Star Force: Empire (SF58) Page 4

  Timothy marked the one firing at him as his priority target, then gave the other four mechwarriors their own to deal with as he fired another lachar shot, peppering the same area of the tank with successive hits and avoiding the cupolas where he knew the crew were even as they fired back with their more potent plasma. Eventually he hit the anti-grav in the forward section and the tank’s front end dipped and rammed itself into the muck, leaving the other part still in the air and the whole thing askew.

  Meanwhile the ravens moved up and went right for their tanks, coming up on them and weathering the plasma storm before firing their own tiny plasma blasts into key points on the flat hulls, blasting apart the internal mechanized components and disabling them to the point that they were no longer able to fly as more tanks flooded into the battle. Eventually there were so many peppering them that the shields on the mechs began to weaken, with Timothy again taking the lead with his larger bushwhacker and walking into the middle of them.

  He pulled the power on his mauler back considerably, then launched the tiny orbs from his mech’s boxy right arm, with the blue blasts melting into the tank hulls and exploding outward, ripping the vehicles in half with a single shot as if they were made of nothing more than wood and paint. The internal components that were being compromised made the explosions erratic, and more than once Timothy saw the cupolas get hit, often with the occupants being thrown out with the debris. He didn’t know if they were still alive or not, but he at least tried to keep from stepping on them as he moved forward towards the other tanks that were swerving left and right to try and throw off the mechs’ aim.

  It didn’t buy them much time and eventually the last few tanks turned and tried to run back to base, but the ravens didn’t let them go, running up behind them at about half their speed and maintaining target locks long enough to gun them down with either plasma or a few of their missiles for when they got around one of the bends. Thanks to the battlemap they were able to fire up and over the forest, hitting the fleeing tanks and knocking them down in various states of damage, but keeping all of them from retreating back to base and reinforcing the defenses there.

  “Cleanup crews, you’re a go,” Timothy reported to the dropship along with location tags for each of the downed tanks and some of the pilots and gunners that were trying to flee across the marshes and into the forest on foot.

  Back in the dropship Veronica waited on her speeder bike with two passengers seated behind her, finally getting the ‘go’ order and accelerating out of the bay along with several others. Unlike the mechs the swampy ground didn’t bother them and they shot out across the waterway on anti-grav and quickly caught up to the big warhorses after several twists and turns in the geography, with the first thing Veronica saw was a pair of pirates making for the forest to her left.

  She veered that way instantly, leaving the other targets of opportunity to those coming up behind her and wanted to get to these two before they disappeared in the trees, otherwise they’d have to go on foot and track them down…something she’d prefer not to do.

  The Australian version of a commando lined up her speeder with the first of the pair and flew straight at him/her/it while popping out the stinger turret on the front of the bike. The four little barrels descended out from the otherwise smooth underside and began spitting the stun-laced paintballs in a flurry, mowing down the first runner and dropping him into the water.

  Veronica swung the bike around quickly and made a second attack run, likewise stunning the other pirate before flying her passengers up to where the first went down and dropping one off, who quickly ran to the unconscious pirate and pulled the Critel out of the water before he could drown. Veronica got her other passenger in position to do the same then flew a lazy circle around the location as the two got to work, ensuring that their prisoners weren’t dead and having to do a few chest thumps on the Gavrosan to get some water out of his airways.

  Once they were squared away breathing wise the commandos bound their captives and Veronica picked them up, latching them to the speeder then flying her unconscious guests back to the dropship for proper processing. After dumping them off there she returned and picked up her pair of wranglers and moved on, looking for more to round up and eventually having to dig through some of the tank debris to pull out those injured while the mechs continued to move on towards the base and out of sight.

  When Timothy came around the last bend the pirate base came into view just in time for him to see a large transport take off from the nearby pad and slowly rise up into the air, underneath of which a hail of plasma fire hit his mech from various ranges. He targeted the closest of the defense batteries and fired back with a mauler blast that melted the stubby little turret set into the last of the water to his right before the marsh transitioned into what had been the tank dock.

  There, along the water’s edge, was a straight pier with a half dozen more turrets spread out, behind which there were more distant towers and a half dozen other starships that were hurriedly prepping for launch. Timothy ignored them and the one now gaining distance overhead, knowing that the navy would deal with them. Right now he had base defenses to take down and he was walking right into them, meaning he didn’t have a lot of time to work with before his mech started taking damage.

  The other batteries on the pier were outside of mauler range, so as Timothy walked his mech through the sloshy marsh he took aim at one of the towers with the rail gun in his left arm and tried for a ranged shot, nearly missing but clipping the side of the tower and knocking a chunk out of it as the metallic projectile shot straight through the concrete and blasted it into a shower of little chunks that rained down on the crews scrambling about below.

  As he did the mechs in the other star began to approach from a different marsh entrance 90 degrees around the perimeter to the north and Timothy saw the towers on that side begin to open fire. There were so many he wondered exactly what the pirates had been planning to defend against, but they weren’t going to keep the mechs back. Even as a shield warning flashed in his cockpit the other bushwhacker targeted the same tower with its rail gun slug finishing the work he’d started.

