Star Force: Melee (SF20) Read online

  After clearing out the hallway Paul abandoned his position and ran forward, searching out the closest firefight. He caught two more lizards in retreat before he came up on an intact barricade defense onto an overlook of the building’s main lobby that was the size of several football fields. As he got closer dozens of blue dots began popping up all around him, with most of them centered on that open area…and all of which were tagged as Canderians.

  Paul switched weapons again and ambushed this barricade from behind as he had the last one, then he kicked aside one of the sturdy, but not incredibly heavy, plastic-like obstructions and ran out onto the walkway ringing the lobby. One level below him there were knots of lizards holding out against the Canderians, but only because they’d been cut off from any hope of retreat. To his right and left there were more defenses set up, but many of them were pulling back as Canderians in full green body armor were popping up at various positions on the second floor perimeter and flanking the turrets and gunners firing down on the invading troops.

  Paul did likewise, running off to the right and taking down a lizard manning a more beefy, manually fired turret that was blasting away parts of the floor below. Paul kicked it out of the small gunner’s seat and shot it dead, then moved on to a knot of snipers, taking two down before the other three even noticed he was there. He continued running the edge of the 3-sided box all the way up to the windows on the front of the building as the Canderians swarmed over the lizard defenses, then he backtracked and met up with a group coming up one of the stairwells, killing a retreating lizard in the process.

  Paul waved the four Canderians forward and led them across the level to the nearest knot of resistance and helped them take it down before his helmet comm activated.

  “Sir, Arc Tribune Raines reporting. We are at your command.”

  Paul located his signal position on the battlemap and started jogging towards it through the hallways.

  “Glad to have the backup, Tribune. The lizards have been reinforcing this building periodically, so I need you to establish a defensive line in the lobby and all other level 1 entrances. I’ve got three other Archons on the higher levels and we’ve been thinning their numbers for the past two days, but they’ve got the upper part of the building locked down and that’s where we need to go,” Paul said as he rounded a corner and saw Raines’ ID tag pop up over one of several identical green suits of armor roaming the hallways.

  “What do they have up there?” the slightly taller man asked as they met faceplate to faceplate.

  “They’ve been redecorating the entire building with various pieces of equipment, but I think they’re using the comm systems to send out the jamming signal messing with our battlemap.”

  “There’s more than one signal, I’m afraid. Control had identified a minimum of 4 sources before we entered the dead zone, and that was 4 hours ago.”

  “What’d you come in on?”

  “Assault shuttles, but we had to ground several blocks away and fight our way up here. The lizards have mobile anti-air vehicles roaming the streets along with what we’re calling ‘chip’ missile launchers mixed in with their infantry. Something new, I think, as far as the intel reports have indicated.”

  “How many men have you got?”

  “Four centuries on the ground, with the others being flown down as fast as we can get them here. We would have liked to have landed on the roof, but the lizards have it full of anti-air emplacements. If we can take those down my men won’t have to hoof it several kilometers over here after landing.”

  Paul nodded his agreement. Four centuries meant approximately 1000 soldiers in play, which should be enough to hold the building at ground level, but if the lizards were using the landing pads on the roof it was possible they could have been reinforcing from that direction…though to date he hadn’t seen any kirbies flying that high, probably due to the fact that they didn’t want to risk being taken down by the defense towers.

  “How many defense towers are down?”

  “Two more since yesterday, both ground affairs, but their cruisers are so beat up we’ve still got air superiority at altitude, just not down in the trenches. Skeet and gunship assaults are being fended off by their anti-air assets, but they were able to provide a distraction for our landing.”

  “Any mech support on the ground?”

  “Yesterday six dropships of reinforcements from up north were intercepted by a lizard cruiser. Two were shot down while the others were able to retreat. That cruiser is still lingering about, out of turret range, and preventing any of our larger transports from getting to the city. I think they know our mechs will eat up their vehicles and don’t want us getting more in play.”

  “Damn it,” Paul said, looking around at the growing number of Canderians standing and listening to the two men. “I want sweeps on the ground level immediately, with checkpoints on all stairwells and elevators. Once cleared, we move up and repeat on the next level. I also want your best evocaton released to me to push upwards. Keep one stairwell with a man on each level to act as a relay for our comms and battlemap.”

  “I’ll have your evocaton here within 3 minutes,” the Tribune promised, getting in contact with his men as Paul headed over to the nearest stairwell and waited, switching his comm gear over to relay status. In addition to his own identification signal his armor’s built in gear now began transmitting his battlemap data out as well as serving as a data relay for short range signals passing between distant targets. Normally transmitters within the city or on mechs and aircraft would handle those duties, but given the extreme short range the troops were facing with the whiteout they were going to have to link up their armor systems to stay in contact.

