Star Force: Penance (SF49) (3 page)

Manually tinkering with the raiding drones, Paul
continued to rack up kills along the perimeter, exploiting minor and a few
major tactical miscues on the part of the Scionate, essentially playing ADC and
running in to hit and pulling back out before shield strength went down, doing
the enemy damage while taking none yourself…other than power loss. It was
amazing how much he and the trailblazers had learned from playing video games.
They literally were a form of training, and League of Legends had been one that
he’d cut his teeth on as a youngling.

It was a winning strategy, given a long duration, and
Paul continued it while the Scionate landed the last of their transports…but
even then they didn’t abandon their orbital position, with Paul suspecting that
they knew of and feared Star Force’s orbital bombardment capability. Pull their
fleet back from the skies overhead and Paul could use his drones to pummel
their landing zones with rail gun slugs, or even reposition the Sentinel in
orbit and attack the surface with cleansing beams.

That would be risky, because it would expose the
orbital infrastructure it was currently defending, but either way he could rack
up considerable damage to the Scionate ground troops while they were clustered
together on the surface. Once they moved into the cities it would be another
matter, assuming their transports didn’t stay on the ground. If they did the
defense fleet would have to stay in orbit and protect their flank, in which
case Paul was going to continue to nibble it to death.

The Scionate could bring in more ships, and probably
would, but the tactical situation would be the same until they started hitting
Star Force positions in orbit or coming out after the drones in swarm tactics.
Paul would make them pay a heavy price if they did that, but knew he couldn’t
afford to lose the drones he had left. If the Scionate forced his hand he’d
have to wait for the reinforcements that he’d already called for, which would
be days away even after the relay network delivered the message to the
neighboring systems.

Or so he wanted the Scionate to think. In reality he
had a number of warships waiting on the edge of the system outside of sensor
range that he could call in if badly needed. One other thing he’d learned from
video games was that the enemy tailored their assault to the forces they
thought you had, meaning if you held some back or hidden away from their view
you could often turn the tables on them…and even if you didn’t, if you had a
reputation for doing so you’d ward off a number of attacks just because of that
uncertainty.

Which was why Paul hadn’t called
them in.
He was going to fight this battle with what he had in orbit and
wait to see what the Scionate decided to do, but right now all they seemed to
care about was grounding their insane number of troops. Star Force colonies
were far from unprepared for this type of assault, something the lizards had
taught them the hard way, but troopwise the Scionate far outnumbered them, from
infantry to tanks to fighters.

It was about to start going down heavy, and Paul
wanted to be out there with Kara and Morgan mixing it up hand to hand or at
least in a mech, but he knew the ‘Admiral’ was needed here leading the naval
front, and with the city he was currently in not appearing to come under direct
attack anytime soon, that wasn’t likely to change.

Combat, aside from when dealing with rookies, was a
team affair, and today his role was clear…with him going to press every
advantage he had to take out as many of the Scionate ships as he could. He
didn’t like slaughtering their enemies, but in this case it had to be done. If
they didn’t choose to retreat, well, he couldn’t do anything about that, so he
set himself to the task at hand and kept his attention on orbit, with only an
occasional glance at the status of the emerging ground battles, leaving them to
Morgan to work her magic on.

3

When Morgan got to the mech bay half of the walking
machines were already gone, transitioning to the landing field outside where
they were boarding dropships to be taken over to the Scionate invasion zone.
She tagged one of the remaining ones for herself, depossessing a lower ranking
mechwarrior and claiming one of the neos. Once onboard and strapped into the
control harness she followed the others out, assuming command of the cluster
and its 100 mechs. Admat had 2 galaxies of mechs, which totaled 1000 units, but
they were spread out through the various cities, meaning it was going to take
time to redeploy them to where the fighting was going down.

The heavy walkers were another matter, and not
included in the ‘galaxy’ grouping, which had 5 clusters, each of which
contained 20 stars, with a ‘star’ of mechs being a unit of 5 that worked
together to take on/down targets. Already two Mk. 1 Hoths were moving outside
to load up for transport, and Morgan knew the faster they got those into the
field the more trouble the Scionate tanks were going to have. She didn’t know a
lot about the enemy’s fighting tactics, but she’d studied what data files Star
Force had, as well as the combat potential of their tanks, which essentially
operated like the Canderian turtles…heavily armored hovering weapons platforms.

But she knew they only operated with plasma weaponry,
no missiles or beams, meaning that a Hoth at range would eat them up before
they could even get within firing range of the big machines…which were now much
faster over ground than their predecessors had been, not to mention they’d been
upgraded with a cleansing beam, now that the techs had figured out a way to
miniaturize it even further. That said, her neo was still going to be the
fastest mech on the field, but as she walked it out of the enclosed mech bay
she felt the movements to be extremely sluggish, forcing her to reset her mind
to ‘mech’ mode rather than ‘commando.’

