Star Force: Mastermind (SF32) Page 4

  When he came up on the fighting he didn’t slow, but telepathically told the other 6 Archons ahead of him to make way. Their 5 red and 1 silver armored bodies shifted positions, giving him a narrow line through them as they continued to fire plasma blasts into the shield ahead of them as several lizards stepped through from the half-flooded tunnel and into the air, firing green plasma orbs from their rods back at the Archons who had no cover to hide behind.

  Kyler couldn’t see it, but several of them already had armor damage…but in a moment they were going to have a mongoose to hide behind, along with some new toys to play with. He didn’t have enough time to tell them that much, but if they couldn’t improvise then they didn’t deserve to be Archons, so he didn’t worry about it as he killed the engine on the mongoose and let it coast forward towards the gap the others had made.

  As he steered to maintain his line, Kyler got his feet up on the seat and set himself in a squat, then jumped forward as he passed the other Archons, letting his momentum carry him up over the mongoose as he yanked the handle bars to the side. It curved sharply and bounced off the wall, flipping over and careening to a stop a few meters shy of the shield while Kyler’s body continued straight ahead and he punched through the shield superman style about 2 meters up from the ground.

  Given that the shield was only holding back air on this side, it didn’t resist his entrance too much, but there was still a considerable deceleration as he hit the water on the far side, shooting him into the mess of lizards and knocking his head enough to disorient himself slightly.

  The two dozen or so lizards floating in the water that was continuing to rise up towards the high ceiling were caught off guard, but quickly recovered and brought their plasma rods up and around to tag him with…then they suddenly lost their grip on their weapons and began to twitch around unnaturally.

  Kyler pulled out a water-version stun stick from his back rack and jabbed the closest one to him while maintaining the Fornax disruption field with as much intensity as he could. He jetted to his left, jabbing another into unconsciousness as he grabbed a plasma rod with his free hand and began going through the lizards with the two weapons, knocking more than half of them out of the fight before he could hold the Fornax field no longer and had to mentally take a breath.

  With their nervous systems now functional again the lizards got their situational awareness back and grabbed for their weapons, most of which had floated down to rest on the floor. Kyler stunned two more and killed a third while one near the shield reached down and picked up its weapon, then brought its glowing end up a couple of meters away from the trailblazer and kicked its legs back to propel it forward into him.

  The lizard moved all of two inches before a pair of hands punched through into the water behind it and latched onto the creature, then it was pulled back through the shield and into the air, no longer a threat to Kyler.

  Another lizard swam up to him and tried to jab him with his weapon, but Kyler parried it with his own plasma rod, then sent a tight beam Fornax burst directly into that lizard’s mind, allowing him to knock its weapon aside and move in to tag it with the stun stick.

  He released the selective Fornax generation, which required far less power, and spun around just in time to knock aside another incoming plasma nub that missed his torso by a foot. Kyler took that lizard hand to hand, then summoned up another short range omni-directional Fornax field to distract two more long enough for him to swim up to them and take them down, one with each weapon he wielded.

  Behind him two of the adepts had already come through and picked up plasma rods, using them to take down the rest of the lizards, which was when Kyler pointed them towards a det pack on the floor underneath one of the bodies.

  “Get that out of here,” he ordered over the comm, “and secure these weapons and bodies. I’ll keep them busy ahead.”

  “Copy that,” one of them answered back just as Kyler straightened out parallel to the ground and jetted off a la Ironman, using both leg jets and forearm jets to maximize propulsion and holding his weapons tight alongside him to reduce drag. It took several seconds for his speed to build, but once it did he was zipping back up the tunnel through the waterlogged bottom half to the point where there were individual lizards swimming down towards the shield.

  Kyler jousted with them as he passed, not reducing speed. He won seven quick confrontations, given that he was able to cheat with a directed Fornax burst and knock their plasma rods aside in the confusion, tagging them in the chest or head as he passed and delivering a lethal touch of plasma in most cases. Each physical contact required him to corkscrew around to regenerate his line and speed, making his dash down the tunnel a feat of aquatics acrobatics that he pulled off well all the way up to the door some of the lizard reinforcements were coming in from.

  Kyler stopped there, letting the water drag him to a halt, and waited in ambush. Using his Ikrid tracking ability he stretched out his senses to the point where he could ‘see’ the minds of the approaching lizards in a radius of about 15 meters, more than enough time to set himself and his stun stick in place to poke at it the moment the first one came through the doorway.

  He grabbed the unconscious lizard by the neck and hauled it aside out of view, then repeated the process with the next one, staggered as they were. Behind them was a group of three, several seconds behind, as well as a pair coming down the tunnel from ahead, so he pulled out his needler and fired a PDM down the tunnel, using the laser targeting to lead it straight into the chest of the first lizard who tried to scramble out of the way.

