Star Force: Ascension (SF27) Read online

“Several transports worth, I’m afraid, but no heavy equipment. I’d guess they’ve got their hands full elsewhere and can’t spare any more walkers.”

  “But they’ve got plenty of bodies to throw at us?”

  “It seems so.”

  “At the rate the Human is taking them down it’s either send more or admit defeat…and I’d hoped for the later.”

  “A few more Human soldiers and we could run them right out of the city,” the commander commented, overly pleased with the help they were getting from the lone Archon. “Assuming we can take out that walker. I’ve requested additional arms, but there’s no way of telling when or if they’ll arrive, and I’d rather not have to count on them getting here. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “No more explosives available?”

  The commander shook his head in the negative.

  “I suppose we’re down to picking at it with the combat sleds.”

  “We’ve only got four left, and two of those are damaged. That’s not enough to take down a long-neck.”

  “No Valerie support?”

  “Tied up in other engagements.”

  The Calavari rubbed his chin with his left upper hand. “I don’t know. Small arms can’t scratch that armor, unless we have something more powerful to throw at it the best we can hope for is to snipe the pilot when he comes out. They can’t stay inside forever.”

  “It keeps cycling back through their base camp, so I’d assume any crew transfers take place there…and there’s no way to get a team that deep into their lines. Even with the Human’s help,” he added before the other Calavari made the suggestion.

  “I don’t know what to do then, other than keep out of its way.”

  “Neither do I, so that’s what we do for now. Focus on whittling down their infantry and see if you can entice the walker in a new direction with the sleds. Don’t engage with clear firing lines, but get its attention enough to keep it away from the more populated areas if possible.”

  “Where do we stand on the evac?”

  “Less than 10% have gotten out, the rest have been relocated within more secure sections of the city.”

  “Ten! We’ve had over a week and that’s all they’ve managed to get out?”

  “We don’t have the transport sleds. Their damn vipers picked off most of the civilian ones and we’re barely getting any supply shipments coming in as it is.”

  “You’d think we would have been more prepared than this.”

  “This city isn’t critical to the war effort, so available assets have to be distributed to protect the vital areas.”

  “Is that what command told you?”

  “Word for word.”

  “Damn them then…”

  “I share your sentiment, but if our major fortifications fall it won’t be long before the enemy here gets stronger reinforcements. Heavy fighting elsewhere is helping us as much as it is hurting us.”

  “One squadron to take down one walker…that’s all we need. We can handle the infantry with the Human’s help.”

  “We don’t have it, so we have to make do…also Command’s words.”

  “Fancy talk for ‘shut up and die.’”

  The commander shook his head adamantly. “We’re not dead yet. I’m still hoping there’s something in this city that we can scrounge into another explosive. Until we find it, keep doing what you can.”

  “Always,” the Calavari said, walking over to a wall rack and grabbing an extra ammunition pack for his rifle.

  Morgan sat on her ankles at the base of a low wall, facing out as she took a moment to gather some intel on the enemy’s movements. Her position had a good view of a park-like area that bordered the river, as well as from protecting her flank from interlopers. So far the Nestafar infantry hadn’t bothered her, and it appeared the reason why was because they were regrouping into at least three sections about to make another push to recross the river.

  The Calavari had the untenable position of not only having to defend the bridges, but the entire line given that the Nestafar could fly over at will. That said, the area of the river was the most wide open in the thick of the city, offering their snipers ample range to shoot the Nestafar down as they crossed. From the looks of it, the enemy had either received another batch of reinforcements or had redeployed infantry from other areas, because she hadn’t seen any dropships arriving…though she’d been busy enough not to have noticed before.

  Their lone walker wasn’t among those assembling in front of her, tucked behind cover so the Calavari couldn’t see. Morgan had taken time to pull back and flank the enemy, swimming across the river now that her jump pack was trashed. It’d taken a plasma hit so she’d discarded it, making her a bit lighter but no longer able to move around as she’d like. Still, she’d managed to get in behind the enemy and was in prime position to cause a ruckus if needed, but her ammunition was nearly gone and she needed to scout out the most logical position to make a dent in their forces before she had to start relying on captured weapons.

  As she zoomed in on the infantry formations with her helmet HUD she noticed a faint dot passing between the buildings on the other side of the city. It wasn’t moving like a flying Nestafar and she wondered if the enemy fighters had finally come back after heavy infantry fire from the Calavari had damaged the previous craft and forced a retreat.

  Morgan raised an eyebrow when her helmet zoomed in on the dot, having to catch it at multiple points between buildings. Using her wrist interface she adjusted her comm settings and scanned for other Star Force signals…

  One popped up on her HUD, with a tiny ID tag displaying over top the dot with the numerical identification of the warship along with its class. The corvette wasn’t coming directly to the city, but it might just be close enough for her to get a signal relay through to the Red Ranger.

  “This is Morgan-063, requesting comm transfer to Captain Wilkinson.”

  She paused a moment, then was about to repeat her request when the remote pilot controlling the corvette answered her hail.

