Star Force: Evasion (Wayward Trilogy Book 2) Page 3

  They were the largest of the six races, slightly bigger than the Hjar’at but with wider shoulders and hips, making them look very large from the air. Their heads were also huge by comparison and had two large, clear tusks emanating out from the underside of their chin. Their tails also were capped in a clear cone that was a version of Saroto’kanse’vam, a word that any Archon dreaded. The Hjar’at’s spines were also of the same variety, and that meant they could be energized at will to do massive damage independent of whatever weaponry their armor carried.

  The last of the 6 columns was composed of Vivokat, a race Star Force hadn’t seen much of before, but Jared knew the large, long necked bipeds were exceedingly good jumpers even without an anti-grav assist and played the role of heavy scouts exceedingly well.

  The 7th race here wasn’t on the ground or in a column, but rather flying around in a very wide patrol cycle above the others. The Tavi’lo were a small avian race with a duckbill like beak and an extendable tail flap that raised up into a vertical fin. Their straight, pointed wings were easily recognizable from the air, but what advantage they had in agility they lost in terms of raw firepower. They weren’t heavy hitters like the I’rar’et were, but more of a support group for an army such as this to keep Star Force from gaining air superiority.

  Right now Jared’s aerial division was waiting inside their hangars, but he knew better than to send them out first. The ground troops had enough weaponry to knock them out of the sky with ease if they were allowed to focus on them. No, the main defense was going to be the fixed emplacements and the mechs, while the aerial fighters hit them from the flanks and looked for opportunities to exploit.

  What was worrying Jared the most was the null field generator following the 6 columns. It was essentially a circular column rising up from the ground for a hundred meters that jammed all sensors and even visuals from seeing what was inside. The Tavi’lo were circling over top it as well and occasionally dipping down inside. It wasn’t a protective shield like what was now over the V’kit’no’sat’s heads and keeping the orbital fleet from firing down onto the battlefield, but rather a method of concealment for whatever was inside.

  With all 7 races being present Jared doubted there was an 8th here unless they’d chosen to travel in another race’s ships. That seemed very unlikely, but what was missing from the columns and air were the Zen’zat. Typically they flew Paklo-class aerial fighters of their own, and there was no way that the V’kit’no’sat were going to attack a Star Force base without them, for they needed the enemy Humans to get inside the areas too small for the huge dinosaurs to fit.

  But none were visible in the columns, and in truth, at the rate they were moving, the Zen’zat would have had a very hard time keeping pace running along with them. There could be troop transports hidden under the null field carrying them so they wouldn’t be exhausted upon arrival, but why conceal them?

  The Archon suspected some other surprise was in play, but until they dropped the field or he sent someone inside to have a look there was no way of knowing. The footprints that should have been visible on the backside after whatever was inside passed were not there, meaning either anti-grav transports or someone was obscuring them so Star Force couldn’t match up which race was walking inside.

  “Standby perimeter turrets.”

  Annie Lothlorn, sitting in her white/gold Clan Mantle uniform several rows of control stations over from the Archon knew that meant her. She was one of the many naval gunners assigned to base defense, though most of her experience was onboard the massive jumpships of the Star Force fleet that controlled their drone attack ships. With so much damage being done in this war against the V’kit’no’sat, the only way that Star Force could survive was to keep losing machinery and not personnel, which was why most naval ships were unmanned and remotely controlled by the few that were.

  The base defense turrets on Tauntaun operated in the same way, so as soon as she laid her right arm down on the tabletop in front of her and placed her hand on the control nub, the Star Force technology linked the firing controls for not one, but 6 turrets directly into her mind. The holograms she had been looking at before suddenly felt like little more than cartoons as she was now able to see in all directions and feel the turrets as they lay buried underneath the snow and ice ready to pop up and attack the V’kit’no’sat on approach…shortly before they got blown away by the enemy’s superior firepower.

  But that was alright so long as she and the other gunners could do some damage, for they were only the first line of defense and there were many more turrets further in that she would take control of once these 6 were destroyed, preserving the gunner while the guns were picked off in typical Star Force battle philosophy.

  Machines were expendable. People weren’t.

  Readying her turrets as if they were an extension of her body, she waited for the Archon’s command…which came through in electronic form, for he was also linked into the battlemap software that let them communicate mentally at speeds no button presser could ever hope to match.

  When the order finally came the V’kit’no’sat ground columns were still out of firing range and below the incline up to the higher plain that they had not yet scaled and in which her turrets were buried, but the Tavi’lo were flying overhead and that was who the Archon indicated that they should fire on with artificial highlights placed on them denoting which ones he wanted Annie and the other gunners to target first.

  Across the icy plain chunks of compacted snow pushed up revealing the widely spaced turret positions and the Tavi’lo immediately began to alter their flight patterns in response. Several began firing on the rising turrets even before the snow and ice had fallen off the tops and their Chi’parat energy weapons helped to clear it by vaporizing the frozen water on impact.

