First Contact Fallout

by Aer-ki Jyr

  Mario’topa took the risk to deactivate his cloak, allowing his full sensor array to function and link in to any nearby units. The gunships didn’t register as allied, but there was someone on the ground that did. Two actually, and both Zen’zat, but they weren’t from his quartet, for he’d met and then dispersed the others farther from the facility as they searched for Tu’vac. These gunships were behind them and further to the east.

  He reset his cloak into a null field, which turned him completely black and absorbed whatever radiation hit him rather than reflecting it in a convincing manner. It would absorb the Mushgu’vu as well, but if someone did a check against the sensor backdrop and noticed an empty spot he’d be easy to find. Right now though he didn’t need to be showing up with reflective Mushgu’vu, because he was going to head towards the gunships.

  The Zen’zat dropped from the tree and took off running. He actually had better passive sensors in null mode because he could register everything they absorbed and the weapon discharges were more or less visible through the trees as spouts of heat rising above wherever the gunships shot. He couldn’t get a direct line on them yet and had to guestimate where he was headed based on the previous course the other two Zen’zat looked to be traveling.

  Going up against gunships was stupid for a Zen’zat…assuming the gunships were crewed by veterans and he knew these weren’t. They were flying too low to the treetops, and if he could get close enough without getting spotted he might be able to ambush them.

  It was a gamble, but right now he didn’t feel like leaving whoever these were to be hunted down from the air, for eventually some of the firepower raining down into the trees would hit them, and there was no way to cloak and run with that damn Mushgu’vu. Not for them, or for him if these gunships flew overhead and spotted him. But beyond that, if they were out here they had to be close to finding Tu’vac, and without armor he was going to stand out easily for regular gunship sensors given his mass.

  If Mario’topa was going to protect him, assuming he hadn’t been found and killed yet, he needed to take down those gunships if possible.

  The Zen’zat sprinted through the underbrush, weaving his way between tree trunks until he could pick up the signals of the pair ahead on his passive sensors. Then he stopped and picked another tree to climb, scaling it quickly then perching near the top like a pitch black piece of fruit hanging from under the branches. He knew not to go above the leaves, for that would make him easy to see, but if these gunships were focused on the pair of Zen’zat and nothing else they might just miss him.

  And they did. Their Dre’mo’don fire down into the jungle was burning a path right towards him and to the left. Either these Zen’zat were expert dodgers or the gunship crews were a horrible shot. Trees or no trees, at least something should have got through to hit them by…

  Then it happened, and one of the Zen’zat fell to the ground while the other kept running…and the closest of the gunships slid to a stop over that spot and continued to shoot Mario’topa’s fallen kin while simultaneously drifting 56 meters away from his position at a slightly higher altitude.

  His feet gripped the tree trunk in the best possible place, then using a combination of his muscle and armor enhancement Mario’topa launched himself up through the leaves and into the air as a dark blob that seemed to half melt into the blue sky as it pulled in and blended with the surrounding light. The gunship didn’t fire on him nor even moved in response as he crossed the gap and landed on the side, using his grip points in ‘shield grab’ mode to allow him to stick for a moment. He knew the gunship had a method of wicking them to removing clingers, but hopefully before they realized what was going on…

  Yes, there were three inside, two in the three-man cockpit and another in the hold, and Mario’topa had easy access to their minds at a simple brush, into which he sent a jamming telepathic impulse that froze two of them. Fortunately that was the two pilots, but the one in the hold was a Bo’ja, and he had limited telepathic resistance via his mental strength, but none of them had the blocks that Zen’zat had by default.

  Mario’topa held the two pilots in zombie mode, with the weaponsfire going down into the jungle stopping from this gunship while the other continued to drift away pursuing the other Zen’zat. Thought it was hard to do, Mario’topa held both minds in check, then used his Pefbar/Lachka to reach into one of them and scramble his brain, which killed him within seconds.

