Star Force: Ghostblade (SF67) (4 page)

That was already happening across Star Force
territory, for Clan warships weren’t always returning to Clan facilities for
repair work. They were all a team and helped each other out as necessary, so that
didn’t violate the exclusion protocol for the Clans, but if the Snowstorms
wanted to acquire new vessels they’d either have to produce them themselves or
trade with the other Clans. New drones could not be supplied from
Mainline
facilities.

So deals had been made to compensate for that snag,
because Oni insisted that the Clan was not taking a ‘timeout’ from the ongoing
lizard war. She’d been adamant that they not scale back military operations at
all, but they were going to start centering
around
this star system in the coming years. The sooner Sheen got a working shipyard
built, no matter how small, the better Oni would feel, hence it was one of her
top priorities.

Getting a major shipyard established was more of a
dream at this point than a workable goal, but Oni had already slated one of the
insane Sol-level facilities for their future plans, though Sheen knew that such
a monstrosity was going to soak up so many resources that it wasn’t going to be
viable in the next 50 years, minimum.

They’d talked for hours upon hours about what the
trailblazer’s future plans for the Clan were, and they were nothing short of
ridiculously ambitious. She seemed to think that with isolation came
opportunity, and absent the few Trials they would be participating in back in
Sol everything competitive here had to come from within, and with their own
brand new oceans to play in, aquatics was going to be their first major push.

That was why they’d dropped a huge amount of resources
into prefabricated surface facilities that had already allowed aquatics craft a
home on the shore of the primary site. Even as initial underwater construction
was ongoing training missions were being held and obstacle courses set up. Oni
wanted to see them rise in the ranks within two years in that category, and was
devoting a lot of resources to get the type of facilities set up that had been
impossible to create on the barren, rocky worlds they’d possessed in Sol.

Had Sheen been making the call, training would have
come in as a distant consideration, but Oni wanted it first and foremost, even
before sufficient housing was built for the Clan’s population. The Marquis knew
that getting basic quarters built for every single person was the right way to
go before expanding out to other infrastructure projects and had argued against
the fact that they could live on the jumpships for a considerable length of
time if necessary.

Oni had nixed that, stating that they couldn’t let
their people grow stagnant with the limited training facilities onboard the
jumpships and that when they had a full planet to play with now they were going
to take advantage of that from the beginning, reminding the Marquis that this
was to be an
active
transition.

That word was going to come back to haunt her, Sheen
knew, for what Oni wanted across the board was more than just a challenge…it
was nuts. She had no way of knowing how much of what the trailblazer wanted was
possible, for there were too many variables to consider. The only way forward
was to get her ass on site and start working the problems one by one and see
where it all led.

So now she was here, sitting in her orbital castle
overseeing the ever growing army of workers beginning to transform a pinprick
of the moon into a bastion of Clan Snowstorm civilization. Meanwhile the other
Clans continued to grow, some by leaps and bounds considering what they’d just
acquired from them. In the short term it seemed like a huge step backwards for
Snowstorm, not just a transition, but Oni was adamant that this was going to work
and that was enough for Sheen to pour everything she had into the effort.

But if this didn’t work, and work well, her Clan was
going to be diminished to an insignificant blip within Star Force.

4

July 3, 2811

Solar System

Earth

Sean-939221 ran up to the entrance of the final
chamber along with two of his teammates, Vlad-939228 and Sarah-939225, taking
cover amongst the crooked halls as they scouted what was beyond…seeing the
large open chamber with a low wall on the other side and the holographic icon
floating over top of it, marking the end of the trainees’ Final Challenge and
their graduation from basic training. They’d already spent more than a day
surviving the twists and turns of the labyrinth they had to fight their way
through, and now the 100 of them were almost to the end, with the rest mopping
up some mobile drones that had sniped down a few stragglers.

Those trainees were being recovered and reawakened
from the stun hits, for everyone made it to the finish line or no one did. That
wasn’t a rule per se, but it was how everyone felt, and regardless of whether
it was one of Sean’s 2s or any of the other teams, all 100 trainees were
equally committed to completing this challenge and becoming Archons. In a
rarity over the past three years, they weren’t competing against each other.
This time they were all on the same side and the course was the enemy…and then
some.

“Damn it, looks like Dash was right,” Sarah commented,
seeing the lone figure in the room ahead waiting for them. “That bastard is
just standing there waiting for us.”

“Wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t here,” Sean
commented, seeing the Black Knight waiting with stun sword in hand. Whether or
not he’d spotted them peeking around the corner was unknown, but if he had he’d
chosen to stay put, still as a statue, and literally daring them to come to
him.

Which they had to.

Sean ran his pale fingers through his bleach blonde
hair. “Let’s stay out of sight until we figure out how to deal with this.”

“There are 100 of us and 1 of him,” Vlad countered.
“We just rush the mother.”

“You really think it’s going to be that easy?” Sarah
asked.

