Star Force: Evacuation (SF50) Read online

  Wen’sta’lon had learned quickly, but he still was being given small assignments…for which he was grateful. He’d much rather be out here fighting real enemies than stuck in training simulations and games, especially since this time it was personal. The lizards had invaded the ADZ and they had to push them out else risk their own worlds. Yes, he definitely wanted to be out here, even if all he was going to do was swat a few infantry to cover for the others.

  The long trip down in the dragon was tedious, but when the bay doors finally opened he and one other wildcat exited first, walking then running out onto the mix of burnt sand and building that had been scattered by the rail gun impacts. The mech’s paws sunk in deep, but he was still able to move about easily enough, running forward at a lope and pulling a quick circle around the drop zone as more of the Axius dropships came down.

  He spotted one lizard amongst the rubble and ran after it, seeing it scurry behind a piece of shrapnel the size of a Calavari and disappear. Wen’sta’lon popped out his mauler cannon from under the ‘chin’ of the mech and fired at it, melting the piece of building and vaporizing the lizard at the same time. His first target eliminated, the Axius Scionate returned to his patrol loop.

  More and more dropships came down, unloaded, and took off again returning to the jumpships in orbit ferrying the troops here. Once sufficient infantry were assembled Wen’sta’lon was ordered to scout out ahead which he took to with eager lethality, hopping over various bits of debris in a way that only a quadruped mech could and getting a good head start on the mix of various races that made up the commando units. They were all armored up, but he didn’t want any of them getting killed so he kept close attention on the area he was scouting out, intent on killing any and all of the little green heads that showed themselves.

  The next thing he knew his shields were taking plasma hits from the starboard side, with him turning his mech in that direction with a shuffle of the huge mechanical legs and finding a pair of lizard tanks hidden under an overhang of rubble. One was a shade, the other a copper, and both were pouring plasma into his shields…though most of the damage was coming from the shade.

  Wen’sta’lon decided to target it first, running towards it and firing his mauler twice, missing low with the first shot and melting the sand in front of the lizard anti-armor tank into a puddle of glass that shot up like a geyser, obscuring his view. The next one went right through that cloud and nailed the shade, killing it with the single well-placed hit…though in truth it had been more luck than skill.

  The copper began backing under the overhang and exiting out the far side, causing Wen’sta’lon to accelerate up into a full run to chase after it…then his footing suddenly went out from under him as the sand fell away and he dropped down into a chasm.

  There was a loud ‘thunk’ outside the mech, but with the IDF he didn’t feel the impact as he hit the rubble strewn ground of a cargo bay. His wildcat was laying on its side, but within the cockpit the Scionate looked around, seeing on the hologram that he’d fallen through a hole in the ceiling that had what looked like now torn paper glued to it.

  “Tricky bastards,” he growled as he worked the mechanical legs around in order to get to his feet as a missile impacted the head of his mech, followed quickly by more missiles and a hoard of plasma from the ambushing troops around him in the hollow.

  Even before he fully stood the wildcat up he started shooting the infantry around him with his secondary weapons, popping them up from behind armored plates around the mech’s hull and shooting with computer support using buttons on the claw pads and teeth bar. The blue plasma he fired back clashed with the deep red his mech was painted, making for a terrifying sight as the enemy infantry melted under the counter attack…then larger plasma blasts began to hit the wildcat from repositioning lizard tanks, with Wen’sta’lon realizing he was in a tricky situation.

  His mech would hold up to plasma fire for a good while, but the rubble he was trying to stand on was causing him to trip and stumble, essentially holding him still in the bay and giving the enemy a stationary target to shoot at. He belatedly realized he was standing in the crater of an impacted rail gun slug that had collected the debris from the roof, meaning he was essentially standing on rough pebbles that kept moving underneath his mech’s feet.

  By the time he’d eventually gotten some balance his shields went down, but he was unable to turn around and fire his mauler at the tanks behind him. He was hitting them with the aft plasma cannons but not doing enough damage, for there were more than a dozen tanks down here and there were more coming in from other subsurface chambers.

  “So much for fighting on the surface,” he said, crouching low before jumping off the rubble with a bit of help from his limited jump jets. He didn’t clear the edge of the crater, but did get his front two paws on the unbroken ground around it and pulled himself clear as his armor began melting off.

  Before any of the enemy weaponsfire could penetrate clean through he bathed the floor ahead of him with plasma fire, burning away a few dozen infantry and seeing a secondary explosion from a missile launcher that knocked over a few more. When he turned his mech around to face the majority of the tanks he got a warning on his battlemap, prompting him to run around the large crater, still taking shots and losing armor, enroute to the closest tank and pummeling it with mauler energy.

  He worked his way up the line, still getting swarmed with infantry blasts and a few missiles as the other wildcat came down through the hole above, landing with a crunch on its own jump jets and getting tripped up as well, but not fully falling over on the bad footing. It eventually got clear on the far side and the pair of mechs worked together to chew into the tanks with Wen’sta’lon taking heavy damage.