  The body went limp the moment he did, for there was no longer any functional mind to hack. Before he did so to the other he made that pilot lower the shields and put the gunship into automatic hover mode with a code lock on the controls for the number 211. That way the gunship could only be flown after unlocking them with that code. Otherwise it would simply hold on its last settings, which was hover mode with the doors unlocked.

  Mario’topa scrambled across the smooth hull once the shield went down and opened the access hatch to the hold right after sending a Fornax blast inside. That gave him enough of a head start to get his feet on the interior deck before the Zen’zat-sized Bo’ja was able to fire at him. A weak telepathic attack occurred simultaneously, but it did little more than distract his balance for half a second. After that he was taking the few steps necessary to get to hand to hand range with the slightly taller Bo’ja and engaged him directly with a mix of punches, kicks, and forearm blasts.

  The Bo’ja was equipped much like a Zen’zat, but they lacked the Ikrid defense that rookies badly needed. Why the Zak’de’ron wanted them to replace Zen’zat he didn’t know, but as they exchanged blows Mario’topa slipped through his rudimentary mental defenses and momentarily blacked him out.

  The Bo’ja fell to the ground, and before he could snap out of it the Zen’zat hacked into his brain and trigger the auto-release on his armor, which retracted into a pair of forearm gauntlets and a thick visor that covered his tiny eyes. Mario’topa shot him with a stun blast, which his armor did have a defense for built into the material rather than relying only on shields like Zen’zat armor did, then he left him lying alive in the narrow walkway as he ran and squeezed himself into the compact cockpit after pulling the bodies out.

  He wasn’t a Zen’zat pilot specialist, but they could all fly basic craft with rudimentary efficiency and once he input the 211 code by hand the craft was his to fly. He put the shields back up and moved off towards the other gunship, which still had no idea anything was happening to its twin. Mario’topa charged the Dre’mo’dons to anti-ship levels, then fired two large blobs of obnoxious purple energy at the other dropship.

  The purple was the color of the new V’kit’no’sat, and they’d adjusted all their standard weapons to that spectrum where possible. Real V’kit’no’sat weapons came in a variety of colors, almost none of them purple, and this was a very simple way to visually differentiate who was who on the battlefield, though he suspected it was more of an insult than anything. But color change or no, the damaging effect was the same, and before the other gunship had the wherewithal to even shoot back, Mario’topa had already breached its shields and begun to eat away at the armor.

  It turned and fought, then tried to flee, then turned and fought again as if the crew couldn’t make up their minds. They were too far out of Ikrid range for him to mess with them directly, which would have saved this gunship some hull damage, but aside from a couple of holes that made it into the passenger hold his ship was still intact by the time the other one finally fell into the jungle in flames.

  Mario’topa came in closer and did a mental scan, then fired a few more times until the living minds below were erased from existence. He checked the regional sensors, finding no other craft anywhere nearby, then he used the ship’s comm system to reach out to the Zen’zat below.

  “Both Itaru gunships have been disabled and the one still flying is now in Zen’zat custody. If you’re still alive stop running and report in.”

  “Yenni reporting,” a female voice returned over the V’kit’no’sat comm frequencies
. “Light injuries but still mobile.”

  “Yenni, circle back and check the other Zen’zat that was with you. He’s probably dead, but make sure.”

  “Complying.”

  Mario’topa pulled himself out of the cockpit after setting the ship to hover mode again and moved back to his sleeping prisoner. He retracted the armor from his right hand and pressed it against the pure black skin of the Bo’ja, then began to hack his mind directly for information. By the time Yenni reported back that the other Zen’zat didn’t have much body left to find, Mario’topa had already discovered everything he needed to know and shot the Bo’ja in the head twice before dumping his body out the side of the craft where it fell down into the trees and disappeared along with the other two dead crew members.

  Mario’topa lowered the craft until it touched the treetops, then he descended a mechanized extendable pole that Yenni used to climb up and into the craft despite the multiple cavities in her armor.