  It detonated with an audible pop and a slew of vaporized water from the brief vacuum created by the spherical concussion wave blocked his view of the other, which was still outside of his Ikrid range. He let it be for the moment and swung the needler around into the doorway and fired off another at the group of three lizards coming up.

  The backwash knocked Kyler out away from the door, then he jetted back up and into it, grabbing the nearly plasma rod and finishing off what was left of the threesome after the detonation. Sensing no more lizards immediately close by he ducked back out into the tunnel and jetted down to the other lizard and finished it off before returning to the door and taking up sentinel duty. More lizards were on the way, and he intended to make them work very hard to get past him.

  Off in another tunnel, Mero-7833 got knocked off his feet as the containment shield ahead of him fell to a lizard det pack and the water behind it burst forth. He fell headfirst to the ground but the rushing water never let him hit, instead carrying him further down the tunnel like a raging river, picking up a scattering of other Archons along the way.

  Not far down another shield activated and caught the water, quickly filling up and condensing the air above it for the shield wouldn’t let anything less than solids pass through. Already, with the weight of the ocean filtering in through the numerous breaches in the infrastructure, the pressure being exerted on both the air and water was being translated into the shields, which were gratefully holding up, save for when a det pack blasted apart the emitters in the surrounding wall, as had just happened.

  When the water hit the shield the backlash knocked Mero around, but eventually it settled down enough for him to get his mobility back, after which he jetted over to the shield and pushed his way through. Once he got his footing he backed up alongside two other Archons waiting with plasma rifles raised for the lizards to move up and bring the fight to them again.

  A couple more Archons followed him out and helped reform their defensive line. All of them had plasma damage to their armor, but it was superficial and their water seals were holding. Behind them was the open arch leading into the loading bay for the shipyard where dozens more were setting up barricades and a more proper defensive line. One more shield remained between it and them, ready to activate if the current one was breached, and it was up to Mero’s team to delay the lizards’ advance as much as possible.

  As they watched through the clear shie
ld, the churning water up top settled and cleared down towards the bottom where they could see the lizards’ swimming forward in a tight group a few seconds away from passing through the shield. Mero held his plasma rifle ready, taking a knee in front of an adept and using his silver armor to cover the red legs of the other, minimizing the available silhouettes the lizards had to fire at while overlapping their own protection.

  The first thing through the shield was a deactivated plasma rod, for otherwise the nub would have discharged against the shield on contact. Mero squeezed off a shot immediately and hit the weapon, melting into the nub casing and rendering it useless.

  The lizard didn’t know that, and when its body came through the shield it flicked on the activation button and aimed at the first Human it saw…but no plasma orb shot out. Instead two blue lances came in and shot it dead while more lizards popped out more or less standing erect and firing green plasma at the Archons.

  There were too many to hold off without letting them fire a few return shots, some of which hit the defenders. Between that accumulating damage and the Archons’ limited ammunition, coupled with the seemingly limitless number of lizards moving forward, the defensive line had to fall back, with Mero being the last to move, given his armor was thicker than the others’.

  He held his position, taking a couple more hits as he killed three more lizards, then he jumped up and ran across to the other side of the tunnel, turning as he did into a sprint back towards the archway some 50 meters back. He took a hit to his back before reaching the barricades and jumping over the crates and taking up position behind them.

  The lizards didn’t follow immediately, but more of them were popping through the distant shield while some of the Archons fired off plasma lances that hit several of them due simply to them being clumped together so closely, but they didn’t move off, charge, or scatter…they just held position until a few seconds later the ones in the front were passed forearm length rods from behind, and soon the leading lizards deployed their legionnaire shields, overlapping them as much as they could and beginning to walk forward while blocking the incoming plasma lances for at least a couple hits each.

  “Shit,” Mero said, dropping his rifle on the ground beside his knee and concentrating on the minds ahead of him. His psionics skills weren’t very strong compared to some of the others, but most of those around him were adepts, leaving situations like this to him to deal with.

  He picked out one of the minds on the front line and summoned as much Fornax intensity as he could and mentally shot it out on a straight line into the target.

  That lizard suddenly stumbled, dropping its shield and tripping over its own webbed feet.

  Half a dozen plasma lances shot out through the gap into the lizards behind and for a moment there was chaos in their line…but it quickly reformed as another picked up the shield and stepped into place.

  Then as soon as the lines reformed they were blown apart by a wall of water from behind as the containment shield succumbed to another det pack.

  The lizards were knocked forward in the wave, disappearing for a moment in the water until it ran up against the last containment shield in the tunnel inside the Archway and meters away from the horseshoe-shaped barricade line.

  Right after the water hit, the lizards reappeared, plopping through the shield from their momentum and falling to the ground where the Archons made quick work of them. Those that didn’t get knocked through began assembling just inside the rising wall of water on the other side of the shield.

  If they were able to knock that one down, the entire loading bay would flood…which was something they couldn’t afford to have happen.

