Star Force: Upgrades (SF41) Read online

  The Type-2s were even larger, outfitted with additional ground weapons while maintaining their anti-air potential, including long-range missiles that could hit orbiting starships if they came too close. This version also had the grapples Kip had been told about, and appeared to work by creating a localized gravity field around a portion of the target, cranking it up multiple, if not hundreds of times standard, and essentially pulling down a starship or transport and forcing it to crash into the ground.

  The grapples were connected by a tether to the walker, which seemed to indicate that it fed the power to the localized generator, making the whole thing look like a ball and chain assembly. The things were too slow to hit skeets, but if he sent in a corvette for close plasma or mauler bombardment, his warship could be at risk of bumping into the ground…or at the least being held in place by multiple walkers as they chewed away at the shields and armor until they penetrated the hull.

  The obvious escape maneuver would be to make a microjump and just overpower the grapples…which a starship could obviously do, but if you didn’t time it perfectly you’d find yourself leaving the confines of the gravity fields and traveling far faster than you wanted to…which would shred your ship on the atmosphere, meaning these walkers certainly did pose a threat to close-in starship bombardment.

  The length of the grapples appeared to be several kilometers, with the ball assembly having anti-grav to fly it to the targets. It was an ingenious design, and one that spoke of the Skarrons’ fear of aerial attack. Kip was curious as to what had sparked such fear to cause them to create anti-air heavy walkers when they had the technology to make the things so much more powerful against ground targets.

  The Skarrons own aerial forces were on the heavy end, situated more for ground support than air to air combat, so maybe their weakness there, coupled with an aerial-strong enemy, had evolved this walker design. It was definitely something to look into, but at the moment Kip had to figure out how to take these things down, and the Type-1s were going to be the hardest nuts to crack.

  They were beyond huge, to the point of them being the equivalent of a walking starship. The Skarrons had brought 52 of them to the planet, each fighting in its own region with other walker versions in support, and unfortunately the things were in heavily populated areas, meaning Kip couldn’t call down rail gun rounds against them. He was sure that would kill the targets, despite the circular bombardment shield they carried, equivalent to what would defend a small city.

  One oddity of the Type-1s and 2s was that they didn’t have full shielding. Instead they had what amounted to deployable ‘plates’ of shield that they could manifest on any point around their perimeter like a Knight did with his physical shield. The armor on the things was so thick Kip guessed they weren’t overly concerned about lesser fire getting through so long as they could block the big guns. The Type-3s, 4s, and 5s had full shielding when they wanted, but with so many plasma ports they had to keep them partially down most of the time, not able to construct a matrix around each exit point, Kip guessed.

  All of this was very odd. The Skarrons had advanced tech in many areas, then almost degenerate designs in others. He didn’t think they were stupid, so there must have been something else in play, something about the enemy he didn’t grasp yet, that caused them to build like this…but whatever the reason, they were kicking the crap out of the Protovic, and Star Force needed to find a way to take their big walkers out…which was going to start with the heavy cruiser he was sending down to the surface.

  It was a bit larger than usual, but technically all starships with gravity drives could drop down and hover over a planet’s surface…at least until their fuel ran out. That wasn’t going to be an issue here, for while the ship was heavy, it wasn’t that heavy, and Star Force’s gravity drives were getting more advanced with each passing decade, allowing just this type of maneuvering.

  Kip had it brought down far from the Skarron lines, then flown across the surface to within 20 kilometers of a Type-1 over the Protovic cities that had yet to fall in order to avoid the anti-air defenses of the rest of the Skarron walkers had they approached from the backside of the carnage region creeping its way across the planet. That distance should have been outside of grapple range, but it didn’t stop a slew of missiles from popping out of the Skarron Type-1s and 2s nearby, which tracked directly towards the heavy cruiser, which responded in kind by firing intercepts that raced out and met the larger missiles halfway, destroying them before they could get to the ship.

  The Skarrons kept firing more, and Kip knew that the warship only had a limited amount of intercepts to use, after which it’d be down to anti-missile lachar batteries that were already starting to hit some of the wayward missiles. He wasn’t sure how many they’d be able to knock down once the intercepts ran out, for it was taking multiple lachar hits to match the destructive power of an intercept, but for this mission all he needed was a single test shot…though the trailblazer was hoping for a bit more.

  With the rectangular brick of a warship leveling out to a stable hover, the internal mechanics that aimed the cleansing beam aligned with the distant, yet easily visible Type-1 and locked on to its forward bulge out of the seven that it sported. With the monstrous centipede targeted, the heavy cruiser fired its primary weapon, conscious to keep the line of attack at 0+ degrees so that it wouldn’t come down on Protovic buildings on the far side, meaning the warship was hovering meters over the rooftops as it fired.

  The white beam leapt out in a mathematically straight line, a tiny line, burning across the gap between ship and walker, but as the atmosphere interfered with the transit the beam lost its coherency a bit, fanning out rather than keeping its surgical pinpoint as it would have done in space. That said, the now wider beam point burnt into the side of the walker and melted through meters of armor plating within a second, after which one of the walker’s rectangular shields materialized and stopped the cleansing beam for a moment, deflecting the energy as if it had suddenly put up a giant palm to block the attack.

