Star Force: Aquatics (SF31)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Multifaceted attacks were the lizards’ specialty, and even as the fleet and other infantry units assaulted higher portions of the tower, this lower detachment was using the seafloor for cover to get in close and plant the det packs they were carrying against the base…assuming they could get that far.

  Star Force had set up weapons emplacements all along the height of the tower, including point defense weapons akin to the intercepts that would fire out and intercept incoming infantry…but send enough troops in to bleed out their ammunition and zones of vulnerability would open up. This they had also learned from past, unsuccessful attacks, and this time they had come prepared.

  The lizards swam forward, propelled by their own fin-like legs as they carried their det packs, escorted by others with rod-like melee weapons that each had one plasma nub on the end for them to jab into enemies. On physical contact the glowing nub containing the plasma would discharge through a specially designed membrane and into the target, contacting very little water in the process, but enough would slip through to cause a burst of steam in the form of bubbles, visibly marking weapon strikes.

  The tips of the plasma rods glowed green as they contained a ready amount of plasma for discharge, but the troops swimming across the ocean floor had their rods turned off, so as to not draw immediate attention. Also, the rocky outcroppings made it harder for the Human sensors to detect their approach until they were virtually on top of them.

  When the lizards finally broke cover about 300 meters away from the tower, where the rocky cover disappeared into a pancake flat plain that Star Force had carved down as a perimeter, little swimming missiles shot out from the 200m wide tower, each tracking towards individual infantry, taking out many of them with surprise hits resulting in muted explosions that ripped into the fleshy, yet flexible exoskeletons on this variant of lizard.

  The others saw the point defense missiles, or PDM for short, coming and activated their shield gauntlets, which were little more than a second rod that deployed an energy shield that they used to block the small detonations…though they had to stop swimming forward in order to deploy the large barriers, for they dragged heavily against the water.

  The remote targeting systems in the tower, relayed to controllers back in the city or nearby battleship if it needed to assume control, suddenly began spewing out more PDM with groups tagged to each individual they spotted with a shield, knowing that several successive hits would breach it and take the infantry down, which started a bit of a stalemate in the advance, with more and more lizard infantry popping up from the rocks and deploying their defensive walls that they slowly swam behind, inching their way in towards the tower like a scattering of Roman Legionnaires.

  A hundred and fifty meters up the tower, one of the plasma cannons extended a shield column down to the surface where a knot of the infantry were, with them scurrying out of the way as it touched bottom and widened, followed by a plasma blast that vaporized a bit of rock and left it superheated enough that when the shield disappeared and the water flowed in it resulted in a pyre of bubbles rising upwards like a marker beacon…but the attack had little chance of hitting an individual lizard, making it almost worthless against infantry, though it did manage to scatter those in the immediate area.

  More PDMs flowed out of the tower like schools of tiny fish, zipping this way and that, keeping the lizards thoroughly occupied even as their numbers continued to grow as more kept coming up out of the rocks…but as they did a school of much larger ‘fish’ came in to flank them, each with a person at the helm of the water-version mongooses known as ‘arrowheads,’ named for their triangular design.

  A quartet of blue arrowheads skimmed the rocky terrain, having emerged from the back side of the tower and moved out laterally, coming in over the irregular surface to help hide their own approach. Some of the lizards saw them coming and turned to face them…opening themselves up to the PDM, which took a few down before the arrowheads got to the first group and split up into separate attack vectors.

  The first one, with an Archon at the helm, dropped down level with the lizard ahead of it and increased its speed, ramming the water lizard with the tip and delivering a punch to its midsection that doubled it over before knocking it to the side, unconscious from the stun energy delivered on contact. The arrowhead jetted on, ramming another while the others in its quartet did likewise until the rest of the lizards noticed their appearance and began huddling up into groups and overlapping their shields while sticking their plasma rods out through the gaps, hoping to catch one of the arrowheads with the tip as they came at them.

  Tucked safely inside the arrowheads’ sleek hull, the Archons and aquatics regulars knew better than to get that close, so they ignored the knots of infantry and picked off the individuals, many of whom were just coming up out of the rocks. As they did more formations of arrowheads popped up in various locations, ramming the lizards into unconsciousness with the specially designed ridge on the little aquatics craft that delivered stun blows against solid targets rather than the liquid water…which was a tricky bit of engineering.

  Other than the V-shaped stun edge the arrowheads were just quick transports, unsuited for any other combat. Going up against infantry was almost too easy, aside from when they turtled up like many were doing now…but as they’d quickly find out that wasn’t a good idea.

  A group of six lizards had formed a complete dome around themselves with their plasma rods sticking out to hit any arrowhead that tried to ram them when a shield column descended on top of them, forming a seal against the topmost lizard shield. A split second later a plasma blast came down through the vacuum and vaporized both the lizard shield and the lizard underneath it, along with all the water surrounding the other 5 lizards.

  A huge steam cloud blocked out any vision of the site, but then it lifted up, heading for the ongoing battles above, revealing bits and pieces of charred lizard floating about where the shield huddled formation had been.