  Huge clouds of steam expanded upward like pyres marking the location of the turrets for the ground troops to see from afar, but once the Star Force guns were fully deployed and catching the little golden blurps of Chi’parat against energy shields, Annie and the others caused the briefest of gaps to form in the invisible defensive barrier to allow their larger Dre’mo’don canons to fire through.

  Colored typical Star Force blue, the much larger packets of destructive energy shot in machinegun-like fashion as Annie reduced the power of each blast in order to up the firing rate, then covered the targeted Tavi’lo, more than 2 miles away, with a cone of fire that they tried desperately to dodge.

  She and the other naval gunners were used to big, slow ships to shoot at, but they’d had enough training at anti-missile defense to make the Tavi’lo look slow in comparison. The downside was that at more than 50 miles out from the base the defensive perimeter was huge and the turrets had to be spaced far apart, meaning that most were making long shots that diminished accuracy, though Annie had computerized help with target assist, given that her mind was now blended with her firing controls and operating in complete harmony.

  That meant anything that came close was not going to be able to evade, but the Tavi’lo further out were more of a challenge to hit and when she did they weren’t instant kills, for their armor was also carrying shield generators. They didn’t stand up well to the Dre’mo’dons, but they could take 3 or 4 hits before their armor started getting blasted away…which resulted in about 6-10 hits, depending on where they landed, to drop one out of the sky at the reduced power levels she was using.

  The result was the defensive patrols the Tavi’lo were flying suddenly got pushed back towards their approaching army, for there were too many turrets to take out on their own and the V’kit’no’sat were not stupid enough to waste Tavi’lo that had been living for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Such experience couldn’t be replaced quickly, so they didn’t waste troops either unless they were really ticked off, then their egos sometimes got the better of them.

  Right now that wasn’t the case with the Tavi’lo and Annie was only able to wound a few of them. Two other gunners managed
3 kills, but the mass of fliers managed to retreat, leaving Star Force with a line in the snow to defend from…towards which the heavily armored ground troops were still approaching.

  But they’d peeled back the air cover as intended, now it was up to the Archon to decide whether to sacrifice these outer turrets in the hope that they could scratch the approaching troops or choose to fight here with the turrets’ assist and then have the other defense lines going all the way back to the base to fall back to.

  Jared chose the latter, and on Annie’s battlemap she could sense the hidden doors in the ice spread out in the distance between her turret line and base open up and reveal themselves to the orbital fleet that couldn’t get to them through the main base defense shield that still sat quietly over 2 miles up while the enemy approached beneath its flat wall of protection.

  This fight was going to be on the ground or in the minimal airspace below the shield as squadrons of skeets flew out from the opening doors. The Star Force aerial fighters took to the skies without ramming into the underside of the shield and spread out in their own defensive screens while heavier gunships and other flying craft followed along with lines of mechs walking out onto the snow/ice and leaving chicken-like tracks behind them as they formed up into loose groupings and began running towards Annie’s distant turrets.

  Esna and Rammak watched a holographic battlemap display in one of the base amphitheaters along with a lot of techs and other non-combat personnel. There were probably a couple hundred at least, and everyone’s eyes were glued onto the Vik columns as they started to climb the incline up to the high plain. Each race moved differently, though all were wearing various colors of armor and looked horrifically deadly.

  When the smaller Per’tal ran/jumped their way up to the top they were met with immediate turret fire that blasted chunks of ice off the rim in near misses that rolled down the hillside, breaking apart as they went and running into some of the other Per’tal, most of whom just held their ground and took the physical hits, then began climbing again. The ones at the head of the column backtracked just below the rim and gathered there clumsily, for there weren’t many good footholds and some areas were almost vertical walls of ice, but being agile as they were the quadruped Per’tal clung to various places as the column continued to advance and tuck in as tight as they could.

  When the time came they wanted to get up and over the edge with as much unit cohesion as possible, but for the other 5 races they didn’t have that luxury. They had to scale the side directly and stay up top, with the Wass’mat hitting the upper plain first and redirecting their armor’s shields full forward to weather the heavier and slower firing Dre’mo’don shots coming in.

  Esna saw the first dozen or so walk out a short distance then hold their ground, taking hits on their shields and even some on their armor when the energy barriers collapsed, but more Wass’mat coming up from behind them would step in front and cover for them, taking the incoming fire on their fresh shields as the formation continued to gather their numbers up top.

  Meanwhile, only a minute or two later, the Hjar’at began to mount their section of the upper plain and drew some of the turret fire their way…along with a few more turrets popping up at distance that were now in range. The Hjar’at held their ground much like the Wass’mat, then there was a sudden surge of Tavi’lo flying low to the ground on the far side of the incline and below turret range that nearly scraped the top of the Hjar’at column, flying at high speed and soon to come into weapons range of the turrets when they popped up.

