Star Force: Divide (SF76) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  There the cradle settled, then finally released the Sentinel segment to a group of specialized construction tugs that were better suited to putting the segments together than the cradles. Glad to be free of the dead weight, he took his ship over to where the other cradles were waiting for an exodus convoy to be formed, for they couldn’t leave the system on their own without escort. It wouldn’t be as massive of an affair as their entry, for they could use a much more distant jumppoint, but they weren’t going anywhere in this mess of a system alone.

  “Mission accomplished,” he announced to the crew. “One more puzzle piece added to our side,” he said as he saw their segment immediately being pulled towards a half completed Sentinel alongside two others that were also under assembly from the same convoy, with the fully operational Sentinels sitting in a distant sphere around them keeping the enemy at bay.

  Just then a plethora of lights lit up a region nearby as dampening shields were stressed to the point of becoming visible as a dozen lizard cruisers made kamikaze jumps into the interior and were caught by a shield being generated from seemingly nowhere. Once stopped, the Sentinels took them out within 3 seconds, but the long range kamikaze attack shook Moffis. The ‘safe’ zone was still dangerous.

  “What caught them?” he demanded to know.

  The sensor officer shook his head for a moment, then smiled cruelly. “I think some of the drones in here are decoys. They’re shield boats, but the lizards can’t tell them apart from the warships.”

  Moffis sighed, feeling a bit better. “People, that’s why we have Archons leading this fight. Never underestimate the cleverness of a trailblazer…or the audacity of the lizards.”

  “Thankfully one seems to cancel out the other,” the helmsman replied.

  “In our favor,” Moffis added. “For now, anyway.”

  3

  April 2, 2940

  Gvaris System (lizard territory)

  Nephasil

  Iden-202747 stood shoulder to shoulder with his padawan behind the twin pilots chairs in the cockpit of a Michelangelo-class heavy walker as they led a convoy of 32 similar and smaller mechs across the wastelands in between cities. It was rocky, barren terrain covered in pale pink ‘dirt clods’ that crunched beneath the wide feet of the hexped walker, but it also gave the lizards easier bedrock to tunnel through.

  He wasn’t concerned with those right now, though his walker and the other 6 heavies were scanning the ground beneath them just in case they came close enough to pick up on one. The rest of the mechs were bipedal escorts and not outfitted with the heavy sensors, built more for combat than being mobile chess pieces in the ground combat that was about to be escalated to the extreme.

  As it was Star Force had taken down a few more surrounding cities since the first of the Sentinels arrived. While that drama was taking place further out in the system a defense fleet had fought hard to hold onto the orbital slot directly overhead, shielding the few gains Star Force had made on the ground and preserving their foothold which had been creeping out gradually over the past few years without any serious push. There had been numerous behind the lines sabotage missions, but until they could get a stronger presence in orbit they couldn’t push too far else they’d lose their protective umbrella.

  In the past week 3 Sentinels had made their way across the system and parked overhead. Ever since there had been an ongoing effort by the lizards to displace them before any more could be added. One had been destroyed and the fighting continued, all the while the trailblazers were mounting other attacks across the system so the lizards couldn’t focus all their attention on one area. Iden and the other ground commanders had been ordered long ago to reinforce their defenses in case the orbital fleet was dislodged, for the lizards had so many ships in the system that if they all chose to come and push this point there would be no way to hold out against them.

  The trailblazers had made it clear through their strategic placements that this ground op wasn’t their only point of contention, so if the lizards wanted to devote enough resources to wipe them off the map they’d be critically wounding their ability to defend the rest of their assets in the system. That threat was what Iden believed was keeping their kamikaze tendencies reigned into a waiting game, for every week that passed had more lizard reinforcements arriving. If they let them pool up too much he knew it’d start raining ships down on top of them, hence it was better to give them a wider swath of ground to target.

