Free Star Force: Resurrection (SF84) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-ki Jyr

early,” Liam differed.
“Wipe out the defenders then bring it in with the ground troops.”
    Taryn’s hologram feigned shock. “You mean you don’t want to snipe ships with it?”
    “If they had an invoker or assault pillar sure,” Paul
answered, “but cruisers would be like swatting at a swarm of mosquitos.”
    “Agreed. Nice work you guys. Glad the naval geeks came
through on this one.”
    Paul and Liam both glared at her as she smiled and her
hologram disappeared.
    “Prick,” Liam pronounced humorously.
    “Her braid’s probably too tight,” Paul said as Liam
fired the Devastator again, knocking out yet another of the ‘small’ shield
segments blanketing the planet. “Any negligible variation?”
    “Not yet. We’ll see how long this can last. Davis
really should have let us test fire these on Earth.”
    “I think he didn’t want us putting on this big of a
fireworks display.”
    “People are going to know now,” Liam pointed out.
    “Should we edit this bit from the news vids?”
    Liam considered that as he set up another firing
angle. “We’ll seal it classified and send it to Davis. He can decide if he
wants to make our possession of the boomstick public
or not.”
    “ Boomstick …that’s way better
than Death Star.”
    “I have my moments. Too bad Roger isn’t here to see
it.”
    “I’m sure he’ll manage to find a way to gloat from
afar,” Paul said smugly, referring to the other piece of their naval
triumvirate that was off hitting smaller lizard worlds low on the galactic
plane. “And he deserves it this time. I didn’t even think about trying this.”
    “Neither did I , though it
seems kind of obvious right now.”
    “I was still thinking in terms of production. We
couldn’t have built another for at least 20 more years.”
    “We could do it in 15.”
    “Still too late.”
    “You think we’re going to be done here in 15?”
    “I don’t know. If we just slaughtered all the lizards
we could.”
    “Not an option. Besides, I want to have a walk around
their homeworld and see what’s there. Let’s try not to blow up too much of that
before then, ok?”
    “Getting cocky now?”
    Liam smirked, this time in apology. “Right. Don’t want
to jinx us,” he said as he fired the weapon again, popping another shield.
“This is seeming too easy.”
    “Let’s milk it while we’ve got it.”
    “You going down with your fleet to lay the parking lot
again?”
    “Yes.”
    “The ground forces won’t be available for a long
time.”
    “We can start building regardless.”
    Liam looked at him oddly, then caught on. “Baiting
them out?”
    “As long as we have warships within range, why not?”
    Paul’s peer sighed. “We have got to find a better way
to defend a planet. Orbital bombardment is too damn effective.”
    “Easy enough when you know where they’re going to
fire.”
    “Even then, the V’kit’no’sat could punch through any
shields we have in place this easily. A Mach’nel would punch right through our shields with their baby Tar’vem’jic ,”
Liam said, referring to one of the larger V’kit’no’sat warships and the largest
naval weapon that they possessed, which was a smaller version of what the
pyramid’s main gun was.
    “I’m working on it,” Paul said grimly.
    “We all are, but you know as well as I do that we
haven’t caught up enough yet. 1,200 years of research with their playbook and
blueprints and it still hasn’t been enough.”
    “If this tech was easy, a lot of other races would
have it. Be glad that we’ve got what we have, otherwise the lizards would have
killed us long ago.”
    Liam glanced back down at the planet, taking in the
mass of infrastructure and life within it…malevolent life intent on killing
just about everything else in the galaxy if and when they had the opportunity.
    “Yeah, I guess we overlook that sometimes. It’s still
scary though. The lizards have nothing that can stop the Bra’hem, and I
wouldn’t want