Read Online Star Force: Fiddlesticks (SF65) by Aer-ki Jyr - Free Book Online Page B

hunting?” Captain Hafferson asked.
    Kara smiled. “You know me.”
    “Good luck.”
    “Likewise,” she said, running out into the corridors
and heading for her quarters to pack up her few belongings. She gave the twins
the heads up and had them do likewise, then the trio met up in one of the
hangar bays and got on a dropship that took them across low stellar orbit
toward the schools of space ‘fish’ waiting there.
    Those fish weren’t individual warships, but rather
full-fledged jumpships with all of the naval fighting craft tucked up safely
inside their holds. Some were twice as long as others, for there were many
different models, but spaced amongst them were 7 larger donuts, with a few more
on their way out from Sashneo. Each of the five trailblazers here had one, plus
some more pulled from various duties to bolster the strength of the fleet as
well as add more drone controllers to the mix, increasing the efficiency of
each of the ‘little’ warships with more eyes and hands available to fly and
fight the ships.
    Kara could see that this was easily the largest Star
Force fleet ever assembled, even bigger than what they had guarding Sol…not
counting stations and other ‘permanent’ defenses. However, along with this
typical warfleet were a few jump cradles carrying the segments to not one, but
two Sentinels. They weren’t going to wait to take the system before deploying
them, and so long as the fleet kept the segments covered as they were assembled
the addition of a pair of ‘safe’ islands in orbit would be extremely useful in
the fighting to come.
    Aside from those three types of ships there was no
additional diversity of designs. All the cargo and troop jumpships were still
in orbit around Sashneo, with the Ma’kri waiting there to escort them in later.
As big as those ships were, they weren’t suited for really heavy fighting the
way the drone warships and their controlling jumpships were, so the
trailblazers were electing to put them to support duty rather than delegating
one of the warships, such as Kara’s, to that task.
    The jumpships were capable of taking a lot more fire
than the Ma’kri were, essentially having become mobile mountains that were very
difficult to destroy, with the bulk of their firepower residing in the crewless
drones. The Ma’kri were not crewless, and more suited for medium to small-scale
engagements where they could dominate with their speed and capture capability.
    But while the Star Force fleet looked relatively
uniform, it was anything but. Morgan-063’s group was comprised of mainline
units, while Larissa-048 had brought a chunk of the Bsidd fleet over for this
assault, as well as a conglomeration of 18 different Clans. Connor-018 was commanding
the Canderous, Scionate, and Lacvamat, while Kian-093 was bringing a huge Axius
fleet to bear…yet it was nothing compared to the Calavari fleet, which had the
largest ship count and was under Liam-090’s command.
    Both the Bsidd and Calavari had radically different
drone designs, eschewing the standard ‘blocks’ in favor of other geometric
shapes, but they all used the same basic jumpships, meaning that from the
outside the massive fleet looked to be from one faction, but in truth it was a
representation of Star Force’s diverse naval power and the unity of design and
purpose that bound them together.
    But beyond that, it was just damn impressive to look
at.
    Kara’s dropship seemed smaller than a gnat in
comparison, flying amongst the huge vessels and over to Morgan’s command ship,
slipping inside one of the small bays on the otherwise packed hull of the ship
that was not designed as a carrier, but rather a badass fleet-buster that did a
good impression of a pint-sized Sentinel.
    But it was far more than that, with the interior
segmented up into all sort of command and control functions, weapon storage,
survey gear, medical facilities, and just about everything else you’d expect
from a command center. This one