Star Force: Mantle (SF92) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

The blue streaks coming from those shot into the swarms, blasting through several of the small craft to target the bigger ones coming in. They were far larger than Ryen and the Bsidd, massing as much as an aerial fighter, and flew into battle yielding a smaller version of the ruby beams that the enemy turrets had at the mechs…who responded with a mix of cleansing beams and sea vines, one of which wrapped all the way around one of the ‘Alphas’ as Ryen quickly referenced on the battlemap and sent his squid that had been patiently waiting behind the formation on ahead to engage the dozens that were coming up on their fortified position.

  Remote controlling them with his mind, Ryen pulled back and let the Bsidd infantry handle the attack craft getting through while he steered the squid outside the shield perimeter and attacked the incoming Alphas before they could get within sensor range of the mechs. Keeping within his own comm range restrictions, Ryen ambushed the Alphas by locking onto them with a squid each and destroying it with a combination of sheer physical pressure from the tentacles and from the energy discharge from the ‘mouth’ at the base of the craft, then moved on to target another and another as swarms of attack craft retargeted the squids instead of the infantry.

  If this was only a sample of the reception the Bandaii and the other Star Force units were receiving, then he understood why they were being held up and the frustration of the locals, for there was no quick way to push past these defenses and he had no idea how many more units the Hashvi had in reserve.

  13 hours later…

  Ryen ducked under the giant shield dome the Hashvi had set up, for it came down all the way into the water a few meters, but when the Archon came up on the other side and got his head above water he immediately made contact with the battlemap signals coming from the other Star Force units, for the haze wasn’t inside. Immediately he saw giant towers in the distance just short of the shoreline that reached up into the sky and contacted the shield dome. They were the haze generators that were pumping it out into the atmosphere to block comms but the scores of aerial fighters inside did not have that limitation. He could see swarms of them in the distance assaulting the troops on the far side of the peninsula from high above.

  But they weren’t just there. About 50 or so were in the sky above him, and as he watched energy mortars from the shore began to fire towards his position. He tracked them carefully, ordering his troops to fall back beneath him, then watched in horror as they punched down through the relatively calm surface water inside the dome and created a pyre of steam all the way down to the sea floor…meaning his troops couldn’t use the depth to their advantage.

  “Shit,” he said, keeping his helmet just above the water line and watching. It was an ingenious defense system. Leave enough water to slow any troops enough that the mortars could chew them up before they got to land or force a reckless charge through a field of underwater turrets that would do just the same…and all of it was automated, save for the fighters in the sky and maybe the gunners for those mortars. He didn’t know for sure but he planned to find out in person when he got there, but the question was how was he supposed to get his troops through this?

  “Ryen, how you doing?” a voice came through his helmet comm.

  “Observing the magnificent view from inside the shield. How the hell are you making any progress?”

  “The Bandaii are dying for it. I was hoping you would have better luck.”

  “I just made it into position and my troops are still intact, but I don’t see a good way past those mortars and we’ve got birds in the sky just waiting to dive bomb us. You’re not to shore yet,” he noted, catching up on the battlemap telemetry being transmitted above water, “have you just been tanking hits to get that far?”

  “Yes,” she said regretfully, “but we’re stuck between a wall of Alphas and Betas. I’ve tried to get past personally but its no good. There are too many of them here and the Bandaii are dying by the thousands trying to contend this.”

  “Well that’s good news,” Ryen said, referencing the enemy numbers, “because we haven’t seen any Alphas for the past hour.”

  “If they run out we’ve got a chance. If not we’re going to get massacred.”

  “Can you get the Bandaii to reposition?”

  “They won’t pull back when their kin are being killed.”

  “Can you get them to circle around and come through the corridor we cut in the defenses here?”

  “That’s a big detour…but if there aren’t that many at your position and we could get some of the troops moved you might be able to punch through. I’ll see if they’ll go for it, but you’ll still have to face those mortars.”

  “I know. We’ll hold here until I hear back from you and watch the pretty rain fall.”

  And that’s exactly what he did. He kept two his damaged mechs and his handful of surviving squids back and sniped what turrets they could without getting in range of those mortar rounds, though they were close enough to feel the shockwaves from the disintegrated water spouts that shot nearly all the way up to where the fighters were lazily circling…which was probably why they were so high up, else they’d get splashed and maybe knocked out of the air by the steam spouts. The fighters didn’t look too sturdy, but…

  “Cover me,” he told the Bsidd closest to him as he entered Ensek mode again, reaching out and confirming there were minds in the fighters but they were too far away for him to affect. Ensek only worked with others that had the same ability, and in order to even shout at these pilots he needed them to get within Ikrid range.

  He needed them directly overhead, which meant baiting them in somehow.

  Ryen released his Ensek meditation and told the Bsidd to hold position as he moved laterally along the shield line for several hundred meters. He doubted they would put a mortar round into their own shield, but if he saw one coming in at him he’d have a chance of ducking under it and getting on the other side before it hit.

