Star Force: Shame (SF59) by Aer-ki Jyr

peacekeeping efforts more problematic. We could mount
another assault, but feel that to do so without understanding what happened the
first time would be reckless. We did not expect that so much time would go by
without an answer, but the longer this persists the more eroded our reputation
becomes. That reputation is keeping smaller threats neutralized without us
having to commit ships, and without it we cannot oversee the territory assigned
to us with our current resources .”
    “ So you want me
to show you how to beat them? ”
    “ No ,” Hameen said with a telepathic air of disgust at his
presumption. “ We are only asking that you
show us what they did. We will formulate our own battle plans. ”
    “ I will need a
full history of their race and their conflict with you, as well as any
conflicts with others. ”
    “ We have brought
along all information regarding the H’bat’i, and we are prepared to wait here
as long as necessary for you to complete your analysis .”
    “ Alright
then…let’s start with the battle itself .”

 
    Roger spent the next 7 hours onboard the Dsevmat ship
watching holos and asking a lot of questions, then
eventually headed planetside for a break with the
alien pod delivering him to the spaceport on the surface that he requested. For
the rest of the day he trained, pushing aside the challenge the Dsevmat had
laid out for him and clearing his head before getting some sleep and heading
back up to the ship, for the Nexus race wouldn’t allow copies of their data to
be taken with the Human for outside study. They were trusting him with a wealth
of information, but only him and within their own ship, meaning he was going to
have to do a lot of commuting in the coming days.
    The way the H’bat’i had won was obvious, for the
Dsevmat did have the superior force even when you include the orbital defenses
of the planet under assault. Both races possessed tech currently exceeding Star
Force’s, and the Dsevmat more so than their enemy, but they’d been beaten
soundly when their weapons’ targeting systems malfunctioned. It wasn’t a total
malfunction, nor was it isolated to individual ships. Across their fleet
weapons batteries began to miss their targets, not with every shot, but on
average 73% misfired.
    During the later stages that amount diminished to 32%
when the Dsevmat were losing badly, then it almost disappeared entirely as they
were being wiped out. Some ships had higher and lesser accuracy numbers, and
the same went for certain batteries. Some hit with every shot and others were
malfunctioning. There was no discernable pattern to be found, no computer
glitches or attack programing found within the computer systems, and no known
weapon system on the part of the H’bat’i that could interfere with the
targeting systems.
    Sensor records had been gone over so many times by the
Dsevmat that they’d literally run themselves ragged with frustration in an
endless search. There was no energy or matter being emitted from the H’bat’i
ships that could account for this, and their weaponsfire showed no variations
from standard specs, nor was there any variation between what was hitting the
malfunctioning ships and those with normal accuracy rates…which for the Dsevmat
was 99.7%, and that included anti-fighter stats.
    Roger resisted the urge to start forming theories, or
strong ones anyway, and used the opportunity to study the Nexus race and their
adversary, learning that this was truly a mismatch. The Dsevmat clearly
outmatched them, but as stated before the higher level empire was spread out
maintaining a vast tract of territory where other races lived. They couldn’t
focus their might into a single area and had to work with limited fleets and
resources while effectively being overstretched. What the reason was for this
within the political workings of the Nexus he didn’t know, but it did shed a bit
of light on why the Nexus wasn’t rushing to defeat the lizards.
    If the