Star Force: Evacuation (SF50) (2 page)

“Damn it,” she said, seeing one of the cruisers coming
in at higher speeds than the rest. Not an obvious ramming effort, for the
lizards were coy, but her gut told her it was going to hit or at least get
close enough for a few sucker punches before it went down.

“Mechs, I need you,” she said, tagging the cruiser on
the battlemap. “Hit this son of a bitch at range before it can get to the TF. I
think it’s a kamikaze.”

“Copy that,” Hammer-521, the Archon leading the ground
assault said as Riona saw immediate movement on the ground. A few moments later
she saw a missile launch from one of the mechs, then another, then hundreds of
them turned into a firestorm of smoke and flashes that shot out towards the
north and on the long haul out to the incoming cruiser.

It opened up with all of its plasma shard anti-air,
knocking down plenty of the missiles but there was no way for it to get them
all. The bombardment hit and penetrated the ship’s shields within seconds, then
began ravaging the hull inside the cloud of smoke and debris.

Riona made another pass on the cruiser she was engaged
with, then as she swung around to recharge her own shields she saw the Kamikaze
cruiser in the distance emerge from the cloud of smoke in a graceful downward
arc, eventually falling into the sand dunes and breaking in half as it caught
and tried to roll over, snapping at the midsection from the torque and cutting
a huge gash into the landscape as its momentum dragged it forward, eventually
settling at about 6 miles out from the huge dropship.

“
Whoo
,
nice one, Hammer.”

“Can’t do that very many times,” he warned.

“I know. We’ll have to do better up here. Thanks for
the bail out.”

“How about some close in naval support?”

“On its way.
Keep an eye out
for more kamikaze cruisers until it gets here. I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“Will do.”

Riona clicked off the comm and made another attack
run, this time melting through the armor and opening up a vulnerable section of
the hull which she tagged as a prime target. The other skeets with her adjusted
their own attack runs and pounded that section, eating down into the unarmored
interior and opening up an opportunity for one of the anti-mech fighter
squadrons to come in and deposit some missiles into that hole.

The resulting explosion ripped through the interior,
but only blasted out through a few of the wounds on the ship, with the armor
acting like a cage to contain and enhance the internal detonations before
ultimately hitting the anti-
grav
, for the big ship
went down and pancaked the sand below…fortunately without any mechs beneath it.

“One down, a billion more to go,” she said, signaling
for one of the drone trios to be assigned to her.

Riona swung back towards the TF as the unmanned
fighters were coming out of the bay and picked them up using an auxiliary
control panel, slaving them to her own skeet. Each of them looked almost
identical, save they didn’t have a cockpit. What they did have was more
weapons, including missiles, which she was going to need to take down the other
cruisers with the help of many, many others. As advanced as their aerial
division had become, warships were still freaking huge and heavily armored,
requiring an insane amount of ordinance to take down.

Which was why she enjoyed it so
much.
Fighters should never be able to take down a warship, so whenever
it did happen it was a sweet, sweet moment…except that right now there were
others still in play that needed to be killed and they weren’t obliging Star
Force’s mauler range on the dropship, meaning this was going to be a slugging
match.

“Guys, a little cover please. I don’t want the wisps
picking off my drones.”

“On the way,” another pilot in her temporary squadron
responded.

“Alright,” she said, shooting down another two wisps
and getting a third with her drones as the four of them ducked through a swarm
enroute to the next closest cruiser that was already hammering the dropship
with plasma. “Let’s find a sweet spot.”

2

Wen’sta’lon sat in the cockpit of his
Wildcat
-class mech, strapped into the
control harness and waiting impatiently as the Axius transport made its way
down to the surface of
Leonis
. He’d been briefed on
the assault progress earlier, knowing that Star Force mainline troops had
already secured a beachhead and were in the process of taking down two lizard
bases, but that’s not where his team was heading. They were going after a
different lizard base, one that had already been hit from orbit and blasted
into smithereens…on the surface at least.

Orbital scans showed at least some subsurface
structures, how many of which was still a lingering question. He wouldn’t be
probing
those
himself, for his mech would most likely
not fit inside, but others would. His job was to secure the surface, eliminate
any hostiles, and cover for the burrowing teams as they made their way down
inside to engage the enemy.

This was the third combat assignment that Wen’sta’lon
had seen, given that the Scionate had only recently earned his spot in the
Axius military and one of the first native born colonists to do so. He was only
10 years old, but had shown remarkable skill in piloting the wildcat…or at
least compared to the few others who had tried, for the mech was quadruped in
design and Star Force had few that could pilot it, most of whom were immigrant
Scionate completely unfamiliar with the concept given that his native race used
tanks rather than mechs.

Wen’sta’lon had learned quickly, but he still was
being given small assignments…for which he was grateful. He’d much rather be
out here fighting real enemies than stuck in training simulations and games,
especially since this time it was personal. The lizards had invaded the ADZ and
they had to push them out else risk their own worlds. Yes, he definitely wanted
to be out here, even if all he was going to do was swat a few infantry to cover
for the others.

