Star Force: Leonidas (SF96) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “Waiting for the rest to finish up?”

  “Yeah. I get the feeling these guys have something special planned here.”

  “Those mines?”

  “More than that. We haven’t detected any nukes, but these guys should have the tech level to shield them properly.”

  “They would have used them before now if they had anything like that,” the Regular argued.

  “I hope so. This is the last of their military and they’re not surrendering, but I’m worried they’ll take the city inhabitants with them when they die fighting. They know they can’t hold out another 2 years.”

  “Would they try chemical or biological?”

  “We’re always in armor, and usually in our mechs. I don’t see how they’d think that would work.”

  “Scorched earth? Maybe afraid we’d take them prisoner if they’re the last few left.”

  “Possible.”

  “We’ve almost won and you seem spooked. What’s up?”

  “There’s been a lot more construction here, battle prep construction, and I get the feeling that may have given them time to get fancy.”

  “So we poke and see what happens. Are you worried about them preemptively killing the citizens?”

  “I honestly don’t know at this point. All the rest have submitted as agreed, but with this being the last holdout…”

  “Have sensors picked up anything curious?”

  “No, but those deflector shields are hampering accuracy with the orbital scans.”

  “We’ve almost done it, Nero. If this one gets messy, so be it. We’ll do what we can, as always, but you’ve taken a planet away from the bad guys in probably the cleanest invasion in Star Force history. Even if everyone in that city dies, that won’t change that fact. And you did it through bartering, just like in the old Clan lore.”

  “That’s what bothers me. The Mendz don’t seem the type to go out stoically.”

  “At this point they only have one play…and that’s to stall for 2 years, which they can’t do.”

  “So if you knew you were going to die, wouldn’t you want to cause as much trouble as you could before you did?”

  “I’d fight to stay alive…but these guys, yeah, I’d say that’s a good guess.”

  “So what can they do here?”

  “Those new walls are going to be tough to fight through. They might just try and kill a few mechs as the price for the city.”

  “Too small scale, but I agree.”

  “Hidden explosives?”

  “Mines on approach and even in some wall segments that have redundancies. There could be more, but…”

  “These guys don’t have the tech to hide them and we’re going to be scanning as we walk up and knock on the door. I don’t see that we’re missing a beat.”

  “I don’t either. That’s what worries me.”

  “You could be overestimating the opponent.”

  “After 13 years of nonstop battle, I’ll gladly err there.”

  “Only one way to find out,” the mechwarrior said, looking out across the few miles of slightly rolling terrain to the giant concrete walls that had been built up as a maze surrounding the city that they’d have to fight or blow through to get inside.

  “Yep. But until then I’m going to keep brainstorming…just in case.”

  “I’ll pass the word to be on the lookout for subterfuge. Do you need to catch a nap? I can stand watch.”

  “I’m good for one more. Then we can all get a badly needed rest.”

  Nero ran through one of the city streets in his Neo-class mech, feeling heavy and slow but otherwise as limber and bouncy as he was in real life. He was mentally connected to the metallic monstrosity but fortunately didn’t feel any of the burns in the armor resulting from booby-trapped buildings the Mendz had rigged up and drawn the Scorpion troops into. Some blew out laterally, with most of the explosion focused on the mechs, but others destroyed entire structures and pinned down the mechs beneath the rubble.

  It was a tactic that they hadn’t used before, and with only 83 of the battle machines left fully operational, even taking down one hurt Nero’s forces badly…but it was too late for the Mendz. Why they hadn’t tried this tactic sooner he didn’t know, but having the civilians move the explosives into position after the battle began had defied the pre-attack sensor sweeps. Even now he couldn’t be sure what was going to blow up, but his mech and others were scanning furiously even as they chased down the last few Tabers within the city.

  Nero got a warning only a couple hundred meters away and skidded to a halt with his metallic feet digging into the ‘soft’ pavement and plowing two furrows in it. Both buildings ahead flanking the street had explosives in them, meaning he wasn’t going to be going through this way, so he backtracked another hundred meters and turned to the right, heading to the next street.

  But when he got there and turned he only got a few sections further before more bombs showed up, but this time when he backtracked there were others popping up on his sensors behind him.

  “No…” he said, realizing he’d walked into a trap. The civilians must have had the explosives in shielded canisters that only showed up on sensors when they unpacked them. He clicked on the comm.

  “Keep the infantry clear. We’ve got mobile explosives being set in place. We’ll deal with them in the mechs. I don’t want anyone without a wall of armor between them and these det packs in play, but get me spotters everywhere.”

  The ring of dots surrounding him grew complete, blocking off every street, but fortunately he had another option.

  Nero walked to the nearest building, pumped up his anti-grav as high as sustainability would allow, and punched a hole into it with his hand. He did the same with the other higher up, then he jumped and got his feet into the two holes as he punched again, then he began 3-hold climbing his way up to the top making handholds as he went.