  “Signal request confirmed, Archon. Your signal is patchy, so I’ll hold position as relay until you say otherwise.”

  “Thank you…and as long as you’re here, mind trashing a walker for me?”

  “Roger that. Location?”

  “Wandering the city streets somewhere in the southwest, maybe near city center now. You’ll need precision fire to avoid the buildings, a lot of which are still inhabited.”

  “We’ll take care of it. Patching you through to the Captain now.”

  “Wilkinson here,” a familiar voice said in his typical, all business tone.

  “Mind telling me how a warship happened to wonder by my position?”

  “I was just looking into that…it’s redeploying from one engagement to another. I didn’t send it your way on purpose.”

  “I won’t hold it up long. I need a dropship with ammunition and another jump pack sent down, I’m almost out of both.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, can you tell me where the fighters went that were harassing us yesterday?”

  “You don’t have to worry about them, the base they returned to was destroyed in an air raid a few hours ago.”

  Morgan blew out a relieved breath. “Anything else headed my way? There were some infantry transports earlier.”

  “Two separate Nestafar camps have been dribbling reinforcements your way, but nothing appears to be moving up at the moment. Are you still a go for pickup tomorrow?”

  “Send a dropship down to establish a comm link, but I think I’m staying another day. If they don’t get reinforced and the corvette takes out the last walker, I think we can finish off their troops in the city…and I don’t want to leave before the party’s over.”

  “I take it you don’t want a transmitter sent down?”

  “Nope, just more ammo. I still plan to stay on the move.”

  “Very well. Coordinate drop or landing?”

  “Drop. Sending
coordinates,” she said, tagging a position on her battlemap and relaying it through the system via her forearm controls.

  “Received. I’ll have it out the bay doors inside of 10 minutes.”

  “Status on the jumpships?”

  “Internal sabotage on the remaining two was followed by a simultaneous surrender. I think they preferred blowing up their key systems rather than us doing it randomly and venting their atmosphere. Removal of the prisoners is slated to begin in a couple of hours, or as soon as the Calavari get the necessary transports up here.”

  “Good. Once that’s done see to the recovery of our people and the armor, especially mine. This set is getting banged up pretty good.”

  “Can I assume there’s tech in your armor that you’d prefer our allies not get their hands on?”

  “Some small truth in that, but mainly I want all bodies accounted for.”

  “Understood,” Wilkinson said in her helmet as the grey block of a corvette slid overtop the city buildings like a monolith.

  “Carry on,” she said, ending the conversation as the mass of warship fired down into the city twice, then just floated silently in position.

  “Enemy contact terminated,” the remote pilot said. “We don’t detect any others on sensors. Is there anything else you’d like us to hit, Archon?”

  “Negative, that was the last one. Continue with your previous mission.”

  “Copy that,” he said a few seconds before the ship began moving forward, gaining both altitude and speed as it raced west over the city then turned more to the north as it passed the outskirts, gradually shrinking to a dot on the horizon.

  Morgan turned her attention back to the infantry staging area and saw that one group had already deployed, with the others seemingly frantic over the appearance of the warship. When the second group began to move out Morgan jumped up onto her feet, shaking out a bit of numbness in her ankles, and ran along the wall to the right before cutting back and heading across the park.

  She might not have much ammunition left, but she was determined to get the jump on them from behind and use what she had to disrupt the attack on the Calavari lines. Within an hour or so she’d have plenty more to use, so no point in conserving now.

  By the middle of her third day on the planet Morgan and the Calavari surrounded and slaughtered what was left of the Nestafar infantry in what had been their staging area in the southwestern section of the city. Numerous individuals scattered, both along the ground and into the sky, which the Calavari quickly pursued, along with organizing cleanup teams to sweep the city looking for others. Morgan passed on that duty and milled about the city, conferring with the Calavari leaders, both military and civilian, and gathering what information she could on the city and what else they knew about the ongoing war spreading across the planet as she waited for pickup.

  The Calavari were more than grateful, as well as curious as to who this alien was and how it had killed so many of the enemy. By now her armor was pot marked and her mostly empty pack had two separate holes in it. She took a bit of her spare time to roam around, consuming the rations and ambrosia that hadn’t been roasted by the plasma impacts, and taking a moment to soak in the war torn landscape, mindful that not all of the fighting was over.

  She let the past day’s events roll through her mind, then the debacle on the jumpship resurfaced and she didn’t push it away, trying instead to let the Calavari city give her some new perspective as she waited impatiently for her dropship to arrive.

  Morgan admitted to herself that the Calavari should have known more about the Nestafar than she did, given that they were long-time enemies, and that the gravity trap had surprised them as much as her. Apparently they didn’t have much experience taking Nestafar jumpships or maybe this one was special in some way. Now that it had surrendered she’d get a chance to send her techs over and find out what had happened, notably how they’d been able to produce that much gravity, of which she was still curious.

