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  Thanks to that relationship being established, shelters had been dug underneath the Ninkari cities, giving at least some of them a safe zone to run to when/if the lizards came back. Reggie appreciated that, for the less of them out in the open the better. Thankfully the lizards wanted to take them alive, or they could just have blasted away at their huts from the air rather than landing collectors on the ground and going after them with tranquilizers and nets.

  On foot Reggie knew it’d take them 11 minutes to get to the edge of the village, given the number of times they’d practiced making the overland trek, but finding exactly where the lizards were going to set down would be a matter of luck, though he knew they preferred wide open landing zones and this city was nestled up into the thick forest, leaving only a handful of spots he hoped they’d go to…otherwise they might get to the Ninkies before Canderous did.

  The Canderians had debated linking an underground tunnel with the village and using it to quickly get there when needed, but they wanted their base to not be connected in a way that the lizards might find it, else they could draw a military response that would further endanger the locals. They had to be ghosts in this, and to do that they had to keep out of the village until needed, come in, hit, and disappear before anyone could check up on what was going on.

  Inside his helmet’s HUD, which was projected via hologram just inside the shield that covered his face, Reggie got updated tracking data from the passive sensor stations set all across Endor’s surface. They weren’t as good as active stations that sent out a sensor beam, but they still provided them a heads up via the disturbance in the atmospheric reentry as well as visual spotting. Other than that the lizard tech was hard to pick up on sensors anyway, given their signal absorbing armor plating.

  Reggie saw that there were dozens of signals heading towards their village, all of which he assumed were kirbies. Elsewhere there were other contacts, visible on his battlemap when he zoomed out, heading for other settlements, meaning there were hundreds coming down from orbit to this region of the planet…and who knew how many more elsewhere, making this the largest harvesting attempt to date, giving his Evocaton more targets to deal with than he’d expected.

  But this is what they’d trained for and he was eager to take it to the lizards, so as his six Triarill came over the crest of the low ridge and the mass of wood huts came into view, obscured by some tall tree clumps but otherwise out in the open and vulnerable to attack, the Canderian accelerated his pace on the downhill as he issued deployment orders, tagging various locations within the village on his battlemap via waypoints.

  The six Triarill that made up his Evocaton split, with one staying with him and heading for the largest open area available, which was just this side of the village center. The other Triarill, each comprised of 6 Munifex and one Triarii, diverged slightly as the line of soldiers broke apart as they listened for the sound of engines that they knew would be approaching soon.

  Reggie hit the edge of the village first with the outlying huts, some of which were multiple stories tall, already having been evacuated. It wasn’t until his command Triarill was a quarter mile inside the perimeter did he come across any of the short, bristly Ninkies, passing them by as they huddled up together inside one of the larger huts, with one poking its narrow head out the wood slat door. The open air windows were also visible with the Ninkies’ green eyes that seemed to glow from the reflected sunlight.

  As per Canderous’s previous instructions, the Ninkies were clearing the streets, which were little more than dirt paths winding in between various huts and trees, offering a varied battlefield with no linear geography. That favored close range combat, which the Canderians liked, but it also made it difficult to navigate to the hot spots and respond in a timely manner, giving the nature of the zigzaggy course one would have to run.

  When Reggie passed one of the taller huts he pointed a finger towards it and one of his men veered off, going inside and climbing up to the top to act as a spotter/sniper. Rather than camping out in the structure itself, the Munifex climbed out onto the roof and jumped to the tree branches a meter away, then crawled up further into the pine-like needles, obscuring himself near the trunk and picking out a good viewing spot of the clearing that Reggie was headed to with the others.

  They got there a couple of minutes before the first of the kirbies arrived, hearing their telltale hum of the lizards’ anti-grav engines. It wasn’t loud, but it did have a different pitch than Star Force tech, which was usually far more quiet. In truth the anti-grav propulsion was silent, but the cooling systems that kept the components from overloading and melting made the noise, and the larger the pull the more cooling was required.

  The lizards liked using sensor-stealthed ships, but they didn’t care about noise levels at close range, so when the kirbies came overhead the Canderians could feel the hum in their bones, even though none had yet set down. A few hand signals from Reggie and his Triarill split up, with him taking position behind a tree on the edge of the clearing that was made up of pounded dirt around a water well the Ninkies had dug. It was no longer functional, given that Star Force had taught them how to make better ones that were indoors, but they’d asked the Ninkari to leave it in place so as to draw the lizards in…which it now was.

  Three kirbies from the 10+ that flew overhead dropped down to make use of the exposed dirt, landing in a triangle around the well and hovering a meter off the ground as they opened their side hatches.

  Suddenly a rocket zipped across the clearing and into the side of the nearest kirby, detonating within and killing most of the lizard troops waiting to come out. That detonation triggered a hail of plasma lances from around the perimeter as all 7 Canderians shot every scaled head that came into view.

