“That’s a lot of troops. What are our odds?” she asked, scanning the horizon.
Baxter took a breath and looked to see they were alone. “Not good. I would actually qualify this as bad. At the minimum, it’s ten to one against an enemy that is battle hardened. We are going to have to fall back quickly once they breach the wall, and they will breach. I give us two hours before they overrun it. Then we fall back to the city streets, and it becomes more squad-based running battle. Luckily, that’s where our men shine.
“We’re setting up booby traps in the narrower streets, but there are only so many things we can do. Eventually they will realize that if they spread out enough, they will be able to flank any ambushes. We will have snipers in the towers that still stand, but that will leave them vulnerable to attack. I’m pairing mages with snipers to give shield cover, but we only have a dozen mages, and I want some of them here on the front to soften up the enemy. Not to mention the only way to effectively fight their mages is with mages of our own.” He opened his helmet and rubbed at his face, looking at the field.
Sara turned and looked at the city. Half the buildings were nothing but crumbling ruins, and it looked like a stiff breeze would tumble the buildings that did stand. She could see squads laying explosives at opportune spaces, ensuring the greatest effect.
She thought about how she would take this city, if she were in command of the Teifen forces. They wanted the tech, which was why they were trying for a ground assault instead of just vaporizing the city from orbit. The biggest obstacle, right away, was the city wall. It was solid, but it was still just a wall.
She could see the Teifen lined up, their heavy armor and tanks in the lead—no reason to put soft troopers out front to be mowed down. The advance began, the wave of Teifen coming in at a building pace. They were a good kilometer away, hidden by the rolling hills and foliage. When they crested the hills, she could see the ranks of the large troopers.
She zoomed in and picked out a particular trooper. She had seen many images of them in her time at the academy, and learned everything she could about their various tactics and strategies. The trooper she took in was tall, two and a half meters at least, and twice as wide as Baxter. They were all in Aetheric armor of their own design. It was similar to human armor in a lot of respects, but each helmet was unique to accommodate the particular horn arrangement of each Teifen. Some helmets swept back into forked points, while others covered spiraling ram’s horns. Others had their helmets seal around the base of their horns, leaving them exposed while keeping the face and head environmentally controlled. Some had tails that whipped behind them like angry cats, while others had leg joints that bent back like a bird’s or goat’s.
She tried to reason what their plan was. They wouldn't just run up to the wall and try to place ladders; she guessed they would try and take out a section of the wall. She thought about how she would accomplish a breach, and the best she could come up with was to concentrate fire from the tanks and heavy armor, but that seemed like a waste of ammunition. Their mages could blast a hole with a force spell, but she knew she was stronger than any mage they would have on hand, and it would take a huge amount of Aether for her to blast a hole in this wall. It was twenty meters high and ten meters thick; that was a lot of stone to move.
The only way that would make sense would be if they were using the amplifiers on a ship to fire an Aether cannon…
“Get off the wall! Get down to the streets, now!” Sara began yelling into her comms. She waved for the men to retreat, but most of them just stared at her in confusion.
“Why? What’s happening?” Baxter said, coming to the ready and scanning for what he had missed.
“Orbital bombardment. They are going to blast the wall. There’s nothing they need to protect this far from the city’s center. They are just going to blast the wall and march right in.”
Baxter gave it a second’s thought then echoed her orders. “Off the wall, retreat to your first fallback positions. Go, people, we have incoming,” he shouted, waving the troops off the wall.
Sara looked to the sky and could see the speck of light that was the Teifen carrier, far above in orbit. They were watching the retreat and would fire soon to catch as many of the enemy as possible.
She took a deep breath. “Alister, we need a shield. Something big. It’s going to be the Aetheric cannon, so the shape doesn't matter; we just need it to channel the power away. Try and ground it at the far corners. I need it now.”
A spellform blazed. She didn't even take the time to examine it, she just pushed Aether into it. The golden shield formed in the blink of an eye, covering everything for a hundred meters in every direction. The shield formed a dome that buried itself into stone and soft earth with ease. With the shield edges buried the Aetheric blast should dissipate into the earth, and the deeper she drove the shield the more energy would bleed off. Sara pushed everything she had into it, and then nearly blacked out as a beam of Aetheric power slammed into it, the blue power streaming down the dome and ripping up huge chunks of earth and building where the shield was grounded.
Sara grunted and watched in horror as the shield went from golden to dark red in the blink of an eye. She squinted in concentration as she channeled everything she could into the shield. The colors bounced to a lighter red, then back to dark red, as her well was being drained at an incredible rate.
The blast ended, sending her stumbling to the ground, and Alister rolling to his feet beside her. The shield blinked out of existence a fraction of a second later. She slumped forward, her vision blurring and going black at the edges.
She came to while someone pulled her down the steps of the wall. She scrambled to her feet and saw it was Baxter who had been dragging her. She searched for Alister in a panic until she saw him on the step next to Baxter. He looked slumped and a bit woozy but still mobile. She picked him up and cradled him, not wanting him to fall behind, as she and Baxter leapt the last few steps, running for the second line of defense.
