are too
spread out to pinpoint target, and our intelligence reports indicate that they
are spreading out further towards the core. With the more systems they consume
the larger their resource base will become. If they grow large enough they
could threaten our border through sheer numbers, at which time we will pull
forces from other regions to deal with the threat, but for now we are seeking
alternative ways to combat the Li’vorkrachnika in a more economical fashion
.”

“
You know you
can kill as many as they send, you just don’t know how to defeat them?
”

“
Short of a
massive campaign to wipe them from the face of the galaxy, no. They seem
destined to either dominate or be eradicated. Normally there is middle ground
to negotiate with, even if through force alone, but the Li’vorkrachnika have
shown a disinterest in survival. They will die by the billions if necessary to
achieve an objective
.”

“
So I’ve noticed
.”

“
I am told you
have considerable experience fighting this common enemy
.”

“
I do
.”

“
Any insights
you could provide would be greatly valued, as well as information concerning
the battles you’ve fought and won
.”

“
That I can
offer, but first I need to see more of the Nexus and how you’ve been fighting
them. If I had your resources the lizards would have been defeated long before
now and I don’t see why they’re beating you
.”

“
They are not
defeating us
,” Gfatt countered.

“
They are
surviving and expanding, correct?
”

“
Correct
.”

“
Then they are
winning and defeating your stated objective
.”

“
The Nexus
survives fully intact, we have not lost a world. There is no defeat
.”

“
Maybe this is
translation issue. You are not winning, correct?
”

“
We have not won
a complete victory, no
.”

“
Then I need to
see how you are fighting and what you have available in order to point out
where you’re going wrong
.”

“
Strategic
information is limited to outsiders
.”

“
Give me as much
as you can, then I will compare and contrast between our battles with the
lizards and yours
.”

The Gfatt turned and conversed with another beside it,
with their whisper being too low for her translation software to digest, but a
moment later the original Gfatt altered the sandbox and a slew of new objects
appeared, some being
starmaps
and others ship
profiles.

“
We will extend
internal public information rights to you for the purpose of this conference.
Ask and we shall answer what we are allowed
.”

Kerrie looked over the various ships, then pointed to
one of the smaller ones. “
Let’s start
here
.”

3

January 3, 2637

Danba
System (lizard
territory)

Vani

Liam-090 studied the holograms in the command nexus
aboard his
Warship
-class jumpship as
he began to mentally link into the Ikrid control sphere and begin issuing
orders to his raiding fleet, which was spread throughout the enemy-occupied
system just on the far side of the ‘neutral zone’ beyond Alpha Region. They
were about to stage a naval attack on the key lizard stronghold in order to
beat down some of the excessive growth the planet was undergoing, and to do the
maximum amount of damage possible Liam needed to adapt his fleet positioning to
what the lizards were showing.

The lag made it tricky, with his own ship being in
null space between the planet and star but close enough that a low speed
microjump would get him there within a few minutes. He needed to be close to
monitor the fleet positions without them being able to see him, for the sensor
dampening hull plates that Star Force now fielded made the long range lizard
sensors virtually useless unless they knew where to focus their attention.

The reverse was no longer true, for it had been Star
Force that once had difficulty tracking the lizards’ own stealth plating, but
right now their ship hulls were literally gleaming in reflectivity that Liam’s
passive sensors were registering and giving him half a planet’s worth of
orbital signatures to gather information from. He had another jumpship on the
far side, and between the two of them and others relaying the signals, he was
looking at a low detailed position map of everything the lizards had in orbit
around
Vani
.

Beside him he had two more holograms for the other
inhabited planets in the system, but neither was a tenth of the density of this
one. The others were start up projects, further deepening this system’s
resource base and defenses, but a little orbital bombardment would fix most of
that while the bulk of Liam’s fleet was going after
Vani
…or
to be more precise, the fleet surrounding it.

They had some 28,000 cruisers or better in orbit,
clumped together into various formations with others moving about in patrol.
The other two planets were virtually barren of orbital defense ships, with
these just being a short microjump away if needed. Liam had 6 jumpships in his
fleet, plus two Ma’kri, and unless the lizards fought extremely stupid there
was no way Star Force was going to beat them.

They were here to do damage and pull out, a quick poke
to bleed off some of their strength, though depending on how the enemy
responded it might turn out to be three or four pokes. Liam was used to running
circles around them, and if he could do so here he was going to make the trip
pay off as much as possible.

