Star Force: Penance (SF49) (6 page)

A warning popped up on her display, and she ran her
mech off several hundred meters to the north ahead of a chunk of warship
falling nearby. In fact it was heading very near the hoth, which was
accelerating as much as it could to get some distance, now pointed back towards
the city and nearly galloping, or at least as much as it mechanically could,
with Morgan watching the falling object in its last stages on the battlemap and
visually, guessing that the hoth wasn’t going to make it in time.

But then at the last second the bubble shield that was
still deployed and touching the top of the perimeter wall expanded, maintaining
the shape it was locked into but growing in size and expanding out over top the
hoth like an umbrella at the last moment. The Scionate destroyer, or rather
most of it, hit the shield and deflected, coming down on the ground some 100
meters past the hoth and creating one hell of an earthquake on impact.

Dust and debris flew everywhere, with a Scionate
corpse bouncing off her neo as the cloud consumed her mech, with her losing her
balance and falling forwards onto the ground. Morgan caught the mech with her
hands forward, digging her stuck blade into the ground like it was hardly even
there and waiting out the torrent while watching the battlemap for more falling
pieces. The bubble shield shrank slowly as the hoth got closer to the city and
Morgan followed it in, glad to have the cover and cursing Paul for his
sloppiness. What the hell was he thinking bringing the orbital fight down into
the atmosphere?

She knew it had been to slaughter the ground troops,
which she was thankful for, but this debris dodging was downright insane, and
she doubted the city shield could take a second hit like that without
breaching.

As she was mentally cussing him out the battlemap saw the
first of the enemy transports begin to lift off, apparently fully loaded. It
wasn’t targeted by Paul’s fleet, which Morgan knew was probably by design. With
the enemy retreating last thing you wanted to do was smoke their getaway car
and force them back into combat against the cities…or at least she hoped that
was his plan, though she didn’t want to interrupt him now to ask what was up,
given the ruckus going on overhead.

It took a long while for the troops she’d just been
fighting to make it back to their transports, but eventually they lifted off as
well, with the enemy warships, or rather those still left, finally pulling back
to cover the transports…with the Sentinel standing down along with the
remaining drones as they allowed the Scionate survivors to pull out and leave
uncontested.

After finding two of her mechwarriors buried under
debris and recovering them, Morgan brought her mech inside the hold of one of
the dropships that came out to retrieve her and the others, leaving the debris
pickup to different teams. Once inside she tapped into the dropship external
cams and got a good look at the once blue grasslands…now afire in multiple
locations and dotted with what looked like chocolate chips that was ship
debris, or in some cases entire ships.

It was a ghastly sight, but they’d managed to hold.
Question was how much damage had been done inside the cities and what the
Scionate were going to do now after this ass kicking, for they had far more
troops and ships insystem than they’d deployed here.

6

July 19, 2534

Corvio
System

Admat

Morgan picked up Paul’s mental signature a couple of
hallways away before she crossed paths with him, her coming back into the
command center and him coming out.

“We going back?” she asked, with the two of them
stopping for a chat in the middle of the pedestrian traffic flow.

“As soon as you can pack.
We
have to take care of this now. We can’t wait on the others.”

“I agree.
Just the three of us?”

“No one else can keep up.”

“Unfortunately,” Morgan echoed. “Grab plenty of senzu
beans and I’ll meet you in the hangar in an hour?”

“Deal,” Paul said with the pair splitting and going
their separate ways. He had to find Kara as well as do a little more homework.
He’d already spent a few minutes running through their files on the Scionate,
but he needed backup options and hadn’t gotten enough info for that so he
eventually stopped by his quarters and downloaded what he needed on a datapad
and brought it with him later when he went back to the hangar, this time
allowing Morgan to drive while he read up.

“
It seems we’ve
greatly underestimated the Humans’ power
,” Tem’lan mewed angrily in the
audience chamber from his reclining pedestal as he and the other Chieftans
watched the battle reports coming in via holo, with each using their own
interface and screens to monitor the data streams they wanted with a single
large map of the engagement zone displayed in the center where visitors
normally stood. It was replaying various points of the failed assault as the
Scionate leadership tried to comprehend what had gone wrong.

“
You are
repeating yourself
,” Pra’nom said dismissively as he studied a personal
display.

“
I am
reiterating the obvious. We cannot and should not launch another attack until
we know the true strength of the Humans, no matter how wounded our pride is
.”

“
I concur
,”
Yen’sor
said from
Pra’nom’s
left.
“
We lost so many in this attack and their
Sentinel still stands. If we escalate this, even if we win we may suffer
horrible losses
.”