  “Why aren’t your wounds healing?” he asked.

  “My Kich’a’kat is damaged and my armor is locked in static mode. I don’t think I could get my helmet off without breaking it free.”

  “Stand still,” he said, reaching an armored hand out and touching a fingertip inside one of the breaches on her chest. It went more than an inch inside where there should have been breast tissue, but soon new skin was grown to cover over the gore, though the bulk of the mass was still missing. Her other wounds also healed as his own Kich’a’kat was used to heal her, but the damage to her armor was something only a tech could deal with.

  “Appreciated,” she said when he’d finished. “Where did you come from?”

  “A Zor’do near here. You were from a downed squadron?”

  “We were the only ones to make it out on foot alive. How did you know?”

  “I took the Bo’ja alive. They were ordered to clean up your hangar assault. What was your squadron doing?”

  “Poaching random targets. I don’t know how they found us. We haven’t flown in more than two weeks.”

  “I picked up Mushgu’va from one of these gunships.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Let’s confirm that,” he said, heading back to the cockpit without finding any additional equipment added to the control board. “Stay here and monitor the airspace. I’m going to check the wreckage.”

  “No, you stay here. I can handle it,” she said, heading out the still open doorway and dropping down into the jungle without hesitation despite the at least 80 meter fall.

  Mario’topa waited several minutes, then she signaled him to bring the gunship all the way down to the surface in a specific location. He had to crush a few trees to do it, and bend a few more aside in the process, but eventually he got down within a few meters of the ground to where Yenni was dragging a piece of equipment twice her size across the ground away from the still burning wreckage.

  As soon as he got outside to help her he saw that some of her newly regrown skin was now red and charred, but he ignored it as he helped her drag the extremely rare sensor array up to the ship, then the pair lifted it on their shoulders with the heavy gravity of the planet not helping any. They carried it inside and dropped the already damaged sensor down into one of the banks of lateral seats.

  “The techs will want that,” Yenni agreed as Mario’topa reached another hand toward her wounds, but she flicked his arm away. “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I have men in the field nearby. You’ll have to tag along until I’m finished with my mission.”

  “What is your mission?” she asked without complaint.

  “Personal protection. There’s an Era’tran in the jungle that escaped from the Zor’do that must be kept alive.”

  “What priority?”

  “So high I’m not allowed to tell you,” Mario’topa said, admitting a little more than he should have said.

  “He won’t fit in here.”

  “I know, but the other Zen’zat will and we can provide air cover assuming this ship doesn’t break down.”

  “I’ll do a damage analysis while you fly,” she said, moving to the nearest of the visible holes while Mario’topa went back to the cockpit and got them moving, using the gunship’s sensors to look for his own people who should have still been cloaked. He didn’t want to risk a high powered broadcast, but he did set up a short range transmission good for 8 miles or so. Hopefully he’d be able to cross over the path of where he expected his people to be and find them without drawing any unwanted attention, but he had no way of knowing if the other gunship had reported the conflict before it went down.

  If it did, and they had more aerial assets to spare, then he wasn’t going to be left alone to search from above for very long. He’d much rather have this gunship to use than not, but his ability to hide was now obsolete, for this model did not have a cloaking field of its own. It had the standard stealthing material built into the hull that would make it difficult to detect at range, or even at all for less advanced sensor technology, but it was nowhere as good as a null field, and any units operating nearby would pick it up easy if they were looking for it, visually or otherwise.

  Fortunately his first guess was correct, and with only a few minutes of flying he was able to pick up the first return blip from one of his people not wanting to risk an open comm, but sending a quick location signal for him to come to them. Once he got Ben’ra onboard he went after the others, but before he got to them more trouble popped up on the horizon…

  6

  Jo’ra was too far away and too deep in the jungle to notice the enemy dropship fight, but he was getting close to dead drop #4 which Mario’topa had instructed him to scout. If Tu’vac was here then he’d link up with him. If not, the Zen’zat needed to load up on as many supplies as they could carry and there was no way to know where they’d be going in the coming days, or how long they’d be roughing it.

