Star Force: Backstab (SF23) Read online

  “Damn,” the trailblazer said, standing up and tossing the components aside. “These are scrap too. Looks like we’re going to have to get in our fighters and rack up an all-time high score.”

  “I don’t like it either,” the Archon admitted. “Fallback plan?”

  “I don’t feel like heading up to the surface, but I’ve got Andy working on it just in case,” he said as a signal came through his helmet. Those at least weren’t suffering from the jamming signal.

  “They’ve pulled back,” Sam reported from the cockpit of his skeet. “We don’t have a line of sight on the walker anymore.”

  “Copy that,” Mark said, glancing over at the hole in the doors as another thud melted away part of the rim along with spraying red plasma through and into the hangar. He turned back to Boen. “If we can’t take those things out they can do the same thing to the roof, and then we will have to evacuate. Find me some more things that go boom, I don’t care what they are.”

  “I’m on it,” the Archon said, tossing a quick mock salute before running off.

  “Legat, we’ve reacquired communication with the assault shuttle.”

  Orion paused his pacing a couple of steps behind the command chair and looking to the comm officer. “Report?”

  “They say the enemy has some type of signal jammer in place on the ground, which is why we lost contact. They successfully made their reconnaissance run and have a data package ready to transmit, but are holding off until they get further away from the surface due to inconsistencies in signal strength. We’re only getting text transmission and it’s heavily duplicated.”

  “Instruct them to hold transmission until they return to the seda,” he said, resuming his pacing around the control room. A jamming signal explained quite a bit, though they had been able to contact the Calavari early on when the Archons were unreachable.

  Orion kept pacing and rechewing what little data he had available until the sensor recordings from the shuttle came through…which showed a massive invasion army situated outside the closed bay doors of the Alliance base.

  “That’s insane,” another Canderian commented as they all looked at the main hologram.

  Orion turned on him. “What did you expect? If you come to take a planet you bring enough troops with you to do the job, not undercut and hope the battle swings in your favor. The Nestafar clearly intend to have this base and have brought what they thought was necessary to achieve that goal.”

  “Are they wrong?” another officer asked.

  Orion bit his lip as he weighed their options. “They’re attacking Archons, and that’s never wise, but they’ve got enough materiel on the ground to overwhelm the base if they can get through those doors,” he said, pointing to one large six-legged machine, “and judging by that thing I’d bet they can with enough time.”

  “What is that?”

  “A mobile cannon would be my guess. Their form of heavy artillery.”

  “How do we take it out?”

  “You assume we’re going to mount a surface attack?”

  “What else can we do but wait and watch them get overrun…then they’ll move on to our surface bases. We might as well fight them while the Archons are still in the game.”

  Orion nodded. “I concur, but we don’t have enough equipment to tackle their lines, nor do we have air superiority. Where does that leave us?”

  “Hit their jumpships?”

  “I would like to, but our fighters wouldn’t be able to scratch the hull. Ground ops are our only avenue of attack.”

  The control room staff fell silent, not having any good ideas to suggest…nor did Orion.

  “Geyr, set up a battleroom think tank. You’ve got an hour.”

  The Tribune nodded and hurried off, knowing exactly what and whom he needed to assemble for such a task while Orion forced himself to be patient and sat down while he studied the hologram. Icon tags were present on a lot of the walkers, fighters, and transports visible, indicating additional sensor data that he was able to access via his armchair controls. There were also visual records attached, showing a large line of glossy chrome walkers headed out from a nearby landing zone towards the bay doors up the side of the mountain slope.

  He watched as they set up camp outside and began assaulting the doors with the largest walker of them all, which was throwing an enormous amount of plasma at it in spurts. The Canderian was surprised the Calavari structure was robust enough to stand up to the punishment and was impressed with both races’ military proficiency…a proficiency that he had to deconstruct and disrupt on the Nestafar side.

  That was going to be a challenge, for the Nestafar were far better equipped on the ground than they were in the air. They were one of the races that had been reluctant to use the Calavari-designed Valeries, but after seeing the results against the lizards in combat they had begun buying up an enormous amount from their former nemesis. The addition of the aircraft had significantly increased their battle profile, strengthening a weakness in covering their ground forces.

  He didn’t have access to much information about the Calavari/Nestafar wars, but rumor had it that the Nestafar were their better except in terms of starfighters, which the Calavari used to impressive effect, both on the ground and to supplement their pathetic naval fleet. All things Calavari were based off the fighter, and now that the Nestafar had their precious technology it seemed they were ready to restart the old war with their weakness now patched over.

  Canderous couldn’t achieve air superiority…not even close with their limited resources. That was partly the Archons fault for restricting the type of military assets they could produce, but Orion was wise enough to see their purpose in doing so. Canderous was still young and needed to master each piece of warfare, so making them do with less was an ongoing exercise training their battle skill. They were also a supplement to Star Force, who did cover all angles. While the Archons might have avoided the use of starfighters for naval combat, they were more than capable of making up for it with the design of their war fleet.

