Gauntlet Wars: House Phoenix (Star Force Gauntlet Wars Book 3), page 22
But Klix were stubborn, and they didn’t care what the future outlook was. They had a battle to fight now and that was all there was to it. They weren’t going to budge, and they weren’t going to mentally break down. They’d fight till they died, and that was simply the way of things.
Venco would be joining them eventually, for he wasn’t going to wait to be killed in the planning center. He’d join the other Klix on the battlefield at some point, but today he still had coordinating work to do. As long as they didn’t fall into the same trap as using swarm techniques and blunt strategy, his troops were able to acquit themselves well in a slow fighting retreat. If he allowed them to get bogged down and flanked, they’d be overrun within hours.
But it was the Paladin that kept catching his eye, and as they made another annoyance run at the enemy fleet, this time they didn’t respond. The Paladin ships just parked beside them at long range and began chipping away at their ships until it seemed the Asferja couldn’t stand it, then they broke ranks and pursued.
The Paladin retreated, but not so fast the Asferja couldn’t catch them. And like the other times before, once isolated, the pursuing ships were outmaneuvered and cut to pieces by the cunning ship commanders…who then brought their ships back to the edge of the Asferja fleet and started again.
The enemy couldn’t chase them effectively, and they couldn’t hold position with the range advantage of the Paladin’s weapons. The only other option was to retreat, and the Asferja weren’t going to do that, so the Paladin seemed to be able to rack up a lot of free kills, but there were more than half a million ships up there, and a few hundred less wasn’t going to make much of a difference.
Warnings started flashing across the holographic pond, and Venco didn’t understand what he was seeing at first, but the Asferja fleet that had been holding in stable position over the planet but out of weapons range of the intact portions of the defenses…it was now imploding on itself and firing at something unseen. There were too many ships in the way to get a visual on it, but weaponsfire was spilling out everywhere through the gaps.
A small nova appeared in that spot, vaporizing so many ships that Venco thought there must have been a malfunction in the sensors and they’d simply lost contact…but that wasn’t the case. A single contact now appeared in the middle of that void inside the larger Asferja fleet, and alongside it more contacts started popping in…smaller ones…but soon there was another fleet there.
A Neofan fleet operating under the banner of House Phoenix…
One of Venco’s subordinates, named Leoba, was out in the field when the orbital battle began, but he had no time to watch, for the Asferja on the planet were not stopping their assault on the factory zone of Trian Trecor city. Leoba wore an exoskeleton over top of his natural bioarmor, and it made him look exceedingly fat, but he could walk around in it, and it would carry its own weight…as well as bulky physical shields that allowed him to charge the enemy lines with his fellow Klix lining up behind him for cover, and in the streets around the factory zone, that tactic had been working quite well.
He stood leg to leg with another so-equipped Klix, and their combined bulk filled one of the streets while dozens of his fellow soldiers walked behind them as they charged ahead, intent on disrupting the attack taking place several blocks to the east. They got halfway there before they were even noticed, then a scattering of Asferja came out of side streets and broken walls of buildings they had been in and started mounting some defense as they were shot by other Klix riding on the back of his exoskeleton.
He also fired weaponry on the exoskeleton, picking off the scattering of Asferja soldiers that got in their way, then tramping their bodies as the column walked over them. It wasn’t until they were within sight of the river-like flow of Asferja heading into the weaponry complex that they met stiffer resistance as part of that flow split off and came down the street towards them.
Leoba kept plodding ahead at a consistent pace, and when their combined weaponsfire wasn’t enough to take down the attackers ahead, they roared a common battle cry and just ran forward, smashing into the Asferja and shooting as they went, but they physically forced many of them back until they broke through into the much larger street where the thousands of troops were passing through to reinforce those fighting in the complex to the left.
Leoba turned into the flow while his companion pushed out straight forward. The rest of the Klix filled in the gap and fired at any Asferja in sight, taking numerous hits as they did so.
“Leoba.”
“I am here,” he reported over the comm.
“Make a ring with a hollow center and hold it.”
“Where?”
“It does not matter. Just do so fast. Make sure no one and nothing is in the middle. It must be empty space.”
Leoba didn’t say anything else in words, but used his telepathy to communicate to the others what the orders were, and while some of them were taking body hits, none had fallen to the ground yet. Their naturally armored carapace was tough enough to last a while, but it was still painful when pieces of it were super-heated or exploded.
“We are in position,” he finally reported.
“Hold it.”
Leoba didn’t respond. He was too busy shooting and shuffling his feet from side to side to keep the smaller Asferja from slipping past into the gap. He lifted his front right leg up and sent it smashing back down to the ground tip first, impaling one of the Asferja all the way through, then he kicked forward and it slid off his leg spike as his wider ‘foot’ rotated back into position and came down on the ground as he continued to fire some 6 different weapons in the exoskeleton at nearly point blank range.
