Star Force: Backstab (SF23) Read online

  Both mechs popped out their arms and legs from their ‘cargo mode’ and stood up, flexing their joints for a moment to insure that all was working as the missile launcher riding over the left should of each cycled its projectiles around internally, loading the 3-prong firing rack as more of the basilisks dropped around them. Within a matter of minutes 56 thors were scaling the side of the mountain and picking at the Valeries with their anti-fighter lachars as the enemy fighters swooped by overhead.

  The Nestafar troops staged outside the northern bay doors saw them coming and began to redeploy their medium and heavy walkers down the slope towards them. The taller giraffes fired red plasma orbs down at the thors from atop their long necks while the spiders seemed content to march forward and wait until they got closer in range. Meanwhile a flood of protomechs came down around the flanks, not wanting to get caught up between the larger machines.

  To the Nestafar’s surprise the thors split along the center and ran up the hillside heading directly for the protomechs with a surprisingly fast gait. The little ones were faster and had the advantage of moving downhill, but the Canderians were able to regroup into attack clusters of five each and absolutely hammer the smaller mechs with heavy plasma cannons, one in each arm.

  A low knob over the right shoulder of each thor held a standard lachar, as well as the anti-air version, that stitched the protomechs at range as they balled up and rolled down the hillside to try and escape the plasma torrent of those thors closest to them. The lachars chewed them up, able to accurately target them on the move with less than a dozen making it down to the bottom of the valley and attempting to climb back up to hit the Canderians from the rear.

  One group of five, or a ‘star’ of mechs, turned back to deal with them while the rest continued up the hillside at a slow run, now split into two assault forces that were beginning to exchange fire with the Nestafar’s heavier walkers. The spiders began spitting out plasma streamers at those closest, hitting the thors with potent red streaks and melting the armor straight off their machines. The Canderians lost two before they knocked out the belly gun on the first one with a coordinated plasma attack, but there were six more coming up from behind with equally potent weapons.

  The spiders also had missiles in play, similar to the fireflies their navy used. The glowing green missiles launched out a roof compartment on their backs and arched down onto the thors below, blasting away at several of them in a focused strike that wiped out an entire star within 20 seconds.

  But the losses only seemed to enrage the Canderians rather than break their spirit. They charged upward, maintaining unit cohesion and methodically targeted the spiders’ belly-mounted streamers and taking them out of play while they suffered through the devastation of the missiles, accepting their losses in order to take away the walkers’ firepower.

  18 of the thors went down before the spiders were neutered, with them continuing to fire off their remaining missiles and smaller point defense plasma weapons while the giraffes and thors went head to head in a plasma orb slugfest. A scattering of fighters circled about, strafing the mechs when they had an opening, but the automated lachars kept most of them at bay as the thors quickly discovered that the giraffes couldn’t fully rotate their heads around to cover their aft arc.

  Soon the stars, or what was left of them, began splitting up and encircling the medium-sized walkers, each of which massed a bit more than they did, and took turns being the point man. The bipeds were more maneuverable that their counterparts, especially on the slope, so when one got badly damaged it would circle around behind and let a fresher thor take the brunt of the shots until they’d succeeded in decapitating the weapon mount off the walker, after which they’d ignore it and go after the others.

  Not a single enemy had been taken out, save for the small protomechs which were now all dead. The walkers staggered about firing off secondary weapons as the Canderian swarm moved through their ranks as if picking flowers, one by one taking out the enemy’s heaviest weapons and ignoring their formidable armor.

  The thors eventually moved up the hillside far enough to be able to come around and flank the Nestafar mechs from behind, finishing off the weapon cleavage of the giraffes then focusing on hitting their secondary plasma weapons as the spiders threw their last missiles at the thors. With more than half of their number down, the Canderians continued to pick apart the enemy with their plasma cannons while holding back on their own missiles, knowing that they wouldn’t do much good against the Nestafar’s chrome armor.

  There were two exceptions, however, that kept charging up the hillside towards the hangar doors, leaving the rest of the mechs to fight it out behind them. Both thors unleashed their shoulder-mounted missiles at the base of the doors and the infantry stationed there, then began picking them off with their automated anti-air lachars when they took flight. Some of them fired back with rocket launchers, but the mechs were too heavily armored for that to matter. They were also bathed in dozens of tiny red plasma blasts coming from the infantry’s rifles, but the mechs simply shrugged it off and continued the slaughter.

  Eventually the rest of them ran…on foot to avoid the anti-air, vacating the doors and abandoning the now besieged walkers who had little weaponry left to fight with. Those batteries that they did have were now being targeted by plasma at close range or with lachars and missiles from further out, gradually wearing down the Nestafar’s offensive capability until they were near to becoming irrelevant.

  Before that happened the bay doors shook violently and began to grind open. The two thors turned around into guard positions and slowly advanced forward, sweeping up what little there was left of the infantry while making sure none snuck inside the base as Star Force skeets began to shoot out, first one at a time, then by the twos and threes as the doors opened wider. Behind them came a scattering of Valeries that had survived the initial ambush in the hangar along with 8 other fighter variants from the Alliance races. Behind them all came two Star Force gunships, loaded up with missiles, lachars, and scatterguns, that took to climbing straight up the mountain towards the peak while the fighters immediately mixed it up with the enemy.

  Mark was among them, firing off a plasma streamer at one of the Spider-class walkers the moment he exited the doors. The blue jet of superheated xenon splashed across the walker’s back side and melted away a few inches of armor plating before the Archon pulled up and flashed into the sky, extremely happy to be back in the cockpit again and sticking it to the Nestafar directly. As he climbed he searched the sky for fighter contacts, finding several still hanging around and more off to the south.

  “Boen, Kara, Iren…you’re with me. We’ve got some Valeries to kill.”

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