  Those lizards near enough to see what had happened suddenly rethought their defensive maneuver and broke up into smaller groups, using their shields as side walls as they swam forward. Some of the arrowheads went after them, ramming into the groups now that their plasma rods weren’t deployed, but rather tucked inside as they swam forward. The Star Force pilots concentrated on them like sharks spinning about a school of fish, darting in and out making strikes.

  Like the streaks, the arrowhead bent at the middle, approximately where the pilot’s knees were located in the flat machine, allowing it to make sharper turns. With that agility, and no vehicular backup for the infantry, the arrowheads had no problem keeping the lizards from getting to the tower and planting their explosives…but as they zipped around, picking off those lizards that were closest while even more continued to arrive, a large piece of debris fell down from above and landed on the 300m wide plain around the tower.

  The lizards immediately took to it for cover and turtled up behind it. A shield column came down and shot it, but it was too big to dislodge quickly, so it continued to fire down into it, having to reset the vacuum lock each time by pushing a ‘plug’ of shield down the length and getting all the water out that was flowing back up.

  Clean, mate, fire…clean, mate, fire. That was the cycle that had the plasma cannon chewing apart the lizards’ new cover, but it wasn’t the only piece to come down. Two more smaller ones joined it, then a cascade of large ones began raining down…pieces of the turret that the lizards were chewing apart from above.

  The arrowheads had to dart out of the way and eventually retreat to the backside of the tower to avoid the debris, allowing the suicidal lizards a narrow window of opportunity, though a number of them were still going down to the PDM coming from the base of the tower. They swam forward in a massive charge, many of them being crushed as the debris landed on them while they tried to get to the side of the tower.

  A few brave arrowheads zipped around near the giant cylinder, using it for cover given that the debris s
eemed to be leaving a narrow clear zone right up next to the massive construct. Those arrowheads zipped around the perimeter like they were making laps, never slowing down or turning around and ramming lizards as they passed. Soon more joined them, forming an unending train making circles around the tower and ramming any lizards that got that close.

  An explosion from above rocked both the arrowheads and lizards below as their counterparts higher up successfully tore out a section of the tower, with the shockwaves being felt all the way down to the seafloor. Further up the construct was a mass of blue lights and occasional green flickers from lizard contact weapons. More and more debris continued to fall down until the arrowheads got an evac order and made a beeline back towards the fence that surrounded the city…just as the top section of the tower began list.

  It looked like a log that termites had gotten a hold of, with huge chunks missing from it, but it was a section along the middle that had taken the worst damage. It was from there that the imbalance occurred…along with a bit of pushing by the surviving lizard carriers. The entire top half buckled and tipped over, then the break point completely snapped and slid off, tossing 3/5ths of the tower off to the side where it floated down and crashed into the seafloor tip first, then continued to slowly keel over until it landed on its side, crushing into the rock formations below.

  A number of weapons on the bottom half continued to fire, even with the water flowing in from above. The design had been compartmentalized, and there were no personnel inside, so some of the plasma cannons below were still functional and reached up towards the ships overhead vengefully, but they didn’t last long. The infantry that had survived the falling debris swam up to the tower, now that the arrowheads were gone, and planted charges directly next to the plasma cannons.

  Some set timers, others didn’t bother and just blew themselves up with the Human weapons, but as the arrowheads retreated back to the fence the remaining defensive capability of the tower was picked apart and eliminated as the remains of the lizard fleet and their now arrived reinforcements concentrated on the second tower, attempting to do the same there.

  Vander didn’t see the tower go down, as he was busy with the sharks from the reinforcement fleet, but he did notice it disappear from him battlemap…then he saw the holographic depiction of its remains laying across the ocean floor.

  “Damn it,” he swore while keeping attention on the pair of sharks ahead of him. He was going to ram the slower of the two, but so far neither had broken their paired formation. The Archon was about to pick one and hope he could get a decent plasma shot off before the other turned on him when a new contact appeared on his battlemap, emerging as a long, large line in the sky that spread out into the comforting curves of the underside of the Dutchman as it landed in the ocean directly beside the second tower and was slowly descending into the fight.

  Shield columns extended from 8 locations on the underside, streaking out to connect with the large lizard ships, then pumping plasma shots down them as the Star Force battleship engaged multiple contacts at once. Its bays began pumping out squids as well, ensuring the demise of the lizard fleet as the Black Pearl pressed in from the western side, offering the enemy an escape vector to the southeast, but they were hell-bent on hitting the tower to the north and continued to press their attack, hoping to do at least some damage to the gigantic underwater pillar.

  The two battleships and the tower itself took their stupidity face on and systematically cut the lizard fleet to shreds over the course of the next 20 minutes, with only a pair of torpedoes actually reaching their target. Neither breached the shields, given that they hit in different locations at different times, though they did suck a considerable amount of strength out of them, and had the Dutchman not arrived when it did, the lizards would have at least seriously damaged the tower in the last stages of the battle.

