Star Force: Resurrection (SF84) (Star Force Origin Series) Read Free Page B

closer.”
    “By about 200 meters.”
    “Do you really feel like walking that extra 200?”
    “No,” Paul admitted. “Thanks,” he said as they began
walking again.
    Neither one said another word, nor did they have any
telepathic conversations. There wasn’t much to be said and neither one was in
good enough shape for a coherent discussion. They both needed to rest hard and
get themselves back into play so they could oversee the next stage of the
invasion. There wasn’t a rush per se, but with the lizards you never wanted to
give them extra time to get clever with…and the mine field was ample evidence
of what they could do in a very short span of time.
    When they got to Riona’s quarters Paul followed her in and shut the door, then both of them crashed on
her bed and fell asleep as soon as they let their last bit of resistance go,
knowing they had time to recover and allowing themselves to indulge in that
blissful rest.

 
    Paul was back on the bridge and in the nexus 9 hours
later, still a bit groggy and needing to get in a shakeout run, but wanting to
get himself up to speed on the situation first. According to the battlemap
feeds that were flowing across the system constantly like a giant net
connecting every single Star Force ship, the naval combat was now over save for
some intercepts happening near the star. A good number of the lizard cargo
jumpships had tried to make it out and run the blockade, with some 18 ships out
of over 2,000 having made it on some very long jumplines that were questionable
as to whether or not they could accurately hit the destination star. The rest
were now additional junk that drones were going around to and destroying
further rather than allowing any surviving lizards to slowly suffocate or
freeze to death.
    As per standard orders, surrender offers were going
out on a regular basis…and as per standard lizard protocol they were all being
subsequently ignored. Star Force would keep sending them though, right up until
the last of them were dead or they broke their trend and actually accepted.
    Looking around the rest of the system he saw the
remaining lizard civilian ships clustering near the battlestations or shipyard
rings. The latter they were going to board and take as previously done, though
there was now one less to claim. That would save them some time, but first
they’d need to take out the battlestations and any other defensive emplacements
the lizards had in orbit around the various planets.
    There were also a large number of warehouses here,
more so than even in the other core worlds that they’d taken to date. What each
contained varied greatly. Some had spare parts, foodstuffs, old ships,
explosives, raw materials…they were never the same, and a few previously had
been booby-trapped. They’d all need to be inspected and safed before being ticked off the threat list, and unless there was a reason to
destroy them Paul wasn’t going to. Everything in this system would eventually
be recycled and used to fuel Star Force, so breaking things up with weaponsfire
was counterproductive when you’d just have to hunt down those many drifting
pieces later.
    There was a complication, however. Of the six
inhabited planets, and there were others with outposts on them, there was a
large tract of land on one that was not covered with cityscape. The scout ship
had noted this and Paul was getting updates on that location now that they had
ships in closer, with him seeing that the land was housing billions of varying
races that the lizards used for food.
    Star Force would not be targeting them from orbit, and
the last time they’d taken a lizard farm thankfully their intentions hadn’t
been noticed. Paul hoped this would also be the case, for as long as the
lizards didn’t realize they intended on rescuing the lizard livestock then they
wouldn’t try to use them to their advantage. The only reason that hadn’t
occurred to date was the fact that the previous farms taken had