Transmission Lost (70 page)

Aria and her team made it to the line of buildings after a hard run, but instead of heading inside they hugged the walls and pushed on into the building complex itself. They began moving away from the center of the base, where the fighting was heaviest, and leapfrogged from building to building as they moved for their first objective. Along the way, they came across scattered squads of rebel soldiers, all Ailian, and had to stop several times to deal with these obstacles. The enemy troops were very well-trained, as soldiers of the Ascendancy could expect to be, but the Royal Guards were better-trained than them all. Every time, Aria and her guards got in close and dealt with the enemies while the naval troopers hung back and offered supporting fire.

Aria didn't take long to reach the vicinity of their objective. The front gate of Mat'aar Airbase was pretty much exactly that, a gate, though it was fortified and usually flanked by stationary armored units. Aria paused, afforded cover by the outer wall of a building, and peeked around to see what was awaiting them. What she saw was a company of Nuretan Imperial Marines, pinned down behind the scarce cover given to them by the hulks of several of their burned-out hovertanks. The marines were clearly trying to advance on the inside of the front gate, but they were stalled by rebel troops stationed there. The rebels were well-placed, atop the wall of the gate with snipers and rifle infantry. As the Ailian captain watched, several of the Nuretans were picked off when they ventured too far out of cover. The situation was going to turn ugly for them very quickly, especially if rebel armor descended on the area.

-Mari,- Aria called, waving her executive officer over. -Take three guards and get to high ground. We need to thin out the enemy troops so we can take the gate. Do it quickly. We'll distract them while you get in position.-

Lieutenant Ayalis nodded and motioned three of the other guards over, and she made sure that one of those she selected was a sniper as well. They vanished behind the rest of the squad to look for a way to get on top of the building they were taking cover at. Aria shouldered her rifle and took aim at the top wall of the front gate. The soldiers around her mimicked her, placing themselves so they had clear shots while grabbing as much cover as they could. So far they hadn't been noticed by the defenders at the gate, but that would soon change.

Aria took a deep breath, and her ears pricked forward as she tuned all of her senses carefully. Without any sort of verbal command, she pulled the trigger on her weapon and sent a burst of fire towards the rebels on the wall, and the rest of her squad followed suit a split second later. Though they had little hope of hitting them from this distance, owing to the enemy's superior position, the point of it was to make them duck down and to draw fire towards her own men while Lieutenant Ayalis made her move. The tactic worked, and they soon heard the crackle of bullets striking the ground and walls around them. They ducked into cover when they needed to, but they never let up their firing for more than a few seconds.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Ayalis and her fire team had found a spot at the back of building where there were water and electrical conduits on the exterior wall. The four of them strapped their weapons to their backs and started climbing, and though the handholds were small and not easy to grip they were able to get to the roof of the three-story building without too much difficulty. Once on the roof, they low-walked across the flat surface until they neared the side that faced the front gate. All four of them dropped flat to the sandstone surface at the same time and crawled the rest of the way. The lack of sandy bursts near the edge of the roof, which would signify shots hitting the building there, let them know that they hadn't been seen.

The Ailian lieutenant and her other sniper, a sergeant, unstrapped their weapons from their backs and rested the bodies of the rifles on the slightly raised edge of the building's roof, letting the barrels extend out over empty space. The sniper rifles bore only passing similarities to the standard Ailian infantry weapon. The main body of the weapon was slender at the front, with a stock which broadened out from the rear end of the body and had holes carved into it for the shooting hand's fingers to fit into. The long end of the barrel was capped with a triangular prism-shaped protrusion with slots notched into it at regular intervals, which served to dissipate the flash from the gunshot as well as to decrease noise. On the dorsal side of the rifle was a thick cylindrical scope that allowed the shooter to have an extremely clear view of their target at great distances.

Mari looked through her scope and sighted in on the top wall of the front gate. A built-in rangefinder lased the wall, and the tiny readout told her that the distance from there to her position was approximately two hundred and twenty meters. Just outside of the maximum practical range for the short-barreled rifles the two guards accompanying the snipers carried, but child's play for the sniper weapons. The lieutenant did her level best to make herself melt into the roof, and she relaxed almost every muscle in her body. Her tail was lying straight out behind her in between her legs, which were spread at an even distance, and the only parts of her body that were raised were her head and shoulders. She tucked the stock of her rifle tightly into the crook of her arm, and she let her free hand rest on top of the weapon underneath her cheek. Her eye stared unflinchingly into the scope. The black-furred female had a perfect view from here, and the targeting dot of her scope rested on the head of one of the rebel soldiers. He had impressive cover from the troops on the ground below. Not so much from above.

-Do you have a target, Sergeant?- Lieutenant Ayalis asked. Her voice was almost too low to be heard.

-Yes, ma'am.- The other sniper's posture exactly mirrored hers.

-Alright. Wait for the firing to pick up, then take your shot. Keep it up until I tell you to stop.- Mari started breathing deep and slow, calling upon all of her training to slow her own heart rate down. When she was totally relaxed, and when a new flurry of gunfire rose to a near-deafening crescendo, she pressed back on the trigger of her weapon. The rifle kicked back against her shoulder, but the sound that issued from it was barely a whisper in the cacophony of noise coming down from below. The bullet took barely a tenth of a second to travel the distance from where it exited her weapon to when it impacted the unfortunate soldier she was targeting. When it did, his body stiffened and jerked back, a greyish-pink cloud erupting from the other side of his head as the bullet made a mess of his skull. He crumpled dead to the top of the wall as another soldier three down from him did the same, felled by the other sniper atop the building.