  Jo’ra was still stealthed as he moved more to the east so he could come in low to the dead drop. There was a bit of elevation on the west side cradling the location and he didn’t want to come up on it too quickly. Better to scout it from range just in case others had already found it, friendly or otherwise.

  Apparently someone else had thought the same thing, for an armored body was standing on a mid level branch some 5 meters up where they could get a decent view in to near the dead drop…and the armor was not V’kit’no’sat.

  Jo’ra kept cloaked and slowed his run, fortunate that his footsteps were muffled by the cloaking field, otherwise this individual might have heard him. The closer he got he realized he was seeing part of Zan’for armor, one of the very light and agile scout races the Zak’de’ron employed. It was a biped with four thin arms, none of which were good for landing blows with, but they did make for excellent climbers and all around lurkers. They were not known to have cloaking devices, and this guy was doing his best to stay hidden amongst the vegetation as his gaze was directed…

  There. Jo’ra saw it now. There was a tent partially visible through the trees. A big one too. Zen’zat wouldn’t erect something that big, and their emergency tents were scalable. That meant there was probably an Era’tran in there, or had been. He couldn’t see anyone outside or pick up any movement sounds. A lot of trees were in the way, but he could already see a lot of the smaller underbrush had been knocked down and dragged to the side where it was piled in brush lines. They served to both clear the footing and create obstacles at various approach points, all of which still occurred underneath an intact canopy, leaving it invisible to flyers overhead.

  And this Zan’for was camped out here watching the location. As soon as Jo’ra got a little closer he was going to find out why. He needed closer proximity to do a good Ikrid hack of his mind, but as he reached out to gage the necessary range he couldn’t find one. The Zan’for was completely blank to him as far as Ikrid went, making him immediately suspicious of a decoy, but his Pefbar did register the individual as being there rather
than a hologram.

  Psionic protective armor? he wondered.

  Jo’ra hadn’t seen much of that during this war, and none on scouts. It was hard to make, but not impractical unless the individual wearing it needed to use their psionics. Zan’for weren’t known to have any, so there wouldn’t be a conflict there, but the Zak’de’ron didn’t equip their people with really elaborate armors. Not for the masses, anyway. So did this guy really have full armor? Was he an elite scout that Jo’ra had simply crossed paths with accidentally? And why wouldn’t an elite scout have a cloaking device?

  But there was another possibility, so Jo’ra slowly walked up to the tree the Zan’for was standing in and crossed beneath the branch…and when he did so he finally got a mental signature. He grasped his mind immediately and froze the individual in place, then began rifling through his memories, the first of which confirmed that his helmet was the only piece of his armor that was shielded, and it covered everything except the base of his neck where it connected to the rest of his body. That was why standing beneath him gave his Ikrid line of sight access to his brain from up through the rest of his anemic body.

  His mission came from the Zor’do. He’d been ordered, along with others, to track down the people who had fled, and with some considerable difficulty he had found the Era’tran’s tracks and lost them again each time they crossed a body of water. He and others had spread out in both directions each time and were able to find the spot further up or down the water’s path where they had come back out.

  There were two Era’tran here. One inside the tent and another that kept watch from the elevation on the far side. That’s why the Zan’for was here, because if he got too much closer the Era’tran’s Pefbar could have outed him. All he had to do was keep his distance and wait, for he’d already reported back their location for the rest of the hunters to group and approach towards. He didn’t know how soon they’d get here, but his mission was to monitor and track them if they moved again. He couldn’t engage on his own, despite the fact that neither Era’tran had armor. Their psionics were potent enough, and he wasn’t sure what these two possessed. They couldn’t take control of his mind, but his weapons would only sting the larger enemies, and they possessed enough muscle to be able to physically crush him if they caught him.