  But for as many ships that arrived the trailblazers were doing a decent job of thinning their numbers. The tallies were still rising, on both sides, but the lizard count would have been much higher if Paul and Liam hadn’t been pushing for naval conflicts. The one in orbit now was not of their making, but Paul was up there defending the two remaining Sentinels and taking the opportunity to kill as many ships as he could prior to the incoming convoy of ground troops.

  Iden had been told they’d waited long enough, and that there was not going to be a naval victory in this system prior to a ground invasion. They were going to have to take this planet out from under the lizards while they still held stellar orbit and a lot of other naval turf. That was an entirely new scenario for Star Force, but not one that they hadn’t conceived of long ago. The threat of lizard ships coming down and ramming the walkers he was in or pulling a microjump into one of their bases was always a risk, but going overland on foot or in small numbers would make them all but immune to that tactic.

  At the moment these walkers were protected by the ships above, which would divert to intercept any lizard cruisers coming down from orbit or overland to attack them. If they were coming over land that would be a fair fight, for the michelangelo he was riding in had a big Keema battery onboard that could hit a cruiser at range and they couldn’t ram them from afar due to the curve of the planet. The heavy walkers could engage the cruisers well enough in firepower and armor, but not from overhead ramming. Their shield generators weren’t dampening-equipped for anything that large, but they did have a setting to knock down missiles before they could hit the hull.

  That was a sweet upgrade he wished they’d had back in the Skarron war, and although the lizards did use missiles on occasion, most of their weaponry was phaser-based and there wasn’t a straight up counter to it. It had made them considerably more lethal, but compared to the Keema the phasers were little more than bee stings.

  “We’re coming into spit range on the nearest turrets,” the mechwarrior informed him.

  “Hold fire and keep walking,” Iden cautioned. “We’re going to get busy pretty soon.”

  “They’re not sending out any tanks after us,” Ciatra-295333 noted as they watched both the forward visuals and the battlemap display in the cramped cockpit that sat nearly dead center in the giant machine.

  “They’re not going to. Not after us, at least. We’re the hunters here.”

  “Can’t hunt them if they don’t come out.”

  “They’ll come. If not we’ll start knocking down their perimeter turrets just for fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “Bonus damage. We’re not going to have to wait that long, I think.”

  “You know something I don’t?” his padawan asked.

  “Just got a comm from Paul. They’re jumping in within the minute.”

  “Hello…” Ciatra said appreciably. “How long do you think it’ll take before they wise up?”

  “Not sure,” Iden admitted. “Take us to here, and hold,” he ordered, pointing to a spot nearby on the battlemap a couple kilometers away.

  “What happened to sniping turrets?” she asked.

  “The tanks are faster than us. We need optimum position to intercept.”

  “We running from here?”

  “No…maybe,” he said, unsure. “We’re gonna play this by ear after the fireworks start.”

  “Bring it,” Ciatra said eagerly as they waited and watched both the surrounding area and orbit above as numerous jump streaks appeared on the battlemap as the start of an
incoming convoy from Planet 13 began to arrive in the midst of the ongoing naval battle. The cargo jumpships slid into the engagement behind drone screens and were escorted beneath the umbrellas provided by the two Sentinels at the lower edge of the defense fleet. There the jumpships began dispersing dropships and the larger transports down to the surface carrying far more troops than Star Force currently had on the ground.

  It was the beginning of the main invasion, with the descending troops being entirely made up of Bsidd. Calavari, Scionate, and Canderous would soon follow, but the initial breakout would be fought with the Humans already on the ground and the numerically superior Bsidd that the lizards did not want to let through. As difficult as the Human infantry was to fight, the Bsidd were even worse when not counting Archons. They were larger and had so many appendages that there was literally no way to get the jump on them…plus the fact that they had no center of mass and some of the lizards’ phaser fire would often miss through one of their torso gaps.

  Iden watched as the first wave of dropships came down behind them in the distance like a tendril from the sky, then he looked back at the other battlemap that was centered on the city ahead of them.