  When they did Esna saw them maneuver quickly, cycling the tightly packed group around so when a leader took a hit on their shields they immediately fell to the back of the formation and tucked in behind the others. The turret gunners shifted fire to the group of several hundred Tavi’lo and managed to knock at few to the ground before the mass flew over and eviscerated one turret, with Esna seeing debris flying every which way when the enemy formation cleared it.

  Her breath caught in her throat. That had been so fast and so destructive it scared her to think about it, but she didn’t have time as the Star Force flyers raced out ahead of the approaching mechs and engaged the Viks in aerial combat over top the turrets, which had a hard but not impossible time shooting the enemy without hitting their own pilots.

  Esna squinted at the battlemap, then looked up at Rammak.

  “Are there people in those or not?”

  “The darker blue ones are, the others are flown either by the pilots nearby or those back with us in the base.”

  “You can fly two at the same time?”

  “It takes a lot of training, but yes, you can when you have mental interfaces,” the Calavari whispered. “The mechs are the same way.”

  The hologram suddenly went a little fuzzy, then it cleared with a change in the lighting levels.

  “What was that?”

  “The Viks engaged jamming. Part of our communications are out, but we have multiple ways of getting the battlemap signals through.”

  “Then why jam?”

  “Range of signal. You see the icons on the skeets change?”

  “No.”

  “The shape of them. Some of the ones without pilots shifted. Signals from the base aren’t getting through, only short range ones from the other fighters and turrets are. We can still control them from the base because of landlines going out to the turrets and a few other transmitters, but if the Viks take them out the pilots here can’t fly them by remote. The ones in the field will have to since they’re closer.”

  “The Viks are making us fight them in person?”

  “Yes, but we can still control the drones at close range, but some people have to be physically nearby if all the local transmitters go down, and it looks like the enemy fliers are trying to pick them off. Every time we use one it shows up to the Viks, so we try and keep them quiet as long as possible. The turrets they can already see, but the backups are hidden out of sight until they start sending signals. Soon the Viks will have mechs to deal with too, and they’ll be too busy to shoot at things that aren’t shooting back.”

  “Can we win?”

  “Depends what they have under that camouflage field and how much better the Viks have gotten since I last fought them.”

  “It’ll get messy,” the tech sitting two seats down from Esna said, “but our mechwarriors are damn good and we’ve got more turrets for them to run back to.”

  “Do you know what they’ve got hidden?” she asked.

  “No,” the Human said warily, “but if they’re hiding it from us, it has to be something they don’t want us adjusting to until it’s in our face.”

  4

  Esna watched the Star Force mechs run across the ice field so fluidly they looked alive. There many different types, but some that Rammak called ‘neos’ were moving like they were giant suits of armor…running, jumping, and even tripping occasionally as they flanked other mechs that were more stiff, some of which even had backwards knees and big boxes on their shoulders. When they came near the Viks both sides began shooting at each other, but it wasn’t until the neos ran forward and attacked hand to hand did Esna realize the true size of the mechs.

  It was hard to visually pick out on the blanket of white/blue snow and ice they were fighting on, but she knew personally how big an Era’tran was and she’d learned the sizes of the Hjar’at in comparison, so she knew how big the enemy was, more or less, and these mechs pretty much matched them. They were taller while the Viks were longer, but now it made sense why Rammak had told her that Commandos would be of no use against the Viks aside from the Zen’zat.

  Star Force had compensated for the Humans’ small size by building giant battle machines…and a few bringing up the rear in the Star Force mech ranks were even larger. Rammak said they were Mark 2s, meaning larger versions of the smaller ones, and as she watched them fight she started to pick out which styles they matched…even as they were getting torn apart.

  The outer ring of turr
ets were now smoking craters and the first wave of mechs were getting hammered hard, both from ranged weaponry and melee attacks, but it was the Hjar’at that were literally wrecking the mechs who were visibly trying to keep their distance from them while getting up close with the other 5 races. Esna saw a neo shooting energy blasts from both its arms at a Hjar’at while walking backwards, then the quadruped jumped into a sprint that came so fast Esna couldn’t believe it.

  It closed the distance to the neo even as its shields dropped from so many hits, but the golden armor it wore protected it long enough to get close. When it did the neo jumped sideways, making it barely miss, but the Hjar’at swung its spiked tail ferociously and drove two of the glowing blue spikes into the mech’s shields, which held up to the first hit as points all over the Hjar’at’s armor began shooting their own energy weapons into the mech as the two danced around one another for over a minute.

  Eventually the Hjar’at caused some damage to the neo’s left knee, causing a mechanical limp that reduced its agility just a bit, but it was enough for the Hjar’at to work around the giant machine and lurch into a short ram, tucking its head down to the ground at the last moment and rolling its back spines forward. They fired off a lightning-like cascade of blue energy at pointblank range that tore through whatever shielding over the mech chest and left shoulder remained as it tried to twist aside, but a moment later the glowing blue spines made physical contact and burned through the armor like it was nothing more than tightly packed sand.