Star Force: Probe (SF42) Page 6

Ben crept up on the edge of the barracks again, noting that the sentry patrols had still not resumed. It’d been six weeks since the Skarrons had taken the place, and the planet, he feared, but they didn’t seem too keen on laying claim to this piece of infrastructure. The last time he’d snuck in for supplies it had been virtually deserted, with him only coming across a handful of Hobbits inside.

  That had got him curious, and in all the copious spare time he had on his hands he’d made the trek through the forest over to the mining complex to see what was happening there, but making sure to stay well clear of the Type-4 walker that was still on guard. Even now he could see it from the barracks, standing in place like a statue between the two locations, just on the inside edge of the mining site. Ben had gone the long way around to avoid it, whereupon he’d discovered that the Hobbits from the barracks had repositioned to the mine…along with a lot of others.

  There were plenty of Skarrons around, with the walking tanks acting as commanders for the legions of Hobbits and ‘Engineers’ as Ben thought of the others. What their actual name was he couldn’t remember, but the little aliens were all arms and legs, looking like a pint-sized version of Calavari…only without the bulk. They had four scrawny arms and a central body not much thicker, with a set of five tiny eyes in the center of their head with no discernible mouth…and it seemed they were the ones doing most of the technical work as the Skarrons took control of the mining facility and had begun converting it over to their own uses.

  The Hobbits provided some of the manpower, but it was mostly the Engineers that were learning how to work the Star Force equipment while bringing in key pieces of their own to get the mine functioning again, and as of now they were churning out a steady, yet small stream of raw materials that regular dropship flights were coming to pick up.

  Ben didn’t know where their ships were taking the materials, but it was clear the Skarrons hadn’t just come here to kill Kiritak and Humans. They wanted the planet, and were wasting no time in laying claim and getting to work.

  The Engineers, Hobbits, and Skarrons were living out of the mining complex, so the Archon guessed they’d deemed the barracks too far away to bother using. Fortunately their trashing of the place had left most of the stuff he and the 6 Kiritak needed to survive still there, just strewn about with a lot of broken components. Still, he needed to be careful, for the last thing he wanted was to give the Skarrons a reason to take a second look at the place.

  Studying the wall carefully, he ran up and jumped into position where he could look over the edge. Seeing no patrols inside the wall, he pulled up and slid over top, then hurried to the nearest entrance and quietly made his way inside.

  The power was still out, with the main generator lines having been slagged by the Hobbits. It was possible, he thought, to get some power back after repairs, from the reserve batteries even, but he wasn’t ready to risk bringing the Kiritak back just yet. Living in the forest off sacks of supplies wasn’t fun, but they were still alive and that’s what mattered. If the little guys weren’t around he might have tried to take out a few of the enemy quietly here and there, but saving them was tops on his priority list, given how many of the loyal Kiritak had died when Star Force was unable to protect them.

  That didn’t sit well with Ben, and he wanted to get these six through this if at all possible. Movo was still badly hurt, but at least he was no longer bleeding and had avoided infection. His pair of plasma burns had responded adequately well to the healing patches, but his skin wasn’t regrowing yet, which the Kiritak suggested wouldn’t happen until he could enter a proper sleep cycle…something that none of them were getting. The Archon hadn’t known it before, but apparently the Kiritas physiology had a Jedi-like healing trance to help them repair a myriad of injuries…but it left them with a slower than average healing ability the rest of the time.

  Movo needed stable, quiet conditions with an abundance of heat, food, and water to slip into his willful coma, and despite trying several times hadn’t been able to do it out there. If the Hobbits were gone from the barracks, Ben was going to try to move them back inside. If they weren’t, then this was going to be another supply run with an eye on some equipment to fabricate some kind of tent or shelter that would let the Kiritak out of their armor, which they’d been living in ever since the attack.