  “Come on…you’re not just going to sit there and let us unload. Send them already,” he said impatiently, for his and Ciatra’s mission wasn’t going down unless the lizards counterattacked.

  “Patience,” his apprentice mocked. “It’s not like we can unload everyone in an hour. Give them time to think it through.”

  “They don’t usually do much waiting. More of a reflexive…ah, there. See?” he said as a plume of wisps began to emerge from the city’s hangars and pool in the sky just below the defense shield that had been rebuilt over the past 7 months, though the anti-orbital battery wasn’t yet back in working order. If it was then the fleet above was going to get picked at and forced to take it out again, wasting drones in a redundant surface attack that Iden and Ciatra intended for them not to have to make anytime soon.

  They were going after the battery before it could be totally rebuilt, knowing that the in-city defenses surrounding it would not be operational before it was. The lizards had rushed the shield before even beginning work on the battery so they had a way to cover it, and it looked like they weren’t wasting resources on side projects when the big gun was the one that mattered…then there was the fact that when they did get it operational Star Force was just going to blow it up again and anything nearby it, so what point was there in building anti-tank and anti-infantry turrets around its perimeter without an immediate use?

  “You think they’re heading for us?” the mech copilot asked.

  “Not with two armadillos,” Iden scoffed. “At least not until they can get sufficient numbers, anyway. They’ll avoid us and go straight for the dropships when they feel confident, but they can’t mount a decent attack with just wisps. They know we’ve beefed up our anti-air defenses. They’ll have to bring in their ground troops.”

  “You mean flood in,” Ciatra corrected.

  “That’ll take a bit of time to organize, but they’re all there. They’ve been saturating the cities with them prior to our next attack. No way they’ll just sit there and wait to be overrun with Bsidd.”

  “I heard they hate them more than Humans,” the pilot said.

  “I can confirm that,” Iden answered.

  “Why exactly?”

  “Because there’s so many of them. When we deploy Bsidd we usually send them in numbers. The lizards’ swarm tactics are diminished when they’re having to fight a smaller swarm themselves. They know by now that when the Bsidd show up, a lot more are on the way. That’s why I think they’re not going to wait too long to go after those dropships. No matter how many troops they’ve got waiting to fight us, they can’t let the Bsidd unload and get grouped up. They’ve got to hit us now, and if naval can keep their cruisers away the only option they have is to start their primary ground push immediately, before we start to get too numerous to overwhelm.”

  “So you’re bringing them down first as a goad?”

  “Wasn’t my call, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was considered. Primary reason is that they counter the lizards best. Calavari might be able to take them better hand to hand, but the Bsidd have so many variants they can field a much better ground team across the board.”

  “Slight offense taken there,” the copilot said. “We’re the ones that have been holding out down here, without the insane numbers.”

  “And there’s a reason why the Bsidd weren’t sent in first,” Iden added. “If you have a ‘have to hold’ scenario, you send the Clans. Bar none.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  “Even if you are Clan Caitlyn.”

  The pilot coughed. “Archon or not, do you want kicked off this ride?”

  Ciatra snickered. “We’re getting off anyway,” she said, seeing that they were almost to the holding point.

  “Yep,” Iden agreed, seeing the first of the lizard tanks appearing along the edge of the city. “Coordinate with command and delay them from getting within firing range as long as possible.”

  “I thought you wanted to get closer?” the copilot asked.

  “I do, but my gut says to get off now.”

  “Good luck then,” the pilot offered, then added, “Jinx scum.”

  “Come on, Ciatra. Let’s go cause some mayhem,” Iden said as he backtracked a step then turned and walked out of the cockpit into the narrow hallway that connected it to the rest of the mech’s interior. Most of it was mechanism, not a troop carrier, but it held a small hangar with a few auxiliary chambers, including a medical station. The michelangelos could be used as a mobile outpost in a pinch, but they were primarily designed to soak up damage while simultaneously dishing it out.