  When he got there a piece of the roof broke off and fell to the ground below with his mech’s foot slipping. He went down on his chest but caught himself from sliding off, then stood up and reset his anti-grav, returning his mech to normal weight and charging the capacitor high enough to allow him to jump…which he did, over to the next building.

  When he hit his feet broke through to the next floor, pinning him in place. It took half a minute to climb his way out, and by then the Tabers he’d been trying to flank were long gone. That didn’t matter now, for he just needed to get away from the explosives, but he saw on his battlemap that two more had been taken down in his absence.

  That still left at least 200 in the center of the city tucked underneath a lot of anti-air batteries that were now repositioning to shoot at him. Missiles streak across from those with lines of fire and Nero popped up his shoulder mounts and began shooting the bulk of them down with Ichod pulse cannons, vaporizing everything within a cone of fire and missing those that came from other angles simultaneously as what seemed like the entire Mendz anti-air arsenal was coming at him.

  Nero knew he’d get chewed up if he stayed up here, so he weathered the storm as long as he could, hopping to two more buildings before his shields finally fell before dropping back down to the ground. Sensors showed explosives along several streets, but he had a few that appeared to be clear so he took off down those hoping to get out ahead of the ambushers and wondering if they were carrying them through the streets.

  Nero worked his way through the city until he hit a line of defense that had big barricades up to block the street, but he just walked right in front of it and started blasting with his mauler cannons. When he did, batteries in the side buildings opened fire on him and he turned and obliterated them as they chewed away a little more of his armor, popping his renewed shields when they came back up halfway through, in the middle of which another explosive appeared on his sensors right next to him.

  Nero knelt down and pivoted, ignoring the batteries and fired into the bottom of the building over and over again until the contact went out. He d
idn’t know what these explosives were made of, but apparently they required a trigger. He’d expected some detonation, hoping redirect some of it along with the debris he was blowing into the building, but he’d gladly accept nothing. In fact, it meant that unless this one was a dud, they could take them out before they detonated.

  “Explosives can be neutralized by mauler cannons. Shoot into the buildings before they blow,” he said, standing his mech back up and finishing destroying the weapons batteries around him, after which he took the time to knock down the barricade rather than climbing or jumping over it just in case he needed to come back this way later.

  Another few minutes of individual pushing had him meeting up with another two neos that were escorting a Catapult-class support mech that was a mix of auxiliary shields and missiles. It could block the explosives if it knew to put up the extra strong energy barriers first, but it wasn’t the most agile within the city streets.

  Nero took the lead but stayed close enough that it could throw up a shield ahead of him, and it did when the pilot saw that his shields were paper thin. It stretched out ahead, not to the sides, and that shield took the first weaponsfire from the Tabers that targeted them when they entered a courtyard that took the place of several buildings…though the rubble of those buildings was still here and arranged to give them cover while interfering with the attackers’ approach.

  Multiple hits came from Tabers who were focusing on the entry point, but when Nero got to it he and the other three neos ran out of cover of the catapult’s shields and jumped over the debris, landing near some of the enemy mechs and pounding them…literally. Punches were as prevalent as mauler blasts as they drew the attention away from the awkward walking mech that followed them through and stopped just clear of the surrounding buildings.

  Missile hatches opened and a torrent of smoky streaks shot out, some passing within 10 meters of the neos, and hammered the Tabers relentlessly. Rivers of destruction flowed from the catapult…then all was silence.

  Nero checked his battlemap and saw that all the Tabers were down here, with a few locations left in the city that were near to falling as well.

  “More explosives,” the catapult pilot noted as dots were continuing to appear nearby.

  “Target them,” Nero ordered. “Blow right through the buildings. Anyone near them is going to die anyway when they detonate.”

  “I could use some elevation if you can knock out those anti-air turrets.”

  “Good idea. Guys, let’s go raid the nests,” Nero agreed as he and the other two neos started climbing again.

  Three hours later Nero was walking his lightly damaged mech through pacified streets looking for additional contacts. All had been quiet for the past 23 minutes, but part of him didn’t want to accept that it was all over. There were still a lot of civilians here, but they weren’t attacking them anymore and he’d ordered the infantry in to do building searches and find any caches of explosives that might be remaining.

  All of the Mendz military was now dead, assuming they hadn’t chickened out and ran. None had that he knew of since this invasion had begun, and as they’d boasted, they’d rather die fighting than surrender. Fortunately the civilians hadn’t followed suit, and if this really was the end of the fighting then the planet now belonged to Clan Scorpion.

  A planet without the Star Force workers needed to restructure it. He had nothing here other than his attack force, so he was going to have to rule it rather than own it. That was a new trick, but as long as the civilians kept following orders as they’d been doing in the previously captured cities things would be alright. Some of those cities were already being altered towards Star Force standards, in small ways. Fortunately the Mendz didn’t eat meat, so there wasn’t large numbers of rescued ‘livestock’ races to evacuate or care for here, though he had put an immediate end to the sport hunts in the wild areas of the planet.

