Star Force: Deceit (SF34)

  1

  May 18, 2430

  Alpha Centauri System

  Glasir

  Shannon-103445 rode in the back of the Falcon-G dropship along with two other Archon adepts and a team of Knights from Clan Tron as the silver-plated ship rose up through the planet’s atmosphere leading a swarm of conventional dropships in its wake, all of which contained Clan combat personnel scrounged from Glasir. Their small colony on the planet held only 55,000, but Red Team had requested all local combat assistance they could offer, so Shannon and the other Archons on station had been dispatched to lead the Knights and Regulars out to the nearby moon of Tyr.

  For Shannon, a level 34 adept, this was her first combat mission. She’d only recently been assigned to Alpha Centauri, having spent the past 83 years in Sol along with the other lower level Archons undergoing a slew of training missions and trials. She hadn’t progressed as fast as most of her original class, but she’d finally warranted a posting to another star system…one that was considered inconsequential and boring where she could be of limited use while she continued to train and upgrade her skills.

  Neither she nor anyone else had expected Alpha Centauri, let alone Glasir, to be a hotbed of activity, but that was the universe for you. Once you think you’ve got things figured out it goes and upends your carefully constructed fiction, reminding you to look, listen, and learn…not guess and predict.

  Shannon was ready, more than ready, and relished the chance to put her combat skills to use, despite not having much intel on the situation. She and the others were to report to the higher level Archons already on site and assist them with their current mission…and that was all she’d been told, though from the recent news stories making their way across planetary orbit and down to Glasir she knew there was at least some level of fighting already underway, with an Archon team being labeled as renegades to the general public.

  Star Force had quickly shot that notion down with the rest of the public in the system, but Tyr’s open exchange of news had just as quickly clamped down thereafter, leaving what was currently going on as a mystery. Information wise the moon had gone dark, and if Red Team was requesting backup Shannon guessed something major was going down.

  There were other Archons and troops in the system, far more on Odin than Glasir, but they’d made the call to bring them up from the nearby planet rather than send an assault force. Shannon wasn’t sure what that implied, so she just waited patiently as the dropship formation made a mini-jump towards the nearby moon with the gunship in the lead.

  The Falcon-G was a modified dropship popular amongst the Clans. It had a broad range of weaponry, including bulky missile racks on the wings that cut down on its aerodynamics, but it was primarily designed for convoy defense and assaults on airless worlds, such as they were going to now. She knew Tyr had some anti-air defenses, and if it did her gunship would be the one to go in first and knock a hole in them to allow the unarmed dropships through to deliver their troops.

  Shannon was also glad that they’d received their new shielded armor, which she’d gotten a custom set of only a year ago. That added an extra layer of protection that she hoped she wouldn’t need, but it was reassuring to know that she could take a few small hits and shrug them off without damage. The upgrade was a touch heavier than her old armor, but she agreed that the tradeoff was worth it…though until now she’d never had a chance to test it, or her skills, in real combat.

  The other two Archons onboard the gunship variant both outranked her. In fact she was the lowest level adept assigned to this mission. All of Clan Tron’s Archons on Glasir were being deployed, along with groups from Clan Alterra and Clan Star Ranger, the other two Clans that had colonies on Glasir, both of which were larger than Clan Tron’s, given that they’d been the last to start building a little more than 30 years ago. The others had been on the planet for more than a century, and as such had much larger populations and Archon deployments.

  When Shannon’s flotilla of dropships finally decelerated against Tyr’s gravity well they proceeded to drop into a slingshot orbit to get to the backside where the city was currently located, then dropped down to the surface and approached over land, skimming the airless, rocky landscape at an altitude of less than a kilometer and coming in at an angle following the instructions of those already in the city to bypass the intact anti-air defenses.

  Red Team had already knocked out several, creating the opening, but many more still remained. A Star Force cutter was holding position over the northwest corner of the city, sitting in one of the defensive dead zones ready to assist should it become necessary, but given that the mission objective was to recover the city, Red Team had decided to disable the exterior defenses from the inside rather than slag them in a naval assault…but the cutter was standing by just in case that changed or any ships attempted to flee.

  It was the smallest drone warship Star Force fielded, also shaped like a flying brick and far outmassing the dropships that flew in underneath its protective aura and down into one of the spaceports that Red Team had initially captured to facilitate the troop arrivals, though Shannon knew the city had many, for she’d been reviewing its schematics in helmet for the past hour as the teams were assembled.

  When they passed through the containment shields the dropships set down in an orderly fashion, making rows in the area of the deck that had been cleared away. A variety of other ships were now parked around the perimeter, some of Star Force make, some not, and all Brazilian, while the Star Force reinforcements from Clan Alterra that had already arrived had sent their dropships back to Glasir so they wouldn’t be clogging the deck and blocking access for those yet to come in.

