Star Force: Escalation (SF12)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  The American tanks waited inside the wall, but far enough back to give them a decent firing angle when the head of the first walker would appear. Before it did another flash streaked over their heads and blew up an anti-air turret well back from the wall near the middle of the base. The AT-ATs were close to the wall, but still far enough back to be out of sight. Soon, very soon, they’d see their humps poking up over the concrete tops.

  Before that happened a second electrolaser burst flew over their heads, destroying yet another of the unmanned base defense turrets with a controlled burst of lightning traveling down a temporary conduit of plasma created from the interaction of the thin air and a very powerful laser beam. The beam’s power changed the insulating carbon dioxide molecules between the walker and the target into conductive plasma, through which a massive electrical charge was delivered. As soon as the laser abated the plasma reverted back to gas and the conductive conduit disappeared.

  Thicker atmosphere meant shorter range, given that more energy had to be applied to alter more air molecules, while no atmosphere meant no electrical charge delivery, though the laser itself was powerful enough to still do considerable damage. Mars’ thin atmosphere was ideal for long range strikes, so long as the approaching storm didn’t kick up debris into the path or the winds didn’t get too high, disrupting the plasma conduit. However, the longer range the charge had to travel, the more bleed off there was during transit, meaning that the heavy walkers’ most powerful striking capability would be at short range.

  The tanks didn’t understand the nature of the weapon being used to destroy the defense turrets, but they knew they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those blasts. Each and every gunner in the field had their fingers snugly over the fire controls for the tanks’ cannons, ready to launch a combined salvo as soon as the massive machines showed their heads. They hoped they’d be able to disable the weapon before it could kill them, but given that it’d only take one shot to kill a tank, everyone was filled to the brim with apprehensive adrenaline.

  Before the walkers appeared Ryan’s voice cut into the tanks’ comm traffic, delivering another warning.

  “This is Archon Ryan-096. Stand down immediately and you will not be harmed. We are not here to kill you. Our mission is to secure this base and return you to Earth. You will be free once you leave Mars. We have no interest in keeping prisoners, we just want you off the planet. The same thing is going to happen to your other military bases, as well as your civilian colonies. Your territories are being confiscated. Same goes for the British, Germans, Japanese, West Africans, South Africans, and Indians. You’re all being dispossessed. There is no reason to die here today. One way or another we’re going to be in possession of this base by the end of the day. The question is, will you live to see tomorrow?”

  “Some of your pilots wisely heeded our warning and did not fire on us. We returned the favor and they survived the recent battle. I’ve signaled for dropships to begin their landing to retrieve those pilots and any survivors from the crashes before the storm swallows them up. Those same dropships will take any of you who surrender off planet within the day. You won’t have to answer to your commanding officers, you won’t even have to return to the United States if you don’t want to. Furthermore, if you’re concerned about your paycheck, Star Force can compensate you. We’ll find you work with us. The point being, you don’t have to die here today.”

  “You’re not going to stop us from confiscating this base, and we’re not going to kill anybody that doesn’t shoot at us first. If you really want to throw down, we’ll give you the first shot, then you’ll be added to our combat computer as a target. Those of you who don’t fire, won’t be seen as targets. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You have a few minutes to decide. If you want to move out of the fireworks, head towards the gate and park there, because we’re not coming in that way.”

  Inside the command pod of the southernmost heavy walker, which actually resided at the base of the neck and not in the head, Ryan studied the tactical map while a lower ranking Archon drove the beast forward. Issuing commands through their CTS, or Coordinated Tactical System, Ryan ordered the mechs to begin their attack, tagging the two points he wanted them to move to, one being on the north wall, the other on the south while the two heavy walkers continued walking towards the western barrier with the second group coming up behind them in support.

  Suddenly the throng of smaller mechs split up and moved away from the massive feet of the quadrupeds. The bipeds didn’t walk away, though. The machines took off running over the relatively flat Martian surface in packs, with the chicken-walkers moving to the front on their fast, spindly legs while the bulkier Humanoids lumbered behind them. It took the mechs a surprisingly short amount of time to skirt around the perimeter, then they ran about a kilometer back along the north and south walls to their waypoints, with the battletech-type versions pulling out away from the 15 meter high barrier a few hundred meters, forming up into lines while the others milled about to either side.

  When they were all aligned the leading mechs began running slowly towards the wall. When they got within 100 meters exhaust plumes manifested beneath them and the heavy machines inexplicably began to float upwards…right over the wall.

  The first few mechs came down on their ‘jump jets’ inside the base, landing awkwardly and stumbling to stay upright. One of them actually fell face forward onto the ground, but it picked itself up just in time to move forward and away from the landing zone as the second wave of jumping mechs came over the wall.

  Meanwhile the leaders ran forward, curving heavily to the west as they ran up behind the tank lines, catching them off guard but not firing on them. Several cannon turrets began to swivel around to track them, but with more and more mechs running up behind them at point blank range they didn’t fire. Looking up at the massive amount of weaponry attached to the walking machines, and the sheer terror the towering constructs elicited, was enough to freeze their trigger fingers, and with Star Force bringing so many mechs to bear so quickly not a single shot was fired.