  He couldn’t monitor that very well, but the bottom line was the food supply was stable and growing…along with other necessary staples of infrastructure needed to strengthen this planet, with which what Clan Scorpion was going to do hadn’t been decided. They’d eliminated a threat to the region, but whether or not there would be a permanent Clan presence here was going to be a decision made back in the ADZ. Nero was to babysit here while a courier ship went back, then he’d hear from Cora as to what she wanted done.

  But the mission was a success already, and as predicted the Mendz’s naval forces had attacked all out once it was clear that they’d lost the war on the ground. Their ships were now rubble floating in space and Nero had complete military control of both the planet and the system, but he had some decisions to make regarding how he was going to babysit…though right now he still wasn’t sure something wasn’t going to explode next to him. Maybe that was being cautious or just a reflex, but as he continued his patrols along with the rest of his mechs spread out across the city and the Commando and Knight teams continued clearing buildings it began to finally sink in.

  The fighting was over. It’d been 13 hectic years, now all of a sudden it was done. There was no one left to shoot or to shoot back at him…and it felt weird.

  When he eventually got out of his mech back at base it felt even weirder. He was on a hostile planet without any more hostiles. Nero didn’t expect the civilians were going to be all warm and friendly, but it looked like any of them capable of attacking the invaders had already done so and died. Leaving what behind he wasn’t totally sure, but for right now the entire planet was quiet and the few overseers he had spread out were continuing to monitor that orders were being carried out as word spread of the final defeat.

  Nero didn’t send that message out, but left the Mendz to do that on their own and come to the realization that they’d lost. Their mighty warriors had been defeated by a small army of Clan Scorpion…and that filled him with a pride he couldn’t articulate, but he carried it with him into bed that night as he took the liberty of setting his alarm two hours later than normal.

  5

  December 3, 3573

  Twan System (Expanded Region)

  Heffen

  Nero was asleep in a small bunk room in the main Clan base when the door opened and he half noticed, rolling over slightly as someone walked up next to him.

  “Wake up,” Taren-152991 said, poking him in the shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” Nero asked, sitting up.

  “They’re rioting.”

  The Archon rubbed his eyes. He’d been in a far deeper sleep than he’d managed in years.

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere,” Taren said, and Nero could hear the panic in his voice.

  “Define rioting,” he said as he stood up and grabbed his shoes, slipping them on with a little telekinetic nudge.

  “Every city on the planet, and they’re destroying whatever they can get their hands on. Our overseers are under attack too and we’ve got dropships enroute to pull them out.”

  “Did we miss some troops?” Nero asked, following him out and through the residential section of the base towards their command cneter.

  “No. It’s like the civilians have gone feral. The recall was ordered because there’s so many of them.”

  “Are they coming here?”

  “Not yet. They’re just destroying everything. Maybe to keep us from using it, but I don’t know. It’s like they’ve all gone crazy with word that they lost.”

  “I knew it was too easy a win,” Nero all but cursed as he accelerated into a run and followed Taren without any more conversation until they got to the command center where a handful of other personnel were monitoring and trying to break down exactly what was going on.

  “Talk to me,” he said, walking towards the main holo at the center of the room.

  “This is organized,” an analyst noted. “Simultaneous implementation across the planet as of 31 minutes ago with a variation of no more than 2.”

  “Backup plan?” Taren asked.

  “Scorched ea
rth policy,” Nero growled. “They don’t want us getting our hands on their intact cities and resources.”

  “It’s not that,” a Regular said from the other side of the room. “This is anarchy. They’re destroying everything. Even the food supply.”

  Nero and everyone else in the room fell silent as the Archon looked at him.

  “Say again.”

  “Food production facilities are being hit in at least 3 cities that we still have eyes on. Food store warehouses too in addition to virtually everything else in the cities. Even some of the smaller buildings are being torn down with crude explosives, and the larger ones was being torched from the inside.”

  “Are they really that stupid?” another Archon asked.

  “They’re crazed right now,” Taren added. “So they might be. How do we stop that?”

  Nero looked at the hologram of the planet with icons indicating riots popping up virtually everywhere based on orbital scans and the few people they still had out in the field.

  “Get our people out, now. Bring everyone back here that isn’t sitting inside a mech. Are there any cities not showing activity?”

  “No. All are burning,” an analyst confirmed.

  “Are there any signs of rebellion, or is the entire population united in this?”

  “We don’t have enough assets to say planetwide, but the locations we can monitor show no fighting amongst the Mendz, nor any unit cohesion. People are just running around and destroying whatever they can.”

  Nero put his hands on his head, missing the blissful victory sleep he’d just been woken from as he saw the planet they’d conquered literally destroying itself in protest.

  “All mech units on location are to proceed to the nearest foodstuff production facilities…not the warehouses…and shoot anyone seen messing with them. We’ve got to preserve as much as we can.”

  “If they’re already inside that won’t matter,” Taren pointed out.

  “Pull from orbital scans and find me even one facility that hasn’t been hit yet, one calm area that we can reinforce, something we can save,” he said angrily. “If not we have to try and save some scraps that can be rebuilt.”