  As soon as Shannon and her team disembarked from the Falcon-G it took off again, flying low to the ground and around into a waiting position for the surface entrance to clear, then it and those waiting in line behind it cycled back out as the grounded troops made their way to the spaceport exits.

  A rally point popped up on Shannon’s battlemap, indicating that was where she was supposed to head to next, so she jogged off with the other two Archons with the Knights and Regulars following behind them in a phalanx and passed through a side entrance, seeing some of the other teams headed their way and some not.

  When Shannon got through the archway and into the city interior she followed the battlemap to a nearby foyer where two other Archons were waiting for them, both adepts of Clan Alterra. When she stopped nearby she immediately got a comm reconfiguration prompt inside her helmet, which she followed, setting up familiar channels that she could toggle through during the mission.

  “Here’s the situation,” Stan-47554 said over the comm while other teams were catching up from behind. Already the foyer had filled up, so Shannon guessed he wasn’t going to waste time waiting for the others to stack up behind them.

  “Tyr has been seized by a criminal organization known as The Word. They’ve integrated themselves with the local population, making them believe that Brazil still controls the moon, so a lot of the people shooting at you probably think they’re just doing their job defending their colony and that you’re the bad guys. This is why you’ve packing stingers rather than plasma. Stun anyone that even looks at you the wrong way and we’ll sort out who’s who later.”

  “Both Red Team and Green Team are on site and leading this mission. They’ve given us a number of locations to take and hold while they stay on the move, updating us with additional mission parameters as needed. The Word is pulling out, and they’re trying to snag as many of them as they can. We’ve got a cutter parked overhead to run down any ships that attempt to flee, but with 13 million people in this city The Word doesn’t have to go far to hide. They can blend into the population and hid
e out, then leave a year from now once things cool down.”

  “They’re good at that, I’m told, which is why the big boys are running every which way hunting them down. We get to play king of the hill and hold what they take, collect and guard the prisoners they’re racking up, and do the ground work of actually reclaiming this city for Brazil.”

  “Those of you with me are being tagged as Group 19. Head to the following waypoint. The rest of you stay here with Ian.”

  Shannon’s battlemap didn’t update, so she assumed she hadn’t been assigned to that group. The other two adepts she’d rode in with had, so they began to move off along with a lot of the Knights, leaving mostly Regulars and a few others behind.

  “We’re Group 20,” Ian-65939 said after the others left down the hallway to the east. “Unlike the other groups we have one and only one mission, and it takes us to the other side of the city. We’ll be using subsurface maintenance lines to get there, and a lot of running. Right now we don’t have an accessible spaceport in those areas, so this is as close as we can start from. The transit options within the city are also a no go. Brazilian security has virtually shut them all down, turning this city into a much larger playground.”

  “Other teams are working on getting those back up and opening up another spaceport, but we can’t wait on that. Our target is here,” the adept said, updating all of their battlemaps with a mission objective waypoint. “This is the main environmental control unit, and ties into all the subsidiaries within the city. If this unit goes down the others can compensate, but it’s responsible for nearly a third of the air the population is breathing. We’re to take it and hold it against any sabotage efforts. Normally this would be a low priority, but Red Team has tagged it as a primary objective, so we need to get there as fast as possible while everyone else is distracted, which is why we’re taking the low road.”

  “Archons on point followed by the Knights,” Ian said, referencing the four they’d been left with. “Regulars keep it close and tight. You,” Ian said, pointing at Shannon, “rear guard. Let’s move.”

  With that last word Ian started running, albeit slowly, over to the northern door in the foyer with the rest of the Clan Tron troops arraying themselves as instructed. Shannon waited for them all to pass, then dropped in behind them, leaving a short gap between the last Regulars in their Tron Black armor and herself. That way she could rove about more freely, as well as provide a distance buffer should anyone come up and try to ambush the group from behind. It was sort of like being tagged as Venator, except that she had a moving target to center on.

  Shannon kept an eye on the others via her battlemap, seeing the column of ID signatures start to make progress down through the city’s layers as she held back, keeping her eyes moving about from side to side all the while taking a few peeks at the position of the other groups. Some she could see on the overall city map, others not, given that the transmission range of their battlemap feeds were limited, but where there were individuals close enough to transmit the data down a relay line, they could keep tabs on where everyone was at, plus she noted the placements of several dedicated transmitters for just that task, further extending both their battlemap and comm range.

  Also, the cutter overhead was acting as another relay, and with its broadcast power it could reach just about everywhere within the city, no matter how far down you went. Trick was, those units couldn’t communicate back up, so their positions were unmarked and would remain so until others came close to them.

  Shannon knew they could carry more powerful transmitters on their racks, but those larger units were easy to track, meaning their enemies could use them to follow their movements. The battlemap network, as well as their communications, were low powered and configured in a way to be almost untraceable, keeping the Archons and those they were linked to as ghosts. And that was critical for the battlemap, which updated constantly.

