Star Force: Initiation (SF61) (3 page)

That single mauler hit blew off the starboard arm of
the corvette and left a huge chunk of its hull exposed to the ocean. Davrel
reestablished the shield column again and hit it twice more before the enemy
ship was out of the fight and quite literally in pieces, some of which floated
up, others down in a drifting debris cloud.

Meanwhile
Davrel’s
cockpit
was pinging with a collision warning as a hammerhead swung around and was
headed directly towards him, apparently not caring about damaging the destroyer
in the process. Watching the approach rate carefully the mechwarrior continued
to wreck the inside of the bigger ship’s hull, then suddenly retracted the arm
and disconnected from the ship. Waiting till the last moment, he used the tiny
gravity drive inside to shoot him down through the water and avoided the plasma
nub-covered head of the lizard ship by a few meters, expertly ducking beneath
it.

A massive explosion of vaporized water and hull pushed
him down even further as the hammerhead couldn’t slow in time and, failing to
hit the Star Force mech, hit off center on the destroyer as it tried to veer
off. Davrel immediately reversed course and reached out with his arms, which he
was controlling with both of his and his legs to get the quartet to function in
sync enough to grab the tree trunk of the hammerhead’s T-shaped design. A quick
mauler kiss there followed by some ripping and tearing took out that ship,
allowing him to move freely and get back to the destroyer that was limping off.

As soon as he got clear for a moment a wave of missiles
hit him from the light destroyer nearby that finally took down his shields. The
rest of the explosions barely scratched the hull as he veered off and headed
towards the ship, knowing he could come back to the destroyer later. As soon as
he made the course correction the lizard ship began extending its defensive
‘bush’ of thin tendrils covered with berry-like plasma nubs.

Davrel knew there was no way to get through them in
order to grab onto the hull, and while he could have just pushed through he
didn’t want to take the damage so he triggered the third of 4 transformations
the Vel’koz was capable of. This one tucked the arms back in then pushed
various segments of the body out like blocky pylons while the internal
components rearranged, including his cockpit pod that was shuffled around near
to the exterior but with at least a thin armor plate protecting it as the big
gun within the mech assembled itself from various components.

The defensive bush around the light destroyer wouldn’t
allow for a shield column to attach normally, but there were enough small holes
in it for it to fire missiles out of, making for an odd turtle-like tactic that
not only protected it but allowed it to become an offensive position, though
more or less fixed to one spot for the bush couldn’t be dragged along with it
at any respectable speed.

Fortunately the big gun didn’t require a shield
column, and thanks to a little sharing on the part of the Elarioni only a
handful of years ago Davrel had a
Yor’vok
that didn’t
move the water out of the way as it fired, but rather simply vaporized it when
the beam leapt out towards the light destroyer as the mech emptied its
capacitor charge.

The silver beam quickly disappeared inside the
vaporized water and
Davrel’s
targeting sensors became
partially obscured along with his vision as the ultra-condense laser-like
weapon burnt through the water, the tendrils surrounding the lizard ship, and
then the hull plates in the equivalent of one big Kamehameha.

Once it finished its discharge Davrel transformed the
mech back into phase 2, then headed off to get the wounded destroyer after
seeing that the annoying bush was no longer sprouting missiles. Meanwhile the
capacitor began recharging very slowly, with it taking upwards of half an hour
to refill if he wasn’t using any of his other weapon systems. It was a big hit
upgrade to the mech, which the Archons referred to as an ‘
ult
’
which, like a lot of their naming system, came from things he wasn’t familiar
with and they didn’t always bother to explain. He guessed it was short for
‘ultimate’ weapon and he couldn’t disagree with the results…especially when he
used it on land with no water in the way to diminish the beam.