Suddenly he felt a wash of air behind him followed by a huge telepathic presence. He couldn’t help but glance back…and standing there, having appeared from nowhere, was the biggest Neofan he had ever seen.
“Move aside!” it bellowed, and Leoba felt himself telekinetically pulled to the right as the Asferja darted through the gap towards the Neofan…only to be incinerated one at a time, with their hot dust flowing out over him like it was a winter blizzard.
The Neofan walked forward casually, filling the gap in their line momentarily, then continued forward, killing the Asferja with such ease that Leoba was dumbfounded…yet he continued fighting nonstop. The Asferja wouldn’t give him a single moment to consider what was actually happening.
Then the Neofan raised an arm, and the entire street ahead of them exploded with dust as he killed every Asferja in that direction with a single attack.
Leoba coughed, having got some of the disgusting biodust in his mouth, then turned to help the others fighting behind him as he telepathically sensed the Asferja there as the Neofan continued ‘upstream’ into the river of Asferja reinforcements heading into the factory zone…and utterly tore them to pieces as he began to run forward and upped the intensity of his attacks.
He left Leoba and the Klix to finish the others that were starting to turn back away from their targets, but without the constant reinforcement, Leoba and his fellow Hujunari were able to do what they had long been trained to do.
Push forward and win.
With the two exoskeletons in front, they ran down the street towards the complex, fighting their way through those Asferja that turned around, and then began shooting others in the back as they went up against automated weaponry on the factory walls, plucking the turrets out one by one to get to the main doors. They’d been doing the same thing across the well-defended city, but now they were running out of troops and the defenses suddenly became all that more impressive.
It took nearly half an hour to clear out the area in front of, and around the perimeter of the complex, and it was only then that Leoba was able to take a break long enough to view from their tactical map what was happening behind him.
He saw the single Neofan drawing to him and destroying all the reinforcements coming out of the landing zone set outside the city, and at the rate he was going, he was going to be near the ships in…
Suddenly the Neofan stopped exploding the Asferja and sprinted forward far faster than he should have been able to run. He was knocking Asferja back at all angles, some even up over his head, and in some cases only pieces of them, but he was moving so fast it became clear he was less interested in the troops than he was the grounded transports, one of which was beginning to close up its doors and lift off.
The Neofan leapt, a giant hop, crushing the Asferja underneath him as he landed…then he hopped again. Six giant hops in a row to get him close enough to the lifting ship as it fired down on him, hitting what looked like a bubble shield around the massive biped and having no effect. He stopped directly under the ship for a moment, then suddenly the Asferja that were now trailing him and firing on him all rose up into the air like slow moving missiles.
And the ship started coming back down just as fast.
When it got within a few meters of the surface, the Neofan stopped doing whatever he had done and the Asferja fell back to the ground as he launched himself up at the ship and tore inside the hull with a plume of disintegrated material.
Nothing happened for a while, then the top of the ship burst open and he came out…leaping to the next ship…then the next…and the next. The Asferja transports were not large. Barely 400 meters wide, but they kept cycling between larger troops ships in orbit, and the best way to keep the Asferja from getting to the planet was taking these transports out.
And it seemed this Neofan was going to do it single handedly one at a time.
Leoba stood around with the other Klix not believing what they were seeing. They were so transfixed on the images of the battle ahead that they didn’t even notice the allied transports coming down over top of them. They didn’t land. Rather they just hovered there as they spilled out an army of floating drones…the same type that the Bond of Resistance had created for use in the Temples. They were called ‘Caretakers’ there, but these were slightly different, and looked a lot meaner.
And emblazoned on the side of each one was a symbol. It was a crown identical to what the Neofan wore as part of their armored clothing. It was an old symbol they had used for a long time, but this one had a different look. Within the sheen of the ‘crown’ was a bird. An emerald bird with wings that appeared to break apart into pieces near the end.
That was where the House moniker was supposed to be, and while he had never heard of a House Phoenix before within the Neofan, these Caretakers were clearly being produced by them, and just as they efficiently pursued those in the Temples who waged war on others, they were moving all across the Factory zone, both in the streets and going into the buildings, looking for Asferja that had not yet been eliminated.
“Factory zone being secured,” he reported over the comm. “Where do you want us next?”
Venco couldn’t believe what he was watching from the planning center, but the Neofan were not everywhere and he still had troops in heavy combat in multiple locations.
“Get the wounded back to Sector 9 for repair. Anyone who has their carapace still intact, move to Rim Zone Eti.”
“Understood,” Leoba said. “What is House Phoenix? I’ve never heard of that one.”
“It is the combination of their decimated Houses. Only House Atriark, and now House Phoenix remain. You just witnessed their Reignor in combat.”
“I can’t believe they came.”
“Nor can we, but they are here, and we finally have a chance in this war. I am told they intend to help us hold all our remaining worlds, and 12 of them are on the surface now.”
“How can so few do so much?”
“That is the power of Essence, and they command it in ways we do not understand. What they are doing in orbit is just as impressive, but they cannot be everywhere at once. You are not out of danger, nor are our cities. Do not let your guard down.”