  When he got far enough away from the others he swam to the surface and got his shoulders above water and began flashing targeting lasers on the aerial craft as if to mark them. He kept it up for several minutes before two of them broke formation and flew in lower towards him, away from the ongoing mortars that were keeping his troops back further south. When they got close they opened fire, stitching steam plumes across the surface near to him, but he didn’t duck back underwater. Instead he put all shield power forward and threw up an additional bioshield just in case they managed to hit him as he extended his Ikrid out as far as he could and targeted one of the fighters.

  As they swooped in closer and the shield wall directly behind him took hits, one of the fighters broke off its attack, slowing to a hover over the water and approaching Ryen casually as the other swerved off to avoid hitting the shield wall and circled back around for another pass.

  The Archon dove forward and jetted as fast as his armor could carry him across the surface, knowing that there were several turrets nearby and hoping he wasn’t going to pass into their extreme range. Several ruby streaks came his way but fell short, blasting up steam into the air nearby the fighter as it finally got to him. He clung to the underside of it as he held the pilot’s mind in his grasp, then had it rocket back up into the sky like the other one had for any missiles could get to him, hoping no one noticed the bit of baggage it was now carrying underneath. With his armor’s grip pad locking him on tight he had the fighter resume normal operations that he could sense through the pilot’s mind and had him do what he normally did as they moved back into their patrol patterns high above.

  7

  After a few minutes of obscurity and closely monitoring comm traffic and sensors via the pilot’s odd mind, Ryen caused him to break formation. He headed down past the coastline and executed a diving loop, at the bottom of which Ryen let go…falling about 50 meters and using his Lachka in ‘crashbag’ mode to cushion his landing. He hit the moist dirt and his feet dug in several inches, then he was sprinting towards the nearest mortar battery as he reached inside wi
th his mind and disabled the gunner.

  He got to the hatch without anyone noticing or shooting at him, then pulled it open and dove inside with his mauler gauntlet extended. The insectoid inside took the hit on its triangular head, removing half of it in the process. Ryen torched the controls so the battery would be unusable then hopped back outside and began sprinting across to the next one.

  By then he’d been spotted and three of the aerial fighters fired at him for a brief moment before they suddenly rammed into the ground and pancaked on the hard rocks beneath the thin soil layer. Ahead of Ryen there were infantry crawling out of bunkers and rushing him, but with a wave of Fornax he knocked them down as he ran through and past, not having the luxury of sticking around to kill them. He kept interfering with any attempts to stop him, drawing heavily on his psionics due to the fact that he wasn’t carrying a rack of weapons like he would on his commando armor, and got to the next mortar turret and went to work on it.

  Three more after that and he had a blind spot established, which he let everyone know while taking a short respite in the cover of one of the now dead batteries as the infantry tried to sweep around both sides to get at him.

  “Mortars have been neutralized along this corridor,” he said as he put down waypoints on the battlemap. “Underwater defenses are still intact, but takeable. Recommend sending the Bandaii this way immediately.”

  After that he didn’t have time to chat, for he had to disable more of the skittering infantry as one in the back of the group he mowed down got a pistol shot off and it hit him in the leg. His shields held, but this wasn’t the first strike he’d taken and he couldn’t take too many without adequate time to recharge in between. To that end he was sprinted towards one of the Hashvi bunkers with the intent to go inside and hold out there, despite the unknown numbers involved.

  Ryen pulled down another pair of fighters that got too close, smashing one of them into a group of infantry and killing more than 20 of them with the impact. He didn’t have time to do much more than run and react until he got to one of the subterranean bunker’s entrances. As he did they were trying to close the doors on him, but a Jumat push cleared out the infantry behind the lowering panel and allowed him to slide underneath before it came down all the way…stranding the infantry outside for the moment and leaving him with only those inside to deal with.

  He had a hallway and a few dozen here, so he used a Fornax blast and took them down, claiming a pair of their pistols and putting phaser-like streaks of red into them as his shields recharged. More kept trickling in and he kept killing them, eventually recovering enough shield strength to push on and further into the bunker…which he discovered around the new few corners to be a lot larger than it looked on the surface.

  There were several football fields worth of deck space holding a significant army that was no doubt being reserved for if the Bandaii got to the shore, including tanks and a huge amount of infantry that were all looking at him.

  “Back…” he told himself as he retreated into the hallway and decided to hold out there. They’d have to come at him in small groups and he’d own them in that style of combat, but with a quick review of his helmet cam he tagged several entrances on the far side of that chamber that held passageways big enough for the tanks to move through laterally and the Archon got the feeling that this might be an interconnected network rather than just one bunker. The Hashvi had had plenty of time to build after taking this planet, and if Ryen’s gut was right, there was a nasty surprise awaiting the Bandaii.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, finally realizing what was going on and checking his comm to find that the bunker was blocking his signals and probably sensors on top of that. The Hashvi couldn’t fight the Bandaii that well in the water, not with so much ocean to hide in, so they were forcing them onto land and setting a trap to wipe them out. And the thing of it was, even if the Bandaii learned of this here and now, they wouldn’t stop their assaults elsewhere because their captured people were on the clock, meaning they’d charge to their deaths just as the Hashvi wanted.

