Star Force: Origin (SF24) Page 2

  2

  Mark came in on the spider walker from behind in a lazy dive bomb and released the second of his Gnar bombs, rocketing up into the sky immediately upon release, though he still felt the concussion wave hit the hull and rock him around a bit. When he eventually got turned around so he could see the result of the blast another of the Nestafar walkers was partially broken apart and now sprawled on yet another one of the paths through the debris field, blocking access to the hangar doors.

  Several other walkers were damaged and knocked down, along with the scattered remains of multiple protomechs and a slew of infantry that had been in the blast wave. Never the less, three walkers were still battering the already breached hangar doors, methodically tearing away at the trash heap that was holding them back. That said, the flow of reinforcements coming into that location was beginning to grow thinner…though the bottleneck of walkers being backed up behind the blockades the skeets were strategically laying down was growing very deep, so much so that the fighters had to avoid flying over that area directly for fear of getting hit by a mass of random weapons fire coming up into the sky.

  “Nice placement,” Kara commented.

  “Wish we had a few dozen more of those,” Mark responded as he ducked down toward the starship remains and fired a few orbs into the side of one of the spiders near the doors, expanding upon a topside hole that the fighters had been pecking into it.

  “If we slow them down enough we can whittle them to death,” Boen added, sensing Mark’s mood.

  “I don’t think we can keep them off the base long enough to try,” he said reluctantly as the other Archon found his wing and dropped in cattycorner to his right.

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “I’m working on it, but if you want to steal my thunder and break out a brilliant strategy to save the day…be my guest.”

  “Target the debris,” Boen replied pithily as the pair shot past an approaching giraffe and nailed it in the left flank that did little more than mark it as a target with a few dimples in its armor.

  “With what?”

  “Dropship with tow cables.”

  “They’d be sitting ducks,” Mark reminded him.

  “We have to block the inroads and we’re running out of time. Unless you’ve found some more explosives to use, what else do we have to work with?”

  Just then he got a proximity warning, highlighting the area around the mega walker, indicating that it had just become a no fly zone.

  “Who tagged that?” Mark asked over the comm, too busy flying and shooting to search out the ID tag in the battlemap database.

  “Wasn’t me,” Boen asked, his voice clearly confused.

  “Nor me,” Kara answered.

  “Canderous,” Sandra said, having taken a moment to swing up over the base clear of incoming fire so she could look it up.

  Just then a target appeared high in the sky, streaking down towards the planet and smashing into the line of walkers just ahead of the super dragon. The oversized missile detonated on impact and knocked several of the medium and heavy walkers aside while gouging out a larger crater. It was followed by another, and another, and another…all the way up to six missiles before the dust began to settle and the carnage exacted on the ‘ant train’ started to show through.

  Mark pulled off his current attack run and got some altitude so he could see the damage, as well as comming the seda. “What was that?”

  “A few basilisks filled with improvised explosives,” Orion answered immediately. “Thought you could use the assistance.”

  “Tell me they were unmanned,” Mark demanded angrily.

  “They were unmanned,” the Legat confirmed. “Coordinate locked and released.”

  “If you were aiming for the big one you missed.”

  “Unfortunately yes. Did we get any of the smaller ones?”

  “You got a lot of the less big ones…I’d hesitate to call them small. You got any other tricks up your sleeve, because we’re running short down here?”

  “That was our last tactical option, short of violating your standing orders.”

  “Stick to protocol no matter what,” Mark told him firmly. “Death before dishonor.”

  “Death before dishonor,” Orion repeated. “If it helps, it appears that they’ve begun recovering dropships. The last few enroute are probably going to give you the tally of the ground forces you have to overcome.”

  “Copy that,” Mark said, slightly relieved. He’d felt like the flow of Nestafar reinforcements would never stop…and like the Legat had said, he now had a semi-firm number to work with.

  “Boen, Kara. Looks like we’re going to have to rack up a high kill count.”

  “Will do, boss,” Boen acknowledged.

  “I’m up for the challenge,” Kara agreed.

  “Three groups,” Mark ordered. “You each take one and we hit one walker at a time, starting with those near the doors. Opposite strafing runs, target topside.”

  “That’s more like it,” Boen said, breaking off Mark’s wing and flying off to rally the other skeets to him.

  “We work our way back up the flow and let them crawl over their dead.”

  “And the super dragon?” Kara asked.

  “We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it. Right now focus on keeping them off the doors.”

  “On it,” she said, dipping down with another two skeets behind her and releasing a plasma streamer into the top side of a spider. Small bits of plasma shot back up at her fighter but they missed badly, then the other two came through adding their blue lances and damaging approximately the same spot, melting off armor but not penetrating all the way through.

  “We’ll make as many refueling runs as needed, just unload on them,” Mark said, using his control board to call more than a dozen fighters to his wing. Kara and Boen were doing the same, forming up for a more focused attack run that would have them coming in from approximately opposite sides. He let them go first, holding his group back and circling around to a northern approach as he watched on the sensors as they moved in.

