by Aer-ki Jyr
“Already am. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Dina and I are hitting it from the backside, if that matters.”
“Noted, but wait until we can give you a moment of opportunity. That thing has enough plasma cannons to slag a voltron without much trouble.”
“I know,” Kip said as Vyr dropped his skeet in altitude. The comm channel cut off, leaving both Archons to their individual tasks. Vyr-2051 had been standing by for days along with the rest of the Clan Protoss aerial forces that Kip had brought down to the planet, forbidden to go close to the Type-1s, 2s, 3s, and even the 4s, though Vyr thought they should have been able to take them, given they were only equipped with anti-air lachars, and Star Force knew well how they functioned.
He’d been assisting the Protoss with the Type-5s and infantry clusters where he could, as well as defending transports from the Skarrons’ own fighters, but most of them were sticking close to the walkers and picking at Star Force’s mechs as much as they could. That hadn’t ended well for them, for the anti-air madcats had plenty of aerial kills on the day, thanks to Vyr’s people running replacement ammo packets up to them at nearly street level elevation.
But now was the time to get fancy and show how good he and his people actually were, for the Skarron anti-air defense was by far the best Star Force had come up against to date, making the lizards look easy by comparison…but there were always holes to exploit, if you knew where to look for them, and the Skarrons’ anti-air defense seemed more concerned with things above them rather than things below or even on low laterals. While that did help shield their anti-air batteries from ground fire, thus preserving them to maintain their head cover, it did allow pilots to fly low and get under their firing lines.
Problem was, there was a lot of buildings in the way, and he was fairly sure that the walkers could tip to the side on their legs and change their anti-air batteries’ firing lines to hit low if they wanted to…though that was just a guess, because they hadn’t seen any do so to date.
“Starscream wing, you are green to go on points 1 and 2. Gunships, Type-4s are yours, watch your proximity to the 3s. Skeet commanders, stand by until I make a go through, then coordinate with our voltrons and make the most of their distraction. Don’t get sloppy or brave, and expect luck to be on the Skarrons’ side…but that said, they fear aerial for a reason. Let’s not disappoint,” Vyr said, switching over to his squadron’s frequency. “On me, let’s go.”
Vyr ducked his neon blue skeet down into a street and decelerated, playing flying tank as the other 9 members of his squadron did likewise, following him in single file. He eventually turned and headed southwest, with each of the other skeets breaking off at various points so that when he finally did turn fully to the west, he and the others were all traveling down individual paths, intending to spring up on their target from multiple angles in a crisscross and run for your life attack pattern.
Seeing the others slightly ahead of him Vyr increased speed, approximately catching back up with their predetermined timing and getting to his launch point half a second behind all the others, whereupon he pulled up and flew between two larger buildings before swinging around and staring down the flank of a Type-3.
As soon as he was in the air a huge ring of white plasma ‘snow’ pulsed out from the walker in a hemispherical halo…and all of which missed high by 80 or so meters. That first pulse was followed by more and more, filling the air around and above the walker with tiny bits of plasma that would be impossible to avoid, cutting off the airspace around the Type-3 and forcing Vyr’s squadron to stay extremely low to the ground.
Larger white orbs shot out from the conventional plasma cannons on the sides, but the pilot was able to fly a slightly evasive path and duck past the front of the walker as it continued to crawl forward, whereupon he released one of four objects slung underneath the skeet’s belly with a trigger pull as he sighted in on the underside box where the forward legs came together and connected to the huge body.
After that he went to ground and zipped underneath the walker, seeing the flash of a few belly plasma cannons in his peripheral vision as he shot through the gap between two buildings on the other side and took back to the street canyons as he moved off, leaving the engagement zone as he saw one of his squadron go down on the battlemap.
As he commed the downed aerofighter to confirm that the pilot was still alive, the mine he dropped floated forward on its own anti-grav and came to a stop on the point on the battlemap that Vyr’s trigger pull had laid down a waypoint...along with 9 others that clustered together on the underside, then detonated like a chain of fireworks.
Kip saw the detonations via a spotter raven, then saw the damage estimate as the walker continued to move forward, seeing that the armor underneath had been torn apart with several breaches available for mechs to target the upper leg joints. He nodded, knowing that would help, then frowned as he saw one of the fighter icons go out as it passed under the walker and never rose back up, slamming into the side of a building. A few moments later a new icon popped up marking the distress beacon, which gave the position of the skeet’s armored ‘cradle’ that had preserved the pilot, even though it was now buried inside a Protovic structure.
Just then he heard a chorus of cheers over the comm, only to realize that the Mk. 2 hoths had just knocked out another section of the Type-1, stopping it in its tracks while it discarded the forward segment and began walking forward again…this time without an armored front, for both ends now had exposed segments.
Turning a corner in his voltron, he stepped on another cluster of infantry, nearly losing his traction as he did so, and continued to run on as he watched another blinding white streak pass through the sky overhead and saw it hit on his battlemap and do a corkscrew spiral, slicing into the front of the Type-1 with no resistance and gutting the inside of the thing.
