Star Force: Empire (SF58) Read Online Free Page B

and that’s all that mattered.

 
    3

 
 
    May 23, 2652
    Maxzet System
(Epsilon Region)
    Mazicc

 
    Admiral Laver watched from his jumpship as the
previous intel reports were updated with realtime
telemetry. The six locations on the planet’s surface that had been tagged as
containing pirate hideouts were indeed registering infrastructure as well as
some surface activity at one site. A liftoff was taking place, with the cargo
ship in question even now beginning to rise up through the atmosphere to make a
run for orbit and, ostensibly, out of the system.
    It took a moment for the Australians’ sensors to
identify the type of ship, marking it as a Lemickas insystem commerce model,
meaning it didn’t have interstellar jump capability. Laver ordered it tracked
and followed, but not intercepted. Unless it met up with a jumpship it wasn’t
going anywhere and they could deal with it later.
    Their mission was to take out the pirate bases on what
was otherwise an independent system within the ADZ. The planet was home to a
primitive civilization that hadn’t yet achieved space travel and one that had
wished to be left alone. Star Force had tagged it as a transit only system,
meaning that only passerthroughs were permitted and that the planet itself was
off limits, as was the rest of the system.
    There were many other systems in the same situation,
having fallen within the boundaries of the ADZ and not wanting to have anything
to do with the Alliance or the war. Star Force counted them as lucky and left
them alone, making sure that others did as well, but those systems in question
were regularly targeted as places to get off the Star Force grid and attracted
a lot of illicit attention.
    The six pirate bases that the Australians had been
sent to get rid of had been identified by Star Force security previously, but
they hadn’t sent their own team to eradicate them. Often they did, but with so
many needs to attend to in the growing ADZ population that was approaching a
quadrillion, they often farmed out such duties to other parts of the empire,
with the Australians finally being able to step up to the plate and contribute
in a significant way.
    Admiral Laver had been part of 3 previous campaigns to
hunt down pirates, slavers, and other scum from the ADZ, all of which had been
under the command of an Archon. This tour, however, he was in sole command. He
figured it was due partly to the limited number of the super soldiers and the
vast scale of the ADZ that had them going all over the place with significant travel
lags in between, but he also knew that his fleet would never have been assigned
this duty solo if they weren’t trusted. The previous campaigns had been the
Archon using the Australians in lieu of other ships and troops they didn’t
currently have available, but it had also been a test.
    Apparently one that Laver and the others had passed,
for the previous 4 months had been missions similar to this yet lesser in scope
that had the Australians dealing with assignments completely without oversight.
Most were ship interdictions with a few surface raids, but this was the largest
strike given to them yet, with indications that there were thousands of pirates
on the planet below that either had to be captured or killed…and he knew from
previous experience that pirates didn’t like to go down without a fight.
    This lot had been responsible for well over 50
hijackings of starships passing through Epsilon Region, all non
Star Force, for the pirates weren’t stupid enough to try and take one of
those. No, they preyed on the ever-increasing traffic from the other races in
the ADZ, often picking off ships and getting away before anyone even received a
distress signal. Star Force did belatedly monitor all transit between inhabited
systems and had picked up at least faint sensor recordings of the attacks, along
with the jumplines the pirate ships had taken when leaving with their bounty,
which was sometimes cargo or