“Probably not,” Vlad admitted, glancing around the
room, or what he could see of it from his position. “Walls look clear, so if
there’s any turrets they’ll be hidden inside.”

“He’s probably just the bait and that whole room is a
kill zone,” Sarah floated.

“We need to find out for sure,” Sean suggested as
another pair of trainees caught up to them and hunkered down behind them in
their white with blue stripe uniforms, one of which had a pair of blue paint
smears on his left hip more than 12 hours old.

“What’s up?”

“Our old friend is here,” Sean said, stepping back so
they could have room to look themselves.

“Shit. Like this wasn’t hard enough already.”

“We think there’s probably concealed turrets,” Sarah
said as more of them began to catch up with the scouts, some armed with
pistols, others with stun sticks and grenades.

“I’ll go,” Sean offered. “Just be sure to drag me
across the finish when it’s over.”

Sarah frowned. “Go and do what? You really think the
turrets will come out just for you? If I were the trainers I’d hold them back
until most of us got in there.”

“She has a point,” Krich-939281 said, placing a restricting
hand on Sean’s shoulder.

“Got any better ideas?”

“Make it a trio,” someone else suggested, tossing a
shield up and over the heads of the others that Sean grabbed out of midair.

“Thanks,” he said, bringing the 3/4th length narrow
piece of armor up in front of him. It’d do well to stop any incoming stingers,
so long as they were shooting him from the front and didn’t hit his feet. He
could crouch down to cover but would have a hard time maneuvering around,
though he’d done it before. Adding two more similarly equipped trainees would
allow them to turtle up in a technique they’d developed early on in their
training to beat the pesky hidden turrets that the trainers seemed to place
everywhere.

That said, he still didn’t think they’d get very far.

“On my back and stay close,” Sean said as the other
two got up to him and pulled their shields across one side of their back, with
both looping an arm around Sean’s waist so they could pull close and maximize
their defense while being able to feel where each other were. That way they
could still walk without creating unnecessary gaps for the stingers to get
through, though their heads were still open to ceiling shots or grenades. It
wasn’t a good situation all around, but it was better than going in solo. Even
on the run, all it would take was one lucky shot to Sean’s back and he’d be
down and unconscious, leaving his teammates to find a way past this last
roadblock.

“Just probe,” Sarah said as they began to walk forward
around the last corner in the hallway. “We’ll handle the rest.”

The trio of trainees came into view with Sean peeking
around the corner of his shield. A window in the damn thing would have been
nice, but they weren’t designed that way. He caught a glimpse of the Black
Knight ahead, but it looked like he hadn’t moved yet.

“Nothing behind us. Clear walls.”

“Black Knight is just standing there.”

“I don’t like this,” Sean told the others, but they
all kept moving forward.

“If we make it halfway we split.”

“Agreed.”

Step by small step they moved forward, with not a
sight nor sound evident in the empty room save for their own footsteps and
breathing, which thoroughly unnerved Sean even though he knew more or less what
was going on. They got all the way out to mid room and still no response, which
was when the trio blew apart, running in opposite directions that left Sean
heading straight for the Black Knight.

Still nothing happened.

Sean didn’t intend to actually fight him with only a
shield, for he’d left his pistol with one of the others so it wouldn’t be lost
when he got stunned, but he wanted to at least provoke a reaction before he ran
like crazy, half expecting the big guy to track him down despite the heavy
armor he wore. When he got within five meters of him Sean juked to the right
and made a dash for the low wall ahead, while the other two likewise rushed it,
intending to try and get over and to the finish so long as no one was going to
stop them.

That called the bluff, for even as the Black Knight
raced to his right to catch Chad-939245 a series of panels on the wall pushed
out alarmingly fast and brandished stinger turrets that peppered the area ahead
of the trainees with shots. Sean resisted the urge to try and stop them, but
knew he couldn’t delay either, else the Black Knight would circle back to him
within a few seconds. If he was going to make for the wall then this was the
moment, else he would have to run back to the others and probably get gunned
down in the process.

Tucking his shield against his right side, which was
the slightly closer wall, he dove in a skid on his right knee, sliding a meter
before popping up and jumping into the air to do a shallow flip, all the while
his shield was getting peppered with hits. He was hoping to disrupt the
targeting with the extra movement long enough to gain some distance, but as he
went midair his right ankle got hit, numbing it so much that when he got his
feet on the ground his right leg collapsed for lack of muscle control.

That sent him tumbling to the ground where he landed
smack on his face, with his shield hitting him on the head as it laid over him.
He expected to get covered in stinger shots momentarily, but the sounds of the
increasing weaponsfire didn’t result in any more loss of function. He twisted
his neck slightly, playing dead as he guessed they thought he already was, and
saw the others running out into the room and attacking the turrets on the
walls, neutralizing them one by one as even more revealed themselves and
flooded the room with paint.

