Star Force: Revision (SF78) Read online

  Once he accomplished that he started taking them apart…literally. He dove beneath the arms of a standing one, with its weaponsfire passing just behind his back as he got near its leg and avoided the crude attempt to stomp him into the ground. Avoiding the foot, he jumped up into the armpit of the machine and lodged himself there. He grabbed onto a structural rib of that arm and balled up, generating as much Jumat as he could above him before releasing it into the joint.

  He fell after the blast along with the arm that he was still clutching as he spotted Kip and the two pilots in his peripheral vision shooting across from the dropship to a somewhat distant Jhar ship now that he’d gotten the exoskeletons’ attention on him. Brad didn’t have time to cover them, or even watch their progress, having to dodge another rocket coming in and using a bit of Lachka to deflect it a couple more meters to his left as he juked right. Getting his footing he slowed his speed, trying to bait another rocket attack while avoiding the energy streaks that he now put his shields back up to deflect, for he couldn’t keep using his maximum Jumat at this rate or he’d tap out.

  Brad was rewarded with three rockets coming his way. He jerked to the left and ignored two of them, but mentally grabbed hold of the third and swung it around in a very tight turn that redirected it into another exoskeleton’s chest.

  It blew apart on impact, gutting what would have been the pilot’s compartment, but the rest of the machine was still intact and walking towards him. After another rocket attack with a similar result, the Jhar stopped sending the projectiles at him and stuck to the energy attacks, forcing him to take them down himself rather than using their own weapons against them.

  And that was a problem, for there were dozens of the exoskeletons with more on the way across the wide landing pad. He could sense infantry pooling behind them, but they weren’t getting close for fear of his telepathic abilities. They’d probably thought the exoskeletons would be enough to fix that problem, but they didn’t know of his other psionics and these machines weren’t going to take him down even if they got a few lucky hits in.

  Going evasive and just buying time, he ran between the legs of one then jerked to the right as an energy blast hit near that exoskeleton but just missed. He wasn’t sure if they were stupid enough to shoot each other, but he was going to give them the chance by getting in close and wasn’t concerned about the crude machines actually stepping on him, for they were slow as hell.

  A few more jukes later and he got a battlemeld prompt from Kip, which he gladly accepted.

  About time.

  Let’s make this quick, Kip said as Brad telekinetically lifted and threw him onto the back of one of the exoskeletons then ran up to and Jumat-knocked another one down that had a good shot at him as he held on.

  Buying him a few precious seconds, Brad engaged and distracted the others while the one Kip was on tried to buck him off, but it was no good. His armor’s adhesive patches stuck him on well enough to let him focus his Pefbar inside the machine, looking for the sweet spots and sharing that information with Brad via the battlemeld.

  When a rocket flew in at him Brad deflected it but was unable to hit any of the other exoskeletons…then a red streak hit Kip’s armor, followed by two more before the Archon jumped off and joined Brad on the ground, skittering about with only shield damage and no armor impacts, though that wouldn’t have lasted much longer if he’d continued to hold on.

  Knowing more or less what they needed, the two Archons split and ran around the legs of the nearest exoskeleton as they used their Pefbar to look inside and find the delicate machinery that was encased beneath the central armor plates. Using their combined power they pried and ripped apart as much of it as they could on that pass, but the machine continued to function. They had to go separate ways after that, dodging a rain of red blasts coming down from above and all around their perimeter, but they eventually circled back and yanked some more internal components apart, enough to cause the thing to seize up and become a metallic tree on the landing deck.

  Now knowing what to do they got much more efficient with the process over the next three, then it was just a matter of time and evasion as they eviscerated the remaining exoskeletons without doing so much as putting a dent in their exteriors. They finished up with the one-armed machine and that left them standing in the middle of the metal forest with no more close range targets to contend with, though there were a few sniper shots floating in at them.

  Kip let one hit his shields to register the output and saw it wasn’t much. The Jhar tech wasn’t nearly as advanced as theirs, making their sniper shot nothing more than a regular pistol hit. Dangerous in number but not as a one-shot kill.

  “Captain, status report?”

  “We’ve got an even fight here,” he replied, a bit of surprise in his voice. “The Jhar ships are confetti, but this other fleet has some teeth. I think we can win out, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to slip a dropship down in this. Any chance of you riding on the hull of a drone?”

  “We could, but our pilots have no armor. Kick their ass them come for us. We’ll hold out here until then.”

  “I’ll try and make this as quick as I can. Good luck.”

  “Likewise,” Kip said as he took off running to follow Brad, who was already headed towards one of the infantry clumps. Through their battlemeld he knew he wasn’t going straight there, but to one of the snipers nearby…but he wanted the sniper to think they hadn’t spotted him. Kip went along with the ruse, then when they got close enough they stretched out with their combined Lachka and plucked the Jhar out of his concealed position on top of a parked ship and pulled him across the gap out to them in the middle of the empty section of the bay near to where the destroyed dropship was.