“
And risk
starting a full scale war with Star Force
,”
Jasnet
added. “
It’s not just the Humans, the
Calavari are allied with them now. Our attempt at teaching them a lesson has
failed,
let us not make more of a mess of this
.”

“
What course of
action would you suggest?
” Ura’bor asked halfheartedly.

“
I do not know
the temperament of the Humans well enough to answer that
.”

“
Fairly stated
,”
Ura’bor conceded. “
They have hidden many
secrets from us, but this supersoldier of theirs concerns me the most
,” he
said, shifting his personal display to the main holo, showing crude images
captured from afar of Kara fighting on the ground and attacking the transports
in the air, plus a few images from when she was inside one laying waste to the
troops waiting within.

“
Note that
,”
Tem’lan interrupted before Ura’bor could continue, “
this one stunned the troops initially, much like they did when they
came here. It was we who escalated this to killing. We made a grave mistake in
misreading their intentions. Their hesitancy was not weakness. I believe they
were trying to teach us a lesson that we failed to grasp.
”

“
Which was?
”
Car’sem asked.

“
They were
warning us, and delivered the message personally so we would feel the effects
and remember. We struck back like an arrogant child, not knowing who it was we
were dealing with
.”

Ura’bor growled. “
I
would dispute that if I could
.”

“
I still dispute
it
,” Pra’nom said, unrelenting. “
The
Humans are stronger than we thought, but their world is still ours for the
taking if we act before they can draw reinforcements from other systems. We
have far more troops here than they do, we simply need to send them and end
this before it can escalate further. Honor demands that we finish what we
started
.”

“
No
matter the cost?
”
Tem’lan countered.

“
It would be far
worse not to
,”
Oru’ven
said gravely. “
We will lose the respect and fear of the
other races if we walk away from this now.
”

“
We will lose
millions of soldiers if we press this
,” Tem’lan growled. “
And I am not confident that we can even take
their world. I believe we have been outplayed, and any further hasty action
will only make the situation worse than it is now.
”

“
We cannot back
down
,” Ura’bor hissed as if Tem’lan was talking treason.

“
We need a
victory
,” Tem’lan explained. “
If we
are unable to achieve one it would be best not to waste resources. What if they
invade here after we bleed our defense fleet dry to take their world?
”

“
Tem’lan makes a
good point
,” Car’sem agreed. “
They
only struck us here to send a message. Now we have split their blood, though
very little of it. If they react to that as we would, we may see a Human warfleet
overhead in the coming days. I would not waste our defenses trying to destroy
their Sentinel, which we will if it can move to intercept our ground troops. If
it can hold the Cajdital at bay, we will be blooded taking it down.
”

“
Then we should
recall more of our fleet to this system, regardless of what transpires
,”
Pra’nom suggested.

Several others nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

“
Agreed
,”
Ura’bor finalized. “
Send courier ships
while we study our new enemy in more detail. Our decision on what we do will
wait until our blood is less hot with the sting of defeat. If we are to defeat
this enemy, we must not underestimate them again
.”

“
Wise words
,”
Tem’lan agreed. “
But there’s a
possibility that we might not be able to defeat them at all.
”

“
We can
,” the
elder Scionate said confidently. “
It’s
simply a matter of discovering how best to do it.
”

“A lot of movement,” Kara commented as they quietly
reentered high orbit of Vaadsip, seeing warships moving about with a lot coming
into the planet from the other Scionate worlds in the system.

“They’re not used to losing,” Morgan commented from
the pilot’s seat. “I think we spooked them. Paul, you have a location for us
yet?”

“Somewhere on the large southern
continent.”

“There are no continents,” she said, referencing the
obvious fact that there were no oceans to outline any.

“Look at the city distribution. They’re clumped into
what look like continents.”

“Well that’s something then,” Morgan said, glancing up
at Kara who was once again seated above them. “Is that enough for you to give
me an approach vector?”

“Give me a minute,
then
I
should have something.”

“Crowded?” Paul asked.

“Very,” Kara emphasized, “but there are always holes.
It’s just a matter of finding them.”

Paul nodded, understanding her challenge as he turned
his attention back to the datapad in his hand. They weren’t returning straight
to the ruling den. Had they been out for blood that would have been the obvious
place to go and just kill all the leaders, but that wasn’t the mission here and
pissing off every single Scionate in the ADZ was a really bad idea. They needed
another option, which Paul was currently searching for.