Internal components began to spill out and the front end fell down on legs that no longer had any power. What was left of the Type-1 did a nose dive just as a tall Protovic building alongside the Type-2 Kip was headed for blew apart at the base.
The trailblazer switched his attention back there as he saw eighteen starscream mechs clinging to the back side of the building, with it blocking the walker’s firing lines on them, as they pushed with their anti-grav engines like they were toppling a tree that had been cut at the base, and rode the tall cylinder-shaped building over with near perfect timing. The building landed on top of the Type-2 near the front as another red continuous lachar beam ended, hitting it between the first two of four body segments and pushing it to the ground with the legs splayed wide and most of its anti-air weaponry on top now covered with debris.
“Dina, that’s our opening. Push it,” he said, turning another corner that would lead to the street the walker had more or less been following. Kip got up to it just in time to see a white flash at a different angle, and checked his battlemap as a cleansing beam tore into the front of the pinned Type-2 along with the continuous lachars as the walker struggled to stand up and shake the debris off.
The other Mk. 2s hit the Type-1 again, which was not moving at all, telling Kip that they’d probably disabled it enough that it wasn’t going anywhere, and in just a few more minutes they should have the southern Type-2 out of commission as well, emboldening him to skip the roads and jump into the air with his jump jets driving him across the building tops, giving him a very good view of the battlefield as the other Skarron walkers continued forward, taking hits from a Mk. 1 hoth as well as hundreds of smaller weapons from a scattering of mechs poking out of cover here and there.
Then there were larger explosions from the skeet mines, and blossoming debris clouds from where the gunships were throwing missile after missile into their target walkers, all the while the enemy was showering the area with white plasma, both anti-air pulse rings as well as the hundreds of plasma cannons covering their hulls.
There was still a lot of work to do here, but Kip knew they had them…
this group anyway. One of the 52 Type-1s was down, 51 remained. There was no way they were going to take down the others, not with the armor damage his mechs were racking up, but if they could get continually resupplied he knew they could take down all of them over time and save this planet…so long as there was enough of a Protovic army remaining to handle the Skarron infantry.
This war was going to take months, if not years, but as soon as this battle was over he was going to send a jumpship back to get as many mech spare parts as he could sent their way, along with ammo and any new models the rest of the Clans could spare…along with a request for more Clans to join the fight, for Eshwan wasn’t the only Protovic planet under assault, and it seemed that Star Force was their only hope to turn back the Skarrons once they fought their way to ground.
10
June 9, 2465
Rexxikar System (lizard territory)
Ajakaba
Paul knelt low behind a chunk of ice, his back nestled into a crevice as he waited for Kara’s telepathic signal…which he got a few second later, informing him where the lizard patrols were surrounding their outpost, one of which was almost to him, but still out of his own psionic range.
Trusting her, he left cover and ran down the small crack of a valley between what looked like small glaciers, knowing that somewhere up top on the rim was Kara playing spotter, but given her ability to fly she could have been anywhere up there, and there wasn’t much of the sky he could see from his point of view. There was plenty to see below though, with dozens of quadruped fur balls meandering through the rough passageway, causing him to move with care, jumping over or under the natives of the planet.
The lizard patrols were also moving through them, which cut off their major lines of sight and offered Paul movement options as he worked his way towards the subterranean base entrance that Kara had spotted the last time she was here doing recon. She hadn’t gone inside what looked like a primitive little outpost on the ice world at the time, having fallen for the ruse their enemy had laid out.
It was the only lizard presence on the planet, or in the system. A single outpost, containing no more than 500 lizards, and situated dead center in the middle of a herd of natives. The lizards weren’t harvesting them, so far as Star Force knew, nor were they killing them to get them out of the way. Instead they were simply ignoring them, for they couldn’t get inside their base, and the warm temperature-loving lizards didn’t go outside it save for regular patrols through the surrounding topography.
That had immediately tipped Paul off, but he already knew from some captured logistical charts that the lizards had been routing some jumpship traffic through the system…far more than this little outpost required. Then there was also the overly large landing pads on top of the outpost, three times the amount the lizards usually used, denoting a higher cargo transfer situation than this lonely little waste of a base rated.
Normally the lizards would have cleared out the indigenous populations, with the fact that there were thousands of the fur balls around their base and they were literally rubbing up against the walls suggesting that the lizards wanted them there…with the only reasonable conclusion being that they were a shield against Star Force bombardment. The two sides had been at war long enough to have gotten used to each other’s methods, and it had been obvious in the past that Star Force had orbital bombardment capability that could obliterate a base like this within half an hour…and the lizards also knew that Star Force fought to protect indigenous races, making this situation stand out to the trailblazer as an obvious living shield.
So no bombardment here, and with there being nothing worthwhile on the ice cube of a planet, and no major lizard infiltration, it was likely that Star Force would just skip over the planet and system, else send down a small ground team to take the facility…which he assumed the patrols were out here to detect and counter. His best guess was the lizards hoped the facility would go unnoticed all around, but Kara’s recon of the system had spotted it, though even she admitted it had been hard to find.