  It took both groups, with each fighter unloading a streamer onto the top side, but they managed to break through the top of the spider’s armor, leaving it open for Mark’s group. Given the angle they were coming down the mountain and the small hollow the doors sat in, his skeets had to drift out over the target to fire, but the trailblazer brought them down three wide and directly overhead where they fired down onto the top of the spider.

  The walker collapsed directly in front of the doors, its innards junk, while one of the skeets took a hit and went spiraling off towards the debris field…then it rocketed high up into the sky as the pilot amped up his anti-grav in a last ditch survival tactic. He was totally out of control, but the skeet wasn’t going to crash. Mark knew he’d be able to limp off, but that was one less fighter they now had to throw at the enemy.

  Angry, Mark abandoned his group and dropped his skeet straight down to the deck and pancaked out a few meters above the ground, bracketed by debris on either side with a straight targeting line to the underside of the second closest walker to the hangar doors. He fired off another plasma streamer directly into the underside cannon, slagging it then rocketing back up much as the other skeet had before the walkers and protomechs in the area could concentrate their fire on him.

  “Nice hit,” Kara commented. “Don’t do that again. They’ll be ready for it.”

  “Less to pound on the doors with,” Mark said, though he was in agreement. He got his skeet under control and rendezvoused with his attack group while the other two were already making a run against the next spider in line, ignoring the giraffe that was in between. He also targeted the spider, placing an attack waypoint on top for his group to focus on, then he sped them in at almost reckless speed, crossing over the target half a second after the last of Kara’s group.

  He released a dual plasma orb attack, nailing the top of the target while those behind him mixed it up, either fir
ing their plasma streamers in a phaser-like beam that crossed over the walker or pummeled it with additional orbs. Mark flipped around quickly and went back in underneath the rest of his approaching group that had got strung out and hit the mech while its weapons were focused the other way, pouring a streamer in on a slow attack dive and crumpling the walker to the ground.

  This time, however, the walker exploded along the midsection, blowing out all six legs like harpoons, two of which speared nearby giraffes, knocking one down and puncturing the other just below the neck. That one didn’t get back up, though the other did, with the walkers’ attention now firmly on the fighters and not the hangar doors.

  Another small explosion in the debris pile flashed, followed by a wash of tiny pieces scattering out onto the hangar deck. Soon after one of the rolling spheres pushed its way through and was immediately hit by more than a dozen plasma orbs, melting it on contact and sending its broken form careening off towards the thors. One of them stepped aside, shooting it again as it slid past, then it retook its guardian position, waiting for the next one to come through.

  Instead it was a swath of infantry, most of whom were hit by the plasma, which had thoroughly chewed up the floor around the entry point. Those few that survived flew off high and tried to escape into the cavernous ceiling. Several of them were downed by Archon snipers with lachar rifles, but a few managed to get free.

  Those were tracked down by another team of Archons circling overhead in a falcon dropship, which flew nearby with gunners in its open doors, either shooting the enemy out of the sky or pursuing them to the ground wherever they chose to land and dealing with them there, thought the Protovic were handing most of the infantry resistance on the ground, scurrying about all over the hangar deck, insistent on making sure not one of the treasonous Nestafar made it to any of the base entry points.

  The rest of the Alliance personnel in the hangar were waiting around the bay doors, ready to back up the mechs if/when the enemy walkers broke through. So far nothing larger than the protomechs had gotten in, but the debris pile was getting thinner and thinner and soon the highest holes would be open, which would let in an unending stream of infantry that would be much harder to target.

  Then the incursions abruptly stopped. The explosions on the exterior of the debris pile cut out, the protomechs squeezing through ceased, and the infantry sneaking their way in disappeared. The Canderians dutifully stayed at their posts, weapons trained on the holes for nearly two hours before the skeets came back in, half as many as there were that had gone out.

  The Canderians received new orders from the Archons, indicating that two mechs go on guard duty and the others begin cycling through rest cycles. As those that were recalled walked back over to the Star Force column they saw several dropships lift off and depart out of the northern hangar doors, to where they weren’t told. The mechwarriors were simply instructed to get back to the Star Force complex and get some food and sleep, for they didn’t know when the assault would begin again.

  Vikar climbed out of his thor and down to the deck as an additional pair of skeets came back, both battle scarred in numerous places, almost so much so that he didn’t know how the aircraft were still flying. They set down on the hangar deck close to the entry airlock and their cockpits opened just as the Canderian was passing by. Both pilots, Archons judging by their armor, looked exhausted and neither one bothered to put on a breath mask or their helmets as they walked over to the column.

  Vikar waited until the air had recycled inside before he asked them to speak, but he was very curious as to what was going on.

  “Is the enemy defeated or have they withdrawn?”

  “Withdrawn,” Kara told him, her voice dark and angry. “But not far. They’re holding position just outside the debris field.”

  Vikar frowned. “Why did they stop?”

  Boen kicked the control terminal in the airlock out of frustration just before the inner doors opened. “Because we killed almost every walker they sent up to the base and now they’re rethinking their game plan.”