  There were no other crew onboard besides the two pilots, so Iden walked over and hit one of the three door releases, exposing a circular hatch two meters wide near the starboard wall. There was a retractable ladder that would reach down to the ground but he left it alone, sitting down on the rim and putting his legs into the hole. He steadied himself for a moment then glanced up at Ciatra.

  “You up to this?”

  “Always.”

  “Don’t get stepped on,” he said, pushing off and falling through the hole.

  Ciatra sat down and put her legs through, giving him a moment to clear then pushing herself off and letting gravity pull her down into clean air. She fell several stories down to the ground, cushioning her landing with a pulse from her jump pack, and landed a few meters past Iden. She followed him as he ran backwards between the rearmost two legs as the huge walker moved on, then he diverted slightly to the right and got into a shallow wash, sprinted a few seconds then ducked behind a neo before running off sideways for a good 200 meters or so where there was a 15 meter cliffside with a shallow V in it.

  He and Ciatra both stopped there, pressing up against the wall and crouching down while they watched the rest of the mechs stroll past.

  “We’re on our own from this point,” Iden reminded her.

  “If you can make it, so can I.”

  “That’s the thing,” he admitted. “I never know if I will until it actually happens.”

  “We’re a team,” she reminded him. “And you’re better off with me than without.”

  “No argument there,” he said as he glanced skyward, seeing the orbital tendril of ships coming down and now starting to go back up as well, with empty cargo holds that would be refilled as soon as they got back into space. “I get the feeling this is going to be the biggest ground campaign in Star Force history. We should be able to lose ourselves in the mess and slip through, but if we don’t make it I hate to take you down with me.”

  Ciatra glared at him through her helmet. “You’re not the only one in the empire that gets to be reckless, Iden.”

  He smirked, though she couldn’t see it behind his solid blue faceplate. “Spoken like a true Jinx. Alright then, reckless it is. Let’s do
this.”

  The two Archons fist bumped then waited, knowing this was the last place the lizards were going to hit. They would be going around the mechs and trying to get at the landing zone, but until they started to move they had to sit tight and wait for an opportunity.

  And in the meantime they were going to get a grandiose view of the fireworks about to break out.

  4

  A mild visual distortion crossed from far right to directly ahead of Iden as he was running a zigzag course across the rocky ground trying to keep to the lower spots. Even over the small ridges he could see the source, that being the michelangelo that he and Ciatra had been riding in. It had wheeled off to the right in a wide arc that brought it closer to the city and within Keema range as it and part of the mechs were heading towards a line of thousands of tanks that were pressing out of the city towards the distant landing zone where the first of the Bsidd troops were coming down and swarms of wisps were already picking at the edges of Star Force’s defenses.

  All the heavy walkers were firing at the tanks as they tried to race pace kilometers away and out of their own return weapons range. Some of the neos were racing on ahead to get to them, running across the ground in similar stride to what Iden was sporting on foot. The mechs had come a long way over the centuries and were now more a mobile battle suit with agility that no other mech design allowed. It didn’t make them the fastest on foot, but in close range fights they could literally dance around an enemy and if they got up to the tank columns they’d do heavy damage there so long as they didn’t run face first into a mass salvo…which they probably were about to do if the heavy walkers couldn’t bust up the lizard lines prior to their arrival.

  So there were nearly invisible Keema lances shooting out regularly, but this one had fired the opposite direction and hit an anti-infantry turret on the city’s edge. Just the one shot as the walker wheeled around to head towards the tanks to the north while a few of the mechs headed towards another column coming up from another city to the south. Those were being followed by infantry transports and widely spaced troops on foot bringing up the rear, with the spacing being a result of Star Force punishing them previously for getting their units so closely packed together and making sweet aerial targets. Typically the skeets didn’t carry bombs, but in response to the infantry carpets that the lizards had been deploying they’d refitted slightly, loosing apple-sized bombs that would annihilate a few hundred lizards per hit.