Star Force: Proving Ground (SF66) (10 page)

As Kara was approaching the edge of the colony ahead
she got a ‘request for assistance’ beacon on her battlemap. It was coming from
a city to her west that had Lacvamat patrolling from the air and they seemed to
have located a nest of lizard tanks operating in the rubble. They were making
strafing runs on them, but reported enough of an anti-air presence that they
couldn’t press the issue on their own and required assistance.

Kara banked to the left and picked up speed,
elongating her personal shields into a needlepoint above her head and cutting
through the air as aerodynamically as possible. There were several other units
responding to the call as well, with a squadron of Calavari Valeries closer
than she was, but there was only so much one could do from the air and the
Lacvamat had rightly called for what they referred to as ‘
groundpounder
’
backup.

Signaling that she was incoming, the honorary
trailblazer watched the landscape zip by underneath her during the long trip.
Fast as she was, there was only so many kilometers that she could eat up per
minute and the planet was, obviously, huge. When she eventually did reach the
location she zipped down from altitude and shot through the gaps in the
Lacvamat flocks, coming down to an altitude that they weren’t risking and
landing directly in the center of a formation of six tanks that were firing up
into the air trying to hit the Lacvamat and doing a bad job of it.

“
Surrender and
I’ll let you live
,” she said in their native language, broadcasting the
edict loudly from her armor’s external speakers as well as sending it over the
lizard
comm
channels.

Kara just stood there in her red scales staring at
them from behind her head covering, which had no visor nor any other openings
to signify a face, just more red scales covering and protecting her eyes that
were seeing a camera image displayed before them. Even though she could see it
coming, the tank to her left swiveled around and fired a blast at her from less
than 50 meters away.

She didn’t dodge, but took the shot on her shields as
she stared it down, with the other lizard troops likewise turning towards her
and opening up with a lot of infantry weapons, for they were literally crawling
around in every nook and cranny she could see from street level, and it was
obvious that they had no intention of accepting her generous offer.

“Can’t say I didn’t try,” she said to herself, using
her anti-
grav
to juke her out of the way of the next
tank blast and transition into a flying run inches over the ground as she
summoned up an orb of green/white energy and delivered it to the closest tank
by hand.

10

May 1, 2762

Pagaliss
System
(Calavari Region)

Varasiss

A part of the 22nd mainline Star Force fleet, some
twenty warships strong, entered planetary orbit around Varasiss and broke off
from the cargo convoy they were escorting, heading towards the large starport
in low orbit while the 226 fat transports began sending down dropships to the
surface as a flock of even more flew up to them to begin unloading the supplies
and personnel being brought in to the revived Calavari capitol. The warships
had convoyed out with the cargo jumpships as a matter of convenience, but they
would not be returning with them. Rather, they were here to use the
Pagaliss
System as a base of regional operations as they
contributed to the ongoing assaults on lizard worlds nearby.

The starport they were rendezvousing at was
Atlas
-class, and more of a battle
station than commerce center. It was the size of two command ships and had
enough shields, armor, and weaponry to make it a strongpoint defense rather
than a helpless target that the fleets would have to guard, but its primary purpose
was still to facilitate traffic to and from the surface now that Varasiss was
linked into the Star Force transit grid.

There were dozens of civilian ships too large for the
hangar bays docked with an outer ring around the disc-like station, but the
warships wouldn’t be availing themselves of that capability. They were sitting
themselves into nearby parking orbits and sending over dropships of their own,
knowing that they’d be waiting here for at least 2 weeks before joining up with
a
H’kar raiding fleet and heading out. Giving the
troops and crew a chance to get off the warships and have some free time was
permissible given the secure nature of the system, with 16 Sentinels and
thousands of drones patrolling orbit as the surface of the planet was being
slowly reworked.

‘Slow’ was a point of view, and while visible from
orbit as small dots the actual construction on three different cities was
occurring at a blinding pace. Star Force had devoted an enormous amount of
resources to get the first city built to operational status within 15 months,
then using a combination of supplies shipped in from the ADZ and local
resources either harvested or recycled, they’d begun expanding on it rapidly
for another two years before now having branched out to another pair of
locations on the planet.

The original city was easily identifiable from orbit
as the dropships from the 22nd fleet crossed over to the starport, depositing
Bronsor and a number of other Knights and commandos onto the massive station.
They were most likely remaining there for their downtime and mingling with the
civilian population that was about half Calavari and half a mix of everything
else. The ADZ knew that Star Force had big plans for Varasiss going forward and
many people wanted in on the action, with a lot of entrepreneurs already having
set up shop on the starport while the surface cities were currently reserved
only for Calavari citizens and Star Force personnel.