  But the beam punched through that palm almost as soon as it was raised, with the last bits of the cleansing beam adding to the hull damage and cutting a tiny, but nasty gash into the side as a rush of even more missiles poured out of the top and sped towards the heavy cruiser. Combined with more coming in from other walkers, some began to get through and detonate against the warship’s shields, draining them remarkably fast.

  The heavy cruiser got in another cleansing beam shot, this one on a slightly different location, punching through the revitalized shield in less than a tenth of a second before coring through the armor and into the inner mechanisms. What was hit Kip didn’t know, but some of the external plasma fire raining down on the Protovic defenders ceased, as did its slow and ponderous walk forward.

  “Pull it out,” Kip ordered via comm to the bridge crew, with the heavy cruiser beginning to rise up from the surface with minimal shields left. Once it gained a bit of altitude the ship tipped up on end and began to gain speed towards orbit, just as a blur of projectile flashed out from the Type-1 and broke through the heavy cruiser’s shields.

  The rail gun splinter shattered against the ship’s armor, simultaneously breaking it and opening up a crater on the top side as missiles began to pound the ship in its wake. Within a handful of seconds dozens hit and one of the gravity drives was knocked out, diminishing its climbing ability.

  The anti-air lachars continued to eat up as many missiles as they could, but there were so many coming up from the surface that the warship was swarmed as it wasn’t able to achieve maximum speed through the atmosphere due to the lack of shaped shields that normally gave it an aerodynamic slicing ‘blade’ while climbing.

  “We’re going to lose it,” Carson-8332 said.

  “Damn it,” Kip swore, opening up the comm again. “Make sure it comes down on the enemy and not over the intact city. Hit the Type-1 if you can.”

  As he watched, the big warship tipped over, maneuvering on w
hat engines it had left, including the thrust nubs situated at every corner, and arced its way back towards the Skarrons as it continued to get slammed with additional missiles, some of which looped around upon missing the first pass and hit it from behind.

  Another gravity drive went out, with the ship starting to fall more than fly as it gained lateral speed heading back towards the Skarron super walker. Eyeballing it, Kip thought it might just make it there, realizing that it was going to land on the Protovic troops as well, but better where the enemy was than some random place in the city. There was no open countryside nearby to get to, and if they could take down the walker it would help others in the immediate future, so they might as well try.

  The heavy cruiser dipped a bit more, making Kip think it was going to hit the ground prior to the walker and hopefully skid into it…but then three grapples shot out from the Type-1 and hit the underside of the Star Force ship as it came within 10 kilometers or so. A moment later the front end got yanked down hard by the gravity fields and plowed the crater-filled hull into the cityscape with an explosion of debris as it hit intact buildings with who knew how many Protovic inside.

  Kip ground his teeth together in anger as he saw the mass slide another two kilometers before it stalled out, leaving the Type-1 intact, save for the pair of cleansing beam strikes that had got through.

  “Alright,” he said slowly, watching the missile plumes cease and wondering just how many of them they had tucked away inside those massive hulls. “We know how to hurt them. The cleansing beams are the key, we just have to isolate the Type-1s before we engage…which means drawing off their support and taking them down the same way.”

  Kip altered the battlemap, highlighting every Type-1 and Type-2.

  “These are the targets, but in order to get them away we have to engage on the ground, which means fighting through the smaller types. This is going to take a while, but we can get to the big ones, and we have to if the Protovic are going to have a chance of stopping this army.”

  “What if they don’t take the bait,” Shinton-10443 asked, “and stay grouped together where they can overlap missile fire?”

  “Then we get creative,” Kip answered the Metal Gear Archon. “They don’t have an unlimited supply of missiles, so plan C is to drain them dry using naval attacks. Plan B is to start sweeping up their smaller ground troops until they decide to either pull them in or bring the big boys out to cover them.”

  Shinton poked a finger into the hologram. “If they turn those missiles against our mechs, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

  “Not if we reconfigure with anti-missile mods,” Carson differed. “That cruiser only had the standard load out. We can put more than that in play with two stars of madcats, properly equipped.”

  “Do we have naval mods?” Shinton asked.

  Kip shook his head. “Not for what we need here.”

  Carson stared at Kip, who had an odd expression on his face. “What is it?”

  “The shields went down too fast.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’m wondering if their missiles have shield-draining properties…and if that doesn’t have something to do with the reason their big walkers don’t have full shields.”

  “You think they rely on armor?”

  “Their navy was heavily outfitted, but their shield strength wasn’t lacking. If they’re used to going rounds with enemies that use shield penetrators, it could be that they’ve designed their ground forces with that in mind.”

  Shinton tapped on the location of the downed warship at the end of the scrape mark now blazed across the cityscape. “Their warheads are good sized too. It’s hard to tell with so many hitting, but they might be designed specifically for anti-armor applications.”