Bodies were dropping every second, but so were the
turrets…and then there was the Black Knight moving amongst them, whacking them
down with his sword or fists.

Sean mentally ignored his right leg, pulling himself
up to a crawl and hobbling away from his shield towards the wall that was three
meters in front of him. A turret on the left wall turned to shoot him, but it
got hit with
 
a trio of sniper shots and
deactivated, giving Sean enough time to stand up on one leg and hop up to get
his hands on the wall edge. He pulled himself up enough that he could see over
it and the finish pedestal beyond…then suddenly a giant hand grabbed him by the
back of the neck and threw him back into the room.

He cracked his head on the somewhat soft floor when he
landed, then there were a blur of bodies passing over top of him. He could see
several of his fellow trainees hunkered up inside a shield turtle that blocked
enough of the stinger shots for them to get up close to the Black Knight, then
they broke ranks and rushed him, shooting him at pointblank range with pistols,
chucking grenades in his face, and then finishing him off with a series of stun
sticks as they were taken down by the surrounding turrets.

Sean reached out for the pistol laying near him,
finding it a few inches short of his fingers and cursing himself for having to
hold back. He crawled up onto his shoulder and got to it, miraculously not
attracting the attention of one of the remaining turrets. Rather than shoot at
one of them on the walls or ceiling, he took the pistol and shot the downed
Black Knight, knowing that his armor would suck up the stun quickly and he’d be
back to bashing them in no time.

Sean might not be able to run or fight, but he could
keep the bastard down while the others did the hard work…that was, until the
pistol eventually ran out of rounds. He tried to climb to his feet and hop
forward, but was caught by the armpit on the way up and dragged forward by
Sarah. She got him to the wall along with the others, then got underneath his
feet and stood up, pushing him up and over where he unceremoniously fell to the
ground.

The crawl over to the finish line was short, and the
most blissfully rewarding few meters he’d ever crossed. He got there after a
large group of the others, entering a blue-lit hallway that gleamed with what
appeared to be dragon scales covering it on floor, walls, and ceiling. As soon
as he touched those he officially became an Archon…then he turned back to look
for the others who were still piling over the wall.

One of the other trainees came over to him and
injected his leg with a de-stunning serum, one of the few they had left from
their ordeal in the labyrinth, and he felt his limb return to life. He stood up
and ran back over to the wall, hopping up enough to look over and see where the
rest of them were.

There were a dozen left, shooting the last of the
turrets as the Black Knight stumbled to his feet, regaining coherence with
every second. Seven trainees lay unconscious on the floor, with the others
moving towards them. With his limb now back in action Sean abandoned the finish
and went back over the wall, picking up one of the injured and freeing up a trainee
that was still armed…who then shot the Black Knight as he came at her.

The shot didn’t take him down, but two others dove on
him with stun sticks and managed to knock him away from the last few downed
trainees being carried over the wall. Sean got his passenger transferred to
others that were standing on top to facilitate the process, then he ducked to
the side as the Knight’s stun sword whipped through where his head had just
been. On instinct he ran sideways, getting a step on him as a hand reached down
from up top.

Sean took it and was pivoted up and over the wall with
the help of three other trainees acting as a counterweight. He didn’t care that
he fell hard on the other side, more concerned that everyone made it over…for
if they didn’t, they didn’t graduate. The idea of having to repeat the entire
basic training was abhorrent, which was why all of the trainees were committed
to getting everyone across and they wouldn’t hesitate to all go back over the
wall if necessary.

Fortunately that wasn’t going to be needed, and the
last man over yelled ‘all clear’ prompting Sean and the others to walk back
into that beautiful hallway and out the now open door on the far side,
completing the hardest 3 years of his life.

Head Trainer Wilson was there, along with a pair of
Archon Acolytes, but it was the big guy that spoke. “Congratulations…now on to
the hard stuff. Your basic training is now complete, and you’ll soon be
assigned Clans where you will begin your adept training. Next time we see each
other will be under different circumstances, for now, these two will guide you
through the transition process.”

“Let’s go younglings,” one of the acolytes said,
waving the group of them forward down the hall. “First a badly needed shower,
then some food, and then you get to see where you end up. Hope for Clan
Mantle.”

The other acolyte scoffed at that but said nothing as
the group moved on, leaving Wilson behind.

Sean stayed with him, drawing a curious look from
Sarah and a couple other 2s, but Wilson waved them off and they left with the
others. They walked down the long hall and disappeared around the corner before
either of the two men spoke.

“I’m proud of you,” Wilson told him. “And not only
because you didn’t slip up. I honestly didn’t think you had it in you until
after that first year.”

“I wasn’t sure myself until just now,” Davis said,
wiping the sweat off his forehead. “That is one hell of a training program you
set up. The team camaraderie is so intense it surprised me, even after all
these years dealing with Archons and the trailblazers specifically.”

“You were always an outsider and the guy in charge. It
looks different from this perspective, in a way that I’ll never know. I envy
you that.”