Star Force: Equity (Star Force Universe Book 46) Read online

  “Is your HUD damaged?”

  “I turned it off. You’re the navigator, remember?”

  “My name is Danngi. I’m part of the mech division assigned to the Kvash fleet. We were sent in to help you defend the planet. We failed miserably.”

  “Nice to meet you Danngi. I’m going to pass out now…”

  “Sleep, Human. I will watch over you,” he said, not receiving any response. He shifted his own armor into camo mode, which had it changing shades of color as he scurried up the wall to a better vantage point where he could use his own eyes and passive sensors to see what was nearby. His tiny silhouette was hard to spot, and the further the others got away the less data the Kvash warship in high orbit had to relay to him. Its own sensors were extremely limited that far away, but it could still relay information.

  He couldn’t risk a comm message, and the secure battlemap links were out of range, but the others were transmitting so he could see where the enemy was as they led them off, though soon that would disappear and he’d have nothing to work with except very basic orbital scans…assuming the Kvash ship could remain in position, and there was no guarantee of that.

  It was up to him to guard the Human. And without her, he was going to have a very hard time covering ground, though at the moment he was technically the faster. She needed time to heal, and that dive had seemed to make things worse, but if the Zen’zat didn’t know they were here and continued to chase the others then they had time…just no supplies aside from the survival pack Danngi carried. He’d taken it out of the mech’s cockpit after it had been destroyed, but it would do the Human no good. There was enough food to keep him going for weeks, maybe a month, but given her huge size, there was no way its contents could fill her stomach for more than a day, and maybe far less than that.

  No, they both had to get to an outpost, whether it be Star Force or Ziviri, and get some help…and if the Ziviri had really betrayed them, that was going to be exponentially harder, for they were effectively on an enemy-held planet now…but one with Star Force resources scattered all over it. And it was those resources they had to find and use to get the Arc Commando back into fighting shape. For without her, Danngi didn’t think he’d be getting off this planet. Star Force most likely didn’t have the resources to retake it from both the V’kit’no’sat and the Ziviri, which meant he’d have to make himself invisible and scrounge supplies when and where he could.

  That or send a signal to the ships in orbit for pickup…except his armor was so tiny his transmitter didn’t have that kind of range. The Human’s did, which meant she was his potential ticket out of here…and above that she was an Arc Commando, and Star Force didn’t have as many of those to spare as they did mechwarriors. She was worth protecting, but in truth, Danngi would have stayed behind to help any of his fellow warriors. This one just happened to be extra valuable…and extra lethal, which was going to be a big help if they were discovered.

  Well, if she could heal up. Until then, they were going to have to hope their luck held out, for an Irondel in a mech was a fearsome opponent. But there were no Irondel commandos, due to their small size. Even their infantry used mini-mechs, and without that augmentation he could do next to nothing other than keep an eye out while the Human rested.

  So that was what he was going to do, picking a spot on the broken rooftop of the abandoned building and blending in as much as possible as he saw the dust trail from the hovertank moving further off across the dry landscape.

  2

  It took 18 hours before Jyra could walk again, and most of the healing patch, to enable a slow wobble, but she and Danngi were on the move across a mix of rocky outcroppings and wide open plains. Fortunately there were so few V’kit’no’sat on the planet and those that were here were preoccupied with pushing hard into the last Star Force strongholds, leaving the Arc Commando and mechwarrior safe in their anonymity.

  That said, the Irondel was still watching what pieces of the battlemap were visible to him as he rode on the Human’s shoulder, knowing that she couldn’t move very fast and that if something was heading their way they needed to see it coming well ahead of arrival, though at the moment there was nowhere to go, for they were in the middle of a sandy wash basin between two high ridgelines miles ahead and behind them.

  “Stop,” he told her, feeling the Human rock underneath his locked feet as she swayed to an awkward pause. “Open.”

  Her helmet cracked a bit, exposing her face but not the rest of her head. Danngi crawled over her helmet and reached a small container into her mouth where he dumped the small amount of water he’d pulled out of the atmosphere via his personal vaporator. It was one of the many survival items in his pack, but for a Human it amounted to barely a few drops of water.

  He poured it behind her lip then scurried back over to his normal riding spot on her shoulder, resetting the vaporator and letting it begin to collect more water molecules from the dry air. Jyra closed her helmet again, keeping her body moisture contained where it could be recycled into drinking water. She was getting much more from that than Ganngi’s additions, but her body used more water than it sweated out, so she needed additional supplies and few water droplets would help extend her range before she collapsed for good.

  Her body was screaming for food and ambrosia, but she had neither. Her pack had been destroyed when the Kat’vo shot her and the supplies the others had found had gone with them, for she wasn’t able to carry anything. She could barely move her own body as it was, and the Arc Commando was just holding on at this point, knowing that without rescue or resupply she was toast.

  But one thing she did know was the location of all the hidden caches on the planet…including the ultra secret ones that only Archons and Arc Commandos knew of. There was one of those 112 miles to the northeast of their current position and it was their best play, though she didn’t know if she could make it there or not.