  A few minutes later the 43 troops of his evocaton arrived. 6 Triarill, each composed of 6 troops and their leading Triarii, made up the larger Canderian unit, led by an Evocati that Paul’s HUD tagged as Lila-A623-34. Like the Archons all Canderians only had one name with an identification number to follow. In their case the first sequence identified their orisect, which was the family unit they’d been raised with, followed by their ‘familiar’ number used within that orisect, ranging from 00-99. Canderian converts, made up of initiates who did not enter the their training programs at birth, had their orisect number listed first, followed by the letter, while those who joined through periodic or individual training had a sequential number bracketed by Rs, such as R236R, indicating that they were of ‘rogue’ origin.

  “Lila,” Paul said as she arrived with the others. “We’re going up to rendezvous with 3 other Archons. Follow me by twos and keep it close. Have all your men set their helmets to relay mode.

  “Lead on,” she prompted before giving unit commands that Paul couldn’t hear to her Evocaton.

  He took to the stairs, sword in hand, and led them back up to their base of operations, dispatching 20 of their men by 5s to guard the four walkway access points to the surrounding buildings on the way up. As soon as Kali’s dot appeared on his battlemap he got on the comm.

  “Switch to relay mode, we’ve got Canderous reinforcements. That’s what the lizards were running towards. What’s the activity level been up here?”

  “A few passing groups headed down,” she answered as Fred and Harrison’s dots popped up on separate sections of the map, adding them into the teamcomm. “Other than that it’s been quiet as a tomb. Harrison went up to check the floors above.”

  “Quiet all the way to the barricade line. Drew some fire there, so they haven’t abandoned their positions. Looks like you made some friends?”

  “There are 1000 more downstairs and more on the way,” Paul said, finally seeing Kali as she stepped out into the hallway from her hiding place. “They’re going to execute a floor by floor sweep and keep the walkways covered. In the meantime we’re poking a hole into the upstairs.”

  Paul turned towards Lila. “Give her a Triarill and assign two more for the other Archons. You and the remainder stick with me.”

  The green
armored Canderian made two quick hand gestures and a group of seven troops broke off and advanced to Kali’s position.

  “Are the elevators functional?” Lila asked.

  “We cut the power feeds a few hours ago so the lizards couldn’t use them,” Paul said as he ran off toward Fred’s dot elsewhere on the same level while Harrison was coming down from one above. “They hacked the controls from the upper floors where the Duke had locked them out and I don’t have the gear with me to override from down here. Besides, they’d be stupid if they didn’t have the exits guarded with those portable turrets of theirs.”

  “Stairs then?” she asked, dispatching Fred’s men with another quick gesture as the Archon came into view. Paul took a quick turn and headed a different direction, reducing the Canderians following him down to 9.

  “They’ve upgraded the furniture piles the Duke made with additional junk, leaving only one route clear and that’s heavily guarded.”

  “We have men with explosives downstairs,” the Evocati offered.

  “We’ll save that as a fallback. We’ve got a few options already laid out, we’ve just been low on manpower.”

  A few steps later and they were at another staircase, meeting Harrison as he came down.

  “Take your men and hit point 5,” Paul told him as they ran by and he took to the stairs with only Lila and one other Canderian following him.

  “You taking 4?” Harrison asked over the comm as Paul disappeared up to the next level.

  “We’re keeping 1 honest and redeploying as necessary. Issue your troops lizard rifles, two each.”

  “On it,” Harrison said.

  Paul ran up three flights of stairs before making a detour to the south, hoping over a dead lizard that the others hadn’t bothered to pick up yet, and darting into a residential block consisting of only 4 quarters with doors all facing one another. They were used either by high ranking staff that migrated from location to location on a temporary basis or by those regulars that didn’t work a standard shift and spent repetitive, irregular hours in the building, such as Duke Hightower.

  None of these four were his, and two of them were currently unused. Paul led his pair of Canderians into one of them and back into the small bedroom, placing his stun sword on top of the geometrically shaped bed as he knelt down on the other side and pulled open a storage drawer from underneath it.

  “Extra firepower,” he said, tossing the Canderians four lizard rifles from one of the Archons’ many stashes.

  6

  Paul ducked behind what was left of one of the lizard barricades, trying to contort his body around the holes the plasma from their portable turret had melted out. He and his two Canderians had managed to take down the first line of lizard defenses around point 1, eliminating their guards on the first row of three barricades in two opposite facing hallways. Getting up to them had been problematic, but Paul was now positioned on the outside of the first row as the turret was blasting away and eating through the barrier trying to get at him.

  A particularly close blast lit up his faceplate with a flash of green as he patiently crunched down, waiting for the others to attack from the opposite side.

  It took the pair some time to run around the flank, having to retreat quite a ways to get around the block and come in opposite their previous position. They’d already hit that side earlier, but the lizards had reinforced it with additional personnel…one shy of what they had earlier, which he took as a sign that the others were drawing off a lot of attention. That had been his job, which meant they needed to hit this position harder, hence his one man assault on the turret.