It took him another half hour but he was finally able
to give Morgan and Kara a destination city situated a third of the distance around
the planet from the capitol and only half as large. It took them a few hours to
get through the traffic and down to it, once again coming down over the
grasslands and creeping up on the perimeter detection sensors, limited as they
were. Kara was able to sneak them inside rather easily, with them finding
another parking space in the cluttered roofline…but even by then Paul wasn’t
finished with his research.

“What’s the holdup?” Morgan asked after they’d set
down.

“I’ve narrowed it down to two bloodlines, both of
which have their central dens here. Picking which one is the problem, along
with finding the right contact.”

“So you’re saying we’re not busting down the door this
time?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

“Knocking gently,
then
picking the lock,” Paul responded, still scouring their records on Scionate
society.

“Why not pay a visit to both?” Kara asked, coming down
the ladder from above and standing on the small lower deck behind their seats.

“Because they’re drastically different, and I’m not
sure which way we should go.”

“Enlighten us,” Morgan said, swiveling her seat around
and leaning back.

Paul sighed. “The first is Wennitan. They’re very
militant and have been at odds with the ruling bloodline over their reluctance
to claim a place on the front lines fighting the lizards, Skarrons, or anyone
else threatening the ADZ. We just killed a whole lot of their kin, so not sure
how happy they’re going to be about that.”

“The second is Grisst. They’re brokers, playing
Davis’s game and playing it well. They’re in agreement with the defensive
assist policy that the ruling den has been using, preferring to wage war in the
ADZ economically and keep their military as an ace in the hole. They’ve been an
ally of Vensiol for several hundred years, but they’re considered to be the
wisest and most farseeing of the bloodlines.”

“And the others?”
Morgan
asked.

“Less viable candidates, in my opinion, but you’re
free to look through the data yourself.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but just remember that
our files aren’t going to be the best.”

“I know
,
we’re going to have
to play this by ear and possibly work through several bloodlines before we find
an acceptable one. I’m just not sure where to start.”

“Start with the ally,” Kara suggested. “That way we
can gage the level of discontent.”

Morgan shrugged.
“Sounds fine to me.
I just don’t want to waste time sitting here discussing it.”

Paul set the datapad down and pulled back on his black
armored gloves, clicking them into the arms of his body armor before grabbing
his helmet and sending Morgan and Kara the waypoint he’d already stored. “Let’s
go.”

The three of them left the V’kit’no’sat gunship in the
middle of the city’s night cycle, making it much easier to move around without
attracting notice as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop with Kara keeping pace
with them rather than flying off to do her own thing. The trio quietly made
their way across the city to the location where the Grisst den was
located…which was a good hike away from where they’d landed, for it was located
in the densest part of the city and they’d had to park in a more industrial
section with less eyes around.

The Grisst den was completely different than the
ruling one. Instead of a sprawling, low level facility this one was a thick
tower rising up above all the other buildings…save for three other similar
towers marking rival dens, none of which were built directly next to one
another. There were thousands of Scionate bloodlines, with most having their
central dens on the capitol world, so there were plenty of options for the
Archons to pick from, with Paul knowing they needed to talk to one that had
roots and a powerbase on planet rather than one of the more powerful
rivals/exiles that dominated other worlds in Scionate territory.

“Kara?” Paul asked as they stared at the far building
across the city lights.

“I see several options. My choice would be a window
two thirds of the way up.”

“Not exactly a quiet entrance,” Morgan commented.

“It will be,” Kara differed, “if you wait here for a
few minutes.”

“Go,” Paul said, with her flying off across the night
directly towards the building with the other two Archons following her with
their HUD. She shrank to a dot that disappeared from view save for the zoom
function that Morgan was using to follow her, though Paul knew Kara’s handiwork
enough that he simply watched her tracking icon while keeping his focus on the
surrounding cityscape.

“Sneaky little second gen, isn’t she?”

“No need for insults,” Paul countered dryly as he saw
Kara starting to come back towards them. “She knows what she’s doing enough
that I occasionally take notes.”

“High praise.”

“You’re just jealous she’s not part of your Clan,”
Paul teased.

“About that.
If you really
want to make her a full trailblazer you need to give her
her
own Clan.”

Paul half choked. “Like hell I am. She’s a Saber and
staying a Saber.”

Morgan smiled.
“Like I said…second
gen.”

“Alright, shut up. Don’t give her any ideas.”

Morgan laughed. “Has this come up before?”

“Not from her,
no
. But she’s
too valuable to lose and you’ve got a perfectly legitimate point. So zip it.”

“We’re giving her one eventually then?”

“Honorary status has its limitations.”

“You’re so screwing her…or, are you screwing her?”
Morgan asked curiously.

“Nah…I’m just interested in her jewelry,” he mocked a few
seconds before Kara landed next to them.