  The days on Ettiana were warm to hot this time of year, but with so little moisture in the atmosphere the nights were cloudless and got uncomfortably cold without dropping below freezing, in most cases. The planet had a slight incline to its axis, giving them mild seasons compared to Earth, and at the moment this geographic location was in winter. To top it off the Kiritas were warm weather freaks, more so than Humans anyway, and they reacted worse to the cold than expected.

  Roughing it in the forest for so many weeks had taken its toll on them, even if all they had to do was stay put. To keep their strength up and to give them something to do, Ben had them go through a light workout every morning and afternoon during the 33 hour days, which consisted of running and calisthenics, but if he didn’t get them to better accommodations soon he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d last.

  They still had some ambrosia left, scrounged from the barracks, but Ben had been out ever since that first day he’d spent with the Kiritak in the forest. The adjustment hadn’t been too unpleasant, but he was definitely feeling an energy drain…while at the same time he had more energy than normal, given how little in the way of workouts he was doing. He knew that was a temporary bleedover effect, and after the first three weeks he’d started to feel it wearing off and his body losing strength. How much he didn’t know, but sitting out here and waiting for help to arrive was driving him crazy, prompting more of these supply and intelligence runs.

  He needed to do something, and if it wasn’t killing the enemy or training, it was going to be getting supplies or figuring out what the Skarrons were up to. In truth he’d expected Star Force to get reinforcements here by now, meaning they either didn’t know of their situation or the Skarrons were hitting them other places and they hadn’t been able to get any ships here, or at least not enough ships, to retake the planet.

  Ben had also hoped some more survivors would have made contact, despite the distances involved. The mining colony was somewhat remote, with no land lines linking it to other facilities, but ever since he’d gotten shot down he hadn’t received any comms or battlemap updates. His transmission range was short, but he could still receive from other sources in orbit or anywhere above the horizon, and there hadn’t been so much as a peep of activity, making him wonder if he and the 6 Kiritak were the only survivors on the planet.

  His logic circuits said no. Archons were incredibly resilient, and their technology was designed to amplify that fact…which was why he’d made it out of his skeet crash. The fighter had been mangled, but thanks to the armored cocoon and IDF technology he’d hit the ground without feeling so much as a bump, though a piece of shrapnel had partially punched through a few inches away from his head, which he counted himself lucky for missing.

  He’d had to pry himself out of his cockpit, then with only the plasma rifle held in a compartment alongside his feet and a limited amount of ammo and foodstuffs, he’d taken off through the forest enroute to the closest location on his battlemap…which had been this barracks, after a very long run through the forest.

  He hadn’t been back to the crash site, for he knew there was nothing of real value there to salvage, though he was curious to see if he could get the transmitter working. It was most likely junk with the rest of the ship, but sitting and waiting was torture for an Archon when they didn’t know how long it would be. Give them a timetable and it became a mission. Give them an uncertainty and it was a constant reassessment of what to do, round the clock.

  Ben wanted to fight and evade, and was working himself up to do it and leave the Kiritak behind where the Skarrons couldn’t find them, but he knew that without him they wouldn’t make it, which was what was holding
him back. Still, a few little commando missions over to the mining site might not be a problem. After all, if some of their Hobbits went missing they wouldn’t think to come look all the way over here, would they?

  Once inside the barracks he looked around…and around…and around, but couldn’t find any of the Hobbits, nor sign that they’d been here recently, which he took as good news. Gathering up what he could into a heap of sacks, Ben spent the next two hours scrounging from the barracks and seeing not a single intact body remaining. Maybe the Hobbits had only stuck around long enough to eat, but Ben was glad the barracks was of a size to accommodate over 1000 of the Kiritak, meaning there were ample supplies for himself and his little rogue band.

  He didn’t care for most of the Kiritak food, but a few items were edible by his tastes, and so far he hadn’t run out of them. He was badly missing his ambrosia, but that couldn’t be helped, and the Kiritak version wasn’t suited for his Human physiology, little of it that he’d found intact.