She boarded a dragon along with a number of other
mechs,
then
with fighter escorts they flew out to the
edge of the battle zone, with the Scionate already having reached the target
city’s edge. Battlemap data suggested they were going for at least 5 different
cities, with Morgan opting to tackle the biggest assault she could find.

The dropships landed in a wide grid, giving the mechs
plenty of room to exit several kilometers away from the nearest troops, though
there were already enemy Valeries overhead strafing the dropships as several
squadrons of skeets tried to keep them at bay. As soon as a few anti-air
equipped madcats took to the field and downed a handful of fighters the
Valeries backed off, with the Star Force pilots taking the initiative and
pursuing them, leaving Morgan’s cluster a moment to itself as she handed out
combat assignments.

She took 9 neos into her personal ‘binary’ and went to
the head of the formation, with it splitting into two stars that kept close to
each other, with Morgan at the point of hers. They ran as quickly as they could
manage, with the other mechs trailing behind in a long column towards the edge
of the engagement zone before splitting up to go after individual targets. On
the march over to the enemy Morgan got a good look at what they were up
against…and she wasn’t disappointed.

The fields of short blue grass were covered in
Scionate yellow, both from their tanks and their personal armor, with thousands
upon thousands of infantry storming the city’s outer walls and overwhelming the
defense turrets that were chewing up everything within sight with lethal
precision. The defending mechs had been forced to flee to the edges and fight
around the city, drawing off tendrils of the enemy troops in order to avoid
being overwhelmed with plasma…which added to the yellow motif that was drowning
out the blue landscape and now encroaching on the white/greys of the city.

The city gates were raised, matching up with the
underside of the bubble shield that was still holding. Valerie attacks on it
were light, given the anti-air turrets
raising
up and
popping through tiny holes in the energy barrier. Same with the primary turret
that was roasting distant tanks and infantry with its single cleansing beam,
but most of the enemy hoard were now below its firing angle, up close against
the city walls, which in some cases were only lightly armored building
exteriors.

That said, there was no way for the enemy infantry to
get inside the perimeter without blasting a hold in either a building or the
gates that had risen up to cover the gaps in between the structures, making for
a crude, jerky line rather than a curved exterior, given that this city and
others were constantly expanding. Morgan was glad they’d included the permanent
defense protocol in the colony mandates, giving them a way to shut off access
to the city from the ground at any stage of construction.

As she was running forward, now about a kilometer away
from the nearest Scionate a pale white beam shot over her mech and hit one of
the tanks ahead, moving down slightly as it fired and bisecting the rectangular
slab with little effort while also vaporizing a few infantry on the far side
where the beam sliced a narrow trench into the ground that erupted with a
backblow of soil and moisture.

That meant the first hoth was finally unpacked and
into play, something she was grateful for as a large group of tanks and
infantry began turning towards her mechs, with them soon to be overwhelmed.

“Alright guys, this is it,” she announced to the
cluster. “Don’t dig too deep or you’ll be toast. Hit and fade and pull them
away from the others.
Fighting retreat if possible.
They’ve got the numbers, so we have to split them up…and remember to give the
hoths some clear firing lines. Watch my back and shoot targets of opportunity,
we’re about to bust them up and I’m not sure how they’re going to respond. Play
it conservative until we get a feel for them.”

There were no responses from the other mechwarriors,
given that none of them knew her personally. They were all acolytes and lower,
mixed in with a lot of Regulars that also weren’t very experienced. Those that
were
were
either fighting on the fronts or positioned
to more valuable worlds. Admat was low priority, but per Star Force protocol
they didn’t underdefend any world, meaning these mechwarriors had decent skills
but were nowhere in Morgan’s league and they knew it, preferring to keep a
respectful quiet as they headed into battle…though that wouldn’t last long
before they started chatting at each other coordinating attacks.

Morgan used her superior skill and familiarity with
the neo to goose her speed, running faster than the others could do without
tripping over their own mechanical feet and pulling ahead of her star slightly
as she popped up both mauler cannons on her mech’s arms and started firing at
the nearest tank…completely ignoring the infantry until they got underfoot. She
haphazardly punted one of the armored cats that didn’t move out of her way as
she tore through the shields and armor of one of the tanks that couldn’t quite
manage to keep her in its primary sights, giving her the opportunity to kill it
quickly without having to suffer a main cannon strike to her shields.

Her neo was covered with hundreds of infantry blasts,
which she knew would add up eventually, but right now, at the beginning of
battle, it was the tanks that were the most dangerous so she swerved to her
left and attacked another one from the flank, melting it with her maulers
rather easily, taking only 9 hits before she dropped it to the ground unpowered
with large chunks of the machine dripping in molten globs onto the grass and
setting it on fire.

Soon there was smoke billowing up in multiple
locations as she and the other mechs hit the tanks, all the while the now two
hoths were sniping more further back in the lines on a regular basis as they
slowly walked forward. Morgan watched her shield strength closely, backing off
twice for a run through open field before circling back at a different point
and hitting a strategically placed tank that further opened up the infantry to
slaughter by some of the heavier armed Type 1s in her cluster.