  They ran for the better part of an hour before making enemy contact, which amounted to a scattering of guards at one of the subsurface bottlenecks. The point men blew through it with ease, leaving only the unconscious bodies as testament for Shannon to see as the back of the formation ran past. From there they were back to traversing through the unpopulated underbelly of the city which, for its sparsity, was not convenient to travel through, for there were no straight line trajectories.

  Shannon spent her time hanging off the back as the line on her battlemap snaked back and forth as Ian tagged waypoints ahead of them to travel to using the city schematics they had available, plotting their course a few minutes ahead of their current movements. So far they hadn’t hit any dead ends, but Shannon could tell from the architecture that that was just good planning on Ian’s part, for it was a maze of connections down here designed to be accessed from above, not laterally.

  When the line stopped at a random waypoint Shannon guessed they were about to go up, seeing that the mission waypoint was not that far off, but there was no comm chatter so she just carried out her assignment as rear guard and kept watch. After several minutes of pausing the line began to move again and, like she guessed, they were going up a flight of stairs, which she hit a few seconds behind the last Regular in line.

  At the top of some 18 flights they got off, though the stairs continued to go up, and ran through a populated building out to a street. Shannon saw several stunned bodies along the way, though none with weapons. She figured they’d gotten in the way or done something to hinder the Archons’ advancement, but the paint splatters on their civilian clothing weren’t telling and she didn’t have time to stick around and find out.

  When she finally crossed the street, which was pedestrian rather than vehicular and capped by a high, false glass ceiling with several walkways crisscrossing it at higher elevations, she saw people running for cover, yelling and screaming at the presence of the Star Force troops, which she thought was odd. She could understand them being startled, but not hysterical.

  That didn’t feel right, so she doubled checked both directions, looking for enemies about but finding none before ducking into another building on the other side, just as her comm activated.

  “Contacts,” one of the point men reported, along with a flashing icon on her battlemap that disappeared after three seconds. Not a waypoint, but a heads up as to the location. She could see that it wasn’t where the line of troops were, but rather farther to the south inside a building on the edge of a large promenade.

  Just then one of the dots swung out of line and held position, with the rest of the troops running on past. When she was nearly up to it her comm opened again, this time on a personal channel from Ian.

  “With me,” he said, waving her his way on the promenade as she came into view. “We’ve got a security checkpoint to neutralize.”

  “Happy to,” she responded, accelerating her sore legs up into a more familiar cadence. The Regulars and Knights simply ran too damn slow, and it’d been bothering her nearly the entire way out here, so despite the soreness it felt good to really be on the move again.

  “I’m playing rabbit, you hit them on a delay.”

  “Copy that,” she said, letting him get a few steps ahead of her.

  Ian ran through the crowds, darting from one gap to another and came up on the checkpoint…which was essentially a toll booth monitoring the passage of pedestrians from one section of the city to another. On the other side was a more restricted area, reserved for governmental purposes and off limits to the wandering public. Tucked up next to it was a guard house, which was their target.

  Outside there were four guards lounging around in a very unalerted state. The rest of the fighting in the city was far from here, so maybe they didn’t think it worth the worry…either that or they hadn’t been alerted to it, which Shannon found hard to believe. Only one of them noticed Ian coming and stood up, grabbing for his plasma rifle which he’d left sitting a meter to his side propped up against the wall.

  Ian shot him first, then peppered the other three
with stingers before opening and ducking his way inside the guard house. Shannon kept her spacing behind him, as instructed, and came in a few seconds later…right into the view of the flanks of half a dozen guards scrambling for their weapons while several others were already firing at Ian who was halfway across the lobby headed for the rec room.

  Shannon took it to their blind side and sprayed them with stingers as fast as she could pump the trigger, downing four before the others even noticed her arrival. After that there was a furious few seconds of cat and mouse as she ducked behind a desk and played sniper while Ian completed a half circle and came at the wad of off duty security from the other side, taking a few plasma hits in the process.

  Shannon didn’t stay put for long, jumping up out of cover and forming the opposite side of a pincher maneuver, firing her way through the guards until she met up face to face with Ian…then they found themselves standing in the middle of a pile of some two dozen bodies, some of which were still squirming, only having gotten partially stunned.

  “Clean up,” Ian ordered as he dashed into a side room.

  Without a word Shannon started hopping over legs and arms and shooting single stingers into the downed bodies, some of which she wasn’t sure whether they were moving or not, so she just shot them again for good measure. As she did she collected some of their plasma rifles and pistols and made a stash atop one of the desks that hadn’t been toppled or shot up by the guards’ misses.

  Ian came back out a few minutes later, pointing for the door.

  “We’re done here. Let’s catch up with the rest.”

  Slightly surprised they were leaving so soon, Shannon dropped the plasma rifle she’d picked up and followed him back out of the guard house, then they ducked inside the restricted area rather than backtracking, taking a different route to the waypoint as the adept suppressed a smile at finally having gotten her first bit of real action, simple as it was.