“They’re going to blast it again, but it will take them a few seconds to recharge the cannon,” Sara yelled to Baxter as he dodged into a building.
She must have been out longer than she thought, because the second blast came on the heels of her warning. She had her back to the wall and didn't see the blast firsthand, but the building in front of her reflected the unmistakable light of an Aetheric cannon.
She cursed and had just enough time to tuck Alister to her chest before the blast took her off her feet. A spellform appeared in her mind, and she powered it with the little reserve she had, forming a shield bubble as they flew through the air. The golden orb slammed into the wall of the building, sending shards of stone and metal flying. They bounced from the wall to roll along the ground, suspended in the bubble, while rock and debris came raining down around them, then bounced off the shield and skittered across the street, getting lodged in a narrow alley.
Sara dropped the shield as the dust began to settle, and landed on the ground, Alister still cradled to her chest.
“Fucking hell, that was close. Good job on the spellform, Alister; I didn’t even have to ask for that one,” she praised the dazed cat.
“Captain, are you all right?” She saw Baxter sticking his helmet out from the doorway he had dived into.
She gave a wave. “I’m fine, Sergeant. A little bruised, but nothing a good night’s sleep and a round of yoga won’t cure.”
Baxter looked back to the wall, and Sara followed his gaze. “I’m afraid a good night’s sleep isn’t going to be in the cards.”
The wall was gone. The blast had evaporated most of the rock and alloy, leaving a crater where there had once been a solid, army-stopping wall.
Sara gave a whistle. She couldn't believe she had stopped the first blast, seeing the destruction this one had wrought. Alister was just as wide-eyed as she felt, looking at what they had escaped.
“The fact that you could stop that blast,” Baxter said, sliding in next to Sara,
“and that you think yoga is relaxing, is beyond amazing, Captain.”
The army was advancing at a much faster rate, now that the wall was down. She estimated that they had less than two minutes to close combat.
The crack of rifles began to pop off deeper in the city as the Elif and UHF snipers began picking out horned targets. A group of UHF heavy troopers stepped from around the building and took up a line. They began to let loose with their gauss cannons and whatever missiles they had left. Several tanks and Teifen heavies went down in flashes of munitions. Their ranks closed fast to protect the infantry behind, and they pressed forward at speed. After the fifth tank went down, the next missile hit a shield.
A Teifen mage in the first wave had finally gotten their shit together.
Sara jumped up and, feeling drained, hid behind the heavy troopers to look for the mage.
The Teifen began returning fire, a thousand rounds coming at them in an instant. The heavy armor deflected the small arms, but she could see several gauss cannons taking aim. She was too weak to shield them all until she could have a few minutes to refill her Aether reserves.
A shield formed across the line of heavies, just in time to stop several of the large gauss rounds from hitting the tanks. The shield held, but went to dark red almost immediately. She turned to see Gonders projecting the shield, and Baxter beside her scanning for the mage.
Sara returned her attention to the Teifen, and there—behind a tank—she made out a trooper that was not focusing on his weapon. His hand was up, and he had stopped moving forward.
Sara pointed, and Baxter gave a nod.
He hunched down, concentrating on the enemy. He gave no indication that he was casting at all, unlike the Teifen mage. A ball of plasma formed beyond Gonders’s shield and streaked off faster than Sara could follow. It splashed against the shield protecting the tank, ripping the shield to pieces. Sara took the opportunity to send her own blast.
“Force bolt, Alister.” She powered the spellform he gave her, and the ripple in the air she formed slashed at the mage as fast as she could send it.
The Teifen mage had raised another shield, this one closer to his own person, but it was not powerful enough to stop the concentrated force bolt Alister had created. The bolt punctured the shield, but was deflected slightly, tearing a furrow through the mage’s shoulder. He spun and went down, grabbing at the blue blood spurting from the wound.
The heavies took the opportunity to fire another volley of missiles over Gonders’s shield. The little streaks of light spread out, hitting tanks and Teifen troopers alike. Several more tanks went down in flashes of light and fire, along with clumps of Teifen infantry. The gaps were filled quickly, however, and the fire aimed at Gonders’s shield intensified.
“Clear the area,” Gonders yelled.
The heavies didn't hesitate, leaping to the sides. Sara scrambled after them, getting out of the line of fire just as Gonders’s shield failed. Baxter pulled her roughly the last few meters, to get her clear in time. They fell in a heap behind a pile of rubble, as their position was peppered with enemy fire.
Sara was breathing hard, and sweat dripped down her collar. She was up in time to see the advance of several tanks crest the crater where the wall had been. The heavy troopers around her let fly as the tanks tried to reposition their large turrets. The smaller, but no less deadly, gauss rounds punched through the lead tanks.
“Fall back. Third positions,” Baxter ordered battalion wide.
The heavy troopers lobbed grenades into the crater and then ran for the side streets, Sara close on their heels. She could feel her well of Aether beginning to refill, though it was still pathetically low.
A series of explosions indicated grenades going off, ripping into the Teifen lines as they poured into the crater at a dead run.