The Scionate didn’t blink, pressing their losses by
diverting more troops Morgan’s way, so many in fact that the armored kitties
started jumping at and on her mechs, knocking over several before others came
in to help shoot the cats off. Small as they were, the quadrupeds were heavy
enough in numbers to make it difficult for the mechs to get up and move around,
with her seeing a pair hanging onto the leg of a starbright whose shields had
already gone down. They were latched on and firing their tiny plasma cannons
into the mech at pointblank range before Morgan got to it and latched her
mechanical hands around both and pried them off…then pitched them each baseball
style back into the hoard.

After she threw the second one a few more infantry
tried to jump on her mech…only to get a rude awakening as she maneuvered it
around more like a giant suit of armor than a walking machine, punching and
kicking the Scionate into mangled pulp inside of what felt like tin cans from
the
neo’s
perspective.

They were
not
back down though. It was as if the more troops they lost the more committed to
winning the Scionate became, with Morgan’s cluster eventually having to retreat
back to the hoths to avoid being overwhelmed. They all made it out, but a few had
taken significant hull damage and had to be rotated to the rear of their ever
changing formation that she kept modifying with the flow of battle. Her own neo
was showing light damage in places but mostly for her it’d been shield damage
that she’d suffered, though she had taken a square hit from one of the tanks
that left a melty patch on her chest.

She’d berated herself for walking into that for some
thirty seconds afterwards before letting it go and adjusting. The Scionate
where now coming after the mechs in tank groups of no less than three, making
assaulting them more difficult because at least one of them would usually land
a direct strike when a neo approached, and multiple ones for the less agile
mechs. Morgan began hunting those personally, with the others supporting her
when she busted up their formation.

With the retreat they’d stretched out the Scionate
lines…but their infantry was actually surging ahead of the tanks and running
suicidally right into the mechs around the hoths’ feet. Morgan knew this was
their chosen tactic, no matter how many they lost they were going to swarm the
mechs, meaning they had to make a stand here or abandon the hoths, which no
matter how heavily armed and armored they were, the hundreds of tanks coming
their way would eat them alive given enough time.

Morgan ran the numbers through her head, sizing them
up visually rather than trying to count as she considered having to do just
that and evacuating the pilots by some means, perhaps right now before they
were swarmed, but that would mean taking the hoths out of the fight and they
badly needed their firepower…not just the cleansing beam, but the auxiliary
weapons that were only now coming into play and firing own on the infantry with
numerous plasma cannons designed for just this purpose, along with a quartet of
maulers to deal with larger, close-in targets.

It was going to be a tough one, but the more they
killed out here the less there would be for the infantry within the city to
deal with, so Morgan decided to make their stand, sort of.

“Alright, we’re digging in here. Don’t get sloppy and
keep cycling out as needed to recharge shields, but we’re holding position on
the hoths, and the big boys aren’t going to be standing still. You’re going to
position 400 meters apart, side by side, and casually advance. We’re going to
work around you, but we are not going to get stuck in one spot and become
turrets. That’s what the Scionate
want,
and we’re not
going to give it to them. We’re mobile, so fight mobile. That order goes to everyone.”

“Keep clear of the hoth feet and let them clean up the
infantry that gets to them. We break up the chunks ahead and they sweep, got
it? If we go down, stay down and inside your mech.
Don’t
try to evacuate or you’ll be target practice. Anybody with missiles left unload
them now…all of them, hit the isolated tanks. I’m going for the groups,” she said,
running in a long circle to turn around, then accelerating to breakneck speed
and trampling a few Scionate that got in her way, trying to trip her up.

Morgan shot several with her
maulers
enroute, but as she zigzagged heading towards one of the tank groups a white
cleansing beam passed through it and cut two of the five tanks in half, greatly
increasing her odds. She wanted to say thank you but knew there was no time,
firing four shots against one of the intact tanks as a second group not far
away also targeted her.

Knowing she had to get some cover she dipped her arms
as she ran and popped out the underside sword blades, jumping into the air using
her anti-
grav
and landing on top of one of the
bisected tanks. She slid off it and skewered one of the intact ones, punching
through its shields and then its armor with the corovon alloy blades. She
wasn’t able to cut sideways, so she pulled them back out, one at a time, and
jabbed them back down in, going for both the cockpit and power core, eventually
hitting which one she wasn’t sure, but the tank suddenly stopped shooting her
with its anti-personnel turrets, signaling to the trailblazer that it was dead.

A plasma shot hit them both, washing against her shields
and taking them down a chunk as the other Scionate tank group fired on its own
in order to hit her, committed to defeating their enemies no matter what the
cost or sacrifice. She knelt the neo down then jumped again, this one mostly
going sideways and got to another of the closest tanks and began hacking it
apart, knowing that properly used the sword blades would kill faster than her
maulers.