  Fortunately that wasn’t going to be necessary, for they got a friendly ping on the battlemap. There was no source, just a rendezvous coordinate right underneath her feet.

  “Stop here,” Danngi said, not sure how much attention she was paying, or how groggy she was.

  The Human rocked to a stop again, then slowly spun around.

  “I can’t see anything either,” the Irondel said. “Nothing on the battlemap.”

  “Stealth…unit,” she said, her mouth dry and fumbling the words.

  Danngi looked around, trying to spot any distortion in the hot air, though it was hard with little shimmers all over the place from the heat displacement. A few moments later he felt a wave of wind hit him, then the underside of a skeet appeared in a weird techno hologram detailing where it was, though the actual hull was still invisible…but he could see the edge of it where there was a slight wrinkle in the horizon beyond.

  The Arc Commando didn’t say anything, nor were there any transmissions that Danngi received. She just reached up to the underside and held on…then kicked her legs up with a shout of pain loud enough for the Irondel to hear, but her feet stuck and she clung to the underside of the skeet, locked onto it the same way Danngi’s armor was locked onto her shoulder plates.

  A wave of disruption washed over him, then suddenly he could see the dark hull and nothing else. There was no light at all, even when he turned his head to look behind/down. Just blackness, which he guessed was the inside of the cloaking field. All light that hit it was absorbed and the energy transmitted to the far side where it was reproduced again, leaving nothing to actually hit the craft itself.

  He felt the acceleration, for the IDF did not extend beyond the craft to where they clung, but it wasn’t enough to peel them off. He’d thought it could be extended, but it would probably interfere with the cloaking shield and not getting shot down was more important than their comfort. Whoever the pilot was flew slow enough to not risk breaking their physical locks, and after a minute or so rotated over so they were on the top of the craft and gravity was helping keep them on rather
than trying to pull them off.

  After that they just waited for more than two hours, then they felt the deceleration that preceded the dropping of the cloaking field. The skeet was still upside down, but it rotated over and placed the pair of survivors less than a meter from the paved surface of a Star Force spaceport as the sounds of explosions rumbled in the distance.

  Danngi disconnected and dropped to the ground, running out of the way as Jyra followed, though she collapsed into a heap and did not move. The Irondel was about to call for a medic, but one was already nearby and moved to the Human as the skeet disappeared from view followed by a gust of wind that meant it had probably accelerated off to pick up more survivors.

  The medic rolled Jyra over and Ganngi heard her groan, but she didn’t fight the movement…then the medic tore off the expended healing patch and placed a regenerator into the open spot in her armor. He saw it melt down into her skin and stick there, then a little more than a minute later it pulled back out and fell to the ground with the medic catching it before it hit.

  “Food, now,” the medic said to Jyra as she stood up, her movements no longer hindered. “You can’t fully heal without the necessary parts. Eat up, because we don’t have an intact medical station left.”

  “What’s our status?” she asked, not arguing but not moving off either.

  “Pulling out as soon as we can. Most of the Ziviri are working with the V’kit’no’sat. Only the baby rocks are safe. The large ones that appeared loyal were dismissed, because we can’t trust any of them. They’re out amongst the population doing whatever.”

  “Won’t they be killed?” she asked.

  “We’re going to pick them up if we have room, but we can’t risk another backstab. Several of the ‘safe’ ones were just waiting for an opportunity to hurt us. If there are loyal ones left, they said they understood. If we come back to pick them up, I doubt the traitors will show.”

  “Where’s our evac ships?”

  “The Kvash are working on it. I don’t know more than that.”

  “Thanks,” Jyra said, walking off slowly as Danngi let her go. He didn’t need to stay with her anymore. What he did need was a mech, so he ran off across the huge landing pad and got to one of the little building outcroppings and went inside. From there he made his way to the nearest mechbay, finding it empty save for a pair of damaged madcats.

  “Tech,” Ganngi said, amplifying his voice via his suit to get the Kiritas’s attention. “Are those mechs claimed?”

  “Salvage flown it. The mechwarriors either escaped or were captured. They were not found with their war machines.”

  “I’m claiming one. Convert it to Irondel cockpit if you have the spare parts.”

  “You are a mechwarrior?”

  “What gave it away?” he asked sarcastically, given that he was still in mechwarrior survival armor.

  “Good,” the tech said. “We need the extra room. We don’t have enough madcat parts to fit, but with a smaller cockpit we can get a thor power generator in there.

  “Whatever, just get me back into the fight.”

  “Two hours, at most.”

  “Done,” Ganngi said, running off knowing he needed to get cleaned up, a short nap, and some food. After that he was going back out there and doing some damage. If he was going to die on this pathetic planet, it was going to be in a mech. Not getting stepped on by a Zen’zat…”

  “Hey,” a Protovic from Clan Saiyan said to Jyra as he came into the base cafeteria. She was the only person there and had a plate full of food and three canisters of water, one of which was already empty, as she chewed with a ferocity that was usually only seen in Archons.

  Mouth full, she responded with a telepathic ‘hi’ ping and kept eating as the Protovic walked up to and sat down opposite her, but he wasn’t here to eat.