  Once the last of the capital ships were destroyed the arrowheads were recalled from the city to help deal with the infantry, along with other Star Force transports that followed in their wake, collecting the stunned lizards, corpses, their equipment, and other pieces of salvage, clearing away the 300m perimeter around the base of the tower. After that the recovery crews began chewing apart the dead lizard ships, along with recovering their own damaged squids, both those from the battleships and those the city had deployed in the first stages of the battle along with a scattering of other ships, including other streaks that Vander finally came across as they patrolled the area post battle.

  He was recalled first, given that he’d been out on assignment with the Black Pearl, and headed in towards the gigantic net-like wall that surrounded the city in a spiral, offering only one entryway between the overlapping sides. Vander’s streak, however, was narrow enough to shoot the gaps in the fence and he did just that, passing through the metallic grating that kept larger ships at bay. Given the side of the city that he was on, he actually passed through two sections of overlapping fence, then he was inside the perimeter looking in on the giant seashell-shaped city of Manaan.

  Vander headed for one of the hangar bays, passing through the water conduit that sported defense turrets of its own, and up into an internal lagoon that held an atmosphere similar to the small bay on the Black Pearl that the streak had originated from. His long ship floated up to the surface then trolled its way into one of the many docking berths where a mechanical walkway extended out to the streak and attached to its midsection, holding the ship in place and giving Vander an easy way to get to the nearby dock as he popped the hatch on the streak and stood up off the pommel seat.

  He stretched his back and popped his helmet off, sucking in a deep breath of marine air and scratching a spot on his head that had been nagging him for several minutes, then he stepped up onto the short bridge and walked over onto the dock where a maintenance crew of three were waiting.

  “Welcome back,” a female tech by the name of Heather offered, knowing Vander well, given that Manaan was his base of operations. The stint on the Black Pearl had only been a 2-day mission out hunting lizards near one of Star Force’s mining sites.

  “Needs torpedoes and some plasma,” he said, all business.

  “Did they get one of the towers?” a male tech asked as the third slid off the dock and swam two meters over to the side of the streak and opened up a side panel in the armor with a specialized tool.

  “Unfortunately yes,” Vander said, pausing for a moment as he visually did an inventory on the ships in the bay…seeing very few of what was usually berthed here. Most of them were still outside, either patrolling or working the recovery and cleanup effort. “And I’d expect they’ll be back soon to take advantage of the weakness. Get her reloaded as soon as you can.”

  “Will do,” the female tech answered, then got busy with another panel on the topside of the ship as Vander walked off, heading for the large pressure doors that led into the city, on his way to see Kyler. Between his previous mission and the recent assault, they had quite a few things to discuss.

  5

  On his way up to the command level Vander stopped by the armory and got out of his silver aquatics armor, a more robust version of the standard Archon armor that included small jet propulsion units in addition to a larger air supply…along with the means to manufacture oxygen directly from the ocean water.

  He’d been in it for the past 9 hours, having pulled two missions back to back, but didn’t stop by his quarters for a shower nor the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat, instead he went straight up to the command level that sat 2/3rds of the way up the city superstructure and was imbedded deep inside, making it one of the last places that would be breached by weaponsfire or invading troops.

  When Vander got there it was quiet, yet busy, with staff and a scattering of Archons moving about showing more activity than they should have been, given that the battle was over. Recovery efforts would take some coordination, but he sensed an angst in the room that belied something else was going on.

  He found Kyler in a circl
e of three other Archons around the central planning table, talking amongst each other while looking over a holographic map of the surface of the planet, so he didn’t interrupt, but he did step up beside the trailblazer and listen in, letting him visually know that he’d arrived.

  “Take it,” Cryson-933 urged.

  “Can we?” Preston-1229 asked, raising an eyebrow. “We lost a lot of squids today. They’re not going to be easy to replace.”

  “They lost a lot more than we did. The attrition rate’s in our favor.”

  Kyler shook his head. “No. They got exactly what they wanted when they took that tower down. They may have wanted both, but I’d guess that was more to split our defensive forces and maximize their chances of getting one, which they did.”

  “What are we looking at,” Eaton-2503 asked, “9 months to get a new one built?”

  “If we have the resources on hand, yeah,” Kyler wavered. “If not,” he said, glancing to his left at Vander. “How bad did we get hit?”

  “The lizards junked two with det packs,” he answered, referring to the processing units in the mining outpost his previous mission had sent him out to deal with. “The rest saw superficial damage and are still operational.”

  “How’d they get past the defenses?” Cryson asked.

  “They tunneled,” Vander said, his voice taught with frustration. “There was a natural fissure running underneath the perimeter defenses. They added to it in some key points, but most of it was already there waiting for them. We got it sealed up, and the techs are working to fill it and others in so this won’t happen again.”

  “What’d they use to dig through the rock?” Kyler asked, frowning.

  “I could barely fit into the hole in my armor, so it wasn’t anything big, but we couldn’t recover anything. I’d guess they took their time and set up the tunnel well before the attack.”