  Sporadically the top hatches on the tanks began to open and a pilot would pop his helmeted head out, hands raised to indicate their surrender.

  Weaponsfire did break out, however, from a number of remote turrets inside the wall that hadn’t been hit by the heavy walkers, having been obscured from view by the wall. Flanking mechs moved off instantly, walking through the edges of the tank formation then firing on the turrets with their lasers, taking a few rounds in the process.

  One small mech was knocked completely off its feet, taking a round to the upper left side of its boxy head and tipping it off balance to the right. After its fellow mechs took out the cannon turret that hit it, the mech got back to its feet with a massive dent on the side of its head where the round had hit, but the armor remained mostly intact. Either the round fired had been designed to be kinetic, or the explosive warhead had malfunctioned.

  Six more turrets were taken out quickly enough, four of those being anti-air versions that couldn’t depress to shoot to ground. Another Star Force mech was hit with a salvo of missiles, tearing up its outer layer of armor plating, but it remained operational.

  With the turrets near the west wall disabled, a portion of the mechs met up east of the tanks and began heading further into the base, hunting down more turrets in packs of four or five while the Humanoid mechs were just now climbing over the wall. The jumpless mechs had torn into the concrete retaining wall on the outside and clawed their way into the dirt embankment, creating a steep ramp that they climbed up using their metallic legs and arms which mimicked the precise movements made by the pilot’s body within the interior control pod, offering them a much wider range of available movements than the computer controlled walkers that the other pilots essentially ‘drove’ around.

  The first Humanoid stood up on top of the wall then turned and ran across the wide flat top back towards the west end, with the others hopp
ing down off the wall on the inside, half of which fell to the ground on landing. Those that managed to land on their feet took off running towards the west wall, bypassing the captured tanks and their mech guards. Those that fell pulled themselves upright and followed a ways back, eventually rendezvousing with about a dozen others as they waited for the runner on top of the wall to take the long way around the square corner to get to them.

  When it did, it immediately blasted away at the concrete retaining wall on the inside with a plume of missiles. Shards of the manmade stone flew out, along with a plume of dirt that rose high into the thin Martian air but the Archon piloting the machine didn’t stop there. He turned his weaponry against the outside retaining wall as well, blowing off the top of it as more Humanoid mechs from the second ground met up with his position.

  The mech delivered several more missile blasts into the retaining walls until it ran out of ammunition, then it backed off and hopped down inside the base, letting the others continue the onslaught with round after round of their own missiles, breaking up a good 50 meter section of concrete, after which they walked forward and began digging into the dirt with their robotic hands, pulling it down over top of the rubble.

  Both groups worked on tearing down the dirt embankment as the heavy walkers repositioned themselves on a direct line for the breach point. Ryan’s mech was second in line, and he watched curiously as the other pilot moved the machine forward after the smaller bipeds cleared away. It gingerly stepped up on the loose dirt, sinking down into it several meters before finding sufficient leverage.

  It took several micro steps with the other three legs, repositioning for another large step forward up the dirt ramp. One step at a time, it gradually rose up to the top of the wall, then just as slowly walked down the other side into the base as the captured tanks scurried out of its way to holding positions by the gate, as Ryan had instructed them to do earlier.

  Back on level ground, the heavy walker moved forward at a decent pace, heading in towards the ‘forts’ and main base defense ring that ran around the four large buried structures, still kilometers away, while Ryan’s heavy walker began to rise up over the wall behind it.

  In the sky above, three boomerang-like medium dropships descended, skirting the high clouds of the storm, keeping clear of the base and the few anti-air turrets still operational as they headed to ground to deliver recovery crews and pick up the surviving American pilots.

  9

  Another electrolaser blast took out a defense turret on the corner of the walled fort, blowing debris high in the air, visibly marking the location of the mini-base inside the large outer perimeter wall. Several other ‘forts’ surrounded isolated buildings, but most of the base’s interior was focused on the center four mounds, around which was a large defensive perimeter housing barricades, trenches, and infantry outposts…as well as additional defense turrets, some of which the mechs had already begun chewing apart.

  A second electrolaser blast flew past the lead heavy walker and hit one of the distant turrets on the backside of the four mounds as a quartet of mechs circled around in that direction. It blew apart in an equally large dust cloud, followed by many more as the pair of heavy walkers strode through the inside of the American base, picking off defenses at range from their higher elevation as they slowly approached the inner perimeter defense line.

  The first of the heavy walkers avoided the large metallic tank traps, walking around to the south a bit towards one of the large trenches. When it reached the edge the pilot shifted the feet underneath, pulling them in close to one another before reaching out with the front ‘paw’ as the machine lunged forward. The foot pad landed 2 meters past the opposite edge, but smashed down the dirt in that area, creating an imprint/cave in on that side, sinking in a meter but otherwise holding firm.