Bronsor was rare in that he was a Calavari, but not
part of the Calavari faction within Star Force. He’d joined the mainline fleet
long ago and had never had cause to regret that decision. Virtually all of his
fellow soldiers were Humans and he had to live by their standards, which were
far harder than those the Calavari used because the smaller race was more agile
than them, hence they expected mobility that few Calavari could ever hope to
match. It had been a struggle for him, but gradually over the years he’d
developed enough speed in his big body to keep up with the Humans, to a degree,
which allowed his natural bulk to become an asset rather than a liability to
the assault teams he was deployed with.

The Knight left his fellow soldiers to their own
business and saw about arranging transport down to the surface, which his
position allowed. There was little in the way of entertainment facilities down
there, unlike the starport that had commerce as its number 1 priority, but Bronsor
wasn’t taking this trip to unwind. It was of a personal nature, for he hadn’t
set foot on the Calavari capitol for more than 300 years.

He was one of a rare few that still remained that
remembered the time before the Calavari had joined Star Force, with most of
their current population having been born after that fact. He regretted losing
so many friends and kin over the years since, but most of the losses were due
to lack of self-sufficiency and them simply choosing to wither away rather than
train. He wished that hadn’t been the case, but their choices were their own.
Nowadays self-sufficiency wasn’t such an outlandish concept, and any race that
was part of Star Force practically lived and breathed it, with those who chose
otherwise being the outcasts of society rather than the dominate drivers of it.

Not all Calavari, and not even all Humans, achieved
and maintained self-sufficiency, for it was a personal war that one had to
continually fight and for whatever reason people would find a reason to quit.
The stronger one was the more time they had to reconsider before they lost all
their strength, but Bronsor accepted that there would always be the cowardly
and the stupid in the galaxy. He just wished that more of his former kin had
lived in this era, for he was sure they would have made it had their old
culture not held them back from taking the Humans at their word in those early
years.

Bronsor was now amongst the oldest of the Calavari,
and was by far the strongest. His training had not only maintained his
self-sufficiency, but built on it, leveling him up at a modest pace over the
years with his Human peers pushing him in ways he’d never expected. A few other
Calavari had followed his example and worked their way into the mainline ranks,
but none of them could take him hand to hand. Some in the Calavari military had
tried, years ago when he’d had some downtime to spend helping to illuminate
them as to the greater potential they had, and only two had bested him.

Those two stood more than two feet taller than him and
had taken their training to heart. To his credit Bronsor beat both of them in a
rematch once he got used to dealing with their larger size, for fighting with
and against Humans required different movements, and he’d been momentarily
caught off guard in the transition. Credit was due to those who had temporarily
bested him though, but since that day he’d never let it happen again.

Bronsor eventually found his way onto a dropship
heading down to the original city, with him seeing that it now stretched out
across more than 50 miles with densely packed spires built in Calavari fashion.
Rather than blocks they were smooth lines with no sharp corners whatsoever, but
beyond that it was standard Star Force, with him knowing that those buildings
were packed with structural supports and space saving designs to maximize every
square mile of the landscape. The Calavari had a slightly different way of
doing things than the Mainline did, but they had learned quite a lot from the
Humans and assimilated a great deal of their architectural principles.

As the dropship headed for one of the spaceports he
could see the gigantic central spires that looked like they were literally
holding up the entire city. At present there were five of them, with one
located dead center and the other four spread out around it in compass points.
More would be added as the cityscape expanded, with Bronsor knowing that each
was a shield general/defense turret. If needed a very powerful defensive
barrier would go up over top of the city that could block a considerable amount
of orbital bombardment while the spires returned fire with the brand new Keema
weapons.

Inefficient and power hungry as the prototypes were,
they offered so much range and firepower combined that they made the cleansing
beams look like toys in comparison. The energy was an exotic type, requiring
several rare arc elements to produce, but the result was a clear beam that
carried a slight visual distortion with it, making the energy conduit look like
glass even in the void of space. It didn’t have any special effects like the
Ta’lin’yi did when it hit matter, or the maulers with their shield disrupting
nature. No, the Keema were just a straight up, normal weapon that was simply
overpowering in intensity.