  Simply copying Star Force wouldn’t do for Canderous, so making the civilization chart its own path was both wise and forward thinking…but in this case it was coming back to bite them in the ass, because it precluded the Canderians from attacking the Nestafar’s primary weakness.

  Orion still classified it as a weakness because if the Valeries could be countered the ground troops were still vulnerable to air assault. The stupid Nestafar had worked a patch on their battle acumen rather than redesigning it to cover anti-air.

  The reconnaissance team had done a very good job in assembling profile data on the enemy units, which Orion was pouring over and matching up with the rumors he’d heard of their capabilities. They literally had no weapons on their walkers designed to defend against fighters…everything was focused on ground combat. Slow, ponderous, heavy combat.

  That was something Orion could appreciate, but it wasn’t a balanced approach. The Nestafar, apparently, compensated for the lack of speed with their infantry. Thousands were flying around carrying heavy weapons, and given their mobility over the ground, not to mention outright flight speed, they made for a more mobile infantry than Canderous could field, even with jump packs.

  He could counter the infantry with mechs, but they’d be eaten alive by the heavy walkers. Those they could attack with assault shuttles dropping assets right under their feet, but there was no way they were going to get through their Valerie screens. It was an impressive army, one that he couldn’t overwhelm with numbers and couldn’t attack directly on any front…which left him with what options?

  One thing he did notice was that they were leaving their grounded transports relatively unprotected. They did have air cover, but virtually nothing on the ground…and the slowness of their walkers would mean any attack on the LZ would have limited immunity given the time it would take for them to return.

  Their infantry would come back quickly enough, but that could be countered with mechs if he coul
d only get them there, which meant landing dropships through their fighter screen.

  No go there, which meant he needed to start thinking abstractly. If he couldn’t defeat the enemy it was his obligation to thin their numbers, slow them down, deny them their prize.

  A thought suddenly struck him, causing him to stand up as an adrenaline buzz raced down his spine. “Orbital map, now.”

  The holographic reconnaissance data disappeared and a map of the seda’s sensors came up, detailing a partial view of orbit. Orion’s eyes went straight to the position of the enemy warships as he played a quick game of naval chess in his head.

  “Contact Captain Davion and get me a private line.”

  Mark walked forward in his battered mech, finding the biomechanics and weapons functional but the armor was chewed to bits. Fortunately he wouldn’t be needing it, he hoped. The pounding on the bay door was still ongoing, with now three separate holes punched through. The first was the largest, having been eroded out to several dozen meters wide and was nearing a merger with the second. The Nestafar hadn’t yet sought to send troops through, but it was only a matter of time.

  He actually hoped they would now, because he figured they could handle them if they were thinned down by the narrow access points. Widen them enough to get their walkers through and there was little they could do but fight the first few then retreat into and up the columns to the roof and fight a prolonged internal engagement…assuming they could take out the behemoth banging on the door and the Nestafar didn’t get sneaky and plant an even bigger bomb than the one Mark’s mech was carrying.

  In the mech’s left hand was one of the Scionate nukes, rigged with a timer on a pull chain similar to a grenade. The trailblazer made sure to keep a firm grip on the device without crushing it, for if he accidentally dropped it inside the bay it would be hasta la vista Archon.

  Right now the hand was locked in place so it couldn’t be dropped as he walked the mech towards the doors. The question was, how good was his aim?

  It was a long walk up there, with his mech getting bathed with red plasma sparks spilling in more freely now as the mega walker kept blasting the intact portions of the door. The holes themselves weren’t being targeted and Mark hoped that would remain so, because he really didn’t want his nuclear softball getting knocked back inside.

  When he got to the doors he found the lowest of the holes to be just over the shoulders of his mech, with the others being more than twice its height. He chose the lower one as his target and unlocked the mechs hand, micro-flexing the fingers around the device as he steadied himself.

  “Be like Mike,” he told himself as he set his mech jogging forward towards the wall. He accelerated it to as fast of a run as he dared and brought the mech’s arm up, first to shoulder height, then up over its head, making for a very awkward run in a mech, especially with all the lost armor weight, but this wasn’t the first time the trailblazer had been in a mech and even though he was primarily a pilot he had always liked the neo’s design and had kept in regular practice, making him proficient enough to slam face first into the wall and dunk the nuke through the hole.

  He knew the impact was coming but ignored it, focusing entirely on the task he could not fail. He jerked hard against the control restraints, bleeding in several spots immediately but the shock absorbers on the contraption kept him from breaking any bones, though his head went through a mild whiplash as the mech bounced off the wall and fell onto its back...empty handed.

  “Son of a…” he said, shaking himself to his senses and twisting the mech over onto his feet while looking around to make sure it had gone through. Not seeing anything by the time he got up he ran off along the door, trying to get as far away from the hole as he could before…

  The nuke blew, blasting who knew what on the other side and sending a stream of air and shrapnel through the holes while breaking out the connection between two of them and enlarging the breach. Mark felt the mech off balance for a moment but he caught his feet and kept running off into a gradual slowdown where he turned around in a wide, victorious circle.