  “You don’t sound pleased,” the Canderian said respectfully as the Archons bumped elbows and began to walk out side by side with Vikar trailing.

  “We lost Mark,” Kara said, half glancing over her shoulder.

  “The trailblazer?”

  “No, the other Mark,” Boen growled sarcastically until Kara put a warning hand on his shoulder. His demeanor softened, but the pain he was feeling still lingered on his features. “He went down on the wrong side of the wreckage, right where the Nestafar have camped out. We can’t get to him, and two more of us got shot down trying.”

  “Ground op recovery then?”

  “It’d be suicide,” Kara said, frustration coloring her voice. “If he even survived the crash.”

  “I know he did,” Boen said forcefully. “It’s afterward that concerns me.”

  “If he’s alive we cannot leave him there,” the Canderian said, a bit more forcefully.

  “If he survived,” Kara said before Boen could snap, “then he was most likely killed shortly thereafter. I’d give Mark the benefit of the doubt regardless, but with so many walkers and protomechs around he wouldn’t stand much of a chance.”

  Vikar thought that over as he followed the Archons further into the base that he’d never set foot in before. “Where are we to report to?”

  Kara stopped walking and turned around, glancing over him once. “Next hallway, turn right. Staircase on your left. Three floors up. You’ll find food and supplies there, and there are plenty of empty quarters on the upper levels.”

  “Thank you,” Vikar said, respectfully breaking off from the group and leading the handful of other mechwarriors that had been trailing behind him at a distance.

  “Are you coming with me or not?” Boen whispered as the Archons walked off another direction.

  “To do what?”

  “Confirmation at the minimum.”

  “It’s not worth the risk. You know he’d say that.”

  “At this point I’m starting not to care.”

  Kara swung so fast Boen barely saw the elbow coming. He reacted instinctively, shrugging his right shoulder up and ducking his head to deflect the blow but it was too late. Her elbow nailed him in the head and spun him around as he fell to the ground.

  “Snap out of it!” she yelled down at him. “He’s not the only one missing out there.”

  Boen shook the stars from his vision, but the pain was useful in clearing head. He focused on it and bled away his panic, then looked up at Kara’s bleary eyes that were barely holding back tears. His armor scraped on the floor as he repositioned himself and slid up onto his feet, standing up in front of her and staring directly into her face.

  “If it was Greg, or Jason, or Sara, or one of the other trailblazers out there Mark would go,” he said softly, containing the anger within. “And I’m going for him. I won’t get myself killed recklessly, but I have to try and at least get eyes on his crash site.”

  Kara bit into her lower lip, trying to keep her voice and nerve steady. “Then you’d better knock me out first, because I won’t let you.”

  Boen stared into her eyes, moving a few inches closer, daring her to do so…then his expression softened and he stepped up on the tips of his toes and kissed her on the forehead before nudging past her on the way to the armory.

  Kara didn’t move for nearly 30 seconds, simply standing in place as she knew what he was doing was right…but that it would probably also get him killed. Finally the tears broke through and began streaming down her face, which she just let run, bleeding off the emotional overload and recalming her mind, then she walked off to the control room, knowing that without Mark someone else had to take command and find a way to keep the rest of them alive.

  3

  Boen slipped out of the gap in the southern doors just before the dropships inside the hangar began to reposition and add to the stack, shoring up the makeshift barrier with extra material gathered f
rom around the base, including some large panels that the Calavari were welding into place over the uppermost holes. They knew they wouldn’t stand up to even a single plasma blast from one of the Nestafar walkers, but they would slow down the infantry when they came back.

  Boen knew he wouldn’t be able to get back inside that way again, but it didn’t matter. He had to get out to where Mark had gone down. Fortunately his acolyte armor blended in well with the pieces of walkers laying around, but he was unsure of how well he could hide against the Nestafar sensors and the eyes of their infantry. His armor would reduce his infrared signature to almost nothing, but he still wasn’t very hopeful. Jogging off through one of the mini-canyons in the debris field he began watching and listening intently to pick up any sign of the enemy, hopefully before they spotted him.

  They shouldn’t have been anywhere near the doors if they were holding position, but there was no guarantee how long they were going to stay put. Boen also wondered how many of the walkers’ crews were still alive and meandering about. They’d had enough time to find their way out of the graveyard he was picking his way through now, but he had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t alone as he stooped down and slid underneath a giant spider’s leg and onto the charred ground on the other side.

  Ash was everywhere from the nuke and starship impact. The grass was completely gone, vaporized in one or the other, and giant furrows had been dug out from the various pieces of cargo ship debris, making for a series of mini mountains for Boen to huff his way across…all of which were loaded down with debris. The pathways that had existed through the field were now cluttered with dead walkers, so much so that even an individual Human had trouble finding a way through without having to climb up and over each dead piece of military machinery, and as the hours stretched on Boen was beginning to envy the Nestafar’s ability to fly, which gave their infantry a huge advantage in this type of terrain.