  A thorough check of the storage areas yielded several valuable construction materials, enough anyway for him to tinker with once he got back to their hideout. If the barracks was still uninhabited on his next supply run he’d consider bringing the Kiritak back here, but if not he should have enough to build them a proper hideout rather than the dirt hole they’d dug into a hillside.

  7

  July 17, 2467

  Ghanis System

  Ettiana

  It was just before dawn, with a shallow purple haze filling the bottom half of the eastern sky, as Ben was pulling another vial of water from the condenser. It wasn’t much, but the Archon pulled off his helmet and tipped the small container up and into his mouth, swallowing the pure water that the machine had slowly extracted from the atmosphere. With it down his throat he put his helmet back on and replaced the vial, letting the slow drip replenish its contents.

  The Archon walked up and over the hill that the Kiritak were sleeping in, having burrowed out a sizeable chamber that was now lined with materials Ben had brought back from the barracks. The condenser sat outside and at a higher elevation to ensure a good air flow as it pulled the moisture from the relatively dry atmosphere. Most of the rest of their supplies were inside, out of view, just in case someone came looking for them, but to date no one had, nor had there been any flyovers. They were ghosts as far as the Skarrons were concerned, but they couldn’t go on like this forever.

  The supplies in the barracks would eventually run out, meaning that eventually they were going to have to fight the Skarrons or starve to death, and Ben was seriously considering doing it now rather than later, while he still had some strength left in him, but every time he did his mind went back to the Kiritak and how they’d be worse off without him.

  The Archon knelt down on the hilltop, looking at the growing light in the east through several gaps in the trees, aware that his mind wasn’t clear. He kept running through logic circles, but he always stopped himself short of doing something reckless, and today was no different. He just wished his mind would shut up for a while, but in truth he knew he just needed something to do.

  A few minutes later that all changed as his helmet HUD registered a beacon far to the north. It was a battlemap signature, amplified to reach out as far as it could, and intended to make contact with other units or equipment. As he watched, the ID tag updated into a skeet on a very fast and high trajectory…the first sign of other Star Force personnel he’d had since rescuing the Kiritak.

  Ben saw that the beacon was getting closer, but it wasn’t going to pass straight over him, rather, it looked like it was going to do a flyby of the mining facility, probably looking for survivors.

  With a few quick commands via arm pad and eye line, Ben amped up his own battlemap transmitter to maximum, overriding the safety measures used to dampen the communication to the point that enemies were unlikely to be able to detect and hack into it. Such dampening shortened the range, but gave them a fairly secure, private network to utilize, but at the moment he just needed to let the skeet know that he was alive.

  Shouting as loud as his helmet comm could, he set his own ID tag to ‘beacon’ mode, hoping that the skeet would pick it up. For 43 seconds the craft maintained a straight line, with three Skarron fighters attempting to intercept it, visible now to Ben thanks to the skeet’s shared sensor data. They weren’t going to catch it, given that the skeet was faster, though it had slowed considerably for this flyby. Still, he didn’t think the Skarrons were going to be able to catch it…

  Then all of a sudden it turned, pulling a sharp spiral downward and dropping to the forest tops and out of sight, but Ben could still see it on his HUD…and the fact that it was moving towards him. He dialed back the intensity of his signal, returning to normal battlemap transmission protocols, and activated his comm.

  “Skeet, confirm receipt of transmission,” he said stoically, not sure how far his helmet comm was going to reach.

  “Transmission confirmed. I need a 20 second status report,” the pilot said, making a gradual circle around the area, including the distant barracks and mining site, but staying well away from the Skarron walker’s anti-air defenses…though that didn’t stop the thing from taking a few shots at him anyway with its lachars. The white streaks stabbed out across the sky, but none of them hit the low flying skeet as it bobbed about evasively, making its gradual loop around the infrastructure.