  “You da man, boss,” Boen said over the comm as Mark walked the mech back towards the holes so he could sneak a peek outside before the enemy could reorganize enough to shoot at him.

  “My tongue would be sticking out if it wasn’t bleeding.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Never mind,” Mark said, stopping his mech ahead of the hole and seeing a debris field directly in front of him, made up of large chunks of what he hoped was the mega walker that had been pounding on the door. “Get our defenses ready. I think we took away their lock pick.”

  The next moment an even larger explosion than the nuke rocked the hangar, denting in the massive doors and knocking the neo backwards through the air with the blast wave coming through the holes.

  6

  “They’re moving to intercept,” Frankton said from the navigation console as Captain Davion took his Gargantuan-class freighter down into low orbit.

  “How close?”

  “Hold course and we’ll hit atmosphere first. After that I have no idea. The ballistics of this ship outside of a vacuum are beyond me.”

  “It’s not the ship, it’s the shields,” Davion reminded him from the pilot’s seat. The rest of the bridge including the captain’s chair was empty, as was the rest of the ship, save for the Canderian assault shuttle waiting in the hangar bay. “They brake the atmosphere, not the hull.”

  “Until they collapse,” Frankton said, making adjustments to the computer projections of their course. “I think we need to brake a bit sooner,” he said, sending a new revised route over to the pilot’s station.

  “Worried about the in-atmosphere turn?” the Captain asked, taking the suggestion and altering their course slightly as they descended rapidly towards the planet in the oversized transport. The Starbright and her sister ships were the largest vessels in the Star Force fleet aside from the jumpships, capable of hauling an insane amount of cargo and personnel and barely fitting into the hulls of the interstellar transports. Fortunately the Hycre knew how to accommodate such large ships in transit, otherwise they never would have been able to bring in enough equipment to build the seda in the first place.

  “At the speed we’re traveling, ‘difficult’ is an understatement.”

  “Relax, I’ve got more than 50 years of piloting experience under my belt before I worked my way up to Captain, and a lot of that was with dropships. I’m well acquainted with atmosphere.”

  Frankton frowned. “You flew dropships? I thought you were strictly a navy man.”

  “I am now,” Davion said, tweaking their course a bit more as the wisps of upper atmosphere began to tug at the large ship. “But they just don’t hand over command of freighters to anyone like they did back in the day. You’ve got to work your way up, kid, and do so by demonstrating skill. Kiss ass will get you demoted in Star Force. I’ve seen it happen to lots of guys. Double check our exit.”

  “Yes, sir,” the ship’s navigator said, sliding over to another console. “All doors read locked open from here to the hangar.”

  “Range to enemy ships?”

  Frankton slid back over to his normal station. “60 seconds out, but they’re going to have to decelerate before then or the atmosphere will bounce them back.”

  “Don’t count on it. Check my alignment.”

  “You’re four degrees high.”

  “Good. That’s what I wanted. Hold on to your butt,” the Captain said, kicking in the conventional drives at full power.

  The ship shook from the blast of acceleration, but thanks to the inertial dampeners neither man felt it. The massive engines at the rear of the elongated, yet fat gargantuan kicked out blue fire exhaust that churned against the upper atmosphere while the ship was flying backwards, causing a faster deceleration than friction alone would have allowed. The shields along the rear portion of the ship were down along a narrow line covering the engines so that the exhaust would
n’t catch inside, making the already non-aerodynamic shape of the ship even less so by turning the whole thing into a cup facing the wrong way.

  Davion didn’t have a choice in the matter, because it was the only way to get to their target ahead of the Nestafar warships attempting to intercept them. They were coming alone, without escort, while some of the warships made a bluff in higher orbit that had drawn the Nestafar further out of position…but as soon as the freighter had started to head towards the planet they immediately reversed and came after it, knowing that they intended to aid the base under assault.

  “Give me the count.”

  “Rotational speed in 12…10…8…6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark!”

  Davion cut out the ship’s conventional engines and briefly kicked in the gravity drive to hold them aloft against the torrent of atmosphere trying to twist them around and out of control. They were still falling, and fast, but by reducing the speed he was giving himself a controllable force to work around, thus allowing him to pilot the falling ship.

  With their braking maneuver completed he returned the shields to full cover, immediately reducing the drag on the ship and allowing him a slightly easier pivot as the control thrusters fought to turn the bow around so they could face forward and get the trimmer nose pointed into the air.

  “Some help, please,” the Captain suggested.

  “Working on it,” Frankton promised as he adjusted the shield geometry to act like ailerons and rudders in order to assist the thrusters to complete the turn in time.

  “Come on, come on,” Davion muttered as the sluggish nose gradually turned around as his ship fell belly first towards the ground. They were only going to get one chance at this.

  A warning light flashed on the shield matrix on Davion’s console, indicating that a section of the top hull and just gone down…then another, followed by hull damage.