  “You can’t have both,” Carson said, then caught himself and glanced at Kip. “Can you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “I didn’t expect to lose that ship, at least not that fast. It looks like the Skarrons have put a lot of effort into anti-air tech, so let’s just assume it’s more badass than normal. We go in on the ground, thin out their Type-3s and smaller, and see if we can isolate or draw out a Type-2.”

  “And if we can?”

  “We take it down.”

  “With what?” Shinton asked. “We can’t take it on the ground without a hell of a lot of mechs, unless you want to allow us to use rail gun bombardment?”

  “We might,” Kip admitted, “if we can get them into a deserted part of the city. Bring down a dozen smaller ships and hover them over the target and pound it into pieces…but I think we’ll still lose a ship or two in the process, which I don’t want to risk right now. If their missiles are even partial shield penetrators, then we need to go with an armor solution ourselves.”

  “Meaning hoths?” Carson asked.

  Kip nodded. “We keep as many missiles off them as we can, and trust in their plating to hold up against the rest.”

  “They have less than a warship,” Shinton pointed out. “A lot less.”

  “True,” Kip admitted, “but I’m thinking these guys are saving their missiles for air threats, otherwise they’ll run out of them way too fast, and I haven’t seen them used against the Protovic ground troops in the data they sent us.”

  “So we’re relying on them staying true to form?” Carson said, cringing.

  “No,” Kip said, dismissing the notion. “We’re going to bring in our anti-air mech mods and air assets for distant support, keeping them out of pulse ring range. It’ll be tricky, but if we overlap all our assets, I think we can counter their missile barrages enough to cover the hoths. We’ll give ourselves an out, but even if we do get our butts kicked, we need battle data to study and learn from. Anyone have any better ideas how to get it?”

  Jarvis-6291 cleared his throat. “Might I suggest we get proactive and have the Protovic evacuate a region ahead of the Skarron army that we can lay down rail gun fire on from orbit? High enough away that their missiles won’t be a problem.”

  Kip raised an eyebrow. “A good idea in theory, but do you know how far those missiles can travel?”

  “Not yet, but we might as well find out.”

  The trailblazer smiled. “I like your thinking, but if the Protovic could evacuate that quickly they would have done so by now. It may take longer to enact than you’re thinking.”

  “Still worth it,” Jarvis argued, “if the Protovic fleet can’t risk getting within plasma range. Maybe not something right up close to the front lines, but for something we can use a month or two into the future.”

  Kip pointed a finger at him. “That’s more like it. Start working on probable locations.”

  “Just a thought,” Carson added. “If we’re going to try to starve their missile supplies to death, we can’t afford to let them get any supply runs through. Even orbital drops could give them enough to hold out indefinitely.”

  “Can’t make any promises there, which is why that’s not plan A.

  “Just something to keep in mind as we’re looking ahead.”

  “Alright people, let’s start here…here…and here,” Kip said, pointing to different points on the fringes of the current combat zones that had Protovic tanks going up against some of the smaller walkers. “Metal Gears will keep harassing them from behind while Protoss gets to poke the tiger.”

  Carson looked over at Shinton. “Want to trade?”

  5

  March 2, 2465

  Krichjan System (Protovic territory)

  Eshwan

  Kip landed in one of the large Protovic streets, now almost entirely abandoned, a safe distance inside friendly territory via dropship next to a spaceport that was already packed with landing transports. Most were Star Force dropships unloading cargo and taking on Protovic evacuees to carry off to less dangerous parts of the planet, but a few were larger than Dragon-class dropships.

  Those transports were bringing down the larger mechs, each of which was bigger
than a Hoth-class heavy walker, which could just fit inside a dragon dropship once its legs were collapsed, but its big brother, the hoth Mk. 2, had to have alternative transport, as did several other types of mechs that Star Force had upgraded to over past years.

  Normally Kip would take a neo, which would suit the Protovic streets well enough, but given the size of the Skarron walkers he was going to take a voltron and hope to squeeze through the architecture. One good thing about the Protovic cityscape was it was nonstop for hundreds of miles and very irregular, meaning no long streets to fire down. That would make the smaller mechs almost invisible and force a closer type of fighting that suited Star Force well.

  Trouble was, the Skarron walkers were so big that some of them were actually stepping over the smaller buildings. They could fire down on the mechs around them with ease, all the while making for easy targets themselves. Kip was tempted to try and nick them to death, but he knew he needed the heavier weapons the larger mechs afforded, so he was going to try the largest one they had built to date.

  He’d chosen this section of this city to fight in because of the taller buildings, which would make it harder to maneuver for the Skarrons, as well as potentially hinder their tether launching capabilities, which appeared to be launched from the underside of the walkers. There were other sections of the planet which were more suitable to fighting, some of which had low buildings, some that had none, but the closest gap between cities was too far off and there were too many Protovic people and assets between here and there to concede the area to the enemy.

  Kip intended to rip them apart from orbit if/when they tried to cross that gap later on, but right now they needed to stop the enemy where they were…and that was right in the middle of the heaviest infrastructure, sitting atop the cityscape while their ground troops perused the subsurface infrastructure where the Protovic were doing a better job of defending themselves.