  “Baerden is down. Probably dead, maybe captured. We have no Archons left. That leaves you in command.”

  “Sh….i….t,” she cursed through a full mouth.

  “We’ve got an hour before they hit the outer wall, at most, and some of their warships are sneaking closer. As soon as the shield generator goes down they’re going to pound us. I don’t see how we can evac.”

  Jyra swallowed, clearing her throat. “What about the other bases?”

  “Not much better shape, but they’ll hold longer than us.”

  “Can we evac any of them?”

  “We could if it was just the V’kit’no’sat, but the Ziviri are assaulting two of them all on their own, plus some Kat’vo air cover, but it’s pretty thin. The Ziviri are throwing bodies at the defenses and we’re mowing them down, but more keep coming. They’re either stupid or incensed, and they’re handing the planet to the Viks.”

  Jyra slammed her fist down on the table so hard that thump made her two water canisters bounce slightly and knocked over the third. When her hand came up there was even a shallow depression in the synthetic tabletop.

  “We have to scrounge what we can. Set up a kill zone. They have to get the shield generator or we’ll take down at least one of their warships. We need to bait them in and unload on them. If they don’t take it we can hold.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “We can handle the Ziviri if the Viks go away. They have limited numbers and they’re trying to preserve them. They’re not going to get bold unless they think they can take the shield generator down. If they do that, it’s game over.”

  “Mines?”

  “We don’t have time to place anything. We’ll have to launch them.”

  “Alright. I’ll see what we can rig up. Where do you want to set this trap?”

  Jyra flipped her chin in his direction as she bit another roll and devoured half of it within four seconds.

  The Protovic produced a holographic map of the base from the bracelet he wore on his left wrist. The Arc Commando pointed to a spot between the shield generator that covered a diameter of over 600 miles and the outer defense wall that outlined the base.

  “Done.”

  “And pull in as many assets as you can from the other bases.”

  “We can’t get them all.”

  “Get what we can.”

  “That means they’ll fall even quicker.”

  “If they fall and all die, we gain nothing. The shield must hold. Smuggle out what you can.”

  “I hate fighting like this,” the Protovic said in disgust.

  “So do I, but this is the situation we’re in. We fight sloppy or we surrender. And I’m not trusting my life to the V’kit’no’sat or the Ziviri.”

  “Agreed. What about our warships?”

  “They can’t do much without getting their asses blasted out of space. If they see an opening they’ll take it. Other than that, there’s nothing for me to tell them to do that they don’t already know about.”

  “Are we in an Alamo scenario?”

  “I would like to say no, but we’re getting closer to it. So long as the V’kit’no’sat don’t get reinforcements we have a chance if we can whittle them down. Defender advantage.”

  “Not sure how much we can stretch it, but we’ll do what we can.”

  “I’ll be there shortly. I gotta eat then hit the regenerator again to fix my back.”

  “I won’t delay you then. Gobble fast,” the Protovic said, getting up.

  Jyra picked up one of the water containers and gestured with it to him as she continued to chew food and then washed it down with another couple gulps, then she went to work on a plate of noodles using her telekinesis to rapid fire them into her mouth. Anything within her body the regenerator could use for raw materials, so all she had to do was get it inside her. Didn’t matter if her stomach was so full it looked like she was pregnant, for it would even out magically within a few minutes.

  It wasn’t the preferred way to do it, but without a mass of biomatter for a medical station to use, this was the best way to cheat to the system…and she needed to be back as close to full strength as she could get i
f this really was going to be their last stand.

  3

  May 6, 4907

  Knillo System (Ziviri Region)

  Baskerno

  Jyra ran across the base, dodging back and forth between buildings and bits of debris as the Zen’zat army pushed towards the foot of the shield generator. Star Force had delayed them as long as they could, but they were now inside the perimeter and peppering the secondary shield covering the generator itself with firepower…but not enough to get through. She still had 18 mechs in the field, some barely limping around, leaving the rest of this fight to the infantry. Fortunately they were only fighting against Zen’zat and not something bigger, like Oso’lon. If they had been, they’d have lost the base long ago.

  But they were still losing it, and it was the last position on the planet that was holding. What few survivors there were from the other bases had been evacuated here or into one Kvash ship that had dared to make a run to ground. Apparently the Kat’vo hadn’t expected the run underneath the planetary shields and they’d pounded the crap out of the Zen’zat army attacking the base, but they’d taken damage and were currently still hovering under the shield further to the northwest.

  Jyra wanted to bring the ship over here, but it wasn’t a true warship. It was a jumpship with some weaponry on it, but it was meant as a drone carrier and all its drones were now gone, sacrificed to get it to ground. If it made a run for space now it would probably not make it with the atmospheric limitations, but it had at least been able to transport the survivors from the other bases here, taking pot shots the entire time.

  As it was, it had to stand off before it got nibbled to death and the Kat’vo had to decide whether to pursue it across ground or ignore it and focus their full attention on the one remaining base. They’d chosen the latter, and right now the Kvash warship was recharging its shields and making what repairs it could, though most of its weaponry had been plucked from it already by well-aimed V’kit’no’sat attacks.