  Reggie nailed one in its protective vest, having hit low. That knocked it back into the hold, but it was shoved out again by those behind and it caught its balance upon landing, then scurried off to the side as a sniper shot from a lachar rifle nailed it in the head, coming down from a high angle. The Evocati held his position near the tree, lighting up the lizards pouring out with accurate plasma blasts as another two Canderians overlapped their fire with his own, mowing down all but six of the lizards that got free and scattered around behind or under the kirbies, giving them some cover.

  Without him even having to order it one of the other two nearby Canderians sprinted out to the kirby and hopped up into the hold, disappearing from sight as he headed for the cockpit, intent on taking out the pilots. Reggie stayed put and dropped to the ground, holding his plasma rifle a couple of inches above the dirt and firing underneath the kirby at the lizards’ legs behind it.

  He nailed three of the appendages, but one of the creepy crawlers took cover behind the well where he couldn’t target. Reggie scanned the area underneath the other two kirbies, finding another set of legs to shoot at, despite the further range…then one of the kirbies started climbing out of the clearing, attempting to run away while the other two were still on the ground.

  Two rockets leapt out from different locations, one of which splattered shrapnel against the kirby’s shields. The second one breached the energy barrier and scarred the hull, but didn’t do much damage. As the cargo bay door resealed more rockets came up from the pair, blasting into the side and causing the kirby to keel over, coming back down into the side of the clearing and nosing into a hut where it grounded itself.

  Another rocket followed, hitting the aft of the kirby and knocking out what anti-grav it had left, bringing the entire blocky ship crashing down to the dirt…whereupon one of the intact plasma cannons rotated around and started taking pot shots at the Canderians.

  That reprisal didn’t last long, for a hail of plasma lances targeted the now shieldless battery and slagged the weapon, followed by the others that were visible on the half buried ship, though none of them returned fire, having had either their power feeds or control lines severed from the rocket damage.

  The other two kirbies never fir
ed a shot, having been boarded almost immediately upon landing. With their pilots dead they floated in place while the Canderians hunted down the last of the lizards outside, then signaled the all clear to Reggie.

  “Open the door on the downed kirby,” he ordered, followed by another pair of rockets being launched into the side of the already damaged ship. After the smoke settled he could see a hole in the side, leading to the interior hold, which he hand signaled towards.

  Two of his Munifex ran forward and hopped inside, going after the lizard pilots. A few moments later he got a sitrep over his comm.

  “Lizards are down, one casualty. Ona took a couple hits to the chest on entry.”

  “Is she fighting capable?” Reggie asked.

  “Burns only,” the Canderian responded as the pair climbed back out the hole into the sunlight. As they did he could see the scorch marks on one of them, but as far as movement was concerned Ona didn’t seem too disabled.

  “Retake positions around the perimeter. These might not be the last heading our way,” Reggie ordered as he ducked back behind the tree and in front of a hut, giving him a partially concealed position from where he could check up on the other Triarill via his battlemap and comm. When he did he noticed something much larger on approach.

  “Everyone get under cover. We’ve got a cruiser nearby. Don’t let them see you.”

  8 klicks away from the village, which held over 100,000 of the small Ninkari, a small patch of dirt in between the thick evergreen trees was covered in a thin layer of grass and weeds, soaking up the sunlight as a lizard cruiser floated its way over the forest, watching the kirbies as they spread out to take their living plunder. When the first signs of resistance sprouted the cruiser altered course, heading towards the signs of trouble while deploying fighters.

  As it did that patch of grass suddenly took flight, ripping out from the ground around it as a concealed Canderian assault tower rose up above the treetops, powering up its weapons and defense shields as it targeted the enemy cruiser some 3 kilometers away, well within its firing range.

  A cleansing beam reached out across the relatively short gap and punched straight through the lizards’ shields, tearing into the hull and drawing an almost immediate response from the wisps in the air. The lizard fighters wheeled about and headed for the tower as the cruiser slowly did the same, returning plasma fire as it came about that impacted and exploded the trees surrounding the turret, with only small pieces of the green fire getting through to the shields, which rebuffed them easily.

  As the plasma continued to flow from the cruiser the forest around the tower was set afire, with the gap between the two targets clearing out and giving the lizards a better shot at the spindly Human construct. When the fighters got close they lit up the shields with tiny specs of green, all the while the anti-air defenses powered up and began firing rapid lachar blasts back at them from multiple cupolas.

  The wisps dropped from the air like flies as the cleansing beam continued to cut into the lizard cruiser, then the turret’s plasma cannons came online as a shield generator on the cruiser was hit and a portion of its hull was exposed. Two blue orbs shot out, blasting into the hull plates and making like shrapnel bombs while the lizards’ deluge of plasma blasts hadn’t yet penetrated the turret’s shields.

  The exchange went on for another 20 seconds before the cruiser pulled up and accelerated away from the tower, heading almost straight up as it tilted to give the aerodynamics a better edge on the atmosphere, getting it out of plasma range first, while still taking cleansing beam strikes well after it shrank to a tiny dot in the sky.

