Star Force Perseverance (SF81) (Star Force Origin Series) (13 page)

base, but one bottoming out well below ground level. The lift shafts didn’t run

that deep, but supporting so much weight in such a ‘flimsy’ structure required

some significant engineering chops and a rooting ‘boot’ to match.

That meant more stuff in the way, but Ginsi and the

others were glad to get to do something more than just falling. At these slower

speeds Ginsi was able to touch the walls and bounce off them, dancing down the

null space and following the others as the trailblazers charted their course

through the obstructions. They remained that way, doing their dark acrobatic

dance until she got the signal to start hard braking.

The mage flipped over, using the rushing air to move

her over to the side wall where she dug her heels into it as she pressed

against the opposite wall with a Lachka field and wedged herself into some

traction…though it looked like she was skating a trail of sparks on the wall.

The others decelerated in a variety of means, though

slower than Ginsi. She didn’t want to run up on top of them and need help

again, so she opted for the more extreme deceleration. Eventually the others

below her stopped altogether, with her accepting a final Bataf to kill the rest

of her speed and allow her to grab onto the wall and hang Spiderman style along

with the others below her.

Ginsi waited there until a shaft of light blared into

existence. No one moved at first, allowing their eyes to start readjusting to

the light, then slowly they began crawling down to that level with the light

getting brighter they closer they got to the opening.

When Ginsi got to that level she was on the wrong

wall, so she jumped across and grabbed hold of the other, then crawled over

beneath the doorway thankful that no one else was sticking around to help her.

The null space continued to fall away beneath her, traveling down to a dead end

block according to the schematics, but it was below street level and not where

they wanted to go.

The mage grabbed hold of the bottom edge of the hole

they’d cut in the wall and pulled herself up and into it, coming out on her

knees as she looked into the bright daylight as the 37 battlemap icons ahead of

her were disappearing fast. She stood up and walked into the lizard city,

taking a few seconds to soak in the view and the startled looks on the lizards

nearby, most of whom were not armed.

Those that were fired at the Archons, but neither they

nor Ginsi shot back. She ignored them and took off running, following the line

of her peers and needing to match their speed. Now she was in her element and

they would not be leaving her behind.

With several pink phaser shots missing her and a

couple actually making contact with her shields, Ginsi sprinted off through the

city, wondering exactly how much damage 38 of the most elite Archons in Star

Force could cause, and how the lizards would adapt to try and stop them.

10

February 18, 3108

Menchet System

(lizard core)

Tess

Paul, Riona, and two other titans clung to the

underside of a lizard transport, out of sight from above and not caring what

the lizards on the ground saw as they flew across kilometers of enemy cityscape

towards their next target, remote controlling the mind of the pilot as they had

been doing for weeks to cross the expanses required to get to all the

anti-orbital batteries within range of the column they’d come down.

So far this one hadn’t been spotted and shot down and

they’d been able to cover a lot of ground while the rest of their 38 man team

continued on to separate targets. There were too many for them all to hit

together, so they’d split up to maximize time after the first one went down

with surprising ease. It’d taken some improvising on site, but the lizards had

plenty of stuff to use for demolitions if you knew where to look. Damaging the

battery enough that they couldn’t get it repaired within 2 months meant a lot

of fireworks, but Paul’s team had gotten good at it now, despite the fact that

two buildings had been brought down on their heads as the lizards tried to kill

or pin them inside the structures.

They knew what they were doing and were fortifying the

anti-orbital batteries heavily but they were so big it was almost impossible to

cover all the cracks, especially when psionics allowed minds to be distracted

and wiped. The Archons, now that they were within the globe-spanning city, were

damn near impossible to find and even harder to lock down, with them running or

hitching rides across the landscape and easily disappearing again so long as

they chose to run and not engage. Their targets were the orbital batteries, not

the inhabitants, for which they didn’t have the ammo for anyway.

Paul and Riona had been living on the streets and in the

undercity ever since they’d gotten to ground, relying on their supplies to

sustain them and knowing they were on the clock. There were lots of defense

batteries on the ground, not to mention shield generators that could throw up

very heavy barriers overhead in an instant, but there were only so many weapons

batteries that could reach orbit…and even those couldn’t reach all the way up

to the ring shipyard. The Star Force fleet was safely out of range there, but

when they came lower to assault the planet they’d come within range and have to

slug it out, punching through the shields first to get to the guns…and taking a

lot of ship casualties in the process.

And some of these anti-orbital batteries were the new

cleansing beam models that packed more firepower and a decent range upgrade.

The Archons had to clear a column of ‘safe’ passage around the column that

spread out approximately 800 miles in radius, for that was the guessed range

that the lizard cleansing beams had and the closest a ship could jump into the

planet was directly outside the atmosphere. Unfortunately that was far enough

away from the surface that you were high enough for multiple batteries

otherwise denied line of sight by the planetary curve to still target you. A

cone of safety directly over your landing site was enough to cover aerial

traffic, but that wasn’t going to be enough to get dropships down to the

planet.