Sara held Alister, and they ran for the third line of defense, passing several traps along the way. Looking over her shoulder, she could see a flood of Teifen entering the city before she rounded a corner, cutting off her view.
Chapter 35
The battle raged as human and Elif forces were forced to give ground. An hour after the battle had begun, the Teifen had formed a beachhead in the park closest to the breach in the wall. Sara and Baxter had received reports that the Teifen had set up a portable dome shield that was powered by two mages in shifts. The snipers were able to spot the setup, but unable to take out the mages before the dome was up. Troopers spilled into the city from the gap, despite the human and Elif gun batteries pounding the area.
Back at the command tent, Sara and Baxter organized strikes on the Teifen as the battlefield continually changed. Losses had been minimal so far, though Sara found out that she had not been able to save everyone on the wall in the first blast; their troopers had been too spread out. So far, they had lost less than fifteen percent of their troops, but that number was rising at an alarming rate.
Sara stepped to the side as Baxter organized a strike on a contingent of Teifen that were trying to flank their central position. She called Grimms when there was a short lull in the fighting while the Teifen organized.
“Grimms, what have you learned? We could really use those Elif support ships,” she said in a private channel.
His voice crackled over her speakers. “The repairs are only half done, but we dug into the core like you said. Cora is convinced that installing a core into her tank system will give her the edge required to actually do something about the carrier.”
Sara was silent as she thought about her twin taking that risk. It wasn't like her to throw all her chips onto a wild card. She must have learned something on the data core that Sara had missed.
“She wants to install an alien core to take partial control of the ship? And you’re okay with that?” she asked, taking in the battle map projected in the center of the tent. It looked like the flanking maneuver was being thwarted, but she noted it was costing them people—mostly the less trained Elif, but people nonetheless.
“Honestly, Ma’am, after watching that video, I don't know what to think anymore. Chief Sabine found plans for the Raven in the data core’s memory. He’s been comparing it to the plans the Elif provided, and they are exact copies. It’s obvious they had these plans from the start but only now started building the system. All the plans in the archive have tank systems, but they need a core to run properly.”
“Have you found plans for the core itself?” Sara asked. She noted the flank was decimated, but that half the troopers Baxter sent to take it out had been lost. That was thirty men they would never see again.
“We think there are plans for them, but they are buried behind a kind of firewall we can't even begin to crack. Cora theorizes the controller using it can only access the segmented part of the core, and, so far, the specialists we have onboard agree. These old humans were cautious bastards, Ma’am,” Grimms said, his admiration for their forethought clearly audible in his praise.
“So, Cora is willing to take the chance of plugging in the spare core?”
There was a pause while Grimms conferred with someone she thought might be Chief Sabine, and then he said, “Yes Ma’am. The ship refers to specs that are far beyond what she would be capable of on her own. So far it looks like this is our best option, if we need to come to your rescue. She’ll be fighting a little blind without you, but, according to Chief Sabine, she would be at least as capable as she was in the last engagement, without you to guide the battle. We have two mages on board to power the simple shield forms embedded in the system. It would be a last resort, but she wants to try it now, while we have some time to recover if she is wrong.”
Sara took a deep breath; her worry that her sister was playing down the risk was a real one. She tended to put others ahead of her own well-being, but she was also smart. Sara trusted her judgment.
“Do it. If she thinks it’s a good idea, then go ahead.
“I need you to do something else for me,” Sara continued, noting that the last of the Teifen had e
ntered the city, and were amassing the majority of the troops and armor under their shield.
“Name it, Captain,” Grimms said.
“I need you to contact Command and see when we will be getting that help from the Elif. I don't think we can win down here. The Teifen have far more troops than a thousand men can handle—we need some relief, and we are going to need it quickly if we are going to survive the next few days.”
“Aye, Ma’am. I’ll have a packet sent off with a report of the battle so far, and request additional troops to the area. I must warn you, though. I doubt there is anyone closer than the United Human Fleet, and they’re three days out at the earliest.” Grimms’s voice was somber.
“Understood, Commander. Let me know as soon as you hear something, whether it’s about reserves, or Cora.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Grimms out,” he said, cutting the connection.
Sara stepped up beside Baxter and took in the map. Things seemed to have slowed down as the Teifen reassessed.
“How are we doing, Sergeant?”
Baxter’s helmet was open, and the grim look on his face said more than he needed to, but he filled her in anyway.
“Not well. Our losses are fairly minimal, but the Elif’s lackluster training is starting to take its toll. Their armor is not up to wartime standards, being more suited for a heavily armed police force, and it’s costing us men. The problem is there are just too fucking many of the Teifen. I think the hard resistance they’ve encountered is giving them pause. The fact that we have multiple mages is giving them fits, I’m sure. Plus, our heavy troopers are ripping through any group of infantry they are coming across. By now they must know the colony has been reinforced, and with superior troopers. It’s going to make them cautious, but they won’t stop. They are holding back under their dome before committing to an action. They will come eventually, though, and when they do, we will be overrun. Even if we take most of them out, this will be their battle unless we can do something unexpected.”
War Mage Chronicles- Part One Page 21