One by one, Lieutenant Ayalis and the sergeant picked off rebel soldiers, and the fire coming down at Aria's squad and the Nuretan marines began to slack off. This gave them the chance to time their shots more effectively, and the enemy troops began falling from shots fired from the ground as well as from the roof. They spent nearly fifteen minutes on this deadly game of pop-up targets, but in the end the coast was clear and the Nuretans were able to relax a little, as Aria and her guards broke cover and swiftly crossed the ground towards their allies.

One of the amphibian aliens came out of cover to meet her, and Captain Me'lia found herself face to face with General Soumaren, who looked a little breathless but unhurt. -Thank you for your assistance, Captain,- the general said gratefully. She was dressed in the fashion of the Imperial Marines, wearing a mottled-blue uniform and the curious tilted green cloth hats that were common among Nuretan military units. A few of the other marines echoed her sentiments of gratitude, some of them congratulating each other on surviving the skirmish while others started tending to the wounded who could be saved. Out of the company of fifty, thirty-three were unhurt, five were injured but still capable of moving and fighting, and the rest were either dead outright or would soon be. -I've heard from some of my troops over the radio. They report that the airbase is largely under our control. That's none of our concern. I have a few of your armored ground vehicles heading to us, and they'll carry us into the city. Our scouts and recon drones are telling us that the streets are mostly empty. It seems a lot of the rebel forces in the city are spreading out to try to stop our advance.-

-That would make sense,- Aria said. -There is a lot of cover in the city. They'll split up to try to take advantage of it and make us waste our time going building-to-building.-

General Soumaren nodded her agreement, and then she gave a tight-lipped grin. -We're not going to play that game. Your squad and mine will load up and lance through Hayikwiir City to the royal palace. We're not stopping for anything. I've ordered some of our air cover to break off from the main battle and clear the streets on the most direct route of any enemy armor that may be patrolling the city.- The Nuretan general's neon-colored eyes were flaring with anticipation. -I plan on being at the walls of the royal palace within the next two hours. We still have a lot of daylight left. Does that sound adequate to you, Captain?-

Aria gave a smile that was all teeth. -I like that plan.- She turned her head as Lieutenant Ayalis and her fire team rejoined the group. -Excellent shooting, Lieutenant.-

-Yes, Captain,- Mari said.

-Everyone reload and eat what you can,- General Soumaren ordered. -We have two minutes until the vehicles are here, and then I want to keep it tight until we reach the next checkpoint. Am I understood?-

A chorus of shouts in the affirmative answered her.

******

Admiral Kris wore a look of grim satisfaction on her face. Anyone else would have thought that she had little to be satisfied about. The combined fleet of Nuretan and Ailian ships that were opposing her in the space above Lirna were slowly gaining the advantage. Her own ships were being worn down, little by little, as her numbers began to drop. As she checked the radar readouts from her command chair aboard her flagship, she saw another battle group drop off the screen as their ships were overtaken by enemy fire.

-Give me your report,- the rebel admiral said calmly, not bothering to look over her shoulder as one of her officers approached her from the rear.

-We've dropped the enemy down to approximately fifty-five percent of their battle capability,- the officer told her. -However, we're at nearly the same level ourselves. If the fighting continues at this rate, we'll soon be overpowered.-

-Understood, Commander,- Kris said. She grinned, her tailtip twitching behind her. -All as planned. Continue as we have. Commit what resources we can to our left flank. We can't have them breaking through too quickly.-

-Yes, Admiral.-

Selina Kris stood up from her chair and walked to the railing of the heavy battlecruiser's bridge, and she leaned over. -Have you been tracking the location of the
Krisa'la
?- Her crew pit was a flurry of activity, with officers and enlisted personnel moving about between communications and monitoring stations as they watched over various aspects of the fighting. Though it was noisy and somewhat chaotic down there, one of her senior officers heard her and reported back.

-Admiral, I have that ship's location,- the Ailian captain told her. -We lost it a number of times, but we have reacquired it. I can transmit that information to your command console.-

-Do so,- Admiral Kris said with a nod, and she let her grin widen. -I want Te'rou's head. I must update Admiral Me'lia with our status. In the meantime, Captain, you will contact our two strongest and least damaged ships and have them form up on us. Very shortly we shall be making a run on the
Krisa'la
.- The sable woman chuckled as she saw the confusion on the captain's face. -You don't have to understand. Just follow my orders.-

-Ah...Yes, Admiral...- The captain still looked like she didn't know what was going on, but she turned back to her console and began carrying out Kris' commands.

Admiral Kris turned back around and returned to her chair. As the captain had promised, she had transmitted the location of Admiral Te'rou's flagship to her screen. Kris examined the readout for another few minutes as the excitement welled up inside of her, and then she keyed up her communications link to the planets' surface.

-M'lady. We are ready.-

******

Admiral Te'rou was ecstatic. The battle was going far more smoothly than he had thought it would earlier in the fight. Once the landings had been completed, he had been able to pull back the ships which had been tasked to escort the transport craft. The added firepower had turned the tide back against the onslaught of rebel fighter ships, and they had begun taking a toll on the enemy's heavier assets as well. Now they were pressing the enemy on their flanks, and he was watching on the radar screens as the opposing fleets were being rounded up into a tight group.

-We have them!- Te'rou declared, as he smacked his fist on the arm of his chair in triumph. -Regroup all heavy fighters and begin attack runs on the enemy's main cruisers. Prepare for mass bombardment, and begin prepping our ships for precision strikes to aid the ground forces. I've got her right where I...-

-Admiral! I'm detecting a large number of vessels emerging from hyperspace!-

Te'rou's ears fell back as he abruptly stood up from his command chair. Red lights began flashing everywhere on the bridge as alarms began to sound, and voices began to rise, some of them in panic, from the crew deck. While his flagship's captain began shouting orders into his comm system, Te'rou rushed to the railing overlooking the deck and tried to make sense of what was going on. -Report! Now! What's happening?-