Free Star Force: Internecine (SF55) by Aer-ki Jyr

Fornax
fields and trimming the plasma fire coming back at them considerably.
    Between Fornax, Lew, and a few other psionics, Karen
and Travis kept the mass of Hobbits and two more Skarrons distracted, disabled,
or confused long enough that the two of them were able to fight and shoot their
way through them…then they broke up and chased down the scattered remainder of
the combat troops and killed them before returning to the outpost and ignoring
the Engineers as they came out of the buildings to look at what was going on. The
two Archons quickly moved to the racks of equipment lining the storage
buildings walls and pulled out several fuel canisters that they converted into
a makeshift bomb.
    After getting the Engineers clear they detonated it,
blowing apart the building and at least damaging the handheld equipment so it
couldn’t be used to carve out new roads, after which the twins got to work on
the big pieces of mechanized equipment that looked like miniaturized and
beefier versions of their combat walkers. Gone were the thin legs, leaving
thick columns that supported crab-like work walkers that could cut down trees,
move dirt, or carve out sections of rock.
    For those the twins pulled out small explosives from
their packs, with both knowing exactly where to put them on the machines in
order to disable them. They planted some 14 in total, all linked to a single
detonator and made sure the Engineers were clear before wrecking the lot with a
quick pyrotechnics display that caught some of the nearby tree branches on
fire.
    Travis looked over at the group of Engineers just
staring at them blankly, throwing them a sarcastic salute then leaving them and
their residential buildings and food supply intact as he and his sister ran off
down one of their roads heading towards the next link in their mountainous
supply chain. They couldn’t do anything about destroying the roads themselves,
but they could wreck the equipment being used to create them and kill their workforce,
for most of the Hobbits were doubling up their infantry duties with
construction ones.
    Leaving the Engineers alive could have been seen as a
strategic mistake, for they could go to work again, but in truth the only
reason the Archons were targeting these camps and killing the Hobbits on sight
was because they were actively assaulting the Protovic world. Had this been a
Skarron world the Archons wouldn’t have killed them so…lithely, but they were
here doing harm or helping others do harm to the Protovic and that they
couldn’t tolerate. Those Hobbits, while building roads, would just as quickly
pick up a plasma rifle and go into battle. The Engineers wouldn’t, which was
why there was no point in killing them.
    Not to mention the fact that a good number of them
were defecting to the Alliance, for they were seeing more compassion from their
enemies than they were their masters. Karen and Travis didn’t care about that
now, for they weren’t on a recruitment or rescue mission. They were hear to
cause havoc and havoc is what they were going to cause…but there was a very
fine and firm line between being a slayer and a butcher, and butchers they were not going to become.
    That was a lesson that Bri had drilled into their heads, and they hadn’t truly understood until she showed
them some of the results. While the twins had always been told how Archons were
supposed to think and behave, all the way back into basic training, it had
always been focused on them doing the right thing rather than seeing how it
affected others. Once they’d gotten to see and hear firsthand from some of the
Hobbits that had switched sides and get their point of view did they stop
looking at the enemy as targets.
    They were people, and not always involved due to their
own choices. The Hobbits in particular were a slave race that would be killed
on the spot if they didn’t fight, which meant that Star Force wasn’t just going
to kill them off. They were going to help them if they