As of now there was enough of a cone of safety that

Paul could call down a command ship and sit it over the landing site if he

wanted to. It could weather the few hits on the way down, but then it’d have to

contend with the short range weaponry coming from the surface. If they needed

evac he could have the Excalibur come

down and batter one of the city shields to the point it broke, but his ship

would get chewed up in the process and he didn’t want to bring a fleet of

drones in at this close range at all.

The plan was to park them in low orbit, outside the

short range lizard weapons and out of the anti-orbital batteries maximum

range…but that required eliminating those close enough to cause them a world of

hurt. Once that was accomplished, Paul would order an orbital bombardment to

take out shield generators, short range weaponry, hangars, barracks,

hatcheries, and anything else needing blown up before sending the ground troops

down to clean up and start pressing the war across land to the other

anti-orbital guns.

At least that was the plan in traditional invasions,

but with so many high level Archons here they were going to keep hitting them

in small teams ahead of the main force so long as the lizards didn’t find a way

to counter them…and Paul knew that was always a threat, so they had to hurry

and get all these close guns down and an LZ established before they adapted.

The rest of the guns spread across the planet would be extras, but these had to

go down now or extraction was going to get messy.

With Paul driving through the eyes of their pilot, he

brought the blocky transport down onto a street a few kilometers away from

their next target. The four titans dropped off and down to the street, then

started running into obscurity as the crowds of lizards around them went into a

panic. Paul knew that as long as they kept moving they’d have an advantage, but

let the lizards know exactly where they were and they’d start running kamikaze

wisps down on top of them…again.

Keeping that in mind, the foursome headed over ground

for a couple of minutes before taking to the undercity and approaching the gun

from there, out of the view of aerial reconnaissance and losing themselves in

the lizard infrastructure.

After ‘interviewing’ a number of lizards they found

out that several buildings and sublevels around the massive turret had been

booby-trapped with explosives so the lizards could take them down the moment

they spotted the Archons in them. Paul got the locations of those buildings and

brought his four man team to one of them…for they needed to sneak off with some

of those explosives themselves. The trick was not being seen, for the lizards

would just detonate them in your face.

It was an old trick that they’d been using for what

felt like years, though it’d been less than 2 months since they’d arrived on

the planet. Being an intense situation nonstop, it had ground out into an

endless flow of adrenaline, fatigue, and quick bits of sleep when you could

manage it. How the other teams were doing now he didn’t know, for they were out

of contact range, but his trio of Archons were holding up well and Paul was far

from tapping out. It was rough, but they were getting the job done and not

having to slaughter lizards to do it.

They were killing some, but the objective was to evade

and the massed bloodbaths that Paul and Riona had been having to endure were a

welcome absence. Most of the lizards dying here were from friendly fire, for

they didn’t evacuate the buildings they’d booby-trapped, else they tip their

hand.

When they finally went into the turret they’d have to

do some fighting, but smuggling in the explosives was going to take a few hours

and a lot of skill. If luck was against them that timetable would stretch out

even further, but they’d get them inside eventually. Diversionary attacks would

have to be made, but right now assembling the needed ordinance was the task,

and as long as the lizards were providing factory-grade explosives they might

as well take advantage of that rather than trying to MacGyver their own out of

fuel cells and whatever else they could get their hands on from the local

synthetic jungle that they were ensconced within.

When they got near the building in question Paul had

the other three screen for him using mind tricks and diversions, allowing him

to enter unnoticed and track down one of the bombs in the structure. He didn’t

approach it directly, for there were guards in the area and he needed to knock

them out first, but thankfully he could do that at range and even through the

walls with his telepathy…so long as there wasn’t a security camera trained on

them. Spotting those was the more challenging evasion, though so long as he had

time to look around at his leisure with his Pefbar he could find and avoid

them.

Luckily the lizards hadn’t put cameras on the bombs themselves. Those they were trying to hide from view and stuck them within the infrastructure as much as possible. When Paul finally got to one inside the building foundations he didn’t approach it, rather hiding behind a bulkhead and ‘touching’ it with his psionics just in case it did go off. Between the bulkhead and his armor he might be able to survive that, and he wanted the cushion just in case something went wrong.

Halfway through his inspection of the device he heard a faint screeching sound causing him to twitch. He recognized it instantly, and barely a second later Riona’s mental voice contacted him in lieu of a comm. signal that might be tracked.

The big gun just opened fire.

On what?

Not sure, but it’s depressed pretty far.

Which direction?

Towards the column. You think…

Get eyes on it now.

Riona didn’t hesitate, breaking from her cover within

a nearby building that was not rigged with explosives and making her way to the

roof, knocking unconscious a few lizards along the way that happened to see

her. Climbing 128 levels took some time, but when she got to the top she

stepped out near a cupola and kept her back pressed against it so her

silhouette wouldn’t stand out. It was transitioning over into night, with the

suns no longer visible on the horizon but with a pink/orange sky trailing them

still visible in the dimming light.

A much larger flash of brilliant pink cast shadows

across the roof, with Riona circling around the cupola until she could see the turret.

Another deep pink phaser beam shot out parallel to the ground and streaked over

the building tops into the distance. The column was so far away it didn’t even

register in the dark light near the surface, but there was a reflective stump

reaching up and thinning into the sky where the sunlight was still reaching it.

That disappearing line intersected with a thick yellow/tan ring that stretched