  His weapon flew out of his grip a moment before he landed and into Brad’s hands, with Kip pulling the armored figure over to him and taking his helmet off. The pink/green skin glowed intensely even as the expression on the individual’s face was one of sheer panic. The trailblazers didn’t bother speaking to him, rather Kip just pushed through his pathetic mental barriers and dug around his mind for information…specifically where the control room was to open the doors in the dome above them.

  Go, Kip said, rendering the sniper unconscious and beginning to peel his armor off as Brad took off running to the somewhat distant control room. After stripping down the man to his clothing, he telekinetically carried him over to the transport where the two pilots were holed up. He dumped his unconscious body inside, making sure he was going to be out for a while, then he climbed up on top of the ship and stood guard with a good line of sight across the empty region of the landing pad where the smoking remains of the dropship were next to the still exoskeletons, as well as a view of the surrounding ships and the infrastructure on the perimeter where the infantry was waiting.

  He could sense them, but they were too far away to affect. There were a few more snipers/scouts closer and two of them were actively moving around, but none were getting too close and the aerial fighters were hovering in the distance, not daring to come back within telepathic range.

  “That’s right, stay back,” Kip muttered. “Give us the time we need.”

  The control room for the dome wasn’t on the edge of the landing pad, for there were several within the dome and only one control tower. Brad had to work his way through more than 2 miles of city to get to the location, but between his running speed and psionics that wasn’t a problem. Those Jhar that didn’t get out of the way he either knocked aside or disoriented, knowing not to waste time when they had two armorless pilots to evac.

  When he got to the base of the tower he forced the doors and entered, clearing out the personnel inside as he made his way to the top of the tower. A few floors from getting there he heard explosions above him and extended his Pefbar just in time to see the top half of the tower get blown apart. Reaching out with his Ikrid he found several fighters nearby firing into the structure, ostensibly to keep him from accessing the controls.

>   He focused on one of them, stretching his limits and grabbing the pilot’s mind through his mental block. When he did he continued the attack on the tower to not draw suspicion for a few seconds, then he had the pilot turn and fire on the ships around him, knocking two out of the sky before the others turned and ran rather than fight it out and let themselves get caught in the Human’s telepathy.

  Bringing the fighter closer he headed up to the top level and pushed his way through the debris, seeing that the equipment and transmitters were trashed, meaning he couldn’t signal the dome to open. He had no idea what these Protovic morons were doing, for they weren’t going to be able to take him prisoner. Trapping them here was going to be a big problem…for them, but Brad didn’t intend to stick around to make them pay for it, so he brought the fighter in closer and jumped up onto the side of it, adhesive finger and toe tips holding him in place, and telepathically ordered his puppet to fly them up to the top of the dome itself.

  The Jhar saw what we was doing and immediately sent the rest of their fighters after him, perhaps sensing an opportunity to shoot him out of the sky now that he was vulnerable…but he wasn’t. Rather than taking control of their minds he shot Fornax blasts into each fighter as it approached, making it momentarily lose control and unable to fire back as Brad’s fighter did. With a few Ikrid tricks thrown in he held control of his fighter and slowly took down theirs, chipping away with return shots and largely stalling them out as the numbers gradually shifted to his advantage.

  Then several rockets leapt up from the ground and he had to shift his power to turning them back. His puppet regained momentary control in the lapse, but Brad reasserted it quickly enough and had the pilot fly closer to the other fighters as more rockets came up. One last maneuver had it flipping him over so he was directly in the path of the attack, with him generating a bioshield to cover that half of the fighter.

  He took one hell of a hit, ripping away most of his bioshield, but when the dust quickly cleared he saw three other fighters falling down to the buildings below, victims of the friendly fire that Brad had just drawn towards them. Rolling the fighter back over he focused on deflecting or capturing the remaining rockets coming up at him and managed to swing one into another fighter as his puppet continued to pump shots into the others.

  Brad had to juggle between numerous psionics simultaneously, but it quickly became clear that the more attacks the Jhar threw at him the more of their own troops were going down. When their fighter count dropped to less than 15 they withdrew, leaving only the rockets from the surface coming up at him. Those gradually increased in number, but Brad was staying on top of it as he snuck a few peeks here and there into the dome above to see the inner workings of the dome doors.

  It wasn’t enough and he needed more time, so to trick the Jhar he grabbed a few of the incoming rockets and slammed them into the door itself. The material it was made of was too thick to get through easily, but the rocket launchers quickly figured out that their ordinance was going to help him break through them so they almost simultaneously stopped their attacks, giving Brad a moment of peace as he and his puppet pilot reigned as king of the mountain over the city below them.

  That gave him the time he needed to see into the dome and find the mechanical sweet spots, which in this case he didn’t need to try and wrench apart, for he realized there were walkways built inside the curve of the dome itself. Locating one of them near the interior, he had the pilot fire into the wall material until he had blown a hole into it, then he flew up next to it and Brad crawled inside, getting away from the fighter and the combat in the dome entirely.