The other light corvette that had been pacing the
destroyer veered off, putting as much distance between itself and Davrel after
seeing what had happened to the other ships. Usually the lizards fought it out,
but apparently not this one. He would have let it go and finished off the
destroyer, but there were infantry in the water as well and that ship could do
them a whole lot of harm so he ignored the big target and switched back into
phase one, swimming his mech after it before it got away, then he’d circle back
and finish off the destroyer, which for good measure spat a few missiles
Davrel’s
way as he swam off after the corvette.

3

Jeimae swam through the interior of the battleship,
racing towards the waiting room where the other Elarioni were just about to
depart the ship. She’d had a defective shield and had to quickly swap it out
for a new one in the equipment room, leaving her just enough time to swim
through the corridors of the water-filled ship to meet up with the 22 others in
this compartment. She bumped up against one of them, offering a distracted
apology just before the outer door irised open and the Star Force aquatic
infantry scurried out.

With her being the furthest back she exited last,
transitioning through the force field covering the entrance and into the
chillier ocean outside, following in the wake of the others as they moved down
towards the wreckage of lizard infrastructure below. Her tail flicked rapidly,
propelling her along with the jets located along either hip in her flexible
armor as a slew of tiny green dots below marked the positions of the lizard
infantry and their plasma rods.

Almost as soon as the dozens of lights began to grow
into hundreds as the Elarioni were spotted the armored infantry fanned out in a
spiral, making like a living tornado that fell down on the enemy troops. Jeimae
swam quickly, her shield compacted and attached to her left arm. Her normally
free flowing hair was pulled back into a tight helmet that transitioned into
scale-like armor that wrapped around her entire body, making her unafraid of
the plasma nubs below, knowing that she could take several hits before
penetration…not that that was going to be an issue.

She and the other Star Force Elarioni were swimming so
fast the lizards were practically frozen in place when they finally met. Jeimae
was a few seconds delayed, but swooped down then made a tight arc, pulling into
a lateral motion and jabbing her right arm into the nearest one of the
four-legged monstrosities. They might be able to breath underwater, but they
certainly didn’t belong in it.

The pylon on her arm extended on mental impulse, with
a blue nub glowing to life just before impact. Her own plasma weapon hit the
lizard in the side of its exposed head, discharging into its skin and eating
all the way through to blow out the far side, killing it instantly as she swam
by.

A quick redirect to the left brought her up against
another lizard in the tightly packed swarm that was hovering a few dozen meters
over their seafloor buildings. Jeimae popped out her shield, with the physical
construction changing from a rod into a fully elongated oval nearly the size of
her body. The water drag against it was significant, but the lizard’s jab with
his plasma rod caught on it as planned, with her swimming herself and the
shield into the enemy before reaching around the side with her arm and jabbing
it with her own weapon.

A quick tap to the chest was all it took, then she
retracted her shield in flash and swam a few more meters before popping it back
out again and repeating the process. Her speed and agility within the water was
beyond anything the lizards could manage, and the same went for their Human
compatriots that were fighting not far away. Given that they breathed air they
had their own aquatics warships, hard armor, and different tactics, but they
were all on the same team…the Elarioni were just better, and should have been,
given that the water was their natural environment.

That was why the Elarioni were being deployed against
the heaviest infantry while the Humans were sent to take out key facilities
that had less massed resistance, for their mobility was centered on jet
propulsion and straight line trajectories. They couldn’t truly swim, and more often
than not required arrowheads to be effective against lizard swarms. The little
craft could move quickly and ram the enemy, racking up a lot of kills in a
short amount of time, but the Human infantry being deployed were mostly in
their armor and not the small craft, given that they intended to enter the
buildings and clean them out.

They did have one advantage, and that was their armor.
The Elarioni needed their speed and flexibility and weren’t about to give it up
for the hard carapaces that the air breathers wore, but those defenses, which
included an energy shield that the Elarioni lacked, allowed them to take many
hits before penetration. She knew the Humans were more than a match for an
equal, or even double number of lizards, but they weren’t in the
Elarioni’s
league…not even close.