  As they did so tiny little mechs poured in through the hole, floating down on their jump packs and hopping off the debris in secondary jumps to get to the edges whereupon they ran forward and the Axius Irondel began engaging the infantry directly, both with the chicken walkers and a few quadruped neite minimechs. Following them down came a few biped armored infantry with a handful of Humans and 7 other races of similar biology all wearing what appeared to be commando armor, yet it also was colored the deep red that Axius was known for.

  Those infantry spread out and worked in conjunction with the minimechs, which stood about the same height as them in most cases, and tore through the unarmored lizard infantry, most of which didn’t even have protective vests on, just plasma rifles and a fiery determination. It didn’t take them long to thin them out, then they were faced with too many corridors to follow the retreating enemy through and wisely held themselves back to secure the underground bay while more reinforcements came down.

  “You certainly bit the wrong tail this time,” Ha’mon’sta commented over the comm to his fellow Scionate.

  “Shut up,” Wen’sta’lon bit back. “It was a trap.”

  “That you fell into.”

  “You would have as well.”

  “Maybe,” the older Scionate said, happy to see the ‘prodigy’ having some setbacks, “but right now your armor is torn up and your shields are weak. Restrain your combat accordingly. I will take the lead.”

  Wen’sta’lon growled but didn’t offer any other disagreement, knowing he was right. He watched as the other wildcat walked out through one of the large doors ahead of a column of infantry enroute to hunting more lizards, probably of whom would have more tanks that needed to be eliminated.

  Wen’sta’lon cursed himself for being so sloppy, as well as the blasted shields for taking so long to get back to full strength. Once they did he assigned himself to another infantry group heading out and worked his way to the lead, comming the troops to get out of his way so he wouldn’t step on them, then it was back into prowl mode…with the armor damage now concealed underneath his shields an ever present warning in his mind not to get too careless. He didn’t want to lose his mech, else he’d be sitting out this assault and who knew how many future ones until he got a rep
lacement.

  Riona walked into the command center in the TF, just having gotten out of the shower after a forced four hours of sleep. She hadn’t wanted to take a break, but given that this assault wasn’t going to be over in a day’s time she knew she had to keep herself fresh and reluctantly had sent herself to bed after making sure both assault groups had gotten off to a good start.

  The Archon was about to head back out again in her skeet but needed to get a good overview of events across the planet before she did, and while it was possible to do so from the cockpit the layout of the command center made it much easier and quicker to get up to speed, hence the drop-in on the way to the hangar.

  “Talk to me,” she said, walking inside and getting the attention of the current staff, which were also having to rotate out to keep fresh.

  “Axius has successfully landed and begun assaults on six sites,” a ranger by the name of Yensic began. “Mild resistance on the surface, but it’s getting nasty underneath. No fatalities yet, but they’re losing a fair amount of equipment.”

  “Warn them to be patient.”

  “I already have. They’re not proceeding recklessly, our old friends are just being their usual selves.”

  “Why do I ever expect less?” Riona asked rhetorically. “Where are the Scionate?”

  “They landed an hour before Axius. 13 current assault zones with another two due to come into play inside the next six hours. I’ve been having discussions with their commander concerning tactics, for they are losing troops, though they’re still winning at the moment.”

  “Do any good?”

  “Probably not, but I felt like trying.”

  “Some people have to learn the hard way. Where do we stand?”

  “Choppy, but we’re starting to break through. The lizards have detonated a number of explosives to seal off access shafts to the lower levels of the city. A report less than 20 minutes old indicates that they may have some seriously deep infrastructure.”

  Riona nodded. “Signal the troops for upper level sweeps and to avoid going deep just yet. My spidey senses are tingling, so let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first before we bite off more than we’ve realized.”

  “You think there’s a lot of them down there?”

  “I think we’re only hitting the tip of the iceberg. When we go deep I’ll lead the way, but for now I’m sticking with the air. Lots of targets to hit up top. Where do we stand with the enemy cruisers?”

  “They’re still hiding out there somewhere. Scouts located one concealed surface bay, but there may be a lot more out there that we don’t know about.”

  “Meaning they plan to jump us?”

  “I wouldn’t bet any credits to the contrary.”

  Riona shook her head in dismay. “They didn’t come here to build, they came here to fight and have been setting traps for us from day 1, but building surface blinds to hide warships is an altogether new trick. I’m surprised we haven’t thought of that.”

  “Nice how the lizards keep teaching us new things,” Yensic commented dryly.

  “Sensor stealthed, I assume?”

  “More than that, there isn’t just a blind, but tunnels connecting the entrances to, we suspect, a main hangar underground. Infiltration team hasn’t got that far, still just chewing up the blind we control.”

  “Chewing?”

  “We blew up the cruiser inside, now we have to fish the pieces back out.”