The long trip down in the dragon was tedious, but when
the bay doors finally opened
he
and one other wildcat
exited first, walking then running out onto the mix of burnt sand and building
that had been scattered by the rail gun impacts. The mech’s paws sunk in deep,
but he was still able to move about easily enough, running forward at a lope
and pulling a quick circle around the drop zone as more of the Axius dropships
came down.

He spotted one lizard amongst the rubble and ran after
it, seeing it scurry behind a piece of shrapnel the size of a Calavari and
disappear. Wen’sta’lon popped out his mauler cannon from under the ‘chin’ of
the mech and fired at it, melting the piece of building and vaporizing the
lizard at the same time. His first target eliminated, the Axius Scionate returned
to his patrol loop.

More and more dropships came down, unloaded, and took
off again returning to the jumpships in orbit ferrying the troops here. Once
sufficient infantry were assembled Wen’sta’lon was ordered to scout out ahead
which he took to with eager lethality, hopping over various bits of debris in a
way that only a quadruped mech could and getting a good head start on the mix
of various races that made up the commando units. They were all armored up, but
he didn’t want any of them getting killed so he kept close attention on the
area he was scouting out, intent on killing any and all of the little green
heads that showed themselves.

The next thing he knew his shields were taking plasma
hits from the starboard side, with him turning his mech in that direction with
a shuffle of the huge mechanical legs and finding a pair of lizard tanks hidden
under an overhang of rubble. One was a shade, the other a copper, and both were
pouring plasma into his shields…though most of the damage was coming from the
shade.

Wen’sta’lon decided to target it first, running
towards it and firing his mauler twice, missing low with the first shot and
melting the sand in front of the lizard anti-armor tank into a puddle of glass
that shot up like a geyser, obscuring his view. The next one went right through
that cloud and nailed the shade, killing it with the single well-placed
hit…though in truth it had been more luck than skill.

The copper began backing under the overhang and
exiting out the far side, causing Wen’sta’lon to accelerate up into a full run
to chase after it…then his footing suddenly went out from under him as the sand
fell away and he dropped down into a chasm.

There was a loud ‘
thunk
’
outside the mech, but with the IDF he didn’t feel the impact as he hit the
rubble strewn ground of a cargo bay. His wildcat was
laying
on its side, but within the cockpit the Scionate looked around, seeing on the
hologram that he’d fallen through a hole in the ceiling that had what looked
like now torn paper glued to it.

“Tricky bastards,” he growled as he worked the
mechanical legs around in order to get to his feet as a missile impacted the
head of his mech, followed quickly by more missiles and a hoard of plasma from
the ambushing troops around him in the hollow.

Even before he fully stood the wildcat up he started
shooting the infantry around him with his secondary weapons, popping them up
from behind armored plates around the mech’s hull and shooting with computer
support using buttons on the claw pads and teeth bar. The blue plasma he fired
back clashed with the deep red his mech was painted, making for a terrifying
sight as the enemy infantry melted under the counter attack…then larger plasma
blasts began to hit the wildcat from repositioning lizard tanks, with
Wen’sta’lon realizing he was in a tricky situation.

His mech would hold up to plasma fire for a good
while, but the rubble he was trying to stand on was causing him to trip and
stumble, essentially holding him still in the bay and giving the enemy a
stationary target to shoot at. He belatedly realized he was standing in the
crater of an impacted rail gun slug that had collected the debris from the
roof, meaning he was essentially standing on rough pebbles that kept moving
underneath his mech’s feet.

By the time he’d eventually gotten some balance his
shields went down, but he was unable to turn around and fire his mauler at the
tanks behind him. He was hitting them with the aft plasma cannons but not doing
enough damage, for there were more than a dozen tanks down here and there were more
coming in from other subsurface chambers.

“So much for fighting on the surface,” he said,
crouching low before jumping off the rubble with a bit of help from his limited
jump jets. He didn’t clear the edge of the crater, but did get his front two
paws on the unbroken ground around it and pulled himself clear as his armor
began melting off.

Before any of the enemy weaponsfire could penetrate
clean through he bathed the floor ahead of him with plasma fire, burning away a
few dozen infantry and seeing a secondary explosion from a missile launcher
that knocked over a few more. When he turned his mech around to face the
majority of the tanks he got a warning on his battlemap, prompting him to run
around the large crater, still taking shots and losing armor, enroute to the
closest tank and pummeling it with mauler energy.

He worked his way up the line, still getting swarmed
with infantry blasts and a few missiles as the other wildcat came down through
the hole above, landing with a crunch on its own jump jets and getting tripped
up as well, but not fully falling over on the bad footing. It eventually got
clear on the far side and the pair of mechs worked together to chew into the
tanks with Wen’sta’lon taking heavy damage.