  Mero stood up and leapt over the barricade, leaving his plasma rifle on the ground behind it. On his way towards the shield he reached down and scooped up one of the plasma rods that had come through with the lizards then he ran into the wall of water like a football player shouldering into a block, punching through the shield and taking it to the lizards hand to hand with several other Archons following suit behind him.

  5

  “Kyler, they’re breached the shipyard outer defenses,” one of the aquatic Regulars said over the comm from the command level, given that all Archons had redeployed themselves into battle.

  The trailblazer didn’t respond for several seconds, killing lizards as he was down in the tunnels.

  “How many surface breach points do we have?” he asked, jetting backwards through the already filled tunnel a bit and grabbing another plasma rod from the floor. He flipped it on and jetted back the way he’d come, sensing more lizards approaching but unsure of the number given the limited effective distance of his already strained Ikrid tracking ability.

  “49,” she said evenly with just a hint of strain in her voice.

  “Mark them on the battlemap,” he ordered, slinking up against the wall and swimming around a stack of bodies he’d been piling up…the fourth pile, actually, given that he’d moved ambush spots three times now.

  Little icons popped up on his holographic map on the edges and he zoomed out to get a better feel for where the lizard reinforcements were coming in from.

  “Damn it,” he whisper swore. “Are any of them contained topside?”

  “The seafloor is covered with lizards. Without physically patching the breaches we can’t rule any of them secure, but there are a few without current activity.”

  “Any big ones?”

  “Define big?”

  “Arrowhead size?”

  “Not to my knowledge. We don’t have visuals on all of them, so I can’t be sure.”

  “Hold on,” Kyler said just as another lizard popped out into the tunnel beside him. He sensed another two right on his heels so he let the first one come out then jabbed the plasma rod into the head of the second one, meeting it just as it came into view.

  There was an audible pop followed by a stream of steam bubbles as Kyler pulled back and rotated the rod to the left as he kicked off from the wall and jabbed straight into the ribs of the first one, taking it out and jetting around in a pinwheel to face off with the third that had to push its way past the body of the second. Its plasma rod jutted out at him, but Kyler got a hand on it in time and parried it aside. With a firm hold just below the plasma nub he pulled and brought the lizard closer as it chose not to let go, then he jabbed it with his own and quickly ended their little threesome’s advance through the outer city.

  “Still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has the shipyard been completely evacuated?”

  “Of engineers and techs, but we’ve got combat teams engaged there now.”

  “What about the tunnel spurs outside the fence?”

  “Those doors have been locked down, but the lizards haven’t gotten to them yet. They’re two sections away on the southeast side though, but that defensive position appears to be holding for the moment.”

  “Is the tunnel entrance to the shipyard flooded?”

  “Three are.”

  “Open one of the topside doors and flood it, then order the arrowheads inside.”

  “Did you just say flood the main bay?!”

  “If there are no techs left, yes. Flood it.”

  “Is that safe? There are probably pieces of equipment that will react poorly to water.”

  “Give everyone a heads up then open one of the doors, then have the arrowheads start patrolling the flooded tunnels. They should be able to deal with the infantry better than we can.”

  “Alright.”

  “And Linda…start prepping the techs for an air evac. We’re not giving up this city, but if the lizards get much further I want them out of the way.”

  “Evac to where?”

  “If Paul’s not busy have them taken up to the battle stations.”

  “Uh, actually they’re under assault right now…”

  Kyler frowned, and not just because he sensed another group of lizards coming his way. “To Ackbar then. Don’t suppose we still have tha
t naval support available?”

  “Yes we do. He left six ships standing by for our use.”

  “Bring them down and get the evac started…and see how many Archons we can pull in from other locations.”

  “Vander is on his way back.”

  “Any good news?” Kyler asked, readying himself next to the doorway again.

  “He said he’d fill you in later, but yes.”

  “We need more than him, but any will do.”

  “Do you want the Regulars deployed?”

  “No, keep them at the city entrances. What gets by us they’ll have to deal with, so keep them together and digging in as much as possible. How are the battleships holding up?”

  “The Black Pearl is over the fence trying to hit the transports bringing in more troops. The others are still maintaining the fence-line and look to be able to continue doing so for some time. Lizard activity is centered around the infantry. I think that’s what they see as their ticket in now. They’re not even targeting the defenses anymore, they’re going straight for the breach points and making new ones.”

  “Keep tagging any that they make with markers. I’m going to roam around and disrupt their flow as much as I can. Just get those arrowheads in here as soon as possible, and let me know if you have trouble with the evac.”

  “Good luck,” Linda offered before cutting the comm.

  A moment later Kyler used what little Fornax energy he had left and disrupted the lizards on the other side of the doorway before he pulled his way through and started taking them out one by one with the plasma rod, due to the fact that his stun stick had long since been depleted, as had his needler.

  He worked his way through this group of six, then instead of going back to his ambush spot he began working his way through the building towards the nearest of the tagged breach points, killing whatever lizards he came across with a combination of psionics, captured weapons, and sheer determination.