Their addition to Star Force had taken a primitive
aquatics division and amped it up to respectable levels in terms of infantry,
and even made some decent addition to their ships that were respectable to
begin with, but there was simply no getting around the fact that the Humans
couldn’t swim worth crap, so whenever there was combat involved they played
support and the Elarioni were the hunters.

Today was no exception and as Jeimae used her physical
shield to knock a lizard’s legionnaire energy shield aside and slip through the
small gap her agility and speed made it clear why they were superior. With a
quick retraction of her own shield she swam inside the turtled-up formation of
some 9 lizards and punched/blasted them from inches away as she slithered
around and between them, demonstrating her flexibility and skill.

She took one hit to her tail armor before swimming out
of the corpse ball and looking for the next closest target. A light telepathic
prompting brought her attention to several of her sisters that had swam lower
and were down near the buildings. They were being pursued by some type of craft
that she’d never seen before, but it nearly matched their speed and was firing
small projectiles at them.

Jeimae swam down after it immediately, as did several
other Elarioni, bypassing lizards attempting to block or jab them as if they
were little more than stationary objects. The lizard craft was about the length
of five of them and was elongated like a fat sea snake, with the little
projectiles firing out the front end only. Her fellow Elarioni were dodging
about half of them as they shot by on their own little propulsion units while
taking the hits from the others against their shields.

Those explosions were not small, and she knew their
shields wouldn’t last against those weapons for long. The others sensed it as
well and swam hard for the target, coming up alongside and behind it as they
pulsed their armor jets for even more straight line speed. Jeimae got to the
side of the dark craft along with one of her sisters on the other side and
found nothing to hold onto, so she was forced to keep swimming fast beside it
as she jabbed her right-arm mounted plasma gauntlet into the hull.

A tiny explosion of steam shot bubbles back and
slightly up as the momentum dragged them away from the hit. When they cleared
she saw a tiny divot in the craft and swung her arm again as more Elarioni
caught up and they too began whacking at the craft with their weapons. It took
Jeimae 8 hits before she made a small hole in the armor, then she slipped her
fingers onto the edge and held on so she would no longer have to swim. With
that finger hold she extended her gauntlet out into a short pike and jabbed it
inside, seeing the glowing end disappear from view just as one of her sisters
ahead got hit by one of the projectiles.

Grimacing with anger Jeimae jabbed and pumped blast
after blast into whatever was inside, trying to sting the craft to death along
with the others. It took far longer than it should have, but eventually the
thing stopped firing and its speed slowed but the Elarioni didn’t stop there.
They kept tearing at it until one of them got the cockpit open and killed the
tightly packed pilot inside, insuring that the odd craft was truly dead in the
water.

Jeimae pulled her arm out of the interior, for it had
been fully buried inside trying to reach for more parts to trash, and swam
clear looking for her next target. The battlemap inside her helmet gave her
positions for the surrounding troops that she couldn’t all see, as well as
priority and secondary targets. There were still a lot of lizards nearby, but
she was more interested in finding any more of these new craft.

And there were several popping up on the battlemap as
they rose up from buildings on the surface. Nearby one of her wounded sisters
swam slowly with escort back up towards the huge battleship more than a
kilometer away towards the west. A quick word and she knew she’d made it back,
for her escort wasn’t going to let her get ambushed, nor would the rest of
them. Once she was clear Jeimae swam down and killed three more lizards, with
one of them actually giving her a bit of trouble with its own shield, causing
her to take an extra six seconds before she made the kill.

That one was more skilled than the others, but it had
only been delaying the inevitable. Even if Jeimae hadn’t had armor she and the
others would have come out victorious simply for their superior swimming
skills, but one thing they’d learned since their voluntary transfer to Star
Force was that having the extra defense allowed you to fight more aggressively
than normal in situations like this, and that was something she definitely
liked. Especially so when there were Humans or other lesser warriors in the
water fighting alongside her.