As they did so tiny little mechs poured in through the
hole, floating down on their jump packs and hopping off the debris in secondary
jumps to get to the edges whereupon they ran forward and the Axius Irondel
began engaging the infantry directly, both with the chicken walkers and a few
quadruped neite minimechs. Following them down came a few biped armored
infantry with a handful of Humans and 7 other races of similar biology all
wearing what appeared to be commando armor, yet it also was colored the deep
red that Axius was known for.

Those infantry spread out and worked in conjunction
with the minimechs, which stood about the same height as them in most cases,
and tore through the unarmored lizard infantry, most of which didn’t even have
protective vests on, just plasma rifles and a fiery determination. It didn’t
take them long to thin them out, then they were faced with too many corridors
to follow the retreating enemy through and wisely held themselves back to
secure the underground bay while more reinforcements came down.

“You certainly bit the wrong tail this time,”
Ha’mon’sta
commented over the comm to his fellow Scionate.

“Shut up,” Wen’sta’lon bit back. “It was a trap.”

“That you fell into.”

“You would have as well.”

“Maybe,” the older Scionate said, happy to see the
‘prodigy’ having some setbacks, “but right now your armor is torn up and your
shields are weak. Restrain your combat accordingly. I will take the lead.”

Wen’sta’lon growled but didn’t offer any other
disagreement, knowing he was right. He watched as the other wildcat walked out
through one of the large doors ahead of a column of infantry enroute to hunting
more lizards, probably of
whom
would have more tanks
that needed to be eliminated.

Wen’sta’lon cursed himself for being so sloppy, as
well as the blasted shields for taking so long to get back to full strength.
Once they did he assigned himself to another infantry group heading out and
worked his way to the lead,
comming
the troops to get
out of his way so he wouldn’t step on them, then it was back into prowl
mode…with the armor damage now concealed underneath his shields an ever present
warning in his mind not to get too careless. He didn’t want to lose his mech,
else he’d be sitting out this assault and who knew how many future ones until
he got a replacement.

Riona walked into the command center in the TF, just
having gotten out of the shower after a forced four hours of sleep. She hadn’t
wanted to take a break, but given that this assault wasn’t going to be over in
a day’s time she knew she had to keep herself fresh and reluctantly had sent
herself to bed after making sure both assault groups had gotten off to a good
start.

The Archon was about to head back out again in her
skeet but needed to get a good overview of events across the planet before she
did, and while it was possible to do so from the cockpit the layout of the
command center made it much easier and quicker to get up to speed, hence the
drop-in on the way to the hangar.

“Talk to me,” she said, walking inside and getting the
attention of the current staff, which
were
also having
to rotate out to keep fresh.

“Axius has successfully landed and begun assaults on
six sites,” a ranger by the name of
Yensic
began. “Mild
resistance on the surface, but it’s getting nasty underneath. No fatalities
yet, but they’re losing a fair amount of equipment.”

“Warn them to be patient.”

“I already have. They’re not proceeding
recklessly,
our old friends are just being their usual selves.”

“Why do I ever expect less?” Riona asked rhetorically.
“Where are the Scionate?”

“They landed an hour before Axius.
13
current assault zones with another two due to come into play inside the next
six hours.
I’ve been having discussions with their commander concerning
tactics, for they are losing troops, though they’re still winning at the
moment.”

“Do any good?”

“Probably not, but I felt like trying.”

“Some people have to learn the hard way. Where do we
stand?”

“Choppy, but we’re starting to break through. The
lizards have detonated a number of explosives to seal off access shafts to the
lower levels of the city. A report less than 20 minutes old indicates that they
may have some seriously deep infrastructure.”

Riona nodded. “Signal the troops for upper level
sweeps and to avoid going deep just yet. My spidey senses are tingling, so
let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first before we bite off more than
we’ve realized.”

“You think
there’s
a lot of
them down there?”

“I think we’re only hitting the tip of the iceberg. When
we go deep I’ll lead the way, but for now I’m sticking with the air.
Lots of targets to hit up top.
Where do we stand with the
enemy cruisers?”

“They’re still hiding out there somewhere. Scouts
located one concealed surface bay, but there may be a lot more out there that
we don’t know about.”

“Meaning they plan to jump us?”

“I wouldn’t bet any credits to the contrary.”

Riona shook her head in dismay. “They didn’t come here
to build, they came here to fight and have been setting traps for us from day
1, but building surface blinds to hide warships is an altogether new trick. I’m
surprised we haven’t thought of that.”

“Nice how the lizards keep teaching us new things,”
Yensic
commented dryly.

“Sensor stealthed, I assume?”

“More than that, there isn’t just a blind, but tunnels
connecting the entrances to, we suspect, a main hangar underground.
Infiltration team hasn’t got that far, still just chewing up the blind we
control.”

“Chewing?”

“We blew up the cruiser inside, now we have to fish
the pieces back out.”

Riona rolled her eyes.
“Figures.”

“I suggest you start here,” the ranger said, pointing
to a third city on the map that was about to see mechs and tanks meet up about
a kilometer outside of the perimeter defenses. “They’ve been gathering up
fighters from other locations while you slept. I think they intend to hold this
one.”