  Very carefully the walker brought its other front leg across, then hunched down and brought one of its back legs down into the trench, dropping its aft end awkwardly into the gap, but it was shallow enough that it only came up to the machine’s knee. It pulled its last leg in, dragging a good amount of dirt with it, then pulled itself up the far side at a snail’s pace, but it succeeded in crossing the highway-sized gap that would have stopped any of the tanks dead in their tracks.

  Several of the mechs used their jump jets and crossed along with it in flanking positions, largely ignoring the infantry outposts that guarded the bridges. Those were left to the Humanoid mechs that followed shortly thereafter, disabling the machine gun nests and anti-infantry turrets that still remained while scaring the infantry themselves back into their underground tunnels that connected to the rest of the base.

  A small explosion underneath one of the outposts kicked up concrete dust through the bunker slits as the troops scuttled the tunnel entrance so Star Force couldn’t backtrack them into the main base. Likewise, the other outposts that came under attack put up a pitiful amount of resistance before succumbing in a similar manner, leaving the heavy walkers unopposed as the first two approached the four main building mounds while the trailing third headed over to the fort surrounding the airfield.

  Ryan’s heavy walker stopped just short of the concrete outcropping that formed the surface entrance for the nearest surface mound, becoming a stationary part of the landscape as entry hatches on the underside slid open and descent lines deployed, spilling out red and white armored troops as they dropped down to the surface and took off running towards the three entry airlocks, two of which were oversized cargo hatches.

  Ryan left the cockpit of the heavy walker and moved backwards into the troop pod, then was the last one down the ropes. He jogged across the sandy surface to the entry point, stinger rifle in hand, stun stick attached to his waist, and shield strapped over his back in lieu of an equipment pack. The other Archons were similarly equipped, but the taller Knights carried stun swords and massive, slightly curved shields that stood taller than Ryan’s head. The larger men carried them effortlessly as they jammed themselves into the two cargo airlocks and began to cycle through after one of the Archons worked a little technical magic on the locking devices that intended to prevent their use during a lockdown.

  Ryan moved about through the lines and shouldered his way through into the second load of Knights going through the middle airlock, along with one other Archon. When the exterior door lowered down he heard an atmospheric hiss and his armor’s ‘breathing’ mechanism unlocked, drawing in outside air to feed his suit.

  When the inner door rose up they found themselves walking into a huge firefight behind a set of locked shields covering their entry point. Bullets were ricocheting in droves off the large white wall of armor spanning several meters in the squarish, gymnasium-sized room, coming from several connecting hallways making the entire area one big kill box.

  Ryan couldn’t see much from his position, but once the additional Knights arrived a group of five of them turtled up into a wedge and left the others. They walked briskly across the empty loading dock towards one of the doorways, ducking their helmeted heads down below the rim of the shields while keeping their bases an inch or two off the floor, giving the enemy no body shots at them.

  A pair of grenades flew out towards the Knights grouped near the airlocks and exploded, cracking one of their shields down the midline, but otherwise not penetrating it…though little pieces of debris had imbedded themselves into the normally shiny exterior, emblazoned with the Star Force logo. Ryan poked around the edge of the formation and fired off three shots into the nearest targets, seeing one hit before he had to duck back behind cover.

  As he did something clanked down behind him. He glanced back and saw a stun sword on the ground as a massive black blur leapt over his head, as well as the Knights and their shield wall. The man landed in the middle of the free fire zone as the Knight wedge made it to the first entryway, providing something of a distraction for him, but most of the American troops turned their fire on the hulking black armored figured as he ran with amazing speed across gap,
holding his equally massive shield up as a block as he got hammered with rifle fire.

  Ryan ducked out of cover again and sprayed stingers across the distracted enemy along with a few other Archons that had come through behind him. They downed several Americans with stun-laced paint splatters before the Black Knight got to the doublewide entryway directly across from the airlocks and threw his shield into the soldiers stationed there behind low barricades, knocking them down as he effortlessly hopped over into their lines and began punching the dozen or so of them into submission.

  With additional reinforcements coming in behind them, the Knights began escorting Archons up towards the enemy and soon they had all the entryways secured, but the intensity of the fight hadn’t slowed. The hallways leading out from the loading dock were long and well guarded, making for a gauntlet to pass through, but at least Ryan’s troops had managed to secure the entrance to the base. From there, he knew, they could work their way through the rest of the base.

  He walked back over to the airlocks and picked up the all too familiar black stun sword from the ground and carried it back over to the owner, who was now back inside the main room and around a corner, examining the few bullet wounds his armor had taken, none of which appeared serious. With a flick of his wrist Ryan tossed the extra-long sword through the air and Vermaire caught it between two fingers as if it were a twig, twisting it around and reattaching it to his belt.

  “Team two, report?” Ryan asked over his suit’s comm.

  “We’re in,” Mark-099’s voice responded. “Moderate resistance.”