and a massive middle finger towards the enemy that was receiving the same
battle song on open broadcast.
Uxtral should have had more faith, and he kicked
himself for not counting on the Archons to have everything covered as the bay
doors opened and his countdown expired. Without hesitation he launched his
Valerie into space and put it into an easy dive down into the upper atmosphere
along with the others in his squadron and the squadrons pacing them. He had new
worries to deal with now, but before he got within the fog of war and focused
entirely on the enemy wisps he glanced back at the battlemap, which still
included the stellar orbit data…and he saw a flurry of Star Force icons there,
hitting the lizard jumpships where they were lightly defended.
The Calavari gritted his teeth in both excitement and
a swell of pride seeing that this was going to be a hard win, but they were
going to own the enemy so long as no one screwed up and he was going to make
sure he didn’t.
Dismissing the extraneous battlemap displays he
brought the local up to full size and got a feel for where his squadron was and
how the enemy was moving below them as they kept to their nose dive, intent on
hitting them from above as the lizard fighter swarm spread out like bees below.
This was not going to be easy, but they had Valeries and Star Force training,
and it was time to give the enemy another lesson on why both were superior.
9
September 3, 2652
Iona System
(Beta Region)
Kirit
Fatti had a decision to
make, and a big one. The Kiritas stood in front of a display screen in his
maturia quarters, two days from leaving and still he didn’t know what he was
going to do. He had graduated a day ago and was now ready to transition into
his ‘real’ life, but until he chose what his path would be they couldn’t assign
him new quarters or travel plans.
He had two more days before he’d automatically be
punted into the general population, which was a fair option. No
responsibilities and an unlimited amount of time to decide what he wanted to
do…or to just kick back, relax, and do nothing. That sounded horrible to him,
for the Kiritas had so much energy that downtime was literally the worst thing
possible. He wasn’t going civie , and like most other
Kiritas he was going to find at least something he could do to keep himself
busy and help out either his race or Star Force.
He wasn’t entering the general ADZ population
independently, he knew. That didn’t appeal to him. He wanted to remain
somewhere within Star Force and had a lot of options to choose from, though all
of them required a lot more training to qualify for. He could stay local and
find some support task to help out with, ranging from personnel relations to
maintenance, but that seemed a bit too low energy. He wanted something bigger.
On the screen in front of him was a list of all the
options available to him, and he’d been running through it for the past 4
hours, pacing back and forth as he thought and weighed his options. In general
there were 3 basic paths available to him, and that was stay with the Kiritas,
go into Axius, or become Kiritak. Axius wasn’t some place that Kiritas went
unless they wanted to get away from everyone else, and while there were a
handful making use of themselves there most of the stories he’d heard were that
they’d gone civie and essentially given up on Star
Force.
That wasn’t for him, which left the two main options
every Kiritas had. Work as part of the semi-independent Kiritas empire, into
which he had been hatched, or transfer over to the Kiritak that had no
independence and directly served Star Force as a massive workforce. The Kiritak
reproduced on their own too, with their population being far larger than the
Kiritas, but some of them didn’t want to stay and came over to Kirit or one of their colonies to take a different path.
Nobody was locked in to where they began and there was a lot of swapping back
and
battle song on open broadcast.
Uxtral should have had more faith, and he kicked
himself for not counting on the Archons to have everything covered as the bay
doors opened and his countdown expired. Without hesitation he launched his
Valerie into space and put it into an easy dive down into the upper atmosphere
along with the others in his squadron and the squadrons pacing them. He had new
worries to deal with now, but before he got within the fog of war and focused
entirely on the enemy wisps he glanced back at the battlemap, which still
included the stellar orbit data…and he saw a flurry of Star Force icons there,
hitting the lizard jumpships where they were lightly defended.
The Calavari gritted his teeth in both excitement and
a swell of pride seeing that this was going to be a hard win, but they were
going to own the enemy so long as no one screwed up and he was going to make
sure he didn’t.
Dismissing the extraneous battlemap displays he
brought the local up to full size and got a feel for where his squadron was and
how the enemy was moving below them as they kept to their nose dive, intent on
hitting them from above as the lizard fighter swarm spread out like bees below.
This was not going to be easy, but they had Valeries and Star Force training,
and it was time to give the enemy another lesson on why both were superior.
9
September 3, 2652
Iona System
(Beta Region)
Kirit
Fatti had a decision to
make, and a big one. The Kiritas stood in front of a display screen in his
maturia quarters, two days from leaving and still he didn’t know what he was
going to do. He had graduated a day ago and was now ready to transition into
his ‘real’ life, but until he chose what his path would be they couldn’t assign
him new quarters or travel plans.
He had two more days before he’d automatically be
punted into the general population, which was a fair option. No
responsibilities and an unlimited amount of time to decide what he wanted to
do…or to just kick back, relax, and do nothing. That sounded horrible to him,
for the Kiritas had so much energy that downtime was literally the worst thing
possible. He wasn’t going civie , and like most other
Kiritas he was going to find at least something he could do to keep himself
busy and help out either his race or Star Force.
He wasn’t entering the general ADZ population
independently, he knew. That didn’t appeal to him. He wanted to remain
somewhere within Star Force and had a lot of options to choose from, though all
of them required a lot more training to qualify for. He could stay local and
find some support task to help out with, ranging from personnel relations to
maintenance, but that seemed a bit too low energy. He wanted something bigger.
On the screen in front of him was a list of all the
options available to him, and he’d been running through it for the past 4
hours, pacing back and forth as he thought and weighed his options. In general
there were 3 basic paths available to him, and that was stay with the Kiritas,
go into Axius, or become Kiritak. Axius wasn’t some place that Kiritas went
unless they wanted to get away from everyone else, and while there were a
handful making use of themselves there most of the stories he’d heard were that
they’d gone civie and essentially given up on Star
Force.
That wasn’t for him, which left the two main options
every Kiritas had. Work as part of the semi-independent Kiritas empire, into
which he had been hatched, or transfer over to the Kiritak that had no
independence and directly served Star Force as a massive workforce. The Kiritak
reproduced on their own too, with their population being far larger than the
Kiritas, but some of them didn’t want to stay and came over to Kirit or one of their colonies to take a different path.
Nobody was locked in to where they began and there was a lot of swapping back
and
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