  Riona rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

  “I suggest you start here,” the ranger said, pointing to a third city on the map that was about to see mechs and tanks meet up about a kilometer outside of the perimeter defenses. “They’ve been gathering up fighters from other locations while you slept. I think they intend to hold this one.”

  “Like hell they will,” she said, already having chosen that group to fight with the moment she walked in and saw their position on the holo map. “Anything new from the Hycre?”

  Yensic adjusted the smaller map alongside the main display, bringing up an orbital diagram.

  “Kills made in the following locations,” he said as the computer threw up a few new icons. “Most of their fleet is in the system hunting down the other cruisers that didn’t go to ground.”

  “Any help with the surface targets yet?”

  “Actually, they’re the one that killed the cruiser in the blind.”

  “So they are engaging ground targets?” Riona asked for clarity.

  “A few targets that they choose, but they don’t have many ships down here for some reason.”

  “Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  “You want me to ask?”

  “Yes. Phone in the results,” she said, having seen enough and heading back out and over to the hangar. Within minutes she was back into the sky and heading towards the mechs now engaging the lizard tanks underneath a swarm of wisps that were dying quickly but adding enough plasma damage to be troublesome. One drone corvette was also there, adding its weaponry to the battle, but there were literally thousands of wisps in play overhead of hundreds of tanks with more coming out onto the sands by the minute.

  Numbers…always a numbers game with the lizards, and they usually played it well, but in this case the Alliance should have the advantage, so long as they didn’t waste it. The lizards were going to hit them hard and try to bleed them of troops, not enough to stop their assaults but to delay them long enough for help to arrive. That meant Riona and her assault force had a lot of work to do and not so long to do it.

  A month, maybe more before they saw fresh enemies coming into play. By then she had to have the major strongholds eliminated or this could turn very ugly. The ADZ was going to take this world no matter how tough it was, because leaving it in play would create an advantage for the enemy that would cost them more later, so it had to go. Her job was to hit it fast and efficient in order to avoid that eventuality.

  The lizards weren’t going to oblige her, as was their nature. They’d fight to the last individual and try to take as many of the attackers with them as possible, meaning suicide attempts and as much other mayhem as they could muster. She was probably going to lose troops to some of it, and she hated that, but the more fights like this the Alliance made the more wary they were of the lizards’ tricks, which was why Star Force was hitting the big targets, hopefully sparing Axius and the Scionate mass casualties.

  She trusted her troops, but Axius was still fairly green and the Scionate were like the Hycre…allies, but out of her control. Riona had command of the entire surface campaign, but she didn’t have the ability to micromanage them like she could with her own troops and even Axius, via the battlemap and her authority as an Archon.

  Which was why she thought of the Scionate as ‘help’ rather than her own, focusing on what she could control and doing her best to outthink the enemy…a long ongoing challenge that Archons had been facing for centuries, with plenty of successes and failures on both sides.

  3

  May 16, 2536

  Gwet System (Delta Region)

  Leonis

  Riona’s skeet took a hit, and not a small one. Somehow one of the two lizard cruisers engaging a Star Force corvette a kilometer over the surface of yet another enemy base that they were in the process of invading had hit her with a primary cannon blast and tore off the right side engine pod. The Archon drifted through the fire zone on the other two, eventually righting her ship enough to fly in a straight line but was pounced on by the remainder of the wisps in the battle.

  They hammered her hull until they knocked out the left side pod, which left her skeet hanging nose to the ground on the last one and losing altitude. She tried to fly on just the one out of the battle but didn’t make it another 10 seconds before her tail was blown off by a missile launched from the infantry on the surface. Their new favorite weapon left her central hull fully clipped and tumbling to the ground where she crashed into one of the outlying lizard buildings.

  She didn’t feel t
he impact, for thankfully the IDF was still functioning, but did get a jarring vibration through some of the connective beams letting her hear just how hard the hit was. She activated her Pefbar and got a look at what was around outside, realizing that her skeet had landed upside down and the cockpit was pinned to the ground in the rubble.

  “Wonderful,” she said, triggering the release and hearing a small click as it failed to move. Riona twisted around in the cockpit and got her feet above her, quite a trick given the small confines, then pushed hard wedging her back against the pommel seat.

  She got a couple of inches of separation, wedging her left toes into the crack to hold it as she mentally turned on her striker armor’s powered setting, giving her a strength boost that allowed her to widen the crack further. As she got it a foot or so open she felt the gravity difference in her foot so she held form a moment and telekinetically reached out to turn off the artificial gravity…with her head feeling like it flipped over so that she was now standing upright rather than laying on her back.

  Riona walked her feet further into the gap then let the skeet fall back down on her ankles as she slipped off the pommel and crouched down a few inches below it, getting a handhold on the rim of the fighter and lifting as hard as she could. It didn’t move easily, but she did get it up off the ground about a meter before she pulled a tricky one handed support that let her drop down underneath it and get a shoulder on the rim. She almost missed, but got herself wedged in with her muscles straining despite the power enhancement when her head started to swirl with instability.