  The entire top half came crashing down, its stalk severed, taking that battery out of the fight and likewise removing one of the anti-air turrets that had been on top. That diminished the firepower being thrown at Timothy only slightly, with him turning to the right and running up on some of the ground turrets and slagging them with his mauler as the ravens ran forward drawing fire towards them as they hopped up on the dock and began crossing solid ground shooting at anything that shot back at them, including infantry.

  As they pressed inward across a large open deck area that could have accommodated ten times the number of starships that were present, tiny missiles began sprouting from random points and fired into the mechs from infantry with portable launchers. The ravens ignored them at first, mowing down a few more turrets and making sure Timothy wasn’t going down, then they left the remaining big guns to the pair of bushwhackers and went after the infantry, firing a mix of stinger barrages and short range energy blasts that looked like a sprinkler of stun energy delivered via a bubble gum pop. They had to be very close, but any infantry stupid enough to run up near the ravens got the energy bubble in the face and went down like someone had hit their off switch.

  Those further away were stitched with a hail of stingers, of which the mechs could carry a lot and fire with decent accuracy over range…and what they couldn’t accurately hit they took down with sheer numbers of projectiles. All across the landing pad/dock area the infantry began to pile up, both those with weapons and those fleeing to the ships. The mechwarriors didn’t care who they were, they were all getting stunned and let the infantry deal with them afterwards.

  Timothy’s armor-damaged mech was still fully operational and he worked with his twin to target and take down the remaining towers and turrets in their area save for those at the far end that bracketed the entrance to the base. They were obscure
d by a ship still sitting on the deck, with others spaced around similar ‘solid’ areas surrounding the base, whether it be artificial surface or just hard packed dirt above the waterline.

  All of them had to be taken out, so with one of the fully shielded ravens going first Timothy walked his mech around the parked starship and pounded the fairly large plasma turrets with his mauler as the raven played bait and got whacked for it. It lost all shields and got a kiss of melted armor before Timothy and the other bushwhacker took down the last of the wall-mounted turrets, then all three began to redeploy around the perimeter of the base and pick off the others while the two remaining ravens patrolled the area hunting more pirate infantry and crewers…all the while careful not to step on those they’d already rendered unconscious.

  Jack ran out of the enclosure on the rover a few minutes later, coming out onto the landing pad and seeing a waypoint pop up on his helmet immediately. He and the other assault teams poured out of the small anti-grav transports that had brought them up to the base as speeders whipped around them on patrol and in the distance he could see the dropship that had brought them here climb up into the sky and began a controlled hover that would bring it across the gap and land it at the base.

  Before that happened cleanup crews had to remove people and debris from the area, but that wasn’t Jack’s purpose here. He was going inside the base and neutralizing personnel, with a host of stinger weapons at his disposal along with one regular plasma pistol should the occasion warrant it. He felt a bit clumsy with all the weaponry on his back in the heavy gravity, but as soon as he passed through the blast doors that the mechs had melted a hole in, the base IDF took over and approximately normal gravity resumed, though it felt a bit on the light side to be honest.

  That wasn’t surprising considering it wasn’t a Human base, but the lightness was welcome and he felt more like his normal self as his squad pushed ahead on the ever growing battlemap as various teams fanned out and added more hallways to the virtual display. It took several minutes before they ran into any personnel, with the first group being an ambush waiting for them.

  He and several others took armor damage from the pirate plasma weapons, most of which looked to be of standard Zarati make, but their defenses kept them alive long enough to respond to the ambush and turn the tables on their attackers. They disabled most of them then pursued the fleers throughout the base, hunting them all down in ones and twos before reporting in that all areas had been safed, after which Jack and the others were put on scavenger duty, hauling the unconscious prisoners back to the loading dock for processing.

  A similar course of events was occurring at the other 5 bases, with them being systematically overrun and most of the pirates being taken alive. Meanwhile the navy was intercepting the ships that managed to get off the surface all the while waiting for their jumpship to arrive. That would take another 5 weeks but the wait paid off and the Australians bagged the big ship as it came off the stellar jumpline and into planetary orbit, including the warships it carried and the most recent victim in the form of a damaged cargo vessel of independent origin.

  The pirates also had a few captives of their own in one of the bases and the jumpship, which were recovered and freed…along with the stories of those who had not survived. In addition it was learned that this group of pirates had a second jumpship, so the stay for the Australians was lengthened as they waited for it to unwittingly walk into their hands, which it did some 3 months later. By that time the pirate bases had been cleaned out and somewhat destroyed by demolition crews. They left behind what remained and cleared out, returning the system to its neutral status and carrying their prisoners back to Star Force territory where they could be unloaded for a proper debriefing before being sent off to various prison facilities to being their long isolation sentences.

  As an added bonus, the Australians were permitted to keep the captured jumpships, taking them back to their nearest colony to begin either refitting or disassembly, for the gravity drives alone were worth recycling.