  “They’re playing them like a drum,” Ryen said as he headed back to the entrance, finding no controls to open the door with, so he reached out telepathically looking for a control center as he fought and killed wave after wave of infantry coming at him with the bodies beginning to pile up. It took him far too long, but he finally found a group of stationary minds below him that were orchestrating not only the troops in this bunker but running part of the underwater campaign.

  Making a quick decision, he reversed course and fought his way through both the living and dead until he came back to the larger chamber, taking a moment to recharge his shields behind the bloody meat wall, then running outside, pushing through the assembled infantry near the doorway and hoping not to get hit too much as a light show of red streaks aimed for him. He surged as much speed as he could in his aquatics armor, heading across clear walkways for the passage he’d gleaned from the minds in the control room that was down a set of stairs and two levels lowers.

  It was a gauntlet he had to run, but by the time he’d made it into the blissfully narrower corridor and out of the firestorm he was feeling multiple heat spots on his right arm and leg where his shields had gone down and his armor had taken hits. No penetrations were registered on his HUD, but he now had weak points that couldn’t take another hit without chewing out some of his flesh in the process.

  Ryen took down the gathering infantry in his way and eventually came to a locked blast door that he simply had the minds behind open for him. He didn’t shoot the six Hashvi there, rather sealing himself in with them and using the enemy controllers to operate and interpret the systems available to them…or rather just one of them as holding all 6 minds at the same time would have been too much of a strain. He rendered four of them unconscious and kept another frozen to get information from as he played puppeteer with the other, shutting down as much of the underwater defense network as he had access to.

  Unfortunately his comm wouldn’t work in here either, so as the infantry tried to shoot their way through the blast door he knocked out the remaining two Hashvi and centered himself, extending his Ensek out through the otherwise impermeable material and looking for the Archons on the other side of the peninsula. When he found one he relayed the information about the clear approach then quickly got his senses back into combat mode while the door still held, though it was beginning to glow in several spots.

  With the message delivered his duty was obvious. Hold this location and make sure they didn’t reactivate the defenses…and without their tanks able to get to him here, or any swarming tactics for that matter, he just had to play king of the hill and with his psionics, even drained as they were, there was no way the Hashvi were going to remove him. The Bsidd would have a clean approach long enough to permanently disable the turrets, and then the Bandaii would have a chance at a ground war…one that didn’t look to be all that much in their favor.

  2 days later…

  “How are you holding up?”

  Ryen looked up from his seated position on one of the Bandaii streets’ curb barriers, his armor now charred and little bits of flesh along with it. The Archon before him wasn’t much better off, but it didn’t look like any of her melted spots had burnt all the way through.

  “I’ll live,” he said, looking around at all the dead in the streets, both Hashvi and Bandaii.

  “I would have been worse without us here,” she said, guessing as to his thoughts.

  “It’s bad enough,” he argued, standing up and facing her. “They’re not Star Force.”

  “Not yet. But a lot of them have a chance to be because we were here.”

  “How can you be ok with this?”

  “Because I set my mind to it before I arrived. This is the chaos and carnage that we have to fight against out here. It’s not simply going to disappear because we arrive. It’s going to get worse. A lot worse now that The Nexus has pulled out. We have to do what we can, when
we can, and right now, here, on this planet, it was helping the Bandaii win.”

  “They’re supposed to take orders from us.”

  “If there were Archons dying would you take orders from a dragon saying to stand by and wait because a rescue was too risky, or would you go in anyway and try to fight your way through?”

  “Archons know how to fight and how to run when necessary.”

  “But the Bandaii don’t. This was all they had to work with, and it was either fight messy or stand by and watch their kin be executed. They don’t have good options and have to make do with what they do have. We won’t sink to their level, but they are on their level and we can’t elevate them quickly enough. This is crappy, but we’re the shining gems in all of it and we helped them win. They’re clinging to that to get them through this, so stop sitting around moping and be the good guy. We didn’t cause this, so stop feeling responsible. In order to lead them out of darkness we must plunge in head first and yank them out. It’s not going to be clean, and it should be disturbing. Don’t numb it out, but don’t dwell on it. We fight honorable, these guys don’t have a clue what that is, and I’d rather them fight poorly than stand around and get killed.”

  “I’m not moping,” Ryen clarified, but her words had helped him refocus. “I’ve got burns and it hurts to move.”

  “Can you work your Sesspik on the go?”

  Ryen sighed. “What do you need?”

  “We need to lead, and we can’t do that from behind. This city is a mess and we need to start giving orders to get it cleaned up before the Hashvi decide to hit it again, though I don’t think they have the troops to do it. And I’m pretty sure this whole world is a throwaway from their leadership’s point of view, but we need to act. The Bandaii need to be led right now, more than ever. Either do that or get yourself back to orbit and heal.”

  Ryen glanced to his left at the street with all the dead in it. Nobody had even started to pick them up yet and the bodies were oozing puddles of purple and brown blood, some of which were flowing into one another and mixing with an even sicker coloration.