Paul ran up to a harsh right turn and slid underneath one of the white-furred creatures as it also rounded the rocky corner from the other direction…with the trailblazer psionically calming the thing before he could startle it into stomping on him.
He slid under its right front leg and out the far side, then got back on his feet and disappeared into the other masses of white following the creature that did a double take but otherwise ignored him and continued walking. Paul’s white armor blended in well, allowing him to almost disappear in the light snow that was falling, all the way up to the base entrance in the ice crevice where he sensed two more lizards standing guard before he came within sight.
Two Fornax blasts straight through the ice took them to the ground, then as he came around the outcropping he killed both with precise plasma shots to the chests, burning through their cold weather suits, offering more heat than they wanted. Disoriented, they went down without firing a shot in return or sounding an alarm, giving Paul access to the single door set into what looked like an ice wall, but was really the edge of the lizard outpost covered over in sheets of frozen precipitation that had built up over the years, leaving the entrance inset as it had been continually cleared off.
I’m here, Paul told Kara telepathically as he walked over to the corner of the small crevice outcropping and pressed his armored back against the wall, trying to blend in as much as he could while she caught up to him…which didn’t take long. Soon she was sliding off the top of the crevice and down in beside him, her armor white and somewhat shimmery in a way that reminded him of summer heat that caused mirages. Regardless, it made her hard to see, but he could clearly sense her presence where his eyes might have been caught off guard.
Door, he told her as he grabbed the closest of the bodies and hauled it over to the entrance, then kicking its skid tracks out of the snow as best he could with his feet, after which he used his Lachka to erase his tracks coming into the offshoot from the crevice, eventually backing all the way up to the door that Kara had already hacked her way into and gotten the first lizard through.
Paul grabbed the other while Kara telekinetically pulled its weapon through the air and into her hand as she stood in the doorway waiting for him. Once they got the bodies and weapons inside she closed the door, smoothing the last of the snow with her psionics even after it had closed.
What do you see?
Kara’s armor, which had already shifted back to its normal blood red color, scanned the interior of the base, getting several levels worth of blueprint-like schematics in a glance.
Central access shaft with two auxiliaries. Closest one is this way, she said, adding a waypoint to their paired battlemap that she’d taught her Dragon tech to mimic as she walked down the narrow corridor and took a right turn before a passing lizard got a chance to see either of them.
Paul followed her over the relatively short hike to the northern auxiliary shaft, seeing that it contained a circular lift that was currently several levels down and had a few crates stacked on top of it.
I don’t think the quiet route is going to work this time.
Time to kick the bee hive, she prompted, glancing at the helmet of his new striker armor. If you get in over your head, get out or ask for help.
I won’t need either and you know it, Paul telepathically answered, pulling a pair of plasma pistols off his back rack and jumping across the shaft to the other side before ducking into an open doorway and heading towards the nearest lizard minds.
A few seconds later Kara heard the firefight starting and she stepped off into the shaft, floating down it until she gently landed on the lift, sensing no one immediately nearby.
She knelt down next to one of the crates and popped her armor’s Dre’mo’don up on her right wrist, mentally configuring it to fire in a microscopic cutting beam discharge. Pointing her wrist down, she rotated it around cutting a crude circular plug out of the lift and telekinetically grabbing it as it fell throu
gh…or trying to, for it was too heavy for her to lift, so she slowed its fall and dove through the hole head first, flying down after it.
Kara got a hand on it and stopped its fall, then flew back up to the underside of the lift and stuck her free arm up through the hole and dragged one of the crates over top of it, using her Lachka to nudge its edge over the rim of the hole when her hand would no longer fit. Sensing that Paul was already racking up a good kill count above, she carried her metallic plug with her down the very deep shaft to the bottom, so far down that her sense of Paul’s position and the lizards above disappeared, leaving her only in comm contact with him if necessary, though how long that would last was questionable.
Paul shot two more lizards in the room to his right without even looking in the door as he passed, using his Pefbar to sight them through the wall, then pulling the trigger four times when the opening arrived, emptying the clip. He tucked his right arm back and reattached the empty pistol to his rack as another standard variety lizard popped out into the hallway in front of him some distance down. It was a stretch, but Paul got a telekinetic grip on his rifle and yanked it aside, sending the plasma blast into the ceiling as he fired his own blue streak towards it, nipping the lizard in the arm as two more popped out alongside.
As they fired Paul sprinted forward, taking a few inconsequential hits to his shields before he was on top of them, punching two into submission and gutting the third with a double blast to its abdomen.
One of the lizard rifles floated up off the ground and into Paul’s grip, which he used to kill the closest to him before kicking the other as it jumped up. Its claws scrapped against his leg armor before it was knocked back a meter into the wall, leaving tiny scratch marks in the white camouflage coating, revealing the black coloration underneath that was standard for striker armor.
Paul shot it with the rifle in his right hand as he reached back and stowed his Star Force pistol, saving the last few shots in it for later, then he knelt down and picked up another rifle, dual wielding the enemy weapons and finding them slightly heavy, knowing that was going to throw his aim off a touch, but not enough to constrict him to using only one.