There was a ninth ship that had come in with the Star
Force fleet, an observer from the Gfatt that had been tagging along on two
previous missions studying the lizard threat in this region of the galaxy and
how Star Force was fighting them. Today Liam intended to give them quite a
show, for the ships under his command were all top of the line models, right
down to the support drones that two of his jumpships were carrying.

The trailblazer waited another 20 minutes, patient to
get the positioning right with the bit of movement occurring in orbit. Nothing
much, just a handful of lazy patrols moving about, but every ship counted and
there was no rush. So far their arrival in the system hadn’t been detected, at
least as far as the reaction from the defense fleet was concerned. They’d
overbraked
to come out of their jumps well out from the
star in the hopes of evading any stellar detection grid the lizards had set up
and it appeared they’d been successful.

The Gfatt had come with them, easily making the
maneuver given their ship’s superior drives. Just how superior was a matter of
question, as was the rest of their technology, but according to Kerrie they
were a mid-level race within the Nexus and extremely formidable when it came to
military engagements. They’d been brought in to deal with the lizards when the
H’kar had been unable to handle them, even with the Nexus upgrades bestowed
upon the new member.

When the Gfatt hadn’t been able to stop the spread of
the lizards either more attention had been placed on the matter. They were able
to win every battle they fought, but the enemy’s growth rate was something they
were unable to counter without devoting a lot more resources to the ‘low level’
problem. What other threats were
high
level Liam didn’t know, but the Gfatt were wisely here to study how the ADZ was
surviving and now thriving against the lizards.

At least as long as the Skarrons kept their attention,
anyway. Right now Star Force was building like crazy to secure their borders
and raids like this one were intended to keep the lizards from doing the same.
At first the Gfatt had not seen the wisdom in harassing the lizards without
taking planets away from them, but after their first observance coupled with an
analysis of Star Force battle history they were beginning to come around to the
idea of just racking up ship kills rather than securing ‘wins.’

How many Liam was going to get today was up in the
air, but seeing the positioning in both
holo
and
minds’ eye he knew he’d get at least a couple hundred. How the lizards reacted
would determine how much higher that number went.

With a single thought he sent the ‘go’ command and his
sensor feed vanished as the jumpship accelerated too fast to keep a clear lock.
The signals coming in from the other ships were likewise distorted until they
reemerged into ‘normal’ speeds in middle orbit, with another jumpship coming in
beside them while the others entered at various points around the planet.
Liam’s position was to be the major one drawing attention, with his two coming
out and into view some 45 seconds ahead of the others.

Both jumpships immediately began deploying drones,
fast releasing them on mini slingshot docking arms that allowed them all to get
clear within a minute. Rather than stay with the jumpship they shot off
immediately on multiple trajectories, some in groups, some solo, while the two
jumpships pulled closer together and charged ahead into a ship formation of
some 834 cruisers. No larger enemy ships were present at this location, but as
soon as the jumpships appeared they began redeploying from elsewhere in orbit
along with their flocks of additional cruisers, with many heading to higher
orbit to try and block their escape jumplines.

Both jumpships opened fire with cleansing beams and
bloon launchers, then added point defense maulers as the cruisers swarmed to
them, not intending to survive the engagement but committed to do as much
damage to the two big ships as they could and potentially set up kills when the
others arrived. It wasn’t the sort of play Liam would make, but the lizards
fought a different type of war and it was one version of combat that the
trailblazer had become intimately familiar with…enough so that he could often
predict their movements before they made them.

As the pair of jumpships tore apart the much smaller
and weaker cruisers, their shields were bathed in plasma but were virtually
unaffected by it. Only once the number of incoming hits scaled up drastically
did they begin to weaken, with Liam not ordering the secondary armor deployed
until they finally dipped below 80% and additional groups of enemy ships began
to arrive to reinforce the others.

Across the hull numerous openings appeared, exposing
specialized internal cargo
bays
from which a flood of
tiny blocks flowed like water out over the hull, using each other as grip
points as the 2 meter wide segments laid out a carpet of ‘replicator’ blocks
across the standard armor and stacked three thick at the thinnest, with several
mountains of blocks positioned over key areas for quick redeployment later
if/when the shields were breached.

It took a long time for all the tiny blocks to get out
onto the hull, but the shields held up admirably as the secondary armor covered
everything aside from weapons batteries and other key systems that needed line
of sight. Every now and then some enemy plasma would slip through the momentary
gaps in the shield where it had to be opened to let the
jumpship’s
own weapons fire through, but those tidbits barely kissed the secondary armor,
a mere prelude to what was to come.