Each spire had one Keema atop, with lots of secondary
weapons, including cleansing beams so they could attack both starships in orbit
and troops or aircraft on the planet. So far this was the only location to have
any functioning Keema weapons, for the drone warships were too small to
accommodate the crude designs. Even Earth’s planetary defense hadn’t
constructed any, wanting to wait until better models reduced the size and
energy expenditure, but here, near lizard territory, the Calavari had wanted the
big guns immediately, just in case the lizards decided to try and retake the
planet before Star Force dug in deeper.

Right now the fighting was still going their way, but
the lizard worlds were getting harder to take. Bronsor and the others had their
work cut out for them in the coming years, but that was what they were here
for. This little trip down to the surface was an addendum, and had there not
been time nor the opportunity Bronsor wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

But so long as he was here, he was going to take the
moment to revisit the planet.

When the dropship landed in the city he exited it with
the other passengers then promptly let himself get lost in the cityscape and
just roam, tasting the distinctive air once again and having a flood of
memories rush back. The Calavari were better for the changes that had been made
to them, and eternal thanks to the Humans for that, but something had always
been missing for them, and standing on the surface of Varasiss again he now
understood what it was.

Legitimacy.

For three centuries they’d been refugees, despite the
numerous former Calavari worlds they’d already retaken and begun repopulating,
and even though Bronsor didn’t think of himself in that way, and hadn’t for a
very long time, something deep inside of him that had been buried came to the
surface with the taste of the planet’s atmosphere, prompting him to head for
the city’s perimeter and find his way out into the wilds surrounding the
construction sites.

It took him a while to pass through and around them,
for there were so many construction mechs working that it looked like the
planet belonged to a race of metallic giants, but eventually he found some
clear space and jogged off through the grassy plains on an impulsive workout
and just got some distance from himself and the city, feeling the natural
gravity of the planet that further brought out the old memories.

The sights, sounds, and smells of the grasslands were
the same as they had been when he’d first come here, so long ago. He hadn’t been
born on Varasiss, but he’d done his military training here and immediately
considered it to be home, as did virtually all Calavari. There was something
unique about the planet, and only now did he truly understand what it was after
all his training and experience gained with Star Force.

It was pride, and knowing that this was their home and
that they belonged here. Even now that his own pride was centered in the
mainline fleet and his acceptance by the Humans into their hallowed ranks, a
piece of him remembered that old pride and being back here, with the planet no
longer in enemy hands and rightfully returned to the Calavari, the long missing
piece in his buried psyche was finally unlocked and he could feel himself
healing the last of the lingering damage from the near destruction of his race.

And being here, now, made those memories feel as if
they’d just been yesterday, almost as if part of his brain had shut down during
all these years of service with Star Force and he was permitting it to finally
wake up. With it came the pain that would always be with him, for the losses
suffered were not something that one ever forgot. The memories could be set
aside, along with all others, until they became relevant again, but the key to
healing wasn’t in forgetting or forgiving, it was in getting oneself on the
proper path…and a hefty dose of payback.

The Calavari now had it. Varasiss was their capitol
again and millions of Calavari citizens were flocking back to their homeworld
as fast as the infrastructure expansion could accommodate them, but above and
beyond that Star Force was investing heavily in the system, intending to make
it one of the rare few cornerstones in the overall empire, or so the rumors
went. From the mass of construction already having occurred in a just a few
years, Bronsor didn’t have any doubts as to Star Force’s intent for the system.

With a lot of running and a loss of a sense of time,
the unarmored Calavari eventually made his way across the grasslands to a clump
of trees that created a little island in the otherwise flat and empty horizon
preceding the main forest still some 20 miles away. He decided to stop there,
slowing to a walk as he got to the edge and exploring the bit of untouched
countryside that was a rarity on the planet after two massive wars had been
fought on its surface.

These trees were large and old, telling Bronsor that
they too had been here before the lizards had invaded. He walked over to one of
them and brushed his bare hand against the slick, smooth bark trying to soak in
as many sights and sensations as he could and reconnect. When he touched the
tree he let his hand linger, eventually closing his eyes and taking several
deep, slow breaths, then opening his eyes again.

What he saw was victory. After so many years and battles
and losses and horrors, the Calavari stood here victorious. The lizards were
being beaten back and the Nestafar were gone. Bronsor and only a few others
would truly appreciate this, and he felt both isolated and privileged to have
that unique perspective. He was one of the last survivors from that time
period, and now he stood here as a representative of all his kin that had
fallen.