There weren’t any in the immediate vicinity, but there
were two of those new enemy craft. Swimming off towards the nearest one she saw
her sisters nearby giving it a wide berth, then the warning highlight on her
battlemap caught her attention and she too stayed back, but still close enough
that she’d be able to move in and help if/when they decided to attack it…which
they had to. It was keeping them away from a larger infantry formation and
peppering the shields of those closest. They couldn’t sustain that damage and
the little weapons appeared too fast to dodge with certainty.

She waited in a holding pattern, swimming in a shallow
circle while deciding whether or not to head off towards some of the scattered
infantry nearby and help clean up when she spotted one of the Human arrowhead
formations headed towards them. Jeimae smiled inside her helmet, realizing that
they’d been holding off until they got the reinforcements. The Elarioni were
dominant infantry, but going up against armored craft wasn’t in their
skillset…nor did they have the right weapons.

She glanced up, seeing the shadow of a lizard aquatics
cruiser exchanging fire with her battleship, shooting off swarms of
missiles/torpedoes while the shield columns from the Star Force vessel flashed
with light, making it look like a one sided battle. Her battlemap tagged the
drones from the battleship and she saw that they were busy with a growing
lizard fleet closing on the big ship, which was probably why the Humans were
responding instead.

Jeimae and the infantry were low enough not to be
effected by the war up top, but that could change in an instant if one of those
ships moved down. Its missiles and especially the larger torpedoes wouldn’t be
able to target them individually, but an area of effect detonation could cause
them serious problems. At the moment the big ships seemed consumed with the
battleship, and rightly so, leaving the infantry below to fight it out above
the seafloor infrastructure on their own.

Three of the Human arrowheads shot through the water
faster than even she could swim with her armor boost jets, with the trio
breaking up prior to arrival at the first craft. Two went wide to go after
other targets with Jeimae getting an attack prompt. As soon as it flashed on
her battlemap she swam in a half circle and sprinted ahead, putting as much
tail flip into her momentum as her adrenaline could produce.

When she was halfway to the target she saw the
arrowhead take a hit from one of the small projectile just prior to the
V-shaped personal craft ramming the lizard vessel. In the past the Humans had
only stun weapons on the craft, but tech upgrades and some gentle head slapping
by the Elarioni had them redesigned with a corrosive gel canister weapon
system, so as the arrowhead grazed and bounced off the hull of the craft a line
of material was painted onto it that flared into a bright green flame 2.7
seconds later.

That flame ate into the hull for a couple of
heartbeats then went out, making it safe for the infantry to approach and
touch. Jeimae wasn’t the first there, with her seeing two others swim up
alongside the twisting lizard craft as it chased after the arrowhead and latch
on with their armored fingers before taking their gauntlets and pushing them
through the breach in the armor the gel had made.

She got up to it just in time to add a few shots of
her own before the propulsion unit on the thing went out, then it was just a
matter of time before they got the cockpit open and killed the pilot, which now
seemed to be the ultimate objective being shared over the
comm
channels that periodically popped up with chatter. The Elarioni were
professional enough to know not to spam the channels, leaving whatever was
being said as important information that Jeimae listened to rather than toned
out, regardless of how busy she was fighting.

With the lizard craft neutralized and the other one
nearby suffering a similar fate the Elarioni moved on towards the nearest high
priority target in the lizard infrastructure and the swarm of infantry guarding
it, with Jeimae and the others swimming hard and then boosting forward with
their hip jets. The living missiles shot directly into the swarm then curved
around at sharp, impossible angles, not attacking any of the lizards at first
and just throwing them into a frenzy before each finally chose a target and
went in for the kill.

As the other Elarioni caught up the chaotic mess
quickly became a kill zone, with the lizards no match for the fin-tailed
infantry. They were the masters of the oceans for a reason and it was becoming
quickly apparent as to why.