  Elsewhere around the planet identical towers were popping up and scaring off other cruisers while the Canderian ground troops were making quick work of the kirbies via ambushes and heavy weapons. Those few that got back into the sky were taken down by deployed towers, while a scattering of others were pursued and eliminated by drone starfighters launched from hidden bays and piloted by Canderians safely tucked away beneath the surface.

  Every kirby formation that came to ground was eliminated, and every cruiser that came within range was turned back damaged. Once the enemies were gone the turrets retracted back into the ground, though the dirt wasn’t replaced over top of them, figuring the lizards already had their positions tagged anyway. Some of the kirby formations that had further to go to get to their targets were recalled, fleeing back up to orbit or to nearby cruisers to dock upon.

  Altogether the lizards’ harvesting attempt was thoroughly and bluntly blocked, with the lizards in the warfleet overhead beginning to plan out new, more robust assaults on the towers while landing troops outside the villages so they could hunt down the ambushers who they thought were Human, though very few reports had made it back from the teams on the ground.

  As the cruisers and kirbies were on their way back up to orbit and making runs to dock with the pair of jumpships and the fleet of cruisers they’d deployed, more contacts began arriving on an unusual jumpline, not coming from the star but from another planet in the system and putting them about an 1/8th of an orbital arc away from the lizard fleet.

  The lizards weren’t going to get the chance to plan and launch an assault of the planet, for the Humans had their own warfleet in system, and it was heading straight towards them.

  2

  “Sensor contact made, Captain. Two lizard Carrier-class jumpships, 52 cruisers, and six jump-capable transports with kirbies enroute.”

  “Very well,” Captain Jamke said, studying the battle hologram on the bridge as enemy data was being updated both visually as well as verbally. “Deploy the fleet. Target the cruisers, and give me attack lances headed for the jumpships and transports. I don’t think they’ll stay long, but just in case I want ships in position.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the first officer said, relaying the appropriate orders in more detail.

  The single Warship-class Star Force jumpship began disgorging its drone warships as it accelerated through as low of an orbit as it could, trying to close with the lizard fleet before it had a chance to bug out. That said, the odds were relatively even, and keeping ships contained in orbit was almost impossible, so if the lizards wanted to leave there was little to keep them from making a micro-jump out of planetary orbit…save for the chance to fight the Humans.

  As the approaching fleet began braking maneuvers using a pair of repulses strung out between Endor and one of its moons to get the right vector, the lizard jumpships zipped off, jumping out from the planet and quickly leaving sensor range. The cruisers, however, stayed behind setting themselves to receive the Star Force fleet while the transports ducked down to a slightly lower orbit to pick up what kirbies had survived the surface ambush.

  Jamke didn’t know if the cruisers were buying them time or if they wanted to fight it out, but either way he intended to do them some damage. With the Meteor hanging back and remotely controlling the attack fleet made up of a quartet of heavy cruisers on down through a mix of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and cutters, the Captain watched as the leading ships of both formations crisscrossed and began exchanging fire…the lizards with their potent green plasma and the blocky Star Force ships with their mixed assortment of weapons ranging from missiles to maulers.

  Each ship potentially had a different layout, given that they were partially modular, and Jamke had configured his fleet for close up combat, using a large number of the new mauler mods that gave his ships shield disrupting capability, in that the weapons severely messed with the lizards’ shields on impact, allowing them to punch through far quicker than normal and letting even his smallest ships inflict hull damage before the lizards could take them out.

  As per his standard alignment, he had his warships clustered up into trios that picked on individual lizard targets. Whether it be a destroyer and two cutters, or a threesome of corvettes, each little battlegroup worked together to maximize its collective weapons package, hitting the lizard cruisers hard as the fleets continued to close with
one another and start the main melee.

  Two of those battlegroups sidestepped the heaviest fighting and went lower in orbit, headed for the transports. One of the enemy cargo ships jumped out immediately, but the others remained, still picking up kirbies coming back from the surface. Those began taking long range lachar hits, which also penetrated their shields, putting small pot marks in their hull armor…which quickly started to add up, forcing another to jump prematurely leaving some 6 kirbies behind as it made an emergency micro-jump away from the planet. The line it took lead nowhere, meaning it was going to have to do some serious navigating to find the star or another planet to land on before drifting off into interstellar space.

  But the tradeoff was that Star Force would be hard pressed to follow them out, and Jamke didn’t intend to. He wanted to do what damage he could and run them out of planetary orbit, which happened some 10 minutes later when the transports decided they’d picked up as many kirbies as they could before turning away and jumping out of sensor range.

  As soon as that happened the cruisers, who’d been trimmed down from 52 to 39, also made micro-jumps away from the planet, but with much slower acceleration given that they didn’t have the massive drive cores that jumpships carried. Still, it was enough to get them away from the Human fleet, whose continually developing weapons and shield tech was beginning to outclass theirs.

  Suddenly low orbit was clear, save for the remaining kirbies that didn’t really have anywhere to go. Some accelerated on their tiny gravity drives and tried to leave the planet the same way the other ships did. A few made it past the Star Force fleet, though most were gunned down by the ships’ lachars, leaving a handful of kirbies heading back down to the planet to try and escape the orbital guns.