  Part of her didn’t like losing, and never would, but the part that felt responsible for the Calavari being there at her request started to die out. Looking out over the city, it was clear that this war was much bigger than one battle, whether here or on the jumpship, and their allies were fighting the Nestafar anywhere and everywhere they could. They’d been suckered into a trap, but they wouldn’t be able to pull it twice. With both Star Force and the Calavari aware of the danger and spreading the information out to every ship and command in the system, including the Kvash, any future boarding efforts would be wary of the risk and plan accordingly…or just blow the ships up and not worry about it.

  Star Force wouldn’t do that, but she wouldn’t put it past the others in the Alliance. Part of her didn’t blame them, given that they shouldn’t be concerned about the wellbeing of those that were trying to kill them, but neither she nor the Archons could ever think that way. When they were in survival mode, for sure, they lashed out and did what it took to survive…but the moment when they had the upper hand and time to think they had to consider the enemy as a collection of individuals and not just a mindless hoard of blood thirsty enemies.

  How many of them, after all, got a chance to decide whether or not they’d fight in this war? Morgan didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to judge all the Nestafar based on assumptions, so when she had the option she’d keep as many of them alive as possible…she just needed to be more careful that that decision didn’t come back to bite her again like it recently had.

  Live and learn…and because of her some of the Nestafar would have that chance. Would they use it? That she couldn’t say, and probably would never find out, but she was one of the good guys and she was going to give them that chance, whether they deserved it or not.

  She didn’t like, and resisted, the idea that they’d been traded for the lives of the Archons. That was stupid. She’d never sacrifice anyone in a trade of lives, especially not her brothers and sisters. They’d been killed in combat, losing a challenge that she alone had barely survived…and unlike their training, this was one challenge you didn’t get a second chance at.

  Morgan still didn’t know how she’d made it, and her mind kept going back to the weight of the gravity crushing her into the floor and the blurry memories of her getting through the shield. Her pistol shouldn’t have been powerful enough to bring it down, not on its own, and she honestly had no idea what she had shot to kill the gravity field…that more than anything gnawed at her. The idea that she was alive, not because she’d won, but because she’d gotten insanely lucky.

  Part of her wanted to say that was bad news for the enemy, because they should have killed her when they had the chance, but she honestly didn’t like feeling out of control. The idea of being stuck in a situation where death was certain and you didn’t even have a small chance of victory, or even a means to fight back, unnerved her considerably. A one in a billion shot was workable. No chance…well, that was something her mind simply didn’t want to acknowledge existed…yet she’d faced it head on…and survived?

  Such logic loops kept her occupied until her dropship finally arrived. Without any fanfare or goodbyes she slipped aboard and left the city behind, not knowing how long it would be before the Nestafar returned, but for the moment it was still in Calavari hands.

  Mission accomplished.

  When she got back onboard the Red Ranger she commed Wilkinson and got an update on recent events, as well as telling him she’d be unavailable for the indefinite future. He said he’d forward any necessary information through the computer logs and keep her incommunicado as long as she wished, then the Archon disappeared into the sanctum for a brief run outside her armor, a series of agility drills, and the object-toting lifting challenges that made up her core workouts…along with a hefty dose of stretching that her body had sorely missed after 3 days on the planet.

  All of which she did pushing back the fatigue of having almost no sleep during the fighting. She was running high on ambrosia, enough to carry a stiff head
ache, but the workouts helped to center her and get her back into the rhythmic training mode of an Archon.

  Morgan, soaked in blissful sweat and glad no one was around to smell her, downed two bottles of water and multiple prepackaged foodstuffs from the sanctum kitchen, foregoing the hot meals in the ship’s cafeteria. She guestimated how much additional ambrosia to ingest, then finished up her plateful of pastries and what Paul jokingly referred to as ‘Jedi rations’ and then headed herself over to the shower in one of the quarters, stripped down for a lengthy scrubbing session, toweled off, then slipped into bed nude and fell asleep a few seconds after her head hit the pillow.

  A few minutes later, in a dream-like haze, she felt her body prickle with goose bumps, but locked into a motionless state she didn’t move beneath the covers…however the covers did as the ripple of tingly energy dissipated, causing fluttery waves that briefly lifted the material up off her body an inch or two.

  Four more times it would happen during the course of her sleep, none of which she would remember upon waking.

  4

  Over the next two days Morgan spent her time isolated within the sanctum, a mixture of training, sleep, and introspection…as most days were for her. In her downtime she monitored the progress of the capture of the two remaining Nestafar jumpships, noted the arrival of a Kvash cruiser to offload their guests onto as it assisted with the repairs to the gigantic battleship, and kept up to date with the surface activity on Sri’ka and the other 6 inhabited planets in the system, all of which were under some sort of duress.

  After the first day requests started coming in from different Calavari commanders, asking if Star Force could provide one or more of their super soldiers to reinforce their own troops…some for offensive action, others for defensive holds such as she had helped orchestrate earlier. Word seemed to spread quickly, because by the end of the second day the list had grown exponentially and Morgan knew she had to respond to at least some of them. While their mission in the system had originally been naval-only in scope, she couldn’t just sit up inside a warship while their allies fought tooth and nail for survival on the ground.