Free Star Force: Backdoor (SF53) by Anal Backdoor Page A

the blockading fleets there. Cal-com also detected numerous
transport ships in orbit, with him knowing that Achkor was also a ground troop
staging system, with those transports potentially full of reinforcements being
run into the worlds that the Humans were currently defending. The more of those
he could kill in orbit the better, regardless of whether or not they were full.
    Using a pedestal before him he added a few more ship
assignments to the star to hunt down any transports attempting to flee the
system. Even a few taken out could turn the tide in a single ground battle, and
he wanted to give the Humans every advantage that he could.
    “ Renimar? ” Hem- ra asked, using his Voku title that was the
equivalent of ‘Grand Admiral’ in the Star Wars universe, with the skillset to
match.
    “ Not just yet ,”
he cautioned. “ Let’s see how they react
first .”

 

 
    7

 
 
    Cal-com watched as the Skarron fleets in orbit began
repositioning to assault those conglomerates and pieces of conglomerates that
he’d shown to them in orbit, about 7 in total thus far with the others still
elsewhere in the system and hopefully out of view. Those he was showing had
been intentional, as he was trying to maneuver the Skarrons around to where he
liked and after some 20 minutes of repositioning and shuffling on the enemy’s
part he finally got the opportunity he was looking for.
    “ There ,” he
said to his advisors, pointing to a particular slice of low orbit. “ Bring in Dorpa .
Full engagement protocols and get us ready to move. ”
    His staff carried out his orders without so much as a verbal acknowledgement or gesture. The Voku
military was notoriously efficient, knowing that delays in combat often
resulted in losses of material, personnel, or opportunity. Cal-com watched the
orbital displays, seeing the Skarrons continuing to reposition and forming up
into larger fleet configurations in order to assault the Voku conglomerates,
for they were familiar with this enemy. That Cal-com knew by the way they began
arranging their fleet.
    It was true that the Skarron Empire was huge and that
Voku territory was a considerable distance from here and that in all likelihood
none of these enemy troops had ever fought them before, but knowledge had to have
traveled across their empire for they were responding to the threat that they
knew the Voku to be given their pathetically ineffective attempts to take
systems away from Cal-com’s home territory on the lower side of the galactic
plane.
    These Skarrons knew the Voku and knew they had to mass
their fleet together or otherwise be chewed to bits once the conglomerates
separated and chased down their ships. Cal-com knew he had a winning hand here,
that wasn’t the issue, it was how many ships and
soldiers he would lose in the process.
    Suddenly there was a microjump into orbit as a streak
appeared on the sensors, decelerating rapidly and coming down into a small gap
in the Skarron formations. They weren’t aligned yet, still in transition, and
the conglomerate came in right at a very bad spot where they were still spread
out. Weaponsfire immediately sprouted from the conglomerate in the form of long
range Javvens that were condensed packets of energy
that were launched in clusters. They appeared to be a beam, but were actually a
shotgun of individual orbs.
    Those orbs spread out over extreme range, allowing the
Voku to at least nip away at distant targets where they didn’t have the
necessary accuracy and dozens of Skarron ships were showing hits on their
shields within seconds as the conglomerate began to flake off pieces that
reformed into hunter squadrons that rapidly accelerated away from the mass to
hunt down the ships that the Javven were weakening.
    Cal-com highlighted the largest combined Skarron fleet
on the near side of the planet and signaled for them to make a tiny jump. Using
their binary drives they enhanced Zenniza’s gravity
pull and closed distance rapidly,