  To Admiral Laver it made him feel like they had become anti-pirate pirates, though he was pleased to return home with some loot, which Australia was more than happy to receive to bolster its limited resources.

  5

  June 4, 2652

  Delorean System (Zeta Region)

  Flux

  Ren’jar’tel sat on the elevated walkway with his legs hanging out into the air and his arms resting on the guard rail as he watched the dance taking place below in the park. He wore a full body suit, including loose helmet, to keep his bioluminosity obscured from the other Axius denizens but the dancers below did not. They were all female Protovic and fully nude, which is what drew his interest, but for the other races watching below they were interested in seeing the light show, for the artful and graceful gymnastics routine they were putting on was made all the more impressive with the myriad of glowing purple and green patches of their bodies’ own natural colors.

  There weren’t many Protovic in Axius, with most choosing to remain in their own territory, but Ren’jar’tel was born into the arm of Star Force and had never been off planet. Most of his associates were other middle-sized races, with the Flux colony being one of seven inhabited planetoids within the system and reserved for those near his size range. There were two other colonies that were for races smaller than him, and one for those larger, with the remaining three being hybrids, two on the small end and one on the larger.

  That meant he could travel to a total of four worlds within the system if he chose, and live there also, but he had never had cause to leave Flux, let alone make a permanent move. In the past 12 years since he’d graduated from the maturia he had switched quarters twice, both times moving to different parts of the same city but going no further. He liked where he lived and the carefree lifestyle that Star Force provided, and while he was a bit curious as to what the Protovic worlds were like it wasn’t enough for him to investigate further. He was happy where he was and with the current scenery as some 23 of them danced about making for an erotic display to the handful of other Protovic in the crowd.

  But that’s not why they were here in the open air park. They were dancing for aesthetic reasons, with most of the races not being able to recognize the sexuality in it. They thought it was a colorful acrobatics display, which it was, but as far as Ren’jar’tel was concerned there wasn’t anywhere else in the galaxy he wanted to be right now.

  A few other spectators were on the railing with him, most of whom were standing as the mass of the crowd was milling about in the courtyard below on the grass. There were no seats or infrastructure, for the performance was a random one. More often than not various artists would come here to perform whatever it was they did, making the locale a hot spot for spectators. A few hours ago there had been a sparring display between a Critel and a Scionate, with both showing enough skill that their mismatched forms made for a good bit of action, but most of the displays were less impressive.

  More often than not you’d get amateurs trying to polish their skills in whatever it was they did, building a fan base that could propel them into the credit-generating class of artists, but there were some, like this Protovic group, that simply danced to dance, using their natural glow to highlight their movements in the twilight hours.

  It made for quite the spectacle, and luckily they made their circuit of performances known a day or so in advance, otherwise he would have missed it being over in the entertainment complex catching a vid. He found it funny how the crowd was completely oblivious to the fact that they were nude, making it almost his own private peep show, despite the fact that it was in public with a crowd of several hundred watching.

  Normally nothing would have torn his eyes away from the dancers, but a silent mass rising across the last bit of sunlight on the horizon drew his attention, along with several others on the upper walkway whose vision wasn’t blocked by the trees.

  “Whoa,” someone else said, pointing to the ship rising up from t
he surface. It was big…in fact, bigger than big, so much so that to the Protovic it looked like it didn’t belong in the atmosphere at all. From the direction it was he knew that the location had to be the D39 spaceport, for there was nothing that could handle a ship of that size anywhere within 100 kilometers.

  “Troop transport,” an old Calavari said from behind him.

  Ren’jar’tel turned back to look at the dancers, who were appearing to glow more and more as the last bit of sunlight faded out, but his curiosity overrode his sexual buzz for the moment and he half spun around on his stone seat. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ve traveled on many of them. The silhouette is familiar.”

  “Whose troops?” a Martekal asked, blinking its three eyes eagerly.

  “Ours,” the Calavari said matter of factly. “Those are either Axius ground or aerial troops leaving to fight, probably on the front somewhere…there, you can just see the top of the second ship now. They’re leaving in convoy to meet up with a jumpship stationed in stellar orbit.”

  “I thought our troops stayed here to defend us?” Ren’jar’tel asked.

  The Calavari shook his head slowly, as if that was the quickest movement his decayed body was capable of. “No, no…Axius does most of its fighting elsewhere. Only twice has one of our worlds come under attack, with both being little more than scouting runs by the enemy. Our troops are taking the fight to the lizards in order to keep them from coming here.”

  “Those ships are huge,” someone else commented, now that the second one was fully visible and trailing slightly behind the other as it quietly rose up in altitude and headed for orbit at a tranquil pace.

  “Most of Axius, like you, are civilians,” the Calavari explained, “but do not underestimate the size of Axius. There are, proportionally, enough of us wanting to fight that we have one of the largest militaries in the ADZ. You don’t see it because it’s spread across many systems, but it’s there, and right now you’re getting a glimpse of a tiny piece of it.”