Liam kept the jumpships in the fray, knowing that his
shields would go down and expecting them to. He was here to cause damage and he
couldn’t do as much as he wanted if he played too clean. Likewise the drones he
had deployed were fighting harder than normal, engaging other groups as they
moved in towards the jumpships but not sticking around to join them. They were
skirmishers in this engagement and they needed to keep moving, but didn’t have
the luxury of pulling back and recharging shields else they’d lose part of
their surprise attack effect and give the mass of enemy ships time to
reposition and drop the hammer.

Before that happened they’d have to pull out, which
was why Liam was pushing beyond normal protocol in order to get more kills. It
wasn’t a risk as far as he was concerned, for he knew well what his own ships
and those of the enemy were capable of, and even while he was drawing the
majority of the enemy attention the other ships were coming out of microjumps
at precise positions and engaging smaller fleets while they were isolated, some
of which they were catching en route to the growing main brawl.

Those intercepts were being executed by the Ma’kri,
which were specifically designed to hunt down enemy ships. Liam monitored them
and all others engaged around the planet while letting his captain handle most
of the immediate battle. It was necessary to give him the ability to improvise,
but in order to do that he needed to be aware of everything that was happening
and not get tunnel vision on one particular part of the engagement.

The Ma’kri were big ships, but their design had them
overpowered with engines, meaning they could move their mass around far quicker
in small scale maneuvers than they appeared capable of doing. In addition they
were equipped with three types of weapons, long range to snipe with, short
range to ravage with, and disabler
Nami
-class
missiles to ‘stun’ with. As Liam glanced at their progress he saw tracking
markers for the big missiles being launched one each at cruisers far outside of
cleansing beam range.

Each missile was the size of a Skarron fighter and was
equipped with sufficient engines to get it to target and decelerate before
impact, with it landing on or near the ship and emitting an IDF bubble that
surrounded the target. The
nami
had its own shield
generators, for it had to survive in order to be effective, and the ones they
were currently using were plasma-resistant varieties knowing that they were
going up against the lizards.

The missiles would track towards their targets, then
suddenly the enemy ships became ballistic and unable to maneuver. Using their
faster and more agile binary drives the Ma’kri would race out to them and make
the kill at close range, hovering over top while the IDF gradually ran out of
capacitor energy, and blow them apart with multiple Ta’lin’yi cannons before
the charge ran out. With the kill made they’d move onto the next one, stunning
one or two at a time and gobbling them up at close range or launching multiple
namis and using the ballistic trajectories they created for easy long range
targeting with their cleansing beam, destroying or disabling the ships quickly
as the Ma’kri moved around orbit like predators.

Liam knew they had to engage small groups or they’d be
overwhelmed, for their shielding and armor wasn’t anything like what the
jumpships had. The Ma’kri were crewed, so they had to take care not to lose
those ships by being overzealous, but they were very good at cleaning up
stragglers and racking up an impressive kill list until they ran out of namis,
after which they were still good in a fight but lost their main function.

Liam’s attention flicked from the Ma’kri to one of his
drone fleets that was flashing warning symbols, indicating that their defenses
were weakening to the point of breach. Before one of his crew could get to it
he assumed priority command over one of the support drones pacing them and not
firing, for it had no weapons aside from two backup plasma cannons that were
currently powered down. The drone wasn’t meant to fight, but to assist the
other ships, and now it was time to do so.

Liam spotted the two destroyers that were nearest to
getting wrecked and brought the support drone in, which was three times as big
and heavily shielded. He ordered the destroyers closer together, then brought
the support ship down right in between them and extended a bubble shield around
all three, blocking the incoming fire on them while they lowered what was left
of their existing shields while their emitters began to recharge.

With their shields down the support ship shot over a
stream of secondary armor blocks in packets, with them splashing against the
drone hull and spreading over key areas of it. Had they already taken hull
damage the blocks would have filled in and covered over those weak areas, but
right now Liam just wanted the secondary armor there so the destroyer pilots
could use it instantly when their shields did go down.

Before the support ship became vulnerable itself it
lowered the bubble shield and redirected power to its own redundant emitters,
hardening up its skin-tight barrier and moving ahead while blocking a bit more
fire with its bulk before pulling out. It headed back between the other drones
and into a waiting position while the destroyers, now with slightly recharged
shields, continued to fight and would put the secondary armor to use mere
minutes later when the lizard cruisers finally broke through with mounting
plasma storms as more and more reinforcements came into the fight.