  “It’s spinning,” Lila said through his helmet as she fired off both her captured lizard rifles from the opposite side, nailing one of their troops in the head on accident as she aimed for the armored turret. Her plasma missed wide and high at first, given the length of the hallway, but she caught a few hits on the gunner’s seat shields, which flashed opaque as they protected the lizard from behind. The plasma turret started to spin around with a decidedly slow rotational speed then fired at the Canderians down the length of the hallway.

  The green orbs that came their way were more than three times as large as the ones coming from the rifles of the lizards behind the barricades. The turret was elevated to fire over their heads, so Lila had to keep around the corner behind cover to avoid getting mowed down, but poked one of her arms around to keep firing plasma their direction, hoping to grab their attention and not accidentally hit Paul on the far side as he leapt over the first line of barricades firing away with his Star Force plasma rifle.

  He wasn’t aiming for the turret, however, despite the fact that the shields had to be near depletion. His aim was on the pair of lizards behind the second row of barricades. He had to take a hit to his right arm to get at them, but he shot them down inside of 1.5 seconds and hurdled the barricade.

  He knew he should have slid down behind it, or at least the third one and fought it out inches away from the others, but his objective was knocking out the turret and drawing up more lizard reinforcements. Other than the hit on the shoulder his armor was in fairly good condition, with only a few nicks here and there, so he decided to get reckless and jumped over the third barricade…and the lizards kneeling behind it.

  He landed on one’s tail, then spun kicked the nearest one in the head, knocking it out with one blow just before he shot the one next to it, taking a shot in his back at the same time.

  Paul rolled forward and twisted over, shooting back over his head and downing the last two lizards there as the turret spun and tried to shoot him…but he was now under its depression angle and it couldn’t lower the weapon low enough to target him. Before the other lizards stationed in the stairwell niche could fire at him he scurried across the floor and positioned himself between the turret and the wall opposite the stairs, then fired into the backs of the lizards on the opposite barricade as the Canderians were continuing to exchange fire with them, of which a few plasma blasts were hitting the turret.

  One got through and blew out a shower of armor-dust sparks over Paul’s head just as one of the lizards he was shooting managed to spin around and hit him in the side of his helmet with a nearly pointblank shot. Paul felt the heat soak through and suddenly his battlemap went offline, but that was the worst of the damage. He shot the lizard and the one beside it, then had the area around the turret and between the three barricades all to himself, though there were still lizards on the opposite side of the stairwell barricade trying to get a shot off at him.

  With the turret blocking their firing line Paul dropped his plasma rifle on the ground near his feet and put his hands on the front of the turret as it fired another shot directly over his head, blasting into the wall two meters away from him. His hands hit the shields at first, then broke through as the already weakened matrix snapped under the pressure. The turret rocked a bit as Paul’s contact was momentarily broken, but then his hands found the armored front panels surrounding the plasma muzzle and pushed again.

  Suddenly the lizard in the gunner’s seat jumped out and to the left as Paul lifted and tipped the portable turret over, then the Archon ran and dove over the first line barricade he’d come in by, not having time to grab his rifle as a line of four lizards from the stairwell began shooting at him. He almost took another hit as he slammed down on the hallway floor behind cover and slid into the gunner as the plasma blasts flew over his head.

  Neither one of them had a weapon, but Paul had the advantage in strength. He wrestled the lizard to the ground as it scrambled for one of the dropped weapons, then he got hold of one himself and awkwardly shot it in the head before spinning back around and taking up a shooter’s position on the innermost barricade.

  Meanwhile the two Canderians were advancing up the opposite hallway, taking out the distracted lizards on the front two barricades as Paul overturned the turret. They came forward firing their Star Force issue plasma rifles with a much higher cycling rate, burning holes into the
top of the nearest barricade along with the upper torsos and heads of the lizards, half of which were turned around and firing at Paul.

  The Archon flashed them some quick hand signals as they got to the third barricade opposite his position and hunkered down. The far right side of his faceplate was melted and distorted, but he still had about 90% of his view unobstructed, and the lizards were on his left anyway. That didn’t bode well for his battle longevity, but it was a tradeoff he was comfortable with, now that they’d eliminated the turret.

  Lila slid out along the barricade and into view along the box-like perimeter they were pinned on. All three sides of the box were inset from the walls, meaning it was difficult to shoot to the other side because the corners would get in the way, offering Paul, the Canderians, and the lizards plenty of cover where they needed it…though if both Star Force groups slid out their overlapping fields of fire would leave the lizards without a covered angle.

  Paul had another idea, though. Instead of shooting it out across the barricades he stood up close to the wall and walked back to the second barrier, which was actually two sections latched together. Paul reached down and disconnected the two with some wiggling, then picked up one of the heavy pieces and put it on his shoulder like a stubby, thick beam. He walked it forward, hugging as close as he could to the wall for cover, and brought it up to the first row.

  Dropping it down he attached it to the top of one of the others, sliding the prefab pieces together as they were designed to, giving him a barrier he could stand up behind.

  He stooped down and slid his fingers under the other half and disconnected it with considerable effort while trying to keep his head down. Once it was free he pulled back and began shoving the taller half of the barrier forward a few inches at a time.