  Shoo, Brad said as he released control of the pilot and made sure he understood the sentiment. The Jhar took the warning at face value and flew away, leaving Brad alone in the cramped walkways that led to a manual release for the dome doors. When he got there he found that all that was required was to disengage the remote control, which was locking them in place, and hit the release button that took energy from a backup power cell built into the dome itself. It was a safety mechanism that would allow the doors to be closed or opened in the event of a citywide power loss, and that meant it couldn’t be countermanded save for onsite…and there was no way any of their infantry were getting close to him without getting knocked out.

  With a grinding groan, the doors parted and slowly began to retract, with him widening them up to their full width, which was far larger than they had been retracted to allow the dropship inside.

  “Captain, we’ve got the dome doors open. How soon before you can get us a ride?”

  “Plowing the rode now. We should have a drone in place within minutes to secure the evac site. When the conduit will be clear is anyone’s guess.”

  “How rough do you have it up there?”

  “Having to play defense to keep from losing ships. Attrition is in our favor at present. Should I expedite the process?”

  “Are there any planetary defense cannons I missed?”

  “Nothing beyond the medium grade batteries. It’s their aerial fighters that are the main concern.”

  “Pull six drones off and box escort one down. We’ve got a handle on the situation at the moment, but these guys are insistent that we don’t leave. We need to be gone before they get more inventive.”

  “What about the fighters inside the dome?”

  “I’ll handle those. Just get that dropship down to the entrance.”

  “Sending now.”

  Brad knew he was on the clock, so he went back to the hole the fighter had blown into the inside of the dome and crawled outside it, wishing he still had that fighter under his control. He didn’t have a jump pack, so if he slipped he was in for a long fall that he didn’t think he could cushion himself out of with his Lachka ‘crash bag’ technique. He might survive it, but he figured he’d be busted up by the impact regardless, so he crawled across the wall upside down very slowly, making sure his adhesive holds were secure and that he wasn’t grabbing onto anything that would pry loose.

  A single rocket leapt up at him, but he deflected it in time and no more came. More of a trial balloon than anything, he guessed, but it meant they saw him and were just waiting for an opportunity to kill him. Apparently taking them alive wasn’t on the table anymore, or maybe even recovering his body. Right now it just seemed that they didn’t want to let them get away.

  When Brad got to the opening he transitioned to vertical climbing that ended with him standing up on top of the dome in the really toxic air. His helmet filter took care of it, but the longer the dome doors were open the more of it was pouring into the city, though the ash was being kept out by the energy shield stretching across the gap. Their pilots were inside one of the ships so they shouldn’t be affected, but the lesser toxins they’d been breathing ever since leaving the dropship weren’t doing them any good. They’d live, but it would be messing with their lungs never the less.

  Brad didn’t have to wait long before a Borg-like cube burst through the ash clouds and came to a hover over the dome. The six drones that made up the cube held position save for the bottom one. It pulled away, revealing the hollow interior that a dropship was cradled within. Once it had a free run down into the city Brad commed the pilot and had it fly close enough for him to jump on top, clinging to it and giving the dropship the psionic defense it needed.

  Brad had to swat away multiple rockets as the dropship flew down to the pad, but he had Kip’s help when they got close to the surface. Between the two of them and the shields on the dropship they didn’t have any hull hits and they didn’t have to stay around long, with Kip getting the two pilots onboard as Brad slid off the top and dropped to the deck to find four Jhar prisoners in his friend’s tow as well.

  “A little help?” Kip asked, with Brad telekinetically grabbing two of them and hauling them inside the dropship as he also swatted away another rocket, accidentally dropping one of them in the process. He picked him back up and threw the glowing pink/green sleeper into the back of
the Falcon-class dropship. He stayed outside for a moment, knocking down some more rockets and steering a couple into the parked Jhar ships as he became the last man standing. When the others were aboard he hopped inside but kept his psionics active, reaching through the ship to add to its protection as they quickly flew back up through the dome’s opening and into the gap between the drones as they were busy firing at targets beyond that he couldn’t see.

  When the bottom drone slipped back over, it eclipsed most of the exterior light and the whole mass accelerated, with one of the drone’s IDF fields reaching out to grab the much smaller ship and keep it from having to make the joint navigational calculations that the drones were to maintain the cube.

  “Souvenirs?” Brad asked as he knelt next to one of the pilots and pulled off his armored glove as Kip was doing the same with the unconscious one.

  “We needed a tissue sample, and these ventured a bit too close.”

  “Why four?”

  “One of these was helping us, and I want to know why.”

  “Helping?”

  “Shooting at the other Jhar.”

  “That makes two then, why four?”

  “More minds to interrogate later. Besides, we’re probably doing them a favor.”

  “I’m not feeling all that generous at the moment.”

  “I’m more interested in those brutes.”

  “Their fleet in orbit is giving Captain Mendez a handful.”

  “Even more reason to get information.”

  “Alright, guests accepted. How’s your guy doing?”

  “Messed up but he’ll live. How about him?”

  “I’m alright,” the pilot answered. “The numbing helps.”

  “Thought it would,” Brad said as he tapped into the battlemap with the orbital data highlighted. “Just sit this out until we get you to a med bay. I think we’re in the clear now.”

  4

  December 25, 3059