“I will not,” Leoba said, ignoring the burning on his left front foot from a melted spot hit by an Asferja weapon that had penetrated when his shields were down…and had passed just under the physical shield he held before him attached to his artificial exoskeleton. “If the Neofan are helping us defend, will this never end? The worlds the enemy took have to be reclaimed or they will never stop sending troops against us.”
“Leave that to the Empress. We must hold what we have left before we even think about taking back what was lost. The Neofan will lead this war as they see fit, no doubt. And as of now I am content to follow their lead. Are you?”
“Quite so. Have their machines been cleared on our systems?” he asked, wondering about the automated turrets.
“Already done. Get your people moving and get the rest of the Asferja killed before they do any more damage. They will switch to sabotage when their numbers thin, and we need all our industry intact if we are to rebuild at maximum pace.”
“Deploying now,” he said, telepathically splitting up his Hujunari team into two groups. One to get to the repair area, and the other with him as they headed towards Rim Zone Eti. His wound was minor, and he wasn’t going to let it keep him out of the fight as his shields had already begun to regenerate to cover the vulnerability.
The pain he’d simply endure. That part was easy now that they had the advantage. And he didn’t want to let the Neofan or their machines do all the work that was left. This was a Klix world, after all, and he wasn’t going to have his race relegated into a protectorate. They were allies with the Neofan in the Bond of Resistance. Junior allies, albeit it, but allies none the less.
And allies fought together.
Apparently the Neofan realized that too, and from now on this would be a joint war.
21
EG32
December 8, 158441
INTERGALACTIC SPACE
Jeeno #882
It had been three years that Paul had been away from the war. Three years hunting down the lost nightcrawlers, and the task was now done. They’d already taken 9 of them back to the Milky Way when their food supply was running short, then the Easter Basket had went back out to get the rest, carrying two volunteers with them to greet the others when they found them.
Four galaxies in total had been visited, and 17 nightcrawlers had been recovered. That was all that was left of their race, but Paul wasn’t complaining. He was glad they’d found even a single one, meaning the last Gauntlet War hadn’t been a complete wipe of the Progarren civilization.
The base Star Force had been using for the original nightcrawler…which put their total at 18…was not where Paul’s ship had taken them. Given this was a multi-year expedition, back when he’d made the request for this ship to be built and sent to Andromeda, the Empire had also started construction on a secret base for them on the edge of the galaxy. House Atriark had assisted in creating an extension to the Temple Network, with Star Force providing them the raw materials to create a Deenat spur off the existing spiderweb of connections, allowing Essence travel out to a spot where there were no stars or planets. Just an empty spot in space where Star Force had been building its nightcrawler base using the data they’d gained from the Legacy Repository, and some poking around the Okala tree, to upgrade what their forebearers had used before.
The design was similar though, enough that the nightcrawlers immediately recognized it as home, with them free swimming through space while the Easter Basket had to use mooring beams to maneuver off the Deenat for the lack of gravity present to run its engines on, for it didn’t want to use its small Essence drive any more than absolutely necessary given the shortages of Essence that were due to eventually hit the Empire over the course of this war.
A little saved now would be valuable later, even if it was just enough to power a single Materia shot at an enemy supership.
But the nightcrawlers had no such limitation, and the more they flew around the base the denser the carpet of darklight energy became…which made it even easier for them to move around. They did it on purpose too, not just to get some exercise or to play with each other…for bumper tag seemed to be one of their favorite games…but it was as if they were laying down a nest to live in. The starlight from tens of lightyears away consumed it slowly, as did sensor beams from any craft passing through the Deenat, and the Deenat itself. So the base was actually located some distance away from the Deenat and drifting even further.
They’d kept it very close during the construction, but then gave it a little push and it had been gradually gaining distance ever since. One mission of this base was to be able to construct a ship hybrid using darklight technology, perhaps with biological components if necessary, to allow Star Force ships to move free of gravity wells without having to spend Essence to do it. Paul didn’t know how they’d manage that, but it was on their to-do list, as well as start building up the population of nightcrawlers the same way they had done with the Uriti. They couldn’t reproduce without the Progarren allowing it, and when they did it was asexual. A simple button press inside one of them would enable the nightcrawler to get pregnant with an exact genetic duplicate if the nightcrawler wished it.
They would have been reproducing in the ‘wild’ otherwise, and in some ways Paul was glad that wasn’t the case, because chasing down thousands, if not tens of thousands, of them across who knew how many galaxies would have been impractical. But now that he had all of them…and he was sure he did thanks to Hades’ ability to see and track them…they could start reproducing again after the Wranglers got this herd into shape, both physically and mentally. Also, since genetics did change over time…which was how adaptation occurred intentionally rather than through fortuitous accidents…they needed to examine the nightcrawlers to see if they’d picked up any small negative genetic alterations before they asked them to make duplicates of themselves.
