Read Star Force: Backdoor (SF53) Online
Authors: Anal Backdoor
Star Force: Backdoor (SF53) (11 page)
“Same old same old,” Megan said, feeling like they
were back to square one.
“Not quite. Aside from Randy losing a Sentinel all the
others on this front are still intact and we’re adding to their numbers. Give
us a few more years and the Skarrons are going to have a lot harder time
running troops down to planet.”
“Especially if we can spam the
system with drones.”
“That’s on my Christmas list as well. No, I think the
hammer is going to come down on Achkor. If we have enough time to clean up the
front, I want to be in a position to help them.”
“We definitely owe them,” Megan agreed.
“Can you stay insystem and build or are you going to
redeploy?”
“After all we did to save this world I’m not
abandoning it now. Give me the time and we’ll get it buttoned up.”
“Deal,” Paul said with finality. “I’ve got a few more
hours of ground time with the
Excalibur
then I’m heading back to orbit. We’ll work on the rest of the walkers from
there.”
“How much fuel did you burn?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Still, that’s a pretty sick move. Sorry I didn’t do
something like that sooner.”
“Not such a good idea when you have an enemy fleet
over your head,” he reminded her.
“Still, I’m skittish over bringing any large ship
in-atmosphere. If you don’t have a good pilot that can account for the medium
turbulence…”
“This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision,” Paul
said, cutting her off with a grin.
“One of your side projects?”
“Something
like
that.”
Megan stared at his holo for several long seconds.
“You took the helm.”
“Wasn’t going to trust anyone else
on that fast of a descent.
Not my first time either with a command
ship.”
“Why am I even surprised?”
“Good question,” Paul mocked.
Megan sighed.
“Terrible 2s.”
“Have you seen the training logs?”
“Whose?”
“I’ll take that as a no.
Might want
to take a look at Jason and Emily’s progress.”
“Oh?”
“Jason passed me up a month ago, and Emily is almost
ready to tie me.”
Megan’s eyes went wide. “Holy crap. Who’s on top now?”
“Aaron by a level over Jason.”
“I’ve been so busy I haven’t checked…though I can see
why you’d make time. Back to number 2…no, make that 3 now?”
“Four, actually.
Morgan
caught back up.”
Megan couldn’t help but laugh.
“Knew
that was coming.”
Paul glared at her. “More a result of
me spending
way too much time in a nexus.”
“I hear you there,” Megan said, losing a bit of her
merriment. Like Paul she’d been trying to oversee every operation personally in
order to tweak things to get whatever small advantages she could buy them.
“Two, maybe three days?”
Megan cringed. “Probably more like 4.
Got a lot to do down here.”
“Four then,” he said, referring to them getting
together for a decent training session. “You got any ground ops I can jump
into? The kids can drive the car from here on out.”
“A few, but I’m going to have to stay back and
quarterback.”
“Send me the list. I need to get my commando mojo back
on.
Been stuck in space the entire time with the Dvapp.”
Megan slowly shook her head in dismay.
“Jealous?”
“Yeah, actually.
Good to have
you around again.”
“Likewise.”
“List will be coming. Right now…”
“…bad guys to kill,” Paul finished.
“And if you don’t mind, have your student driver swing
by this location,” she said, sending him coordinates, “before you pull out.”
“Will do.”
“And do you have any ground troops in that thing?”
“Afraid not.
The
Excalibur
has been on a strictly naval
mission. But you’ve got
me
now, so
throw me at something tough.”
“You know I will,” she said, cutting the comm and
immediately digging into the mission files searching for something worthy of
his skills. She knew they’d catch up later in person, but right now they had a
war to fight and she needed the badass trailblazer out there racking up a kill
count. The enemy fleet may have been eliminated, but the war on Metropolis was
far from over.