Kara had got them through it, going rogue and hunting the
lizards in the depths of their substructures to act as a diversion and to clear
passages, with a one-armed Morgan doing plenty of damage despite her left limb
having been broken and hanging limp inside her cracked armor. Others had been
more badly injured, but the few that had only a few dings in the chaotic
building collapse supported the trailblazer enough to get everyone out.
That was three months ago, and all the Archons in
questioned had long since returned to battle after regenerator treatments. The
V’kit’no’sat tech was still far ahead of Star Force medical devices and rebuilt
their bodies within hours, though all were weaker for it after the
fact…something that infuriated Morgan to no end because it could possibly see
her losing her top Archon status.
After that mess the trap cities had been ignored, with
assaults on the others continuing with less surprises but still an incredible
amount of heavy fighting. The lizards were no longer the soft targets they once
were, and it seemed like the entire point of their planetary defense being a
test of their new tech and tricks. The trap cities that remained would give the
lizards even more data to work with when Star Force hit them, and the
interstellar transmitters that each had were continually broadcasting signals
out to other lizard worlds when they came within line of sight during the
planet’s rotation, meaning that even if no lizard left the system alive their
empire would still gain from the knowledge of what had happened here.
And of what it took to stop or kill the Star Force
troops.
But with the rest of the colonies now destroyed the
amount of firepower a single, or two orbital guns could throw back at the fleet
was low. But then again their defense fleet was near to anemic, for the lizards
had been continually sending in relief fleets to whittle their drones down.
Star Force had been bringing in occasional jumpship fleets with replacement
warships but their hold on the planet was tenuous, though there was little
chance of the lizards actually retaking it with the two Sentinels in
orbit…short of yet another escalation that had Liam a bit concerned.
They needed to finish off Varasiss soon and start
fortifying it themselves, and to do that these last few colonies had to go.
Rather than waste more drones on an orbital assault,
or even use the command ships and see them potentially take more hull damage on
top of what they’d already racked up to date, Liam accessed the Sentinels and
had their limited engines begin altering their orbits to bring them down to a
very low altitude rendezvous point. He wanted both of them together to insure
that neither one lost shields, for to date they hadn’t been scratched and
letting the lizards get a few hits in now would have been beyond sloppy.
It took a great deal of time to get them together,
then as they lowered themselves with their anti- grav running high to counteract the planet’s gravity they started taking fire from a
single phaser beam coming up from the surface. The pink energy tore through the
clouds and hit the starboard Sentinel’s shields, with them warding off the
attack with ease. Liam studied the data from the shield loss and ran through
the quick math, seeing that it would take more than 500 hits at present levels
to penetrate.
That wouldn’t take too long, for the recycle on the
lizard gun was only 1.7 seconds. Liam held off firing the Sentinels’ weapons
until both were in position, using the extra energy to supplement the gravity
drives and shields, then pulled power from the latter and engaged the heaviest
cleansing beams.
Six beams from each shot down their pale white lines
and hit the defense shield covering the lizard colony, with their recharge
rates linked together so they all hit simultaneously in an attempt to create a
momentary breach with the overload and sneak some damage through. The slugging
match that followed was
lizards in the depths of their substructures to act as a diversion and to clear
passages, with a one-armed Morgan doing plenty of damage despite her left limb
having been broken and hanging limp inside her cracked armor. Others had been
more badly injured, but the few that had only a few dings in the chaotic
building collapse supported the trailblazer enough to get everyone out.
That was three months ago, and all the Archons in
questioned had long since returned to battle after regenerator treatments. The
V’kit’no’sat tech was still far ahead of Star Force medical devices and rebuilt
their bodies within hours, though all were weaker for it after the
fact…something that infuriated Morgan to no end because it could possibly see
her losing her top Archon status.
After that mess the trap cities had been ignored, with
assaults on the others continuing with less surprises but still an incredible
amount of heavy fighting. The lizards were no longer the soft targets they once
were, and it seemed like the entire point of their planetary defense being a
test of their new tech and tricks. The trap cities that remained would give the
lizards even more data to work with when Star Force hit them, and the
interstellar transmitters that each had were continually broadcasting signals
out to other lizard worlds when they came within line of sight during the
planet’s rotation, meaning that even if no lizard left the system alive their
empire would still gain from the knowledge of what had happened here.
And of what it took to stop or kill the Star Force
troops.
But with the rest of the colonies now destroyed the
amount of firepower a single, or two orbital guns could throw back at the fleet
was low. But then again their defense fleet was near to anemic, for the lizards
had been continually sending in relief fleets to whittle their drones down.
Star Force had been bringing in occasional jumpship fleets with replacement
warships but their hold on the planet was tenuous, though there was little
chance of the lizards actually retaking it with the two Sentinels in
orbit…short of yet another escalation that had Liam a bit concerned.
They needed to finish off Varasiss soon and start
fortifying it themselves, and to do that these last few colonies had to go.
Rather than waste more drones on an orbital assault,
or even use the command ships and see them potentially take more hull damage on
top of what they’d already racked up to date, Liam accessed the Sentinels and
had their limited engines begin altering their orbits to bring them down to a
very low altitude rendezvous point. He wanted both of them together to insure
that neither one lost shields, for to date they hadn’t been scratched and
letting the lizards get a few hits in now would have been beyond sloppy.
It took a great deal of time to get them together,
then as they lowered themselves with their anti- grav running high to counteract the planet’s gravity they started taking fire from a
single phaser beam coming up from the surface. The pink energy tore through the
clouds and hit the starboard Sentinel’s shields, with them warding off the
attack with ease. Liam studied the data from the shield loss and ran through
the quick math, seeing that it would take more than 500 hits at present levels
to penetrate.
That wouldn’t take too long, for the recycle on the
lizard gun was only 1.7 seconds. Liam held off firing the Sentinels’ weapons
until both were in position, using the extra energy to supplement the gravity
drives and shields, then pulled power from the latter and engaged the heaviest
cleansing beams.
Six beams from each shot down their pale white lines
and hit the defense shield covering the lizard colony, with their recharge
rates linked together so they all hit simultaneously in an attempt to create a
momentary breach with the overload and sneak some damage through. The slugging
match that followed was
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