  “7 survivors, 1 Archon, 6 Kiritak security guards. Mining site is under new ownership, barracks is all but deserted. We’ve got foodstuffs and water to last us a while, but we’re continually weakening, and one of the Kiritak has plasma burns, but is stable.”

  “Copy that. Hold tight and we’ll get an evac team to your position as soon as we can.”

  “Much appreciated,” Ben said, a flood of relief gushing out of his chest and infesting every fiber of his body as the skeet finished its long circle around the complex and climbed back to higher altitudes before zipping off and away from the slower Skarron fighters that couldn’t quite get within weapons range.

  Ben watched it go, then hurried down the hillside and around to the entrance of their little hideout. He pulled off the door ‘hatch’ and crawled inside, finding the six Kiritak where he’d left them…all huddled up together in one corner outside of their armor and underneath blankets he’d recovered from the barracks, trying to conserve and share body heat.

  “Wake up, guys. I’ve got good news,” he said, with his helmet’s external speakers registering loudly in the tiny space that had otherwise been near silent.

  Etito pulled his head up from underneath one of the blankets and looked at the Archon wearily. “Not another run. Please. Just let us sleep.”

  “It’s not daylight yet,” Ben told him, slightly amused by the Kiritak’s grumbling. “A skeet just did a flyby.”

  The little alien’s eyes widened and he sat straight up. “Help?”

  “I made contact. There’s going to be an extraction team coming to pick us up. Not sure when though. But they know we’re alive.”

  Etito smiled and poked the body next to him underneath the blankets, resulting in a very rude hiss.

  “Wake up, wake up! Rescue is coming!”

  It took a while, but Etito finally roused the others, with Movo coming around last. His plasma burns had scabbed over, but they were causing him continuous pain. Ben had him running workouts anyway, figuring that if he was going to be in pain regardless he could at least get some benefit out of it.

  “Really?” Movo asked, looking from Etito up at Ben.

  “Really. We just have to stay alive long enough for them to pick us up, and be ready to go at all times. There’s still that Skarron walker nearby, so when they come they might not have much of a window. We might also have to move to another spot. Regardless, we’re going to get out of here.”

  “You better not be lying, Archon,” Movo said, his eyes burning with doubt.

  “I’m not. If you’d been wearing your armor you wou
ld have seen for yourself.”

  Etito scrambled across the small chamber to where their armor was stashed and pulled his set out, putting on the helmet and accessing the battlemap. Ben sent him the replay, knowing that they’d turned their suits off and hadn’t received the beacon, allowing him to see for himself the skeet on approach and its loop around the mining complex.

  “He’s not lying,” Etito said excitedly. “Skeet flew by. They know we’re here. We’re getting out of here!”

  “Ben, copy?”

  “I’m here,” the Archon said two days later as another skeet flew by, this time further to the west of the barracks and closer to their location.

  “We need you to reposition, coordinates coming.”

  A waypoint popped up on his battlemap…or more accurately an arrow on the side of it, indicating that he needed to scroll further west or zoom out. When he did he saw a position some 17 kilometers away.

  “Coordinates confirmed. ETA?”

  “Give me one,” the pilot prompted.

  “10 hours.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Thanks, Hank.”

  “Six made it, if you’re wondering.”

  “Any chance of more?”

  “We’ve had boots on the ground, so I doubt it.”

  “See you in ten,” Ben said, ending the conversation and allowing the skeet to fly off. There were a myriad of lachar streaks stretching out across the sky, but he only saw one of them hit, or rather wing the skeet, but its shields held, and would for several more, he knew from experience.

  He watched his fellow pilot gain altitude and fly off, then returned to their hideout to get the Kiritak moving.

  “Armor on, guys. We’re heading out. LZ is 17 kilometers to the west. We can’t risk a dropship in this close to the walker, so we have to move. They’ll be there in 10 hours, so let’s not waste time.”

  “Are we running?” Etito asked.